Wonder Park is a beautiful, well made film that misses the mark

Imagine you’re invited to a party. It’s supposed to be a lively, social affair that bills itself as a loose, chatty affair. When you get there the party seems like it’s going according to plan. The guests are interesting and the conversation is quite fun, but then the host settles down and turns the party into a time share sales pitch. You’ve had fun at the party up until now-and all of the guests are still there, so you gamely sit down. It’s a beautiful sales pitch with a bit of guilt, done with panache and tons of personality. When the sales pitch ends you’re left slightly gape jawed because you came in expecting a fun, happy-go-lucky party, but instead got a slightly down beat gathering that was hosted by a tween goth wanna be.

That is the feeling I had when I left Wonder Park.

It’s like going to see Minions, thinking it’s a film about lovable yellow creatures; but 10 minutes into the film you learn they have jaundice.

Wonder Park sells itself as a child’s escape to an amusement park run by anthropomorphic animals. And for a while it’s the amusement park film you’ve seen. The film looks gorgeous. Its animation is stunning, at times looking like a hybrid stop animation and computer animation. It has a grand scope and characters that look like you’ve seen them before, but also seem like original tour guides to a place that you want to go.

June is the young girl who creates Wonder Park. She and her mother have a vivid imagination and it’s their go-to place to play. Unfortunately, about 10 minutes into the film her mother get sick, presumably Cancer and has to go away to the hospital for treatment. And here comes the time share presentation.

It’s not that serious subject matters don’t have a place in children’s entertainment. They do, but what Wonder Park did was the exact opposite of Inside/Out did and I completely blame Bing Bong. The time when Bing Bong floats away into the abyss is a gut punch that people can relate to. Inside/Out was a great comedy with a dramatic gut punch. The kick is that Inside/Out billed itself as a comedy.

Wonder Park bills itself as an adventure/comedy and doesn’t accomplish either category.  It has elements of adventure that do work, but when the film is being adventurous it flips back to sad panda June all too quickly. Steve, the porcupine, voiced by John Oliver does manage to get in a couple of laughs and physical comedy bits, but they’re not worth the price of admission.

In the end June’s mother (spoiler alert) does come back home and audience members over 10 will be glad to head to the exits. Our 9 year old did enjoy the film, but he stopped talking about it by bedtime and didn’t talk about it with his friends. That’s quite different than his other reactions, like for Mary Poppins Returns, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Teen Titans GO! To The Movies or a couple others where we had to distract him with shiny object in order to get him to stop talking about it.

Wonder Park is a decent enough time waster for a rainy day on TV. It’s best if you save your movie theatre money for something else this spring.

Win passes to the Atlanta sneak preview of Missing Link

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I love it when our kids get pumped about the same film that we are. I heard our 9 year-old laughing as he was watching a trailer on the tablet the other week. “Daddy,  when does Missing Link come out”?, he said from the other room.  Missing Link, rated PG, comes out on April 12 and  it’s from Laika, a studio that can do no wrong in our book. The technical precision that started in Coraline is continuing with Missing Link and we’re giving away family four-packs of tickets to the sneak preview in Atlanta on Saturday, April 6.

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Sir Lionel Frost (left) voiced by Hugh Jackman and Mr. Link (right) voiced by Zach Galifianakis in director Chris Butler’s MISSING LINK, a Laika Studios Production and Annapurna Pictures release. Credit : Laika Studios / Annapurna Pictures

I’m a fan of stop-animation. I admire the precision and passion that go into each movement, as well as, the uniqueness that it displays on film. Granted some standard animated films get close to that feeling, but something is just not quite the same. I’ll also submit that a bad script can’t overcome the beauty of the how it’s created.  To that end Missing Link look s like it’s set up Laika for a solid, entertaining film.

The trailer has some nice physical gags to entertain younger viewers and the dialogue appears to be sharply written with just enough dry humor to touch older audiences. Of course, all of this is mute until audiences can see the film and render a verdict for themselves.  The sneak preview of Missing Link in Atlanta is Saturday, April 6. It’s in the morning and we’ll let winners know exactly when and where the showing will be. Hint: It’ll be around midtown…., so it’s centrally located to wherever you are around the ATL.

To enter, just leave a comment in this post or RT the tweet. We’ve got a handful of 4-packs to give away.

Mary Poppins Returns with spoonfuls of whatever you want

It is understandable for movie goers to be skeptical of Mary Poppins Returns. Mary Poppins is irrelevant. It’s a character better known fora classic movie that blazed technological trails 50 years ago and is one of the bright lights in Mickey’s castle. It’s not the kind of movie or character that one associates with having ‘continued adventures’. Our son wanted to see Mary Poppins Returns, even though he’s never seen the first one. On the way into the theater I told him that the first movie was made over 50 years ago and was a technical masterpiece then.

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From the first frames of Mary Poppins returns it’s obvious that there’s something different about this film. For starters, audiences will watch the credits at the beginning of the film. That’s a subtle nod to the original and the way that films used to be shown. “When does the film start”,our 9-year old asked after the movie started, while we were watching the credits.

The film takes its direction from that point and continues down the path without hitting any lamplighters or bicycles. Mary Poppins returns to the Banks family, this time to take care of the adult Banks children. It’s hard not to think of Doc Brown from Back to the Future at the end of the first movie. You know, the offhand remark about “I’m not here about you…it’s your children”, he said after visiting the future.  While our son certainly didn’t catch this it raised my warning antennae on the film.

If I ever saw Mary Poppins I do not remember any of it. I recall seeing the images and scenes from our trips to Walt Disney World, but the rest is chim, chiminey forgotten. Here the Banks children; specifically Michael, is on the verge of losing his home. His wife passed away a couple of months ago and he’s never really gotten over it, despite obtaining a job at bank, that conveniently has the loan that is now being called due.

Overall Mary Poppins Returns is utterly charming. The dance and song numbers, for the most part, are uplifting and will bring in even those in the audience who have never seen a musical. Our son, who has never seen, actually he’s actively avoided musicals, really enjoyed the film, especially the more up-tempo numbers.  

Mary Poppins Returns is a little too long and very diverse. It’s obviously diverse, so much so that it’s distracting and that’s something that filmmakers,especially Disney need to be wary of. Disney became very Princess heavy a couple of years ago, which if great; they needed to balance the scales of their characters, both in regards to their sex and their background. However, by making the heroes or villains the same cookie cutter format movie after movie they’re falling into the same trap that made The Last Jedi so bad.

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Granted, the fan base between The Last Jedi and Mary Poppins will not be the same, nor will they have the same criticisms. Mary Poppins Returns is an entertaining film, it just feels hollow. It’s obvious that the filmmakers loved the original and did as much possible to stay true to its spirit.The result is a lovingly created vehicle that has a (very) slightly different story from the original and shows up at your doorstep 50 some odd years later asking you to love it just as much. You’ll like it, maybe buy a box of cookies,but it won’t stick too long in your memory.

The other view: when my nine-year old son and I were leaving the theater he said: “I can’t wait to see the next one in 50 years”. If that’s the reaction that the film makers were going for then they’ve hit a home run.If they’re looking for film that will return its investment and a little bit more then they’ll probably accomplish that.

Win tickets to the Atlanta sneak preview of Vice

Vice is the story of Dick Cheney and it’s from the director of The Big Short, Adam McKay. It’s being released on December 25 and has already been nominated for 6 Golden Globe Awards, as well as, 23 other awards. The cast reads like an actors and actress fantasy lineup, Christen Bale at Dick Cheney, Amy Adams ad Lynne Cheney, Steve Carell as Donald Rumsfeld, Sam Rockwell and George W. Bush, Tyler Perry as Colin Powell and many others. The film is rated R for language and adult situations.

This is a film that adult will crave and most people under 18 would avoid. The exception to this would be those high school students that want to see the story of Dick Cheney’s background and how he reshaped the Vice Presidency.

The Atlanta sneak preview of Vice is Tuesday, December 18 at 7:00. We’re giving away 25 pairs of tickets to the show. If you want to be one of the first people, outside of the award circuit, to see Vice just RT this:

You can also send us an email to trey@daddymojo.net and we’ll shoot you over a link that’ll be good for two seats to the December 18 show.

Mortal Engines is a beautiful, fun time to (re) discover steampunk

I’m in a coffee place and two middle aged guys are talking. “I wasn’t familiar with the plot. But, I saw the movie in IMAX and it was amazing. The special effects were incredibly detailed and its steampunk elements were things that you really need to see on the big screen”, one said to the other. I didn’t need to ask them what film they were talking about. I knew that it was Mortal Engines.


The scope and scale of Mortal Engines is beautiful. See the film in IMAX, it’s worth the extra money to see it on the really big screen. It’s rated PG-13 for intense action sequences.   

I was not familiar with the books, they’re a 4-part series by Phillip Reeve about a post-apocalyptic world where…..hey hey, eyes up here.I know that the whole ‘post apocalyptic’ tag line is over used. You’re expecting Jennifer Lawrence or some pasty faced vampire in the film just to lock down its middle school street cred. Mortal Engines is a different kind of end-of-the world tale, this is steampunk on the grandest scale that’s ever been displayed on the big screen.

From the opening moments Mortal Engines establishes what you might already know from the trailer. London is a massive city on wheels that consumes other smaller cities on wheels for their resources.  As we dig deeper we learn that there was a 60-second war that shifted the crust of the Earth which somehow mandated that our cities are built on iron wheels.

Don’t get bogged down in the details. Mortal Engines is a fun, high quality popcorn time at the movies. If you’ve read the books you’ll notice that most of the downbeat under currents aren’t mentioned and that’s ok. If the film had spent any time on the elements that were not big machines, majestic mountains or big machines it would’ve tripped upon its good intentions.

Mortal Engines rarely lets its foot off of the gas and that’s a great thing. The only time that the film stumbles is when viewers get a moment to actually question why this or that is happening. How can his daughter be so trusting? What happened to that other guy who was helping her? Stop, don’t ask any question, just enjoy the film and everything will be fine.

For us the biggest let down was the ending music. The soundtrack during the film is strong and very effective. When the film ends the soundtrack goes soft and all but requires the audience to exhale. It also leaves you feeling let down, which the complete opposite of what the film did.

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