Tag: Adventure

Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds was watched as part of the Seattle International Film Festival 2024! It had its showing on Sunday, May 12th as part of the festival, and it was the Seattle premiere of this film!

Long winded titles about wind are long winded. What is this, some modern fantasy book series?

Well, yes, in the movie it is.

You see, Juliette and Carmen are sisters, and they are at a babysitters house, and bored! Well, Juliette is bored. And their babysitter is taking a quick nap, even if it is Juliette’s birthday. Also, this person has wrote the fantasy series Sirocco and the Kingdom of Winds. Eventually, some toy creation pops out, and makes a magical portal, that of course Juliette decides to jump into, forcing her older sister to follow.

And hey look, they are now weird cat people! And they are in the world of the books. Thankfully it isn’t scary, it is cool.

Until these goblin creatures find them, capture them, and break the toy so they cannot portal home. Oh, and then they also get separated. The older sister to be married off to the head goblin’s son, and the younger kid to be a maid to a visiting singer, Selma. The good news is, Selma is awesome, and powerful, and wants to help the girls. But the real person to help with the toy is going to have to Sirocco, and he is scary and controls big giant storms.

These goblin people look like they like to party though…

I was excited to show my kids their first FRENCH cartoon, and they still did get to see it. But unfortunately, it was dubbed. Oh no! Still a French cartoon, but the people who did the English voices aren’t noted anywhere, so I couldn’t tag them.

As for the movie, it is basically a Studio Ghibli’esque film. A giant focus on the child characters, and their feelings and facial expressions. Some danger, but nothing we think will actually win over at any point. A world of whimsy and strange shapes and structures. It hits all the marks, just is less anime and more whatever this style of French is called. I think if you like Ghibli films a lot, you would love this one.

Both of my kids enjoyed it a lot, including my youngest who made it very clear that she didn’t think she would like when I showed her the trailer, but she dug it a lot.

For the adults? Well, the story is relatively basic. And it is fine. But it is not something groundbreaking in any level. A tiny, cute story, that is relatively short. A nice break from the hardcore films of death and destruction out there.

2 out of 4.

Riddle of Fire was watched early from a screener. It is being released on March 22th, 2024.

Double, double toil and trouble, kids are going on an adventure and word that rhymes with trouble.

Hazel (Charlie Stover) and Jodie A’Dale (Skyler Peters) are having a great time with their friend Alice (Phoebe Ferro). Technically, they are being hooligans. They actually broke into a warehouse at night, to steal a package that they knew had a video game console in it! They got chased, but got away, and at home, they were excited to finally play. But…the TV had a lock on it for some reason. Boo!

Unfortunately their mom (Danielle Hoetmer) is sick, and she thinks they can get to play more with the TV if they go and get her some blueberry cake from the baker, it will heal her! But then that fetch quest has another problem, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And sure enough, eventually, they deal with cultists and witches and magic and meet another friend (Lorelei Olivia Mote) to join their merry band of adventurers.

Also starring Lio Tipton, Charles Halford, Weston Razooli, Austin Archer, and Abigail Sakari.

The main point of being a youth, is to also do spy shit like this.

Do I feel like this film has whimsy? Yeah, I do feel whimsed. Does it have enchantment? Certainly.

The vibe with Riddle of Fire is a strong one. I did not know ten years ago I would be writing reviews and talking about the vibe of a movie, but here we are. It has the look, it has the magic, it has a simple aesthetic, that even when it gets out of hand, still feels simple. It feels like its a kids movie, starring kids, that kids themselves not might like, and adults it really will depend!

Even though I can love the aesthetic, and wish I was on the journey with them, it still feels like something is lacking. Likely all dealing with the story. It is simple to follow, which is a good thing, but yet, there is a filler feel to parts of it, which become more of a frustrating element to the viewer, more than the characters. It is a film I am going to watch once, but not again. I might even recommend it to people, if I know they are in for a very specific experience, but it is not just going to hit every mood.

I really love a lot of the ideas here, and the director is showing hella promise. This was one of my most excited films in Fantastic Fest last year, that I didn’t get to see, and it was still worth it overall. Just the once.

2 out of 4.

Did John Lasseter fuck around with employees and sexually harass people while working for Disney/Pixar?

Well, most assuredly yes. He even admitted to it and called them missteps. That is pretty poorly worded. What a fuck. So he got booted out of Disney/Pixar, which makes sense. But damn it, he has /talent/ so he can’t not have a job. How will he live off of his previous riches?

So Skydance Animation was made! Okay, it was made before that controversy. But they hired Lasseter to run it, because they wanted a big name I guess. And that is the intro you get to have for their first animated film, Luck! Which is premiering straight to Apple+.

Oh, but this movie has dragons. Why isn’t it on HBO?

Luck is a story about Sam (Eva Noblezada), whom you might have already guessed, is unlucky. She is clumsy, she is late, her stuff stops working, she falls, she gets pains, but damn it she is 18 now, and about to live life on her own. Her own apartment, her own basic job. Why is that? Oh yeah, because she was also in a foster home. Yep, her unluckiness meant she was also there for years and never got taken in by a “forever family”, and just had to live a sad life alone. Yep, we are going depressing with this real quick.

But leaving the home meant that that Hazel (Adelynn Spoon) is now alone. A newer foster kid in the home. Sam makes sure she should still visit so often, so she won’t be alone, and hopes she has better luck.

Sure enough, she runs into a black cat, who drops a coin (ah, must be a lucky penny), and then Sam has good luck! She blames it on the coin of course, and wants to give it to Hazel so she can be adopted (fuuuck, that’s too depressing for me). But, once again, she is unlucky and loses it after intentionally setting it down.

That is when she runs into the cat again and….well, the rest is history. You know, after she follows it to a secret Luck world where Good Luck is created and fostered, with a polar opposite Bad Luck side that brings bad luck into the world, with a smorgasbord of diverse characters.

Also starring Colin O’Donoghue, Flula Borg, Jane Fonda, Lil Rel Howery, Maurice J. Irvin, Simon Pegg (as the cat!), John Ratzenberger, and Whoopi Goldberg.

Oh shit, emotions rising. Characters are hugging!

Honestly, this movie made me cry. But it is seriously hard not to. The first ten minutes are extremely sad. I feel so bad, that the took something kind of whimsical like having good or bad luck and equating it to something so serious like having someone fucking adopt you. Normally the stakes for this type of thing are missing a shot in a big sports game, or question in a competition. But sorry, your unusual unluckiness prevented parents from wanting to have you in their life? And often not show up at all for visits? Goddamn, calm down movie people.

Honestly, writing that makes me a bit more annoyed as it all comes together.

For the film itself, it is pretty damn basic. It feels like a lot of other generic kid fantasy films. Go to a magical realm. Have a diverse cast of different characters and magical beasts to look at. Have to go from point to point to collect things, to get closer and closer to a goal. And learn a lesson, that is really obvious from us the viewer. Just a standard, unimaginative story line. Even if it is in a new world we haven’t been before, it doesn’t do anything particular shocking with that world.

Overall, Luck is really lazy. For a child, it might be nicely distracting. But its tone is off, and honestly leaving a bad taste in my mouth to cheapen foster kids and adoption into good and bad luck. Sure the film made me cry, like twice, but it did so by being very manipulative with some real tragedies that didn’t actually matter for a lot of the story.

1 out of 4.

Wait, Uncharted is finally out!? The first Uncharted video game came out in 2007, and almost immediately was there talk of turning it into a movie. Like, people writing a script and all of that. Heck, in 2009, the second Uncharted game came out. One of my favorite video game commercials of all time was during a series of Sony commercials where people would give questions and concerns to Sony executives. It is more hilarious now with how the graphics stand out in today’s terms, but hey, they were pushing that movie angle hard.

So, fifteen years later, the movie is now released. So many script re-writes, producers, and directors were put onto the picture. Various people asked to star in it or with an interest to star in it, the most famous example being Nathan Fillion, who ended up being in a fan made short film for Uncharted. Even Mark Wahlberg was attached to be the main character. Personally, I wish it got made in time for the Bruce Campbell as Sully rumors were out, but that is because I generally want Bruce Campbell in most of my movies.

In the latest iterations of the film, that was supposed to come out in 2020 (but director dropping again and pandemic), Tom Holland was supposed to play “Young Nathan Drake” and it be a prequel to the game series. Based on the movie we got, that is sort of how this movie does play out. But honestly, it just feels like mostly regular aged Nathan Drake, not even young Drake anymore.

My own experience with the game franchise is I did finally play the first one after the third game was finally out. I maybe played it for two hours. I thought I was getting a Tomb Raider like game with a lot of puzzles and sure, some bad guys. I didn’t realize that honestly, it was about 95% a shooting game, with ammo scarcity issues, and people hiding behind crates and barrels, sprinkled throughout dungeon crawling with treasure and explosions. Damn shooting games, not at all my idea of entertainment.

Aw yeah, gun holsters, I bet he will shoot everyone, just like the games.
[Editor’s Note: This statement unfortunately isn’t accurate.]

The actual film opens up in the middle of action, then we get a flashback of the actual start, until we get back to the action. Oh okay.

But Nate (Tom Holland) used to be an orphan (I guess he still is?), with his older brother Sam (Rudy Pankow), but Sam got into more trouble than Nate, so he had to go on the run from the LAW. And since then they have been apart, but Sam still sends Nate post cards. They did thievery, they loved history, and apparently that is all that we really need. They wanted to be treasure hunters, and discover things from the past that were long forgotten or long hidden.

But now, we got some asshole coming up into his place of work, acting like he knows him. Victor Sullivan aka Sully (Mark Wahlberg), who wants to hire Nate for an upcoming job of his. Specifically to locate the gold that Magellan allegedly found when his team was the first to sail around the world in the 1500’s. It is rumored they found it and never gave it to the family who financed their voyage. Oh, and what is this? Sully apparently knows Sam, with picture proof, and that Sam is missing. That is the real way to get Nate involved.

Along the way they are going to have to break some crimes though. And discover ancient tombs and catacombs to find hopefully ancient treasure. The Moncada family, led by Santiago (Antonio Banderas) is also involved on this chase for treasure, as they hope to finally get what was long promised to them.

Also starring Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Steven Waddington, Pingi Moli, and Tiernan Jones. Also with a small yet obvious cameo from Nolan North, the original voice of Nathan Drake.

Almost all of the nice promo shots are of them on a damn boat. 

Uncharted as a film seems to pretty dang charted, so to speak.

It feels like Tomb Raider, and Dora, but with more dead people than normal I guess. Dead by stabbings, and crushings, and fallings. Did you know that Nathan Drake only fires a gun in one scene, and he misses every bullet? I guess they were trying to capture my personal experience as I was a bad shot in that game. But I didn’t have alternate ways to deal with the enemies, unfortunately. It is beyond strange to me to make a game that anyone would classify as a shooting game, and then not have a lot of shooting. That is one of the top three main components. The other two being Sully jokes, and treasure hunting.

I will point out that Holland is definitely doing some acting in this movie. I was afraid he would just feel like Spiderman. But his voice is a little different, less high pitched. His character still fights a bit more agile than one would expect. Unfortunately, the very first scene, which features physics only used before in video games and that one Hobbit scene. It felt like I was intentionally being trolled into watching a Spiderman without the costume film.

Overall, I think the ACTION scenes were the worst part of the movie. I am sure the crates and the ships on planes were probably parts of the video game. But both of those scenes felt so CGI heavy. The crates became additionally boring to watch for the same reason. Having it start the film didn’t help either, as it became broken up and unbelievable. The ship scenes were…fine, but they made those same ships endure a lot of damage without miraculously falling apart despite the 500 years of decay.

Another negative takeaway would be the puzzles themselves. There are clues, and hints to do all these things. And when the characters figure them out, I don’t feel a big sense of pride in them because they don’t feel like well crafted riddles or hints. “Oh that is the answer? Oh okay…” that is my constant feeling.

And honestly, I don’t like that they made Banderas’ character out to be a bad guy. He did do a bad thing in the movie, within his family, but his family wanting the treasure that they were promised? I mean, not the worst motivation.  If the treasure can be traced back to a specific country the top option is return it to them, obviously, but if not, then why not their family?

None of this is coming from bitterness of not getting to see Bruce Campbell either. It is just another generic action film that is based on a video game that disappoints. This seems like a bit of a shocker since how much the games “felt like movies” at the time.

I barely played the games, so I can’t tell how accurate it is, minus the lack of guns. I can tell that it was a good bit boring, it tried to have too much set up for future films, and I did fall asleep leading up to the auction scene.

1 out of 4.

The Mitchells vs. The Machines is one of those films that you are hopefully going to hear about from word of mouth. I know I didn’t notice it pop up on Netflix. I know if I did, I would have just ignored it most likely for a bit, and watched it by myself a week or two later. The cover for it on Netflix doesn’t look appealing to me at all. It doesn’t do the actual animation style any justice, and just looks like a cheaply made piece of crap. And let’s be honest, The Mitchells vs. The Machines is not a title that screams out “watch me.”

I don’t know the Mitchells. Why should I care about the Mitchells?

I guess every famous cartoon family has its start, and if their goal is a franchise, they can constantly have them battling other entities. I guess.

I am getting off track. I didn’t want to watch this movie. I was told I should watch this movie. I am glad I watched this movie. You should also watch this movie. And now, here is a review.

This is apparently an action film with guns, dinosaur bombs, and a dog faced pirate. 

The Mitchells are apparently going to have to save the world. And they are not a perfect warrior clan. They all have faults, barely have any cohesion, and sort of hate each other depending on the circumstances. Katie (Abbi Jacobson) feels like an outsider from her family. She has always been into films and creating her own strange movies, that her parents just don’t understand. Her dad (Danny McBride) is Mr. Nature, doesn’t do anything with tech, can fix a lot of problems, and loves to build. Her mom (Maya Rudolph) is pretty mom stereotype, caring and all of that jazz, believes in everyone. Her younger brother (Michael Rianda) is just super into dinosaurs, starring in his sister’s movies, and is afraid of being alone. Also they got a dog that is barely a dog. 

Katie got accepted into her dream school in California, for Movie makers and is exited about leaving her home and finally being with people in her life who get and understand her. The “weirdos” and such. Unfortunately, she gets into a big argument with her dad the day before they leave. And his solution? To cancel her plane ticket away from this dump, so they can road trip to College, making her miss out on orientation, but letting them bond one more time.

And unfortunately, during that time, a big robot rebellion begins! Fuuuuuuu. And purely by accident, they find themselves to be the only group of humans not captured. I guess they gotta figure out how to save our entire species. 

Also featuring the voices of Eric André, Olivia Colman, Fred Armisen, Beck Bennett, Chrissy Teigen, John Legend, Charlyne Yi, Conan O’Brien, and Blake Griffin. 

You know, I am not even sure that is a dog…

If I had done my own research I would have found out that I definitely wanted to see this movie. Besides the stacked voice cast (including McBride doing a great impression of Seth Rogen has a father role, based on my confusion on checking IMDB, I would have been able to see that the executive producers of this are Lord/Miller, and I have never not loved something they produced or helped create. 

As for the actual film? Damn, what a roller coaster. But it is a roller coaster that just keeps going in loops and is mostly full of really exciting ups. This is a bad metaphor. It has some strong messaging about reliance of technology. Pretty obvious stuff overall, but it doesn’t harp on the message and say that technology is evil. It is necessary for our hero after all to follow her dreams, and allows her to do something she wants in life, so it is awesome still. It is more the corporations who suck, and we can all agree on that.

This film was surprisingly funny. I really didn’t expect to laugh as much as I did, especially out loud. My kids could enjoy it too, for similar reasons. It had jokes for all, and some good throwback jokes to technology issues in life. It is also full of colors and perfect for the ADHD riddled world we live in, but never really annoyingly so.

I was surprised about halfway through the movie (with a plot point that felt like it would be close to the end) to find it had so much more movie left to go. But it didn’t really feel boring, if not a little too long near the end in the final scenes. A small amount of editing/cutting near the end would have been fine. But again, I still love the movie overall.

Give it a watch. I believe it went to theaters for a bit, so it should be eligible for awards next year. Raya and the Last Dragon was good, and now this. Shit, is animation back this year? Will Luca actually be good?! 

4 out of 4.

Se

I’ve noticed that since 2016, (so five years ago), I have rated Disney Animation Studios higher than Pixar Studios movies. It is an average of 2.8 versus 1.8 out of 4. That is a whole number grade! Here is my table for comparison.

Now sure, Pixar has churned out more, but it has the only zero, and has a lot of 1s. The only reason Disney is so low due to disappointing sequels. Pixar also has disappointing sequels, but also disappointing for me original movies.

That is all. We will see how the charts look after Luca comes out this year.

But for now, as you can see, I loved Raya and the Last Dragon, a new Disney princess (maybe?) movie, that also features zero songs, which is not just rare, but a first.

You see that dragon? It won’t sing at all. Shocking. Raya (Kelly Marie Tran) is your typical daughter of a chief. Her father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim), is training her as a warrior to protect a magical orb. What does this orb do? Well, lets go back into the history.

Five hundred years ago, there were these evil spirits named Druun that multiplied quickly and turned people into stone. There was also a lot of dragons. This was not fun. So all of the dragons banded together, made this cool orb thing, and it banished all of the Druun! And somehow, turned all the dragons into stone in the process. Very sad times.

Anyways, the orb still does its thing, but the other tribes think that the orb gives the Heart tribe extra power and success for their lands and people. They want the orb for themselves. Chief Benja wants to reunite all the tribes to one glorious nation, and not continue with this otherism.

Well, sure enough, something bad happens, the orb breaks! Each tribe grabs a piece, but now the Druun are now back and that makes things worse. Raya is going to have to fix the orb, and get her people back to normal, and maybe even find a dragon along the way. You know, the last one (Awkwafina).

Also featuring the voices of Benedict Wong, Gemma Chan, Sandra Oh, Izaac Wang, Lucille Soong, and of course, Alan Tudyk, as an animal that only makes sounds.

If you train for hours to fight, then you are going to want to fight. Raya and the Last Dragon has music, but is not a musical. Did that take away from it? Well, fine, probably not. But I would have loved some songs regardless. But I can’t take away points because I would rather a movie be a musical. I would rather all movies to be a musical.

Raya still kicked ass. She is definitely the strongest fighter of any “Disney princess” before her. Not sure if she is a princess yet officially, but she was the daughter of a chief, so, you know. There isn’t a lot of competition amongst the princesses who can fight or do magic,  but Raya is like a goddamn ninja (yes, different cultural term than this film, but I don’t know a better word). She is quick, and arguably deadly, but doesn’t always use her fighting skills to get out of jams. But that is almost always her plan A.

And having her so driven and technically violent is great, because throughout the film it is technically seen as a flaw, especially from the dragon’s point of view. Why not try friendship, and trust, and things that involve stabbing someone? (No, we don’t see a lot of dead people in this movie who get stabbed, mostly statues. We can’t have a Disney film with a high body count for real).

I love Raya, she is strong and flawed. I am fine with the dragon. She is consistent and not just a humorous sidekick. What I didn’t expect is all of the other side characters that along the journey would also show up and be important to the rest of the story. Great side characters, all full of personality and interesting. They made me cry at the end. I did cry I believe twice, or just one long slow cry, depending on how you break them apart. I will go with two cries.

The movie becomes a bit typical, when it comes to “go to next region that is very different, and then find the next piece.” But each one does have new characters and the orb fragment is protected in different ways. And the ending, while a little predictable, I think is done in a nicely unpredictable way, at least when it comes to the order of events.

Bring on all of the Raya Halloween costumes.

4 out of 4.

Oh hey, remember how everyone wanted a new Scooby Doo movie? Nah.

Okay, that is fair, we don’t have to ask for a movie to come out to get one. Sometimes the studios know what is up. For example, I bet people did ask for a live action Scooby-Doo movie in the late 90’s early 2000’s, and what it gave was a really cheesy strange story, with adult jokes, some obvious some not. And honestly, it sort of filled a really good niche back then. Go figure.

So even though this animated version is going full CGI, and is dealing apparently with the childhood beginnings of the gang (ehhh), as long as we got mysteries to solve and people in masks, it shouldn’t be too hard to make it work. Unless they decide to go for the “monsters are real” gag, which basically every Scooby Doo entity has been doing for the last 20 years, so it is kind of getting annoying. Please, give us weird people in masks.

Remember, if a movie has an exclamation point, it should be a musical. Scoob! should be a musical. 

Ah yes, origin stories, like a superhero movie.

Alright, here we go! Shaggy (Will Forte) and Scooby-Doo (Frank Welker) meet on the beach when they were younger. Shaggy needed friends. Scooby-Doo needed a home.

Later on, at Halloween, some bullies mess with the duo, and some other kids help the two out! Their names are Fred (Zac Efron), Daphne (Amanda Seyfried), and Velma (Gina Rodriguez). Also right after that, they end up solving a mystery of a lot of stolen goods that no one even knew was a thing! They just had to meddle.

Alright, years later, many mysteries, they want to expand their operations. Their Mystery Machine needs work, so they want bigger clients, and higher paying jobs to become a success. And then they bring in Simon Cowell for some reason, who barely insults Shaggy and Scooby who leave as a result.

The other friends don’t go and stop them, so eventually, Shaggy and Scooby get attacked by robots. And then abducted by aliens? Nah, it is actually Blue Falcon (Mark Wahlberg), Dynomutt (Ken Jeong), and their assistant, Dee Dee Skyes (Kiersey Clemons). They know that Scooby-Doo is important for something. Because Dick Dastardly (Jason Isaacs) is looking for him and some ancient skulls, to maybe summon dog Cerebus from the underworld. Ah yes, real mythical monsters.

Also starring Christina Hendricks and Tracy Morgan.

What nice chairs. And I feel like a hater not showing Daphne/Velma/Fred.

It is really early on in the film when you realize this is not going to be something you want to see again, and for a lot of people, that is when Simon Cowell appears. But before that, I will acknowledge they did a version of the original intro. It was okay in the singing department, really basic, but they did recreate parts of the intro and use it as a montage of solving some mysteries. That was nice.

That was also where most of the Scooby-Doo action remained. The kid mystery was very awkward, because when a ghost appeared in the house they already had their goal completed. They could have just…left, like any normal person. Having this long run through the place and eventual capture of the ghost to find it was a masked person didn’t even make sense. 

But let’s get back to Cowell. This movie came out in 2020, why the hell is Cowell in this movie. This is not 2004. Kids for the most part won’t understand that at all.

In terms of how Scooby-Doo this movie is, it is Scooby-Not. Most of the time the gang is split up (which happens a lot sure, but not to this scale). This is a superhero movie. It is about Blue Falcon, and Scooby-Doo wanting to feel more special. It has a real monster and issue to deal with, and…it is just a mess.

A lot of the voice acting felt off. I especially did not like Jeong as Dynomutt, because it just sounded like Ken Jeong, not a robot dog. 

It was a boring film for the most part, with some other Hanna Barbera properties thrown in for fun. It is really easy to see where the movie is going, where the conflicts will appear, and what will happen at the end. It is such a waste of a nice property. It felt like something they would try as a third or fourth film of a reboot, not right away. This was barely Scooby-Doo. Focus on the basics first.

And obviously it wasn’t a musical, but it did have a lot of modern music because that is easier to get the kids to love it. 

1 out of 4.

And now we can talk about the biggest release since the theaters went under! Not the first new release of a movie that was supposed to go to the theaters, but the biggest at least.

Trolls: World Tour was moved around a few times on the calendar, and it turns out that they probably should have kept that date in February for making that money.

At first saying they would go straight to digital instead was almost an inspiration. But then as more and more movies got pushed back, including to future years even, and all left but Trolls. That is a bit weird right? Some other theater films changed to VOD and a lot of them were movies that were expected to bomb.

Did they not actually think Trolls: World Tour would do well, or are they sacrificing profits to bring some happiness to those stuck inside? Hard to say. The first Trolls was okay, and in general, this plot of the sequel made me super weary, but that doesn’t mean I wanted it to fail either.

Ooooh, they better not say Onward, that’d help the competition.Ah, life is wonderful again. Until it isn’t.

Queen Poppy (Anna Kendrick) is in charge of her people, every day has singing, dancing, and hugs because the Bergens are cool now and doing their own thing.  Branch (Justin Timberlake) probably wants to make Troll babies with her.

But Poppy gets an invite from a Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) to come to her World Tour. This is where we get to have the secret backstory of Trolls that never came up in the first film. You know. There are different troll kingdoms out there each with a magical string each that gives them the music to get by in life. One of Pop (our trolls). Of Funk, Classical, Country Techno, and of course, Hard Rock, where Queen Barb comes from.

So Poppy thinks that Queen Barb wants to unite all of the strings together to unite all the music genres and unite the trolls. But really, Queen Barb just wants to take all the strings to make them rock and make rock music the only music for everyone.

Oh no!

Also starring a whole lot of other voices, some new, some old: James Corden, Ron Funches, Kelly Clarkson, Anderson .Paak, Sam Rockwell, George Clinton, Mary J. Blige, Kenan Thompson, Kunal Nayyar, Flula Borg, Ester Dean, Jamie Dornan, Zooey Deschanel, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Ozzy Osbourne.

Rock is evil. Satan is rock.Lame new Trolls backstory aside, it turns out there is a little bit of good backstory in there as well, but it is a mid movie reveal. It turns out that the former bad guys aren’t necessarily who we thought, and I thought that would be a big turning point for the film.

I can’t wait to see where it goes from there, and from my point of view, basically nowhere. Poppy wanted to unite the Trolls together to let them experience all music. Barb wanted to unit the Trolls together to make them all listen to rock music. And despite revelations made, the ending is exactly as one would expect going into the film. Exactly.

And thus I am left disappointed.

The music is okay for the most part, we do get more genres, but I didn’t feel like were stiffed in the first one due to how diverse pop itself actually is. There is no original song like Get Back Up Again, and that is the real shame. I believe the only original song is at the end, and that is supposed to be our new Can’t Stop The Feeling. Which sure, is an original song, but no where close as exciting as Get Back Up Again. I am not counting songs where it is meant to a famous one with some changed lyrics as original, like Trolls Just Wanna Have Fun.

Overall, it is likely this movie would have done just fine in the theaters. It is better than the animated show, but relatively clunky and beyond simplistic with the plot, despite rays of deeper hope in the middle. I will call the original better despite the same grade, because this one did not make me cry.

2 out of 4.

Ohhh, box office failures? Guess I have to see it.

Much like you all, I never heard about the movie Arctic Dogs coming out to theaters. It wasn’t given to the press. If it had an advertising budget, it went up someone’s ass.

Arctic Dogs went to theaters on November 1st, and completely bombed. It opened in over 2,800 theaters and currently (at time of writing) has the worst amount earned in an opening weekend for that many theaters at just $2.9 million. Completely, and utterly destroyed by its competition.

But surely an animated film about some doggos can’t be that bad?

Oh. Foxes. Maybe. Never mind.

Swifty (Jeremy Renner) is an arctic fox, living in, well, the Arctic. He is super white, blends in with the snow, and thus, others seem to just ignore him and let him do his own thing.

Oh, yeah, this is a animals as humans movie. And the coolest animals in this small town are the Arctic Dogs super hero animals. What do they do? Oh. They deliver mail and packages to other small towns. Cool.

So naturally Swifty wants to be an Arctic Dog sledder, despite being a fox. And he meets the weight requirements, but isn’t really strong. So he is sent into the warehouse to help stamp packages, looking on the outside in.

Well, one time, Swifty has to send out a package. And it is to a weird Walrus recluse (John Cleese) who has Puffins working for him, all weird. And apparently that is enough for the Walrus to get rid of all the Arctic Dogs, just in case.

Now it is up to Swifty to deliver the packages, and, maybe, one day, also save the day.

Also starring Alec Baldwin, Anjelica Huston, Heidi Klum, James Franco, Laurie Holden, and Omar Sy.

Yep, Walrus on a robot spider bod. The ladies love it.

You see, Arctic Dogs isn’t bad enough to warrant its record. I mean, it is bad sure. But it is straight to DVD bad, not let’s scorn this movie so it never tries this nonsense again, bad.

Voice casting, most of it is uninspired. Not even John Cleese could save it with his wonderful words and accent. Hero is generic. We have had plenty of times someone who wants to be something, that he literally shouldn’t be able to do, but does it anyways because perseverance. But they keep doing it with animals or inanimate objects so that the real message is lost.

At least this time in this movie he didn’t just train hard enough to eventually get the job and prove people wrong. No, he got the job because all of the others were captured. Why? Because of plot reasons that don’t make at all any sense. Why would the villain want to take out all of the mail delivery dogs, when he still needs to get mail delivered to finish his evil plot? … … … Ohhh, because of poor writing.

Our female lead has the personality of Engineer, which is at least slightly different than the personality of scientist. And she unknowingly helps the bad guy the whole time, because I guess she isn’t smart enough to know what she is building? And there could be plot resolved from this earlier, if the main characters could talk better.

Oh, and let’s not forget the bad guys motivations. He is used to represent Global Warming, because its great to have a single source for the blame and make things fixable.

I just…I don’t know why the plot is so, so, so, so bad. The animation is definitely okay/average. But the terrible plot, nonsensical decisions and overdone tenants of the story line make this a disaster from the start. Good thing no one watched it.

0 out of 4.

The Aeronauts is a an end of year movie that should have had all of the pomp and circumstance of a summer release and…did not. Because Amazon Studios bought it, I guess they felt it only deserved some amount of release, and one of those online a month or so later.

It was really swell of them to do that for me, as I got to see it before the end of 2019!

Although, I was curious about how the device would affect my enjoyment of the movie. So I split it into thirds by time, not my plot (as I hadn’t seen it yet). I started with my regular desktop computer, then the next third was my phone, and my final third was my living room television.

And the results will not surprise you at all!

The results are as shocking as this balloon ride.The Aeronauts is a fictionalized telling of James Glaisher (Eddie Redmayne), famed weather scientist, and him going on a balloon to do some science. His goal was to go super high up, higher than anyone else, with all the science equipment in order to help predict weather patterns and just figure out shit about the atmosphere.

His partner in crime? Fictional, Amelia Wren (Felicity Jones), hot air balloon pilot, loosely based on Sophie Blanchard. She was good a piloting, even though on one of her recent missions, her husband (Vincent Perez) died in the balloon, so that sucks a lot. She is all about the flair and the spectacle in order to get financing behind these trips. Science be damned, she just wants to fly and redeem herself.

And yeah. This is a movie about the hot air balloon trip that almost killed them both, where they went higher than any human before, and science’d a whole lot. Sort of based off of a real trip done, but way less crazy.

Also starring Himesh Patel, Phoebe Fox, Rebecca Front, and Robert Glenister.

She’s as cold as ice, but not willing to sacrifice their love. 

First, the screen results. I was much more excited abotu the movie and interested in its plot the bigger the screen. Shocking ahh! If you got to watch this on IMAX, I am jealous, because it is a beautiful movie with a lot of CGI that works really well together to take us on a trip above the clouds.

The biggest selling point for the film is the visuals.

Redmayne and Jones have really good chemistry together, and despite the story being told in a disjointed order, it doesn’t take away from their short and important flight.

Unfortunately, it is also really hard to get super psyched about this movie, knowing it is far closer to a fake tale than anything else. If it was sold just a fiction story? It’d be a fun adventure. But it is being sold as the sort of true story, and now the whole thing is muddled. This is not something you would get actual useful knowledge out of. It should not be seen as educational.

Unfortunately, the whole film is set up in a way to highlight this one big important moment and flight that really didn’t exist. A cool story, destroyed by its details.

2 out of 4.