I thought this film was “okay.” I’m not a fan of Mater, so after a while, I went off to do the laundry while the kids sat entranced. The Mater character is the star attraction for 106 minutes. The story was okay, but I just didn’t care for all the wacky antics. On the other hand, the video and audio quality of the blu-ray was top-notch. It’s possible that John Lasseter and the rest of the Pixar folks got too involved with the technical detail, and got sidetracked on the quality of the story. So, apart from the story, the animation is crystal clear, eye-catching, and just looks amazing. Regarding the audio, you can never go wrong with DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1. The fronts were booming, the LFE shook the floor, and the surrounds were very active.

In summary, the story is so-so. If you want to plunk yourself down with the kids and enjoy the visuals and audio, be my guest.

Cars 2 (2011)

As the home planet of the Green Lantern Corps faces a battle with an ancient enemy, Hal Jordan prepares new recruit Arisia for the coming conflict by relating stories of the first Green Lantern and several of Hal’s comrades.

Good voice acting cast: Nathan Fillion, Jason Isaacs, Elisabeth Moss, Henry Rollins, Arnold Vosloo, Tony Amendola, Kelly Hu, and even Roddy Piper. The overall storyline about this giant baddie named Krona who seems invincible was just a backdrop for the producers and storytellers to tell a collection of stories about some of the famous members of the Green Lantern Corp. The specific vignettes are:

1. The First Lantern (about Avra, the scribe.)
2. Kilowog (as a new recruit in bootcamp.)
3. Laira (on her first solo mission to confront her family’s atrocities.)
4. Mogo Doesn’t Socialize (meh, but the baddie is voiced by Roddy Piper.)
5. Abin Sur (not bad, and you get to see Abin Sur in action.) 
6. The big action of the finale as the entire Corp fights Krona.

It wasn’t one big story, just an anthology of smaller stories that, to be honest, weren’t the most interesting. I don’t know precisely why, but they just weren’t all that interesting. Green Lantern: Emerald Knights isn’t the best film in the DCAU, but it’s not the worst either. It’s okay, but I think the kids would like it. Josh liked it, but it’s PG, so there is some violence that happens on screen, so I tried to distract him until that part of the scene was over.

Green Lantern: Emerald Knights (2011)

The kids liked it, and I don’t blame them. It’s an entertaining, smart film. The audio and video quality are top-notch on Blu-ray, and the voice acting and animation are good too. Good cast — Jack Black, Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Ian McShane, Seth Rogen, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, David Cross, and many more. The story was good too, so Namita and I were entertained along with the kids. Besides the story and the audio/video quality, I liked all the kung fu references, which kinda reminded me in a way of the old kung fu movies I watched on Saturday/Sunday afternoons.

Kung Fu Panda (2008)

Coraline is a 2009 animated film, and based on the 2002 Neil Gaiman novella. What’s interesting is a fellow named Henry Selick wrote the screenplay, directed, and produced the film. Also, film has a nice cast — Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, and Ian McShane. The story has a certain Lewis Carroll Alice in Wonderland theme to it. Coraline is a young girl who, along with her gardening catalog-writing parents, move from Michigan to Oregon to these apartments. Her parents are so busy writing this garden catalog that they don’t have time entertain her, or even cook proper meals. The neighbors are a strange cast of characters, including a boy named Wybie and a black cat. Wybie finds a mysterious doll that has a strong resemblance to Coraline, and gives it to her. Coraline later finds a small covered-up door in the living room, and crawls through it to the “Other World”, which has doppelgängers of the people in her life, except that they have black buttons in place of human eyes. This “Other World” initially seems better, as life is more fun, her parents cook grand meals, and shower her with love. As she spends more time there, the world doesn’t seems so benign after a while.

What I liked about this film is that, while it is an animated film directed for a young audience, parents could sit and watch it too. The story is intriguing, the animation and music are good, and at no point did I feel that this was a dumbed-down story. It was exciting and full of feeling. I’d recommend this film.

Coraline (2009)

If you have been unable to discern what the plot of Megamind is, he’s a supervillain that fights a constant, never-ending, battle against Metro Man for the goal of taking over Metro City. Plot after plot, he fails, until one day he seemingly succeeds. Metro Man is no more, and now the super villain is forced to figure out what to do next. The film has a nice cast — Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, David Cross, Bradd Pitt, and Jonah Hill. The music was nothing to speak of, and the story itself wasn’t particularly moving. However, the jokes are good, and the story is engaging enough that it’s definitely worth a viewing, purely for the entertainment value.

Megamind (2010)

Wow, what a great movie. The first 10 mins of the film tell so much about the friendship and marriage of Carl and Ellie, presented so well, and so moving. The animation was good, the story was good, and the usual Pixar magic regarding the characters. This was a nice adventure story, a sweet little film about aging and life. It has so many elements — adventure, fantasy, comedy, suspense, and certainly a sentimental aspect. I need to see it again.  I watched this over streaming video, but I read that the blu-ray is excellent.

BTW, seriously, how funny was Dug the doug? “Squirrel!!!”

Up (2009)

The jokes that hit were good, but the jokes that fell flat weren’t so good. It’s a decent rental if you’re a Futurama fan, but not the strongest of the four installments. As a matter of fact, looking back through my four reviews, I’m not a big fan of any of the four films. The first few seasons of the tv series were great, but the quality has certainly dropped overall.

Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder (2009)

This wasn’t the best DC animated film from the series, but not the worst either. It’s worth checking it out.

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse (2010)