Category: Movie Reviews

Nothing New Exists in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, A Review and Afterhoughts

This movie doesn’t truly offer a complete Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles experience as the comics and past works define it; it’s more hip hop than anything else.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem Movie PosterSpoiler Alert

Perhaps the big reason the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been a long-running hit is because it regularly gets revised to recognize what each new generation is into. Because the latest film, subtitled Mutant Mayhem, is more hip hop and ethnically diverse than anything else, today’s target audience is most likely to enjoy this take. 

However, long-time fans won’t all be interested in director Jeff Rowe’s vision and Seth Rogen’s narrative choices. As for what I enjoyed from it is the grunge art. This style isn’t all that different from the early comic books. Although it’s not as dark, the Island of Dr. Moreau style of elements are at least a step in the right direction. The rough textures and lower frame rate the film presents itself on the big screen helps make the work look like claymation. Sadly, no effort was put into making it all come alive in 3D. The addition had barely enough pop.

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Tian Xiaopeng’s Deep Sea is More Than A Study on Depression

This latest import from China arrives just in time for the summer season, and Tian Xiaopeng’s Deep Sea does not dissapoint!

Deep Sea Poster Main Theatrical Release
© 2023 October Media. All Rights Reserved.

Screening at Fantasia Film Festival 2023 on Aug 6
Please click here to purchase tickets

Potential Spoiler Alert

Shenxiu (Tingwen Wang) is not a happy young girl in Tian Xiaopeng’s movie, Deep Sea. That’s because she’s not being loved; not only is she neglected by her dad and step-mom, making her feel very depressed, but also the relationship with her biological one is deteriorating. Because the film didn’t translate all those text conversations that blitzed by in the opening act, I’m thankful I understood enough to notice.

But to comprehend everything this motion picture presents requires a few more viewings and an updated subtitle file to play along with this movie. Although I had an electronic press kit to help reveal some other details, I’d rather want to discover these facts on my own.

Thankfully, more screenings after Tribecca and Fantasia Film Fest are planned, and I would love to see this on the big screen as the filmmaker intended. Xiaopeng is best known for Monkey King: The Hero is Back (movie review), and while that tale delivers more in the humour department, I believe his sophomore work is darker.

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Enter Disney’s Completely Watered Down Haunted Mansion, If You Dare.

Disney should have turned Haunted Mansion into an anthology series much like the printed material instead of making an one off work.

Disney's Haunted Mansion 2023 Film PosterSpoiler Alert

The only notable difference I saw between the two cinematic presentations of Disney’s Haunted Mansion is where the humour comes from. Instead of making the popular comedian of the time the laughingstock of the show, they’ve been made into supporting characters. Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson and Danny DeVito make for a terrific team up, but that isn’t enough to make this film a success.

In this reboot, Ben Matthias (LaKeith Stanfield) and Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) are now the focus. The former was an astrophysicist who lost his wife in a car accident, and the latter is raising a 9-year-old son who misses daddy greatly. It’s implied they separated, but as for whether he’s alive or dead, that’s easy to guess. The latter moved to Louisiana to set up a B&B and hopefully leave that life they lost behind.

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From Oppenheimer to A Compassionate Spy, This Cinematic to Documentary Pairing Tells All

Whether Ted Hall is truly a hero, a spy or just a person in A Compassionate Spy, what we learn is that he’s pretty much America’s unsung hero.

A Compassionate Spy Movie PosterThere is one plot hole in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer which needs its own story to tell all. Someone leaked the plans on how to make a nuclear bomb to the Russians! While the film went one way to figure out who is to blame, this documentary deftly examines why Ted Hall instigated the deed. Steve James’ A Compassionate Spy nicely helps us understand what motivated him to do so.

Instead of comparing him to Dr. Strangelove aka How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, what this film does is examine why this scientist passed on nuclear secrets to the enemy. The Cold War was beginning and to understand why he did it requires understanding the times, and Saville Sax’s involvement in the whole matter. He was part of Hall’s plans to share the information. He was worried his country might turn into another type of Nazi Germany.

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Oppenheimer. A Movie Bursting at the Seams!

The only thing the scientist Oppenheimer truly has to fear is his role as the destroyer of worlds as many a movie trailer showed.

Oppenheimer Movie PosterChris Nolan‘s movie, Oppenheimer, may feel long, but time went by quickly when I saw it again for the second time. That’s because the time differential from knowing when it’ll happen to searching for that reference regarding black holes kept me glued. Also, this film is not about when that bomb dropped to kickstart the atomic age. Instead, it’s about who J. Robert Oppenheimer is–a brilliant scientist and flawed individual who said, “I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

In what this filmmaker enthrals viewers with is how this individual sees the world. It’s a place where particles collide, and how it moves is non-linear. Just how he frames this story is with one overarching narrative with plenty of flashbacks laid in between. It’s easy to follow. And when he juxtaposes moments between the present and the past, what’s presented is like waiting for lit stick of TNT to explode.

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Paint Me Up! Owen Wilson and The Art of….

Although Brit Mcadams didn’t get to make the movie he hoped for, what he crafted in Paint is still amusing.

Paint Movie Poster starring Owen WilsonAvailable on Amazon Prime
Home Video Release: July 25, 2023

The gentle country melodies of John Denver highlights Paint more than Owen Wilson playing Carl Nargle, a character which looks like Bob Ross, behaves like Bob Ross, but isn’t Bob Ross. That’s because writer/director Brit McAdams probably didn’t get the okay from his estate to make a telling biography. The real Ross found his passion for painting while in the military and the conflict he had with the instructors there helped shape his craft. And just where Carl found his isn’t fully revealed.

What this filmmaker reworked into a story can’t even be considered remotely close to a parody of the man. Although Wilson is the perfect choice because he nearly has the same cander as the painter, to be typecast can be bad. Even though he plays a similarly loosey goosey priest in Disney’s Haunted Mansion (review coming soon), I find he’s at his best when being serious. I particularly liked him as Mobius in Marvel’s Loki over everything he’s collectively done in his career.

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