Author: Jim McLennan

Perfect

  By

★★★½
“All in, all out!”

When I reviewed Russian fencing film On the Edge, I said, “I just need to find a synchronized swimming movie.” While this is a documentary, with all the positives and negatives of that genre, this fits the bill until Hollywood produces something more narrative. It follows the efforts of the Canadian team to get into the 2016 Rio Olympics. While normally, they’d be in as Pan-American champions, hosts Brazil got the spot reserved for the Americas. This forces Canada to go through the qualification tournament, battling their nemeses, Spain and Italy. The doc covers the arrival of new Chinese coach Meng Chen, efforts to get the most from her swimmers, and when this initially falls short, a radical re-invention of the team’s routine. 

You may be wondering what one of the most mocked Olympic sports is doing on the site. But beneath the fixed grins, penguin walks and stripper make-up, lies one of the most intense, demanding and gruelling sports, for men or women. To quote one team member, it’s like “running an Olympic-level 400-metre sprint while holding your breath”. She’s not wrong. The most memorable sequence here is when a series of team members list the injuries suffered for their sport. Broken bones. Torn muscles. And concussions. So many concussions, an inevitable result of rapidly-moving limbs in close proximity to skulls. I wrote elsewhere about the sport, now called “artistic swimming”; read that if you want the full case for why it belongs here.

Alternatively, just watch the film, because you’ll likely leave giving the athletes the respect they deserve. It’s the result of throwaway lines like one saying she spends 7-12 hours a day in the pool. Or the relentless pressure of Chen, pushing to unlock their potential. Or team captain Morin succumbing to an eating disorder, this sport being as much about how you look as how you perform. However, I’d have liked to have seen more technical background, rather than another scene of Chen yelling at the team. Even simple things, like explaining they aren’t allowed to touch the bottom of the pool, would have enhanced the footage of them throwing team-mates into the air. Though there are still some staggeringly beautiful shots, using reflections, tilted cameras, etc. it is a shame they couldn’t use the performance music – presumably for rights reasons. 

Interestingly, and perhaps pointedly, the team realizes its greatest results, after Chen adopts a more collaborative approach with them, and brings in external help. They even get an acting coach, to help improve their ability to convey emotions through movement. It’s nice too, to get a bit of insight into the aspiring Olympians, such as Holzner, for whom this has been an ambition since she was eight. We see the scrapbook she made when she was young (to help cope with a concussion!), and it helps foster an understanding of why people are willing to put themselves through this kind of ordeal. It all ends a bit messily: we don’t even see their final routine. But the journey is the thing here, not the destination, and you should be left with a new appreciation for the sport and its participants. 

Dir: Jérémie Battaglia
Star: Claudia Holzner, Marie-Lou Morin, Meng Chen, Karine Thomas

Matching Escort

  By

★★
“No sense nonsense.”

I was pleasantly surprised when this random kung-fu film found Tubi (under the Silver Fox title) turned out to be by the creator of Wolf Devil Woman. which was batshit crazy, but at least quite entertaining. This is, unfortunately, only half of that – and worse, it’s the insanity which is delivered, with the entertainment being only sporadic in nature. I will say, in the film’s defense, the presentation is likely not helping. There’s no subbed version I’ve been able to find, and the English language one is badly dubbed, cropped visually and is likely also cut (either that, or the editing is worse than terrible).

All that said, I didn’t feel this was up to the same level of quality as WDW, which at least had a novel story. This, is just your basis revenge item, no matter how much the trappings insist otherwise. Pearl – I’ve no clue about her character’s name, I’m not sure it’s ever used in the entire film – is brought up as part of a martial arts family, whose training methods consist of strapping heavy shoes to her feet. Just as she reaches adulthood, the other 73 (!) members of her clan are killed by a rival, in search of a jade amulet that’s the source of their power. But, naturally, Pearl escapes with the amulet, and goes into hiding.

She’s taken under the wing of the rather weird Silver Fox (Ying), who teaches her his advanced kung-fu techniques, up until he is also brutally killed. This triggers Pearl, who goes after both his killers, and those responsible for slaughtering her family. There may be a connection. There is also a roaming nobleman (Meng) and his comic relief sidekick (Seng), but up until the end, they are largely irrelevant and so can safely be ignored. The main issue is, the film sits around in Silver Fox’s underground lair for far too long: it feels as if the movie spends twice as long on the training for the revenge, as the actual revenge. While it’s a somewhat loopy environment, it gets old quickly and my interest largely died during this middle section.

Things do perk up down the stretch, with some insane battles, not least the bit where Pearl stabs a guy in the top of his head with her sword, and he then turns into a geyser of blood for a bit. This is is the kind of insanity for which I am here. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel there was enough of this, and I found the herky-jerky editing approach close to inducing a migraine: the stabs at comedy have much the same effect. The IMDb says it was written by Godfrey Ho, and I’ve seen enough of his dreck to make it seem plausible he was involved here. It’s an underwhelming kind of revenge for Pearl too, and leaves the ending falling painfully flat. Closure, it would appear, is for other people.

Dir: Sze Ma Peng, Pearl Chang
Star: Pearl Chang, Fei Meng, Shih Ying, Sek Fung
a.k.a. Fury of the Silver Fox or Venus the Cavalier or Wolf Devil Woman 2

The Female Hustler

  By

★★½
“The long climb up.”

This is another one in the apparently endless series of low-budget urban movies, which focus on crime in the black community. Though this does actually have a couple of wrinkles which make it stand out, if not quite enough to make it a success for a wider audience outside its community. Columbus, Ohio is the setting, where Princess (Godsey) is struggling to make ends meet. She’s relying on handouts from her dodgy brother, Dae Dae, to make rent, and also wants to get her best friend away from her pimp. Opportunity comes knocking, in the shape of an Uber driver, Omar (Campbell), who brings her on board in his business, which he tells her has almost unlimited upside and growth potential.

to the movie’s credit, this isn’t the usual drug-dealing we’ve seen so many times before. While the specifics were a bit vague, it seems Omar is working on white-collar crime, syphoning off company payroll. His associate on the West coast, the appropriately named Cali (Bosley), is planning a hostile takeover, and brings Princess on board. Omar gets wind of this, only for Princess to turn the tables, leaving her boss for dead. That brings us to phase two of the movie, where Princess is now in charge of a nationwide enterprise. However, to no great surprise, it is not as easy as that, not least because Omar is still alive, and unhappy about the situation, to put it mildly.

To start with the positives, Godsey is a good actress, and indeed, most of the cast are solid enough, when their performances are given room to breathe. The first half of this, depicting Princess’s rise to the top, may be small scale, but is effective. I do have some questions though: for example, the reason why multi-millionaire entrepreneur Omar is working as an Uber driver, is never convincingly explained. However, the budget here is entirely incapable of depicting the lifestyle of Princess once she has reached at the top. It needs yachts, big cars, lavish apartments, etc. and the film never delivers. It feels like she’s probably still living in the same crappy apartment she inhabited at the beginning of the movie.

That’s far from uncommon: I’ve seen many similar films whose ambitions did not live up to their resources. A bigger problem, however, is the soundtrack. It feels simply like the director left his Spotify account on random, with one of an endless selection of songs written and performed by his mates, blasting every three minutes. There seems to have been little or no attempt to choose the songs to fit the needs of the scene, and they are far more often a jarring distraction. Occasionally, we get some sequences where Campbell does exercise restraint, opting for stock music instead, and these are inevitably better. But I’m not averse to Campbell overall, who shows enough talent, along with his lead actress, that they will be worth keeping an eye on going forward.

Dir: Dom Campbell
Star: Courtney Godsey, Dom Campbell, Kenneth Bse Count Bosley, Vivica Cartier

President and Kung-Fu Girl

  By

★★½
“Lifestyles of the Rich and Communist.”

On a trip to Thailand, businessman’s daughter Wen Wan manages to cause trouble with some rather unpleasant people, causing her father, Wen Ruhu to fear a revenge attack. He hires security consultant Liang Shan to protect Wan, but his business partner Li Kaishi, also sends his daughter, Xin You, as another bodyguard. Shan and You initially see each other as rivals, but as they get to know each other (and stop me if you’ve perhaps heard this before), eventually realize that they both want the same thing, to protect Wan. The sparks become more of the romantic kind, although it turns out that the situation in which they are involved is not as advertised, with envious eyes being cast at Liang’s company and its assets.

Firstly, I apologize for the lack of information on the participants. While in both Chinese and English, the opening credits list only the crew, not the cast, and the end credits (presumably listing the players) are only in Chinese. I found the names of two actors online, but absolutely no info about the characters they played. Nor is there an IMDb page for the movie: I’ve been watching a lot of Chinese films lately, and that often seems to be the case, especially with straight-to-streaming entries like this. Even the images I found for it, such as the one above, manage to mis-spell the movie’s own title. I get they really don’t care much about finding a Western audience, so I am just grateful the print has subtitles.

This begins brightly enough, though after the opening scene, I was a bit confused as to why Wan needs a bodyguard, since she seems quite capable of taking care of herself. [I must also say, for a supposedly Communist country, the luxurious lifestyle she enjoys looks much more like an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous!] However, it’s clear that You is no slouch in the martial-arts department, though the editing here seems more intended to conceal than show off her physical abilities. Still, she looks the part and it seemed to have potential, with her and her male colleague fending off wave after wave of attempts at revenge.

Except it doesn’t happen. The film grinds to an abrupt halt in the middle, heading firmly for something closer to relationship driven soap-opera, complete with a soppy soundtrack. This sucks all life and promise out of the film, even if the two characters are rather more engaging than the whiny Wan. They’re trying, bless their hearts, it’s just not the kind of scenes I wanted to see: I generally prefer my kung-fu uncluttered with romantic tension (except for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, of course). There’s a brief burst of energy at the end, when all is revealed.  and did regain my interest, though even here You takes a bit of a back seat. It’s very much harmless fluff – I suspect it is the Chinese equivalent of a Netflix Original.

Dir: Feng Zhe
Star: Zhang Yigui, Xie Mingyu.

Boxcar Bertha

  By

★★★
“Tracks of my tears.”

After the success of Bloody Mama, producer Roger Corman wanted to follow up with another film depicting lawlessness in the Depression. He found his source material in Sister of the Road, supposedly the autobiography of a thirties drifter called Boxcar Bertha. No such one person actually existed: it was assembled by the author, Dr. Ben L. Reitman, from multiple characters he met while helping women in trouble in Chicago (a fictionalized version of the doctor may appear in the movie). Corman hired the then almost unknown Martin Scorsese, who was directing his first commercial film; its predecessor, Who’s That Knocking at My Door, grossed only $16,085.  Scorsese was given a schedule of 24 days and a budget of $600,000.

It begins with Bertha Thompson (Hershey) hitting the road after her father is killed when his crop-dusting plane crashes. Accompanied by her father’s mechanic Von Morton (Casey), she falls in with union leader Big Bill Shelly (Carradine), who is rousing workers against railroad owners such as H. Buckram Sartoris (played by Carradine’s father John), as well as card sharp Rake Brown (Primus). Bertha becomes an outlaw after shooting a man who catches Rake cheating, and Bill’s union activities end up leaving him in prison. Bertha helps break him out, and the quartet take up a life of crime, robbing the rich industry barons, who are none too pleased by the gang’s activities. Inevitably – especially if you’re familiar with Scorsese’s better-known work – it ends in blood.

In that, as well as the era and the story of young love gone violently wrong, it feels not dissimilar to Bonnie and Clyde, made five years earlier. But Bertha is a considerably more independent character, who has to fend for herself on more than one occasion, after her three colleagues are arrested and sent to prison. Though violence is never her first choice, it always remains an option. That’s true right through the brutal finale where Bill is nailed to the side of a train, only for Von to show up with a shotgun. It is a scene that could have come from Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (three years earlier), yet also feels like pure Scorsese.

The socialist and pro-union political leanings, turning Bertha and her crew into Depression-era Robin Hoods, is also interesting. Scorsese would not be a stranger to a sympathetic portrayal of the criminal classes, from Mean Streets through Casino to The Irishman. Yet it also remains a Corman film, clocking in at a brisk 88 minutes, in sharp contrast to Scorsese’s subsequent fondness for sprawling epics. Hershey, then at the beginning of her lengthy career, would provide the necessary nudity. Though it’s notable that even when working as a prostitute, she might allow the use of her body, but her heart always remained Bill’s. Despite the exploitation elements, it all feels a bit worthy, and it’s no wonder Scorsese would quickly go his own way, his interests not in line with Corman. For example, the crucifixion of Bill, with Bertha in the role of Mary Magdalene is a tad too on the nose. The heroine is an interesting enough creature on her own terms, not to need this kind of unsubtle embellishment.

Dir: Martin Scorsese
Star: Barbara Hershey, David Carradine, Barry Primus, Bernie Casey

Mayday

  By

★½
“Send help.”

Yes, this is one of those cases where the title is the review, because I suspect many viewers will be signalling enthusiastically for help before reaching the end. I would start off by saying something snarky, like “That’s an hour and a half of my life that I’ll never get back.” But this would imply the film actually held my attention for an hour and a half, which would.. not be entirely correct. I was in the same room where it was playing. My eyes were open. I am not prepared to commit to much more than that. I also note that at the North American box-office, it took a grand total of $4,382, including a whopping $209 over its second week of release. I trust everyone involved in the production learned a valuable lesson from this.

This is a “war of the sexes” picture thinly disguised as fantasy, which throws elements from Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lord of the Flies into a blender, in the belief that doing so makes for some kind of feminist statement. It doesn’t. Not even when you burden the cast with lines like, “You’ve been in a war your whole life, you just didn’t know it,” or “You need to stop hurting yourself and start hurting others.” It begins with downtrodden waitress Ana (Grace Van Patten) crawling through an oven in the hotel where she works, and emerging onto a vaguely WW2-era shoreline. There, she bonds with a group led by Marsha (Goth), who lure male soldiers to the beach using fake Mayday signals, sniping dead any who make it past the turbulent conditions. Because all men are predators who deserve to die, right?

It plays like an “Is caffeine-free Pepsi alright?” version of Sucker Punch, with Ana crawling into her own headspace, trying to escape the traumas of everyday life, in a world with repurposed characters. For example, Marsha is the same, reluctant bride Ana comforted in the bathroom shortly before her break from/with reality. The only element of interest was Ana’s refusal to go down the same murderous path of intent as her colleagues. though this does lead to a feeling the movie doesn’t quite know what message it’s trying to send. At least Paradise Hills, which occupied similar territory, had a gorgeous visual sense to paper over the weaker plot elements. Here, there’s no such distraction.

This is not quite the worst “young women trapped in a surreal landscape” movie I’ve ever seen. That would be the near irredeemable awfulness of non-GWG film, Ladyworld. However, that I found myself consciously comparing this to it, is not a parallel to any movie’s credit. If there’s a lesson to be learned from Ana’s eventual fate, it’s that the cure for what mentally ails you, apparently involves a psychotic break, along with some quality girl time spend living on the beach alongside a crew of Aileen Wuornos wannabes. I guess it probably works out as cheaper than therapy.

Dir: Karen Cinorre 
Star: Grace Van Patten, Mia Goth, Soko, Havana Rose Liu

Fall

  By

★★★★
“Nope. NopeNopeNope. Nope.”

I never considered myself to be afraid of heights. I respect them, sure. But I am capable of going up the ladder to change that annoying smoke alarm battery without a safety net. This film though, literally gave me sweaty palms. It’s about climber Becky Connor (Currey) who lost her husband Dan (Gooding) in a rockface accident a year before, and has spiralled down into alcoholism and depression since. Her father (Morgan) gets her best friend Shiloh Hunter (Gardner) to intervene, and she convinces Becky the best thing is to get back on horse, with a climb of a two thousand feet tall, abandoned TV mast. 

The journey up is where the moist hands started. I don’t care how nice the views might be, I’m afraid it’s going to be a no from me, dawg. Adding to the fraught tension, is the focus by Mann on the decaying structure: rust, missing bolts and general creakiness. It’s like Final Destination: you know something is inevitably going to go terribly wrong, it’s just a question of when, and the specifics. It duly does, leaving the pair stranded near the top, on a platform about the size of our dining table, with no route down or way to call for help. The rest of the film is the struggle of Becky and Hunter (she uses her last name, or her social media identity of “Danger Deb”) to find a way to do one or the other. 

Most of it is well-written, with the two women using every bit of ingenuity, as well as both their physical and mental strength, in that struggle. While I was ahead of the plot a couple of times – some of the foreshadowing isn’t as subtle as it could be – there was one doozy of a twist near the end, that we definitely did not see coming. By the end, there’s no doubt Becky is an utterly badass, prepared to survive by any means necessary. My main complaint, storywise, was the clunky shoehorning in of a wedge issue to divide her and Hunter. This served no dramatic purpose, and had me rolling my eyes at the incongruity of it all. Hello: you are two thousand feet in the air!

Technically, however, it’s very well done, giving the viewer a real sense of what it must be like. If you are the slightest bit sensitive about heights, this film will find out, force its way into those cracks, and use them as leverage, to an almost queasy extent. I found it easy to believe they were genuinely up there, even if neither lead actress has quite the ripped physique of a real climber, someone like Slovenian Janja Gambret. I did wonder if it was potentially going to go full The Descent on us at the end, and embrace its inner bleakness. I won’t say whether or not it does. However, I suspect that the next time our smoke alarm starts to beep, its battery will have to change itself.

Dir: Scott Mann
Star: Grace Caroline Currey, Virginia Gardner, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Mason Gooding

Rendez-vous

  By

★★★★
“There’s so many crazy people out there…”

I did not originally expect to be reviewing this here. I watched it because of the technical elements, which I’ll get to in a bit. However, by the end, it does qualify – though you certainly wouldn’t think so from how things begin. It gets underway with Lili (Puig) waiting for a date arranged over the Internet with Eduardo (Alcantara). He shows up late, very apologetic after having been mugged, and having had his phone taken, but is utterly charming, and the chemistry with Lili is immediate. They end up back at his place for dinner. But as he’s cooking on the kitchen, the tone of the evening changes, when she hears his supposedly stolen phone going off in his jacket…

That’s the beginning of a shift in content from warm romance into something considerably darker, and in which the dynamic changes several times before the final credits roll. As the above indicates, it initially seems that Eduardo is the problem. However, it’s considerably more complex, with Lili also having her own secrets. Quite how it’ll play out remains in doubt until the final scene, with the best-laid plans going astray along the route. I will say this though: if I ever engage in a kidnapping scheme, I won’t be answering the door to visitors. This does deliver some black comedy, when a drunk pal of Eduardo swings by, and wildly misinterprets the situation unfolding in front of his booze-filled eyes.

I mentioned the technical side. The hook here is the movie unfolds in a single, 100+ minute shot. Even more startling is what director Arrayales said: “We couldn’t afford another chance to shoot the movie again, so the movie is the only take we did. We really prepared hard, for three weeks with the actors, and a week with the DP just to plan the whole movie. That was about it: four or five weeks of rehearsals and one chance to make it.” Hard not to be impressed. While certainly not the first to use a single shot, most either fake it or, at least, get to use multiple takes. It’s a tribute to the makers that, after initially being the focus, you largely forget about the gimmick, with the story and characters taking over.

A good portion of the proceedings are more mental than physical. Eduardo pushes Lili for what he believes to be the truth, while she is resolute in stating he has got the situation very, very wrong. However, it eventually becomes more direct in its action, with a hunt unfolding around the two levels of Eduardo’s house (complete with make-up and effects artists sneaking around to apply their art out of shot!). You may well figure out the final direction before it happens, yet I’d be impressed if you accurately predict the specifics of the resolution. Though it’s not especially important if you do. Between the technical execution and the other elements, there’s more than sufficient elsewhere to justify the experience. 

Dir: Pablo Olmos Arrayales
Star: Helena Puig, Antonio Alcantara

Badland Doves

  By

★★
“When doves cry.”

I am contractually obliged to appreciate at least somewhat, any film made here in Arizona. This certainly fits the bill, having been shot at places like the Pioneer Living History Museum, Sitgreaves National Forest and Winters Film Group Studio. However, it is a fairly basic tale of two-pronged revenge, with significant pacing issues. The proceedings only come to life in the last 20 minutes – and barely that. Initially, matters are more than a tad confusing, as we jump about in time and space without apparent notification. But the basic principal is eventually established.

Revenger #1 is Regina Silva (Martin), whose family were killed by masked intruders. Following that, she got shooting lessons from a conveniently passing gunslinger, and set out to find those responsible, working as a saloon prostitute because it was apparently the best way to find them. Yeah. About that… Anyway, Revenger #2 is Victoria Bonham (Penny), who just so happens to be the madam of a brothel, also seeking justice after one of her girls was murdered. Coincidentally, Regina shows up, and they eventually discover they are both looking for the same person, Pete Chalmers (Johnston). However, his father (Greenfield) wields so much power in the town, his son is basically untouchable. Victoria wants to leverage legal means against Pete, while Regina prefers more direct action, and isn’t willing to wait around forever, while the wheels of the law grind slowly away.

If you were to summarize my reactions to this, the first ten minutes would be “What is going on?”. The next twenty would likely be, “Ah, ok. I know where this is heading.” After that, we get about half an hour of, “Is anything else of significance going to happen?”, then twenty of moderate satisfaction, as Chalmers and his forces go to battle with Regina and her allies. However, the action here is underwhelming, not least because it appears the bad guys have all the shooting skills of Star Wars stormtroopers, unable to hit stationary targets from about ten paces, in broad daylight (as shown, top). Pete is an underwhelming villain too: beyond “alcohol’s to blame,” it’s never particularly established why he attacked Regina’s family or killed Victoria’s employee. Motivation: it’s vastly over-rated, apparently.

The last five minutes do offer at least something unexpected, in terms of the mechanism by which revenge is achieved. It’s about the only novel angle the film has to offer, and you sense this is one of those cases where having the same person writing, editing and directing proved problematic. I’m not convinced the story can handle the two-pronged approach, with the script leaving both threads feeling in need of development.The dual female leads aren’t bad, though I was distracted by Penny’s accent, which sounds more Antipodean than Arizona. To be fair, it’s really not any worse than Bad Girls, the far larger budgeted “whores out for revenge” film. However, that is not exactly a high bar to clear. For passion projects like this, I have no problem forgiving budgetary restrictions, and to be fair, this looks and sounds decent. The plodding and meandering script, however, is much harder to see past.

Dir: Paul Winters
Star: Sandy Penny, Jessica Y. Martin, Manny Greenfield, Daniel Johnston
A version of this review originally appeared on my other review site, Film Blitz.

Barbie Spy Squad

  By

★★
“Imagination, life is your creation”

Ah, the things I watch for you people. Safe to say, this probably hit new heights of “I am not the target demographic”, but it’s hard to argue it is outside the remit of the site. To the film’s credit, this is not as bad as I feared it might be. If I had an eight-year-old daughter – such a shame this turned up about 25 years too late! – there would be far worse things to have inflicted on me. Not that I’ll exactly be chasing down any of the other thirty-nine entries in the franchise, mind you. There will be no Barbie & Her Sisters in The Great Puppy Adventure review here. But as lightly amusing, just about tolerable to an adult spy pastiches go… this was lightly amusing and just about tolerable.

Unsurprisingly, the heroine is Barbie (Lindbeck) and her two friends, who are so blandly forgettable I can’t even remember their names. The trip spend all their spare time doing gymnastics, until recruited by Aunt Zoe (Weseluck) to become agents in a covert organization, accessed through a secret door in the HOLLYWOOD sign. They are to put their acrobatic skills to use, catching a cat-burglar who is accumulating gems that will be used in an electromagnetic pulse weapon by the villains. [If you have not figured out the real identity of the cat-burglar inside the first five minutes, I am concerned for you.] There will be training missions! Adorable robo-sidekicks! Many, many gadgets! Valuable life lessons!

In other words, this is absolutely what you would expect: entirely safe, wholesome entertainment for those to whom Barbie is an aspirational role-model (albeit one radically toned down in physique from the original’s 36-18-33 figure). It plays mostly like a G-rated version of Charlie’s Angels, with the trio getting into and out of scrapes, while exchanging witty banter. There are moments where it appears to teeter on the edge of genuine satire, such as Aunt Zoe sternly warning the trio that this is a covert mission… while they roar through the city streets on their lurid trio of super-powered motorcycles. However, I’m not convinced this was intentional, with most of this apparently taking itself seriously. Well, as seriously as a movie about secret agent Barbie ever could be.

The sheer predictability of this does become grinding, to the extent you barely need to watch this to follow the plot. The morality on view is rarely subtle, though there are certainly worse concepts to promote than believing in yourself and supporting your friends. The animation is mid-tier: there’s not much in the way of facial expression here, though since this is replicating plastic dolls, I guess that makes sense. However, the action is reasonably well-done, even if I did find myself thinking a live-action version would have been preferable. On the other hand, I saw the live-action Kim Possible movie, which started from a much stronger foundation, yet still came up well short. Best leave Barbie in the world of imagination, I suspect.

Dir: Michael Goguen, Conrad Helten
Star (voice): Erica Lindbeck, Stephanie Sheh, Jenny Pellicer, Cathy Weseluck