Ranking the Live-Action Disney Remakes

I’m going to start this post off with a quick disclaimer. If you’re someone who is by no means a fan of Disney’s recent trend of producing live-action remakes of their animated classics, you’re not going to get much out of this post since it will be a generally positive take on these films. Yes, since 2010, Disney’s live-action output has primarily been focused on live-action re-imaginings of some of their most iconic animated films. However, while these films have been quite successful at the box-office, they’ve been far more polarizing in terms of their overall reception. While general audiences seem to be fairly receptive towards these new spins on Disney classics, there are a sizable number of folks who have been highly critical of this trend for the exact same reason that folks would take issue with any remake in general. Why would anyone even bother remaking something that’s been regarded by many as an undisputed classic? And yet, as someone who recognizes that the original animated films will always be there regardless of how these new films turn out (which is why I’m thankful for the advent of Disney+, which prominently features both incarnations of the films that have recently gotten the live-action treatment), these recent remakes have never bothered me in the slightest. In fact, I’ve recently started to detest the use of the adjective ‘unnecessary’ when it comes to reviews because I feel that it’s become one of the most overused words in critical vernacular, especially since you could easily apply it to any film that comes out and not just the ones that are remakes/sequels/reboots. In other words, while many of these films are re-imagining some of my favorite Disney films of all-time, I try not to let my affinity for the originals overly cloud my judgment towards the remakes because I personally feel that doing so would be largely unfair to them. And so, with that in mind and in honor of the latest Disney remake Mulan’s impending ‘Premier Access’ release on Disney+, today I’m ranking these live-action remakes from ‘least favorite’ to ‘favorite’. While their placement on this list will primarily stem from overall preference, I will also factor in their efforts to present a new spin on their classic stories.

Before we begin, though, I just need to lay out the ground rules for this list. For starters, I won’t be including the two sequels that were spawned from these recent remakes, 2016’s Alice Through the Looking Glass and 2019’s Maleficent: Mistress of Evil. The reason for this is quite simple; from a subjective standpoint, they’re not ‘remakes’ anymore. Instead, they’re just ‘sequels’ to the remakes. However, I will briefly address them when I go over their predecessors. Also, for this list, I’m only going to be focusing on the remakes that have been released since 2010 since this is when this current trend first began to take shape. Because of this, there are two films from the ’90s that won’t be appearing on this list even though they are technically the first big Disney remakes. The first is the original live-action remake of The Jungle Book (that’s right, Jon Favreau’s version wasn’t the first time that a live-action adaptation of Disney’s Jungle Book was made) which was directed by Stephen Sommers and released in 1994. Admittedly, I haven’t seen it at the time that I’m writing this, but I’ll probably do some kind of post on both it and a different Disney-produced Jungle Book film from the ’90s, 1998’s The Jungle Book: Mowgli’s Story, in the future, perhaps when the sequel to Favreau’s Jungle Book comes out. The other big remake that won’t be included here is the 1996 adaptation of 101 Dalmatians, but again, that’s because I’m saving my thoughts on that film and its 2000 sequel, 102 Dalmatians, for a different occasion; in this case, the upcoming spin-off Cruella that will hit theaters next May. Lastly, while it does technically count as a ‘live-action remake’ and can genuinely be considered as a part of this recent subgenre, I’m also not going to include the 2016 remake of Pete’s Dragon since it’s a remake of a live-action film rather than an animated one. Yes, for this list, I’m mainly focusing on the live-action remakes of animated Disney films, and while two of them are technically more like ‘sequels’ than ‘remakes’, I believe that they still count here given that they are primarily based on their animated counterparts. And so, without further ado, I present my current rankings of the live-action Disney remakes that have been released since 2010.   

10. ALICE IN WONDERLAND

We start things off with the first big live-action reimagining of a Disney classic from this modern era, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. This is the first of the two films that I mentioned earlier that are more like ‘sequels’ rather than ‘remakes’ as it follows a teenaged Alice returning to the world of Wonderland (referred to in-universe as ‘Underland’). Like the original animated film, Burton ultimately went with a combination of elements from both the original Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland novel and its sequel, Through the Looking Glass, rather than just being a direct adaptation of the source material. And right off the bat, the best thing that I can say about this film is that it’s another prime example of why Burton is one of the greatest visual directors in the industry. While the film’s visuals do feel a bit excessive at times due to the scenes in Underland being almost entirely green-screen based, they’re still very much the best part of the film as they wonderfully capture the eccentric nature of the Wonderland setting through the equally eccentric style of Tim Burton. Because of this, it’s easy to see why this film won Oscars for both its production and costume design and how its production designer would go on to direct his own live-action Disney remake a few years later. That said, though, there are a few instances where Burton’s style arguably goes a bit too far for a film that’s primarily geared towards younger audiences. In other words, moments where creatures get their eyes poked out and a scene where Alice crosses a moat filled with the heads of the Queen of Hearts’ victims do make you wonder how the film was able to get away with its PG rating. But despite this and an often-uneven plot (which, yes, is saying something for an Alice in Wonderland film), the film still manages to be another solid outing from Burton, especially thanks to its cast. Helena Bonham Carter is an absolute standout as the figuratively and literally big-headed tyrant the Red Queen and the film sports an impressively stacked voice cast with big names like Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman.

Thus, while it wasn’t exactly a runaway hit with critics, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was a smash hit financially as it managed to gross over $1 billion worldwide. This has mainly been attributed to the general lack of competition that it faced upon its release in the Spring of 2010 and the boost that came from 3-D ticket sales since this was right when the 3-D format was experiencing its peak resurgence. Because of this, a sequel was eventually made in 2016, Alice Through the Looking Glass, under the direction of James Bobin, who was fresh off the 2011 Muppets film and its 2014 sequel, Muppets Most Wanted (Burton was still heavily involved as a producer). Like its predecessor, though, it didn’t do too well with critics, and unlike its predecessor, it was a rather notorious underperformer at the box-office. But while we’re not going to spend too much time comparing these two films, I will say that there are two things that the sequel does better than the original. First off, it boasts a brighter visual style that is still a lot of CGI overload, to be fair, but is all-around more pleasant to look at. It also means that there aren’t really any moments that push its PG rating like Burton’s film did. The other key advantage is that since the first film was primarily focused on Alice finding the confidence to help her Underland friends stop the Red Queen, she is a far more confident lead in Through the Looking Glass, which is well-reflected by Mia Wasikowska’s excellent performance in the role. And so, with all this in mind, while the live-action Alice in Wonderland films are far from being my favorites when it comes to Disney’s recent live-action output, I don’t necessarily ‘dislike’ them, either. They may be far from perfect, but as much as they do have their incredibly vocal critics (especially those who love taking these films to task for not being the most faithful adaptations of their source material), there’s no denying that they also have their fair share of fans.    

9. LADY AND THE TRAMP

The most recent film on our list, Lady and the Tramp was one of the many exclusive titles that debuted on Disney+ the day of its launch, and I won’t lie, it was, in fact, the first ‘Disney+ Original’ that I watched. While most of the attention that day was directed towards the pilot episode of The Mandalorian, I was genuinely looking forward to the live-action remake of one of Disney Animation’s most underrated projects. To be clear, I’m not saying that the original Lady and the Tramp is a forgotten entry in the Disney canon, but you could also argue that it often gets overshadowed by the other Disney films of the decade such as Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan. Nevertheless, it’s a charming love story that was nicely translated into a live-action film by director Charlie Bean. Now admittedly, there aren’t many deviations from the original film, with the biggest changes consisting of minor things such as giving the dog-catcher a more prominent villain role and changing the song sung by Aunt Sarah’s pair of troublemaking cats in light of the original’s often-accused case of racist stereotyping. But even though this does make this version of Lady and the Tramp one of the more straight-forward installments of the recent Disney remakes, that’s not such a bad thing in this instance. Whereas almost all the other remakes are big-budget, CGI-heavy flicks, the Lady and the Tramp remake is refreshingly simple in its approach since the original film was more of a light-hearted romp with the period setting of a classic 1900’s Midwestern town. It also helps that the filmmakers utilized actual dogs to help bring the characters to life even though it goes without saying that CGI was used for the process of making them talk. All in all, this is just an incredibly cute and harmless film that does a nice job in recapturing the charm of its source material’s timeless romance.   

8. DUMBO

In 2019, Tim Burton took on his second major live-action Disney remake with Dumbo. Admittedly, the story of a lovable circus elephant who uses his big ears to fly may have seemed like an odd choice for Burton to direct, but at the same time, it did fit his usual M.O. of stories about misfit characters. Thus, while Burton’s Dumbo doesn’t feature his traditional gothic style, its visuals are still very much on point throughout as they do a wonderful job of capturing the bright and majestic visual aesthetic of the circuses of yesteryear. The film also has the benefit of having greater opportunities for new material when compared to some of the other remakes on this list since the original Dumbo is one of Disney’s more simpler-plotted affairs, especially due to its short 64-minute runtime. As such, all the key moments from the original such as Dumbo’s mother being put into captivity after causing a ruckus and the moment where Dumbo first publicly showcases his flying ability during a clown act are covered in just the first forty minutes. After that, a new subplot occurs when a greedy theme park entrepreneur purchases Dumbo for use in his circus while the members of Dumbo’s original circus troupe work to free his mom from her captivity at the entrepreneur’s amusement park. The remake also focuses more on the story’s human characters, namely WWI veteran Holt Farrier and his two kids Milly and Joe, who take the place of Timothy Q. Mouse from the original as Dumbo’s primary allies since this film doesn’t feature any talking animals. However, the new material that’s added in ends up feeling just as simplistic as the original film’s plot which, to be fair, was reportedly the point according to screenwriter Ehren Kruger. Ultimately, though, Dumbo still works quite well as a good-natured family film with a solid cast headlined by Burton regulars such as Michael Keaton and Danny DeVito and some fun nods to the original, including the infamous pink elephants.

7. MALEFICENT

Since Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is technically more of a sequel than a remake, one could argue that 2014’s Maleficent is where this current crop of live-action Disney remakes truly got started. Under the direction of Alice in Wonderland’s production designer Robert Stromberg, the film serves as a live-action reimagining of Disney Animation’s 1959 outing Sleeping Beauty that, as the title suggests, mainly focuses on the story’s iconic villainess, Maleficent. However, instead of just having her be the main antagonist, the film turns her into more of an anti-hero whose actions against Princess Aurora and her family were the result of her getting revenge against Aurora’s father, her former love interest, for stealing her fairy wings. And while she does curse Aurora to fall into an eternal slumber on her 16^th birthday, she ends up developing a motherly connection to her to the point where she’s ultimately the one who saves her from the curse. As you might have guessed, those who prefer Maleficent’s traditionally villainous persona weren’t too pleased with this interpretation of the character, but overall, I think that it’s a uniquely fascinating take on Maleficent and the mother-daughter relationship that forms between her and Aurora is genuinely sweet. But, of course, the biggest highlight of the film is Angelina Jolie in the title role as she perfectly encapsulates the look and persona of the ‘Mistress of All Evil’… even if that designation doesn’t necessarily apply to this version of the character. Thus, Maleficent turned out to be a big hit with audiences upon its release in the summer of 2014, ultimately grossing over $758 million worldwide. This effectively paved the way for a sequel in 2019, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, which was generally on par with its predecessor in terms of quality while also expanding upon its fantasy world, namely by introducing more members of Maleficent’s race, the Dark Feys. Really, the only major disappointment with the sequel was that there were fewer scenes between Maleficent and Aurora. Nevertheless, the Maleficent films are a solid duology of fantasy flicks that pride themselves on being female-driven stories.

6. THE LION KING

Now I’ll be the first to admit that Jon Favreau’s CGI-based remake of The Lion King (which admittedly makes this one a bit questionable to include on this list since it’s not really live-action but arguably still counts based on its status as a remake) is quite arguably the most straight-forward remake of this bunch when it comes to retelling the original film’s story. Apart from some minor additions like an earlier introduction for adult Nala and a rivalry between her and Shenzi the hyena, this is the exact same story as the 1994 film with the exact same story beats. In other words, the biggest difference between the two films is that Favreau’s version is CGI whereas the original was traditionally animated. But while this has made the new Lion King one of the most controversial installments yet of the recent Disney remakes, I’d argue that it still manages to be a solid enough film. Like Favreau’s other big remake, The Jungle Book, much of this is due to the utterly impressive visual effects that do such an incredible job in maintaining their photorealistic nature. And while this does mean that the film lacks the more extravagant moments of the original (i.e. there’s no scene of Timon distracting hyenas by donning a grass skirt and dancing the hula (although there is a brilliant substitute bit for that part)), the attention to detail is truly spot on. Plus, I’d argue that the film still manages to hit the right emotional beats from Mufasa’s death to the moment where Simba speaks with the spirit of his father. And so, if anything, I’d say that at the very least, the new Lion King succeeds as a demonstration of how far CGI has truly come in the past few years. Obviously, I’m not saying that it’s ‘better’ than the 1994 film, but with phenomenal visuals and a great voice cast that includes the likes of Donald Glover, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Billy Eichner, Seth Rogen, and the Queen Bey herself, Beyonce, it’s also quite far from being completely worthless. And yes, this is all coming from someone who lists the original Lion King as his favorite Disney animated film of all-time, but as I’ve made it clear already, just because it’s my favorite doesn’t mean that I was going to hold that against this new film. Still, I will admit that the fact that it is largely note-for-note the same as its traditionally animated counterpart does keep me from putting it any higher on this list.

5. CHRISTOPHER ROBIN

Christopher Robin is the other film on this list that’s more of a sequel rather than a remake as it revolves around a grown-up Christopher Robin being reunited with Winnie the Pooh and the rest of the Hundred Acre Wood gang. But, of course, it still counts on this list since it utilizes much of the iconography from Disney’s interpretation of Winnie the Pooh, and since Winnie the Pooh was such a significant part of my childhood, this was easily one of my most anticipated films of 2018. At the end of the day, I’m happy to report that it did not disappoint. Christopher Robin is an incredibly poignant story about the tragedy that is the loss of childhood innocence through the harsh but sadly natural process of growing up. But while this ordeal ends up being an incredibly rough one for Christopher Robin (e.g. losing his father at a young age, enduring the horrors of World War II, etc.), it is what also makes his eventual reconciliation with his friends and family incredibly cathartic. Ewan McGregor does a fantastic job in the title role and when it comes to his Hundred Acre Wood friends, it was only appropriate that they bring back Jim Cummings, the voice of Pooh and Tigger for many a generation (mine included), for his iconic roles. Now admittedly, many have noted that Christopher Robin sports a rather bleak tone, which is true if focusing solely on the first half of the film before Christopher Robin regains his childhood innocence. After that, the film takes on a more light-hearted tone and the scenes where Pooh and company get into all sorts of adventures in London are purely delightful. And really, that perfectly sums up the film in general. It’s a truly delightful family flick that’s fully bolstered by the ever-enduring charm of its timeless characters to be another great Winnie the Pooh story.  

4. ALADDIN

As I’ve mentioned plenty of times before, director Guy Ritchie’s live-action remake of Aladdin ended up being quite a noteworthy success story even though, before its release, it was quite possibly the most scrutinized installment yet of these equally scrutinized remakes. Simply put, it was almost as if this film could never catch a break as it caught flak for various reasons ranging from certain casting choices to the infamous first reveal of Will Smith’s Genie in his traditional blue form. But when it finally came out, it managed to earn over $1 billion worldwide while also doing decently enough with critics, many of whom felt that it turned out to be much better than they initially anticipated. And if you ask me, that means that this film deserves a lot of credit for managing to avoid being the disaster that many predicted it would be. Now as far as being a remake of its animated counterpart, Aladdin is in the same boat as Lady and the Tramp and The Lion King by not making a lot of radical changes to the original story of a good-natured thief who tries to woo the Princess of Agrabah with the help of a wisecracking Genie. Despite this, however, one great change that it does make is letting Princess Jasmine play a far more proactive role in the story. With no disrespect to her animated counterpart, this is the best incarnation of the character to date, especially thanks to Naomi Scott doing a phenomenal job in the role. Meanwhile, Mena Massoud shines in what is surely going to be his breakout role as Aladdin while Will Smith, despite all the pressure that stemmed from having to follow in the footsteps of Robin Williams’ iconic rendition of the Genie in the original animated film, successfully delivers his own, unique take on the character. Ultimately, the only thing that holds this film back is its mediocre interpretation of Jafar, which is primarily due to this version’s more grounded take on the character. But at the end of the day, the live-action Aladdin ends up being a lot of fun, and while it may have seemed like a weird choice to have it done by a director who’s known more for making gritty crime dramas, Guy Ritchie does a highly respectable job when it comes to maintaining the original’s great atmosphere and unforgettable musical numbers.  

3. THE JUNGLE BOOK

Out of all these films, Jon Favreau’s The Jungle Book is arguably the best example of a live-action Disney remake that isn’t fully tied to its animated counterpart. While it’s still very much the story of a young boy named Mowgli who is raised by wolves in the jungles of India and pursued by the sinister tiger Shere Kahn, it’s ultimately a combination of the 1967 animated film and Rudyard Kipling’s original novel. In other words, it only features three of the songs from the animated film (“Bare Necessities”, “I Wanna Be Like You”, and “Trust in Me”) and places greater emphasis on the dramatic parts of the story such as Mowgli’s history with Shere Kahn, who killed his human father, and the dangerous power of ‘Man’s Red Flower’, fire. Favreau does an excellent job of balancing these two aspects of the story, resulting in some excellent emotional moments (e.g. when Mowgli first leaves for the man-village and says goodbye to his adoptive wolf mother Raksha) while also featuring plenty of great homages to the original. But, of course, the most notable aspect of this film is its extensive use of CGI to bring both its animals and its jungle landscapes to life. And because Favreau’s VFX team did such an outstanding job with the visuals (which ended up netting them the Oscar that year for Best Visual Effects), sometimes it’s easy to forget that Neel Sethi, who plays Mowgli, is literally the only ‘real’ thing on-screen 95% of the time. All this and a top-notch voice cast that includes big names like Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, and Lupita Nyong’o helps make this adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic story a full-blown visual masterpiece. And as I noted back in the intro, Favreau and screenwriter Justin Marks are currently prepping a sequel that, according to Marks, could potentially incorporate some of the unused elements from the animated film’s original screenplay by Bill Peet that was ultimately rejected by Walt Disney himself for being too dark.

2. CINDERELLA

No matter how much these live-action Disney remakes get ragged on by their biggest critics, there will always be the select few that were genuinely well-received, and the one that started it all for this group was Kenneth Branagh’s 2015 remake of Cinderella. Unlike both Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent, which received mixed reviews upon their release, Cinderella fared quite well with critics and became the first of these remakes to secure a ‘Fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. And just like Christopher Robin, this was another one of my most anticipated films back when it was coming out due to the original Cinderella being one of my all-time favorite Disney films growing up. All in all, Branagh’s remake does a wonderful job of bringing this classic story to life. Sure, it’s another case where the remake is predominately faithful to its animated counterpart without many significant changes, but in this instance, the changes that it does make are some of the best to come from any of these recent remakes. Easily the best example of this is how it expands upon the relationship between Cinderella and Prince Charming, namely by having them meet before the ball, which also allows the latter to be a more fleshed-out character compared to his animated counterpart. And while Cinderella continues to get a lot of flak nowadays for allegedly being ‘too passive’ of a protagonist, I still stand by what I’ve been saying these past few years in that her unshakably optimistic nature in the face of all the crap she’s put through makes her a far better heroine than she’s often given credit for. Sure enough, this is well-reflected in the live-action remake, especially thanks to Lily James’ outstanding turn in the role. The same goes for Richard Madden as the superior version of Prince Charming, Cate Blanchett as the unforgettably sinister Lady Tremaine, and Helena Bonham Carter in a scene-stealing turn as Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother. And so, with a phenomenal cast, gorgeous production design, and all-around excellent direction from Kenneth Branagh, the live-action Cinderella is one of the most uplifting films to have come out in recent years.

1. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

To be perfectly blunt, folks, I have the feeling that this film’s placement at the top spot on this list is going to garner some controversy given its usual reception. Let me put it this way; when it first came out, it did relatively well with critics. It currently boasts a 71% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a decently solid score for a film to have on that site, and it also grossed over $1 billion worldwide, effectively making it the second-highest-grossing film of 2017 behind only Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In other words, it was, at the very least, clearly a big hit with audiences. However, I think it’s safe to say that this was the film that fully intensified the utter contempt that the ‘Disney remake’ critics have towards this trend, especially due to the legendary reputation of the film that this remake was adapted from. Before 2017, all the live-action Disney remakes were based on older animated films such as Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella. As such, one could argue that the overall expectations for them weren’t as intense given how long it has been since their releases. Beauty and the Beast, on the other hand, was the most recent Disney animated feature to get the live-action treatment at that point and it also happens to be one of the studio’s most beloved outings. It is, after all, the first animated film that was ever nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, a distinction that only two other films have achieved since then. As such, this remake clearly faced stricter expectations because of how much the original has meant to my generation, and the same can also be said for the remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King that would come out later and would end up garnering far more polarizing reactions from critics. Thus, despite what I just said about the film maintaining a solid rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of those who gave it a ‘Fresh’ review aren’t as positive about it nowadays. And yet, I’m not afraid to admit that I still love this film.

Yes, this is yet another instance of a remake that doesn’t make a lot of changes to the original’s story, but overall, I was genuinely fine with the updates that they did make. This includes, among other things, Belle being an inventor just like her father (played excellently by Kevin Kline in a uniquely more subdued take on ‘crazy old Maurice’) and her discovery as to why he has been overly protective of her all these years after her mom died from the Plague. I also loved all the new songs that were made for this remake, especially the Beast’s new solo, ‘Evermore’. And while I’m well aware that much of the criticisms towards this film have been directed towards Emma Watson in the lead role of Belle, namely due to her singing, I still think that she does a fantastic job in the role if we’re talking about all the other things that have made Belle one of the most popular Disney princesses. She’s then backed by a phenomenal supporting cast that includes Dan Stevens as the Beast, Luke Evans and Josh Gad as the scene-stealing duo of Gaston and LeFou (so much so that they’re going to get their own Disney+ series) and the likes of Ewan McGregor, Emma Thompson, and Ian McKellen as the Beast’s servants. In short, I will fully admit that there’s probably quite a bit of bias behind my decision to place this film at the #1 spot on this list. I saw it twice in theaters, with the first time being in IMAX at the film’s ‘Fan Event’ screening on my birthday. I also bought the soundtrack on iTunes not long afterward and loved the film so much that my mom asked one of her co-workers to pick it up on Blu-Ray and ship it to us so we could get the special Best Buy Steelbook*. In other words, I know that I’m probably in the minority when it comes to liking this film, which has certainly faced tons of scrutiny over the ‘necessity’ of its existence and has often been negatively compared to its animated counterpart. And yet, as this entire list has hopefully established by now, I don’t really care about any of that stuff, even if this is another case like The Lion King since the original Beauty and the Beast is one of my Top 5 favorite Disney films. Ultimately, though, that doesn’t prevent the live-action Beauty and the Beast from legitimately being one of my favorite films of the 2010s.

*(By the time that I was fully intent on getting the Steelbook, it wasn’t available at any of the Best Buy stores that were near our home in Rhode Island, hence why we needed to have my mom’s co-worker pick it up for us in Wisconsin where he’s from. As our way of saying thanks, we then proceeded to get him his own Steelbook copy of the film. In other words, as a friendly piece of advice for all you Blu-Ray enthusiasts out there, if you’re ever interested in getting a film’s Steelbook release, be sure to pre-order it in advance because it could very well go out of stock as soon as it hits the shelves, especially if it’s for a highly popular film like one of the MCU films or, say, a billion-dollar grossing remake of a Disney classic…)

And that concludes my rankings list of all the major live-action Disney remakes that have been released since 2010. Thanks for following along and be sure to be on the lookout for my review of the next big live-action Disney remake, Mulan, not too long after the film makes its Disney+ debut on September 4^th.

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019) review

In 2014, Disney released their then-latest live-action remake of one of their animated classics, Maleficent. The film served as a reimagining of the studio’s 1959 film Sleeping Beauty, but as the title suggests, the focus was shifted from the titular ‘Sleeping Beauty’ AKA Princess Aurora to its iconic villainess, Maleficent. However, instead of just simply maintaining the character’s villainous nature from the original film, Maleficent ended up going a radically different route and turned the character into a tragic anti-hero whose actions served as an act of revenge against those who wronged her while also forming a genuine mother-daughter relationship with Aurora. As you might have guessed, this new characterization didn’t exactly go over well with everyone, thus contributing to the film’s overall mixed reception. And yet, that didn’t stop it from being a massive hit at the box-office where it grossed over $758 million worldwide, effectively continuing the financial hot streak of Disney’s live-action remakes. Thus, half a decade after the original’s release, the ‘Mistress of All Evil’ (and yes, I will use that title in this instance even though this version of the character isn’t a villain) is now back in a new film, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, albeit with a notable change in director. Whereas the first film served as the directorial debut of production designer Robert Stromberg, this film is directed by Joachim Rønning, who’s fresh off directing the fifth Pirates of the Caribbean film with long-time directing partner Espen Sandberg (though, to be clear, this one is Rønning only). And while Mistress of Evil does continue to go with its polarizing heroic rendition of its main character, those who were fans of the first film will find this to be yet another solidly entertaining dark fantasy all bolstered once again by Angelina Jolie’s truly excellent turn in the title role.

It has been five years since the powerful Dark Fey Maleficent (Angelina Jolie) saved Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning) from the death-like sleeping curse that she had inflicted upon her as a baby due in large part to the motherly affection that she had developed for the young Princess. Since then, Aurora has dutifully served as the ruler of Maleficent’s kingdom, the Moors, and on one faithful day, her dashing suitor Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson, taking over for Brenton Thwaites from the previous film) asks for her hand in marriage. Despite Maleficent’s objections over this due to her own past experiences with love, Aurora convinces her to travel to Phillip’s home, the Kingdom of Ulstead, and meet with his parents, King John (Robert Lindsay) and Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer). However, this doesn’t end up going very well as Maleficent soon begins to feel threatened by Ingrith, especially after she claims that this union will result in her becoming the mother that Aurora ‘never had’. Thus, when Maleficent lashes out at this remark in a manner that seemingly curses King John into a perpetual sleep like she did with Aurora, she becomes vilified by Ingrith, who promptly begins to mount an all-out war against the Moors. During this time, Maleficent also ends up coming across other Dark Feys, led by the duo of Conall (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and Borra (Ed Skrein), who find themselves in disagreement over this impending conflict. Whereas Borra is hellbent on wiping out humanity to save their kind, Conall believes that Maleficent’s the only one who can use her powers to unite the two sides.

One of the things that these Maleficent films have always excelled at is their phenomenal production design. Sure, just like practically every other recent live-action Disney remake of the past few years, they mainly utilize CG to craft their environment and the non-human creatures that inhabit it, but they still succeed immensely when it comes to bringing the truly unique fantasy world that they’ve created to life. Plus, when compared to the ‘arguably a bit too dark’ aesthetic of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (not counting its follow-up Alice Through the Looking Glass since it did, at least, brighten things up considerably), these two films manage to achieve a good mix between dark and atmospheric and bright and colorful. But just like the first film, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil stumbles a little when it comes to its story. While it does notably have the benefit of not having to adhere to any specific bit of source material since it obviously did the whole Sleeping Beauty arc in the previous film, everything here is still rather basic in terms of plot. But perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this film is that there aren’t as many scenes with Maleficent and Aurora together, which I only bring up because the whole mother-daughter relationship between them was very much the heart of the first film. Thankfully, they aren’t separated for the whole film and the biggest scenes that directly involve the two of them are easily amongst its best moments. Plus, despite boasting a longer runtime than its predecessor (Mistress of Evil runs a little under two hours whereas the first was only an hour and a half long), the film still retains the solidly breezy pacing that served the first film nicely.

But, of course, the biggest highlight of these films is the continuously excellent work by Angelina Jolie in the title role. Even if you aren’t a fan of how these films eschew Maleficent’s villainous characterization from the original Sleeping Beauty, there’s no denying that Jolie perfectly nails the role in every possible way. She obviously has the look down, excellently maintains the character’s classic mannerisms, and in the context of these films, has a solid on-screen camaraderie with Elle Fanning that impeccably illustrates the strong relationship between Maleficent and Aurora. It is this relationship that has arguably made Fanning’s take on Aurora superior to her animated counterpart, and this is well-reflected in the sequel thanks to a noticeably matured turn from Fanning performance-wise. Another key returning player from the previous film is Sam Riley as Maleficent’s raven confidante Diaval, and while the character does get somewhat sidelined in the same way that the film doesn’t have a lot of scenes between Maleficent and Aurora, Riley still excels at making Diaval a fully endearing sidekick. Speaking of sidekicks, the film also makes the wise decision to downplay Aurora’s three pixie caretakers; Knotgrass (Imelda Staunton), Thistlewit (Juno Temple), and Flittle (Lesley Manville). In retrospect, I admit that I may have been a bit harsh on these three in my review of the original Maleficent back in 2014, but I still stand by what I said about how they ended up being one of the weaker aspects of that film due to them being portrayed as far ditsier than their animated counterparts. Sure, the trio of Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather had their silly moments (e.g. their squabble over the color of Aurora’s dress), but the first Maleficent arguably went a bit too far with their humor in its attempt to show that Maleficent was a far better caretaker for Aurora than they were. Thankfully, that’s not as big of an issue this time around because while these three do still maintain their bumbling personas, they don’t play as big of a role in the story this time.  

There is one notable change regarding the returning cast of characters, however, as Harris Dickinson takes over the role of Prince Phillip from Brenton Thwaites due to scheduling conflicts for the latter. Thankfully, this change doesn’t affect the film in any notable way as Dickinson has solid chemistry with Fanning and it also helps that Phillip has a larger role in the story this time (even if it’s still a generally minor supporting role) whereas Thwaites’ Phillip only appeared in two major scenes near the tail-end of the previous film. As for new characters, the biggest addition, of course, is Michelle Pfeiffer as Phillip’s mother and, subsequently, the film’s main antagonist, Queen Ingrith. And while it would’ve been nice to have some more scenes where Pfeiffer and Jolie interact with each other directly (if only for the opportunity to see more of these two iconic actresses together onscreen), Pfeiffer brings a great commanding presence to the role that fits nicely with the backstory and motivations that she’s given. Finally, closing out the new cast of characters is the duo of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Ed Skrein as Maleficent’s fellow Dark Feys Conall and Borra. Both are natural fits in their respective roles, with Ejiofor being the noble leader and Skrein being the fierce warrior. However, you may be surprised to learn that Ejiofor doesn’t factor into the film as much as its marketing may have implied to the point where Skrein arguably ends up having more screen-time than him.

As I’ve been alluding to throughout this review, the overall reception of these Maleficent films is primarily dependent on one’s views of their radically different portrayal of the title character. Thanks to her role in the original Sleeping Beauty, Maleficent has consistently been regarded as one of the greatest villains in a Disney animated film. In contrast to that, the Maleficent films make her the main character of the story and portray her in a generally more heroic manner. Thus, if you’re not a fan of this characterization, you’re better off sticking with the original Sleeping Beauty and various other bits of Disney media that maintain her villainous status; in fact, you’ll probably wonder why this sequel decided to go with the Mistress of Evil subtitle even though it isn’t an accurate descriptor for this iteration of the character. But for those who were fans of 2014’s Maleficent, you’ll be pleased to know that this film does continue to maintain many of the aspects that made its predecessor such a big hit with audiences. Its visual effects and production design are still second to none, Angelina Jolie continues to prove why she was born to play the title role, and it’s easy to appreciate these films’ commitment to their female-led narratives. The only major downside to this film is that it doesn’t provide as many heartwarming moments between Maleficent and Aurora as there were in the first film, which is why I admittedly wouldn’t call Mistress of Evil a ‘superior sequel’. Ultimately, though, this does not prevent the film from being yet another solid live-action outing from Disney.

Rating: 4/5

In Defense of Disney's Live-Action Remakes

(Disclaimer: As some of you will recognize, this is not the first time that this specific post has been published. A few weeks ago, I submitted a different form of this post to the animation website Rotoscopers. I knew that it would spark some controversy there due to those who aren’t big on Disney’s remake run, but I wanted to point out some positives about the company’s current live-action film strategy and try to reason that it’s not the worst thing in the world. I would like to thank the team at Rotoscopers for publishing my post and will be dedicating this new version of it to them. I will also be providing a link to the Rotoscopers post for you folks to check out if you haven’t already. The major difference between the two versions of this post is simple; with Rotoscopers, I had to keep it to a specific word limit. Here, expect a much longer post that’s much more in line with the usual content that I post here.)

This weekend sees the release of one of the year’s most highly anticipated films; Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. The film is a live-action adaptation of the studio’s beloved animated masterpiece of the same name from 1991 and is the latest in a growing line of new adaptations of classic Disney stories. For you see, Disney’s current live-action film slate is primarily based around one thing; live-action remakes/re-imaginings of their animated classics. This trend first got started in 2010 with Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, a pseudo-follow-up to the studio’s animated take on the Lewis Carroll story of the same name from 1951. While the film received mixed reviews from both critics and audiences, it was a smash hit at the box office, as it managed to gross over $1 billion worldwide. Four years later, that commercial success continued with Maleficent, a ‘re-imagining’ of Disney’s 1959 effort, Sleeping Beauty. It was the same situation; the film attracted a polarizing reception but was a major box-office hit. One year later, Disney then released a remake of Cinderella but unlike the previous two films, this one not only did well at the box office but it was also the first to be generally well-received by critics. Because of this, Disney then proceeded to announce a wide slew of remakes/re-imaginings over the next few months for films like Mulan, Winnie the Pooh, Dumbo, and so on and so forth. It’s honestly gotten to the point where almost every single Disney animated classic has a remake that has either come out, is slated to come out, or is currently in the works.

But, as some of you might have guessed, this slew of ‘remake announcements’ hasn’t gone over entirely well with everybody. Namely, there are quite a few people on the internet who are not a fan of Disney’s current live-action film strategy for various reasons, including the obvious argument of ‘why remake a classic’ and the fact that these remakes are now the primary projects on the studio’s schedule instead of original films. In fact, some of my good friends in the blogger community are in this exact crowd. As for me, though, I’m eagerly looking forward to a lot of these new remakes because of the great potential that they have. Now, for the record, I’m well-aware of an old quote from Walt Disney himself in which he remarked that ‘you can’t top pigs with pigs’, which basically asserted his own theory on the idea of sequels after he produced several sequels to the studio’s 1933 classic short, Three Little Pigs, that weren’t as successful as the original. But that was a different time; nowadays, nothing is ‘truly original’ anymore, meaning that stuff like this is bound to happen. Now, let me be clear, I love seeing an original film as much as the next person. Heck, my #8 favorite film from last year was Swiss Army Man. However, I’m not one of those people who outright condemns sequels, reboots, and remakes just because they exist. Thus, today on Rhode Island Movie Corner, I’ll be listing three reasons as to why I’m enthusiastic towards the upcoming line of Disney’s ‘live-action remakes’. Again, let me be clear; I understand where those who are against the remakes are coming from but, please, hear me out on this for a moment.

REASON #1: MANY OF THE RECENT REMAKES HAVE BEEN GOOD

Now, of course, this is an argument that can be quite subjective, just like film itself, hence why I decided to start this post with this argument right out the gate. There is no such thing as a ‘universally beloved’ film; every film has its critic and the recent Disney remakes are no exception to this. However, some of the most recent remakes in this lineup have genuinely been a success with BOTH critics and audiences. And again, as I noted earlier, this wasn’t initially the case. Both Alice in Wonderland and Maleficent were polarizing, to say the least, and believe me when I say that I have come across opinions on both sides of the spectrum. I have seen plenty of people who have expressed absolute contempt for these remakes. But, at the same time, I’ve also come across quite a few people that absolutely love these films. Therefore, it makes a lot more sense to me now why Alice in Wonderland managed to gross over a billion back in 2010; there were some people out there who did really like it. Same situation with Maleficent, which overcame its mixed reception to gross over $750 million worldwide and end up as the 4^th highest-grossing film of 2014. So, in short, while the films may not have done well with critics, they were doing well with audiences and, if you ask me, that usually matters more; knowing that audiences were enjoying it. Clearly, most audiences aren’t bothered by these remakes coming out and, if you ask me, why rain on their parade?   

But then when Cinderella came out, things were a little different as the critical reception was far more positive compared to Alice and Maleficent. Maintaining a solid 83% on Rotten Tomatoes and with over $500 million worldwide, it was very much the first in this line of Disney remakes that was a true bona fide success from a critical standpoint and not just a commercial one. Again, it did have its critics (believe me, I’ve gotten some flak from some people online for liking this film) but it ultimately proved that, if anything, these remakes could be fantastic. And then, in 2016, audiences were treated to not one but two highly successful adaptations of classic Disney films (note: before any of you bring up the critically-bashed sequel to Alice in Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, that doesn’t really count in this instance because it’s primarily a sequel). Director Jon Favreau’s adaptation of The Jungle Book was one of the best-reviewed films of 2016 and it grossed nearly $1 billion worldwide. And then, near the tail-end of the summer, there was Pete’s Dragon. It didn’t reach the same commercial heights of the other remakes, which is understandable considering that it’s based on a Disney film that isn’t as well-known compared to something like The Jungle Book, but it too was well-received by most critics and it did manage to break even with around $140 million worldwide on a modest $65 million budget. Now, let me be clear, I’m not saying that all the upcoming Disney remakes are going to be successful with both critics and audiences. There probably will be some critical duds here and there. However, no matter how well or how bad these upcoming remakes fare with critics, the previous three Disney remakes will stand as genuine success stories and proof that not only can they be done, but done well.

REASON #2: THERE IS POTENTIAL FOR NEW TAKES ON THESE STORIES

To me, the best thing that a ‘remake’ can do is offer a new take on a classic story. And that’s one of the key reasons as to why I am genuinely looking forward to most of these Disney remakes. While some will no doubt share many similarities with their animated predecessors, it’s not like they’re going to be ‘note-for-note’ copies or anything. The only real instance in which I’ve seen this happen is director Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho and the critical bashing that film got is a good reason, I’d say, as to why you don’t see a lot of ‘note-for-note’ remakes. Alice in Wonderland, for example, was a ‘continuation’ of the original story while Maleficent was the story of Sleeping Beauty told from the perspective of the titular villain, Maleficent. Say what you will about the films themselves but the decision to tell these stories from a different angle was, at the very least, ‘something different’. The other big Disney remake of this nature, which ultimately ended up being the most different from its predecessor, was Pete’s Dragon. Instead of being a musical like the original 1977 film was, the new adaptation was more of a drama. And while this may have ticked off some fans of the original, to the point where some even referred to the new film as ‘Pete’s Dragon in name only’, again, it was ‘something different’. Jon Favreau took a similar approach with The Jungle Book. While there were some elements of the original animated film that were featured in the new version (e.g. its most popular songs), Favreau also utilized elements from Rudyard Kipling’s original story to create something along the lines of a hybrid between the film’s two primary source materials.

Now, admittedly, the 2015 remake of Cinderella was basically just the same general story as its predecessor; a young girl is subjected to relentless cruelty from her wicked stepmother and stepsisters but her life then changes once she meets a charming prince. So, of course, some of you may ask “Well, why the heck did they remake it, then?” But, you see, they did throw in a few new things here and there to differentiate itself from the original, like having scenes with young Ella and her parents (whereas in the original, these scenes were just part of the opening narration, sans her mother) and additional scenes between her and the Prince prior to the Ball instead of just having them first meet at said Ball. Stuff like this, especially the latter, did help the film expand upon the story of the original which, as great as it is, is admittedly a product of its time. And, overall, it’s clear that a similar method is going on with the new Beauty and the Beast. While still the same story of a young woman who slowly falls in love with the monstrous-looking prince of an enchanted castle, there are a few changes that have been made here and there to make it its own thing; most notably, Belle is now an inventor just like her father. Now, for the record, I’m not saying that these changes are going to automatically improve upon the original, nor am I expecting the new film to be ‘better’ than the original. Instead, I view it in the same way that I do the other Disney remakes; as a nice complement to the original that can stand on its own merit alongside the original. On that note…

REASON #3: NOTHING. IS. GETTING. REPLACED!

This is the one point that I feel should be stressed ad nauseam… because, clearly, this is the one thing that those who are against the Disney remakes fear the most when it comes to them. They fear that these remakes are the studio’s way of ‘erasing’ the original animated films from existence, implying that animation is inferior to live-action/CG. Trust me when I say that this is not the case whatsoever. This isn’t like the original Star Wars trilogy, where George Lucas has continually made changes to the films without ever giving us any chance of viewing them in their original format. No matter what happens with these remakes, the originals will still be there at the end of the day. Case in point, the original Beauty and the Beast was just given a fancy new 25^th-anniversary Blu-Ray right in time for the release of the new film. They also released the original Jungle Book on Blu-Ray a few years ago; sure, it may have been two whole years before Jon Favreau’s live-action version and it’s since gone back into the Disney Vault but, again, it shows that Disney still cares about the original versions. Yes, there have been a few behind-the-scenes videos in which those working on the new BATB (namely, director Bill Condon) say stuff along the lines of ‘technology allows us to do things we couldn’t do in 1991’ but that’s just the marketing material talking. Not once have they ever said ‘we’re trying to replace the original film’. In fact, most of those who’ve worked on these Disney remakes have made it clear in interviews that they adore the original films and were doing their best to try and live up to their reputation.   

And at the end of the day, if any of these upcoming remakes don’t turn out so good, so what? It’s not like they’re ‘metaphorical murder’ or anything (note: that phrase ‘metaphorical murder’ was an actual comment made by a critic of the Disney remakes). The reputation of their original sources won’t be tarnished by them; heck, if anything, they’d just end up making the originals even better by comparison. This is a mentality that’s been around for pretty much every other remake, reboot, and so on and so forth that’s come out in the past few years, not just the ones from Disney. Whenever one’s announced, the internet reacts to it like it caused the plague or something. But, really, that’s all that it is; a mentality, not a reality. Sure, some remakes are more questionable than others but it’s not like there’s some law out there that states that a certain film can’t be remade. The worst possible outcome would be that it’s just a lame remake, nothing else. Heck, this backlash towards the Disney remakes is honestly not too far off from what happened with the new Ghostbusters film. As we all know by now, when that film was first announced, it was absolutely savaged by the internet, particularly from angry fanboys who just couldn’t handle the fact that their favorite franchise was being brought back (and don’t get me started about when they found out that women were starring in it). But, it came out, and it did ok with critics. More important, though, is the fact that all copies of the original Ghostbusters films did not spontaneously combust into flames as was feared. And guess what? Neither did any of the Disney animated films when their live-action remakes were released.

In fact, some of the most beloved films of all time just so happen to be remakes. John Carpenter’s The Thing? Remake. The Departed? It’s a remake of a Hong Kong film from 2002 named Infernal Affairs. And the classic Wizard of Oz that we all know and love from 1939? That was the 11^th film adaptation of L. Frank Baum’s books (and it sure as hell wasn’t the last either)! Bottom line, just because Disney’s releasing a bunch of remakes doesn’t mean that they consider animation to be inferior. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that films like Frozen, Zootopia, and Moana are more than enough proof that animation is still Disney’s primary source of film output. Now, I’ll admit that I do think that Disney probably should’ve been a bit more conservative when it came to announcing all these remakes. It probably would’ve been better if they had announced like one or two a year instead of, you know, a new one every other week. Still, I think it’s exciting that we’re getting new takes on the classic stories of our childhoods that will help introduce them to a new generation. Just remember that the original films still exist, okay guys? Because if there’s any real sign of these films being overshadowed by their new live-action counterparts, it’s more the internet’s fault and not Disney’s (Remember when all those videos bashing The Jungle Book came out before the remake's release? Well the same thing just happened again with Beauty and the Beast.). And to those who aren’t big on these upcoming remakes, that’s fine; no one’s forcing you to watch them. Just let those who are excited for them have their fun, okay?

Click here for the original version of this post that was submitted to Rotoscopers.com

Favorite Films of Summer 2014- As Voted by the Fans

A little over a week ago, I set up a poll on Surveymonkey.com and asked you guys to vote on what your favorite movie from Summer 2014 was and I’m really pleased with the amount of responses the poll got. In the end, 43 people submitted their votes so with that said I would like to thank all of those who voted. So now that the voting process is closed, it’s time for the fun part of all of this. Now you guys get to see which films earned your votes as your favorite films from these past four months of the year. Now despite what I said in my ‘End of Summer Announcement’ post, I’m ultimately not going to do a ‘Top 10’ list. The main reason for this is because ultimately 19 films earned votes from you all and a lot of them had similar amounts of votes (some had 2 votes each, some 3 each, etc…) so it’s actually rather impossible to do an official ‘Top 10’ list. So instead of doing that, I will be listing all of the films that got votes, going from those that earned the lowest amount of votes to the ones that got the highest. So without further ado, here are your favorite films from the Summer 2014 movie season.

9 FILMS EARNED ONE VOTE

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

If this film hadn’t gotten a mixed reaction from both critics and audiences, I’d be more comfortable in saying that this was the best year for comic book movies yet. For the record, I do think this has been the best year so far for comic book movies mostly because of the other three superhero films that came out this year which all earned glowing reviews from both critics and audiences. But Spidey wasn’t as lucky as ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ pretty much became the ‘Man of Steel’ of the year as both critics and audiences were mixed on it though overall I’ve heard QUITE a lot more negative reviews than I have positive ones. I may be in the minority here, but I really loved this film. I may have been hesitant at first about these ‘Amazing Spider-Man’ movies due to their status of being a very rushed reboot (just five years after the Sam Raimi trilogy had ended) but after seeing these films, I actually find myself preferring these two to the Raimi trilogy because I like the characters in this series more, specifically Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone as Peter Parker/Spider-Man and Gwen Stacy, respectively.

The common complaint towards this film was that it was too overcrowded in both ideas and characters and while I do see where people are coming from with this, I didn’t really think it was that ‘bloated’. It’s clear that with this film the writers did not realize the major problem of ‘Spider-Man 3’ in that it had too many villains. Both films have three villains each but overall I feel that ‘Spider-Man 3’ is still the bigger mess in terms of its characters and plotlines. But even with that said, I don’t think that film is as bad as the entire internet is putting it out to be… and the same can be said for ‘The Amazing Spider-Man 2’ as well. Despite the multiple villains, the film does clarify who the ‘main villain’ is, I found the story to be pretty self-contained, and while I’m not trying to compare the quality of the following films, the direction by Marc Webb is much more confident here than it was in the first film, similar to Christopher Nolan when he went from ‘Batman Begins’ to ‘The Dark Knight’. It’s clear that Sony wants to do a ‘Sinister Six’ movie and that is something that I do want to see. But if I did have any complaints about ‘Amazing Spider-Man 2’, it is that the lead-in for ‘Sinister Six’ is just a minor tease during the ending. Sony, if you want to make ‘Sinister Six’ happen, actually start making it happen!

CHEF

In between all of the summer blockbusters that came out this year was this charming little indie film from Jon Favreau about a chef who quits his job at a major restaurant when he feels that he is unable to express his culinary creativity. He also becomes infamous on social media when he berates a food critic both online and in person for criticizing his food (which was because he had to stick to the ‘classics’ and was forbidden from trying new things). It’s fairly clear that this film’s story mirrors Favreau’s own frustrations with the Hollywood system. After directing many big-budget summer blockbusters like ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ and the first two ‘Iron Man’ films, he returns to the more low-budgeted films where he got his start as a director. ‘Chef’ is an incredibly charming film, with an excellent message that stresses the importance of freedom of expression. I especially loved the sequence in this film when Favreau’s character, his son (Emjay Anthony), and his best friend (John Leguizamo) go on a road trip across the country in their new food truck. Now I can’t say that it’s the ‘best film’ of the year because I didn’t really find it as funny as a lot of people were saying it was but at the same time I still appreciated the charm of this film and its strong message. All in all, ‘Chef’ was a very pleasant change of pace from all of the summer blockbusters.

MILLION DOLLAR ARM

This film, released during the weekend that ‘Godzilla’ came out, is based on a true story about a sports agent who, looking to find new talent for the Major Leagues, establishes a new contest in India in order to find new talent. His first two contenders, Rinku Singh and Dinesh Patel) became the first two Indian men to sign U.S. pro sports contracts. Now I didn’t see the film but from what I’ve seen online, it looks like the film got pretty decent reviews from critics. To paraphrase the RT consensus, it’s a pleasant film that benefitted heavily from having Jon Hamm in the lead role while not really adding much to the ‘inspirational sports story’ formula that we’ve seen a lot of times. But really… I don’t really mind that at all. Being a sports fan myself, I grew watching films like ‘Rookie of the Year’, ‘Angels in the Outfield’, and ‘Remember the Titans’ and while I know they all share similar plot points, I still find a lot of them to be very entertaining. In fact, the same can be said about another sports film that came out this year, ‘Draft Day’, which I did see and I was rather surprised to find that I really liked it. I didn’t end up seeing ‘Million Dollar Arm’ in theaters, but I’ll probably watch it sometime soon.

EDGE OF TOMORROW

‘Edge of Tomorrow’ unfortunately ends up being one of the most criminally underrated films of this summer season. Now I’m not saying it’s ‘underrated’ from a critical perspective because it actually got really, really good reviews from critics (something that I did not expect to happen at all). I’m referring to how the film performed at the domestic box office where it fared pretty poorly commercially. It only grossed about $100 million here in the U.S., at least $78 million under its budget. Thankfully the international box office helped it at least make its money back but still it’s sad to see that this film didn’t fare so well here in the U.S. It seems like the biggest reason for the film’s poor performance was due to lackluster marketing which might have had some people thinking that it was just a rehash of star Tom Cruise’s most recent film ‘Oblivion’. However, ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is far from that; it’s an incredibly well-made sci-fi action blockbuster with phenomenal performances from both Cruise and Emily Blunt. The first half of the film sees Cruise go against type as a general who isn’t trained in combat but forced into serving on the front lines while Blunt more than proves that she can be a Grade-A female action star. Hopefully this film’s poor performance at the U.S. box office won’t affect this film’s reputation too hard because it really was an excellent entry in the sci-fi genre.

DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES

Speaking of excellent sci-fi films, now we come to ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’, the sequel to 2011’s surprise hit ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. ‘Dawn’ is one of the rare sequels that actually manages to improve over its predecessor. Like ‘Rise’, it gives us characters that we really do care about but it also does a great job at immersing us in this ‘post-virus’ world where genetically-modified apes are living away from the human race, who is trying to survive after a virus wiped out millions of people. Andy Serkis is once again phenomenal as the lead ape Caesar but credit is also due for Toby Kebbell as the ape Koba. While he is the ‘villain’ of the film, at times you actually do sympathize with him because of how he was treated before the virus spread. The human cast is really great as well, including the fairly underrated Jason Clarke in the lead human role (the scenes between him and Serkis are phenomenal) and Gary Oldman in a role that, going in, might have had you thinking he’s the bad guy but instead they actually gave him a really good amount of depth. So all in all, director Matt Reeves delivered what could arguably be the best ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie to date; a film that is not only entertaining, but one that also quite a lot of emotional depth as well.

SEX TAPE

As the title suggests, this film centers on a couple (played by Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel) who film a sex tape in order to spice up their love life. However, instead of deleting the video when they are done, it ends up getting uploaded to ‘the cloud’ which is linked to a bunch of iPads that they gave to their friends, resulting in them trying to get them all back before anyone ever sees their video or, worse, it gets leaked to the internet. Now I didn’t see this film in theaters because of one main reason… it got TERRIBLE reviews from critics and considering that it got a C+ on CinemaScore, I’m guessing it didn’t fare too well with audiences either. My friend Matt saw it and he told me that it was ‘all right’ with the major highlight being a cameo by Jack Black as the owner of the website YouPorn. But despite that, I really have no interest in this film right now and am probably not going to bother with it.

THE PURGE: ANARCHY

2013’s ‘The Purge’ was one of those movies where, despite the fact that it didn’t fare well with critics (and from what I’ve seen online, even most audiences), it was still very successful from financial standpoint because it was filmed on a very small budget. So because of this, we got a sequel, ‘The Purge: Anarchy’. Now I didn’t see ‘The Purge’ so I didn’t see ‘Anarchy’ when it was in theaters. The general consensus seemed to be that while it still really wasn’t that good, it was at least an improvement over its predecessor. The main reason for this was because unlike the first film, this film took place in a city during the event known as ‘The Purge’, when all crime is made legal for 12 hours and all emergency services are shut down. The first film mainly took place within the home of the main characters which I’m guessing disappointed a lot of people who wanted to see a lot more of this ‘Purge’ thing but instead had to be stuck watching this family try to survive when they come into conflict with a group of Purgers. However at the same time, it seems like this film still had its fair share of stupid characters (I’m aware that most of what happened in the first film happened because of one incredibly stupid action committed by the main character’s son) and was really nothing more than a series of violent imagery trying to act like it’s smarter than it really is. But again, I haven’t seen either of these films so I don’t know how I would actually feel about these films.

LET’S BE COPS

I didn’t see ‘Let’s Be Cops’ for one main reason and it actually wasn’t because of the reviews which were pretty bad regardless. Believe it or not the main reason why I didn’t really have my interest in the film was because of what happened in one of my film classes. My professor had recently been to Los Angeles where he got to take a peek at some of 21^st Century Fox’s upcoming films, including ‘X-Men’ and this film. He responded favorably to ‘X-Men’ but not so much for ‘Let’s Be Cops’. So you can chalk this up as another comedy this summer that I didn’t see.

LIFE ITSELF

Anyone who either is a film critic or wants to become one absolutely needs to see this film, a biopic on the life of famed movie critic Roger Ebert who, even more than a year since his tragic death in April 2013, is arguably still the most famous movie critic of all time. This film gives us a poignant look back on his life. It offers some facts that you might not have known, like how Ebert’s co-host on his show ‘Siskel and Ebert’, Gene Siskel, was once a part of Hugh Hefner’s posse or that Ebert actually wrote the screenplay for a film, ‘Beyond the Valley of the Dolls’. But in the end one thing is clear; as the title suggests, Ebert loved life and I’ll always admire how he continued to do his job and continue to write movie reviews even after losing his voice around 2006. Like many other film critics, both current and aspiring, Ebert had a major influence on my development as a film critic because I read his reviews and while I didn’t grow up with ‘Siskel and Ebert’, I have watched some of their old videos. One major thing I learned from watching him on ‘Siskel and Ebert’ and reading his written reviews is to always stand up for your opinion even if someone else disagrees with you and that is a philosophy that I still follow to this day.

R.I.P. Roger Ebert.

3 FILMS EARNED TWO VOTES

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST

Talk about a franchise that has successfully redeemed itself after some very mediocre entries. After ‘X-Men’ and ‘X2’ director Bryan Singer left the franchise to go direct ‘Superman Returns’, the series really started to go downhill with the highly disappointing ‘X-Men: The Last Stand’ and the god-awful ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’. The series managed to get back on track with ‘X-Men: First Class’ (which Singer produced) and Wolverine even got a much better solo outing with ‘The Wolverine’. And finally, Singer returned to the director’s chair with ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, which I feel is the best X-Men film to date. The film of course is based off of the iconic X-Men storyline ‘Days of Future Past’ from the comics though from what I hear, the film doesn’t stay true to the original story that much but regardless of that, it is still a well-written film with the best ensemble cast of any X-Men film to date. Even though the film does focus on a select few of the cast, everyone does their job in this and I really have to highlight James McAvoy who is just phenomenal in this movie. Whereas Michael Fassbender stole the show in ‘First Class’, this movie belongs to McAvoy. I really like how they’ve been handing the character of young Professor X as he starts to mature more into the Professor X that we knew from the original film trilogy. But most importantly this film is pretty much the filmmakers’ apology to the fans for letting the series go the way it did with ‘Last Stand’ and ‘Origins’ as this film pretty much eradicates those films from the series’ timeline. Now we know that this series is back in the right hands now that Bryan Singer has returned to the franchise that he started back in 2000. I can’t wait for 2016’s ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’.

TAMMY

This was another summer comedy that I didn’t see in theaters. I wasn’t really interested in it before it came out and once I heard it got rather mediocre reviews, I just went to go see ‘Jersey Boys’ again during 4^th of July weekend. As for ‘Tammy’, this is Melissa McCarthy’s newest film. She of course has been on a roll ever since she got nominated for an Oscar for ‘Bridesmaids’. In this, she stars as the titular Tammy, a woman who has a really bad day (she gets fired from her job, she finds out her husband is cheating on her, etc…) so she takes a road trip along with her grandmother (played by Susan Sarandon who, despite playing her grandmother in this, is actually not that much older than McCarthy). Anyway, so the reviews weren’t all that good for it but another reason why I didn’t see the film was because I hadn’t really seen a lot of McCarthy’s work. I’m sure she’s a very funny lady but for the most part, I haven’t really seen a lot of her recent big hits like ‘Bridesmaids’ and ‘The Heat’ so I didn’t really have much interest in ‘Tammy’.

THE EXPENDABLES 3

It’s kind of sad that the newest entry in ‘The Expendables’ franchise performed pretty badly at the box office during its opening weekend. Franchise fatigue might have been the main factor in this along with the filmmakers’ failed attempt at marketing this film towards a younger audience by having the film rated PG-13 (more on that in a second) but clearly a major factor for this poor performance was because of an incident where a Digital Copy of the film was leaked online weeks before the film was set to come out. I know that if the film wasn’t leaked early, it still was at risk at doing poorly at the box office but still it’s pretty sad because this film wasn’t that bad. I’ll admit to being a fan of ‘The Expendables’ films, especially the second one which I feel was a major improvement over the first film by not taking things as seriously and for having better action sequences. So now we come to this third film and it’s rated PG-13 following the first two which were both R-rated and well-deserving of that rating. This change in rating, though, isn’t entirely a bad thing. Yes, a lot of the action sequences are heavily edited but at the same time it eliminated the use of those digital blood squibs that I know a lot of people really hate so it’s not all bad. Plus, even under a PG-13 rating, this film is still pretty damn violent. Like the two that came before it, ‘The Expendables 3’ is cheesy and pretty stupid but I still found it to be pretty entertaining.

3 FILMS EARNED (IRONICALLY) THREE VOTES

NEIGHBORS

In terms of the comedies that came out these past few months, the summer movie season got off to a pretty nice start with ‘Neighbors’, in which Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne star as a couple who end up getting into a ‘turf war’ with a local fraternity when they move in next door. The main reason why I feel this movie worked as well as it did is because while this is about a prank war between the two main ‘parties’ of the film (family vs. frat), this film doesn’t have a ‘villain’. Sure, the film is primarily from the view of the couple and they are a likable couple (Rogen and Byrne do have really nice chemistry) but at the same time it doesn’t portray the members of the frat as ‘a-holes’. They have an admirable goal; become legends of their frat and their leader, Teddy, is doubtful about his future, which is a nice bit of contrast with Rogen and Byrne’s characters who want some more excitement in their lives. So in the end, the frat members aren’t portrayed as being the villains; if they were portrayed as such I feel that this movie could’ve ended up giving fraternities a bad name but it didn’t. Two of my fellow panelists on ‘The Feature Presentation’, Matt and Alex, are in a fraternity and they agree that this film did a really good job when it came to portraying fraternities so overall, this is a fun little comedy that may not be my pick for the funniest film of the year (that honor goes to a film that’s coming up in a few moments) but it is still an incredibly entertaining comedy that has its fair share of laugh-out-loud moments.

MALEFICENT

Disney’s latest live-action fantasy film, ‘Maleficent’, is a re-telling of  their classic animated film ‘Sleeping Beauty’ but told from the perspective of its villain, Maleficent, who is arguably the best animated Disney villain of all time. Fans of the character might be a little disappointed, however, that Maleficent is not the main villain here. Instead, she’s the protagonist but it still works because unlike the original film, this film actually does give her a motive for her revenge against the King whereas in the original her motivation for revenge was that she was uninvited to Princess Aurora’s christening. In this movie, she befriended a young boy when she was younger but years later when the boy has the chance to become king, he takes it and betrays Maleficent by cutting off her wings. We do sympathize with her character, even when she acts like the ‘bad guy’, and of course Angelina Jolie is phenomenal in the role. But probably my favorite part of this whole movie is the relationship between Maleficent and Aurora. There’s sort of this ‘mother-daughter’ relationship that develops between them and this really is the heart of the film. Of course the visuals are excellent and at just 97 minutes, the film never overstays its welcome. In terms of the recent big-budget live-action fantasy films that Disney has made in recent years, I still prefer last year’s ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ but I will say that I did end up liking ‘Maleficent’ more than I did Tim Burton’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’. So far I’d say that Disney is doing a pretty good job in regards to these kinds of movies and I’m interested in seeing more of these kinds of films; live-action versions of their classic animated films.

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES

Despite the fact that director Michael Bay’s newest film, ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’, received some of the worst reviews of the year, it still became the highest grossing film of the year worldwide as it’s currently the only film this year that has grossed over $1 billion. Bay’s other major film this year, ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’, has faced similar scrutiny with critics. Heck, the film was controversial ever since it was first announced and not just because Bay was producing it; there was the alleged change of the origin story, the casting of Megan Fox as April O’Neil, and much more controversial developments that caused many people to predict that this was going to be a disaster. Well, considering what the reviews have been like, I’m guessing many people feel like they were right… however I disagree with that. In fact, while I do understand the criticisms towards the ‘Transformers’ films, I really don’t get the hate towards this film. Now let me be clear; I don’t think that this movie is ‘great’. In fact, compared to the other movies that we got this summer, there’s really nothing about it that ‘stands out’. But regardless of that, I still managed to have a lot of fun with it. When the Turtles are on screen that is where the movie really shines; they had great camaraderie and while I know I’m in the minority on this, I didn’t mind their CGI design.

But I want to address a complaint that I’ve heard that’s being thrown around when talking about this movie and that is that some people feel like this film ruined the TMNT franchise the same way Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films ‘ruined the Transformers franchise’. Again, I get why people would say that about the ‘Transformers’ films but I call major B.S. on the idea that this new TMNT film ruined the franchise. The main reason why is because all of those supposed controversial changes that were allegedly going to happen (e.g. the ‘alien’ origins, William Fichtner being the Shredder, etc…) are not present in any way in this film. This does feel like a Ninja Turtles movie that stayed true to what made this franchise so famous in the first place, more so than Bay’s ‘Transformers’ films ever did. In fact, despite the fact that this is produced by Michael Bay and directed by a Michael Bay wannabe (Jonathan Liebesman), this doesn’t feel too much like a Bay film. For one thing, there aren’t millions of explosions happening every minutes. Plus, even with a PG-13 rating, this film is generally harmless for younger audiences. So in short, I strongly feel that the new ‘Turtles’ film isn’t as bad as the entire internet is putting it out to be. I’ve said the same thing about the ‘Transformers’ movies but this time, I stand by that belief.

THIS FILM EARNED FOUR VOTES

BOYHOOD

The most popular film of the write-in section, ‘Boyhood’ is the highest rated movie of the summer according to Rotten Tomatoes with a 99% Tomatometer score (Given how much a lot of people are loving this film, I’d really hate to be the two critics who gave it negative reviews right now). For those who haven’t heard about this film, here’s the basic rundown about it; the film was shot over a span of 11 years so that director Richard Linklater could properly tell a ‘coming of age’ story with the same kid actor (Ellar Coltrane) as he grew from childhood to adulthood. Just a quick disclaimer; I haven’t seen this film yet so I know a lot of people are going say that ‘I must see it’ so with that in mind I assure you that I will try and see it soon. But for now, it’s safe to say that ‘Boyhood’ is one of the most popular films from this summer as proven by the fact that it was the fourth most popular film on this poll.

AND NOW… THE THREE MOST POPULAR FILMS OF SUMMER 2014 (AS VOTED BY YOU, THE FANS) WITH FIVE VOTES EACH

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Here’s a funny little story about this film. My co-panelists on the ‘Feature Presentation’, Matt and Alex, were going to see ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ but when they went into the theater they ended up coming in during the last few minutes of this movie making them wonder if they went to the wrong theater… thankfully, they didn’t. But anyway, back to ‘Fault in our Stars’, this being an adaptation of a popular novel of the same name by John Green about a young cancer patient (Shailene Woodley) who falls in love with an amputee (Ansel Elgort) when they meet at a cancer support group. I didn’t see the film but from what I’ve heard online, it’s actually pretty good. As embarrassing as it is to admit this, I wasn’t really that interested in this film because I thought it looked like another ‘chick flick’ but thankfully it looks like I was very much wrong about that. So with that said, I probably will see this movie sometime soon; I can’t make any promises but given the fact that I’ve heard a lot of good things about it, it’s more than likely I will end up seeing it in the near future.

22 JUMP STREET

I’m just going to come out and say it… ‘22 Jump Street’ is the best comedy sequel of all time. Now to some that may not be saying much given that most comedy sequels aren’t really that good but this is one of the rare exceptions of a film that is not only as good as the film that came before it (21 Jump Street, a film that I’m pretty sure none of us were expecting would be as good/hilarious as it was) but also better. This film is filled to the brim with meta humor that heavily plays up the fact that this film is pretty much note for note rehashing the exact same plot of the first film, a mistake that a lot of comedy sequels make. However, in this case it works because they continuously poke fun at this and like the last film, the writing is superb and the camaraderie between leads Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum is terrific. Admittedly there are some jokes in the film that come off as being incredibly awkward, such as when Hill’s character keeps getting called ‘Maya Angelou’, who had just died a few weeks before the film came out as well as a scene where Tatum’s character criticizes the fact that some people are still using the ‘other F-word’ in 2014, which comes off being really awkward considering Hill’s recent incident in which he used that exact same word on paparazzi. However, the film more than makes up for that with multiple gut-busting laugh-out-loud moments, including one of the best end credits sequences ever in which they do numerous fake sequels to the film. Simply put, ‘22 Jump Street’ is easily the funniest comedy of 2014 (so far), and directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller strike gold once again. At this point, having made 4 films that all seemed to be risky ventures at first but ended up being terrific, they really can do no wrong.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY

It’s clear that we all got ‘hooked on a feeling’ with Marvel Studios’ latest, and strangest, film, ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. Remember when everyone was saying that this would be a major risk for the studio given that odds are that most people were unfamiliar with these characters (myself included when the film was first announced)? Well, this ‘major risk’ ended up being the highest grossing film of the summer (stateside) and is currently the highest grossing domestic release of the year. Rightfully so, as it truly is a fantastic comic book film. The film feels self-aware about how this is a much more obscure franchise compared to something like ‘Iron Man’ or ‘Captain America’, resulting in an incredibly entertaining space film a la ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Serenity’. It’s also one of the funniest out of all the MCU films but at the same time it isn’t a straight-up comedy; it takes itself seriously when it needs to be but at the same time isn’t all gloomy and depressing (looking at you, DC, and your alleged ‘no jokes’ mandate). It has the best non-Avengers ensemble cast of the entire MCU with a great cast of leads and some pretty awesome villains.

But most importantly, this film really benefits from having a lot of emotional resonance because you really come to care about the ‘Guardians’. While they are criminals and, to quote a line in the film, ‘a bunch of a-holes’, they’re really just misfits trying to find their place in the universe. You really have to give Marvel a hell of a lot of credit for making us feel for a talking raccoon and a tree creature. It is because of this emotional resonance and the fact that I feel that ‘Guardians’ is actually the funniest MCU film to date (because it’s more consistent with its humor) that I feel that ‘Guardians’ is actually better than ‘The Avengers’. Now I know that’s an incredibly bold thing to say. Also, please don’t misinterpret me because ‘Avengers’ is still phenomenal but after just two viewings of ‘Guardians’, it’s now my new personal favorite MCU film because I feel it does a few things better than ‘Avengers’ (e.g. humor, emotional resonance, etc…). It’s clear that a lot of you share that same sentiment because as this poll shows, ‘Guardians’ was one of your top three favorite films of the summer.

So those are your picks for your favorite films from these past four months of this year. I’m not going to do a ‘Worst of Summer 2014’ poll, mostly because I can already tell which film(s) is/are going to win that argument. So once again, I’d like to thank all of those who voted on this poll and as the end result shows, there truly were a large number of great films that came out this summer based on the various responses you gave me.

I leave you with this... dancing Groot!