Dragonball: Evolution

Director: James Wong
Starring: Justin Chatwin, James Marsters, Emmy Rossum, Jamie Chung, Chow Yun-Fat

Synopsis
James Wong adapts the rich mythos of the Dragonball series that grew from a manga into various popular animated series with this 20th Century Fox production starring Justin Chatwin. The plot revolves around Goku (Chatwin), Earth's greatest champion, who must defend the planet against an invading race of alien warriors hell-bent on dominating the universe.

Scott's Review
For all of you animaniacs (not yakko, wakko, and dot fans) you will be sorely disappointed. While the characters are familiar they quickly depart from what we expect. The storyline is soso taking place is a futuristic earth. The character Goku is reminiscent of a much earlier Goku (Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies era) not the teen aged Goku that is portrayed in the movie. Bulma and Yamcha made me want to hurl. Chi-Chi was kinda sweet but is not in the movie enough to make an honest judgment about. Master Roshi was far from the lecherous hermit that we all grew up with. Which brings us to our main villian, Piccolo. This is probably the one character in the entire movie that was done correctly (in my mind). His character is very much the King Piccolo that I expected. As far as the special effects, this movie had several good effects. Bulma's capsule vehicles were very well done. However, the Kamehameha was disappointing. Overall I would say don't waste your money seeing this, except at a discount theater or rent on DVD.

Scott's Rating

Monsters vs. Aliens

Genre: Family

Synopsis
When California girl Susan Murphy is unwittingly clobbered by a meteor full of outer space gunk on her wedding day, she mysteriously grows to 49-feet-11-inches tall. The military jumps into action and Susan is captured and secreted away to a covert government compound. There, she is renamed Ginormica and placed in confinement with a ragtag group of Monsters: the brilliant but insect-headed Dr. Cockroach, Ph.D.; the macho half-ape, half-fish The Missing Link; the gelatinous and indestructible B.O.B.; and the 350-foot grub called Insectosaurus. Their confinement is cut short, however, when a mysterious alien robot lands on Earth and begins storming the country. In a moment of desperation, the President is persuaded to enlist the motley crew of Monsters to combat the Alien Robot and save the world from imminent destruction.

Scott's Review
This is definitly a feel good movie. The storyline was easy to follow and well written. Although this is a kids movie there are some adult type themes for the parents, such as the parallels between the president and our former president.

Scott's Rating

Knowing

Genres : Sci-Fi, Action, Drama
Director: Alex Proyas
Starring: Nicolas Cage

Synopsis
A time capsule containing a cryptic message about the coming apocalypse sends a concerned father on a race to prevent the horrific events from unfolding as predicted in this sci-fi thriller directed by Alex Proyas (Dark City) and starring Nicolas Cage. 1958: As the dedication ceremony for a newly constructed elementary school gets under way, a time capsule containing student drawings of the future is buried on the grounds and scheduled to be unearthed on the school's 50th anniversary. Instead of submitting a drawing, however, one little girl scribbles a series of seemingly random numbers on her paper before it is buried. Fifty years later, the time capsule is unearthed for a new generation of students to examine. Young Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury) is one of those students. The mysterious sequence of numbers falling into his possession, Caleb takes the paper to his father, Professor John Koestler (Cage), for examination. Studying the numbers, Professor Koestler soon discovers that they aren't random at all, but an encoded message containing the precise dates, death tolls, and coordinates of every major disaster since the time capsule was buried. Not only that, but the document also indicates that there will be three more such events, the last of which indicates a doomsday scenario that appears directly tied to Professor Koestler and Caleb. His desperate plea to authorities falling on deaf ears, Professor Koestler realizes that his only hope for preventing more lives from being lost is to take personal action. Though the author of the prophecies is no longer living, Professor Koestler is eventually able to track down her daughter Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne), and granddaughter Abby, who reluctantly agree to aid in the investigation. As the final date on the list draws near, Professor Koestler enters into a frantic race against time to prevent destruction on a global scale, in the process realizing that in order to save millions of lives, he may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Scott's Review
Hmm.... The storyline in this movie was only so so. I got the feeling that the writer wrote the story as the movie was being filmed. At times the plotline felt strained. Nicolas Cage's acting in the movie was ok but his character was poorly defined, he is a teacher, but a teacher of what? At the beginning I thought he was a philosophy professor but by the end of the movie he was acting more like a physics professor. The one question that I would like answered is, was the director/writer trying to pissoff or appease the religious community? Because elements of this movie will do both.

Scott's Rating: