New semester classes started today! After one day, I already have mixed feelings:
1. 3rd hour didn't change at all, and they're still great.
2. 1st and 2nd hour jumbled a bit, based on the students' schedules, and as it seems, they're both a little more squirrely than the previous installments.
3. 5th hour is an English 10 class--the first one I'll be teaching in the last three years-- and they're very promising. They actually did a great deal of work quietly today!
4. 6th hour is my senior English class. The good news is that I've had many of them as students before, so they understand how things go. The bad news is that there are 36 of them. And they're all BFsF.
When my brother Matt got home from work, we went to Blockbuster, Corporation of Evil, to return Matt's movies and rent some new ones, mostly for the purposes of this list. We're starting today with the animated one of the bunch, since no one here had seen it: Despicable Me. I've heard pretty much all positive things about the movie, and as a matter of fact, the other night at euchre, a few of the people around the table were talking about how funny and cute it was.
To start, the movie is utterly predictable. A nice, obviously-wrapped package full of whimsy catered toward the younger audience, with just enough to keep the adults in the room happy. Just in case you don't know me (and is there anyone who reads this blog who doesn't?) it should be said that I am a big fan of most animated movies (the Shreks and Madagascars aside, with a few other, scattered examples) and I always keep my mind open. Despicable Me didn't look very good when I saw the trailer in theatres, and as such I did avoid it: up to this point.
It follows some of the same arcs as much other animated fare: the moments of poignancy, the conflict between said poignancy and an ultimate goal (which always manage to intertwine themselves), a cast of stock characters whose nearly sole purpose is comic relief, a villain with a great scientific mind, and a protagonist who learns something about himself. I'm afraid that this movie doesn't ever get beyond these points. Not to say that these can't be all a movie necessarily has, but something has to be elevated above the mundane for me to really enjoy it, or, indeed, to recommend others view it.
The movie did have a freeze ray, though, so I'll leave you with these parting words that got stuck in my head as I watched:
With my freeze ray, I will
Stop
The world.
Score: 4/10
No comments:
Post a Comment