Review: Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers

 Sometimes....you just have to follow where your muse takes you.  That's how we got to here:

Full disclosure.  I was a fan of the short-lived 90s cartoon.  Just like most 90s kids.  I mean if we are being honest, this was no Duck Tales or Darkwing Duck, but it had its charm.  Just like a majority of the OG Disney Afternoon lineup.  That being said, when I heard this was getting adapted into a Disney+ original movie, I thought to myself, really?  I mean I guess it could be better than those awful new Cheaper by the Dozen or Home Alone movies.  But that's really not saying a lot.

And then we got that trailer.  Which was...incredibly weird and off putting at the same time.  I mean how many of these meta movies do we really need?  And why of all characters, were we getting this type of movie from Chip 'n Dale of all Disney properties?  Was this what the people really wanted?  

Also we can't ignore the other huge meta mystery elephant in the room that mixed animation and live-action like this over thirty years ago.  Hell even Disney addressed it in its own movie...

Clearly this movie was heavily inspired by the still timeless classic, Who Framed Roger Rabbit.  I mean Disney lent their own IP's for this movie and everyone lost their shit.  I still mark out seeing Daffy and Donald interact as well as Bugs and Mickey.  This was really ahead of its time in a timeline today where all studios try to have their giant epic brand promotion.  Here's looking at you Space Jam 2!

Needless to say, I was heavily skeptical that Disney would be able to pull this off for Chip n' Dale of all the freaking properties in the Walt Disney library that only grows larger by the day.  But you know what?  I was kind of pleasantly surprised by this.

Let me get this out of the way first.  This movie has plenty of problems and is not as smart as the writers think it is.  Addressing your own plot holes and skepticism don't cover up the fact that you fall into the same generic traps that the many properties you reference do too.  But I've got to give the team who made this credit.  I did not expect to be laughing and dropping my jaw as often as I expected.  Like this movie really surprises you when you least expect it.  It has heart, it has an actually compelling story, and there is far more depth than the trailer implies.

But man those problems though.  Okay let me just go out of the way and say that for as tough as it is to mix CGI and hand drawn animation with live action...trust me I know from my couple years doing digital visualization in high school and college as easy elective credits...it's not easy.  After awhile, it is more apparent than ever that Chip's animation is subpar.  Like there are tons of times in this movie where I legitimately believe that the hand drawn animated characters are there.  Hell, for as many times as I get on overreliance on CGI, I believe Dale is there FAR more often than I do Chip.  I don't know if the shading on Chip is just too apparent, but yeah after awhile, it just becomes more obvious that the animation on Chip is just not that good.  Not helping matters is that Chip is voiced by John Mulaney; who I know has his fans, but I am not one of them.  I can only handle his dry sarcastic voice for so long before I get tired of it and want him off my screen.  Andy Samberg just blows him out of the water as Dale, he is goofy and loveable enough to make Dale the heart of the movie.

My other main complaints are that KiKi Layne as the human lead is just not that good in this role.  I'm not saying she's bad.  I saw her as the co-lead in that Charlize Theron Netflix movie "The Old Guard".  I know she can act.  But she's just not believable as this cop who is a Chip N Dale super fan.  She certainly is no Bob Hoskins because there are times where she is not doing a believable job that she's interacting with CGI and hand drawn characters.  And speaking of those characters....SPOILERS...KIND OF....SORT OF!

Disney clearly has the money to shelve out to put non-Disney IP's in this movie.  I'm going to avoid spoiling who exactly but let's just say other studios animated characters appear in this movie and outside of one that made me crack the fuck up that this one-off internet meme eventually had an arch in this movie, they do nothing else with them.  Like they just appear...I mean you're Disney.  You have the money.  Do something with them.

But those complaints aside, this movie had absolutely no right being as good as it was.  Just when I thought I was getting absolutely tired of self-aware movies who are overly meta, this movie comes out of nowhere and just surprises you with its clever humor and a pretty good story.  I mean this movie ends with Post Malone singing the Chip N Dale theme song.  Did anyone expect that?  Well lower those expectations because you'll have a ball with the unpredictable nature of this movie...despite its predictable cliches.

Final Grade: B

And for you Chip 'N Dale fans, don't you worry.  The main cast gets together for like two total minutes.  So there you go.  What did you guys think?  Are you sick of meta humor yet?  Did this movie subvert your expectations after such an awful first trailer like it did to me?  Tell me what you think in the comments below.  Until next time, take care.

Review: Doctor Strange in the Multi-Verse of Madness

 To say it's been awhile has been an understatement.

Yeah it has basically become a cliche that my latest entry starts off with me apologizing for the delay in content.  So what's new with me?  Well only some major life changing events.  I started a new job.  I think it's self-fulfilling prophecy that I went from working in grocery stores to becoming a department lead to  now managing the uniform accounts of nearly every major grocery store across the United States.  Yeah, I'm moving on up and it is kind of nice to have a Monday thru Friday for the first time in my life.

...and my wife is pregnant.  Yep we are expecting our first child this October.  Looks like what I wrote months ago became self-fulfilling prophecy.  I'm nervous, but at the same time, it's a good type of nervous.  The kind of nerves that make me very excited but at the same time wanting to get all my ducks in a row before the big day comes.  My career has been full of indecisiveness when it comes to what I want to be when I grew up, but the one certainty is that I've always wanted to be a father and that day is coming sooner rather than later.

So yeah, that's what I've been up to.  Not a dull moment at all this 2022.  Which means a lot less blog writing for my first half of the year.  I've had I think one post this year?  And a very long overdue film list from 2021.  I almost want to scrape that list all together, but I do want to get something out.  I'll be honest in saying that my writing priorities have been at the back of my mind.  Still in my thoughts somewhere, but not towards the forefront like it used to be.  But it's time to fix that.  I've got some long overdue catching up to do with the music and especially of the films out there.

I think this is my first official full length MCU review.  I mean you all can go check the tapes, but despite me talking about the MCU a plenty on this blog and giving a brief movie review of Black Widow, I've never given one of these movies the full length treatment.

To say I'm a fan is an understatement.  I love these movies.  I'm not one of those diehards that will claim that this series of movies are greater than the Bible or get all up in Martin Scorsese's mentions when he says he is not a fan of these movies, but I am one of the fans who admits that is fully invested in its long term storytelling while producing mostly good movies along the way.  I'm willing to forgive Marvel for their misses because they hit far more often than they miss.

It's mildly funny to see everyone talk about how the MCU is in trouble because they had a bad past two years.  First of all, 2020 was a bad year for EVERYONE.  I will concede and say 2021 was a down year mostly because they oversaturated the market with NINE projects.  I mean there is making up for lost time, but there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.  Thankfully, Spider-Man: No Way Home shut up a lot of doubters out there who might have thought that the MCU was on its way out.  I mean guys, 2019 was the end of a over ten year story.  It's like watching The Office post-Michael Scott.  Yeah its still going to obviously continue, but it is never going to top "Goodbye Michael".  And Marvel will never top "Endgame".  But The Office still continued because the cast was still compelling enough to continue the show's story.  The MCU will still continue the same way comic books still continue after an amazing first long term story.  I am absolutely still intrigued to see where so many of our heroes are going to go for the foreseeable future.  Which leads to this year.  To all the doubters out there who still think Disney's Marvel films are in serious trouble, the three major directors of the next three MCU movies are Taika Waititi, Ryan Coogler, and the movie I'm reviewing today, Sam Raimi.  They are going to be fine.

Speaking of Sam Raimi, it is poetic justice to see him come back to Marvel fifteen years after he directed Spider-Man 3.  He wasn't always in place to be the director.  The director of the first Doctor Strange movie, Scott Derrickson, was supposed to be back to make the sequel at first, but creative differences with MCU mastermind Kevin Feige as well as Scott's own mental health led to him leaving the sequel.  Which you know, it's not a common occurrence to see directors leaving the MCU over creative difference.  This is what, like the fifth time this has happened?  Sometimes shit happens.  Hell Derrickson has a new horror movie coming out that looks amazing.  Everybody wins.  Because my god, I could not imagine anyone else directing this movie other than Sam Raimi.

This movie was a match made in heaven.  When I first heard that they were planning on making this a Marvel horror movie, I was curious.  Derrickson did have a horror movie background and I wanted to see how this idea could have worked.  But when Derrickson was replaced by a horror movie auteur like Sam Raimi, you're damn right I was 100% sold.  Maybe someday the MCU will make a full on R-rated movie, but if there was any director out there who could do PG-13 horror, Sam Raimi is a perfect choice.  Yeah I know the horror movies he is most famous for were hard R rated...hell the first Evil Dead was NC-17.  But if you want to know what this man can do by pushing the limits of a PG-13 rating, take a look at Drag Me to Hell, one of the most criminally underrated horror films of all-time.  And holy shit does Sam Raimi take full advantage of that PG-13 in this movie.  Slight spoilers from the climax, but you've seen this shot in the trailers.  There is a scene with the zombified corpse of Doctor Strange with a bunch of demonic soul black arms and hands coming out wanting to kill you.  Another slight spoiler, but you've seen this in the trailers as well.  Wanda Maximoff more or less looks like Carrie in the climax of that movie with demonic eyes and blood pouring down her face.  Only Sam Raimi could push the limits of that PG-13 rating.  Hell the direction in general for this movie is amazing.  I wish I saw this in IMAX because Sam Raimi has some gorgeous shots and angles that made me think that Sam Raimi's style of directing has always been made for IMAX.

Most importantly of all, this movie got me excited for the future of the MCU again.  While I do wish we got to see more multi-verses, we spent time in mostly two multi-verses.  Which you know, I would have loved to see more, but that's perfectly okay because I think having only two focused multi-verses really helped explain the main story well.  But this movie got me excited for all the possibly endless stories the MCU can now take from here.  Sure this was briefly established in Loki and No Way Home obviously opened the portal of what the MCU can do with this storyline.  But Doctor Strange 2 really opened my eyes on the unlimited possibilities this saga can go from here.  We could have more re-castings of already retired or deceased characters, but by different actors.  We can have even more fan service of older movie characters like this one had a certain cameo from a certain franchise that you all know and love.

SPOILERS AHEAD

My one major problem with this movie that prevents this from being one of the MCU's best offerings is how Wanda Maximoff is handled as the antagonist.  Is she bad in it?  No.  In all honesty, Elizabeth Olson's acting in this is phenomenal.  This is the best acting she has done as Wanda Maximoff quite possibly ever.  And that comes from someone who thought she was great in WandaVision.  But that's where my problem lies with her in Multiverse of Madness.  The lessons she learned in WandaVision.  And before anyone points out "Well Bobby, she was under the control of the Darkhold." Yes...I know.  I get her motivation, I really do.  As I said in the beginning, I'm about to become a first time parent.  I would do anything for my unborn child.  Just like Wanda would do anything to be reunited with her children from a parallel universe.  But are we supposed to believe that she completely forgot about everything that she went through in WandaVision, evil book or no evil book, where she was remorseful for her actions when it came to playing with humanity the way that she did?  I'm sorry, but you're kind of pushing your luck a bit when it comes to that.  

Wanda Maximoff is miles above many others as one of the most complex and multi-dimensional characters in the MCU.  Her character has gone through so much grief and suffering that it makes her relatable as hell.  Her and Thor are the two characters that have gone through the most development when it comes to becoming more complex characters.  That is why I'll never stop being intrigued by their stories with each passing property they are tied to.  That is why seeing Wanda Maximoff kind of fall back into the same dark traps that she falls into with this kind of feels repetitive to me.  She has already been manipulated before.  More than once as a matter of fact.  You could have written her as being antagonistic without the control of the Darkhold.  Have her get that brief glimpse of knowing there is another universe out there where she could be with her kids...hell possibly Vision again...and make that the reason she goes rogue.  Seeing Wanda kill hundreds of people in order to get what she wants just feels absolutely ridiculous after being supremely remorseful for her actions at the end of WandaVision.  Although I'm not going to lie when I say seeing her fight the other superheroes...especially the Illuminati isn't badass.  I just feel like the moral justifications of her actions were supremely hard to ignore.

But yeah this movie is still amazing.  I want more Sam Raimi helmed MCU movies.  I want more creative MCU films like this one.  And based off the strong word of mouth this movie has been getting, I think we are going to see the MCU get more weird and creative.  That's what I want.  You can have the same Marvel formula while still trying new things like this.

Final Grade: A-

Like I said, so close to being Top 5.  Definitely better than the first Doctor Strange, which was still a good movie.  But this one was certainly great.  Mostly due to Sam Raimi given creative control while still going through the usual checkpoints for a Marvel movie.  I think that's what Marvel needs to keep doing moving forward.  What do you guys think?  Did you like it?  I do know some people who were less than pleased.  What did you not like?  Please let me know in the comments below.  Until next time, take care.