Tom and Jerry - Movie Review

 Tom and Jerry (2021)

Tom and Jerry is the first attempt in 29 years to bring the beloved characters to the big screen. The film was directed by Tim Story and stars Chloe Grace-Moretz, Michael Pena, Ken Jeong and more. The film tells the story of Tom being hired by hotel management to take out Jerry in order to prevent a rich couple's wedding from going downhill.

THE GOOD

I mean this movie does a better job at being faithful to the original cartoons than the 1992 film did. People got paid, people were employed at least.

THE BAD

Alright, here we go, time for what I've been waiting for! This movie was a massive piece of shit! I hated this fucking movie! This movie was 101 minutes of cringe, boredom and annoyance, and Warner Bros. jerking themselves off. I knew I was in trouble when the movie began with rapping pigeons. None of the comedy worked..at all. The slapstick was very poorly executed, and all of the other humor consists of poop, farts, and forced awkward moments that apparently were supposed to be funny. None of the cast give good performances, they all look so bored with the material they were given and were obviously only caring about those nice paychecks they were given. This film also pulls a Michael Bay Transformers as it focuses on the humans rather than the thing we fucking paid to see this movie for! I am not kidding, you barely get Tom and Jerry in this movie! The animation is very weird looking, while at times it looks okay I guess, most of the time it sticks out like a sore thumb, the cartoon characters don't blend in to the environment, I wasn't convinced that they were actually a part of this world. If you want a movie that has cartoon characters and real people interacting with each other and the cartoons actually blend in with the environment, watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit. This movie also has terrible messages for children. So Chloe Grace Moretz's character (who is the main character instead of Tom and Jerry) is a character who gets this job at the hotel, but she gets it by stealing a resume from another person hoping to get the job. So what this movie is teaching children that if you hope to get a job you want in the future, you must steal and be dishonest. Not only does this movie give terrible messages to children, but it treats them like idiots, especially with the comedy, and the fact that those dumbass rapping pigeons actually guide them through the movie recapping everything that's been going on in the story like as if kids aren't capable of following a plot. Remember how bad of a review I gave for SCOOB! last year? This movie makes that look like a fucking masterpiece, and this might actually be worse than the 1992 film.

CONCLUSION

Tom and Jerry was an absolute trainwreck. Don't take your kids to see this, this is just another film like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Yogi Bear and The Smurfs where it's just made without any passion and soul and will probably make your kids dumber if they watch it. Definitely don't pay to see it in theaters like I did, don't even watch it on HBO Max, you got better things to do with your time. This is the worst kids movie I have seen since The Emoji Movie. Just stick with the old cartoons, those actually have effort put into them and those are actually funny.

GRADE:  F

FILM INFO

MPA rating: PG (for cartoon violence, rude humor and brief language)

Run time:  101 min

Release date:  February 26th, 2021

Studio:  Warner Bros. Pictures

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning - Movie Review

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning (1985)

Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning is the 5th installment of the Friday the 13th franchise, and was an attempt to bring a new villain to the franchise. That's right, Jason is not the killer in this one, which the DVDs and Blu-rays really tried to hide. The film follows Tommy Jarvis, the kid played by Corey Feldman in Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. This time he's more grown up, and is on his way to a halfway house for mentally damaged teens, and terror ensues from there. The film was panned by both critics and fans of the franchise, and bombed as the box office.

THE GOOD

This is far from my favorite film in the franchise, but there are things I liked about it. I found the characters in this movie highly entertaining, there's a lot of great moments with them, some of them absolutely fucking hilarious! The first kill is my favorite, despite it being offscreen (which I will fucking get into in the bad section), mainly because it just comes out of nowhere, it's hilarious and also because it was over a fucking chocolate bar! Yeah, I spoiled that, how dare I spoil a 36 year old movie! Much like the previous films, there is some good atmosphere in it. I do appreciate that this movie also moves at a quick pace. The final act is also pretty entertaining until a certain twist happens. I do like how unapologetically sleazy it is!

THE BAD

Alright, is it the absolute worst Friday the 13th movie? No, but I do think it's one of the weakest entries. Most of the kills in this movie fucking suck! Not only because they are offscreen and there's almost no gore at all, but they almost never do anything creative with them, it's mostly offscreen stabbings. The dialogue is hilariously awful, it felt like this movie was written by someone who just started learning how to write a screenplay. I get this is a cheesy 80s slasher movie but both earlier and later entries had more competent scripts than this one! Lastly, my biggest problem with the film, the fucking twist! Here we go, it is revealed at the end that the killer was a paramedic who was out for revenge for the death of the fat chocolate bar kid, and he had to dress up as Jason Voorhees in order to accomplish it. Fuck I lost brain cells just typing that shit.

CONCLUSION

This is a very disappointing Friday the 13th movie. Despite having fun characters, hilarious moments and the sheer sleaziness making it more tolerable, this film fails on giving us what we paid for. The kills most of the time are fucking lame, the writing is absolutely awful and the twist is so absolutely stupid that you would literally become dumber the moment you witness it.

GRADE:  C-

FILM INFO

MPA rating:  R (N/A)

Release date:  March 22nd, 1985

Run time:  92 min

Studio:  Paramount Pictures

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run - Movie Review *minor spoilers, kinda*

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run (2020)

Alright, I intended to review this film when I saw it in theaters back in August 2020, but I ended up not having the time. Fortunately, the Blu-ray just got released earlier this month and I picked it up, so the film is now fresh in my mind. This movie had a rough time getting released, it was originally supposed to be released in 2019 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the TV show, but then it got delayed in order to avoid competition with Dora and the Lost City of Gold if I'm not mistaken, then it was supposed to be released back in May 2020, but thanks to Covid-19, it got delayed again. Paramount Pictures then decided to cancel its theatrical release entirely and release it directly to VOD and their streaming service, Paramount+. Luckily enough, I live in Canada, and Paramount randomly decided to release the film in theaters in Canada, and I was thrilled, because I am a SpongeBob fan, and I was excited for it, and yes, I went and saw the film! The film actually did well at the Canadian box office. Enough of my rambling, let's get on with the review!

THE GOOD

Much like the previous two films, I loved this one! This film is incredibly charming and funny! All of the characters are very likable and fun to watch. The animation is entirely CGI this time around, and I personally didn't mind, because it was fucking gorgeous! The animation is fantastic, all the characters still looked exactly like you remember them, and they have a lot more detail to them, like Mr. Krabs actually has the detailed exoskeleton, SpongeBob actually has the details of a sponge, and you can actually see every strand of fur on Sandy. The film has a far more laid back tone compared to the first two, while the first film was an adventure story and the second one was a trippy, absurd mix of multiple different genres laced into one film and being more action packed, this film is more of a straight up comedy with a nice smooth pace. As I said earlier, this film is funny, which is what I expect from a SpongeBob movie. This film took me back a little bit to the earlier seasons as the humor is more adult sometimes. There's plenty adult jokes here, and they land! There's also a few callbacks to the first film that I really liked! I really liked Keanu Reeves in this film, I thought he would only have one scene in the movie but he's actually in quite a few scenes, and it was hilarious seeing him gradually get more and more annoyed with SpongeBob and Patrick. The final act of the film actually has quite a bit of heart to it, and there's nice part before the end credit paying respects to Stephen Hillenberg.

THE BAD

My only real issue with the film is that the title is kinda misleading, a similar problem with Sponge Out of Water. The only time SpongeBob is really on the run in the film is in the final act when SpongeBob steals Gary back from the villain.

CONCLUSION

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge On the Run was in my opinion is very satisfying SpongeBob movie. I liked the comedy, the animation was absolutely fantastic, the characters are as awesome as ever, it had heart, a great cast, it was definitely something that lightened up a terrible year like 2020.

GRADE:  A

FILM INFO

MPA rating:  PG (for rude humor, some thematic elements and mild language)

Run time:  92 min

Release date:  August 14th, 2020 (Canada), March 4th, 2021 (US)

Studio:  Paramount Pictures

Speed Racer - Movie Review

Speed Racer (2008)

Speed Racer is a film adaptation of the 1960s anime of the same name, it was written and directed by The Wachowskis (who are best known for The Matrix Trilogy) and stars Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Surandon and Shaft himself, Richard Roundtree! Released in 2008, the film received negative reviews from critics and bombed at the box office. Despite its commercial failure, it developed a cult following over the years.

Now on to the review!

THE GOOD

Despite its flaws, which I will get into later, there are several things to praise this film for! This film is extremely fast paced and entertaining! The film is visually amazing, it is so colorful and the special effects are nothing short of imaginative. The action sequences are a lot of fun, they are so cartoony and over the top, it definitely captures the spirit of the anime, at least from what I remembered it. The acting is surprisingly fantastic, especially from John Goodman! The film has a surprising amount of emotion to it too, when Speed Racer's brother dies (yeah how dare I spoil a 13 year old movie), it's actually kind of effective when they try to make you care about it, so yeah, props to this movie for making it work! The musical score I also have to praise, as it is done my my favorite musical score composer, Michael Giacchino (who composed the musical score for The Incredibles, Star Trek and Up), the score sounds so epic and really amps up the energy in the action sequences.

THE BAD

Despite how fun the movie is, it definitely isn't a great movie. This movie is incredibly incohesive. The story is so disorganized and all over the place that it makes the movie pretty hard to follow. The movie also has a lot of failed attempts at comedy as well. If you like puns and other consistently cheap kinds of humor, this movie will make you laugh your ass off! I get that this is a kids movie but kids movies can have smart, subtle humor that adults can enjoy too!

CONCLUSION

Speed Racer is a highly flawed but extremely fun film, and definitely one of the better adaptations of anime to come out. It has fun action, great visuals, great acting and it's highly creative, but the story definitely should have been told better and could have done with better comedy.

GRADE:  B

FILM INFO

MPA rating:  PG (for sequences of action, some violence and language)

Run time:  135 min

Release date:  May 9th, 2008

Studio:  Warner Bros. Pictures

Stay tuned for a review on the first season of American Horror Story and a reviews for The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge on the Run and Animaniacs: Wakko's Wish!