Movie Review: Coyote vs ACME

 

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

Last year, I’ve covered the very first fully animated Looney Tunes movie called “The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie”, which despite the plot is an obvious parody to the classic sci-fi movies, but it gave us some good amount of laugh to bring us back to our childhood. While its not really a hit at the box-office, but its a fun film if you wanna looking back at it. But of course, Warner Bros aren’t done when they give us this film for another chance.

“Coyote vs ACME” is a 2026 live-action animated comedy film that was directed by Dave Green, produced/written by James Gunn (Yup, even the co-boss of DC Studios is also involved with Looney Tunes, as long as he needs to get a grip for DC contents), co-produced by Chris DeFaria and co-written by Jeremy Slater and Samy Burch.

The idea of this movie went back in 2018 when they announced this movie, along with Chris McKay (the director of The Lego Batman Movie) as a producer and the Silberman Brothers (Jon and Josh) as the writers, while Dave Green is going to be the director, but that all change when they’re all replaced by Chris DeFaria as a producer and Samy Burch, Jeremy Slater, and James Gunn (the latter as both writer and producer). Speaking of the latter, James Gunn was actually wanted to make a Looney Tunes movie with his buddy, Jeremy Slater 3 years before the announcement, because they both love Looney Tune. But the major problem is, what’s their idea was supposed to be? Back then, it was supposed to be a movie featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, while dealing with Tazmanian Devil, but that idea is ultimately changed into Coyote and Road Runner film after all the changes and new writers for their pitching, which they said that they’re taking inspiration from the New Yorker article with the same name by Ian Frazier.

But then came November 9th 2023, when we’ve witnessed the WORST merger since AOL TimeWarner, when Warner Bros was bought and merged by Discovery into what we have today. When the new boss, David Zaslav took over, he took his shake-up in the most CONTROVERSIAL move ever, all because of the tax loss about $30M, he sacked out several employees, cancel the shows without warning (especially some are either renewed for another season or some ended via cliffhanger), and even cancel films like Batgirl (which was nearly finished) and even Coyote vs ACME, the latter of which is completed before our public enemy stepped in to cancel it. That announcement was a TOTAL DISASTER that it received MILLIONS of backlash, not just for the movie goers and fans, but so does the people who worked on this completed project, resulting hundreds of phone calls of frustrations and online protest with “ReleaseCoyoteVsAcme” and “SaveCoyoteVsAcme”, even I’ve spoken my frustration over Zaslav’s poor business practice and announcements that we’ll never see the light on both some of the shows or even the movies. But it wouldn’t be until after the cancellation, WB decided to putting Coyote vs ACME into auction for which companies will distribute this movie, until on March of 2025 (nearly a week after the wide release of The Day the Earth Blew Up) after numerous major distributors won’t be able to acquire or bowed out, one small distributor called “Ketchup Entertainment” stepped in to talk to WB to acquiring this movie for $50M and the deal were settled, thus the movie made a comeback to release at the near end of August of this year. When we heard about this, it was a BIG happy ending after years of protest, like I was very happy for this report to give it another chance, just like what happened Nimona (you know when it was first developed under Blue Sky Studio, but it was shutdown by Disney, until Annapurna Pictures and Netflix brought it back for another chance).

So, with all that said, will Coyote will win the lawsuit after all the embarrassment from corporation, or is it just another one of those hopeless project after years of making?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about the court case against ACME, you think that this film would give us fun and entertaining in Looney Tunes fashion? Well yeah, but even bigger and better than just made for funny.

The movie gives us a small prologue, where (like Space Jam and Back in Action) the world coexist between humans and cartoon characters (specifically Looney Tunes), however, back in 1992, fictional Peter Lorre (But as Dr. Lorre) tries to make a leakage message about ACME, only to be kidnapped into portable hole. Fast forward fro 30 years later, where our familiar “genius” predator Wile E. Coyote is always trying to hunting down Road Runner, alas, he tried, and tried, and tried, but still failed to catch a speeding bird for his own lunch. That is until he sees the TV with an advertisement about a law firm company from Albuquerque simply called “Avery, Jones & Maltese”, after going all the way in Albuquerque, he eventually meet a senior lawyer named Kevin Avery in order to suing ACME for many of defective devices from ACME Corporation, run by Foghorn Leghorn with his finest lawyer, Buddy Crane, but they’re much more living in positive note for selling their successful products and protective about their business. So its up to Coyote and law firm group to find any evidence and find out the dark secrets about ACME Corporation.

Its a pretty fascinating story and very good writing for the depth and probably a thought provoking plot where after Coyote being sick and tired of being humiliated and never give up, along with adding a similar fashion of David and Goliath for court case against ACME with small law firm group. Its pretty good for how its well-written for not just about the setting of the story, but the longer you watch, the more better it gets for not just comedy, but also changing the tone with slightly serious when we dig deep in ACME’s rabbit hole (no pun intended) and even giving a heartfelt moment for struggle for being a shell of a life and even understand the motivation of “Always get back up”, its very good what they pulled that they don’t put too much of a comedy to have a nice inclusion tones in this movie. But don’t get me wrong, if this is the movie about Looney Tunes, they have to give us some good jokes, but surprisingly, they’re pretty good for laugh and entertaining, it sticks faithful from the classic Coyote vs Road Runner tunes that we all know and the signature chaos both figuratively and literally, especially for their timing they’ve put, but again, the execution are very good to make it funny and enjoyable.

While it stays true for comedy and similar coexist world with humans and toons (Roger Rabbit style), but its very good, fun, and well-written for the depth about Coyote, ACME and the message of this movie, especially with some tones that its nice give instead of plain comedy, just saying, but still, its very good.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costed between $70-72M, even though it may look like a low budget film, but it looks pretty nice, for the most part.

For starter, instead of filming some big city, it was filmed in, literally, Albuquerque, New Mexico. At first, I thought it was filmed somewhere of small town out of nowhere while pretending to be Albuquerque, but im surprised that they actually filmed there. I guess its no wonder why Bugs Bunny been constantly mentioning Albuquerque in his journey, eh? All kidding aside, the filming is actually pretty good certain filming for interact with actors and cartoon characters, which is exactly that they’re reference the same filming and production technique from Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but more modern tech, which I think they did a nice work to replicate, even if some acting interaction and such can be a bit flawed.

As for the animation of the characters, I find the animation of the characters are learning towards the good’ol days of Looney Tunes done by Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson and Friz Freleng (which I ALWAYS enjoy their art and animation styles) unlike The Day The Earth Blew Up which the animation design is based on Bob Clampett (While I enjoy Clampett’s art, but I stick to both Jones, McKimson and Freleng). The animation for the characters are pretty good that they’re followed up from the classic Tunes that we all know, but with upgrade, especially we like to see some action and chaos, whether be the classic involvement with Coyote and Road Runner or even some comedic action scenes from the chase and avoiding obstacles, its pretty good and fun to make it intense, but with laughter at the times for chaotic fashion from cartoonish traps and lots of explosions. Even if there are some parts can be challenging, such as one sequence is where Coyote tries to bring the entire weapons and gadgets through a metal detector, which according to Dave Green, he had to took a few dozens of background actors to locate the eyeline of an invisible character, talk about a tough task to do the animation with dozens of background actors.

While I enjoy the presentation for their filming, some animation designs and sequences of actions and comedy, but if I have a problem for this movie, has to be the quality of the characters’ animation. Unlike both Space Jam and Back in Action, many characters are in 3D animation with cel-shaded quality. I get they wanted to replicate the characters in 2D style in 3D animation, but its just that their quality just doesn’t look right by look at it, otherwise, I’ve seen better cel-shaded quality from PS2. Im just saying, but that’s only my nitpick. However, the only exception for 3D animation, is in fact, Bugs Bunny, who’s probably the ONLY character done in 2D (at least what I think, as im writing this), mainly its due to last minute inclusion, but I WON’T let you know about everyone’s favorite bunny for SPOILER reasons.

Despite one flaw I have, but at least il give an appreciation for their work of animation, the production for live action, a very good filming and animation sequences of comedy and chaos.

The Characters

While we have live-action actors, you think if the Looney Tunes’ characters are going to be the focus instead of humans? Well, surprisingly yes.

Lets start with our titular character, Wile E. Coyote himself. He follows the same tradition that we all know in Looney Tunes, a mute coyote who’s a self-proclaimed “Genius” who’s trying to hunting down Road Runners for either himself or even with a butt load of ACME knick-knacks, only ended up in hilarious results of experiments gone wrong from explosions, breaking down and more fails (Such a classic that its funny back then). So in this movie, he’s pretty much the same, this time, he’s starting to having a depth of trying to go after ACME after all the fails he had, meaning he's gotta "talk" to a senior lawyer in order to suing ACME with all the weapons and gadgets failed hilariously and miserably. While his personality remains the same, but i think its pretty good to give him a chance to shine he wants to going after ACME in demand for reasons rather than keep chasing after Road Runner, especially he has a motivation of "never give up" for his confession to Kevin, which is a nice inclusion of some heart warming moment for his chemistry between him and Kevin. Plus, its also fun that, like i said, he's always being mute, he does share his dialogue with signs, even if he has a limited number of signs. I think they did a good job that we wanna root for him to dealing with ACME instead of typical comedic failure.

Next up, we have Kevin Avery (played by Will Forte), he's main human role (while Coyote is more of a main focus) as a senior lawyer in his attorney group "Avery, Jones and Maltese", whom, despite he looks like a well-meaning and helpful man, but he's more of an down-and-out lawyer that he needs to know about any proofs. I find him to be fairly descent character that he's kinda like an outsider, he's much of small lawyer and stressed out, especially its the first time he's becoming Coyote's lawyer in order to suing ACME. But then again, its not easy to do so to understanding either finding the secret truth about ACME or trying to get back up like Coyote does. Even though im nowhere familiar with Will Forte, but i think he did a nice work of his role, making him more like a attorney version of David, eh?

Speaking of "David and Goliath", how about Buddy Crane (played by Peacemaker and former multi-times WWE champ himself, John Cena), he's the richest, strong and big shot lawyer to ACME that's pretty much made to not only keeping ACME in secret, but also being protective and snobbish towards anyone if they're either questioning or taking personal on him. I think he's a memorable villain (tho secondary) for, while being finest lawyer to ACME, but also being snob and big shot when he's about to see Coyote and Kevin Avery in court to question based on weapons and gadgets gone wrong, along with double down by saying "So what? Everyone like to see Cartoon Characters fail in hilarious fashion.", especially for being supported by the CEO of ACME. Of course, John Cena did a great job for his role for being tough and snob as a favored lawyer for corporation, especially how his name is actually based on one of the most hated Looney Tunes character, Buddy. I mean Cena is written as the man you love to hate.

Speaking of villain that you love to hate, what about the CEO of ACME, you asked? Well, in big surprise (though its been shown in first act), its none other than Foghorn Leghorn (voiced by Eric Bauza). At first, i thought Buddy is the CEO of ACME, but in reality, its Foghorn who's the boss of ACME all along. If anyone of you ever watching Looney Tunes, Foghorn is known for talk-to-talk in the farm to pretty much getting everyone's nerve to go "AHHHHHH *smack* SHADDAP!!", especially how the creation is an inspiration from Kenny Delmar's character, Senator Claghorn. In this movie, while he's somewhat remains the same, but he's more like a politician how he's always standby his business practice due to allegations against him and his company and, like Buddy, he's always protective to his corporation to prevent people like Coyote and Kevin for trying to expose their secrets. Even though he's kinda less focus compared to Buddy, but i find him to be both surprising and pretty good to make more of a villain role, along with Eric Bauza, once again, did a good job for his roles of Looney Tunes' characters.

As for the rest of the live action characters, they have their role for plot convenient or for jokes.

Such as Paige Avery (played by Lana Condor) who's an intern at Avery, Jones and Maltese where she helps our heroes to finding any evidence until she'll be promoted, Sal Maltese and Dottie Jones (played by Tone Ball and Martha Kelly) are the co-founders of their attorney group, Bill Pelicanos (played by P.J. Byrne) who's another one of ACME's lawyers, and Talon (played by Ernie Vigil), who's an enforcer with Tweety (also voiced by Eric Bauza) as a mercenary (talk about unusual, but eh, im fine for Tweety as the baddie, even my feeling for little bird has been change that he's more... Overrated. Don't get too personal in the comment, that's just my opinion).

As for the rest of Looney Tunes, while its nice to see them, but they have a very minimal of their appearance, despite briefly explaining their roles, of course like i said, many of them are voiced by both Bauza and Candi Milo.

There's Daffy Duck, who's a former employee of ACME before he's going looney and being taken to St. Looney Asylum, fictional Peter Lorre who's a scientist to ACME Corp from the start before he got disappeared, Porky Pig, the straight local in Albuquerque and hopefully he would like to joining the attorney group, Elmer Fudd who's now a senator chairman of congressional hearing (sounds like he's taking a break of hunting wabbit), Granny who's Lorre's reclusive wife for explain about the dark truth about ACME.

Oh, and as for our favorite rabbit, Bugs Bunny? Well, we do get to see him in second act, though im not gonna explain his role due to SPOILER, but still, its nice to see him again, as a last minute inclusion as i've mentioned.

Even though many characters has their small roles, since we're focus on Coyote, Avery, Buddy and Foghorn, but the characters are pretty good for their roles in this movie, the voice acting with Bauza, Milo and Jim Cummings (as Tasmanian Devil) are pretty good and fun to listen to, while the actors are pretty good, even if some may have some flaws.

And now for my final opinion for this film.

Overall, Coyote vs ACME is a well-deserved redemption film and a pretty good film to watch.

The story is very good to having about Coyote suing ACME instead of ongoing chasing after Road Runner, the writing is very good too for its humor, the heart and its message, the action scenes are also funny, but entertaining, the animation is nice and the characters are both good and surprising.

While i enjoy this one, but it doesn't mean its 100% perfect for some flaws like some acting can get a bit off compared to Forte, Cena or some others, and the quality cel-shaded 3D animation to the characters are iffy, which it would've been good to stay in 2D, but that's just me.

Again, even though its not perfect, but its a great film to watch after reports of cancelation from poor business practice from David Zaslav. I guess you can say, this movie is like "Life imitate art" based one what we've heard, eh? Its definitely a Must-Watch film that you guys need to check it out, especially for the fans of Looney Tunes like me. I'd say get your friends and family together to see this, cause this one is highly recommended.

For my rating, im gonna give this one a semi perfect rating of 9/10, along with earning the Trophy of Success. Who knew movies with second chance make it better like this one, huh?

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: Caddyshack

 

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

Well, the summer is here since June 21st, so while im doing some movies in recent years, I felt like to going back in time to do the reviews for both fun and for my pick that I wanna share with you all. But you know what I like to pick? An underrated favorite from my experience or even from my parents (or both?). So, lets go back in time from the beginning of the 80s when we had some best one, some questionable ones, and of course, an underrated film that it didn’t have a great run, but becoming a cult following that we always love, with this one in today’s review.

“Caddyshack” is a 1980 sports comedy film that was written/directed by the late Harold Ramis (in his directorial debut), co-written/produced by Douglas Kenney, and co-written by Brian Doyle-Murray.

In order to know about this this, lets go back in time in the 1970s when we introduced the writer and producer of this movie, Douglas Kenney. After being graduated in 1968 in Harvard University (when he was a member of Signet Society, the president of Spee Club and editor of The Harvard Lanpoon) and published his parody novel called “Bored of the Rings” with his buddy Henry Beard, he, along with Beard, decided to working together to make parodies, but unlike MAD Magazine (which is a parody on many pop cultures), they made their own parody magazine, but more towards sophistication, surreal, relatable and satirical, and they called it “National Lampoon”. Founded in 1969 (nice…!) and first published in 1970, this humor magazine was a huge deal for breaking the boundaries of comedy that it poke fun of in satirical ways like a fictional stories, a fake comics and more. Of course, with the success of National Lampoon, its no stranger that several people who’re involved from the magazine would build up their careers from sketch comedy show like Saturday Night Live and of course, going to the Hollywood like John Hughes’s buildup career (which he’s my favorite filmmaker since Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles and couple more), and of course, Kenny would jumping in to writing his first passion project to the big screen with Harold Ramis came in to co-write (along with Chris Miller) and John Landis that we all know, National Lampoon’s Animal House.

With the success of Animal House for to poke fun of college frats vs authorities with great reception and box-office hit, Kenney and Ramis are planning to write the next movie along with then new production team called “Orion Pictures”. But the problem came when they were stuck to figuring out what kind of story was about, whereas Ramis wanted to make a parody about American Nazi party, while Kenny suggested about a Buddhist monks who takes down airplanes with mind powers, none of them got greenlit, but one idea were picked up. Enter Brian Doyle-Murray, the older brother of Murray brothers, stepped in for his own idea to share. It was based on Doyle-Murray’s experience when he worked as a caddie in Indian Hill Club on Winnetka, Illinois, to which surprisingly, Ramis and Bill Murray liked that idea, since they were also used to be caddies when they were teens. And Ohhhhh boy, while they’re filming in Florida, but production was an utter chaos from what I’ve heard, mainly they were constantly having a party whenever the filming were done perfectly, especially when they brought drinks and cokes that it feels like a real life Animal House (without the frats vs authorities). As Peter Berkrot puts it, “the fuel that kept the film running”, based on the mention of nose candy in the production. And as one of the producers puts it “The production of Caddyshack is like daycare without supervisor”, which makes me wondering how Harold Ramis felt when making this movie with all the chaos and snorting sugars involved, perhaps the same goes to Douglas Kenney, but that’s just me, then again, this is Ramis’s first film he ever directed. However, despite Kenney was anticipating for his finished product, all good things tragically came to at end for what happened to the co-founder of National Lampoon, but il save it before my final opinion.

When Caddyshack too the swing with golf club on July 25th, 1980, it was like a Double Bogey, it has a very mixed reception that, while it has a good idea for relatable story and jokes, but ruined from lack of direction a nearly non-existent story. And the box-office isn’t as great as Animal House, with earning $60M over between $4.8-6M. But I think the reason why the box-office didn’t went well, its because this movie came out one month after the overly successful parody movie “Airplane!” with Jim Abrahams and Zucker Brothers (which I actually like this movie).

Of course, as time went on, it ended up becoming a cult favorite for anyone who’ve seen this. Better yet, its not just cult favorite, but an underrated classic, even RottenTomatoes gave it 73% based on 62 reviews, with fun characters, relatable stuff and memorable quotable lines.

As for my experience? My parents remember this movie long years before I was born, they loved it for how funny it was from memorable actors and jokes, I’ve heard about it, but didn’t get to see it, which it wouldn’t be until I eventually bought both DVD from couple years ago, and digital version on YouTube and… It ended up being listed of my “Rewatch films” list, because… I think my parents were right, I actually enjoyed it, but as a reviewer, I can give my thoughts what I like, share some interesting facts and even some downside of this movie.

So, with all that said, can Caddyshack still holds up as an underrated classic, or is this film should be fed to gopher?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about the caddies and rich golfers, you would expecting to give some interesting plot and show the club building itself? Well, yes and no, at least some writing can be good.

The movie begins in the house of Noonan’s family, which we see the family are… Dare I say, crazily crowded…! Though the only one who’s focus on, is Danny Noonan, a high school student who’s anxious on his future, mainly because he needs to raise money for his college, or he’ll be living in hell of menial job. What kind of job he has? Why, working as a caddie on Bushwood Country Club, which he mainly following his caddie duty to any rich golfers. While at the same time, he also going in point of view in his goal from follow the order from Elihu Smails to have a hard time to connect with, such as when he’s going on relationship with Maggie O’Hooligan and Lacey Underall, but its up to him to see to keep his caddie career going without screwing up his life.

Yeah, while I find the concept to be pretty nice and relatable, but its just that after the first act, the narrative is completely gone missing, even the direction is mismanaged that we never get a continuation of the plot or so. Which in the original script, its meant to be a slice-of-life story to focus on Danny and him only, but what happens next is that the story became unfocused when we have sorta all-star cast in this movie like Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Ted Knight and Rodney Dangerfield. Which pretty much means we’re supposed to focus on Danny that we can relate of trying to get himself to the ground for his future, but its leaning towards four stars in this movie. But im not saying the writing is bad, but its the execution how the direction of narrative focus was thrown out, but it does have a redeeming qualities, such as how we have Danny depicted as a point of view protag to see what’s going on at country club from rich golfers and the craziness with caddies, you can feel Danny being seen as an outsider for what we just witnessed. That’s one thing that I like, we like to have a protagonist being a point of view characters for what we see some fun and chaotic stuff going on and its up to us to figuring out, if execution of the plot could’ve gone better. But of course, since this is a sports comedy film, its no stranger that it has a memorable jokes and gags in this movie, mainly with memorable comedic dialogue from Al Czervik, a fun angering reaction from Judge Smails or even commenting and improvising moments with Carl Spackler. Speaking of the latter, the movie has a subplot where Carl was tasked to hunting down the gopher for ruining the golf course, which is up to Carl to hunt down the annoying little rodent, which, even if it has nothing to do with the plot (kinda for the climax), but find it to be funny and entertaining to see Carl tries to taking down the gopher, but failed in hilarious fashion as trying to watering gopher from the water hose or misses the gopher with his rifle with a punchline of “FREEZE GOPHER!” (I can’t help to saying that punchline in out of context, because its so funny from its timing). But of course, there’s also the swimming pool which looks fun and normal at first, but much like Animal House, the caddies went in to make a chaos, but one of the caddies threw a chocolate bar in to easily mistaking it as a “DOODIE!!”, but who’s gonna clean the pool? Why none other than Carl himself, like he just took a bite like nothing happened (that is so funny and relatable how no one can tell the difference between chocolate or a poop, especially at the end with a bite on a soggy chocolate). And lastly to bring up another fun part is when Al Czervik sees Smails celebrating 4th of July and takes his action by piloting the yacht in reckless way, along with throwing a butt load of punchlines in Al’s commentary, such as an incoming plane that he though he got hit by Amelia Earhart, a flock of jet skis that he thought its “Hell’s Angels”, and of course, it ends with blaming at Elihu for scratching his anchor after dropping it. Its always the timing for the build up the craziness going to give us some of the funniest and entertaining scenes in the movie, along with memorable dialogue or even a punchline.

While the story feels M.I.A. due to focus on high profile actors at the time, but its just the writing is pretty good for its point of view development, something that we can relate, and it has the funniest jokes and gags in the movie, especially with the subplot about trying to hunting down the gopher, however more on the latter later.

The Presentation

Like I said before, the movie’s budget costed around $4.8M to $6M, which is doubled(?) than Animal House, and the presentation of this movie is pretty good, for not-so low budget film.

Unlike Animal House, which was filmed in LA, California,, this movie was filmed all the way down to Florida (minus Noonan’s family house and Czervik’s condos, which they were filmed in LA), mainly because they don’t want to getting a constant meddling, but like I said before, the production was a Fuster Cluck with party and nose candy.

While it is a low budget film, I will say the filming locations are pretty nice looking from courses or maybe even outside of Bushwood Club like the chaotic swimming pool or even dock with yachts (though the latter was filmed not on the dock, but an outdoor restaurant called Rusty Pelican). While it has a pretty good shots from the views, but they did a good work with some shots from the timing of the jokes and such like the aforementioned swimming pool and dock for yacht club, but even the same goes to like indoor party in Bushwood.

Of course, the movie also brought some nice practical effects in this movie. This is thanks to one of the OG employees of Industrial Light and Magic named John Dykstra, ranging from rain effects, flying golf ball, one of greens’ flags getting sucked down to finally, the puppet of the gopher. It was originally going to be done with hand-puppet, but eventually build a small animatronic puppet gopher for both out of surface to the underground, which I find the gopher work is pretty cute, despite making him a nuisance for messing around in greens (I like to briefly mentioned the idea of the gopher was suggested by the executive producer, Jon Peters. Its hesitant at first, but Ramis said this will fits in for subplot for Carl). And finally, the climatic explosions were done in nearby Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport, despite some thought there was a plane crash occurred in misunderstood.

While its pretty simple to explain, but we can give credit that the way they filmed and effects are pretty good for what they pulled, even for small budget.

The Characters

Despite the story is lacking, you think the characters will be enjoyable and relatable from the get-go? No doubt on that.

Lets starts off with the main protagonist in this movie, Danny Noonan (played by Michael O'Keefe), he’s a college student who works as a caddy in Bushwood for the sake of his career, however, he’s anxious that he needs to raise money for his potential future or going downhill in dead-end job. I find him to be pretty nice and relatable, he’s more down to earth student who just wants to raise more money for his college without falling down to menial, especially he’s also act like a point of view that we can see what kind of crazy stuff going on in Bushwood from crazy party-like nature of caddies to confrontation between the snob leader of the country club and a slob for party nature. Though sometimes he can unfortunately get himself into negative effects like sticks too much with Judge Smails that make him feel like he’s in rich life or even being a jerk of his bad responsibility, especially for building up with chemistry with Irish waitress Maggie. While I find him pretty good, but like I said before, he’s gotten nearly less focused when we have high profiled actors in the movie that they ended up became the focus than Danny’s journey. Though in fairness, il give an appreciation for O’Keefe of his performance for being an outside to see the crazy stuff and trying to connect with.

Lets start get to the four main appearances in this movie (Sorry, Danny), starting with Ty Webb (played Clark W. Griswold himself, Chevy Chase), he’s a wealthy son of one of the founders of country club, along with showing his zen personality for being both gentleman and giving advice. I find him a pretty nice character too, he plays sorta like a mentor to Danny when it comes to shows for gentle play or even rooting for him for the future of his college, especially he likes to be good and squeakily clean thanks to his zen personality. Chevy did a good work of his performance for his gentle with a sense of humor personality.

Next, we have Elihu Smails (played by the late Ted Knight), he’s the elitist founder of his country club that he wants his property to be peaceful and strict without the chaos, hence why he’s been often referred as “Judge Smails”, but whenever if its not going on the way, he gets cranky easily in confrontation with his funniest reaction. I find to be also pretty good, seeing how he’s a cranky boss who cares so much about protecting his country club without causing the chaos, otherwise he’ll be crazily mad that he’ll always stand on the ground to never mess with him for playing golf or even telling those caddies to quit messing around, or else. Of course, its worth noting that this is Ted Knight’s final role for this movie, though understandable for his age, but did a pretty good job for being a villainous protective and funny from his confrontation and his delivery.

Then we have Al Czervik (played by the late Rodney Dangerfield), he’s a New Rich on both real estate developer and golfer from his colorful party nature for being Smails’s worst enemy. Its safe to say that pretty much steals the show that he likes to joining golf for throwing money of his will of party and even betting, the latter of which that Smails is always refusing to pay up for gatekeeping his property, even if it didn’t matter that Al always like to play for tons of cash for his real estate, let along with his unique gadgets in his gold bag and of course, his crashing party, especially for giving us his memorable lines from questioning over striped hat, annoying Smails for betting or even accusing him for scratching his anchor. Its also worth noting that this is Rodney Dangerfield’s first acting role in feature film, even if he was like in his age of late 50s, its mainly because he was well-known of his stand-up comedy in late 60s to the 70s. Aside for his possibly dead nervous, but he did a great and fun work of his role, even though he plays just like when he’s in stand-up comedy for being loud and unapologetic.

The last but definitely not the least is Carl Spackler (played by Bill Murray), while I like Al Czervik, but Carl is also best part of this movie, since he’s both funny and relatable for the way he was written and delivered, he’s living in a crummy life as a greenskeeper for taking good care of country club, thanks for being told about the gopher is on the loose, he starts out as being shy, perverse and somewhat miserable, but after the days for failing to hunting down a gopher, you can can see Carl is going insane in his absolute desperation to take down the gopher, like the scene where his sanity builds up with crushing clay gopher with his creepy, but funniest laugh (Sheesh, at least Elmer Fudd has his limits, eh?).

I should also like to point out that I saved last part (outside of story and presentation) is the famous scene where Carl and Ty talked together during the buildup climax, its completely unscripted and both fascinating and fun to watch, which im pretty sure Ramis thank that this will be an opportunity to have a screen time with both Bill and Chevy based on their different personalities (even for the first and only time they act together on the big screen). But the behind the scenes was a different story, because back in SNL days, Chase and Murray hated each others so badly that always have an argument or even a fight, but when both of them were in this movie, they played well and professionally without a fight, which im sure some crew members were scared if the same scuffle occurs, but they played nice and fair, so good for them for possibly bury the hatchet. Though from what I’ve found it, it was originally going to have two scenes with Ty and Carl, not just before the climax, but the scene where Carl demonstrates how to play golf after showing up with his greenskeeper tractor. While this scene is nice, but it kinda ruins the preparation of the climax, which probably explained why this supposed scene was cut, aside brought it back for TV airing.

As for the rest, I find some characters can be funny, some for the plot purposes or some are just… There.

There’s Maggie O'Hooligan (played by Sarah Holcomb, but sadly in her last role due both mental struggle and substance abuse) who’s Danny’s girlfriend when they first met in Bushwood, Lacey Underall (played by Cindy Morgan) who’s Smails’s neice who’s easily making golfers or caddies getting distracted from her beauty (despite the lack of motive she has, before she sleeps with Czervik), Tony D'Annunzio (played by Scott Colomby), one of the caddies, but made as a bitter relation to Danny (which I wish we wanna see more, but again, due to major stars took over, we never get to see more), Spaulding Smails (played by John F. Barmon Jr) who’s Smails’s grandson for causing troubles, and Lou Loomis (played by Brian Doyle-Murray, you know, the same guy who came up the idea of this movie) who’s the manager of caddie shack in Bushwood.

While the story is lacking, as I’ve said before, but the characters with jokes, the deliveries and the way they’re written are pretty good that makes them enjoyable and relatable. For the most part.

SPOILER ALERT, for those who haven’t seen this movie, if you don’t mind

The final act is where we get the continuation story, but again, more towards the main stars than the main caddie Danny.

After conversation about keep misadventure in secret for Danny’s scholarship (after he slept with Lacey, much to hilarious dismay from Elihu’s reaction) and Maggie’s pregnancy was just a misunderstood for Danny being a jerk (yeah, the whole false pregnancy is out of place), things are about to get interesting, where Al Czervik shows up with Lacey for his constant show up as a guest, mainly he would like to stay more for fun, but Judge Smails, being sick and tired of Czervik’s presence, he chooses to announced the developer will NEVER promoting Al for membership, leaving Czervik argues that, if he isn’t gonna be a manager, then he’ll buy Bushwood for takeover. This leaves a battle of insults between two rich people, but Ty broke up the argument to ask them about the choices, which Al eventually suggest they shall have competition of team golf match between Judge Smails and his partner Dr. Beeper (played by the late Dan Resin) vs Al Czervik and Ty Webb, the latter who’s reluctant at first, but accepts the deal to win the match for $40K after doubling the original wager of $20K. Meanwhile, our old friend Carl is setting up his ultimate weapon, by creating rodents out of clay as a distraction to a gopher, but what gopher doesn’t know are the clay are made with plastic explosives from Carl’s detonation.

And thus brings us the climax of 2-vs-2 golf match, whoever has lowest strokes, wins the big money. As the match begins, it got a lot of attention both employees of Bushwood and Caddies to see the exciting match for money, despite when Judge Smails has secretly cheats by move the ball with his foot, much to disgust to Danny (as Smails’s caddie) for being forced to remain silent by judge for what he just seeing. Aside the employees and caddies are throwing crazy bet in excitement from situation out of game or watching the climatic game, Ty and Al are falling behind from Smails and Beeper, that is until they decided to doubling the winning price from betting to $80K, much to regret to Czervik in concern. But after Al swung his ball that got backfired from ricochet to his arm, he flops himself over his broken arm (aka pretending to getting hurt from foul in the middle of the game), causing Al wanting to call a draw, but got rejected that the game must go on, unless Al and Ty are looking for substitute (aka replacing over Czervik), Ty eventually picked Danny for replacement, much to dismay for Judge Smails which it’ll revoke Danny’s scholarship, while Al tells him if win, it’ll worth more for a while, so Danny accepts to joining Ty and Al’s team. While Danny doing his best to play golf (much like when he wins in Caddie Day golf tournament), while Ty is struggling in a hilarious fashion his ball being stolen by a bird (tho only good luck in Haiti) or even fall flat after took a swing. After all the holes, this bring them to the last hole in putting and both teams were tied, while Beeper missed the hole with two strokes, but Judge Smails, with summoning his trusty putting club called “Billy Baroo”, he ends up shoot and scored to the hole (Oh wait, this is golf, not hockey…). As for opposite, Ty was hopefully to get in the hole, but ends up in the same way as Beeper, so Danny is the last hope to win the match. But before Danny is about to hit the ball, Al Czervik make a last minute betting to Double or Nothing if Danny wins, which Judge Smails accepts the final bet. But once Danny hits the ball… The ball stops in small inches in edge of the hole, leaving Smails and Beeper celebrates their winning. But the celebration didn’t last long when Carl pulls the trigger of his detonator to start blowing up nearly everywhere in his desperation to kill the gopher! So. Man. Explosions! With explosions that causing a small earthquake, Danny’s ball manages to fall in the hole, declaring Birdie and victory on both Danny, Ty and Al to beat Beeper and Smails.

In the end, while Carl secretly walk away from the area to cover his ass, Al demands Judge Smails to pass the money for the endgame, which Elihu easily refuses to give it away. But of course, due to Smails being a sore loser, Czervik calls Moose and Rocco to punish him, pretty much ensure him to pay up, while Al celebrating that its time to get laid and party in celebration and lived happily ever after. And some how… The gopher has survived from the explosion with dancing “Im Alright” by Kenny Loggins (gotta love this song both the opening and the ending).

I will, despite the story aren’t great for being lacking, but the climax is pretty good to see who’s going to taking over to win the betting game. Aside the whole keeping misadventure part in secret just doesn’t work, and the misunderstood pregnant part just resolved too quickly like nothing happened.

Before I wanna give to my final thoughts, remember when I mentioned before about the quote “All good things tragically came to at end” before starting my review? This is where we’re getting to the unfortunate situation before the film’s release. When Jon Peters suggested the gopher for the final cut with Harold Ramis’s approval for subplot in goofy nature, our familiar producer, Douglas Kenney wasn’t so pleased to have the gopher, mainly because he doesn’t want his passion project kept going without interference from the executive since his experience with Animal House, but alas, because of this, his hope of his next film like this didn’t go very well, he even grew depressed when Airplane came out that because a huge success, pretty much overshadowing his anticipated Caddyshack. During the press conference for the movie, some actors and the people who worked on this movie thought Douglas was no shown, but not before he broke in, completely intoxicated from drinking, and straight up bad mouthing over his project. This situation is the most embarrassing and lowest point of his life. After the movie came with not-so good box-office result and panned reception, Kenney was so upset in depressing mood that he went into vacation in Maui, Hawaii with his girlfriend and his good pal Chevy Chase. This is meant to give him a break from Hollywood to clear his mind from depression over Caddyshack’s failed result and even his substance abuse.

As Chevy and Kenney’s girlfriend flew back to LA, they unfortunately received a bad news, on August 27th 1980, a month after Caddyshack’s release, Douglas Kenney died from falling off from Hanapepe Valley Lookout, a 35-foot (11 m) cliff, and his body was discovered 4 days later. At first, we thought he committed suicide, but the police classified it as an “Accidental death”. When checking at Kenney’s hotel room, they noticed numerous notes with jokes and supposed upcoming projects that Kenney would love to come back his trip. As far as we understand, Douglas Kenney wanted to moving away from Hollywood to take a break to clear his mind and hoping to show his future projects for his comeback attempt for another chance, but having him died too soon after the film’s disappointed result, is just heart broken. But it doesn’t mean we’ll forgetting him, Douglas Kenney was the best comedy writer back in the 70s for his game changing comedy style that we can looking back that we can laugh and we can relate to in various ways from magazine like National Lampoon to movies like Animal House and Caddyshack. Even though he was gone too soon with the age of 33, his legacy will live on that we’ll never forget for his black comedy writing style that he inspired many people for what he’s done.

Douglas Kenney ❤

(December 10, 1946 – August 27, 1980)

And now for my Final Opinion of this film

Overall, while its not perfect for many ways, I still enjoy Caddyshack for fun and share some good stuff how they gave us.

It has nice and relatable plot elements, the presentation looks cheap, but good looking, it has some memorable characters, the acting is fun, the effects are good and the jokes are both enjoyable and funny that we like to see from memorable quotes and visual gags.

While I enjoy this one, but like I said, its suffered numerous problems like lackluster narrative that it supposed to be focus on Danny, but gotten lost when familiar actors joined in, some of the characters could’ve gone better for the execution from the writing and such and some moments like keeping awkward situations in secret and misunderstood pregnancy are both out of place and poorly executed.

Sure its not as great as Animal House, but like I said, Caddyshack earned a cult following that we enjoy this movie from memorable characters, quotable lines and good jokes that we just like to come back to see it since the good’ol days like my parents loved this movie so much before I was born, which I will admit, my parents aren’t wrong after I rewatching it many times. If you’re a fan of National Lampoon or a good’ol 80s comedy movies, I’d say go check it out, just for the sake of humors and memorable parts, despite the lack of narrative. Like I said, even if the movie didn’t received well when it first came up and untimely death of Douglas Kenney, this movie deserves a recommendation to watch for fun and appreciation to the people who worked on this movie.

For my rating, im gonna give this one 7.5/10.

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: Supergirl 2026

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

Last year, I’ve covered the first DCU on the big screen, Superman, which I enjoyed this movie for all about Superman trying to connect between himself (as Kryptonian) and humanity, especially in his motive to fight for truth and justice, along with pretty good and fun acting, actions and some writing. Sure its flawed from being predictable, but still, its a pretty good one, unlike those DCEU dumb-dumbs for their harassment campaigns and death threats, but I digress. With the movie have a moderate success, the cliffhanger is calling that we’re gonna have a journey with his cousin.

“Supergirl” is a 2026 superhero movie from DCU that was directed by Craig Gillespie, produced by James Gunn and Peter Safran, and written by Ana Nogueira.

Although its not the first time we have a movie about Superman’s cousin. There’s the 1984 version that, it was originally going to be the spinoff from Superman 1, 2 and 3 (you know, the ones with Christoper Reeve as Superman that we all know?), but when the third had a box-office disappointment, they completely ditched the idea into a standalone movie and for some reason, instead of WB distribute this movie, it was handed over Tri-Star Pictures for distribution and the result… It was a total trainwreck with bad reviews and a flop. (BIG yikes for what would’ve been… Otherwise, maybe il watch it… For my own risk, of course…)

As for this movie, just like her cousin, the idea of more modern Supergirl came back in DCEU. Originally, Oren Uziel was brought to be the writer for the take on Supergirl to extending DCEU, despite that cinematic universe back then was a total Crap Show, even if they wanting to have a female director for Supergirl. But for some controversial reason, they wanting Supergirl to be on her own, rather than being a cousin to Superman, which is probably the worst concept they’ve working on since Michael Bay’s supposed idea of Ninja Turtles being aliens than mutants (Yes its true, don’t pinch yourself). After being hold due to the “you-know-what” in 2020, rather than continue the development about Supergirl, they brought her into the DCEU’s WORST movie ever, The Flash, where we see Supergirl (played Sasha Calle) who’s been teaming up with two The Flash and Batman to fighting against General Zod (despite he was killed in Man of Steel), but SPOILER ALERT, she was killed off. Yeah, like I said, The Flash the movie, was the WORST movie ever for broken down direction, bad writing and… It feels like the biggest broken camel’s back at the box-office. But as we all know, Discovery and WB went into merging together that our public enemy boss (debatable), David Zaslav went into PURGE projects that he made WB fans (like me) fueling with blood boiling with rage with all Zaslav’s excuses (Well, minus Coyote vs ACME, at least it has a second chance), meaning the supposed project of Supergirl with Sasha Calle was binned, and like I said in 25’ Superman, James Gunn and Peter Safran took over as the duo boss of DC Studio for their “Soft Reboot”. So they went back to square one to make their own take of Supergirl (aside we saw her cameo in the end of Punk Rock), rather than making movie to be original, this one is going to be their answer of “Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow” (2021-22) by Tom King and Bilquis Evely, where this one is about Supergirl in space journey, while teaming up with Ruthye Marye Knoll for seeking revenge for her father’s death by Krem. This miniseries comic (with 8 issues) is well-received by critics and audience that the people in DC Studios saw this as an opportunity to make their own as a follow up after our new Superman.

So, with all that said, is it worth of space journey to fight for Truth and Justice for Kara, of is this film should be wiped out oblivion from Red Sun?

Well, lets find out.

The Story

For a movie about Kara in her journey in space, we expect to have a fascinating and complex story for learning about her motivation and fighting against the evil threats? Well, yes and no.

The movie begins where we introduced Kara Zor-El, whom after years of living in launched Kryptonian city called Argo (due to Krypton goes “bye bye” from Red Sun), and then she got launched away to Earth due to Argo’s Kryptonite outbreak, she lives in her fun time in her ship with her pet Krypto, flying around in space and visiting various planets to have a party and drinking, mainly for celebrating her 23rd birthday, despite she lost her powers (temporarily) from the effect of Red Sun. However, her fun time (and talking to Superman from video message) is abrupt when she meets a human alien named Ruthye Marye Knoll, who seeks revenge over the leader of space pirates named and human traffickers named Krem of the Yellow Hills, mainly because he murdered her family. But their rocky conversation (mainly Kara refused at first) was ALSO abrupt when Krem himself, and his crew members of his space pirate group called “Brigands” shows up to hijack Kara’s ship, and when her pet Krypto tries to fight him, Kara’s good boy got hit by a terminal poisonous dart, meaning Krypto has 3 days to live before he’ll die. So its up to Kara teams up with Ruthye on a vengeful mission to hunting down Krem and his crews of Brigands.

Though as always, I don’t do the comparison between the comic miniseries and this movie, but, this feels like another vengeful story over the death people to connect, but it wasn’t just about Ruthye goes into Vengeance (Batman style), but also for the sake of poor Krypto from terminal poison dart for Kara, which definitely showcase how mean-spirited Krem really is for nearly kill that poor dog, cause otherwise, Kara is gonna be mad as John Wick in revenge, but I digress. I know lot of you looked at this movie and go “Hey, this looks and sounds like Guardians of the Galaxy when Gunn did three of them back in MCU days!”, I mean, it really sounds like it but the differences are in GotG which is about the group of unlikely extraterrestrials with their history of crimes band together to hunting down the zealot war crime over a stolen artifact (mainly the Power Stone), here, its about the duo girls who’re working together for vengeance, which sounds rather average for their plot. Im not saying its bad, but the writing isn’t as perfect to describing, but at least it has some good execution they pulled. Mainly the character driven and the chemistry between Kara and Ruthye based on the similar struggle from the past and different lifestyle, whereas Kara who’s being a loose-cannon outside of living in planet Earth with Krypto, while Ruthye is like a warrior princess in demand to information to hunt down crimes like Krem and his Brigands, even though this movie is leaning towards Kara as the main focus in the movie, mainly to regain her motivation to follow her route from her cousin, Superman, to fight for Truth and Justice in galaxy way, along with be brave and strong without being overwhelmed in fear (which explains why they always saying “don’t freak out”. Otherwise, that motivation sounds like something out of Green Lantern stories), though its nice to giving us a the flashback about her origin story. While it has some nice emotional part of this movie, the movie also has humors, which I find them to be… Good, they’re not the funniest in this movie, but it does have some chuckling moments from either dialogue from Kara or even a familiar Czarian named Lobo.

While its a perfect writing for average plot and okay jokes, but it does have a nice execution about the chemistry, some motivation and character driven.

The Presentation

The movie’s budget costs between $170M–$186M, which is cheaper than 25’ Superman. Though despite being two times less than before, but at least it looks pretty nice.

For starter, since this is the space journey from space and different planets, you would think its gonna be unique and colorful in various planets? Well yes, they kinda do have. Its mainly that almost every planets are deserted (unless if there’s one planet that has both yellow and green sun), or if some other are lucky that taking place in the village or even in the market. Even though I just wish they could’ve give us something unique and colorful world building, kinda like in MCU, but that’s just me. Though its one location that I like is the design in the world of Krypton, I mean yes, it feels beige looking for the lighting, but its just that they want to make if feel mix of modern and futuristic and rich, unlike Man of Steel which is just a land with towers, or Donner’s Superman that it looks like a land covered in advanced technology with crystals (no offense for the latter, cause I like the 1978’s Superman). Though its no stranger that they filmed in two ways. The first is some scenes were done in studio sets in Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, the same studio for gave us Harry Potter movies, but even before WB took over, this studio also used from Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace and 007’s Goldeneye (aka the first Bond movie of Pierce Brosnan era). And the other is where they filmed in outdoor, such as London in England, Scotland (which is part in UK, and, like Austria, has a beautiful mountain views) and even in Iceland. Which I will say, the outdoor filming, while looking deserted, they look beautiful for the landscape, whether look normally beautiful in Ruthye’s homeland(?) or could be colorful like the last planet for the climax.

As I said before, the movie is mainly focuses on Kara, they also made an interesting effect of cinematography based on her emotion, whether be frenetically and aggressive camera work in her anger or overwhelmed or going smooth and fluid when she’s calm, which is a nice touch to her, along with some of use of visual effects. Of course, the visual effects are done in cooperation by Digital Domain, Framestore, and our old friend Industrial Light & Magic.

As for the designs, while some are looking good, but some can be rather… Iffy. For Supergirl’s costume, her outfit looks pretty nice and it looks kinda faithful from the comic, sure we have a similar “Kingdom Come” symbol and some similar textures from her cousin, but to be honest, it looks pretty good for what they pulled. But a very interesting fact about her outfit is that her were done from the same material from Chris Reeve’s Superman cape, which I find it pretty surprising and maybe even dedicated. The Brigands design are pretty cool, they look more like a sci-fi themed pirate or viking for what they’re wearing and carrying weapons, along with more unique like Krem that more like the viking captain, along with the amount of pierce and studs all over his face, I know its a makeup, but still, damn… Aside Ruthye’s outfit looks standard at best, but if I have problem for the costume design, its when Kara wears her protective outfit when she’s in capsule from Argo to Earth, I mean I get for “safety first”, but it looks more like she’s wearing a sauna suit (You know, an outfit that makes your body sweating?).

As for the action scenes… Man, it has a lot of action than 25’ Superman. There are a lot of which scenes of fight scenes to describing like when Kara fight against one thug over Ruthye’s family sword, a fight in the transport ships with Sklarian Raiders or even two battles of Kara and Logo fighting against Brigands, one in Bilguis and the second is the climatic battle in Barenton (Man, Brigands like relocation from planet after planet, eh?). They have a lot of pretty cool fight with either weapons or hand-to-hand, and even dealing with obstacles, even if with Kara either on her own, Ruthye or Lobo, it could be challenging when Krem has more than dozens of space pirates in his group.

While there are some are flawed and the budget is lower than Superman, but we won’t deny the presentation in this movie looks pretty good for what they’ve done.

The Characters

While its not perfect, you think they’re gonna give us the most fascinating and relatable characters? Well, no doubt on that.

Lets start with our titular protagonist in this movie, Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl (played by Milly Alcock), she’s the main focus, as I said before, at first, she likes to going out in her crazy journey to visiting planet after planet with party and drinking, despite her powers have stopped from the effect of the Red Sun, until she’ll get her powers back from Yellow Sun. However, whether or not she has powers, she’s pretty much of a loose-cannon, from doing her own action and making her own powerful choice for Truth and Justice to follow her cousin’s footsteps, even if its not easy to do so when her pet Krypto is in condition from terminal poison in three days to live. I find her to be pretty nice, im assuming she’s meant to be a broken down cousin with her journey outside of Earth without her cousin (though Superman has the right to stay to help Metropolitan and scolding Lex Luthor), along with binge drinking and party nature, making her as a loose-cannon and careless, but then again, with the combination of Krypto’s bad condition and Ruthye’s help for revenge, she has a difficulty choice for her life and journey while she’s rebuilding herself in redemption, which il give an appreciation for the way she’s written, its not perfect, but il give credit for trying, while Milly did a good work of her performance.

Alongside Kara, there’s Ruthye Marye Knoll (played by Eve Ridley), she’s an alien young girl who comes out to seeks revenge against Krem for killing her parents and she needs help to going after him with Kara. I find her not bad, she’s more of a no-nonsense lost daughter to seeks revenge along with trying to giving Kara an advice while in the journey, despite the first time they work together is a rocky start, until the relation between her and Kara gets lighten up once Kara got her powers back. While I find her good, but the downside I have is that we don’t get to see her in action, she’s always being told by Kara to stay there, like dude, you have a family’s sword to fight Brigands in the name of vengeance for family! On second thought, maybe they don’t wanna copying too much from Batman. While Eve did a nice work of his role, despite she looks kinda emotionless, but I just wish her writing could’ve gone better.

Next we have the main villain in the movie, Krem of the Yellow Hills (played by Matthias Schoenaerts), he’s both human trafficker, space pirates and the leader of Brigands, where his motive is stealing money and treating humans and various aliens like they’re in slaughter house. I find him to look creepy and intimidating for his enjoyment of rampage, murdering and looting with his group in space and planets, though his motive is just like every pirates as I mentioned before. Though I hate to say for any comic loyalists, despite he’s one-dimensional motive, I find his appearance to be pretty intimidating as a sci-fi themed viking look, whereas in the comic version, he looks like a generic mix between pirate and viking (sorry, folks). Though il give a credit for Matthias that he did a nice work of his performance.

And last but least is Lobo (played by former Aquaman, Jason Momoa), he’s a mercenary and a bounty hunter from Czarnia who’s been on his journey in space for killing bad guys for goods. Its safe to say that Lobo is definitely steals the shows with his “Don’t give an Eff” attitude, badass and some dark sense of humor. Its no stranger he’s more of an antihero role in this movie that he usually gives a small helping hand with Supergirl, but then again, he only likes to killing baddies for the sake of Cash Money. And honestly, I think Jason as Lobo fits perfectly in his role for not only with his sense of humor, but also… Well, he looks fittingly badass as a bounty hunting Czarnian.

As for the rest, they’re pretty much give us either info for Krem’s whereabouts or even plot convenience to Kara.

There’s Zor-El and Alura In-Ze (played by David Krumholtz and Emily Beecham) who are Kara’s parents who escaped from Krypton’s destruction to launch their home city Argo to the space before gave birth, along with learning to be brave without being overwhelmed, Drom Baxton (played by Diarmaid Murtagh) who’s Krem’s second-in-command of Brigands, the Sklarian Raiders (played by Clara Rosager, Heather Agyepong, and Alice Hewkin) who are the trio space pirates for disturbing the bus ride, along with being forced to share info for finding Krem, Bomar and Mareck (played by Kadiff Kirwan and Thalissa Teixeira) who’re the couple who exchange about Krem’s setup about the kidnapping. And lastly, we have Superman (reprised by David Corenswet), who discovered our main cousin from crash landing in front of Fortress of Solitude, especially unlike the first movie, he’s being a lovable dork when he first meets Kara, which I will admit, I find it pretty good and cute when he first meets his cousin.

While some characters are flawed for my criticisms, but the performances and some characters are good at some points.

And now for my final opinion of this film

Overall, Supergirl (2026) is good, but its not as perfect as her cousin’s movie last year.

While the story is a typical revenge plot over the death of family (like something out of Batman story like million times), but it has a good execution for redemption story to Kara for regain his motivation to save her good boy Krypto, the presentation, while some are flawed, but look pretty nice for the visuals for space and planets, the filming is pretty good, the performance are good, some characters are either average or promising, and the action scenes are pretty good too.

However, the movie is flawed for many reasons like some jokes are okay, some of the costume designs while some are good, but there are some are either bellow or questionable, but some characters like Ruthye could’ve gone better for maybe, like… Get into action. Not to mention, the end of climax that, while the climax is good, but the way how it end before the ending is… Pretty dumb. If you wanna know about, il never let you know, til il post my SPOILER THOUGHT.

I know there are a lotta people who’re easily throwing toxic shade of saying “GURR!! THIS IS THE WORST DC MOVIE EVER, BANISH GUNN AND SAFRAN TO HEURLRLRGH!!!!”, like that, you know what I mean? But im sorry to say, Snyder Cults and hardcore haters, not EVERYTHING about this Supergirl movie is all bad, are a FEW redeeming quality that we like to give what they’re trying with the action scenes, the character development, the world building, the messages and other things about this movie. Though sure, I know there are some comic loyalists will be pretty unpleased for the end result for DC Studios take of Supergirl version by Tom King and Bilquis Evely for the obvious comparison. And yes, im aware the movie is unfortunately becoming a flop quickly due to the combination of bad timing (mainly it was released a week after Toy Story 5) and the toxic infestation by Snyder Cult (I know, I keep bragging over these “fans”, but im sure some of you will go “Yeah, I know how you feel about toxic community, my friend”). For my recommendation, its only for die hard fans of DC Comics who watch the show or movies (yours truly included), especially for the fans who watched DCU contents like 25’ Superman, Peacemaker and Creature Commandos. But for non-fans, just watch it ONCE, and you’ll make your conclusion, but don’t be too toxic after watching this, cause if not, then you’re just a Gros Tata (“Big Fat Idiot” in my Quebecois translation).

For my rating, im gonna give this one a 7/10

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: 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.