Two Movie Reviews

I saw two movies this weekend. One good, one bad. Here's my take on both, for whatever it's worth:

The movie Watchmen was a huge disappointment. I figured it was a comic book movie for adults - kind of a Batman Dark Knight meets Iron Man with more Super Heroes. It ended up being more of a Sin City (which I liked) in terms of the edginess and visual aspects, but story wise, I just didn't get it. I know it was supposed to have all of these deep social and political undertones, but they were way over my head. The theater seemed to be filled with a bunch of comic book fan boys who got all of the inside jokes and I was clueless around. The part that my brother Jon would have enjoyed, was the character Mr. Manhattan. The character was blue and naked the whole movie. I just don't need to have 30 minutes of full frontal male nudity in any movie I see. Kind of a rule I live by. I left the movie thinking, "I am $10 poorer and left with 3 hours of my life I'll never get back." Apparently I am not alone. My brother-in-law Kevin had the same feedback.


The second movie Cathie and I watched with Em and Maddie last night was called The Ultimate Gift. I have no idea when I put this movie in my Netflix queue or how I heard of it, or erally what it was about last night. We played the "blindly pick a movie" game last night and this is what we chose. The movie is about a wealthy grandfather who dies and his selfish family who all want his billions. One kid is a trust fund baby and anticipates a big inheritance. Instead, his grandfather has devised a crash course on life with twelve tasks – or “gifts” – designed to challenge the kid and teach him what's important in life. It was a good movie with a good message and good lessons and drove lots of good conversation with the kids. Also it had uch less full-front male nudity than Watchmen, as in none.