3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 3D
Thomas J. Norton  |  Jul 26, 2010  | 
1010sdsoft.iceage.jpgAs the third installment of the Ice Age franchise, you’d expect the latest adventures of our odd herd of prehistoric mammal friends—Sid the sloth, Manny and Ellie the wooly mammoths, Diego the saber-toothed tiger, Crash and Eddie the possums, and (off on his own as usual) everyone’s favorite latter-day Coyote, Scrat, the squirrel-rat. Scrat’s role has grown with each entry in the series, and here he gets a love (or rather love-hate) interest in Scrattle, a challenge to his acorn obsession.

The main attraction, and what makes this film the best of the three Ice Age movies, is clear from the title. It’s hard to make a bad movie featuring dinosaurs (although the recent remake of Land of the Lost took its best shot). Dinosaurs disappeared long before wooly mammoths walked the glaciers, but as they appear here in a sort of lost-world environment, we can forgive this bit of creative license.

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3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Imax Deep Sea 3D (Blu-ray 3D)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 14, 2011  | 
Narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, Imax Deep Sea guides you on an astonishing adventure that lets you swim alongside our planet's most exotic creatures. You'll follow green sea turtles as they gather at the cleaning stop so surgeonfish can strip harmful algae from their shells, see Humboldt squid change color four times per second like a strobe light, and witness a mantis shrimp fight off an octopus.

This is the second time I've seen this documentary on home video, but experiencing it in 3D blows away the DVD. Our oceans house some of the most interesting creatures on our planet and this Imax presentation takes you right into the action with freakishly realistic visuals.

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3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Imax Under the Sea 3D (Blu-ray 3D)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 13, 2011  | 
Imagine a world of incredible color and beauty. Of crabs wearing jellyfish for hats or of fish disguised as frogs, stones, and shag carpets. Journey into the waters of the Great Barrier Reef and other South Pacific realms and immerse yourself into 3D from the comfort of your own home.

Here's the first of many Blu-ray 3D reviews you'll be seeing at UltimateAVmag.com. For the sake of full disclosure, our household was divided about 3D. My wife and daughter have always enjoyed it, while my son and I haven't, with one exception—Avatar. Everyone enjoyed the 3D experience of James Cameron's blockbuster at our local theater.

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3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
In the Heart of the Sea
Thomas J. Norton  |  Oct 28, 2016  | 
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In late 1820, the whaling ship Essex, out of Nantucket, Massachusetts, was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale. The captain and his crew were left stranded in the Pacific Ocean, 2,500 miles from mainland South America. The true story of their ordeal in tiny whaling boats, where many of the crew perished as the survivors slowly made their way to an eventual rescue, partially inspired both Nathaniel Philbrick’s book In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick.
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Inside Out
Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 19, 2016  | 
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Growing up is tough enough for any eleven-year-old, but when Riley finds out that her family is moving, her idyllic life is turned upside down. She must now contend with a new house, a new school, and a host of new feelings. Fortunately, the five main emotions that share control of her mind—Joy, Sadness, Disgust, Fear, and Anger—are at the ready. But when partners Joy and Sadness find themselves cut off from headquarters, confused little Riley’s situation quickly goes from bad to worse.

Once again, writer/director Pete Docter has crafted a tale that entertains the youngest viewers while also challenging even the smartest adults in the room. The underlying psychology is brilliantly laid out, allowing us to explore the relationship between emotions, memories, and personality. Dialogue is deliciously witty (star Amy Poehler is comedy gold in any medium), and in revealing the delicate balance between happiness and sorrow, the story achieves its greatest poignancy.

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Jack the Giant Slayer
Thomas J. Norton  |  Nov 25, 2013  | 
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The old fairy tail of Jack and the Beanstalk has been a staple in movies and television, with versions including Disney’s Mickey and the Beanstalk, several Looney Tunes cartoons, a segment in the recent Puss in Boots animated feature, a recent TV episode of Once Upon a Time, and even a 1952 Abbot and Costello movie. In Jack the Giant Slayer, teen Jack trades his uncle’s horse and cart for those magic beans.
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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island
Chris Chiarella  |  Sep 04, 2012  | 
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An old adage (OK, I just made it up) says that if you’re going to make a movie in 3D, you’d better give the audience something interesting to look at. The Mysterious Island does just that, dazzling the eyes with nonstop wonders held together by a wholly adequate plot. Young Sean (Josh Hutcherson) is having trouble living the suburban life of a normal teen after the excitement of his journey to the center of the earth. And soon enough, a cryptic message from his missing grandfather sets him off on a new adventure halfway around the globe, this time chaperoned by his supercool stepdad (Dwayne Johnson).
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Jurassic World
Corey Gunnestad  |  Dec 11, 2015  | 
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If Disneyland once got sued because (it was alleged) Winnie the Pooh had accidentally slapped a young guest while posing for photos, it boggles the mind to contemplate all the lawsuits Jurassic World would have incurred after the devastation depicted in this film.

In the 22 years and three films since Jurassic Park re-introduced living dinosaurs to the world, there has been rampant chaos, carnage, and death at every turn. Still, it seems the harsh lessons of playing God and tampering with Mother Nature have gone completely unheeded yet again. Lo and behold, another attempt at a state-of-the-art theme-park zoo of cloned dinosaurs has made its debut for the paying public: Jurassic World is now open for business, and the park is packed with 22,000 eager tourists. But this time, all the bugs are worked out, and the past mistakes have been corrected. What could possibly go wrong?

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3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole 3D (Blu-ray 3D)
David Vaughn  |  Jan 17, 2011  | 
Young owl Soren (voiced by Jim Sturgess) marvels at tales of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, mythic winged warriors who battled to save all owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. When he and brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) fall into the talons of the Pure Ones, it's up to Soren to make a daring escape with the help of other brave owls and seek out the Great Tree, home of the Guardians.

The marketing for this film wasn't very enticing, but the story has a lot of heart and is very entertaining. Director Zach Snyder (300, Watchman) makes his animation debut with this fantasy adventure based on the beloved books by Kathryn Lasky.

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Blu-ray Movie Reviews3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Life Of Pi
Chris Chiarella  |  Jul 10, 2013  | 
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Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s “unfilmable” book is a hypnotic rumination on the nature of religion as a source of strength and inspiration but also exploring faith’s common tendency toward allegory as the means to an end. We meet a very spiritual college professor named Pi whose past comes alive in a series of flashbacks as he tells his story to a novelist eager to write his next book. Pi was once shipwrecked and lost at sea for 227 days, already a sufficiently fascinating tale, but to make the ordeal even more extraordinary, he had to share his predicament with a fully grown Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Their surprising relationship is masterfully dramatized in a series of indelible images, their odyssey recounted with an unending sense of wonder and a contagious love for the beauty of nature.
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Live Die Repeat
David Vaughn  |  Feb 04, 2015  | 
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Although he’s never seen combat, Major William Cage crosses the wrong general and finds himself on the front lines of a D-Day-like battle in France where he stands no chance of survival against an onslaught of ridiculously superior alien invaders. Within minutes of landing on the beach, he’s killed by one of those aliens, but instead of heading toward a white light, he instantly wakes up the day before the attack, and now he is destined to live that day over and over. In lieu of becoming alien fodder again, he hooks up with a heroic Special Forces warrior, and they hatch a plan to get Cage trained for battle and embark on a journey to rid the planet of the aliens for good.
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3D Blu-ray Movie Reviews
Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted
Chris Chiarella  |  Feb 27, 2013  | 
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Escaped from the Central Park Zoo, four animal friends were “rescued” and sent back to the wild, a humanitarian effort that turned into a whirlwind global adventure. The quartet has been on the savanna since the end of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, but lion Alex (Ben Stiller) still misses the zoo and so with his zebra, hippo, and giraffe chums, he’s off to collect the penguin master- minds from the birds’ Monte Carlo excursion and figure out a way home.
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Man of Steel
Chris Chiarella  |  Mar 05, 2014  | 
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Whenever you dramatize one of the most beloved characters in all of popular culture, you’re going to elicit a lot of strong opinions. Many folks seem to either love or loathe Man of Steel, director Zack Snyder and producer/co-writer Christopher Nolan’s major reboot of the Superman franchise. The basic story is recognizable to even the most casual fans, yet much has changed, so it doesn’t feel like a rehash of any version we’ve seen before.
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Minions
Thomas J. Norton  |  Mar 18, 2016  | 
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We first met the Minions in the Despicable Me films. They were the henchmen of Gru, desperate to be seen as The Greatest Villain of All Time. But the Minions movie begins at the dawn of time when these funny, goggle-wearing creatures, babbling in their unique humina-humina-humina language, emerge from the primordial sea. They’re immediately driven to seek out the greatest villain they can find. But no sooner do they find one than they bumble into eliminating him.
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Moana
Chris Chiarella  |  Jun 16, 2017  | 
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The brave, spirited non-princess of the title is still learning how to lead her village when a when a mysterious curse befalls their island. Despite a lifetime of warnings from her father the chief, she sets sail upon an epic journey to save her people, seeking the help of a misunderstood demigod along the way. A tale of destiny, selflessness, and family, Moana is filled with beauty, magic, and wonder and is among the very finest films to ever come from Disney.
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