Turbo

Product placement in animation movie. Here We Go !!

1. It's an animation movie. Obviously. and just like any other animation movies, it is targeted towards kids. obviously. Then it is funny. obviously again. But, it is good. it has good storyline and have some themes about family love, friendship, hope and dream, which plays well all together in this one 1.5hrs long movie where kids can really enjoy it. I would recommend to watch it with kids. But, I personally don't think adults and teenagers will enjoy it. I found myself thinking "oh my god, this is so childish" while I'm watching this movie. Normally, I like Shrek, Despicable Me and Meatball movies, and I don't usually think of those movies as childish since I enjoyed it very much. But somehow, Turbo, I found it childish. Maybe it's because of the ending scene when Turbo wins the race (spoiler alert) and how he wins the race is a bit too obvious. 

2. Good music and good strong unique characters. They used very famous songs and also created really really good music. I think it's because Snoop Dog was in it, so the stuff he said in his character was somehow rhymed really well (although it was weird his voice was in pink snail). It is the first time I ever felt like I want to buy animation movie's music album. It was THAT good. 

3. YES. It has product placement !!! Even though the movie is about snail, it is set in modern time (ie right now). Hence, all the brands that are shown is used by humans. But still, there are product placements (yes, I mean plural !) in this movie. This means that they are all paid placements since animators have to add those brands in when they create this film. But it could be seen necessary for some to increase the realism because normally in our lives, car racing have millions of sponsorships and the racing car usually contains multiple sponsored brands. So to show this, maybe this animation movie have used product placement. They had Chevrolet car logo, hp laptop, AAA, and Verizon multiple times that it was not hard at all to find them in this movie. I just wonder why they haven't used the sports drink as a product placement in this film when they used all these other product types? For example, Adrenalode drink could have been a real product such as Mother, or V or even a Powerade. Why did they decide not to use this when they have consistently showed this brand more than other product placement? Interesting..

Overall, 3/5

White House Down

Watched this movie as a celebration for father's day. It was also on an advanced screening with a special price of $10 !!  Here we go go go

1. This movie is once again related to USA's white house falling apart and USA in crisis where hundreds of army officers can't do anything and yet here is one man. one single man. who happens to be in the white house when crisis happened, is saving the president and is saving USA. I'm not talking about Olympus has Fallen. I'm talking about White House Down. and yes. This movie is exactly the same genre, same scenario and same plot as Olympus has Fallen (except that this movie is USA vs USA, not North Korea vs USA). So if you enjoyed watching Olympus Has Fallen, definitely watch this. This one is exactly like that movie but funnier. However, if you thought Olympus has Fallen was waste of money, then don't watch it. You will waste your money on this movie too (unless you are a fan of Channing Tatum or Jamie Foxx).

                      

2. Action. A hard core action movie. Lots of fighting and killing and explosions. This killing scene is not as real and cruel looking as Olympus has Fallen. But, it's definitely more funny compare to Olympus has Fallen. Lots of chuckle jokes that made everyone laugh in the cinema except my parents who didn't understand the jokes.

3. So unrealistic in terms of how president survives from a gun shot because of a watch and how Cale doesn't get shot, not even once when he is fighting against heavily armed men by himself. Another unrealistic thing is the character Emily. Her character just ruined everything for me in this movie but I see how important her role is in this movie. I mean, who waves the flag and to stop the missile from bombing the white house and people's reaction towards her was hilarious (in terms of how they wowed and well-done her and how she suddenly became a hero).

 

4. Not surprising, there was some use of product placement. Starting from Two News, Robitussin (verbal placement), Chevrolet, Sony, Nike Jordan and Kleenex. As I am a Kleenex user, I immediately recognised the brand when I saw the box of tissue. I definitely think the phone was product placement too but I don't know the exact brand. It's definitely not Samsung or iPhone. It's either Motorola or Nokia or HTC.

 

Conclusion,  I personally liked the action scenes and straightforward storyline. Nothing confusing even though they tried to make it confusing, it was just so obivous (as I watched hundreds of movies like this). 

3/5