Sausage Party (2016)

Sausage Party (2016)

5/10

Starring the Voice of

Seth Rogen

Kristen Wiig

Jonah Hill

Bill Hader

Michael Cera

Directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

Here’s a movie definitely not for children. There’s no taking your kids along to see this because you’ll spend the whole time with your hands over their ears, and by the ending, a blindfold will be needed to shield them from the obscenity.
I feel Sausage Party was full of too much bad language, too many sexual references, and the orgy had enough sex for the year. The writers went down the path of perversion and decided to stay there. I give them an A for imagination—what they did with the food we eat is something I’d expect from high school students.

It’s not that Sausage Party didn’t have its funny, laughable moments because it did, but the level of perversion was too high. I wasn’t comfortable.

Sausage Party is the first R-rated CGI animation and the highest-grossing R-rated animation (grossing over $135 million), beating South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999). The writers (Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, and Evan Goldberg) did more of a spoof of the animations we loved from popular studios, and they stayed on the high of being overly silly, stupid, and outright ridiculous.

I give the writers props for being able to keep the movie on a non-dark and non-mean-spirited path, leaving perversion and numerous curse words as the only things you have to watch out for.
The CGI animation in this movie isn’t on the level of studios like Disney or DreamWorks. The makers just wanted to pass an idea across, and they did so. What they did do well was the voice casting. I was shocked to find out that one character was voiced by Edward Norton.

With all that being said, Sausage Party is one movie you’ll want to see regardless of what people say about it. The movie plot centers around a sausage and his bun girlfriend as they decide to engage in a monogamous relationship.

The different foods and groceries on the shelf in a shopping mall long to be taken off the shelf by the gods (humans) and taken to the world beyond the doors, where they expect to be cared for and pampered all the days of their lives.

The sausage and bun couple hoped to be taken together to the great beyond so they could engage in sexual acts and be together. One fateful day, a jar of mustard was returned to the store, and he went crazy, telling everyone that the great beyond is a hoax and that he never wants to go back. Tagged as crazy, everyone ignores him—until a human picks up a sausage and the bun pack containing the couple, and the crazy mustard jar is picked along with them.

He commits suicide, causing turmoil in the shopping cart as almost all the food gets tossed out. Now, the sausage is out of his pack, and so is the bun, and they have to find a way back.

Captain Fantastic (2016)

Captain Fantastic (2016)

7/10

Starring

Viggo Mortensen

Frank Langella

Kathryn Hahn

Steve Zahn

Directed by Matt Ross

Captain Fantastic has a name that probably won’t attract you to give this movie a shot, but please do. The movie is a dramatic portrayal of a single dad trying to raise the best children he can, with the fear that they’ll never be prepared enough for what’s out there.

The movie plays on your emotions, with many sentimental moments tied together to make you go “aww.” Regardless, the movie’s dramatic showcase is entertaining and thrilling as we see the struggles a father faces raising his six children away from civilization. He homeschools them to a higher standard than their peers, teaching them survival skills and hand-to-hand combat.
His children can hunt, cook, and survive in the woods by themselves.

Viggo Mortensen’s performance as a father of six reminds me of Captain von Trapp in the musical classic The Sound of Music, where Christopher Plummer, who plays the Captain, tries to raise his kids the best way he knows how. Ben (Viggo Mortensen) also attempts to make the best out of his kids the best way he knows how.

The smaller children’s acting performances are to die for. Not taking anything away from Viggo—his performance is memorable—but the child actors left a mark. I looked forward to seeing them, as they made me wish my children could be as strong and courageous as these little ones.

The movie did very well at different film festivals, winning awards, with Matt Ross winning a directorial award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The movie introduces us to Ben (Viggo Mortensen) and his family as they celebrate his eldest son’s passage to manhood. We see him and his family hunt and cook what they’ve killed as they live together in the woods. Sad news hits them when their mother (Ben’s wife) kills herself. She had a mental illness and was in a psychiatric hospital.

Ben’s manner of raising his children involves telling them the truth and not being afraid to let them speak their minds or even curse.

Ben contacts his wife’s father for her body so he can cremate her according to her wishes, but Jack (the wife’s father) kicks against the idea, blaming Ben for her death and promising to have him arrested if he shows up for the funeral. Ben and his children crash the funeral, and those actions—along with further actions—will likely lead to him losing his beloved children.

The movie’s pacing does drag a bit at times, especially in moments that don’t hit as hard as they should. While Viggo Mortensen’s performance stands out, the adult characters, in particular, could’ve been fleshed out more, to give the movie more grip. The film does a great job showcasing Ben’s unique way of raising his children, but it doesn’t fully dive into the complexities of that lifestyle, because it makes it seem convenient.

The movie had a very fun and welcome twist at the end.

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

5/10

Starring

Denzel Washington

Chris Pratt

Ethan Hawke

Directed by Antoine Fuqua

The only reason I decided to go see this movie was because Denzel Washington starred in it. Having seen Seven Samurai (1954), which is a good movie, I couldn’t imagine what Fuqua was going to make out of the age-old classic. After seeing this movie, I can comfortably say he made nothing out of an already written script that just needed a modern touch to make it memorable. When you’re done seeing this movie, everything about it is left behind on the theater seat, as it had no memorable moments or characters to hold on to.

Denzel Washington did his part, as did the rest of the cast—Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Martin Sensmeier—to make this movie enjoyable. But in the end, it seems they enjoyed themselves more making this movie than I did watching it.

Their enthusiasm and energy were exciting enough to keep me wanting to see how the movie would end. With that in mind, for a movie based on a 1960 remake of the same name, which in turn is based on the Japanese film Seven Samurai (1954), director Antoine Fuqua [Olympus Has Fallen (2013) and The Equalizer (2014)] wasted much of our time assembling the seven-man crew. That was the same problem I had with the original Japanese film.

More than half of the movie is just talk about the oncoming battle to save the town, but to be honest, the battle was worth seeing. It was fun to watch how the men put their lives on the line to win the fight.

The movie is more than two hours long, and I believe a shorter version would have made it much better.

The movie plot is very similar to its predecessors on which it’s based. Here, Sam (Denzel Washington) is approached by a pair of threatened homeowners for help. Their town is being overrun by an industrialist named Bogue. One of the pair, Emma, saw her husband and a group of her townspeople murdered by Bogue’s men as they tried to stand up to him.

She and a friend approach Sam with all the money the town has to come save them.
Sam agrees to help and goes about recruiting as many gunslingers as he knows or comes across to follow him on this quest, which will likely lead to their deaths.

He assembles a group of seven, and they train as many townspeople as they can to carry arms and prepare for the fight against Bogue.

The movie is a massacre of lives and isn’t worth the trip I took to go see it.