Fly Me to the Moon 3-D, City of Ember and Igor Review

Its half term kids and Uncle Owen is here to tell you what to spend your pocket money on. I am actually going to be an Uncle soon, a bona fide Star Wars character. I just hope I don't get barbequed by Stormtroopers. What I will get to do is take my nephew/niece to all sorts of shit films aimed at children and then chastise them for enjoying them like the naive, joyfilled cretins they are. Like I'm going to do now.

First up Fly Me to the Moon 3-D. My feelings on 3-D movies have been well documented over the course of this year. ( I don't like them. I don't think they're good.) So instead of me ranting the same rant just put together my review for Space Chimps and combine it with Journey to the Centre of the Earth 3-D and, ta-da, the bug faeces that is Fly Me... will be the result. It does have a fantastically surreal credits sequence though where Buzz Aldrin, the actual Buzz Aldrin, appears to tell all the wee kiddies that the film is pure fantasy and that flies can't talk and certainly couldn't get to the moon anyway. Now this I like. So much so I'd like to hire Buzz to ruin more childrens film.

As for City of Ember, I had desperately high hopes for this. I had a feeling it would tank financially but I thought it would at least be well received by us more knowing (read, Poncey) film geek type people. Set years in the future when mankind lives underground, it stars Saiorse Ronan (anyone know how to pronounce this?) as a girl looking to find a way to the surface of the Earth. While the set design and imagination is sufficiently 'Gilliam' the story takes too long to get going and ends far too quickly once it does. And it doesn't have nearly enough Bill Murray for my liking. But then Groundhog Day didn't have enough Bill Murray for me.

Bill Murray is not in Igor (nice segue). But John Cusack is. As Igor, or to be more precise, an Igor. For in the world of Malaria there are many Igors and many evil scientists. The scientists are trying to think up horribly evil inventions so they can ransom the world, which makes for some great Nightmare Before Christmas-style nastiness for the kids. This would probably be my pick of the week if only for the immortal yet suicidal, Nietzsche spouting rabbit voiced by Steve Buscemi. That and the blind orphans singing I Can See Clearly Now (The Rain Has Gone). Seriously.