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Gundagai, 1852 The powerful Murrumbidgee River surges through town leaving death and destruction...
Movie Metropolis (309 KP) rated Sing (2016) in Movies
Jun 11, 2019
Fun for all the family
Talking animated animals are big business over in Hollywood. After all, Disney’s Zootopia was one of only a handful of films to gross over $1billion last year. Its competitor, The Secret Life of Pets performed well but wasn’t critically successful.
Here, the company behind that second film, Illumination Entertainment, try to get the genre right with Sing. But are we looking at the next superstar of the animated genre?
Koala Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) presides over a once-grand theatre that has recently fallen on hard times. An eternal optimist, he loves his work enormously and will do anything to preserve it. Facing the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he takes one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing a singing competition, with eternal glory facing the winner.
There’s an impressive roster of talent on offer in Sing, something that parents will no doubt enjoy slightly more than the offspring they no doubt have to bring with them. With Matthew McConaughey taking the lead role, Taron Egerton, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Seth McFarlane to name a few all lend their voices. There’s even a role for Brit-favourite Jennifer Saunders as a grumpy old sheep, it’s not ground-breaking, but it’s immensely likeable stuff.
Illumination Entertainment has brought us the brilliant Despicable Me franchise as well as its ridiculously successful spin-off Minions, but they’ve been criticised heavily for relying too much on the funny yellow critters to cash their paycheques. Thankfully, bar the now infamous company logo, the tic-tac shaped creatures are nowhere to be found and Sing is a vastly entertaining movie, in spite of their absence.
Whilst it’s true that the animation lacks the depth or fluidity of offerings from Pixar, Disney, and Dreamworks, there is a certain charm to its simplistic colour palate that children will find endearing. The plot is woefully unoriginal but director Garth Jennings, in his first animated feature, utilises that well, cleverly referencing the many talent shows that feature on our television screens – including those we are sick of.
There are some moral lessons in here too. Tori Kelly’s stage-shy elephant Meena has a great story arc that sees her face her fears and embrace her talents, whilst Taron Egerton’s gorilla Johnny stands up to his criminal father and learns that a life of crime doesn’t always pay.
In fact, only Seth MacFarlane’s obnoxious mouse Mike fails to make an impact on the plot, with his berating of an asthmatic sheep in the cleverly produced opening sequence coming across a little crude in comparison to the rest of the script.
Overall, Sing is a great film to hold the kid’s attention as we approach the half-term holidays. It would be easy to criticise it for lacking an original story, but there’s more to offer here than a half-baked plot. It’s beautifully voiced and reasonably well animated. Illumination Entertainment may not have topped Zootopia, but this is their best offering outside of Despicable Me by a country mile.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2017/01/28/fun-for-all-the-family-sing-review/
Here, the company behind that second film, Illumination Entertainment, try to get the genre right with Sing. But are we looking at the next superstar of the animated genre?
Koala Buster Moon (Matthew McConaughey) presides over a once-grand theatre that has recently fallen on hard times. An eternal optimist, he loves his work enormously and will do anything to preserve it. Facing the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he takes one final chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing a singing competition, with eternal glory facing the winner.
There’s an impressive roster of talent on offer in Sing, something that parents will no doubt enjoy slightly more than the offspring they no doubt have to bring with them. With Matthew McConaughey taking the lead role, Taron Egerton, Reese Witherspoon, Scarlett Johansson and Seth McFarlane to name a few all lend their voices. There’s even a role for Brit-favourite Jennifer Saunders as a grumpy old sheep, it’s not ground-breaking, but it’s immensely likeable stuff.
Illumination Entertainment has brought us the brilliant Despicable Me franchise as well as its ridiculously successful spin-off Minions, but they’ve been criticised heavily for relying too much on the funny yellow critters to cash their paycheques. Thankfully, bar the now infamous company logo, the tic-tac shaped creatures are nowhere to be found and Sing is a vastly entertaining movie, in spite of their absence.
Whilst it’s true that the animation lacks the depth or fluidity of offerings from Pixar, Disney, and Dreamworks, there is a certain charm to its simplistic colour palate that children will find endearing. The plot is woefully unoriginal but director Garth Jennings, in his first animated feature, utilises that well, cleverly referencing the many talent shows that feature on our television screens – including those we are sick of.
There are some moral lessons in here too. Tori Kelly’s stage-shy elephant Meena has a great story arc that sees her face her fears and embrace her talents, whilst Taron Egerton’s gorilla Johnny stands up to his criminal father and learns that a life of crime doesn’t always pay.
In fact, only Seth MacFarlane’s obnoxious mouse Mike fails to make an impact on the plot, with his berating of an asthmatic sheep in the cleverly produced opening sequence coming across a little crude in comparison to the rest of the script.
Overall, Sing is a great film to hold the kid’s attention as we approach the half-term holidays. It would be easy to criticise it for lacking an original story, but there’s more to offer here than a half-baked plot. It’s beautifully voiced and reasonably well animated. Illumination Entertainment may not have topped Zootopia, but this is their best offering outside of Despicable Me by a country mile.
https://moviemetropolis.net/2017/01/28/fun-for-all-the-family-sing-review/
Louise (64 KP) rated Nirvana (Nirvana #1) in Books
Jul 2, 2018
I received an advanced readers copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
To start off, the cover of this book is beautiful, it’s so inviting and definitely would catch my eye in store or even on-line. This book is a Young Adult dystopian novel.
Extinction is the world as never seen before. It first started when the bees disappeared, without the aid of the bees for pollination, the crops and animals started to die. With windstorms and drought, earth is a desert where no one can exist.
Hexagon is the newly reformed government that provide people with their basic needs, living in bunkers and working for pittance, apart from the rich. The rich get to live in the ‘bubble’, which is where they still have pretty much the same lifestyle. They also run what is called ‘The Farm’ which is where they are growing their own crops and have siphoned off their own water reserve for crops and the bubble. Hexagon also monitors everybody, with camera’s, surveilance and bugs set everywhere, nothing gets past them.
Nirvana is a virtual reality, where the population can pay half of their wages for 15 minutes in the holographic world, they are able to choose certain situations such as earth, the moon, space whatever they want really, however this is all monitored by Hexagon.
Kenders is a 17-year-old animal activist and also a lead singer for a band named Sixty Sextet, before extinction she was singing lyrics about liberation, however nowadays she is working in Nirvana as ‘help support’ for Hexagon. Andrew her long-term boyfriend has gone missing, it’s a journey of Kenders trying to find out what really happened and whats going on and who she can really trust.
Andrew is a holographic/virtual reality designer, with a high-profile job for Hexagon, however he’s not really happy with how things are panning out. Then all of a sudden he goes missing, assumed dead. He starts contact with Kenders through Nirvana giving her clues.
There were a few things that let this book down for me, there was not much world building, it could have been more fleshed out and could have got a real feel for the world. The characters were bland they didn’t really have any characteristics. The romance was just blah! It was an easy read and a short novel of 186 pages. There were things that were not properly explained and then parts which just had a quick explanation and then it was moving on again. It was very plot driven. There was a bit near the ending which was a bit cheesy and made me cringe a little(this might only be me though).
The ending was left on a bit of a cliffhanger, however I wasn’t really left wanting more. It was just a Meh ending. I just feel like the next book is just going to be the same all over again.
If you are a fan of dystopian, romance with a bit of a love triangle going on, this might be the book for you.
Overall I rated this book 2.5 out of 5 stars
To start off, the cover of this book is beautiful, it’s so inviting and definitely would catch my eye in store or even on-line. This book is a Young Adult dystopian novel.
Extinction is the world as never seen before. It first started when the bees disappeared, without the aid of the bees for pollination, the crops and animals started to die. With windstorms and drought, earth is a desert where no one can exist.
Hexagon is the newly reformed government that provide people with their basic needs, living in bunkers and working for pittance, apart from the rich. The rich get to live in the ‘bubble’, which is where they still have pretty much the same lifestyle. They also run what is called ‘The Farm’ which is where they are growing their own crops and have siphoned off their own water reserve for crops and the bubble. Hexagon also monitors everybody, with camera’s, surveilance and bugs set everywhere, nothing gets past them.
Nirvana is a virtual reality, where the population can pay half of their wages for 15 minutes in the holographic world, they are able to choose certain situations such as earth, the moon, space whatever they want really, however this is all monitored by Hexagon.
Kenders is a 17-year-old animal activist and also a lead singer for a band named Sixty Sextet, before extinction she was singing lyrics about liberation, however nowadays she is working in Nirvana as ‘help support’ for Hexagon. Andrew her long-term boyfriend has gone missing, it’s a journey of Kenders trying to find out what really happened and whats going on and who she can really trust.
Andrew is a holographic/virtual reality designer, with a high-profile job for Hexagon, however he’s not really happy with how things are panning out. Then all of a sudden he goes missing, assumed dead. He starts contact with Kenders through Nirvana giving her clues.
There were a few things that let this book down for me, there was not much world building, it could have been more fleshed out and could have got a real feel for the world. The characters were bland they didn’t really have any characteristics. The romance was just blah! It was an easy read and a short novel of 186 pages. There were things that were not properly explained and then parts which just had a quick explanation and then it was moving on again. It was very plot driven. There was a bit near the ending which was a bit cheesy and made me cringe a little(this might only be me though).
The ending was left on a bit of a cliffhanger, however I wasn’t really left wanting more. It was just a Meh ending. I just feel like the next book is just going to be the same all over again.
If you are a fan of dystopian, romance with a bit of a love triangle going on, this might be the book for you.
Overall I rated this book 2.5 out of 5 stars
Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Bad Times at the El Royale (2018) in Movies
Oct 24, 2018 (Updated Oct 24, 2018)
Good ensemble cast (2 more)
Cool set design and use of space
Nice cinematography
Enjoy Your Stay
In this day and age, it is becoming increasingly difficult to go into a movie without already knowing a bunch of information about it. Somehow Bad Times At The El Royale managed that. Even though I was a week late to seeing this movie, I was still able to go into it with very little knowledge about what was going to unfold. That in and of itself is an impressive feat in 2018.
I had a great time with this movie. I loved the cast here, Jeff Bridges and Jon Hamm are among my favourite actors working in Hollywood and I though that Chris Hemsworth did a fantastic job playing the villain for a change. The rest of the cast were fantastic too, other than Dakota Johnson, who was pretty wooden, (as we have come to expect from her.) As an aside, Cynthia Erivo's voice completely blew me away, I know that she has done some Broadway shows in the past, but she sounded incredible in this and I liked the way that her singing was tied in with the plot.
Bad Times is written and directed by Drew Goddard, who was also behind Cabin In The Woods and there are some similarities here, if you swap the horror elements out for mystery. I have also seen multiple reviews compare this to a Tarantino movie. There are obviously similarities in the structure that this film uses and the out-of-chronological-order structure that a Tarantino movie tends to follow, but I'd argue that Bad Times has it's own distinct and unique style.
I also thought that the cinematography was very effective throughout the film. The opening scene was very well shot, as was the scene when Hemsworth's character was introduced. The score also worked well with the plot and the dialogue and script were well written too.
The main negative that affected my enjoyment of the movie, were the decisions made regarding the pacing. The movie is split up so that we see things happen out of sequence or they are seen more than once from a different perspective. We are introduced to each new character and then we are given their backstory via a flashback. The main issue with this structure is that the flashbacks break the momentum of the events happening in the current story. Without spoiling too much, towards the end of the movie, everything comes to a head and an intense fight/shootout breaks out. Then, for some unknown reason, the filmmakers decide to slam on the brakes and give us another arbitrary flashback. It totally broke the immersion and intensity of the shootout sequence for me.
Overall, I had a good time watching Bad Times. I had no expectations going in as I didn't know much about the movie other than what had been shown in the trailers and I enjoyed witnessing what the movie had to offer. If you are looking for an exciting, suspenseful thriller, then you could definitely do worse than spending a stay at The El Royale.
I had a great time with this movie. I loved the cast here, Jeff Bridges and Jon Hamm are among my favourite actors working in Hollywood and I though that Chris Hemsworth did a fantastic job playing the villain for a change. The rest of the cast were fantastic too, other than Dakota Johnson, who was pretty wooden, (as we have come to expect from her.) As an aside, Cynthia Erivo's voice completely blew me away, I know that she has done some Broadway shows in the past, but she sounded incredible in this and I liked the way that her singing was tied in with the plot.
Bad Times is written and directed by Drew Goddard, who was also behind Cabin In The Woods and there are some similarities here, if you swap the horror elements out for mystery. I have also seen multiple reviews compare this to a Tarantino movie. There are obviously similarities in the structure that this film uses and the out-of-chronological-order structure that a Tarantino movie tends to follow, but I'd argue that Bad Times has it's own distinct and unique style.
I also thought that the cinematography was very effective throughout the film. The opening scene was very well shot, as was the scene when Hemsworth's character was introduced. The score also worked well with the plot and the dialogue and script were well written too.
The main negative that affected my enjoyment of the movie, were the decisions made regarding the pacing. The movie is split up so that we see things happen out of sequence or they are seen more than once from a different perspective. We are introduced to each new character and then we are given their backstory via a flashback. The main issue with this structure is that the flashbacks break the momentum of the events happening in the current story. Without spoiling too much, towards the end of the movie, everything comes to a head and an intense fight/shootout breaks out. Then, for some unknown reason, the filmmakers decide to slam on the brakes and give us another arbitrary flashback. It totally broke the immersion and intensity of the shootout sequence for me.
Overall, I had a good time watching Bad Times. I had no expectations going in as I didn't know much about the movie other than what had been shown in the trailers and I enjoyed witnessing what the movie had to offer. If you are looking for an exciting, suspenseful thriller, then you could definitely do worse than spending a stay at The El Royale.
Darren (1599 KP) rated Get On Up (2014) in Movies
Oct 17, 2019
Thoughts on Get on Up
Characters – James Brown is one of the most influential musicians of the last century, there is no doubt what he did will live on forever. We get to see how James started with nothing, in an abusive childhood with no education, before learning to take the chances thrown his way, trying to make a difference to the world in the spotlight, even if he doesn’t always keep the crowd around him, not always as loyal as he should be. This doesn’t make James look like the most integral person behind the spotlight. Bobby Byrd is the man that gave James a chance to get out of prison, to start something with his singing in gospel, he will stand by James through all the troubles he faces, the bands he goes through, knowing James is the main talent and just being part of this would make him remembered. Ben Bart makes everything happen for James, he tries to help him navigate difficult moments in history, but will help him make the right choices which sees the friendship grow as the success does. Susie is the mother of James, she is forced to leave because of her partner and once he becomes famous wants to come back into his life, while James isn’t willing to let this happen.
Performances – Chadwick Boseman is fantastic in the leading role, he shows that his biopic man, he can bring James Brown to life on stage and in his personal life with ease. Nelsan Ellis is great in his role, showing us that he could provide excellent supporting performances in the film. Dan Aykroyd is strong too, with Viola Davis making a big impact in her scenes in the film.
Story – The story here follows the life of James Brown, from his poverty like childhood, to his international success in the music industry, we see his ideas on wanting to make a change and just what it will do to the people that helped him get to the top. One of the biggest weaknesses in the film here comes from the early time jumps, we are constantly jumping between moments, which doesn’t help the story telling process. This story also doesn’t paint James as a nice person away from the spotlight, even if he was always trying to achieve something more from his career. The story does try to ram too much into the film, which does make it hard to understand each moment of his life.
Biopic/Music – This does show a lot of his life, it doesn’t help us get invested in just how much of an impact each moment was. The music can’t be questioned with his hits playing through the film with every beat we know.
Settings – The film creates some of the biggest stages of James career, never looking like we aren’t in the correct time period.
Scene of the Movie – The performances.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The time jumps.
Final Thoughts – This is a by the book biopic, it has wonderful performances and the music you would expect to see, though we do cram too much in for everything to run smoothly.
Overall: By the Books Biopic.
Characters – James Brown is one of the most influential musicians of the last century, there is no doubt what he did will live on forever. We get to see how James started with nothing, in an abusive childhood with no education, before learning to take the chances thrown his way, trying to make a difference to the world in the spotlight, even if he doesn’t always keep the crowd around him, not always as loyal as he should be. This doesn’t make James look like the most integral person behind the spotlight. Bobby Byrd is the man that gave James a chance to get out of prison, to start something with his singing in gospel, he will stand by James through all the troubles he faces, the bands he goes through, knowing James is the main talent and just being part of this would make him remembered. Ben Bart makes everything happen for James, he tries to help him navigate difficult moments in history, but will help him make the right choices which sees the friendship grow as the success does. Susie is the mother of James, she is forced to leave because of her partner and once he becomes famous wants to come back into his life, while James isn’t willing to let this happen.
Performances – Chadwick Boseman is fantastic in the leading role, he shows that his biopic man, he can bring James Brown to life on stage and in his personal life with ease. Nelsan Ellis is great in his role, showing us that he could provide excellent supporting performances in the film. Dan Aykroyd is strong too, with Viola Davis making a big impact in her scenes in the film.
Story – The story here follows the life of James Brown, from his poverty like childhood, to his international success in the music industry, we see his ideas on wanting to make a change and just what it will do to the people that helped him get to the top. One of the biggest weaknesses in the film here comes from the early time jumps, we are constantly jumping between moments, which doesn’t help the story telling process. This story also doesn’t paint James as a nice person away from the spotlight, even if he was always trying to achieve something more from his career. The story does try to ram too much into the film, which does make it hard to understand each moment of his life.
Biopic/Music – This does show a lot of his life, it doesn’t help us get invested in just how much of an impact each moment was. The music can’t be questioned with his hits playing through the film with every beat we know.
Settings – The film creates some of the biggest stages of James career, never looking like we aren’t in the correct time period.
Scene of the Movie – The performances.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The time jumps.
Final Thoughts – This is a by the book biopic, it has wonderful performances and the music you would expect to see, though we do cram too much in for everything to run smoothly.
Overall: By the Books Biopic.
Cosmic Cabaret
Rosalie Redd, Jayne Fury, C.J. Cade, Kat Vancil, Blaire Edens, Diana Rivis, Tessa McFionn, Dena Garson, Selene Grace Silver, Cailin Briste, Athena Grayson , Jenna Lincoln and Kerry Adrienne
8.0
Rate It
Book
Where Hearts Collide in the Greatest Show in Space Join us aboard Blue Star Line’s crown jewel,...
Science_Fiction Romance Anthology
Charlie Cobra Reviews (1840 KP) rated Little Monsters (2019) in Movies
Jul 7, 2020 (Updated Oct 26, 2020)
A New Zombie Movie That Proves Zombie Films "Still Have Fresh Brains To Savor"
Contains spoilers, click to show
This movie was pretty good. I enjoyed it quite a bit and even though it had somethings that were predictable and cliché, it really was unique in its own way. It really had me invested in the main character Dave from the beginning because of his situation. After his break up his living on the couch at his sisters and getting in trouble for cussing and being a bad role model for his nephew. He gets in trouble for letting his nephew play violent video games and for taking him out late at night to use him as a prop when his plans to propose to his ex-g/f that goes horribly wrong. That scene was hilarious as his surprise proposal leads to him and his nephew catching his ex having sex with another man and the naked man beating him up. It's kind of slow moving plot wise with all this setup but you get invested in the characters and they mean more to you and you better understand their motivations. Dave winds up taking his nephew to school and when he sees his attractive teacher Miss Coraline played by Lupita Nyong'o he's more than happy to volunteer to chaperone on a field trip when another parent drops out. At the field trip on the farm is when your officially introduced to Josh Gad's character Teddy McGiggle who is filming his children's show there. Teddy winds up being nothing like he pretends to be and shows his true colors when the trouble starts up. The zombies from a U.S. testing facility break free and head straight to the farm attacking anyone and everyone they see. I thought they did a good job on the zombies and make-up/special effects since most scenes happen during the day. There wasn't as much action or blood as I wanted but there were always scenes that built the tension and made sure danger was always present. The character development from Dave was really good and made him one of my favorite characters but Miss Caroline was a real badass. She demonstrated that she would do anything to protect those kids and let Teddy McGiggle know that she would take care of him too if he didn't cooperate. As i mentioned some of it was predictable like there being a facility where there were zombies, and the zombies breaking out, the military not being able to do anything to contain it at first, and it spreading so quickly. But it was unique in bringing the kids into the situation and how Miss Coraline made it into a game so the kids wouldn't be scared, how she got them to focus on her so they didn't look at the zombies alot, and how the zombies started singing along towards the end. Like I said above pretty good movie, I give it 7/10 and my "Must See Seal Of Approval". If you haven't seen this movie you need to check it out.
Ian Anderson recommended Alabama Blues/Passionate Blues by JB Lenoir in Music (curated)
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Dream Horse (2021) in Movies
Jun 12, 2021
Ensemble cast (1 more)
Cinematography of racing scenes
My lovely lovely horse fails to fully engage
An extraordinary story of ambition against all the odds - based on a true story - will Dream Alliance fulfil the town's dreams, or will it all end in tears?
Positives:
- Toni Collette! Without her powerful acting presence at the heart of the piece, I think the movie would have died in a ditch. As for her Welsh accent I (as an Englishman) thought it was pretty good: on my 'Welshometer', using the scale of Richard Burton as a 10 to RDW's "Doctor Dolittle" as a 1, I'd give Ms Collette about an 8. The illustrious Mrs Movie Man (as a Welsh lady) was less impressed, but found her "tolerable" when mixed with the other Welsh-born actors!
- And what a wonderful supporting cast of well know names from all our yesterdays. Just so great to see the great Siân Phillips ("I, Claudius"), Lynda Baron ('Nurse Gladys' from "Open all Hours"), Peter Davison ("Doctor Who") and Nicholas Farrell ("Chariots of Fire") in the cast. It was also (as is traditional in these "true stories") for the actual people to appear alongside their acting counterparts in the end titles: Howard Davies in particular seemed to be chuffed to bits to be singing alongside Damien Lewis!
- Hats off to cinematographer Erik Wilson and Chris Bates (the "drone operator"), for some impressive shots. The camera angles from the turf-pumping racing scenes are very impressive.
Negatives:
- How did it make me feel? Very little at all. Which is a problem. The movie is so utterly predictable that I saw every element of the story play out way before it did. Did this happen in real life? In which case, that's annoying that life was so unrealistically predictable in its ups and downs!
- Elements of the story also felt formulaic: from the token comedy cranky old bloke (Karl Johnson) to Jan's brooding father-with-a-grudge. This latter element seems unnecessarily bolted onto the plot: poorly worked through and pretty superfluous.
Summary Thoughts on "Dream Horse": This is a feature debut for welsh-born Euros Lyn, most familiar (as a peculiar name) for popping up in the end credits of TV shows such as "Doctor Who", "Torchwood" and "His Dark Materials". And, as a great supporter of UK films, I really wanted to like this one. But it just didn't do it for me. It's also unfortunate that some of the subject material makes it unsuitable for the 6-to-8 year old horse fanatics... this is no "International Velvet".
I've seen some social media comments from people who adore the movie. And, to be clear, it's NOT a bad movie. I just personally didn't connect with me. Just goes to show that cinema really is 'horses for courses' sometimes!
(For the full graphical review, please check out the One Mann's Movies review here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2021/06/11/dream-horse-%e2%99%abi-want-to-shower-you-in-sugar-lumps-and-ride-you-over-fences%e2%99%ab/ . Thanks).
Positives:
- Toni Collette! Without her powerful acting presence at the heart of the piece, I think the movie would have died in a ditch. As for her Welsh accent I (as an Englishman) thought it was pretty good: on my 'Welshometer', using the scale of Richard Burton as a 10 to RDW's "Doctor Dolittle" as a 1, I'd give Ms Collette about an 8. The illustrious Mrs Movie Man (as a Welsh lady) was less impressed, but found her "tolerable" when mixed with the other Welsh-born actors!
- And what a wonderful supporting cast of well know names from all our yesterdays. Just so great to see the great Siân Phillips ("I, Claudius"), Lynda Baron ('Nurse Gladys' from "Open all Hours"), Peter Davison ("Doctor Who") and Nicholas Farrell ("Chariots of Fire") in the cast. It was also (as is traditional in these "true stories") for the actual people to appear alongside their acting counterparts in the end titles: Howard Davies in particular seemed to be chuffed to bits to be singing alongside Damien Lewis!
- Hats off to cinematographer Erik Wilson and Chris Bates (the "drone operator"), for some impressive shots. The camera angles from the turf-pumping racing scenes are very impressive.
Negatives:
- How did it make me feel? Very little at all. Which is a problem. The movie is so utterly predictable that I saw every element of the story play out way before it did. Did this happen in real life? In which case, that's annoying that life was so unrealistically predictable in its ups and downs!
- Elements of the story also felt formulaic: from the token comedy cranky old bloke (Karl Johnson) to Jan's brooding father-with-a-grudge. This latter element seems unnecessarily bolted onto the plot: poorly worked through and pretty superfluous.
Summary Thoughts on "Dream Horse": This is a feature debut for welsh-born Euros Lyn, most familiar (as a peculiar name) for popping up in the end credits of TV shows such as "Doctor Who", "Torchwood" and "His Dark Materials". And, as a great supporter of UK films, I really wanted to like this one. But it just didn't do it for me. It's also unfortunate that some of the subject material makes it unsuitable for the 6-to-8 year old horse fanatics... this is no "International Velvet".
I've seen some social media comments from people who adore the movie. And, to be clear, it's NOT a bad movie. I just personally didn't connect with me. Just goes to show that cinema really is 'horses for courses' sometimes!
(For the full graphical review, please check out the One Mann's Movies review here - https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2021/06/11/dream-horse-%e2%99%abi-want-to-shower-you-in-sugar-lumps-and-ride-you-over-fences%e2%99%ab/ . Thanks).
