![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tarotgalSo I went to see Valiant today after I ran errands. I didn't get lost and made it there in plenty of time despite the bridge being shut down to one lane so each direction had to take turns and there was a long wait. Plus a stretch of the road I usually take was blocked off so I had to "off-road it" through the mud for about a minute and a half. That was exciting.
Anyway... my favorite part of the movie was the beautiful Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe trailer. OMGit'sbeautiful!!! The battle scenes and the richness of detail and color and the kids are perfect and Aslan roaring so loud it filled up the whole theater- *sigh* I loved that! Speaking of which, I got my set of books yesterday in the mail. I won them on e-bay and got them and they're soooo perfect. Better quality than described and so beautiful. *sigh* But seeing the trailer on the big screen? Fucking fantastic, that!!! Definitely made it worth going to.
Speaking of going to... I felt like the right idiot sitting there alone in a theater of at least 100 people. I'm over the embarrassment of going to the movies alone... it's just I was the only one without a kid in tow and I kept getting weird looks. LOL! I suppose no one realized I was going just to hear Ewan- who would, really? Except for me *blushes furiously*
Anyway... the review in the paper this morning said that when he saw it, none of the kids in the audience laughed more than a couple of times and the general consensus was that the movie was "scawy". Well, I think that's just what the kids I watched it with felt. Apart from one clearly comic relief-providing character (who rather stole the whole movie), the only jokes in the movie were of the adult variety. And not the typical Disney adult jokes, but ones not even all adults might get. Plays on words and things like that. A paraphrased Saint Crispin's day speech, for example, and from the sound of it not many parents in the audience knew enough Shakespeare to pick up on that. I found the jokes amusing, though. The plot was... typical but, luckily, not 'bang your head against the wall'-type typical. Clearly Valiant was the underdog, teams up with a pack of misfits, and would end up saving the day and all that, and there wasn't much of an emotional pull plot-wise because of that. But it still managed to be interesting while following the predictable formula. I rather liked that he fell in love with the Nurse Dove. Nurse/soldier romance is VERY much one of my major weaknesses. And how he keeps getting injured and having to go back to visit her... awwww. That was cuteness.
The best part of the movie (apart from the CON:LLW trailer I mean) was the voice acting. If you're not a fan of the voice actors, it's SO worth giving it a miss. But Ewan was adorable (plugged-up-nose!Ewan at one point had me giggling muchly because I could see him in the studio recording that *giggles*). Tim Curry was SO good with the evil and the great evil laughter! I love evil!Tim Curry so very, very much. And John Cleese was very funny, of course. Definitely my favorite character in the bunch. On a whole, all the sexy accents were lovely, and I totally have a crush on the two brother birds now. LOL! But, yeah, the voices were great and I'm definitely glad I saw it just for those, even though the rest of the movie was... eh... not really that special on any scale.
It was more adult than anything else, but nothing an adult really has the patience to sit through to its inevitable conclusion (unless, like I said, you happen to love the voice actors). There's three deaths in the opening scene alone and it's all rather dark in general. It's a very short movie so not much is done to break anyone out of their sterotypes so it feels VERY flat. But the animation is beautiful, attention to historical detail from a bird's perspective was fascinating, the parallels to human actions (like enlistment procedures) during WWII was nice, and did I mention good acting? I enjoyed it, just wasn't impressed by it. Of course, I didn't think I would be, given what I'd heard. I certainly didn't hate it, though.
The only thing I hated was the little boy sitting right in front of me and a few seats to my left who kept running around in his row and who burst into LOUD tears three times during the movie- which I don't mind so much (poor little kid) but his parents would NOT take him out of the theater. They kept picking him up to hold him still and telling him to be quiet and stop crying, which he wouldn't do. After about 5-7 minutes they'd take him out but 5 minutes in an already short animated movie is a LONG time to sit there listening to a screaming and crying kid. And these are the people who looked around wildly when they did the fake movie with the cell phone ringing in the middle to remind people to turn off their phones. They were looking daggers at me since I was behind them and in the direction of the speakers, but they didn't seem to GET that it was part of the public service announcement. Clearly not big movie-goers. Anyway, the kid's parents seemed much more concerned with watching the movie than taking care of his needs- clearly he was either bored, disturbed by the film, or tired (it was around naptime, after all and he was VERY young- 3 or 4 at the oldest). They seemed to think ordering him to quiet down would work, but ended up leaving with him eventually every time. They ended up parking near me in the parking lot. It was sprinkling outside (not even rain) and I noticed both parents were wearing Marines t-shirts. The dad was speaking in an angry tone at the mother about how she should "Just hurry up and find the car already. I'm getting wet!" Um, like he can't look for the car himself? Like the rest of us aren't getting wet, too? Actually, I wasn't. It was barely raining. Asshole. Grrr!
But I drove down the main stretch on my way home and was going to go to the WaWa for gas but it was $2.59 and I'd seen $2.55 back right across from the theaters. So I drove back there (2 miunte drive) and got cheep gas. It's $2.65 for the cheepest gas right now in my town, so ten cents of a difference is pretty damn good, I think. I know it's a lot more expensive in other parts of the country, but ten cents a gallon savings is ten cents a gallon savings! :-)
Going to go walk the dog now. I'm missing Angel (One of my favorite episodes- Hellbound) but, hell, I have it on DVD. I can cope ;-)
Anyway... my favorite part of the movie was the beautiful Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe trailer. OMGit'sbeautiful!!! The battle scenes and the richness of detail and color and the kids are perfect and Aslan roaring so loud it filled up the whole theater- *sigh* I loved that! Speaking of which, I got my set of books yesterday in the mail. I won them on e-bay and got them and they're soooo perfect. Better quality than described and so beautiful. *sigh* But seeing the trailer on the big screen? Fucking fantastic, that!!! Definitely made it worth going to.
Speaking of going to... I felt like the right idiot sitting there alone in a theater of at least 100 people. I'm over the embarrassment of going to the movies alone... it's just I was the only one without a kid in tow and I kept getting weird looks. LOL! I suppose no one realized I was going just to hear Ewan- who would, really? Except for me *blushes furiously*
Anyway... the review in the paper this morning said that when he saw it, none of the kids in the audience laughed more than a couple of times and the general consensus was that the movie was "scawy". Well, I think that's just what the kids I watched it with felt. Apart from one clearly comic relief-providing character (who rather stole the whole movie), the only jokes in the movie were of the adult variety. And not the typical Disney adult jokes, but ones not even all adults might get. Plays on words and things like that. A paraphrased Saint Crispin's day speech, for example, and from the sound of it not many parents in the audience knew enough Shakespeare to pick up on that. I found the jokes amusing, though. The plot was... typical but, luckily, not 'bang your head against the wall'-type typical. Clearly Valiant was the underdog, teams up with a pack of misfits, and would end up saving the day and all that, and there wasn't much of an emotional pull plot-wise because of that. But it still managed to be interesting while following the predictable formula. I rather liked that he fell in love with the Nurse Dove. Nurse/soldier romance is VERY much one of my major weaknesses. And how he keeps getting injured and having to go back to visit her... awwww. That was cuteness.
The best part of the movie (apart from the CON:LLW trailer I mean) was the voice acting. If you're not a fan of the voice actors, it's SO worth giving it a miss. But Ewan was adorable (plugged-up-nose!Ewan at one point had me giggling muchly because I could see him in the studio recording that *giggles*). Tim Curry was SO good with the evil and the great evil laughter! I love evil!Tim Curry so very, very much. And John Cleese was very funny, of course. Definitely my favorite character in the bunch. On a whole, all the sexy accents were lovely, and I totally have a crush on the two brother birds now. LOL! But, yeah, the voices were great and I'm definitely glad I saw it just for those, even though the rest of the movie was... eh... not really that special on any scale.
It was more adult than anything else, but nothing an adult really has the patience to sit through to its inevitable conclusion (unless, like I said, you happen to love the voice actors). There's three deaths in the opening scene alone and it's all rather dark in general. It's a very short movie so not much is done to break anyone out of their sterotypes so it feels VERY flat. But the animation is beautiful, attention to historical detail from a bird's perspective was fascinating, the parallels to human actions (like enlistment procedures) during WWII was nice, and did I mention good acting? I enjoyed it, just wasn't impressed by it. Of course, I didn't think I would be, given what I'd heard. I certainly didn't hate it, though.
The only thing I hated was the little boy sitting right in front of me and a few seats to my left who kept running around in his row and who burst into LOUD tears three times during the movie- which I don't mind so much (poor little kid) but his parents would NOT take him out of the theater. They kept picking him up to hold him still and telling him to be quiet and stop crying, which he wouldn't do. After about 5-7 minutes they'd take him out but 5 minutes in an already short animated movie is a LONG time to sit there listening to a screaming and crying kid. And these are the people who looked around wildly when they did the fake movie with the cell phone ringing in the middle to remind people to turn off their phones. They were looking daggers at me since I was behind them and in the direction of the speakers, but they didn't seem to GET that it was part of the public service announcement. Clearly not big movie-goers. Anyway, the kid's parents seemed much more concerned with watching the movie than taking care of his needs- clearly he was either bored, disturbed by the film, or tired (it was around naptime, after all and he was VERY young- 3 or 4 at the oldest). They seemed to think ordering him to quiet down would work, but ended up leaving with him eventually every time. They ended up parking near me in the parking lot. It was sprinkling outside (not even rain) and I noticed both parents were wearing Marines t-shirts. The dad was speaking in an angry tone at the mother about how she should "Just hurry up and find the car already. I'm getting wet!" Um, like he can't look for the car himself? Like the rest of us aren't getting wet, too? Actually, I wasn't. It was barely raining. Asshole. Grrr!
But I drove down the main stretch on my way home and was going to go to the WaWa for gas but it was $2.59 and I'd seen $2.55 back right across from the theaters. So I drove back there (2 miunte drive) and got cheep gas. It's $2.65 for the cheepest gas right now in my town, so ten cents of a difference is pretty damn good, I think. I know it's a lot more expensive in other parts of the country, but ten cents a gallon savings is ten cents a gallon savings! :-)
Going to go walk the dog now. I'm missing Angel (One of my favorite episodes- Hellbound) but, hell, I have it on DVD. I can cope ;-)
