Musical

Trolls

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Trolls
  • IMDb: link

TrollsThe animated musical adventures center on the perpetually happy Trolls who are hunted by the miserable Bergens who believe the only happiness they can achieve is from eating the colorful creatures infatuated with hugs, dancing, singing, scrapbooking, cupcakes, and rainbows. When her loud party gets several of her friends captured, it falls on Princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick) and the morose Branch (Justin Timberlake) to bring them home.

Trolls borrows several key elements of its plot from The Smurfs (such as an evil giant obsessed with eating the delicious creatures). Big and bright without being all that memorable, Trolls is more kiddie movie than true family fare.

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This Jungle Book lacks the Bare Necessities

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Jungle Book
  • IMDb: link

The Jungle BookAs with Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and 101 Dalmatians, Disney’s latest attempt to offer a live-action version of one of their classic animated movies offers mixed results. Originally based on the stories of Rudyard Kipling, 1967’s The Jungle Book took us into the jungle to follow the adventures of Mowgli the Man Cub (Neel Sethi), a young orphan raised by wolves. Rather than offer a straight reinterpretation of Kipling’s work or a direct live-action version of Disney’s animated feature, the new movie attempts to do both leading to an uneven story that is too dark for its lighter moments and simple bizarre when it tries to recreate animated sequences (such as Mowgli and Baloo singing “Bare Necessities” down the river) in realistic CGI.

The choice to cast well-known actors in the main CGI roles also turns out to be a questionable decision. While Ben Kingsley and Idris Elba are used well, and the plodding plot certainly picks up with the introduction of Baloo (Bill Murray), Murray isn’t so much acting here as doing his own shtick which, while entertaining, works against creating the seamless reality needed to sell the story.

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The Jungle Book

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Jungle Book
  • IMDb: link

The Jungle BookOriginally released in 1967 The Jungle Book may not have aged as well as some of the older Disney films, but the spirit and legacy of the film has lived on through countless films from Disney (and other animation houses) over the years. Several current filmmakers, including Brad Bird (The Incredibles, The Iron Giant, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol), credit the movie for getting them interested in animated filmmaking.

Re-released in 1978, I fond have memories of seeing the film in theaters, especially the musical sequence of “The Bare Necessities” sung by Mowgli (Bruce Reitherman) and Baloo (Phil Harris). It’s hard not to see the film’s influence in movies such as Robin Hood (which reused multiple character designs) and others years later particularly in The Lion King with its own animal jungle sidekicks singing a very similar philosophy about life.

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Galavant – The One True King (To Unite Them All)

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Galavant – The One True King (To Unite Them All)
  • wiki: link

Galavant - The One True King (To Unite Them All)

Coming to a more definitive close that last season’s cliffhanger ending, Galavant‘s season finale finds a way to give every character their own moment in the sun this time around including Sid (Luke Youngblood) who arrives with a host of extras to help his friends fight off Madalena‘s (Mallory Jansen) zombie horde. That doesn’t mean that the show doesn’t tease us with what Season Three might hold (sign me up!), but if “The One True King (To Unite Them All)” is the show’s finale it’s a fitting one that let’s the show ride off unknown on a high note.

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Galavant – Battle of the Three Armies

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Galavant – Battle of the Three Armies
  • wiki: link

“It’s a good day to die.”

Galavant - Battle of the Three Armies

Setting up the season finale, the penultimate episode of Galavant‘s sophomore season finally brings all our characters to the same battlefield as Galavant (Harry Collett), Richard (Timothy Omundson), and their zombie army join the fight between Hortencia and Valencia. The war doesn’t exactly go as planned for anyone as Madalena‘s (Mallory Jansen) choice to invoke the power of the D’DEW costs her Gareth‘s (Vinnie Jones) affection but also turns the zombie horde against all the living soldiers forcing Gareth to choose his best friend’s side against the woman he loves.

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