Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) - Movie Review

As I explained around this same time last year, I’m not the biggest fan of Star Wars. I recognise its cinematic significance and I get a certain amount of enjoyment out of the films themselves (even the ones that the rest of the world seems to hate with a passion), but I never really bought into the hype that those films carry to this day. Incessantly pushing The Force Awakens in my face for pretty much all of last year definitely didn't help, even with how much I ended up liking that film.

So, with all that in mind, even I am legitimately hyped for this film. The lack of obnoxious advertising could be a part of it, but there’s something else here that makes me anxious to check it out. Knowing how other cinematic continuities have been going of late, with even DC figuring out that some form of variety would be much appreciated, this film could present something different and help strengthen the series, considering this will be the first of the Star Wars cinematic Anthology with more already on the way. But even I couldn’t have expected this film to be this different.

Zootopia (2016) - Movie Review

It’s Disney time again! It’s also discussion of modern-day racism time again! … I can’t be alone in thinking that these two shouldn’t be together. Sure, teaching kids from an early age that discrimination be bad is always good, but when directly dealing with racist attitudes, it tends to get a lot more complicated than even the more intelligent filmmakers give it credit for. Yeah, treating someone differently because of their skin colour is pretty basic stuff, but then there’s the continuing discussion about the root of such things. Hell, the word ‘racism’ seems to wildly vary in terms of definition, some attributing more direct labels to it than others. Now to add Disney to the mix and, while I give them all the goddamned credit in the world for making something as poignant as Inside Out, their habit of Disneyfying complex issues is well on record by this point. I mean, one of the last times they looked at racism was with Pocahontas and… well, let’s just say that ‘surface level’ would be putting it very generously. But, given how the world has decided to heap on the praise for this film’s approach on the subject, I figure looking into the background of its depiction in family films was worth delving into first. If for no other reason than to set myself up for a fall in case it should happen; in the name of Katzenberg, I hope I’m wrong.

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) - Movie Review

With the Hunger Games drawing to a close at the end of this year and the Divergent series only getting worse with each instalment, the third-wave of YA adaptations may soon be reaching its conclusion… or, at least, we can only hope lest we have to sit through the same darkly shot post-apocalyptic analogies for high school for another three bloody years. However, it seems that we may be able to squeeze at least one more good series out of the fad: The Maze Runner.

2014’s The Maze Runner, in my not-so-humble opinion, is easily one of the most underrated films of the year, if not of the entire wave. It’s probably one of the few times that the attempts at analogy with these films has panned out, as the plot works as a surprisingly nuanced, if flawed, fable on the transition from adolescence to adulthood: Venturing out into the unknown, leaving your old ways behind you, discovering the opposite gender in a new light; coming from a bunch of first-time writers under a first-time director, this is kind of astounding. As such, other than the complete surprise of John Wick, this was the film that I have been most looking forward to a sequel to; with how cynical I can be when it comes to my own expectations, it’s rare that I genuinely anticipate a good film these days. So, how does this sequel turn out?

Oddball (2015) - Movie Review

Even as someone who has a dog, I have never really understood the appeal of films starring dogs. Whether it’s the Underdog adaptation, the numerous Air Bud sequels, the numerous Beethoven sequels… actually, that’s another thing: I have never understood why these films spawn franchises that last for that damn long. Anyway, while it may be the archetype of the 'a child and their pet' subgenre, unless your name is Disney, chances are you won’t be able to bring anything new to the proceedings. As such, probably the only way that this could be done any more, and make it to the big screen no less, is if it was based on a true story. Thankfully, we have another entry in the stranger than fiction files where in south-western Victoria early last year, a sheepdog saved a colony of penguins from predators like wolves and foxes. Well, anything for something potentially interesting to come out of Australian cinema, I say, but how well did this story translate to film?