Minions - Film Review

Stuart and Bob as bananas in "Minions"

Studio: Illumination Entertainment 
Director: Kyle Balda; Pierre Coffin 
Quality (out of four): ★

After the hits that were the Despicable Me films and their tiny yellow breakout stars, a feature-film starring the talking Twinkies was inevitable. Illumination Entertainment has really outdone itself by creating a film so casually animated, humorless, unoriginal, and mind-numbing that it seems as if it's purposely trying to lower the bar beneath the ground for films aimed at children. That fact is unfortunate because mainstream audiences consistently find it difficult to watch animated films without the company of a child because they believe they're not created for them and they won't enjoy them. The other unfortunate fact is that "Minions" affirms those prejudices. It's not just a film not created for adults; it's not created for adults, kids, wizards, dragons, penguins, robots, or anything capable of looking at a screen.

If you dig deep enough you may be able to mine a story out of this convoluted assembly of loosely related tales. That story involves the history of the minions from the beginnings of Earth to the present day. Their only wish is to serve the biggest, baddest master they can find but every time they succeed -- whether it's a Tyrannosaurus Rex, or a vampire -- they accidentally cause the demise of their treasured bad guy. It's a half-heartedly funny premise that could have been executed throughout the entire film to become a story about the minions having to learn how to actually become valuable assets to their masters instead of terminal handicaps. Instead the film basically becomes the tale of how one so-called "brave minion" leads two companions on a mission to find a master villainous enough to give the entire minion race purpose again after years of having no one to serve.

Even the premise that the movie actually sets up has some inherent value. The idea of the minions suffering from a communal existential crisis could have given way to exploration of the minions internal psyche while still providing the zany goofs the minions are known for in a unique and original context. But the movie fails to execute anything. There is no logical progression, character development, stakes high or low, and nothing valuable to say about anything. In fact, the movie has absolutely no thoughts -- valuable or worthless. What we have is a film that is essentially braindead trying to navigate the complex waters of narrative storytelling comparable to a cricket trying to read brail.

What the movie ends up giving us is a series of episodes. One of those episodes involves the biggest, baddest villain on the planet Scarlet Overkill who could have also been named Scarlet Underkill based on Sandra Bullock's blasé performance. The minions win her admiration by a shed of good look and she entrusts them to steal the crown from the Queen of England, which she has wanted since she was little. Another story involves Bob being crowned the King of England for being capable of removing the sword from the legendary sword in stone. And yet another involves Kevin having to save his compadres after Scarlet becomes the Queen.

What's most depressing about the entire experience is that the movie is boring. Even the kids were fidgeting and getting anxious; asking to go to the bathroom every five minutes because they were sure they wouldn't miss much. The laughs are non-existent and I could count my chuckles on one finger. For a film that has so much going on, the entertainment value is low. It's noisy, irritating, and downright annoying. The minions don't have half the charm as the Little Green Men from the Toy Story films. They're are about as cute as a mosquito landing on your arm to suck your blood.

Outside of it's atrocious story, the animation and designs are so obviously second-class that the Blu-Ray of this film should be sold at Lackluster. The minions are all interchangeable and have no defining characteristics outside of their shape. The humans all have some sort of anorexia complex, and the environments are done at the bare minimum. There were times throughout the film where the dialogue didn't seem to come from the character. It seemed as if there was a live-action actor recording his or her voice in a studio to be placed over the animated character mouthing off the words. Willing suspension of disbelief wasn't even achieved at the de facto level when it comes to this film.

There is nothing to admire, praise, or congratulate here. Maybe that it succeeded in being worse than even my most pessimistic predictions but that's hardly an accolade. Maybe that the film will be successful anyway despite it's overwhelming flaws both technically and narratively. Maybe that it's another attempt to clearly desensitize audiences to the horrors of bad filmmaking in the name of being "a kid's movie". Movies are movies and they're for everyone. But no one who wants to be moved, enlightened, or taught will find anything of value in this 91 minutes. Kiah Simons

Ted 2 - Film Review

Mark Wahlberg and Seth McFarlane (voice) in Ted 2

Studio: Universal Pictures

Director: Seth McFarlane

Quality (out of four): ★1/2

There is no denying Seth McFarlane's talent. His voice work and sense of humor have left audiences in stitches since Family Guy first debuted  in 1999. But as Don Simens -- the famous Hollywood teacher -- has pointed out, talent is the last thing you need to survive in Movie Town. According to Mr. Simens, the one thing you need above all is a great script. When it comes to Ted 2, he couldn't be more spot on. 

Although Ted 2 offers funny joke after funny joke that is sure to make audiences sprout Coke from their noses, it does so in a Family Guy-esque manner that makes McFarlane appear to have no idea of the difference between what works in a  television sitcom and a feature-length film. Although they may look similar on paper, the undeniable fact is that the two mediums have very different rhythms that cannot be copied and pasted from one to the other without producing either a bad film or a bad sitcom. 

What McFarlane has crafted here is a bad film. He would do well to take Mr. Simens' course if only to find out the great importance that a script has on a film's success. What bothers me about the one that Seth McFarlane, Alec Sulkin, and Wellesley Wild put together is that it seems as if the each person had a separate idea for a feature-length film. They tried to force everything together but each idea cancelled out the others causing there to be nothing of substance left behind. 

One of those ideas is the story of Ted fighting the legal system in order to be recognized as a person by the government so he can adopt a child and retain the rights that were taken from him such as his marriage license and citizenship. A concept like this one has nothing inherently funny about it. There is very little that comes to mind in terms of comedy with a log-line like this. Because much of the film revolves around this central idea -- and because there is hardly anything funny about it --- the jokes that send the snotty Coke into the row in front of you have virtually nothing to do with what is actually happening to the characters. Much like Family Guy's notorious flashbacks, Ted 2 has similar cutaways to scenes that completely stop the movement of the story. 

Another plot-line has to do with a character wishing to exploit Ted by mass manufacturing him for people around the globe if the courts conclude that he is not a person. In order to accomplish this he must find a way to kidnap Ted without the public catching any wind. Once again, there's nothing funny about this. What's even worse is that this plot-line is lazily followed which makes each scene related to it a reminder that it even exists. There is only one funny joke that comes from this plot-line that involves a toy company CEO speaking on a rival toy company. With so little to chuckle at, it seems obvious that this aspect of the story could have been cut entirely without the film losing much of anything.

Lastly, the final plot-line of this movie involves Ted's legal team pursing the help of a top civil rights lawyer in another town after Amanda Seyfried's character, who is a first-time lawyer, drops the ball on winning the initial trial. This aspect of the film comes up after the point to which the entire film was leading up to -- i.e. the initial trial -- which makes the audience feel like they're watching Ted 3 instead of the final act of Ted 2. It is in these final scenes where the humor becomes so spaced out that I considered leaving the theater. The film seemed to have already reached it's conclusion and with less and less Coke coming out of my nose, I had no incentive to remain in my seat.

The movie has real comedic power through the first hour but beyond that it's a film that begins to take it self too seriously and losses its grasp on why the audience showed up in the first place. The performances in the film are fine enough for a film of this nature with Mark Wahlberg being the weakest link. There's a soft spot in my heart for Amanda Seyfried for whatever reason -- I just like her presence -- but she works well in this universe and doesn't seem out of place. Morgan Freeman has a hilarious turn, but only in one scene. With that kind of comedic timing, I wonder what the film would have been if it utilized his character more.

Ted 2, without a doubt, has one of the worst screenplays of the year and because of it's nails-on-a-chalkboard annoyance I can't recommend this film to anyone who has a cinematic appetite more than that of superficial scrapings. Kiah Simons 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl - Film Review

Left to Right: Olivia Cooke, Thomas Man, and RJ Cyler in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl"

Studio: Fox Searchlight Pictures

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Quality (out of 4): ⭐️⭐️1/2

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is the latest offering in a string of movies that have debuted at the Sundance Film Festival that have gone on to win both the Grand Jury Prize and the Audience Award there, but unlike its predecessors (Beasts of the Southern Wild, Fruitvale Station, Whiplash) this film is wildly empty for its content, distant for its subject, and average for its accolades. 

The film uses the plot device of a much better movie about teens called "The Spectacular Now" (also played at Sundance) which has the main character Greg (played by Thomas Man) writing a letter to the admissions department of a local college explaining why he should be admitted. The body of the letter tells the story of a "doomed friendship" between him and a girl newly diagnosed with leukemia named Rachel whom lives next door. What is frustrating about the film is that it tries really hard to be poignant, heartfelt, truthful, and moving -- and it succeeds on occasions that are few and miles between -- but ultimately ends up as a self-obsessed, void, manipulative story with a few shining moments of real effectiveness. 

Much has been written on the film's constant need to road-map its storytelling beats by insisting upon titles at the beginning of scenes that reflect that scene's content. "Day 90 of Doomed Friendship" and "The Part when ______" capitalize practically every scene. The idea behind this was to poke fun at cliche teen dramas, but it's gets annoying once you realize that you're actually watching a cliche teen drama -- a fact the movie is in complete denial about. It tries so hard not to be a typical love story just to end up being a typical love story. Screenwriter Jesse Andrews thought that if he didn't have his main characters admit that they were in love that he was being inventive and original in the genre. He also goes so far as to have Greg proclaim through narration that "if this was a romantic story we'd be kissing..." but the movie is a romantic story just without love declarations and make-out scenes. 

While I admit that the way teen love is portrayed in the film is closer to reality than most similar movies -- insofar as the characters being conservative about their feelings toward each other -- I can't say that the movie is a winner because that's not what it's really about. The filmmakers use the love subplot to tell us  a story about a young man (Greg) who is so selfish that he can't stop thinking only of himself even when someone close to him is dying. It's an admirable story to tell but with the circumstances that the movie sets up, it's hard to believe that Greg is even a selfish person to begin with. The dying girl in the title is Rachel and at the beginning of the story Greg barely knows her even though they go to the same school and  live close to each other.  He he forced by his mom to offer her some type of companionship which he doesn't want to do because he doesn't know her and the entire act would be disingenuous. He goes along with it despite of this and little by little the happiness of poor Rachel is Greg's responsibility according to the people around him, as if it was his fault she's suffering from a terminal illness.  

The audience is supposed to perceive Greg as selfish for wanting time to himself/nothing to do with Rachel in general but once you realize that Greg was forced to even say two words to her it's easy to understand why Greg isn't enthusiastic about making Rachel's last days the best she's ever had. The story would work much better if Rachel was his sister or mother because it would be hard to excuse a person that didn't comfort their own mother before she died if he/she could. But it couldn't have been a love story if the dying girl was a family member. Or could it? The movie asserts it's not "a touching romantic story" anyway (although it is minus the touching part). 

There is one standout scene in the film when Rachel tells Greg about a life-changing decision as it relates to her illness that actually did come off as honest, and heartbreaking, but one scene cannot make up for an entire film that's preparing for an emotional climax that has no narrative arc to support it. It is downright manipulative in it's final segments by trying to sell us on a watered-down love story finale that comes off just as weird and disingenuous as Greg's initial meeting with Rachel. 

Apart from some funny moments and strong performances across the board, particularly Olivia Cooke who couldn't have been better cast as Rachel and plays her with brutal accuracy of her age and place, the film offers little in terms of cinematography, score, production design, and editing that can distract from its wishy-washy story. I wish there was more to this film because not much really happens and there are glimmers of a good movie underneath the sludge, but I can't judge it on what it could have been. What it is is just another average romantic teen movie.    Kiah Simons