Strays (2023) - Movie Review

Hoo boy. It’s been a while since we’ve dealt with some talking animal shit on here, eh? That sub-genre that I keep running into and keep being aghast at just how bad it can get. And on top of that, we’re not dealing with an animated film; instead, we’ve got 2000s-era CGI work meant to make real-life dogs look like they’re talking, as if the non-existence movement above the nose-line doesn’t break the illusion every single time. Yeah, suffice to say, I wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at the prospect of watching this, but to its credit, it does have some merit to it. Just not in any of the obvious places.

The Amazing Maurice (2023) - Movie Review

With how badly director Toby Genkel’s previous animated ventures have turned out, being responsible for the gargantuan irritants of the Nestrians in the Two By Two films, the prospect of him helming an adaptation of Terry bloody Pratchett is… concerning, to say the least. Doubly so because this will be the first theatrical adaptation of Pratchett’s Discworld canon, being relegated to TV miniseries up to this point. However, knowing that the writing and storytelling was ultimately the biggest problem with Two By Two, and this is built on a foundation not reliant on toy sales to justify its existence, maybe this will work out for a change.

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (2022) - Movie Review

Y’know, if you’re going to insist on having a singer be a lead character in a film, and they aren’t exactly well-known or even all that capable of acting, having them play a character who literally only sings seems like a da-doy moment for musical movies as a whole. I mean, when the alternatives are trying to get the likes of Adam Levine to be in any convincing as an actor, or saddling actual actors with painfully-obvious dubbing, it’s a wonder why more productions don’t aim for this.

Marmaduke (2022) - Movie Review

Because there are only so many spaces for me to watch movies in December, I’ve tried to be careful with the ones I pick for review. This year has involved less of me actively seeking bad movies to watch; not saying I haven’t gone after them on purpose at all in 2022, just that I’ve done less of it. This will be an exception, though, as this is primarily the result of morbid curiosity on my part as to how this could be the third-lowest rated film of 2022 on Letterboxd (beneath the 365 Days sequels), as well as meeting my ‘bitching about talking animal movies’ quota for the year. From the director of the film version of Spawn… seriously… here's Marmaduke.

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.

Bigfoot Family (2021) - Movie Review

Oh goodie, another movie from nWave Studios, the people who thought implied dog rape in a kids film was a good idea. Yeah, I was not looking forward to this one, and if it weren’t for the fact that this made it to Netflix rather than cinemas this time around, I’d be looking forward to it a whole lot less. But thankfully, this isn’t anywhere near as heinous as The Queen’s Corgi. Admittedly, that means it’s closer to the studio’s average of bland, inoffensive bargain-bin material, but I’ll take that any day over whatever fresh hell they tried to pull last time.

Peter Rabbit 2 (2021) - Movie Review

I didn’t really know what to expect out of this movie. Between the initial trailer being as middling as it was, it being one of the first films to be made to do the COVID shuffle, and the original being so wildly inconsistent, I went into this follow-up without much expectation, other than hoping it wouldn’t derail itself with food allergies again. And to its credit, it left the realistic Epi-pen shit alone this time around… but it still managed to derail itself. In monumental, rubber-necking, legitimately infuriating fashion. Slow claps all round.

Boonie Bears: The Wild Life (2021) - Movie Review

The Boonie Bears franchise has been going strong since 2012, with ten separate TV series totalling up to 676 episodes, and eight films with The Wild Life serving as the ninth. And up until I saw this film listed at my local cinema, I had no idea this even existed. I went into this about as blind as any other talking animal movie I’ve reviewed on here, and considering that sub-genre has basically become my nemesis over this blog’s lifespan, I can’t say I was expecting much. I don’t know if this has more to do with lowered expectations, lack of other options with the constant schedule shuffling, or if this film is genuinely good but… yeah, I had way more fun with this than I ever could have anticipated.

Cats & Dogs 3: Paws Unite (2020) - Movie Review

 

Time for something a little bit different around here: A talking animal movie that I actually like. The original Cats & Dogs is a real nostalgic gem for me, and I have it (along with Spy Kids) to thank for my spy phase as a kid. I used to think Hollywood spy action was the coolest shit back in the day, and even watching that film recently, it’s not a part of my childhood that I find myself cringing at. It’s not a masterpiece or anything, but as a spy genre spoof for kids, it’s held up far better than I ever would have expected.

The same can’t be said for the sequel, Revenge Of Kitty Galore, though. It’s closer to Seltzerberg than it is to the original, with enough animal puns to make me want to use my brain for a scratching post. Between that and how talking animal movies are something of a regular target around here, I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting too much from another follow-up. But hey, it’s from the same director as Mighty Oak, and I was surprisingly positive about that, right? Maybe the same thing will happen here.

The Big Trip (2020) - Movie Review

Yep. It’s another one. There must be some inherently masochistic part of my brain that is still willing to sit through these things, as there’s no rational reason why I should be here today, presenting a write-up for another bloody talking animal movie. I used to justify this as part of my larger want to expose myself to every new film I can, so that I could potentially find some gems that I wouldn’t have watched otherwise… but it is growing increasingly rarer for that to yield positive results with this subset of movies. So, for my readers who haven’t grown bored of me trotting out this cloud-of-powder-in-the-shape-of-a-dead-horse just yet, time to take another turn on the world’s ugliest carousel.

Dolittle (2020) - Movie Review

When you’re someone who’s railed against the cinematic plague that is family films about talking animals for as long as I have, reviews like this are inevitable. A look at what can be considered the initial harbinger for the favourite kid-pleasing gimmick of hacks around the world: Doctor Dolittle.

Big-budget adaptations of the original series of books are… basically cursed, from what I can tell. From the hype disaster of the 1967 version with Rex Harrison, to the admittedly decent Eddie Murphy version (that would end up spawning a league of straight-to-video sequels, making whatever merit its beginning had pretty much moot), this isn’t a story known for doing well at the box office. And fresh off of his linchpin performance in what is now the highest-grossing film of all time, Robert Downey Jr. is the latest to try his hand at this infamous character. And it seems like we have somehow reached a new low for this property.

The Queen's Corgi (2019) - Movie Review

Oh, nWave Pictures; welcome back, old friend. Having covered two of this studio’s previous features, and considering their 2013 effort The House Of Magic was part of my rather formative initial year at this reviewing biz, I can make a pretty solid claim that they are one of the most unnecessary animation houses working today.

At their worst, they can provide aggressively annoying nonsense meant to placate kids, and even when they find their groove, they usually only end up shining when it comes to animating chase scenes. Everything else ends up in the realm of dead-eyed plastic (or, in the case of The Wild Life, dead-eyed pottery). With all this in mind, their latest is somewhat of a surprise, as it’s definitely a lot riskier than their usual. However, chasing that risk results in one of the most horrifically misguided ‘family’ films I’ve ever watched.

Arctic Justice (2019) - Movie Review

 

Expecting quality control from a talking animal movie nowadays is like asking for the world to start making sense: Most of us would appreciate it, but the chances of it actually happening seem to keep shrinking with each passing day. The latest effort in this undermined subgenre is yet another piece of disposable product designed to be shipped directly to the bargain bin, but this seems to be yet another new variety of bad, even compared to the films I’ve already covered on here. It’s not just bad; it is so lacking in quality control that it can’t even maintain consistency in its badness. And no, that doesn’t mean that it occasionally stumbles into competency. It just means that it goes from bad to a different kind of bad and back again.

A Dog's Journey (2019) - Movie Review

Fiction is manipulative by design. It’s a story featuring events and people that, for the most part, don’t exist and yet, in spite of that, it’s meant to make you care about what is happening and who it is happening to. It doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s the general idea: Manipulate a given audience to buy into something that didn’t happen. But even with that in mind, few things in recent memory have strained that necessary evil as much as A Dog’s Purpose, a film that still gets on my nerves a good four years after watching it for just how shameless it was. You can imagine that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to its sequel, even with the kinda-sorta pre-show we got earlier in the year with A Dog’s Way Home, but surprisingly, this film was a lot better than I was expecting.

Top 20 Worst Films Of 2018

While most of the cinematic world was collectively deciding to get its shit together, some filmmakers had other ideas. Specifically, they had some truly baffling, who-in-the-hell-thought-these-were-good ideas, the results of which gave us some outright garbage movies. I am somewhat thankful that this list was relatively easy to draw up, since there weren’t that many films that qualified for the absolute worst of the year. But man, the ones that did made for some truly despicable moments. Let’s get to burning this garbage pile as I get into my Top 20 Worst Films of 2018.

Show Dogs (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Hardened police dog Max (Ludacris) is on assignment at a dog show to track down a missing panda bear and shut down an animal-smuggling ring operating out of the show. While on the scene with bumbling FBI agent Frank (Will Arnett), he will have to win the show if he's to have any chance at finding the panda. Good thing he has a host of other talking animals to help him on his mission, and oh dear God, you have no idea how bad this all is.

Pup Star: Better 2Gether (2018) - Movie Review

The plot: Dog won a singing competition. Her rival wants revenge. Rival kidnaps the dog and replaces her with a street dog, letting her take the spotlight as long as she throws the competition in the finale. The audience wonders if they can chew through their own jugular to escape the pain contained within this film.

The Star (2017) - Movie Review

The plot: Grain mill donkey Bo (Steven Yeun) dreams of being part of the royal caravan in Jerusalem. However, once he notices a particularly bright star in the sky, he realizes that something special is about to happen. With Dave the dove (Keegan-Michael Key) and Ruth the sheep (Aidy Bryant) in tow, he sets out to find Mary (Gina Rodriguez) and Joseph (Zachary Levi), who are about to be parents to the saviour of all humanity.