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Post by Belchic on Nov 23, 2020 11:43:29 GMT -5
Well said on this review, Trey!
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Post by Trey_Vore on Dec 12, 2020 4:01:29 GMT -5
The Polar Express (2004)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Director: Robert Zemeckis Cast: Tom Hanks (Hero’s Boy’s father, Conductor, Hobo, Scrooge puppet, Santa Claus, Narrator), Daryl Sabara (Hero Boy), Isabella Peregina (Sister Sarah), Eddie Deezen (Know-It All), Nona Gaye (Hero Girl), Peter Scolari (Billy the Lonely Boy) Runtime: 100 min. MPAA rating: G (all ages admitted)
On Christmas Eve, a 10-year old boy (no name given) thinks he may be approaching the end of his potential belief in Santa Claus. After he falls asleep, a magical locomotive parks on the street and the conductor invites him to take the journey to the North Pole to meet Santa. After a brief refusal, he broads the train and befriends a girl (also, no name) and helps another boy that almost misses it. Will the boy meet Santa and have his belief in the magic of the holiday restored?
Make no mistake, Christmas is my favorite time of year. I have a gigantic collection of must-watch holiday favorites to see and my iTunes account is full of songs classified under “Holiday”. I have several seasonal favorites, namely Home Alone, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas… There’s no better time of year.
Now, I’m not completely opposed to going against the grind of what you’re probably expecting from a Christmas movie. When you think “Christmas” you tend to think of a time of family togetherness, warm fuzzy feelings and of course, the birth of Christ. That said, I do enjoy something that isn’t supposed to be that way (I still love movies like Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, and Gremlins).
However, while there is definitely a market for Christmas movies, there is inevitably going to be some movies that just plain suck. Movies meant to be funny can be cruel and mean-spirited, movies meant to be heartwarming can seem despicable and movies trying to be magical end up feeling soulless. I remember hearing about this movie back during my time on the Disney College Program and at the time, CGI was pretty much guaranteed money in the bank. I did see it in theatres and…?
…I regret my choice.
Maybe I should start with the story. The movie is based on the picture book written in 1985 by Chris Van Allsburg (who you probably also know as the guy that wrote Jumanji), and expanded to feature length. Problem with that is while Jumanji managed to find something it can do to justify it’s now a movie you would go to the theatre and pay money to see, The Polar Express doesn’t—it takes just about 10 minutes of story and just leaps around from one scenario to the next without any real rhyme or reason. From a story viewpoint, it just seems more like a roller coaster ride than a movie.
The characters basically are flat and undeveloped as well. The main character is only referred to in the credits as “Hero Boy”. His first friend is “Hero Girl”. The white smart kid who sounds like Mandark from Dexter’s Laboratory is “Know-It All”. The lonely boy’s name is “Billy”. The conductor never gets a name either. That’s all we really get to know about them as what’s probably more important is a desperate need to enchant. Are we really supposed to want to know these characters or find someone we can emotionally relate to? I can’t tell.
And of course, the way they describe Santa Claus isn't what you're probably expecting from a kids' movie. You might think he's supposed to be a kindly, gentle, warm-hearted elf but instead, he seems more like he's supposed to be the CEO of a mega-conglomerate corporation. I'm almost expecting the elves to be shuddering in fear as even a slight mistake could cause him to make like Donald Trump and say "You're fired!"
Now for the elephant in the room: the animation. The book was originally done with a painterly tone as it gave the movie some degree of charm. Here, they use CGI to make the characters look as though they are supposed to be real people—it goes for the dreaded Uncanny Valley. We know they want the characters to look like people you could actually meet but it only has the opposite effect. Instead, these characters end up looking like plastic dolls with glass eyes. They always look stiff and unlike what you’d expect a real person to look like. Because of this, and the fact the characters go undeveloped, even back when I saw this movie in 2004 I found myself wanting to avoid the characters regardless of what message they were trying to send. But isn’t this movie supposed to make me want to join these kids while they make their trip to the North Pole? Very self-defeating in my book.
This movie may want to be a Christmas classic, but instead it wound up being a horror show. The Polar Express is yet another example of how not to make an animated feature film about a children’s book. It wants to make you feel warm and toasty, but instead it is creepy and soulless. I’m pretty sure even kids aren’t going to like this movie as it might unintentionally scare them. Do yourself a favor and stick with your other seasonal holiday favorites and avoid this awful movie.
The Polar Express (2004) TreyVore rates it: F
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Post by Trey_Vore on Feb 1, 2021 9:16:01 GMT -5
DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990)
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures/Disney MovieToon Studios Director: Bob Hathcock Cast: Alan Young (Scrooge McDuck), Russi Taylor (Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby), Terry McGovern (Launchpad McQuack), Richard Libertini (Dijon), Christopher Lloyd (Merlock), Joan Gerber (Mrs. Beakley), Chuck McCann (Duckworth), June Foray (Mrs. Featherby), Rip Taylor (Genie) Runtime: 74 min. MPAA rating: G (all ages admitted)
After going on a treasure hunt for Collie Baba’s treasure, qualti-zillionaire Scrooge McDuck and his family finally find the fabled treasure but lose it following an act of deception from pickpocket Dijon, who’s on the side of the powerful magician Merlock. Keeping nothing but a dusty old oil lamp, the kids rub it and it unleashes a friendly child-like Genie. The Genie quickly befriends the kids and they enjoy having their wishes granted, but after Scrooge discovers the lamp with its powerful Genie, his greed takes over. However, Merlock is still hot on their trail as the lamp was his coveted prize; if he places his talisman on the lamp he will be permitted limitless wishes. So, can Scrooge keep his family safe, protect his money bin, foil Merlock’s evil plot and maybe learn that some things are worth more than money?
I’m going to start by saying this movie is a feature film adaptation of the highly popular and successful Disney Afternoon series DuckTales. At the time, this was not simply a show that kids were into but it became a popular water cooler discussion piece at the workplace. It had copious amounts of merchandise; there were T-shirts, lunch boxes, VHS tapes containing 2 episodes of the show, coloring books, children's storybooks, a monthly magazine, plush toys, Valentines… it was inescapable. The series even had a hot-selling NES video game made by Capcom that is very fondly remembered by gamers including me. It even had a lesser-known sequel that was released near the end of the NES lifespan. We all knew a movie was inevitable.
During a time when animated movies were starting to find their voice again, I do remember watching this movie by seeing it in theatres. Back in 1990, my dad took me, my brother, sister and friends to see it and we enjoyed it being fans of the series, and during that time I had no knowledge that it was like a swan song for the series; the suits at Disney figured it was time to cancel the show so they should go out with a big one. It kinda faded out of mind within the next few years, but I do have some nice memories of it. Since everything old is now new again, I thought it might be a good time to review the movie from my now-adult viewpoint.
I’ll start by saying it must be difficult, making a movie about a popular show. On one hand you have to make something that will appease the show’s ardent fans and simultaneously make something that a non-fan will understand and appreciate. Maybe if done well, you could even turn a non-fan into a fan. There’s probably a whole plethora of ideas and themes that the writers need to take into account and wonder if it really will appeal to the very lowest common denominator.
This movie was hardly out to re-invent the wheel. It’s very cookie-cutter with no real surprises and gets by on your then-existing fondness for the show and the characters. The story feels very much like its something of a mix between a classic animated film that you’d expect from Disney and the type of product you’d expect to see on a Saturday morning. The writing isn’t the best either as in the first part of the movie is very pun-heavy and nowadays more likely to elicit groans than laughs. Sample would be:
Huey: What’s the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook say about booby traps? Louie: (produces his book) It says “Stay alert and use your marbles”. Dewey: (produces a bag of marbles) Boy, good thing I brought some!
In retrospect, the series itself had serialized 5-part episodes that were just normal episodes of the show which were ultimately superior to this movie—maybe the fact that the series had such a high bar set for itself together with the fact the series was so successful and fresh in people’s minds was what caused the movie to tank especially in the light of Jetsons: the Movie.
The fact that it came out in summer 1990, when we just had the first live-action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was also a factor as well, as TurtleMania was sweeping the nation. Not to mention Huey, Dewey and Louie were featured characters on Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue during the spring of that year so overexposure had to have hurt it. That probably was what put the kibosh on them making animated feature film adaptations of other popular Disney Afternoon series like Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck.
The animation is perfectly fine as they just had to use the high-quality character models from the series; but that’s sort of a liability as it just looks like as you’d probably think it would being based on a popular Saturday morning cartoon. Nothing of note to really single out, but it looks like it should.
For the characters, there’s a good number of them here as you were probably expecting from the show. Being that it likely started production during the first season they use all the recognizable characters save for maybe Bubba Duck and GizmoDuck, who were added to the show in later seasons to up the ante so it wasn’t completely soft and safe but more action-minded like later Disney Afternoon series were, similar to Chip n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin and Darkwing Duck. Nobody really gets a wide assortment of development—while you probably know who characters like Huey, Dewey and Louie are being familiar characters from the classic Disney shorts there’s not a lot of explaining to do with them, there are others such as Scrooge McDuck, who you more than likely know as he was previously featured on Mickey’s Christmas Carol. He’s not as immediately recognizable as Donald Duck but he’s hardly an obscure character; he doesn’t get a whole lot of development in this film probably because he got so much attention on the show, and now he’s more like the typical greedy relative who only at the end makes a hackneyed change of character because the story requires it. The other characters don’t get a whole lot of development either; Launchpad is the clumsy pilot and… that’s about it, Duckworth and Mrs. Beakley are loyal members of Scrooge’s staff, and Webby was originally three separate characters—she was at a time Daisy’s three nieces April, May and June, merged into one character to save money on production costs as they were not characters that Carl Barks used much. Here she doesn’t get to be much of anything other than the token girl. Dijon is a bumbling pickpocket who really isn’t all that threatening and isn’t meant to be a metaphor for anything, just a character that antagonizes the family on their level. I guess just one pickpocket was easier than using all the Beagle Boys. Even the Genie is a little shallow being that he’s on the kids’ level and his longing for freedom from the lamp is all-too-familiar. The only character to get some level of depth is Merlock, the powerful magician who wants the lamp for sinister purposes. These complaints are not against the movie as they were all fresh in peoples’ minds during the series’ original run. I just don’t know if it was made with great longevity in mind—remember that one year earlier we just got Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
Confession time: there was one line in the movie I didn’t initially understand but I get now as an adult: after Scrooge discovers the kids' new friend is a magic Genie, Mrs. Beakley then asks "Does his mother know about this?" As a kid, I did not understand that line as the Genie probably would not have had parents, but now as an adult, I get the context. As far as the adults were concerned, he's just an ordinary kid, but if he really does have magic powers, she's thinking his parents would be very surprised.
Regardless, the movie does have a good heart and a nice, if overly familiar, message about your friends and family being more valuable than vast wealth. I’m not going to dig too heavily into that because I know that there are some limits; it’s better to have a lot of money and no friends than to have no money and a worthless friend, but it is intended to teach children to put people’s feelings first and not be selfish. Nothing wrong with that.
Neither treasure nor trash, DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp is perfectly serviceable as a series finale. I do think though, that it’s rather blatant with its ideas and themes not to mention more childish in nature; Disney would, in 2 years’ time, give us Aladdin which is undoubtably a vastly superior movie. If you couldn’t get that classic film, I suppose this would make an okay substitute. Just… lower your expectations.
DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) TreyVore rates it: C
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Post by Trey_Vore on Feb 7, 2021 9:23:59 GMT -5
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax (2012)
Distributor: Universal Pictures/Illumination Entertainment Director: Chris Renaud Cast: Danny DeVito (The Lorax), Ed Helms (The Once-ler), Zac Efron (Ted Wiggins), Taylor Swift (Audrey), Betty White (Grandma), Jenny Slate (Mrs. Wiggins), Rob Riggle (Aloysius O’Hare), Chris Renaud (forest animals) Runtime: 86 min. MPAA rating: PG (brief mild language)
This movie is about a 12-year-old boy named Ted who lives in Thneed-Ville, a town where everything is completely plastic and artificial; even something natural as air is sold in containers. Wanting to impress his crush Audrey, who wants to see a real tree, Ted sets out to find the Once-ler on the outskirts of town where he tells the story of how he was once a powerful businessman thanks to his creation of the Thneed, a multi-purpose item harvested from Truffula Trees. Against the protests of the Lorax, a hermit who speaks for the trees, he overproduced the Thneeds which caused the outside world to be a barren, contaminated wasteland. However, the greedy air baron Aloysius O’Hare becomes aware of Ted’s ambitions and seeks to stop him, knowing the threat to his empire. So can Ted learn the truth, save the environment, win Audrey’s heart and release the iron grip of Aloysius O’Hare?
This movie is a feature film adaptation/expansion of the classic 1971 book that was written by Dr. Seuss. I’m sure if you had any sort of childhood, you probably had grown up with the classic stories that were told by Dr. Seuss, just like Mickey Mouse and Sesame Street. Hell, I am no stranger to the world of Dr. Seuss; my birthday is within Dr. Seuss month!
Because these books he wrote are pretty much money in the bank, it stands to reason that Hollywood would want to go and adapt them for feature films; after all they were adapted for animated cartoons in the past. I even make sure that every time Christmas comes close I go out of my way to make sure I watch the Chuck Jones cartoon adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas!. But how do you go about doing that? Taking a short story and adapting it to be a movie people will pay money to see? They did it in the past, with not the best results. You have the at least decent Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who!, the less-than-perfect Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and the franchise killing Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat. Indeed, after that fiasco, Dr. Seuss’s wife Audrey Geisel would refuse to permit Hollywood to make anymore live-action adaptations of her husband’s work—if studios did so she would threaten to sue.
This movie was then the second big screen animated adaptation of a famous Dr. Seuss book. Now that the original story is turning 50 I thought I should go ahead and review this movie. And because Universal has the rights to the Seuss properties, they’d go and get Illumination Entertainment to do the animation. The very same studio that people know from the wildly popular Despicable Me and the profitable but not beloved Hop.
I’ll start by saying the material adapted from Dr. Seuss’s book still works. That is, however to be expected. The movie caught all of what it’s supposed to be about the Once-ler being a former Thneed baron and how his greed caused the town to be a massive wasteland. That part of the story is where the movie is strongest.
The padding that was added to extend this to a movie? That doesn’t work. For starters, the movie doesn’t have a very strong grasp on the concept of subtlety; it takes all it’s intended messages about environmental awareness and hammers you over the head with it. An example of which being when the Once-ler chops down the first Truffula Tree, all the forest animals are utterly aghast at what they see. Some good can come from using trees for resources as long as there are limits to what is chopped down but the movie treats it like a little kid was brutally murdered. The problem with that sort of writing is instead of making a valid point it leaves very little to your imagination; instead of making you think on the matter it just goes in one ear and out the other.
For the look of the movie, I’ll say this: they did a good job making the world seem superficial as it is meant to be. Everything has a Seuss vibe about it almost like you are making a dime store visit to the Seuss Landing part of Universal Studios. This does however, further push a problem related to some of the story and characters. It doesn’t help that the movie has musical numbers that make it blatant what their point is and only exist to pad out the runtime.
The characters that were adapted from the story are a mixed bag. For one thing Ted is supposed to be the protagonist of the story and the one kids can identify with but his motives are weak. Prior to the events of the movie, as far as we knew he was perfectly happy living in a plastic and artificial world. The thing that caused him to want to do something about the environment was a wish from his crush. But what’s going to get him to want to keep that going after he scores? The Once-ler is supposed to be the very person who made so many mistakes that wound up ruining the environment, but the odd juxtaposition of his backstory and Ted’s issues make the narrative confusing. The Lorax himself you ask? He’s supposed to be a hermit who speaks for the trees and his voice by Danny DeVito could not have been better cast. However, because he’s on screen for about 40% of the movie, he doesn’t get the attention you would probably think he should have, not to mention he feels like he’s meant to be more of a joke than someone whose warnings you are meant to heed. For all the Bears, Birds and Fish, they are clearly trying to channel the success they had with the Minions. However, this isn’t the best idea as the Despicable Me Minions can be part of the movie and make some gravy through the merchandise, so they are able to work that way; with this movie it feels very much like they are trying to simply cash in. It’s one thing if you take a toy commercial and try to pass it off as art, but take a piece of art and try to use it as a toy commercial is just crass.
For the other characters, there’s not really a point. The grandmother is a nice character but Audrey is nothing more than Ted’s motive. The movie’s villain, Aloysius O’Hare, is supposed to be a greedy baron who’s basically got Thneedville under an iron grip. Problem is though, he’s a black-and-white character who has no backstory other than he found a way to make Thneedville function and now just wants to line his pockets with cash. It wouldn’t have surprised me if at one point in his career he once tried out to be a Captain Planet villain. You know, just cackling while he pollutes the ocean just because he can. The movie does adapt the book’s original ending with the Once-ler giving Ted a seed to give the story some hope as in the original story Ted would be the one to plant the seed to maybe give the ruined town a chance for a brighter future, but the over-the-top climax defeats it somewhat. You can’t argue against the movie’s point, but it’s just not that effective.
You know how the movie prominently features marshmallows? That little food item can be an appropriate metaphor for the movie itself: it’s light, sweet, fluffy, goes down easy and great fun at parties, but has no nutritional value and you can’t survive on it. Kids will probably get a kick out of it but it’s not really for anyone else. This movie is not going to leave a bad taste in your mouth about Dr. Seuss or his stories, but the original animated cartoon from 1972 is a much more effective version. I don’t hate this movie but it’s not really going to get better with me over time.
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012) TreyVore rates it: C-
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Post by Trey_Vore on Feb 22, 2021 6:10:14 GMT -5
Rock Dog (2017)
Distributor: Lionsgate/Summit Entertainment/Huayi Brothers Director: Ash Brannon Cast: Luke Wilson (Bodi), Eddie Izzard (Angus Scattergood), J.K. Simmons (Khampa), Lewis Black (Linnux), Kenan Thompson (Riff), Mae Whitman (Darma), Jorge Garcia (Germur), Matt Dillon (Trey), Sam Elliot (Fleetwood Yak) Runtime: 80 min. MPAA rating: PG (action and language)
This movie is about a teenage Tibetan Mastiff named Bodi who lives on Snow Mountain, a secluded village where his father Khampa has been guarding. His job was to use his training and skill to scare the villainous wolf pack away, and fears for the village after almost losing to the wolves; he then puts a ban on music from his village. He hopes that his son will follow in his footsteps as a powerful fighter, but that’s not Bodi’s ambition; after a radio falls out of a plane Bodi finds his calling in that he wants to be a professional rocker. Dad gives his son a chance; go achieve his dream, or return home and don’t look back. Hoping to get guitar lessons from the superstar musical artist Angus Scattergood, a singer/songwriter with a case of writer’s block, Bodi obliviously has to dodge being nabbed by two wolf henchmen of Linnux, head of the Wolf pack. So the question is, can Bodi achieve his dream, make some friends, get lessons from his idol, make his dad proud and stop the Wolf pack from invading his village?
This little animated film, based on the Chinese graphic novel Tibetan Rock Dog from Zheng Jun, clearly had a lot of changes made. Maybe this is just because I tend to take in a bunch of things into account, but there’s going to be cultural differences in a collaboration between China and the U.S.A. Not really getting a lot of promotion had to have hurt it too; it didn’t even crack the Top 10 on the American box-office chart and Wanda Cinema Line, who would show it to the Chinese, limited the release as well. Reportedly this was because of the conflict with Huayi Bros. in addition to anti-Tibetan sentiment.
Not really getting a lot of opportunities to see the film myself, being that my local cineplex didn’t show it and not really getting the chance to rent the movie, I finally did take it in and? I will start by saying it’s not a bad little movie. Sure there are some evident flaws that it has but… it’s by no means a bad film.
I will address the negative qualities first. For the story, it’s not the strongest; it felt like it borrowed elements from Kung Fu Panda (the Chinese nature in general being an adaptation of the original story), Hop (the hero’s ambition), Footloose (the ban on music and dancing) and Zootopia (the fact it’s a movie about anthropomorphized talking animals). Speaking of which, the fact this movie came out less than one year after that very witty and highly entertaining film one couldn’t help but try to draw comparisons; while that movie clearly could appeal to mature viewers in addition to kids, this one feels like it’s really meant more for just kids. Some characters I thought got too much screentime while others got too little. For one thing, the villains’ ambitions aren’t really brought to light, they probably just want to have a feast and that’s it; it felt like the villainous wolves aren’t truly necessary other than just to give the movie a more actiony climax. There’s a lack of explanation on how Khampa and Bodi would be able to generate their chi energy to literally throw a Hadouken; the source material’s spiritual side and the darker tone are gone mainly because well, it’s a movie intended to appeal to children. Clearly something had to have been lost in translation. It would have been nice to have seen some wider focus, I personally thought we see too much of characters like Khampa, the sheep and the two wolf henchmen when it probably would have worked to the movie’s benefit if we saw more of characters like Darma and Germur. Another character like Trey the snow leopard is supposed to be Bodi’s rival but his role in the story goes nowhere. Some of the humor is pushing it, like when Bodi is trying to get inside Angus Scattergood’s estate a dialogue exchange goes like this:
Bodi: *singing* Angus: Did you bloody hear me? You are doing my nut in! I was this close to laying down a completely killer track and you-- Bodi: Are you Angus Scattergood? Angus: No, I’m his *car horn honks* gardener!
With all that in mind? It’s not a bad movie at all.
I’ll start by saying the movie gets the main focus right; Bodi is the clearly sheltered child who wants to be more than just a simple shepard and wants to pursue a more ambitious career. Maybe this is because I am reading this from an artsy viewpoint but like how art is difficult to make a career, it’s also difficult to be a professional singer/songwriter too. The fact that he’s supposed to be overly naïve about the reality about the business due to his original upbringing I feel really makes this character identifiable. Over the movie’s run Bodi would need to be more assertive and do his job and finding it in his own path. For Angus Scattergood, he reminds of Mick Jagger in a sense and I found that to be amusing.
I will say that I do feel it does a nice job creating an environment too; from the snowy mountain top to a major metropolitan city I want to say might be something like their take on Hong Kong, it does give us something appealing to look at. Sure it’s not the best animation but it provides something good for the eyes. The movie does do a good job with getting it’s themes across too, like carving your own identity, following your dreams and giving credit where it's due.
For the characters, I’ve discussed Bodi, but personally I would have liked to have seen more of him, together with Angus, Darma and Germur, and less of Khampa and the sheep. Maybe the wolves could have used a little more development as well, but… it is what it is. I will admit I did like the narrator too, that being Fleetwood Yak. He does have a good performing role, but… maybe this is just a bias on my part, but maybe on account of his voice, he reminds me of a lone cowboy type of character. Again, maybe this is a merging of two different aesthetics.
Rock Dog is not a perfect movie by any means, but I won’t say I didn’t enjoy it. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say I can see some potential in it and would support it being a franchise. Maybe they could go further with Bodi becoming a musical singer and giving some insight on the world of a professional rocker? Have him do a sing off with some villains and give us some Bodi/Darma fluff and we are good.
I do say this because this movie is getting a sequel, and seeing as animated films are getting their due, I would support the next movie once we get it. It’s no Jem and the Holograms for sure!
Rock Dog (2017) TreyVore rates it: B-
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Post by Trey_Vore on Feb 26, 2021 8:27:15 GMT -5
Now that we have the recent movie I will review:
Tom and Jerry: the Movie (1992)
Distributor: Miramax Pictures Director: Phil Roman Cast: Richard Kind (Tom), Dana Hill (Jerry), Anndi McAfee (Robyn Starling), Charlotte Rae (Pristine Figg), Tony Jay (Lickboot), Michael Bell (Ferdinand, Straycatcher #1), Henry Gibson (Dr. J. Sweetface Applecheeks), Ed Gilbert (Puggsy, Mr. Starling), David Lander (Frankie the Flea), Rip Taylor (Captain Kiddie), Sydney Lassick (Straycatcher #2), Don Messick (Droopy) Runtime: 84 min. MPAA rating: G (all ages admitted)
(So we are clear, I am reviewing the 1992 animated movie, not the 2021 live-action/animation film.)
Tom’s owners are moving into a new house, but Tom is distracted by his pursuit of Jerry and left behind. After the house is demolished the next morning, Tom and Jerry are left homeless. They wander for food until they find they can talk after they introduce themselves to a stray dog and his flea companion and are persuaded to befriend each other. Just then, they meet a girl named Robyn Starling, who seems to have no parents and is in legal custody of her avaricious Aunt Pristine Figg. Wanting to help Robyn find her (presumably) missing father to escape her aunt’s custody, can Tom and Jerry succeed at their new ambition, all the while not trying to revert back to their old habits?
Oh boy. This is going to be fun.
Don’t get me wrong, I love animation. I do remember watching Tom and Jerry on TV when I was a kid. They were funny in their classic animation days and hold a place as being cartoon stars alongside the Looney Tunes. This movie also marked Tom and Jerry’s return to cinemas after 25 years; by the end of the 1960s, the theatrical short cartoon was declared dead.
Things definitely changed since their heyday though. Nowadays, cartoons meant to appeal to kids have actual plots and more often than not try to be educational. Likely because it’s a bad world and places just aren’t as safe as they were then, the FCC now dictates that television stations air at least three hours of educational programming, likely to make sure that kids are learning something. That was sort of a reason why chase cartoons more or less vanished from the airwaves.
But hold the phone… this is a movie about an iconic cat and mouse team whose classic cartoons are just 7 minutes long and they do the classic chase formula and commit excessive violence trying to kill each other. How do you make a movie about that?
…how about, don’t?
Right, how about, you are expecting to see classic cartoon chase sequences, but instead of doing that, you have Tom and Jerry get wrapped up in a child custody case where they have to help an orphan girl in her struggle against her evil aunt? And while you do that, make it a haphazard Random Events Plot where you add in a bunch of other wacked out characters that have virtually nothing to do with each other? And have it end in an “Amazing Race”-style chase where everyone is out to nab the girl so they can become millionaires?
Oh yeah, and Tom and Jerry are there, just kinda tacked on to the story. You get the feeling that the filmmakers weren’t confident that the movie itself was going to hold any appeal to anyone, so they just kinda threw Tom and Jerry in there for the sake of it having some marquee appeal? Talk about your waste of a license.
Not to mention it looks like a Saturday morning cartoon. A cheap Saturday morning cartoon. Sure this movie was made for only $3.5 million dollars but it goes without saying that it really shows! There are times when it feels like there are missing frames of animation and it seems like the lip syncing isn’t very accurate. That gives this movie a very unfinished feel. There are also some instantly forgettable musical numbers, I literally just watched this piece of junk and I can’t remember any of the songs! There’s no point because they make it insultingly obvious what their point is and leave nothing to your imagination. I honestly hope Joseph Barbara is proud of himself, being the executive producer!
Another problem which is very evident is the characters. I’ll start with Robyn, being that she is the living MacGuffin. She is supposed to be an orphan heiress who is hoping against hope that her missing father is alive. They obviously use this character to add some heart to the movie, but she doesn’t fit being in a movie about a cat and mouse team that constantly try to maim and kill each other. You have the stray dog Puggsy and his flea friend Frankie, who want to be the narrators of this movie but just wander in and out; plus they look like they originally auditioned and were cut from the 1980s Pound Puppies cartoon. The villains of the movie, hmm… let’s see we have Aunt Figg and her lawyer appropriately named Lickboot. If you want an idea of Aunt Figg, we have Madame Medusa from The Rescuers, now morbidly obese and lacking redeeming qualities; she’s just all greed, all the time. Lickboot reminds me of Klaus, the jewel thief from The Chipmunk Adventure. He also is a greedy douche and has no redeeming qualities either. Ferdinand the obese dog has no purpose and does not help the villains in any way, he’s better off buried with his bones. You also have Dr. Applecheeks and his two thief henchmen, who also doesn’t fit as he feels like he belongs on the pilot for Family Dog! Captain Kiddie and his parrot puppet? He was completely unnecessary! Then there are also some alley cats that do a musical number and that’s it; Big Lipped Alligator Moment if I ever saw one! Did I mention that none of the villains seem to actually get punished?
…oh yeah, and Tom and Jerry, or at least these cat and mouse characters who are supposed to be Tom and Jerry on the outset, start off in their recognizable selves, but that gets sacrificed after only 10 minutes. After some pointers from Puggsy, they START TO TALK!! With words and complete sentences! Plus, now they are supposed to be FRIENDS?? I could excuse this if this was supposed to be Japanese and some translation had to occur to better represent Western ideals, but these are American cartoon characters, I IMAGINE we know how they think and operate! Plus despite their names being in the title they are barely even in their own movie! Isn’t that just perfect, way to dance over a corpse!
Do I need to elaborate any further? Tom and Jerry: the Movie is not a good movie at all. It has a well-deserved reputation as one of the worst animated films of all time and deserved to fail at the box-office being what it is! I can’t imagine anyone liking this movie beyond little kids who have never once heard of Tom and Jerry or maybe some heartless people that are looking for a case against animation. Do yourself a favor; skip this train wreck at all costs! I know some movies at first fail and get vindicated by history but this fiasco does not deserve that status as there is pretty much nothing it gets right; Tom and Jerry are not showcased well and even the comedy sucks! It is terrible in every way and doesn’t deserve your pity! I HAVE SPOKEN!
Tom and Jerry: the Movie (1992) TreyVore rates it: F
All I'll say now is... after that, I will review something good, I promise.
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Post by Belchic on Feb 26, 2021 15:24:35 GMT -5
How often do you plan to do these reviews, Trey?
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 1, 2021 6:09:38 GMT -5
I will write when I have time and feel a need to do so.
Anyway, now that I got through an animated film that was awful, I promised to review something awesome. So here we go with my honest opinion on:
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Distributor: Sony Pictures Animation Director: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, Rodney Rothman Cast: Shameik Moore (Miles Morales), Jake Johnson (Peter Parker/Spider-Man), Hailee Steinfeld (Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen), Brian Tyree Henry (Jefferson Davis), Luna Lauren Velez (Rio Morales), Mahershala Ali (Uncle Aaron), Lily Tomlin (Aunt May), Liev Schreiber (Wilson Fisk/Kingpin), Kimiko Glenn (Peni Parker), John Mulaney (Peter Porker/Spider-Hamm), Nicolas Cage (Spider-Man Noir) Runtime: 116 min. MPAA rating: PG (stylized action violence, thematic elements, mild language)
This movie is about a mixed ethnic teenager named Miles Morales, who has started his new studies at Brooklyn Visions Academy despite his feelings about it; his dad still wants him to go. One night he goes to see his Uncle Aaron, a man he deeply admires who allows him to express himself through art and music which he is far more passionate about. Down here, he is bit by a radioactive spider and it is this point he has an encounter with the famous superhero Spider-Man, caught up in a struggle as he tries to stop a hole from being torn in the space-time continuum courtesy of Kingpin. At this point, the famous hero is killed, but not before passing a USB drive to Miles, which can stop Kingpin’s nefarious scheme to collide the multi-verses. Mourning the loss of Spider-Man, Miles then meets an older Spider-Man from another timeline, who starts to act as a mentor figure. They are soon joined by others: Spider-Gwen, a new girl at Miles’s school, Spider-Man Noir, who is Spider-Man introduced three decades earlier as a film noir-esque detective, Peni Parker, a far-future anime-inspired descendant with her robot SP//dr, and Spider-Hamm, a funny toon pig. Together can they get the USB drive to close the rift between the Spider-Verses and make everything right?
I will start by saying this: Sony Pictures Animation does not prove to be the animation studio you would have high hopes for. You probably know them as making some animated films that make money but artistically you would judge as being lazy and anemic, with movies like Open Season, Surf’s Up, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Hotel Transylvania, etc. Their live-action/animation mixes like the Smurfs and Goosebumps aren’t the proudest either; the only ones that were respectable were ones they only gave us through Aardman, and those were Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits.
This movie, on the other hand, is lightyears ahead of anything you would be expecting from Sony Pictures Animation. Spider-Man, basically Sony’s only still-active franchise (which they still have the rights to, even after Disney bought out Marvel so now their position is “use it or lose it”), proves why movies about comic book superheroes truly soar in animation. In fact, it has the right to stand with some of the best animated films of the 2010s.
The movie wisely decides not to bog you down with yet another Spider-Man origin story, which I was willing to except in 2002 when Tobey Maguire first wore the mask but by the time Andrew Garfield started to portray the character I felt like it was just excessive. In fact, I honestly think seeing Spider-Man in an animated film did more for me than his stints in live-action. This might be because nowadays, with superhero movies you can’t just do a cookie cutter origin story and call it a day; you almost have to subvert the norm and go against the grind because there are so many of them.
The movie begins with a monologue from Spider-Man about how you probably know plenty about him and his history. He’s also supposed to be a role model as he always has to do what is right and not give up. Surprisingly, Peter Parker is not the star of the film but rather Miles Morales. He’s supposed to be the character that the intended audience gravitates towards and learns from. He is a very fleshed out teenage boy who is now entering an awkward phase and has to attend a private academy, in addition to having newly-acquired powers. When he goes and has to except his new role as Spider-Man, he starts off simply wearing a generic store-bought costume and simply imitating what worked before, but as the movie goes he may have to be a selfless hero, as he learns when Kingpin’s enforcer The Prowler is not who he’s expecting, and ends up having to learn that he needs to embrace what makes him unique. He can’t be THE Spider-Man, he’s got to be HIS Spider-Man, as he learns through several different alternate versions of the character.
The movie’s look is honestly very inspired as well as it has a unique charm to it. The animation does remind me of the old school animated films of the past, in that while it is supposed to be CGI it could look very much like a more stylized cel-animated film with more of a hip-hop influence, wisely avoiding the dreaded Uncanny Valley. Once Miles ends up getting his new spider powers, he suddenly gets to feel like he’s supposed to actually be in a comic book with panels and word balloons. It’s really appropriate for the tone of the movie and almost like it lets you inside Miles’s head. This movie has plenty of wide shots of NYC which I honestly took plenty of time to admire being that New York is my kind of town, as I have made trips to the Big Apple and found it to be inspiring. As the death of Spider-Man makes headlines, it proves that a tragic incident essentially unites us all.
The movie has plenty of characters, all of which are interesting in their own way. For Miles’s mentor, the alt. Spider-Man, he is a jaded older version who has essentially let himself go after several tragic instances and has to pull himself together. For the other Spider-Man derived characters, Spider-Gwen is the distaff counterpart to the character, Spider-Man Noir is a pre-WW2 version with amusing lines delivered by Nicolas Cage, Peni Parker is an anime-esque far-future great grand-daughter and Spider-Hamm is a comical toon who looks like he came from the Golden Age of Animation. The movie’s villain is the established Spider-Villain Kingpin, who blames Spider-Man for the death of his wife and son and wants to see him dead. A solid cast of characters indeed.
If there are any faults I can find… maybe the animation just might take a few minutes to get used to but happens very quickly. The idea of Spider-Man dying may be wrong but it’s just supposed to be a metaphor.
All that added into being a movie that highly critically revered movie that would turn out to be an animated feature film which would go on to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In the end, it actually won the award for Sony Pictures Animation, which I found to be extremely cool as the award went to an animated film that was not coming from Disney or Pixar. Kevin Smith once said that it proves that in the right hands, an animated film can be a transformative experience. I do find can be something that future animated films can take to heart so we know that animation isn’t simply all Disney, regardless of how they feel about it.
This movie also acts as a fitting end of an era of sorts, as it pays tribute to Spider-Man’s creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, who tragically died back in 2018.
Full of action, humor, heart and fanservice, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an amazing movie that I would give a very high recommendation. While simultaneously mature and playful, it stands as one of the best animated films for a reason. It may not have won the Razzie Redeemer Award but I don't think it needs that award as it has plenty of great qualities.
If you are curious? The movie was in the running for that Award especially went you consider that one year earlier, Sony Pictures Animation was responsible for the first animated film to win the Razzie Award for Worst Picture, that being the abominable Emoji Movie!
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) TreyVore rates it: A+
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 6, 2021 3:05:54 GMT -5
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)
Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures Director: Don Hall, Carlos Lopez Estrada Cast: Kelly Marie Tran (Raya), Awkwafina (Sisu), Izaac Wang (Boun), Gemma Chan (Namaari), Daniel Dae Kim (Benja), Benedict Wong (Tong), Thalia Tran (Little Noi), Alan Tudyk (Tuk Tuk) Runtime: 112 min. MPAA rating: PG (some violence, action, thematic elements)
This movie is about a girl named Raya, a native from a nation called Kumandra where humans and dragons lived together in peace and harmony. However, when the sinister Druun threatens everyone, the dragons sacrificed themselves to protect the harmony. Since then, a power struggle caused everyone to develop a blind hate for each other; the land of Kumandra was since divided into five lands named after a different part of the dragon. When the Druun return once again, Raya must collect the fragments of the last bit of the dragons’ magic represented through the Dragon orb to fully eradicate the Druun. Gaining the aid of Susi, the last water dragon, can Raya fuse the Dragon orb back together, unite the people of Kumandra and eradicate the Druun permanently?
First off, I will start by saying this movie was at a time, a holdover from 2020. We were supposed to get this movie last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic hit and it was delayed.
Now having finally gotten to see this movie, I will say it isn’t flawless, but indeed worth the wait. It does feel a little fresher, especially as the last two major animated films from Disney, Ralph Breaks the Internet and Frozen 2, were sequels to existing movies. This movie takes us somewhere we haven’t been before which I welcomed.
The movie does give us a set up for its intended theme that it shoots for as they did a lot of research not by using the simply obvious Chinese/Japanese influence but rather something more South/Southeast Asian. It does create that specific type of atmosphere that I do like and appreciate.
As the hero of the story, the kids are supposed to gravitate towards Raya, their window to the movie’s world. They see her as a little girl who as Raya’s father plans to unite everyone not through war but through a friendly meeting of the hearts. She then goes about trying to follow in her dad’s example by befriending the other little girl Namaari, but after it’s just an act of deception, chaos ensues. The dragon orb that is supposed to be help keep everyone safe from the Druun winds up being shattered and in order to destroy the Druun, the blind hatred that cause problems and thus the source of conflict, Raya needs to collect the fragments and unite the people of Kumandra. As conflict gets deeper and the story has Raya abandon her hopes at redemption to embrace vengeful hate on the very girl that deceived her in the first place, it helps to get the message across for the kids. As the Druun go and claim victims as it goes, the Druun victims all becoming stone statues with cupped hands, almost like it’s supposed to be a theme that hope can still come.
I will say that the movie does a good job with its comedy aspects too as each of Raya’s companions that she collects to help her fuse the Dragon orb have different comical aspects, with Boon being the little brother type of character, Little Noi giving some more physical comedy and Tong giving gentler verbal comedy. Strangely even though they have comedienne Awkwafina voicing Sisu the water dragon she’s supposed to be big-hearted and rather scatterbrained but she isn’t really meant to be all that funny. She’s not like Timon and Pumbaa, Maui or Aladdin’s Genie but I do understand that direction though as she’s supposed to help personify the movie’s message and they aren’t trying to make a joke of it.
For negative aspects of the movie, I will say for starters, one could say that Namaari is supposed to be the villain as she deceives Raya into leading her to the Dragon orb, but still she gets to redeem herself and live happily at the end, so this comes off more as a minor struggle. Who’s more the villain here is the Druun which you could say are supposed to be the blind hatred which solves nothing, but it’s not the most memorable of villains as being that it isn’t supposed to be a living thing but rather an evil fog that turns people to stone. It does remind me of the Drej from the 2000 movie Titan A.E. in that it’s more like a motivation rather than a physical character you are supposed to hate.
It almost seems like for Disney the price paid for Frozen seems to get higher and higher.
I also will admit I didn’t like some of the more predictable obvious means of how the point gets across, for one thing the divided land of Kumandra now has five lands named after different parts of the Dragon; Fang, Spine, Heart, Talon and Tail. Where do you think Raya is from? And while it’s important to tell kids that you have to be willing to trust if you want to start making friends rather than judge and hold prejudice, the point can be just a little naïve—it is a bad world and you would need to use some of your better judgement so nothing terrible would happen.
In the end, I will say that Raya and the Last Dragon does more good than bad and it’s well worth seeing. It does have a good heart and the right message in mind. I would think I probably wouldn’t want a sequel as I’m not sure if we would really want to see the land of Kumandra now in perfect harmony but still, I do recommend this movie.
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) TreyVore rates it: B+
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 7, 2021 7:30:23 GMT -5
Ice Age (2002)
Distributor: 20th Century Fox/Blue Sky Director: Chris Wedge Cast: Ray Romano (Manny), John Leguizamo (Sid), Denis Leary (Diego), Tara Strong (Roshan), Goran Visnjic (Soto), Jack Black (Zeke), Diedrich Bader (Oscar), Chris Wedge (Scrat) Runtime: 81 min. MPAA rating: PG (mild peril)
This movie, set during a time when the world was overrun with glaciers and animals had to constantly be on the move to survive, is about a grumpy mastodon named Manny who after saving a dim-witted sloth named Sid from two Brontotheres, end up becoming traveling buddies and soon find themselves in the care of a human baby. Figuring they should return it to its tribe, they find themselves at odds with Diego, a Sabre-Tooth Cat who is on an assassination mission from his pack leader Soto, who wants the baby dead for the deaths of his pack members. So can these three unlikely friends put their differences aside to return the baby to his tribe and survive the elements in the process, all without killing each other?
I decided to do this review as a result of Disney’s decision to shut down Blue Sky, one of the original supporters of CG animation. They used to be one of Disney’s rivals, but after Disney bought out 20th Century Fox (and Blue Sky with it), they used to be under Disney’s ownership. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney was facing some hardships and had to shut down Blue Sky.
This movie began production in the late 90s, was originally going to be cel-animated and was going to be directed by Don Bluth, but it went through some changes as a result of Fox just purchasing Blue Sky and finally, it became the movie it is right now. Then there was also the fact that at the time, CGI animation was still a novelty and was more or less money in the bank. You probably remember Ice Age best for one of two qualities: the original movie that found the studio, and the sequels that got progressively worse and worse as it went on. Before all that though, we had the original movie from 2002. Being the start of this franchise and the only time an animated film from Blue Sky was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, I do have a confession to make: I just saw this movie for the first time. Circumstances and some personal life issues stopped me from seeing it, but I do remember people loving this movie. Now that I’ve seen it, I will give it my honest opinion.
The film does have a more character-driven story as we have Manny, a mastodon who is overly grumpy as a result of his losing his mate and child to a tribe of human hunters, Diego, a member of a pack of Sabre-Tooth Cats whose mission is to kill the baby, and Sid, an outcast sloth who’s meant to be the funny one. With the elements and conflicting personalities against them, they wind up having to make some hard choices as they would have to return a human baby to its tribe (even though doing so might mean the baby could grow up to become their hunter), plus there’s the fact that Diego was at this time more of a villain who was leading Manny, Sid and the baby into a trap to help his boss Soto exact an eye for an eye. I take this as the movie’s saying revenge is not a dish best served cold.
Another still valid theme of the movie is about supporting each other, which could translate as you always support your friends and family. Another surprising aspect of this movie is it does have stakes, like when the baby’s mother is presumably dead after surrendering her child to Manny and Sid, plus there is actual weight to hearing about the fate of Manny’s family. Not to mention it also has a surprising sense of heart and maturity, which was a far cry from what would happen later on.
One rather surprising piece of info that I gathered was about Sid’s characterization. He was originally characterized to be more of a con artist who lied and cheated his way through life, but this was changed because it made him too unlikable. Here he’s more of a dummy, but still maintained some amiable qualities and charm. It’s far from the over-Flanderized uber-idiot that happened with future installments.
The movie does have Scrat as a subplot as he goes about having to find the best place to bury his acorn. I did enjoy this part of the movie and thankfully it doesn’t go overboard with him, and I’ll also add that this movie has some human jokes, but they are actually done tastefully, like Sid having to play some football with a flock of dodo birds, and the baby making Vulcan hand sign after seeing a frozen UFO.
Now, I will say that this movie is not perfect. The story can feel a bit thin, thankfully made up for by the central characters. There’s not an awful lot of characters so while you don’t feel like you’re getting sick of the three primary characters, it does feel like this movie does have a potential world that could be opened, but since everything you probably want to know was told, there’s not really reason to go back. The movie still feels valid and doesn’t feel like a surviving memorial from 2002, but that would soon change and not for the better. Like a one-hit wonder musical artist from your favorite decade, the movie still works and it’s still well-told, but it would start to drown in its own excesses and wear out its welcome afterwards. Then there is the fact that the CGI is still okay but starts to show its age.
In the end, I’m glad I finally took the time to see Ice Age. It’s still worth watching and its ideas and themes stay important now. It’s not a movie that I feel would deserve a buttload of sequels, but I still do recommend the movie that introduced us to Blue Sky.
Ice Age (2002) TreyVore rates it: B
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 8, 2021 1:12:44 GMT -5
Open Season (2006)
Distributor: Columbia/Sony Pictures Animation Director: Jill Culton, Roger Allers Cast: Martin Lawrence (Boog), Ashton Kutcher (Elliot), Gary Sinise (Shaw), Debra Messing (Beth), Billy Connolly (McSquizzy), Jon Favreau (Reilly), Georgia Engel (Bobbie), Jane Krakowski (Giselle), Gordon Tootoosis (Gordy), Patrick Warburton (Ian), Nika Futterman (Rosie), Michelle Murdocca (Maria), Cody Cameron (Mr. Weenie) Runtime: 86 min. MPAA rating: PG (mild action, brief language, some rude humor)
This movie is about a domesticated 900-pound grizzly bear named Boog who was raised by a park ranger named Beth since he was a cub. Boog spends his days as the star attraction of Beth’s nature show in Timberline until he frees a mule deer named Elliot from the grill of a truck belonging to the cold-hearted hunter Shaw. After Elliot sees Boog lives a life as a household pet, Elliot pays him back by tempting him to head out into the wilderness for a life he has never known. But with Hunting Season approaching in only a few days, and knowing their lives are in danger especially with Shaw gunning for all creatures great and small, can Boog and Elliot use their survival skills to survive hunting season long enough to live peacefully in the wild with all their new neighbors?
With my review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I decided I couldn’t fully appreciate it unless I chose to go back to the past and look back on their earlier animated films in retrospect. What better way to do that than their first big screen animated outing: Open Season.
The start of the New Millennium was a definite game changer for animation. Likely thanks to the success that Disney was having with the Disney Renaissance and the warmly-received animated films from Pixar during the 90s, everybody soon wanted to jump in on the animation bandwagon. Starting in the year 2002 the Academy Awards even began a category for Best Animated Feature! We have studios like DreamWorks, 20th Century Fox, Blue Sky, Nickelodeon, Studio Ghibli, Aardman… suddenly animation wasn’t just seen as children’s entertainment but something that anyone could enjoy. Great time for us animation junkies am I right?
This movie, based on a series of hunting-themed comic strips from Steve Moore, would mark the very first full-length animated film by Sony Pictures Animation. How would they fare with their first animated feature film?
If I had to describe Open Season in a very basic three letter word? Odd.
I am almost reminded in a sense of Madagascar and The Wild in that it has a rather similar plotline. Already that’s not the best start as Madagascar and The Wild are hardly art; this movie has some… odd paths that it takes.
I know it’s not an absolute abomination. Because I suppose at its core, it does have a story about a child that essentially decides to “leave the nest” to become his own man. I suppose the character we are supposed to gravitate towards is Boog, being the central character and the one that leaves his comfortable home to be a wild bear. The animation is also a mixed bag as well, where while the backgrounds are nice with a mix of looking like a somewhat realistic setting with more cartoony aspects (think like the old Looney Tunes cartoons that put Bugs and Daffy against Elmer Fudd), there are some of the characters having a good mix of looking like a wild forest animal and being a toon, while others… well the animation isn’t the best on them and they look very much like a CGI animated film from a studio that just got started in the game. The comedy, while uneven, does work with approximately 50/50 success.
That all leads us into the biggest issue with the movie: it’s kind of a mess.
For one thing, the movie has some themes that it wants to convey but it’s buried underneath the fact it’s like a big cartoon of nonsense. I do get that Boog is supposed to be the relatable character and Elliot is supposed to be his buddy, a classic case of Boog being the straight character and Elliot being the “funny” character. More on that is coming. But for one thing, I do find Boog to be hard to emotionally connect with and the most glaring flaw that I find is why is Boog so urban? I understand that’s Martin Lawrence’s comic schtick but if Boog is supposed to be like a domesticated pet and that’s like a metaphor for someone wanting to strike out on his own, I’m not thinking that character should really have a hip-hop swing with a heavy set of urban street smarts about him. It just doesn’t match the character, the only reason I find for that decision is just to give the movie some star power. Elliot, being the comical character, is supposed to be more of a joker that makes people laugh, but all he really does is make trouble. He’s supposed to be “funny” (note the quotation marks) but in truth he’s really more like a worthless friend. If Boog is supposed to be the character you are supposed to emotionally connect to, you wouldn’t want Elliot as your pal. He just isn’t likable which is necessary for him to be funny. It’s not helping that he seems to jump back and forth between being a feral animal and being a toon; there’s times he can use his hooves like hands and stands on two legs like he’s human. Early in the movie he even walks around Timberline on two legs with a cup of joe in hand! And then he hits on a doe that is clearly a feral animal? This guy is all over the place! For the rest of the characters, they generally seem more like one-note personalities with exaggerated accents, which I suppose if handled better could have been a metaphor for the world at large, but again, just seems like weird attempts at humor rather than anything meaningful. The movie’s villain, Shaw, is a lunatic. Seriously, he doesn’t have any Freudian excuse for his actions he’s a lunatic that hunts because he doesn’t want the animals to take over and humans are subjugated to being the hunted. Elmer Fudd he is not! Worst of all, all this cartoony mayhem just takes the wind out of its sails during its climax because you just are not sure how seriously you are supposed to take it!
All this means… I’m proud to be a city guy.
In the end, I did not hate Open Season, I suppose it is diverting enough to turn your brain off and take it for what it is, but this isn’t an award-winning film by any stretch. I guess it’s worth watching at least once, and if you want to say you found an animated guilty pleasure, you’ve found it. If you decided you had to own at least one Open Season film, make it this one. That’s more than can be said for the sequels, they didn’t age well. This movie is definitely not an example of how to make a good animated film, but for Sony’s first entry into CGI animation, it could have been a lot worse. I’ll still take this movie over any Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Hotel Transylvania for sure!
Open Season (2006) TreyVore rates it: C-
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 14, 2021 9:25:34 GMT -5
The Lego Movie (2014)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Director: Phil Lord, Christopher Miller Cast: Chris Pratt (Emmet Brickowski), Will Ferrell (Lord Business), Elizabeth Banks (Lucy Wyldstyle), Will Arnett (Batman), Nick Offerman (Capt. Metal Beard), Alison Brie (Princess UniKitty), Liam Neeson (Good Cop/Bad Cop), Charlie Day (Benny), Morgan Freeman (Vitruvius) Runtime: 100 min. MPAA rating: PG (mild action, rude humor)
This movie is about a LEGO construction worker named Emmet Brickowski, who enjoys his mundane life as a LEGO figure in a LEGO world. That all changes though, when he meets a Master Builder named Wyldstyle and her boyfriend Batman, who are on a hunt to save the LEGO verse from Lord Business and his vision of perfection, making his point with the ultimate superweapon known as the “Kragle”. Mistaking him for the “special” that will save everyone, Emmet now has to travel through various LEGO worlds to foil attacks from agents on the call from Lord Business. Befriending other LEGO Master Builders like the seafaring Capt. Metal Beard, the 80s-era spaceman Benny and the Cuckoocloudlander Princess UniKitty, can this band of heroes utilize their unique talents to end the threat from Lord Business and protect the LEGO universe?
I am sure you probably remember playing with LEGOs. These universally recognizable construction toys, known for encouraging creativity and world building since 1949, have been a toy that everyone and their grandfather remembers playing with alongside friends and family. That said though, what do you do to make a movie about LEGO bricks? We had several movies about toys in the past and not every single one nailed it; a majority of which was nothing more than a soulless advertisement for its product. This was going to be a challenge, and we could use a great animated movie from 2014 especially after the listless, uneventful year that was 2013—don’t get me wrong, we had movies like Frozen and Despicable Me 2 from that year but everything else had quality that ranged from “okay” to “awful”. So how does this movie fare?
I will admit, this movie was a very pleasant and fun adventure.
At the start of the movie, I see it as you are supposed to be gravitating towards Emmet, being the everyman that seems like he has a very specific role in this world and everything is supposed to have a rigid purpose. Everyone is happy in ignorance of the lack of creativity and imagination; if the song with the repeated mantra of “Everything is Awesome” is supposed to mean anything, it suggests that everyone is happy with mindless conformity and the lack of any real surprises. That all changes as the movie goes as Emmet meets Wyldstyle and Batman and his purpose in the world is called into question.
Even though the movie does have what seems like random world hopping to travel through different scenarios, its purpose is that it supposed to help encourage children to use their imaginations. If the Master Builder theme is supposed to suggest something, it’s that the movie’s heroes are freedom fighters against the oppression that Lord Business stands for; the Kragle, while meant to be a tube of “Krazy Glue”, is supposed to fuse the LEGO bricks together; nothing more than brute force (and potential damage) will separate them. The movie’s underlying theme of everyone is special and the importance of having an imagination are important themes that kids would need to understand and appreciate.
This does feel like it is a very “right-brained” approach, as one would use their right-side of their brain to differate colors and shapes. I do think that if they used more structure with their plotline, the movie’s themes may not have been all that effective; if you are expecting a more organized adventure this may feel like a mess.
The movie’s characters, I feel are all worthy of attention even if they feel like they could be fleshed out a little more. I do feel like I understand Emmet as the movie’s gravitational pull, Wyldstyle is the potential love interest, Batman is the friendly rival that you would need to put differences aside with to make matters work, Vitruvius is the mentor figure that guides the hero on his adventure and Lord Business is the tyrant that wants to eliminate freedoms for his perfect utopia. For the rest of the characters, they don’t seem to be all that well-defined; I would have loved a little more light shed on them. My favorite was UniKitty which is probably because I love cats. I’m serious, before the pandemic hit I would do volunteer work at my local pet shelter where they knew they could trust me to pet the kitties they would have for adoption.
On the upside, the animation used is truly special. Each and everything looks like it was made entirely of LEGO bricks which is very impressive, there’s no doubt the animation is amazing.
The movie’s climax, which is cut with live-action footage, was something I felt was befitting for it’s theme; the whole movie is essentially a human boy playing with his dad’s collection of LEGOs. The son clearly wants to be creative, while the dad just wants things to be in perfect working order; a clear metaphor for the movie’s events on display. When the dad sees his son’s ideas, it causes him to see the world his son created a bit differently. Refresh my memory, Lord Business is voiced by Will Ferrell and who is playing the dad here?
This movie proved to be a major hit for the WB; they now had a major animated hit on their hands which they had not seen since Happy Feet. In a controversial decision, it was not even nominated for the 2014 award for Best Animated Feature, but it’s box-office haul, making over $450 million against a budget of $60-65 million meant you could only complain so much.
In the end, I’m very happy that I took the time to see The Lego Movie. Still proving to be fun and creative, we needed this movie after the drought that was the year 2013. Sure I do feel it may have been outdone in later projects—I personally would rather take The Lego Batman Movie or the UniKitty! series over this film but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. The Lego Movie is special and well worth seeing.
Everything is awesome indeed.
The Lego Movie (2014) TreyVore rates it: B+
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 24, 2021 10:24:18 GMT -5
All Dogs Go To Heaven (1989)
Distributor: MGM/UA Distribution Co. Director: Don Bluth Cast: Burt Reynolds (Charlie B. Barkin), Dom DeLuise (Itchy), Judith Barsi (Anne-Marie), Vic Tayback (Carface), Charles Nelson Reilly (Killer), Loni Anderson (Flo), Melba Moore (Annabelle), Ken Page (King Gator) Runtime: 85 min. MPAA rating: G (all ages admitted)
Set in 1939 New Orleans, Charlie B. Barkin and his buddy Itchy break out of the pound and return to their casino riverboat on the bayou, which is owned by Charlie and his business partner Carface. Being that plan to incarcerate Charlie failed, and wanting the money for himself, Carface and his subordinate Killer get Charlie nice and wasted before killing him through vehicular homicide. Getting into Heaven by default despite his life of drunken debauchery, Charlie cheats death by winding his pocket watch and returns back to Earth to seek revenge. The thing is though the watch is now his Soul Jar; he’s immortal as long as it runs but once it stops he’ll be sent to Hell. They kidnap Carface’s trump card, an orphan girl who can talk to animals named Anne-Marie, to form their own casino under the promise to find her some legal parents. So, with Charlie developing some feelings for Anne-Marie, can he survive long enough to prove he deserves to get into Heaven despite the imposed threat from his former partner?
There was no denying that in the field of animation during the 1980s, Don Bluth was a force to be reckoned with. During a time when animation was in a slump and even Disney could not be counted on to make a successful animated film, Don Bluth was the only hold out; he had given us powerful and highly memorable animated films that children from the time very fondly remember. Movies like The Secret of NIMH, An American Tail and The Land Before Time are all great movies that got great reviews and turned a profit. I’ll even add that despite the Video Game Crash of 1983, his work on the Laserdisc classic Dragon’s Lair was a highly successful game.
But his reign would end after a while. This movie was released by MGM instead of Universal due to Don Bluth being dissatisfied with their original terms with An American Tail and The Land Before Time. It was released on November 17, 1989, no joke, the exact same date Disney gave us The Little Mermaid, and would mark the beginning of his decline. All Dogs Go To Heaven was savaged by critics who found it to be confusing, having characters that are just not terribly likable and for a movie meant for kids, rather dark and violent especially compared to the more lighthearted Disney movie.
I will admit that when I first saw All Dogs Go To Heaven when it came out on video in 1990, I didn’t care for it. I originally thought it just seemed very cold and mean-spirited, and not completely kid-friendly; the characters just seem to engage in extremely morally questionable behavior and seemed like it was just very bad taste for a movie intended for children. Back then I felt it just didn’t strike that same chord that Don Bluth’s earlier films did; I felt this was a miss on his part and would later lead to his long decline that would be his animation career in the 1990s.
As it went though… the movie started growing on me. It may not have instantly won me over but right now I do like the movie a lot better than I once did. I even own the DVD thanks to my sister and have it on my iTunes account right now. Maybe it was one of those movies that needed time? Anyway, I guess that is what this review for right?
I guess we should start by discussing the story. A movie starts as a revenge story where Charlie wants to ruin his former partner for arranging his murder, but the events of the story cause him to develop a heart. The whole movie I felt was just extremely adult-minded and has characters engaging in behavior more than likely not appropriate for a kids’ film. It undergoes a lot of darkness getting there which probably was another factor turned me off the first time. Though not without its sweet moments and funny parts, it seemed to jump through so much of just plain dark before we get to the happy end. Not to mention some of its original ideas seemed to suggest it had some fascination with religious aspects and the occult which are definite war-starters on the Web.
In a way, I think I must have been trying to overanalyze it; Disney did include a lot more dark scenarios in their early days. Maybe this is just my predilection for a good crime film but I do think it can have a point in service to the story. The movie is about Charlie’s life as an utter scoundrel that would need to prove that everyone has some level of good in them and he’d have to do something in order to achieve some sort of redemption. People are more resilient than they think.
This movie does have Don Bluth’s masterful animation style in the beautiful painterly backgrounds and the surprisingly very real-looking animation on the human characters. Oddly though, the non-human animals, the dog characters in particular, have kind of an odd animation style to them. Maybe this is because The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail had mice and The Land Before Time had dinosaurs and you could make the argument that you could use some imagination on them, but this movie features dogs, which you probably see on a very routine basis. They seem to have an animation style that fluctuates between being a feral dog (like when they are on all four legs) and being a ‘toon (like how they can stand upright on their rear legs and morph their paws into hands). Strangely enough, the movie makes it work. Maybe this is because it has some bizarre balance of realism and non-realism but they work together. The movie does have musical numbers that can be very pleasant to listen to but you wouldn’t expect less from a Don Bluth movie.
Now for the characters, which are probably the movie’s deal breaker. The movie’s hero, Charlie B. Barkin, is an utter scumbag that needs to prove to us all that he would deserve the right to be in Heaven. Despite what he had done in his life, he’s able to redeem himself through his sudden heart that he’s able to gain thanks to Anne-Marie. He’s supposed to be doing what he does to get revenge on his former partner and what helps him gain his redemption is when he’s forced to choose between saving Anne-Marie or himself. Anne-Marie is the cutesy and precocious girl who can talk to animals and wants to get a family but she has to learn about Charlie’s true intentions. Charlie’s buddy Itchy is a Dachshund that you could argue is Charlie’s better half; he’s meant to be a comedy relief but remains loyal no matter what to his boss. The movie’s villain Carface is like what Charlie probably was before the start of the movie. He’s a sadistic, greedy, violent crime lord that does whatever he needs to do in order to get what he wants. His subordinate Killer can be judged as if Itchy was more of a dork than a wiener. Ultimately the movie doesn’t have any positive role models. Despite that they do have a level of charm that makes them appealing regardless of how awful they might seem.
I will say that All Dogs Go To Heaven is not a masterpiece; however it’s still a worthy movie to see and appreciate. The other thing I took from All Dogs Go To Heaven is the fact that while the movie may not have been all that successful at first, it’s not its original critical reception and box-office gross that are the beginning and end of everything; what matters is that if the movie can find a voice and live on regardless of how people felt about it at first. The movie did indeed find a voice and go on to become a franchise in the 90s, and enjoys a much nicer reception nowadays. I still think it pales next to Don Bluth’s earlier movies and the Disney Renaissance, but it is a good movie and I am happy to say I’m a fan.
All Dogs Go To Heaven (1989) TreyVore rates it: B+
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Post by Trey_Vore on Apr 4, 2021 12:32:15 GMT -5
The Star (2017)
Distributor: Columbia/Sony Pictures Animation/The Jim Henson Company/Walden Media Director: Timothy Reckart Cast: Steven Yeun (Bo), Keegan-Michael Key (Dave), Aidy Bryant (Ruth), Gina Rodriguez (Mary), Zachary Levi (Joseph), Christopher Plummer (King Herod), Lex Lang (The Hunter), Tyler Perry (Cyrus), Tracy Morgan (Felix), Oprah Winfrey (Deborah), Ving Rhames (Thaddeus), Gabriel Iglesias (Rufus), Kristin Chenoweth (Abby) Runtime: 86 min. MPAA rating: PG (some thematic elements)
Starting 9 months B.C., Mary is visited by an angel telling her she will be in labor with the Messiah. 6 months later a mill donkey, later named Bo, wants out of his wheat milling life thinking he’s meant for greater things, namely joining the royal caravan. However, he and his dove friend Dave, after escaping the wheat mill soon cross paths with Mary and Joseph, who just got married and will soon be traveling to Bethlehem. However, King Herod hears about the new King from the three wisemen and wants to have this new king dead by any means so he sics his hunter on them. So with Bo soon having to find himself with a new purpose, can he and Dave stop the Hunter and get Mary and Joseph safely to Bethlehem in order for the son of God to be born?
Let’s start by stating there were two things that happened in 2017. First off, it was not the best year for animated films. Don’t get me wrong, we had some good movies, like Coco, Despicable Me 3 and The Lego Batman Movie, but the rest of the year was notable for having junk that is not worth revisiting. For one, we had no major Disney animated film that year and what else did we have, Blue Sky’s spin on Ferdinand? The Boss Baby? Another Cars? Another Nut Job? Second, this was the year we had three major animated films from Sony Pictures Animation, likely the weakest animation studio. Their first animated film, released in the spring was Smurfs: the Lost Village, which is probably the best Smurfs movie ever made but let’s not kid ourselves, Smurfs isn’t exactly high art and the bar was very low. Their second major animated film was summer’s The Emoji Movie, which was a cataclysmic failure. Sure it made money but it was easily the worst animated film of the year; so bad it was the first animated film to ever win the Razzie Award for Worst Picture! And it won that award over movies like Baywatch, Fifty Shades Darker, The Mummy and Transformers: the Last Knight!
So, with that in mind, during the holiday season of that year we got their third major animated film, The Star. This film was based on the Nativity story, the lead-up to the birth of Christ. Was this just a disaster waiting to happen? Especially when you take into account that this is the weakest studio and it was coming so soon after that Emoji abomination? Are we really trusting the most important story to them?
I’ll start by saying this movie as expected was the birth of Christ, and would then be celebrated on a yearly basis as our holiday Christmas. Of course, I’m reviewing this movie on Easter, but being that Easter marked the time that Christ rose from the dead to save us all from sin, I feel this would be appropriate.
I guess we should start with the concept of there being another Biblical story. The last major animated movie I remember doing that was DreamWorks’s 1998 movie The Prince of Egypt. The fact that we don’t see a donkeys as typical major characters too, the last time that happened in my memory was in the Shrek franchise. Of course, we had a later Biblical movie in 2004 with The Passion of the Christ too, but… I digress.
That said, there’s an awful lot of side plots here; we have Bo thinking he’s meant for greater things, Mary and Joseph on their trip to Bethlehem, the camels that are on the move to get the three wisemen there, the King who wants Mary and Joseph to fail on their quest, and many other animals on the way. Oddly enough, it does manage to tie them together in a sense. It doesn’t forget that it’s main raison d’etre, the birth of our Lord, is the most important element. The movie does have an odd sense of reverence for the source material, probably the most whacked out element was the King’s scheme to eliminate Mary and Joseph from delivering the son of God.
Curiously, despite what you’re probably expecting from Sony Pictures Animation, this movie does have more kid-friendly jokes than you might be expecting. It doesn’t have a reliance on pop culture jokes that would look anachronistic for a movie like this. I recall there being one toilet joke delivered by Dave which happens very early in the movie.
The movie does have a soundtrack that’s very Christmas-minded, as you have “O Holy Night”, “Breath of Heaven”, “The Little Drummer Boy”, “Mary, Did You Know?” and of course, Mariah Carey’s “The Star”. The soundtrack can feel appropriate, if a bit intrusive.
For how the movie looks, I’ll say didn’t have much of a budget; it only cost $20 million. That said, it looks a lot more like a cartoon than you might think. This isn’t bad, as they do establish some solid reality on these movie’s characters. The humans are realistically animated and while there are times the animals can feel more animated than you’d think, they do have some appeal. It’s been said that you can get away with non-realistic descriptions on animals, and more liberties can be taken with their designs, which you can’t do with humans. The animation is nice overall.
Now the characters? Wow, there’s a lot of them here. I’ll start with Bo, the main donkey. He starts off as a typical stubborn donkey, literally, but feels like he’s meant for more by wanting to be a royal carrier of the caravan. It might sound typical of these movies, but through the movie he becomes a loyal friend towards Mary and Joseph, who will be the parents of Jesus. Ultimately, he’s probably meant to be the character that kids are supposed to find to be their gateway into the movie’s world. He’s supposed to be torn between two choices and ends up choosing to be a follower of Christ. Nothing wrong with that at all. His friend Dave is a goofball who is meant to be funny but he doesn’t do much. Ruth the sheep is a better character, I felt, as her Dory-like personality is like a symbol of the path that Bo takes. Her first sequence has her instructing Bo to just take a leap of faith which works. You also have the three camels Cyrus, Felix and Deborah, are on the hunt to lead the three wisemen to Bethlehem and they are like comedy reliefs in their own right; the movie does need them being how their roles in the original story were and they probably needed their own personalities. Now, characters like Mary and Joseph, as you would find, are a little more modernized than you would think, but they still manage to be memorable. A very specific caustic critic once asked why Joseph wasn’t the leading character, but one needs to take into account that it’s a movie meant for kids and they can’t emotionally connect with him; that would be more fitting for a more adult-minded movie. If anything the fact they are supposed to find Bo to be emotionally resonating would more than likely give kids reason to take faith seriously.
I’m also really surprised that with such a top-tier voice cast, and the movie only cost $20 million? The cast had to have been willing to do the animation team a massive favor.
The biggest issue I tend to have with the characters tends to be with the movie’s villains. The Hunter is, well, a character I don’t imagine was in the story at all, he and his two dogs are probably just in the movie so it has some conflict. Speaking of which, his two dogs, Thaddeus and Rufus, are an as-expected pair of smart one and dumb one pair that as I said, are just there to Hollywoodize the movie in some degree. If what Roger Ebert said was true, that a villain can either make or break a movie, that would be a problem here.
I have to say, Arctic Dogs really seems to have pried my eyes open.
For a movie coming from Sony Pictures Animation, I will say this movie was definitely a pleasant surprise. The Star might not be the iconic film you’d find in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but I will say that it might be seen a child’s good first introduction to Biblical teachings. This movie may feel more like it’s just for kids rather than one that the general public should take seriously, but as a movie for kids it’s doing its job right. It may not be a movie that leads to a big franchise, but I feel it’s a nice recovery and one that leads to some sort of redemption from that detestable Emoji Movie. Jesus forgives, indeed.
The Star (2017) TreyVore rates it: B-
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Post by Belchic on Apr 5, 2021 1:27:45 GMT -5
Nice solid review, Trey! I’m glad you gave it a chance and saw some good in it.
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