Saving Mr Banks

SF: You don't have to have seen or love Mary Poppins to watch this film but it will help. That aside this is a genuinely lovely film for the most part. There are some very emotional scenes and a number of touching moments. The director manages to blend the present sequence of events and memories in a nice fashion that isn't too condescending to the audience. Emma Thompson superb and rather understated performance is rather refreshing. The film manages to be moving and funny in just the right measure. 7/10

50 Eggs: n/a

DonkeyB: At the time I thought this was great fun, but I have to say as I've sat on this review for several weeks, I'm less and less enamoured with the film. I know I am biased against Mr Farrell, in fairness I did have to sit all the way through both 7 Psychopaths and Total Recall, but part of me was with the noisy German behind me who talked all through the film, dropped his change on the floor part way through (etc) when he took to shouting "why don't you just die already" every time poor Colin appeared as Mrs Travers' father. Way too much Australia. In the end however good Emma Thompson's performance (I would pay to watch her read out the phone book, but not Jane Austen) I was left wondering, to what end? 5.5/10

Overall: 6.25/10

Brave

SF: I saw this in 2D and I can't see what on earth 3D would have added. Animation wise this was perfect. Parts of the scenery looked photographic. The story wasn't what I expected and had a lot of lovely parts, on the whole it delivers what Pixar fans would like. I thought the mother daughter relationship was handled rather well but at times the plot did feel a little strained. The triplets are a fantastic device, they made this film, I'm not even sure if they ever speak! Very entertaining and well worth a viewing on the big screen. 8/10

The little short screened before the movie (La Luna)  deserves 10/10

50 Eggs: Pixar's fall from grace is complete with this merely very decent film. Brave is never less than entertaining and has plenty of funny moments and exciting set pieces, but the story and characters are nothing to write home about. It'll do though. N.B some scenes were too dark with the addition of 3D glasses. Why is this technology being inflicted on us before it's ready? 3D is the future, I get it, but if I have to pay extra for it now, I want it to work now (grrr). 7/10

DonkeyB: SF is correct, as so often with Pixar the short before the film was as good/better than the feature. Brave itself is a bit strange in that it feels like two different films really. The animation/ design is stunning, in that its Pixar so the bar is already high and I was still surprised by how great it looked... and yet all the male characters seemed to be from asterix while the women characters were from Disney; which added to the two films feeling. I'm not sure there is much there in terms of story and the script is nothing like as witty as the best animations. 6.5/10

Overall Brave: 7.17/10
Overall La Luna: 10/10