Kubo and the Two Strings movie review - "If you must blink, even for a second, do so now."

Laika Studios has been a hit-or-miss for me, as has stop-motion animation. Coraline and Paranorman are some of the best underground classics of our generation of animation, not succumbing to the common animation tropes and telling their stories in a timeless, engaging manner with stylish animation that only belonged in the stop-motion realm. Their previous outing, Boxtrolls, however, was an adequate disappointment, holding dull, not-so-compelling characters and so-so animation, and for the longest time, I thought the missing element was superb animation director/producer Henry Selick, so when I heard that the studio was putting out another film without him, I didn't know how to feel about it. Needless to say, though, I was caught off guard; Kubo and the Two Strings is not only one of the greatest animated films of all time, let alone the biggest stand-out of this year (animated or otherwise), but it's easily the most viscerally and engagingly told stories put to film I have seen in years.

The film follows a young boy named Kubo, who is known for his magical abilities to bring oragami figures to life to tell stories about an ancient samurai. However, he finds out later on that he's being hunted by a moon spirit from his past who is causing havoc in the world, and through various circumstances, he has to go out on a journey, with the help of a talking monkey and a samurai dressed as a beetle, to find three items that can help him defeat these spirits and bring peace back to the world.

The quote in this blog's title is the very first quote in the movie, and I can honestly say that quote doesn't lie. The film does such a great job telling its story visually, developing its characters through actions and facial expressions and only exposing necessary plot elements through dialogue, utilizing colors and cinematography for its visceral effect, and making sure that every plot element counts in the end, that it's literally a case where every frame counts. All of this is told through gorgeous animation as well. I could not imagine this film being another run-of-the-mill CG animated flick; it's a story that could only be told in the form of stop-motion.

The film does a great job of getting its audience invested in its characters as well. Kubo keeps a good balance between being responsible and noble enough that you could entrust him with the quest that has been placed in front of him, but not so "goody-two-shoes" that he's unbelievable as the young one that he is. The supporting characters add much to the film as well. The monkey plays the role of a protective guardian/adviser exceptionally well while also having enough snarky moments to add some fun to her role, while the Beetle.... Well, he's just hilarious (which is, if I remember correctly, a first for Matthew McConaughey).

On the whole, Laika Studios has knocked it out of the park for the first time since Paranorman with Kubo. It's easily one of the most emotionally powerful animated flicks out there, and it deserves recognition as one of the greats of its genre. Don't miss it!

My rating:

Sausage Party Movie Review - ..... What the f*** did I just watch?!

.... How do you even begin to introduce a movie like this? I mean, it's not like the idea of Toy Story/Wreck-It Ralph/Secret Life of Pets for food was that fresh (no pun intended) of an idea for Hollywood; someone had attempted at that and failed with the infamous Food Fight; but somehow, Seth Rogen and his team straight off of The Interview and This Is the End made this trippy idea work by.... being trippy! Sausage Party is one of the most astonishingly weird animated movies to come out in recent years, and honest to God a marvel in raunchy comedy. If you can make it past the description of the story I'm about to give without being switched off, this is a must-see.

The movie, not even being subtle or evenly paced about food being humanoid in this world they create, follows a hot dog named Frank and his girlfriend hot dog bun named Brenda who follow the common belief that the gods (i.e. humans buying them) choose them to be taken to the great beyond where they will be loved and fulfill their destiny.... Until a can of honey mustard comes back and warns them that the "great beyond" is hokey, and that when they go beyond that door, they get killed. So, Frank and Brenda escape their packages and wander off into the aisle of the immortals (i.e. stuff that never expires) to seek out answers.

Still with me? Cool.

Much like the team's previous work, minus their minutely disappointing holiday flick from last year, the film holds a lot of energy and enthusiasm throughout its raunchy comedy. It's not just guys tripping up and saying the f-word every ten seconds... That's a part of it, but it also takes advantage of a lot of gross-out gags, sex innuendos, and yes, food puns, that deliver a lot of laughs thanks to outstanding energy from a talented cast, as well as from the director. The animation, adding further to Sony's line-up of awesome animated flicks, also adds to the energy, delivering a lot of zany colors and trippy imagery. I wasn't even born when walking, talking food looked this gorgeous.

The viewpoints delivered in this flick are pretty thought-provoking as well, surprisingly. The film is obviously trying to use the "great beyond" as a metaphor for the deities that influence religion, and it delivers similar results as well. When Frank tries to explain to the other foods that the "great beyond" is hokey, they choose not to believe him because... well, how could they go up against gods? The end result to answering that question is so trippy and zany, I'm still sitting at my desk wondering what the crap I just saw (hence the title of this blog). My only complaint is that it could have had further depth by establishing a viewpoint where some of the foods know their destiny and embrace it, accept their death and benefit their gods rather than trying to benefit themselves. (P.S. This is why I'm not vegan.)

But obviously, depth was not its intention. It was going for raunchy comedy, and it works superbly on that level. Honestly, if you looked at the trailer and thought that this would be something you want to see, you're going to get exactly what you expect and more. It holds zany animation and trippy raunchy comedy beyond comprehension, and it adds to this team's amazing comedy line-up. Highly recommended.

My rating:

Should Ghostbusters (2016) get a sequel?

Hollywood's attempts to determine if one of their productions is successful enough to receive a follow-up is often met with mixed results. And I'm not talking about when a studio plans ahead on sequels they could make if their movies are successful, like with Marvel's line-up or with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies; I'm talking about looking at the numbers after the film is released and deciding if a sequel is warranted. Deadpool was such a massive, humongous hit at the box office that Fox greenlit a sequel after the first weekend. On the other hand, a follow-up to Pacific Rim wasn't on Warner Bros.'s agenda until two or three months after its release. Pushing numbers aside, though, the other thing to look at is whether or not a film needs a follow-up, because not raising this question can lead to very forced, unentertaining results (LOOKING AT YOU, HANGOVER "TRILOGY"!) I bring all this up to set up the presentation of my thoughts on a topic that's been circulating a lot of news sites as well as a few discussion boards, that being whether or not Paul Feig's recent Ghostbusters remake should become a series.

BTW, none of this is intended to be a review of the film. Here's my spoiler-free review of the film, and here's my spoiler review, if that's what you're looking for.

I figured the best way to express my thoughts on this matter was to break down this matter into several questions.

Is Ghostbusters going to make enough money at the box office to warrant a sequel?

As of August 5th, 2016, the film currently holds a box office gross of over $162 million, according to Box Office Mojo, barely surpassing its $144 million production budget. The domestic gross, which I figured would be the highest number that this movie would ever see, is over $110 million. The film still has yet to be released in several parts of the world, so the international gross still has a fighting chance to rack in some extra dough, but the film was also banned from release in China, so chances are the numbers will still look pretty slim. Also, the film still has a chance to gain a lot of momentum on DVD, Blu-Ray, and streaming, pretty much the same way that Austin Powers became a big Hollywood capitalization.

Technically, the film isn't a failure; films like The Nice Guys or The BFG are failures because they couldn't even make their budgets back. With that said, though, my biggest concern is that if the studio decides to scrape their extremely small profit from this barely successful production and make a follow-up, the film definitely won't live up to what good aspects the first film had to hold, because part of the benefit came from its big budget. I know that Deadpool 2 is going to be amazing because the filmmakers were able to do an incredible job with the small budget they had for the first film, and it made such a huge profit at the box office that it's surefire to get an even bigger budget with better effects and big-name stars. One of the biggest benefits to Ghostbusters, however, was its big-budget, action-packed climax, but since the film didn't make that much of a profit at the box office, we're most likely not going to get that, meaning they'll cram a lot of the other aspects of the film in to fill in the gaps, meaning good aspects, like Chris Hemsworth and Kate McKinnon, will be abused, while bad aspects, like the pointless improv comedy from Melissa McCarthy, will be inflated. Who would want to see that?

Should Ghostbusters be a franchise/series to begin with?

The original Ghostbusters (1984) is considered by many to be a lightning in a bottle success on many levels; a classic, magical formula that will never be recaptured. Everyone involved with the original attempted this with Ghostbusters II, and even they couldn't figure out what made the original work so well. For this reason, a lot of people feel that Ghostbusters should have been a one-movie deal and nothing more.

However, just because no movie can recapture its magic doesn't mean there shouldn't be follow-ups. Take The Dark Knight Rises, for instance; obviously, no superhero movie, let alone Batman movie, is going to recapture the awe-inspiring power of The Dark Knight, but that's not why a follow-up was made. A follow-up was made because there were still story elements that needed to be tied up, and there were still villains from the series that fans wanted to see. On that same note, there are still a lot of potential for creative ideas within this one lightning in a bottle 80s comedy that could be uncovered. What if the Ghostbusters were to time travel? What if the Ghostbusters dealt with psychics or magicians? Hell, that's just naming the ideas off the top of my head; there's probably artists and writers out there that would kill for this opportunity for creativity!

Should THIS Ghostbusters team get another go-around as opposed to the original?

People have been begging for years to see Bill Murray, Harold Ramis, Ernie Hudson, and Dan Aykroyd in another follow-up to one of their favorite childhood comedies; that's the team they wanted to see assembled for another go-around. Instead, what we got was a completely different team of comedy actresses that ended up in a huge backlash as well as a boycott. However, once the critical reception turned out positive, some people got curious and gave it a go. While some people found it to be just as bad as they thought it would be, others were genuinely surprised at how well these people worked together. There's already cosplays of this team at cons, and I imagine they'll be a smash hit at Halloween. However, even though this team is getting a following, it's tough to say if it's big enough to throw another multi-million dollar budget at it; again, the box office numbers will determine that.

If they do make a sequel, what needs to happen?

This section might be a little shorter than my other ones, because Grace Randolph on BeyondTheTrailer covered quite a bit of ground on this matter in her video from a few weeks ago.

Let me just list a few things off to make things organized:

-As I mentioned earlier, I would only want to see a Ghostbusters sequel if I knew it was going to have that big-budget action that the first film had; that was one of the few things that the remake did better than the original.

-Melissa McCarthy's character, Abby, needs a more distinguishing identity. The rest of the characters play essential roles, and Kate McKinnon in particular is doing this whole comedy character thing right, but McCarthy is just a stand-in to fill in a lot of the comedy gaps with her improv routines. We need less of that and more intentional writing for her.

-I agree with Grace about a male equivalent of Sigourney Weaver's character from the original. Chris Hemsworth is great in his role, but Erin's crush on Kevin can't really be anything more than a comedic routine. We need a more serious romantic interest. However, I'm thinking more like an Aaron Eckhart or maybe Jason Bateman for the role. Benedict Cumberbatch, I think, would be better for another role....

-Benedict Cumberbatch should play a male version of Gozer. They already teased Zuul in the post-credits scene, they've already gender-reversed the rest of the characters... THIS NEEDS TO HAPPEN! As far as Vince Clortho and Zuul go, though, since they're already opposite genders, reversing their genders, I think, would be pretty pointless.

-As I mentioned earlier, if a series is going to occur from all this, there needs to be some variety. Rehashing the original set-up is lazy and pointless. Now that the Ghostbusters are funded by the city, there's no reason for them to go out of business like in the original. (And if the writers found a contrived way, I would be so mad.....)

-More professional behavior at the PA department. Seriously, it felt like a five-year-old started speaking on Paul Feig's behalf.

To wrap things up, let's answer the question in the friggin title.

Should Ghostbusters (2016) get a sequel?

My ultimate answer to this question is no.

If it does get a sequel, I probably wouldn't mind seeing it if it turned out good. It probably won't, as I mentioned above, even though it has the potential to, as I mentioned above, but if it did, it could be fun to check out. However, I don't think very many people are going to see it, I don't think this was the surefire win that Sony was looking for, and I think throwing money at a follow-up would be a waste of money on everybody's part. I think the best thing to do is to put this franchise to rest and bring it back when there's a better line-up of comedians that everyone wants to see in a movie together. Once that happens, then another Ghostbusters would probably be an enormous hit.

Keep in mind, this isn't just an iconic name we're talking about; this is a bankable, timeless premise of four funny comedians using zany gadgets to battle ghosts. On top of that, it's obvious that Ghostbusters has a lot of attention; if the movie itself was viewed as much as the trailer on Youtube, the film would have made over $380 million at the box office already. So, it's not like people don't want to see another Ghostbusters; it's that they didn't want to see THIS Ghostbusters. This just felt like a forced out attempt to bank on something that deserved a more timeless approach, and until the studio is ready to take that approach, I don't think a sequel is either needed or wanted.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

Suicide Squad Movie Review - Here we go again....

The worst possible mindset for any studio to have, especially when trying to create a multi-movie continuity, is having a lack of confidence in its material. Even if the marketing becomes poorly received, and even if your movie doesn't become financially successful, your ultimate goal should be to make a movie that works on its own merits. This is what keeps the new viewers of the Marvel franchise who see familiar icons like Thor and Captain America coming back when the studio decides to roll out fresh icons like Ant-Man and Black Panther. I bring this up because the biggest problem with DC's recent line-up is that they're not sure if they're going to get another crack at bringing to life stories like The Dark Knight Returns or Doomsday, so they decide to cram said stories into Batman v Superman when the film would have worked out a lot better if it just focused on... you know, Batman v Superman. When the advertising for Suicide Squad was released, I had high hopes that this would be the opportunity to have a more focused (as well as fun) anti-hero fling that could prove that DC could make good superhero movies without Chris Nolan involved. Unfortunately, that didn't turn out to be the case; while I did enjoy it loads better than BvS, Suicide Squad is yet another disappointment in the line-up, holding a lot of the same problems of cramming too much story into one choppy, unfocused mess of uninspired action and unimpressive visuals.

The primary story is straight-forward, as it should be. An ancient witch known as the Enchantress has taken over the body of a woman working for the government, but the government has been able to keep her under reps because they held onto her heart... Until one day when she steals the heart back and decides to set up an apocalyptic takeover.... of some sorts. So, with Superman now dead (I am not at all ashamed that I just spoiled BvS.), an agent named Amanda Waller decides to pull a bunch of supervillains out of their prison cells and send them on a mission to stop this entity. The line-up includes Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Killer Croc, Captain Boomerang, and El Diablo.

So, yeah, the plot is basically The Avengers, but with anti-heroes. Sounds like a lot of fun, right? Just a bunch of bad guys fighting in an epic battle to save the world.... If only it were that simple.

Let me start with the one thing that I liked about the movie: The character portrayals are phenomenal in this. BvS was poisoned by either misfires of portrayals or cardboard cutouts in the place of characters, but in this, the characters all have distinguishing identities that match what we would expect from their characters, and every scene where they're bouncing off of each other is where I felt the film stood strongest. The best scene in the movie involves them sitting at a bar and having drinks together. Can the whole next movie just be them playing poker? Pretty please?

Unfortunately, the movie also has to have a plot, and that's where the movie drags its feet, the exact same way BvS dragged its feet. No, there's no Justice League set-up, but we do get that same issue of too much story being crammed into one movie, primarily backstory. The first 5-10 minutes involve Waller dropping backstories on every one of the characters; Deadshot having a daughter he wants to provide for, Harley Quinn's romance with the Joker, El Diablo's family... In The Avengers, the backstories of all the characters were told briefly through subtleties and didn't distract from the rest of the plot. Here, every couple of minutes, Deadshot has to stop in his tracks to mope around about his daughter, and I'm just here like "COME ON, JUST SHOOT SOMEONE ALREADY!". And, I know what you're thinking; "The Avengers didn't have to do that because their backstory was already told in previous movies!" Well, just ask anyone who skipped the individual Marvel movies and went straight to The Avengers if they were lost anywhere throughout the movie. Plus, did Black Panther or Spider-Man get their own movies before being thrown into Civil War? This movie could have just been a gaggle of bad guys fighting monsters with their characterization coming through their actions and dialogue rather than through backstory, but trying to do a full profile on five bad guys in one movie is like trying to cram an entire season of a show into an hour-and-a-half movie... And look how well THAT turned out!

Aside from all that, the movie is mostly just a bore. The visuals and action are nothing to behold here. You'd think in a premise like this, the action would be wild and extravagant, but it's pretty standard to say the least. People fire guns, El Diablo fires his flames a few times, Harley swings her bat at a few baddies, and then I wake up from my doze-off. Honestly, with a premise such as this, I do think the movie would have benefited better with an R-rating, because honestly, the boredom behind this action is on par with the Mortal Kombat movie. The villain is nothing spectacular or memorable, just a generic goddess figure with no intimidation or clear motives.

On the whole, I did enjoy this movie loads better than BvS; it has easily the best character portrayals we've seen in these movies thus far, and in some moments, we do get shimmers of light coming from the movie we should have seen, but for some reason, didn't. The rest of the movie, though, is bogged down by unnecessary backstory, boring action, and a lame villain. None of this may seem like a big financial risk now, and people are most likely going to see Wonder Woman and the Justice League, but if DC keeps missing the mark with their movies now, chances are no one's going to see their portrayals of lesser known icons like Aquaman or Cyborg. If you intend to give yourself the option now, however, I say skip this one while you still have a chance.

My rating: