Monsters Vs Aliens: Who Cares? Clearly Not Dreamworks

Monsters Vs Aliens is an animated action film directed by Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon. The plot sees aliens attack Earth and the only people who can turn the tide and save the planet are a group of government sponsored monsters.

I had been looking forward to watching this film for some time, saving it if you will, but my oh my was I disappointed when I put this on. Other than the clearly 50’s inspired premise and design which I enjoyed and appreciated; I thought this film was aggressively average.

Nothing about this film stands out, the premise is played out you have seen it before and better. The character arcs are a retread of the same old tired clichés, there is nothing new to them. The cast though star studded does very little to leave an impression and the roles feel like they could be played by anyone.

Another thing that bothered me about this film was the animation. I have been watching a lot of animated films recently, so maybe I am hyper focused, but there is something off about the backgrounds in this film. They look bad unrendered or out of focus or something, I can’t quite describe it but they are noticeably bad and they really bring you out of some scenes; especially in the opening 10 minutes.

Overall, you will lose nothing if you don’t watch this film and you will gain nothing if you do, so don’t bother.

Pros.

I enjoyed the 50s theme

Cons

The cast is wasted

The jokes aren’t funny

The bad backgrounds are distracting

You have seen it before

1/5

Reviewed by Luke

Underwater: The Threat Came From Beneath The Waves

Underwater is a science fiction film directed William Eubank. The plot sees an underwater research centre become under attack by a strange unknown type of sea life.

I go back and forth on Kristen Stewart as an actress, sometimes I think she is good and worthy of all the praise she gets; other times I think she struggles with even basic emoting and can’t convince me of anything. However, I will give her praise here, she commands this film, her performance is striking and in some ways very reminiscent of Sigourney Weaver in Alien. This film would be far less good without Stewart in it.

Despite, feeling a little too overly familiar this film managed to keep me engaged throughout. It used the environment and tension to great effect and had a few great sequences that will stuck in my mind long after the film has ended. My one critique in this regard is the way some of these high-tension kinetic scenes are shot. The cinematography of these scenes makes them hard to see; which therefore makes it hard to tell what is going on. An example of my point is midway through the film one of the team is pulled out of their suit, but you don’t realise that you just see a lot of blood, you don’t realise what happened until one of the characters tells you. That is a big problem in my book.

Also T.J Miller is in this and he is every bit as grating as you are imagining. Horror/ dark science fiction films don’t need comedic relief.

Overall, a solid disaster film boosted tremendously by a great performance by Kristen Stewart.

Pros.

Stewart

The tension

Keeping me engaged in a played-out idea

Cons.

The characters outside of Stewart’s lead are one note

It is hard to tell what is going on

3.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2: A Little More Cloudy

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2 is an animated family film directed by Cody Cameron and Kris Pearn. The plot continues the story of the first showing the aftermath of the food disaster. The machine Flint (Bill Hader), created was not actually destroyed and has made sentient food that is going to take over the planet. Or is it? Everything is not as it seems and Flint and co are dragged into a world of intrigue.

I thought this was very meh, it felt like a sequel that didn’t need to be made. It failed to recapture the emotion of the first film especially between Flint and his dad and felt like it retread a lot of characters beats from the first film.

Something that I thought was odd and just want to point out is the relationship between Flint (Bill Hader) and Sam (Anna Faris). So at the end of the first film they’re a couple in a romantic sense, but in this film you could easily just think they’re friends; they don’t even hold hands. Personally, I thought it was odd and ruined both of their characters a bit; maybe it was done in a effort to make the film even more PG then it already is.

The imagination is also less impressive this time around because we have seen it all before, yes the food creatures are cute, but the design of them is not all that different from the food itself so it does not feel like a lot of effort has gone into the design.

Overall, this is by no means a bad film, but it is lesser than the first film which already had problems.

Pros

The premise is still kind of neat

The food creatures are cute

Cons

It doesn’t justify its own existence

Ignoring the Flint Sam relationship

The side characters are even more bland

2.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Eurovison Song Contest, The Story Of Fire Saga: Embarrassing

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story Of Fire Saga is a parody spoof comedy film directed by David Dobkin. The plot sees Icelandic duo Lars (Will Ferrell) and Sigrit (Rachel McAdams), dream of winning Eurovision despite being considered a joke by many.

I want to open this review by saying that as a kid I was a huge Will Ferrell fan, I enjoyed at lot of his 2000’s work and one or two of his post 2010 roles, but I have to say this film coupled with Downhill is a damming indictment on his career. It seems as though he has given up trying to make anything good and is now content to make trash and honestly it is becoming embarrassing for him.

He is too old to be playing the man child character now and this film shows it, his characters relationship with Sigrit feels icky and the whole film has that tone. Ferrell’s character seems old enough to be her father and when they finally kissed at the end it made my skin crawl a bit.

What’s more the Ferrell style of comedy that worked about ten years ago no longer does. Watching a middle age man fall over and shout at things isn’t funny, the what would be called comedy, I guess, is about as juvenile as you would expect, it makes Adam Sandler’s films look like beacons of refinement.

Overall this film is just bad don’t watch it. For me personally, it is sad to see an actor that I once loved sink this low. He needs to hang it up, or try a different type of role.

Pros.

The songs are mildly catchy

Cons.

It feels icky

Ferrell is too old for the role

The humour is mindless and childish

The heart fails to connect

1/5

Reviewed by Luke

Kung Fu Panda 2: A Tale Of Maturity And Learning

Kung Fu Panda 2 is an animated martial arts family film directed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson. The plot sees new Dragon Warrior Po (Jack Black), go on a voyage of self-discovery after finding out that he was adopted. Said journey brings him to an evil Peacock called Shen (Gary Oldman), who wants to wipe out Kung Fu and take over China; Shen also knows what happened to Po’s parents.

I admire this film for a lot of reasons, namely that it is a sequel that justifies its own existence being just as good if not better than the first film. Much like another DreamWorks sequel Shrek 2 this film doubles down on the characters and expands them in interesting ways. The mythology behind Po’s parents raises a lot of intriguing questions for the lore of this world and the response by Po as a character furthers his arc as he grows in maturity.

My one critique of this film would be that it does not show the same level of care and development towards the other characters, namely the Furious Five. I enjoyed the scenes that Po and Tigress (Angelina Jolie), have together and think that they have a promising amount of on-screen chemistry. However, as a character Tigress is vacant, the same can be said for Po’s other martial arts friends they do cool stuff, but we know very little about them and they suffer as a result.

Overall, it is nice to see Po’s character journey continue in a worthy sequel.

Pros

World building

Po’s journey

Justifies its existence

Is just as good if not better than the first film

Cons.

The wider cast are left out in the cold

3.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Wasp Network: A Strange Message

The Wasp Network is a thriller film directed by Olivier Assayas. The plot sees a group of Cuban defectors, who aren’t actually defectors, infiltrate multiple anti-Castro group to destroy them from within.

This film is confusing. Until the last 20 minutes I had no idea what was going on, the film does not explain what is happening very well and the characters go from anti-Castro to Cuban patriots in a heartbeat. It needs to be explained better.

What’s more the film feels strangely pro Castro as a piece of art and almost seems to say that these people were heroes for what they did, it makes Cuba look like the victim and ignore a lot of the terrible things the regime did. It is very murky as to who if anyone was in the right in the situation and the issue as a whole was far more complex than this film makes out.

Another thing I disliked about this film was how long it was. This film is on for just over two hours, but it feels like double that as it stretches on and on and on. Furthermore a lot of what is happening on screen isn’t interesting, so it is very hard to pay attention to it. There are vast sections of this film that could easily have been cut out, to make it work well and feel less self-indulgent.

Overall, a boring slog that has a very strange message.

Pros.

The acting especially Cruz and Ramirez.

Cons.

It is hard to tell what is going on

It far exceeds its welcome

It omits key details

It is incredibly boring

1/5

Reviewed by Luke

Like A Boss: Promoting A Female Friendship

Like A Boss is a comedy film directed by Miguel Arteta. The plot sees two best friends have their friendship tested after a businesswoman invests in their business. Mel (Rose Byrne) sees the buy out as a good thing and wants to learn from makeup mogul Claire Luna (Selma Hayek), whereas Mia (Tiffany Haddish), doesn’t like the outside control and worries they will become just another corporate cog. The friendship tears, but can they come back together again?

I enjoyed this film more than I thought I would. The humour was hit and miss for me, I found myself laughing when I didn’t expect to. I thought when the comedy went blue it was less funny, at least to me personally, but like I often say comedy is subjective.

I liked how this film just focused on the friendship, there was no romance subplot or anything else; it is really just a film dedicated to celebrating friendship. I think the fact it also highlight and lifts up female friendship is also really nice to see, the relationship between the two actors seems genuine and they’re believable as friends/ business partners.

I thought the plot was very by the numbers, most of the things that happen I have seen a hundred times before, so it wins to prizes for being novel or inventive.

Overall a surprisingly enjoyable, watchable comedy.

Pros.

Showing female friendship

No forced romance subplot

Byrne and Haddish

Cons.

Not all the jokes land

The plot is nothing new

The weak side characters

2.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Maleficent, Mistress Of Evil: Hang Up The Horns

Maleficent 2 is a family fantasy film directed by Joachim Ronning. The plot follows an evil ruler go to war, wanting to wipe out supernatural creatures using a misunderstanding as justification to do so. Wait a minute, I am getting déjà vu, isn’t that basically the same premise as the first film?

If there was ever a needless sequel this is it. The plot rethreads most of the same beats of the first film, very little of substance is established and overall it feels hollow and made for the money. That would be my two-sentence description of this film.

The main issue with this film is its tone. The first half and hour and the last fifteen minutes of this film seem to think it is a light breezy affair where nothing it taken too seriously, however the rest of the film seems to be direly serious and bleak; did someone not get the memo? This tonal mismatch makes the film feel very jarring and hard to watch.

A lot of the new elements introduced to this film leave you feeling meh. This film introduces a lot of things to this world and this story and a lot of these things you’re supposed to care about, but the film in no way makes you care about them and makes most of them appear flat and boring which is a bafflingly stupid decision.

Jolie is okay here, she is a lot better than in the previous film and actually has some funny lines, sadly however she is kept away from the action for the most part and underused in her own film. Michelle Pfeiffer gets a lot of screen time as the new evil queen, but she is so one note and cartoonishly evil that her character sticks out for all the wrong reasons; clearly the writers don’t understand subtly or nuance.

Overall, this is generic, it adds nothing to the first film and might even undone some of the good things about the first film. Hopefully Disney doesn’t curse us with a third film.

Pros.

Jolie is better

Cons

The one note villain

The weird tone

Nothing new of substance added

Doesn’t justify its own existence.

1/5

Reviewed by Luke

The Rhythm Section: A New Low

The Rhythm Section is an action thriller film directed by Reed Monaro. The plot follows Stephanie (Blake Lively), a woman whose whole life fell apart after the death of her parents. When she learns that the circumstances around her family’s death are more malicious then they first appeared she sets out to find those responsible and kill them.

This film was one of the biggest box office bombs of all time and for good reason. It is god awful. Let’s take it apart.

The worst thing about this film is how familiar it feels, it has been there done that written on every frame there is nothing new to it. It reminded me in many ways of something like American Assassin and had a wannbe John Wick vibe to it, it was so keen to try and replicate those films that it failed to do anything to set itself apart.

Another major problem is the cast. Lively is miscast badly, she isn’t convincing as an action star, even when the film makes a point to highlight her lack of fighting ability; she is still unconvincing. She struggles to sell the dramatic scenes either and I felt nothing for her character, I just didn’t care. Furthermore, this film casts Jude Law to play Stephanie’s mentor/ trainer, which in and of itself isn’t a bad move, the issue comes from the fact that they give him nothing to do and waste him at every available opportunity.

Overall, this film is worse than bad it is boring and generic, that is all that needs to be said.

Pros.

They play into the fact that she can’t fight well

Cons.

You’ve seen it done better before

The characters are awful

It is boring

The action is weak

0.5/5

Reviewed by Luke

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs: Eat It Up

Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs is an animated family film directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller. The film follows Flint (Bill Hader), an inventor who dreams of becoming a famous scientist. One day Flint invents a machine that can make food rain from the sky, everything seems to be going well, until the machine starts to malfunction.

I have been meaning to watch this for some time and a few nights ago I did, I have to say for the most part I enjoyed it, but there were a few issues that kept it from being great.

Firstly the imagination is commendable, I thought it was wonderfully unique and I have never seen anything else like this. The animation is also great, I thought it looked distinctive and well proportioned; the food also looked really appetising.

Secondly, this film has a lot of heart. I thought it handled the theme of fathers and sons really well and the final scene between Flint and his father was moving and brought a tear to my eye. However, the same flair for emotion wasn’t carried over into the other characters and Flint’s relationship with the other characters particularly Sam (Anna Faris), was weak and unconvincing.

My main issue with this film was the humour, it really didn’t land for me. Humour is subjective I know, but the humour in this film skewed towards kids and I didn’t find any layers to the comedy that might have appealed to me or other age groups.

Overall, a good effort with a lot heart, but the childish humour and the poor character development stop this film from being as good as it could be.

Pros.

The father son relation between Flint and his dad

The animation

The imagination

Cons.

The comedy

The poor side characters and weak interpersonal relationships

3/5

Reviewed by Luke