Category: Jacob Tremblay

THE LITTLE MERMAID (2023)

By Marc S. Sanders

Film remakes can go either way.  It’s even more of a challenge for it to succeed artistically if the original interpretation is such a favorite among the masses.  The 2023 updated version of Disney’s The Little Mermaid directed by Rob Marshall is fair, but it also never overcomes the challenge.

The new film primarily repeats the same story that many are familiar with.  A youthful mermaid girl named Ariel dreams about living among the humans above the surface.  Her father refuses the idea as he finds humans to be vile and dangerous.  Ariel makes a deal to trade in her beautiful voice to Ursula, the sea witch, in exchange for becoming a human.  She is granted three days to fall in love with Prince Eric.  If at the end of the three days she has not kissed the prince with a means of true love, she will turn back into a mermaid and will remain a prisoner of Ursula forever.

To call this new film adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale a live action film is only partially true.  If we are to witness the undersea life of mermaids and talking fish, well then, it’ll have to be animated somewhat, even if it is done digitally.  Therefore, to have the freedom to animate the sequences set to unforgettable numbers like “Part Of Your World” and “Under The Sea,” I wish the filmmakers were paying a little more attention. 

Consider some lyrics to “Under the Sea:”

Down here all the fish is happy…

Up there all the fish ain’t happy

They’re sad, cuz they’re in the bowl

It doesn’t win my attention if Sebastian the singing crab is singing about fish while the heroine of the story, Ariel, is swimming among dolphins who are scientifically regarded as mammals!!!!!!  You can show me any number of different colorfully prancing ocean dwellers, and you show me dolphins?????  In a musical number, the choreography must serve the purpose of the song.  In the original 1989 film, every animated image of any particular song lines up with the lyrics of numbers written by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman.  Regrettably, Rob Marshall seems to have turned the sound off while reinventing this moment. 

Sadly, I didn’t care for the updated composition of “Under The Sea” (an Oscar winning number) or “Part Of Your World.”  Why alter the notes and vocal delivery of some of the most famed pieces in Disney’s musical library?  Steven Spielberg’s update of West Side Story didn’t do that.  Spielberg knows that if ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  These are favorites!!!!  I can’t be the only one who doesn’t like it when the artists change everything about his/her/their greatest hits when I’m at their concerts.  The same accounts here. 

Still, it’s not all bad in this new The Little Mermaid.  Most of the cast is quite good.  Newcomer Halle Bailey (sure to be memorable in the upcoming musical version of The Color Purple) is sensational and she’s wonderful to look at as either the mermaid or the human version lacking a voice.  She has a wonderful singing voice and she’s a terrific actor against a CGI world of complicated water shots and imaginary creatures serving as her companions.  Melissa McCarthy is unrecognizable as Ursula, the sinister squid sea witch.  Her voice has a gruff intimidating edge to it and her torso and head donned in purple texture flow nicely with the CGI tentacles.  Javier Bardem is not doing his best work here because the script doesn’t demand it of him, but he fits in nicely as Triton, king of the undersea and father to Ariel.

Jacob Trembley lends a preteen personality to Flounder whose role is significantly diminished in this update.  That’s a mistake.  Instead, we get more of Scuttle who doesn’t look like a pelican any longer but is a bird who can somehow hold his breath under water for long periods of time to carry on panicked conversations with her pals.  Awkwafina voices Scuttle, and though I heard some laughter from the audience in response to her performance, it just didn’t win me over.  I found this Scuttle to be a nuisance that took me out of the film with each appearance.  The hip hop rap number (written by Lin Manuel Miranda) she performs was a very underwhelming substitute for comedy.  What was sacrificed was the hilariously silly, slapstick number from the original, where the French chef enthusiastically sang “Les Poisson,” as he torments poor Sebastian in a kitchen full of knives, boiling water and searing hot stoves.

Sebastian, the well-known sidekick, is just okay.  Daveed Diggs is a talented vocal performer, but I don’t think the final product served him well.  Often, I looked at this little guy and was not impressed, as remembrances of disappointment came back to me when I saw Jar Jar Binks for the first time.  Just like that Star Wars character, the googly eyes are detached from the head and Sebastian only evokes expression in that one area.  Nothing is done with the tiny mouth or cheekbones or ears.  Not even his claws or tiny legs offer much to do.  This crab lacked life.  As my colleague Miguel simply put it, the crab was not funny.  He just wasn’t funny in the slightest. 

A nice surprise comes from Jonah Hauer-King as the dashing Prince Eric, rescued from a shipwreck by a mysterious woman with a hypnotically, sensuous voice.  Eric’s role is thankfully expanded with the inclusion of his mother the island Queen (Noma Dumezweni).  Grimsby, the Prince’s aid, is also a welcome appearance (Art Malik) with more to do this time around.

I know for sure that I preferred the second half of the film over the first where new surprises are offered.  Rob Marshall’s film switches the influence of the story to a calypso/Caribbean vibe which is different from the slightly implied Greek environment of the 1989 piece.  This change allows a variety of different people of color and cultures to blend nicely together with believability.  After Ariel transforms into a human and Eric guides her across the island for a day of fun and escape, the story and settings come alive in color and calypso harmony.  In this area of the picture, much of the script is concentrated on Eric and his debates with his mother and her disapproval of the undersea colonies.  Confidant conversations also arise between Eric and Grimsby that I liked.  There’s more innocent flirtations between him and Ariel.  Hauer-King has good scenes with all of his co-stars from Halle Bailey to Noma Dumezweni and Art Malik.  The first half of the film is where much of the underwater life takes place, and it only convinced me so far, really taking me out of the film with the reinvention of the movie’s most famous songs.

Ultimately, like the live action interpretations of Aladdin and Beauty And The Beast this new version of The Little Mermaid is not a must watch and as much as I’m impressed with Melissa McCarthy, Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King, I can’t recommend seeing it at $15 a ticket.  Why should you when the easily accessible and wholly original film is available?  This is just an unnecessary venture.

I’ve grown up as a Disney fan, but once again the Mouse House is demonstrating a lack of will to broaden its imagination.  They’d rather run in with another cash grab at the box office by issuing a substandard product repeat. 

GOOD BOYS (2019)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Cast: Jacob Tremblay, Keith L. Williams, Brady Noon, Will Forte, Stephen Merchant
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 79% Certified Fresh

PLOT: Three sixth-grade boys ditch school and embark on an epic journey while carrying accidentally stolen drugs, being hunted by teenage girls, and trying to make their way home in time for a long-awaited party.


You will either love Good Boys for the humor, or you will hate it for exactly the same reason.  There can be no middle of the road.  You will either guffaw through the entire film, as I did, or you will gape in shock at the behavior and language demonstrated by tween boys.

If you’re one of those people who cannot comprehend the humor to be derived from watching curious boys who haven’t yet hit puberty staring at sex toys and wondering what the hell they’re for (“What are ‘a-nahl beads’?”), then this movie is not for you.  It’s just not.  No amount of philosophizing or rationalization will make it “okay.”  The fact that the movie made me laugh pretty much beginning to end carries no weight.  I respect your opinion.  If you want to stop reading this review, I wouldn’t blame you.  Now’s your chance.  I don’t want to waste your time.  Quit now.

Okay.

If you kept reading, you’re one of those people like me who laughed through every second of the trailers for this movie, hoping against hope that they didn’t just show us all the funny bits in the trailer.  Thank the comedy gods, they didn’t.  Good Boys is the funniest movie I’ve seen this year so far, and it may wind up being the funniest comedy of the year.

If you’ve seen the trailers, you know the plot: three 6th-graders accidentally steal some “molly” from two college girls, who offer to trade it for an expensive drone they captured while the boys were using it to spy on them.  See, the boys have been invited to a “kissing” party, but they know nothing about kissing, so they were using the drone to spy on these two college girls to see if they would kiss.  Before that, they tried using the internet, but instead of just searching for “how to kiss a girl”, they jumped right into searching for “boobies” and “porn”…which did not end well.

Read that last sentence.  If I were the father of one of those kids, I would not find that funny.  I can understand from an intellectual standpoint how a kid that young can be curious about such things, but if I found out my kid had been searching for that stuff online, as a parent, I’d be upset.  So I can see how this movie might put some people off.

But I promise you.  This movie magically takes what would be uncomfortable in real life and mines those situations for the kind of belly laughs that I haven’t had in a movie theater since The Hangover.  And it’s not salacious or prurient, because they have NO IDEA what they’re looking at, or even talking about.  (The description one of them gives for what a tampon is used for is worth the price of admission.)

As the movie progresses, the screenplay doesn’t forget to give us reasons to like these kids.  We get glimpses of one of their families in particular, as they inform him they’re getting divorced.  (“You’ll get TWO Taco Tuesdays now!  Just…one of them will be on Wednesday.”)  One of them has a real gift for singing, but doesn’t want to look too uncool, so he doesn’t sign up for an audition.  One has a crush on a girl, but is so nervous about her that he talks to his friends about how he hopes one day to make actual eye contact.  Too many comedies make the GAGS the point of the film instead of the characters.  While the gags are fast and furious in Good Boys, they MEAN more, and are funnier, because we know who these kids are, and what makes them tick.

I’m trying to think of what else to write, but it would just be a catalog of the best gags and lines in the movie.  (“I’m gonna be a social piranha!”)  I don’t believe finding this movie funny is bad or immoral.  I know there are people out there who might think so, and I empathize.  But I know what makes me laugh, and I have to be true to myself, so…there you go.

THE PREDATOR

By Marc S. Sanders

THE Predator has got to be the worst movie of 2018. Writer and director all about killed the franchise allowing its new property owner, Disney, to never give the possibility of new stories another thought.

It’s terrible.

It makes zero sense. The action is clunky and indecipherable at times. The Predator creatures are not cool. They are ugly for the sake of being ugly, and I think they are pretty stupid as well, as stupid as their pet Predator dogs.

How does a writer of Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Kiss, Kiss Bang, Bang, write a piece of crap like this where (get this!!!) Olivia Munn plays a JOHNS HOPKINS BIOLOGIST (yes…you read that right) who thankfully is an expert in hand to hand combat and machine guns???? I never knew Johns Hopkins offered military training with every biology major.

This movie is so dumb that it ends with the line “I hope that comes in a size 42.” BRILLIANT!!!

If anything, the sole redeeming quality of this shit is that it motivates me to keep on writing. If this idiotic garbage can get green lit by a major studio, then my material must be Oscar worthy.

SIDE NOTE: Olivia Munn did a last minute petition to have a scene deleted that she realized she performed with a registered sexual predator. Sadly, I think she did this guy an inadvertent favor. Now he doesn’t have to be included in this horrible bomb.

GOOD BOYS

By Marc S. Sanders

Jacob Tremblay, Keith L Williams and Brady Noon are the sixth grade Good Boys, a film directed and co-written by Gene Stupnitsky and produced by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. This is a hard (very hard) R rated kids comedy adventure. Call it a prequel to Superbad.

Before sixth graders become aware of beer pong parties, the most important thing on their mind is perhaps a kissing party. At least it’s most important to Max (Tremblay). For Lucas (Williams, the MVP of the three kids) he’s broken up to learn his parents are getting a divorce. Thor (Noon, who needs a few more acting lessons) is feeling insecure on a scale of social popularity when all he really wants is to audition for the spring musical.

After Max loses his dad’s valuable drone while the boys are spying on some high school girls in a backyard, they end up stealing their girls’ “mollie” in an effort of blackmail to get the drone back. There’s the spine of the story.

My colleague Miguel E Rodriguez reviewed this film last year. He praised the picture for not making the gags the point of the film. However, I can’t agree with that observation. The thin plot of Good Boys serves as opportunity for one gross out or ridiculous gag after another. Okay. So the boys are unfamiliar with sex toys, particularly “a-nahl beads” or they mistake dad’s sex doll for a “CPR” doll. So when Max practices kissing on the doll, he’s confused as to why the lips feel so sticky.See, I found the main story to be getting the drone back before Max’ dad discovers it’s missing. So then why must I be subjected to imagining how much the beads smell like shit? Why must I see the kids try to cross a busy highway to get to the mall? These are detours, away from the plot. Yeah, they’re funny, but as funny as they are, they push me away from the ends that will justify their means.

An epilogue features one of the kids faking a snort of cocaine. Why? Miguel: these are set up gags. These are exactly the opposite of how you describe their ultimate purposes. None these jokes serve the plot. When I watch “The Goonies,” I get kids who pursue a chance at obtaining a treasure. The mission gets held up by booby traps. Those traps serve as obstacles to the mission at play. Anal beads and a sex doll are not obstacles. They are diversions.

If you want gags to come genuinely from the story then don’t make the mollie or the drone the MacGuffin. Make the sex toys the MacGuffin. These are no more than funny gags. Ultimately, they’re Saturday Night Live skits forced into a film. I laughed yes, but I also grew tired of these bits, that occurred every three to four minutes. What about the drone???? What about the mollie???? I dunno. Maybe with a better trio of boys, I’d be more invested in the film.

Tremblay is the most well known actor (from Room with Brie Larson). Brady Noon is supposed to be the wanna be rebel (he gets an earring), but the sensitive guy on the inside. Williams is the kid who still adheres to good behavior and is not so ready to move on from sleepovers with “Magic The Gathering” card games. Keith L Williams is the best performer of the three in fact. Great physical comedy and timing, as well as some authentic anguish. When the other two boys cry, it’s terribly, TERRIBLY, fake. The problem is the chemistry of three boys is lacking.

Stupnitsky’s coverage of scenes look like rehearsals before the real cameras started rolling. At times, it feels as if the boys, particularly Noon and Tremblay, are trying to think of their next line. When they can’t get the line right, I sense a fast thinking improv that includes shouting the F word. That’s not very funny for very long.

Foul mouthed pre teens are nothing new. Seen it before in The Bad News Bears and once again I say The Goonies. I’m not going to salute Good Boys because these three kids are given carte blanch to utter the F word on an endless cycle. That gets old. Boys uncover sex toys and handle them and naturally act perplexed by what they’ve found; okay, but is there anything more to that?

By no means is Good Boys acceptable for kids to watch. On the other hand, those that can watch a hard R rated flick like this might get a little tired of its material. I know I did. So then who is this film really aimed for? Best guess I could come up with would be a guy I know named Miguel E Rodriguez.