(5 / 5)
The Lego Batman Movie does the same for the Caped Crusader that Blazing Saddles did for the Western genre. Poking fun at all the various versions of the character, the overabundance of praise from his fans and some of the most colorful villains in pop-culture history. But done with genuine love, enthusiasm and knowledge of the source material so it is never bitter or poorly thought-out.
This is the same Batman that we got in The Lego Movie, the Batman that the overzealous fans talk about but don’t know they are. Completely impressed with himself because he can so effortlessly accomplish every seemingly impossible feet, has wealth and many, many cool possessions and everyone else is his lesser (he believes). Will Arnett has made this version of Batman his, having a deep raspy voice but also able to use it for dry delivery and even being petulant at times. He accomplishes one of the great examples of voice acting, remaining in-character while truly acting with it, able to maintain the same voice but use it to convey different emotions.
The other members of the cast members are Ralph Finnes as Alfred Pennyworth, the loyal butler. Through his straight delivery it makes the comedy all the more hilarious, it is a genius contrast against the wackiness he has to work off. Michael Cera plays Dick Grayson/Robin the energetic flamboyant element in the Batman universe and is very unwelcome to this Batman that believes he’s cramping his style. Rosario Dawson plays Barbra Gordan, who they unblinkingly changed to Latino, who’s the level headed, no-nonsense character she’s always been. Zach Galifianakis takes on the role of the Joker, obviously this a much more comedic focused version of the character, but there are a few moments where you can detect his malice, but he is here for comedy and you will laugh.
The animation is just like in The Lego Movie. Using actual pieces of Lego’s and cutting down on the frame rate so that it creates a choppy effect. However there are moments where it isn’t as refined as the previous movie. For example in the last one they only had on-screen what they could do with real Lego’s, here they cheat but manipulating the arms or having the pieces goes where they wouldn’t with a real toy, other times they look less realistic and more like C.G.I. characters, moving more smoothly. This isn’t really a detriment to the movie, it’s just that previous instalment was meticulous in it’s execution of animation.
The message and overall character-arc for Batman in this movie is to not be alone, to let others in because one man (even if they are Batman) can’t do everything. That and life just goes by better if you have someone to share it with. A simple message but told in such a gloriously overblown and entertaining way that it’s damn near impossible to not enjoy it.
Like what Blazing Saddles did to the Western genre I wonder if this will have a similar effect on the “serious” portrayals of Batman. That the people will see that this is all really rather ridiculous and not be able to take it so seriously for a time and have to wait. Or maybe that will be a good thing and realise that to be a real character is to have flaws so they may be willing to accept that their favourite Superhero has more than a few.
All posts by Jonathan Evans
Review Trainspotting 2 by Jonathan Evans
(4 / 5)
Trainspotting 2, is something I never thought would be a reality, beyond simple theories and discussions. The first is a more than a complete story, also to others the idea of doing this is considered sacrilege. So why do it at all? Probably because that time has passed and the question of “Where are they now?” has been itching the filmmakers as much, or more than anyone.
For our crew it seems like they have everything right. Ewan McGregor as Mark has returned, Ewen Bremner as Spud, Johnny Lee Miller as Simon, Robert Carlyle as Franco and Danny Boyle once again taking the reins as director with John Hodge writing the screenplay.
Everything kicks off with Marks return. He is back after twenty years and not everyone is glad to see him. Would you be if he stole four grand from you? Spud did have his life on track, but when day light savings kicked in he was an hour late for everything which threw his stable life way off track and is now back on the heroine. Simon has a “business” of filming people have kinky sex with a prostitute friend and then blackmailing them, he also runs a pub that isn’t really worth opening and takes too much cocaine. And within the prison Franco is locked-up in prison, having twenty years for his rage to boil, it cannot hold him much longer.
Everyone has aged, of course, during the course of twenty years (some more gracefully than others). Most are different or in the same place as they were when Mark left them. But for some they have ignored time and it’s not them that’s changed but the world around them.
Danny Boyle is a director that, if anything, is known for his unique, sizzling visual flare. Something that was probably first established when he made the first Trainspotting. He brings it here as well, with careful and expressive lighting setups, razor sharp sounds, crazy setups an dynamic camera work. He is still very energetic with his passing and with Jon Harris as his editor they put together a very sharp movie. However there are moments of showing one thing and it leading to another which I wont dare spoil for you but are moments that remind you that Boyle is one of the top talents working today.
What would disappoint me about the movie would be if it was deliberately trying to recapture the exact same experience as the original. If they all just did the same thing, beat for beat, that would be a huge mistake. Luckily this is too wise to be so foolish. To be sure, for those that want warped visuals, crazy situations and colourful dialog (which is a staple of Trainspotting) you’ll get it, but they’re different and new. The familiar is revisited but not entirely the same.
Later in the movie Simon need’s a lawyer. So Mark goes to Diane, a person he had a fling with one time but has remained in-contact with. Like all the others Kelley McDonald return to reprise her role. In both movies Diane is what Mark wants to be but can never reach. In the original she was the new and exciting free spirit that found balance of fun while not being self destructive. Now she has formed into a mature and successful adult.
The movies main theme is nostalgia. These were once young men that lived their lives every day and for every second, but now all those times didn’t amount to anything. They’re not happy with how it all turned out and wish for a time when they could be happy-go-lucky again. But they cant.
Was this sequel necessary? Probably not, the ending to the first one is satisfactory enough. Though to the young people that have just discovered either the book of the film and see it as a way of life this will show them that there is still the rest of your life that you have to live. And for the youths that loved it when it came out may find some comfort in realising that they turned out better than the characters they once admired. And if there in the same place as the characters in the movie then this can be their wake-up call to change.
Review : La La Land by Jonathan Evans
(5 / 5)
La La Land is a movie that uses the same old tools from the classic musicals of old, like Singin in the Rain, Funny Face, My Fair Lady and Mary Poppins, but is used by a man from modern times and sensibilities.
Damien Chezelle has an obvious passion for jazz music and about perusing dreams despite all the obstacles. Here, like his last movie Whiplash, he crafts a similar story where two people live in L.A. where dreams can come true, but not easily.
Our characters are Mia (Emma Stone), a young actress that is working at a coffee shop at the Warner Bros. lot but wants to be an actor. She auditions for many things but nothing. Then there is Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a musician that loves Jazz more than just about anything, worshiping the greats and hating having to simply play the mediocre tunes he’s given for his job. He wants to open his own jazz club where the classics and his own music will be played, in the same venue that was once a legendary jazz bar. But they both must face the reality of compromising in the real world and the sadness that maybe their either not good enough or nobody cares about what they want. Stone and Gosling work together splendidly, from dialog scenes that are as dynamic as Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday and the low-key but cute choreography. The characters are brilliant concepts and the actors make them realized.
The songs are composed in the same vein as the classic Hollywood/Broadway numbers but the singing never reaches that truly glass shattering volume. This is a more subdued musical style. Most of them aren’t meant for that, they’re more like little tunes you hum to yourself while walking home all alone. The most haunting of them all is the main song of the movie “City of Stars” the simple tune will hook itself deep in your mind and not let go.
https://soundcloud.com/ryangoslingofficial/city-of-stars-pier
Channeling the movies of old it uses lush, glowing colours for its environments and the characters costumes. This movie is expertly lit and colour coordinated to fit the characters and their character arcs. There is a scene (whether deliberate or not) that reminded me of another similar scene from Adolescence of Utena.
La la is a term for the sightly crazy or obscene. Which is certainly L.A. in a nutshell, it is these characters facing the world with what they want and it is this movie that channels the old classics but both sets it in modern times as well as selling it to the now young. But in order to pursue your goals you must put aside reality, even just the most little bit and delve into your dreams.
Review : Your Name by Jonathan Evans
(4 / 5)
Anime doesn’t tell stories the way Disney, Dreamworks or Sony Animation tell stories. They don’t make movies solely for children or the family, they can make any movie they want, sometimes a movie that can only be a anime. Your Name is a movie, where I cant point to another for an example, it is its own thing.
A meteor shoots through the sky and while souring across, two young people at different pints in Japan see it and think the same thing “It’s like a beautiful image from a dream.” One day we see that one has woken up and everywhere they go people act strangely around her telling her that yesterday it was as if they had amnesia, they didn’t know anything about their life, later we see that this was because every other day or so it turns out they switch minds. How is this happening? Doesn’t matter, well at least the filmmakers don’t concern themselves with the how. What they do concern themselves with is the what now? But lets just put a pin in this subject for now.
The boy is named Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) he is a bold, forward young man that lives in the big city of Tokyo and clearly dreams of being an architect. The girl is Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) whose timid and with skills in arts and crafts. You can tell you is occupying whose body at any point in the movie because the storyboard artist took the care and time to have their body language show it easily. Each of them have their own friends and family that are all equally important to the story and fun in their own right.
So now back to the body switching thing. They catch on quickly that it’s really happening and not a dream. They communicate through their smartphones and notes. What makes the back and forth so interesting is that one is more brash and able to finally make progress with the others problems while one is more gentle so their able to gently navigate the others obstacles.
From there on there are twist and turns in the story but I wont spoil them for you. But they are very cleaver and interesting that will have you increasingly engrossed as each revelation happens. Usually a movie like this would be satisfied with the body switching thing and use that for the entirety of the movie, but there is a lot in this movie that takes you to places where you will never be able to predict.
The drawing style is like that of Studio Ghibli, thick lines blobby lines and with simple but distinguishable character designs. The facial features are more like plastic dolls but lend themselves to be easily manipulated for a vast variety of clear expressions. Beyond the characters the environments also shine as a beautiful technical achievement. The environments are lusciously, detailed painted, with all of it in-focus so wee can absorb every detail of it that someone has taken the time to draw, but also there is the added layer of the atmosphere. The lighting changes for what time of the day it is, not just bright days and dark nights, but high contrast mid-day, golden hour morning or sun sets, and depending on when it is characters and objects cast light rays. As-well as all of this there’s also dust matter that hangs in the air in a few locations. Just some incredibly generous details that the filmmakers put in to produce the best product they can.
This movie has has so much beautiful, intricate workings to it that you will be able to look at it and be owed by what is on-screen. However what will stay with you is experiencing these two character and their worlds. I cant explain why it is this movie that seems to be doing such great business when anime has been such a niche market before. Maybe it’s been knocking so hard on the door to the West so hard that this is the one to finally break through? Doesn’t matter, this is still a film with everything you want in an enjoyable watch told in the off-beat way that anime does.
Review A Monster Calls by Jonathan Evans
(5 / 5)
“We need monsters to explain the world. Because without them, we cannot explain our place in the universe.”
Guillermo Del Toro
A Monster Calls is a fantasy realism movie, I don’t believe many or even any other movie can claim that it is simultaneously such opposing things. But this movie knows that children, adults and human beings are contradictory by their nature and they are never truly only one thing and all have their ways of coping with hardships.
Conner is a child that is smart, creative and unhappy with everything around him. In his house he draws in his room and his mother (Felicity Jones) is sick but promises she’ll get better. Staying with them now is his Grandmother (Sigourney Weaver). Her presence means that his mother will most likely go, so Conner rejects her and her fussy ways. Also coming back is his estranged father (Tony Kebbell) that is there for Connor, but only in small amounts, never able to fully commit. Lewis MacDougall is able to handle this extremely heavy, complex material and tackle it. He does not make it look easy, that is what makes the performance effective. He looks like he is at war within himself, every-time some adult tells him something he is completely dissatisfied with it. The ache, pain and frustration that MacDougall portrays gives this character weight and makes him real.
When the clock strikes 12:07 from over the hill and far away there is a rustling and an aching noise and what forms is a monster and makes its way to Connors house. It smashes through his bedroom wall, picks him up and tells him that he will tell him three stories, then Connor will tell him his nightmare, which is also a truth. The Monster (Liam Neeson) is a Yew tree that has come to life from over the hill next to a church. He is shaped like a human but giant sized and obviously made from a tree. With twisting branched doubling as muscles. The monsters and Connor’s interactions are like that of a strict adult or a teacher speaking to a child. It takes a rough tone in it’s voice, doesn’t tolerate any of his disrespect but also wants to nurture Connor, to explain important thing to him, so it doesn’t just get angry or revert to insulting him. It has a purpose.
All the stories seem like regular fables that we’ve heard in some way, however, when the ending comes it turn out that the characters are not what they originally appeared to be, others are more sympathetic than we would like. Connor doesn’t see the point in them. When it comes time for the Monster to tell it’s stories it becomes a shifting picture book animation.
There are visual choices that are made in this movie which you could simply label “cool” or “pretty” when seen initially. However through the entire watching of the movie you see that there is a reason why. These are the best kind of visually creative decisions, one that look great but also feed into the meaning of the world. It is as Guillermo Del Toro describes “Eye protein, not eye candy.”
Stories are escapes from reality, but they also help shape reality. We escape into stories when we need a break but to places and characters that help us understand out troubles, vices and tragedies.
Review Rogue One by Jonathan Evans
(3 / 5)
With the release of The Force Awakens Star Wars is currently experiencing one of it’s greatest resurgences in popularity. Now as we wait for episode eight we are given Rogue One which serves as the bridge between the prequels and the originals.
This movies main goal is to finally establish who it was that got the Death Star plans to Princess Leia and how. In many different video games and other mediums there have been multiple people that have done this so this whole movies purpose is to set it in stone.
I feel the same way about this movie as I do about Jurassic World and that is that on the asthetic level of being apart of a previously established franchise it succeeds greatly and it never really clicks except in the last ten minutes. The last ten minutes of this movie is where you really feel the impact and has it’s best moments. However this raises the question, does this make it worth it? As a simple piece of information to the franchise as a whole not really, did we need to know all these details, no we can live without them. As a movie, to have to sit through something that is just OK but never really resonating until the finale?
Everything about this production says that the people working on the visuals know their material and are passionate to be here. Star Wars is a world of technology far beyond what we have now but is worn and dusty from it’s time being used and environment. Very few things are clean or at least have a few scratches on them and there are details that tie it in with the original film, like when a giant screen changes there’s a half second of static, remember static?
Our characters to perform this task are Jyn (Felicity Jones) the daughter of a scientist, the one that designed the Death Star, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen). Also they have Orson Kennrick (Ben Mendelson) as their position that hunts them and opposes everything they stand for. They also have a converted Imperialist droid named K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk). My favourite character, wise cracking but in the way that is believable a robot would be, displeased with illogical course of action the humans are taking.
The writing for this movie is way too on-the-nose. The dialog is all about “hope” and “rebellion” and “fight” and “chance.” This is obvious writing that is easy to see through and too corny to get invested in. There are times when it settles down and has the characters talk more human-like but it’s these moments you’ll remember.
Being that the plot is set before A New Hope there are two faces that come back, literally! I wont spoil the second one but Peter Cushing is facially recreated and voiced by another actor. This is, frankly, creepy. I know that what I am seeing is a real person that is long since dead and has been facially re-created to deliver another performance. Recreating a young Jeff Bridges in Tron Legacy is one thing, but this feels very disrespectful. There is an episode of The Critic where they have a millionaire say that using C.G.I. he can have old, long dead actors do what he wants. This was intended as a joke, now it’s a disturbing reality.
There are moments of fan-service in this movie that is the most detrimental to any movie. They are the types that come, non-subtly state themselves and then moves on. These are moments for the fans, others will just be slightly detoured by characters moving by or a lot of emphasis on a certain name. It’s not the worst I’ve seen but that doesn’t make this any better.
Star Wars fans are some of the most dedicated and obsessive fans ever (this can be either a good or bad thing). I imagine the hardcore fans will take this movie and really focus in on its prose and not care about its problems. For others, it will be a serviceable science fiction movie that has an ending that makes it all worth it
Review Moana by Jonathan Evans
(4 / 5)
Disney movies have been for the family since the companies beginning. But they have mostly been for a Caucasian audience. In recent years companies have realised that there are other types of people and have striven to represent more of the many different types of people inhabiting the world.
We get told that there is the god of islands Te Fiti that created the islands of the world, when one day the demi-god Maui steals her heart, this starts the spreading of a great evil that will devour all life on the planet eventually. Years later and the events have become legend and on an island a tribe lives in perfect happiness. However despite this the chiefs daughter, Moana, feels the ocean calling to her, for her whole life despite the fact that the island has everything anyone could want she is beckoned to leave for something else.
Eventually the corruption reaches her island, so she must leave and restore the goddess heart with the help of Maui. And so out hero’s quest begins.
Mona is our latest instalment for female Disney leads. Whether she is technically a princess or not is debatable (even in the film), but she will indefinitely join the brand in future. But she is like many of her predecessors, an energetic, spirited girl that has what would seem like a perfectly acceptable status quo but there is something about her nature where she yearns for more. The great technical achievement with her is her face, whatever inner emotion she is going through her expressions convey them perfectly clearly, so much so that her dialog is rather throw-away. However the person doing her voice is also a great treat. Auli’i Cravalho infuses Moana with the authentic energy we need to like this young woman, she is a genuine teenager so she has that unique quality to her voice that is nearly impossible to replicate by older actors and she is able to handle any emotional scenes she has to from distressed, the comedic to emotional.
Mawi the demigod is played by Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. The Rock is an extremely charismatic actor that is the perfect fit for this very larger than life character. He comes with a unique visual gimmick that whenever he accomplishes a great feat he gets a new tattoo on his body and one of the tattoos of him can move and express (possibly his subconscious, I don’t know).
Also along for the quest is Heihei, a rooster that is as intelligent as any other rooster. He serves as the animal comedic relief, because this is an animated Disney movie, there must be one.
Ron Clements and John Musker once again take the reigns as directors on a Disney movie. They kicked off the Disney renaissance with The Little Mermaid and went on to make Aladdin, Hercules, Princess & The Frog and now they’re back with their first C.G.I. movie. They understand how to handle a Disney property, they must be entertaining for the whole family so there needs to be something that all the age-groups will like and then must be tied together as the finished product. Something that’s taken over from when they did Hercules is the use of flat graphic animation.
For this project Disney recruited Lin-Manuel Miranda as one of the songwriters. For those of you (I am one) that are enjoying the phenomenon that is Hamilton this will be very exciting for you. Every song in the movie serves to either broadly convey emotion or compress story information at an extremely efficient level. There are no songs that are simply the character making breakfast, the songs mean something. He is a natural words-man, able to craft intricate lyrics that stay on point, rhyme and are funny. My two favourites are “You’re Welcome” Maui’s self-indulgent song about all his great feats, and “Shiny” also a self indulgent song by the villain (a giant treasure covered crab named Tamatoa) about how it only matters whats on the inside, plays like a 70’s pop song by Jermaine Clements.
This is Disney, I feel its pointless to sing its praise of how well this is animated, it has the best people in the world working for them and have a more than capable budget. It is beautiful, with lush colors and textures. But what I want to bring up is the delicate balance they strike in representing the ethnicity and culture of Hawaiians while not being offensive. This is a cartoon so they have to exaggerate but not so much that it becomes a warped and disrespectful.
Much like The Little Mermaid this marks Disney studio doing what they do best while at the same time trying something new with its asthetic. Songs, characters and brilliant animation for the whole family, this is a Disney movie.
Review ‘Arrival’ by Jonathan Evans
(4 / 5)
Arrival is a movie that asks the question “What is the first thing we ask an alien race?” It is actually an incredibly simple set-up, spaceships land and a linguist (Amy Adams) must now develop a dialog between them. Simple but also not so much when you think about all that goes into communicating, also with a completely different species.
During the first half an hour of the film the score is terribly obnoxious, every big thing that happens is accompanied with the orchestra going nuts on a single note as loud as they can. There’s musical effect to heighten the mood of a scene and put us in the shoes of our character but this was just blunt un-subtlety.
The ship itself is like a giant floating black pill, cut down the middle. From the bottom a rectangular tunnel opens, within it they provide gravity so the walls can be easily walked on, then that leads to a age rectangular room, where a glass (or whatever the alien equivalent of glass is) separates the two species.
Their exact details are obscured in the smoke but from what we can see they look like obsidian Octopus or hands. When we learn how they function reader of Slaughterhouse 5 will notice a channeling of ideas.
Eventually a back and forth is developed through writings. Louise writes things down in English and the aliens eventually respond with their own form of writings. They look like black coffee rings, always taking a circle form but with spikes, or plashes or thicker lines or gaps within them.
Amy Adams as Dr. Louise Banks gives an incredibly grounded performance as this truly human but also admirable character. She is driven in her believes and is clearly an expert in her field but she is also very shaken with her world being turned upside-down because of an alien arrival. She shakes and is intimidated by the momentous task she has to achieve but proceeds to do her very best.
Throughout this entire movie there are no action scenes, no moments when gunfire accrues on-screen.This is a good thing. So many science fiction movies either are just action movies but with crazy gun designs and flashier colours or don’t trust their audience enough to stick with them through their message. Arrival has something to say and keeps saying it, without having the throw-in some loud noises to make sure your awake.
One tricky element to this movie that might end-up being a detriment. That is the fact that it is in English and language is so key to the form of the movie. Usually I wouldn’t think about this but because the movie is so keenly focused on the words it chooses and how they can be interpreted, how well will this work with other countries? The translating process is more complicated than just writing-up a direct translation and putting it into subtitles that appear on-screen. Different languages come with different sensibilities so how well can this be translated? This may turn-out to be nothing but it was a question the movie raised within me.
Arrival is a movie that will make you truly think about, is nothing else, your choice of words. How you make decisions and the options you give to an outsider. Thinking is what a science fiction movie should do. This accomplishes its mission.
Review Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them
(2 / 5)
Fantastic Beast and Where to Find Them is based on a fictional textbook about all the different creatures that inhabit the Harry Potter world. If you have seen the movie Adaptation you will know that taking a non-fiction book without a plot is very difficult. There’s not a lot to help shape the narrative.
I must confess that I am not a Harry Potter fan. I don’t hate the world but I have found that there are other, even more richer fantasy worlds to get involved in rather than this one. So this movie has a lot of work to do to appeal to me.
We open with a colourfully dressed character with a frizzy head-of-hair named Newt. He is getting off the boat and entering New York City in the Roaring Twenties. He carries a suitcase with him that (like Doctor Who’s TARDIS) is bigger on the inside. And inside this case is an entire zoo of Beasts, fantastical creatures. While walking the streets one of the Beasts, a money grabbing mole, gets out and enters a bank, while in pursuit his path crosses with Jacob Kowalski, a local New Yorker that’s trying to get a loan for his bakery. And from there-on we have our movies duo.
Eddie Redmayne as Newt (just like he was in The Theory of Everything) is the best part of the movie. He is a shy and awkward around people, but not the typical portrayal of these types of characters we usually see. He is a sensitive soul that is clearly most happy and truly at home interacting with all the beasts.
He and Dan Fogler as Kowalski are the only actors on the side of our protagonists that seem to be invested in the material. The others seem out-of-place and uninterested. But Newt and Kowalski make a good pair, Newt is inexperienced in New York and the non-magical world and is charmed by Kowalski’s simple mentality, while Kowalski knows nothing about the magical world and is fascinated by everything Newt has to offer. Each of them can provide exposition to the other so the audience is also well informed and the actors work together beautifully.
The other obvious really strong element to the movie is the Beasts themselves. We get a whole bunch of different Beasts that range from the the handheld to the size of a house, all are different shapes and need to be handled differently.
There are some clues that an audience member begins to pick-up on through general experience. You learn that one character may be saying one thing but means another etc. But as soon as we see Colin Ferrell as Percival Graves you will instantly think “Villain!” and you’ll be right.
Also included in the movie is a group of orphans that are abused and also know about the wizarding world. Among them is Ezra Miller as Credense Barebone, just as creepy as We Need to talk about Kevin but in different ways. More like a oily, sad creep, lurking in the darkness.
It is these elements, with Ferrel and Miller where the movie makes it’s biggest mistakes. They are so dark and unpleasant, when we just had some good colourful fun with Newt and Kowalski that they really seem like they are part of another movie.
The final climax comes in the form of a threat that is literally just a shapeless blob on-screen that destroys all in its way. It is almost as un-engaging as the final villain fight in Green Lantern.
This could have been a simple tale of a stranger in a strange land with a case full of trouble and they get loose, so now he and his newly acquired friends have to retrieve them. That’s all that was needed, but having a villain included as well as this political stuff is just unnecessary and muddies a simple tale.
The movies biggest fault comes in it’s ending. I wont spoil it but there is a reveal. And it makes absolutely no sense and comes out of nowhere. I had no idea what was going on until I had a brief talk with one of my friends that is a much greater lover of the Harry Potter lore than I am. This relies so heavily on the audience being fluent in the lore to make any sense, maybe for those people it will be a jaw-dropping moment but I was just bewildered.
There is an audience for this movie. Its not me. The people that will like it are obviously the Harry Potter fans that will take more of the world in any form. Others will simply be taken by the special effects that are happening on-screen and be happy with that. Others, like me, will be smiling at the great duo of Newt and Koalski. So I would recommend this to the Potter fans, but if my best friend asked if they should see it and they were not. They can probably live without it.
Review Trolls by Jonathan Evans
(3 / 5)
Trolls is like a sugar rush. Giving you loads of candy. There are so many colors, jokes and popular music but even though there are moments to enjoy you will realise that too much sweetness can make you sickly. No matter the intentions or effort.
In a far off land there is a kingdom where creatures called Bergens (that look a lot more like typical portrayals of Trolls), they are unhappy creatures by nature and can only experience happiness by eating Trolls (looking like their toy counterparts). One day they escape and are able to live in happiness and not fear being eaten.
Years later the Trolls have made their home deep in the forest and now enjoy singing and hug-time with Princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick). They have a special ability to manipulate their hair as they wish and others have some other abilities that go by without explanation. However there is one Troll that doesn’t join in on the dancing and singing Branch (Justin Timberlake) who dedicates his life to preparing for the day the Bergens come after them. Which surprise surprise one day they do. So now Poppy and Branch must go on a quest to rescue their friends.
Poppy and Branch serve as a good duo. They are opposites that due to inconvenience have to work together. They have the same goal to work to but have different ideals and morals so they debate which leads to character dynamic.
Dreamworks, typically, is known to cater to the larger demographic, it takes on material that is popular in the public mind now and cast celebrities for their voice cast. This is the prime example of Dreamworks trying too hard to connect with the children and be popular. The premise itself is cute but they feel the need to add all these other pop-culture references and sayings for the children to connect to when what they really do is cheapen and distract.
This is one of the most colourful children’s movie, or maybe just any movie you will find. It really looks like a children’s toy-box come to life. With all the different shades of the rainbow moving on the screen. It’s like Cloud Cuckoo Land from The Lego Movie, but throughout the movie.
As a unique visual gag it gives Poppy the characteristic of doing scrap-booking which lends itself to visually engaging to audience with a mix-up of style. It serves to give the children something to connect with as well as serving as an excuse to have exposition with something interesting happening on-screen.
The soundtrack is composed of covers (mostly) they are the hit pop songs that everyone knows. But also some of them have rapping verses inserted within. They are just so clearly forced and in bad taste. Also there are a few times when a song plays and it doesn’t seem like its the right pick. Just a popular song that doesn’t work for the scene.
The movie is at its best when it is cynical and picking apart the cutesy things that the other Trolls hold so dear. Its a case of everything being too adorable that it becomes sickly so some bitterness is welcome.
Trolls will have the children happy, smiling and probably singing along to the music. A few adults may also smile or even get a chuckle out of the moments that make fun of the cutesier moments.