154, Monte Carlo

So Half Term has been and gone and I could myself lucky that I was only dragged to one kids movie but it was made easier by not being a cartoon or animation but an actual movie!

for those of you without daughters you may need an introduction into the movies main lead, Selina Gomez.  She stars in Disney channels Wizards of Waverly place which is made slightly bearable by the legendary Dom DeLuise's son,  playing the dad and is probably more famous for being the lady on the arm of a certain Justin Bieber.  Know who she is?  Probably not, but anyway its time to move on.

A few other TV stars appears as  Gomez's partners in crime with Emma & Meg also holding roles between them in Gossip girl, Melrose place, Shark & Entourage so definitely some TV credentials between them and in all honesty, all three of them were very good in this.

Its a likely tale of a down and out Texan waitress who dreams of visiting Paris.  After a disastrous first few days in the City of Love and the unfortunate tagging along of her older, slightly favoured step-sister they stumble onto a grand hotel currently occupied by British "It" girl Cordelia Winthrop Scott, who shares a remarkable resemblance to little Selina.  Cordelia bunks off to Majorca with her pals without telling anyone so Gomez and chums take up residence in her shadow, playing spoilt little rich girls until a devious Aunt (played by the one and only Catherine Tate) smells a rat sand threatens to blow the whole scam.

Wow! how exciting!

Okay, its definitely a kids movie but maybe one for the 8's and up, certainly not any younger than 5 as its got a real story, characters and a plot but manages to remain light hearted, funny, entertaining and actually, quite captivating.

The backdrops are beautiful and the three very different characters all get a chance to build there own persona's away from the star attraction of Gomez and its actually Meg, the Step-sister that goes through the biggest transformation while Selina herself get a chance to experience a life beyond her dreams and as for the third friend, Emma well for her there appears to be no place like home for that one.

For a kids movie this has been the best acted one in a while and as for story and script, just as impressive.  It did not just draw in the parent faction accompanying their off spring but a few couples and older viewers rocked up making me a little bit more impressed of the potential scope of this movie.

Note to Dads; For those of you who like me love a good Bond movie keep an eye our for the Eiffel Tower scene early on - the rush down the fire escape is extremely reminiscent of a View to a Kill with the camera positioned in exactly the same place as when Grace Jones is firing poisoned butterflies at Roger Moore - but that's just the geek in me wanting to get out!

This movie it is what it is and that's a kids movie for the holidays - but for me - it raised the barr ever so slightly and made it to the category of pretty good movie.  Nice one.