 |
 |
Justin's Retrospective
Donnie's got his 80's section where specials are posted, but Justin's into retro stuff too! Here's Justin's Retrospective, an area where we can revisit some of the old, forgotten films of the 80s and 90s, or even a few that leave a great imprint on our memories (good or bad).
An Extremely Goofy Movie
Five years after the theatrically released ‘A Goofy Movie’, a poorly
titled straight to video sequel was released. As a kid, I enjoyed this
as much or perhaps more than the original film. When I decided to
revisit the original, I decided to check this one out again too but was
unable to rekindle the same affection.
In the sequel, Max and Goofy’s relationship is stronger but Max still cannot escape the embarrassment of his father’s kooky antics. When Max leaves for college, Goofy finds his life empty losing the only person he really had in his life still. After losing his job he discovers that without a college degree he won’t be able to get another job so he follows Max to college. Goofy’s dated ideals of school bring particular embarrassment to Max and to get rid of him, he pawns his dad off on a Rival team competing in the college X-games.
The plot is simply not as cohesive this time around and while the focus is on Goofy’s acceptance of his son growing up, we spend an awful lot of time with Max and the simple paint-by-numbers x-games plot. There are snippets of the nice, realistic tenderness that appeared in the first film but they’re few and far between. Near the beginning, after Max leaves, Goofy goes and sits in his empty room and cries. This is a painfully honest moment that actually made me choke up which is shocking considering the fact that it’s a straight to video Disney sequel. It really sets up the film to be as good as the original however with the more over the top plot and a lack of focus, this moment is one of the only ones we see. The love interest this time around belongs to Goofy and it’s a good addition that helps make his story stronger but once again, little attention is paid to it.
Beyond the problems in plot the film was trying way, way too hard to be hip to the young crowd of 2000. From the heavy focus on skateboarding to the choices of music there’s something that just rubs me the wrong way about how overtly ‘cool’ and ‘in-the-now’ the film is trying to be. And because this film is now over ten years old it just comes off as tacky and dated.
It’s a real shame that the film had to turn out the way it did; the film could have been stronger dramatically than the first and the humor is still there for the most part (including some more clever self-referential moments). The animation is also still lively and colorful. We just spend too much time on the less important parts of the story. The film isn’t terrible and there are some great moments but the sum of its parts is less than favorable and the film is more or less a weak and unnecessary extension of the first.
Final Rating: 2.5/5
In the sequel, Max and Goofy’s relationship is stronger but Max still cannot escape the embarrassment of his father’s kooky antics. When Max leaves for college, Goofy finds his life empty losing the only person he really had in his life still. After losing his job he discovers that without a college degree he won’t be able to get another job so he follows Max to college. Goofy’s dated ideals of school bring particular embarrassment to Max and to get rid of him, he pawns his dad off on a Rival team competing in the college X-games.
The plot is simply not as cohesive this time around and while the focus is on Goofy’s acceptance of his son growing up, we spend an awful lot of time with Max and the simple paint-by-numbers x-games plot. There are snippets of the nice, realistic tenderness that appeared in the first film but they’re few and far between. Near the beginning, after Max leaves, Goofy goes and sits in his empty room and cries. This is a painfully honest moment that actually made me choke up which is shocking considering the fact that it’s a straight to video Disney sequel. It really sets up the film to be as good as the original however with the more over the top plot and a lack of focus, this moment is one of the only ones we see. The love interest this time around belongs to Goofy and it’s a good addition that helps make his story stronger but once again, little attention is paid to it.
Beyond the problems in plot the film was trying way, way too hard to be hip to the young crowd of 2000. From the heavy focus on skateboarding to the choices of music there’s something that just rubs me the wrong way about how overtly ‘cool’ and ‘in-the-now’ the film is trying to be. And because this film is now over ten years old it just comes off as tacky and dated.
It’s a real shame that the film had to turn out the way it did; the film could have been stronger dramatically than the first and the humor is still there for the most part (including some more clever self-referential moments). The animation is also still lively and colorful. We just spend too much time on the less important parts of the story. The film isn’t terrible and there are some great moments but the sum of its parts is less than favorable and the film is more or less a weak and unnecessary extension of the first.
Final Rating: 2.5/5
A Goofy Movie
With resurrecting my long dead nostalgia-based section I decided to
come back with a classic from my childhood that I was recently inspired
to revisit; ‘A Goofy Movie’. This road movie/animated musical comedy
that could be considered a spinoff of the children’s cartoon, ‘Goof
Troop’ features long established Disney Character, Goofy taking his son
Max on a father-son road trip fearing that his son is becoming a
delinquent and that their bond is not as strong as it once was. Max,
finally winning the acknowledgement from his high school crush, Roxanne,
lies to her explaining that he’s going with his dad to a concert in LA
and will be on stage with Powerline; a popular music group in the film.
Trying to cope with his father’s overbearing personality and
shenanigans-a-plenty, Max endures the vacation to get to LA.
Before actually re-watching the film I looked into it online and was somewhat shocked to find how poorly it was received so I approached with caution but was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed it perhaps more than when I was a kid. The songs are great, it still manages to be funny over 15 years later and the message is strong if not incredibly deep or profound. There are about 5 or 6 different songs in the film, some sung by the cast and some by the fictional pop singer Powerline. They’re fun and extraordinarily catchy and I found myself singing them to myself days later. While I generally don’t enjoy the musical aspects of children’s films, I actually quite enjoy it here and they generally fit quite seamlessly into the film and there’s really only one tune that I found to be a bit too forced. The film also remains funny and I was blown away at how much of the humor still works. There’s a fair share of slapstick-y jokes but there’s also some more subtle humor as well. It’s not sidesplittingly hilarious but it gets the job done and the film also has a few interesting self-referential gags such as the mention of Goofy’s friendship with Donald Duck or the Disney memorabilia seen throughout. I think the most surprising element of the film is the actual drama the film manages to extract from the roots of what was originally a character for children. While the idea of putting Goofy in a modern day world and giving him a realistic and more palpable relationship with his son was seen previously in ‘Goof Troop’ but I feel it is far more fleshed out in the film. We care a lot about these characters and there’s a lot of truly moving moments. They can be a little cheesy but the film is never cloying (mostly thanks to the 70 minute runtime). The distance between Goofy and his son and their relationship in general is realistic and I feel like many will be able to relate to Max’s teen angst and embarrassment or Goofy’s misunderstanding of his son and his continuous attempts to maintain a place in his life.
The few problems I have with the film can be associated with the runtime. At only 70 minutes there’s very little time to really explore their relationship and while it does come across clearly in the final product, it feels rushed to some degree and I would have like another 15-20 minutes more. For such a great concept, I just wish they could have made use of it better and made a longer film. Yes it is really only directed at children but because it’s appropriate for all; a longer runtime wouldn’t have hurt.
Overall ‘A Goofy movie works still because it shares a similar trait with the recent Disney Pixar films, it’s entertaining and appropriate for all ages. The animation is crisp and colorful and the film has humor for kids and adults alike and enough realism and drama to keep the film engaging. It’s a shame this film has been forgotten or at least pushed aside but I’m glad I was able to pick it up again, blow off the dust and rediscover my love for it.
Final Rating: 4/5
Before actually re-watching the film I looked into it online and was somewhat shocked to find how poorly it was received so I approached with caution but was pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed it perhaps more than when I was a kid. The songs are great, it still manages to be funny over 15 years later and the message is strong if not incredibly deep or profound. There are about 5 or 6 different songs in the film, some sung by the cast and some by the fictional pop singer Powerline. They’re fun and extraordinarily catchy and I found myself singing them to myself days later. While I generally don’t enjoy the musical aspects of children’s films, I actually quite enjoy it here and they generally fit quite seamlessly into the film and there’s really only one tune that I found to be a bit too forced. The film also remains funny and I was blown away at how much of the humor still works. There’s a fair share of slapstick-y jokes but there’s also some more subtle humor as well. It’s not sidesplittingly hilarious but it gets the job done and the film also has a few interesting self-referential gags such as the mention of Goofy’s friendship with Donald Duck or the Disney memorabilia seen throughout. I think the most surprising element of the film is the actual drama the film manages to extract from the roots of what was originally a character for children. While the idea of putting Goofy in a modern day world and giving him a realistic and more palpable relationship with his son was seen previously in ‘Goof Troop’ but I feel it is far more fleshed out in the film. We care a lot about these characters and there’s a lot of truly moving moments. They can be a little cheesy but the film is never cloying (mostly thanks to the 70 minute runtime). The distance between Goofy and his son and their relationship in general is realistic and I feel like many will be able to relate to Max’s teen angst and embarrassment or Goofy’s misunderstanding of his son and his continuous attempts to maintain a place in his life.
The few problems I have with the film can be associated with the runtime. At only 70 minutes there’s very little time to really explore their relationship and while it does come across clearly in the final product, it feels rushed to some degree and I would have like another 15-20 minutes more. For such a great concept, I just wish they could have made use of it better and made a longer film. Yes it is really only directed at children but because it’s appropriate for all; a longer runtime wouldn’t have hurt.
Overall ‘A Goofy movie works still because it shares a similar trait with the recent Disney Pixar films, it’s entertaining and appropriate for all ages. The animation is crisp and colorful and the film has humor for kids and adults alike and enough realism and drama to keep the film engaging. It’s a shame this film has been forgotten or at least pushed aside but I’m glad I was able to pick it up again, blow off the dust and rediscover my love for it.
Final Rating: 4/5
The Little Rascals
I can assure you that my inner child is throwing a tantrum at me for everything I’m about to say. I recently revisited this childhood favorite after randomly coming across a copy of the DVD that I had thought to be long since out of print. While it was never one of my all-time favorites I did thoroughly enjoy it once upon a time. As excited as I was when I popped in the DVD, my excitement quickly turned to dismay and the film slowly began to wear me down. The film is a reboot/re-imagining of the popular show from the 50’s. I have never seen the show so I’ll start by saying that I have no idea how much it honors its subject matter. The film follows a group of rambunctious young boys in ‘The He-Man Woman Haters Club’. That’s honestly the best way to describe the plot because it’s that paper thin. To get down to the nitty-gritty: Alfalfa (one of the protagonists) has a falling out with the boys when he falls in love with one of the neighborhood girls, accidentally burns down their clubhouse and leaves their prized go-cart to be stolen by the local bullies. That is really about it. Even besides the film’s simplistic sitcom plot, it’s pretty easy to tell that the film was made solely for children with its simple humor and slapstick, Benny-Hill style chase scenes. There are times where there doesn’t even seem to be any downtime and the film feels like it’s trying to constantly cram more and more laughs down your throat to the point of nausea. It does have a few decent laughs here and there but most of the film consists of what I previously described. The actors all do a decent job taken account their extremely young ages but due to the fact that the cast is comprised almost entirely of children under the age of ten, and that we are stranded with them for the entire film, you start to forget how innocent they all are and simply realize that none of them can actually act. It will most certainly start to wring your nerves if you try to actually watch the film from start to finish. Despite all the foibles that I’ve only just discovered, the film still managed to tug at my nostalgic heart strings and the film certainly still has that cutesy factor that it has always had. I can’t really say that I hated it because of how much I used to love it and it did bring back a lot of memories. However, if you have no nostalgic connection with the film don’t even think about giving it a try. I can almost assure that you won’t be able to take it.
Final Rating: 2/5
Final Rating: 2/5
Super Mario Bros.
It was inevitable that video games would eventually make the transition to big screen adaptations and what better choice to use the best selling Mario Brothers franchise that was rapidly become an icon of Nintendo and video games in general. The film was a huge flop and was panned by critics...not to mention everyone else. I was never too crazy over it as a kid but upon re-watching I can see that it is a flawed but fun and creative adaptation of a pretty damn simple game. The movie is about, you guessed it, two Italian brothers named Mario and Luigi who are down-on-their luck plumbers operating out of Brooklyn. Luigi falls head over heals in love with a grad student named Daisy who works at an archeological dig site nearby. She is kidnapped by a pair of bumbling henchman and the Bros follow in hot pursuit which eventually leads them to an alternate dimension underneath the streets of Brooklyn which is inhabited by humanoid lizards and dinosaurs. Besides a few simple revelations later on, the rest of the plot consists of the duo trying to rescue the damsel in distress as they traverse the outlandish underground city where they are stranded. The film received appalling reviews. The critics hated it for its mindless plot and heavy focus on special effects over anything else. Fans of the video games hated it for having very, very little to do with them. I do have to agree with the critics. I mean the movie is pretty silly. It mostly consists of one wacky action scene after another and nothing really develops beyond face value. However, I have to disagree with the other statements. Considering that the video games consisted of a short pixilated man stomping on mushrooms as he crossed different lands to rescue a princess, they did a pretty damn good job at creatively turning it into a darker, somewhat more realistic plot. Instead of a lush fairytale landscape, the Bros’ adventure takes place in a seedy rundown red-light district type place stitched together with catwalks. Post-apocalyptic style police cars patrol the streets while everyone is committing crimes, secretly armed to the teeth. Instead of a giant fire breathing dinosaur as the head minion, we have Dennis Hopper as a half-man, half-T-Rex armed with a flame thrower. It’s so different from the source material but it’s all there (Mushrooms, Bo-bombs and Bullet Bills all make an appearance too).I feel like the movie would have been much more goofy had they gone with the visual look of the game, not to mention more kiddy. While it didn’t catch on with everyone, I feel like they made the right choices involving the film’s look and feel. ‘Super Mario Bros’ is no masterpiece and I wouldn’t even say that it’s great either. But it does make for a really cool and entertaining shut-your-brain-off kind of movie. If you saw this before and you hated, maybe give it another go and try and keep an empty head about all the terrible things that have been said about it. I mean, how can you go wrong with a film with the tagline: “This ain’t no game. It’s a live-action thrill ride!”
Final Rating: 3/5
Final Rating: 3/5
Honey I Shrunk the Kids
This is one of those very rare nostalgia movies that I actually prefer now to when I was younger. To the few that haven’t seen this film, and cannot guess the plot from the title: a brilliant but wacky scientist invents a shrink ray which accidently shrinks his two children along with the two neighbors kids leaving them to fight incredible odds in their own backyard. It sounds much cornier than it actually is. One of the main things that really make the film is the really cool sets. They are actual constructed sets that are used to create a really fantastical, tiny little world. Nowadays a film like this would be just another CGI-athon, but here, sets of monstrous blades of glass etc have been made with lots of detail. It’s really cool to watch the cast navigate around the lawn and despite the fact that CGI may have been slicker, the in film effects gives it an extra layer of realism which is something that a wacky film like this really desperately needs. The special effects are all ripe with 80’s awesome-ness and are actually pretty good. The scenes with the insects, when they get swept away by the broom and the scenes with the lawnmower are all fantastic and just really cool. One other thing that I’ve noticed about the movie now that I never have before is that the movie is actually pretty funny. Rick Moranis is actually hilarious (as well as some of the other cast members) which is something that I never picked up on before. This really helps keep the film’s silly undertones clear to the audience. Overall I would say that this is still a great adventure flick that’s funny, interesting and just loads of fun to watch.
Final Rating: 4.5/5
Sequels
After ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’, ‘Honey I Blew Up the Kid’ was made. This one is panned pretty harshly and while it doesn’t hold a candle to the original, it does have its charms. It isn’t as interesting over all but I feel like they made a good effort in creating a good sequel that wasn’t the exact same thing but had most of the pros of the first. It’s not a masterpiece but it’s also not the disaster it’s made out to be. A few years later ‘Honey We Shrunk Ourselves’ came out on a straight to video release. When I was younger I liked this more than the original but upon re-watching it, that has changed. This one just looks and feels really cheap with (seemingly) mostly green-screened effects which look really phony. They’re not terrible but the whole thing has this made for TV feel to it which I really didn’t care for. It’s also missing the adventure and comedy that the made the first a classic.
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Final Rating: 3/5
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves
Final Rating: 2/5
Final Rating: 4.5/5
Sequels
After ‘Honey I Shrunk the Kids’, ‘Honey I Blew Up the Kid’ was made. This one is panned pretty harshly and while it doesn’t hold a candle to the original, it does have its charms. It isn’t as interesting over all but I feel like they made a good effort in creating a good sequel that wasn’t the exact same thing but had most of the pros of the first. It’s not a masterpiece but it’s also not the disaster it’s made out to be. A few years later ‘Honey We Shrunk Ourselves’ came out on a straight to video release. When I was younger I liked this more than the original but upon re-watching it, that has changed. This one just looks and feels really cheap with (seemingly) mostly green-screened effects which look really phony. They’re not terrible but the whole thing has this made for TV feel to it which I really didn’t care for. It’s also missing the adventure and comedy that the made the first a classic.
Honey, I Blew Up the Kid
Final Rating: 3/5
Honey, We Shrunk Ourselves
Final Rating: 2/5
HTML Comment Box is loading comments...