“Wildwood” is in theatres this weekend! “A visually ambitious movie, the stop motion animated Wildwood is a hand-crafted movie of uncommon beauty.” I spoke with Laika stop-motion animation supervisor Brad Schiff and Jacob Tremblay who voices the character Curtis in the film.
Watch the whole thing on “X” HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “Wildwood,” a new animated dark fairy tale now playing in theatres, a sister goes on a dangerous journey through an “impassable forest” to rescue her brother after he is kidnapped by a mysterious woman named Alexandra. “I’m not a hero,” she says, “I’m just a girl who lost her brother to a murder of crows.”
CAST: Peyton Elizabeth Lee, Jacob Tremblay, Carey Mulligan, Mahershala Ali, Awkwafina, Angela Bassett, Jake Johnson, Charlie Day, Amandla Stenberg, Jemaine Clement, Len Cariou, Maya Erskine, Tantoo Cardinal, Tom Waits, Richard E. Grant. Directed by Travis Knight.
REVIEW: A visually ambitious movie, “Wildwood” is an epic fairy tale for adults told on a grand scale.
Set in current day Portland, Oregon the story begins when Prue McKeel’s (Peyton Elizabeth Lee) parents ask her to babysit her little brother Mac. They can do whatever they want, as long as she doesn’t take him out of the house.
Of course she does, and, along with eager-to-please schoolmate Curtis (Jacob Tremblay), take the infant for an adventure packed, fun day in town. Well, fun until a murder of crows swoops down and carries the infant skyward.
Frantically following the flock, Prue and Curtis end up in the “impassable wilderness,” a magical place on the outskirts of town with a strict no outsiders policy. There they encounter an army of coyotes, talking owls, castles and mystics who talk to trees and a grief-stricken Dowager Governess (Carey Mulligan) still stinging from the loss of her son. “I don’t want any part of your fairytale,” says Prue. ”I just want my brother.”
To rescue young Mac, Prue and Curtis will have to figure out who to trust in a world filled with magic and distractions.
As far as animation studios go LAIKA, the Oregon based creators behind films like “Coraline” and “Kubo and the Two Strings,” may not have the same name recognition as Pixar, but their brand equals their better-known counterpart in quality and fearless embrace of challenging and thought-provoking themes.
In “Wildwood,” their first PG-13 film (this may be too intense for the little ones, especially in the final battle scene), LAIKA delivers their most accomplished film to date. With a blend of stop motion animation and digital tools director Travis Knight has created the company’s magnum opus, a hand-crafted movie of uncommon beauty.
Epic in scope but personal in nature, Prue’s search for her brother takes her to a wonderfully realized world.
Ripe with magic and danger in equal measure, it’s a spectacularly rendered realm, filled with an eye-popping sense of scale. From Prue’s ride on the back of a giant eagle—“Scared of flying?” she says as they soar through the air. “I’m not usually on the outside of the plane.”—and the Hitchcockian murder of crows abduction sequence to a twelve-minute climatic battle scene and the living ivy that comes alive near the end, the attention to detail will make your eyeballs dance across the screen.
There is also an unusual degree of performance, with smooth stop motion and nuanced facial expressions courtesy of 140,000 3-D printed replacement faces. The use of digital effects, however, doesn’t overwhelm the stop motion, which still feels soulful and artisanal.
Although “Wildwood’s” story sometimes feels like it has been cobbled together from a variety of other fairy tales but nonetheless sets a high bar for stop motion that will be very difficult to top.
Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to make your bed. Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the uncom rom com “The Drama,” the outer space antics of “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and the singular “Dead Lover.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I join CTV NewsChannel’s Scott Hirsch to talk about the uncom rom com “The Drama,” the outer space antics of “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” and the singular “Dead Lover.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
I review “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” for ctvnews.ca, the #1 digital news publisher in reach!
“I wasn’t expecting a kid-friendly “Super Mario’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” but the film’s emphasis on eye candy and Easter eggs over detailed storytelling or character arcs lessens the movie’s impact…” Read the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: In “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” the sequel to 2023s billion dollar hit “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” Mario, Luigi, Peach, and others go on a journey across cosmic worlds.
CAST: Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Day, Jack Black, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kevin Michael Richardson, Benny Safdie, Donald Glover, Issa Rae, Luis Guzmán, Brie Larson. Directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic.
REVIEW:
Made with Nintendo fans in mind, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is a visually spectacular, but chaotic theme park-style distraction for aficionados that’s light on story but heavy on action.
The last time around in 2023’s “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” the evil Koopa king Bowser’s (Jack Black) plan to marry Mushroom Kingdom ruler Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) was thwarted by mustachioed plumbers Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day).
Shrunken down to the size of a small toy by Peach and imprisoned in a jar by Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), Bowser’s reign of terror appears to be over until Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), the power-hungry heir to the Koopa throne, kidnaps Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) in a mission to save his father and restore his family’s power. “From the ashes of his father’s defeat rises a new conqueror,” he says. “The Bowser name shall be feared once more!”
To prevent the Bowsers from creating cosmic chaos, the brothers team with Princess Peach, Toad, and a green dinosaur named Yoshi (Donald Glover) on an intergalactic adventure to outwit, outsmart and outplay Bowser Jr.
A blast of colorful pop art adrenalin for Mario enthusiasts, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” blazes through its breakneck 95-minute runtime without ever taking its foot off the gas pedal. Packed with Easter Eggs, unexpected cameos, endless merchandizing opportunities and galactic scale nostalgia, it is so overstuffed there’s barely any room to tell an interesting story.
The previous film grossed $1.36 billion worldwide and is the highest-grossing film based on a video game ever, so a sequel was inevitable, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Even when the unnecessary additions are fun, as it is with the introduction of Fox McCloud (Glen Powell) from “Star Fox,” the superfluous stuff doesn’t add much to the overall effect. Less would have been more.
Pratt, as the titular character, leads a high-energy, all-star voice cast including Anya Taylor-Joy (Princess Peach), Charlie Day (Luigi) and Donald Glover (Yoshi) but it’s Jack Black and Benny Safdie as Bowser and Bowser Jr. who steal every scene they appear in.
They stand out in a sea of characters mouthing forgettable dialogue because the father and son duo are given most of the movie’s best lines and share a tender familial connection that brightens up their scenes.
Not that there’s anything dreary about “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.” It all pops. But when there are only peaks and no valleys in the storytelling, it becomes overstimulated; all bang and no buck.
Ultimately, “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’s” maximalist approach creates something that feels like a sensory experience, ram packed with IP, rather than a proper movie. I wasn’t expecting a kid friendly “Super Mario’s 2001: A Space Odyssey,” but the film’s emphasis on eye candy and Easter Eggs over detailed storytelling or character arcs lessens the story’s impact.
It’s family entertainment, intended for younger gamers and nostalgic parents, but just because it’s aimed at the whole family doesn’t mean it can’t level up.
The most famous plumbers since Thomas Crapper, the man who popularized the flush toilet, are back in “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The new animated film starring the voices of Chris Pratt, Charlie Day and Anya Taylor-Joy, and now playing in theatres, sends Mario and Luigi on an adventure that begins with a mysterious water pipe.
While working on a broken water main, Brooklyn, New York plumbers Mario (Pratt) and his fraternal twin brother Luigi (Day), leave the real world, sucked through the pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom.
“What is this place?” asks Mario.
Buried deep beneath the Earth’s surface, it’s the psychedelic principality of the strong-willed Princess Peach (Taylor-Joy), a ruler who shares her castle with Toad (Keegan-Michael Key), a humanoid mushroom aching to find adventure in his life.
But there is bad news.
“Your brother has landed in the Darklands,” Toad informs Mario. “They’re under Bowser’s (Jack Black) control.” Bowser, a giant, fire breathing turtle with world conquering ambitions, has Luigi, and it’s up to Mario to rescue his brother and save the Mushroom Kingdom.
“My little brother is lost,” says Mario. “He looks exactly like me, but tall and skinny. And green.”
With the help of the Princess and Toad, Mario’s quest begins.
“Excuse me, everybody,” shouts Toad. “Coming through! This guy’s brother is going to die imminently! Out of the way, please!”
There are questions you have to ask when reviewing a movie inspired by a video game. Is it good because it remains faithful to the game? Or is it successful because it transcends the game and embraces the big screen?
If you answered yes to the former and no to the latter, you may enjoy “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” The theatrical experience of the film is essentially like playing the game, without the inconvenience of actually having to play the game.
The beautifully animated movie mostly delivers what Nintendo has been successfully doling out for forty years; Mario, Luigi and the gang dodging Bowser in the Mushroom Kingdom. That formula earned the game accolades as one of the greatest video games of all time, so why tinker with success?
I’ll tell you why. Because by not tinkering with success, by playing it safe, by bowing down to fan service, directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic have created a movie with all the charm of a broken Game Boy. Loud and frenetic, it’s propped up by nostalgia for the game and little else.
“I Want You Back,” a new rom com starring Jenny Slate and Charlie Day and now streaming on Amazon, begins with dueling break-ups.
Noah (Scott Eastwood) and Emma (Slate) have been together for 18 months. She’s comfortable and content. He’s an A-Type on the hunt for the next thing in life, who happens to appear in the form of Ginny (Clark Backo), the statuesque owner of a local pie shop.
Peter (Day) and Anne (Gina Rodriguez) are six years in when she blindsides him. He’s too complacent, she says as she dumps him. She wants a bigger life, one filled with excitement and she thinks she’ll find that with local theatre director Logan (Manny Jacinto).
Emma and Peter are dumped and devastated.
This is a rom com, so it is inevitable that the grieving Emma and Peter will meet cute. Turns out, they work in the same office tower and spend time in the same stairwell, crying and longing for their exes. When they finally meet, she is smeared with mascara, he has the toilet paper he used to wipe away his tears stuck to his face. They respond to each other’s pain and begin a platonic friendship.
They sing “You Oughta Know” at karaoke, get drunk and attempt to make one another feel better. “Dying alone is not so bad,” Emma says. “Having someone to watch you die is embarrassing.” They go to the movies, have lunch, lurk on their exes’ Instagram and hatch a plan. Emma will infiltrate Anne and Logan’s relationship as Peter makes friends with Noah and Ginny, both trying to drive a wedge in the new relationships. “They might not know they should be with us,” Emma says, “with all these new shiny people around.”
“It’s like ‘Cruel Intentions,” Peter says, “but sexier.”
“How is it sexier?”
“It isn’t.”
The chemistry Slate and Day share, as actors and characters, (NOT A SPOILER, JUST THE WAY ROM COMS WORK) make it clear who should be partnered with who by the time the end credits roll. This is, after all, a rom com so the outcome isn’t a secret. It’s all about the journey, how the two most likeable characters in the movie will finally find their happily ever after. “I Want You Back” offers up a fun journey that travels ground most rom coms have voyaged before, but does so with laughs and heart.
There are hijinks and farce—a proposed three-way tryst, a very uncomfortable hiding spot and unrequited love—but the clichés of Katherine Heigl-style rom coms are blunted with edgy humor topped off with a helping of romance. The movie allows Slate and Day to bring their unique comic gifts to the material while keeping it on the rom com straight and narrow.
“I Want You Back” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but the eager cast keeps the predictable parts of the story interesting and very funny.
My desire to see 2014’s “The Lego Movie” was on par with my wish to step on a Lego brick in my bare feet. How could a movie starring plastic, singing mini figs possibly appeal to anyone who graduated Saturday morning cartoons decades ago? But I’m a professional so I put my bias of toy story movies aside and went to the screening.
Later, as I left the theatre humming “Everything is Awesome” I was own over. Directors and co-writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had pulled off something great, they made a movie with wide appeal using the Legos as a muse to do what the bricks have always done, light imaginations on fire.
Question is, five years later will everything be awesome in the sequel “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part”?
The last movie ended with the revelation that the movie’s Lego Land frenetic action had actually taken place in 8-year-old Finn’s (Jadon Sand) imagination. The new one focuses on Finn’s sister Bianca (“The Florida Project’s” Brooklyn Prince) disrupting her brother’s carefully built world of fancy with her Duplo-Block creations.
In the make-believe world Duplo aliens, led by shape-shifting villain Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) declare war on Bricksburg. Fast-forward five years. Optimistic construction worker Emmet (Chris Pratt) and Master Builder Lucy’s (Elizabeth Banks) home is now a smoking ruin called Apocalypseburg where if you show any weakness you will be destroyed. Dave is now called Chainsaw Dave and Sewer Babies live under the streets.
When Lucy, Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Alison Brie), Benny (Charlie Day) and MetalBeard (Nick Offerman) are kidnapped and transported to the Systar System by General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) Emmet and intergalactic archaeologist / Snake Plissken look-a-like Rex Dangervest (Pratt again) set off to rescue them. “Don’t worry Lucy,” says Emmett, “everything will still be awesome.”
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” is a pure pop art blast as though designed by kids. A mix of non-sequiturs, silly jokes, attention deficit editing, CPDs (Convenient Plot Devices) and music it zips along but isn’t as awesome as the original. The first film was a powerhouse of imagination and adventure. “The Second Part” has its moments—like the “Catchy Song” sequence—but feels like a dim bulb that doesn’t burn as brightly as it once did.
Like the first film the mayhem of Lego Land is tempered with real life lessons. In this case it takes an existential turn in the last third, expanding the mini fig story to shine a light on the fraught relationship between Finn and Bianca and their struggle to find a way to play together. When they learn to be kind and tolerant of one another their lives improve, as do those of their plastic figures.
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’s” convoluted third reel paints the screen with too much frenetic CGI action but maintains the lesson of the first film, that NOT putting away childish things, like Lego blocks, is the key to making everything awesome, no matter what age. That the message doesn’t feel like a commercial for the brightly coloured blocks is a pleasant plus even if the movie feels like diminished returns.
