The Croods

So, if you haven't heard, I myself am an animator.  I love animation, I do animation, and I'm striving to one day work on films like this.  I'm warning you because this review might get a little technical, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum.

DreamWorks comes out with a pleasant surprise for the first major animated feature of the year!  (we're just going to ignore Escape from Planet Earth, everyone else did)

Nothing to see here...

I was very skeptical going into The Croods, largely due to the terrible MovieTickets ad that has played before every single film I've seen this year.  The other reason was the awful design for the title characters.

You ugly! And soulless!

Even so, I still trusted DreamWorks to deliver, and they did.  The story starts out rough and slowly becomes more meaningful, with incredibly warm moments towards the end (that cursed eye sweat again).  

The story is about a family of cavemen who live in fear of the world, and then the world starts crashing down around them.  They live on the supercontinent Pangea which is beginning to separate.  That kind of continental shift is very gradual, you know, like nearly a whole week...  Geological inaccuracies aside, it sets the stage for some stunning effects and forces the characters to move forward and leave their old ways behind.

The animation quality was surprisingly excellent, but made sense after I saw that legendary animator James Baxter served as the Head of Character Animation.  Each Crood is imbued with certain animal behaviors in their movements and everything flows wonderfully.  There are some moments when it felt like the animation got a little out of control, almost mo-cap like, and that drew me out a bit, but no one else should notice.

On the topic of animation I have to mention the camera work.  The start of the movie was a very, very rough ride.  The camera wouldn't stay still long enough to get an idea of where you were, and with no establishing shots it was hard to see the relation of each character and the environment.  The handheld feel was pushed beyond extreme, and just when I wanted to grab the camera and chain it down there's a sequence where it literally moves well over 200mph.  I didn't see much of that because my face was buried in my palms.  It does calm down later though, so don't worry.

While the characters were ugly I really have to commend the creature design.  All the animals were amazing to look at and incredibly creative.  I won't talk about them, I'll just show you pictures.

So fluffy!

Part cat, part owl!

Horrifying bird things!

...This!

The environments matched the creativity of the creatures and made for a huge world with vastly different ecosystems to explore.  All in all, a very pretty film to look at.

So it's got a great story, it's very pretty (minus the cast, but you'll get over that), and the animation is top quality.  Even from a critical animator jerk I'd definitely recommend this film to anyone, no matter your age.  Go see it, have fun.

The movie is worth it for this image alone.

Oz the Great and Powerful

The much anticipated Wizard of Oz prequel came out a couple weeks ago and I was very excited to see it.  Mostly because it was filmed right here in lovely Pontiac, Michigan.

Michiganders have a strange definition of "lovely."

I should start by saying that before I saw this I heard some poor reviews of the visuals, I'm guessing by people who saw it in 2D.  I saw it in 3D and the effects looked fantastic.  Green screens were comped out well and everything fit rather seamlessly with the bright, colorful style.

The acting is a bit silly and extravagant.  Imagine if Neil Patrick Harris was allowed to break the fourth wall, but had to be less awesome (nothing against James Franco, NPH is just too awesome).  Mila Kunis and her ass do a great job early in the film, but later on she gets dramatic as well.  Zach Braff, shockingly, plays an adorable character you can't help but love.  Basically Zach Braff plays Zach Braff. Again.

And you know what?  We're all okay with that.

In a nutshell, I loved this film.  The story is well done, if a little predictable.  There's some great characters I didn't expect, like the China Girl, who end up adding a lot to the story.  Meeting each witch and seeing the twists and turns each one causes was fun, and the visuals of their powers were great.  Oz himself was kind of a weak character, but that's the point.  He's a fraud and you have to ride along to see if he'll live up to his reputation.

Did I mention Mila Kunis' ass? In 3D?

The Fault in Our Stars

First book review!  Promised I'd do these as well as movies, so here's my review of John Green's book, The Fault in Our Stars!

TFiOS is a YA novel about kids falling in love and trying to deal with life.  They also have cancer, so there's that.  The story follows narrator Hazel Grace Lancaster, a 16 year old with Thyroid cancer that has metastasized to her lungs forcing her to be connected to an oxygen tank at all times.  Her chances of living much longer are incredibly narrow, and she had already avoided one very close brush with death years before, so that's something you're going to cry about.  She meets a guy named Augustus Waters in a cancer support group, and after some fumbles they form a deep connection.  Gus lost his leg to Osteosarcoma, but his cancer appears to be in remission.

I don't want to spoil any more of the story, I'll just say you're going to cry a lot.  I am an emotionless shell of a human and still felt some weird eye sweat forming every couple pages.

Particularly heart wrenching moments always seem to happen when the parents are involved.  I'm not a parent (though I do have a wonderful little niece), so I can't even imagine what parents go through in those situations.  The book isn't all sad the whole time, there's plenty of smart humor from intelligent characters and feel good moments.

"So Brian," you say.  "You are both a male and in your 20's, why are you reading this book?"  Well I'll tell you.  The author is John Green, one half of the Vlog Brothers channel on Youtube.  He also founded the free educational youtube channel Crash Course where he teaches history, literature, and more.  Pretty awesome. This may also be the first story that I'll end up reviewing twice, as just recently it was announced that TFiOS was picked up to be made into a movie, and just the other day they announced Shailene Woodley was cast as the lead.  And to add to all that cool news, just last night John Green was on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

The Fault in Our Stars is a fantastic book by a great author and just plain great guy which will make you sad and happy and all other sorts of emotions.  I greatly enjoyed the ride.

John Dies at the End

I've been waiting impatiently for over a year to see this movie. It finally came to Michigan during a limited showing last week and I was there for it's first screening!  If you're not familiar, which I assume may be the case, John Dies at the End was originally a book by Cracked.com writer David Wong.  Sort of.  You see, David Wong is a pseudonym the writer uses, and David Wong happens to be the protagonist of this story.  Confused?  Don't worry about it.

David and his buddy John come into contact with an otherworldly (literally) drug-like substance they call Soy Sauce.  The sauce makes them perceive things humans are not supposed to know about, things crossing over from other dimensions, things that wreak havoc, things that are horribly disgusting, things that often look like dongs.  The duo have to save the world from something the world doesn't even know is happening, and the only people who become aware usually go nuts and die.

JDatE is a great mixture of comedy and story, as you might expect from a Cracked writer.  It had a bit of a low budget and is reminiscent of old B horror movies, but it's got a great updated feel.  Instead of using CG for everything like other movies do nowadays, this movie uses a lot of props and puppets, which is awesome and should happen in all horror.

Meat monster here was great.

The main characters are played by some new faces, and did a remarkable job.  I wasn't sure about Chase Williamson's portrayal of Dave at first, but then I remember something important about Dave's character: In the book it is made very clear that if there is literally anything else in the world that Dave could be doing besides what he has to with John, he will.  If he could he would tour with Justin Bieber in London rather than save the world.  He doesn't give a damn, and Williamson pulls that off pretty well.  John on the other hand, thinks all of the craziness surrounding them kicks ass, and he wants to be on the front line with a dumb one-liner that somehow relates to balls (a lot of both the book and movie revolves around dick jokes).  The actor, who I will refer to as Eyebrows, does an excellent job of being part frat guy, part crazy badass.

Seriously.  His face is like 40% eyebrows.

The movie may not be perfect, nor for everyone, but I thought it was hilarious and a great throwback to better days of horror.  It was missing some fantastic scenes from the book, but I guess a Vegas theater full of people being massacred by giant spider meat monsters would have been pretty pricey to shoot.  The movie will be coming out on DVD soon, and there's still one more week of screenings I believe, so if you think you'd like it, I'd recommend taking a look.

I like you, Bark Lee, buy you're no Molly.

Jack the Giant Slayer

This week I saw the "new" film Jack the Giant Slayer.  I say "new" because it was supposed to come out last year, but its release now makes for a great few weeks for actor Nicholas Hoult.  Hoult plays the title character, Jack, and if you remember, he was also the star zombie in Warm Bodies.  Even after these two great movies I can't say I'm a big fan of his, but he did get some nice roles.

Jack the Giant Slayer is a retelling of the classic Jack and the Beanstalk story, except instead of one giant in the clouds there's an army of them.  These giants have had a taste for human blood for a long time, but until now have had no way of getting down to eat them.  Jack must climb the beanstalk to save a princess with the help of Stanley Tucci, who really overplays the villain character, and the fabulously haired knight Obi Wan Kenobi.

Seriously. They spend 90% of this movie soaking wet, and his hair looks like this just minutes later.

Can't talk about Jack without mentioning the amazing visual effects and character work.  They constructed a whole world in the sky for the giants, their homes and halls grimy and worn just like the giants themselves look.  Each giant has its own unique look and personality, and several of the main giants are even developed and animated so well that you can feel their dimensionality without the need for dialog.  You can feel a subtle rivalry between the leader of the giants, Fallon, and his right hand man Fumm, though it's hardly spoken (Fee, Fye, Foe, and Fumm are some of the main giants. DO YOU GET IT?).  The actors and Giants work together in the same shots remarkably well.  You never feel like an actor is looking into empty space when they're trying to look a CG giant in the eye, and the compositing is nearly perfect.  The only gripe I had about the visuals was how high the specularity was on the giants skin, but that's technical stuff I geek out on because it's my thing leave me alone.

In the end, the story was good with great moments of escalation and respite, heightened by an orchestral track you would expect in a fantasy epic.  The acting is a little in-your-face and at times feels like it was meant for children's amusement (especially when Tucci was involved), but it worked with the over-the-top setting.  The visuals and animation were fantastic.  All in all, a very enjoyable movie.

If you needed any more convincing, it also has Warwick Davis.

Identity Thief

Oh dear... Ooooh Dear...
I wanted to love you, I really did.  I mean, you had Jason Bateman, one of my favorite comedic actors.  Melissa McCarthy was my favorite part of Bridesmaids, and 2 minutes into her first sequence I loved her here too.  What went so terribly wrong?

The writing.

First of all, at its core this is a road trip movie.  Road trip movies are successful when they involve passing through interesting places, seeing the sights, and have some antics laid on top of that.  Bateman has to transport McCarthy's character from Florida back to Denver.  Do you know what's interesting between Florida and Denver?  Nothing.  There is nothing interesting out there.  If you live somewhere in that range, I'm sorry for you and you should move.

Here be nothing.

The character choices were awful too.  First, comedy legend Jason Bateman was given a role in which he had to not be funny.  At all.  Not even in the straight man way like he does in Arrested Development.  His character was specifically written without a sense of humor.

Melissa McCarthy's character fared much better on the comedy side, unfortunately she was such a terrible person it was hard to like her.  They tried to humanize her by the end, but the movie was so long (another huge flaw) that you just didn't care anymore.

I won't go into all the other problems, I'm sure you get the idea by now.  One brief side note; Don't let little kids watch this.  They will walk away thinking it's funny to punch people in the throat.  That is a terrible idea.

Throat Punching: Only kind of funny.