User Reviews

If you go into this movie not expecting much, you'll probably walk out think "it wasn't bad". In fact, it's not a bad movie and decent movie for kids (over 8).. and certainly reasonable for adults to watch. The premise (without spoiling the movie) is more along the lines of the 80's film "Short Circuit". A robot built for war but with more to it than destructive programming. Effects were decent enough. Motorcycle riding/stunts were actually very cool. Looking for a decent little "Sunday afternoon movie for the family"? This would probably work.

Admittedly this is not an Oscar winner of any kind. However, I took my 8 year to see it and she loved it. I thought the story and acting was decent and the special effects good. Mostly I really enjoyed watching a non Disney animated film with my child that was free from bad language and constant references to sex. If you have kids go see this film - we thought it was a winner.

I have watched this film in AMC couple of days after it got released. I don't see the review before watching this movie, so enjoyed this movie. This is pretty decent movie with what it was promised in the trailer. Mossy of the review was having negative reviews coz this movie lacks humor. Not every movie needs the humor dialogs, scenes in each frames. Making is good, camera work is pretty well. Story line is ok. It's little slow in some part of the movie which needed to be taken care. Not bad for one time watch.

If youve seen any "robot/alien meets lonely misunderstood kid" youve seen this one. Only twist is it has dirt bikes. Very predictable and riddled with plotholes. My 10 and 12 year old boys liked it. I guess that was the intended audience. It wasnt 38 yr old dads...

The bond between man and dog is sacred, but what happens when it is a robotic dog that you happened to find? That odd question is answered, ironically, tonight with the movie review that I bring. A charming piece according to the trailers, this film is going to try and make a mark in the last stages of August. Can such a bizarre concept actually work, or will it fall to skeptical eyes as the summer wraps up to pave the way for Fall's lineup. Robbie K here to bring you another review in hopes to helping you out with your movie choices. So, let's get reviewing on

Movie: A.X.L. (2018)

Director: Oliver Daly Writer: Oliver Daly Stars: Thomas Jane, Becky G, Alex Neustaedter

LIKES:

Cute/Family Friendly: The movie accomplished it's mission to be family friendly, as this film does everything to mimic a Disney movie without falling into lawsuit territory. A.X.L's a quirky movie that should be a walk in the park for most, minus a few loud and darker moments so parents be warned. Nonetheless, it's got a little something for most young at heart audience members with that K-9 meeting human approach, fused with a little teen drama as well.

The Bike Scenes: The trailers have shown you our main guy Miles (Neustaedter) tearing up the dirt hills of California. Like the DCOM motorcrossed the few sequences dedicated to the sport are quite a sight for the audience members to soak up. Decently stable camera work, fantastic sound editing, and a good orchestra/soundtrack to give it the extra oomph it needed. While short lived, these moments are the fuel to get past the slow opening.

Decent Acting: No award winners outside of the teen and kids choice awards level, but the cast of A.X.L. are not the worst crew to ever grace a screen. Becky G is my particular favorite, the character given to her getting a little more chance to branch out than most of the others. She's balanced, edgy, but equipped to handle much of the chaos without breaking character. Neustaedter isn't bad, but his monotone performance needs a little molding to get a better character, instead of the sulky, long-haired look that much of CW's cast seems to share. Alex MacNicoll plays the overdone antagonist well, but not much expands past whining, moaning, and hormonal antics that aren't worth the time to invest in. And as for the rest of the group, they succeed in their roles, they just again needed more time.

The Unique Animation Of A.X.L.: It's a combination of puppetry/robotics with CGI, the digital dog certainly had interesting choices made when it came to animating him. At times it worked for me, the puppetry managing to bring the playful sprit out in full force. The CGI is decent too, smooth and accurate for representing a cyber dog, yet not quite the magic experience that Disney likes to show us. This hybrid doesn't seem logical, but in terms of creative display, it works for me.

DISLIKES

The Predictable Plot: If you have seen the trailers, you should be able to piece the ending together within the first half hour of the movie. A.X.L. struggles with surprise, choosing to stick to soap opera antics and simplified plots to entertain. If you don't care about the plot and want to look at the pretty people, then you are set, but otherwise not much to make you gasp in this film.

The Characters Need Expanding: Pretty self-explanatory, our young adult/teenager group are diluted characters that steadily start to fill in with each passing minute. They work for the superficial looks and the sentimental message they were going for, but there was so much more to find out about them. Hinting at backstories, merging the group together, it needed a lot more theatrics to really craft the group that I wanted to see.

The Story: Same thing here, A.X.L's plot seems to be a rushed production that was finished to meet a summer daylight. Things happen very quickly, getting little time to simmer before running all processors at max performance. The story is really straightforward, and when you combine this with the lackluster characters you just get a rusted plot line that seems expanded from a short film. Perhaps they have their eyes set on the prize of a franchise, or perhaps they hope to tell more somewhere else, but this film didn't quite complete the film on a good level, potentially looking to the future instead of settling on the present.

The anticlimactic ending: Nothing hits me harder than seeing a supposedly suspenseful film drop the ball on the climactic struggle. This film managed to promote a lot of potential excitement only to snatch that away with a semi-emotional finale that lacked any suspense or thrills. A rushed finish only went so far with me, again working to hastily wrap up the story in the given time (110 minutes). The silver lining is that this finale will be geared towards the youngest group, but for the rest try to enjoy the charming finish it holds to in the last 10 minutes.

The Verdict:

Truth is A.X.L. won't be netting any awards but that doesn't mean that it's a piece of garbage. It's special effects and pretty cast nature will be the selling point alongside some fantastic sound editing. And while the whole movie lacks the bite of an action film, it certainly does get that family friendly nature it wanted. And while the twist of a ticked off robot dog is there, the rest of this predictable plot needed some tuning up, primarily the ending conflict. In all honesty though, A.X.L. suffers from trying to wrap up in movie instead of looking to expand the tale into a television series or some other media. Worth a trip to the theater? You can guess probably not, as this film could have gone to nickelodeon and done better.

My scores are:

Adventure/Family/Sci-Fi: 6.0-6.5 Movie Overall: 5.0

There is nothing inherently wrong with AXL, just that it is not very good. The actors are all right, the story predictable, the filming somewhat laborious, the music over-dramatic. It tries hard to be film of substance, but the storyline is too weak. Probably much better suited for 10-year-olds than the teens it seems to be aiming at.

Dear movie freaks, for me AXL is not 100% Sci Fi movie because the touch of the drama is so high, then the main story of what happened to a young boy finding a super secret military weapon, apparently in the body shape of a dog, could find a way to escape from the law and highly officials. This movie has simple story, but evolved in some scenes to be more intense with young audience, especially Sci Fi lover. At least, there is several scenes that explain the Sci Fi part, but the whole idea is not science at all. It is totally drama, but AXL is everybody's movie, quite tense, and sad. The saddest part is how the new owner of this robotic dog must realize that the connection human-robot is real and how he can survive without any accusations against him.

Great story, I do not under all the hate, it had a better story than the That Disney story line of The last Jedi.. I took both of my kids and they loved it..

A derivative take on the old boy & his toy fable given a 21th century facelift. A robotic dog is being developed by a clandestine branch of the military as an insurgency weapon when one of them is lost in the desert in California. Enter our hero, a scrappy, on the rise motorbike racer who encounters the lost piece of combat hardware when a prank by a smarmy, rich Motocross competitor strands him away from home. Seeing a kindred spirit in the bionic canine, they connect w/each other giving the scientists who created it (who are monitoring their relationship via a tracking device) a chance to see their product in action. This wouldn't be par for the course w/o the plucky girl, who comes from similar straits, to befriend the hunky lead or the faceless, driven military types who engage all concerned in order to get their expensive piece of property back. No cliche is overlooked in this tired tale (which came out on the heels of another male wish fulfillment fantasy named Kin (that was the one w/a kid & a laser gun)) that brings nothing new to the table unless you're sitting at home checking off each & every story beat w/the maniacal glee of one who gets off on this type of dreck. Stick w/E.T. or even Explorers to get your fix for this sort of thing & avoid this as if it were a proverbial black cat in a dark alley.

A-X-L is about a young teenage boy who is very into motorcycle racing. He encounters a top secret robotic dog with an AI system who eventually befriends it. He teaches it how to be good and to distinguish right and wrong. However, after some antics, the government and the creators begin to interfere.

Going in, I didn't expect anything spectacular. From what I could gather from the previews, it seemed like a by the numbers kids flick. In some ways, I wasn't wrong, and I do think that kids will enjoy it. It is a competently made film with its small pluses. It has good cinematography, decent pacing, a far better score than this movie deserves and I feel like it does try with the script.

However, this movie suffers from some major problems. For example, it has a romance plot between the main character, Miles, and a girl played by Becky G that I could not buy at all. The male lead's big problem is that his acting is bad; he barely shows any real emotion or charisma in his performance throughout the entire runtime. The female lead suffers from simply having no distinct personality aside from being a graffiti artist. At the very least with Miles, he at least has some memorable traits such as knowing how to repair machinery. But the girl suffers from having no character. Don't get me wrong her acting isn't bad too, I thought Becky G tried with this role. As such, I found it impossible to buy that the characters were in love; they don't share any real chemistry; it's just a pointless sideplot that feels forced.

My biggest issue with it, however is that by the end, I realized that this, intentional or not, is nothing but a complete rehash of The Iron Giant. It stars a kid who befriends a machine. Seeing that it may be dangerous, the government tries to intervene. The boy meets somebody who is willing to help him protect his robotic friend. To me, this sounds exactly like the plot of The Iron Giant, except that movie has charm, humor, fun characters and even some substantial political commentary on prejudice. This movie even rips off the ending to Iron Giant beat-by-beat, which was the biggest giveaway to me.

A-X-L may be enjoyable for kids, but the fact that it has an uncanny resemblance to a far superior animated movie really bothered me.

3/10

Incredibly formulaic, if youve ever seen a teen movie, youve seen this. its something only middle schoolers and grandparents can enjoy, but, hey, at least the cgi was decent.

It was just good clean fun. Very reminiscent of older, nostalgic films where a kid finds something extraordinary and then teen drama/thrust into situations over their head type action/story ensues. I saw the preview and wanted to see it, however, I would have probably rented this movie if I didn't have MoviePass.

I can honestly tell you this evening has laughs and scares and touching moments. It's a great idea in concept but severely lacking in execution and acting as well. This is coming from a person who loves Thomas Jane from the original Punisher that I enjoyed so much! Other actors including Tom Jane we're not as vibrant as they should have been during such a process or we're just not even Force but laissez-faire to the point where it made it kind of lacking that's where the idea of the story I mean essentially Homeward Bound it's an okay movie if you're taking your kids and you just doing a family day then it's perfect you'll have a whole different perspective on it but for an adult who seems tough like this before it becomes very repetitive and a district particular Point not as interesting as it should have been

There're not many older kid's movie. All Marvel or nothing. This is great one for 8-12 yrs kids.

I went to the movie theater with my two boys for this movie. We first got popcorn, and let me tell you, that was the only fun part of the movie. The acting was horrible and the connection between the kid and dog was about as forced as any movie I have ever seen. About 30 minutes in the other movie goers we in full riot mode. Chairs were being thrown and popcorn was being grinded into seats. Everyone stormed to get their money back. The people working up front must have know this was coming and they pretended they couldn't speak English. The other side had a cardboard cutout of that dog sitting behind the register. They were just toying with us. After hours of sitting there we all just kind of left. But, wow, what a dumpster fire of a movie.

See the trailers and the pict in front cd's it seem this film is awesome ,,but in some way that i had seen it it seems not quite that awesome ,,the actors and actresses is just lack of surprise mimic,,over all is good,,, story line is good and good animated dog ,,ithink this film had already to be prepare for axl 2 ..lets see about that then