Movie Review: Toy Story 5

 Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Before il get started, I just want to make my announcement when it comes to my Movie Review. After I did The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, im starting to having a burnout for reviewing movies in recent year, hence why I either wait longer or canceling my plans. While I promise I maybe will seeing either Markiplier’s Iron Lung or even Kane Pixel’s Backrooms movie (the cinema, not YouTube) that il save later, but some I scrap my review like Mortal Kombat 2 (while it suffered the same flaw as the first, but at least its fun to watch) and scrap my plan to see in theater like Mandalorian and Grogu (Yeah, this movie looks great… For Disney+, instead put it on the big screen… No wonder why it flopped so bad.). So this year, il probably going to be very little when it comes to this year’s Movie Review, which is probably why I wanted to focusing on reviewing movies from the past, from either my morbid curiosity or some request/polls. But don’t worry, I will see some movies I can’t wait to see for Summer Blockbuster, but again, due to burnout, im gonna be very limited on new movies in favor of past films.

Let me know in the comment bellow.

Anyway, back in 7 years ago, I reviewed Toy Story 4, which I called it pretty good film, but feels unnecessary after the third one was meant to be farewell? Well… They just can’t get enough to have a dollar signs in their minds, so here comes the 5th one.

“Toy Story 5” is a 2026 an animated adventure comedy-drama film that was written/directed by Andrew Stanton, produced by Lindsey Collins, and Jessica Choi, and co-written by Kenna Harris.

After Toy Story 4 were done, we just wanted to move on and thinking that the 4th will be the last one for good, at least what Tom Hank said, since it was meant to be a farewell between Woody and Buzz Lightyear (Oh yeah, SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t seen the 4th one), not to mention, even one of TS4’s producers, Mark Nielsen, was told that Pixar needs to move on to make original films instead of cash-grabbing sequels. But alas, based on what we saw like Onward and Elemental (aside some with limited release like Turning Red, Luca and Soul), it didn’t go that well for the box-office, so sequels are pretty much the answer for Pixar when the Disney CEO (back then), Bob Iger, announced we have the 5th back in February 2023, and yes, they’ll bring Woody back for another journey with Buzz, Jessie and other remaining toys. Especially this is the first Toy Story installment without the disgraced John Lasseter being involved (despite Lasseter hasn’t been retired with working on Skydance Animation with more backstage drama as we believed, along with trying to hard be Pixar or Disney wannabe, but its a long story).

So, with all that said, can Jessie, Buzz and Woody bands together one last time to dealing with Lilypad, or is this film feels like a menacing technical domination, like Pixar’s desperate with sequel baiting?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

After we had about the unlikely relation between cowboy and space ranger from the first one, the rescue mission from collector in the second one, a very real and difficulty choice of being thrown out in the third one and rescue a lost makeshift toy, you think the fifth’s story could give us something original with new and possibly powerful message? Well… Yes and no.

The movie… Weirdly begins where we see a pile of Buzz Lightyears, but they’re not Buzz, but the new “Hi-Tech Edition” of Buzz Lightyear (damn, some company love Buzz Lightyear so much to just make a new and improved ones, but hate to say, “stay classy”). They were stowaway’d in the island, but not before they built their own raft to sail away to find the way out. Meanwhile, we’re returned to Bonnie’s home, where Bonnie plays with our familiar toys from Andy (who used to own them before donated to her back in TS3), unfortunately, she tried to meet and interact with young neighbors in same age, but felt uneasy to interact with, this mainly because we’ve seen kids are starting to get attached with new toy… The Tablet Games. Or Game Devices if you will. So her parents decided to jump on bandwagon to buy the tablet game called “Lilypad”, which she curiously impressed from the tablet at first, before she’s starting to get hooked and addicted from her tablet for both playing App games and chatting her friend and classmate named Chelsea in kids version of social media. This leaves concern for both Jessie, the original Buzz Lightyear, Forky and the remaining toys (and a new makeshift toy named Karen, or Knifey) if they’re gonna get replaced by the new tech like Lily. So its up to Jessie, Buzz to call Woody for help to get themselves back (well, minus Woody) to Bonnie without being potentially replaced and thrown out to donation.

Yeah, as you can tell, the plot feels just like the first Toy Story, where Woody meets Buzz due to potentially becoming Andy’s new favorite toy over cowboy doll, but here, its about the old toys dealing with a tablet as kids’ new favorite toy instead regular toys. I find the story is rather low compared to the previous four movies to know about the plots, BUT, it has one exception, its the story’s execution with its message. The movie gives us the message how kids are becoming addictive to today’s technology, mainly with either phone or, more commonly, tablets. Sure its understandable that without computer, kids will be stuck their eyes into tablets to play the game and hanging out via chatbox, its now becoming a major concern that, similar to playing video games, playing devices like tablets are now becoming additive toys, pushing away with real toys when we used to play from our childhood, its kinda like, back in my old days, I love playing with toys from action figures, Lego and Hot Wheels, however, I got myself stuck into the old PC that I loved to exploring and playing CD-ROM games, but the downside is my parents and I shared one computer, this was before we have portables like laptop, phones and tablets, we wish we could have two old desktop, but we were struggling money for long stories. Though I still like to playing with toys to this day, as a 30 year old man, but I digress. Its a very good and pretty relevant message for this movie how in nowadays, we wish we wanna telling kids to stay away with devices (for the most part) and go back to play with toys (or playing some educational games on PC like I do from my childhood), otherwise, it could’ve been worse… While it has a very nice touch of message, the movie also throwing subplots such as when Jessie and Bullseye were delivered to the house that belongs to Blaze, it turned out to be the same old home from Jessie previous owner, Emily (You know, the same girl who used to play with Jessie in the emotional flashback of Toy Story 2?), leaving her recognizes when she used to, which I find it rather nice to extra depth from her past before being collected by Al. However, the movie also switches to see the Hi-Tech version of Buzz Lightyear, which at first, I don’t understand why we have these guys in the movie, but I won’t give you SPOILER details for whatever happened to them.

But its also unexpected to bring it from the original concepts, so here’s a little fact;

Back in 2004, Pixar became a HUGE deal for their successful movies, but the problem was their distribution contract was about to expire, leaving the late Steve Jobs (yes, he was even involved with Pixar, while being the co-founder of Apple) negotiated with then Disney CEO Michael Eisner, alas, it didn’t got that well that it got rejected, leaving Eisner had the audacity to creating their own Pixar called “Circle 7 Animation” with their supposed Toy Story 3 about Buzz Lightyear going malfunction, so Woody and his gang fly to Taiwan to fix him, only they have to dealing with hundreds Buzz Lightyears due to the mass recalls. But that project was scrapped when Eisner resigned for his bad reputation, and Bob Iger became the CEO (in first term) for shake-up and acquiring Pixar. But now all the sudden, they’re kinda bring back the army of Buzz Lightyear, but upgrade in hi-tech than recall. So… nice touch.

Despite it has a drama moments, its no stranger it also has humors, I find the jokes in this are… Good, I did have a wheezing and chuckle moments that can work, even though there are some just tried either referencing the past or trying to be new, but again, that could be 50/50 result.

While the story isn’t that great due to recycling the same plot as the first one, but at least we can give credit to the writing for its execution with the drama, the humors and relevant message.

The Animation

The movie’s budget costed $250M, which it became Toy Story’s most expensive film ever made, and even the second expensive animated movie with… (sigh) The 2019’s The Lion King, but both this and the craptacular remake is $10M behind from Tangle’s budget. Anyway, this one is surprisingly looks bigger and impressive as before (sometimes).

For starter, the background and the world design are pretty nice and simple, especially they did the nice work for the ground view in perspective of toys, from houses, suburban to even outside of the small town. Even if some locations’ changing look… Off compared to the previous films, like for example, the flashback scenes with Jessie and Emily are completely different if you look at the difference between Toy Story 2 and this movie, they just didn’t match, mainly the road that its next to tree with tire swing has been removed, instead its next to the house where Emily used to live there. I know its nitpicky, but even old Toy Story fans notice the location issue in the 5th one. And not to mention the island from the opening is… Cheaply off before we’re going back Bonnie’s home.

Despite the flaws of the location, the animation and its visual is surprisingly looks pretty nice with more and more upgraded details, not just the world building and some designs, but the texture and lighting. This is due to Pixar introduced their brand new rendering software called “Renderman XPU”, which is made as an improvement with both CPU and GPU and helped to work with artists with “nine times faster speeds for interactive, full-frame rendering”. Not to mention, they also introduced “The Luna, which is the extension for their proprietary software 3D animation core called “Presto”. The first time they’re using it was Hoppers, the one I’ve covered months ago. But with this one, they’ve expending it to this movie to allowing lighting artists to work across multiple shots once. Nice touch for their upgrade.

While the animation is standard for realistic with humans and even limitation moves based on toy designs, they still did a nice with creative and well-done animation, along with the details of the toys how some of our familiar toys has gone a bit age with a few marks around their appearances, the designs are pretty good with the toys for the aforementioned update designs and even some new ones that are actually pretty nice in either reference from actual toys or trying something new. For example, we can see Woody start getting old from various parts, like he has no pulling string since the 4th one and he weirdly has bald spot due to fading plastic paint, but the weird part is he has a daddy bod appearance, like… I have no idea how he has that, as a freakin’ cowboy doll. Though its also unusual to see a kid friendly device like Lilypad comes to life, which is pretty unlikely to see either Desktop, laptop or phones come to like like Lily does. But the best part for the animation is when kids playing with toys, it brought us into imagination world with something cute and funny result in switching subject, it goes into a mix of 2D and 3D animation in the imagination world, its colorful, funny and entertaining what they gave us.

While it has flaws from the locations and some questionable designs like Woody, but the animation, the quality and the designs are pretty good in various degrees. But don’t they don’t using AI Slops when making this movie, even though they’ve learned it, but they’re gonna using it. Thanks, Visual effects supervisor Thomas Jordan.

The Characters

Despite the recyclable story, you think we’re gonna have update development and even some new characters to be promising and a good change? Well, for the most part, yes.

Lets start off with Jessie (reprised by Joan Cusack), unlike the previous films, Jessie is now the main protagonist in this movie since Woody passed the sheriff role to her, now she’s in command with Andy’s and Bonnie’s toys for hanging out and adventures, along with imagination play. But once Lilypad was introduced that Bonnie is hooked up by it, this left a major concern for her that, based on what she sees secretly, she doesn’t want Bonnie to be addicted by tablets like every kids what we’ve seen from first act, which is why she’s gotta stop Lily before she, along with other toys will be thrown out. I find her to be nicely written upgrade that she’s gotta take footsteps from Woody after he left, even if its gonna be a tough task when a new “toy” like Lily shows up from delivery gift, especially we can see she doesn’t want to lose Bonnie in a same way when she used to be with Emily before being donated. Even though she’s well written, but the only problem I have about her is the voice from Joan Cusack herself, since I listened from trailers, her voice is… Has gone down, no linger as highly energized that we all know, I know she’s reaching 60s (as im writing this), but still, it feels like she’s gotten aged when this movie was developed. I know she did a good job of her role, but its just her voice is no longer the same.

Next we have Buzz Lightyear (reprised by Tim Allen), one of the Space Ranger of Star Command and old friend of Woody. This time, Buzz, while being the second-in-command of the toys, but he’s also love interest to Jessie, so much so that there’s running gag of his attempt to propose her to get married, which is fine for his buildup of his development, but again, it feels like starting off with running gags, but again, won’t give you SPOILER details about the chemistry between him and Jessie. Despite that, he’s more like a veteran hero and concerns for Jessie if she’s going to be a lost toys with Bullseye. But in fairness, its nice to see him and Woody reuniting, though temporary since they’re separated, especially with returning frenemy since TS1, well kinda. Sure, like Cusack, Allen has gotten aged for his voice role of Buzz, but he’s still kicking in as everyone’s favorite Space Ranger.

I should also point out Tim also did the voice of Hi-Tech Edition version of Buzz, as for their roles? Well, they starts off as a lost toys for being stranded in the island, before they’re on the journey to find home for Star Command (albeit advanced edition), but the downside is that they’re in Demo Mode, hence why they act like armies without emotional feelings. Pretty much means they’re act like being a Space Rangers are a real deal.

Then we have Woody (reprised by Tom Hanks), the main toy who used to be Andy’s favorite. But this time, he’s no longer to be home with toy owners, instead he lives elsewhere with his lover Bo Peep (reprised by Annie Potts) and other toy partners, to helping abandoned toys from the risky obstacles. But thinks to Lilypad, he was called by Jessie to come back in for helping hand, despite she and Bullseye were lost. But like Buzz, its nice to see him and Buzz reuniting together, but like I said before about the character design, its understandable he starts having a bald spot from paint fading, but I don’t get why he has like a daddy bod, like come on, its just a toy, not real life. Aside of being mocked by Lily based on his age. Even he’s getting close to his age of 70, Tom still did a nice work of his role since my childhood.

Next, we have Lilypad, aka Lily (voiced by Greta Lee), the tablet who comes to life as Bonnie’s potential new favorite “toy”, due to many kids are hooked up with tablets since the first act. Based on what we’ve seen trailers, we seeing her as the main antagonist, mainly due to tablets are dangerously becoming kids favorite things to pushing away from kids, especially she can dangerously access the internet connection on her way, especially she even make a threat to use her loud wake-up noise to distract either Bonnie or her parents for putting Jessie, Buzz and other toys out of picture. It sounds like a promising villain role what we’ve hoping for to see toys vs devices like Lily, however, there’s also the justification for the climax which, I find it to be rather disappointing, but again, no SPOILING details. Despite the flaws, I find her to be fairly decent, while Greta did a nice work of her role.

Finally, we have Smarty Pants (voiced by surprisingly Conan O'Brien), Snappy (voiced by Shelby Rabara, aka Freakin’ Peridot from Steven Universe) and Atlas (voiced by Craig Robinson, aka Mr. Shark from The Bad Guys). They’re Blaze’s old electric toys that they used to be abandoned, but when Jessie meets them, they’ve become the new sidekick that, compared to Lily, they’re working together for texting with Smarty, tracking in GPS style with Atlas and taking photos for evidence with Snappy. Its pretty unexpected, but I think they’re enjoyable trio from Blaze’s toy collection. Especially how they have the most familiar faces behind the voices from the Shark with master of disguise, a technician gem to the most famous comedic then talk show host.

As for the rest of the casts, they’re not much else to give, while our familiar Andy’s toys are there, but they’re pretty much into the backseat, along with new voice actors from previous ones’ passing like Jeff Bergman as Mr. Potato Head, and Anna Vocino as Mrs. Potato Head. The same can be said with Bonnie’s toys, especially I was expecting Forky and Karen (reprised by Tony Hale and Melissa Villaseñor) to be a new major role since TS4, but nope, they’re left in the backseat. Heck, even Mr. Pricklepants has also changed the voice from Timothy Dalton (aka the 4th James Bond who only has two films. Ouch…) to now John Hopkins.

Despite almost everyone are in backseat (like I just wish they could’ve give us another chance to shine), along with some voice actors have gone aged (for doing fine or for dated), the characters are pretty nice for their development, even with some not-so perfect execution, while some that I like.

And now for my final opinion of this film

Overall, Toy Story 5 is good, but its just that it’s starting to becoming a franchise burnout.

The visuals is pretty good with new technology, the designs are good, some characters are fascinating (despite the new ones are minimal), it has fairly fun jokes and it has a very good and relevant message.

However, the reason why I considered to becoming a burnout, its because it became a sign of its downfall for various reasons like some designs, recyclable story and some actors have gone aged that left me question if its worth of coming back or is they could’ve (and controversially) recasting the main roles if one of them is going to retire.

I know there are some Toy Story fans would like this movie, but for some (like me) are starting to getting tired of it for when is it EVER going to end after TS3 and TS4. I know I’ve been bragging about, but im sure im not the only one, hence why I calling this one as the beginning of burnout for Toy Story. The first and second are classic, the third one is very good and emotional that it was supposed to be the ending, but the 4th is great, albeit unnecessary, but this one… Even though its not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, like it has some redeeming quality to give to appreciate, but again, its just its starting to becoming tiring that we’re starting to question over the obsession of sequels for both Disney and Pixar since the late DisneyToon studio (you know, when they released a butt load of theatrical or direct-to-video movie sequels or midquels). If you’re a fan of Toy Story, I’d say check this one, its recommended, but for others, I’d say watch it ONCE, and you’ll make your conclusion.

Im very sorry to say for my rating, compared to TS4 with 9/10, im going down to 7/10.

Movie Review: Splash

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome to my Movie Review.

And Happy MerMay, everybody. Since if anyone who are new or didn’t know, its the month of creative celebration based on one of the most notable fantasy or mythical creatures, mermaid. While I love werewolf (since I’ve covered “An American Werewolf at London”), mermaids are more notable creatures in many stories or mythology, ranging from a being an obstacles for many travelers or fishers, or, the most common, one mermaid being curious to see outside of the ocean. In case for the latter, its been adapted numerous times about this subject. Of course, the most notable is The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson that its been adapted and referenced. BUT, before we have the Disney version that we all know, we have to go back a few years in the 80s that not only its another one of favorite movies in the 80s, but we have Disney’s first film for mature audience, but in different name of Motion Picture.

“Splash” is an 1984 Romantic, Fantasy Comedy film that was directed Ron Howard (yup, the same guy who later gave us Rush), produce/written by Brian Grazer and co-written by Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel, and Bruce Jay Friedman. And its the first film that was done by Touchstone films.

This may sounds curious for a movie done by non-Disney production team, but if we wanna know how Touchstone was born, we have to go back for a brief origin.

Around after the Disney Brothers passed away (may rest in peace, Walt and Roy O.), the Disney films had been increased public assumption, since back then (and to this day), Disney contents are targeted to kids and family, but the downside is that many of Disney original live action films went down pretty badly based on the numbers at the box-office, so they wanna make more movies, but to be edgier than kid friendly films, such as the 1979’s The Black Hole for being Disney’s first PG rated film (kinda since, a months prior, where was their first PG film under Buena Vista Districution called “Take Down”, which it maybe coincidence that both Take down and The Black Hole are the first PG rated films under Disney/Buena Vista names, but its a long story). By the time we reached to the 80s, Disney released more PG rated films such as “The Watcher of the Woods” in 1980, Condorman in 1981 and the film that revolutionized the CGI film, Tron in 1982. But the late 82, the Disney vice president of production, Tom Wilhite, suggested to make to be more mature than PG rated films, he said in New York Times, I quote “We won't get into horror or exploitive sex, but using a non-Disney name will allow us wider latitude in the maturity of the subject matter and the edge we can add to the humor”. They first experimented with Trenchcoat in 1983, but that movie didn’t go that well, even if they covered their names for their first adult-oriented film. Oh yeah, did I mentioned the early 80s was Disney’s struggling time ever with new kids of animation division after the 9 Old Men’s retirement, the new leadership of Disney and being crash and burned by competitors like their ex-employee Don Bluth? Yeah, it wasn’t that good… BUT, they were opened to make a mature film, though not under Disney’s name, they gotta build a new studio from scratch for mature audience. So, the CEO of Disney named Ron W. Miller, founded the new studio called “Touchstone Films”, which it was named to prevent a mature film released under the biggest family friendly company, but alas, despite Touchstone Films were founded, Ron Miller has resigned due to being an A-Hole to running the business, which is no wonder why Roy E. Disney and others made a campaign “Save Disney” to remove Miller from the business, which Miller eventually threw the towel and left, resulting being replaced by outsiders like Frank Wells, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner.

Anyway, the idea of this movie came from Brian Grazer, it was originally going to be made with United Artists, but Grazer wanna bring his project elsewhere for pitching. Unfortunately, a lot of studios that he was pitching got rejected, a lot. It wasn’t until the aforementioned Ron Miller accept it and put it on production, along with changing story to be more a romantic comedy film, rather than a mermaid comes out to looking around in New York in curiosity. Despite there might be a downside that Warner Bros were also planning to make a movie about a mermaid with Warren Beatty, but that project was nowhere. And after turning down Footloose and Mr. Mom, our familiar film director, Ron Howard stepped in to be the director.

When Splash comes out of water on March 9th 1984, it was surprisingly well received both critics and the audience, for the love chemistry, the acting and humors and the box-office is a fishing worthy of earning $96.8M, which is nearly 10 times more than $11M’s film budget. Though im not so sure if my parents have heard nor seen the movie, but its based on my curious experience from my YouTube docuseries “Animation Lookback” by ElectricDragon505 (aka AniMat, the reviewer who inspired me), mainly during Disney’s take of The Little Mermaid, they put it on hold for couple years because Splash came out five years before the eventual release. So, I was lucky to buy a DVD from thrift store that I worked at and… Its surprisingly a pretty good one for love and humor moments.

So, with all that said, will this movie holds up to gathering a mermaid to the city, or is fishing mermaid isn’t worth of discovery?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about Mermaid discovers New York and falling in love with ordinary New Yorker, its a pretty fascinating and fun one for the story and the writing.

The movie begins all the way back in 1964, in the boat tour at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with covered Wooly Bully song (nice and catchy song to start, eh?), we introduced Bauer brothers, Freddie, a perverse womanizer older brother, and the curious young brother, and the main protagonist, Allen. It wasn’t until he sees something from water that he jumped off into water to check in, which he saw a young girl in the water, that is until he got rescued by his parents in panic after a brief interaction between the two, despite no one ever seen a young girl who happens to be a mermaid.

Fast forward to 20 years later, Allen works as the co-owner of fruits and vegetables business with his big brother Freddie works with him. However, while his fruit and veggies business are doing… Mixed, he has tough time to finding some love, including being broke by his ex, Victoria, Allen is… Pretty much depressed his own while Fred likes to have fun to hanging out with ladies, so Allen takes taxi cab to going back to the place he remembered in his childhood, Cape Cod. But upon arriving there, he meets an eccentric scientist name Walter Kornbluth, who’s on diving expedition with his employees, while Allen tries to ask them for a boat, but they refused, until one of Kornbluth’s employee brought a man with a small boat with Mr. Fat Jack (go figure), but after the boat gets jammed, fatty mustachio swims away, leaving Allen alone on a small boat, he tries to fix, but despite he fixed it, he got bumped by an uncontrolled boat with his head and knocked out. But he was eventually saved into ashore by naked blonde woman (which happens to be the same young mermaid from the opening, though he didn’t recognized her), but the downside is that she found a wallet that he lost and got discovered by Kornbluth in the ocean. Later on after Allen returns to business and the same mermaid comes out of water, but naked that she got arrested for indecent exposure, he received a call from the cops for not only retrieved his wallet, but also gotta get along with the mermaid (now giving her as “Madison”), they both live together for having a small tour to New York and they ended up falling in love. But its up to them that while they’re in relationship, she stays there with six days til full moon, and at same time, she tries to keep in secret from Allen and desperate Kornbluth who’s trying to expose her.

Its a simple romantic comedy film from the 80s, but with a twist about a man discovering a mermaid, which I find it to be a nice inclusion plot, especially when Allen is trying to remember if he knows the blonde woman is the same mermaid when he was young, even if at the same time, he’s struggling to finding a loving relationship than living in depression unlike his colorful womanizing brother. While Allen is trying to get a new girl, the movie also treats Madison as a point of view where she’s curious to looking around as an outsider after she came out of water, which I find her pretty nice and well written, even if she has a time limit til full moon, but we’ll get to the characters later. As for the humor, it find some to be chuckle worthy, mainly for either Freddie being silly, playful with Allen and hanging out with girls, cause hey, what do you expect we have John Candy, eh? And there’s also where Kornbluth is trying to exposing Madison, but failed miserably that he gets banged up pretty badly with bandages and casts. As for the metaphor of 6 days til full moon? Its a nice question that, for my guess, she accepts to live outside of surface, but only for a week like 6 days before its full moon, cause otherwise, she won’t be back to the sea, which is like a curse that if she stays away for more then 6 days, she’ll becoming human with no ability to turning back into mermaid. Again, its just my own theory for her fate if she’s stays out of surface for more than a week.

While its simple, but il give appreciation for the writing for the chemistry, character development and some humors from the get-go.

The Presentation

As I said from the film’s release, the movie costed $11M, which is kind of cheap, but in fairness, it looks pretty nice.

For starter, for a movie taking place in New York, its no surprising that they actually filmed in the Big Apple itself, even if filming in New York is expensive. Though they also filmed in Los Angeles, California for certain locations. And lastly, one scene where Allen first sees pre-named Madison on the beach were filmed in the island formerly known as Gorda Cay in Bahamas, which this location would later be purchased by Disney in 1997 and renamed as Castaway Cay.

The way they filmed are pretty good for 1984, ranging from the shot of Manhattan, to of course, under the sea, the filming under the water is a challenging part that it takes a lot of training and protective equipment to film in the ocean, and they did a pretty good work from Madison swims with fishes, various angles where she swims around in coral to even live in sunken ship when she checks about both the map and Allen’s lost wallet. In nowadays, movie in the sea would dangerously done in CGI, but back in 1984, its quite impressive and challenging what they pulled for filming and the effects.

Speaking of the latter, this is another challenging part for dressing up as a mermaid. Originally, the mermaid suit design is going to be dolphin-esque, but Ron Howard suggested to be more tropical look, hence the mermaid suit is based on koi fish breed, and the suit is designed by predate Academy Award winner, Robert Short (who would like win the award for Beetlejuice makeup). The mermaid tail was done functional, though it weight 35 pounds that it took three hours to fit in for Daryl Hannah, and she was forced to be remained for certain scenes when Madison is in mermaid form, even if after filming scenes in her mermaid form, Hannah is very uncomfortable ranging from yanking her out from the crane to even not eating nor going to the bathroom that she felt shivering in soaking wet and barnacles on her hair, she actually said that in her experience from People magazine. But once if Madison is in human form, it would be a difficult to removing it without causing damage her mermaid suit, which they suggest to let her keep it wearing when they’re in lunch break, along with Tom Hanks recalled (in the 20th anniversary commentary) some of cast members would drop French fries over the side of the tank when she was trained sea mammal, cause otherwise if she comes out of water, that could painfully making her legs being “shrink-wrapped”. One fascinating scene is where Madison takes a bath with turning into mermaid form. At first, I though it was like done with tricky hand-drawn or stopmotion, but it turned out they pulled a vacuum effect that Daryl had to press the button off screen to activate the vacuum effect upon her transformation with showing her scale and layer from her fin suit.

While budget is standard, but its pretty nice what they pulled for their filming and the effects for 1984, even if its challenge to filming in the water in certain scenes.

The Characters

While the narration is simple, but well executed, you think the characters could be either likable, funny, unique or even lovely? Well, I find the characters in this movie are actually pretty good.

Lets starts off with our main protagonist in this movie, Allen Bauer (played by Tom Hanks in his first main role on the big screen. Mazes and Monsters doesn’t count, cause its a TV movie). He’s an every day and curious man who works as the co-owner of fruits and veggies business, but the downside is that behind his normal and happy face, he’s also struggled and depressed to finding a new love ever since the ex from before, Victoria, broke up, leaving trying to get himself to looking back to Cape Cod from his childhood and maybe finding the new love, until he meets the mermaid, Madison. I find him to be pretty good, while he wants to be nice and normal, but he’s kind of being an outsider, considering how the Cape Cod childhood and being broke up affected him the most that he just wants to looking back where he had been to finding the answer. But once he meets Madison, things completely changed from the way he was, being both happy, but also teaching her about the world building outside of surface, though the downside is he didn’t know that she’s a mermaid, which wouldn’t be til the third act, even if he may have flaws from teach her further about human world or dangerously being a jerk for either making trouble or sarcasm. He’s somewhat relatable and well-written how we can feel he’s uneasy life from the start, especially trying to remember from his childhood, until things going good when he gets a mermaid. Of course, like I said before, this is Tom Hanks’s first main role on the big screen, which before the future Woody was hired, Allen was originally going to played by either Chevy Chase, Bill Murray or even John Travolta, but they decided to hired the then lesser known Tom Hanks in this movie in order to fitting him as an “every day man”, but I think it fits well for him, cause he did a good job for his role and the way he was written.

Next, we have a blonde mermaid, though she didn’t have a name, but she’s referred as “Madison” (played by Daryl Hannah), she’s the one and only mermaid who first encounter a human, mainly the aforementioned Allen. By the time they meet each other for the second time 20 years later, this is where Madison became both curious and interest to coming out of surface for not just discovering humans, but also wanting to get along with Allen for their relationship, which I like the chemistry between of two, its how different they really are, while they’re in love, one who’s struggled and being an outsider to connect with, and the other is an unusual being who’s both curious interest to interact with. However, the downside is that, when she’s with Allen, she starts off keep her mermaid life in secret, especially she vaguely explained she has her time limit of six days before she’ll go back where she came from. But like I said, the movie didn’t explained further what happened after six days, which in my theory for the story, if six days have past, she’ll becoming human forever, but if she’s in final day while going back under the sea, she’ll return in mermaid life. But of course, once her secret got exposed, the relationship are turning upside-down that if only she can explain sooner than later, that’s just my nitpick, but more on that later. Despite one small nitpick, I find her pretty good too, especially she looks beautiful with blonde hair and her koi fish mermaid form, and Daryl did a good job for her cute curiosity and her relation to Hanks’s Allen.

After that, we have Dr. Walter Kornbluth (played by our familiar Canadian actor, Eugene Levy, aka Ed the care salesman in National Lampoon’s Vacation), an eccentric scientist who’s in diving expedition, but once he sees Madison in mermaid form, this is where he becomes obsess of finding her to prove everyone that the mermaid is real, despite he’s been constantly being scolded he’s been exaggerated or even getting beaten up when he tried to watering Madison to exposing her secret to prove the public he’s right. But once he exposes Madison’s mermaid form with water hose, he went from crazy scientist in desperation to prove his truth to now being regretful of his responsibility. Which when I first and second watch this movie, I was easily believing myself he’s a main villain who’s trying to ruining Allen and Madison’s relationship about exposing her secret based on his desperation to prove his attention and rumors to be confirmed, but when he heard his scientist rival, Dr. Ross, and his partners are planning dissect Madison, he completely change his feeling that its all his fault for exposure that dissecting could ending her life for science experiment and ruining the relation between her and Allen. Which its a nice twist of changing his heart that he’s technically not a villain, after his action could make a huge risk of her life and such. Even though this is the second time in my review that we have Eugene Levy, but as a recurring role in this movie, I think he did a good job for being a baddie to changing heart in his role.

And speaking of Canadian role, finally we have Freddie Bauer (played by the late John Candy, aka Del Griffith from Planes, Trains and Automobile), he’s no stranger a comedic role in this movie for being colorful, free-spirited and also overly perverse and distracting to ladies compared to his young brother Allen. While he only shows up for humor roles, though to be fair, he does made me chuckle for his performance, but he may also giving some plot development to Allen when it comes to relationship and his life. He’s kinda minimal of his role, but still he did a fun work of his role. However, its also and sadly noted that, while he was a great and fun actor, but he’s also problematic to be involved with this movie. Im not saying he’s one of those bad actor to work with, but its more like he was a very struggling person behind the scenes, mainly he was constantly late to be there for certain scenes, mainly because he was very struggling person to dealing with anxiety and panic attack, along with having substance with drinks and coke. Its pretty hard to hear this when he was a very struggling man both actor and person outside of movies. Like I said in my Planes, Trains and Automobiles review, its understandably devastated that he was gone too soon as a fun, smart and loving man in his acting career, but his mental struggle and substance abuse overwhelmed and hurting his life that led to his untimely death in March 4th 1994. As always, rest in piece, Johnny, you’re always amazing and funny person.

As for the rest of the casts, there really not much to say for their minimal of roles since we have four focused characters.

There’s Dr. Ross (played by the late Richard B. Shull) who’s the scientist rival for his plan to dissecting Madison. And Mrs. Stimler (played by the late Dody Goodman, aka Blanche Hodel from Grease) who’s the secretary of Bauer brothers’ business.

While some characters have some flaws, but they’re pretty good, well-written and fun performance in the movie, ranging from one actor who was great and even the starting point of our familiar star.

SPOILER ALERT, for those who haven’t seen the movie or didn’t mind

The final act is kind of rushed from the get-go, but it does have some fun and heart-warming climax and the ending, though the latter need a bit more, but I digress.

After feeling disbelief and disillusioned about Madison being revealed as a mermaid that he doesn’t want see her again, Allen regains his motivation from his brother Freddie explaining about uneasy love and how happy he was, he’s going for the rescue to Madison. He gotta start talk to Dr. Kornbluth, but they started off confronting each others from Allen’s blaming him for ruining his relationship, but Dr. Kornbluth begs him in mercy for taking his wrong responsibility for exposing her secret, especially for being dismissed by his colleagues for being crazy. After reconciliation, Allen, his brother Freddie and Dr. Kornbluth are breaking into the secret lab, while the brothers are pretending to be Swedish scientists (complete with not-so good speaking Swedish language, a silly Dick joke from Freddie and prove the truth to a guard soldier), they finally enter the room to rescue Madison, especially Allen and Madison reconcile after their separation. After the reconciliation, Allen and Kornbluth carries covered Madison for their escape, while Freddie is doing some fun, but when the scientist noticed that the REAL Swedish scientists entered to notice the difference between the real ones and decoys, so they called the military for the chase after our heroes (minus Freddie). At first, Allen (who drives his BMW), Madison and Kornbluth are got away pretty easy, but its just the beginning as they got close by the military vehicles on their tails, resulting a car between Allen and his pals for escaping in order to reaching the harbor, and the military for their unfinished business with try to arrest our heroes. Just as Dr. Kornbluth tries to block the military truck (but failed miserably), Allen finally reaches at the harbor in order to freeing Madison back to the water. But before she leaves, she revealed the secret from the childhood that she’s the same young mermaid when she first met Allen 20 years ago, making him surprised that she’s the same young mermaid all along (despite we already knew from the opening, but I digress). While Allen has to say goodbye to Madison to let her Splash on the water (no pun intended), its feels like too late that the military are already arrive in attempt to capture her and arresting Allen, he had no choice but to escaping from them by jumping in the water too to get back with Madison. After being circled and fight back at frogmen (from Madison fights with her fin (including kicking at one of them in the Nyuts!) and unmasking, and Allen unplugging oxygen and fight dirty with a bite), they finally escaped that they swim together (along with Madison kissed Allen to give his ability to breath underwater, almost forgot), until they’re about to getting closer to her home kingdom under the sea in freedom.

Pretty nice climax, even if its kind of a rush, but at least its nice that Allen get along with Madison against and maybe he’s curious to see her kingdom of merpeople. Though we never get the latter, but that’s just me.

And now for my Final Opinion of this film.

Overall, Splash is a pretty good film in 80s fashion, even for Touchstone’s first film ever made.

The writing is simple, but executed pretty good for the character developments, the chemistry between every day man and a mermaid, the presentation looks pretty nice and even pretty good, yet challenging for doing a live-action mermaid, the characters are nicely written and somewhat relatable and has some chuckle moments.

Though its nowhere perfect with some flaws like some characters like Dr. Ross could’ve make more appearance, maybe give us some answers about Madison’s time limit and the ending is kinda rushed.

This is another one of my “rewatch films” list that I like to come back to see it, especially that, again, its Touchstone’s first film ever made that Disney wanted to make a studio gearing towards adults (though soft) and the starting point of my favorite actor Tom Hanks. I’d say I recommend to check this one out if you’re curious or a fan of mermaid if you’re a fan of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (the original, not the remake one).

However, I only recommend if you got this on DVD or even digital purchase like YouTube, cause from what I’ve heard, the Disney+ version is badly censored (which is downright hypocritical that this is Disney’s adult studio that it doesn’t need to be censored. All this for what? “Think of the children”?? GET OUT!!!).

And apparently, I also noticed that they made a sequel as a TV movie called “Splash, Too”. And before you ask, NO! I’ll never watch nor even talk about this one, Splash doesn’t need to get a sequel. Seriously, what were they thinking…?!

Anyway, for my rating, im gonna give this one an 8/10.

So this ends of my Movie Review, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: The Super Mario Galaxy Movie

 

Hey everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome back to my Movie Review.

Back in three years ago, we’ve witnessed The Super Mario Bros Movie, and I gotta say, this movie was a HUGE DEAL for being the most anticipating film ever since Universal partnered with Nintendo for building a theme park based on Super Mario Bros both in US and Japan. As for me, I was anticipated to see it, aside our head scratching moment for how and why they cast Peter Quill as Mario. But even we looking back at this movie, despite their best effort to adapting the game with good presentation, some good jokes, surprising good characters and fun action scenes, it would’ve been greater to give us a lot of story, character and world development, due to lackluster writing. It didn’t matter either way, the movie made a HUGE gamble by earning $1.360B, and its not surprising that we the movie’s success, sequel will always be the calling card for today’s review.

“The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” is a 2026 animated adventure comedy video game film was, much like the first movie, directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, produced by Chris Meledandri and Shigeru Miyamoto, and written by Matthew Fogel.

After the partnership deal is on between Universal and Nintendo and before the release of the first movie, the current Nintendo (of Japan) president, Shuntaro Furukawa, expressed the interest that if the first movie is a success, they’ll make a butt load of sequels and a spin-offs. But of course, with a huge hit at the box-office of earning more than 1 BILLION dollars, their wish will be granted that sequel was on the work. From before, many people are expecting the sequel is gonna be about Mario with Wario (and Luigi vs Waluigi). But once we eventually watched Nintendo Direct, they announced the sequel… Is their take on Super Mario Galaxy? Yeah, when I saw their announcement, despite my anticipation to hopefully learn their mistakes from the writing, but Really? They skipped over almost every Mario games like Super Mario World and Super Mario Sunshine in favor of Galaxy?

Well before we start, I have a confession for you fans out there. I’ve never played Super Mario Galaxy. Yeah, back in my old days with Wii, I was pretty distracted over Super Smash Bros Brawl, but I’ve never touched upon Mario Galaxy. Although, im one of those lucky customers who bought a controversial limited time release of “Super Mario 3D All-Stars” (even I questioned Nintendo’s stupid method), it does contained Super Mario Galaxy (and no Galaxy 2), maybe il give it a shot if im in a mood.

So, with all that said, will Mario and his pals could save the galaxy from Bowser’s revenge, or is this feels like a meteor crash landing?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

Unlike the first Mario movie, I won’t do the comparison between the movie and the game, because, like I said in my short confession, I’ve never played Mario Galaxy. Anyway, you think they’ll learn their mistake to maybe have a new development, a new humor and a new subplot? Well, sadly no.

The movie begins in space with land like space station called “Comet Observatory” with the galaxy princess name Rosalina and children living stars called Lumas, they live peacefully that they love to have a bedtime stories where Mushroom Kingdom have been. That is until she’s under attack by Megaleg, piloted by none other than Bowser Jr. Though Rosalina tried her best to save herself and Lumas, but didn’t worked well that she gets kidnapped. Meanwhile in Mushroom Kingdom, we have Mario and Luigi, who are been in journey to solving problems around the land, including upon travel to Mexican themed town called “Tostarena Town”, due to disturbance from the temple. But upon inspection, they eventually found a lost dinosaur named Yoshi, who’s been said he was hatched out and briefly live in Brooklyn (you know, the city where Mario and Luigi used to live with their family?). After adopting Yoshi as their companion, they entered the festival of Peach’s anniversary of her arrival of Mushroom Kingdom. It wasn’t until one of the Lumas crash landed behind Peach’s castle, due to Rosalina sent one for alert that she’s kidnapped, leaving Peach and the main Toad going for the rescue, while Mario, Luigi and Yoshi are doing their own, with watching over the shrunken rehabilitated King Koopa himself, Bowser. But didn’t last long, as the UFO that its piloted by Bowser Jr. himself in demand to bring Bowser back, leaving a fight between 3 vs 1, while Peach’s castle got abducted, for brief moment. So its up to Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach and Toad on the way to save the galaxy for not only saving Rosalina, but also going after Bowser and Jr’s home planet called… Well “Planet Bowser” (feeding ego too much, King Koopa?) with a massive destruction cannon called “Boomsday Weapon” for not only destroy Mushroom Kingdom, but also the entire galaxy.

Now, it may sounds like another character in distress story that our heroes going not just rescue mission, but saving the whole galaxy for peace, which I find it to be pretty standard plot from the get-go we love to see. However, the movie does gave us some extra plot elements for some new developments like Peach’s possible connection with Rosalina and a chemistry between Bowser and his son, Junior. But sadly, all the good things came to at end quickly, because im sorry to say… It feels just like the same problem as the first movie, mainly for having a pacing problems, lackluster message, nonexistent narration, mish-mash world building, and some jokes sadly even more hit or miss than before. Its no surprising that the writing feels like a copy-paste issue from before. But another problem about this movie is that the title rather misleading. Sure we do have an adventure in the galaxy to boldly go where no heroes have gone before, but the Mario Galaxy part is only both the opening and the climax, instead, it leaning towards Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros 2 (aka Doki Doki Panic from Japanese version) and even Star Fox (more on the latter later). I mean, il give credit for paying homage to several Mario games for actions and other elements we can found references and Easter Eggs, but keep in mind, the movie is called “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie”, because again, the title is lackluster that it doesn’t feel like we’re on an adventure in the whole Galaxy, but more of a same formula from previous film that the movie that it should’ve been called “The Super Mario Bros Second Movie” or maybe even “The Super Mario Odyssey Movie” (on second thought, skipping over World, Sunshine and Galaxy feels like crossing the line for the concept, eh?). Now you people are going to turning off my reviews with hate comments and death threats on me, this is ONLY MY OWN CRITICAL PART, sure its pretty lacking that they really need to learn their lesson from the previous film’s writing, but like before, it feels more of a “quality over novelty”, like we can turn off our criticisms’ mind to watch the movie for fun with humors, adventures and bunch of references and Easter Eggs from both Mario and Nintendo games, I mean, im sure kids are likely going into the quality over novelty, that’s the type that its understandable we can enjoy, even if the movie feels the same as before.

While it has SOME redeeming quality that I like to gave for the characters, references, homages and some okay jokes, but I just wish that, again, they really need to learn their lesson from the first film to give us a proper plot to understanding, but again, I kinda understand some people are defending this for the sake of “quality over novelty”, not just for the kids, but also for hardcore Mario fans out there. But again, its only my point of view of criticism.

The Animation

The movie’s budget is slightly higher than before with the cost of $110M, and I think its safe to say the animation is no stranger to be the highlight of this film’s budget.

For starters, the background of the world building from either Mushroom Kingdom and Gateway Galaxy look pretty standards, sure one of them is a colorful land with Toads, some dinosaurs and several locations that references from several Mario games that we all know like mushroom platforms, cloud level, water level and others. While the other one is the same world setting of Mushroom Kingdom, but for traveling trips, kinda like an airport with pipes for either the hangar or to the underground city, along with cubic casino run by King Wart from Super Mario Bros 2, but I will give credit for the latter that the setting in cubic casino is not only colorful, but also pretty good and unique for the action with various angles and a lot of struggle to dealing with those Ninjis act like securities. Aside the inclusion of Mexican themed town called Tostarena Town, which looks pretty nice and colorful, even for taking place in desert location of Mushroom Kingdom, they do have some locations based on Super Mario Galaxy, even if they put a bold name on the movie’s title, such as Comet Observatory, landscape-like space station run by Rosalina, which I find it to be pretty unique and fascinating, especially it also has a couple of shuttles, despite they can also using Launch Star, but I digress. And there’s Planet Bowser, which it may looks like volcanic land in Bowser’s inflatable of ego and menacing, but it does has cool and fun stuff they putted like theme parks, the surveillance room with 8-bit graphic and of course, a massive cannon of destruction “Boomsday Weapon”, while holding Rosalina in hostage for their setup of destroying the entire galaxy, quite over-the-top, but hey, gotta give credit for follow up from the game (sort of).

Of course, the animation effects are pretty good to go bigger and better (kinda) to adding more fun effects for the action with fires, more landscapes, the aforementioned unique ways in cubic casino and of course, the beauty view in space to make it more vibrant and colorful, even the world building and the settings are still looking good in vibrant, bright and colorful. Especially its also fun they also adding video game graphic in homage from their games like the aforementioned 8-bit and the 16-bit graphic for Super Mario World reference, let along with sound effects from the game that we all know. Of course, like the previous films, the character designs are pretty nice and followed from the game franchise, but with more expression to giving their personalities, sure some personalities either remains the same or even surprising new, still give nice and respectful credit for the designs to be respectfully representing from the game, especially with, again, giving us some fun Easter Eggs to pointing out.

And lastly, there’s always no stranger to giving us the action scenes from fighting against Bowser Jr with his unique and creative use of his paint weapon like duplicate enemies or armors for himself, chasing away from the T-Rex in Mario Odyssey, Rosalina’s defending herself and Lumas, space dogfight with Arwing from Megaleg and even the climax in Planet Bower. They’re pretty fascinating and entertaining from fast pace, creative and impact to see our heroes avoiding obstacles and fighting for their lives from the evil threats like Bowser, Junior and even King Wart.

Like I said from the start, its not surprising that the movie’s budget focus is its presentation for nice and beautiful quality, creative and followed backgrounds, faithful character designs, great effects and fun action scenes. While the soundtrack by Brian Tyler are pretty good as always, but at least they step away with the use of labeled songs from before.

The Characters

With the writing’s problem, perhaps the characters in this movie would be slightly improvement from the first movie? Well, Perhaps, but again, I wish that some characters would’ve been better with new development. Even if some voice cast that, while they’re good, but unfortunate a downgrade.

Lets start off with our titular protag, Mario (reprised by Chris Pratt), he’s our main hero that he’s trying to protecting Mushroom Kingdom in peace for potential girlfriend (so we think) Princess Peach. While his development is slightly updated as a no-nonsense hero and possibly concern if Peach is in trouble with Toad, but its all slightly development him, just a hero of Mushroom Kingdom who’s heard about the galaxy is in danger. But of course, even when Pratt returns as Mario, im STILL considered the worst casting choice ever, even when’s trying to imitating retired OG voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, he’s STILL doesn’t feel like Mario that we all know, like you might as well give Star-Lord with plumber gimmick. But like I said in the first Mario Bros movie, I’ve nothing against him, he’s a great actor that I have a respect for him, but I still standby for his role of Mario just doesn’t work based on his voice or even comparing the other character he’s been portrayed. But im sure im not the only one who pointed out a bad call, even some of you can agree with me to this day since the previous film.

Next we have Luigi (reprised by Charlie Day), like before he’s a timid, scaredy cat young brother in adventure with Mario. But in this version, we eventually get to see him in action with his brother and be somewhat confident for the journey. I think its safe to say that he’s probably the only one with new development after he used to be a dude in distress from the first film, even Charlie did a nice work of his role of Luigi.

Then we have Princess Peach (reprised by Anya Taylor-Joy), a royal princess of Mushroom Kingdom with helping Toads and even bonding with Mario and Luigi for saving the land, and as always, being strong-willing and badass princess for being aware from the threat. This time, she’s going out on her with the main Toad (reprised by Keegan-Michael Key) based on urgency about Rosalina. But then, somehow, they gave her a further backstory where she came from, but I won’t give you a SPOILER details, but if you wanna know my thought about this? Well, to quote from Jontron “I have SEVERAL questions”. Aside the further backstory, I still like her portrayal in this movie and Anya did a nice work of her role.

And finally, we have the King Koopa himself, Bowser (reprised by Jack Black), when we saw him before, he’s a memorable main villain for Jack’s fun performance, and being both menacing and comedic for being self-aware how he’s made of. Here, he start off as comedic neutral that he’s forced to partner with Mario, Luigi and Yoshi for the whereabouts of Peach and knowing about his son, Bowser Jr. But once he grew back to normal and separated from our main heroes from the deal with Honey Queen (voiced by Issa Rae), he turns back into villain role once he’s rescued and reunited with his son, though he’s more like a secondary villain role than his son, which is rather a downgrade for his role, but to be fair, at least I like they gave a heart to heart moment before him and his son to explain whatever happened to them when they’re separated, even if we wish they could’ve have a further backstory development. While I still give appreciation for fun performance from Jack Black, but I just wish they could’ve give him something new fun stuff like a new song, which it didn’t have that, even if his returned role is not as menacing and fresh as before, though I’ve nothing against him, I still think he did a fun performance, but not as memorable as last time.

As for the new characters, while il give appreciation for entering the scenes, but its too bad that, like the returning characters, not even some new ones could give us a long development (sort of).

First we have Yoshi (surprisingly voiced by Donald Glover), a dinosaur who becomes Mario and Luigi’s companion in Mushroom Kingdom. Even though we saw a flock of Yoshis from the previous film, but its nice to have the main green Yoshi on the big screen, which I wish he should’ve been in the first one than later, but that’s just me. But im quite surprised Donald do the voice of everyone’s favorite dinosaur, but not as fresh as the original voice, Kazumi Totaka.

Next we have, surprisingly, Fox McCloud (voiced by Glen Powell, aka Ben Richards from 2025 The Running Man), the main mercenary pilot of Star Fox who’s somehow being transported into Mushroom Kingdom. Again, im very surprising to having Fox, the main protagonist from Star Fox in the movie, but instead of rival turned friend like Donkey Kong (who sadly, won’t be back in the sequel), here, Fox is a hired pilot to helping our main heroes with his transport Arwing through the galaxy and shooting Bowser’s enemy ships. Let along with boasting his good’ol days when he used to be with his trusted partners in Star Fox from the evil threat of Andross, even if his ego is gotten on his way from his charisma. Despite his somewhat minor role, I find him pretty surprisingly nice inclusion in this film, even Powell’s role fits pretty good. Though it makes me wondering what if this is a setup to make a spin-off movie, but with Star Fox, but again, its just me.

Then we have, Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson, aka Captain Marvel from MCU), she’s the princess of the galaxy and the mother figure for Lumas in her home space station, Comet Observatory. At first, I find her to be a great potential that she’s going be a new promising and badass princess with motherly role to helping our heroes to save the galaxy from Boomsday. I give credit that she has a similar treatment as Peach, bring strong-willed to protect the galaxy and soft and sweet with Lumas, and Brie’s voice as Rosalina is a lot better than Captain Marvel. But sadly, her role is controversially minor that she’s depicted as a damsel in distress, which is nothing but a BIG FAT Slap in the Face for what we’ve expecting. Talk about a letdown for what would’ve been from our anticipation, since SHE’S A MAJOR ROLE FROM THE GAME COMPARED TO THE MOVIE, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!!!

Im sorry, its just that doing research in small comparison is… Really baffling me the most for ruining the potential…

And finally, we have the new main villain, Bowser Jr (voiced by Benny Sadie), the son of Bowser who’s out there for not only kidnapping Rosalina (ugh…!), but also searching his father to presentation his destructive weapon from his home planet. I find him to be a very good role, he may have a similar treatment as his father, but he’s more menacing and serious threat in attempt to put the end of Mushroom Kingdom and the cosmos, but of course, like I mentioned on his father, he does have a softer side when he reunites with his father for returning villainous role, even if Junior is the main villain role, while his father is on second-in-command, along with returning henchman Kamek (reprised by Kevin Michael Richardson) and crime boss named King Wart (voiced by Luis Guzman).

While some casts are doing fine, minus Chris Pratt’s Mario that I still standby the controversial casting choice, but the characters are alright, while there are some have a developments, but its just we wish some could give us new developments and, better yet, a bigger role for what would’ve been.

And now for my Final Opinion of this film

Overall, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is… Dare I say, a very mixed to average at best.

The movie is suffered the same problem, but dangerously downgraded with lackluster narrative story, world building are clearly a flip flop, average and downgraded characters, some jokes could’ve gone better, subplots just came out of nowhere, and the potential of this movie what we’ve expecting, just didn’t go that well, especially the title of this movie is misleading that its more of a typical follow up rather than focusing on galaxy.

But before you guys are going to be hot boiling of rage to send me hateful comments to canceling me and death threats, I wanna put this very clear. Its NOT the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Sure, it does have flaws that they made another mistake, but it has a redeeming qualities that we can give appreciation like well-done animation, faithful designs, fun and noticeable Easter Eggs, great action scenes, pretty good soundtracks and has a surprising characters are that memorable on their own like Bowser Jr. and even Fox McCloud.

As a movie itself, its not great for many reasons in a same way as the first one, which again, they really need to learn their mistakes without doing the same pattern. But again, if we turn off our criticisms and narration, its a pretty good and fun film to watch, even if the movie is short as one in a half hour length. For recommendation, its no stranger that its only for diehard fans of Mario, just for the sake of see the fun stuff with the animation, the actions and others, which like I said, its pretty good that the Illumination did their best for their work, but as for non-fans of Mario or being a fan of storytelling (like me), I’d say, watch once and il let you make a conclusion if its good or not that great.

From before, I gave the first animated Mario movie a 7/10, which I enjoyed the first one (for the most part). 

But as the sequel, im really sorry to say, I gotta drop the number of my rating to 6/10. Again, its not the best sequel nor best movie based on video game, but it has some redeeming quality to give an appreciation.

Anyway, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.

Movie Review: Hoppers

 

Hello hello everyone, my name is Anthony and welcome everyone to my very first Movie Review in 2026.

Well okay, I know its been three months that I wanted to get started, but I was stuck in 2025 for remaining films how desperate I was to see some of my wishful films that I want to see. But don’t worry, its all settled and lets move on, il learn my mistake next time. Anyway, what better way to kick things off for this year? (aside that I missed Markiplier’s Iron Lung, which il save it later when its available digitally) By going back to our old friend, Pixar, to gave us their new movie less than a year later after their underwhelming film, Elio.

“Hoppers” is a 2026 animated sci-fi adventure comedy film that was written/directed by Daniel Chong, produced by Nicole Paradis Grindle, and co-written by Jesse Andrews.

Back in pre-mid-2015, Daniel Chong was hired as a story artist in several studios like Pixar’s Cars 2 and Inside Out, Illumination’s The Lorax and the craptacular Free Birds. But at the same year as the release of Inside Out, he created “We Bare Bears” in 2015 to 2019, which it became a popular show back in 2010’s fascinating year in Cartoon Network. But then in December of 2020, after finishing his show and “We Bare Bears: The Movie”, he announced he came back to Pixar to building up his passion project, along with working the writer of Luca, Jesse Andrews, joined in. In their idea, they said its gonna be an inspiration from animal documentaries, but with robot animals in the wildlife with animals, but with sci-fi twist and action. Basically what they said, imagine Avatar and Mission Impossible merging together, but with wild animals for kids.

So, with all that said, will the experimental human minds into robot animals will fit in to help the wild animals, or is this feel like rocket science gone horribly wrong?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

When it comes to the plot about natures vs humanity, its actually pretty complex for its depth, but it wants to have fun from the get-go.

The movie begins from the past (cause of course) in the city Beaverton, we introduce our main protagonist, Mabel Tanaka, back in her childhood, she wants to bringing wild animals from her school for free will, but not before she got caught and scolded from her school, this is mainly due to she likes to spend time with her grandma in her home located at nearby the forest glade, in order to be calm and watch and feel the ambiance and peaceful to see the wild animals like beavers. Fast forward to the present time, she lives in her grandma’s home to stay with her childhood glade after her grandma sadly passed away. But the downside is that she’ll never get to see her familiar wild animals, this is due to the mayor of Beaverton named Jerry Generazzo, where his goal is to take down the glade for the plan of Freeway, much to both dismay and disgust from Mabel that she became not just a nature appreciation, but also activist in attempt to have a petition to take down the Freeway, but didn’t get any support to everyone in Beaverton, especially her college studies has been draining that she got disapproved to biology professor Dr. Sam Fairfax. It wasn’t until Mabel sees a beaver in the forest, but it goes into the university from the secret room, revealing that Dr. Sam and her colleagues are experimenting their new technology called “Hoppers” where they created a robot of a wild animal to putting human’s mind into the replica of wild animal. But after gets caught and learned about the project, Mabel saw this as an opportunity to put herself into the experiment to “hops” her mind into the same robot beaver for her escape and eventually communicating wild animals to learning what they’re doing. Its up to Mabel, in a robot beaver, to find the way to save the wildlife (mainly her childhood glade) against the Freeway, as long it doesn’t have to be a death threat against either humanity or animals.

At first, it makes you think its another one of those nature vs humans or technology story, its similar plot as the aforementioned Avatar as Chong said during the making of this movie, which is easily understandable, but it has a pretty nice execution to add more depth, like thought-provoking story, the messages, and even the humors (You take notes, James Cameron, huh? Huh??). The message is no stranger that its all about be reasonable and protect the wildlife in the name of peace against human consumption like the setup of Freeway, though its not the first time we’ve heard about plot about campaign against the Freeway, like say, “Who Framed Roger Rabbit”. Its quite of big deal since we’ve seen plenty of forest has been torn down for not just freeway, but also homes like condos and job apartments like stores, restaurants and others, much to dismay to the wild animals in the forest. Sure, the similar plot of Avatar is there, but again, at least it has a nice execution for creating robot animals with human consciousness to save wildlife rather than going on war, not to mention that’s all about be peaceful to cancel without posing a threat of assassination on the mayor, which of course, there is a plot twist villain, which is another plot twist cliché, but has good kind of twist, but I won’t give further details from SPOILERS. As for the humors, I will say, the humors of this movie is chuckle worthy like how King George demonstrate the world building of the wildlife that he rules with his delivery, the incoming timing with the worm getting eaten, even constant argument between Mabel and Jerry between saving nature and Freeway (at least its a showcase joke, kind of like Family guy), which is common, but at least they didn’t take it seriously. Not to mention with the humors is also being self-aware from either referencing to the aforementioned Avatar (because Duh), how the wildlife works and the unlikely communication between humans and animals. However, if there’s a problem for this movie is the first act, the movie just starts out rather rushed for Mabel’s origin story before we’re going to both against Freeway and the Hoppers experiment, its just like the same problem as Zootopia 2’s first act.

While the first act is rather a rocky start, but the rest gets better for the thought-provoking plots, the messages, an understandable similar plot with good executions and a chuckle worthy humors.

The Animation

The movie’s budget costed $150M, which is yet another Pixar’s low budget film much like Elio. But unlike last year, I noticed the setup for Pixar to having two movies in a year unlike last year, they treated Hoppers as an appetizer, while the upcoming Toy Story 5 is the equivalent of the main dish. But to be fair, for low-budget appetizer, at least it looks pretty nice.

For starter, the background for taking place both the city like Beaverton and the forest are… Dare I say, pretty average, they’re just standard setting as what you expect. But it doesn’t mean its boringly average, they did their best for some creative setting like the home of council in the dam, the quality and even the ambiance when Mabel wants to relax in her forest glade.

For the designs, the humans are also standard for either average or some cartoony designs, but at least I can give an appreciation that, either be normal or go crazy when the humor kicks in based on either the action scenes or the delivery. But the wild animals on the other hands, they’re actually pretty good and cute, sure the design may or may not look real, but they’re so adorable for how round and colorful they are, especially with some details. Its as if the designs of We Bare Bears comes to life in CG, I know its weird thing to describe, but what do you expect for a movie being directed by the guy who gave us a memorable show about the bears in CN.

But I think the best part for the designs in this movie, are the animals expression and the communication based on different perspective. When we’re in human, the animals expression are normal like black dot eyes or typical animal noises, its simple and kind of realistic. But once we’re hoping into robot animal, this is where the animals get their true colors of their expression with cartoon eyes and talk like humans. At first for the latter, I was confused how’s that work, but its only if we’re transported human conscious into robot animal for communication, which it would make sense, unless there’s a missing tool that we can translate from animal language outside of animal replicant. It may not be as highly revolution, but il give credit for their creativity.

As for the animation, like I mentioned for the story, it starts out slow that the animation are good and standard, but once we get to the second act and the climax, boy it gets interesting to have a montage of demonstrating wild animals in the forest, the building dam with beavers while playing “Working for the Weekend” by Loverboy (gotta love the 80s song to building a dam with beavers, eh?), and of course, the climatic chase in the risk of death or worse, having a robot animal go “BOOM!” when crashing (Jeez, what kind of machine it contains?).

Despite the background is average at best, but its the animation and the designs are the best part of animation for how they crafted and the creativity from different perspectives.

The Characters

While the writing of the story is pretty good, we expecting the characters could be memorable too? Well, I think so, both how they developed and a fun voice performances.

Lets start off with our main protagonist, Mabel Tanaka (voiced by Piper Curda), a Japanese-American animal lover and college student who likes live with Glade for not just seeing the animals in the forest, but also due to her personal history from her beloved grandma, making her becoming rebellious against Mayor Jerry to prevent the planning Freeway. I find her to be pretty fascinating character and somewhat relatable, we can feel that we want to save something important from our beloved grandparents from our childhood without ruined by city consumption or using violence as the answer from the councils. Not only she’s somewhat relatable that we want to keep something safe due to personal history and deep meaning, but she’s quite curious, enjoyable, energetic and caring with the animals that I find her quite possibly memorable, and Piper kicks ass her performance in energy.

Next up, we have King George (voiced by Bobby Moynihan), the monarch of the beavers and the King of Mammals who shows Mabel about the building in the forest who sees himself as an optimistic to follow the set of pond rules to the animals in the forest, especially for being a plot development to teach Mabel about the whole forest, the animals, the aforementioned pond rules and providing lessons about trusts. Though he can be a flawed king when it comes to handling or delivering the rules, but he does have a nice chemistry with Mabel to understand about the forest and the issue about the upcoming freeway, even if he’s gotta realizing this due to being blocked by a fake tree with possibly a high pitch frequency. Though he’s nowhere perfect to be the king, but at least he’s kind, optimistic and also enjoyable to gives us the lesson and plot convenience in order to understand why Mabel wants her Glade in peace with beavers, and I think Bob did a nice work of his performance.

Next we have Jerry Generazzo (played by Jon Hamm, aka Sentinel Prime from Transformers One), the mayor of Beaverton for his plan to building the freeway for reelection. You may think that he must be the main antagonist of this movie for his plan of freeway without Mabel’s consent for placed on her glade due to her personal history with her beloved grandma. I mean okay, he maybe villainous that, kinda like mayors, senators or politicians, he always think he’s a perfect mayor that he’s in the right with everyone support him, while also being oblivious about the cause based on, again, Mabel’s protection her glade for the sake of the wild animals. Basically, he’s kind of like the human version of Sentinel Prime, they’re both similar how they’re written, but the difference is, while Sentinel is self-proclaimed hero in Cybertron without acknowledging the major problem for being the leader of Iacon from the dark secret, Jerry on the other hand is, like leaders in towns, he chooses to extending Beaverton with freeway, while being oblivious about the cause to the forest and animals. I guess its no wonder why I saw a couple of posts that lot of people compared both Jerry and Sentinel Prime for similarities, not just for their setup, but also they’re both voiced by Jon Hamm. But to his credit, at least Jon did a good work of his role too, even if we though he’s the main villain, but not exactly, without SPOILERS.

After that, we have Dr. Sam Fairfax (voiced by Kathy Najimy), the biology professor in Beaverton University that she and her colleagues secretly experimenting the hopping technology. Like George, she also gave us plot convenience about this experiment that made Mabel as an opportunity to transfer her consciousness into robot beaver for her rebellious plan to save her glade, despite even if this is something that Dr. Sam is gotta understand about Mabel’s plan rather than overprotecting the project. Though il give credit about this experiment, but the execution is rather… flawed to explaining this, but then again, its due to rocky in the first act in the movie. Im not saying Kathy is bad, she did a nice work of her role, but its just some writing part her is kind of weak, even if she’s rather too protective for this project.

And finally, there’s the insect royal family, like The Queen (surprisingly voiced by Meryl Streep) and her son, Titus (voiced by Dave Franco), like George, they’re the council for which animal kinds, specifically, their rule for the insects. But unlike George, they’re more tyranny for their decision, mainly if its not easy to stop the humans, The Queen or Titus are choosing violence as the answer to “squish” humans, which is their term to KILL to believe animals and insects will be the top of the food chain. I know its easily predictable about The Queen and Titus, but again, not gonna give a spoiler warning whatever happens further. While Dave Franco did a surprising work of his role, along with Eman Abdul-Razzak as the younger version of Titus. But of course, Meryl Streep is an unusual pick for this role, but she did a good job as a the most recognizable actress for many ages.

As for the rest, there not much else to say, lot of them are either for plot purposes or for good humors, there's Loaf (voiced by Eduardo Franco) another beaver, despite being sluggish, but thankfully being loyal with other animals, Tom Lizard (voiced by Tom Law) is a lizard who wants to have fun rather than into drama (and somehow became viral), Ellen (voiced by Melissa Villaseñor) is a menacing bear, but just want to follow the pond rules, because she's a predator, and Nisha and Conner (voiced by Aparna Nancherla and Sam Richardson) are Dr. Sam's colleagues.

I find the voice acting are pretty good in the movie, while some characters are flawed, but i find some are enjoyable and probably memorable in this film how they're nicely written and delivered.

And now for my Final Opinion of this film.

Overall, Hoppers is actually a pretty good film to start in my experience of movies in 2026.

The animation looks great, even for being an appetizer, it has great characters, nicely done writing, the story good, the voice acting are enjoyable, it has a nice message what this movie is about.

Sure, there are some flaws like the first act was good, but rather slow, some character could've understand about the issue and the setting is too standard.

Even with the flaws, its an enjoyable film from Pixar, like probably better original Pixar film than Ellio. If you're a supporter of animals and a fan of Pixar, i'd say this out, i considered a recommended film to watch. Cause you'll have a fun time to see it like i do.

For my rating, im gonna give this one an 8.5/10.

Anyway, if you guys have your opinion or any suggestions, let me know at comment bellow and support me on KO-FI.com/blackevil.

Thanks for reading, and im Anthony, signing out.