Day 80: July 19th, 2010

Who Framed Roger Rabbit.



It's the story of a man, a woman, and a rabbit in a triangle of trouble.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit mixes the world of animation and live action effortlessly, what makes it even more respectable is how well it holds up compared to recent flicks like Looney Tunes: Back in Action.

Zemeckis pushes the envelope and continues to today, or at least tries to. His films seem to lack the heart and soul of his earlier works. With Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Zemeckis blends old school film noir detective stories with a looney stylized world in which the character live.

Bob Hoskins is the alcoholic detective who must solve the case of....who framed roger rabbit. He does a wonderful job in the role and acts opposite an imaginary character with ease. Roger Rabbit himself is a zany character that is in love with Jessica Rabbit, a busty bombshell of a character with flowing red hair. She is of course the femme fatale. What's a film without a villain? Christopher Lloyd as Judge Doom is creepy and effective. Without a doubt he will give chills to your bones. His distaste for toons is about as villainous as you can get.

Their are numerous winks and nods to old school cartoon characters. What other film can you see Daffy and Donald duck battle each other? The toon world is a great way to show creativity and the crew make sure they use their opportunity to do so. This film is great for both kids and adults and is to this day, a classic.

I highly recommend Who Framed Roger Rabbit to anyone looking for a good story, interesting characters and great entertainment. The film is not only funny, but a great mystery waiting to be unraveled. Check it out.

8/10

Day 50: June 19th, 2010

Toy Story 3



So The Third In A Series Can Be Good?

Andy is going off to college and is given the option of putting his toys in the attic or throwing them out. Through a series of unfortunate events, the toys actually end up being donated to Sunnyside Daycare. Which at first, seems like a wonderful place to be, but the truth about the place is soon discovered by the toys and they try to escape.

In 1995 when Toy Story first hit the screens, I was around 7 or 8 years old. I am in disbelief at how young I was, 1995 doesn't seem that long ago, but it's been 15 years. I was still in elementary school when the second one came out too. I was young and was able to connect to both of the films, I saw a little of myself in Andy. I grew up playing with plastic army men, dinosaurs and cowboys. There is a special bond between a boy and his toys and Toy Story got it perfect. The original Toy Story introduced us to a few things. One was Pixar, a studio that would go on to create dozens of films that are entertaining and brilliant. Another was the first fully computer animated feature film. It changed the way animated films were made. Finally it gave us two of the most recognizable animated characters of all time, Woody and Buzz.

Flashforward 11 years after Toy Story 2. I have recently graduated college and don't play with my toys anymore. Andy is heading off to college and he doesn't play with his toys anymore. The big question I had was, can a third entry to a series that is more than a decade old, still hold true to the original and will I still be able to connect to it? The answer is yes, on both accounts. Toy Story 3 is magical, entertaining and heartfelt. It reminded me of my childhood and my toys, the biggest thing this film has going for it is nostalgia. I found it funny that more than half the people in the audience were not alive when the first film came out.

The constant fear of being discarded is present here, as it is in all three of the films. With this entry it is the forefront issue. The themes of loss, friendship and courage are all present in this third installment. Usually the third film in a franchise falls short of what the first two are, but this is not the case. Toy Story 3 is just as good as the first two. My minor complaint is that there is that one thing that is missing. It might be the 11 year gap between the films, but there is that little special thing that made me love the first two films that this one doesn't seem to have. Buzz seems a little underused as do the other toys, but this is a small issue that doesn't ruin a great film.

There are 3 scenes in the film that made me almost cry. Hey, I said ALMOST. The first one is pretty early on, when Woody calls for a meeting, something we are accustomed to in the previous installments. But this time we don't see dozens of toys coming out from under the bed, behind closets or out of bins. It's just these guys. All the other toys that we see in the background are gone. Even though they were never the main characters, or given a lot of screen time, there was something about each one that we seemed to love. This people were a family and that family is broken. Wheezy, Bo Peep, Etch, RC, Lenny the Binoculars, Mike the tape recorder, Rocky Gibraltar the gladiator. Dozens of lovable background characters that made us love that room so much more.

The other two scenes are near the end, one in which the toys join hands in fear of their ultimate doom. It's their realization of the end and their bonding together that got to me. The other is the final send off from Andy. The film builds on the previous adventures these characters had to tug on the heart strings. It never reaches the emotional depths of Up, but these are two totally different films. The way they chose to end the series, in my opinion was perfect and sad.

There are hundreds of new characters, all introduced at the Daycare. At first you would seem to think that you will be overwhelmed with all the additional characters, but it is never an issue. The two most prominent new characters are Lotso Hugs and Ken, who is voiced by Batman himself. Some of the more interesting new characters are never given a chance to shine, they belong to Bonnie in her room, mainly my new favourite Mr. Pricklepants.

The film mixes adventure, comedy and drama all perfectly. It's not as funny as the first two, but it is more adventurous. The animation doesn't call for anything fancy, these are toys after all, yet Pixar finds a way to still dazzle the eye. The climax of the film has a lot going on and it is edge of your seat entertainment.

To end this review, I'll simply say the last thing Andy said before leaving the toys..."Thanks Guys"

8.5/10

Day 29: May 29th, 2010

Igor




Igor Should Have Been A Success

...but the film fails to deliver on it's actually interesting premise.

Igor is the sidekick to an evil scientist, we always get the evil scientist story, but never the story of the sidekick. This is where this film comes in. Igor, even though he is a sidekick, wants to be an evil scientist himself. Insert some humour that most kids won't get and some dark material that will scare them away, then you are left with an animated film that seemed to have lost it's target audience. It's also completely obvious they are trying to target the Tim Burton crowd as well, but it feels really third rate in terms of anything in that department.

Igor is voiced by John Cusack, interesting choice. My problems with some animated films these days is that we no longer have voice actors in the lead roles, who are trained in this sort of thing, but any actor who is looking for a paycheck to just sit behind a microphone and speak the words from the script out loud. I found that Cusack is at fault here, despite everyone else in the film actually doing a decent job.

The animation is nothing special. If looked at in comparison to other films, it looks very basic and that it belonged to the year 1998, not 2008. The dark and brooding atmosphere is not brooding enough, and not childish enough. It feels very boring and bland. Almost as if no effort was put into it.

The writing is very bad and the script is below par. For a film that could have been filled with some funny jokes about the cliched parts of this genre, it had none that made me laugh. The supporting characters are good, for adults, but not children. I think some kids might be scared that there is a suicidal bunny....even more scared when they find out it is voiced by Steve Buscemi.

With so many good animated films out there, it's easy to close your eyes and blindly pick one up off the shelf that is better than Igor. It falls in the category of completely forgettable, with films like Valiant, Space Chimps, Fly Me To The Moon and others I can't even remember....because they are that forgettable.

I'm sure there are people who had no intention of seeing this. Consider this review as confirmation to those who were maybe a little interested, that you should just skip it.

4/10

Day 26: May 26th, 2010

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs



Cloudy With A Chance Is A Great Fun Time.

After yesterdays film, I figured I'd watch something a little more upbeat. Enter this colourful fun entertaining film.

Failure after failure after failure after failure, Flint decides to solve a certain sardine problem his town has, by converting water into food. He invents a machine, which then goes a bit haywire and launches itself into the sky. Fortunately for him, it worked, and food begins falling out of the sky. Unfortunately it eventually gets a mind of it's own and tries to destroy to town with over-sized food.

Look at the pretty colours. Those were the words from my girlfriend when we saw the trailer for this film, which we sadly did not see in the theatres. Yes, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is a great animated kids film with more than enough comedy for the older crowd. Although it wasn't the best animated film last year, it was the funniest in my opinion.

The animation fit the story perfectly and the food falling all over were great visuals. You can tell the animators had a lot of fun with this film. Sony Pictures Animation haven't really had a film in their roster to stand out and to me, this one is their golden ticket. It's a shame it wasn't recognized at the Oscars, as I think it deserved a place on the nomination list.

The kids learn valuable lessons about responsibility and being yourself, while getting to have fun with the images of ice cream snowball fights, a building made out of jello and a school covered by a giant pancake. The adults get the comedy of Bill Hader from SNL, recognizable voices of Mr. T, Neil Patrick Harris and the man, the myth, the legend himself, Bruce Campbell. Each role fit their voice actor perfectly. Usually Anna Faris annoys me, here she made me like her character more because of her unique voice. James Caan as the dad is the added cherry on the top of the cake. Gummi Bear Twilight Zone reference? Brilliant.

The film is really funny and hits every note it has to. The climax works perfectly and the vibrant colours will keep the kids watching the screen. The disaster film has been given the animated kids film treatment and it works wonderfully. I highly recommend Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs for the entire family.

8/10