Toy Story 4 Review

Toy story is a very interesting franchise, the first movie is a landmark film being the first Pixar movie, catapulting them to prominence, the first fully computer animated movie it was even nominated for a few Oscars. Then you have the sequel, Pixar's first sequel and another critical darling. It seemed like that was it and Pixar seemed to have moved on then 10 years later you get Toy Story 3, critical darling, nominated for a ton of awards and seemingly the end of a trilogy. If you grew up with Toy Story like myself then the initial 3 movies have seemingly played out in real time, Toy Story 3 came out during my first year of University and it really resonated with me. So when toy Story 4 was announced I really did not know what to expect. There were some loose ends namely Bo Peep but overall I felt 3 was a very satisfactory ending. The good news is Toy Story 4 is a really good movie.

Forky and Woody

Toy Story 4 picks up a few months or possibly a year so after the conclusion of toy Story 4. Andy's Toys are enjoying their new life with Bonnie though Woody is having a bit of a hard time adjusting isn't really over loosing Andy. During the course of the movie Bonnie creates Forky a toy make of a Spork and the Toys find themselves on a road trip visiting a small town with a carnival, Forky gets Lost, Woody goes after him and shenanigans ensue. Its at this town where we see the return of Bo Peep. We get a flash back to Bo Peeps departure and while sad it isn't the first 10 mins of UP. Toy Story 4 asks some big questions especially about the nature of living Toys though it does not really go too deep. At its core its Woody's story as he learns to deal with his new place in the world while also being offered an alternative with the return of Bo Peep.

Most of the original cast return, though unfortunately due to some of the cast dying over the years Andy's toys are somewhat sidelined in this movie in favor of the new comer toys found in the town. Standout newcomer is Tony hale's Forky who has some of that Buster DNA. Apart from  that Tom hanks is good as always, Annie Potts as Bo Beep gets a greatly expanded role and while Tim Allen's Buzz is good he kind of gets sidelined a bit with a bit of weird side story. Christina Hendricks as Gabby Gabby is the main villain though refreshingly things are a bit more grey in this movie. Key and Peele are in the movie with a pretty funny Gimmick and Keanu Reeves  is in this because 2019 is the year of Keanu.

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Toy Story 4 is much more of an Adventure movie similar to the first 2 as opposed to 3 which ended up being partially a heist movie. The setting is quite cool especially the carnival which is very visually interesting and creates all those specular highlights you see on the posters/marketing material. The antiques shop is also quite cool with a lot of interesting things are you may expect. The movie does not look too different from three aside from the specular highlights.

Overall Toy Story 4 is a very good movie, it’s a fitting end/epilogue to the Toy Story "Story" for now and is much better than it deserves to be. Personally I feel Toy Story 3 is a better, more final, more poignant ending. 3 was an ending for the Toys, for Andy and even the Sid cameo gave more finality for it. For me Toy Story 4 plays out more like an epilogue mostly for Woody. But it’s a damn good epilogue. I can't see any new Toy Story movies coming out for the foreseeable future but you never know with the House of Mouse. Maybe we get post-apocalyptic Toy Story 2077 in the future but as it stands it’s a good ending, maybe not as good as Toy Story 3 but good nonetheless.

8/10

Run all Night Review

All Night Long

"One Shot, One Kill"

Run all night is an action movie that stars Liam Neeson, it is very similar to the other action movies starring Liam Neeson in recent years, though it is more of a redemption story than a power fantasy. Liam Neeson portrays Jimmy Conlon a former hitman/enforcer. He has son Mike who is not a fan because of the whole organized crime, murder and generally being a bad father thing who lives more or less a normalish life and is a good person. The main antagonist is Ed Harris as Shawn Maguire a mob boss turned legit and Jimmy's BFF, they talk a lot about crossing lines together. Shawn also has a son who is a terrible person and more or less wants to follow in his father's footsteps before he went legit.

The movie starts off introducing from the characters, their circumstances and some of the history between those characters, it's interesting for the most part but is pretty slow and probably could have been handled better. Anyway this being a Liam Neeson movie something needs to happen so that Liam Neeson is forced to do his thing. That thing happens and spoiler alert but someone dies and Liam Neeson and co. have to Run all night. Just one thing on this incident, Liam Neeson's kid is involved and it looks like whole reason the entire movie happens is because Mike Conlon closes a door too loudly and gets himself seen. That silliness aside Neeson and co make their way through the city evading Shawn Maguire and his men until well you know the rest final confrontation, the end. Its not quite that simple but is the gist of it.

Run all night was not that bad apart from it starting slowly, the action was good the characters were good notably Neeson and Ed Harris and while it was not the most original movie in the world it was executed very well. There is one minor villain whose story is resolved at a stupid time. There is a detective who has a history with Jimmy Conlon who is a bit contrived. As I said before the movie starts slow but once the characters have to "Run all night" it gets good. The climax and final confrontation between Ed Harris and Liam Neeson is done well. The actual ending is flows a bit weird it does not really take anything away from the good 60-70% of the movie.

Overall there is not much that surprising in the movie but its executed well. Its starts pretty slow and the ending is a bit odd but the movie ramps up pretty well and most of it is good. It was Much Better than taken 3 and for the most part an enjoyable movie. 

7/10

Focus Review

Made for TV

This is a pretty strange movie on the surface, dark comedy with romantic and heist elements starting Will Smith and Margot Robbie, Turns out it is a bit of a strange movie. Will Smith was alright some of the movie he is quite good and the whole con man thing works well other parts not so much and in the later half he is pretty mopey. Margot Robbie is fine though her characters motivations seem al over the place. Supporting cast is ok some are better than others. Story wise it’s a bit of an odd movie in that does not really feel like a movie rather 2 or 3 episodes of a basic cable drama, something a kin to white collar or burn notice with a few episodes missing. I quite liked the heisty elements of the movie and when Will and Margot are doing that stuff it works decently. Other parts of the movie did not work as well, the humour is pretty hit or miss, mostly a miss for me and some of the details were a bit inconsistent. They make the con business out to be more of a volume thing but the bigger heist type things happen anyway.

I would say where the movie falls apart is the 2nd half without spoiler too much it happens a period of time after the first act and is kind of all over the place, the ending especially was very jarring. They tried to do some foreshadowing and I guess there was supposed to be a bit of a gotcha moment at the end but I don’t think the foreshadowing was done that well and it felt kind of random and abrupt. One other very minor thing but I saw this movie in 16:9 which did not help the whole feels like TV thing.

Overall while it had some good elements I did not find Focus to be a good movie, some people will enjoy it but there are much better things to watch. 

6/10

Gotta do something before Suicide Squad filming starts

Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies Review

Hobbit Battle of the Five Armies Review

One Shot, One Kill

Saw this movie twice for some reason ill start with the movie itself then talk about the HFR.

On the movie I thought it was pretty decent for what it was. Action was good story was I guess interesting enough although there are a few too many favorable coincidences. The characters were fine Bilbo was good, bard was cool, the elf king was fabulous , and Thorin Oakenshield becoming a bit of a villain was pretty good. Some of the shoehorned cameos during the LOTR avengers scene were a bit out of place but it was still cool. The movie is not perfect though and there is quite a bit to pick a part. The CG was very heavy handed, it looked nice and all but between the colour palate, and heavy use the battles looked straight out of a game and really have any soul to them. Still cool but were not really as grounded as LOTR and had a sort of mythological look, retelling of a great battle look to them, like retelling a glorious battle.

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Some of the things the characters did were also a bit off, Legolas has a silly moment and the portrayal of the lake town army militia was a bit strange in once scene they are grabbing gear from old armories then during the battle they look like peasant militia.

One of the most off things about the movie was the ending, possible spoilers but it is really abrupt. LOTR had closure for everyone but in the hobbit the battle is won then Bilbo heads home. We don’t see anything rebuilt we don’t see what happens to humans, dwarves and elves and there is a weird scene trying to tie the hobbit to Lord of the Rings in an extremely heavy handed way.

The movie plays around with the theme of obsession but does not really capitalize on it super well most of the various characters, armies etc. are fixated on something but there isn't really any attempt to show how similar they actually are.

One last thing the damn adviser there are so many opportunities to kill the guy and he does not die during the movie other characters die not him which kind of sucks

On HFR3D

So I was this movie twice once in regular HFR3D and a second time on IMAX HRF 3D. Now I'm generally fine with HFR I think its overall better especially for certain scenes and I think it does add to the hobbit. But it does have its issues certain CG heavy scenes look like they are out of game and sets/costumes can look fake especially at the beginning. IMAX HFR 3D was considerably better than regular HFR 3D the issues were still there but it was not as bad and I felt like everything came together better. If you have the option I recommend IMAX HRF3D

Overall decent movie, it probably did not need to be 3 movies I'm sure a 2hr cut will be better or maybe re-cutting the hobbit as a miniseries would be good idea. Good movie not perfect sad to see middle earth go.

8/10