Missing Link is our first film, it's an animated adventure story with a Sasquatch that came out last year. Other than the rather strange caricatures of the people and critters it was entertaining. It's written and directed by Chris Butler who wrote and directed the 2012 film Paranorman, and wrote the 2016 film Kubo And The Two Strings. I enjoyed Paranorman but haven't seen the other. Before he was a director Chris worked in the art departments of Mr Bean: The Animated Series, Tarzan 2: The Legend Begins, Corpse Bride, The Tale Of Despereaux and Coraline.
There's a great cast doing the voices: Hugh Jackman, David Walliams, Stephen Fry, Matt Lucas, Zach Galifanakis, Tim Olyphant, Zoe Saldana and Emma Thompson. Those were the ones I knew. Sadly, they the people didn't rush into the theater to hear them and the film couldn't spark enough attention to help out, the film grossed $26 mil WW on a $100 mil payout. No one likes seeing such poor sales figures.
Hugh plays Sir Lionel Frost, who dreams of finding a missing race of creatures and telling the world but he's dogged by his lack of ability. He so wants to be a famous explorer and join the big knobs at the Society of Great Men. In reality, it's just a bunch of bell ends and none so knobby as Lord Piggot-Dunceby, played by Stephen Fry. Sir Lionel gets a letter from someone in Washington State USA who has seen a Sasquatch, he sends a plaster cast of the foot. Lord P-D doesn't believe it but takes a bet from Sir L that would let Sir L into the club if he finds the creature. Secretly Sir P-D sends a scumbag, played by Timothy, to get rid of Sir L.
It's a fairly entertaining romp that takes us from London to Washington State, where we meet a missing link who wants to be called Susan. Then it's onto Santa Ana California where they reluctantly let Sir L's old girlfriend join the expedition to the Himalayas in search of the Yeti. There plenty of travel and some action. The scenery is pretty, the movie is very colorful. There's some humor but many of the jokes bring smiles instead of laughs. I did laugh out loud a couple of times and I grew to like the main characters. I'll watch it again, fortuitously someone has given me a DVD of the film, so I can.
I bought my own copy of Captive State, I got the Blu-ray on clearance for under 4 bucks. It's a 2019 SF movie about a settled alien invasion, it's ten years on and there's a revolution brewing. Erica Beeney and Rupert Wyatt wrote the screenplay with Rupert directing. Rupert has directed 4 other movies, Subterrain, The Escapist, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes and The Gambler. I've only seen one of them, ROTPOTA, and I wasn't that keen.
I'm not too keen on Captive State, there's a core of a good story there but the film lets me down in little ways. I didn't like the music much and the soundtrack is harsh and unattractive. It might be used to augment the horrible stuff going on the screen but it doesn't help, I just kept being annoyed by it.
I did like the plot line following the rebels but there's way too much family drama mixed in there. John Goodman plays the head cop in Chicago like he was a big slab of grumpy ham. The sons of his late ex-cop partner are mixed up with the rebels. There's a plot to attack the aliens and the older brother returns from the dead to help deliver a bomb to the aliens, angered the aliens send in killer aliens for some revenge. There's another deeper plot going on but it seems to take forever to get to the end. That payoff is off camera and that was very disappointing. Everyone in the room complained. It's overly long on top of that, 110 mins, and parts of it just poke along. Disappointing but I'll probably keep the BR for now.