Saturday Evening Cartoons: 2018 Movie Cath-Up

Over the past month I've been catching up on a lot of the movies I missed this year. I figured I'd do a short review of the four animated films I watched.

Early Man
     The latest film from Aardam Animation does not disappoint. The story follows Dug, an ambitious caveman who gets his tribe caught up in a soccer tournament to save their ancestral home. Though a little too reliant on sports movie cliches, the film does a good job subtly exploring concepts related to societal progress and tradition, as the cavemen are overrun by the coming of the Bronze Age. The quirky sense of humor that permeates all of the studio's works is used really cleverly here. The animation is simply amazing. This is easily the most impressive film the studio has done from a visual standpoint. If the plot wasn't quite so predictable, this would easily be up there with Aardam's best films. As it is its still among this year's better animated fare.

Score: 8/10

Teen Titans Go! To the Movies
     The divisive show comes to the big screen. I'll admit I never had much of an opinion on Teen Titans Go! either way. I mildly enjoyed the few episodes I saw on Cartoon Network but I fully understand why fans of the original material dislike it. Nevertheless I think there is a place for silly, comedic superhero fare like Teen Titans Go! In any case, while I don't think this movie is going to change the minds of any of the show's haters, it's about as good as a feature adaptation of a comedic animated TV series could be.

     Unlike some of the other films of this kind I've seen (various Futurama movies, Star Wars: The Clone Wars) the film does a good job creating a 90 minute story that doesn't just feel like a padded out episode of the show. This is due, mostly I think, to the film's use of a wide variety of DC superheroes who are not regularly featured in the show. Because of this the movie has a bigger scope and feels more cinematic. There's also an after credit scene that hints at a return for the 2003 series. The script is absolutely hilarious and almost all of the jokes hit their mark. Some might scoff at the film's hip, rapid fire humor but, in the age of Logan, Infinity War and Deadpool, this breezy 90 minute family friendly little comedy is a real breath of fresh air.

Score: 8/10

Ralph Breaks the Internet
     While not as bad as it's promotional material indicated the second Wreck-it-Ralph film suffers from too much pointless, filler humor and a plot that feels disconnected from the film's dramatic center. The good news is that the film is pretty funny (with as many jokes as it has it's likely that at least some will land) and does at least have an emotional story at its core: Ralph needs to let go of his insecurities and let Penelope live her own life. It's handled fairly well, using a visual metaphor that is equally disturbing and humorous and allowing Ralph to come to terms with his inner demons on his own. Unfortunately, this is not enough to save the film

     I enjoyed the first film well enough and felt that it handled it's pop-culture milieu with a fair amount of class and restraint. Not so here. The internet culture references permeate the film to such a degree that it almost staggers the imagination. What's worse, they actively interrupt the story. Thus the story is halted for (what feels like) a 15 minute sequence where Sarah Silverman's Vanellope von Schweetz hangs out with the Disney® Princesses on the studios website. There's also a moment that is meant to be emotionally impactful where Ralph becomes upset after reading mean comments about his viral videos. There is no real lead up to this scene and it leads nowhere, Ralph just gets over it and moves on. This scene, like the film itself, could epitomize our entire bankrupt, throwaway culture.

Score: 6/10

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
     Now this is more like it. After fourteen years, we finally have another great Spider-Man movie. The makers of Into the Spider-Verse understand the characters every-man appeal, and his tragic nature far better then any of the directors who have taken on the character since Sam Raimi. They also fully embrace the medium that birthed the character, with its zany story, driven by multiple time-dimensions crossing over, and its unique visual style, which draws inspiration from comic book art. They took rendered frames from the CGI team and worked over them in 2D, to give it a more hand drawn feel. They also used different art styles for the different universe versions of Spider-Man, giving each a a distinct look and feel.

     I honestly don't want to say much about the plot or story. It's clever, funny and emotionally impactful. It's also appropriate for all ages without pandering to younger audiences. Go see this film, you won't regret it!

Score: 9/10

I did a video review of Incredibles 2 much earlier in the year if anyone is interested.

Revisiting Walt Disney's Davy Crockett: Part 1 (Western Wednesdays)

I'm back! And I've finally graduated from college! To celebrate I wanted to do a bit of a retrospective/review on one of the formative pieces of media from my childhood: Walt Disney's Davy Crockett.

     I was first introduced to Fess Parker as Davy Crockett through the 1955 movie Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier and its sequel, Davy Crockett and the River Pirates. Disney was mostly taboo in my home growing up (a fairly sensible restriction in retrospect) but there were a few exceptions. Movies that my father had grown up with, like Mary Poppins and the aforementioned Crockett pictures were allowed as he considered them to be of exceptional moral and artistic quality. My brothers and I were immediately hooked. We watched both movies so many times growing up that I believe I could recite all the dialogue verbatim if I really wanted to. We spent countless hours reenacting scenes from the movies and inventing new adventures of our own. Who would play Davy and who would be regulated to play his trusty companion Georgie Russel  (or worse, one of the bad guys) was a constant source of contention.

     This would lead me to a keen interest with anything Crockett related: books, documentaries, action figures; but also with other American frontiersman like Daniel Boone (who I was introduced to through the Disney series with Dewey Martin), Jim Bowie, and Grizzly Adams; and a longstanding fascination with the battle of the Alamo. But none of this was able to satisfy my Crockett craze. What I really longed for was a continuation of those two Fess Parker movies. Fueling this frenzy was my father's continued insistence that he remembered watching other "lost" episodes that Disney had never released on video. This, it turns out, was partly true.

When our family first got access to the internet (my dad needed it for his work-from-home job) I investigated his claims for myself. I found that, while there weren't entire episodes missing, the movies had edited the original five episodes quite a bit to shorten the run time. The three episodes that made of King of the Wild Frontier had each lost around fifteen minutes of footage while River Pirates, which only combined two episodes, had been edited much more minimally.  Disney had never seen fit to release to full, unedited episodes on home video. Since this discovery I had always hoped for an eventual release.

     Finally, I discovered the Walt Disney Treasures box sets. To celebrate Walt Disney's would-be 100th birthday the studio released a bunch of their early titles, including Crockett, uncensored, unedited and uncut on DVD. Unfortunately, these sets were sold in limited quantities and as a result were hard to find and expensive. Davy Crockett was upwards of $150 which was way out of my budget for a five episode mini-series at the time though I knew I would break down and buy it one day barring a less expensive alternative.

     Then I discovered YouTube. Low and behold, some one had uploaded the entire series (this was back in the early days of the website when you could still easily find copyrighted material for free). I was ecstatic when I first discovered this, like a kid on Christmas all over again (I was probably 15 or 16 at the time). I watched the first episode with my brothers as soon as I could find the time. But then something strange happened. My enthusiasm vanished. Like a man who spends his whole life hunting for something and then feels purposeless when he finally does. I decided to wait to watch the rest of the series, to savor it a little longer.

     I continued to procrastinate until, finally, the series was removed from YouTube for copyright restrictions. By this time I had moved on to other interests (comic books, WWII reenacting, western films, science fiction and fantasy stories), yet there was still a part of me that planned to revisit the series one day....

To be continued next week!