The Sea Beast
Directed by Oscar-winner Chris Williams (Big Hero 6) and brimming with adventure and good humour, The Sea Beast is an all-around great flick that exceeds its family-friendly demographic.
Family
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On has always found a way to make people laugh through short films and literature. For their next trick, creators Dean Fleischer-Camp and Jenny Slate effortlessly expand on their concept to include more of an emotional core to Marcel’s world in this self-titled, feature-length debut.
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
By: Jolie Featherstone Much like the movie itself, Marcel is a small shell with a big heart.
Scarborough
In the same observant spirit as Beasts of the Southern Wild, Room, and The Florida Project, Scarborough provides several perspectives of people trying to survive, whether they know it or not. It’s better than Beasts of the Southern Wild and Room, but it’s not as accomplished as The Florida Project. But then again, Scarborough is its own special film.
The King’s Daughter
The King’s Daughter has a lot of strikes against it. It wrapped in 2014, and it shows. It’s a shameless Pirates of the Caribbean wannabe, with the romantic lead resembling an Orlando Bloom-Johnny Depp mashup. The other performances are broadly mannered. The overlit locations look as if they belong on stage or on a television show. And, the effects are a little hokey.
The Addams Family 2
By: Trevor Chartrand Everyone’s favorite spooky family is back in The Addams Family 2, the sequel to 2019’s animated stinker featuring a re-imaged version of the classic Addams family characters. This go-round is, surprisingly, a slight improvement on the first installment (which isn’t saying much), but ultimately both titles in this series so far feel like ‘babysitter’ movies – stuffed full of filler and thin on the narrative front. It’s something parents can plop their kids…
PAW Patrol: The Movie
After some minor big screen stints and continuing with its long-running success on television, PAW Patrol makes a flawless leap to feature-length with PAW Patrol: The Movie – essentially cobbling together four missions into an entertaining movie for families.
Peter Rabbit 2
Following up on my horrible time watching (and trying to keep up with) The Boss Baby: Family Business, I prepared for Peter Rabbit 2 with trepidation considering I hadn’t seen its predecessor and I wasn’t sure what would be in store. But, to my surprise, Peter Rabbit 2 was breezy and amusing. Absolutely innocuous, but it’s a cute children’s film that maintains its momentum and sets up some great slapstick and sustains its heartfelt themes.
The Mitchells vs. The Machines
The Mitchells vs.The Machines is very much cut from the same talented cloth as Sony Pictures Animation’s Oscar-winning hit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. The brilliant artists at Sony Pictures Animation, yet again, set a new bar for computer animation; offering audiences indescribably energetic visuals that astonishingly never lose the film’s lightning-fast pace. But just like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the story struggles to keep up with the film’s skill. The movie assuredly commits its general theme to the…
Yes Day
Family films that feature kids “makin’ all the rules” isn’t exactly fresh or inventive. So, why did I like Yes Day so darn much when I know that it follows this same template? Did this sub-genre improve? Have I gotten softer? While these reflections are valid, it sounds like I have to blame either the movies that came before this one or myself to justify liking Yes Day. Embracing Yes Day shouldn’t be driven by…