Wall-E

The future. Earth has been abandoned by mankind because it's just one great big rubbish tip due mostly to the waste from products sold by a multi-national company called Buy N Large. WALL -E is a garbage collecting robot who has been left to clean up the mess. He is all alone except for a little cockroach, until a reconnaissance robot called Eve is sent to earth to see if life is once again sustainable. WALL-E falls in love with Eve and shows her a little plant he has found amongst the rubbish. As she is programmed to do so Eve takes the plant and shuts down except for a bleep while she awaits collection. When the space ship returns, WALL-E follows Eve on board because he can't bear to be apart from her. For the first time he sees humans. Discovering the plant, the ship's captain announces to his passengers that they can go back to earth, but the ships computers have other ideas.

A delightful, magical movie of high quality that all the family will love. Little dialogue at first but it doesn't matter because we are skillfully drawn into the story and before we know it WALL-E has captured our hearts.
4 elephants.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Alex O'Connell (Luke Ford) the son of mummy fighters Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evy (Maria Bello) O'Connell unearth the first Emperor of Qin with disasterous results.

You can't take a film like this seriously and you can't compare it to any other, because this is not what the film is about. It is simply a good 'ol family movie with great stunts. But we have to take issue with two things. Firstly, Rachel Weisz isn't in it and we missed her quirky take on the character. Maria Bello didn't bring anything to the movie. Secondly, c'mon now you casting people, are you serious? You cast Luke Ford as Brendan Fraser's son when in real life Luke is only thirteen years younger. The first thing we said when the movie started was that he looked way too old to play the son and that was a little distracting.

2 elephants

The Forbidden Kingdom

After getting knocked out during a fight, a Kung Fu obsessed American teenager Jason Tripitikas (Michael Angarano) wakes up in ancient China where he meets Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) and sets about freeing the Monkey King (Jet Li).

The Forbidden Kingdom unites two of the most well known Kung Fu masters in an epic trip across China. More Hollywood family fun than martial arts masterpiece this movie knew wanted it wanted to be. But it's a shame it didn't go down the Crouching Tiger or House of Flying Daggers route because it would have been amazing. Oh, and by the way, after spending five minutes in China, Jason miraculously grew a ponytail...how?

2 elephants.

Open Season

A happily domesticated grizzly bear named Boog, has his world turned upside down after he meets Elliot, a scrawny, fast-talking one-horned deer. They both end up in the woods during hunting season and it's up to them to rally all the other forest animals and turn the tables on the hunters.

We at Saturday Night Bright love animated movies, but this one is decidedly average. The story is weak, it's only 1 hour 23 mins (including credits) but hey! the kids will like it.

We give it 1 elephant.