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ReviewsPreviews: The Polar Express
By Mohammad Kamran Jawaid
The Polar Express will have you in utter awe and approbation over wunderkind director Robert Zemeckis’ mastery over the visual medium as he employs pioneering technology and film-like direction to a computer-generated animation feature, whose every rendered particle flourishes luminously. But that could be the only thing The Polar Express may be good for.
If you are as big a fan of the director as I am then you’ll only be disappointed by the sheer size of the yarn at hand. Nobody said that adapting a 32-page book by Chris Van Allsburg into a 96 minute film would be easy, but sometimes you have to conjure up some imaginative, superficial gloss that is able to make the characters come alive; a known trait of Zemeckis and William Broyles Jr, who delivered films like Castaway. The Polar Express, however, is irredeemably consigned to oblivion.
Tom Hanks warmly plays almost every role in the movie, which stars a young boy who doesn’t believe in Christmas. So, deep in the night the boy gets picked-up by the en-route Polar Express, a magical train conducted by Hanks, which takes little boys and girls to the North Pole to meet Santa Clause.
At the end of the movie, the boy narrates that the bell he got from Santa’s reindeer, which to this day he holds dear, still rings for him, solidifying his belief in Santa while reminding him of the journey to the North Pole. Pure magic, unfortunately at a lacklustre, heavy-handed price.
By Taimur Saleem
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The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie is based on Nickelodeon’s TV cartoon series of the same name, which follows the inane exploits of a sea sponge. SpongeBob (voice by Tom Kenny), a denizen of Bikini Bottom, is sure that he will bag a promotion when his boss, Mr Eugene Krabs (Clancy Brown), opens a second fast food outlet. When the promotion is awarded to his co-worker Squidward, SpongeBob is devastated beyond belief.Meanwhile, Mr Krabs’ rival, Plankton steals King Neptune’s crown and pins the blame on Krabs. SpongeBob displays his loyalty to his boss and offers to retrieve the crown so that Krabs can be let off the hook. With his buddy Patrick Star, SpongeBob traverses the perilous road to Shell City in search of the crown, with a bounty hunter, Dennis (Alec Baldwin) hot on their trail. Can they make it back in time before King Neptune makes toast out of Krabs?
While the movie delivers some humour, its slapstick jokes and silliness morph into lame baloney after a while and lose their edge. Unlike the season’s biggest release The Incredibles, The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie is confused about its target audience and fails to balance its content. The movie also includes a guest appearance from Baywatch star David Hasselhoff who helps the heroes in their time of distress.
Laced with relatively simple visual effects, the movie is basically aimed at the 6-12-year-old age bracket, though adults might get some kicks out of it as well if they take off their thinking caps for a while.
Saw
By Aftab Borka
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Hats off to the serial killer that never actually kills the victims himself, but puts them in such a state that they either end up killing themselves or others.Adam (Leigh Whannell) and Dr Lawrence Gordon (Cary Elwes) wake up in a messy restroom chained to pipes. Between them lies a blood-soaked body with a tape recorder in one hand and a pistol in the other. Both of them find a tape in their pockets. When Gordon plays the tape, a garbled voice instructs him to either kill Adam by 6pm — an almost seven-hour deadline — or wait for his wife and daughter to die. Mystified and having no way out, the men try to figure out who this mysterious captor could be. According to Dr Gordon the serial killer has a scary past having brought about a few people’s death. However, there was only one lady who survived his murderous conspiracy … that too by killing another person.
Viewers are strongly suggested not to watch the last scene of this film first or else they will fail to enjoy the entire anticipation of the movie. The only thing that keeps the movie on an average level is its plot. Plus, at times the film throws in some decent humour to relieve the scared audience (if they really are indeed scared by some of the film’s bloody scenes).
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01 |
Diary of a Mad Black Woman |
| 02 | Hitch |
| 03 | Constantine |
| 04 | Cursed |
| 05 | Man of the House |
| 06 | Million Dollar Baby |
| 07 | Because of Winn-Dixie |
| 08 | Are We There Yet? |
| 09 | The Aviator |
| 10 | Son of the Mask |
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