Richard speaks to “CTV News at Six” anchor Andria Case about the best movies and television to watch this weekend. This week we have a look at the animated “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild” on Disney+ and two on VOD, the shoot ’em up “One Shot” and the grim “Two Deaths of Henry Baker.”
Watch the whole thing HERE! (Starts at 24:33)
Richard joins hosts Jay Michaels and Jim Richards of the NewsTalk 1010 afternoon show The Rush for Booze and Reviews! Today we talk about the first drink Neil Armstrong drank when he came back from the moon and review “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild” on Disney+ and two on VOD, the shoot ’em up “One Shot” and the grim “Two Deaths of Henry Baker.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins CP24 to have a look at new movies coming to VOD, streaming services and theatres including the animated “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild” on Disney+ and two on VOD, the shoot ’em up “One Shot” and the grim “Two Deaths of Henry Baker.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in on the CFRA Ottawa morning show with host Bill Carroll to talk the new movies coming to theatres, VOD and streaming services including the animated “The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild” on Disney+ and two on VOD, the shoot ’em up “One Shot” and the grim “Two Deaths of Henry Baker.”
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
Richard joins NewsTalk 1010 host David Cooper on the coast-to-coast-to-coast late night “Showgram” to play the game “Did Richard Crouse like these movies?” This week we talk about the animated The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild on Dinsey+, the shoot ’em up “One Shot” (VOD) and the western noir “Two Deaths of Henry Baker” (VOD).
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
“The Nut Job” is chock full of the standard animated fare. There’s cute furry animals, a not-so-scary-villain, some slapstick and messages for kids about sharing and teamwork.
Unfortunately there’s also a noisy, nutty story that left me feeling like an assaulted peanut.
Think that was a bad peanut pun? Wait till you see this movie. Or not.
“The Nut Job” begins on a downer note. The animals of Liberty Park don’t have enough food for the winter and the selfish actions of Surly Squirrel (voiced by Will Arnett) has pretty much guaranteed they’ll starve once the weather turns cold.
Raccoon (Liam Neeson), the park patriarch banishes Surly but soon the mischievous rodent involves the park’s citizens—wannabe hero Greyson (Brendan Fraser) and sexy squirrel Andie (Katherine Heigl)—in a dangerous scheme that will either save them or kill them—robbing a nut store owned by some Damon Runyonesque mobsters.
“The Nut Job” is an original story that feels Frankensteined together from other, better kid’s movies. Echoes of “Ice Age” style slapstick and “Ratatouille” situations and even “Animal Farm” ethos reverberate throughout. I’ll give the filmmakers credit for adding in the gangster twist and some jazzy music but it’s the characters themselves that really disappoint.
To give you an idea of the amount of thought put into the characters, let’s start with their names. Neeson’s raccoon character is inventively named Raccoon, the rat sidekick is Buddy (Robert Tinkler) and the surly squirrel is, of course, called Surly.
Different names wouldn’t have made this a better movie, but the literal names display a lack of inventiveness that permeates the entire film. The animation is fine, but the rest—the story, the voice work, the action—feels as uninspired as peanut butter without jam.
There is very little joy, almond or otherwise, in “The Nut Job.”
Above all Ice Age is a marvel of computer generated animation. The rendering of the bleak ice and snow is truly impressive, too bad the story doesn’t hold up as well. The best bit of business is a running gag with a small cartoony animal trying desperately to store an acorn in his desolate glacial environment. The rest of the film seems to be trying too hard to capture the zany fun of Shrek, or the spark of last year’s Monster’s, Inc, but lacklustre writing and predictable situations cast a chill over the whole thing. John Leguizamo’s voicing of Sid the Sloth is very good, although Ray Romano as Manfred the Mammoth is a monotone bore.
