Tag: Beck Bennett

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?! 

Se

When The Angry Birds Movie came out a few years ago, I expected to hate it and to trash it and talk more about how many animated movies were crap.

And then I liked it surprisingly enough. Yeah, I don’t get it either. My current theater is that I just like things with Jason Sudeikis attached far more than other people.

So now it is time for a sequel! A great title of The Angry Birds Movie 2, and technically I am not dreading watching it? I now have higher hopes for the sequel instead of zero hopes the first time around, and that will probably change my entire outlook. I still don’t play the game anymore, and thought the sequel game series was terrible.

Ah look, a cast and crew of ragamuffins ready to overcome the odds.

At the end of the first film, Red (Jason Sudeikis), Chuck (Josh Gad), Bomb (Danny McBride) and friends helped lead an assault on Piggy Island. The pigs, led by Leonard (Bill Hader) had stolen all of their eggs and were gonna eat them. Despite being flightless birds, they were able to use slingshots to fling themselves to the island and destroy the hell out of that place.

This led to modern day. Red is now a hero! He is loved finally and not hated. There is a big prank war going between the two islands but Red is always on the lookout keeping things safe. Until Leonard wants…a truce?

It turns out they are now sacred over a third island, an Icy cold island further away named Eagle island. There, a strange purple bird named Zeta (Leslie Jones) is somehow able to send giant ice balls to their island, with the intent of destroying them so they can move in an rebuild. Once they realize this threat is real, both sides do have to come together and expand their teams in order to infiltrate the base and stop that cannon.

But they need someone smarter, and Chuck has an engineering sister named Silver (Rachel Bloom), who is super smart. Smart enough to be the leader. And being a leader is the only thing that is keeping Red in the limelight, so that will lead to conflict.

Can they save the day before every little piggy and birdy is wiped out by ice fire balls?

Ahem, also starring the wonderful voice work of Awkwafina, Sterling K. Brown, Eugenio Derbez, Tiffany Haddish, Peter Dinklage, Pete Davidson, Zach Woods, Maya Rudolph, Dove Cameron, JoJo Siwa, Tony Hale, Nicki Minaj, Brooklynn Prince, Lil Rel Howery, Beck Bennett, and Gaten Matarazzo,

Fish. Fish is sad.

Again, I fully know that I liked the first film more than others, but this sequel drops so far in quality. If you hate the first film, this one is likely to be one of the worst films of the year for you. Easy. And as someone who liked the first film, I am incredibly disappointed with the sequel.

A large portion of the jokes are just based on current pop culture, which is not a good indicator of comedy. It will date the movie, firmly place it weirdly in 2019, and not age well. A really good joke actually occurred in the movie with Bomb about “taking out the guards” for their mission. It was clever and unexpected. And then the scene went on too long and they added Baby Shark to the mix, completely making it cringey.

Ferdinand was a bad animated movie and the worst part was an extended dance scene in that movie between the heroes and others, and that almost happened in this film as well. A dance off occurred, it just wasn’t as long, and still completely pointless.

The jokes aren’t as funny. The plot doesn’t naturally follow the first film. The entire point of the ice/eagle island is strange. I could ask 20 questions they didn’t explain, and its all just…pointless. The villain is not good, and the mission is not good, and they way the day is saved in the day is really weak. It sure does try to bring back women characters to the 1960’s.

But let’s make one really big irritation clear. At the end of the first film we got to see three tiny blue birds hatch. Those birds are in the game, and are used to help destroy ice structures. Oh hey, this movie involves an island full of ice structures. Clearly they would…NOPE. Those birds aren’t in this movie at all.

THEY TEASED US WITH THE ICE DESTROYING BIRDS, GAVE US A SEQUEL WITH ICE, AND THEY NEVER APPEARED IN THE SEQUEL. What is wrong with the creators? Are they Satan? How could they fall so low??

Sing is the last animated film I need to review that is a major US release!

I will be honest that I wasn’t really looking forward to Sing at all. It is the fourth anthropomorphic animals major release this YEAR (After Kung Fu Panda 3, Zootopia, and The Angry Birds Movie), in a year where we also had regular talking animal movies as well (Finding Dory, Storks, Ice Age: Collision Course, Norm of the North, The Secret Life of Pets). Fuck.

Basically everything is about talking animals this year. Moana and Kubo and the Two Strings aren’t fully about that, and that might be why they are my favorite two of the year. The only really big animated films I can think of are Trolls (talking magic things) and Sausage Party (talking food). 2016 wasn’t the most creative film year, and it is sort of a huge let down for animated films.

Oh but wait! This isn’t a talking animal movie! This is a singing animal movie. With a lot of popular songs being sung by animals, reminding me of recent very bad animated jukebox musicals. Please be better to me 2017.

The face you make when your realize Cars 3 is coming out in 2017.

Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) is a koala bear who fell in love with the theater as a kid. With the help of his father, he earned enough money to buy the theater and produce shows for hundreds more to fall in love with! But now, years later, he is far in the red, unable to pay his crew, or the bills, or his loans. He is friends with Eddie (John C. Reilly), a lamb son of a rich family, but even they won’t bail him out now.

But he has an idea! Singing competitions are all the rage, so he wants to host a local one, only featuring regular people that they all know and want to show off their talents. He will give the winner a $1,000 prize and hopefully get enough money to get back in the black. But his assistant (Garth Jennings) accidentally puts a $100,000 prize, putting the whole town into a frenzy and driving up expectations through the roof.

And our contestants are of course all over the map. There is Rosita (Reese Witherspoon), a stay at home pig mom of 25 kids with a husband who is overworked. Johnny (Taron Egerton), a gorilla from a crime family who doesn’t really want to steal. Meena (Tori Kelly), a young elephant who has extreme stage fright. Mike (Seth MacFarlane), a old timey street musician mouse who just wants money and fame. Ash (Scarlett Johansson) and Lance (Beck Bennett), a hedgehog teenage rock duo, but Lance doesn’t want to share the singing spotlight. And of course Gunter (Nick Kroll), a German pig who has no fears when it comes to his body.

Who will win? Who will get screwed over? Who will die?!

Also featuring the voices of Nick Offerman, Peter Serafinowicz, and Rhea Perlman.

Pigs are people too, and are tired of being dance shamed.

Sing is the type of film that will give you exactly what you expect. Animals, being human like, and singing pop songs. And if that is all you need to go on to enjoy a film, then you will be in for a treat. If you want something with a bit of more substance to its plot, you will be saddened and only a little bit toe-tappy.

The lessons of the film tell us to follow our dreams, no matter how many bills you wrack up, loved ones you hurt, and lives you ruin. It will all hopefully work out in the end.

McConaughey’s character seems to be a sort of more family friendly and desperate version of his character in Magic Mike. MacFarlane plays a rat who is so annoying right off the bat that I have no remorse for his character at any point in the movie. On top of that, they never resolve that characters plot line at the end. I assumed it would be an after credits scene but we were left with nothing.

Johansson as a hedgehog, Witherspoon as a pig, and Egerton as a gorilla all worked (but it took me awhile to accept the last one, because the gorilla look and clothing just felt off). I was most surprised by Egerton’s singing voice, but it isn’t the first time he impressed me this year.

Music wise, it didn’t seem to click or work until the end. And it damn well better by that point, when they put on their show and resolve all of their issues through the power of singing in public. Everyone feels like a winner. At the same time, I wonder what the entire purpose of the film was. A small story, no real steaks or issues to worry about, Sing becomes an easy movie to make on account of how easy it can merchandise.

A few of the trailers really gave away most of the bigger moments. I am most annoyed by the teaser trailer though, that decided to showcase a ton of different animals singing different songs. That is basically directly out of the film, with little editing and no more substance. We only get to see a lot of diversity for a little amount of time. And the worst part about that scene, the try outs, is they didn’t even try to make it seem realistic by having different people sing the songs. Instead it was jut playing the actual songs over their quick and quirky cast. What a let down.

If you give me an animal singing song, I want a unique voice singing that song, damn it. If I wanted to actually hear the song, I could always just use the internet myself. No amount of scantly dressed rabbit will make up for it.