The film starts with the original teaser, with a bus of US tourists in Egypt going to see the pyramids, and it turns out one has been stolen and replaced with a blow up version. We then return to america and follow the self proclaimed super-vilain Gru (Steve Carell) who we see making children cry. His assistant Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) calls to tell Gru of the theft, and that all other villains are now seen as nothing. Gru then plans his biggest heist, to steal the moon, by first stealing a shrinking ray. He heads to the bank of Evil, but is turned down for a loan by Mr. Perkins (Will Arnett) whose son it turns out is Vector (Jason Segal) who stole the pyramid, and who Gru freezes his head, making an enemy. Gru goes and steals the shrink ray anyway, with the help of his little yellow minions, but as they escape it is stolen from them by Vector, and Gru can’t get into Vector’s base. Gru sees three orphan girls Margo Miranda Cosgrove). Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher) get in while selling cookies, so he hatches a plan to adopt them to get into Vector’s base.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS...

Gru goes and charms the nasty Miss Hattie (Kristen Wiig) at the orphanage and adopts the 3 girls, but doesn’t know what to do with them at all, and they cause him trouble, but he does start to bond with them, even having fun with them at an amusement park.

Meanwhile Gru has Doctor Nefario build cookie robots to help with the heist, and with the girls unknowing help manages to steal back the shrink ray. Mr Perkins still refuses the loan, and Gru despairs, but his minions pitch in so they can build their own rocket with their own money.

Dr. Nefariio calls Miss Hattie and has her take the kids back, as they are a distraction to Gru, and he doesn’t want to let them go, but does.

The plan is taking place on the same day as the girls big dance recital, but Gru goes and steals the moon, but rushes back to the recital, but he is too late, and he finds a note that Vector has stolen the girls and wants the moon.

Gru gives Vector the moon, but Vector reneges and leaves with the girls and the moon, but the shrinkray turns out to not work forever, and the moon starts to grow as Gru follows. Gru manages to save the girls with the help of his minions.

Gru’s mother (Julie Andrews) is finally proud of Gru, as he has proved himself a better parent than her, and is now happy with his children.

•••

PRETTY LAME I MUST SAY! Just too kiddy with stupid jokes, and not enough good character. It sounds good on paper, but was not done like it should have been!

The creation of a scientist as small ragdoll like creature named 9 (Elijah Wood) awakens in a laboratory in a post apocalyptic world, finding a strange device, which it zips into it’s own body, and goes out exploring. Shortly 9 runs into another like itself, this one designated number 2 (Martin Landau) who is exploring. He tells 9 of others like himself, but is then captured by a mechanical beast made with the bones of a cat, which also takes the small device that 9 had found, and heads to a factory seen in the distance. 9 ends up finding an enclave of others like himself, first finding the kind 5 (John C. Reilly) who was best friends with 2, as well as the vision having 6 (Cripsin Glover) who constantly draws the device that 9 found, and the brutish 8 (Fred Tatasciore) who protects their leader 1 (Christopher Plummer), who tries to keep them from the outside world, knowing something that he does not tell the others. Against the wishes of 1, 9 convinces 5 to go with him, and heads toward the factory to try and save 2.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

The two new friends make it to the factory, and with the help of 7 (Jennifer Connelly) who shows up and cuts the cat beasts head off, they manage to save 2.

9 sees a socket that looks like the device he has retrieved from the cat, and puts it into it, missing the yells from his friends, and it activates, the Machine, which quickly steals 2′s soul away, killing him, and forces 9, 5 and 7 to flee for their very lives.

7 take them to see the other 2 exiles, the researching 3 and 4, and try to find out about the machine, but find nothing. They go back to see 6 since he draws the device, and talks about going to the source.

1 berates 9, and says that he will jut cause more trouble. The hideout is attacked by a new flying creature. They all manage to destroy it, but the base is destroyed, and looking for a new place to shelter a new snake like machine attacks, taking 7 and 8.

( goes to the factory and is able to save 7, but 8′s soul is taken by the machine. 9 and 7 run out as 5 sends a burning oil barrel into the building which explodes, destroying the factory.

They celebrate, but then the Machine comes after them, very much still alive, and 5 is taken by the Machine. 6 tells 9 that the device has the souls in the machine, and that he must return to the source, before his soul too is taken.

9 goes back to where he awoke, the source, where he finds out about the scientist that created them with the Talisman, taking parts of his soul. He had worked for a totalitarian regime, and created the Machine for them, but it’s use was perverted and he created the talisman, and the 9 to be the saviors of the planet, being 9 facets of his own humanity, the last humanity on Earth.

9 goes to get the device from the Machine planning to sacrifice himself, but 1 does it instead, so 9 can get the device, which shuts down the machine.

9, 7 , 3 and 4 set up a memorial for their fallen friends, with the Talisman in the center, we see each of their souls come out, and then rise to the sky, and it creates the first rain since mankind fell, seemingly restarting life on Earth.

•••

Weird ending, and if the souls were meant to restart the Earth, which didn’t it need all 9 of them to work? Just doesn’t make sense. And the ending is too short, but the visuals are fantastic.

This film as usual with Pixar films starts with a short film, this is called Partly Cloudy and is directed by Peter Sohn. And as usual the whole story is told without dialogue, which always works so well. This is the story of clouds in the sky who make baby’s, puppies, kittens, and other creatures for storks to deliver to expectant parents, but their is one different cloud named Gus who is a gray cloud, and all his creations are dangerous, from crocodiles, bighorn sheep and a porcupine, which his poor delivery stork Peck must deliver, getting well thrashed along the way. Peck finally flies away to another nearby white cloud. This makes Gus sad, and he cries and thunderstorms, but then peck returns, and finds that the other cloud made him shoulder pads and a football helmet for protection. Gus is elated and gives Peck an electric eel which shocks him right through the protective gear, but he flies off happily to deliver it, if a bit harried.

UP starts almost like another short film by them, with the love story of a young boy named Carl Fredrickson (Ed Asner), and the woman he will marry, Ellie (Elizabeth Docter). Carl’s hero is the famed explorer Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer) who pilots an airship, and who discovered a strange bird in a hidden South American locale named Paradise Falls, but his discovery was claimed to be faked, so Muntz headed off to get a live bird, and was not heard from again. Carl was a huge fan, dressing like him, and as an 8 year old he met the young tom boy Ellie who also loved Muntz, and they eventually married, always promising to go on an adventure, but life got in the way, and they never had enough money, especially working at a zoo with Carl selling balloons to children. They had a lovely life together, but Ellie never got to finish her adventure, where she wanted to move her clubhouse, and abandoned house, that they later bought and fixed up to Paradise Falls, and she died giving him the boom. Carl is then all alone in his house, and the city grows around him, with a big consruction going on around him. Their is one nice worker named Tom (John Ratzenberger who is in all Pixar films), but when Ellie’s mail box is crushed, Carl gets angry and hits a worker, and the developer is able to get the city to say he must give up his house and go to a retirement home. Carl is crushed, but he has an idea, and when the men come to take him away, he goes back in, and using all of his balloons, lifts his house into the air, planning on taking it to Paradise Falls. The one problem is that he has picked up an unsupecting passenger, a Wilderness Explorer named Russell (Jordan Nagai) who wanted to help the old man to get his last badge so he could become a full Wilderness Scout. Carl had sent the boy on a snipe hunt, and the boy had returned at the wrong time. Carl does not want to let him in, but they are up in the sky, and they must. Carl decides he must try and let the boy off, but that doesn’t work so well, an they end up going through a huge storm.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The unlikely duo must tie everything down so it does not fall out, and Russell manages to steer the house with his GPS navigator, and has gotten him to the other cliff on the other of the falls. By this time the house has lost many balloons, so the duo are able to tie themselves to the house and pull it along behind them while they try to get to the falls, then Carl will send Russell home via bus (what a fair that will be).

Russell talks to Carl, and starts telling him about his father who has left, and he doesn’t see much, but he promised to come if he got all his merit badges, so Russell is working hard to do it. On the way Russell and his chocolate end up finding a huge bird, which he names Kevin (not realizing it is a female), and the bird starts following them, much to crusty Carl’s chagrin.

Later they run into a dog named Dug (Bob Peterson) who can talk with the help of a special collar. Dug is send out to find a special bird. He is the laughing stock of the pack, and they have sent him out to get him out of the way, but it turns out he is trying to find Kevin.

Dug ends up being owned by Muntz, who has been trying to find the bird all these years to prove himself, and when Carl and Russell go and meet him on his airship, they are initially happy, but Carl realizes that Muntz wants to kill and stuff Kevin, and immediately wants to get away from Muntz and his pack of talking dogs led by Alpha (also Bob Peterson) whose color is broken and he talks comically high pitched.

Carl and Russell leave quickly with Dug and Kevin, but Kevin is hurt by Alpha during the escape, and Muntz is able to track them with Dug’s collar.

Carl and Russell plan on getting Kevin to her chicks.

Muntz sets Carl’s houe on fire, and must chose his house or Kevin, and Muntz is able to take Kevin with his dogs. Carl is able to get his house to where Ellie wanted it, but Russell is now angry with him.

Carl finds Ellie’s adventure scrapbook, and instead of being empty it has their whole life together in it, and it encourages him to have an adventure of his own. Carl is invigorated and goes to find Russell, but he has gone off to find Muntz. Carl starts dumping stuff from his house to lighten it, so he can after Muntz along with Dug.

Russell manages to get in the airship, but is captured by Alpha and the dogs. He is tired up and left to fall out of the ship, but is saved by Carl and his house, though he is kept tired up., Carl and Dug go in to save Kevin.

Carl and Muntz end up dueling with a sword and cane, while DUg takes control of the dogs from Alpha. Russell frees himself, but is is hanging from a rope connected to the house, and being attacked by dogs in biplanes. Russell is saved when Carl yells squirrel, distracting the dogs, but he is now battling Muntz on top of the airship.

Muntz shoots some of the balloons and the house lands on the edge of the airship.

Carl tricks Muntz into the house, while getting Russell out of it, and Muntz falls to his death, and his house drifts away.

Carl takes Muntz’s airship and returns Kevin to her Chicks, and then brings Russell back to the city. When Russell’s father doesn’t show up at his ceremony, Carl presents Russell with his last badge, giving him the grape soda badge Ellie gave him when they first met.

Afterwards Carl acts like a father to Russell living in his new airship. And we see the house has landed exactly where Ellie wanted it at the falls.

••••

Such a fun and lovely film (though I was surprised to see Muntz getting killed, I though he would be saved). Ed Asner is perfect as Carl, and Nagai does a great job as Russell. This is one of this years must see films.

Dark Matter, the fuel that runs all the spaceships seems to be in short supply and is driving prices sky high, which makes Professor Farsnworth (Billy West) that the ship can only be used when he says, and swallows the keys, but Leela (Katey Sagal) has gotten angry at some guys at a truck stop, and steals the ship to enter their destruction derby, and wins, but the ship is almost destroyed. So Leela is given a shock collar when she thinks violent thoughts, lies or sexual thoughts. Bender (John DiMaggio) meanwhile has joined young Cubert (Kath Soucie) and Dwight playing Dungeons & Dargons, and can’t play because being a robot he has no imagination. Bender tries really hard and imagines himsel a knight named Titanius Anglesith, and starts to think his fantasy is real, so they end up having to send him to the robot loony bin.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

Farnsworth reveals that the shortage is all a trick, as he used to work for Mom (Tress MacNeille) and was her lover, who made an experiment that made an energy crystal which makes Dark Matter into fuel, but it also created a dark crystal, which can cancel the good crystal, but he has lost it (and of course the kids are using it to play D&D). Mom sends her songs Walt, Larry and Inger to get the dark crystal, but fansworth gets it. They head to the mines, and find that it is not mines, but that Mom is feeding captured Nibllonians, who exrete dark Matter, and they have Leela’s pet Niblonian Nibler (Frank Welker) as well, who explains what is going on.

Ingus heard her mom’s darkest secret, and helps the others escape. Mom almost gets them, but Farnsworth swallows the crystal and gets near enough the other to resonate the dark matter, including that hidden in Bender, causing it to bring them all into Bender’s imaginary Cornwood world. Fry (Billy West) comes out, and Leela is now a Centaur, and they meet Bender who is Titanius. They three are chased by mom and Walt Larry and Ingus, and Fry drops the anti-crystal which rolls like a die, and brings out a special power, banishing the bad guys from the swamp.

They meet up with the Wizard GreyFarn (Farnsworth) and learn of the anti Crystal and how they must stop Momon (Mom) and destroy the crystals, and they must travel to her lair at the Geysers of Gygax.

They meet Hermes who is Hermaphrodite another Centaur, but they are all pacifists. They then meet up with Gynecaladriel (Amy (Lauren Tom) who is queen of the water Nympohs and can seduce anyone (even Leela)

They go into the Cave of Hopelessness and run into a giant monster that is Zoidberg and Leegola (Leela) kills him, but when she learns he is not a monster she runs off the rejoin her race. Frydo (Fry) rolls the die of power and turns giant and destroys the creature, then starts changing into a Gollum like creature.

They arrive at Wipe Castle, but find the king, the Robot Roberto has sent the army on a suicide mission, so they are only saved by Leegola and the centaurs who have finally come to fight.

Fry runs off, and meets Zoidberg’s head, which is still alive, and they head to destroy the crystal, and he drops the die and becomes a dragon like Momon. Igner reveals he is farnsworths son, and when he falls, giving the crystal to Momon, which collapeses the Cornwood worls.

Back in reality Farnsworth hugs his son Inger, and since they both swallowed the crystals the power of Dark Matter is killed, and noiw they no longer have power, and use the Nibblonians as sled dogs to drag the ship home.

•••••

Silly and ridiculous fun!

It is the year 2700 and the Earth has been abandoned by humanity, leaving behind an army of robots to clean up the detritus which covers the surface of the now dry and arid planet, but now their is only one left, WALL•E (voiced by the sounds of Ben Burtt) or Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class, and after being alone so long he has developed a personality. WALL•E is curious, playing with the junk, and collecting the best stuff, to bring back to his home, the vehicle he arrived in. And when he has problems he takes pieces off other dead WALL•E robots to replace his own parts. His only companion is a cockroach, and the advertisements of the Buy ‘N Large Corporation, which are solar powered, and not only tell of the former earth and all it’s waste, but also the fact that humanity left earth behind, and these robots to clean it up, and human’s were supposed to have a simple easy existence on the executive star-liner AXIOM and return to a beautified Earth. Something has obviously gone wrong though, and WALL•E is alone, until a ship shows up, and drops off a lone occupant, a robot with huge destructive capabilities, that is searching the Earth for something.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Wall is fascinated by this floating white robot, and follows it around, even when he is endangered, and eventually makes friends with the robot, whose name is Eve (Elissa Knight), though Eve won’t reveal her primary directive. She goes around scanning everything on Earth.

Eventually WALL•E shows her his home and his collection, including a video of human’s dancing and singing, and then his most recent prized acquisition, a plant in a shoe. This sets something off in Eve, and she changes and ingests the plant into her stomach, and then seemingly shuts down with a light shaped like a plant flashing on her chest.

WALL•E tries to take care of her, pulling her around with a string of Christmas lights, and keeping her safe in the storm, but eventually he goes back to work, compacting trash and making huge towers out of the detritus. WHile he is doing this through, the ship returns and picks up Eve, and WALL•E rushes back and jumps onto an outside ladder on the ship, blasting into space on a journey that will take him to the Axiom.

WALL•E gets into the ship, and follows Eve, who is taken by special priority to the ships captain, but WALL•E has a crazy time following her, crossing path with humans who live in floating chairs, with video screens in front of them, and living off a liquid diet. THey are huge and fat. And on his way WALL•E ends up making Mary (Kathy Najimy) and John (John Ratzenberger) to shut off their screens, and start to actually see the world they live in.

EVE is taken to the Captain (Jeff Garlin) whose only duty up till now was to make announcements to the humans, and now is given the plant protocol, which will send the ship back to Earth as soon as the plant is put in a special place in the ship, but strangely when the computer (Signourney Weaver) which looks strangely like HAL 9000 put into a ships wheel, opens Eve the plant is gone, and they blame WALL•E and send them both to the repair depot.

WALL•E sees Eve have her arm removed and being worked on, and goes to break her out, sending out a bunch of misfit malfunctioning robots. Eve takes WALL•E to an escape pod to send him back to Earth, but he doesn’t want to leave without her, but then another robot shows up, and strangely it has the plant and puts it in the escape pod set to destruct. WALL•E jumps in and grabs the plant, and manages to escape before the pod explodes, and is saved by Eve.

The ships computer sets WALL•E and Eve as the enemy, but they try to get to the captain, who realizes the computer is against him, and starts learning of Earth, and trying to stop the ships mutiny. He forces the computer to tell him why it is trying to destroy the plant, and it is because of a message from the BnL CEO SHelby FOrthright (Fred Willard) which said the cleaning of Earth failed, and told the ships computer to keep humanity out in the stars totally dependent forever. The computer attacks WALL•E and damages him badly and he and Eve end up in the scrap removal of the ship, and almost get ejected, and Eve tries to fix WALL•E, but their are no parts, but he reminds her of the spare parts on Earth, so she must get the plant into the computer to send the ship to Earth.

The robots head to get the plant in the computer, while the Captain fights the computer, who is willing to hurt the humans to keep them from getting to Earth, but WALL•E manages to wedge himself in the spot where the plant must go, so the humans, the reject robots and Eve can get the plant in the computer, and the Captain can shut off the computer, and the ship heads to Earth and lands.

The barely able to walk humans stumble out onto the barren landscape, ready to rebuild the planet, and Eve takes WALL•E to his house to fix him. She replaces his damaged circuit board and parts, but when she revives him, he is back to basics, just set to clean up, but she tries, and leans into him sending a spark, which re-awakens his mind, and the two can be happy together. In the credits we see Human’s and robots working together to rebuild the Earth. And after the credits we see a logo for the Buy ‘N Large corporation.

••••

What a wonderful little gem of a film. Really amazing. I loved it! So wonderful, heartfelt and uplifting, with a message in their about what we are doing to supersize and over-waste and destroy our planet. I hope Pixar has another huge hit on it’s hands!

This film starts out with Steve Rogers aka Captain America (Justin Gross) going on mission after mission, not caring about his life, and getting wounded, until General Nick Fury (Andre Ware) must take him off duty. And not even his number 1, Natalia Romanoff aka Black Widow (Olicia d’Abo damn she is doing this now?!?!?!?) can get him to open up. Meanwhile in the isolated African nation of Wakanda the son of the king T’Challa (Jeffrey D. Sams) returns from being educated to see an attack on his land, and his father the King T’Chaka (Dave Fennoy) goes out as the Black Panther to stop the menace. It is the Aliens from the last film, and Herr Kleiser (Jim Ward from the Stephanie Miller show, that Rocks!) is back and in from of his son T’CHaka is killed making T’Challa the heir. The Aliens want the heart of Wakanda. T’Challa breaks his country’s rules by going to find Captain America to ask him how to kill Herr Kleiser, but he can only say it is hard as he has killed him twice and he keeps coming back. Nick Fury wants Shield to help, but T’Challa can’t allow outside help, so he returns to Wakanda, while Fury secretly assembles the Avengers to see what they can do.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

The Avengers slowly assemble. Henry Pym aka Giant Man (Nolan North) is being an ass to his wife Janet Aka the Wasp (Grey DeLisle), being way too arrogant and they are having issues. Iron Man Tony Stark (Marc Worden) saunters in late. And Bruce Banner (Michael Massee) is now locked up because of his stint at the hulk, and the woman he loves Doctor Betty Ross (Nan McNamara) won’t see him, though is working on why parts of the Alien space ship are brittle. Thor (David Boat) is late, but finds of the evil from his father Odin (Dwight Schultz) and goes to help the humans.

The Avengers head to Wakanda and run into THe Black Panther, who agrees to go in with Captain America to see what they can do, but they are caught, and the elders take the throne from T’Challa.

And the other Avengers are attacked by Wakandans and are forced to leave. Captain America shows up with an Alien Prisoner, but the Captain is in fact the shape changer Kleiser, and their ship is destroyed and Jan is badly wounded.

Meanwhile a giant Alien war ship shows up in the air over Wakanda and puts a field around the earth dropping huge alien battle machines all over. T’Challa tries to get his people to get help, but they refuse, but the Aliens destroy their crashed spacecraft that was powering Wakandas defenses and the go for the heart of Wakanda which is an underground trove of precious vibranium which crashed in a meteorite. T’Challa asks Fury to come and help, and he brings the avengers.

Meanwhile the Aliens have attacked shield, and Betty with Banners help has made a gamma weapon that can defeat their vibranium, so she goes with Fury and Jan to Wakanda, and gives the weapon to Stark now dressed as War Machine.

Pym and Janet are fighting, so Pym shrinks himself which is dangerous and goes with Stark to the Alien ship, with Thor stopping the blasts to destroy it.

And Captain America and the Black Panther fight and kill Kleiser.

Giant Man manages to block for Stark so he can destroy the Alien ship and save the day, but is mortally wounded. He lives long enough to appologize to Jan.

The Avengers return to shield to morn, and Captain America finally opens up to Widow and they kiss, and Thor drinks with Fury.

****

Enjoyable. I really need to read this comic.

The film starts in the 1940′s as World War II has ended, but one branch of the Nazis have not given up, and they are sending in an army team led by the super soldier Steve Rogers also known as Captain America (Justin Gross). We learn these Nazi’s are working with Aliens and have built a nuke to shoot at the US. Iron man fights their Nazi leader Herr Kleiser (James K. Ward) who turns out to be an alien shape shifter, but doesn’t stop the rocket, so he jumps on it to stop it, battle Kleiser, and manages to destroy it, but falls into the icy ocean waters and is though killed. In modern times General Nick Fury (Andre Ware) leads a submarine with scientist Dr. Betty Ross (Nan McNamara) to recover the frozen Captain form the arctic ice. Fury and his agency shield is working on the super soldier program, and need the Captain to help as he is the only one the process worked on. The scientist Bruce Banner (Michael Massee) who is also the hulk is the scientist working on it. The Captain awakens into a world he doesn’t know. And the Aliens have returned, and without more super soldiers Nick Fury must try to form a team of Avengers of the Earths mightiest to fight them.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

Fury and his number 1, the ex Russian super spy Natalia Romanoff aka the Black Widow (Olivia d’Abo) go to recruit the best. The go to Anthony Stark (Marc Worden) to try and get his armored body guard Iron Man (who is secretly Stark). They go to the arrogant Hank Pym aka Giant Man and his lovely wife Janet Pym aka The Wasp. And finally the peace loving Asguardian god Thor (David Boat).

The team come together under Captain America who has been given a new Adamantium and Vibranium shield, but the first mission goes very badly with Iron Man getting pummelled and his identity being relieved. The team did not work out well at all.

They also find out that Banner has in fact only been working on the Super Hero serum to try and allow himself to control the Hulk, so they will have no more super soldiers, and when the Aliens attack, the team must come back together to save the Earth.

Banner injects himself much to his ex lover Betty’s chagrin and goes out as the Hulk to fight the Aliens, but starts to lose control.

And after the Aliens are defeated the Avengers must fight the Hulk, and are almost killed before Betty can calm him down and inject him with his own drugs to calm him down.

The Avengers are born.

••••

Enjoyable. I would still rather have this universe instead of an alternate one, but this was still pretty enjoyable overall.

The film starts with the Engineer Jim Rhodes (Rodney Saulsberry) is working for playball industrialist Tony Stark (Marc Worden) but having major troubles with a project to raise an ancient Chinese city of the Mandarin, with a group of revolutionaries attacking them and stealing their equipment, but Stark can’t be bothered. When Stark manages to extricate himself from a girl a a drink in a hot tub, he heads to a corporate meeting, where his father Howard Stark (John McCook), and the board of director’s votes to kick him out of the company for wasting money on the Chinese excavation (even though it has brought in 20 times that amount in investment from the Chinese government) and some secret project. Stark then hears from his assistant Pepper Potts (Elisa Gabrielli, British here, and so not interested in Tony) that the excavation was attacked, and Rhodey is missing, so Tony heads to China.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Tony arrives, and takes a convoy of tanks to the site, but they are attacked by the rebels on the way using Stark weapons, and he is captured, with a badly injured heart. And old monk and Rhodes make Stark an Iron Lung, and when he awakens they build him a small one that fits in his chest. The rebel leader comes in, and tells them that they will build him a device to re-sink the city, as they are a group determined to stop the Mandarin from rising again, and they have already killed everyone else. The only kind person they meet is the beautiful but troubled Li Mei (Gewndoline Yeo) who treats them well.

Tony and Rhodey work on making Iron Man armor, while pretending to make the device. The Monk gives Tony a map to the 4 rings of the Mandarin that were hidden by ancient Monks around the world, and then distracts the guards enough that they can get the armor working. Tony and Rhodey are going to escape, and try to get Li Mei to go, but she refuses, just wanting Tony out of their, though from an image, his armor may be the only thing that can defeat the Mandarin when he returns.

Tony and Rhodey return to the US, but a group of Shield agents (looking like the MIB) are there to arrest them for charges of weapons dealing, which they did not, but they escape, and with Peppers help get into Tony’s office, and into his secret lab, which is filled with already created Iron Man armor.

In China the elementals of the Mandarin have risen, and are causing havok as they go around trying to recover the lost rings of their master.

Tony takes underwater armor and heads to get the first ring, though he is attacked, and barely escapes. The second time he goes to a volcano and manages to get a ring.

He confronts his father and realizes his father sent the weapons that were stolen and construed as weapons sales. Li Mei appears, and Tony can no longer get to his lab, so they steal the plane he retuned in, with Tony’s first armor in it. Tony battles the elementals, and gets 4 rings, which he gives to Li Mei, and then fights the 5th elemental, but she puts them on heads into the temple, and raises the Mandarin. It seems she was always trying to bring the Mandarin back, as she is his last descendent.

Tony defeats the last elemental then goes in to find Li Mei, and finds her having raised the Mandarin (Fred Tatasciore), and must fight them both, but is losing until he convinces her that she loves him, and she takes off the rings and destroys the Mandarin once again, and the city sinks into the ground.

•••

YOU ARE KIDDING ME RIGHT? I CAN’T BELIEVE JUST HOW BAD THIS WAS! I AM NOT SURE IT COULD HAVE BEEN WORSE! WOW I REALLY REALLY HATES THIS!!!

A bunch of demons are louse on the world and a group of TIbetan Monks with supernatural powers are out fighting them including WOng (Paul Nakauchi) and the warlike Mordo (Kevin Michael Richardson). The have a hard fight, and put up tornadoes so humans don’t notice, but a prominent and arrogant surgeon named Doctor Stephen Strange (Bryce Johnson) drives by the battle and sees the strangers, but tries to dismiss it. He works at a hospital, but only wants to take the biggest cases that will be challenging and draw in money, having to be dragged down to the coma ward to help Dr. Gina Atwater (Susan Spano) with the rash of children in inexplicable comas. Strange begrudgingly touches one of the kids, and sees a vision of a flaming face with horns, and instead of helping anymore he stumbles out and leaves the hospital, but on the way he has visions of the face and the children in comas, and crashes his car in a horrible accident, one that will permanently leave his hands damages and ruin his life as a surgeon.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Strange spends all his money on experimental surgeries, but nothing will help him recover his hands, until finally Wong shows up and tells him that there is a solution in Tibet, but he must make it himself. Strange gets help from GIna, and trudges to Tiber, finding a holy mountain, where he finds Wong, who introduces him to the Ancient One, the current Sorcerer Supreme (Michael Yama). He is to begin work the next day and is given a cell, with only hay, told that comforts are earned.

Meanwhile Mordo leads Wong and the other followers on a mission to protect the Sanctum Sanctorum, the place where all the dimensions meet, and which 2 large creatures are going towards. The Ancient One ordered them to attack each with everyone, but Mordo disobeys and attacks separately, still defeating the creatures, but causing many deaths. All he wants is to become the Sorcerer Supreme and do it by being a warrior, which isn’t possible.

Meanwhile Strange has begun to work, first by scrubbing the floors with his damaged hands, and then dismantling a wall, but when he awakens the wall has returned, and he decides to leave, but the Ancient One, helps him to realize he has to come back, because the wall is in fact the problem in his mind with the death of his younger sister April (Tara Strong) who he could not save even with all his skills. Strange returns and realizes the impossible is possible, and the wall disappears, he is finally a disciple and his hands work again, and he is next in line to be Sorcerer Supreme, though he doesn’t know it or want it.

Strange begins training in combat under Mordo, but Mordo is too intense, but we learn Strange has a power very few have to absorb another’s magic, and he absorbs Mordo’s sword, but Mordo attacks again, and only stops when Wong stops him because he realizes he is out to kill strange, so Wong takes over Strange’s training, and once he is ready, they all travel to the Sanctum Sanctorum to view the closed gate through which the demon Dormammu (Jonathan Adams) is trapped, but seems to be sending and controlling other demons by some unknown means. When Strange sees Dormammu, he realizes it is the same face he saw in the dreams, so he heads to his old hospital to see what he can do, but Mordo goes with him.

At the Hospital Strange goes into the comatose children’s minds and is able to bring them back one at a time, but as he does Mordo goes into another child, and since he cannot be Sorcer Supreme makes a deal with Dormammu to help bring him to the Earth, and Dormammu comes.

The Ancient One gives Wong the necklace of the Sorcerer Supreme, the Eye of Agamotto to give to strange, and goes to fight Dormammu, but is quickly killed. Strange returns and doesn’t want to take the eye and become the Sorcerer Supreme, but that is why he must, so he does, and first fights and defeats Mordo. Then he fights Dormammu, and all seems hopeless, but Wong reminds him that Dormammu is a creature of all magic, so Strange uses his power to absorb magic, and sucks in Dormammu into the Eye, though many of his creatures still remain.

And we end with Strange and Wong, with Wong telling his new master of some new hopeful apprentices that they will need.

•••

I enjoyed it quite a bit. A good story, and good animation. As I said it makes me want to read some Doctor Strange,

The gang returns, Phillip K. Fry (Billy West), Bender (John Di Maggio), Leela (Katey Sagal), Amy Wong (Lauren Tom), Hermes Conrad (Phil LaMarr) and Professor Farnsworth (again Billy West), and this time they head to a nudist planet, where they all fall for some scammers and give out their e-mail addresses, and then get caught in Spam and Phishing Scams. And not only that but Hermes has an accident, and loses his body, it will be fixed, but for a while he will have to live in a jar from the museum, and her wife quickly goes back to her first husband, and Leela meets the technician Lars Fillmore a bald guy with a deep voice, and they quickly hit it off. Meanwhile they have lost all their stuff to spammers without Hermes to stop them, and professor loses the business, and Bender takes a spam that makes him under the Spammers control. The Spammers move in and smell knowledge coming from Fry’s ass. On it is a bender tattoo with the machine code that allows someone to travel back in time, so they use Bender to go back in time and steal things for them, until they have stolen all the wealth of Earth, and even Leela’s pet Nibbler (who is actually an advanced race) can’t get them to stop. They do realize that the copies of themselves made by the time travel are doomed to die though.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….

Once the scammers have stolen everything of value from human history, they decide to destroy the code by killing Fry and blanking Bender’s memory, but fry uses a mirror and the code to travel back to when he left in 2000, but they send Bender to kill him. Bender creates a duplicate so he can use the bathroom. The duplicate catches Fry, but overloads, so Fry stuffs him in a cryo tube before he can explosde. Fry leaves, and the original Bender returns and spends next 12 years trying to find him, and eventually blowing him and Panucci’s Pizza up, before returning to the future. The scammers then wipe the code and the virus from Bender. At Fry’s funeral, Fry shows up and is alive. He also created a duplicate of himself, which Bender killed, and Nibbler destroys the tattoo to keep it from the scammers.

Leela and Lars are getting along great and decide to get married. Fry wants to try and stop it, but it is when Hermes duplicate body is killed, and Lars learns that time duplicates are doomed, that he calls off the wedding, crushing Leela.

The scammers trick President Nixon to sell the Earth, and everyone must evacuate. The crew ends up on Neptune, where Leela organizes an attack force with Robot Santa, Quanza Bot and Chanukah Zombie, though Zap Branagan (Also Billy West) shows up and almost screws things up, but Leela takes over in time. The Scammers have built a fleet of gold Death Stars, but they plug Hermes and his bureaucratic mind into the fleet and he manages to win easily. The scammers then try to use the doom’s day device they got Bender to steal from the Professor, but he tricks them and double crosses them and uses it on them.

Leela trys to get back with Lars, but Nudar, the lead scammer shows up with a doomsday decice proof vest, and he attacks Lars because he smells the time code on his ass, meaning Lars if Fry. Lars gets the Bender from the time capsule out, and kills himself and the Spammer with him.

At Lars funeral he gives a message and tells his story of how the copy Fry became Lars, how he took care of a Narwhale and learned that he just wanted the one he loved to be happy, and how Bender didn’t kill him, but burnt off his hair and burnt his larynx, so he travelled forward in time because he realized he was Lars, so he could Marr Leela.

Bender removes the Tattoo and travels back in time to put it on Fry’s ass in the first place, but he brings all the copies of himself and causes a giant tear in the universe that destroys it.

••••

Just Awesome! FUTURAMA IS BACK!!!

The film starts as as a much over the top Disney Animated film in the country of Andalasia, with a poor but happy women named Giselle (Amy Adams) who sings and talks with all the animals of the forest, and longs to find her prince charming. That prince is Prince Edward (James Marsden) whose step mother is Queen Narissa (Susan Sarandon) who uses her sevant Nathaniel (Tomothy Spall) to keep the prince busy fighting ogre’s in the like, so he will never meet a princess and never become king. Of course Giselle and Edward meet and instantly fall in love, and plan on marrying the next morning, so Gisselle and her friend Chipmunk Pip (Jeff Bennett) head the castle, but Giselle runs into an old hag who takes her to a magical waterfall, and pushes her in. Giselle falls and comes out as a human in the real world, along with Pip, who can no longer talk, though can gesture very well, they come out of a manhole into the real world of New York City. There she wanders around, trying to find her prince, until she runs into a divorce Lawyer named Robert Philip (Patrick Dempsey) and his daughter Morgan (Rachel Covey). Robert wants to get her some help, but ends up taking this strange woman home, and letting her stay for a night. Meanwhile Edward heads to the real world, and Nathaniel follows to help the Queen who he loves.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Robert wants to get rid of Giselle, but realizes he can’t, as he is beginning to care about her, and she is helping him with his girlfriend Nancy (Idina Menzel) who he was planning on propose to, but who got pissed at him when she saw Giselle in a towel at Robert’s house.

Giselle can still call animals and uses them to clean the house, and can get them to help her, and starts a whole song and dance in the park (one of the best scenes in the film).

Eventually Giselle and Robert start to fall for each other, but then Edward shows up to take Giselle back home, but she doesn’t want to go back, she wants a date and to get to know him first. So they spend a day together, and then decide to go the ball that Robert and Nancy are going to, but the Queen has come to the real world to help Nathaniel to put her in eternal sleep.

Giselle and Robert dance at the ball, and are obviously in love, and the the Queen manages to put her into sleep, and almost gets away from them all with her, but Edward finds them. Edward tries kissing her to wake her with true loves kiss, but she doesn’t awaken, so Robert kisses her and wakes her, but the Queen turns into a dragon and grangs Robert and climbs the building and Gisselle has to climb and save him, which she manages to do. And Edward and Nancy hook up and get married back in Andalasia, and Robert and Giselle open a children’s clothing store, where she makes them princess clothes (there are running gags through the film of her cutting up the drapes or sheets to make dresses).

•••

Cute, but it could have been so much better!

The Simpsons family makes it to the big screen with Homer (Dan Castewllaneta who also plays Itchy/Barney/Grampa/Stage Manager/Krusty the Clown/Mayor Quimby/Mayor’s Aide/Multi-Eyed Squirrel/Panicky Man/Sideshow Mel/Mr. Teeny/EPA Official/Kissing Cop/Bear/Boy on Phone/NSA Worker/Officer/Santa’s Little Helper/Squeaky-Voiced Teen), Marge (Julie Kavner), their out of control son Bart (Nancy Cartwright who also plays Ralph/Nelson/Todd Flanders/TV Daughter/Woman on Phone), their precocious daughter Lisa (Yeardley Smith) and their baby Maggie (also Nancy Cartwright). And this time it is all about the environment. The local lake is so poluted it will be a national crisis if people keep poluting it, and Lisa tries to stop the catastrophy from happening. Homer though is estranging Bart, who is starting to yearn for a loving father like Ned Flanders, and Homer takes home a pig from Krusty Burger, and drives the family crazy with it, and stores the pig shit in a pig silo, which he eventually sneaks into the lake, and causes the disaster. The EPA as run by Russ Bargill (Albert Brooks) gets President Schwarzenneger to sign off on sealing Springfield in a giant dome, and the people find out it was Homer and turn on him to lynch him.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

CLICK TO ENLARGE ANY OF THE ABOVE POSTERS

Just as it seems all is Lost, little Maggie saves them by showing them a sync hole that leads out of the dome, and they just get out, as it gets sealed by their house which is smashed and fills the hole completely. Homer then convinced his family to run with him to Alaska, and they go to a fair, and he uses a motorcycle in a ring of death and wins the owners truck, and they head for a new life in Alaska. They see on TV an add by Tom Hanks showing a new grand canyon where Springfield once was, and Marge, Maggie, Bart and Lisa decide to head back and save Springfield, but Homer won’t go, and Marge decides to leave him, and tapes over their wedding video with her message to him.

Homer decides to go, but almost gets frozen and gets saved by an old inuit woman, who gives him medicine until he realizes that he must save other people to save himself. Meanwhile the Simpson family gets picked up by Russ Cargill and put back into the dome, which is total caos now. Everything is destroyed, and the town is completely in chaos. And Russ Cargill lowers a bomb into town. Cletus distracts Cargill, while the townspeople try to climb out, but Homer climbs up the dome, and slides in, dropping the rope, and knocking the townspeople back into the town. And Homer is now even more hated, but he has a plan. He wins back Homer from Flanders, and uses him to hold the bomb, while they ride a motorcycle around the dome to throw the bomb out, and manage to destroy the dome, and save the people of Springfield, who then rebuild their house.

••••••

A very fun Simpsons episode, though as I said I was hoping for maybe a little more, but still fun. And I love the digs at film students, Disney and so much else. I could not stop laughing when they revealed Bart’s Penis though. What a gag that was! Ha!

This is the story of a Remy a rat (Patton Oswalt) living in France with a pack of rats and his brother Emile (Peter Sohn) and father. He has a special nose and can smell ingredients and hates the garbage the rats eat, and wants to be a chef, but his father uses his talents to sniff out rat poison. The rats live in the attic of a house in the country, but Remy keeps sneaking into the house to get different spices, and he takes Emile with him, and they get caught and the old lady goes crazy, and starts shooting with her rifle and ruins the rats home, and they go to escape into the river, but Remy is seperated from his family, and winds up alone in Paris, and amazingly below the restaurant of his favorite chef Gusteau (Brad Garrett) who has recently died, but comes to Remy as a hallucination. Remy watches the kitchen and proves he knows all about it, and watches the new garbage boy ruin the soup, this is Linguini (Lou Romano). Remy falls into the Kitchen, and tries to escape, but can’t help himself and fixes the soup, which Linguini sees, and is told by the chef Skinner (Ian Holme) to get rid of the rat. The soup goes out to the customers, and instead of hating it they love it, and Remy is made a chef and put under the wing of the only female cook in the kitchen Coletter (Janeane Garofalo).

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

I

t turns out Skinner is waiting out Gusteau’s will, which if no family is found, will go to the souse chef, which is Skinner. Meanwhile Linguini doesn’t kill the rat and then realizes that Remy can cook, and they make a team. Remy moves in with Linguini, and started to train to pull his hair so he can control Linguini from under his hat. Linguini quickly becomes a star cook with Remy’s help, and eventually he and Colette fall for each other.

Skinner meanwhile is obsessed with Remy’s rat, and tries to find him at all turns, but doesn’t succeed, and Remy manages to find the will and proof that Linguini is in fact Gusteau’s son, leaving him the restaurant and kicking Skinner out, but Remy gets cocky, and the evil food critic Anton Ego (Peter O’Toole) says he is coming to review and ruin the restaurant. Linguini fights with Remy, and Remy brings his family in, all the rats to steal food because they had fought. Linguini ends up telling the crew about Remy, and they all leave, leaving just Linguini who gives up, and they are caught by the health inspector that Skinner has called, but the kidnap him, and the rats help Remy cook, and they decide to cook Ratatouille for Anton, and instead of hating it, he loves it, and gives the place a great review, but ruins his career, because everyone finds out about the rat, but Ego then opens a new restaurant named Ratatouille, with Remy as the chef and a place for all the rats to eat.

•••••

SUCH A FUN AND ENJOYABLE FILM! Really worth checking out, with amazing, amazing animation.

I have no idea who came up with this crazy concept, but it really works. They took characters from Disney’s Jungle Book, specifically Baloo (Ed Gilbert) who becomes a 1903′s Pacific Island Bush Pilot with his sea plane the Sea Duck, as well as Louis who owns the local watering whole, and the evil company owner Shere Khan (Tony Jay), and adding in a slew of new characters. We have Rebecca ‘Becky” Cunningham (Sally Struthers) who because Baloo was so lazy has bought his plane and business and made a cargo business, her cute daughter Molly (Janna Michaels), the wacked out mechanic Wildcat (Pat Fraley), the kid who becomes Baloo’s navigator Kit Cloudkicker (R.J. Williams), and the air pirate he once worked for Don Carnage.

This show is just plain fun. I love the plain stuff, and Baloo always scheming to buy back his plane, but never quite succeeding,with Becky coming up with crazy schemes that never work.

This is a great show!!

This is the adventures of the Gummi Bears a group of mythical talking bears that live in medieval lands. Years before in the past the Great Gummi’s lived along side with humans, but eventually human’s became jealous of their ways, and started to fight them, so the Great Gummi’s left on large ships to faraway lands, but in the Gummi Home under the ground of Gummi Glen, they left a group of Gummi’s to keep the place up, and make sure it is ready for the Great Gummi’s eventual return, but these gummi’s have lost many of their old ways, including their magic. Their only real leftover is Gummi Berry juice, which allows them to bounce, and they make from a special recipe using the Gummi Berries that grow all over in their forest. Gummi Berry juice also has another effect on human’s or ogre’s, which is to give them super strength for a limited time each day they drink it.

This is the story of the descendent gummi bears, Grammi (June Foray) the cook, Gruffi (Corey Burton) the stern older gummi who believes in the old ways, and is the one who has to fix everything, Zummi (Paul Winchell) the eldest who believes in reading and the library, and the great book of Gummi, Tummi (Lorenzo Music) the chubby gummi who worries mostly about food, Sunni (Katie Leigh) who is young and mostly cares about looking good, and finally Cubbi (Noelle North) the youngest, who wants adventure and to be a knight.

Cubbi ends up meeting a human, Cavin (Christian Jacobs, Brett Johnson, David Faustino, Jason Marsden) who has a great Gummi medallion and gives it to Zummi, which allows him to start using magic. He also ends up introducing the gummi’s to Calla (Angella Kaye) the kings daughter who becomes Sunni’s best friend.

The Gummi’s have many adventures and eventually meet the artist Augustus ‘Gusto’ Gimmi (Rob Paulsen) and even some of the Great Gummi’s, though they always stay in their land.

The enemies of the Gummi’s is Duke Igthorn (Michael Rye), who was once a royal, but left and took over the idiot Ogre’s and is always trying to take over the kings land, as well as capture gummi’s to use their Gummi Berry Juice to become super strong.

•••••

A fun show all the way around.