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RəX Regent (349 KP) rated Sing (2016) in Movies

Feb 19, 2019

Sing (2016)

2016 | Animation, Comedy, Musical

7.6

(76 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

I admit, I went into this with low expectations. It looked like a karaoke kids movie from an animation studio that I do not rate that highly. But what do I know?

Illumination studios have managed to rack up a “Stinker” on this blog with The Lorax (3D) (2012), which was filled with songs which did not seem to go with the movie and maybe that was in my mind when I first saw the trailer for this, but I must admit, that I was wrong.

The story focuses around a Koala Bear (Matthew McConauhey) who owns his dream theatre in New York, but it is about to fail big. He ends up setting up singing contest in order to try and save it and a verity of animals from this this Zootopia styled world inhabited solely by animals, are entered into the competition.

The writing was good, strong and simple. The characters had enough depth, the song choices were good and the antics surrounding Matthew McConauhey’s efforts to keep his theatre open against the odds were genuinely funny.

It was also nice to see that several character tropes were not pandered too, such as the house wife pig (Reese Witherspoon) goes to elaborate lengths to take part, by automating her house to get her litter of piglets to school and her middle management husband to work, all of whom take her for granted so much that they fail to even notice that she is not there.

But instead of attacking her housewife status and saying that she was being hampered by this “boring” life and should be a singer and follow her dreams as many films would suggest, this simply asks for a balance. That impressed me… a lot.

Well worth a watch and defiantly one for the whole family.

Kudos

Lenard (726 KP) rated The Lion King (2019) in Movies

Jul 28, 2019

The Lion King (2019)

2019 | Adventure, Animation, Family

7.1

(82 Ratings)

Movie Rating Watch

The short review: This film is a crowd pleasing movie for fans of the original animated film. This hits all the highlights you love about the first version.

The longer version: It does bring up an interesting point. Mufasa teaches Simba about the Circle of Life where the death of the lions replenishes the savanna with nutrients. The movie shows a circle of life by beginning with the birth of a lion prince cub and ends with the birth of the cub prince of the original cub. In the middle of the movie, the pride of African prey, meerkat, warthog, galago (one of my favorite animals), aardvark, etc., talk about how they only see food and predator. This illustrates that the animals in the middle of a food web can only see the linear relations that affect their life. Only the apex predator have any perspective of the complete circle, the prey/secondary predators have a more limited view of life.

Secondly, the soundtrack is so iconic that when "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" started, I had completely forgotten that oh yeah this is the song that actually won the Academy Award. However, I never once believed this part of the film. It seemed that the filmmakers had to put it here, but they had not earned the major plot point. I did not believe that Simba and Nala were starting to fall into love with each other. Maybe I had started to drift off into a timeline of the songs that had won Best Original Song, but still this is a major moment in the film and it needs to cohere. Unfortunately, though the film is beautiful and has great cinematography from Caleb Deschanel, it needed a much better story to work in "live action."

Kudos

LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated Rampage (2018) in Movies

Dec 11, 2019 (Updated Dec 11, 2019)

Rampage (2018)

2018 | Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi

7.4

(115 Ratings)

Movie Rating

A stupidly fun pile of nonsense

Rampage is a big old pile of dumb fun, teeming with mostly passable CGI, and featuring The Rock fighting giant monsters.

The plot is something along the lines of - big shady corporation is practicing illegal genetic tinkering (in space, because Hollywood), they lose control, space ship crashes, experimental lab must infects a few animals, including a Gorilla that is looked after and raised by The Rock (an ex military badass zookeeper helicopter pilot, because Hollywood), the animals become big and aggressive, blah blah blah, BIG MONSTERS FIGHTING EACH OTHER AND DWAYNE JOHNSON AND DESTROYING CHICAGO.
It's absolutely absurd from start to finish, but it knows what kind of film it is.

The Rock is hugely likable as always, Jeffery Dean Morgan is likable as always, everyone else I can kind of give it take.
The script is pretty standard for this kind of film, but does verge into laughable at times, especially when the films 'villains' are on screen. Played by Malin Akerman and Jake Lacy, they go just a bit too overboard with the whole evil CEO schtick, to the point of annoyance.
Also, Naomie Harris is in it for some reason, but doesn't really serve much of a purpose, and therefore, is a waste of her talent.

The CGI is pretty decent for the most part, but make no mistake, Ramage is a CGI orgy, and as such, it does fall apart here and there (that parachuting scene is just haunting).

Rampage is stupid, loud, obnoxious, but it's entertaining enough to be a good time.
The Rock holds it all together, and it could have been a lot worse had it been lead by someone else, and as far as video game movies go, it's not half bad.