Topic: Movie thread.

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Seen lots of movies!

Rio - I’ve seen this one before but I saw it lately again. This one is about a domesticated blue macaw who turns out to be the last male of his species. He and his owner are convinced by an ornithologist to travel to Rio de Janeiro to let him meet the last female blue macaw in the hopes that they will mate and save their species, but because of the rarity of their species, the macaws are targeted by a group of bird poachers and their intimidating cockatoo.

Because it’s set in Rio, the film’s visuals and environments are all about being bright, showy, and colorful, and the animation and colors are really pretty, and I am a HUGE fan of colors, so the movie did really well in that department. The Carnaval was super bright and colorful, and maybe the biggest standout with the animation in this one.

This movie is also a musical, though, I thought some of the songs were sorta underwhelming. The intro song, “Real in Rio,” paired with the opening animation of all the colorful wild birds singing together in harmony and dancing lively, I think was a good song and a great introduction to Rio de Janeiro and showcasing its colorfulness, but the songs after that weren’t impressive. Not saying they are abysmal, they are fine but also not stunning either. They are fine vocally and instrumentally, but I found they mostly suffer from having either repetitive lyrics (e.g. “Hot Wings” and “Let Me Take You To Rio”) or kind of cringy and unfunny lyrics (e.g. “Pretty Bird). It was kind of disappointing since the voice cast is good at singing (plus will.i.am was one of the voice actors in this and he makes good music) but the lyrics just kind of don’t do the songs justice or make the songs impressive or memorable.

And some of the characters feel like kind of cliche tropes. The bird poachers I thought felt the most cliched (being that trio trope where there’s this evil guy being the serious and superior one and the other two being his stupid and idiotic minions). I did kind of find some of the dynamic between Blu and Jewel to kind of be a tad bit cliched (since I’ve already seen similar romantic dynamics with couples in other movies). Not an entirely bad movie, but it’s kind of brought down with some cliches that are way too common in animated movies.

Ponyo - Seen this one a million times before and it never gets boring! This one is a classic for me, and for a while it was the one and maybe only Studio Ghibli movie I saw.

This is about a magical goldfish who leaves the sea, and after washing ashore, is rescued by a young boy that takes care of her and loves her. After forming a strong friendship with him, she desires to become a human like him, but is unaware of the consequences it’ll have.

Out of the three Ghibli movies I saw lately, I’d say Ponyo has the most beautiful and most stunning animation out of all of them. The sea is the main subject of the movie, and so the detailed and wondrous animation is beautiful for the entire runtime. The first 6 dialogue-less minutes of the film do an amazing job at both showcasing the pretty-looking, fantastical ocean and immediately grabbing your interest, not to mention the amazing orchestral music that evokes so much wonder during the opening. It’s so iconic for me, especially since I saw this movie an endless amount of times in the past because of how beautiful it is.

The story is very interesting, especially with the fantastical elements and how Ponyo turning into a human causes an imbalance in nature and engulfs almost all of the Earth in water. Ponyo and Sōsuke’s interactions and friendship is adorable and very fun to watch, and it’s just a super visually stunning film with fun characters and an interesting plot with the sea, and maybe one of my favorite fantasy movies.

My Neighbor Totoro - I was watching this before but I only finished around half of it, but finished it a few weeks ago. I actually knew almost nothing about this film’s plot despite how iconic and well-known it is, so I sort of went in blind. This is about two young sisters who move into a new house with their dad while awaiting for their mom to recover in the hospital. Their new house is nearby a forest, which is home to several spirits that the girls interact with and become friends with.

This, like Ponyo, was a very fun and adorable movie to watch. I especially enjoyed how there were animal spirits in the movie, since I am a very big fan of animals. The fantasy elements in the 1950s setting is very interesting, because I don’t think I really see movies that combine both fantasy and a 20th century setting. The designs of the spirits are amazing too! Totoro and the other spirits look very friendly and cuddly while being very fantastical, mysterious, and whimsical.

The film’s plot is very lighthearted fun, and I do enjoy movies that are both simple and lighthearted. I was a bit surprised at how kinda dark the film got midway through when Satsuki, Mei, and their dad get a message about the girls’ mom having a worsening illness, Satsuki believing there could be a chance their mom is dead, and Mei running away by herself to give their mom corn so she can feel better, but everyone searches for Mei and believe that she got lost and died. I am glad I saw the movie, and it seemed right up my alley with the spirit creatures and it’s whimsy feelings. I can very much see now how iconic this was, and I’m shocked I didn’t see it sooner!

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Ice Age: The Meltdown (Disney+) - I’ve seen the original Ice Age before, but for years I never saw the sequel or the dozens of films after it. After seeing Rio (which was done by the same studio behind Ice Age) I wanted to watch some of the Ice Age sequels for the first time. Saw this last night, and it was a solid sequel, but I had some small issues with it.

The sequel follows the main characters evacuating their home to escape and survive an upcoming flood caused by global warming, which will melt most of the ice and an ice wall holding a large reservoir of water, while also avoiding a pair of carnivorous sea creatures that have defrosted.

This one kind of had more higher stakes with the flood that could possibly wipe out the animals, in comparison to the first one. I did kind of like this one.

The segments with Scrat were maybe my favorite, since they are very slapstick-y and, thanks to the lack of dialogue in his parts, they remind me a bit of older cartoons that focused on characters performing slapstick acts and their clumsiness, which made it entertaining for me. I just enjoy how silly and fun they make Scrat and his antics, and here he had way more appearances during the movie compared to the previous.

Animation is pretty good for the time it was made and released, and I especially found it very good when it came to depicting the abundance of water and ice in it, especially the part where almost all the animals ride in a gigantic wood boat during the flood, which kind of reminded me of Noah’s Ark. That part looked the most impressive with the animation. The main trio is still likable, and I enjoyed their dynamic together, and the film also attempts to add some emotional depth and moments with Manny and how he could be the last mammoth left. I do appreciate how the writers tried to add more depth to their characters, him in particular given his past.

But, I also have some criticisms. The plot kind of feels like it has a bit of unnecessary filler in it. Namely, there’s an extremely short subplot with Sid being taken by a tribe of sloths who think he’s a fire god and worship him, and a part where a ton of vultures sing “Food Glorious Food” as the main characters walk. It felt like random stuff put in, especially since those two parts in particular have no bearing or effect on the plot.

I also wasn’t a huge fan of some of the new characters they introduced, mainly the possum brothers. I found those two kind of came off as a bit annoying. They are supposed to be mischievous and playful pranksters, but at times in the film they were sometimes annoying, but I should add they weren’t completely awful characters, but I still wouldn’t say they’re good. Their mammoth step-sister Ellie was better in my opinion, but I found myself liking the original trio way more than the new characters. Still talking about characters, I also found it kind of strange how early in the film they seem to set up the vultures as antagonists (since one vulture announced that there will be a flood and ominously says to the animals that they’ll be food once the flood kills them), but they aren’t really antagonists. They only appear for, if I remember, maybe around 2-3 scenes, including that “Food Glorious Food” scene, but the vultures do nothing after singing that or appear afterward. There was this duo of sea animals who are actual antagonists and terrorize the sea and the main gang, but they also didn’t feel like they had much of a presence in the movie alongside the vultures.

I didn’t find this one really funny. I laughed at least once or twice but it isn’t really funny to me. The romantic pairing with Manny and Ellie leads to a bit of kinda awkward romance jokes with some slight innuendo in them, but they weren’t funny to me at all and seemed like something I heard of before in other animated family-friendly movies with romantic couples when they try to be funny by making them awkward. I think a lot of the comedic entertainment comes more from Scrat’s dialogueless antics than spoken jokes.

Now that I have watched that, I’m gonna watch the remaining three sequels later. I know a ton of people think the first two Ice Age Movies were the only good ones and that the following 3 are worse, but I’m still going to watch them and form my own opinions.

DC League of Super-Pets (Max/HBO Max) - I saw this for the first time a few days ago. I heard of this one a bit upon release, but never saw it.

This centers on Superman’s super pet dog Krypto, who has a strong bond with Superman, but is jealous whenever he’s with others and is bad at working with other animals. When a guinea pig tested on by Lex Luthor kidnaps Superman and the rest of the Justice League, Krypto works with a group of superpowered shelter animals to save the day.

Like almost all of the animated movies I’ve seen lately, this one has nice animation. I like how kind of softer the animation looks in parts with bright lighting, and the environments and characters looked nice with the animation style. There was this one part where Krypto imagines Lois replacing him in Superman’s life, and the colors and shading on the animation on that part looked nice and fit in with Krypto’s exaggerated, dramatic, and unrealistic vision. I also was a bit fond of the premise centering on the animals and how they’d handle it, also because I like animals a lot and enjoy them in any movie.

But, this felt a bit cliched. The humor wasn’t all that funny and had a lot of cliched moments that I felt have been done a bit too much in comedy movies. There is also some comedy they try doing with the main antagonist and Luthor and how the main antagonist loves Luthor a lot, but it came off as really not funny, and there was one part that was being played for comedic effect but it still came off as weird when I saw it.

A lot of the animal characters had kind of cliched personality traits that just kind of made them uninteresting in my opinion (especially with the “cute but deadly” trope for a minor kitten antagonist) and the main antagonist is so overpowered and slightly annoying. I know shes supposed to be super smart because of the testing done on her but her abilities and powers don’t seem balanced, and it appears she almost always overpowers the protagonists, who I felt rarely prevailed against the antagonist and always lost when confronting her. It just has a lot of cliches you probably see a lot in movies centered on pet animals, so I didn’t enjoy this one too much. Not fully bad but it’s too trope-y and cliched.

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Yosh...!
I watched Snow White 2025 this afternoon and.... It was disappointing 😟
The whole storyline didn't feel right with the changes and addition that didn't feel fit with the storyline.
It was like you added with some new things but you also changed the important scene with something else that didn't flow naturally.
It felt awkward to watch the modified version of this Snow White. Weird! Weird! (quote from Rachel Zegler)
I didn't even laughed or shocked (jaw dropped) or fascinated or cried while watching Snow White 2025, indicated I wasn't impressed that much.
My score for this Snow White 2025 is 5 from 10.
It was bad movie but I still kind enough to give 5 instead of 3 from 10.
Here are the things that I felt made the movie didn't look impressive to me.

Spoiler Alert
The idea of changing the prince that will marry Snow White become the leader of rebel group since from beginning was not quite right as they are just only 8 peoples with Jonathan as the leader with 7 people rebel members with one real dwarf people as the crossbow user, suddenly I realized they were supposed to be the 7 magical creatures with 1 dwarf and 6 non dwarves but their roles changed into rebel group. The rebel groups have tension with 7 dwarves as the Grumphy suspected all humans are evil like the rebel group, but suddenly after Jonathan got shot by arrow from Evil Queen soldier, they were getting along after Jonathan got healed by Doc (also it was not supposed to Doc have doctor rules just because his name was Doc) and they celebrated with yodel dance and singing like cartoon version. It was awkward to watch scenes like that as the addition and the changes didn't feel right.
Another critic from me was from Evil Queen which her scenes when she was punishing the huntsman for lying by giving her an apple inside the box instead of Snow White heart, her evil scene didn't need sing and dance in my opinion.
Also, during the transformation scene, her transformation time until making poisonous apple and leaving from castle was too rush.
The transformation scene from changing her identity into old hag was too rush, she just only mixed two or three different liquids from the already prepared table with 7 or 8 different liquid bottles then she drank it without dramatic ritual like thunder or wind or magic spell mantra. She kept singing while her slowly transformation to become old hag then she came to the already prepared kettle with boiling blue liquid that supposed to be empty as she must prepare the venomous ingredients before making poisonous apple.
And the intention of Evil Queen as old hag to convince Snow White to eat the red apple by telling to Snow White if Jonathan was in danger and showed Snow White her necklace that given to Jonathan before, then with some manipulative words to convince Snow White to eat poisonous apple as her meal before going to Southern kingdom, to me it wasn't a nice choice to convince Snow White to eat that apple. Even after Snow White felt dizzy after eating the apple, the Evil Queen as old hag was overspoken by telling she killed Snow White father and return to castle after killing Snow White, just like original story of Snow White.
Snow White in this live action movie didn't put inside glass coffin, but she was put on the rock instead with small flower gazebo and the 7 dwarves keep watching over her and crying.
Jonathan was in the prison inside Evil Queen with the huntsman and both of them successfully escaped from the prison. Jonathan was looking for Snow White and he found Snow While lied on the rock. He kissed Snow White and she woke up. They kissed again like cartoon version but it wasn't about romantic stuffs. Snow White decided to return to her kingdom like a big boss to restore her kingdom with red hood like little red riding Hood and the villagers started to join her in a mob to dethrone the Evil Queen. The battle between Evil Queen and Snow White was pretty awkward as I thought it will be a furious battle between them after Evil Queen offered Snow White to kill Evil Queen in front of villagers with jeweled dagger (idea from original story of Snow White which Evil Queen is about to kill Snow White with poisonous dagger when she had wedding ceremony with the prince in the castle)
The demise of Evil Queen in this live action version was predictable according to my theory after I saw a brief scene of broken mirror from one trailer before. Yes, she died by become ash after destroying her magic mirror for not accepting the fact and the magic mirror absorbed her inside another dimension and the mirror turned back into normal mirror without any damage like it was never broken. Not really satisfying demise scene of Evil Queen, I thought she will be forced to wear hot sandals and dance to dead in front of Snow White like original version or fallen again from the height and got lightning struck on her like cartoon version.
Also, I realized the CGI of cute animals in this movie, it just like a distraction for a cute looking moment but their cuteness couldn't make the whole story become better.
It had also the classic book style of the storytelling the font design that looked like cartoon version during the credit rolls.
Those Easter eggs from old cartoon movie didn't do justice as it felt like addition to pay the tribute from cartoon version was like the effort of Disney to conceal the movie with already bad quality with some distractions.

Also, this is the second time I watched movie with screen write by Greta Gerwig, the same people who ruined Barbie 2023 movie with stupid political issues of Barbie stuffs, I didn't feel surprised if Snow White 2025 movie also flopped, because of her ideas to ruin the whole story with wrong choices. Both of Barbie 2023 and Snow White 2025 was rated PG13+ here in my country Indonesia, both of them are bad movies because of Greta Gerwig.
If I gave 5 from 10 for Snow White 2025, I gave 0 from 10 for Barbie 2023 movie.
Next time, I will not watch movie that the storyline wrote by Greta Gerwig.
Her story scripts are suck.