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Reviews
Wonka (2023)
This had no business being this good!
I went into this thinking it was going to be just another cute paint by the numbers generic prequel banking on nostalgia. Boy was I wrong!
Let me start by complimenting the marketing department. I had no idea this was a musical and glad I didn't. All of the songs caught me by suprise, including the big finale rehashing "Pure Imagination". They showed just enough in the trailers to peak interest but left out enough to be suprised at every turn. I really didn't know how this movie was going to end. That's rare these days.
The characters were actually characters here. Everyone felt like they were there for a reason and not just thrown in last second. We get development, growth and everyone gets a decent amount of screen time. They did a great job of actually making you care about the people you're watching. Again, a lot of movies recently haven't taken the time to do that.
People were complaining about the amount of diversity in this movie but they did something out of the ordinary here. Noodle is an essential character to the story with her own arch, motivations and dreams. Too often when we get characters like her, they're treated as support to the lead with zero humanity. We actually get to know this girl, learn about her family and in the end everything centers around her dreams coming true. I love how she's related to the villian and everything is a full circle moment. You do not have the same movie if Noodle isn't there. That's how it should be done.
The acting was very camp and over the top, similar to all the 80s and 90s type of comedies we used to get. It was a breath of fresh air seeing comically expressive characters, especially the villians, hamming it up to the highest degree. The Paddington director knew what he was doing by allowing these three men to be cartoon villians come to life.
The set design, the costume design, the cgi team and all the visionaries that made this possible really went out of their way. I was in awe the entire time at how gorgeous this film is. The colors pop in a way that's so reminiscent of the 1970's version. The CGI animals looked very convincing. You could tell some actual love and care went into making this. The team really put their all into that ending sequence, almost making you wonder if we'll ever get a sequel to this.
I hope this young man's portrayal of Willy silenced a lot of doubters. I don't know much about Timothy nor was I fan before this but it seems he's one of the only movie stars of this generation and rightfully so. He's very easy on the eyes, conveys emotion well and suprised me with the singing and dancing. This casting and the way things turned out proves the internet isn't always right.
As far as this being a prequel, I feel as though everything was done tastefully. They put in just enough Easter eggs for those who know the original to catch while not being so distracting it takes away from this current movie. The Oompa Loompa was well rendered and acted out well, garnering many laughs. The ending scene brings everything together so well it's hard to fight back tears. Something about this movie brought back that movie magic that we haven't had in a while.
Everyone in my entire family left the theater saying how much they loved it! Kids laughed, everyone got excited for Mr. Bean and you could tell the entire theater was glued to their seats! This is how you do a prequel. Whatever formula that was used for this movie, please keep doing it! Warner Brothers outdid themselves on this one.
The Little Mermaid (2023)
Loving a live action "For the First Time"
Seeing others claim "The Jungle Book" and "Cinderella" live actions being best makes me laugh. Those two movies didn't even have musicals. Disney is Disney because of blending their stories seamlessly with musical numbers, neither "The Jungle book" nor "Cinderella" did that properly. Did Melificent even have music? I can't recall a single song.
Now we finally have a live action with actual cheography, musical numbers and a real singer. At first I was a bit scared that the reputation of "Lion King 2019" would stain this movies, but I'm glad this came out later rather than sooner. Rob Marshall does a 100x better job than Jon Favreau when it comes to making the CGI animals emote. They somehow gave Scuttle, Sebastian and Flounder more emotions in a single scene than the entire Lion King 2019 movie. The animators did a great job using Sebastians claws, Scuttle and Flounder's "eyebrows" to convey emotion to the viewer. I thank them for that.
The casting choice for Ariel was once in a lifetime and I believe Disney knew this. Out of all the live action princesses, Halle Bailey somehow transforms into the character we all know and love. Having a lead of a musical that can actually sing seems like common sense but up until now Disney hasn't successfully mastered that. Like I said before, the fact TLK, BATB and Aladdin came before this helped them iron out all the kinks from before. Thank you for hiring someone that can carry a movie with just her voice!
I can't get over how well the effects team did on this movie. I really felt like I was "under the sea" watching this in 3D. Some shots are so gorgeous it takes your breath away. I adore what they did with her tail, the prettiest mermaid tail I've ever seen on the big screen!
I also want to mention how well they did giving the best Disney prince ever, Prince Eric, even more depth and even a lovely song. The character deserves that since even in the direct to DVD Little mermaid 2, he's always been in the background. Here, you really believe him and Ariel are slowly falling for eachother. No more "love at first sight" that people love to nitpick about.
Overall this is without a doubt the best live action Disney movie they've made yet. It learned from the mistakes of the ones before and builds on its own story without taking anything away. It goes by so fast, it doesn't even feel like 2 hours. This is a movie for the entire family, everyone will have a character they like or relate to. I've been waiting for this for 4 years and it was worth the wait! Thank you for finally getting it right, Disney!
Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
Avatar: The Way of the...Breeders?
How do you give your characters new motivation, stakes, and unearned sympathy without even trying? Give em kids of course! The badass woman Neytiri from the last movie becomes...Mom. Her emotions, her motivations, everything about her character revolves around her being someone's mom now... Same with Jake. I guess you can't have an interesting story without throwing some kids in there to manufacture danger and relate to the other parents in the audience. The romance from the first movie? Gone. No time for that. Dead woman from last movie? Give her a kid. Dead villain? Dad now. Very original...
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Anticlimactic
I wish I would've never seen this movie. I was better off assuming it was a horror classic. What was the point? Most of it is filler, walking, talking, dry joke, arguing, trees, walking. I grew up on good horror and actual THRILLERS. This was sooooo boring. I hate modern horror but I'd pick it anyday over this. Who are you supposed to root for? They're all annoying with bad decision making. Once the genius threw the map for NO REASON I was ready for it to be over. The only reason I sat through it was because I was hoping for some actual witch at the end.....because it's called Blair WITCH!? You bamboozled me and millions of others to watch people walk through the woods with no pay off at all.
Everybody Hates Chris (2005)
Childhood Show!
I remember coming home every day after middle school (around 2008-2010) and me and my best friend would call eachother and watch this show! We had the biggest crush on Drew! Rewatching this as an adult, I laugh 10x more than I did as a kid. The writing and comedic timing is impeccable. I specifically came here to credit how the show would ALWAYS end in the perfect "Everybody hates Chris" moment. No matter how hopeful you were that he'd finally get a happy ending, SOMEHOW something would come at the end and we got the "Everybody Hates Chris". It's so easy to start watching this show and finish it beginning to end. I really wished we had more Black shows with good representation like this one. It's really the last of an era and it's heartbreaking. Where's the proud family's, family matters, fresh princes, everybody hates chris's, of this generation? They're all gone...
Blair Witch (2016)
Uhhhh
Black people hiking in the woods with white folk? Alone? Two of which had Confederate flags in their house, who they just met? Who's old uncle wrote this? We would NOT be in this situation!
Black Is King (2020)
It ain't no fun when the rabbit's got the gun
You know what they say, if they're mad, you're doing something right. Feels great seeing us represented and celebrated in a positive light. Some people think we should just play supporting actors, slaves and thugs for eternity, so it irks them to see us depicted as royalty. They need to get used to it, the days of only one type of people getting all the praise and attention are long gone. And are never coming back :) Welcome to the future. #blackisKING
Frozen II (2019)
So predictable
You can tell they weren't planning to make a sequel. Remember when Disney knew how to transition to a song naturally? Well, those days are long gone. You can see a song coming from a mile away. They didn't even try to hide the fact that they drew out the songs as long as possible to fill the movie up. Half of the songs were literally just continuations of what we had in Frozen and the other half had no point at all. Whoever was in charge of the song placement failed miserably. Nice try at "Let it go" part 2 by the way, not even close. Did the animators forget black people exist in the first movie? Is that why they try to over compensate in this one? Olaf is the most annoying, corny, unnecessary character ever and the fact that they "killed" and brought him back within 30 minutes did nothing for the movie. For a movie with such a large budget, why are so many scenes literally parts taken out the first movie? Who's pocketing the money? The only scenes worth watching was the scene shown in the trailer to bamboozle you into watching it and the part where Anna helps break the damn. The rest looks exactly the same as the 2013 movie. Why wasn't any of the spirits, the Forrest or the great battle at least teased in the previous movie? Way to make it more obvious that this was put together for a cash grab. Please stop making sequels to every movie that does okay Disney, because y'all end up ruining the whole franchise. Hope y'all enjoyed your success from 1989-1994 because you will never have a run that good again.