Category: Children - Children's Video - Comedies - Family - Feature Film-comedy
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DVD Herbie - Fully Loaded
The simple pleasure of watching a living car squirt oil in a villain's face just never goes away. Disney, in their effort to revitalize the Herbie franchise, has made the wise choice of not trying too hard--aside from a small bit of skateboarding action, just about every element of Herbie: Fully Loaded would fit right into the 1963 original (groovily titled The Love Bug) or its various sequels. Maggie Peyton (Lindsay Lohan, the fiery-tressed starlet of Mean Girls and Freaky Friday) wants to join her family's dynasty of race car drivers, but her father (Michael Keaton, Batman Returns) worries that she'll get hurt. Instead, as a college graduation gift, he buys her a junked-out Volkswagen Beetle--which turns out to be Herbie, a car with a mind of its own. Soon Maggie and Herbie are racing against an arrogant racing champion (Matt Dillon, Crash, There's Something About Mary) and duking it out with monster trucks, eventually hoping her father's heart will change. Herbie: Fully Loaded is formulaic fluff, but executed with cheerful enthusiasm; everyone involved has clearly embraced the mix of slapstick hijinks and light family drama. There's even a handful of cameos by NASCAR drivers. The result is every bit as ridiculous yet entertaining as its forebears. --Bret Fetzer
Although "Herbie: Fully Loaded" isn't the best "Herbie" flick around, it certainly does suffice as a solid family film. In it, we find the Lovebug in a scrapyard, doomed to be compacted. Maggie Payton (Lindsay Lohan) has recently returned from college and her dad (Michael Keaton) decides to by her something to knock around in until her sports reporting career takes off. As it is with the other Herbie movies, the beetle narrowly escapes "death" when Maggie buys him. Soon enough, Herbie has insulted NASCAR champ, Trip Murphy (Matt Dillon), and Maggie finds herself in a streetrace with him. They beat Murphy, triggering a series of unbelievable events that eventually come full circle at a Nextel NASCAR race where Maggie realizes where she belongs and her father accepts that his daughter really is something special.
It's all entirely unbelievable, but, then again, so is a car having a mind of its own. Dillon plays the primary villain with well placed schtick. Keaton and Breckin Myer have limited roles as Maggie's family, but act sufficiently. Justin Long plays Maggie's would-be love interest and delievers one of the best performances in the film. Lohan is good, her ecstatic screams of joy and fear are funny. Even if you don't particularly care for her in the real world, know that her character is a tad rebellious, but has a heart of gold. There are a few cameos by NASCAR drivers, some with lines, but most are just there to give legitimacy to Herbie's big racing finale.
Overall, this is a really good flick for families with young children. Adults may find it sophomoric and too formulaic at times, but it's a "Herbie" flick. You shouldn't expect Oscar-worthy performances. Just sit back, munch some popcorn, and watch this film with your family.
Recommended.
The Little Bug that Could
Herbie Fully Loaded starts off with a montage of scences from the previous Herbie movies, and goes on to show us where Herbie is today. After his successful racing career, Herbie began to lose and fell from grace in the eyes of race fans. Now he's wound up in a junkyard and will soon be converted to scrap metal.
Luckily for him, on the very day he should be smashed, Maggie Peyton (Lindsay Lohan) shows up at the junkyard looking for a graduation present. Maggie comes from a family of racers, but after having a bad accident years earlier is no longer interested in racing. Or at least that's what she tells her father. However, when she and Herbie get together racing is the only thing on both their minds. In order to get some money for to begin her career in New York, Maggie and Herbie enter a racing contest sponsored by Trip Murphy (Matt Dillon), the winner of last year's Nextel Cup. Trip has it in for Herbie, though, and vows that he will "exterminate that bug."
Herbie Fully Loaded was action-packed and really funny. I haven't seen the previous Herbie movies, but I'm familiar with Disney movies in general. This is a lighthearted family comedy that would be especially good for little girls who want proof that women don't have to grow up and be secretaries and housewives. I watched it with my niece and we both loved it. It's a great movie for a night in with the girls.
Cute
Real Herbie lover, new modern twist. Fun to see changes they made to the car. Must watch understanding not the same as the old ones.
The penguins steal the show. In the sprightly Madagascar, a mid-life crisis inspires Marty the Zebra (voiced by Chris Rock) to escape from his lifelong home, a New York zoo. His equally pampered friends--Alex the Lion (Ben Stiller), Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), and Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer)--then escape to bring him back. Unfortunately, their attempt at damage control persuades zoo officials that the animals are unhappy, so all four get shipped to an animal preserve in Kenya...only a squad of maniacal penguins change the destination to Antarctica. The quartet end up on an island where, in addition to meeting some hedonistic lemurs, they learn about the food chain--and that Alex is a different link on the chain from the other three. Madagascar doesn't... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Jada Pinkett Smith - Chris Rock - David Schwimmer Director(s): Tom McGrath (VII) DVD Release Date: Released the 15 November 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Mixed reviews and creepy comparisons to Michael Jackson notwithstanding, Tim Burton's splendidly imaginative adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would almost surely meet with Roald Dahl's approval. The celebrated author of darkly offbeat children's books vehemently disapproved of 1971's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (hence the change in title), so it's only fitting that Burton and his frequent star/collaborator, Johnny Depp, should have another go, infusing the enigmatic candyman's tale with their own unique brand of imaginative oddity. Depp's pale, androgynous Wonka led some to suspect a partial riff on that most controversial of eternal children, Michael Jackson, but Burton's film is too expansively magnificent to be so narrowly defined. While... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Tim Burton DVD Release Date: Released the 08 November 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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As one of many in the ongoing trend of resurrecting old TV shows and turning them into contemporary Hollywood product, Bewitched tries awfully hard to distinguish itself. It succeeds in lots of surprising ways, not least of which is the star power brought by Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell. Even if they don't create the kind of romantic chemistry that would have elevated the already high concept, they act as delightful foils to each other, but more often to themselves. The conceit of this Bewitched is that it's a self-reflexive look at the entertainment business, with Ferrell playing Jack Wyatt, an actor starring in an updated version of the classic TV show. Out of favor with the Hollywood elite and desperately in need of a hit, he insists on an unknown to play Samantha, as... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Nicole Kidman - Will Ferrell - Shirley MacLaine - Michael Caine Director(s): Nora Ephron DVD Release Date: Released the 25 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The idea of a high school for superheroes will appeal to teens and preteens, who struggle powerlessly with petty authoritarians, bullying peers, and their own rampant hormones, and Sky High spotlights young Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano, Lords of Dogtown), the son of top-of-the-heap superheroic couple the Commander (Kurt Russell, Tango & Cash) and Josie Jetstream (Kelly Preston, View from the Top). Unfortunately, though he's about to be dropped into the midst of kids who can stretch, turn to living stone, or shoot fire, Will has yet to develop any powers at all--and may never develop them. His development anxieties (and some entertaining metaphors for high school social hierarchies) contrast with a bubbling plot by an old foe of the Commander's to destroy... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Michael Angarano - Kurt Russell - Kelly Preston Director(s): Mike Mitchell (VI) DVD Release Date: 29 November 2005
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Released amidst rumors of romance between costars Angelina Jolie and soon-to-be-divorced Brad Pitt, Mr. and Mrs. Smith offers automatic weapons and high explosives as the cure for marital boredom. The premise of this exhausting action-comedy (no relation to the 1941 Alfred Hitchcock comedy starring Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery) is that the unhappily married Smiths (Pitt and Jolie) will improve their relationship once they discover their mutually-hidden identities as world-class assassins, but things get complicated when their secret-agency bosses order them to rub each other out. There's plenty of amusing banter in the otherwise disposable screenplay by Simon Kinberg (xXx: State of the Union, Fantastic Four), and director Doug Liman (The Bourne... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Doug Liman DVD Release Date: Released the 06 June 2006 Usually ships in 24 hours
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