Reviews

This show gets a lot of crap from some people. But unlike all of the other Star Trek shows, I don't think it has a bad season. Seasons 1-2 are probably weakest. But I'd watch any Voyager season over Seasons 1-2 of DS9 or season 1 or 7 of Next Generation, or any season of Enterprise.

And I think new trek shows and older ones are just different because the original series and animated series feel outdated to me. And the newer series that entered during the streaming era have about 10 episodes per seasons and don't offer the same volume per year and rely much more on continuous storylines which are just different (for better or worse). Unfortunately I think the creative team for the newer shows has the disadvantages of only receiving feedback from fans long after it's too late for them to try to correct for their unpopular decisions.

Voyager has my favorite Trek character (the doctor) along with a pretty well written captain and serviceable set of other supporting characters. The first officer, lead engineer, Harry and Nelix aren't the best Trek main characters. But they manage to fulfill what the show needed and have plenty of good moments, even if they aren't prime examples of great original new Star Trek characters. 7 of 9 is a great addition later. Tuvoc, Paris and Kess are solid most of the time. I feel like it would have been more easy to connect to the culture of a new aliens on board if they had picked one alien species for both of the Kess and Nelix characters added to the cast at the beginning rather than having two different aliens. Especially given that they rarely visit other aliens of those two species throughout the run of the show.

It also surprises me that they didn't involve the Borg in the show more from the beginning given that the ship got stuck in the quadrant known for having the borg. But overall I think the other aliens are about as good as many of the aliens devised for some of the other shows. Which is to say, most of the aliens are somewhat forgettable from a distance but serviceable for the episodes they're within. Voyager never really creates a new iconic alien species like the other shows. But it does explore holograms and the borg in much more depth than the other shows.

I think the show should have included more aliens being added and abandoned to the ship along the way. But I imagine a big concern was that changing the composition of the cast too much could make it difficult for people to follow the show if they miss many episodes. So I understand why they did what they did. Even if it doesn't seem smart today in the streaming era. And I also understand why they didn't spend a lot of episodes obsessing over the ship's limited resources from episode to episode. And that seems to be a common complaint from some people obsessed over continuity. I don't think it would have been very fun to have episodes fixated on the number of photon torpedos or shuttles remaining. And I also don't find it ridiculous given trek technology for them to have found workarounds. Such as making/buying/finding more of what they ran out of while on their journey.

I personally appreciate that the ship, unlike Next Generation, doesn't have a colony of children on board while they go through many dangerous missions.

A fun tip: you can listen to the delta flyers podcast while watching the show now, if you want some newer thoughts on the episodes from Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeil (also other guests)

I do think the voyager cast is the most entertaining trek cast to hear talk about their show at convention panels. And although that's an odd praise for a show, I do think it counts for something and makes it fun to learn more about voyager and its creation compared to some of the other shows which have cast members that are less entertaining to hear chit chat about their experiences working on the show.

I started the book but did not get far. And now after watching the movie I realize that I would have liked it probably even less if I had read the entire book. Probably the biggest problem is that none of the main characters seem likable or realistic enough in the world for me to root for them or have the emotional down-spiral of the characters to be a good tragic drama.

There is sort of this 1950s steampunk aesthetic that also made no sense to me given that this is supposed to take place in our distance future rather than the somewhat recent past. How/why would TVs in the future start to become anything like TV screens from the 50s? Are they also going to reinvent laserdiscs?

The way the hunger games unfolds makes it feel completely absurd that the winner would win even with all of the cheating. Also the 2 big dramatic scenes after the games just seems confusing. Especially intermixed with some of the other scenes around them. Maybe he works better with all of the perspectives and time that an author is given in a book. But it certainly didn't make a lot of sense to me.

Stumbling across the guns later in the film seemed way too coincidental too. And the motivations of the main characters was so inconsistent from one moment to the next near the end that he started to seem bipolar and phycho. I don't think they sufficiently developed his character so one could understand why/how he would work so hard for power and control. The beginning had him challenged that power and control so much that it was a wonder why he would even want any power and control over a society that he just barely seemed to care about.

All in all. It's a mess, but interesting to try to follow because it seems to be such a mess.

The actors seemed alright. The music was good. The cinematography was fine. But the story and characters didn't seem well developed to me. And I was frequently wondering why these characters and this timeline was being presented given that it didn't seem to answer many questions compare to all the questions and problems it raised.

The film's story is not the easiest to follow. The viewers are immersed in a very beautiful different world from reality with only a few of the peculiarities explained in a particularly clear way. The whimsical quality of the word reminded me a bit of Roald Dahl, but with anime. I'm not an anime expert. If anything I'm a novice. But I had an enjoyable time.

I saw the English dubbed version and was impressed with the voice acting. They got some A list actors to participate. And they did a great job. The anime style grew on me over time. The style of the storytelling not sufficiently explaining thing annoyed me more as the movie progressed. At the beginning you hope that some of the stuff will be explained by the end. But near the end it becomes clear that only a few of the confusing moments are going to be addressed, and not necessarily in the most satisfying way. I feel like the book might be the better place for me to have learned about this world, but that's a shame, because even a graphic novel would fail to replicate the visual spectacle which is the movie.

If I was in charge i probably would have provided an explainer in the opening of some of the basic components of the world (like in Lord of the Rings or something like that). Maybe just something about some of the atypical characters and magic, and then left the film to unveil the details of the moving castle, and the nature of much of the magic curses.

Overall I think 7 out of 10 is a pretty average score for this movie which has some A+ content. But the story and ability to comprehend and invest in the world isn't the strong part of the movie. And that seems very important to me. Those who rate it higher were probably less interested in the story, and those who rated it worse probably were even more annoyed than me at the difficulty to comprehend certain events in the picture.

As a fan of 90s tv and movies it's great to see a movie with Bebe from Frasier, the lead from Schindler's list and Mary Albright from 3rd rock from the sun all in the same movie. They all did a great job. Especially Kingsley who one might not recognize if they didn't know that he's in the movie. He's such a chameleon.

It was excellent to see an alien movie which isn't like all the others, yet is also familiar to the others in its basic structure.

My biggest complaint of the movie was the ending. It felt like a missed opportunity to do something a bit more interesting and surprising. If almost felt like the first draft before someone developed the more satisfying or surprising ending.

The movie has a lot of great laughs at the way the characters interact with the alien. It's very charming, quirky and fun. I'd never consider it one of the best films of the year. But it was definitely a fun time and an engaging picture. And that'a more than you can say about a lot of movies.

I wanted to like it. But I just didn't. The story wasn't very compelling to me because it seemed as if the entire point of much of the movie was to provide learning moments for viewers with some slapstick comedy and quick-delivery comedy. The story itself should nearly always be more important.

All of the goofiness largely would have been excused to me if the comedic moments were really funny. And the way this film was hyped made me think it was going to be super funny. But I rarely laughed. And that's even more of a shame given the talent assembled for the cast. There also weren't many surprising reveals to the audience when maybe there could have been if things were presented differently.

I also found it annoying to see Will Farrell play a similar part to what he played in the Lego Movie. Sure he's a CEO rather than a dad. But he was filling the same evil disciplinarian adult role for a movie about a kid's toy. It just felt lazy to not cast someone else for that part, and just made me wish the movie was able to provide the humor and intrigue that the first Lego movie provided to its audience.

I'd rather this film felt like a comedy or dramatic experience which has some relevant takes on feminism and culture than thinly veiled sermon with occasional jokes that land amongst a ton that didn't land.

I also felt like the movie had way too many characters and ideas thrown together. There was Barbie, Ken, many other Barbies, many other Kens, the crazy Barbie, the CEOs, the mother, the teen, the narrator and more. And it's not just that they had all of these characters. They also tried to have some learning moments delivered-by or delivered-to a majority of these characters. I felt like they would have been better off trying to deliver all these lessons over 3-5 movies rather than 1. And obviously you don't want it ever to seem like the lessons are being delivered but experiences through the story and the consequences of the actions and stakes created by the characters' decisions. Instead there didn't seem like any stakes because the Barbies didn't seem to fit in the real world and the real people didn't fit in the Barbie world.

Honestly my favorite part of the movie was a lot of the Easter egg stuff about odd Barbie products over the years. And Easter eggs shouldn't be the best part of any movie. They should be a bonus to the overall experience of the story.

This movie was very good. It's not likely a film that a wide audience will want to see or that a lot of viewers will chose to see frequently even if they like the film. It'd be a terrible romantic date movie.

But it's a well crafted script and story about a really important issue that is finally starting to be taken more serious by politicians on both sides, while the issue is also becoming increasingly problematic.

I thought the direction, acting, score, and editing were good. I especially respected the acting and directing given that many of the characters needed to be bilingual and a lot of kids were required to act out some really difficult scenes for children. I didn't think it was problematic the way the content was presented. There is a point near the beginning where they seem to show actual footage of kidnappings. As long as the parents of the kidnapped kids gave permission, I'm all for showing actual examples or replicating the look of security footage of such real crimes. Some viewers seemed to take issue with that decision. But I thought some real examples and more numerous examples of what can go wrong will help parents understand more contexts to be mindful of their kids' safety.

I gave it 8.5 stars rather than 10 for a few small reasons. The film seemed a tad slow. I had trouble understanding why/how the main character happened to be at the border to find a specific missing kid who he knew was missing. Was that a coincidence (if so, why not make a reference to how crazy of a coincidence it was) or did they do a bad job of showing to me that they knew that this kid was going to be transported across the border imminently? Anyway, I thought that this particular chapter of the film wasn't well communicated to me and likely most audience members. I also didn't like the extent of the religious undertones of the narrative. The main character is part of the LDS church, and I think it's fine to accurately portray religious characters as religious. But It's not only religious people who are against kids being trafficked and not all of the victims are going to be religious as well. And it seems inappropriate to speak in terms as if all children subscribe to the same basic religious structure.

I've heard that some of the story might be a bit off. But I feel like I'm not in a good position to know who's reported account is accurate, and I feel like some minor alterations are to be expected in movies based on true stories. As long as it doesn't go really far away from reality while trying to convey a real-ish account of what occurred.

I also wish they had made the timeframe of the story a bit clearer. Especially given that in the sorry they use a timely pandemic as part of an undercover plan. I've since gathered that this happened around the late 2000s to early 2010s and it was probably the swine flu. But it wasn't clear to me at that time of watching when it was supposed to take place other than some point in the most recent 20 years.

Another thing that wasn't covered much in the film on purpose is that a lot of trafficked victims who were rescued are adult aged or old enough to pass as adults. This film portrayed only the preteen children as victims of this particular ring or victims. Probably to make the villains more clearly awful and to avoid people thinking that the film being against legal sex work for consenting adults. But I feel like the true nature of the issue is better to be addressed honestly even if the truth is a bit more complicated.

I definitely recommend the film to anyone comfortable with the material and think they did a terrific job with the film. I just feel it could have been a bit better, even though it was still excellent.

I struggled to put into words for a while why I didn't like this movie until realizing that it would have been better as a documentary. I was told that it wasn't preachy compared to other Christian movies. I beg to differ. I have an unlimited movie viewing account for regal so I gave it Jesus Revolution try despite not being religious. That said I was a Christian and was raised within Christianity in California in a non-denominational church which had some members who had a similar idea of Christianity as many of the hippie Christians in this film.

Overall I had nothing bad to say about the cinematography, directing, acting or editing. My issue was with the writing and content of the movie itself.

No character outside the Jesus Movement in the movie seems to raise many of the questions and concerns I had about the movement. The story seems to go after the boring puritanical Christians and the more traditional hippies of that late 60s/early 70s era who are all about the sex, drugs and rock and roll, by presenting the "Jesus hippies" as the mid-way solution. I appreciate people having the freedom to be "Jesus hippies", but to me the movie did seem to be preaching Jesus hippies and a specific brand of Christianity as the answer to people's problems and societies problems. And in the movie their "proof" was that the movement became popular and was featured in a Life magazine by a writer who was surprised how interested he became in the movement while covering the movement.

It reminds me of that Super Bowl ad from a few years ago trying to conflate a need for Christians finding a central common ground with American finding a common ground. As a proud citizen of the U. S. who doesn't identify-with or worship either side, it feels annoying to be shown that combining the two sides is "the answer" to establishing peace for humanity (or the country in the case of the Super Bowl as). There is never an attempt by any of the Christian characters to really address a lot of the more outdated and troublesome claims in the Bible, like misogyny or God condoning slavery and God or Jesus never claiming it to be be wrong. They also never address why anyone should treat a historically alleged "holy book" as "holy" in the first place. I guess my thought is that if the movie wanted to preachy, they should have better committed to being preachy rather than the subtle preaching displayed in the movie. And if they didn't want the movie to be preachy, they should have better defending an understanding that many hippies felt better off not being Jesus hippies and planty of people felt better off not being Christians or their brand of Christian. And there is no real proof that someone's life or afterlife will be ruined by not being a hip Christian.

Another issue I had was that a character who is shown joining the Jesus movement is shown shortly later trying to lead another congregation without any scene devoted to showing him actually learning anything about the specific claims of the religion he joined. I feel the average Christian in the United States would get very annoyed if another religion was presenting in such a manner where someone has an experience which they interpret as mystical, and then later they are shown preaching that religion which they attributed as being mystical without the character ever shown learning or even addressing any of the actual tenets and claims of the religion besides being baptized. It felt like the movie wasn't sure if it was trying to recruit non-Christians or comfort existing Christians. And IMO it really would have been better off objectively discussing the Jesus Revolution like a documentary.

There is a lot going for this film. It has some nice and interesting cinematography choices for a film with a lot of dialogue and much of the story taking place in one small location. The entire film visually has very low saturation, but a wide field of view which to me reflected on how the setting of the film seems old fashion without really actually taking place in a black and white only era for film-making. It's an interesting juxtaposition which was noticeable, but not too distracting or off putting.

The story was engaging and seemed relevant. It starts late into the story which I liked. It reminded me of a female iteration of 12 angry men with a debate where the viewer gets caught up on what they're dealing with while hearing their debate.

The drawbacks to me are that I wish that it had ending a bit later timeline-wise so we could have seen how the decisions at the end really worked-out for the group long term. There is a small amount of implied positive resolution. But I wanted a few details.

The one prominent male character also seemed like a plot hole given that he had seemed to enter real society and returned to the oppressive location of his upbringing with sympathy for the victims. I also would have liked if they could have better shown how/why he returned and didn't do more to help out the victims.

Overall it's a good and beautiful sad drama film with some fabulous writing and acting on display. I definitely recommend watching it when you're in the mood for this type of film.

The story of a Grinch-like person who becomes a hero has been done a bunch of times before. However, if the story is constructed in a good way it can feel like it's own special thing. And I felt this movie felt different enough the others to seem fresh and entertaining.

I know this movie is a remake of a foreign film/book. I haven't seen the others and could certainly understand them maybe being better. That said, I thought this US version was very good. My biggest gripe perhaps is that some of the smaller characters are a bit too cartoonish for it to feel like a very realistic drama when it needs to feel that way.

Overall I was very satisfied because I liked the story and the team did a good job of making decisions which were all about supporting that story.

It also touches on some modern relevant topics in the periphery to keep things interesting such as: Immigration, housing, medical privacy, and transgender acceptance. They play supporting roles to the main storyline which keeps the viewer on their toes and makes the story seem modern and more relevant for an audience in 2022/2023.

This film collectively is too long/slow and lacking in enough intrigue or comedy to keep me entertained. I did enjoy an occasional moment or idea presented in the movie. The setting was enjoyable. The pets were entertaining. A few of the characters and small moments in the story were amusing the way they were presented. The actors did a nice job. The scenery and filming were fine. I don't know if some main point of the movie was to be meta by providing the same kind of blandness in the movie that one character feels in another character to justify the story event which is the foundation for the movie's tiny plot. If that was the point, it was awful. If that wasn't the point, what I saw was still awful.

I suspect it might have also tried to be "deep" with the story by having a civil war between two characters reflect Irelands civil war. If so, I still wasn't impressed. I'm guessing that critics over-inflated the review score of this movie because it's different and tries unusual things. I'm all for innovation for a feature film if/when it works to support the overall story.

But in this case I didn't get any deep emotional or intellectual payoff from the ambitious ideas. Overall it felt frustrating more than anything else.

It reminded me in a bad way of the Lighthouse movie a few years earlier with Robert Pattinson and Willem Defoe. Although this movie was better if I had to pick one over the other. However, they're two of the worst movies I've seen the last few years. And they both garnered award considerations for some incomprehensible reason to me.

My advice to viewers: stay away from Inisherin if you like to feel like there is a story in the film worthy of a feature length runtime. And to me that's essential for a movie to be great. I don't care how good the cinematography, special effects or acting is for a movie. If the story of the movie is bad or impossible to connect with, it's never going to be worthy of 75+ minutes of my undivided attention for a peice of art/entertainment. I don't care how popular or good the reviews are, or what else the filmmakers have created. Even spectacular filmmakers can produce some content on occasion that's just bad. The fact that it might also be different or ambitious should not be treated as a valid defense for boring, incomprehensible and/or pretentious crap.

I enjoyed this film a lot. It didn't seem perfect. Especially the last 20 or so minutes. But I found the story very compelling, and if you ask me, the story is nearly always the most important part of a movie's construction. The acting of Brendan Fraser might be overblown as the key or best part about this film. He did a fine job. But I thought the entire cast was fine and that Brendan has received a lot of love because he was so visually transformed for the role and his character is so central to the storytelling and is given so many opportunities to demonstrate deep emotions over the course of the runtime.

There are a few interesting story reveals which I thought were disguised pretty well so the typical audience member might not predict the outcome. The directing choice as well to have the movie in a 4 to 3 aspect ratio seemed to support the movie effectively. Not only did it help with the framing for certain closeup shots. It also helped envelop the viewer into the narrow world in which this story takes place and keeps focus on the characters within the narrative as opposed to providing a lot of background space to distract from the characters.

One other note for the film. The sound and score were typically subtle and a good supportive part to the storytelling. A lot of times brash and garish music is applauded by reviewers when IMO it's too much and a distraction and detriment. This film probably doesn't have a lot of people commenting on the music and sound. But that doesn't mean that it wasn't good and effective for the movie. I felt it fit really well. Overall the movie is great. You just might not want to watch it if you're in the mood for something cheerful, light or fun. You ought to be in the mood for a serious drama if you're going to watch this and appreciate it.

This film is gross and odd and vulgar from the start. There is an initial party sequence which felt to me like I was watching a depiction of the Garden of Earthly Delights painting. It didn't feel like a genuine depiction of a rich Hollywood 1920s party. More like a rich 1960s-present day party. I didn't get a lot of humor from it or poignance. It was a clue for much of what was to come within the movie.

Maybe I'm just an idiot, but the style just felt odd to me. I didn't find it funny. It sometimes felt dramatic. But it didn't seem like we were ever meant to take a dramatic scene as too dramatic or the comedic moments especially didn't seem like they were meant to be too comedic. So it mostly felt uncomfortable and unrealistic in spite of certain issues being real and important deep issues for society.

Maybe if more of it the events depicting actual actors or films, I would have supported the style of the filming and storytelling. But most of the movies and characters were made-up. Yet they still seemed uninterestingly like characters seen in a million other movies about artists trying to make it in an indifferent capitalistic world.

I did like some of the commentary at the end of the film when three timeline made it to the early 50s after skipping about 20 years. But it wasn't enough to salvage the movie. And it didn't seem as clever as they might have been hoping for it to seem.

There was so much going on that it was hard to grasp a message or a clear point to what we were being presented-with.

The busy style made it hard for me to take the overall story too seriously. But it also had all 3 main characters dealing with dramatic narratives and obstacles. Plus a couple smaller side characters also dealing with dramatic obstacles.

I didn't feel that they adequately showed one of the main characters attain his success. He was just suddenly a success. I didn't see much humor or cleverness to the way these different characters existed. Their storylines didn't really come together enough to make it feel like an audience benefited by all of them being explored the way they were presented in this film. Margo Robbie and Diego Calva were good companion characters through the majority of the film. Brad Pitt and especially the two or three smaller side characters didn't seem very meaningful to most the overall story. I enjoyed Toby McGwire's cameo part. But it wasn't going to save the movie.

I think I overall just wanted to feel like I knew what they were doing so I could maybe enjoy and appreciate their intent and execution if it was good. And in the end I just didn't feel that it was understandable to have the chance of being good. If felt like the script was a first draft of too many ideas by too many writers. And no one took charge and streamlined the entire product into something worth consuming and appreciating. There were good moments from time to time. Which is why I gave it more than 1-3 stars. But those moments seemed to exist in spite of the rest of the movie's troubles.

I liked the mix of characters more in this one. The larger mix of protagonist characters made for a less predictable list of specific narrative events compared to the first film. There were also just more characters to keep track-of and keep the viewer focused. The overall story events were appropriately what most people should suspect. But the 3D viewing experience kept me entertained and engaged the entire time. I suspect some of the more negative reviews might have come from people who saw it in 2D. I imagine some of the long visual sequences could get a little slower and less engaging without the 3D.

The story seemed less unimaginative than the first Avatar. This isn't to say the story is brilliantly written or innovative. But it didn't feel to me almost like a carbon copy storyline of two other colonialism movies like the first Avatar film. And for me that's a big plus.

The visual effects were also incredible to likely no one's surprise. They someone seem to exceed expectations even when everyone is expecting them to be brilliant from the start.

A couple negative notes which apply more to this film than the first Avatar: A lot of the story early is communicated via voiceover. And in this film there aren't even video logs as an excuse for the blatant exposition within the storytelling. Another complaint is that this film feels more like a setup for more films compared to the first one which feels like it could have worked as a solo film is it somehow was the same, but didn't make enough money to justify any sequels.

This movie was a lot of fun. It managed to both be similar and different from Knives out depending on how you look at the two films. I'd say that I like the entire package of Knives Out a little bit more. Especially the ending. That said, there are some things about The Glass Onion which are more likable than Knives Out. In particular, the Glass Onion seems like a more imaginative and atypical who-done-it in the way the story is presented and organized than Knives Out. It is less linear and has more nuggets which made me want to immediately rewatch the movie after seeing it the first time.

Daniel Craig's character is only character in both films. But both films similarly explore a lot of red herrings and a lot of amusing, entitled, rich characters caught up in a nasty situation where many of them seem like reasonable suspects. In both films I was rooting for the more ordinary working class characters to win in the end. And there are satisfying conclusions in both of the films even if though I preferred the conclusion to the first movie. Overall though, I could probably watch another 3+ Knives out movies is they continue to decline at the slow speed between 1 and 2. And there's no guarantee that a 3rd movie wouldn't be better than the 2nd and/or 1st one. I hope they can continue to make more solid films like these.

Maybe there is just something about me, but I wasn't very entertained or emotionally moved by this movie. Sure I wasn't the target demographic. I'm not a teen of female or Asian or from Canada like the main character. I did however live through the early 2000s at about the same age of the main character. I can recall what girls around my age were like around middle school and was familiar with feeling like my parents didn't understand my needs as a teenager like most teenagers in the digital, but pre-smartphone era. And I did feel live with being held to higher educational standards than others kids my age around the early 2000s. The movie 8th Grade seemed to offer a better look at an option for how to take the coming of age experience as a drama. And something like Inside Out offered some good sequences for how that kind of story could be handled at times comedically. I just didn't feel like the changes in drama and comedy were natural for the story. They just felt forced as a desperate attempt to keep the viewer attentive, and interested from moment to moment.

The animation and voice acting were nothing to write home about positively or negatively. Overall the story and style seemed to be trying to be too much. And didn't get me to laugh appreciatively about it And not in a clever allegorical way. But in a bash you over the head kind of way. Hopefully 2023 will be a better year for Pixar than 2022.

It's incredible how this entire series can both be so good and also appear so much like a shameless self promotion for Paramount. After all it is all about producers and executives for Paramount and it is streaming on Paramount plus.

It's an interesting ride to see all of the components necessary to produce this film, given its mafia overtones and how known the story was from the book prior to pre-production. It's interesting to see all of the many ways the wrong decision could have been made and nearly were made. I'm sure some of the specifics aren't perfectly presented how they really happened like many stories based on real events. But it never feels like it's crazy different from what likely really happened.

The characters are well written. No prominent character is perfectly good or evil. Some of the main characters are more likable than others in different ways. From time to time they are backstabbing each other or putting themselves on the line to support a co-worker for the sake of the project. It just feels very authentic to what it was likely like to make a movie at that time in that environment. Collaborative art is messy in the best of circumstances. The series address issues of work culture of the time without seeming to scold everyone for ever being associated with the workplace of the late 60s and early 70s.

It's probably more fun if you're into filmmaking in general rather than into The Godfather specifically. But those who are into both will probably like it the most.

This film is one of the strangest I've ever seen. And If feels to me unusually as if it's strangeness is both an asset and detriment. It's as if I don't know if I'm more impressed or horrified that this script somehow got green lit. Usually I pretty clearly think a film is good or bad.

I like that it's a pretty original idea. I think the actors did an alright job. Especially John Malkovich himself and Catherine Keener. The visual effects are nothing special. But they at least hold up which is admirable given that this film came out in the late 90s.

I feel like this film is one where it's important for a new viewer to watch it under the right context. If they know that's it's truly bizarre and elicites shrugging and bemused scoffs, the new viewer will probably have a good time. If they're more than if they're told that it's some deep important ground breaking film of that it's one of the worse movies ever. It's not an average film. But I feel like it's deserving of a score out of 10 of an average movie (like 6.5 or 7 out of 10.

The animation is amazing. The story is nothing special or particularly original. I kept waiting for something in the story to surprise me in a good special Pixar way, and it just never did. I think the decisions of some of the characters could have been fleshed out a bit better. The Dad could have suffered a tragedy while seeming less clueless, Arlo could have been less annoying early on in the story. I also struggled to understand why the boy decided to befriend Arlo initially and I felt it could have been a much more interesting ending if Arlo tried to arrange for the humans and Dinosaurs to live together or at least have his family accept his friendship with the human boy.

I think the film overall is a hair better than Brave. But I think Brave might be the worst Pixar movie of the first 18 Pixar films. I've be watching all of the Pixar movies in order and was surprising that I enjoyed Cars 2 more than Brave or The Good Dinosaur. And those 3 are films I think I only saw when they initially came out. And rewatching them reminds me of why I only saw them when they initially came-out. But the animation is still top notch. And it shines a little brighter on a film that I'm less familiar-with. That's the best thing this movie has going for it. Pixar should invest more time and money into story development if they want to return to their golden era when every movie in a row was either good or really good. Visual aesthetics can only take you so far.

I didn't take long for me to not care about the overall story narrative because the story became so quickly and completely divorced from reality. For about 10 minutes early in the movie they seemed concerned about it seemly like this was an actual train in the real world. Then after that the violence and fighting which would have brought the train to a stop and authorities to the scene never happened

Nothing felt ordinary or regular, and that made all of the interesting characters and situations uninteresting because they didn't exist in contrast to anything very ordinary or relatable at all.

Another odd thing was how many English speakers there were in Japan speaking English with expectations of all of the local Japanese characters understanding their English. In some scenes they would speak only Japanese but seem to perfectly understand everything that the character spoke in English.

The best thing the film had going for it was that it had some nice visual effects, shocking action moments, acting moments and crazy visuals that made it fun to follow as complete absurd escapism. And for a lot of people that's enough to make them to be happy at the movies.

But I feel like if a story is going to be crazy like this one, why not make it an animated film and/or science fiction world for the characters to inhabit so the occurrences can seem less ridiculous? Or else make it a complete comedy where people cannot believe how long and absurd everything is able to get all along the ride. Instead in this film everything is portrayed as if it could really happen until maybe the end. And by then it's too late.

This film seems to spark a lot of people to say that this film is completely terrible or that it's completely fabulous because it included a gay relationship in the periphery of the main story, and to an even lesser extent, a convict character who is sympathetic. So. I'll address that quickly: None of that seemed like a big selling-point or issue with the movie to me. And those reviewer who make the movie all about those things seem to say more about themself in their review than the movie itself.

Overall I found the movie better than what I was expecting based on it's IMDB score, but still far from being a Pixar classic.

The animation is very good, the story is solid even if it feels like a lot of the ideas have been done before in different ways and feels like a few ideas didn't quite work as well as possible. In some ways it reminded me of an inferior "Up". The main protagonist's circumstance were less sympathetic and more a result of his actual decisions. Overall I wonder how the movie would have looked if it had explored a B storyline for another character during some of the time-jumps. I also think the twist could have been established a little better than it was.

The voice acting for the film is fine. I didn't think a lot of the comedy landed well for me. But it wasn't awful like a lot of kids movies either and didn't detract much from the drama of the main story. Overall it will be acceptable to most audiences, with the robot cat being a likely favorite character for many viewers. Most kids will probably like it a bit more than adults and not notice or care much about the politically controversial content unless their guardians have already primed them to have an major opinion about it like them.

I'd say it's a good time at the theater and better than the average score right now of 5.8. But don't expect it to be a classic Pixar film like Coco, Up, Walle, or Toy Story 1-3.

This movie is insane. It has multiple universes, an IRS audit, oddball comedy, insane action sequences featuring buttplug statues and dildos to name a few, a main character who is a middle aged low-wage immigrant worker, her husband who is scared of her and wants to divorce her (at least in the main universe). And none of those are really the main storyline. The main storyline is a troubled mother and daughter struggling to connect due to a variety of factors. And it's later revealed that this issue stretched across multiple universes and realities to which it manifests itself in an absolutely bonkers way. The movie sometimes puzzles over what reality....is....man...you know. And how small we are, whatever we are.

Overall I felt the pace and moment where the 2nd act meats the 3rd act was the weakest part. I felt like it the pacing near the last 45 minutes seemed too slow as well. I also think it might have been improved if one or two of the alternative universes had been cut to keep the story more digestible.

But overall I had a fun time. I want to reassure people that I'm not someone who always loves crazy, artsy, sci-fi movies. I despised, the Matrix movies, Tenet and The Green Knight movies for instance. And all of those films have similarities to this one. However, this movie has moments which I found very funny. It doesn't treat the sci-fi concepts too seriously when they're clearly ridiculous. And it does take the family dynamic between the characters seriously. And that to me makes this movie worth watching and recommending. It's probably more fun to see while on drugs. I'm sure it has as a lot of interesting Easter eggs to spot on additional viewings as well. The acting and cinematography are great. The script is good given how many issues it could have had for how ambitious the scale is for this story. Overall, it's a film I would recommend. Just prepare yourself for insanity beforehand, and you'll only be rather surprised by what you see. Luckily it's also engaging and emotionally relatable rather than just odd for the sake of being odd.

Maybe there's a good reason stories aren't commonly told linearly for one partner's perspective and backwards for the other's perspective. That's the way this musical is presented.

Apparently for the original musical the lead man and woman don't play off each other in their scenes but props or puppets or something like that apart from the last song in the first act when their stories reach one another. It sounds like a slightly better idea the way it apparently was done in the stage production, but still contrived.

I'm all for originality and artists attempting to try to do ambitious things. But in the end virtually all musicals and movies (including this one) are stories. And an audience more than anything wants to see a good story. And if an interesting, and original idea isn't improving the storytelling, but instead is an impediment or curiosity rather than a cogent decision which enhances the viewing experience, someone IMO has made a mistake.

It's too bad because a lot of the other pieces are good. But I just cannot get past the foundational way this story is presented. It makes it impossible for me to recommend this or give it more than a 4 out of 10.

This is a solid kids movie that is also fine for adults. I like Seth McFarland. But getting rid of his mouse character seemed like a good idea for this one. The protagonist characters not competing against each other in this offering made the overall chemistry between them stronger and allowed the storylines arcs to be different while also all fitting together effectively.

I liked the new characters, and the pacing more in this Sing than the original. The animation is nice in both films but arguably stronger in this one.

The comedic style and overall story presentation for this film felt a bit more over the top than the first one. And in the case of a kids animated movie, I find that to be a positive rather than a negative. For a good chunk of the first movie I was wondering why the story had animals as opposed to human characters. I'm this one it felt much more natural and normal for the characters to be animals and seem like a CGI animated cartoon movie.

My guess is that if you like the King Richard movie, you'll probably like this one too. They aren't exactly the same. But they both have solid feel-good scripts for true underdog athletes making it by unconventional methods. The family dynamics are very different and what makes the athletes underdogs is very different as well. I enjoyed seeing Anna Paquin in the film. If feels like it's been a long time since I've seen her in such a prominent role in some new movie. She has a different more adult character than I'm used to seeing for her. She does a nice job as well as Zachary Levi and the other supporting actors. I wonder if the writers knew Zachary was going to have the part before or after his character ha s line saying that "Zachary is a nice name". I was surprised to see that I was the only one in the theater who seemed to pick up on it. It might be because I was longing for the story to have more jokes. But sometimes certain characters are honestly interesting and just not that funny. And I'm trusting that was the case for this story.

Luckily the movie is well-paced, and a slow pace really could have killed a movie like this. From an editing standpoint, I like how they mixed new filmed footage with old real footage of the actual games. I image that could make the filming really difficult to try to perfectly match the actual game footage. Overall I felt they did a good job of switching between the two.

I think this story like Moneyball does a good job of unveiling flaws in sports scouting. Warner was cut from Green Bay for seemingly no reason other than some perceived character defect which didn't seem to be much of a defect at all IMO. It reminded me of some of those scenes from Moneyball where the scouts are making silly criteria for what does or doesn't make a successful athlete based on the looks of a player's girlfriend or other silly rationales.

As a non-religious person I was worried that the film would be too religiously preachy. But in the end I felt like what they presented was just an honest depiction of the characters they had to work with. They don't seem to be much different from a lot of generally good families who happen to believe in some supernatural Gods who no one seems capable of demonstrating exist.

Although I'd prefer protagonist characters to not be religious or get their way while remaining religious, I don't condone storytellers leaving out someone's religion when it matters to the character's story arc. In a few circumstances this story presents some solid reasons to question whether or not there's a God or if there is a God whether he/she/it cares at all about some person's dream to playing football. Overall I felt the story never went out of it's way to be negative towards non-religious people or imply that religious types of mediation or self confidence affirmation are perfectly reliable or the only ways for people to finding meaning or a sense of comfort. The characters might or might not think that way in real life. I didn't know much about them going into the movie apart from the fact that Kurt Warner was a Christian and open about it. But I'm perfectly willing for now to accept that Kurt and his wife are nice likable non-judgmental people worthy of a positive story about their journey, even if they like country music and live in Kansas and go to church and subscribe to a bunch of other stuff that isn't to my taste. Their story overall still seems to be a solid one worthy of this film depiction.

I'd give this a 6 if it was a theatrical release. But for a streaming film I give it a 7 which I feel is slightly above average.

As a person who was about the same age of the main character at the same year in time it was fun to see, even if most of the rest didn't really mimic my life. Perhaps I would have been more critical if it wasn't so suited for someone of my age. But I also was never into punk rock and never lost my parents or was raised by a non-biological parent. So some people could relate more to those components.

It seems like a good film to put on with a family with people of many ages. And it's nice to have movies like that available on Netflix.