Frankenstein's creature finds himself caught in an all-out, centuries old war between two immortal clans. From: IMDb.com

Frankenstein's creature finds himself caught in an all-out, centuries old war between two immortal clans. From: IMDb.com

Directed by: Stuart Beattie

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Bill Nighy, Miranda Otto and others

Current release date:  January 24, 2014

In all honesty, this never gets a bad movie to watch but it's still lacking a good clear point and message to it really.

It's actually kind of confusing, once you really start thinking about it. So there is this son, who doesn't really get along with his mother, not because he hates her but because she's a bit obnoxious and awkward to be around with. So he always wants to spend as little time as he possibly can with her and also avoids talking to her, for as much as he can. Yet, completely out of free will, he invites his mother to go on a road trip with him, that is going to last for days, while also having some important business to attend to. It just doesn't really make any sense, now does it? Wanting to spend hours and hours with a person that you just can't really stand, in a very small enclosed space.

So you expect this to be the sort of movie in which mother and son slowly start to grow toward each other again and gain a better mutual understanding of each other and share some fond memories of the past. But no, I have to say that the movie seems to attempt this but fails at it because it basically have no idea how to handle it.

The end result is a comedy that is lacking a clear point and strong overall message to it but having said that, it isn't a bad or boring one to watch. It's simply worth watching because it's enjoyable, despite the fact that its story is basically going nowhere, with anything. You just don't really feel that by the end of this movie the characters have truly progressed and their relationship have changed indefinitely but nevertheless, the movie remains a perfectly good and harmless fun one to watch, at all times.

It's not like this is the movie with the best jokes and the most original comedy in it but it still has some comedy and an overall tone and atmosphere to it that work out well and pleasantly for the movie.

I also have to say that Barbra Streisand is absolutely great and she deserved to be in a better movie really. She handles both the comedy and drama in this movie very well and even combines the two quite flawlessly at times. It's also apparent she and Seth Rogen had a lot of fun doing this movie together and there is some good chemistry between them, though I just could never see them as mother and son really. They look nothing alike of course and also their characters have little to none in common. I know that was the point but it would have been nice to have seen somewhat of a connection and bond between the two of them, to strengthen the movie its story as well as some of its drama at parts.

But even despite its very lacking story, this remains a perfectly watchable and fun little movie really, if you're in the mood for some light and simple entertainment.

6/10

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Now that the animated movie genre is still growing and getting more popular, as well as technically more advanced, as the years go by and new innovations are being made, we also start to see more and more small scale genre movie such as this one, made with a relatively low budget, by smaller and less advanced studios.

That's not saying anything about its quality. I feel that the technology to make these kind of movies have reached a point that it's accessible and affordable for basically everyone to work with. Of course it's not as smooth, detailed and perfect looking as a Pixar, or DreamWorks production for instance but really, it's still perfectly acceptable looking all. Certainly much better than you probably would expect from a movie of this sort.

Thing with these type of 'smaller' animated movies is that they are often always good looking with all of their environments, backgrounds and with its character movements but the animation of the characters is visually still lacking. It always feels that the final layer to give the characters some true details and a realistic looking skin is always missing. But really, that's just about the most negative thing I could say about the movie its animations.

About the actual movie; well it's a tad bit too simplistic and it's lacking some true originality as well of course.

The story did indeed bother me a little. I for instance had no idea what the villain wanted in this movie but he's evil and needs to be stopped and that's all children need to know of course. No need to over-complicate things for movies such as this, that are mainly targeted toward young children. But it should tell you something about how shallow and simplistic this movie is being. Some would say that the movie is simply being straightforward but I still call it poorly constructed really. There is never a good buildup to anything. A little, albino, koala runs away from home, just like that! He makes new friends, just like that! He becomes a carnival hit, just like that! And he becomes a hero in the eyes of some animals, just like that! It's a bit annoying how simplistic and fast paced this movie is, though again, I don't think this is ever going to be a real problem for its younger viewers.

Another problem I had with the movie its story though is that makes it seem that it's going to be about one thing but actually turns into something totally different instead. So at the start it seems like this is going to be a movie with some strong messages against discrimination (the young koala runs away because the other koala's bully him for being an albino koala) but after the start of the movie, it completely drops this idea. It goes for something far less impressive or surprising. It simply has the 'stay true to yourself' kind of message in it, we see so often in animated movies and TV-series. As a matter of fact, as the movie progresses it starts to pick up a "¡Three Amigos!" type of storyline and comedy approach instead, which is of course far from anything original or remarkable, by today's standards. So the movie its story still starts of kind of promising but slowly but steadily starts to turn into something more and more formulaic.

But does the comedy, the action and its characters still make this an enjoyable, worthwhile, little genre movie? Well, yes and no. The comedy and action is all fast paced, which means that it's all good and fun to watch but it can't conceal the fact how terrible unoriginal it's being with both its action and humor, for 90% of its time. And the characters are all good and fun looking but there are too many of them really, with as a result that all of them remain underdeveloped and some also definitely underused, except for its main character perhaps.

Little children are going to enjoy it, no doubt about that but that doesn't mean it's a great movie as well.

5/10

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An inventor and his mom hit the road together so he can sell his latest invention. From: IMDb.com

Directed by: Anne Fletcher

Starring: Jasen Wade, Summer Bellessa, Chris Hill and others

Current release date: December 25, 2012