First Impressions: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

I'm going to be honest, I hate Illumination Studios. I have not seen all of their movies, and I doubt they're all terrible movies. However, Illumination is easily the poster boy for "Safe" movies. The kind of movies that are so inoffensive and non-threatening that they straight up annoy me. So, I was actually kind of excited for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, as surprising as that sounds, because the trailers and screen-shots of the movie made it look so much different and more unique from the rest of Illumination's output. So I waited with anticipation and high, but reasonable expectations. I was not expecting something like a Secret of NIMH or a Felidae here, honestly if Illumination made a movie on par with either of those, I'd would be beyond amazed, but I was kind of expecting Illumination to take a risk, be bold and raise their bar by a lot, and did they accomplish that?

Truthfully, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is... somewhat what I expected. By Illumination's standards it is a very risky movie, but that is by Illumination standards, which is a bar so low it's practically in the Earth's outer core. Secret Life of Pets 2 and Minions: The Rise of Gru were not awful movies, but they were fairly safe and formulaic. Not that this movie is not formulaic at all, but it isn't as predictable as Minions 2 was. Minions 2 had the recognizable pattern of the standard family film, the third act break-up that is meant to be emotional only to bring everyone together in the end because "Hey, I didn't really mean what I said". There is a bit of a third act break-up here, but it isn't played with a misunderstanding or a emotional low point... sort of. It was more a consequence of the action. Plot wise, I do think Illumination stepped out on a limb here, a baby step maybe, but still a step.

Of course, no discussion of this movie is complete without talking about the voice cast, namely one Pratt by name of Chris. Chris Pratt is the voice of Mario and... he's fine. Yes, it would have been nice if we got Charles Martinet as the voice, but Chris Pratt does fine. Charles Martinet is not forgotten in this movie, being the voice of Mario's Dad, which is a nice touch. Honestly, my biggest issues with the voice actors lay with Cranky Kong and Bowser. Cranky Kong's actor was fine, but he sounded way too young for this role, I always imagine Cranky with a Red Green kind of voice, old and grizzled without a hint of wisdom. as for Bowser, for the most part he's actually fine, great even, but when he sings he often slips into Jack Black's regular voice, and that is just distracting. I love Jack Black, and I do think he was a good casting choice for Bowser, but moments like that did pull me out of the movie a bit.

Honestly though, those were my only complaints. Everything else is fairly good. The animation is colourful and does its job pretty well, the story moved at a good pace, and the characters were pretty well written. Avid Mario fans are also going to enjoy spotting references all over the place, with things like Pauline's cameo, Foreman Spike and his hat saying Wrecking Crew, the Dragon Coin from Super Mario World and the shop from Mario Odyssey, plus references to other Nintendo properties like Punch-Out and Kid Icarus. Some references I would have loved to see would have been mostly characters that could appear in a potential sequel (Wink wink) such as Wario, Waluigi, Daisy, Rosalina and Toadsworth, who relly should have been on the council of Toads, but I digress.

On Twitter, Crimson Mayhem put forth the question about Illumination making a movie based on The Legend of Zelda. Honestly, I will still need a tad bit more convincing for that. Not that I don't think Illumination can pull it off, but they really should get some more experience with video game adaptations before I'm fully on board. Honestly, I think now would be the best time for a Zelda movie, since video game adaptations are finally getting quality releases, with the Sonic movies being enjoyed by games fans and general audiences, and this movie being pretty solid. Is it the big risky move I was expecting from Illumination? Not really, but to be fair, I was kind of expecting a lot there, wasn't I? The fact that this movie is better than "Watchable" is quite frankly astounding on its own. I'm hoping this isn't just a fluke, but I doubt it's a sign of things to come. I can say this movie gets a solid Recommendation from me.

Wonder Park (2019) - A Kind of Generic and Dull Movie

 

Hey, didn't you already review this movie? Technically, I haven't, that was a First Impressions blog. Okay, truth be told, it's been four years since my initial first impressions on this movie, and time has been... well, I don't want to exaggerate, but saying "Time hasn't been kind to this movie" is an understatement. Especially since time has been unfriendly to this movie before it even released. It went through Development Hell, was critically panned, just barely made back it's budget at the box office, which means it's pretty much a flop, and nobody even really remembers this movie. To be fair, it does seem like most of the bad movies from 2019 have been forgotten, unless there is a special place in your heart for Arctic Dogs, UglyDolls and The Secret Life of Pets 2. Everything was against this movie... except for me. I didn't like this movie, but I did have some respect for it, this was the first movie I gave a First Impressions look at, and all this time later, does it still have any respect from me?

The story follows June Bailey, an imaginative young girl who loves to build an imaginary theme park with her mother. Unfortunately, her mother gets the very serious "Never-explained" disease and has to leave, and I am wording it like that for reasons. This causes June to develop some emotional issues, which her father thinks sending her to math camp will help. However, while trying to get back, she stumbled upon a magical gateway to Wonder Park... Oh wait I'm sorry, Wonder Land, yeah, this movie's title totally wasn't a last minute name change in the slightest. Anyway, she finds the park is destroyed and overrun by possessed plush toys that feed broken pieces of the park to this entity called "The Darkness", sadly not a 2000s hair metal pastiche, but just a big purple cloud. This movie is a touch more generic than I remember it being. In my first impressions, I did say that this movie's plot was predictable and followed the formula, you can kind of tell where this story is going, except for the reveal that June's mother isn't dead, which is... a choice. This movie definitely has the stench of "We don't exactly know what we're doing", is this a story like Inside Out or Where the Wild Things Are?

A big part of the story for this movie is meant to be June taking her Mother's illness hard, which causes her to develop some mental issues, and I think it's meant to be mirrored by Peanut, who she meets sorting candies by colour. The thing is, we didn't see June sorting things by colour, and we didn't see Peanut aggressively vacuuming. I am going to, really word myself carefully here, I know OCD isn't just sorting everything by colour and keeping a cleaner than clean house, I know OCD is a lot of other things, but if you're going to connect these characters, you should at least have them doing the same thing. Have Peanut aggressively cleaning his area, polishing glass and sweeping up behind June as she walks around. Have what Peanut does mirror was June was doing.

I guess I should talk about the characters, but they're all pretty basic, don't really stand out too much, and just barely serve their purpose in the movie. Honestly, you can say similar things about the animation, it's bright and colourful, but nothing is really amazing, it's kind of like a basic plate of rice or pasta that's shaped like a circus tent, it looks nice, and as a meal it does its job, but it isn't really something that wows and amazes anybody. Character designs are pretty basic, not unappealing, but I feel I could see these designs in any other animated movie, and the montage songs are bland and forgettable. I can see why very few people have talked about this movie since 2019, there really isn't anything that spectacular about it. It does the basic job, and that's about it.

I do remember saying that I might have enjoyed this movie when I was a kid, because it would have triggered my imagination and make me think about what kind of fantastical and magical theme park I would build. Not an impression that holds up over time, not after playing the enormous waste of potential that is Disneyland Adventures and wanting to build my own virtual Disney park. I can imagine really little kids having their creativity sparked by this movie, but I'd probably give them Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 and download the OpenRCT2 mod and let them go crazy instead. I compared it to The Greatest Showman, another movie that gave me a creative bug, making me plan my own circus, and might have been a big inspiration to a personal project I've had on the back burner for a while now. The difference is, The Greatest Showman had some really good songs and choreography, and was a movie I would actually want to come back to. Wonder Park is mostly just a bore.

Yeah, my First Impressions do not hold up to snuff. I can't say I agree with everyone, I don't think this is one of the worst animated movies I've seen, but then again, generic and boring movies don't really rate highly for me. Nothing about this movie is really worth hating, save for the ending where they decide to chicken out and have the mother live, giving this movie the perfect ending. Yes kids, your sick parents will get through just fine, and my grandmother will come back from her fatal run-in with pneumonia. I know, sometimes things turn out just fine, but things never turn out perfect, and I do think that this movie is trying to portray a perfect ending. Is it harmful to kids? I'm not going to say yes, but I think it can give them the wrong idea, but really, if this is the only thing that gets me upset about a movie, the movie is pretty boring. I'm dropping my rating from a Slight Recommendation to a Not Recommended.

First Impressions: Mummies (2023)

 

2023 has been off to a rather slow start for animated movies. Sure we have a lot of anticipated releases, but that will be starting in April, January to now have had very few mainstream releases, really there was The Amazing Maurice and The Magician's Elephant, and I really only count those because other animation reviewers talked about them. Mummies is the first animated movie of the year to be released theatrically, at least for me. It is interesting to think, of the amazing amount of hyped releases, the first one to get the theatrical release is a movie that I don't really think anyone was anticipating, but maybe it will be like a hidden gem, a potential overlooked classic, so what did I think of Mummies?

Well, good news, it isn't the worst movie I've seen, and I have doubts it will end up as the worst animated movie of 2023, but it was pretty bad. Mostly due to the plot, and how clichéd it is. I don't mean that as "Oh this plot is overdone" kind of thing, I mean this plot is full of clichés. Name them, Dance Party Ending, Lovestruck idiots babbling, Fake out death, False Climax, Mopey Dopey broken hearted misunderstandings, all of that is in this movie. Oh, and the plot is centered around a couple that "absolutely do not love each other, and never will be in love because they obviously and forever will always dislike each other". I guess on the one hand there are some clichés they do avoid, like the main character isn't a generic everyman at the bottom of society who wants more in life, he's a former celebrity, and rather than making him vain, narcissistic and pining for the glory days that are so clearly behind him, they actually set him up as a fairly nice person. Though, the Princess character is as standard as they can come.

Speaking of characters, the voice actors did okay, I think my only issue was Sean Bean as the Pharaoh, not that he does a bad performance, but because the character's design was very clearly begging for a Patrick Stewart or a Brian Blessed, someone with a deep and powerful voice. I miss Christopher Lee. Anyway, the actors all do decent jobs, can't complain too much, even if the performances don't add a whole lot to the characters. That being said, the animation is also partly to blame for that. The animation is standard, not to visually impressive. It looks... kinda like Wonder Park actually. It isn't technically bad animation, it just looks generic and doesn't really "pop", I guess that's the right word. It looks like how I would imagine Illumination movies looking.

I think the only saving grave of this movie is the humour, and even then only one joke really got a big laugh out of me. It was a reference to the infamous botched restoration of the Jesus portrait, you know the one. Other than that one visual gag, nothing really got much of a laugh out of me. I think little kids might find it appealing, but I can't imagine it really sticking with them. With the amount of anticipated releases coming out, I would expect this movie to be forgotten rather quickly. I guess the music isn't that bad either, the major pop song that this movie was clearly built around is tolerable, but this movie plays Nickelback, and not only that, but "Far Away", that is... easily one of my least favourite songs I've heard, not their worst ("Something In Your Mouth" has it beat by a mile), but I can't stand it. And before anyone asks, yes, they play "Walk Like an Egyptian" by The Bangles. That is something someone would suggest as a joke, not in earnest.

Again, I can't say this is an awful movie, on a scale from one to five, with one being mediocre and five being hot flaming garbage, I'd rank this movie at a two. It is a very clichéd, generic looking, mediocre movie. I think it is mostly harmless for children, but I don't think "mostly harmless" is really that ringing an endorsement, not even for a planet. I guess dull and boring can be worse than actively terrible, but I'd rather watch a harmless movie I'll forget about than a genuinely unwatchable movie that sticks with me and makes me angry just thinking about. So if this is the worst animated movie of the year, this may turn out to be the best year for animated movies of the 2020s, but I ain't holding my breath on that one.

The Magic Voyage (1992/1993) - An Annoying Movie That is Too Strange for its Own Good

 

So, I originally wanted to to a review of Wonder Park last week to coincide with its four year anniversary and to see if my original opinions still held up. Unfortunately, that plan didn't quite go as anticipated, so I'm going to take a look at another movie in my collection. You never know what you'll find when you go looking for anything to add to your collections. Speaking as someone who is collection a bunch of things, if you go into second-hand shops or search online for just anything, you'll find some interesting things you never would have thought about. For example, who would ever look for a movie like The Magic Voyage? The Magic Voyage is a German animated film from 1992 that tells a fantastical version of Columbus' journey to America, and I mean fantastical in more than just, "Columbus discovered America", I mean full on talking animals and fairies. With all that said, is this movie worth checking out?

Disclosure, for this review I watched the 1993 English dub by Hemdale Film Corporation. There is, allegedly another dub out there by Atlas Film, but it's apparently rare and probably not all that better.

The story follow Christopher Columbus, as he sails across the Atlantic ocean to find passage to East Asia, along the way he encounters many fantastical creatures in a... wait... no sorry I was describing the story of this movie if it was done right. See, in this movie Columbus doesn't believe the Earth is round, he is told this by a woodworm named Pico, and before they sail off to sea, Pico falls in love with a Moon Sprite named Mairlyn, well, this dub calls her a Moon Sprite, other sources say Firefly, so I don't know, call her a Johnny for all I care. Anyway, Marilyn gets kidnapped by this Swarm Lord and taken back to their kingdom in the west, which just so happens to be where America is. So, forgetting that this movie factually inaccurate, people knew the Earth was round in the fifteenth century, the addition of Pico and Marilyn and the Swarm Lord makes me connect this movie to The Tom and Jerry movie from around the same time, where they just, for whatever reason felt the need to add in unnecessary stuff when the basic bones they have should have been enough to tell a good story.

I mean, no, a movie about Columbus would still be historically inaccurate, but adding in Pico and Marilyn and a romance between those two is exactly like adding an orphaned girl looking for her father while escaping her greedy abusive aunt to a movie about Tom and Jerry. Like, you have a good base already, you don't need to add more to it, when you do this, all you have is a stick on a baseball field. You have a decent enough base for a movie, you don't need this extra stuff. Though it also doesn't help that the movie has a lot of padding, plenty of scenes that just exist to pad out the story, and serve no purpose to the plot, like some seagulls fighting over a fish, or Pico making faces in some crystals.

However, the story is not the worst thing about this movie. That honour goes directly to the dubbing. I have to ask, were dub jobs always of a mediocre or bad quality before the late 90s and early 2000s? because this dubbing makes the Vampire Hunter D dubbing look like the English Dub of Whisper of the Heart. Characters talk when their mouths are closed, they make a whole lot of random noises that don't even sound like they're being emoted, and there is literally a scene where Christopher Columbus is supposed to be sea-sick and maybe is meant to throw up over the side of the ship? I say that because the acting is so poor that it does not come off as such at all. The real shame here is that they got some genuine talent for this dubbing, Dom Deluise, Irene Cara, Corey Feldman, they even got Mickey Rooney to narrate the movie, but none of them give a good performance, except for maybe Mickey Rooney. Easily, this is the worst part of this movie.

Then again, the performances are not the only problem with the audio, because again, like with Felix the Cat, there are very few moments of silence throughout the entire damn movie. There are some moments where the background music takes center stage, but throughout most of the movie characters have to be making noises, objects have to be making noises, characters have to be singing. Oh goodness, the musical numbers in this movie are dreadful. They are not the worst songs I've heard in a movie, but they are up there. None of these actors can sing in this movie, and I know that is ironic considering Corey Feldman went on to have a musical career, most notably the infamous album Angelic 2 The Core, but with the voice he's using and the character he's playing, it just sounds awful. The same to be said for Dom DeLuise. This is easily one of the worst movies when it comes to the audio.

The animation of this movie is... strange. The character designs are pretty cartoony, but not too bad, I can see them being somewhat appealing. Character movements look cartoony, and again the lip sync is a very noticeable problem, but as a whole the animation isn't that bad. There are times when it just looks like the animation cels are just being dragged across the camera lens, and there are a few errors here and there, but after Silver Circle, 1990s 2D hand-drawn animation, even of a mediocre quality, is very welcome. I can't say this is quality animation, but it is enough for a passing grade, sadly one passing grade does not make a good report card.

This movie was a pain to sit through, the awful dubbing and absolutely bizarre story are just the tip of the iceberg for the problems with this movie. Poor performances from some quality actors, lots of unnecessary padding, god-awful music and singing. Only the animation is of any quality, and again it's mediocre, especially compared to other movies from the same time period. Forget that this movie is historically inaccurate, if the movie is entertaining enough I can let that slide. The Greatest Showman, Bohemian Rhapsody, Anastasia, Tombstone, these movies have plenty of inaccuracies and people still love them. The problem is, this movie offers very little else, to the point where I would very much rather watch a movie about the real Christopher Columbus, I'd say this movie is as bad as the Felix the Cat movie, and since there is not the caveat that few people actually care about the subject of this movie, I can give this movie the rating I should have given Felix the Cat, just skip this movie.

Disney Live Action Trudge: 101 Dalmatians (1996)

 

There are four words that, when said in succession, can invoke the deepest feelings of hatred, sadness and tiredness in any animation fan, "Disney Live Action Remake". The reason these words make animation fans upset is because Disney is synonymous with animation. Disney was a lot of peoples introduction to the medium, and they have done so much for it, from popularizing technologies and techniques, to innovating television animation, to producing the first Computer Generated animated feature film, it really is saddening to see THE animation company remake so many of their movies into a medium that is not fit to tell certain stories. That being said, I've not actually watched that many of them, so I can't actually judge them. Are they all actually soulless attempts to make easy money without putting in much risk or effort? Or are there some movies in there that are genuinely good? Keep in mind, this is not going to be me comparing the animated originals to the live action remakes, this is predominately going to be me looking at these movies on their own, though there may be some comparisons here and there. So, let's begin my trudge through Disney's Live Action remakes... pray for me.

Okay, so I wanted to start this in February with the 1994 movie "Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book", which wasn't really a remake, but still a retelling of a story Disney already told. Unfortunately, that is not available on Disney+ for me as of yet, so I'll be starting with the next movie in the line-up, 1996's 101 Dalmatians, the first proper remake in the line-up. Immediately, there are somethings that just don't sit right with the idea of remaking 101 Dalmatians into a live-action movie, first off, that was a lot of dogs to animate, so imagine how many that would be to find and train. Secondly, the dogs talked in the original movie, which does seem like a non-issue, but then you remember that movies like Babe are actually the exception to the rule that talking animals in live action movies always look fake. So, barring those two, teeny tiny blue whale sized hurdles, how does the live-action 101 Dalmatians movie stand?

Admittedly, this movie does begin a bit slow, not that there isn't some good comedy and goofy acting, but it's mostly there to set up Roger and Anita's relationship, Roger's storyline about trying to design a video game, Anita's relationship with Cruella and where Cruella gets the idea to make a Dalmatian fur coat. It is all necessary, mostly, and I do like the idea of Anita being an employee of Cruella's, it can be a bit slow and unengaging though. Honestly, I'm quite impressed with how loyal they were in recreating scenes from the original, the midnight bark, Roger and Anita falling into the pond, those scenes are here, but they are different in their own ways.

The casting in this movie is quite excellent, Jeff Daniels and Joely Richardson do a good job as the everyfolk Roger and Anita, and Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams are superb as Jasper and Horace, I probably should have guessed Hugh Laurie was good at physical acting since his most iconic role has him limping, then again that isn't really the same as slapstick. However, the show stealer really is Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil, she just chews the scenery, she really is just the fashionable lunatic and I loved every demented minute of her on screen. My favourite scene with her was when she was just screaming at a bunch of farm animals, like at this point you can tell she's lost her mind, or what was left of it. I think she's a bit more entertaining than she is in the original movie, mostly because in the original movie she just kind of comes off as... a Karen, she's a total Karen. She's bitchy and whines about not getting her way, acting as if not getting what she wants is a personal attack, original movie Cruella is totally the kind of woman who shouted to employees and threatened having them fired. The only difference is Cruella has more fashion sense. This movie's Cruella is just a crazy lunatic and that is much more enjoyable to watch.

I also do like some of the little details this movie incorporates, like the video game Roger is making with graphics that look like the original movie's animation, I actually think there was an actual PC game that, if not based on this bit from the movie, then the bit from the movie was based around. I also always find it amusing when Disney has their characters watching their own stuff, so having the Dalmatians switch the channel from AristoCats to Homeward Bound, it made me chuckle. Speaking of which, this movie has John Hughes as a writer and producer, knowing his work on movies like National Lampoon's Vacation, Home Alone and like... dozens of classic 80s comedies, you can probably tell this movie is going for a more comedic tone, and whether or not you find this funny, will probably depend on how much you like slapstick comedy, there were bits I found funny, like Jasper and Horace over the electric fence, and Cruella in the molasses, though there are some pretty lame jokes too. At points, it does also feel like a weaker Home Alone, Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams even kinda look like Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci as Harry and Marv at points.

So, how does this movie stand up? It's not awful, in fact if you're in the mood for a dumb comedy, I'd say give this one a shot. As a movie on its own, it's watchable, and I think your enjoyment of it is really going to depend on how much you like John Hughes style of comedy, and especially slapstick comedy. If you're a big fan of the original, I can see you having some strong opinions, but if you keep in mind that these are two separate movies going for two separate ways of telling the story, I think you can find some enjoyment. It's like comparing the two versions of DuckTales, they very much are their own entities. All in all, this movie is fine, was it worth being made, eh, but I can't imagine this movie causing any harm or really upsetting anyone by existing. It has it's moments, it's a solid movie, it ain't bad.

Normally this is where I'd give this movie a recommendation rating, but since that isn't really the point of this side blog, I'll just leave it as is. Next on my list is 2010's Alice in Wonderland, not officially counted as a Live Action Remake, but still worth talking about. I will get to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book at another time, if I find a copy or it comes out on Disney+, I will get to it then.