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I have to wrap my head around this one because I feel like I should be ashamed of myself. When I first saw the trailer I had nothing but contempt for it. I thought to myself, what a shit idea for a lame cash grab animated family film.
You know I originally didn't think 'Sing' was going to be anything decent either and now I'm sitting here actually pondering if the Emoji movie doesn't deserve my preemptive malice.
Boss baby was hilarious. I said it, Jesus Christ I actually said it. Not only does most of it's jokes land, but the story itself is actually pretty damn creative and original.
It's simple but has a cute message. In the realm of babies before birth or being delivered out to families, the baby is sorted to be given to a family or be separated so it may be trained for management. The separation occurs based on a test to see how joyous the baby is.
Now the babies in management are actually adults in mind, they grew up but didn't age due to a special milk drink. They run this Baby Co Realm and make certain the world loves, desires to have and are delivered babies.
So this ambitious blonde haired baby played by Alec sends his adult minded self down to a family so he may fulfill a mission for Baby Co. Apparently puppies are getting more love than babies, and the main character's (cue the older brother) parent's are marketing managers at Puppy Co.
Apparently a new puppy type is being... manufactured which endangers the level of love babies will be offered due to scarcity. As there is only so much love in the world.
So Boss Baby needs to find out what the Puppy Co is doing and what they are cooking up. Meanwhile the older brother is having issues, he doesn't want to share his parents.
After the two duke it out, it really amazed me how well written and fleshed out the two characters became. They learned so much about/from each other that they grew to be able to deal with each other's mannerisms and quirks really well.
Not going to spoil the villain, nor the end of the film, nor how Alec's mission could possibly be a temporary one.
Yet I just MUST include some of the comical elements in this review.
The older brother has a Gandalf alarm clock and considering this kid's imagination is nuts, the thing talks to him every now and then. Let me give you some of it's dialogue.
“If only I could reach my magical shank, I’d bust us out of
this prison.”
"We have no daylight savings time in the wizarding world, it is only winter and darkness."
There is also dialogue like this:
While the older brother was reading the baby a story about Hansel and Gretel, the elder brother said,
There are so many wonderfully, "what the fuck" moments in this movie.
Take this for example,
this baby whom is Alec's muscle tore off the enemy's eye brows, got tossed aside, put the eyebrows on and began running after the enemy again. What the hell!? The animation is so well done and compliments the humor.
This movie really does teach some business tycoon like ideologies, ethics and definitely themed jokes. I mean the baby has a freak'in toy Mexican for a stress reliever and literally throws money at every problem.
On the other hand, this film also has alot of heart and becomes very 'love is the answer' in a tasteful way.
I actually had a pretty good time with this, especially past the first twenty-thirty minutes. I could have done without the older brother's imagination scenes, but whatever.
Still, every supporting character was like-able, even the silly enemy henchman who only grunted, and especially the boss baby's team of associates.
The way situations were handled or what type of consequences were ongoing involve some truly playful writing, and while the beginning's comedy may not seem that impressive - give it the opportunity.
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*SPOILERS AHEAD*
I don't understand why people are so utterly unappreciative about this movie. The fifth installment is such a massive and impressive improvement of the bland fourth film.
Three things you need to know:
1) The origins of Jack's compass, his alias and even his hat are exposed in this film.
2) Salazar is a exciting villain, much cooler than Black Beard and even Davy Jones.
3) Will's son tries to save his father from the curse of being stuck on the flying Dutchman.
All three of those are BLOCKBUSTER pitches.
This movie is another solo ride like The Black Pearl or Stranger Tides, they sort of learned not to make two-parters anymore like Dead man's Chest and World's End. This movie greatly honors it's own mythology and relics of lore and builds upon them, upon it's own world.
The entire thing opens with a child tying a stone to his feet so he may drown, touching down upon the sunken flying Dutchman ship. The ship rises from the waters so the boy may breath and Will Turner confronts his son, telling the boy to move on with his life. The boy declares there is a treasure which may save his father and that the boy will enlist Jack Sparrow for help.
Cut to the next scene, a proud town having a celebration. They are exclaiming that they have a new safe vault and that their island's bank is the most protected bank possible. They open the vault to show the goods and inside is a drunken sleeping pirate, enter Jack Sparrow.
A perfect opening scene for Jack which introduces what is to be enjoyable, well written comedy and dialogue for the rest of the film,
The scene advances into becoming playfully ridiculous when the horses on the other side of the building, which are meant to carry the vault through the walls with ropes and ride off, end up over-powering the entire building. Yes, the building comes off the rails of the foundation and is pulled away through the town by raw horsepower.
It's like Fast and Furious 5, pardon the pirates goof and brought the entire bank with them instead of just the safe.
There is a mixture of main characters during this mess of a situation.
For example a educated woman whom is believed to be a witch runs into Jack during her own escape. Apparently she has something to do with the same treasure Will's son needs. In fact Jack is about to need the same treasure to save his own skin, this is explained later in the film.
She can be funny but she is also kind of meh, I mean anything to do with the treasure is boring. However, every scene is full of energy, definitely not a snooze feast. It's just if it wasn't for their individual reasons for needing the treasure I'd be like whatever. It's just not the most interesting part of the flick. In fact the two new characters, Will's son and the appointed "witch" are only really interesting because of their ambitions and backstories not entirely their personalities.
So anyway with the high adventure and silliness it feels like a Pirates movie. I'm not going to give you the entire plot, but that little taste may hopefully restore some hope in you that this isn't just another throw away sequel cash grab. I feel like the director and writers DID try.
The magical compass of Jack Sparrow is important, down on his luck (literally) and after being ditched by his own crew he gives away his compass for a mere bottle of rum. Thing about this magical relic is, it will turn on you if you betray it. Instead of leading you to where your heart desires, it will bring your worst fears to you.
Salazar was a Spaniard captain with a hatred of pirates, he butched dozens of pirate ships in his time to purify the seas. That ceased when he was outsmarted by the boy Jack Sparrow, and even after death Salazar was trapped in a geographical area as a restless spirit. That is until Jack had thrown away the compass. This is also the time period Jack got his name and his famous hat, don't want to spoil everything though.
So much happens in this film with it's moving parts, including the return of Barbossa whom actually sought out the freed Salazar to hunt down Jack for him. It's all because he wants this legendary treasure for himself, everyone wants this boring treasure, this trident thing. (Well boring until you realize what it is in the end of the film.)
The Un-dead shark/running from the ghost pirates charging across the waters scene was full of so much suspense.
Johnny Depp did a great job with his off-script comedy during the wedding bit. The Black Pearl returns and we find out a secret of Barbossa.
I saw a review from a popular guy on you-tube, Chris Stuckmann, he said the beginning of this movie was inspiring and the ending was enjoyable but that the middle was lame. I have to absolutely disagree. The trident treasure talk isn't all that interesting but it's very fleeting, there is no long dull explanations. This thing moves so quickly, it has such potential and creativity especially for a fifth installment. If it wasn't for such bad ratings I'd say it was the franchise's second wind.
Maybe word of mouth will save it, but I think alot of people lost interest with the franchise over the years which doesn't help.
The last twenty minutes I will not spell out, this is more for those that have seen it and will understand the following.
1) Funny the "witch" girl's history/life purpose is a unintended mis-direction, but she definitely made something out of nothing.
2) Could have done without the ship's statues coming alive.
3) Sal really took a leap of faith in that trident to cover his ass for wreak-less stunts.
4) A important death.
5) The entire race to the island and then the show-down in the split of the sea was pretty damn good.
However, I find it hilarious that they pretty much devastated the underlining theme of all these movies with their curses. Does this mean the franchise is going in a new direction?
The ending is a mile stone in the series and would be a conclusion if not for the post credit scene.
The return of Davy Jones...