Adventure – Page 4 – Movie Meister Reviews

December 17, 2023 leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Musical, Review

Wish (2023) – …well

Released: 26th December
Seen: 17th December (Advanced Screening)

In 1923, Walt and Roy Disney founded a little company called the Disney Brothers Studio to produce a small series of Alice in Wonderland cartoons. A few years later the company would be renamed Walt Disney Studios and a little cartoon called Steamboat Willie (which is soon gonna be public domain… so look forward to how that’ll be used!) would not only become the first cartoon with synchronized sound but essentially transform the company into a household name. They would go on to make Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the first animated feature-length film which would begin a long several decades as the most well-known and influential animation company on the planet.

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November 19, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Review, Thriller

The Killer (2023) – Fincher Strikes Again

Released: 10th November
Seen: 15th November

David Fincher is arguably one of the greatest directors working today, a man who has made several of the greatest films of the modern era who people revere as a director for good reason. Even when his films aren’t instant classics there’s something interesting going on with them, at bare minimum, his films will give you something to think about and will probably be full of great performances on top of it. His name alone is basically a marker of quality so it should come as no shock that once again Fincher has made a fascinating film about a dark immoral character and asked us to take a closer look at how mundane they actually are and once again it’s strangely fascinating.

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November 9, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Review

The Marvels (2023) – Marvelous

Released: 9th November
Seen: 8th November

It’s no secret that the Marvel movies are having a difficult time lately, at least a difficult time by the standard of a studio that’s been a cultural juggernaut for over a decade and counting. Basically, ever since Endgame the films and TV series have seemed to be in flux like the studio just realised they did something absolutely massive and are now scrambling to figure out what the hell they do for an encore. Personally, I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of the post-Endgame stuff, I contend that even bad Marvel movies are better than a lot of the other things that are being put out by major studios lately. It’s comfort food but I get that it might be getting stale for some, which is probably why the release of The Marvels is being met with trepidation and anticipation of a bad movie… I don’t know why people think that because The Marvels is one of the best post-Endgame movies to be released but hey, to each their own.

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November 7, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Review, Sci-Fi

Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts (2023) – Fun Film In Disguise

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 SAG-AFTRA strike. Without the labor of the actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 22nd June
Seen: 6th November

Let’s be honest, the Transformers series as a cinematic universe hasn’t exactly had the best track record. Sure, the original animated film is considered something of a cult classic that had people sobbing over the death of a cartoon robot but then we had almost a half dozen atrocities directed by the luckiest man on earth, Michael Bay and that ended up being a big mistake. Sure, Bay’s films made money but none of them were actually good, they were spectacles that eventually lost their luster through bad filmmaking and uninteresting stories. Now fortunately the franchise was wrestled away from Bay and given to people who seemed to care which led to Bumblebee which is still the high point for the live-action series. It was a movie that actually felt fun and fresh in a way that has clearly impacted how these movies are made because it led directly to Transformers: Rise Of The Beasts, which might not be as great as Bumblebee, but it’s still fun.

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September 21, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Review, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Blue Beetle (2023) – Delightful

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 14th September
Seen: 19th September

The DCEU is dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of its burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourners who continually scream for the Snyderverse to be revived. It is dead and will have its final death rattle later in the year when Aquaman 2 comes out before all the toys are thrown out and we restart this experiment again with a brand new man in charge of everything. Perhaps that well-known death of the franchise explains why Blue Beetle will soon be limping past the finish line just barely making its production budget back… which is a massive shame because Blue Beetle is absolutely awesome from start to finish.

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September 17, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Review, Sci-Fi

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023) – COWABUNGA!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 7th September
Seen: 13th September

By now the story of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their creation is well known. From its start as an underground comic designed to parody superheroes to the legendary cartoon series that gave us the theme song that you are inevitably humming right now to the first movie that not only was a defining action film for a lot of childhoods but allowed New Line Cinema to go from a little independent company to one that was big enough that it could eventually make the Lord of the Rings movies. It’s an absolute phenomenon of a franchise that’s had several iterations over the years with various visual styles and tones that range from the dark and serious to the light and comedic. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem leans more towards light and comedic but also might be the best take on the franchise since the 1990 film.

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September 12, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Netflix, Review

The Monkey King (2023) – Royalty

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 2nd February
Seen: 9th September

Journey to the West is a 16th-century Chinese story that follows the adventures of four major characters, Tripitaka, Pigsy, Sandy and The Monkey King. This story is regarded as one of the greatest Chinese novels of all time, has been translated into an abridged English language version, is the subject of multiple adaptations in every medium you could think of and is a truly important piece of work that I haven’t read or even heard about before doing background research for this review of the Netflix animated film The Monkey King, which adapts that characters specific story from the original text. It’s important to tell you that I have not read the original text because I cannot tell you if this is a faithful adaptation of it (though based on the Wikipedia description, it seems to get the core beats of the story correctly) but I can tell you if it’s a good kids movie… which it is.

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September 1, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Comedy, Review

Vacation Friends 2 (2023) – Vacation Acquaintances

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 25th August
Seen: 31st August

In 2021 there was a half-decent little comedy called Vacation Friends, it was fun enough but also pretty average. Mostly it was a showcase for a quartet of comedic actors who managed to make for a pretty enjoyable time. Indeed that main quartet of actors is so objectively great that I may have said that I wanted a dozen more films with that exact set of actors because they had such great chemistry… and then a finger of the monkey’s paw curled slowly and my wish was granted. Stupid me forgetting to add “but not another film in this specific franchise” when I was wording that wish.

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August 26, 2023August 26, 2023 leebutler Action, Adventure, Drama, Review

65 (2023) – Bleh!

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

Released: 27th July
Seen: 24th August

The writing team of Scott Beck and Bryan Woods earned a special place in modern horror history when they wrote the script for the incredible film The Quiet Place, to this date still one of the tensest films this reviewer has had the delight of seeing. While the finished film shares that credit with John Krasinski (who did a rewrite of Beck and Woods’ script), the core concept came from this dynamic duo who would follow it up with a pretty enjoyable horror film called Haunt, proving they had some pretty great ideas in their back pockets ready to go. So with those two men behind the script and directorial duties for 65, along with a lead performance by Adam Driver and a concept involving space travel and dinosaurs you would think this would lead to something of a fun time… you would be wrong, fun implies feeling and that’s not something 65 elicits easily.

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July 24, 2023 leebutler Adventure, Biography, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, History

My Barbenheimer Experience

IMPORTANT NOTE: This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, the movies being covered here wouldn’t exist.

There really is nothing quite like a good old double feature. Two films intentionally curated to be screened back to back and shared by a collective audience who can use one film to build up to another, it’s an idea so fundamental to the film-going experience that at least one film has opened with a song dedicated to the glory of double features (albeit ones of the Science Fiction variety).

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