Onward (2020) - Movie Review

Even without bringing the cinema closures into the equation… I’ll admit, I was putting off watching this one. After the utter clusterfuck that was 2019 in Disney’s history, simultaneously one of their best and one of their worst in terms of both content control and financial reward, I’m a lot more hesitant about the House of Mouse than I used to be. And as I’ll get into, while that event lingering in the background does cut into the enjoyment a little, I still managed to have fun with it.

The LEGO Movie 2 (2019) - Movie Review

After a quite fantastic solo spin-off (and a rather disappointing secondary spin-off), the LEGO movie franchise is back to its main series. Knowing how much fire the first film caught on release, and is still catching on and off five years later, expectations are quite high that this is going to not only match up to what audiences loved about the original, but also a reassurance that the fumble that was Ninjago was just a one-off incident. I once again find myself in a position where I’m not entirely sure what to expect from this film, much like how I went into the first movie. Also once again, having seen the movie, this feels like exactly what this film should be, both on its own and as a continuation to what has become one of the greatest films of the 2010’s.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Three years after the destruction of the theme park Jurassic World, a now-active volcano on Isla Nublar poses a serious threat to the dinosaurs still on the island. Wanting to save as many of these animals as possible, wealthy benefactor Eli Mills (Rafe Spall) hires former raptor trainer Owen (Chris Pratt) and former JW manager and now dinosaur activist Claire (Byrce Dallas Howard) to take a team to the island. However, once they arrive, it seems that not only is their task going to be a difficult one, but the people who hired them have ulterior motives for what they plan to do with these dinosaurs. The Indominus Rex was just the beginning.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017) - Movie Review

 

Out of all the Marvel Cinematic Universe we have gotten so far, from the politically-driven thrills of Captain America to the Objectivist musings of Iron Man, 2014’s Guardians Of The Galaxy still stands as my personal favourite of the lot. Hell, my defence for Suicide Squad likely came from how much it reminded me of Guardians in both tone and intent. Apart from what people have come to expect from a modern Marvel film, like the pitch-perfect casting and the industry connections to some of the greatest effects wizards working today, it also opened the gates for a more bizarre and kitschy brand of superhero story, one that director/co-writer James Gunn was more than apt to tell.

 

Despite how late this review ultimately is, with the film in question being out for quite a while before I finally got around to it, I was definitely eager to see just how it would measure up to the original that I hold in quite high regard. Once again, this is the year that sees fit to kick audiences square in their expectations, so here’s hoping for a solid project.

Passengers (2017) - Movie Review

Movie trailers, by their very design, are rather strange devices. At the base line, they are meant to intrigue the audience into possibly checking the film in question through basically whatever means are necessary. This usually involves quick-cutting the most visually interesting moments together, combined with music that will rarely if ever be a part of the film itself. Since I made it my mission to see everything that I possibly can at the cinemas, trailers don’t have the same effect on me as they used to (for the most part, at least), but they are still interesting to watch as part of my general fascination with marketing.

Some end up underselling their film by not isolating what generally makes the film good, instead focusing on the surface moments that make it look worse than it actually is, some oversell their film by combining the film’s best moments to make the film look better than it is… and then there’s trailers like those for today’s film. Seeing as this isn’t even the only film out right now to do this, I figure it would be worth getting into with some depth before the potential flood begins: What happens when a trailer shows you a film that is markedly different from the final product?

The Magnificent Seven (2016) - Movie Review

Even in the realms of cinematic remakes, this is a rather unique ouroborosian situation. While you are quickly Googling that word, I’ll get into why this is. Back when I looked at Slow West, I made brief mention of the relationship between Japanese and Western cinema and here is where we crash head-first into one of the first branches on that tree. Based on the Akira Kurosawa classic Seven Samurai, the original Magnificent Seven is a seminal staple of Old Hollywood and set in place an action blueprint of the rag-tag team of characters that come together to fight a great foe that would be copied verbatim for decades to follow. If you’ve ever watched A Bug’s Life, then you have a pretty good idea of the formula. With that in mind, and the fact that this is a reimagining of a remake of a definitive piece of cinema (all of which has sprouted its own niches and sub-genres in their wake), this could prove a tricky one. It is also, based solely on the trailer, one of the few films this year that I have genuinely been anxious to see for myself. Time to dig in and see how this holds up, considering this film has a lot that it needs to prove.

Jurassic World (2015) - Movie Review

Time for part two in our look into classic genre franchises from the 80’s-90's that are getting remakes lately… yes, this is enough of a specific trend for me to call this "a look into". Jurassic Park, the original at least, is the perfect example of the nostalgic classic: An old(er)-school sci-fi adventure that is unbelievably silly, and more than a little stupid, but it has held up far better than a lot of other films from the same era for most people and is considered still as good as it was when it came out. Watching it again, it’s kind of amazing how good it looks even today effects-wise, but that might just be the inner SF snob in me who has grown weary of the near-endless CGI. Then The Lost World came out, and aside from Pete Postlethwaite doing his best to salvage the thing, it was pretty god-awful. Then came the third film, which somehow managed to one-up the lack of effort from before and somehow made a film that’s worse. Between the sheer awe-inspiration of the first, the animal rights “we’re-making-28-Days-Later-look-restrained” idiocy of the second and the utter boredom of the third, this easily has the worst build-up of the three revamps I’ll be looking at: Say what you want about the Mad Max sequels, at least they have the benefit of being insanely influential in their own rights. Let’s see if this film can go above the low bar 2 and 3 set for it.