AUGUST 29 ― The Hollywood summer blockbuster season is now nearing its end, plenty of them having come and gone, some scoring huge numbers at the box office like Jurassic World while some, like the Fantastic Four reboot and its truly awful second half, bombing quite spectacularly. I was checking the cinema listings for this week as I was planning to catch Sinister 2, and was surprised to see quite a number of big (and small) films still playing here, which means that a lot of you dear readers out there probably haven’t managed to catch a great many of these. So let’s see if they’re any good, shall we?

Inside Out

Arriving a few months late in Malaysian cinemas (it opened in June in the USA), apparently to coincide with the school holidays, which is the normal release pattern for Pixar movies here, Inside Out seems to have arrived with a whimper instead of the normal bang because of the delay.

Don’t let this dissuade you though, for Pete Docter’s latest animated wonder again reconfirms Pixar’s uncanny knack for making films that will satisfy both kids and their parents. A brilliant concept, in which we follow the adventures of the emotions running the life and memories of a girl named Riley, it boasts a cleverly conceived and meticulously thought through world that will make jaws drop as you realise the level of detail involved here.

Because the film’s ultimate message, which is there’s no Joy without Sadness, is a bit more simplistic compared to the emotionally devastating Up or Toy Story 3, it will probably not feel as special as those films for adults, but sometimes we probably need to realise that not many films are, especially animated films for children.

Absolutely Anything

Absolutely trashed by film critics following its release in the UK, we can probably expect more of the same when it’s released in the US in September, but I suspect the critical bashing is only because the film was directed by none other than Terry Jones, the irreverent genius behind the Monty Python films and TV series, who’s making his first film in 26 years, his last one being Erik The Viking.

With that kind of pedigree naturally people were expecting a certain kind of film and what Jones has delivered here is clearly nothing of that sort. Instead of another Python-esque film, Jones has made a film that feels more like the Farrelly Brothers (the genius idiot savants behind Dumb And Dumber, Me Myself And Irene, Shallow Hal and more) and Adam Sandler comedies.

It’s a story about a normal guy being gifted powers to do absolutely anything (by just verbally making a wish and waving his hand) by a group of grouchy aliens, to see if he’d do good or evil with it. That premise, and the very literal interpretations that his “powers” make of his wishes, sets up a stream of random and hilarious jokes, like a pair of dog turds getting up and walking from the living room into the toilet and then diving into the toilet bowl, flushing themselves when he wishes that his dog’s mess would clean itself up. If you think that sounds funny, then you’ll enjoy the dumb (but funny) jokes that pepper this film. If you think otherwise, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Sinister 2

The first Sinister was a nice scary surprise when it was first released, coming right smack in the middle of a seemingly endless assault of boring mainstream horror flicks. Cleverly incorporating elements of found footage films with snuff films to give its normal presentation an interesting colour, Sinister turned out much better than anyone expected, and writer-director Scott Derrickson has proved himself to be an interesting and worthy mainstream horror director with his later projects.

Still co-written by Derrickson, this sequel is directed by someone else now, and sadly it shows. There are absolutely way too many very obvious jump scares here that they start to feel comical. In fact, a great many of the horror elements here actually turned out funny instead of scary because of the clichéd way they’re executed. The only interesting parts in the movie are the character building and non-scary ones, thanks to the chemistry between James Ransome and a shockingly older looking Shannyn Sossamon in the lead roles. The rest of it is a tired disappointment.

Jejak Warriors

A mixed bag of a family movie from Saw Teong Hin, director of Puteri Gunung Ledang, Jejak Warriors is a love letter to local football fandom, delivered via two of the biggest teams in the Malaysian Super League, Kelantan’s The Red Warriors and Johor Darul Takzim (affectionately called “JDT” by their fans).

It’s a story about an orphan boy who wants to realize his dad’s dream of getting his match ball signed by every single member of the Kelantan team, and the journey he makes, and the people he meets, during the course of attempting to do so, which includes a die-hard JDT fan, football ticket touts, stadium security guards and even his group of imaginary friends consisting of real-life Kelantan players playing themselves (the comic highlight of the movie for everyone in the cinema, and a clever cinematic touch). It has a nice and wholesome message about family values, but it doesn’t quite click as a whole movie, and the fact that The Red Warriors are having very mixed fortunes in the MSL this season is just unfortunate timing for its release.

*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.