My family and friends are big fans of going to movies, so when I come home for the holidays it's a good time to catch up on everything in the theater. On Christmas Eve, I went with my family to see the 3D computer-animated film, "The Adventures of Tintin." I grew up reading the comic book series, by Belgian artist Herge. For Tintin readers, this movie combines three of the books, "The Crab with the Golden Claws," "The Secret of the Unicorn," and "Red Rackham's Treasure." For people unfamiliar with the books, the series is about a young investigative journalist, Tintin. Tintin and his dog Snowy end up on an adventurous search for sunken treasures that others are in hot pursuit of. This movie is produced by Peter Jackson and is Steven Spielberg's first time as a director on an animated film. While Tintin is voiced by the relatively new Jamie Bell, viewers will recognize famous voices such as Daniel Craig and Simon Pegg. For people familiar with the books, the movie is fairly entertaining, a nostalgic look at childhood books and includes a lot of the favorite characters. For people unfamiliar with the books, I don't think the movie would be that great. My main complaint is that they made Tintin look too young. It's hard to believe this boy who looks like he's fourteen is a journalist and going on kick ass adventures.
The next movie I went to see with a friend was "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo." This movie is based on the thriller by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. I read the trilogy and loved it, but they are very dark books, so I knew the movie was going to be disturbing. There's already Swedish movies made of all the books, which were very good and true to the stories. This new American version of the first book is somehow more visually disturbing than its Swedish counterpart. Let's just say (and everyone who's read the book will know what I'm referring too), the rape scene and the revenge/tattoo gun scene are enough to make you queasy. I think this is in large part due to the amazing acting of Rooney Mara, who embodies the character of Lisbeth Salander and is exactly as I pictured her. She's already been nominated for a Golden Globe for her acting in this movie. Daniel Craig is also amazing as journalist Mikael Blomkvist. And for the ladies, you get to see a barely clothed Craig quite frequently throughout the movie. The breathtaking Swedish scenery is the perfect setting for the cold and eerie plot. My only complaint for this one is that while its an adaptation and I understand certain things need to be changed to make it work for the big screen, the ending was changed bit too much for my liking. The ending of the book was a little optimistic about people moving on from childhood trauma and finding happiness and the movie ending doesn't give the viewer this sense.
The third movie I saw in theaters was the sequel, "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows." I was surprised that they were making a sequel to the original that came out in 2009. I did not realize the first movie was such a success but it opened to an estimated $62.4 million in its first weekend in America alone, placing in second at the US box office to Avatar, which grossed $75.6 million. Its one-day Christmas sales broke records and grossed $523,000,000 worldwide, making it Guy Ritchie's biggest box-office success yet, and the 8th highest grossing film of 2009 worldwide, and domestically. On the domestic charts, it is the fourth highest grossing film to never hit No. 1 in the weekend box office, behind My Big Fat Greek Wedding, fellow Christmas opener Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, and said film's predecessor. Worldwide, it is the fourth highest in this category, behind Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Casino Royale, and The Day After Tomorrow. The new movie once again stars Robert Downy Jr. and Jude Law. They're both wonderful in it, but Downey really steals the show as the kooky detective. They go up again Holmes' legendary foe, Professor Moriarty. Once again, I thought the movie was just a little above average. The acting was good, the directing was good, but there wasn't really any element that made it memorable for me. It was definitely not my favorite of the week.
The last movie I saw was the fourth in its series, "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol." I resisted seeing this one initially. The first was was amazing and revolutionary for its time. Then as Tom Cruise got older and more crazy, the movies became less and less impressive for me. The movie kept getting fairly good reviews though and then it killed it at the box office holiday weekend and is on track to exceed the entire total grossed by the third installment in only 17 days. If you haven't seen the third in a while, I would recommend seeing it again before going to see the new one. I totally forgot how the last one ended and the fact that Cruise's character, Ethan Hunt, gets married. The fourth movie exceeded my expectations and was actually pretty good. Tom Cruise actually looks better in this one than he has in the last several. As usual, he does all his own stunts, which is pretty impressive. Jeremy Renner joins the cast and Simon Pegg returns, bringing with him some much needed comedic relief. And the scenery is breathtaking as usually and will give you the itch to travel. I would have to say "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" was my favorite movie of the week, but this one was surprisingly second.
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