13 going on 30 (TBS) - Jennie

This should be a quick one. This is Jennie’s favorite movie. I’m not entirely sure why, but I have a feeling that it something to do with Jennifer Garner being Jennie’s favorite actor. She loves her. And this film is pure Jennifer Garner gold.

I actually don’t mind this movie. It has a nice little plot device, and gull darnit if I don’t love me a time travel tale! A quick summary is that a young girl gets made fun of at her thirteenth birthday party. She wishes she was thirty. It happens! Hilarity ensues. It’s Big (1988) but with a girl.

The film has some pretty good elements in it including one of my man crushes Mark Ruffalo. Don’t ask me why – he falls in with Ron Livingston (Berger from Sex and the City) as a mundane nice guy that I would most likely be friends with. Who knows – but, for some odd reason I always find myself wanting these guys to succeed. The film is pretty well written for a Romcom. This includes scenes where Jennifer Garner has to see a man naked (Gross!) and when she interacts with a girl who is thirteen:
Becky: I like your dress.
Jenna: That's because I have these incredible boobs to fill it out!
Garner is fantastic in this role. She plays the character with wide-eyed innocence that few could pull off. I dare say she even got the best of Tom Hanks with his role in Big, as I believe it would be harder to pull off a thirteen year old girl than a thirteen year old boy.

There are only one or two complaints I had. The first one is the fact that “young” Matt (Ruffalo’s character) is played by a somewhat chubby brown haired kid who looks nothing like Ruffalo, while the “young” Jenna Rink (Garner’s character) looks to be every bit the part. Maybe they didn’t know who the leading man was going to be at the time, but couldn’t they have reshot? I also find it frustrating that they gave Ruffalo’s character a fiancé. He basically cheats on his fiancé and then ends up marrying her because – well, I guess, that is what you do when you get older. You marry a person who you don’t really love. Wait. What? Really? I guess, Romcoms gotta have some sort of spur to action. Don’t worry she goes back to when she was thirteen and gets him back from that hussy fiancé of his.

4 out of 10: probably the best score a Romcom can get. Light and fluffy – empty calories.

National Treasure (Dvd) - Jennie

This should be brief. Jennie and I watched Nation Treasure 2 (2007) with her brother on Christmas break. She really enjoyed the story and the movie overall so I suggested that she would probably enjoy the original, and, since she had never seen it, we should probably check out Indiana Jones, as it is about a treasure hunting historian as well. As you know we watched the latest Indy flick and we weren’t too impressed with it, which inclined me to believe that perhaps I only loved Indy for nostalgia’s sake. This I have yet to confirm, though perhaps later this summer we will rent the earlier Indy flicks and cement my views.

As for National Treasure it was as good as I remembered it to be, which was only partially good. The film runs at a brisk pace till Gates is captured, but it quickly regains its footing after this slight tumble. The puzzles are somewhat fun and interesting, though somewhat historically inaccurate. I won’t argue with a film about a hidden revolutionary war era treasure though. Jennie enjoyed it a lot more than the recent Indy flick, and I have to whole-heartedly agree. This is what I wanted, or remembered, Indiana Jones to be: realistic, no aliens, no Mutt - fun. Maybe I remember Indiana Jones incorrectly, but as for recent adventures I choose Ben Gates over Indy anytime.

4 out of 10: A perfectly run of the mill adventure. Subtract one for Nick Cage being Nick Cage.