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La leggenda del Titanic (1999)
Leaves The Titanic Rolling In Its Watery Grave...
In the reviews of the other animated rip-off, "Titanic: The Legend Goes On," I wrote that I actually like that one. It's so stupid, so badly done, and so unfocused that it's impossible to take it seriously or get offended. It's horrible, but it's fun to watch because of just how crazily lazy it is. Now, imagine if they took that movie, made it look SLGHTLY better, threw in a moral, shredded a history book to use as a script, and presented it as a serious environmental message. ...That's this movie, the second-worst movie I've ever seen...
The story here is like "What if James Cameron's Titanic was written by Disney as interpreted by a cheap Italian film company?", only much lazier. It begins with a grandpa mouse telling his kids the REAL story of the Titanic, with the first words out of his mouth being "It's all a misunderstanding." ...Yes people. This film is dedicated to convincing its audience that the Titanic was not a disaster and that nobody died. ...If you're dumb enough not to turn off the movie after those words, as I wasn't, the film cuts to him as a sailor mouse aboard the Titanic, where a beautiful woman named Elizabeth is engaged to a man she doesn't love. This man doesn't love her either, just wanting to marry her so he can own whaling rights on the other side of the world. However, our "heroine" falls in love with a Gypsy prince and calls the engagement off. The bad guy retaliates by calling an underwater shark gang to sink the Titanic, but, with the aid of magical moonbeams, Elizabeth is given the ability to communicate with anthropomorphic mice and flying dolphins. Meanwhile, the sharks trick a giant octopus into throwing an iceberg at the ship to sink it, but the octopus holds the ship together long enough for whales to save everybody aboard, and that's why whaling is wrong in the world.
...This is the first review where I put a "Spoiler Warning", because the story is so ungodly insane, it's impossible to talk about the movie without giving the full scoop. And when this movie isn't insulting history, it's boring the audience. There are several sequences where the mice in the movie just gather together to read roll-calls, go over ship protocol, dance, or partake in continuity-error-ridden choppily-animated slapstick. It's like they put in a LOT of filler just so when something insulting happens, the audience suddenly pays full attention to get the full blast. It's the Chinese Water Torture of movies...
The characters are even lazier than The Legend Goes On. At least that movie had a variety of characters each with different attributes and personalities. Here, the characters are incredibly wooden with no memorable characteristics whatsoever. Every bit of dialog is used only to either provide long bits of filler that never add up or to advance the movie's weak plot, "chess-piece storytelling" as it's called. Some main characters only barely appear or play a part in the movie. The Gypsy Prince, the main love interest, appears in only about FIVE MINUTES, while the octopus isn't introduced until the last third. I've seen more imaginative and exciting characters watching a 5-year-old play with her Barbies...
The animation is slightly better than the Legend Goes On, but still far below Disney standards, which I think they're trying to emulate. It's choppy, it's unnatural, and it's inconsistent. Sometimes the characters look 3D and move fluidly, while other times, it's like someone hit the fast-forward button or removed frames completely. The humor is non-existent, with the biggest laugh coming from where the villain opens a door and a tiny mouse soccer ball somehow grows large enough to smack him in the chest onto a cart that appears out of nowhere and sends him "hilariously" rolling down the corridor right into a washtub. The humor has no set-up, so they just include whatever they want and pretend we won't notice the glaring continuity errors.
This is one of those rare movies where I can say there is NOTHING good about it, not even laughably bad. They REALLY push the main message, which is "SAVE THE WHALES!" ...Why?! Why did they have to destroy history just to show a message you see on a Greenpeace T-Shirt?! Even if it wasn't about the Titanic, it would still be horrifically insulting! "Hey kids, don't hunt the whales, because they're actually magical creatures that will let you talk to them if you're disgusted enough with humanity. Also, corporations are run by people that make the villains from Avatar or Moulin Rouge look subtle, and their entire existence is dedicated solely to the pursuit of money and power, which they will state OUT LOUD in poor conversation. Also, you're a human being, therefore, you're destroying the world just by living on it." This is the kind of message where even after-school specials are saying "Dude, you've gone too far." Captain Planet would be insulted by the extremes this movie goes to in pushing its moral! It's a bad environmental message that they try to rest the movie on every chance they get.
In conclusion, this is one of the worst movies I've ever seen, beaten only by its own sequel Tentacolino. The story's a joke, the characters are lifeless, and the animation is extremely lazy. But above all, the fact that they took this famous disaster and turned it into a lame excuse to save the whales is mind-boggling. You will feel unclean for days after watching this movie, with the only thought going through your head being "MONDO TV MUST DIE!" Stay as far away from this movie as you can. All copies of this movie deserve to be taken out to sea and sunk, a disaster of cinema resting next to a disaster of mankind.
Sharknado (2013)
Cheesy, Inept, Low-Budget, And I Loved Every Minute Of It!
I first heard about this movie from the Nostalgia Critic, so I guess I cheated a little in that I knew what to expect before I watched the actual film. This is one of those low-budget schlock films that SyFy loves to churn out that we love to hate. Additionally, this movie was distributed by The Asylum, a no-budget movie studio dedicated to producing rip-offs of blockbuster movies such as Transformers, Sherlock Holmes, Jurassic Park, King Kong, etc. Put them together and you get terrible acting, horrible computer animation, inconsistent shots, a story so stupid you'll lose a dozen IQ points watching it, and a LOT OF FUN! It's one of those movies so bad, you have no choice but to admit it's good!
The story is what the title suggests: A tornado picks up several thousand sharks that were conveniently all swimming in one place and wastes no time in heading toward Los Angeles and spitting them all over the city. These sharks are apparently super sharks as they're not killed by being thrown hundreds of miles per hour and smashing into cars, buildings, streets, etc. and instead chomp down on whatever they land on, even if it's bigger than what a shark stomach can contain. In the middle of all this, bar-owner Fin(get it?) sets out with his friends Nova and Baz to rescue his wife and stop the tornado from destroying the city with the sushi storm of the century! ...Sounds completely stupid? I'm not even going to tell you how they plan to stop the tornado...
The acting is extremely wooden, as if all the actors showed up on set one day and all the direction they were given was "You're this person, act like this person as best as you can." As a result, we have drunks with stereotypical slurred speech, people who stare blankly and emotionless as sharks chow down on their surroundings, and the most Tara Reid we've even gotten out of Tara Reid... Nobody's winning any Oscars anytime soon, that's for sure...
The effects. ...Wow, words can't describe how bad they are. The Dire Straits "Money For Nothing" music video would be pointing and laughing at how cheesy the CGI is. The sharks that appear in this movie make every appearance of Jaws look like a SeaWorld live show. If you hit the Delete button on a game of Warcraft II, it'll provide a better house demolition scene than what this movie shows us... Additionally, a very large storm is supposed to be occurring throughout the state, yet we constantly get shots of sunny weather and clear skies, even when sharks are raining down on our heroes! When there's blood, we have the choice of either a brief and fake CGI blood splash or blood pack gushing out several gallons of blood a second. In other words, we have all the cheap corner cutters modern schlock films are famous for.
Now with that said, this movie is AWESOME!
It's an Asylum/SyFy collaboration movie, so you're not exactly expecting Citizen Kane. It piles on the cheesiness and cheapness so much, you'll be pointing and laughing throughout the movie. "Oh wow, I didn't know you could light water on fire!" "Whoops! Hollywood killed him!" "Look out! Sharks are swimming in water that barely reaches the heroes' ankles!" The action scenes, though as cheap as the rest of the movie, are probably the best parts. Any movie with a scene where a guy holds out a chainsaw and slices a shark speeding right at him in half definitely has something going for it! It's cheesy, it's corny, it's schlock, it's whatever term you use to describe cheap-o movies, and it's the perfect movie for you and your friends to gather and laugh your butts off at. So pull up a chair, grab a few six-packs, invite a dozen of your friends, and enjoy what is arguably the best low-budget cheese you'll see this year!
The Sword in the Stone (1963)
Incredible Movie, But Should Have Just Called It "Merlin"
This is one of my favorite Disney movies. I've watched it since I was a little kid and a it still entertains and makes me smile to this day. However, while I originally just watched it blissfully, my adult mind has asked me "Why do I like this?" So here's what I think of this great Disney classic: First of all, being Disney, this has nothing to do with the original book, but, again being Disney, they created a great story with lots of imagination. The main story is a young Arthur(sometimes referred to as "Wart") falls into the cottage of Merlin, the most powerful wizard. Merlin, being a soothsayer/time traveler, knows of Arthur's great destiny, so he begins to teach him valuable life lessons that will help him lead righteously. What follows are a lot of funny adventures with fun animation and characters.
I LOVE Merlin in this movie. He's easily in my Top 5 Best Disney Characters List. Instead of being stuffy and wise, as most versions portray, he's more like a bumbling English professor. He's smart, but he's forgetful. He lives in the past but prefers the future. He knows what he's doing, but he doesn't always pay attention. He always has a solution, but they don't always work to his advantage. In short, he's the perfect mix of a character that keeps him from being a stuffy old man or an annoying idiot. The voice actor for him is perfect as well. I don't see a celebrity in a recording booth, I hear an actual character who's having fun. The design is simple but unique, with a blue pointy hat and a long white beard, which is typically what people think of when they think wizards. With all these things, Disney has created a perfect three-dimensional character that entertains, teaches, and is really fun to watch.
Several other characters are brilliantly done as well. There's Archimedes, Merlin's talking intelligent owl, who has a grumpy personality but a heart of gold. He has a lot of great lines and moments throughout the movie, usually of him getting coerced into doing something. Then there's the "villain", Mad Madam Mim. Note that I say "villain", because she's more of a side character who pops up in the middle of the movie, has a musical number and a fight scene, and is never seen again. She's an old cranky crone, but very energetic and very creative with her magic, as she shows in her song, which she brags is as powerful as Merlin's. The Wizard's Duel between her and Merlin... WOW! This is nearly animated perfection. The slapstick, the timing, the effects, the scaling, is all perfect. I won't DARE give away how it all ends. You need to see it yourself.
Besides the characters, there are a few other good things to note. The sketchy animation and backgrounds supervised by Bill Peet people either love or hate. I think it fits and makes a lot of the movie looks like an illustration in an old book, which looks great. The songs are all memorable, from the introduction song to "Higitus Figitus" to "Mad Madam Mim" and others, they're creative with the bouncy beat we usually associate with Disney. Though the movie does show the financial difficulties Disney was going through at the time, they did great with what they had, better than the next few movies that would come out of the Disney Dark Ages...
So this sounds like a great movie. What's the problem? ...Well, the main problems, sadly, are with the story and the other characters. Notice that I didn't list Arthur in the Great Characters part. He doesn't have much of a personality, just serving as the "everyman", the student to learn a lesson and to share the audience's amazement of Merlin's magic. Not exactly boring, but with being the main focus of the story and in contrast to Merlin's 3D character, he's a disappointment. His closed-minded guardians named Sir Ector and Sir Kay are even more boring, with their only thing of note that they believe in strict discipline and the old ways. They show up, there's a short conflict, then they leave. They have basically nothing else to do with the movie but create short bouts of "reality."
The story, I'm sorry to say, is very disjointed. Most of the movie focuses on Merlin's lessons and the adventures he takes Arthur on. I keep forgetting that the land has no king, that they're going to hold a tournament to decide, and YES, even the Sword in the Stone, what the movie is named for, only appears at the beginning and end! Additionally, all the lessons that Merlin teaches Arthur to be a good king, they're never brought up again. There's nothing showing Arthur putting them to use, mentioning them, or any situation that might require them. The movie is basically "have an adventure, teach a lesson, 5 minutes of plot, repeat." The ending, without giving anything away, just ends. No resolution, no "what next", it just runs out of time and leaves the rest to draw your own conclusions.
In conclusion, this movie is REALLY FUN, one of Disney's best. However, they put nearly all their focus and creativity into Merlin and his world and left the rest of the movie to run on autopilot. If they had made Arthur as interesting and fleshed-out as Merlin and given more meaning to the lessons, this might have been a fantastic movie. As is, the movie is still great to watch, both for young and old. It's a Disney classic, and I thoroughly enjoy it.
The Final Sacrifice (1990)
Bottom 100? WHY?!
Before I begin, this movie is not a great movie. It has problems, it's low-budget, and it's silly in parts. Why would it have gotten placed in MST3K otherwise? But one of the worst movies ever made? Baby Geniuses, North, Titanic: The Legend Goes On, and Garbage Pail Kids are all better than this movie? ...REALLY?! Well, let's see if I can open your eyes.
First of all, this movie was made by a freshman college student on a budget of about $1500(and that's in 1990 dollars.) He hired friends and students, used borrowed cameras, and pulled a lot of low-to-no budget tricks to get things to happen in the movie. So, really, that nullifies the argument that it's one of the worst movies of all time right there: They did what they could with what they had. If the movie was $50 million and it looked like it was directed by a three-year-old, THEN maybe there would be a reason to hate it. But as is, there is a LOT of effort in this movie.
The story is generic, yet fascinating. A young boy named Troy finds a map belonging to his late father to a lost city somewhere nearby. Almost immediately, he is set upon by an evil cult who want to find the city and raise the evil that's supposedly buried there. Luckily, on a run for his life, he comes across a drifter named Zap, who is hiding a secret past. Together, they both need to outrun the cult, find the city before they do, and discover the dark pasts of everyone. It's something we've seen a lot, but it feels new here. These actually feel like people going on an adventure, not actors on a contrived mission. Most of the stops feel natural, like you'd do the same if you were in the movie. No red herrings, no awkward surprises, most of the strangeness is explained, this is a solid adventure story!
The characters aren't played by expert actors, nor anyone with a large amount of acting experience, but the actors still manage to bring them to life. Troy is a young man who's slightly timid, but very curious, and the actor makes this really shine through. Every time he analyzes something or tries to put a puzzle together, I see lights in his eyes and I feel excited for him and what he might discover. Zap is a big burly man who's trying to run from something other than the villains, but it's not until much later that we learn his dark secret. He's menacing with a heart of gold, and, and this is an art that's been lost in time, he's SUBTLE. You actually believe this character exists, and not that it's an actor they probably pulled off the street. Even the villain, as silly as they made his voice, is menacing. Every time he appears, you feel how evil he is, how he wants to hurt others and how he won't let anything get in his way. This is a guy that would make Darth Vader bow down in fear. He doesn't have to do anything to command that respect, he just exists. THAT is power!
As I said, this movie is very low-budget, but that doesn't stop the camera work and effects from being quite good. Most of the camera shots are static, but the director knows where to place the camera to get the desired effect. When a character sees something, we see it the way he looks at it. The camera is almost always in the perfect position, never so close we count the zits on their faces, but so far that we can't see what a character does. The effects are minimal, but when they happen, they happen. A torture scene involving the main villain and Zap is the best example of this. This movie shows that a movie doesn't need a lot of effects to be good.
The soundtrack is very good for this sort of movie. Normally, a soundtrack for a very low budget late 80's/early 90's film is comprised of a piano and/or synthesizer playing the same notes throughout the movie. However, this movie has a fast-paced string orchestra that gets the atmosphere across whenever there's an action scene or a feeling of dread or threat. It sounds professional and foreboding, like Hans Zimmer or Danny Elfman. The main theme should be up there with Superman and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Now, with that said, there are some silly moments. Some of the dialog is said rather silly, showing the inexperience of the actors(such as the infamous MST3K line "FOOD!") There are also a few characters that appear and are never seen again, but they fulfill their role. And yes, both the Zap name and the prospector character are funny. Still, I've heard a lot worse and there are worse ethnic stereotypes in Adam Sandler movies.
In short, this movie is NOT BAD! It's not great, and it's really low budget, but it's not deserving of a Bottom 100 position. You can tell that everyone working on this movie felt great about it, that they put all their effort into making this the one and greatest movie they'd ever make. It's one of the best movies to be featured on MST3K and I'd prefer to watch this over most of the ADD and cliché riddled action movies in theaters today. If you can find a copy, check it out. Or just watch the MST3K version. CANADIANS!
Titanic - La leggenda continua (2000)
This Horrible Abomination of a Classic Is... A Guilty Pleasure
NOTE: This review is based on the UNCUT version, not the choppy American version.
Before I begin, I just want to say one thing: This movie IS a horrible piece of film and animation.
The characters are possibly the most unoriginal I've ever seen. How unoriginal? They blatantly steal characters from other movies! Our characters include a young girl who is forced into slavery by her evil stepmother and two selfish stepsisters, a la Cinderella, two bumbling Cockney-accented thugs are bossed into thievery by a white-haired lady in a fur coat, a la 101 Dalmations, and a family of vaguely Russian-accented mice that travel to America with the youngest one constantly getting into trouble a la America Tail. There are a few other characters in this movie that might also be rip-offs(a granny, a nanny, a French singer, etc.), and they all share the same blandness and one-dimensional movement throughout the movie.
The story is absolutely silly. It's basically Titanic with a lot more subplots that go nowhere. Our leads Angelica and William(switched from rich girl/poor boy to rich boy/poor girl) board the ship, fall in love at first sight, and somehow end up married by movie's end. In addition, we have subplots about Angelica's lost necklace and mother, a cat and a dog who terrorize the other animal passengers, a con artist who's trying to seduce a banker she thinks is rich, a Sherlock Holmes knockoff trying to track down thieves, and quite a few more that, to the film's credit, do get resolved, albeit rather sloppily. It's like the movie had 5 different writers writing different things and the Editor just copy/pasted everything into one script with no changes. The result is a mish-mash of stories that, although not as bad as Monster a Go-Go, still leads to a confusing mess.
Let's talk about the technical aspects, aka the sound, animation, and editing. It's all some of the worst I've ever seen. The animation is incredibly inconsistent, with some scenes almost looking three-dimensional and others looking like a three-frame Flash file! In addition, there's an assortment of animated goofs to keep an eye out for(a guy growing in size as he runs, two women walking in place, disappearing clothing, and, my favorite, one of the characters walking through a table!) The sound and dubbing is really bad as well, with none of the actors sounding interested in the least. Also, some scenes apparently didn't have dialog recorded as they simply REPEAT EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAID A MINUTE AGO! Conversations, reassurances, screams, etc. are all repeated several times in the movie by the main characters! Why didn't they just cut the scenes out? Because the editing is AWFUL! A lot of scenes are repeated over and over to fill in time and some scenes take place immediately after or on top of other scenes that have nothing to do with the context! My favorite is where they play the same scene of the Second Officer THREE TIMES in 10 seconds, with only slight and painfully obvious differences in the dialog! The writers don't care, the animators don't care, and the editor doesn't care. Sounds like a great movie to me...
As for the music, a lot of the soundtrack sounds like violins played in reverse all throughout the movie. It's not horrible, I guess, but strange. There are also a few songs(mostly generic tunes thrown in at the last minute), but there are two that REALLY stand out. First, there's the "You're In My Blood" song, which is probably the worst love song ever sung, even worse than most of the terrible modern pop songs you hear on the radio. Sample Lyrics: "You're in my blood, you're in my blood, you're in my blood, my bloooooooooOOOOOOOOooooaaad/So let's start this rite of love/WiiiiiiiiIIIIIIiiith love." Second, and this is the only reason most of you have heard of this movie, a RAPPING DOG! YES! A dog dressed in a Jersey, holding a boom box, dancing in front of a New York backdrop, singing a genre of music that won't be invented for 60 years! Why? What purpose does it have? Does it affect anything? Never explained. Comes out of nowhere, fades into the same nowhere, and is never brought up again! ...Well, that's one way to make a movie stand out...
Now, with all that in mind, this movie... is really fun to watch.
It does everything so wrong, cares so little, and insults so much intelligence, that it's actually a fascinating movie. You actually want to keep watching to see what bit of insanity occurs next! At the very least, you won't be bored by how strangely this movie was put together.
In addition, there are some good things about it as well. The design of the characters, for the most part, is rather good. Angelica almost looks like a Disney Princess. A lot of the shading, movement, and even some of the slapstick is well done and well timed, so it looks like at least some effort went into this. Finally, this movie does something better than Cameron's version: It explores the ship and passengers. While Cameron tried to focus solely on the cartoonish romance of Rose and Jack, with the other characters just shoved in, the movie does give time to show the stories of each passenger, even if they are sloppy. So, in a way, this movie did something better than Cameron. And yes, give it credit, this movie also understands that the sinking was a tragedy that took the lives of many. ...Barely.
In conclusion, this movie is a fun little train-wreck that is impossible to take seriously. If you're curious as to how badly an animation can be made without it being outright horrible or insulting, I'd recommend it. Just don't use it as a history lesson...
Click (2006)
Great Concept. Sadly, It's An Adam Sandler Movie...
Think of this: A comedy about a workaholic father who's tired of his life and dealing with menial work who finds a time-bending remote that allows him to fast forward through the boring bits of life, but sadly gets out of hand quickly.
Are you kidding? That's a great idea! Get Jim Carrey, Tom Hanks, Steve Martin, or Tim Allen on the phone! We have a comedy that will be the best of the ye- Oh, you picked Adam Sandler... We're doomed.
For the three of you who don't know, Adam Sandler is a comedian from Saturday Night Live who has a number of talents, but has somehow managed to make hit after hit by using none of them. The Waterboy, Bedtime Stories, Jack & Jill, Grown-Ups 1&2, Just Go With It, etc., all horrendous pieces of crap that somehow make a killing at the box office... And yes, Click is one of them.
The story, like I said earlier, features Adam Sandler playing a workaholic father who's tired of routine and balancing work and a family(even though he's married to the hot Kate Beckinsale...) One night, Christopher Walken gives him a universal remote that controls not only his TV, but his life. He can focus on past events, slow down and pause time, change the color of his skin, and, most importantly in this movie, fast forward through the boring bits of life. This would have been a great movie, but, again, they had to choose Adam Sandler as producer and lead...
I hate Adam Sandler. He's a 47-year-old stuck in puberty. He's loud, he's perverted, he's obnoxious and in-your-face, and he thinks that saying "boobies" every other sentence is comedic gold. He's the guy responsible for keeping Rob Schneider in business and keeping other promising comedians(Dana Carvey anyone) out of business. And, of course, all his trademark "hilarity" shines in this movie.
The humor consists of a dog who has a fetish for a giant duck doll that's a prominent running gag, a potty-mouthed little kid who is constantly tortured by Adam Sandler(why do I see this as Adam Sandler trying to let off some childhood rage), and as much toilet humor, sexual content, swearing, and overall anti-jokes as a Friedberg & Seltzer movie. I cringed at every single attempt at a joke, which was about 30 a minute. Hey jackass! You need better humor than this!
However, the humor is probably there to poorly attempt to hide that fact that Adam Sandler CAN'T ACT! He's Jim Carrey if he only played Lloyd from Dumb and Dumber throughout his career. No flexibility, no attitude, no personality at all. His only two expressions seem to be rape-smile-with-your-mouth-open, or "I just wandered on set and can't remember what I'm doing." Oh, but sometimes he shouts like a guy with Tourettes Syndrome... because, yeah, that's funny, right?!
Now, with all that in mind, THIS MOVIE... does have some good stuff. The other actors(Beckinsale, Walken, Hasselhoff, even Winkler) do manage to put in a solid performance. The story, as I said before, is pretty good, as we can see Sandler's character's life as a kid and eventually as an old man, as well as the consequences for his actions. The movie has a great moral at the end that speaks to both adults and children, and you might even find some of the movie charming and heartwarming. ...Sadly, you have to sit through about 100 minutes of painful Sandler "routine" in order to see it.
In conclusion, and as I've stated repeatedly throughout this review, this movie is an interesting story that would have made a great, even landmark, comedy if in the right hands, but sadly had to be placed in the possession of Jerry Lewis' even less talented younger brother. Get a better lead and a better sense of humor and this movie would have been great. As it stands, I'd suggest skipping it unless you're a huge Sandler fan.
Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011)
Did They Even Read The Book?!
Before I start, I'd just like to say that movies don't necessarily have to follow the source material to be good. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, The Neverending Story, Conan the Barbarian(the original movie), and most Disney animated movies are good examples of fun movies that are basically the stories in-name-only. As long as there's a good creative team behind it, a movie can be great even without following the source. ...But then, there are movies that obviously don't have anything to do with the source material, that whoever produced it just said "Ooh, this thing has a nice title to it. Turn out a script in two weeks, get some actors who will work for scale, and put as much awkward symbolism and/or gross-out humor in it as you can. People don't have enough to do on a Saturday, so they'll see it no matter how much it sucks and we'll get money off of it! Genius!" Blood & Chocolate, Inspector Gadget, and everything by Uwe Boll are all movies that have fallen prey to greedy producers, becoming horrible adaptations of terrific stories.
In case you haven't guessed yet, Mr Popper's Penguins is one of them.
If you've never heard of it, Mr Popper's Penguins is a 1938 children's book about a man who inherits penguins and decides to put on a show with them, traveling the vaudeville circuit and becoming household names. The writing's nothing special, but the ideas and some of the humor is really great and would have made for a fun movie. Throw Jim Carrey in the mix and you would have the ingredients for an incredible family movie! I was excited to see this... but now all it does is make me mad as hell!
The movie has absolutely NOTHING to do with the book. The setting is wrong, the characters are wrong, the story is wrong, the message is wrong, everything is wrong! Like I said before, I wouldn't mind so much if they were replaced with good ideas, but they're NOT! The story in a nutshell is that Mr Popper, played by Jim Carrey, is a divorced, highly paid, white-collar worker who gets a penguin as a posthumous gift from his late father, who, as we learn from a poor opening, never spent enough time with him. By accident, he receives 5 more and he has to find a way to live with them in the middle of New York. Hijinks ensure. ...Actually, not really, because this movie is blander than Kevin Costner eating Styrofoam on wheat toast...
The entire movie is a contrivance, using every single tired cliché. The dad is divorced but still has a loving family that visits him, he's almost at the top of his game but is suddenly dragged down by something close to him, he needs to learn that family comes before business, the animal sidekicks do things that are cute, funny, and impossible for normal animals to do normally, a penguin wants to fly, and so on and so forth. We've seen all these ideas in practically every family film of the last decade! We know what's going to happen, we know how it will end, and there are no surprises or clever lines throughout!
How are the characters? BORING! Yes, even Jim Carrey, one of the funniest people of the big screen! Normally, he's a very flexible, very over-the-top guy who puts as much energy into his roles as he possibly can. But here, he always looks like he's restrained, like someone off-screen is constantly telling him to not steal the spotlight from the penguins. As a result, we have a very boring Carrey who seems to frown and act depressed the entire movie. Besides Carrey, we have Ophelia Lovibond, whose only role is to perform alliteration with "P" words, Clark Gregg who plays a sleazy bad guy that only gets 5 minutes of screen time, and Angela Lansbury(yes, THE Angela Lansbury) who is much too talented to be in this movie.
Let's talk about the humor. The humor is about as juvenile as it can get. All jokes are aimed at kids, and the producers are praying that penguins screaming at a picture of a shark will get the kids laughing. And that's the height of the humor here. There is a lot, a LOT, of gross-out jokes in this movie. One of the penguins, named Stinky appropriately enough, constantly breaks wind throughout the movie. Oh, and there's a two-minute scene of Popper holding the penguins over a toilet and... let's just say it's time to refill your popcorn here. The humor is bottom-of-the-barrel generic kid movie stuff that will probably leave anyone over 3-years-old groaning.
Well, maybe the story is good? NO! Without giving much away, the story is a contrived mess without logic or creative thought. For example, when Carrey reads that penguins like cold environments, does he buy a freezer? No, he just opens the windows, letting snow and ice flood a very expensive New York penthouse. His care of the penguins becomes more and more of an obsession throughout the movie, to the point where it actually gets scary and he neglects his family, his job, and any sense of other responsibility. The whole plot is based around the requirement that everybody be an idiot. Nobody thinks, nobody plans, they just do, creating unlikable characters and unlikable settings.
Overall, this is one of the WORST MOVIES I HAVE EVER SEEN! There is no thought, no creativity, no effort, NOTHING! I am AMAZED at how lazy this movie is! It was clearly only made to make money for the studio or to provide a way for younger audiences to shut up for 95 minutes. My recommendation: Give your kids the book, give the Goodwill store the DVD, and watch one of the several dozen GOOD movies Jim Carrey has made.
Tentacolino (2004)
The Absolute WORST Movie I've Ever Seen!
Before I begin, I'd like to say that there are probably worse movies out there, but this is the worst movie I've ever seen. If there are worse, please don't let me know.
With that said, THIS IS THE WORST, THE ABSOLUTE WORST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN. MY. LIFE! I've seen Son of the Mask, Mr Popper's Penguins, Garbage Pail Kids, Manos: The Hands of Fate, Biodome, North, Starchaser, and the other Titanic movies, but this tops them all!
The movie is a sequel to the almost equally abominable movie The Legend of the Titanic, though it's a sequel in the same way Halloween III was a sequel to the rest of the franchise. None of the characters' voices are similar to the original, most of the personalities are either different or nonexistent, and they changed the gender of one of the main characters... The entire movie is also a contradiction since the first movie was told in a flashback that was completely different from what we see here. It's clear that whoever made this movie didn't even bother to watch the first movie(not that I blame them.)
To call this bad would be an understatement. To call this awful wouldn't cut it. To call it an UNGODLY ABOMINATION OF MANKIND AND IMAGINATION wouldn't even scrape the tip of the iceberg! The movie rapes your mind, destroys your intelligence, and smashes any sense of sanity or reality you may have had before watching. You will want to stab your eyes out and pour bleach into your skull to try to forget this crap!
I could go on and on, but this is a review, so what's it about?
In short: The main characters go searching for the Titanic, end up in Atlantis, and fight a swarm of mice and sharks.
In long: The main characters go searching for the Titanic, end up in Atlantis, and fight a swarm of mice and sharks.
Yes, this movie has the barest excuse for a plot, which becomes more nonsensical and disjointed as the movie goes on. There are side plots about love interests that go nowhere, villains from the first movie that appear out of nowhere and return to the inky blackness they came from, and an amazingly unnerving atmosphere created by the hostage cult known as Atlantis and the characters which instantly develop Stockholm Syndrome.
Oh yeah, the main characters are brought to Atlantis against their will, experimented on, and told they can never return... and they take this news as if told they just had to stay with at a friend's house overnight. ...Did I mention this movie is devoid of all logic and emotion? What else happens? They get in a war with rats and sharks... for some reason. The bad guy from the first movie joins in... for some reason. The rats give up but the war goes on for another 20 minutes... for some reason. Finally, our heroes are rewarded... FOR SOME REASON! They should just call this "Bland Characters Doing Random Things."
Oh, and if you don't think any of that sounds too bad, I didn't even mention Pengo and the other "aquatic friends", the toys that come to life without explanation(a la Toy Story, but creepier), the god-awful musical numbers with one featuring a rapping shark and the other continually changing genres, and the horrible HORRIBLE ending that will make you question if life is even worth living any more...
The characters are bland, stiff, and lifeless, as if they're puppets in a very bad kindergarten show. The songs are ear-rapingly bad and thrown in at the last minute. The animation makes Hanna Barbera look like a Miyazaki film. The backgrounds are murky. Even the voice-acting sounds like they dragged random people in the studio into a recording booth and gave them 30 minutes to ad-lib something. This is probably the only movie where I can say every frame of animation and every line spoken physically hurts me...
Overall, if I haven't made it clear enough, THIS MOVIE IS A TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRENDOUS, GOD-AWFUL, PATHETIC, WASTE OF TIME! I would give this movie -∞ stars if I could. No artistry, vision, story, or anything redeemable at all. You will walk away feeling unclean and it'll take days to recover from what you've seen. This is a movie that hits rock bottom in the first minute and somehow manages to drill through the Earth's crust as it continues on, finally ending in the molten center of pain and suffering. I wish that every copy of the movie and everyone involved was burned in one massive bonfire! ...If you're a glutton for punishment, watch Bobsheaux's review of the movie to get an understanding of just how bad this is. And don't forget the eye-bleach...
Heart and Souls (1993)
A Charming, Heart-Warming, Sadly Underrated Movie
I had never heard of this movie until about 3 days ago, when it turned up on Netflix in a search. Normally, I skip these movies, but I had to wash the taste of Spy Kids 4 out of my brain, and it starred Robert Downey Jr, aka Iron Man & Sherlock Holmes, so I hit Play. What I got is one of the best comedies from the early 90's I've ever seen.
Without spoiling anything, the movie involves 4 people who died at the exact moment Downey's character is born, so they somehow become "attached" to the kid, interacting with him through his early childhood. However, an incident causes them to hide from him for presumably the rest of his life. But that's reversed when Downey's character is in his 30's and the spirits suddenly realize they each have some unfinished business they must take care of. What follows is a lot of slapstick, character comedy, and heartwarming scenes to entertain young and old.
One of the best parts of the movie is, of course, Robert Downey Jr's acting. This is early in his career, so he looks incredibly young and inexperienced, but he tackles not only his character, but several other characters throughout the movie like a pro. Whenever he's on screen(which is nearly the whole movie), he has something funny to either say or do. The supporting cast are all charming as well, featuring the ghosts of a sassy black woman, a loving fiancée, a timid singer, and a greaser with a heart of gold, each with a fun personality and character. The effects are rather good for the time as well, with transparency and wire-work for the ghosts that is convincing enough to get the point across, but not enough to distract the audience from the characters. The camera-work of San Francisco is also well done, with close-up shots and wide shots used to achieve perfect perspective.
One of the few problems I have with this movie is that it can sometimes get a little TOO heartwarming and sappy. When these scenes happen, they drag for a bit too long, which is more obvious toward the end. The introduction is nearly a third of the movie and is nearly a short film in itself, which is fine unless you want to get to the main point of the film. There's also a subplot concerning Downey's girlfriend that is practically glanced over and, for the most part, pointless. None of these scenes are so long you'd want to fast forward, but in this age of fast acting and quick editing, you may be thinking "Get on with it" a few times.
Overall, this movie is a very charming, very heart-warming, very funny movie, using an idea that's been used so many times and creating an original atmosphere. I'd recommend this movie for fans of Robert Downey Jr, early 90's comedies, or anyone who wants to laugh and be inspired at the same time.