Richard joins CP24 anchor Jee-Yun Lee to have a look at the weekend’s new movies including “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” the creepy kid movie “The Prodigy” and the Taraji P. Henson comedy “What Men Want.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the pure pop art blast of “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” the creepy kid movie “The Prodigy” and the icy story of survival “Arctic.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia McMillan to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the sensory overload of “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” the silly fun of “What Men Want” and the revenge flick “Cold Pursuit.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard has a look at “Cold Pursuit” and the Liam Neeson controversy, the outer space Lego adventure “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” the creepy kid movie “The Prodigy and the supernatural comedy “What Men Want” with Taraji P. Henson with CFRA Morning Rush host Bill Carroll.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
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.
Richard sits in on the CJAD Montreal morning show with host Andrew Carter to talk about the pure pop art blast of “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part,” the creepy kid movie “The Prodigy” and the Liam Neeson controversy.
Listen to the whole thing HERE!
A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at the historical betrayals of “Mary Queen of Scots,” the cortex boiling animation of “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” and the drug addiction drama of “Ben is Back.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Marcia MacMillan to have a look at the weekend’s big releases including the wild and webby “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,” the political drama of “Mary Queen of Scots” and the Julia Roberts’s drug drama “Ben is Back.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Can’t get enough Spider-Man? Check out “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse,” a mega-origin story that features not one, not two but at least seven iterations of the web slinging superhero.
Before a radioactive spider bit Miles Morales (voice of Shameik Moore) he was a half-Puerto Rican and half-African-American, Brooklyn born student with loving parents. Post bite, his world goes topsy-turvy. Unable to control his brand-new powers—he sticks to everyone and everything like glue—he needs help. Enter the real Spider-Man (Jake Johnson) who asks the younger Spider-Man to combat crime lord Kingpin (Liev Schreiber).
The evil genius doesn’t have superpowers but he does have a machine called a Collider with the power to tear the world apart. “It’s a hell of a freakin’ light show,” Kingpin cackles. “You’ll love this.” When Kingpin hits the Collider’s on switch the various portals between Spider-Verse open, sweeping alternate Spider-People including Peter B. Parker (Johnson again), a “junky, old, broke-down hobo Spider Man,” Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), an anthropomorphic animal parody of Spider-Man, Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn), a Japanese-American middle school student, adopted by Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Spider-Man Noir (Nicolas Cage), a hard-bitten Raymond Chandler-esque type, into Miles’s world. The inter-dimensional Peter B. becomes a mentor of sorts to Miles—“Disinfect the mask,” he advises. “Use talcum powder. You don’t want chaffing.”—teaching his the tricks of the superhero trade. “You’re like the Spider-Man I don’t want to be,” Miles says to the frayed around the edges Peter. “I don’t think you have a choice kiddo,” Peter B. replies.
Before shutting off the Supercollider and saving the world Miles must sends the other Spider-types back to their realms or they will disintegrate.
“Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” is a cortex-boiling hit of boffo superhero theatrics. Visually it’s a pop art explosion, paying tribute, in its more restrained moments, to the work of original Spider-Man artist Steve Ditko. In the climatic multiverse showdown, however, it’s as if M.C. Escher and Roy Lichtenstein did acid and conceived a psychedelic freak-out that mixes and matches op art, anime and everything in between. It doesn’t look like any other superhero film you’ve ever seen. It’s wild and woolly, a pastiche of styles formed into one seamless whole.
It’s fresh and funny, and yes, there is a Stan Lee cameo, but despite the eye-catching animation and the flippant time of the script, there is substance; the film has a point. “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” is a coming-of-age story for Miles who must tap into his inner strength to succeed. Uncle Ben’s quote, “With great power comes great responsibility,” comes up in the film’s multiple origin stories but is amended to reflect that great power also comes with an awareness of self. “Anyone can wear the mask,” Miles says. “If you didn’t know that before I hope you know it now.” It’s a message about finding the greatness within whether you can shoot webs from your wrists or not. In a tweet the day Stan Lee died Seth Rogen wrote, “Thank you Stan Lee for making people who feel different realize they are special.” Lee didn’t write “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse” but his powerful, personal message of self worth is alive and well here.
