So I flew across the Atlantic and back this last week, which means I watched some movies! Let's take them in order shall we?
Ghost Town, some new comedy starring Ricky Gervais. He dies briefly during an operation, and once he wakes up he can see ghosts who want his help so they can move on to the afterlife. Some pretty funny Rickyesque dialouge here and there, but ultimately not very good. Definitely better than staring into the seat in front of you on a plane ride, but still no better than a 5.
Journey to the Center of the Earth is about some seismologist who along with his nephew and a pretty hot tour guide gets trapped in some Icelandic cave and end up falling down a hole to the center of the earth. I kinda like Brendan Frasier, and I thought this movie was decent enough. Some reasonable jokes, a silly but not too annoying story and a decent looking chick, who's supposed to be from Iceland but speaks with a British accent. When I looked her up on imdb just now, I found out she's actually Icelandic! Imagine my surprise. Then I looked closer and read that she'd been living in London for 10 years or something. Fair enough. Anyway the movie gets a solid 6½+, maybe worth watching, almost definitely worth watching if you're bored.
Then we have
WALL-E, Pixar's latest animated movie. This one was awesome. Call me a sucker for sweet love stories, but this one worked very well. It's a pretty unusual premise, with the two main characters having like 3 different lines each the entire movie, and really only like 1 character with many lines at all. Oh, the main characters are robots, too. 8½, would recommend.
On the plane ride home, there were two movies. The first one was
Fred Claus, starring Vince Vaughn and also with that guy who plays the attorney on Arrested Development. It's a very stereotypical family comedy about how Santa Claus's brother Fred needs to help out with the toy production on the North Pole even though he doesn't want to. Fred and Santa fight throughout the movie, Fred leaves, then has a change of heart and comes back to save the day. Very standard stuff. Some mildly funny jokes in there, but not really. Elizabeth Banks looking her usual fine self in the couple scenes she's in, though. This movie gets a 4, very forgettable.
Finally we have
Mamma Mia!, a musical featuring the greatest hits of ABBA, a popular Swedish disco band from the late 70's and early 80's. I bet this doesn't sound so awesome to many of you, but this is my favorite of the bunch. I don't quite know why, but it just works very well. The cast (Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgård, Colin Firth and some not so well known people) sings very well, especially the (gorgeous, by the way) daughter in the movie. Meryl Streep really does do it all, huh? The music is great, even if you don't like the original ABBA sound, at least in my opinion, the story is somewhat compelling and you just wish the movie won't end. A solid 9, I think you should all check it out. I downloaded the soundtrack the minute I got home and am planning to rewatch this soon.
Edit: Bonus info: My favorite song of the movie was either Lay All Your Love On Me or Honey, Honey, I can't decide.
