Danny Pudi – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: I was looking for blue creatures in our realm. There has been none.

Vampire Bat: After orcs had chosen green and goblins also choosing the same, the popularity for blue has been decreasing.

Vampire Owl: And these werewolves always come in black.

Vampire Bat: Just like those Batman gadgets.

Vampire Owl: Even Mr. Luttappi is just red, you know.

Vampire Bat: Do you even remember having watched these Smurfs movies?

Vampire Owl: Yes, I can clearly remember that I have watched them both.

Vampire Bat: Okay, then talk about something that you remember more than the rest.

Vampire Owl: I don’t think that there was anything in particular – there was the village, blue people, bad wizard with a cat…

Vampire Bat: It was the main problem. They were not at all memorable.

[Gets three cups of strong tea with Mariegold biscuits].

What is the movie about? :: In the secret Smurf Village, the Smurfs continue to live a happy life, hidden from the evil that await in the outside world. Papa Smurf (Mandy Patinkin), their leader takes care of them as a fatherly figure, and things go on quite normally through times. Among those Smurfs who are given names according to their character or purpose are Clumsy Smurf (Jack McBrayer), Brainy Smurf (Danny Pudi), Hefty Smurf (Joe Manganiello) and many others, with even the strangest of names. It is only Smurfette (Demi Lovato) whom, despite being admired by all other smurfs as the only girl smurf around, seems to have no sense of purpose. As she was created by the evil remorseless wizard Gargamel (Rainn Wilson) from a lump of clay to use as the means to catch other smurfs, now she has no meaning of life, transformed into one of them, and out of the evil ways. It keeps bothering her most of the time.

So, what happens next in the adventure? :: With Gargamel on a mission to capture the Smurfs, steal their blue essence, and become the strongest wizard in the world, Smurfette and her friends sneak out of their village. Gargamel’s pet cat Azrael (Frank Welker) and his pet vulture Monty (Dee Bradley Baker) are also on the look out for any sign of a smurf in the woods. Smurfette comes up against a blue creature hidden by leaves, which runs away into the Forbidden Forest, and leaves a hat behind. She as well as the hat is taken by Garamel, who uses it to discover the location of a new group of smurfs with his magic. She is rescued by her friends, and all of them get grounded by Papa Smurf for disobeying him. But she is determined to save these lost smurfs from the evil wizard, and with her friends, set out for Forbidden Village, no matter how forbidden it is for her people. At the same time, Gargamel, Azrael and Monty also set out in search for the new village.

And what is to follow with the blue people against a wizard and his minions? :: The smurfs are attacked by Gargamel and his team, and is presumed dead by the evil wizard, but they escape with the help of a few bunnies. It is quite the dangerous mission that they are up against, as they have no idea what dangers lie ahead in a world which has been forbidden to them for such a long time. There they come up against animals and plants which are not normal, and soon they would be on a race against Gargamel, Azrael and Monty who are also traveling on the same route. Surprised to find each other again, they race, only to have Gargamel drowning in the river. After Hefty and Smurfette support the idea of saving him, he throws the smurfs down the waterfalls instead of thanking them. But they survive, and travel on land. They are soon trapped by the blue creatures under the leaves. They are supposed to be smurfs aren’t they? If they are smurfs, they are surely in danger, right?

The defence of Smurfs: The Lost Village :: There are good visuals for this one, that is for sure, and we get to see some nice animation not just with the characters, but also with the world. There is no more the mixture of the real world and the animated world, which is also a nice thing – also, there are no humans in this one except for the big evil wizard; it is another positive thing, as the mixture can have big problems with working. This is indeed cute and sweet too, and with all the colours around, the kids are going to enjoy it without doubt, and everyone else is going to have their childish side awakened. There are occasions when you feel that this is the kind of movie which you would have loved to watch during your early childhood, but wasn’t there; we are always happy that we had those Doordarshan cartoons like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Ducktales, Talespin and Tom and Jerry, but we imagine ourselves having such a treat, but childhood is long gone, a sad thing indeed.

The claws of flaw :: The movie is without doubt, predictable from the first moment itself. It is not like the same becomes a big problem in an animated feature film which is prone to the same. But you know that there have been exceptions like Moana, Zootopia, Frozen, Inside Out and others which have deviated from the expected path during the journey more than once. Smurfs: The Lost Village never really stands a chance against the animated movies of our times, with How to Train Your Dragon 2, Finding Dory and Kung Fu Panda 3, all being pretty cool sequels inheriting the original’s qualities. Just like its predecessors, this one has predictability written into it. The movie also has too much focus on one character whose search for her purpose gets rather repetitive. There is also the inability to capitalize on a funny side which always had the chance to be better. It even has a villain who is not even half smart as his cat, and that is not used to bring enough laughter. Better and smarter story in also not on cards.

How it finishes :: Smurfs: The Lost Village can be seen not to deviate, not inside the movie, and also not within the franchise. But it surely manages to be one of the most appropriate movies for the kids, with not much left to ponder about except for finding one’s purpose in life, and it leaves the message that being good will bring that meaning of life on this day, or at some other point – there is only the need to wait for the same. During these time when the life as well as the movies are so complicated, this kind of cuteness becomes rather necessary, and let the simplicity of this one save us from the complex evil of a world which is slowly and steadily being taken over by those who have no heart. The Smurfs franchise is becoming more interested in being the brand which has movies to add to it rather than flicks with big tales. Well, there is more than one than one way to go around with things, and cute little creatures are more than just fair for children.

Release date: 7th April 2017
Running time: 91 minutes
Directed by: Kelly Asbury
Starring: Demi Lovato, Rainn Wilson, Joe Manganiello, Jack McBrayer, Danny Pudi, Michelle Rodriguez, Ellie Kemper, Ariel Winter, Meghan Trainor, Jake Johnson, Mandy Patinkin, Julia Roberts, Gordon Ramsay, Tituss Burgess, Gabriel Iglesias, Jeff Dunham, Kelly Asbury, Bret Marnell, Melissa Sturm, Frank Welker, Dee Bradley Baker

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Vampire Owl: So where does it go beyond?

Vampire Bat: How can I know? I have only seen enough to know that it is Star Trek.

Vampire Owl: Can it be beyond the gates of hell?

Vampire Bat: Yes, it is indeed possible.

Vampire Owl: Do you know that there are many other interesting gates which can lead to better places?

Vampire Bat: Yes, but everyone makes their own choices about movies, and we do go for this one!

Vampire Owl: And we do make some wise choices.

Vampire Bat: We made such choices for the previous movies of this franchise.

Vampire Owl: This should be the chance to make three out of three.

Vampire Bat: I don’t see why not.

[Gets three cups of masala tea with jackfruit chips].

What is the movie about? :: As the USS Enterprise arrives at the space station known as Yorktown, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) has applied for a position as Vice Admiral because he can find no meaning to what he has been doing with the spaceship with endless journeys which had stopped making sense to him. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is to be the new captain of the ship according to him, but the man from Vulcan is also not without his problems as he wishes to continue the work of his own future self as the person has died. His relationship with Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) had become too strained that it no longer exists. Kalara (Lydia Wilson) who comes out of an uncharted nebula to Yorktown, seeks help to reclaim her stranded ship along with its crew. The Enterprise volunteers to be of use and is immediately sent on a rescue mission.

So, what happens next? :: The only place where USS Enterprise reaches is right into trouble, as an ambush awaits them led by an enemy called Krall (Idris Elba) who seems to be some kind of mutated alien creature from unknown space. Krall and his army search for a relic called the Abronath which the crew had as part of an unsuccessful diplomatic mission. As his search turns out to be unsuccessful, he takes most of the crew as prisoners instead, and the ship is destroyed. Only a few of them including Kirk and Spock manage to be free on the new planet. There, they would come across Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), an alien scavenger and with Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban) and Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg), prepare plans to save their crew members and try to stop the dangerous villain from finding that relic to use it as a weapon which could destroy life on more than one planet.

The defence of Star Trek Beyond :: The movie looks really good, and the visuals effects keep saving the day again and again. We know that there are so many worlds, and this one makes use of such presence to bring some visual splendour on the screen. There are also some interesting action sequences to go with it, or rather a lot of them. We cannot question this movie’s skills as an action movie, as Star Trek Beyond excels right there, even though one might feel that it happens at the expense of other factors of the flick. With evil trying to destroy the whole world and our heroes trying to save it again, the thrills are there as expected too. There is also the message about unity in diversity, if you want to look at it that way. We also have all out interesting characters continuing to be here, except for the one played by Alice Eve, which is surely a bad miss.

The claws of flaw :: For some reason, this third movie of the franchise doesn’t make the best use of all those which are available. It had the opportunity to make us explore a new world with the protagonists, but they just choose to go normal, which is not that appropriate considering the kind of scope this franchise has. The villain is also not that powerful as the antagonists of the previous movies – we feel that he is stronger in the beginning, but as things progress towards the end, he becomes part of that twist which is not that effective. It is a lot like the ideas getting limited for no reason. There was so much scope with how things were going, but all of a sudden, people seems to be afraid to try anymore, and even when they have managed to keep this one enjoyable, we are always looking for more with a Star Trek movie – it is supposed to get better and cross frontiers to go beyond without being repetitive!

Performers of the soul :: This movie’s entertainment is surely not that much dependent on its performers who don’t get to do that much as they did in the previous movies, as the movie provides less chance with going for the visual effects and action instead of concentrating enough on the characters. The one person who impresses more though, is Karl Urban who gets to bring more fun to us than in the previous flicks. There is also Sofia Boutella playing an alien scavenger, and even though her character is more cliche and without providing us with the surprises, she is really good there – we had to get a good character in here, and here is one. Even with Idris Elba playing the villain, they just couldn’t get enough of that ‘evil creature trying to destroying the world’ idea. We surely had it working better in the previous two movies. Zoe Saldana does mostly nothing, and Chris Pine as well as Zachary Quinto are not that much fun as in earlier movies with the crisis in their characters’ minds.

How it finishes :: One does feel that the makers shouldn’t take this much time to come up with a sequel, as we know that three years is too much of a gap between movies in a franchise like this – they did the same with the first two movies too, but this time, the time period between the two feels even more. I have to say that even though this movie is not as good as its predecessors, it is still an enjoyable flick, and we can look forward to another movie in the series with better ideas. There is still one thing that I would hope for – for the space ship in this movie to not be destroyed partially or completely, and I would also make a humble request not to make the action take the centre stage – it should not get to become Fast and Furious or XXX in space, because Star Trek should always be more than that. We trust the franchise enough to hope for that.

Release date: 22nd July 2016
Running time: 122 minutes
Directed by: Justin Lin
Starring: Chris Pine, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Zachary Quinto, Sofia Boutella, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Lydia Wilson, Sara Maria Forsberg, Deep Roy, Joe Taslim, Melissa Roxburgh, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Greg Grunberg, Danny Pudi, Kim Kold, Anita Brown, Doug Jung, Dan Payne, Shea Whigham