Morbius (2022) - Movie Review

Once again, the Sony side of the Marvel cinematic landscape has released a film that has garnered… mixed reactions, let’s say. Much like with the first Venom, it has become yet another invented battleground for casual audiences to rail against The Critics™ (forgetting that we are all critics at the end of the day), with lashings of terrible official write-ups while the #MorbiusSweep movement… honestly, even in these post-irony days, I can’t tell if this is just a meme or if people are actually getting into this film. Unlike the first Venom, though, you won’t find me ‘picking a side’ in this particular pissing match. I don’t really get the intense backlash this has faced (well, mostly don't, but we'll get to that), nor do I think it’s an underrated gem worth white-knighting for. It’s just… okay.

The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019) - Movie Review

This is going to be a difficult film to write about. Not because it’s the latest cinematic addition to a franchise that really shouldn’t exist, given the highly disposable nature of its source video game series. Not because it’s a follow-up to a film that I gave a fair amount of slack to while everyone else was gawking at the utter memeage of its soundtrack (Limp Bizkit’s Behind Blue Eyes is one of those songs that shouldn’t be in any movie). Not even because of my recurring issue with family films about talking animals. Rather, it’s because this film defies any semblance of a ‘good or bad’ binary, as it sits snugly in both at the exact same time. Read on and I’ll try and explain.

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.

Hotel Transylvania 3: A Monster Vacation (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Lonely and overworked, Dracula (Adam Sandler) needs to take a break. Luckily, his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) gets tickets for them and the rest of the Drac Pack to go on a luxury cruise just for monsters. As they indulge in some down time, it seems that Dracula may have found what he's looking for in the ship's captain Ericka (Kathryn Hahn). However, it seems that this cruise isn't all that it seems, and Dracula's old adversary Dr. Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan) lays in wait to wreak his revenge on all monsters.

Peter Rabbit (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: After the sudden death of farmer Joe McGregor (Sam Neill), Peter Rabbit (James Corden) and his woodland friends use the opportunity to take back the farmer's garden, and his house, for themselves. However, once news of the death reaches Joe's nephew Thomas (Domhnall Gleeson), he plans to fix up the house, secure the garden and, if necessary, get rid of any pests that try to sneak into either. As Peter and his friends try to fend off the new neighbour, and Thomas strikes up a friendship with Bea (Rose Byrne), who takes care of Peter and his extended family, both Peter and Thomas are hell-bent on winning this fight.

The Emoji Movie (2017) - Movie Review

2017 has been an… interesting year so far. In the real world, a series of natural disasters and what appears to be a Twitter-influenced update on the Cold War going on between the U.S. and North Korea has put a lot of worry in people that we are on the brink of destruction. Oh, and some other stuff concerning sexuality just to make everyone seem even more petty than they already are. In situations like this, I and quite a few others would turn to popular entertainment to get away from it all: Movies, TV (or rather Netflix nowadays), video games, literature; whatever gets the mind off things for a little while.

 

Well, in terms of movies at least, that isn’t working all that well either. Over the past couple of months, a series of underperforming releases have resulted in some of the lowest U.S. box office returns on record. If it wasn't for It breaking audience records at the same time, the industry could be in legitimate trouble at this stage. As much as people are quick to jump on whatever hate bandwagon that could even remotely explain this, with everyone from the filmmakers to the critics to the general audiences getting thrown into the crossfire, I’d like to think that there is a far simpler explanation for all this.

 

That explanation, as you may have already guessed, is the subject of today’s review: A film that has gotten legendarily awful reviews, the kind that can secure a release into the annals of all-time bad filmmaking. And I can hardly friggin’ blame them, quite honestly, and you’ll see why as we get into this. This is The Emoji Movie… when this first got announced, I knew this would be a real piece of work, but even that couldn’t have prepared me for this.

Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) - Movie Review

I probably have the worst first impression of the Smurfs possible, as my first full-length encounter with them was through the 2011 film. Directed by the numbnuts that gave us the ever-popular comedic classic Beverly Hills Chihuahua, the live-action Smurfs film is easily one of the hardest films I’ve ever sat through. Thankfully, it didn’t fall into my purview for reviews, because I’m fairly certain it would’ve just been “fuck this movie” repeated 300-some times. I completely skipped the sequel, wanting to keep what little sanity I have left, and then the trailers for today’s film hit… and you cannot possibly imagine how much relief washed over me when I saw that this was not only a full CGI production but that it was a reboot of the series.

 

Going against what most would consider common sense, those two prospects combined with the phenomenally low bar the Raja Gosnell films set for the IP actually made me hopeful that this would be good. Given how this is the year that has audience expectations in a 24-hour shooting gallery, I can only hope that my optimism isn’t proven worthless.

Storks (2016) - Movie Review

When I was a young-in and still naïve to the world around me, I had some… interesting ideas about where babies came from. For some reason, I was under the impression that when a couple is married, the wife’s wedding ring sends a little UFO into the stomach which creates the baby. Feel free to laugh at this in all its preciousness, because I honestly never stopped. What I’m getting at with all this is that, because of my own misconceptions about conception, recurring ideas like “storks deliver babies” don’t seem as ludicrous to me as they probably should. Not that I’m advocating lying to children or anything, but I do understand not telling them the whole truth when they’re too young to understand ideas like sex. I mean, hell, some adults are still struggling to deal with sex in its many bizarre facets. Considering all this, today’s film centred on probably the oldest wives’ tale involving baby-making already gets the head-tilt seal of approval. Does it get any other seals of approval?

Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016) - Movie Review

This is going to be a different kind of review than I am used to writing for this blog. See, for the most part, I rather obviously view and critique films from the perspective of a film-goer: Is it entertaining, is it smart, is it using the visual medium properly, etc. However, because this film is ingrained in something that is a rather prominent part of my childhood and my history as a gamer, I will be looking at this film from that perspective. From watching my uncle play Final Fantasy IX to playing the PS2-era titles in the franchise to rediscovering emulators and the PS1 era to purchasing the X/X-2 HD Remaster, this franchise has formed a rather large part of my tastes when it comes to games.

However, even with it containing some of my all-time favourites in the form of IX, X and XII, it has fallen extremely far in recent times. Between the mockery that was Final Fantasy XIII to the wrong-headed idea to turn it into a trilogy to both attempts to make XIV’s MMO work, with Square-Enix apologising profusely for the latter, it genuinely seems like the glory days of the series with its iconic characters, locales, combat and even musical cues are far behind them. So, when it was announced the latest instalment in the series was getting a companion film made and released, I… was rather hesitant. I mean, outside of working as a film in its own right, this film has to prove to me that this is a game universe worth investing in again, and after the travesty of Lightning and the Annoying Bunch, that is a tough ask.