Batman Begins (2005)
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Batman Begins is possibly the best of all the Batman movies. It is certainly as good as any of the others and Christian Bale makes a good Batman. The movie shows you how Bruce Wayne comes to develop his fighting skills, gradually develops the whole alter ego concept and aquires all of Batman's great gadgets.

The movie is fairly well paced with lots of action and great special effects. Batman fans should not be disappointed by the film.

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
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Manny, Sid and Diego are still together and meet Ellie, another mammoth, who thinks she is a possum. Manny has come to believe he is the last surviving mammoth and so takes a serious interest in her. She and her two possum "brothers" join Manny, Sid and Diego in their journey to the boat.

Scrat, the squirrel, appears throughout the movie as he continues to try to catch and keep his elusive acorn and provides many of the best laughs in the film.

Overall. the movie is an entertaining good sequel to the first movie.

Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005)
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Mr. and Mrs. Smith was a better movie than I had expected. Although the previews were good, it sounded like a 15 minute plot dragged out into a full-length movie. However, the film had a good sense of humor and enough character development to make you care about how they were going to solve their delema. Plus, there turned out to be more to the plot than just the matter of them trying to kill one another. So in conclusion, I would say the movie is well worth watching.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
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This third movie in the series is good entertainment for the entire family. However, although better than the 2nd movie, it is still not as good as the first movie. The plot is surprisingly complex (especially for a Disney movie) and it is hard to keep straight all the different goals being pusued by the different characters. On the other hand, the humor was more true to the first movie than the 2nd movie. The 2nd movie seemed to have a lot of its humor aimed at kids, while the humor in this 3rd movie seems more aimed at all age groups.

As one might expect, the special effects are great and all the characters from the first two movies are back again in this one. If the younger members of the audience are unable to follow all of the plot twists, they probably won't notice or even care. Overall, the movie is well worth watching.

Also, make certain you sit through all of the credits at the end of the film. There is one final scene shown after the credits.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
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Not as good as the first movie and some of the ideas seem a bit worn as though they had tried to make it too much like the first movie. Nevertheless, the movie is still very entertaining. It is fast paced, full of adventure and all the original characters return for this movie. The special effects are also very good.

The movie is also more violent than the first movie. Although the first movie has its share of violence, the violence is more obvious in this movie.

Planet Of The Apes (1968)
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This is one of the all-time classic sci-fi movies. Although the idea was beat to death with sequels, a TV series, cartoons, etc., the original movie was great. The ape costumes are certainly not very good by today's standards, but for their time they were great. The plot is original, engaging and moves at a steady pace. The film keeps your attention and keeps you wondering how Chalton Heston's character is going to get out of the situation he finds himself in.

Whether you are a sci-fi fan or not, this is one of those movies that everyone should see at some point.

Poseidon (2006)
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Same plot as the Poseidon Adventure, yet not a remake of the original. New characters with new problems, different relationships and a slightly different escape plan. No preachers debating who God does or doesn't help and providing motivation for the lead character as in the original movie. The movie is fairly fast-paced and suspenseful.

RV (2006)
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Seemed too much like National Lampoons's Vacation, but not as good. Everything goes wrong that can go wrong and they meet a strange family living in an RV who they can't seem to be able to get away from. The movie is silly, but fun and includes some sophomore humor.

Spider-Man 3 (2007)
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Perhaps the Spider-Man concept is getting worn for me, but I did not care for this movie as much as the first two films. Certainly the special effects were spectacular, the acting was good and so was the writing. I also liked how Spider-Man had multiple villains to fight. Certainly the Sandman character is an interesting one.

Yet I somehow did not find myself enjoying the film as much as I thought I would. There are at least two situations in the film where the coincidences are just too unlikely to be believable, but then the whole idea of a Spider-Man is also unbievable. Consequently, those two parts should not have caused serious harm to the film. Perhaps I was simply expecting too much after seeing the first two films.

Despite my disappointment, the film is still good and worth seeing. Just don't go to see it with your expectations raised too high.

The Da Vinci Code (2006)
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The movie is fairly fast paced as Tom Hank's character tries to stay one step ahead of the authorities (who thinks he is the murderer) as he pursues a series of clues through France and England to solve the mystery.

The film is entertaining and the acting is good. However, fact and fiction are so intertwined you may want to do some research after watching the film in order to sort out the facts from the fiction.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
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I am a huge fan of the books by Douglas Adams and the old BBC television broadcasts of the story. Therefore, maybe I expected too much from this movie. It is certainly funny. There are a number of changes from the book, but Douglas Adams himself wrote the first draft for the movie and it is reported that he made many of the story changes himself. The story changes do seem to have his touch and I have no problem with them since they are funny and do not change the overall story outline.

Overall, the movie seemed too hurried. The movie felt too much like a music video. There were a number of times that they started off on one or the other of the book's many digressions, but then stopped halfway through it, causing the most humerous parts to be left out. Other parts of the movie, such as the part with the computer Deep Thought and the Vogon poetry reading part, captured the essence of the books yet were rushed through and caused much of the humor to be lost due to bad timing.

Despite my complaints about the movie, it is funny and worth watching. I suppose the people who would like it best are those who would like the books, but had never read them.

V for Vendetta (2006)
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I had never heard of this movie until I sat down to watch it. I therefore had no idea what to expect. I was pleasently surprised to find it to be the best movie I had seen in a long time.

The movie moves at a steady pace, the acting and filming is good, the plot is well thought out and it makes you care about what happens to the characters. Although the special effects are good, the emphasis is on the story. The story borrows a lot from George Orwell's "1984", while adding a lot of original ideas of its own to make a believable, or at least semi-believable, story about how Britain might be turned into a dictatorship. It is a movie that is well worth watching.

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