Film Review - Dog (2022)

 Dog stars Channing Tatum (he also co-directed the film with Reid Carolin) as Jackson a former US Army Ranger who is keen to return to service despite some medical issues which have seen him leave active duty but he is given one last chance to earn his stripes and to do so he must escort an old Ranger buddy of his’s former combat Dog Lulu to his family funeral in Arizona and from there a long adventure of discovery and hijinks ensue.

 

Dog is an okay film, worth a couple of pats overall but not a good enough girl to deserve any doggo treats, Tatum is pretty good here and he sells some of the Army stuff well and he gets on well with the dog who plays Lulu but I found myself getting kinda bored while watching this movie.

 

And I think the main reason for that is that his character for most of the film is almost always trying to be something he’s not, he’s always making some excuse or saying he’s this when he’s really that and after a few moments of this happening I got kinda sick of it now I’m not one of those who thinks that movies should always be ethical they should be what they need to be to tell the story that they and the creative team behind it want to tell no matter how dark or light but here I don’t think this particular character trait worked very well for me and I wanted him to own up to who he was earlier in the film than he does.

 

That said there are also some nice moments in the film one with another former Ranger stands out and Tom Sigel delivers some nice cinematography with some of the landscapes as Jackson and Lulu make their way to the funeral but apart from those I wasn’t all that fussed with this movie and I suspect it will be another one that comes and goes like so many have done so far this year.

 

And so that was Dog and she’s a good girl worth a couple of pats for sure but she wasn’t that good to give a doggo treat to, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Turning Red (2022)

 Turning Red is the new Pixar Animation film and the third in a row to go straight to Disney Plus after Soul and Luca and this story takes place in Toronto in 2002 and concerns Melin (Rosalie Chiang) a young girl who is very much the idol of her mother (Sandra Oh) even if she is over protective of her daughter but one night she suddenly turns into a giant Red Panda and can do so when she becomes overly emotional which if you’re a 13 year old on the cusp of puberty and adolescence its going to be tricky to keep those emotions in check especially as her family undergoes a ritual to rid itself of the beast before it comes too hard to control.

 

Turning Red is not up there with the best of Pixar Animation but it is still a solid enough entry in their library that I had fun with it and first and foremost I have to begin with the group of young girls who anchor this movie, Melin and her friends all like each other, share their affections for themselves and their favourite boyband group 4Town and have a great shorthand with each other and that bond really forms most of the fun this movie gets out of the Panda transformation premise and I enjoyed those scenes a lot.

 

The film also has some good animation which you normally expect from Pixar these days but here it had less of the realistic style to it and more of the bright colours and almost cartoonier style to it especially when it came to the Panda scenes in the film and it serves as a nice reminder for me that animation as an artform can still do those things that live action as advanced as the technology has gotten over the last 3 decades still can’t quite do as well as animation can.

 

Also I have to say that I loved spotting Mr David Lo Pan himself James Hong as one of the family elders.

 

As for the mother/daughter relationship I thought it was pretty good but also a little predictable in terms of the daughter who’s growing up vs the mother who can’t quite accept that just yet though I think some will see more in this than I did overall but I still thought that family relationship worked well in the film.

 

And so that was Turning Red and it’s a good film by Pixar but not one of their best, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - The Batman (2022)

 The Batman is directed and co-written by Matt Reeves and stars Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne/Batman as well as Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Andy Serkis as Alfred, Jeffrey Wright as Commissioner Gordon and Paul Dano as the Riddler who seeks to destroy Gotham City by uncovering a deep dark secret regarding the rot that lies at the heart of the City, a rot that a newly minted Batman will have to confront and stop even if that mystery lies at the heart of his family name.

 

The Batman was the main comic book I’ve been anticipating this year and that is mainly down to the excellent previews for the film which looked great on the big cinema screen as well but when I read about the films 3 hour runtime I began to get very nervous and it did dwindle my anticipation a little mainly because I began to feel that half of the film would be this movie and the other half would just be setup for all the future movies and streaming shows and I am getting pretty tired of that personally speaking.

 

Plus this movie has some stiff competition to overcome for me in terms of the 1989 Batman film with Jack Nicholson and Michael Keaton as well as 2005’s Batman Begins and 2008’s The Dark Knight which were directed by Christopher Nolan and starred Christian Bale as Batman but could this new Batman movie rise to the fire of that stiff competition or just be a Baaaabaaay as I give it another Kiss from a Rose on the Grave Oooooooo.

 

Well this new Batman movie is neither a Kiss from a Rose on the Grave but nor does it go Face to Face with the best Batman movies, this one for me is very much middle of the road but before I delve more into those issues I want to write more about the positives.

 

Firstly I think Pattinson is pretty good as Batman but I don’t think he was as good as Michael Keaton or Ben Affleck were when they played Batman for while I think Pattinson is a good Batman and is happy to let the Batsuit do most of the talking in those scenes (Pattinson is said to have been reluctant to bulk up for the role and I can understand why now seeing him in the suit) I don’t think he was given enough scenes to establish both his Bruce Wayne and his relationship with Alfred which is a cornerstone relationship of the Batman stories.

 

And this leads me into Serkis as Alfred and like Pattinson as Bruce Wayne he sadly doesn’t get enough screentime to make a dent in the role in the same way that Michael Gough, Jeremy Irons and even Michael Caine did when they played Alfred in their films but Jeffrey Wright may well be the best Gordon we’ve ever seen on film and that’s because Reeves and his co-writer Peter Craig make him integral to the story and Wright commits in a way that we never really saw the other Gordons get to do in their movies even Gary Oldman.

 

As for the villains well Kravitz is okay as Catwoman/Selina but I prefer Michelle Pfeiffer in the role from Batman Returns, Colin Farrell is outstanding as the Penguin and you will not recognise him in this role while Paul Dano is a good Riddler even if at times he is hard to understand when he talks under that heavy mask.

 

But the one weak link for me is John Turturro as Falcone, a lot of the time I just thought that not only did Turturro seem old and weak in this role but his scenes really dragged down the story for me and didn’t really hold my interest very much and at 3 hours in length his character should’ve been removed from the script and more of a focus given to the Penguin instead as I believed him more as the chief crime boss of Gotham as compared to Falcone.

 

And so that was the Batman and it’s a good movie but it just doesn’t compare to the best Batman films for me due to how some of the characters are used and the 3 hours length was not needed this could’ve been much better at 2 and a half hours at most, 3 out of 5.