Puss In Boots The Last Witch: Don’t Fear The Reaper Fight Him

Summary

Puss In Boots, voiced by Antonio Banderas, is back after a long wait and is facing the end of his life, is retirement on the cards or one last tale of glory?

I was very pleasantly surprised by this film, the first Puss In Boots was very much meh and on the duller side of meh at that and lived firmly in the shadow of Shrek. However, this film has so much going for it, whether it is the genuinely quite stunning at times animation, or the character of the Wolf/Death, voiced by Wagner Moura, who is downright menacing and is also a fantastic on-screen presence.

I thought the story did justify the need to come back and revisit these characters and that the tale on the whole was surprisingly mature and sombre, it was a reflection on life, love and making the most out of the time you have left. The ending was basically just a massive tag for Shrek 5 Now With Teenager Ogres, and though I should be angrier about how blatantly this is done I think I am fine with it.

The main area where for me this film let itself down is with the supporting cast, they bring back Selma Hayek as Kitty Softpaws, Puss’s partner in crime and love interest, but they give her little new to do and that is without getting into Florence Pugh’s Goldie and the massively wasted opportunity that was. In my mind a lot of the backstory and dynamic between Goldie and her Bear family was most likely left on the cutting room floor and that is a shame, no one would begrudge this film being a few minutes longer.

Overall, a surprisingly needed sequel that does some really interesting things with its animation.

4/5

Pros.

Death

The surprisingly adult tone

Puss’s arc and journey throughout the film

The ending

Cons.

The side characters are wasted

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Daddy Day Care: The Adventures Of A Stay At Home Dad

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Eddie Murphy becomes a stay at home dad and then decides to turn his home into a day care centre.

This film was by no means awful, as some of Murphy’s later films are, but it was simply incredibly familiar and frankly lame. The plot of the film was so formulaic and played out that you knew exactly what was going to happen and when, and all of this was obvious from the jump, there were no surprises.

The humour was obviously for a younger audience a lot of slapstick and some gross out jokes these didn’t really land for me, but they did have a few more adult jokes that landed and made me laugh. On the whole I would say far more misses than hits.

However, what really does end up saving this film in my view is Eddie Murphy himself. Murphy brings a lot of charm and heart to the role and this helps to elevate the film beyond mediocre and into better territory. The end realisation that he was actually doing it to be closer to his own son all along and that it was better than the cushy advertising job he had before would had felt generic and dull with another actor but Murphy really sells it.

Overall, Murphy really does put in a lot to get this one over the line.

3/5

Pros.

Murphy

The heart

It is watchable

Cons.

More misses than hits with the jokes

It is incredibly predictable

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The Amazing Maurice: The Pied Piper Was A Cat

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A cat called Maurice, voiced by Hugh Laurie, and his human companion, voiced by Himesh Patel, travel town to town working a racket wherein they pretend to rid each town of their rats when in fact they have brought them.

I thought this was quite a charming animated film, what’s more the setting in the wider world of Terry Pratchett opens it up for all manor of possibilities if there ever was to be a sequel. I found the film to be fairly easy to watch with some likeable characters, but that is not to say everything about it was great.

The film certainly has some lulls wherein it slips into being boring and this is made worse by the pacing of the film. Furthermore, this issue is compounded by the fact that Patel’s Keith is never given much in the way of personality and is fairly bland so any section focusing on him on his own away from Maurice drags on. This is somewhat alleviated by Emilia Clarke’s Mallica who serves as both the narrator of the tale as well as the female lead and is in every respect the stand out character of the film. Clarke makes the character have so much life and charisma that it is hard not to be excited when the film is focusing on her.

Hugh Laurie as the titular Maurice is fantastic but then again you always knew he would be.

Overall, a fun animated film though one that could have worked better if the pacing was tighter.

3.5/5

Pros.

Clarke

Laurie

It is a lot of fun

The world of Pratchett

Cons.

The pace

It drags at times

Uncle Buck: What Is John Hughes’ Problem?

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

After the parents of a trio of children go out of town in is down to their somewhat alternative Uncle, played by John Candy, to look after them for a few weeks.

I thought this film was a delight, it had a lot of the good wholesome family fun of Home Alone with the added charm of a John Candy at the top of his game. Truly this film reminds you of just how much of a talent Candy was, he was gone far too soon.

The comedy of the film isn’t a hit a minute but far more jokes land than don’t. Moreover, the characters are written in such a way that they are all very easy to root for, I would say that John Candy’s Uncle Buck is the star of the show though he is challenged for top spot by a scene stealing Macaulay Culkin.

My one complaint, and for those of you who have read my reviews for a long time you will know what it is going to be, yes that’s right its is John Hughes obsession with sexual assault. There were many other ways they could have shown that the teen daughter’s, played by Jean Louisa Kelly, boyfriend, played by Jay Underwood, was bad, they didn’t need to have a scene where a girl is repeatedly saying no to his sexual advances. It is both uncomfortable and clashes horribly with the family friendly tone of the rest of the film, what Hughes’ problem was God only knows. This felt like a completely needless addition.

3.5/5

Overall, fun but stained by unnecessary darkness.

Pros.

Candy

The jokes

The wholesome family vibe for the most part

Culkin

Cons.

The deeply unnecessary sexual assault plotline

It has tonal issues

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Matilda The Musical: Netflix Doesn’t Seem To Understand How To Adapt Books

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A reimaging of the classic Roald Dahl story.

Yes, this is yet another case wherein the original is vastly better than the remake, and I don’t even mean book to film, no what I mean is that the original Matilda film with Danny DeVito was vastly, and I do mean vastly better than this film.

My main issue with this film is that it loses a lot of the cheeky sense of fun from both the original film and the book, this film fundamentally isn’t fun but is instead depressing. Within the DeVito version we never really got a sense that Matilda’s parents were outrightly abusive towards her, yet we get that here. In addition Miss Trunchbull in the original film is a sinister villain at times but also has a core of cartoonish silliness to her that makes her actions seem less outrightly sociopathic and cruel, again this is missing here.

Another thing I disliked about this version of Matilda is the songs. There is no getting around the fact that the songs in this film are not strong, worse yet the film goes out of its way to repeat the same songs or lines from them over and over again to the point wherein you question whether the film is trying to force you to like them.

I will give this film praise for a stellar performance from Lashana Lynch who does make a great Miss Honey, but her performance isn’t enough to save this film.

2.5/5

Pros.

Lynch

It is watchable

It has one or two funny moments, but it is by far not enough

Cons.

Pacing issues

It is depressing and no fun

The songs make everything worse

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Arthur Christmas: Getting The Same Present You Have Had For Christmas Over And Over Again

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Arthur Claus, voiced by James McAvoy, the bumbling but well-meaning son of Santa Claus, played by Jim Broadbent, embarks on his own personal Christmas mission when he realises that a Child has had their gift left behind.

I have heard a lot of people sing the praises of this film, but personally after watching it for the first time this Christmas season I just don’t see what is so good about it.

To be blunt with you there was nothing here that hasn’t been done better before in other animated movies, from lessons about self-reliance to not judging a book by its cover to family relations all of these themes that the film tries to explore have been done better elsewhere. Adding to this the plot mostly feels cliched and entirely predictable, you know from the off how it is going to go and how it will end and whilst for some watching this that narrative safety might be an endearing feature of the film, for me I felt it was boring.

To further build out the list of problems facing this film, the characters have no charm to them at all, and this is in part because of the writing but also because of the incredibly timid voice work done across the board. Both Sony Animation and Aardman have put out better characters that are far more charming than these dozens of times in the past, so who knows why they think this would fly here.

Overall, a watchable film and one that is good to use to mindlessly distract kids in the run up to or even on Christmas day but not one that has any merit beyond that.

2/5

Pros.

It is watchable

It would entertain little kids and would make a good distraction for them if any parent is looking to have some time to themselves during the Holidays

Cons.

It is boring

It is uninspired

The voice cast are only in it for the pay checks

I’ve seen all of its ideas and situations before

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Scrooge A Christmas Carol: The Very Worst Seasonal Musical

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

A musical take on A Christmas Carol, but without the talent or the charm needed to pull that off.

Netflix has had quite a good track record of bringing out really good animated Christmas films they’ve had Klaus and Robin Robin, both of those films have become instant classics that I want to watch every year, however, this film really missed the mark for me and left me cold.

The main problem with this film is that it did nothing new with the story, sure it added a few extra lines here and there and reworded some stuff to make it more modern but if you compare this film to Apple’s Spirited where there is drastically different new elements to the classic tale, this is just more of the same but with a few bad new lines and even worse songs.

Don’t even get me started on the songs, they range from irritating to truly tuneless and awful and it leaves you questioning if the musical numbers are this bad why didn’t they decide to just have it be a normal non-musical film and scrap them in post?

The voice acting cast should have been able to bring the film together despite all of its various problems there is a lot of talent involved, such as Jessie Buckley, Olivia Coleman and Luke Evans, however, not a one of them turn up and for the most part it just feels like they are there for the paycheck and nothing else.

Overall, A disappointing waste.

1.5/5

Pros.

It is unintentionally funny

It is relatively short

Cons.

It is a worse version of a classic

The few new changes make it inferior

The songs are awful

The voice actors clearly don’t care

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Strange Worlds: Disney’s Fear Of LGBTQ+ Kisses Reaches New Heights

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

3 generations of a family of explorers go on an adventure to save their planet.

This film is fine, just fine. In terms of family adventure films it hits all the areas you would expect it to, but it doesn’t do anything new or exciting with the concept. Likewise in terms of thematic narratives, the idea of fathers and sons being different and having to recognise and accept that difference in order to have healthy relationships is nice to see repeated but again a message that a lot of other films have hit better before.

Moreover, this film does two things I really don’t like and that I think hurt it dramatically. Firstly it is gutless in its LGBTQ romance, it has a Gay male romance sheerly to use it as a smoke screen to show off how progressive as a company Disney are, but then when it comes to the big final moment at the end of the film where these chaps would kiss the film instead opts for an arm around the other instead. Why is that? Well frankly it is because Disney is gutless and wants to have their cake and eat it to, they want to appear progressive but also not offend the Chinese market or the right wing western market that might have a problem with this. It doesn’t cut both ways. I would have liked this film more and respected Disney more as a company if the two guys had kissed at the end.

Secondly, I dislike how the entire second and third act is an incredibly thinly vailed message about the environment, that not only reads as shallow and without anything new to add, but also as preachy and condescending. The vast bulk of the latter stages of the film just boil down to a lecture on how we are killing the planet, as though this is something the average moviegoer can change, it isn’t by the way that’s a job for world leaders but hey.

Overall, gutless and poor.

2/5

Pros.

It is watchable

There are a few endearing characters

Cons.

Disney is too afraid to have its same sex characters kiss

The environmental message is irritating and blatant

It has pacing issues

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Slumberland: Hanging Out With A Pet Pig

3.5/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

After losing her dad, played by Kyle Chandler, Nemo, played by Marko Barkley, ventures into a world of dreams and nightmares in order to see him one last time.

I think the strengths of this film lie on the shoulders of Jason Mamoa and Chris O’Dowd, Mamoa for his effortlessly charming nature and surprisingly endearing turn and O’Dowd for just how much human realness he brings to his role as a guy suddenly forced into being a father. Of the two I would probably give it to O’Dowd as I think a few of his scenes where he is opening up emotionally with Nemo are quite powerful, as is the ending when he is racing to save her.

In terms of wider fantasy, the film has a few interesting set pieces but is mostly by the numbers. There is nothing that you won’t have seen done before especially if you are a fan of the genre. However, I did appreciate the gothic sense of style this film has which is almost certainly a by product of its source material, there is something very ancient and other worldly about this film, especially as it rarely features smart phones.

Overall, a surprisingly good Netflix film with some strong performances

O’Dowd

Mamoa

The heart

The gothic sensibilities

Cons.

It is nothing new

The CGI is a little patchy in places

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Disenchanted: It Is So Much Fun Being Badder

3/5

Written by Luke Barnes

Summary

Giselle, played by Amy Adams, makes her long awaited return.

I thought this film lacked a lot of the same heart the first film had, that is not to say this film is soulless but rather it feels more cynical than the first did. Obviously this film was made to tap into the nostalgia market, because legacy sequels are all the rage right now, and for the most part in that regard it just left me cold. It couldn’t evoke a lot of the same emotions as the first film and often I found it to be nothing more than just fine.

Adams is still trying and that is nice to see, other actors might have just phoned it in and spent Disney’s check. Her and James Marsden, for the few minutes he features, are the two stand outs of the cast for me. I liked that this time around they let Adam’s Giselle explore her evil side, and become a wicked step-mother I think it gave a greater sense of genre parody and also gave Adams more to do acting wise.

Overall, watchable and slightly above average for Disney + fare, but nothing great.

Pros.

It is watchable

Watching Giselle break bad

Adams

Cons.

Pacing issues

It never justifies its existence

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