Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering an animated film from 2001. That movie is "Recess: School's Out".
Now, I know I stated way back in my review of "Treasure Planet" that I would not be covering any more of Disney's animated movies. And I still by that statement, because when it comes to their main line-up of animated films, there is not a single one that I haven't seen yet that I have any interest in. And the less said about any of their live-action remakes of said animated movies, the better.
Now with that said, that doesn't mean I'm excluding any films outside of that, and that includes this film. And the reason why I wanted to cover this movie was because I did watch "Recess" back in the day when it was still airing on TV. And I do remember enjoying it very much. However...this is one of those occasions where, while I did watch it, I don't remember much of *anything* about the show, outside of it mostly centering around our band of students, AKA our main characters, at their elementary school. And unfortunately, on top of all that, I don't really remember most of the names, outside of T.J, the kid in the red cap, and Gus, who I *think* was the fat kid...or might've been the kid with glasses. I don't remember, honestly. Seriously, it really has been *that* long since I last watched it.
Which then brings me to this movie, which I do remember the ads for this thing airing on TV back in the day. However, unlike the show, I never wound up watching the movie. And if I did, it might've been, like, once, and I never saw it again. So yeah, my memory of this show is incredibly hazy at best. But still, I am really curious to see if the movie did the show any sort of justice. I don't know if it will or not, but the only way I'm gonna find out for sure is if I shut up and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Recess: School's Out".
3 minutes later
Oh my god...OK, guys, I know this is still early in the movie, but we just got through with the opening prologue, and what I am seeing right now is a panning shot of, what I'm going to assume is Third Street, and the CG that's rendered here looks *horrible*! Like, this is some of the worst-looking CG I've seen in a long time, especially for something that came out in 2001. I'm hoping that we get to see less shots of it as the movie goes on. But I just wanted to let you guys know now that the CG I've seen so far looks like complete shit.
16 minutes later
So...Principal Prickly just got zapped into nothingness, I guess, and the only thing that remains of him are his shoes. Well, that was certainly interesting. Kinda morbid, but still, I wasn't exactly expecting that.
14 minutes later
OK, I have a legitimate question here, and I know it's probably not gonna be answered, but I want to ask it anyway. How long has Randall, the guy's who's always reporting misdeeds to Miss Finster, been hiding in Detweiler's trash can? Was it during the moment T.J. brought his friends back home from camp? Or has he always been hiding there simply because he likes being the ass kisser of Miss Finster? I really want to know this, and again, I have this strange feeling that this movie's not gonna answer that whatsoever.
14 minutes later
So, Benedict's principal office from back in the day essentially just had a bunch of hippie decor, along with the office looking wildly colorful for it's time. I gotta say, that's actually sorta cool. Granted, it looks a little bit gaudy for my tastes, but at least it does look a little bit cool.
8 minutes later
So...let me see if I understand this retarded plan of Benedict's. The way he's gonna get rid of summer vacation is to control the moon's orbit in a specific way so that summer will be a thing of the past, as will summer vacation. And just based on what he said a moment ago towards the end, he's essentially trying to mimic what Mr. Freeze tried to do in "Batman & Robin" in his own stupid way by freezing the Earth to death. I'm...almost speechless, guys, I really am. That is just retarded on levels that I didn't think were even possible to begin with.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Recess: School's Out". And we're closing out with...a rather odd psychedelic song that's also sung by the "Recess" cast...interesting. Well, I think now is a good time to shut the movie off here...OK. So...where do I even begin with this movie?
Well, I suppose I can start by saying this. As someone who hasn't seen the show in over 2 decades, I gotta say that this movie is, and I don't use this term very often, a time capsule movie. This is a kind of movie that shows it's age. And I don't really mean that as a knock at the movie, I mean that as a compliment. It's one of those movies where you could watch it and be brought back to a point where the internet and phones weren't really a thing very much. They existed, sure, but they weren't as relevant as they are today. This is one of those movies that very much fits into the time capsule genre. Now, of course, I know that there are plenty of movies from way back when that could be considered examples as time capsule films as well, though more on a nostalgic level. But for me, this is one of those movies that, at least to me, fits well into that genre. Especially for someone like myself, who did end up watching the show as a child, even if I didn't have much of a memory for it back then. So, on that end, this movie was able to accomplish that sort of feat.
Now with that said, that doesn't mean that the movie is either great, or anything spectacular. This film is most certainly flawed, but I'll get into all that in a moment. For now, though, I'm just gonna start the review off proper by getting into the writing. And the first thing that I need to mention is something that I've kinda mentioned already a couple of times, which is me having very little memories about watching "Recess". So, going into this movie, I didn't really know most of the character's names, nor was I really familiar with most of the storylines that was going on in the show at the time. The latter, in which, still holds mostly true, because aside from maybe, like, a couple of episodes here and there, I didn't really remember most of any of the episodes in general. Though to be fair, I don't really think the show had anything like that at the time. It was just there to be a silly, goofy cartoon set around kids getting into mischief and having fun together. At least, that's what I remembered from it.
Which then brings me into the next thing that I'm going to say about this movie. The writing here feels like it was intended as a finale to the show. Because you have the characters, aside from T.J., mentioning that they're going to summer camp so that they can fulfill their own dreams of what they want to become when they're adults. Although admittedly, this part I have to question a little bit, because, I could maybe understand that if this series were set during middle school and they would be going into high school, then I could see them maybe having this conversation with each other. But I find it a little bit hard to believe that these kids, who haven't even reached middle school yet, are having these conversations about wanting to become what they want to be when they grow up with each other. T.J. is the only exception to this because he wants to go do stuff with his friends during the summer that kids would normally do. Like fishing, or go play baseball. Stuff that kids his age *should* be doing. Thinking about what you want to do with your future *is* something to consider, but not when you're still a kid. At least, that's how I saw it, coming from personal experience of never having these kinds of conversations during my days at school.
But setting aside that little questionable detail, most of the characters here are obviously carried over from the show. And this is where one of the biggest flaws with the writing comes in. Not just because the characters feel a little bit flat here, but it also ties into something that I'll mention later when I get to recommendations. But basically, guys, the depth that these characters had in the show doesn't really carry over here. So if you're hoping to know about these characters, you're not gonna find that here. This movie doesn't really do very much with them, character wise, outside of them mentioning that they're going to summer camp to become what they want to be when they grow up. For example, Vincent, the black kid, wants to become a baseball player, Penelope wants to be a pro wrestler, and Gus wants to become a drill army sergeant. None of this is ever really important, until the very last act of the movie where they go up against the villain of the movie Benedict.
And speaking of which, this is where I'm gonna transition it over into the acting. The acting here is really good, especially since that everyone that was a part of the "Recess" TV show reprises their roles here, it would make sense as to why the acting here remains really solid. And to add onto that, we also have our villain, Benedict, being voiced by James Woods. He makes this character worth watching, considering the man has a lot of range within his voice. He could be smarmy and cool at one moment, and then being hammy and over-the-top the next. He really is that good at what he does. But then again, James Woods is the kind of man who could take any kind of script and turn it into gold. So, it's not that surprising to me, but it is still cool to see here.
Now let's move onto the animation. The art-style here is very reminiscent, if not the exact same kind of animation that was from the animated series. The only difference here is that this one feels like it has a slightly bigger budget to work with. And on that note, I need to talk about the usage of CG here. Now thankfully, there's not very much CG here at all. It's only present at the beginning and at the end of the movie. And if the way I've been talking about it is any indication, the CG in this movie is dogshit. It is quite possibly some of the ugliest usage I have ever seen. It's mainly just used for panning shots of the entire town of Third Street, which is the town where "Recess" takes place, and it just doesn't look good at *all*. The houses, buildings, and the school all looks terribly rendered here. And what's really strange about all this is that the "Recess" animated series was mainly hand-drawn. So the idea that they tried to implement CG into something that really didn't need it to begin with feels incredibly out of place here. And yes, I totally understand that they wanted to be all *cinematic* and stuff. Which I would'be been fine with, if the CG was halfway decent, but like I said, it wasn't. Now again, the CG doesn't appear very much here, so it's not gonna be a huge problem in the long run. Just at the beginning and near the end.
But aside from the ugly-looking CG, the animation here is perfectly fine. The art-style is pretty much the same kind of animation that was from the show, and the color palettes are used very well too. So, overall, the animation is very good here. Sound-mix is mixed fine. And the soundtrack is also pretty good, too. There is a decent variety of songs from popular 60's artists and songs from Steppenwolf, Jimi Hendrix, and Martha and the Vandellas, as a few examples. All the songs here are mostly classic songs and they're pretty good. Personally speaking, they're not exactly favorite songs of mine, but they're by no means terrible either. So yeah, again, the soundtrack here for this movie is pretty good.
Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, am I able to recommend "Recess: School's Out"? Only if you were a fan of the show. If you never watched it, or have never even heard about it until now, then you can probably just skip this one. This movie is mainly for fans of "Recess". And as for someone like myself, who didn't have much of a memory of it myself despite watching it, this actually did unlock some memories of my time watching the show. And despite some of the flaws that this movie does have, I still quite enjoyed this thing. Like I said earlier, it is a really decent time capsule kind of movie, and I do plan on watching it again at some point. In fact, as soon as I'm done with this review, I'm probably gonna try to look up some episodes of "Recess" on YouTube and see if they're available to watch somewhere. I'm curious to see if any of the episodes have held up all these years later for me. And who knows? I may end up enjoying the show a lot more than how I did when I originally watched it.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment