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Reviews
Luck (2022)
Mostly good. But something is missing in the animation.
This is a fine kid's movie. Predictable, sure, but that goes with the territory. It has some great sequences when good or bad luck is demonstrated. I could have really done without the orphan trope. The real drawback are the humans. Their facial expressions and body movements don't fit with the vocal recordings. It's like they switched actors or did the animation completely disconnected from the performances.
Tiny Trucks (2016)
Poorly made, pointless show with a terrible soundtrack
It's just more low-budget animation intended for easy internationalization. Completely mindless. The worst part of it is the incessant, repetitive soundtrack. It's just a few bars repeated over and over.
PAW Patrol: The Movie (2021)
Fantastic (for Paw Patrol)
For what it is, it's really great. I'm glad they didn't try to square the cartoon universe with reality. They really improved the look without crossing into gritty realism. It was a shame that the characters with the most lines were recast, but that's the nature of the business with kid voice actors. Stunt casting Iain Armitage as Marshall was pointless. Giving Kim Kardashian West a role was a terrible decision, but at least it was a tiny role. The music was surprisingly restrained for a modern kids' feature film. It stands a good chance of not sounding horribly dated in five years. In the end, it's a fancy toy commercial with an authoritarian bent, exactly what Paw Patrol fans want.
Ridley Jones (2021)
Low quality all around.
While I always appreciate diversity in the characters presented in shows, it doesn't make up for lousy production values, writing, voice work, music and story. It's neither educational nor entertaining. We live in a world where Bluey exists and Netflix is over here wasting time and money on this formulaic Night at the Museum knock-off. I hope the creator of this show, who has a thick resume of unwatchable children's programming, doesn't blow it with the upcoming Ada Twist Scientist.
Octonauts & the Great Barrier Reef (2020)
Entirely mediocre
Octonauts, at their very best, is an uninspired and formulaic show that is inoffensive and marginally educational. This movie, however, is an obnoxious brain dead musical. Musicals are bad enough, but this one couldn't even muster it's way to the low bar set by most children's songs. Pass on this one.
Emily's Wonder Lab (2020)
Missed marks
Emily Calandrelli is fantastic in this, but the terrible child actors, lousy production decisions, horrible music and superficial science lessons are burdens that are impossible to escape. Why in the world did they think that casting hammy kid actors and having them do reality tv style confessionals (with punchline zooms and canned laughter, for some reason) was a good idea?
As a science lover with a young child, I couldn't be more disappointed that this fell so flat.
Absurd Planet (2020)
A good idea with terrible execution
Unfortunately the writing and voice work are both amateurish and corny. If they had hired actual comedians and comedy writers this could have been fantastic. This was just sad.
Dad's Day (2002)
Perhaps the worst movie ever made.
Where to start? The incredibly horrible writing? The insanely bad acting? Even the scoring is terrible. The only saving grace of this movie is that it is mercifully short, coming in at just under 45 minutes.
The movie begins with a pointless dream sequence featuring Michelle Montgomery playing a completely unconvincing "Athena". She clumsily rides a horse over to save Aaron (he's just laying there... maybe she's saving him from dying of exposure, eventually). She clumsily puts aside her sword, which she handles as she would a giant banana, and comes to his side. The dream sequence ends and Aaron wakes up. Despite many cuts to an "Athena" poster throughout the movie, the opening sequence serves no purpose. It's clear that they intended to tie Aaron's imagination to his father's, but they failed miserably.
Steve Davis, a great real-life Elvis impersonator, plays Edward J. Kelly... an Elvis impersonator. The entire show is a flaccid build-up to Ed Kelly's appearance at his son's grade school. Aaron Kelly, Ed's son, tells one shallow lie after another on his way to school in an effort to keep his dad from coming to class and to explain his dad's absence. Ed makes his appearance in class, complete with a dream sequence Elvis show, and Aaron runs off. Ed catches Aaron along the side of the road and has a shallow heart-to-heart, with the aid of two police officers. It ends soon after, as Ed sends Aaron back to school. Does Aaron learn anything? Not really. For a movie that purports to be about a kid coming to grips with his dad's profession, and the embarrassment that it causes him, it falls completely flat. It ends where it should begin.
Jessica Campbell (Election, Freaks and Geeks) is completely wasted as the friend of Aaron's sister. She, and other far less talented actors, move into and out of the movie for no reason. For example, there is a guy who pulls up in front of Aaron's house as Aaron looks for his bicycle (by far, the most painful scene of the movie). He speaks in lousy Italian as his daughter translates. His daughter has a crush on Aaron, as does many of the girls-- another completely unexplored connection to his father that the film makers probably thought themselves quite clever to toss in.
I'm sad to say that this is a St. Louis shot and produced movie, using pretty much all local "talent". It would be a shame if the film industry saw this as in any way representative of what this city is capable of producing. Hopefully the industry will look at films like The Big Brass Ring (1999) rather than this after school special wannabe.
If you get a chance to see this movie, consider taking a nap instead.