With the close of 2019, a total of six movies released by Walt Disney Studios and their various sub-brands have grossed over a billion dollars at the worldwide box office: Marvel Comics adaptations Avengers: Endgame and Captain Marvel, remakes of animated films like The Lion King and Aladdin as well as sequels to highly successful animated films like Toy Story 4 and Frozen II. By January of next year, Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, will join the billion dollar club, bringing Disney's already record-shattering total to seven movies. Disney CEO's Bob Iger's sizable investment in the acquisition of studios Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm has paid off quite handsomely this year.
Since Iger took over Disney back in 2005 and started aggressively implementing his plan of acquiring "high quality, branded content" and building up Disney's IP inventory, this has been the film division's single biggest year, and probably the biggest box-office haul of any studio ever. Given that Disney basically has no plans of slowing down, and that things like inflation mean that billion dollar movies will eventually be easier to come by, and given further that James Cameron's sequel to Avatar is due to come out from Disney in 2021, the same year Disney will be releasing three new Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, it's reasonable to argue that they could conceivably scale such box office heights again in the future.
I will argue, however, that this is not quite as likely as it may seem, and I'll go over the reasons one by one. There are five key elements to Disney's record-breaking year that may or may not ever come together again.
1. Avengers: Endgame, for example, the linchpin of the Disney's phenomenal 2019 success story, wasn't just a movie, but a once-in-a-22-film event. It was the kind of payoff that had never been seen before on film and will most likely never be seen again, not even from Marvel itself. Sure, they could conceivably create pent-up demand for another Avengers megastory, but it won't feel new anymore, and when something has been done, diminishing returns is almost an inevitability. While I'm sure Marvel will continue to chug along like the well-oiled machine that it is, I'm almost certain that Endgame is a high point in history it won't be able to repeat. Marvel will most likely continue to churn out billion-dollar grossers at the rate of at least one a year, but I really, really doubt it'll be able to capture the zeitgeist in quite the same way again.
2. With The Lion King, Disney has adapted the last of the films that, from 1989 to 1994, marked the renaissance of its animation division under its then-boss Jeffrey Katzenberg. Almost every movie that came out after the original Lion King in 1994 followed a distinctly downward trend in terms of grosses, which culminated in Pixar knocking Disney off its perch at the top of the animation heap, and with Pixar bosses John Lasseter and Ed Catmull taking over Disney animation. Next up is Mulan, which has already proven to be a lightning rod for controversy thanks to comments of its lead star expressing support for the Hong Kong police, who have gained infamy for their rampant human rights violations in handling the protests that have shaken the city for the last several months. Not only that, but even before that became a talking point, it had the dubious distinction of being the very first adaptation of a Disney musical without any of the songs, and it carries an eyebrow-raising pricetag of $300 million, all on top of the fact that the original film was not quite the most loved of all Disney musicals. Assuming Mulan manages to do well, though, I doubt it'll scale Lion King heights, and I doubt they'll have two billion dollar adaptations in a single year.
3. Pixar is a reliable force at the box office, but the best thing about them is also the thing which casts into doubt Disney's ability to generate another 7 billion dollar grosser year. The fact that they're willing to take risks with original content rather than constantly regurgitating sequels for fans means billion-dollar hits like Toy Story 4 or The Inredibles will often take a back seat to original films like Onward and Soul, which may or may not hit the magic billion-dollar mark.
4. Disney animation, like Pixar, is quite capable, under its current management, of generating four-quadrant blockbusters that please critics and awards bodies (e.g. Zootopia), but as with Pixar, not all of its films are billion-dollar year sure things. Even sequels to successful films like Wreck-It-Ralph can still fall short of the ten-figure mark.
5. Finally, the future success of Star Wars after the conclusion of the Skywalker saga with this year's Star wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker is basically a huge question mark. The abject failure of last year's anthology prequel Solo exposed a huge chink in Lucasfilm's armor, and the tumult surrounding the new trilogy has further cemented a view shared by many fans that the single biggest problem of the Disney/Star Wars empire is that there isn't any real battle plan moving forward. The good news, though, is that film production has been brought to a halt while Lucasfilm takes a moment to rethink its approach to telling stories in this universe. Until they come out on the other side, though, their ability to make hits on the scale of Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, which benefited hugely from pent-up anticipation, is still in question.
In short, for all the fanboys and girls who sat through these seven films, I think it's quite possible we've all witnessed history this year.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
Friday, December 20, 2019
It's Not Quite the Epic Sendoff Many Were Hoping for...But That's OK: A Review of Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
directed by J.J. Abrams
written by Chris Terrio, Abrams, Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow
I've noticed it's become quite fashionable among critics to thrash the so-called "final chapter of the Skywalker Saga" or Star Wars: Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. While the film hasn't exactly achieved Batman v. Superman levels of infamy its score over on rottentomatoes.com is currently the worst of any Star Wars movie that has been released in the Disney era. Many writers have called it a regression, repudiating Rian Johnson's "bold choices" made in Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, while its defenders are happy to see a lot of the creative decisions of the last film chucked out the window, with at least one of the defenders promising that viewers who liked The Last Jedi will hate this movie.
Well, never one to be stuck in boxes, I have to respectfully disagree. I genuinely enjoyed The Last Jedi, both for its story and how it flipped the bird at some overused story tropes, and I also genuinely enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker, even as I acknowledge that it is a deeply-flawed film. Ironically enough I'll concede that it's possible that the rash of bad reviews actually helped temper my expectations and enabled me to enjoy the movie more than I otherwise would have.
J.J. Abrams dives right into the story from the opening title crawl: Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), believed dead since the end of Return of the Jedi 36 years ago, turns up alive and in command of a massive fleet of Star Destroyers. As a result, General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher...more on her later) must dispatch Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) to investigate reports of this return, and of a spy in the First Order willing to help the Resistance. Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) continues her Jedi training under Leia's tutelage, while over at the First Order, newly-crowned Supreme Leader Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo (Adam Driver) seeks to kill Palpatine, who poses a threat to his power. The one-time galactic emperor, however, offers Ren greater power than he has ever known before, all if he can kill Rey, the last Jedi. Ren, however, has other plans, and continues his plan to turn Rey over to the dark side, even as Rey, Poe and Finn learn that the only way to find the Emperor and his fleet is through a Sith wayfinder. Thus, the three of them must find the wayfinder before Palpatine unleashes the power of the Sith fleet on what remains of the Resistance.
This film had quite a bit to do: it had to cap off Disney's new sequel trilogy of Star Wars films and tack on a satisfactory ending to a saga that many people had already considered finished over three decades ago. Given the lack of a coherent overall story plan, the disparity of creative vision between creators, and the untimely death of one of the actors playing a pivotal role in this new saga, this was always going to be a tall order. In short, this film was never going to be on the level of Avengers: Endgame but to my mind, it was nowhere near the dumpster fire that a lot of mainstream critics are making it out to be. In fact, it managed to be quite enjoyable.
I suppose I'll never know if it was always Abrams' intent to bring back Emperor Palpatine or if his hand was forced by the events of The Last Jedi, in which Rian Johnson quite abruptly killed off Supreme Leader Snoke, the big bad guy Abrams had introduced. To be fair, though Abrams puts Palpatine to good use in one sense, even if he feels distinctly underused in others. By setting up the movie as a race against time and pitting the heroes against a definitive big bad guy other than Ben Solo, furthermore, Abrams also offers Kylo Ren, one of the richer characters of this new story, a path to redemption, and it was interesting to see where that went.
Unfortunately, in the name of wrapping everything up Abrams makes some creative choices that I dare not spoil, that don't completely undo the film, but which compromise it quite a bit. It's the kind of plot that won't hold up to scrutiny, even without something as convoluted as time travel gumming up the mix. Most likely aware of this, Abrams keeps things moving quite briskly and imbues the film with quite a bit of atmosphere to distract audiences from some of the film's fundamental shortcomings. I particularly liked a sequence in which the lead characters visited a planet with a haunting relic from the original trilogy.
I also liked the way Abrams revisited some of his "mystery box" threads from The Force Awakens, and paid them off in a way that, while arguably contradicting some of Rian Johnson's declarations in his film, were pretty skillfully written around them in such a way that the picture Johnson painted wasn't false, just incomplete. Suffice it to say that the issue of Rey's parentage is revisited, and quite satisfyingly resolved, to the extent that even my biggest problem with The Force Awakens has been laid to rest.
One thing Abrams could not write or shoot around, though, was Carrie Fisher's tragic death, which left him with eight minutes of cut footage from The Force Awakens with which to fulfill General Leia's preordained role as Rey's teacher in the Jedi arts. He tries mightily to make it work, but the execution comes across as goofy as hell, with ridiculous dialogue like "never underestimate a droid" and "try to be positive" being awkwardly shoehorned into conversations about the fate of the entire Resistance. I'll credit Abrams at least for not cursing his movie with a CGI simulacrum of Carrie Fisher, at least not for any substantial period of time, but the fact that he (and presumably producer Kathleen Kennedy) were adamant on this arc for Leia even after Fisher's death really works against this movie.
The living actors, however, do an incredible job of selling this movie, especially Driver (the breakout star of the entire franchise, in my opinion) and Ridley, whose Rey doesn't quite get the hero's journey she deserves, but faces more conflict in this film than in any other in the trilogy. Even when the script is basically struggling to maintain coherence and even logic, these thespians just solider on and ultimately elevate the material. If I'm honest, it's really hard to hate a movie with actors working this well. The climactic light saber fight we glimpsed in the trailer was appropriately intense and, to my mind, arguably one of the best of the entire 42-year-old franchise. The other two of the "big three" characters of the new trilogy are inevitably sidelined, though they do get some love from Abrams. Boyega's Finn gets a nice little mini story with another stormtrooper-turned-rebel (Naomi Ackie) who feels like a much better storytelling match for him than Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico given their shared history, while Isaac's Poe gets an awkward but entertaining side story with someone from his past as a smuggler, the helmeted Zorri Bliss (Abrams' frequent collaborator Keri Russell). There's even a little suggestion that Finn may be a bit of a Force wielder himself, but it's never a real payoff.
I'm sure I'll do a more comprehensive postmortem of the new trilogy someday (as will many, MANY other people) and I feel that this new series would have greatly benefited from a more coherent master plan, similar to what tied together the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I'm not of the persuasion that George Lucas would have done any better than the current crew as I am still of the opinion that the prequels were by and large terrible, but at least some kind of grand outline would have done the storytelling a power of good.
Ultimately, I submit that while this film is not the disaster many are making it out to be, even the diehard fans have to acknowledge that this is not the best sendoff such a beloved franchise as this could have gotten. Given that the Skywalker saga has gotten a bit long in the tooth, though, it's just as well that, one way or another, it has ended.
6.5/10
written by Chris Terrio, Abrams, Derek Connolly and Colin Trevorrow
I've noticed it's become quite fashionable among critics to thrash the so-called "final chapter of the Skywalker Saga" or Star Wars: Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker. While the film hasn't exactly achieved Batman v. Superman levels of infamy its score over on rottentomatoes.com is currently the worst of any Star Wars movie that has been released in the Disney era. Many writers have called it a regression, repudiating Rian Johnson's "bold choices" made in Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, while its defenders are happy to see a lot of the creative decisions of the last film chucked out the window, with at least one of the defenders promising that viewers who liked The Last Jedi will hate this movie.
Well, never one to be stuck in boxes, I have to respectfully disagree. I genuinely enjoyed The Last Jedi, both for its story and how it flipped the bird at some overused story tropes, and I also genuinely enjoyed The Rise of Skywalker, even as I acknowledge that it is a deeply-flawed film. Ironically enough I'll concede that it's possible that the rash of bad reviews actually helped temper my expectations and enabled me to enjoy the movie more than I otherwise would have.
J.J. Abrams dives right into the story from the opening title crawl: Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid), believed dead since the end of Return of the Jedi 36 years ago, turns up alive and in command of a massive fleet of Star Destroyers. As a result, General Leia Organa (the late Carrie Fisher...more on her later) must dispatch Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), Finn (John Boyega) and Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo) to investigate reports of this return, and of a spy in the First Order willing to help the Resistance. Meanwhile, Rey (Daisy Ridley) continues her Jedi training under Leia's tutelage, while over at the First Order, newly-crowned Supreme Leader Kylo Ren aka Ben Solo (Adam Driver) seeks to kill Palpatine, who poses a threat to his power. The one-time galactic emperor, however, offers Ren greater power than he has ever known before, all if he can kill Rey, the last Jedi. Ren, however, has other plans, and continues his plan to turn Rey over to the dark side, even as Rey, Poe and Finn learn that the only way to find the Emperor and his fleet is through a Sith wayfinder. Thus, the three of them must find the wayfinder before Palpatine unleashes the power of the Sith fleet on what remains of the Resistance.
This film had quite a bit to do: it had to cap off Disney's new sequel trilogy of Star Wars films and tack on a satisfactory ending to a saga that many people had already considered finished over three decades ago. Given the lack of a coherent overall story plan, the disparity of creative vision between creators, and the untimely death of one of the actors playing a pivotal role in this new saga, this was always going to be a tall order. In short, this film was never going to be on the level of Avengers: Endgame but to my mind, it was nowhere near the dumpster fire that a lot of mainstream critics are making it out to be. In fact, it managed to be quite enjoyable.
I suppose I'll never know if it was always Abrams' intent to bring back Emperor Palpatine or if his hand was forced by the events of The Last Jedi, in which Rian Johnson quite abruptly killed off Supreme Leader Snoke, the big bad guy Abrams had introduced. To be fair, though Abrams puts Palpatine to good use in one sense, even if he feels distinctly underused in others. By setting up the movie as a race against time and pitting the heroes against a definitive big bad guy other than Ben Solo, furthermore, Abrams also offers Kylo Ren, one of the richer characters of this new story, a path to redemption, and it was interesting to see where that went.
Unfortunately, in the name of wrapping everything up Abrams makes some creative choices that I dare not spoil, that don't completely undo the film, but which compromise it quite a bit. It's the kind of plot that won't hold up to scrutiny, even without something as convoluted as time travel gumming up the mix. Most likely aware of this, Abrams keeps things moving quite briskly and imbues the film with quite a bit of atmosphere to distract audiences from some of the film's fundamental shortcomings. I particularly liked a sequence in which the lead characters visited a planet with a haunting relic from the original trilogy.
I also liked the way Abrams revisited some of his "mystery box" threads from The Force Awakens, and paid them off in a way that, while arguably contradicting some of Rian Johnson's declarations in his film, were pretty skillfully written around them in such a way that the picture Johnson painted wasn't false, just incomplete. Suffice it to say that the issue of Rey's parentage is revisited, and quite satisfyingly resolved, to the extent that even my biggest problem with The Force Awakens has been laid to rest.
One thing Abrams could not write or shoot around, though, was Carrie Fisher's tragic death, which left him with eight minutes of cut footage from The Force Awakens with which to fulfill General Leia's preordained role as Rey's teacher in the Jedi arts. He tries mightily to make it work, but the execution comes across as goofy as hell, with ridiculous dialogue like "never underestimate a droid" and "try to be positive" being awkwardly shoehorned into conversations about the fate of the entire Resistance. I'll credit Abrams at least for not cursing his movie with a CGI simulacrum of Carrie Fisher, at least not for any substantial period of time, but the fact that he (and presumably producer Kathleen Kennedy) were adamant on this arc for Leia even after Fisher's death really works against this movie.
The living actors, however, do an incredible job of selling this movie, especially Driver (the breakout star of the entire franchise, in my opinion) and Ridley, whose Rey doesn't quite get the hero's journey she deserves, but faces more conflict in this film than in any other in the trilogy. Even when the script is basically struggling to maintain coherence and even logic, these thespians just solider on and ultimately elevate the material. If I'm honest, it's really hard to hate a movie with actors working this well. The climactic light saber fight we glimpsed in the trailer was appropriately intense and, to my mind, arguably one of the best of the entire 42-year-old franchise. The other two of the "big three" characters of the new trilogy are inevitably sidelined, though they do get some love from Abrams. Boyega's Finn gets a nice little mini story with another stormtrooper-turned-rebel (Naomi Ackie) who feels like a much better storytelling match for him than Kelly Marie Tran's Rose Tico given their shared history, while Isaac's Poe gets an awkward but entertaining side story with someone from his past as a smuggler, the helmeted Zorri Bliss (Abrams' frequent collaborator Keri Russell). There's even a little suggestion that Finn may be a bit of a Force wielder himself, but it's never a real payoff.
I'm sure I'll do a more comprehensive postmortem of the new trilogy someday (as will many, MANY other people) and I feel that this new series would have greatly benefited from a more coherent master plan, similar to what tied together the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I'm not of the persuasion that George Lucas would have done any better than the current crew as I am still of the opinion that the prequels were by and large terrible, but at least some kind of grand outline would have done the storytelling a power of good.
Ultimately, I submit that while this film is not the disaster many are making it out to be, even the diehard fans have to acknowledge that this is not the best sendoff such a beloved franchise as this could have gotten. Given that the Skywalker saga has gotten a bit long in the tooth, though, it's just as well that, one way or another, it has ended.
6.5/10
Triumphing Over Tarantino: A Review of "Parasite"
directed by Bong Joon Ho
written by Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han
Five years ago, I was introduced to the work of Bong Joon Ho through his English-language dystopian thriller Snowpiercer, which starred Avengers' Chris Evans in a decidedly different role from his turn as Captain America. I loved it, and even though I didn't get to watch his Netflix-produced follow-up, Okja, I considered myself a fan of Bong Joon Ho's work.
It would have been a shame, therefore, to miss his almost universally-acclaimed new film, Parasite, but I almost did, were it not for the fact that our local distributor saw fit to re-release it in view of all of the awards buzz it's been getting since crushing all opposition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, including Quentin Tarantino's grossly overrated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Parasite tells the story of the Kim family, composed of the father Kim Ki-Taek (frequent Bong Joon Ho collaborator Song Kang Ho), mother Kim Chung Sook (Hye-Jin Jang), son Kim Ki-Woo (Choi Woo Shik) and daughter Kim Ki-Jung (So-Dam Park), all of whom live on the edge of poverty in what is known as a "semi basement" taking odd jobs and barely having enough money to make ends meet. When Ki-Woo's friend drops in, though, with an opportunity to tutor Park Da Hye (Ji-so Jung), the daughter of telecommunications magnate Park Dong-ik (Sun Kyun-Lee), things start looking up. As Ki-Woo starts his new job, he meets Dong-ik's wife Park Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo) and is introduced to the family and world of opulence they inhabit, where he finds himself facing a world of possibility.
It's honestly hard to go into great detail about what makes this film so compelling without spoiling plot points; as Bong himself has said on talk shows, it's a movie best enjoyed "cold" or without any clue as to what takes place in it. That said, in broad strokes, I can definitely say that Bong's storytelling is even sharper here than it was in the tour de force that was Snowpiercer. The scripting is deliberate; almost every choice the characters make defines what happens next, and even though I felt there was one distinctly false note in the script, a moment in which the film felt plot-driven rather than character-driven as it had been up until that point, it was utterly entrancing to watch Bong weave his web.
Even in Snowpiercer I was struck by Bong's ability to extract the very best from his actors, and it is again the case here, especially with his muse Song Kang Ho as the family patriarch. His pathos as a middle-aged man who has spent pretty much his entire life in the same place informs the storytelling, juxtaposed clearly against the one-percenter smugness that Sun Kyun-Lee puts on display as Park Dong-ik. A recurring theme here is smell, and it's fascinating to see how the chasm between socio-economic classes is most effectively emphasized through something as basic as human senses. The other actors obviously play significant parts in how this story turns out but it's these two performances that give the film its center of gravity, and the movie is certainly all the better for it.
With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker now in theaters, Parasite is probably gone again from all but the most esoteric screens, but I sincerely hope that when Oscar buzz starts in a few weeks, this film is remembered, as one that should not only stand alongside blatant Oscar-bait like Tarantino's pointless, fetishistic love letter to 1960s Hollywood, but head and shoulders above it.
9/10
written by Bong Joon Ho and Jin Won Han
Five years ago, I was introduced to the work of Bong Joon Ho through his English-language dystopian thriller Snowpiercer, which starred Avengers' Chris Evans in a decidedly different role from his turn as Captain America. I loved it, and even though I didn't get to watch his Netflix-produced follow-up, Okja, I considered myself a fan of Bong Joon Ho's work.
It would have been a shame, therefore, to miss his almost universally-acclaimed new film, Parasite, but I almost did, were it not for the fact that our local distributor saw fit to re-release it in view of all of the awards buzz it's been getting since crushing all opposition at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, including Quentin Tarantino's grossly overrated Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Parasite tells the story of the Kim family, composed of the father Kim Ki-Taek (frequent Bong Joon Ho collaborator Song Kang Ho), mother Kim Chung Sook (Hye-Jin Jang), son Kim Ki-Woo (Choi Woo Shik) and daughter Kim Ki-Jung (So-Dam Park), all of whom live on the edge of poverty in what is known as a "semi basement" taking odd jobs and barely having enough money to make ends meet. When Ki-Woo's friend drops in, though, with an opportunity to tutor Park Da Hye (Ji-so Jung), the daughter of telecommunications magnate Park Dong-ik (Sun Kyun-Lee), things start looking up. As Ki-Woo starts his new job, he meets Dong-ik's wife Park Yeon-kyo (Yeo-jeong Jo) and is introduced to the family and world of opulence they inhabit, where he finds himself facing a world of possibility.
It's honestly hard to go into great detail about what makes this film so compelling without spoiling plot points; as Bong himself has said on talk shows, it's a movie best enjoyed "cold" or without any clue as to what takes place in it. That said, in broad strokes, I can definitely say that Bong's storytelling is even sharper here than it was in the tour de force that was Snowpiercer. The scripting is deliberate; almost every choice the characters make defines what happens next, and even though I felt there was one distinctly false note in the script, a moment in which the film felt plot-driven rather than character-driven as it had been up until that point, it was utterly entrancing to watch Bong weave his web.
Even in Snowpiercer I was struck by Bong's ability to extract the very best from his actors, and it is again the case here, especially with his muse Song Kang Ho as the family patriarch. His pathos as a middle-aged man who has spent pretty much his entire life in the same place informs the storytelling, juxtaposed clearly against the one-percenter smugness that Sun Kyun-Lee puts on display as Park Dong-ik. A recurring theme here is smell, and it's fascinating to see how the chasm between socio-economic classes is most effectively emphasized through something as basic as human senses. The other actors obviously play significant parts in how this story turns out but it's these two performances that give the film its center of gravity, and the movie is certainly all the better for it.
With Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker now in theaters, Parasite is probably gone again from all but the most esoteric screens, but I sincerely hope that when Oscar buzz starts in a few weeks, this film is remembered, as one that should not only stand alongside blatant Oscar-bait like Tarantino's pointless, fetishistic love letter to 1960s Hollywood, but head and shoulders above it.
9/10
Wednesday, December 18, 2019
"If It Ain't Broke...": A Review of Jumanji: The Next Level
directed by Jake Kasdan
written by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kasdan
About two years ago, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the action-comedy Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle or the sequel to the 1995 hit film starring Robin Williams, to which it bore only the remotest resemblance. Having loathed the older film in just about every respect, I gave that sequel, a relatively mediocre film, a pretty high grade all things considered, noting just how drastically it had improved on its predecessor. Audiences thought so, too, and the film very nearly grossed a billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
Two years later, I have sat through the obligatory sequel, and while I rolled my eyes a bit at the flimsy pretext for having the characters revisit this world, I will acknowledge that the filmmakers did a decent job following up, especially since they experimented a bit more with the original "body swapping" premise.
As anyone who's seen a trailer for this movie will know, Spencer (Alex Wolff), who spent majority of the last movie in the world of the video game Jumanji as Dwayne Johnson's perfect human specimen Smolder Bravestone, having gone off to college in New York, away from his friends, is miserable and lonely once again. Apparently the last time he truly felt alive was as Bravestone, and so, as he bunks with his visiting grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) Spencer hatches a plan to get back into the world of the game, which he has salvaged from the dumpster in which he and his friends put it and the end of the last movie, right after taking a baseball bat to it. When Spencer's friends Martha (Morgan Turner), Fridge (Ser'Darius Blaine) and Bethany (Madison Iseman) finally meet up at a local diner and Spencer doesn't show up, they deduce that something is up with him and go to his house, where they find his grandfather Eddie, who is the middle of an argument with his estranged friend and business partner Milo (Danny Glover) and discover that Spencer has gone back into Jumanji. Being the friends that they are, Martha, Fridge and Bethany decide to go in after him, but things do not at all turn out the way they expected. Of course, there's a quest to recover some artifact from some horrible-looking bad guy (Rory McCann), but the protagonists don't quite enter the game the same way they did last time.
Though the movie has been out for some time, and is about to lose a whole lot of screens to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and even though a lot of plot points were already spoiled in the trailers, I'll still leave some of the plot under wraps as there is some fun in discovering the movie. Suffice it to say that the original sequel's central joke about being bodily displaced is still very much front and center, and makes for some reasonably funny jokes, especially since Kasdan and his writers aren't afraid to mix things up a little bit. Some new elements are introduced, including a new video game character named Ming, played by comedienne Awkwafina and the visual effects are improved a bit, but plotwise, the film basically retreads the first sequel almost beat for beat. There's a nice bit of story between Eddie and Milo, but out of an apparent fear of bogging down the action with sentimentality the filmmakers don't really develop it a whole lot, opting to keep the film sprinting along to its inevitable and predictable conclusion.
I found the first sequel to be quite remarkable for having reinvented the wheel, improving on the first film to a degree I hadn't even imagined possible, but this film just basically plays it safe and gives audiences what the filmmakers think they want. It's hard to argue with 900++ million at the global box office, after all. It's a pleasant enough distraction, but they won't be getting any "most improved franchise" accolades from me this time around. Not that this'll stop Sony from laughing all the way to the bank.
6.5/10
written by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kasdan
About two years ago, I found myself pleasantly surprised by the action-comedy Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle or the sequel to the 1995 hit film starring Robin Williams, to which it bore only the remotest resemblance. Having loathed the older film in just about every respect, I gave that sequel, a relatively mediocre film, a pretty high grade all things considered, noting just how drastically it had improved on its predecessor. Audiences thought so, too, and the film very nearly grossed a billion dollars at the worldwide box office.
Two years later, I have sat through the obligatory sequel, and while I rolled my eyes a bit at the flimsy pretext for having the characters revisit this world, I will acknowledge that the filmmakers did a decent job following up, especially since they experimented a bit more with the original "body swapping" premise.
As anyone who's seen a trailer for this movie will know, Spencer (Alex Wolff), who spent majority of the last movie in the world of the video game Jumanji as Dwayne Johnson's perfect human specimen Smolder Bravestone, having gone off to college in New York, away from his friends, is miserable and lonely once again. Apparently the last time he truly felt alive was as Bravestone, and so, as he bunks with his visiting grandfather Eddie (Danny DeVito) Spencer hatches a plan to get back into the world of the game, which he has salvaged from the dumpster in which he and his friends put it and the end of the last movie, right after taking a baseball bat to it. When Spencer's friends Martha (Morgan Turner), Fridge (Ser'Darius Blaine) and Bethany (Madison Iseman) finally meet up at a local diner and Spencer doesn't show up, they deduce that something is up with him and go to his house, where they find his grandfather Eddie, who is the middle of an argument with his estranged friend and business partner Milo (Danny Glover) and discover that Spencer has gone back into Jumanji. Being the friends that they are, Martha, Fridge and Bethany decide to go in after him, but things do not at all turn out the way they expected. Of course, there's a quest to recover some artifact from some horrible-looking bad guy (Rory McCann), but the protagonists don't quite enter the game the same way they did last time.
Though the movie has been out for some time, and is about to lose a whole lot of screens to Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and even though a lot of plot points were already spoiled in the trailers, I'll still leave some of the plot under wraps as there is some fun in discovering the movie. Suffice it to say that the original sequel's central joke about being bodily displaced is still very much front and center, and makes for some reasonably funny jokes, especially since Kasdan and his writers aren't afraid to mix things up a little bit. Some new elements are introduced, including a new video game character named Ming, played by comedienne Awkwafina and the visual effects are improved a bit, but plotwise, the film basically retreads the first sequel almost beat for beat. There's a nice bit of story between Eddie and Milo, but out of an apparent fear of bogging down the action with sentimentality the filmmakers don't really develop it a whole lot, opting to keep the film sprinting along to its inevitable and predictable conclusion.
I found the first sequel to be quite remarkable for having reinvented the wheel, improving on the first film to a degree I hadn't even imagined possible, but this film just basically plays it safe and gives audiences what the filmmakers think they want. It's hard to argue with 900++ million at the global box office, after all. It's a pleasant enough distraction, but they won't be getting any "most improved franchise" accolades from me this time around. Not that this'll stop Sony from laughing all the way to the bank.
6.5/10
Wednesday, December 4, 2019
A Whodunit for Trump's America: A Review of Knives Out
written and directed by Rian Johnson
How does one follow up the most divisive Star Wars movie ever made? Apparently by eschewing film franchises altogether and instead revisiting a virtually forgotten but nonetheless engaging film genre: the murder mystery, albeit with a slightly modern twist. Thus has Rian Johnson made his return to the big screen, with Knives Out, an ambitious, engrossing film that can't completely avoid some cliches of the genre, but still manages to entertain considerably.
The film begins in the manor of mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), with Thrombey's housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) going upstairs to serve him breakfast, only to find him dead, with his throat slit. After his funeral, an investigation into the death, initially believed to be a suicide, begins, fronted by police investigator Elliott (Lakeith Stanfield), abetted by state trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) and quietly observed by private investigator Blanc (Daniel Craig). Given the considerable fortune Thrombey has left behind, just about all of his surviving family members are suspects, starting with his daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), her husband Richard (Don Johnson), their son Ransom (Chris Evans), her brother Walt (Michael Shannon), and her sister-in-law Joni (Toni Colette). All of them have something or other to gain from Harlan's demise. Another key player in the sordid saga is Thrombey's caregiver Marta (Ana de Armas), a registered nurse originally hailing from a Latin American country nobody in the Thrombey family seems to remember, who has her own dark secret. The question on everyone's mind, then, is who killed Harlan Thrombey?
It's hard to navigate through a review of a murder mystery movie without risking spoiling plot points by mentioning even the most casual details, so I'll keep this short.
I've never been a big fan of whodunits, though I have seen enough of them and read enough Sherlock Holmes books to know that the genre has been around long enough for several tropes to form, and to Johnson's credit he dodges most of them. Even when he doesn't, though he renders his narrative with such flourish that it's still hard to fault him. Freed from the constraints of franchise filmmaking, Johnson presents a taut narrative into which his advocacy is quite skillfully woven. The film is less a murder mystery, in a sense, and more a fable about entitlement and bigotry. Conversations like real world politics may have been too much for Star Wars fans to bear, but they belong right at home here, and the film doesn't suffer for it one bit.
Although discussing the story is pretty much off-limits, I would like to share how I felt about the acting, which is really front and center here. It was hugely entertaining to see veteran actors like Jamie Lee Curtis and Don Johnson just chew up the screen, just as it was a lot of fun to see stars of franchise films like Daniel Craig and Chris Evans in such a vastly different film from the visual spectacles that basically made them famous. Craig, one of the central characters, goes for broke with his Southern drawl in a role that is decidedly NOT James Bond, while Evans, who has significantly less screen time, retools his cocky Johnny Storm routine from the Fantastic Four movies, and quite effectively so. Christopher Plummer is always a delight to watch, though he doesn't particularly flex any acting muscles here, while Toni Collette, as his widowed daughter-in-law Joni basically just annoys, though given that this was how her character was written, I suppose that's mission accomplished. Ana de Armas, whom I found quite beguiling as Ryan Gosling's digital waifu in Blade Runner 2049 acquits herself well, though I'll admit I liked her better in Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sci-fi sequel. For me, though, the real standout was one-time General Zod Michael Shannon, who trades in his superpowers for a cane and manages a voice that's an least an octave higher than his normal one, and basically transforms himself into the weaselly Walt. The rest of the cast, including Lakeith Stanfield, who made his short role as a lobotomized vessel for a geriatric white person's brain in Get Out quite memorable, round out the film nicely with solid, if not necessarily splashy performances.
Knives Out is a genuinely good time at the movies, and it's gratifying to see it succeed at the box-office as cannily-timed adult counter-programming to the gargantuan family movie Frozen II. With its characters, twists and turns and emotional roller coaster, it's a movie that deserves both the accolades and the returns it's currently getting, even as it adds to the growing list of films that continue to prove that Martin Scorsese is full of shit for asserting that franchise films are killing "real" cinema.
8.5/10
How does one follow up the most divisive Star Wars movie ever made? Apparently by eschewing film franchises altogether and instead revisiting a virtually forgotten but nonetheless engaging film genre: the murder mystery, albeit with a slightly modern twist. Thus has Rian Johnson made his return to the big screen, with Knives Out, an ambitious, engrossing film that can't completely avoid some cliches of the genre, but still manages to entertain considerably.
The film begins in the manor of mystery novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer), with Thrombey's housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) going upstairs to serve him breakfast, only to find him dead, with his throat slit. After his funeral, an investigation into the death, initially believed to be a suicide, begins, fronted by police investigator Elliott (Lakeith Stanfield), abetted by state trooper Wagner (Noah Segan) and quietly observed by private investigator Blanc (Daniel Craig). Given the considerable fortune Thrombey has left behind, just about all of his surviving family members are suspects, starting with his daughter Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), her husband Richard (Don Johnson), their son Ransom (Chris Evans), her brother Walt (Michael Shannon), and her sister-in-law Joni (Toni Colette). All of them have something or other to gain from Harlan's demise. Another key player in the sordid saga is Thrombey's caregiver Marta (Ana de Armas), a registered nurse originally hailing from a Latin American country nobody in the Thrombey family seems to remember, who has her own dark secret. The question on everyone's mind, then, is who killed Harlan Thrombey?
It's hard to navigate through a review of a murder mystery movie without risking spoiling plot points by mentioning even the most casual details, so I'll keep this short.
I've never been a big fan of whodunits, though I have seen enough of them and read enough Sherlock Holmes books to know that the genre has been around long enough for several tropes to form, and to Johnson's credit he dodges most of them. Even when he doesn't, though he renders his narrative with such flourish that it's still hard to fault him. Freed from the constraints of franchise filmmaking, Johnson presents a taut narrative into which his advocacy is quite skillfully woven. The film is less a murder mystery, in a sense, and more a fable about entitlement and bigotry. Conversations like real world politics may have been too much for Star Wars fans to bear, but they belong right at home here, and the film doesn't suffer for it one bit.
Although discussing the story is pretty much off-limits, I would like to share how I felt about the acting, which is really front and center here. It was hugely entertaining to see veteran actors like Jamie Lee Curtis and Don Johnson just chew up the screen, just as it was a lot of fun to see stars of franchise films like Daniel Craig and Chris Evans in such a vastly different film from the visual spectacles that basically made them famous. Craig, one of the central characters, goes for broke with his Southern drawl in a role that is decidedly NOT James Bond, while Evans, who has significantly less screen time, retools his cocky Johnny Storm routine from the Fantastic Four movies, and quite effectively so. Christopher Plummer is always a delight to watch, though he doesn't particularly flex any acting muscles here, while Toni Collette, as his widowed daughter-in-law Joni basically just annoys, though given that this was how her character was written, I suppose that's mission accomplished. Ana de Armas, whom I found quite beguiling as Ryan Gosling's digital waifu in Blade Runner 2049 acquits herself well, though I'll admit I liked her better in Denis Villeneuve's 2017 sci-fi sequel. For me, though, the real standout was one-time General Zod Michael Shannon, who trades in his superpowers for a cane and manages a voice that's an least an octave higher than his normal one, and basically transforms himself into the weaselly Walt. The rest of the cast, including Lakeith Stanfield, who made his short role as a lobotomized vessel for a geriatric white person's brain in Get Out quite memorable, round out the film nicely with solid, if not necessarily splashy performances.
Knives Out is a genuinely good time at the movies, and it's gratifying to see it succeed at the box-office as cannily-timed adult counter-programming to the gargantuan family movie Frozen II. With its characters, twists and turns and emotional roller coaster, it's a movie that deserves both the accolades and the returns it's currently getting, even as it adds to the growing list of films that continue to prove that Martin Scorsese is full of shit for asserting that franchise films are killing "real" cinema.
8.5/10
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
The Parent Trap: A Review of Frozen II (Mild Spoilers)
directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck
written by Marc Smith, Bob Lopez, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Lee and Buck
When Walt Disney Animation Studios released Frozen back in 2013 it was truly a breath of fresh air, with its dazzling animation and its empowering storytelling, punctuated by the song that eventual became an anthem for girl power all around the world, "Let It Go." It demolished the age-old trope (the propagation of which Disney actually abetted for some time) that a princess needed a man to somehow validate her existence in the world and inspired little girls everywhere. With over a billion dollars in the bank, a sequel was all but assured, and the only surprise is that it's taken Disney over six years for to make it.
As much as I'd like to say that the sequel followed through on the winning magic of the first film, I really...can't.
First, let's get the story out of the way.
In a flashback (which is, itself a frequent trope used to justify a sequel), young princesses Elsa (Mattea Conforti) and Anna (Hadley Gannaway) listen to a bedtime story from their father King Agnarr (Alfred Molina) who tells them of an enchanted forest far to the north of Arendelle one which he visited in his boyhood alongside his father King Runeard (Jeremy Sisto) when they presented the people of the north, the (sigh) Northuldra tribe with the gift of a great dam. A conflict broke out for no apparent reason, and Agnarr was whisked away by an unknown savior back to Arendelle, where he was crowned king, with his father having been lost in the conflict, and with the spirits of the forest now barring entry to it.
Years later, Queen Elsa (Adela Daz--err--Idina Menzel) starts hearing a voice that calls her from what she is sure is the forest up north, and grows restless. It's been a few years since she was crowned queen and came to terms with her powers, and things are looking well for her and her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) whose beau, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) is working up the courage to propose marriage to her, and their enchanted snowman friend Olaf (Josh Gad) who, as before, is just happy to be alive. After Elsa tries her best to shut the voice out, but when mysterious magic causes things in Arendelle to go terribly awry, from the lamplights flickering out to the very ground starts shaking uncontrollably, Elsa realizes there is a connection between what is happening and what she is hearing, and she sets out immediately, with Anna, Olaf, Kristoff (and his reindeer Sven) in tow, to learn the truth behind these mysterious events.
Okay, I will now flirt with spoilers.
From the time that Disney Animation was revitalized back in 2010 with Tangled, almost all of its releases have had a very specific plot structure, dating back to 2012's Wreck-It-Ralph, which regularly involves a twist regarding the villain of the story. Of all the times it's been done, in my opinion it only really worked in 2016's Zootopia. Without going into specifics, Disney employs the same technique again here, and it makes for really clunky storytelling. The thing is, movies can survive clumsy twists (e.g. Iron Man) when they have something else going for them, but given that this film has basically no meaningful character development at all, and is essentially just plot-driven, it's hard to not notice how badly structured the story is, and how it telegraphs its intentions far, far too early. The whole problem with mystery-box storytelling is that it has to hit hard with its payoff, and when the payoff is as predictable as it was here, the entire point of the mystery set up is defeated. It irks even more that it took Disney SIX YEARS to get this movie off the ground, and this was apparently the very best their brain trust could come up with.
I get that this movie is for kids, but to cite Disney's very own work, so was Zootopia, and that worked on a number of levels, particularly in terms of the lead characters' personal journeys. The writing here, in contrast, feels woefully cut-and-paste. The difference between a film like this and Zootopia is not unlike the difference between a thoroughly thought-out Marvel pic like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and copy-paste efforts like Doctor Strange, which basically rehashed Iron Man's plot. In short, the "it wasn't made for you" argument is just plain lazy; parents are the ones who have to pay for their kids' tickets, so we're within our rights to expect a plot that isn't completely by-the-numbers. Unfortunately, in their slavish adherence to their new "twist" formula, Disney couldn't be bothered to give us that.
Fortunately, though, as compensation for the lackluster writing, they gave us Gen-Xers a catchy soundtrack, particularly a show-stopping, 80s-inspired love ballad right smack in the middle of the second act called "Lost in the Woods" sung by Jonathan Groff's Kristoff which evokes Queen, Air Supply and Peter Cetera all at the same time. It kind of upended the entire tone of the movie at that point, but I pretty much didn't care; it was disarming and charming and hilarious all at the same time. But the song ended, and I still hadn't forgotten that the story was simply not well-written.
Of course, for additional incentive there's the animation, which is basically beyond reproach at this point. Since getting their shot in the arm when John Lasseter and Ed Catmull took over Disney Animation years ago Disney has basically gone from strength to strength, pretty much matching Pixar in terms of craft, and standing pretty much head and shoulders above anyone else. So it's never in issue that the picture looks absolutely gorgeous.
Of course, whatever I may think of it, the movie is currently fulfilling its purpose of making a ton of money, so another sequel is a foregone conclusion at this point. I just hope that next time they put as much thought into writing their story as they do into their animation and their writing of 80's-inspired songs.
6/10
written by Marc Smith, Bob Lopez, Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Lee and Buck
When Walt Disney Animation Studios released Frozen back in 2013 it was truly a breath of fresh air, with its dazzling animation and its empowering storytelling, punctuated by the song that eventual became an anthem for girl power all around the world, "Let It Go." It demolished the age-old trope (the propagation of which Disney actually abetted for some time) that a princess needed a man to somehow validate her existence in the world and inspired little girls everywhere. With over a billion dollars in the bank, a sequel was all but assured, and the only surprise is that it's taken Disney over six years for to make it.
As much as I'd like to say that the sequel followed through on the winning magic of the first film, I really...can't.
First, let's get the story out of the way.
In a flashback (which is, itself a frequent trope used to justify a sequel), young princesses Elsa (Mattea Conforti) and Anna (Hadley Gannaway) listen to a bedtime story from their father King Agnarr (Alfred Molina) who tells them of an enchanted forest far to the north of Arendelle one which he visited in his boyhood alongside his father King Runeard (Jeremy Sisto) when they presented the people of the north, the (sigh) Northuldra tribe with the gift of a great dam. A conflict broke out for no apparent reason, and Agnarr was whisked away by an unknown savior back to Arendelle, where he was crowned king, with his father having been lost in the conflict, and with the spirits of the forest now barring entry to it.
Years later, Queen Elsa (Adela Daz--err--Idina Menzel) starts hearing a voice that calls her from what she is sure is the forest up north, and grows restless. It's been a few years since she was crowned queen and came to terms with her powers, and things are looking well for her and her sister Anna (Kristen Bell) whose beau, Kristoff (Jonathan Groff) is working up the courage to propose marriage to her, and their enchanted snowman friend Olaf (Josh Gad) who, as before, is just happy to be alive. After Elsa tries her best to shut the voice out, but when mysterious magic causes things in Arendelle to go terribly awry, from the lamplights flickering out to the very ground starts shaking uncontrollably, Elsa realizes there is a connection between what is happening and what she is hearing, and she sets out immediately, with Anna, Olaf, Kristoff (and his reindeer Sven) in tow, to learn the truth behind these mysterious events.
Okay, I will now flirt with spoilers.
From the time that Disney Animation was revitalized back in 2010 with Tangled, almost all of its releases have had a very specific plot structure, dating back to 2012's Wreck-It-Ralph, which regularly involves a twist regarding the villain of the story. Of all the times it's been done, in my opinion it only really worked in 2016's Zootopia. Without going into specifics, Disney employs the same technique again here, and it makes for really clunky storytelling. The thing is, movies can survive clumsy twists (e.g. Iron Man) when they have something else going for them, but given that this film has basically no meaningful character development at all, and is essentially just plot-driven, it's hard to not notice how badly structured the story is, and how it telegraphs its intentions far, far too early. The whole problem with mystery-box storytelling is that it has to hit hard with its payoff, and when the payoff is as predictable as it was here, the entire point of the mystery set up is defeated. It irks even more that it took Disney SIX YEARS to get this movie off the ground, and this was apparently the very best their brain trust could come up with.
I get that this movie is for kids, but to cite Disney's very own work, so was Zootopia, and that worked on a number of levels, particularly in terms of the lead characters' personal journeys. The writing here, in contrast, feels woefully cut-and-paste. The difference between a film like this and Zootopia is not unlike the difference between a thoroughly thought-out Marvel pic like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and copy-paste efforts like Doctor Strange, which basically rehashed Iron Man's plot. In short, the "it wasn't made for you" argument is just plain lazy; parents are the ones who have to pay for their kids' tickets, so we're within our rights to expect a plot that isn't completely by-the-numbers. Unfortunately, in their slavish adherence to their new "twist" formula, Disney couldn't be bothered to give us that.
Fortunately, though, as compensation for the lackluster writing, they gave us Gen-Xers a catchy soundtrack, particularly a show-stopping, 80s-inspired love ballad right smack in the middle of the second act called "Lost in the Woods" sung by Jonathan Groff's Kristoff which evokes Queen, Air Supply and Peter Cetera all at the same time. It kind of upended the entire tone of the movie at that point, but I pretty much didn't care; it was disarming and charming and hilarious all at the same time. But the song ended, and I still hadn't forgotten that the story was simply not well-written.
Of course, for additional incentive there's the animation, which is basically beyond reproach at this point. Since getting their shot in the arm when John Lasseter and Ed Catmull took over Disney Animation years ago Disney has basically gone from strength to strength, pretty much matching Pixar in terms of craft, and standing pretty much head and shoulders above anyone else. So it's never in issue that the picture looks absolutely gorgeous.
Of course, whatever I may think of it, the movie is currently fulfilling its purpose of making a ton of money, so another sequel is a foregone conclusion at this point. I just hope that next time they put as much thought into writing their story as they do into their animation and their writing of 80's-inspired songs.
6/10
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