slothcritic1

[slothcritic1]

Changing Blogs

This blog has always been a “secondary blog” to my own personal blog. I wish to change that. However, there is presently no way of changing this blog into a primary blog with Tumblr’s current infrastructure. This means I will be creating a new account with this page as the primary blog.

Posting on THIS page is now discontinued, but slothcritic blogs will continue as normal. For all your slothy needs, please see the new blog located at slothcritic.tumblr.com 

[slothcritic1]

Moana (2016)

Amazing Hair: The Movie. Moana is a tale of Hawaiian/Polynesian folklore centering around Dwayne The Maui Johnson and brand new talent (Auli'i Cravalho) as the titular character.

As someone who grew up with Toy Story, it’s funny to think about what this movie represents from a technical standpoint. Toy Story purposefully did not have an explositions or exposed liquids due to the limitations of technology at the time. And now we have a movie that takes place 90% of the time in the middle of a huge ocean.

The movie has some genuinely good songs, thanks to the singing talents of Ms Cravalho and, surprisingly, Dwayne Johnson himself. Yes, The Rock can sing, and while it’s semi-obvious that he doesn’t have the range of some other singers, he works within his means and knocks it out of the park in the song You’re Welcome

The plot structure itself is very formulaic however, which is a shame as everything else holds up so wonderfully. The focal girl has a duty to uphold, but instead decides to “follow her destiny” and choose a life of adventure over the life she’s expected to live (you know, like Brave, Frozen, Mulan, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tarzan… you get the point). She then meets up with the wacky, street wise (or ocean wise), reluctant helper that she goads into helping on her journey. They become friends and bond, then theres the third act break up where the helper separates for no good reason, and the fourth act triumphant return at the ending climax for even less of a good reason.

With that out of the way, the movie rocks. Some people completely judge a movie only on plot, but I think it’s more about how it makes you feel. A movie is a vessel for emotion and intrigue.

Aside from the stunning visuals (which, lets face it, are now a standard practise for Disney Pixar films) and a catchy song (songs however are much easier to screw up, and this movie has a lot of good ones), the opening scene is bland. It sets up Moana to be the next village chief and her journey into leaving the island. The scene doesn’t really have anything for itself, but rather is used to carry the impact of when she actually disembarks. It’s necessary for backstory (no one ever leaves the island), exposition (Moana is the daughter of the village chief, etc) and the premise (find Maui and have him restore Heart of Te Fiti to stop a black virus from consuming all life), but doesnt do too much on its own.

The disembarkment scene however is wicked powerful. My friends thought I was alien for not crying or tearing up during it, but I will admit it did give me a good *pang* in the heart. Magical spirit stingray!

Two things should also be mentioned at this point. 1) A rooster named Hei Hei has snuck aboard Moana’s boat. It’s a very special rooster that my friends would not stop comparing to me. And B) The ocean is a sentient character of sorts, and provides some of the comedy for the movie.

Moana follows the constellation of the fish hook to where Maui is, since thats his dealio. At some point however, the lovable ocean gets triggered and decides to unleash its torrential stormy wrath upon Moana. I mean, it does get her to Maui’s island, but I’m sure there were less dickish ways of accomplishing that. Though I don’t think ocean cares since it killed Moana’s dad’s best friend. Oh, ocean, you little scamp.

Maui pops in and drops my favorite song of the movie, then steals the boat and leaves Moana to… I dunno, die? But she makes it back to Maui and explains that he needs to help her because, guess what, she’s the Disney Princess of this movie. And yes - She is. Her father is chief, which is like a king. She’s the chief’s daughter, which is like a king’s daughter, aka princess.

Maui responds by throwing the Heart of Te Fiti several miles away. This almost works out for Maui until p̶l̶o̶t̶ the ocean interferes by throwing it back, railroading him into a whole new world.

Maui however is at a disadvantage in his current state; He’s missing his hook. No hook, no powers. So when tribal coconuts show up on a HUGE ship, armed to the coconuts with poison blow darts, they’re kind of fucked, especially when they steal the Heart of Te Fiti, which is… currently inside Hei Hei.

Luckily, Moana does some badass shit while Maui handles the boat and the three of them get out fine. Next stop, Maui’s hook. But before that, Moana wants to drive the boat. Maui says no, and the ocean pricks him with a stray poison dart. Now he cant drive. But he can pee in the water just as he tells Moana to check for a “warm current”

I can get on board with that level of petty.

They arrive at Monster Island, which is where Maui’s hook is. Maui tells her to stay on the boat and do nothing like a good woman while macho man demi-dude saves the whole day. It has little success. I should also mention, this entire time they’ve been traveling from Casa de Maui to Mount Doom, Maui has just been roasting Moana for being a Disney princess. To summarize:

“Oh look at me. I’m the chosen one. I’m like 8 years old and never sailed a boat in my life, but here I am thinking the ocean chose ME, with my bleeding heart spiel and animal companion to try and save the world.”

To be fair, large bodies of water have never been good at chosing leaders - Ask Monty Python.

Regardless, Moana and Maui both climb what is basically a 90 degree incline to the top of the Dread Spire. It is at this point Maui informs Moana that the door to the monster realm can only be opened with a human sacrifice. Before Moana can protest, Maui ritually disembowels her with his own hands to appease the ancient blood gods.

Kidding. He chants a few words and the gateway opens. The two jump in, and Moana is almost eaten or killed numerous times with the first few moments of being in the realm of the monsters.

Maui’s hook is resting upon a mountain of gold. Seems innocent enough to Moana, but Maui insists she wears a bright and gaudy disguise to draw the attention of… something.

The mountain of gold rises up. Turns out thats just its back. Meet the British Crab. He sings a song about how he loves shiny things and then nearly eats Moana, until Maui reveals he retrieved his hook from the British Crab’s back.

But he’s a little rusty and it, uh, doesn’t work right. So Maui gets his shit stomped by BC. Moana saves the day by painting a rock with bioluminescent algae to make it look like the Heart of Te Fiti, which is shiny, and BC is all about the shiny.

They escape, and Maui learns to reuse his hook. Everythings looking swell until they try and take on the great evil of the story, Te Ka. He uses fireball and Maui presses E to deflect with his hook, only instead the hook gets mad cracked. It sparks like its somehow made of electricity, which I find weird. Maui is now done with life since his hook is nearly toast and he fucks off, leaving chosen girl all by herself, depressed as fuck in the middle of nowhere, ocean.

One drug trip and amazing song later, she regains her confidence and tried to take on Te Ka by herself. It surprisingly works, because now she knows how to drive a boat. Hei Hei comes in clutch and stops the Heart of Te Fiti from falling off the boat, and they make it through the border islands towards their main goal.

Te Ka is still rather pissed, being a giant lava demon and all, so he keeps trying to kill Moana. And for no real reason, here comes Maui to save the day - or at least to stall Te Ka until Moana can do the thing. His hook gets completely totalled but its okay, because he learned a valuable lesson off-screen that he’s still Maui, hook or no hook.

Moana realizes that the Heart actually goes into Te Ka. So she pulls a Moses, lets Te Ka come at her bro, and puts the Heart into her chest. This turns her from the red Lava Groot to the green Mother Nature Jemima, and everything is better forever. And hey, she gives Maui a brand new hook after he apologises for being the literal cause of ALL of this. Maui does his own thing and Moana becomes the leader of a brand new generation of voyagers.

I do have to applaud Disney for NOT having the two of them kiss at the end. Its always nice to see a platonic m/f duo in movies and the romance subplot sells so well to resist sometimes.

Overall, very stunning. I often cite “movie feel” as a reason why movies with plot/cliche/logistic problems can still make good movies, and this movie does a wonderful job of sweeping you off your feet. Though honestly, the writing on this movie is not bad. Rather, I would say its poorly structured. Think of it like a support beam a beanstalk might grow up. The characters were amazing; Full of life, personality and moderately complex emotions, the animation is so good the whole movie is like a humble brag about how awesome the DisneyTech is, a lot (i’d say 80%) of the script is bang on, and an astounding amount of the songs are really good - Songs are easy to screw up and I’d say that’s this movies second biggest strength (behind hair/water animation). It just struggles with the standard “winning formula” plot structure that was honestly ill-fitting in parts and did not impart a wholesome explanation or comprehensive rationale behind certain scenes.

I’m not a big Disney buff (unless you count the Star Wars acquisition), so I’m not qualified to say how this ranks compared to other movies (disregarding modern tech advancements and focusing more on storytelling) - However I will say that it’s better than Frozen.

[slothcritic1]

Spot on.

Miscellaneous Topic Monday: Top 10 Powerpuff Girls Episodes

Top 10 lists aren’t an easy task. Finding images let alone is enough of a difficult experience, but then there’s finding something to say about each individual number. I don’t really dislike top 10s, but they aren’t my favorite thing to do. However, I guess I owe one since I neglected to post anything at all last Monday. So, since most of you may know my love for Cartoon Network's The Powerpuff Girls, I suppose I’ll present you with my favorite episodes. Remember that most of these might not be on your list, as it’s my personal preference. Let’s get started.

10. Live and Let Dynamo

While I’m not the biggest fan of season five and six of The Powerpuff Girls and I do enjoy the original Dynamo episode, I felt Live and Let Dynamo was a fun trip into what make the series so great: action, humor, and a surprising, yet funny twist. The girls discover that  Professor Utonium invention that was supposed to help them in battle has ironically turned against them. The girls come up with different scenarios of which villain could be inside the machine, but none of them seem to match. Bubbles also hilariously suggests that Buttercup could be in it, even though she’s floating right next to her. I won’t spoil who’s actually in the machine, because while it may seem predictable to some, it was all the same funny to me. The animation in this episode is particularly enjoyable, blending 3-D with 2-D and increasing the visual fun of the action sequences. The scenarios are a highlight as well, especially HIM’s. If that doesn’t prove that he’s a little fruity, I don’t know what does. The girls have their funny moments as well. Buttercup telling the Townsvillians to leave worked well for an ongoing scene, and didn’t quite lose its power. Live and Let Dynamo is a nostalgic trip down what made The Powerpuff Girls so great.

9. Meet the Beat-Alls

Meet the Beat-Alls was a bit puzzling as a kid, but it did work as a good episode. And if an episode can fit in dozens of reference and still make a lick of context without them, than Meet the Beat-Alls is a big achievement. Sick of being beaten, Mojo Jojo, Fuzzy Lumpkins, HIM, and Princess Morbucks attempt to individually destroy the Powerpuff Girls. However, in a well-timed set of events, all attack at once, successfully defeating the trio. It’s at this moment that the four decide to team up, to become the “Beat-Alls”. The leads to failure after failure for the girls, but they discover a way to distract Mojo by sending in a monkey named Moko Jono. Mojo and Moko’s odd activities lead to the group breaking up, and Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are successfully able to defeat HIM, Fuzzy, Princess, and eventually Mojo. Creator Craig McCraken storyboarded this episode, and he really went all out on the references. While I could catch onto many of the jokes, there were quite a few that slipped by me, showing that Craig really must be a diehard Beatles fan. But like I said before, this episode works plenty for people who might not even know who the Beatles are. It’s fun to see the four villains in the episode work together, but it still make for one of the best homages in an animated series. I appreciated it when I was younger, but I appreciate it even more now.

8. Bubblevicious

Bubbles is considered the softest of her sisters. Loving all living things, including her stuffed animal Octi, it’s rare to see Bubbles in a truly violent portrayal, but Bubblevicious takes it on, and succeeds. During a simulation fight sequence, Bubbles is disappointed that the Professor Utonium lowered her difficulty level during the simulation. The Professor explains that she isn’t quite as macho as her sisters are. Annoyed and fueled by these criticisms, Bubbles decides to take on the simulation by herself - on level 11. Though beaten in sequence, Bubbles takes on every monster and successfully defeats them, with a large amount of rage and turmoil. Blossom and Buttercup begin to notice their sister’s downfall, and address it, but Bubbles refuses to listen and takes on the city by herself. Of course, this leads to getting captured by Mojo Jojo. Mojo locks her into an electrical contraption and turns it up to level 11. Enduring the shock, Bubbles releases herself and defeats Mojo Jojo. Blossom and Buttercup are impressed, which pleases Bubbles and diminishes her ego, as all she wanted to be was “hardcore”. For such an issue that seems to run throughout the series, Bubblevicious is really the only one to center around Bubbles being the quirkiest of her sisters. We sympathize with Bubbles, yet realize her quirks are what makes her so likable. I do enjoy enraged Bubbles, though. I still can’t believe she beat the ever-living crap out of Talking Dog. There’s also some other hilarious scenes which involves her violent reaction to minor crimes, such as littering and stepping on the grass. The action sequence is actually pretty risque for Cartoon Network, with a surprising amount of blood. Bubblevicious teaches us one of life’s most important lessons: don’t fuck with Bubbles.

7. Supper Villain

Although past few episodes have been brought up by some great action sequences or pop culture references, Supper Villain relies on pure laughs, and it’s certainly a riot. Harold Smith is a man who doesn’t quite enjoy life. He has a son who dislikes him, an overly perky wife, and a daughter who doesn’t directly acknowledge him throughout the entire episode. He has a typical life cycle of waking up, putting on a tie, eating pancake, and going to his job at the mustard factory. It doesn’t help that Professor Utonium sings his “my life is so perfect” song in front of him either. Sick and tired of this repetition, Harold finds enjoyment in villainous activity, in hopes of becoming a villain himself. Unfortunately for him, his wife Maryanne invites the Professor Utonium and his crime-fighting daughters over for dinner. He tries to keep his cool, but eventually transforms into “super-villain” Harold Smith, and proceeds to hold a ray-gun (hairdryer) up to the Professor. This causes Maryanne to have an episode and commands everyone to sit down for dinner. Harold vows to melt the Professor’s head off after dinner’s over, so the Professor takes all the time he needs to eat. Sick of waiting, Harold prepares to destroy Professor Utonium, but not before a coconut cream pie fight. Hearing the commotion, the police come in and arrest Harold, so all’s well that ends well… except that Maryanne has unfinished vengeance towards the girls for ruining her dinner. Yikes. Supper Villain is one consistently funny episode of the series. Almost every joke works because of such a great line up of characters. While the girls get a few laughs, the Professor, Harold, and Maryanne definitely make this episode hysterical. The Professor is his typical corny father self, Harold’s made amusing by his nervous breakdowns, and Maryanne is simply a crazy bitch. While the follow-up episode wasn’t nearly as good, this one definitely takes the prize. By the way, does anyone wanna play jacks after dinner?

6. Speed Demon

Speed Demon is perhaps the darkest episode of the series, with a heavy meaning behind it. The girls are preparing for a weekend at the Bahamas, with a week away from crime and evil ahead of them. After school, Buttercup offers a race home, to which Blossom and Bubbles happily agree to. As they begin to fly in the streets, they speed up to a supernatural rate which makes tie slow down, sending them fifty years into the future. Here, in an apocalyptic version of Townsville, Professor Utonium has become completely senile and can’t remember how to properly create the girls, while also showing signs of paranoia. Ms. Bellum sits in the abandoned city hall, where she stays in a solemn depression over how the Mayor was killed by unknown causes. Ms. Keane stands firm in Pokey Oaks where she constantly repeats that she waved goodbye to the Powerpuff Girls fifty years ago. Jesus. After viewing the disturbing evidence of decay, the girls come across HIM, only to realize that he took over Townsville, and made the whole world go to “heck”. The girls are tortured by the fact that they caused the decline of society, leaving the world under HIM’s reign. So the trio fly up beyond earth and speed back fifty years into the past. Everything is back to normal and the girls explain to the Professor how they can’t leave Townsvile, even for one weekend. There really aren’t any jokes in this episode, but it’s made up for with great meaning. It shows that while it may be tough at times, responsibility surely succeeds luxury. Not that a little relaxation is bad, but it should have a medium. The girls can still have fun, yet protect Townsville at the same time. This is also one of HIM’s best and most intimidating appearance, including an awesome design update. With great elements and some startling scenes, Speed Demon is a dark trip.

5. Knock It Off

Right up there with Speed Demon, Knock It Off is a highly dark episode. It takes away from the typical superhero vs. villain formula (well, there still is a villain) and focuses on the vile act of capitalism. Professor Utonium invites his old friend, Dick Hardly (how in God’s name did that get past the censors?) over for some catching up. However, when Dick discovers that the Professor’s daughters have superpowers, he immediately wants to market them. This infuriates Utonium, which causes Dick to get kicked out. Dick does not give up, however, and approaches the girls after school. As pedophilia-inducing as that sounds, it’s only to get some chemical X. The girls agree, as they believe he wants to introduce more super-powered  girls in the world in order to stop danger from all around. However, Dick is only interested in marketing the bootleg girls, under the brand name “Powerpuff Girlz X-Treme”. The Professor becomes suspicious when he sees the girls in all different location on TV, but the girls try to cover as best as they can. The trio decides it’s been taken too far when they see a commercial for the products, including the hilarious line “I lost 200 pounds with my Powerpuff!”. The girls confront Dick, but he swallows the Chemical X and mutates in a semi-human monster. Dick traps the girls in a machine that sucks the Chemical X out of them. Professor Utonium shows up to factory, and offers to sacrifice himself for his daughters. Dick denies, and the mutated Powerpuff Girls knock-offs begin to surround the Professor. The Professor and the girls declare their love for each other one last time, making the knock-offs realize the true compassion between a father and his daughters. The mutations turn on Dick, effectively destroying him. And in the end, the Powerpuff Girls are saved by the power of love. Eh, I’ll buy it. This episode not only addresses the problem of capitalism, but it also has probably the most nonredeemable villain in the series. Even a villain like Him has his comedic moments, but Dick Hardly is simply absorbed by greed and power. He’s also one of the few characters to die in the series, along with the Rowdyruff Boys and Bunny. Also, unlike Speed Demon, Knock It Off does have its funny scenes. The bootlegs are funny in a very surreal way, including how one of the Buttercup clones’ head just completely falls off. There’s also an Indian Mojo Jojo named “Raja Jaja”, which is both funny and probably a little racist. Both dark and humorous, Knock It Off is a blend of comedy and disturbing visuals.

4. See Me, Feel Me, Gnomey

This musical-type episode also has a heavy message as well, blended in with epic singing and some great animation. As all the main villains (excluding the Rowdyruff Boys; sorry guys) prepare to destroy Townsville, the Powerpuff Girls arrive to save the day. However, they are clearly outnumbered. Being zapped by Mojo, punched by Ace, strangled by Sedusa, and much more, the girls find themselves defenseless. As they are defeated, they sing a melody of how the world would be better off without constant fighting and villainous activity. They are then visited by a Jack Black-like gnome, who promises a world without villains and world of peace and tranquility, as long as the girls give up their powers in return. Buttercup is hesitant at first, but Bubbles convinces her sisters that this will help them finally become normal little girls. The three agree, and the world is now free of villainous activity. However, the Professor helps explain to his daughters that there is still evil in the world, as the gnome has taken free will away from the people. This make the girls realize that evil needs to exist, as “the yin and yang’s the master plan”. As the three girls confront the gnome, he falls off of his magic rose, effectively destroying him. This makes the gnome realize that he became the evil that he took away from the world, and that he can’t exist if he is the reason for this contradiction. The world goes back to the way it was before, and the people of Townsville begin worshiping the PPGs. Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup explain that the townspeople need to live their own life instead of living other people’s orders. This leads to the final song “Why Can’t We All Get Along” which explains that instead of having peace, we should do our best to create it. It’s a pretty heavy episode dealing with communism, and the rock opera songs really help carry out emotion and power. It explains to us maturely that we should stop asking for a world without pain and suffering and just try to do it. There’s always going to be bad everywhere we go, so instead of avoiding it, try improving it. The songs all effectively display the mood they are going for, but still tell the story properly. I especially like the songs “Townsville’s Going Down”, “Rain”, and “You Wanna Make Us Feel Real Good”. It’s one of the best post-Craig era, and one of the best overall.

 3. Telephonies

Who would’ve guessed we would have an episode where the villains are the actual heroes? The Gangreen Gang are up to their typical juvenile pranks, as they crank call people using Grubber’s ability to mimic voice. Ace hatches the idea for Grubber to mimic the Mayor’s voice in order to deceive the Powerpuff Girls. Grubber makes the first call to Blossom and warns her that Mojo Jojo is planning something maniacal, and the girls fly to his observatory to beat him up. Mojo scolds them, and informs them that all he’s been doing is sleeping. The girls awkwardly fly off, confused. Grubber calls the hotline again, saying that Fuzzy Lumpkins has gone insane. The trio fly over to Fuzzy’s cabin, where he is taking a bath, and beat him up. Realizing that he hasn’t done anything wrong, the girls fly off from an enraged Fuzzy. Grubber then calls a third time and explains that HIM is up to no good. Buttercup suggests that the Mayor is off his pills, but Blossom informs her that he wouldn’t joke about something so severe. The girls arrive at HIM’s lair, where he is doing gymnastics… yeah, what? HIM explains that he hasn’t done anything wrong recently, and the girls leave. HIM becomes infuriated and calls Mojo and Fuzzy. I always find this scene hilarious because, well, they all have a normal conversation. Instead of just beating the shit out of whoever duped them (that comes along later), they just have a constructive conversation. HIM calls city hall to complain to the Mayor, but Big Billy answers to reveals that the Gangreen Gang was behind the crank calls. Mojo, HIM, and Fuzzy show up to city hall and beat the everliving crap out of the gang. The real Mayor shows up and calls the girls, but Buttercup destroys the hotline, believing he is trying to fool them. And so once again the day is saved, thanks to… Mojo, Fuzzy, and HIM? This hilarious episode displays a different side of Mojo, Fuzzy, and HIM, showing that they’re willing to team up with each other, but won’t deal with other villains’ acitivities. It’s also one of the first episodes to include several of the main villains, and they all work well with each other. The scene where the Gangreen Gang gets their asses handed to them is one of my favorite fight scenes in the series. Also I gotta ask, why did Mojo bring a laser if he was going to use his hands? Oh well. There’s also a clever side joke where Professor Utonium receives a crank call where Lil’ Arturo informs him that he’s won ten million dollars. Lil’ Arturo tells him to hold, and then hangs up. And the Professor stays on the phone for the entire episode. Like I said, a really funny episode the spotlights the main villains.

2. Mime for a Change

Mime for a Change isn’t one of the funniest episodes (though, it does have its moments) but it shows that a smile goes a long way, even in a cheesy and bright matter. Rainbow the clown is a birthday performer that loves his job, but that changes when a truck full of bleach tips over on top of him. This transforms him into Mr. Mime (no, not the Pokemon), who seeks revenge on the world by turning everything black and white, taking the joy away from everyone. As the girls head to school, they notice the changes in their town. Bubbles begins freaking out, and tries coloring in the town, while Blossom and Buttercup search for clues. The three notice Mr. Mime, but he runs off. When they attempt to corner him, Mr. Mime sneaks up behind Blossom and Buttercup and steals their color. Bubbles is heartbroken by this, but tries coloring in her sisters to bring them back to life. This, of course, fails, upsetting Bubbles. But then she hatches an idea: sing a song about how love makes the world go ‘round to bring everyone back to life. Yeah, this makes NO sense, but just the hilarity and upbeat nature of the song makes me adore and enjoy it. Because nothing says love like puppy dogs, kitty cats, and swimming, right? In fun and inventive ways, this episode shows us that you don’t have to impress them with big climaxes or visuals, but just by making them happy. And this episode, including the song, is the source to cheer me up during any bad mood. I guess the only flaw is that even though Rainbow couldn’t help the fact that the bleach turned him evil. I guess it was technically a misunderstanding, though. Oh well, overall this is an enjoyable episode that breaks story structure for pure fun.

And my number one favorite The Powerpuff Girls episode is…

1. The Rowdyruff Boys

While I will admit that episodes like The Boys Are Back In Town and Bubble Boy gave better individual development for the Rowdyruff Boys, this episode is a pure romp of fun that no other episodes can quite match. It’s funny, action-packed, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining. We get to see a sequence of failures from Mojo Jojo, showing his constant defeats at the hands (or hand stubs) of the Powerpuff Girls. Locked up, Mojo Jojo has an episode in his jail cell, and furiously shakes the cell bars. Although Mojo is obviously evil, we can sympathize with him because no matter how many times he tries to defeat the girls, he always fails. Mojo decides to make a phone call to the Utonium residence, where he asks the Professor what exactly the girls are made of. Sugar, spice, and everything nice don’t quite please Mojo, so he uses snips, snails, a puppy dog tail. Why there was escargo at a penitentiary, I still don’t know. Mojo then puts the ingredients in a radioactive toilet, where the Rowdyruff Boys are created, introducing us to Brick, Boomer, and Butch. Mojo tells his children about how the Powerpuff Girls are a huge threat to them, so the boys proceed to attack them. Not realizing that they’ve met their match, the boys are shocked by how well the girls take their attacks. And so that battle of the sexes begins, and so does the fun. The battle sequence takes up most of the episode, and it’s enough to keep entertaining me. The girls have always been pitted against enemies who are usually too easy or too hard to defeat, but the Rowdyruff Boys are an equal match. This leads to some boy biased attacks and girl biased attacks, such ever the ever slow paced “acrobat-tack”. Then there’s also the Rowdyruff Boys’ fart power, which proves to harm the girls. My favorite part of the sequence has to be when a bus, plane, and boat are launched at the girls. But, after sometime, the boys successfully defeat the girls. In a Disney death scene, the townspeople’s tears bring the Powerpuff Girls back to life. However, the girls willingly give up when feeling as though they failed. Ms. Bellum gives some advice to them (with the help of her cleavage) about what little boys are afraid of. The obvious answer is, well, love. So the girls give each of their counterparts a kiss, causing the boys the explode and sending Mojo to jail. No episode quite matches this one, because while there are other quite entertaining battle sequences, none are quite equal. The Boys Are Back In Town spends most of its time literally destroying the girls, but this episode gives no one a fair advantage. And while the boys get their chance of victory, the girls get them right back. But beside the action sequences, the episode’s full of laughs as well. The boys are hilarious, although I wish there could’ve been a little more development individually, but they’re enjoyable enough. And the ending is icing on the cake. Especially with the romanticized version of the theme. I love little tidbits like that. For these reasons, and many more, The Rowdyruff Boys is my favorite episode of the series. I’ve seen it a million times and I’ll watch it a million times more.

Thanks for reading!

- Eric

[slothcritic1]

Summer of Steven: Week 2 (2016)

You better believe there’s going to be some ~SPOILERS~

Restaurant Wars

The beginning of this episode didn’t do much for me. It was interesting to see more interaction between the two restaurant owners, but it seemed a little expected once the premise was laid out: The restaurant owners start serving their competitors food. Ronaldo is the crux of humor for most of the episode.

The episode becomes “worth it” in my opinion during the Steven’s Restaurant scene. It’s fairly typical at first, the Frymans ordered fries and the Pizza’s (yes that’s their actual last name) ordered pizza. Whats more, Steven has found a way to rope the eponymous triad into this. I’m not complaining, Pearl looks good in a waitress uniform.

Not sure where they learned to cook. Amethyst probably has the culinary grace of Animal from the Muppets, Garnet probably burns everything and Pearl does not even eat food. Maybe it was all Steven? Maybe I’m forgetting past moments where gems have cooked?

The pinnacle of this episode is the incredibly anime reactions to eating Steven’s food. The food is so good that it immediately stops the conflict du jour.

Overall, this seemed like a rather hollow solution. Who knew that resolving business rivalry was as easy as just saying “Hey, let’s stop fighting”. It seemed forced, but these details get lost in the “episode haze” of everything needing to turn out alright in the end, so realism takes a back seat to idealism. I wouldn’t put this episode on a pedestal, but they managed to put a few good jokes into a filler episode.

Oh, and Kofi tries to brand Steven with a hot iron.

Kiki’s Pizza Delivery Service

Or as I like to call it

I Dream Of Cheese

Steven flies around as a dog-copterrific superhero fighting cheesy crime and pepperoni purps. Apparently, Steven is warging again, and this time into Kiki’s dreams. She’s drowning in oil cheese because her sister Jenny keeps giving her shifts away to party it up. And she’s the nice one so she’s always happy to oblige.

Except now she’s become a prisoner to her own kindness. So this episode is supposed to teach you that sometimes its okay to say no to someone you love or that its okay to have “me” time. 

I liked it a little better than Restaurant Wars, partly because the plot is less mundane, but it still didn’t feel too memorable. 

Monster Reunion

Ladies and gentlemen, lock your tray tables and fasten your seatbelts because shit is about to get real.

MC Bear Bear has a Tear Tear and with that horrible pun, the stuffed animals wound magically repairs itself. Well, Steven kissed it better. This can only mean one thing: Break ALL of the plates.

Now that his healing spit (Seriously, what a weird superpower) is back, Steven cures the fuck out of the green gem in the basement. Sort of. It looks humanoid enough, can understand Steven, and is able to communicate through crayon, but otherwise appears genetically unstable and cannot speak. Meet the new and improved Centipeetle.

Steven sits their ass down and starts making doodles with them, and Centipeetle goes all in when it comes to what happened. But not with words because everything is just incoherent scribbles. Stick figures seem to work however. And let me tell you, SU has always been masterfully vague when they need to be about certain parts of the story, giving us teases and ideas until the whole thing is blown wide open. The idea of the story being told through scribbles, from the perspective of a gem whose sanity was questionable, leaves a lot of open room for details while giving us new details we didn’t have before.

So CAPTAIN Centipeetle and a mass exodus of ships were sent to Earth and colonized the fuck out of it, but then shit blew up and the gem war started. Centipeetle got lost from the crewmates and then, what we can only assume was Yellow Diamond, is seen ordering a retreat. Ships are leaving, but Centipeetle couldn’t make it to their ship in time before the white crayon happened, covering up the entire drawing. Then Centi starts crying.

Steven asks what happened. Cue the DRAMATIC AS FUCK MUSIC while Centi draws the shit out something with the black crayon. Three Diamonds.

We can only assume there was some kind of orbital bombardment that brought a nuclear holocaust up in this bitch, thus corrupting all the gems. Rose probably used her shield to protect herself or something, but it explains what happened to the old army of crystal gems and where the majority of the gem shards had come from.

Centipeetle however is now having an emotional breakdown, and due to their compromised emotions, their body is reverting back to its corrupted state. Steven takes Centi to the downed USS Enterpreetle and just as the captain goes to open the door with the gem hand scanner thing, the hand turns into an insect leg. Fortunately, Steven counts as a gem and opens it on their behalf. 

More Centipeetles! The crew was waiting for their captain. For about five thousand years? That’s intense dedication right there.

It’s revealed that those incoherent scribbles were actually Gem language. That’s a pretty cool plot-twist. The viewer genuinely thinks its literal garbage until its revealed to just be cursive alien language. How meta would it be if they had this from Day 1 of SU? Like if we went back to all the old episodes and found hidden messages in the cypher once the gem alphabet is eventually revealed, or whatever language it is. However, I highly doubt it’s an actual language. Star Wars has its own alphabet, but they all represent the equivalent of English, which is called Basic. Likewise, I believe the Gems speak English, but use a different library of symbols to translate sounds into words. Otherwise, why would Yellow Diamond and her pearl have answered Peridot’s call in English? Why would Homeworld Gems like Jasper, Peridot and Lapis need to speak English? 

Anyways, the Crystal Gems can read Centi’s notes just fine. They decide to let Centi stay with the crew, and all is good in the hood.

Alone at Sea

We sometimes find ourselves watching an SU episode with an obvious moral that the episode revolves around. A nice wholesome, Adams Family Values episode that tackles difficult issues some people might be experiencing. This is often handled with the subtlety of a jackhammer, and I am not afraid to shit fury onto those episodes. However, I feel this is one of the better “preachy” episodes.

This episode is very very obviously about abusive relationships, specifically Malachite. Steven and Greg are pulling out the stops to help Lapis feel better, as she’s still quite shaken up and despondent over having to fight with Jasper under da sea for however many weeks or months Malachite was trapped down there.

Throughout the episode, Lapis consistently refers to herself as “unworthy”, and shies away from praise and offers of generosity. At first, it comes off to me as her just being mopey, and at this point of watching I’m tentatively holding this episode above the trash bin, waiting to drop it in with Beach City Drift. Thankfully, it gets better.

It’s revealed just before the twist that Lapis misses Malachite. And this is real for me. It’s why a wife stays with a husband that beats her. Lapis and Jasper were so deep inside each other that they had literally become one person. Missing that, even from a toxic relationship, is about as real as it gets, and one of the harder parts of life for people who feel stranded or clueless or don’t know what to do. Then I realize, oh wow, she thinks she’s a bad person because of this. She knows how much she didn’t like Jasper and how she basically sacrificed herself in the name of all things good, and thinks that she must be an awful person for wanting that again. That’s where all the “unworthy” mopey comments I was on about earlier come from.

Steven however, is pretty damn oblivious to this. “WHUUAAATT But Jasper was terrible! How can you miss her?!” - Yeah, she’s asking herself that same question Steven. 

Ding Dong Dammit - Here comes the cheeto herself. And Jasper is... surprisingly apologetic. Not sincerely, obviously, and this is the part where it becomes very obvious that this is not as much a “self-victim blaming” episode as much as it is an “abusive relationship” episode.

I swear to god, Jasper’s dialogue is pulled right from some cheesy 50′s television show, talking about how she’s changed, painting Lapis as the villain here, and then talking about how no one else could handle her. The dialogue is pretty cardboard and transparent, but I still count it as character development. Rather than being quite as domineering as she used to be, she takes her hand and literally goes down on her knees, asking for her back. She’s still got a lot of anger issues, and tries to kill Steven, but its still a slight change in personality. It shows that Jasper isn’t too prideful to resort to underhandedness or social engineering.

Lapis responds to her advances with a resounding NO and falcon punches the shit out of her, sending her flying wayyyy into the ocean. 

Oh yeah, but she destroys the boat they’re on. The boat Greg bought with some of his rich money. No idea how much boats cost, but it may be safe to say that Greg is no longer rich.

Man, she has broken a lot of stuff hasn’t she?

Gregs leg

Peridot’s recorder

The five ruby ship

The fishing pole

And now an entire ship

Man.

Greg the Babysitter

First thing I want to say - NO ONE CAN TELL ME BABY SC’S FACE DOES NOT LOOK LIKE THE LENNY FACE. You probably know what it is, but not by that name - Google It!

Tada, it’s a Rose episode. Young Greg has to bum off Vidalia for food and laundry. Then the babysitter cancels (death in the family - a hamster) and Vidalia has to go to work. So she leaves Greg in charge and assures him that he will be destroyed if anything happens to baby SC.

Rose then learns that babies and adults are the same species, because they change. Gems apparently “rise from the ground” and never change. She thinks its the worlds greatest superpower.

Real touching moment actually. They manage to play the “humans are awesome” trope rather smoothly in her dialogue. Might be motivation to why Rose chose to change into Steven or something. 

Greg thinks it’d make a great song and runs off to get some paper. He tells Rose to watch baby SC.

Rose watches baby SC climb up a ferris wheel. 

I’m not sure if she know that humans cannot fly, unlike her. Greg realizes he is going to be destroyed by Vidalia if he doesn’t leg it up the ferris wheel. Things turn from bad to worse when Rose punches the SHIT out of the ferris wheel control panel and sends Greg off to see Team Rocket, but Rose rescues him and by extension baby SC.

Greg explains that babies are dependant on adults and can’t make their own decisions, because adults don’t need help to be fed, or changed, or rescued from a rollercoaster. 

Greg realizes he is a baby. Then he gets a job at the car wash place and he’s been working there since before Steven was born. And apparently, get this, he has not had more than ONE CUSTOMER PER DAY in the last FIFTEEN YEARS. No wonder he lives in a van.

The episode also has a pretty good message of “hey, stop being a manchild”

Overall, the episodes seem to be going a little slow. We’ve had a few funny episodes with tiny sprinkles of plot mixed in (Steven getting a new power of the week, focus and development on one of the gems, and those wholesome moralistic episodes that are often done poorly, save for Alone At Sea). 

So far, it seems to be almost deliberately delaying serious plot. Maybe they want to work out a few more backstories or throw a few more pies in the face before we see much more of Homeworld. And so far, we’ve had one, maaaybe two, plot episodes out of the ten so far. The balance seems a little off, but not at the cost of entertainment. I’m looking forward to seeing if things pick up in the coming week.

[slothcritic1]

Summer of Steven: Week 1 (2016)

Steven Universe can be pretty cool. And I happen to have a distinct opinion on the five (well, six) episodes that aired from July 18th to the 22nd, so here we go.

Since today is July 23rd, obvious some people have YET to see this stuff so you better believe there’s gonna be some SPOILERS.

Steven Floats

Most of us have already seen this one, which is probably why it was a double release. Steven finds out he can float upwards, and by the time he stops to think about how he’s going to get down, he’s already at fight level 2-5-0

Steven as usual is fuckin up, and the episode revolves around getting him down. The humor in this episode however is top notch. Amethyst tries to pick a fight with some slippers, forgets that Steven CAN’T fly, and smacks a seagull out of the air. Garnet “mysteriously” acquires a random cell-phone and an entire ship. Even Pearl comes in with the deadpan “I would’ve liked a hug.” It’s a fairly entertaining episode that makes up for the lack of character development or real plot with the introduction of a new power, which is always interesting.

Drop Beat Dad

In one word, this episode is ridiculous. Marty is such a parody it borders the line of pain and humor, much like a good pun. First of all, he is WAY too shiny at the beginning of the episode. The “real talk” is another example of attempted humor that hits you in the face like a wet salmon. He makes a “What is this, a city for ants?” reference, and they play actual MLG airhorns in the episode when they reveal his new product. It’s incredibly forced. 

And it works. Marty is a slimeball - This is exactly the type of shit he would pull. It’s one thing to create or write a character that is not a good person, it i another to make the audience actually feel uncomfortable from this character attempting to do stuff. So this is a good example of the creators of the show, doing something knowingly tacky for the sake of setting the mood of a tacky character.

It ends with an envelope Greg foreshadows with a very predictable twist following the lines “It’s not about the money” -Oh wow, big surprise. It’s money. And I’m thinking to myself, okay, how is Steven going to fuck this up and put them all right back in the poor house?

Mr. Greg

This episode felt like something out of Beauty and the Beast. It’s definitely the “serious/emotional” episode of the five, despite being a musical episode. 

Rather, the second half of it is serious. The first half has Greg show up to what we can assume is a 5-Star hotel in a wifebeater. He’s given the expected stare until the wad of money thicker than most books gets slammed down, at which point “Be Our Guest” starts playing. 

When Steven and Greg go to sleep, Pearl starts singing about Rose. Which is kind of expected - But it’s good to see her dealing with her Rose feelings in a more rational light compared to how she usually gets. The episode is bereft of drama, which is appreciated - a mature way of handling serious issues like this is needed to cleanse the palette from how ridiculous everything else can get in this show.

The two work it out and that’s about where the episode ends. It’s more of a feel-good “impactful” episode than anything else. I would say it’s not a “substantial” episode, but the tension between Pearl and Greg has been there since he was introduced, and here it’s finally working towards getting better. Also something we haven’t really seen before - Empire City. They don’t go into too much detail as all we actually see is the hotel, but we know there’s not going to be anything described as “ritzy” in Beach City.

Too Short To Ride

Probably my favorite one of the five, and probably the only one I would reasonably consider to be a “plot” episode based solely on the brief backstory on homeworld and gem-production we’re given here.

The introduction is rather awkward, as Steven introduces Peridot to touch-screen tablets and social media. The main focus of the episode is on Peridot struggling with having fun or understanding what fun is while Steven and Amethyst use their shape-shifting abilities to have fun.

Peridot is a very “Invader ZIM”-like character and this episode has a lot of great reactions of a similar calibre, especially when Amethyst wins her the alien finger puppet. Most of the humor is based around her interactions with the tablet, such as looking up online if she’s having fun, saying she’s “all set” on the offer for cute roommates, and continuously tweeting cheeping the word “CLODS”

The ending speech with Amethyst was a little heavy handed, though that might be Amethyst’s character. She probably saw herself in Peridot when she started talking about her identity issues - Amethyst has moved past her own issues with that but it doesn’t seem that Peridot has, even at the conclusion of the episode. Though perhaps “metal powers” will help her gain some more inner peace or self confidence. 

They probably could’ve written a better set-up to Peridot learning her new powers, but the revelation is totally wicked when it does happen. Also, kudos to the SU team making the line “I haven’t seen a bed in six days” plot-relevant near the end. You can tell by the look on her face she knows what fun is now. I wonder if we’re going to see the big alien in later episodes?

A New Lars

This was a funny episode that showed off another(?) one of Stevens powers. Can’t remember if he’s done this before but bubbly Steven wargs into grumpy Lars and hilarity ensues. Disappointingly, we do NOT see Lars in Steven’s body, as his body hasn’t moved from the bed when they finally decide its time to switch back. 

The episode seems like it’s going somewhere but ends rather suddenly, like the flow of the episode didn’t really know what it was doing. It was however, a fun episode in terms of developing Lars’ character some more in an unconventional way (through the people around him and their interactions with him) and explores his relationship with Sadie a bit. Though I feel like the interaction with Sadie is a really telling of some kind of unhealthy relationship between the two. Sadie’s reactions to a lot of what Steven does, coupled with some of the Lars/Sadie episodes in the past lead me to believe that while Lars may have feelings for her, he doesn’t seem to entirely care about or respect Sadie’s feelings.

Beach City Drift

My least favorite episode of this week. SU is funny at touching at its best and preachy at its worst, and this strikes me as a very preachy episode.

Though I have to admit, I love Greg’s attitude in this episode. He buys a new car, despite still wanting to live in his van, and reveals that he still has buckets of money left over from that big cheque in Drop Beat Dad. Surprised me, because I thought Steven would’ve shit the bed by now and blown all of the money. 

Kevin comes in and I for the life of me cannot remember who this guy is and why Steven hates him so much. Steven doesn’t hate anybody. What, did he steal the last cookie cat?

Kevin gets his car waxed and drives off without paying. Greg tries to call him back, then just sort of gives up and says “What do I care, I’m rich.” which is probably his best line in the show.

From then on it drifts back to being a moralistic kids show that deals with consent, revenge, and overcoming it. I’m not sure what the target audience of SU is, but most of the people I know who like it are teenagers to young adults. This episode seemed more like for 8 year olds or for people who don’t understand simple life values yet. Granted, there are a lot of teenagers and young adults that don’t understand simple life values.

Apparently Kevin was the guy who danced with Stevonnie that one time even though she didn’t want to. So they try to get him back by racing him down a hill. And Kevin is a genuinely awful character - In both respects. He’s poorly written and he’s a bad person. Marty at least was a bad person who had thought put into his character. Kevin seems more like a cardboard cut out you’d see in a DARE poster, someone who is one-dimensionally bad and the creator needs to push the audience to hate this character without further depth.

Also, Stevonnie apparently knows how to drive, and drift. Not sure where that came from. 

Steven’s apparently the angry half of Stevonnie throughout all of this, as when they unfuse mid-race she’s a lot more put together and he’s still seething. They end up resolving their feelings, Kevin wins and they don’t care. He runs after them while they drive away shouting that they’re obsessed with him, so the SU team has made it abundantly clear that they want to depict Stevonnie as the “real” winner here. And that’s true, but its still a cringeworthy scene. 

I don’t think we really needed a “be the bigger person” episode, but the development between Steven and Connie as a unit (literally in this case) was nice to see.

Overall I’d say 4/5 good episodes makes for a good week. Granted, they were all “silly/fun” episodes rather than plot episodes, but they each had some element of plot to them, and each had at least something significant happen in them.

[slothcritic1]

Strange Magic (2015)

There’s a special genre of movies that makes you wonder if the creators were on drugs during the production. This movie is the proud addition to that family. I have a lot of criticism for this movie, but that doesn't take away from how much I enjoyed the well-fitted quirkiness of it.

At face value, there’s nothing original about this movie beyond however many ways you can paint a puppet, so the movie draws all of its value from its visuals and careful attention to character design and animation. 

The setting is essentially Frozen (2013) but during the spring, where everything is less frozen and more like the movie Bugs Life (1998). Or Epic (2013). Or any other movie that focusses on the tiny woodland people and fairies living in a lush flowery field and in beautiful winding trees.

And of course, no fairy movie is complete without the evil swamp monsters who bear a striking resemblance to cockroaches. I’m looking at you, Hopper and Mandrake. Say hello to your long-lost brother, The BOG KING. 

The Bog King leads the dark side of the forest while the fairies, who all have butterfly wings, live in the light side. All the fairies have butterfly wings, which can always fit through their clothing and armor apparently. It’s an interesting design choice, and I thought it looked rather nice.

The main character is a fairy named Marianne who’s set to marry this wannabe Prince Charming in literal shining armor. Except on the wedding day, she spots him macking on another fairy. Surely that’s not foreshadowing to what kind of character Prince Charming is. Turns out he’s only marrying her so he can have an army. His name is Roland but I feel so much better calling him Prince Charming. She’s noticeably upset and starts singing about how she’s never going to love, ever again, much like every 15 year old does when their heart is broken. 

Oh yeah, and all the songs are covers. There’s maybe one original song. So the entire movie is pretty much Radio: The Movie, which the entire setting of is also heavily borrowed from hackneyed plots. I mean, it’s Lucasfilms, so we weren’t exactly expecting the next James Cameron film out of this, but it’s no wonder this was a box office flop. 

It’s also too... not Hollywood. Everything is too human, and humans are awkward. Every movie that makes a splash in the box office is finely groomed, elegant, smooth in its execution, and knows exactly what it wants to be, from the dry wit and dry martini The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) to the wacky rollercoaster of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), every movie is cleanly executed to a polish. 

This movie has no polish. Well, it does, but in the wrong places to make it appealing to a large audience. I loved it because it was different, and I love different things, because it’s a new experience for me. But the movie was definitely in the uncanny valley as far as execution goes. The characters are dramatic, expressive, but too jittery. 

A lot of the movie is just carried on this constant bronze platter, with a fat opera singer shouting “What the holy shit is going onnnnn!!!” as the cart glides majestically across the Lucasfilms production floor.

There are definite pluses that I love the movie for. The show don’t tell approach to Marianne’s independence. The one big grievance I had for The Book Of Life (2014) was how ham-fisted Maria’s independence was written. It was far too brash and obvious, and it almost discredited her as a character for how cheesy she was about it. Marianne is an example of what happens when it’s done... well, not excellently, but better. She doesn’t bother saying “I am independent. I am a strong woman.” because she shouldn’t have to, just like fucking Joffrey shouldn't have to say “I am the King.” 

The scene where Marianne and The Bog King are bonding over how much they hate all the lovey decoration Griselda has put up, and the very human moment where they’re stomping the hearts and he says “Actually, I rather like this one.” in a humble tone, and Marianne just rolls with it. There was great character development here. Except for the fact that for most of the movie, The Bog King is singing “But I’m evil!” like he’s a creepy Swamp David Bowie.

They kill a lot of the seriousness with how much of a musical it is, and I’m not saying “seriousness” like a movie about an accountant who has an affair and that’s it, I’m talking “taking the damn characters seriously”. They’re jokes. They’re comedy. There’s a few moments where a lot of them shine and stand out, but on a massive scale, this made them ridiculous.

There’s a subplot involving an elf who’s in love with Marianne’s sister, Dawn. He tries to make a love potion for her to drink, so she’ll fall in love with him. That eventually evolves into the main plot, when Dawn gets splashed in the face with the love potion and then falls in love with the Bog King. And she will not stop singing.

SUGARPIE, HONEYBUNCH, YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOOOOU.

Everyone in the castle is moping on the ground, covering their ears because of how much of a racket she’s making. When The Bog King finally gets her to sleep, they have to tip-toe around or risk waking her up and have more singing happen.

It’s addressed as a joke much later in the movie when Marianne comes to save her (The Bog King quips “Well at least this one isn’t singing”, which leads to Marianne immediately bursting into song while fighting The Bog King), but that feels like a cheap way of saving face, almost like they knew it was discrediting to the characters but wanted to roll with it, as if they were aware they were always singing.

Eventually, since you know, Marianne is the King’s daughter apparently, they send out an army. Lead by Prince Charming. Oh I’m sure he loved that. There’s a weird scene where the elf from before and another big nameless idiot get tied up around a flower, a foxmouse makes the lizard that’s about to eat them fall in love with him, and... yeah I don’t even fucking know.

Eventually the army arrives outside the Bog King’s castle. Prince Charming mentions they’re here to return the love potion to the Bog King, because if he doesn’t before moon-down, the Bog King will invade the Forest of Light. 

He takes three of his guards inside the Bog King’s castle and leaves the rest of the army outside. The army has literally no purpose or use after this moment, if they even had one before, aside from letting P-Ciddy jack off to his own reflection.

There’s a weird scene where Prince Charming, Marianne, Dawn and The Bog King are all fighting, and to be honest, the alliegiances were very confusing. First, the Bog King wanted to kill Prince Charming, then Prince Charming wanted to use the love potion on Marianne but The Bog King protected her, because they bonded over their mutual hatred of love earlier, then Marianne and The Bog King fight a little bit over who gets to to fight Prince Charming, Dawn steps between The Bog King and Prince Charming and....

Fuck it. Next scene.

Prince Charming knew at this moment, he fucked up. So he yells the code word and the men he brought inside activate their secret plan...

Throw birdcages at the walls.

That’s literally the plan. There’s birdcages in the dungeon and the army men throw them at the walls. This of course causes the ENTIRE CASTLE to collapse. 

Prince Charming and Marianne fight for a bit in mid-air because he still wants to splash her with the love potion and make her love him. She gives him a pathetic push and he has an equally pathetic fall down onto a slab of rock that’s sinking along with the rest of the castle.

Everything’s all happy now right? The King himself has finally arrived as day breaks, which is technically moon-down, and... Hold on, I should mention at this point that I’m fairly certain the King is a George Lucas self-insert. He is however too fat to fly with his butterfly wings, so he gets carried around, or walks around like a plebeian when he feels like it.

The Bog King survived his apparent sacrifice to save the two girls and just before him and Marianne share a touching moment, Prince FUCKING Charming drops down from literally nowhere and splashes her in the face with the love potion. SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER.

Marianne wipes her eyes. SUGARPIE, HONEYBUNCH, YOU KNOW THAT I LOVE YOOOOU.

She embraces Prince Charming in her arms...

...and promptly DECKS him the fuck out. And somehow he gets splashed with the love potion as he falls off the cliff for real. He ends up making out with a weird mosquito thing at the bottom. There’s one final musical where the swamp goblins and the royal army are singing to their respective heroes about confessing to each other. 

The Bog King and Marianne start singing “Falling In Love With You” and the screen turns into a 1970′s kaleidoscope music video, which is about as trippy as the movie has already been so far. It ends when they kiss.

Overall Opinion: It’s SO not Hollywood. They do a good job on a lot of the facial expressions and animation that breathe life into characters in ways a lot of really good movies can’t, but I think the biggest flaw of the movie starts with the basic production. The panning shots were expected and ordinary, the framing could’ve been better, a LOT of the plot was lacklustre and just made no sense, and not to mention the huge minus from the overused plot and nothing but characters singing cover songs. My favorite parts were the quirky interactions the characters had, even if it drifted into the uncanny valley, I didn’t mind it. It was something different.

Objective Rating: 2/5 - The production quality was sound but you can polish a turd all you want. The saving grace of this movie is the unique characterizations when they weren’t being bastardized by starring in a half-assed musical.

Personal Rating: 3.5/5 - For me, The Bog King made this movie. For everything cheesy about it, from the singing characters to the awkward moments and running jokes, it has a unique appeal to it. I have strange tastes in many things, and speaking just for myself and not for the mass market, it gave me a positive experience, and that should be the point of every movie. Even if I was rather annoyed at the lack of writing skill used in the setting, about two thirds of the plot, the ungraceful interludes between certain scenes or just whole scenes in general, etc etc. It’s not winning any awards but it’s definitely worth watching at least once. 

[slothcritic1]

The Book of Life (2014)

The Book of Life is a definite “happy” movie. The kind where after watching, you have this motivational and buzzed afterglow. There are a few movies that offer this post-cinematic experience, and this movie is no exception.

The rivalry trope is a classic staple for any movie centred around romance, but it’s never typically explored in a positive way. Usually the antagonist would be the opposite love interest, of which the protagonist defeats, humiliates or exposes, and wins over the person of interest. The arguably main villain isn’t even a villain in the typical evil sense. Xibalba, who was also mentioned but not featured in The Road to El Dorado (2000), serves as the main antagonist and bears a strong resemblance to a certain draconequus in both appearance and personality. 

Xibalba is the ceremonial god of the underworld in Aztec culture, and is known as ruler of The Land of the Forgotten in the story. His counterpart, La Muerte, is ruler of The Land of the Remembered. Which one sounds better to you?

Now before we start with the “main” story, let’s explain the premise with which the story is told. A tour guide is taking a troublesome group of children on a tour of the museum, but instead of using the main gates, uses a hidden passage to the side that takes them to a special part of the museum specifically dedicated to Mexico.

A security guard along the way tries to stop them but the tour guide charms his pants off almost-literally and they wander by. The tour guide is the narrator when she opens the eponymous book and tells the children of the story written inside, complete with action figures based on the characters appearing in the story.

The main story revolves around three people who live in San Angel, Mexico. Manolo, the lover. Joaquin, the fighter. And Maria, the token strong independent woman who they are both smitten by.

It’s the Day of the Dead, November 2nd, and everyone is partying and celebrating people who have ascended into memory. And Xibalba is bored out of his fucking mind. His wife, La Muerte, sports a candle-crested red sombrero and an unhealthy gambling addiction.

He pleads rather pitifully that ruling The Land of the Forgotten is dull and boring and he wants an immediate job relocation, specifically to The Land of the Remembered. La Muerte isn’t having this until he twists her arm with the allure of a wager. A surprisingly realistic depiction of gods, at least by the Olympian standard, considering they have very human flaws and love fucking with mortals. They decide whomever of the two boys marries Maria will determine who rules The Land of the Remembered, and each of the gods chooses their champion.

Xibalba chooses Joaquin (pronounced Wakeen if you’re as unaware as I am), the brave fighter who’s hinted at being a diva who loves showing off as much as he loves himself. La Muerte chooses Manolo, the kind hearted one with the guitar...? The banjo? It’s a strumming instrument.

At one point the two boys fight for Maria’s love, one armed with a fake sword and the other armed with sweet moves and chill tunes. Then comes the fist of justice to knock them both on their asses and have Maria proudly proclaim “I belong to no one.” like it’s never been said before in a film. The two boys are only left to say “Whoa”, and I’m thankful the cheesiest moment of this experience of a movie was this quick.

Throughout the movie there’s a lot of very heavy-handed symbolism about Maria being a strong, independent woman. It feels a little out of place and unjustified until a scene later on in the movie, where literally even man in the entire town agrees that all women are only good for cooking, cleaning and waiting on men. If I was a girl growing up in that environment I’d probably have a similar shitty outlook to most of the dogs in the city too. Speaking in broad strokes through, I generally find a lot of Maria’s “badass” moments to be awkward and arguably poorly written. There’s no shortage of badass women in movies, TV shows and video games, but I just feel Maria’s dialogue in particular often jerked about the soothing flow of the storyline. Perhaps it might not even be the script but the delivery of the lines. Perhaps it’s intentional, because whenever Maria is on screen, something important and eye-catching happens.

Back to the actual plotline, everyone is heading home from the Day of the Dead festival, which is when the gods approach their champions. La Muerte takes on the form of an old homeless woman and asks Manolo and his father for some bread while the two are at their late mother/wives shrine. He generously gives her some without hesitation, and La Muerte rewards him by giving him her blessing. Blessings from old homeless strangers are apparently considered super lucky, so he thanks her.

Xibalba approaches Joaquin and asks for some bread in a similar manner where the young boy has erected his shrine around the statue of his dead father in the city square. Joaquin insists the bread is for his father and takes a bite purposefully in front of the homeless man. However, Xibalba is able to negotiate a trade. In exchange for the bread, he gives his champion a special medal that means he cannot be killed, injured, or even feel pain. Well, you don’t expect the bad guy to play fair, do you?

Maria is shipped off to Spain a few days after the Day of the Dead festival, so she can study abroad. The dude duo are considerably distraught. Manolo gets her a pet pig to take with her and Joaquin is left confused over the gift-giving policy of bidding farewell to your fair lady. She says goodbye, they say goodbye, aaaaand cue timeskip.

Now we’re in the future, X amount of years have gone by since Maria had left. But get this, she’s returned after all these years and all five minutes of screen time. Manolo and Joaquin are both strapping adults now, and decked out in their best outfits. To celebrate to return of Maria, the mayor’s daughter, Manolo will be putting on a spectacle for everyone in town in a special bullfighting arena. Manolo is a Sanchez, and comes from a long long of bullfighters in his family, most of which died hilariously in the ring while spitting. Don’t ask, it’ll be explained later. 

Long story short, Manolo had spent the majority of the timeskip being trained by his father how to be a bull fighter, and shunning his passion for singing with his mariachi friends.

Manolo makes his grand appearance in the ring and draws his red cape. The bull looks much more dangerous than it needed to be, but I think the metaphor was very well placed. Most people know the scene with Bugs Bunny and the Bull. In any given scene involving a matador and a bull, the audience isn’t too fazed, lest they’re anticipating a fancy manoeuvre that matador will perform to dodge the charging bull.

This scene however has a massive, angry bull with... is that metal? Yep, actual pieces of very sharp and dangerous metal grafted to the bull’s head and horns, making it look part-cyborg and all-pain.

Manolo still dances gracefully around it. After a few minutes of this, his father hands him a sword and tells him to finish off the bull.

Again, I’ll state how clueless I am about a lot of cultural aspects of this movie, but before this, I never understood the big controversy there exists with bull fights, with the exception of the “using animals for sport is wrong” argument. I wasn’t aware a lot of matadors actually killed the bull they were toying with. And Manolo of all people will be charged with doing the big job.

He sees Maria’s worried stare in the reflection of his sword. While not realistic in the slightest, it’s definitely a more creative use of framing than having him just look up at her. Anyone could write a scene where one character looks at another, but its a scene that manages to get both his reaction, her reaction, and the sword all in one shot, and considering Manolo is in the ring and Maria is several hundred feet up in the spectator stands, I’ll give credit to whosoever thought of that. In the name of cinamatics, let’s overlook this oversight in reality in a movie featuring gods, demonic superpowers, and people with very weird anatomy.

Good guys must suffer. He says no to killing the bull, and pretty much everyone in the town except Maria hates him for it. 

In fact, the mayor holds a party for Maria at night and invites literally everyone except for Manolo. Even his three mariachi friends, whom the mayor hates, and one of which is voiced by a favourite comedian of mine, Gabriel Iglesias. 

There’s a rather tedious scene next, but it needs to happen for more than one reason. For one, it sets the stage for the biggest event in the film, and for two, it sort of explains the state the city is in. Maria is appalled at the perspective of the men in San Angels for “what a woman is good for” and storms off in search of someone civilized. Except the whole town was present and thus pissing her off, save one person who appears outside her window and serenades her.

Manolo woos Maria just enough that she decides to come downstairs to meet him. However, mid-sonnet, Joaquin appears at her open door to make an apology, and finds her being entranced by Manolo’s musical gifts. 

Just as she’s going to see Manolo, Joaquin stops her and immediately proposes to her with a giant rock of a ring. Her father is also pressing the marriage, for a particular reason.

Remember the medal Xibalba gave to Joaquin when he was a kid? The one that means he can’t be killed or injured? This has lead Joaquin to become the greatest fighter in Mexico, who ventures from city to city every few days and defends the residents from robbers, crooks and bandits. But with the main mortal villain, Chakal, on the march for San Angels, the mayor is pleading with Maria to marry him so that he will stay in the city. 

Clearly just asking him nicely to stay was out of the question. It doesn’t make this plot hole any better than Chakal was the one who killed Joaquin’s father, who has a statue in the middle of the city in his honor. And fittingly, Chakal was also the previous owner of Xibalba’s medal.

At the exact moment Joaquin is kneeling before Maria, Manolo and his band of rotund and drunk caballeros bursts through the door. Manolo is quite clueless to what’s going on until he sees the ring. The two exchange finger-pointing and a slapfest before someone hands Joaquin a real-ass sword. Joaquin proceeds to say the best line in the movie.

“Come at me, bro!”

Yes, he actually says that, and I love it. Channing Tatum delivers this line with the perfect tone and inflection worthy of what’s become a modern cultural phrase.

The mariachi’s also throw Manolo something. A banjo. Only this time, Manolo attempts to use the banjo as a sword. Before this idea can go from bad to worse, Maria breaks up the fight and mentions off-handedly she learned fencing while abroad. She does this twice, this is the first time, and every time it seems a little deus-ex-machina to me. But yes, anyone, especially Maria thank god, can see that bringing a banjo to a sword fight is a bad idea, regardless of how pure of heart you are.

Joaquin fends off a bunch of Chakal’s bandits after the wedding who notice he has Xibalba’s medal. They freak out and run away, and thus he earns the privilege of walking Maria home, all the while talking about how he got his various medals, which he pridefully wears across his entire chest. Before Maria heads inside, he hands her an autographed photo of himself. Once Maria is inside what I assume is her actual house, Manolo calls for her outside her window yet again, only this time he’s hanging from a lamp post. He asks her to meet with him at dawn by the dock.

So as far as courting Maria goes, Manolo and Joaquin are two for two, though Joaquin has a big lead with that actual proposal. Manolo has in return DECK-orated the entire deck from the shore to the small island not far out from the mainland.

However... Even Xibalba knows that Manolo’s groove game is too strong. So he sends his cane-snake after him to try and “take care of the problem”

Amidst a heartfelt scene, the snake goes to bite Manolo. With quick reflexes, Maria pushes him out of danger and takes the bite herself, falling limp to the ground like a bag of dead fish.

Manolo went from being an outcast to an outcast with a dead love interest. Xibalba asks Manolo if he’s like to join her in The Land of the Remembered. Lightning cracks across the screen and for a moment, we see a glimmer of Manolo’s eyes changing from usual lustre and depth of a human to the dull orange glow of the dead. It’s a literal blink-and-you-miss-it moment and I really appreciated the impact it had on the scene. Manolo says he wants to be with her “with all his heart” and Xibalba’s snake once again appears, but this time with two heads. Manolo bitten and killed.

The kids the tour guide is telling this story to regularly interrupt the movie to break up the story and address some things in a pseudo-fourth wall style. I rather wish at this point one of the kids had a comparison to Romeo and Juliet, but yelling “EVERYONE IS DYING!” is a suitable compromise. The tour guide clarifies that this is not where the story ends. Because usually main characters are not supposed to die.

Behold Skeleton Manolo. And beyond Fiestia Heaven, otherwise known as teh Land of the Remembered, where everyone who is remembered by at least one living human gets to party like its... 999? 

This is the definite key moment of the movie in terms of color. This movie has recieved a lot of critical praise for its animation quality, style and color, and this is the undoubted apex. Rainbows seriously do not have shit on this scene: Manolo arrives in the spirit world, The Land of the Remembered. 

Manolo gets a tour of the place from some unmemorable but funny one-man welcoming party, and he’s promptly ejected into the parade of his long-dead relatives. All bullfighters, as is the Sanchez tradition. 

One of them didn’t fight with a cape. Capes are for cowards! And a Flash animation is played of the ancestor throwing the red cape on the ground, spitting on it, and then getting knocked off the screen by the bull. This persists for at least two or three other relatives who declare “Arms and legs are for cowards!” “One bull is for cowards!” on and on, until Manolo is reunited with his dead mother.

All the relatives agree to help Manolo find where Maria is within The Land of the Remembered, and they all accompany him to La Muerte’s glorious head office. But lo and behold, Xibalba is sitting upon her throne. With Manolo dead, she has decided to accept Joaquin’s marriage proposal so he would stay and protect San Angel.

Manolo is mortified (pun definitely intended) when he finds out Xibalba had tricked him. One bite from his snake had merely made Maria catonic, a condition which she was easily awoken from. Two bites was lethal.

Manolo tells Xibalba off for the smelly pile of socks he is. Xibalba gets up and glides across the table, knocking everything off. It’s a very slow and gratuitous shot of food sliding off the table. Kind of quirky. Xibalba steps before Manolo and tells him that no one had ever spoken to him like that before.

Manolo is fresh out of fucks to give and sends him flying away, because apparently Xibalba is part vampire and can turn into bats, or something. Manolo then rides across another very bright and beautiful landscape towards the edge of The Land of the Remembered, where he may be judged on whether he is worthy enough to pass through the realms.

But first, he has to play MAZEBALL. You know that game where you’ve got a circular maze you can pivot and rotate and move the ball around the maze to the center? That’s Manolo, except there are three balls and they are all trying to crush him. He uses those matador moves to avoid getting mulched and climbs out of the maze, which seems counter to the point of having a maze in the first place.

He then earns the right to be judged, and this massive sculpture arises and holds its sword over his head. No one has ever been judged as pure of heart before him, so it’s expected he would turn into mush. The actual result is more like the sword is made out of Tostitos, which promptly breaks and crumbles around his incredible shell of badass and pure-heartedness. 

Next stop, the Cave of Souls. Featuring Manolo, his mother, a relative who at this point has lost all of his body and is now just a head, a puddle, and a jovial yellow dude with a wicked white beard. His introduction at this point makes much more sense than when he was initially introduced via the tour guide to the children at the start of the movie. “Each candle here is a life, and I am the candle maker!” he says. 

He can’t bring Manolo back to life, because of the rules. He even has a rule book like in Fairly Odd Parents, but this is the actual Book of Life, and it appears to have the same level of sentience as the carpet from Aladdin (1992). But... who does he answer to? Who will punish him for breaking the rules? Is it all just governed by the honor system? Anyways, because Manolo and his relatives are the ONLY people to ever meet the Candle Maker in the Cave of Souls, AND it just so happens to be the Day of the Dead, again, the Candle Maker says there’s wiggle room here for bending the rules.

He sends Manolo to the Land of the Forgotten. While falling through one of the many waterfalls in the Cave of Souls, the party notices the fast approaching ground of The Land of the Forgotten. The ancestor Manolo and his mom are travelling with says the second best line in the film.

“I immediately regret this decision!”

Fortunately, the actual Book of Life cushions their fall, and it turns out Candle Man himself is coming with them along with his trusty libre companion. Manolo meets with La Muerte and explains Xibalba’s deception. La Muerte’s rage literally echoes not just across the entire Land of the Forgotten, but also into different realms. Xibalba hears her and answers his summons. 

While being interrogated, he tries to lawyers approach by citing loopholes in the original wager. However, as is the case for anyone trying to be their own lawyer, Xibalba says something he shouldn’t have and lets loose that he gave Joaquin the medal that makes him never die.

La Muerte says, given his cheating, it would be only fair to revive Manolo. Xibalba says no, in a very petulant and childish, crossed arm way. It’s hilarious to see a god act like a sodden child. La Muerte loses her chill and demands he bring Manolo back, and cleverly, Manolo intrigues them with the allure of a wager.

Manolo has nothing Xibalba wants, but La Muerte does. She puts her neck out and says whoever wins the wager gets to rule The Land of the Remembered aaaaand The Land of the Forgotten. La Muerte would be for Manolo winning, and Xibalba would be against.

Manolo says it can be anything at all, any challenge, no matter what, he would beat Xibalba at it.

Xibalba has literally ANY OPTION TO CHOSE FROM in terms of a competition. He chooses bullfighting. He chooses the thing Manolo practised doing for nearly all of his life. I mean, COME ON. Xibalba could’ve picked something totally ridiculous, like playing the fiddle. Because that’s never happened before.

The delivery of this is rather nice, so I will give it that. He asks Manolo what the one thing he fears most is. Then without giving him a chance to answer, just says “Got it.” and everything poofs. Good for Ron Perlman.

The catch was that Manolo is fighting every single bull the Sanchez family has ever put down in the ring, which is thousands. A sort of “pay for the crimes of your ancestors” ordeal, even though Manolo has never put down a single bull. Gee, I wonder what it’s like to be held accountable for things your ancestors did that you had no part in.

Matadoring thousands of bulls is very hard, even for someone whose moves are as smooth as a criminal, so to make things easier for Manolo (because why the heck not?), the bulls all transform into a Mega-Super-Hyper-Ultra BULL that spawns a ring of fire around the fighting arena.

At some point in the middle of the fight, the movie cuts back to the land of the living, where Chakal is approaching the city. When Joaquin faced off against the bandits earlier, they went back and told Chakal about Joaquin having Xibalba’s medal of eternal life. So now we have this massive barbarian on a warpath to reclaim his token of immortality/invulnerability.

The bull-fighting father of Manolo (what’s his name again?.... Dad Sanchez, got it) is there to hold him off from entering the city proper, where he hopes Joaquin will have more time to prepare for his fight against Chakal. Dad Sanchez charges at Chakal with both of his bull-slaying swords drawn. Immediately, the father appears in The Land of the Remembered as Skeleton Dad Sanchez.

For some reason, Skeleton Dad Sanchez appears immediately where all the action is happening, is not surprised or even that emotionally impacted by seeing his long-dead wife, or the fact that he’s even dead. He just shows up to be a spectator. The Grandma shows up at another point, but at least her indifference is befitting her character. “Meh. Cholesterol” she says.

Manolo gets thrashed around a few times and finally sustains enough head injuries that he thinks grabbing the banjo to fight off the BULL is a good idea. Surprise, he does what he’s best at! He serenades the BULL. 

Manolo serenades the flaming four-story tall bull made out of smaller bull skeletons. And it works.

He sings in that quelling, soothing Diego Luna voice about how he’s sorry that all his ancestors killed the collective BULL, and that love can conquer hate and all that. It sounds nice, so I’m not going to pick at the overused trope.

The bull dissolves into leaves and Xibalba admits defeat. All of the family members run into the arena and congratulate him, and Skeleton Dad Sanchez apologizes for making poopy on his dreams to be a singer. Manolo doesn’t seem concerned that his dad is dead. Manolo is then poofed back to the land of the living.

At this moment in the land of the living, Joaquin had to interrupt his regularly scheduled wedding to go fight the bad guy and save the day. However, Chakal swats the medal off of his chest and Joaquin goes from a tiger to a kitten.

After some scrambling from his minions, he’s able to retrieve Xibalba’s medal, and holds it up triumphantly. Manolo appears immediately in front of him, from the ground in a shining glow of light, and uppercuts the medal right out of his hand. It goes flying away.

Manolo challenges Chakal, and Chakal makes the number one villain mistake short of explaining his entire evil plot to the hero. 

“You and what army?” Chakal asks him.

Perhaps as an extra favor to Manolo or an extra fuck-you to Chakal, La Muerte and Xibalba decide to team up and bring back the spirit of every Sanchez from The Land of the Remembered to help him fight Chakal and his army of goons. 

Eventually, Chakal and the dude duo are at a swordlock and can’t seem to break out of it. Maria comes out of nowhere and foot-uppercuts the shit out of Chakal, breaking the swordlock. She mentions that while abroad she also studied Kung Fu.

Chakal kidnaps Maria in a total King Kong moment, and scales the tower saying they’d have to fight him one on one to get her back. Maria has just enough time to scoff derisively “Ugh, MEN.” before being hauled away.

Manolo and Joaquin are equally angered, but Manolo suggests with the head cock that everyone recognizes as “I’ve got a plan” for Joaquin to go find Xibalba’s medal. Manolo then tries to climb up the tower and fails. Falls, fails, he has poor grip and gravity hates him.

However, he’s not without help. From the window comes one of his dead relatives, who each throw him up to the next window, where another relative is waiting.

The fight scene with Manolo and Maria vs Chakal on top of the tower has the best choreography in the entire movie. In a movie with a lot to be impressed by, I was really sold on the action sequence here. Immediately after being lifted up the final leg of the tower, by Skeleton Dad Sanchez no less, Manolo immediately slugs Chakal across the face to start the action off on a high note.

After a great dynamic use of Chakal’s Go-Go-Gadget-Arms and the environment, specifically the bell on top of the tower, the structure collapses, leaving one of Chakal’s mecha arms trapped under the rubble.

Not one to be defeated so easily, he lights all six of the fist-sized bomb on his jacket and declares he’s taking the entire town down with him. Joaquin has returned at this point, and together him and Manolo decide the only way to save the town is to secure the bell on top of him to act as a blast shield. As Manolo kicks one of the bricks out from under the bell, he tells Joaquin to fight well and kicks him out from under the bell. With a final mighty kick, he collapses the bell onto him and Chakal, and the bombs explode with a resounding kaboom.

Everyone saw this coming, so I’m glad they didn’t milk the obligatory “Oh my god he’s dead” scene like they do in every movie. Maria fell to her knees in sorrow and after five or six seconds Manolo stands up. Nobody is sure why he’s alive, and then he finds Xibalba’s medal stuffed into his back pocket.

Joaquin shrugs incredulously. He’d returned with the metal, but at the last moment had stuck it into Manolo’s back pocket, ready to die and spare Manolo life without Maria. “I wanted to finally be the hero.” Joaquin says.

Manolo and Maria get married almost immediately, with Maria’s relatives on the right side and all of Manolo’s relatives, all of whom are dead at this point, on the left side. He calls Maria “Mrs Sanchez” and considering how ham-fisted Maria’s independance had been portrayed, I was worried she was going to botch the touching moment by insisting she be called “Mrs Posada-Sanchez”, but thankfully they just let it slide. Not to say she immediately becomes submissive once she’s married. The pastor has the funny line of “You may now kiss the.... groom?” when she goes in for the kiss instead of the other way around.

The movie ends on as upbeat a note as it began.

Before we wrap up this review though, I want to say that I had to watch the trailer for Russel Madness before this movie, and I think someone needs to pay for that.

Overall Opinion: Very colorful, very visually detailed and very beautiful in terms of scenery and art style, albeit the characters anatomies were a little extreme. Great vocals from singers and great delivery on a lot of lines. The merely above-average writing is easily overlooked when you get caught up in the feeling the movie generates, but some of Maria’s writing throws that ajar with its awkwardness. Well choreographed, though a lot of smaller details are not well explained. I enjoyed the use of a friendly rivalry in a romantic situation as opposed to duelling suitors, but it seemed Manolo and Joaquin were the only well-written characters, everyone else was one or two-dimensional or a stereotype/trope. Despite my grievances with some of the writing, it was a nice story that I had fun following.

Objective Rating: 4/5 - It was beautiful to watch and something you definitely want to get swept away in while watching, but if you play too close attention or find yourself wondering too many questions, it will hamper your experience. It is first and foremost a visual work of art.

Personal Rating - 4.5/5 - I would gladly watch this again, even if be only because I was bored, or with a friend, or anything really.

[slothcritic1]

Everest (2015)

In case you couldn't tell by the title, this is a movie about Mount Everest. For those who live under a rock, Mount Everest is the tallest mountain in the world at just over 29,000 feet tall, which is about five and a half miles. It’s located in Nepal near China and Tibet. 

And we’re not talking Mauna Kea or any of those technical shenanigans... Even though Mauna Kea is 33,500 feet tall measured from base to tip, more than half of it is underwater. Not anything special to climb, as far as climbing inactive Hawaiian volcanoes goes. Not particularly relevant to the movie, but knowledge is valuable and always free to hand out.

The movie seems to be a very pertinent “realistic type”, that takes place in the real world with no added gimmicks, in a true man-vs-nature scenario. I can appreciate they didn't over-dramatise the premise or play up any unnecessary aspects. It’s reassuring to know just from this that Michael Bay had nothing to do with the movie.

It’s very simple, and for some people that would make a boring movie. I personally really like complicated fantasy stories that have the unfortunate tendency to be unrealistically hammy. Even though this film is essentially a “suspenseful documentary”, it didn’t milk the fact that it was a movie. It didn’t spoon feed you what was happening with deafening sensory input, you just watched what was happening and every reaction was genuine. One of my biggest grievances with Interstellar was the constant blaring music at every single action point. I wanted to stop this two and a half hour long movie half way through just so I could take a breather, and resisted shouting “OH COME ON!” at the cinema screen.

On that vein, a lot of the things done well in this movie had to do with subtlety. You could empathize with the characters. You can understand their motivation. One scene had the leader of the expedition ask the others why they were climbing. The answer “Because I can” took five minutes to be said, but though it could be considered cheap, lacklustre writing, it probably didn't need to be more grandiose than that. It’s a movie about climbing a mountain not riding an emotional roller-coaster about characters whose names you don’t even know. You understand that if you’re climbing the tallest mountain in the world, where humans cannot even survive naturally because we are not simply anatomically and genetically designed to handle heights and temperatures of that magnitude, you aren't playing around. There’s a sense of personal pride involved. Doing it just to prove it to yourself.

The climax of the movie doesn’t happen until just after the climax of the hike. Yellow coat guy, I think his name was Doug, he wanted to reach the summit, but the instructor is telling him he just can’t do it. Except Doug can literally see the summit from where he is. Can you imagine climbing 28,900 feet up a mountain only to be told you have to turn back because you can’t do the last hundred feet? Let us all give a collective shout of “fuck that shit” before we continue with the review.

....

Alright. So the instructor takes Doug up the mountain, he touches the peak, yay. Good for Doug. But then... cue dramatic music... something goes wrong. A storm is heading to the mountain and that is 100% absolutely not good. Hail with a personal vengeance against everything on the mountain comes bearing down on the poor hikers with the force of a thousand angry yetis.

Doug falls over. Bye Doug.

No seriously, that’s how Doug dies. They’re climbing alongside the mountain, with support cables to hold onto. Doug just quits on life. “Fuck This Shit I’m Out” faintly plays in the background as the man in the yellow coat slumps slightly to the side and disappears off the bottom of the screen.

And well, you fall off a mountain, you don’t need to say anything else. You don’t even have to show the body. It’s snowy as fuck and the guy was barely hanging onto life even with the expert mountain climber guy. 

Bye Doug.

Meanwhile, everyone else is freaking the fuck out at all the various camps set up along the mountain, people at ground control are losing their minds, and apparently, at this point in the film, I just clue into the fact that expert mountain climber guy has a wife and infant child at home in the land of miracles and home of the whopper, America.

I said a little while up there that this was a story about climbing a mountain not riding an emotional roller-coaster. But this doesn’t really seem forced to me. I didn’t get the feeling that the director was tugging on my heartstrings like I was a broken Pinnochio. It just felt to me like “Oh, if he dies, she’s gonna be sad.”

This may be due to the fact that I had roughly six beers in my system thanks to Oktoberfest immediately prior to attending the screening of this movie. Everything was a little dulled down and I slept through the opening. It was weird, let’s move past that and to the part where I was at least moderately coherent.

Eventually they get a helicopter up the mountain, and again, I’m very relieved they didn’t pull some cheesy Michael Bay stuff and have the helicopter blow up for dramatic effect. The expert hiker makes it down the mountain and his hands, nose and face are all kinds of fucked up from frostbite. They airlift him out of there and leave everyone else on the mountain, I guess? I mean, everyone can probably just walk down without a problem, and you can’t fit everyone in the helicopter, but it just seems weird to me. 

We have a touching scene of the expert hiker hugging his wife, going inside, and that’s the end of the movie. What a succinct ending. You can tell I’m a fan of minimalist pieces, because anything unnecessary often becomes filler and detracts from the impact of a film.

Overall Opinion: Clean and simple, which I appreciate. Climbing Mount Everest is enough of a spectacle, they need not muddle the fine varnish with tacky glitter. However, though I feel there’s nothing (or at least nothing glaringly so) objectively wrong with it, it’s not really my kind of movie. It’s a movie I would recommend to friends who have more traditional tastes, but not one I would purchase and re-watch. Personal tastes and all that.

Objective Rating: 4/5 - I wasn’t blown away or really wowed, but I have no doubt competent minds were behind the films creation.

Personal Rating: 2/5 - I kind of feel bad giving this a 2/5, but even though I enjoyed watching it, it’s not something I would go out of my way to rewatch. If I was on an 8-hour airplane flight, and the only movies they offered to watch were this movie and every Adam Sandler movie except Click, I would rewatch Everest in a heartbeat.

[slothcritic1]

Take a wild guess at what my favourite animal is.

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