wackywookie Reviews

Dolittle (2020)

Whatever...

[3/10 · 24 July 2020]

The cast is really impressive. But that's it!

The rest of the film isn't great. For a start the visuals are awful (despite something like a $100 million budget), the story is unoriginal and by-the-numbers as well as an overload of unnecessary characters. I believe that half of them didn't need to be in the film or could be morphed with another character.

One thing that I disagree with critics on is the humour. Some- not all, but some -of the jokes worked and my family and I laughed a few times. Just a shame the rest of the film is such a dud.

High School Musical (2006 TV Movie)

It exists, though it might mean more to some.

[5/10 · 18 July 2020]

After hearing about this excessively from some friends at school, I thought I might check it out on Disney+. And yeah, it's fine.

Honestly I want to give some praise to a few moments, as well as a couple of characters and performances. But, I can't really. The songs in particular are pretty mediocre with an overuse of auto-tune and many other scenes are buried in cliches. I want to go into more detail, but I can't think of anthing else that particularly stands out about this film.

Maybe I'm a little to harsh. I probably would enjoy this film much more if I was a seven year old girl. But that's not me, so I didn't love it.

That's all I can really say about this.

Early Man (2018)

Looks like Aardman Caved!

[6/10 · 30 June 2020]

Nearly every studio releases an inferior film at one point. For Pixar, it was Cars 2 and Marvel suffered with Thor: The Dark World. Meanwhile, Early Man is the weak link in Aardman's filmography.

Early Man isn't bad at all. The charm of classics like Wallace and Gromit is still there as seen by the beautiful stop-motion animation. There were a few good laughs here and there (the Carrier Pigeon should have definitely received more screentime) and Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hiddleston give some excellent performances.

Sadly, the rest of the film isn't that great. The story in particular is very predictable and lacks ambition. In addition, the message of 'let's be a team' has been overused so much and a lot of the jokes and slapstick were quite same old when compared with films like Shaun the Sheep and The Curse of The Were-Rabbit.

Early Man has some good moments, but we all know that Aardman, a highly respected studio known for it's wit, could do much better. It's not a bad film at all, it just feels like Déjà Vu. Oh well, hopefully they'll come back at some point.

The Wild Life (2016)

A Total Shipwreck!

[1/10 · 27 June 2020]

The animation is passable, but the highlights end there. This loose adaptation of the classic novel is just so boring and dull. In fact, I watched it only an hour or two ago and I've forgotten most points.

In particular, the plot is predictable, the characters uninteresting and lacking sufficient development; there are barely any jokes and the relation to it's source material stops at the title and a few character names!

Now, I know this is solely just for kids and I'm in my late teens, but even five year olds deserve much better films than this! Give them a Pixar or something, but stay far away from this as possible!

Evan Almighty (2007)

'A Comedy of Biblical Proportions'

[1/10 · 13 June 2020]

The title is a reference to the tagline. The funny thing is though, that the Bible isn't actually funny or humorous. And that's the best way to describe this thing.

On the bright side, I do think that Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman tried their best with what they had to work with, although that's not enough to save the rest of the film. There are many lows, but I should mention that the acting (particularly from Lauren Graham and Wanda Sykes), CGI, plot and lack of humour are among the worst parts of the film.

However, the main problem is it's lack of faithfulness to the bible. First of all, why would God cause a flood when he promised to 'Never again destroy all the earth through the waters of of a flood' (Genesis 9:11). In addition, God caused the actual flood because 'the earth was corrupt in God's sight and full of violence' (Genesis 6:9). Taking these into consideration, why on earth would God cause another flood that was against his promise and without a compelling reason?

Overall, this film just stinks. Avoid it.

Soul Surfer (2011)

Great Story but Feels Fake.

[6/10 · 15 May 2020]

I watched this with my mum for mother's day, as it's one of her all time favourites. I can agree with her in some ways. The story and Christian themes behind it are very inspirational. I'm a Christian with Aspergers, so I resonated with some parts of the film quite a bit. In addition, I liked the performances of Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt and, although to a lesser extent, AnnaSophia Robb.

However, the film feels very fake. The weak storytelling and characterisations makes the film lose its message in favour of being washed with Hollywood Mumbo-Jumbo. While watching this, I felt that a documentary would have been better suited to this story. Also, I'm not a fan of the cinematography, Carrie Underwood's performance and overall execution.

So overall, I would recommend this for the story and messages alone, but a documentary might be better suited to the subject matter. I might have to check out the 'Unstoppable' one sometime...

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Plenty of Fun. That's all it needs.

[7/10 · 9 May 2020]

Solo is a very fun film. I swear that you will enjoy it if you're into Indiana Jones/Fast and Furious style style movies. The action is pretty solid (The Kessel Run is quite excellent), visuals are brilliant and a lot of the acting is good. Donald Glover in particular steals the film while Alden Ehrenreich does his best to capture the roguish, charismatic character of Han Sol that we all know and love.

The only downside is the main plot and storyline. The last 20 minutes are particularly confusing. But when the film is just made for a little fun, that doesn't really matter.

It is nowhere close to being the best Star Wars film, but it doesn't need to be.

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019)

The Critics are Wrong... This is the Best of the Sequel Trilogy!

[8/10 · 5 May 2020]

Yes, I gave it eight stars. No, the title wasn't a misprint.

I saw this film on opening day... before I even considered reading the reviews. As a diehard Warsie, I loved it! So naturally I was shocked when reading some of the hate that followed. I found that they all had some similarities though: 1. Too much fan service 2. Too much familiarity, and 3. Retcons and departs from what Johnson started with the Last Jedi.

Now that last one is the most interesting to me. I know the Last Jedi was divisive, but many people claim that director J.J Abrams turned basically the biggest parts of TLJ into just minor plot points. Does that sound familiar? Interestingly enough, Johnson did almost the same thing with The Force Awakens! So could we only criticise this film alone for this deadly sin?

Now, I liked the Last Jedi myself, it wasn't a perfect movie but it was good. My main criticisms with the film was that it was too long, the story was a bit all over the place and it was probably too ambitious. Naturally, walking out of the theater, I wasn't eager to watch it again. But I found myself wanting to rewatch the Rise of Skywalker. It was fun, action-packed and it felt a lot like 'Star Wars'. In fact, I saw this two more times in the cinema and just the other night on blu-ray. Contrastingly, I've only seen TLJ about three times since it came out two years ago. Familiarity isn't a bad thing. If people thought TLJ diverted everything we loved about Star Wars, what's wrong with making a movie which HAS everything we love about Star Wars?

Another complaint was the heavy amount of fan service. Yes, there are parts like the minor role of Rose, Chewie's medal and the Reylo kiss. However, franchise finales like Avengers: Endgame and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 had a lot, if not more, fan service as well. Did we criticise them for the same reason? What is wrong with giving the fans what they want either?

Rise of Skywalker isn't a perfect movie-it had several plot holes and tried to cram too much in for its short runtime-but neither was The Last Jedi. Neither was The Force Awakens. Really, this trilogy was doomed from the start. Little planning went into the overarching story. For example, why couldn't episode eight have ended with a cliffhanger where Palpatine's transmission is broadcast as mentioned in the crawl instead of Broom Kid? Why wasn't there a Luke, Han, Leia and Lando reunion? Despite these gripes, J.J Abrams did wrap this uneven trilogy and the Skywalker Saga up quite well in the end.

If you haven't seen this yet, don't let the reviews turn you away. The Rise of Skywalker is certainly entertaining and a good ending to this legendary saga. After all, we all love Star Wars.

And what's so wrong with that?

The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015)

It's fine. Just fine.

[6/10 · 2 May 2020]

My brother and I are fans of the books and we generally enjoyed the first film. However, this film doesn't amount to either. Sure, the visuals aren't bad, I especially like the look of the film and the action wasn't bad. The big problem with this is mostly just the storyline. It just seems quite bland.

That's really all I can say. This film is just bland.