Family – 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.

Continue reading →

September 23, 2023 leebutler Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Review

Haunted Mansion (2023) – Rich

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: 31st August
Seen: 21st September

The Haunted Mansion is probably one of the most famous theme park attractions of all time. It’s so well known that even people who have never actually visited the park it’s built in at least know a few of its iconic visuals, like the ballroom full of ghosts or the elongating rooms. It’s such an iconic ride that it was inevitable that it’d inspire a movie and in 2003 it ended up doing so with The Haunted Mansion, a film that was certainly financially successful but was critically panned and not looked back on fondly by most (though it does have a cult following). The property would remain untouched in cinematic form for years until 2021 when the Muppets took a crack at it and, while their version only lasted a little under an hour, it was still well received by a lot of people and maybe gave Disney confidence they needed to really believe in another cinematic version of Haunted Mansion… and it’s a good thing they did because the new version is surprisingly good.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

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.

Continue reading →

May 25, 2023 leebutler Adventure, Family, Fantasy, Review

The Little Mermaid (2023) – Part Of Our World

Released: 25th May
Seen: 25th May

When people talk about the Disney Renaissance, they are talking about a very specific period of time from 1989 to 1999 when Disney released hit after hit with stunning regularity. Ten films over a ten-year period that would revive the Disney brand in a way that basically set the stage for its eventual dominance over the industry today. It could be argued that without the Disney Renaissance, we wouldn’t have the MCU that dominates the landscape today.

Even the worst film in the Disney Renaissance is better than most other films from the same time period, it’s truly a remarkable time in cinema history and it all started with a simple film about a mermaid who wanted to be where the people were… and because Disney has decided exploiting it’s back catalog is a substitute for good film making, we now have a remake of The Little Mermaid, the film that started this Renaissance. In somewhat of a miracle, it’s not actually that bad.

Continue reading →

March 29, 2023 leebutler Biography, Drama, Family, Review

Dog Gone (2023) – Doggone It!

Released: 23rd March
Seen: 28th March

It’s slowly starting to feel like the mortal enemy of this reviewer is dog-based films. No idea why, dogs are better than people and are truly precious on every level so surely just telling a story about a cute doggie doing cute doggie things should be enough to make for a nice movie but it seems like it’s just not to be. Films that use dead dogs as a plot point, boring but overall fin e stories about police dogs and even films about dog shows that end up being pulled from cinemas to remove a joke that people compared to child grooming have all come out in the time that this blog has existed and every time the film is either irritating or bland or irritatingly bland. So, where does Dog Gone fit in? Honestly, it’s harmless… harmlessly bland.

Continue reading →

December 11, 2022 leebutler Animation, Drama, Fantasy

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

Released: 9th December
Seen: 10th December

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.

Continue reading →

November 26, 2022 leebutler Comedy, Family, Musical, Review

Spirited (2022) – Good Afternoon!

Released: 18th November
Seen: 23rd November

Of all the stories ever written, it’s a fair bet to say one of the most adapted is Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol. Its simple story of some asshole being visited by three ghosts in order to learn to be a better person is so malleable that it can be shoved into almost any intellectual property (like Blackadder, Mickey Mouse or Mr. Magoo) or be told in various ways, from the straight forward versions to more meta interpretations like The Man Who Invented Christmas… of course, every version pales in comparison to the one that they did featuring the Muppets back in 1992 but hey, they keep churning them out because it’s pretty hard to screw up A Christmas Carol.

Continue reading →

October 3, 2022 leebutler Comedy, Family, Fantasy, Review

Hocus Pocus 2 (2022) – Wonderful Witchcraft

Released: 30th September
Seen: 30th September

In 1993 the film Hocus Pocus was released to an audience that really didn’t want anything to do with it. At the time it was critically thrashed and the box office wasn’t exactly glowing which is a little understandable when you consider it was released on the same day as the juggernaut that was Free Willy and not too long after Jurassic Park, so audiences were somewhat distracted. Of course, as time went on, thanks to regular screenings around Halloween and the home video market, Hocus Pocus eventually found its audience and became a massive cult hit and has been subsequently reevaluated by many as a pretty damn good family movie with more than enough charm to delight most audiences, along with possibly the best cover version of I Put A Spell On You to ever be recorded.

Continue reading →

August 26, 2022 leebutler Comedy, Drama, Family, Musical, Netflix

13: The Musical (2022) – Child’s Play

Released: 12th August
Seen: 24th August

In September 2008, the Broadway production of 13: The Musical began its run, a run that would last until January of 2009 after 22 previews and 105 performances. It was a truly unique show as the entire cast and band were made up of teenagers, something that as far as we know has never been done on Broadway before or since. It’s also a bit of a milestone as this was the show that featured the professional debut of eventual pop icon Ariana Grande. In its own way, 13: The Musical is kind of special, an original teen-oriented musical that can be performed with a cast made up entirely of 13-year-olds that isn’t just a junior version of a different show. Naturally, a show with this kind of significance would be a prime target for adaptation… with the thing that made it kind of special being removed.

Continue reading →