Monday, January 16, 2017

The Jungle Book (2016)




The Jungle Book is a great adaptation of one of Disney's beloved animated features.  Disney has been adapting many of their animated features into live-action movies and so far, they've done it with great success! I was very impressed that the whole movie except Mowgli, the "man-cub", was computer generated. The animators did a very good job of watching real animals and observing how they moved and acted. I feel Jon Favreau did a fantastic job of translating this world from cel animation to what seemed to be a living, breathing Indian jungle. The voice acting was well done and didn't take me out of the movie at all. I feel Neel Sethi was a wonderful actor especially for his major studio debut! I feel like they did a wonderful job weaving in a few of the classic songs from the original animated adaptation. We were treated to a more bluesy version of "Bear Necessities" and an updated version of "Wanna be Like You." There were times when you could tell that Mowgli was lying on a CG animal or the environment he was interacting with might not have been exactly as it appeared, but those were very few and far between. As with most Disney releases, there is not much in the way of objectionable material. There are some scenes of peril, some animal fighting, and some rudeness, but other than that, it's a clean, wholesome, family film. This is completely worth checking out for free on Netflix streaming! Enjoy, and see you at the movies!

Overall, I'd give this movie
                                      out of



Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)




Going into Rogue One, I had no idea what to expect. This was an unprecedented movie as there has never been a live-action Star Wars movie that wasn't part of the main saga. I was excited at the prospect of the movie. It definitely lived up to the hype! Rogue One tells the story that is seen in the crawl of the original Star Wars movie: a small band of rebels infiltrates the Empire and steals the plans to the Death Star. I was interested to see how exactly this movie would fit into the "canon" of Disney's Star Wars empire. It fits snugly between the animated Star Wars Rebels TV series and Episode IV. The way the end of this movie leads to the beginning of A New Hope was done to perfection. There were several cameos and name drops in this movie that let you know for sure what world you're in and to keep your eyes and ears open because you never know who might pop up. They did a great job with the light-heartedness even in the absence of R2 & C-3PO as comic relief. The new droid K-2SO has some of the best lines of dialog in the movie. The only objectionable material in this movie is the sci-fi violence. I highly recommend this movie to all you Star Wars fans out there! Enjoy and see you at the movies!

Overall, I'd give this movie
                                  out of