Film Round-Up: The Addams Family, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil and Terminator: Dark Fate
Let’s go do some reviews!
The Addams Family
The Addams Family is happy in their home but they are under threat by the new town being built below which does not want their ugly home as their view. If you liked the original TV series of this franchise, ie the one back in the 1960s, you’ll probably love this as it shares the same sense of humour and sitcom sensibilities despite being an animated film. The problem for the rest of us is that it means it’s got a very dated script which relies on puns so old that they get to travel on the bus for free. So yes they can get a titter from time to time but for the most part, you wonder where they exhumed the jokes from. The animation is also very bland so while this is watchable and probably a treat for Addams fans, it’s a bit of nothing for everyone else.
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil
As Aurora prepares to get married, Queen Ingrith plans to wipe out the kingdom of creatures and magic which includes Maleficent. The first Maleficent was rather naff, even if it is now retroactively refreshing as Disney did try to do something original with Sleeping Beauty rather than just remake it as they have done with recent remakes of their classic cartoons. The best part of it though was Angelina Jolie’s performance as she clearly enjoyed playing up the snark and fun evil Maleficent is known for. So what they did for the sequel no one wanted is push Maleficent off to a side story where she barely does anything and focus on the complete charisma vacuums that are everyone else in the story. Yes, there’s some nice looking scenery and whizz-bang action scenes plus the fairies aren’t that irritating anymore, but it’s just plain boring for the most part with no fun Jolie performance to counteract the rest of the film like before.
Terminator: Dark Fate
An augmented human comes to the present day from the future to prevent a Terminator from killing a woman who needs to live if the future is to have a chance. In many ways, this is a remake of the original as it basically has the same story of someone from the future coming to save someone from the past from an unstoppable Terminator. And even though there’s an older Sarah Connor and Arnie shows up before the third act gets going, that is what this is. But considering how bad the Terminator franchise has been, having a relatively simple reboot like this is exactly what it needs. Instead of doing lots of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff which no one really likes, the film just concentrates on being a good fugitive action film as our group of heroes try to evade and then fight the Terminator. And it certainly is very good. It’s not up to the standards of the original two, but then again what is, but it has a lot of well-done action scenes and it’s very enjoyable. What more do you want?
