Tag: Animated Movie

REVIEW: Aside from visuals, pristine looking ‘Pinocchio’ disappoints

I’m starting to think the “Pinocchio” story just isn’t for me.

In director Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of the tale, we’re introduced to Geppetto (David Bradley), a toymaker who lost his son during World War I and became depressed. One night, in his grief, he gathers some timber and builds a puppet meant to be a replacement for his late son.

While the puppet started as just something Geppetto made during a drunken night, though, the doll ends up coming to life thanks to a mystical spirit. While Gepetto initially views Pinocchio with disdain, he eventually warms up to the wooden boy. However, antagonistic forces look to take Pinocchio for their own nefarious purposes.

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REVIEW: ‘Puss in Boots’ sequel is an enjoyable swashbuckling flick

After more than 20 years, the franchise that put DreamWorks Animation on the map is still kicking, and the latest in the series is fine addition.

As the title implies, the film focuses on the character Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderas). After many dangerous adventures before and after meeting the ogre Shrek, Puss in Boots is down to his ninth and final life.

With a desire to continue living life on the edge and knowing the predicament he’s in, the feline decides to go on a quest to find a place that will grant him a wish, which he plans to use for more lives. Along the way, he’s joined by friends new and old, and is introduced to new enemies.

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REVIEW: ‘Strange World’ is Disney’s weakest effort in recent memory

I’m not going to lie. When this film reached the halfway point and a character said he saw something cute that could be a merchandising opportunity, I considered walking out.

“Strange World” centers on a community surrounded by seemingly impassable mountains. That doesn’t deter fearless explorer Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid), though, who gets lost in the mountains trying to find a way out. His son Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal) never shared his father’s quest for exploration, and instead became a farmer of a valuable natural resource.

However, when that resource becomes threatened, he joins an expedition underneath the mountains to a strange subterranean area with his own son Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White). As it turns out, it’s where Jaeger has been the whole time.

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REVIEW: Yearning for more from ‘Lightyear’

“Lightyear” may feature rocket ships that can reach incredible heights, but the movie itself can’t manage to get a high rating.

As the film points out at the very start, “Lightyear” is a movie released in the “Toy Story” universe that Andy watched before getting his Buzz Lightyear action figure. The film tells the story of how Lightyear is a space ranger who was part of a mission that went wrong.

The botched mission caused him and several others aboard a massive ship to become stranded on an alien world. To leave the planet, Buzz (Chris Evans) begins testing hyperspace fuel cells in single-man ships to try and find a way to leave the planet, but doing so causes him to go years into the future.

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REVIEW: ‘Turning Red’ absolutely rocks

Pixar has went back-to-back with great coming of age films, following up last year’s “Luca” with this superb animated feature.

Domee Shi, who helmed the Academy Award-winning short film “Bao”from 2018, directed and co-wrote this Pixar film. The movie is set in Toronto during 2002 and centers on Mei (Rosalie Chiang), a straight-A student who works hard to meet the high standards set by her mother (Sandra Oh).

At the same time, Mei is also a typical 13-year-old. She hangs out with a group of best friends and they enjoy boy bands and have crushes. She has a pretty good balance going on, but that begins to change when a mystical family spell that passes generation-to-generation turns her into a giant red panda.

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REVIEW: Don’t bother checking in to fourth ‘Hotel Transylvania’ film

The fourth and final “Hotel Transylvania” was initially set for a theatrical release, but this approach was later cancelled, with Sony Pictures instead taking a digital route.

It makes sense, because this has all the makings of a straight-to-home-video animated movie.

The installment takes place not long after the events of the third movie. Dracula (voiced now by Brian Hull), is still running the hotel and is now living there with his wife Erica Van Helsing (Kathryn Hahn). At the movie’s outset, Dracula is considering retiring, and in the process, handing the keys to his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and son-in-law Johnny (Andy Samberg).

However, Dracula is nervous about doing so, as Johnny is not a monster. Johnny soon learns this and decides find  a way to turn himself into a monster. He succeeds, but this move accidentally turns other monsters, including Dracula, into humans. Determined to set things back to normal, Dracula and Johnny set off on an adventure.

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REVIEW: ‘Mitchells Vs The Machines’ never rises above mediocre

This movie and the new “Matrix” in a few weeks is only reinforcing my concern about a robot uprising.

As the title implies, this movie is about a family, named the Mitchells, taking on evil bots. While the whole family is included, though, the main focus is on Katie (Abbi Jacobson), a teen who’s preparing to go to college in California to study film. Her academic path has put her at odds with her dad Rick (Danny McBride), though, who’s never been interested in technology and enjoys the outdoors much more.

Knowing that he has one last chance to connect with his daughter before she leaves for school, Rick decides to take Katie, as well as his son Aaron (Michael Rianda) and wife Linda (Maya Rudolph) on a college move-in road trip. Unfortunately, their journey is interrupted by the robots who’re in the midst of a global takeover because of an A.I. gone bad.

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REVIEW: ‘Space Jam’s’ New Legacy is mostly lousy

Do you love Warner Bros.? And I mean really love Warner Bros.? Then do I have the movie for you.

Warner Bros. has brought back its “Space Jam” concept, this time swapping His Airness with King James. In this film, Lebron James is having trouble connecting with his son Dom (Cedric Joe), who’s more interested in video game design than basketball, something that the NBA star isn’t excited about.

The future hall of famer gets a crash course in video games, though, when he visits the WB studio, which has a proposal for him to star in their movies through a program created by an artificial intelligence named Al G. Rythm (Don Cheadle). When James turns the idea down, Al G. Rythm is upset and decides to bring both Dom and James into the digital realm. where he challenges the NBA player to a game of basketball, against video game characters his son invented.

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REVIEW: Pixar’s ‘Luca’ is a winner

Pixar has another great movie on its resume.

The latest film from the Disney-owned studio takes place in and around a small town on the Italian Riviera. The titular character, voiced by Jacob Tremblay, is a young humanoid sea creature who lives beneath the waves with his mother (Maya Rudolph), father (Jim Gaffigan) and grandma (Sandy Martin). The family has a strict rule about not visiting the surface, as humans have been known to be dangerous, but Luca is fascinated by the world above.

At the film’s start, Luca is given a chance to explore the Italian turf when he meets another “sea monster,” Alberto (Jack Dylan Grazer). The duo become fast friends and, with growing frustration toward his parents’ rules, Luca decides to travel to the Italian village with Alberto, in human disguise. There, they become friends with a girl named Giulia (Emma Berman), who wants to enter a local triathlon.

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REVIEW: ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ is an enjoyable, mythical ride

Swords, princesses and dragons aren’t exactly new to Disney animated films. But how they’re portrayed here in “Raya and the Last Dragon” is somewhat refreshing.

The movie follows the story of Raya (voiced by Kelly Marie Tran), a young woman exploring a rather desolate land that is made up of five tribes. In the past, the land was much more tranquil and lively, but an event between the five tribes led to an important stone being shattered, which led to the release of evil beings which can turn people to stone.

Only a legendary dragon named Sisu can destroy the evil by putting magic back into the stone once it’s back together. Early in the film, Raya does succeed in finding Sisu (voiced by Nora “Awkwafina” Lum). However, a larger task is getting all of the stone pieces, each held by leaders of the different tribes, and none of them trust each other. Raya and Sisu set off on adventure to accomplish this task, though.

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