Tag: Guest Review

Zach’s Zany 2 Guests Movie Reviews: TROLLS WORLD TOUR (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Wait For A Cheap Rental)

Hey Zach here to start off this bitch before I post two GUEST reviews of TROLLS: WORLD TOUR, for which I was cheap enough not to pay for a 48 hr. $20 rental and wait till later this year when it’s like $3 to watch only once. See, I’m a fan of Disney, Sony, Warner Bros, etc for allowing those who missed their most recent movies in theaters to just buy them for $19.99 soon after this COVID-19 decided to fuck everyone in the asshole. But Universal, little pricks that they are, with their movies such as The Hunt, Emma, The Invisible Man, and now this Trolls sequel, said “fuck that fuck ’em, charge them $20 a pop and we will regular release them to buy for the exact same price just a little later.” I’m not going to play into their little game, so instead of a review from me, because well…I wasn’t really looking forward to this anyway, here’s two good guys that I know that paid the $20 and their two cents. My little dude, now 2 and a half, could not give two shits when my wive puts the first movie on, and my wife and I really don’t like the first one beyond the Justin Timberlake song, and based on the previews, looks like it would be the exact same scenario in the end. So without further ado, here are two GUEST reviews (one sort of favorable, one definitely not) of the new Trolls movie, something that should’ve been thought about and released back when they were still relevant in the 1990s:

TROLLS: WORLD TOUR – Guest Review #1 by Don Hernandez

The first major theatrical release to release via On Demand on the same day but likely not the last in this topsy turvy world of COVID-19.
Let me first start off by saying if you enjoyed the first Trolls movie, you should enjoy this one. If you didn’t and you are over the age of 14 then well it really wasn’t made for you. It was made for the children. Most of the cast is back lending their voices (led by the always charming Anna Kendrick and Justin Timberlake).

This time around, Queen Poppy (Kendrick) and Branch (Timberlake) finds out there are other kinds of trolls out there that dance to a different beat. Which is great except one group of Trolls wants to stop the music forever unless it’s Hard Rock. Queen Barb (Rachel Bloom) is collecting the magic musical strings of each group of trolls to make all trolls part of her Rock N Roll army. Now Queen Poppy & Branch must seek out the other groups of trolls to stop Queen Barb. On their quest they’ll see that even though the music is different they all have a common bond.

This was a pretty decent sequel. I don’t think it is better than the original but it is serviceable and worth the watch if you enjoy kids movies. Kenan Thompson stole the show for me as a new character, Tiny Diamond.
Armed with a message of celebrating diversity and inclusion it stays light and doesn’t overpower you with that agenda to the point of eye rolling. The new songs “Other Side” and “Just Sing” are catchy and fit very well with the story. Probably my main issue with the movie is it seemed to move too quick on the “takeover” front. I’d have liked it a bit more drawn out than the brisk 90 mins allowed. Kids though won’t care, they’ll be dancing and singing most of the movie.

P.S. There is a small scene after the credits featuring The Bergens from first movie.

Trolls World Tour is available for rent for 48 hours on all major streaming sites for $19.99

Featuring the voice talents of
Anna Kendrick, Justin Timberlake,
Jame Corden, Rachel Bloom, Kunal Nayyar, Ron Funches, Kenan Thompson, Sam Rockwell, Kelly Clarkson, Mary J Blige, and Ozzy Osbourne.

TROLLS: WORLD TOUR Guest Review #2 by Dustin Bade

“Trolls, they wanna have fun……oh trolls, they wanna have fun….” Catchy? Yeah, I thought so too. *Newsflash* so do parents and kids. And while I thought it would be fun to pay $19.99 plus taxes and whatever fees, to watch the second installment of Trolls, boy was I ever wrong. To be fair, the kids watched all 90 minutes of it in their chairs. Michelle drew photos on her phone and I sat on the couch trying to watch but something kept happening to me. So my review of the movie goes like this:
An opening scene of Poppy, happy and singing a catchy song, morphs into an awkward scene in which Branch tries to tell her he likes her. Poppy learns that her tribe of pop trolls are not the only trolls in existence, but trolls of all musical genres exist in their own habitat, with the evil rock and roll trolls, wanting to conquer all at a concert. I hear her tell Branch “road trip” and then “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” I wake up to hear some hick sounding trolls and what sounded like Kelly Clarkson singing a good albeit sad country song. Unless I was half dreaming, I swore she was on the heavier side and had 4 legs and big hair. I fall back asleep and wake up hearing J.Timberlake and Anna Kendrick singing a slow love song break up type song………..hear some other music in the background…….”zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz” and then I wake up to the last scene and ending credits when my daughter says “that song is pretty.”


Not all sequels are bad, and not all movies need to be sequels. The Dark Knight was a sequel and easily the best (ever) sequel and certainly of that Batman franchise. Wall-E is good, but we don’t need another. I enjoyed Oceans 11 back in the day, but none of the others. Same with Fast and the Furious movies….the list goes on. Trolls didn’t need a sequel. The first one was cute in my opinion and had some cute laughs, catchy music and of course, more scenes with the “cloud.” It should have ended there….but it didn’t…..I mean after all, trolls just wanna have fun!

I wrote this at the request of a movie reviewer friend of mine who said he will not watch the movie and rightfully so. If all goes well, maybe I will be a ghost writer for him. I always had a passion for writing and story telling…..this could be my opportunity….or not!

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GUEST CRITIC! Zach’s Zany Movie Reviews Presents Don Hernandez’s take on ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL

Hey there, this is Zach really quick here, I posted on my Facebook page that I would not be reviewing ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL because I really don’t have much of an interest in seeing it. So instead, my good friend Don Hernandez decided to write up his opinion on the film. After reading his review…kind of glad I’m skipped out on it and am waiting for rental. Anyway, here is Don’s review:

After being pushed back multiple times, The Robert Rodriguez/James Cameron manga adaptation has finally been released in time for Valentine’s Day. It’s clear why Fox pushed it back over and over again as they hoped the CGI filled Sci-fi action movie would do better against more diverse movies. With the original summer date and then the Christmas date, Alita would have been battling some major action juggernauts. While she may be able to handle her own in the movie, no amount of cybernetics would have kept her from being lost in the crowd.

Don’t get me wrong, the visuals are stunning and Alita, despite being all CGI, comes off quite realistic the longer you are in this world. However, two of the main baddies end up not feeling realistic at all (Nova & Grewishka, I don’t know why but it really felt like they ran out of money when these two were put together as they look so out of place at times). The action sequences are awesome. Alita’s bar fight and the arena sequence are spectacular (highly recommend Dolby Cinema or IMAX to get full effect of this).

Where the movie suffers is the story. One part I have to mention first, because I still can’t shake how dumb it is, happens just around the halfway point: there are these individuals called “Hunter Warriors” and some huge leaps in logic are taken to how they are viewed in this society that made me say to myself more than once, “wait, when was this established about them?” It literally makes no sense unless they were just trying to find a way for Alita to monologue before giving us a fight scene. Let me put it this way, a tiny little dog shows more bravery in the movie than 99% of these so called “bad ass hunter warriors”.

It gets even more odd later because one of them starts spouting off about “the hunter code”….to quote another movie “the code is more or less guidelines than actual rules”. Many important characters aren’t really given their moments to be fleshed out enough to care/understand their motivations either. When we get some character development, it’s quick and pushed aside for the shiny CGI moments. Which is a shame because Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, and Masherala Ali are all great actors.

As for the main character’s story…. Alita is introduced quite well and we are just as invested as she is to find out who she truly is. We do get pieces here and there but it’s never fully explained. Throughout this there is, of course, the “of different worlds” love story that provides the vehicle for finding out more of Alita’s arc but overall it isn’t needed to actually advance it. A little over halfway into the movie though it’s clear why; the whole thing is just being set up for future installments (that maybe will give more backstories of more than just Alita?). Too many studios are doing this now and it’s hurting more than helping. It’s a double edged sword. Do I want a sequel to this? Sure…..but I didn’t need Fox force feeding it to me. Let the film speak for itself. It’s poor writing when you can’t create a self contained story but leave the possibility for continuing it. If you need half your movie to be set up you already failed.

The ending, the cameos, the star power, so much is wasted here since the film has already made it’s bed; we are left with an incomplete story that really doesn’t make any sense. I felt like I was on a cool roller coaster ride in the dark that showed me flashes of the rest of the track only for the ride to end.

As stated previously, it’s a shame because a self contained story would have made this a concrete much watch. That’s saying a lot because I’ve always believed action movies aren’t supposed to be for “story”. Sure, a solid story can make certain action movies stand out from the rest. Overall though it’s all about the action, explosions, and visuals. Only in this case, it’s an action sci-fi film that introduces us to a different world and time so we need that story to make the connection & investment. A character’s development can manage that as well but it needs to be within the first film. Sadly Alita: Battle Angel asks too much of the audience without giving us the proper motivation with no guarantee of the future.