Category: Comedy

Thunder Road

Rated: MThunder Road

Directed and Created by: Jim Cummings

Based on the Short Film: ‘Thunder Road’ (2016)

Produced by: Natalie Metzger, Zack Parker, Benjamin Wiessner

Starring: Jim Cummings, Kendal Farr, Nican Robinson, Macon Blair, Jocelyn DeBoer, Chelsea Edmunson Ammie Leonards and Bill Wise.

Thunder Road, named after the Bruce Springsteen song, is a character-driven film about a dishevelled cop (with mustache) falling apart.

Officer Jim Arnaud is an awkward guy, especially around normal people, like sitting around the dinner table with the family of his partner, Officer Nate Lewis (Nican Robinson), telling embarrassing stories without realising he shouldn’t be telling his partner’s family about his miscalculations; he doesn’t act any more normal at his mother’s funeral, or at parent-teacher meetings about his daughter, Crystal (Kendal Farr).

It’s in these awkward moments we get to know Jim, as he gives a eulogy at his mother’s funeral, about how she donated money so the nasty Down Syndrome girl at his school could play safely, like the other kids.  The nasty girl was a biter, you see.  And may not have had Down Syndrome.

Thunder Road isn’t a flashy film – there’s nothing clever about the camera shots or setting.  This is all about the script and delivery from director, writer and star Jim Cummings.

The facial expressions of this guy are hilarious.  Seeing those waves of emotion take over his face, then to see him pull it together only to lose it again.  It’s seeing this super-nice guy, doing his absolute best in the worst of circumstances, then just lose his grip that tickles: standing, about to throw a child’s school desk, the teacher subtly pocketing the school safety-scissors included.

His mother is dead, his siblings don’t show at the funeral, his wife has left him, his daughter can’t stand him and is acting out, making statements like, ‘I hope I get mum’s boobs.’  And his job as a cop is emotionally draining and stressful.

His life is eating him alive.

But Jim continues to try to do the right thing only to end up with ripped pants.

Don’t get me wrong, the humour here is subtle – like the way Jim is described, ‘Everyone grieves differently.  Everyone’s unique.’

You can just see it – how the nice people describe someone losing the plot at a funeral.

I’m still giggling.

Yet there’s a real sweet, heart-warmer here as well.  A dad doing his absolute best for his kid.  And seeing a friend helping out a buddy who just can’t get it right warms the cockles.

A refreshing take on how life just is sometimes with an extraordinary script serving up the heart of a character with perfect delivery: pure gold.

Crime Wave (Ola De Crimenes)

Directed by: Gracia QuerejetaCrime Wave (Ola De Crimenes)

Written by: Luis Marίas

Starring: Maribel Verdú, Juana Acosta, Paula Echevarrίa, Luis Tosar, Asier Rikarte, Miguel Bernardeau and Raúl Arévalo.

Opening in a confessional, with Leyre (Maribel Verdú) attempting to explain to the priest her sins, Leyre asks the priest for reassurance, wanting to make sure of the sanctity of the confession, that her sins would not be passed on to anyone but God.

‘Honey, this isn’t twitter,’ the priest replies, setting the tone of the film.

A thriller and comedy is a strange mix and just asking for the ridiculous.

And the main character, Leyre, ex-wife to murdered husband and mother to sociopathic son, Asier (Asier Rikarte) who murders his father with a pair of scissors, is a ridiculous character: tripping over her high-heels and cleavage on show with every outfit.  I found myself gritting my teeth at the ditzy behaviour.

Leyre attempts to cover-up the murder of her husband while her odd son is unable to absorb the seriousness of the crime, being a sociopath and all.  She runs around like a neurotic that in turn, causes a crime wave across the city of Bilbao.

To try to blend the different styles of story, the comedy with the crime, the soundtrack is used to spark that recognition of detective, who-done-it movies, with brass raunchy outbursts (a little like the character, Leyre).  Then we get classical for the son; the best music in the soundtrack for the entire film.  But mostly, it’s that sleezy music that works as a devise for change of tone but didn’t absorb me into the film because it felt like it was trying too hard.

But there’s some clever here with some genuinely funny moments that I just haven’t seen anywhere else: Vanessa (Paula Echevarrίa) the current wife of the murdered husband, manages to include her hiccups into the manipulation of a conversation by explaining they’re a reminder from the dead husband because he used to always hiccup.

And the tape playing English lessons in the taxi as Leyre convinces the taxi driver (Raúl Arévalo) to help her establish an alibi saying, ‘I’m mad.  I’m mad,’ Yes, the taxi driver is a little mad!

There are many moments of the highly amusing including the infatuation of lover boy (and Asier’s only friend), Julen (Miguel Bernardeau), with Leyre – constantly blowing his load while professing his undying love…

And the pace doesn’t let up.

We get the murder of douche bag husband, the coverup, the current wife in dodgy business with corrupt lawyer, Susana (Juana Acosta), the detectives investigating the crime with their own headaches in life and the taxi-driver / bad actor tricked into a false alibi.  It’s nuts!

Of course it’s nuts.  But also, a little brilliant.

Little

Rated: PGLITTLE

Directed by: Tina Gordon

Screenplay Written by: Tracy Oliver and Tina Gordon

Story by: Tracy Oliver

Produced by: Will Packer, p.g.a, Kenya Barris and James Lopez, p.g.a

Starring: Regina Hall, Issa Rae, Tone Bell, Mikey Day, Marsai Martin, JD McCrary, Thalia Tran, Tucker Meek, Luke James and Rachel Dratch.

When Jordan Sanders (Regina Hall) showed-off her scientific talent in front of an audience of pre-teens only for the bully of the school to ruin her moment, her parents tell her (as they push her with a braced neck and plastered arm in a wheelchair) not to worry because when she gets big, smart kids become the boss.  And no-one bully’s the boss.

Taking this predication as gospel, she becomes a rich tech CEO, running her company, JS Innovations with a be-jewelled iron fist.

She doesn’t care if her staff hate her.  As long as they get the job done.

So when her slippers aren’t precisely 53 cm from the edge of her bed, so her feet fall on the feathered fluffy numbers she calls slippers, it’s hell to pay.  And hell to be paid by her assistant, April (Issa Rae).

No wonder April’s listening to self-help audio books with titles, ‘So You Want To Slap Your Boss.’

When Jordan finally crosses the line, calling out the young daughter of the food truck owner who sells donuts outside her company, the young girl waves her magic plastic wand, wishing the mean boss lady was little.

It’s a classic body-swap of a 38-year-old adult to a 13-year-old, pre-teen.  Only this time, it’s the black girls calling the shots.

Look, I wasn’t really expecting much with this film, maybe a bit of a giggle on a rainy night.  And there were some giggles like the term, BMW: Black Mamma Whooping.

But the story felt disjointed, like it couldn’t quite decide whether to be a girls-night-out comedy or a pre-teen kid, feel-good movie.

The editing didn’t help with the funniest moments spliced in like an after-thought, just to inject some humour in the mix.

There’s a strong performance from new-comer, Marsai Martin as Little Jordan Sanders.  Marsai pitched the idea when she noticed a cultural gap in these body-swap comedies we’ve all seen before: “There weren’t a lot of little black girls with glasses that looked like me on TV or in movies, so I just wanted to create something where you see more of myself and what you look like.”

She wanted one of those funny movies but with black characters.

And the writers make the most of this cultural difference, throwing in jokes like, ‘That only happens to white people.  Black people don’t have the time.’

But the film doesn’t dwell here, with, Jordan’s uber rich and biggest client asking, ‘Did you know there’s three dinner napkins on your back.’

‘It’s fashion,’ she explains.

She has her weaknesses.

There’s also the comment of it’s better to wake up rich and heart broken, then broke AND heart broken.

Yet, there’s not much digging here, more a focus on Jordan’s reaction to the incident in junior high, that motivated her to become a bully and get rich.

There’s a lot of praising the dollar, leading to some pretty cool outfits, nice apartment, super cool car, etc, etc…

Looking good makes you feel good – right?!

The question isn’t asked.  It’s just not that kind of movie.

Little is more about rich people having tantrums and learning life lessons like you can be yourself and succeed.  With an added BTW, money rules.

 

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Directed by: Terry GilliamThe Man Who Killed Don Quixote

Written by: Terry Gilliam and Tony Grisoni

Produced by: Mariela Besuievsky, Gerardo Herrero, Amy Gilliam, Grégoire Melin, Sébastien Delloye

Starring: Adam Driver, Jonathan Pryce, Stellan Skarsgärd, Olga Kurylenko, Joana Ribeiro, Óscar Jaenada, Jason Watkins.

Thirty years in the making (and unmaking), director and writer, Terry Gilliam (The Fisher King, 12 Monkeys, Brazil, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) was determined that, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote would be made.

Based on the famous classic novel, Don Quixote (The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha) written by Miguel de Cervantes (in two parts in 1605 and 1615), the film echoes the metafiction view, where the fiction both creates and lays bare that illusion.

Lead Toby (Adam Driver), the director of the film, ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’ (that’s just one of many circles within circles here in this film of the same name), wipes the English subtitles literally from the screen, announcing they’re not required – there’s that laying bare the illusion.

Here, we have a film about making a movie about Don Quixote while combining elements of the classic novel in Tody’s present.

No wonder the script was written and re-written for thirty years.

There’s even a documentary about the difficulties of making this film, ‘This hellish adventure […] captured in great detail in the documentary feature film, Lost in La Mancha (2002),’ if you’d like to explore further.

I myself was dubious setting out on this adventure, thankful the flashbacks weren’t an attempt to hark back to the 1600s.  That would have felt pat.  Instead we have a man driven insane by Tody’s college film, yep, ‘The Man Who Killed Don Quixote’, casting an old shoe-maker, Javier, (Jonathan Pryce), working in the small Spanish village, Los Sueños (Gallipienzo), where Toby decides to film his college project using real villages to avoid being cliché.

When Toby returns, years later, as a famous slick director, he finds the people of Los Sueños damaged after his last visit; the young and beautiful fifteen-year-old Angelica (Joana Ribeiro) broken while searching for the promise to be made a movie star, the shoe-maker cast as Don Quixote mad, with the belief he is the real, Don Quixote.

With events that range from amusing to the ridiculous (hence my initial dubious take of the film), Tody ends up in the unfortunate position of becoming the present day’s Don Quixote’s (AKA the shoe-maker) loyal squire, Sancho Panza.

This is where the movie starts to get somewhere: the slick director sitting atop a donkey, commanded by a crazy old man not afraid to hit him with a stick turns the ridiculous and amusing into outright funny.

Adam Driver as Toby bouncing off Jonathan Pryce as the mad pseudo Don Quixote make for some hilarious moments.  Only Jonathan Pryce could have pulled-off such a character, his theatre background pronouncing itself in the twinkle of a cheeky eye.

Then, as Tody gets more absorbed into his role as Sancho, the more dramatic and romantic the story as Angelica returns as the beautiful girl who needs saving from a Russian oligarch, Alexei Mishkin (Jordi Mollá) who ends up hosting a spectacular costume party in an ancient castle to celebrate Holy Week.

The setting of the film was shot in locations from Spain, Portugal and the Canary Island of Fuerteventura; ruins and castles including the Castillo de Oreja, Almonacid de Toledo and Monasterio de Piedra giving that Spanish flavour of Cervantes’ classic.

There’s also the addition of the Spanish guitar in the soundtrack and flamenco dancing with costuming that lift the film beyond the ridiculous into something more fantasy then drama or even comedy.  It’s all of it, rolled into an interpretation of the novel that mirrors Cervantes’ introduction of metafiction into the literary world, giving us that extra layer where the fiction is able to take a look at itself from the outside.

Not that the film dwells in this extra layer – this is more, a circle within a circle storyline that if you can get through the awkward moments at the beginning (Adam Driver helps here), then the reward is a film that successfully pushes the boundaries of cinematic perspective.

Fighting With My Family

Rated: MFighting With My Family

Directed and Written by: Stephen Merchant

Produced by: Kevin Misher, Michael J. Luisi

Starring: Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), Florence Pugh, Jack Lowden, Nick Frost, Lena Headey, Vince Vaughn.

Based on the 2012 documentary, The Wrestlers: Fighting with My Family (directed by: Max Fisher), Fighting with My Family is a dramatization about WWE professional wrestling diva, Paige and her rise to fame.

From Norwich (the mustard capital of England) to the sunny shores of Florida, we follow the wrestling obsessed Bevis family as siblings Zak (Zodiac) and Saraya (AKA Paige, named after her favourite Charmed character) try-out for training for a SmackDown at The O2 Arena.

There’s the tough as nuts Brit humour – ‘dick me til I’m dead and bury me pregnant’ – from the wrestling-mad family; the mum Julia (Lena Headey) coming out with lines like, ‘his legs bend both ways – you should see his dick’.  And Nick Frost cast as Rick the dad (who spent eight years in prison, ‘mostly for violence’) is brilliantly cast.

It’s the sibling rivalry that adds drama to the film, with brother Zac (Jack Lowden) wanting to make it to the WWE arena just as bad as his sister, Saraya (Florence Pugh).

Or, as it goes, Saraya has to prove she wants it just as much as him; and well, anybody.

It’s a cheering the underdog kinda movie – dog included – that goes hard on the humour to start, including some gems from The Rock himself (Dwayne Johnson).

Seeing Dwayne circle back to his origins here, showing that, fight until you win, drama gave me an appreciation of the sport.

It’s not fake; it’s fixed.

Trainer Hutch Morgan (Vince Vaughn – always good in a trainer role!) has to harden the want-to-be professional wrestlers so they can take the pain and winding and 60 quid if you’ll take a bowling-ball-to-the-balls action.

Then there are those dramatic moments like the advice of: Be the First You; the timing of these moments well-placed, well-stated, and really, very sweet.

The sport is shown as escapism, making sense of the outsiders who embrace it.

And I related, feeling warm and fuzzy because the characters are so down-to-earth.  I like escaping too.

Paige went on to open-up the sport – being the youngest female wrestler to succeed.  Because of Paige, the sport now shows more coverage of female wrestlers.

And the fun of the story made a surprisingly entertaining film.

I kept bursting with laughter at the obvious crude humour, but there’s also the ticklish like a literal hammer on the end of a long pole made by kids because they’re bored: hilarious.

Not a wrestling fan, I did not expect to enjoy this film as much as I did.  But Fighting With My Family is well worth a watch.

Cold Pursuit

Rated: MA15+Cold Pursuit

Directed by: Hans Petter Moland

Screenplay by: Frank Baldwin

Based on the Movie, ‘Kraftidioten’ Written by: Kim Fupz Aakeson

Produced by: Michael Shamberg p.g.a, Ameet Shukla p.g.a

Starring: Liam Neeson, Tom Bateman, Tom Jackson, Emmy Rossum, Laura Dern, John Doman, Domenick Lombardozzi, Julia Jones, Gus Halper, Micheál Richardson, Michael Eklund, Bradley Stryker, Wesley Macinnes, Nicholas Holmes, Benjamin Hollingsworth, Michael Adamthwaite, William Forsythe, Elizabeth Thai, David O’Hara, Raoul Trujillo, Nathaniel Arcand, Glen Gould, Mitchell Saddleback, Christopher Logan, Arnold Pinnock and Ben Cotton.

An English remake of the Norwegian film, In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten) (2014), we certainly see a lot of people get, disappeared.

Set in the snowy mountains of Kehoe, Nels Coxman (Liam Neeson) has just won the Citizen of the Year award.

He’s a simple, family man.  He plows snow so others can get to where they need to be. In his speech he says he was lucky, he picked a good road early and stayed on it.

Until his son is killed by drug dealers.

Cold Pursuit is a bloody revenge film filled with gangsters with names like: The Eskimo, Speedo and Wingman…  Because, well, it’s a gangster thing.

There’s this quirky dark humour where small-town cop Gip (John Doman) thinks drugs should be legalised – to give the people what they want, tax the shit out of it, so the government can double the cops’ pay.

But more than that, the sheer number of people who get killed (see the number of actors cast above) and how they get killed, is… funny.

There are so many funny moments that mostly hit the mark and sometimes don’t.  Pink phones and rubber ducks didn’t quite make it for me.

But added details like the plush hotel with the white fake fur reception desk getting a buff and brush, tickled.

What I realised as the film progressed was the presence of Liam Neeson as the main character, and the clever way director, Hans Petter Moland, uses Neeson’s gravitas for comic effect.

I really like Neeson in this film: still the hero, still the family man – like we’ve seen so many times before – but all that history he owns in that hero-family-man role is used to add another layer to the film.

A revenge, shoot-em-up movie with elements of gangster turned on its head with a super-food conscious villain (AKA Viking), a Thai ball-breaker wife making a tropical paradise in the middle of snowy mountains, a profile-in-pink drug dealer who also sells wedding dresses and drug dealing Native Americans who adore wearing mustard yellow gloves.

Sure the humour is laid on a bit thick and tried too hard at times, but the balance of action, drama, violence and those gallows-humour, ticklish moments made for a (mostly) great entertainer.

Got to say, Liam Neeson’s still got it.

Bumblebee

Rated: MBumblebee

Directed by: Travis Knight

Screenplay by: Christina Hodson

Story by: Christina Hodson

Produced by: Michael Bay, Tom DeSanto, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, Don Murphy, Mark Vahradian

Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Justin Theroux, Dylan O’Brian, Angela Bassett, Peter Cullen, Pamela Adlon, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr, Jason Drucker, Stephen Schneider.

A spin-off from the Transformers series (1-5 directed by Michael Bay, here as producer), Bumblebee introduces new director Travis Knight and writer Christina Hodson.  And the franchise just keeps getting better.

Bumblebee opens on the war raging on Cybertron.

With the Decepticons on the brink of annihilating the Autobot resistance, Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) sends B-127 (Dylan O’Brian) to Earth in the hope to rebuild and fight again.

On Earth, circa 1987 (this is a prequel to the original Transformers (2007)), Charlie’s (Hailee Steinfeld) about to turn eighteen.  She spends her days listening to music (The Smiths, of course) and fixing an old Corvette in memory of her deceased Dad.  It’s zits (Hailee Steinfeld has that teen-angst down to an art), her annoying martial-arts yellow-belt younger brother, Otis (Jason Drucker) and humiliation while working at the fair in what looks like a clown costume while serving divas who have number plates that read: UWish.

It’s painful to the extent new stepdad, Ron (Stephen Schneider) decides it’s a good idea to give Charlie a book about the magic of smiling… For her birthday.

Charlie doesn’t notice Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr) trying to get her attention.  What Charlie does notice is a yellow VW Bug, just asking for some love, AKA Bumblebee.

With the army chasing an alien they don’t understand and the Decepticons fighting to extinguish the last of the resistance, human and transformer fight together while forming an unlikely friendship.

Even in the previous instalments of Transformers Bumblebee was a favourite.  And writer Christina Hodson has built on a winning character, explaining quirks like his lost voice and how Charlie gives it back to him.

And the expression given to this Autobot, with pupils that dilate to show emotion, the kicking of legs while being examined like a kid who trusts a carer, all add to that adorable, bull-in-a-china-shop appeal.

We get funny and adorable from all the characters, really.  Even the annoying younger brother gets his time to shine, all mixed with explosive action and sudden flash forwards of focus to keep up the pace.

The writing here is really entertaining; the timing of jokes just right so even a cheesy moment is backed-up with a laugh.

And director Travis Knight adds detail after detail to get the most out of the action and drama of the story, adding layers like a reflection of lights a shadow of the Decepticons onto the army men with evil intentions – a transference instead of a transformance.

So, there’s more to the film if you’re looking for it.

Mostly, I was entertained by the antics of Bumblebee.

A lot of fun, Bumblebee was better than expected with good humour, explosive action and heart-warming moments that manages to humanise a mass of moving metal parts: like us, playing music makes a car feel better.  Loved it.

Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch

Rated: GThe Grinch

Directed by: Scott Mosier, Yarrow Cheney

Based on the Book: ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ by Dr. Seuss 1957

Screenplay by: Michael LeSieur, Tommy Swerdlow

Produced by: Chris Meledandri, p.g.a, Janet Healy, p.g.a

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Rashida Jones, Kenan Thompson, Cameron Seely with Angela Lansbury and Pharrell Williams.

Based on the Dr. Seuss book (1957) ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, The Grinch modernises a classic tale of a self-isolating grump (Grinch’s voice-over by Benedict Cumberbatch) who hates Christmas because he can’t stand all the bright light and exuberant joy – three times as much joy called for this year by the major of Whoville.

All Grinchie (so named by the super-friendly neighbour Bricklebaum (Kenan Thompson)) feels when he sees all that joy is pain.

Being chased by over-enthusiastic carollers in town while having to re-stock the cupboards after emotional over-eating… during Christmas week… does not help matters.

What Grinch wants is quiet and isolation in his abode on Mt. Crumpet, with his constant companion Max; the dog able to read his moods from annoyed to really annoyed while making his morning coffee.

So when Grinch sees the size of the giant Christmas tree, where all the Who Folk of Whoville will sing carols – it’s too much.

Christmas has to be cancelled.

And the way to stop Christmas is to dress up like Santa, abduct a tubby reindeer, Fred who looks like he ate the other seven reindeers (hilarious), steal a sleigh from a roof-top and burglarise everyone’s house taking all the presents.

That’ll make him feel better.  He thinks, until he meets little Cindy-Lou (Cameron Seely) who only wants to help her overworked mum.  Cindy-Lou doesn’t want presents, she only wants to feel the joy.

It’s all very sweet.  And the classic nature of The Grinch, the cantankerous meanness of the green, pot-bellied critter is even funnier when alongside the over-joyous Whos while Max and Fred (the orange-haired reindeer) are all the more adorable alongside the grumpy Grinch.

Everyone loves to see a Grinch turn good.  It warms the heart.

And the attention to detail, the artwork of scenes like the light maze and the inventions of Grinch including the extenda-legs; Max turning in his dog matt just that one more time like real dogs do; The Grinch trucking around in sandals over socks; and the little stubby legs of Cindy-Lou as she prepares to leave for the north pole to find Santa in four winter jackets really keeps up the cuteness and fun of the film.

It took me a while to get absorbed into the Christmas world and spirit, but I couldn’t help some laugh-out-loud moments with the screaming goat – Benedict Cumberbatch as The Grinch noting the goat as nothing but ‘strange’ – capturing that sense of humour that I find ticklish.

The Grinch is a classic made with a wave of magic from the Illumination CEO Chris Meledandri who also adapted Horton Hears a Who! (2008) and The Lorax (2012), the success here in those added details so the kids will be entertained by the fun of the story, the light twinkling, the not-so-quiet antics of Fred (who my nephew found hilarious!), while the adults will appreciate the extra effort of getting the wonder of the story as realistic as if it was a film about people: that crotchety old Grandpa, or grumpy Aunty that just needs an extra hug at Christmas-time.

Night School

Rated: MNight School

Directed by: Malcolm D. Lee

Written by: Kevin Hart, Harry Ratchford, Joey Wells, Matt Kellard, Nicholas Stoller, John Hamburg

Produced by: Will Packer, Kevin Hart

Starring: Kevin Hart, Tiffany Haddish, Taran Killam, Romany Malco.

I arrived at the preview of Night School with my tub of popcorn expecting a big, bold American-style comedy and it was that, but it was also something more.

The movie opens with Teddy (Kevin Hart) sparring with his sister over his decision to quit high school rather than face yet another test. Teddy argues that the test is not relevant to African American students; he can’t see the point of, ‘calculating the average number of Manatees in California’.

At the time, leaving school did not seem like such a bad idea. A few years later and Teddy is selling barbeques so successfully that his boss offers to hand over the business to him when he retires. Teddy seems to have it all: a drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend, a luxury sports car and a secure, well-paid future. That is, until he accidentally blows up Barbeque City.

Despite an unparalleled talent for hustling, Teddy is looking at a long term future on the side of a highway wearing a chicken suit unless he returns to school. Unluckily for Teddy, the boy he publicly humiliated when they were students (Taran Killam) now runs the school, striding down the corridors with a baseball bat and a horrible case of ‘black-talking’, and the woman teaching the night class (Tiffany Haddish) turns out to be the complete stranger who dissed him out at the traffic lights earlier on. Even the text book is terrifyingly huge, and definitely not the mere ‘leaflet’ Teddy was hoping for.

If this isn’t enough, he discovers that he has a cocktail of learning difficulties including: dyslexia, dyscalculia and a processing disorder. Not that it wins Teddy any sympathy with his smart and fiercely dedicated teacher. She quips that he is ‘clinically dumb’ before launching a unique hands on special-ed program designed to unencumber his ‘neural pathways’.

All of this might turn others to a life of crime (has turned one class member), but Teddy still has his beautiful fiancé, Lisa, to live up to. Believing that she is out of his league, he has convinced her that he’s working for his best friend as an investment adviser, but he must first qualify for his GED if he is to make this true.

Usually, when I see a movie for the first time I experience the score in a direct, visceral way, and it takes deliberate effort to tune in to the sound more consciously. In this instance I did manage to wrench myself out of the action and I was impressed not only by the cleverness of the soundtrack, but the unpredictable ways it enhanced the comedy.

It wasn’t until final scenes that I realised that the Night School had been made with a genuine sense of conviction, and with much stealth, guile and cunning I had been drawn into a view of education as more important than any obstacle, however enormous. Yet the achievement of this movie is that there was not the slightest feeling of being lectured to. Well, maybe a tiny bit in the final joke littered speech. By then the entire cast has experienced their own brand of growth. Even the principal has shed his ‘black talking’ sneer.

Smallfoot

Rated: GSmallfoot

Directed by: Karey Kirkpatrick

Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick and Clare Sera

Screen Story by: John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Karey Kirkpatrick

Based on the book: Yeti Tracks, by Sergio Pablos

Produced by: Bonne Radford, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring: Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito, Gina Rodriguez, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry and Jimmy Tatro.

The only thing stronger than fear is curiosity.

Living above the clouds on the peak of a snowy mountain, a yeti named Migo (Channing Tatum) has been waiting to train to be like his dad and become a head-butting, gong ringer to call the sun-snail to bring the light of the sky every morning.

That’s what the stones say, and the Stonekeeper (Common) is always reminding the yeti tribe that below the clouds is the Big Nothing.

So when Migo is launched in training, only to miss the gong and be flung outside the yeti community, he’s as shocked as the human when he finds a smallfoot, as the smallfoot human is to find a yeti.

Disappearing from view and leaving no trace, his father and the rest of the village can’t believe Migo found a smallfoot.  Except the SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society).

Meechee (Zendaya) and her SES gang, Kolka (Gina Rodriguez), Gwangi (LeBron James), Fleem (Ely Henry) and Cali believe not just in the smallfoot, but that there’s far more out there then the stones have led them to believe.

On their research expedition into the Big Nothing they find Percy, a smallfoot with a career as a wildlife expert; a celebrity made famous by making a TV series that’s about to be cancelled because of a dwindling audience.  Percy will do anything to get his face out there.  Including faking a yeti sighting.  So, when he actually finds a yeti and the yeti finds a smallfoot, they’re both terrified and fascinated.

There’s this, ‘curiosity killed the yak’ theme versus the search for truth being more important than all else.

Which I felt dangerous for a young audience – to go out there searching for the truth no matter what.  I had an understanding for the want to lie to protect… which adds that needed obstacle to overcome in the film, giving the story a bit of grit.

The safety of the yeti and the threat of murder felt a little serious with nutty mountain goats and pink Snuffleupagus look-a-likes needed to soften the vibe of the film.

I just didn’t find the film very funny.

And I think some of the seriousness of the film may have been confronting for a really young audience.

Visually, the artwork and animation was smooth and beautifully put together with realistic fur and chase scenes seen from above like watching a game of Pacman.

But the story didn’t really work for me.  It wasn’t until the film got close to the end that I started to appreciate what the film was trying to achieve.

Mostly, I felt mildly uncomfortable with too many teachable moments for my taste.

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