The Black Hole (1979)

I watched this movie a couple weeks ago, and meant to comment on it then, but I got distracted and never got around to it. Well, now's as good a time as any to do so, and it's still fresh enough in my mind to recount the major points of the film I liked/disliked.

The Good

The robots V.I.N.C.E.N.T and B.O.B - though their design was a little too cutesy for my tastes - had lots of personality and were easily the highlights of the film.

Maximillian Schell did a great job as the villainous Hans Reinhardt

The special effects were excellent

The Bad

With the sole exception of Reinhardt, all the human characters were colourless cyphers - I couldn't even remember any of their names, not even Anthony Perkins'.

The film was thematically all over the place. It tried to be a serious, philosophical movie like 2001 while also trying to be whimsically adventurous like Star Wars, but only ended up a confused mess.

The Darth Vader robots were really, really uninspired and lame.

The Ugly

The score is a mixed bag. At times it was ominously great, while at others it fell completely flat (this is most notable during the gunfight scenes).

The Rugrats Movie (1998)

I'll say this right away - I'm a fan of the show; for the most part, it is a well-written and intelligent show (the first three seasons, anyway; the fourth & fifth seasons are a little watered down in comparison, and I'm not familiar enough with seasons 6-9 to comment on them), peppered with enough in-jokes and cultural references to make it entertaining for older viewers. This movie, though ... ugh ...

Gone is the quaint pathos of the series. Instead, we now have unnecessary musical numbers, a stupid subplot with escaped circus monkeys, scenes that go on for too long, and a horrible addition to the cast in the form of Dil. It's all just childish padding and filler, rendered in the most nauseatingly over-detailed, frenetic animation possible.

I do have a few nice things to say about this film, though; most of the humour revolving around the adult characters works, the parts with the wolf are pretty well done, and the scene where the family dog Spike seemingly falls to his death is moving.