leebutler Action, Adventure, Animation

Nimona (2023) – Metal!

Released: 30th June
Seen: 3rd July

The fact that Nimona exists today at all should legally be considered a miracle just based on what it’s been through to get to a screen. Starting life as a webcomic, the film rights were bought in 2015 by Blue Sky Pictures, a Fox company that was planning on making a movie out of it, and had everything gone the way it was originally supposed to, that film would’ve come out in early 2020. Now, if you know your history of insane company acquisitions, you’ll know that in 2019, Disney bought Fox and with that purchase now has ownership of everything Fox has ever made or was making at the time (though let’s be real, they did it because it was the only way for them to get hold of certain Marvel properties that they knew they’d want eventually). This purchase meant that Disney owned Nimona now, and that’s where the trouble started.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Review

Elemental (2023) – Elementary

Released: 15th June
Seen: 22nd June

When it comes to releasing quality films, there are very few studios that could be labeled as sure bets. Studios that, more often than not, are somewhat of a marker for quality films. If you’re a horror fan and see Blumhouse, you’ve got a good shot. People who might call themselves Cinephiles perk up seeing A24, Superhero buffs rush to Marvel films, it’s just a fact that some studio markers will get people paying attention and the kings of that in family film for the last few decades have been Disney/Pixar who has basically just released great films non-stop for decades. Even with their most recent releases having trouble at the box office, they’re still making good quality films that capture the imagination and test the limits of the 3D animation software that they use, and with Elemental they’ve absolutely pulled that off again.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Review

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) – Let’s-a go.

Released: 5th April
Seen: 12th April

When it comes to the world of video games, there is no character quite as well-known and iconic as Mario. For 40 years the short Italian with the red hat has been lighting up video game consoles and being the blueprint for an entire genre of games that he still basically runs to this day, and probably will until the universe implodes and we all die. He is such an icon that it’s kind of surprising that there’s only been a single movie made about him and it is, to be charitable, a tortuous trip through 90s consumerist dystopian fiction wrapped in an absurdist nightmare.

It’s a film that people mostly enjoy in the way most cult films are enjoyed, because they’re incredibly strange and mockable and it’s impossible to believe that someone actually made this happen. It’s an adaptation that was so bad that it put an end to the idea of Nintendo games getting made into movies up until the 2019 release of Detective Pikachu proved that they could actually work, leading to Nintendo giving the Mario Brothers one more chance… thank goodness.

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leebutler Adventure, Animation, Comedy, Netflix, Review

The Sea Beast (2022) – Beastly

Released: 8th July 2022
Seen: 4th March 2023

The Sea Beast Info

The Sea Beast has taken up the spot of the surprise 5th Oscar nominee in this years Best Animated Feature category, it’s the film that’s seemingly there just because they had to round it out to five nominees. The other four are getting nominated time and time again in several other awards shows but The Sea Beast is basically the one in this category that scraped on in. Theoretically, that means it could probably be the one that was missed out of all of these nominated films due to its likelihood of winning being minimal, but it’s also one of the easiest to get a hold of since it sits on Netflix… and you should go watch it because it’s actually pretty damn fantastic.

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leebutler Animation, Drama, Fantasy

Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) – Absolutely Magical

Released: 9th December
Seen: 10th December

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

It would be fair to say that adaptations of Pinocchio haven’t exactly been spectacular lately. This year alone we had possibly one of the more disappointing entries in the history of Pinocchio adaptations when Disney decided to do another remake of one of their classics and one that had Pauly Shore playing the titular puppet (never reviewed it but it did get memed into oblivion). There was also the strange nightmare one that was released a few years ago that inexplicably was an Oscar contender. 

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leebutler Review

The Bad Guys (2022) – Duh!

Released: 31st March
Seen: 5th July

The Bad Guys Info

It’s been a while since there’s been an entertaining crime caper film out, the last one that leaps out to memory would probably be The Gentlemen and the vast majority of films in that genre tend to fall under the adult rating. Let’s be honest, you’re not going to get your entire family to sit through Oceans 8 or Reservoir Dogs. So it’s nice to see that there are some family-oriented crime capers out there that can deliver on everything people love about the genre without alienating the little ones… plus the fact that all the characters are hilarious anthropomorphized animals in suits and gorgeous gowns is a bonus.

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leebutler Review

Lightyear (2022) – To Infinity And Beyond-ish

Released: 16th June
Seen: 4th July

In 1995 the film Toy Story was released and began what can only be called a revolution in what an animated film could look like. It was truly the first of its kind, a feature-length 3D animated film that effectively marked a moment where the medium itself changed forever. That sweet funny little film about a bunch of toys who came to life will go down in history as a landmark film, showing the potential of the 3D animated technology that was so new at the time. 

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leebutler Review

The Bob’s Burgers Movie (2022) – Juicy

Released: 26th May
Seen: 31st May

In early 2011, the first episode of Bob’s Burgers hit the airwaves and was an instant hit for maybe the first week and then the ratings quickly went down. Reviews for the early season were mixed and the show was considered to be on the bubble in terms of renewal but it eventually got a second season. Around the second season, the show began to pick up its stride, slowly turning into a juggernaut and currently has been running for 12 seasons with a 13th one already ordered… and this reviewer has only seen up to episode 2 of the second season. This means that going into The Bob’s Burgers Movie there’s a chance to answer the question “Can The Bob’s Burgers Movie work for someone who isn’t caught up on the show’s history?” and the answer is a resounding glorious yes.

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leebutler Review

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) – Picking Up The Slack

Released: 20th May
Seen: 22nd May

The history of the Chip & Dale characters goes all the way back to 1943 when they were mostly known as a pair of adorable creatures who got into over the top scrapes against people who were in some way invading their space, normally Donald Duck. They appeared in about 2 dozen assorted cartoons before the end of the 60s and then were basically relegated to being background stock characters who might be brought up for a quick gag until they were rebooted into the versions most people know them as today, that being Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers which was part of the early run of the Disney Afternoon. Since about the 90s most people think of Chip & Dale as the Rescue Rangers and while they might get brought up here or there, they haven’t really had a major moment to shine since then… until now

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leebutler Review

Marmaduke (2022) – Animated Dog Vomit

Released: 11th May
Seen: 13th May

Marmaduke Info

In June of 1954, the first Marmaduke comic strip was printed in the newspaper. The entire idea of the series revolved around the Winslow family and their Great Dane who was certainly larger than a normal Great Dane but he wasn’t stupidly big. While the comics were popular, having remained in print now for well over 60 years, they’re noted as being kind of dry and simplistic and like a lot of single-strip Sunday comic books, they’re designed to work for one quick joke and not much longer.

Due to this limitation of how the character was intended to be used, Marmaduke probably wouldn’t work for a 90-minute long film and indeed he didn’t, they tried it back in 2010 and it failed spectacularly. Well, the director of this 2022 animated adaptation of Marmaduke clearly wanted to make a worse film and by god, they succeeded.

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