Bringing fun back!

Rating: 6/10 (21 August 2009)

You may think my rating of 9 out of 10 for this movie is a little high, for a mere sequel without an original premise. Why throw such high praise onto it? Well I'll tell you. I believe firmly in rating a movie according to its genre because different people like different things! Whilst most would agree that the Godfather is an excellent movie that is more deserving of a 9 rating than this one that viewpoint is a bit silly since it only considers the movie from the point of view of people who like realistic, dramatic movies and not those who just want a bit of fun and escapism from their movies. I loved the Godfather movies but I wouldn't call them fun! I read some of the other reviews of this movie here and it amazes me some of the gripes that people are coming out with about it: "Dinosaurs died out 65million years before the ice-age!", "there's not much of a story."... You're concerned about realism In a movie about talking animals? A movie in which tigers are hanging out with possums? You're really gonna gripe about how implausible the time-line is in a Children's fantasy fiction CGI CARTOON? In any case they DO actually explain this away - for those kids in the audience whose parents have crippled their ability to suspend any disbelief (presumably those parents are the ones making such ridiculous comments here and I feel sorry for their kids) as our plucky heroes are surprised to find the underground world - & say so. Can you imagine walking out of a cinema after seeing a movie like this only to hear a concerned parent pointing out to their kids how it wasn't factually accurate? Haha! Why not tell them Santa's not real too while you're at it ya' fun-killer?
As for the lack of story I've gotta say again; KIDS movie people, jeez stop looking at everything cynical and jaded adult eyes! The story is as involving as it needs to be for the purposes of the film (i.e. allow for our characters to get into humorous adventure situations) as who cares about plot twists & character development when you came to a movie to have fun with your kids or even without as there was more than enough here to keep me - a 25year old male with DVD collection filled with 15-18 rated movies - entertained for the full 90 mins give or take a few minutes at the beginning of the movie which opens with the scene from the trailer we've all seen like 20times by now on T.V. or before other movies - its funny but it is a visual gag and so isn't that funny after you've seen it the first 3times.
What's great about this movie is that, as I've already said, if you haven't lost your sense of fun, can suspend disbelief / cynic in yourself, and appreciate a story that exists for the sole purpose of allowing the setup of humorous situations and a plethora of visual gags then you my friend are in for a real treat. I quite liked the first two movies though I can't really recall what they were about (like a good night out - after a few weeks you just remember that you had a good time and that's it, haha) but I thought this one was even better, just rock solid fun from start to finish and a perfectly balanced movie in that you don't have to have seen the previous two in order to follow everything but if you have seen them then at least there is enough new stuff here to hold interest such as Simon Pegg doing an awesome job with the genius comic creation that is Buck the one-eyed weasel; someone here said he reminded them of Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow and I sort of see where they're coming from except Buck is a little of the opposite in that he is foolhardily brave rather than a coward, haha! And so I give this movie a 9 for its genre: the I just want to lose myself in a colourful adventure filled with clever visual gags and a real sense of fun type of movie - nothing serious or dramatic or anything that requires me to think / pay attention. This movie instead just grabs what little attention you might have and takes it for a ride :o) The only reason I didn't give it a 10 for its genre was because I hate and I mean HATE the guy that plays Manny (Ray Romano I think his name is), how he got his own T.V. show ("everybody loves Raymond"... not me!!!) I've no idea, I just don't find him funny, more of a boring, annoying and skull-splittingly drone-some kind of fellow so the fact that even his presence in a lead role was not enough for me to drop this movie more than one star should hopefully tell you how good it is.
One final note, I did not watch this movie in 3D, I watched it on a tiny little screen with only stereo sound and I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I'd imagine it would be much much better - as CGI movies often are - in full digital HD with surround sound so if you have an IMAX near you that's showing this or are lucky enough to have a huge HD TV and surround setup then I highly recommend that you watch it that way as I could tell whilst I was watching it that the spectacle of many scenes would have been much more impressive in 3D/HD and with full on sound. Anyway, if you don't enjoy the movie then do yourself a favour and don't have kids - you'll only turn them into boring imagination-devoid poor suckers like you and thats no fun for anyone ;o)