The Lion King (2019): I just can’t wait for it to end

The Lion King (2019) has about 15-25 minutes of ok stuff, and the rest is unmitigated awful. I’m going to go into plot spoilers here, but it’s literally a remake of an almost 30-year-old movie so yeah, Scar is still a bad guy and Mufasa still dies. No surprise here. The minute Simba grows up, the movie crashes and burns.

The animation itself, is beautiful and I am excited to see how Disney uses the technology in more competent films. The scenery and characters are truly magnificent, and any still from this movie is just plain pretty. However, none of that matters when the acting is so awful, it makes you shake your head in shame. This voice cast should be fantastic, especially since they have a good director in Jon Favreau. However, aside from Mufasa (James Earl Jones), Zazu (John Oliver), young Simba (JD McCrary), young Nala (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and Rafiki (John Kani) everyone else is horrible. This cast includes Donald Glover, Beyoncé, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Keegan-Michael Key, Eric Andre, and Seth Rogan, yet everyone just sucks. Especially Donald Glover and Beyoncé, they both sound bored and uninterested. Glover in particular has the charisma of a flat soda, and his singing is not very good in “Feel the Love Tonight.”

The music itself is nice, but because it’s music that was written almost 30 years ago. The one exception to that is a song called “Spirit,” a song sung by Beyoncé. But this isn’t a Lion King song sung by Beyoncé, this is a Beyoncé single in a Lion King movie. It comes on, and it immediately takes you out of the movie, with its processed instruments and stupid freaking clap snare hit every modern pop-star uses. Turns out that song was produced by Pharrell Williams, which makes total sense why it sticks out like a sore thumb. The only reason that song is in the movie is so Disney can release a new Beyoncé single on Top 40 radio. It’s despicable.

The comedy doesn’t hit, with one notable exception which I won’t spoil here. When Mufasa dies, I felt nothing. No emotion. And I just cried my eyes out in Toy Story 4 so me being a jaded young dude is not an excuse here. Scar is fine, but can’t hold a candle to the original, he is not as menacing as the original. The hyenas, however, are super scary and menacing, but then they turn around and start cracking jokes, which is way too jarring.

To top it all off, they straight up reuse the audio for “Circle of Life,” it is literally the original recording. I also think they reused the original audio on “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” but with new lead vocals, but I can’t be certain on that one. Plus, because of the realistic art style, the music scenes are dull and uninteresting, a far cry from the animated film with its huge numbers. The art style also limits how much emotion the faces of the characters can portray, as they all just look like neutral feeling animals. No fear, no sadness, no anger, nothing like that.

This movie gets a 4/10. I wanted it to be better, but it just isn’t. Just watch the original, save your money. It is not worth the ticket cost.

Spider-Man: Far from Home: The third “Spider-Man 2” we have had in 15 years

Spider-Man was my favorite superhero growing up, so I always expect a lot from movie starring him. The original line of Spider-Man films are fond memories, The Amazing Spider-Man movies are not. The current Spider-Man series has been a lot of fun, I enjoy seeing the web-head interact with the other Marvel heroes and to see him portrayed by an actual teenager (at the start anyway). Since Far from Home is the first movie to star my favorite Spider-Man villain, Mysterio, I was very excited to see it. So how was it? It’s fine.

 

Tom Holland as Spider-Man is fun and is spot on for the character. Zendaya as this new version of MJ (they won’t call her Mary-Jane, but come on, we all know that’s who she is) does her character really well, and she is at her best when she is in the middle of a weak moment. Together, they make very good on-screen chemistry, and I like them together. Jake Gyllenhal as Mysterio/Glenn Beck is a perfect fit, and I loved seeing him come to life on screen.

 

The special effects and cinematography were very good, particularly the Mysterio fight scenes. The music was above par for these kinds of movies, it actually stood out to me, which is great. Production design was fantastic, as was the majority of the acting, the one detractor from that being JB Smooth as Peter Parker’s lazy science teacher.

 

All and all Far from Home is not a ground-breaking film in any respect, but it is well made and well done. It is not as good as Into the Spider-Verse, but it is better than the Amazing Spider-Man film series and better than Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3. I recommend it for all Spidey fans and all movie goers. 7/10.

Hell’s Gate, my own short horror film, was released today.

Over a year and a half ago, my friend Will Jackson and I decided to make a movie. So we did. It took us several false starts and several script rewrites, but we did it. We have finally released the film to the public. I hope you enjoy watching as much as I enjoyed filming. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u-wiy2E0Xc&t=1s

Halloween: The sequel to Halloween…this is gonna get confusing

I love slasher horror movies. The cheesiness, the tropes, the villains. I love them. “Friday the 13^th Part 3” and “Nightmare on Elm Street” being among the best in the genre. Slasher films had been around, but they did not get popular until “Halloween (1978)” and the emergence of Michael Meyers. But to be honest, I’m not a fan of Michael Meyers. Meyers, at the end of the day, is a human. If you shoot him in the head, he will die. Yet, he always found a way to survive every gunshot, car crash, and fire he ever suffered. Heck, in “Halloween 2” both his eyes were shot out, but he could see just fine in “Halloween 4: Return of Michael Meyers”. I always found this to be a cop out. Freddy and Jason survived crazy stuff, but they are paranormal in nature, unlike the completely human Michael.

Blumhouse pictures has taken the reigns for Michael’s newest outing (which makes this the fourth series continuity change) which serves as a direct sequel to “Halloween (1978)”. That means there was no Laurie as Michael’s sister, no psychic niece, no Kungfu Busta Rhymes, no “H20”, none of that. This is a good thing. With that being said, “Halloween (2018)” has a ton of throw backs and nods to those films. This is really fun for fans, and isn’t ham-fisted in anyway.

In this film, Michael comes back more brutal and more bloodthirsty than ever. The first on screen kill is a young boy, only around twelve years old. Michael does not slow down from there. The effects and the score that punctuate Michael’s kills are stunning and beautifully well done. However, I kinda wish Michael had a reason to kill. In the first film, he just wanted to go home, and when he was home, he saw Laurie babysitting a young boy, and that reminded Michael of his sister, so he needed to kill Laurie and he only killed those who got in his way. The whole series was his quest to kill Laurie, who ended up actually being his sister. But in this film, while he wants to kill Laurie, he goes out of his way to kill others for no reason.

Laurie Strode (Jaime Lee Curtis) was not explored enough in my opinion. She’s just a super paranoid grandma who is alcoholic. It’s basically a better written version of her “H20” character. The granddaughter, Allyson, is clearly the future of the franchise, but they need a better dialogue writer for her and her friends. The love triangle subplot is just cringey as hell and needs to go away.

Overall this film is very well made and knows what it wants to be. But its bad to mediocre dialogue and somewhat hammy acting from other supporting characters holds it back from being a masterpiece. I give it 7/10 above average. I hope it gets a sequel, and I hope Michael’s slasher cohorts find a way to be revived in similar manners.

Welcome to the Chicken Barn!

Hey hey, welcome to the Chicken Barn! I am so happy you are here to visit. This is a place where you can read/listen to my articles and podcasts about movies, the film industry, and entertainment as a whole. This is my first effort in website building, so please excuse the mess as I continuously update and improve the Chicken Barn. I sincerely appreciate every view, listen, and comment you have to leave. If you want to become part of the flock, join our mailing list to get updates whenever I post a new review or podcast. Thanks for reading. Have a great day!

-Dalton Cooper

“No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls.” -Ingmar Bergman