Crater is a coming of age movie but in space.

Caleb Channing is about to be relocated to an idyllic faraway planet following his father’s death. To fulfill his dad’s last wish before leaving, he and his three best friends hijack a rover to explore a mysterious crater.

Crater is yet another Disney+ Original Movie that a had a humongous amount of potential but falls very short when the movie tries to execute it’s themes.

Crater has decent enough act the standout is McKenna Grace who gives a strong performance that has some character moments that help develop her character, Kid Cudi is pretty fun but there is honestly not a whole lot to say about him here.

The main problems here are mostly the writing and world building, the writing leaves a lot more to be desired with character moments that are completely missing. Sure we are given some information about the characters but not enough to the point where the viewer will care about them, the world building is very poorly explained as well as having way too many scenes that spill out exposition for long periods of time.

What’s frustrating is Crater does wrap up pretty nicely, there’s some beautiful and emotional scenes during the final moments of the movie that actually could pull your heartstrings. But due to the very bumpy road to get to that point it really holds Crater back from being a decent movie.

Crater can be summed up as a coming of age movie but in space that has a lot of failed potential, there’s a good movie in here somewhere it’s just not showing up unfortunately.

Crater is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Chapa has heart but not much else.

A boy on a family trip to Mexico discovers a young chupacabra hiding in his grandfather’s shed.

Chupa is yet another one of those “group of kids discover creature and have to hide and defend it from people who want to harm it” type of movie. The problem I have with these types of movies is they almost never try to differentiate from one another and Chupa is really no exception.

While Chupa is ultimately a very harmless family movie with some actually decent acting (Christian Slater is in this for some reason) and it clearly does have heart. A lot of this is just recycled from other movies in this sub-genre, I guess the most interesting about this movie is the bond between Chava (played by Demián Bichir) and Alex (played by Evan Whitten).

The grandfather and grandson bond has it’s moments of character development but is unfortunately doesn’t fully come together, which is a shame because the movie does a far better job at that than when the movie focuses on protecting Chupa. There really isn’t anything here that is horrible a lot of it is just very blandly written, a lot of it just comes down to whether or not the viewer likes these sort of movies.

If you enjoy these types of movies you will probably like this one, if you don’t then you are going to have a bad time because there is absolutely nothing new here.

Chupa is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

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

Chang Can Dunk has a heart but is lacking in the script.

Chang, a 16-year-old Asian American high school student in band, bets the school basketball star that he can dunk by homecoming. But before he can rise up, he’ll have to reexamine everything he knows about himself, his friendships and his family.

Why does anyone care if Chang can or cannot dunk? Jokes aside I was definitely expecting the worst with Chang Can Dunk, in some ways it’s a bit better than I thought and in others well it’s exactly what I expected it to be.

The performances are fine enough, particularly Bloom Li who’s given a script that is on the level of a bad Disney Channel Original Movie. He does what he can with it and I definitely respect him for that, Dexter Darden is decently fun as well and I actually liked Zoe Renee despite her ultimately just being the love interest and that’s it. It’s definitely one of the better made Disney+ movies, it goes for this bigger in scale type of feel which I will admit is kind of surprising to see from this sort of movie.

Unfortunately just about everything else is either terrible or falls into the forgettable category, the writing as I said earlier is not that much different from a Disney Channel movie it’s just a bit more mature with it’s tone and that’s pretty much it, the movie is very predictable to the point where you can guess what is going to happen within the first 10 minutes. The movie attempts to go for a coming of age sort of feel which doesn’t work nearly as well as they thought it did, which again comes down to the writing.

We aren’t given a whole lot of character moments with any of the characters even with Chang himself, we are given very surface level information that a lot of these Disney+ movies tend to give and then the movie decides to move on to the next scene. Part of what makes a good coming of age movie is character development and character moments, where we learn about the character, how they feel, what their goals are, who they are as a person and much more.

I can definitely respect that Chang Can Dunk at the very least attempted to try and be a coming of age movie (something you really done often see in modern Disney movies) but it doesn’t do it well here unfortunately, I definitely think with a much more focused and better written script there could have been something really great here.

Chang Can Dunk is available on Disney+

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+

Dog Gone is a forgettable dog movie.

When his beloved dog goes missing, a young man embarks on an incredible search with his parents to find him and give him life-saving medication.

Dog movies have always been a small but fun little genre that audiences can easily get into, some dog movies are definitely better than others with a lot of modern ones being on the weaker side. Dog Gone is based on the book Dog Gone: A Lost Pet’s Extraordinary journey and the Family Who Brought Him Home by Paul Toutonghi, which is based off of a true story who lost their dog named Gonker back in 1998. An interesting true story but how well does the movie do? Well let’s find out!

Dog Gone is directed by Stephen Herek who has directed quite a few recognizable movies such as Critters, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Mighty Ducks, 101 Dalmatians (1996) and a few others. Which is admittedly why the movie does pretty well during the first half of the movie, there’s plenty of charming moments that really match a lot of the charm Herek puts into his work. It’s obviously not as effective since it does have the Netflix Lifetime movie feel a lot of the time. But at the very least it has some level of charm that does add to the movie, having that said a huge amount of the movie has the dog go missing which is where the movie starts to show it’s cracks. A lot of the movie is focused on family issues that while could have been interesting to explore ultimately really do not add very much and are very surface level at best, there’s even an almost bar brawl that was definitely a choice to put in a dog movie.

The main problem here with Dog Gone is the acting and writing just don’t back up the movie at all, while there isn’t anything horrible there certainly isn’t anything good here either. Nobody really gives a performance that is particularly rememberable, Rob Lowe has a few moments that are unintentionally hilarious but that’s really about it.

Dog Gone is unfortunate case of a movie that could have been a cute little dog movie and while it is just that during the first act of the movie, the rest of it drags and is very tedious. I definitely get what they were trying to go for here but as I said before the family elements are just not well developed and the rest of the movie is very dull unfortunately.

Dog Gone is available on Netflix.

4/10 D+

Matilda: The Musical is a fun little movie.

Matilda, an extraordinary girl armed with a sharp mind and a vivid imagination, dares to take a stand against her oppressive parents and head teacher to change her story with miraculous results.

Honestly the more I thought about Matilda: The Musical the more I actually thought it wasn’t too bad. There really isn’t a whole lot to say here as it does play out as expected, but I will say between the performances that are actually pretty decent particularly Lashana Lynch and Emma Thompson who both give really fun and very strong performances. Emma Thompson really captures what made Miss Trenchbull so terrible from the original film really well, there’s also the music that’s actually quite great. The music isn’t really my cup of tea but I absolutely won’t deny that it’s very enjoyable and did get me to sing-along at times (outside of the baffling opening), the movie does run for a bit too long it clocks in for nearly 2 hours where at times you really do feel like the movie has run for a bit too long. Having that said the music, performances and some of the jokes are enough to keep the viewer entertained, this isn’t going to be something I’ll ever come back to but it’s an overall decent watch.

Matilda: The Musical is available on Netflix.

7/10 B

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

Blue’s Big City Adventure brings back all the hosts in a fun and entertaining film!

Josh and Blue travel to New York City to attend an audition, hoping to star in a major Broadway musical while being a part of the cast.

Blue’s Big City Adventure is basically the Blue’s Clues version of Spider-Man: No Way Home! Joking aside this was genuinely really charming, I grew up watching Blue’s Clues as a kid so this really brought back a ton of memories. All three of the hosts throughout the show’s life are here Joshua Dela Cruz who plays Josh, Donovan Patten who plays Joe and Steve Burns who plays Steve. All three of which do really solid job in their roles capturing each of the characters and what made the show so iconic in the first place, the movie itself is a musical a very entertaining too. The songs are very catchy and actually well choreographed from the dancers and filled to the brim with energy, there’s a huge level of charm here that is absolutely appealing to the viewer and makes it known the movie hasn’t forgotten the spirit of the show. The story being simple as Josh and Blue traveling to New York City in order to get to in audition to be in a musical is exactly the type of thing you would want in a Blue’s Clues movie, combining Blue’s Clues with the musical genre is like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. They both blend together incredibly well and end with very entertaining results which is exactly what you get here.

Blue’s Big City Adventure is available on Paramount+

7/10 B

Disenchanted loses the magic of the first film.

Years after her happily ever after, Giselle, Robert and Morgan move to a new community and Andalasia and the real world are thrown off-balance.

Disenchanted is the long awaited sequel of 2007’s Enchanted a film that quickly gained a relatively big following including myself. Enchanted was genuinely really fun film filled with a lot of heart, passion, character and had a huge identity to it. It’s been one of those films where people have wanted a sequel for a long time, Disenchanted is the end result and they completely dropped the ball here. What’s sad is there just isn’t a whole lot to say about Disenchanted as it’s a forgettable movie that completely takes out all of the magic that made Enchanted so great. The positives come from Amy Adams who returns as Giselle, she’s clearly putting her heart into it and actually sings a lot of the songs very well, Idina Menzel is actually not bad here either a song she sings towards the end “Love Power” is actually quite great and beautifully sung. James Marsden who just isn’t given enough screen time here is truly charming and actually gives all the moments that made me laugh, you can’t help but smile whenever he’s on screen which is sadly just not enough. Everything else here is about as generic as you can get between a very typical disgruntled child or teen storyline that ends with learning a lesson, which really has the energy of something from the Disney channel in the early 90s it’s truly a huge missed opportunity to look at Morgan’s (played by Gabriella Baldacchino) character and her relationship with her mother Giselle in a way that could connect with the audience. But they just settled with the most generic way possible that is way too forgettable, Disenchanted is a frustrating movie because this is most definitely something you can make into a great movie, but the forgettable script, a lot of the basic original songs and the storytelling is severely lacking and loses the magic of the original.

Disenchanted is available on Disney+

4/10 D+