It’s no easy task to make a movie based on 40 year old IP that will please both the middle aged adults who loved the brand as kids as well as today’s kids who have completely different childhoods than their parents, but darned if the geniuses at Nintendo and Illumination didn’t come together to find a way in one heck of a picture.
Truth be told, Mario’s adventures in the Mushroom Kingdom have been low hanging fruit, just dying to be turned into a good movie for decades, but Hollywood execs could never figure it out. There was a live action abomination in the 90s starring the late greats Dennis Hopper and Bob Hoskins as well as still alive John Leguizamo, but it had little to do with the subject matter.
That’s where I take my hat off to the producers here. Sometimes you have source material that is timeless and if you stick with it, albeit it with a few modern upgrades, it will stand the test of time for today’s kids as well as tomorrow’s kids.
The plot? Mario and Luigi (Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) live in a cramped Brooklyn apartment with their extended family. They just left a plumbing company run by frenemy Spike (Sebastian Manisculco) to start their own business, subjecting them to mockery from a fam that doesn’t believe in them.
Whilst on a job, the bros get sucked down a pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom and are separated. From there, it’s up to Mario to team up with Princess Peach (Anya Taylor Joy) and Toad (Keegan Michael Key) to rescue Luigi from Bowser, who does a few vocal performances in this one because he’s voiced by Jack Black. Oh and of course, they’ll need to convince Donkey Kong (Seth Rogen) to lend his furry muscles to the rescue mission.
That’s pretty much it. The film does not even try to explain anything about how the world works, why there are pipes that lead from earth to the Mushroom Kingdom, why there are all these boxes that give you special powers and so on. Many video game movies fail when they get bogged down in long explanations of why nonsensical things exist when ultimately the answer is because they’re fun when you see them in video game form.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Illumination is really kicking Disney’s butt as of late.
Sometimes, some crimes, go slipping through the cracks but these two, gum shoes…are bringing the reboot back?
BQB here with a review of this uber meta movie.
If you’re a middle-aged person, chances are you loved a little slice of networking programming called “The Disney Afternoon” when you were a child. It all started with Ducktales and when young audiences of the late 1980s/early 1990s couldn’t get enough of Scrooge McDuck taking his duck nephews on globetrotting adventures, sure enough pretty much every other House of Mouse character got a reinvention for what was then considered the modern age.
You had TaleSpin, which featured the Jungle Book characters flying planes in search of derring-do and of course, Chip and Dale teamed up with an Australian adventurer mouse (Monterey Jack), a high-tech fixer of all things mouse (Gadget) and a mute fly (Zipper) to create their own detective agency.
Like everyone else now of a certain age where we’re too old to go back but too young to stop moving, I thought that simpler time of afternoon programming, where literally every other kid was watching the same thing so they could bond over it because there was nothing else to watch, were long over.
Thus, I found myself scratching my head in confusion when ads for this flick began circulating. Reboots of old shows/movies so often fail because that media was a product of a different time, so trying to breathe new life into a story that has its roots in the past can be an exercise of Weekend at Bernie’s-ian proportions. Eventually, Hollywood stops trying to drag the corpse of an old franchise around like the fly ridden meat puppet that it is and moves on to something else.
So, I have to admit, this movie surprised me…in that it’s pretty good.
Who is it for? That’s the million-dollar question, and frankly, a question I ask whenever an old show is rebooted. So often, Hollywood turns these reboots into a Frankenstein monster that the kids don’t want because the concept doesn’t appeal to the younger generation and the adults don’t want because it doesn’t embrace the essence of what made the show great a long time ago.
Ah, but leave it to the Lonely Island boys to find a humorous way to make something that appeals to everyone.
But first, I have to present the following points:
#1 – There is a world where humans and cartoons live together.
#2 – Cartoons are not animated. Cartoons are performed by cartoon actors, just as any other movie is performed by human actors.
Still with me? Hold on:
#3 – The Chip and Dale you know and love from Rescue Rangers were, in real life, actors who coincidentally have the voices of comedians John Mulaney (Chip) and Andy Samberg (Dale.) The voices from the old show? That was just Chip and Dale (actors) doing silly voices while playing fictional versions of themselves. Remember, they’re a duo of performing chipmunks who met in high school, went to Hollywood after graduation, and became famous performing a funny chipmunk act with characters of the same names, so famous that Disney greenlit their Rescue Rangers show and the rest is history.
Alright, now that you’ve traveled down that Matrix-like cartoon rabbit hole, you can start to wrap your head around this flick. Chip and Dale, the actor-munks, are now, like the kids who watched them back in the day, middle-aged-munks. It’s been years since they broke up and they are settling in with the grim reality that life probably will never be as exciting as they dreamed when they were young. (You know, just like the middle-aged adults who watched the munks when they were kids are doing right now.)
Blah, blah, blah, some stuff that I won’t give away happens and it is up to Chip and Dale to save the day, which will be new for them, because remember, they never actually saved the day in the past. They were just acting. But now they can’t just act. They must do, for they must get to the bottom of a mystery most foul and reunite with their old RR buddies (also toon actors) in the process.
Sounds ridiculous? Yes. Yes, it does, but, I’ll give it props because a) the middle-aged adults who loved RR as kids will get a kick out of it and b) their kids will enjoy it too because remember, at the end of the day, these toons are for the kids. Or are they? Toons for adults have been around so long it’s hard to know anymore but at any rate, with a PG rating, this is one the whole family can enjoy.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. My one criticism is if you ask who were the actors who played Chip and Dale before Rescue Rangers, you know, the chipmunks from the old 1950s cartoons where they just ran around and squeaked and stole apples and stuff from Donald Duck while they made his life a living hell, the whole premise falls apart, though I suppose they could explain that in the sequel, or the reboot. Don’t forget, a Rescue Rangers reboot is theoretically possible outside of this movie because the “real life” versions of Chip and Dale from this movie are just actors, after all.
I know it sounds like you need a flow chart and a slide rule to follow this movie, but don’t worry about it. Just turn it on, enjoy, and wonder how the heck you got so old. Curse you, time!
Have you ever had an ex that you dumped because of X reason, but then the years go by, the world beats you up, you suddenly realize nothing and no one is perfect, and all of a sudden, you wish you had them back in your life because the alternatives are so bad that X reason doesn’t even seem like a good reason for dumping them any more?
That’s how I feel about the original Space Jam in light of the new Space Jam.
When I was a kid, I thought the original was a horrid mess, just a dumb piece of film, sans plot, just one big ad for the NBA and Loony Tunes, a marketing ploy to get people to pay attention to both.
Ah, but the new one made me go and seek out the old and…well, it still is a very silly movie…but I’ll admit…there is a better attempt at a plot and much more success at humor.
The thin plot? Swackhammer (Danny Devito) is the crooked owner of the intergalactic theme park known as Moron Mountain. Sales are dwindling, so he wants to kidnap the Looney Tunes and force them to perform for park guests until the end of time. He sends his tiny minions, the wimpy nerdlucks, to kidnap Bugs and Co and while they lack physical size, they make up for it with enormous ray guns that the tunes can’t beat.
In true Bugs fashion, the wascally wabbit sticks a post-it note in a made-up rule book that says the Tunes get a chance to defend themselves (he could have just written you have to let the tunes go but then the movie wouldn’t happen.)
Long story short, Bugs challenges the nerds to a game of basketball, thinking his opponents are so small that he and his loony friends will easily dominate them. Alas, the nerds manage to steal the skills of famous 90s players like Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Muggsy Bogues and a few others whose names I forget already.
This makes for the funniest parts of the film, as it becomes an ongoing sideplot where the players and the NBA investigate how they lost their skills. The NBA assumes a mysterious virus is in play, so they cancel the season so they can tent and fumigate all the basketball forums, almost a blast from the past that we can relate to today in this age of covid.
Meanwhile, Prince Charles and friends visit doctors, healers and all manner of quacks in the hopes of figuring out how to regain their skills, each scene funnier than the last.
The Tunes kidnap Jordan so he can become their star player, and the film literally wastes no time on Jordan wondering how the heck he got there or being shocked that cartoons and/or aliens are real and so on. Like, it almost would have made more sense if they had spent a minute or two with Jordan being shocked about this, but His Royal Airness is just like, oh well this is just an unexpected pain in the ass thing I have to deal with.
Bill Murray and Wayne Knight round out the cast, Wayne of Seinfeld fame being Jordan’s toadyish sidekick/publicist and Bill declaring that he always harbored a secret desire to play pro ball. B-Ball legend Larry Bird has a few funny scenes, the funniest being when he and Murray witness Jordan being sucked down a golf ball hole and decide that they’re too busy to do anything about and not to worry because he’ll probably be OK.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Both the original and sequel have major plotholes, though both have the attitude of plotholes being so silly that they make the movie good. However, the original at least made an attempt at patching the holes together with tape and glue, while the sequel doesn’t try. I noticed more second and third billing tunes were allowed in the original, which makes me think these cartoons are so old that today’s kids only know about Bugs and his immediate friends. The original is only an hour and a half long, whereas the sequel drones on, and the Tunes get way more screen time. The film has a self-depricating approach, where the tunes themselves mock things that don’t make sense, spiriting plotholes away with a joke.
I write an ongoing column on this fine blog called, “Is Comedy Dying?” where I lament how the “rush to offense” culture is tearing down comedy and not replacing it with anything good. What passes for comedy now is just going to be Samantha Bee yelling at me about her political views, John Oliver snarking at me about his political views, and Amy Schumer making yet another dumb movie where she’s like, “Hey guys! I’m a drunk slut who acts like an idiot but nice guys should like me or else they’re super mean, right?”
I digress. On the surface, I get why an American of Indian descent might not be a fan of Apu, the owner of the Quick-E-Mart on “The Simpsons.”
On a deeper level though, those who watched the show regularly are aware that a) Apu is often the most intelligent resident of Springfield b) he’s an immigrant who built himself up into a businessman c) he suffers casual racism from incompetent Springfield boobs regularly with dignity and grace, often helping those who hurt him and d) he might as well be the one making money selling Homer outdated snacks because if he weren’t doing, Homer would just drive his fat ass to another convenience store and if anything, the scenes where Apu crosses out the date on expired products only for Homer to eat them and get sick is more about how chubby Americans suffer a love affair with junk food and are willing to make the worse decisions about what to shove in their holes.
I get the complaints – Hank Azaria isn’t Indian, some Indian Americans lament that when they were growing up they were called “Apu” or subjected to catch phrases like, “Thank you, come again” and so on.
But I don’t know. Look at the rest of the show. If we’re getting rid of Apu, then we also have to get rid of Bumblebee Man, Groundskeeper Willie, Uter the Chubby Exchange student and so on. From Chief Wiggum, the fat donut chomping cop to Principal Skinner, the uptight, bureaucratic educator, every character is essentially a stereotype because that’s what cartoons are.
I get that people get offended but good comedy offends everyone, eventually. There’s humor in everyone, everywhere. If anything, comedy is fair when it offends everyone, when sooner or later, it pokes fun at anyone and everyone and leaves no one behind.
At the very least, can we really harangue the Simpsons creators for doing something that was considered OK 30 years ago?
I don’t know. I do get the complaints. I don’t want people to feel bad. Still, I don’t know how the Simpsons continues if these are the constraints we are working under now.
It makes me a little sad and ready to throw in the comedy towel, to just let the snarky Manhattanite comics take the whole thing and ruin it all with their high falutin, brie cheese sniffing jokes that only three people get. That’s fine. Let’s just go ahead and get the Simpsons cancelled then. What really need is 16 more movies where Amy Schumer laments that she can’t find a man who will accept her drunken sluttyness, more of John Oliver and Steve Colbert making my eyes glaze over with their policy talks, more of Samantha Bee yelling jokes at me that her writers room nerds thought were funny so ergo, I should find them funny.
I’ll be at the bar, 3.5 readers. Tell me what you say in the comments below.
If you don’t leap, you’ll never learn how to fly. However, if you don’t see this movie, you won’t miss much.
For years, Disney has been the behemoth to beat as rival studios vie to see who can produce a heartwarming child’s tale that has depth, range and becomes so touching that kids love it well into their own adulthood and share it with their own children.
The Weinstein Company is the latest studio to give this a go and…well, to quote Jon Lovitz’ the Critic, “It stinks.”
On paper, the plot has all the trappings of a kids’ story that should be beloved through the ages. In the 1800s, two orphans from the French countryside, Felicie and Victor, escape their orphanage and head off to Paris to pursue their dreams. Victor wants to become a great inventor, while Felicie dreams of becoming a ballerina.
Felicie beguiles her way into a ballet school but relies on ex-ballerina turned scullery maid Odette to teach her, paving the way for Mr. Miyagi style lessons as Odette gets her student to perform mundane tasks that cause her student to learn ballet.
With an interesting storyline and a historic backdrop featuring fights/chases on the scaffolding surrounding the Statue of Liberty and Eiffel Tower while they are being built, you’d think this would be a slam dunk. Instead, it’s like the ball was pulled out of the hoop and flushed down the toilet.
I could go on and on about the problems in this movie but the main one is that this is a period piece and yet…there’s a lot of modern references. Sure, Disney films aren’t exactly historical documentaries but they at least don’t go out of their way to break the period setting.
Meanwhile, this film contains a number of words/phrases from modern times that act like speed bumps, shaking up what might have otherwise a smooth ride. The one that stands out in my mind is that the villainess of the film, the mother of a rival ballet student, chases Felicie around Paris with a hammer and shouts, “Stop! Hammer time!”
I mean. Seriously. Holy shit. Whoever allowed that line into this film, go stand in the corner and think about what you have done.
Worse, the use of modern pop music abounds. The crux of the film rests on two rival ballerinas competing for a part in “The Nutcracker” yet during the final big dance routine, we don’t hear something like “The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies” but instead, Demi Lovato’s “Confident” blares.
Look, I have no idea how that decision was made but personally, I envision a dopey Hollywood executive shouting, “Oh no! Kids will never sit through classical music! Crank up some Demi Lovato while this 19th century ballerinas compete!
Also, one of the ballerinas wears pink leg warmers and a headband that seem out of place. Honestly, I can’t tell you for absolute certain that pink leg warmers didn’t exist in the 1800s but the kid basically walks around in an 1800s period piece looking like her mom dressed her with the help of the Target girls’ active wear department.
So…all in all, the Weinsteins had their chance and they blew it. I know when I saw the trailers for this film I wondered if we might see a heartwarming, historic film that might make Disney sweat. Instead, it was a pile of poop.
Say what you will about Disney, but they have their craft down and they keep in mind both the kids and the parents who bring them, creating a stories that work on different levels, reaching out to young and old alike.
Ultimately, that’s the key to whether or not an animated film stands the test of time. The kids will like this and that of course is the most important thing, i.e. that the kids have a good time, but the parents who bring their kids are going to be looking at it as absolute drek. Plus, when the kids who like it today become parents tomorrow, I don’t they’ll rush to show it to their kids as by then they will have grown up and realized that Demi Lovato songs ruin 1800s ballerina movies.
Perhaps the silver lining is that this movie will no doubt inspire a lot of extra sign ups for dance classes from little girls all over the country. Good news for the girls, maybe lukewarm news for the parents who have to get up early and drive them to practice.
Oh, 3.5 readers. I’ve been enjoying myself so much since I broke up with that loser, BQB. I have taken over the BQB HQ and now I get to go to movies without having to sit next to that nerd.
As it turns out, The Lego Movie was not a flash in the pan success. Lego Batman is just as awesome.
The plot? The Joker (Zach Galifinakis) is dismayed when Batman (Will Arnett) informs him that he isn’t the worst villain in his life. Thus, the Joker goes out of his way to prove he is Batman’s worst villain and all manner of shenanigans ensue.
Along the way, Batman adopts Robin (Michael Cera) who completes his look by ripping off his pants and teams up with new Gotham PD Commissioner Barbara Gordon aka Batgirl (Rosario Dawson). Of course, no Batman film would be complete without Alfred (Ralph Fiennes).
For me, the best laughs came when Joker enlists every last Batman villain, including some of the lesser knowns (the ketchup and mustard shooting Condiment Man, for example). Joker invites the audience to Google whether or not these villains were real and not just made up to poke fun at the Batman franchise.
Having no life, I did the Google search when I got home and low and behold, there really was a Condiment Man.
It’s fun for the kids but there’s also a lot of action…well, as much action as a movie about Lego toys can provide. Also, it’s a non-stop parody of all of the past Batman movies as jokes abound about the Caped Crusader’s exploits, ranging from the latest Dark Knight films, to the 1980s and 1990s films, to the more campy 1960s series.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Fun for the whole family. I don’t have a family so I took Bookshelf Q. Battle Dog.
Welcome to my new column, “Could They Make It Today?” in which I go back in time, take a look at the pop culture of my Gen X youth (we did exist though we seem to have been forgotten early) and discuss how movies and/or TV shows from the past couldn’t be made in the present (at least not without an extensive tuneup).
First up, Transformers: The Movie (1986).
Now, if you’re a member of Generation X, and again, millennials, I swear we existed…we are the Baby Boomers’ kids and you just know more about the Baby Boomers because they are hanging on for a really long time thanks to advances in science and medicine and shit.
Let me try again. If you are are a member of Generation X, then you probably remember where you were when Optimus Prime died.
The year was 1986. Transformers were a popular line of children’s toys that combined a childish love of vehicles and robots by having robots turn into vehicles. Two toys in one.
There was a corresponding TV show in which Optimus Prime, a tractor trailer with a John Wayne style voice, commanded the Autobots in their war against the villainous Deceptions, lead by the evil Megatron.
So, after several years of a show where robots fired lasers at each other and missed, thus giving children a sense of excitement without burdening their young minds with thoughts of death, some dumb ass or collection of dumb asses got it in their heads to completely rewrite the direction of the series with a major motion film.
I went to it. I was a little kid. Had my popcorn. Had my Transformer. Had my seat. I was ready to have a good time and then boom…literally every character I loved dies.
Seriously. What the shit? Who thought this was a good idea?
Optimus Prime and Megatron clash on the field of battle. Megatron gets the upper hand and takes down Optimus.
OK. That was sad. I don’t think it was a great move for studio execs to kill off a beloved children’s character, especially the main one who carries the series.
But then it gets worse. There’s a scene where the main contingent of Autobots (i.e. Ratchet and Ironhide, etc.), characters who had been with the series since the start, are flying a shuttle back to…I don’t know, Autobot Town, I’m an adult now so I don’t give as many shits as I used to.
Long story short, Megatron and his lackies break down the door and totally Wild Bunch the shit out of the Autobots. I’m serious. After years of lasers that never hit anyone, Megatron’s lasers hit everyone with great precision.
And it’s not just like, “Boom! You’re dead!” We see the lights in the Autobots’ eyes flicker and go out. Smoke comes out of their mouths. Holes rip up their chassis. It’s total carnage and mayhem.
Death has been a part of kids movies since the beginning of animation. When Bambi’s mother dies, it introduces kids to concept they yeah, one day your grandparents are going to croak, then your parents, then pretty much everyone else you know until you end up all alone and the grim reaper puts his icy hand on your shoulder.
Personally, I didn’t even think it was cool for Disney to kill of Bambi’s mother but ok. There’s a difference between Bambi’s mother dying and the stone cold political/ideological assassination that takes place in the Transformers movie.
By the end of the film, new Autobots take over. “Rodimus Prime” takes Optimus’ place and as a kid, it’s basically the equivalent of your how you feel when your mom kicks dad out of the house and starts dating some new guy and wants you to call him “Dad.”
RODIMUS PRIME: Autobots, roll out!
1980s’ Kids: F%*k you! Only Optimus can say that! You’re not my real Autobot leader!
Like many cartoon shows, Transformers was a vehicle to sell toys. Kids bond with the characters on TV, look at them as if they are friends, and then want their parents to buy them a friend they can play with in the form of toys.
But some young 1980s Baby Boomer screwed the pooch because kids were highly displeased, so much so that Optimus Prime is brought back to life by the end of the series.
The whole movie was intended to reset the series and bring it to a futuristic 2005 (which, sadly, is now in the past) with the robots turning into sleeker, more futuristic robots.
Clearly, the assumption in the board room was that they’ll kill off all the main characters (even Megatron and company get converted into new characters) and then the kids will throw away all their old toys and buy these new toys.
Just as clearly, these people did not know kids. Have you ever tried to pry a beloved toy out of a kid’s hand? Good luck. Kids kept playing with their old transformers. In the battles that played out on living room furniture, Optimus and friends were still alive. T
The new replacements were seen as wannabe step-dads trying to buy our love with ice cream and thus, the series didn’t last much longer after that. The movie pretty much blew up the whole enterprise.
The idea went over like a lead balloon and was so widely rejected by kids that a GI Joe movie that came out around the same time was quickly rewritten to prevent Duke from dying. Those suits were totally gunning for Duke and he was only saved because Optimus’ death went over so poorly.
Could they make it today? Well, they do make it today. Now the Transformers films have become these grand scale Michael Bay action/disaster movies with plenty of action and very little plot. And yes, occasionally a Transformer will buy the farm in these movies but the millennials didn’t grow up with them and Generation X is still too old to care.
Although personally, I was sad when Jazz gets ripped apart in one of the new films.
I think the film taught the toy/cartoon industry complex a valuable lesson. You don’t have to kill off characters just to introduce new toys/characters. There was no reason why the Autobots couldn’t have lived and still made friends with new characters/toys that could be sold at parental wallet draining prices.
This is what frustrates me with the millennials. They think the baby boomers are mean and greedy and hey, I feel your pain. I’ve been feeling it ever since some Gordon Gecko-esque fancy suit wearing 1980s baby boomer prick decided that subjecting my young self to a scene where all my favorite toy characters suffer from political assassination was a good idea.
In conclusion, Generation X exists, and while Transformers movies continue to go on strong, the powers that be have learned to not kill off beloved children’s characters all willy-nilly.
Oh those irascible fish and their wacky shenanigans.
I’m not really going to do an in-depth review, other than to say I liked it. I remember seeing the first one, back when I was young and you know, still believed in shit.
The Pixar technology was still relatively new and therefore impressive because people hadn’t seen that much of it at the time.
It is a big undertaking to do a sequel to a perfect classic but sure enough, Disney/Pixar made a worthy sequel. It’s touching, funny and without offering a spoiler, there’s a part in it I found pretty hilarious.
Bookshelf Battle 