Christmas Movie Review of Jesus' Birth: *** Journey to Bethlehem (2023)

 This is a musical presentation of the birth of Jesus.  The music is too modern for my tastes, but it does tell an important story.  They admit to taking some liberties with the actual story as in the Bible.  Antonio Banderas portrays Herod, Mary is portrayed by Fiona Palomo, Joseph by Milo Manheim and Herod's son by Joel David Smallbone.  Herod becomes suspicious long before the wise men arrive, and the wise men start their journey before Jesus is born.  It portrays as the son of Herod letting Mary and Joseph escape with Jesus against the wishes of his father.

Movie Review: **^Spy Kids (2002)

This is the first in a series of five movies.  THe first three feature the original actors.  I can see how this movie might entertain a certain age group of people; but for me it was just too much.  The bad people were over the top as the evil scientist kept designing them that way.  They were actually spies that he had captured and then transformed into strange creatures for his cartoon show.  

Anyway back to the story.  A family of four.  The mother tells the children of a Spy Couple who fall for eachother and are married.  This is Gregorio Cortez and Ingrid Cortez (Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino).  This is actually their own story.  They pretend to have left the spy game, but keep their toes in the water.  As a resut they are both captured by Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) and his henchman Alexander Minnion (Tony Shalhoub).

When the parents are taken the children Carmen and Juni (Alexa PenaVega and Daryl Sabara) are accosted by thugs, literally thumb men, and discover quickly they are a family of spies.  They get into their parent's lair and take off in a funny looking amphibious vehicle.  They are on their way to rescue their parents.

Ont their journey they are taken to Uncle Machete (Danny Trejo)who provides spy tech gadgets.  It is Uncle Machete who makes the difference in the end.  There are numerous robots created by Minnion just laking intelligence.  They are made to look like others and the pair that look like Carmen and Juni manage to get the third brain from them.  With this device, after replicating it they are able to give the robots intelligence.  zThey make a formidab le force.  However after Minnion turns on Floop, he begins putting brains in all his robots.  THe brother and sister rescue Floop, who then reprograms the robots to have a conscience.

If you can follow that you would likely enjoy this movie.  

Movie Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

 This is a very good Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) movie except for just before the end.  Indiana Jones is in pursuit of the Dial of Destiny, as is Dr. Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelson).  Voller is a Nazi who wants to go back in time and effect a different result to the war.  His men are unscrupulous.  They seem to kill people right and left.   They are trying to get a piece of the devise from Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Dr. Jones' god daughter.  She knows that her father gave the piece to him to destroy it.  Of course Dr. Jones did not destroy it, but has stored it safely in the university vaults.  Helena gets the device, and is away with it, leaving Dr. Jones to deal with the peopler chasing her.  They both get away in the end.  They all end up in Morocco, where Helena is selling her piece.  In all the action Voller ends up with the piece.  Helena has a young friend, Teddy (Ethann Isidore) she rescued from the streets when he tried to steal her purse.  

The next stop is scuba diving in order to find the other piece.  Of course our villains show up just as they are finding it.  More murders take place, Dr. Jones' friend Renaldo (Antonio Banderas).  The the hel of dynamite they are able to get away and then decipher the clue which leads them to caves in Cicily.  In the end Voller comes away with both pieces and puts them together.  He then calculates how to go back in time to 1939 as he intends to kill Hitler, thus freeing Germany from him, so they can win the war.  Dr. Jones tases him that his calculations are wrong--and in fact they are.  They over shot their time and end up in the Roman Greek war long ago.  Having gone back in time in an airplane, they meet Archimedes (Nasser Memarzia), the inventor of the Dial of Destiny, who then took it apart so it couldn't be used.  He is the only person who could help them get back to their own time.

Now the part I don't like.  Suddenly Dr. Jones wants to stay in the past.  Helena punches him in the jaw to knock him out and the take him back.  I do not think there was motivation for Dr. Jones to stay nor for Helena to knock him out.

Karen Allen as Marion and John Rhys-Davies as Sallah have cameo parts.  They were both in the first Indiana Jones.

Movie Review: ****Shrek 2 (2004)

 Shrek (Mike Myers) is back as are all of his friends from the swamp.  Fiona (Cameron Diaz) his wife is invited back to the kingdom where she was raised so her parents can meet her husband.  Donkey (Eddie Murphy) travels with them.  Besides mom and dad Queen (Julie Andrews) and King (John Cleese) we have three new significant character, Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas) who is sent as an assassin to kill Shrek, but becomes indebted to him when Shrek saves him from a fur ball.  There is also Fairy Godmother (Jennifer Saunders) who is very evil, and Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) who was suppose to rescue Fiona from the castle but was too late as Shrek got there before him.  

An interesting character study on whether we should change ourselves, if we could and just be ourselves.  Both Shrek and Fiona face this dilemma; as does the king.  Very good movie.  I enjoyed the story, and overcoming the odds with help from your friends.  

Movie Review: ****Philadelphia (1993)

 This is reportedly a fictional movie, but mirrors a couple different real life stories.  Andrew Beckett (Tom Hanks) sues his former boss after he is fired.  The firm contends his work was mediocre at best (even though they had just given him an important case.  Beckett's contention is that he was fired because they discovered he had AIDS.  He is represented in court by Joe Miller (Denzel Washington).  Miller does not like being around gay people.  But maybe that makes him better at representing Beckett.  The firm is headed by Charles Wheeler (Jason Robards) and is represented by Belinda Conine (Mary Steenburgen).  Antonio Banderas portrays Beckett's lover.  

This movie is one that makes you think about what may be your own prejudices.  We see the relationship that Beckett has with his partner.  Of course this is in the era before gay marriage.  

This movie won two Oscars, Hanks for best actor and Bruce Springsteen for best song, Streets of Philadelphia.  In today's environment Tom Hanks probably wouldn't be allowed to play this roll as a strait man playing a gay man.

Movie Review: ***^Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013)

Tony and I enjoyed this movie for movie night.  Tony actually started it.  What happens when you father, the king, has outlawed all Knights, and you feel your destiny is to become a knight.  This is a show of family conflict, but also growth from a boy to a man.  It also involves discovering who you really love, and it is not always the high society person, but sometimes the kitchen maid.  This movie stars Freddie Highmore as Justin, Tamsin Egerton as Lara, his crush but the wrong girl, and Saoirse Ronan as Talia, the spunky girl he meets and Antonio Banderas as Sir Clorex, a fake knight.  Mark Strong portrays Sir Heraclio, a banished knight who is coming back to seek revenge.  A lesson learned in this film is that trying to make everyone equal so as to preserve peace it not always a good idea.  There are those that are always willing to fill the void when you rule from weakness.

Movie Review: ***Puss N' Boots

 "Puss In Boots"--this movie had betrayal, love and villains.  The cat dancing was the thing that most made it unique.  However over all I found it just above so-so.  The mother goose and baby goose were fun.   Puss was defending the city, but lost his honor. His honor was restored in the sight of the people, but not in the sight of the law.  The movie also added the usual twists on common nursery rhymes as it is a take off from Shrek. Antonio Banderas stars as Puss N' Boots.  This movie is appropriate for children.