Fast reviews for busy people! Watch as I review three movies in less time than it takes to do a high five! Have a look as I race against the clock to tell you about the action adventure of “Sonic the Hedgehog 3,” the photorealism of “Mufasa: The Lion King” and the thrills of #Carry-On.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
SYNOPSIS: When a mysterious and powerful enemy threatens to destroy the planet, Sonic (Ben Schwartz), Knuckles (Idris Elba) and Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) are recruited by the secretive Guardian Units of Nations (G.U.N.) to save the day.
CAST: Jim Carrey, Ben Schwartz, Colleen O’Shaughnessey, Natasha Rothwell, Shemar Moore, James Marsden, Tika Sumpter, Idris Elba Krysten Ritter, Keanu Reeves. Directed by Jeff Fowler.
REVIEW: A combination of live action and animation, “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” starring Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves and now playing in theatres, sees the lead trio of heroes, Sonic, Tails and Knuckles face-off against “the Ultimate Lifeform.” He’s Shadow the Hedgehog, a powerful villain, recently unleashed after fifty years of captivity, who is determined to destroy Earth. To save the planet the trio teams with an old adversary, Ivo Robotnik. “Let’s do this,” the formerly evil doctor says. “If I can’t rule the world, I might as well save it!”
Usually by the time a franchise gets to the point where they have a “3” in the title the movies are bigger and louder but not better. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule, and “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” is one of them.
90s nostalgia takes the day. A generation who grew up with the Sonic videogames—the first one was released in 1991—are rewarded with a story that packs loads of lore into the fast moving movie.
Sometimes it feels like there’s too much lore.
The plot is all over the place and the film jumps to and fro through time and mythology at breakneck speed, but even though it’s convoluted, it’s a lot of fun for old fans and new.
The bonus for Generation Y’ers is the presence of Jim Carrey in the dual role of Dr. Robotnik and Gerald Robotnik, Ivo’s grandfather and Shadow’s creator. Carrey is in fine comedic form, recalling his up-for-anything performances in 90s favorites like “The Mask” and “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.” It’s double the fun as Carrey delivers the film’s funniest lines and shows off his mastery of physical humour.
Another 90s superstar, Keanu Reeves, takes a role that could have been a standard issue villain and makes us understand the source of his malevolence. When he talks about the effect of the death of his best friend had on his psyche, it’ll make you feel something for an evil, animated hedgehog.
Not all of it works. James Marsden and Tika Sumpter aren’t given much to do as the adoptive father of Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, simply adding another story shard to an already crowded movie.
“Sonic the Hedgehog 3” defies the rule of sequel diminishing returns. It builds on the strengths of the first two films in the franchise to deliver a fun family friendly movie just in time of the holidays.
“Unfrosted,” a sweet new slice of Boomer porn now streaming on Netflix, is a one joke wonder about the corporate shenanigans behind the creation and marketing of Pop-Tarts®, the first successful shelf stable fruit jelly pastry product.
Writer/director Jerry Seinfeld stars as Bob Cabana, the product developer behind some of Kellogg’s greatest hits. When we join the story it’s 1963, in cereal’s ground zero, Battle Creek, Michigan, home to Kellogg’s and their largest rival Post.
Breakfast is defined by milk and cereal—”The magic of cereal is that you’re eating and drinking at the same time,” Cabana says.—but change is in the air. “It’s the 60s, “ says Marjorie Post (Amy Schumer) head of rival Post, “things are moving fast. There’s always a surprise in the box.”
When Cabana discovers two kids dumpster diving for discarded Post “goo,” a syrupy sweet treat they are developing for their new product, the holy grail of breakfast foods, a handheld fruit pastry.
As a corporation, Kellogg’s owns breakfast in America. They outsell Post and regularly clean up at the Bowl and Spoon Awards where they dominate the competition, winning statues in categories like “Easiest to Open Wax Bag.”
Fearing Post will get the jump on the new market, that they have “broken the pastry barrier,” Cabana flies into action. He recruits Donna Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) a NASA scientist-turned-breakfast-food-designer to create a new breakfast treat.
But getting it to market is a long, convoluted process that involves everyone from Nikita Krushchev (Dean Norris) and President John F. Kennedy (Bill Burr) to Chef Boyardee (Bobby Moynihan) and Tony the Tiger (Hugh Grant as mascot actor Thurl Ravenscroft).
“Unfrosted” is a silly ode to Pop-Tarts®. Slaphappy and over-the-top, it does not allow facts to sully the storytelling. Seinfeld pitches the performances and story at a very heightened level, like an “SNL” sketch stretched to feature length. He has nothing on his mind other than a scattergun approach of going for the jokes. The result is a hit and miss joke-to-laughs ratio, but Seinfeld has assembled an all-star comedic cast who know how to squeeze the laughs out of the material.
Gags about the Zapruder film and an unusually playful Walter Cronkite may fly over a younger audience’s collective heads, but should hit the mark with Boomers.
Ultimately, like the snack it is based on, “Unfrosted” is empty calories but may provide a sugar rush.
As the “PAW Patrol” franchise enters its 66th year—that’s in dog years—it shows no signs of slowing down. A new film, “PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie,” based on the canine first responder characters from the wildly successful Canadian kid’s show, now playing in theatres, is a big story about a small pup.
Featuring an all-star voice cast, the begins with a meteor crash in Adventure City. “It’s giving off some kind of energy,” says Ryder (Finn Lee-Epp), the leader of the PAW Patrol. The mysterious meteor imbues the PAW Patrol pups with superpowers, like super strength, elasticity, super speed and the ability to manifest fireballs. “Great, now the clumsy pup shoots fireballs out of his paws.”
For seven-year-old cockapoo Skye (Mckenna Grace), the smallest member of the newly dubbed Mighty Pups, the new powers finally levels the playing field, giving her the chance to make up in super strength what she has always lacked in confidence and size.
When Humdinger (Ron Pardo), the ex-mayor of Adventure City, and his Kitten Catastrophe Crew escapes from prison and teams with meteor expert and supervillain Victoria “Vee” Vance (Taraji P. Henson) to steal the superpowers, the Mighty Pups must fight back to save their city and possibly the world.
“When you go up against one of us, you go up against all of us,” Ryder tells Vance.
“PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” is bigger and louder than 2021’s “PAW Patrol” or the television show. Returning director Cal Brunker pumps up the action, creating a sort of Marvel movie for the preschool set. Colourful action scenes will grab kid’s attention, but the spirit of cooperation, and messages of over-coming obstacles and never judging a book by its cover, that lie at the heart of the “PAW Patrol” franchise are never far away.
Voice work from Kim Kardashian, Chris Rock, Lil Rel Howery, Kristen Bell and James Marsden is solid, but Henson is having all the fun here. Her villain—don’t call her a “mad scientist”—is a blast, funny and fearless, she steals every scene she’s in.
“PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie” maintains what made the TV show so appealing for kids, but also has enough gags aimed at parents to round out the experience for the whole family.
Bright-blue extraterrestrial hedgehog Sonic comes bounding back into theatres with the imaginatively titled “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” a Sega sequel to the highest-grossing video game movie of all-time.
At the beginning of the flick Sonic (voiced by Ben Schwartz), a hedgehog whose lightning-fast reflexes and ability to run faster than the speed of sound, have helped him save the world on numerous occasions, is living with his adopted “parents,” Montana police officer Tom (James Marsden) and his veterinarian wife Maddie (Tika Sumpter).
When Tom and Maddie go on a Hawaiian vacation, Sonic is left to his own devices. That opens the door for the hedgehog’s nemesis, baddie Dr. Robotnik (Jim Carrey) to return with anteater sidekick Knuckles (voice of Idris Elba). Robotnik is still sore from his exile on a remote planet, but has returned with a thirst to exact revenge on the spiny blue mammal who put him there and a plan to take over the world.
“Since I’ve been gone,” he says, “I’ve discovered the source of ultimate power.”
That power stems from a mystical emerald with the power to destroy civilizations. To save the world Sonic teams with Tails (voiced by Colleen O’Shaughnessey), a yellow fox with two tails who appears through a magic portal.
Sonic’s plan to make sure Robotnik doesn’t destroy the world? “Step one, light taunting,” he says. “Step two? I have no idea.”
Plan or no plan, Sonic’s tenacity could save the day.
“You’re unskilled, untrained, unworthy,” says Knuckles. “You forgot one,” Sonic replies. “Unstoppable.”
Story wise “Sonic the Hedgehog 2” is about as imaginative as its title. A standard save-the-world video game story with an unusual amount of CGI, it doesn’t pave any new paths forward, but fun performances—both live and CGI—keep things buoyant for most of the slightly too long two-hour running time.
Sonic is the star, the heart and soul of the franchise, but it is Jim Carrey who steals the show with a performance that goes over-the-top in search of a new top. It’s big cartoony work that brings an organic touch to an overload of computer-generated animation.
More understated, but just by a hair, is Natasha Rothwell as Maddie’s sister Rachel. She brings the funny and brings some respite to the non-stop blur of action.
“Sonic the Hedgehog 2” is a family film for video game fans, comprised of a series of big, loud set pieces banged together to entertain the eye while sprouting messages of the importance of family and teamwork.
They grow up so fast, don’t they? It was just four years ago that the Templetons welcomed a new child into the family. Ted was an odd baby who wore a suit onesie, carried a briefcase and spoke the language of the boardroom. “I may look like a baby but I was born all grown up,” he said in “The Boss Baby.”
Cut to “The Boss Baby: Family Business,” now playing in theatres. Older brother Tim (voiced by James Marsden) is now an adult and estranged from his “boss” baby brother Ted (Alec Baldwin). Their lives have taken different paths. Tim is now married to Carol (Eva Longoria) and a suburban dad to 7-year-old daughter Tabitha (Ariana Greenblatt) and infant Tina (Amy Sedaris). Ted, unsurprisingly, is a hedge fund manager and workaholic.
Tabitha seems to be following in her uncle’s footsteps, attending the Acorn Center for Advanced Childhood. She’s at the top of her class but what she doesn’t know is that Tina, the baby, is a spy for BabyCorp. “I’m in the family business,” she says. “And now you work for me Boomers!” Her mission? Find out exactly what’s up at Tabitha’s school and if its founder, Dr. Erwin Armstrong (Jeff Goldblum) is really planning a baby revolution. “We can make parents do whatever we want,” he yells.
The investigation brings the brothers, who drink a formula that turns them back into toddlers, together and reveals deep bonds. “Just because you grow up,” says Tina, “doesn’t mean you have to grow apart.”
Like all sequels “Boss Baby: Family Business” is bigger, louder and more frenetic than the original. In a blur of color and action, it uses kid-friendly humour and inventive animation to re-enforce a standard lesson about the importance of family.
The messaging may be generic, but the solid voice work from Marsden, Baldwin, Sedaris and Goldblum (who seems to be having a blast) inject vibrant life into it. This is essentially a one joke premise dragged kicking and screaming into feature length but director Tom McGrath expands the world of the first film (which he also directed) staging scenes with baby ninjas and inside Tim’s head. There are no big surprises really, but he does keep much of the mischievousness that made the first film so enjoyable.
“The Boss Baby: Family Business” moves at a rapid speed that may exhaust parents, but should keep young minds, who may have followed the adventures of the Boss Baby series on Netflix for the last four years, entertained.
I take no joy in this.
Every now and again when I’m at the movies a deep-rooted feeling of ennui sneals up me. That, “What the heck am I doing wasting my time watching ‘insert title here?’ It has only swept over me a handful of times usually in what I call Seatbelt Movies, films so uninspired I need a seatbelt to keep me from fleeing the theatre.
That familiar creeping feeling came over me during a recent screening of “Henchmen,” a new superhero animated film starring the voices of James Marsden, Rosario Dawson, Alfred Molina, Jane Krakowski and Rob Riggle. I stayed, trapped by professional duty to make it to the end credits, but it tested my patience in ways few other movies have.
“Silicon Valley’s” Thomas Middleditch is Lester a self described comic book nerd and orphan. On his sixteenth birthday he auditions at the Union of Evil—“The best of the worst!”—only to be assigned Henchman Third Class. A janitor. His dream of one day making his super villain persona, The Orphan,” a reality will have to wait. He’s assigned to Hank (Marsden), a disgraced former First Class henchman (he was too nice a guy to be bad), now pushing a mop. On a visit to the Vault of Villainy Lester accidentally winds up wearing an old super villain suit. Taking advantage of Lester’s newfound powers Hank sees a way to change his life. Using Lester’s ray gun hands he tries to free a chip of What-ifium—a substance that can change the past—from a giant crystal block. Before he can go back in time mega-baddie Baron Blackout (Alfred Molina), who put me in the mind of Kate McKinnon’s Jeff Sessions impersonation, asserts his intention to take over Super Villain City. Will the What-ifium save the world and make all their dreams come true?
There’s more—a team of superheroes called the Friendly Force Five, and a goopy gangster called Gluttonator who wants to use radioactive cheese to bring his foes to their knees and shouts “What the feta??!!” when his plan goes south—but why prolong this any more than I have to?
Set to a soundtrack of sound-alike classic rock songs “Henchmen” is about as imaginative as you can expect from a movie where all the criminals live in a place called Super Villain City. From the uninspired voice work to animation that looks like next wave cheapo Hanna-Barbera style animation without any of the organic charm, “Henchmen” is little more than a collection of cartoon clichés. Very small children might find distraction in the colourful design or the bullet proof underpants or the ‘Bad guys always lose’ moral but all others beware.
I took no joy in writing this review but then again I could find no joy in “Henchmen” either.
With news organizations under fire from all sides these days along comes a movie about journalists who spoke truth to power. “Shock and Awe,” the new film from director Rob Reiner, details the efforts of the Knight Ridder journalists who questioned the reasoning behind the 2003 Iraq War.
The main thrust of the narrative begins on September 11, 2001. As the press struggle to find the real story behind the terrorist attack, George W. Bush’s White House begins a campaign of misinformation, shifting the blame from Islamic extremist Osama bin Laden to secular leader Saddam Hussein. Knight Ridder reporters Warren Strobel (James Marsden) and Jonathan Landay (Woody Harrelson) sense something is not quite right with the story, even though many of their colleagues eat up the Bush administration story of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Their insiders suggest the White House is deliberately trying to start a war with Iraq, forging a connection between Hussein and Al-Qaeda.
When Knight Ridder papers like The Philadelphia Inquirer decline to publish their reporting editor John Walcott (Reiner) reaches out to a big gun, Bronze Star-winning war correspondent Joe Galloway (Tommy Lee Jones), for help. “We don’t write for people who send other people’s kids off to war,” says Walcott. “We write for people whose kids get sent to war. You only have one thing to ask: Is it true?” With Galloway’s support Landay and Strobel burn shoe leather to support their “Donald Rumsfeld is lying” angle.
There is not much either shocking or awesome in “Shock and Awe.” The story should be edge of your seat stuff but feels muted. Part of the trouble is the amount of exposition particularly a speech from Strobel’s love interest Lisa (Jessica Biel) that sums up 4000 years of Iraq history in just under two minutes. It doesn’t make for good drama, despite the explosive nature of the true events.
Perhaps the movie’s indignation about politicians and media not valuing the truth feels blunted in this time of Fake News. Or perhaps it is lost in the film’s breezy nature. Either way, the result is a movie that has its heart in the right place but isn’t angry or intrepid enough.
Is Kristen Wiig the most daring actress in Hollywood? After having been an all-star utility player on “Saturday Night Live” for 9 years and the massive success of “Bridesmaids” she could have written her own ticket. She could have reteamed with Melissa McCarthy to make the expected follow-up to “Bridesmaids,” or even played a Marvel superhero. She could have paired off with Will Ferrell and made big budget big screen comedies or elbowed Sandra Bullock out of the way and starred in “The Heat.”
Instead she has kept a low profile, making challenging, quirky films that mix mirth with melancholy and are unlikely to gross even “Bridesmaids’s” catering cost.
She returns as Alice Klieg in “Welcome to Me,” a dark comedy about a woman with Borderline Personality Disorder and a dream of being on television. Divorced, she lives in a small apartment, sleeping in a sleeping bag on top of the bed, in front of a television that hasn’t been turned off in eleven years.
She mouths along with Oprah reruns and dreams, one day, of sharing herself and her ideas with the world. Her dream becomes a possibility when she wins an $87 million lottery. Using the facilities of a failing TV infomercial studio run by Gabe (Wes Bentley) and Rich (James Marsden), she buys herself a show unlike anything that has ever been seen on TV. Titled “Welcome to Me,” it’s a puzzling glimpse into her life. “Today I woke up and there was a public hair on my pillow shaped like a question mark,” she says introducing a segment called Unanswered Questions. For a week straight she neuters dogs live on air. The show, which airs so high on the dial it’s just above the Alien Channel, becomes a mini sensation with people tuning in to see the unusual mix of tortured revelations and performance art. One student credits her with the invention of “the narrative infomercial.”
As the show gains in popularity Alice’s ego bloats but success doesn’t make her happy, and eventually she is stripped bare, both emotionally and physically.
Brave, dynamic work like this separates Wiig from the pack. In a high wire performance she balances playing someone dealing with severe mental health issues while earning laughs along the way. It’s tough to do, but in what is her best work yet she rides the line, never backing off the tough stuff but also frequently taking a sideways step toward the laughs.
Other characters aren’t given as much of a chance to shine–Jennifer Jason Leigh as the show’s designer is cut adrift but Joan Cusack makes the best of an underwritten role as the show’s director—but as Alice’s best friend Linda Cardinelli is equal parts warmth and frustration, and perfect in the role.
“Welcome to Me” is a nervy and showcase for Wiig.
