Tag: Kids Films

Puss In Boots: The Last Wish (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Puss in Boots discovers that his passion for adventure has taken its toll when he learns that he has burnt through eight of his nine lives. 

I like the Shrek films, but that’s it. The first is a very entertaining film, but they’ve suffered a weird identity crisis since then. It’s only natural, the first one was a parody of fairy-tale stories, mocking the tropes and cliches that they contain. But after it was a success, the franchise became the very thing it was initially parodying. It still made jokes about the tropes, but it was doing it from a place of now being part of the club. There hasn’t been a new entry in the main franchise since 2010, probably because of the poor reception to the fourth one. Most of the people who enjoyed the first ones are now adults with jobs, bills to pay, and a favourite ring on the hob (Bottom Right, btw). So is there really any desire for this, especially one from the director of The Croods: The New Age?

The opening doesn’t fill you with confidence, a standard fairy-tale opening about wishes. You’d be forgiven for expecting that you won’t so much watch this, as suffer through it.

Then something happens; Puss In Boots dies. It’s okay, as he’s a cat so he has 9 lives. Well, HAD 9 lives, and he now has one. This kicks off the main theme of the film, one that’s obviously perfect for a kid’s film: Existential dread.

It does an excellent job of displaying that dread, it’s probably helped by one of the best pieces of sound design I’ve ever heard. That sound is genuinely haunting, and wouldn’t be out of place in a horror film.

Also wouldn’t be out of place in a horror film; the villains in this. Anybody who played The Wolf Among Us knows what you can do when you take fairy-tale villains seriously (as opposed to what people usually mean when they say “adult fairy-tale characters” which just involves dressing them in sexual clothing and giving them tattoos). Goldilocks and the Three Bears as a crime family makes all the sense in the world. The true villain is Jack Horner, the characterisation of him is one of the most horrific adaptations you can make. I don’t say that lightly, this film is shockingly dark at times. A good example of this is when a plant eats someone. It doesn’t just do a “plant goes nom, the person disappears”, the plant leaves a skeleton. He also shoots his own men with a unicorn horn that causes them to explode.

It could be argued that the villains are TOO good. There are three separate villain stories here, and all of them are worthy of a lot of time and exploration, but because they’re all in the same film they occasionally fight for space. It does lend the film a slight manic energy that’s reminiscent of It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World (or for modern audiences; Rat Race), but that doesn’t happen enough.

The action set-pieces are unique, especially when they take place in the middle of ever-changing landscapes and everything flows together in a manner that reminds me of Spider-Man Into The Spider-Verse. Some of them could be improved slightly, there are a few too many elastic physics moments that pull you out slightly, but it does mostly work.

The voice cast is pretty good, with some returning from previous films, and some new. The only small quibble is that Florence Pugh and Olivia Colman sound quite similar at times. It’s weird to hear Ray Winstone in a kid’s film, but it works for the character. Harvey Guillen as Perrito was an inspired choice, meaning a character that could be annoying is actually lovable as hell. Mulaney does what he needs to as Jack Horner, but he’s definitely not the highlight.

So yeah, go see this, it’s much better than you’d think it would be. Just leave about 20 seconds before the end so you avoid the disappointing sequel hook.

The 5 Best Kids Films Of 2016

On By troubledproductionsIn ListLeave a comment

5 Goosebumps

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Are you surprised to see this here? Well to be honest, so am I. I had quite low expectations here, if expectations were a high jump, then this was set 2cms off the ground, and easily cleared it, not in a way to set a new world record, but one that still performs admirably. The great thing about this film is that it exists in a genre of one; it’s a kids horror film, and one that made back double it’s budget, so expect a few poor imitations in the next few years. I do feel guilty about putting this film here though, because it means I can’t put Finding Dory on this list. That’s not a knock against Finding Dory, it’s just an indicator of exactly how strong kids films have been this year, been a phenomenal time for them, and whilst Dory hit me harder emotionally, I think part of its target audience was adults, whereas Goosebumps was focused almost entirely on the kids. So whilst kids will grow up and watch Finding Dory when they’re older, I feel that while they’re younger, Goosebumps will have more appeal, and it’s odd that that could be seen as a bad thing in todays society, for kids films to be aimed at children. We almost expect them to have adult jokes in them now and consider films failures if they don’t, maybe because all film critics are adults so it can be hard for them to judge kids films on their own merits (probably not though, as they are professional).

4. The BFG

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As already mentioned, I LOVED this movie. It was magical, as I said earlier this year:

“some films are funny, some films are heart-breaking, very few films can be described as magical, this is one of them”

It also had one of my favourite performances of the year, and is a film I’ve already considered buying on blu ray, despite being so poor at the moment I’m panicking about money about two days after receiving any. I know this film wasn’t rated that highly by critics, I just don’t get why. Normally when I disagree with critics it’s on comedies, films which I can see are definitely cult films, I don’t normally disagree based on “f*ck you this film was fairy lights and sunshine on celluloid”.

3. Kubo And The Two Strings

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A film so strong and confident I just automatically assumed it was based on something. The fact that a new property can set up a world this full and real says a lot about the talent of both the writers and the directors. Surprisingly it’s the directors first film as a director, and I would not be surprised if he won an Academy Award for it (it’s not likely, but it would be very deserved). This was one of the few films this year I was actively following from the moment I saw the first trailer, it just looked so good, the music choice (While My  Guitar Gently Weeps) was inspired, and visually it was very different from everything else. This HAD to be fantastic for me to like it, anything else would be a bigger disappointment than the first time I tried Hershey’s Chocolate.

2. Zootropolis

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A film that reminded me of an important lesson; you can have too many jokes in a comedy. I know that sounds weird but even in a comedy the characters need to treat the situation seriously, otherwise the audience don’t feel the jeopardy. If the characters don’t fear the situation, then why will the audience? It’s hard to believe but in the closing stretch of Airplane there’s barely any jokes, it’s all plot. This film does that too, there’s not many jokes in the final third, the characters are genuinely scared and determined and focused on plot, so that makes the stakes seem high to the audience, so they’re more emotionally invested. Now if I was doing a “favourite animated films of the year” then this would probably be top, but as I’m judging this by it’s standard as a kids film, this sadly has to be second. It’s definitely a better film than the one I’ve chosen to go in top spot, but not a better kids film for one simple reason; there’s no magic. There’s no moment where you sit watching this film and are overcome by a feeling of wonder and joy, there’s no “ooooooooo” moment. If it did that then it would definitely be top, and in most years it would, but this year it’s just beaten to the top spot by another film.

1. Moana

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A film so good it almost seems like Pixar made it, if it wasn’t for the songs. But oddly enough it’s the songs that push this to the top spot. I hate songs in kids films usually as they’re just distracting, but here it served a real purpose, characters seemed to have their own musical motifs attached to them, and the songs are REALLY good. There’s a crab singing a David Bowie-esque song, The Rock singing a song about how awesome he is, and they’re still not the best songs in this film. If “How Far I’ll Go” doesn’t get nominated for awards I will genuinely be surprised, it’s touching, empowering, and even from a technical standpoint just a superb piece of music. On the downside there’s one or two jokes that take you out of the movie (there’s a twitter joke in here which is quite funny but completely unnatural), but then they’re followed with moments of brilliance (the psychedelic crab scene for instance features animation so colourful and beautiful, the likes of which haven’t been seen in a long time). It also features what is without a doubt the best pee-joke of the year. So there’s that. Oh, it also features adorable/terrifying coconuts, which is always the sign of a great movie (be honest, how much better would every film be if you added anthropomorphic coconuts?)

 

So, that’s that. We’re starting work on our end of film lists as we speak so if there’s any films you think we’re likely to have not seen this year, let us know and we’ll try to watch them before the years out.