Monthly Roundup – February 2017

01 Wednesday Mar 2017

Tags

Alexis Wajsbrot, Alycia Debnam-Carey, Barbara Hale, Bill Douglas, Black mirror, Boys' school, Bryce Dallas Howard, Comedy, Damien Macé, David Lowery, Disney, Don't Hang Up, Drama, Edwin L. Marin, Fantasy, Friend Request, Gambling, Garrett Clayton, Gregg Sulkin, Horror, Insomnia, Internet, Joanna David, Lady Luck, Lawrence Huntington, Life on the Road, Literary adaptation, Marius Goring, Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill, Oakes Fegley, Pete's Dragon, Prank calls, Remake, Reviews, Ricky Gervais, Robert Young, Romance, Saxon Logan, Simon Verhoeven, Sleepwalker

Life on the Road (2016) / D: Ricky Gervais / 96m

aka David Brent: Life on the Road

Cast: Ricky Gervais, Ben Bailey Smith, Tom Basden, Jo Hartley, Tom Bennett, Mandeep Dhillon, Andrew Brooke, Andy Burrows, Steve Clarke, Michael Clarke, Stuart Wilkinson

Rating: 5/10 – post-Wernham Hogg, David Brent (Gervais) is now a salesman with dreams of becoming famous by putting together a band, Foregone Conclusion, and going on tour; the gulf between Life on the Road and The Office (2001-03) can be gauged within the first ten minutes as Gervais treats his most enduring (and sympathetic) character with a complete disregard for Brent’s development, and by being unnecessarily cruel to everyone else, making this a chore to sit through, and only slightly more enjoyable than Special Correspondents (2016).

Pete’s Dragon (2016) / D: David Lowery / 103m

Cast: Bryce Dallas Howard, Oakes Fegley, Wes Bentley, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence, Robert Redford, Isiah Whitlock Jr

Rating: 7/10 – following a car crash that kills his parents and leaves him lost in the woods, a young boy called Pete is “adopted” and cared for by Elliot, who just happens to be a dragon, a situation that continues until civilisation comes calling in the form of a logging operation; a good-natured remake of the 1977, Pete’s Dragon original offers good performances all round, beautiful New Zealand backdrops, a lovable dragon, and keeps it all light and airy, all of which compensates for a script that wavers too often in its attempts to put Elliot in any real danger from Urban and his men.

Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill (1948) / D: Lawrence Huntington / 92m

Cast: Marius Goring, David Farrar, Greta Gynt, Raymond Huntley, Edward Chapman, Mary Jerrold, Ralph Truman

Rating: 8/10 – when a new teacher at an all-boys’ school, Mr Traill (Farrar), proves more popular with the pupils, and the school nurse (Gynt), than the older Mr Perrin (Goring), personal and professional jealousies lead to an unexpected tragedy; an adaptation of the novel by Hugh Walpole, Mr. Perrin and Mr. Traill expertly creates a hothouse environment for its title characters, but never comes down fully on the side of either, making this a surprisingly jaundiced view of male rivalry, and a movie that features an exemplary performance from Goring.

Don’t Hang Up (2016) / D: Alexis Wajsbrot, Damien Macé / 83m

Cast: Gregg Sulkin, Garrett Clayton, Bella Dayne, Jack Brett Anderson, Parker Sawyers, Sienna Guillory

Rating: 5/10 – two phone pranksters, Sam (Sulkin) and Brady (Clayton), find themselves on the receiving end of a psycho(?) who’s willing to play their own game against them, with increasingly disturbing and violent results; basically the first ten minutes of Scream (1996) stretched to breaking point, Don’t Hang Up will soon have you rooting for the psycho as Sam and Brady behave as stupidly as you might expect, even to the point of continually picking up the phone, or answering their mobiles, just so the story can advance a bit further.

Lady Luck (1946) / D: Edwin L. Marin / 97m

Cast: Robert Young, Barbara Hale, Frank Morgan, James Gleason, Don Rice, Harry Davenport, Lloyd Corrigan

Rating: 7/10 – Mary (Hale), who’s staunchly anti-gambling marries Scott (Young), who does his best to reform, but a trip to Las Vegas – on their honeymoon, no less – soon puts their marriage in jeopardy; a lightweight romantic comedy featuring smooth performances and a pleasing sense of its own absurdity, Lady Luck is carefree, populist piece of entertainment that hits a few dramatic potholes along the way to its final scene, but is nevertheless an enjoyable way to spend ninety-seven minutes.

Friend Request (2016) / D: Simon Verhoeven / 92m

Cast: Alycia Debnam-Carey, William Moseley, Connor Paolo, Brit Morgan, Brooke Markham, Sean Marquette, Liesl Ahlers, Shashawnee Hall, Nicholas Pauling

Rating: 4/10 – the suicide of one of her classmates leads Laura to regret unfriending her on social media, a decision that has dire consequences for her and her friends, as her classmate’s ghost seeks revenge from beyond the grave; in amongst the horror motifs and distressed editing techniques that are now a depressing norm of the genre, Friend Request does have some pertinent things to say about popularity and the perils of social media, but it’s done in such a ham-fisted, unconvincing way that all that effort goes to waste very quickly.

Sleepwalker (1984) / D: Saxon Logan / 50m

Cast: Joanna David, Bill Douglas, Nickolas Grace, Heather Page, Fulton Mackay, Michael Medwin, Raymond Huntley

Rating: 7/10 – two couples at an isolated farmhouse share an evening deriding each other’s class and social values, unaware that the sleepwalking tendencies of one of them will lead to blood being spilt; part curdled Abigail’s Party and part baroque thriller, Sleepwalker has much to say about middle class angst, the antagonism inherent in middle class relationships of the time, and sets it all against the backdrop of a social evening from hell.

Monthly Roundup – January 2017

31 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Action, Animation, Ariel Schulman, Auli'i Cravalho, Chester Morris, Chris Wedge, Chris Williams, D.J. Caruso, Dave Franco, David Yates, Disney, Don Hall, Donnie Yen, Dwayne Johnson, Eddie Redmayne, Emma Roberts, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, George Sherman, Gerry O'Hara, Guy Hamilton, Heart of a Dog, Henry Joost, Horror, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom, Ian McShane, J.K. Rowling, January 2017, John Musker, Laurie Anderson, Lolabelle, Lucas Till, Moana, Monster Trucks, Monthly roundup, Movies, Nerve (2016), Oliver Reed, Rat terrier, Ray Enright, Reviews, Richard Conte, Ron Clements, Sean Patrick O'Reilly, The Party's Over, The Pleasure Girls, The Sixties, The Sleeping City, Tomorrow at Seven, Vin Diesel, xXx: Return of Xander Cage

Nerve (2016) / D: Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman / 96m

Cast: Dave Franco, Emma Roberts, Emily Meade, Miles Heizer, Juliette Lewis, Kimiko Glenn, Marc John Jefferies, Colson Baker, Brian Marc

Rating: 6/10 – an online game of Truth or Dare quickly escalates into something more dangerous than expected when Vee (Roberts) decides to escape her comfort zone and take on the game’s challenges; less than subtle criticisms of the Internet and social media can’t hide the fact that this kind of scenario – teens (mostly) take risks to become “cool” in the eyes of the world – lacks immediacy and a real sense that its characters are in any actual danger, leaving Nerve to flirt with its ideas but never really take them out on a first date.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) / D: David Yates / 133m

Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Colin Farrell, Alison Sudol, Samantha Morton, Ezra Miller, Faith Wood-Blagrove, Jenn Murray, Jon Voight, Ronan Raftery, Josh Cowdery, Ron Perlman, Carmen Ejogo

Rating: 5/10 – in New York in 1926, young wizard, Newt Scamander (Redmayne), arrives with a case full of fantastic beasts (what else?) and finds himself in the midst of an evil plot to boost Warner Bros.’ take at the box office; despite being written by J.K. Rowling, Fantastic Beasts... is littered with characters we never get to know, clumsy demarcations between the wizarding world and that of the Muggles (or No-Maj’s as they’re known here), features another tedious series of destruction-porn episodes, and fosters the overwhelming sense that, despite protestations to the contrary, this is a franchise cash-in and nothing more.

Moana (2016) / D: Ron Clements, John Musker, Don Hall, Chris Williams / 107m

Cast: Auli’i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House, Temuera Morrison, Jemaine Clement, Nicole Scherzinger, Alan Tudyk

Rating: 6/10 – when a curse threatens the island she lives on, chief’s daughter Moana (Cravalho) goes in search of the one person who can put things right: the cause of the curse, demi-god Maui (Johnson); following on from the delightful (and fresh) Zootopia (2016), it’s shocking to see just how lightweight Moana is in comparison, with little depth to the characters, and a plot so flimsy it’s almost see-through, all of which leaves the movie’s stunning animation as the only thing that makes an impact.

The Party’s Over (1965) / D: Guy Hamilton / 94m

Cast: Oliver Reed, Clifford David, Ann Lynn, Katherine Woodville, Louise Sorel, Mike Pratt, Maurice Browning, Jonathan Burn, Roddy Maude-Roxby, Annette Robertson, Alison Seebohm, Eddie Albert

Rating: 7/10 – an American businessman (David) comes to London to persuade his fiancée (Lynn) to return home and get married, but he finds himself battling against her friends (led by Reed’s anti-Establishment poser), and her sudden disappearance; seen today, The Party’s Over has all the hallmarks of a Sixties curio, but at the time it pushed quite a few boundaries, and fell foul of the British censors, forcing Hamilton to remove his name from the credits – but not before he’d made a fascinating and striking movie that’s only let down by a handful of weak performances and an ending that matches them.

The Sleeping City (1950) / D: George Sherman / 85m

Cast: Richard Conte, Coleen Gray, Richard Taber, John Alexander, Peggy Dow, Alex Nicol

Rating: 6/10 – the murder of a doctor at New York’s Bellevue Hospital prompts the police to place three undercover officers there in an attempt to flush out the killer; beginning with an awkward endorsement of the Bellevue staff by Conte (whose inability to read from cue cards is obvious), The Sleeping City soon settles into its film noir trappings but while it’s diverting enough, it doesn’t know what to do with Conte’s lead detective, or how to make its central plot more interesting than it is.

Heart of a Dog (2015) / D: Laurie Anderson / 75m

With: Laurie Anderson

Rating: 8/10 – a tone poem, an essay, a treatise on the unconditional love a dog has for its owner, and a wider examination of grief and loss allied to the events of 9/11 – this isn’t just about Laurie Anderson’s relationship with her beloved rat terrier, Lolabelle, but about the various ways that love and loss can affect us; at its core, Heart of a Dog is not a documentary, but a collage of distressed film stock, abstract sound and sound effects, Anderson’s performance persona, visual memories, heartfelt imagery and reminiscences, poetic reality, and Anderson’s own unique view of the world and the essential poetic nature of it all, all of which combines to provide the viewer with one of the most intriguing and thought-provoking movies of recent years.

Tomorrow at Seven (1933) / D: Ray Enright / 62m

Cast: Chester Morris, Vivienne Osborne, Frank McHugh, Allen Jenkins, Henry Stephenson, Grant Mitchell, Charles Middleton, Oscar Apfel, Virginia Howell

Rating: 7/10 – the Black Ace is a master criminal/murderer who predicts the time he’ll kill each of his victims, and he never fails, but crime writer Neil Broderick (Morris) is on his trail, and with the help of Black Ace expert, Thornton Drake (Stephenson), is determined to catch him; an old dark house mystery that features light relief (or major annoyance – take your pick) from the double act of McHugh and Jenkins as two of the stupidest cops on the force, Tomorrow at Seven does a good job of playing cat and mouse with the audience, but with so few suspects on display, the identity of the Black Ace is, sadly, all too obvious.

The Pleasure Girls (1965) / D: Gerry O’Hara / 88m

Cast: Ian McShane, Francesca Annis, Mark Eden, Klaus Kinski, Anneke Wills, Tony Tanner, Rosemary Nicols, Suzanna Leigh, Colleen Fitzpatrick, Carol Cleveland

Rating: 6/10 – Sally (Annis) comes to London to be a model, and soon falls in with a like-minded group of young women looking to find their way in the world – and have a lot of fun at the same time, even though it doesn’t always work out like that; though the focus is in on Sally, her friends, and the various relationships they form, The Pleasure Girls makes more of an impact thanks to its male cast, with McShane, Eden and Kinski (very good) all standing out thanks to strong characterisations and having less soap opera-style dialogue than that of the female cast, and O’Hara’s direction appearing to wander whenever two or more of the girls are on screen.

Monster Trucks (2016) / D: Chris Wedge / 105m

Cast: Lucas Till, Jane Levy, Thomas Lennon, Barry Pepper, Rob Lowe, Holt McCallany, Amy Ryan, Danny Glover, Frank Whaley

Rating: 7/10 – an oil-drilling operation leads to the release of three “monsters” that live deep underground, but while the oil company captures two of the creatures, the third ends up befriending high school senior, Tripp (Till), who in turn helps it to avoid being captured as well; an innocuous throwback to the kind of fantasy movies made for kids in the Eighties, Monster Trucks is a lot of fun if you let yourself just go with it, and though its message of tolerance and understanding of “foreigners” seems at odds with current notions of US nationalism, it’s still a message we can all stand to hear one more time.

Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom (2016) / D: Sean Patrick O’Reilly / 83m

Cast: Kiefer O’Reilly, Sean Patrick O’Reilly, Jane Curtin, Ron Perlman, Christopher Plummer, Alison Wandzura, Tyler Nicol, Doug Bradley

Rating: 5/10 – young Howard Lovecraft (Kiefer O’Reilly) finds himself transported to a strange kingdom of ice which is inhabited by equally strange creatures, and where he finds himself searching for both a way back, and a way to reassure his father (Nicol) (who’s locked up in an asylum) that his ravings about other worlds and said creatures are all true; a curious blend of children’s animation and H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos, Howard Lovecraft and the Frozen Kingdom is quite straightforward in its approach, but is let down by poor production values, an animation style that makes it look like a video game from the Nineties, and a script that juggles motivations and dialogue like a one-handed man in a chainsaw-catching competition.

xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017) / D: D.J. Caruso / 107m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen, Deepika Padukone, Toni Collette, Ruby Rose, Kris Wu, Tony Jaa, Nina Dobrev, Rory McCann, Michael Bisping, Samuel L. Jackson

Rating: 4/10 – the world is in peril from yet another technological McGuffin, and it’s up to extreme sports enthusiast/secret agent Xander Cage (Diesel) to save the day; with Diesel unable to get The Last Witch Hunter (2015) off the ground as another franchise earner, it’s no surprise that he’s returned to a character he left behind fifteen years ago, but this is as uninspired and as predictable as you’d expect, and only Yen’s (always) impressive physicality makes any kind of an impact.

2016 – A Review

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

10 Best movies, 10 Highest Grossing Movies Worldwide, 10 Worst movies, 2016, 2017, Disney, International Box Office, Marvel, Posters, Review

If 2016 had to be summed up in one word, that word would be: Nooooooooo!!

Time and time again we were led up the proverbial garden path, promised so much, and by studios and production companies who must have known that their promises were emptier than the mind of a Republican voter on November 8. Sequels and remakes and reboots that nobody wanted clogged up our multiplexes and taught us to run for the hills in search of movies that didn’t play to the common denominator, and which wouldn’t treat us like sheep.

But luckily there were enough movies that fit that particular bill, and so 2016 wasn’t a total bust, and even though there are many who feel that 2016 was a good year for movies, the negative reaction that surrounded releases such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and Ghostbusters (to name but two) was a clear indication that the public wasn’t buying everything they were being told or sold. Inevitably, there was the battle between fans of Marvel and DC about whose product was the best, but it was a waste of time and data bytes: the problem for DC is that Marvel know exactly what they’re doing, and Warner Bros. (who are overseeing the DC Extended Universe) absolutely and positively don’t.

But aside from the continuing glut of superhero movies we were “treated” to, it was Disney’s year, with the top four highest grossing movies worldwide all being Disney-backed productions. The House of Mouse, in acquiring Pixar, and Marvel, and Lucasfilm, has put itself firmly on top of the pile in Hollywood, and there’s no likelihood of anyone toppling them anytime soon. That’s not necessarily a good thing, perhaps, but fortunately for Disney – and for us – they seem to know what they’re doing, and the high ranking for Zootopia is a perfect example.

10 Highest Grossing Movies Worldwide in 2016

10 – Rogue One – $706,054,705

9 – Suicide Squad – $745,600,054

8 – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – $772,540,251

7 – Deadpool – $783,112,979

6 – Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – $873,260,194

5 – The Secret Life of Pets – $875,457,937

4 – The Jungle Book – $966,550,600

3 – Zootopia – $1,023,784,195

2 – Finding Dory – $1,027,771,569

1 – Captain America: Civil War – $1,153,304,495

There were some surprise successes in 2016, with perhaps the top honours going to The Conjuring 2, a muddled, middling sequel that somehow managed to rake in over $300 million at the worldwide box office. Then there was Sully, Clint Eastwood’s under-rated re-telling of the Miracle on the Hudson, starring Tom Hanks and profitable to the tune of over $200 million. And also there was Don’t Breathe – made on a budget of $9.9 million and finding enough favour to bring in over $150 million. Conversely, there were several movies that proved unable to recoup even their production budgets, movies such as Snowden, Free State of Jones, and Keeping Up With the Joneses (though that shouldn’t be a surprise with the last one).

Looking ahead to 2017, there are enough superhero movies on the horizon for one of them to claim the top spot again, though which one is more open to debate than in 2016. Away from all the spandex, it’s even harder to predict which movies might break free of any box office preconceptions, though it would be hard to bet against the likes of War for the Planet of the Apes, or Dunkirk.

If there was one area where 2016 did excel, it was with its movie posters. There were some great examples seen throughout the year, and sometimes they were the best thing about the movies they were promoting (Alice Through the Looking Glass, for example). Here are six of the best:

If 2016 reminded us of any one thing it was that when movies are bad, they’re really bad. It was one thing to realise that the reboot of Ghostbusters was unlikely to work, but it was also unlikely anyone realised in advance just how unfunny it would be (except for maybe the cast and crew). Time and again, movies that were hyped to the skies and back again proved disappointing at best, and cruelly exposed at worst. Three sequels did their best to ride roughshod over their predecessors – even Ride Along (2014) is a far better movie in comparison with its sequel – and Anthony Hopkins appeared in a brace of “thrillers” that gave new meaning to the phrase “overwrought”. Elsewhere, Sacha Baron Cohen appeared contemptuous of his fans, the Earl of Greystoke was tasked with looking realistic against a constant backdrop of CGI vistas and jungle foliage, Blue Steel was shown to be a tired relic from fifteen years ago, Jackie Chan made one of the most poorly edited and assembled movies of the year, the Ghostbusters reboot had to rely on overseas ticket sales to recoup its budget, and the worst movie of the year – by a huge distance – trampled repeatedly over the legacy of one of British TV’s finest comedy series. What a year, indeed.

10 Worst Movies of 2016

10 – The Legend of Tarzan

9 – Ghostbusters

8 – Misconduct

7 – Zoolander 2

6 – Skiptrace

5 – Grimsby

4 – Ride Along 2

3 – Solace

2 – Independence Day: Resurgence

1 – Dad’s Army

To be fair, there were worse movies made and released in 2016, but it’s equally unfair to pick on the likes of, say, Steven Seagal – seven movies released, all of them bad – because his movies are made on modest budgets, with modest ambitions, and with a minimum of effort. They’re never going to be anything more than what they are, and weirdly, there’s a strange “nobility” in that. But the movie’s on the 10 Worst list aren’t made by the likes of Seagal or his direct-to-video compatriots, they’re made by people and studios with resources and actors and crews that should be able to make better movies. And the most annoying thing about it all? That they just don’t care, as long as we pay to see their movies.

Thank heavens then, that there were plenty of movies to shout about in 2016. All were varied, distinctive, and most importantly, able to connect with audiences on an emotional level – yes, even Captain America: Civil War. They were all beautifully shot, edited and assembled, provided enough thrills, laughs and teary-eyed moments for another twenty movies, and featured some amazing performances – step forward Amy Adams, Paula Beer, Julian Dennison, Kate Beckinsale, and Géza Röhrig. And if all that wasn’t impressive enough, the movie at Number One created its own visual and aural languages in order to tell its story, an incredible achievement at a time when the majority of movies made won’t take even the smallest of risks on their way to the screen.

10 Best Movies of 2016

10 – Love & Friendship

9 – Everybody Wants Some!!

8 – Kubo and the Two Strings

7 – Zootopia

6 – Captain America: Civil War

5 – Life, Animated

4 – Frantz

3 – Arrival

2 – Hunt for the Wilderpeople

1 – Son of Saul

Of course, Son of Saul was released in 2015, but with release dates as they are in the UK, it was never going to be seen back then. It’s likely that 2017 will see the same thing happen, and a movie (or maybe more) making their way into the Top 10. With the likes of Toni Erdmann and Elle still to be caught up with, as well as A Monster Calls and Silence newly arrived at UK cinemas, it’s encouraging that 2017 looks promising already.

Life, Animated (2016)

19 Monday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Animation, Autism, Cornelia Suskind, Disney, Documentary, Family, Mac Guff, Owen Suskind, Review, Roger Ross Williams, Ron Suskind, Walter Suskind

D: Roger Ross Williams / 89m

With: Owen Suskind, Ron Suskind, Cornelia Suskind, Walter Suskind, Jonathan Freeman, Gilbert Gottfried

In Roger Ross Williams’ moving documentary, Life, Animated, we are introduced to Owen Suskind, a twenty-three year old on the verge of graduating from school and moving into his first apartment. There’s nothing special about that you might think, but for Owen it’s all an incredible achievement, because when he was three years old, Owen went from being an outgoing, happy child to a withdrawn, non-communicative autistic child. It happened virtually overnight, without any warning. But in one, very big way, Owen was fortunate. He had the love of his family: his father, Ron; his mother, Cornelia; and his older brother, Walter. After the initial shock of seeing Owen so unalterably changed, they all rallied round him and did their utmost to make his life as comfortable and as rewarding as possible. They simply never gave up hoping that Owen, somehow, would come back to them.

They had to wait four years, though, for the first sign that Owen wasn’t stranded in his own mind. A single line of dialogue from Disney’s The Little Mermaid – “Just your voice” – was said by Owen at a moment when that particular phrase related to what was happening in the Suskind home. The family began to realise that Owen could relate to what was going on around him by referencing dialogue from Disney movies. What they learned was astounding: Owen hadn’t just memorised certain lines of dialogue from Disney’s animated movies, he’d memorised all the dialogue from Disney’s animated movies. And later, Owen correctly deduced that Walter didn’t want to grow up like Peter Pan or Mowgli from The Jungle Book. By expressing such an emotionally complex idea, and at still a very young age, the Suskinds became convinced that they could communicate further with Owen, and using Disney movies, connect with him on a level they couldn’t have predicted before then.

Fast forward fifteen years and Owen is a (largely) well-adjusted young man on the cusp of leading an independent, adult life, away from his family and on the verge of getting his first job. And he has a girlfriend, Emily (who’s also autistic). He still spends a lot of time re-watching Disney movies, but now he’s better able to make sense of the “real world” thanks to the life lessons that Disney includes in its releases (on his first night alone in his apartment he watches Bambi – the one time the correlation seems forced, even though there isn’t another movie that would fit the circumstance). But even though things are going well for him, Life – animated or otherwise – still has the ability to add to the challenges he already faces…

What makes Life, Animated such an appealing viewing experience is, in part, its refusal to push an agenda. Where the majority of documentaries want you to take sides on whatever issue they’re focusing on, here it’s a different matter entirely. The story of Owen Suskind is an unforeseen triumph against the odds, and Williams is canny enough to show the before, the during and the after of Owen’s descent into autism. He also gives plenty of time to Owen’s family, to show how they felt and how they adapted during the years Owen was growing up. You get a clear sense both of how difficult it was for them, but also how tight-knit and committed they all were, to each other, and to Owen. Just in case anyone might be thinking that Disney are getting all the credit for Owen’s “recovery”, then guess again; his very dedicated family must take most, if not all, of the credit.

Williams tells the story of the Suskinds using a mixture of home movie footage – seeing Owen in his pre-autism years is particularly evocative, but is then trumped by a shot of him standing, just staring into space – talking heads recollections, and traditional hand-drawn animation courtesy of French outfit Mac Guff. It’s this last element that adds a huge degree of charm to a movie already in danger of charming its audience to death, but if that seems like a negative, then guess again. Charm is something the movie has in abundance, and the animated sequences act as further examples of the movie’s ability to bewitch and enchant, and tell the story in ways that talking about Owen and his journey just won’t do.

It’s through these sequences that we learn that Owen is an aspiring writer, with his tale of a hero whose job it is to keep Disney sidekicks such as Jiminy Cricket safe from harm. Mac Guff do a great job of expressing this tale, and also of replicating the world as Owen sees it himself. It’s easy to understand why Owen identifies so much with Disney’s sidekick characters, as he himself has always felt like someone on the outside, not the main hero. It’s interesting, also, that this is how Owen sees himself, as someone who needs to protect others, and the movie draws all this out thanks to some candid on-camera moments by Owen and by his quoting from his original story. From this also, we get a glimpse of just how vocal he is when challenged or cornered, and it all gets too much for him.

While Owen seems inordinately happy, there are plenty of moments where the audience is reminded that he’s really a “big kid” without all the manners or insights that go with being an adult. His relationship with Emily doesn’t go according to the Disney plan, which leaves him adrift, and there’s a wonderful moment where Walter laments the fact that Disney don’t “do sex”, something that would make certain things a lot easier to deal with if they did. There are references too to his time at school, and the bullying he experienced, as well as the dark days that shrouded that period, but again it’s the love and support from his selfless family that saw him through it all, and to a point now where he can travel to France to address a symposium on autism (and make his opening remarks in French).

While Owen’s remarkable comeback from a kind of catatonic autism is entirely worthy of Williams’ attention (not to mention the Disney movie club he runs, and which has two very special guests at one of the meetings), what really makes this documentary special is the love and care and determination of Owen’s family to ensure he has the best life possible that makes this such a moving and often incredibly profound movie. Ron, Cornelia and Walter all deserve the highest praise for how they tackled the issue of their son’s sudden onset of autism, and the moments where their love for him, and their commitment to him, shine through with an emotional honesty that can’t help but bring a tear – or two, or more – to the eye of the unwary viewer.

Rating: 9/10 – with Disney waiving any editorial control over the footage used in the movie, Life, Animated benefits immeasurably from Williams’ considered and astute use of the various storytelling formats used to tell Owen’s miraculous tale; a terrific achievement, and one that highlights the strengths in play within the Suskind family, this is immensely enjoyable, and a movie that makes the term “feelgood” seem hopelessly inadequate in describing the effect it can have on the viewer.

Top 10 Animated Movies at the International Box Office

08 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Animation, Disney, Dreamworks, Illumination Entertainment, International Box Office, Movies, Pixar

Animation can often provide a better, more enjoyable, and more memorable viewing experience than the majority – in fact, the vast majority – of live action movies. You could always count on Disney, and though they went through a creative rough patch during the Seventies and early Eighties, they bounced back and are now as strong a creative force as they’ve ever been (and perhaps more so). But in the last fifteen to twenty years the House of Mouse hasn’t had things all its own way. The arrival of animation studios from the likes of Dreamworks and Sony, as well as the emergence of Pixar, has brought animation into a new Golden Age, and so much so that animated movies are now some of the most consistently high-earning movies released each year. It shouldn’t be a surprise that two of this year’s animated releases have made over $1 billion at the international box office, or that the Top 5 in this list have all crossed that mark. So, here they are: the Top 10 animated movies at the international box office.

10 – Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009) – $886,686,817

The third entry in the Ice Age series is also the one where the rot began to set in, but like the previous chapters before it, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs was the animated box office champ for its year, and proof that its creators, Blue Sky Studios, knew they had a franchise that would keep on paying dividends. On its own, the movie is an uneven, less humorous entry than its predecessors, but it does feature a great vocal performance from Simon Pegg, and some suitably over-the-top visuals, making it a treat for younger viewers but not so much for anyone over the age of, say, fifteen.

9 – Shrek 2 (2004) – $919,838,758

It may be hard to believe now but Shrek (2001) wasn’t quite as good as most people’s memories will tell them. It was certainly a novel approach by Dreamworks, but what worked most was the inspired voice casting, and a level of disrespect for fairy tales that raised most of the laughs. But Shrek 2 is the series’ pinnacle, a movie that embraces all those old fairy tale tropes and extracts the humour from them rather than by trampling on them first. It also has a decent story, the welcome addition of Antonio Banderas as Puss in Boots, and a sleeker, bolder visual style than its predecessor. Plus it deserves credit for keeping Eddie Murphy in the list of the Top 10 Actors at the Box Office.

8 – Finding Nemo (2003) – $940,335,536

One of Pixar’s most enduring and well-loved movies, Finding Nemo is an almost perfect blend of storytelling, visual design, voice acting, and direction. Only the rhythm and the pace of the movie’s middle section lets it down, but this is still head and shoulders above most of the movies on this list, and is a reminder that when Pixar get it right there’s no touching them. In its day a box office juggernaut, the movie has earned its place in cinema history and continues to delight successive generations of movie goers, a testament to its ingenuity and charm.

7 – The Lion King (1994) – $968,483,777

Although The Little Mermaid (1989) was the movie that showed Disney had turned the corner on the creative funk that had dogged them through the Seventies and early Eighties, it was The Lion King that really showed they were back on track. A perfect blend of traditional hand-drawn 2D animation with fleeting uses of rotoscoping, allied to one of the best musical soundtracks Disney have ever produced, and a story that was by turns, humorous, gripping, tragic, life-affirming, and satisfying, The Lion King is still the animated Disney movie that all the company’s successors have to live up to.

6 – Despicable Me 2 (2013) – $970,761,885

Buoyed by the success of the first Despicable Me (2010), Illumination Entertainment probably knew they had a surefire winner when they began making this sequel, and so it proved. Landing just shy of the $1 billion mark, it’s not the best of sequels – indeed, its storyline is possibly the weakest of all the movies on the list – but it does have those little yellow cash generators, the Minions, and an infectious visual style that you can’t help but smile at, even while you’re groaning at the jokes. With a third movie to come in 2017, the continuing success of the franchise seems assured, which can’t be a bad thing now that Disney has consumed Pixar.

5 – Zootopia (2016) – $1,023,761,003

This year’s surprise hit from Disney is possibly the House of Mouse’s finest hour, a whip-smart anthropomorphic comedy that has a strong storyline, subplots that enhance the main narrative, two wonderful performances from Ginnifer Goodwin and Jason Bateman, winning characters, and of course, Flash the sloth. A joy from start to finish, we can only hope that Disney doesn’t make any sequels, and that they allow this to stand alone as one of the best animated features of this or any year.

4 – Finding Dory (2016) – $1,027,190,583

Not as good as Finding Nemo, but more successful (go figure), Finding Dory benefitted from a built-in audience who have been waiting for a sequel ever since the first movie was released, and because it didn’t stray too far from the set up of the original. Pixar needed this to be a hit, and they got their wish, but with Cars 3 up next – not the most auspicious of sequels they could have decided to release – it may be a while before the company that revolutionised computer animated movies adds another of its features to the list.

3 – Toy Story 3 (2010) – $1,066,969,703

The ne plus ultra of animated movies – sorry, numbers one and two – Toy Story 3 is quite frankly, the best second sequel ever made. A bold gamble by Pixar to make a movie about the relinquishing of childhood, and to make the ending both sad and life-affirming at the same time, this shows Pixar in complete control of every aspect of the production and seemingly with ease, showing everybody else how it should be done. A perfect way to end a trilogy, and even though Toy Story 4 will be with us in 2019 (and which will answer the question, what happened to Bo Peep?), it’s got a long way to go before it’s as good as this entry in the series.

2 – Minions (2015) – $1,159,398,397

Minions‘ place at the number two spot just goes to show what can happen when a minor character (or in this case, characters) proves more entertaining than the main character. Gru was fun, but the Minions were endlessly funny and endlessly adorable. A spin-off movie of their own was always likely, and Illumination Entertainment came up with a great idea for their solo outing, a kind of potted history of the little yellow devils search for a villainous boss down the ages. It’s still not their best outing – that would be Despicable Me (2010) – but with no immediate plans for a sequel, there’s a good possibility that their position so close to the top won’t remain that way for very long.

1 – Frozen (2013) – $1,276,480,335

These days, Disney can do no wrong. In recent years they’ve released mega-successes at the box office, won Academy Awards, and thanks largely to the stewardship of John Lasseter, made successful animated movie after successful animated movie. Frozen is the studio’s most successful venture, a mighty crowd-pleaser that mixes great songs and inspired comedy, even if Sitron the horse is a dead ringer for Maximus from Tangled (2010). Inevitably, a sequel is in the works, but whether or not it will have the same emotional heft that Frozen has remains to be seen. And whether or not it has the ability to outdo its predecessor, well, only time and a billion pre-teen girls will decide.

Question of the Week – 8 October 2016

08 Saturday Oct 2016

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Animated classics, Beauty and the Beast, Disney, Live action, Question of the Week, Remakes

Disney’s decision to remake their animated classic, The Jungle Book (1967) as a live-action movie has certainly paid off handsomely at the box office, having taken $966,220,138, while also garnering quite a bit of critical approbation. And though they’ve tinkered with this sort of thing before now – 101 Dalmatians (1996), Alice in Wonderland (2010), Cinderella (2015) – it’s looking as if the House of Mouse is going all out to re-invent its animated classics as live-action classics as well. 2017 will bring us Beauty and the Beast, with Emma Watson, while various other projects are in equally various stages of development, from Dumbo (to be directed by Tim Burton), to Pinocchio, to Mulan. It’s an ambitious scheme, and some movies are likely to stand or fall based on how popular they were in their animated form, so it will be interesting to see which movies get adapted and which ones are successful. But one burning question remains, and it’s this week’s two-part Question of the Week:

Has Disney gone remake crazy at the expense of more original projects, and if so, should we be pleased and excited, or deflated and demoralised by the prospect?

Question of the Week – 4 September 2016

04 Sunday Sep 2016

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Adults, Children's movies, Disney, Question of the Week

Finally… it’s the Disney animated movie you’ve been waiting to see for so long that it’s almost as if it was never going to be released. You’re an adult, sure, but you’ve been watching Disney’s animated movies since you could run around in your garden pretending to be Mowgli. But there’s a problem: the movie’s being released during the school holidays. The screenings at your local cinema will be full of fidgeting, talking, drink-slurping, popcorn-munching, easily distracted children. They’ll continually ask their parents what’s going on, or who a particular character is, or why somebody is doing something. And if they don’t like the movie, they’ll start to complain that they’re bored and they want to go home, or that they want to see another movie altogether. They will tax your patience to the very limit. And you will sit there inwardly fuming – at the children, at their parents for bringing their unruly offspring with them to the cinema, and at whatever deity you choose to call out for letting this situation happen every single time you go to see a so-called children’s movie.

But what can you do? You can’t tell a child to be quiet/behave/sit still or you’ll take its head off (definitely not advisable). But what other option is there? Well, there’s one, but it will need cinema chains to think outside the box a little bit. All of which leads us to this week’s Question of the Week:

Should there be adults only showings of children’s movies such as Finding Dory or Ice Age: Collision Course?

Zootopia (2016)

20 Friday May 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animals, Animation, Byron Howard, Chief Bogo, Comedy, Disney, Drama, Ginnifer Goodwin, Idris Elba, Jason Bateman, Judy Hopps, Nick Wilde, Night Howlers, Predators, Prey, Review, Rich Moore, ZPD

aka Zoomania; Zootropolis

D: Byron Howard, Rich Moore / 104m

Cast: Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, Jenny Slate, Nate Torrence, Bonnie Hunt, Don Lake, Tommy Chong, J.K. Simmons, Octavia Spencer, Alan Tudyk, Maurice LaMarche, Shakira

Appearing out of nowhere to grab over $970 million worldwide, Zootopia is yet another reminder that when Disney gets it right, Disney gets it right and then some. In terms of Disney animation only The Lion King (1994) and Frozen (2013) have taken more money at the box office, while in comparison, Pixar have only one movie, Toy Story 3 (2010), that’s been more successful. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Zootopia isn’t as good as its success at the box office suggests. But the answer to that is: yeah… right.

Like so many Disney characters, Judy Hopps (Goodwin) is a bunny with a dream: to be a police officer working for the Zootopia Police Department. Despite no rabbit ever having even tried to join the ZPD, and despite the fears and worries of her parents (Hunt, Lake), Judy excels at the training academy and graduates top of her class. But when she arrives in the great city of Zootopia – where predator and prey co-exist in harmony – she finds that her presence isn’t exactly welcomed, by her fellow officers, and in particular, by her boss, Chief Bogo (Elba). While the rest of her colleagues investigate the separate disappearances of fourteen different animals in mysterious circumstances, Judy is given Meter Maid duties.

While making the most of this change of fortune, Judy meets Nick Wilde, a fox who proves to be a hustler. Judy wants to arrest him but Nick is too smart to be caught so easily. But when Judy promises to find one of the missing animals, an otter called – appropriately – Otterton, and Chief Bogo gives her just forty-eight hours to do so or she’ll have to resign, a clue leads to Nick being coerced into helping her look for the missing otter. The trail points to the involvement of the local crime kingpin, Mr Big (LaMarche), and a mystery involving the missing animals that sees them reject their peaceful lives and revert back to their primitive, predatory ways. Judy and Nick locate the missing animals and believe they’ve found their culprit, but in the aftermath, the pair fall out over something Judy says at a press conference. Judy resigns from the ZPD when she realises that she’s inadvertently made things worse – prey animals have less trust now in their predatory neighbours – and she returns home. But a revelation there sends her back to Zootopia where she seeks Nick’s help in solving the mystery of the “savage” animals for good.

The first thing to know about Zootopia is that it’s a Disney movie through and through. There are the usual themes of tolerance and understanding, and overcoming prejudice, as well as a mismatched couple who learn to respect and trust each other, but thanks to a confident, engaging script by Phil Johnston and Jared Bush, these themes are given a spirited polish and never once feel tired or laboured. The cleverest idea the script gives us is a central female character who has a dream that isn’t based around some old-fashioned romantic notion; instead, Judy’s ambition is to make a difference. She’s perhaps the first Disney character (male or female) to be both completely self-aware and selfless at the same time. Goodwin portrays her with such a delightful sense of sincerity tinged with playfulness that you can’t help but smile at the character’s naïvete, and cheer when she proves herself to the surprise of everyone around her.

Johnston and Bush’s script also gives us a great co-star and foil for Judy in the form of wily fox Nick Wilde. As played by Bateman, Nick is the kind of schemer the actor has portrayed several times before, but here he ups his game to make Nick both cunning and contrite at the same time, a neat trick that becomes more evident as the movie progresses. Like Goodwin, Bateman gives a charming, entertaining performance that benefits the movie greatly, and they share an enviable chemistry considering they’re giving vocal performances (and may not have even recorded their scenes together).

As usual with Disney – at least Disney under the leadership of John Lasseter – there’s a wealth of riches to be had, with moments that are among the finest of any animated movie made. From Judy’s carrot pen, to Nick’s son, to an app that lets anyone appear in a video with Gazelle (Shakira) (Zootopia’s leading songstress), to the Don Corleone-inspired Mr Big, to the naturalist club run by Yax (Chong), there are moments to treasure, as well as in-jokes for those paying close attention (Tudyk plays a crooked weasel called Duke Weaselton; in Frozen he played the treacherous Duke of Weselton). All of them, however, are overshadowed by one sublime moment of animation genius: the reaction of Flash the sloth to one of Nick’s jokes. This moment alone makes the movie worth seeing, and is one of Disney’s finest eleven seconds.

Visually the movie is stunning, with levels of detail and colour that are continually arresting (no pun intended), providing a rich palette for the eyes that never stops being entertaining. The sequence where Judy chases a fleeing Weaselton into Rodentia (unexpectedly) foreshadows Captain America: Civil War (2016) as she goes from one of the smallest animals in Zootopia to a veritable giant when placed amongst the denizens of that particular area. It’s an example of just how inventive and effortlessly thrilling the movie can be, and the humour that threads itself throughout the screenplay matches that invention, with jokes at every turn and enough visual gags to keep everyone happy, young and old alike.

Zootopia‘s central storyline is enhanced by its timely message of tolerance and understanding (a message Disney have been “timely” with for decades now), and its mystery is satisfying up to a point (attentive viewers will spot the movie’s villain from the moment they make their appearance), leaving the characters to take centre stage and provide the audience with one of the most enjoyable, satisfying and rewarding animated movies of the last few years. It has a sweet-natured tone that can’t be resisted, and does everything it can to give its audience a good time, something it never fails to do.

Rating: 9/10 – animated movie-making of the highest order, Zootopia is a funny, sweet, charming, beautiful to look at movie that never puts a foot wrong in its mission to entertain; with Disney making a movie that’s this good, the competition – Pixar included – must be wondering just what they have to do to topple the House of Mouse from its (currently) well-deserved pedestal.

For One Week Only: Unnecessary Sequels – 4. Disney Runs Amok (1998-2006)

12 Thursday May 2016

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101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure, Atlantis: Milo's Return, Bambi II, Brother Bear 2, Disney, For One Week Only, Kronk's New Groove, Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp's Adventure, Mulan II, Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World, Sequels, The Fox and the Hound 2, The Hunchback of Notre Dame II, Walt Disney

Between 1937 and 1990, The Walt Disney Studios produced twenty-four animated movies, all of them original features. In all that time the only movie Disney had any plans to follow up with a sequel was Fantasia (1940). Having resisted any temptation during those fifty-three years to make a sequel to any of their animated movies, the company made an odd choice for their very first: The Rescuers Down Under (1990). It under-performed at the box office, and since then, only two further entries in the Animated Classics series have been sequels: the long-awaited Fantasia 2000 (1999) and Winnie the Pooh (2011).

But in the Nineties, and away from their Animated Classics, Disney embraced the idea of direct-to-video sequels with a vengeance. The first to be released was The Return of Jafar (1994), a clumsy attempt to capitalise on the success of Aladdin (1992); it was followed by the slightly better Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), which proved to be commercially successful. More direct-to-video movies followed, and the House of Mouse, through either its Disney Televison Animation or DisneyToon Studios arms, released a welter of movies that often bore little relation to the originals they were trying to imitate/emulate. The following movies were all released between 1998 and 2006, and are all prime examples of a studio trampling all over its legacy as a creator of some of the most beloved animated movies – hell, just movies – of all time. These are the sequels that have yet to be followed up by another movie that further devalues the original.

Pocahontas II: Journey to a New World (1998) / D: Tom Ellery, Bradley Raymond / 72m

Rating: 5/10 – neither better nor worse than Pocahontas (1995) – which wasn’t that great to begin with, this sees the same awkward mix of New World politics and cute animals transported to London as Pocahontas strives to avoid conflict between England and the Colonies; the animation is flat and drab to look at, without the attention to detail of an Animated Classic, and the story itself is unsatisfactory, leaving the viewer to tread water waiting for something more interesting to happen (which it doesn’t).

Hercules: Zero to Hero (1999) / D: Bob Kline / 70m

Rating: 3/10 – a compilation movie with three stories acting as an introduction to Hercules: The Animated Series, this is basic is as basic does, with little charm or imagination to help the viewer along; another example of poorly designed and executed animation, it’s a sequel in name only, and seems to have been made as a way of grabbing as much cash as possible before word got around as to how bad it is.

Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure (2001) / D: Darrell Rooney, Jeannine Roussel / 66m

Rating: 3/10 – the offspring of Lady and Tramp gets into all sorts of trouble when he joins a gang called the Junkyard Dogs in an effort to be a “wild dog”; a better-than-average cast that includes Chazz Palminteri, Mickey Rooney, Cathy Moriarty, Bronson Pinchot, and Frank Welker can’t rescue this mongrel of a movie as it completely ignores what made the original such a classic and spins a tale so dull and uninspired you’ll be hoping the entire canine cast will end up with distemper.

Return to Never Land (2002) / D: Robin Budd, Donovan Cook / 72m

Rating: 3/10 – released theatrically (although it’s hard to see why), this did well enough to be regarded as a minor success, but it’s still a drab, forgettable movie with none of the charm or energy of the original; the story lacks the kind of forward momentum that keeps the viewer interested, and as Peter Pan, Blayne Weaver gives the kind of vocal performance that makes you wonder if he was given any direction whatsoever.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame II (2002) / D: Bradley Raymond / 69m

Rating: 3/10 – fans of the original will be horrified to see how shoddy the animation is in this equally horrifying sequel that makes a mess of its basic storyline, as Quasimodo (a returning Tom Hulce) is embroiled in a plot to steal Notre Dame’s most famous bell; there’s a lot of filler here, and despite most of the original cast returning along with Hulce, it’s a movie that struggles to engage the audience or provide a solid reason for staying with it ’til the end.

101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure (2003) / D: Jim Kammerud, Brian Smith / 74m

Rating: 4/10 – despite a stronger storyline than most direct-to-video sequels, this is still a baffling mix of the original’s use of Cruella de Vil and the shenanigans prompted by Patch’s need to seek adventure outside his family (a la Scamp); with two stories being told the movie ends up letting itself down by not paying full attention to either, and the animation is as uninspiring as previous direct-to-video releases.

The Jungle Book 2 (2003) / D: Steve Trenbirth / 72m

Rating: 4/10 – despite replaying large chunks of the original, and having some of the flattest, blandest animation of any of the sequels listed here, The Jungle Book 2 was surprisingly given a theatrical release; however, this isn’t an excuse to believe this is a superior product, as it displays a reluctance to be inventive or smart, and instead trades off the goodwill created by the original.

Atlantis: Milo’s Return (2003) / D: Victor Cook, Toby Shelton, Tad Stones / 78m

Rating: 3/10 – although Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) wasn’t quite the success Disney had hoped for, it still had a certain charm, thanks to Michael J. Fox’s performance and its quaint, steampunk aesthetic; this sequel, made up of three episodes of a TV series that was never completed, shows Disney trying to make something out of nothing, and the result is a sequel that never gels or satisfies thanks to its piecemeal nature.

Mulan II (2004) / D: Darrell Rooney, Lynne Southerland / 79m

Rating: 2/10 – one of the poorest of all the direct-to-video sequels, Mulan II is simply dreadful, and begs the question why Disney thought it should have been released in the first place; the script is a muddle of ideas around arranged marriage and loyalty that not even the usually talented voice cast can do anything with, and Rooney and Southerland prove that having two directors doesn’t always guarantee the required level of quality.

Kronk’s New Groove (2005) / D: Elliot M. Bour, Saul Andrew Blinkoff / 72m

Rating: 3/10 – lightweight in both its script and its performances, this sequel to The Emperor’s New Groove (2000) has a storyline that underwhelms consistently and lacks energy; the songs are underwhelming too, while the returning cast – like others before them – aren’t given the freedom to make more of the material than is on the page, all of which leads to a sequel that proves a chore to sit through.

Bambi II (2006) / D: Brian Pimental / 75m

Rating: 3/10 – set during the events of Bambi (1942), and following the death of Bambi’s mother, this ode to single parenting suffers from an agonising sense of its own seriousness and vocal performances that give new meaning to the term “lifeless”; it suffers too from having a visual style that is blander and weaker than that of its predecessor, leaving it feeling and looking even more turgid than it already is.

Brother Bear 2 (2006) / D: Ben Gluck / 73m

Rating: 3/10 – by this stage, Disney’s consistency in churning out pale imitations of its Animated Classics is beginning to become noteworthy in itself, and this sequel to a movie that didn’t exactly set the box office alight is another case in point; only sporadically engaging, and with a soundtrack that practically screams “lacklustre”, Brother Bear 2 has a better rep than most Disney sequels, but that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is still disappointing from start to finish.

The Fox and the Hound 2 (2006) / D: Jim Kammerud / 69m

Rating: 3/10 – Tod and Copper: The Early Years (as this could have been called) aims for a high degree of sentimentality and in doing so, makes watching the movie more hard going than it needs to be; recycling ideas from the Lady and the Tramp and 101 Dalmatians sequels, this has all the feel of a contractual obligation as Kammerud puts the characters through the motions, and the script busies itself with saying nothing of interest or importance.

The Jungle Book (2016)

20 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Baloo, Ben Kingsley, Bill Murray, Christopher Walken, Disney, Drama, Fantasy, Idris Elba, Jon Favreau, Kaa, Live action, Lupita Nyong'o, Neel Sethi, Remake, Review, Scarlett Johansson, Shere Khan

D: Jon Favreau / 105m

Cast: Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Scarlett Johansson, Giancarlo Esposito, Christopher Walken, Garry Shandling, Brighton Rose, Jon Favreau, Sam Raimi

The first of two live action versions of Rudyard Kipling’s classic tale – the other, just called Jungle Book and directed by Andy Serkis, is due in 2018 – Disney’s remake of their own beloved animated classic arrives with much fanfare and enough hype to stop even Shere Khan in his bloodthirsty tracks. It’s taken over $300 million at the international box office already, and the House of Mouse is keen to get director Jon Favreau and writer Justin Marks back for a sequel (surprise, surprise). The CGI environment created for the characters, and against which token human Mowgli (Sethi) interacts, is incredibly detailed and realistic, while the final showdown between tiger and man-cub is… well… it’s okay.

And that’s the problem with the movie as a whole: it’s okay. When the best thing you can say about a movie is that the backgrounds look realistic, then it’s a sure sign that whatever Favreau and co were aiming for, they didn’t actually achieve it. And yet the material is there to be taken advantage of, as Disney did nearly fifty years ago when they made the animated version. But this version makes some significant changes to the original, and while you don’t want an exact carbon copy of what went before, there’s too much that’s different for the movie to work as well as its predecessor.

First, there’s the musical elements. Shoehorned into the movie are two of the animated version’s most enjoyable songs, The Bare Necessities and I Wanna Be Like You. This isn’t a musical version of the story, and yet these two songs are included, and awkwardly at that. There’s no reason for them to be there, unless Disney felt that modern audiences, perhaps weaned on the animated version, would feel upset if they weren’t included. As it is, The Bare Necessities is given a nostalgic feel that helps offset the oddness of its inclusion, but the same can’t be said of I Wanna Be Like You, an uncomfortable rendition of which is given by Christopher Walken as King Louie, a giant orang-utan you half suspect has been eating his tribe in order to get so big. Some viewers may well be happy to see these songs included, but in terms of the movie itself they’re interruptions to the flow of the movie and the narrative.

But the flow of the movie is also a problem. Favreau is a capable director but he doesn’t always get the pace of a movie right – check out Iron Man 2 (2010) as a prime example. Here he connects each scene as if they were part of a larger puzzle and he’s got too much time to put it all together. This leads to stretches where The Jungle Book pads along like Shere Khan at the watering hole, full of intention but held back by an unwanted need for restraint. It makes for a choppy, uneven movie that holds the attention completely in certain scenes, but then abandons that attention in favour of just moving on.

And then there’s the ending, changed from the animated version – where Mowgli heads off to the man village because that’s where his future lies – to reflect… well, it’s not altogether clear. Mowgli has clearly found his true place in the jungle, but it’s at odds with what Shere Khan and even Bagheera have been saying all along: that Mowgli will grow up to be a man, and man has no place in the jungle (it’s even part of the jungle law, but the script ignores this practically the moment it’s been brought up). Back in 1968 this bittersweet ending was the perfect conclusion to Mowgli’s story, but here it seems like a cynical decision to help set up and ensure the sequel(s) that Disney are looking for. In a weird way, the script’s decision to integrate Mowgli more fully with the jungle environment makes him seem like another Tarzan in the making.

On the plus side, Favreau has assembled a great cast to give vocal life to the animal characters, with Murray on fine form as Baloo, and Johansson proving especially effective as Kaa. Kingsley is somewhat swamped by the script’s decision to make Bagheera almost entirely like a resigned schoolmaster, Nyong’o and Esposito make the most of their underwritten wolf parts, while Walken does his best to make King Louie frightening, but weirdly, sounds more like Kevin Spacey doing an impression of Christopher Walken than Walken himself. And then there’s Idris Elba, cast as Shere Khan; somehow his gruff tones don’t seem to suit the role, and his scenes have an awkwardness to them in terms of his voice not fitting the look of the character. In effect, it’s as if his voice has been badly dubbed.

As the only human in the movie, a lot rides on the abilities of Sethi, and while he’s certainly proficient, his performance isn’t as effective as it could be. In the scene where Mowgli decides to leave the jungle and go to the man village, his lack of experience leaves the scene feeling perfunctory rather than highly emotive, and you get the sense that Favreau was unable to get more from him. If Sethi is to take part in any further movies as Mowgli then it’s to be hoped that his experience this time round proves to be the bedrock for better performances in the future.

All in all, The Jungle Book isn’t a bad movie per se, it’s just that it doesn’t have that spark that would have made it a truly enjoyable movie. And despite its evident popularity with audiences worldwide, it’s likely that its success is due to brand recognition rather than any inherent quality. Remakes are a tricky business to get right, as any studio or production company should know, but with Disney – and it shouldn’t be the case – you somehow expect something a little bit better, and a little bit more entertaining. That it’s just okay is perhaps worse than its being just bad.

Rating: 5/10 – nowhere near the live action remake audiences really needed, The Jungle Book suffers from being too clinical and too respectful of itself (if not Kipling’s original tale); with too many moments that pass without emphasis or emotion, it remains a beautiful movie to watch, but an empty one as well.

Mini-Review: The Good Dinosaur (2015)

26 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animation, Anna Paquin, Apatosaurus, Arlo, Dinosaurs, Disney, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Frances McDormand, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Peter Sohn, Pixar, Pterodactyls, Raymond Ochoa, Review, Sam Elliott, Spot, Steve Zahn, T-Rex

D: Peter Sohn / 93m

Cast: Raymond Ochoa, Jack Bright, Jeffrey Wright, Frances McDormand, Steve Zahn, Sam Elliott, Anna Paquin, A.J. Buckley, Jack McGraw

Anyone going to see The Good Dinosaur should know a couple of things before they do. One: if you’re expecting a movie as enjoyable and as creative as Inside Out was earlier this year, then you’re going to be disappointed. And two: you’ll be surprised at how bland and pedestrian it all is.

Getting that out of the way at the beginning of this review makes it easier to write the following: Pixar should have let this one die in development. The movie has had a troubled history. Original director Bob Peterson was removed from the movie in 2013 because he couldn’t come up with a final, third act. All of the cast, with the exception of McDormand, were replaced, large chunks of the script were re-written, and the movie was re-scheduled for release two years after its original, planned release date (27 November 2013). All in all, it feels very much as if, having sunk an awful lot of money into the production, Pixar had a choice: write off the project entirely and take a large financial hit, or carry on in the hope that the finished product will be good enough to earn back its costs.

Obviously they chose the latter, but it was the wrong decision. The Good Dinosaur is a movie that any other animation company could have made, and that’s not what we should be saying about a Pixar movie. It may be unfair, but Pixar is synonymous with animation excellence, both in terms of the visuals and the stories. And while The Good Dinosaur contains some of the most photo-realistic animation ever, when it comes to the story, it becomes clear that it wasn’t only the third act that had problems. Once the basic premise is done with – meteor that wipes out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago misses the earth, leaving dinosaurs to evolve further – the movie doesn’t know if it wants to be the new The Land Before Time (1988), an out-and-out Western, or a distant narrative cousin to The Lion King (1994). And it doesn’t help that against all the beautifully rendered backdrops, we have an apatosaurus whose animation looks like it was sub-contracted out to Aardman (it’s Arlo’s eyes – take a look at Chicken Run (2000) and you’ll see what I mean).

But whichever story it’s trying to tell, it’s not strong enough to hold the audience’s attention, and scenes pass by that provoke ennui instead of engagement. Even the relationship between Arlo and Spot, normally something you could rely on Pixar to make affecting and charming, proves merely sufficient to the story’s needs, and the “inventiveness” of having Spot being the “pet” wears off pretty quickly. With the movie’s two lead characters lacking a way to connect with the audience, it further hinders the movie’s attempts to make itself a satisfying experience for the viewer.

The movie also has problems with its tone, as it mixes humorous elements with moments of terrible heartbreak, and there’s an unexpected sequence where Arlo and Spot get stoned. The introduction of friendly T-Rexes is a bit of a stretch, and leads to a campfire scene where you wonder if an homage to Blazing Saddles (1974) is on the cards (The Good Dinosaur has lots of these moments, ones that remind you of other, better movies). It all goes to reinforce the idea that Pixar have released their latest movie in the hopes that it’ll recoup its costs before anyone notices how disappointing it is.

Rating: 5/10 – saved from a lower score by the incredible visuals, which elevate the material just by being there, The Good Dinosaur is yet another unfortunate example of Pixar having (mostly) lost their way in recent years; even the talented voice cast can’t do much to improve things, and potential viewers will be better off waiting until Finding Dory (2016) is released for their next Pixar fix.

Trailer – Finding Dory (2016)

11 Wednesday Nov 2015

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Disney, Pixar, Preview, Sequel, Trailer

There are three types of Pixar sequel: the first is the assured, perfectly realised sequel that works on all levels and shows the company’s creativity isn’t hampered by there being a number in the title – like Toy Story 2 for example (or even Toy Story 3). Then there’s the sequel that occupies the middle ground, the sequel that is warmly received, enjoyable even, but which ultimately doesn’t add much to the lustre of its predecessor – like Monsters University for example. And then there’s the third type, the sequel that really shouldn’t have been made, and should have been filed away in John Lasseter’s head as “one trip to the well too far” – like Cars 2 (the only example, actually). Which category Finding Dory will fit into is yet to be seen, and the trailer doesn’t really give us a clue (maybe the next one will), but if it’s as good as Finding Nemo then Pixar will deserve every plaudit coming to them. Fingers crossed!

Trailer – The Jungle Book (2016)

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

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Disney, Jon Favreau, Preview, The Jungle Book, Trailer

Disney’s new live action version of The Jungle Book looks to be a million miles away from the simple pleasures to be had from the 1967 animated original, with its emphasis on action and adventure (though the last shot is a nice way to end the trailer). But director Jon Favreau has been championing this project for a while now, and he’s assembled a very talented voice cast including Scarlett Johansson as Kaa, and Bill Murray (who else?) as Baloo. With Warner Bros.’ rival, animated, version, Jungle Book: Origins, now pushed back to 2017, this update has the potential to be a huge success, and with the backing of the mighty House of Mouse, it could well be the family movie of 2016.

Big Hero 6 (2014)

09 Friday Jan 2015

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Animation, Baymax, Chris Williams, Disney, Don Hall, Hiro, Hiro Hamada, Kabuki mask, Marvel, Microbots, Professor Callaghan, Robot, Ryan Potter, San Fransokyo, Scott Adsit, Superheroes

D: Don Hall, Chris Williams / 102m

Cast: Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr, Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, Maya Rudolph

Hiro Hamada (Potter) is a fourteen year old orphan living with his brother Tadashi (Henney) and aunt Cass (Rudolph) in San Fransokyo. He’s a precocious teenager, a genius with robotics who takes part in underground robot fights (and gets himself into trouble). Tadashi believes Hiro is wasting his time and talents, and takes him to the robotics lab at the university he attends. Hiro meets his brother’s friends, Go Go (Chung), Wasabi (Wayans Jr), Honey Lemon (Rodriguez) and Fred (Miller). Tadashi also introduces him to his own special project, a robot called Baymax who provides personal healthcare. Seeing the inventive projects they are all working on, Hiro becomes committed to enrolling at the university.

Hiro works on a project that he can use to apply, and comes up with microbots, tiny robots that can be connected in any way possible via the use of a neural sensor (basically a headband that reads a person’s thoughts and communicates them to the microbots). The head of the robotics department, Professor Callaghan (Cromwell) is sufficiently impressed to offer Hiro a place at the university. Also interested in the microbots is businessman Alistair Krei (Tudyk), but at the urging of Professor Callaghan – who dislikes Krei intensely – Hiro declines his offer to buy the microbots and make a fortune. Later, a fire breaks out at the university; Callaghan is trapped inside and Tadashi rushes in to rescue him. Hiro can only stand by and watch as the building explodes, killing both his brother and Callaghan.

Hiro retreats from daily life. One day he accidentally injures himself. This causes Baymax to activate and try to help Hiro. At the same time, one of Hiro’s microbots comes to life; they soon realise it’s trying to unite with the other microbots, but they should all have been destroyed in the university fire. They follow the microbot to an abandoned warehouse where they discover that someone is mass producing the microbots. Confronted by a man in a kabuki mask who uses the microbots to attack them, Hiro and Baymax manage to escape but not before Hiro realises his project is going to be used for evil purposes.

Hiro upgrades Baymax to be able to fight and equips him with body armour. They track the microbots to the docks where they encounter the masked man. Before Hiro can instruct Baymax to attack him, Tadashi’s friends all turn up; a chase ensues in which the masked man attempts to kill all of them. They manage to avoid being killed and head for Fred’s palatial home where Fred tells them he believes Krei is the man behind the mask and the theft of the microbots (and the deaths of Tadashi and Professor Callaghan). They use Baymax’s sensors to locate Krei and, kitted out in costumes that allow them to act as superheroes, head for an island off the coast where they discover an abandoned facility that contains the remains of a machine that they further learn was used as a teleportation device. And then the masked man appears, and attacks them all…

Watching Big Hero 6 – especially if you’re a Disney executive – is a reassuring experience. In the same year that Marvel took a chance on one of their lesser known titles (something called Guardians of the Galaxy), the House of Mouse also took a chance on releasing another Marvel adaptation, a comic book property that had an even lower profile than Star Lord and his pals. The result is a funny, exciting, refreshing, beautifully rendered, heartwarming tale that introduces audiences to one of the most lovable animated characters in recent memory: a rotund primary care robot called Baymax.

It’s a recognisably Disney movie. There’s the standard emphasis on family bonds and the importance of friendships, as well as doing the right thing, but it’s a Disney movie that’s been meshed with the standard tropes of a Marvel origin story, its action heroics and in-house maxim “with great power comes great responsibility” adding an extra layer to the emotional content that makes it more affecting than expected. Given free rein by Marvel to adapt Big Hero 6 in whatever way they saw fit, directors Hall and Williams and screenwriters Jordan Roberts, Dan Gerson and Robert L. Baird have created a movie that is a model of consistent, gratifying entertainment.

Of course, Big Hero 6 would be nothing without Baymax, an irresistibly charming, sweet-natured character who melts the heart and warms it at the same time. He’s a brilliant creation, a soft, cuddly vinyl-formed teddy bear whose personality chip is completely in the right place (where his heart would be – coincidence?). Voiced to perfection by Adsit, Baymax is the kind of friend we’d all love to have: solicitous, kindly, generous, selfless, supportive, and always there for us (it would be a hard heart indeed that didn’t fall in love with him at first sight).

With Baymax proving to be such a wonderful character it wouldn’t have been a surprise to find Hiro lacking in appeal by comparison, but thanks to the very cleverly assembled script, Hiro is as immediately likeable as Baymax is, his scamming at the opening robot fight proving to be a great introduction to a character the viewer can both identify and sympathise with throughout, even when his thirst for revenge for the death of Tadashi threatens to overwhelm his sense of right and wrong. And he’s not as self-centred as most fourteen year olds, having a refreshingly sincere relationship with both his brother and his aunt. And even more refreshingly, the script avoids any notion that Baymax is a replacement for Tadashi; the lovable lug, ultimately, is more than that, fulfilling the roles of brother, friend, and father.

What’s also refreshing is the fact that the villain actually has a good reason for stealing Hiro’s microbots and replicating them. When this reason is revealed it adds yet another emotional layer to the storyline, as well as an unexpected sadness that is amplified by highlighting how much the villain and Hiro have in common. It’s a neat twist on the usual hero-villain relationship, and allows Big Hero 6 to be comprised of more than just the customary bad-guy-out-to-take-over-the-world-and-stopped-by-errant-genius scenario we’re so used to seeing.

The supporting characters are all endearing in their own ways, with Miller’s Fred proving especially likeable (stay til after the end credits for a great “reveal” relating to his dad), and Wayans Jr’s Wasabi often very funny as the constantly risk assessing member of the group. The voice cast are all excellent, with special mention going to Potter and Henney who make their scenes together genuinely touching, and Adsit once more for making Baymax so appealing and irresistible.

As for the animation, the use of new technology means that Big Hero 6 is possibly one of the most beautifully animated movies so far. There’s also a level of detail that is absolutely breathtaking, notably in the scenes that take place on the streets of San Fransokyo. The mix of Eastern and Western cultures is a joy to behold, and very cleverly assimilated, providing a rich visual palette that can be enjoyed time and time again. The character designs are also impressive, with a welcome reduction on the size of the eyes that has hampered the design of so many previous animated characters. And the use of a kabuki mask makes the villain truly intimidating and menacing, augmenting the threat he presents and making him look creepy as well.

With Hall and Williams showing an obvious command of the material, and choosing not to set this in another corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the viewer is free to enjoy the movie for what it is and not where it might fit in to any future Marvel outings. With this potential aspect removed, Big Hero 6 is free to be delightful and entertaining on every level it aims for.

Rating: 9/10 – a winner, pure and simple, continually inventive and captivating in equal measure; Big Hero 6 is yet another triumph from Disney, and is – probably – one of the most visually ravishing, heartwarming animated movies you’re likely to see in this or any year.

Maleficent (2014)

03 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Angelina Jolie, Aurora, Disney, Elle Fanning, Fantasy, Pixies, Review, Robert Stromberg, Sharlto Copley, Sleeping Beauty, Spinning wheel, The Moors, True love's kiss, Wings

D: Robert Stromberg / 97m

Cast: Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning, Sharlto Copley, Lesley Manville, Imelda Staunton, Juno Temple, Sam Riley, Brenton Thwaites, Kenneth Cranham, Hannah New

A revisionist version of the Sleeping Beauty story, Maleficent begins long before the traditional tale begins, and tells of two neighbouring lands, one human, one fairy, that exist with animosity simmering between them. As a young child, Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy) is curious about humans but doesn’t venture any further than the boundary of the fairy lands (known as the Moors). One day a young boy, Stefan (Michael Higgins) is found stealing in the Moors. Maleficent saves him from the forest guards and a friendship is born. Stefan returns to the Moors from time to time and friendship blossoms into romance. When Maleficent is sixteen, Stefan gives her a “true love’s” kiss, but he never returns after that day.

Years pass. Now an adult, Maleficent (Jolie) is the de facto queen of the Moors. When King Henry (Cranham) tries to invade the fairy lands she repels his army and the King is injured. With no natural heir to succeed him, he offers the throne to whomever kills Maleficent. Stefan (Copley) is a courtier but uses his relationship with Maleficent to get close to her. Unable to kill her outright, instead he cuts off her wings; he brings them back to Henry and becomes King when Henry dies; he also marries Henry’s daughter, Leila (New). Maleficent, meanwhile, saves a raven from being captured by a human and transforms him into a man who tells her his name is Diaval (Riley). Diaval agrees to be Maleficent’s spy in the human lands, and brings news when Stefan and Leila have a daughter, Aurora.

Maleficent attends the christening and bestows a gift on the child, a curse that on her sixteenth birthday Aurora will prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and fall asleep for the rest of eternity; the only thing that can lift the curse is a “true love’s” kiss. Stefan orders all the spinning wheels in the kingdom broken up and burned and sends Aurora away under the charge of three pixies, Knotgrass (Staunton), Flittle (Manville) and Thistlewit (Temple), to live in a cottage deep in the nearby woods; she is to live there until the day after her sixteenth birthday.

As she approaches that fateful date, Aurora (Fanning) becomes increasingly fascinated with the Moors. Maleficent puts her under a spell and brings her into the Moors. Aurora is enchanted by what she sees and she becomes determined to stay there (she has no idea of her background or history). At the same time her relationship with Maleficent develops into a strong bond, and Maleficent softens in her attitude toward her. On her way to tell the pixies of her decision, she meets Prince Philip (Thwaites) with whom there is an instant mutual attraction. When she reaches the cottage, Knotgrass inadvertently mentions her father, whom Aurora has been told died long ago. The pixies reveal the truth about her heritage and Aurora confronts Maleficent. Distraught, Aurora returns to the castle on her sixteenth birthday, where Stefan is preparing for what he believes will be Maleficent’s imminent arrival. That night, Aurora escapes from her room but ends up in the basement where all the broken up and charred spinning wheels are. As the curse decrees, Aurora pricks her finger on a spindle and falls into eternal sleep…

With the look and feel of both Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Sam Raimi’s Oz the Great and Powerful (2013) – and it’s no surprise, as director Stromberg was the production designer on both movies – Maleficent is a feast for the eyes and looks beautiful throughout. The Moors has an air of whimsy about it and the various pastel shades employed to bring it to life are cleverly overlapped to create a ravishing whole. Once Maleficent is betrayed, the colours are muted and the Moors is not quite as vividly rendered, but it’s still a wonderful place for a young girl to grow up in.

It’s a shame then that as much effort wasn’t put into the human kingdom, its stone walls and bland woodwork acting as a dreary counterpoint to the Moors. It’s also a good reference point when discussing the characters. Maleficent herself is a wonderful creation, given depth and pathos by Jolie, and graced with the sharpest cheekbones you’re ever likely to see on screen. It’s a magnificent performance, and a reminder that Jolie, last seen in the less than wonderful The Tourist (2010), is an accomplished actress, but here she’s the sole focus in a movie that short changes its other characters, leaving the rest of the cast to fend for themselves while Jolie gets the lion’s share of the screen time and any character development. Ultimately, this single-mindedness hurts the movie tremendously, and wastes the talents of Fanning, Copley, Staunton et al. Copley, despite a minimal attempt to endow Stefan with a degree of guilt for his actions, is hamstrung by the lack of range his character is imbued with, and by the movie’s end he’s so close to providing a one-note performance as to make no difference (it doesn’t help that his accent wavers all over the place in his early scenes).

With Linda Woolverton’s script providing less meat than required, Maleficent suffers in other areas as well. For such a handsomely mounted, cleverly revisionist tale, it’s also curiously flat throughout. The early scenes – pre-adult Maleficent – seem in a hurry to get to the main bulk of the movie, and the remainder doesn’t excite or captivate in the way that it should. Scene follows scene but not in any organic way; instead it’s as if the movie is more concerned with hitting each plot development in turn but not with how it gets there. This leaves some scenes feeling redundant, often before the scene has ended. And too much happens purely because the script needs it to: Stefan’s preparations for Maleficent’s return to the castle, for example, planned so far in advance of her actually needing to go there that it doesn’t make sense; and Maleficent’s wings, unmoving and apparently lifeless when Stefan removes them, but animated and responsive after more than sixteen years (and just when Maleficent needs them).

Story and plot problems notwithstanding, Maleficent lacks the zest and energy needed to fully bring it’s reworking of Sleeping Beauty (1959) to life. There’s also the issue of whether or not Maleficent is really the villainous character she is in Disney’s animated version of the story. Here, she’s clearly a character who’s been tragically wronged, and despite attempts to make her “evil”, they’re never convincing, and Jolie’s approach to the character highlights the theme of female empowerment that permeates the movie throughout. This leaves Stefan as the movie’s one true villain, and far more “evil” than Maleficent could ever be, even with the maniacal chuckling that Jolie strives for during the christening. (It’s a shame as it would definitely have made the movie more interesting, but with the emphasis on rehabilitating the character for a modern audience – as if we really needed it – a completely evil Maleficent was never on the cards.)

Stromberg is not a strong director, either, and his lack of experience contributes to the overall shortcomings of the movie. The action sequences lack the excitement expected from them, and the editing by Chris Lebenzon and Richard Pearson often contributes to the sense that there’s a more structured, deliberate movie back in the cutting room (a longer version might be interesting to watch). In the end, this is Jolie’s triumph, not anyone else’s, but by herself she’s not able to rescue the movie from the doldrums it repeatedly finds itself in.

Rating: 5/10 – not entirely the success its makers would have hoped for, but not entirely a dud either, just a maddeningly disappointing movie that never takes off (as Maleficent herself does); plagued by too many bad decisions affecting its presentation, Maleficent keeps the viewer at arm’s length for long periods, and only occasionally tries to bring them any closer.

Air Bud Series (1997-2003)

20 Thursday Feb 2014

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Air Bud, American Football, American Soccer, Andrea Framm, Baseball, Basketball, Beach Volleyball, Caitlin Wachs, Cynthia Stevenson, Disney, Drama, Family movies, Fernfield, Josh Framm, Katija Pevec, Kevin Zegers, Reviews

Disney’s Air Bud series is a mostly entertaining quintet that is aimed squarely at a family audience, although parents might not be as enthralled as their children will be. The first two movies received a theatrical release, while the rest were released direct-to-video. After the last movie, Disney decided to shift the focus to Buddy’s offspring, and the Air Buddies franchise was created. While that series continues to endure – the eighth in the series is due for release in 2015 – looking back over their predecessors reveals a series that for the most part tried to maintain a simple, unfussy approach to the stories, and kept Buddy’s sporting activities as credible as possible.

Air Bud (1997)

D: Charles Martin Smith / 98m

Cast: Michael Jeter, Kevin Zegers, Wendy Makkena, Bill Cobbs, Eric Christmas, Nicola Cavendish, Shayn Solberg, Brendan Fletcher, Norman Browning

Like a lot of low-budget Disney fare from the Nineties, Air Bud is a likeable tale of a young boy, Josh Framm (Zegers) coming to live in the small town of Fernfield and befriending an apparently stray dog. The twist here is that the dog, a friendly golden retriever, is, like Josh, a whiz at playing basketball.

The dog is christened Buddy and after a few mishaps on the way to convincing his mother Jackie (Makkena) to keep him, Buddy helps Josh regain the confidence he lost when his father died the year before. And when the school basketball team finds itself a player short, Josh repays Buddy’s help by getting him on the team. Needless to say, Buddy proves to be a star player and it’s onward to the championship final, where… well, you can guess the rest.

But there is a fly in the ointment, in the form of Buddy’s real owner, Norm Snively (Jeter). Norm is a clown, and at the movie’s beginning you see just how bad he is at it; only Buddy wins any applause from the children’s party they’re at. Norm wants Buddy back and sues for custody. Cue a courthouse sequence that is both funny and funnier still, largely due to loopy Judge Cranfield (Christmas).

The cast as a whole is uniformly good, with Christmas being matched by the excellent Jeter. Zegers – just thirteen but appearing in his eighth movie – gives an affecting performance even though he’s largely required to be moody and defensive for the first half of the movie. The script avoids the usual syrupy sentimentality that so often mars Disney’s attempts at family fare, and Smith’s direction enables the cast to do just that bit more with characters that might otherwise have appeared as paper-thin stereotypes.

Of course, Air Bud was the first of five movies, and if you watch them back to back you’ll notice some interesting continuity issues that crop up as the series continues. In this movie, keep a close eye on Makkena; this is her only appearance in the series, and it’s worth noting how the producers kept her replacements looking much the same. Also, look out for the location of the town marker: there’s no prizes for guessing if it’s still in the same place in Air Bud: Golden Receiver.

Rating: 6/10 – a pleasing start to the franchise with winning performances and a slightly goofy nature; but shame on Disney for putting another dog altogether on the poster!

Air Bud: Golden Receiver (1998)

D: Richard Martin / 90m

Cast: Kevin Zegers, Cynthia Stevenson, Gregory Harrison, Nora Dunn, Perry Anzilotti, Robert Costanzo, Shayn Solberg, Suzanne Ristic, Alyson MacLaren, Jaida Hay

Having excelled at basketball, this time around Josh tries out for the school football team after finding out he’s got a pretty good throwing arm. When the team’s star quarterback is injured, guess who steps up to take his place? You can’t? Hmmm… Buddy joins the team as well (the football powers-that-be seem to have the same lack of restrictions about players from a different species as the basketball powers-that-be have). He’s a great catcher of the ball (naturally), and together they help the team reach… the championship final!

When it comes to the sports side of things, Air Bud: Golden Receiver is all very predictable, and it looks to have been a deliberate move on the producers’ part. It’s only in Air Bud Spikes Back that the sport is the whole of the plot; here it’s secondary to Jackie (Stevenson) and her romance with new local vet Patrick (Harrison). Josh isn’t sure about the relationship, and while he doesn’t go quite so far as to try and sabotage it – he does actually like Patrick – there are still enough wobbles along the way before everything works out as smoothly as expected. There’s also a third storyline involving a couple of Russian circus owners who are stealing animals for their show, and want Buddy for their star attraction. They make a couple of attempts to abduct him but fail so that Josh and Buddy can make it to the championship final – which is when Buddy finally gets dognapped. Cue a frantic race against time to rescue Buddy and win the game.

While there was an element of slapstick in the first movie, it was legitimised by having the villain be a clown. Here the two Russians, Natalya (Dunn) and Popov (Anzilotti) are so inept and so stupid they make a great case for involuntary euthanasia. Why the producers decided to make them so stupid is a mystery as their inanity hurts the movie tremendously; rather than adding humour to the movie, they just leave the viewer wishing their scenes had been cut out altogether. Where humour has been successfully added is at the championship game, where in an inspired move, Tim Conway and Dick Martin play two match commentators, foreshadowing the type of one’s barmy/one’s serious interaction seen in movies such as Best in Show (2000).

On the more serious side of things, the romance between Jackie and Patrick is handled well, and both Stevenson and Harrison keep it all grounded. They both underplay the emotional aspect effectively, so much so that when Patrick has to decide whether or not to take up a job offer out of state, you’re never quite sure if he’s going to stay or not.

The script – Russians aside – is effective and expands on Air Bud while keeping the core elements that made that movie work so well. Buddy and Josh still make for an attractive couple – there it’s been said! – and Martin’s direction keeps the action moving along nicely.

Back in Continuity Corner, Stevenson fits the mould created by Makkena, but now remember Harrison and see how his looks pan out with his successors in the rest of the series (and two of the Air Buddies movies). And as for the town marker, isn’t it in a different place this time, a bit nearer to the centre of town, perhaps? Hmmm…

Rating: 6/10 – an effective sequel let down by its simpleton villains; well-staged and amusing with good performances all round.

Air Bud: World Pup (2001)

D: Bill Bannerman / 83m

Cast: Kevin Zegers, Caitlin Wachs, Dale Midkiff, Chilton Crane, Brittany Paige Bouck, Miguel Sandoval, Shayn Solberg, Chantal Strand, Martin Ferrero, Don McMillan, Duncan Regehr, Patricia Idlette, Fred Keating

With the predictability of the Air Bud formula firmly entrenched from the outset – dog and master find they have a natural aptitude for ball-based sports and lead local team to a championship final with even further predictable results – the producers had begun to look at ways of focusing more on the characters rather than Buddy himself. That said, with Air Bud: World Pup, Buddy has a larger role than in Air Bud: Golden Receiver, and the movie, while still as predictable as all the others in the series, is one of the more enjoyable entries.

Here, Buddy meets Molly and promptly falls head over paws in love. Soon he’s sneaking out at night and returning the next morning. Only Josh’s younger sister Andrea (Wachs) notices as he passes her window on his way out each night. Could Buddy be spending some lurve time with Molly?

Meanwhile, Josh is beginning a fledgling relationship himself with Molly’s owner, Emma (Bouck). She and her father (Regehr) have just moved to Fernfield from England and Emma is keen to try out for the school soccer team. When the team proves to be a player short (and then another), guess who steps in to make up the numbers and take the team to the championship final? (You can’t? Really…?)

There’s a lot to enjoy here. Josh and Emma’s romance is handled well but stops short of their having any actual physical contact (not even a kiss, producers? Come on!). Zegers and Bouck are a good match and they have a relaxed chemistry together; their scenes are nicely played. Wachs is good too as the now (much) older Andrea. She and best friend Tammy (Strand) discover the reason for Buddy’s nocturnal excursions, and play a larger part in the general storyline. All of which relegates Jackie (Crane, subbing for Cynthia Stevenson but given very little to do in comparison) and (now) stepdad Patrick (Midkiff) to the sidelines. Sandoval is good as Coach Montoya, and this movie’s villains, Snerbert (Ferrero) and Webster (McMillan), are perhaps the least annoying in the series as a whole; McMillan at least displays an aptitude for comic timing.

There are various subplots: the team is temporarily suspended from the tournament because of Emma and Buddy’s participation; the villains’ plot to snatch Molly which prompts the standard race against time to get Josh, Emma and Buddy to the final in time; Josh’s friend Tom’s attempts to impress Emma; and Emma’s dad’s financial problems.

On the continuity front, Crane makes for a low-key Jackie, and only resembles Makkena and Stevenson in long shot; the movie opens with Jackie and Patrick getting married; Jay Brazeau reprises his role from the first two movies as a referee, while Frank C. Turner (a bailiff in Air Bud) reprises his role as a linesman in Air Bud: Golden Receiver; Andrea ages at least six years from the time of the previous movie; Midkiff looks completely unlike Gregory Harrison; the front of the Framm house has grown balconies; and that pesky town marker is now in the centre of town.

This was to be the last Air Bud movie where Josh would take centre stage. It would also be the last Air Bud movie where there was as much focus on the characters, or any attempt to develop them further. It’s a shame as, predictability aside, the series has been enjoyable and fun to watch.

Rating: 6/10 – perhaps the best entry in the series, though a little too reliant on the type of obvious humour that would scupper future instalments.

Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch (2002)

D: Robert Vince / 93m

Cast: Caitlin Wachs, Cynthia Stevenson, Richard Karn, Molly Hagan, Patrick Cranshaw, Chantal Strand, Jay Brazeau, Frank C. Turner, Doug Funk, Kevin Zegers, Shayn Solberg

From this point on it’s easy to dismiss the Air Bud series as a series gone too far, and certainly this entry fails to add anything appreciably new to the format. Instead it takes away a major character, Josh, and bumps his younger sister Andrea into the main role. Josh is off to college, leaving Andrea feeling left out while Jackie (the returning Stevenson) and stepdad Patrick (Karn) concentrate on new addition to the Framm household, baby brother Noah. Looking for something to occupy her time she lets best friend Tammy talk her into trying out for the school baseball team. Unlike Josh, Andrea isn’t a natural and only makes it onto the team through Tammy’s intervention. As the season progresses, she proves time and again how bad she is until Buddy helps her in the same way he did with Josh in the first movie. Andrea improves her game, takes over from the injured Tammy – up tip now the team’s star player – and gets Buddy on the team as well. They get all the way to the championship final and… well, you know the rest.

As usual there are villains that are up to no good, this time around in the form of Professor Siles (Brazeau) and his accomplice Carlton (Turner). Siles is intent on kidnapping Buddy and his offspring in the hope of isolating the “super gene” that makes all of them so good at sports. Then he can sell it to “professional athletes all round the world”. One by one they abduct four of Buddy’s puppies – Shooter, Zack, Duke and Striker – and Buddy before being brought to justice by Sheriff Bob (Cranshaw) and Andrea and Tammy.

On the minus side, Brazeau and Turner’s constant mugging becomes tedious quite quickly, the proceedings are more predictable and more banal than usual, the performances stilted, and the baseball matches are filmed with an underwhelming approach that would only be topped by the approach in Air Bud: Spikes Back. Producer Vince, making his debut as a series director (though he was previously responsible for the MVP: Most Valuable Primate movies), lets things drift along without any real pace, and Buddy is criminally underused.

However, there are some things to like. The photography, by Glen Winter, is the best in the series, giving Fernfield and its environs a pleasing glow, while the inclusion of villain helper Rocky the Raccoon gives the movie a different “ahh” factor from Buddy and his crew. Also, there is one short scene where Shooter’s owner reports him missing to Sheriff Bob that is as funny as anything in the whole series; the set up isn’t new but it is bulletproof.

On the continuity side, sharp-eyed viewers will be wondering what happened to the other two puppies seen in Air Bud: World Pup; third stepdad Karn bears no resemblance to previous stepdads Harrison and Midkiff; the front of the Framm house is back to its usual façade; and that darned town marker is back out on one of the roads into town, though now on the opposite side.

Rating: 5/10 – a poor sequel that badly needed some energy to raise it up; a muddled script and indifferent direction haven’t helped either.

Air Bud: Spikes Back (2003)

D: Mike Southon / 87m

Cast: Katija Pevec, Cynthia Stevenson, Edie McClurg, Tyler Boissonnault, Jake D. Smith, Patrick Cranshaw, Nicholas Harrison, Chantal Strand, Malcolm Scott

The last in the Air Bud series – before the Buddies took over – sees our erstwhile canine hero showing an aptitude for beach volleyball. The movie also shows just how tired the series has become.

With Josh now out of the picture(s) altogether, the focus falls entirely on Andrea (Pevec) who’s devastated to learn that her best friend Tammy (Strand, the only cast member in all five movies) is moving to San Diego. Andrea desperately wants to earn enough money to visit Tammy and so starts up a business as a dog sitter, with predictably disastrous results. Then new neighbour Connor (Boissonnault) introduces her to the less-than-exciting world of beach volleyball, and wouldn’t you know it, the local team needs new players and are heading for the championship final, where the prize is… a trip to California! Will Andrea and Buddy help win the championship, and will will Andrea get to visit best friend Tammy in San Diego? Is Kevin Zegers lucky not to be in this movie?

There is also the inevitable subplot involving a couple of incompetent buffoons posing as villains. Here it’s Gordon (Scott) and Justin (Bishop), a couple of would-be jewel thieves out to steal a large diamond on display at the Fernfield museum. They can’t get past the lasers protecting the diamond but once they see Buddy winning an agility contest, they know he’ll be able to snatch the gem. Of course, they put this move off continually until the day of the championship final, thus necessitating the ritual last-gasp chase and rescue sequence series’ die-hards have come to know and love.

There is a difference here in that Buddy rescues himself this time, and arranges for the villains to land themselves in the matchstick clutches of Sheriff Bob. These two are still not the biggest idiots in the series – that honour still goes to Natalya and Popov from Air Bud: Golden Receiver – but they are painful to watch.

And so is the rest of the movie. This is by far the worst in the series, and there are several reasons, all emanating from the tired script. The characters are mere cyphers now; whatever made them interesting or sympathetic in the previous movies has been systematically erased. Pevec is bland and so too is Boissonnault; there’s supposed to be chemistry between them but they come across more as brother and sister than as a potential couple. Mom Jackie and stepdad Patrick (Humphreys) are reduced to walk-on parts, being shipped off to a veterinary convention for most of the movie, and while the introduction of Gram Gram (McClurg) initially seems promising – she’s there to look after Andrea and Noah (Smith) while Jackie and Patrick are away – she’s given so little to do other than dote on her parrot and look sad when he disappears that it’s a waste of McClurg’s talent. The direction by Southon (normally a DP) lacks focus and drains the movie of any energy it might have had, and the volleyball matches are repetitive and lifeless; the script can’t even keep track of the scoring properly.

Woeful as it is, Air Bud: Spikes Back still manages to raise the odd chuckle but by the movie’s end the level of fatigue on display, and affecting the viewer, is overwhelming. On the continuity side, Humphreys is a much older Patrick; Pevec bears no resemblance to Wachs or even Alyson MacLaren; the puppies from the previous two instalments are nowhere to be seen (or even mentioned); Harrison moves up from being an umpire in Air Bud: Seventh Inning Fetch to being the team coach here; and the town marker… is nowhere to be seen.

Rating: 4/10 – saved from a lower score because of the production values and because the sight of Smith trying to bath a Great Dane is a minor moment of inspiration.

All reviews originally posted on thedullwoodexperiment website.

Frozen (2013)

06 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Animation, Arendelle, Disney, Disney Classics, Drama, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Kristen Bell, Olaf, Review, Snow and ice, Snowman, Sven

D: Jennifer Lee, Chris Buck / 102m

Cast: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Josh Gad, Santino Fontana, Alan Tudyk, Ciarán Hinds

With many a nod to Tangled, Frozen is the story of two sisters, Anna (Bell) and Elsa (Menzel), young princesses in the fairytale kingdom of Arendelle, who seem to live an idyllic lifestyle until Anna is hurt by Elsa’s “gift”: the ability to create snow and ice just by touch alone. Anna nearly dies; this leads to Elsa hiding her gift and devoting the rest of her life to living a quiet, almost monastic life away from other people (including Anna). When their parents die, it is Elsa who becomes Queen. On the day she is crowned, events transpire to reveal her gift to the people, who are horrified. Urged on by the treacherous Duke of Weselton (Tudyk), Elsa is forced to flee the kingdom and take refuge in the snowy mountains, but not before her gift has covered her kingdom in ice. There she fashions a castle for herself and determines never to return to her kingdom or her people.

Unperturbed by the revelation of her sister’s gift, Anna determines to find her, heading into the mountains by herself. She soon finds herself lost and without transport, but is rescued by Kristoff (Groff), an ice harvester who agrees to help her (with the aid of his trusty reindeer, Sven). Meanwhile, the Duke of Weselton has sent two of his men to kill Elsa; they form part of a party led by Prince Hans of the Southern Isles, whose romantic eye has fallen on Anna (he leads the party in order to find her after she goes looking for Elsa). They all reach Elsa’s hideout at the same time only to encounter a snow monster created by Elsa, as well as a snowman named Olaf. Olaf tags along with Anna as she seeks to convince her sister that there is still a place for her in the kingdom. But treachery ensues, and the fate of the kingdom rests in Elsa’s “gifted” hands, and Anna’s forgiving heart.

Overloaded with songs in its first half – the first of which is hard to understand – Frozen is a fine addition to the list of animated Disney Classics. With richly drawn characters, often breathtakingly beautiful animation, a terrific voice cast, and memorable scenes throughout, the movie is a visual treat. The storyline packs an emotional heft and the script is clever and well-constructed. There are the usual Disney themes of a family in crisis, unselfish love winning out, the importance of being true to yourself, and being kind to others, and while these are all timeworn aspects of virtually every Disney movie (animated or otherwise), there’s a freshness here that keeps the familiar material interesting, and the audience’s attention throughout.

Ably directed by Lee and Buck, Frozen succeeds because it takes the aforementioned Disney values and puts a pleasing modern spin on them, even if the story feels like it’s taking place a couple of centuries ago in some mittel-European kingdom. The movie is funny, sad, dramatic, action-packed, romantic and affecting, with fine performances from Bell and Menzel, and a great supporting turn from Gad as Olaf the endlessly upbeat, glad-to-be-alive snowman. There’s what appears to be a cameo from Tangled’s Maximus (see Prince Hans’s horse at the quayside), a pleasing and convincing relationship between the two sisters, a couple of unexpected twists and turns, and a satisfying comeuppance for the main villain.

Rating: 8/10 – another absorbing, engaging hit from Disney, with glorious visuals and the required amount of laughs; even more impressive in 3D.

NOTE: I saw Frozen with my daughter. She’s nineteen, loves animated movies, and has probably seen Disney’s Beauty and the Beast more times than is actually good for her. She thought Frozen was wonderful. For me, though, what was wonderful was that she and I can still go to the movies together and both let our inner child out to play for a couple of hours. I hope we can carry on doing that for a very long time to come.

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

13 Friday Dec 2013

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

Annie Rose Buckley, Australia, Colin Farrell, Comedy, Disney, Drama, Emma Thompson, John Lee Hancock, Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, Review, Tom Hanks, True story, Walt Disney

D: John Lee Hancock / 125m

Cast: Emma Thompson, Tom Hanks, Annie Rose Buckley, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson, Bradley Whitford, Jason Schwartzman, B.J. Novak, Rachel Griffiths, Kathy Baker, Ronan Vibert

Based on the true story of Walt Disney’s attempts to secure the film rights to P.L. Travers’ Mary Poppins, Saving Mr. Banks opens with the financially compromised author (Thompson) telling her agent she has absolutely no intention of flying to Los Angeles and letting Disney (Hanks) ruin her creation. One quick turnaround later and we see Travers arriving in La La Land and being met by her driver for the duration of her stay, Ralph (Giamatti). One dispiriting car journey (for her) later and she is introduced to the charming and sincere Disney. Her doubts assuaged for the time being, she agrees to work with the proposed movie’s writers (Whitford, Schwartzman and Novak). As they work through the script and songs we’ve all come to know – and perhaps love – Travers’ objections remain largely in place, but gradually her resistance is worn down by a combination of the writers’ enthusiasm, Disney’s determination not to renege on a promise made to his daughters twenty years before, and memories of her childhood that resurface during the visit.

It’s these flashbacks that add meat to the otherwise thin story of “a writer taking on the system”. As portrayed by Thompson – and superbly, I might add – Travers is presented as a bit of an old dragon: scathing, contemptuous of her American “cousins”, rude, condescending and almost completely out of her depth. Hancock and writers Kelly Marcel and Sue Smith, instead of making the movie a “fish out of water” story where the fish wins out by virtue of personal fortitude and stubbornness, have wisely chosen to look at the reasons for Travers’ animosity towards Disney, and why the character of Mr Banks was so important to her. As Travers’ back story unfolds through the depiction of her childhood, so we come to learn the fundamental truth behind the characters of Mr Banks and of Mary Poppins herself, and the long-term effect Travers’ childhood has had on her. These scenes give a much-needed depth to the movie, and allows Thompson to provide a richer, more psychological approach to P.L. Travers than may have been expected. Thompson dominates the movie, reducing even Tom Hanks to the level of humble onlooker in their scenes together, and gives a masterclass in screen acting, her voice and mannerisms and facial expressions all perfectly pitched to leave the audience in no doubt as to her thoughts and feelings at any time.

Matching Thompson in terms of screen performance, and presence, is her younger counterpart, Annie Rose Buckley. With only an episode of Aussie soap Home and Away back in 2010 under her belt, Buckley’s performance as Ginty is intuitive, mesmerising and a minor revelation. As her scenes transform from pastoral idyllic to domestic unstable, Buckley displays a maturity and command of the material that few actresses her age would be capable of achieving, let alone maintaining, over the course of a two hour movie. She’s a remarkable find, and all credit to the casting director Ronna Kress for picking her out.

As Disney, Tom Hanks gives a comfortable performance but the script often sidelines him, so that he pops up only now and again to urge on Travers and perform a little light damage control when required. It’s effectively a supporting role, and one that doesn’t stretch him in any way. In other roles, Farrell as the inspiration for Mr Banks plays against type for the first half of the movie, while Wilson is given little to do as his wife other than look disappointed or, in one scene, have a five minute breakdown. Giamatti is good as Travers’ driver, and he provides several deft comic ripostes to Thompson’s sarcastic jibes. And in perhaps the most sublime casting decision of all, Rachel Griffiths messes with our acceptance of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins by portraying the “real” Mary.

Saving Mr. Banks is lovely to watch, courtesy of bright, colourful photography by John Schwartzman (half-brother of Jason), and a pleasing recreation both of turn-of-the-20th-century Australia and 60’s Los Angeles. Disneyland is given an effective retro makeover, and the music by Thomas Newman – incorporating several of the songs from Mary Poppins (1964) – adds extra emotional elements to both storylines. If there is a lightness of touch, a slight distancing from the more dramatic aspects of Ginty’s childhood, then it should be remembered that this is still a Disney movie, and the studio that works hard to sanitise almost all of its family-oriented movies – and at heart this is still one of them, make no mistake – isn’t about to let people leave the cinema feeling saddened or depressed. Fortunately, Saving Mr. Banks carries enough emotional heft to offset its more calculated hilarity, and if there are moments where you wonder just how much of it all is true or not, the fact that Disney were banking on a much-loved “product” in Mary Poppins, also informs this movie as well.

Rating: 8/10 – enjoyable, handsomely mounted movie that avoids being as original as say, “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”; and without Thompson in the lead role providing a strong point of reference for the audience, would have struggled to stand out from the crowd of other “true stories” set in Hollywood.

thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

Tag Archives: Disney

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Air Bud Series (1997-2003)

Frozen (2013)

Saving Mr. Banks (2013)

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