Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget (2023) Film Review

Having escaped from the farm, Ginger and Rocky welcome a new little adventurer into their lives. Back on the mainland, the whole of chicken-kind faces a terrible new threat.

Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget is a sequel to Chicken Run (2000) and is directed by Sam Fell who’s directed Flushed Away (2006), The Tale Of Despereaux (2008) and ParaNorman (2012).

A sequel to Chicken Run has always been talked about much like Enchanted 2 or Hocus Pocus 2 it always got a ton of fake movie posters on Facebook pages claiming it’s official when it’s really not and you get people sharing it taking it as fact. I grew up with Chicken Run and I still think it’s a really fantastic film so I was pretty happy to see that a sequel was coming after 13 years.

There’s definitely a lot of fun to be had with this sequel, I do think out of the cast Bella Ramsey who plays Molly the daughter of Ginger and Rocky does quite a great job. Plus Romesh Ranganathan and Daniel Mays as the rats give some decent laughs. The two work together well and have solid comedic timing the accents are also quite charming.

The stop motion animation is of course wonderful, you honestly can never go wrong with Aardman Animation when it comes to stop motion and that remains true here. Even if I didn’t like all of the voice cast the characters still have this special look to them that you can’t help but appreciate, there’s so much detail and passion put into the designs that are quite memorable. The same goes for the overall charm of the movie, although the movie is most definitely not as good as the first movie I do think it still has a lot of the charm from the first movie and it mostly works here.

Dawn Of The Nugget does unfortunately suffer from mediocre voice acting. Thandiwe Newton is fine enough but her voice performance is just not as fitting as Julia Sawalha’s, what’s sad is Sawalha was told she “sounded too old” for the performance. It’s such a weird decision from Aardman that I still have no idea why was made. Zachary Levi is flat out bad and really feels out of place, Levi being here really seems like they just wanted to stick a familiar face and that was about it. Mel Gibson isn’t here for obvious reasons but there’s absolutely no denying that you can really feel the difference of quality in the performance of Rocky’s character. The rest of the voice acting isn’t anything to write home about.

The film itself does feel like a natural continuation from the first movie and while that’s great, it does end up being a bit more of the same thing. Instead of the chickens we are familiar with being trapped it’s their turn to rescue other chickens. Which definitely makes sense from a story perspective but a bit weaker when you compare it to the first movie.

Despite the issues I have with it Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget is a fun movie especially for families looking for a quick and easy watch. There’s a lot to like about it and I said the charm from the first movie is still very much there. It’s definitely disappointing in some aspects but it is still a decent watch.

Chicken Run: Dawn Of The Nugget is available on Netflix.

7/10 B

The Holdovers (2023) Film Review

A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school remains on campus during Christmas break to babysit a handful of students with nowhere to go. He soon forms an unlikely bond with a brainy but damaged troublemaker, and with the school’s head cook, a woman who just lost a son in the Vietnam War.

The Holdovers is directed by Alexander Payne a director who while I’m not a die hard fan of his work I can still appreciate how great his films are (with the exception of Downsizing I still to this day have no idea what that was).

The Holdovers is quite possibly the most human film of 2023 and what I mean by that is it’s a huge character study that really studies the many emotions people feel during Christmas time. The film is also quite possibly the most wholesome rated r film you will ever see in almost every shot there’s heart and soul being poured into it.

The natural place to start is the performances, Paul Giamatti is the lead who plays Paul Hunham a curmudgeonly history teacher who teaches at a New England boarding school and has to chaperone some students over Christmas break. Hunham starts out as your traditional teacher character, the teacher that students do not get along with at all. But slowly through the course of the film we get to see a ton of development in Hunham, Giamatti’s performance is really what makes his character he effortlessly balances being comedic and having more dramatic moments as well. Whenever Giamatti and Da’Vine Joy-Randolph are on screen together that’s when some of the film’s best moments occur. The two truly bounce off of each other incredibly well and show their range as performers.

Da’Vine Joy Randolph is truly incredible here, much like Giamatti through the course of the film we slowly but surely get to learn about her character. Her chemistry between the cast is masterful she plays a mother named Mary who just lost her son in the Vietnam War, the emotion and pain we see from her conversations with the other characters and her actions is truly some of the most powerful moments from a film this year.

A performance that I feel is not getting talked about quite enough is Dominic Sessa which the film happens to be his first performance and it’s quite a powerful one. He plays a student named Angus who starts out as your typical student character that doesn’t get along with anyone, but much like Paul Giamatti’s character slowly evolves over the course of the film. When the film really starts to examine Sessa’s character that’s when you truly get some hard hitting moments, his parents don’t want him home from Christmas and he really doesn’t have anything planned out after boarding school. Where will he go? What will his future be? These are questions that almost immediately come to the viewer’s mind when learning about his life.

Eventually the film focuses on Paul, Mary and Angus three completely different people who are at different stages in their lives. Paul is a college professor who really doesn’t get a long with a lot of people, Mary as I said before is grieving because of the loss of her son and Angus has a very troubling family life. But in a lot of ways the three really help each other and it’s honestly what makes this film so great. The natural human connection especially during the holidays, the want to help another person out or at the very least understand where they are coming from or what their situation is. It’s beautiful moments like these that really hit the viewer hard in the heart.

The film itself really feels like a time capsule from the 70s, from the look of the film to how it’s filmed. Cinematographer Eigil Bryld does an excellent job of really giving this warm Christmas feeling to how it’s shot, you truly feel like you’re there during a Christmas in the 70s. Most of all though is the film has the feel of a Christmas card that maybe one of your family members or friends gave you. You stored it away and one day you open it up again, it’s a sense of nostalgia that cannot be beaten it honestly brings you to tears because of how beautiful the memories really are.

Lastly there’s the writing and direction which are both just phenomenal, the script from David Hemingson is truly touching and Alexander Payne’s direction is very natural. Something both Hemingson and Payne clearly wanted the viewer to know is that they both truly love these characters and want the viewer to see themselves through these characters and the two really accomplished that incredibly well. You truly feel the love in every single moment during the film, whether it be a comedic moment or a dramatic one there’s always some sort of love.

The Holdovers is one of the best films of the year and one of the most powerful ones as well, it’s a feel good film that is so much more than just being positive. It’s about connecting with others, loving others and helping each other however we can.

The Holdovers is available on all VOD platforms.

10/10 A+

Leo (2023) Film Review

Leo the Lizard has been stuck in the same Florida school for decades. When he learns he only has one year left to live, he plans to escape to freedom, but instead has to rescue his class from their horribly mean substitute teacher.

If there’s one movie from this year that I did NOT expect to be good it’s Leo an animated Netflix movie about a talking lizard who’s voiced by Adam Sandler. Okay well it’s about a bit more than that but you get my point, I was not expecting Leo to be any good but I really have to hand it to Adam Sandler (who wrote and is one of the producers), directors Robert Marianetti, Robert Smigel and David Wachtenheim as well as writer Paul Sado and producer Mireille Soria they all took a concept that could have easily gotten old within 15 minutes but made it into something surprisingly touching.

I’m not a fan of the voices Sandler has been using in some of his films as of late, but I don’t mind it here. It fits the character of Leo well and there’s some genuinely funny moments, I think what makes Leo work so well is it goes for this exploring the home life of certain kids in the 5th grade class. There isn’t anything groundbreaking being said here and there really doesn’t have to be, much like your days of going from school it’s a routine and is very straightforward at points. The film actually does a decent job of showing that quite well.

There’s some music numbers that admittedly I do think are not the best, but they are fun and creative enough to leave you with a smile on your face. The whole message of growing up, worrying about the future and connecting the reptiles with the 5th grade students and how they both share growing pains is an interesting and clever one that’s executed quite well.

I do think Leo is held back a bit from a weak third act that isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just on the very generic side of things that is much weaker when you compare it to what came before it.

Overall Leo is a charming little surprise that I had a fun time with, it’s not anything groundbreaking. But it’s a charming little movie that has a huge heart and I can’t help but respect it for being just that.

Leo is available on Netflix.

7/10 B

Saltburn (2023) Film Review

A student at Oxford University finds himself drawn into the world of a charming and aristocratic classmate, who invites him to his eccentric family’s sprawling estate for a summer never to be forgotten.

Saltburn is directed by Emerald Fennell who previously directed Promising Young Woman.

I’m going to be completely honest here I saw Saltburn back towards the end of November and I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about it, but this review is going to have to get out at some point so let’s just move on. After Promising Young Woman I was really excited to see what Fennell’s next film would be and after watching Saltburn it’s definitely a step down from Promising Young Woman but I really don’t think it’s a bad film or even as polarizing as a lot of people are making it out to be. However that does not mean it’s flawless there’s a ton of issues here that I’ll get into.

But first the positives, which the cast is easily the most noticeable best part about it. Barry Keoghan gives yet another creepy and downright unsettling performance that really works in the film’s favor. At times it does get a little too goofy and can take you directly out of the film but that’s kind of the charm of it, Keoghan makes it work incredibly well and he gives this balance of creepy and bizarrely funny. Jacob Elordi is also quite great here, I definitely think his chemistry with the rest of the cast truly benefits him in the long run, his character isn’t really as explored as you would think but he still turns in a solid performance.

Rosamund Pike is once again phenomenal, this is definitely one of her weaker performances mostly due to the material that’s given. However that doesn’t make her performance bad, she uses the same techniques that make her such an exciting actress here and it works well. Carey Mulligan is in the movie very briefly but I couldn’t help but love her performance. The cinematography is also quite beautiful, especially when combined with the location. Say what you will about Saltburn but it’s very clear that Emerald Fennell certainly knows how to frame an interesting shot and Linus Sandgren’s cinematography makes said shots all the more stunning and compelling.

The biggest problem with Saltburn is it starts out very strongly but slowly ends up going for a much more natural conclusion, the movie’s final moments where it attempts to do this almost Saw like flashbacks on how certain events really happened during the film really acts like a cop out and cheapens almost everything that came before it. It’s such a baffling choice to go with especially after you had some truly strong moments, it doesn’t help that Fennell’s direction really spells it out at the beginning of what’s going to happen.

As far as being weird Saltburn has its moments of being bizarre (the final scene being one of the most notable) but I really don’t think it’s as insane as a lot of people are making it out to be. There’s definitely been weirder that have released this this year (Beau Is Afraid and Infinity Pool are a lot more strange). As far as themes go Emerald Fennell attempts to tackle class and while I do give credit for trying to go for a different sort of approach. It mostly ends up being the same sort of message that’s been done with other films. There is just honestly not a lot being said here about class and nothing that adds to the already gigantic discussion behind it.

It’s a shame because Saltburn is definitely not a bad film it’s just oddly enough holding back on a lot of its own ideas and really struggles to execute it’s ideas in a powerful way. I definitely had an entertaining time with the film but that’s really where it ends unfortunately.

Saltburn is available in Theaters.

7/10 B

Family Switch (2023) Film Review.

When family members switch bodies with each other during a rare planetary alignment, their hilarious journey to find their way back to normal will bring them closer together than they ever thought possible.

Family Switch is if you took Freaky Friday (2003) and made it into a Christmas movie…look what do you really want me to say about this movie?

Emma Myers turns in a decent performance, Ed Helms is also quite decent here as well, but Jennifer Garner and Brady Noon fall behind unfortunately. Oh and for some reason Rivers Cuomo is in this movie (funnily enough his character is named Lake) plus Howie Mandel is here as well so that’s neat I guess.

I think this movie would have been fine enough if it came out back in the early 2000s, by now all of the plot points in the movie have been explored far better in other films. The movie has its best moments when it’s focused on the family just bonding together rather than the comedy (which is by far the weakest part about it.)

Family Switch is basically yet another Netflix movie that will be talked about for a week or two before being forgotten about, you can absolutely do so much worse on the platform that doesn’t really do the movie in favors.

Family Switch is available on Netflix.

3/10 D-

Dicks: The Musical (2023) Movie Review

Two self-obsessed businessmen discover they’re long-lost identical twins and come together to plot the reunion of their eccentric, divorced parents.

Dicks: The Musical is a film on the off-Broadway musical Fucking identical Twins by Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson who are also the leads of the film. The film is directed by Larry Charles who directed Borat, The Dictator, Bruno and a few others, Charles mostly goes into satire with his films and there’s plenty of satire in Dicks: The Musical although it’s not very good.

Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp are actually quite entertaining here and their singing voices are genuinely pretty entertaining, some of the music has no business being as good as it is the prime example being “No One Understands Us” and “You Can’t Give Up” two songs that are pretty much poking fun of the moments in a musical when the main character is at their lowest point. Both songs are genuinely entertaining and the scenes they are used for matches they completely well.

Megan Thee Stallion is actually not bad here either, granted she isn’t given a whole lot to do but she does get song “Out Alpha The Alpha” which is another pretty solid song here, the whole sequence of her song is perhaps the most memorable of the movie as well as the most fun.

Unfortunately that’s where the positives end because everything else in this movie is either not funny, repetitive or falls flat, the humor itself unfortunately is a lot of the same jokes just repeated every 10 minutes. The rest of the songs are incredibly forgettable and while I do get the point that they aren’t supposed to be good, and that would be fine if the rest of the music was entertaining and genuinely funny which is not the case here.

I’m not sure what really happened here because Larry Charles has made some great satire in the past especially with Borat, so it’s very frustrating to see this movie be this forgettable.

Dicks: The Musical is available on all VOD platforms.

4/10 D+

Good Burger 2 review (2023)

After his latest invention fails, Dex is welcomed back by Ed to his old job at Good Burger, which is once again put in jeopardy when Dex devises a plan to get back on his feet.

I’m not going to sit here and claim Good Burger (1997) was a masterpiece, but it’s the pure definition of 90s fun. It’s a movie that knew what it wanted to be and succeeded in doing just that, now what happens when you make a sequel 26 years later? Well Good Burger 2 is what you get and unfortunately it’s not very good.

There’s no denying that Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell do a fantastic job as Dexter Reed and Ed once again, there’s a decent amount of jokes that the two make that are genuinely funny. They really try their hardest to keep the movie afloat but unfortunately everything else is a huge problem.

The supporting cast are nowhere near as strong this time around, sure the supporting cast in the first movie weren’t particularly strong either. But they got the job done and were genuinely amusing, everyone is clearly trying their hardest here but all it really amounts to is some very forgettable characters that the viewer really does not end up caring much for. What really hurts the movie in particular is it does more or less the same thing the first movie did, it’s a very identical plot that is tweaked around a bit with very little effort to make it as fun as the original.

Then you have random celebrity cameos such as Kai Cenat, Carmen Electra, Al Roker and if those cameos weren’t pointless enough you have a bunch of other celebrities such as Zoe Saldana and Andy Sandberg in this “Imagine” video parody scene (the famous video that went viral in 2020). It would be one thing if these cameos were actually funny, but that’s not the case here it’s painful and uses a very outdated joke that the internet has already talked about to death.

Overall Good Burger 2 is unfortunately a disappointment, there was a ton of potential to do something different, but they settled with a lazy and nostalgia bait direction that ultimately hurts the movie.

Good Burger 2 is available on Paramount+

3/10 D-

Old Dads (2023)

When a middle-aged father and his two best friends sell their company to a millennial, they soon find themselves out of step and behind the times as they struggle to navigate a changing world of culture, career and fatherhood.

Old Dads is basically if you turned that “old man yelling at the sky” meme into a movie, I hadn’t seen any of Bill Burr’s standup comedy shows before watching this movie. So afterwards I did a little homework and watched a few segments of his shows and well I absolutely understand why even fans of Burr’s shows do not like this movie.

There’s a drastic difference between standup comedy shows and a 104 minute movie, they are two completely different forms of entertainment and that absolutely shows with Old Dads. Outside of the performances from the cast who I did think are really trying to make it work, the jokes fall incredibly flat and it largely ends up being turned into yet another manufactured Netflix comedy. A majority of the movie is about mocking modern culture but then suddenly switches to Bill Burr’s character learning to change which comes out of complete nowhere.

It really feels like a complete cop out, making all the mocking of modern culture look completely pointless. It doesn’t help that Burr’s direction is just terrible, there’s no style, excitement or anything to get really invested in. This is honestly no different than your usual Netflix comedy except it’s mocking modern culture (wow what a huge difference)

Old Dads is available on Netflix.

2/10 F

Dashing Through The Snow (2023)

After a traumatic experience, Eddie Garrick, a social worker, no longer believes in the magic of Christmas. At the request of his estranged wife, he brings his daughter Charlotte to work where a magical adventure begins for them.

There really isn’t a whole lot to say about Tim Story’s latest movie Dashing Through The Snow. It’s the very definition of a forgettable Christmas movie that just sort of exists and has a lot of the exact same problems a lot of modern Christmas movies do. Which mostly consists of slapping a few familiar faces on the movie and not really care about anything else.

It’s nice to see Ludacris attempt to branch out in different roles other then the Fast and Furious series, however that really doesn’t mean all that much when the writing is painfully dull and really does not have the Christmas spirit at all. Lil Rel Howery Santa could have worked if the material was actually funny, he tries his best with what he’s given but it’s nowhere near enough to save this movie from being a chore to sit through.

That’s perhaps the biggest problem here, Dashing Through The Snow feels like a very long chore to finish with no actual reward at the end, the characters are very underdeveloped and the journey they go on is just not very interesting at all. I’ll give the movie some points for it’s cast, despite not giving great performances there were some heartfelt moments during the third act that did work. Unfortunately by then it’s too little too late and we have pointless villain subplot (they could have easily went without a villain.)

Dashing Through The Snow is available on Disney+

3/10 D-

Dumb Money (2023)

Everyday people flip the script on Wall Street and get rich by turning GameStop into one of the world’s hottest companies. In the middle of everything is Keith Gill, a regular guy who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock. When his social media posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets wealthy — until the billionaires fight back and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.

Dumb Money is directed by Craig Gillespie who directed Cruella, Lars and the Real Girl, I, Tonya, Fright Night (2011) and a few others. The movie is based on the book The Antisocial Network by Ben Mezrich and chronicles the GameStop short squeeze of January 2021.

The whole GameStop short squeeze was absolutely insane in just about every way, from the way it happened to what transpired during the whole thing. It was primarily triggered by users of a subreddit called r/wallstreetbets which is part of Reddit. The whole event was spread like wildfire on the internet and for awhile you could not escape the news of the short squeeze, so naturally it was only a matter of time before a movie about it was made.

Dumb Money is a biopic about the event itself and some of the people involved Paul Dano playing Keith Gill the person the movie focuses mostly around, which leads me to say that the cast is quite great. Dano as always does quite a fantastic job here and really captures this sort of role quite well. Pete Davidson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Anthony Ramos, Myha’la Herrold and Seth Rogen are all quite solid as well. Some of them definitely get more to do than others, but as a group with their talent combined they really hit it out of the park.

I do have to give the movie some sort of credit that it did handle the topic of COVID actually quite well. Part of Keith Gill (Paul Dano) and his brother Kevin Gill (Pete Davidson) story is that they are suffering from a tragedy that happened because of COVID, the way it’s handled really comes off surprisingly raw and actually makes the viewer feel for the two. It’s some of the best moments of the movie that I wish the movie used the same sort of energy for it’s other characters.

Because truth be told a lot of the other characters are very underdeveloped, despite having several different plot lines a lot of the characters particularly Anthony Ramos really get the short end of the stick when it comes to development. Which really defeats the purpose of this whole “normal class vs the elite” type of angle, part of what made the whole GameStop situation so interesting is it was a bunch of internet users versus the elite and Wall Street. That sort of feels lost here when a lot of the characters are not given the development they need.

Despite that however I still do think this is a decently fun movie with some great acting, it definitely leaves a lot to be desired and maybe should have waited a few years before being quickly made. But for people who really can’t understand the whole subreddit or Wall Street in general I do think this is a decent movie.

Dumb Money is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+