Brave: 8/10

Cars 2 was the ultimate proof that Pixar is indeed mortal and capable of producing filth.


Brave is proof that Pixar still has a ways to go before reaching its previous masterpiece status---the movie didn’t even feel like it matched the title.

But despite not having the emotional complexity of Up, the humor of Toy Story 2, or even the distinctive creativity of Monster’s Inc., Brave still works in many levels and will entertain us all just like your usual Pixar fare. Like Pixar's best, there was a clear multitude of effort in terms of the storytelling, the voice acting, and especially its animation.

Brave is about a feisty carefree princess that is absolutely not ready for a suitor, and not ready for the lifestyle of a queen. After a nasty spat with her mom, she sets off and makes a drastic decision leading to a difficult series of events. Without spoiling too much, Brave offers plenty of twists to the usual rebel-against-the-parents story that we see in kids movies.

The outstanding part of this movie is the animation, which is leagues above anything else the competitors can weave. From the backgrounds to the action sequences to the subtle clever visual jokes to the staggering details concerning Princess Merida’s hair, Brave looks spellbindingly gorgeous. The voice acting was also superb, as plenty of emotion was delivered by Kelly McDonald, Billy Connolly, and Emma Thompson.

What will make this princess-driven movie stand out is Merida herself. She has quite a personality that in sharp contrast to princesses in animated and live-action ranging from Snow White to Princess Fiona in later Shrek films. She is funny, caring, adventurous, and far stronger emotionally and physically then what we are used to seeing on screen. The shameful part is that on the latter half we don't see her adventurous qualities---she barely uses her bow and arrow that had been sprinkled all over the marketing (which is definitely the worst part of Brave and most likely will hinder its box office receipts).

As a matter of fact its the latter half that prevents this from being something truly magical and special. We don't see the Braveness in Brave, we don't see Merida as much action but more in a preparedness pose, and ultimately the climax wraps around a bit too quickly. The changing of directors definitely had a profound effect on the pacing and direction of the movie.

Have no fear however, the little kids will definitely enjoy Brave. There is still enough humor, heart, and suspense to propel this past your usual computer animated drivel. And the Pixar fanatics will just be thrilled that its a turn back to originality after experiencing sequel after sequel----

-----And Cars 2.

If Miami Wins, We All Lose

The Miami Heat should not win.

They cannot win.

This should not happen.

The Miami Heat winning is bad for basketball, bad for the NBA, and will continue the downward spiral that has been plaguing the smaller markets for years in the league. If the Heat win, then coaches lose, smaller cities lose, and pretty much will result in the continuation of the power players have over everyone else in the league. If the Heat win, then amazing coaches like D’Antoni, Sloan, Woodson, and Van Gundy will lose even more leverage in the NBA—creating more incidents like what Dwight Howard did to O-Town. Can you Heat fans even name your coach without looking him up? If the Heat win, then good freakin' luck keeping your star rookies and sophomores on your wimpy team that the NBA barely recognizes.

Expect Dwight Howard to move. Expect Westbrook to move. Expect Jennings to move. Expect Unibrow to leave New Orleans the second he has the opportunity. Expect Kevin Love to move. Expect Rubio to move. And like hell, expect Roy Hibbert to move, Jose Calderon to move, Danny Granger to leave, and poor Cleveland gets to worry about Kyrie Irving smacking his lips as his contract will eventually let up. Just witness all your favorite players cramp their way into the East Coast or the West Coast once the Heat win.

Team building be damned, slow and steady development be damned, finding the right coach be damned, this league is already flipping. If the NBA of the 90s had the patience of the NBA of today---Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, David Robinson, John Stockton would have bolted the teams that would eventually transform them into local legends.

Is all this premature panicking? Oh yes, most likely, but the fact remains that these players (LeBron, Bosh) took the easy way out----they merged forces in secret while playing for OTHER TEAMS (No better evidence then The Debacle), signed with a franchise that could spend the money, and together found a coach they knew they could manipulate and push around without issue.

For the sake of the NBA, don't let this be their year. The Oklahoma City Thunder spent years building this team and went through a plethora of challenges leading up to this NBA Finals. The Heat will have their shot down the road in the weakling Eastern Conference. But the Thunder? With the rising Clippers, Grizzlies, Nuggets, and Jazz emerging---one cant really expect a return appearance so suddenly.

This could be the Anti-LeBron in me. This could be the Anti-Heat screaming right now. But the fact remains is that if the Heat go on and win this thing with minimal bench, a terrible coach, and after having problems with the Pacers and the Boston Celtics (the Celtics?????!?), then the floodgates are going to open and The Decision will have sequels.

Don't. Let. Them. Win.

Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted: 8/10

Utterly ridiculous. And it works., 8 June 2012

The cinematic franchise known as Madagascar is at its absolute best when the jokes are flying, the action is relentless and exaggerated, and you see more of the supporting characters as opposed to the main four. Everyone in the Milky Way knows that the penguins, Julius, and Mort provide the highest percentage of laughs on screen.

So now taking a page from the playbook of Ice Age 3, the third installment stripped away all sanity and logic, removed most of the heart, and increased the speed of the entire production. So what we have here is an extremely fast-paced and random nutty funhouse that is heavy on laughs, heavy in action, and only slows down when the story picks up any sentimentality.

Despite the movie moving so rapid that you don't realize there's a plot----don't worry, I will explain it to you. Alex and company are trying to find a way back to the United States before a psychotic animal hunter catches up to them. Along the way they get chased in Monte Carlo, join a circus, and befriend a group of circus animals that has seen better days. The plot is slightly original but still manages to hit all the clichés. But don't worry; it won't bother you too much.

Not when Julius has an incredibly bizarre (but downright hilarious) love story.

Not when the penguins and the monkeys continue to scheme, beg, borrow, deal, and build their way out of any situation.

Not when Mort's big bulgy eyes and random moments continue to thrive on the big screen.

And not when you are treated to action scene after action scene that breaks every single law of physics humanely possible.

The staff behind Europe's Most Wanted (it's a three-director team, which is why it seems as though this movie wants to head in multiple directions) is fully aware of the power and appeal of the non-main characters---so they gave them more screen time and focused far less on the drama of going home. That being said, it still didn't feel like it's enough. Unlike the support (and their voice actors) the main characters have gone a bit stale; the writing towards them has weakened severely over the years.

But as long as those penguins and lemurs continue to exist, Madagascar will remain a delight for kids and a guilty pleasure for adults. And the third time may not be the charm with the original still being the best, and although once again Madagascar mildly flounders in the third act, it's still a ridiculously dizzily entertaining movie that never overstays its welcome—even if the main characters do.

The Familiar Ride of Big Thunder

So after a brief hiatus for refurbishment, the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad has re-opened for the public. Seeing that it’s my favorite ride in Magic Kingdom to a point that I even wrote a movie script based on it (which sucked, so it’s totally gone and I have to start from scratch) I decided to see what changes (if any) were made to the queue and eventually the ride itself. Seeing that Big Thunder hasn’t had anything new in quite some time and has had many parts fail on them (especially the rock sequence) I wanted to see if the Imagineers were going to get creative and throw in some new surprises.

So on a hot Saturday afternoon I decided to drive over there to observe any potential additions. The entire area got a nice fresh new coat of paint, but the queue line didn’t get much of an upgrade just a different way of maneuvering through that maze. Unlike Haunted Mansion, Soarin, and Space Mountain, they didn’t have any random activities to do while waiting in line. You still get to see the ride in the distance—which cleaned up the water and the geysers involved. I finally make it to the ride and experienced it.


In case you are wondering why you got an old video of Big Thunder right above you, its mainly because the ride was practically the same. Its smoother, but nothing more. The darn fake-looking bats can still be seen, the same animals can be seen in the small lagoon sequence, the rocks still aren’t moving, although the ride is still the wildest in the wilderness.

Now, one can moan that five months isn’t enough time to fix and enhance a ride, the issue isn’t the time, but it’s the total lack of effort. In five months all this (mostly low-budget ideas) could have been accomplished:

~Have puffs of air breeze by you, in the beginning of the ride creating the effect of bats actually flying past you

~You could have eliminated the bats that can clearly be seen on wires. Or at least reuse the effect done in Haunted Mansion to improve the bats’ realism

~You could have added more animals in the lagoon sequence. We still don’t have our goat chewing on dynamite like the one in Disneyland

~You could, you know---make the rocks actually move

~You could have done what I discussed a while back—add gunshot effects whenever kids are firing the rifles across the lake at Tom Sawyer Island

~You could have added wanted signs on the queue line, something, anything I don’t know, they are the Imagineers, they are getting paid to come up with the ideas, must I come up with everything?

I know a good portion of this is very nitpicky but the issue we have here is: Disney’s competitive spirit just isn’t there. Your goal for running the most popular and successful theme park in the history of the planet is to try to improve it whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Disney had months, and didn’t pull the trigger.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad deserves better.

To this day, the rocks still don't move.