Transporter 3

Jason Statham hits the road again as the professional driver in Transporter 3 (Lionsgate)

By Janeane White

What is there to say about Transporters 3 (opening Novemver 26 throughout San Diego)? The movie itself was good but I preferred the previous films in the series. I'm not sure if it was because of the basic storyline or the need for even more action. There were plenty of amazing stunts and fight scenes and Jason Statham delivers an awesome performance as usual. The movie starts off with Frank (Statham) and his French detective buddy off fishing while some guy is running from the cops through the middle of town. Later on this guy ends up crashing through Frank's front wall of his house and Frank desperately tries to help once he realizes that the mad man is a friend of his. This guy tries to warn Frank not to take him away from the car but he doesn't listen. Apparently he and the girl in the car with him were equipped with a special bracelet that is an explosive and when you travel to far away from the car, BOOM! Frank is then taken hostage and told that he had to complete the mission that the previous guy failed. He unfortunately agrees and then the journey begins.

This movie had a lot of amazing action but I still feel like it could have been better. Overall I do think it was a great movie but like all sequels, I feel that it lacked in comparison to the original. There wasn't as much action and all the rules that Frank tried so hard to up hold, he breaks in one way or another. I felt that it was a different guy then the one that all of us are used to seeing up on the big screen. Frank was still the overwhelming bad boy but I felt that he lacked some of his well-known fierceness.

--Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.

Teen Critics Enjoys Four Christmases

Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn enjoy Four Christmases (New Line)

By Janeane White

Four Christmases (opens November 26 throughout San Diego) is an amazingly funny movie. It's about this couple -- Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) -- that has been dating for three years yet still don't know each other as well as they think they do. Every year they go on some vacation around the world for the holidays and make up some lame excuse to tell their families as to why. They claim they are helping children in third world countries make quilts or are helping vaccinate people on some island because you see "you can't spell families without lies," as brad and his family would say. Every year for every occasion there is a different excuse. This year they plan to go to Fiji but their flight gets cancelled due to weather problems. to make things worse they end up being filmed for the news about their cancelled flight. Their families see this footage and immediately start calling and arranging for them to come over and spend the holidays with them. This leads to them learning things about each that they thought they would never speak about again. Kate learns Brad's real name and Brad learns Kate isn't what she used to be.

I loved this movie! It was hilarious. The lines that were said and the things that these characters had to endure were great. Vaughn and Witherspoon made such a perfect couple too. They believed in the same views and they totally loved each other. They both agreed that marriage wasn't for them but through the movie you see a change in their point of view. I think that it's important for couples to know everything about their partner and sometimes it's necessary. This movie does a good job of showing how most people grow up in insane households and that everyone has some sort of embarrassing past. These two just take it to the extreme though. When most say their family is crazy, it's usually an overstatement. But in this case it is true.

I think that if you get a chance to see Four Christmases (rated PG-13 for some sexual humor and language) you definitely should. It was a great film and kept me laughing pretty much the whole time. I give this film a thumbs up!

--Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.

Teen Critic Prefers Twilight as a Book

Director Catherine Hardwicke, actress Kristen Stewart and author Stephenie Meyer on the set of Twilight (Summit)

By Janeane White

Twilight (opened November 21 throughout San Diego) as both a movie and a book is an overall excellent story: A young clumsy girl falls in love with the most dangerous person she could ever meet and gets in to even more trouble from there.

But I felt that the book and the movie were almost two entirely different stories. The movie had changed important scenes and added extras just to make it more appealing to the audience. But that was unnecessary because it was already primed to be a massive movie hit because of the books' success. Millions of girls and women turned up to see the film in hopes of seeing what they have been picturing in their minds to be this amazingly hot vampire family with this ditsy chick. I felt that the book was perfect all by its self. Some of my favorite chapters in the book were distorted in the movie and it seriously disappointed me. I know that filmmakers can't adapt every detail from a book to the movie because the movie would be extremely long and people would lose interest.

Towards the end, huge chunks of the book where skipped and some of these chunks are important. In the end the scenes were chopped up and edited even more, making the movie feel rushed. It was two hours long but I felt like it was only half of that and that the movie should have been made longer. My favorite two scenes from the book are when Edward takes Bella to the meadow for the first time on their first real date and he kisses her for the first time. The second scene is when Bella tells Edward she isn't scared of him at all in his room -- he crouched, growled, lounged and attacked her in a kidding manner just to show how strong and powerful he is. In the movie Bella and Edward ditch school when she confronts him about knowing what he is. They run through the woods and magically find this meadow where they just laid together. The first kiss, which was suppose to be there, was in her room and it was suppose to be a bare touch of lips. But in the film it was much more then that. In the book that would have been to much because Edward doesn't have that kind of control. This aggravated me. In the other scene, instead of him attacking Bella, he basically flew into the trees with her on his back. I was mad at how the fight that Edward had with James (the bad vampire) to protect Bella wasn't in the book either. They added it for entertainment purposes.

Overall I was disappointed in Twilight (rated PG-13 for some violence and a scene of sensuality), especially in Edward. I had pictured some extremely hot guy with a velvet voice and when I saw who played him in the movie the first thought that came to my mind was "what a let down." I just thought everything was wrong and I wish I didn't see the movie. For people who have read the book, expect a disappointment. For everyone else, this might be an acceptable movie. It has a good storyline and it's cute. It really is a good movie but it's nothing in comparison to the book.

--Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.

Twilight Impresses Teen Critic

Kristen Stewart is Bella and Robert Pattinson is Edward in the eagerly anticipated adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (Summit)

By Lily Canones

Twilight (opening November 21 throughout San Diego), one of the top selling books across America, is written by Stephenie Meyer. Now it has become a major motion picture. Twilight is a story about a pair of star-crossed lovebirds, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) who, at first, become friends and then happens to fall deeply in love with each other. It's that typical romance story between two teenagers. The only odd thing about it is that Edward is a vampire. Even though that is a factor that Bella discovers about him, she doesn't care one bit who or what Edward really is, the only thing that matters to her is that she is "unconditionally and irrevocably" in love with him.

I'm not much of a bookworm, so reading books is a rare thing for me to do. When I first heard of Twilight, I just said to myself, "Oh, it's just another book." But when a lot of people began buying and reading the book, it made me want to read it too. I have read only a portion of the first book because of a busy schedule but so far Twilight has completely drawn me in.

Because I haven't finished reading Twilight, there's very little I can compare to the movie. So far, the scenes from the book are the same in the movie, as is the storyline. I do know for a fact that there are some parts in the movie that are added while others are taken away from the book.

The movie Twilight was absolutely amazing! I personally give it two thumbs up and highly recommend it for everyone. While watching the film, I felt so drawn into it just like the book. The audience too was also drawn in, and added some enthusiasm with their squeals and screams at various points in the movie. But since I was so into the movie, the noise didn't bother me at all. I felt a rush of excitement while watching the movie and that made me more excited about reading the rest of Twilight and the rest of the Twilight Saga. I do want to say that the director, Catherine Hardwicke, has done an excellent job in choosing the actors for Edward Cullen and Bella Swan. She has also done an excellent job in making the book into a film. I really do consider Twilight as now my most favorite vampire romance movie of all time. Go watch it, it's totally worth some cash.

--Lily Canones is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She became a Teen Critic because she wanted to share her perspective and opinions on new movies. She loves horror movies and Asian movies. Most of the horror movies she watches are originally from Asia and she counts the original Thai version of Shutter as one of her favorites of all time.

Pride and Glory Delivers Mostly Formula for Teen Critic

Edward Norton plays a cop in Pride and Glory (New Line)

By Janeane White

Pride and Glory (currently in San Diego theaters) is another one of those films about good and bad cops fighting drug lords but then joining them. This particular story is about a family of cops. The father was in the NYPD, and has two sons that grow up to drive the black and whites. His daughter also married a man in a blue uniform. The son-in-law (Jimmy and played by Colin Farrell) is under the command of the oldest son. But Jimmy's dealing drugs and killing people behind his brother-in-law's back.

There is a lot of blood from cops beating people up but at least in the end there is justice. The truth about the corrupt cops is discovered, and the people take the problems into their own hands. I felt that the movie was long and drawn out. There weren't many fight scenes. Sometimes hardly anything was happening and I lost interest. I felt like I had seen this movie before in others that have come out in the last few years. And movies like Body of Lies and Max Payne that just recently came out in theaters. There are several more that have the same underlying plot about bad cops. Overall, I was not impressed. There was extremely foul language and every other word seemed to be the f bomb flying out. It became annoying and irritating. I eventually lost interest with the whole movie. I'm not a fan of the overuse of foul language. I understand that this movie is rated R but still, the bad language is just overdone. Another thing I didn't particularly care for is that how could the brothers not see what was going on with each other? How could the commanding officer not know that practically his entire unit was acting as if they were above the law? These cops wanted to run all this covert activity to get money and drugs. But for what? To lose their badge and their honor? These cops sold their pride and their glory of being a cop to the highest bidders. These guys loved nothing more then being cops but what is the point if they really aren't being cops, but bullies? I didn't like this movie because I have seen this movie, or at least the storyline, way too many times.

In my Film as Lit class we are watching movies within the film noir unit and I see even more of the same type of films made 20 to 40 years ago -- bad cops doing bad things to make a profit. This film is not one I would recommend people wasting their money on seeing. If you want to see the horrible justice system then go to Blockbuster or Hollywood Video and rent almost any other cop action movie and see the same thing.

--Janeane White is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She enjoys movies and spends all her time at the theater. She is also interested in special effects makeup done in the movies. She is an honors student and is currently working towards early graduation. Some of her favorite movies include Queen of the Damned, Hellboy, The Descent, the Underworld series, and the Saw series.

Teen Critic is Thirsty for More

Lina Leandersson is a 12 year-old vampire in Let the Right One In (Magnolia Pictures)

By Jason Lacsamana

Let the Right One In (now screening at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas) is definitely my favorite vampire and foreign film so far this year. Let the Right One In is a Swedish film originally called Låt den rätte komma in. It was directed by Tomas Alfredson and written by John Ajvide Lindqvist . The film features a 12 year-old boy named Oskar who is often bullied at school until he meets an unusual girl named Eli. After meeting Eli many strange things occur as he discovers just how different she is from other girls. Their friendship soon turns into love as she helps him with his problems with the school bullies.

Let the Right One In is definitely a must see. The film definitely doesn't lack the gore that should be found in a vampire film while still being able to hold up a wonderful story line. The film is considered to be a drama/horror/romance which I can reasonably agree with. The film often had me asking myself "WTF?!".The horror parts really had me on the edge of my seat. I found that the storyline was a romance story and although I'm not a big fan of romance stories I enjoyed this one. What makes the romance story in Let the Right One In different from most romance story was the blood and gore that complimented it.I suppose it just gave it that film noir touch which I ever so enjoy.

I must congratulate the main actor and actress for their spectacular acting.I started feeling like the characters were actually real, that's how great their acting was. Oskar is played by Kåre Hedebrant and Eli is played by Lina Leandersson, it seems like this is their first film and I can't find too much information about them but they seem fairly young. Despite their age I found them to play their parts wonderfully.

If there is anything I could ask from this movie it would be for more. I'm dying to know what happens next. A sequel is definitely something I'm looking forward to but I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Regardless of whether or not there is a sequel I still highly suggest you watch this film while you have the chance, I find it is definitely worth its ticket price. Definitely a film you'll want to sink your fangs into.

--Jason Lacsamana is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. He says he wants to be a Teen Critic because he loves watching movies and loves to critique them but never really had a way of sharing his critiques.He cites zombie movies as his favorites of all time.

Teen Critic Likes To Move It Move It, Madagascar 2 That Is, To Top Films of This Year

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa gets another thumbs up from a KPBS Teen Critic (Dreamworks)

By Jason Lacsamana

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (in theaters November 7 in San Diego) is one of the best films I've seen this year. The film features our four favorite New York zoo animals Alex, Marty, Claudia, and Walter finding themselves on yet another epic adventure in a foreign land. This time our friends find themselves stranded in Africa, which at first seems like a wasteland but soon becomes a long lost paradise.

I really enjoyed watching this film and I highly recommend it to others especially to parents with young children or older brothers and sisters with younger siblings. The film had a lot of moments that I even found amusing which is a bit of a surprise because I'm more into the darker side of humor. I can't comment much on the animation of the film because it wasn't really anything too special; it was pretty basic animation. Although I did find myself forgetting that it was animals in the movie not humans. The acting in the movie was good enough to make me forget that. I found the movie to be a great success with great acting, a great storyline, and very funny moments. I would definitely say that it's worth the money to go see it.

--Jason Lacsamana is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. He says he wants to be a Teen Critic because he loves watching movies and loves to critique them but never really had a way of sharing his critiques.He cites zombie movies as his favorites of all time.

Madagascar 2 a Fitting Sequel Says Teen Critic

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks)

By Lily Canones

Madagascar 2; Escape 2 Africa (opening November 7 throughout San Diego) was a story of the four animal friends, Alex, Marty, Melvin and Gloria attempting to go back to New York and going back to their old lifestyle of living within the zoo. Unfortunetly, on their way over to New York, their plane experiences some "techinical difficulties" and the four infamous, mischievous, penguins (as I would describe them) discover that the plane runs out of fuel. Their solution --  crashlanding in Africa. Throughout the movie, Alex, Marty, Melvin and Gloria all experience many things. For example, they discover their true feelings for each other. They also realize the importance of friends and family relationships as they await the repairs on their airplane.

Madagascar 2; Escape 2 Africa (rated PG for some mild crude humor) was a funny movie with that touch of love revolving around the storyline. If you enjoyed the first Madagascar, you will love Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa.

--Lily Canones is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She became a Teen Critic because she wanted to share her perspective and opinions on new movies. She loves horror movies and Asian movies. Most of the horror movies she watches are originally from Asia and she counts the original Thai version of Shutter as one of her favorites of all time.

Madagascar 2 Put This Teen Critic to Sleep

The gang's all back in Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks)

By Darren Buchanan

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (opening November 7 throughout San Diego) is your typical kids movie -- you laugh and say, "Aww!" But there is no twist, no suspense or anything new. In this movie, you see Alex the Lion as a baby and find out how he ended you in the New York zoo in the first place. It picks of from the origanal Madagascar film in the jungle. The main animals Alex, Marty, Melman, and Gloria are trying to get back to New York by plane but the plane ends up crashlanding in Africa. They all run into a watering whole were Alex meets his long lost parents. Alex has to prove himself to the tribe by fighting another lion to prove to the tribe that he is a man, or else he will be banded form the tribe for life. Alex fails the test and his father, who is the Alpha-Lion, is the one who needs to ban him. But can his father do this to his own son?

Meanwhile, the watering hole runs ot of water because of a dam built up stream by humans. So Alex and his father go up stream to take down the dam. They fight the humans and their efforts might just win them a place back in the tribe.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (rated PG for some mild crude humor) is a predictable family film. It's somthing you take your kids to but it's not for teenagers. It is funny but eventually funny isn't enough. I started to fall asleep toward the end because since I've seen plenty of kid movies I knew the end was going to be another happy one.

--Darrin Buchanan is a seventeen-year-old senior at Mount Miguel High School. His main hobbies are theater and speech. He's also a member of the varsity speech team and a part of all the theater productions at school. He loves going to movies and is looking forward to sharing his views with others.

Teen Critic Says Role Models is Hilarious

Seann William Scott and Paul Rudd deal with Jane Lynch in Role Models (Universal)

By Lily Canones

Role Models (opening November 7 throughout San Diego) is a story about two friends, Danny (Paul Rudd) And Wheeler (Seann William Scott), who work together in advertising an energy drink and end up conducting wild behavior. Their punishment -- work off 150 hours of commmunity service hours in a Big Brother program mentoring kids. Both are assigned to a kid: Wheeler, the very outgoing one, gets stuck with Ronnie, a want-to-be tough 10-year-old boy who happens to curse a lot for his age. On the other hand, Danny, the one who hates his life and has no joy in it whatsoever, gets stuck with Augie, a nerd who is absolutely obssesed with the fantasy world of Medival times. Throughtout the story, Danny and Wheeler go through many hardships but at the same time, they learn the importance of many things in life from Augie and Ronnie despite the many hours they had to work off.

Role Models (rated R for crude and sexual content, strong language and nudity) is a hilarious movie and I highly recommend it as a "must-see." I really enjoyed the storyline and especially Bobb'e J. Thompson's character Ronnie -- his cursing so much and his obsession with women (despite the fact that he's such a young kid).

--Lily Canones is a senior at Mount Miguel High School. She became a Teen Critic because she wanted to share her perspective and opinions on new movies. She loves horror movies and Asian movies. Most of the horror movies she watches are originally from Asia and she counts the original Thai version of Shutter as one of her favorites of all time.