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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 8, 2021 1:05:35 GMT -5
Well, not up to the same tier as the best from the 2010s, but it might be on there. Still have to make some choices. It could be a new review you could write.  |
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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 7, 2021 7:18:57 GMT -5
I just watched Raya and the Last Dragon, and I must say, it exceeded my expectations! The animation is so incredible, the story is engaging, and the characters are all great, especially Sisu! Sisu is such a lovable character! I just wish she was featured in more of the movie, especially in her dragon form. Those of you who have Disney+, by all means, check it out! Don’t wait for it to be free! It’s worth the fee! That being said, here is an updated list of my new current Top 20 Disney Animated Features: #20 - The Little Mermaid (1989) #19 - Peter Pan (1953) #18 - Fantasia (1940) #17 - Zootopia (2016) #16 - Make Mine Music (1946) #15 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) #14 - Frozen (2013) #13 - The Black Cauldron (1985) #12 - Lilo & Stitch (2002) #11 - Beauty and the Beast (1991) #10 - Raya and the Last Dragon (2021) #9 - The Jungle Book (1967) #8 - Oliver & Company (1988) #7 - Robin Hood (1973) #6 - Sleeping Beauty (1959) #5 - The Princess and the Frog (2009) #4 - Wreck-It Ralph (2012) #3 - Bolt (2008) #2 - The Lion King (1994) #1 - 101 Dalmatians (1961) What do you think of that, Trey_Vore? Hey, that rhymes. ;D Anyway, my review of this movie can be read right here: sparkydearly.proboards.com/post/212860 |
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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 5, 2021 9:57:40 GMT -5
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 5, 2021 8:24:37 GMT -5
Ok!
Update: I just booked my ticket to go see Raya and the Last Dragon. Tonight at 9:00 pm Central Time!
After, I shall go and give my honest opinion!
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 2, 2021 8:37:14 GMT -5
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Post by Trey_Vore on Mar 2, 2021 8:34:05 GMT -5
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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 Feb 28, 2021 22:12:11 GMT -5
“So now let’s get down to the nitty and the gritty of what Dr. Egg does, so he does have electronics in him he has voice clips, and the first thing you’re going to need is batteries! And this guy uses a very specific type of battery and it’s this: now it looks like a regular double A battery doesn’t it? No, it’s not, um, double A batteries do not work in this guy. You need to get this specific kind, it’s, if you can focus there, it’s an LS 14500 battery. This is the kind of battery you need. And these are not cheap by the way, the cheapest I found these on Amazon was a five-pack for $30!"
Caption reads: NOTE: These batteries are not rechargeable!!!
--And that's $175 on top of that, EmGo's review of X-Transbots Dr. Egg
“Now one more thing to talk about, a very important thing to talk about, is uh, this feature right here. Um, it does have…
“I’ve done it! He lives again!”
“Shush. There is a recharging port here. Um, they don’t give you the cord for it, you have to supply your own charging cable, um, but as you can see, I mean, this is pretty much majority of cell phone chargers, you can just use your own cell phone charger, to uh charge the batteries, but here is one very, very, very important word of caution: do not, I repeat, DO NOT recharge batteries that are not rechargeable! Um, apparently someone did that, they put non-rechargeable batteries and this and then tried to charge it, and this thing exploded! I mean literally, this exploded, he ended up with a scrambled egg! *rimshot* But seriously, the thing exploded, there were shrapnel in the wall, I don’t know if he was in the room when that happened, I pray to God he wasn’t because he probably would have gotten really hurt, but yeah do not charge this if there are not rechargeable batteries in this thing! Only recharge rechargeable batteries, that seems like common sense, seems like it goes without saying, but that warning needs to be put out there because obviously somebody did it!"
--You paid over $200 for a freaking shrapnel bomb!?, EmGo's review of X-Transbots Dr. Egg
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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 Trey_Vore on Feb 25, 2021 8:58:45 GMT -5
I cast my vote.
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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 21, 2021 10:29:49 GMT -5
Okay then!
Do I have any other takers? Two max!
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