DC League Of Super-Pets (2022) - Movie Review

DC animated films feel like an anomaly within their own genre. While the live-action features spend so much time trying to turn the lavishly ludicrous into something that needs to be taken very seriously (and this isn’t just a DC thing; they’re all like this), the animated films could not care less about such things. Batman: Return Of The Caped Crusaders, the LEGO Batman Movie, Teen Titans Go! To The Movies, not to mention the official DC Animated line; not only are these among the strongest superhero flicks of the last several years, they got to that point by just embracing the sheer fun that’s supposed to be the core appeal of these characters. And this latest release from the Warner Animation Group is yet another example of that.

Jumanji: The Next Level (2019) - Movie Review

The formula that made Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle work is so brain-crappingly simple, it’s still bizarre to think that the numerous video game-centric films to come before it hadn’t cracked it. It took one of the most common and innocuous aspects of video gaming, the act of playing as a pre-designed character, and used to deliver some of the best body-swap comedy I’ve ever seen. I still can’t get over that it featured Jack Black acting like a Valley Girl, a combination that should’ve soured me from the guy’s work forevermore, and still managed to bring out the belly laughs. And with its sequel, it doubles down on that same formula and manages to do even better.

The Secret Life Of Pets 2 (2019) - Movie Review

There’s a certain thought pattern among critical circles that children’s films basically exist to promote everything except themselves. From tie-in merchandise to video games to character-specific spin-offs to TV shows, once a studio knows that a given property has got the attention of kids, they will milk it for all it’s worth. Illumination Entertainment is no stranger to this, if the still-prevalent Minions are any indication, but their latest feature feels like a plain-faced attempt at that kind of franchise enhancement. The way they go about this, though, leaves a bit to be desired.

Comparing any modern animated film to the DisneyToon sequel factory would usually serve as one of the gravest insults possible, but here, it’s kind of unavoidable. The plot in this under-90-minute flick feels similar to Atlantis: Milo’s Return, as if three smaller pilot episodes for a series were stitched together to make a singular feature. The plots in this instance involve Max and Duke getting into trouble on a farm, Gidget encountering the apartment of a crazy cat lady, and ‘Captain’ Snowball saving an animal from a travelling Russian circus.

The acting overall is fine, with Max this time around being voiced by Patton Oswalt because having an admitted sex offender voicing something that children cuddle up with would’ve sent off all kinds of red flags, but it’s nothing all that noteworthy. Same for the animation, which pretty much abandons the first film’s Merrie Melodies style for something a bit more standard. I got more than a few Nut Job flashbacks while watching it, although this is definitely less annoying to sit through. Even with the presence of Kevin 'Why is he still here?' Hart.

It taps into familiar territory from the first film as far as humour, sticking to the animal psychology behind how house pets behave. However, that part ends up diminished in comparison to the frequent attempts at kid crazy antics. I’d be disappointed by this if the attempts at crazy didn’t pan out more times than not. Kung-fu bunny rabbits, knife-throwing monkeys, a train chase sequence, not to mention the basic weirdness of a tiger running around New York with all these house pets.

There’s some mild lip service to using the animals as proxies for parents (something that gets spelled right the hell out at one point, so deducted points on that one), but ultimately, this is just another pleasant but harmless and inoffensive distraction. While the first film managed to skate by on those grounds, if this series is going to be a recurring thing, they’ll need to come up with something more for the next go-around. Or, more preferably, they could just bite the bullet and make this into a TV show; I can guarantee that the people who still watch cute animal videos on YouTube will be into it. Hell, judging by the end credits, the filmmakers themselves seem all too aware of that.

Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie (2017) - Movie Review

Back in 2015, after the monumental disaster of Home, I was about ready to completely write off Dreamworks as an animation company worth any amount of my time. Even compared to films I’ve seen beyond the lists, it still holds up as one of the single worst things ever designed for juvenile consumption. Well, not only did they collectively waste no time in proving my assumptions wrong, they have done in the most unprecedented of ways.

 

Kung Fu Panda 3, a film from a critically-acclaimed series that both felt short of the franchise’s pedigree and held up alongside its predecessors. Trolls, what should have become a legendary failure of toy-driven marketing in actuality was a simplistic but still amazingly resonant family film with some truly inspired musical decisions. The Boss Baby, a film that I actively had to be convinced was a genuine product and not just a work of Internet parody that went too far, turned out to have a lot of merit to its name and some very relevant things to say, for both kids and adults. 

 

I would normally question the studio’s decision to bring one of the most wholeheartedly sophomoric children’s books into a feature film with today’s feature, but after that track record, I wouldn’t put it past them.

The Secret Life Of Pets (2016) - Movie Review

Central Intelligence (2016) - Movie Review

After my rather paranoia-fuelled experience concerning The Angry Birds Movie, I thought I was past the point of feeling like a given film actively had it in for me. Of course, we have at least 3 films this year featuring official nemesis of the blog Kevin Hart, so I’m maintaining that there’s someone in this world who has a grudge against me personally. This is not helped by the almost gloriously insipid tag line on the poster, which triggers my lame pun allergy something chronic. But hey, even with my misgivings about Angry Birds, I still walked away from that film somewhat pleased that I at least watched it. Am I likely to get such a revelation on this one? Chance would be a fine thing, but quite frankly, I’m in that kind of mood where I’m willing to give a chance to prove itself.

Ride Along 2 (2016) - Movie Review

Get Hard (2015) - Movie Review

For the third time now in as many months, I am once again looking at a film starring the man who I can now rightfully call my nemesis: Kevin Hart. It’s not that I have any real hate for the guy himself, as I really don’t have any reason to; I just don’t like his work on screen and it feels like we’ve been getting more and more of it since I formed that opinion. After the lameality of Ride Along last year and the current frontrunner for worst of 2015 The Wedding Ringer, I have no genuine desire to see anything he’s involved in. The only exception to this is Top Five, but then again he was in all of one scene in that movie and he served his purpose as well as can be expected. I’d call this the film I was looking forward to the least this season, but I’ll be getting to that one later on in the week. So, can the added boost of the occasionally funny Will Ferrell save this in my eyes?

The Wedding Ringer (2015) - Movie Review

Kevin Hart is one of those comedic actors that I just don’t get the appeal of. He always felt like Chris Tucker: The Next Generation, except at least he was in the outstanding Silver Linings Playbook where he was legitimately funny. Hart, on the other hand? Any time I see him in movies, like in Scary Movie 3 and 4 as well as last year’s abysmal Ride Along, he comes across as either annoying without being funny or just being there without standing out; he hasn’t had his Silver Linings role yet. I put off seeing this film last week when it first came out and that was purely because Kevin Hart was in it. But, I have softened a bit concerning other comedic actors like Melissa McCarthy after seeing more of their work, and hell, One Direction seem to get more likeable the more films I see them in. Let’s see if the same happens here.