Tag Archives: Remake

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 – Ben-Hur (2016)

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5

TL;DR – I’m sorry to be blunt, but this film is just boring, only the chariot race redeems it slightly

Score – 1.5 out of 5 stars

Ben-Hur. Image Credit: Paramount Pictures.

Review –

Arg, I’m going, to be honest with you, I went into Ben-Hur with very low expectations, this year of remake/re-interpreting/sequels galore is really starting to grate on me (see Ghostbusters, The Legend of Tarzan etc), as well as this, of all the films that did not need to be remade, the original Ben-Hur is up there with movies like Gone with the Wind, timeless classics, and nothing in the pre-release media blitz caught my attention. But I am a long suffering optimist, and I really wanted to be proven wrong here, unfortunately even my low expectations were sadly left wanting, the final product does itself, and its legacy, a real disservice for being just as bad as it is.

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Movie Review – Ghostbusters (Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) (2016)

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TL;DR – If you have never seen a Ghostbusters film then you should really enjoy this, if you have, it will take a bit to get use to the cast, but by the end you will be all on board.

Score – 3 out of 5 stars

P.S. there is a post-credits scene

Ghostbusters. Image Credit: Sony.

Review –

Ghostbusters as a movie is really quite simple, you have a bunch of people that stop Ghosts. The title of the film pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the story before you go to see it.

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Movie Review – The Jungle Book (2016)

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TL;DR – While not a flawless movie, it is beautifully crafted and a great follow-up to the Disney classic.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

The Jungle Book. Image Credit: Disney.

Review –

The Jungle Book continues Disney’s campaign to recreate its classic animated films in live action remakes or hybrid live action. So far we have had the quite bold Maleficent, the serviceable Cinderella, and now it is time to take on Rudyard Kipling’s masterpiece ‘The Jungle Book’. The choice to do The Jungle Book is an interesting one because it is not without its problems, the original cartoon while still a classic in every right, does have some very problematic depictions. As well as this, the author of the original work is Rudyard Kipling and whether Mr Kipling intended to or not his poem “The White Man’s Burden” became a literary justification for a new wave (or at least an intensification) of colonialism and imperialism throughout the world. So while none of this would have been problematic in the 1960s, it is today, and it is clear Disney or at least the director and writer had these issues on the radar when filming. So within this potentially problematic environment, it is really quite interesting to see Disney take quite a risk here, and it is a risk I do believe that has paid off for them.

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