The Bob’s Burgers Movie – Movie Review

TL;DR – This was so full of charm and joy that I had a smile on my face for the entire runtime, well, when I was not laughing, that is.     

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Post-Credit Scene – There is a post-credit scene

Disclosure – I was invited to a press screening of this film

Bob pats a burger

The Bob’s Burgers Movie Review

When I walked in to see The Bob’s Burgers Movie, I had two main concerns, one personal and the other professional. The personal being that I had kind of fallen out with Bob’s Burgers. During the Covid pandemic, when they finally released it easily here in Australia on Disney+, I binged that series hard, which might not have been for the best. Professionally, I had to wonder, could it make a show that was deserving of a feature-length runtime. The last show to do this on a similar scale was Simpsons, and even Family Guy fell back on that Star Wars riff when doing something similar. However, as I walked out of the cinema, I was glad to say that neither of these concerns was an issue because the film was a blast.  

So to set the scene, it is 6-years beforehand, and one night, in the dark night, there is a scuffle, and then a bang as someone is murdered. Flash forward to the present day, and there is a feeling of nervous cheer in the Belcher family. Bob (H. Jon Benjamin) and Linda (John Roberts) are going down to the bank to ask for an extension on their loan payment, and Bob is making a special burger to help seal the deal. However, as the kids Tina (Dan Mintz), Gene (Eugene Mirman), and Louise (Kristen Schaal) go to school, Louise is called a baby because she still wears bunny ears. Well, Bob didn’t get the loan, and worse, a pit hole opens up in front of the restaurant, but in that hole could be the Belcher’s salvation or their doom.    

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Movie Review – The Lego Batman Movie

TL;DR – It takes the very best of Batman, adds in some great animation and adds an interesting villain, I highly recommend it

Score – 4 out of 5 stars

The Lego Batman Movie. Image Credit: Warner Bros.

Review

“I’m Batman”, it is a phrase so common I bet you just said it in your head Christian Bale style or indeed Will Arnett style. Batman is one of those unambiguous pop-culture references and touchstones that everyone knows about even if they have never read a comic or seen a movie. So if you are a marketing executive you are loving this exposure, however, the Batman from the Lego films is a parody and an almost one-note parody at that. This is a problem because we have seen over and over again when you take the zany side character and give them their own film it often doesn’t work, see the last Pirates of the Caribbean. So with today’s review, we are going to take a moment to look at what lead to the creation of this film, then look at the animation, story and characters, and see if it holds up.

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Movie Review – Keeping Up with the Joneses

TL;DR – On the one hand this film does nothing new, and follows the same patterns and tropes of the genre, on the other hand, everybody commits to their roles, so it actually turns out quite good.

Score – 3.5 out of 5 stars

Keeping Up with the Joneses. Image Credit: 20th Century Fox.

Review

When you go to a Hollywood movie that describes itself as an ‘action-comedy’ especially an American PG-13 ‘action comedy’, it tends to follow a very predictable route, characters are put into a zany situation, there will be some risqué subject material, but not too risqué, and they will drop their one F-Bomb at some point in the film and Keeping Up with the Joneses does not deviate from this at all. Indeed The Joneses fits very comfortably within the buddy-cop, or fish out of water genre, by taking two very different couples and then playing them off each other, and in that interplay hopefully some humour can be found. So the question then becomes can The Joneses solid enough film to sustain its premise for the whole film whilst still being entertaining, and well for me, I think they pulled it off.

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