REVIEW: Big Hero 6

7/10 - Way to go Disney, you didn't totally mess this one up!

Disney's Big Hero 6

After ripping apart Frozen for the past year I was hesitant to even approach Big Hero 6 fearing it would be the far stupider step child of an already dumb family. What a terrible metaphor. I digress, Disney animation has cranked out some pretty poor family films in the last few years, with movies that have lots of shelf appeal and no substance. Big Hero 6 looked to be about the same. And after hearing Doug Loves Movies refer to the infamous "YEAAAAHHHH SCIENCE" line ad nauseum I was expecting something along the lines of Wreck It Ralph. A movie painfully paint-by-numbers.

So, when I put on Big Hero 6 it was because I was looking for something wafer thin, and as light and fluffy as a cloud. To my surprise, it's actually not a bad story.

Hero, a robotics-loving/prodigy kid. His older brother, Tadashi is working on a robot project of his own at his university, a personal healthcare robot named Baymax. Some spoilerish stuff happens and the group of friends band together with their robotics know-how to save San Fransokyo.

First of all, San Fransokyo. That's where they live. A semi-futuristic version of San Francisco meets Tokyo. That also means many of the main characters are Asian inspired white people. There's something about white washing the characters that doesn't sit well with me. It would have been nice to see some racial diversity in a Disney movie, aside from aliens and talking animals. It doesn't really help that all the friend characters are themselves MASSIVE cliches.

Main Cast from Disney's Big Hero 6

The robotic lead, Baymax is like someone made a robot out of a Wii U. It's got none of the
functionality you actually want in a robot, and it's "non threatening hug-able" appearance is accompanied by soft lights and synthetic tones. It's an inflatable Wii Fit game.

Once you get past that, the fantastic performance by Scott Adsit makes Baymax a great character. His actions are a reflection of the person who did the programming and that's a delightfully fresh approach to robots on film.

I really enjoyed the overall story arc and the approach to themes in this film. It's a collision of violent vengeance with compassion and healing. Although there are some annoying cliches that come with an "origin story" the superhero aspect is somewhat of a b-plot. It's an excellent adventure movie along the lines of How to Train Your Dragon. It's charming with a lot of humanity.

Big Hero 6 also won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature this year so congratulations! You beat The Lego Movie because it wasn't nominated.

• IMDb - Big Hero 6 (8.0)
• Wikipedia - Big Hero 6
• Rotten Tomatoes - Big Hero 6 (90%)
• Amazon.ca - Big Hero 6

REVIEW: Labor Day

7/10 - I want to live with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin forever. 

I read the Labor Day script some time last year, as a fan of Jason Reitman. I'm always impressed by the real sense of humanity he injects into his films.

Labor Day is a drama about a young boy with his agoraphobic mom who become entangled with an escaped prisoner over labor day weekend. It's one part coming of age story, one part suspense, and one part romance.

This is one of those movies that I really like, even though I'm aware it's not great. I really love the dimensional characters. Rarely do I enjoy child actors, but Gattlin Griffith is great at carrying this film. His character reflects the dimensions of a young boy who struggles with family, his need to care for his mentally unwell mother, his own growing feelings for his classmates.

This film presents a complicated scenario in simple ways. Scenes are in themselves quite boring but the slow development creates a wonderful bond with those characters. Labor Day is crafted in a way that the actions tell the story and the narrative enhances it, a rarity in films with prominent narration. The illustrations of pain and hope are really beautiful, and even though it sides on trite and predictable, For me it's saved by the sincerity of those characters who in-themselves might be contrived, but together are music.

To be perfectly honest, I probably would have rated this film higher if it wasn't for the constant up and downs between heart-jumping tension, and the mundane. The scenes intended to evoke powerful emotions were terrific but if left me wanting more from the scenes that were not. Labor Day feels like reading a novel (perhaps the one it's based on) as you delve entirely into the life of another, capturing so many details and small interactions. A wonderful idea but not necessarily great for impatient audiences.

If you're looking for a drama with a lot of big dramatic moments, look elsewhere. Moreso, if you are the least bit cynical this will be the best movie to watch and complain about for the next 3 months. The romantic adventure, healing past wounds side of this film borders on sugar-mountain cliche. I'm sure there are many who viewed it as being sickly sweet. I'm only cynical when it comes to the big action flicks, for this I was a hopeless romantic and totally bought in.

IMDb - Labor Day (6.9)
Wikipedia - Labor Day
Rotten Tomatoes - Labor Day (34%)
Amazon.ca - Labor Day

REVIEW: I Know That Voice

7/10 - Now available on Netflix (Cause you won't see it anywhere else)

I like documentaries.

This is a nice documentary.

It's not particularly enlightening, or opinion changing. It doesn't reveal some seedy underbelly that you were unaware of.

It's a movie that features people who love their jobs, talking about their jobs. They just kick it, and tell funny stories, and talk about the things they like and don't like.

If you like watching people talk about something they are passionate about, then this will be enjoyable for you. It's pretty inoffensive. It's fun to watch actors who look nothing like their animated characters just suddenly bring to life this familiar life. They overemphasize the difficulties of their job, and the challenges they face. They also share some delightful stories of surprising little kids with the voices they do.

I found this to be a little big long and dry in places. I suspect they didn't go out of their way to get the rights to any actual animated works because almost no footage of the actual animated works are featured. I've watched a few documentaries that suffer from this, but it can be a little tedious to watch people get interviewed on a couch for two hours. Having those great visuals breaks it up. That being said, they feature every great voice actor you can think of, along with many big names in the animation community from Mark Hamill to Matt Groening. It's a lot of fun to see someone break out the Sponge Bob Squarepants voice on the drop of a dime.

You don't need to be a big fan of animated series' to enjoy this, but it helps. It's got a feel good vibe, without actually being a success story of any kind. It's just an enjoyable watch that won't challenge you on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

IMDb - I Know That Voice (7.5)
Wikipedia - I Know That Voice
Rotten Tomatoes - I Know That Voice (No Rating Yet)
Amazon.ca - I Know That Voice

REVIEW: Godzilla

7/10 - RAAAAAWWWWWWRRRRRRRR

So... I'm not a huge fan.

In recent years a ton of hype around a budget remake has proven to be a bad thing. They aren't inherently bad films, they just tend to be boring. Take a good, classic concept and water it down with excessive CGI and bad leads. To be honest, I was anticipating this 2014 Godzilla remake to be Pacific Rim part two, which would be a nightmare for me.

When it comes down to it, I don't like movies where it turns into a puppet show. If all the action and drama surrounds CGI monsters smashing CGI cities, it doesn't actually have any impact anymore. It should be incredible and awe-inducing but instead it actually deminishes the high stakes because it's so far removed from reality. There are no real-world, personal impact for a movie like that. There are no characters in danger, only puppets. That's actually why I'm a big fan of Cloverfield, but we can save that for another day.

You may have noticed, however, that I gave this film a higher rating. How deductive of you, congratulations you have fantastic reading and recollection skills.

Godzilla does have many strengths that have defied the shitty genre of military based action films. fighting some equally terrible big bad. It manages to ground the film with a single character and his family who's been impacted by the Godzilla-events. There is some minor "out smarting" that always has to happen to make a protagonist seem worth while. It even manages to make the scale and might of these beasts (because spoiler: there's more than one) seem monumental.

If you are like me, and you are immune to the hero shots and slow motion running away, then you will appreciate that Godzilla has some beautiful moments of quality. Bryan Cranston and Aaron Taylor-Johnson are quite compelling in otherwise stiff roles. There is a lot of "background" provided to the monsters and where they came from. The military reaction is fun to watch, even if its cheesy at times. It rides a fine line between turd and terrific. As much as I despise CGI replacing the need to even film a movie, the impact of the destruction was really well done.

As a whole, not a lot makes sense. In fact, nothing makes sense. Here are my current qualms with Godzilla:

Why was Godzilla a second class citizen in his own movie? For real, he wasn't even the big-bad.

Was the audience supposed to follow the bullshit alpha-predator history that was spouted? Because none of that made sense. Also, would the worlds leading scientist on whatever the hell Godzilla is, really hinge his bets that one monster will defeat the other and everything will be sunshine and rainbows after that? That's not real. Nope. Don't buy it.

What about the fact that various branches of the military just took Aaron Taylor-Johnson on a few trips around the world? All because he asked nicely? That was cringe-inducing at some points. He would literally walk in a room where the worlds fate was being handled and say "hey guys... Can I get a lift back home? I can do that bomb stuff, I promise." Really. That's how the military works.

Abandoning the kid halfway through the film was a bizarre move. It was as if the second half of the movie didn't have time for those annoying "human actors" so they just disappeared from the story.

I also have major issues with the ending. If Godzilla rose from Hades to hunt those other monsters, he should have done what predators do when they finish hunting. They eat! He's probably super hungry now, because he went back to bed without dinner. You all know you would have loved to watch the cleanup.

For all my complaining, it wasn't a bad film. There are great environments, lots of surprising twists and turns. The moment on the train tracks reminded me a lot of the magic that Jurassic Park had. That's something I wish other movies in the same genre understood. You'll never be able to shake the audience with scope and scale of a big monster. The same audiences have sat through too many Transformers movies, a thousand Marvel films, and we are sick of seeing the side of a skyscraper fall off. It doesn't mean anything. By innovating and showing exactly how terrifying that would be, the monsters feel much more real. Godzilla should never be a monument. Gareth Edwards comes close to unleashing that beast.

IMDb - Godzilla (6.8)
Wikipedia - Godzilla
Rotten Tomatoes - Godzilla (73%)
Amazon.ca - Godzilla

REVIEW: Bad Words

7/10 - It's good to be funny. 

Perhaps this is just my perception at the end of award season, but the movie industry has swung so far in the direction of big movies. Comedies have to be the funniest movie ever made. Action movies have to be about the end of the world. Drama's have to be the most dramatic movie ever. It's become a contest for extremes, which can be okay, but leaves little room for small budget movies.

Bad Words is one of those movies that doesn't fit into the extremes. It's a lower budget film, that's just funny. It's not the funniest movie ever, it's not the craziest or most original. It's enough to just be funny. Personally I think that makes it worth seeing, because most comedies can't even get that right.

This film is Jason Bateman's directorial debut with this comedy about a foul mouthed 40 year old trying to win the nation's eighth grade spelling bee. Being a fresh new director who has acted in plenty of uninspired films, Bateman really sets his flag post with Bad Words making sure every shot it is a little bit different than normal. With lens flares, moving cameras, and coloration this movie had a distinct texture that developed the mood and excitement. I was happy to see the direction add to the film and the comedy. It goes a little bit overboard at times, but I would rather see experimental direction, than not enough.

In the film, Bateman's character Guy is that too smart for his own good character. He's far more manipulative than mean. Guy is the anti-hero who battles the adversity he created himself. It's somewhat of a fantasy fighting against the establishment, or authority. It's like when you re-enact an argument in the shower, and you think of how amazing it would be to tell people how you really think, well this movie is that reality. He's picking a fight with people, who didn't even know he was angry with them. As a premise this would verge on irritatingly dumb if the jokes didn't land.

I suspect for an "adult" comedy due to language alone, this is going to disappoint a few. This is not a movie that should compete for vulgarity against other recent R-rated comedies. For others it will be predictable. This is the perfect example of a movie that will get critically panned for reasons that I cannot deny, and yet it still was an enjoyable movie for me.

I was thrilled with the array of characters, Kathryn Hahn finally being recognized in a diversity of roles. Allison Janney is spot on as the spelling bee administrator. My only real complaint about this movie is that I wished these minor characters had more rounded out storylines. None of the minor plots seem to come to a resolution, only the main plot does. I do, however, wonder if they need to. I wanted to see more Allison Janney because I love her as an actor, and I wanted to see her have one final scene in the movie, but that doesn't necessarily mean the story called for it. I also wanted the hilarious Ben Falcone to have a funnier role, since he is a talented comedian, but again that didn't detract from story. Perhaps it's not the movie industry who demands more and better, maybe it's me too.

IMDb - Bad Words (7.1)
Wikipedia - Bad Words
Rotten Tomatoes - Bad Words (64%)
Amazon.ca - Bad Words