Superheroes and Fairy Tales

Over the past week and this weekend, I watched two cool flicks; Disney's superhero teen movie Sky High and the dark fantasy-period adventure, The Brothers Grimm.

Sky High stars a cast of new and veteran performers to bring a superhero-filled world to life. The film focuses on Will Stronghold, the teenage son of the world's two greatest superheroes (played by Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston. Aside from dealing with the fact that he secretly has NO POWERS, he has to contend with super bullies, finding his first high school crush and the decidedly negative way that his new alma mater segregates people into 'Heroes' and inferior 'Sidekicks'. A long-thought-dead arch villain's return and quite ingenious plot complicates things even further.

For a Disney movie, this is pretty cool. Some parts seem 'TV-movie'-ish, like some of the CG effects and some stage-play acting, but overall I had fun and there were some neat action effects. That and there's a guy named Warren Peace. Heh. Incredibles-lite... and that's really not a bad thing.

Dean and Nikki were raving about The Brothers Grimm, so I was really excited to watch this. Beforehand, I already wanted to see it thanks to the creepy atmosphere and premise which kinda reminded me of Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. Anyway, BG stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the titular siblings- two wandering con artists who poses as supernatural ghostbusters/witchhunters. Their exploits eventually lead them to being drafted by an evil French General (Jonathan Pryce) to investigate the disappearances of some children in a supposed enchanted forest. Some creepy atmosphere, bizarre manifestations of fairy tale conventions and Monica Bellucci as an evil queen make this a winner, as does the hilarious performance of character actor Peter Stormare (he played the Devil in Constantine and every cool Russian in movies, I think) as Italian psycho/torturer Cavaldi. The minuses are that there are some dragging bits, and the film takes its time to get to the meat of the matter. Otherwise, a happy ending to my weekend.

Both these flicks are showing right now. Catch them while you can!