The film starts out with a soldier named Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington) being transported to a planet called Pandora. Sully is crippled in the legs, so he uses a wheelchair. But when he is transformed into an avatar he can use his legs. The main plot is basically that Earth invades Pandora and one soldier tries to take a stand for it.

If I had to give this movie a grade, it would be a B+. This movie was very good, it had outstanding acting, and had good story line to it. But I’m giving it a B+ because of the graphics. To me, the graphics were too over the top. It had a nice “outer coating” to it, but if you look closer, they just seem really over done.

Also, the movie was kind of long, it was like three hours! To me, it did not need to be this long. Or with it being this long, they could have had more of the story told in the movie. Although I am saying these thing in my review, do not let it make you NOT go see the movie– It’s a really good one! I would recommend it to anyone.

One more thing, if you are planning to see this movie in 3D, don’t. There are barely enough effects that make it worthwhile to see in 3D. Save your money for popcorn!

by Zyhir Brown, 7th Grade
Editor-in-Chief / THE LION LEDGER

MCT is a joint venture of McClatchy and the Tribune Co.

“New Super Mario Bros. Wii” takes that success and expands it, shoring up weak points from the first game and adding new features that have never been in a “Super Mario Bros.” game.

Like “New Super Mario Bros.,” the game’s visuals are in 3-D but arranged on a 2-D plane, so the game play is similar to the classic “Super Mario” games.

The game feels most like a mixture of “Super Mario Bros. 3″ and “Super Mario World,” from the return of Bowser’s seven Koopalings to the haunted houses in several worlds. There’s an ice world, a desert world, deep caves and high clouds– in short, a variety of locations that will seem familiar to longtime players of the series but are presented in new and interesting ways.

Also interesting are the new items Mario and Luigi can find, from the Propeller Mushroom, which can be used for short flights upward, to the enemy-freezing Ice Flower and the new Penguin Suit. The Mini Mushroom that shrinks Mario returns from the DS game, along with the standard Super Mushroom, Fire Flower and Starman items. Hungry dinosaur Yoshi appears, as well.

These items are all useful in getting through the game’s numerous courses, which start out fairly easy but get harder. The game is tough in the old “Super Mario Bros.” way.

It’s easy to blunder into a pit or enemy, but players who plug away at a tricky stage will usually find the way through– if not, the new Super Guide will show them the path. Collecting Star Coins in each level allows players to buy hint videos.

But the most dramatic addition is a concept that’s been around for decades: cooperative play, which has never been seen in a “Super Mario Bros.” game. Up to four players can run, hop and bop through any of the game’s levels, which adds a new dimension to the proceedings.

It’s tricky to make jumps onto narrow platforms when playing solo; it’s trickier when multiple players are bouncing off each other or accidentally on purpose throwing Koopa shells at their allies. Multiple players can pick up and throw each other, pound the ground for a screen- clearing blast, and use each other’s heads as springboards.

While in standard multiplayer mode, the characters are meant to work together, there are two modes in which they compete. Free-For-All ranks players at the end of each stage by score, coins and enemies bopped. Coin Battle uses only coins as the deciding factor.

Nominal teamwork– or at least noninterference– is still needed to get through stages in these modes, because if everyone dies, game over.

NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII

• Publisher: Nintendo
• System: Nintendo Wii
• Price: $49.99
• Age rating: E for “Everyone”

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© 2009, The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, CA)
Visit them online at: www.sacbee.com
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

by Justin Hoeger
McClatchy Newspapers / (MCT)

MCT is a joint venture of McClatchy and the Tribune Co.

At one point Ben Stiller (as night watchman Larry Daley) and two feisty capuchins do a Three Stooges face-slapping routine that runs, as I recall, about 35 minutes. One monkey slaps Larry. The other monkey slaps Larry. Larry slaps both monkeys. Which is pretty funny. But not nearly as funny as when they do it again. And again. And again and again and again and again. The first “Night at the Museum” has Stiller in a slap-fight with a single monkey, so this is definitely twice as funny. If you’re 9.

The jokes and puns on display here are older than the mastodons in the diorama, but does that really matter? Kids will love it, just as they love lukewarm pizza, stale cola and soggy French fries.

Adults drawn to the film by its superlative cast _ Ricky Gervais, Christopher Guest, Hank Azaria and Steve Coogan to name a few _ will find it disappointingly light in the laughs department. You watch it wondering why the studio didn’t release the outtakes theatrically and make the film a bonus feature on the DVD.

The sequel to the big family hit “Night at the Museum” struggles with a big creative challenge. The sense of wonderment you feel seeing museum displays magically come to life is not as strong the second time around. If you’ve seen one playful T-rex skeleton, you’ve seen them all.

Larry isn’t surprised by the displays’ nocturnal antics anymore; how could we be? The solution offered here is to move the action from New York’s Museum of Natural History to the Smithsonian, the world’s largest collection of art and antiquities. More displays, more artifacts to bring to life.

This approach introduces Guest as Ivan the Terrible, Azaria as a nasty pharaoh and Amy Adams as spunky flier Amelia Earhart, but makes the film too busy, with too many characters and too much going on. It’s action-packed, colorful and visually diverting but not that much fun.

If a fraction of the ingenuity that went into the computer graphics had been directed toward the script, the film could have been a delight. Instead, the story is the captive of the effects. Al Capone and a couple of hoods show up, not because they have anything compelling to contribute to contribute, but because the technicians figured out a way to render them in black and white alongside characters in color.

There are moments amid the special effects excess, to be sure. Azaria’s lisping Egyptian is a silly tribute to Boris Karloff, the movies’ original Mummy. Azaria throws himself into the peevish role with such gusto that his commitment becomes a joke in itself. Gervais steals his scenes as an overbearing museum curator, but his cameo highlights how flabby and lifeless the bulk of the film is. If you have children to babysit, you could do worse, but the people who made the film could have done much better.

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE AT THE SMITHSONIAN
• 2.5 stars
• Starring: Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Ricky Gervais, Hank Azaria
• Directed by: Shawn Levy
• Rated PG for mild action and brief language.

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© 2009, Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
Visit the Star Tribune website at: www.startribune.com
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

by Colin Covert
Star Tribune (Minneapolis) / (MCT)

MCT is a joint venture of McClatchy and the Tribune Co.

Somewhere – perhaps in Chicago, maybe in Paris, possibly in Tokyo – the 100 millionth system in the Nintendo DS™ franchise has been shipped to a distributor or a retailer as of March 6, 2009. The combined total sales of 100 million Nintendo DS systems, Nintendo DS Lite systems and Nintendo DSi™ systems represent a significant milestone in the life of this franchise, which is still going strong.

Below is a related press release this month, directly from the Nintendo PressRoom.

*NOTE: Make sure to take our “Speak Out!” Survey and tell us which video game system(s) you have at home!

from Staff Reports
News Team / THE LION LEDGER

NINTENDO SYSTEMS ACCOUNT FOR 58.4% OF VIDEO GAME HARDWARE SOLD IN MARCH

April 16, 2009– Nintendo’s Wii™ home console and the Nintendo DS™ portable video game system comfortably led U.S. sales in March, according to data from the independent NPD Group, which tracks video game sales in the United States. Pokémon™ Platinum Version for Nintendo DS emerged as the No. 2 video game of the month, with nearly 805,000 units sold.



Wii tallied sales of nearly 601,000 in March, while Nintendo DS sold more than half a million, even in advance of the April 5 launch of the new Nintendo DSi™ system. Both Wii and Nintendo DS extended their lead as the best-selling video game systems of this generation.



”Nintendo systems accounted for 58.4 percent of the video game hardware sold in March, more than all other systems combined,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Consumers continue to be attracted to the wide range of software available and the great value of Nintendo systems.”



Four games published by Nintendo finished in the top 10 best-sellers of March. These include Pokémon Platinum Version at No. 2, Wii Fit™ at No. 3 with more than 541,000 sold, Wii Play™ at No. 8 with more than 281,000 sold and Mario Kart™ Wii at No. 9 with more than 278,000 sold.



Early U.S. sales of the new Nintendo DSi hand-held system are ahead of those for Nintendo DS Lite, according to Nintendo’s internal tracking numbers. In its first week, Nintendo DSi sold 435,000 in the United States. After the same amount of time on the U.S. market after its launch, Nintendo DS Lite had sold 226,300 systems. These numbers demonstrate that the Nintendo DS brand remains strong, and that consumers continue to look for the best new experiences on their portable video game systems.



So far this year, video game industry revenues are on par with 2008, but Nintendo remains a key driver. Without Nintendo products, the industry would be down 14 percent for the year, according to the NPD Group.



For more information about Nintendo, please visit: www.Nintendo.com

I recently saw “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” and boy was it good! This is a sequel to the first “Madagascar” made in 2005. The movie has actors Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, and Jada Pinkett Smith as the voices of the main characters.

The first movie was about when four zoo animals named Alex (Stiller), Gloria (Pinkett Smith), Marty (Rock), and Melman (Schwimmer) escaped from a New York zoo and out of nowhere, found themselves in Madagascar.

This time, they fly back to America with a busted airplane–thanks to four infamous penguins–but crash land in Africa instead. The characters find out more about each other and have a wild adventure in the process.

I enjoyed this film for many reasons. For the most part, it was really, really funny! Second, it had a good story line and was much like the first film. And third, the animation and voices were just too good to pass up.

I move this, move this movie into an “A+” for kids, and a “B-” for teens and adults. I definitely recommend it for the entire family. “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” from Dreamworks Pictures, is rated “PG” and is in theaters now.

(Source: The Internet Movie Database– IMDb.com)

MOVIE TRAILER
www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/madagascar2

by Zyhir Brown, 6th grade
Associate Editor / THE LION LEDGER