Tag: Gabriel Bateman

Playmobil The Movie

Rated: GPlaymobil The Movie

Directed by: Lino DiSalvo

Screenplay by: Blaise Hemingway, Greg Erb and Jason Oremland

Story by: Lino DiSalvo

Produced by: Aton Soumache, Dimitri Rassam, Moritz Borman, Alexis Vonarb, Axel Von Maydell, Timothy Burrill and Bing Wu

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Jim Gaffigan, Gabriel Bateman, Adam Lambert, Kenan Thompson, Meghan Trainor and Daniel Radcliffe.

‘I’ll be the girl I used to be.’

Marla (Anya Taylor-Joy) has her whole life in front of her and expresses this enthusiasm to explore the world by singing with her little brother, Charlie (Gabriel Bateman).

Oh yeah, Playmobil The Movie, is a musical (see the score by musician Heitor Pereira (Despicable Me trilogy, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, The Smurfs movies, Minions, Smallfoot, Angry Birds Movie 2 and original songs, co-written by Anne Preven).

Then the film takes a dark turn when tragedy strikes the brother and sister.

Fast forward four years later and Marla no longer has her fresh, wide-eyed view of the world, her little brother accusing her of not knowing how to have fun.

It’s all a bit cringe-worthy until the duo fall into the Playmobil world where the characters turn into live-action Playmobil figurines.

Finding themselves in an action-adventure with car chases and villains and dinosaurs, all the Playmobil® toys that have been around since 1974 come to life as brother and sister fight alongside Vikings and a suave James Bond.  So the film’s about finding the excitement and zest for life they both lost when Marla had to become sister and parent.

The animation from ON Animation Montreal (Julien Bocabeille (How to Train Your Dragon 1 and 2, Puss in Boots, Rise of the Guardians, The Croods, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3, Penguins of Madagascar and The Boss Baby)) is well put together using the stiff toys then adding movement and life with materials like cloth, and there were moments of fun with villain, Emperor Maximus (Adam Lambert) sitting behind a buff body painted on one side of his chariot.

But this is a film directed at a young audience so there wasn’t much for me to enjoy except some fun changes in genre along the way.

Child’s Play

Rated: MA15+Child's Play

Directed by: Lars Klevberg

Screenplay by: Tyler Burton Smith

Produced by: Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg

Executive Producer: Chris Ferguson

Starring: Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza, Brian Tyree Henry and Mark Hamill as the voice of Chucky.

‘Are we having fun yet?’

‘I guess.’

‘Yay!’

Child’s Play (1988) is a classic horror movie I remember watching when I was about twelve-years old.

I remember it was about a doll and it was scary; and I remember cringing and trying to get to sleep after seeing feet hanging out the end of a bed getting sliced by a knife.

So, I knew I was waking into a movie about a killer doll. But was somehow surprised by the horror, meaty horror at that, where the writing and the performance of single mom Karen (Aubrey Plaza) and son Andy (Gabriel Bateman) suspended reality enough to get a decent scare going when this life-like Buddi doll, doesn’t get possessed or start off being evil, but becomes a serial killer by mimicking what people do; by doing what he thinks his best buddy Andy wants him to do.

Afterall, he is a Buddi doll.

Chucky would do anything for his best mate.  Including ripping the skin off faces, hanging people, stabbing and setting up angle grinders to saw pesky people in half.

Child’s Play re-imagined manages to give a classic horror, but somewhat hard to swallow concept, a believable hook.

Here, we have ‘Chucky 2.0’ based on the technology of today – where electronics are interconnected, wireless and activated by voice command.

So all we have to believe is that Chucky is an animated doll capable of responding to commands like Siri or Alexa.

Sure there were contrived moments like a person with broken legs, bones broken through skin, still able to crawl rather than writhing in agony; and rope around a neck suddenly loosened when a body falls to the ground.  But it still kind of hung together.

And that had a lot to do with the tone of the film, director Lars Klevberg balancing the gore and horror with some dark humour that really hit the mark, like the question of why is there fruit involved?!

Just think watermelons being a similar shape to a decapitated head.

Yep, Child’s Play is gory and funny with Mark Hamill voicing the evil doll that is Chucky, surprisingly effective on so many levels – childhood, Star Wars, evil doll.  Why not?  If the voice fits.

There’s enough essence of Chucky-the-original to keep fans happy, while the fresh take lifts the original concept somewhere the audience can laugh with and not at – a close call for me at the beginning of the film, saved by the wry performance of Aubrey Plaza and the likable Brian Tyree Henry as Detective Mike who lives down the hall.

Lights Out

 

Directed By: David SandbergLights Out

Screenplay: Eric Heisserer

Based on a Short Film by: David F. Sandberg

Cast: Teresa Palmer, Gabriel Bateman, Alexander DiPersia, Billy Burke, Maria Bello, Alicia Vela-Bailey, Andi Osho, Rolando Boyce; Maria Russell.

Although a sometimes tense horror-thriller, Lights Out felt lightweight.

This is a difficult story to tell and I don’t want to give too much away.  Suffice to say Rebecca’s (Teresa Palmer) mum’s (Maria Bello) having a meltdown and she’s scared her kid brother’s (Gabriel Bateman) in trouble.  Like she was at his age.  When she was being haunted by her mum’s imaginary friend, Dianne.

Director David Sandberg (who also created the short film) puts effort into the atmosphere of Lights Out.  The soundtrack is a creepy backdrop to the shadows and glowing eyes of the creature that is Dianne.  And the screenplay itself is well-thought with a backstory of how Dianne became.

The missing element to the film was the lack of depth of character.

Rebecca, the rebellious daughter and protagonist of the film was dismissive and her boyfriend, the ever faithful Bret (Alexander DiPersia) was frankly, too nice to believe.  Not to sound bitter but do guys like Bret actually exist?

Martin, the kid brother, was a bit strained; the mother, Sophie the only really believable character.

I love a good horror, and there were definite tense moments.  I jumped at least once.

Clever devices were used: plastic sheeting covering the bodies of plastic, life-sized models is creepy.  And tapping into the deep-seated fear of being scared of the dark was well shown with the character of Dianne conversely being scared of the light.  But because the other characters weren’t believable, it became difficult to hold the suspension of reality concerning Dianne.

The film was missing that heavy weight, the surprise I’m coming to expect from modern horror directors such as James Wan (note here he was the producer not the director for Lights Out).

Better than your average trashy horror but I’d say Lights Out was directed at a younger audience.

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