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War Hunt Review

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This is one of those films that really gets into the nitty gritty of how war can really change a person. The soldiers involved in this war are really brought to the brink with one of them completely cracking. Although the film leaves the door open on if he was already broken before the term even started or if the service just widened the gap here.

The film takes place near the end of the Korean war. They are all hoping for peace but in the meantime the US army is tasked with making sure that they don’t lose any ground and that Korea really feels their muscle. Each day without a peace treaty is supposed to feel painful. The main character here is Loomis and he has been assigned to a new squad. Everything seems normal at first, except for on guy named Endore. He routinely goes outside at night on solo missions and seems a little off. Loomis quickly finds out that he is going around murdering enemy soldiers…but what can he do about this?

Now you may be wondering what the issue is. Well, there’s a big difference between taking down enemy soldiers mid combat vs seeking them out at night for private executions. Especially with the war winding down. Endore even runs around their dead bodies for some kind of weird ritual and the whole thing seems crazy. Unfortunately the only advice Loomis gets is to stay away from Endore. Yeah…that’s not very helpful now is it? It’s not like Loomis is a captain after all so he doesn’t have much power.

Adding onto the previous issues is the fact that he ends up twisting his foot and is out of action for a bit. Loomis completely froze up during his first fire fight and had to be saved by Endore. Things really couldn’t get much worse for the lead. Meanwhile there is a kid named Charlie who shows up by the camp. Loomis tries to be friends with him but Endore gets in the way as he doesn’t want Charlie to be having any fun. He seems to be training him as a future soldier of war.

It’s all a rather grim state of affairs. Even when the war is just about over, you still have more characters dying. It’s a mix of letting their guards down and just the tough luck of war. Until things are actually resolved, there is always going to be some danger. The captain did his best to stress this but it still didn’t result in a perfect outcome. You definitely can’t say that the film was trying to glamorize the war at all.

This movie is fairly quick so it all goes by rather quickly. After all there is only one-two main fights here and most of it is about the characters just trying to survive. At one point the Koreans launch a fairly big offensive where they just start bombing everything. They unleash massive amounts of firepower while Loomis and the other soldiers have to hunker down. It’s a tough mental battle as well because you don’t know when the enemies will run out of ammo and stop firing.

I think this probably would have been enough story to fill in the plot but I suppose adding in the crazy soldier helped to add more explosive drama in. It’s really hard to deal with a villain on your side during war time. There just isn’t any time to worry about that. The captain did good in taking decisive action when he had to. Loomis was yelling at him to stop and all but that was a moment of kill or be killed. I don’t believe there was any time to waver there even if it did result in another death. It was regrettable but his hand was forced at that point.

It just would have been nice if they could have saved the kid as well. I don’t think the orphanage life would have been great but Loomis was right that it would still be worlds better than trying to survive in the middle of nowhere on a war torn path. At least the kid would have had a chance and could have learned how to be a kid after that was stolen away from him. Letting Charlie remain in the wilderness definitely added onto the tragedy of the story. Made this into a full on sad ending rather than being ambiguous.

I was surprised that Loomis didn’t really have a big final scene though. After he froze during the first battle, I kind of thought that he would be the one to land the final shot. Show that he was now ready for what war entailed and that could be the mixed message about how war changes everyone in some way. Instead he was mostly helpless at the end anyway. I know it was a tough moment so I’m not trying to blame him too much but he really never got to step up.

Overall, I would definitely recommend War Hunt. It’s a pretty good film. It’s intense without being exploitive or anything like that. You can understand the grim tone and what has happened to the characters without the movie having to go all out in spoon feeding the answers to you. I would also say that the short length of the movie helps prevent it from dragging on. I don’t think you would have benefitted much from an extra 30 minutes as it would have really just been more detailed moments for the plots you already had at the ready.

Overall 6/10

Bye Bye Birdie Review

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The secret trick to a romantic comedy is to forget all about the romance and just make a good comedy. That will work in most situations because that’s actually why the audience is around. Unfortunately this film forgot to really work on the comedy so you’re left with a film that’s just more annoying than anything. It ended up being weaker than I had expected it to be and so this is a film that I would definitely recommend you to skip. The song is also extremely bad.

The film starts off with one of the most obnoxious songs you’ll ever hear. It’s just so extremely slow that just getting through the first few sentences is rough. Fortunately it doesn’t make a big comeback in that exaggerated way again until the end of the film. The plot here is that the legendary singer Birdie has been drafted to the army for a while and everyone is really torn up about this. They will give him a chance to sing one last time before going and for extra publicity he will be kissing one of his fans. They select a girl named Kim who tells her boyfriend that she will be cheating on him but just once so he shouldn’t mind. He’s not thrilled about this but has no self respect and so he reluctantly gets on board. Will all this publicity end up being a curse to the small town in Ohio?

Now you do need to keep in mind that this is primarily a comedy. So you’re going to be hearing a lot of crazy things here but they are portrayed in a much lighter way than they sound. That’s fine, it makes sense but these jokes can be really hard to pull off. You absolutely need top tier execution and the film just didn’t have that so all the characters just look really bad.

First off we have Birdie. He’s one of those guys who just lost his mind due to all the fame and is a total jerk now. He gets drunk and is always running around to cause trouble. His role’s actually not as big as you’d expect though. He’s basically just here to be annoying and cause a lot of trouble for everyone. Hopefully being in the army will help get him into shape and make him a productive member of society. It’s a lot to ask for…but hey it could end up happening.

Then we have Albert who has been dating his secretary Rosie for a while but doesn’t have the guts to tell his mother Mae. As a result he just lets her do whatever she wants, including insulting Rosie directly. Albert has been gaslighting Rosie into thinking that he will confront Mae for a very long time now and it’s never happened. Albert just wants to be famous with his own song but nothing is working out for him. Ultimately Rosie runs off to go flirt with a bunch of guys to make Albert jealous. In the end things eventually work out but Albert looks really bad for the whole adventure. You need guts to make it in Hollywood and so it’s easy to see why he has been struggling.

Meanwhile Rosie needed to have moved on earlier. It’s clear that Albert is not the kind of guy to fight for her and that’s a huge red flag. In a way, part of why he succeeded in the end is because Mae had a rather sudden character arc. If not for that then things could have still been really dicey. I don’t see how Rosie would want to pursue things at that point. I would also say that she really hurt herself in deciding to get drunk and flirty. Immediately looking for a rebound is not a good idea.

As for Mae, well she makes for a good antagonist. The transparent guilt tripping worked well here and I like that she wasn’t very subtle. She didn’t like Rosie and made that known right away. The film needed a good antagonist and she filled that role well. She dominated Albert and Rosie throughout the whole film so they could definitely use some lessons from her on how to stick up for themselves.

Then we have Kim who is unfortunately the weakest character in the film. In a way her character arc hits the hardest because it’s not a completely unpopular opinion the way that it should be. She figures that a quick moment with a celebrity doesn’t count and her boyfriend shouldn’t be so insecure. It’s an advanced class in gaslighting since obviously this is a big deal. She also makes such a big deal about getting kissed by Birdie that it makes the boyfriend look even worse. If Kim was a good character she would have declined the invite right from the start.

Cheating is cheating no matter the circumstance or setting that it is in. Naturally her boyfriend’s decision here is to go rebound with another girl. It’s really incredible how quickly characters will just move on from their current “love” to the next one. Maybe their relationship wasn’t so serious then right? He just comes off like a sucker for most of his appearances and how easily Kim is able to talk him out of his doubts each time.

Kim finally has doubts at the last second but it’s way too late for that. Everyone swooning over Birdie just look bad as well. It’s all just too much even if that’s how things could be back in the day. You need a whole lot more balance than that. All of this could have still worked out if the film was really funny but it wasn’t hitting the right feels here. I needed some good banter or something like that but we never got those scenes. The best moments may have been with Kim’s father and his desperation for fame but even those moments were hit or miss.

Sometimes he was just a little bit too much with how whiny he was. So it really depended on the moment and jokes can easily get overplayed. I think this film could have been a whole lot better if it could just execute the jokes more seamlessly. Of course, that’s easier said than done without any examples. One plot change to make this work would be to change the dynamic so that Albert and Rosie were constantly fighting over who should propose to the other one first. Then that could leave room for more banter and not make Albert look quite as bad in how he was on the back foot during the whole film.

Overall, Bye Bye Birdie was a miss on this one. I had my doubts as soon as the first shot of the movie came in. The rest of it just had a mix of weak characters, fanservice, and not enough humor to really get the movie over the hump. As a result this one definitely lost out on all sides. Better luck next time and all that. You can do a lot better with old time rom-com films so I would recommend looking one of those up instead.

Overall 4/10

The Way We Were Review

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Time for what is apparently a legendary romance film but I am left thinking that it is incredibly overrated. This is one of those jaded romance films where everyone acts absolutely terrible and the characters would have been better off staying single. You gotta wait for the perfect marriage and settling early will usually end up in this kind of scenario. The ending is saddest for the rebounds who are really stuck as being an after thought.

The movie starts off by introducing us to two characters. Katie who is openly joining communist groups and has very unpopular political opinions and Hubbell who basically just enjoys his life and doesn’t think about politics much. We get a lot of contrasting scenes in the beginning where Katie is basically miserable for decades as she makes politics her whole life while Hubbell is having a blast trying out a ton of hobbies. It is a really striking contrast right there. Well, in the present Hubbell is serving a term in the army while working on his books while Katie works in more of a live radio setting while still doing her protests. They meet up again and decide to get together. Can their physical attraction to each other get past all of the numerous red flags that stay in the way?

Usually the answer to that question is going to be no. The reason is because passion can fade over time. Usually one or both people are going to have reduced drives over the years, they will get older and less attractive, etc. There are whole memes about why this is a bad idea and that’s why you can’t fall for someone on physical attraction alone. That’s what crushes and one night stands are made of. A true love goes beyond that to personality and really loving every part of the other person. That doesn’t have to be literal of course as it can be 90% or something even if that’s not ideal. The problem is that these two tick each other off from the start.

For Katie, it’s clear that her politics have a higher place than Hubbell. She feels like his positions and attitude towards current events are wrong and so she would be compromising by not standing up in defiance every time. That is already a dealbreaker. When your side is right and the other is “wrong” then you won’t have true synergy at that point because now you have yourself on a higher pedestal. She doesn’t even try to analyze her worldview and just makes a scene at every party and event. Katie won’t be quiet about this and moreover she will lecture everyone else.

Katie was absolutely not fun at parties. Now, parties aren’t for everyone but if you’re going to marry someone who loves being at parties, then that’s not going to be a good development. Often times people aren’t going to change a whole lot for marriage. She put herself in a bad position and as the film goes on, her position gets worse and worse until there was really no hope left except to go grab a rebound guy to take care of the kid and go from there which is naturally another bad decision.

Meanwhile, as drastic as Katie was, Hubbell is decidedly worse. He is the one who decides to go and cheat on her. Ultimately while fans of his character can try to come up with a number of excuses, the truth is that there are none. Cheating is breaking the covenant of marriage completely. That is much more serious than fights here and there or disagreements. He already made the oath of for better or worse after all. So as annoying as Katie was, Hubbell was the one in the wrong here and ends up being the worst character here.

He ultimately goes for a rebound later on as well. As the ending shows though, Katie and Hubbell still like each other and are basically only kept apart thanks to social customs. It makes the situation even worse for their new partners because they are clearly second fiddle and this comes close to emotional cheating. So that is why both of the main characters are just really terrible the whole time so you can’t root for any of them. The film doesn’t try to hide this though.

The first time they get together is when Katie took advantage of Hubbell while he was extremely drunk and didn’t know what was happening. If the roles were reversed this film would have really been seen as pushing the envelope back in the day. It’s just a terrible way for their relationship to start. Yeah Hubbell made a lot of bad decisions to put himself in that position but Katie was the one to take advantage of this. It is played up in a romantic and even comedic way afterwards but it was a rough scene.

So with the romance already in the toilet, could the film come back from that? Well, this isn’t a comedy so you don’t really have the laughs to balance it out. Instead you have more drama like a bunch of Hollywood figures being taken to court and that puts more friction on the relationship. What I can say for the film is that the pacing’s pretty decent. I didn’t think that the film dragged on or anything even with the characters not being fun. So I think that is definitely a credit to the movie.

By the end of the film it’s hard to say who is having a more enjoyable life. Katie continues to fight a losing battle of talking to the masses but at least has the knowledge that she will never compromise on her beliefs. It’ll be hard for her to make friends as you will always need to watch your jokes and be ready for a political lecture. Meanwhile Hubbell is really well off with continued financial success but knowing that he will always compromise and crumble his beliefs for the easier road. He will do whatever is needed in order to get to the next point which will eat away at his psyche even if he would never admit it, potentially even to himself. As the years go by, he will have wasted them with pointless chatter instead of doing anything.

Overall, This is a pretty dreary film about two people who were just completely incompatible from the start. They are just too different and their lifestyles wouldn’t be fun to each other. Hubbell is clearly content to just lounge around and listen to his friends gossip about everything while Katie would much prefer hanging out 1 on 1 or doing something constructive. It’s why you always need to take these things into account as well when going into a relationship. The only context I would recommend this film to people in would be as a cautionary tale of what not to do when getting ready for marriage. You can’t treat it as the next logical step of dating, it is a completely different beast and you better be sure that you know the other person extremely well. You will never be 100% certain but you had better be careful because it will be one of the most important decisions of your life.

Overall 3/10

Lonely Castle in the Mirror Review

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It’s time for my next adventure into the lonely castle! The manga was pretty fun when I read through it and the movie is a pretty faithful adaption. Naturally they do have to cut out a number of things but that’s normal for basically any movie adaption. They got to the main points and while I would say it is decidedly less intense than the manga version, we still do get a body count in the end.

The movie introduces us to Kokoro who for some reason does not want to go to school. It is apparent that something bad happened to her but we don’t know what. Well, one day a mirror appears in her room and transports her to a castle along with 6 other kids. They are told that this castle will be open for the whole school year but afterwards it will close. However, they have a chance to find a key which will grant one wish based on whoever gets it. Kokoro absolutely has a wish but these kids likely have ambitions of their own. Will they all be able to get along in such an environment? The castle just has one rule, you must not stay past 5 or you will be eaten by a wolf along with everyone else who entered the castle that day.

Pretty high stakes but technically most of the film is fairly upbeat. Kokoro finally gets to interact with kids who aren’t absolutely crazy and this allows her to gather the courage to fight the problems that exist for her back home. She can finally confide in her mother and begin the recovery process. There are some mysteries still going on like how this castle works and where could the key be, but they play second fiddle to Kokoro’s journey. Likewise the other kids don’t have a whole lot of time to their plots as well although they are crammed in at the end.

Technically even in the manga we didn’t see many of their struggles until the end but through their conversations we could get some inklings early on. This one has to go at a very fast pace in order to cover as much as possible. The way it’s ordered can also make the tone clashing a bit tricky at times. The one scene that was most jarring in this way was after the big climax where everyone sits down to talk and they’re all super happy and chipper. It doesn’t feel like there was enough time to be this calm yet.

Now, I assume that the queen of the wolves took certain things into account in order to prevent bad outcomes for any of the kids who participated in this journey but the film doesn’t actually go into detail. For example, Aki by far has the hardest struggle. It’s quite literally more severe than the other kids by several magnitudes and you’re left wondering what options she has for when she gets back to the real world. Since the film doesn’t go into it, I choose to believe that either the villain was devoured by the wolves or she was warped to a place where she was able to avoid the situation and get him locked up or something.

Aki’s plot was definitely a lot darker than anything else in the film though so it really feels unexpected. The film also used a unique animation effect to make those scenes even creepier. Personally I could have done without this plot but at least the film made sure that the worst of it didn’t actually happen and Aki was able to escape. The castle would have looked bad if anything was allowed to happen at the time.

I would say that Kokoro probably had the second hardest journey because of how isolated she was. Having a group of people coming over to your house to presumably beat you up in the best case scenario is already a tough thing to endure. Then mix that with how young she is and it is easy to see how this would be traumatic. The film definitely does a good job of hitting the emotional beats. You’ll be feeling the somber vibes the whole time.

It is also a good explanation for why Kokoro is so timid. I think anyone would be considering the circumstances there. As the film goes on she is able gain more confidence. The rest of the characters don’t really have a lot to do but are mostly reasonable. The most unlikable one is Ureshino. He just tries too hard and spends too much time flirting. While he does end up getting bullied and has a sad story like the rest, he handled it the worst. He eventually gets better but I never really came around on him.

Rion would easily be the best character as he did his best to make Kokoro feel comfortable and would also de-escalate each situation. He essentially played the role of the leader and without him that would have been a much harder journey for everyone else. Subaru probably has the most scenes cut out or at least it feels that way. You get some context clues for what he’s going on but it’s possible that you will mainly recognize this if you read the manga. Same for Rion with how he was essentially pushed to boarding school. You might only have suspicions just based on the movie.

Fuka also doesn’t get a ton to do here but the story of trying to live up to being a prodigy is definitely a classic one. Masamune and his lies getting him into trouble is another abbreviated one that still makes enough sense in the end. The Wolf Queen plot has to move pretty quickly as well. I think one way the film could have improved here would have been to show Rino being suspicious about her much earlier in the film so you can drop little hints here and there. Finally Ms. Kitajima is a big factor throughout the movie and so I’d say the movie paced her appearances really well.

As for the animation, it does have the usual nerf that films get where it doesn’t look as good as a standard anime. That said, it’s still a good product. I did like how the burning wolf really stood out. The flames looked hot and the colors were very striking. It may not be the most fluid project out there but I’d give it a passing grade. The soundtrack is definitely more on the forgettable side. I can’t say that it was particularly solid but it wasn’t bad or anything like that. So the technical areas were all about average here and the film succeeds more on the story beats.

Overall, The Lonely castle is a good film but I do think it was pushing the envelope a little hard with Aki’s plot. Throwing in a scene to see him get taken down would have helped but the film is more about recovery for each character rather than revenge or knocking anyone down. I’d argue that closure is a good part of recovery but ultimately things worked out. It’s the same thing where Kokoro’s bullies don’t get taken down a peg. In a way Kokoro is just given the tools for how to handle situations like that going forward. She also has a bright future coming up now because in the new timeline she’s going to have an ally at the ready right from the start. If you’re up for a really emotional film then you should check this one out. I’d say the movie also makes a good argument for how beneficial it can be to have friends or someone to talk to in order to not have to carry so much baggage on your own. Kokoro would have not had to deal with nearly as much grief as she did if her first friend hadn’t succumbed to peer pressure.

Overall 6/10

Sniper 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

When you hear of a film with the title of Sniper, you’re definitely expecting something really intense. It pretty much comes with the territory right? Well, this movie does not disappoint so if that’s what you’re looking for then you are in the right place. There is quite the body count here and you will see just how difficult the job is. The sniper position is really a unique one in the army and has its own set of dangers.

The movie starts with Tom and his partner completing a routine sniper mission. Unfortunately the partner dies and Tom is forced to head back alone. Now he has one last mission to complete before retirement. It’s an assassination mission with 0 backup and heavily behind enemy lines. His new partner is a rookie named Richard who has no in field experience but is a skilled sniper in non combat scenarios. Richard is technically slated to be the boss for this mission and was even given authority to murder Tom if needed. Will his lack of experience be a major liability here?

Right away you will be able to see that the answer to this question is Yes. Richard is constantly panicking and doing things by the book. Tom is someone who has been in the field a whole lot and so he knows what actually works and what doesn’t. It’s a massive difference in approach and leads to a lot of inside fighting among the two. The problem is that there is really no time for that. As a sniper you have to be able to trust your partner 100% and vice versa. If you don’t, then things are not going to work out.

I should note right away that I put 100% of the issues on Richard. There weren’t any arguments where I thought that he had a point. He spends a lot of time whining but he’s the one falling into traps and missing his shots. Richard misses a key shot that results in a lot of extra lives lost because naturally the target ended up being extremely vindictive. This was completely avoidable so Richard should feel bad about it.

Instead Richard gets defensive every time which isn’t helpful to anybody. Then by the end of the film Richard completely cracks and becomes more than a simple liability. He’s the kind of emotional loose cannon that you really don’t want out there. Tom is easily more patient with him than I would have expected any character to be. By the end you’re meant to find Richard likable again and be able to root for him but that didn’t work for me.

As for Tom, he’s a good main character. Richard tries to psycho analyze him a few times and explain how messed up Tom’s life is, but to me Tom is handling this all in a fairly mature manner. He has a tough job and he sets out to do it without any issues. It does look like retirement will be tough for him but I like to think that he would handle it lie any other mission. The fact that Tom hasn’t broken down after all of these missions is another testament to his strength of character.

He has good reason to be upset right in the intro when his partner dies because the helicopter came way too early. Is it possible that the stalker would have gotten them at night? Sure, but it would be a much more difficult shot and there are more variables at night. Tom took care of business with that guy later on as well. If I’m in the jungle, I’d want a guy like Tom to have my back. He may be rough around the edges but he absolutely knows what he is doing.

What does keep the film back from being better is the excessive level of violence though. You’ve got full blown torture with what happens when they catch Tom. It’s expected considering the situation but you just hope they could keep it off screen or something. You’re seeing a whole lot more than you would like to there. The film is definitely not shying away from the general violence either with all the headshots and fights going on.

The general combat violence may not be super crazy but then you also have the collateral damage like a villager who is murdered during the crossfire at one point. The film is showing you what a dreary world it is for the average sniper and does succeed at that task. It just comes at a huge cost. This isn’t the kind of film that has a whole lot of replay value. Nor is it the kind of film that you would say is generally happy. It’s not really meant to be and so that means it’s not really going to be my style.

I would have liked to have seen more of the government back at home. I enjoy all the tough talk and corruption going on there. Everyone acting real slippery and all that. Those set up scenes were really good. The army scene when Richard gets to base is more of a nonsense scene though. I understand the whole sizing each other up part but why were the soldiers acting downright evil? It seemed like Richard was about to have to fight for his life there and hat just seems to be pushing the tough army stereotype a little bit too far.

Also should you really be making the sniper upset when he could camp out at a distance and end things? Yeah he’d be in trouble but if you’re tough enough to be a sniper in the first place, you’re not going to have the same levels of worry. It’s why you always hope that the snipers are extremely resilient because even a single rogue sniper can cause a whole lot of problems.

Overall, Sniper is a very direct film. I want to say that about 90% of the film is the two guys in the jungle getting ready to take the shot and moving through tough terrain. The film doesn’t bother with any cutaways or side plots. There is only one story to tell here. So I applaud the focus but it’s definitely not my kind of film. It goes too hard on the violence and overall dread. That said, if this film seems like it’s up your alley then you should check it out. There are no fakeouts here so if you want a film about sniping, it’ll be hard to be more realistic than this one.

Overall 2/10

Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear! Review

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It’s time to look at a retro Yogi Bear film. While I’m fairly familiar with the franchise, I haven’t really watched many of the films at all. I know it by reputation more than anything else. The film makes for a fun watch although the runtime can end up feeling a bit long because there isn’t a whole lot they can do with the concept outside of the initial gags. So you may end up wishing for more of a gimmick by the end.

The story starts with Yogi Bear trying to outsmart the Ranger as always. Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t been very successful this time. The Ranger always catches him in the act and prevents Yogi from really having any food. Yogi is always a step behind and can’t really seem to close the gap. What can he possibly do to change this? It won’t be easy but Yogi will have to leave the state. He volunteers to be taken away and maybe he will have better luck this time. Will the Ranger even end up missing Yogi?

Now the real twist is that Yogi doesn’t actually leave. He tricks another bear and then dons a new persona to keep on messing with people while the Ranger is none the wiser. The Ranger got a little too comfortable with Yogi out of the picture and so he actually starts to lose the war. He can’t stop this mysterious bear from stealing everyone’s food. He may even get fired at this rate because then a lot of other crazy things begin to happen like two other bears going missing. It’s all Yogi’s fault but what can the Ranger do?

What I liked about him is that the Ranger has a certain amount of smugness to him. Maybe you can also just call it adaptability but he always shuts down Yogi’s plan by using it against him. For example Yogi trained some ants to march and take orders like soldiers. So the Ranger made himself a drill sergeant and ordered the ants to betray Yogi. It was a really smart move and you just have to respect plays like that. It’s not as easy as it looks to always be thinking fast. He also gets the last laugh in this film which I wasn’t totally expecting.

There is a really tense face off at the end where the Ranger and Yogi both have to use each other’s fears against the other one. Both sides were not willing to even lose an inch and so it got really close but in the end the Ranger pulled through. He’s easily my favorite character in the series now.

As for Yogi, he’s a fun antagonist. Basically he just wants to eat all of the food that he can and so he’s always trying to rob people just trying to have a nice picnic. Yogi continuously tricks them and the average human isn’t quite as smart as Yogi. If the Ranger wasn’t around, Yogi would be having his way with everybody here. Yogi is hard to overcome but even he eventually starts to feel overwhelmed which is why he considered leaving midway. Breaking his spirit was not an easy act.

Then you’ve got Boo Boo who is basically Yogi’s sidekick. He doesn’t appear as often as I expected him to in this film but he tries to hold it together without Yogi. Ultimately he just needs that guy’s leadership and it’s clear that he is not the same without it. Yogi is the brains of this operation and Boo Boo is a lot more passive in nature. Cindy Bear is the only other main character and she loves Yogi a lot but the guy is always resisting her.

What I like about Cindy is that she makes her intentions plain. She wants Yogi and will do whatever she can in order to make him hers. Cindy will sing songs about this and everything but I guess Yogi doesn’t like her in that way because he’s always trying to run away from her. Of course one of the morals in this film is that he does end up liking her and so he regrets running away. It took him a little too long to learn that lesson though. Yogi better not lose focus again.

We also do have some villains here. There are two bumbling owners of a circus and their crazy dog who go around kidnapping whoever they need in order to make a good show. This is what allows them to kidnap Cindy and then they even manage to get Yogi. They technically end up being rather effective considering that they appear to be comic relief characters for the most part. I guess you can say that there are levels to this.

It was nice to add a little danger to the film. So the movie works as a solid all around title. It’s not the kind of movie you would be taking too seriously or anything like that but it’s fun for what it is. There are a number of songs within the film but they don’t work quite as well. They’re doing their best to sound like retro Hollywood songs and in a way it could work as a parody but they go on a bit too long for that. I’d say we could have done without the songs. The animation is pretty decent though. Nothing amazing but it’s all smooth and very expressive. Probably better than I would have expected going into the movie.

Overall, In general this film could have stood to be a little shorter. It’s got a fun vibe and the experience is good but you could have probably lost about 20 minutes without really losing any part of the movie. Longtime Yogi Bear fans will probably get the biggest kick out of the title though. The banter between the Ranger and Yogi Bear is definitely the best part of the film. How much you enjoy the movie as a whole will likely come down to that. It was nice to finally watch a full length Yogi Bear animated film though. I wonder if it got any good games for the Gamecube. Either way I think the world is ready for a new film in the franchise. Not a live action one, but a true hand drawn animated experience!

Overall 6/10

That Thing You Do! Review

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It’s been a little while since I’ve seen a concert type film. This one does a good job of keeping the music front and center for the experience. You might be worried that the drama will overtake the music but that never happens in this case. You’ve got quite a few characters walking around and while the leads may not be the most likable, for the most part they aren’t terrible people either. Some are definitely better than others though.

The film starts out by introducing us to Guy who works at his father’s appliance store. His real passion is in music but he has to make ends meet. One day, a local band loses a member when he breaks his arm so they go to recruit Guy. Guy can’t pass up this opportunity and the group performs better than usual. This is actually due to Guy messing up the song and playing a lot quicker than the normal tempo. It was a fortunate mistake because the group become local celebrities over night. Their fame continues to grow as they are even signed by a big time company. Will this fame end up corrupting the group? Sometimes when fame hits this quickly, it has a tendency to tear folks apart.

For most of the movie the group is actually fine though. What you see are the cracks that begin to form. Jimmy is a little reluctant about all of these opportunities from the start after all. He feels like this is not following his artistic vision and does a lot of complaining. Even when they are filming a commercial for a big budget movie, he is still upset the whole time. There is no real pleasing him as he only wants to create records.

Jimmy is big on being a musician so it’s fine that he wants to make more music but it does feel like he’s taking the other opportunities for granted. Even nowadays it feels like musicians have to do a lot of things beyond just making music if they want to remain relevant for long. He needed to play ball more but things really escalate when his romance plot doesn’t go well. He was dating Faye for over 2 years but was apparently not planning on taking things further.

That always feels like a waste of time though. Why date someone for a long period of time when you’re not planning to get married in the end? I don’t think you should even date anyone if you’ve crossed off the idea of marriage. Obviously you can’t really know how things will end when you first start dating but the door should be open to the possibility. Then if that door closes at any point, you’ve gotta end things as quickly as possible. In this film it may have been one way but even if you have a relationship where both people are just in it for kicks, it’s going to be a bad idea. It just makes the whole thing futile and pointless.

Meanwhile for Faye, it was definitely a tough situation for her. She thought that things were going well the whole time and didn’t notice that Jimmy had withdrawn. I wouldn’t really put any fault on her there because it’s incredibly hard to discern that. In a way you never truly know another person so those kinds of twists and changes will usually be unexpected. I will say that I do judge her a bit on the rebound though. After a big relationship like that, you really need to just wait for a while before getting right back into the hunt. Rebounds in general are never a good idea because you’re running on pure emotion by that point.

As for our lead Guy, well he doesn’t do too well at the romance game either. He seems distracted by girls initially but his main passion is music. So he naturally needs to be with someone who is really interested in the business. Otherwise those relationships aren’t going to work. If he has fully picked music, then there’s nothing wrong with that, but he should know his limits and not pursue other things. He was always a good sport about tackling all of the musical gigs and leading the group though. When it comes to the band, he was second to none.

Then we have Lenny who mainly serves as the goofball of the group. He is always running around and causing a stir. He’s really good at being in the band but he really wants a girlfriend already. He spends his off hours always looking for one and flirting with everybody. That’s not usually a good sign for a long term relationship so how his plot ends is not really going to be a surprise to anybody. He worked well for the dynamic and seems like a decent friend but he’s not going to be the guy you can count on.

Finally we have Mr. White who was a really good manager. He clearly knew his stuff and pushed the group to succeed. He deserves a lot of credit because he kept it real with each of the members the whole time. Mr. White was cordial and treated them all like professionals while keeping up his boundaries. When Jimmy crashes out, White calmly reminds him of the contract and pushes forward from there. I was glad that he didn’t retreat at all. He’s seen this many times after all so this is just business as usual. You always want to have a boss like that.

The main song gets played a lot so you definitely hope that it’s a good one. I thought that it was reasonably catchy. It’s not exactly the kind of tune that I would be listening to but I wouldn’t be in a hurry to turn it off if it happened to be on the radio. The song is basically passable is what I’d say and that’s not a bad position to be in.

This film mainly excels with the good dynamic between the main characters. They all get along well and it’s nice to see them succeed even if I may not love any of them as individual characters. You do end up feeling bad for the original member who broke his arm though. We see that he got a job at the appliance store but he really missed out on what would have been a fun adventure all because of a little accident. That’s about as tragic as it gets.

Overall, This film shows that the life of a band can be really glorious but also incredibly short lived. It’s not the kind of gig that tends to go on forever after all. You have to enjoy it while you can and then go from there. You hope that the characters saved up enough money to be set for the rest of their lives although we do get epilogue notes for each of the characters. If you like a classic story about bands and enjoy the atmosphere then you’ll certainly enjoy the film. It does a good job of exploring that environment.

Overall 6/10

Dragonheart Review

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It’s time for one of those classic films about dragons. It takes place in the medieval days so you already know that the film is starting off on shaky ground. It does mostly avoid any real dragon violence which is good but the film still suffers from really iffy characters and everybody being way too passive. It’s easy to see why the heroes were getting dominated for the whole film.

The movie starts off with a bunch of villagers uprising against a corrupt king. They manage to murder him and even fatally injure his son. Unfortunately the prince is taken to the local dragon who manages to revive him by splitting his heart into two. Now the prince has proven to be just as bad as his father, if not worse! The villagers have exited the pot and entered the flame. They have no protectors left and enter 12 years of devastation. Is there any way for them to make a comeback one more time?

I’ll give the villagers this, they did a good job in the first battle. I wasn’t expecting them to actually take out the king the way that they did. I also can’t fault them for the prince living since that required supernatural help. So they did their job but it’s a shame that they somehow all became enslaved again. Could they not have fought back while the prince was still gaining power? Also it’s too bad that none of the knights did anything to stop the corruption. It’s clear that the kingdom was an evil one that needed to be stopped.

The main character is a knight named Bowen who initially had high hopes for the prince. Unfortunately he became disillusioned when that guy turned out to be evil too. So he spent years murdering all of the dragons and eventually became nothing better than a scammer. He completely left his honor code and the film’s journey for him is about reclaiming this. It’s just hard to find him even remotely likable after all of that because he was in the best position to do something about this.

Perhaps taking out the prince himself. Running away doesn’t solve anything. It was also such a sudden transition with him blaming the dragon and running off. When the 12 year timeskip initially happened, I was pretty surprised about it. I understand going after the dragons but I thought the end goal was to make Prince Einon whole again. Instead it just became a pure quest of vengeance? Yeah by the time Bowen shapes up it’s a little too late. Additionally he also got crushed by Einon in their first fight.

Sure, Einon was using psychological warfare but it was a really bad look for him. At least Aislinn was doing something by enlisting the dragon hunters to destroy the dragon. If the dragon dies, then Einon will as well. She probably could have acted quicker but at least she gets some small points there. Then you have Kara who is the last villager to not lose her fighting spirit. She is trying, even if she doesn’t really have the abilities needed to enact change.

She ends up getting into trouble on more than one occasion as a result. Better to do something than to do nothing though. She may have even had a shot against Einon the first time if she didn’t announce her arrival. He had seen her through the mirror but it would have been tougher to ace the timing. I definitely could have done without Einon’s twisted attempt at seducing her though. That whole scene is pretty painful and you wish Kara could have gotten more of a direct revenge against him after that.

Einon has near immortality thanks to the dragon’s heart so it is difficult to keep him down. You have to thoroughly destroy him to the point where he can not regenerate but it would be a squeamish job for the average person. Additionally you will need time and skill to make that happen. For the most part nobody is really up to that task. There is one exception though and this pretty much breaks the whole story.

So we meet the dragon named Draco and he was someone who really believed in the knight’s code. He was even hoping that Einon would walk a better path which is why he revived him. Yet, why did Draco never aid the humans? He seemed to be aware of what was going on and could easily fly around to check whenever he wanted to. Dragons have great abilities and we saw that Draco was the best of them. He should have easily been able to prevent the corrupt kingdom from gaining more round. He could have burned them all with his fire and called it a day. The fact that he didn’t was pretty disappointing.

Bowen wasn’t the only one who let his kingdom down, Draco is guilty of this as well. He let the villagers suffer for over 12 years while he sat back. Additionally, he allowed Bowen to destroy all of the other dragons to the point where Draco is the last one standing. A part of him longed for death as he mentions in the film but you have to do something to fight back in the meantime. Instead he played the part of a passive spectator.

The heroes are just too passive here and so it makes sense that they got completely rolled over. That was basically going to be inevitable with how this went down. The special effects within the film are pretty good though. The dragon looks really solid and the film has aged really well for its day. You can’t show off the visuals much more beyond that because of the setting but the fire looks solid.

Dragonheart maintains a pretty dreary atmosphere for its run though. The villains get away with a whole lot before they’re brought down. We see a villager who had his eyes burned shut and after being a slave for 12 years, he is finally murdered. It’s all just rather grim and yet the film throws in a lot of gags and even some crude humor to try and lighten the mood. The various slapstick and gag moments weren’t handled all that smoothly. I appreciate the attempt but I don’t think this film was able to balance the two approaches all that well. The only parts in that vein that worked well involved a monk who would chronicle Bowen’s journey. You felt happy for the guy because he was always waiting for an opportunity like this. You know that he won’t let any of the events be forgotten and will have enough inspiration for a lifetime now.

Overall, Dragonheart is supposed to be a story about Bowen reclaiming his role as an honorable knight. The problem is that he missed his opportunity for far too long. Leaving the people to die for 12 years is just too big of a burden to easily come back from. Draco is equally guilty of not doing anything and so the would be saviors of the village were the ones who watched its ruin. If you like the retro setting of a Narnia/Game of Thrones setting then you should have an okay time here but I definitely missed my big city backdrop and the heroes are too slow to act. You’re better off with Eragon.

Overall 3/10

The Valley of Gwangi Review

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It’s time for a classic dinosaur adventure. In a way this is a whole lot like Jurassic Park, the old version. Perhaps that’s a surface level similarity but eh it’s close enough.

The movie starts off with a big shot named Tuck deciding to visit a small horse show on his way to the arena. He runs into his ex, T.J. Her show is really struggling, due in no small part to his running out on her for riches and glory. He offers her a chance to go with him but this time she stays strong and won’t fall for his tricks….for like 10 minutes. He sweet talks her into joining his side once again. What she doesn’t realize is that this will ultimately take her into the forbidden valley of Gwangi! This is due to the star tiny horse being stolen by a bunch of native conspiracy theorists who believe that he belongs back on the valley.

Okay so there are a lot of problems with the main dynamic from the start. Tuck seems to mainly be interested in using T.J. He walked out on her easily enough the first time and now he really wants to buy her main horse. She only agrees because she found the mini one with mystical properties but otherwise he was putting on a lot of pressure was already failing. Keep in mind that it’s not a one girl show. She has a whole team and other workers doing their best and now Tuck wants to take the one act that still draws some fans?

For reference, she and the horse jump into a pool of water which is surrounded by flames. I can’t say the act sounds all that interesting but generally all of the animal acts make me feel that way. Anything that has even the slightest bit of danger to the animal makes it all not worth it. We also get bull fighting and the like so you’re shaking your head throughout all of this. The main thing that stays constant throughout all of this is that Tuck isn’t the nicest guy.

Sure, by the end the romance and everything works out but it really shouldn’t have. This romance was poorly thought out right from the start and hurts T.J. as a character for entertaining this as well. Lope has a pretty big role as the kid helping Tuck out but he’s too young to be able to fight or anything like that. He doesn’t end up contributing a ton.

Horace goads the Gwangi tribefolk into kidnapping the mini horse so he is the one who really sets everything into motion. Of course I’d say he didn’t really think this through. Things could have easily been fatal for all of them. The thieves knocked out the guard after all but could have easily murdered everyone. The pursuit of knowledge alone is naturally not worth all of the sacrifice for this.

You could say the film really starts once they make it onto the valley though. Now we have all of the dinosaurs and the action. The main characters take this a lot calmer than you would expect as they talk about getting the dinosaurs into the circus act and all. You’d think that it would be a much bigger deal that dinosaurs exist right? I guess back in the day it may have been slightly less of a big deal since you could assume crazy extinct animals exist all over in different pockets.

The professor is probably the most impressed by default but that guy is the type of man to choose research over safety. For the most part you’re going to feel bad for the dinosaurs though. They aren’t quite ready to be dealing with humans. Right off the bat one of them gets his neck broken by the humans. You’d think the dinosaur would have been a bit stronger. Along the way you have dinosaurs destroying each other as well.

The effects are handled pretty impressively for its time. Of course this is to the detriment of the film since the dinosaurs bleed quite a bit and the film isn’t shying away from actually having a body count here. It just should have been more humans dying than the actual dinosaurs if you ask me. So the film is ahead of its time and dinosaur fans will get a kick out of it but it definitely didn’t end up being my style.

The king of the dinosaurs here is Gwangi and for the most part he looks like a normal dinosaur. He is ultimately defeated by the humans and forced to be in the circus which is definitely the ultimate disgrace for a proud creature like this. He gets some revenge later on by taking down some of the humans at least. Now you’re supposed to be rooting for the humans but by this point in the review you can see that I’m team Dinosaur. The humans just aren’t likable.

At least in the most recent Jurassic World film they are trying to create a rare medicine out of the dinosaur dna so there is some kind of a noble cause. Here, it’s really just about the money. They want to improve the circus act with the dinosaurs. The professor wants to increase his knowledge but has disregard for who has to pay for this progress. Ultimately there is a lot of selfishness going on here and all of the violence that ensues is directly the fault of the humans.

It makes the dinosaur violence feel even worse because the whole time you know they would have had more peace without the humans. Yeah, the dinosaur vs dinosaur stuff would still be happening but we wouldn’t be seeing it at least! Shoutout to the old lady at the beginning who warned everyone about the valley though. I was glad that she was actually correct and not just crazy. Yeah, they are usually right in these kinds of creature features but I was still happy for her. She probably gives Gwangi a little too much credit in terms of sentience but it was close enough.

Overall, The Valley of Gwangi does deliver on giving you a ton of dinosaur action. It’s the kind of film that does live up to the premise so you don’t have to worry about being misled here. If you want to see a survival film with dinosaurs showing up and the humans having to deal with them, then you’re in luck. This is the film for you. It is an unapologetic dinosaur film with pretty strong effects. Now if you don’t want to see the dinosaurs and are worried about the annoying humans, then this is definitely a film to give a hard skip.

Overall 3/10

The Town 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 about committing crime in a small town. Definitely not the best option in general but it’s extra rough here when a ton of people are into crime. The main crew have been doing this for a while but things are shaken up when the leader falls in love. Is he going to mess this up for everyone or are they the ones who are getting greedy?

The film starts off with introducing us to Doug and his posse. They just completed a huge bank heist and are basically set for life. Doug figures this is it for the jobs but his partner Jem doesn’t think so. Jem has been gone for quite a while in jail so he is itching for more jobs. Doug thinks this is a really bad idea but Jem doesn’t tend to take no for an answer and makes it clear that Doug leaving may cause some problems. In their bank heist, Jem panicked and took a hostage. She was let go but heard all of their voices and got to see a lot. Doug checks up on her but falls in love and now they’re dating. Jem worries that this could mean death for their group if she puts two and two together.

So on the first part, Jem is right that this is a really dumb idea. You should never date your hostage. That’s just a really bad idea because it does make sense that she would be a liability. She may not have realizes anything just yet but it is possible that she could make the connection at any point. It was Jem’s fault for making her a hostage in the beginning but Doug really compounded the issue here. He is a bit in denial of this the whole time but it was a bad move.

Now Jem is still crazy the whole time and should have been satisfied with the big score at the beginning. It seems like it’s less about the money and more like he just really wants to live an exciting life. He almost thrives on these life or death situations like when he accompanies Doug to go beat up some people who were harassing his girlfriend. Doug didn’t need to give him any details and Jem was still ready to bust up a bunch of heads.

The town is effectively ruled by the crime lord known as Fergie. He’s really not the smartest character on the block though. Sure, Doug was planning to leave and Fergie wanted to stop that but he does so by basically rage baiting Doug a whole lot by revealing how he destroyed the guy’s parents. That doesn’t seem like a good move if you’re planning to stay alive. If anything, it feels like a good way to shorten the remainder of your life span.

This guy is still just a man after all. He can summon up a bunch of help but that’s not going to help a whole lot when he lets Doug meet with him whenever. His ending is one of the most predictable parts of the film. If anything, I think Doug let him get away with too much for quite a while there. You usually need to take someone out of the picture near instantly in this kind of situation.

Then we have his girlfriend Claire who is okay. I think she was moving rather quickly with the romance but she doesn’t know about the robber part and I can’t blame her for that. Not just anyone would have been able to make the connection there. Later on I suppose her reaction is justified enough about how she gets upset with Doug. If anything she probably should have ratted him out. From her perspective, he’s a total villain who manipulated her. It would be dangerous to assume that any part of their relationship was real. She decides to believe in it but I just don’t think that was a great idea.

For the most part the FBI agents are completely in over their heads but I did appreciate that the film made them look decent. They couldn’t crack the case officially for a while there but at least they had leads. It’s just that in a town like this, all of the crooks would look after each other so there wasn’t much in the way of hard proof to get after anyone. You had to try and work around that which isn’t easy. When it came down to the climactic shootout, they were ready.

Then you’ve got Krista, the crazy ex. As soon as she shows up, you know that she’ll be trouble and that’s exactly what happens. She is here to really cause some mixups and keep Doug stressed out. She had a tough lot in life but a lot of it was self sabotage with the drugs. It’s why you should never get involved in that business in the first place. Aside from damaging your body, it makes it easy for others to blackmail or just plain manipulate you.

There is quite a bit of action in here aside from it being a mental thriller. The Town keeps you engaged the whole time but it is also a bit of a downer movie. There’s not a whole lot to cheer for here and the ending is more of a bitter sweet one at best. Everyone has lost something by the end and so it felt like they couldn’t really escape their destinies in the long run. They grew up in a crime filled neighborhood and it destroyed them all. It would have been nice to have had a more positive resolution to wrap everything up.

Or maybe a happier middle in there. The film succeeds as a thriller with quick pacing but it has almost no replay value because of this. It’s not a film you’ll want to look up. I will say the film did a better job of making a likable antagonist as the lead compared to other titles. Doug was someone you could almost root for since he was trying to get out of the game and did his best not to hurt anyone. Still a criminal but he could have been a lot worse.

Overall, The Town is a film about how sometimes it can be really hard to go on the straight and narrow. Doug tries his best but the odds were stacked against him. Maybe if he left on his own but then he had to go and fall in love at the worst possible time. There’s definitely a lesson to be had with that. You have to be careful with those feelings because they can really pull you in the wrong direction especially if you go too fast and that romance felt pretty rushed. If you want to see a film about a criminal trying to go straight, this is a pretty decent one to check out. It’s a bit too dreary for me though and so it just doesn’t pass the bar. I’ll go with a classic thriller instead.

Overall 4/10