Reviews

My grown daughter and I saw "The Kids are all Right" this afternoon, and we agreed, while it had great actors involved, that we had just wasted a couple of hours. For me, the movie had no heart, was very predictable, was illogical, and reduced what should have been a story about real relationships into just a series of sexual scenes. None of the characters were likable or believable. I had no problem with it being about a lesbian couple - that wasn't the issue. Mainly, these kids and their mothers bring the sperm donor, Paul, into their lives, and then just kick him out without hesitation. Paul only did the same thing that Jules did, who, to me, had committed a much worse betrayal to her family than Paul did. My advice would be to skip this one and wait for a better film with Julianne Moore or Annette Bening.

I'm a great female fan of the HBO series, but this film is not in the same league. I am so disappointed. I just saw it when the DVD came out, and had intentionally avoided reading reviews here, but totally agree with many that I'm now reading.

It looks like the producers just wanted to make quick money, decided what they thought would appeal to the movie-going public, and said to heck with the loyal series fans.

The movie characters mostly do not resemble nor act like those from HBO, and the storyline was just plain stupid and kept going for cheap humor. These women act even more immature than they did when the series ended, and the Carrie/Big storyline made no sense. OK, he didn't have her new phone number, but did he not know where she lived? Come on - a whole year would pass, and he wouldn't make a single attempt to see her. (He went to Paris to get her in the last series episode, but couldn't have his limo driver take him over to her apartment?) How many times during the series did they show his sitting in the limo waiting for her outside her building.

The actors in general had no passion, and it looked like they were phoning in their lines. It could have been so good - just have picked up where the series left off and go from there.

Things they shouldn't have done (IMHO): 1 - Sent the girls to Mexico; 2 - Had Samantha get that dog; 3 - Have Samantha's and Smith's relationship end that way; 4 - Have Charlotte get pregnant; 5 - Had Carrie treat Big the way she did, and his staying away from her for a year; 6 - Have the male characters barely participate in the movie; 7 - Left out "The City" - Where was New York? I did not get the feel for NYC like I did in the series.

I could go on and on and on. I just wished that they'd done justice to the series

No, it's not an 8 out of 10 stars movie. Why?

1 - It's not true to the series. Just because you bring the same characters together and some of the same plot elements, that doesn't equal the same level of quality as the series. Where's the western/cowboy theme? Where's the relaxed banter and genuine feelings of friendship between characters? The series didn't depend on lots of high-powered special effects - unfortunately, they felt the movie needed to, at the expense of everything else. There could have been a better balance of the two.

2 - Too many plot holes, too much didn't make sense. For example, I kept thinking, as I saw at least one other reviewer say, how on earth did these vicious, crazy Reavers have the ability to maintain space travel? What was all of this with River - nothing at all concerning her was logical at all? And, at the end, The Operative just told the Alliance troops to "stand down"? How did he get loose so quickly and why would he let them go?

3 - Not true to your characters. For example, The Operative had the Shepherd and Mr. Universe killed (among many others), but Mal just let him walk away. Why would Mal do that, other than The Operative's potentially being cast in a sequel. The Mal of Firefly wouldn't have.

4 - And, if they (or Joss) dreamed of a sequel, why kill off, unnecessarily, two of the best ongoing characters? On the DVD commentary, Joss said that Wash was killed just because somebody needed to die to prove everybody was in jeopardy. Apparently, nobody else got much more than a hangnail from the final gruesome battle. Why bother? And speaking of the final battle, it was so muddled and dark, it was nearly incomprehensible. All I could really distinguish was River's super kung-fu antics, which were somewhat laughable.

All in all, not a movie worthy of the Firefly series. Too bad, because I would have enjoyed a series of movies as they did with Star Trek.

Yes, it is definitely the best of the HP movies so far, what I would consider a "good movie" and able to appeal to folks, if there are any left, who haven't read the book.

But, I *have* read the book, and just too much of the story was left out, and too many facts were changed that I considered important. OK, I know that if they'd filmed everything in the book, the movie would have lasted at least six hours, but, still, the movie just ignored or glossed over parts of the book that should definitely have been included. I guess what irked me the most was the ending, where Harry, Ron, and Hermione just literally walk happily off into the sunset, and Harry doesn't seem bothered too much by what all just happened. It just didn't ring true.

I did enjoy seeing the characters mature and interact, and parts of the movie were really very funny. Like I said, a good movie all by itself.

But I've got to go read the book again now so I can enjoy the "real" story.

Just saw "Elizabethtown" this afternoon, and liked it pretty much. I think, though, that it should have ended with the memorial service. To me, the movie just dragged on too much after that part, and, although I understand the point of the road trip (the trip that Drew and his father never took), the road trip scenes were just anticlimactic and unnecessary to the plot. (And how on earth did Claire have enough time to design and put the very large notebook and many CD's together for Drew's trip?) As for the actors, Susan Sarandon was just great up on the stage, and she's by far the best actor in "Elizabethtown". Kirsten Dunst's character grated on me some - I've never met anybody so outgoing and bubbly. And, of course, "Elizabethtown" gave me lots of time to listen to Orlando Bloom's American accent. All in all, I liked this movie and it did have some very funny scenes.