dancing_warrior_prophet

Quite frankly I understand this is not a movie that will be universally adored. This is a medium for fan service.

If you haven't played and loved at least a few mario and donkey kong games this movie will probably still be a fine, if unexciting movie. The action is swift, the attitudes are upbeat and if you like imagination this movie has distilled the creativity of decades of games into a single experience. If the only reason you are watching this is because you went with someone else you can still enjoy the movie. For the non-video game fans I would put the movie at a 7, well made and does nothing badly but certainly not a timeless masterpiece.

If you are or ever have been a fan of mario in all his iterations and also the Donkey Kong franchise this movie is wonderful, the references to game after game just add to the joy in this movie, this is an origin story for mario that is told well and makes about as much sense as you can hope for. There are power ups and enough game like visuals to make this a treat to watch. Depending on who you are the nintendo fan service ups the value of this movie by 1-3 points, for me this is a 9/10 and I hope a sequel will be made.

This was the sort of movie that makes both children and the inner child in us sad. The acting was good, the animation was great and there were a number of scenes that could have been quite comedic or action packed if the director knew what they were doing but the ultimate failing of the entire movie were the concepts and writing.

This movie claims to be the movie that made Andy and all the kids in Toy Story 1 super excited but this was nothing like 90's movies that made kids excited, no bigger than life action, no constant wit and some very poorly thought out plot twists. Like seriously bad plot twists with Zerg that just destroy what little joy there was in this movie. Do yourself a favour and skip this movie and show your kids the old cartoon series, which the movie could have just rehashed and probably wound up as a far better way to spend a couple hours.

Jim Henson had a lofty goal with this series and while I doubt it will ever be achieved this hopefully may help kids start thinking about their relationships with other people and other parts of the world and how their actions may affect others, hopefully. This show tries to do that by showing how interconnected the 3 main species of fraggle rock are, and even some unwitting connection to humans as well (who live in outer space as they see it) as well as how differently they see and value the world they live in.

In the meantime this series has the absolute best music of any children's show out there, I put it on for my nieces and nephews and they will just start dancing to it, even the opening theme is wonderful and full of personality.

The characters each have their own voice and produce what is for kids (and even adults) pretty entertaining, if rather simple, drama. I wish more series were this upbeat and enthusiastic, I'll trade all the gritty reboots of the last 50 years for another happy gem of a show as this one. I recommend this to both adults and kids, at least listen to the music, it's fun.