Sunday, December 27, 2020

We Can Be Heroes - A Truly Kid-Friendly Children Superhero Movie from Robert Rodriguez

I said earlier there were more than 1 movie released on various streaming platforms on Christmas day and I already watch one of them on that holiday, while this one I watched the day after. It seemed like a safe bet for Christmas holiday. Well let's find out more on it.

Brief Story Line

In the world where superheroes exist, a group of them who were referred to as Heroics always protected the earth. Heroics was led by Marcus Moreno (Pedro Pascal - The Mandalorian web series, Kingsman: The Golden Circle etc) and included many heroes such as Miracle Guy (Boyd Holbrook - Logan, Narcos TV series etc), Tech No (Christian Slater - Mr. Robot TV series, Broken Arrow etc), Blinding Fast (Sung Kang - Fast & Furious movies, Code 8 etc), Ms. Vox (American Idol alum Haley Reinhart), Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley) with her husband Sharboy and few others. 

Meanwhile Marcus' young daughter Missy (YaYa Gosselin - FBI: Most Wanted TV series etc) was put together in a class of superheroes' children in the Heroic's head quarter led by Miss Granada (Priyanka Chopra Jonas - Quantico TV series, Isn't It Romantic etc), where Missy would meet with other children of superheroes like Wheels (Andy Walken), Noodles (Lyon Daniels), Guppy (Vivien Blair), Wild Card (Nathan Blair), Ojo (Hala Finley) and several others.

When aliens invaded earth and captured the superheroes, Missy together with the superheroes children tried to save their parents and the world. So what would happen to them? Find them all in this just-for-fun movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Yeah, OK when I decided to watch this, I did not check in details on the movie. I just saw superhero genre and I was immediately intrigued. But once I started watching it, I realized this is a kid's movie and the kids were the main characters while the adult superheroes were more of the supporting roles. So I was actually quite surprised seeing some well known names like Pedro Pascal (he seemed to be everywhere these past few years), Christian Slater, Boyd Holbrook even Sung Kang. Btw, I was also familiar with two of the superheroes i.e Sharkboy and Lavagirl (they appeared in that movie The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D) which would mean this is its sequel as both of them are adults now with their cute young daughter Guppy. Fun fact: Taylor Dooley reprised her role from that movie, but Taylor Lautner was replaced by JJ Dashnaw.

Anyway, the story telling was very simple and it was filled with colourful scenes which would make young children happy to see them. The special effects were pretty decent with some of the heroes (and children) abilities shown quite realistically. It was actually fun to see what super powers these kids possessed. Oh btw, since this is a kids movie, do not expect the fights with aliens to be violent, and in fact they seemed cartoonish which would probably make hardcore superhero movie fans disappointed.

Of all the kids who played in this movie, I was only familiar with the lead role YaYa Gosselin as I saw her before in that series FBI: Most Wanted as daughter of Julian McMahon's character, while this was the first time I saw the rest of them. I thought these children played their roles adequately. I like the youngest Guppy who was adorable and I also like Noodles & A Capella (Lotus Blossom) as their powers were the most interesting. In general every kid's power would be useful one way or another which I think was the main idea.

The ending was quite a predictable one if you have seen so many movies like I did, since there were one or two twists which was not that surprising as the signs/feel were there from the middle. Duration of the movie was only a little over 1.5 hour which should be sufficient for this kind of kids film as any longer would make them bored. During closing credit I saw the name Robert Rodriguez as the director, writer, producer even music and cinematography (just amazing how multi talented he is). Btw, Rodriguez was also director/writer/producer of this movie's predecessor. 

Overall this is a decent kids movie. It was not too serious and I believe children would enjoy it. If you are fans of major superhero film/series, then this might not be to your liking, but if you want to see children take the roles of superheroes, then you should be quite entertained. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars 

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