Elliot The Littlest Reindeer

Rated: GElliot The Littlest Reindeer

Directed and Written by:  Jennifer Westcott

Produced by:   Michael Emerson, Victoria Wescott

Starring: Morena Baccarin, Josh Hutcherson, John Cleese.

I must confess I got excited when I read about the stellar voice cast including names such as John Cleese and Martin Short. I love animation and I knew absolutely nothing about Elliot The Littlest Reindeer, walking in with an open mind.

First impression was weak though for he graphics looked like I was home playing PS4 and the awkward character’s tone attempt to wink at humour was soon defeated by a numb storyline. There was one moment I laughed, when the Highland horse with Braveheart-painted face and accent to match appeared on the screen. And that was it.

Barely 30 minutes into the film, something unprecedented happened: half the reviewers watching left the cinema. Imagine that. And I sat there, unable to find a comfortable position not the will to fall asleep for a painful hour and a half. Do you want to know my very honest opinion? Well, I wouldn’t take my worst enemy’s children to endure this waste of time and resources. Still want to know more? Sure, let’s continue.

The protagonist, a miniature horse with illusions of grandeur, is bullied by jerk-reindeers (the film’s words not mine) every time he attempts to train with them. Suddenly, Blitzen decides to retire and Santa organises a competition to select the next best thing and everything goes down the hill from here. Elliott goes from friendly horse to wannabe-reindeer in sixty seconds flat, leaving his old friends for a chance to be accepted.

But wait, there is more. The baddie-bad villain Miss Ludzinka, a Cruella De Ville type voiced by Martin Short, plans to purchase Elliott’s farm to make jerky out of its residents. Yes, I said jerky. Yummy. Now, after winning, Elliott is disqualified for not being a reindeer and the judges discover that DJ (the antagonist, Blitzen’s son and Elliot’s personal jerk-reindeer bully for convenience sake) has used additional ‘magical cookies’ to stay high in the sky for longer and win the competition.

If they don’t win, they lose the farm. All is lost, or is it? No spoilers here. All I am going to say if that the logline ‘big dreamers dream big’ is repeated over and over to ensure the audience stays tuned and follows Elliott the wannabe-reindeer and his owner the wannabe-farmer on their journey to become better beings.

What happens next? You’ll have to find out. Or maybe not. Maybe you can spare your kids and go watch something where animals are not threatened to be butchered, smoked and become jerky. Just a thought.

Redeeming features of the film include a nice old-fashioned score by Grayson Matthews and interesting facial expressions courtesy of animation director Sean Coughlin’s and his team. Until next time!

Deadpool

deadpoolGoMovieReviews Rating: ★★★1/2

Directed by: Tim Miller

Written by: Rhett Reese; Paul Wernick

Based on Deadpool by Fabian Nicieza and Rob Liefeld

Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Ed Skrein, T. J Miller, Gina Carano, Brianna Hildebrand, Stefan Kapičić

With the writers being the real heroes, crutch shots, butt shots and all manner of side remarks, including the mention of Wolverine’s balls from Down Under – yes, I didn’t mind this self-deprecating humour of Deadpool.

First appearing in the Marvel Comic, ‘The New Mutants (#98)’, the history of Deadpool and the X-Men is quickly glossed over in the film, with Deadpool himself mentioning the producer only forking out for two X-Men characters. See here for an article regarding Deadpool’s origins…

The story-line of Deadpool, the movie, is based on Wade (Ryan Reynolds) becoming Deadpool, and his revenge in being made into a monster, and a very unattractive one at that.

Rather than living the torturous life of a human mutant slave, Deadpool gets his kill-count up in search for Ajax, AKA Francis (Ed Skrein, yep, the actor who played Daario Naharis in Game of Thrones), who took him away from his lady love, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). Well, he kinda took himself away but didn’t realise what he was getting himself into.

Don’t expect a PG-type comic movie here. I was a bit surprised by the violence. But the fast-paced action and many bullets to the head, cutting off of hands, broken ankles and general blood spatter helped balance the constant commentary from Deadpool. A little too much, for my taste and as stated by Ajax, certainly ‘a talker’.

A lot of the film was very funny and in addition to creative camera work (Ken Seng as cinematographer), and attention to detail by director, Tim Miller, there’s another dimension to the story: the writers using meta fiction where the character is aware that he’s, well, in a story.

Deadpool talks to the camera and therefore the audience – breaking the ‘Fourth Wall’. And this gives the film an extra layer and point of difference, allowing a different style of humour into the film.

There was a lot going on and I admit that I missed some of the quips. People have said they’ve gone to watch Deadpool a second time and have picked up more of the jokes. Not that I’d go and watch a second time. As I said, this Deadpool guy talks A LOT.

I have to say, yes it was funny and yes I was entertained, but I would have liked a little more darkness from Deadpool, rather than always the ever flippant. Perhaps I’m showing my age, but the original comic character had more depth and I would have liked to have seen a bit more of this darkness translated to the screen. 

 

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