Review: Trolls World Tour

This movie review is a long time in the making.

 

Ever since this was announced as the first major release to bypass theatrical releases and go straight to streaming services, Trolls: World Tour was immediately going to be the first of its kind to try and define the new normal once this pandemic first started.  And ever since that day, I was wondering if I should watch it.  And against my better judgement, I sat this one out.  I decided that I had better things to do with my life then just sit here and watch the sequel to a movie that I couldn’t stand the slightest bit when it first came out.  I mean I don’t have enough material to get my way through a review of freaking Trolls: World Tour….right?

Actually surprisingly I do.  This movie is a cash grab.  An absolute mail-in of a sequel to a movie that was fairly unoriginal in its own right.  The only reason this movie exists is to make money off of more merchandising sales because the Trolls brand is a guaranteed money maker for DreamWorks Animation and Universal Studios.  And yet…this movie is actually surprisingly mediocre.  Much better than the boring and dull original.  What can I say?  This movie is infectiously energetic.  I love the vibrant colors of this movie.  The animation flows surprisingly smoother in comparison to the original.  It at least tries to stick out.  And it is honestly much appreciated in comparison to some of the absolute mail-ins the animated studios have been shipping out this year (looking at you SpongeBob and SCOOB!).  It seems like they are at least trying a little more than normal.

Make no mistake though.  This movie is incredibly lazy.  To those of you who have seen the trailers and made the comparison already, you are correct.  This movie absolutely rips off the Infinity saga.  Pretty shamelessly might I add; but instead of having a mad titan trying to shape the universe with his vision, the antagonist troll just wants to be accepted amongst the rest of the trolls.  Each troll tribe only likes one genre of music and revolves their life around their respective music genres. 

Acceptance is actually the main theme of this movie that we should accept those who are of different backgrounds.  A very on the nose theme right now with the issues going on in the real world.  And a much appreciated theme for a kid’s film.  The children of the world need to learn more about acceptance and how important it is to shape for future generations.  So I admire any movie that is willing to teach this lesson, even if it is a freaking Trolls movie.

But despite this lesson, the story has no real flow towards it.  It’s super thin and I feel like a good third of the movie is only moved forward through soundtrack covers.  There are a good four decades of hits being covered by this voice cast and while some move the story forward, more often than not, it’s just there.  There for kids to sing along to and parents be like, “Oh yeah!  I know this song!”  It’s one thing for a song to be essential to the story, but it’s another thing entirely for it to just be covered for the sake of covering.  No matter how many pop singers and multi-talented actors/actresses can sing pleasantly well.  It feels like I’m watching the Alvin and the Chipmunks movies again with how many pop song covers there are that serve no purpose to the movie.

And look, I’m an adult.  I’m clearly not this movie’s target audience.  DreamWorks Animation has specifically stated in the past that they want to make this franchise specifically for kids.  I’m not in their age demo.  But even if I was a kid, I would be incredibly annoyed by one character in this movie in particular, the main character of this franchise Poppy.  She is an awful character.  And I’m not talking about how she is performed by Anna Kendrick.  It’s how she is written.  She is a very annoying character and constantly makes the wrong choice in this movie.  Every time.  Sometimes for the life lessons this movie is trying to teach.  Sometimes just to move the movie forward.  But even the other characters in this movie point out how each choice is the wrong choice every time.  And she still commits to making the bad choices.  One or two times, it’s fine.  But she makes at least five bad choices in this movie and it got more infuriating with each passing bad decision.  A movie’s protagonist should not be written to be this dumb and at times, egotistical. 

So yeah, that’s my analysis of the history making movie Trolls: World Tour.  It’s just another kids movie.  At least it tries a little more than the last few I reviewed and has good morals.  But it is only a movie to sell merchandise and continue to be profitable.  And one thing I’ll give this.  At least I didn’t sit in a theater with screaming kids to see it.  Imagine how much worse this would have been if that happened, right?

 

Final Grade: C-

 

….okay maybe not my best review, but I’ve been wanting to say at least something about this movie for a little while.  That even the slightest bit of effort can make your movie a little more salvageable whether it is aimed for kids or not.

Anyway, I know I’ve been doing more movie reviews than music reviews as of late.  Trying to decide what year-ends to do next retrospectively is playing a bit of a part in that.  I’m open to suggestions in the comments below.

I also have a couple more movie projects in the works.  Whether it be film reviews or another project I’m working on that’s a bit of a surprise.  Stay tuned there.  Otherwise, thank you all for reading as always.  More content coming soon.  Until then, stay safe out there and see you next time. 

Review: The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run

I don’t think I would be stepping on anyone’s toes when I say SpongeBob SquarePants is one of the most influential cartoons of my lifetime.

It’s a cartoon that has shaped the animation landscape for going on twenty years now.  Name me a cartoon outside of The Simpsons that has had this sort of viewership longevity without ever really slowing down?  Even in a landscape where streaming has reigned supreme, SpongeBob is still a legitimate cash cow for a creatively bankrupt Nickelodeon television network. 

And Nickelodeon knows this.  That’s why as of the past couple years, network president Brian Robbins made headlines by comparing SpongeBob to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  And for as absolutely ridiculous as that statement is, the comparison isn’t all that far-fetched.  Marvel has made billions of dollars for Disney.  SpongeBob has made hundreds of millions of dollars for Nickelodeon.  Possibly billions.  He’s not wrong….although I wouldn’t have gone to those extremities of a comparison point.

That’s how we got to here.  The third SpongeBob theatrical film.  A much shorter break between theatrical films in comparison to the length between the first and second.  I’ve followed the box office ever since I was ten years old and to say both the first and the second SpongeBob movies overperformed at the box office is an understatement.  Paramount did not expect The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie to perform as well as it did in 2004.  They knew the series was huge, but not THAT huge.  That’s why Nickelodeon still wanted the series to continue, even after creator Stephen Hillenburg wanted to move on.  He thought the first film was the perfect way to wrap up the series and why it’s canon as the true ending to the series when SpongeBob eventually ends. 

Over ten years later, we finally got another SpongeBob theatrical film, Sponge Out of Water.  At this point in time, the series was coming off a bit of a rough patch.  Many fans were declaring that SpongeBob was on the decline and that it was not as good as its peak era from 2000-2004.  Myself included to an extent.  Box office forecasters thought that interest in the SpongeBob brand was on the decline due to the alleged decline in show quality and thought this movie was eleven years too late.  Studio insiders thought that it would underperform the first movie.  And they were wrong.  Sponge Out of Water ended up nearly doubling the first movie domestically and performed even better overseas.  Proving that the SpongeBob brand still has plenty of juice left in it.

And with renewed faith in its most profitable series ever, Nickelodeon is going to exploit it for every last cent it can get.  I mentioned earlier about Brian Robbins comparing SpongeBob to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  I didn’t even get to the reason behind the comparison in the first place.  Against series creator Stephen Hillenburg (R.I.P.) wishes, Nickelodeon is planning to make MULTIPLE spin-offs from the SpongeBob series.  Stephen Hillenburg, before he passed away from heart failure due to his battle with MLS, requested that there would be no spin-offs of SpongeBob and that he hated the idea.  So moving forward with any spin-offs is in bad taste on Nickelodeon’s part if you knew this going in.  But it’s not like Nickelodeon would use their latest SpongeBob movie to promote a spin-off….right?  That would be a terrible idea….

…okay I’m not preambling any further.  The third SpongeBob movie does exactly that.  As well as a lot wrong.  This is hands down the worst SpongeBob movie of the bunch.  It’s uninspired.  It’s lazy.  It’s one of the most for kids movies I’ve seen in quite some time.  Which I get it.  Animated movies are mostly aimed at kids.  But that doesn’t mean they are specifically designed for kids.  Especially when you’re presently the fifth longest running animated series on television and was at one point, my favorite childhood show.  The first three seasons of SpongeBob could challenge many other series as some of the best quality content of any show I’ve ever seen.  And yes the series did slip off after the movie, but it wasn’t necessarily awful.  There are plenty of gems from 2005 onward.  Hell every now and then, a newer episode from the last couple years manages to surprise me from this show as excellent material.  That’s the thing about SpongeBob.  It may be a cartoon but it doesn’t always insult the viewer’s intelligence and still manages to provide quality entertainment no matter how old you are.

In comparison to this movie, which actively looks to insult any viewer who watches it.  Where do I even begin to describe my frustrations with this movie?  Well let me get the most common complaint going in.  The third movie being entirely CGI.  That honestly never bothered me and doesn’t to an extent in this movie.  I actually think the CGI in this for the most part is fairly good.  Sure there are lazy character designs here and there.  Including I guess you would call him the main antagonist, Poseidon, which is insultingly lazy for one of the main characters of this movie.  But for the most part, the CGI in this is very colorful and vibrant.  Would I have preferred hand-drawn due to this being a movie of an animated series?  Yes, but for what we got, I don’t really think this is as bad as many feared.

What is as bad as I feared from the initial trailers is the writing.  This is some of the laziest writing I’ve seen in a movie this year.  You can predict nearly every single thing that happens in this movie.  I say that as a man in his 30’s, but I’m almost positive a kid half…hell even three times younger than me…would be able to predict every single plot point in this movie.  Honestly, if you watch the trailer for this movie, you can imagine exactly where 90-95% of this movie is going to go.  I don’t ask to be challenged when it comes to screenwriting, but for the love of god at least try to not make it so obvious.  The only time the script does manage to surprise me is the ten to fifteen minute live-action sequence.  Which is the only good part of this entire movie.  Not because it was intentionally good.  It’s just an off the wall bonkers level of events that transpire that actually compelled me.  If more of the movie was like that, then I would have enjoyed it a lot more.  Otherwise, you got what you expected.  Predictable plot devices.  Predictable jokes (Mr. Krabs likes money, Squidward hates SpongeBob, Sandy loves science, Patrick is dumb, SpongeBob is childish).  Even some thrown in pop culture references (Skype, FaceTime, recognizable pop songs!).  Hell it even borrows from the first movie using a celebrity to further the plot of the movie (whatever Keanu Reeves got paid was not nearly enough because he's in this movie A LOT longer than David Hasselhoff was in the first).

And then there was the spin-off promotion.  Which reeks of studio meddling.  Almost 1000% believe Nickelodeon executives told the SpongeBob team to interweave promotions of the first of many SpongeBob spin-offs, Kamp Koral, into the latest SpongeBob movie.  Kamp Koral gets mentioned at least five times in this movie.  I would honestly say Kamp Koral flashbacks take up 10-15% of this movie’s runtime.  Not only are these flashbacks forced as hell into the movie, but they play a general resolution to the conflict of the movie.  It’s like this movie’s mere existence is to promote Kamp Koral, coming to Nickelodeon in 2021.  That’s just actively insulting, especially when Stephen Hillenburg wanted this to not even exist.  Sure the touching tribute to Hillenburg during the credits is nice, but that doesn’t make the fact that you used 10-15% of this movie actively graverobbing him any less infuriating.

Oh and here’s another thing about the mere existence of Kamp Koral, it actively destroys the SpongeBob timeline.  Which I get that SpongeBob is not a show built up off of continuity.  Even in the old days, SpongeBob wasn’t a show that had a continuous storyline or a deep history to keep track of.  But for the love of god, it’s not hard to watch the show before implementing any of these ideas into your spin-off or theatrical motion picture.  I can name at least ten continuity flaws in this movie from this show’s history.  Probably more if I was actively paying attention. And about half are of the mere idea of Kamp Koral.  Does it actively deteriorate my thoughts on the movie?  Of course not.  But when your writing team, hell even your film’s director have previous experience working on this long running show, don’t do their homework; it only makes this movie’s flaws all the more apparent.

Removing my extensive history with SpongeBob SquarePants aside, this is just a bad movie.  I may have been disappointed with the drop off of quality from the first SpongeBob movie to the second, but honestly this movie gives me newfound appreciation for the second.  At least Sponge Out of Water tried new things and got experimental at times, even if the climax was not very good or original.  Sponge On the Run just flat out doesn’t even try to justify its existence.  It’s an absolute cash grab that is used to try and cross-promote a spin-off that could possibly fail.  Who knows?  All I know is that if Nickelodeon wants this spin-off to succeed, they’re going to have to try and rub the bad taste left from Sponge On the Run’s shortcomings.  But what do I know?  This movie is for kids.  Even then, kids deserve a lot better than this.

Final Grade: D

Review: Palm Springs

What can I really say about this one?  I needed this movie this year.

I know I’ve said this before on this blog, but I’m not going to mince words.  2020 will be known as the worst movie year of my lifetime.  And it’s basically by the default of not nearly enough quantity and quality.  It’s not a fair claim to make due to the pandemic, but we can’t control the present no matter how hard I wish we could do a better job at doing that.  I mean what little we’ve gotten hasn’t really been all that impressive, while the films we got before movie theaters shut down didn’t really knock my socks off either. 

Which is going to make my personal best and worst of the year lists especially difficult.  When films like “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Birds of Prey”, films I thought were generally okay but nothing special, have decent shots at making my best list, you know this year needed more quality films.  Hell I’m happy Disney+ finally caved and is planning to launch all their pandemic delayed films for additional surcharges.  It means new material for me to consume.  And hopefully other studios take notes and start doing the same.  I miss movie theaters as much as the next guy, but not at the expense of risking my health.  And with cases getting worse and worse, we just have to accept that it will be even longer than initially anticipated before movie theaters open back up again.

So with that said, I’ve really had to stretch and find material to review.  And what better ways to find more material than by checking out original films for streaming services.  Last week, I talked about Will Ferrell’s latest comedy and it only makes sense to talk about another comedian I adore.  This one more so than the last:

 

I don’t know if this is an unpopular opinion, but screw it.  Andy Samberg will be looked back at as one of the most underrated comedy stars of this time frame.  I mean the guy can do it all.  He can do comedy rap, he stars in one of the best network comedies of the past ten years, plus he was one of the first viral video stars of the YouTube generation.  And yet he still isn’t close to being considered an A-lister.  Why is that?  A guy with this many talents should absolutely be considered one of the best in the business.  Why hasn’t he reached that next level yet?

 

Probably because he has blown his chance more times than one can count.  His first feature film “Hot Rod” I really like, but the general public did not find all that special.  I can see that.  There is only so many times the same joke can be beaten into the ground so many times before it loses its luster.

His next chance at making that next leap to superstardom was co-headlining an Adam Sandler movie.  Now this one surely has to work, right?  I mean it worked for Kevin James for a short period of time, why not someone younger and funnier? ….oh right.  “That’s My Boy” was one of the worst reviewed comedies of all-time.  No wonder Adam Sandler immediately greenlit a sequel to “Grown Ups” to prove that he can still draw major money after this one flopped.

 

Now this is the one that has to launch Andy Samberg to the next level.  It’s The Lonely Island’s first feature film and has an A-list cast plus tons of advertising deals.  It’s critically praised.  It surely has to make Andy Samberg a superstar….and yet it flopped even harder than Hot Rod.  This was the one that absolutely deserved to be a star making performance in my eyes.  It’s one of my favorite movies of 2016 and it is absolutely right up my alley about being a parody of the music industry.  But I do understand why this didn’t do better.  Mockumentary style films like this about certain niche topics like the ins and outs of the music industry really don’t find financial success.  Even the most well known film from this niche genre, “This Is Spinal Tap” didn’t take off until it found cult classic success.  Which I hope Popstar does as well and seems to be heading that route.

 

So yeah, Andy Samberg really hasn’t found that breakthrough hit up until this point.  Yep I said it.  I will be absolutely shocked if this doesn’t get him closer to superstar status.  Because this movie is excellent.  I absolutely loved every minute of “Palm Springs”.  Another movie brainchild from The Lonely Island trio as they all served as executive producers for this movie.  And I can absolutely tell that they had some sort of influence with bringing fresh original ideas to a different subgenres. 

 

This time, romantic comedies.  Most notably taking a lot of the ideas experimented on from “Groundhog Day”.  What happens when two people get stuck repeating the same day over and over again?  Well of course, they fall in love.  But not in the ways the trailer would lead you into believing.  It will be very hard avoiding spoilers while talking about this movie so I’m not going to go too in depth with the story, but I will say this.  I stopped trying to figure out where this movie was going to go after the first reiteration of the same day being repeated and just went with it.  And I had an absolute blast while doing so.  What this movie does with its entire runtime is so franticly energetic that it really gives you no time to try and overthink its storytelling.  The reworking of this concept is so clever that I admire every single minute and its one of the rare occasions for me where I lost track of the runtime and next thing you know, the movie is over.  I can name only a handful of movies in recent memory that have had this sort of effect on me, so this is a HUGE plus that cancels out any sort of minuses this movie had, which it barely had any.

The chemistry between Andy Samberg and Cristin Miloti is phenomenal for the record.  Best on-screen chemistry by any two leads this year.  For how underrated this post has been about Andy Samberg, this cast is literally a who’s who of underrated actors and actresses from JK Simmons to Peter Gallagher, hell even June Squibb is in this movie for a handful of minutes.  But most underrated of them all is Cristin Miloti.  I feel like that she should be so much bigger than she is.  I mean she was the Mother in How I Met Your Mother for crying out loud.  Cristin Miloti is absolutely amazing here as Sarah and I would be shocked if we don’t see her getting more headline work in the near future as well.  This is a star making performance playing the originally straight woman to Andy Samberg’s Nyles, but eventually caving into matching his madness.

As for negatives?  None.  I can’t think of any real negatives.   My only negative I’ve ever seen in regards to this movie was my close friend telling me he felt like they were stretching what they can get away with when it comes to this concept.  And I can see that, but I don’t care.  It’s part of the point with this movie.  Stream it on Hulu now and let’s make everyone involved with this bigger stars from first time director, Max Barbakow to fairly new screenwriter Andy Siara.  This movie is just that perfect and just what I needed in this grim year for everything.  Can't wait to watch this again.

Final Grade: A+

Review: Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

I sure am getting desperate for material to review when it comes to movies.  How else would it explain me reviewing this?

Actually fairly likely either way.  I have a soft spot for Will Ferrell.  He made some of my favorite comedies of the 2000s from Anchorman to Step Brothers to Elf, the guy has made so many movies I like.  I was bound to give this a shot one way or another just due to Will Ferrell’s involvement.  Also I like Rachel McAdams.  She’s an actress who should be a lot bigger of a star than she actually is.  I mean she was pegged as one of the breakout stars from 2004’s timeless teen classic Mean Girls.  And she never really blew up as a huge box office draw that so many others pegged her out to be.  She ended up being even more selective with her projects and I respect her for that. 

And speaking of “box office draws”; even if we weren’t in the middle of a pandemic, I do have a lot to say about the comedy genre as of late.  It’s on the decline.  I don’t know if it is due to the genre running out of ideas, less returns at the box office, or most of the big comedians of the last ten years trying to mature in their careers with more serious turns or just stepping away from the limelight.  We don’t have as many big name draws for the genre anymore.  So Will Ferrell is at an interesting point in his career as I can honestly say that Will Ferrell might be one of the last true comedy focused box office draws.  I’m not saying other people can’t make comedies successful in this day and age, but when it comes to gaining viewers solely on name involvement, it’s basically come down to Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler in regards to who can still pull in a large audience.

So how was the new Netflix comedy sweeping the Netflix Top 10?  Well it is perfectly…okay.  Yeah it was okay.  I mean I wasn’t wowed or anything.  Honestly I thought it ran way too long and should have cut out a good thirty minutes or so.  But I got a couple good laughs out of this.  Which is really saying something in this day and age where true comedies are on the decline in popularity.

The positives I have to say about this are the acting.  The chemistry between Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams is some of the best I’ve seen in a movie this year.  Granted, I haven’t seen as many movies as I normally have this year due to the ongoing pandemic bringing the cinema landscape to a screeching halt, but I would definitely like to see these two work off each other again in the near future.  It kind of reminds me of how great the chemistry is between Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore.  They just naturally play off each other very well.  Whenever Will Ferrell goes over the top in terms of his character he has to portray, Rachel McAdams goes just as over the top to make just the most charming of friendships/relationships….slight spoiler, but come on.  Let’s not act surprised that these two end up together.  It was predictable from the trailers and it was predictable within the first few minutes.

Also this movie does Eurovision the justice it deserves.  For years now, I’ve dreamed of going to Eurovision after watching the show online for the last couple of years.  That’s what happens when you follow the music industry as closely as I do and it’s become a recent goal of mine to go see the competition.  The original musical numbers that are performed with this show in mind are great.  The cover songs are really good as well.  There are tons of Eurovision performers of past and present that appear throughout the movie and perform some of their previous songs from the series in the movie as well.  Outsiders of the Eurovision series would probably assume that there are some segments that will be similar to Pitch Perfect and I’ll be honest, there are moments where I can see that argument.  There is one giant group number that is very similar to the Pitch Perfect series’s riff off and the scene goes on for like ten to fifteen minutes.  But outside of that, the similarities are there at times, but I feel like the homage to Eurovision is still there.  Hell the board who hosts the competition recently gave the movie its seal of approval as to how it portrayed the actual competition.  So that’s saying something positive, right?

The main negative I have in regards to this movie is that run time I mentioned previously.  This movie is a little over two hours long.  Which is very long for comedies in this day and age.  I’m not against longer runtime comedies as long as they have enough material to justify it being that long.  And honestly, I would cut out at least a half-hour worth of material.  Whether it be shortening certain scenes like “the riff-off” I mentioned earlier or just completely cut out a couple other scenes here and there that drive this movie to a grinding halt of comedic momentum.  The director of this movie is David Dobkin, who previously directed one of my favorite comedies of 2005, The Wedding Crashers.  While not necessarily a bad director, David Dobkin does have the same problem in a majority of the movies I’ve seen from him.  They are much longer than they have any right to be.  He still makes solid movies, but he could really benefit from running through the editing room a few more times.

And then there is the screenplay.  As mentioned above, plenty of scenes could have been cut, but even without mentioning that problem anymore, most of this movie is fairly predictable.  When certain characters get introduced, you can automatically pinpoint exactly what is going to happen with their interactions with our main characters.  And while none of these characters are exactly badly performed persay. Dan Stevens and Pierce Brosnan in particular both steal their fair share of scenes with their over the top performances; while Demi Lovato is in the movie for a short amount of time as a rival Icelandic performer showing that she still knows how to act despite not really acting anymore.  But these interactions with our main characters are so predictable that I feel like the writers could have done so much more to make them more compelling.

Overall though, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (there’s a reason I haven’t listed this movie title up until now, it’s a mouthful) is a perfectly okay comedy in a day and age where mainstream comedies are on the decline.  Does it breathe new life into a genre that I wish was more publically prominent again?  No.  But I’m glad I sat through it.  It gave me my fair share of laughs, which serotonin is always welcome in the year that is 2020.  I just wish it was so much shorter and wasn’t nearly as predictable as it ended up becoming.

Final Grade: C+