TYTD Reviews

After being pleasently surprised by the first film, I dove straight into ‘Sonic the Hedgehog 2’ without any real idea of exactly where they were going to take the series. The first film struck out with a new origin story for Sonic and Robotnik, a new location and light references to the expanded universe of Sonic media, but no direct ties. But it seems like this time around, they were quite a bit more open to diving more into the Sonic franchises lore and history.

The plot of this film opens with Robotnik still trapped on the mushroom planet after the events of the last film, but he’s rigged up some kind of communications satellite and using one of Sonics quills he sends an energy signal blast off the planet and deep into space, some time later his message is seemingly ‘recieved’ when a ring portal appears on the planet and from it walk some guards (who Robotnik takes care of reletively quickly) followed by ‘Knuckles’ the Echidna, the last of a fierce warrior race who is searching for Sonic and a mysterious gem known as ‘The Master Emerald’.

Meanwhile, back on earth, Sonic has decided to take up ‘hero-ing’ as a profession, with mixed to poor results. After a pep talk with Tom, Sonic agrees to reign in being a hero, and rather than chasing the goal, to wait for the right moment to present itself. With that Tom and his partner leave Sonic in charge of the family home for a few days, as both Tom and Maddie are going to Maddies sisters wedding in Hawaii.

Once they’re gone, Sonic tears the house up eating junk food and partying. But all that comes to a close when Eggman shows up WITH Knuckles and violent fight ensues. Sonic is nearly destroyed, but help arrives in the form of Miles ‘Tails’ Prower, a plucky little fox who’s one of Sonics biggest fans, who manages to rescue Sonic and get both of them to a place of safety.

Its here where the full plan is revealed. Tails saw Sonics antics from the first movie using advanced tech and decided to leave his village to team up with Sonic as help, Tails then reveals a secret in a map given to Sonic before he was sent to Earth which reveals that, many years ago a war between the Echidnas and the Owls over the master emerald nearly spilled over into widespread destruction. But that the Owls managed to secure the master Emerald and hide it on earth in a secret location, and that Sonic was supposed to become the Emeralds new guardian, but late on the job. The map given to sonic will lead him to a compass, which in turn will lead him to the Emerald. But Knuckles knows all of this already and Robotnik has convinced him that Sonic is an evil entity bent on using the Emerald for total universal destruction.

And so a race ensues with Sonic and Tails teaming up to try and track down the Emerald before Robotnik and Knuckles can find it, and…as you can imagine an inevitable betrayal is on the cards…

The first film pretty much created its own springpad with only very loose cosmetic references. But ‘Sonic 2’ here seems to have decided to try and pool elements of Lore from ‘Sonic the hedgehog 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles’ into a semi-coherent movie.

What I mean by pooling lore, is that there are several scenes in the movie that are meant to be ‘homages’ to levels within those sonic games ‘Ice Cap Zone’, ‘Water Labarynth Zone’, ‘Marble Hill Zone’ etc…and that elements from those sonic games such as end level bosses and game mechanics are also very present.

Obviously the big additions here are Tails and Knuckles, both of whome are VERY in line with the characterisations in games, comics and on screen. and I do have to compliment the team behind this picture for really getting to the core of what these characters are, and managing to distill all the qualities these characters have across their various media appearences into one, I would say fairly definitive’ characterisation.

Sonic, Tails and Knuckles here are polished examples of the last 30 odd years of there appearences, and its absolutely delightful to see them interacting in ways that have previously only been available in a limited capacity. While I still arnt 100% happy with Robotniks characterisation. I will admit that here, he’s closer to the good doctor than he was in the last film.

The script for this one is again, kind of generic, and once again it opens and ends strong, but the middle does sag just a little bit as we get bogged down in the logistics of the great treasure hunt. I will say this feels a lot tighter than the first film in many regards, but at just over 2 hours long, I do feel it could have lost 10 minutes from the middle and been all the stronger for it.

The humour in this has been polished up a little more, while I still loath the ‘meme’ humour and fart jokes, they are a lot less present here, and theres much more of a focus on the type of dry ‘alternative’ humour I enjoyed in the firtst film. Which was nice.

A reduction in the ‘NPC’ characters here was also welcome. But I dont quite feel the set pieces were as interesting as the first film, or as emotionally invested. I think the finale is stronger than the first film, but everything else is tighter, but less dramatic. Which is a shame.

Other than that, the cine direction and editing is the same as the first film, largely rock solid, but the visual effects again are surprisingly starting to creak a little only 3 years after this one came out, which is wild. There were also some moments where it all felt a little ‘TV Movie’ esq…which im not sure if its the result of a rushed production, or whether this had been considered for TV movie purposes…but some bits just looked a bit less polished than others.

The performances are great with the addition of Colleen O’Shaughnessey, the voice of Tails in the sonic games since the 2010s being a VERY nice tie in to the game universe, and Idris Elba absolutely OWNING Knuckles as a character, honestly; he’s the absolute best of this movie, really helping pull the production up quite significantly. While I still have some issues with Jim Careys turn as Eggman, I accept at this point that they’ve at least tried to work a bit more Robotnik into his performance, and this is likely the best we’re going to get. It may not be the Robotnik I want, but I cant deny that he’s at least entertaining.

Sonic the hedgehog 2, in my opinion is marginally better than the 1st film, while I dont think the story is quite as engaging and the grander set pieces are a little more underwhelming, I think the characters have gotten a lot stronger and more engaging, and the pacing has had quite a tightening up. I do prefer this one more than the first outing and would be much more happy to recommend this one to people, Though I think watching the first film would almost certainly be needed in order to fully get the benefit from this entry. With that in mind, I’d say watching these first 2 films is definitely worth your time!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sonic-the-hedgehog-2/

Im a long time fan of the “Blue Blur” having cut my gaming teeth through most of the 90s, the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ games pretty quickly became a firm favourite in my games library, I learnt the basics of platforming with the original games, the ‘Sonic Adventure’ series were two of my earliest games for the ‘Gamecube’, and even when the series has been utter UTTER dross as seen in ‘Sonic ’06’ and the ‘Wii’ exclusives, theres always been something kind of lovable about this franchise and series…That and the ‘lore’ of the franchise is frankly bewildering to the point of madness.

So when they announced they were making a movie adaptation of the series, I had mixed feelings, on the one hand, its a movie adaptation of one of my favourite video game characters, on the other hand, its a movie adaptation of one of my favourite video game characters aimed at younger children and cringey Millenials looking to desperately cling to their childhood by any means necessary. And then they hired Jim Carey to play Dr. Robotnik…and THEN ‘Covid’ properly kicked off….and THEN ‘Ugly Sonic’ and THEN the trailer which was filled with slightly cringey ‘present to 2020’ meme references…aaaaaand I basically wished it well and went back to lysol’ing my entire house every day for 2 years…

WELL! Theres 3 of these movies now, they’ve apparently been quite successful, and its ‘Voidmass’, that strange period between Christmas and New Years…I have a few months of a Paramount+ subscription left to go…So I gave it a go…I had fun with it.

The plot creates a somewhat new origin story for Sonic, here; he’s an orphan being looked after by a talking owl in the world of ‘Green Hill’, he’s an oddity with superhuman speed and lightning powers that have never been witnessed in this world before, and, from the off as part of a ‘just go with it’ insertion piece. the land has ‘Rings’ that can tear a hole in the fabric of space time to any world or reality that the thrower thinks of.

Life isnt perfect in Green Hill however, Sonic is told to hide who he is, which he refuses, leading to him being hunted by a tribe of Echidnas (Im sure THAT will become relevent in the sequel!) When his adopted owl mum takes an arrow to the knee, she casts a ring to a mysterious reality called ‘Earth’ and sends Sonic there with a bag of rings, warning him to stay hidden; and if he’s ever discovered to flee to the last safe reality, a mushroom planet with no other habitable life.

With that, Sonic is cast into ‘Green Hills’ Montana. Where he sets up a pretty cushy pad in the forest, and spends his days pimping out his crib and exploring the life and lifestyles of ‘Green Hills’ inhabitence.

Its here that we’re also introduced to Tom, Tom is part of the local law enforcement and is trying to find a ‘real’ cop job working the hardened streets of San Francisco as he’s grown bored of the stale local policing life that includes jumpstarting peoples cars, eating doughnuts and looking after stray ducks. Luckily for Tom, he gets the job! and him and his partner begin plans to move to San Francisco. Unluckily for Sonic, he’s grown deeply attached to Tom and his mundane life, and really REALLY wants things to stay exactly as they are.

On realising that he may never actually get to do half the things he wants to if he stays hidden, Sonic accidentally releases a large energy wave, which knocks out half the towns power and alerts the government. At first they think its an EMP attack, but then they realise it may be something more. So they bring in a psychotic genius, Dr. Ivan Robotnik, who immediately seizes control of the militaries budget and hardware and begins a desperate attempt to track down what or who caused the energy surge, for nefarious alterior motives.

Meanwhile Tom and Sonic accidentally end up meeting each other, and when Robotnik pieces this together, the pair must take off across country, avoiding Robotnik and the law, in the hopes of reaching San Francisco and getting Sonic to a safe new home. All the while making up for lost time via a ‘Bucket List’.

Having seen this one now, I feel I did somewhat judge a book by its cover. Up front, is it perfect? absolutely not. it is a flawed production, but did I enjoy it? I absolutely did.

The script isnt really offering anything new exactly, its basically a buddy roadtrip movie at its core, but its a pleasent enough one. Its ultimately more of a character piece, with the films success predominantly being levvied on how much you like Sonic, Tom and Robotnik as characters.

The pacing is pretty solid, keeping pretty consistent across all three acts, with maybe just a slight sag in the second act. The tone and humour is very much all over the place, but at its best it has some really nice dry humour, some good self aware stuff that wouldnt feel out of place on ‘Adult Swim’ and a few nice jokes for long time sonic fans across all the media formats he’s appeared in. At its worst, theres excessive ‘Flossing’ (I felt myself petrifying when that came on as I realised that was less than 5 years ago) and fart gags…Stay classy Sega…

I feel the film ends about as well as it could, nicely setting up a sequel, but maybe just a tad schmaltzier than I would have liked. for me though, the biggest wedge I had with this film lies in its characterisations.

The non series characters from this film, could just as easily be NPC’s for the amount of weight and depth they bring to the screen, the vast majority of them at this point did pretty much nothing for me, and legitimately gave me ‘appearing in an advert’ vibes. Tom is probably the closest to breaking that mold, but its a struggle and i’d say he suffers from the ‘commercial’ vibes for a good 70% of the runtime.

Obviously, Sonic is the main focus of this movie, and I think they nailed his tone and vibe more or less, I think in the games at least, Sonic is maybe a little more snarky and a bit more dry humour wise, but this feels like a good amalgam of his personalities across the games, Anime series and the Saturday morning TV Sonic. They’re all Sonic, and this Sonic is ALL Sonics.

Robotnik on the other hand? I struggled with, with the exception of the Satruday morning ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ TV series, Robotnik has almost always been portrayed as a genius scientist with a malevolent presence and a bizarre appearence. The whole reason the character looks the way he does is BECAUSE its supposed to lull people into a false sense of security around him, to make Robotnik look as if he couldnt really BE that bad…only he is.

Carey here?…is doing Jim Carey. He resembles the character of Robotnik in neither tone nor visuals. He’s doing the same ‘Ace Ventura’, ‘Bruce Almighty’, ‘Grinch’ routine he’s been doing for years, just less animated, and with less funny voices. He has a degree of malevolence, but not much else going for it. I actually find it kind of bizarre that Carey retired citing feeling tired with doing the same old routines…just to come back specifically to do this role….AND to do it multiple times…

In either case, I DO think hes a highlight of this film, but I just dont really think he’s playing ‘Robotnik’. And thats kind of a shame really, because I’d have loved to have seen an actual attempt and bringing that staunch genius menace and seriousness to the big screen, rather than just Carey going through the motions…

On every other front, the films fine. The direction and cine is pretty solid, though the visual effects are already showing some signs of creaking…which is concerning given the films only just about 5 years old. The cine is vibrant rich and detailed which is nice, the Bullet time sequences here are welcome and fun little additions, the edits pretty rock solid and the performances are all to Studio grade, there wernt any that I particularly loved, but I didnt actively hate any of them either.

I think post release, this film could stand to go back into the edit to clip out the 2019/2020 meme references, they aged like sour milk here and had me actually having to look up what the ‘fad’ of the day was at the time that warrented its inclusion here, but obscure jokes ‘from the day’ has been a problem with cinema going back to its fundamentals. as im sure there’ll be ‘6-7’ references in movies throughout 2026.

Ultimately; had this film been a standalone, i’d have maybe been a bit dismissive of it, pleasent enough, but not worth seeking out, but given its now part of a franchise with 3 (soon to be 4) entries plus a couple of TV series in the works. I have to see it as the base for a bigger picture. I didnt dislike it, but if this was all there is, I wouldnt have been won over by it. As it stands, its a fine enough story, reintroducing characters from a 30+ year franchise to a younger audience and setting the pieces up for many more adventures to come.

I had a fun enough time with it, I will be checking the sequels out, and I think if your a fan of the games, or of Sonic in general, you’ll probably get a kick out of this one, its not quite as coherent and curated as ‘The Super Mario Bros Movie’. But what it lacks in presentation, it more than makes up in presenting these characters and using a style of humour that Nintendo wouldnt touch with a barge pole. Proving once again that Sega do, what Nintendont!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/sonic-the-hedgehog/

I hadnt heard too much fanfare about ‘Moana 2’ ahead of checking it out, which is usually a pretty good indicator that it likely wasnt to be as captivating as the original. Indeed my feelings towards this film only grew more concerning when I learnt that this film only exists *as* a film because originally it was intended to be a 6 part ‘exclusive’ Disney+ series, till the funding got cut on the project, and essentially they had to take what they’d animated already, mush it together into a playdoh style ball of scraps and animate a few bridging pieces to help smooth it all over into an ‘as consistent as possible’ feature experience.

The film returns us to ‘the island’ and Moana is exploring the unexplored as a newly minted ‘wayfinder’ only, while checking out the smaller islands surrounding her home, she stumbles on a broken pot with artwork depicting a massive island under the stars, on returning home she learns that this Island was previously a waypoint for all the other islands in the surrounding area to mix and mingle and share in the joy and joy and joyness of each other, before a vengeful god took his anger out on humanity, sinking the island and putting deadly lightning tornado storms in the surrounding area to prevent the various islanders from ever interacting again. Its said that if a human ever sets foot on the island again, that the curse of the gods will be broken and a new age of prosperity will reign.

Cue, Moana; who puts together a ragtag band of generically likeable eccentrics to go on a great voyage with her to find Maoi (whos been trapped by the gods), dredge the island back to the surface and restore the great collaboration of the islands. or die trying.

Honestly? this kind of smacked of ‘background movie’ fodder to me. Something that was inoffensive enough to have on in the background while your doing something more interesting, but absolutely NOT something you’d put your full attention into.

Across the board it just felt like they were simultaineously trying too hard to force a sequel that, at this point, I feel didnt need to exist, while banking HEAVILY on people remembering the last film fondly.

As such you have a script thats trying to force the feeling of adventure and whimsy, that ALSO just CAN NOT help itself in making callback gags, follow up gags to the first film, or just…flat out recycling jokes and references from the last film. and I felt at multiple points across the runtime of this film the cold clammy grip of a corporation on my shoulder trying to usher me into feeling charitable and ‘on board’ with something I had absolutely no such feelings toward.

The script itself feels overly generic, the pacing is wonky, with the opening act once again taking an absolute age to get going, only this time its into a 2nd act that feels like a rushed hodge podge of ideas and random vignettes that didnt feel particularly well curated, and then finally we get dumped into a finale that felt rushed, and reductionist by comparison to the previous film.

The characters all felt kind of closer to ‘tools’ that people, the old guy Moana brings along with her is essentially reduced to just being grumpy and mild comic relief, he does basically nothing else for the whole thing. Maoi feels a lot less central to the plot, as does Moana…in fact, thats probably a big issue with this film really, it feels less like the characters driving the narrative, and more like the narrative throwing things at the characters and them just neutrally being pulled through it. Theres no stakes, no real development, and the rewards our characters get after going on this heroic journey feel inconsiquential and kind of bizarre given that the stakes (in my opinion) were significantly higher in the last movie.

While the art direction and animation are still fairly strong here, theres nothing really that ‘one ups’ the first films style and creative flow, the performances are fine enough, but again have a slightly unpleasent corporate ‘we’re here for the money’ vibe to it, the songs arnt as catchy or memorable as the first film, and theres WAY too many of them and they drag on for WAY too long.

All in all? Moana 2 is a sequel. and probably the most sequelliest sequal it could have tried to be. While there are a handful of genuinely fun and sincere moments across the full runtime, they are painfully few and far between and in every other regard this film is poorer than the original. Definitely not essential, if you or your kids enjoyed the first film, this is basically just more of the same, but less good. If you think you can live with that, then have at it.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/moana-2/

One of those movies that i’d seen in dribs and drabs over the years, but never fully given my attention, I decided to dive right into the original ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ over the 90s remake to see what made this such a much loved movie in the first place, and I totally get it.

The plot opens on Thanksgiving day, when a mysterious white haired, bearded man turns up to watch the Maceys thanksgiving day parade, and winds up berating and ultimately replacing a drunk actor hired to play Santa during the parade. After alls said and done, he does SUCH a good job that he’s hired to play Maceys ‘In store’ Santa, where he goes down an absolute storm after telling parents the best places to buy their kids much wanted christmas toys. The owners of Maceys are mortified at first, but realise that this approach brings in more customers than ever before, and higher profits. Causing them to pivot into becoming ‘the helping hand store’.

This is all too good to be true yes? Well, it is. Because the bearded man claims his real name is ‘Kris Kringle’ and that he’s the ACTUAL Santa Claus. Much to the confusion and dismissal of hard working realist divorcee Doris, who refuses to accept Kris’s story. Doris has a Daughter names Susan who she’s raising as a realist too, telling her that their is no Santa Claus and to take reality for what it is, rather than living in a fantasy. This somewhat bothers Doris’s coworker Fred, who has a bit of a thing for Doris, but it outrages Kris, who makes it his mission to not only prove to Doris that he IS the real Santa, but to help Susan nurture and develop her imagination.

Meanwhile, a pseudo psychologist working to do intelligence checks at Maceys has taken a GREAT disliking to Kris, and the feelings somewhat mutual. He wants Kris at minimum out of the store, and ideally committed, so he sets a trap in the hopes of snaring Santa, that will ultimately lead to the trial of the century! IS there REALLY a SANTA?!

I was very pleasently surprised by this one, it starts off maybe a little bit slow plot wise, but quickly picks up pace, delivering the kind of Schmaltzy christmas charm that you really want from a movie like this. The script is sluggish for the first 20 minutes or so, but then quickly picks up steam leading to a zippy second and third act that have a near perfect balance of light comedy, touching moments, romance and holiday cheer.

The act structurings are pretty evenly paced out, they dont rush things too badly and tonally its light and pleasent. The characters are all maybe a little *too* glossy stereotypical for my palette if im being honest, but I appreciate that this is a film from the 40s, when that kind of thing was all but unavoidable. The characters are well rounded and frankly delightful. With Doris bringing a dry and realistic edge to the situation, Kris being as delightful, charming and slightly irrasible as you could imagine Santa being, and Fred bringing a George Bailey level warmth to proceedings that helps act as the glue bringing these characters together.

Its a script that builds to a strong conclusion and sticks the landing. and its clear to me from story alone, how this has managed to stand the test of time.

Direction wise, its pretty reflective of studio pictures of the time, nothing too outlandish or ‘out there’ for the era. But its a good sturdy work, that again, holds up remarkably well for its age and delivers a genuine and sincere vision with the perfect level of energy.

Same goes for the cine as well, which again, isnt really breaking any boundaries on a technical level, but it does have a distinct grandness about it (the thanksgiving day parade footage itself is quite lovely) while also not shying away from mixing in good close up footage to really help bring the audience in on the action. This is largely edited together really solidly, and while It maybe would have been nice to have more B-roll and cutaways within the sequence structuring, Again, that wasnt entirely commonplace at the time, so it might be asking a bit much.

Performance wise Edmund Gwenn is a damn near perfect Kris Kringle, jolly, endlessly kind, patient and supportive, his warmth would melt the celluloid if it wasnt on Safety strip. he’s perfect here and pretty much makes the film what it is.

Same goes for Maureen Ohara and John Payne as Doris and Fred, they have fantastic on screen chemestry, Marueen plays the role with a genuiness that is unusual for this era of film makign and John compliments the cold realism with a bit more whimsical openness. These three actors frankly, were in the right place at the right time and toghether they achieve a rare lightning in a bottle moment honestly.

The rest of the cast keep things fairly campy, serious with a slight whimsy for comedic effect. its a solid production honestly. With only the soundtrack falling a little short, in the sense of…I dont actually remember any of the music in this film barring the occasional carol. I think it maybe would have helped if it had been a bit more prominent to the storytelling.

Ultimately? this is a lovely little Holiday classic, it hits all the right notes, aims for sincere over glossy and delivers the exact kind of cozy Christmas watching that I strive to find every year. Definitely one i’ll try and watch again next year and definitely recommended!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/miracle-on-34th-street/1/

2-3 years of exposure to this movie via Tiktok sounds finally got the better of me, and I decided last night, through a fugg of mince pies and rum hot chocolate to see if the early 2000’s Animated Adam Sandler vehical ‘Eight Crazy Nights’ was as fun as my ‘for you’ page kept telling me it DEFINITELY was…It was not.

The plot is set in the small town of Dukesberry and follows ‘Davey Stone’. Davey used to be the towns best juniour basketball player, and was seen as a model citizen of the community, but after a tragic incident in his preteens, the now 33 year old alcoholic is a delinquent and on the verge of throwing his life completely away. When Davey has a major involvement with the local law enforcement, the judge is all but ready to throw the book at him. When help from the past arrives in the form of ‘Whitey’ a tiny extroadinarily hairy man with one adult sized foot, and one child sized foot.

Whitey has been a silent pillar of the community now for the better part of 70 years, running the juniour basketball league for most of his life, and as a side hustle he spends his days travelling around Dukesberry picking up odd jobs whenever they arise in order to pay the bills and to keep both him and his sister comfortable.

Whitey offers the judge an alternative, put Davey under his care and guidence with the goal being to train him as the new juniour basketball league coach, so that Whitey can wind down his career. The judge agrees, on the condition that Davey does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING else, and if he does, the Judge, without hesitation, will give him a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison.

Davey has other ideas though, and what follows is a battle of wills, as Whitey desperately tries to appeal to Daveys past better nature, and Davey takes every opportunity to belittle, prank and injust Whitey, while also making everyone elses lives a misery in the process. But when its revealed that theres an upcoming awards evening and that Whitey has his heart set on winning the ‘Patch’ an award recognising the citizen of dukesberry who’s made the most impact on the community (Something he’s been trying to win for years) It may fall to Davey to reconnect with his festive spirit and help an old mans dream come true.

I’ll get the nice things out of the way up front on this one really, its nice to see a film attempt to do a contemporary Chanuka story, and while it does muddy Christmas into the mix a fair bit, I appreciated that this film was at least trying to make a somewhat serious attempt at a holiday movie for it. I will also say that the animation here looks quite nice for the most part, and that studded throughout this film are several legitimately funny moments and gags. stuff that actually made me properly laugh, and (some) songs that I thought were well written and composed, catchey even…

But its there really that my praise kind of begins and ends. I knew going into this, that this was ultimately an ‘Adam Sandler’ film, so I wasnt exactly expecting to find something that would absolutely blow me away. But this film has a serious identity crisis that pretty much hamstrings the entire thing.

First up is the plotting and pacing. Its pretty much inescapable that this films script is just, kind of incoherent. a massive chunk of the film is just Davey being genuinely unkind to people, and even when its revealed WHY he’s so mean, his redemption and character transformation; and the rewards he gets for doing so, dont feel earned and dont make a whole lot of sense. there comes a point about 15 minutes from the end, where something of an intervention happens (entirely in Daveys mind) and then suddenly, not only is he a completely changed man, but the town seem to completely 180 on him, and he suddenly becomes the 2nd most loved man in the town, despite only about 20 minutes taking place ‘in film’ where, 20 minutes prior, the town were actively hunting him to put him in jail.

Its a movie that seems totally content to just disregard character development arcs and growth, stuff just happens in this film, and the audience are just expected to go with it, which I found quite jarring and it really threw me out of the thing. Not to mention that the act structuring is pretty much all over the place, the films treated more as a series of ‘gag’ vignettes with a very feint story running through it. When it can be bothered to push the plot along, it will. But once that first 20 minutes of ‘first act’ establishing stuff is out of the way, the whole film essentially just collapses into sketch comedy and the aforementioned jarring plot changes that we’re just supposed to go along with.

Then theres the humour, as mentioned; there are a handful of moments across the runtime that are genuinely funny. Stuff that actually came across as smart and fairly well written. but for about 75% of the runtime? This is a PG13 movie from 2002 made by Adam Sandlers production company and it feels every INCH of it. Big recurring gags in this film include Whitey having seizures randomly, TONS of fart and poo gags, gross out humour, dirty jokes, innuendos…lowest common denominator gags that…unless you were a 10-15 year old kid between 2002 and 2005, land like cold sick to any other demographic.

I could have accepted some gross out a handful of times in the mix with other gags. But its just relentless, barely 15 minutes goes by without someone being covered in poop, visually on screen pooping, or folks talking about poop. Theres also a surprising amount of swearing in the film, which caught me off guard, because It made me kind of realise that I dont really know who in 2025 this film would actively appeal to, the amount of swearing, dirty humour and graphic gross out means its not really a kids movie, it wouldnt be good as a family movie with younger kids either. I think if your an adult coming to this for the first time, unless your MASSIVELY into Sandlers other productions, you’ll find this thing grating…really, the only people I could see (maybe) getting into this, were the kids who watched it when it came out in the 2000s, who now revisit it for nostalgia, or families with older kids who also REALLY like Adam Sandler movies. Which, as you can imagine, really puts this film in with a niche crowd.

The characters are all pretty stereotypical, though im inclined to believe that was intentional, if not a little border racist at times. the narrative is hazy and inconsistent. The whole thing just kind of felt sloppy and underdeveloped to me.

As mentioned, I will say the visuals are fairly well handled, the animation is smooth and consistent, theres some subtle early CG work here that works quite well to compliment the art style, it looks quite nice to me. It feels wintery and festive, which is all you can really ask for.

Performance wise? Well…its Adam Sandler being Adam Sandler, he doesnt sound terrible, but if he did, id have had more questions than answers, he also voices Whitey in this…and its horrendous, its unmistakably just Adam sandler doing a shrill high pitched voice. it sounds like the kind of ‘fake voice’ V/O artists do for a gag inbetween takes, but somehow this actually ended up in the movie. It works in places, but for the vast majority of the runtime, its nails on a chalkboard.

Cameos from Jon Lovitz and Tom Kenny were welcome, but fleeting…everyone else sounded like they were in the booth till the cheque cleared.

This is also a musical, and the soundtrack is pretty hit and miss. The two big songs from the film that seem to have made it to Tiktok (Technical Foul and the ‘Bum Biddy’ song) are the best the film has to offer by a long LONG margin, with the other songs ranging from fumbled and kind of awkward, to just downright unlistenable, even having Alison Krauss on vocals for some numbers doesnt save them, the incidental music however? pretty damn solid if you ask me, probably one of the stronger elements of this one!

Im glad I saw ‘Eight Crazy Nights’ at least once, and I cant say I wont EVER watch it again…But its a seriously flawed movie that had more about it that I didnt like, than stuff that I did. I think if you caught the two songs I mentioned above on youtube, id say youd pretty much seen the best of this movie, Im sure it has its fans, and I didnt actively HATE it…but it wasnt really fore me.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/eight-crazy-nights/

Tonight, me and my partner began our annual rewatch of ‘Fanny Cradock Cooks for Christmas’ frankly, a delicacy for seasonal viewing that quite literally has to be SEEN, to be believed. I’ve revisited the series for the better part of 20 years now, and without fail, it never fails to shock and surprise me at just how bizarre that period of Mincmeat mayhem really truely was.

Well; after watching the first episode tonight, I noticed that BBC iplayer had resurfaced ‘Fear of Fanny’ a 2006 ‘biopic’ essentially showing a snatched glance at the lives of Fanny and Johnny Cradock from around 1955 through to Fannys final years between 1990 and 1994. and it was ‘Okay.’

Theres a few things that ultimately kind of hamstring this feature, the first is that, its really kind of inconsistent on detail and the fragmented nature of the film makes it even harder to really properly tell exactly when and where all of this is actually supposed to be taking place in relation to what we’re seeing.

Its presumed we open in 1955, but by that point we’ve already missed quite a significant portion of Fannys more interesting lived experiences. Instead; we’re thrown right into her seemingly treating every ‘performance’ as if it may very well be the be all and end all of her career. I feel the special really does bring to life how cold and unusual she could truely be to people, and how her fear of abandonment manifested in a most unsightly way, but the film never truly gets to the nub of the issue, instead having lots of moments of ‘we’ll let the audience decide for themselves’ contrasted with several blunt moments, where the cast may as well be giving the audience Fannys psychological evaluation direction down the barrel of the camera.

then at around the 30 minute mark, we suddenly jump in time and its 1972…only, noone looks any older, and fashion hasnt really updated much. So I actually have NO idea when this thing was supposed to have started, or if the opening up until that point was supposed to be curated scenes from 1955 up to 1971…and things only really get more unweildy from there, as we jump from ’72 to ’78 to ’87 and finally to 1990…which is 4 years before she died, so not even really an ‘end’ so to speak. The events depicted in the feature ACTUALLY did happen, but because they dont really do enough to differentiate the passage of time they make almost 40 years of history feel like it happened in 5.

At its core, this biopic attempts to humanise Fanny, and to put much closer attention on her relationship with Johnny, her rock in many ways and her foundational support through her own battled emotions. and thats the part of this that I enjoyed the most, seeing these characters interact with each other on a base level with all the ‘act’ and pretense stripped back created a genuinely tender piece at times that I found quite moving.

Unfortunately, the feature spends most of the first 2 acts just running the same story over and over again (Fanny is a monster, someone new comes along, shes nice to them at first, gradually gets more and more involved in their life, and meaner, until they push back, and Fanny gets rid of them…usually rounded off with the person being given the chuck, telling Fanny a cold home truth that shakes her a bit) Which was fine the first time or two, but it happens a lot, and I feel that a lot of patient viewers would struggle to get quite far into this one as a result. Which is a shame because the best of this film lies in its final 30-40 minutes.

The characterisations are mostly spot on, the dialogues lovely, its just the pacing and structuring that I feel really kind of muddy this one a bit.

Direction is pretty solid, this isnt much out of the usual for BBC4 docu-dramas from the mid 2000s, its definitely got a flare to it that gives it some creative zeal, but its nothing standout beyond a few flourishes, smae goes for the cine here, which is clean, competent and helps drive home the feeling of isolation and distance Fanny had with everyone.

For me? and it pains me to say it, But I just didnt care for Julia Davies performance here as Fanny, she didnt look like Fanny, her delivery didnt match the tone or rhythm of Fanny, the makeup wasnt quite a match for Fannys. She didnt really embody the character for me, I just spent most of the film feeling like I was watching someone half attempt a Fanny impression. Davies is a skilled comedian and performer, and I know shes been great in several things i’ve seen. But this just didnt hit the spot for me. I took much more pleasure in watching Mark Gatiss as Johnny Craddock, not only do I feel like he really captured the likeness and mannerisms of Johnny, but he slowly eeks the character out across the runtime, from just ‘the browbeaten husband’ into a genuinely empathetic and tender character piece, I actually felt quite a sense of sorrow from Gatiss performance here, and I think he honestly nailed it.

Add to the above that the scores a bit hit and miss, easy listening and ‘smooth jazz’ wasnt what i’d envisioned for a score on this one. I dont think it really works, but I could see why they went the way they did…and the BIGGEST crime this feature commits…which is that they didnt even ATTEMPT to recreate any of the footage from her christmas specials. and I came away from this one glad that I watched it, probably unlikely to revisit it for a good long while, and a bit melancholic honestly. Fanny was a complex person who needed support that simply didnt exist at the time. and to see her fall from grace and the loss of anything and everything around her was a genuinely upsetting thing. But I dont quite feel like this film found its feet until it was really way to late to course correct. Starts wobbly, ends strong, soggy bottom.

If you, like me, came to Fanny from her Christmas programme, and want to get a better understanding of the woman, this is a pretty solid enough ‘crash course’ on everything that happened around the time of those shows…But I dont feel like it truely grasps who she was, and why she came to be the way she ended up.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/fear-of-fanny/

I took a punt on this one a few months ago during one of Vinegar Syndromes irregularly regular sales, I figured with Christmas only a few months away at that point, it might have been nice to have something of a novel documentary to explore during the season.

The way this was pitched to me was:

‘Mick Foley loves Santa Claus, so much so that he wants to have a go at PLAYING Santa Claus, and he’s going to team up with some folks who are professional Santa Claus’ to learn the ropes ahead of actually getting to be the big guy in red for a day!’

The reality is? this is really actually kind of two documentaries uncomfortably crammed together. The first (and probably my favourite part) is just a pretty straightforward documentary following just shy of half a dozen gentlemen who play Santa professionally, they all have different backgrounds (one was a former tattood biker, another poses for specialist ‘bear’ magazines etc) but we get to spend a year with these gents as they ride the highs and lows of the industry, the impact on their personal and social lives and why they gave so much of their time to such an unusual and rewarding field.

The second part of this doc is Mick Foley kind of stumbling around slowly trying to figure out how to play the part of Santa. They establish up front that he’s a major Christmas nut and loves the season the whole year round, and that, while he’s worn santa suits and appeared WITH Santa, he’s never ACTUALLY played the guy seriously…and then the film just kind of…bumbles around with him as he gets the materials together to play the part, leading to him getting his chance to play the part, and much like a Godfrey Ho movie, for one scene, the two documentaries overlap…just about.

I’ll be honest, I actually kind of liked this one, but my biggest fault with it is just that this really does feel like it needed to be two seperate documentaries. Both sides of this film had MORE than enough ammunition to make two really solid and much more fleshed out documentaries. But by cramming the two together in this way, it kind of makes for a ‘worst of both worlds’ for both sides, it pulls you away from the, at times genuinely quite impactful ‘Life as a professional Santa’ documentary, but also it means the Foley doc, to me at least, came across as a little bit hollow and undercooked. There just wasnt enough ‘oomph’ behind it to make it its own thing, and compared to the other side of this doc, it just felt a bit tepid.

I dont know this for sure (This is just my opinion), but it almost felt like this started out as a documentary about people who perform as Santa professionally, but in order to secure the last of the funding from the backers to complete the documentary, they said they wanted a bit more goofiness and a stronger USP…and so Foley entered the frey.

Again, that isnt to say this documentary is BAD at all…its genuinely delightful in places, and the cine and direction is rock solid. I just feel like its all a bit inconsistent structurally. As a character piece, its a gauntlet of emotions and you really feel for these guys as they dedicate their lives to a greater cause, its also a fascinating insight into the. ‘cliquey’ nature of the profession…and the weird (but not unsurprising) split in the industry between the guys who play Santa to bring joy to kids, the guys who believe that Santa and Christianity are intrinsically tied and add a hard religious tone to their ‘portrayals’ and the guys who sit between the two fence posts.

I found this documentary (for the most part) a lot more engrossing than I expected. With, even the extra features offering a good tug on the heart strings for good measure. But its a documentary that feels a bit conflicted and confused about exactly what it wants to be for the audience. It flip flops around on ideas and by the time the end credits rolled, I wasnt entirely confident that what i’d seen wasnt at least a LITTLE bit cobbled together, But I was still very happy id seen it.

I think this ones worth catching at least once, that I can recommend. If you like it, then im certain it’ll become a welcome addition to the Christmas rotation, but do be prepared to be jostled a bit.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/i-am-santa-claus/

Its quite hard to impress on someone who wasnt alive when ‘Beavis and Butthead’ were a serious ‘thing’ just how all encompassing that show was to live through, indeed if you were aged between 7 and 25 during that time, barely a day would go by without hearing at least one half hearted attempt at ‘the laugh’ or a faltering ‘Cornholio’ impression. And, as expected whenever kids latch on to something as a craze or vocal stim, theres an immediate backlash, with parents and pressure groups citing the show as ‘the end of decency and culture as we know it’. If you believe the current ‘6-7’ craze is a sign of the end times, you have to remind yourself that every generation has at least one fad that would make the average Gen Alpha recoil in their seat with cringe.

Anyway; I digress, Beavis and Butthead were a cultural force in the early 90s and by 1995 the show had hit such a fever pitch, the Mike Judge and the team were given the opportunity to bring the wayward teens to the big screen, with an inflated budget and less regulations than TV had. And…well, if you were worried they’d screw the pooch on this one, your in safe hands.

The plot is, in essence, just a bigger budgeted(?) slightly bigger narrative than the original 15 minute shorts. Some bunghole has stolen Beavis and Buttheads TV, and they decide to try and track the fartknockers down. In doing so however (and breaking several TVs in the process) they end up in the motel room of ‘Muddy’ a criminal who’s been double crossed by his partner ‘Dallas’ Muddys been drinking and mistakes the pair for some hitmen he’d arranged to meet to ‘take out’ Dallas. And Beavis and Butthead are too dumb to realise that they arnt the hitmen Muddys looking for, instead; they misunderstand the situation and assume that Muddy wants them to ‘Do’ his wife for 10 grand. So they agree immediately and head to Vegas to find Dallas.

On finding Dallas however, she quickly realises that these boys have NO idea whats going on, and using her ‘womanly wiles’ convinces the boys to go to Washington, where she’ll go ‘all the way’ with them AND offer them 20 grand if they’ll ‘do’ Muddy…something the boys are less enthusiastic about…The reality is, Dallas has hidden a high tech device in Beavis’s shorts, and is using them essentially as mules to get the device to Washington without raising suspicion. Little does everyone know, the ATF are hot on the case, tracking the boys across America in an attempt to reclaim the device.

The boys have NO idea any of this is going on, and are literally only doing this to score and get 20 grand…hilarity ensues.

I think, if you were only going to show one piece of ‘Beavis and Butthead’ related media to someone to give them an idea of how it worked and why it was so successful. This would probably be it for me. it distills pretty much everything I love about Beavis and Butthead into an hour and 15 minute non stop dumber than dumb freakout, but it does so in a polished way that the TV shows budget just couldnt accomodate.

The animation is smooth, crisp and the swap to film really excentuates the finer details. The TV show was notorious for reusing animation from as far back as the pilot and first series (when things were INFINITELY rougher) and its nice here to just see consistant animation style without the need to recycle.

The scripts a riot, barely 2 minutes goes by without a chuckle or just…full blown belly laugh from me, the pacings zippy, the act structuring meanders, but that plays into the humour really nicely. the direction feels bigger budgeted than the TV series and while I am a bit sad that the ‘Music Video’ segements couldnt be better integrated. The fact they managed to pull artists ranging from Isaac Hayes, to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers to White Zombie more than makes up for the loss.

The cast is frankly star studded, with Demi Moore and Bruce Willis absolutely nailing the brief as Muddy and Dallas. Though, I do feel seeing all these more complex characters here feels a bit unsettling to the universe already built. The whole point of Beavis and Butthead was that these were two small town dumb teens who couldnt think beyond there city, treating the handful of grownups and kids that they knew (who were equally fairly one dimensional) as if they were idols. Introducing richer deeper characters in some regards feels a bit weird. But it acclimatizes pretty well ultimately.

Beavis and Butthead do America is one of those movies that I can just throw on at a moments notice, its full of lovely small gags, and the relentless repetative humour has me a captive audience for the full runtime. Up until the MTV reboot in the 2010s, this was probably the best the series looked, its stupid, its daft, its silly, its a junk food movie…but a bloody satisfying one!

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/beavis-and-butt-head-do-america/1/

I have a long and fond history with the original animated adaptation of ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’, cozy winter evenings watching a beat up VHS copy of the special taped from live TV, and once Satallite TV became a thing, Cartoon Network would often show it AT LEAST 2-3 times a week in syndication, and if I saw it in the listings, i’d usually take the 25-30 minutes needed to reacquaint myself with it, in the last few years i’ve unfortunately not been able to catch this one. But tonight; I pulled out the HD ‘Ultimate Edition’ and decided to revisit this one, and I really wasnt dissapointed.

What we have here is, in my opinion the best adaptation of the short story to date. and the big key to this one is simply that its short. I’ve found the longer Grinch adaptations stretch the plot of the story WELL beyond its natural running length and bog the story down with character origin stories or unecissary sideplots that dont really add much to the tone or vibe of proceedings.

This special takes the core elements of the story and animates them beautifully via the mind of Chuck Jones and animation talent including Phil Roman. its a creative labour of love that builds on the illustrations from the book, bringing a vibrant and unique spin to proceedings. with the pacing running just right and the messaging landing with the kind of heartwarming sweetness that could melt even the coldest of fogies.

The animation style is perfectly suited for this kind of story and the remastering carried out on the latest release scrapes years of discolouration and ‘fuzziness’ away from those old TV broadcasts, revitalising the short in a way that positively blew the cobwebs off.

As important and relevant today as it was almost 60 years ago. This version is certain to captivate young children and the parents and grandparents who saw this when they too were kids. I love this film quite dearly and while im sure every man and his dog has seen this one before, if it’s been a while, or you legitimately HAVENT seen this one. Its definitely time to fix that.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/how-the-grinch-stole-christmas/

I spent the majority of this film arguing with my partner about when its appropriate to turn off Christmas lights. She was adamant that all our lights needed to be switched off before 11pm, I argued that turning the ‘street level’ lights off at 11pm was courteous, but that our second floor lights (50x tiny LED ‘icicle bulbs’ spread over two windows) could stay on longer because the light they emmit isnt bright enough to illuminate past the window frame, and the light it DOES emmit creates a nice ambient tone in our recreation room…AND on top of that! Non of the houses in the surrounding area even HAVE a second floor…so even if the light DID break past the window frame (which it doesnt) it STILL wouldnt be a problem, because theres no properties in the area at the same height as the lights to be impacted by them.

This arguement lasted the full 79 minutes, didnt have a resolution and im now in the dog house for being ‘inconsiderate’ to people who dont exist. Not ONLY was it about as much attention as this film deserved, I found the argument more pleasurable. And I will say this, if you plan on arguing with your spouse, having ‘Mission to Moscow’ running in the background is the PERFECT backing track.

Literally if it wasnt for the frankly Jaw Dropping (non endearing) perforamances from Christopher Lee and Ron Pearlman. This would have been a total and utter waste of my time, and probably the worst comedy i’d have seen in the last 15 years. Mission to Moscow blows.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/police-academy-mission-to-moscow/