Tag Archives: Film Review

The Little Prince Review

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This is probably one of those films I should be mor familiar with since the book was a big deal but for the most part it really got past me. It’s a pretty decent adventure although at times it can be so focused on the slice of life aspect that it almost gets a little dull. The slow moving nature of the story is what keeps it from being just a little bit higher. I would still recommend it though if you’re looking for an abstract film about adventure. Also props to the film for never actually giving us all the names for the characters. Whenever a film does this organically where you don’t even notice, I gotta give a little shoutout.

The film starts with a girl and her mother moving into a new home. The mother has a very detailed plan for her daughter which accounts for every hour or every day for the next few years. The idea is that this way her daughter will be able to achieve her life’s dreams with no delays. Obviously this is done to a rather insane degree but it really shows how much her mother was thinking of her. Coming up with this plan had to have taken an incredibly long time. It’s sort of the old issue of worrying about your kid so much that you go a bit overboard and end up creating more work for them.

Well, her daughter aims to do her best at each task. Unfortunately their crazy next door neighbor launches a rocket which breaks a big hole into the apartment and this kicks off a series of events that lead the main character to stop following the schedule. She is much too interested in the neighbor’s stories about a young prince in space. the more hours that are used up, the more that the plan can no longer work. Should the girl continue going off script and hanging out with the neighbor or should she begin to get back on track?

I was glad that the film didn’t make the mother overly unreasonable. I think this is one of those situations where if the girl had talked to her more, they could have avoided some of the issues here. Instead by working in secret and dodging the schedule it caused things to get more tense than needed. The mom was trying her best and ultimately just lost sight of the big picture here while she was trying to help. It’s one of those issues where I can feel really sympathetic since sometimes you are trying to help a lot and things just don’t go the way you want them to. That’s just how these things go.

She was willing to readjust the plan to account for a friend after all. Having to totally discard the plan is a bit more of a difficult ask though. It’s why you usually want to let your kid find their own goals through exploration but when you’re really successful it can be easy to want to craft a good life for your kid. So yeah there are a whole lot of things to consider here.

As far as the animation goes, the film looks decent. The scenes on the human world look decently good. It may not be high-end, nor are there scenes to really test this out since this is a very realistic film but I would say that it works out pretty well. The dream sequences within the stories tend to be a little too experimental for my taste though. I’d say that’s a good part of why I would just want the film to return to the human world some more. The dynamic between the mother and her daughter was far more interesting to me even if the stories were more supernatural.

The neighbor was also decent but I don’t cut him too much slack here. Apparently, his inventions haven’t been working for a long while now. He should know better than to still be testing his rockets in a place where they could possibly hit someone. Blowing up part of the house was a gag but a situation that felt dangerous all the same. It could have easily gone lethal depending on where the girl was.

A large part of the film is about the story though so lets talk about that for a minute. The Little Prince had some sheep and flower friend, then he went off to journey through the cosmos. He met many people like a King, a wealthy guy, and more. Unfortunately the story had a sad ending where the Prince got poisoned and died so this leads the girl to try and find him in the real world. Now how much of this is figurative vs literal is up to you but of course I always like to take this at face value. It turns out that things have not gone well at all as the prince is now a janitor and has basically given up all hope. All of the figures from his story appear but in different circumstances than the story had suggested.

This leads to a classic story about not giving up hope and finding your way once again. The Prince eventually gets better but sure takes his time in doing so. There’s nothing wrong with the story itself but the plot on Earth just feels a lot more tangible. You can really empathize with what’s going on and the gravity of the situation. For the Prince plot, well it still feels like a story book even once it’s “real”. In a way the story book intro kind of doomed it. I think there would be a chance to get past that in a longer film where you had more scenes for the second act. This one just doesn’t have enough time for it.

You’ve still got a well written film and I certainly wouldn’t say otherwise. That said, it’s not going to have a ton of replay value here. The film is just too soft spoken for that. It’s a quiet kind of film that tackles good concepts that are worth discussing but you only need to do that once. After that there is no big spectacle or action scenes to carry it through. I should note that the film is also quite serious. Not dark by any means but there aren’t a lot of jokes here which is also something that could have helped the replay value.

Overall, The Little Prince is a good movie. I would recommend checking it out at least on an initial watch. It’s not like every film needs to be watched twice after all. It can be a bit slow but doesn’t really have any bad scenes. It’s a safe watch for just about anyone. If they ever make another film like this, I would say to either incorporate both plots so that they live in a world where there is a prince or go all in on one world or the other. There just isn’t enough runtime to really get into both. I would also forget the experimental type animation and go for something with classic hand drawn instead.

Overall 6/10

The Spy Who Loved Me Review

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It’s time for more Bond and this time he will have to deal with a rival who may even be on his level. The concept is definitely cool but as the film goes on, you realize that the rival is a paper one. I’ll explain more about that in a minute but needless to say this film still falls into the usual issues of a Bond film. Perhaps that is just the inevitable fate of most Bond adventures.

The film starts with showing us how both Bond and Anya are messing around despite being called the world’s greatest secret agents. Bond manages to murder a bunch of enemy agents as he heads back to base though. MI6 has called him in to find the missing nuclear submarine that someone stole from Russia. Naturally this is a pretty big deal since it is a national crisis. Russia has also sent in their best agent, Anya to find out what’s going on. Both of them will be crossing paths as they uncover the mystery behind this but can they keep their hands to themselves?

I do like the hook of finally seeing another secret agency in the forefront. Surprisingly the films don’t often do this. Sure, other agencies like the CIA are referenced but typically they tend to just get wrecked off screen. That said, the film doesn’t totally commit to the bit as Anya isn’t super skilled. Perhaps relative to some of the other agents but she consistently feels outmatched here. This is why I would call her a rival on paper.

So on paper Anya is a genius, master of martial arts, and her resourcefulness speaks for itself. She should be able to hold her own against anyone. Well, on the field it just doesn’t play out that way. She may be able to defeat Bond at times in word games like when she mentions where the submarine is. Additionally, she is able to defeat him by using his weakness to women and spraying him with a knock out gas. The whole thing was super embarrassing for Bond but when it comes time for a fight, she is dispatched quickly.

She allows Jaws to defeat her even when she had a gun on him and he was unarmed. When she crosses with Bond, she is pitting her karate chop against his gun. Anya just wasn’t ready for this and the fact that she can distract Bond with her charms just feels like a consolation prize at best. I would have liked her to have been out there in the field murdering a ton of fighters and really giving Bond a reason to respect her abilities. Considering the series we’re watching, this will probably only be possible if the rival agent is a guy.

As for Bond, well he looks pretty bad as always. The whole world is in danger with the nuclear weapons here and he’s still trying to make a pass at everybody? Bond needs to lock in at this point and he just doesn’t have enough moments like that. Bond is ready to have his fun and lose the mission which is not what you want a hero to do. I appreciate his smug attitude and how Bond talks down to everyone but it’s still hard to overlook his faults.

Meanwhile Jaws is a solid villain because of his skills even if he lacks the overall charisma that Scaramanga had. Jaws is shown to be borderline superhuman with how he can absorb so many blows. He walks away from a massive car crash at one point with essentially no injuries. Bond is clearly not able to beat him one on one but is quicker so usually the environment ends up being the deciding factor. Jaws mouth is metal after all which makes things difficult for him around magnets.

His boss is technically the head honcho but that guy doesn’t look all that good. I appreciate all the tough talk and how he dispatched several characters in the opening scene. He knows how to stay on top but ultimately gets a little too cocky. His gun needed to be quite a bit shorter to be effective and the trigger needed to be silent. The guy had an interesting goal of wanting humanity to only live beneath the waves though. I’ll give him some points for originality I suppose.

As always the film suffers from fanservice and terrible romances which distract from the main plot. In fact, this time it’s even worse because the plot is completely going against the romance. Anya’s whole plot is to avenge her fiancé but she’s messing around with Bond right away. You could try to defend this by saying that it’s part of her job and she’ll get with everybody in order to further the mission but that really doesn’t help at all. It just pushes forward the worst trope of a female agent which is having to do any of that stuff in the beginning.

Nah you need to be able to solidify her as a top tier threat who doesn’t need to do that. Bond never does either, he just does it for fun. That needs to be dialed back as well so that he can actually be a likable character. The film’s general pacing and story is good but these things hold it back quite a lot. The fanservice is unrelenting and is something you don’t see so much of outside of the Bond films. In a way that’s what makes it so notable here.

I should mention that the songs aren’t all that impressive for me. I didn’t cover that in the prior Bond film but generally none of the songs have moved me so far. They sound decent, I’m certainly not calling them bad. However, I would not be looking them up on Youtube or anything like that. They really lack a better beat or incredible lyrics that force you to rewatch them. These just feel like what you would expect from a Bond film tbh and I don’t really mean that in a good way.

Overall, This film had an interesting premise but didn’t live up to it in classic Bond style. I will always take a plot like this with multiple factions over not having them at all though. If you have liked the Bond films up to now then you should like this one as well. In a lot of ways it is playing the adventure completely straight and that’s not a bad thing for the most part. The series just needs a way to lose the fanservice and then it can one day rise up as one of the all time greats! Until then, it will have to be satisfied with being at the back of the pack when it comes to action/thriller franchises.

Overall 4/10

The Man with the Golden Gun Review

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James Bond has certainly has a lot of films over the years. While Bond himself may spend a good chunk of his screentime getting kicked around, he always rises back up to end the threat. I’m not typically a fan of his movies for their over-reliance on fanservice and terrible romances but the action scenes tend to be fun. The movies have a good blend of humor mixed into the fight scenes. This one also has one of the best enemies in the entire series. That being said, it ends up falling into line with a lot of the other films.

The movie starts with an assassin taking out a powerful gunman. This man is Scaramanga, the world’s number one hit man. His trademark is a signature golden gun by which he finishes off his prey. This guy’s next target is James Bond, Britain’s top agent from MI6. He has the agency so scared that Bond is immediately taken off of his mission and fired. The only way for Bond to get his old work back is for him to take this guy down but nobody’s even seen Scaramanga before. This won’t be an easy fight.

I will say that MI6 looks absolutely terrible here for them to panic so quickly. Yes, Scaramanga is a dangerous foe but this level of panic should be reserved for taking on a whole government right? For a single man to make them bench the #1 agent is crazy. I don’t think M could possibly come back from this. Fortunately Bond is quick to get out there and end this would be assassin. It’s the only real way to move forward if we’re being realistic about this.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t say that Bond is a great character though. As always he is distracted by every woman around and he can never truly keep his eyes on the prize. He has to rely on his plot armor most of the time in order to stay in the game because there are many chances for him to be removed. The villains had him dead to rights but sent him to school instead of finishing him off. A bizarre decision to be sure.

He doesn’t take his coworker seriously either and spends the whole time flirting with her instead of trying to come up with a plan. Yes, Goodnight was a poor agent who just held him back but Bond should have still been able to find some way for her to be of assistance instead of adding onto that. Anytime Bond is fooling around with these various characters, it is more time that he could have spent staying in a ready position with his guard up.

Bond gets results which is why he is known as the number one agent but at the same time he nearly dies constantly. Personally in terms of overall skill I would have to lean on Scaramanga here. In a one on one fight I believe he would defeat Bond. You could argue that Scaramanga did not think so since he ended up evading the one on one fight for his more theatrical version. That ended up being a mistake on his part.

Scaramanga is a full on villain so you can’t let his gamesmanship fool you. He doesn’t treat his allies particularly well and was quick to bump off the girl who was working with him. She probably had the most tragic role here since there was really no way out for her from the start. Death was always going to be the end result and it’s not like Bond really helped her to get past that here. Ultimately he wasn’t in the best place to help her either since time was ticking and he didn’t really have anyone to trust. That said, you still could have hoped that things would go better for her.

You’d almost think this was the only plot around but the Bond films are always able to cram a lot of story into these adventures. So we also had Hai who hired Scaramanga and was working with solar technology that could end the energy crisis. He gets rather overconfident for somebody who can’t fight which results in his end though. Honestly he may have been doomed either way but the way he went out just made the guy look silly.

We didn’t really need this plot or the whole karate interlude though. Sure we got to see Bond score some more wins and take advantage of terrible villain plans but it didn’t actually move the film forward. Personally I would have spent that time further hyping up Scaramanga and maybe even having Bond do some training to prepare for the battle. It’s a bit hard to picture since both characters are extremely arrogant but would have been interesting. Their inevitable matchup is easily what you are looking forward to throughout the movie. Everything else is ultimately just noise.

So the negatives with the film all stem from the endless fanservice and one night stands here. None of the romances are worth anything and they’re just here to pad out the film. It’s why I always look forward to seeing a more serious Bond who is ready to take on the villains without fooling around. While the film is very long, I would say that the pacing is generally fine. There is always a lot going on so it doesn’t drag on. The fight scenes are also pretty good.

They feel rather old school with how they aren’t overly choreographed or anything like that. This is a basic fight with good hand to hand at all times. Bond also looks very mortal as he is stronger than the average fighter but isn’t the world’s best or anything. We even have a classic car chase which works well. The overactive sheriff may be a tad too silly for some but generally tends to be a fun character. The absurdity just works especially since the film as a whole was pretty light hearted anyway. He would probably overstay his welcome if the scenes were too much longer.

Overall, This film did a good job of finally giving Bond a true one vs one fight to look forward to. Sure, Bond does lose a lot and tends to be out planned by the villains but this is one of the few times where the whole film is building up to such an encounter. I appreciated that and while it couldn’t do enough for the film to beat out its own issues, this still made for a pretty memorable experience. If you really like Bond films then I would recommend checking this one out.

Overall 4/10

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for another Mad Max film which is naturally not going to go over very well. The franchise has never really managed to make a solid product and this one doesn’t do any better. It jumps straight to pure edge and grim-dark content right from the jump and never really gets any better. The plot itself is fairly thin with the film just being a bunch of padding on top of it. It’ll feel like a 4 hour movie by the time you’re done with it.

The film starts with Dementus’ gang invading Furiosa’s home and they manage to kidnap her and murder her mother. Furiosa is now forced to work for his gang for many years while trying to plot her revenge. Unfortunately, it won’t be easy because he just has so many different henchmen working for him. It’s like going up against an entire army. Dementus is the leader of his gang but even he has to answer to a larger force. This may be where Furiosa can have some hope to turn things around but it won’t be easy. Will she be able to mount a comeback or is all hope already lost?

This is a prequel so you know Furiosa will survive this but it’s more about the journey. How much will she lose before she is finally able to claim victory here? Well, unfortunately the film decides to have her lose quite a lot in the process and so we see just how messed up her life was in the apocalyptic world. Just about every character has been messed up in this timeline though as we’ve seen throughout the movies. There just isn’t any hope left.

The last semblances of authority were wiped out long ago. All that remains are an endless amount of gangs who rule through violence and terror. Forget about human dignity or anything like that. This is all about maximum suffering to everyone and it’s just villain against villain. As Dementus fights with the other group, you don’t have anyone to root for because both groups are equally pure evil. There will be no rest or recovery for either side no matter what happens. It’s true when they say there are no heroes in this film.

Furiosa is naturally a lot more sympathetic than the others running around but even she had to play the game for years. She had to fight under the villains’ banner and murders a whole lot of characters throughout. It would have been nice to have let her just be a full on hero even if it meant breaking the tone that the film was going for. Have her be some sort of super hero who goes around murdering the villains one by one. She could use a lot of run and gun tactics to whittle them down.

That would make for an infinitely more interesting film right away. It would be easy to root for her after all and it would mean less screen time for the villains. The film is incredibly violent so you can expect to be grimacing at every other scene. The whole society within this world is as grim as possible with slaves everywhere and every crime you can think of. The film absolutely succeeds at showing an evil society but never gives you any good reason to be watching the film. It’s like getting a peek into true evil without any large scale destruction at the end to help you feel at least a little satisfaction.

A scene at the end where the world gets destroyed or something like that would have been good. It’s certainly evident that the people who died during the great disaster were the lucky ones since they didn’t have to live through this new situation. Perhaps the films could one day have a twist where a human city does survive somewhere and they have kept law and order but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Aside from the film just being tragic to sit through, it’s also incredibly long. The film just keeps on going on and on. It’ over 2 hours and the film absolutely feels that long with every scene taking forever. This is one of those films where I really can’t point to a single positive and so it’s one of the first 0s in quite a while. There are just no redeeming values within the title.

The whole film takes place in the dessert so there aren’t any real good visuals to be had here either. Everything is rundown and the characters are all dirty from getting hit with the elements all the time. A lot of characters tend to have big scars or other injuries to help reflect the ugliness of the world which doesn’t exactly earn it any points either. I can admit that this may be a realistic look at how things could be if humanity ever hits rock bottom. You like to hope that there would be some semblance of order left but there are absolutely areas around the world where this happens. So I can’t say that it’s impossible.

It just doesn’t make for a good film. At the end of the day the film is about Furiosa getting her revenge but it takes an extremely long time to even get up to that point. It would have been much more satisfying if the whole film was about her picking off all the villains until she got to the leader, rather than being forced to work for different villains throughout. Let Furiosa get more scenes where she has the advantage rather than trying to claim it after being the underdog the whole time.

Overall, I would definitely recommend skipping this film. At the end of the day it’s about a bunch of villains hurting everybody and the cycle of violence will perpetuate forever. The movie definitely tries to show you as much suffering as possible here so even by the time a villain is defeated, it all rings rather hollow. The other villains will continue destroying whatever and whoever they want. There are no heroes to stop them, nor will any ever show up based on what we’ve seen in the other titles. The whole Mad Max series would need a hard reboot to have any hope and even then I would not like its odds.

Overall 0/10

The War of the Worlds Review

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It’s time for the original War of the Worlds film. This one deals with the serious alien invasion that threatens to end all life on the planet. Unless the characters are able to lock in quickly, they will be destroyed. The older these films are, the easier it is to picture a complete alien takeover because there just aren’t enough weapons to fight them. This makes for a fun alien invasion film. Nothing fancy and no gimmicks, it’s just about the humans doing their best and eventually giving up hope.

The main character here is Clayton who happens to be fishing nearby when the first meteor lands. At first people figure it’s just an asteroid and they can make a lot of money off the tourists. Unfortunately it turns out that this is the incoming sign of an alien invasion and the creatures quickly appear all over the world. They are completely immune to conventional weaponry and have incredible numbers at their disposal. Can Clayton find a way to stop them or will he be crushed?

What makes this different from a lot of other alien invasion films is how there isn’t really a lot of hope for the humans. Usually we lose the first encounter but at least find a glimpse of a weakness and start to press the advantage. Instead in this one the humans are so far out of their depth that they are on the back foot the whole time. There is no weakness to be found and so eventually the only option is to give up. The governments may stay strong but the individual citizens quickly succumb to their base instincts of stealing and panicking.

The film is definitely not a good look for the pesky humans everywhere. We get a long scene of them basically attacking anyone in a car and destroying supplies. Even the briefest of hopes is removed once they knock Clayton out and take his devices. It showed a very big weakness that the humans have which is that their bonds are quickly destroyed at the first sign of distress. It almost makes you ready to root for the aliens because you’ve seen all that you’d like to of the ugliness in humanity.

Now there was a moment early on where you figure the weakness for the aliens could be light. They are quick to run from the flashlight in one scene and so that could have been interesting to pursue but the film doesn’t go in that direction. We do get a very sudden ending with their actual weakness. This always comes across as being very abrupt but otherwise the humans had been written into a corner.

Considering how old the film is, I’d say the effects are pretty good. Especially the special effects for when the humans are vaporized by the laser. It just looks a lot newer than I would have expected for this era in time. It’s clear that the film makers did a good job with this one. The general writing and script is also pretty solid. It’s perhaps a more jaded product than many others in its genre with humanity not deciding to band together this time but in a lot of ways it does feel like the more realistic approach. If aliens ever did appear in the real world, I have real doubts that people would stand together to fight them. Most likely there would just be a ton of in fighting the whole time.

Then Clayton is a decent main character but I won’t say that he’s great. Like the rest of humanity, he did completely give up on humanity. In the end he just wanted to find Sylvia so they could be together in their last moments. Romantic perhaps but this guy was one of the last hopes that the world had for victory. To see him just throw it all away was rough. I’m sure many would make the same decision though.

To his credit, Clayton had been trying a whole lot before that. They tried different approaches and possible weapons in order to end the alien threat. It just turned out that none of them were particularly effective here. The barriers that the aliens had were simply too powerful and not something that mere numbers could overcome. Early on the U.S. brings in a bunch of tanks to take on the first UFO and they are all vaporized within seconds.

As for Sylvia, she’s a solid main heroine. She does a good job of launching the exposition when she first showed up to talk about all of the scientists. Technically speaking I’d say the main cast is very small here though. You do have your share of supporting characters running around but there isn’t a lot of time for individual stories. It’s another good thing in the film’s corner which is that it decides to focus a lot on the invasion as a whole. I think that’s the right approach.

As always I will take the stance that trying to peacefully walk to an alien UFO is a bad idea though. We get this in two occasions. Once from a group of 3 guys who were hoping for global fame and then from a preacher who thought that the aliens could be reasoned with. In both cases I think this is just too naive. Even on the off chance that the aliens are peaceful, approaching them is not a bad idea because that will usually be seen as an aggressive move. The aliens have to make the first move and only if it’s a peaceful one can you move forward. Otherwise you just need to trust the government and let them start firing. It may sound callous but it’s the only real option.

Overall, The War of the Worlds is a pretty good film. In some ways I would say that it doesn’t necessarily stand out a ton from some of the other old alien invasion films but that’s because I tend to enjoy the genre a lot from all angles. I may not have this one in an elevated slot but it doesn’t really make any mistakes and does feel ahead of its time. You can really feel the dread throughout the movie even if the ending is on the happier side. I would recommend checking it out, I think you’ll be surprised at just how advanced the film feels.

Overall 7/10

Brother Bear Review

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Brother Bear is one of those films that mayyyybe you’ve heard of but there is also a good chance that you’re just thinking of something else. This one didn’t exactly go down as one of the all time animated greats. It’s not bad and in the end I will be making the cast that it is a “good” movie but certainly not very good or great. It’s a very safe film where you aren’t going to likely have any major issues with it but I would also say that to an extent the film feels a bit aimless. There isn’t a super large plot going on so half the time you’re just buying time with random gags.

The movie starts with Kenai getting really excited because he will now be able to finally become a man. There is a coming of age ceremony that his village does and you also get your own animal amulet. Unfortunately he is discouraged when his amulet is the bear which symbolizes love. Kenai doesn’t feel like this is very manly and his day gets even worse when a bear eats all the fish that the family had gathered up. This was directly his fault for not tying it up and when Kenai fights the bear, he loses and causes his eldest brother to die.

Kenai comes close to death as well although he manages to murder the bear. The spirits don’t like this and transform him into a bear. Kenai must now find a way to reverse the curse and in the meantime his elder brother will be hunting him across the jungle. After all, from Denahi’s perspective (The last surviving brother) the bear has now murdered both of his brothers. So he swears revenge in order to make things right.

This was definitely a really tough situation for Denahi in particular. He had a lot of reason to be upset as Kenai for constantly causing trouble. He also brings up a good point initially in not wanting to blame the bear for what happened. It was just an act of nature after all. Unfortunately were he goes too far is when he blames Kenai and when the lead seemingly dies, it adds a whole lot of guilt to Denahi. He absolutely has the saddest story among the various characters here because he is really having to deal with all of this on his own.

This guy was really resourceful too with how far he chases the bear. Denahi manages to make it over through the entire salmon run and also holds his own in the fights. Naturally Kenai is holding back since he doesn’t want to hurt his brother but it still takes a lot of stamina to have this much energy after being on the run for so long. It’s easy to root for Denahi as a character. Naturally you aren’t rooting for him to accomplish his goal since that would only end up harming him.

As for the main character, well naturally a large part of the story is about Kenai getting his character development. So he is meant to be annoying at first and you just have to see if he improves quickly enough. Personally it is hard to get past his opening scenes because these were really big mistakes that he made. It’s not like they were small ones by any means. His actions directly resulted in several deaths and that’s not something that you can take very lightly.

Then as a bear, he’s rather rude to the cub that journeys with him for a long time. Kenai goes out of his way to be a jerk like making fun of the stories and making it clear that they aren’t friends. The film doesn’t give us enough of a reason for why he had to be this openly antagonistic. So the only outcome you can really have here is that he’s a total jerk. Kenai tries to make it up to him by the end but it was too little too late.

Koda is the cub who travels with Kenai and I thought he was a lot better than the average kid character would be. Koda tries to keep their spirits up at all times and is a very reasonable character. He’s not overly oblivious nor is he getting them into a lot of trouble. You couldn’t ask for a much better companion and it’s why you wish Kenai would have been a whole lot nicer to him.

As for the animation, I thought it was pretty solid. There’s a lot of movement going on and some fun energy effects like with the spirit transformations. We do get some action scenes like with the bear battles so the animators get a little chance to show off. It’s nothing out of this world but it was pretty good. The soundtrack is more on the forgettable side. None of the songs would really be hitting the big time and the general ost doesn’t really pop out at you. This story will have to succeed more on the story.

The story itself isn’t bad. The animal stuff tends to be more basic but the human plot had some rather high stakes. I also give the film credit for not being too rough with the animal violence here. Even when a bear dies, there isn’t any real blood and due to the spirit influences, it doesn’t feel too final. It does feel at times like the writers weren’t too confident in the story itself though so you have a lot of random characters like moose and others who show up as comic relief. They get their scenes to buy time for the next main moment.

The humor could be hit or miss. I enjoyed some of the jokes at least but at times they could feel a bit forced. Like this is just here as a quick intermission as opposed to the joke needing to be there. I’d say it’s because the salmon run journey isn’t all that long. Maybe they should have had an obstacle or two pop up where Kenai and Koda have to help some village of animals. Then that helps Kenai start to become more mature. That could have worked over well.

Overall, Like I said this film is good but it’s not great. I think you’ve got a lot of interesting seeds here like Kenai being hunted by his brother and the debate on love and revenge. It did make sense not wanting to hunt the bear down after the first attack but I also understand why after two brothers are murdered you do feel like some human intervention is needed. Less screen time for the animals and more for the humans would have been a really good idea I’d say.

Overall 6/10

World War Z Review

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It’s time for a big zombie film. For a while there I felt like I would see ads of this one everywhere. Even to this day I think of it as the most popular zombie film of all time. That’s probably not accurate on a technical level but when I think of zombies I think of The Walking Dead for TV, the Last of US for games (Kinda counts), and World War Z for movies. Now that I’ve finally seen it, I’d say that I understand. It is certainly better than the average zombie film, I’d say that it’s not even close. Most zombie films are absolutely dreadful while this one is good enough where I could even call it an average film. As with many disaster type flicks, I feel like the build up and suspenseful middle tends to hold up better than the climax. It’s not so much that it overstays its welcome but the ending is a bit quieter than you’d expect.

The film starts off with Gerry and his family driving when all of a sudden cops are running around everywhere. A zombie epidemic has started and they are converting all the other humans into zombies. There seems to be no way to stop them and the whole world is going under. The military saves Gerry and his family but at a high price. They want Gerry to rejoin the army so they can go to ground zero of where the zombie virus started. The idea is that they can find a cure this way but obviously it will be dangerous. They also make it clear that Gerry’s family is forfeit if he refuses so he is forced into this. Gerry was one of the greatest agents of all time back in his day but he retired to get away from that life. Unfortunately it looks like he will be going right back into it.

First off I want to say that the film handled this part really well. I like the fact that the government had to completely blackmail Gerry into joining. Otherwise it would have been incredibly foolish to just leave his family at this time. The government is also facing a total crisis so it makes sense that civility would leave the room. They have a planet to save and so the incentives line up for both parties. The general makes a great point that lots of people would like to be saved so if they are going to be taking a spot from someone else, then everyone has to contribute.

Now this does lead to the most forced part of the film though which is Gerry deciding to take a walkie talkie so that he can keep talking to his wife. I wouldn’t mind this if it had an off switch but it is always on. Meaning that she can call him at any time. You remember that the enemies here are zombies right? Any loud noises will wake them up and sacrifice a lot of lives. I thought it was incredibly irresponsible for him to be carrying this and naturally she does call at the worst possible time. I don’t put any blame on her because she couldn’t have possibly known.

Gerry is a seasoned officer and should have known better. As to the film itself, I’d divide it into 3 parts. The initial invasion with Gery running around trying to keep his family safe. The middle with Gery looking for the cure with the government, and then the final act with meeting the scientists and actually working on something. The final act is the weakest by far with the first being the best one. I always like the point of first impact where the characters have to adapt and constantly run around. Gerry quickly realizes that staying mobile was their best bet and so he made sure to do that.

There are no guarantees in this kind of situation but I thought he handled it as well as possible. It was also nice to see that some people were acting friendly and normal like the family that took them in. This isn’t one of those films that takes the position of everyone immediately becoming a criminal jerk even if a lot of people would do that. The body count is pretty high and it’s easy to see why humanity was losing badly here. The sheer amount of zombies is crazy. Now, I do have some reservations about how quickly humanity fell but I think the film addressed about as much as it could have.

Even showing that some areas like Israel and Russia were doing a far better job of combating them than others. Pride ultimately became the main issue for Israel with everyone making the worst possible decisions there. The middle part with the army was still intense with a lot of gun fights going on. I appreciated that the army squad kept things professional and knew how to fight really well. When one of them would get infected, he’d quickly make sure to die to not infect the others. The group clearly knew what to do.

For the last part, it just feels a lot slower. Running around the lab and trying to stay one step ahead of the zombies is just not as intense in this case. It also may be a bit tainted for me because I’m highly skeptical of the weak point that was discovered for the zombies. It felt like it was just a little too broad. There should have been one specific weakness based on a rare illness. Then I could understand but the film made it so general that a whole lot of people should have been spared from the zombies to the point where their weakness would be obvious to everyone.

This is something that is always hard to contend with but for a film like this you need to answer the question of “Why is the main character the first to notice this?” Most films don’t bother to answer that but this one had the rare opportunity to do it and missed. All the film needed to do was introduce Gerry as having a rare blood condition or illness from which he was dying. It would explain why he retired and would also work as a way to connect the dots by the end. It’s not the kind of thing I would really dock points for but I just think it would logically follow a lot better.

I was more impressed by the people who were taking the zombies out during a fight. In the climax we see people using nukes and barricading the zombies in to be shot. Those scenes were pretty fun even if they go by quickly. I also have no real issues with the main ending. It could have led into a sequel pretty well but also works as its own ending. So there’s a lot more to like about this film than the average zombie one. The writing was good and Gerry made for a good main character. The main cast is rather small but the supporting characters were good.

The film does decide to open up with randomly showing animals getting eaten. Perhaps I shouldn’t say randomly as this is clearly to show the virus being spread but that could have been handled a lot better. We avoided the humans getting eaten so this just felt unnecessary. While the film can get a bit violent, it’s clearly much less violent than most films of its genre. The zombies are getting shot and people die but it’s more in a standard summer blockbuster kind of method. I also took a peak at the alternate ending and it gets crazy edgy for no reason so this version of the film is much better.

Honestly the film could have pulled off a 2 point swing to a 7 if it just removed the opening scenes and also sped up the third act. I know some may not want this but the last act should have been a whole lot more explosive. Give me a big fight instead of the one zombie clanking his teeth together for 5 minutes while watching Gerry. The pacing just slows to a crawl here. It’s to make the scenes more scary but the scariest thing is when the zombies are running around. In the real world these would be the worst zombies to fight because of how fast they are. They can even form giant towers and objects with their sheer mass.

Overall, World War Z does a good job of being both intense and scary. It’s the kind of film that really makes you wonder what you would do if the zombie apocalypse was to happen. Hopefully you’d have some high ground but for the first 24 hours, your fellow humans would be another big hassle to deal with. I would have been interested to see what the sequel would do here. Would the whole thing be about fighting the zombies? Maybe they started mutating or something. Ah well, that’ll just be for your imagination now. I may not go as far as to actually recommend this one but if you like zombie films then it is worth a watch.

Overall 5/10

The Emperor’s New Groove Review

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It’s time for a fairly quick animated adventure. The Emperor’s New Groove is what you would call a basic film that has a good amount of comedy in it and fun characters. You’re not going to get your next award winning classic here or anything like that but it’s all pretty good stuff. At the end of the day, the movie is satisfied being at this level and there’s nothing really wrong with that. It even beats some of the more ambitious titles.

The main character is Kuzco, the young emperor. He is incredibly spoiled and doesn’t care about anyone but himself. This allows him to easily fire anyone and displace whoever he wants in the various villages. So long as he is happy, then nothing else matters. It is easy to see why nobody likes him. One day, he fires Yzma, an old lady who had been getting a little too power hungry. Kuzco underestimated just how much she wanted power though as he gets poisoned by her and turned into a llama. Her assistant Kronk was supposed to murder him but instead Kuzco finds himself at the poor village where Pacha lives.

Kuzco had previously told Pacha that he was going to wreck the man’s village so that he could have a summer home. Yet now Kuzco must rely on Pacha’s generosity if he is going to survive the journey back to his castle. Can Pacha convince Kuzco of the error in his ways or will this emperor be stubborn all the way until the end? The character arc itself here is pretty straight forward. You will just need to see if the film can really convince you of his personality shift within 70 minutes. That’s a rather tall order after all, especially when he starts off by being so antagonistic.

Now, with Kuzco’s very life hanging in the balance you can choose instead to think that his big character shift is really out of self preservation. It’s not really the film’s message but it can work out. While Kuzco is a total jerk for a lot of this, he’s a pretty fun one so I was still able to enjoy him as the main character. He is also able to break the 4th wall on more than one occasion. It would have probably been good to have let him start having some heroic moments earlier on in the film though. That would have made the character arc a little smoother.

Pacha is the other main character here as he tries to help Kuzco be more heroic but it is an uphill battle. It is really difficult to work with this guy but Pacha does his best to always be patient. He should have been honest with his wife about the possibility of losing their house at the start though. If he wasn’t able to pull off this journey then she would have been really taken by surprise. You always want to be representing a united front here. Pacha doesn’t have a ton of character beyond wanting to do the right thing though. It also feels like he isn’t quite as upset with Kuzco as he should be.

I get being good natured but he really takes it to some extremes. On the villains’ side we have a solid duo. The main villain is Yzma and she has been through a lot. Kuzco is always insulting her appearance and in her old age she doesn’t have much of a counter to this. She has lived with a lot of resentment for years and so she is finally making her move now. She can be distracted easily and has to put up with Kronk’s mistakes but still ends up being a compelling villain. She is rather effective with how many strides she makes during the film. She really took all of the characters to the brink and ultimately just needed to finish the emperor off herself. If she had done that near the beginning of the film then everything would have played out very differently.

Then we have Kronk who is a lot of fun. This guy may not be the smartest around but he has a lot of talents under his belt. The guy is a great conversationalist, has a terrific memory, and he is even a great cook. So while Kronk may not be the best at recognizing sarcasm or hidden nuances to a plan, he gets the job one. He’s also just a nice guy in general who unfortunately is loyal to a fault. If he had been working for a hero the whole time then I have no doubt that he would have made for a good ally.

Now it does feel like a bit of an excuse to say that he’s only a villain because of Yzma. At the end of the day he is still making his own decisions and is responsible for all of them. Hopefully after the events of this film, he will be someone that is more reliable as a hero or at least someone who isn’t actively helping in assassination planning.

The songs are okay in the film but I wouldn’t say that any of them stood out. They’re okay and catchy enough while you’re watching the film but you won’t exactly be looking any of them up on Youtube afterwards. I thought the animation was pretty good though. It’s all very smooth and consistent the whole time. The colors are also very striking outside of the animation itself. So on this area the film definitely managed to hold its own.

It’s a very safe style of animation. Like the rest of the film, it isn’t anything groundbreaking but is still solid all the way around. The writing is also solid with a lot of good banter and jokes going around the whole time. The pacing is quick and that’s part of what makes this an easy watch. It’s the kind of movie where you can just turn off your brain and enjoy it. There are no scenes that will make you shake your head or anything like that. It’s just a lot of fun and that’s the most important element of any movie.

Overall, This was a pretty fun film. There’s a lot of appeal here with just how fun and fast the humor is. I always enjoy a film with good banter and due to the premise you have the two main characters enjoying a lot of that throughout. The villains even have their own comedic dynamic going on. Naturally you do need to be a fan of a good comedy adventure in order to like this film but that goes with the territory. Since the film is well crafted, you never feel like you are missing out on a more serious adventure. We even get a reasonably intense climax here. So if you haven’t seen this film yet because you’re worried that it won’t be able to hold its own with other titles, I wouldn’t worry about that. The movie can stand on its own.

Overall 7/10

The Martian Review

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It’s time for one of those big sci-fi films that reminds me why I would never want to travel to space. It’s just way too scary to think about being in outer space with no way back home. I don’t even like being on a boat where I could be stranded, let alone somewhere out of this world. Of course for those who do want to go into space, this is still a good watch of things to prepare for. I’m sure that not every fact will be correct here but I imagine that most of the details are probably right.

The film is about a crew who go to Mars but unfortunately a strong storm shows up out of nowhere. They are barely able to escape but what they don’t realize is that they left one of their own behind. Mark was presumed dead after taking a bit hit during the escape but he managed to survive. The next ship won’t be back to Mars for several years and the planet is infamous for not being able to sustain any kind of vegetation. Can Mark use his botany knowledge to change this fact or is he doomed to a slow death?

The premise is already a fun one because it gets the gears in your brain churning. Mark has enough food supplies to last for around half a year I believe and so he needs to grow enough crops for 3 years. Even under perfect conditions that would be tough and these conditions are anything but. For starters he will have to worry about the storms. If any big ones like that show up then he is absolutely dead. If he messes up on any of the formulas or math then he is doomed as well. Another condition is that Mark has to find a way to create water and he has a very limited amount of attempts to get this working. There are dozens and dozens of ways for this to go wrong and then you have to factor in how he is all alone. There is no google search and no other people here for advice. If he gets something wrong, then he has to solve it with no help.

These conditions are tough to deal with and it’s just lucky that he is a botanist. I wouldn’t know the first thing about creating water or setting up the planets so I would definitely be dead. As the film goes on Mark is able to find some breakthroughs and even manages to contact Earth. From this point the adventure is a lot easier but that is all relative. He still has to deal with being on a completely different planet and running out of food. The sheer mental stress from this would be intense.

The film is long but doesn’t feel slow because of how much information is coming through. So as long as you enjoy the general premise then you’re going to have a good time. Mark is also a pretty solid main character. He knows how to banter with the other characters and is mainly just doing his best in order to move forward. He does have a few moments where the stress gets to him but that makes sense. Also finding out that his teammates weren’t told about him surviving was something that would irritate everyone. The crewmates get some scenes of their own but for the most part don’t do much until the end. They seemed like a pretty strong group. You certainly hope you will get along with the people that you are stuck with in a rocket for long periods of time like this.

I always wondered if you have to do long personality tests or something with your group to make sure that everyone gets along. Finally we had the plot on Earth which is always a lot of fun because we get to see the politicians debating. Naturally they were not too thrilled at what was going on. There are a lot of risks involved to every possible decision here. If you decide to send another group to Mars, you may double the losses. Of course if you do nothing, then that’s a huge PR blow as well to just let one of your team die on Mars without any help.

There are a lot of debates on the Earth side and one character even has to go rogue to help Mark out. It’s one of those situations where playing it by the book would lower Mark’s chances of survival. However if everyone broke the rules like that, then things would be more dangerous in the long term. You always have to pick and choose when to go rogue and the ends don’t always justify the means. Of course as someone who says you shouldn’t leave anyone behind, I’d say to put the maximum amount of effort to save Mark.

While the film is clearly too fantastical to have been based on real events, I could picture a slightly toned down version of this to happen in real life someday. You certainly hope that nobody would be left behind or that a storm couldn’t derail an entire mission but these things happen. I like to think that a company like NASA certainly practices through scenarios like this.

Now technically I think the film would be more fun if there was a second character trapped on Mars so we could have the banter. That said, the film might have been tempted to squeeze in a romance plot at that point which would be really unnecessary. So perhaps this is for the best. I can also confirm that the situation is a lot scarier because Mark is alone. Even a single other person would take away part of the scare factor since no situation is quite as intense when you have backup.

Overall, The Martian is a pretty good film. It is certainly heavily focused on the science angle here but I thought that worked out really well. In general it’s fun to look at space and so the science around it gets interesting as well. The effects are pretty good and the film doesn’t really make any big mistakes here. I do think that it will lack a lot of replay value because of the nature of the film. It’s long and is all hinging on how the adventure goes. Once you know the ending, the build up will end up feeling a lot longer the second time around. I’d still recommend checking it out though because the first time it what counts.

Overall 7/10

Violent Night Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a film thar really lives up to its name. If you wanted to watch a really violent Christmas film, well then you’re in the right place. It’s mainly played up for comedy but gets quite extreme as the film goes on. There are definitely a lot more misses than positives in this title but I really appreciated how some of the underlings performed in the fights.

The movie starts by introducing us to Jason and Linda whose relationship is on the rocks. They thought they could make things work but have now given up. This last Christmas party will be their last one together. The big issue between them is Linda feels like Jason always defers to his rich mother and worries too much about money. We’re not given a ton of context here since that part of the plot isn’t super important but Jason doesn’t deny any of it so this seems to be true. So the two of them head to the party with their daughter Trudy and have to tolerate all of their rich family members who hate each other. They are all just here for the mother’s money. Unfortunately a group of crooks with a whole lot of insider knowledge show up to steal all of the money. The only one who can stop them…is Santa Clause.

Yes, in this universe Santa Clause is real. He is very jaded with the job though and doesn’t really like humanity anymore. This was going to be his last job but unfortunately he is inside the house when the robbers attack and his reindeer fly away. Santa will have to find a way to escape but it won’t be easy. Additionally, his conscience isn’t too happy about this because Trudy is on the nice list and shouldn’t die here. Santa used to be a fighter over 1000 years ago…does he still have the skills?

Now you may wonder about how people don’t know that Santa is real when he is leaving presents. Well, the film actually explains that a little. He doesn’t give presents to literally everyone, just the people who really need him. I take that to mean families with a lot of dysfunction where they either wouldn’t notice a present or would assume someone else got it. As a result, the secret of Santa is safe. They don’t really get into the logistics of how he visits everyone in a single night but I guess we can go with the time displacement approach where every house is in its own pocket dimension on Christmas where these events happen simultaneously.

Santa’s magical abilities are a bit all over the place and in the film he mentions that he doesn’t really know how they even work. That is a good way to make sure that he isn’t too overpowered. As a result Santa is actually on the defensive for a good chunk of the film. He was being absolutely dominated by the first opponent and then also had a really tough time against the second one. I actually liked this because often times the minions are shown to be incredibly disposable when realistically they should be putting up some kind of a fight right? So that was pretty impressive and those fights had quite a bit of back and forth to them.

Santa’s character arc is also a classic although they may have went a little too far in how jaded they made him. He gets some pretty rough scenes early on like with how drunk he is and throwing up. There isn’t a ton of crude humor here but that was a tough scene for him to rebound from. The film’s writing can be a bit of a mixed bag as well here. The film has some great lines like “Santa’s coming to town” and when Santa is announcing all of his lines. Scrooge also gets some really good ones as the villain. Basically this is the kind of film that is going to wow you with some of the dialogue, but you do have to ignore that everybody talks like a sailor. They all swear up a storm constantly So that does make the script a bit weak even with all of the big moments.

Now where the film does unfortunately lose me is when the violence gets cranked up to 100. This is easily one of the most violent films I’ve seen in a minute, I dare say it may even pass John Wick in this area. Yes, the violence is played for laughs but there is still a whole lot of it and it is unrelenting. The whole climax is basically a contest to see how violently characters can die. It’s not even just Santa’s onslaught but the home alone subplot with Trudy goes for the most painful moments possible. You’ve also got one guy getting attacked by the nutcracker which was another brutal moment. This definitely hurt the film quite a bit with how excessive this is. It needed to be toned down.

The film is at its best when it’s just having fun with the concepts. Just letting people adapt to the idea of Santa and watching him crush everyone. The film doesn’t take itself overly serious and that’s a good thing. A wacky concept should have a wacky execution and that will let the whole thing flow really well. Without all of the ultra violence this would have definitely been a lot higher. Now if you’re not too squeamish, then this should still be an absolute W for you.

There are obviously going to be some power level issues here but of course you’re not meant to take it too seriously. Scrooge makes for a really good villain because after watching Santa massacre everyone, he is still prepared to fight to the end. Now that is a brave villain and it’s nice to see one who is willing to fight to the end like that. It’s something that you don’t see all that often in a film like this. He also does now how to fight pretty well considering how close he came to winning.

Personally I’m not too interested in Santa’s past so I’d prefer that the sequel focuses on the future but we’ll see how it goes. There are a decent amount of plot points ready for the sequel and there are a ton of different directions the movie can go. Maybe even introduce another legend for Santa to fight. This could be a proper cinematic universe if they want to go down that route although I imagine a lot of the companies will be squeamish about this.

Now most o the characters are annoying but I’ll give Trudy props for not ending up like the others. She’s still trying to be a good kid and do the right things. She knows how to defend herself and assists Santa throughout the movie. She surpasses most kid characters in this regard because they tend to get in the way while she is actively helping out. She definitely gets a passing grade in my book.

There isn’t really much saving the other characters. Jason may have had a big plan but he shouldn’t have let the marriage get to such a negative point in the first place. Meanwhile Linda is okay and we don’t know how much of this is on her but she wasn’t really helping matters. From all of the unlikable family members, Gertrude is easily the best one because of how smug and overconfident she is. I can really appreciate that in a character, particularly in a villain. She is able to hold her own with the banter for quite a while there.

Overall, Violent Night is a film that is having a lot of fun with the concept. The film is extremely violent and there are a lot of things happening at all times. On one hand I think the film does a pretty good job of living up to the name but on the other that is pretty much what doomed it. The film just gets way too excessive at different points. The script could have also used a lot of work. There is some novelty to be had with watching this film but ultimately, I would end up giving it a thumbs down. This will not end up being the next Die Hard classic.

Overall 3/10