Rumble Review Animated Film Lacks A Fighting Spirit

Rumble Review: Animated Film Lacks A Fighting Spirit

Weighed down by its inability to fully commit to a story about fathers and lacking a fighting spirit, Rumble is far from being a must-see animation.

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Rumble Review Animated Film Lacks A Fighting Spirit

Reel Fx Studio’s Rumble puts up a decent bout, but doesn’t have the spirit of a worthwhile animated feature. Geraldine Viswanathan (Blockers) plays Winnie Coyle, a young fan eager to become a coach and Will Arnett (BoJack Horseman, Lego Batman) voices the second lead, Rayburn Jr., a runaway hiding from his destiny. Expectations for Viswanathan as a voice actor have yet to be set, but Arnett is inarguably a modern legend in the field and this offering feels far from unique. Children will certainly love the monster mashing, but Rumble is not capable of fully keeping an adult’s attention.

Professional monster wrestler, Rayburn Sr. (Charles Barkley) and coach Jimbo Coyle (Carlos Gomez) are the hometown monster/coach duo of Stoker. Rayburn Sr. doesn’t like that his son, Rayburn Jr., loves to dance instead of wrestle. Whereas Jimbo’s daughter Winnie wants to be just like her dad. When Rayburn Sr. and Jimbo pass, the town of Stoker looks for a new monster to root for in Tentacular (Terry Crews). But in a move directly out of a LeBron James news clipping, Tentacular immediately leaves Stoker to take his talents to Slithermore. Prompting the best line of the film, “Hit him right in the tentacles!” It’s up to Winnie to find Rayburn Jr. and reclaim her town’s pride. At first, Rayburn Jr. is content being a wandering heel but two montages later, he and Winnie are thick as thieves, finally ready to grapple with their daddy issues.

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Rumble Review Animated Film Lacks A Fighting Spirit

Rumble wants to teach kids they don’t have to be their fathers. The problem is that the worst thing either of these dads ever did was tell his son to stop dancing during wrestling practice. Then the movie shifts into the mode of not having to live in a dad’s shadow, though that doesn’t work either because there are only two scenes with the fathers and they barely speak. Simply put, the dad’s storyline should have been more fleshed out, which is ironic because animated movies tend to harp on dead parents. There is a montage 30 minutes into the movie explaining the history of both Jimbo Coyle and Rayburn Sr. Had it opened the film instead of the two-minute voice-over exposition, Rumble would be that much closer to having real emotional stakes.

WWE Studios is credited as a production company on this film and professional wrestling is inherently and openly performative. Kids today are even savvier to the ins and outs of the sport than generations past. Before the internet, wrestling was split into dueling factions: wrestling is fake or wrestling is real. But, wrestling isn’t real or fake — it’s well-executed stunts. So when the entire wrestling world turns on Rayburn Jr. because he is a wrestler whose style involves dance, it doesn’t ring true. Considering he loses every match prior on purpose it seems strange that he gets grief for dancing and not disgracing the sport. That being said, one can’t help but chuckle during his finishing move, which involves dancing around the ring before throwing his butt in his opponent’s face yelling, “Get ready for the moon boom!”

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The townspeople of Stoker have a great Parks and Recreation vibe to them. Ben Schwartz as the gaudy, always-on-his-phone fight promoter Jimothy is surely the most literal example of this. One fan routinely changes every tattoo on his body to match his favorite wrestler and Jimmy Tatro (American Vandal) and Stephen A. Smith (First Take) shine as the commentators, bringing hilarity to every scene they share. It’s also in their conversations that the question of, “How much should we care that Rayburn Jr. is dancing?” gets analyzed the most accurately. Unsurprisingly, Rumble doesn’t belong in a conversation with Finding Nemo or other cartoon classics. But it also slots in well below the likes of its subpar peers, like Onward. Weighed down by its inability to fully commit to a story about fathers and lacking a fighting spirit, Rumble is far from being a must-see animation.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/rumble-2021-movie-reviews/

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