Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony 7/10

October 14, 2020October 2, 2021 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

TV-14, 90m, 2012

Directed by Laurent Malaquais. Produced by Anglie Brown, Morgan Peterson, Michael Brockhoff, Tara Strong, Lauren Faust and John de Lancie. Screenplay by Nat Segaloff. Music by David O., The Living Tombstone and Gabriel Brown.

I was born in the mid-nineties, in the southern part of the United States. As a result, I’ve always had certain beliefs thrust onto me. One of these beliefs was that the show My Little Pony is for girls. As a kid, I never watched any of the previous three generations of My Little Pony, but I certainly knew girls who at some point or another loved the show. So, when the fourth generation of My Little Pony, or as it’s more commonly known as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, was released the show flew completely under my radar. When I was in high school, and as I was just begining to get into fandoms such as the anime fandom, I heard of another fandom that confused me. The fandom was for the show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, and a large number of the fans were guys. They called themselves bronies, or in some cases, a girl would refer to herself as a pegasister, and at first, I wasn’t sure what to think of it. I eventually decided to think to each their own and go about my business. I quite possibly would have never watched the show if it hadn’t had been for my then girlfriend at the time. Like me, she was a massive animation and anime fan and we used to have long talks about our favorite animated shows and movies. One show she kept insisting I watch was My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but I still had my doubts about how good this show could possibly be. One day we were hanging out at her place, while her brother was there. She was flipping through the channels, and she put on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, I jokingly replied “really?” to which she replied that it was one of her favorite shows and even her brother liked it. So, I relented and watched it with them, and I found myself enjoying the show. We watched a few episodes before I had to leave to go to a college class. Fast forward a few years, to when I was a Junior in college. I had not watched a single episode of the show since that day. I was bored and trying to familiarize myself with as many aspects of animation history as I possible could, because at the time I had aspirations of becoming an Animation Historian. Remembering the show, I justified watching it so I can learn what the fuss was truly all about and so I can have some insight in the show if I was to ever talk about the sociology of animation fandoms. Once again, I found myself enjoying the show, only this time I didn’t stop at one or two episodes. I watched all of the available seasons and I continued to watch the show until its completion in 2019. Admittedly I kept the information of me being a brony, a secret from most people, as I knew the social stigma. Naturally, my friends teased me a bit on occasion, but I didn’t care. I like what I like and that’s alright.

The documentary is split into several sections, primarily featuring the mid-2012 BronyCon, GalaCon, and B.U.C.K. conventions. The documentary introduces various segments that include original animation that offers a brief history of the previous My Little Pony generations, as well as key terms and artistic contributions that bronies have made to the fandom. Other segments feature interviews from the cast and crew of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, as well as interviews from bronies from all walks of life that explores how they got into the show and how it has had an impact on their lives.

The documentary is certainly aware of the social stigma surrounding the brony fandom and it goes to great lengths to break the stereotype of the show being just for girls. The documentary features fans from various parts of the world, and they talk about how they go into the show as well as their experiences as a brony. At the beginning of the documentary several interviews of people who had never seen the show are shown and words such as creepy, flamboyant, pedo and weird are thrown around. It’s a fate of cruel irony that fans of a show, whose driving message is that of tolerance and friendship, receive a tremendous backlash with such venomous tenacity. It’s true that there are a few bad apples amongst the fandom, but to be fair every group or organization has a certain group of people that give the group a bad name, and the normal people of said group hate to be associated with the deviant group. This documentary never explicitly mentions such deviant people, but the feelings of negativity towards bronies are featured at times. In the documentary Alex, who resides in North Carolina was harassed one night, because on his car had Princess Celestia and Princess Luna on his rear windshield. The hoodlums encircled the guy and brandished tire irons and baseball bats and proceeded to bash in his rear windshield. One guy went to his truck and came back with a rifle, that he waved around while telling Alex that he needs to “stop this little gay pony girly shit”. Fortunately, no harm came to Alex that night, but it did understandingly shake him up. I know that there will always be people who look down on people who have hobbies or interests that while harmless, are a deviation from the norm, and I actually pity these types of people a little bit. These people will miss out on some truly wonderful content as their close mindedness will prevent them from experiencing something great. I know plenty of people who view animation as a children’s medium, and as a result, I know they’re going to miss out on some of the best creative content that television and movies have to offer.

While this documentary does feature some of the down sides of being a brony, the documentary also covers some of the more joyous and positive effects of the show. Through his watching the show and attending cons, Daniel, a man with the mental affliction of Asperger’s Syndrome, was able to truly come out of his shell and accomplish things that were previously thought to be impossible for him. He was able to do this by relating to certain characters, and by watching them deal with difficult situations, he was able to overcome obstacles in his own life. Multiple people featured in the documentary go into great detail about how much of a positive effect that the show has had in their life. I get this on an umber of levels. While there are certainly darker elements to the show, whenever I watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic I always get a happy feeling and I get more relaxed. The show especially helps me wind down if I’d been having a challenging day, or if I just need a bit more cheerfulness in my life. I find it rather beautiful that a show that tries to promote friendship has created friendships in the real world.

Rewatching this documentary brought back some pleasant memories from the show, and I was left with a tingling sense of nostalgia, which I thought was a bit odd as it hadn’t been that long since I saw the show. This documentary is near perfect for fans and non-fans of the show. Fans will get to see people who enjoy the show take their love for the series and create some impressive content and in one case even find love through a fan meet-up. I highly recommend this documentary for those who are curious about the brony phenomenon, and I feel that this documentary as well as Saberspark’s The Brony Chronicles, perfectly encapsulates what people enjoy about the show.

Corpse Bride 7.5/10

October 10, 2020October 10, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

PG, 77m, 2005

With the Voice Talents of Johnny Depp (Victor), Helena Bonham Carter (Emily), Emily Watson (Victoria), Tracey Ullman (Nell Van Dort and Hildegarde), Paul Whitehouse (William Van Dort, Mayhew and Paul the Head Waiter), Richard E. Grant (Barkis Bittern), Joanna Lumley (Maudeline Everglot), Albert Finney (Finis Everglot and Grandfather Everglot), Christopher Lee (Pastor Galswells), Enn Reitel (Maggot and the Town Crier) and Michael Gough (Elder Gutknecht). Directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. Produced by Tim Burton and Allison Abbate. Screenplay by John August, Caroline Thompson and Pamela Pettler. Music by Danny Elfman.

Corpse Bride marks the first stop-motion animated directed by Tim Burton. Many may find this confusing as The Nightmare Before Christmas is often called Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. While The Nightmare Before Christmas may sport his name, the film was actually directed by Henry Selick, who would go on to direct James and the Giant Peach and Monkeybone. This raises the question; can Tim Burton direct a stop-motion animated film without the help of Henry Selick? In this reviewer’s opinion, the answer is yes.

The film opens with two families, the Van Dorts (Paul Whitehouse and Tracey Ullman) and the Everglots (Joanna Lumley and Albert Finney), singing about the upcoming marriage of their children. The families have similar reasons for the marriage but view the union with opposing views. The Van Dorts view the marriage as a way for their son Victor (Johnny Depp), as well as themselves, to climb the social ladder and join the high society of Victorian England. The Everglots on the other hand, view the marriage with disgust, and see it as an embarrassment that they have to marry their daughter Victoria (Emily Watson) off to a newly wealthy family to avoid being poor. Fortunately for the bride and groom to be, the two hit it off quite nicely, and it seems that they may actually be able to live happily with one another. Unfortunately, Victor’s nervousness causes the rehearsal ceremony to go awry, by fumbling over his wedding vows and accidentally lighting Mrs. Everglot’s dress on fire. Disgraced, Victor rushes off to practice his lines alone. While practicing his vows, Victor places a ring on a seemingly dead branch. The dead branch is revealed to belong to the Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), who is a bride that was tragically killed just prior to getting married. Emily takes Victor to the Land of the Dead, while Victoria’s parents contemplate the notion of having Victoria marry the charming Lord Barkis (Richard E. Grant). Meanwhile in the Land of the Dead, Victor has begun to develop feelings for Emily, but a catch is revealed. Two people are married, until deaths does them part, and in the case of Emily and Victor, death has already done just that. Now Victor must choose between a life with Victoria or an undead life with Emily.

While a number of Burton’s films may be lacking in the story and character department, the costume and set design are almost always the highlight of his films. I was a bit disappointed with the artistic design of Corpse Bride. While I did find it a brilliant choice to feature the Land of the Living set in Victorian England in a drab matter, with the color palette consisting of grays and muted colors. I found the Land of the Dead to be a bit underwhelming. Sure, the Land of the Dead does have its moments, and it does look visually pleasing with bright vivid colors and interesting character designs. But the design of the Land of the Dead doesn’t look as interesting as the Netherworld from the Beetlejuice. I like how in Beetlejuice the dead characters had a very distinct look, that hinted at how they died. In Corpse Bride, the dead don’t look all that impressive, with many of the characters designed as skeletons. Granted the film does have some interesting characters in the Land of the Dead such as Paul the Head Waiter (Paul Whitehouse), who is literally a severed head atop of an insect. This is an interesting idea as well as a comical gag and I wish that more characters had been designed with as much creativity.

As a medium, stop-motion animation is one of the most difficult and tedious to pull off. For every one second that passes in a stop-motion animated film, twenty-four frames are needed to make it look believable. Corpse Bride pull this off swimmingly. The character’s movement are very fluid and look very natural unless the scene calls for the movement to appear unnatural.

The characters in this film are a mixed bag. Some of the characters such as the villain, Lord Barkin are bland and forgettable. The villain’s motive is your standard greedy villain. We’ve seen this a million times, and nothing is added to the villain to make him stand out as a character. The parents of Victor and Victoria are equally bland and forgettable as both sets of parents just seek to enrich themselves and rise up in society. While I like the character of Emily, I feel there was a missed opportunity here. The film very wisely avoids portraying Emily a a horrific character that just wants a husband, she’s complex and has her own interests. It’s revealed early on in the film that she was murdered by an unnamed assailant, who was going to marry her. This could have led to some interesting scenes involving Emily coming to terms with what happened to her and having different problems and insecurities other than being dead. Victor is a little bland and comes off as an indecisive wimp throughout most of the film. The side characters such as the black widow spider and Maggot are interesting enough and they give Emily someone to talk to in order to express her inner feelings.

The relationship between Emily and Victor works just as well as the relationship between Victor and Victoria. Victor and Victoria are initially pushed into a relationship by their parents. Both Victor and Victoria have rather timid personalities with certain personality quirks. There’s a very nice scene at the beginning of the film where Victor and Victoria first meet. Victor feeling alone, plays Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata”. This attracts the attention of Victoria who is delighted by Victor’s playing. The two hit it off as both hold certain views that are contrasting to their parents. Despite her parents living in a loveless marriage, Victoria longs for a husband she can live happily with in loving bliss. She finds this in Victor, who treats her kindly and shows her guanine loving attention. With Emily and Victor, their relationship starts with Emily literally dragging Victor to the Land of the Dead. At first Victor is horrified at the prospect of being married to a corpse. Emily is shown to be very patient and caring towards Victor, even going as far as to reunite Victor with his childhood dog, Scraps. This could have easily made Victor seem like a massive jerk for spurning Emily and even lying to her in order to try and reunite with Victoria. As the film progresses, Victor starts to take a shining to Emily and even has a piano duet with her, mirroring the first meeting of Victoria and Victor. Emily even helps Victor to be more self-confident and more assertive, as evident through Victor’s behavior later on in the film. This makes things all the more tragic because the audience knows that Victor is going to end up with one girl, leaving the other without a husband. This wouldn’t be as tragic if either female character had several close friends to help her through getting rejected. Thankfully, the film was able to remedy this problem in a satisfactory, yet tragic way.

Like most of his scores, Danny Elfman once again knocks it out of the park with this film. Released during a time when animated films were recycling pop songs into their soundtracks for no real purpose other than for marketability reasons, Corpse Bride offers audiences a refreshingly dark, yet whimsical original score.

While Corpse Bride lacks the charm of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride still delivers on an interesting premise and stellar animation. Some may find my criticisms of the film to be a bit harsh, but I assure you that I actually like this film. While I don’t consider this film to be the best animated film of 2005, I find it vastly superior to films like Chicken Little, Hoodwinked! and Valiant.

X-Men 7.5/10

August 11, 2020August 12, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

PG-13, 84m, 2000

Starring: Hugh Jackman (Logan/Wolverine), Patrick Stewart (Charles Xavier), Ian McKellen (Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto), Brett Morris (Young Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto), Halle Berry (Ororo Munroe/Storm), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey), James Marsden (Scott Summers/Cyclops), Bruce Davison (Robert Kelly), Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (Mystique), Ray Park (Toad), Tyler Mane (Sabretooth), Anna Paquin (Marie D’Ancanto/Rogue), Shawn Ashmore (Bobby Drake/Iceman), Alexander Burton (Pyro) and Shawn Roberts (Rogue’s Boyfriend). Directed by Bryan Singer. Produced by Lauren Shuler Donner and Ralph Winter. Screenplay by David Hayter. Music by Michael Kamen. Based on X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe was established in 2008 with the release of Iron Man, making films based on comic books was considered a gamble since comic book movies generally only appealed to niche audiences. Sure, comic book films such as Batman and Superman received critical and financial success, but a contributing factor to the success of those films was name recognition. The X-Men weren’t as well known as Batman or Superman were, and this may have contributed to X-Men bombing at the box office. A lot of expectation were riding on this film since Marvel Studios had plans to produce other films based on comic book properties if this film was successful. The result was a surprisingly well-made film that helped give films based on comic books respectability and proved that a comic book movie can have a heart at its core.

The film opens with a narration from Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) explaining the process of evolution through mutations. The film then cuts to Nazi-occupied Poland in 1944 where a young Magneto (Brett Morris) along with countless others are being marched through the gates of Auschwitz. Magneto is then separated from his mother, and from an individual whom I presume is his father. This rightfully drives Magneto into a desperate frenzy to reach his family. A Nazi guard tries to haul Magneto away, but Magneto is so consumed by grief and fear that it takes several more Nazi guards and a bash to the head with the butt of a gun to bring him down. In his frenzied state, Magneto’s mutant powers are awoken, and he uses them to bend the gate leading to an extermination chamber. Years later in the “not too distant future”, a young woman named Marie (Anna Paquin) is making fun plans for the future, while spending time with her boyfriend (Shawn Roberts). A passionate first kiss sends the unfortunate guy into a coma, after her mutant powers that drain the life force out of anyone she comes into physical contact with are awakened. Meanwhile Senator Kelly (Bruce Davison) is trying to pass the Mutant Registration Act- which would force all Mutants to register with the government and let people know who they are and what they can do. This angers an elderly Magneto (Ian McKellen), who believes that a war is brewing between humans and mutants. Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) the leader of the X-Men, as well as an old friend of Magneto, tries in vain to convince Magneto that humanity isn’t entirely evil, and that they deserve a chance. Magneto brushes Charles’ concerns off and warns him not to get in his way. In Northern Alberta, Canada, Marie- now going by Rogue- is on the run when she comes across a cage-fighting Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). After he outs himself as a mutant, she stows away in the back of his trailer. Wolverine discovers her, and instead of turning her away, he allows her to travel with him. Their journey together is interrupted when they are attacked by Sabretooth (Tyler Mane), who knocks out Wolverine. The duo are rescued by Cyclops (James Marsden) and Storm (Halle Berry), who take them to Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. There they meet Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) and Charles Xavier, Xavier informs Wolverine that the person who attacked him is under the tutelage of Magneto. Xavier promises Wolverine that he’ll help him unravel the mystery of his past and find out what Magneto wants from Rogue and himself. Meanwhile, Senator Kelly gets abducted by Mystique (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and Toad (Ray Park), and is turned into a mutant through a machine built by Magneto. Kelly escapes and makes it to the home of the X-Men, where he informs the X-Men of Magneto’s machine. Rogue is captured by Magneto and his minions, while trying to run away due to a misunderstanding at Xavier’s Mansion. Now it’s up to Wolverine and the X-Men to rescue Rogue and stop Magneto from enacting his plan.

The aspect that I enjoy the most about this film is its level of maturity. The film tackles the issue of inequality head-on, even going as far as to show human protests against mutants, some of which are sporting lynched effigies of mutants. This brings to mind real life protests comprised of bigoted individuals who feel threatened when somebody else looks or thinks different than they do. Granted, the film never goes as far as to show a lynching of a poor mutant, I can’t help but feel the film would have if the film had been allowed to take more risks. But the film does touch on the long-term effects of prejudice, and how hate breeds hate. “You know people like you are the reason I was afraid of going to school as a child.” This is most prevalent in the “Brotherhood of Mutants”, who are led by Magneto. Their goal is to make the entire population into mutants, even if it means destroying all the humans in the process. I do feel that the film stumbles a bit with the “Brotherhood of Mutants” since none of the characters- save for Magneto- are properly fleshed out. This could have lent to some truly powerful moments that show the adverse effects of prejudice and bigotry.

The majority of the characters in this film are interesting, but undeveloped. This film introduces exiting characters like Jean Grey, Sabretooth, Storm, Cyclops and Mystique, but the film forgets to give them any real character development and as a result, character motivation is a bit muddled and confusing. The characters that received more development, such as Magneto, Wolverine and Rogue, are the characters that give the film an emotional core. In the opening scene, Magneto is shown in Auschwitz. This lets the audience know that he has seen some of the worst of humanity, and that he has a reason to fear his people being persecuted and getting rounded up, just because they were born a little different. This scene actually reminded me of an excellent line from Magneto in X-Men: The Animated Series: “They (Humans) can’t even make peace with each other”. While the audience may not agree with Magneto’s motives, they understand where he’s coming from and how he came to his beliefs. This, in my opinion, is what makes a truly great villain. It also helps that Magneto is portrayed by Sir Ian McKellen, who gives a particularly powerful and charismatic performance. The relationship between Rogue and Logan provides the film with a powerful emotional core, that was unseen in most superhero films of the day. The two have an almost father/ daughter relationship. Rogue is a scared teen that is wary of getting close to people because she knows, if she touches somebody for too long, she could accidentally kill them. Logan provides that strong father-like figure role that Rogue needs during this uncertain time in her life. Rogue provides a reason for Logan to begin opening up and quit abandoning people when they need his help. Logan was completely prepared to leave the X-Men and let Magneto win. That is, until he found out Rogue was in trouble. He then goes into a protective mode that would rival that of a mother bear defending her cub. This film proved that a comic book movie could be entertaining, have great action scenes and have emotional depth.

While this film isn’t great, it did help lay the tracks toward changing what most considered a niche film genre into a multibillion-dollar juggernaut that would forever change the industry of cinema. The only real problems I have with this movie are that some of the characters are underdeveloped and the film feels like it’s setting itself up for future sequels, which would eventually prove problematic in future installments.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie 8/10

June 1, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

PG, 87m, 2004

With the Voice Talents of Tom Kenny (SpongeBob SquarePants and the Narrator), Bill Fagerbakke (Patrick Star), Clancy Brown (Mr. Krabs), Mr. Lawrence (Plankton), Rodger Bumpass (Squidward Tentacles), Alec Baldwin (Dennis), Scarlett Johansson (Princess Mindy), Jeffrey Tambor (King Neptune), Jill Talley (Karen), David Hasselhoff (Himself), Carolyn Lawrence (Sandy Cheeks), Mageina Tovah (Theater Usher) and Mary Jo Catlett (Mrs. Puff). Directed by Stephen Hillenburg. Produced by Stephen Hillenburg and Julia Pistor. Screenplay by Tim Hill, Derek Drymon, Stephen Hillenburg, Kent Osborne, Aaron Springer and Paul Tibbitt. Music by Gregor Narholz. Based on the characters created by Stephen Hillenburg.

Given the overwhelming success since his 1999 debut, it’s no wonder that SpongeBob got his own movie in 2004. Often times when an animated tv show gets a movie, the end result feels like an extended episode. The film goes into new territory, while still retaining its identity established in the tv show. This film follows the footsteps of other good animated films that were based on a tv show like Rugrats in Paris: The Movie, The Powerpuff Girls Movie and Hey Arnold!: The Jungle Movie by successfully bringing a beloved creative property to the big screen in a clever new way that respects its source material while trying something new.

The film opens with a merry band of pirates finding the greatest treasure, one could ask for in 2004. Tickets to The SpongeBob Movie. They rush to the cinema and settle in their seats, after wreaking havoc in the concession stand, making a big mess for the poor workers to clean up. The curtains parts and we cut to the Krusty Krab, which is the most popular fast-food establishment in Bikini Bottom, where a bunch of police officers and reporters have gathered. A customer had ordered a Krabby Patty with cheese, but when he took a bite, the cheese was nowhere to be found. SpongeBob (Tom Kenny) is called in and successfully applies the missing cheese to the patty. As the crowd hoists SpongeBob in the air to congratulate him, SpongeBob wakes up. He’s especially happy on this particular day because it’s the grand opening of the Krusty Krab 2, and SpongeBob believes that he’s a shoo-in for the position of manager. SpongeBob rushes off to work greeting his neighbors Patrick Star (Bill Fagerbakke) and Squidward Tentacles (Rodger Bumpass), as he passes them. At the grand opening, Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown) appoints Squidward as the new manager, much to SpongeBob’s dismay. Meanwhile, Mr. Krabs’ archenemy Plankton (Mr. Lawrence), is once again trying to find a way to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula, when he comes across the sinister plan z, which is so diabolical its lemon scented. That night Plankton steals King Neptune’s (Jeffrey Tambor) crown, leaving a note that frames Mr. Krabs as the crook. The next day King Neptune and his daughter Mindy (Scarlett Johansson) arrive at the Krusty Krab and King Neptune quickly accuses Mr. Krabs of stealing his crown. Mr. Krabs protests his innocence when Mr. Krabs’ phone goes to voice mail and a mysterious voice claims that Mr. Krabs sold the crown to a guy called Clay (in reality it’s Plankton on the other end). “Clay” then reveals he sold the crown to a guy in Shell City. In exchange for sparing Mr. Krabs’ life, SpongeBob offers to retrieve the crown and King Neptune reluctantly agrees. Mr. Krabs is then frozen and unless SpongeBob and Patrick can return the crown to King Neptune in six days, Mr. Krabs will be executed. While SpongeBob and Patrick are away, Plankton steals the Krabby Patty secret formula and begins to make Krabby Patties at his restaurant, along with a free bucket helmet. When Squidward confronts Plankton, Plankton activates a device that puts all those who wear his bucket helmet under his control. Now it’s up to SpongeBob and Patrick to get the crown, save the town and Mr. Krabs.

This movie is campy and cheesy in all the right ways. In one scene, in order to get back to Bikini Bottom, Patrick and SpongeBob ride on top of David Hasselhoff as he glides across the ocean like a motorboat. In order to bring this scene to life the filmmakers built a 12-foot replica of Hasselhoff, which Hasselhoff, himself was highly impressed of due to how realistic it looked. This is keeping with the spirit of the SpongeBob series which featured several tongue in cheek gags that acknowledge the absurdity of the situation.

Released at a time when hand-drawn animation was dying in the United States, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie looks beautiful. As is the case with animated films based on a tv show, the animation is looks better than it does in the TV series. Granted the animation isn’t anything ground-breaking and it isn’t as good as the animation in films released by Disney or Studio Ghibli, but it doesn’t really need to. The animation is simplistically bright and colorful for the majority of the film unless the plot calls the animation to appear dark and foreboding when the characters venture to a threatening location. I find the simplistic animation reflects the simplistic nature of the film and I have to appreciate that.

Stephen Hillenburg, the creator of SpongeBob, has stated that the show was mainly about not losing one’s childlike sense in life, which does transfer over to the film in a truly wonderful way. SpongeBob spends the entire movie on a life changing journey, after being publicly humiliated by his boss for being a kid. After returning from his journey he realizes that retaining a sense of childlike wonder and attitude isn’t necessarily a bad thing. After all SpongeBob does hold down a job, where he’s a model employee. He owns his own house which means he means he has to pay some kind of mortgage along with bills. Compare this to Squidward who does all the things an adult is supposed to do, but at a cost. While Squidward acts more like a responsible adult than SpongeBob does, there’s a massive difference between the two. Squidward is often shown to be completely miserable. He hates his job, his neighbors and anyone who annoys him (which is pretty much the entire population of Bikini Bottom). SpongeBob on the other hand takes delight in the little things like blowing bubbles and getting into shenanigans with friends. Some parents find SpongeBob to be a negative influence on their children as they think it teaches bad morals and immaturity. These parents completely miss the point of the show which as I stated earlier is about a guy who goes through life with a little but of childlike innocence while still retaining adult responsibilities.

The film’s plot is a zany buddy road trip movie. The plot doesn’t try to be overally complex or convoluted, it knows that this is a SpongeBob movie and it doesn’t try to complicate things by adding unnecessary side plots. If anything, the film feel like a longer episode of the show. Plankton attempting to steal the Krabby Patty secret formula is a running theme throughout the SpongeBob series. The formula is simple, Plankton comes up with an “ingenious” plan to steal the either a Krabby Patty or the Krabby Patty secret formula and sets plan into action. Inevitable the plan is somehow foiled, and Plankton is forced to return to his restraint, the Chum Bucket. Wash, rinse and repeat, and you end up with several hundred episodes. The SpongeBob SquarePants is able to take this concept and extend it to a feature-length runtime.

One problem I had with this film is major characters from the series such as Sandy, Ms. Puff and Squidward are relegated to minor and cameo roles. This problem was fixed in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, but I would have liked to see more of the characters that made the show so memorable in the first place. Another problem I had with the film was a thought there was too many jokes that involved toilet humor. I get that this is a SpongeBob movie, but could they have toned down the toilet jokes? The SpongeBob episode The Band Geeks is one of the funniest episodes of the show, and if memory serves, it doesn’t have any toilet humor in it. I’m not saying I hate this movie because of its humor choices as there were several jokes that made me laugh, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a tad disappointed.

I’ve always found it rather odd that a being that can create high tech gadgets, and is shown to be highly intelligent, has a restaurant that only sells chum. For those of you that don’t know chum is basically fish blood, gut and bones all ground together. This raises the question of where did Plankton obtain the chum? I don’t know, and quite frankly it might be best if I never find out. I do find it odd however, that Plankton has never had one customer at the Chum Bucket. I get other fish not eating there, but the show has established that sharks and predatory fish do inhabit areas close to Bikini Bottom, so it’s not too farfetched to think somebody would have visited his restaurant. I don’t know, maybe Plankton is too caught up in his Napoleon Complex to properly run his business.

This film wisely takes the decision to not take itself too seriously, as the film knows full well what it is. This allows for some gags that range from funny to juvenile potty humor. However, this does not distract from the fact that this film has a story to tell and it tells it rather well. Some people are going to look at this film and just see a dumb bright and colorful film to babysit their kids. In some respects, they’re right, as this film as vividly beautiful animation and it’s certain to keep kids entertained, but I feel quite a few adults can watching this film and enjoy it.

Frank and Ollie 8/10

May 31, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

PG, 89m, 1995

Starring Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston, Jeanette A. Thomas, Marie E. Johnston, John Canemaker, John Culhane, Glen Keane and Andy Gaskill. Directed by Theodore Thomas. Produced by Theodore Thomas and Kuniko Okubo. Screenplay by Theodore Thomas. Music by John Reynolds.

Throughout the history of the Walt Disney Studio, many great filmmakers, musicians and artists have combined their talents to make some of the most beloved films in the history of cinema. This is especially true of their animated films. However, there are some animators that stand out more than others. Perhaps the most well-known group of Disney animators are the Nine Old Men. The Nine Old Men consists of nine animators that started working for Disney in the early to mid- 1930s, with the exception of Les Clark, who started working for Disney in 1927. Their work helped shape the face of Disney animation and the group would work on the animated films of Disney from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Fox and the Hound. The Nine Old Men are Les Clark, Marc Davis, Woolie Reitherman, John Lounsbery, Ward Kimball, Eric Larson, Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. Perhaps the most widely known are Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who are sometimes referred to as Frank and Ollie.

The film covers the careers, friendship and daily lives of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston. The film even has the two act out some of the most iconic scenes they worked on. For anybody familiar with the animation process this is a real treat to see two of the greatest masters of animation recreate those iconic scenes. For those not initiated in the process of animation, when a person is animating anthropomorphic, the animator will often use filmed reference material, or they’ll act out the scene in front of a mirror. When I dabbled in animation, I often would have my friend do little movements such as walking or doing simple movements. I’d also keep a little mirror by my desk so I could portray facial expressions accurately. I was teased for a bit, until the instructor said I was doing what real animators do, pretty soon most of the class was using the same techniques they had previously mocked.

I appreciate how the film gives an insider’s view of the Disney Studio. Frank and Ollie talk about their impressions and memories of famous Disney animators like Freddie Moore, Bill Tytla, Norm Ferguson and Ham Luske. Back in the 1930s these guys were the top animators working at Disney and they were the ones who actually trained the guys that would become the nine old men. These guys would go on to work on and even direct some of the greatest film produced at the Disney Studio such as Pinocchio, Dumbo and Fantasia. The film also features some of the caricatures the two made of each other or other people at the Disney Studio. The drawings of caricatures was and still is an encouraged practice at the Disney Studio as it gives the artists a bit of a release and it helps sharpen the artists skill of communication, because in order for the joke to work the artist has to properly show what makes the certain element that they decided to focus on humorous.

I appreciate how the film goes into some of the more human elements of the pair. Frank and Ollie both admit that during the 1920s, they’d sometimes go to speakeasies. For those unfamiliar with a speakeasy, it was a place that served alcohol during probation, which was illegal at the time. This little tidbit of information is largely glossed over, but it does add a little but of a human element to the duo by showing that they weren’t always the pure and saintly type that the Disney Studio is known for. Both Frank and Ollie’s wives share little anecdotes about something their husband did or said, and I just find the interaction between the husbands and wives to be absolutely adorable.

The core theme of this film is the friendship between Frank and Ollie. These two men met at Stanford University, when they were in their early twenties. Their friendship was transferred into the characters they animated such as Captain Hook and Mr. Smee from Peter Pan, Wart and Merlin from The Sword in the Stone and Baloo and Mowgli from The Jungle Book. The pair even co-authored a few books on animation, including Disney Animation: The Illusion of Life in 1981, which is commonly referred to as “the bible of animation”. The film features the spiritual song “Just a Little While to Stay Here” played by Frank Thomas on the piano and I fell the song truly captures the essence of the film which is about life, friendship and art.

I find this film to be the perfect film to study if one wants to go into animation. Some may find this statement to be a bit odd, as the main theme of this film is about friendship. The film offers a little insight on the Disney Studio while Frank and Ollie worked there, but it never goes as in-depth as other documentaries like Waking Sleeping Beauty, The Pixar Story or The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story. So, you may be asking yourself “what does he mean this film is a perfect film to study if one wants to go into animation?”, my reasoning is simple. Although out the film, both men talk about personality in character animation and the need to make the characters as believable as possible. This topic and many animation topics are covered extensively in Frank and Ollie’s seminal book The Illusion of Life. These lessons that I learned from these two men have actually helped me in my own life, as I try to become a better critic and maybe someday a filmmaker. Whenever I sit down to sketch out a story, I always ask myself questions like “What was this character’s childhood like?” “Why do they act the way they do?” “What do they want out of life?” “What’s their biggest fear?”. I learned to ask these questions from people like Frank and Ollie, who helped me learn the subtleties of personality in animation. The documentary also discusses the importance of planning a sequence out in one’s head before one starts to animate, since the animator is the one who brings life to an animated character they have to take on the role as an actor, by acting out the scenes they’re bringing to life.

When it comes to many animated films, the only thing a lot of people remember about the real-life people behind the films are the voice actors and maybe a famous director or producer. I find this to be a real shame as animators like Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston helped revolutionize the animation industry. The pair would even be caricatured and voice characters in The Iron Giant, where they were the train conductors, and The Incredibles, where they were the two elderly men who comment on the return of the supers.” Hey, you see that?” “Eh?” “That’s the way to do it. That’s old school.” “Yeah, no school like the old school.” “Right”. Both films were directed by Brad Bird, who had worked with the legendary duo. I remember watching this documentary as a kid and liking it, to the point where I wanted to meet Frank and Ollie, as they had created some of my favorite animated characters. Unfortunately, this would never come to pass as Frank Thomas passed away on September 8, 2004, and Ollie Johnston passed away on April 14, 2008. These men helped create some of the most beloved animated films of all time, and for that I’ll be eternally grateful for helping spark my interest in animation and the medium of film as art.

A Goofy Movie 8/10

May 30, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

G, 81m, 1995

With the Voice Talents of Bill Farmer (Goofy), Jason Marsden (Max), Aaron Lohr (Max’s Singing Voice), Jim Cummings (Pete), Kellie Martin (Roxanne), Rob Paulsen (P.J.), Pauly Shore (Bobby), Wallace Shawn (Principal Mazur), Jenna von Oÿ (Stacey), Frank Welker (Bigfoot), Kevin Lima (Lester the Opossum and Roxanne’s Dad), Wayne Allwine (Mickey Mouse) and Tevin Campbell (Powerline). Directed by Kevin Lima. Produced by Dan Rounds. Screenplay by Jymn Magon, Chris Matheson and Brian Pimental. Music by Carter Burwell and Don Davis, Based on Goof Troop by Robert Taylor and Michael Peraza Jr.

The iconic trio of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy have become some of the most iconic characters in animation history, but oddly enough until the release of this film, none of the characters have received their own full-length feature film. Sure, they have appeared in leading roles in films like Fantasia, Saludos Amigos, Melody Time and Fun and Fancy Free, however these film appearances were only in package films, and at best they might have helped tie the compilation of animated shorts together. During the 1980s and 1990s the trio would appear in more animated projects that put the characters in a more modern setting. One of these animated projects was Goof Troop, which saw Goofy as a single dad raising his son Max in a suburban setting. The series was a hit and this film was released as a follow-up to the series.

The film opens with a beautiful dream sequence that shows Max (Jason Marsden) running through an amber field of wheat towards the girl of his dreams Roxanne (Kellie Martin). As the two laugh and roll in the grass Roxanne leans forward for a kiss when a terrible transformation begins to take over Max and he turns into the thing he dreads most of all, his dad Goofy (Bill Farmer). Max wakes with a start and rushes off to school while singing “After Today”, along with the rest of the High Schoolers. While at school Max has a meet cute moment with Roxanne. Unfortunately for Max he embarrasses himself by laughing like Goofy. He runs off to meet up with his friends P.J. (Rob Paulson) and Bobby (Pauly Shore), who have agreed to help get Roxanne to notice Max. Their plan involves Max dressing up like the famous Rockstar Powerline (Tevin Campbell) and performing a choreographed song and dance number. The plan goes well until the trio gets caught by Principal Mazur (Wallace Shawn). While at work Goofy gets a call from Mazur, who actually crosses the line when he tells Goofy that he should reevaluate the way he’s raising his child before he ends up in the electric chair. Keep in mind this was over a little bit of shenanigans. Goofy then decides to take Max fishing at Lake Destiny, a place his father took him as a kid. Unfortunately for Max, Roxanne had agreed to go with Max to a party where they’d watch a Powerline concert on Pay for view. In an attempt to explain why he couldn’t go with Roxanne; Max accidentally blurts out that he and his dad are going to see the Powerline concert live. The rest of the film centers around the relationship between Max and Goofy as they travel cross country with their own agendas.

The relationship between Max and Roxanne can best be described as cute. The characters have genuine chemistry together and they act the same way many teenagers act when they have a crush. Many TV shows and movies oversexualize relationships and neglect to show the sweet awkward side of budding relationships. This film remembers what it’s truly like to be young and in love. Max and Roxane’s relationship is extremely popular in the Disney fandom. To the point where I know people who dislike Mickey’s Twice Upon a Christmas because Max is with a different girl called Mona. However, Roxanne and Max would see each other again in an episode of The House of Mouse which saw the couple on a date. However, the real focus of the film isn’t about Max and Roxanne’s relationship, the real focus of the film is the relationship between Max and Goofy. At the beginning of the film Max has a bit of a tempestuous relationship with his father. While Goofy is seen as a good father who cares deeply for his son, Max is a teenager who is embarrassed about Goofy’s clumsy antics and the way Goofy still treats him as a kid. This could have easily resulted in a generic story and bland characters, but the film handles the relationship really well and the theme of this film would be repeated in the sequel An Extremely Goofy Movie, but I feel this film did it better since A Goofy Movie’s climax doesn’t feel like a commercial for ESPN. The way these two characters interact is what really gives this movie its heart, this is best exemplified in the turbulent climax when Max and Goofy are clinging to their car, as its thundering down the Grand Canyon. In the scene Max and Goofy are shouting their feelings toward each other, with each character wanting to be understood. “I was only trying to take my boy fishing, ok?” “I’m not, your little boy anymore, dad! I’ve grown up! I’ve got my own life now!” I know that! I just wanted to be part of it.” This scene is by far the strongest in the film and I applaud the filmmakers for going all out with it.

The animation of this film is surprisingly good. While the Disney company is synonymous with great looking animated features, it also has its fair share of bland looking atrocities. This film could have easily ended up looking like one of Disney’s direct-to-video films, with cheap looking animation and uninspired character designs. Instead we got a great looking animated film that was animated in Walt Disney Animation France and Walt Disney Animation Australia. There’s a fantastic opening sequence that shows Max running towards Roxanne in a dream sequence that goes from a light and whimsical romance moment to a dark nightmarish scene that visually portrays Max’s fear of becoming like his father. However, the animation of this film isn’t perfect as there are several moments when a character in the foreground will either use looped animation or will be completely motionless and this can be a little jarring.

Despite being based on the animated series Goof Troop, A Goofy Movie has little in common with the series it’s based on. Pete’s wife Peg, and his daughter Pistol are absent from the film and are never referenced throughout the movie. Bobby and Roxanne do not appear in Goof Troop and are hardly mentioned in other Disney properties outside of this film and An Extremely Goofy Movie, which Roxanne is completely absent from. This may actually be for the better, as I’m not really a fan of Goof Troop, mainly because I find the show to be extremely generic and dated and while there are some elements of A Goofy Movie that are a little dated, I still found this to be a highly enjoyable film. I do feel this film is a bit underrated as not a lot of people seem to know of this film’s existence. However, that is beginning to change as I’m beginning to see more references to the film in stores and on social media. While this film certainly isn’t groundbreaking, it is a sweet little film that’s better than one would expect from a film like this. As a kid, I loved to watch this film after the last day of school as the film does begin on the last day of school for Max and I always found it to be a great way to start summer vacation along with watching Recess: School’s Out.

Tarzan 8.5/10

May 10, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

G, 88m, 1999

With the Voice Talents of Tony Goldwyn (Tarzan), Minnie Driver (Jane Porter), Glenn Close (Karla), Lance Henriksen (Kerchak), Brian Blessed (William Clayton), Nigel Hawthrone (Archimedes Q. Porter), Rosie O’Donnell (Terk), Wayne Knight (Tantor), Alex D. Linz (Young Tarzan), Taylor Dempsey (Young Tantor), Erik von Detten (Flynt) and Jason Marsden (Mungo). Directed by Kevin Lima and Chris Buck. Produced by Bonnie Arnold. Screenplay by Tad Murphey, Bob Tzudiker and Noni White. Music by Mark Mancina and Phil Collins. Based on Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

As a kid I remember this film getting promoted a lot. Behind the scenes features were placed before A Bug’s Life and Mulan on VHS. To the film’s credit it is an enjoyable film, however it has garnered some hate over the years as the film that killed the Disney Renaissance. This is mainly because it broke the cycle of having a Disney animated feature, be a musical. I’m guessing they forgot about Rescuers Down Under which featured no songs as well. The film was also the last film released during the Disney Renaissance, which would be followed by a time period where the films released weren’t as memorable as the films released during the Disney Renaissance. I think that’s a little unfair to this film, as I find this film to be better than Hercules and Pocahontas, which were both released during the Disney Renaissance.

The film opens with an adrenaline filled action sequence, that shows Tarzan and his parents fleeing from the burning wreckage of a sinking ship. They make it ashore and soon construct a house in the trees. Simultaneously Kerchak (Lance Henriksen) and Karla (Glenn Close) are enjoying being parents to an energetic baby gorilla, until the baby is killed by Sabor the leopard, while they were sleeping. Devastated Kerchak leads the troop onward with Karla woefully trailing behind. She hears a strange bout of crying, so she runs off to investigate. She soon comes across the residence built by Tarzan’s parents. Karla cautiously wonders in and she soon spies the corpses of Tarzan’s parents with bloodied paw prints belonging to Sabor. She almost leaves but she notices a picture of Tarzan and his parents and she soon finds baby Tarzan and takes a shing to him. Their blissful introduction is interrupted by Sabor who attacks the pair, but Karla escapes with Tarzan tucked in her arms. Kerchak allows Karla to keep Tarzan as he no longer has a family. Years go by and Tarzan (Tony Goldwyn) has become an immensely muscular fellow, who is even able to wrestle a fully grown gorilla to the ground. One day the troop hears a mysterious sound, and Tarzan goes in investigate. What he discovers is creatures that move and look just like him. The newly arrived humans are Professor Archimedes Q. Porter (Nigel Hawthrone), his daughter Jane Porter (Minnie Driver) and their guide Clayton (Brian Blessed). Now Tarzan must choose between his gorilla family and his newfound human brethren.

While the songs in this film do match the tone of the film, as well as progress the movie along through mostly montages, the songs selections will polarize audience members. This all boils down to one thing, whether or not said audience member likes Phil Collins. I personally like Phil Collins, and my friends and I even have an inside joke about him Whenever we hang out, inevitably we end up hearing a Phil Collins song, at which point we laugh. As far as the songs of this film goes, they serve their purpose for the film and are enjoyable to boot. In fact, “You’ll Be in My Heart” won best original song at the 2000 Academy Awards. I appreciate how unlike most of the films of the Disney Renaissance this film almost never has its characters burst into song. The characters bursting into song would have seemed a little jarring and wouldn’t have felt natural. However, there are two moments when characters burst into song. The first is the first night Karla and Tarzan spend together. When Tarzan starts crying, Karla sings him a sweet little lullaby, which is something a lot of mothers do to their sons, so it makes sense narratively why this is in the film. It also adds emotional depth to the relationship of Karla and Tarzan, as both lost someone close to them and both characters fill the hole left behind. The second time some of the characters burst into song is when Tarzan’s animal friends are searching for him and come across the empty camp of Clayton and the Porters. Being completely unfamiliar with the objects, they start to observe them and soon they’re having an impromptu scat jam session, using the objects as instruments. While this scene has no real purpose in the film other than for Jane to learn that Tarzan can speak to the gorillas and is a part of their troop, as well as to attract the attention of Clayton and the Professor, the characters bursting into song does make sense as the animals are just having fun and organically burst into song.

One of the biggest strengths of this film is the relationship between the characters. This is best symbolized by the characters putting their hands against each other’s. This takes place in two forms, the first being Karla and Tarzan, and the other being Tarzan and Jane. The most powerful relationship is between Karla and Tarzan. After losing her child to Sabor, Karla finds maternal love in Tarzan. The relationship between these two characters is quite possibly the strongest mother/son relationship in any Disney film. There are two scenes in particular that illustrate this point. The first takes place after Kerchak tells Karla that Tarzan will never be one of them. That night Tarzan is looking at his reflection in a pool of water. Disliking what he sees, he lashes out at his reflection, until a splatter of mud hits him. Tarzan then covers himself in mud, in order to look more like the gorillas. Karla then cleans him up and shows him that they’re really not that different. The second scene takes place while Tarzan is having some internal struggles about wanting to be with other humans, while still wanting to be with his gorilla family. The scene shows Karla making the heartbreaking decision to show Tarzan where he came from and telling him that she just wants him to be happy. There is minimal dialogue during this scene, and the emotion is mainly told through body movement and facial expressions. This scene is accompanied by a soft melancholic score and it really hits close to home. I’d actually argue that this scene is one of the most powerful in the Disney Renaissance.

The animation of this film is phenomenal. The look of the African jungle is particularly imaginative and immersive thanks to the development of the Deep Canvas technique. This technique allows artists to produce CGI background that looks like a traditional painting. This allows the camera to be immersive in its world, and at times it emulates a roller-coaster ride, most notably when Tarzan is fighting with Sabor. The movements of Tarzan are extremely imaginative, while maintain a degree of believability. Glen Keane served as the animation director for the eponymous character stated that he modelled Tarzan’s movements off of snowboarders and skateboards when Tarzan is navigating through the jungle on the branches of trees. This allowed for a uniqueness that differentiates Disney’s Tarzan from other films centering around the character, as there are about fifty Tarzan films released prior to this film, with Disney’s Tarzan being the second animated version depending on how you classify how long a film is supposed to be. I’m going by the AFI’s (American Fil Institution) definition of a film being over forty minutes in length. The first animated film featuring Tarzan was Tarzan of the Apes, released a few months prior to the Disney version. In the defense of this film, Tarzan of the Apes does look like a hastily created knock-off of this film, and it never got a theatrical run, however this film would not mark the first time the character made an animated appearance. A manga that was later turned into a fifty-episode anime called Jungle King Tar-chan was heavily influenced by the Tarzan stories, and was released in the early and mid-90s.

I’m honestly surprised that Tarzan marks the first time the character made an animated theatrical debut. The story of Tarzan lends itself to animation perfectly, and it’s almost impossible to pull off some of the tricks Tarzan is supposed to do in live action. I haven’t seen every single film about Tarzan, but out of the films I have seen, I think this film did it best. It explored new areas of the character, such as the relationship between Tarzan and the ape who raised him. The only real problems I have with this movie is I felt the film should have focused more on Tarzan’s internal struggle with his identity. I felt that Clayton was an unneeded character as he’s just a generic greedy character that is really no different from Governor Ratcliffe from Pocahontas, or they could have made Sabor the vilian of the film as she killed both Karla’s baby and Tarzan’s parents. This could have worked as she is still alive when Tarzan is an adult so it wouldn’t have been that hard to pull off and Sabor could have been like a Shere Khan type of vilian from The Jungle Book, but I digress. For what it is this is a fantastic film and I thoroughly enjoyed it as a kid, and I find I enjoy it more as an adult.

Flushed Away 7.5/10

May 9, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

PG, 85m, 2006

With the Voice Talents of Hugh Jackman (Roddy), Kate Winslet (Rita Malone), Ian McKellen (The Toad), Jean Reno (Le Frog), Andy Serkis (Spike), Bill Nighy (Whitey), Shane Richie (Sid), Kathy Burke (Mrs. Malone), David Suchet (Mr. Malone), Miriam Margolyes (Rita’s Grandmother) and Rachel Rawlinson (Tabitha). Directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell. Produced by Cecil Kramer, David Sproxton and Peter Lord. Screenplay by Dick Clement, Ian La Frenais, Chris Lloyd, Joe Keenan and William Davies. Music by Harry Gregson-Williams.

Flushed Away is the final collaboration between Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation. The studios previous work together includes Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Chicken Run. The reason the two studios stopped working with each other is because of creative differences and the under-performance of Flushed Away at the box office. Aardman would continue to create other creative films such as Arthur Christmas and The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

The film opens in London, with some beautiful looking London scenery, including an imaginative shot of the film’s title card underneath the London Bridge. Roddy (Hugh Jackman) is the pampered pet rat of an upper-class family. He lives a life of luxury and when the family that owns him goes away on holiday, Roddy has the run of the place, but it’s obvious he’s very lonely. Despite him joyfully rocking out to “Dancing with Myself”, Roddy’s only playmates are dolls, and he really doesn’t have anyone to talk to. One-night Roddy hears a bump in the night, it’s revealed to be a portly sewer rat named Sid (Shane Richie). Sid immediately starts making the place his own and making a huge mess everywhere. Knowing that he could never forcibly remove Sid himself, Roddy comes up with a plan to flush Sid down the toilet by telling Sid that the toilet was a jacuzzi. Sid, knowing full well what a toilet is pushes Roddy down into the toilet and then flushes the toilet. Roddy then finds himself in the sewer, where he desperately tries to find a way to get home. He learns of the daughter of a captain called Rita (Kate Winslet), who might be able to help him. Roddy finds Rita but she’s being chased by a couple of gangsters under the employment of the Toad (Ian McKellen), for stealing a ruby. Roddy and Rita get captured, but they escape with the master cable, that is highly prized by The Toad. Roddy reveals to Rita that the ruby is a fake and he demonstrates this by smashing the ruby on the side of Rita’s boat, much to her dismay, since the ruby was going to be used to help her family. Roddy then makes a deal with her, saying if she gets him back home, he’ll give her a real ruby. Now the pair must make it back “Up Top” while the Toad and his henchman relentlessly pursue them.

This marks the first time that Aardman Animations released a completely computer-generated film. Previously they created Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and Chicken Run, which were all animated utilizing mostly stop-motion. The decision to animate this film with computers, rather than stop-motion was most likely done because this film features a lot of water and working with this much water would have proved near impossible for the medium of stop-motion. The characters are designed to look like stop-motion animated characters, and as a result the characters have a plastic look. Since it is animated using computers instead of stop-motion the character movements look much smoother and more natural. However, while the animation of the characters is really good and the backgrounds are imaginative, the area where this film falls flat is in the animation of the human characters. At first, they only show the human characters from the torso area, with the exception of a shot of the back of Tabitha’s, Roddy’s owner, head. However, the film unfortunately does show the faces of a few humans and they look absolutely grotesque. One area where the animation does shine is in the design of the sewer world. Instead of the stereotypical drab, dark and dirty sewer, the audience is treated to a visually pleasing and imaginative city that is made up of discarded trash. The design of the underground city is bright and colorful, and it really pops on screen.

The characters in this film are mostly enjoyable to watch Roddy starts off the film as a fish out of water character, who just wants to get back home to his pampered life. As the film goes on he starts to realize that material possessions aren’t what’s truly important in life. Several times throughout the film he lies about his life above the sewer, but he isn’t lying about being able to supply Rita with the wealth her family needs. He lies about having a family, as he sees that Rita and her family are much happier than he is, despite them living in relative poverty. Rita’s family has each other and they watch out for each other, which makes Roddy envious as he has nobody and the only “friends” he has are plastic dolls. The Toad is one of the more enjoyable characters of this film. He’s an eccentric collector, obsessed with British culture. I found him, and his cousin Le Frog (Jean Rin) to be excellent examples of comedic villains. Despite having many funny scenes, the pair present an ever-present danger to Rita and Roddy. Sid is just meant to serve as a plot device to flush Roddy down the toilet and get him where the majority of the film takes place. He also supplies most of the film’s toilet humor, which makes him come off as a one-dimensional character as we never learn anything about him or his previous life in the sewer. I’d be more forgiving of the character if he made some kind of meaningful contribution to the plot, like maybe Sid could have a heartfelt conversation with Roddy about what’s truly important in life and the reason he prefers living at Roddy’s place, is because he doesn’t have a family, and that nobody would miss him if he was gone, which would have prompted Roddy to supply Sid with a place where he would be appreciated. This proposed idea would have added a bit more depth to the character and the film would have remained largely the same, save for a few extra lines of dialogue.

The jokes in this film are a mixed bag. One joke that had me grinning was when Roddy was trying to figure out what he’s going to wear today and one of the costumes was Wolverine’s costume from the X-Men comics. This is a subtle nod to Roddy’s voice actor, Hugh Jackman, who portrayed Wolverine in the X-Men films. However, there are quite a few jokes that involve toilet humor, belching and shots to the groin. Sid scarfs down a fish. “Do you like seafood?” Sid then opens his mouth to reveal the chewed-up mesh of fish. “See food! Get it? These jokes are a plenty in this film. I’m not personally a fan of these types of jokes, but considering the film’s title, I should be happy that the film wasn’t swimming with them.

This film is simply a delight to watch. The characters are interesting, the plot is engaging, and the humor mostly works. The only real problems I can find with this film are when the jokes rely too much on toilet humor and pop culture references and I do take a bit of an issue with film’s message, which kind of implies that one can’t be happy if they’re alone. I get where they’re coming from, but the message does come off as a little condescending to people who enjoy this type of lifestyle. I find it a real pity that this film under performed in the box-office, causing DreamWorks to sever ties with Aardman as I feel the two companies could have made some more fantastic films together.

Pokémon The Movie 2000: The Power of One 6.5/10

May 3, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

G, 109m, 1999

With the Voice Talents of Veronica Taylor (Ash Ketchum and Delia Ketchum), Ikue Otani (Pikachu), Rachael Lillis (Misty, Jessie, Venonat and Goldeen), Ted Lewis (Tracey Sketchit), Satomi Kōrogi (Togepi), Eric Stuart (James, Weezing, Scyther, and Squirtle), Maddie Blaustein (Meowth), Roger Parsons (Narrator), Stuart Zagnit (Professor Oak), Kayzie Rogers (Professor Ivy, Mr. Mime and Marill), Eric Rath (Lugia), Amy Birnbaum (Melody), Nathan Price (Slowking), Neil Stewar (Lawrence III) and Tara Sands (Maren and Bulbasaur). Directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and Michael Haigney. Produced by Choji Yoshikawa, Yukako Matsusako and Takemoto Mori. Screenplay by Takeshi Shudo Michael Haigney and Norman J. Grossfeld. Music by Shinji Miyazaki. Based on the Pokémon franchise created by Satoshi Tajiri.

After the immense success of Pokémon: The First Movie, was released barely a year following the release of the original (going by the original Japanese release). Pokémon 2000 promises to make everything bigger and better, and the film certainly delivers on that front. However, this does serve as a bit of a detriment to the film as nothing feels truly personal.

The film opens with Lawrence III (Neil Stewar) reading a prophecy that foretells of global destruction if the balance between fire, ice and lightning is disturbed. Immediately after reading this Lawrence III upsets the balance of fire, ice and lightning by capturing Moltres. We then cut to Ash (Veronica Taylor), Misty (Rachael Lillis), Tracey (Ted Lewis) and Maren (Tara Sands) travelling to their next destination. Due to a storm, they are thrown off course and end up on Shamouti Island, where the locals are in the middle of a festival. The festival involves a chosen Pokémon trainer going out and collecting three orbs from the Fire, Ice and Lightning Islands and place them at the Shamouti Islands shrine, where a talking Slowking resides. Melody (Amy Birnbaum) will then play the festival’s song on a flute, which is actually Lugia’s (Eric Rath) song and the task is completed. Naturally Ash is chosen as the so called “Chosen One” and rushes off to find the orbs. He ventures off despite being warned of an incoming storm. Ash and his friends manage to reach Fire Island before getting interrupted by Team Rocket. Zapdos suddenly appears and we learn via Meowth (Maddie Blaustein) that since Moltres is gone, Zapdos is claiming the area has his own. Lawrence III picks this moment to capture Zapdos and in the ensuing capture, he accidentally captures Ash and company. For whatever reason Lawrence III tells the group his plan and neglects to take away their Pokémon. This allows for Ash and company to escape and free Zapdos and Moltres. This causes them to take down Lawrence III’s flying fortress and for Articuno to join the fray in a free for all battle. Lugia suddenly appears and informs Ash and company that the only way to stop this madness is for Ash to complete the Island’s traditional Chosen One’s task because Ash is the Chosen One. Now it’s up to Ash to complete the task before the world is destroyed by the ensuing chaos of Zapdos, Articuno and Moltres fighting.

The film has a new addition to the trio in the form of Tracey and unless you’ve been keeping up with the anime, you’re going to be confused as to why Tracey replaced Brock. As the film doesn’t explain this change, I will. Brock stayed at Professor Ivy’s lab because he had a crush on her, however this did not end well as in later episodes he left Professor Ivy’s lab and for reasons that are never explained, Brock can’t stand hearing her name. This film also gives characters besides Ash and Pikachu to contribute to the plot, instead of standing around in open-mouth horror. Unlike their appearance in Pokémon The First Movie, Team Rocket actually contributes to the plot. Unfortunately, this would be one of the only times Team Rocket actually contributes to the plot of a Pokémon movie instead of existing purely for comedic relief or a gratuitous cameo. As a vilian Lawrence III pales in comparison to Mewtwo. Mewtwo had complexity and the audience could sympathize with him even if they didn’t agree with his methods. Lawrence III is just your run of the mill rich greedy one note vilian. I get that the film is trying to send a message that too much greed can lead to the destruction of the world, but it makes no sense for this vilian to even attempt his plans. He knows that pursuing his plans will probably lead to the destruction of the world, but he goes through with it anyway. If the vilian hadn’t known that his actions would have led to apoplectic circumstance, this would have been more understandable.

The film’s plot is your generic “Chosen One” story, where a character is the only one that can perform a particular task. We’ve seen this plot in better movies with more compelling characters. This film would have been helped if the destruction was designated to one particular area, after spending a significant amount of time in the area and introducing some compelling characters that the audience could sympathize with and hope that they survive unscathed. The film’s message would have had much more impactful if the villain’s actions caused the death or serious injury of a character that the audience had gotten to know and care for, but no, all we get is a weak and generic plot that leaves no real impact on the audience.

The film has a subplot involving a ship tease between Ash and Misty. This is completely pointless as their relationship never comes into play in later films and is never resolved in the anime. The film for whatever reason allows Lugia and Slowking to possess the power to communicate with humans. While it’s true Slowking is a psychic type, Slowking’s evolutionary family is notorious for being dimwitted, so it raises some questions as to why he can talk so eloquently, and he was appointed a guardian. I’d give Lugia a pass if, the anime hadn’t devoted an entire arch to a Lugia and its child and those Lugia were unable to communicate with humans. This film also has a hypocritical lesson. After they learn of Lawrence III’s ultimate goal, Misty berates him for collecting Pokémon. This is weird because this is one of the ultimate goals of the franchise is to capture every single species of Pokémon.

One aspect of the film that I actually enjoyed was that Ash actually hesitates and has self- doubt when he finds out that the quest was real and if he fails then there will be consequences. This highly realistic as somebody like Ash would start off on the quest with a gung-ho attitude, and then hesitate when they discover that it’s all for real. He’s only able to go through with it after getting encouragement from Lugia, his friends and his Pokémon. This shows that it’s normal to doubt your abilities at times and sometimes the best remedy is to talk to people you trust about your insecurities. Granted I believe that Kiki’s Delivery Service handled this message better, but it’s an important lesson for kids to learn. Another aspect I enjoyed from the film was the score. “Lugia’s Theme” is extremely pleasant to listen to and it puts me in a relaxed mood. Another song I enjoyed was “The Power of One” by Donna Summers.

While I did find this film to be a bit more entertaining than Pokémon the First Movie, Pokémon 2000 suffers from a weak and generic plot that we’ve seen many times as well as one of the weakest villains in any of the Pokémon films. As with Pokémon the First Movie, non-Pokémon fans probably won’t like this film, and I can only recommend this film to fans of the Orange Island arc and die-hard Pokémon fans.

Shark Tale 5/10

April 26, 2020April 26, 2020 Nick SheedyLeave a comment

PG, 90m, 2004

With the Voice Talents of Will Smith (Oscar), Renée Zellweger (Angie), Jack Black (Lenny Lino), Robert De Niro (Don Edward Lino), Angelina Jolie (Lola), Martin Scorsese (Sykes), Ziggy Marley (Ernie), Doug E. Doug (Bernie), Michael Imperioli (Frankie Lino), Vincent Pastore (Luca), Peter Falk (Don Ira Feinberg), Katie Couric (Katie Current) and David Soren (Shrimp). Directed by Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron and Rob Letterman. Produced by Bill Damaschke, Janet Healy and Allison Lyon Segan. Screenplay by Michael J. Wilson and Rob Letterman. Music by Hans Zimmer.

When this film was in production, a great debate was brewing in the animation industry. There was an ever-growing belief that hand drawn animation was dying and that it was going to be replaced with computer animation. This idea stemmed from the financial failures of hand drawn animated films released at the time like Home on the Range, Treasure Planet and Sinbad and the Seven Seas. While films like Shrek 2, Finding Nemo and Monsters Inc. were highly successful both financially and critically. Jeffrey Katzenberg was the CEO of DreamWorks Animation at the time and he said that hand drawn animation was dead and that the company was no longer going to produce hand drawn animated films again. This mindset infuriates me to no end and I often point to this film and films similar to it as an example of why the medium one uses to create an animated film, if the characters and story suck.

The film opens in a rather imaginative fashion. The DreamWorks Animation logo casts a screaming worm into the ocean where two sharks slowly appear while (what else) the theme for Jaws plays. The two sharks are brothers Lenny (Jack Black) and Frankie (Michael Imperioli). Frankie is your typical vicious shark that eats first and asks questions later, while Lenny is a kind and timid vegetarian. After the two swim away, the nearby fish city quickly swims with life as the danger has passed. The audience is then bombarded with pop culture references as the camera zooms around the underwater city. One joke that made me chuckle was when the camera flashed to a sushi shop, which is empty much to the dismay of the owner. We are then introduced to the film’s main character, Oscar (Will Smith), who is a worker at a whale wash. Oscar’s boss, Sykes (Martin Scorsese), loses favor with Don Edward Lino (Robert De Niro), who runs the reef as the head of an underwater mafia. Sykes, now owing the shark mafia, protection money, calls in Oscar and tells him he has to pay back his massive debt, so he can afford to pay the mafia off. Oscar gets the money by selling a pearl given to him by his friend, Angie (Renée Zellweger), who works at the same whale wash as Oscar. Oscar greedily loses all of the money betting on a seahorse race, and Sykes orders his Rastafarian jellyfish enforcers, Ernie (Ziggy Marley) and Bernie (Doug E. Doug), to get rid of him. Meanwhile Don Edward Lino is frustrated about his son Lenny’s eating habits, since Lenny’s soft nature is making the family look weak. Don Edward orders Frankie to take Lenny out and show him how to be a real shark. They stumble across Oscar tied up and deserted. Lenny tries to set Oscar free and trick Frankie into thinking that he ate Oscar, but the plan fails. Having grown sick of it all, Frankie chases Oscar and is about to eat him when an anchor falls on him, killing him. Lenny is horrified and runs away, leaving Oscar alone with the body of a dead shark. Ernie and Bernie return and assume Oscar killed the shark, and Oscar seeing a way to become famous, brags relentlessly and soon he garners the title of “sharkslayer”. Oscar runs into Lenny and the two team up to continue the con. Naturally, the mafia gets ticked that Oscar “killed” the Don’s son and openly brags about killing him, so they kidnap Angie, since she’s one of the few fish Oscar cares about. Now it’s up to Lenny and Oscar to rescue Angie and make it out alive.

This film feels like one of those cheap and ugly knock off films that companies mass produce in the hopes that poor gullible people will buy them in leu of the actual good product. Examples include Rattatooing, What’s Up and The Little Panda Fighter (Please, for your own sake, do not watch these films. They are without a doubt some of the worst films I have ever seen in my life.). Now granted the animation in this film is not nearly as bad as these films, but it feels just as lazy. It looks like a cheap, tired, dirty version of Finding Nemo, which was released a year prior.

The characters from this film are largely recycled from better gangster films like The Godfather, which the film is trying to be a parody of but, it fails spectacularly. Oscar is one of my least favorite characters in this film. He’s extremely cocky and he acts like the world owes him a living. His main concern is what others think of him and becoming a “somebody”. He becomes infatuated with another female fish named Lola (Angelina Jolie), but she tells him early on in the film that she’s very superficial. Why would anybody want to be with a person like that? Angie has an obvious crush on Oscar, and I do not see why. He exhibits almost no remediable qualities and after he becomes famous, it isn’t long before he begins to neglect her, despite her being there for him when nobody else was. There was only two characters I had positive feelings for and that is Lenny and Angie. This mainly comes from a place of pity since Lenny is viewed as a loser by his father, and is a social outcast in the mafia world, and Angie is such a nice girl, but she for whatever, reason falls for a guy who is obviously wrong for her. Now granted, Oscar does get Angie back her grandmother’s pearl with several other pearls, he very quickly abandons her for the majority of the film. I did have a major problem with the way the film handled Lenny however. The film treats being Lenny a vegetarian as a metaphor for homosexuality. One hardly has to squint it. The movie is chockful of gay symbolism and if that’s not enough to convince you, there’s a scene where Lenny comes out to Oscar as a vegetarian. I’ve had people come out to me using very similar dialogue. This could have proved to be an emotional scene as Lenny is highly sensitive to being different and is even ashamed of being a vegetarian. Instead it’s treated as a joke, with Oscar, who the audience is supposed to root for, suppressing a laugh, and at one point he refers to Lenny as “veggie boy”.

This film introduces some good ideas, that would have been excellent morals to teach to kids. The first is just because you were born into a certain situation, it doesn’t mean that you have follow the status quo. You are who you choose to be. This is best personified through Lenny. Lenny wants nothing to do with the mafia life and eating fish. Instead he wants to live life the way he wants to. Now this is a good message to teach to kids, but the message gets blotched and the emotional climax between the two is not executed properly. The film touches briefly on the shallowness of fame. This is another good message to teach to kids. Being rich and famous, doesn’t mean that you’re necessarily happy. This message is lightly touched on during the scene that is supposed to be the low point of the movie, but it just feels so manipulative. Oscar sadly swims around a barrage of product placement featuring him while a “sad” song plays. I say “sad” because I felt no emotional response to the images on screen and the song did not make me feel a thing. The scene in Toy Story 2, when Jessie sings about being abandoned is sad because the audience has emotional investment in the character and the song “When She Loved Me” is performed beautifully. The scene in The Fox and the Hound when Widow Tweed has to leave Tod in the forest is sad because the audience gets her motivation for doing this and the audience also knows that now both characters are all alone. The song “Goodbye May Seem Forever” heightens the emotional impact of the scene. This does not occur with this scene and I was left feeling mildly bored.

The jokes in this film are a hit or miss. I’m almost never a fan of pop culture references or bad fish puns, especially when it makes no sense for the characters to make said reference, but I will admit I grinned a bit at the opening homage to Jaws. I also found a few of a few other jokes mildly amusing, such as the exchange between Lenny and Oscar, after Lenny accidentally eats him. The rest of the jokes left me either rolling my eyes, or cringing. Some people will find this movie to be very funny, which is fair since comedy is objective. I, however, didn’t find this film to be particularly funny.

The best way I can describe Shark Tale is cringy. This movie thinks it’s being funny and appealing to kids, but in reality, it’s neither. Every film has its audience and I know there are some people out there who enjoy this film, but I am most certainly not one of those people. While I don’t think this is DreamWorks Animation’s feature, I definitely think it ranks among the worst of them. Somehow this film was nominated for the Best Animated Feature category along with Shrek 2 and The Incredibles, with The Incredibles winning the award. this means that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences thought that this film was one of the best animated films to come out in 2004. This means that according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Shark Tale is better than Ghost in the Shell II: Innocence, The Polar Express, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie and The Place Promised in Our Early Days. I do not agree with this assessment and I’d recommend all of these animated film over Shark Tale. This is one film that should have stayed out to sea.

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