Nimona is a beautiful film filled to brim with heart.

A knight is framed for a crime he didn’t commit, and the only person who can help him prove his innocence is Nimona, a shape-shifting teen who might also be a monster he’s sworn to kill.

Nimona was about to become Lost Media that we may have never been able due to Bluesky’s closure and Disney just not wanting to release the project. Luckily thanks to Annapurna Pictures reviving the project, DNEG Animation providing the animation and Netflix distributing it worldwide Nimona was released and it’s truly a beautiful film.

Nimona is one of those films where you can tell a lot of love was put into it in almost every single way possible, for starters the voice cast is brilliant the standouts being Chloe Grace Moretz and Riz Ahmed both give such fantastic performances and put so much power and talent into their characters. The characters Nimona and Ballister Boldheart are such fascinating characters who might feel a bit too traditional at first and may follow some common character tropes however you quickly realize that isn’t the case at all, instead what you get is two characters who have so much development put into them that truly make you care about the both of them.

The animation is absolutely gorgeous this is yet another case of being Spider-Verse inspired but it’s also another case of being completely different with it, the film focuses on shapeshifting which really blends well with the style use and the film itself is also based on a graphic novel which really makes the use of the animation quite appropriate. The whole shapeshifter theme is an allegory of embracing your true self which is quite a fantastic way of telling a beautiful LGBT like theme, heck Nimona is non-binary which is fantastic representation the film has no problem having any of these themes and I absolutely respect the film for that. Plus the film itself doesn’t have these themes for the sake of having them or wanting to just pander, these themes are important to the story and a lot of passion plus heart are put into these themes.

Not once did I feel like some studio was in the back saying “put this this and that in” you can very easily tell this is from the heart which you honestly can’t help but smile at, Nimona is quite a fantastic film that I’m very happy was able to get released, it’s a film that I can easily see go on to be a classic in a few years. If you haven’t seen it yet be sure to do so!

Nimona is available on Netflix.

9/10 A

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is a masterfully told second chapter.

After reuniting with Gwen Stacy, Brooklyn’s full-time, friendly neighborhood Spider-Man is catapulted across the Multiverse, where he encounters a team of Spider-People charged with protecting its very existence. However, when the heroes clash on how to handle a new threat, Miles finds himself pitted against the other Spiders. He must soon redefine what it means to be a hero so he can save the people he loves most.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is a sequel to the 2018 film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, a film that was and still is incredibly groundbreaking, it opened a lot of doors and inspired several films that have used a very similar animation style such as The Bad Guys (2022) and Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (2022), it was also quite a fantastic film that grew a huge fanbase very quickly and is often regarded as one of the best comic book films ever made.

Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse had some huge shoes to fill and not only did it surpass expectations the film is one of those sequels where it could be argued that it’s even better than the first film. For starters the voice acting is once again phenomenal Shameik Moore as Miles Morales is like last time excellent, he completely captures the character and even goes further with him when it comes to character development. There’s so many moments that truly make Miles such an incredible character and why he’s become such a beloved character so quickly. Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen is also excellent here, we get to see more development of her character and the bond between Gwen and Miles is just absolutely beautiful and quite touching as well. It’s the little details of their characters that truly shine in this film, other performances that really standout include Bryan Tree Henry as Jefferson Morales, Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Jason Schwartzman as The Spot, Daniel Kaluuya as Hobie or Spider Punk and Oscar Isaac as Miguel O’Hara or Spider-Man 2099. All give fantastic performances that contribute something truly special to the film in their own way.

The animation style is truly fascinating, not only has it stepped it up from the last film but it also includes many other different styles as well, which make for some very entertaining scenes. The Spot is truly an interesting villain and although we don’t exactly get a whole lot of information on him, we do get just the right amount to tell how quickly he can go from a villain who’s a laughing stock to quite an intimidating villain that wants destruction. Oscar Isaac does such a fantastic job as Miguel O’Hara he’s intimidating and completely makes the character his own in every single way possible, the interactions between him and Moore are truly some of the very best moments of the film that I truly can’t wait to see more of in the sequel.

The film itself is a huge love letter to the Spider-Man character, there are tons of little references that are quite exciting to see and does it in a way that doesn’t take away from the film’s story, I’ve shared my frustrations in the past about films completely relying on easter eggs, but Into The Spider-Verse does not do that. Sure they are there but the film doesn’t rely on them to tell the story, the film uses them in a way that can both be exciting to viewer while moving the story right along without needing to focus so much on them.

The writing is truly fantastic with a lot character moments and development that help evolve the characters it truly does feel like the next chapter of Miles Morale’s journey, there’s a beautiful balance of humor and serious moments which include some quite fantastic lines from Shameik Moore. The film also ends quite well, while I can see some people having an issue with the way the film wraps up and it could come off as not feeling complete and relying too much on the next film. I don’t actually mind that all too much here, it ends at a quite strong moment that really does a fantastic job of setting up the next film.

Overall Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is a fantastic film that surpasses its predecessor, it takes what was so great and loved about the first film and does even more with it. One of the very best so far this year.

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse is available in theaters.

10/10 A+

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen Part One is a forgettable crossover.

Members of the Justice League are transported to the world of Remnant and find themselves turned into teenagers. The Remnant heroes combine forces with the Justice League to uncover why their planet has been mysteriously altered.

Before I start I want to make it clear that outside of the Tifa Vs Yang episode from Screw Attack’s Death Battle series I have no knowledge of RWBY, with that said let’s talk about Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part One.

Look before I come off as an anti-crossover type person I want to make it clear that I’m not, I am all for studios going crazy with ideas that are completely out of the ordinary. Scooby-Doo and Tom and Jerry have been doing that for years and each time it gets a laugh out of me, Justice League and RWBY are the last things I expected to be combined together. I admire the attempt of doing something completely different however that doesn’t make it good.

The voice acting is a mixed bag Natalie Alyn Lind is by far the standout as Wonder Woman, Nat Wolff being the absolute worst as Batman. A lot of the characters on the DC side of things are so far removed from the original characters it’s actually quite baffling, particularly Batman who I would not blame anyone if they thought he was an entirely different character.

There’s some fine enough action scenes and and the animation does have it’s moments, however a lot of the DC character models almost feel like character skins from a video game. Where there’s very little differences with each of them, as far as everything else goes there’s just honestly not a whole lot here. It’s a very traditional good guys vs bad guys story that has nothing really new to add or say.

I definitely don’t think it’s quite as bad as some people have said, but it’s most certainly not anything good either.

Justice League x RWBY: Super Heroes & Huntsmen, Part One is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 F

Rock Dog 3: Battle the Beat for some reason exists.

Hoping to inspire a new generation of rock stars, Bodi joins a musical competition show and becomes an overnight TV personality sensation.

Rock Dog 3: Battle the Beat is directed by Anthony Bell the same director who directed Norm Of The North: Family Vacation. That in itself should tell you the quality of this movie but I’ll talk a bit about it anyway.

Rock Dog is one of those movies that got sequels for no real reason, while the first movie wasn’t atrocious it was most certainly not good either. It was on the very forgettable side of things for the most part, the sequel Rock Dog 2: Rock Around The Park was just a garbage direct to DVD sequel, that I honestly couldn’t tell you what happened in it. Rock Dog 3: Battle the Beat quite honestly falls in line with the previous movie, it’s a whole lot of nothing when you really get down to it.

I do like the idea of one of the characters wanting to create a singing competition only because they miss people saying rude comments and overall being nasty to each other, there’s one or two jokes here that got a slight chuckle out of me but that’s quite honestly about it.

The characters are about what you expect and the whole idea itself isn’t well put together, it’s watered down due to being in a movie that’s aimed for much younger audiences. Had this idea been used in something else (heck I’m pretty sure The Simpsons or Family Guy did this exact same sort of thing before) where it had the freedom to tell some much better material I think this could have been genuinely funny.

Everything else from the characters and writing there’s just not a whole lot to talk about, Bodi is more less the exact same character from the previous movies and doesn’t really go under any development here. I really got nothing, I guess since Norm Of The North has been dormant since 2020 somebody randomly picked another very bad animated movie series to give a sequel to (in this case another) and I guess Rock Dog was the pick this time around.

Rock Dog 3: Battle the Beat is available on all VOD platforms.

1/10 F

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a huge celebration of the source material.

The story of The Super Mario Bros. on their journey through the Mushroom Kingdom.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie was one of my most anticipated films of 2023, I’ve been waiting for another attempt at a Mario movie for the longest time. While I have grown to enjoy the Super Mario Bros Movie from 1993 it is very far from the source material and I definitely thought that another attempt should happen.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is more than just following the source material, it takes the material and does the absolute most it can with it in 92 minutes. I will admit that the plot is paper thin and there are moments where the movie most definitely could have done a lot more with, however that does not stop this movie from being a complete a total blast.

The voice cast really does a fantastic job of bringing these characters together, Chris Pratt does a pretty solid job as Mario, Charlie Day is also really solid as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser is incredibly entertaining and really captures the character of Bowser surprisingly really well. There’s been instances where Bowser in the games has had a very comedic side (Paper Mario series) and that really shows here so I really have to give credit where credit is due. Keegan-Michael Key as Toad is a lot of fun as well, finally there’s Anya Taylor-Joy as Princess Peach who absolutely nails the character. I especially enjoyed what the film did with Peach, despite the common belief that Princess Peach is always captured (I mean she does get captured in a lot of games but she’s been playable in quite a few of them over the years) and the film really balances that out quite well.

I didn’t particularly care for Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong or Fred Armisen as Funky Kong, while I did enjoy seeing the characters on screen the performances were just not very good and left a lot more to be desired. The animation was absolutely stunning, it does an incredible job of building the Mushroom Kingdom as a world and really leads to some really striking moments that leave you in a state of wonder. There’s so much attention to detail that really gives the viewer so much to look at and is quite pleasing to see.

The little easter eggs are wonderful and awhile I am usually against films putting so many easter eggs into a film to the point where it takes away from the story that doesn’t happen here luckily. While there are a lot of easter eggs it actually does make a lot of sense, quite a few of the games do a similar thing where they do put a lot of easter eggs throughout the game. So in a way it did feel like the viewer was in one of the video games, whether that was intentional or not it was an interesting way to approach it.

If you are a fan of Mario you absolutely know what to expect from this film, even if you are just a casual Mario player I still recommend giving this a shot, it’s a wonderfully done film that had so much effort put into it that is such an exciting film to watch.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is available in theaters.

8/10 B+

Mummies is a forgettable time

Three mummies leave their underground secret city in ancient Egypt and end up in present-day London to search for a ring that was stolen by a greedy archaeologist. However, their mission might prove to be a little difficult.

Mummies has Nickleback’s song Far Away as the credits song..yeah I got nothing to start with for this one to be quite honest.

Mummies is not offensive but the movie really lacks charm and creativity, the characters are about as well written as a piece of cardboard. The jokes are the usual type of humor that constantly pops up in some of these animated movies.

The world itself in the movie is poorly explored and really doesn’t lead into anything memorable at all, the voice acting I guess is fine enough the voice cast get the job done but none of it is very noteworthy or memorable.

Honestly the main problem with Mummies is that it’s not memorable at all, there’s nothing here that brings the viewer into the movie or there isn’t anything that the viewer leave remembering the movie. This is the sort of movie you have on in the background and just completely ignore it.

Mummies releases on VOD Platforms April 7th.

2/10 F

Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham is solid with Lovecraft inspiration.

An ancient evil awakens and only Bruce Wayne can save 1920s Gotham City.

As far as recent DC Animated movies go, Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham is certainly one of the better ones, at the very least this one has more going on other than being a huge Saturday morning cartoon.

The main premise here is that it’s a Lovecraft inspired Batman story, which is quite interesting and for the most part the movie does it quite well. The characters are different from how they are usually portrayed and they fit the Lovecraft style well, there are moments where some characters most definitely needed a ton more development (more on that in a bit) but I will say they got the aesthetic and the actions of the characters down decent enough.

The animation much like the characters matches the Lovecraft style the movie is going for, again there are a few hiccups and the animation can come off as just serviceable as well. But it definitely gets the job the done and at the very least has more character to it than a lot of the other recent DC Animated movies.

Story is where this movie mainly falls especially during the final act of the movie and parts of the second act, there is way too much going on and you can really see how quickly the movie loses focus. As I hinted at earlier character development is a huge issue here, they introduce way too many characters and only about 3 of them get development. At the very least the voice cast does a solid job of making the characters very entertaining and fun to listen to, there’s some genuinely great moments that mainly work due to how committed the voice cast really are.

Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham is very flawed but for the most part it’s decently made, it’s not something I don’t think I’ll ever go back to but at the very least this was a solid attempt at trying something much different.

Batman: The Doom That Came To Gotham is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+

The Magician’s Elephant is lacking magic.

The orphan boy Peter sets out to find his missing sister. He asks a fortune teller if she is still alive. She advises him to find a magician with an elephant. Peter must then complete three difficult tasks.

A genre that Netflix often struggles with is animation when it comes to films, every once and awhile you will get some really good ones like Klaus or The Sea Beast for example. But a lot of the time they really land on the forgettable territory.

I watched The Magician’s Elephant yesterday (at the time this was written) and I honestly couldn’t tell you exactly what happens, mainly due to just how forgettable it really was. The few good qualities come from the animation, which does have it’s issues with the human characters. But for everything else it’s smooth and is nicely done for the most part. The voice cast isn’t too bad, it’s clear everyone involved is trying their absolute hardest to make this work.

What really does this movie in is mostly in the writing department, there’s so much potential here that could be written thoughtfully and in a way that could even resonate with audiences. But unfortunately it’s written in the sort of way a lot of bad kid’s movies tend to be, focuses a bit too much on humor and relies on very bland character moments to tell a story. The movie really lacks the spark in it’s writing to get the audience engaged and ultimately leads down a forgettable path.

The Magician’s Elephant is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

The Amazing Maurice is not so amazing.

Maurice is a streetwise ginger cat who comes up with a money-making scam by befriending a group of self-taught talking rats. When Maurice and the rodents meet a bookworm called Malicia, their little con soon goes down the drain.

Would you believe if I told you that The Amazing Maurice was at the Sundance Film Festival? I didn’t see it at the festival mainly due to two things, one the movie looked horrible and two it was coming out very soon anyway. And I don’t think I needed bragging rights for The Amazing Maurice of all movies.

Anyway the movie itself is quite honestly about what you would expect, while it’s definitely not as bad as I thought it was going to be. As it does have some genuinely interesting ideas floating around, the rest of the movie is just more on the bland side. Perhaps the most baffling thing about it is Hugh Laurie voicing Maurice, there’s some unintentional funny moments that really make Laurie quite fitting for the role plus he honestly does not do a half bad job. He works with what he has with the script and actually makes the most of it, in fact the same applies quite well to the rest of the cast. Particularly David Thewlis as The Rat King.

The animation while not anything good could have been a lot worse, does it look like one of those mobile game ads you frequently see? Yes but here it’s not as bad or very obvious, as they do try to change it up at times and some darker tones or get creative with the animation.

Honestly what really hurts the movie mostly is the narration, the fourth-wall breaks and the writing, the movie attempts to be a bit darker which I guess makes sense since the movie is based off of a book that was a twist on the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tale “The Pied Piper.” Which may seem a bit off putting to some since the movie sort of marketed itself as this cute cat movie, which I’m all for the movie being a bit darker. In fact that was the movie’s strongest elements by far, it’s just when they mixed with fourth-wall breaking jokes and some very forgettable writing it became sort of an identity crisis.

The fourth-wall jokes really don’t land and as said before really don’t match the tone that some of the movie is going for, the characters are just sort of there. None of them are particularly memorable outside of Maurice himself and The Rat King everyone else doesn’t get a whole lot to do.

Overall The Amazing Maurice is definitely not as bad as expected, there is definitely some level of wanting to make the movie itself work. But is dragged down from bland writing and unfunny fourth-wall breaking.

The Amazing Maurice is available in theaters.

4/10 D+

Legion Of Superheroes is the worst of The Tomorrowverse so far.

Kara, devastated by the loss of Krypton, struggles to adjust to her new life on Earth. Superman mentors her. Meanwhile, she must contend with a mysterious group called the Dark Circle who searches for a powerful weapon held in the Academy’s vault.

Legion Of Super-Heroes is the sixth installment of DC’s The Tomorrowverse (I incorrectly said Batman and Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons was the sixth installment but that was just a standalone movie in my review for that movie.) and as these movies go on it becomes increasingly more hard to say things that I haven’t already said about the previous ones.

The main problem with Legion Of Super-Heroes is despite it’s name the focus is mainly on Supergirl, so if you like Supergirl you are going to love this one. But if you are someone who was hoping the focus would also be on the other characters prepare for disappointment, with that said I do think the voice acting isn’t too bad. Meg Donnelly does a decent job as Supergirl (despite a very rough start) and everyone else definitely does the best they can with a script that’s just not very good. A lot of the movie is focused on Supergirl and Brainaic 5 bonding, which does have it’s moments but ultimately feels very misplaced.

It takes away time from the actual plot and other characters getting much needed development, it’s something that a lot of these DC animated movies are guilty of they will throw in a bunch of characters making it seem like they have a lot of characters but in reality they get no development at all and just sort of exist to back up the main characters. The animation is fine enough combined with the action there are some strong action scenes but that’s where it really ends, there isn’t anything truly exciting here.

Lastly there’s the villains who one of them is so predictable as soon as he comes on screen, and the other Brainaic while really neat appears at the very end of the movie which at that point is too little too late.

Legion Of Superheroes is by far the worst of The Tomorrowverse so far, it’s exactly what you expect and unless you are a die hard Supergirl fan you aren’t going to like this one.

Legion Of Superheroes is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-