I have seen so many movies in the last few months! Keep in mind that in the previous two years I had seen exactly five movies in theaters, all of which were part of trilogies. But in the last three months, I’ve seen “Batman Begins”, “March of the Penguins”, “Corpse Bride”, and “Wallace & Gromit” all in the theater. On top of that, we just rented “Herbie: Fully Loaded”, “Robots”, and “Shaun of the Dead” on DVD.

The problem is that I’ve seen so many movies in relatively rapid succession that I can’t remember enough about each movie to do a quality review. I do remember enough to rate them though, so here is my “lite” review of these shows.

I am a huge Batman fan, but I’m a pretty harsh critic when it comes to my favorites. This movie surpassed my expectations. Great show! Batman Begins earns five out of five grins.

Tim Burton is a freakish human being, but one of my favorite film makers. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Burton directed the first couple of Batman movies that made me fall in love with the character.) The Nightmare Before Christmas is one of my all time favorites and Corpse Bride had the exact same style. The plot line is not as strong as it could have been, but the art makes up for it. I give it four out of five grins.

I have a soft heart for English humor, from Monty Python to Mr. Bean. Wallace fits nicely in between. If you liked Chicken Run, you’ll love Wallace & Gromit. I give it four grins.

March of the Penguins, in all honesty, is not much more than a National Geographic special with a better script. But between the stunning visuals and beautiful musical score, it’s worth seeing. The narration is brilliant and makes even the steamy sex scene (honest!) kid safe. I was most grateful that the film makers managed to leave Darwin out of the script. I’d say three grins is more than respectable for a documentary.

I remember watching the old Herbie movies at my cousins’ house. They had a satellite dish (the old eight foot SETI style) and could pick up the Disney channel when my house only got four stations. (No, not Fox. PBS!) This new incarnation does fair justice to the 70’s movies. Herbie: Fully Loaded is good, clean fun, garnering three grins.

I’m a sucker for computer animation. As far as the art, Robots is top notch. However, I got the impression that the art was the impetus and the storyline was an after thought. (Watching the DVD extras confirmed it.) Still, it’s a fun show with a good moral. Robots gets three grins.

Even if you’re not big on English humor, Shaun of the Dead is flat out funny. I laughed out loud many times (much to the chagrin of my wife who was trying to sleep in the next room.) Still, this is one of those movies that put me in a hard spot. Much like Office Space, no matter how funny I found it, I have a hard time recommending it to my friends because the language is really bad. Not quite Tarantino bad, but almost. There are more F-bombs in Shaun than in Office Space, but if you can turn on your mental filters for the night, this one is a must see. Oh, and don’t feel bad if you don’t understand every line of dialog. There’s enough UK slang that this movie could well be considered a foreign language film. I would give it four grins, but it gets a one grin penalty for language.