Strange World is a forgettable sci-fi adventure.

The Clades are a legendary family of explorers whose differences threaten to topple their latest and most crucial mission into uncharted and treacherous territory.

I know this is a common cliche to say in movie reviews of movies that had a lot of potential but I’m going to ask it anyway…what happened here? I will say the animation is very colorful and has a lot of detail to it plus I really liked Ethan (voiced by Jaboukie Young-White) as well as the rest of the cast. They all give pretty solid voice work that adds to their characters quite well, even if some of the characters aren’t exactly that well written. Which is when the problems start to occur…the writing, what you have here is a pretty strong cast that unfortunately has to work with a very lackluster script that really doesn’t offer anything new to the table. A lot of this is a very basic Sci-Fi story of a group of people who get stuck on a planet, there’s some nice representation here (at least when you compare it to Disney’s other films) but that doesn’t help the movie all that much. Ethan is a great character that’s surrounded by a very bland movie that unfortunately doesn’t take the opportunity to explore the movie’s themes, there’s a few scenes that dance around the movie’s themes but don’t flat out want to tell them. Having that said I do think there’s some cute father and son bonding moments here that are effective and are by far some of the highlights of the movie. Strange World is just one of those Disney films that sort of exists, it’s not particularly bad but it’s a very forgettable and uninspired movie that could have absolutely been great had the writing been far better.

Strange World is available on Disney+

5/10 C

Pinocchio is a dark and beautiful film with the theme of life.

A father’s wish magically brings a wooden boy to life in Italy, giving him a chance to care for the child.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio was a project that I have been following for a very long time now, Del Toro is one of my favorite filmmakers ever and hearing him take on Pinocchio is just a match made in heaven. Let’s start out with the obvious…the stop motion animation, it’s absolutely gorgeous in every single way possible. There’s so much detail to the backgrounds, the characters facial expressions that really tell the story even with the more quite moments they don’t need to say any words to tell the viewer how they feel at all. There’s truly this magical aspect to the stop motion animation that’s both gorgeously dark yet filled to the brim with heart. That’s a huge running theme about Pinocchio it’s a beautifully dark film with a lot of heart that’s main theme is life itself. The film takes place during fascist Italy during the interwar period and World War II which it makes that clear in the beginning with a very sad but truly powerful scene that David Bradley absolutely masters, speaking of which the voice cast is truly brilliant here Gregory Mann, David Bradley and Ewan McGregor give some of the best performances of the year, they each bring so much heart into the film that just moves you to tears. There’s so many scenes here that truly have a human feel to them Tilda Swinton who plays The Wood Spirit has some of the best scenes of the film, her interactions with Pinocchio are truly thought provoking and really make the whole film’s theme about life that much more interesting. There’s so many moments that truly move the viewer to tears, there’s this element of wanting to be belonged that I’m sure many people have felt at some point in their life. Guillermo Del Toro and Mark Gustafson truly reflects this with their direction, they create a very spiritual fairytale yet at the same time create something very human like with a lot of very real themes that a lot of people tend to think about.

Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio is available on Netflix.

10/10 A+

Night At The Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is a huge step down from its predecessors.

Nick Daley hesitates becoming a museum nightwatchman and Kahmunrah returns to conquer the world.

I’m not going to pretend that the Night At The Museum movies were masterpieces, but the thing with those movies is they were genuinely a lot of fun and had so much charm to them. But I guess this series much like The Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series is getting the soulless animated movie treatment, Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is a sequel to the last movie (even though the series wrapped up actually pretty nicely but oh well) and any of the charm the live action movies had are completely absent here. What made Night at the Museum interesting in the first place was seeing the wax figures, animals, dinosaurs and others come to life in live action, trying to execute that in 2D animation completely takes that charm and excitement factor away. It’s worth noting that this is the first 2D animated film to be released under Disney since Winnie The Pooh. I love 2D animation and have nothing against it but the animation is just not good here, often times it comes off more like a rejected pilot from the early 2000s and less like something that was actually worked on and released. The voice cast just doesn’t have the magic that the cast from the other movies had, while nobody does a bad job here and they are definitely trying their hardest. There just isn’t anything memorable about the characters in this one. Combine that with a plot that’s another generic “evil villain wants to take over the world” plot and you have yourself a very forgettable movie that a lot of people will just say “oh hey that released” and then never talk about it again.

Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again Is available on Disney+

2/10 F

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is a fun and surprisingly emotional ride!

Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll: he has burnt through eight of his nine lives. Puss sets out on an epic journey to find the mythical Last Wish and restore his nine lives.

A Puss In Boots sequel was always in talks heck it started being planned out all the way back in 2012, one year after the first film came out which was a pretty solid movie. Puss In Boots: The Last Wish could have easily been a cheap cash grab but luckily that is certainly not the case here, first off the cast is incredibly strong here. Antonio Banderas still knocks it out of the park when voicing Puss In Boots and quite honestly this might be the best the character has ever been, we get some more development on the character some surprisingly emotional bits and the personality we all know and love. Florence Pugh and Olivia Colman are incredibly fun here as well, Florence Pugh plays Goldilocks while Olivia Colman plays Mama Bear. Their voices really push the characters into the entertainment territory where you can’t help but smile at the bond they share, Wagner Moura plays Big Bad Wolf or Death and he’s actually quite intimidating, sure he shows up every now and then but when he does he truly means business. The animation is actually quite different this time around, much like The Bad Guys which came out earlier this year, a lot of the inspiration of the film’s animation style came from Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse. What they wanted to do here is make the film look more like a storybook and a fairytale land which I definitely think they completely nailed. There’s a lot of style to the film that really is very appealing to the eye particularly the action scenes that are quite some of the most beautifully done action scenes of the year, there’s so much detail to the characters and what’s going on in the background it’s truly fantastic. The humor is actually pretty hilarious too, while not every single joke lands a lot of it is genuinely hilarious, the emotional and character moment bits are by far the most surprising. They really pour a lot of attention to some of the characters and really make them lovable, the film really has that spirit of one of those films you saw as a kid and you would discuss with your friends or parents who your favorite characters were. That’s something I think some films have been missing in the last few years so it’s truly special to see that type of feeling back again. Overall Puss In Boots: The Last Wish is very well crafted and has so much heart in it, I absolutely recommend checking this one out when it releases in a couple weeks.

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish releases December 21st in theaters.

9/10 A

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules…somehow worse than it’s predecessor.

A new school year, his brother Rodrick teases him over and over and over and over again. Will Greg manage to get along with him? Or will a secret ruin everything?

Diary Of A Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is the second of the animated Diary Of A Wimpy Kid movies and much like last years animated installment it lacks the charm of the live action trilogy (once again we don’t talk about The Long Haul). In fact somehow Rodrick Rules ends up being worse than the last one that came out last year, the only positive is Ed Asner this is one of his final performances and he did manage to get a chuckle out of me. But good lord they cut so much out of the book and the live action adaption, I get they wanted to focus on the bond between Greg and Rodrick but the live action movie managed to do that just fine with other very entertaining scenes as well. The animation is very ugly combined with very phoned in voice acting (outside of Ed Asner) the movie completely falls flat almost immediately after starting, Rodrick Rules is actually longer than the first movie, Diary of a Wimpy Kid being 58 minutes and Rodrick Rules being 1 hour and 14 minutes. However the longer time does not help the movie, in fact it makes a lot of the flaws much more noticeable particularly the animation that is just very lifeless. There’s no charm here and really fails to capture the entertainment value of the books, overall Rodrick Rules is basically a retread of the live action movie except with a lot of scenes cut and lacking both in charm and entertainment.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules is available on Disney+

1/10 F

Christmas Streaming Movie double feature: Scrooge: A Christmas Carol and A Hollywood Christmas.

On Christmas Eve miserly businessman Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley and the spirits of Christmas past, present and future in the hope that he will learn the error of his ways.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is exactly what you expect it to be, it’s basically yet another take on the classic story by Charles Dickens. And it pretty much plays out all of the events of the story you expect to, only this one is a musical. The songs are surprisingly very charming and are by far some of the best parts of the movie, there’s a ton of energy to them and the singing voices are quite great as well, unfortunately what does bog the movie down is the character designs. Which really looks like those mobile game ads you commonly see, the three ghosts are exempt from this which they actually have some pretty neat designs and are voice very well! Olivia Colman voices Ghost of Christmas Past while Trevor Dion Nicholas voices Ghost of Christmas Present, both do a really solid job and bring so much charm to their roles, plus the two are actually pretty funny. Luke Evans as Scrooge is fine enough, he gets the job done but it’s nothing really to write home about. As I said before the story plays out exactly how you expect it to and if you can past the character designs you will find a genuinely fun movie here. It’s probably not something that you will ever revisit but for what it is it’s not half bad.

Scrooge: A Christmas Carol is available on Netflix.

6/10 C+

A successful Christmas movie director begins living her own Christmas movie when a handsome network exec shows up threatening to halt production on her latest film.

A Hollywood Christmas is HBO Max Christmas movie number four (not even halfway through December yet). This is not as bad as expected but good lord is this the definition of bland, it’s essentially about a movie director who wants to make a Christmas movie and wants to keep the Christmas formula until some network executive threatens to halt production. The premise itself actually leads to a couple moments that got a laugh out of me and I’ll give the movie credit it actually tried to use it’s premise in a interesting way. Well at least at first…it slowly but surely starts to evolve into the bad Christmas type of movie we all know and it does very little to recover. The writing is very forgettable, the characters aren’t anything to write home about and the rest of the movie is sort of a mess. A Hollywood Christmas isn’t offensive or anything, it’s just another very forgettable Christmas movie that after the credits roll you won’t ever come back to.

A Hollywood Christmas is available on HBO Max.

4/10 D+

My Father’s Dragon is an imaginative little film!

Elmer, who is having trouble adjusting to his new life, decides to set out to find a wild island and rescue a young dragon. His adventures will lead him to encounter ferocious beasts, discover a mysterious place and make a new friendship.

While My Father’s Dragon might not be up to par with some of Cartoon Saloon’s other films such as Breadwinner, Song Of The Sea or Wolfwalkers. There is still the imagination and charm here that was present in the other movies. Despite being based on the 1948 children’s book of the same name, there is still tons of imagination here mostly through the animation that really gives a lot of scenes a chance to pop out to the viewer. Jacob Tremblay and Gaten Matarazzo are both very solid here and give plenty of strong moments that really make the film stand, the friendship between Elmer (Tremblay) and Boris The Dragon (Matarazzo) is genuinely sweet even when they fully like each other at first. The main criticism mostly stems from the other characters and the third act, the other characters don’t really get a whole lot to do unfortunately. There was some interesting parts with the mother that I thought the movie was going to elaborate on but unfortunately never got around doing that. The rest of the characters are just kind of there for the purpose to move the story forward, the third act goes exactly how you would expect it to and really doesn’t offer anything that hasn’t been done many times before. But luckily the charm is still there and as I said before the imagination is still creative, there’s plenty of cute moments that kids will definitely love.

My Father’s Dragon is available on Netflix.

7/10 B

Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm stays true to the series’s bizarre nature.

Everyone’s favourite rascals Frylock, Master Shake, Meatwad and Carl fight the corporate overlord Amazin, led by tech mogul Neil and his trusty scientist sidekick, Elmer.

It’s both confusing and frustrating how poorly the advertising for Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm really is. You would think one of Adult Swim’s biggest names The Aqua Teen Hunger Force would get so much more respect than this instead it was very quietly put on to VOD platforms. Which is ridiculous because much like Beavis and Butthead and The Bobs Burgers Movie from earlier this year Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm captures a lot of what made the other show so great and entertaining. The movie does have a bit of a rough start with the beginning but once the film starts to kick it in with the classic humor and character interactions it’s smooth sailing from there. The characters of Frylock, Master Shake, Meatwad and Carl are just as hilarious and cleverly written as they were in the series, the bizarre nature of the interactions of the characters are still present, heck the movie still does a really solid job with the characters even when they aren’t all together. There’s a lot of well written jokes that are genuinely funny and actually some of the best fourth wall breaking jokes I’ve seen in a film in quite awhile, there’s a huge amount of charm that went into this film. It compliments the show’s bizarre nature very well and stays true to the characters. Overall Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm is a blast of fun, this is definitely something that fans will absolute enjoy!

Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+

Wendell & Wild is a creative stop-motion film filled with fascinating topics.

The two devious demon brothers Wendell and Wild have to face their arch-enemy with the help of the nun Sister Helly, who is notorious for expelling demons. However, the brothers are not only plagued by her, but also by her altar boys.

Henry Selick (director of Nightmare Before Christmas, Coraline and James and The Giant Peach) is back in the directors chair and it’s such a beautiful sight to see. Wendell & Wild is such a creative film that has a lot more to it than you would expect. The movie has a lot of commentary on capitalism and the prison system and it establishes that quite quickly, a private prison company known as Klaxton Korp has taken over a town and the viewer can tell how damaged and lost the town is due to the clever use of color. Speaking of which the animation is truly beautiful, it’s great to see stop-motion animation still kicking as it’s a genre of animation that is truly creative in every single way possible. There’s so much atmosphere and color to the film that it really makes the film it’s own character, speaking of which the characters are truly well written. Wendell and Wild are truly fun characters with a huge amount of depth to them as well being humorous, Wendell is played by Keegan-Michael Key and Wild is played by Jordan Peele. The film is just another reminder of how well the two work together, their comedic timing is truly unstoppable and when the two want to display serious moments they will definitely display some very strong ones. The protagonist Kat played by Lyric Ross is truly fantastic, the depth to her character goes a very long way. Including some flashbacks and her strong desire of wanting to see her parents again, the cherry on top is the Raúl Cocolotl a character who is trans played by Sam Zelaya. Raul is such a very well written character that adds to the overall film especially the bond between Raul and Kat which develops over time. Wendell & Wild is truly a bold film that really hits it out of the park with it’s themes, characters, character development and atmosphere. This is a film that will definitely go on to be a classic during Halloween time for years to come.

Wendell & Wild is available on Netflix.

9/10 A

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind brings new ideas to the series.

When Kano and Black Dragon mercenaries become determined to take over Earthrealm, undisciplined Kenshi seeks tutelage from retired Kuai Liang to stop Kano from decimating all of Earthrealm.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is the third of the new animated Mortal Kombat movies (technically there is one that came out in 1995 but that is an entirely different movie). The previous two movies Scorpion’s Revenge and Battle Of The Realms were both very solid and accomplished what they were sent out to do, Snow Blind however takes it up a notch and actually does something quite different this time around….it’s not based around the tournament itself, instead it takes this Mad Max apocalyptic type atmosphere approach while also having a lot of the elements that make the series so great. The characters are actually pretty well written particularly Kenshi, Kuai and Kano (who is a fantastic villain) the action scenes are very entertaining and the writing is surprisingly very well written, it’s by far the most in depth it’s ever been in these movies thus far. There are a few hiccups such as some of villains who kind of just serve to hype up Kano and really get the Dragonball Z movie henchmen treatment, however Kabel and Tremor are a lot of fun and actually steal a few of the scenes they are in. The highlight of the film however is Kenshi and Kuai, the student and mentor chemistry is truly strong here and the two have some really strong character moments. Overall if you liked the last two movies you are going to really like this one, especially since it steers away from the Mortal Kombat formula and does a pretty solid job of bringing something new to the series. A fourth movie is set to release next year!

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is available on all VOD platforms.

8/10 B+