ruth-35131 Reviews

Zootopia (2016)

One of Disney's greatest

[10/10 · 23 January 2017]

I may be a little biased towards Zootopia because it is a Disney/Pixar film, which I tend to love. However, since I didn't grow up with this movie, it didn't have the nostalgia effect on me. Still, Disney lives up to its standards. A movie about the importance of believing in yourself and not falling prey to stereotypes and prejudices, this is a great one for both the kids and adults. The kids will love the fun colors, humor, and action scenes. The adults will appreciate the reference to Frozen by Chief Bogo and when Duke Weaselton (another Frozen reference) shows that he's selling movies that haven't even come out yet like Mewona, Floatzen 2, and Giraffic referring the movies Moana (2016), Frozen 2 (2018), and Gigantic (2018). This movie, like many Disney/ Pixar movies, has so many Easter eggs, it's awesome for big Disney fans. If you're not a Disney fan, however, I'd still recommend this movie to you. It shows how we all fall victim to stereotypes and discrimination, but also stresses that we should try to avoid them. In addition, this movie had my friend and I rolling on the floor laughing. For a kids' movie, the humor is pretty good. I feel like it's easier for most of us to understand Nick Wilde's character better than Judy Hopps's character because Nick's a bit more realistic, if not a bit pessimistic. He's been bullied like many people, but his big flaw is he let that bullying when he was like, 9, follow him until he's about 32. He decides because of that one incident that he will be a sly fox, like everyone expects him to be, instead of what he wants to be. It's never made clear what Nick wanted to do when he grew up, but he seemed pretty happy as a cop in the end.

Split (IX) (2016)

More Scientifically Accurate than it Seems

[9/10 · 22 January 2017]

As a psychology major, I was super excited to see this film. As a fan of James McAvoy, I knew I had to see this movie. And it lived up to my expectations. There's so much we don't know about Dissociative Identity Disorder and so much to be learned. It was cool how this movie explored the disorder. According to what I've learned in school and the research I've done on this disorder, the movie is pretty accurate with science. Some of the movie is hard to believe, and I'm sure part of it was impossible, but people with DID can change the physical chemistry of their body, to some extent. It's true that they can have an allergy to something in one state of being, and not have that allergy in another state. People's adrenaline can make them stronger than they normally would be, so it's possible The Beast could be much stronger than the others. However, I'm not entirely convinced he'd be able to just magically climb walls like it's a rock-climbing wall. You don't just need strength for that, you need support and the wall of the room The Beast was climbing didn't look very climbable. Furthermore, most accounts of DID come from ongoing physical, emotional, or sexual trauma in their past, like with Kevin. Usually there's at least 3 personalities represented: the original, a child, and an angry, sometimes dangerous person. Kevin has all three represented in Kevin, Hedwig, and Dennis, in addition to the other 21 personalities. Sometimes the third personality is based on the patient's abuser. In this movie, however, I think The Beast was an exaggeration of how he saw his mother. She had the power and the strength to hurt him as a boy, represented by Hedwig, so his subconscious took on the role of The Beast. Now, he has the power. He has strength. James McAvoy did phenomenally with this role. The other actors were all right, too, but McAvoy was brilliant. All in all, great movie, but it really depressed me when Casey had to go back and live with her abusive uncle. I suppose that's pretty realistic, but I was really hoping this experience she went through would give her the courage to tell the cops or somebody about what was happening to her. Although, if they weren't listening to her cries for help during school, when she was acting out, perhaps she felt they wouldn't listen to her now.

A Girl Like Her (2015)

Slow paced, but overall good

[7/10 · 21 January 2017]

Even though the pace of this movie was slow-going, the ending and the fact that it made me sob made it for me. I think this movie was important, though a bit cliché. Though I don't know the exact amount of sleeping pills it would take to kill yourself, I doubt the 10-15 Jessica took would do it. It would probably severely inhibit her, possibly destroy her liver, or other horrors, but death would probably not occur. Human lives are fragile but they are very difficult to take. So (spoiler) I wasn't really surprised when she made it in the end. I liked that this movie took the approach of sympathizing with the bully, actually. Bullies are human, too, and I think we often forget that. Though I strongly disliked Avery's character in this movie, I could sympathize when she was upset about what she did. Most everyone has bullied at some point in their life, not many to this extent, but we do have to learn to forgive ourselves. That being said, we must try not to bully once we've noticed we have, but I digress. It's important to spread awareness, so this movie is good in that respect, but some things seemed slightly inaccurate to me. Like I said, the dosage wasn't enough to kill an average teenager, and I was surprised the principal or authorities didn't check social media for bullying instances once there were allegations against Avery. That stuff is online forever, and you can find it if you know how to look for it. Also, the acting was okay, not bad, not great. I do, however, love Jimmy Bennett so it was cool to see him in this. But I wish they would have at least given Jessica a little bit of a personality. All I know about her is that she's shy, non-confrontational, and knows a fact about laughing. I understand if she didn't fight back when Avery was abusive, but you'd think she'd at least try to run away or ignore her or something. I don't know, I guess I'm just comparing myself to Jessica because I totally would've decked Avery and gotten in trouble while Avery'd get off scot-free because that's just how life works.