Noelle (2019)

I'm starting this year's Christmas movie marathon with a new film that just released: Noelle (2019)

SYNOPSIS:
"Santa" is a title passed down for over 2,000 years, and when the current Santa passes away, it's up to his eldest son, Nick Kringle (Bill Hader), to take on the role. However, Nick doesn't want anything to do with the "family business," and when his sister, Noelle Kringle (Anna Kendrick), suggests he take a brief vacation to de-stress, he does just that... and doesn't return. Now it's up to Noelle to find her brother and set everything right, just days before Christmas!

REVIEW:
This was a very fun film! Anna Kendrick is one of my all-time favorite actresses and she did a wonderful job in this film. She juggles the role of responsible adult, childlike wonder, self-doubting, and awkward social interactions outside of the North Pole. I was kind of sad that they had at least two solo female songs in this film and she didn't get to sing either, since she has a very talented singing voice too.

I was afraid at first that this was just going to be a sort of Will Ferrell "Elf" (2003) knock-off, with Noelle traveling to Phoenix, Arizona and awkwardly mingling with the local culture as she tries to track down a lost family member. But they did a good job of keeping it light and entertaining while not making it a straight-up comedy film like Elf. Any awkwardness was dealt with maturely and didn't leave you cringing, like Will Ferrell's style of "comedy."

Leave it to Disney to keep up the tradition of killing off a parent, though. But this time, they went for Santa Claus, right at the very beginning of a story about Santa! Do you know no shame?! Yes, the story's about replacing Santa, but still... at least they were respectful about his passing and didn't play it off as a joke or something.

Also, on a side-note, this movie is apparently a Disney+ exclusive, so if you don't have the new (awful) streaming service, you'll probably have to wait until Disney decides to sell DVDs or something. Or go sailing the great data seas. 😉

Apple must've thrown a lot of money at this film because the running joke throughout the film was that EVERYONE wanted an iPad. Regardless of what anyone wanted for Christmas, there was always an, "also, an iPad" thrown in there.

Speaking of electronics... while the main plot was moving forward, there was a side-plot where a cousin of Noelle's is granted the title of Santa and, being the head of the tech department for the North Pole, decides to automate the entire process. Deliver gifts via Amazon Prime! Use aggregated data online to scan for naughty/nice qualities! He planned to remove all the personal qualities of Santa and make it a well-greased mechanical process.

Being a tech guru myself, I was on board with the whole modernization idea at first, until he announced that his algorithms dictated there were only about 2,000 or so truly good kids in the world and everyone else got a notification on their smart phone telling them why they didn't meet the cut and better luck next year. Ouch!

I can't really talk about the end without spoiling it, but let's just say that Nick and Noelle grow as people throughout the story and it had a pretty satisfactory ending.

RECOMMENDATION:
I don't like making arbitrary rating scales, so I'll just give my recommendation instead. I enjoyed this light-hearted comedy about discovering the true meaning of Christmas and I would recommend anyone see it! There was plenty of holiday cheer, it focuses on all aspects of good will and kindness to all, and even treated religions that don't believe in Christmas with respect. Definitely go check it out!

Christmas Movie Marathon 2019

My wife and I are starting the Christmas movie marathon a day early with holiday-themed mini-sodas and my first film to review!

We're getting ready to move soon, so I dunno if I have time to marathon a new movie every day this month, but I'll try to review as many as I can! I'll post today's review when I'm done watching this film. 😉

In the meantime, here's a brief review of these two holiday sodas:

I expected the Cinnamon Coca-Cola to have a hint of cinnamon sugar flavoring to it, but no... It was like drinking a ground up cinnamon stick! Very strong! But after a few of these, I've gotten used to it and I really like it!

The Winter-Spiced Cranberry Sprite is really good! They usually release a cranberry Sprite around Thanksgiving every year, but I've never heard of a "winter-spiced" version before. I don't know if there's anything different or if it's just a new marketing name, but it's still a very good flavoring.

I'd recommend both!

Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

It's been a while since I reviewed a movie, so let's start it up again with Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)

Dora is a teenage girl who spent her youth growing up in the South American jungle. When her professor/explorer parents finally discover the location of the lost city of gold, they decide to send Dora off to high school in America instead of letting her tag along on the dangerous adventure. But others are looking for the city of gold, and they're willing to kidnap Dora and her new high school friends in exchange for the location of the city.

This film starts out exactly like a live-action Dora episode. A 6-year old Dora and her best friend Diego are off on a wild jeep adventure in the jungle, with a talking backpack and map, and Swiper the Fox trying to steal from them. Then it cuts to "reality" and we see the kids playing in a cardboard box outside Dora's jungle home. Diego and his family are moving to "the city" and the kids say their goodbyes to each other.

Then the movie takes a turn from the cartoon show and jumps ahead to Dora's teen years, where she's still "adventuring" in the jungle. She finds out that her parents have finally found the lost city of gold, but they're reluctant to bring her along because she's still too young. They send her to "the city" in America, to live with Diego's family. And so begins her awkward attempt to "study the indigenous people" of high school.

The trailer for this movie made Dora seem eccentric and out-of-place in normal society, but a confident explorer and always in control. The movie, on the other hand, shows Dora as an odd child, even by her parents' standards. She lacks social skills and is inappropriately personal with everyone she sees.
She does this thing from the old cartoon where she'll explain a fact, then stare at the camera and say, "Can YOU say (thing she described)?" All while her parents are looking around the room awkwardly and whispering to each other, "It's just a phase; she'll grow out of it."

Her optimism is through the roof and her lack of social grace makes for some really painful scenes to sit through. Teenage Diego channels the audience, as he's constantly trying to reel her in. He explains to her that he's just struggling to survive high school and her presence is ruining his "street cred". But he fails to get through to her, as she cares more about being positive with everyone than trying to find common ground to relate to anyone.

Then Dora gets kidnapped by some treasure hunters who plan to use her to find the lost city of gold, and Dora, Diego, and two of their classmates end up shipped back to the jungle in a crate. They escape thanks to the help of a friend of Dora's parents, and go on their own jungle quest to track down her folks.

The rest of the movie is spent exploring the jungle while the classmates whine about not going home. There was a bizarre scene where Dora and Diego get drugged by an exotic plant's spores and start hallucinating that they're cartoon characters, which brings on a literal Dora cartoon scene in the middle of this live-action movie.

Oh! And Swiper the fox is apparently a real thing! No explanation whatsoever for his presence. Some of the kids even comment on the fact that there's a random talking fox wearing a mask. He's apparently working with the treasure hunters. And there was little effort put into his appearance as well; he reminded me of the stop-motion foxes from the film Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009).

If you grew up with Dora cartoons (I didn't), you might enjoy this rendition of a teenage Dora. But for the most part, there were a lot of cringey scenes that dragged on way too long, including one where an adult ugly cries because he almost died, while the kids whisper about how awkward it is when adults cry.

I'd recommend giving this a one-time view, but good luck sitting through it twice! If you want a fun live-action Dora movie, I'd recommend watching the fake trailer made by College Humor instead, which is likely what sparked interest in making this movie in the first place.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

They did it! They fixed Sonic! Thanks to the main man, Tyson Hesse for helping redesign Sonic's look (he's one of the main artists for the modern Sonic comic books).

This movie actually looks interesting now. I'm excited for its release on Valentine's Day.

Hellboy (2019)

I saw Hellboy (2019) when it released in theaters and it was awesome! I just re-watched it today and felt it deserved a review.

Hellboy was a baby demon summoned from Hell by the Nazis during WWII. Intending him to be a tool of world domination for the Nazis, the Allies instead got hold of Hellboy and raised him to fight the never-ending war against the supernatural. In modern day, an immortal sorceress named Nimue is brought back and threatens to bring about the end of the world, with Hellboy's assistance. Will Hellboy live up to his prophesied role in the apocalypse, or will he choose to fight on the side of good and protect humanity?

With the success of other R-rated comic book movies like Deadpool and Logan, this franchise decided to try an R-rated reboot with this film. I personally think it did excellent; although it got a lot of hate from other reviewers. Sadly, between poor reviews and a limited audience with the R rating, it didn't quite make the money they expected it to, so there probably won't be a sequel.

This film is based on a horror/adventure comic book of the same name, and is a little closer to its source material than the previous two Hellboy movies. They wasted no time in making use of their R rating; the film opens on a very detailed scene of a crow plucking a juicy eye from a corpse on a battlefield, while the narrator drops the first of many F-bombs in the very first sentence. It felt forced, like they just used the curse word to drive home the fact that this isn't a suitable film for kids. But I assume it's meant to ensure parents who brought their kids to this film realize the type of film they're attending. After that, though, dialogue felt a lot more fluid and appropriate to the setting.

The film lives up to its borderline horror comic book origin. It was a gore-fest at times, not shying away from some truly gruesome scenes and concepts, but still had time to crack jokes and lighten the mood as necessary. It wasn't truly horror, but more like action/adventure with looser rules on gore and language. Which, to me, was rather refreshing. Action films that stick to PC rules get a bit boring after a while. This felt more natural and realistic at times. As realistic as a demon fighting giants or faeries can be...

I like how the plot revolved around the topic of nature vs nurture. Hellboy was born a demon and prophesied to be the key to the end of the world. Yet instead of killing him and ending the prophesy, he was instead taken in by humans and raised to be good and righteous. Hellboy spends a lot of the film struggling with his nature, trying to decide who he truly is. He hates that he has to kill monsters and wonders if they'd be more peaceful with humans if they weren't hunted by them all the time. He wonders if he can ever truly exist among humans or if he'll just be a freak of nature to them for the rest of his life. He has to choose to either accept his destiny - his birthright - and bring on the apocalypse, or stick with those who loved and cared for him and instead prevent the end of all. And it's not as easy a decision as you'd think.

Even more interesting is the entanglement with the King Arthur story that goes on in this film. I won't talk too much about it as it's a pretty big plot point later in the film, but essentially, the evil sorceress is stopped by King Arthur back in the 5th century and lived on in torment until freed in modern day. I definitely didn't expect to get some King Arthur story in a Hellboy movie, so that was pretty entertaining.

If you enjoyed the other two Hellboy movies, I'd recommend checking this new version out. I truly thought Ron Perlman was born to play Hellboy, but David Harbour (who plays the Sheriff in Stranger Things) does an incredible job bringing the rebooted Hellboy to life. Despite negative reviews and poor box office ratings, I still found this film to be highly entertaining compared to the former two. Go check it out!

The Lion King (2019)

I just saw The Lion King (2019) last night. It was a pretty good remake!

Simba, the latest-born lion in a line of kings, is raised expecting to be king one day. But tragedy strikes, and Simba chooses to run away, shirking his responsibilities. One day, he will have to make the decision whether to live out his life in isolation or return home and deal with the consequences of his actions.

(I mean, who doesn't know the plot of The Lion King by now? Still, I kept it as spoiler-free as possible)

This movie was ridiculously faithful to the original cartoon film. Most of it was scene-for-scene, line-for-line, the same. Jon Favreau, the director, claimed his goal for this film was to reinvent it with a different visual medium, while keeping the same character to it as the original. He didn't want to mess with a classic masterpiece, so a lot of the film remains practically unchanged.

There were still a few minor changes here and there. Probably the biggest change is that the female hyena is sort of the dark and ruthless leader of the hyena pack. The other two hyenas were just random members of the pack who got more screen time than the others. The goofy one (Ed in the original, but he had a new African name, Azizi, in this one) actually had speaking lines, and his personality quirk was just that he didn't understand personal space. Which was a hilarious take on the character. I chuckled every time he meandered onto screen and into his buddy's space.

Scar was more ruthless and violent in this one. Instead of being the lazy, mopey guy who talked the hyenas into doing his bidding, he actually played a more active role in this version.

Scar's song, "Be Prepared," was originally supposed to be omitted from this movie. Disney didn't want to deal with the Nazi-esque themes, and the voice actor for Scar didn't have the right voice for the song. However, there was enough fan backlash that they relented. Although it's a very different version. More of a quiet march than the minor-key pop-ish tune of the original.

On the subject of music, all of the music was performed heavily with African-sounding instruments, giving a little more authenticity to the setting than the big orchestral music from the original. I really enjoyed the music. Timon and Pumbaa sang an a capella version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," with backup vocals from several other animals. It was a lot of fun to listen to and watch.

Of course, I can't forget to mention the visual aspect of the film. The CGI was absolutely breathtaking. I kept forgetting that there were no real animals filmed in this movie. It felt like watching a nature documentary, until they started talking. They did an excellent job in capturing the essence of Africa; I almost felt like I was back there again.

If there was anything I had to complain about, it was the minimal facial expressions on the animals. They took CGI realism a step too far and kept the animal faces as true-to-life as possible, which made it harder to read emotions. When the stampede starts pouring into the valley, the original Simba's ears drooped while his face gave an "oh shit" expression; whereas this CGI version of Simba just looked like a lion cub intrigued by a shiny object. When you're already breaking the realism with talking animals, having them emote realistically kind of takes away some of the emotional impact.

Also, I wasn't a fan of the pacing of the film. Because they were trying to keep a near-perfect faithful recreation, some lines and scenes felt like they didn't flow that well; like they were just there because they were in the original, not because they made sense with the new "live action" feel.

I was kind of on the fence with the new Timon and Pumbaa. I grew up with Nathan Lane and Ernie Sabella's wonderful voices, so Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen just sounded off at first. But they quickly became my favorite part of this movie. Unlike the rest of the film, which was practically a word-for-word copy of the original, Timon and Pumbaa got to improvise a lot more with their lines. Which made Pumbaa's infamous "censored" fart song all the more hilarious!

Overall, I really enjoyed this film. I wouldn't say it surpasses the classic version, but it was faithful enough to be a visually appealing version, even if it was toned down a little bit from the more cartoony original. I'd recommend seeing this one in theaters, for the wonderful "National Geographic" imagery.

Child's Play (2019)

I thought I reviewed the Child's Play franchise before, but I apparently haven't. Guess that's what I'll be doing tomorrow then. But in the meantime, I saw the new Child's Play remake last night, so here's my review of it:

A young single mother gives her 13-yr old kid a Buddi doll for his birthday. The doll (which randomly names itself Chucky) is essentially a walking, talking Alexa, being able to control various electronic systems in your home and has an adaptive learning AI. However, this particular doll's AI is corrupted, lacking certain safety protocols that prevent it from turning homicidal...

Right off the bat, this movie takes a twist from the original franchise. In the original, the doll was just a doll (a "Good Guys" doll, not a "Buddi" doll). It was a mortally wounded serial killer named Charles (a.k.a. Chucky) who used voodoo to transfer his soul into the doll in order to escape pursuing police. His soul got trapped in the doll though, preventing him from regaining human form, and he continues his homicidal rampage as a creepy but unassuming doll.

This remake removes the supernatural element from the story, instead making the doll essentially HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. It's a corrupt AI that just wants to be best friends with the kid it imprints on and will stop at nothing to remove any obstacles that keep them apart.

Overall, it was kind of a meh film. The plot was super obvious and I spent a lot of the film just waiting for the Chucky doll to start murdering people. Also, the doll was super ugly and never would've sold in real life, which kind of took me out of the story. It felt like they designed a doll that would look super evil, then tried to make it display a normal relaxed face. Plus, there were a few scenes where the face was 100% CGI (and poorly done too). The doll was just too distracting and not really scary. Although I did like the idea that his eyes were a digital display and would turn red when he was doing evil deeds. That helped to make him appear a little more sinister overall and was a unique take on the character.

Still, Chucky was small, slow, and light-weight. It bothered me that no one just punted the thing across the room when it came for them. Only a couple times did it display any real speed, but overall, its intimidation factor was practically nil. Because it was a learning AI, it was slow to process and decide on actions, so the only way anyone really got hurt is because they were even slower to understand the situation they were in. It was the standard horror movie trope, where people in danger just stood around gawking instead of getting the hell out of there. Or doing anything useful.

A note on actors: Aubrey Plaza was pretty decent in this. It was a bit distracting at first, with her trying to play mother to a 13-yr old kid (I thought maybe they were siblings at first), but they really beat you over the head with the exceptionally young mother role, justifying it as her having the kid after a "wild party at 16 years old." Aubrey has also pointed out that her own mother is about the same age difference from her as she was from her character's son in this film, so she understood the role pretty well and made it pretty believable. It was her first acting role as a mother, which makes me feel old because she's the same age as I am IRL.

Chucky's voice actor was Mark Hamill, whose Joker voice acting in the Animated Batman series is legendary. He did an excellent job of voicing the doll, making him sound super creepy. He may have been the closest thing to a saving grace this movie had.

The creator of the original Child's Play franchise (along with a handful of the franchise's cast) has announced that he had absolutely nothing to do with this film. Instead, he claims he's been busy working on a TV series to continue his original Chucky story. So this is essentially a one-off story that has no ties whatsoever to the original franchise. Thank god. I much prefer the supernatural serial killer Chucky to this HAL wanna-be knock-off.

I'd recommend this film just for fans of the original movie series who are curious to see a unique twist on the character, but it was not a very entertaining film overall.