The BFG Movie Review - Spielberg's Spectactacle Motion-y Pictum

Roald Dahl's classic children's novel was published in 1982 and is considered by many to be one of his genuine classics, so why on earth it took this long for a movie to get produced is beyond me. Granted, there was a straight-to-video animated release in the 80s, but never a full-on Hollywood production, despite Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory already having received their own productions. That being said, though, I guess we should be thankful that we got the smooth, well-constructed production that we have here as opposed to a rushed out production with little to no effort (LOOKING AT YOU, LAST AIRBENDER!). Yup, I said it; this adaptation, while not perfect by any means, is a genuine fantasy tale that lives up to its source material's potential.

The story, for those not familiar, involves a little girl named Sophie, who gets kidnapped by a giant wandering through the streets of London. The giant, later on known as the Big Friendly Giant or BFG for short, lets her know that he's not intending to eat her the way that many of the other giants in their Giant Country would. Rather, the BFG catches dreams, little firefly-like spectacles that pop into people's heads and give them wondrous and/or horrifying experiences. Sophie assists the BFG with this job, but the more she hangs around with him, the more dangerous their situation becomes, as the giants start to piece it together that there's a "human bean" among them. As the stakes start to raise, Sophie and the BFG try to develop a plan to get rid of the other giants for good.

As you can gather by that description, the film is as simplistic and fairy-tale-ish as the book. It doesn't try to be as grand in scale as Tim Burton's take on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; it focuses on what it needs to get across and develops it rather smoothly. It may not have been all that memorable in that case if it weren't for two key factors that truly make the film work.

The first being Spielberg as the director. His ability to visually tell the story rather than rely on narration or exposition make for a good book-to-film translation. This is a gift that's been evident in a lot of his films before, and it allows for a lot of beautiful, but also meaningful, imagery as well. If you're not a fan of his over-the-top whimsical moments like in Hook, this probably won't change your mind on that, but for me, I thought it worked great and gave the film an enchanting, fascinating atmosphere.

The other factor is the performances, particularly Mark Rylance as the BFG. He gives a very earnest performance that give the film a lot of genuine heart. I'm not the biggest fan of motion capture animation, but when you can see his expression, you can tell he really is the Big Friendly Giant. Ruby Barnhill gets across Sophie's curious nature and stubborn bravery, as well as her genuinely terrified moments, though any haters of child actors might not turn their heads to this rapscallion. As for the man-eating giants.... They're hilarious! There's one scene where it starts to rain on them, and I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a scene before that one!

On the whole, The BFG isn't the most memorable, epic experience imaginable, but if you go in knowing it's a Spielberg whimsfest based off of a very simplistic fairy tale, then you'll get the best version of that; a whimsical, simplistic fairy tale with Spielberg's visual storytelling capabilities and some superb performances. If that sounds like your shtick, definitely check it out!

My rating:

Free State of Jones Movie Review - Hollywood's Most Expensive Powerpoint Presentation

Free State of Jones is a film that held a lot of potential to be one of the great historical dramas. It's based on the story of Newton Knight, directed by Gary Ross, director of The Hunger Games and Seabiscuit, and starring Matthew McConaughey, a powerhouse actor that, even when the films he stars in aren't good, still shines through as one of the better aspects. It's easily one of the best combinations that any film could have, to a point where it makes you wonder what could possibly go wrong..... Then you look at what else this studio is producing this year, and you realize....

.... THAT'S what could go wrong.

For those who don't know, Newton Knight was a confederate soldier during the American Civil War that, through various circumstances, deserted his company and went back to live with his family. He, like many others, grew tired of the Confederates seizing property, including corn, animals, and even slaves, and chose to establish a rebellion against them, consisting of other deserters as well as runaway slaves. This rebellion fought in many battles and established a lot of political movements that led to many changes in our system, including a black man's right to vote and their right to grow their own crops.

And now that I've given those cliffnotes, you pretty much have no reason to see Free State of Jones.

The movie plays out less like a powerhouse drama and more like a dull, conventional history lesson, right down to text describing events for you rather than illustrating the events through visuals and scattering historical portraits throughout the middle of the movie. Every time text appeared on screen, I kept looking down to see if I missed anything on my high school video quiz.... Except I didn't have one, because I was at the theater. Gary Ross is a master at visual storytelling, as illustrated by his adaptation of The Hunger Games, where he takes a book told entirely through the first-person perspective and visually tells his story. Here, however, any opportunity to express emotions is shortened to a few seconds to make room for dozens of five-minute scenes of people talking... and talking... and talking... and talking... I don't know if it was a cheap attempt to save on money or a pretentious attempt to make the film sound "important," but it gets boring and preachy real quick.

The whole production is very dull to look at and lacks the vibrant visuals of historical drama counterparts like 12 Years a Slave or, again, Seabiscuit. The clothes look like the leftovers from History Channel documentaries, the cinematography is very flat and not very moving, and every scene basically has one solid color, which, unlike Schindler's List where the black-and-white scheme represents the bleakness of its era, just comes off as a lazy excuse not to hit the white balance button on the camera.

The performances are forgettable to say the least. Even Matthew, as fun as it is to occasionally see him get cocky as he always does (though nothing you couldn't see in Lincoln Lawyer), holds the exact same expression, facially and vocally, throughout the flick. Every actor is reduced to spewing out exposition and sermon-esque lines, though part of that is because, again, the script doesn't give them any opportunities to express themselves.

Overall? At a budget of $50 million and a talented director with a powerhouse lead, Newton Knight deserved a better portrayal. The film might be okay to flip to on the History Channel, but as a theatrical release, it's dull, lifeless, and forgettable. Save your money.

My rating:

Finding Dory Movie Review - An immersive (or, should I say, submersible) experience that you'll never forget!

Pixar has delivered some of the greatest original content that big-budget animation has seen over the years. Classics like Toy Story, Wall-E, and yes, my favorite movie of 2015, Inside Out, have revolutionized animation as well as storytelling. Their ability to use abstract ideas and deliver dramatic characterization and absorbing storytelling while other animation studios use similar ideas for the sake of pandering is what makes them stand out. Their ability to follow up on that material, however, has had some mixed results. The Toy Story trilogy was phenomenal, as each film built upon one another and led to dramatic changes in its characters. Cars 2, on the other hand, really had nowhere else to go with where the characters left off in its predecessor and threw around too many zany ideas for the sake of amusing little kids. The reason I bring both of these up is because Finding Dory holds elements of both of these, holding some rather zany detours, but never too much to entirely distract from some strong, dramatic character development and a lot of touching moments.

In this film, we learn about the origin of Dory and meet her parents, as we find out she got separated from them as a child and, due to her short-term memory loss, forgets where they are, how to find them, and eventually, the fact that she was even looking for them to begin with, all leading to when she's grown up and acquainted with Marlin, as we saw in the first film. One year after she and Marlin find Nemo, she is reminded of her origins and goes out to find her parents at a marine biology institute, where sea creatures are nurtured until they are rehabilitated. Here, she comes across an Octopus named Frank and a whale named Destiny, both of whom help her explore the institute to regain her memory and find her family.

So, instead of an ocean-wide journey in which Marlin goes to find Nemo, Dory is out on a journey to FIND HERSELF.... Tell me I didn't just blow your mind there!

Typically, making what was originally the comic relief in the first film the primary character in the follow-up holds mixed results, but Pixar pulls it off nicely in this flick. The way they do that is by highlighting her ability to keep moving forward (or, you know, just keep swimming) as a huge asset in moving the journey forward, as well as treating every moment where she does regain her memory with the respect and dramatization that it deserves. It's not sappy moralism or treacle; it's a serious, intense change of course for Dory's life, and you feel the weight of it every time it comes up. By the end of it all, you can tell Dory's changed and grown from those experiences. It's similar to the change Marlin made throughout the first flick, and it fits rather nicely.

As expected from Pixar, the animation is gorgeous as well. The amount of detail they go into in recreating undersea life (yes, even in the observatories) is phenomenal to say the least. Every fish moves as a real fish would move, even in the background, and everything from the coral formations to how wet every fish looks on dry land to the tiny little specs in the water.... Pixar did their homework! And yes, being a mostly underwater experience, it's even more immersive in 3D!

But yes, I did mention earlier that there were some zany moments that bothered me a little. I understand that animation is allowed to be zany for the sake of creativity, but while Finding Nemo wasn't always 100% realistic, it at least existed in a realm where you never said to yourself "That could never happen!" In this film, however, we have a few moments of the characters going from point A to point B in ways that just make me shake my head and say "....What the hell am I watching?" Just as one example (slight spoiler), Dory and Frank get to one of the observatories by Frank pushing them around in a baby cart. Yeah, that seems a little out of place compared to what I was just describing, doesn't it?

If I had to sum it up, though, I would say Finding Dory is what I would call a must-see. It has a few weird moments, sure, but it has too many strong moments of characterization to be ignored. It further proves why Pixar is still on top and deserves to be recognized as a strong follow-up to Finding Nemo.

My rating:

The Conjuring 2 Movie Review

James Wan has been a very hit-or-miss director (watch as his Saw movies crumble after the third movie or so... or rather, don't watch), but his talent for horror directing became mostly well-known through 2013's mega-hit, The Conjuring. I've talked to many people about this film, and whether you enjoyed the experience or not, its chill factor was undeniable. It had a creepily slow pace, it built up its scares rather than relying on jump scares like most horror films, and Wan's cinematography brought viewers into an unsettling environment. It's considered by many (myself included) to be one of the all-time greats of horror films. Too bad horror sequels never really hold up.

In The Conjuring 2, we rejoin the Warrens as they once again explore the supernatural activity occurring in a home in which a family just moved into. (Sound familiar?) This time around, they travel to the UK where the family they visit is being haunted by a ghost who used to live there with his family, as he's constantly telling them to leave. Things are not as they seem this time around, however, as Lorraine Warren finds that this new ghost might tie into an old ghost she's encountered in the past.

I'll give this film its due credit; the Warrens still hold up as legitimate characters. Every scene they're in gives the film a sentimental quality that results in every one of the best scenes in the movie. There's one scene where Ed Warren plays the guitar that's very heartfelt and a soft detour from the rest of the film.

Whenever we get to the "scare" scenes in the film, however, that's when it gets... silly.

Every aspect that made the first film a chilling experience is replaced by a very noisy and often times laughable experience. For example, the first film had a very slow and unsettling pace that made you think it was building up to a jump scare when the chills were actually sneaking their way in. Here, everything goes by so quickly that it feels more like a roller coaster, and you can practically pinpoint every jump scare that the film throws at you. Not only that, though, but it does so in the silliest way possible, to the point where I thought I was looking at an adaptation of Disney's Haunted Mansion (just without Eddie Murphy). For instance, one jump scare involves a toy fire truck coming up to one of the kids. No joke. Heck, the ghost himself reminds me too much of that hobo from that episode of Hey Arnold where the kids are on a subway. ("THIS IS MY HOUSE! GET OUT!")

Overall? If you're looking for a noisy, silly, fast-paced thrill ride as a follow-up to one of the most dreadful, chilling, unsettling film experiences in the past decade (which I could not imagine why you would be looking for that), this film's for you! But if you're looking for a chilling horror experience, I'd say just go back to the first film.

My rating:

A recent thought of mine....

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows Movie Review

It goes without saying that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a silly franchise. Just saying the title, if it doesn't get a chuckle out of you, triggers that funny vibe in your mind that says "Why the hell are we even talking about this?" Why do I mention this? Because out of all the film adaptations for this franchise to ever come out, out of three live-action films, a flopped CG-animated entry, and now, two more live-action films (among a few crappy underground spin-offs), the only film that managed to make it work was the first live-action film from 1990, which, incidentally, wasn't originally studio-produced. It wasn't perfect by any means, but the creators were aware that if fans weren't invested, they wouldn't keep coming back for more, so they chose to take a more serious, well-paced, well-developed route that held a gritty style, fun characters, and even a few strong moments of characterization. Every adaptation after that, however, was merely a studio product, as studios kept looking at Ninja Turtles as the easiest franchise to cash in on and decided to utilize every manipulation cliche during each era as their attempt to get audiences into seats, and who better to utilize manipulation cliches than the master of manipulation himself, Michael Bay? Hence, we have not the first, but the SECOND Bay-produced Ninja Turtles movie, entitled Out of the Shadows, and frankly, I've grown weary of the lack of effort here.

Now, I'll go on board by saying I didn't think the first movie from 2014 was THAT bad. It wasn't good by any means; its character development was incredibly thin, the turtles themselves held some pretty hideous designs, and a lot of the rewrites and production problems were clear as daylight. However, considering that the pitch of a Michael Bay produced Ninja Turtles adaptation with Megan Fox as April O'Neil sounds more like a Robot Chicken sketch than it does a legitimate film project, I feel that it could have been a lot worse than it actually turned out. When compared alongside his Transformers films, it didn't feel overlong, the action scenes were well-paced and cohesive, and the personalities of the turtles were pretty accurate, albeit not fully developed.

I kept all that in mind when seeing the sequel, and it raised my expectations.... perhaps a little too high.

In this film, we rejoin the turtles as they find out that a scientist named Baxter Stockman is working with the Shredder, who busts out of prison, along with two other criminals named Beebop and Rocksteady, only, through a glitch in Baxter's teleportation system, gets sent to another dimension where he meets a monster known as Krang. They very sporadically come to an agreement where Shredder will collect a few items to put together a device that will allow Krang to teleport his war machine, the Technidrome, to Earth for a takeover. Krang then gives him a serum that allows him to transform Beebop and Rocksteady into mutants so that they can help him fight against the turtles as they try to put a stop to his schemes.

If that doesn't sound like one of the most poorly assembled attempts at cramming in giant chunks of fan service in the world, I don't know what does.... Oh wait, yes I do...

This movie has the exact same problem as Nickelodeon's other attempt at a live-action franchise, The Last Airbender; it attempts to cover a lot of material in its franchise in a very short running time. But whereas that film had too much material that it absolutely had to cover as an adaptation of the entire first season of the show, this one did not need to cover as much ground as it did. As much as the first film could have benefited from a few more scenes of establishment, it at least kept its plot simple and straight-forward for its condensed running time. Here, they're trying too hard to cram in all these characters when maybe one or two additional characters would have been enough to get fans' attention. This was a smarter trick that Marvel pulled off with their movies, introducing two or three characters at a time for each movie and utilizing its already established characters to their full advantage. Heck, this film doesn't even have fully developed characters to hinge on!

Even on a technical level, it's not all that impressive. The action scenes are well-constructed and riveting, though not what I would call thrilling due to a lack of investment in the characters, but the CGI on the characters is fake, alongside the always disturbing motion-capture animation in which the characters are ALWAYS MOVING. And unlike the first film where the CG characters fighting against real-life Foot Clan soldiers was a little impressive, here, it's literally reduced to CG characters fighting CG characters, and it's just as much of a messy ensemble as you might think.

The terrible cast is kind of a standout here as well. Megan Fox gets her sensual side exploited one too many times throughout the flick, something the first film surprisingly avoided, and while Will Arnett is barely in the film, his part is still confusing and kinda pointless. But the worst has to be Stephen Amell as Casey Jones; it's literally as if they just took an entirely different character, threw a mask on him, gave him a hockey stick, and called him Casey Jones. You want proof? He's a cop in this version. Yeah, let that sink in.

It shouldn't come as any shocker that a Bay-produced Ninja Turtles movie sucks, but honestly, I'm kinda shocked that there's even a sequel to begin with. We might as well face facts that no studio-produced Ninja Turtles movie will ever hold up a candle to the classic 1990 film, no matter how many modern cliches studios try to cram into each adaptation.

My rating: