Movie Reviews: Happy Hugo and the Christmas Muppets

by Jack Garcia

So these are the first reviews I am writing after quitting the movie theater.  It’s very weird to no longer be a Cinemark employee.  Part of me misses it… maybe even a lot… but I am thoroughly enjoying my new paychecks!!  Two of these movies I saw with a friend who still works there (so they were free), but the other two I had to pay for.  Actually, scratch that.  Make that one.  I saw Hugo with family so that ticket price came out of somebody else’s pocket!

Anyway, the following movies are all family movies… one I absolutely LOVED!

Happy Feet Two ADMIRABLE

I don’t know what it is about these movies, but they make me happy inside.  I mean, there are cute penguins that sing and dance!  In the sequel to 2006’s Happy Feet, Mumble’s son Erik (voiced by a girl named Ava Acres) is struggling to find his own talent.  Will he be a dancer like his dad?  Or will he be a singer?  And while he’s trying to find his place in the world, he meets a penguin who can fly, giving him something more to aspire to.  Things get a little crazy though when an iceberg threatens to destroy their home.  All the penguins—including their human, krill and walrus friends—must work together to restore order.

The animation is top-notch and breathtaking at times.  The voices by Elijah Wood, Pink, Robin Williams, Sofia Vergara  and other stars were all very good, and I really liked some of the songs Pink sang.  Gosh, she has a great voice!  My favorite two characters though were the non-singing Bill and Will (Matt Damon and Brad Pitt), two tiny krill who were determined to change their destinies.  Their journey is an interesting one—one I found to be very poignant—and it’s the unconventional things like this that make me appreciate the Happy Feet movies.

That, and the singing.  Gotta love the singing.  This one even had some yodeling and opera thrown into the mix!

Hugo AWESOME!

This movie is definitely making it to my soon-to-come “fave fifteen” list of 2011.  I loved it!  Directed by Martin Scorsese and based off the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, Hugo is a fantastic family film that is beautifully cinematic, magical, charming and profoundly moving.  The story is of a young orphan named Hugo (Asa Butterfield) who lives in a train station in 1930s Paris.  His job is to keep the clocks running, but in his spare time he tinkers with an abandoned automaton his father found before he died.  When he meets Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz)—who happens to have the missing key he needs for the robot—the two begin to uncover some secrets of the past revolving around the girl’s godfather Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley).

And while it doesn’t sound like it from the plot description, the movie is a plea for film preservation and the perfect way to introduce today’s kids to the wonder of early cinema.  It’s also the story of a boy struggling to understand why he’s alone in the world and an old man wondering whatever happened to his life…  One of my favorite moments is when Hugo explains to Isabelle that he sees the world as one big machine.  “Machines never come with any extra parts,” he says.  “They always come with the exact amount they need.  So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn't be an extra part.  I had to be here for some reason.”

Arthur Christmas ADMIRABLE

Starring James McAvoy as the voice of the titular Arthur, this movie was a heck of a lot of fun and the final message was very well-received.  Arthur is the son of Santa (Jim Broadbent)—yes, the Santa—and he lives at the North Pole along with his mother (Imelda Staunton), brother Steve (Hugh Laurie) and crazy Grandsanta (Bill Nighy).  Steve is ambitiously revolutionizing the toy delivering system with state-of-the-art electronic gadgets and a well-trained crew of elves.  He hopes his father will retire soon and pass on the job to him, but when a tiny glitch causes just one little girl to be forgotten, it’s up to Arthur, Grandsanta and an elf named Bryony (Ashley Jensen) to save the day.

The character of Grandsanta is a hoot to watch and McAvoy infuses Arthur with a wonderful naiveté and earnestness.  The movie teaches us that it doesn’t matter how the presents get under the tree, just as long as no child is forgotten.  It also deals with family relationships among three generations of men and the trouble with passing the old over in favor of the new.

The Muppets AVERAGE

I was hoping to like this movie more than I did, but it was still pretty fun to watch and a welcome treat to have the Muppets back on the big screen again after 12 years.  The story is of a young puppet-boy named Walter (Peter Linz) who grew up feeling very different from his human brother Gary (Jason Segel) in their small town.  But when he discovered old episodes of The Muppet Show from the 70s, he felt like he connected with them.  Gary invites Walter to tag along on a trip to Hollywood he and his girlfriend Mary (Amy Adams) have been planning.   There they discover that an evil oil tycoon (Chris Cooper) is threatening to destroy the Muppet theater unless they can come up with enough money to save it.  The three embark on a mission to reunite all the Muppet characters including Kermit, Fozzie Bear and Miss Piggy to put on a telethon, save the theater and become stars again.

The movie began on a very high note for me, with lots of silly over-the-top musical numbers and plenty of laughs, but then dragged in the middle (oddly enough when the Muppets came in).  There are many celebrity cameos and a strong sense of nostalgia, but overall the movie seemed to be lacking something.  Perhaps it was due to the fact that this is the first theatrical movie to not have the voice of Frank Oz, so some of the characters—Miss Piggy especially—sounded a bit off.