Children’s Movie Reviews

Kung Fu Panda 2

“Long ago,” Kung Fu Panda 2 begins, a young peacock found himself rejected by his royal parents. His story might have been sad, except that he reacts badly — angry and vengeful, he leaves his parents’ castle full of venom, suggesting that his parents were right to kick him out.
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

An early scene in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides showcases its best idea: two Captain Jack Sparrows. When the real one (Johnny Depp) learns that someone’s pretending to be him in order to recruit a crew, he sets out to reclaim his not-exactly-good name and finds the culprit: they dash about and fall down and fight a bit, and then, as they mimic one another’s gestures, stroking their chins and mincing, he discovers what you already know. The imposter is Angelica (Penélope Cruz), who asks, just a little slyly, “Are you impressed?”
Thor

What do you do when your car is slammed by a plummeting superhero? If you’re Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), an astrophysicist looking for evidence of a wormhole, you’re jangled, but just for a moment. A second later, she’s clambering from the vehicle in the middle of the New Mexico desert, followed by her assistant Darcy (Kat Dennings) and mentor Erik (Stellan Skarsgård), all rushing to check the damage done to the stranger lying splat on the sand before her.
Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil

Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil begins without Red Riding Hood (Hayden Panettiere, replacing Anne Hathaway from 2005’s Hoodwinked). She’s away at a secret mountaintop retreat, learning martial arts and baking skills with the Sisters of the Hood. At the same time, her granny (Glenn Close) (a longtime Sister of the Hood) and other agents from Happily Ever After (HEA) are on a mission. They mean to rescue Hansel (Bill Hader) and Gretel (Amy Poehler), who have been kidnapped by an evil, masked witch. The mission goes very wrong: the witch gets away and kidnaps Granny along with the children.
African Cats

The start of African Cats, another Disneynature documentary opening on Earth Day, is grand. The camera shows wide, dry plains in Kenya’s Masai Mara National Reserve as Samuel Jackson narrates, “Every day in the heart of Africa, amazing true stories happen that no one ever sees.” While you may be anticipating that what you’re about to see will be new, in fact, the film shapes a “story of two mothers” to fit a formula.
Rio

Kidnapped from his jungle home as a baby macaw, Blu (voiced by Jesse Eisenberg) is rescued by a very nice little girl named Linda (Leslie Mann). Together, they grow up in snowy Minnesota: she becomes a bookstore owner with a particular affection for her bird, and he becomes her constant companion, grateful for the hot chocolate and cookies she serves him every afternoon. Their lives are turned upside down when a Brazilian ornithologist named Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) informs them that Blu is the last of his kind, then urges them to fly with him to Rio de Janeiro. Here, he hopes Blu will mate with the last female blue…
Soul Surfer

“I was born to two diehard surfers: how could I not have salt water in my veins?” Looking back on how she came to love the sea and surfing, 13-year-old Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb) describes something like a perfect childhood: long hours in the sun, lots of support from her super-tanned parents (Tom, played by Dennis Quaid, and Cheri, played by Helen Hunt) and older brothers (Ross Thomas and Chris Brochu), and a best friend, Alana (Lorraine Nicholson), with blond hair and a competitive spirit to match her own.
Hop

Like a lot of teenagers, EB (voiced by Russell Brand) doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps. Unlike most teenagers, he has fur and long ears. His father is the Easter Bunny (Hugh Laurie), you see, and EB wants to play the drums instead. In pursuit of his dream, the young bunny leaves the Easter candy factory on Easter Island (a factory plainly mimicking Willy Wonka’s much more imaginative factory) for Hollywood.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules

When last we saw Greg Heffley (Zachary Gordon) — just one year ago — he was completing his first year of middle school. Now, he and his best friend Rowley (Robert Capron) are no longer lowly sixth graders, but instead, confident seventh graders. Or... mostly confident. As Greg reveals in his voice-over, he’s still plagued by self-doubts and determined to prove that he’s not.
Mars Needs Moms

Like a lot of nine-year-olds, Milo (Seth Green’s captured motion, Seth Dusky’s voice) thinks his mother (Joan Cusack) is too hard on him. She wants him to take out the garbage, shut the front door behind him, and eat his broccoli, not to mention forgive his father (Tom Everett Scott) when he doesn’t make it home as promised, because his plane is grounded by bad weather. Still, Milo worries when his frustration leads him to say something he doesn’t really mean, namely, “My life would be so much better if I didn’t have a mother.”