STAR WARS The Ewok Adventures

Our families rating 2.5/5

The 30 year anniversary of Star Wars encouraged me to run the series at home for my kids. I even bought a couple Lego Star Wars kits for my son. When I found STAR WARS the Ewok Adventures on MyVideoLib.com I figured it was probably not anything I would like but perhaps the kids would enjoy a more lighthearted view of the Star Wars world.

The $2.99 DivX version was downloaded as 2 490+mb avi files.

Runtime: 96 minutes
Resolution: 592x444 px
Codec: DivX v5
Bit Rate: 1059 kbps
FPS: 25
Size: 957.22 MB


I really don't know what to say about this movie, the kids seemed to enjoy it though.
As expected it was a lighthearted look at the Star Wars franchise, however there are several distirbing creatures, not to mention the mother, father and brother all die.

From my viewpoint this movie had the appearance of Lucas trying to recoup his investment on the Ewok costumes. If you remove the expectations of this story having strong links to the Star Wars saga and consider it as a 80s after school special then it isn't that bad.

For the bargain price this movie is available on MyVideoLib.com I recommend anyone that hasn't seen it to take this opportunity to replay the 80's by watching this movie.
I wouldn't recommend it for a Friday night movie with the family. It is better suited for a DVD to play in the minivan rear entertainment system.

the Ant Bully

Our families rating 4.5/5

The next movie I downloaded from myvideolib.com was the Ant Bully

Again, I purchased the $4.99 DVD version which came as 2 700+mb avi files.
These avi files are 720x392 DivX v5 1670 kbps 23.976fps and the quality is excellent.
Since these are too large for a CD I am not sure I understand why the movie is split.

With Oscar-nominated director and creator of the famed Jimmy Neutron John A. Davis and producer Tom Hanks the Ant Bully is off to a good start. This fun family movie even offers soft moral lessons such as the Golden Rule, how to look at the world through another's viewpoint, and the value of friendship and teamwork.

Off to a quick start the movie doesn't provide much time on 10 year old Lucas' background. It would be nice to have a little more character development to empathize with his situation and set up the relationship with the ants. Still we get the idea: Lucas is picked on by a neighborhood bully and takes his frustrations out on a colony of ants.

Unfortunately for Lucas, this colony has a wizard Zoc played by Nicholas Cage that has been working on a potion to save the colony. When Zoc completes the potion the ants take it to "the destroyer" Lucas and shrink him down to size to deal with him.

As fate would have it this transformation occurs just as Lucas' parents go out of town and he is in the care of his older sister who has better things to do than look after her brother and his grandmother who is preoccupied with concerns about alien abduction and is unable to convince anyone that aliens have taken Lucas.

While Nicolas Cage's voice at times seems over done and out of place over all the voice acting is very good with a cast including Zachary Tyler, Julia Roberts,
Meryl Streep, Paul Giamatti, Lily Tomlin and Ricardo Montalban.

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Here are the links:
Windows
Mac

Support from MyVideoLib is surprisingly fast and informative.

I received this information regarding my playback problems:

Windows Media Player (at least 9th and 10th versions) mixes all audio streams together and doesn't allow to switch between them.

Download and install this free codec pack:http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm

VideoLan http://www.videolan.org/ will be the best choice for playback as it also supports playlists: you can add movies which have 2 or more parts into a playlist and it will switch between parts automatically.

Other freeware/shareware usable players are
BSPlayer http://www.bsplayer.org/
Lightalloy http://www.softella.com/

Hoodwinked

Our families rating 3.5/5

The first movie I downloaded from myvideolib.com was Hoodwinked

I purchased the $4.99 DVD version and the $1.99 PDA version.
The DVD version came as 2 560mb avi files, a bit inconvenient for PC or XBOX playback but each file is small enough to fit on a single CD.
These avi files are 720x394 DivX v5 1600 kbps 25fps and the quality is quite good.

Initial playback with whatever codec set I had on my PC resulted in both English and Russian audio streams playing simultaneously, installing the free player from http://www.divx.com/ solved the problem in Windows Media Player as it updated my Divx codecs. XBOX playback was flawless.

The PDA version came as a single 212mb avi file 320x174 DivX v5 234 kbps 25fps. Playback on the PC was surprisingly good for such a small file. I need to work on conversion process for my portable device though. More on that with the next movie.

Onto the movie....

Great voices and a really funny story line, its a shame the animation looks like it is from a Nintendo Wii game.

Hoodwinked begins at the end of the story we all know; Little Red Riding Hood discovers the Big Bad Wolf dressed as granny then the story departs....

A tied-up Granny tumbles out of the closet and the Woodsman comes crashing to their rescue.
In a flash Granny's house has turned into a crime scene!

Cops, in the form of pigs, arrest everyone and press charges, including breaking and entering, disturbing the peace and intent to eat! None of the suspects have the same story, the Wolf is an undercover reporter who's determined to crack the case of the Goody Bandit. At first Red is suspected, then Granny, and where did that crazy woodsman come from!

Kids will enjoy this movie with its slapstick antics even with the poor animation, parents will find the story surprisingly funny and refreshingly clever with excellent voice acting from Actors: Anne Hathaway, Glenn Close, James Belushi, Patrick Warburton, and Anthony Anderson.