Tag Archives: Chris Pratt

2020 Films, Adventure, Animated, Disney, Fantasy, Kids

Onward-2020

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Onward-2020

Director Dan Scanlon

Starring Tom Holland, Chris Pratt

Scott’s Review #1,164

Reviewed July 23, 2021

Grade: B+

An emotionally satisfying adventure film that the whole family can enjoy, Onward (2020) feels fresh and inventive while still employing some standard plot points.

Pixar/Disney sure knows how to churn out animated features with a nice message and a family sensibility.

There is also plenty of diversity that delivers an inclusive feeling, so hugely important in the modern age.

Kids are impressionable and learn so much from the films they watch, so this quality brought a smile to my face in an otherwise enjoyable experience.

The film also celebrates non-traditional families, showing that not having a traditional mother and father and a pet dog doesn’t make you strange or unworthy of love and understanding.

Onward is not entirely outside the box, however, and is careful to lure in the mainstream middle America audience. Still, some progressive treats mix well with a robust brotherly adventure tale.

Though the title, Onward, doesn’t stick in my mind very long, the film itself does.

I may have even shed a tear or two during the heartfelt finale.

Teenage elf brothers Ian and Barley (voiced by Tom Holland and Chris Pratt) embark on a magical quest to spend one more day with their deceased father, who loved magic. Their journey is filled with cryptic maps, overwhelming obstacles, and discoveries like any good adventure.

But when their Mom (voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) finds out her sons are missing, she goes into mother lion mode and teams up with the legendary manticore (voiced by Octavia Spencer) to bring her beloved boys back home.

The lead character, Ian, is a sixteen-year-old boy with growing pains and vulnerabilities that immediately make him likable. He is eager to make friends but awkward about doing so.

It is suggested that he has no friends coming to his birthday party, but it’s unclear why not. Ian is also a nervous driver, terrified of traversing a busy freeway.

He is an ordinary kid whom the audience can see in themselves or a former self of years gone by.

His brother, Barley, is the opposite. He is fearless and doesn’t care who he befriends or what people think of him. His outrageous vehicle, named Guinevere, is a rebuilt van.

Think the mystery mobile from Scooby-Doo.

The crux of Onward is about relationships. At first, we assume that the big payoff will be between Ian/Barley and their father. While that happens, a surprise blossoms along the way, and instead of a standard father/son dynamic, we get a brother/brother one.

This is a treat and conveys a dual message. Never take for granted a loved one already in your life because one day they may be gone.

I enjoyed the adventures of Ian and Barley mostly because I just knew that some reunion would occur between the boys and their father. Their gift of a day spent with their father was marred by the fact that only his bottom half was visible, but I suspected we would eventually see the rest of him.

Avoiding complete predictability, only one of the boys gets to interact with his father as the other looks on longingly.

I enjoyed this element quite a bit as it avoided cliché and offered raw emotion.

Speaking of diversity, two gay female police officers appear in one scene, and a suggestion that some of a motorcycle gang of pixies might be gay is also noticed. Again, this is important for child viewers to be exposed to.

Another win is the animation itself- look at the cover art above for proof. With gorgeous purple and blue colors, the nighttime scenes work exceptionally well with a bright and luminous look that I adored.

A slight miss was that the boy’s mother never got to reunite with her dead husband, and their relationship was treated as merely an afterthought. The featured plot was that the brothers missed their Dad. A reunion between husband and wife would have been nice.

With a tender and emotionally satisfying conclusion, this cemented my appreciation for Onward (2020). There may be a tad too many car chase scenes and a couple of hokey plot ploys, but the film has a lot of heart that shines through.

Oscar Nominations: Best Animated Feature

2012 Films, Action, Drama, Political Thriller, Thriller, War

Zero Dark Thirty-2012

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Zero Dark Thirty-2012

Director Kathryn Bigelow

Starring Jessica Chastain

Scott’s Review #1,133

Reviewed April 14, 2021

Grade: A-

Director Kathryn Bigelow, not far removed from her Oscar win for The Hurt Locker (2008), returns with a similar style of film centered on war and, more specifically, the emotional toll and psychological effects of not just battlefields but also dangerous missions.

The main character faces many conflicts, and the viewer inevitably does too.

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) is unique in the genre for having a woman in the lead role, and star Jessica Chastain is front and center and terrific.

She is calm, restrained, and in control. She is tough to rattle and a powerful, inspirational character to admire.

Chastain exudes cool in the face of danger.

Chastain does have a brilliant emotional scene at the end of the film. Her character, Maya, boards a military transport back to the U.S. as the sole passenger. She is asked where she wants to go and begins to cry. The emotion finally gets the better of her, as it would to anyone.

The film isn’t all Chastain’s to brag about, and there is little wrong with it.

Beautifully directed, Bigelow layers her film with enough tension and magnificence to enshroud the moral questions viewers will ask, specifically about torture.

It’s somewhat fictionalized, and in fact, Chastain’s character is made up, but Zero Dark Thirty is a gem nonetheless.

But we also know the events happened.

The film starts incredibly well and immediately grabs the viewer’s attention with a brilliant first scene.

Amidst a dark screen and soundtrack of actual calls made to the 911 operator from inside the World Trade Center Towers on 9/11, the scene is about as powerful an opening as a film can have and bravely sets the stage for what follows.

These include many scenes of Arab detainees being interrogated (that is, tortured) for information about Al Qaeda. Is this justified or unnecessary abuse?

The viewer is immediately saddened, in tears, and conflicted about whether the torture is justified, having just heard the 911 calls.

I know I was.

From there, the viewer also hears a summary that puts the pieces of the first scene together.

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden becomes one of the most wanted men on the planet. The worldwide search for the terrorist leader occupies the resources and attention of two U.S. presidential administrations.

This is the crux of the film and the story told.

Ultimately, a dedicated female operative (Chastain) proves instrumental in finally locating bin Laden. In May 2011, Navy SEALs launched a nighttime strike, killing bin Laden in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

We all know this, but troubling is the use of torture. I keep coming back to this point.

I think what I like most about the film, besides the riveting pacing, action sequences, and psychological appeal, is the controversy that surrounds it.

The fact that it ruffled feathers at the CIA and in Congress about whether the info was leaked to the filmmakers makes me think that at least some of it is based on facts, despite what other reviewers (likely with a strong political bias) might claim to the contrary.

But as a political junkie, that’s just my belief.

The film’s reproduction of enhanced interrogation techniques is brutal. Some critics, in light of the interrogations being depicted as gaining reliable, useful, and accurate information, considered the scenes pro-torture propaganda.

Acting CIA director Michael Morell felt the film created the false impression that torture was key to finding bin Laden. Others described it as an anti-torture exposure of interrogation practices.

I guess we may never know the truth. But the film compels and provokes feeling.

Bigelow is at the top of her game with Zero Dark Thirty (2012), crafting a genre film (the war one) too often told through a masculine “us versus them” mentality and leaving behind the fascinating nuances that can make the genre a more interesting and less one-note.

The masterful director does just that and makes us think, ponder, and squirm uneasily.

Oscar Nominations: 1 win-Best Picture, Best Actress-Jessica Chastain, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing (won), Best Film Editing

2015 Films, Action, Adventure, Science Fiction

Jurassic World-2015

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Jurassic World-2015

Director Colin Trevorrow

Starring Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard

Scott’s Review #307

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Reviewed December 23, 2015

Grade: C

Jurassic World (2015) is a film I expected to like much more than I did.

Sure, it is a summer, blockbuster, popcorn flick. Based on the success of the earlier franchise efforts,  and, if memory serves, finding enjoyment in the 1993 original, Jurassic Park, I expected a fun ride.

Unfortunately, I was treated to a formulaic, escapade with uninteresting characters and mediocre writing.

The premise is standard. A behemoth of an amusement park exists in Central America, on Isla Nublar, where a dinosaur theme park has been running without incident for ten years.

A genetically modified dinosaur, created because a magnificent new attraction is needed, breaks loose and runs rampant.

A silly love story exists between the two leads Owen and Claire (Chris Pratt and Dallas Bryce Howard), as well as the inclusion of two young boys (Zach and Gray) sent by their divorcing parents to be with their Aunt Claire, who works as the Operations Manager at the park.

Owen is the dinosaur trainer. Predictably, there are “bad guys” who are greedy and desire to advance science at the risk of human life.

The special effects are fine, albeit completely CGI-laden, which is to be expected because the main stars are dinosaurs after all. I did anticipate better writing or, at least, more of a creative attempt at coming up with something a bit edgy.

The story was completely redundant. Where was the character development? There was none. We know very little about any of the principal characters.

One might argue that an adventure film does not necessitate this but it’s important. We know that Claire is a workaholic and has none time for her nephews- why? What makes her tick?

Here is a slight complaint. Why kill off only extremely minor characters or villains? I could see this (and the ending) a mile away. The whole film seems forced and sloppy.

Jurassic World is also filled with clichés. Owen and Claire initially dislike each other having had one unsuccessful first date back in the day. The film tries to push the love/hate, opposites attract element and it feels contrived.

How many times have we seen this in film history?

Also, Chris Pratt is perfect as the hunky, muscular “hero saves the day” type, and Dallas Bryce Howard running through the forest in a tight tank top is not unintentional.

This is not to say that the film is bad. It is a decent adventure film and the special effects are cool. I did enjoy the homage to the original 1993 version as the boys stumble upon the original visitor station complete with the 1992 jeep from the original Jurassic Park film.

I thought this was a neat little nod to history and I love that in a franchise film, but that is it for the positives.

Yes, this film was a blockbuster smash and made oodles of money. It, however, feels forced and clichéd and quite formulaic.

I was hoping for much more and deeper, stronger, material.

2014 Films, Adventure, Animated, Comedy, Kids

The Lego Movie-2014

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The Lego Movie-2014

Directors Phil Lord, Chris Miller

Starring Chris Pratt, Elizabeth Banks

Scott’s Review #284

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Reviewed October 24, 2015

Grade: D

A child’s movie in every sense of the word, The Lego Movie (2014) is silly and amateurish. It contains a hackneyed plot and a fast pace that makes the viewing experience quite unpleasant.

Computer-animated and driven by imagery, a scene featuring two human beings interspersed among the animations only makes the plot more sappy, overwrought, and predictable.

The film is a complete dud and a waste of energy, save for one lone catchy song that appears throughout. I am perplexed that this film received mostly positive reviews, as I didn’t share the same sentiment.

The premise is too complex for the target audience: in a Lego universe, where all of the characters are Lego pieces, a mysterious wizard- Vitruvius- attempts to protect a superweapon (Kragle) from the evil Lord Business.

While he fails, he prophesies that a person named “The Special” will one day find the Piece of Resistance capable of stopping the Kragle.

Kragle turns out to be superglue in the human world, as a cameo with Will Ferrell reveals he is the human version of Lord Business and refuses to let his young son play with Dad’s Lego set, thereby threatening to keep the set stationary with glue.

Inevitably, this leads to a tender scene with Dad and his son.

I didn’t find The Lego Movie engaging, story-wise or visually, and I was bored for most of the experience.

Admittedly, modern animated films are not my favorite genre- I miss the days of the classic Disney drawing-style films like Bambi or Dumbo both in the 1940s.

The major flaw is the film’s frenetic pacing. Did the powers that be think that all youngsters and parents dragged along have attention deficit disorder?

There was no time to pause and ponder what was going on in the story because it immediately moved on to the next scene.

The action is non-stop, so the film seemed like one long action sequence.

The main character, Emmett, a young Lego piece everyone thinks is dull, is voiced by Chris Pratt.

Emmet stumbles upon a young woman named Wyldstyle looking for something at his construction site- she assumes he is The Special, and they race to save the world from Lord Business.

Emmet, as far as a lead character goes, is likable enough, and predictably, a romance develops between him and Wyldstyle. We meet various creative characters like Batman and Princess Unikitty.

The film contains a sickeningly catchy song called “Everything Is Awesome” that will stick in the viewer’s head whether desired or not, and that is the strongest part.

It is not that the song is lyrically great or anything, but it is fun and easy to hum along to.

Overly high-octane and with an uninteresting plot, The Lego Movie (2014) may appeal to young kids in the seven-to-ten range, but it is a forgettable, tedious experience for this grown-up.

The film’s ending leaves room for the inevitable sequel.

Oscar Nominations: Best Original Song-“Everything Is Awesome”

2014 Films, Adventure, Super Hero

Guardians of the Galaxy-2014

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Guardians of the Galaxy-2014

Director James Gunn

Starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña

Scott’s Review #281

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Reviewed October 9, 2015

Grade: C-

The summer blockbuster hit of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy, a Marvel Comics film popular among fans and critics alike, disappointed this viewer.

Too many superhero films are overly conventional, by-the-numbers fare, and this one has those traits.

Presumably aimed at teens (I would think), the film has cute jokes and decent special effects, but a bland, mediocre screenplay that lacks edge.

Handsome Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill, a space pilot from Earth, abducted by a pirate group named the Ravagers. Now a grown man, Peter tries to steal a mysterious, powerful Orb known for its special powers for monetary gain.

The Orb is desired by many, including the evil Ronan and his daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldaña).

Predictably, events turn into a battle of good vs. evil as Peter and Gamora (who turns good) team up with misfits Drax (a strongman), Groot (a tree), and Rocket (a raccoon) to thwart Ronan’s intentions to destroy a peaceful planet, the Nova Empire.

The meat of the story follows the team from imprisonment and escape to their efforts to save the world.

As is traditional with these types of films, there is inevitable romantic chemistry between Peter and Gamora, who are rivals at first but slowly develop a fondness for each other when it is revealed that she is plotting against Ronan and his valiant efforts.

The strengths are the 1970s soundtrack a cassette player and the Walkman, unheard of in today’s modern world, to the story.

I love that this isn’t simply background music; it’s referenced throughout the film in various situations.

For example, Peter comically explains to a clueless bad guy what his treasured cassette tape consists of and how he cannot bear to part with it.

The creative sets and bright colors are other positives of Guardians of the Galaxy. Xandar is portrayed as clean and progressive, which counterbalances the dark, dreary world Ronan and his entourage live in.

However, the film is too conventional and not edgy or out of the ordinary story-wise.

Let’s take the hero, for example. He is clean-cut, all-American, and is humorous. But why exactly is he the hero? He inevitably saves the world, but it turns him from a pirate who is a thief into a golden boy leading a team to save a relatively unknown planet.

There is, of course, a scene involving a backstory of his mother dying of cancer and his regret over not taking her hand one final time. This is assumed to make him kind-hearted and one of the good guys.

This feels forced to me, and it’s what we have seen time and again in superhero films. The message I got from the film was basic: the powerful, strong, masculine guy with a sense of humor mixed in for good measure saves the world from the bad guys while bringing along a bunch of tag-alongs.

This is fine, albeit predictable.

I was left with some questions. What were Ronan’s and Tharos’s motivations? They were simply evil, with not much explanation as to why. What led them down this path? Did they each want theirs to be the only planet remaining in the galaxy?

A tender moment towards the end of the film, when one of the team members dies, is done in a rushed way that was a missed opportunity for more emotion.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) is a mediocre superhero/action film that might have been better if it had been fleshed out more. This film left me forgetting about it soon after the credits rolled.

Oscar Nominations: Best Makeup and Hairstyling, Best Visual Effects

2013 Films, Drama, Independent, Independent Drama, Los Angeles, Romantic Drama, Science Fiction

Her-2013

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Her-2013

Director Spike Jonze

Starring Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson

Scott’s Review #147

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Reviewed August 5, 2014

Grade: A-

Her (2013) is a very unique film directed by Spike Jonze.

The film tells the tale of a lonely, depressed man named Theodore, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who lives in a beautiful high-rise in futuristic Los Angeles.

He works as a writer for a company that creates intimate cards for people in relationships.

After a recent divorce, he falls in love with his computerized operating system, Samantha, played by Scarlett Johansson (voice only).

Conflicts emerge as the relationship deepens and intensifies.

This is a uniquely crafted love story, but also a story of loneliness and the world of technology we now live in.

It portrays human relationships as troubled and unsuccessful, yet several characters have wonderful relationships with computers.

Is this what the future may bring for human beings? How many people have fallen in love with a fantasy or a voice on the phone?

The film ponders how technological advances have changed relationships and wonders what will happen further into the future. Technology, while wonderful, has changed our interpersonal relationships, and this film delves deeply into that.

Conversation is a lost art, and Her captures both the joys and tragedies of technology.

Visually, the film is successful because it portrays Los Angeles in a sophisticated, ultra-sleek, modern way that is fascinating.

Several technological games are featured (the Alien child is brilliantly comical), and the “Mom points” are fascinatingly ironic.

Her is a deep film that raises questions, and I applaud this in modern cinema.

Her is a slow-moving film, but a questioning one.

It won the 2013 Best Original Screenplay Oscar, and I am so glad the Academy recognized the film’s originality.

Oscar Nominations: 1 win-Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay (won), Best Original Score, Best Original Song-“The Moon Song”, Best Production Design