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| photo courtesy of variety.com |
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Starring: John C.
Reilly, Sarah Silverman, Gal Gadot, Taraji P. Henson, Jack McBrayer, Jane
Lynch, Alan Tudyk, Alfred Molina.
Ralph Breaks the Internet is Walt Disney Animation Studios’ sequel to Wreck-It Ralph (2012). Like the original
film, this movie follows video game characters Wreck-It Ralph (Reilly) and
Vanellope (Silverman). After their arcade gets hooked up to Wifi, the two
decide to search the internet for a replacement part to Sugar Rush, Vanellope’s broken game. But as they soon find out, the
internet is a much, much bigger place than they expected.
Ralph Breaks the Internet is an upgrade on its predecessor in nearly every
way. Don’t get me wrong, Wreck-It Ralph
has plenty of heart, but Ralph Breaks
ups the ante. The Internet makes a fruitful playground for the filmmakers, providing
opportunities for action, humor, and several timely observations about social
media. Animation has certainly improved in the six years since Wreck-It Ralph, so you can expect to see
top-notch work in that respect. Ralph
Breaks the Internet’s story explores some new emotional territory for an
animated feature; it’s a good deal more complex than what we see in Wreck-It Ralph.
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| photo courtesy of usatoday.com |
And on a basic level, Ralph Breaks the Internet just feels fun.
The movie presents the Internet with a degree of realism—it includes real-life companies
and websites and memes and personalities—so when something familiar pops up, we
feel a little surge of recognition. Every once in a while, Ralph Breaks will even work one of the references/cameos into the
story in a creative way (like the Disney princesses) which makes for amusing meetups
between fan-favorite characters (and, conveniently, doubles as a heavy dose of
product placement).
Ralph Breaks the Internet is rated PG.
Watch the trailer here.
Creed II
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| photo courtesy of time.com |
Starring: Michael B.
Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren,
Florian Munteanu.
In Creed II, Adonis Creed (Jordan) faces a deadly new opponent, Viktor
Drago (Munteanu). For Creed, this match is personal: Viktor’s father, Ivan
(Lundgren), killed Creed’s father in the ring 30 years ago during the events of
Rocky IV. To win, Creed will have to
balance pressures from inside and outside the ring… and discover what he’s
really fighting for.
The first Creed brought vital new life to the
Rocky franchise back in 2015, thanks to director Ryan Coogler and stars Jordan
and Thompson. Under new director Steven Caple Jr, Creed II continues that tradition, maintaining a high level of craftsmanship
and telling another compelling story about Adonis and his family.
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| photo courtesy of bustle.com |
The boxing matches
continue to be exciting in the moment, but the Creed series really thrives in the in-between scenes. In those scenes,
Creed II develops its characters with
a slow, capable hand, watching their relationships evolve and exploring the ongoing
generational story. On the boxing side, however, predictability is already
creeping in. The matches, the training montages, the machismo, the same basic plotline—it
all seems familiar, which sucks a bit of the tension out of the movie. The next
Creed will have to dig a little
deeper if it wants to keep the ringside action feeling fresh.
Creed II
is rated PG-13.
Watch the trailer here.
Robin Hood (2018)
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| photo courtesy of polygon.com |
Starring: Taron
Egerton, Jamie Foxx, Ben Mendelsohn, Eve Hewson, Jamie Dornan.
Taron Egerton is Robin
Hood in Lionsgate’s new take on the classic folktale. Unlike previous
adaptations, Robin Hood sets its
action against the backdrop of the Crusades. Robin Hood, together with an
unlikely Moor ally named John (Foxx), makes it his mission to stop the Sheriff
of Nottingham (Mendelsohn), who squeezes money from the poor to fund his
immoral war in Arabia.
Let’s not waste any time:
Robin Hood is thoroughly, deeply, resoundingly stupid. It belongs to that
special brand of action movie which takes a well-known story, completely misunderstands
its source material on an essential level, and then throws in some leather-clad,
slo-mo-ready heroes to disguise the fundamental error of its premise. Have you
ever wondered what it would be like if the story of Robin Hood was shot like a modern
American military movie, complete with a mission to the Middle East to take
down a Muslim machine gun sniper? (This
actually happens.) No? Huh.
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| photo courtesy of imdb.com |
There’s really nothing
redeemable about Robin Hood. The
story takes wild logical leaps, it features exactly three women with speaking
roles (and two of them have one line each), the action is too frenzied and
implausible to be exciting, the characters are cardboard cut-outs, and the
actors phone it in. Now, if Robin Hood
sacrificed all this but was stylistically
cool—with, say, gloriously over-the-top action sequences or beautiful
cinematography—I might have grudgingly admitted that it succeeded on its own
limited terms, the stuff of mindless blockbuster entertainment. But Robin Hood is dead on arrival.
Robin Hood
is rated PG-13.
Watch the trailer here.
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