EPIC

2013, Twentieth Century Fox

Animation

Rating: PG

Approx. 102 mins.

THE STORY:

Following the death of her mother, teenager MK (Amanda Seyfried) goes to live the father (Jason Sudeikis) she barely knows. He is a researcher obsessed with the idea that the woods outside his ramshackle home are inhabited by tiny humanoid creatures. Unbeknownst to all of those who think he is a bit touched, he is actually correct.

He only manages to make contact with the Leafmen when MK is magically shrunk to their size by the queen (Beyonce). When the Leafmen are attacked by the evil Boggans, the queen is mortally wounded. Before she dies, she passes on the flower bud she has been carrying, the pod from which the next queen will emerge, to MK. MK is charged with keeping it safe, knowing that if the Boggans capture it the forest will die.

MK and the Leafmen realize that the Boggans are too strong an enemy for them to defeat on their own and enlist the help of MK's father. Together they conquer the Boggans and set the scene for the new queen to appear.


QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE:

• idiot

VIOLENCE:

• supporting character appears to die in battle-- later returns
• scenes of fighting and weapon use

TEACHING POINTS:

• lessons about teamwork and earning the respect of peers by being respectful of others
• give others a chance to prove themselves before assuming they will fail

THE UPSHOT:

It is a pretty dark movie centred on the threat of genocide and touched at various points by death. But it is also a chronicle of redemption: M.K. learns to appreciate her father, who in turn learns to communicate with his daughter; Ronin learns to trust Nod, who in turn learns how to earn trust and respect. 

I wish there had been a bit more ambiguity in the good vs evil premise-- it's black and white to the point of caricature. But the ending is bright and positive without being too convenient.

While it is visually very attractive, the movie just didn't manage to grip the adults or the 5 year-old in the room the way a true epic needs to.  

3.5/5

HERBIE GOES BANANAS

1980, Walt Disney Pictures

Live action

Rating: G

Approx. 101 mins.

THE STORY:

Herbie surfaces in Mexico and is bought by a couple of American students who get entangled with a young pick-pocket who, in turn, gets entangled with a gang of crooks. Herbie ends up on a cruise to Brazil, is forced to drive the plank and swims to shore right under the nose of the street kid. Everyone tries to either chase or evade each other, and Herbie gets up to some crazy shenanigans for about 90 minutes until everyone lives happily ever after.  

QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE:

• none

VIOLENCE:

• none

TEACHING POINTS:

• none

THE UPSHOT:

Awful. Why and how on earth did this ever get made? After wasting over 100 minutes of my life on this trash, I refuse to waste any more of it writing about the movie. 

0.5/5

RIO 2

2014, Twentieth Century Fox

Animation

Rating: G

Approx. 101 mins.

THE STORY:

Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) are back with their 3 chicks in tow. When they learn that Blu's former companion, Linda (Leslie Mann), and her partner, Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro), have discovered blue macaws living in the wild, the birds head off to the Amazon. There, they discover the tribe, headed by Jewel's father (Andy Garcia). While Jewel slips easily back into place within the tribe, Blu is a fish out of water who seems incapable of pleasing his father-in-law.
As well as dealing with the coldness of his father-in-law, Blu is being stalked by Nigel (Jemaine Clement), the malicious cockatoo he ran up against in the first movie. After their previous tangle, Nigel lost a considerable number of feathers and the ability to fly. What he gained was an obsessive desire for revenge.
As if these two antagonists weren't enough, developers are illegally clear-cutting swaths of the rain forest, threatening the birds' habitat. Blu rallies the birds to lead them in an assault on the developers. Not only is he successful in driving them back, but the area is turned into a nature sanctuary.      

QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE:

• lame

VIOLENCE:

• some animals get eaten by predators

TEACHING POINTS:

• Birds of a feather stick together-- and we're often more 'of a feather' than we might think
• environmental messaging about deforestation and loss of animal habitats

THE UPSHOT:

The plot is a bit thin to sustain 101 minutes without time seeming to drag. What really saves the movie, though, are the voice casting, the music, the humour, the beauty of the animation, and the cleverness of the script. Jemaine Clement and Kristin Chenoweth make the whole Nigel/ Gabi side-story a stand out, and Andy Garcia is pitch perfect. The female characters are strong and independent, and are not sexualized. The male characters all come to realize that they each have their own strengths and areas of expertise, and earn each other's respect.

There's nothing really objectionable about Rio 2, and a lot that is enjoyable. Plus, I've seen so many bad or mediocre movies lately that it just seems so much better.   

4/5

LILO and STITCH

2002, Walt Disney Pictures

Animation

Rating: PG

Approx. 84 mins.

THE STORY:

Lilo is a young girl growing up in Hawai'i in the custody of her sister since the death of their parents. She is quite a handful, and her unintentionally disruptive actions threaten to separate the 2 sisters when an intense child aid worker enters the scene. 

To keep her occupied, Lilo's sister gets her a dog, Stitch, from the local pound. Little do the girls know that they have actually acquired an alien who fled to earth to escape imprisonment. Stitch is the product of a mad scientist's unsanctioned experimentation and his threatening, anti-social character makes him unwanted on his home planet.

Stitch tries to masquerade as a pet, all the while hiding from the aliens who have been sent to capture him. Inevitably, however, his identity is revealed and all kinds of havoc is wreaked. Eventually, Stitch learns the value and responsibilities that come with belonging to a family and finds his place by Lilo's side.   

QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE:

• none

VIOLENCE:

• some frightening scenes where aliens attempt to capture Stitch
• shooting, falling

TEACHING POINTS:

• Family means no one left behind

THE UPSHOT:

The opening and main conceit are a little complex-- and at times a little scary-- for younger kids. But the messaging is positive and it is a demonstration of diversity in action. There's nothing about it that particularly stands out for good or for bad. Did the adults in the room love it? No. Did the 5 year-old in the room enjoy it? Yes. 

2/5

HERBIE GOES TO MONTE CARLO

1977, Walt Disney Productions

Live action

Rating: G

Approx. 104 mins.

THE STORY:

In the third installment of the Herbie series, race car driver Jim Douglas (Dean Jones) is back, this time with mechanic Wheely Applegate (Don Knotts). The 2 have brought Herbie to Europe to participate in a race from Paris to Monte Carlo. 

Herbie's focus is taken off the race by 2 very different factors: a pair of thieves stash a precious jewel in his fuel tank, and he falls for a blue Lancia driven by a competitor, Diane Darcy (Julie Sommars). Despite these handicaps, Herbie fights on against the competitors who refuse to take the Beetle seriously. Herbie manages to win--the race and the Lancia-- and Jim and Wheely manage to convince Diane that their cars are characters.     
QUESTIONABLE LANGUAGE:

• idiot

VIOLENCE:

• none

TEACHING POINTS:

• would be reaching unreasonably to extract something-- it's really just entertainment

THE UPSHOT:

The adults and the 5 year-old in the room liked this one better than Herbie Rides Again of three years earlier, and Jim Douglas is a much more heroic figure in this installment than in the original. But... it just didn't really gel. 

The characters and performances are not bad, but the story is pretty simplistic and not very engaging. The 5 year-old in the room got pretty distracted pretty frequently. I like the fact that the heroine is a gender stereotype-challenging, independent woman, but she almost always expresses her desire for emancipation by throwing things and screeching. And then she gets rescued-- literally carried like an invalid-- when her lack of skill leads her into an accident. So, women should be strong... only when it doesn't interfere with the hero's success or the romantic resolution? 

In terms of special effects, it is a product of its time, so suspension of disbelief-- and of scrutiny of the backgrounds-- is a must to enjoy the movie. If you can manage that, and maintain a reasonable level of concentration, it is worth a watch.  

3/5