Ed's Review Dot Com

Illumination Entertainment,

Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan, Pierre Coffin

In this prequel to the Despicable Me films, we go back to the very beginning of time to see the creation of the minions. Since prehistoric times, the Minions have sought to help the most despicable criminals of the time, whether it be a T-rex or the Abominable Snowman, but it never seemed to work out for them until they met Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). She has some great plans to use the Minions to help her become the baddest bad guy of all times.

This documentary feature shows how the minions got started. It’s a very cute movie, and I found I really enjoyed this film much more than the actual Despicable Me films. At least much more than the second one. I think because my favorite parts of the main films were the Minions to begin with. This movie introduces us to three special minions who are chosen to go out into the world and find a new bad guy to support. We get to meet Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, three special guys each with their own talents and personalities. I think this is what made this movie so enjoyable. They have a special bond, and are really funny. There’s a lot of things in this film that made it a lot of fun to watch. Sandra Bullock’s character is a bit over the top, but not as insane perhaps as Dru. Basically I was totally entertained by this movie, and I thought it was very well done. Certainly the story was interesting and very much fun. The kids will love it, but the adults in the group should have fun as well. I think they did an excellent job on this film, and I recommend it as one of the better animated films of the summer.

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DreamWorks Animation,

Matt Jones, Jim Parsons, Steve Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna

Oh (Jim Parsons) is part of a group of aliens who have arrived on Earth to find a new home. But Oh is a misfit and is well known for making mistakes. The aliens have to relocate the Earthlings to closed in reservations so that they can use the best parts of the planet, but unfortunately Oh makes another major mistake and alerts their enemies to their location putting the entire Earth in danger. Oh sets out to try to repair his mistake, when he runs into Tip (Rihanna), a young Earth girl who is trying to find her mother. The two make an odd pair as they try to help each other, and in the process discover what the real meaning of Home is.

Dreamworks gave us this rip-off of Lilo and Stitch, in a way, but it was actually a pretty decent little movie. Yes, I thought at any moment they were going to break out the “Ohana means family” line, but though it was close it didn’t appear. But the crazy loser alien who ends up on Earth being chased by the leaders of his planet who makes friends with an Earth girl is just the same story. But another very interesting thought that I had was whether Jim Parsons is the lead was annoying as hell, or if it was freaking brilliant. By the end of the movie, I was leaning toward the brilliance side. He plays Sheldon, for sure, and he screws up English much like Yoda putting the words in the wrong order, but there such a nice little charm to it all you you have to like Oh whether you want to or not. Tip is a bit annoying, as is the lady who plays here I’m afraid, but she was a good compliment to the very sweet Oh and gave it some grit. All in all, the movie is pretty decent, and the story was a lot of fun. The kids will probably love this, and as a grown up, I found it interesting enough to keep interested through the whole thing. If you have young ones, this is a good movie for kids, with lots of valuable lessons that are taught in the background. Meanwhile, the characters are funny and cute enough to keep the young ones interested. I think Dreamworks did pretty good on this one, and I recommend it for animation lovers and those with young ones alike.

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Marcy Media, Olive Bridge Entertainment, Overbrook Entertainment,

Cameron Diaz, Rose Byrne, Jamie Foxx, Bobby Cannavale, Quvenzhané Wallis

This musical remake of Annie is a nod to the original movie musical, but modernized and brought into today. The story is a bit similar of a kid, Annie (Quvenzhane Wallis) who’s been from Foster Home to Foster Home who is cared for by a rich businessman, Will Stacks (Jamie Fox) who is trying to improve his image, while his accountant is planning to make a deal with Ms Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) to have fake parents claim Annie to rip off Mr. Stacks.

There are movies that should never have been made. This is one of them. There was absolutely no cause to destroy this story. They have completely changed the story, and changed a lot of the songs around so that they are not recognizable. Many are lost completely, and the whole charm of the original comic strip was lost. First of all, Annie was an orphan, and it’s not Little Foster Child Annie. Jamie Fox is a good actor, but he was completely wrong for this film. Ms. Hannigan was also badly damaged, being more of a nice lady who is in an unfortunate situation. Cameron’s not about to play a nasty old lady who hires her brother to pretend to be Annie’s father to get Stacks’ stack of cash for a reward. But the updating of the music and changing the songs, and blowing away most of the story to where it doesn’t resemble the original musical is unforgivable. It would be like taking The Sound of Music and updating it to Rio in 2015 and filling it with salsa music. This would have been a good idea were they to do this as a TV special, change and update the cast, but keep the story and the music the same. But when I found out they were going to update the story and the music and make this into a movie, I knew that even releasing it in December couldn’t save it. I was sure this would be a disaster, and I was right. This was one that I wish I had not watched and I recommend you run far away from this one!

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1492 Pictures, Columbia Pictures, Happy Madison Productions,

Michelle Monaghan, Adam Sandler, Sean Bean, Peter Dinklage, Ashley Benson, Josh Gad, Kevin James, Jane Krakowski

Will Cooper (Kevin James) and Sam Brenner (Adam Sandler) were best friends as kids. In 1982 they competed in the Arcade Video Game World Championship. Sam came in second. The contest was taped, and along with other pop culture icons of the 80’s and the tape was sent in a capsule into space in the hope that an alien race might find it and come to visit. Decades have now passed, and Will has now become President of the United States, while Sam is working as an nerd squad installer of TV’s, sound systems, and game consoles. As they had hoped, an alien race has received the video tape, but misunderstood it as a declaration of war, and so now they have sent a war ship of real creations of video game characters to engage the Earth in a 3 life, winner take all, video game challenge. President Cooper has to call on Sam and their old crew to assist the military in a battle to save the world.

I was really anxious to see this film, mostly because I lived through the brief period of the height of the arcade period. My four sons and I spent plenty of quarters on the classic games. I can remember when Pong arrived, and was quickly followed by Asteroids, Space Invaders, and then a lineup of new games every week it seems. So I was interested in the the subject matter. I knew folks who had reservations as Sandler has lately had a rather weak batting average in the box office of late, unless it’s a rom-com with Drew Barrymore. But now that I’ve finally got a chance to see this film, I was NOT disappointed. Sandler did a really good job in this one, and he and Kevin James did a pretty good job with the assistance of Peter Dinklage, Sean Bean, and Michelle Monaghan. The story was really well done, and the tributes to the arcade games of our younger years was a lot of fun. Unfortunately they gave a lot of the best scenes away in the trailer, but still it was well done. It’s not really serious, it’s 99% comedy. But the gags are really good, and there are a lot of fun times here. This was one of those experiences where you can just kick back, eat your popcorn, and relax. No suspense, and the action is tongue in cheek, but there’s a lot of action, and the game play is very Ghostbuster-like. I enjoyed this film a lot, and I wish I had gone to see it a lot earlier. I don’t know why I waited so long. If you don’t mind silly concepts and Adam Sandler/Kevin James style humor, then you may not like it. But if you don’t mind that, I would highly recommend this one.

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Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Pictures,

Amy Poehler, Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan, Bill Hader, Mindy Kaling, Phyllis Smith, Lewis Black, Kaitlyn Dias

Riley (Kaitlyn Dias) was born in Minnesota. From the moment she was born, the emotions in her head controlled her actions. In the beginning it was really easy. Mostly Joy (Amy Pohler) ran things as she was a happy baby, but occasionally Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Bill Hader), and Disgust (Mindy Kaling) would take their turns at the controls. Another major task of the emotions was to keep the memories safe, and to transfer them to long term memory at night when Riley slept. But as she grew older, and the family moved to San Francisco, bad things happened and Joy and Sadness were locked outside the control room and they had to work long and hard to try to get back to the control room to prevent something awful from happening to Riley in this animated Pixar feature.

It’s interesting that this film is rated PG, as it’s not a kids film. But the kids will love it, just the same. The meaning of all the goings on here require a lot of life experience to understand, but the colors are bright, the characters are all fun, and the fact that the kids cannot understand the nuances here won’t make any difference. This means that for the grown ups, this film will be very enjoyable as the concepts are complex and little things will remind you of your childhood experiences with an adults understanding of what was going on. But it’s a great film for the kids to enjoy as well. Then 10 or 15 years from now they’ll run across it again, and have a whole new experience seeing how complex this film really is. The price of admission is worth it, just for the short feature “Lava” at the very beginning. Pixar always starts us off with a very good cartoon. This one is a Hawaiian legend put to song that is really good. The movie itself is also very good for all ages, and this is a shoe in for the best animated film of 2015. Pixar has another winner. If you can still get a chance to see this in the theater, it’s certainly well worth it, but if you miss it, be sure to catch it as soon as the DVD is released. This is a MUST SEE movie.

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