What Movies Have You Seen Recently?

Also watched the new Rescue Rangers movie.

Was really fun and reminded me of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Space Jam: A New Legacy.
 
Yesterday my roomie and I watched The Bad Guys. Going in I was afraid it would glorify abuse like what I assume Suicide Squad has done.
But I was delighted that it did not, it was a fun watch with some good social critique. In a way similar to Zootopia. My favorite character is the spider.
 
The Isle of Dogs

What I knew about the film beforehand is that it has some brilliant use of puppetry or stop-motion, similar to The Fantastic Mr. Fox adaptation, which makes it a very visually pleasing film. The film itself is rather suspenseful even though I don't understand Japanese, and the dogs are really nice. By the end, I'm surprised that despite the ongoing cat imagery among the antagonists, the cats themselves weren't the secret mastermind for the dog eradication..

Thank you for reading.
 
I watched Lightyear last friday, and I was very disappointed. In the beggining, Buzz and the Space Rangers are exploring an alien planet when suddenly, Buzz has to get the ship out of there in an emergency, but fails, crashes the ship and leaves them trapped on that planet. Then, they start building a hyperspeed crystal to get them out of there, and they choose Buzz to do a test flight with the new crystal. I thought it was about Buzz going to a different planet using test ship's hyperspeed and defeat a massive Zorg invasion, but they had to make Buzz return to the planet and meet three useless characters which bring the movie to a halt and follow him EVERYWHERE. They're annoying, and their only character trait is that they cannot do anything correctly. You can predict that whatever these three do, they're going to mess it up. There's also no sense of tension, a recent movie that does that better is the new Top Gun (that movie was incredible), it had me at the edge of my seat quite a few times. Then, that thing with the Zorg leader sucks because
instead of being Buzz's father, he's a Buzz from an alternate timeline who traveled to the past to prevent this from happening, but then Buzz suddenly wants the crew to stay on that planet, even though he dedicated his life to testing the hyperspeed crystal, so much so that he missed his best friend's WHOLE life, but now, for the plot's sake, he decides to stop the future Buzz, so they fight in a good action scene, I liked that battle. But still, there are a million better ways to write a Buzz Lightyear movie.
The only good thing that came out of this movie is Sox. He is perfect. I thought he was going to be annoying, but he's funny and doesn't speak every two seconds. He speaks when he needs to speak, and he's funny at the right times. The rest of the movie sucks though.
 
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (finally)
 
Minions 2: The Rise of Gru
 
This movie…kinda sucked. Everything just felt so slightly off. The pacing, the writing (literally Strange is just Stark again) and oh hey Wanda is a bad guy now because she's so angsty!!!! SMH.
 
My Little Pony: Rainbow Roadtrip

Was pretty nice, just usual wholesome mlp fun. The plot tbh was a bit generic and predictable but it was still kinda nice and at least had some sense of mystery at the start. It kinda reminded me of Paper Mario Color Splash (not that I care for that game much) with how they arrive at a colourless town and gradually restore colour to it. It had a few decent original characters which was nice, and 2 great songs. The choice to use the same artystle as MLP the movie was okay I guess, the style used in the main FiM series is perfect but it's nice to have a change.
 
I watched Chip and Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) with my brother today. It had lots of fun and exciting references, and I also liked the characters and thought that the plot flowed well. I even saw the Mane 6 make a cameo in it, so that was cool as well!
 
Today, I watched Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus (2019) on Netflix. Not only was it hilarious and had colorful visuals compared to the series (which was dark and drab in terms of color palette.), but it was a perfect conclusion to the series as a whole. I loved watching the movie a lot, and Gir (my favorite character by the way) kept me laughing as much as I possibly could.
 
I watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade a couple days ago, a pretty alright movie.
 
Lupinranger VS Patranger VS Kyuranger

Objectively the funniest part of the movie is when Misao Mondou (from Zyuohger, the Sentai season before Kyuranger) shows up, participates in the big transformation and roll-call scene, and then during the battle literally just fucks off and runs away wanting to know why his show didn't have a teamup movie.
 
Movies I've seen in theaters this year

💚 = I enjoyed it
💛 = I thought it was okay
❤ = I did not like it

💚 Raya and the Last Dragon
💚 The Lost City
💛 Morbius
💚 Sonic the Hedgehog 2
💛 Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
💚 The Bad Guys
💚 The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
💚 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
💚 Ponyo
💚 The Bob's Burgers Movie
💚 Top Gun: Maverick
💚 Jurassic World: Dominion
💚 Lightyear
💛 Minions: The Rise of Gru
💚 Thor: Love and Thunder
💛 Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank
💚 Nope
💚 DC League of Super-Pets
💚 Coraline
💚 RiffTrax Live: Return of Swamp Thing
💚 Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero
💚 Spider-Man: No Way Home (Reissue)
💚 Barbarian
💚 The NeverEnding Story
💚 Avatar (Reissue)
 
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My Little Pony: Best Gift Ever
Seems like the best place to put this. It was a good enough special, not something super special for the show, but it certainly does a lot better of a job staying true to the show's magic as a non-episode compared to the 2017 movie. I liked Rainbow and Discord's plot the most easily, but the others also have good moments like how Applejack and Fluttershy outwit
Flim and Flam.
The ending is where everything really ties together well, though, and even the weaker plots end up being more interesting.
 
What's this? Me, of all people, watching a boxing movie?! It's more likely than you think.

Man, this movie was a rush. The cinematography was immaculate, and I can clearly see the anime inspirations that Michael B. Jordan was talking about. Every hit in the ring boomed through the theater speakers and I could feel the impact. Even though Creed (obviously) won in the end, it really did make me wonder: how long is he gonna go on? I mean, he came out of retirement for this. It's sorta like Rocky from the first Creed, every legend has to end eventually. And with a 4th Creed movie on the way...I'm excited and terrified.
 
The Little Mermaid (2023 live-action remake)

An unmissable remake as soon as I heard of its existence, since the little mermaid was a very central movie to my early childhood, so yeah I couldn't believe I was getting treated to this a mere couple of months after seeing the Super Mario Bros. Movie which of course was an extremely special movie.

The movie as a whole is very much faithful to the 1989 version, including its plot and several iconic lines (though I CANNOT believe they cut out the "don't underestimate the importance of body language!").
It's also considerably longer than the 1989 version, which I think is a great thing as it allows some things to be more fleshed out and includes a few scenes that the 1989 version didn't, such as the artefact room scene in Eric's castle.

The movie starts off fairly great and I don't recall having many problems with the beginning of the movie. I find it interesting that in this version, they make it completely outright that Ariel's mother was killed by humans which is why Triton hates humans and forbids Ariel from going anywhere near them. As I recall, the 1989 version did not mention at all about Ariel's mother and did not give an explanation for why Triton loathed humans. So, I appreciate that. Another pretty major addition to the movie would be making Eric canonically adopted and featuring his (adoptive) mom Queen Selina as a major character, as well as his dad being mentioned but unseen for unknown reasons (possibly dead - I'm dissappointed they didn't explain this). I certainly like that Queen Selina is very much like a reflection of Triton, just as Triton forbids Ariel from the human world, Selina forbids Eric from exploring the castle.

I like that they kept that saving Max is the reason Eric fell into the water and would've drowned if not for Ariel, and I also like that Ariel secretly helps save Max which I don't think was the case in the 1989 version. The ship burning scene was much more dramatic in this version.

Eric is honestly a lot less hot in this version than in the 1989 version, and his statue sucks too. The hat really didn't suit Eric. Bit of a dissappointment given that Eric has always been one of my biggest fictional character crushes. I dislike that they changed the way that Ariel and Eric met; in the 1989 original Eric was the first person to meet her, whereas in the 2023 version Ariel is first taken in by a man alone at sea and then bathed and clothed by a few women before meeting Eric, and idk I just felt that the first scene they had together didn't feel as special as it did in the 1989 version. However, I do appreciate that they added a lot more drama to the point at which Ariel realises that giving up her voice was a huge sacrifice. However I don't think they exactly make it outright in the 2023 version that Eric incorrectly believes Ariel couldn't have been the one who saved his life, as he recalls that person having a voice.

Tbh I don't know how to feel about the fact that they added in the fact that Ursula cursed Ariel to forget about having to kiss Eric, I feel like it didn't hugely change anything tbh so they shouldn't have added that imo.

I believe that in 1989 Ariel was 16 and Eric was 18, which I didn't really think much of as a little kid but as an adult I now find that a bit odd, the 2023 version confirms Eric must be at least 21 since it's stated that he "came to" his adoptive parents 21 years ago. I don't know how old Ariel is meant to be in the remake but I hope and believe she's at least 18.

I'm cool with Scuttle being swapped gender, and really love her new song Scuttlebutt.

I don't really like Eric's new song, even though I don't think he had any songs in the original.

Ariel's dress in the 2023 version is a lot worse than in the 1989 version.

I don't really like the changes they made to the scene where Ariel sacrifices her voice to become a human. In the original, Ursula made the promise but then suddenly revealed it came at the cost of her voice, which then made Ariel shocked and questioning, but eventually agreed to it. However, in this version Ursula lists three costs: breathing underwater, losing her fins, and then losing her "siren voice" and then during the musical continuation of "Poor Unfortunate Souls" she then clarifies the contract completely removes Ariel's voice. Additionally, I really think they should've stuck with the magical legally binding contract rather than a "blood contract" with one of Ariel's scales.

I hated the "bones cracking" (to quote the subtitles) sound when Ariel's human transformation wears off, I think it was really disturbing and the 1989 portrayal of that scene was much better.

I dislike that neither Eric's fake wedding to Ursula/Vanessa (by the way I don't like how they did not use the name Vanessa as far as I recall) nor Eric's real wedding to Ariel took place on a boat, like in the 1989 version, and I feel like the ending scene was way better in the 1989 - yes, even with the 2023 wedding having an instrumental reprise of Kiss the Girl. Also, the scene of Vanessa getting attacked by animals was way superior in the 1989 version.

As for songs - as I mentioned above, I do like Scuttle's new song but don't like Eric's new song. I feel like the main 4 songs of the original: Part of Your World, Under the Sea, Poor Unfortunate Souls, and Kiss the Girl - were all much upgraded in the 2023 remake, and the Kiss the Girl scene in particular means a lot to me as I hold the unpopular opinion that Kiss the Girl is by far my favourite song and also my favourite moment in the whole movie. I do kind of like how they changed it from Sebastian literally just whispering in Eric's ear to Ariel using the constellations to tell Eric her name without being able to talk. I also liked the melancholy reprise of Part of Your World. I am however disappointed that they omitted the Les Poissons scene. For Under the Sea, I feel that the song in itself was better in the remake but the scene it's entirety was better in the 1989 version and I prefer the 1989 Sebastian's delivery of the iconic "The human world... it's a mess" lines. Also, not that many people would care, but I'm glad that the German version of the soundtrack is based on the 1998 version and not the 1989 version (very unpopular opinion seemingly.)

The final battle was a huge letdown in the 2023 version imo.
1989: Triton confronts Ursula, agrees to take Ariel's place on the contract (literally using his trident to change the name written on the physical contract), is turned to a polyp, Ursula threatens Ariel, Eric atracks Ursula, Ursula orders Flotsam and Jetsam to kill Eric, Ariel causes Ursula to misfire and kill Flotsam and Jetsam, Ursula turns huge, Ursula makes a whirlpool and threatens Ariel who is at the bottom of that whirlpool, Eric gets on a ship and steers it into Ursula's heart, Ursula is struck by lightning and dies, Eric and Ariel both survive, Triton is returned to normal.

2023: Triton confronts Ursula, weird stuff to do with "blood contract", Triton takes Ariel's place and appears to die, Ursula threatens Ariel, Eric atracks Ursula, Ursula orders Flotsam and Jetsam to kill Eric, Ariel causes Ursula to misfire and kill Flotsam and Jetsam, Ursula turns huge, Ursula makes a whirlpool, Eric clings to a rope on the side of a ship but doesn't do anything, Ariel somehow ends up on that same ship and somehow manages to get to the wheel and steer it into Ursula's body, despite having neither legs nor any experience in steering ships and Ursula has no excuse for being distracted, Ursula isn't struck by lightning but still dies, Eric and Ariel both survive, and Triton is brought back to life.

So yeah I really feel like the 2023 version did not do justice to the scene.

I feel like most of the actors were pretty great for their roles, and honestly my favourite casting would be Melissa McCarthy as Ursula.

Graphics, CGI, and camerawork were all excellent I feel.

Conclusion: Maybe I'm biased because of my massive amount of nostalgia for the 1989 version, but I overall find the 2023 remake slightly inferior despite having many upgrades including length and music. Regardless, I adore both films and the franchise as a whole. I am very glad to have had the opportunity to see a remake of one of my core childhood movies, even if I still prefer the original.

Edit: Forgot to mention one thing I had a positive view on: Ursula is Ariel's paternal aunt in the 2023 version which was not the case in the 1989 version. I like this change because it gives a little bit of backstory to the dynamic between Ursula and Triton
 
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Rewatched the Mario movie today

all the little references and music from the games make me so happy
 
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