First Impressions: The Bob's Burgers Movie (2022)

You know Disney, you are on pretty thin ice.

Okay that comes off as a bit harsh to the movie, so I do want to clarify I did enjoy The Bob's Burgers Movie. I thought it was decently entertaining and if you like the show you will probably like this movie fine enough. I will say, the mystery element of the movie was kind of meh, not that it wasn't entertaining to watch, it was actually my favourite part of the movie, but I think I'm just kind of tired of red herrings. To be fair the rest of the movie had some decently entertaining bits, I liked when Bob, Linda and Teddy were selling burgers at the pier, so overall I do think this is a solid movie.

It's just that going in, I had no idea what to expect, and this is not because I haven't binge watched all of Bob's Burgers, it's because the marketing was absolutely dreadful. The trailers barely showed any of the plot, and I only learned what the main plot of the movie was with the second trailer. Yeah, the key detail that Bob and Linda are gonna have their restaurant equipment foreclosed on was not revealed in the first trailer. In fact, I don't even know what the first trailer revealed, outside of the fact that there was gonna be a massive hole? Oh and another thing that both of the trailers failed to mention was that this movie is a musical. Yeah, this movie is a musical, and none of the trailers that I saw shared that little bit of information.

I really don't want to make this another Buck Wilde blog, but the marketing for this movie absolutely baffles me, with some fairly useless trailers, it really does seem like whoever was in charge of marketing this movie had no idea what to do, as if a musical mystery based off of a popular show is difficult to market. Maybe fans of Bob's Burgers wouldn't expect a musical, but then the question becomes why are you making this a musical? If you're making a movie off of an existing property and you can't sell it to fans of said property, you may want to go back to the drawing board.

But that is just marketing, as I said the movie itself is solid. It is a musical mystery comedy, and again if you are a fan of the show, you might enjoy this movie. Yeah this was a fairly short first impressions. I don't really have that much to say about this movie, if you're absolutely lost from the trailers, consider this free advertisement, and I genuinely mean free I don't even get ad revenue doing these, it's pretty much just a hobby at this point. I guess I can give this a solid recommendation, even if I'm probably not going to put this high on my favourite films of the year list, I still had a good time watching it, and who knows, I may even watch it again when it comes to Disney+. So yeah, I do recommend it, and be sure to tell Disney that the trailers where awful.

First Impressions: Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022)

You know, it is quite amusing to think that this year we got two trailers to movies that the internet completely lost their minds over. First, there was the direct to video Pinocchio movie with Pauley Shore that I've already talked about, then we got this movie, the Chip & Dale... reboot? Spin-off? Original Film with classic characters? Yeah let's go with that. Why was this getting people excited? Was it because we were finally getting Chip and Dale back on the screen with  all the characters we know and love? Nope! It was because of cameos!

Okay, that may be a bit harsh, there were probably a lot of people who were excited to see Chip, Dale, Gadget and the rest return, but most of the hype I saw on twitter was all of the cameos, and they squeezed a lot of cameos in this movie. Cameos from My Little Pony, South Park, He-Man, I believe I even caught a glimpse of Cow from Cow & Chicken at the end. Not to mention cameos from other Disney properties, including Scrooge McDuck, Darkwing Duck and Phineas and Ferb's mother. They even brought in "Ugly Sonic", who ended up having a bigger role than I anticipated. However, cameos aren't the only thing this movie offers, it does offer quite a bit more, it's just that I don't think any of it was that satisfying.

Everyone kind of imagined this movie would be a Who Framed Roger Rabbit kind of deal, only set in a contemporary setting. The thing is though, go back and watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it's not actually that funny of a movie. The draw to that movie was the characters, the setting, the mystery and the commentary. This movie does try to be funny, it's just that I don't find a lot of the jokes to really land. There was one gag I thought was cute, it was this character that was animated to look like those Image Movers Digital movies like Polar Express and Mars Needs Moms. They do kind of spell out the joke, but I feel like it was cute enough. Honestly, I can't even remember any other jokes in the movie, and I am literally writing this just after seeing it. There's a running gag where Chip hates Alvin and the Chipmunks which, really only is brought up like twice in the movie at least. There's one scene where Chip gets home from work, and the music he's listening to is "Laid to Rest" by Lamb of God, how is Lamb of God a joke? Is it because a "Cute" character is listening to "Intense" music? I mean, I do believe we've seen that joke before.

But what about the other draws to the movie? Well, honestly, I thought they were pretty weak. Like, let's take a look at the setting. Going back to Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the setting was full of iconic characters. Not that there aren't a lot of iconic characters in the backgrounds of this movie, but more often than not we're just seeing some generic animated figures. Like, how much funnier would it be if instead of two generic looking pigs talking about divorce, it was two pigs that looked like some of the Three Little Pigs? or what about making it two different versions of Porky Pig? You had Foghorn Leghorn cameo on a box, why not get Porky Pig too? They have a Muppet character at one point, and not only was the puppetry mediocre, but it was just a generic anything Muppet. How much funnier would it have been if it was one of the iconic background Muppets, like the Blue Frackle, or maybe one of the retired Sesame Street characters like Placido Flamingo or Frazzle? The cameos we had were cool, but I feel they could have been used more where it might have mattered a bit more.

But what about the mystery? Well, no spoilers but they did kind of through a curve ball with the surprise reveal, but I feel like they mostly did that as some kind of meta commentary. Like, yes, this kind of thing is cliché, what are you adding to this? I guess the point was to wave the red herring in our face, but like, what was accomplished? The point of me hitting you with a sledgehammer is to cause you immense amounts of pain, that doesn't mean it's a good thing that I succeed. Speaking of which, the commentary is... allegedly there. Like, I can see people taking away some bits of commentary about the treatment of child stars (Seriously look up Bobby Driscoll's story, it will make you vomit), the nature of reboots and the fickle fandom scene, but like, what is it really saying about any of this. It's just, "Peter Pan got old and turned to illegal activities" well, okay, that can be some commentary, and it does relate to Bobby Driscoll, but what about Macaulay Culkin? Mara Wilson? Christina Ricci? Judith Barsi? other child stars that got mistreated by the industry, the media and in some cases their own parents, seriously look up Judith Barsi's story, it will make you hate everything. I mean, the commentary is there, but I feel like it could be stronger.

I guess on the one hand, this movie is not as bad as I thought it would be. I was not cringing through it like I thought I would, and I would not say it is a terrible movie. It's just, weak. The story is weak, the humour is weak, any commentary it might be making is weak, I was pretty bored watching this movie. That being said, I was never a Rescue Rangers fan growing up, I didn't really watch any of the Disney Afternoon shows until Disney+ happened, on account of being way too young for those shows to have aired in my life. I grew up with Recess, Kim Possible, Proud Family, The Weekenders, Dave the Barbarian, and shows like that. So my attachment to Chip and Dale is not of nostalgia, more of respect. So maybe that's what I'm missing, people really seem to like this movie, as it currently has an 86 percent audience score on RottenTomatoes and a 7.3 rating on IMDb, so I'm definitely in the minority here. Look, I know people think critics are nothing more than some form of advertisement to movies and video games, but the truth of it is that we just share a point of view, and you know, you don't have to agree with it. Maybe that point of view is stupid like a lot of Turning Red takes, maybe it's just unpopular like thinking The Tragically Hip's "Now For Plan A" is a solid album and not their weakest release. So, while I would not recommend this movie by myself, the fact is, you might actually enjoy it. What would I know? I'm a critic.

King Kong (1933) - A True Cinematic Landmark

Hey! This isn’t an animated movie, what gives? Well, I wanted to spend some time to talk about a side of animation that is often overlooked by animation reviewers, special effects. For the next four reviews, I am going to talk about movies that are most notable for their special effects, starting with the movie that quite possibly pioneered the entire special effects industry, the film that changed cinema as we know it, and without it, there would be no Jurassic Park, no Ray Harryhausen, probably not even computer effects as we know them. Today, I will be looking at 1933's King Kong.

Planning on making a picture, Carl Denham wants to shoot on a mysterious island, and brings along his crew, including the First Mate Jack Driscoll, and a struggling actress named Ann Darrow. While there, Ann is kidnapped and offered as a sacrifice to the mighty ape, Kong. The crew, mostly the first mate, rescue her and Carl has the idea to bring Kong back to New York as "The Eighth Wonder of the World". The plot moves along quite nicely, though it does take a little while to actually get to Kong. I feel like the slower pace is just a thing with older movies, but to be fair, it does build up to Kong quite nicely. The introduction of Kong was super cool, with the music and Kong ripping away at the trees. The plot does take a little bit to get going, but overall the plot is well done. They also place in a romance subplot, though it is kind of quick and rushed. Jack just kind of admits he likes Ann and that's really it. I did buy that they liked each other, but a little bit more time developing the relationship would have been nice. Then again, that also could have meant we'd take even longer to get to Kong, but I did enjoy spending time with the characters.

The characters were quite fun, Carl is great in a very blunt and somewhat blunt and direct kind of way. He’s a little like Scrooge McDuck in a sense, where you like him, but you’re also aware that he’s a bit of a cad and probably not the best guy to be around. Ann is also a nice character, she starts the adventure full of excitement and joy, and as the movie carries on, she becomes more afraid of the beasts around her, to the point that she is practically traumatized by the end. I also really like Kong, he has the curiosity and mannerisms of a young kid. He plays with the broken jaw of a dinosaur and peels away Anne’s clothes like she’s a Barbie doll, you can’t help but feel that Kong is just an oversized child at points, which of course makes us sympathize with him when he is taken from his home and shot down at the end. That being said, not all of the characters were great, Jack was a bit of a bland character, just a hard-ass with a soft spot, this could have also been why the romance angle was fairly weak. Then we get Charlie the cook and the Natives. To be fair, there are worse portrayals of Chinese and Black people in film, but this is definitely a 1930s production. So, viewer be warned.

One thing I really want to point out is the soundtrack by Max Steiner. The music in this movie is excellent, it hits the right tone of exciting and tense. I’m really hoping they put this soundtrack on vinyl or CD because it is fantastic. Perfectly fits the mood and compliments each scene it backs.

And of course, we have to talk about the special effects. These were groundbreaking effects for the time, and they have inspired so many animators and filmmakers. Peter Jackson, Ray Harryhausen, even Tomoyuki Tanaka who created Godzilla. These effects inspired so many big things, and in many respects they still hold up. The stop motion looks fluid and the little details they add make the puppets look so much more real. The ground moving under Kong as he falls down, and the wind blowing through his fur are just the perfect little touches. Plus, when they had to build a giant Kong model for close up shots, it looks fantastic, the model work for the head, hand and foot, looks fantastic great, it's kind of impressive to think they would build massive props like that back then. On top of that, the matte paintings were so good, I could barely tell they were there, and when they had a live actor in the background of a stop motion scene, the way they achieved the effect of having the actor move naturally was ingenious, projecting the frames onto a miniature while they animated everything around it. That being said, some of the rear projectioning has not held up well. The scene where the crew walk passed the dinosaur they just drugged and shot reminded me a bit of Blue’s Clues, with how Steve would just kind of faux-walk and the panning camera would make it look like he was moving. Still, that is to be expected with old effects, someday our insanely produced Marvel movies will not hold up to snuff, it is just how effects work, and that lesson can also be applied to video games, but now I’m getting ahead of myself. It's easy to think that it was only mind-blowing back in the 30s, but these effects are still pretty great. While it's true that this movie would have been even more mind-blowing back then, I'd argue that it's still kind of mind-blowing today.

Overall, a lot of people will say this is one of the greatest movies ever made, and quite frankly, I could not agree more. The movie was exciting and thrilling and when we think about the influence it had in our modern effects and how much of a cultural impact this movie had, I think King Kong is a movie that everyone needs to see, filmmakers, artists, animators, special effects crew, moviegoers in general. King Kong is one of the greatest movies ever made and I’m glad I decided to kick off this Special Effects Movie Marathon with it. Even if some of it has aged poorly, the stuff that has held up still holds up really well. If we think about all of the mind blowing movies that came out after it, Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Night at the Museum, all of them owe quite a bit to this movie. It pioneered special effects, it's a fantastic movie on it's own, quite frankly I don’t think I can recommend this movie enough.

My Little Pony: The Movie (1986) - Is it any good outside of the target audience?

A long time ago I took a look at the My Little Pony movie from 2017, based on the 2010 series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I always intended to take a look at the original 1986 feature afterwards, and since it's May, I might as well take a look at it now. My Little Pony is one of those franchises that you feel mostly stayed relevant because of nostalgia, like the people who grew up watching this cartoon would go on to make their own version of it, like with Ninja Turtles or Transformers. It sometimes makes me question why some franchises get left behind? I'm thankful for Friendship is Magic on some level, but why can't we also get a cool reboot of Jem and the Holograms? We got a reboot of DuckTales, why not a reboot of House of Mouse? I may not be able to answer those questions now, because there are a lot of answers, but can I get some understanding from this movie? Probably not.

It is the first of Spring and the Ponies wish to celebrate, but three witches wish to spoil their fun by summoning the Smooze, and the ponies have to find a way to stop the Smooze after the rainbow of light gets swallowed up by them. Even though it was powerful enough to breakthrough the goo after literally being swallowed by them. Meanwhile, one of the ponies runs away after being scolded for a disastrous performance and gets stuck at the bottom of a cliff near a river, and now she must find her way back home with the help of weird goblin like creatures called the Grundles. Overall the plot is fine, though maybe a bit dragged out, there is a scene of the witches in this movie that is just given to "Hilarious slapstick antics", and too much of this movie is given to song numbers. Yes, this is another movie where they have too little spacing between the songs... Maybe I should look into why this happens sometime.

I think it's mostly a problem here because the songs aren't good. They aren't all sung badly, though some of them are, and one of them is just barely performed, but none of them are really memorable. On top of that the backing score is uninspired as well, I swear I heard the same title theme melody multiple times. The rest of it is forgettable, but does it's job. The same can be said for the animation, it is serviceable, it looks colourful and I noticed no real errors. It just looks like someone put the TV show onto the big screen. It worked in favour of Blue's Clues because that movie was A) Direct-to-Video, and B) based on a show that was stylized to the point that looking more theatrical would be less appealing. Imagine this movie with the animation quality of The Secret of NIMH or The Fox and the Hound, wouldn't that be something?

I feel like most of the animation's problems come down to the editing as well, some shots don't even last for a full second, and it was just too distracting. Speaking of distracting, yeah a movie based on a toy-line property is going to sell some toys. The minute I saw the "Paradise Estate" my first thought was "Only $29.99". I guess not everything became a toy, I can't find any evidence of the Grundles becoming a toy, nor the Smooze prior to G4. On top of that, I really can't hold this against this movie too much, it was kind of the big thing about cartoons back then.

Now we get to the characters. They were all mostly bland, the most character we got out of them was that some of them were pessimistic and worrisome while others weren't. Most of the characters were just insufferable to watch, with some minor exceptions. The villains weren't insufferable, just rather annoying, Cloris Leachman, Madeline Kahn and Rhea Perlman did fine enough performances, but put on rather grating voices, and they were expected to sing in those voices too. Charlie Adler also puts on a grating voice for Spike, and let's just say Cathy Weseluck's incarnation of the role could not come fast enough. Danny DeVito does a good performance though, so there's that. Here's something funny though, Charlie Adler, Russi Taylor, Tammy Armstrong, Sheryl Bernstein, Susan Blu, Nancy Cartwright and so many other talented voice actors playing the characters that everyone went to see this movie for, none of them got an opening credit. Reminds me of the 2017 movie, how they had all these celebrity names on the poster, but not one mention of any of the actors playing the main characters, the characters that we went to the movie to see. Give that awful Pinocchio movie credit, it at least put Tom Kenny's name on the box, neither of these theatrically released movies gave the same respect to the voice actors who voiced the lead roles, shameful.

I hate this movie. Yeah, I know it's made for little girls, but that does not excuse how insufferable of a drag this movie was. Nothing about it was entertaining, nothing about it was exciting, and I know some of you are going to bring up The Transformers: The Movie, which I also reviewed a long while ago. Here's the thing, I didn't really like that movie either, it was sloppy in a lot of places, but it at least had some well done action scenes to warrant watching even if only once, and if this movie had some well done music scenes, or even just a well done filler scene, something that made it worth checking out, I'd give it some credit. Whatever all the kids saw in this movie, and The Transformers movie too, I don't see it. Then again, these movies are way before my time and made for a different audience. Cartoons have changed a lot since the 80s, and it has been for the better and for the worse in a lot of places. Even cartoons aimed primarily at young girls have changed, and say what you want about Friendship is Magic or Littlest Pet Shop, but they have gotten a fanbase for a good reason, and that fanbase has grown beyond the target audience, and while that's lead to a smorgasbord of problems, trust me I've been through a bunch of them, it just goes to show the quality of them.

I'm putting this movie alongside Felix the Cat: The Movie, if it was strictly up to me, I'd give this movie an Avoid, I can't imagine this movie being someone's big inspiration to get into animation. But, I have to concede that I am not judging this strictly on my own opinions, but I am recommending them on multiple qualities. So while I found this movie boring and unwatchable, it's ultimately harmless, I can't imagine this movie really tanking the reputation of animation as a medium, and who knows, if you have a little girl, she might get some inspiration out of it. We got Friendship is Magic out of this franchise, so it had to be inspiring to some degree. Then again, you can just put on Friendship is Magic, and that would be so much better. So no, I don't recommend this movie on any level, show them G4 instead.