Tim Burton returns to lend his hand to Disney with his vision of 'Dumbo' - the story of a baby elephant who learns to fly with his unnaturally gigantic ears. The general moral of the story is, don't be a jerk to people with abnormalities 'cause those abnormalities could be seen as a gift. Or something like that. Most of us are familiar with Dumbo and remember the animated Disney version from 1941, when it was still considered okay to jive-talk as a black crow named Jim Crow. Other than that moment, though, the movie's great, and has gone down in history as a sort of Disney staple. So how does this new live action take on it compare? First off it's important to know that unlike the animated version with talking animals, this one tries to stay somewhat within the realm of reality. Timothy Q. Mouse is just a white mouse in an outfit, and most of the story revolves around two kids, Milly and Joe Farrier (Nico Parker and Finley Hobbins, respectively), their father, Holt (Colin Farrell) and the ringmaster Max Medici (Danny DeVito) and their dealings with entrepreneur, V.A. Vandervere (Michael Keaton) and his most special performer, Colette Merchant (Eva Green). Dumbo, sadly kinda gets pushed to the side, and while the underlying original plot points are still there, it now lacks a lot of the heart of the original where the main focus WAS Dumbo. However, it's not without its charm. Honestly, it's cute, it's okay for the family, and it's harmless. But all in all, it's just kinda "meh". This is another one of those movies where there's this near-perfect balance between what's good about it and what's bad about it. Good, Danny DeVito's performance, bad, Nico Parker's performance. Although she's still very young, so I'll chalk it up to bad direction, but she's absolutely stiff and deadpan and boring. Good, the creative idea they had to portray the 'Elephants on Parade' sequence, bad, the fact that Dumbo's story is off to the side. Anyway, this is perfectly fine as something to show the kids who might get a little more freaked out by the original (I know of many). It's pretty innocent, and pretty basic. Credit to them for trying something new, but it didn't quite work out in the same way it did for something like 'The Jungle Book'. But thankfully it wasn't a carbon copy like 'Beauty and the Beast' (that's right, I said it, but don't worry, 'The Lion King' is something I'm looking forward to and it looks like I'm about to eat those words). It's perfectly passable, but it sadly lacks the potential for what it could have been. The original story is just far more charming in my eyes, and likable characters like Timothy Q. Mouse kinda lost their chance to be in the spotlight again here. I wasn't its biggest fan, but people do seem to be split on it. I can pass it as a 3, but it's on the lower end of things for certain. 3/5
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This is gonna be a bit off, as I have no reviews up for either of the previous two films. So I'll have to give away a bit of the whole story between the first two, but I'll try to keep it relatively spoiler-free (for those who care). To make a very long story very short, Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) befriends a "Night Fury" dragon, despite frequent dragon attacks on his Viking home town of Burk. He names him Toothless, and discovers that dragons aren't to be as feared as they are. Soon, Hiccup dedicates himself, along with a team of teenage misfits consisting of Astrid (America Ferrera), Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (Justin Ripple) to rescuing and housing captured and misunderstood dragons, giving them a home and protecting them from the various dangers of the human world. On this particular outing, we discover that Toothless isn't the only Night Fury out there, after the previous films have pretty much suggested it. Upon discovering this new dragon, legends come up of a "Hidden World" where dragons of all sorts live in harmony. This could potentially provide a better home for Berkians and their now overpopulated town of dragons. In the meantime, a dragon hunter named Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham) is discovered to be trying to capture this new Night Fury, and he and Hiccup find themselves at odds - Hiccup now being pretty much a leader-type since his first appearance when he was deemed a bit of a wuss. So much of the film is trying to get the dragons to the Hidden World with Grimmel hot on their heels the whole time. Granted, it's a bit of a rushed explanation for everything, but what you really need to take away from it is that it rounds the trilogy off really nicely. If you liked the first two, this one is really no exception as far as quality goes. The flying scenes look incredible, especially in in 3D, and it's our usual combination of comedy, drama and all out adventure. On top of that, I greatly appreciate the overall development of Hiccup's character through this trilogy. The film ends on a nice note where it genuinely seems to wrap things up. However, I said the same thing about 'Toy Story 3' which makes me almost dread a 4th movie just because of the fans and easy money. I'm not opposed to 'Toy Story 4' per se, but that really was a solid trilogy that ought to have just ended, saving whatever's left over for TV specials and the like. I'm kinda hoping this just sticks to what it is and doesn't feel the need to keep on going. Hopefully the same filmmakers can get another project off the ground instead. Anyway, this is a trilogy that I could recommend to just about anyone. It's great storytelling combined with likable characters and solid development that takes place over several years. We really do get to watch Hiccup grow up through this. Add to that the comedic aspect as well as a lot of it tugging at heartstrings, and we've got one of the more solid overall trilogies of the past decade. At least, that's my humble opinion. I know it's only the end of February, but this will get its Oscar nom for next year, I'm sure. 4/5 To kick things off with this review, I have to mention that I am reviewing this from the viewpoint of a non-reader of the original material. All I know about 'Alita' is this movie. So as far as what the film cuts out, what the film changes, how well the story is adapted as a whole, I have no idea. That said, on with the review. The setting is a post-apocalyptic wasteland of a city, set after the events of a devastating war known as "The Fall", in 2563. Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz) finds the head of a deactivated cyborg girl in a junkyard, and brings her home to bring her back to life. He names her Alita, after his recently deceased daughter. Meanwhile, Alita (Rosa Salazar) befriends a young man named Hugo (Keean Johnson) who introduces her to the sport of Motorball, and has dreams of moving to the sky city of Zalem. While Alita becomes rather smitten with him, she also struggles to remember her past, and who she was before Ido found her. Meanwhile still, a group of cyborgs lead by a big guy named Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley) is out to assassinate Ido, while Alita discovers that she can not only fight, but kick some serious ass. Slowly but surely, her past is unveiled, and, without spoiling anything, it all leads to a cliffhanger ending that suggests a sequel probably is well on its way. In trying to be the new action/adventure series, setting up for a sequel can be a common mistake. It's important to remember that your new series might not take off as well as you imagine it will. It failed 'Percy Jackson', it failed 'Divergent', it can fail anything if it's just not interesting enough, or strays too far away from what the book was. Again, I'm not entirely sure how well-adapted this is, but certain things about it lead me to hope it hangs in there. This is one of those titles that bears a modest 60% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for the critics, but its general audience seems to love it with a 94%, which leads me to believe that a lot of the readers of the source material are on-board for this to be successful. And hell, I'm on board too, but as a non-reader, I have my own reasons why. To keep it basic, I liked the world that was created here, there was a lot of imagination put into the creation of the characters, and despite the love story aspect of this, I didn't feel like a love story was being crammed down my throat. It's far more about Alita's journey, and Alita herself is just plain bad ass. And if you know me well enough, you know that I enjoy a strong female lead. But let's talk about the elephant in the room and, for whatever reason, the thing people seem to be avoiding - Alita's anime eyes. Now strap in, 'cause I'm about to get a little deep. Her eyes do not bother me in the slightest. In fact, I quite like them. The way I see it, she's an android, so really why the hell not? It can't really fall under a racial thing, in my opinion, because she's the only one who has them. And honestly, I get the feeling she was given big eyes for a reason, and it's not JUST to look like a manga character. A lesson I learned in illustration is that the eyes are the window to a person's soul. Alita's eyes kinda say a lot about her character, depending on her expression. Curiosity, love, appreciation, anger, rage, sadness. It's all kinda magnified in a way with her, making the viewer perhaps empathize with her a bit more. But hell, maybe it's just me. Personally though, I found her eyes to really add to her character as opposed to being the distraction that seems to be on everyone else's minds. Speaking for myself, so far, this is my front-runner film for "favourite" of 2019. With that said, a lot can change between now and 10 months from now, so we'll see what the rest of the year has in store. But with how unique this film is, I get the feeling it's gonna remain a stand-out for yours truly. 5/5 Much as the title suggests, 'The Second Part' actually picks up where the original 'LEGO Movie' left off. So, for those of you who haven't seen 'The LEGO Movie', spoiler alert ahead. When we last left the fictional town of Bricksburg, it was revealed that things were pretty much all taking place in the imagination of a young boy. Bricksburg was essentially a massive Lego model, owned by his father (Will Farrell). The kid made a bunch of stuff out of the model town, using his own imagination, and the underlying message (at least what I got) was basically, don't be an uptight father, and let your kids use their imaginations when it comes to play. When it was all said and done, the boy's sister was allowed to play with all of it as well. This introduces aliens from the planet Duplo who come to destroy Bricksburg, and the credits role. This opens up as though it's perfectly connected with he first film (Lego pun). The aliens create a post-apocalyptic Bricksburg, and our story picks up five years later (appropriately enough, as the first film was February, 2014). We reconnect (Lego pun) with Emmet Brickowski (Chris Pratt) and Wylstyle, now known as Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), who have since made a connection (okay, I promise that's the last one), and are pretty much a couple now. All of our favourite side characters make a return as well, including Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Alison Brie), Metalbeard (Nick Offerman) and Benny the Spaceman (Charlie Day). However, fair warning, they all kinda take a back seat here - and I mean further back than they had it in the first film. Although, I will say, Unikitty makes a pretty bad ass transformation in this one. Anyway, long plot short, Duplo aliens take over, and our heroes are approached by General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) who kidnaps everyone but Emmet, bringing them to the Sistar System where Queen Watevra Wa'Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) promises the group happiness, and plans to marry Batman in order to bring their worlds together in peace. Meanwhile Emmet heads out on his own to rescue Lucy and the others. He stumbles across Rex Dangerfest (Chris Pratt) who is a combination of some of Pratt's most famous characters, and the two of them work together on turning Emmet into a "manly man". If I'm honest, of the four Lego movies that exist, I'd probably put this in third place. It still has the comedic charm that the first one had, along with a few good pop culture jokes and gags. Some of the environments were kinda cool, like the idea of the "Stair Gate" that was kinda the portal to the sister's room. But on the other hand, things like the Sistar System altogether felt like a sort of rehashing of the first movie's Cloud Cuckoo Land - very upbeat, shiny, sparkly, happy, etc. I guess a lot of it just kinda felt altogether similar to the first one, as far as the real-world aspects of the story went. The only real difference is that this time the boy is trying to fix things with his sister instead of his father. We also have that in the first one, no one really expected that real-world twist. Now, it's not a twist anymore, so the impact just isn't what it was. Then when it comes to what's going on within the Lego universe, parts of it are great, but parts of it are just kinda lame. One thing that threw me off a little here were a few musical numbers. It's not to say musical numbers didn't exist in other Lego movies. Hell, 'Batman' had the best one, in my opinion. But something about these felt a wee bit forced. That said, much of this was taking place in the sister's imagination, and being a little girl of about probably 6 or 7, one might imagine her to be into the Disney singalong thing. So perhaps it was done for that reason. Anyway, most of my problems with the film are just nitpicks on some of the decisions made. It didn't give me the laughs that the first one did, or 'Batman' for that matter, but it's still fun. I mean, it's a Lego movie based around the imaginations of children. It can't be taken too seriously. 3/5 If I'm honest, when I first saw the trailer for this one, I was more or less expecting a Nickelodeon-type, damn near Disney Channel-like movie. Think something along the lines of a 'Diary of a Wimpy Kid' meets 'The Sword in the Stone' (the animated Disney version). But I'm actually happy to say that it ended up being more Disney's 'Sword in the Stone' combined with something like 'Moone Boy'. For those unfamiliar with 'Moone Boy', here's this. Anyway, upon realizing that this was written and directed by Joe Cornish (writer of titles like 'Attack the Block', 'The Adventures of Tin Tin' and 'Ant-Man'), it was a fairly easy sell. And I'll be damned if I didn't actually enjoy myself quite a bit upon seeing it. Here we meet two boys by the names of Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis [yes, Andy Serkis' son]) and Bedders (Dean Chaumoo). The two are your typical victims of bullying from Lance (Tom Tyler) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris) - and yes, it's fairly easy to see where the names are going here. One day, while on the run, Alex stumbles into a construction sight, where he finds a sword and pulls it out of its stone. This of course will eventually turn him into the "chosen-one" character. A new, strange boy comes to the school, who we soon learn is Merlin (Angus Imrie/Patrick Stewart), who has traveled into the mortal world to help Alex with the upcoming war between mortals, and the forces of the evil sorceress, Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson). And oh yes, this means Alex has to rise to the occasion and fight off a whole bunch of demons and whatnot and... I mean, I'm not gonna lie, I thought this was the perfect new take on an epic kid's fantasy adventure. It's by no means perfect, but just for the fun and fantasy of it all, it's really quite enjoyable. The only thing that really got to me was how some of the magic was done' involving a lot of fairly annoying finger-snapping and clapping. But that's just a nitpick on my part. It otherwise hit me just like 'This is the End' did, in that I was expecting something much more low-budget, and it shows, not the least of which in its creature effects. It's a PG-rated movie that has the potential to scare little kids with how some of these demons and creatures look. On top of that, the action involved is actually quite fun. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be a very healthy box office draw, because as I said in the beginning, it really does strike you as a Nickelodeon/Disney Channel movie when you watch the trailer. It also doesn't help that it's sandwiched between the trilogy sequel of 'Glass' and surefire family success, 'The LEGO Movie 2', either. So, while parts of the story admittedly lack a bit, I still got pleasantly surprised by this movie. As I said, it's not perfect, but there was definitely something enjoyable about it, and I encourage people to give it a chance. At the end of the day, it's just a fun, feel-good movie that might take you back to what it was like watching movies like 'The Goonies'. 4/5 I will be the first to admit that when it comes to DC, there's a bit of a disconnect with me. I tend to lean more towards Marvel's collection, and tend to consider most of what DC cranks out to be fantastic eye candy, but with minimal story-telling and character development, being a huge rush to try to catch up with Marvel. While I can't say I've ever really and truly hated any of DC's stuff, most of it has been disappointing with the exception of 'Wonder Woman'. Call me a band-wagoner if you must, but keep in mind that films like 'Suicide Squad' and 'Justice League', I still managed to give a pass to, despite seeing their flaws. The real question since mid 2016 has been "will anything ever be better than 'Wonder Woman', or even as good?" While the short answer is "probably not" (let's face it, the strong female superhero is one thing DC managed to beat Marvel to), I have to admit that 'Aquaman' here actually does come out pretty well, all things considered. In fact, this pretty much makes second place for me as far as DC's collection is concerned. A frank surprise, considering that by all rights, Aquaman ought to be about the lamest superhero in the DC Universe. Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) is born to a lighthouse keeper named Tom (Temuera Morrison) and an Atlantian woman named Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) who strongly believes that one day Arthur will unite the worlds of land and sea. However, Atlantian rules dictate that the love between Arthur's parents is forbidden, and Atlanna is pretty much hunted down into exile for her "crimes". Meanwhile, Arthur takes up the role of Aquaman, being stuck somewhere between his appreciation of land dwellers, along with his father, and being half Atlantian, but not necessarily able to show his face around Atlantis due to what he represents. Orm (Patrick Wilson), Arthur's half-brother (and full-blooded Atlantian) uses a pirate named David Kane (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) as a link between worlds in order to wage a war on the surface dwellers, after decades of our pollution causing problems. His betroved, Mera (Amber Heard) wants no part of it, and calls Arthur to Atlantis in an attempt to stop the worst from happening. To me, this is sort of DC's answer to 'Thor' (the powerful being who is after a specific weapon [the Trident of Atlan, here] in order to make things work, and eventually take his rightful place on a throne, after proving himself worthy). However, plenty of challenge lies ahead for him. perhaps a little less so here, though, as Aquaman is already an established member of the Justice League, and has been for a year. So we do get the best of both worlds here. This is slight origin story blended with hitting the ground running, and the execution of it all flows quite nicely. Up until this point, a strong criticism of mine when it comes to DC has been that things feel rushed and kinda messy. This one isn't that bad. I suppose my only real criticisms here lie within the overall bland acting, as so much of it is taken so seriously by so many, save Momoa, who seems to fully recognize that the whole thing is kinda silly, and goes for the 'Thor: Ragnarok' execution. First coming out of this, I thought the opposite, but after sitting on things for a while, it's clear that Momoa had the right idea for his role, so kudos to him. More criticisms go with a lot of the CG animation here with the impression that at this point, things could look much better. But all in all, this one really isn't that bad at all. Maybe it's due to my overall unfamiliarity and disinterest I've always had with this character, or perhaps I've just lowered my expectations so far, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one overall. While it's no 'Wonder Woman', and still feels rushed in parts (which is odd considering its 2.5-hour running time), it manages to do its own thing without going so incredibly over the top. And while I'm not exactly standing and cheering when it's over, I can nod my head with approval and assume that DC is starting to get their shit together. Despite it being a 3, it's certainly a high 3. 3/5 Due to the lack of material within the second week of December, it made perfect sense for me to give my audience a double-feature for the 26th. This also represents my very last review for the year 2018, and I am pleased to say that this was an incredibly pleasant surprise when considering how I've viewed 'Transformers' films in the past. Basically, I thought the first one was awesome for its time, and it was just a downhill slope of repetitiveness and messy direction from there. However, here we are with a 'Transformers' film that Michael Bay didn't get to tinker with, and instead is helmed by Laika animator, Travis Knight. This is the guy who brought us the animation of 'Coraline', 'ParaNorman', 'The Box Trolls' and 'Kubo and the Two Strings', which he also directed. 'Bumblebee' is really the first time we've seen this guy break away from Laika, and dive right into the mainstream with the now 6th 'Transformers' movie. And oh yeah, for my money, this is the best one of the batch so far. We start things on Cybertron, where the Autobots and Decepticons are at war. Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) sends B-127 (Dylan O'Brien) to Earth - a hidden planet on which Optimus hopes to establish a new base of operations for the Autobots. We then turn our attention to B-127, and the 'E.T.' like relationship he develops with a girl named Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld) who gives him the name of "Bumblebee" due to what he sounds like after getting his voice box ripped out by a Decepticon named Blitzwing (David Sobolov). Along the way, the pair also befriend the awkward neighbour, Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.), who has a bit of a crush on Charlie, but thank God the love interest doesn't take the front seat here. In the meantime, Colonel Jack Burns (John Cena) is interested in Bumblebee, after he crashes a training exercise upon landing on Earth. Burns sees him as a hostile pretty much immediately. He, and other soldiers of Sector 7, are visited by two Decepticons, Shatter (Angela Bassett) and Dropkick (Justin Theroux), who claim Bumblebee to be a wanted criminal on their home planet, and ask permission to use Earth's satellites to track him. So, while the movie loses a few points for being the 'E.T.' idea all over again (or any kid-plus-strange-pet scenario), it still manages to keep a high rating for me based on a few things the previous films don't have much of. Namely these are emotional investment in the characters, the ability to see how the robot fights play out without it looking like such a mess, and hell, I'm just gonna say it, these felt so much more genuinely like the Transformers I grew up with when we do get to see them. When Soundwave came on the scene, I could have cheered because dammit, they nailed it this time. All in all, this just has more structure, more heart, more character and more emotion to it than any of the previous films, and for that, I'm thankful. I'm hoping that this launches some newer, better 'Transformers' films as well. None of this has to be rebooted at this point, since this pretty much heads into the first film upon its ending. But hopefully we can get more like this. It's good for the old school fans, good for the newcomers, and I daresay, it even its the nostalgia mark really well. 4/5 We are living in a pretty interesting time for the web-slinger. Spidey has always been one of the staple superheroes out there, but he's certainly been through his ups and downs. However, it seems that today, things seem to consistently be going well for the character since Disney made their deal and Tom Holland put on the mask. But while Marvel is able to have their cool teen Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Sony still gets to play around with things too. Earlier this year we had 'Venom', which you pretty much either liked or hated (I thought it was kinda bad, but still fun for what it was), and now we have this, which I admittedly kinda hope becomes, at least a small series of some sort. We finally get to see the likes of Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) - the 'Spider-Man' who takes up the torch after Peter Parker, gaining his powers with a very similar spider bite. He lives in Brooklyn with his mother, Rio (Luna Lauren Velez) and cop father, Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry). Miles gets himself into a bit of trouble here and there with graffiti artistry, but he's an all-around good kid, and a well-liked kid at his school. Miles also has a raport with his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) - your typical bad ass uncle who's a bit of a bad influence on Miles in some regards, but still loves him and wants to keep him out of harm's way. The big bond they seem to have is within graffiti artistry. They end up in an abandoned subway tunnel so that Miles can throw up a mural, and this is where "the bite" occurs. In the meantime, Wilson Fisk (Liev Schreiber), with the help of a female Doc Ock (Kathryn Hahn) attempts to use a particle accelerator in order to open up other dimensions, and reunite with another version of his wife and son. This ultimately goes haywire, and several different versions of Spidey come out of it as a result, including an aged Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Spidey Noir (Nicolas Cage), Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and her machine, SPDR, and of course, Spider-Ham (John Mulaney). Together, they have to work to stop Fisk from causing any more damage, and evetually get back to their respective homes. All the while Parker helps train Morales up as a new Spidey for his dimension. What's crazy unexpected about this one, however, is just how conveniently it fell with its release. Shortly following the passing of the legendary Stan Lee, his animated cameo here will make you think, or perhaps even manage to bring a tear to your eye with the way he shows up. Stan Lee's passing didn't entirely effect me so deeply until this cameo. I know how weird that might sound, but anyone who's seen it has got to agree to some degree that this particular cameo hits you in the feels. The film is loaded with good stuff though. It's one of the most stylized adaptations for any kind of comic book I've seen since 'Scott Pilgrim', making things seem like a comic book come to life. Every now and then you see the art style change, comic panels float by, and the mixture of graphic art and music really make things feel authentically Brooklyn. Its also one of these animated films that's loaded with neat little visual pop-ups that beg for it to be seen more than once, if only to catch anything you might have missed, previously. My only real criticism here is mostly just a nitpick, and that's that between Noir, Ham and Peni, there's not a whole lot of development going on with them. They kinda show up to be interesting additions to the cast that some viewers may not know of, including yours truly (I had no idea Peni or Ham were a thing). But otherwise, this carries a solid story, style and execution, throwing a lot of familiarity at us with a lot of different. Hell, I haven't even mentioned what a badass Aunt May (Lily Tomlin) is in this. Easily being listed as one of my top picks of 2018 once I get that Top 10 list up, I can fully seeing this being a sort of new 'Scott Pilgrim' for me in that it will be a solid go-to movie I can watch again and again, and be completely inspired by its overall execution. But don't take my word for it on how good it is. Just go over to IMDb and see how its listed on the Top 250 as #29, or Rotten Tomatoes, balancing the critic and audience meter between 97% and 94% respectively. It's worth seeing in 3D if you have the means, too. But I will forewarn everyone reading this of one very important detail - it's busy and bright with stylized colour, and there's even a theatrical warning that various sequences could potentially cause seizures for those who suffer from such a debilitation. So not EVERYONE is gonna enjoy it. But, such is film. I loved the hell out of it, and see ownership in the near future. 5/5 Taking place six years after the events of the 2012 film (makes sense), we revisit the world of Litwak's Family Fun Center and Arcade. A game villain named Ralph (John C. Reilly) and a game racer named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) have become best friends, and they live among a variety of other famous video game characters like Pac-Man and Sonic the Hedgehog, just to name a couple. Vanellope mentions one day that she's kinda bored with the same old game routines, and wants a bit of change. Now able to freely jump between games, Ralph ends up making a secret track for Vanellope's racing game, 'Sugar Rush'. While Vanellope is fulfilled with something new and different, her actions cause the machine's steering wheel to break. With the company that made 'Sugar Rush' now out of business, the kids of the arcade turn to eBay in an attempt to help Mr. Litwack. The wheel is found, but it's too costly, and Litwack sees no alternative but to shut down the game. This leaves the racers and other characters pretty much homeless. However, Ralph and Vanellope jump into the new Wi-Fi that the arcade was recently hooked up with, in order to visit eBay, and get the steering wheel, themselves. Along the way, they find themselves having to turn to a deadly racing game called 'Slaughter Race' where we're introduced to newcomer, Shank (Gal Gadot), a kinda badass racer who gives Vanellope the thrill of her life, and causes her to start questioning whether she's happy enough with 'Sugar Rush'. Meanwhile, Ralph struggles with his feelings of jealousy, as he's afraid of losing her to this online game. So we have some generous development of these characters. However, the true charm of this movie lies within the internet world itself. I'd compare it to something like 'Inside Out' in that it's completely imaginative in its execution. It's essentially one gigantic city, with skyscrapers representing various internet companies; the most massive being Google. Pop-up ads are represented as those annoying people who throw signs in your face, eBay is seen as one big auction, the list goes on. For me, the highlight of the movie will probably surprise most, but it's honesty the scene we see in the trailers where Vanellope is mingling with the Disney princesses. This is mostly due to how incredibly self-aware Disney seems to be with these princess stereotypes, and it's even punctuated with a sort of jab at Pixar when it comes down to Merida from 'Brave'. The film is a generous combination of heart-felt experiences between Ralph and Vanellope, plenty of Easter eggs, a great sense of humor, and in the end, even a lesson or two here or there that are quite grown-up, and commendable for their execution. I absolutely loved this movie with how clever it was with everything, and I'd even put it one step above the original. One of the best animated films of the year! 5/5 Allow me to begin with the fact that going to see this was a last-minute decision, the day I went to see it. I didn't bother re-watching the first film, and that may have been responsible for me not being able to follow this one very closely. So, I'll be fair in admitting that this review isn't gonna be up to the best of standards, but I'll do my best. The film opens in 1927, as the notorious criminal, Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), makes a pretty badass escape during a transfer between the Magical Congress of the United States of America's (MACUSA) New York prison and London, where he is to be tried for his crimes in Europe. Meanwhile, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) is trying to retain his international travelling rights that were revoked after the events of the last film, taking place in New York. After that, it's a whole big back story reunion of characters I don't know or remember, plus the return of Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler)and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), among others I had since forgotten about from the last film. To be fair, the last time I saw it WAS two years ago, in theaters. But I digress. To shorten a fairly complex intro, basically, Dumbledore (Jude Law) makes a return here, and persuades Newt to find Creedence Barebone (Ezra Miller), who, Grindelwald believes, is the only person who can kill Dumbledore - a man Grindelwald considers his equal. Meanwhile, Grindelwald is kinda goes Voldemort (but not to such a degree) in the attempt to have Wizards take things over. If Voldemort was Hitler, Grindelwald is... Magneto? Yeah, we'll go with Magneto. Onto some criticisms, one thing I DO remember, was Jacob being "obliterated" (losing all memories of something) at the end of the last film. The excuse is that it only gets rid of bad memories, and Jacob only had good ones. The problem being, this basically means that Hermione's parents must have hated her or something, because Movie #7. To be perfectly fair, I MAY have missed a loophole, but really, it felt like a sort of cheap excuse to bring those beloved characters back. But I guess it worked well enough 'cause they are still all-around likable characters. In fact, I'll hand it to everyone's acting throughout this, because all of that magical charm is still there. It's just roughly written and often confusing (at least for me - again, I should have re-watched that first one). To be perfectly honest, missing stuff or not missing stuff, this is probably the least favourite of mine throughout the whole Wizarding World franchise. In my defense of not seeing the first one again before going, and forgetting much of it, what about some of the newcomers out there? There won't be much of a hint of exactly what's going on if you haven't seen the first, and that's a little less forgiving here because this is a film-only franchise. The 'Harry Potter' franchise had its original books for reference, so I consider it to be a little bit of a different monster. An honest-to-God recap at the beginning probably would have been enough. Now, to say something positive about a film from this universe (because I still dig this universe), again, the magical charm we've come to know and love is still abundant here. The familiar characters are well-portrayed, and it's probably a perfectly good treat to those who have seen and loved the first one of these a few times since its release. As a 'Harry Potter' fan, I appreciated a lot of it, but as a movie fan, it felt like a bit of a mess when it was all said and done. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. 2/5 Here we have something I consider to be a bit of a hidden gem within this Fall's releases. This is a decent combination of war movie and zombie movie, with a solid cast of relative newcomers, plenty of gruesome violence, and some edge-of-your-seat action and suspense. So yeah, one could say I quite enjoyed it. The film opens up on the Eve of D-Day, as a group of paratroopers is preparing to head out on a mission to destroy a radio tower. The plane is shot down, and the squad is forced to bail out early, providing us with one of the coolest, most intense falling scenes I've seen in recent history. For the most part, we follow a young man named Boyce (Jovan Adepo), who eventually ends up finding his Corporal, Ford (Wyatt Russell) among a few others. With these few remaining paratroopers, they continue on their mission. However, Boyce soon ends up discovering, quite by accident, some of the Nazi's more intense experimentation which, yes, leads to basically the creation of zombies - but not really your typical zombies, either, which is nice, because let's face it, the zombie Nazi idea is pretty played out. This one plays out a bit more like (dare I say it?) an 'Indiana Jones' film, in that the Nazis are showing their more occult side. They're really trying to make powerful, biological weapons that are seemingly invulnerable; a little something to add to their already powerful army. This is a film that sort of lets us peek behind the curtain and get a horrific fantasy idea of what Nazis may have been up to back then with some of their darker experimentation, which indeed WAS a reality. I think what I admired most about this one, however, is that it reaches this incredible balance. Between the horrors of war that everyone experienced back then, and some fantasy horror aspects, the film manages to pose the question of what's more terrifying in such a situation, the war everyone experienced, or whatever behind the scenes human experimentation that the Nazis really did. It's effective in allowing your imagination to explore the possibilities of death back then, and in the end, it was all very horrific and there was no real way around it. If you happen to be a horror fan, this is a title worth exploring. I'd even recommend trying to catch it on the big screen before it leaves, because it hasn't exactly been doing gangbusters at the box office. Yeah, a lot of the film is pretty out there at times, but all in all, it was something sort of right up my alley for when I'm looking for a good, solid horror flick. It MIGHT even make my Year-End Top 10. 5/5 Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt in the sixth installment of the 'Mission: Impossible' series. Now, if I'm honest, I feel like the number one draw to these films anymore is for us to watch Mr. Cruise risk his life for the sake of entertaining his audience. No matter how you may feel about the man, that's something to be admired. However, this movie has seemingly built more around it than any other title in the series. A group has formed from the ashes of The Syndicate known as The Apostles - The Syndicate being the terrorist organization lead by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) who was captured in the previous film. Ethan receives information about a deal to sell plutonium to several members of the Apostles. The plan doesn't quite go accordingly, and Ethan is later sent to retrieve to plutonium cores. However, in order to make sure he doesn't "screw it up" again, he's accompanied by August Walker (Henry Cavill), who ends up being a whole different type of obstacle for Ethan to overcome. The rest of the usual team returns as well, including the likes of our favourites, Luthor (Ving Rhames), and Benji (Simon Pegg), plus a couple of pleasant surprises to where I don't really know if it would be a spoiler to mention their names or not. But I digress. One relatively common complaint about the first 'Mission: Impossible' was that it was more about Ethan than the team, whereas the original show was always very much about the team. It seems that as these movies have progressed, since about 'M:I-2' (by far the worst of the series), the team has continually progressed with them. The focus is on the team now more than ever, and that's one of the common praises this one is currently getting from the masses. People are calling it "The best 'Mission: Impossible' yet", and in many ways, I'm actually very agreeable to that. For me, its between this and 'Ghost Protocol'. Perhaps the best of either title, as I flip the coin between which one is actually my favourite, lies within the action. 'Rogue Nation' did fine with it as well, but it just didn't have the same edge-of-your-seat feeling. The camera flows nice and steadily throughout the movie as well, doing away with a lot of the shakey cam action. Tom really is giving it his all throughout this movie, and again, its something to be admired. Anyway, if you like these movies at all, I highly recommend checking this one out. It was nice and intense as an action movie should be, puts the shakey cam in the back seat, and you just get what you pay for and then some. Again, it's currently between this and 'Ghost Protocol' for me, but check it out and see for yourself. Even if you just need a healthy dose of adrenaline, this is a good place to find it. Easily one of my favourite movies of the summer. 5/5 The 'Jurassic Park' franchise has kinda always had me going back and forth. On one hand, we could say "hey, fun dinosaurs, who cares about anything?" and just enjoy for whatever it is. On the other, you'd be hard pressed to find a series with more stupidity surrounding a lot of its characters. And as time goes on and these movies keep getting cranked out, the original 1993 film STILL has yet to be topped. The main reason? Us dumbass humans can't learn a damn thing. This time around, we kick things off with Jeff Goldblum returning as Ian Malcolm (by the way, if you go to see him, you will be disappointed as he just kinda bookends the movie). He's in a conference where they discuss the volcano on Isla Nublar about to erupt and kill off these dinosaurs. Malcom, being the only one with common sense suggests letting it happen. Dinosaurs are not meant to be a part of our world, pain and simple. But of course, the movie is immediately weakened by some stupid animal rights activist group who says "our children shouldn't have to grow up without dinosaurs"... y'know, like since humankind began, but who are we to argue? Heading this department is Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) from the last film. She recruits Owen (Chris Pratt) and a team of minor characters to head to the island and try to get the dinosaurs off of it. Which, spoiler alert, you pretty much see the results of in the trailer. Ultimately, the volcano erupts, and few are rescued, but by the wrong people and fro the wrong reasons. I'll just give you ONE GUESS what they wanna do with these dinosaurs - that's right, same as usual. Use their DNA to create shitty creatures who wanna kill things. This time around, I won't spoil much, but they take it to a pretty ridiculous extreme. I dunno man, I think this title pretty much pulled a 'JP3' on me, and has me inda giving up on the series for myself. I frankly found a lot of this movie to be insultingly stupid at times, and apparently I exist within in a small percentage of people. But my biggest beef lies in the ending of the movie. It's such a facepalm moment, but at the same time, seemingly the way to move things along for the next film (and oh yes, there will be a next film as long as money is to be made). In that case, I dunno if I'm quite on board. Now, was it 100% terrible? Not really. There were a few neat ideas here and there, but for the most part this turns into an incredibly heavy handed movie about animal rights... but with dinosaurs. This isn't a species of creature that is endangered and about to go extinct that we should struggle to save. It's a species we lived without for centuries who pose a threat to our very existence. Hell, there's even a scene where Blue the Raptor is shown crying. I mean, seriously give me a break. All criticisms aside, however, it's not a terrible flick to bring the kids to if they enjoy dinos. It has the varying aspects of thriller/horror that the first film had, and I'm willing to bet it could keep your kids on edge more than some of the previous films. A nice toe-dip into horror if you will. But as an adult, there's just too much here that outweighs the good. So I think, speaking for myself, I'll tend to just stick to my 1993 classic I saw when I was almost 10. I can still watch 'Jurassic Park' today and have a blast with it, even if it has its stupid moments too. It's almost like looking at the 'Transformers' films in my opinion. The first one is full of these mind blowing special effects you can have a lot of fun with it, but after a while, the effects need to take a back seat to the story. 2/5 Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) is back once again to give us another healthy dose of fourth-wall breaking humor. Every now and then, we need that little jostle from reality, and the 'Deadpool' movies are kinda perfect for it. This time around, DP find himself protecting a teenage mutant named Firefist (Julian Dennison). He's on the run from an orphanage who seems to be trying to control and "cure" his abilities. Meanwhile, a mystery man named Cable (Josh Brolin) comes into play, travelling to present day from a future in which his world was torn apart from little Firefist. In true 'Terminator' fashion, he's here to make some "corrections", and save his family from destruction. This is sort of the chapter of the 'Deadpool' movies where the hero has a bit of a change of heart about certain things considering a very unexpected opening sequence. For example, does he now want to try to become a part of the X-Men, and do the right thing? If you've seen the trailer, you also see hints of 'X-Force' coming into play, introducing new characters like Domino (Zazie Beetz), Zeitgeist (Bill Skarsgård), Bedlam (Terry Crews), Shatterstar (Lewis Tan), Vanisher (pretty hilariously random cameo I'm not gonna spoil here) and of course, Peter (Rob Delaney). They're all good in their roles, but unfortunately being mostly unfamiliar with 'X-Force' comics, I can't say for sure how it is on accuracy in the characters. That said, 'Deadpool' does tend to play things very much as a gift for real fans who are looking for the right comic book movie. A property like 'Deadpool' is beautifully flexible with it's fourth wall-breaking ways, it feels almost hard to screw it up. So far, to my knowledge, they haven't yet. I enjoyed this one pretty much just as much as the first one, and I'm not sure I'd say one is actually better over the other. They're just meant to be watched together. I can see this being a pretty heavily played back to back thing for the next while, upon it's release on home video. At least until it becomes a trilogy, which seems to be the case as there's a third 'Deadpool' announced on the horizon. But I think what people really wanna know is, if you're among the two people who haven't seen this yet, how is Josh Brolin as Cable? Well, you get pretty much what you get from the trailers, so you can pretty much judge his performance by that alone, for yourself. Personally, I thought it was yet another bit of perfect X-Men casting, right up there with Patrick Stewart as Xavier or Kelsey Grammar as Beast. All I had to do was see the first image for it to work for me. I had a few weird stipulations with it, but they weren't enough to take me that far away from it. Just monior curiosities, such as perhaps an edit or two where it feels like there's a scene missing. Of course, sometimes I just look away at the wrong time and miss something quick but vital. So I'm not gonna be too critical about it. Really, in the end, I feel like this came out pretty much as I expected - a worthy sequel to its predecessor. I might even go so far as to say this one may even contain more laughs than the first, but there's still a slightly serious note to it, just like the first. And if you came to see Deadpool and Cable fight, there's plenty enough of it to suit your needs. This one is in my favorites category for 2018. 5/5 For those of you who may not remember the original 'Pacific Rim', it was released back in 2013 to pretty decent reviews. I actually loved it. It had to do with a portal forming in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, through which a monster race came barging through, and wreaking havoc. But, we human beings ended up building what are essentially gigantic mech suits known as Jaegers to fight them off, and keep them at bay. It wasn't without errors, but it spoke to the darker side of geek culture, had unique ideas, certainly a visual spectacle on the big screen, the characters were decently developed, and it was a lot of fun. One of my favorites of the year, personally speaking. But hey, let's bring back a familiar name for no truly good reason, other than to cash in on John Boyega's 'Star Wars' fame. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for the guy, but between this and 'Star Wars', they are a couple of his lamer roles. He's a great actor, and I highly recommend catching him at his best, acting in some great dramatic roles, and of course my favorite role of his - 'Attack the Block'. Anyway, on with this title, shall we? It's ten years after the events of the first movie, and the son of Stacker Pentacost (Idris Elba), Jake Pentecost (Boyega) is a former Jaeger pilot, is making a living by stealing and dealing in broken down Jaeger parts on the black market. The lifestyle is interesting enough. They show things like how he tends to squat in abandoned mansions because there's a Kaiju (the monsters from the portal) skeleton sitting next to it or something. It actually starts off not so bad. But then, we get the ball rolling, and it just kind of sadly declines as it goes on. We soon meet Amara (Cailee Spaeny), who ends up being that child prodigy character who's really good at building things. She has her own Jaeger, and long story short, the pair of Jake and Amara show off what they can do with Amara's Jaeger, running from the law who catches them dealing. They get arrested, but recruited, Amara as a new ranger, and Jake as a trainer. He ends up paired up with his former copilot, a douche named Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood) who has to keep reminding Jake about how he messed up in his past. In fact, this brings me to my first major criticism of the movie - the relationships. There's so much bickering and arguing going on between everyone in this movie that it's distracting. By the end of it all, we kinda just stop caring about them. When they bring the fight to the city, the devastation left behind is kind of insane. It is suggested later on that the underground shelters used to evacuate these cities are still being used, but that first fight most definitely killed a lot of people due to it being a surprise attack. And sadly, yeah, it's just kind of brushed over as these kinds of movies tend to do, except maybe the first one of these. I'll even say a movie I sincerely didn't enjoy, 'Batman v Superman' addressed the devastation left behind in 'Man of Steel' pretty well. It ends up being the whole reason Batman sees Superman as a threat. I guess this is just me trying to be fair. The sequel to 'Pacific Rim' has had almost 5 years to grow, and it really and truly could have been a lot better. Though a lot of elements are similar, this wasn't of that fun, geeky level like the original was. Comparisons could be things like 'Thor: Ragnarok' or even 'Guardians of the Galaxy' - certainly not on the same level, but similar, fun, speak-to-geek style. This was more like a 'Transformers' sequel to me, to where I still enjoy the first movie for what it is, but the sequel is almost a nosedive into bad. It's full of cliches, terribly cheesy dialogue, generally based on arguments and people fighting, and on top of all that it even feels incredibly rushed. It runs for close to two hours, but so much of those two hours are focused on the wrong thing. Did I forget to mention the threat in this is Charlie Day from the original film? Y'know, the comedy relief? Yeah, he "drifts" in his spare time with the brain of a Kaiju, it messes with his brain, and he brings in a bunch of... I guess... Kaiju alien brains who pilot broken down Jaegers? I don't really know what I saw. All I know is this just made me wanna pull a 'Matrix' with this potential series-to-be, and stick to the original as it's own thing. I can't say I expected a hell of a lot more than what I got, but my expectations were pretty low, based on other reviews. It's pretty bad going into a movie hoping that it will pleasantly surprise you. This could have done all right as a straight to video deal, because it kind of felt like that's where it belonged. The box office hasn't exactly been kind to it either, so it was an interesting move throwing this on the big screen when clearly, not a whole hell of a lot of people asked for it. 1/5 Okay, so we've got this weird flip-flop situation going on here this week, but first a quick story of how we got here. For starters, this week's review was to be 'Pacific Rim'. I've been ill lately, so I decided to play it safe and hold off going to the theater until Thursday. It would mean another late review, but c'est la vie. So I get my ticket for 'Pacific Rim', and with reserved seating, I appeared to be the only ticket. To make a long story short, I attended, totally was the only one there, and they played 'Ready Player One' instead, by accident. Being that I REALLY wanted to see this over 'Pacific Rim', I kept my damn mouth shut, and enjoyed next week's review first. So here we are with a nice, early review for 'Ready Player One', hopefully making up for what's been late lately. Now, on with the review. In the year 2045, we meet Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), a dude who lives in a bunch of stacked up trailers known as, well, "The Stacks". Being that it has become a rough world out there, an invention called "The Oasis" has been created in order for people to escape their harsh realities. Most people in the world spend their lives in this virtual reality, where they level up their avatar over and over, growing and growing. If killed in The Oasis, you don't die in real life, but you lose everything you've earned in this reality, and may even *ahem* "lose your shit" in other ways. The inventor of The Oasis, James Halliday (Mark Rylance) has passed away. Before his death, however, he planted an "easter egg" (can we consider this an Easter movie, considering it's time of release?) somewhere within the Oasis, and he who finds it is granted full control of it all. Everyone in the world is now after this Easter Egg, including Wade, his online friends, and a guy named Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn). He runs a video game conglomerate known as the I.O.I. (Innovative Online Industries). They also manufacture most of the best equipment for the Oasis. Sorrento has ammassed an army of "Gunters" (egg hunters) called "Sixers" (based on their 6-digit number) who have ammassed debts, and have every reason to help him find the egg, the catch being, he'll stop at almost nothing to gain control. So, everyone seems to have the same sort of thing to say about this movie upon viewing its trailer. It's the same old familiar "the book is better than the movie". Usually being the case, I won't argue with the very real probability of that. However, personally, I didn't read this book before going into the movie. I thought it looked like a pretty awesome concept on screen though, with all those cameos, almost begging questions of how rights worked for some of the characters - mostly tied in with Spielberg and Zemeckis. I like me a good easter egg, so to me, this was like a candy store on-screen (which is funny 'cause Halliday is compared with Wonka quite a bit). But I'm here to tell you what I expected from it all along anyway. For the most part, all these cameos and easter eggs are very subtle. They make it so that you kinda have to look for some of them, and they aren't really who they are so much as avatars with different voices and personalities. There's a lot of it, but it manages to stay subtle enough, save for maybe a few big ones, like the Iron Giant, being built by Wade's friend Aech (Lena Waithe) and serving as part of what her character does - she's a tinkerer. There's sure to be purists who end up disliking the movie for it's adaptation. But for someone who hasn't read it yet, I can honestly say I got what I wanted to see, and maybe even more. So far, I'd claim it to be my favorite film yet this year. It pulls a 'Scott Pilgrim' with me in the sense that it just happens to speak to me with what it is, and how it's executed. It's just as flashy as it looks in the trailers, but the 3D is very nice (and yes, 'Pacific Rim' was to be 3D as well) if you like good visuals. But it also does a good job of bringing you into this world, showing off things like where people shop, or where communities meet up and party. On top of that, the characters are developed nicely, and the story is one that I personally find interesting. I have to say, I admired the way it ended as well. Check it out for yourself, and see how it goes. Not to overhype it on anyone, but I personally loved every minute of it. 5/5 One of the titles I was most looking forward to checking out this month, 'Annihilation' actually managed to give me a bit more than I was looking for. Despite perhaps a bit of a sluggish beginning, this film does touch on a lot of intriguing and frightening possibilities once things manage to get rolling. Some years ago, we are show than a small meteor strikes a lighthouse, creating a very strange, very beautiful bubble that seems to keep expanding. Soldiers and other experts have been sent in to check it out, but none have yet come back alive. This time around, it's up to a group of female scientists to enter the bubble, which they call the "Shimmer", collect data, and get to the lighthouse where it all begain to figure out exactly what it is they're dealing with. However, once inside the Shimmer, the group discovers strange mutations in the wildlife that go from absolutely breathtaking plant life to creatures and other very strange situations that could fuel your nightmares for weeks to come. The scariest part of the movie - it manages to deliver on everything scary being a very real scientific possibility, despite knowing how impossible it all is according to our own minds. While still remaining a sci-fi fantasy thriller, it does make one think. It kinda reminded me of 'Prometheus' in that sense, except this time around there will be no disappointment at not seeing any particular creatures. The creatures we do see here are very, very few, but the ideas the film is trying to get across come with them as necessary. Some are mutations of beauty, and some are just plain terrifying. I talk a lot about the movie being scary, and a lot of other critics will tell you that the fear factor is delivered very well here, but I kinda meet it in the middle. The whole deep inner core of this movie is pretty scary in that scientific mind set, and one of these creatures I found to be very unreal, but totally original and frightening in what it is. But that's about it. A lot of the on-the-surface scares are actually few and far between. for the most part, it's more of a disturbing movie that you mull over after it's done than it is a straight up jump scare horror flick. As far as performances go, it was a tough call. You can find yourself routing for our hero, Lena (Natalie Portman), but I would honestly consider the rest of the group almost too expendable. You get a bit of a brief history on who they are, and there's a tiny bit of development here and there, but if anyone gets killed off you don't necessarily care that they're gone. The interest is almost more in how they go. This particularly applies to the leader of this pack, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), whose overall character is extremely dry, uninteresting, and despite what she says it feels like she doesn't wanna be there. It was almost like watching Leigh performing completely uninterested, and just saying what the script asked her to say. Unfortunately for an otherwise fine actress, this didn't really come across as acting at all. I mean, I guess she was trying to make her character the way she was supposed to be, but it sadly kinda took me out of it all. Meanwhile Portman is pretty much acting her ass off here. It was an odd contrast. However, the overall writing and concepts held within this movie impressed me enough that Leigh's performance didn't completely take me out of things. I can say with honesty that I still managed to leave the theater well-entertained, give it credit for doing something original, and I'm still kinda pondering the film's ending, which IS a cliffhanger that might catch one off guard. This wasn't spectacular, but as far as 2018 goes, it's one of the better ones I've seen so far. It's interesting that winter doesn't seem to be that dumping ground it once was. 4/5 I had the weekend off, and up here in Ontario, Canada, we have a little thing called "Family Day". Most everyone gets the day off, and the idea is to spend some time with the family and do a family activity or whatever have you. Of course, most of us just use it as a relaxing day off, family or no. Anyway, my mother and I are both Aardman fans, so we decided to take to the theater and check out 'Early Man'. Most unfortunately, however, a bit too much noise and distraction kinda ruined the whole experience for us, or at least for myself. By the time the climactic sequence was up, I was already well-taken out of the movie. But, I got the gist of it, and that didn't mean there weren't a few funny bits throughout the movie. But truthfully, this might be one of the weaker of the Aardman titles either way. The film follows a caveman named Dug (Eddie Redmayne) and his faithful companion, a warthog (of sorts) named Hognob (Nick Park). After a bunch of Bronze-age bums, led by Lord Nooth (Tom Hiddleston) completely drive the cavemen out of their homes, Dug decides to challenge their football team to a game, and it really ends up being a football (or soccer, if you like) movie more than what I imagined it to be. And if you haven't figured it out by now, the world's history is kind of all over the place here. However, it does let you know from the get-go that this is to be treated as something like 'The Flintstones' in the sense that it's just fun for kids, you're not really there to learn history and what existed when. There have already been a few good name drops as far as the voice talent goes, but it goes on with the likes of Maisie Williams of 'Game of Thrones', Timothy Spall of 'Harry Potter', David Ayoade of 'IT Crowd', and Mark Williams of also 'Harry Potter'. So it has a solid cast of British talent lending their voices to these characters. Some sound a bit obvious, but others are well disguised, which is always a bonus for voice talent. It's a fun and harmless movie you can take your kids to and just have fun with. If you take it too seriously with how inaccurate it is, you won't have any fun with it. That being said, Aardman has done several other films that have been quite a bit better in comparison. It's cute, but it's not as clever or laugh-out-loud funny as some of their other titles. 3/5 This review is going to wrap up the Oscar-related Now Playing reviews, and the rest will be quickly looked over on my Oscar Special page. The reason I'm topping things off with this is simple - it's the #1 contender this year, with a total of 13 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Cinematography, Costume Design, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Production Design. But at the end of the day, and I'm sure I'll get some hate for this, I predict this isn't gonna walk away with all that much. And frankly, I kinda hope it doesn't take things over this year. For those who may not know what the film is about, it has to do with a custodian named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) who works in a secret government lab. She was rendered a mute when she was a child, and communicates with her closest friends, her coworker, Zelda (Octavia Spencer) and her roommate, Giles (Richard Jenkins). One day, a Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon) captures and brings in a creature who pretty much bears the same resemblance as the Creature from the Black Lagoon if it was done for today's movie screen. Elisa ends up befriending the creature and wanting to set him free due to witnessing Strickland treat the creature very abusively. And yeah, as you've probably heard by now, this goes a little deeper than just a friendship. So yeah, this was a weird one for me because it's almost as though whatever I'm questioning about the movie, I get thinking about and come to realize "hey, wait, that was SUPPOSED to provoke thought like that." The problem with the film is that is suffers from something similar to 'Avatar' in that the whole of the story is certainly nothing new. If 'Avatar' can be compared to 'Dances with Wolves', then I can certainly compare this to 'Free Willy'. It would just be if the kid was in love with the whale... ew... anyway, it IS a very similar befriend-and-set-free scenario at it's core. Now, I ended up seeing this from a few different angles. Again, much like 'Avatar', it wasn't really the story that was the engaging part of the film. For 'Avatar, it was the effects. For this, a lot of it is the acting, and a lot of it is just the weird, which leads me to my lingering question I've had since leaving the theater. Was this Del Toro's love letter to creatures? It could be seen like dream interpretation, like maybe the whole thing is representative of Del Toro's love for creature features. He just chose to do this particular story line because it's simple enough to wrap his other complications around. The other way to see it is that everyone in this film has some sort of prejudice going against them. Elisa is mute and can only sign, Zelda's black and Giles is gay. So, it's probably more likely that it's a movie with subtext about prejudice, using the creature as the ultimate unknown. In that regard, I can understand why it's so deeply regarded. And hey, if it's a combination of both, more power to Del Toro for accomplishing that. However, again, this is one for the deep thinkers, and it can be quite a bit to wrap your head around at times. The perfect example, and warning, is that at one point the film kinda stops dead and has a song and dance number between Elisa and the creature. I'm not making that up, and it's as ridiculous as it sounds, but again, there's deeper meaning behind it when it's all said and done. So it's definitely a movie that you might come out of wondering what the hell you just watched, but at the same time there is a certain amount of charm that the film has, albeit, a very strange charm. It's not what I'd call a simple movie by any means, and one has to look at the deeper meanings behind everything going on to appreciate why it's so Academy popular. But hey, give it a shot, and if you feel weird afterwards, you know it's not for you. Me, Ill give it a meeting in the middle and, give it this rating only based on it being so thought provoking. Otherwise, yeah, 'Free Willy' with sex. 4/5 If you're anything like me, you might suffer from those winter blues. The sun is always down, it's cold, it's quiet, this season can just feel so lonely. So, may I recommend, very highly, going to watch 'Paddington 2' (er, after watching 'Paddington' first, of course). It'll cure what ails you. I was lead down this road by paying attention to how things are doing in theaters right now. 'Paddington 2' seemed unusually highly rated to me, with a very solid 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, an 88 Metascore, an 8.1/100 on IMDb, and 3 BAFTA nominations. This is like, a Pixar-level family film. Personally, I never paid much attention to Paddington Bear growing up, but I wasn't at all unfamiliar either. I kinda got that he was a Curious George type of character who just got into mischief once in a while and had to learn some sort of lesson, as per average children's story. But the interesting thing about these movies is that they speak to the adult viewer's youthful and fun side just as much as it speaks to the children watching. Following up a couple of years after the first film, the plot here involves Paddington (Ben Whishaw) trying to get his paws on a popup book to give to his Aunt Lucy (Imelda Staunton) as a thank you for bringing him to London to live with the Browns. However, the popup book is a very special antique, and worth a pretty penny, so Paddington decides to get himself a job to save up for it. Meanwhile, a master of disguise named Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant) is also chasing after this book, as it holds some sort of special secret. In a mixup, Paddington is soon framed and arrested, and much of the film is him in jail while the Brown's try to clear his good name. However, I make that sound worse than it really is, 'cause... well, just imagine the most innocent and polite bear possible being surrounded by hardened criminals in a kid's movie. If you are looking for anything that isn't 'Star Wars' to bring the family to, I can honestly highly recommend this one. It's often bright and colorful, it's hilarious at times (no, really, a few genuine "lol's" were had), it's innocent, and it's sweet. Much like the first movie in mood and style, but perhaps a little less harsh and a little more fun family adventure. So far, I would have to say that it's the feel-good movie of the year, despite it only being mid-January. We'll see what else comes out to outdo it, but this might end up being the best family outing you have this winter. If nothing else, as mentioned before, it'll chase those winter blues away, and bring some warmth to your heart. You just can't help but love this little bear. Kids movie or not, it worked very well on me, and I've grown fond of both of these titles. 5/5 |