Family Home Theater

THE PIRATE FAIRY (Blu-ray combo)

March 29, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

Grade: B+
2014, 78 min., Color
DisneyToon Studios
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, DigitalCopy
Bonus features: C
“The Frigate That Flies” clip

My daughter, who’s part of Disney’s target audience for the CGI animated Tinker Bell series, says that she likes all the direct-to-video offerings—Tinker Bell (2008), Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (2009), Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue (2010), Secret of the Wings (2012) and this fifth installment in the series, The Pirate Fairy. They’re all good, she says, but the last two are her favorites.

For me, it’s no contest. Secret of the Wings offered wonderful graphics and animation, but I found the ending too pat and the logic strained throughout an uncomplicated and emotionally shallow narrative. Like the other sequels, it felt formulaic to me as it hit all the familiar notes—BFFs, opposites joining forces, mess-ups being vindicated, etc.—without adding anything terribly new. The Pirate Fairy, on the other hand, feels much more honestly energetic and exuberant, and maybe that’s what the addition of a scurvy (but comical) bunch of pirates does for a film. More

LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE: SEASON 1 (Blu-ray)

March 25, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Entire Family, PG rated, TV Drama, Western Leave a comment

Grade: B+
1974-75, 1,260 min. (24 episodes), Color
Lionsgate
Not rated: Would be PG for moments of peril and some drinking
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0
Includes: Blu-ray (5 discs), UV Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

If your children like historical dramas and love imagining what life would have been like during pioneer times, there’s no better place to start than the Little House on the Prairie TV series. So many ‘70s shows feel dated or corny now, but this series—loosely based on the children’s books by Laura Ingalls Wilder—still plays well. It’s a deftly written, convincingly acted series that’s not afraid to tug at your heartstrings, but also tosses in a dose or two of reality. Not everyone rides a horse or drives a buggy, for example. There is a sizable population that walks everywhere—even great distances—because they aren’t affluent enough to do anything else. And when a hailstorm wipes out all the wheat, farmers everywhere have to leave their families and look for work in faraway places, or they’ll lose the farm and the family will starve.

Little House on the Prairie stars Michael Landon in his post-Bonanza and pre-Highway to Heaven role as the patriarch of a family of females who move from Wisconsin to Kansas and finally end up in Minnesota. The emphasis in this series is on family and family values before such a term came into existence. It’s wholesome, heart-warming, and full of life lessons.

The two-hour pilot, included here, is the most potentially traumatic, so if your family has small or sensitive children I’d start with Episode 1 instead and watch the whole season before suggesting, “Hey, would anyone like to see how the Ingalls came to Plum Creek?” after the children already know that everyone’s okay. There’s a time in the pilot when a family member is thought drowned, as well as several moments of menace that come as a result of wolves and Caroline Ingalls (Karen Grasse) and the girls’ encounter with Indians while Charles is off hunting.

BARBIE: THE PEARL PRINCESS (Blu-ray combo)

March 22, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, G rated Leave a comment

Grade: C
Entire family: No
2014, 73 min., Color
Universal
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, UV Copy
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

Not 10 minutes into Barbie: The Pearl Princess my 12-year-old daughter remarked, “I like these movies, but they really need to do something different. Every time it’s either a princess, a fairy, or a mermaid.”

There’s no relief in sight, either, because the next direct-to-video full-length animated feature in the Barbie franchise will be Barbie in the Secret Garden—which apparently features a princess, a fairy, AND a mermaid.

If there’s a series that’s grown more tired than the Barbie movies, I can’t think of it. There isn’t an original idea to be found in this most recent installment—yet little girls will love it, while girls age 9 to 12 will still watch despite bemoaning how repetitive the series has become. For anyone else, this “original” movie apparently draws way too much from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, DreamWorks’ Shark Tale, and every Barbie movie that’s preceded it. More

SAVING MR. BANKS (Blu-ray)

March 14, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Comedy, Drama, PG-13 rated 1 Comment

Grade: A-
Entire family: Possibly
2013, 125 min., Color
Disney
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, including some unsettling images
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DigitalHD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Ever since Old Yeller, parents have had to decide where to draw the line with live-action Disney movies—and that line gets a little blurry with Saving Mr. Banks, the 2013 behind-the-scenes story of what it took for Disney to fulfill a 20-year promise he made to his daughter.

On the one hand, Saving Mr. Banks is a bittersweet tale of how the Disney bunch finally managed to wear down the dour and stodgy P.L. Travers and convince her to assign them the film rights to her Mary Poppins books.

Mark Twain famously said, “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please,” and that’s exactly what screenwriters Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith have done. But if you like Disney’s live-action/animated musical Mary Poppins, odds are you’ll enjoy seeing the curtain parted to show Disney and his writing and songwriting team wooing Travers. There’s plenty of humor and warmth in these sections, which are set in 1964 mostly in and around the Disney studio—a setting that’s almost as magical and fun to see as the movies and theme parks. But the story behind the story is . . . well, another story. More

THE JUNGLE BOOK 2 (Blu-ray combo)

March 12, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Children's, G rated Leave a comment

Grade: C+
Entire family: Not really
2002, 72 min., Color
Disney
Rated G
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes: Blu-ray, DVD, Digital Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Admit it, moms and dads. The minute you see a “2” or “II” on a Disney title, doesn’t it trigger a silent consumer alert somewhere in your buying brain? Sure, The Return of Jaffar (that awful Aladdin direct-to-dumb video sequel) put everyone on guard. But since then, except for a Hercules follow-up with bargain-basement animation, the never-ending sequels have been mostly well done, even if they’re shadows of the original and about as original themselves as Saturday morning cartoons.

Nostalgia is a powerful force, and the original 1967 Disney theatrical release of The Jungle Book has evolved from a minor studio success to a baby boomer classic that the new Disney crew wanted to re-do. This sequel ought to be a hit with young kids, but boomers and anyone over the age of 10 will find The Jungle Book 2 wanting. The characters giggle too much (as hyper-cute Saturday morning animated offerings will do), the music isn’t as well integrated into the story, and the humans come across like an Indian version of The Cosby Show. More

FROZEN (Blu-ray combo)

March 10, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, PG rated 1 Comment

Grade: A-
Entire family: Yes
2013, 102 min., Color
Rated PG for some action and mild rude humor
Disney
Aspect ratio: 2.24:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, UV DigitalHD Copy
Bonus features: C-
Trailer

Disney’s latest animated adventure is a Frozen delight. You children will want to watch this over and over again, and the good news is that the film is creative enough, clever enough, and with solid enough animation and music that you won’t suffer one bit from the repetition. In fact, you’ll come away from it appreciating the Disney magic more with every viewing.

That’s because Frozen is a princess movie that doesn’t feel like a princess movie—even though there are two of them in it, as well as a handsome prince. It feels more like an adventure, and a fun one at that. Given the strength of animation, the memorable characters, and a killer soundtrack that’s collectively the most impressive I’ve seen from Disney since Beauty and the Beast, it may well be one of Disney’s most accomplished animated features from the past 20 years.

Frozen is loosely based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, but makes more sense than the tale that inspired it, and it’s full of great visual effects, memorable music, and heart-warming moments—check that. Small moments that make you smile, laugh, or marvel at how clever the scene is. More

THOR: THE DARK WORLD (Blu-ray)

February 8, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Sci-Fi/Fantasy Leave a comment

Grade: B+
Entire family: No
2013, 112 min., Color
Rated PG-13
Disney
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

Thor: The Dark World is rated PG-13 for “sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence and some suggestive content.” I don’t know what suggestive content they’re suggesting, but this 2013 sequel is definitely more violent than the first Thor. Main characters die and there are plenty of first-act hack-and-slash battle sequences similar to ones from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, while spaceship battle action will remind you a bit of those in Star Wars: Episode I. Which is to say, Thor: The Dark World seems to owe a substantial debt for its production design, art direction, set decoration, costume design, and battle sequences and effects to those two fantasy franchises.

But I will say this: at least the special effects and borrowed elements are quite good, and both my teenage son and I thought Thor: The Dark World superior to the 2011 original. There’s more action this time around, and less deliberate manipulation of the Marvel universe. The result is a film that flows better and gives the characters a little more room to be themselves. Despite the frenetic movement and pacing, we actually notice the performances more—and though minor characters and elves tend toward the wooden, the rest are more than good enough to sustain the illusion. More

THE JUNGLE BOOK (Blu-ray combo)

February 1, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, G rated Leave a comment

Grade: B+
Entire family: Yes
1967, 78 min., Color
Rated G
Disney
Aspect ratio: 1.75:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 7.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, DigitalHD copy
Bonus features: A-
Trailer

Many people point to Sleeping Beauty (1959) as the last film in the Golden Age of Disney Animation and consider the seven full-length animated features that the House of Mouse made over the next three decades to be lesser accomplishments.

But I think you can build a pretty good case for The Jungle Book and 101 Dalmatians rising to the top of that second tier of Disney animated films. Both were directed by Wolfgang Reitherman, one of Disney’s Nine Old Men—the original animators who were with Disney from the very beginning—and film each has its positives. With 101 Dalmatians it was a terrific villain, 101 dogs, and an exciting narrative. With The Jungle Book it’s the great songbook, characters, and voice talents that elevate it above some of the other films made during this period.

An enchanting soundtrack from George Bruns and memorable songs by the Sherman brothers and Terry Gilkyson add pep to the narrative and even seem to give the animators a shot in the arm. The plot and pacing may be nearly as lazy as the sloth bear Baloo (Phil Harris), but animators use that to their advantage, developing the characters so that even minor ones seem majorly entertaining. More

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS 2 (Blu-ray combo)

January 26, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Animation, Entire Family, PG rated Leave a comment

Grade: B-
Entire family: Yes
2013, 95 min., Color
Rated PG for mild rude humor
Sony Pictures Animation
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Includes Blu-ray, DVD, UV DigitalHD copy
Bonus features: B+
Trailer

The book by Judi and Ron Barrett that inspired the first Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was a folksy story that began, “We were all sitting around the big kitchen table,” and as Grandpa flipped pancakes while he was making breakfast, the narrator, her mother, and brother Henry started thinking what it would be like if food “dropped like rain from the sky.” It was the only cue Grandpa needed to tell a tall tale about a town named Chewandswallow that was normal in every respect except for the weather. There, it rained soup, it rained fried eggs, it rained mashed potatoes . . . you never knew what was going to come down. But it was all a tall tale, and a testimony to Grandpa’s storytelling powers.

For the 2009 movie, directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller got rid of Grandpa and the family and turned his tall tale into a story about a boy genius named Flint who grows up to be the crackpot inventor of a machine that turns water into food. And the town is relocated to an island, where the only thing they’ve had to eat is sardines, so of course they welcome a change of menu. That film ended with the machine going out of control and Flint needing to stop it to save the world.

This 2013 sequel from Cody Cameron (Shrek) and Kris Pearn (Surf’s Up) is even more fantastic and farther removed from the original book. Bill Hader returns as the voice of Flint, who in this film is relocated with the rest of the citizens of Swallow Falls to California, so Live Corp can clean up the mess on the island. The CEO, Chester, is a big inventor himself, and he invites Flint to work at Live Corp.

Eventually he gives Flint the task of finding his machine, which had survived, and destroying it once and for all. Rather than going alone, as ordered, Flint takes along his meteorologist girlfriend Sam (Anna Faris), her cameraman Manny (Benjamin Bratt), their friend, Officer Devereaux (Terry Crews), a monkey named Steve (Neil Patrick Harris), and a goofball named Brent (Andy Samberg). And Flint’s father (James Caan) tags along. It’s a Land of the Lost adventure for them, because somehow the machine has been making food creatures like tacodiles and cheeseburger spiders.

There’s more to it, of course, but the fantastic and (pun intended) hard-to-swallow plot isn’t the main selling point for a film like this. Rather, it’s the creatures themselves and the insanely colorful and frenetic world that the Sony Pictures Animation crew brings to life. Kids will be drawn to the striking visuals and constant action and emotion. But the mood and pacing will seem a little too frantic for some viewers, and parents and older children may wish for a little more logic.

My family didn’t think this sequel was as good as the first film, which made more sense and was easier to follow. But it might be more imaginative. To enjoy Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 you’ll need to relax and just enjoy the colors and creative visuals. The animation is eye-popping and the menagerie of food critters is truly inventive . . . but it only makes me wonder what Sony artists could do with as really meaty screenplay.

CAPTAIN PHILLIPS (DVD)

January 12, 2014

James Plath, Family Home Theater Action-Adventure, PG-13 rated, Thriller Leave a comment

Grade: A-
Entire family: No
2013, 134 min., Color
Rated PG-13 for sustained intense sequences of menace, some violence with bloody images, and substance abuse
Columbia/Sony
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Featured audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Bonus features: C+
Trailer

Family Home Theater has the tagline “stuff your kids can see,” and to that end I review films that are rated PG-13 or under. Not all PG-13 films are candidates for family viewing, and Captain Phillips is borderline. I’d say that children have to be at LEAST 13 to watch this taut thriller about a small band of Somali pirates who, in 2009, became the first to hijack a U.S. ship in 200 years. The nature of the film will make it more appealing to teenage boys than to teenage girls.

For all but 10 minutes, Captain Phillips plays like a thriller in the tradition of such siege pictures as Air Force One and Panic Room. For all but 10 minutes, menace, not violence, creates a tension that holds you in its grip until the final outcome. But there are, in fact, a few brief bloody moments, and the fact that the film is based on a true story makes those moments seem more intense. So does an ending that changes the whole feel of the film and appears largely designed to give Tom Hanks an Oscar moment by pushing his emotional range.

After a slow and contrived opening sequence that shows Phillips with his wife before she drops him off at the airport, where he’ll fly to Oman to take command of the container freighter Maersk Alabama and guide it through pirate waters off the Somali coast, the narrative almost shapes itself once Phillips gets onboard. You may have heard that crew members objected to the film because, in their words, Phillips “wasn’t that brave,” but this is Hollywood and one expects a degree of exaggeration in order to craft a more effective and powerful film. More