Mixed results in two new family movies

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, May 24th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a couple of new movies arriving in theaters this weekend might be of interest to families. Here’s arts and culture editor Collin Garbarino to review the movie titled Sight and The Garfield Movie.

MUSIC: [That’s Amore - Dean Martin]

COLLIN GARBARINO: Summer’s here, so that means theaters need some reliable animated movies to attract all those kids who’ve just gotten out of school. In June and July, we’ll get Inside Out 2 and Despicable Me 4, but this weekend everybody’s favorite fat cat lands feet first in The Garfield Movie.

GARFIELD: And that’s how I adopted Jon.

Chris Pratt voices Garfield who’s living a life of luxury in Jon Arbuckle’s suburban home… napping regularly, eating plenty of Italian food, and exploiting his canine friend Odie. But this idyllic existence comes to an end when Garfield’s long lost father Vic, voiced by Samuel L. Jackson, reappears. Vic is an alley cat who’s involved with some shady critters.

VIC: OK, follow me, Junior.

GARFIELD: Uh. No, no, no, no, no… You lost the privilege of telling me what to do a long time ago.

JINX: Hello, Vic.

Garfield and Odie get roped into a scheme to steal thousands of quarts of milk from a dairy farm. Of course things don’t go as planned.

The Garfield Movie is a competent enough film that will probably entertain most kids, but to be honest… I was pretty disappointed by it. You would think an 80s icon like Garfield would offer some fun nostalgia for adults, but this movie’s orange cat doesn’t much resemble the Garfield of old.

Sure, there are a couple of jokes about how he eats lasagna and hates Monday.

GARFIELD: And that’s why we should go from Sunday to Tuesday.

But he’s not fat enough. He’s too active. And he lacks his signature cynicism. Nothing about the film feels particularly Garfield-y. The story quickly turns into a heist movie with all the heist-movie cliches.

GARFIELD: I’ve seen it on television a million times. We’ll need a hundred feet of rope. [Train horn]

Moreover, the voice acting didn’t impress me. Garfield just sounds like Chris Pratt, and Vic just sounds like Samuel L. Jackson. I was also annoyed by the relationship between Garfield and Vic. The film pushes a sappy story about an estranged father who abandons his son—but he really loves him from afar, so that’s what matters. I’m not buying it.

Let’s move on to our second film, Sight from Angel Studios.

MING: I want you to take your time. Your eyes are going to be very sensitive to the light.

Sight tells the true story of Ming Wang, a Nashville eye surgeon with the reputation for working miracles.

The movie begins with Ming, played by Terry Chen, working on his next project, with help from his colleague Misha, played by Academy Award nominee Greg Kinnear.

MISHA: Ming, did the nun tell you what happened?

MING: No.

MISHA: Well, apparently in India, street beggars make more money if they’re legitimately blind. So the stepmother poured sulfuric acid in each of her eyes.

The difficulty in restoring this little girl’s sight destroys Ming’s faith in himself to work miracles.

Flashbacks to Ming’s childhood and teenage years in Communist China punctuate the story of his struggle to heal the blind girl. Young Ming studies hard and wants to become a doctor—like his parents—but when the Cultural Revolution breaks out, his dreams, along with his family’s safety, are threatened.

AUDIO: [Confrontation in Chinese]

Sight tells an uplifting story, but the movie’s production values don't quite meet the standards of Angel Studios’ other recent films. Also, the film’s pace feels uneven. Young Ming’s story moves briskly along in the flashbacks. But the scenes set in the present start to drag as the older Ming gets stuck in a rut before having his spiritual epiphany. Some of the dialogue is a little stilted, but the actors, to their credit, handle their lines well.

MISHA: Hey, are you seriously not going to tell me what’s going on here?

MING: I don’t want to have this conversation. OK?

MISHA: Fine. You crash and burn on your own.

Despite some failures in filmmaking quality, the movie has much to commend it. The Motion Picture Association gave it a PG-13 rating, which seems too harsh. Sight contains a couple of scenes of cruelty and violence that might disturb smaller children, but the movie has no foul language and no sensuality. And on the whole, the story is both informative and inspirational.

The scenes of Ming living through the Cultural Revolution feel especially relevant. Young communists tear down China’s traditions and marginalize the country’s experts. They’re arrogant enough to believe they can build a better society despite their ignorance and inexperience. These idealistic youths aren’t too far removed from some of America’s own political movements.

But communists aren’t the only ones susceptible to hubris. Dr. Wang must learn to embrace humility and accept the past, and in the end Sight reminds us that the most important things in life transcend what we can see.

SISTER MARIE: But look. Look what God uses when we refuse to believe there is no purpose.

I’m Collin Garbarino.

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