Insomniac Movie Rundown

Last weekend the husband and I did a double feature: DaVinci Code, followed by Lake House. I'll keep it short, since I want to talk about other movies, too.

DaVinci Code: If it's still at the theater in your area, and you still haven't seen it but are thinking about it, allow me to save you some money by telling you to wait until it's available on DVD. Don't get me wrong, it's not horribly bad. It's just...you don't gain anything by seeing it on a large screen versus a smaller screen. The acting is not superior, even though it IS Tom Hanks. And the car chase scene? Ugh. The camera work in that scene is simply terrible! Whoever directed that (and I'm guessing it was second unit, as most action scenes are) seemed to believe that shots of a tiny car driving backwards and crazy in the narrow streets of Paris is not enough to keep us on the edge of our seats. No, you need to shake up the camera to shake up the audience, or at least that's what these people think. Personally, I was glad I didn't have epilepsy like my best friend, because I surely would have had a seizure from the strobe-like effect of this scene.

Lake House: You know, I've defended this movie (clearly, critics hate it) and encouraged people to give it a chance. But the fact is, I was happy with it because I only wanted two things from it: to see a romance that might make me cry, and to ogle Keanu Reeves. If you want some sort of cultural experience from your films, then you need to skip this and head to the Anjelika. If you want to see nude/shirtless people, go see X-Men 3. If you're a girl, and you want to cry, or look at Keanu in all his hot-40-year-old-in-a-turtleneck glory, come right here. Truthfully, you should not expect more than that. There are some gaping plotholes, and while you might be able to overlook them for the hour and half while you watch, you won't be able to get over them once you get to the car and start thinking about it. I won't go into it, lest I spoil the movie for you. I will say, ladies, leave the men at home, because they will not enjoy it as much as you, and will feel as though they've paid $17 for idiocy. Go with some girlfriends so that you can weep freely.

Doogal: Available on DVD. It's premise, that a band of animals must travel the world in search of magic diamonds in order to imprison an evil ice wizard, is more or less a cartoon version of Lord of the Rings. In fact, there are numerous references to Lord of the Rings, as well as The Matrix, Bend it Like Beckham, and heaven knows what else. You know how Shrek and Shrek 2 do a few little bits to parody whatever new movies have come out recently? Doogal does the same thing, only it never ends, and the material doesn't have to be "recent" or even "from this decade." There's a Bone Thugs N Harmony joke in there that I found especially amusing, because I recall a time when that was all my brother listened to for a solid year. The memory of his stereo blasting all hours of the day and night still sends annoying signals to the rest of my body. This movie did scare my kids at first, but when they sat in my lap to watch it, there was no problem. We rented it, but most likely will not buy it. Note to the casting director: casting Jon Stewart of The Daily Show as the villain was genius. Casting Whoopi Goldberg as the cow was not. Y'all really need to pick a voice that fits the character, not the voice that everyone will recognize whether it serves the character or not. You're basically paying bookoos of money for someone to mess up your movie for you.