The Chipmunk Adventure

What type of film tries a weaker line than the animated children’s musical, targeting as usual to two really unequal age groups, both really easily bored? At least “The Chipmunk Adventure,” released in 1987, tires to interest both parents and children and does a really well job. Janet Maslin stated in her review, “For the parents, there are references to high finance, bored jet-setters and Pierre Cardin socks.” For the children, there are nice, colorful Chipmunks on an around-the-world tour. For everyone there is music, including a Chipmunk-style version of Wolly Bully and a nice, corny song to Mother.

“The Chipmunk Adventure” comes from Ross Bagdasarian, son of Ross Bagdasarian Sr., the Chipmunks’ original creator, and his wife, Janice Karman. It is animated in typical Saturday-morning cartoon style, so that the non-Chipmunk characters look lifeless and the backgrounds never move. However, if the way it looks is minor, it has other delights. Maslin noted, “The Chipmunks - the ringleader Alvin, the brainy Simon and the always-hungry little Theodore - are a lot less saccharine than the Care Bears, and they behave like real boys.” Their supporting cast in here, their first feature film, includes the Chipettes (all voiced by Janice Karman) and a really cute baby penguin (Frank Welker).

The Chipmunks (Ross Badgasarian, Jr. and Janice Karman) are left alone when Dave Seville, their human guardian (Badgasarian, Jr.), goes on a trip overseas. They soon are bribed by a pair of evil foreigners named Klaus (Anthony De Longis) and Claudia (Susan Tyrrell). The Chipmunks are fooled into going on an around-the-world balloon race, which is really part of Klaus and Claudia’s diamond-smuggling mission. To get the Chipmunks to do this, the stunning villains offer a $100,000 prize to the winner, and suggest that the boys compete against the girls. Maslin advised, “Parents may be surprised at the enthusiasm shown by both all-too-modern Chipmunk teams for that large cash prize.”

The balloon trip results in a lot of scenery, and children will undeniably enjoy animated versions of llamas, windmills, famous landmarks and everything else. There is also an enjoyable dance song with animated cobras, and a couple of honors to the late Badgasarian, Sr. He was the composer of some original songs as Witch Doctor and Come on a My House, and both are in this movie.

Out of all the Chipmunk movies, this one is probably the only good one. It suffers from a lack of focus, like the later live-action movies and the battle of the genders don’t really end with any sort of resolution. However, it does have the enjoyment of those who actually grew up with the Chipmunks cartoon and everything else. This one I think should be harmless for families. I don’t think it will hurt to check it out, even though it does have its own share of flaws.

Well, that ends “80s Cartoons Movie Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed all my reviews this month and…wait a minute, next month is October. You know what that means…Halloween Month!! Just a reminder, this year will be the first of shorter reviews that will not take up the entire month. I’m really excited this time around because I will be looking at a series of films that I have wanted to look at for a long time.

G.I. Joe: The Movie

Next up for this month, I will be looking at “G.I. Joe.” I never watched the cartoon because it was before my time, but I do remember my brother watching “G.I. Joe Extreme.” However, let’s take a look at “G.I. Joe: The Movie,” released in 1987.

Jeffrey Lyles started his review out by saying, “So I’m attempting to do what no one raised on a steady entertainment diet of 80s cartoons should bother trying — writing an unbiased review of G.I. Joe: The Movie. Maybe for an encore, I’ll give The Empire Strikes Back a shot?”

Lyles continued, “Take 1 doesn’t go too well as I realize I’m singing along with the words to the awesome opening scene. Yep. Completely unbiased…”

Animation was never the best part of the 80s cartoons, but kids weren’t concerned about that and were used to some really low-end animation and characters often not colored the right way.

However, when looking at the adrenaline-rushing opening scene, it’s obvious that Sunbow Productions put the best animation team for this film as the standard countless men of Joe green shirts in the background are actual Joes with names in here.

Another thing on the opening: Snake-Eyes jumping on a Cobra trouble bubble, throwing the pilot and flying in to pilot the plane himself may be better than anything Bond, Bourne or Batman ever did…really.

Lyles said, “Alright, I made it through the beginning after only four times rewinding, but now I’m reciting all the dialogue. How many times have I watched this movie??? I went to YouTube to find the opening as I’m writing this review. I’m weak. Don’t judge me.”

The film starts with Serpentor (Dick Gautier) yelling at his Cobra high soldiers for not defeating the G.I. Joe. Only Cobra Commander (the same voice of Starscream, Wheeljack, Sparkplug Witwicky, Reflector and Defensor on “The Transformers” cartoon and D’Compose, Tendrill and Statesman Granahue on the underrated “Inhumanoids” cartoon, Chris Latta) has the audacity to say that Serpentor hasn’t really been taking over the world with his terrorist leader plans either.

Serpentor is a failure. In the usual superior command, he blames his failures on his predecessor and as expected, Serpentor’s right-hand man gladly takes his side, even though Cobra Commander is going against these “unsubstantiated fantasies.” Lyles is right when he said, “Say what you will about the cartoon, but kids back then needed a decent education to comprehend the dialogue.”

Still, the second-in-command breaks into the Cobra base; everyone is just fine to follow Cobra Commander’s lead. Cobra just doesn’t know what he’s doing. While Snake-Eyes and Storm Shadow were going all over for more than two seasons, Pythona, voiced by Jennifer Darling, have the best ninja scenes in every G.I. Joe when she breaks into Cobra forces using speed, agility and some nice alien gadgets.

She meets Serpentor and offers camaraderie, given he can get the Joe’s new device (The Broadcast Energy Transmitter) currently being tested by the Joes on some snowy mountaintops.

Scarlett, voiced by B.J. Ward, is worried the B.E.T. doesn’t waste a billion taxpayer dollars. Lyles said, “If only my tax dollars went to stuff this cool. Serpentor leads the attacks with his catchphrase ‘This I command!’ as I’m reminded that he was only slightly less annoying than Galvatron on The Transformers TV series.”

Duke, voiced by Michael Bell, gets shot on his parka’s sleeve. Lyles said, “This was a big deal as Cobra soldiers had worse aim than Stormtroopers and also provided some interesting foreshadowing from writer Ron Friedman.”

Serpentor gets captured and after failing to gather the soldiers, Cobra Commander calls for a retreat. This leadership fight is nicely handled and Friedman was either giving kids a lot of credit or was going out of his way to make Cobra Commander sympathetic.

Roadblock, voiced by Kene Holliday, leads a search party and really showing a talent for sensible team building for this snow mission brings along Dusty, the desert trooper, and Shipwreck the sailor, both voiced by Neil Ross.

Roadblock’s team gets attacked by a group of strange new enemies, Cobra-La, that scared Cobra Commander, which we see was for a good reason. Cobra-La made for some bizarre villains for the Joes.

Lyles noted, “The cartoon always allowed some measure of goofiness in a somewhat realistic slant, but this new adversary shifted the series to a decidedly more fantasy-driven tone. And their end-game of turning all of humanity into cavemen was the dumbest of all the Cobra plots we’d seen so far.”

With Roadblock’s team mission, General Hawk (Ed Gilbert) hurries up the training for the new soldiers – Tunnel Rat (Laurie Faso), Jinx (Shuko Akune), Law (Ron Ortiz), Big Lob (Brad Sanders) and Chuckles  - given they can handle their sessions with Beach Head (William Callaway).

The Joe training scene gives some of the film’s on purpose funny moments as Beach Head gets really annoyed with their performance, but eventually respects them trying.

This isn’t really the case with Lt. Falcon, voiced by Don Johnson, a clown who often misses his responsibilities to flirt with any girl, the latest who gets him in trouble with Duke and ends with Dreadnoks freeing Serpentor in another great scene.

Lyles credited, “Johnson, still riding the Miami Vice popularity wave, lent the film some credibility since it was able to lure a big star on the project.” The same can be said for the late Burgess Meredith calling on as Cobra-La head Golobulus.

Annoyed with his attitude, Hawk sends Falcon to the Slaughter House where former professional wrestler and favorite on the cartoon Sgt. Slaughter is training his three new soldiers – Mercer (Kristoffer Tabori), Red Dog (Poncie Ponce) and Taurus (Earl Boen) – to their breaking level. While training with the Renegades, Falcon begins to understand what he needs to do to be a Joe.

Like “Transformers: The Movie,” this movie fights on a larger level than the cartoon’s episodes could take and ends up much more important.

At the same time, both lost some momentum once a main character dies and is replaced by not as likable new character. (Just a note: I wasn’t sad by Optimus Prime’s death in “The Transformers: The Movie” as much as I was confused with all the deaths in that movie.)

Lyles said, “Pushing out the old to make way for the new was a common theme in the Joe/Transformers mini-series, but that strategy felt a little too contrived for the movies, especially given how the old standard-bearers are discarded.”

The last fight throws out the made rules of Cobra-La’s supremacy over Joe soldiers apparently because this time the new breed is leading the army.

All of these asides, this is fun old-school cartoon movie done right and one that even today’s more refined children would enjoy just as much as an adult remembering so much 80s nostalgia.

But what can be said about the live-action movies that came out years later? Well, let’s take a look at “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,” released in 2009.

Apparently, this is what summer movies should be like. The filmmakers have inserted the coolest moments from blockbusters over the past five or six years and put them together into one insanely entertaining, completely over-the-top action thriller.

U.S. soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are leading a scary new nano-weapon when they’re attacked and then defended by two shockingly high-tech assault forces. They obviously do join the good side, the G.I. Joes, an influential team led by General Hawk, played by Dennis Quaid. These top commandos (including Rachel Nichols, Said Taghmaoui, Adewale Akkinnuoye-Agbaje and Ray Park) are tracking Duke’s ex Ana (Sienna Miller), who has gone over to the villains to help super-villain arms dealer McCullen (Christopher Eccelston) and, as Rich Cline put it in his review, “his Vader-esque evil-doctor sidekick” (Kevin J. O’Connor) with their evil plan for world domination.

Cline said, “From the prologue (in 1641 France), the film is a riot of corny dialog, wild overacting and nutty plotting. But it somehow comes together into a consistent tone, with a driving pace that propels us through each increasingly nutty set piece. It's like gadget porn with pulse-shooting guns, super-strength suits and bullet-proof armour, plus swords, explosives, missiles and good old-fashioned cat fights in the sky, sea, mountains, deserts and cities. A hyper-destructive chase through Paris is hysterical in every sense of the word.”

Cline continued, “All of this is rendered with swooping camera work, constant effects and frenetic editing. In other words, this looks like the lovechild of Tony Scott and Michael Bay. But no, it's by Mummy-man Sommers, which kind of explains why it's so much fun to watch. Everything about this film is a fantasy, and most of it is borrowed from the likes of Batman, Spider-man, Iron Man, James Bond and even Harry Potter. In this "near future", digital effects are a fact of everyday life.”

Strangely, the characters really are allowed to build beyond their action figure types. Everyone has a back-story (flashback here!) that creates the insanely difficult narrative, not to mention romantic subplots and “surprise” reveals. Everything makes this easily the summer’s best guilty-pleasure blockbuster. Don’t be surprised that it sets up a sequel because the hint is in the title.

That’s exactly what we got in 2013 with “G.I. Joe: Retaliation.” If the first movie was the mindless summer blockbuster at the absolute lowest, then the given improvement of the late sequel is a great surprise. Jon M Chu’s sequel expunges high effects, appeal-free method of Stephen Sommers’ original to give more realistic set pieces that are closer to the hugely enchanted “G.I. Joe” mythology.

The story starts as the best Joes team goes into an uneven Pakistan to successfully get back some nuclear warheads, only to see they’ve been double-crossed and practically wiped out by members of the unclear Cobra organization. Surviving trio Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (DJ Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) fly back to America and team up with an original Joe (Bruce Willis) to get revenge, eventually reuniting with former partner Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and a not likely new friend.

Rob Carnevale said in his review, “Chu’s film may still be absurd but it has a knowing sense of its own limitations and a firmer grasp of its target audience.” As predicted, there’s so much explosive action, a great line of humor and some fun performances, not least from new arrivals Willis, Ray Stevenson and Johnson. Jonathan Pryce also is great as the possible villain U.S. President, while article arts experts Park and Lee Byung-hun are given more room to show off their physicality.

Carnevale ended his review by saying, “While GI Joe: Retaliation may still boast an overly indulgent running time and some ridiculous displays of gun fetishism and gung-ho patriotism, it’s a fun ride while it lasts.”

In the end, these are some nice, enjoyable films that you should watch if you grew up with the G.I. Joes. If you don’t like the live-action movies, I understand, but I think they’re still enjoyable. The animated one is definitely the best, but I still think all three are worth checking out. I have been hearing possibilities of a third live-action movie, but I don’t know when that will come into fruition. Let’s just wait and see for ourselves.

Alright everyone, check in next week when I end off “80s Cartoon Movie Month.”

The Transformers: The Movie

Even though there’s five live-action movies (and an upcoming prequel), “The Transformers: The Movie,” released in 1986, is still the only Transformers film worth seeing.

Jeffrey Lyles said in his review, “For about 60 of its 84 minute run time, it is a shockingly mature, thrillingly violent production that doesn’t pull any punches for its younger audience who had grown accustomed to somewhat incompetent villains and a laugh-filled happy ending. That’s not the case here and the film is all the more memorable and better off for it. If only the film’s final act were stronger, the likely casualty of one too many rewrites and changes in direction, this would doubtlessly be considered one of the best films of the 1980s, animated or otherwise.”

There’s really a type of consequences that weren’t seen so much in the first two seasons of the animated series from the 80s. Favorite characters get killed from both the Autobots and Decepticons.

The human character, Spike, voiced by Corey Burton, is now grown up and a father, the good guys are the ones who lose the war and there’s even some swear words (Lyles said, “which were mind blowing at the time for 80s kids like myself”).

The film begins in grating ways with the arrival of Unicron, voiced by the late Orson Welles in his last role, (Lyles described, “The Transformers’ answer to Marvel Comics planet eater Galactus”) who goes to eat a planet on his way to the Autobots/Decepticons home planet of Cybertron.

This starts off an exciting hour with the best Transformers action we’ve ever seen. It’s almost one huge hour-long fight and it’s in every way as awesome as it sounds.

Megatron, voiced by Frank Welker, leads his Decepticons in a fight on Autobot City. The attack soon overpowers the Autobots led by Ultra Magnus (Robert Stack), Kup (Lionel Stander), Arcee (Susan Blu), Springer (Neil Ross) and Hot Rod (Judd Nelson) leading to the heart-breaking losses before Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) comes in to save them all.

However this time, the issue has serious consequences for both sides. Prime is forced to choose a successor and Megatron is rescued by Unicron and changed into his servant, Galvatron, voiced by the late Leonard Nimoy, with the mission of destroying the Autobot Matrix of Leadership.

Lyles said, “Before the days when Oscar winners voicing animated roles was commonplace, the voice talent assembled for this film was truly groundbreaking signaling that the property may be intended for children, but that big-names also saw the potential in appearing in them.”

Fans of the animated series will notice the movie’s animation is a drastic improvement. There’s so much attention to detail and shading that gives the robots a more complex design, which gave the movie the right type of importance.

Vince DiCola’s music is definitely one that belongs in the 80s, but it’s appropriately heavy metal and the soundtrack, specifically Stan Bush’s The Touch, is perfectly right for the movie.

With all of these praises, there are a few issues with the film.

Lyles noted, “First off, Hasbro’s agenda to push the new characters — and make kids demand toys of the new additions — becomes a bit obnoxious midway through with most of the old guard from the cartoon getting killed off or (no pun intended) transformed into other characters.”

Lyles continued, “While the new generation Autobots and Decepticons are interesting (Kup is fun as the old veteran with a story for every occasion and Springer is just a bad @$$ Autobot), the movie really should have been more of a payoff for all of the characters fans had grown attached to in the two seasons of the TV show instead of the abrupt shift in Transformers’ status quo.”

Lyles went on to say, “It’s especially glaring considering so many of the fan favorites like combiners Superion; Autobot HQ defender Omega Supreme (who would have come in handy in that battle of Autobot City) and the fifth Dinobot Snarl were missing.”

There are also so many inconsistencies during the Great Autobot City Battle. Most notably the Autobots getting killed with one laser shot in the first fight while Optimus Prime’s cannon having animated show effectiveness of only stunning the Decepticons when he shoots them.

With every world-destroying fear, Unicron’s defeat looks like more of a stroke of luck accident than a calculated plan, which looks like the Autobots are really lucky rather than heroic.

Still, even though the last act doesn’t hold up, “The Transformers: The Movie” is something that every 80s kid experienced or lied and said they did and a little over 30 years later it still holds up very well. Rather than the Michael Bay botched up franchise that’s not worth caring about, look not too hard than this flawed, but very entertaining old school ride.

Expect other famous voice actors like Casey Kasem (the original voice of Shaggy from “Scooby Doo”), John Moschitta, Jr. (the Micro Machine man), Chris Latta (who voiced Starscream) and Scatman Crothers.

Now, even though I enjoy the Bay Transformers movies, despite that I acknowledge the problems people have with them; this one is actually the one I would recommend seeing the most. There are some problems with it, but you won’t be banging your head up against the wall like you do with how Michael Bay did the franchise. If you grew up watching the animated series, watch this and go on an exciting ride that you haven’t experienced since those days. Or, if you have seen it, see it again.

Check in next week to see what I’ll look at next in “80s Cartoon Movies Month.”

The Smurfs and the Magic Flute

For this entire month, I will be looking at the animated movies to famous 80s cartoons that had later got live-action movies in the 2000s. We will first look at “The Smurfs and the Magic Flute.”

“The Smurfs and the Magic Flute,” the first feature length film to have the most famous characters of Belgian cartoonist Peyo, was made in 1976. Later, two English dubs were made for the film; the first was done in the United Kingdom as the film came out in 1979 there. The second one was for the North American audiences and it came out in 1983 after the animated series had quickly become very popular.

Fans of the cartoon that haven’t seen the film before might be thrown off by some of the differences here. Remember, this film was made a few years before the animated cartoon so it shouldn’t be so appalling to see that certain characters from the cartoon aren’t anywhere in the movie. The story is about a young knight named Johan (Grant Gottschall) and his jester, Peetwit (Cameron Clarke) (Ian Jane said in his review, “two earlier creations from Peyo's cartoons in the 1950s - trivia note: The Smurfs first appeared in their comic strips before getting their own”). A travelling salesman arrives at the castle to sell Peetwit a flute but the King (Efron Etkin) know just how horrible Peetwit is when it comes to music and throws him out but the salesman leaves flute. The King doesn’t want Peetwit to see the flute, tries to burn it but that doesn’t work. When Peetwit does get a hold of the flute, the music played from it sends everyone in the castle dancing crazily. Here is when everyone involved finds out that there’s something different about this flute.

In comes the evil Matthew McCreep, voiced by Mike Reynolds, who wants the flute and will go so far to steal it when he finds out that it’s been left at the castle, that’s where he goes. He steals it from Peetwit who goes with Johan at the King’s request to get the flute back from McCreep who wants to use it to cheat people. Peetwit and Johan first visit a wizard who sends them to where The Smurfs live, the peculiar blue creatures who created the flute, and their leader, Papa Smurf, voiced by Mike Reynolds, agrees to help them track down McCreep and them trying to get the flute back.

Jane noted, “Though the film was released theatrically by Atlantic, most who remember it probably saw it by way of the Vestron VHS release that made the rounds in the eighties as the title was popular and did quite well on home video.” For the movie itself, it has a nice story. Some might complain that Smurfette or Gargamel aren’t in the movie but Peetwit and Johan are fun characters who really make up for them not included. Jane mentioned, “Though the Smurfs themselves don't actually appear in the movie until just past the twenty minute mark, something that may dismay younger viewers who need the little blue guys to be on the screen at all times, the storyline is in keeping thematically with what we saw in the animated TV series.” There are lots of magic, good lessons, fun characters, evil worthy villains, catchy music and some nicely odd animation.

Jane said, “A lot of the appeal of a movie like this is going to be the nostalgia that has set in for those who remember it from their childhood. It might not appeal as much on a visual level to today's kids used to CGI animation and the slower pace might have trouble holding the attention of some youngsters. With that said, however, this is enjoyable enough and completely passable entertainment.” The last half of the movie picks up the pace a lot and if this isn’t a mainly deep or amazing film, it’s a nice seventy five minutes of harmless fun and there’s definitely nothing wrong with that.

Jane ended his review by saying, “The Smurfs And The Magic Flute is a fun nostalgia trip and though it will certainly appeal more to those who remember the characters from their eighties heyday than those weaned on the recent CGI revisionist take, there's probably enough common ground that kids of all ages can have some fun with it. It's nice to have this on DVD after all these years (though the UK Blu-ray release offers improved picture quality) but the non-anamorphic transfer and lack of any substantial extras will understandably annoy a segment of its audience. Recommended for Smurfs enthusiasts (smurfthusiasts?), a fine rental for the masses.”

This is a nice film, but I can understand why someone may not like it. Peetwit can get really annoying and the Smurfs come in late in movie, even though their name is in the title of movie. However, it’s a harmless movie for everyone, so if you want to, see it for yourselves. It might be a better movie than the latest ones that have come out in recent years.

Check in next week to see the next film I look at in “80s Cartoon Movie Month.”