Isle Of Dogs (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: After a plague of dog-flu spreads throughout Japan, Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) declares that all dogs will be sent into quarantine on Trash Island. Among those dogs is Spots (Live Schreiber), a guard dog charged with protecting Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), the mayor’s ward and nephew. Determined to get his beloved dog back, Atari makes his own way onto Trash Island where he encounters Chief (Bryan Cranston), Red (Edward Norton), King (Bob Balaban), Boss (Bill Murray) and Duke (Jeff Goldblum), a pack of alpha dogs who agree to help Atari find his lost pet and, hopefully, prevent further destruction.

Power Rangers (2017) - Movie Review

Power Rangers is one of those franchises that definitely divides people in hindsight. Personally, even today, I still find a lot to like about it. While I may have a stronger connection to the Disney era of the franchise, in particular Dino Thunder, RPM and especially SPD, I did grow up with the Mighty Morphin’ series on VHS. While the rest of you ponder how old this inevitably makes me, also understand that a lot of my opinions regarding media aimed at children were born from my love of this franchise. Yeah, it’s frequently kitschy and more than a little stupid, but at its best, it’s the kind of kick-ass and brightly coloured action fun that I can see merit in. That, and there’s plenty of examples of real character moments and genuine drama to give it its worth in today’s superhero-drenched landscape.

 

So, between my love for the original shows and the year-long dreading I’ve been going through concerning this film for various reasons, how does this latest iteration of those teenagers with attitude turn out?

Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) - Movie Review

While How To Train Your Dragon serves as a lot of people’s evidence that Dreamworks is far better than we give them credit for, the Kung Fu Panda films are also an example of the studio at their best. Admittedly, the entire franchise started on a rather ill-fitting note by casting Jack Black as the main character, and sure his mannerisms were quite grating to start out with, but it had a sense of excitement and fun that a lot of other recent family films were lacking. The animation was high-energy and very well-crafted, leading to probably some of the best fight scenes of any film series of the last several years, the acting was top-notch with an all-star cast that contained some real martial arts legends like Jackie Chan and Jean-Claude Van Damme. Oh, and the writing took the standard “be yourself” theme of a lot of family-friendly fare and executed it so well that it managed to break the mould of its kind and surpass the genre clichés. You can imagine, with a pedigree like this, that this third film would have some rather high expectations. For reasons I will get into with the review proper, I was really not looking forward to this. But hey, after the weaksauce family offerings of the last long while, I’m still positive that this will be a decent watch. How decent is the question, though.