"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" (2006)

Story wise--eh.  Parts of it seemed slow to me, even during some of the action scenes.  Some of the crucial pieces of dialog were impossible for me to make it no matter how many times I rewound it.  It may have been authentic dialect, but if the audience misses it or has trouble understanding it, it does you no good in your story telling.  And if the audience has to go "What did he say?", then they've been pulled out of the story world.  Not effective.  Does that mean I regret watching this movie?  Not in the least.  It's pirates after all.  That's just fun--or that's the character of these pirate movies.  But this one's not a re-watcher movie.

SPOILER ALERT:  The 3-way sword fight and the sword fight on the run-away water wheel was kind of fun.

Have I mentioned I'm not keen on cliff hanger stories?  I suppose this one gets away with it.  I'm still not keen on them.  This one gets away with it partly because, well, who wants a 4 - 5 hour movie without knowing what they're getting.

"The Prince of Egypt" (1998)

It had a disclaimer at the beginning warning about the artistic and historical license taken with the story.  I thought that was important to do, and important to do at the beginning.  It then pointed out for the true story to go read it in the Bible.  yes.  that.

Therefore, I enjoyed it.

It is a musical.  It has a nice balance of character drama.  And they did a nice job of condensing the plagues without leaving any of them out.

I don't know that I find the music any kind of special (other than subject matter).  I liked the story between brothers (Moses and Ramses) that they had in the story, and I liked Moses's various expressions, especially in the later part of the story.

"Smurfs 2" (2013)

2nd feature of a double-feature at the drive-in.  Not sure I would've chosen to go to this movie by itself, but that's the nice thing about features--you can find some pleasant surprises that way.  I hadn't seen the first Smurfs movie, but it wasn't difficult at all to follow the unique bits about this storytelling style.  The movie was nice.  I grew up watching the Smurfs as one of the cartoons we watched.  They did a nice job of the movie, I thought.  It was a mix of live-action and live-action-like animation (not sure how they did it).  Loved the cat Azrael.  It's worth it to see the movie just to hear and watch the cat--not that the other parts are bad.  They're nice, too; but Azrael is a treat.

"Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters" (2013)

Watched it at the drive-in, the first movie of a double feature for a great price.  I was fine with how they did the adaptation.  They had to make Tyson the cyclops a little less politically objectionable, but they kept his characterization pretty close to the book otherwise.  Doing such may have made less objections to him (by people who haven't read the book), but it took away some of the book's humor.  Nevertheless, it was understandable because if they'd stayed identical to or closer than they did to the language patterns in the book, there would've been some misunderstandings by part of the audience--and very understandable "objections" at that.  I'm attributing it to translating the story from one medium to another.  The book had to rely on speech patterns to convey some of the characterization.  Those speech patterns would've come across all wrong in the movie.

I liked the movie.  They finally had Clarisse in there.  (I know this is only Percy Jackson #2, but she should've been in movie #1.)

I liked it.  Yep, I'm still a Percy Jackson fan.

"Secrets of the Viking Sword" (2012)

This documentary had less research mystery and more skill/process sharing.  There were a few hints about trading speculation, but most of the mystery involved how it was made.  And the documentary wasn't so much problem solving that process as much as showing the trial run of testing that process out.  Very interesting.

"Mystery of a Masterpiece" (2012)

Is it a newly discovered portrait by Leonardo DaVinci or isn't it?  :)  Nova does it again.

"Mystery of Easter Island" (2012)

Because this is a Nova episode from PBS (that is, no commercials), the build up and hype to keep the audience wasn't needed.  This particular episode also managed to avoid both evolutionary ideas and "primitive" vs. "modern" culture competition.  It kept a nice flow of "here is what our questions were at this point; here is what we tried", "that failed; here's what we tried next", and "here was our next set of questions".  It also seemed to attempt to fairly present various theories--theories that disagreed with others presented and theories that supplemented other views with variations and additions.  I like how they kept going back to one of the oral traditions that dealt with the matter; of course, it involved the subject matter of what the whole episode was about.  The episode focused on two questions:  "How did they move the statutes (moi)?" with the theory as touched on in oral traditions of "walking" and "What was the cause or causes that lead to the decline of the population of Easter Island?"  Under an hour and nicely interesting.

"The Librarian: Quest for the Spear" (2004)

If you can get past the "stupid humor" aspects of the plot, it's actually a decent movie and can be pretty enjoyable.  If you're not in the mood for "stupid" plot/storyworld beyond believing, then it may just end up annoying you more and more as you go on.  Know what you're getting in for.  Having the brawn be female was a nice change.  Music in end credits was nice (but short).  Sexy saxophone music was predictable--been there, done that.

Why watch the movie?  The leading guy is kinda cute, and by the time he heads on his adventure, it's possible to be used to him by then.  Why else watch this movie?  Think of it as an action romance instead of an action movie or instead of a romantic comedy.  An action romance would bill it better.

As for its angle on humanity:  Seems to say that brainiacs are okay in their own circles, but the outside world will never get them.  Not sure I like that message.  It may be partially accurate.  It may even be presently accurate.  But I don't know that it means it's a message that should be perpetuated as "that's just the way it is".  Maybe there's no answer.  If you say other than what is, then you're dreaming and writing sugar-coated happy endings that aren't accurate.  If you say exactly what something is, then you're perpetuating the erroneous way of looking at things.  People who thrive on learning may be a minority of the population, but we should be working more to learn who they are, not relegating them to the margins because they're not the majority.

As for "Sherry, it's just a movie", that's how erroneous thinking happens.  It sneaks into things that are just for fun, or aren't that big a deal, until it IS how we think and it IS a big deal.  I don't think that means we should "avoid it like the plague" and not watch those movies or whatever.  I just think a person should be aware of what's being said and not get suckered into that line of thought.  Guard your thinking.  Ground yourself daily in the Truth.  Then go out and enjoy yourself, knowing how and where you stand.  Because that stand will show through when it's time to not budge and say back, "No, this is how it is."  It's one thing to criticize a movie.  But until you can produce something to answer back--with or without an audience--I question how much room there is to complain.  Produce something that keeps within your ideals, that also entertains, and that is a quality product--that's not as easy as it sounds to do.  And, no, "If they would just tweak ______, then it would be okay" doesn't count.