Ramona and Beezus (2010)

Wonderful Movie

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Ramona Quimby (Joey King) is a young girl with a wild imagination. Her big sister Beezus (Selena Gomez) is eternally embarrassed by her along with other things in her life. Their father (John Corbett) loses his job and the family starts to have money troubles. But it's the kind of movie where everything eventually works out right.This is a great movie for younger girls. It's good clean fun with a couple of wholesome young actresses. Joey King is especially adorable. Her sunny outlook will win you over. And it's got the super sweet Ginnifer Goodwin as aunt Bea. It's a good movie to watch with your little kids. The money troubles provide a little bit of drama, but it never gets out of hand to darken the movie. It's message that everything will turn out alright is most fitting for the little ones.

I enjoyed while I was watching. The film is family film. It is good for everyone who is old and young. Ramona is a clever and naughty girl. She has very big imagination. Beezus who is Ramona's sister as clever as Ramona and she is hardworking. Ramona helps save her family's home and her adventures is so funny. I think she is a bit unlucky. I liked the events in the film but there is not so much stage about Ramona and Beezus and I did not like it. The actresses and actors is successful especially Selena Gomez (Beezus) and Joey King (Ramona) I think Selena Gomez is really good actress. I watched Joey King first time in this film and I liked her so much. She is younger than other actress and she is really talented.

Elizabeth Allen directs this cute little movie about a precocious young grade schooler Ramona Quimby. Ramona a character in a popular children's series by Beverly Cleary. I really thought trailers pushed Selena Gomez as the star; but no...a cute Joey King plays the part of Ramona, who has one misadventure after another. Gomez is older sister Bezzus, who Ramona just can't seem to equal. Ramona's dad Robert(John Corbet)suffers being downsized out of a job. Mother Dorothy(Bridget Moynahan)goes to work and a worried Ramona takes it on herself to earn some money for her dad. A lemonade sale just ends up embarrassing her sister; washing the neighbor Hobart's(Josh Duhamel)jeep ends up practically ruining the vehicle's paint job. The Quimby home goes on the market and the open house ends up a fiasco. Hobart proposes to Romana's Aunt Bea(Ginnifer Goodwin)and the wedding doesn't exactly go unmarred...but Ramona manages to save the ceremony.It is real nice to watch a movie you can relate to. The Quimby family is not perfect, but a work in progress. Ramona is a typical young girl. And its refreshing to have Ms. Gomez play a role that girl's her age can emulate. I personally was most impressed with the delightful Goodwin, fresh as a summer breeze. No foul language and a story that can be enjoyed by all ages. And I liked the use of the song "Eternal Flame" by the Bangles. You shouldn't be disappointed with this one.

Anybody who went to school knows Beverly Cleary and her wonderful series of children's novels. Besides the Ramona series of books, she wrote The Henry Huggins books and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Along comes Ramona and Beezus, based off of her book Beezus and Ramona written in 1955. Not reading the book in years, I vaguely remember moments in it that weren't in this. I have researched to find that this film is based on the seventh book out of all the Ramona books but for some reason still has the title of the first. Strange.Moving right along, the story is about the plucky youngster named Ramona (King) and her older sister Beatrice (nicknamed Beezus, played by Gomez) trying to save their parents home by raising money to pay for bills. Their parents have been constantly fighting and their Aunt Bea has fallen for a man that she used to like when they were younger named Hobart (Duhamel).The film doesn't have one plot, it's a series of subplots that make up the entire film. The main story is just that there are two sisters, the youngster being unknowingly disruptive, and at times, a nuisance, and the other just trying to live her private life. It's a coming of age story to say the least.There are some G rated movies, you should just let be. You don't want to over critique them. Obviously they won't go into anything deeper than maybe "you loser," but sometimes you wish they would. I'm not saying vulgarity makes a movie any better, but sometimes when a movie like this is made, you want it to have some sense of realism. It can be done, but at a G rating, it's very difficult. This winds up having just enough.At least Ramona and Beezus doesn't wonder off into a cliché and bubbly world where everything is always nice. No, the statement comes up frequently, Ramona is a nuisance. She is an overactive child that needs to calm down sometimes. She means well, and doesn't want trouble, but trouble has a way of finding her. I can accept that.Beezus doesn't do much to improve the storyline. We don't really know if she really appreciates her sister or is holding back true feelings. At the beginning of the film, the relationship between them suggests they are very close, but throughout the whole film she goes back and forth to making fun of her and then loving her. Maybe a case of off the wall hormones.The premise is cute, the characters are lively, and the entertainment is here. Ramona and Beezus is what I call a "last minute movie." This is the kind of film you see a commercial for three days before it comes out on TV. Suddenly it becomes a movie weekend. This finds ways to be appreciated by all ages, and finds ways to have the right amount of realism while maintaining a squeaky clean image.Starring: Selena Gomez, Joey King, Hutch Dano, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Corbett, Bridget Moynahan, Josh Duhamel, and Sandra Oh. Directed by: Elizabeth Allen.