| Overall Grade: |
C+ |
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| Story: |
C |
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| Acting: |
C+ |
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| Direction: |
C |
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|
| Visuals: |
C+ |
|
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Mr. McBorium's Snooze-a-torium
by Dennis (movies profile)
Jul 6, 2008
63
of
78 people found this review helpful
Minor spoiler alert included...
I should probably do two reviews, one from my perspective, and one from my kid's perspective.
I thought the movie was workmanlike. Sometimes that works for a movie, but when the movie is blatantly aspiring to be magical, workmanlike is not a compliment. I also agree with some of the other reviewers that there was a bit of a bait-n-switch between the trailers and the movie itself.
Acting: Hoffman: seems like he is channeling Rain-Man with a slightly higher sociability quotient.
Portman: odd combination of Audrey Hepburn and Julia Roberts. In some scenes she comes off as so underweight that her head appears unnaturally large. But there is a nice scene of her in a little black dress. For someone who worked in a magical toy store all of her life, she was awfully quick to abandon the sense of wonder - and for a movie that asks right up front for a willing suspension of disbelief, this strikes an odd chord.
Bateman: Does his best to work the uptight accountant shtick but never quite gets in touch with his inner Deloitte & Touche. It puzzled me that he never once asked why everyone kept calling him "mutant"
My kid liked the movie although puzzled as to why there was so much time spent on death when the movie is supposed to be about a "magical toy-r-us." The kids may have been the only ones truly pulled into the movie's attempt at a dramatic twist - that Mahoney (Portman) is imbued with magic too, even if she can't see it.
Generally, I blame the studios for movies like this. Too much time spent listening to focus groups and letting corporate studio heads determine how the movie should be edited. As with pretty much everything made in the last ten years, I would like to seeva director's cut. |
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