Trolls (2016) - Movie Review

Well, in-between our obsession with comic book heroes and bitching about mostly female casts in movies, we seem to have to tumbled all the way back into the 80’s. How else do you explain the number of doll/action figure movies we’ve gotten this year? What’s more, we seem to have latched onto the 80’s anything-counts-as-inspiration mindset without really taking the time and effort to properly incorporate them into something them young people today would like. Case in point, Jem And The Holograms, which was about as jarringly anachronistic as it gets without any bloody reason for it. Then we have today’s subject… and if the sight of twerking trolls from the advertising didn’t turn your stomach, then quite frankly, I need whatever industrial-strength medication you’re on because I could certainly use it. So, yeah, I’m not expecting anything good from this. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Please prove me wrong.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) - Movie Review

Queen Of Katwe (2016) - Movie Review

We’ve seen standard marketing when it comes to films with posters and banner ads, traditional marketing with trailers, viral marketing with web videos… this one succeeds at being bizarre without necessarily being obvious about it. This film is based on a true story (because of course it is) but the marketing that we kept getting for it over here wasn’t of the usual Oscar-ready trailer variety. Instead, it seemed to want to bring to attention how much the story itself affected the people involved in the film… and in turn, bringing forward more of the fiction than the reality than most of these real-life drama films end up trying for. I mean, when pretty much every one of these films is a slideshow to try and more closely connect the real events to how the filmmakers depict them, this is a weird way of going about things, especially when the “trailer” detailing all this was shown at a much higher frequency. After the last couple instances concerning history on film, and how expectations are still capable of playing into how a film is received, I’m justifying this tangent of an introduction.

The Founder (2016) - Movie Review

It’s a pretty safe bet to say that McDonald’s is very popular. In fact, it may be one of the single most powerful brands in the history of commerce. Were it not that advertising and marketing is as ubiquitous as it is, I reckon that McDonald’s the world over could completely stop advertising on screen and print and still be in business; name a single fast food chain with a logo as recognisable as the golden arches. Making a film about how the company went from a single location to a global powerhouse is pretty much a no-brainer by this point... but given how wide the company’s influence is, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was some "corporate oversight" when it comes to how the characters are shown here. Conspiracy theories for the win.

Sir Noface (2016) - Movie Review

Yet another notch on the belt of extremely surreal indie releases, this is also another example of me finding a film by pure chance via Facebook… and even considering the recent Vaxxed debacle, this is the one I was genuinely worried about. The reasons for that should be fairly obvious as soon as I specify its genre: Ghost hunting documentary. I’ve seen the ruckus caused in the comments section when someone dares say that most media involving people trying to investigate the supernatural can be incredibly silly, and I certainly don’t wish to get involved in that any more than I have to. But, seeing as how I’ve never made it a point of abandoning any semblance of a filter when it comes to what I write, I’m not exactly going to let that stop me where hundreds of others failed.

Ratchet & Clank (2016) - Movie Review

Knowing the track record for video game adaptations by this point, I should have no right to be looking forward to any of them… okay, save for Assassin’s Creed, but all in due time. Until then, we have a theatrical version of a pretty heavily ingrained part of my gaming childhood, one which continues to be awesome to this day. Even considering the PS2’s track record when it comes to platformers, R&C is still one of the most beloved by the fans, myself included. Its creative weaponry, its memorable characters, its utter lack of shame when it comes to toilet humour; Insomnia Games made a serious gem of a series. Have to admit, knowing that most of the original voice cast as well as the writers of the games are helping bring this film to life, I’m genuinely hoping for something good this time around.

Hardcore Henry (2016) - Movie Review

Video game movies are hardly anything new in today’s day and age. We’ve had video game adaptations like Need For Speed and Warcraft, films centred on video games like Pixels and The Wizard, even films that take place within a video game like Wreck-It Ralph and Tron. However, even with that precedent, this film expects to be of a different breed than all of those. This is a film that incorporates video game tropes as a form of cinematic storytelling. Now, the success of any video game-related film is rather sporadic; adaptations are rarely if ever good and films set in and about video games often just translate into watching others do what we would rather be doing ourselves. So, with this step into a new direction, how does it fare?