Tom & Jerry (2021) - Movie Review

Taking a break from giving Ice Cube more cinematic material to embarrass himself with (for now, given Ride Along 3 is apparently in development… thoughts and prayers are appreciated at this time), Tim Story, for some reason, has been handed the reins on the latest feature-length outing for one of the great cartoon duos. Between his inability to flesh out ostensibly original material with the Ride Along films, and his recurrent dropping of the ball with pre-established IPs like with the latest version of Shaft, I highly question why he was the one drafted for this.

But to his credit, he manages to modernise everyone’s favourite cat and mouse… not their classic material, though. Instead, more than anything else, this ends up being more of a modernisation of the ‘90s feature film, falling into the same traps that one did and even finding ways to go lower than before.

Scoob! (2020) - Movie Review

Okay, I think it’s time to leave the Aussie indie scene alone for a bit. And yet, I’m still going to be talking about something that’s close to home for me… just not as literally. As I’ve mentioned in reviews past, I grew up glued to Cartoon Network, and in many ways, I still am. When you’re responsible for the likes of Cartoon Cartoons, Adult Swim, Toonami and getting Run The Jewels to team up, you’ve more than earned your place in my heart. And part of that adoration is a respect, if not entirely being entertained by, classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Again, I’m much more familiar with the studio’s later work, but thanks to Boomerang, I had Scooby-Doo, Josie And The Pussycats, Hong Kong Phooey, Wacky Racers, and Captain Caveman in my media diet as a kid. I’m bringing all this up now because, holy hell, it feels like a film like this was made with an audience like myself in mind.

My Spy (2020) - Movie Review

In 2008, when Dwayne Johnson’s star as an actor was beginning its initial rise, Peter Segal’s take on the classic spy show Get Smart gave The Artist Who Wants Us To Stop Calling Him The Rock a proper shot at the mainstream, beyond his previous stardom as a wrestler. A little over a decade later, Segal seems to be on a similar tear, stepping back into the comedic spy game with Dave Bautista, the latest success story in that WWE-to-the-big-screen transition and, between crowd-pleasers like his work as Drax The Destroyer in the MCU and critical darlings like his opening role in Blade Runner 2049, this should be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, this latest attempt at carving out Bautista’s place in a more family-friendly lane is a major fizzler.

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: While searching an abandoned house, Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Sam (Caleel Harris) find a mysterious book with a lock on it that was apparently written by R. L. Stine. When they open it, they discover the ventriloquist dummy Slappy (Mick Wingert) who uses his magical powers to help the boys around the house... at first. It seems that Slappy is up to his old tricks, and he's planning to make this Halloween far scarier than anyone in the town would have expected, and it's up to Sonny, Sam and Sonny's sister Sarah (Madison Iseman) to stop him.

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Asian-American Rachel (Constance Wu) is invited by her boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding) to attend his best friend's wedding in Singapore and meet his family. However, Rachel discovers that Nick's family are among the richest business magnates in the region, and while she's coming to terms with that fact, she also has to deal with Nick's mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) insisting that Rachel is the wrong girl for her son.

Norm Of The North (2016) - Movie Review

Sometimes, it can get kind of shocking what the standards for a mainstream release are in this country. I mean, considering the crap that I’ve seen since starting this blog (and even a little bit prior to that), I would’ve thought that it was open season in terms of cinematic releases. I know that I have often said that I am more than willing to be proven wrong on certain aspects, but this certainly ain’t one of them. To help showcase this, I’ll quickly get into three relatively recent releases. The first being Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Don Jon, which only got a DVD release over here because I’m guessing that featuring footage of actual porn made some of the censors a bit squeamish. Pansies. The second being the much derided Jem And The Holograms, which I think got a proper release over here but I have found barely any evidence to suggest so. Weird, considering that that is one of those lofted trainwrecks that I was legitimately looking forward to seeing in all its badness. The third release, you may have guessed by now, is what I’m talking about today: A film officially released in the U.S. last year, but only made it to our shores on DVD in the last few weeks. Is this a Don Jon or a Keith Lemon: The Film? Ugh… I already know the answer to that one, but let’s pretend I don’t and keep going.

Ride Along 2 (2016) - Movie Review

Despicable Me 2 (2013) - Movie Review

The DUFF (2015) - Movie Review

I’m going to guess that this is because I didn’t go to high school in the U.S., but labels were never really a thing when I was growing up. Sure, there were certain cliques but we only really had three of them in my year: The geeks, the smokers and everyone else. Yeah, I was a definite geek and I had great friends within that circle but I was never completely driven away from everyone else though; I would frequently talk with the others and while I made a few frenemies along the way, I was relatively comfortable with everyone in the year. If I did have a label that I wasn’t aware of, aside from the nickname “Vol-Cain-O” that I earned due to my short temper, it would have probably been "entertainer", "show-off", or maybe "sideshow attraction"; I loved being the center of attention and trying to make people around me laugh. It didn’t always work out that way, and I would occasionally get laughed at but in retrospect I’m at least glad I got some kind of reaction. With this in mind, movies about high school life never really clicked with me aside from the rare outlier like Ben X. Well, we’re already on the subject of hipster-ish choices for movies, so let’s get started.