Ice Age: Collision Course

Year: 2016

Directors: Mike Thurmeier and Galen T. Chu

Starring: Ray Romano, Denis Leary, John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, and Simon Pegg
Tagline: One small step.  One giant mess.
Synopsis: Buck (the crazy, dinosaur hunting weasel) teams up with Sid, Diego, and Manny to stop an asteroid (unintentionally triggered by Scrat in a UFO) from hitting Earth.  Other side plots happen.

Review

Remember the original Ice Age?  The fun film about a mammoth, sloth, and sabre-tooth tiger coming together to return a human baby to its family?  The filmmakers clearly don't remember it.  And this is a long, long way from that movie.

Pretty much I saw this movie because the person I was with wanted to see this movie.  And while I'll agree there were a few moderately amusing moments (such as Buck singing "Figaro's Aria" by Rossini whilst dodging dinosaurs to rescue a different dinosaur's egg), overall the film doesn't justify its existence.  It's not particularly funny.  It has no real heart or soul.  The characters have gotten stale.  And I'm really, really done with the "mild rude humor" that is not the least bit humorous.

Buck, the one-eyed weasel, goes from crazy eccentric to overboard crazy (he adopts a pumpkin).  Manny is reduced to an overbearing father fretting over his daughter's upcoming nuptials and headbutting with his future son-in-law.  Diego is there because ... he's one of the main characters?  Sid is Sid.  And there are even more characters with their own side plots that don't really amount to much beyond feeble justification for said characters being still in the story.  And frankly, I can only watch Scrat get squashed, splatted, and vaporized so many times.

Don't waste your money on Collision Course.  And don't waste your time.  Maybe then we'll be spared Ice Age 6: The Zombie Apocalypse or whatever plot device they'd come up with.  Go back and watch the first one instead.

Quotable Quotes

• "The weasel has landed." -- Buck
• "What are you doing?" "Helping?" "What does not helping look like?" -- Peaches, Manny, and Diego
• "I have found a prophecy!" -- Buck

ISFS

The Secret Life of Pets

Year: 2016

Directors: Yarrow Cheney & Chris Renaud 

Starring: Louis C.K., Eric Stonestreet, Jenny Slate, Kevin Hart, Lake Bell, Albert Brooks, and Dana Carvey
Tagline: Ever wonder what your pets do when you're not home?
Synopsis: Max is Katie's dog.  But his life is turned upside down when Katie brings home Duke, a shelter dog.

Review

Before the feature film was the short "Mower Minions."  Basically, a group of Minions decide they need a blender, which means they need money.  They proceed to offer lawn care to a retirement home.  Minion mayhem ensues.  It was amusing.  I chuckled a few times.  I rolled my eyes a few more times.

The simplest way to explain The Secret Life of Pets is, it's like cotton candy.  It's colorful.  It's sweet.  It's nice enough while it lasts.  But in the end, there's no real substance and there's absolutely no nutritional value.  Cotton candy isn't bad from time to time.  But it's not very satisfying.

Is the film fun?  Yeah, it's fairly fun.  There are some clever visual gags (such as watching Buddy the Dachshund get around) and humorous bits of dialogue.  There are definitely some humorous moments.  And the initial premise is clever.  But the secret life of these pets too soon turns into a typical fish-out-of-water scenario on the dogs' side and a rescue mission on the other animals' side.  The comparisons to Toy Story are well-founded.

My favorite character was Tiberius the hawk who shows enormous self-restraint in not preying on the other animals.  (Tiberius is voiced by Albert Brooks, who also voices Marlin in Finding Nemo/Dory.  This is sort of a role reversal where he is now the equivalent of Bruce the shark.)  Chloe the cat is also amusing, and every bit what you'd expect from a cat in the YouTube age.

Despite being a dog person myself, I found the two main dogs (Max and Duke) rather unlikable.  They are both verging on annoying and I could never emotionally invest in either of them, which meant I didn't really invest in their journey.  The motley rescue team is much funnier and more likable.

And then there is the villain: the psychotic bunny with his army of "flushed" pets.  It's not that I couldn't take the threats of a bunny serious, it was that he was so serious.  He was played for humor, but his motivations and intents are pretty dark.  And as the story progresses, he becomes a rather schizoid villain.  I found him annoying and overly dramatic.

When it isn't worrying too much about its shoehorned plot, the film offers an amusing representation of how we as humans perceive our pets and the personalities they have.  The cat is the prototypical cat.  The dogs do what we imagine dogs do.  The parakeet has awesome delusions of fighter jet grandeur.  It's amusing for what it is.  But it stumbles when it tries to stretch itself into a feature length plot.

If you're a pet person, you'll probably find quite a bit to enjoy in The Secret Life of Pets, especially the first 10 minutes or so.  It's a likable movie worth a viewing.  But in a year or two, I for one will have forgotten this movie existed.  As a movie about pets, perhaps it is fitting that it is mostly just fluff.

Quotable Quotes

• "I'm a cat."  "Well, nobody's perfect." -- Chloe and Pops [This is a reference to the classic comedy Some Like It Hot.]
• "Who said that?"  "Over here ... in the dark and foreboding shed." -- Gidgit and Tiberius
• "Max, as your friend, I don't care about you or your problems." -- Chloe (a cat)

ISFS

Finding Dory

Year: 2016

Director: Andrew Stanton and Angus MacLane

Starring: Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Ed O'Neill, Kaitlin Olson, Hayden Rolence, and Ty Burrell
Tagline: An unforgettable journey she probably won't remember
Synopsis: Dory -- with Marlin and Nemo in tow -- embarks on a journey to find her family.

Review

First up, as with all Pixar films, there is a preceding short.  This one is called Piper, and it is about an adorable young sandpiper (the spindly legged birds that run away from the incoming waves) learning to forage for her own food.  The short is gorgeous.  Seriously, it's amazing how good computer animation has gotten.  Piper is also a beautiful, charming little story.  I'd just about pay $7 just to see this short film.

On to our feature presentation.

Finding Dory is not Finding Nemo.  Accept that first and you'll be able to appreciate what Finding Dory is: a funny, heartwarming tale featuring beloved old and quickly endearing new characters.

Of the new characters, Hank the septopus (he's an octopus who lost a tentacle) is my favorite.  His grumpy, loner attitude makes him the perfect foil for Dory, who is as optimistic and sociable as ever.  Plus he is so much fun to watch as he glides around, camouflaging himself as needed.  Destiny, the near-sighted whale shark and Bailey the beluga with echolocation problems are also fun additions.  Ditto for sea lions Fluke, Rudder, and Gerald as well as the loony loon Becky.

In Finding Nemo, Dory's short-term memory loss is primarily played for humor, including the throwaway line: "It runs in my family.... Hmm, where are they?... Can I help you?"  This time around, the story focuses on the loneliness inherent in such an affliction.  Watching Dory try to remember things and catching glimpses of baby Dory becomes much of the heart of the film.  It doesn't have quite the same emotional pull that accompanied Marlin trying to rescue Nemo.  But it is compelling nonetheless.  And Dory is such an inherently good and kind character, you can't help but root for her.

Although the story is mostly about Dory trying to find her family, she isn't the only one with a journey.  Both Marlin and Hank also have emotional journeys that they go through as they realize the impact for good Dory has had on them.

As heartwarming as Finding Dory is, it is also funny.  Very, very funny, with an over-the-top climax that still has me chuckling.  Plus, like all Pixar films, the animation is incredible and the soundtrack is beautiful.

If you haven't already, find time to go see Finding Dory.  It's a funny, heartwarming film that is not to be missed.  It is a worthy sequel.  Oh, and be sure to stay through the credits for one of my all-time favorite post-credits scenes.

*** Spoiler Section ***

One of the touching moments in the film is as Dory is apologizing to her parents for getting lost in the first place.  It's sad because she's apologizing for something that in many ways is outside her control.  It's not her fault she has memory loss.  It wasn't her fault she couldn't remember for so long how to find her way home.  I liked all the ways her parents, and even Marlin, found to help her with her affliction.

Quotable Quotes

• "Follow me!"  "You're in a cup."  "Oh.  Right.  I'll follow you." -- Dory and Hank
• "She should just pick two and let's go."  "Daaad."  "What?  I'm kidding."  -- Marlin and Nemo
• "Sigourney Weaver says ..." -- Fluke
• "I get the feeling their shushing us for a reason."  "Like something with one big eye, tentacles, and a snappy thing?"  "Well, that's very specific, but something like that." -- Marlin and Dory

ISFS