CK's Cartoon Corner

[Cmdr_King]

Finding Dory

Just keep swimming

Finding Nemo isn't a movie I ever quite clicked with.  Like basically every Pixar movie prior to Incredibles it was somewhat obviously a kid-oriented movie, I saw it as an adult (hell, for context, I didn't watch Finding Nemo until the blu-ray release), and just generally it was a solid movie without being spectacular about anything.  Or I remember it that way, and I neglected to make time to watch it before theater time because CK is a lazy fuck if y'all haven't noticed.

And that ended up not being the case for Finding Dory.  And I think to delve into how that works I have to do things a bit different than usual and get sorta personal.

So, my sister has moderate-to-severe autism.  I don’t really know the precise sort she has, because she was diagnosed at age three nearly 30 years ago.  One did not really diagnose less severe autism-spectrum disorders in the late 80s (sidebar: this is why the rate of autism rises through the years.  It’s not becoming more common by any evidence we can find, we’re just actually diagnosing the cases that were always there more often).  I’ve met autistics who are more severe, but it’s still an immediately apparent developmental disorder which, in all likelihood, will prevent her from living or working unsupervised her entire life.

Now, this is hardly a 1:1 analogue of course.  Dory has a lot more means to develop coping mechanisms because society (even fictional talking fish society) simply deals better with extroversion than introversion.  But watching the inescapable knowledge that your child will probably never be able to take care of themselves gnaw at the back of someone’s brain?  Yeah that’s most of my family for most of my life.  Not necessarily tears in the night I guess, that’s very movie-y, but hushed conversations, trying any fool idea that passes that could help, the need to create some fragile veil of normalcy at any turn?  Very well acquainted.

There’s an inversion of these moments as well, where Dory is crushed under a sense of guilt for causing her parents heartache.  And as the oldest child of parents in a particularly contentious marriage until they finally split some 16 years later, that’s certainly something I felt no few number of times as a kid.

So somehow a movie that came out when I was 20 that I didn’t watch until I was nearly 30… spoke very directly to my childhood and I spent several long segments of it tearing up and it was fuckin’ weird. 

The odd thing is the rest of the movie shows some of the detrimental effects of being a sequel.  Some references there for their own sake, the other two main characters have to be there but their subplot isn’t anything to write home about (although!  They do introduce the phrase “what would Dory do” and that’s amazing), and I don’t know that the new supporting cast did too much for me?  But the big moments were enormous even if the small moments weren’t always up to the task of holding them up fully.

Rating- 9/10.  Dory herself is an utter joy (another great thing, watching her logic her way to concluding things she can’t remember) and it’d be dishonest of me to rate the movie much lower after talking about spending chunks of it teary eyed, even if my gut reaction is more of an 8 on the overall strength of the film.

[Cmdr_King]

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Season 5)

Last season unexpectedly went full DBZ.  This season instead has cultists and full throttle time travel fuckery.  Handled well though; the emphasis is on how terrible of an idea it is.  Similarly while it's noteworthy for being unusual in the context of the show, it's not really a standout episode in other respects.

So that bit covers one recurring subplot this season, and... I can see where Starlight would work up the fandom some?  Although the season opener got some baffling hate which I just don't get, even if I can see not liking Starlight herself.  Her main four episodes don't quite gel for me I think, but eh, I'm not gonna be too harsh on the show for trying new stuff and not quite getting it down.

The other two plot threads feel like kinda an excuse for Continuity (TM), although I will admit outside that aspect the Map episodes are pretty standard.  Like, sure, Coco Pommel is the dorkiest of dorks and it's cute, but aside from it being kinda cool to see her again her episode is pretty standard.  Same with most Mane Six episodes this season actually, Map stuff or no.

So... yeah.

Best Episode- Crusaders of the Lost Mark.  Yeah, the CMC got their shit together in terms of focus episodes this season.  Considering both that even the non-CMC episodes paid no small attention to cutie marks and this episode being structurally identical to Magical Mystery Cure, it's surprising as hell this wasn't the actual season finale.  Also had way more music than the actual season finale, which is a bit odd.  Or I'm misremembering, that's also possible.  I think the main thing this episode has going over CMC episodes in previous seasons though?  It calls Diamond Tiara out on her bullshit!  And tries to do something about it!  Stock old school bully characters annoy me, but fixing them is always fun.  I'm weird.

That leaves about two episodes unaccounted for.  And I kinda hate to hate on them all things considered but... yeah.

Weakest Episode- Make New Friends But Keep Discord.  Discord was rather mean-spirited in both his focus episodes this season but... the other one has some better visual gags.  And Tree Hugger just doesn't tickle me.  More than that I'm kinda okay with Discord being a bit of an ass if he also has a point/can BS his way into pretending he does, and in that respect What About Discord resembles Three's A Crowd more than it does this one.  This one mostly has Discord pouting.
Although.  Mail pony floating helplessly in the void is kinda cute.

Well okay there is ONE episode left after all those ones but... I'm not entirely sure what to say about Fanservice-thon 2015.  It exists?  It's entertaining enough?  Making Derpy a main focus character is weird and I'm not sure what to make of her voice?  Oh!  Wait, there's two important points.
1. Needs more David Tenant.
2. Lyra's tearful questions about sitting on park benches is the greatest thing.  Except the next episode where she and Sweetie Drops get Catdog'd and have ecstatic hugs over it.

Rating- 7/10.  Pleasant, a one or two standouts, but lots of just okay as well.  But a bit more memorable than some of the other seasons in the middle.

[dunie]

I enjoyed that Finding Nemo and Finding Dory had characters with "handicaps." Some of those emotional moments in Finding Dory hit, some of them I felt were a bit overwhelming because Degeneres's voice did not modulate and she sounded a bit too childish (until I realized that Dory was 3 years old... right? Became lost for 2 years afterward?)

I'd like to see you do something on Transylvania. Thoroughly enjoyed each -- some problems with one of the main characters but that's for a later discussion.

[Cmdr_King]

The Pirates of Dark Water

You can definitely tell this is a Hanna-Barbara production.  The use of color, their signature animation saving techniques, and the basic construction of the main party fit their particular quirks.  But there's two major things that stand out about the show:

1. It's very conscious that it's starting as a cross section of stock early 70s sci-fantasy tropes and Hanna-Barbara character tropes, and makes a very conscious effort to add nuance into those tropes.  Ren is your stock kindly, noble, somewhat naive prince, but they make of point of showing that this can both help and hinder him.  Tula is The Chick, but she always hold her own when push comes to shove.  Niddler is a coward and glutton, but he makes sure to be useful on the edge of the action and it makes sense since he's much more support than fighter anyway.  That sort of thing.

More broadly-

2. This feels like a hail mary "this'll either spark a new golden age or bankrupt the studio" play.  Yeah, there's a lot of amorphous animation with plenty of errors here and there, but there's also clearly a lot of effort into putting a lot of effort into the scenes that most demand it, and the core designs are all amazingly evocative.  The voice cast is largely seasoned actors even in 1991 (Tim Curry?  Hector Elizondo?  Frank Welker?  These dudes had extensive credits by then.  The least experienced one there was Jodi Benson, and she was just off the smash hit movie of 1989).  They establish a damn ambitious plot on the outset.  They're about 10 years ahead of the curve in terms of continuity.  Someone at Hanna-Barbara seems to have decided they needed to let their most creative people cut loose if they were going to last.  I feel bad for not watching the show more when it came out (I was 7 or 8, I definitely remember this show's original run getting airtime) because the fact it didn't finish is sad.

Hell, they tried every avenue to get this thing out there.  5 episode pilot on a major network establishing it's Saturday morning chops.  Another 6-7 episodes to make a full season on another major network when Fox didn't pick them up.  A second season in syndication with other Hanna-Barbara fare to because they knew it was the best anchor they had for their other output.  They were already owned by Turner at this time, but I feel like this failing played a part in their talent and IP being splintered off into the Cartoon Network brand and other loss of autonomy.  Still, there's something to be said for failing for the right reasons.

Best Episode- Mmm.  This is one of those shows with a fairly steady quality level that spreads out its key moments a bit, but I'm honestly partial to Andorus.  Tula being an Ecomancer was never quite played up like it could have been, but it's introduction here and her struggling with the responsibilities of it come across really well.  It's honestly the only episode that felt like the evolution of a character than than a lesson for a character, if that makes sense.  And I'll admit, plot points about reclaiming a lost land from the darkness give me a tickle, and I like this one just a teensy more than Dark Disciples.

Weakest Episode- The Beast and the Bell.  People being dumb and failing to communicate get city destroyed.  Yawn.

One thing I will say is that sometimes they played a little too safe.  They worked hard to try and keep Bloth in every episode, presumably because he's mentioned in the opening ramble and they didn't want to change that, but truth is it'd have probably worked better to hold him back once in a while to stem the tide of repeats on "Ren gets captured, has to escape the Maelstrom.  Again." plots.  It also made his part in the plot feel a lot more impotent after Dark Dweller since there's clearly another big bad out there but he still tries to shoehorn himself in.  Probably the biggest misstep in the series, although I feel like the second-to-last episode was an admission of this and, had they gotten a third season, they'd probably have tweaked his role in the show a bit to reflect that.  They were that kinda show.

Rating- 7/10.  For all it's definitely ahead of its time, the episode-to-episode sameness at times holds it back as well.

[Cmdr_King]

Hotel Transylvania

I should probably start with the negative here.  Y'know all those old, tired nagging wife tropes where dudes hang out and bitch about how tired they are and how weird having kids is and just seem completely beaten down by not being able to hang out and do irresponsible bachelor stuff forever?  Yeah there's a lot of that here and it's annoying and distracting.

The basic story conflict is pretty hacky too, although that bothers me less.  It's easy to read it as intentionally over the top because it fits with classic Vampire behavior to be obsessive and controlling, which balances out them just kinda letting Drac stretch all the vampire rules to their breaking point otherwise (like flying in direct sunlight for like 10 minutes of screen time.)  His flaws are quirks and his emotional baggage and it works.  Also helps sell us on him being sufficiently emotionally devastated by his wife's death to go into overdrive like that.

The core humor of the movie trends towards crazy immature and slapstick and hooonestly I kinda love it.  I can't even remember most of them, it's just quick little split second sight gags or comments that immediately got a chuckle.  Although there is one with a bit more setup.
<Frank> That man is Dracula!
<Bystander> Prove it!
<Drac> *uses the mind control eyes, gets him to break his coffee mug over his head*
<Bystander> Proceed.

But mostly they go more for the adorable here.  Everything about Mavis?  Cute as hell.  The little werewolf girl?  Cute as hell.  The 118th birthday book?  Cute as hell.  Jonathan?  Dorky as shit.  In a cute as hell way. 

Mmm.  yeah I'm not sure what else to say.  This movie could pretty easily have gone horribly wrong, but they really did good on playing down the Adam Sandler-y elements and really playing with the animation aspects.  Re-reading on the movie reminded me that Genndy Tartakovsky pulled the movie out of the fire and cobbled it into something workable, and yeah that seems obvious in retrospect.

Oh shoot, I love the vampire transformation effects too.  That feels important to mention for its own sake.

Rating- 7/10.  A bit disposable, but pretty funny in the moment.

[jsh357]

Poor Pirates of Dark Water... the serial format just didn't fit on cartoon channels of the time. Heck, Nickelodeon hadn't even figured out how to support a show like that when AVATAR was running. It was a pretty great start to the story, and could have gotten a lot better had it continued.

[Cmdr_King]

Bob's Burgers

So I'm used to H. Jon Benjamin as Archer.  It's pretty amazing how he can use almost the same voice yet be so distinctly two characters.  And that's almost all down to how sharp this show is.  They don't really do anything in terms of visual gags or the like (anuses notwithstanding) but they still managed to just crack me up a few times each episode.  It's kinda stands out to me actually, they make this work entirely on the strength of the scripts and the actors.  I'm not sure anything else I've been doing lately has the confidence to do that.

Admittedly I don't normally do straight comedy, but even the handful of shows here that do lean that way have been high on sight gags or comic violence.

But yeah, back to the cast.  H. Jon Benjamin as a straight man except when he's not works well.  He's got that sorta trailed off mumble that really sells it.  Kristen Schaal is someone I don't think I could dislike in something, and as usual she's all in as Louise here.  I think it helps that she's the youngest sibling but is still the flamboyant one, heightens the contrast between her and Tina. 

Tina... well, Tina.  Having never watched the show before it popped up on the shelves I still had seen Tina hype about the internet.  Playing the horny older sister deadpan-melodramatic means you can almost have her say any damn thing and get it to be funny.  Everyone else feels like they're just there to set up the episodes really, but that's okay.  Not everyone has to be amazing.

Best Episode- Art Crawl.  The kid sub-plot is just amazing.  Bob's pettiness kinda works in this one for me too and I'm not sure why.  Maybe just because pissing off petty tyrants amuses me at some deep philosophical level.

Weakest Episode- Sexy Dance Fighting.  Mostly this one feels like a plot that almost any generic family sitcom might have done.  It has it's moments (I mean, it's a Tina-centric episode) but the main bits of Bob feuding with the Capoeira instructor are just bland.

Rating- 8/10.  This one feels shorter than I like but... yeah, it's just a rock solid comedy.  I'm not sure what else to say about it.

[Cmdr_King]

Batman: The Killing Joke

I put this one off for a bit.  Because... well, we live in an age you can get several hundred internet reviews of a new comic book-adjacent item within two hours of the thing going public, and honestly they all said very similar things and... yeah, they were pretty much right.  They add a half hour or so of prequel about Batgirl's last case.  It's a reasonable idea that quickly goes off the rails stupid.  Just about everything goes wrong here aside from the raw action bits.  These are some pretty cool fight scenes that highlight nicely how Barbara's fighting style contrasts with Bats'.  But the new villain being a sexist creep doesn't play right all with Batman being a condescending shit and Barbara almost... seeming like she's kinda into it?  And the batsex.  Which again, I get in the abstract (It's just kinda Bruce Timm's ship and hey, I thought it was neat enough the first time he did it) but doesn't work at all with the story they do here.

And the rest of it's a pretty faithful adaptation of a comic that's widely held as the definitive story about the Joker.  So what's even to add?

I will say that in some ways the translation to motion actually hurt the comic a bit.  I didn't actually read Killing Joke until last year, and I distinctly remember getting to the bit where Barbara gets shot and having to just stop at every one of the Joker's lines.  They're sufficiently horrible that you almost laugh, then go to the next one which is even worse and just have to stop for a "and it goes on like this" moment.  Something about the lines being spoken aloud lost the visceral feel of that sequence.

Which isn't a knock on the VA.  I mean, it's fucking Mark Hamill and ah... you can tell he's been wanting to do this for years.  He probably tried out for the Joker with this comic book in his hand.  If you told me he used lines from Killing Joke to practice in the booth before every recording session I'd believe you.  Actually if you told me that's not what he did I'd call you a liar.  The point at which he breaks into song was inspired but hey, they had to do something right.

I dunno.  I think the original story benefited a lot from its brevity and focus, and the expansion and necessary fill-in material lose something to it.  There's something to enjoy here, but definitely some slog too.

Rating- 5/10.

[The Duck]

I think you should watch Kubo and the Two Strings in 3D.

[Cmdr_King]

3D glasses usually give me a headache, but I'm definitely considering catching Kubo this weekend in not-3D.

[The Duck]

Either way, I think it's really good and that's after a run where I felt that Laika was on the cusp of doing something special but not quite getting there.

[Cmdr_King]

Sausage Party

In which Alan Menkin did the opening song number.

So I don't feel like this ever got truly laugh out loud funny, which is a shame.  So despite not quite landing for me I do like this in the abstract.  It's essentially billed as a classical parody of Pixar, as told in the comedic voice of Seth Rogen.  Which are both good ideas: a proper all-in parody of Pixar is something that should have happened years ago (but couldn't because essentially the entire genre just kinda... died after Mel Brooks stopped making movies), and Seth's style often goes into human cartoon territory anyways, so just actually animating him is a great idea. 

And it's not that the movie is unfunny, it just never quite makes that jump from "This is amusing" to "and I just cracked up in the theater".  I think in some ways it might be a victim of its own success as a parody.  Basic knowledge of Pixar plot structure and Seth Rogen's brand of comedy lets you guess too many of the gags in advance.  And in comedy it's hard to tell the same joke twice, and that still applies to some extent when you can successfully guess the punchline to a joke even before the setup is finished.  And in that sense I don't want to go into too much detail on the moments that worked?

But I'll say that actually the best bits for me were all Selma Hayek.  Nailed it!

And that opening song.  If you don't plan to watch the movie, still maybe look up that bit sometime.  It's delightfully surreal.

Rating- 6/10

[Cmdr_King]

Kubo and the Two Strings

Everything about this has such personality.  The puppets, the characters, the cast, the nature of the tale and the form gods and magic take.  It has this distinct feel of authenticity, in a way I don't think I've gotten out of many stories over the years, while still being unmistakably itself.

Kubo achieves that sweet spot: it is unmistakably in the form of a classical myth yet still feels like a human, lived-in story in the moment.

Really that's the essentials.  This is in that rare class that, at least in a just universe, will come to redefine how people think about its subject matter.  Please see.  Let's give Laika a genuine hit.

Here's the post script for after everyone's completed their homework:

I could just gush about that first storyteller sequence.  Paper Hanzo gets across so much personality, and the way the paper moves to both create the monsters he fights and how it disassembles as he dispatches them is great.  And of course the old lady was right.  Bring on the fire-breathing chicken.
The great thing with Paper Hanzo is he's pretty distinct from Beetle, but at the same time I'm kinda kicking myself for being blindsided by that reveal.  Paper Hanzo is totally trying to get him to put two and two together and I never picked up on it until after the fact.

(Unlike Monkey where sometime right after the mosquito incident I went "wait a tick")

They also have a hook that might as well have been written for me.  There's an unstated conceit that magic and the gods function on narrative.  Playing a song calms the tides, animates paper, let's a woman return to some semblance of life despite crippling brain damage.  And what is a story without an audience?  Don't look away for even a second, or our hero will surely perish.
And what wins the day?  Kubo changes the story.  His grandfather stole his eye... and now, he uses that eye to see the world he was blinded to.  He joins humanity and sees it through the same eyes as his oh-so human grandson.  Literal because, y'know, of course it is.

Rating- 9/10.  Y'know, my feeling coming out of the theater was more of an 8/10, but writing this out my estimation has gone up. 

[The Duck]

thought this was a really cool inside look at the studio.

http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/18/12500814/laika-studios-behind-the-scenes-kubo-and-the-two-strings-video

[Captain K]

Please see.  Let's give Laika a genuine hit.

Unfortunately, it's not doing well.  It opened worse than their previous films.  I blame the marketing.  The tv spots airing for it give you almost no idea of what the film is about.  Plus Kubo and the Two Strings is a horrible title.

[Cmdr_King]

Yeah, I caught it as a Sunday matinee, and there were... four other people in the theater.  There were more folks seeing Suicide Squad last week on like a Wednesday evening.  I mean I suppose the theater I usually use isn't the most representative in the world but... yikes.

All the more reason to encourage as many people as I can to see it though.

[Cmdr_King]

Star Wars Rebels (Season 2)

Well that escalated. 

I have to give special mention to the special guest star this season.  They got James Earl Jones to do a little teaser in the first episode, then got him for several episodes this season.  But the stand out bit is how sparing and deliberate they are with their use of Darth Vader.  Shows up in the premier to remind you he is Darth Vader and doesn't need his star destroyers or the weight of the Empire behind him to destroy you.  He is the reinforcements.  A brief appearance mid-season to remind you that he terrifies these Inquisitors the heroes are struggling with.  And of course the finale.

Best Episode: Twilight of the Apprentice part 2.  So Rebels is currently recording their fourth season and doesn't have a clear endpoint.  It's not technically a trilogy.  But damned if season 2 doesn't follow as the Empire in a pre-designed trilogy structure.  Main character has now brushed so close to the Dark Side a Sith holocron responds to him.  Other main character ate a lightsaber to the face and is blind.  The heroes' strongest ally missing, presumed dead, and could barely put up a fight against Vader (who at this point has a personal interest in the heroes).
And of course that layered voicing effect is probably worth the nod alone.

And it's not like that came out of nowhere.  The whole season was essentially about how badly the early Rebellion was doing.  "Victories" basically amounted to "we got enough fuel to keep the fleet moving another week and only lost 3 A-Wings this time!"  Well okay there was that time they visited the french twi'leks and stole a fighter carrier.  That was definitely an actual win.  But aside from blowing up a cruiser or two that was about it for them.  Hell a significant number of episodes were devoted to trying to find a base, and settling on the one with blaster-proof spider nests.

Weakest Episode: The Honorable Ones.  Just a cross section of a few weak elements.  Zeb is generally the weakest member of the cast, especially for holding down an episode.  Kallus' honor streak doesn't quite jive with his earlier portrayal in the series and makes the overall episode's impact feel hollow.  They do what they can with it but on the whole I think his earliest episodes were just too over the top to get me on board, at least right away.  And the basic premise of the episode means that it has to be carried by the two enemies and it just isn't.  Zeb had a much better episode earlier with Legends of the Lesat and this one doesn't add much to his character, so without earlier groundwork to better establish this 'honorable' side of Kallus it just doesn't click.

But yeah despite some episodes that were essentially character-based filler, they always had enough of a connection to the wider arc to feel like they belonged there.  Or at least didn't break the tension. 

Rating- 8/10.  That said I don't think they quite hit enough high notes to nudge it over into 9 territory.  Damn close though.

[Cmdr_King]

My Little Pony Equestria Girls: Legend of Everfree

I feel utterly out of practice on this.  But hey.  Fuck it.  Music time!

The Legend of Everfree- I get what they're going for here, trying to have like a class sing-along feel but with production values.  But something about it doesn't have the right energy.  I think the singing style has a low-pitched feel to it, like it's very restrained.  I'm not sure what should have been different here but yeah.  Not quite right.

Flash is the least smooth "clearly supposed to be the cool kid on campus" kid I've ever seen.

The whole romance angle between Twilight and Timber is kinda weird to me.  Like, do 16 year olds own and run the camp or is he about 5 years older than her?  That feels really weird with the relative ages involved.

The Midnight in Me- Oh no I am the demons
I dunno, I'm sure they wanted to do another Twilight song because Twilight and all but... the random angsty song at this place in the movie feels off.  The surrounding material is mostly shenanigans, y'know?  The song itself being nothing special doesn't help.

Embrace the Magic- Hurray!  Sunset is taking charge.  Pretty average song all told but feels natural, and more Sunset has always been to the good in these movies.

Making Filthy Rich so overtly sinister is weird.  His counterpart is a pretty reasonable pony!  I mean, the plot works just fine if you play him off as more cool and distant rather than actively rooting for Gloriosa to fail.

We Will Stand for Everfree- The rhythm of the song reminds me of Poor Unfortunate Soul from The Little Mermaid.  Which isn't a bad thing to remind me of in your villain song to be sure sure.  Honestly this and Sunset's song are the only ones I find decent?  They aren't great, nothing on the big climax songs from movies 2 and 3, but the work and mostly justify their existence.

The Legend You Were Meant to Be- Totally a transplanted credits song.  That said it's pleasant enough, but being so arbitrary robs it of any weight.

So I'm not sure how to feel about this one.  A lot of it is fluff compared to Rainbow Rocks and Friendship Games, in that it doesn't seem to really be building to anything, except then at the end it was totally building to stuff you guys.  Ending on a clear "The End... or is it?" is kinda weird considering it's at least a year to the next one (... assuming).  Well unless they plan to tie more closely with the main series I guess.  That'd be weird.  But I mean even the series doesn't end on cliffhangers, they usually cap with a clear big bad threat, then go "hey cool thing happened and the characters have all matured!" or whathaveyou. 

The fact the put some actual time into romantic inclinations in the movie is interesting to me in the context of the franchise too.  Having Flash step back and go "wait, right, the one I like is probably not going to come here to hang out regularly" and move on feels like just trying to clean up a dangling thread which is proper.  But despite the kinda weirdness of Twilight's interaction with Timber, it's not something we've seen before.  The only other couples in the series are presented fully formed, and never with the main characters.  And while it's disappointing in some ways since the show not really doing much of that made it distinct, the fact they have this movie be 90% shenanigans then 10% clearly differentiating itself from the series is why I'm a bit torn about everything.  It's a risk, and an unexpected one, but not necessarily a bad one.  I really don't know.

Well I mean I have a grade here, but it's a very gutcheck loose affair.

Rating- 6/10

[Cmdr_King]

The Lego Batman Movie

The movie Joel Schumacher was trying the make but lacked the talent to pull off.

Before we go further, I should probably emphasize a few things since this is both the first new post I’ve done in months and also the first time I’ve covered anything new since expanding to the blogspace.  These are largely written on the assumption you’re familiar with the work in question.  Less review and more editorial or retrospective. 

Which is to say: be warned that I do tend to talk about specific scenes or plot resolutions if they help me explain a particular observation or emphasize the theme or atmosphere of the thing.  If you’re here for the thumbs up/down, it’s good, go watch.

So back to Mr. Schumacher.  It’s sometimes said that Batman Forever/Batman and Robin were trying to be campy silver age Batman.  But I’m not sure that’s entirely right- they still used a lot of the designs of the Burton movies, and you don’t go for pure camp but include the modern characterization for Mr. Freeze.  So instead I think the intent was to capture the full breadth of Batman.  It’s a worthy goal, and while Schumacher is basically a talentless hack, the Lego Movie folk are equal to the task.  And while some of it is purely for humor, especially the multi-layered fourth wall awareness and occasional add in of live-action film footage, they definitely had things to say about the State of the Bat.

I mean, the Joker goes on a whole rampage on what amounts to a jilted lover plot.  But this is set up by him insisting that he’s Batman’s arch nemesis, the one that pushes him to excel, while Batman… claims his arch enemy is Superman.  Which makes sense for the superbly self-important Lego Batman, while also being an easy jab at BvS while also being a much slyer hint at what the movie was building to.

(Sidebar: Props to the trailer team on this one.  They actually managed to show this, sorta the pivotal point the movie turns on, but recontexualized it into a joke rather than suggesting in any way this was the point at which the plot is set in motion.)

But being a kid’s movie Batman is what really works here, because it prompted them to do something nobody else has ever really done that I’m aware of in adaptations of Batman; focused on the importance of the Bat-Family and how they fit into the greater story of Batman and his rogues.  And unto itself I like that for the novelty, and I think something I’ve always kinda wanted to see done justice.  But this gives them a bit of that sly commentary again: Batman by himself isn’t much.  He’s motivated by his past, sure, but the toys and money and trauma aren’t really very interesting past a big shiny opening number.  Batman lives and dies by his supporting cast and his rogues.  You can only tell so many Batman stories without them, yet every time they go back to the well, that’s where they start.  And since they acknowledge all those phases of his life, you know exactly what they mean.

Although no mistake, the movie is funny and clever without all that.  Batman talking Robin through the deadly Kryptonian defenses or standing back to back in order to hit enemies “so hard words describing the sound pop up”?  Those are the times you’re reminded this is also a sorta sequel.  Well, that and the opening scene where they really put that love and care into the faux stop motion animation.  That’s also cool.

It’s kinda weird to who they consider the super bad guys.  Until I remembered oh yeah, it’s Warner Bros, they have super duper rights to some of those.  Definitely gave it that crossover vibe the Lego Movie had too.

Rating- 8/10.  It has a much stronger start than finish, but yeah, all sorts of good going on here.

[Cmdr_King]

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh

This is composed of three shorts made over the course of several years, which is easy to tell if you’re on the lookout for it (the animation quality and character models visibly change between the segments), but I think the in-between material adds a lot to the experience, so we’ll cover this as one movie.

Oddly though the animation style is what sticks out to me.  You can see a lot of the scratch lines and other penciling artifacts, which to some degree gives you a date for the thing, the mid-60s after the switch to Xerox for 101 Dalmatians.  But even then there’s something fuzzy and artificial about it in Pooh… which makes perfect sense.  These are stuffed animals being animated, with imperfections and seams coming apart.  Whether it was a cost-saving measure or not, the slightly washed out and rough look of the animation here actually goes nicely with the conceit that it’s the pages of a storybook coming to life.  Hell, the narration and use of actual book pages along with that is why this works as a movie rather than having artificial stitched-together-shorts vibes, the characters are living a story alongside us, the viewer.

I guess that means in a way Winnie the Pooh was Toy Story before Toy Story.
Maybe that’s why I’m otherwise kinda lukewarm on it.

No mistake, this is a cute movie with its own charm, but I dunno, there’s just not much emotional weight here.  The comedy relies a lot on the simple-mindedness of the characters which would work better if that wasn’t the case for almost all of them.  And since it’s mostly harmless misadventures, comedy is definitely at the forefront of what’s going on here.

The characters do take on a life of their own out in the broader culture for a reason though.  Their childish thinking is a bit samey for comedy, but beyond that their individual quirks do leave an impact, it just doesn’t really show in a narrative flow sense.

Honestly though the best part of the film (aside from the animation stuff, which I could probably go on about some of the visual gags here, like the bees or the bit where the book gets rained out) is probably the ending bit, where Pooh tries to get the Narrator to tell it again.  Like I said, the conceit of being a story the audience is participating in with the characters really elevates the whole thing.

Rating- 5/10.  Yeah, I think this is more interesting as an academic or historical study than as a film.  Good for your really young kids but only a few highlights for the grownups.

[Cmdr_King]

Despicable Me

Consciously or unconsciously, Illumination drew a lot of inspiration from Shrek here.  Take an obvious villain, put a known comedian behind them, make the whole thing a surface-level subversion of the expectations for children’s movies while deep down reaffirming most of the same basic tropes.  They both even end on essentially a fourth wall shattering cast-wide dance party.  While Shrek is a different animal at heart (for starters it’s a full on parody), those similarities definitely color how I’m looking at the movie as a whole.

One of the defining features of Shrek to me is that the side cast always got a lot more attention than Shrek and Fiona, and without having seen those films in many years… well yeah.  Shrek and Fiona aren’t really interesting.  Despicable Me similarly puts a disproportionate focus on characters who aren’t Gru and the Girls.

Unlike Shrek this weakens the movie to me.  I mean, the Minions are kinda adorably stupid, and in 2010 before they went through a complete arc of overexposure they were probably hilarious because they still whisper just a little to my inner  12 year old now, despite being thoroughly familiar with their antics.  But I gotta say, Steve Carell nails the careful balance he has to for this.  His sarcasm is impossibly dry, and his ability to deadpan basically anything unless he’s specifically putting on a show is on full display here.  And because of that, when we slowly see him smiling in spite of himself, or the very last thread of his patience finally snapping before he vaporizes the carnival game for cheating, it still feels fully part of the character.  They do a credible-enough job with the girls too, they feel pretty distinct despite not having too many lines.

There’s all sorts of subtext (also text) about the relationships between parents and children going on here, but for whatever reason a lot of that never speaks to me.  Vector’s position in the plot in particular is more interesting for the obvious nepotism than for the dripping disappointment the banker has in him.  Although honestly I’m not entirely sure what they’re going for there, the main nods to have to pop cultural references are with the bank and it just seems fairly empty, in the “it’s funny because I know that name” sense.  On the other hand this is where they put in the scenes of baby Gru wanting to go to the moon, and that’s awesome.

The way they do teeth is weird.  The other physical comedy bits are pretty good, them using a shrink ray as the main plot device opens up for that.  Nothing especially jumped at me animation wise, but it’s… y’know, fine.

Rating- 6/10.  Definitely could have been a better movie overall, but entertaining enough for what it was.

[Captain K]

First Despicable Me fell pretty flat for me, but the sequel is great.

[Cmdr_King]

Moana

I realized once I was in the theater for Moana a flaw to the whole music format- I really need to write as I watch the movie to do this.  Sooooo yeah, I’ve been waiting for the blu-ray to work on it.  Hopefully I can remember my original impressions for various bits in addition to all the song material.

Where You Are- A bit generic, the crowd aspect can turn into a murmur really.  Although come to think of it that works?  The continual pace of everyday life easing away the dreams and desires of youth.  The needs of the crowd keep you grounded, draw you back in, very nice parallel all around.
(Alternate joke: a responsibility montage is the fastest way to contrast Moana’s desires with her sense of duty)

How Far I'll Go- A bit weak for this particular song.  Of course, that’s probably on purpose.  To be continued~

We Know the Way- Yeah, this is the premise song.  Clear drive, nice melody, just very enjoyable without being overbearing.

How Far I'll Go (Reprise)- First iteration, wavering voice and youthful indecision.  Second iteration, I Want Song.

Hiiiiii Alan Tudyk.

You're Welcome- The Rock playing himself is a thing I have to love.  He definitely isn’t at home with the whole song part, but otherwise a brag song is pretty perfect.  Also a great way to incorporate the actual mythology they’re drawing from.

Ah, the coconut pirates.  I think this is when I really started to love the movie.  Adorable but also horrible, a mix that keeps coming up after this really.
I mean like the pee joke they throw in.  Also y’know how the whole Heart thing turns out, but I think I’d be letting y’all down if I didn’t mention they have a perfectly timed pee joke.

Shiny- Yes Tomatoa.  I liked the song.
Okay so I dunno that I have much to add to this?  It’s pretty up front about being not!David Bowie.  I like the sly reference to Maui’s backstory except they go into that in detail like five minutes later so it loses something to introduce it like this.

I Am Moana- I distinctly remember being in the theater and tearing up a little bit when the ancestors showed up.  Something about the entire movie’s emphasis on the voyaging history of the Polynesian people really struck a chord with me.  I dunno.  I guess… people need a new frontier.  Without new places to travel and lands to explore and fire the imagination, can we really stay human?  Or do we become consumed by our fears and imagined unknowns? 
What I’m saying is, get our asses to Mars.

Know Who You Are- Totally sappy, but hey, the instrumental payoff has some badass visuals to go with it.  It works.

We Know the Way (Reprise)- Teensy little coda.  Needs to be there for the mirror, but yeah, nothing special.

I remember liking this more than Zootopia, which I think I’ll stick to, but it’s not as stark a divide as I was thinking.  It could just be that I’m such an easy grader in the theater, especially for this sort of movie that’s high on feels and skews a bit younger.

Rating- 8/10.  Lowish end of the grade, but feels right.

[Captain K]

The only good song in Moana was You're Welcome.  Oh yeah I went there.

[Cmdr_King]

The Great Mouse Detective

This is a strange movie sometimes.  Mostly one or two scenes feel like the rest of the movie had no idea they were there.

The opening scene tries to be strongly from Olivia’s point of view, so Fidget is super scary and everything is in shadow (although some of the coloring seems a bit off… but hey, the studio basically gave them a barebones budget because if this didn’t work they were shuttering the animation division) and so on, really intense and then a little girl calls out for her daddy.
Then the main theme music kicks in for the credits.
Which sounds like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28pTtCDkVk&ab_channel=ContentMatches

Little bit off right?

You similarly have the furry stripper dance.

I mean no mistake, the characters in this are often silly, and Ratigan’s theatricality and Basil’s showmanship are absolutely part of the characters, but even those clash pretty badly with “let’s punctuate the little girl’s trauma with upbeat adventure music” and “bar dancing for fun and profit”.

The main bits are pretty good though.  Good voice work, characters come across well, they respect the viewer’s intelligence with the investigation and clues (although to an extent you can tell this was an adaptation because of that part).  Ratigan in some ways is a model for the villains of the Renaissance (Ursula in particular, not coincidentally the next film directed by John Musker and Ron Clements), although thanks to the magic of Vincent Price there’s a good argument to be made he’s a lot more enjoyable than his descendants.  Not sure I’m sold there, but it’s certainly something to mull over. 

I think the biggest flaw is mostly that aside from Ratigan’s flamboyance and Basil’s excitability everything else is merely functional.  Nothing wrong… well aside from the two above mentioned scenes, although in isolation those are fine they just aren’t worked in very well.  But it banks really hard that you’ll be entertained enough by two characters to invest in everything else going on.  Which sure, it works, but it also holds the movie back to be sure.

Rating- 7/10