Movie Monday: Chimps & Mamma’s

Welcome to Movie Monday!

If you’re unfamiliar with the Movie Monday guidelines please read them here.

To join us, do a post today about a movie, or movies, you watched over the weekend. It does not have to be a new movie. If you caught an older movie, feel free to tell us about it. Put a link in your post to this post permalink (not my general URL) and then put the permalink of your post (not your general URL) here at the end of this post.

When you fill in the information in Mr. Linky, beside your name, please put in brackets the name of the movie you’re writing about.

Thanks. Be sure to join me for Movie Monday every week…

Movie Monday – Chimps & Mamma’s

I caught two movies this weekend. Of course the big movie was The Dark Knight, and I reviewed that one earlier. But aside from The Dark Knight, a couple other movies also opened. I wrote briefly about those in a post I called Also Opening This Weekend. Now it’s time to look at those movies a little closer.

1) Space Chimps - Rated G – 3 Lloyds – Family-Friendly
I took our youngest son, who’s actually almost 16, and we had a lot of fun. Ben even liked the cool Ham III mask we got. Space Chimps is aimed directly at kids carrying a G rating. It’s a fun animated adventure about three NASA chimps who are sent to a galaxy “far, far away.” Two of the chimps have trained for the adventure all their lives. The third, Ham III who’s a direct descendant of the first chimp to fly in space, is more of a goofball with all ‘The Wrong Stuff.’ Sent to a wormhole to discover what happened to an unmanned ship, the three chimps find themselves on a strange uncharted planet. After crash landing they embark on a journey to save the planets inhabitants from a tyrannical leader.

As I already mentioned, this is simply a fun kids movie. While chatting with a father of a 5 year old before the movie he laughed with his son saying, “I guess no one got that memo that this is the box office smash for this weekend.” When you’re a parent looking for a fun movie to take your young kids to, he’s right – Space Chimps is the box office smash choice. It’s fun, it’s clean, and there are some great learning experiences along the way too. It clocks in around 1 hour 20 minutes, which is also pretty much the perfect length for a movie like this aimed at kids. I also applaud the filmmakers for not stooping to potty humor in order to win over the parents. There are some great one-liners in here which keep adults laughing too. (Make sure you listen for the David Bowie one-liner! It’s bound to make you laugh.)

2) Mamma Mia – Rated PG-13 – 4 Lloyds – Family-Friendly
Meryl Streep plays a single mother of a bride-to-be who never met her father. After finding her mother’s diary, the daughter invites three possible paternal candidates to her wedding in hopes of discovering who her dad is. But, her plan quickly turns to confusion and chaos triggering the performance of 22 ABBA hits, including Dancing Queen, Take a Chance on Me and The Winner Takes It All. The big screen Mamma Mia is based on the incredibly successful musical that has played in 130 cities around the world and grossed $1.6 billion since opening in 1999.

Who knew Meryl Streep could sing! To be honest with you, Meryl Streep is one of those actresses I can take or leave. Sometimes I really like what she does. Other times it looks like she’s on autopilot moving somewhat glassy eyed through her performances. Such is not the case with Mamma Mia. If anything, her role in this flick reveals how versatile she can be. Pierce Brosnan on the other hand, while he does put in his usual suave and debonair performance, is somewhat out of his element when it comes to singing. But, I still applaud him for his role. I must also say his performance of SOS should at least give him some kind of an award for the best-off-key-performance of a song.

That being said, Mamma Mia is a great movie. It’s full of fun, and if you like musicals, and liked the Broadway performance of Mamma Mia, you’re bound to like the big screen version too. The MPAA gives this a PG-13 rating for some sex-related comments. But parents should have little to nothing to fear. Mamma Mia is rated well, and for the rating, we are saying it’s a family-friendly movie. The sex-related comments are few, and to be honest with you, very tame when it comes to what other movies contain. Any sexual innuendo concerns are tossed into the background when you take into consideration the laughs, the outlandish costumes, and the great music.

And, just for kicks, I also caught a portion of the 2004 movie Fat Albert on TV over the weekend. This was the live-action version of the Saturday morning TV cartoon that ran from 1972-85. I know it was kind of hokey as Albert and his friends “fell out of a TV,” landing in real-life Philadelphia, but I liked it. First off, it was this movie that started my wife and I on the road to becoming movie reviewers. We caught the movie when it opened on Christmas Day 2004 with our three boys. Secondly, as a parent, it was nice to see a great family-friendly movie with our kids, which allowed us to share some modern laughs with our kids, while remembering our own childhood.

That’s it for my Movie Monday reviews. Now it’s your turn! Jump right in and leave a comment about what you watched this weekend, or write a review on your own blog and link back to me here. Don’t forget to use the Mr. Linky box in this post. It makes the fun of a blog carnival, even easier.

Enjoy the show!
Dr. Rus

Other Blog Carnival Links – From Blog Carnival

1. GrrlScientist presents Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy posted at Living the Scientific Life.
2. Naomi Stevens presents MAMMA MIA THE MOVIE – A RUNAWAY SUCCESS posted at Diary From England.
3. Cancerkitty presents Babies at the Movies and Other Annoyances posted at DelSquacho.