The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book, 2016

Directed by Jon Favreau, 105 minutes

Neel Sethi, Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Idris Elba, Lupita Nyong’o, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Esposito, Scarlett Johansson

Review by Katherine Scheetz

Director Jon Favreau takes us into the Seoni jungle of central India, with music and camera movements evocative of the classic 1967 animation. Favreau enchants us with the verdant visuals of “man-cub” Mowgli among the vines and moss, raised to be part of the wolf pack by alpha Akela (Esposito), mother Raksha (Nyong’o) and the tough-loving black panther Bagheera (Kingsley).

With smartly integrated monsoon season weather patterns, we observe how drought affects The Law of the Jungle and that when Peace Rock emerges from beneath the river, a truce between the jungle inhabitants must be obeyed. Elba makes his terrifying debut as the Bengal tiger Shere Khan here at Peace Rock, face scarred from man’s “red flower” and thirsting for revenge. With the return of the tiger and the monsoon (thus Peace Rock disappearing) Mowgli’s life becomes forfeit, forcing him and Bagheera to leave for the man-village in search of protection.

Along the way Mowgli learns his backstory from hypnotic rock python Kaa (Johansson), Bagheera teaches him about the reverence of the elephants and a tweaked King Louie (Walken) – with an accent from Queens, NY – brings about an Indiana-Jones-worthy temple chase scene filled with thick, filtered lighting. Sloth bear Baloo, voiced by the lazily charming Murray, embraces Mowgli’s inherent talent for invention or “tricks,” using them to his own ends ie: harvesting honey and singing “about the good life” alongside a goofy cast of supporting animals.

Composed by John Debney (who has a list of credits as long as my leg packed with rom-coms and Disney channel), the score intertwines the deep, time-honored melodies with the lift a modern audience needs. “The Bare Necessities,” “I Wanna Be Like You” and “Trust In Me” get a jazzy, New Orleans revamp, that call for bowling hats, smoky dance clubs and vintage microphones.

Mowgli’s coming of age story takes a different shape in all this – it’s about embracing yourself and your own “tricks.” Newcomer Neel Sethi’s compassionate performance evolves the character of Mowgli, and when you realize the kid did all of that acting with a green screen and his imagination – well, my hat is off.

Visit our Pachyderm Reviews GoFundMe page to donate to the Elephants and Bees project by Save the Elephants and receive your own limited edition Pachyderm Reviews t-shirt. To read details on the project and learn why Pachyderm Reviews is supporting them, visit out Get Involved page.

TBT Kingsman: The Secret Service

Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015

Directed by Matthew Vaughn , 129 minutes

Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Egerton, Michael Caine, Mark Strong

Review by Katherine Scheetz

Get in line Deadpool (2016), you aren’t the first R-rated comic book movie.

Based on the story by Icon Comics writer Mark Millar, Kingsman: The Secret Service opens with Harry Hart (a badass Firth) as a gentleman spy - code name: Galahad - in the Kingsman, the modern-day knights. He’s mid-operation overseas when he loses a promising young Kingsman-in-training with a wife and child back in England.

Fast forward 17 years and that child, Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Egerton, in his first film) is a brilliant plebe who has made a lot of bad calls.  Hart bails him out of jail and recognizing his father’s inherent talent, recommends him for the Kingsman elite training program. Merlin (a sarcastic, Scottish Strong) serves as home base trainer to Eggsy and the other young Brits vying for the spot of “Lancelot” on the Kingsman.

Meanwhile, megalomaniac tech villain Valentine (Jackson, with a lisp) claims mankind is a virus creating the fever of global warming and plans to purge the overpopulated earth with a radical cure. The hero, the protégé, the villain, the henchman, the gadgets – it’s all there.

X-Men: First Class (2011) and Kick-Ass (2010) tongue-and-cheek director Matthew Vaughn smartly paces this packed-in story using three well-conceived waves – backstory, training and epic conclusion.

It reciprocates the bold and brassy Bond-esque action theme coined by composers Henry Jackman and Matthew Margeson. The team doesn’t disappoint with superb musical selections ranging from “Free Bird” during a Westboro-Baptist-meets-Tarantino-slaughter and “Pomp and Circumstance” while politicians’ head’s explode in satirical fireworks. Vaughn also plays with some clever little scene changes, from champagne bubbles to assembly line printing of Valentine’s evil SIM cards.

It’s an undeniably strong cast with Firth, Strong and Egerton at the helm, who have the salaciously cheeky script – co-written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman – wrapped around their fingers. We leave wanting a pocket-sized Colin Firth for those times when we need quotes like “Manners maketh man,” and with last week’s provocative sequel poster released, can we dare to hope?

I’m only sorry I didn’t I see this one sooner.

Visit our Pachyderm Reviews GoFundMe page to donate to the Elephants and Bees project by Save the Elephants and receive your own limited edition Pachyderm Reviews t-shirt. To read details on the project and learn why Pachyderm Reviews is supporting them, visit out Get Involved page.

Elephants and Bees

              Pachyderm Reviews is moving forward with our next initiative to help the rapidly declining elephant population worldwide. Enter: Elephants and Bees Project.

The Elephants and Bees Project is an innovative study using an understanding of elephant behavior to reduce damage from crop-raiding elephants using their instinctive avoidance of African honey bees. The project explores the use of Beehive Fences as a natural elephant deterrent creating a social and economic boost to poverty-stricken rural communities through pollination services and the sustainable harvesting of “Elephant-Friendly Honey.” It is a project born out of the Save The Elephants charity.

Save the Elephants was founded in 1993 by Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, CBE, Chief Executive Officer, who made a pioneering study of elephant behavior in the late 60s in Lake Manyara National Park, Tanzania, and has worked on elephant status Africa-wide since.

Save the Elephants focus on research, education, grass-roots conservation, monitoring and protection and are involved in projects across Africa in Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, South Africa and Mali. Research projects range from investigations into the dynamics of elephant society at a molecular level to behavior of savannah, forest and desert elephants. They are involved in surveys to measure population trends, elephant mortality and ivory trade, providing information used by CITES (Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species) to ascertain the conservation status of the African elephant.

Our Elephants and Bees Project is core to Save The Elephants mission of innovative methods to reduce conflict and explore the cultural relationships between people and elephants.

Watch the full length video and visit the Elephants and Bees website to read more about their work. Visit the Pachyderm Reviews GoFundMe page to support our fundraiser and receive a limited edition Pachyderm Reviews t-shirt. And if your pockets aren’t deep enough to donate, share this link to get the word out about how we, writers and readers of all things cinema, can save people, bees and elephants with one simple project and it’s sweet reward.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, 2016

Directed by Zach Snyder, 151 minutes

Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jesse Eisenberg, Amy Adams

by Hailey Dolan

Batman and Superman appear together for the first time in film history, but with Lois Lane (Adams), Lex Luthor (Eisenberg) and Kryptonians taking center stage, Batman’s presence feels more like a cameo than a leading role.

After half an hour of crammed-in backstory and constant jumps between storylines, our two (supposed) protagonists finally meet at a party held by Lex Luthor. Here, Bruce Wayne (Affleck) discovers Luthor has been creating a super weapon while keeping tabs on a handful of meta-humans – people with extraordinary powers. Superman (Cavill), under journalist alias Clark Kent, discovers Wayne is Gotham City’s Batman.

Affleck delivers the tortured Batman with a chronic solemn expression. Where is that switched-on charm we were expecting from billionaire Bruce Wayne? Instead, we’re stuck with a gullible Wayne who is the last to learn he is working for the villain.

Doesn’t really sound like Batman, does it?

In a robotic suit, Batman clunks around, unknowingly keeping Superman occupied while Luthor unrolls his devious plan. Our once dark knight is now merely a pawn.

For her part, Lois Lane pops up every time Superman is on the screen. Her presence is, however, more annoying than anything else. In the middle of the final battle, there she stands, somehow the only civilian to survive all of the destruction. She even figures out how to kill the Luthor-created monster before the super beings do. Just in time, of course, for Superman to grab a quick kiss.

Convenient.  

Gadot’s Wonder Woman leaves us wondering why a bigger-than-life Amazonian fighter would be portrayed by one so lithe. Though we never learn why Wonder Woman is in Metropolis to begin with, the writers have utilized her well in the battle sequence as the sole proactive combatant against the monster, while Superman flies off, distracted, and Batman is nowhere to be seen.

The only eye-catching performance comes from our villainous mastermind. Though the Luthor character is typically cold and suave, Eisenberg gives him a childish twist with neurotic tendencies. It's certainly memorable, however, not even an Oscar-worthy performance would have saved this film. With countless plot holes, we’re left with more questions than answers. And disappointment. Lots of disappointment.

A battle meant to be this epic was probably best left to our imaginations.

Our guest blogger, Hailey Dolan, is the sassy brain behind the Blogspot Lift Your Leg, where she publishes snarky reviews of music, movies and television. She also uses her powers for good, by raising money through her blog for local animal shelters. Come back soon to hear about Pachyderm Reviews upcoming fundraiser for Elephants and Bees in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

The Divergent Series: Allegiant, 2016

Directed by Robert Schwentke, 121 minutes

Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Jeff Daniels, Naomi Watts, Ansel Elgort, Zoë Kravitz, Miles Teller, Octavia Spencer

Review by Katherine Scheetz

No need to buckle your seatbelt for the penultimate installment of the Divergent Series, it moves slower than Peter (Teller) catches onto the fact he’s being used…again. Splitting a book that already has a scanty plot, Allegiant is another victim to the money-grabbers of Hollywood. Names like Jeff Daniels, Octavia Spencer, Naomi Watts, Miles Teller and yes, even Shailene Woodley deserve better.

With the evil Jeanine (Kate Winslet) dead, Four’s (James) power-hungry mother, Evelyn (Watts) is in charge of a now factionless Chicago (for those just catching up the factions were Dauntless, Amity, Erudite, Abnegation and Candor).

In the only scene that is marginally creative with panning aerial camera shots, Four and Tris (Woodley) lead a rogue group over the wall surrounding Chicago to find the people who turned them into an experiment, the big reveal that concluded the previous film. They are picked up by the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, run by David (Daniels) out of the ruins of Chicago O’Hare airport. Even in his Hilter-reminiscent outfits, he convinces an irritatingly passive Tris that the only way to help the “genetically damaged” people of Chicago is to use her “genetically pure” DNA to appeal to some mysterious council for intervention.

Meanwhile, a furrowed-brow Four learns that the Bureau is involved in kidnapping and brainwashing children from the radioactive “Fringe,” or the outskirts of nuclear wasteland that surround the Bureau’s hub. Despite the preponderance of exposition, we never do get to the reason David is stealing kids. Miles Teller provides an entertaining, mercurial and punchline-driven performance as Peter, who still doesn’t know whose side he’s on.

All this adds up to is a generic and unimaginative story set to a predictable score. We can’t decide if the hokey technology or the bad CGI is more laughable. Maybe it’s the political themes of division that lost the pissing contest to animated mammals. And lost badly.

Visit our Get Involved page to learn about our previous donations to Game Rangers International Elephant Orphanage Project and visit us again for our next opportunity to give to animal sanctuaries across the globe. 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, 2016

Directed by Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, 112 minutes

Tina Fey, Margot Robbie, Martin Freeman, Alfred Molina, Billy Bob Thornton

Review by Katherine Scheetz

It’s been a good couple of months for journalism in film. Robert Carlock’s dark comedy adapted screenplay from Kim Barker’s “The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan” is another notch on the totem.

Kim Baker (Fey) is an unattached and bored desk journalist in 2003 when the war in Iraq takes off, who jumps at an assignment reporting in Afghanistan for three months and ends up staying three years.

Baker slides on her belly under fire toward explosions by day and knocks back shots, porn and men by night with fellow adrenaline junkie journalists in the Kabul bubble or “Kabubble.” Her normal is completely recalibrated through bizarre occurrences ranging from solicitations by the attorney general of Afghanistan (Molina) to pouring her drunk heart out to a Chinese whore after her first big break. Despite a job well done by Freeman as Baker’s love interest, Iain MacKelpie, it isn’t where the film should have ended. Spoiler alert: this is not a love story, at least not that kind.

Qualifications apply, for this is a largely different film from the recent success, Spotlight (2015). But both films do their journalist roots credit with ceaselessly excellent writing and gripping pace. For Whiskey, uncensored lines roll straight out of the gate from General Hollanek (Thornton) and Tanya Vanderpoel (Robbie). Carlock doesn’t coddle us by explaining the vernacular of the Kabubble – except for “wet hooch” – that one we needed help with.

Unfortunately, because of the chaos of Kabul, Ficarra’s attempt at shining a light on Baker’s women’s right stories took a back seat, which is damn shame. Between the burkas (Fey whips out a quippy “I’m so pretty I don’t even want to vote” from beneath the blue covering) in the film and the stories of education and lifestyle Baker uncovered, the platform was there for the taking.

In spite of the madness, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is a highly entertaining and highly educational swing at the unglamorous but exotic life journalism can bring down upon its unsuspecting victims.

Visit our Get Involved page to learn about our previous donations to Game Rangers International Elephant Orphanage Project and visit us again for our next opportunity to give to animal sanctuaries across the globe. 

Zootopia

Zootopia, 2016

Directed by Byron Howard, Rich Moore, Jared Bush, 108 minutes

Ginnifer Goodwin, Jason Bateman, Idris Elba, J.K. Simmons, Jenny Slate, Shakira

Review by Katherine Scheetz

              Judy Hopps (Goodwin) is the purple-eyed daughter of two carrot farmers in Bunnyburrow, where animals still speak in tongues and your prey/predator status defines your role in life. After graduating from the police academy as the only bunny officer under Mayor Lionheart's (Simmons) Mammal Inclusion Act, her parting gift from her parents (and her 275 brothers and sisters) is “Fox-Away” pepper spray.

Judy heads to assignment in Zootopia City Center, pink iPaw blasting the latest toe-tapping hit from pop-star Gazelle (Shakira), where she is the only prey animal in a precinct of predators under Cape buffalo Chief Bogo (Elba).  

              So begins the parade of characters who reveal the harsh realities of animal relations in Judy’s Mecca, from elephant-only ice cream shops to Mafia shrews. Key among them is Nick Wilde (Bateman), a hustling fox with sleepy eyelids and hands perpetually in his pockets; nuances taken straight from Bateman’s own body language in the recording studio.

              Flawless animation accompanies the captured characteristics, down to the edging of fur on Judy’s expressive ears. But it’s everyday life details, like the texting hamster who gets squashed exiting the “tube” and the DMV run by sloths, that ground Disney’s world-building.

Writers Jared Bush and Phil Johnston deliver a tight script (if carrot-heavy) with no lag in clever lines or honest moments of friendship meant for both children and adults alike.

In Zootopia, there are doors sized for all creatures; public transportation accommodates swimmers, fliers, and tunnelers; homes exist for Tundra-dwellers, rainforest-livers, and Sahara-sunbathers. Think New York City, but built so that autism, cerebral palsy, down syndrome, ADHD, dyslexia and the like could never be thought of as disabilities, but rather part of what makes you unique. Novel.  

Disney doles out a timely message of tolerance when we need it most. Let no sheep cooking nighthowler in his meth-resembling-lab stop you from absorbing Zootopia.             

Visit our Get Involved page to learn about our previous donations to Game RangersInternational Elephant Orphanage Project and visit us again for our next opportunity to give to animal sanctuaries across the globe.