The Lion King (2019) Review

Synopsis
Simba (JD McCrary/Donald Glover) is the prince of the Pride Lands. When his father, Mufasa (James Earl Jones) dies in a tragic accident, Simba flees until his responsibilities to his pride draw him back.

Review
As a kid, I watched a lot of the animated The Lion King, not nearly as much as Aladdin or Toy Story, but still quite a bit. Of the three live-action remakes Disney released this year, this was the one I was most worried about. How can you add to an already amazing story? The answer is apparently you can’t. I mentioned in my review of the live-action Aladdin that the remakes of the more recent films remain largely the same as the animated versions and this film is the biggest culprit of that. While the film itself runs an extra half hour longer than the 1994 version, the story and characters are exact mirrors of their animated counterparts. One of my criteria for a remake being worthwhile is if it brings something new. Usually I’m referring to the story or characters but this movie does bring something new: showcasing the realism possible with animation today.

I hesitate to call this film “live-action” because it is all computer generated. If a movie tries to use a lot of CGI and it’s not great CGI, it can take the audience out of it. However, despite every character being CGI, it never once took me out of the experience. Everything seemed so real and life-like I’m very impressed. This film will have you questioning whether or not you are watching live animals and not computer generated ones. While this being seeped in this level of realism is breathtaking, it unfortunately comes with some downsides. For one, it is really difficult to tell the lion characters apart. Like the animated version, the characters have different shades of fur but this time, they are so similar, it can be hard to discern them apart, particularly during any kind of fast movement. Another downside is the CGI animals are also less expressive than what 2D animation provided their predecessors. Animal faces naturally don’t have the same range of displaying emotions as human faces. Cartoon can circumvent this pitfall but such a realistic looking movie such as this cannot get around this shortcoming so easily.

I thought The Lion King was GOOD 🙂 Much like the Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin live-action remakes, this remake follows the story of the animated version very closely, even more so than the others. That being said, it is a good story and this film does show off beautiful life-like animation. But the lack of individuality prevents it from receiving my same rating as the original.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Jon Favreau – Director
Jeff Nathanson – Screenplay
Hans Zimmer – Composer

Donald Glover – Simba (voice)
Beyonce – Nala (voice)
James Earl Jones – Mufasa (voice)
Chiwetel Ejiofor – Scar (voice)
John Kani – Rafiki (voice)
John Oliver – Zazu (voice)
Billy Eichner – Timon (voice)
Seth Rogen – Pumbaa (voice)
Alfre Woodard – Sarabi (voice)
Florence Kasumba – Shenzi (voice)
Keegan-Michael Key – Kamari (voice)
Eric Andre – Azizi (voice)
JD McCrary – Young Simba (voice)
Shahadi Wright Joseph – Young Nala (voice)

Iron Man Review

Review #109

Synopsis
Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), genius CEO of the weapons manufacturer Start Industries, is kidnapped by a terrorist group known as the Ten Rings and forced to build his deadly weapons for their gain. Instead, Tony creates a suit of armor and escapes. Once he returns home, he refines his suit and sets out to destroy his company’s weapons around the world, but not before the plans for his suit fall into the wrong hands.

Review
Let’s go back in time a little, shall we. The year is 2008. Movies based on Marvel comic books have really started to take off over the past decade or so. Starting with Blade and X-Men but really exploding in popularity after Spider-Man in 2002. Not only were a wide range of Marvel’s characters given the movie treatment, their success varied greatly as well. There were high praises, such as Spider-Man 2 and X2: X-Men United, and critical flops, such Ghost Rider and Fantastic Four. These properties were all handled by different studios but Marvel decided to take their properties into their own hands and opened Marvel Studios. With most of their major characters in the hands of other studios, they turned to one of their lesser known properties: Iron Man. Little did the world know what would come from this monumental move.

I’ll first start with the obvious: Robert Downey, Jr. is absolutely perfect as Tony Stark. His Tony is arrogant. His Tony is self-centered. And yet, his Tony is lovable. His Tony is confident. His Tony is humorous. It’s hard to believe, but he was actually quite different from his comic book counterpart at the time. The comic Tony was a playboy but he was much more serious and not as laid back. Since RDJ’s take on the character, this has changed. It is one of those pairings that was just meant to be. I can’t imagine anyone else in the part and fulfilling it was well as RDJ.

What I think makes this such a great origin story is how well it is paced. There is adequate amount of time spent with Tony before he becomes Iron Man to get a feel of who he is before he dons the armor suit. Then he goes through the trials of using his new invention and it feels neither rushed nor dragged out. So by the time he finally has to use it against Iron Monger, he looks a little rough but feels like he understands how to use the suit.

I think one of the reasons Marvel chose Iron Man to kick of what would become an expansive cinematic universe was because relatively speaking, he is a fairly grounded character. Sure, he may be flying around in a metal suit but that is much more believable than someone turning into a green rage-filled monster or a talking raccoon. He is a smart billionaire who is very hands-on. They show this by having him work on his hot rod; really showing off that he knows what he is doing and talking about. It is easy to imagine something like happening in real life and was never over the top.

I have mentioned about how well Downey, Jr. was as Stark, but his supporting cast was great as well. Gwyneth Paltrow was great as the sleek and sexy Pepper Potts, Stark’s assistant. Paltrow and RDJ have good chemistry, resulting in some great back and forth moments. I also liked Terrence Howard as Stark’s best friend Rhodey. Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane, Stark’s business partner, and ultimately his enemy, would have to be my second favorite performance. He was able to pull off both the friendly mentor side, as well as the crazy bad guy side.

Iron Man’s significance wouldn’t be felt until several years later. Today, Marvel Studios is a box office juggernaut and it’s all thanks to this bad boy. I remember seeing it in the theater and thinking it would exists in it’s own little universe much like all the previous Marvel movies over the few years before. That was until the post-credits sequence when Nick Fury showed up. That was when I knew this was building up to something greater. And I couldn’t have been happier.

I have come to regard Iron Man as the template for how superhero origin stories should be told. Great casting and well-paced, Iron Man isn’t just a great superhero movie, it’s a great movie period.

Rating
5/5

Also check out my reviews for the other films in Marvel’s Phase 1: The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Avengers.

Favorite Quote
Christine Everhart: You’ve been called the Da Vinci of our time. What do you say to that?
Tony Stark: Absolutely ridiculous. I don’t paint.
Christine: And what do you say to your other nickname: The Merchant of Death?
Tony: That’s not bad.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Jon Favreau – Director
Mark Fergus – Writer
Hawk Ostby – Writer
Art Marcum – Writer
Matt Holloway – Writer
Ramin Djawadi – Composer

Robert Downey, Jr. – Tony Stark / Iron Man
Terrence Howard – James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes
Jeff Bridges – Obadiah Stane
Gwyneth Paltrow – Pepper Potts
Leslie Bibb – Christine Everhart
Shaun Toub – Yinsen
Faran Tahir – Raza
Clark Gregg – Agent Coulson
Bill Smitrovich – General Gabriel
Sayed Badreya – Abu Bakaar
Paul Bettany – JARVIS (voice)
Jon Favreau – ‘Happy’ Hogan

Lightning Review: Couples Retreat

Synopsis
When Jason and Cynthia (Jason Bateman and Kristen Bell) decide to go to a couples resort to strengthen their marriage, they invite their couple friends Dave and Ronnie (Vince Vaughn and Malin Akerman), Joey and Lucy (Jon Favreau and Kristin Davis), and Shane and Trudy (Faizon Love and Kali Hawk).

Review
I’m torn about how I feel about Couples Retreat. On the one hand, I laughed quite a bit and many of the gags were funny. Most of the cast all had several good moments throughout the film. The yoga scene was one of the funniest scenes of the entire movie, if not because of Carlos Ponce’s Salvadore. He absolutely nailed the part. But on the other hand, I didn’t particularly care for the story. There are the stereotypical couples you would expect from this kind of film: the cheating couple, the couple trying to save their relationship, the new couple, and the couple who thinks their relationship is working fine. There isn’t much to draw me towards the characters. Part of the problem for me is Dave and Ronnie’s relationship doesn’t feel like it has much growth compared to the other couples’. Also, I don’t like how Shane’s part of the story was resolved. I’m not sure if “clean” is the right word for it, but it wasn’t I was expecting. Despite a less than engaging story, I strangely found myself enjoying Couples Retreat, probably more than I should have.

Rating
3/5

Favorite Quote
Dave: Is his junk out?
Ronnie: Yup.
Dave: Is his junk literally out of his pants?
Lucy: Yup.
Dave: Now it’s a party.

Trailer

Cast & Crew
Peter Billingsley – Director
Jon Favreau – Writer
Vince Vaughn – Writer
Dana Fox – Writer
A.R. Rahman – Composer

Vince Vaughn – Dave
Malin Akerman – Ronnie
Jason Bateman – Jason
Kristen Bell – Cynthia
Jon Favreau – Joey
Kristin Davis – Lucy
Faizon Love – Shane
Kali Hawk – Trudy
Peter Serafinowicz – Sctanley
Jean Reno – Marcel
Carlos Ponce – Salvadore
Tasha Smith – Jennifer
Temuera Morrison – Briggs
Jonna Walsh – Lacey
Gattlin Griffith – Robert
Colin Baiocchi – Kevin
Vernon Vaughn – Grandpa Jim

Iron Man 3 Review

This was actually the first review I had done when I started writing reviews earlier this summer.  I forgot about it until a few weeks ago, so I held off posting it until the the home release of the film.  If I had written it more recently, I would have included something about how the ending offers a potential origin for Ultron in Avengers 2: Age of Ultron, but I’m posting as-is.  I hope you check out this film because it’s truly amazing.  But enough of my blabbing, onto the review!

Synopsis
After the events of Marvel’s The Avengers, Tony’s (Robert Downey Jr.) world is flipped upside-down. Realizing there is much that he does not understand, he buries himself in his workshop. Meanwhile, The Mandarin (Ben Kingley), leader of the Ten Rings, increases his reign of terror across the US. When his Malibu home is destroyed, Tony is forced to confront his demons and learn if he makes Iron Man or Iron Man makes him?

Review
Wow. Just wow. Iron Man 3 is an ingenious film crafted by Marvel and a good cap to the journey we have seen Tony make through Phase One. In Iron Man and Iron Man 2, we get to see Tony transform into Iron Man and what he can do while in the suit, but he is still a playboy throughout most of those movies with some of that changing towards the end of 2. But in The Avengers we see him make the full transformation into a hero, including self-sacrifice. All of these events have made an affect on Tony that is a central focal point for Iron Man 3. In my opinion, The Avengers was essentially Iron Man 2.5, building on Tony Stark’s character more than the other heroes.

One of my favorite aspects of Iron Man 3 is we get to see how Tony is able to operate while outside of the Iron Man armor. Sure, I would have liked to see more of the Mark 42, it was an awesome suit, but we have seen Tony in armor for three movies already. It’s a nice change of pace to see what he can do outside the armor, using just his brains and ingenuity.

There is a TON of humor laced throughout Iron Man 3 and it works. Whenever things get too serious, a joke is made to lighten the mood back up. There were a few times it felt a little forced, but for the most part it was well executed and enjoyable.

Despite not being in the suit too much, there are quite a bit of action sequences. And they are all awesome! It is obvious that a lot of time went into the special effects and it pays off. The effects are beautiful and almost worth the admission price alone. Plus, not only does Tony get a few punches in outside the suit, Rhodey and Pepper get in on the action as well. Pepper even dons the suit for a while!

It will be a sad day when RDJ hangs up the Iron Man suit for good.  He has become synonymous with Tony Stark and it is difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.  On the other hand, I have started to accept Don Cheadle as Rhodey, but there is a part of me (most of me, actually) that wishes Terrence Howard would not have been replaced.  It is still awkward to see RDJ tower of Cheadle then have them see eye-to-eye when they are in the suits.  And I think Howard had better chemistry with RDJ than Cheadle does, but Cheadle has definitely grown into the role.

I only really have two big gripes with Iron Man 3. My first is the portrayal of the Mandarin. I’ll admit that I was one of those comic book guys who were salivating when I saw him in the trailer. I was really excited to see Iron Man’s greatest enemy (Mandarin is to Iron Man as Green Goblin is to Spider-Man) finally hit the big screen. I won’t spoil anything, but his depiction wasn’t what I was expecting. But you know what, in the context of this film, I’ve excepted it and realized it actually made the plot that much more exciting and interesting. Had the Mandarin been exactly like his comic book counterpart, it would have changed the entire film, and it is hard to say if the product would have been better.

My other grievance is the use of extremis, although this is due more to the comic fan boy in me than the movie itself. Since extremis essentially rewrites DNA, this allows for endless possibilities for super powers. However, all we see is the ability to melt things with their bodies. The final fight at the end would have been a perfect place to showcase how versatile extremis can really be. But like I said, that is just the comic nerd inside me.

Iron Man 3 is an excellent film that blends characterization with action, while never detracting from either and forms an excellent kick-of to Marvel’s Phase Two slate of movies.

Rating
4.5/5

Also check out my reviews for the other films in Marvel’s Phase 2: Thor: The Dark World, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Ant-Man.