2024

The Wild Robot – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2025 film The Wild Robot.

Story

This treads the line between traumatic and adorable. On its surface, it’s a cutesy film about adoption and found family. Below the surface, the movie has a lot of awkward colonial tones.

Score: 0.5

Characters

The voice actors did a fabulous job. I particularly loved Lupita Nyong’o’s evolution throughout the movie from pure robotic to more humanized.

At the beginning it felt like the characters acted out for the gag more than the plot and it was a little tiresome.

Score: 0.5

Dialogue

The dialogue was good mostly. It was a nice exploration of what it means to be a parent and a friend. The jokes were sometimes funny and sometimes over the top.

Score: 0.5

Visuals and Music

The movie was beautifully animated and really did a great job giving each animal a personality.

The music was good, it did a great job at helping with the mood.

Score: 0.5

Fun

It was a fun movie. There are a lot of unanswered questions and word building issues, but they probably just annoyed me and weren’t that important.

The kids loved it.

Score: 1

Overall

A fun kids movie that explores what it means to be a family while showing the importance of change. It has its flaws but the acting will make you forget about it.

Final Score: 3 Stars out of 5

Flow – JenEric Movie Review

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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2024 film Flow.

Story

A strong and almost Ghibli-level narrative that is only marred by a weak ending.

Score: 0.5

Characters

All the characters are recognizable and have unique traits. It’s impressive how well they managed to bring that forward without any dialogue.

Score: 1

Dialogue

There are no words spoken in this movie but there is plenty of communication. The writers and animators managed to convey so much with just facial expressions and actions.

Score: 1

Visuals and Music

The visuals were stunning for what they were, but there were some odd choices like making the whales different but nothing else. I also found the style of animation kept making me think I was watching a cutscene from an older game.

The score was fantastic and really went a long way to elevating the movie.

Score: 0.5

Fun

The movie is fascinating and fun to watch but the ending doesn’t feel resolved and certainly wasn’t uplifting. We all enjoyed it except for the end.

Score: 0.5

Overall

Combining a lot of recognizable stereotypes while only using expressions to tell a story about animals in a post-apocalyptic world is a huge challenge. One that Flow mostly manages amazingly. The ending, however, falls a little flat, and a few of the choices felt unrelated to character or plot.

Final Score: 3.5 Stars out of 5

Boromir

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For Gondor! I feel like Boromir is one of the most misunderstood characters in LotR. He just wants his city to thrive. He’s lived under the shadow of Mordor his entire life, and that’s bound to eat away at your soul. The Ring preyed on that. Even then, he was able to resist at the end, and fight for good.