back to the theater

It's been a while since I written any movie reviews, but Ron and I did go to San Francisco yesterday and saw 2 movies. They were both good, so I thought that I should tell you about them.

First up was Ender's Game. I have to confess that it has been MANY years since I read this book and I didn't remember much of the story line, so don't count on me to tell you how well the film measured up to the book. However, I noticed that the author was one of the producers on the movie, so he was probably ok with the way it turned out.

Otherwise, this was a very enjoyable movie. The young actors were all pretty impressive and the special effects were spectacular. The subject matter here was fairly serious - children trained for battle against an alien race. It also focused on how these young soldiers were manipulated and lied to by the government for the purpose of guaranteeing the survival of the human race. Many ethical questions are posed here and will make you think. Ron had a problem with a couple of the plot points which I can't tell you without giving away an important part of the movie. The downside for me was the adult actors. With the exception of Viola Davis, (I thought she was the most believable) I found the adult actor's (Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley) performances to be pretty cheesy. Even so, the overall impact of the movie was good and I really liked it.

How about a charming romantic comedy to balance out a sci-fi movie? About Time is a very sweet, enjoyable film about a young man who finds out after his 21st birthday that he is able to travel in time to correct or change things that have happened within his lifetime.  He decides to use this power to find a girlfriend. This is exactly the kind of movie that I love. There are very touching scenes between the main character Tim and his dad played by Bill Nighy, Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams play the young couple with charm and wit - there's nothing better than a British romantic comedy! Richard Curtiss is the writer/director here and was also responsible for a couple of my favorite rom/coms - Love Actually and Notting Hill. It's probably not as good as Love Actually, but I plan to see it again just to make sure!

I'm a little rusty writing about movies, but give me another couple tries at it and I hope to get back into the swing of things.