Film Round-Up: Men In Black: International, Toy Story 4 and Wonder Park
Let’s go do this thing!
Men In Black: International
The Men In Black are back, but instead we are going to the London branch where Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth being our main agents this time. Its standard MiB stuff and that’s enjoyable enough because it’s still a fun concept even though it’s 20-years-old now. Oddly enough the problem is with the main characters. Tessa Thompson’s character, M, switches between two main characteristics, naive but also super confident. Maybe with better writing this could be pulled off but what it really means is that you never really know who M really is. Hemsworth is also poor, his character being really unlikable and the actor’s charm is not enough to make up for it. Because of that, it’s a very disappointing reboot.
Toy Story 4
This movie shouldn’t exist. After all, Toy Story 3 ended about as perfectly as a series could end, it didn’t need another sequel. But we got another one and somehow, it is divine. As Woody tries to keep his new kid’s handmade toy Forky, a spork with some pipe cleaner for arms, safe, he ends up finding Bo Peep again. As always, the movie deals with issues far bigger than you’d expect from a kids movie and this one deals with something that will be familiar to the people who grew up watching the original now that they are fully grown adults, what do you do when you’ve achieved what you set out to do? It’s an interesting idea that feels a lot like the post-university blues and it does hit home. And for the kids, it’s a very fun movie with plenty of stuff going on and the new characters are very fun. I wish the old gang got some more screen time but even so, it’s a fantastic sequel.
Wonder Park
And on the other end of the scale. You know it’s not going to be a good time when the theme park in the movie is actually called Wonderland. Anyway, the movie sees June make an imaginary theme park called Wonderland with her mother. When her mother goes away due to her being incredibly sick, June ends up in the theme park trying to save it. The movie gets off to a good start, taking its time to establish the emotional core and it appears that we’re in for a decent attempt at making a movie like Inside Out. However, it falls apart when we get to Wonderland. It fails to translate that emotional core to the theme park and it soon becomes a generic and poor animated movie which was pumped out to make some quick money from parents who just need a movie to occupy their kids time during the summer holidays. Just go see Toy Story 4.
