DVD Reviews: Wallace & Gromit, The Corpse Bride, King Kong

A few more movies I watched during my break last week...

Wallace and Gromit: The Legend of the Wererabbit
I was really looking forward to watching this, having really enjoyed Chicken Run, and having been told how good the previous Wallace and Gromit shorts had been. Boy, was I disappointed. This stop-action claymation feature was not very funny, and was mostly quite boring. Wallace and Gromit (a non-speaking dog), run a business that protects the town’s vegetables. Wallace somehow makes a machine to try and brainwash the rabbits to eat cheese instead of vegetables and ends up creating a monster (a Wererabbit). Anyways, the plot is mundane and simplistic, reminding me of a bad 80s cartoon. Don’t waste your time watching this one… I have almost nothing good to say about it (1/10).

The Corpse Bride
Yes, I watched a lot of animated stuff. This one was another stop-motion movie, this time by the king of odd – Tim Burton. More along the lines of A Nightmare before Christmas, this one follows the story of Victor (Johnny Depp) who is arranged to marry one girl, Victoria, but then ends up accidentally marrying a corpse (Helena Bonham Carter)?! Yes, the plot is weird, and reminded me of the old Beetlejuice cartoons, but the movie was not that bad. Visually, it was dark, but playful, and the characters were well-designed, but the movie just wasn’t for me. Overall, I just didn’t see the point, and I just lost interest. Why would you ever make a movie about marrying a corpse? It was way better than Wallace and Gromit though. (4/10).

King Kong
Was this movie visually stunning? Yes. Was the Kong vs. T-Rexes scene amazing? Yes. Was it more entertaining than the original? Yes. But was this a movie I’d recommend? No way. Peter Jackson’s take on the movie classic was long, and drawn out with the biggest part of the no way is because of how long it is. If it was a two hour affair, then I’d have given it a higher rating and higher push. But it’s over three hours. There’s a good hour before you even see Kong, which was an interesting choice, instead focusing on building the characters of Jack Black and Naomi Watts. Jack Black was actually watchable in this movie, although I was quite annoyed by the end of him and his character. Naomi Watts did a great job early on, but similarly, I thought her character fell apart after a while. I’m not sure what to call this movie… it was a drama at the beginning, then pure action movie on Skull island (which were the more impressive parts of the movie, albeit with a lot of ridiculous scenes... the island for example kills about 20 armed people getting to a certain place, but one guy is somehow able to make it to Kong’s cave and back to the boat from that place unarmed without a single injury), and finally it becomes the disaster/love story at the end – it was like watching three movies in one. It was good for what it was, but definitely not something I’d want to sit through again. If you have over 3 hours to kill and you’ve already seen Lord of the Rings, then take a look, it is a good movie, but otherwise, take a pass on this one. I’m sure you could find a better use of your time. If you’ve seen Jurassic Park, you’ve already seen the good parts of this movie. (5.5/10).