Garth Jennings

One man is rescued from the destruction of the Earth.

The adaptation seems to miss the point most of the time, leaving out jokes (or worse, just leaving out the punchlines) and replacing them with Hollywood cliches. So, it's not anywhere near as funny as it should be. And between squeezing three hours of material into a movie, and forcing a half-assed love story into it on top of that, it doesn't have much chance. But it's still pretty fun. One thing it keeps intact is the sense of wonder; show more between the amazing special effects and Adams' ridiculously huge ideas (which the mediocre script doesn't quite squish in spite of itself), it can be pretty impressive - for the right audience. I can only imagine it would be a confusing mess to someone who hasn't read the book, or (like me) listened to the original radio drama a million times.

Concept: A
Story: C
Characters: A
Dialog: B
Pacing: D
Cinematography: B
Special effects/design: A
Acting: B
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.9/4

(Feb. 2010) show less

Hilarious, manic, well-written fun. Here's a taste--"Though Nelson couldn't see the dog, he could tell that this was the bark of an animal would enjoy chewing your shoes to shreds, preferably while you were still wearing them."

THE DEADLY 7 is a speedy, clever, and seriously trippy story for readers of all ages.

Alright, I'll admit it. I'm often drawn to a book because of its cover. There's nothing wrong with that. Why else would they hire people to make them attractive and spend so much time designing them to be eye-catching? And then there's the blurb on the back of the book. These can range from evocative, cringeworthy, perplexing, or in some cases spoiler-y. Even after reading the back of the book jacket of today's book and seeing the title and looking at the cover image I was still surprised to show more discover just what this book was about. Maybe you're all smarter than me. Can you guess what Deadly 7 by Garth Jennings is about just from the name? What if I told you that it was about a little boy who had 7 little monsters accompanying him on a rescue mission and each of them had a very separate personality? The main character of Deadly 7 is Nelson who comes across a machine which creates 7 monsters that only he can see. One is always sleeping, one is angry about pretty much everything, one keeps stealing everything in sight...have you figured out what they are yet? I almost hope you haven't because then I won't feel like such a dolt. This is Garth's debut novel but he's no stranger to writing as he was the genius behind the movie Sing. However, this book is pretty much nothing like that movie. This story feels like it could be rooted in our present but with a decided twist. There's an ever-present feeling of dread while flipping the pages of this book which honestly I think that a lot of kids feel at this age. Remember the anxiety and fear when you realized that you were changing and you didn't know into what? Jennings taps into that and uses the monsters as a way to illustrate it which I think is rather brilliant. I have to say that the plot of this is kinda all over the place but the writing is solid so I have hope that further books by him will be tightened up and be even better. Nonetheless, it was a quick read and entertaining and I think it would be a good springboard for conversation. It's a solid 6/10. show less

A really fun movie. Sure, anthropomorphic animal movies were the rage at this time and we got some other animal-themed movies, but this one stood out on its own and is genuinely a fun film to watch.