Tag Archives: Coming of Age

Explorers Review

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It’s time for a film about a few kids who decide to explore the unknown and have some wacky adventures. Generally this kind of film isn’t really my style. The kids usually aren’t the greatest main characters and you’re just waiting for the grownups to step in. Additionally this time the plot seems a little unfocused with subplots not really going anywhere. The real world plot was also a lot more interesting than space which is something that should really never happen. That’s when you know that the film made some strategic errors.

The film starts with a kid named Ben having some dreams that look like what you would see in a Tron film. All kinds of sci-fi computer chips and such. Fortunately he is good at drawing what he sees and so his super genius friend Wolfgang is able to make an invention out of this. It’s a sort of bubble that can travel across large distances. So naturally they build a spaceship during the night. Now they are ready to space but is this safe? There may even be some aliens out there.

One thing I’ll give the film credit for is not making the main 3 kids jerks or anything like that. For all intents and purposes they are good kids. Perhaps a bit too eager to grow up like with drinking beer and Ben having a huge crush but they aren’t juvenile delinquents or anything like that. They just have a ton of free time so they may as well get to inventing. The film is a good portrayal of how you can have fun doing anything when you’ve got some friends at the ready.

I will also say that the effects are pretty solid. Again, that Tron type world in the dreams looks really good. The flying around may be less impressive but all in all you can tell that some real effort went into this production. The soundtrack is also very lively. Perhaps not something that you will be jamming to but at least you can’t say that the music is invisible. I will always prefer a loud soundtrack to a movie where you don’t remember what any of the tunes were at all.

Now on the weaker parts, well like I said the characters aren’t the greatest. Ben is basically your average kid but he has a huge crush on a girl at school and basically isn’t able to talk to her at all without stuttering. The romance is really not developed well at all and doesn’t make any sense. Lori and Ben have almost no time for any interactions during the movie so the ending just feels really obligatory.

Lori is okay I suppose but of course she doesn’t really have much character either. By all accounts she’s a nice person within the school but that’s about it. Then you have Darren who seems to have grown up in a rather rough environment. He was pretty hesitant about going back home for example. This doesn’t really go anywhere though so we just have to hope that things got better for him later on. At school he was quick to defend Ben from the bullies so that was good.

From the 3 main kids he would definitely be my favorite. After that we have Wolfgang who is the genius who builds everything. He’s certainly very smart and is a good sport about things but also tends to panic a lot. He worries about every possibility and doesn’t live in the moment as much as the other two. You want him on your team to build everything but he needs to lighten up a bit.

Now the film does have a pretty interesting concept that is introduced about a shared dream world that can be accessed through an alien gizmo. While you are dreaming is when you go to this kind of Tron world. This is how the kids have the blue print for the ship and so it served as a map of sorts. Alien tech is always pretty interesting even if there aren’t a lot of explanations going around. Why is this even a thing and what causes other people to be pulled into it? The main kids all share this world after a while and eventually even Lori gets in there.

The space act is just rather boring like I mentioned before. You have a weird alien who flirts with one of the kids and everyone else starts talking using pop culture references and such. It kind of makes sense that aliens would only know humanity through TV if the signals are all that they could grab. Although at the same time I feel like it means their intelligence is pretty low. Every film still has some kind of a plot, even commercials so shouldn’t they be able to talk normally instead of just using memes and big sound bites?

I mean the aliens are clearly intelligent because they were able to invent all of this technology. It reminds me of when in a show some animals will speak perfect English and then raise a kid who speaks broken English. Like why would that even happen? It just doesn’t make sense once you actually think about it. The film thinks the aliens are absolutely hilarious though so their scenes feel like they go on for quite a long while but get repetitive real fast. The aliens also just seem like creeps so it was probably good to ditch them.

As a result of spending so much time on the alien world we had to abruptly end the plot about two rangers finding out about the UFO and one of them being particularly obsessed with it. He basically just pulls a Spiderverse “Not bad kid” as they dash off in the UFO. Pretty convenient outcome for the kids since he won’t be telling anybody about the ship or doing anything about it. That felt really abrupt and it’s a shame because we could have had a fun government angle.

Overall, This film feels like it’s a bit all over the place. I actually think it could have been a fairly decent school story although it’s not like it would have been amazing or anything like that. Instead going to space was a total mistake and this film is a reminder to me on why you want some adult main characters. The kids are not able to hold their own at all here. It’s a pretty harmless film, no big issues but it’s not really going to be holding your interest either. I’d say to watch Back to the Future instead if you want some slice of life shenanigans.

Overall 5/10

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Review

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Coming of age stories are always a very hard sell for me. They tend to be a bit more dramatic than needed and also make the characters look very whiny. Look, coming of age isn’t particularly hard. Being a kid is fun. Being a teen is fun. And yeah being an adult is fun too. Each part tends to have its high points but as a kid you can still be a high quality character yet these films always portray kids as being the most annoying characters possible. You just shake your head every time they show up.

Margaret is the main character here and the film starts with her family letting her know that they are moving over to New Jersey. Margaret has been a lifetime New yorker and so she isn’t happy about this. To her, NYC is where it’s at but the parents take her along to start the next chapter of her life. The next door neighbor shows up and announces that they can be friends. This girl is really outgoing and Margaret is just glad to have a friend so quickly. This girl has several other friends so all of a sudden Margaret is in a clique. It all feels fun but there is something empty about this life and she also begins to realize that she may be a pat of the bully squad. How can she get out of this?

Another source for drama here is that her father is Jewish and her mother is Christian. Naturally both religions are completely incompatible and she will need to choose one at some point. They made a joint decision not to pressure her one way or the other but the stakes are naturally high. Only one of them can be right after all and the wrong one will be going to hell by the end. Can Margaret really afford to take it slow right now? In a way the parents decision to not pressure her also means it’ll be tough for Margaret to ask either one for help so she is really on her own here.

This one mostly only starts to become a big deal by the climax of the film when the family gets involved and naturally escalates things. You want to say that everyone can just get along but I dare say this is a bigger deal than if your family has opposing politics. Opposing religions is literally a matter of life and death based on the outcomes according to each type. It’s why if you intend to have kids, I would argue you should not marry if you have different beliefs. It will only lead to problems down the line and you also have to consider that it is easier to be dragged down than to bring someone up. So if you marry thinking that you can convert your partner, think again. That is a massive risk no matter how you look at it.

Back to Margaret though, a big problem with her character is how easy it is to cause her to act cruelly towards the other kids. She believes rude rumors about a tall classmate right away and never even stops to think that this could be a lie. So she is hanging out with the bullies and never suspects a thing. She also allows them to convince her to do crazy things and never utilizes her freewill. She is just too desperate to fit in the whole time. It would have been nice if she could have confided in her parents more instead of just hiding things. Her mom in particular tried doing her best to help out but when the secrets are kept, there is only so much that the adults can do. They were basically frozen out.

Margaret is also just a kid so it’s a bit early for her to be thinking about crushes and stuff. The parents definitely needed to make sure games like spin the bottle and the closet of doom weren’t being played. Fortunately those are games that don’t really get played as much nowadays. I like to think most people have seen the problems with them but even for back in the day it’s crazy to think those things were happening. I would view the film in general as a good cautionary tale to be careful who you hang out with.

Everyone thinks they can be the exception but if you hang out with troublemakers then you will probably become one yourself. You’ll just learn too many bad mentalities and habits over time. It’s why it was hard to even root for Margaret the whole time since you kept seeing her on the wrong side. Also the film’s idea of what the kids would talk about tended to be more on the annoying side. It’s not that the writing was bad per say. It might even be slightly realistic although I have my doubts. It’s just that the script is not engaging as a result so the pacing really drags on.

I’d say the only main character who was holding it together the whole time was the teacher. He was trying to be funny and help everyone out as much as he could. I would have said the mother too since I mainly enjoyed her character but she did allow herself to be used a bit too easily at the school. I was glad she got past that though. The grandparents on the father’s side felt very manipulative so they get a thumbs down. The grandmother on the mom’s side was perhaps a bit aggressive but I cut her more slack since she was there the whole time and had a great relationship with Margaret. So she earned more credit in advance. The father was decently solid too for most of the film, I was glad that he didn’t make a fuss about there being no furniture and just made himself comfortable anyway. It’s always good to be easygoing and just let the chips fall where they may. Unfortunately he crashes by the end of the film for having crazy magazines in the house, I thought Margaret was bluffing the whole time to fit in so I was shocked when she actually found them. Yeah that was a terrible look for the guy, he doesn’t seem to be living the most moral of lives.

Overall, This film definitely wasn’t up my alley. It’s just not all that interesting and often times when characters are written to be “super realistic” they tend to just be unlikable the whole time. This film badly needed better characters and maybe even more of a plot aside from the whole themes of growing up. That’s just not enough for a whole film and you still need something really interesting to catch your attention.

Overall 4/10

Real Genius review

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When you’re a genius there are a few things you really have to keep in mind. There are those who would try to use your skills for their own personal gain and additionally you have to be careful not to burn out. Go in too hard and that’ll be it for you. The main character has to end up learning this the hard way. It’s an entertaining film and while it has a few weak points that keep it from getting to the next level, I would still be able to recommend this one.

The movie starts with the government telling Jerry that they need the laser which can blow someone up from any distance. Jerry was confident that his star student Chris would be able to build this but the guy has been slacking off a whole lot lately. At this point the deadline is getting real close so instead he decides to take in a new kid named Mitch to take over the project. Perhaps now he will get results. Mitch is eager to help and knows Chris as a living legend but at the same time he’s not thrilled with how the guy is always slacking off. It’s not quite the experience that he was expecting, that’s for sure. He doesn’t realize the true stakes behind what he is building either and is just eager to pull it off. We’ll see how that goes.

Right off the bat I do like the government angle. The whole building a laser thing makes a lot of sense and led to a fun intro scene. They were also quite ruthless here as it’s heavily implied that they decided to take out the one guy who disagreed with the plan. It’s safe to say at such a high level that you should be careful about stepping off of a project. Doing that now makes you a big security risk since you know about the secrets. These guys did not hesitate either considering that they probably knew him for a while.

Unfortunately the government really doesn’t get to appear much after that until the very end of the film. It’s a shame because they were definitely one of the highlights here. Jerry does well representing the shady characters though. He is good at manipulating Mitch and also talks back to the government at times. Naturally they do have most of the power here but he still doesn’t let them just walk all over him. He manages to stand up for himself as needed. He is certainly a ruthless villain since he doesn’t care about anything aside from his paycheck at the end.

The movie handles him really well though. He’s not just cackling in the corner or anything like that. He still seems reasonable on the surface and you almost think he’ll be a main hero at first. Once he started showing his true colors that was it though. The first hinting of this was likely when we found out that he wasted a whole lot of the money for the project on random things he wanted. Not the most responsible guy eh?

Chris is fun but I do think he could go a little far at times in how he would mess around. I get that he didn’t want to take things too seriously so he wouldn’t crack and that makes sense but after a point that just felt like an excuse. There’s a difference between not overworking yourself and still doing some basic work. As the film goes on he eventually learns more about that but in the meantime I can absolutely see why everyone was so fed up with him. The guy wouldn’t just goof off but actively disrupted and distracted everyone else. I would say it’s clear that he was still the smartest guy in the classroom but he really didn’t use those talents to help anyone.

In a way he would almost feel like an antagonist at times if it didn’t turn out that the invention was evil. As for Mitch, he’s a decent main character but he could be a little timid the whole time. It made it real easy for other kids to show up and start teasing him. You gotta be bold and just go with the flow or things are going to get tough in a school like this. He also gets a quick romance plot in the film but I wouldn’t say it was anything all that special. It does happen rather quickly and didn’t seem all that realistic. I’m glad he was able to turn someone else down in the meantime who was after him even if his reaction times were slow but I wouldn’t say it was enough to get me on board with the romance.

Maybe once Mitch had been there for a few semesters or something but until then it’s just a smidge too fast. Then you have the main villain Kent. I mean, in a way Jerry’s the main villain but the difference is that Kent was acting like a villain from the start. At least Jerry puts up a front but Kent doesn’t bother with one. He just openly attacks Chris and messes with his things. In particular one of his sabotage moments was really a big deal with how he ruined a really expensive gadget that cost time and money. I thought he got off really easy all things considered.

The main heroine Jordan got her role in all of this as well. She has a hard time ever sleeping so she is hyper 24/7. The film didn’t give her a ton of time but I thought that she was a nice character. Jordan really stuck out right off the top with a quirk that was memorable without being too annoying. If this film got a sequel I could see her doing a lot more there.

I still say that the government should have appeared more though. The slice of life scenes with the kids at school is still good and all but the government scenes would have really pushed it over the edge. That’s absolutely what would have been the best route here. The only scene I thought was a little unrealistic was when Kent records Mitch so everyone can make fun of him at lunch.

They’re all geniuses and recording isn’t difficult so I’m not saying that this was hard to believe, but that the school wouldn’t get back at him somehow. Ultimately they still want more students in the future so it seems a little counterintuitive to let the bullying go this far. If the school gets sued or something then it will discourage attendance. It’s hardly the worst bullying I’ve seen in a film but it really stood out here. Maybe because it’s just so open while a lot of times the bullying is at least done in the shadows. A valid argument could be made that nobody could prove it was Kent, but it seems like nobody really even cared.

Overall, Real Genius is a good movie. The romance can be a bit cheesy at times but ultimately it’s not a big part of the experience anyway. The writing here was good and I do always like the idea of a school for geniuses. There’s a whole lot you can do with a solid setup like that. This film perhaps didn’t capitalize on it to the fullest extent but we did have some fun inventions and quirks in the first half. I liked the instant ice for example and the heroes had a good solution for the laser at the end. I’d recommend checking it out for some light hearted fun.

Overall 6/10