Perhaps a bit too inconsequential, rushed, and appearing as an arguable “how-many-tropes-from-the-movie-can-we-fit-into-a-ten-minute-short” kind of short, Frozen Fever, like its source, is funny, heartwarming, beautifully animated, and quite entertaining.

Final Verdict:

I wasn’t dreading Cinderella’s release, knowing full-well the competence of the cast and crew involved. However, I was one of countless others who saw this film and the impending live-action remakes Disney is currently planning as pointless and unnecessary. However, if Cinderella is any indicator, perhaps we might be seeing a brave and bold movement that might strengthen the originals while being marvelous creations on their own right.

Director Kenneth Branagh and writer Chris Weitz make each and every character shine brightly, and boy do I mean every character. From the quirky and ditzy Fairy Godmother (played with great zest by Helena Bonham Carter) to the human forms of the animals she fashions into footmen and a driver (which spawns an oddly frank, but hilarious one-liner), even the most minor characters have so much life and personality to them. It certainly helps that the actors involved are taking having much fun on-screen very seriously. Lily James makes for a very pretty, witty, and lovable Cinderella, and her prince, played by James Madden, has evident naivety, but flaunts a very commanding yet upright presence. His scenes with his on-screen father (especially his last) are surprisingly moving and offer some of the film’s most genuine moments. Nearly outshining everyone however is Cate Blanchett as Lady Tremaine, aka the Evil Stepmother. What could have been a boring, horrifically-obvious villain-type character instead becomes fully-fleshed and complex; someone you find pitying as much you do hating them. Her scene with Cinderella when she finds her glass slipper is gripping, and the film successfully makes you feel dirty for making you feel the slightest bit sorry for her.

If you have seen or even know the story of Cinderella, this story will not prove to be anything new. However, the extra half hour that was added from the original 1951 animated classic is wisely spend developing characters, building the world, and giving the characters great scenes in which to clash or bounce off each other. It isn’t even until the twenty minute mark that both of Cinderella’s parents finally pass, using the time before that to strengthen the bond between her and her true family, and it only makes her ill treatment by her stepmother and stepsisters all the more wrenching. I’ve always held on to the belief that characters drive the plot and not the other way around, and Cinderella is a marvel at proving this point. Strangely, there’s such an attention to detail, that I feel as though it makes the small holes in the story (a couple they try in vain to fix) seem just that much more glaring.

However, beyond the characters, it’s the look of the film that completely won me over. Face it, this is the man who created Asgard for the Marvel cinematic universe, so it would be in proper form for Branagh to make the world of Cinderella that much dazzling. From the stunning costumes (that might as well take their Oscar home right now) and art direction, to the more magical elements (and all the very clever nuances that come with it), this is a spotless-looking film. Even the animals are great looking, not appearing or acting nearly as anthropomorphized as the original animated film. If anything, they’re like the dragons from the How to Train Your Dragon series; they have some very noticeable human behaviors and actions, but they still appear like actual animals. And for those wondering if you’ll be able to sing along to Bippity Boppity Boo, just hold out through the credits. It’s about as fun and nostalgic as you can expect.

There’s really hardly anything bad I can say about this film, save for the few unsanded edges that do glare out. Otherwise, it perfectly captures the magic of the original film while putting in more than enough substance to sate more cynical viewers. It’s a near-perfect family film that’s impossible to hate, and one that will put a smile on your face in one way or another. Regardless, it will be a smile that only a great Disney film can give you.

Final Verdict:

It’s arguably a fact that Dreamworks Animation’s strongest films have been adaptations of other books. Whether it be Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon, and, if you want to count the Bible, then The Prince of Egypt too. So when I heard about Home, based on the novel The True Meaning of Smekday by , I was already expecting another great, but it’s far less in the territory of the aforementioned films and more into the realm of Shark Tale and Shrek the Third.

Not to say that there aren’t evident things to like about Home. Namely, Jim Parsons and Steve Martin as Boovs Oh and Smek. While both characters have an uncomfortably wide range of likability, Parsons and Martin are clearly having a lot of fun with their roles, and it certainly tips the scales in their favor. Dragging the film disastrously down is Rihanna as Tip, the girl that eventually befriends Oh. Her character herself is so nonsensically fickle, and she has such a flat personality that’s hampered further by dull, exposition in lieu of real character development. It also serves the character no favors that Rihanna has the minimum amount of conviction in her performance, seeming more annoyed and mildly shocked in situations that a child Tip’s age would find heavily traumatic.

The story is also a messy, cliché-ridden zipline from plot-point to plot-point that seems to be a pedestal for jokes and horrendously corny scenes and dialogue. While the Boovs’ broken English and their continued learning of Earthly phrases, customs, and slang, is at most times clever, there are times that it feels that the writers were really reaching. Tip’s dialogue, much like her character, is all grating to listen to. It’s implied that she’s at least of 7th grade age, yet still uses phrases like “smell you later” and is heavily entertained by knock-knock jokes (specifically the interrupting cow one).

However, the brunt of this movie’s effort was in its design, and admittedly, it’s certainly the film’s most successful aspect. The Boovs have very original character designs that are actually very cute and palatable for children. Their tendency to change colors to reflect their emotions, as well as the ways they interpret human objects made way for a surprising plethora of funny jokes. However, not much about the Boovs make much sense. They speak in a broken English, implying that they’ve come to learn it, but the film shows a scene where they’re talking in their broken English on their own home planet! They also universally live in conformity and a lack of compassion, yet Oh and Smek have extremely colorful personalities, and the former is the only one who fully delights himself in indulging in human culture when they arrive on earth. It's little things about these aliens that make them a more impossible species the more I think about them. I also want to bring this up because it really rubbed me wrong, but Tip’s cat is a failure on all counts. It looks nothing like a cat, and it interacts with Tip and Oh as if its sentient. To put this in perspective, the mice in the new Cinderella were more like real mice than Tip’s cat was like a cat. Dead serious. I could also go on about the on-off villains that are the Gorgs, but once it’s revealed what they really are, you’ll be pulling your hair over how stupid these things are (along with their design).

However, one of the biggest sins in the movie is why they casted Rihanna (and Lopez). I mean, Dreamworks is notorious for choosing celebrity voices over an actor that better fits the role. However, when you cast not just one, but two, singers in your movie and have their songs dominate the soundtrack, you’ve now turned it into nothing but a shallow vanity project. And yes, there’s a scene where Tip puts on a Rihanna song and Oh can’t help himself from dancing uncontrollably. “If you want us to like you,” Tip at one point says, “maybe you can start by liking some of our things.” Yeah, namely your music, Rihanna.

Strangely, there’s a lot in Home that’s actually very entertaining and aesthetically pleasing. It’s certainly not worth sitting through the rushed, hackneyed story, the perplexing changes from a surprising attention to a surprising inattention to detail, and just a terrible 2nd main character bolstered poorly by an equally terrible performance that seems only concerned with how many more of her singles people will buy on iTunes because of it, though. It almost terrifies me to think that this is the same studio who made Shrek, Kung-Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon. They clearly should have known better.

Final Verdict:

I tend to be impartially favorable to all films of all genres, but if there's one genre (minus horror) that's the easiest to mess up and make my blood boil, it's the romance films. Nicolas Sparks adaptations have been notoriously bad on this front, and The Longest Run is no exception. It's honestly the first of these adaptations I've seen, but I still came in with low expectations. Amazingly, I still managed to soar over the bar this film set up for itself.

One of the two things I can give this film credit on is the acting. Unlike this year's Fifty Shades of Grey, the performances were decent all around by each actor. The big problem is that they're attached to characters as flat, thin, and bland as paper. Scott Eastwood's Luke is the most typical cowboy goody-good-doer one can imagine, and his blunt honesty earns him much deserved ire. Britt Robertson's Sophia is a particularly fascinating wreck, starting off as your typical workaholic nerd college student to someone who gladly trade her career away for a piece of Luke's cowboy D. The only time their relationship had any genuineness were when they fought, as no couple like them would last as excruciatingly long as they did.

However, there's another story along with theirs to gnash together, because dual narratives makes your movie automatically deep, right? It would, if there were any visible connection between the two. One's a story about an art student and a bullrider, the other is about a Jewish couple... and that's pretty much it with that one. While the cowboy story is at least straightforward, the story of the old man and his wife just strings together loose bits and pieces of different stories together, but hey, as long as they suck face at the end, who cares about cohesiveness? The film also toils itself on weaving the two stories together, only managing to come up with massively vague themes and a really forced recital of the film's title. It's abundantly clear that this was a movie comprised of radically different stories with too little substance to stand on their own and got clumped to fill a two-hour running time.

The worst part of it is how predictable it is. You know exactly what's going to happen in each scene, and nothing comes as a surprise, except the very end, which was so overwhelmingly schmaltzy and cloying that it managed to cheapen the already worthless story. Any time something happens, like a phone rings, or Sophia gets on her computer, you know exactly what's coming up, and it spoils any impact the scene could have had. Of course, liberties concerning rational human thought and professionalism are generously taken to force these two lovers together like magnets of equal polarities. Luke and Sophia's first meeting is brought upon by the former getting chased into her by a bull that the rodeo clown was apparently too lazy to distract, and upon first mention of Luke's near-career-ending injury, it's only until he gets injured again almost a month later that she decides to research it. It's extremely hard to find anything to like about a romance when everything is so sloppily and obviously planned.

There's definitely more redeeming qualities to The Longest Run than Fifty Shades of Grey, but Fifty Shades of Grey couldn't hold a candle to the heavy amount of head-crushing, talking-down-to-you trash that this one did. I couldn't care less for the characters, and that goes double for their boring, pre-planned relationships, and when it was all over, I found myself only hating them more. Note to the audience: if the supposed cornerstone of a series of book-to-film adaptations is eleven years old and has a 56% on Rotten Tomatoes, then you should run the hell away and never look back.

Final Verdict: