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Gareth von Kallenbach (962 KP) rated Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs Evil (2011) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019
Does anyone remember the original Hoodwinked movie? Nobody else does, either. Blue Yonder Films, the studio that brought you Doogal tries to pull another rabbit out of their hat by releasing a sequel to the twisted fairy-tale movie titled Hoodwinked Too: Hood vs. Evil. All of the original voice characters are present from the first film, except for Red (Anne Hathaway was replaced by Hayden Panettiere), and Kirk the Woodsman (Jim Belushi , who was replaced by Martin Short).
It doesn’t really matter if you’ve seen the first movie, as a storybook opening catches the audience up on the current situation. A short intro introduces the HEA (Happily Ever After Agency; shouldn’t that be HEAA?) staking out a Wicked Witch who is holding Hansel & Gretel (Bill Hader & Amy Poehler) hostage in her Gingerbread House. The main protagonist, Red Riding Hood (Panettiere) is off on training, and her former partner, The Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is handling the situation with Granny (Glen Close).
Of course, the seemingly simple scenario changes to a conspiracy which has actually been masterminded by the hostages, in order to drag a secret from Granny. Granny is a part of the Sisterhood of Kung-Fu Bakers (the “Hood” in the film’s title), and possesses the recipe of a secret weapon known as the Super Truffle, which supposedly makes those who consume it invincible. The movie has a small army of all-star cast members, and each one makes the most of their parts.
Unfortunately nearly everything else in the film misses the mark, from the writing, direction, and even the animation. Many other computer-animated movies today feel a lot more organic, and although the visuals of this sequel are better than the first there are times when character movements appear more programmed than motion-captured. Most of the jokes in the movie require one to have lived during the 70s or 80s, and nearly all of them are groaners. Jokes like “Dog is your co-pilot”, and a backwards sign where “dyslexic” is clearly visible are just too obscure even for the average adult. Sure, this is a family movie that should have something for everyone, but the preview theater I was in had a large mix of children and their parents, and there was only one time when the audience laughed as a whole.
There are a few running gags that did receive a positive audience response. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong play two of the Three Little Pigs (hitmen for hire), and they received most of the genuine laughs. Another running gag was of a banjo-playing goat, who is constantly being fallen upon by other characters. This gag did get some chuckles, particularly from children, but was an obvious rip-off of “Scrat” from the Ice Age series, but just didn’t have the same charm. Most animated films either have amazing visuals, humor or heart, and the best ones blend these essentials together. Unfortunately none of these elements are present in Hoodwinked Too to make the audience feel for Red’s story, and the semi-warm victory at the end is simply “meh”.
You won’t be missing anything by skipping this film at the box office. It might be worth a rental when it comes out on DVD, but you and your family can still live a full and satisfying life without it.
It doesn’t really matter if you’ve seen the first movie, as a storybook opening catches the audience up on the current situation. A short intro introduces the HEA (Happily Ever After Agency; shouldn’t that be HEAA?) staking out a Wicked Witch who is holding Hansel & Gretel (Bill Hader & Amy Poehler) hostage in her Gingerbread House. The main protagonist, Red Riding Hood (Panettiere) is off on training, and her former partner, The Big Bad Wolf (Patrick Warburton) is handling the situation with Granny (Glen Close).
Of course, the seemingly simple scenario changes to a conspiracy which has actually been masterminded by the hostages, in order to drag a secret from Granny. Granny is a part of the Sisterhood of Kung-Fu Bakers (the “Hood” in the film’s title), and possesses the recipe of a secret weapon known as the Super Truffle, which supposedly makes those who consume it invincible. The movie has a small army of all-star cast members, and each one makes the most of their parts.
Unfortunately nearly everything else in the film misses the mark, from the writing, direction, and even the animation. Many other computer-animated movies today feel a lot more organic, and although the visuals of this sequel are better than the first there are times when character movements appear more programmed than motion-captured. Most of the jokes in the movie require one to have lived during the 70s or 80s, and nearly all of them are groaners. Jokes like “Dog is your co-pilot”, and a backwards sign where “dyslexic” is clearly visible are just too obscure even for the average adult. Sure, this is a family movie that should have something for everyone, but the preview theater I was in had a large mix of children and their parents, and there was only one time when the audience laughed as a whole.
There are a few running gags that did receive a positive audience response. Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong play two of the Three Little Pigs (hitmen for hire), and they received most of the genuine laughs. Another running gag was of a banjo-playing goat, who is constantly being fallen upon by other characters. This gag did get some chuckles, particularly from children, but was an obvious rip-off of “Scrat” from the Ice Age series, but just didn’t have the same charm. Most animated films either have amazing visuals, humor or heart, and the best ones blend these essentials together. Unfortunately none of these elements are present in Hoodwinked Too to make the audience feel for Red’s story, and the semi-warm victory at the end is simply “meh”.
You won’t be missing anything by skipping this film at the box office. It might be worth a rental when it comes out on DVD, but you and your family can still live a full and satisfying life without it.
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BankofMarquis (1832 KP) rated Cruella (2021) in Movies
Jun 13, 2021
Fights to find the right tone - but succeeds more than it fails
The new Disney live action film CRUELLA (telling the origin story of one of the most well known villains in Disney animation history) is one of those strange films that is trying to walk a thin line between “G” rated “kid” entertainment and an “R” rated film intended for a more “mature” audience.
An that, ultimately, is the issue with this film, it bounces around tonally - sometimes bumping up against the “G” rating and often times landing closer to the “R”, so that, in the end, it will not be a totally satisfying experience for either the “G” or the “R” crowd.
Emma Stone takes on the title role of CRUELLA and in this film you watch her become the Cruella DeVille that you see in the Disney Animated Film (and the Glenn Close live action remake). Stone is very good in this role - almost a perfect fit. However, it looks to me that she is having a much better time playing the evil “R” rated version of Cruella rather then the comic-bookish “G” rated version, so her performance is, at times, brilliant and at other times, not as brillaint.
Emma Thompson steals just about every scene she is in as Cruella’s nemesis “The Baroness”. It’s good to see this terrific actress getting a role that she can really sink her teeth in. I hope this leads to other, strong important roles for this actress “of a certain age”.
The supporting players are strong…or should I say…Mark Strong (hehehehe). He brings his usual gravitas to the role of The Baroness’ right-hand man. But the players who impressed me the most were Joel Fry (YESTERDAY) and Paul Walter Hauser (RICHARD JEWELL) as Cruella’s 2 best friends/henchmen. They both were able to flesh out these characters (who are usually portrayed as bumbling buffoons) and both were able to find the line between “G” and “R” very well - and stay on it the entire film.
Director Craig Gillespie (I, TONYA) finds the correct tone for this film more often than not, but it is in the “not” portion of this that he fails this movie. The shifts in tone (often on a dime) are often jarring and the blame for this would have to be put right at the Director’s feet, though the look of this film (sort of a 1960’s Austin Powers meets SteamPunk look) succeeds VERY well and is as much a character in this film as the performers.
One final thing, the soundtrack used in CRUELLA is an interesting touch. Gillespie and Composer Nicholas Britell eschews (for the most part) a conventional score and highlights most of the scenes with a Pop song - though here Gillespie whips us around tonally as well. For, since the film is set in 1960’s London, a good many of the tunes used are ‘60 (and early ‘70’s) rock hits. But….every now and then…he will drop in a ‘80’s number.
But…as I sit and write this review, I am finding myself falling more and more on the side of “I Liked It”, so…set aside the tonal shifts…and you will be entertained by CRUELLA much more than you would expect.
Letter Grade: B+
7 1/2 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
An that, ultimately, is the issue with this film, it bounces around tonally - sometimes bumping up against the “G” rating and often times landing closer to the “R”, so that, in the end, it will not be a totally satisfying experience for either the “G” or the “R” crowd.
Emma Stone takes on the title role of CRUELLA and in this film you watch her become the Cruella DeVille that you see in the Disney Animated Film (and the Glenn Close live action remake). Stone is very good in this role - almost a perfect fit. However, it looks to me that she is having a much better time playing the evil “R” rated version of Cruella rather then the comic-bookish “G” rated version, so her performance is, at times, brilliant and at other times, not as brillaint.
Emma Thompson steals just about every scene she is in as Cruella’s nemesis “The Baroness”. It’s good to see this terrific actress getting a role that she can really sink her teeth in. I hope this leads to other, strong important roles for this actress “of a certain age”.
The supporting players are strong…or should I say…Mark Strong (hehehehe). He brings his usual gravitas to the role of The Baroness’ right-hand man. But the players who impressed me the most were Joel Fry (YESTERDAY) and Paul Walter Hauser (RICHARD JEWELL) as Cruella’s 2 best friends/henchmen. They both were able to flesh out these characters (who are usually portrayed as bumbling buffoons) and both were able to find the line between “G” and “R” very well - and stay on it the entire film.
Director Craig Gillespie (I, TONYA) finds the correct tone for this film more often than not, but it is in the “not” portion of this that he fails this movie. The shifts in tone (often on a dime) are often jarring and the blame for this would have to be put right at the Director’s feet, though the look of this film (sort of a 1960’s Austin Powers meets SteamPunk look) succeeds VERY well and is as much a character in this film as the performers.
One final thing, the soundtrack used in CRUELLA is an interesting touch. Gillespie and Composer Nicholas Britell eschews (for the most part) a conventional score and highlights most of the scenes with a Pop song - though here Gillespie whips us around tonally as well. For, since the film is set in 1960’s London, a good many of the tunes used are ‘60 (and early ‘70’s) rock hits. But….every now and then…he will drop in a ‘80’s number.
But…as I sit and write this review, I am finding myself falling more and more on the side of “I Liked It”, so…set aside the tonal shifts…and you will be entertained by CRUELLA much more than you would expect.
Letter Grade: B+
7 1/2 (out of 10) stars and you can take that to the Bank (ofMarquis)
Emma @ The Movies (1786 KP) rated Scoob (2020) in Movies
May 8, 2021
Another film that snuck its way through to VOD (and is thankfully now streaming). As much as I love Scooby Doo, I did not have the desire to pay money to view this one.
Here I would normally put an extended synopsis, but I'll be honest, after watching the film I don't think I could tell you what the story was. I'm not sure it actually matters anyway.
The beginning of the film confused me. From every trailer that I saw I thought this film was about the mini Scooby Gang. At least that's what I remembered. So having seen lots of clips of them as kids, coupled with the posters meant I was left confused when it was hardly a feature of the final product.
Apart from me evidently forgetting the plot of the film, it was a classic Scooby story with a modern twist, and ultimately you can't go wrong with that. You get all the things you expect from masked villains to hair-brained schemes that seem to fool the minions... and that is all pretty satisfying stuff to watch.
A note I made very quickly was that the voices left a lot to be desired. While capturing the essence of the original cast would be very difficult, there's no denying that the actors from the live-action originals did a very good job... here we had no real comparison at all. Gina Rodriguez (who has been knocking it out of the park recently) probably being the only exception. I just truly don't know how anyone could possibly be better than Casey Kasem and Matthew Lillard. MVP of the film was definitely the bike cop when questioning Scooby and Shaggy, quality content, loved the end of his scene.
Despite the nostalgia of everything it doesn't make up for some truly awful dialogue, it's very inconsistent and yoyos between bad and good (when I say good, in this case, I probably mean cheesy). There are a couple of true gems though, my favourite being an early line from Shaggy with some heavy foreshadowing.
The yoyoing of the script is generally reflected in my notes on the film as a whole. For every laugh, there was something negative I wrote down. Scoob! was very self-aware, which was amusing to begin with, but it began to grate a little.
I was at least thankful that the CG animation actually became less of an annoyance as I got into the film, I wasn't a fan. The majority of the film managed to get a pass, but sadly I really disliked the portrayal of Dick Dastardly and Muttley in this style. As much as I'd like a Hanna and Barbera universe, I do not care to see anymore in this look. And absolutely no more Dastardly looking like Gru with his minions.
"But Emma... you gave this film a pretty decent rating and all you've done is grumble about it!" Yes, yes I have. But... I still enjoyed myself, and like I said, for every bad note there was a laugh or a moment that made me happy. And sometimes having a rant about a film's pitfalls is just something you need to do.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2021/05/scoob-movie-review.html
Here I would normally put an extended synopsis, but I'll be honest, after watching the film I don't think I could tell you what the story was. I'm not sure it actually matters anyway.
The beginning of the film confused me. From every trailer that I saw I thought this film was about the mini Scooby Gang. At least that's what I remembered. So having seen lots of clips of them as kids, coupled with the posters meant I was left confused when it was hardly a feature of the final product.
Apart from me evidently forgetting the plot of the film, it was a classic Scooby story with a modern twist, and ultimately you can't go wrong with that. You get all the things you expect from masked villains to hair-brained schemes that seem to fool the minions... and that is all pretty satisfying stuff to watch.
A note I made very quickly was that the voices left a lot to be desired. While capturing the essence of the original cast would be very difficult, there's no denying that the actors from the live-action originals did a very good job... here we had no real comparison at all. Gina Rodriguez (who has been knocking it out of the park recently) probably being the only exception. I just truly don't know how anyone could possibly be better than Casey Kasem and Matthew Lillard. MVP of the film was definitely the bike cop when questioning Scooby and Shaggy, quality content, loved the end of his scene.
Despite the nostalgia of everything it doesn't make up for some truly awful dialogue, it's very inconsistent and yoyos between bad and good (when I say good, in this case, I probably mean cheesy). There are a couple of true gems though, my favourite being an early line from Shaggy with some heavy foreshadowing.
The yoyoing of the script is generally reflected in my notes on the film as a whole. For every laugh, there was something negative I wrote down. Scoob! was very self-aware, which was amusing to begin with, but it began to grate a little.
I was at least thankful that the CG animation actually became less of an annoyance as I got into the film, I wasn't a fan. The majority of the film managed to get a pass, but sadly I really disliked the portrayal of Dick Dastardly and Muttley in this style. As much as I'd like a Hanna and Barbera universe, I do not care to see anymore in this look. And absolutely no more Dastardly looking like Gru with his minions.
"But Emma... you gave this film a pretty decent rating and all you've done is grumble about it!" Yes, yes I have. But... I still enjoyed myself, and like I said, for every bad note there was a laugh or a moment that made me happy. And sometimes having a rant about a film's pitfalls is just something you need to do.
Originally posted on: https://emmaatthemovies.blogspot.com/2021/05/scoob-movie-review.html
Sarah (7798 KP) rated Mulan (2020) in Movies
Dec 18, 2020
Completely uninteresting
Mulan (2020) is the live action adaptation of the 1998 Disney animation of the same name, the latest in the live action remakes of Disney classics based on a young woman who disguises herself as a male soldier to save her father.
I’ll start with an admission: I’ve never seen the original animated Mulan. Despite being an avid Disney fan, growing up living and breathing everything Disney, somehow as an eleven year old when it was first released Mulan just passed me by, and has carried in doing so in the 20+ years since. Unlike the other live action Disney remakes in which I had so many preconceptions and so much love for the originals, I went into Mulan entirely open and with no expectations. This I hoped would prove to be a benefit when watching this remake, however I’m afraid to say that it actually may have put me at even more of a disadvantage.
The biggest issue with this film is that is entirely lacking in everything you’d usually expect from an animated Disney film and what I don’t doubt is present in the 1998 original. Disney films are full of heart, laughter, cutesy creatures and catchy songs whilst with an underlying serious plot with more menace and threat than you’d expect. This remake appears to have removed everything you know and love about Disney and replaced it with a very serious, very drawn out and actually quite dull plot. Yes there is still the good message in here that hopefully will motivate young women, but it’s lost behind a film that is severely lacking in any really spirit or character.
Yifei Liu does well as Mulan, at least with what she’s given to work with as far as the script goes. However she really suffers with the romance side, as there is zero chemistry between Mulan and Honghui, even with Yoson An’s charismatic performance. Jet Li is barely recognisable as the Emperor and Donnie Yen really needed to channel more of his Rogue One character to lighten the mood. Even the villains, Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and Xianniang (Li Gong) have little to work with, with Xianniang’s witch being let down by the most by the poor writing and character development.
The cast however aren’t really at fault here. The film looks good, the sets and costumes are impressive and everything feels lush and colourful. However I felt the action scenes had been so obviously ‘Disney-fied’ that they lost all sense of fun and, well, action. They felt over choreographed and with the large amount of fight scenes in this, the lack of proper violence and blood was far too obvious. And the over-used slow motion alongside some questionable CGI was unbearable. Considering they wanted to make this a more accurate and serious Disney adaptation, it’s a shame they didn’t go far enough to make the action a little more adult.
I really wanted to like this, but for me it was just severely deficient in anything that makes a Disney film likeable. Had I seen the original, it may have at least brought some form of love and nostalgia. However all this has succeeded in doing is making me want to watch the original, both as a comparison and for some much needed fun and laughter.
I’ll start with an admission: I’ve never seen the original animated Mulan. Despite being an avid Disney fan, growing up living and breathing everything Disney, somehow as an eleven year old when it was first released Mulan just passed me by, and has carried in doing so in the 20+ years since. Unlike the other live action Disney remakes in which I had so many preconceptions and so much love for the originals, I went into Mulan entirely open and with no expectations. This I hoped would prove to be a benefit when watching this remake, however I’m afraid to say that it actually may have put me at even more of a disadvantage.
The biggest issue with this film is that is entirely lacking in everything you’d usually expect from an animated Disney film and what I don’t doubt is present in the 1998 original. Disney films are full of heart, laughter, cutesy creatures and catchy songs whilst with an underlying serious plot with more menace and threat than you’d expect. This remake appears to have removed everything you know and love about Disney and replaced it with a very serious, very drawn out and actually quite dull plot. Yes there is still the good message in here that hopefully will motivate young women, but it’s lost behind a film that is severely lacking in any really spirit or character.
Yifei Liu does well as Mulan, at least with what she’s given to work with as far as the script goes. However she really suffers with the romance side, as there is zero chemistry between Mulan and Honghui, even with Yoson An’s charismatic performance. Jet Li is barely recognisable as the Emperor and Donnie Yen really needed to channel more of his Rogue One character to lighten the mood. Even the villains, Bori Khan (Jason Scott Lee) and Xianniang (Li Gong) have little to work with, with Xianniang’s witch being let down by the most by the poor writing and character development.
The cast however aren’t really at fault here. The film looks good, the sets and costumes are impressive and everything feels lush and colourful. However I felt the action scenes had been so obviously ‘Disney-fied’ that they lost all sense of fun and, well, action. They felt over choreographed and with the large amount of fight scenes in this, the lack of proper violence and blood was far too obvious. And the over-used slow motion alongside some questionable CGI was unbearable. Considering they wanted to make this a more accurate and serious Disney adaptation, it’s a shame they didn’t go far enough to make the action a little more adult.
I really wanted to like this, but for me it was just severely deficient in anything that makes a Disney film likeable. Had I seen the original, it may have at least brought some form of love and nostalgia. However all this has succeeded in doing is making me want to watch the original, both as a comparison and for some much needed fun and laughter.