Rating: 
Summary: Incredible, touching film
Review: well wow, this movie blew me away. i was amazed by the cinemetography and the growth the boys expierenced, tugging at my heart strings. rent it tonight, youll be laughing, crying, and rooting for these rebellious teenagers who just want to be remembered.
Rating:
Summary: This Is A Great Movie
Review: See this movie. It rocks. I love the comic book scenes, especially the one where the boys change into their own fictional super heros.
Rating: 
Summary: Bland movie
Review: This is a rather bland movie. The content definitely recalls my own youth days and the dangerous lives my friends and I led, but I find the storyline trite and the acting bearly tolerable. None of the actors really got into their roles, especially Jodie Foster who as the "evil" nun has no character whatsoever. One of the supporting boys (the one who's not in the "trinity") is perhaps the most memorable character as your stereotypical small-town, all-American kid. All the other characters are easily forgetable. The animation sequences are indeed unique and well edited, although I'd seen this technique used in much earlier Japanese and Hong Kong movies; and the stuff here starts out well but gets boring when they approach the "pearl."This is definitely a rent title if you want to relive care-free youth days.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Movie--A Litte Weird
Review: The movie opens with a hilarious scene. There is lost of action and excitement concerning the lives of young boys imprisoned in catholic school. The comic strip scenes interspersed in the movie are a little weird and I feel the movie tries to go a little too deep at times and just ends up being weird.
Rating:
Summary: Very entertaining
Review: I'm not Catholic nor a teen, but I found this movie very interesting and entertaining. The interaction between all the kids was pretty real and the dialog did not seem juvenile. Although not normally a fan of animation, that portion worked OK in this movie because it was the outward expression of the kids' imagination. Of the 7 primary actors, Jodie Foster had the weakest character as "nunzilla". Perhaps it was just the nature of the character. Vincent D'Onofrio was entertaining as the smoking, swearing priest (and apparently in the book he was a womanizer, too.) The 4 boys were all pretty good, but Jena Malone probably had the toughest role as the girl with a secret, and she was very good. The whole cougar plot-point was a bit much, and the dog scene came from nowhere, but the rest was very satisfying. The extras on the DVD were good, too. P.S. Originally I could not get this DVD to play in "widescreen". Sony said it was a known encoding problem and to change the DVD player setup for TV to "normal letterbox" instead of "normal pan/scan". Worked like a charm.
Rating:
Summary: Fresh, new film.
Review: I popped in this DVD to test out my new laptop DVD player. As soon as I started watching it, I couldn't stop. It was such a refreshing new movie with a great script and even greater performances. The movie is also heart wrenching in both of Francis' relationships. This is the type of movie that you can watch over and over again and bring you back to your childhood days. I especially like the comic strips that break up the movie into different segments. Check out this movie, you won't regret it.
Rating:
Summary: unique film concept
Review: ... I seriously doubt most teen age boys would be so stupid as to try to kidnap a live cougar. However, the rest of the plot is very much believable & in the end has allot of good messages. Such as Sister Asumpta (Jodie Foster) is really looking out for the boys best interests in the end (showing authority figures are not always so bad as we imagine them), and Francis (Emile Hirsch) learns the true value of honesty, friendship, & intimacy. Also, Francis doesn't even have sex with his love interest(showing you can be close to some one without going all of the way). Also, as happens with his best friend Tim (Kieran Culkin), Francis learns its best not to put into action all of the bad thoughts in your head & maybe just act them out in cartoons instead. In the end there are allot of valuable messages for teenagers with the proper guidance from a loving adult (another message hidden in the film). The unique combination of animation & live action added to the plot of the film & also reflected the original story scource which was a comic book fairy tale. Jodie, Kieran, Emile, Jena Malone all gave believable & excellent performances, actors which I look forward to seeing again.
Rating: 
Summary: Stop the insanity
Review: Okay, so I've only seen this film once, and it was a while ago so I'm not going to go into the details of why this film is not as good as previously advertised. Every review I read for this film is just praising it, but it's not deserved. This is an okay movie at best. some of the plot lines are pretty good, but some of them are just stupid, i.e. everything that had to do with the stupid cougar. The acting is very strong, and the mixture of animation with live action was interesting, even though Kieren Culkin's alter ego reeked of unresolved psychological issues that no adolescent boy would ever share with his friends in reality. This film tries too hard to be "independent." In doing so it falls into the trap of independent cliche. The ending is just plain bad, and for me this will ruin any movie. I did highly enjoy the ghost storyline, however. For those concerned with such information, Jena Malone is mad hot in this film, albeit very illegal.
Rating:
Summary: One of my favorite movies this past year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I just picked this one up a few weeks ago and is a pretty good movie, I must admit. When I was watching this movie I thought it had great story line and very believable characters, which is always a good thing in a movie, espeacially one about teenagers! I also really enjoyed the animation part which was really cool worked well intermixed with the live action parts of the film. I thought all of the cast did supurb job in this espeacially Jodie Foster who is my favorites of the older actresses, Kieran Culkin andJena Malone is great too!!! I love the fact that you get so many great bonus features which usually don't come with a film like this one!!!! I urge you to buy this one!!!
Rating:
Summary: Out of the ordinary
Review: "Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" is a surprisingly balanced, well-made movie with excellent acting and scripts. It also strikes a good balance between sniggering mischief and mature themes, which is pretty appropriate for a coming-of-age story. It's not an easy movie to watch, but it is certainly a compelling and sometimes funny one. It takes place in the 1960s, at a Catholic school in an ordinary little town. A small group of the boys there write and illustrate a comic book, with themselves as superhumans who battle an evil one-legged nun named Nunzilla -- who strongly resembles their teacher, the stern Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster). Sister Assumpta knows about their growing rebellion and overflowing hormones, and in her efforts to care for her "children," she keeps trying to help them, even if they despise her for it. What's more, Francis (Emile Hirsch) has fallen in love with Margie Flynn, a pretty young girl with a dark secret in her past. The boys continue their escapades, including stealing a statue of Saint Agatha, continuing their comic book ("The Atomic Trinity"), and finally plotting to smuggle a very dangerous animal out of the zoo. At first glance one might be inclined to see "Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" as having a bad attitude towards Catholicism. But the bad attitude seems to be mainly that of the boys (and we already kneew they had a bad attitude) towards nuns and priests; the tone of the moviemakers towards Father Casey and Sister Assumpta is fair and pretty good. Father Casey in particular is likeable, a chain-smoking priest with a cursing habit and a warm personality, who knows when to be stern. Emile Hirsch and the always-amazing Kieran Culkin are good as best friends Francis and Tim. Even teir faces are a bit like an angel and a good-natured imp; Hirsch is a relatively naive boy who is just learning about the messiness of being a man, and Culkin is a mischief-maker with a good heart and no survival instincts. Tim deals with his family strife by being reckless, a realistic response. Jena Malone has the right mix of sweetness and sadness as Margie. Jodie Foster (who also produced the film) has a similar mix of sternness and kindness; you get the feeling that Sister Assumpta could be a real friend to the boys if they wanted it like that. And Vincent D'Onofrio is cheerily likeable as Father Casey. The direction is very good, especially since the real-life stuff is regularly interrupted by the over-the-top comic book adventures. Some of the scenes are outrageously funny, like when the statue of Saint Agatha dangles precariously over the unsuspecting Father Casey. And some are poignant without a word, like when Tim runs away from Margie after learning her secret. This definitely isn't a kids' movie; there is some smutty content between Margie and Francis, a discussion about incest (one of the characters), and a lot of dirty jokes. This is not a feel-good movie, but it may be the most vivid coming-of-age movie in many years. Though not perfect, it's an intriguing movie that will probably remain a cult classic. (A must-see for Kieran Culkin fans)
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