Tag Archives: Coming of Age

Movie Review – Power Rangers (2017)

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TL;DR – It may have looked like a mess, but wow I’m honestly surprised at just how well they did here.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

P.S. There is a mid-credit scene

Power Rangers. Image Credit: Lionsgate.

Review –

Ah, Power Rangers, when I was a kid this was the thing that everyone was watching when we were not following Ash in his journey around Kanto. So part of me was really quite nervous before seeing Power Rangers as this is the first time Hollywood has done one of this big movie reboots of an old media property nostalgia cash grabs (see 21 Jump Street, those Transformer films,  The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe etc) from something from my own childhood before. On top of this, the released production stills from the movie showed a major re-envisioning from the original source material, which didn’t really help the situation. So I walked into the movies with more than a little trepidation, but (and it may just be those rose-tinted glasses talking) I walked out really enjoying Power Rangers.

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Movie Review – The Boss Baby

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TL;DR – Ok it is a really silly premise, but this aside, they actually do a really good job of creating a charming film, with some interesting characters.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

P.S. There are Mid/Post Credits scenes (but you do not need to stay for them)

Boss Baby. Image Credit: Dreamworks.

Review –

So you are living a great life just you and your parents, fighting space monsters, exploring the jungle, being swallowed by deep sea monsters only to be rescued by hot sauce, you know the normal childhood stuff. However, one day a cab pulls up and out pops a baby wearing a suit and your whole life is turned upside down. This is Boss Baby and yes it is a silly a set up as it sounds, made more silly by everyone committing to the framing device completely. So you probably already know if you are going to go see a movie about a talking business baby already, or you are a parent and have no choice … but as a film, even a really silly film, it actually is a surprisingly good one.

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Movie Review – Jasper Jones

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TL;DR – It is an uncomfortable snapshot of Australian society, and it is a movie I highly recommend you watch.

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

Jasper Jones. Image Credit: Madman.

Review –

So to set the scene, it is 1960s Australia, the war is raging on in Vietnam, and we are dropped into the town of Corrigan a small town in Western Australia. It is the end of summer and Charlie (Levi Miller) and his friend Jeffrey (Kevin Long) are debating whether or not Batman is a ‘super’ hero or not whilst eating watermelon and spitting the seeds at everything they can, this could be any street in suburban Australia at any time. However, that night Jasper Jones (Aaron L. McGrath) appears at Charlie’s window and leads him across town to find Laura Wishart, the daughter of the local Shire President hanging from a tree. Jasper is the only Indigenous person in town and fears that the police will blame him for the murder, and thus the story is propelled into motion, as Jasper has to find the killer, which is complicated by Laura’s sister Eliza (Angourie Rice) becoming friendly all of a sudden.

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Moana Review: Powerful Story and Beautiful Animation

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TL;DR – A beautiful film from the animation, to the story, to the characters, a must watch this holiday season

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene

Moana. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

Moana is a powerful story which is brilliantly animated, wonderfully acted and tells a great story. All of that would have been enough for me to recommend it to you, but on top of this Disney took a big risk in telling a story from Polynesia a place that rarely gets a look in this modern media landscape yet it is full of fascinating stories. I highly recommend you check Moana out at the movies if you can.

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Movie Review – Pete’s Dragon

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TL;DR – A beautiful film with real heart, it is well filmed, well-acted, and the dragon is a delight

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Pete’s Dragon. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

Well, the Disney remake season continues unabated, and after The Jungle Book earlier in the year (which was a good but not great film – Full Review), they have now reached back into the great magical Disney Vault to remake one of their lesser known films Pete’s Dragon. I do have some vague memories of the original film, that it was this weird look into poor America, but it has been years so I can’t tell you if this is a good remake/reinterpretation/whatever, but what I can tell you is that this is an amazing film in its own right.

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Movie Review – The BFG

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TL;DR – Beautiful, touching, funny, heart-warming, if you go you will have a good time

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

The BFG. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

I grew up during the Disney Renaissance, in a time of The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Mulan. It was a great time for fairy tales … but they all have that Disney-fication about their stories that removed a lot of the weird, I mean have you ever read the One Thousand and One Nights, or the original Hans Christian Andersen version of The Little Mermaid, that stuff be messed up. So when I was growing up the were two sources of weird that you could come across, the first was Paul Jennings which was adapted into the Australian mainstay of Round The Twist, and the other was Roald Dahl. His work was wired and wonderful, books like The Witches, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, were irreverent, weird, wonderful and full of heart. Now, movie adaptions of Roald Dahl’s books have been hits and misses, and Roald Dahl himself had been generally really negative about all the movie adaptions of his books. So with this in mind we have The BFG, a book I loved as a child, but with movie adaptions of books being such a mixed bag, how does this one go? The BFG is one of the best I have seen.

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Movie Review – Hunt for the Wilderpeople

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TL;DR – A beautifully filmed story, with real depth and heart, a great cast, and more so since the Lord of the Rings makes the most out of its New Zealand setting

Score – 4.5 out of 5 stars

Hunt for the Wilderpeople. Image Credit: Madman.

Review – Wow, people had recommended ‘Hunt for the Wilderpeople’ to me, but nothing prepared me for just how good it would be. It runs the gamut of emotions from humour to sadness, from absurdity to quiet contemplation, from grief to rejoicing. Wilderpeople tells the story of Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) who is a general problem child and on his last chance when he is sent out into the bush to live with Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and Hec (Sam Neill). Bella is a loving woman who takes an immediate shine to Ricky even though Paula (Rachel House) the social worker insists he is a problem case. Hec is a more gruff character that seems to more tolerate than actual like Ricky. It is within this framework that we get the motivation for act two and three when people are propelled forward and have to fight for what they believe in.

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Bad Neighbours 2 (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising) Movie Review –

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TL;DR – This is an interesting film however, it just does not work really well, it is not that the film does not bring up some interesting issues, it’s just that they are overwhelmed by a standard Seth Rogen comedy and everything that goes with that.

Score – 2 out of 5 stars

Bad Neighbours 2 (Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising). Image Credit: Universal.

Review – So well, yer, this is quite a difficult film to review, because there are many things about Bad Neighbours 2 that are really interesting, and I really want to give the film props for talking about them. But, and trust me it is a big but, you have to wade through so much rubbish to get to those moments, and there are other films that do it better.

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Movie Review – Paper Towns

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TL;DR – It’s not a bad film, just somethings do not quite work.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Paper Towns. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.


Review –

Paper towns is a name given to fake towns places on maps by cartographers so that they can check for plagiarism, (as a lover of all things maps, I love little things like this), it is also the name of a book by John Green and now a movie. Before I go on I should mention that I have read the source book Paper Towns and overall I had mixed response, some things really worked while others didn’t. I would talk about what those things were, but unfortunately, they are at the core of the book, so we would be not just dipping our toes into spoiler territory but diving head first, which is something I want to avoid. So with this is mind how does the film do? well not bad actually.

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Movie Review – Inside Out

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TL;DR – Pixar at its best

Score – 5 out of 5 stars

Inside/Out. Image Credit: Disney/Pixar.
Inside/Out. Image Credit: Disney/Pixar.

Review –

In my younger years, Pixar was a company that could do no wrong, every film they put out was a masterpiece or at the very least amazing. Also, they were risk takers, dealing with issues such as mortality and death in children’s films. To this day the first 20 minutes of Up are some of the most heart-wrenching moments in cinema, but also a masterclass in how to tell a story with minimal dialogue. Then something went wrong, Brave, while interesting was more good than great, then Cars 2 streamed in, and Monsters University, and it looked like Pixar had burnt through all its good ideas.  Well if Inside Out proves anything, it proves that Pixar still has it.

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