Recently seen movies

Coraline
3D stop-motion animation based on a book by Neil Gaiman (slightly macabre writer) and directed by Henry Selick who directed Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach (ergo, a slightly macabre director). The end result is gothically weird. There's plenty of offbeat humour - like the dead dogs dressed an angels - but overall it's a bit of a horror movie for young 'uns. I wouldn't take small kids to see it, but I enjoyed it.
Jongudmund's rating: 7/10 Well worth a look

Monsters versus Aliens
Hilarious cartoon. An evil alien attacks earth to reclaim a meteor that has transformed an ordinary woman into a 'monster' 50ft version of herself. Spoofing The Fly, The Blob, Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Godzilla-style monster films and just about everything else from those 50s monster movies, I imagine most of the jokes would go over the kiddies' heads. But I laughed a lot, particularly at Bob the Blob voiced by Seth Rogan. It had a bit of a deeper storyline than you normally get from this sort of thing too.
Jongudmund's rating: 8/10 Thoroughly worth it

Tropic Thunder
"Comedy" that falls short on just about everything. A weak storyline based around making a Vietnam war film fails to use the comic genius of several top-rate actors , including Ben Stiller and Jack Black. There is a LOT of swearing in it and far too many in-jokes about film-making and studio bosses that would be funny to people working in Hollywood, but are craply dull to the rest of humanity. Frankly, this is one sick puppy that should have been drowned at birth.
Jongudmund's rating: 1/10 Avoid, avoid, avoid

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
An oldie seen on TV. Given the way profile of Angelina Jolie in the TV spots and billing, she's hardly in it. Which is disappointing as her character is easily the best one. This has the feel of a hammy TV serial from the 60s. The plotline is interesting. There are one or two holes, and several cliched plot 'twists' and conversations.
Jongudmund's rating: 4/10 Mildly diverting. Probably more fun if you fancy Jude Law (I don't)

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
The only problem with this is that I kind of guessed/knew all the plot twists before they happened. Of course the British guy was going to sell him out, obviously Mutt was Indy's son, etc. Harrison Ford is always good value and the script had its moments. But this seemed scattergun in its approach to story. It was very episodic and some things seemed to happen because they're the sort of things that happen in Indiana Jones films, not because they added to the plot - like mysterious decorated natives jumping out on Indy and Mutt in a cemetary. Half the time I was left thinking 'Why?'
Jongudmund's rating: 5/10 Watch it if you're an Indy fan