Movie Reviews: Monster House, Fool's Gold

I am behind on my movie reviews from the past several weeks. Today's reviews are from older releases since I don't ever get to a theater and tend to always be behind on the new DVD releases too. But anyway, here are my reviews for "Monster House" and "Fool's Gold"

A few Saturdays ago we pulled out an older animated movie, "Monster House". I can honestly say this was a weird movie. Although it was animated and hopefully family-friendly, there were phrases and ideas I really didn't want handed down to my children.

This movie is about a house believed to be haunted and eats toys, children and whatever else it wants to that may aggravate it. Three children set out to kill whatever it is that is keeping it alive and get to know the owner of the house to find out that he is really a prisoner of the house. The house was built for his very robust circus wife, who was killed and buried in the house accidentally. Her spirit inhabits the house and lashes out at anyone who may seem to make fun of the house as they did her in real life. The old man admits and realizes he is a prisoner to this house and along with the three children "kills the house".

I wouldn't recommend this movie if you are protective of your children and the language or phrases they pick up. I also would not recommend the movie if you disapprove of Halloween since this movie is based on preparing for Halloween so kids won't get eaten and has the Halloween theme in it. That aside, it was just a really weird movie I didn't really care for.

A week ago or so we rented "Fool's Gold" with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. We rented it based on how much we enjoyed "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" with these same two actors. Their chemistry was fun and enjoyable. There wasn't the electricity in "Fool's Gold" as there was in "How to Lose a Guy…". Although they were becoming newly divorced and you knew they would get back together, it was still dull. This movie was hard to follow from the history as they jumped from big find to big find and you couldn't really follow why the treasure was here or there. This movie was kind of lacking in general. The plot and characters were not well developed and it wasn't a real engaging movie. There was one funny thread throughout the movie that Jeff and I got a kick out of regarding one of Ben's (McConaughey) "skills". But outside of that, the movie was kind of a dud, far-fetched and disappointing. The movie had potential but missed the boat.