Tag: Family

A live action movie about The Smurfs? How can that smurfin’ work? That doesn’t make any smurf sense. But, by the end, it was definitely pretty smurfy.

Oh don’t worry, I am done doing that.

I won’t explain the back story of Smurfs. Should be pretty public knowledge. But in their magical world, before the Blue Moon festival, a few of the smurfs accidentally get transported, along with Azrael and Gargamel (Hank Azaria)! They must figure out how to return, and you know, not turn into magic juice.

Also! Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays are expecting a baby, while NPH has to make a new ad design for the cosmetics company he works for and his boss Sofia Vergara (from Modern Family).

Which smurfs made the cut into reality? Of course Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) and Smurfette (Katy Perry). Without them, who would watch? We also got Brainy Smurf (Fred Armisen) for “problem solving”, Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez) for “lols”, and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) for conflict building. I think Gutso Smurf (Alan Cumming) was created for the movie, but they needed a more kick ass smurf I guess. A lot more famous people for other smurfs, but those smurfs aren’t as smurf important.

This movie (or at least NPH) ask a lot of questions normal people wonder. Like if they are named after their major personality, do they get a name later in life, or born with that name. The movie answers the question, kinda.

In terms of CGI, it is pretty good. They fit the smurfs into the real world very well. Nothing (too) cheesy, and I was able to believe it.

What was pretty weird was the Guitar Hero scene, though. Guitar Hero is dead.

NPH and Jayma were fine. Azaria made a GREAT Gargamel. I was hoping for Danny DeVito to be him personally, just on looks. But Azaria just had it all going for him. Also, super cheesy. But you could hear the Moe Sizlack in his voice. Also interesting.

Story line was also interesting. I was entertained throughout, which is really all you can ask from a family centric movie. There was enough subtle jokes in there too for adults to enjoy as well.

I was going to watch this with “Smurf-O-Vision” too, as it was advertised. With an iPad/iPhone, you could download an app to go with the movie. It made it seem like if Smurfs would fly off of of screen, they’d fly onto the iPad, and other weird things. A new dimension of fun! But what really happens (I tried this for 5~ minutes, app took forever to load too) is a bunch of stupid things. Also it ruins the movie. In this version of the movie, the main smurf cast are also watching, and often the screen will shrink and you will see their reactions too. I was like “okay, as long as it doesn’t ruin the movie”. But then once it shrunk again and the director appeared and talked over dialogue, I was immediately done and calling it a failure. Just meant as a way to distract kids more so, I think.

Besides that, the movie is smurfy.

Here at Gorgon Reviews, we sometimes like to change up the review format. For instance, this review will basically be a question and answer format for the movie Chop Kick Panda.

Question 1: Is this just some poor man’s ripoff of Kung Fu Panda?

I dunno! I will let you be the judge. Here is the cover.

As you see it is very different. This Panda is not wearing Pants.

Question 2: So it is a CGI movie about a martial arts panda?

Well. Kinda. First off, despite the cover, it is not a CGI movie. The movie looks as if it was made on a flash animation program for some quick computer thing. Yet instead of a quick video thing it is a full movie (of 40 minutes in length).

The amount of the movie that is actually martial arts is hard to say. In this place, Serenity Falls, the Panda is a janitor who had some lessons at a dojo. For some reason he has a kid, who he tells he is the best thing ever to. Movie even begins with a weird self dialogue about how great and legendary he is (like KFP). In fact, he is so legendary, that even his legend is legendary. They say that about 4-5 times in the movie, which means about once every 8-10 minutes.

So yeah. Some tiger wants some special amulet in the dojo? And tries to get it during a sleepover thing there. And yeah. That is about it.

Question 3: Hmm. That sounds kind of lame. At least there is lots of cool fighting?

As far as I could tell when I watched it, there was about zero fighting. A lot of off screen fighting. A couple on screen jabs. And that was the movie.

Question 4: But…but…the title! It says — Wait. Chop Kick? What the fuck is a Chop Kick?

Good question. I assume it is similar to the Kick Punch, but more Asian.

And less robots!

Hey now. Cars is pretty old. 2006? Yes, it goes way outside of my range of movies I normally review. But because Cars 2 comes out soon and I am reviewing it, I figure I might as well throw up the first one as well (since I just saw it). Also because it is old, I can do a more satirical review of it. Boom boom.

To start, this movie is about cars. The main character, voiced by Owen Wilson, is a race car. Yes, in this car-world, there are no humans. All the cars are alive. If they crash, they can get repaired. But that is about it. No where in this movie is there a dead car. They also have lots of roads and towns where they sell car things.
The movie goes back and forth with gas. It seems to both me something to drink when they are thirsty, and like actual gas, they just need it to run. Hmmm.

What is also weird about this world is that cars on their own pretty much make a NASCAR like event. Which, if you compare everything they do to humans (which I will), is kind of weird. It’d be like having 3 hour races for humans, where they’d just keep running, and taking food/drink beaks. Massages probably in the pit stop.

Owen Wilson is terrrrrrribad in this movie. So bad.

But he is so hot right now.

He has about two emotions, which I am realizing is true with his real movies. He always seems to speak in a calm relaxed way. Even his anxious or afraid voice he just seems to not be aware of the severity of the situation, just coasting by everything. And that is how the car talked. Despite being lost in California or somewhere, and in jail, and working hard labor in a town, he just never seems to really be too upset. In the ending of the movie, when he makes his race, and all of his new friends show up to be his pit crew, he says something like “Hey, you guys came.”

Now read that in the most laid back way possible. That is how it was said. Like, he seemed almost indifferent. He was just stating a fact, wasn’t happy or excited. Just eh.

But let us get to the most important point of the movie. This movie teaches kids something very very bad.

What you will do for the rest of your life is determined when you are born. (I would also like to note that they never go into cars being born. There is no car factory that they speak of, where, I assume, either machines or cars make more cars. Can you imagine a baby making factory for humans? Kind of creepy. Kind of Matrix-y). Now at these car factories, if they make you a tank, guess what, you will be fighting in wars I assume. If they make you into a cop car, you are sure as heck going to be a cop when you are older.

If you are a race car, you are probably going to do races. You can even gain money and get more upgrades and be a better race car (one with lights. He doesn’t have any in the movie, because, race cars don’t do things beside race and there are lights in the arena). But wait! The girl car gave up her life to help the town! Yes. A more well off car can decide to not live up to its potential and do what you wan’t, but just like real life, someone who was born (or CREATED) as a lesser or specific vehicle can only do that. All the pit crews are fork lifts. Fork lifts can only do pit crew like things. It becomes even more fucked up if you remember they were created. Someone decided to give life to an individual, specifically with specialized abilities to limit their life and force them down a specific path.

What the fuck.

Outside of the car factories there may as well be this guy just standing there.

“You’re all doooomed. Doomed I say. Doooomed. You’re allll doooomed.”

Its an okay movie, with bad messages for the youth. I’d rather live in a world (well, one with Humans) where I can make my own destiny thank you very much.

People are just going to see this review and think of me as a mean old curmudgeon.

Assuming you don’t already assume that.

But I was very disappointed with the new Winnie The Pooh movie.

Blah blah blah, kids will love it, super G, whatever. I hope no kids are reading this website anyways. Just in case they are, there is some bad fucking language in some of the reviews, so they should probably stay away from those.

My problems are as such. First, not counting the credits, this movie is pretty much exactly 60 minutes long. Why a person would rather watch this than a much more interesting hour long show on HBO or Showtime, I wouldn’t know. But just in terms of length (and content) it really just felt like a long episode of a TV show. Not a movie.

The animation itself also felt like it was identical to the original older movies/shows. I know why they did that, the same way they made this movie. To prey entirely on nostalgia for older people, and to introduce it to younger people to try and get more money. If nostalgia is the only reason you would like something new, or being very young, that cannot be a good enough reason for it to be good. I read a few other reviews of this, and most of them mention the nostalgic feeling.

Finally, this doesn’t really offer anything new. This is still based off of the original book series by A. A. Milne. In fact, some of the plots are stories that have already been done in movies (such as the Search For Christopher Robin).

I did enjoy the song about the Bakson, but that was because the animation was done in a creative way. John Cleese did an excellent job as narrator too. While there was some interesting moments in terms of interactions with the book pages and the characters, most of the humor comes from the normal lack of understanding on the part of Pooh.

In conclusion, if a well established series is going to release a movie after a period of downtime, it should a) Have something improved upon the earlier series, such as graphics (not saying boom boom 3D, but there is better 2D animation capabilities), b) Not just rehash all the earlier plots, and c) Be of “movie” quality, not just a longer cartoon tv show.

Tigger, please.

1 out of 4.

Only took me, forever, but now I have seen The Princess and the Frog! Hooray! I can’t believe it took me this long either, because I tend to love movies that have controversy.

For those too lazy to click that wiki link, tPatF had a lot of changes before it became the movie it is now. It was considered offensive, that she start out as a chambermaid, instead of a waitress. It was apparently bad that her name was Maddy. It was also horrible for them to call it The Frog Princess. Pretty much all PR crap. Apparently with some small changes, everyone was fine with it, especially since they hired Oprah Winfrey to be a consultant.

To quote an altered South Park line: “Oprah Winfrey is NOT the Empress of black people!”

But anyways, on to the movie. I will note I had no idea the major plot point that occurred…pretty early in the movie (Once Tiana finds the frog) would happen. All the quick TV spots failed to mention that. Definitely changed the movie for me, so won’t spoil that here. I only liked a few of the songs (The evil dudes was good, as was the song in the abandoned building about the restaurant) but after those early ones, they all went pretty downhill for me. Lyrics just seemed bad, not to mention didn’t care for the characters who later came in.

The evil dude reminded me of Jafar in a less smart, more crazy, kind of way. His demise, also kind of similar. The shadow dwellers or whatever were definitely scary too.

I hated the beginning, when they were young kids. I was hoping so much that it wouldn’t last long, as I was not interested in seeing a story of 9 year olds. Luckily, it was quick. Similarly, Charlotte, the rich girl. When she grew up, her face still looked way too much like her younger self, so to me it just seemed like a tall baby the whole movie. An accidental creepy addition, or is there a moral with that story?

DIE BABY FACE WOMAN, DIE!

Only other big name to have any real lines was John Goodman. Terrence Howard’s character was barely in the movie.

Overall! Just okay. Disappointed with the majority of songs (I am not a Jazz hater, just lyrically), and the weird direction the plot went. Didn’t really enjoy that as I was hoping. Damn animal movies.

I might also be able to call this a tale of two movies. You see, this was going to be my first foray into the 3D movie experience. Not the fancy clear glasses stuff, but the classic RED/BLUE spectra. And it was bad. It said it would take about 5 minutes to get adjusted, did everything right (dark room, distance, etc) but it was just bad. Only the main character seemed to have real color, the background for everybody and everything else being a grey/brown, and flashes of yellow and blue filled my screen.

Let’s just say it was annoying.

More annoying than this white background on white background.

I said screw it, switched to 2D for the last 30 minutes and I had a swell time! The colors were very rampant (I accepted the fact that as it was similar to Tim Burton esque movies, it may just be grey and dull) and I loved it. The details were a LOT better than the first hour for me, so now I just feel robbed. The ability to see a few things be 3D-esque would not make up for the colors and experiences I had to miss out on.

But in terms of reviews, Coraline is pretty damn creepy. Dakota Fanning voices the main character, and the horror like story behind it with the “Other Mother” kinda had me going. Maybe because of all the spider imagery at the end, either way, eeek.

I am glad to find out it was all based off of a book, because otherwise I would be very impressed with whateverfilmmaker to make something like that. Book by Neil Gaiman of course, who has some creepy graphic novels.

Story overall was interesting. Beginning kind of slowed. Not as excited about the over exaggerated characters in it. I am not a fan of freakishly thin, freakishly fat, freakishly disproportioned humans. I am fine with the family being from Michigan, but not fine with the dads Michigan State sweater, that he never takes off. Fuck that.

Seriously. The dad could have died and I would have been fine with it.

I will have to watch this movie again, obviously, so I can focus more on enjoying it, instead of tearing my eyes off. But overall, I don’t think I’d watch it really ever again.

A long time ago I saw the Kevin James stand up special, Sweat the Small Stuff on Comedy Central. I thought to myself, man, he should be in movies. He could totally be the lead of a great comedy.

But then they gave me Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Right here he is doing way more work than expected of a real mall cop.

Movie had a lot of potential, but was probably ruined by being PG. Oh well. But then I get The Zookeeper. Damn it, another PG movie! Rating is going to be my whole basis for why this movie wasn’t as funny as it could have been .

In this movie, there are no magical properties given to Kevin James, it is just that animals can always talk and choose not to talk to humans. Fucking selfish animals. But because Kevin James might leave to pursue the woman of his dreams who also treats him badly, they decide to help him out. Because if he leaves, there will only be shitty zookeepers!

One of the first images to pop up when searching for “shitty zookeepers”.

Bring on a bunch of “hilarious” antics from Kevin James as he tries to woo her back over using time tested animal techniques. He has a hard climb, competing against Joe Rogan, so eventually he realizes being an asshole is the best way. But after morals kick in, he makes the obvious better choice of Dr. Rosario Dawson and everyone lives happily ever after. Also Ken Jeong is in this movie, and still creepy.

But really, the story is completely obvious with where it is going. Half of the animal voices sound horrible to listen too. It offers up pretty much nothing new to the family friendly talking animal movie. But also, Rosario Dawson not being his first choice is just redonkulous anyways. I did laugh at the first scene for sure though. And the ‘kick’ scene at the end.

“Whoa whoa whoa,” Says I as I read the back of the cover. “How can this movie be only 85 minutes? To do a good Gulliver’s Travels, you should probably do at least 3 hours, honestly! What is this,” Asks I, “Does he only go to the small people and big people island?”

That’d be like writing the ginger and hotchick out of the Harry Potter movies.

Yes is my response, and yes is the unfortunate truth. And by big people island, he barely does that. This movie isn’t even close to the book, so it’s ridiculous to share the name. Made for kids. Pah. I think they just wanted to have the break out of being tied down scene, which they could do anyways with creative common licenses by now. 12 or so minutes was wasted getting to the island, and then the rest of the movie, just him and the little people.

I liked all the big names down there. Hah. Big Names. Jason Segel played the tallest of the little people. And the evil general (Chris O’Dowd) for most of the film, until treason, I just felt sorry for. It could just be because he was my favorite part of Bridesmaids and did very well here too.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I guess something that actually used some of the source material, not just what anyone would be able to tell me about the movie. There is a lot of interesting stuff there, and they will probably just make a bunch of sequels, doing bad versions of them too. The only reason I am giving it a higher rating than 1 is because I liked the rendition of War. Sounded fake, but watching them all dance in unison with a tall Amanda Peet was awkward and good.

Just please don’t ever try to tell me Jack Black would make a legitimate world traveler/writer ever again.

Unless he is writing more music and traveling for a band tour. I am fine with that.

I didn’t think I’d ever watch The Sorcerer’s Apprentice when it came out. And by never watch, I mean watch eventually, because I watch everything eventually (I hope). All I knew about it is that it had Nick Cage, some dude, some other dude, and had maybe a magic card game reference or two. Realizing it was definitely a Disney movie meant it couldn’t be the level of badassery that I wanted.

This is the expected level. SLJ in Samurai garb with a ScarJo on the side.

Oh what? The main dude is Jay Baruchel? The Canadian? Well that is cool. I have always been a kind of fan of his since I saw Undeclared, despite now just always playing a sort of awkward nerd. The beginning of this movie was horribly cheesy. To me it looked like no one cared so I figured I’d mock the movie in my head the whole time. Not to mention the first time they are in NYC, it begins in 2000. It scared me, because I thought the main dude was supposed to be at least a teenager, not some kid. But thankfully there was a fight scene soon and then he got older.

What I appreciate out of this film is that there was an attempt to bring science into it. It is not the first movie to say science and magic are similar, but I always seem to prefer that instead of an entirely magical route. After all, who doesnt want the main characters in their movies to always be nerds? The effects in the movie are pretty good, which is another reason I wanted to watch it on Blu-Ray.

The plot falls where a lot of movies fall though. Spend the whole movie trying to lead up to this big encounter with the main character and the meanest super villain ever (not to be confused with the main villain throughout the movie) and the fight doesn’t last that long. I think it would be a lot scary if the big villain in these movies happened earlier, so at least then there isn’t all of this buildup that turns into a, “oh they used a cheap trick somewhat talked about earlier in the movie to win kind of easily after all”. This of course happens a lot. Tis a Cop Out.

It is like the opposite of Dragon Ball “bosses”.

2 out of 4.

Hmm. Hmmm. Hmmm. Okay. I am pretty sure I read some of the Ramona Quimby books. Definitely some of the smaller story lines seemed familiar. What I don’t remember is her seeming that bratty. I think. I know the Ramona character had issues, or was misunderstood, or something, but when I saw the film, in the first half I didn’t feel sorry for her for anything. I could tell what she was doing wrong and how she should fix it. I think this makes me and old person curmudgeon. That could be repetitive.

I didn’t know Ginnifer Goodwin was in here, as Aunt B, and was bleh at it. Probably cause it is with that lame haircut. Ohyeahhh.

If you wanted a statement, consider the statement made.

One of the bigger gripes I have with the movie may be the name. Ramona /and Beezus/. That almost makes it seem like the movie is about two people. But the book series, is about Ramona and her interaction with her family. No books were actually called this title. And this movie is about…Ramona and her interactions with her family. So much not about Beezus, just a side character amongst the rest? I guess they wanted to include her, as she is played by Selena Gomez, and is probably technically the biggest name attached. Right after “mature asian woman” who always plays teacher or doctor roles in things.

Oh well, pointless film, that although technically having a correct sort of ending, didn’t really do much for me.