Children’s films find favour with young critics

Press, 12 January 1987, Page 7

Children’s films find favour with young critics

Winemcr

School holidays are the time for matinee movies. “The Press” asked six young . reviewers to sample the childfen’s film fare.—

‘Ewoks and the Marauders of Endor*

The scene is a magic woodland. A girl called Cindil and her Ewok friend, Wikkit, are walking along when they see Marauders capturing Ewoks and killing Cindil’s family. A mysterious creature leads the pair to the house of its master, Noah.

Noah is an old man who has crashed his Star Lifter in Endor and is trying to restore it.

The rest of the film tells the story of how Noah, Cindil, Wikkit and the Ewoks fight the Marauders and defeat them.

The characters are mostly fantasy characters except for Noah, Cindil and Cindil’s family. The fantasy characters are horrible monsters but the Ewoks are cute and furry.

I liked the film because at the time it seemed so realistic. At one point I had to close my eyes because the Marauders kept being blown up.

The film contains comedy, violence and friendship. For most age groups it would be very good entertainment. Small children would find it rather scary.

‘Karate Kid ll*

Mr Miyagi (Pat Morita) is the karate teacher of Daniel (Ralph Macchio), who is your average 14-year-old American kid but he has a particular talent for karate. Mr Miyagi is a Japanese immigrant to America but when he returns to Okinawa to visit his dying father, he is forced to settle a debt to save his village from destruction. Needless to say, where Mr Miyagi goes, so does Daniel. There, as well as settling his debt, Mr Miyagi rekindles a young love, and Daniel finds romance. “Karate Kid II” starts in America and follows that adventure in a traditional village in Japan. (In fact, they reconstructed a village in Hawaii because there wasn’t a suitable location in modern Japan.) The only thing I was disappointed in was the start. The movie took a while to get started but was very exciting once it did. The scenery was extremely picturesque and the small village looked very authentic. For people like me who haven’t seen “Karate Kid,” don’t worry, this is an exciting story on its own.

‘Footrot Flats, A Dog’s Tail Tale’

This movie, which is based on the characters of the Footrot Flats books, is very good because of the full colour, the voices and the setting. The story is about an adventurous week in the characters’ lives. In it, Cooch has to recover his stolen stag and Wai has a

chance to become an All Black. Dog has a few close encounters and so do Pongo and Rangi. We find out a bit of Dog’s history and how he first meets the beautiful Jess. Aunt Dolly nearly gives Dog’s real name away, but dog stops her as always. They also get lots of trouble from the Murphys; who are the ones that steal Cooch’s stag and unknowingly have Jess, as well as annoying them with their helicopter and stopping Wai from being an All Black. Dog and Jess also have a bit of trouble from rats but Horse sort of saves them as well as getting hurt himself. Wai dreams of being an All Black and gets hurt and comes back on to the field with bandages all over him and swings on the crossbar and kicks the ball off to save the All Blacks. Wai also has a date with Cheeky Hobson at a pie-cart. When Wai has his coffee Cheeky says that an All Black shouldn’t have sugar and she offers him a saccharin pill and dog thinks it’s poison so he leaps in and throws baked beans everywhere looking for it.

Afterwards Wai scoops some tomato sauce from between Cheeky’s breasts and she says she never wants to see him again. It was really cool and if you haven’t seen it you should.

‘The Jungle Book’

“The Jungle Book” is about a little baby boy called Mowgli, who was stranded in an Indian village.

A panther called Bagheera found the baby and took it to a family of wolves. The wolves took care of the baby until he was 10 years old. The father belonged to a council of wolves, and the council heard that an evil tiger who hated man was coming into the jungle, and it had sworn to kill the boy. So the

panther asked if he could take the boy to a village. The boy didn’t want to go to the village; he wanted to stay in the jungle. While he was there he was in many adventures, such as being hypnotised by Kaa the snake, meeting a friendly bear called Balloo, and fighting the terrible tiger, Shere Khan. One day he met a girl from the village who wanted him to follow her into her home, where he decided to stay and live. I thought this movie was very funny and I really enjoyed it. The songs were great too, and the characters were very good in the story. My favourites were Balloo the bear and Kaa the snake. I liked Kaa because he kept on getting the boy and trying to hypnotise him. The bear liked music and was always singing a song called “Bear Necessities.” I think children young and old would love this movie, and I think adults would get a laugh too.

‘E.T.’

The spaceship came down and all the E.T.S came out. Some persons came to look for them and the spaceship blasted off but it left one E.T. down there. But he ran off to see the city ... He was scared first then he found a home and the boy got friends with him and he learned how to speak English ... and after that he wanted to go home and they went out into the forest .... and made a thing to call home. But after that it grew really dark and he wanted to go home and the boy went asleep and he got away and fell down a hill and hurt himself, and then they found him and bringed him into his room and some people came to ... get him better ... They got him away and a spaceship came down and he hopped in the spaceship and got away. But it was really long ... and there were lots and lots of ads. I liked his machine (to call home), I didn’t like where he was drunk and failed down the hill, so I don’t know.

A little bit was scary and some was really good, but the machine I liked. At first I didn’t like the look of him,' but then it got better.

(David says he liked E.T. in the end, but all the same would not fancy a visit from him.)

‘Sky Pirates’

The movie is set in 1945 and is based' around Easter Island.

A magic tablet is found, broken and scattered. Pilot Harris (John Hargreaves) flies a plane carrying a piece of the tablet.

A freak storm makes Harris crash the plane. He and four others float around in the sea of lost ships, where they find the SS Idaho (The Philadelphia Experiment) and are finally rescued. Months later, the daughter of the person who found the tablet piece asks Harris to help stop the co-pilot putting the tablet together and using its power. Harris and the girl travel to Bora-Bora and play Russian roulette and have a fight with some Australians.

Harris borrows a plane and flies to Easter Island. The co-pilot then steals the piece found by Harris, to use it to complete the tablet.

In a cave, the co-pilot’s side-kick falls to his death. Harris then proceeds to fight the co-pilot, who is killed by the stones. Harris then escapes.

"Sky Pirates” is like a cross between “Indiana Jones” and TV’s “Tales of the Gold Monkey.” It lacks in good costumes, but the special ef-_ fects saved it. They were well done, especially in the initial storm and the sea of lost ships.