Movie Review: Pinocchio

 

Note: This film is only available to watch on the Disney+ streaming service.

Michael's Movie Grade: D

A bland remake of one of Disney's best films.

Even as a huge Disney fan, it is hard for me to even care about these remakes the studio keeps turning out these days. Pinocchio is not the worst of these remakes, but it still is not a good movie. Like all of these Disney remakes the worst parts of this film are the ones that directly follow the movie it is remaking. Some scenes are incredibly faithful and shot for shot copy the 1940 movie. There are two major problems with that. One is that the 1940 movie still exists and the other is that that movie was a cartoon. To do the same thing in live action or more realistic-looking animation (since many of the scenes feature a lot of CGI), just doesn't work the same. The I Have No Strings on Me musical number and the slapstick involving Honest John in Gideon simply pale in comparison to the 1940 movie because they don't work as well in this completely different style of filmmaking. This movie does change quite a bit though. Unfortunately none of these changes are that interesting. We get some new characters, but don't get to spend enough time with them for them to become interesting. The new songs simply are not very good and I can't see one of them sticking in your head after watching the film. Pleasure Island was changed quite a bit, but in a way that takes out all the creepiness and suspense of the 1940 film and replaces it with blandness. The more realistic designs of some of the characters such as Jimminy Cricket lack the charm or memorable-ness of the original designs. The humor here also doesn't work that well and there is a comedic scene that involves Pinocchio looking at a piece of poop. He smells it and wonders what it is and that is the whole joke. How that is supposed to be funny confuses me. This movie also completely wastes a great actor like Tom Hanks, but not giving him any opportunity to shine or do anything interesting.

I will say though that the film is competently made (well Robert Zemeckis is a great director) and some of the visuals look great. There is also such a charm to the film it is remaking that it can still retain a little of it. 

The 1940 Pinocchio is a masterpiece and one of my favorite Disney films. It will live in the hearts of movie fans forever. This is a film that I will probably forget exists in a few months. 

Movie Review: Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers

 

Note: This film is only available to watch on Disney+

Michael's Movie Grade: B+

A really fun movie based off of the Disney Afternoon TV show. 

This film is first and foremost a comedy and that is where it really worked. This is Disney at their silliest and most satirical and as someone who has always loved that side of Disney, that was a pure delight. This film takes a satirical look at the TV show and at Hollywood reboots. Yet unlike many similar revivals of cartoon series that tried to do the same thing, this works because there is no mean spiritedness and the appreciation for the source material is truly felt. You can make fun of something while still truly loving it and that is what happened here. It doesn't hurt that the jokes are very smart, clever and the satire works very well. I came into this movie not excepting to laugh anywhere near as much as I did. The film made me wished it was released in theaters because a comedy as funny as this should be seen with an audience. The jokes come fast and are plentiful, yet the majority of them land very well. Many of these jokes come directly from the characters, which is always a plus. Though Chip and Dale's voices sound extremely different (I'd be lying if I said it didn't take me time to get used to them), they are still the characters we Disney fans have grown to love and the "odd couple pairing" (to quote this movie) works extremely well here. Much of the rest of the humor comes from cameos from many cartoon stars (both Disney and not) and movie characters. While this could have seemed distracting, they are actually worked quite well into the story and most of them are quite funny. Fairly early on we meet a certain video game/movie character in one of the funniest cameos, I have seen in a very long time. Over the course of the picture, we get a huge selection of these cameos that range from the most popular proprieties to ones that are there for the amateur Disney and animation historians. Like respect was shown for Chip and Dale themselves, it is obvious that the filmmakers are passionate about the film and TV history they are parodying, even they do get their all too true satirical jabs at Hollywood and the modern movie industry. Probably the strongest satire comes from the villain of the piece (whose identity makes me amazed Disney allowed them to do this). This is where the film gets it harshest but hardest biting satire at a part of the movie industry that truly deserves it. His evil plan is so funny and delightfully satirical that it alone would make this movie worth watching. 

As funny as this film is, I admit that the storyline is very familiar, and you know where it is going at any minute. The fact that the movie itself pokes fun at this makes it no less true. After the villain's reveal, I could simply guess everything else that would happen in this mystery. Meanwhile the character arcs that Chip and Dale go through all the same that so many characters in similar movies have and it could feel a bit like a step for step following of that formula. I will admit it worked better here than in some other films that did the same thing, simply because these characters are so likable. None of this means the story is bad though, it works pretty well actually, but it is still something we have seen many times before. Meanwhile many of the supporting characters we simply not very interesting and walking cliches. None of this takes away from how simply funny the movie is though. 

Despite any faults though this is an excellent movie and something I will highly recommend to any fans of Disney or cartoons. 

Movie Review: Cheaper By the Dozen

 

Note: This film is only available on Disney +

Michael's Movie Grade: F

Bottom of the barrel family film

This may be a remake of a 2003 movie that is a remake of a 1950 movie, but even if those previous films didn't exist, there would be no reason to recommend this terrible movie. When you put this movie on the TV, there are only two options. It will either become background noise while you do something else, or it will drive you into pure boredom. If you want to actually sit down and watch a movie watch pretty much anything else. Though this is technically a comedy, I did not laugh once through its entire runtime. Most of these jokes either feel completely phoned in or trying too hard to feel hip and modern. The humor is not only unfunny, but it is painfully bad. There were many times throughout the course of this movie when I let out a loud a great big groan at a joke then muttered under my breath "I hate this movie." The characters themselves are as bland and boring as possible. They have little personality outside of some stereotypical movie character traits and what is necessary to move the story along. It is impossible to care about what happens to them because you never once believe that they are real people. The storyline is a mess. Rather than feeling like a feature length movie, this storyline feels like a messy hodgepodge of various episodes of a bad TV sitcom. None of these various story points are very well integrated and none of them are very interesting on their own. This film also tries to have some social commentary. While I appreciate a family film trying to have a serious talk about racism, it is not very well handled. Instead, it feels heavy-handed and forced. When in the beginning, you learn that the dogs' names are bad puns of Obama and Biden's names, you can already see how forced the social and political commentary is going to be throughout the movie. The worst thing about this movie is that there is not one good thing I can say about it.

Avoid at all costs. 

Movie Review: Operation Christmas Drop

 

Note: This movie is only available on Netflix as far as I know. 

Michael's Movie Grade: C+

Charming, if very familiar Christmas romantic comedy. 

What makes this movie work is that the two main characters are simply so likable. Much of this is thanks to the performances of Kat Graham and Alexander Ludwig. The two bring such charm to these characters. The character arcs for both them are believable and relatable. The story moves at an easygoing pace that perfectly suits the material. The story may be cliché but it never feels forced and the sweetness of the film feels completely natural as well. This movie is not only a movie that takes place at Christmas, but one that is just completely full of Christmas from beginning to end. Because of this the film is sure to give Christmas lovers like me their Christmas fix, which is just what its target audience is looking for. 

Strangely the weakest part of this movie is the romance itself. There is nothing wrong with the chemistry between the two main characters but it just never feels like a love story. Instead these characters simply feel like good friends with nothing romantic between them. It makes one wish that the filmmakers could have simply made this a movie where the two leads simply become good friends, but sadly that is not how the cliché works, so that is not what is going to happen in this film. Also what the heck is up with the obviously CGI gecko?

This is not going to be anyone's favorite movie, but it has more than enough Christmas and charm to give its target audience just what it wants. 

-Michael J. Ruhland   

Movie Review: Rebecca

 

Michael's Movie Grade: D

As a massive Hitchcock fan, I knew this new film would not compare to Alfred Hitchcock's 1940 masterpiece of a movie version of the same novel. However that film is so ingrained in my mind, that I found not comparing the two to be a very difficult undertaking. Still if I take this movie as its own thing, it is honestly rather bland. 

This movie has a major fault that simply nothing can overcome and this is that the film is strangely emotionless. There is not one scene that hit the emotional notes it was trying for. While to say this adaption does not have the same amount of suspense as the Alfred Hitchcock classic is a no brainer (he is the master of suspense after all), but this film has no suspense at all. Rebecca is a story that thrives on suspense, mystery and an other-worldly feeling, none of which is present here. While this film is not unfaithful to its source material, it tells the story in such a bland going through the motions way that the entire atmosphere is gone. The lack of emotion is also hurt by the lack of chemistry between our two leads. There is no feeling of romance between the two and this is especially evident in the early scenes that focus on their romance, which are quite frankly really boring. As they are presented her, the characters by themselves are not very interesting, but together they are even more boring. Even the music score (by the usually reliable Clint Mansell) feels like it is going through the motions. 

On the bright side this movie does look quite pretty and Kristin Scott Thomas' performance stands out.

I recommend skipping this movie and watching the 1940 Alfred Hitchcock version or reading the great novel instead.   

-Michael J. Ruhland 

Movie Review: Secret Society of Second-Born Royals

 

Michael's Movie Grade: D

A bland and very cliché superhero movie and probably the weakest Disney + original movie yet. 

Stop me if you heard this one before. A group of teenagers discover that they have superpowers and go to a special class to learn how to control them. However their powers may come in use sooner than them or their teacher think as a villain just might be up to know good and these teenager might be the only one to stop them. Yes this story has been done before (including by Disney). The problem is that the previous times this story has been done far outshine this bland retelling. The characters are strictly one note and feel like what someone whose only exposure to teenagers is bad cliché movies might come up with. We have the rebellious punk rocker, the self-absorbed cool kid, the social awkward nerdy kid, the overly nice girl and the materialistic pretty girl (who has a lot of followers online, because this movie is hip and current). These kids who are nothing alike of course form a friendship that is the greatest power of all. Though when exactly this friendship is formed (and they go from making fun of each other to deeply caring about each other) must have happened off screen because it seemed to come out of nowhere for me. The humor is just kind of there and neither made me laugh or groan, but rather just shrug at how that was supposed to be funny.  A subplot involving our main protagonist's best friend feeling like she doesn't care about him any more feels like little more than padding to take some extra time. The main story itself seems to be going through the motions making sure it can check off each cliché point about these types of movies.     

On the plus side the villain feels like a real threat to our heroes and the action scenes are surprisingly pretty well done. 

Overall this is simply a movie to skip. 

-Michael J. Ruhland    

Movie Review: The One and Only Ivan

 

Michael's Movie Grade: B-

I am going to be honest when this Disney + Original Movie started I had little to no faith that I was going to enjoy this at all. Live action talking animal films have honestly been terrible lately and I thought this was going to be another failure in the long string of misses lately. When the animals started telling terrible jokes, horrible flashbacks of Doolittle started to settle in. I was completely ready to hate this, when something strange happened, I started to find myself involved with the story. It wasn't the most original story, but the emotion felt so real and I discovered underneath the horrible jokes, Ivan and Ruby were very likable and relatable. While the other animals were simply there for reasons of terrible jokes, they are kept very much in the background, while the two animals I cared about held this story together. I was also pleased that the ringleader was not the one dimensional villain he could of easily been. Though he sometimes loses his temper (like any of us do) and his desire to put on a perfect show makes him do less than likable things, you actually get the feeling that he cares for these animals, even if what he thinks is best for them isn't always what is best. The humor never gets better and there is entirely too much of it in this movie, but this movie overcomes its faults with a good heart and likable lead characters. 

-Michael J. Ruhland   

Movie Review: Artemis Fowl

Michael's Movie Grade: F

It is hard to believe that a high level filmmaker like Kenneth Branagh and as popular a studio as Disney could possibly create and release a film as terrible as Artemis Fowl. This movie could serve as a guideline of how not to make a fantasy film, as everything that can go wrong did. 

This movie fails on every imaginable level. The characters are completely bland and some are even so forgettable you forget about them while you are watching the film, the action scenes are horribly executed  (how this could be the same director that made Thor is beyond my understanding), the CGI is unpleasant to look at, the story is beyond rushed, there is a lot of horribly forced exposition, the narration often tells us what we can clearly see on screen, the humor is cringeworthy and a fantasy world that never feels real. I have never read the books, as I don't read much Young Adult fantasy, but from what I have heard, Artemis is more of an anti-hero in the books and how I wish he was that here. Why? Because that would have given him some sort of personality, which he is completely lacking here. What makes many of the best fantasy movies work is that the characters feel real and believable. This allows us to accept and believe the fantasy because we believe the characters. When we don't believe those characters, than everything feels artificial and there is therefore no reason to visit the world of the movie. I also being one who has never read the books, will assume that the books take more time to tell the story than this film does,  because this movie seems like it is trying to do to much in too little of a time, leaving the film with little time to do any of that properly. The worst thing I can say about this movie, is that I simply can't see one thing to recommend it to anyone for. 

This movie is proof that talented filmmakers are not perfect and sometimes can put out a complete and utter dud that is well below what they are capable of doing. 

Note: This movie so obviously wants a sequel, but will hopefully never get one. 

-Michael J. Ruhland 

Movie Review: The Old Guard

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A highly enjoyable but flawed Netflix action movie.

This film centers around a team that can heal themselves and use their powers for good. The two main characters of the group (Charlize Theron, Kiki Lane) are easily the most interesting. Andy (Charlize Theron) while not the most developed action movie hero is full of that coolness that attracts us to such characters. Much of this is due to the sheer charisma Theron brings to the role. If Andy brings this movie its coolness than Nile (Kiki Lane) is the character that brings the film it humanity. As the new recruit and the one who is learning (along with us) what she is capable of and the responsibility that brings, she is the one we relate and feel the most for. The character is a very real and human person that unlike the rest of the team wears her humanity on her sleeve. This type of character is the type that can fully pull us into a fantasy world like this and make us believe it and she does a wonderful job of this. On the other hand the rest of the team is rather bland and uninteresting. They really only have a few little traits that don't make full and believable personalities or very interesting ones. Whenever the movie focuses on one of these characters, it feels like it comes to a complete halt. The actors do their best with what they are given but there is no way to make the rest of the team interesting. Of course this is something most of us are familiar with when it comes to superhero movies. There is never enough time in a single movie to make a whole team of characters interesting. The filmmakers have to give the stories focus to only a couple or one leaving the others very underdeveloped (Avengers films avoid this fault by having the character already established before teaming up).

This is an action movie and the action is excellent. This is the fast paced, violent (but never offputtingly so) and intense action that fans of these types of films love. The story itself is often fair standard but effective. There is nothing that we haven't seen before story-wise, but that doesn't stop it from being involving, fun and occasionally thought provoking. True you often know where this film is heading but it is still well told despite that.

This is nothing groundbreaking, but it gives its audiences just what they want from a movie like this and if you like action films, chances are you'll enjoy this one.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Movie Review: The Half of It

Michael's Movie Grade: C+

This Netflix romantic comedy falls quite short of what it is trying to be but the chemistry between the two main stars and some good humor make this work.

This is a rare romantic comedy where a nonromantic friendship is treated as just as important to the plot as the romance and is frankly a lot more interesting. The story has Ellie (Leah Lewis) writing love letters for her friend Paul (Daniel Diemer), only to fall for the girl he has a crush on. Whenever either is with their crush, Aster (Alexxis Lemire), the film comes to a screeching halt. Neither has much of a chemistry with her and this makes these scenes very bland and kinda boring. There are plenty of people who will applaud this movie for having a possible lesbian love story, but regardless of intentions it is still rather poorly done. However what works extremely well here is the friendship between Ellie and Paul. This is the saving grace for this movie and overcomes many of the film's faults. There is a true sweetness to this relationship. This is not a friendship that you ever thought would happen and if it did you would assume they would have little to talk about, yet it grows into something completely real and beautiful. With so many films favoring a beautiful romance over a beautiful friendship, this gave the movie a strong appeal to me. I have had deep friendships that have meant the world to me and it seems strange that these beautiful relationships hardly get their due in movies. There are even scenes between the two of them that can be described as much more than lovely.

This is a romantic comedy so of course there has to be comedy. While some of this comedy does fall very flat, the comedy that works is delightful and certainly brightens up the film.

Despite being in many ways an unusual romantic comedy, this movie does fall into many of the clichés. This is especially true concerning dialogue and many of the side characters personalities. The narration at the beginning almost turned me off feeling much too forced and like what I have heard in other movies many times. The love interest is as bland and uninteresting of a character as can be, spouting off cliché lines like we are supposed to view them as beautiful or deep. The bullies are certainly the worst part. They have no personality and spout off cliché bully lines that have been in movies for decades. What makes them worse is that the story would have worked just as well without them or their clumsy dialogue.   

This is a very faulted movie, yet what works does really work.

-Michael J. Ruhland 

Movie Review: Extraction

Michael's Movie Grade: C

The style outshines the substance in this enjoyable but forgettable Netflix movie.

What keeps the bland story from falling flat is that the main two characters are pretty likable. Tyler Rake (as if we are going to call him anything but Chris Hemsworth) doesn't have much to his personality, but he is simply quite cool thanks to Chris Hemsworth's natural charm. He may not be a character who film buffs could discuss to much length or one that especially stands out among the great action hero characters, but the point is we like him and root for him. Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) provides us with the movie's strongest emotional center and even if the story is slight and cliché, I couldn't help but feel sorry for this poor kid. Helping out is that Hemsworth and Jaiswal have excellent chemistry together.

 The action scenes are for the most part very good. They are fast paced, violent and all together fun. They are well shot and staged and truly give action fans all they could want from this type of a movie. The climactic action scene is excellent and quite intense and action fans will love it.

However the well done action scenes and good performance can't help this movie overcome its most problematic fault. That is that it really drags in the middle. As much as I enjoyed how this movie started and how it ended, I admit my mind kind of drifted towards the middle as I got a little bored as the film began to feel too repetitive and its faults became more apparent. Luckily the film rectified this as it went along by topping what it had done before with a fantastic climax. Perhaps this film could have worked better at an hour and a half instead of the near two hour running time it has. The story was pretty minor and the more repetitive and bland parts could have been worked out with the simplistic story still making sense.

This movie tries to be a John Wick film, but it simply falls quite short of that goal. Still with all its faults it is worth watching for the charisma of the two main actors and a really fun climatic action scene.

-Michael J. Ruhland

Movie Review: Timmy Failure Mistakes Were Made

Michael's Movie Grade: B

A very fun comedy from Disney+.

So much of what makes this movie is work is child actor, Winslow Fegley. This kid is a natural dead pan comic, and his delivery makes so many of these jokes work. The humor is delightful absurd and to have it be delivered with the upmost seriousness by our lead makes them so much funnier. This is not to say that Timmy is the only character worth watching in this film. The other characters are just as memorable. His long suffering teacher, Mr. Crocus (Wallace Shawn) (am I the only one from whom this characters name and part in this film makes me think of The Fairy Oddparents) and the meter maid that wants to give meter maids a better name (Kyle Bornheimer) also get some darn good laughs. Timmy's mom (Ophelia Lovibond) brings a real heart to this movie. She may not always be able to be there with her son, but the filmmakers make sure we know that this is because she needs to support Timmy, not because she is in anyway uncaring. While she understandably gets exasperated with Timmy at times, she also can at other times not only embrace his weirdness, but do so in a way that is undeniably loving and playful. The relationship between these two characters makes this absurd comedy still seem relatable and real as well as funny.  

The jokes come fast and furious in this film and while not all of them are great, many of them certainly made me laugh. I especially love the scenes in which we step into Timmy's imagination, when he hears something and pictures sometime completely different from what is meant. One scene involving a swiss army knife was especially hilarious.

To be fair this film's episodic nature and an hour and 40 minute runtime can make this movie feel a little long at times and there are moments where it briefly seems to run out of steam, only to get itself back on track rather quickly.

All in all this is a fun movie and well worth checking out.

-Michael J. Ruhland