Category: Illumination

The Grinch - Review

11/9/2018

Release Date: November 9, 2018

All Grumpy

Adapting a children's book is no small task. It’s has been attempted by many movie studios and most failed in capturing what made those stories special. Now take that difficulty and multiply it by one hundred, because that's how hard it is to adapt a Dr. Seuss book. Illumination Entertainment had their first attempt with The Lorax, which was very engaging to me as a kid; I think that's the same sentiment they were going for with for The Grinch. It adds a lot of plot points and characters not in the book to try to make a full-length movie.

The good news is, this is Illumination's best-looking movie yet. This might have to do with the limited locations featured in the movie, but the attention to detail and quality of models surpass anything else they have made before. Illumination also continues to have great music for their movies from well-known artists; Tyler, The Creator's featured song has become synonymous with the movie. The last compliments I can give this movie have to do with Illumination's creativity and comedy chops. The way they come up with fantastical ideas that bring the world to life is really fun to watch, plus, the visual gags are entertaining as well.

However, the movie runs into a few problems on its way to grow the Grinch's heart three sizes. It takes detours that don't help portray the lesson trying to be taught by the original story. The Grinch, written by Dr. Seuss, was about a green-haired person who hated Christmas and overcame that hatred when he found out that the holiday was about caring for one another instead of gifts. This movie decided that they needed to add a backstory for the Grinch which overall made him less mean. There are multiple instances where the Grinch is nice, which makes his change seem inevitable. They also add a subplot for Cindy-Lou to have a bigger part in the story but make her motivations too mature. A ten-year-old would not ask Santa for their parent to become happy; that would be too unrealistic in a movie with a Christmas tree the size of a mountain.

If the Grinch is just a lonely person, why wouldn't he change at the end of the story? If he is nice all the time, why wouldn't he give the stolen presents back? The movie hinders itself by making a ton of gags in place of substance. So I had fun watching this movie because of all the silly jokes, but I can't overlook how the story didn't feel right. I could never buy all the "bad" things the Grinch did because he was never terrible. The movie "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" from 1966 is the better animated movie for adapting a classic right. Sure, it has too much motion blur and its not as good as the 30-minute tv-movie from 1966, but at least its almost Christmas season.

5.5/10
"It wont make your heart grow three sizes" - Anonymous

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Despicable me 3 - Review

6/30/2017

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Release Date: June 30, 2017

A Perfect End to the Despicable Me Trilogy?

Yup. Despicable Me is, obviously, the third movie in the Despicable Me series. The first movie was pretty amazing and put Illumination Entertainment on the map. They followed up that up with a sequel with enormous success, even getting to create a spinoff from their now world famous franchise. Despicable Me 3 is a continuation of those great movies but still isn't to the quality of that first movie, which is ok.

Cynicism aside, I had a great time watching the movie. My time with it was pretty similar to watching Captain Underpants, which is funny because DreamWorks and Illumination are sister companies now. The main difference was that I laughed way more with this movie. The creativity that Illumination Entertainment has seems to be boundless (I am going to forget that Secret Life of Pets happened with this statement). The creativity on display is pretty amazing. Nothing truly original is put on display here, but the construction and execution of the final product had me smiling the whole movie. It was fun to watch and I had a fun time, isn't that all that matters?

Writing movie reviews tells me, I do have to point out the flaws of the movie. The story is not as strong as it could have been. While the movie is definitely enjoyable to watch, it tries to tell too many stories at once. The subplot of family, which is the hallmark of the Despicable Me series, is not that well executed here. Another problem is that I seemed to be the only one having a lot of fun while watching the movie. There were a couple of chuckles from the rest of the audience, but for the most part, I seemed alone. Most of the jokes and references skewed older in my opinion but overall seemed like a movie for everyone.

If I had to condense Despicable Me 3 down, it would be better than the second movie but not better than the first. It is probably the best-animated movie out in theaters right now.

7/10
Minions 2 is coming out in 2020...

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Sing - reviw

1/2/2017

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Release Date: December 21, 2016

Rock Bottom? Nope

I was expecting very little from Sing. That might be a weird way to start, but it’s true. After Illumination Entertainment’s horribly underwhelming secret life of pets I was not sure the studio could do more than minions and despicable me. The through line for illumination is comedy, all of there movies are comedies and they all do it differently. While minions was pretty innovative I found secret life of pets to be unoriginal. So it was a delightful surprise to find that this movie was not comedy at all.

Sing has a message that is easy to understand and screams intent. It almost seems to be a passion project about when hitting rock bottom the only way to go is up. The story is structurally sound and does a good job weaving all of the side stories together. You would think that so many stories to tell would detract from the overall story arc, but the way that the movie unfolds lends itself to a good viewing experience. Instead of doing a story about a rising star that fits one stereotype, this movie allows for all of them to be represented. You have the underappreciated, the shy, the over confident, the has been, and the one that doesn’t fit in with their family. It checks all of the boxes and even throw in the main show runner in for another perspective.

So with a clear intent, many characters to relate to, and not being a comedy, Sing was shaping up to be a pretty great movie. Now for the most part movies where people sing, apart from Disney movies, use covers of songs and this movie is no exception. One of the most successful movies that use covers is the Pitch Perfect series, and I really don’t like those movies. This brings me to another delight in that the songs sung in this movie are really nice. Since the actors did the singing themselves it also makes the display slightly more impressive as well. The effort that Matthew McConaughey puts in his performance is what champions this movie. He might not be loved now after his Lincoln commercials, but he really does a great job in his part here. There really isn’t much to say about this movie other than it’s really good.

In comparison to other animated movies that have come out this year, this is a close second place to my favorite all year. Since both movies have similar messages to a point, but the other wins out in a deeper message and more production value. This movie on the other hand might actually be more fun to rewatch than the other one though.

All in all, Sing was a really good movie that made me feel like this was someone’s dream project. I would definitely watch it again and it doesn’t rely on any story surprises that would diminish that experience.

8/10
Best Movie Illumination has ever made

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The secret Life of Pets - Review

7/8/2016

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Release Date: July 8, 2016

Worth Seeing Because You Have A Pet?

The first thing that people accuse The Secret Life of Pets of doing, is ripping off Toy Story. The idea that when humans aren't looking, things that we don't expect to move do. This way of thinking is not appropriate for a number of reasons. The first being that if that were true, then Toy Story ripped off a movie for its premise, a movie called The Brave Little Toaster. That movie borrowed its idea from another work called The Indian in the Cupboard. So many films and works have used this story telling device way before Toy Story. Second, there are a wide variety of differences from Toy Story and The Secret Life of Pets that make it seem like they are no where near the same. So that argument has no weight to it.

What about the movie itself though? The simple answer comes down to a couple factors. The comedy in the movie is completely dull and unoriginal. I have seen the same simple gag tricks done in animated TV shows many years ago. The only redeeming thing about the movie's comedy is Kevin Heart's performance as Snowball the bunny. I know there is no review here for Central Intelligence, but that was not a great movie. Kevin Heart is basically just doing what he always does there, but in The Secret Life of Pets he is the only saving grace. Almost every single scene except for one, I laughed because of Kevin Heart's character. I want to prefecit that these were not big laughs, just little chuckles. So even if there was more of Snowball the bunny it wouldn't have been enough.

The second problem with the movie comes down to its big cast of supporting characters. There are so many things to pay attention to that you cannot completely focus on one group of characters. You can't enjoy the journey that the three main groups take in the movie because it has to cut to a different group to fill in their story. The movie wants you to form a quick connection with everyone but it is hard to do. Instead of having a deep story with a small group, you get very little information with a large group.

There are only a couple of strong suits that the movie did, but they are so minor that they cannot save this movie from itself. I will list a couple of them because they factor in with why the movie didn't work well. The first thing I noticed was that Illumination Entertainment has gone the Pixar route in which they had a short in front of the movie. This short was about the minions and it made me actually laugh, not just a chuckle. This has to do with how minion comedy is presented. With The Secret Life of Pets, the comedy was generic and uninspired while minion comedy is still amazing. This comes down to the fact that the minion comedy is inventive and something that is not widely know or used before. It is a fresh experience that catches you off guard and is genuinely funny unlike the comedy in this movie. The second thing that stood out was the first 10 min of the movie. It was an exact retread of the trailer with the alternating shots of pets and their owners. This made the movie start off really boring for me since I have seen the trailer multiple times, but I can appreciate what that means for a movie goer watching the full movie. It allows for the movie not to be spoiled by the trailer and leaves new experiences, it is a shame that the movie is not good enough to capitalize on this.

It was cool to see a garden gnome in the movie from the minion short that was shown before the movie and a poster for the next Illumination Entertainment movie on a bus. Overall, I wish I didn't see it in theaters because I was let down since Minions was far superior to this movie.

The last thing I want to bring up is the idea that this movie is better that Finding Dory. Yes, Finding Dory was not as good as Finding Nemo, but The Secret Life of Pets is also not as good as Finding Nemo. If you were to go to the movie theaters right now, go watch Finding Dory because it is still way better than this movie.

7/10
I am not looking forward to Sing

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The Grinch - Review

Despicable me 3 - Review

Sing - reviw

The secret Life of Pets - Review

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