Animation

The LEGO Batman Movie Review

March 4, 2017 by JD Hansel

SPOILER WARNING

This film’s strengths and weaknesses both pertain to the issue of “heart” in film.

If not for the fact that this is a spin-off of The LEGO Movie, the writers would have been free to simply fill the entire film with fun Batman jokes and absurd mix-ups and lunacy that only make sense in an animated comedy. The LEGO Movie, however, has a lot of heart to it that tied the film together nicely and offered a solid foundation for its comedy. I argue that LEGO Movie is probably one of the better examples of heart done well because, by that point in the movie, it feels needed and welcomed, as opposed to being forced down our throats at the very beginning like in other family films. I often think back on an argument between Siskel and Ebert (which I explained in my Scrooged review) in which Gene Siskel said Back to the Future II should have stopped to take the time to add more heart. I think this is a fairly stupid position to hold seeing as how a movie should really bring in heart at times when it is necessitated by (and it necessitates) the story, but unfortunately, The LEGO Batman Movie makes its heart-warming scenes feel almost out of place, even though they inform much of the story and supply the main character motivation. Somewhere in the crazy, convoluted mess that was the writing process for this film – consisting of a grand total of five people getting screenwriting credits – the story kept getting reworked until the final result felt like certain scenes were in the script simply to satisfy a “kids movie checklist” of some sort, and most of the bullets on the list pertained to grabbing the heartstrings. Since I watched this film in a theater filled with children, it was very easy to tell that these scenes simply did not succeed at grabbing the audience.

The rest of the movie, however, is filled with the best kind of heart: passion. LEGO Batman is one of those films with the rare quality of feeling like a great fan project was given a Hollywood budget and free range. The film may be loaded with fan-service and a little too dependent on the laughability of previous incarnations of Batman, but it just loves its world and its characters so much that the passion is infectious. The beauty of the thing, of course, comes from the fact that this is a LEGO-based film, so it can do things with Batman that couldn’t work with the real Batman, and that couldn’t work with a parody, but work perfectly in the space in between. After all, who doesn’t want to see the Dynamic Duo fight off the gremlins, the Joker recruit Godzilla, or freaking Voldemort casting spells in the Bat Cave? In a Batman movie that audiences took somewhat seriously, this would enrage people, and in a YouTube parody, it wouldn’t have much power or meaning, but in this movie, it is both official and non-canon at once. Consequently, the writers were able to put Batman against all of his greatest enemies at once at the start of the movie, making the audience wonder where on earth they could possibly go from there, and then live up to that question by raising the stakes to a level that we never knew could be part of the game. The movie somehow managed to bring back so much classic Batman material dating back to the 1940s (including an obscure villain played by Vincent Price on the 1960s series) and bring in great new material (Batman vs. King Kong, a touching Batman/Joker bromance, etc.) without feeling overcrowded.

My one regret is that the theater didn’t have more excited, happy Batman fans in it to laugh with me. Please see it with friends and have a good time.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks Review

November 5, 2016 by JD Hansel

Mary Poppins is just plain crazy. It’s based on a book filled with various adventures that don’t always connect, and consequently the film often lacks coherency. Some scenes in the movie have absolutely no place in the story, and are merely a pretty spectacle – certainly “Step in Time” seems this way, and no such song would be written for any musical produced after Disney’s The Little Mermaid. One of the characters (the mother) was given a mission that goes nowhere as far as the story is concerned, just because the writers wanted to give her something to do; in the book she just wasn’t around much, with no explanation. Some of the actors could not sing properly, while others were completely inept at presenting believable British accents. Yet, somehow, Mary Poppins is one of the far greatest films of all time. It is not only a classic, but a top-tier classic, and it could never be replicated.

Interestingly, they tried to replicate it. The story of Bedknobs and Broomsticks revolves around a magical woman who ends up caring for a few bored British kids (who are clearly designed to give the film the same tone as Poppins) and David Tomlinson (Poppins’ Mr. Banks) takes a main role. The film features big, Broadway-like musical numbers that add little or nothing to the plot, and the characters randomly spend part of their time in a cartoon world. The film is very much aware of the historical context of its story and has fun with it, and it also has fun with the special effects that were possible at the time, with some scenes that remind me very much of Spoonful of Sugar. In short, this is a very careful forgery of the kind of feeling that Mary Poppins had, and while it’s not perfect, it’s still a decent forgery – to the point that it has become a classic in its own right.

I use the word charm quite a bit in my reviews, but I can find no better word for the special quality of Mary Poppins that this film recaptures other than charm (or perhaps Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious). It’s the little things that make it work so well – the way it’s easy to see how the effects are done, or the way the children frequently interrupt Angela Lansbury’s singing with their little remarks. Some of the visuals are fantastic (literally), and I especially love the way it looks when they travel with the bed. The one thing Bedknobs improves upon in comparison to Poppins is its use of David Tomlinson as a showman, because now I feel like his talent was almost wasted for most of Poppins, but apart from that, this film does feel like it’s lacking something. I think perhaps I would have liked it better if I had watched it growing up, and having only seen it as a young adult, it doesn’t quite “wow” me as much as I would hope – in fact I found much of the plot rather tedious due its lack of . . . well, plot. It does indeed have a story, but the story is loose (and randomly involves fighting Nazis at the end) because the film is more interested in the emotional effect of its individual scenes than it is the intrigue of its story. That being said, I can’t imagine The Gnome-Mobile is any better, so I’ll take what I can get.

The Peanuts Movie Review

April 6, 2016 by JD Hansel

I am fairly certain that, in the world of comedy (if not the world in general), it is a sin for me to say that I have never been much of a Peanuts fan. That’s not to say that I didn’t like the works of the Peanuts characters – I do enjoy their most famous Christmas special, among other staples of Schulz’ work – but I simply wasn’t exposed to them early enough in life to appreciate them the way so many others do. The Peanuts specials and comics have a kind of humor that is generally rather slow and deliberately underwhelming, as it focuses on a mumbling failure who tends to dread living. I certainly do identify with this kind of character, and I greatly appreciate Schulz’s approach to writing for the character, which is summed up in this simple, classic quote of his: “Most of us are much more acquainted with losing than winning.” With this in mind, I can’t help but look at the 2015 Peanuts film as a perfect example of both what it is I love about the Peanuts, and what it is that I just don’t know how to appreciate.

Right from the start, this film was full of surprises. The trailer alone stunned me with the distinction of its animation style, as it is probably the best use of CG animation I have seen since at least Inside Out, if not The Lego Movie. Because of the purity of the style, the film had earned my respect before I had even seen it, but then again, I was unsure as to whether or not it would be worth seeing. I am now glad that I did choose to see the film, because if I thought that the animation style was surprising, I was quite shocked to see how much I enjoyed the humor. No Peanuts production or comic had ever made me laugh so hard, and I think this is largely due to the way most of the jokes relied on the animation style. By doing this as a CG film rather than 2-D, this movie ensures that it does not appear to be a continuation of the old Peanuts specials, but rather an homage to the comedy and animation of older cartoons, making for an experience that’s easy to enjoy. However, both the laughs and the surprises grew fewer and fewer as the movie progressed, and I was bothered to find myself losing interest.

This is the problem. I eventually found myself playing a video game on the Wii U while the film was still on, because there was so little need to pay attention during most of the movie. The plot was predictable enough, so I didn’t really need to keep a close eye out for much, and the overall storytelling approach didn’t interest me much at all. Half of the movie seems to be spent on an irrelevant B-story taking place in Snoopy’s daydreams of chasing the Red Baron, which might have been worth including had they used the classic song, but even the superb sight gags towards the end of his fantasy aren’t quite enough of a pay-off to make it worth my time. The main story, obviously focused on Charlie Brown, was cute and relatable, but was still a little lacking in substance, and could have been over with much quicker. The ‘A’ story could have been a ‘B’ or ‘C’ story, and the Snoopy bits could have been two or three very brief scenes, which would have left room for a stronger ‘A’ story.

All that being said, this is a good movie. It’s fun, clean, and has both the frustration with life and the delightful purity required to make it feel like a classic Peanuts production. Getting a G-rated movie in 2015 was already miraculous, but it’s even more satisfying to find that it’s a good movie that adults can enjoy just as much (or maybe more) than children. It has a lot of charm and heart, which are very hard to generate without being sappy, but this movie does the job just fine. Forgive me for ending on such a cliché, low-hanging joke, but I can’t resist: “You’re a good movie, Charlie Brown.”

Anastasia Review

January 26, 2016 by JD Hansel

It’s not a documentary. With this type of film, the old saying from Mystery Science Theater 3000 rings true: “Repeat to yourself, ‘It’s just a show; I should really just relax.'” This is the kind of movie that will mean very, very different things to different people, since a historian would be disgusted, but an art student would be impressed, while a composer would be disappointed. Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t mean very much to me, which makes it rather hard to review. I suspect that I feel this way purely because the movie is so normal and ordinary for its genre.

The visuals and animation are, as one would expect from Gary Goldman and Don Bluth, really quite impressive, particularly during the more villainous scenes. However, the visual style still has that feeling of imitating the ’90s Disney look, even right down to copying the shade of green that tends to appear around Disney villains for the scenes with Rasputin. Also, one can expect to find an all-star cast in these films, with an iconic voice for the villain, and Christopher Lloyd provides more than one could ever wish for in a villain. The music is outstandingly standard and ordinary that I can hardly remember any of it now. There are also some aspects of the storyline that have been done to death in family films, and they need to be put to rest – I’m looking at you, “character who leaves the person who cares about him/her because he/she feels unwanted and unworthy in the end.”

That being said, it’s not an unpleasant movie. The characters and story kept me entertained, and some of the artwork kept me entranced. I do wish the soundtrack could have been better, but Rasputin’s big musical number is actually a pretty strong (and unique) villain song, with many thanks to the work of Jim Cummings. The premise alone is one with built-in comedy, and it feels very reminiscent of Mel Brook’s original Producers film. In short, it’s not quite on the same level as many of the Disney pictures from the time, or the same level as many of Bluth’s best works, but I do think it’s a good enough film for the family to have a good time.

Hotel Transylvania 2 Review

October 24, 2015 by JD Hansel

This sequel feels very sequel-ish. In spite of the fact that this storyline is refreshingly different from that of the first Hotel Transylvania, most of my feelings towards this movie are exactly the same as my feelings towards the first. It feels like an extension of the same film, with a story that shows what would inevitably follow the events of the first film, and a script that relies heavily on its predecessor’s running gags. This one does seem slightly lacking in the cleverness and creativity of the first film, but it has the added bonus of a good Mel Brooks character. I certainly did enjoy watching the movie, and I laughed out loud at Drac’s description of using FaceTime, but since my count of predictable moments reached 18 (if memory serves), I can’t pretend it was a fabulous film. (I suppose I was impressed with a lot of the visuals – particularly when it comes to classic cartoon animation styles – but this is also something that can be said of the first Hotel Transylvania.) Aside from thoughts I already described in my review of its prequel, I really don’t have much in the way of strong thoughts or feelings about this movie at all.

Hotel Transylvania Review

September 9, 2015 by JD Hansel

This is the first of a few films I’m going to review this month that are at the very least passable on the grounds that, in spite of their clichés and shortcomings, they unfailingly hold a grip on my enjoyment simply by being so strangely interesting. Hotel Transylvania is, by all means, a stereotypical CG animated film, with shameless repetition of embarrassing tropes, as I can easily explain by summing up the film. An overprotective widowed father (see Finding Nemo) whose “innocently villainous” demeanor makes him a bizarre parental figure (see Despicable Me) lives in a world populated with monsters (see Monsters Inc.) and runs a hotel to provide solitude the legendary figures (the film’s primary, if not only, defining feature) in order to protect his daughter from the dangers of the outside world (see Tangled). The stupid teenage protagonist gets a crush on the girl who’s voiced by a pop star (see The Lorax) and finds that she wants her freedom (see Brave), and now the protagonist has to avoid being caught for deceiving everyone (see A Bug’s Life) while the couple hopes they can fulfill her dreams of going to paradise (see Up). This isn’t even mentioning the fact that it ends in a random musical number set to a pop song, making it even more reminiscent of Despicable Me, or the running gag concerning an awkward old lady doing something inappropriate while uttering a catchphrase with an odd accent, which in this case is the monster who eats things and says, “I dint do that,” but it’s basically “bad kitty” from Madagascar.

While the whole film feels too familiar, these are merely the ugly little details that fill the gaps between the beautiful experiences of seeing such great, strong characters trying to figure out how to handle the protagonist’s incredibly difficult situation whilst navigating through this frighteningly inventive world. The way that the characters – and other magical/mythical elements – are consistently used in ways I never would have considered. The movie is silly, smart, and surprising, which makes it a good family movie to share with anyone. I can almost forgive the horrendous cliché of the part when the loud party music comes to a halt just as someone is yelling something personal to someone else, creating a very “CG family film” scene that’s both awkward and sad. That being said, the only reason why that scene alone hasn’t earned this film a terrible rating from me is this: I already miss the film’s delightful characters, and I’m eager to join them again when the sequel arrives.