Double Feature: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) & Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Welcome to the next double feature! This time we are doing a double rental feature. Both of these were films that I rented in the last little while and its one that we’ve been wanting to see and both are sequels.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

Director: Jake Kasdan

Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gillan, Rhys Darby, Bobby Cannavale, Nick Jonas

Four teenagers are sucked into a magical video game, and the only way they can escape is to work together to finish the game. – IMDB

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a sequel to the 1995 Jumanji film. With anything like that, it takes a lot of care. For one, it needs to keep in mind that it is its sequel and keep the heart of it but also give it the modernized world standard. At the same time, still giving respect to the success of the first one. Luckily, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle makes it slight changes to make it not a remake but a sequel that happens years after the original. It acknowledges the original board game format and then gives the reasons of how it turns into a video game format. The whole player and video game world is one that works really well also plus they add in the four players and role-playing game style.

With that said, the heart of the film really is the cast themselves and how they interpret each of their roles. Dwayne Johnson always aims to please with his humor. It becomes hilarious to just watch these characters take on the opposite of who they are in reality, for better or for worse. In the case of his character, Spencer who is a nerdy scrawny nobody in school, this transformation aims to have a few laughs as he gets fascinated at being somebody. While on the other hand, we have the jock character who turns into Kevin Hart. After Central Intelligence (review), we are already familiar with how great Kevin Hart and Dwayne Johnson work as a comedic duo. They bring in a lot of laughs. However, Jack Black is the star of the show as he embodies a self-absorbed high school girl. I can’t imagine anyone else excelling at that role as he did. Pure entertainment!

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is a sequel that honestly didn’t really need to happen. Being a huge fan of the original, it was one that I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. Luckily, as unnecessary as it was, it was a ton of fun and that was all it needed to be.

Sicario: Day of the Soldado (2018)

Director: Stefano Sollimo

Cast: Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Isabela Moner, Jeffrey Donovan, Catherine Keener, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Matthew Modine

The drug war on the U.S.-Mexico border has escalated as the cartels have begun trafficking terrorists across the US border. To fight the war, federal agent Matt Graver re-teams with the mercurial Alejandro. – IMDB

You can check out the review of Sicario HERE.

In a nutshell, I was pretty enthralled with Sicario. Probably not so much that I went running to watch its sequel for a few specific reasons, the main one being that the ending of the first one was pretty gloomy and I wasn’t really down for anything like that. In many ways, Sicario: Day of the Soldado takes a different approach. It still has its twists and turns and it still maintains a pretty decent atmosphere and locks in those ethics and morals and the right and wrong of the situation. In that sense, the characters and the situation at hand all work out pretty decently. Plus, it takes the whole wondering how messed up a situation is when the government okays their people to make up a situation controlled by them to push the tension on other situations. It also looks at the extents of what is the greater evil and the means to meet the ends of a situation. Sicario has always been about making those big choices that feel wrong and its the heart of these stories especially when fighting cartels.

As great as watching Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin was in this film. Their roles are pretty great. Their characters do get quite a bit of change. However, if anything what it feels like here is that after Sicario, we already know to expect that things aren’t going to go as planned and that something is going to happen as a twist and there’s going to be something deeper to the story that is at hand. Because of that, it doesn’t quite hit as poignantly as the first one. I’m going to be honest that in my mind, I didn’t think that Sicario needed a sequel. The first movie shone because of Emily Blunt (for me) and taking her out of the equation now (because there was no way she was coming back), didn’t seem like it would work. Good news is that the movie still works, just not as effectively as the first one. Its still pretty good though.

That’s it for this double feature!
Have you seen either of these films?

Sicario (2015)

Next up in the Oscars 2016 movies, although not up for a Best Picture nomination, it is one that I’ve been more intrigued to watch.  I’ve rented Sicario for quite a while and now that its almost hitting the end of my rental period, we decided it was a good time to give it a go.  Emily Blunt is painting herself as a female action hero of late.  I haven’t caught up with Edge of Tomorrow although I did get it so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect.

Let’s check it out! 🙂

Sicario (2015)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Emily Blunt, Josh Brolin, Benicio Del Toro, Daniel Kaluuya, Victor Garber, Julio Cedillo

An idealistic FBI agent is enlisted by a government task force to aid in the escalating war against drugs at the border area between the U.S. and Mexico.-IMDB

Its a really great feeling to not fall asleep during a movie.  Sicario is a tight-knit action thriller right from the start.  We actually started this up for dinner and the opening scene made us have to kind of pause it until after we ate to resume.  However, the powerful beginning makes the subject of this thriller even more poignant and important.  That might seem brutally intense but it was also only the start of the thrilling Sicario.  It set the tone of why our main character had to go on this journey.

Sicario never really gives you time to breath.  It has slower moments and even those moments are full of intense situations.  We’re trying to figure out what is going on.  Why is Emily Blunt’s character, Kate recruited to do this? We know why she wants to be involved but then they seem to just place her on the sidelines and when they ask her to do something else, they don’t really tell her whats going on? For that reason, us as the audience is also kept in the dark with all those questions in our heads. With that said, Emily Blunt captures her role very well.  I like this newly discovered side of Emily Blunt.  I mean, I like her in comedies and dramedies and whatnot but her as an action hero seems to work so very well also.

What does change the game quickly is the introduction of the character of Benicio del Toro. His character is mysterious and quiet. In fact, a lot of the movie is pretty quiet.  There’s some action sequences and talk but its a lot of observing and analyzing. I don’t think I’ve seen a movie with Benicio del Toro that I’m completely enthralled with but then I haven’t seen that many of his in general but this one was amazing.  He was the show-stopper.

Other than some great performances, a lot of credit goes to creating the atmosphere.  Watching Sicario felt like we were in on the action with the way the cameras moved and the movie was filmed.  Like the scene on top, they were rumbling down the streets and it felt like we were right there rumbling along.  On top of that, its a forte of Denis Villeneuve’s to choose a very analytical sort of approach to things, making it dark or mysterious, suspicious if you will and creating those feelings.  He picks topics which will impact the viewers a lot whether it was Sicario and the drug cartel or if its going back to his Quebec roots and looking at the Polytechnique massacre or making us think super hard about the meaning of Enemy. Its his style and I feel like Sicario really accentuate and could see how he is a very good filmmaker.

I don’t really have a lot to say about Sicario.  It took me a week to write up this review because I just didn’t know how to approach it.  Overall, Sicario is an exhilarating experience, putting you straight in the issue and the action and surrounding you with standout performances by Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro. I’ve always been a little skeptical on Denis Villeneuve but I truly want to visit and revisit some of his previous films. If you haven’t, you definitely should check out Sicario.  It might not be Best Picture material but its well worth a watch.

Have you seen Sicario? What stood out (or failed) for you in this film? 

Double Review: Project X (2012) & Women in Trouble (2009)

I have a TON of movies that I watched and haven’t reviewed but these two recent ones due to Netflix expiration brought me to these and I figured I might as well have a say on these. I was pretty much on cold meds and pretty out of it when I’m at home.  I truly hate summer colds and ALL I ask is decent entertainment but lets just get this out right now that I truly did not enjoy these two.

Lets start this possibly rant-like write-up, shall we?

Project X (2012)

Director: Nima Nourizadeh

Cast: Thomas Mann, Oliver Cooper, Jonathan Daniel Brown, Dax Flame, Kirby Bliss Blanton, Alexis Knapp, Miles Teller, Peter MacKenzie

Its Thomas Kub’s (Thomas Mann) birthday and with the influence of his friends, Costa (Oliver Cooper) and JB (Jonathan Daniel Brown), they decide to take advantage of Thomas’s parents being away for the weekend to throw a huge party for their senior class to help them get popular.  Except things don’t quite go as they plan when more people than they expected arrive and its gets completely out of hand.

Seriously, thats all I even want to say about this movie.  Thats all it really deserves.  Why did it suck? They tried to use found footage and it was so ridiculous.  I haven’t been in high school in like 11 years or something and I wasn’t in the popular crowd either (nor did I want to be) so maybe thats why I can’t appreciate this notion of getting popular through doing all these stupid things. Point is, the movie encourages all the wrong things.

So, SPOILER ALERT starts about now (if you plan on seeing this): the dad didn’t even give a crap about it.  He just couldn’t believe that his son was capable of this because he was a loser.  Sure, he still grounded him for trashing his car but not the fact that the whole f’ing house was destroyed? That is THE WORST parent talk ever. *Spoiler END*

What the message that I’m getting is that:  Its okay to break the rules, trash the house, throw a gigiantic party and do a ton of stupid stuff and get held on charges as long as you come back to school and get the girl and all the popularity (that will probably fade after you graduate).  Is it really worth it?

Man, I’m starting to think I am old.

For the record, the only reason, at any age for me to even THINK about standing on my roof (forget jumping off it) is if there is a fire or I’m checking the shingles are good.

Anyways, suffice to say that I don’t think kids these days need this sort of movie as encouragement to party hard.  They can do it all on their own and to say that its okay for short-lived popularity, thats even worse.

Women in Trouble (2009)

Director: Sebastian Gutierrez

Cast: Carla Gugino, Adrianne Palicki, Connie Britton, Caitlin Keats, Isabella Gutierrez, Simon Baker, Sarah Clarke, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Josh Brolin

A serpentine day in the life of ten seemingly disparate women: a porn star, a flight attendant, a psychiatrist, a masseuse, a bartender, a pair of call girls, etc. All of them with one crucial thing in common. Trouble.- IMDB

To say I hated this movie is going a bit far. I just thought it was really boring.  I mean, I don’t find movies boring.  I rarely do.  I always manage to find that one thing that makes it good.  I sat through this in hopes that something would happen that made it good.  You know, the satisfying ending or something like that.  Before I knew it, there was only 15 minutes left in the movie and all I saw was 10 half-done stories of women that weren’t even actually 10 stories because some just vanished into thin air with nothing.  This is supposed to be a comedy and I rarely laughed, except for the final bit where Joseph Gordon-Levitt was on.  Even Simon Baker was not good enough to make me like this (mostly because his character wasn’t extremely likable).

There really is nothing much to say about this because nothing actually happens.  I’m leaving with that right there.

Oh right, and I believe there is a sequel for this following Carla Gugino’s character, a porn actress who gets pregnant and the development of the other women in the movie.  Its on Netflix also and I’m thinking since they used this entire movie to do nothing and just set the stage, maybe the next one might get somewhere? I don’t know anymore.  I put it on my list but maybe I’ll never get around to seeing it. The only reason I’d watch the continuation is to see if this second one gives some closure and substance to these characters.

Either way, I don’t recommend Project X unless you like that sort of party movie.  I apparently have no interest in it whatsoever, not when I was a teen, not in university and definitely not now. As for Women in Trouble, it could’ve been more but it didn’t do anything with it and just turned out to be a waste of time because there was no development of any sort.

Now that we have the bad part done…I have some pretty awesome movies to talk about for the next few reviews over the next few days! 🙂

Excited? I know I am! For one, I’m pretty sure I just fell completely in love with an actor.  I knew he was good but man, this guy is just wow right now.  If you want to know who it is, drop by again 😉

Double Review: Sin City (2005) & Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

Surprisingly enough, I got selected for a special advanced screening of Sin City: A Dame To Kill For.  However, my memory of the first one was not that great especially since I didn’t remember much, so I decided to revisit it the night before I went.  The experience of being the first group to see the movie is definitely great and since I’ve been doing this little blog and diving into the world of movies, I’ve learned that I’ve changed a little in how I appreciate movies and that is the main reason why I wanted to revisit this.

Since I’ve been massively behind with everything, I decided to just go ahead and do a double review of these two movies. It baffles me that after almost 10 years we get a sequel for Sin City but still, lets see how it all went.

SIN CITY (2005)

Director: Frank Miller & Robert Rodriguez (special guest director: Quentin Tarantino)

Cast: Bruce Willis, Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Clive Owen, Rosario Dawson, Alexis Bledel, Powers Boothe, Benicio Del Toro, Michael Clarke Duncan, Jaime King

A film that explores the dark and miserable town, Basin City, and tells the story of three different people, all caught up in violent corruption.-IMDB

I have no other way has to how to describe this movie but just use the synopsis in IMDB. I’d give it a shot but honestly, I think it all starts with this.  The first time I saw Sin City in theatres with some college friends, I thought it was THE most boring thing ever.  Why? Because nothing made sense and it was like a jumble of nothing.  It was beautiful and black and white gory and brutal.  Its not really not my thing and as I rewatched it a few nights ago, I saw it in a different light.  There is a brilliance to the jumbled-up story and I stayed awake for it and apparently, I only remembered two parts from the original viewing.

What I absolutely love is the style.  The black and white and the interlacing of sharp colors: the red silk (and sometimes, blood), the colors in the eyes, the contrast in hair and that sort of thing.  It just makes an impression.  Then you have one of the bad guys, Yellow Bastard who is just a disturbing and ugly character that popped out because he was literally yellow.

The second thing that I love about it was the cast.  Bruce Willis is just amazing as Jack Hartigan.  Clive Owen is awesome as Dwight.  And then there’s the passion and chemistry between the characters. The stories gave time for the characters to grow and develop in exactly the space and time it needed.  Each of the stories had their impact and honestly, Basin City has some pretty impressive characters.  The Old Town girls are brutal, violent and fun to watch.

As I sit here thinking about it more, its really starting to grow.  The third thing that works is the stories.  Everyone has something that makes it worthwhile to watch. It has exaggeration, sarcasm, darkness, violence, manipulation.  This town is full of ugly people in personality.  Its corrupt and dark but strange enough, its also covered in beautiful women who are almost as lethal as you can imagine.  There are boundaries and all that.  Its a pretty amazing set-up for a movie.

Sin City has the formula for a great movie and for the most part, it delivers.  The question is whether its your type of movie.  I love the comic book visuals, the sharp contrasts, the set up of the town and the stories of our main characters, and especially the fantastic cast.  It was well-balanced, brutal and very fun to watch. However, its not exactly my type of movie that I go for everyday so it took time for me to really see it through.  The second viewing definitely made me praise it a lot more.

Sin City: A Dame To Kill For (2014)

Director: Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller

Cast: Jessica Alba, Mickey Rourke, Josh Brolin, Eva Green, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rosario Dawson, Powers Boothe, Bruce Willis

Some of Sin City’s most hard-boiled citizens cross paths with a few of its more reviled inhabitants.-IMDB

On a lesser run time than the first one and having a few new characters, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For still lacks a little something.  I loved the style that was equally has beautiful as the first with the black and white and sudden colors to give it a great experience.  The music was awesome and matched the atmosphere.  I’m trying to pinpoint in my mind if there were 3 or 4 story arcs right now but they weren’t quite as fun as the first.

 

The characters were great because the cast is still very decent.  Mickey Rourke returned as Marv and is still as violent (and a bit stupid) as before.  The new additions of Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Eva Green and Josh Brolin all bring something new to the table. Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets his own story arc as a cocky gambler who never loses.  He goes to Kadie’s to challenge Senator Roark except in the corrupted sin city, he gets warned time and time again that its not a wise thing to do.  As much I love Joseph Gordon-Levitt in absolutely anything and he is very wonderful as Johnny, I felt his story wasn’t quite where I wanted it to go.

The next story arc was for an older Dwight (previously played by Clive Owen) but is returned this time played by Josh Brolin. Dwight’s story is possibly the most elaborate.  He is trapped in a flame that he can’t shake off.  He tries to not respond to the attractive Ava, played by Eva Green who is now married to a rich man.  She comes back and he falls right back into her arms.  This leads to a game of manipulation, a trap, revenge and a lot of naked Eva Green scenes. This one was actually pretty fun to watch.  The chemistry, passion, manipulation all works out even if you can predict what will happen 😉

I guess, the fourth story would be Marv retracing how he ended up where he was, except I’m wondering if there was anything for him.  Except, Marv, played by Mickey Rourke (like the first one) is the key to drawing everything together because he appears in all the stories in one way or another.  If anyone is easily manipulated, it would have to go to him. Plus, he is the action and the brutal violence.  There is no doubt that Marv is a great character and Mickey Rourke does a great job, even after 9 years he still has the essence of Marv in him and revives him on the big screen.

I personally like the follow up with Hartigan’s death and the impact it has on Nancy the best.  The roles are both still played by the original two, Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba. Although Nancy and her dancing scenes are thrown around the entire movie and it lets the audience see how she’s completely broken by it all.  Its a mental struggle for her and she not only wants revenge that she can’t pick up the courage to do so she drowns herself in alcohol.  In her struggle, she sees glimpses of Hartigan, as if he’s never left her side.  Its really something to watch.  There was one shocking part that I never would’ve guessed and its pretty awesome the way they handled it.

Overall, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For is not as good as the first one.  The stories lack the punch it had in the first one, even though there are two that particularly stand out.  However, the style and the music is still amazing.  The 3D is done extremely well and adds to the overall effects.  The cast does a great job at bringing everything they can to the movie and for the most part, they do a very good job.  Even the new additions, Joseph Gordon-Levitt brings a charm to his story (even though it falls flat), Josh Brolin has a compelling character and story and Mickey Rourke is fantastic once again as the ever so violent Marv.

I need to make a point of saying this: If you were a fan of the first one, the chances of you enjoying this one more than me is very high.  Keep that in mind when you decide whether you’d like to see this 😉

Are you a fan of Sin City? What makes it so great to you? Have you been anticipating the sequel? Do you think its been long-awaited or unnecessary?

 

Best Laid Plans (1999)

Next up in recommendations was in response to my review on The Goonies (HERE) from Jack Flacco. He suggested me to check out Best Laid Plans for Josh Brolin‘s performance.  Jack has a wonderful site full of articles about zombies and he features a few very fun segments: Monday Mayhem, Women Who Wow Wednesday and Freedom Friday.  Definitely check it out if you haven’t yet.  For now, let’s check out what he asked me to watch.

Director: Mike Barker

Cast: Alessandro Nivola, Reese Witherspoon, Josh Brolin, Terrence Howard, James Marsh

In the small town of Tropico, within a few months, Nick (Alessandro Nivola) loses his father, the insurance money and needs money to get out of his current life.  He does end up meeting his girlfriend Lissa (Reese Witherspoon).  However, when his coworker Barry (James Marsh) lets him in a deal to drive away after a seemingly easy robbery, he gets tracked down the next day and to stay alive, he needs to be able to find money to cover his (uncompensated) cut and a bit more. When his school friend Bryce (Josh Brolin) calls him up out of nowhere, he derives the perfect plan to do it with a little help from Lissa.  Unexpectedly, a panic call in the middle of the night from Bryce proves that something went wrong with the initial plan and he has to figure out a way out.

Best Laid Plans is a decent crime thriller.  At certain points, we really feel the intensity of the situation.  We have a pretty above average cast here with Reese Witherspoon being my favorite even though she didn’t have too much screen time. It has a good plot but somehow, it did take me a while to connect with all the characters as much, especially that of Josh Brolin’s  Bryce. Most of the time, I wanted to punch him in the face because he reminded me of the annoying classmates I had in high school.  Maybe he was supposed to be that way.

Josh Brolin actually played a lesser part to the this movie’s lead, Alessandro Nivola’s Nick.  I really like this character actually and this guy really acted the hell out of the script.  He was possibly the character that I connected the most with, not that I ever got in any of his situations.  Its the calm nature that he has that made me wonder how he was going to get out of the situation he was in.

I’ve always liked Reese Witherspoon.  I usually watch her in chick flicks (like Legally Blonde) but as Lissa and in her fake identity, she really was the one that had to sacrifice the most.  As much as I’d like to say, Nick was the loser in this, she lost a whole lot more especially seeing as the situation did go south.  Plus, Reese Witherspoon is definitely a charming actress.

BUT, you know what bothered me in this movie.  It was shot pretty well and the mood and tone was set well to match the situation.  Lighting was done good.  There was a great cast with an entertaining script BUT, I laughed at the ending.  The ending was the wrapping up the movie in the most unexpected way.  I have to give it this, it was original and unique but hell, if thats the morals of the story, its totally wrong to even want to know that.  If you saw this, you’d probably know what I mean, and you can email me or message me or something and tell me to see if thats what it was.

Overall, do I like this movie? I do say that its definitely a good entertaining movie with some good performances from the cast and an intense enough story however, beware of how you’ll feel at the ending.  My reaction was something like “WTF??? LOL *shakes head*” Thats just because I don’t enjoy ending particularly like that but after giving it a night to sleep on it, its not a bad movie.  It won’t ruin your day and maybe you might enjoy the ending and its just a personal preference for me.  Give it a shot, its worth that at the very least 🙂

Have you seen this? Do you like crime thrillers?

Thanks to Jack for recommending this to me! I loved the performances in this even if I wanted to punch Josh Brolin but I did enjoy Reese Witherspoon  a lot, and other than the ending, it was a pretty good movie! Remember to drop by his blog and show him some support 🙂

The Goonies (1985)

The Goonies is one of those movies that my boyfriend keeps talking about but every time we walk past it in the bargain bin, we don’t pick it up and get something else instead (usually not so much of a bargain as this).  Finally, a week or two ago, my boyfriend really wanted to get it. If not, this review would never have happened! Its my first time seeing The Goonies, maybe you’re thinking what other awesome movies I’ve missed…The answer to that is probably lots 😉

Director: Richard Donner

Cast: Sean Astin, Josh Brolin, Corey Feldman, Jeff Cohen, Kerri Green, Martha Plimpton, Ke Huy Quan, John Matuszak, Anne Ramsey

On the eve that brothers Mikey (Sean Astin) and Brand (Josh Brolin) are forced to leave their homes along with a group of their friends in their neighborhood due to developers taking over the land to build a golf course, they find a treasure map in their attic.  This treasure map allows Mikey to recall a story that his father once told him before when he was a child about One-Eyed Willy and his treasure on a hidden pirate ship.  This makes him convince his friends, also called The Goonies, to go find this treasure in hopes of finding enough money so they can stay together.  In search for his brother, Brand and eventually two of his friends Andy (Kerri Green) and Stef (Martha Plimpton) end up joining into this adventure.  The entrance of the treasure hunt ends up being in the home of the wanted criminals the Fratellis: Mama Fratelli (Anne Ramsey) and her two accomplices along with a locked up Sloth (John Matuszak). Will the talents of The Goonies, Data (Ke Huy Quan) and his booby traps, Mouth (Corey Feldman) and his mouth and a few others like Chunk (Jeff Cohen) and Mikey himself and his brother and friends be enough to find the treasure and save their home?

 

You know what this movie reminded me of? Indiana Jones! It was Indiana Jones for kids.  I love Indiana Jones adventure so I easily fell in love with this movie. Sure, there are a few parts that maybe aren’t really good because they are predictable but its like walking into being a kid anymore.  Granted, my childhood was never so fun and I didn’t do hangouts with groups of friends.  This one really drew me in with the play with words, the booby traps, the lucky escapes, and just trying everything to stay with our friends and enjoy the moments with them.

 

I’m not going to go into the cheesy effects much but as much as I’d like to say that it retracted from the movie, it probably added even more.  There was nothing fancy about this but for example, my boyfriend and I laughed at the bats.  They were ridiculous and no one would be even afraid of them if thats what bats actually looked like, but it provided us with lots of entertainment.

 

The Goonies themselves each were loveable in their own way.  They each brought something to the hunt itself whether it was courage, luck, brains, booby traps or just being extra eyes or strength. It gave them all a nice balance in the group and for a bunch of young actors, they did a great job.  What enforced that feeling of Indiana Jones is Data/Ke Huy Quan since he was in one of those movies too and I LOVED his role 🙂 The Goonies just made the audience want them to succeed because it felt like we were every part in this adventure also.  They all had characters that grew on us and made us laugh with some of their silliness.

 

In any child’s flicks, they have to have some form of moronic villains and the Fratelli’s took the prize at it.  Mama Fratelli lead her two sons to chase after the Goonies after hearing about the treasure.  As much as Mama Fratelli feels like the most evil of villains, her sons are easily tricked and even though grown up were kids also because they would also fight and want to right. (Rhyming was not intentional).  As much as this movie wasn’t extremely intense, they proved to be the comic relief.

I regret not swiping this up from that bargain bin the first moment I saw it.  It shines as an children’s adventure flick.  It embodies what children would dream about and the adventures they could have.  It also brings in lots of messages about appearances and values.  Not to mention its just purely fun and entertaining! I’m guessing I’m one of the few people who haven’t seen this, but I’d like to say that I highly recommend it 🙂