Reviews

Although I never saw the first Balto in the cinema, we saw a newcomer called "Toy Story", we did rent it on VHS, and I became a fan, it's one of the most underrated animated films ever - stellar animation, thrilling soundtrack, a memorable villain, excitement and adventure, truely a animated feature that deserves to be remembered. At first, I thought it was a rumour that Balto was getting a sequel, then I saw the trailer, only to realise it was real, and I was excited to see how Balto 2: Wolf Quest turned out, I saw it on the Cartoon Network, and I was disappointed. The original film was very loosely based on history, the 1925 Nome Diphtheria Serum Run, the first Balto took major liberties with history, nevertheless, the film was self-contained, everything was wrapped up, Balto was the hero, he saved the day by bring the Diphtheria antitoxin to Nome, saving the lives of ill children, there was no need for a sequel, but this was the late 90s and early 2000s, Disney was releasing direct-to-video sequels to their main animated features, so Universal jumped on the bandwagon, doing the same with other Amblianation films - An American Tale, the infamous Land Before Time sequels, and Balto would have a third film. This is where fiction supersedes history, our story begins in 1926, a year after the events of the first film, Balto go together with Jenna, and started a family, the real Balto was neutered, so he could have never sired offspring, it was established in the opening scenes that Balto was having weird dreams related to wolves, it is here I begin to notice fanfiction cliches, first - there is a lot of New Age elements, such as Native American woo, Aleu as an Indigo Child, channelling, and mysticism, this goes in a completely different direction from the first film, which was quite grounded, it's as if someone saw the wolves from the first film, and thought it had New Age appeal. Despite being a significant character, Jenna has been downgraded from what she was from the original film, she had her puppies, thus had no further use for the rest of the film, Boris is back, but he was a mere mirage of what he once was, his accent changed too, it went from Slavic to a Yiddish sounding accent, the polar bear cubs Muk and Luk are back too, they are pretty much comedy relief, and serves practically nothing to the story, this is a common cul-de-sac found in fanfiction writing. We are then introduced to our new character Aleu, we learn very little about her, she is voiced by Lacey Chabert, although she is a talented voice actress, this comes off as a miscast, her voice is too high pitched for what character they were going with, moreover, Aleu's screen time is quite limited, from what I can gather, Aleu is a free spirited soul, who looks more wolfy than Balto, even though she has obvious domesticated traits, but lets pretend, Aleu is yearning for the time she could be adopted by a human, but she was rejected as a pup based on her wolfy appearance, while her five remaining brothers and sister who look like Jenna gets adopted. The inciting incident is when Aleu is almost shot and killed by a hunter, Balto finally explains to Aleu she has wolf ancestry, frustrated she runs away into the Alaskan wilderness. Upon learning of Aleu's leaving, Balto goes after her in the hopes of returning home with Aleu, and it's here when more fanfiction tropes emerge, Balto encounters animal spirits based on a totem pole in Nome, of course, there were no Native American tribes known for building totem poles around Nome, but I digress, these spirits which includes a fox, wolverines, later a bear, guide Balto on Aleu's trail, and excluded Boris, Muk and Luk out of the story, with the fanfiction trope of making the story centre around the leds only. This part of the film always confused me, these spirits are suppose to drive the plot, but instead of driving it forward, it stretches this paper thin story to a convoluted web, that leaves more questions than answers, and can leave the audience behind, as they are piecing together what logic the film has given them. After an encounter with a bear spirit, Balto and Aleu encounters a wolf pack, and the antagonist, Niju, voiced by Mark Hamill, after a lame fight, we meet the leader of the pack, a wolf shamen named Nava, voiced by David Carradine, this whole movie is one big miscast. Nava explains the pack's plight as food supplies are dwindling, and that for the "Clan" to survive, they must pursue caribou across the sea to an island, the logic? Because of a prophecy in his dream said so, a strategy so poorly thought out, but once again, gaps in logic are a hallmark of fanfiction, magic can serve the narrative offscreen. Niju is opposed to leaving their native habitat for the island, and instead proposes for warfare against other animals, and take their resources for survival, now wolves do this in the wild, but this wolf clan is structure more like a human tribe, rather than an actual wolfpack, so the story is slanted in favour of the protagonists, despite Niju having a decent point. Before Niju could instigate a fight against other animals, he is stopped by Balto and Aleu, just as the mysticism enters the plot, the ice magically forms a bridge to the island, the prophecy is about to be fulfilled, so Balto leds the wolfpack across the sea, as if he was a wolf Moses, biblical moments are sometimes found in fanfictions, and like the Pharaoh, Niju intervenes to stop the prophecy, and gets into a fight with Aleu and Balto, only for the ice to break, after he declared never to leave his native land, he makes it to shore, and leaves the story, as the wolfpack is stranded and leaderless on a chuck of ice. Aleu declares she is destined to lead the pack, because she has wolf ancestry, nevermind the fact Aleu has no experience in the wild, she was almost killed by a hunter remember? But since she is the main character, despite limited character development to prove to the audience, she is competent enough for this responsibility, she swims across the sea to the ice flow, and howls with her new clan, as they drift off into the distance, and out of the story, we then learn Nava is related to Balto, we also learn the white wolf from the first movie has a name - Aniu, and she was Balto's mother, this was alluded to early in the film, and this was the payoff, a very weak payback, as Balto heads home without Aleu, and the film ends. Balto: Wolf Quest is a confusing hodgepodge of plot, subplots, and narrative structure, I had to see it multiple times to get the gist of the film, but I still struggle to understand the laps in logic this film takes, moreover, this is why I view Balto Wolf Quest as a fanfiction that was made into a film, it's such as drastic tone shift from the original Balto, yet even if this were a stand alone film, Wolf Quest would have closely resembled Alpha and Omega, another wolf story with odd choices. I cannot say I enjoyed Balto Wolf Quest, it would always leave me perplexed, and left me in want, I wanted to learn more about Aleu, and why she deserves to be the pack leader, but sadly, the writers thought this was not important enough, an amature move common in fanfiction, incidentally, I remember reading Balto fanfictions at the time, one in particular resembles the "Plot" to Wolf Quest, did it inspire the film? I may never verify this as fact, however, fanfictions are not bad, despite my ramblings, they are written for fun, and can be fun to read, the trouble arises when someone thinks their story is film worthy, and pitches their idea to a studio, Balto Wolf Quest is one of those shoddy fanfics, so I cannot recommend it to anyone, not to Balto fans, animation buffs, nor to ordinary family looking for any random animated feature, Balto Wolf Quest will leave you as stranded as the wolfpack on the ice in the sea.

Disney for years had been trying grab cash from every form of media possible, but gaming is the one thing that has eluded grasp. So Disney, despite being a multibillion dollar company, has gone down the cheap and lazy route, by buying the rights to use let's player videos from YouTube, popular let's players such as Jacksepticeye, Markiplier, DanTDM, and anyone that has every played Fortnite, even if they are bad at it, but since it was popular, there will be lots of eyes on it, bringing in viewers for Disney. However, let's players are known for mature audiences, there is lots of swearing and innuendos, which is why they are popular, and why I love watching them, but teens and adults who have seen these videos, will know they are not the sort of thing a children to watch, and the teens and adults who have seen these videos, will be angry that these videos are heavily edited and censored. Much of the original videos have been altered by Polaris, by adding obnoxious sound effects, and distracting stock footage or animation, in fact, they edited so much of the original videos, they have to repeat lines and run jokes into the ground, which serves as padding to extend the runtime, and make up for the complete lack of humour. This show should not exist, we have the original videos on YouTube, and can watch them as they were meant to be seen, entertainment that is too raunchy for TV, made by ordinary people and not a mega corporation, so long as youth culture exists, Disney will try to leech of them, to suck as much life out of it as possible, until they have conquered every form of media, trying to save and civilise them, to make all media suitable for children, safe and marketable.

Lately, the Pokemon company has been obsessed with first gen, whether it's remaking the games, or the Pokemon in the games, they are pandering to my generation harder than ever. In 2017, we got Pokemon I Choose You, a remake of the first episode, with slight changes and upgrades, and that movie was pretty forgettable, and I was bored watching it. Now, the Pokemon company has released a remake of Mewtwo Strikes Back, if Disney can release pointless remakes of its animated movies, the Pokemon company can follow suit, Evolution adds very little to the original movie, just tweaks and new lines of dialogue, other than that, it's a near complete rehash of the 1998 film. The only obvious upgrade of Evolution is the animation, now it's CGI rather than cell animation, that the original movie was in, and the characters look weird, the original character designs do not translate well to CGI, but if there is a plus, the action is quite good, it's fast paced, and very fluid, but the negative is the characters look like dolls, almost lifeless and emotionless. Overall, this movie has little reason to exist, it's plot is the same as the first movie, and much of the script is from the first movie too, even if it is altered slightly, so if you really want a nostalgic trip, just put on the first movie, you do not need this movie to relive the past for you.

My first question, who was this movie made for? There are too many 10/10 reviews to be legitimate or accurate, if I could give it a zero, I would. First, this Peter Rabbit is one of my favourite stories growing up, so when I heard of a Peter Rabbit movie, I thought it was going to be like Paddington, I was wrong, after seeing the movie posters and the trailer, it was the first warning sign this was going to be another gormless, Hollywood adaption.

The story is set in our modern times, with pop music and contemporary slang, rather than turn of the century Britain, where the book "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" was set, because this movie wants to appeal to the children. However, there is a lot of inappropriate moments, that no children should see, and no parent would want to be subjected too, Peter even takes credit for killing Old Man McGregor, after he tried to shove a carrot up the old man's bum, to add insult to injury, Peter touches the dead man's eye, to confirm he's dead, then the wildlife interlopes the old man's house, because taking over a dead man's house is so funny.

Enter Thomas McGregor, he's the younger, more hip character for the children, but the majority of the film is Peter Rabbit and his family, trying to kill Thomas, electrocuting him and using his blackberry allergy against him, that's not funny in the slightest. Now, this is something you would expect from a Looney Tunes cartoon, where Bugs Bunny tries to hurt Elmer Fudd, but that was a fully animated cartoon, Peter Rabbit is a CGI movie set in our universe, so the violence and repulsive comedy and innuendos, would make anyone nauseous.

Overall, this movie is too violent and offensive to children, and too juvenile and obnoxious for adults, the filmmakers fail to understand Peter Rabbit, sure he was petulant and mischievous, who had to learn lessons, but he was not a sadistic psycho, even Bugs Bunny's comedy was more resigned that this, Beatrix Potter would be ashamed, that her beloved character was portrayed this way, this is what happens when we let Hollywood adapt one of our stories, this was a British story, that should have never been disgraced by the Americans, watch the CBeeies Peter Rabbit instead, it is closer to the spirit of Peter Rabbit than this tripe.

This movie came out a few months after Korea's "The Tower", which also involves a high rise fire, and the fire department coming to the rescue, however, that movie was big budget, had top billed actors, and top of the line effects. Both movies use CG fire, but "The Tower" used real fire too, for in "Out of Inferno", it's all computer generated, something out of a Sci-fi Original movie, it looks tacky and fake, very unconvincing and cheap. The building itself looks like a generic office building, not the larger than life Tower Sky from the Korean movie, you were convince it was a real twin tower, although it was computer generated, for "Out of Inferno" it seems they selected a ordinary building in Hong Kong or Guangzhou, not nearly as impressive or awe inspiring. On a lighter note, at least the acting is good, everyone delivers good lines and performances, so you wanted them to survive, this movie also takes influence from "Backdraft", with two estranged brother firemen, that lost their father to a fire, told in flashback, it would have been better if this was the intro. Overall, it's better to watch "The Tower", it's intense and over the top, it has great effects and good performances, but if you want a less intense firefighting movie from Asia, "Out of Inferno" is a standard action movie.