Inside Out 2 review: A joyful return

I can’t believe it’s been 9 years since Inside Out came out. I remember how much I loved it back in 2015 and how it was just screaming for a sequel. Well luckily, they took their time with it to get it just right so it can live up to the legacy of the first, and it’s finally arrived. So what is it like?

Plot

Pound the Alarm

Riley has turned 13 and her emotions have guided her to grow a strong sense of self. However, one night the headquarters is rocked by the onset of puberty, and the arrival of 4 new emotions, led by Anxiety. Anxiety’s influence sends Riley into a spiral as her core emotions are banished in favour of the new recruits. Joy and the others then have to make it back to headquarters to return Riley to her normal self.

Puberty was the obvious place to go with a sequel (and was alluded to in the original film) so it’s no surprise that that’s what they did, but the question was always how they would do it. I think what they did with it was really clever, not only adding the new emotions but adding new elements to the way Riley’s mind works as she matures. It meant they weren’t just rehashing the previous story just with new characters, but had new adversities to overcome instead.

Characters

All the characters from the original film are back and the same as ever (despite a couple of the voice actors being different) so I’m sure your favourites from back then will still feel the same to you. I was always a big fan of Joy and Disgust myself. Amy Poehler really was born to play Joy and you can tell just how much she loves voicing the character, which translates into star power as she leads this movie completely.

I’m getting mixed emotions

However if we wanna talk about star power we have to talk about Maya Hawke in the role of Anxiety, because she really gives Poehler a run for her money as the main antagonist of the film and de facto new leader of Riley’s mind. I think the feeling of anxiety is something we’re all extremely familiar with so Hawke and Pixar had a tough job to try and embody that in a character and they definitely pulled it off. The way she skittishly moves around and the frazzled look she has, as well as the way she takes over so swiftly and absolutely. There’s a scene towards the end that really gets the experience of intense anxiety dead on.

I also enjoyed Ayo Edebiri as Envy, who kind of became a henchman to Anxiety, but she had this adorable little squeaky voice along with it, which really put across the insecurity that envy brings. There was also Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) who was the nicest of the new group and develops a really sweet relationship with Sadness, as he would. The only new character that felt a little underdeveloped was Ennui who, despite being French which was a hilarious touch, didn’t really have much to do besides being a little sarcastic; I didn’t really get her purpose.

World

Coming soon to the Disneyland electrical parade

There was so much world-building in the original film, with establishing the different areas and aspects of the mind, that I didn’t see how much more they could really add-in. But my god did they have plenty of new ideas. There was so much more to explore and learn about in the world of Riley’s mind, as well as the chance to revisit some of the old places, like Imagination Land. And they managed to explain the addition of some new places in the mind cleverly, as Riley’s mind is simply expanding and maturing as she grows. This also opens the possibility of new places to explore in the next film.

My personal favourite addition to the mind was the belief system, where Riley’s memories can spawn beliefs about herself that come together to form her sense of self (the MacGuffin of the movie). I liked how this sense of self was also able to pilot Riley somewhat remotely without the emotions having to take full control. Which was a great way to symbolize how as you grow you become less of a slave to your emotions and adapt to situations more innately. It’s all just very creative and clever.

Animation

I’m embarrassed. I couldn’t think of a joke here…

I obviously rewatched the original film before I saw this one, and one of the things that always stood out about it was the use of colour. Inside Out is a very bright and striking in its character and world design and has this almost glittery watercolour effect to the design of the mind sections. They obviously kept that around for the sequel and things are just as bright and whimsical in her mind. They also had some fun with different animation styles which is always fun to see, including paper stop motion, 2D and a glitchy video game character.

But what stood out to me was the outside of the mind sections, aka the real world. I hadn’t really realized just how far we had come in terms of photorealism in Pixar animation until I watched these two films back to back. Obviously, the human characters are still cartoonish in their look and proportions so as not to cross into the uncanny valley, but they still feel more real looking. And as for the environments, we’ll they may as well have been live action with how scarily good they looked.

Future

She really Riley likes you

The movie seems to be doing pretty well already so I have no doubt its success will result in Disney greenlighting another movie in the series. Amy Poehler has already said she’d like to keep playing Joy in future movies. Obviously growing up comes with many emotional challenges and new emotions to face so there are plenty of places to go with this concept. However, the older Riley gets, the harder it’s going to be to keep things family-friendly and relatable to kids, so I’d be interested to see how they navigate that hurdle. I’ll definitely be seated for an Inside Out 3 though!

Pixar

This joke may be a little jarring

Now, Pixar has had me worried recently when they announced their plans for the future. Their last few movies haven’t done so well financially so they have obviously been a little worried. So, as a result, they said they were going to focus less on original ideas, citing Turning Red and Luca as examples of ‘directors’ autobiographies’ that didn’t do well, and instead focus on existing popular IPs. And that’s really disappointing. They seem to have forgotten that the reason those two movies didn’t make money is because Disney forced them to go straight to Disney+, but people still loved them. Also, Lightyear was based on an existing sting brand (perhaps their strongest) and that tanked critically AND commercially. The only thing that proved their point was Elemental, which despite being a great movie (one of my favourite films of last year) didn’t do so well when it was first released (though it did actually make plenty of money as it stayed in cinemas).

But completely panicking and deciding to stifle new ideas after one hiccup is not the way to go. Obviously, it’s great to get sequels to the films we love like Inside Out, but I truly hope the success doesn’t spur them on to continue this ludicrous plan and run this studio, once known for its phenomenal creativity, off the creative cliff. I guess we have to hope that Elio helps put things back on track next year.

I don’t think there was much chance that they would screw up this movie with how well they executed the original, but thank god they didn’t! If you lived Inside Out I’d definitely recommend seeing this new instalment. You won’t regret it

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes: Ranking all the Apes movies

So the newest instalment of the Planet of the Apes franchise, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, just came out. So due to that fact, I took it upon myself to marathon the franchise and have now seen all 10 instalments, from the original films, to the failed remake, to the current rebooted trilogy.

I thought it would be fun to share my opinion and rank them from best to worst. To keep things simple, I will go through all of them in order of release and give them a placement in my ranking.

Planet of the Apes – #1

As it tracks, the original is usually always the best. The concept of modern man landing on a planet where apes are the dominant species and humans are animals is very simple, so it’s easy to jump into and go along with. But what they do with that premise to explore humanity and pose questions about our own future is extremely interesting and still remains relevant. The twist ending is one of the most famous in history because it’s so impactful and well-executed. If you go in knowing it (which to be honest most people do as it’s been over 50 years) you can see the setup and the hints, it doesn’t just come out of nowhere.

The production design is also great, I love the way they designed the ape civilization to be vaguely human but still a little bit primitive and kind of reminiscent of a zoo enclosure. The prosthetic makeup is still pretty good by today’s standards, but for 1968 it’s pretty incredible. There’s a reason this movie won an Oscar for makeup before they even had a category for it.

I remember seeing this film when I was very young and being captivated by it, and I’ve watched it many times since then. It’s not just one of the most iconic sci-fi movies but movies in general. It’s one of those staples you really should watch if you want to get into film.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes – #10

Inexplicably, they managed to make the worst one immediately.

There are so many interesting places they could have gone for the sequel. They could have explored more of the ape’s world, or even the remnants of the human one. They could have focussed on Taylor rebuilding human civilization or the apes learning more about it. These are all the kinds of ideas I had about what happened next when I first saw it as a kid. But instead, they decided to go with the most insane out-of-left-field choices that feel like a franchise that’s dying and run out of ideas, even though it’s only the second movie.

They have a whole new main character show up, who’s basically exactly the same as the previous one, who then has to figure out what’s going on which we the audience are fully aware already, of so it’s annoying. But then the revelation that there is a whole underground colony of mutant humans with telepathic powers that worship an unexploded nuclear bomb is so batshit, I just hate it. Not only does it completely defeat the point of humanity having regressed to animals, it was never set up and just comes out of nowhere like something out of a bad fan fiction.#

The ending is also extremely anticlimactic if you can be bothered to watch. I will not be watching it again as I spent the whole movie staring at the screen in confusion.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes – #4

This is definitely the best of the 4 sequels as it had the most interesting premise and the most to say, which is the strength of the brand to begin with. It’s a very simple premise as they essentially just reversed the original by having the intelligent apes come back in time so now they’re the odd ones out and the humans are in charge, but instead of just repeating the original movie there’s a different payoff to it.

I like that it starts off very lighthearted and enjoyable, it’s actually a very fun film at the beginning. But as it goes on it gets a lot darker, more dangerous and by the end it’s very bleak. Not a lot of films manage to pull off such a dramatic change in tone like that so it’s pretty impressive that it works. It represents the fickle nature of humanity and how we cannot help but revert to destruction at every turn, which feeds into the original movie’s thesis.

It does suffer a bit from being a low-budget, speedily produced sequel. It has the unfortunate task of building off of what the last movie set up, and explaining how exactly the apes inexplicably figured out space travel, which does drag it down a little. However, it does succeed in what it overall wants to say and also sets up a direction for the following films to go, unlike the last one which just threw stuff at the wall and ended.

Conquest of the planet of the apes – #7

This film does a pretty good job of building off of what the previous one set up, although I did find the first couple of acts a little bit of a slog to get through.

Finding out that it took just 20 years for the earth to become a dystopian state where people keep apes as slaves is a bit of a hard pill to swallow, though seeing how much the political landscape has changed since my own childhood it is somewhat believable. But because of this dramatic jump, they have to spend a lot of the beginning of the movie setting it all up, which is kind of annoying when you’re on the 4th movie. It also lacks a lot of nuance with the humans, they’re all just basically mean and evil, bar two.

The production design is quite bland, being mostly just grey concrete buildings, and the apes also all just wear coloured jumpsuits. It’s all just a bit dull. There are ways of making dystopia more interesting; it felt like they just found a car park to shoot in.

The third act is where it really gets going. The apes learning from Caesar to plan a rebellion and then executing it is the meat of the story and where it comes alive. It’s really thrilling and they manage to do a lot with the action, there’s fire there’s guns there’s destruction, it’s worth sitting through the first half of the movie to get to it. It then all reaches a very powerful climax with a speech from the new ape leader, that brings in that commentary that the franchise is so good at.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes – #8

I was expecting so much after the setup of the battle in the last film, but this movie ended up being the most boring to me. I think the poster and even the name of the film made me expect some epic film about a war between humans and apes, but it ends up being very low stakes and nothing much really happens.

It’s essentially just a small battle between a small group of apes who live in the woods and a smaller group of humans who live underground. They discover each other, they fight, it gets resolved and then the movie is over. It’s vaguely entertaining but it’s by the numbers but it reeks of the end of a franchise where they had run out of ideas and budget and couldn’t really take it much further. It also tries to set up the beginning of the mutants from the second movie which I obviously hate and I wish they would just pretend that never existed.

It does have a little more nuance in it in that there are good and bad humans and good and bad apes, it’s not totally one-sided who is in the right. It also starts to set up the hierarchy within the ape community itself which is established in the original film.

It ends on a very ambiguous and hopeful note, suggesting that time may have been rewritten and there can be peace between humans and apes which is a nice juxtaposition from the nihilistic ending of the original. I’m not sure whether I like that as an ending but it does at least feel like the journey was worth it and we got somewhere in the end, and it feels satisfying to close up this original set of movies on that.

Planet of the Apes (2001) – #9

So points are already docked for being a remake of an already good film, but what bothers me most about this film is that it completely misses the point. I don’t need remakes to be exactly the same as the original (in fact I don’t like that) but what they need to do is understand what made the original good and try and stick to that. I just feel like Tim Burton didn’t understand Planet of the Apes.

The premise is destroyed when all the humans can talk and are just regular humans, as well as there immediately being apes that are nice and want to help them. There’s no sense of isolation for the main character, he’s not extraordinary compared to the other humans, so he’s not poked and prodded and he had people who can understand and listen straight away, the danger is significantly reduced. The worst part is that it turns out it all actually is on another planet, which I suppose is meant to be the twist because you don’t expect it to be, but if it’s not Earth, what does this movie have to say. Nothing it turns out. It’s just a sci-fi action movie with no deeper meaning.

So if you watch it from the perspective of a movie by itself then it’s fine. It’s entertaining and even enjoyable at times, though the writing is pretty bad. But as Planet of the Apes movie, it just doesn’t work. Making them aliens wouldn’t have changed very much about the story so why bother. And we don’t need to talk about the famously confusing and convoluted ending.

As much as I dislike this movie, I do have to give it props for something and that’s the design elements. The prosthetics namely are absolutely phenomenal. All the apes look so real and expressive and not like people in masks. It’s insane how good it is and how it allows the actors to really perform through it and not feel hindered, they really were robbed of an Oscar nomination. I also enjoy the production design, specifically of the ape city, with the jungle element as opposed to the more desert theme of the original, it looked really fun to explore.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes – #6

And so we reach the inevitable reboot. I do think it was a smart choice to reboot the series with a prequel rather than trying to remake the original again, but they have left the door open to remake it down the line and strongly hinted at it.

Honestly, while I watched it I was getting annoyed at the fact that it seemed as if, like Tim Burton, they missed the point of the original film. Because really the apes are not the point of the original story, it’s about how humanity destroys itself with nuclear war, and the apes are what comes next. So seeing this film have the apes grow and “rise” out of a fluke lab test, and the humans just living life irked me. However, I took a step back and remembered that this is a reboot with a new cannon. Nuclear war was obviously a hot-button topic in the 60s during the Cold War, and while it’s still a threat today, it’s not as feared in the cultural zeitgeist. I realized that this movie instead decided to approach a commentary on humanity’s cruelty to animals and pursuit of science, by having the apes be lab rats. Humanity is still breeding its own destruction just in a different way. Once I saw it from that perspective I managed to enjoy it a lot more.

Honestly, it’s a very good start to a new franchise, it’s got a lot of heart to it, it builds your emotional connection to the ape characters, particularly Ceasar better than most of the original films did while also keeping that human side. I do feel it suffers like most prequels do, in the sense that as we know where it’s going, it feels more like the set up to the part that gets good rather than being the story in itself. But I didn’t feel that as strongly as I have with other films.

Now what needs talking about is the draw that this film had, which was its use of CGI. Now I am a sucker for the old way of doing it with makeup over human faces, but I can’t deny the use of motion capture brings a whole new element that pushes this reboot era into new territory. Allowing the actors to use their whole bodies but still have realistic-looking apes on screen rather than having to cover up with costumes brings a new level to the performance, and allows the story to expand with it.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – #2

This is where I really got into the new series. I feel like Matt Reeves got handed this franchise and really got it and knew where to take it.

The story is very much what Battle wanted to do but couldn’t, with apes living in their woodland colony and humans in the city, meeting and coming into conflict. But it’s much more nuanced than just two groups meeting and fighting. Both sides of the conflict take steps to quell the fighting as well as to spark it, and both have divided opinions among them. Like a real war.

All the characters are fleshed out, you can understand and empathize with all the human characters as much as you can for the apes, you really want everyone to be able to make it out alive, but of course they can’t. And I appreciated the apes weren’t suddenly all developed and talking, you can see that they’re still evolving and they haven’t taken over just yet.

Also watching a movie where humanity is brought down by a man-made virus, post covid, is kinda crazy. Gives you a very new perspective.

I felt like the motion capture really came into its own in this movie as well. It was impressive in the last movie but I found myself awestruck at how real the apes were in many of the scenes in this film, especially with the addition of elements like rain and fire to interact with them.

It was a really good payoff to what was set up in the last film, while also perfectly queuing up a continuation of the story.

War for the Planet of the Apes – #3

The word I would use to describe this film is epic, because that’s what it reminded me of. It felt like a classic epic war film but with apes in it. It’s a sweeping story of conflict, revenge and imprisonment that takes place across a long journey, a lot is going on and it does it well.

It’s a lot more melancholy than the previous entries, because war is horrible and sad. But I did miss the warmth that the previous installment had which is why I liked that one a little but more. But overall it really hit the nail on the head in terms of drama and story. I like that it moved things forward by beginning to address the devolution of humans as the apes evolve even more, moving us closer to where we know things will end up, but also still showing the idea that they brought it amongst themselves and even in such dire circumstances anger and fear take over and humanity continues to be self-destructive.

Visually, the motion capture was on point once, the apes just look amazing and there’s even more of them this time. But what I liked the most is that they chose to have most of this movie take place in a snowy setting, which none of the other movies have done. It gives this movie a distinct look that makes it recognizable which is clever when you’re on the 9th movie of a franchise. It keeps things fresh.

It feels very much like a fitting conclusion to a trilogy, while also leaving the door open for the next one and not making it feel unearned. I’m not sure if they knew they were gonna make another one after this so they probably wanted to end the story of this group of characters on a high, which they certainly did.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes – #5

And here we are at the newest release, which really became a movie of two halves for me.

The first half of this movie I absolutely adored. It gave me everything I had wanted since I saw the first film. Set hundreds of years after the last trilogy, the apes are more advanced and can all talk while the virus has made humans into mere mute animals whose population is scarce. So we got to explore more of the ape’s civilization and also see the ruins of the human one, which I found so fun. I love that world-building. And the story was also pretty entertaining with there being one more intelligent human that a faction of apes are hunting that our new hero has to protect and explore the world with. I was really into it.

But in the second half, you realise that this isn’t just a fluke and there’s actually a whole bunch of completely normal humans that haven’t devolved. Plus the goal of the villainous ape is to gain their knowledge and become even more advanced, so we’re obviously supposed to be against that. So what was the point in the huge time jump if not that much had actually changed? We still have essentially the same conflict between apes and humans, but it’s just that there are more apes this time, plus they want to reverse things and bring humanity back. It’s just dragging out the inevitable because we know where it’s all going, if these are still supposed to be prequels to the original movie.

They obviously want to continue making these movies (they plan to make at least 2 more) so they want to string out the conflict more so they have some plot. But I would argue that they could have plenty to explore just by focusing on the ape’s stories and watching their civilization grow, with the humans diminishing and regressing on the sidelines. That way when you get to the eventual remake of the original, we’ll feel the loss of humanity much more.

But as much as the plot of the second half annoyed me, I still continued to enjoy the world-building. I liked the beach setting with apes living in old washed-up ships. Which also felt like a bit like a reference to the ending of the original film. And as always the animation on the apes is incredible, even without Andy Serkis, the king of motion capture, being involved anymore.

I think the goodwill from the first half of the movie will make me look back on this movie with better eyes over time, and I am intrigued to see where they do take this story they do make this into a new trilogy like they plan. I just hope the humans go away so I can spend some more time with the apes. It’s their planet after all.

My Ranking:

1. Planet of the Apes
2. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
3. War for the Planet of the Apes
4. Escape from the Planet of the Apes
5. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes
6. Rise of the Planet of the Apes
7. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes
8. Battle for the Planet of the Apes
9. Planet of the Apes (2001)
10. Beneath the Planet of the Apes

That was a lot of movies to watch and write about! so now I’m going to take a well-deserved break and enjoy the earth while it still belongs to us humans.

April 2024 Review Roundup: Mothers Instinct, Back to Black, Civil War and Challengers

It’s been a busy month for me, but that didn’t stop me from seeing all the latest movie releases. So, as I didn’t get time to review each individually, I thought I’d do a small review for each of the new movies I’ve seen this last month in the order that I saw them.

Starting with:

Mothers’ Instinct

Camp is back!

This thriller follows two mothers and housewives in the 1960s, Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Céline (Anne Hathaway). After Alice is unable to save Céline’s son from an accident that results in his tragic death, her historic anxiety brings on an intense paranoia. She becomes convinced that Céline blames her for the death of her son and is out to get her murderous revenge.

The twists and turns of this movie are absolutely delicious and keep you guessing the whole way through. Of course, it all hangs on the performances of our two lead actresses who chew up the scenery like no one’s business. Chastain becomes more and more panicked and unhinged as her mental health slips throughout the movie and she tries to maintain control. Hathaway on the other hand excellently pivots throughout her performance as we try to figure out if what Alice sees is true. She plays a grieving widow, to an evil villain, to an understanding friend and you never really know where you are. It’s tantalizing!

What this movie really reminded me of was the ‘psychobiddy’ genre of movies from the 1960s that began with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). When older actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford found roles were drying up due to misogyny and ageism in Hollywood, they found new life in horror films playing deranged and murderous older women. Obviously, things aren’t quite as bad today for older actresses (though ageism isn’t totally gone) and we have ozempic now to keep everyone looking tight, but this still feels like a modern-day version of that strategy. Hathaway and Chastain are both in their 40s, so they’re around the point when actresses usually get cast in more and more ‘motherly’ roles. So to take that and use it to capitalize on the recent internet trend of calling older women ‘mother’ and lead a movie is very smart. It totally paid off.

The trailer got a lot of traction when it debuted but I unfortunately haven’t seen a lot of people talking about the movie since it actually came out. I’m not sure general audiences are ready for this level of camp but I just know gay Twitter is going to latch onto this whenever it hits streaming and I can’t wait. I’d definitely recommend getting a group of friends together to watch this film whenever you can because you’ll have a whale of a time!

Back to Black

I said no no no.

This biopic follows the career of the late Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela) from the conception of her first album to her tumultuous relationship with her husband Blake (Jack OConnell) and her mega success with her second album.

Honestly, biopics, especially of musicians, have been done to death at this point and they all feel exactly the same, unless they do something totally out there and conceptual like I’m Not There (2007). Biopics only really serve to get awards for the actors who are ‘transforming’ into the subject and perhaps give the audience some new information they didn’t know about them. But Amy’s story has already been told, and in an Oscar-winning film at that, the 2015 documentary Amy.

So when I saw the trailers for this movie it looked god awful but to be honest it wasn’t as bad as I expected. As I said singer biopics tend to all follow the same beats and structure and this is very much that, it was standard of the genre but it didn’t actively bother me. It was entertaining and informative enough to keep me engaged, but it’s definitely something you could put on at home rather than going to the cinema for.

I think the major problem is the casting of Abela. I don’t want to rag on her too much because she clearly worked very hard on this role and her singing was pretty good as far as Winehouse impressions go. She just simply didn’t capture what made Amy so special. She didn’t have that bite and cheeky humour that I come to expect from the singer. She seemed more like an innocent deer in the headlights throughout the film, and often felt like she was speaking in slow motion to get the accent right.

The film itself is pretty mid (and I think Amy herself would have had something to say about it) but if you wanna learn more about her then you can check it out when it’s streaming somewhere. Personally, it got me listening to all of Amy Winehouse’s discography again and remembering what a real talent she was, so I can at least thank it for that.

Civil War

America has a problem

This movie is set in a dystopian near-future America, where the president is serving a third term in the midst of a violent civil war. We follow Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a renowned war photographer and journalist Joel (Wagner Moura) as they attempt to travel to DC to interview and photograph the president before he gets captured and executed by rebels! They are joined by aging veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and young budding photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny).

I think what I enjoyed most about this movie was the way it dug into the dystopia in a way that was so grounded. This kind of environment is one you usually see in zombie movies or after some kind of supernatural disaster, but this was real, it was war. We’re so used to seeing this kind of imagery of destroyed buildings and displaced people in encampments in places like the Middle East or in Europe back in the early 20th century, so to see modern-day America all war-torn was impactful. Obviously, it will probably be a stronger image for Americans as that’s their home, but maybe they’re the people who need to see it most. But I couldn’t help but walk home through London and imagine what it would be like if this was all destroyed around me.

Dunst and Moura’s performances as the lead duo are really fascinating, as they show two outcomes of what being constantly surrounded by war can do to a person. Dunst’s Lee is closed off and hardened by her experiences, never getting emotional or connecting with the horrors she sees but simply capturing her shots. Whereas Moura’s Joel is excitable and nihilistic, turning the fear into thrill instead of taking it in. Both end up hitting breaking point at different points in their journey and in different ways. In the middle of the two, you have Spaeny’s Jessie who at first struggles with the terror she flings herself into, despite Lee’s advice. But as she starts to grow into the task you see her take on the aforementioned traits of both her new mentors, so as they break down she rises up. I really loved Spaeny in last year’s Priscilla so I was excited to see her pop up in something again so soon. And this role is so different I’m already seeing what range she has as an actress. She’s definitely someone to watch.

The one issue I had with this movie is how strangely apolitical it was. Even though it was a movie about a war, they really didn’t do much to explain why the war was actually happening, besides little tidbits in dialogue here and there. There’s obviously a lot of division in the real world of America right now, which this movie clearly took inspiration from (it’s pretty clear that the president was supposed to be vaguely reminiscent of Trump), but it seems like in fear of stepping on real events and dividing and audience they decided to leave things more ambiguous. I understand that decision but the result is it leaves the world building half baked when you don’t really have an idea of what the war is all about and what they’re fighting over.

Despite that, the movie is still very good. As stressful and terrifying as it can be, it’s also extremely exhilarating. The third act in particular is real blood-pumping stuff. It’s one that I think deserves to be seen in a cinema where you can get the full experience without distraction if you get a chance to go.

Challengers

Tennis is sexy again, thank god!

The film follows old friends Art (Mike Faust) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) as they compete in a challenge tennis match, watched by Art’s coach and wife Tashi (Zendaya). The match is interspersed with flashbacks of how the two met Tashi as teenagers and grew apart over the years as they competed for her affection both on and off the tennis court in a sexually charged love triangle. There’s not a whole lot of decent tennis movies, and I think this is definitely joining the ranks of the best ones. It gives tennis and sex in a steamy little love triangle.

O’Connor and Faist are really great, and very sexy, as the male leads, but make no mistake this is Zendaya’s movie and she eats it up. While Tashi is one of the protagonists, she is very much the villain of the story too. She’s intentionally very unlikable (which is a departure for Zendaya) but not in an overly nasty way, she’s very much a real person. Yes she’s manipulative and she’s cold but you also feel for her at times and you see the humanity in her. She’s the kind of person you’d want to be around but you’d also be very wary of.

I thought this might be a Best Actress Oscar bid for Zendaya when I first saw the trailer, but having seen it I do t think it’s that kind of role. There’s no big transformation or a huge emotional scene you can campaign with, I personally wouldn’t nominate it. If this movie gets enough traction and is still in the conversation next year it could still happen though, which I wouldn’t be mad at. I’m a big fan and I want her to get a nomination sometime. Overall though I think this movie is a bit too youthful and sexy for the Academy’s tastes.

The one thing I didn’t get about this movie was its soundtrack. It heavily relies on loud drum and bass, which is great in the tennis scenes and sexy scenes because it gets your heart pumping. However, they used it every time anything important happened, even if they were just talking, and it got annoying very quickly, especially when they used an abrupt stop to transition to the next scene about 3 times in a row.

I was left thoroughly satisfied by this movie but I’ve always thought tennis was hot. If you want something entertaining and very steamy I’d say definitely check it out.

I’ve said so many times how 2023 was a really excellent year for movies, but I think 2024 is already chomping at its heels. And we’re only 4 months in.

May is typically when the summer movie season begins to pick up and so a few big blockbusters are coming out. I’m excited to see what hits and what doesn’t over the next month and beyond.

Dune Part 2 Review: I gave it a chance

If you read my review of Dune a couple of years ago you’ll know I didn’t really care for it. I found it confusing and very boring. But ever the optimist I thought maybe it just needs part 2 to finish it off and get me to enjoy it. So I was fairly excited to see Dune Part 2, especially as it was getting such rave reviews (just like the first one did). But guess what, I still didn’t like it.

There’s just something about this franchise I just can’t get into, despite all the pieces being there, so let’s talk about it.

Plot

The story follows on from the end of Part 1, with Paul and his mother finding the Fremen and deciding to live with them in the desert and learn their ways, Paul hopes to fight with the Fremen to overthrow the Harkonnen who killed his father and overthrow his house for control of the planet Arrakis, while falling in love with Chani, a fremen warrior. Meanwhile, the Harkonnen leader appoints his ruthless nephew to oversee the planet and fight the rebellious Fremen. While all this is happening, Princess Irulan, the emperor’s daughter keeps track of events in her journal and wonders whether Paul may still be alive, unknown to the empire.

There’s a lot going on in this movie and it’s very long! You’ve got to keep up with a lot of lore being thrown at you, there’s prophecies, bloodlines, religion, politics and geography. Everyone is related to everyone else somehow and there’s a bunch of different groups with different motivations. Now I love some deep lore don’t get me wrong, but when it’s all thrown at you in one movie it’s overwhelming because you can’t relax and enjoy the story you have to always be doing mental mind maps to ensure you’re really following what’s going on.

Characters

As this is a sequel I wanna talk about the new characters, and I’m gonna include Zendaya as Chani, because she was only in the last 15mins of the last film. That woman is such a superstar, she really knows how to carry a blockbuster in the supporting role, and I need to see her lead one soon. Her chemistry with Timothee Chalamet is brilliant, they have a particularly sweet scene together sat on top of a sand dune that I really enjoyed. But she never feels like just a romantic add-on despite honestly being written as one, because Zendaya just brings this strength and this relatability to her that makes her so engaging.

I also need to talk about Austin Butler stepping into the villainous role of Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (yes the names are crazy). Say what you will about his wild Elvis accent claims, and believe me I have, but there’s no denying that boy can act. The voice work and the physicality he brings to the work, along with the makeup they did on him just made him truly fearsome. We all love a good baddy.

The one person I was really excited to see, because I’m a huge fan of hers, was Florence Pugh as Princess Irulan, but I was really disappointed. She’s barely really in it, and when she is she just spends the time sitting and standing around and just reacting to what everyone else is doing. She had no real agency or importance of her own which just felt like such a step back for female characters. I know this book was written in the 60s but Zendaya made it work.

As for returning characters, Timothée Chalamet is great in the lead as Paul, even though I find the character a bit too self-righteous at times. He does have this natural charisma despite being not what you’d expect from a typical action hero, being that he’s quite mousey and thin, and I think that works for the character.

World

My favourite part of any sci-fi or fantasy story is the world-building. Getting to explore the various planets or locations and meet different species is always so fun. So I think my disappointment with both of these dune movies is that they spend the majority of the time focusing on just one planet, and it’s a pretty dull and miserable one. Now I know the point of Arrakis is that it’s a tough and harsh environment to live in, and that’s pretty key to the point, but it doesn’t make for a fun experience being stuck there. As a wise person once said, “I don’t like sand”.

Now there are other places shown in this installment of the series, like the Harkonnen homeworld which has this really cool greyscale appearance. But visits offworld are all too brief and I felt disappointed whenever I was chucked back to a baron and lurid desert world once again.

Visuals

Visually this is a very stunning film, and I think that’s what mainly drew them to wanting to adapt this book as a movie rather than a series, despite its long and complicated plot. So even if I was bored at least I had something pretty to look at. The bit I mentioned before where everything went grayscale was a stand-out moment for the cinematography and effects, but there was also the opening scene where everything had a kind of orangey hue in the harsh desert light that I found really gorgeous.

I’m also a sucker for good costume design and there were plenty of exquisite outfits to look at, particularly Florence Pugh’s gowns and the various ceremonial robes of the Benne Gesserit women. For the latter, I like that each he’d her own kind of style as opposed to them all wearing the same uniform, it lent more to the fleshing out the characters and where they come from.

Tone

I think I’ve realized my main issue with this movie is that it wasn’t very fun. Now I love a serious movie don’t get me wrong. But when I saw the trailer i saw a sci-fi action movie that’s really enjoyable to watch, and what I got was nearly 3 hours of people being very serious, quite maudlin, with deep intellectual ideas that I needed to ponder. That is all well and good if that’s what you want and I’m sure that’s what many people really love about it, but it wasn’t an entertaining experience for me.

I cannot help but compare it to Star Wars. Dune was obviously the blueprint that George Lucas took a lot of his ideas from, watching this film and the first you can see so many things that he brazenly copied, or shall we say influenced him. But the thing is Star Wars is fun! And you can call it the common man’s Dune, but I think there’s a reason it’s become much more well-known and popular.

I think what I really need to do is go and watch the original 80s movie of Dune, because that looks like a camp old time.

At the end of the day, a lot of people loved Dune Part 1 and I didn’t. A lot of people love Dune Part 2, and I didn’t. Objectively, it’s a very good movie. The acting is great, it’s visually stunning, it’s got a very interesting lore and world-building. But there are things that just stop me from connecting with it and I can’t help that.

They are probably going to make a third one and yes I’m probably going to torture myself and watch h that one too. Maybe the third time will really be the charm or maybe I’ll just have even more egg on my face.

I need to talk about the new Mean Girls…

If you know me, or you’ve read my previous post about it, you’ll know that Mean Girls (2004) is one of the formative movies of my adolescence and one of my favourite movies of all time. When I heard they were turning it into a stage musical I was not jazzed. I don’t really like stage versions of films; they never work for me as I just prefer film as a medium. Then when I heard they were doing a movie version of that musical I was mortified, because how could they redo one of the best movies ever.

But, I wanted to see it, because I know everyone going into it, like me, with a preexisting bias towards the original is going to immediately want to hate it and rag on it. And yes, it’s hard for me to separate the two films from each other, but I think this one deserves to be judged on its own merits. So, I want to share my thoughts having seen it starting with what I liked and moving down to what didn’t work for me.

Songs

I hear she does musical numbers, in the hallways.

The absolute best part of this movie (probably because it’s something the original didn’t have) is the musical numbers. I haven’t seen the stage show, because it hasn’t come to London and I can’t afford to go to Broadway, so I wasn’t familiar with the songs before seeing the movie. I really enjoyed the songs, they’re all well written and catchy, I’ve been enjoying listening to the soundtrack since I left the cinema. I also very much enjoyed the production of the musical numbers on screen. They were fun and they were eye-catching because they usually changed what was going on visually, which gives us something new we don’t expect from Mean Girls. My absolute favourite was ‘Revenge Party’, I’ve absolutely been jamming to that one since seeing it. I don’t understand why they tried so hard to hide the fact this was a musical in the advertising when that’s the most successful and interesting part of the film.

Characters

Obviously, it’s hard for me to see other people play these characters because the original cast just ARE those characters to me, but I can review the performances. Firstly to everyone’s credit, I never felt like anyone was trying to do an impression of the original actors performances, they all very much had their own takes, which made it easier to swallow. It’s also a different kind of acting, whereas the original was a lot more naturalistic, everyone is a bit more hammy and over the top here, because it’s a musical and that’s the style. Once you get used to that it’s not bad at all.

They’re almost too musical to function

The best performances were Reneé Rapp as Regina, Auli’i Cravalho as Janis and Jacquel Spivey as Damien. I actually really enjoyed them all, they were charismatic and entertaining. And I’m always happy to see Cravalho getting more work, because I was worried she would just only get to be Moana forever.

Angourie Rice unfortunately doesn’t have the charisma and star power that Lindsey Lohan had as Cady, but I liked what she did with her performance and she had a beautiful singing voice. The performances I didn’t care for were Bebe Wood and Avantika as Gretchen and Karen. Gretchen was just a bit bland and uninteresting and Karen was way to much of a ‘stupid person’ caricature, I think her mouth was wide open in every scene.

Jokes

In remakes we wear black

Where I begin to really run into a problem with this movie is its jokes. Mean Girls (2004) is FAMOUS for its quotability. There are so many lines that are so well known and have been quoted ad nauseam by my generation, “on Wednesdays we wear pink”, “that is so fetch”, “it’s October 3rd” and so on. I understand wanting to include those lines, because they’re iconic, but when you hear someone else deliver them in a different way it just doesn’t hit the same. It just serves to remind people of a movie they probably enjoy better.

The thing is, there were some new jokes, that were really funny, and they worked because I didn’t have anything to compare them to. I wanted more of that. I think Tina Fey would have been better off writing a mostly new script with new jokes, because we know she can do that, rather than relying so heavily on nostalgia that didn’t really pay off.

Story

I’m not gonna recount the entire plot because it’s the same as the original, with just a few bits shifted around a bit. But what got me was how quick it seemed to go, there were many times we got to a scene and I was thinking, oh we’re at this part already? I know there are a lot of songs from the stage show that were cut out so they obviously felt they needed to abridge it for the screen. It just felt like the movie was on fast-forward and it was hard to dig into any of the developments.

Sensitivity

Have you ever been personally victimised by this movie?

Ok, the biggest problem is how watered down it was. I’ve seen some people say it’s because the movie is too ‘woke’ but that always gives me the ick. There’s nothing wrong with the film being more diverse and inclusive, that’s a strength. The thing is the supposedly mean things people did and said weren’t that bad, which kind of breaks the whole ethos of the movie. In the original, they were really nasty to each other and that doesn’t render here, ‘fugly cow’ just doesn’t hit the same as ‘fugly slut’.

I know people may appear to be a lot more sensitive nowadays, and yeah some of the language used back in 2004 has fallen out of favour, but they really didn’t need to water the cattiness down as much as they did, especially compared to the kind of things people say all the time online.

Costumes

You can’t sing with us!

The final thing I need to talk about is the one thing I just didn’t like at all. I don’t think it’s something that everybody would care about, but it’s important to me, and that’s the costume design. There’s this great video by ModernGurlz on YouTube that explains in detail how considered the costumes for every character were in the original film, and that’s the kind of stuff I geek out over. I just didn’t see that same level of care this time around. For example, I didn’t notice Cady’s outfits gradually start to evolve but rather she just turned up in one scene fully dressed as a plastic. The only costume I actually liked was Regina’s angel Halloween costume, it was well-structured and had some great movement for her musical number in it.

So, I can’t say I loved this movie, but I knew I wouldn’t because I will always have so much bias built up in my head towards the original. However, I don’t think they helped themselves by relying so heavily on referencing that other, much stronger movie.

It’s not a bad movie by any means. In fact I could I could even say it’s a fairly good movie. There are some great things in it. It’s just not strong enough to survive the inevitable comparisons. Any reason it falters is just a reason for people to hate it.

I say give it a go, even if you love the original. But I think what we all really want is a true sequel with the original cast back in their iconic roles.

My Top 10 Movies of 2023

2023 has been a pretty great year for movies. I’ve managed to see so many and there’s still a few that I wanted to see that I haven’t managed to yet.

So, I wanted to end 2023 by talking about the movies I saw this year that left the biggest impact on me, and top 10 just felt right. It was impossible to put them in some kind of number order so I’ve just done them alphabetically. So here they are:

Anatomy of a fall

I love a strong female performance, and Sandra Hüller brings just that as the centerpiece of this courtroom drama from France. As a woman accused of killing her husband after he’s found dead at the bottom of their chalet home, the mystery hangs on whether she can convincingly keep you guessing as to whether she did it or not. She manages to balance that fine line between guilty and not guilty and never appear too obviously either way, leaving the audience to make up their own minds. I was gripped the whole time, as there are also so many nuances to the character and her relationship to the case, such as her language barrier, celebrity author status and visually impaired son, that pile onto the stakes of the possible outcome.

Barbie

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that the big cinematic event this summer was Barbenheimer. Now I could have put both Barbie and Oppenheimer on here as a kind of double feature, but I have to be honest about the fact that Barbie left the bigger impact on me. The way Greta Gerwig and team created this whole world around Barbie, from the sets to the costumes to the music, we were fully immersed in Barbieland. And on top of that, it was incredibly well written and acted, it was funny, it was clever and it had something to say. After seeing this film, Barbie became my entire personality for about a month and I’ve still thought about it constantly since. This movie filled me with such joy, just thinking about it makes me smile.

The Boy and the Heron

So, in November I got to see My Neighbor Totoro on stage, and it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. If you ever get a chance to see it you absolutely should. But the high from that show put me on a bit of a Studio Ghibli kick and I eagerly awaited the newest movie from the Studio and director Hiyao Miyazaki.

Did the movie get a leg up from its close proximity to the play? Maybe a little. But it still didn’t disappoint. It’s Ghibli and Miyazaki doing what they do best – high fantasy with deep meaning. What I love about Miyazaki’s fantasy worlds is that he never spends time trying to explain anything, you just have to kind of go with it and accept the world for what you see, and I find such freedom in that. The world created here was confusing yes, but at once also funny, scary and breathtaking. It very much feels at home with the likes of Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle and of course the greatest of all, Spirited Away!

Elemental

As I said in my review for this film earlier this year I was pleasantly surprised by this movie, as Pixar hasn’t been on their best form in recent years. This movie ended up being incredibly poignant, with a lot to say about immigration and the financial instability in immigrant communities, but in a way that’s easy for anyone to understand and digest. As well as the fun way the world was created, I also fell in love with the characters and especially the romance between the two leads Ember and Wade. It’s certainly one of, if not the most romantic Pixar movie, getting quite steamy at times, literally. It left me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Joy Ride

As happy as I am for Jamie Lee-Curtis, I still believe Stephanie Hsu deserved the Oscar for Supporting Actress, so I was keen to see what she would do next. I’m also a big fan of Adele Lim’s screenwriting for Crazy Rich Asians and Raya and the Last Dragon, so I was excited to see her directorial debut with the comedy Joy Ride, staring Hsu as well as Ashley Parkx Sherry Cola and Sabrina Wu. My god is this a funny film, I was in hysterics throughout. The film follows Audrey, who was adopted from China by a white American couple, as she travels to China with her best friend Lolo to close a business deal and try and find her birth mother. Obviously, things don’t go according to plan and it’s stupid, raunchy, irreverent but most importantly it has a heart, and I found myself crying at the big climax. We’re going through such a moment for Asian talent right now and it’s great to see a comedy with a predominantly Asian cast, written by Asians from an Asian perspective. There is space in every genre of movie for everyone and the more authentic stories we have across those genres, the better movies we’re gonna get!

Killers of the Flower Moon

So, what a lot of people had to say about this film was that it was too long. So going in I was expecting a slog of a 3 hours, stroking Martin Scorsese’s ego. But I couldn’t have been more wrong. I didn’t feel the time at all, I was gripped for every minute of those three hours. Crime dramas are Scorsese’s bread and butter so he was really showing off what he does best, and it’s also a western, which I have a real soft spot for.

What really drew me into this movie was its story, the focus on the Osage community and and how they were targeted for their land’s wealth in the 20s was so tragic yet so fascinating. The way it was framed from both the perpetrator’s side, Robert De Niro’s William King Hale, and the victims, Lily Gladstone’s Molly Kyle, with Leonardo DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart in the middle was a great way to get the fullest picture without compounding the story with too many characters to focus on.

My penchant for strong female characters strikes again as my favorite thing about this movie was Gladstone. The way she went on a journey of romance, grief, anger and strength through the film was so impressive. She did it all without getting too hysterical or dramatic, hers was a character that really spoke in the silence.

The Little Mermaid

It feels a little bit weird to put a Disney live-action movie on this list, as I generally hate the idea of them and think they’re wholly unnecessary. However, I can’t deny the impact this one had on me. I’m kind of obsessed with it, I’ve watched it twice since I saw it and I feel compelled to listen to the soundtrack whenever I’m by the sea. I think a big credit goes to the lead performance from Halle Bailey. As I said in my review of the film, she really is a star in the making, with the way she carried this movie with her acting and her amazing singing. I can’t wait to see her in more things. But I also loved the visuals of the film. Everything looks so lush and fantastical, both above and below the water, the Under the Sea sequence, in particular, filled me with joy with what they achieved with all the effects. I guess it just fills me with summery vibes and it makes me want to hang out in the sun.

Maestro

Every year it seems we get a big flashy biopic of a famous entertainer in the hopes it will win some Oscars. Bradley Cooper’s biography of Leonard Bernstein, which he’s written, directed and stars in is absolutely one of those projects, but the thing is it’s really good. I saw this movie as a brilliant in depth character study, focusing on Bernstein and his Wife played by Carey Mulligan. And those performances are what make this movie. We spend so long focusing in on those characters (often quite literally with the cinematography) throughout their long relationship, there’s really no room for either actor to falter, and of course they don’t. Cooper’s transformation into Bernstein is so studied and intricate, he’s in very strong running to win that overdue Oscar. Yes some people have taken issue with the use of prosthetics and I understand that, but to me it was not noticeable and didn’t detract at all from his performance. But Mulligan is who really stole the show for me as Felicia. She did such interesting work with her voice to emulate her while also doing all the other acting things she always does, and with many emotional scenes of anger, sadness and fear as well as romance, she’s really the emotional core of Bernsteins journey. If you wanna see two people act the hell out of a movie this really is one to see.

Past Lives

A lot of the films on this list are large flashy productions, but Past Lives is a very small quiet film which is what makes it so fascinating. It creates an intimate and close portrait of two childhood friends from Korea who reunite after years apart when one moved to America and the other stayed behind. What made this movie special to me was the way it explored human relationships. It unpacked how time changes things but also how we imprint and connect with people based on our cultural similarities. And I think it showed that we as humans often never really know who we are and what we want. The performances from Greta Lee and Teo Yoo are beautiful, as well as the way writer/director Celine Song uses the visuals and sound to evoke those feelings of memory and kinship. It’s one of those movies that makes you feel sad, but in a good way.

Wonka

When they first announced they were making a Willy Wonka prequel I thought it was a horrendous idea and it would be terrible. After I saw a trailer I felt a similar way, and even after I heard people saying it was good I wasn’t convinced. So I was very surprised when I absolutely loved it. I love a movie musical, and especially the golden age of the genre where everything was big and loud. This movie is a lavish, high-production blowout musical with great songs. It also just got that Roald Dahl brand of whimsical silliness down, which is hard to do. The centerpiece is of course Timothée Chalamet as Wonka himself, who just exudes this naive quirky positivity that never gets too much but rather pulls you in and makes you believe in him. And every other actor is just hamming it up in the best way too. I just had a really fun time and it made me really hungry for some chocolate.

There are a few movies that almost made it on here and some that if id seen them this year, I’m sure would have made it in. but what I know is that I’m already excited for what 2024 is going to bring.

The Marvels review: Just a bit marvellous

So, 2023 is the year I finally started to get bored of the MCU, and I haven’t religiously watched it all as it drops. I still haven’t watched Secret Invasion or the second season of Loki. I think the increasing amount of bad or lackluster content coming out, and the loss of connectivity and direction in the franchise has made it a lot less fun to follow. It feels more like a chore. So when I eventually realized that The Marvels was coming out I decided I should give it a try, but go in with lowered expectations…

The plot

Destiny’s other children

After Kree leader Dar-Benn opens up unstable wormholes to save her dying planet, Captain Marvels powers become entangled with those of Ms. Marvel and Monica Rambeau. With the three women randomly switching places every time they use their powers; they must work together to stop Dar-Ben from ripping the universe apart.

I really enjoyed the concept of them switching places, it’s something new we haven’t seen before from this kind of film and they had a lot of fun with it, especially in the beginning. The rest of the movie was pretty standard in terms of plot; go to a place fight the villain, go to a new place learn some things. Without the entanglement plot there wouldn’t have been anything particularly interesting about this film so at least they kept it fresh in some way.

The characters

What’s she marveling at?

In all honesty, when I saw Captain Marvel (2019) I wasn’t blown away by the character. I thought she was cool and it was exciting to see a female character be so powerful, but personality-wise she came across as a bit bland and uninteresting. A lot of people have unfairly tried to claim this is because Brie Larson can’t act, but if you’ve seen Room (2015) you know that’s not true so I think it was just down to the writing. In this movie I feel like they made her a little more fun and relatable than last time, probably building on what didn’t work before.

There’s also the issue of Carol’s sexuality, which has long been a source of speculation with fans hoping she could be confirmed as gay on screen. Now they don’t go so far as to actually confirm it in this movie but they do strongly hint at it in at least one scene. It’s strong enough to show they are acknowledging it but still disappointingly easy for them to edit out for any countries that might threaten to ban the film for its connotations. As a gay person that just gives me the ick.

Kahn you belive it?

By far the best character in the movie is Kamala Kahn aka Ms Marvel. Though I didn’t particularly rate her show on Disney+ last year, due to its weak story and bad pacing, I did instantly fall in love with Kamala and her family (who are also a big part of this film) so was the most excited to see them again, and they didn’t disappoint. The infectious energy that Kamala brings into the room is just really entertaining because you’re witnessing a fan meet their hero. But it’s not just her fangirling the whole movie, she actually has a lot to bring to the team power-wise, and the emerging mentor/student relationship between her and Carol is intriguing to watch.

Of course, it was also great to see Monica back from Wandavision – still my favourite MCU show – with the powers she gained on that show now fully formed. I’m not sure we learned all that much about her as a character than we already knew unfortunately, she mostly just served as part of Carol’s character arc, but they have definitely built up somewhere for her to go in the future.

The villain

She’s totally hammered

The most disappointing thing about this movie was by far its villain Dar-Benn. I think Zawe Ashton did the best she could, but the material wasn’t there. I found her motivation quite interesting, wanting to save her homeland from annihilation, which made her somewhat sympathetic. However, her actions often didn’t live up to that setup and she just reverted to a villain doing villainous things. She came across as very generic, not bringing anything unique visually or characteristically to the MCU. She’s a villain that I think will be easily forgotten as the years go by.

The Universe

It’s important to do some morning stretches

One thing about a movie set in a giant shared universe is that it has to bring something new to expand on that world. I’m not sure they totally succeeded in that regard. This was a space movie so they visited a lot of planets, but few of them were very unique to this movie despite looking quite nice. The best bit of world-building they did was with the musical planet Aladna, where their language is song. Was this concept a bit silly, yes a little, but after Thor: Love and Thunder, I won’t complain too much about a short musical section even if I didn’t love it. This planet however had the best production and costume design of the movie, with lots of bright colours that popped on screen and physical sets that really make a difference when you’re used to seeing people walk around in CGI.

In terms of the interconnected world of the MCU, this is actually the most connected it’s felt in a long time. Since Avengers: Endgame (2019) every MCU project has felt very separate with very little crossover and there’s been very little clarity on where the wider story is headed. This is part of what has made it less fun to keep up with the story, as the investment doesn’t seem as worthwhile. This movie is the most connected the world has felt in a while, bringing characters together from movies and 2 shows and building on some new crossovers down the line.

The future

When you see the box office for this film…

Going into this movie with low expectations did help me enjoy this movie more than I would have if I had gone expecting a top-tier film. It’s entertaining and has some fun moments but it didn’t wow me, so it’s very middle of the road in terms of rankings.

At this point, Marvel can’t afford to have a movie like that, when people like me are already beginning to lose interest. I’ve already given up on the shows. How long before I give up on the movies too?

The ending of this film gave me some hope that if they have a plan and they focus on making higher-quality material they can breathe some life back into this franchise, but it may already be too late…

Elemental movie review: Some excellent chemistry!

June was a crazy month for me, so I didn’t get time to see much, let alone review anything. But I was determined to get to the cinema and see a new release, so I got out to see Pixar’s latest offering, Elemental!

I really didn’t know what to expect from this film given the hit and miss nature of Pixar (and Disney in general) recently, and the concept of elemental people living in a city seemed pretty basic. But I ended up very pleasantly surprised by what I saw!

Plot

Water cute pair

When Ember is left in charge of her parent’s shop in Fire Town of Element City, she accidentally causes a water leak which threatens to put them out of business. Along with city water inspector Wade, they must find the source of the leak and save her parent’s shop from being shut down. Along the way the pair develop and unlikely romance despite Ember’s parent’s opposition to elements mixing.

I thought it was going to become a plot where it’s a mystery to find who or what is causing the leak with a grand adventure through the city. However, that plot point was actually more just a catalyst for the real focus of the movie which is exploring the relationship between Ember and her parents and Ember and Wade. I think that could be a little disappointing for some people, but I did appreciate that it was more character rather than world-building focussed. Whether that lends itself to the big screen or small is another matter.

Characters

Speaking of being characters I have to talk about our main characters, Ember and Wade. Each one’s character obviously took the form of the element they’re based on. So, Ember is fire so she has a temper and she ‘flares up’ a lot, whereas Wade is water so he’s a lot more mellow and he cries easily. I think they did a good job not making Ember too angry all the time at the risk of making her unlikable, her temper was always justified if a little unhinged. Wade cried a little bit too often for my taste, but what did work was how his emotions brought about a change in Ember as she learned more about the elements outside of fire.

I really warmed to this family

Ember has the best storyline as she is the lead. She has to come to grips with her parent’s expectations for her versus her feelings for Wade and what she wants for her future, so we really get to know the most, whereas Wade has a lot more tell rather than show for his development. Wade is still a very likable character though because he’s just really lovely and is the kind of supportive and uplifting person that I think a lot of people would like to be with.

The next best characters are Ember’s parents, Bernie and Cinder, as they are the secondary protagonists with their own story to tell. Being refugees who came to element city for a better life, their story is about trying to hold on to their own culture and the things they’ve built while also allowing their daughter to grow beyond what they want for, and it’s some really quite beautiful stuff.

I also have to mention that Wade’s mum, Beook, is played by Catherine O’Hara (whose voice I recognized instantly) so she does an excellent job with the comedy in her voice acting.

World

Ember is not in her element here

In terms of world-building, I don’t think Element City itself was super creative in terms of design as it was mostly just regular buildings with an elemental theme. However it wasn’t lazy in any way, and it still looked gorgeous.

What was fun about the world though was the way elemental people interacted with it. If Ember breaks a window for example she can pick up the pieces and melt them down to create a new window and replace it. If Wade gets pushed into a fountain he can through the pipes and rise back out the top. You could tell they considered how each element could use their skills as a form of problem-solving which is just a really fun bit of creativity.

It also lent itself to a lot of fun gags throughout the movie. One that made me laugh early on was a blimp carrying air people deflating when the passengers got off but blowing up again when the new lot got on.

Themes

This movie actually had a lot more to say than I expected, with its major theme being that of immigration. Because the fire people were not part of the originally established element city, they had to find their own patch to build a community and they therefore rarely mix with the other elements.

At least her outfit is fire

I think it was clever to use the fact that fire doesn’t physically mix well with the other elements (it would burn plants and evaporate water for example) to illustrate how immigrant communities often feel outside of and othered by the communities they come to join and that sense of wanting to belong but being unable to integrate.

It also somewhat addresses the financial inequality between immigrant families like Ember’s and more well-off families like Wade’s, and how that affects their choices and paths in life.

It’s heavy stuff on paper, but I think, much like Zootopia did with race, this movie puts out these ideas in a very accessible way. And I hope it will teach the kids (and frankly the adults) watching to be understanding of different communities that surround them.

Romance

A couple with literal chemistry

I think by far my favorite aspect of this movie was the love story between Ember and Wade. It’s the age-old story of two people who shouldn’t be together falling in love against the odds, but cleverly done in the way of two people who literally physically should be opposites.

It’s also one of the most romantic Disney couples I think there’s ever been. Things get pretty steamy (pun absolutely intended) between the two and it’s very tender. I’m also extremely glad they didn’t use the enemies to lovers trope that had been done to death at this point. The pair pretty much like each other from the get go, which means you get more time seeing them together developing the connection.

The issue

This movie came out in the US a month before it came out here, so we already know it’s a box office bomb and it’s not doing well. Obviously, I’m disappointed because I really liked it but I think it’s down to two factors.

Firstly the ad campaign was not good. The trailer did not convey what this movie is at all. I thought that it was just going to be a knock off Zootopia but with elements, and I had no idea of the deep themes and the heavy focus on romance. And to be honest I barely saw any advertisement for it in the first place.

Firing on all cylinders

The second problem is streaming. I think (and have been told this by a few people) that most people are just going to wait to watch this film on Disney+. Everyone knows now that everything will eventually show up there so they’re being much more selective about what they pay to go see in cinemas. People have been trained to see Pixar films on streaming as 3 of the last 4 have been released only on Disney+ and the one that wasn’t (Lightyear) was not very good. It’s not just a Pixar problem though as Disney Animation’s last 2 movies have suffered at the box office before finding an audience in streaming. Encanto is the best case scenario as it completely blew up in popularity once it hit Disney+. I’m hoping for an Encanto situation with Elemental because I know people are going to love this movie when they give it a chance.

If you fancy seeing a great animated movie in the cinema then I’d definitely recommend going to see this one. Equally, please give it a watch when it comes out in Disney+ (probably in about a months time) because it really is worth your time. I’ll definitely be watching it again!

The Little Mermaid review: An acceptable remake

While many are firmly opposed to the trend of Disney remaking all of their old animated movies in live-action, I am more lukewarm about it. while I don’t want or feel they need to be remade, I accept that they are and some of them actually end up being good. As much as I hated Beauty and the Beast (2017) and The Lion King (2019), I enjoyed Aladdin (2019) and Cinderella (2015). And so, in the run-up to The Little Mermaid (2023) coming out, I was nervous about which way the dial would turn this time.

The plot

Beach please!

If you don’t already know, the film follows Ariel, a mermaid who is obsessed with the Land. Despite being forbidden to go to the surface by her father she continues to collect human trinkets and learn all she can about the world above. After saving a human from drowning and falling in love, she visits the sea witch Ursula and exchanges her voice for the chance to become human.

This being a remake, the story is the same as the original. There are not really any major changes to the story to speak of, just a little addition to Ursula’s spell that has a small impact on the romance. This change, while random and unnecessary, wasn’t destructive at all to the plot so I can understand and live with it. I’m actually surprised they didn’t try and meddle with the plot more in the name of empowerment, as the original has long been criticized for being bad for young girls.

Would I have liked it if they had made a dramatic change to the story? I’m not sure, but I would have respected it for not being straight-up remake. I’m still in the camp of not needing the classics remade.

Ariel

One of the biggest talking points about this film was of course the casting of Halle Bailey as Ariel. Casting someone who does not look like the original version of the character, and changing the character’s race, became very controversial, which put a lot of pressure on Bailey to prove that she deserved to have the part. Luckily, I believe she did.

Isn’t it neat!

Ariel is a hard part to adapt because she’s extremely naive and fairly passive, so it’s hard to take that and make it palatable for modern audiences, especially women and young girls, while not deviating too much from the source material. I think Bailey was really good at capturing that innocence and sweetness of Ariel, but didn’t come across as stupid. She was still very assertive and had a strength to her, but through a lease of childlike glee that I feel perfectly captures Ariel.

I think this is a lesson in unconventional casting working better than the more superficial choices. Thinking back on how much I disliked Emma Watson as Belle I can see that they went for the obvious choice; she’s brunette and she’s a feminist so she’s perfect for Belle, but they didn’t take into account that she couldn’t act or, more crucially, sing the role very well. Halle Bailey may not have been the most obvious choice for Ariel but she got the character down perfectly, and I’m so glad they chose her.

Characters

Don’t be so crabby!

While Bailey as Ariel was the big stand out from the movie I also really enjoyed Daveed Diggs’ voicework as Sebastian. He had most of the funniest parts as the comic relief side character, but also did really great in the musical numbers. I also enjoyed the dynamic he had with Awkwafina as Scuttle, who I was surprised I enjoyed just as much.

I wasn’t mad about Johan Hauer-King as Prince Eric. I think he did an ok job, but was a bit bland and forgettable to me, especially opposite the inspired casting of Bailey. But I suppose the original Eric was never really that interesting to begin with, and they at least tried to give him more of a motivation and a story arc this time. He also had much stronger chemistry with Ariel this time around.

Body language!!

I really wanted to love Melissa McCarthy as Ursula but I think she was ultimately poorly cast as the villain. She wasn’t horrendous but some of her choices were not great. She was trying to be really hammy and over the top, which is great, but they she didn’t go far enough and it felt lackluster. There were no exaggerated villainous laughs or maniacal screams. Ultimately it ended up just feeling like someone doing a poor impression of the animated Ursula rather than making the character her own.

The absolute worst part of the movie for me, however, was Javier Bardem as King Triton. Every line he delivered felt like he was reading it off a cue card with zero emotion and commitment to the role. It was so phoned in, which was so jarring when everyone else was at least trying to give their all to such iconic characters.

Visuals

When going from hand-drawn animation from the 90s to modern day technologies, you’d expect there to be some difference, and hopefully some improvement in the visuals of the film.

Looking for Nemo?

I’ve always been a big lover of fish and the oceans since I was very little, so I was really hoping that the underwater sequences would make me happy, and they really did. All the colours and the scenery in the ocean sequences, particularly during Under the Sea, were so lush and vibrant. It was so magical and filled me with wonder, which is just what a fairytale should do.

The on land visuals were not as strong, but still had a great fantasy style that they mixed in heavy Caribbean reference with to make the kingdom seem more rooted in that culture than just a generic European fairytale setting.

I was a little disappointed with the costuming of the film. Ariel only really wore one dress for the whole film, which was pretty but not very exciting. There are some iconic Ariel outfits that I was excited to see interpreted in live-action that weren’t used at all. I think Colleen Atwood tends to create more historical outfits for her fantasy movies, like she did with Into the Woods for example. Whereas I prefer the approach of someone like Sandy Powell, who created over the top, colourful fantasy dresses for Cinderella (2015), which are to this day some of my favourite movie costumes.

Songs

Goin’ down the bayou

The Little Mermaid has one of the most iconic Disney soundtracks, so I was really nervous about how new versions of the songs would come out; especially as most of the other live-action remakes haven’t done that great a job.
While nothing will ever compare to the originals, I do think they did a good job with the soundtrack. They didn’t do anything to egregiously bad to change the songs but they gave them new arrangements and things to make them new enough. I’ve been listening to the soundtrack and enjoying it.

The new songs I don’t think work as well but that may just be because I’m not as used to them. I don’t think Jonah Hauer-King’s voice worked for the solo they gave him and it sounded very strained. Awkwafina also got her own rap song which I found a little excruciating to get through. I do however like the new solo song they gave Ariel, but that’s because Halle has the most beautiful voice and every song she’s featured in sounds divine for that reason.

Do I think we needed another version of the mermaid? No. Am I happy with the one we got? Absolutely. There are some really good things about this movie that cancel out the lower-quality parts. I will always prefer the original, but this version doesn’t tarnish it in any way. I’m quite happy to have both to live happily alongside each other. Most importantly, I’m excited to see Halle Bailey get more opportunities to share her remarkable talent. I can’t wait to see her in The Color Purple this Christmas!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3 review: A very satisfying end

It’s been a long time coming! Through firings and rehirings and making DC movies instead, James Gunn has finally finished the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy he kicked off for the MCU way back in 2014. But in an Era where Marvel fatigue is setting in and projects are dipping in quality, has he managed to keep the franchise at the high standard he set for it or has it come to a whimpering end?

Plot

The new uniforms weren’t as comfy as they expected

After an attack by Adam Warlock (sent by the evil genetic scientist The High Evolutionary) leaves Rocket close to death, the guardians must find the key to his mysterious genetics to save his life. We also discover Rocket’s origins as a creation by The High Evolutionary during his quest to create a more perfect world filled with perfect beings.

Whereas the previous two Guardians films focused on Peter Quill’s backstory and character development, I like that they decided to branch out and focus on one of the other guardians this time (even though Quill is very much still the main character). This was especially exciting because Rocket’s life had really been a mystery up until this point, so it gave us something to build from while keeping things feeling new and fresh. We also get a few revelations that tie this new story back up to the previous entries as well as new character choices that together serve to bring the trilogy to a satisfying close.

Characters

All the characters are consistent with how we came to know them in the previous 2 movies, so there are no real major changes in characterization abate from one character who I’ll get to.

Turns out Gamora’s not a cat person

As problematic as Chris Pratt may be to some people with his ultra-religious and conservative private life, I cannot deny that he continues to just be really good at movies, with both this and Super Mario back-to-back and Jurassic World last year, being super enjoyable for me. As I said, despite this being a movie about Rockets, Quill/ Star Lord is still the main character as Rocket does spend a lot of the movie unconscious. And rightfully so because as a lead he brings such charisma and humanity to the team. I also didn’t like the way that they kind of made fun of Star Lord and infantilised him a bit in the last Avengers, movie so it was nice to see him as a more 3-dimensional character once more.

The big change in character was with Gamora, as she was technically a different character. After the original Gamora was killed in Avengers: Infinity War and an alternative timeline brought in a new Gamora that never joined the Guardians in Avengers: Endgame, we have to follow this new Gamora as she finds her place in a team that remembers her in a way she doesn’t know herself. I’ve always loved Zoe Saldana in this role, and while I loved her as the old Gamora, I really appreciated what she brought to this new, more aggressive version of the character, and she managed to differentiate the two with her performance. They also could have very easily found a way to just reboot her memories and bring back the old version but I appreciate that they didn’t do that and committed to her new journey as this character.

Everyone else was just as entertaining as ever. The only thing I didn’t enjoy was the new design of Groot. While I eventually got used to it, I still don’t like how cartoony he looked, almost an action figure, which I think is a particular creative choice, but not one I personally liked.

Villains

Gotta hand it to him, he gets to the point

The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) was horrible! But I mean that in a good way. He was a character with not an ounce of empathy or goodness in him, who committed unspeakable acts through the course of this film. I think in a time where most movie villains have a little bit of empathy or relatable (which does usually make them interesting), it’s good to also have one that is just truly awful, because that makes him scary. He was also wildly emotional, which made his reactions and therefore his actions escalate, which upped the tension as the movie progressed.

One of the secondary villains of the film was Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), a character that people have been wanting to see in the MCU for years. As a character, I think he was well done. He had basically just been born, as he was just created by Ayesha and the High Evolutionary, so he had this childlike naivety that created great comedy that really fits in with Guardians’ sensibilities. But he was also really powerful and a genuine threat. I think he was sadly underutilized here though. He really didn’t serve a purpose outside of inciting the initial conflict, and then he just kind of stuck around for the rest of the movie doing not much. It felt like he was there because he’s supposed to be an important character, rather than actually being important to this story. But the silver lining is this is Marvel, where everyone comes back in other projects. So I’m sure there’ll be more time to get to know him properly and have him be a part of his own story later on.

Tone

I know why the caged Rocket sings

This movie was very dark! While the last two Guardians films had deep emotional moments, they were overall very light hearted and fun; so I think it will come as a surprise to people just how dark it is. Now don’t get me wrong there is a lot of comedy and silly moments, it’s not a complete 180, but it goes very heavy on some quite harrowing imagery, particularly around the theme of animal cruelty. There’s one scene in particular that left me thoroughly shaken.

After Thor: Love and Thunder and other recent comedies like She-Hulk left me feeling disinterested in an MCU that wasn’t taking itself seriously, I obviously much prefer this approach. Because James Gunn managed to balance out his more typical silly comedy stylings with a more deep meaningful story, something Taika Waititi did not manage to do with Thor. The only issue I see is rewatchability, as I already see people saying it was too sad for them to go back and sit through it again, no matter how good they thought the film was.

Soundtrack

Spitting fire on the tracks

I’m the previous 2 Guardians films, the soundtrack has been a huge selling point and was sort of a character in its own right. The soundtracks stuck rigidly to 70s music played through cassette that the characters themselves were hearing along with the audience, which gave a unique twist to the sci-fi genre. I think it’s safe to say that it’s a key ingredient of what made this brand so popular in the first place.

In this movie however, they switch to a Zune mp3 player which played songs spanning up to the 2000s. While a lot of the songs are great, I think having that range did lose a little bit of the franchise’s identity and I didn’t feel like they all blended in as seamlessly with the action on screen as previous films had, apart from a couple of exceptions.

This was of course James Gunn’s last Guardians of the Galaxy movie, so it was very much set up to be an ending, which it ends up being, quite satisfyingly so. Despite this, the door is very much left open for the Guardians to return, as everything is always left with Marvel. Of course, if they do return it will be with a new lineup as a lot of this cast have stated that they don’t want to come back.

I would like to see the Guardians come back in some capacity in the future, but I think they should hit pause a bit to give this film some time to breathe as a conclusion to the trilogy. Then they can come back with a fresh creative team behind them to take them in a new direction.