If a passing familiarity to American made Her or the Japanese Animation Video Girl Ai sounds familiar, Jexi is the film for you. CBS Films and Entertainment One in conjunction with Lionsgate will release this comedy in theaters on October 11, 2019.
When Phil (Adam Devine) is your typical awkward guy who needs help to make girlfriends, the last thing anyone needs is a virtual assistant who has a mind of her own. When he upgrades his phone, the latest model comes with an unexpected feature–Jexi (Rose Byrne) – an A.I. life coach and cheerleader. She offers more than Amazon’s Alexa or Apple’s Siri ever can, and sounds cuter too!
The toy company Hasbro will most likely have a hit with their theatrical relaunch of the My Little Pony franchise. The simply named film My Little Pony the Movie debuts October 6th and it will have enough humour to appeal to young fans and old. Newcomers might be at a loss to understand what the hubbub is about; all anyone needs to know is that these talking animals are an embodiment of the best virtues of knighthood. But this club is not exclusive. The ponies do their best to teach to the world (and each other) how to be a better person. In this film, we meet Capper, a cat who can easily challenge Puss in Boots (DreamWorks) for the title of which animated feline to love and a team of parrot pirates who embody the true romance of sailing the seven seas. Well, in their case, it’s the skies over Equestria.
The story sees Princess Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong) and her friends prepare for a festival. Moments before any fun can take place, a very familiar if not generically evil Storm King (Liev Schreiber) — I was reminded of how alike he is to The Emporer in LEGO Star Wars: The Freemaker Adventures — and his assistant Tempest Shadow (Emily Blunt) raid the kingdom. Sparkle’s sisters are captured and she barely escapes. and attempt to capture her too. This unicorn gone bad and the wolf-like conquerer teamed up because Shadow believed the king can restore her broken horn. Between all the various types of horses believed to roam this world, I think more unicorns types exist because they are inherently more magical than ponies and pegasi. This stems from their mythical origins. While the toy company may have never considered making this connection since the introduction of this product line in 1981, some newer and older fans may well wonder.
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
* Minor spoiler alert
The Power Rangers movie has the potential to be better than its “original” product — a hodge-podge of American shot storyline mixed in with fighting footage from Toei’s Super Sentai series. Thankfully, as a product from a single producer with a think tank of creative minds, it’s not as much of a mixed product, but a well to do update of series still beloved by those who love tokusatsu (entertainment emphasizing special effects more than character drama).
This film offers all the right tones in the opening act which no doubt showed the producers are aware of Power/Rangers, the fan film. Praised for its darker story and lamented because it was not for kids (it is gory violent), I wondered how deep the back story would get. I enjoyed the opening moments since it hinted towards this bloodier direction. As a PG-13 rated film (there’s some bad words said and a LBGT character), I was a little dismayed but did wonder how long this movie will take to get past all the origins and team-building exercises to get to the big fight which marks the last act of every television episode.
But is this movie better than the dubbed parody Dynamen which premiered on Night Flight? While this other show introduced me to this world with its hilarious send-up and mix of 80’s music, hopefully the series I truly adored does not jade what I have to say. While I care little for this decade’s modern music, this movie released by Lionsgate is wildly entertaining. It is set to look at problems some youths face today. Mind you, I will not be drowning my sorrows at a Krispy Kreme, since none exists in my hometown and I ignored this laughingly blatant product placement.
When you get used to seeing a lot of Michael Bay style films over the years to which this film obviously draws its style from, there comes a time where switching the brain off during these type of movies is a must. You watch it for the eye candy and I must admit, those Zords (the mechs the Rangers pilot) look cool! The look of the bad guys is another story, which I’ll get into later.
Perhaps the biggest argument against The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part One is the decision by Lionsgate Studio to split the film up. Is there enough narrative to make the 390 page book fit into two films? Usually one page of dialogue in screenplay equates to one minute of screen time. A basic formula to book writing suggests that 50 to 70% of what’s written be spoken. Based on that math, there’s enough content for one movie. Ever since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows started the trend (that book has about 600 pages), Twilight Breaking Dawn followed (629) — just how many more young adult book series must imitate this cash cow formula? Sadly, most of this film felt very drawn out before the story that matters finally takes flight near the end of the second act.
By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)
Perhaps the biggest argument against