qz thoughtsGnomeo and Juliet
My wife had an art opening to attend last night, and so to make the kids excited not to spend the whole evening there, I took them to a movie, the newly opened Gnomeo and Juliet. I saw the 3-D version, because that's what was playing at a good time.
The movie does not attempt to conceal that it is a rewriten Romeo and Juliet, it opens with a gnome on a stage reading the introduction to the play — with a hook fashioned from a coat hanger trying to pull him off stage.
The story is a basic outline of the famous tragedy, here made into a comedy, acted out by plaster lawn gnomes (mostly) that come alive when no one is looking in the same way the toys of Toy Story do. These gnomes won't survive a long fall though, and death by shattering is a reoccuring worry.
Overall it's mildly funny, entirely harmless, and needlessly 3-D. Some famous musician did the music and you can tell.
Two pink plastic flamingos out of four.
Before the movie there was a trailer for a IMAX wild baby orphan animals something or other. It was one of the 3-D trailers and it put the rest of the 3-D experience to shame. This was not an IMAX screen, so the trailer itself wouldn't have been IMAX, but still it was very beautifully shot, crisp 3-D, beautiful details in every corner of every shot. Whatever the interest or value of the story, the filming looks gorgeeous enought to justify seeing it.
I was not impressed by the Cars II trailer, but many Pixar trailers have not impressed me and I've still liked the movie.
Final thought: can't remember any other trailers