DreamWorks as a studio is in a very weird place. Where their rival Disney is having a decidedly low moment DreamWorks is a mess of high and low quality releases with no seeming through-line between the movies and what they are doing with their brand. This was never more true than this week when we got 2 widely diverging sequels- both which nobody really asked for in the first place. Plus, we got Orion and the Dark a couple of weeks ago which they dumped on Netflix with hardly any publicity as if it was garbage (it wasn’t.) And who can forget last year when Ruby Gilman: Teenage Kraken was treated terribly by the studio and even Trolls: Band Together wasn’t given the publicity campaign you’d expect with that franchise (and it was terrible.)

Well let’s talk about the 2 sequels from this week:

Megamind vs The Doom Syndicate

Everyone knows I am a big fan of the original Megamind. I’ve always felt it got unfairly lost in the wave of Minions and Despicable Me hype even though it is the superior of the two films. I even have the artbook for the original Megamind. I find it funny, inventive with great vocal performances.

Unfortunately DreamWorks did not live up to the legacy of the original with this terrible sequel. It fails in pretty much every respect and isn’t even enjoyable as a cheap introduction to the upcoming Megamind Rules television series.

It’s admittedly tough to craft a hero story around Megamind but what they come up with is so bland that the 85 minute runtime felt punishing. It isn’t funny and the loss of our original voicecast is not only obvious but a clear sign of a lack of investment by DreamWorks. I rarely use the word cash-grab but it is accurate in this instance.

I know some will say ‘but it’s just a direct to streaming movie. You shouldn’t have expected much.’ I review TV movies for a living and some of them are great. Just because something is cheap doesn’t necessarily mean it is devoid of creativity or laughs- an engaging script is very cheap! If I was laughing I wouldn’t care about the different voices or the weak animation. Heck I’m someone that LOVED Son of Bigfoot and that looks like a direct to dvd animated film from the outside but it’s actually great!

The fact is DreamWorks took Megamind and made junk and that offends me as an animation fan, critic and lover of the original film. How dare they!

0 out of 10- this sucks and I’m mad at them about it!

Frown Worthy

Kung fu Panda 4

If there is a franchise from DreamWorks that is underrated it has to be Kung Fu Panda. I recently saw the first one on the big screen at Maven Cinemas and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s funny and Po isa very likable character.

In my opinion all of the Kung fu Panda movies have been solid and I think I even enjoyed the last one more than most. I loved the story of Po and his 2 Dads and what it had to say. Now we have a 4th movie and once again they’ve made a solid entertaining entry in the series.

In this situation Po is asked to successor to him as the Dragon Warrior and he isn’t comfortable in the teacher/master role. He doesn’t like change, which I think all of us can relate with. Then he meets a fox (who looks like a wolf) named Zhen voiced by Awkwafina and they confront a villain named The Chameleon voiced with gleeful abandon by Viola Davis.

This is not a plot that will surprise or blow anyone away but it’s sweet and entertaining. I liked the way it was able to bring in the previous 3 films in both subtle and non-subtle ways and the script provided a good mixture of laughs and sweet moments. The animation and music are also up to the standards of the series. I really couldn’t ask for much more from a Kung fu Panda 4.

7 out of 10

Smile Worthy

So there you have it. The crazy thing is we have another DreamWorks film coming out later this year called The Wild Robot. It’s wild!

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