Playing with Fire (2019)

I was invited to take part in an exclusive screening event for John Cena's newest movie, Playing with Fire. Starring John Cena, Judy Greer, Keegan Michael Key, and John Leguizamo, this movie is a cute end of fall movie. The casting in this movie was excellent. John Cena plays a great no-nonsense smoke jumper which plays perfectly off Keegan Micahel Key's second-in-command who has the bulk of the humor in this movie. John Leguizamo's character felt quite underdeveloped to me with several quirks left unexplained. The writing was spot-on with what you'd expect from a Nickelodeon movie. The language that was used was no worse than would be adaptable for most 6-year-olds. There was one scene with a picture of a very scantily clad lady in the firehouse bunks that was played for humor, but I felt was quite unnecessary. Also, Mr. Cena spends quite some time showing off his upper body. Nothing out of the ordinary if you used to watch him on WWE, but maybe a little too much skin for a kids' movie. There was also a scene at the beginning of the movie that jokes about infidelity and I thought that was highly uncalled for. There are some scenes of peril so if your child gets scared easily or has an empathic heart, you might want to wait to catch it on Redbox. If you wanted to see Instant Family, but the language kept you away, Playing with Fire should be the next movie you check out! With lots of laughs and almost as much heart, Playing with Fire is a great movie to enjoy with your 2nd graders on up! Enjoy, and see you at the movies!

Overall, I'd give this movie 🔥🔥🔥
                                      out of 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

The Lion King (2019)

It's been 25 years since we first saw the spectacle that is The Lion King. Now, Disney is looking to its past to revive new live-action movies. This year, they've outdone themselves with live-action remakes of classic animated movies. Their latest is a remake of 1994's The Lion King. The original animated feature was one of the crowning achievements of Disney's mid-90s animated glory years. This incarnation is mostly a shot-for-shot, word-for-word remake of the original. If you haven't seen the original, stop reading now as there might be spoilers within. Jon Favreau did his best to recapture that magic with a more live-action look. I feel they came up short in recreating that magic. There were several times where Scar in particular looked like a poorly timed animatronic. The "Can't Wait to be King" musical number in the original was one of the most memorable sequences due to its engaging animation and fun song. This version completely pales in comparison. John Oliver flattens out the sequence and every time he had a line, it took me out of the movie. The visuals in the original naturally couldn't be recreated in this new version, but I feel it could have been more involved. Now, onto the "Be Prepared" sequence. I feel the movie would have been better served without this "number" as it was about 1/4 of the original in length and Chiwetel Ejiofor's portrayal of Scar just didn't deliver the same fierceness and scariness that Jeremy Irons brought to it in the original. However, the animation of the hyenas was very well done! Their mouth movements seemed quite natural and looked like they could have been saying those words. Shenzi (Whoopi Goldberg's character from the original) got a bigger part which I'm not mad about, but the comedy of the secondary hyenas felt quite forced and I didn't feel was as funny in the final product as it was in vocal sessions or on the script. I enjoyed the majority of young JD McCrary's portrayal of young Simba, but in the emotional moment of Mufasa's death it didn't have the same weight as JTT's original did. I don't think it was entirely his fault as there is only so much emotion they could give the CGI characters without it looking too cartoony and animated. Timon and Pumbaa were enjoyable for the most part. Billy Eichner sometimes gave Timon an affected lisp which caused quite a detracting distraction for me. Seth Rogan was quite enjoyable as Pumbaa! The first introduction to Donald Glover's Simba was the tail end of Hakuna Matata and I thought it was perfect and better than the original! However, Beyoncé's unnecessary runs during "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and her brand new song "Spirit," to me, ruined the sequences. It seemed that they just added that song so she could show how many runs she could do in a given time. The overall look of the movie is beautiful, but there were limitations with the chosen form of the movie that couldn't reach what came before. I believe this feature is acceptable for kids 6+ due to the sometimes too real peril and some crude humor. Enjoy, and see you at the movies!

Overall, I'd give this movie
                                      out of