2.5 Stars

Matilda the Musical – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2022 film Matilda the Musical.

Story

The story is very similar to the older movie, but with some interesting changes. I’ll admit I don’t know the book. It’s heartbreaking and tries really hard to lessen the pain with exaggerated characters. The story elements don’t always land well, parts were slow and others overdone.

I do like the message that no matter how small you are, you can still write your own story… although it is undercut by her needing superpowers.

Score: 0.5

Characters

I’m pretty done with the ugly and/or fat character is the villain, while the petite pretty person is the good guy. I know it’s the book, but it’s an overdone and lazy stereotype.

Matilda herself is fantastic. She has a strong sense of right and wrong along with enough strength of character to push back.

The librarian was amazing and the kids were okay.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

Lots of repeated phrases and messages. It had some excellent dialogue from Matilda, especially when she told her stories. Beyond that, it oscillated between saccharin and melodrama.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The camera work and framing were great. The costumes and sets were perfect. The dancing was excellent.

The music and score were fun, but heavily repetitive. This isn’t a soundtrack that I’d want to own.

My biggest problem was that the musical aspects were underused and, other than a few songs, underwhelming.

Score: 0.5

Fun

I wouldn’t call this a feel good movie. It had all the “Hell Yeah!” it needed, but the path there was really sad and painful.

The 6 year old loved it, the 3 year old was entranced but nonplussed. The adults were split between not liking it and finding it pretty good.

I found myself looking forward to the music and disappointed at the same time.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A musical version of Matilda with all the baggage of the original story with a few fun songs. Although I love the message that you can write your own story, the movie doesn’t really back it up very well.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Monster Hunter – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2020 film Monster Hunter.

Story

This is based off a game that I have not played, but from the writer/director’s past history, it’s probably not all that faithful. That being said, it was fairly simple and had some interesting world building.

After the first exciting bit, it was a little slow however.

Score: 0.5

Characters

There were a lot of characters that didn’t get much screentime and they were pretty cool. Hard to go wrong with Ron Pearlman.

The two main characters are interesting, but I’m not sure they were interesting enough to hold up the movie.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

This was a very typical white story, the non-english speaker learned bits of English and the English speaker learned the names of the monsters.

Most of the dialogue is pretty boring but there were a few good action lines.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The visuals were spectacular when it came to the monsters and the fight scenes. The fight choreography was really cool. I love seeing monsters versus modern war machines.

The music was okay but at times distracted from the story and action instead of enhancing it.

Score: 0.5

Fun

I went into this expecting a silly monster movie with lots of action and that’s what I got. It was fun and exciting. It wasn’t as well paced as others by Anderson.

Score: 0.5

Overall

The movie is silly fun but doesn’t really shine the way it should have. It’s mostly just meh with a few moments of awesome.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Toy Story – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 1995 Film Toy Story.

Story

This is a movie about jealousy and mob mentality. It’s a terrifying look into the worst of humanity dressed up as a kid’s movie. The jokes and overall message of teamwork and accepting who you are are nice however.

Score: 0.5

Characters

This is a group or characters that belongs in a grimdark survival horror or maybe a Stephen King film. They are overall unlikable and cruel to each other. This works for the plot, but means that I’m almost cheering for Sid.

Score: 0

Dialogue

The dialogue is quippy and very well thought out. It has an almost Disney-style of multiple levels for adults and kids. It is a little heavy on the exposition, and the gags sometimes last way too long.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The movie is visually impressive for it’s time, but after almost thirty years I looks very dated. The lighting, liquids, and anything with fur is really plastic-looking, which works for the toys. The humans are weird uncanny valley rejects.

The music and sound mixing were clear and beautiful.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The movie was more fun than it should have been. Despite the despicable characters and forced story, the world building is great and everyone laughed a bunch.

Score: 1

Overall

This has all the wonder of future Pixar movies without the amazingly relatable characters. It’s a first draft for their formula and unfortunately doesn’t land as well as it could. Still fun and looks okay, considering it’s almost thirty.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Fear Street 1666 – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2021 film Fear Street 1666.

Story 

This one stands on its own the least. It’s more like a mini movie with a tenuous connection to the conclusion. That being said, both halves were excellent. 

Score: 0.5

Characters

Reusing actors was clever, both for cost and to make us feel like we were connected to them from the first 2 movies. They all did a great job, despite the mishmash of accents.

Score: 1 

Dialogue

This was a mess. Too modern and too archaic all at the same time. The second half was a little better, but leaned too heavily into hammy dialogue.

Score: 0

Visuals and Music

The first half was grey and a little boring (Pilgrim life?) the second half went perfectly with 1994. The sets were great, but it was all a little blah.

The music tied in well with the other two, but didn’t add anything interesting.

Score: 0.5

Fun

This was interesting and I was really happy to finally get the answers, but it felt like two short stories. I think actually splitting it into two movies might have made it feel less rushed.

Score: 0.5

Overall

The last part of the series suffers from needing to tie up story points while struggling to tell its own stories. This one really should have been split into two.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Venom – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2018 film Venom.

Story

I was surprised at how predictable the movie was. It felt like an older 2000’s or even 1990’s superhero movie. Overall, it was less than I expected but I did appreciate the humour and transparent stand-in for a few real life billionaires.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The actors were significantly too good for these roles as written and it made them look bad. The script was ham and the actors played into it; some in a good way and others not so much.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The banter between Venom and Eddie is a lot of fun, but the majority of the plot dialogue is boring and trite. The love story was disinteresting and even the considerable skills of Michelle Williams didn’t save her from being a cliché.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The visuals were okay but not amazing. The fight scenes, especially the bike chase, were impressive.

The music was okay and did was it was supposed to do, but wasn’t memorable.

Score: 0.5

Fun

I watched this one on my own and I think that was for the best. The kids wouldn’t have liked it and my wife would have gotten annoyed.

It was entertaining, but not enough to make me not want to look at my phone.

Score: 0.5

Overall

It’s a semi-competent superhero origin story. It spent too much of its runtime on a derivative plot when it should have concentrated on the Odd-Couple style shenanigans of Venom and Eddie.

Final Score: 2.5 stars out of 5

Ron’s Gone Wrong – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2021 film Ron’s Gone Wrong.

Story

Ignoring the fact that technology just doesn’t work like the movie portrays, there’s a lot about the movie that really bothers me. The basic premise is cool, but the world building went from ridiculously accurate to completely unbelievable really quickly.

The idea of spontaneously developing artificial intelligence has been done before. The movie doesn’t even acknowledge that it happens, going for a weird commentary on social media instead.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The tech CEO and his partner felt underplayed while the family, kids, cops, were all overdone. The main character doesn’t learn to embrace and love his culture and family so much as tolerate and use them. The kids are all shown as having social media addictions and the cure wasn’t logical.

Old east-block grandma that is completely unhinged was a character type that was overplayed in the 80’s; now it just comes off as anti-immigrant.

Ron was funny but obviously dangerous, and that was never addressed.

Score: 0

Dialogue

The dialogue was clever and had a lot of references to older movies in the same genre. I liked the literalness of Ron and how they showed him grow in understanding language.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

This was a well animated movie with some great concepts. Bubble was well designed and unique and the colourfulness of the B-bots was awesome.

The score was so much more epic than expected and really helped punch up the emotion.

Score: 1

Fun

I just couldn’t help wondering where all the adult’s B-bots were. I don’t care if they were made for kids, we all know people would buy some for themselves. People who truly have trouble making friends are the 30+ crowd, not kids.

My daughter and son both got bored part way through.

Beyond that, the movie was entertaining, but left me uncomfortable at the lack of comeuppance for the tech company’s misdeeds, the release of a rogue AI, and the deflection of serious social media issues.

I don’t think this will be a rewatching kind of movie.

Score: 0

Overall

The movie tries really hard to go beyond slapstick comedy and doesn’t succeed. It’s a fun movie if you don’t think about it, but it misses the mark on serious issues and ethics. The conclusion felt trite and horrifying instead of heartwarming. However, there are quite a few good gags and jokes along the way.

Final Score: 2.5 stars out of 5

Black Widow – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2021 film Black Widow.

Story

I was hoping for a story about how amazing Natasha was; instead we got a story that felt like it really needed to knock her down a peg in every fight.

This wasn’t a story about Natasha as Black Widow, it was a convoluted mess of a set up for Yelena to become Black Widow.

Other than being a backstory for a character we don’t know, there are some odd choices. The movie doesn’t seem to know if it wants to be a spy thriller or a superhero movie.

Story: 0

Character

Natasha was not quite as badly written as she was in previous movies, but that isn’t a high bar. The rest of the cast was fantastic and a little cheesy. Yelena was a great character with a lot of fun moments.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

I liked how the characters interacted and the little jabs at the ridiculous dialogue of past movies. The banter was realistic and funny.

This movie has a significant amount of good lines, shade, and throwbacks.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The movie was well filmed, but had a lot of shaking and cutting for my taste. The franticness of the camera often tried to make up for the lack of urgency in the action scenes. Each action scene followed the same script and it got a little boring by the end.

The scenery was wonderful.

The music was okay, but the Black Widow theme was repetitive, loud, and annoying.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The movie felt like it wanted to be a six part series. There were a lot of decisions that I didn’t like and I felt that Black Widow was again treated like a set piece and punching bag.

My daughter found it a little too violent and scary; my son got bored.

Score: 0.5

Overall

This movie should have been better, putting Black Widow into her spy element, but instead it forgot she was a spy and tried to turn her into an action star without any real triumph. In the end it’s an interesting introduction to the future Black Widow, but not a proper send off for the MCU’s worst treated and written character.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Cinderella III: A Twist in Time – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2007 film Cinderella III: A Twist in Time.

Story

Interesting, if overdone, idea of using time travel and magic to alter what originally happened in the first movie. It’s endearing for nostalgia and because the prince, still unnamed, is the nicest person alive.

Score: 0

Characters

The characters are all played by different actors than the original and they do a wonderful job. The king gets a little more character development, as do the stepsisters.

The prince again is absolutely the nicest person and really rolls with the ridiculousness of the plot.

Score: 1

Dialogue

Some of the dialogue is quite clever and some was intentionally funny. Overall, it wasn’t great.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The art was pretty, especially when it borrowed from the original, but not the best quality for Disney. They definitely took some shortcuts and it shows that this was straight to video release.

The music is pretty good and really takes inspiration from the original.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The first time I saw the movie I liked it, the second it was okay. It doesn’t have the narrative or humour levels that many Disney movies have that make it re-watchable. It’s better than the second one, but no where near the original.

All that said, it is watchable.

Score: 0.5

Overall

This is a cute straight to video Disney sequel that is fun to watch but utterly forgettable.

Final Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5

Jungle Beat: The Movie – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2020 film Jungle Beat: The Movie.

Story

The humour was uneven and the story really predictable, but the subtext of anti-colonialism was entertaining. They had a few moments of great consent and then had to go and ruin it. The entire ending being built on forced hugs, “because they really want it,” is super creepy.

Score: 0

Characters

The animals are sweet and extremely supportive. Great examples for kids. The alien is cute and wants to do the right thing. Overall a very positive group of characters.

Score: 1

Dialogue

The dialogue is all over the place, from deep to dumb, from funny to ridiculous. It has some seriously awesome lines and some really tedious sections.

Score: 0.5

Music and Visuals

Both the visuals and the music are uneven. Some is great, some not so much.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The adults laughed, the four year old was distracted and the two year old was bored. I’m not sure how that works, but apparently preschoolers aren’t big fans. (Not sure you should judge by my kids since they’ll sit still for Top Chef Canada and Leverage.)

My biggest issue was the consent thing. An entire planet cannot be made to feel love by forced hugs. That’s just wrong and gives kids a really bad message.

Score: 0.5

Overall

A funny and interesting kids movie that manages to both have a very pro-friendship message and undercut it by disregarding consent. It’s cute, has a lot of good jokes, and some of the most supportive characters I’ve ever seen, but be prepared to have a talk about forced hugs with the kids.

Final Score: 2.5

Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 1999 film Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century.

Story

At it’s core, this story is one that Disney and countless others have done a million times before and since, painted with a shiny sci-fi veneer.

It includes my most hated trope, parents who don’t believe their children.

Score: 0

Characters

The parents are frustrating and made me yell at the TV, but I enjoyed Zenon herself. She was confident, smart, amazingly lucky, and competent. Despite the overuse, I do like the competent child trope.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The dialogue is both fascinating and cringe-worthy. The made up slang mixed with turn of the millenium slang just really interests me. I like that they made sure to have seperate styles of slang for earth vs the space station. A lot more thought went into this than I would have thought.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The special effects were okay for the time period despite some major misunderstandings of physics. The costuming was clever and the music was ok.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The parents and adults being about as smart as rocks took some of the fun out of it for me. I enjoyed the main character and the other kids.

Score: 0.5

Overall

The movie is a fascinating time capsule of retro sci-fi that has a wonderful main character. Unfortunately, the entire story is overly dependent on the aggressive stupidity of the adults and them not believing her.

Score: 2.5 Stars out of 5