Christmas Vacation (Erin: 5 Stars, Bret: 5 Stars, Megan: 5 Stars)

Barry Rock is not Clark Griswold.

To the best of our knowledge, he has never accidentally electrocuted a cat, locked himself in a freezing cold attic for hours at a time, nor has he ever broken a land-speed record during a sledding outing.

He has, however, nailed two trees together (the top of one and the bottom of another) to create, in his mind, the perfect tree.

Setting aside the fact that nailing two trees together to create one super-tree could be viewed as having a general regard for human excellence, this act (among other holiday misadventures) speaks to Bret’s father’s ability to get very close to being Clark W. Griswold; a huge reason why this movie resonates so much in the Rock household.

We are going to be honest with ourselves here — we are not good enough writers to explain why Christmas Vacation is so awesome.

That they do, Edward, that they do indeed.

The best we could do (aside from just re-printing the screenplay in this space) is just to say that, like some of the other comedies that have garnered high scores from the RockMovieProject, Christmas Vacation is just a slight exaggeration of how Christmas really is in a lot of homes.

In fact, how much you like Christmas Vacation is probably in direct correlation with how much you believe your father to be like Clark W. Griwold, Jr. As explained above, for Bret and his sister, special guest star Megan Rock, the differences  between Clark and their father are minimal.

From start to finish, Christmas Vacation is a fantastic film, that is equal parts hilarious and heartwarming (seriously).

We’d love to hear your favorite part of the movie or favorite quote in the comments!

Five stars from Erin, Bret and Megan for the movie that is truly the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.

Braveheart (Erin: 5 Stars, Bret: 5 Stars, J. Alex: 5 Stars, Jesse: 5 Stars)

Fun fact: Four perfect scores from the RockMovieProject is the rough equivalent of one Oscar for Best Sound Editing.

In the year of our Lord, two-thousand and twelve, Bret and Erin Rock were joined by J. Alex Kelly and Jesse Terry to review Braveheart for the RockMovieProject. They reviewed like warrior poets; they looked like idiots and they all gave it 5 Stars.

We could bore you here by telling you that the casting is spot-on, that the story — while a bastardization of historical events — is pitch-perfect or that Mel Gibson’s direction is nearly completely devoid of anti-Semetic rhetoric.

We could regale you with our opinions about how tremendous the film’s score is; about how the film is now 17 years old and doesn’t feel even a little dated; or by explaining that there probably is no drama that is more often quoted at Rock Manor.

We could do all of those things if we hadn’t already done so in the video above. So instead, we’ll conclude by kindly asking that you watch our review and let us know in the comments how you feel about Braveheart. We love it.

Batman Begins (Erin: 4.5 Stars, Bret: 4.5 Stars, Kyle: 5 Stars)

You’ve traveled the interwebs… now you must journey onward… to what you really want to see… the RockMovieProject review of Batman Begins.

Guest star Kyle Rock joins Bret and Erin as they review the third Batman film of the collection (watched out of order with Batman Returns).

While Bret and Kyle try to have a serious discussion about the merits of the film (tremendous casting, a great plot and some of the best dialogue ever in a comic book movie), Erin keeps interrupting with her interpretation of Bale’s Batman voice, including a recommended alternative toward the end of the review; she definitely has a taste for the theatrical.

Kyle glows over the film (literally, thanks to some extra lighting on our end) giving it his first perfect score of 5 Stars, while Bret and Erin each give Christian Bale’s first go as Batman a 4.5 Star review.

Are you ready to begin?

Batman Returns (Erin: 3.5 Stars, Bret: 4.25 Stars, Kyle: 4 Stars)

Both Kyle Rock and Batman return for the second Tim Burton Batman effort: Batman Returns.

While Kyle and Erin lament the lack of back story, Bret argues passionately that that is part of the allure of Tim Burton’s two Batman films.

We also discuss DeVito and Pfeiffer as Batvillians (good), the removal of Prince from the soundtrack (better) and Batman’s incredible dedication to building a brand (bestest).

Batman Returns nets 3.5 Stars from Erin, 4.25 Stars from Bret and 4 Stars from Kyle.

We’re still trying to get Kyle to use this as a means for waking up in the morning. Way better than an alarm clock:

Batman (Erin: 3 Stars, Bret: 4 Stars, Kyle: 4 Stars)

Holy special guest star, Batman!

Bret’s brother, and the Official Batman Correspondent for the RockMovieProject, Kyle Rock joins us as we review Tim Burton’s Batman — or as it is known in some circles, Jack Nicholson Presents: A Prince Dance Party.

Kyle is the ideal Batman Correspondent for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that he has danced with the devil in the pale moon light.

As such, he is well-equipped to help us answer important questions like:

• Where does Michael Keaton rank in the “I am Batman” pantheon?
• When are we, exactly?
• More alive currently, Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger?
• The architecture of Gotham — too depressing for words?

We also lose audio with Kyle at the end, resulting in the use crude sign language in order to document our scores, but eventually Batman receives a 3 Star review from the ever-stingy Erin and 4 Stars from both Bret and Kyle.