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Ice Age: The Meltdown (Carlos Saldanha) was pretty disappointing. Sure, there were some guilty laughs, but the weak story was told with almost no heart and no discernable technique.

Some parts were funny, granted, but there was nothing substantial in regards to plot or character development. The story was basicly plot-less and I got really sick of the occasionally humourous slap-stick and one-liners that took over from the original film’s witty dialogue.

That being said, however, it was still pretty fun!

Thank You For Smoking, Jason Reitman’s feature directorial debut, is basically flawless. It’s smart, funny, emotionally manipulative and any other thing that describes a great film.

I don’t really like Aaron Eckhart, who plays Nick Taylor, the tobacco-lobbyist protagonist. I also don’t like any of the movies he’s been in. He looks kind of cross-eyed and I want to poke that hole in his chin with a sharp stick. He was great in this film, though. His comedic timing is excellent, as is his ability to convince as an idiot-savant. Hmm, maybe he didn’t need to try too hard for that one.

The film is based on Christopher Buckley’s novel of the same name, which was adapted for the screen by Reitman, and follows the moral and intellectual journey of a man whose job is to keep people smoking. I don’t want to say too much about it because I really think that everybody should see it. It’s just so incredibly well made. It’s funny and sarcastic, and then all of a sudden it flips on you and you’re in serious mode. And even Katie Holmes’ screen time is relatively enjoyable.

Reitman has six short films under his belt and he definitely refined his craft and was able to adapt it to a feature-length setting. I’m very curious and excited to see what he does next. Check this one out in the theatre soon as I can’t find a DVD release date…

I was really looking forward to this one… the awesome posters, bald Natalie, Hugo Weaving and the first post-Matrix film from the Brothers Wachowski. I wanted to see it badly enough that I went the day after it opened to a crappy theatre and saw it with a bunch of annoying teenagers (and most of them were probably from Scarborough). V for Vendetta (James McTeigue), however, was a confused, dialogue-heavy and ultimately boring letdown of a film.

There were a lot of cool parts, though, such as… um… yeah, the (two really short) actions scenes; and future London looked amazing, too. I greatly enjoyed Stephen Rea as well as the small part that Stephen Fry had. Hugo Weaving was cool, I guess, but it could have been anyone underneath that mask. Portman was adequate but she’ll always be Padme Amidala to me (and this is not a good thing).

The movie was long, wordy and anti-climatic. I don’t regret seeing it, but it certainly didn’t pay off in regards to the anticipation. It wasn’t very original in terms of the whole “dystopia” thing, but I do think that a lot the film’s these are currently relevant. Still, V for Vendetta couldn’t decide whether it was The Phantom of the Opera or 1984. There were some really lame lines and the whole lesbian requiem seemed a bit trendy.

I don’t know how much of Alan Moore’s graphic novel truly inspired the film, but he has reportedly requested his name to be associated with it after this and this happened. I do think it was a good idea to delay the film’s release – after the London bombings, it was delayed about six months to its March release.