Tag: Bono

Hey remember Sing? Yeah? But why do you remember Sing?

I remember Sing being an incredibly average film. The trailers definitely implied a lot more songs might be featured in it, but most of them were just used in a montage audition scene. It was a mediocre film mostly because it had a very basic plot, and pretty standard tropes when it came to the plots of the individual main characters. The lead character wasn’t someone I looked at and cheered for. They let the mouse, despite being a dick all film, have a happy ending without making amends, which is shocking for a kids movie. And then you know, it ended.

It definitely didn’t feel like the type of thing that would get a sequel. But with Illumination Entertainment, anything they make that can be franchised and soaked for money with a lowest common denominator of jokes, they will do it, I suppose.

So hey, let’s see what nonsensical reason they come up for a sequel for Sing 2.

That button isn’t ominous enough. Needs to do something like open a trap door, or hit a bigger gong.

What’s going on with the animals, after they put on a fun little singing show for their friends and family? Well, they are still working together to put on original shows. They made a version of Alice in Wonderland, but you know, with other pop songs being song for it. They constantly sell out their show, which is impressive in their regular sized community, but alas, they want more.

Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) invited a talent scout to see the performance, but she leaves halfway through because it is not right for her employer, Mr. Crystal (Bobby Cannavale). He has a big hotel and theater in a Las Vegas like city, and he needs a new stage show. The scout didn’t think their show was good enough to even bring for an audition. Rough.

But Buster convinces his crew to head to the auditions anyways. And they will lie their way to the audition, and lie their way to a show start, by making promises he can’t guarantee, about a show that isn’t written. Good times. Follow your dreams haphazardly. Promise that you will get a big star, Clay Calloway (Bono) despite him being a recluse for 15 years.

Starring the returning voices of Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson, Taron Egerton, Tori Kelly, Nick Kroll, Garth Jennings, Jennifer Saunders, and Nick Offerman. And now we get voices of new characters voiced by Adam Buxton, Eric Andre, Halsey, Letitia Wright, Pharrell Williams, Chelsea Peretti, Julia Davis, and Peter Serafinowicz.

Word a Lion eat a porcupine? Probably.

In all honesty, I went in expecting to hate Sing 2. Let’s be clear. It really doesn’t make sense to exist. The idea behind this is that now that the con-artist found some actual talent through the rubble that is his town, he wants to make them a bigger famous act, basically singing cover songs, to works as entertainers? Ehhh.

I find it hard to find the lead character charming at all. He is a guy who just constantly lies because he feels he deserves greatness? He lies about things that might not be even conceivable, like the prize money in the first film. Things worked out for him, and that is great, but ehh. Not my kind of message for kids.

A lot of the side plots are pretty trash. The plot of our Gorilla not dancing well, and needing to dance well for his scene? Whatever. It was very much not in character for the choreographer to do what he did during their final show, and that ruined that potentially cool scene for me. The Elephants plot was also extremely basic, about not knowing how to fall in love. The plot of the musical they put on was shit, because none of the planets had any actual storyline for their musical.

The heart of the film comes from the Calloway character, a famous older star, who lost his wife, and gave up his career, to live alone with his deep lion thoughts. Bringing him into their fold took them time, and his moment on the stage was a bit charged up in emotions. I did cry during it. Those bastards. And despite the terrible way for the plot to unfold, from its beginning lies, to its terrible subplots, it was a fun show they put on for the experience. It was a bad musical, but a fun show.

One final note. What is going on with the songs here? Like, as far as I can tell, all of these people are aware they are singing cover songs of someone else? There is more evidence of that given that when they sang a U2 song, they talked about it belonging to Clay, of course voiced by Bono. And in Sing, it is not like all those townsfolk just had songs they made up on the fly ready to go. So they are all covers and exist. Why the hell is everyone so bananas over people singing cover songs? Why did Ash have any level of a successful rock career just singing cover songs? This is very unrealistic. There is going to be a Sing 3 probably, because hey, money. And people like cover songs in cartoon movies. But trying to figure out why people go bananas for them in front of them is bizarre.

Beatles. People love The Beatles. I can understand their cultural impact on rock and music afterwards, and appreciate it, while not caring about their music at the same time.

Now that that is out of the way, moving on!

Across The Universe is a musical, not adapted from Broadway (original (almost!)), and features only Beatles music. Yay! Well, more or less that means nothing. I knew I’d watch it one day, just wasn’t rushing to the stores when it came out to see it. They can’t all be Mamma Mia!

I bet if I showed random pictures, hardcore Beatles fans could guess the song associated with it, even if they haven’t seen the movie.

Across The Universe is a few different stories wrapped into one, about different people in the 60s/70s America. Each character has its own plot, and gets wrapped up in the rest but all come from their own different backgrounds. Jude (Jim Sturgess) (Come on, you knew someone would be named Jude) is a individual from Liverpool, who has never known his dad, an American who was came over during WW2. So he gets to the USA, illegally, to look for his dad.

At the university where his dad works (janitor), he meets Max (Joe Anderson) a rebellious spirit, and eats dinner at their house, where Max’s dad is very angry about his sons lack of prospects. Jim also meets Max’s sister, Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood) who is upset because her boyfriend is going off to war. After an argument, Max leaves the house and Jim agrees to get an apartment with him in NYC (BFFs instantly!).

They find a loft sharing with the much older, trying to make it as a female rock star Sadie (Dana Fuchs) who provides a nice outlet for singing Beatles songs if there is no good context. Yay bands in musicals. Jo-Jo (Martin Luther) leaves Detroit after the 60s riots, where his younger brother was killed, and eventually finds and joins Sadie’s band as a lead guitarist before she hits it off big. Also interracial loving.

Also Prudence (T.V. Carpio), an asian cheerleader who just finished high school, left the area for being in love with another girl and unable to show her feelings. She also moves to NYC (and that apartment), falls in love with Sadie, but she doesn’t like chicks. She also is pretty emo, runs away a lot, joins a circus and shit.

Main storyline wise, eventually Lucy also goes to NYC after her boyfriend dies in ‘Nam, and develops feelings for Jude. Max also gets drafted and goes to war where everyone assumes he dies. Jude is a painter, and can’t get into protesting as much as Lucy does (who might be getting it on with some anti-war people), and eventually gets sent back to the UK for being here illegally. In the UK, Jude assumes Lucy dies in a home made bomb explosion, and lots of sad things happen, before some happier things.

Also are cameos by Bono and Eddie Izzard, both involving drugs and other free spirit hallucinogens.

And then stuff like this happened.

That was a shit ton of story lines, and plot, and I left out plenty. But lets face it, if I put another paragraph explaining the ends to all the storylines, you wouldn’t mind much. You want to watch this movie for the music, not the acting or plot lines. But still, plot wise, I found a lot of it interesting. I found the Prudence plot line a bit more confusing, must have missed it a bit in the beginning. I liked Jo-Jos a lot, and Max’s, but the main Jude/Lucy plot line felt weird to me. Just didn’t believe it all, too much weird angst.

The movie also movies very fast, and is over two hours to encompass all the plot (and more music, of course). Generally most of the songs were good, and as far as I could tell, most sounded a lot like the Beatles versions. There were obvious changes to some, and mixed songs, which were generally decent. My favorite parts would be the Let It Be/ Come Together scenes, involving Detroit riots, the brother, funeral, and Jo-Jo leaving. Felt pretty powerful to me. Also only click that first one if you want to be sad.

A lot of the choreography was really good as well, in particular the I Want You (She’s So Heavy) song, which I hadn’t heard before. But that one is also incredibly weird.

So hey, overall I will give it to the filmmakers for trying something different, direct to film musicals are always rare, and generally try for wider appeals. But jukebox musicals are an easy way to get it done. “Like the Beatles, then you will love this song!”. Overall, despite the decent singing, good choreography, I felt the film just had too much going on in it. Crazy ass visuals were distractions for me, and harder for me to grasp what was actually happening at times.