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Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer & John Cena Join Robert Downey Jr. In The Voyage of Doctor Dolittle

29th March 2018 By Tim Isaac

Just over a year ago it was revealed that Robert Downey Jr. was sett to follow in Rex Harrison’s (and Eddie Murphy’s) footsteps by playing Doctor Dolittle on the big screen. Now the cast has grown, with the likes of Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer & John Cena, who will be voicing animals alongside the previously announced Tom Holland, Selena Gomez, Emma Thompson, and Ralph Fiennes.

Antonio Banderas is onboard to play a pirate, with Michael Sheen as a character called Mudfly.

To help us picture who everyone in the voice cast will be, Downey Jr. tweeted out and image to show who’s a giraffe, who’s a dog and who’s a parrot. You can take a look at that image below.

The will be based around Hugh Lofting’s famous children’s character, a doctor who tires of treating animals and learns to speak to animals. There’s no news on the exact story for this new version, but it will involve the Doctor will be going off on a big trip. The film is due out April 2019 and is planned as the first part of a new film franchise. [Read more…]

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
ACTORS: Robert Downey Jr., Kumail Nanjiani, Octavia Spencer, John Cena, Tom Holland, Selena Gomez, Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes  

The Lego Batman Movie (Blu-ray Review)

18th June 2017 By Tim Isaac

Starring: Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Zach Galifianakis, Ralph Fiennes
Directed By: Chris McKay
Running Time: 104 mins
BBFC Certificate: U
UK Release Date: June 19th 2017 (UK)

Our Score

The Lego Movie was a surprise to many – a film that when it was announced sounded like such a bad idea turned out to be one of the funniest, most original animated movies of the last few years, and a major hit to boost. Warner Bros. suddenly realised they had the potential for something much bigger, so rather than just putting a sequel in the works, they started working on spin-offs, including a Ninjago movie and The Lego Batman Movie.

We first met the Lego version of Batman (Will Arnett) in The Lego Movie – an arrogant vigilante convinced of his own greatness and jealous of the praise other superheroes get. He starts out the same here, saving Gotham City from The Joker and a Rogues Gallery of villains, and confident about how awesome everyone thinks he is. However, he’s also obsessed with doing things alone, with the result that when he’s back at Wayne Manor, he only has his butler Alfred (Ralph Fiennes) for company. Batman thinks that for the best, but it may be because he’s afraid of having a family.

Things begin to unravel for him when he accidentally adopts an orphan, Dick Grayson (Michael Cera), and there’s a new police commissioner in town, Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson), who thinks there are major flaws in Batman’s ‘I work alone’ model. Despite the Caped Crusader’s heroics, Gotham is still the most crime-ridden city in the world, and so she thinks working together is the answer – but that’s anathema to Batman.

Then there’s the Joker (Zack Galifianakis), who is obsessed with being Batman’s greatest enemy. However, when Batman won’t admit his hatred for the clown-faced baddie, it sets Joker off on a path that eventually sees Sauron, Voldemort, King Kong, Daleks and many more escaping from the Phantom Zone and attacking Gotham.

As you can probably tell from that synopsis, The Lego Batman Movie is a very busy and slightly nuts movie. Parts of it are completely insane, but it doesn’t matter as it’s all done with an enormous wink. That’s amply demonstrated by the endless string of knowing references to pop culture, movie tropes, superhero cliché and Batman’s other on-screen adventures, from Adam West to Ben Affleck.

A lot of it is very funny, and while it does lag a little in the middle, for the vast majority of the film it’s so fast-paced, silly, self-referential and witty that you barely notice the occasional narrative flaw. Admittedly, quite a lot of the references fall flat, and there are moments when the movie is undoubtedly trying too hard, but it really doesn’t matter when the rest of the film is so much fun.

As with The Lego Movie, it never forgets that while zaniness will keep a smile on your face, what really makes an animated movie stand out is having real heart. The film invests a lot in building the emotional side of Batman’s self-imposed loneliness and the slow-build towards him realising that perhaps he does need other people in his life. It’s oddly sweet, allowing the movie to keep the narcissistic Caped Crusader who was so funny in The Lego Movie, but not having the audience quickly tire of his arrogance and start to dislike him.

There was a fair amount of talk on the film’s cinema release about the film’s gay undertones. While these things are often overstated in media report, with The Lego Batman Movie they’ve perhaps been underplayed. One of the central spines of the film is about the relationship between Batman and Joker, which is played 100% as a love story between the two men, but with the word ‘love’ replaced with ‘hate’. It is undoubtedly a gay romance albeit a very dysfunctional, unhealthy one. Bizarrely though it’s also rather sweet and affecting.

It’s also a film where two dads are raising a son (even if those two dads are the same person, Batman/Bruce Wayne, but Dick Grayson doesn’t know that), and where the thematic payoff is all about the importance and validity of chosen families. Add in Batman’s obsession with his abs, and there really is a surprising amount of gay-relevant content for a mainstream animated movie. They may not ‘say gay’ at any point, but it’s certainly not just tokenistic.

The Blu-ray release includes four new, very short, Lego Batman animated shorts, which are all okay but not particularly great. Better is what is essentially a five-minute promo for next year’s The Lego Ninjago Movie, featuring the epic battle between a martial arts master and a chicken. It’s a lot of fun, very silly, and suggests they may have another success on their hands in 2018. Add in some decent featurettes and other bits and pieces, and you have a pretty good disc for a very entertaining movie.

Overall Verdict: It may not be quite as good as The Lego Movie, but The Lego Batman Movie is still an awful lot of fun, with plenty to keep both kids and adults entertained (indeed, perhaps the latter even more than the former).

Reviewer: Tim Isaac

Special Features:
4 x Lego Batman Animated Shorts
The Master: A LEGO Ninjago Short
Deleted Scenes
‘One Brick at a Time: Making the Lego Batman Movie’ Featurette
‘Inside Wayne Manor’ Featurette
‘Brick by Brick: Making of the LEGO Batman’ Featurette
‘Behind the Brick’ Featurette
‘Me and My Mini Fig’ Featurette
‘Comic Con Panel’ Featurette
Rebrick Contest Winners
Film Trailers
Lego Life Trailer
Social Promos
Director and Crew Commentary

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
ACTORS: Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Zach Galifianakis, Ralph Fiennes  DIRECTORS: Chris McKay  

Kubo and the Two Strings (Blu-ray Review)

16th January 2017 By Tim Isaac

Starring: Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey, George Takei, Ralph Fiennes
Directed By: Travis Knight
Running Time: 101 mins
BBFC Certificate: PG
UK Release Date: January 16th 2017 (UK)

Our Score

Kubo is a young boy, living secluded with his mother inside a mountain. Each day he goes to the nearby village and tells stories, using his magic to enact them to the villagers with moving origami figures. He tells the story of his heroic father, who was killed trying to save Kubo from his evil grandfather, the Moon King. Kubo lost an eye in the attack, but he and his mother managed to escape.

Kubo’s mother has told him there is one big rule – he must be home before darkness falls. However, while trying to honour his dead father the sun goes down and he comes under attack from his aunts. His mother uses the last magic to get Kubo to safety, telling him that his only way to protect himself is to find three magical pieces of armour that will make him nearly invulnerable. With his mother gone, Kubo’s only protection comes from Monkey, a charm that his mother brought to life as part of her final act, as well as Beetle, a man-size warrior bug they come across, who’s had his memory erased. [Read more…]

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
ACTORS: Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey, George Takei, Ralph Fiennes  DIRECTORS: Travis Knight  

Hugh Laurie & Ralph Fiennes Set To Join Will Ferrell In Holmes and Watson

8th January 2017 By Tim Isaac

Back in August it was revealed that Stepbrothers and Talladega Nights co-stars Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly are reuniting for Holmes and Watson. Now they have some company, as Ralph Fiennes and Hugh Laurie have joined the movie.

Ferrell is set to be Sherlock Holmes in this comedy take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective, with Reilly as Watson. It’s not known who Laurie and Fiennes will be, although they will apparently ‘slip on the shoes of two beloved characters from the Holmes oeuvre’. That likely means one of them will be Moriarty, with the other either as Holmes’ brother Mycroft, or Inspector Lestrade.

Etan Cohen is writing and directing the movie, which is already shooting in London. The movie is due out in 2018.

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
ACTORS: Hugh Laurie, Ralph Fiennes, Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly  DIRECTORS: Etan Cohen  FILMS: Holmes and Watson  

New Hail, Caesar! Trailer – Ralph Fiennes wants Alden Ehrenreich to be a better actor in the Coen’s star-studded flick

12th January 2016 By Tim Isaac

hail-caesar-quadWhile many had expected the Coen Brothers’ Hail, Caesar! to be making an Oscar run, it’s been slightly pushed back, but it still looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun. If nothing else their look back at the Golden Age of Hollywood has one hell of a cast.

A new trailer has now arrived, which tells us little about the plot, but certainly gives us a feel for quirky tone we can expect.

Here’s the synopsis: ‘Four-time Oscar<sup>®</sup>-winning filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, True Grit, Fargo) write and direct Hail, Caesar!, an all-star comedy set during the latter years of Hollywood’s Golden Age.  Starring Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson, Jonah Hill and Frances McDormand, Hail, Caesar! follows a single day in the life of a studio fixer who is presented with plenty of problems to fix.’

The film will be in UK cinemas on March 4th. [Read more…]

CHECK OUT THESE RELATED ARCHIVES:
ACTORS: Josh Brolin, George Clooney, Ralph Fiennes, Tilda Swinton, Channing Tatum, Scarlett Johansson, Jonah Hill, Frances McDormand  DIRECTORS: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen  FILMS: Hail Caesar  

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