Movie Releases, 4/14

Disney gets in touch with their inner Madagascar and releases The Wild. A lion is sent to Africa, and his buddies from the zoo have to go get him. It looks like most of the action takes place in New York, which would almost be a reverse Madagascar, sort of like how the Crocodile Dundee movies made it look like they were different from each other. It's probably been hard for Disney to distinguish their movie from Dreamworks' mega-hit from last year, but maybe they don't want to separate themselves too much--more of the same means there's an established base of people willing to shell out the cash again.

Then, the movie of the week which will probably dethrone Ice Age 2 will be Scary Movie 4. The first Scary Movie, directed by Keenan Ivory Wayans, I found to be better with a crowd. I didn't see the second (also Wayans), but the third got taken over by spoof legend David Zucker and it was OK. I'm really not looking forward to this one all that much (also Zucker), because the trailer seems to emphasize random movie spoofs and pop culture references (get ready for more fresh Tom Cruise Oprah couch gags!) thrown in with no adherence to plot (the classics such as Airplane! and The Naked Gun did have plots, and their gags served them well). "SNL" and "Mad TV," and not to mention "Family Guy" have spilled over into spoof movies and now you can't tell the difference. But hopefully, this is way better than the trailer.

Yep, kind of a light weekend.