Tag: Family

I first saw the preview for Wreck-It Ralph when it premiered for the movie Brave. Unfortunately for Brave, I no longer cared about the Pixar movie I was about to watch, but instead was dreading the 4-5 month wait I’d have to endure before seeing Wreck-It Ralph. As a self described nerd, how could I not immediately think it would be the best thing ever.

Video games! In a movie! Ahh!

CAMEOS. OH GOD THE CAMEOS.

Our story takes place inside of an arcade, in the fictional game Fix-It Felix Jr., clearly a Donkey Kong-esque game. But the antagonist, Ralph (John C. Reilly) is tired of his place in life. He wrecks things like a boss, but he is tired of being the bad guy. The townsfolk and Felix (Jack McBrayer) are still afraid of him, unwilling to let him hang out during their downtime. However, they tell him if he is able to earn a medal on his own, they’d be willing to celebrate with him and treat him better.

You know, an impossible task given he is the bad guy in his game. So he decides to leave his game and temporarily join “Hero’s Duty”, a much newer and advanced FPS game that awards medals for reaching the top of the tower. Turns out games have gotten a lot more violent than they were 30 years ago and he has a few issues. He eventually is able to claim a medal but then finds himself himself in “Sugar Rush”, a candy land racer game, accidentally bringing an alien from the previous game. There he meets a glitch, Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) who is unable to enter the daily races due to the cruel King Candy (Alan Tudyk).

Alien breeding pools, lollipop fields, and Jane Lynch as a futuristic Captain await you in the finale of this game hopping film. But more importantly, can Ralph finish his task and get back to his game before his absence causes it to get unplugged for good?

Wouldn’t it be great if the tiny girls in Sugar Rush were all secretly Barakas?

Before I talk about how awesome this movie is, let me tell you my one real complaint. Sure, there are a lot of video game character cameos in the surge protectors outside of the games, but I am a bit disappointed Ralph only goes to visit two other games. I was expecting at least two more game hopping levels, to maximize the experience for Ralph. They might have done this only to to increase material for future movies (that really aren’t necessary).

But the rest of the movie, wow oh wow. The animators put a lot of effort into the detail of the worlds. There is a lot that goes on in the background, including additional cameos. Despite the large advertisements with Sonic upfront, he is only in a “commercial” in the actual movie. Personally, I thought Zangief was the best cameo in the movie, given that his character felt a bit inspirational with his back story.

I am having a hard time to figuring out if I liked the movie for being good, or just because I grew up with video games. Obviously if you have never really been a fan of video games, I don’t think this is the best movie to watch. But I still think it is an enjoyable enough comedy/action movie that will entertain everyone who sees it, even if they don’t understand every little reference.

Regardless of how good or bad the movie Here Comes The Boom ends up being, I think we all should give Kevin James some serious credit. He lost over 80 lbs for this movie, trained with MMA fighters (already being a big fan), and actually grew the muscle you see in the film.

You see that? That is perseverance if anything.

Scott Voss (James) is a down and out high school biology teacher. He gives zero fucks right now about his life, and is late quite often to teaching his own class. How does he teach? He lays back and lets them do book work, very little interaction. Ten years ago he was teacher of the year! He used to care then! But with budget cuts and changes in policy, he has lost all will to care. But you know who does care? Marty Streb (Henry Winkler), the music teacher. Not only that, but at his old age he has a kid on the way! So much passion, so little time. However, the school budget is being cut, and his job is gone after next year.

Well, Scott can’t accept that. He loves the orchaestra music he hears. They need to raise the money! But with out any other teachers willing to help, except for the school nurse (Salma Hayek). After teaching a few nigh time citizenship classes for extra funds, Scott agrees to tutor Niko (Bas Rutten), a large man from Holland who introduces him to UFC and other MMA events. What’s that? Even the loser makes cash? Well, shit! Scott used to wrestle in college, twenty years ago, he can just do that to earn money much faster!

Here Comes The Boom is one man’s quest to lose (and hey, maybe sometimes win) to save his new friends job at a high school that just doesn’t seem to care anymore. Also featuring Joe Rogan as himself, and Charice as a school girl in his class, who you might recognize as Sunshine for a few episodes on Glee.

Oh there is no way he doesn’t make it to the big times with this all star talent in his corner.

I know this may come as a shock, but the song Boom – P.O.D. is actually featured quite heavily in this movie. Who’d have thought?!

As expected, this film doesn’t offer much in terms of unique never before seen moments of film. It has its Rocky moments, but its hard to do a fighting movie without them. It even reminds me a bit of Warrior, one of the better/underrated films of 2011, as one of the main characters was a teacher who was trying to raise money through MMA fighting. That one being a lot more realistic, having him lose his job once the school found out about his second life and all.

But hey, this is a family movie with a happy ending. The drama that happens is expected, as is the conclusion to the story. I wouldn’t describe this as Kevin James’ worst movie, but it isn’t his best either. Henry Winkler brought a lot of heart to the movie though, and Bas Rutten had enough energy to be exciting as well. Basically, without reading a review, most of you could guess on how the movie would turn out, a pretty average film.

Oh heck yeah, it is October now! That means we get some Halloween themed movies, and of course, an increase in horror films. I am not as excited about those, but it comes with the territory.

I was a bit apprehensive about Hotel Transylvania at first. Is this just another quickly made CGI movie with a group of characters going on a journey? They have a lot of those. But then I found out it was being made by Genndy Tartakovsky, who brought us Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack. This can only lead to good things.

Like in real life, diversity in friendships is expected, with only one of each type of creature/race allowed.

Dracula (Adam Sandler) is a pretty big deal. But now he finds himself a single father, with his wife being killed by those gross mean humans in the 1800s. Well, he vowed to never let the mean old humans mess with his daughter or friends ever again. So he decides to build an enormous fortress, hidden from society. Heck, if he can also scare his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) into staying there forever, it’d be perfect. He also decides to run this place as a hotel, a premier destination that has never seen the likes of a human since its creation!

The movie takes place in modern times, the eve of Mavis’ 118th birthday! She was told she could go out and see the world at that time, which Dracula lets happen. But he sets up a fake village to scare her into believing him about the horrors of humans, which works very successfully! Unfortunately, it also gets the eye of Jonny (Andy Samberg), a human hiker (stoner?) who is able to stumble upon the Hotel and ruin its perfect streak.

Dracula has to go into a panic! He can’t just go and kill him, that would set back monsters hundreds of years, they are over that stuff. Instead he has to hide him, eventually in plain sight as a Frankenstein like monster. Too bad he is also the only one “around Mavis’ age”, and she kind of falls for him. Whoops. Can he hide the human and protect his hotel’s record, while lying to his daughter and guests? Huge cast of people at the hotel, including his friends the Mummy (CeeLo Green), the Wolfman, wife and kids (Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon), Frankenstein and wife (Kevin James, Fran Drescher), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and Quasimodo (Jon Lovitz).

You can’t even handle the amount of celebrity voice actors!

Goods news, adults who read this (because I clearly have a large child readership base), you won’t be bored by this family movie! That is always a plus. It also isn’t full of fart jokes, only about one, which is strange for something with Sandler involved.

It had a lot of things working for it. The quick Dracula explosions, the voice acting (most characters you couldn’t identify right away their actor, except for Invisible Man), the animation, the plot. All pretty decent. I didn’t like the Jonny character at all, his voice annoyed me and his actions. I was kind of hoping Dracula would just hide him in a dungeon the whole time and be good to go, but eh, it happens. Was just a bad stereotypical modern hippie traveler.

The only other issue for me is that I just know I never really want to see it again. I don’t think it will be interesting a second viewing. Very strange, I know. But I think its just a one and done type of deal. So if you are going to go see it, might as well wait til closer to Halloween. Worth a gander, but not a buy.

Finally. Finally I can say I am the last Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie…or am I?

This version, Dog Days, takes place after seventh grade, but during the summer before 8th. Shit, that means if there is only middle school for these books (guess), then they can still do another one next year.

Four movies in four years, kind of ballsy. Or maybe it is just easy for this type of ‘epic novel’.

Summer? Time to get fucked up and ride some rides.

So yeah, get stoked, time to meet up with Greg (Zachary Gordon) again! But now that school is out, he has one goal, to play video games. Lamely enough, he is playing some dumb wizard game, and apparently thinks it will take all summer to beat it. Well, maybe he sucks at life.

But his dad (Steve Zahn) is not a fan. Summer is good weather so he must be outside! Physical fit stuff, oh well. And he better not piss off his dad this summer, because he just learned about some prep/obedience/military? school that starts in the 8th grade. You know, which Greg is about to be in. So of course Greg fails to get his game on after the first day, and pisses off his dad. Oh well, according to the mom (Rachael Harris), it is partially the dad’s fault. He needs to spend time with his son!

But they have nothing in common. Camping, reinactments, fishing, blah. Thankfully, Greg lies again and says he has a summer job at the local country club. But really he is just going there as Rowley’s (Robert Capron), trying to impress Holly (Peyton List), by lying to her a bunch. She meant to give him her phone number, but never finished writing it. Unfortunately, throughout the summer Greg is too much of a pansy to bring that up and get the missing digits to actually get his girl.

Chirag (Karan Brar) is still an Indian kid stereotype, Patti (Laine MacNeil) is still mean, and Fregley (Grayson Russell) is still unpopular.

Rodrick (Devon Bostick), despite what happened in the last film, is kind of a dick again, and uses his brother to get into the country club.

Can Greg not screw up everything he touches, and get a good relationship going with his dad?

I can’t tell. They look pretty much the same, so they must be awesome.

Remember what the sequel did with the first? It made it better, and also feel more realistic. You think both Greg and the brother grew with that movie, and it felt kind of awesome. Well I think that is what they meant to do with this version. But instead of the boy and older brother relationship, it would go to the boy and his father relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, it definitely happened, but the execution felt wrong. Just felt wrong the entire time. The threat of boarding school, and Greg’s inability to not be a dick. Like, he made progress in the last movie, but it is almost as if they were just kidding and no progress was made at all. His brother was kind of a dick to him (not as complete, but still not very nice). Just felt like they robbed the characters of their development.

Literally nothing really goes as planned in this movie, and to me it seemed like that most of Greg’s actions were caused by an inability to think, even though they generally portray him as a bit smarter of a character. But nope, bad choice after bad choice, and still, despite learning lessons in previous films, wanting to be cool and treating his friends like crap.

Way to go Greg, you really are starting to suck. Other minor announces, like Patti yelling out the score during tennis, and scoring it wrong (but seemingly correct? She was calling shit a point that wasn’t close to being a point). Also, Greg’s inability to get the last two digits of Holly’s number, all because he couldn’t just say, “Yo Bitch, finish that message”. Especially if he was right by her, and other people were talking that involved neither of them, he couldn’t figure out how to talk on his own I guess. Just made me pissed off.

I say a lot I try to make sure that movies based on books are given their own subjective look, without bringing the book into it. After all, they are different mediums. I need to judge the movie just on its movieness.

But The Lorax? That shit is classic. Here is an audio version for the lazy who have never heard of it. I think a movie version is definitely doable, but it will be weirder, and probably pretty short. Depending on what they set it in.

And just hopefully not extremely up in your ass on the environmental issues. That’s all I want. Lots of rhyming, damn it. Also, lots of Lorax!

Well, these things arent the Lorax. Poor start so far.

The movie begins with Ted (Zac Efron) a very non Lorax human having big dreams in Thneedville, a completely “artificial city”. Everything is metal, plastic, or synthetic in some way. No trees or plants, that is all fake too. But no worries, they love their lifestyle and capitalism. They even love the fact that they by air, from O’Hare (Rob Riggle) for whatever reason.

But Ted is in love. With a girl! A strange girl who dreams of the world outside the walled city that they cannot leave. Audrey (Taylor Swift) wants a real life tree so badly, she even said she’d marry a boy if he gave her one. Simple needs! Despite the wishes of his mom (Jenny Slate) and grandma (Betty White), he escapes the city walls and goes to the barren landscape! And obviously, as I just described it, it kind of sucks. No trees anywhere.

There is a creepy house though, hopefully that is where the Onceler (Ed Helms) lived, a rumor of a man who is said to have tree seeds in his possession. And does he? Who knows, because he wants to talk to Ted first and tell him his tale, about how he met the Lorax (Danny DeVito) when he first came to the fields to start up a business and become a success.

Then you know, we get a really long version of the Lorax story, with lots of singing and dancing, and animation explosions, and lengthening. After the seed is received, where the book normally ends, the movie then continues to explain what he does with the seed and his attempts at taking down the O’Hare foundation in Thneedville.

Aw, there is the Lorax. Super caauyuute.

Interestingly enough, the first scene actually got me hooked into the movie. The first song titled after the city was actually catchy and interesting, minus the weird parts about extreme capitalism and being a zombie. But yeah! I was excited. But then it went more and more downhill.

After that I didn’t really like a single song, which is a shame. Especially the last one, Let It Grow, that stuff got weird. But after Ted meets the Onceler (who yes, you get to see in the flashbacks. Just hands would be weird in a movie), the story of him going out into the fields, finding the lorax, and then eventually destroying the ecosystem takes WAY TOO LONG. It is ridiculously long. And pointless. Especially since the destruction part doesn’t take a long time, just the part after 1 tree to get to oh man cut it all down.

The morals associated with the Lorax novel are basically simple. Hey, don’t over do it. That is about it. The movie kind of takes that message, amplifies it to show even further extremes (Thneedville) and smacks you over the face with it again and again. I didn’t like that, it was far stronger than it should have been. The ending, after the return to the city with the seed, was just a long chase scene that felt pretty annoying too. I didn’t hate the O’Hare character, minus the fact that he didn’t make much sense, but the way they chose to portray him (not his portrayal?) was annoying to me. Just his general look. I thought “Oh jeez, thanks storyboard artists. Couldn’t have made him more normal sized? Fuck your proportions”.

There were some good moments, but man, I do think this would have been better at 40 minutes max and less acid trips.

Yeah!

Another Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie, that is what you are thinking right? And with such a demanding subtitle of Rodrick Rules, there is no way it could actually fail.

Especially if all of the major cast are brought back, minus one notabale change. You know, because Chloe Grace Moretz had to become too much of a big deal to continue these movies. Or something. But that is an assumption. Hell, I don’t even know if the events in this movie or the others are actual book events, or just made up. So I guess her return doesn’t matter.

I guess they took that new bitch to a roller disco. Bitches love roller discos.

Remember Greg’s (Zachary Gordon) quest for popularity? Well, he still really isn’t popular. And he kind of still wants to be. Some would say that means he didn’t learn anything at all from the first film. But don’t worry, his quest for popularity at least doesn’t cause him to destroy his friendships again. Even though there are some mean pranks (like pretending that Chirag (Karan Brar) is invisible the whole film, as a big practical joke that the school joins in. Kind of a dick move, Greg).

He is real friends with Rowley (Robert Capron) still, just tries to avoid the fact that he is into magic now and wants to have Greg as his assistant for a talent show. Don’t be gross, Rowley. And of course Patti (Laine MacNeil) is still an unobtrusive whore, and Fregley (Grayson Russell) is still a gross loser.

So what the fuck is new? Well, there is the new girl, Holly (Peyton List) who is way too cool, and thus impossible for Greg to attain. He has to become cool himself. But he is lame, and not cool, so kind of sucks. But turns out there is a way to become cool, and that way is through his brother Rodrick (Devon Bostick).

The mom (Rachael Harris) actually devises a system called Mom Bucks to try and get them closer together, but it doesn’t really work. Thankfully, they end up bonding over an illegal house party the brother throws, since Greg was willing to cover for him. Hells yeah. That is when Rodrick starts teaching him how to be cool. Gives him a list of rules to follow (yeahhh). They aren’t all good, but damn it, they are trying.

Hopefully the dad (Steve Zahn) doesn’t find out about the party, causing a lot of other problems to occur, and banning Rodrick from performing at the talent show. That would surely drive a wedge in the friendship and coolness factor.

So I guess the title could be from Rodrick either being awesome, or his list of helpful hints. But where else might the title have come from? Hmm.

So uhh, shockingly this movie wasn’t that bad. I know, this is going to sound strange. But it was definitely better than the original one. Sure, it was still more of the same in terms of children shenanigans and some silly humor. But it was definitely just better.

Greg wasn’t as much of an asshat, and way more likable of a person. The relationship between him and his brother, obviously a major part of the movie, felt pretty real. Had some unusual circumstances come about, but just felt correct.

Maybe it is just because I have an older brother and it all made sense because of that, but they really hit the nail on the head.

So this movie actually is enjoyable, if you are in the kid mindset of course. So hopefully the third one is even more better!

Heyyyy, family movie based off of kids books. I see you. Diary Of A Wimpy Kid I actually saw a few years ago. I saw it for like, $3 or something, and said why not. It could be interesting. Kids movies aren’t ALWAYS bad. But the potential is high.

Either way, this shit has been blowing up. A movie a year, with the same cast. Kind of like the new much faster Harry Potter. Watch out JK Rowling!

Ah I get it. It was a book, so it takes book drawings and makes them into people. HOW CLEVER MOVIE. I mean, who cares~

Greg (Zachary Gordon) is an 11 year old kid, about to go to middle school, and is pretty wimpy. What does that mean in this context? Eh, he just sucks at being social and telling people his true feelings mostly. Thankfully he has a journal he gets to write in, where he can vent his shit and whine all day long. If only people could read his mind.

Well poor Greg wants to be popular when he goes to middle school, so he is prepped. But his best friend Rowley (Robert Capron) is a total lameo, and uncool. Having him as a friend might drag him down! So maybe he can make him cool by default, or at least hope that his uncoolness wont rub off on him.

Greg quickly meets a girl who works on the school paper (Chloe Grace Moretz) who might have the hots for him, but because she is different, that makes her not cool. WHAT THE HELL GREG. So instead Greg tries to become popular his own way, and fails over and over again. In fact, Rowley becomes more popular than Greg could ever try. Too bad Greg is such a jerk face. Oh well, hopefully the curse of the stinky cheese doesn’t do anything in this movie.

Lots of other players in this movie too, such as his parents (Rachael Harris and Steve Zahn), older brother (Devon Bostick), and younger brother (Connor Fielding). He also has some ‘friends’ (Karan Brar, Grayson Russell), and not to mention mean old Patti (Laine MacNeil).

Patti is a mean wrestler. Didn’t you know? She will kick your dick, without remorse.

So this book series is actually an interesting one. They kind of make the main character a jerk, and actually make it hard to sympathize with him. I mean, sympathy is possible, since he is only a kid, but it is definitely hard. Sure he just wants to be liked, but he is an egotistical fucker who is willing to stomp over his friends. Very fucked up, Greg. Thus the wimpy ness I guess.

The kid who played Rowley was pretty entertaining though. Technically the only aspect I found entertaining. Kid might go far, be the next funny fat guy. Watch out, in like, 10 years or whatever. And in 15 he will be coked out of his mind, but we can always remember the good times.

But other than, a very simple story, and not much really happens besides a kids quest to be cool, and you know, failing. I can’t wait to watch the rest…err.

Ice Age Fucking 4: Continental Fucking Draft. Much like Madagascar movies, I had to watch a few of these films real quick before seeing the latest installment. I saw the first one a long time ago, but 2 and 3 I never really go to, because I never really liked the first one. Might have just been old bitter teenager phase though, so might rewatch it as well.

Either way. I have been up to my neck in these guys this last weekend, so lets just get straight to it!

Marathoning these things could explain why I find the teenage girl Mammoth Peaches strangely attractive.

Manny (Ray Romano) the mammoth, is living the good life. With the help of his “half opossom” wife Ellie (Queen Latifah), he is busy raising his ~teenage daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer). Diego (Denis Leary) the sabretooth is still kicking ass, kind of lonely. And Sid (John Leguizamo) the sloth is still crazy. But at least his family came to visit! Just to drop off his grandma (Wanda Sykes) who is also ‘crazy’.

OH WHAT THE FUCK THE GROUND STARTS TO BREAK APART AND THE SHIT IS HITTING THE FAN. Sid, Diego, Manny, and Grandma Sloth find themselves on a small ice chip floating down the sea, with plans on reaching the rest of the herd at the ‘land bridge’.

They have to get there while being chased by a (geologically quick as fuck) slowly moving massive wall, that uhh, represents something. Peaches wants to fit in with the other teen mammoths, especially cute Ethan (Drake). But he has nasty ass ho friends (Heather Morris, Nicki Minaj), and they all hate other things. So she might have to disown her best friend a molehog named Louis (Josh Gad) to do it, but hey, whatever. I’m sure he will understand.

Back on the crazy ass main adventure, uhh after giant storms, they run into pirates. Because why the fuck not.

Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage…!) an ape like creature, named for his tendency to rip open animals from their gut to their neck, wants the sabretooth and mammoth to join his crew (on a floating ice, yes). That is how his crew was formed, saving animals mostly, and them wanting to work for him. There is a song and everything. It includes Shira (Jennifer Lopez), a white female sabretooth tiger (yes that means exactly what you think it does). Some sort of bunny (Aziz Ansari), a kangaroo (Rebel Wilson), a large Sea Lion (Nick Frost) and many other smaller critters.

So their big plan involves escaping from them (At every corner), trying to figure out how to get back home to save their families and friends from certain doom. How they’d save them once they get back? Who knows, thinking ahead is for lame people.

Arggh, a band of ice pirates, rag tag sailors, scurvy, etc.

Ugh. So uhh, first off, as you may have guessed, this movie is full of bad science. “But it is a kids movie…!” Get that excuse out of my face. That seems to be the go to response when filmmakers would rather be lazy and make a poor movie with little to no value. That is sad though, because the original Ice Age had tons of science facts on their side. It actually took place when there were Mammoths and Sabretooth Tigers and even Humans. Sure, during an ice age too. That was around 18,000 BCE. Well, this movie is arguably a few years later than the first, with the birth and growing up of the mammoth baby. But yet Pangea splits apart in it? Something that began 200 million years ago, but instead is represented as something 20k years ago? That is a few magnitudes off, fuck that shit.

It is a popular notion in education. Get an idea in their head, and every few years, fix it a bit for them until it is actually correct. But why not just always be correct? You know, so the kids don’t feel lied too?

Either way, this movie had WAYYYY too many characters. I left out some pretty big names, because small roles because I was just tired of adding more.

It also did bad on its own self pacing. Would show a few days in time with the main cast, then 5s with the rest of the families. Their story lines being mostly one of a normal middle school drama that we’ve all seen before, and happens the same way every time. I guess they took a cue from Madagascar and decided to get in on that interspecies lovin’.

I’d say the CGI was better than the previous ones finally, but most of it was just ridiculous ice boats floating on random storms and water. And narhwals.

Sometimes the Japanese don’t produce their own original content. Seriously, did you know that? I learned that last night. I never even considered that fact! But damn, it can happen.

So we have The Secret World Of Arrietty (or just Arietty if you have the fancy non American version), which is based on The Borrowers! And maybe I also just learned that they were a series of books before that movie in the 90s. Holy crap, there are like three Borrowers movies.

Fuck it, today is a day of learning and facts. It has been declared!

Don’t spray your house for bugs ever. Might end up killing a tiny human, you monster.

Shawn (David Henrie, some 23 year old who was a Wizard in a Disney show and the SON in How I Met Your Mother), is a 12 year old boy with a bad heart. So he goes off to live with his aunt for a week before his surgery, in the nice peaceful countryside.

At the same time, we have Arrietty (Bridgit Mendler who was…also a Wizard in a disney show?), who has just turned 14 but you know, is only a few inches tall, a borrower who lives in the house with her father and mother (Will Arnett and Amy Poehler, who formed an incestuous relationship in Blades Of Glory).

Well on her first borrowing mission, she ends up dropping a sugar cube and accidentally waking up the delirious Shawn, who wants her to stay, quite creepily. But she runs away, and her parents are freaking out. Especially when he leaves the sugar cube near their home with a note “You Forgot Something”. Shit, this might turn into a horror movie soon, or the weirdest relationship ever.

Either way, she becomes more and more curious about the human, despite the parent warnings. Humans kill Borrowers, or other evil things. Especially that shady housekeeper, Hara (Carol Burnett, who I have nothing clever to add here for your knowledge), who thinks they exist but has no proof (yet). But if their shenanigans continue, they might have to move anyways. Especially if Hara gets involved. Hopefully they meet some savage Borrower who can help them find a new home, like that Spiller guy (Moises Arias, who was someone on a Miley Cyrus show and…maybe a wizard. What the fuck?).

To me this whole movie, her crazy mean face reminded me a bit of Stich’s face.

Now I am going to base this off the dubbed version of course, but I think unintentionally they made a lot of this really creepy. Like, having a 23 year old male voice a 12 year old kid. His voice was strangely deep, and spoke super slow. I felt scared that he’d turn out to be a serial killer or, you know, worse.

That with the ending are really my only complaints. It kind of left it super open ended, and didn’t really do much for my plot questions.

But outside of that, loved pretty much everything else. Especially the animation. I watched it on DVD and was still floored away with it. Obviously it wasn’t CGI, but it was just really really well done and processed I guess. If I had seen it on Blu-Ray I wouldn’t have believed it possible.

But the characters were nice, the music was nice, and the story was simple and only slightly felt stolen. Hey, its all good.

When I saw the (countless) previews for Brave I was never wildly impressed with them, and didn’t really care if I saw it or not. Well, I knew I would see it but when is the better question.

I also learned recently that there is a rather large subset of people who believe that Pixar can do no wrong, all of their movies are amazing, and judge new movies based off everything they’ve ever done. That sucks for Pixar. Good for money, but still, kind of a weird position to be in.

Either way, what bugged me about the previews is they were all super vague. For some reason a girl wants to change her fate and has to go at great lengths to do it. But from the previews it makes it seem like the fate she wants to avoid is just a marriage? Hmm, weird.

Oh and she likes to shoot things, of course.

Merida (Kelly Macdonald) is a Scottish “princesS”. Her father Fergus (Billy Connolly) lost his leg in a fight with the deadliest bear ever, of all time, and helped lead the other three tribes to fight off invaders. So they made him king. However, they agreed that to strengthen the tribes, the daughter (once she gets a certain age) must marry the first born son of one of the other chieftains. Ugh, marriage!

Her mom Elinor (Emma Thompson) is the voice of reason in the house, and has been grooming her daughter to be a proper lady and suitable Queen should the time come. Her dad gave her a bow and arrow, and taught her to ride and be adventurous and hunt! Doesn’t help when the the tribes come to town, the three suitors are all “undesirable” (seemingly based on outward appearance only, for shame Merida). Lord Dingwall (Robbie Coltrane), Lord MacGuffin (Kevin McKidd) and Lord Macintosh (Craig Ferguson) are all willing to fight over it, so she has an archery competition to decide!

Which she enters herself, pissing off her mom, embarrassing the tribes, and then she runs away. Hey whats that? A witch (Julie Walters)? A potion to change her fate by changing her mom? That is a vague as crap potion wish, I am sure it won’t come back to haunt her or do anything too drastic. AND THEN I REALIZED WHY THE PLOT WAS SO SECRETIVE.

It just feels ludicrous to even explain what happens in the second half, and spoils a lot of things. So uhh, rather you find out on your own.

Her unkempt hair shows her free spirit.

Alright, first off I don’t care that the main character is a woman and that she can shoot a bow. Movies that go against stereotypes just to do that shouldn’t matter, cause I don’t care if a lead is male or female, animated or actually existing. Turns out the fact that she can shoot a bow really good adds…very little to the story. Its whole purpose to give her a “non girly” thing to do and surprise people with.

But outside of that, I think the the writers walked a pretty nice line in terms of avoiding women stereotypes, if that was their goal. Don’t be fooled though, this movie is mostly stereotypes. I mean, kilts, Scottish people, just asking for it. Most of the humor is slapstick in nature as well. But the mom? Not mean, just caring. Merida? Not really brave, but kind of reckless and childish. The witch? Not at all mean, just kind of a plot point to teach people lesson/morals.

The actual “bad guy” in the movie also turns out to not even be that bad. A film with everyone being a decent person (eventually).

You might be confused. “Wait? Merida not that Brave?” Sure, she does some stuff, takes some courage. But the bravest character in the movie is in fact the mom character. I think it should have been more from her point of view, but that is harder to sell. So when I looked back on the film, I imagined it as her story and liked it a lot better. Because like I said, Merida is just way more typical child, leaping before looking, overreacting, refusing to talk things out, reckless, than brave. But hey, whatever.

I also felt that some instances could have been vastly improved, story telling wise. But then it would have probably made it a PG-13 movie instead. Oh well.