Storks

Vampire Owl: Have you ever met the Vampire Stork?

Vampire Bat: What? There is no such thing as a Vampire Stork. It is not natural.

Vampire Owl: Well, a Vampire Panda is not natural, but we have one.

Vampire Bat: But we know that it is Kung Fu Panda in disguise.

Vampire Owl: Still, the Vampire Stork became a strange reality near Bermuda Triangle.

Vampire Bat: In that case, it could possibly be a Zombie Stork.

Vampire Owl: Well, the investigation teams are on their way.

Vampire Bat: What if the stork is to deliver a baby instead?

Vampire Owl: Storks don’t deliver babies!

Vampire Bat: Just watch the movie and find out!

[Gets three cups of lemon tea with 50-50 biscuits].

What is the movie about? :: It was quite natural for the storks of Stork Mountain to deliver babies to the families all around the world, and each one of them found extreme happiness in doing the same. They had delivered millions of babies to people until one stork named Jasper (Danny Trejo) attempted to keep a little baby girl for himself one day, which changed it all. The tracker which provided the location of the family to which the baby was to be delivered is lost, and Jasper goes away from there in shame and disgust. With no option left, the storks adopt the baby, and name the new orphan as Tulip (Katie Crown) who grows up within the company. The CEO of the company, Hunter (Kelsey Grammer) discontinued all baby delivery after that and replaced the same with package delivery going by the name Cornerstore.com. After doing the same, he has been focusing on the stocks only, and by being mean to everyone, made the firm a succesful company based on exploitation of its work force.

So, what happens next in the movie? :: Eighteen years after she was adopted, Tulip who is an adult now, is working with Cornerstore, and regularly messes up things. Hunter is not happy that Tulip keeps bringing the stocks down with whatever she s doing at the factory. As Hunter is the typical boss who doesn’t want to deal with the emotional side looking only for profits, he just wants to fire Tulip, and he assigns the task to Junior (Andy Samberg) who is to take his place after he becomes the chairman. Junior can’t get himself to fire the girl, and so he transfers her to the mail room which doesn’t really get any mail these days. While she spends all her time there alone, Junior hopes that he can finally get the promotion and be the boss to be in control of the operations.

And, what is to follow next in the animated adventure? :: At the same time, Nate Gardner (Anton Starkman) is a lone boy who is in need of some attention as his parents Henry Gardner (Ty Burrell) and Sarah Gardner (Jennifer Aniston) are always working, not even trying to spare five or ten minutes with their child. He sends a letter to the storks, hoping that he could get a baby brother to play with. This letter which reaches Cornerstone, has Tulip’s attention as she has the first letter in a long time. She immediately enters the baby factory and use the letter to make the baby-making machine work. The result is a pink-haired baby girl. Junior arrives at the machine to try and shut down the machine, and injures his wings. With him unable to fly after the injury to his wings, the two uses Tulip’s flying machine which she had invented to work while delivering for Cornerstone, and plans to get the baby home before anyone else finds out. But can they successfully do that?

The defence of Storks :: This movie might be the cutest that any animated flick can get, with babies as the centre of attraction. The kids are going to love this movie like no other, as the cuteness factor is at its best beginning from the birth of the first baby itself – then there are a lot of babies coming together in the end, and it is the explosion of cuteness on the screen, like happiness was for Trolls. Then the movie gets to another sweet level, and with its short run-time, never get go of that quality. Along with the same, there is a lot of fun in store here, along with the emotional side which tells us how important family is – spending time with children is that significant. The movie also talks about that cruel mindset of the corporate world, which is clearly against anything human or close to life. The profit-oriented society is killing so many families with all the focus on money-making, right? Well, loving humans is not that easy as loving money, isn’t it?

The claws of flaw :: One has to feel that Storks did rush through the proceedings, and everything happens rather too fast. We could have slowly and smoothly moved through all those sweet, cute moments, but this one was surely in a hurry – we also wanted to see more of the wolves and penguins in this flick; maybe there can be spin-offs. The basic idea about the storks might also be a little outdated, and the myth might also go over the head of more than one person or two. There is also the chance the main characters might feel irritating at times. One also wonders how cute the babies can remain, as the teenage fury seems to come and affect everyone a little too early these days; the age out of cuteness beginning too early too be exact, as we see in that Carnival Cinemas advertisement. We are also tend to wonder if this could have been even better on the lines of Moana, Zootopia, Frozen, Inside Out, Big Hero 6, Epic, Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, or such kind, with an even better story.

How it finishes :: Nicholas Stoller had directed a movie which is often considered among the worst movies which were appreciated by the US critics, The Neighbors, but Storks is that kind of a movie from him and Doug Sweetland that everybody will love to keep falling in love with, again and again. Well, have you seen this kind of cuteness for a long time? The animated movies usually take themselves as cute, and don’t include any extra cuteness, but not with Storks, which adds the cuteness as the secret, special ingredient. When this cuteness is guaranteed with entertainment, it is nothing less than a crime not to get your little ones here. A colourful movie is what is needed to get some colour into your life, and Storks might be the perfect flick to do that – you will love babies more for sure, after watching Storks. I have myself found myself more cuteness and love after this one.

Release date: 23rd September 2016
Running time: 87 minutes
Directed by: Nicholas Stoller, Doug Sweetland
Starring: Andy Samberg, Katie Crown, Kelsey Grammer, Jennifer Aniston, Ty Burrell, Keegan-Michael Key, Jordan Peele, Danny Trejo, Chris Smith, Awkwafina, Ike Barinholtz, Amanda Lund, Jorma Taccone

@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

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We’re the Millers

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It was a delayed entrance that this comedy movie made to the theatres here and there was a bigger delay in me watching the same. Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters and The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones had taken over the last weekend, and it was necessary that I had to wait, and therefore I did and took this pill of comedy which is We’re the Millers. The Hangover Part III was the last full-time comedy of this nature which I had watched in the theatre last. Now, here is this movie which overtakes the final movie of a series of a solid fanbase even with its highly predictable setup which comes up with no surprises or moments of absolute brilliance. It is more of a disadvantage of that movie rather than the capability of this movie. But the difference in rating is negligible and the effect is also not that much of a variation, as you can check right here: https://moviesofthesoul.wordpress.com/2013/06/01/thehangover3/ except for the well-known fact that it was The Hangover, and was to be respected for the first movie of the franchise, which was just another Dude, Where’s My Car? if we look at it with eyes uncovered of the glorified mist.

David Clark (Jason Sudeikis) is a drug dealer of a smaller level, a chronic bachelor and still a happy one until he is robbed of his money and stock, on a night of stupidity. His boss, a rich drug lord and gangster Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms) forces David to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to the United States in order to clear his debt to be him as well as gain some good carrier fee. As he is known enough as a drug dealer and one man crossing the border is going to be more suspicious, he hires a stripper named Rose (Jennifer Aniston) who is having heavy financial difficulties and loses her job, an arrogant runaway teenage punk girl named Casey (Emma Roberts), and his eighteen year-old neighbor Kenny who is afraid of kissing a girl (Will Poulter) to pose as a typical American family called the Millers travelling in an RV, with that random family name he came across. They are a strange group, but still manage to get through into Mexico and also get the needed goods from a Mexican drug-hold, despite almost getting shot by the gangsters and being caught by the Mexican police.

Due to the presence of a heavy load of marijuana on the RV, the automobile breaks down. They are helped by a family called Fitzgeralds whom they had encountered at the border, and it consisted of Don (Nick Offerman), Edie (Kathryn Hahn), and Melissa (Molly Quinn). As they take the Millers’ RV to a repair shop, Kenny falls further for Melissa. It is then revealed that Don Fitzgerald is a DEA agent as he comes across his badge and the gun. After Edie seems to be highly interested in Rose, and Melissa finds out Kenny kissing both Casey and Rose (as they were trying to teach him the same), a holy mess breaks out and despite the husband and wife being reluctant to leave them, they finally get to the shop only to be greeted by the real drug lord whose package they had been carrying over. But they try to convince him that they are not a real family, and Rose is a stripper, as she strips down to her underwear and do some pole-dancing and attacks him with a steam vent which sets them on the escape route with an angry drug lord and his men behind them. As they try to settle their differences, they are followed by one of the most dangerous gangs and it is to see if they can survive and finish their mission, earning the much needed money.

Jennifer Aniston who seems to look better and better, steals the show in this movie, as the stripper and still the caring supposed-to-be-mother. I haven’t watched many of her movies, and the only one I can remember right now, is Bruce Almighty, possibly because the genres of the films she acted in rarely was part of my to-be-watched list. May be I could find a few more of the movies with her in them, sooner or later. The absence of big male leading actor is solved by her presence, and even as this is more of an opportunity for her to get into her character and look awesome. But it is to be noted that her acting skills as a comedy actress also gets its due, and she never looks out of place and even her character’s job in the movie seems to help her performance highly. She has her charm working out throughout the movie as she triumphs in what she does. Most of the better moments of the movie has her as part of it. She is the biggest star in the movie, and the next one is Ed Helms, the Stu of The Hangover franchise with quite a small screen presence. He comes, make a short impact and then makes small appearances.

Jason Sudeikis as David Clark makes a good central character, and he has his own good moments in an everlasting screen presence. He remains funny throughout, as his dynamic character evolves from the drug dealer who keeps seeking money to a responsible father-to-be. Will Poulter’s Kenny Rossmore is undoubtedly the funniest of all characters in the movie. He is instantly likable even with all the nonsense that he come with up with, adding to the funny side of the movie. Emma Roberts as Casey Mathis, and she provides the right dose of energy or the lack of it at the right moments, creating the much needed contrast with Kenny on one side, while also with David on another side. She is the bad kid, a strange and never caring girl who ran away from her home due to small differences. Nick Offerman’s Don Fitzgerald and Kathryn Hahn’s Edie Fitzgerald are the next funnier characters. Molly Quinn as Melissa Fitzgerald has a cute, beautiful, innocent presence throughout the time she spends on screen. She might even be the best-looking person around in the movie. Tomer Sisley is a fine Mexican drug lord and Matthew Willig makes a good henchman.

The strength of this movie is its cast, as one might expect even before watching the trailer of this movie. But the question remains if they could have had a better, less predictable plots with not much of the repeated comedy scenes. Some of them are too silly and stupid for the common movie watcher who has had a long season of watching comedy movies. It might be more than just okay for the viewers from this part of the world, as adult-comedy is not something you get to watch in theatres too often here, and even if it does attack the big screen or the television channels, there are more to cut than to show, making the whole thing a lot more shorter than what it really is. Jennifer Aniston surely had some of her stripping and pole-dancing cut from the totality, and there has been a lot of dialogues by both the male and the female lead which has been removed. The movie surely felt quite short compared to its total running time given in the internet, but one can also think that it was more because it was funny and entertaining enough, with subtitles to make sure that none of those terms are missed by the usual audience who don’t get to see movies of this genre every day, every month or even every year.

The Heat and Grown Ups 2 hasn’t come to our theatres, but The Hangover Part III had quite a good time here. We’re the Millers also had quite an okay time here, but Jennifer Aniston can’t create that much of an effect here and there all the collection this movie makes here comes from the trailer which was shown before Indian movies, and that trailer was pretty good rising the bar of expectations. The fact that Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters is having a better word of mouth, and still staying on to have more shows, and Riddick coming to make an impact with a superstar who is loved in this part of the world, the only hope for this movie is to fill the void which The Conjuring might leave next week after scaring enough people. But that might also be filled by new releases in different languages, as the Onam celebrations are coming up and families shall flock into both the normal theatres as well as the multiplexes, not for adult-comedy, but for the family movies, mostly in Malayalam followed by Tamil and Hindi in that order. So the time of this movie has almost ended here, but it has surely created enough impact outside here. For now, I hope that they don’t steal from this movie to make a road trip flick in the form of a Hindi or Malayalam movie, as a whole or in part, as that won’t be tolerable at all.

Release date: 7th August 2013 (United States); 31st August 2013 (India)
Running time: 110 minutes
Directed by: Rawson Marshall Thurber
Starring: Jennifer Aniston, Jason Sudeikis, Emma Roberts, Will Poulter, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman, Kathryn Hahn, Molly Quinn, Ken Marino, Matthew Willig, Tomer Sisley, Thomas Lennon

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.