Pokémon Is a Mystery (Pokémon Detective Pikachu, 2019)

I will be honest…I went into this film knowing very little. Pokémon rose to prominence at a time where it passed me right by. So, I sat in the theater basically knowing that Pokémon are super powered animal things that people catch or somethings.

Thankfully, Pokémon Detective Pikachu gives you just enough information to make it easy enough to follow.

Justice Smith is Tim Goodman…a young man who once aspired to be a Pokémon Trainer, but after his mother dies and his relationship with his father fell apart, he never even took on a Pokémon partner.

After he is informed his father is dead, he finds his father’s Pikachu, who has amnesia, but is certain that Tim’s dad is alive. Unexpectedly, Tim is able to speak with Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds). Reluctantly, the two try and determine what has happened to Tim’s dad.

This brings them into contact with Lucy, an aspiring reporter who is certain she is onto a dark secret involving Pokémon.

After the debacle involving Sonic the Hedgehog, it is interesting to see how successfully the filmmakers adapted the aesthetic of the cartoon designs to a live action setting. The various Pokémon simultaneously are cartoonish, but feel very plausible in the world we are watching.

The humor is well played throughout the film, embracing the absurdity of it’s premise. And there is a really good chemistry between Smith and Reynolds, they play off each other really well.

All in all, as someone that had no attachment to the Pokémon franchise, I had a lot of fun watching Pokémon Detective Pikachu. It was goofy fun, And the reviews from my two nephews (six and eight) was that they loved it.

May 23, 2019 0

Oh Oh It’s Magic! PT7 um PT 1 (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, 2010)

Finding the world becoming more and more dangerous, Harry and his friends leave behind the muggle world. We see them saying their goodbyes, or in the case of Hermione, tragically causing her non-magical parents to forget she even exists. Several members of the Order of the Phoenix arrive at the now empty Dursley residence for Harry. To protect him, several of the members take the polyjuice potion to assume the likeness of Harry, creating multiple Harrys.

There is an attack by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, but with one exception, all arrive safely at the Weasleys. There is a wedding for oldest Weasley Percy and Fleur. The head of the Ministry of Magic arrives to deliver Dumbledore’s last will and testament. He leaves a gift for Harry, one for Hermione and one for Ron. Harry receives the Golden Snitch he caught in the first film. Ron receives Dumbledore’s De-lluminator (last seen in the first film)and Hermione is given a storybook.

At the wedding, there is an announcement from the Ministry that it has fallen into the hands of Voldemort. Harry, Hermione, and Ron flee together. Rather than return to Hogwarts, the three dedicate themselves to tracking down and destroying the remaining Horacruxes. As the Half-Blood Prince explained, these are objects in which a wizard has put a portion of their soul. This involves murder, making it an especially heinous form of magic. Only by destroying these objects can Voldemort be truly vulnerable.

The Deathly Hallows kicked off a trend in movies adapted from book series. When it was announced that they were going to split the film into two parts, some felt it was merely a cash grab. And while I won’t disagree that there was surely an element of that from the studio, I also feel it would have seriously hampered the series to try and force the story into a single film.

There are some notable moments, for instance, there is a terrific animated sequence that tells the story of the “Deathly Hallows”. Radcliff and Watson are really quite good in this film. And yet, Part one struggles a bit as an independent film. It is rather slow at points, focusing on the bleak and hopeless tone. It is, at times, incredibly oppressive. And while it ends with a somewhat exciting escape, it still is kind of hard to enjoy the film on its own. But more on this in Part 2.

November 21, 2017 0

Culture Wrath (Wrath of the Titans, 2012)

Wrath of the Titans tries to rectify the one thing missing from Clash of the Titans. Titans. In the original Clash, the Kraken was a Titan, but in the 2010 film, this was a bit clear. Wrath opens with the story of how Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades defeated their father Kronos and imprisoned him in the underworld. It also reminds us that Zeus and Poseidon had conned Hades by binding him to the Underworld.

Perseus and Io were living the quiet life in a fishermans’ village. Io bore them a son, Helius and then died before the movie started. Gemma Arterton was unable to return to the film and so she was killed off. This would seem at least understandable until you find that they recast Andromeda with the blonde Rosamund Pike. But anyways, Helius desires to be a warrior, a life which Perseus is aggressively trying to keep him from.

Zeus reveals that he visits Helius in the boy’s dreams, but wishes Perseus would be more open to accepting their status as demigods. Meanwhile, Hades and Ares are conspiring against the other gods, tempted by Kronos. They get the jump on Poseidon and Zeus, stealing Zeus’ lightning bolt. Poseidon is mortally wounded, but escapes and passes his trident to Perseus. He tells Perseus to find his son, the demigod Agenor. He finds Andromeda, who is now a warrior Queen leading her army. They are aware things are afoot, as monsters have started to burst forth from the ground. They also have Agenor (who is basically the Greek god equivalent of Russell Brand) as a prisoner.

The three take some warriors with them to go on a mission to rescue Zeus and stop Hades from freeing Kronos. To do this, they travel to find Hephaestus for a way into the underworld. After a fight with Hades, Perseus, Andromeda, and Agenor escape into the ever-shifting labyrinth that will lead to the Underworld.

This film muddles it’s the previous stand against the gods, with Perseus having appeared to soften his feelings towards them. The film is full of nods to Greek myths, such as the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, chimera and so on. It also has easter eggs like the mechanical owl Bubo in a cameo (which occurred in the 2010 film as well) who is quickly laughed off. But everything feels so randomly chosen and leaves out some great character concepts from the original myths. And if the gods were largely missing in the original film, this one makes it all the worse by having the majority of the gods killed off-screen.

In fact, the film seems dedicated to destroying any further franchise potential by basically erasing the gods from existence. I would say this film is not a worthy successor to the 2010 Clash of the Titans, but then, that film was not impressive either.

The truth is, I wanted both of these films to be great, but they are so largely cynical of their source material, they lack the joy a good fantasy film can contain. They are all about the big effects, leaving little room for actual character. Sure, they try for heft in the notion of Hades and Zeus mending their relationship. And then there is Perseus finding love with Andromeda. Yet, these plotlines feel forced and a bit hollow.

November 8, 2017 0

Yo Ho Ho, It is OVER! (Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, 2007)

Holy. Crap. THIS. MOVIE. IS. SO. LONG.

Like, super long. It is ten minutes shy of three hours.

Anyhoo, picking up where the last film left off, the Kraken ate Jack Sparrow and now Elizabeth Swann, Will Turner and Barbossa are trying to rally the troops to find and return Jack from Davey Jone’s locker so they can stop Davey Jones.

And this ends up taking over an hour. We see Sparrow in the afterlife and boy is he bored. And frankly? So was I. This sequence is just excruciatingly long. There are so many subplots, it just gets tiring and uninspired. I found myself constantly wondering about how much longer we had to go.

The films seem to want to position Jack as some magical key to the universe, rather than some lucky idiot. But really, the whole lunatic rockstar thing is wearing thin at this point. If you cut about an hour of the film or a little more, this might be a lean and fun adventure. Instead it makes the the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King look sleek.

Filmed back to back with Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End tries be a massive epic, but it really only accomplishes feeling ridiculously bloated.

The visuals are quite good, as are the action scenes. But the road the story takes is so meandering as it is hard to not get bored through great portions of this film.

November 3, 2017 0

Yo Ho Ho! Let’s Go For Another Ride! (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, 2006)

“Abandon Ship, or Abandon Hope”, declares Kevin McNally’s Gibbs. Disney was full of hope they had a franchise after the hit of Curse of the Black Pearl. To make sure they could recapture the magic, they kept on the director, writing team and…of course… Johnny Depp and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Will and Elizabeth are engaged, Norrington has left the British Navy and now a bigger threat has arrived. A man who seeks to destroy the Pirate Scourge. His first act is to arrest both Will and Elizabeth, though this is a trap to try and force their hand in locating Jack Sparrow. Who they want because they believe he holds the key to a bigger weapon against all pirates.

Jack Sparrow is finding himself trying to avoid a debt to Davey Jones (who gave him the Black Pearl to captain for thirteen years, even if Barbossa took over a mere two years into the deal). He must serve 100 years upon Jone’s ship the flying Dutchman which ferries those who die at sea to the afterlife. Bootstrap Bill (Will Turner’s Father) comes to warn Sparrow that his time is up. But when Davey Jones sends his leviathan beast after Jack, they decide to beach the ship and hide on an island.

Will Turner is searching everywhere for Jack, but the best people seem to be able to do is say where they heard he was headed. He discovers the shipwrecked boat on a remote island and encounters Jack and the Black Pearl crew. They meet with witch Tia who tells them of a way to defeat Davey Jones, the cursed captain of the Flying Dutchman. Setting out to find the heart of Davey Jones, the crew re-unites, including Elizabeth Swann and the disgraced Norrington.

While Will and Elizabeth are played up to be the thread for the series, Jack Sparrow was the standout character for audiences in the first film, so the writers make sure we got a lot more Jack. Elizabeth is gone from the film for a good forty-five minutes, stuck in a prison cell. She is relegated to the prize that drives Will, which is rather unfortunate. Once she joins back up with the crew, she becomes much more active.

The visual design of the film is terrific. As with the Curse of the Black Pearl, we have cursed pirates, but this time they are more elaborate. Jones and his crew are connected to the sea so intensely, that they are blended with sea creatures. Jones’ head is an octopus, with his tentacles serving as a beard. Bill Nighy is terrific in the role, giving a darkly comic performance.

The film actually brings back almost the entire surviving cast, and everyone seems rather comfortable in their skins. The film has a lot of fun action sequences and of course many, many narrow escapes. But the extra focus on Jack also starts to run the risk of making the character more annoying than amusing. The film also is starting to try and set up an “epic” tale thing for Will, Elizabeth and really Jack. One character even notes that Will has the air of “destiny” about him.

This film is a lot of fun for the most part, and I would say it comes out pretty favorably in relationship to the first film.

November 2, 2017 0