The Master Returns: A Review of The Boy and the Heron

written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki

It feels strange to say this considering my family and I own on DVD nearly every film ever directed by legendary director Hayao Miyazaki, but The Boy and the Heron was the very first Miyazaki movie any of us had ever seen in movie theaters.  Better late than never, though.  The guy is an anime legend, and I am grateful to have seen at least one of his wonderful films where it was meant to be seen: on the big screen.   Coming into this film, I was actually a little worried; Miyazaki's most recent film prior to this, 2013 The Wind Rises, had lost a lot of his charm, but even though The Boy and the Heron isn't quite on the level of Miyazaki's very best, it is at least a very welcome return to form for him.

The story actually starts out on a grim note, with the protagonist, teenage boy Mahito Maki (Soma Santoki) losing his mother to a fire as the Allied Forces bomb Japan in the middle of World War II.  Following the chaos, Mahito and his dad Shoichi (Takuya Kimura) move out to the countryside, Mahito meets his father's new wife Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura) who also happens to be his mother's younger sister. As Mahito grapples with his grief and loss out in the countryside, he receives a most unexpected visitor: a talking gray heron (Masaki Suda), who leads Mahito into a magical, mysterious world where he learns a lot of things he didn't know about life and death, including certain truths about his mother.

This film is reportedly rather personal to Miyazaki; he grew up in post-World-War II Japan and like Mahito, he, too, lost his mother, though much later in life, and to disease and not a fire.  This tinges the whimsy with a gentle melancholy. As a result, even though Miyazaki's usual commentaries about greed or the military-industrial complex are absent from this film, there's still a weight to it that makes it feel compelling in its own right.  By anchoring its narrative on the kind of pain that only the death of a loved one can induce, the film introduces audiences to a Miyazaki protagonist unlike any we've ever seen before. Miyazaki's last protagonist, airplane designer Jiro Hirokoshi, was notably unsympathetic as a character because of how he put his love for aviation over everything, even his own humanity. Fortunately, Miyazaki goes in completely the opposite direction with the youthful Mahito, who bears a very human emotional burden all throughout the story.   

I'll admit the film sometimes feels unwieldy because of the wildly different tones it must juggle, but Mahito's heartache lends the story real gravitas, and imbues the striking images with a weight and soul they wouldn't otherwise have. The whimsical world Mahito visits, after all, is the Land of the Dead.

Miyazaki's visual signature permeates the film, which is what makes the fantastical elements pop all the more. It was a striking choice to start the film with the violence of the blaze that killed Mahito's mother, but as the fire recurs throughout the film in flashbacks, it helps lend the film its distinct visual identity, as do Miyazaki's flourishes like a multitude of cute characters, namely the Warawara, who evoke the Soot Sprites from My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. Miyazaki's longtime composer Joe Hisaishi contributes a suitably emotional score, if not a particularly striking one.

It really was gratifying to finally see a Miyazaki movie in theaters. Given that the man is 80 years old I don't imagine I'll get to see a whole lot more, which makes this even more of a privilege. Though I may not consider this his best work, if I only ever watched one Miyazaki movie in theaters, I could have done a lot worse than this one.

8.5/10

Everyone Must See This: A Review of GomBurZa

 directed by Pepe Diokno

written by Rody Vera, Pepe Diokno, Ian Victoriano

Prior to watching this, I had not set foot in a movie theater since August, to watch Sony Pictures video game adaptation Gran Turismo.  To put it simply, I had simply given up on movies. Having consumed a pretty steady diet of franchise films over the last several years, I had found myself increasingly worn down by the endless stream of sequels, remakes and reboots, even of film series that I enjoyed, and although there was the occasional original gem like Everything, Everywhere, All at Once to keep me going to the theaters, the expense of going to see a movie as well as the lure of sitting at home and streaming decent movies onto my television became too hard to resist.

And then, like a breath of fresh air came the historical drama GomBurZa, a film based on the events that led to and culminated in the martyrdom of three Filipino Catholic priests, which in turn provided the spark for the Philippine Revolution of 1896.

The story begins when the Spanish friars belonging to the Order of the Recoletos move to take control over several parishes being run by secular priests, men of the cloth born in the Philippines to Spanish fathers and native mothers, whom the "pure-blooded" Spanish friars regard with disdain.  The film begins with secular priests Mariano Gomez (Dante Rivero) and Pedro Pelaez (Piolo Pascual, in a substantial supporting role) and seminarian Jose Burgos (Cedric Juan) discussing this alarming development over breakfast. Pelaez and Gomez have long been advocates for equal treatment for friars and secular priests, and Pelaez in particular, the direct mentor of the young Burgos, makes his thoughts known in the local newspaper, much to the fury of the friars. 

Then, disaster strikes, and the newly-ordained Burgos finds himself without a mentor. Keenly aware of the ever-encroaching influence of the friars and of the discrimination he faces as a half-Spanish secular priest, Burgos finally writes his own manifesto and submits it to the newspapers, albeit anonymously, in which he passionately advocates for the rights and the better treatment of the secular priests born in the islands to mixed parentage, whom he dubs "Filipinos."   

Little does Burgos realize that his lone manifesto sets off a seismic chain of events, sparking the flame of resistance among the young men he teaches law at the University of Santo Tomas, and even among a posse of gentlemen who, like him, are of mixed parentage, and who are tired of the power-hungry friars.  They even adopt the term "Filipino." Things seem to look better when a supposedly liberal Governor General Carlos Maria de la Torre assumes leadership of the Philippines Islands. 

But when De la Torre is replaced with the draconian Rafael de Izquierdo, things take a truly dark turn when a series of draconian policies he imposes spark a mutiny among soldiers based in Cavite, the blame for which is inexplicably placed on Burgos, Fr. Gomez, and compulsive gambler Fr. Jacinto Zamora (Enchong Dee) who had nothing to do with Burgos' progressive leanings but who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Anyone with even a passing knowledge of Philippine colonial history knows how this particular story played out, but Diokno, his cast and crew have done a remarkable job of making this story accessible to the uninitiated almost purely through dialogue. His eye for atmosphere is astonishing; it really does feel like we're witnessing something happening in the 19th century, and he extracts such stunning performances from his actors that even my two young daughters raised  on a steady diet of franchise movies found themselves thoroughly engaged in the narrative.  Remarkably, however, the film never talks down to its audience, which is a temptation that a lot of historical dramas bearing messages are unable to resist.

Cedric Juan, in particular is simply riveting as Padre Burgos. He delivers dialogue in three different languages: Tagalog, Spanish and even Latin, and though I'm hardly an expert in the latter two I dare say he delivered his lines with utmost conviction and credibility. The supporting cast delivered similarly compelling performances but it was Juan who truly stood out.

The overall production value was outstanding as well. I'd like to give special mention to the musical score by Teresa Barrozo and the gut-wrenching sound design by Albert Michael Idioma, Louie Cadag and Melvin Rivera.

This film brought me back to a time when the Metro Manila Film Festival was something to look forward to, a time when Filipino movie producers put their very best work on display at a time when they would have movie theaters all to themselves for two weeks.  In the late 90s the MMFF featured memorable films like Jose Rizal and Muro Ami, among others, and so I'm glad this year's edition seems to have brought back the tradition of featuring quality films and not just box-office fodder.

10/10

This is How You Sell a Video Game: A Review of Gran Turismo: Based on a True Story

directed by Neill Blomkamp

written by Jason Hall, Alex Tse and Zach Baylin

On paper, the idea of adapting the Sony Playstation game Gran Turismo into a feature film is downright ridiculous. Unlike a huge percentage of Sony's game catalog, Gran Turismo, a driving simulator by nature, does not have any story elements whatsoever. Fortunately for Sony, though, they had an ace-in-the-hole that enabled them to crack this particular nut: the incredible true story of Jann Mardenborough, a kid from Cardiff, Wales, who won their GT Academy contest and actually went from being a gamer to an honest-to-goodness race car driver. Jann's story is very loosely adapted in this film by director Neill Blomkamp of District 9 fame. 

In the film Gran Turismo (Based on a True Story) Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), an expert player of the Gran Turismo game, lands a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity when he gets to join the GT Academy, an elaborate marketing stunt dreamed up by Nissan marketing exec Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) to boost the sales of Nissan's cars. The idea is to recruit the world's best Gran Turismo players and turn one of them into a real racecar driver. Of course, the idea is insanely dangerous, and so Danny has recruited one-time racing prodigy Jack Salter (David Harbour) to oversee the training of these hopefuls, who hail from all over the world. Jann joins the contest over the objections of his father Steve (Djimon Hounsou) a former football player who thinks the whole endeavor is a waste of time, but Jann is determined to pursue his dream of becoming a racecar driver...no matter the risks.

Last year, I watched the adaptation of Uncharted starring Tom Holland and Mark Wahlberg and basically hated it.  It was an Uncharted film in pretty much name only, retaining none of the charm of any of the four games on which it was based, and quite frankly, didn't do the game any favors. 

In contrast, this film, which is more a sports movie than an adaptation of the game which, as I mentioned, doesn't have any story to adapt, trots out nearly every cliche imaginable in sports movies, especially underdog stories, but my goodness, it works.

Thanks to a winning cast led by David Harbour and relative newcomer Archie Madekwe, who share fantastic chemistry as mentor and student, and some eye-popping racing sequences which make very creative use of drones and cameras mounted on really fast cars, Gran Turismo manages to be a wild ride from nearly start to finish.  It admittedly takes a little while to get off the ground, but when it starts, the action doesn't stop. 

Ironically enough, for a film based on a computer game, it makes minimal use of computer-generated imagery for its racing sequences, save for some pretty interesting visuals showing a car "assemble" around Jann as he drives in his game.  The car racing scenes here are, I daresay, on par with the racing scenes from acclaimed motorsport-themed movies like Ron Howard's Rush or James Mangold's Ford v. Ferrari, in terms of camerawork, cinematography, sound-editing and just overall craft. They are genuinely spectacular and are, I would argue, the film's main draw.

A criticism often levelled at the film is that it is a plug for the game, and while I wholeheartedly agree that it is a plug, I don't consider this a bad point.  It absolutely is a plug for the game, because  that's the whole point of its existence. That is the whole point of the studio's existence, in fact: to get more people to buy the games.  The filmmakers aren't chasing after Oscars or making deep commentary on the human condition; they're basically just making entertaining romps designed to whet people's appetite for video games and this film, in my opinion, fulfills its purpose. 

I just consider myself lucky, as a viewer and a gamer, that I got a decent story and some pretty memorable action sequences in the bargain.

8/10 

Loads of Pink Fun: A Review of Barbie

 directed by Greta Gerwig

written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

It took me a while to catch the biggest live-action movie of 2023 in theaters, but as a father of three daughters, all of whom own or have owned Barbie dolls, I was not about to skip this one.  Fortunately, it was worth the trip, and the price of admission.

Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives the perfect life in Barbieland along with many other Barbies, who basically run the place, and the Kens who live there but don't really do anything but hang out at the beach.  Foremost among the Kens is the one played by Ryan Gosling, who basically lives for Barbie's affirmation, even though she barely even acknowledges his presence. 

Then, rather abruptly, Barbie's perfect existence is disrupted when strange things start happening to her; she starts thinking about death, her perpetually tiptoed feet are suddenly flat, and she finds that she has (gasp) cellulite. On the advice of the other Barbies, she pays a visit to weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) who lives on the edge of Barbieland. Weird Barbie tells Stereotypical Barbie that the reason she's experiencing these things is that the person playing with her in the real world is undergoing these experiences and advises Stereotypical Barbie to go to the Real World and work things out with her "player." Stereotypical Barbie makes the trip to what turns out to be Los Angeles, only to discover that Ken has stowed away. 

What greets Barbie and Ken as they arrive in a real world is an experience that will change both their lives forever.

I had a good time with this one, I have to say.

This movie is, in my opinion, neither the masterpiece its most ardent fans proclaim it to be nor is it the apocalyptic disaster that right-wing haters decry it to be. It isn't "mid" either but a genuinely enjoyable, funny time at the theaters. I enjoyed the visuals, Margot Robbie's and Ryan Gosling's acting, and even the performances of the peripheral characters like Ariana Greenblatt's rebellious teenager, Kate McKinnon as Weird Barbie and Simu Liu as a "rival" Ken.  Gosling, for me, was the absolute star of the show with his comedic chops on full display as well as his show-stopping musical number, which, notably, only he had.  

I honestly didn't give too much thought to the supposed "woke" or feminist subtext because if I'm honest I don't feel the movie took itself nearly as seriously as its most rabid critics claim. I can write a whole other post about why those on the right are being complete idiots about this film (and probably will).  

That said, it does have its faults. For example, co-writer Noah Baumbach stinks up the dialogue every now and then with his pretentious, verbose dialogue, such as when Barbie, out of nowhere, spouts  out some self-aware quip with words whipped out of a thesaurus. It was funny enough as a joke one time, but it happens two or three times in the film.   I found it mildly annoying.

The real crime for me, though, was how the filmmakers cast Will Ferrell but barely gave him anything to do. We're talking about a generation's funnyman, but he barely has anything funny to say or do. They could have easily cast anyone else in the role and it wouldn't have made any difference.

All told, though, I had a lot of fun watching the movie and was glad to have had some quality father-daughter time with my girls.   

8/10

All Too Familiar: A Review of Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part I

 directed by Christopher McQuarrie

written by Christopher McQuarrie and Erik Jendersen

Tom Cruise is a wizard.

Around December 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a story that went around the entertainment press about the troubles facing the production of Mission: Impossible 7 which was taking place in London at the time.  The trouble was that members of the crew had been caught violating the ultra-strict COVID-19 safety protocols and as a result, star and producer Tom Cruise, still in costume, went ballistic on the crew in an expletive-laden rant. There was  a picture of him, dressed in character, wearing a mask, holding a megaphone and looking very much like the man in charge he was. That story dominated the conversation about this movie for years until the marketing began in earnest, and all they could talk about was the stunt of Tom Cruise jumping off a cliff with a motorbike. 

And now, the movie came out after literally years of people talking about its production...and it's...okay.

After a lengthy prologue in which a Soviet submarine is sunk by its very own targeting system, which is operated by an Artificial Intelligence, the Impossible Mission Force contacts Ethan Hunt (Cruise) with a mission: recover a cruciform key to unlocking the very A.I. that sunk the Soviet submarine. It is an extremely potent AI, capable of basically taking over the world, so naturally ever other government in the world wants its hands on that key, as does the AI itself. Knowing what it does, which is apparently nearly everything, the AI also has another ace up its sleeve; it has engaged the services of Gabriel (Esai Morales) a highly effective assassin with a bit of history with Hunt; he murdered his girlfriend years  ago, which spurred Ethan to join the IMF. With an adversary this formidable, will Ethan and his allies Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg), Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames), and Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) be able to save the day? And how will the intervention of master thief Grace (Hayley Atwell) affect everyone's plans?

I'll say it again, Tom Cruise is a wizard....because he has somehow convinced over ninety percent of critics polled by Rotten Tomatoes, as well as several other people, that this film is a high watermark of action filmmaking.

Now, don't get me wrong: it's a very competently made action thriller, but the problem I have with this film is that so much of what supposedly makes it special is stuff that we have already seen before, whether in previous installments of this very series or in rival franchises like the John Wick films. 

Take, for example, the gun battle in the beginning of the film; it feels like warmed-up leftovers after the madness of John Wick 4 earlier this year. None of the hand-to-hand fights in this film even begin to compare to the show-stopping men's room fight in Mission Impossible: Fallout which featured Cruise's Ethan Hunt, Henry Cavill's August Walker (complete with his now-iconic "arm reload") and an extremely formidable opponent.  The car chase through Rome feels like something that's been done too many times before, whether it was in John Frankenheimer's Ronin, Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity, Sam Mendes' Spectre, or even Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation.  Finally, the film's signature stunt, the motorcycle jump off a cliff, felt like a retread of Fallout's HALO jump.  

Once upon a time, the M.I. guys, when it came to practical, flesh-and-blood stunts, were pretty much the only game in town. Other blockbusters had already started leaning heavily on computer-generated imagery for their action sequences, but Tom Cruise and his indefatigable stunt team, bless their hearts, kept things real. This was  endearing to critics and audiences, and it made each new installment, starting with Brad Bird's sublime Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol feel like an event. 

Unfortunately, in the twelve years that have passed since Ghost Protocol, stuntmen like Chad Stahelski and David Leitch have started directing and producing movies, bringing their distinct sensibilities with them and suddenly, we have movies like Nobody, Kate and of course John Wick filling our screens, big and small, with white-knuckle, heart-stopping action sequences that feel as real as they possibly could without causing the stars of the films serious injury. It's become a very crowded marketplace, in short.

I'm looking forward to the end of this series, because as with Indiana Jones, I think this franchise has pretty much run its course. I just hope they go out in style. 

7/10

 

Sending Indy Off...Again?!? A Review of Indiana Jones: the Dial of Destiny

 directed by James Mangold

written by John-Henry Butterworth, Jez Butterworth, David Koepp and James Mangold

I'll be blunt; I despised Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. As far as I was concerned, the franchise ended with Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones literally riding off into the sunset with his dad played by Sean Connery and his friends played by John Rhys-Davis and Denholm Elliott in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.  The fourth Indiana Jones movie felt distinctly tacked on, and worse still, as I watched it, I got the distinct impression that nobody involved, from Harrison Ford to Steven Spielberg, really wanted to be there. 

As a result, when they announced a few years back that they were actually developing a fifth Indiana Jones movie, back then with Spielberg still slated to direct, I honestly did not mind.  I didn't even mind when they announced that Spielberg had stepped back from directing duties, with James Mangold, director of Logan and Ford v. Ferrari, both movies that I loved, taking over.

I only started getting worried when I read about its lukewarm reception from critics and audiences, as well as the plethora of right-leaning critics dogpiling the film as "more woke trash" thanks to the prominent role of British writer/actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge.  

Still, I persevered, and watched it, and you know what? In spite of everything, I actually liked it, despite its bloated running time, Bridge's admittedly obnoxious character and some pretty chuckle-inducing CGI at key moments. 

The film starts in 1945 in the dying days of World War II, with Indy (a digitally de-aged Ford superimposed over a much younger body double) and his buddy Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) stealing an ancient artifact called Archimedes' Antikythera, the titular  Dial of Destiny, from the Nazis, headed by physicist Jorgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen).  Indy and Basil jump the Nazi train just before Allied Forces blow it up, and presumably all's well that ends well.

Flash forward to 1969. The moon landing has just taken place, and Indiana Jones is old and embittered due to a personal tragedy that ruined his marriage to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and is basically going through the motions of his teaching job until his retirement, when he is suddenly interrupted by the arrival of two different people: Basil's daughter and Indy's goddaughter Helena (Waller-Bridge) and Voller, now going by the name Schmidt and flanked by several U.S. government agents, having been recruited by the U.S. government after World War II to help them win the space race. Both parties want one thing that Indy has stashed away in the university where he works: Archimedes' Antikythera. The madcap adventure that follows leads Indy halfway across the world, from Morocco to Sicily as he races against time to prevent Voller from using the dial for a truly nefarious purpose.

To be clear: if this movie had come out as a direct sequel to the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I would probably have despised it.  While it was, if nothing else, a competent action-adventure movie, it really wouldn't have made sense to append it to a trilogy made by a master filmmaker at the very height of his powers.

The fact is, however, that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was so bad it created the need for this film.  There is simply no other way to put it.

On its own, the film has its merits.  The action sequence that opens the movie, as well as the madcap car chase that takes place through the streets of Morocco featuring two cars and a tuktuk, of all things, were genuine fun that, in my opinion at least, captured some semblance of the spirit of the original films, if only just.   The remainder of the action was hamstrung by either too much darkness like the underwater and cave scenes or some very regrettable CGI, like the big climax.  Harrison Ford still cuts an amazing figure even at 80 years, though he was aided and abetted quite a bit by CGI and a body double, especially in the beginning sequence.  Mads Mikkelsen turned in his usual solid performance as Voller, while Boyd Holbrook, who once menaced Hugh Jackman in Mangold's Logan, played yet another homicidal henchman. I actually liked the CIA Agent played by Shaunette Renee Wilson, but she didn't have a whole lot of screentime, nor did Antonio Banderas' diving expert Renaldo. The supposed "new blood" introduced by the movie didn't really do anything for me at all, whether it was Waller-Bridge as Helena, or Ethann Isidore as her sidekick Teddy, who was sort of an updated Short Round with a creepy little moustache.  I would much rather have had a cameo by Ke Huy Quan, to be honest, but that was not to be, unfortunately.  

I'd argue, more than anything, though, that the script was what let this movie down time and again, with its easy reliance on numerous tropes as well as some really sloppy storytelling, like the magical device that enabled the bad guys to know exactly where Indy and company were heading after each escape. While it's easy to bash any movie that features CGI these days, and this film is no exception, I think it's worth pointing out that Industrial Light and Magic did a very decent job de-aging Harrison Ford and mapping him onto a younger actor capable of physical derring-do. Sure, they used the age-old trick of shrouding it all in darkness, but that's their prerogative anyway. 

When the film ended it left me feeling much, much better about the franchise than the last one did, but I will say this: it really is time to let this franchise end. 

7/10

Familiar but Still Kind of Fresh: A Review of Elemental

 directed by Peter Sohn

written by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh (with Sohn)

Elemental marks the first time since 2017 that Walt Disney Pictures has released into theaters on a worldwide scale an original film not based on any previous property like Toy Story or The Incredibles. It carries a heavy burden of a sort, especially considering that Pixar's last theatrical release post-pandemic, the spinoff Lightyear, flopped upon release a year ago, costing the studio millions and the director his job. 

Set in a fantastical world populated by anthropomorphic versions of the four elements, air, water, earth and fire, the film tells the story of fire girl Ember (Leah Lewis) the daughter of immigrants to Element City Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) who run a convenience store which Ember is set to inherit when her parents retire. The only problem is that Ember has a bit of a temper, which makes it challenging for her to deal with the inevitable difficult customer, as a result of which Bernie puts off retiring as long as he can. One day, however, he puts her in charge of a major sale, during which Ember of course loses her temper yet again. As she rushes down to the basement to blow off steam, however, she ends up bursting water pipes that had long thought to be dry, and ends up sucking city inspector and water guy Wade (Mamoudou Athie) into her home. Desperate to prevent Wade from reporting her father's stores various infractions to City Hall, Ember tails Wade and pleads with his boss air lady Gale (Wendy McLendon-Covey), and is given the briefest of reprieves to fix the problems. In the days that ensure, Ember and Wade learn to work together, unbeknownst to Bernie and Cinder, to solve the store's problems and experience the unlikeliest of attractions to each other.

This is Peter Sohn's second feature length film from Pixar, the first being 2015's The Good Dinosaur, a film which, even before Pixar was waylaid in its momentum by the pandemic, had the dubious distinction of being the rare Pixar film that a) bombed at the box office and b) was frightfully boring.

The good news is that Elemental, for all its flaws, is, at the very least, not boring. It tells an engaging story about two generations of immigrants and how the children of immigrants often face the dilemma of living up to their parents' dreams.  Sohn, who came up with the story, draws on his own personal experience as the son of Korean immigrants, and it shines through in the interaction between Ember and her aging dad, which is played very effectively by voice actors Leah Lewis and Ronnie del Carmen, the latter of whom is actually a veteran Pixar animator who has worked on some of their most significant movies like Inside Out and who, in my opinion, deserves to direct his own movie more than Sohn deserved this second crack at directing after the grossly mediocre Good Dinosaur.  Ahem.  Well, at least this movie is not about cowboy dinosaurs like that one was, so the narrative works when it focuses on the parent-child dynamic.

The fire and water love story, however, which was front and central to the film's marketing and is supposed to be a central aspect of the film as well, is nowhere near as compelling as the filmmakers seem to think it is. Sohn mercifully eschews the more conventional aspects of the "meet cute" such as an openly antagonistic relationship between the two characters, but even then he cannot help but have the characters drift into cliche time and time again. It doesn't help that, if I'm frank, Ember can be distinctly unlikeable while Wade, despite his clearly tragic backstory, seems genuinely uninteresting.   In short, fleshing out the two protagonists as individuals, instead of leaning much more heavily into Ember's complicated, culturally-infused relationship with her dad, would have really helped the love story along a lot more. 

The good news, though, is that the film is drop dead gorgeous. Sure, it is highly evocative of the visuals of Zootopia, another movie with diverse anthropomorphic creatures living in a city, but Pixar clearly tried to give this film its own visual identity, including each of the key characters.  

I also appreciated a lively score by Pixar mainstay Thomas Newman, best known for Finding Nemo and WALL-E.  While Newman's signature sound permeates it, there are new elements like new-age, Enya-like vocals supplementing it as well this time.

This is a far cry from Pixar's best work, but I'm grateful for it, and if they are to continue to convince audiences to catch their movies on the big screen instead of at home on Disney+, they need to keep making movies along this vein and, I hope, with better storytelling. 

7.5/10