Air movie 8/10

 

Alice in Wonderland (2010) - 4/10

I'm not even sure where to start. I honestly thought this was pretty bad. After seeing this, I can't say I get why this ever had any sort of audience. I don't think I've ever seen a movie try so hard to homage a classic story and ultimately feel more like an insult. It's like everyone involved in this movie completely failed to understand the source material. Wonderland isn't supposed to be some sort of epic Lord of the Rings-esque fantasy world with rules and lore. It's supposed to lack logic, like a trippy dream. That's the whole point! I'm not saying this "isn't enough like the cartoon/book" or something. By all means, change stuff up if that's the artistic vision. But you can't just throw out the whole premise and call it by the same name. I maybe could have looked the other way if they had called it something else (say, "Alice in Underland" or "Alice: the Epic Quest" or something). But it's straight up called "Alice in Wonderland", and they didn't deliver on that. Literally...the place isn't even called 'Wonderland' within the context of the story. It's just awful.

I was confused as to whether this was a sequel to the Disney cartoon or not. It's made by Disney, it's certainly not a remake or the original, and some of the flashbacks mirror the scenes from the animated movie. Everything is treated like nostalgia-bait, so it feels like it should be a sequel. But the caterpillar isn't a butterfly, and everything looks entirely different. Because of all the differences I'm assuming it's not a sequel to the cartoon, which I'm completely fine with because I love the cartoon. I guess it's just a sequel to the story in general.

I have trouble finding much of anything I liked in this movie. I liked the design of the playing card knights, and I chuckled a couple times. That's about it. I found the visual style pretty ugly. Everything had that blurry CGI look, and 99.9% of the movie was painfully obviously a greenscreen. Was this considered good for 2010? Some poor/dated CGI can still look charming, but I just thought this looked ugly and a bit embarrassing. And the ending epilogue was downright cringeworthy. Not what happened necessarily (they were neat ideas), but the execution of them was awful. It was all so rushed, it felt like the last chapter of a fanfiction that the author just got bored of writing. To be fair, the animated movie had a rushed epilogue too, but at least it flowed. Plus, animation is hard and time consuming, so it's understandable that they didn't want to waste too much time in the real world. This just felt like they just wanted to get to the credits as soon as possible. I was actually feeling secondhand embarrassment at several points in this movie, and the ending was one of them.

This reminded me a lot of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I despise that movie too, because (similar to this) he missed the point of the beloved original. On a purely objective level I'd probably give this a 5 or 6 out of 10, but I'm bumping it down a couple points because I didn't think this had any rewatch value (which is something I take into consideration when I rate movies). I was a bit bored, I actually considered shutting it off halfway through and finishing it another day. I went into this planning to watch this movie and the sequel, but I now have no plans to watch the sequel. My recommendation? Avoid this movie like the plague and go watch the original instead. I think this may be the lowest I've rated a movie on here.

 

King Kong Escapes (English Dub version) - 9/10

 

Koe no katachi (Shape of Voice) 9/10

 

The Jungle Book (1967) - 8.5/10

Ever since the live-action one came out, that has kind of been my go-to Jungle Book. And while I think that's probably a tighter movie overall, this one is still pretty dang enjoyable. And the lack of a tight narrative isn't necessarily a bad thing, it's supposed to be kind of like a road trip. The important thing is that all the individual situations are a blast to watch, they're all a lot of fun. I loved this movie as a kid and I'm glad to say it still holds up.

 

The Fellowship Of The Ring: Chuck Norris/10
An awesome, well shot, beautiful movie.

 

Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise Of Skywalker - 10/10

Excellent way to finish the saga

 

Contact: 10/10

One of my favorite movies. Wish they would do a sequel to show the Vegans and the other worlds...

 

Tenki no Ko (Weathering with you) 9/10 I liked it even more the 2nd time.

 

Try Paprika.

The movie which inspired this film.

 

I totally agree. I like Tim Burton’s movies, and I thought AiW was awful. The sad thing is, this movie’s success helped lead to the flood of live-action remakes of classic Disney animated films. I never understood why this movie was so successful.

 

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) - Infinity/10
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) - Unwatchable/10

 

Sonic the Hedgehog
7.5/10

It was good. The jokes landed more than they missed. The action scenes were great. Sonic was likable. Marsden was too. Robotnik was over the top villainous, which suits him. It had some heart, though the big emotional moments felt by-the-numbers.

I kept thinking that for a kid watching this, who hadn’t already seen a ton of movies like this, everything would probably be way more effective. I could see Robotnik making it onto a lot of kids Top 10 villains list. The big emotional moments wouldn’t feel cookie cutter. Yeah.

Anyway, good movie. Great videogame movie. Had fun.

 

Is it bad, that I now want to see how awful it is for myself? In that train wreck sort of way?

 

Uncut Gems - 6/10

I thought Adam Sandler was really great in this but the movie itself was just ok. It was only a little over 2 hours and it felt like 3.

 

Batman v Superman 2/10

Decided to give this a rewatch the other day. The plot is a complete mess and nothing about Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor is remotely redeemable. The sad part about all of this is that Batfleck and Cavill’s Superman are really great but they just couldn’t catch a break and I’m the end that’s why the DC universe continues to fail.

 

I’ve always felt that Affleck & Cavill were great casting choices but just never got great material to work with. It’s sad seeing so much good in these films brought down by mediocre-to-bad scripts.

 

Wayne's World is great. Sorry you didn't like it. (Had to use the gif. Obligatory)

 

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - 7/10

This was the only Indiana Jones movie (of the original 3) that I didn't really watch much growing up. I think I saw it when I first got into Indiana Jones, or maybe just bits and pieces of it.

I enjoyed it, but I definitely think it's the weakest of the original 3. The supporting characters are kind of annoying, and it's a bit too dark and contained for my taste. It's a neat premise, but I missed the sweeping globe trotting settings of the first and third movies. I thought some of the effects looked a bit...unfinished, maybe?. It's certainly better than Crystal Skull, but I'm not sure I'd revisit Temple of Doom much in the future. I might actually be quicker to rewatch Crystal Skull, even with it's glaring flaws. It's just a bit funner of a watch for me. Still, Temple of Doom had some great moments. The whole bridge scene was great, especially. Harrison Ford is always great to watch as Indy, and a lot of the sets and visuals were impressive.

I'd definitely say check it out at least once. This is some people's favorite. I can't say I feel that way, but there is certainly plenty to appreciate.

Yesterday I watched RedLetterMedia's review of Willy Wonka, in which they show clips from Burton's remake. And as much as I dislike that movie, I actually think the visual style looks more like Wonderland than Burton's Wonderland did. Like, this is basically what Wonderland looked like in the animated movie. The backgrounds were dark, and the foreground locations were colorful and brightly lit (almost like they have a spotlight on them). I wish Burton used this aesthetic in Alice in Wonderland too.

I don't quite think it's a "so bad it's good" movie. I was mostly bored and just waiting for it to end. But you could always check it out, maybe you'd feel different.

 

I didn't think the remake of Chocolate Factory was that terrible. I mean, the wife and I watched them back to back. I grew up with the old one, so I knew it, but she'd never seen it. Seeing them in close proximity, there's lots of comparisons to be made. And yeah, the new one dropped the ball on certain story aspects, especially as the story wound down in the end, but it's not like it's a horrible experience. Just another cash-grab remake that, while it didn't need to exist, doesn't really offend me like some of the much worse remakes.

Like Point Break. Now there's a remake that needs to die in a fire.