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The Amityville Horror (2005)
Not All That Scary, But I've Seen Worse
The Amityville Horror is one of those films that I look at with a great big sense of indifference. It doesn't make me happy, it doesn't make me angry. It just kind of...exists within its own little world of ghosts, ghouls, demons, and Ryan Reynolds. It's not particularly scary (except for the very last scene), but it does its duty in a good way. It's no "The Conjuring," but it's not "Troll 2," either. It's just...there.
The story is simple, regarding a family moving to a house in Amityville, New York and becoming terrorized by a demonic presence that has infested the home. This leads to the discovery of an ancient Indian torture chamber in the basement, and the slow possession of Reynolds's character. In the final moments, he attempts to slaughter his family with an axe, but they manage to stop him. They then flee on a boat and, presumably, live happily ever after. This...might be the only horror movie I've ever seen with a semi-happy ending. Nobody died...except the dog. That was the sad part of the film, and by sad, I mean extremely sad. Why? Because he's a dog, and dogs are awesome.
Anyway, the film really doesn't offer anything shocking aside from the appearance of one or two ghosts, and they don't exactly scare the pants off the viewer. This is especially true in the case of Jodie DeFeo's apparition. She just looks bored, and her "scariness" comes off as being harmless, for the most part. She does stick the babysitter's finger through the bullet hole in her head, but that's more disgusting than frightening.
But then...comes the final scene in the movie. As the Lutz family speeds away across the canal, we cut back inside the house and see Jodie standing at the bottom of the stairs. She begins screaming, and the editing creates the illusion that her head is jerking at a hundred miles per hour. While this is going on, the house goes through some not-so-subtle changes, and essentially resets everything in preparation for its next victim. Once this is complete, the camera slowly rolls back from Jodie until a pair of disembodied hands pull her through the floor to an unknown fate below. That...was the scariest part of this entire movie. It creates a third dimension of thought within the mind. Is Jodie's spirit being controlled by some malevolent entity? Those disembodied hands scream, "yes!"
All in all, the movie was decent, if unspectacular. I probably won't watch it again, but if you like Ryan Reynolds, axes, semi-scary ghosts, and a house that looks like its watching you, then I'd recommend it. If not, don't bother.
Sausage Party (2016)
An Hour and a Half Long Assault on Food and Fun
Animation geared toward adults can be enjoyable. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut comes to mind, along with the show that it is based on. But when the quality of the animation far supersedes the quality of the script, characters, and story...then you've gone terribly wrong. Such is the case with Sausage Party, Seth Rogen's first foray into the world of theatrical animation. As with many of Rogen's outings, this one falls short in a number of areas.
But, as always, I like to begin with the positive, and this movie did have a couple. For one, the antagonist in the movie is always making an admittedly funny food pun, followed by the appearance of the product he's referring to. This product will then ask why he was calling them, to which he gets progressively frustrated as the movie continues. There's also a pretty good scene where a literal package of meatloaf arrives and sings, "I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)," and there's a nice analogy of the conflict in the Middle East when the Jewish and Islamic foods cannot learn how to share the same aisle.
Other than that, this movie was a travesty from beginning to end. The script is one of the worst I've ever heard. All of the profanity and "adult humor" is forced and contrived beyond belief. The difference between South Park and this is that pretty much all the swearing in South Park comes from immature fourth grade boys who don't know any better. In Sausage Party, it's coming from characters we're supposed to take seriously. Throw in a lot of Rogen's ridiculous jokes in support of getting as high as possible, and you have the makings of a terrible film.
The story is absurd. A sausage having an existential crisis? So...what about the pig, beef, and/or chicken he came from? Did they have existential crises before him? What about the packaged foods? Also, how the heck did Firewater and the rest of the non-perishables manage to get their story of "The Great Beyond" to every item in the store? Do they tell it to the new items when they come in on the supply truck? The entire thing leaves you with more questions than answers.
I won't be watching this ever again. It's stupid at its best and diabolically asinine at its worst. Sure, there's a semi-clever food pun every now and again, but when your dialogue is 95% curse words, weed jokes, and sex puns, then you've gone terribly wrong somewhere. So yes, this is a Seth Rogen film...and it's made me realize that the greatest character he's ever played was that little mantis in Kung Fu Panda.
Spies in Disguise (2019)
Solid Film, Ridiculous Message
There is evil in our world. That's a basic, yet sad, fact of life. This movie attempts to circumvent that truth by claiming that, "there are no good or bad guys, only people." That, in itself, makes this movie a bit more derisive than it should be. Oh, yes, Will Smith is fantastic as Lance Sterling, and Tom Holland portrays the awkward nerd Walter in a terrific manner. It reminded me a whole lot of his role as Spider-Man in Far From Home.
There are a lot of hilarious moments in this film. For instance, the entire scene in Mexico where Lance, as a pigeon, meets up with other pigeons who then attempt to initiate him into their group is a complete and utter riot. It's uproarious, to say the least. I also enjoyed how they did not create voices for the other birds, but rather, created characters that could be portrayed with subtle movements and simple cooing. You can tell that one of them is insane, one is dumber than a box of rocks, and the third is supposed to be some kind of attractive female pigeon.
The movie also touches on a lot of spying tropes and turns them inside out in order to create an atmosphere where a pigeon could engage in espionage. It also takes the time to focus on the bird's weak points and how that would be a hindrance to the task at hand. For instance, when Lance tries to take down a Japanese arms dealer, he fails miserably because his wings aren't as strong as his arms and hands used to be. It's an intensely clever premise, and the movie delivers a lot of action among the comedy.
The problem, again, is the message, which is horrendously stupid. The idea that just speaking with an internationally known thief and battling him with cute images of puppy dogs and kitty cats is asinine on the greatest of levels. While I appreciate the movie's efforts to advocate for humans to tone down the violence and be nicer to each other, there are times when you have to, as the movie itself puts it, "fight fire with fire."
So, overall, this was a very well written, well animated feature. Blue Sky never scrimps on animation, and it definitely shows here. The overarching problem with the movie is its ridiculous message that there are no evil people in the world, just misunderstood individuals.
The Lion King (2019)
Disappointing, Insanely Disappointing
If I have ever left a movie auditorium with the movie I just viewed being a conduit to my total and utter disappointment, this was it. While it wasn't the worst film I've ever seen, it was so far off of everything the original had to offer that it definitely qualifies as one of the biggest letdowns I've ever viewed. While I didn't feel completely insulted by the film, as a lot of other diehard fans of the original have been, I did feel like I had been betrayed by it, in a big way.
I always like to start off with the bright spots in a film, and yes, this movie did have a few. First, the technology used to create such realistic looking animals is completely mind blowing. We'll get to how that hampered the film in a bit, but just the fact that they were able to create such reality within the confines of a mainframe is rather impressive.
Secondly, John Oliver's performance as Zazu is dynamite. He's probably the only actor in the movie who actually cared about what they were saying. He took the script and ran with it, and it truly shows in the character. He sounds like a classic British humorist speaking from the body of this tiny bird, and he did a lot of what Will Smith did as the Genie in Aladdin. He paid a ton of homage to Rowan Atkinson's brilliant performance from the original, but he made Zazu his own character.
A third bright spot was the score. It was brilliant, but then again, it's Hans Zimmer, one of the greatest film composers of our time. Yes, a lot of it is rehashed from the first film, but when you're dealing with one of the greatest film scores of all time, you don't need to tweak it a whole lot. Adding a dash of this here or a pinch of that there is sometimes all you need, and this is a prime example of that. It's not overdone so that it's unrecognizable, but it's tweaked enough so that you're into it throughout the film.
But aside from those three spots, this film left me feeling so utterly disappointed. There's a lot to cover in the negative area, so let's begin with the characters themselves. If there is one word I could use to describe all of the characters in the movie, with maybe the exception of Zazu and Pumbaa, it would be dead. Completely and utterly dead. You want to have a funeral for these characters, that's how incredibly lifeless they are. They move realistically and they have incredibly detailed features, but emotionally, they're just nonexistent.
Now, I went into this movie knowing that they wouldn't have the same amount of emotion as in the original. After all, these are supposed to be real animals and real animals don't smile or frown or do anything like humans do. In the original, they could play with emotions because they were dealing with hand drawn animation. Here, it was impossible because of the sheer amount of realism. So, for me, complaining about the lack of emotion in a movie like this is a bit unfair, but when you witness the complete lack of effort put in by the majority of the cast, you realize why everyone is upset about it.
But the biggest disappointment for me when it comes to character was Scar. Chiwetel Ejiofor gives no effort to be threatening or menacing or anything even remotely regarding the level of villainy that Jeremy Irons was able to put forth in the original film. The original Scar was so universally despised as a character, that it made his comeuppance that much more satisfying when it did happen. This Scar just feels very lackluster in comparison to the brilliance of the original.
I said earlier that the score to the movie was fantastic, and it was. Most of the songs were very serviceable as well. But there were two that were slaughtered in an attempt to recreate them. One was "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and the other was "Be Prepared." The original version of Can You Feel the Love Tonight was beautifully composed and gorgeously animated. Simba and Nala's love, while a quick one, pours off the screen and you're able to, quite literally, feel the love tonight. In this one, not only was it shot at the wrong time of day, but Beyonce, as she so often does with anything she's in, completely ruins it by taking the female vocals and turning it into something you'd hear on Top 40 Radio. This isn't hit radio in New York, this is The Lion King! Make an effort! Do something!
Be Prepared suffered from a complete lack of singing. It almost felt like Scar was giving a political speech as opposed to singing his threats. Again, Ejiofor's complete lack of investment in his performance completely hurts the song, and the decision to take one of the greatest Disney villain songs of all time and transform it into something so quiet and powerless is mind boggling. This is one of the spots where the movie borders on insulting fans of the original. It's really, really degrading, which is sad because Be Prepared is such a landmark of The Lion King.
But the biggest slap in the face to the original fans was the part where Simba shakes his mane and one random tuft of fur, which could've come from any of the huge number of lions that call Africa home, somehow finds its way to Rafiki (who, by the way, has been turned from a guiding light kind of character into a stupid babbling nonsense spewing idiot), and the monkey somehow gets the memo that Simba is alive because of it. What's worse, part of it was of the tuft being rolled around in a bunch of giraffe poop by a dung beetle. I'm going to repeat that, because it bears repeating: they put giraffe poop in the remake of The Lion King! I'm gonna end the review there before I get any more disappointed and disgusted with this film.
So it is with a heavy heart that I give this such a low rating. I expected so much out of a remake of one of the greatest animated films ever created, and what I got was emotionless performances, bland characters, Beyonce being terrible (so, in other words, being herself), and giraffe poop. Thanks, Disney. I won't be seeing this again.
Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)
Better than Endgame By Far
I'm not going to hold anyone in suspense. I'm going to cut right to the chase and make a declaration that, I'm sure, will upset a lot of Marvel fans everywhere: this was better than Endgame. This ranks right up there with The Dark Knight as one of the best superhero films I've ever witnessed. It had everything in the superhero formula wrapped up in one neat little package, and then it exploded and did a lot of creative stuff with its characters to make it stand out. It had the right amount of action mixed with the right amount of character development.
First, the action in the film was superb. It was a thousand times more entertaining than Endgame was. The action here was well paced and it made you feel like you were watching a superhero movie, not a cut and dry soap opera drama. The special effects in this film were top notch, and I'm a bit of a sucker for a good, old fashioned film where stuff blows up. It's entertaining, some might say a bit mindless, but overall, it works. Where it doesn't work is when you have a movie that has a ton of explosions and action, but no creative characters or interesting story to back it up.
Thankfully, Far From Home has all of that and a whole lot more. Peter Parker is classic in this movie. He's still the same shy, awkward teenage superhero we've come to know and admire. But they've added another level to his character in the aftermath of Endgame's conclusion. Since Tony Stark died, Peter's been asking himself the question, "am I the next Iron Man?" That question alone makes Peter's character even more interesting to watch, as he not only has to wrestle with high school and being "your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man," but he now has to balance all of that with potentially being the biggest superhero on the planet. He's been taken out of the neighborhood, and put into society as a whole, and that's an incredibly interesting new tenet to the character.
The side characters are not to be outdone in this movie. Ned and Betty's silly relationship that only lasts for the entirety of their vacation is hilarious to watch unfold, and the fact that they consider this a "journey" that they've both been on speaks to the shallow nature of high school romance. Flash's complete ignorance to the fact that he's constantly insulting the one hero he loves and admires above everything else is a delight, and the two bumbling teachers on the trip are hilarious without being insulting to anyone's intelligence.
Then there is my least favorite character in the film. His name is Brad, and he's a generic pretty boy popular high school teen whom every girl in the galaxy wants to be with. He's basically a cardboard cutout of characters in every teen movie that's ever been made. From Fast Times at Ridgemont High to American Pie to Twilight to The Fault in Our Stars, the same Brad has laced his way throughout the teenage movie universe. In Far From Home, his character is incredibly bland and they do nothing with it, except have him become a part of a rather hilarious misunderstanding. But even there, he's carried by the other characters and how great they are.
At first, I thought Mary Jane was going to be my least favorite character. She's turned into this hipster goth character who loves things that are either "depressing" or "hilarious." For the first half of the film, I didn't like her. She was way too brooding for a movie whose tone wasn't exactly Batman levels of dark. If she had been in one of The Caped Crusader's films, then I could've seen the character working better. But until she comes to terms with her feelings for Peter midway through the film, she's really just taking up space. For a character that's synonymous with Spider-Man, that's really disappointing. Then, in the second half of the film, she comes to life. She begins being that interesting character we've all come to know and, if there's a third film, I hope they explore that a little bit more.
Then there was the story, which was incredibly solid. It wasn't the most original story I've ever seen put to film, and I think we've all seen the "incredible secondary heroic protagonist turns into amazing antagonist" thing before, but it was so well written and well done that it felt refreshing. I went from laughing to wide eyed excitement to caring about a character in the time it takes the average person to snap their fingers. It keeps you involved, and for a movie with an over two-hour runtime, that's saying something.
It also keeps its science to a limit, which is something I love. There wasn't too much of it, but just enough to tantalize the imagination. Instead, it focused more on the characters themselves and building this incredibly immersive environment where you're thrown around like a rag doll during the action scenes, but you're allowed to slow down and appreciate the film when it's appropriate to do so.
Overall, this was an action film for the ages. I rank it up there with The Dark Knight and the last three Mission Impossible films as the greatest action films I've ever seen. It was funny, creative, well paced, well written, and it did a lot of justice to the Spider-Man character. I highly recommend it, and I cannot wait to see where the new Spider-Man series goes from here.
Toy Story 4 (2019)
How do you top perfection? Like this!
Toy Story is one of those animated franchises that you remember watching as a kid, and then growing up with. If you were anything like me, Sid and his creepy toy creations scared you and your parents didn't allow you to watch it again until you were older, or in other words, eight instead of five. But getting to grow up with this franchise has been a sheer delight. The first movie was brilliant, and the series has never stopped topping itself. The second movie was incredibly well written, and has stood the test of time as being one of those rare occasions when a sequel stands up to the original movie. The third one is a work of perfection, with no flaws whatsoever.
But if the third one was perfection, then how, as a studio, do you have the guts to take a movie that had everything, including the perfect ending, and attempt to better it? After all, by definition, perfection is, well, perfect! But somehow, someway, Pixar have managed to do the impossible. They have topped Toy Story 3.
This movie had all the hallmarks of not only a timeless Pixar film, but a timeless animated film in general. It had amazing animation, with some incredibly intricate work hidden amidst the vastness of scenes like the carnival and the antique store. The store itself was an animated set piece to marvel at, with all of the different antiques having their own unique place in the film. It felt like careful thought was put into that, and animating the backgrounds is just as important as the foregrounds.
I was also impressed with the way they animated Bonnie's first day of kindergarten. To the average adult, a kindergarten classroom is simply that: a classroom. It's nothing to be frightened of, or set in a place of complete domination in your psyche. But for Bonnie, and for most kids that age, it is an incredibly scary environment. In another instance of incredible attention to detail, Pixar oriented the cameras to capture everything from Bonnie's point of view. You feel the absolute horror she's feeling as she heads into elementary school for the first time. The room is gigantic, and it feels endless. The kids are all loud and new and different, and that can be very off putting to a kid at that age. You can read Bonnie's emotions, and she doesn't have to go into a cliche tantrum out of fright. When she sits down and another kid comes over and steals her art supplies, it's like she's lost her best friend. But then she creates Forky, and the rest is Toy Story history.
The level of emotion shown in this movie is magnificent. At the end, when Woody says "farewell" forever to the gang we've come to know and love, you can see the pain each character is feeling. Yet, through this pain, there are major glimmers of happiness. Woody has found another purpose in life: bringing toys and kids together! That's something that's really cool. They don't just fling Woody aside and let the other toys walk all over him in his relative "old age." They almost retire him, and let him go on new adventures with Bo Peep and her friends.
I've gotta give major props to Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, who give majorly hilarious performances in this movie as Ducky and Bunny. These are plush animals who, on the one hand, seem to be having some kind of existential crisis about "what they look like on the inside," but on the other, are two toys who just want a kid to make happy. These two steal the show every moment they're on screen, and Keegan and Jordan's vocal effects are just as funny as their written dialogue.
I also love how the movie doesn't have cut and dry heroes or villains. After the disappointment that was Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, the use of Gabby Gabby here felt completely refreshing. Having her become a reformed antagonist towards the end of the picture, while keeping Woody a very flawed character, was a brilliant idea, and their chemistry on screen is amazing.
The reintroduction of Bo Peep is also amazing. I thought they were gonna ride the feminism hype train and have her be a masculine female character, but they didn't. They made her independent and brave, without making her lose any of the things that make her who she is, and that was also brilliant. Watching her rekindle her soft romance with Woody was a delight, and the two work very well together.
On the tiniest of downsides, the movie does take a little bit to get going. But once it does, it's such an enjoyable ride. You don't want it to end. I thought Toy Story 3 had the perfect ending, but that was just Woody saying goodbye to Andy. Watching him say goodbye to the other toys may be even more heart wrenching. The perfect ending line to the perfect way to end a near perfect franchise is said between Woody and Buzz: "To infinity, and beyond." That's a perfect way to describe this film, and in this reviewer's opinion, it's the best in the entire franchise.
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
This was really bad
This is a movie where one term could be used to describe it, and that term is "tedium." I've always had a begrudging attitude towards Avengers movies because, as with a lot of entries in the MCU, it's a lot of scientific nonsense with the action thrown in as an afterthought in order to justify its existence as a superhero movie. But I thought I would give Endgame a fair chance. After all, having all those superheroes on one screen should be fun, action packed, and entertaining, right? Wrong.
I cannot express how terrible this film was. The two redeemable parts were Tony Stark's daughter and Ant-Man. They were the only entertaining parts of the film. I pay money to see movies that are entertaining, not ones that are so full of characters that you get lost.
There are a lot of reasons that I hated this movie, but I'm going to focus on two in particular here: the story and the action, or rather, the lack of action. First, the story. This entire film was built around a needlessly complicated plot surrounding time travel, even though the time travel was completely pointless in the first place. Bruce Banner says, point blank, that traveling back into the past won't change the future. So, why do you do it, then? Why on Earth would you commit to such an exercise in complete futility? I'll tell you why, because you need more science fodder for all the Marvel super fans, so that they can leave the theater and point at someone who looks confused and feel superior.
Everything was poorly written in this movie. When your forced obscenities are being spouted from the mouths of the people you're supposed to cheer for, while your villain speaks in Shakespearean soliloquies, then you've clearly gone completely wrong with your script. Also, the part where Stark's daughter swears and we were supposed to find it cute? Yeah, I didn't. I found it grossly inappropriate and wrong to show a 4 or 5 year old child in such a manner. It wasn't innocent and sweet, it was rather demented. Meanwhile, Thanos speaks in these long, grandiloquent speeches that never seem to have an end. It was all just one big pile of dreck.
Thanos was another problem I had with this film. His motivations were never properly spelled out. They tried, but they failed rather miserably. It seemed like he just wanted to destroy the world because it was ripe for the taking, I guess? I don't know. He was weird as well, because he said he was going to build another universe, but he seemed to have a nihilistic outlook on everything, so that would mean his other universe would be completely pointless. Anyway, it was really terrible.
But this movie's main sin was its lack of action through the first two-thirds, and the fact that it hardly showed the Avengers doing anything heroic. They never stopped a bank robbery, they never helped an assault victim, all they did was do their pointless time travel stuff to attempt to stop Thanos, even though Bruce said it would be completely futile to do so. The movie couldn't get out of its own way and it suffered because of it.
Then the last third was all action and it blew my mind, but not in a good way. I left the theater with a physical headache due to the poor pacing and cinematography on the final battle sequences. They were overly long, started and stopped way too many times, and attempted to tie up every loose end from the entire MCU in one big bang. It was just terrible! You have to allow things to flow, and this movie didn't flow at all.
A movie that was boring, poorly paced, poorly written, and just a terrible excuse for film definitely deserves a spot on my worst of 2019 list. Hopefully, Toy Story 4 makes up for it!