New Animated Movie Trailers Bring Out Singing Koalas And An Idris Elba Voiced Sea Lion

A deluge of family features will be arriving this summer, with the past weekend bringing the first of such films (The Angry Birds Movie) that we'll be seeing by the truckload over the next few months. This weekend brings Alice Through The Looking Glass and the weeks afterwards bring new Ninja Turtles and PIXAR films. And just like with any motion picture, before these family movies come out they're gonna release a trailer to promote themselves. Three of this year's more high-profile family films actually debuted new trailers this week so let's look at 'em now, shall we?

Finding Dory
I've made my reservations over this project no secret over the past few months but I freely admit that this trailer gives me some hope that directors Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane may have come up with some interesting thematic material to cover in the actual movie in addition to filling the running time with plenty of callbacks to the original movie that'll take advantage of my generation's adoration of the original Finding Nemo. Also; those sea lions at the very end are a hoot, love seeing Idirs Elba in so many high-profile movies this year.

Sing
The first teaser for the newest film from Illumination Entertainment (the studio that gave birth to the Minions and, by proxy, those hideous Minion memes that consume Facebook) basically just showed off some animals singing pop songs and twerking. As you can imagine, that didn't do much of anything for me, but this newest trailer that concentrates on more character and plot details is...well, more promising, let's say that. It looks like a cornball cheesefest, but its earnestness is kind of endearing, I freely admit. Plus, the cast is stacked and a good musical (this one appears to be more of the jukebox variety ala Mamma Mia!) can be hard to beat. Hopefully the pop culture references and bathroom humor are kept to a minimum in the actual movie and they rely more on sincere heart-string pulling since that's the part of this particular trailer that works the best.

The Little Prince
What a rocky road The Little Prince has had in its quest to be released in the US. Paramount Pictures planned to release the film theatrically this past Spring on March 18th. They had already promoted the movie and even attached the trailer to major late 2015 releases like The Good Dinosaur and the studios own Daddy's Home. Then....nothing. A mere few days before its release Paramount pulled The Little Prince off their release schedule without explanation. Netflix subsequently picked the features US rights up and will release it on the streaming service on August 5th. Like the original Paramount trailer, this new extended glimpse at the film is seemingly scientifically created specifically to stir up your emotions, and yeah, it works for me. Very excited to finally watch this super promising looking motion picture when it arrives on Netflix towards the end of the summer.

Shrek Review (Classic Write-Up)

A week ago today, Shrek turned fifteen years old. One of the biggest animated movies of all-time that shifted the entire zeitgeist of animated filmmaking officially turned fifteen..and no one seemed to care. Buzzfeed didn't write up a thousand articles about "21 Gifs That Make Shrek Totes Relatable", there was no release of the feature on Blu-Ray to commemorate the occasion. Hell, even the official Facebook page for the film made absolutely no mention of the anniversary. Granted, turning 15 isn't typically as big of a deal in the world of marketing as a movie celebrating its tenth or twenty-fifth anniversary of existence, but still, the absolute radio silence on the occasion struck me as shocking.

Then again, in the years since the first Shrek's release, all the promise the film carried has been wiped out. The success of something slightly more adult-skewing in American animation didn't usher in more boundary-pushing animated fare, but rather just spawned countless "sassy fairy tale movies" and a trend of animated family films (like Chicken Litte, Shark Tale, MegaMind and Robots) ending with big pop musical numbers. Even more damning are the endless amount of Shrek follow-ups DreamWorks commissioned in the wake of the first Shrek's massive box office, with the third and fourth films in the series being a tremendous step down in quality.

Fifteen years ago, Shrek was a cinematic force to be reckoned with. Now? He's mostly known as the star of an internet meme centering around his sexually explicit and graphically violent exploits. But in case you were wondering, yes, the  first Shrek does indeed hold up. There are a number of cracks in it storytelling for sure (antagonist Lord Farquaad apparently has his knowledge and level of control over the exiled fairy tale creatures vary from scene to scene) but it's still a really clever movie whose appeal is more than easy enough to discern.

What's important to remember about Shrek is when it came out, being released in the second year of the 21st century and coming hot off a decade where Disney had dominated the field of animation with their fairy tale musicals that everyone and their mother had attempted to imitate. Hell, DreamWorks had tried to go for that angle themselves, albeit in a slightly more "adult" manner, in their first two hand-drawn animation efforts The Prince Of Egypt and The Road To El Dorado. After multiple years of Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz songs filling movie theaters across the nation for so many years, the opening sequence of Shrek containing flatulence so strong that it kills a singular salmon, all set to the tune of Smash Mouth's All-Star, was something akin to an insurrection to conventional American animation storytelling.

Was this an inherently good thing? Eh, that's up for debate. For me personally, Disney had only really struck out truly badly once in their 90's animated musical efforts (Pocahontas is the big o'l misfire for me), but variety is the spice of life as they say, and something undoubtedly different from the norm (at the time) like Shrek is good to have around if only for the sake of having some diversity in terms of storytelling. It also helps that this more satirical approach serves the premise of Shrek well, which has a sweeter undercoat than it seems. Actually, it's worth noting that the presence of pathos (Shrek's trouble with people pigeonholing him before they even met him) makes the darker jokes go down easier.  Like I said, variety is the spice of life and all that and that goes for tone as well.

It struck me as amusing during the opening credits that, of the four lead actors that the film trumpets, John Lithgow is now the by far the most famous individual in the group, with the man himself finding consistent work as a character actor and frequently taking primary roles in noteworthy films like Love Is Strange. Meanwhile, Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy have basically vanished off the face of the Earth (though Myers did sign up for a new project this week, his first live-action role in seven years) and even Cameron Diaz has been MIA since her critically reviled turns in the likes of The Other Woman in 2014. Regardless of where they stand now, the cast works fine in their roles in this particular film, with Myers surprising me in how well he commands genuine sympathy in his vocal performance. I will say though that Diaz always struck me as slightly miscast for that part, her line readings coming across as slightly forced in certain moments compared to the more natural delivery of her co-stars.

In the years since Shrek was released, its reputation (as well as the prominence of three of its four lead actors) has taken a tumble so steep that it would even make Jill's fall look like a minor stumble. But it is worth noting that the film itself still works quite well as a clever comedy with a solid heart, even if it's easy to see that it doesn't quite hold under the strain of time in every regard compared to the efforts from competing animation studio PIXAR in the same era (characters doing the Macarena in the climax is hilariously outdated). All things considered though, Shrek is still a charmer of a motion picture whose myriad of virtues can easily be seen a decade-and-a-half later. Hopefully its overall reputation is improved in the years to come, especially since I have a hunch we're only four years out (if even that) from a Creed/Force Awakens style fifth Shrek movie that will center itself on grown-up versions of Shrek's offspring.

"A Good Actor Is A Terrible Thing To Waste": 6 More Perfectly Good Actors Wasted In Subpar Superhero Movies

Well, this worked out pretty well last time, so why don't I take a take a look today at six more actors who got their considerable talents wasted in subpar superhero movies?

Josh Brolin (Jonah Hex)
It's borderline astonishing how every single aspect of Jonah Hex was a disaster. Its filming was a nightmare, it was released opposite fellow cowboy-led film Toy Story 3 and its greatest claim to infamy at this point is being an early role for one of the great actors of our time, Michael Fassbender. And then there's Brolin as Jonah Hex. Brolin is an incredibly talented actor whose managed to turn a Southern disposition into something more substantive in the likes of No Country For Old Men, but good Lord is he out of his element here. It's doubtful anyone could have made this pathetic script work, but it's a pity this black hole of a motion picture had to such in such a gifted performer like Brolin into its jaws.

Christopher Eccleston (Thor: The Dark World)
There are bad guys with poorly fleshed out or sporadically shifting motivation. Then there are bad guys like Malekith from Thor: The Dark World, who doesn't even have much of a motivation to speak of. He's just "a bad guy" and he's even less interesting than that description implies. Christopher Eccleston, buried underneath a ton of prosthetics, was the "lucky" actor to land this role, after Mads Mikkelsen passed on the part after having to choose between playing Malekith or the lead role on Hannibal. At the time, I thought it was crazy he was for passing on playing a Thor foe, but four years later, it's apparent Mikkelsen got lucky (hopefully Doctor Strange gives him something to do) while Eccleston got saddled with one of the weakest comic book movie bad guys of all-time.

Will Arnett (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
Will Arnett might be the definitive big-screen Batman in my book, but his other forays into the realm of comic book movies has been...well, not so good, to put it gently. He actually got a supporting role in the aforementioned Jonah Hex and then there was his turn as Vernon in the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. Aside from one brief Arrested Development reference while he's making a sandwich, the ample comedy talents Arnett possesses are thrown out the window in favor of him just lusting after Megan Fox's ass. It's a gross and unfunny performance, one that tremendously wastes Will Arnett, which is always a huge mistake.

Andrew Garfield (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
Hot off his turn in The Social Network, Andrew Garfield was one of the hottest rising stars of his generation. 99 Homes last Fall proved this guys still got plenty of chops and that the duo of Amazing Spider-Man movies just gave him nothing to do from a screenwriting or directing perspective. Garfield may have been a little old for the role when he was cast as Peter Parker, but I'm sure he could have been a solid Spider-Man if he had the chance to do things that were dramatically compelling. Instead, he got to rock out Coldplay, act like a dick, lug a skateboard around his High School (do you get that he's a loner yet?) and stalk his ex-girlfriend. The problems of these two Spider-Man films are great in size but giving a talented actor like Garfield nothing to do over the course of two feature length movies has to stand as one of its greatest failings.

Christoph Waltz (The Green Hornet)
In his first post-Inglorious Basterds role (for which he won an Academy Award), Christoph Waltz played the bad guy in this forgotten Seth Rogen headlined action/comedy. While I like how Waltz bad guy character is motivated by a mid-life crisis, he doesn't get to really chew the scenery or provide much menace. Much as I love Christoph Waltz, this part probably should have gone to the initial actor slated for the role, Nicolas Cage, who insisted on playing the character with a Jamaican accent. Now that would have at least been memorably bonkers!

Jesse Eisenberg (Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice)
I could just copy and paste the entire cast list on IMDB for Batman v. Superman: Dawn Of Justice and it would suffice since there isn't a soul on this sordid production that gets to utilize their talents properly. Jesse Eisenberg may be the most tragic of all of the films massive amount of wasted potential though. Here's a guy whose shown considerable talent in dramas like The Social Network, The Squid And The Whale, Adventureland and The End Of The Tour and it gets wasted here with a tonally disjointed character that's like the most aggravating version of a Joel Schumacher Batman villain plopped into a typically color and quality devoid Zack Snyder film.

In theory, such tonal dissonance should provide some unintentional amusement, but Lex is such an incredibly irritating creation that no such humor comes to fruition. Instead, we get a character with zero noteworthy motivation for hating Superman and whose "quirky" antics register more as baffling rather than funny or menacing. Let me put it this way; I'd rather have someone shove a thousand cherry Jolly Ranchers down my throat than have to endure another minute of this dreadful character ever again.

The Meddler Review

Susan Sarandon, currently in her fifth straight decade of acting prominently in American cinema, may be one of the great underappreciated legends of Hollywood. Not only is there real versatility in the types of roles she typically plays (she's appeared in everything from George Miller & Ridley Scott dramas to two separate Lonely Island music videos), but it's also hard to think of a movie where she "phoned it in" if you will. Hell, even in garbage like Tammy she manages to score a laugh or two (though I freely admit I haven't seen critically reviled films where she only had a small role to work with like That's My Boy and The Big Wedding).

So it's no surprise to see her considerable talents being once again more than noticeable in her newest motion picture, The Meddler, which comes courtesy of writer/director Lorene Scafaria. Here, Sarandon plays Marnie, a recently widowed woman whose got tons of money to spare (the cash came from her aforementioned husband) and a void in her life to fill. She has this burning desire to feel useful, which she attempts to satiate by becoming extremely involved in every little matter of her daughter's life.

That daughter, Lori (Rose Byrne), is heading off to New York City to work on a TV show, meaning Marnie will have to find another way to keep herself busy. From there, the plot revolves around Marnie interacting with a variety of individuals to keep herself preoccupied. Among the individuals in question are Apple Store employee Freddy (Jerrod Carmichael), Jillian (Cecily Strong) and retired police officer turned chicken aficionado Zipper. It's a very basic no-frills plotline, but it's hard to quarrel with the straightforward nature of The Meddler considering how consistently pleasant it is to watch.

Lorene Scafaria's screenplay and Susan Sarandon's performance merge to make our lead character a winning creation, which I found to be a relief since it's easy to imagine (and even become my fear in the first few minutes of the movie) that Marnie was gonna turn into a one-note stereotype, a pestering paternal figure too stylized in her helpful tendencies to become truly investable on a dramatic level. Thankfully, Sarandon gives Marnie a warm touch that allows the character to feel acutely authentic while the script smartly gives her numerous other facets to her personality (I love that Marnie has a love for action movies) to enhance that aforementioned sense of genuineness.

There's a lot of smart decisions on a character level to be found in the script for The Meddler, especially in the dynamic between Lori and Marnie, which is another element of the feature that could have been overwhelmed by conventionality in the wrong hands. The more leisurely pace of the film is another notable writing virtue, even if it leaves certain sub-plots (such as Marnie coming to terms with what to do with the ashes of her husband and the real-life similarities to be found in Lori's TV show) feeling notably underdeveloped and their eventual emotional climax overtly subpar.

By the same token though, that restful spirit in The Meddler is hard to deny, especially since it helps solidify the mundaneness that's crept in Marnie's life since her husband left. On the actor's side of things, Rose Byrne does well as a troubled but determined presence in her supporting role, even if it took me some time to adjust to her American accent. J.K. Simmons, meanwhile, amusingly channels Sam Elliot in his Southern-twanged role that allows him to have some fun chemistry with Sarandon. Actually, the cute scenes between those two alone are enough to make The Meddler a pleasant time.

Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising Review

Let it not be said that the (five to be precise) writers of Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising didn't at least flex some creativity when it came time to figure out the motivations of this installments titular neighbors. Whereas the first one had a frathouse led by Teddy (Zac Efron), whose impending exit from college was leaving him with an internal crisis, this one has a sorority, led by Shelby (Chloe Grace Moretz) move in next door to Mac (Seth Rogen) and Kelly (Rose Byrne). For Shelby, her motivation to party like there's no tomorrow is her desire to be more socially outgoing in college compared to her more introverted High School days.



Plus, the desire to fight back against a society that's always telling women how to act or how they should be serves as a fine flame to kickstart the explosion of debauchery. Of course, just like in the first Neighbors, Mac and Kelly don't want their next door neighbors to be so rowdy, so they go through various antics to try to shut the party down. Unfortunately, the results are nowhere near as funny nor narratively concise this time around. Credit where credit is due, the stuff with Shelby and her sorority is probably the most consistently humorous content in the film and the most emotionally resonant, since her character motivations feel like the most organic of the surprisingly large amount of plot threads contained in the feature.

From a story perspective though, Neighbors 2 is otherwise a bust, failing to conjure up a story and instead falling on forced episodic antics that aren't anywhere near funny enough to justify their blatant narrative shortcomings. That's another problem with the script, the jokes that fail just die an agonizing death on-screen. To be fair, the jokes that do land (many of which come from Ike Barinholtz and Rose Byrne, whose gag of thrashing around in her bed in anger had me cackling like crazy), but those jokes that miss the mark are so noticeable in their malfunctions that they drag Neighbors 2 down considerably.

With the jokes just not firing on all cylinders, the foibles in the writing become all the more gratuitous, especially the flaws in related to the characterization of Teddy (Zac Efron). For some reason, he's been relegated to being exceedingly dumb in this film, to the point where he makes Homer Simpson look like Stephen Hawking in terms of intellectualism. It's not an entirely bad route to take the character, per se, and Teddy does get some funny gags related directly to this newfound aspect of his personality (such as his inability to do math problems unrelated to narcotics), but, and I hate to sound like a broken record here, it's not quite funny enough overall to justify the abrupt shift in his character.

A flood of cameos crop up in the film, including individuals like Selena Gomez, Billy Eichner, Abbi Jacobson and Kyle Mooney. Many of these briefly appearing actors deliver some of the films funnier moments, though it must be noted that Hannibal Burress brief reprisal of his role from the first Neighbors gets probably the best joke in the entire movie. In the lead roles, Byrne is still aces while Seth Rogen seems to be the most notable victim of the more scattered nature of this movies lackluster script, with his character getting very little to do from both a plot and humor perspective. I will say Kiersey Clemons proves that her turn in last years charming Dope was no fluke, that she is indeed a talented comedic actor, while newcomer Beanie Feldstein gets to be a noteworthy scene stealer.

Let it be noted that I didn't find Neighbors 2 to be a bad movie, it's just an average film that could have easily been more. There's a lot of good ideas floating around in here, but that's kind of the problem; Neighbors 2 has too much going on and as a result of the crowded aesthetic none of the individual bits and pieces get to live up their fullest potential. While there are certainly laughs to be had, I'd recommend not saying hello to these Neighbors (2).

Yeah yeah, I know, that was a bad pun, even by my standards.