directed by Jon Watts
written by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna
To be honest, after the gratifying, emotional roller-coaster that was Avengers: Endgame, for the very first time since the Spider-Man film franchise was launched in 2002, I did not feel any particular urgency to see Spider-Man: Far From Home. I mean, I definitely wanted to see it, but the standing-in-a-long-line, midnight-screening sense of urgency that had characterized many of my previous film viewings (especially for the Sam Raimi films, even the infamous Spider-Man 3) was now gone, and I was actually able to wait until Friday to see it after its Wednesday opening. I really didn't expect that much, thinking it would be to Endgame what Ant-Man and the Wasp was to Avengers: Infinity War: a nice chaser, nothing more.
I was honestly therefore quite surprised by how strong Spider-Man: Far From Home turned out to be. There were a few false notes in the script, and more than a fair share of tropes, none of which I dare discuss in detail lest I spoil it for anyone, but overall it was, I dare say, the strongest live-action Spider-Man movie since Spider-Man 2.
Following a bare bones, spoiler-free summary I'll dive into how I felt about this film, and how it really bodes well for the future of this particular superhero franchise.
Following the cataclysmic events of Avengers: Endgame, Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland) tries to resume life as a normal teenager. Well, as normal one can be after having been gone for five years. While he, his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and several of his high school classmates like Ned (Jacob Batalon), MJ (Zendaya), Betty (Angourie Rice) and Flash (Tony Revolori) were snapped out of existence by Thanos, only to be "blipped" back into existence thanks to the Hulk's snap in Endgame, everyone else has grown five years older, including many of his old schoolmates. Still, Peter and his friends head off on a school-sponsored trip to Europe, where he plans to confess his feeling for MJ atop the famed Eiffel Tower.
Unfortunately for Peter, however, monsters arising from what seems to be the Earth itself have started attacking various locations around the world, with his destinations in Europe among the targets. As a result, he is recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) who not only knows his identity but has a little present for him: a pair of glasses from the late Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr., who's not in the movie but whose face shows up basically everywhere), which also happen to give Peter access to a massive, satellite-based attack drone network which is not unlike the massive Project: Insight that HYDRA wanted to set up back in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Peter feels out of his depth when fighting the monsters, so when a new hero, Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) shows up and holds his own against one of them, he looks to him for guidance, and as a possible wielder for the massive power to which he has just been given access.
While this movie has received generally good reviews, not everyone is thrilled with it, and as much as I liked the film I can see where the detractors are coming from, specifically when it comes to the film's seeming obsession with Tony Stark. It does seem like overkill, but personally I can forgive it because this is the world that was basically built around Iron Man, so it makes sense that this world, even Spider-Man's corner of it, would really feel his death.
Also, I can forgive the constant mention of Iron Man because at the end of the day, he really just provides the backdrop for what happens. It's ultimately Spider-Man's actions and decisions that push the narrative forward, for better or for worse. Unlike in Spider-Man: Homecoming, in which Peter mysteriously got away with a surprisingly high number of bad decisions, here, Peter's bad choices, the worst of which stems from his desire to turn his back on the superhero life and just live as he wants, have actual consequences that he has to deal with if he wants to live his life as planned. The whole "great power, great responsibility" credo may not receive explicit mention here (and for that matter, it hasn't received any explicit mention since the Raimi films), but much more than they did in the last film, the filmmakers really take pains to impress upon Peter just how important that particular life lesson is.
Of course, there are the usual critiques about the proliferation of CGI battles, but as hard as this may be to explain without delving into spoilers, there's actually a context for them in this film, and overall they work quite well. If nothing else, though, Marvel and Sony have really gotten down pat the art of presenting a digital Peter Parker swinging from place to place, so much so that the shots of a plainclothes-wearing Peter swinging through Venice looked reasonably convincing. Also, for anyone who may have missed it, the filmmakers bring back Spidey's famed "final swing" with a little bit of a twist this time, and it looks downright glorious.
The main reason, however, that it's easy to forgive this film its shortcomings, whether it's the Stark-mania or CGI bombast, is that its leads give such winning, down-to-earth performance that it's hard not to get drawn into their story. This is still a movie about a high school kid, after all, and the struggles he faces in telling the girl of his dreams how he feels, and Holland captures the heartache and angst of this epic struggle perfectly. As the seemingly disinterested MJ, Zendaya provides a perfect foil to Peter's painful yearning, and their chemistry here holds up well in comparison to that between previous incarnations of Spider-Man and his leading ladies. It's certainly a step up from his awkward chemistry with Liz from the last film.
Gyllenhaal makes a welcome addition to Spider-Man's world, and it really was high time they introduced Mysterio, one of the classic Lee-Ditko creations. It's hard to go into what made him such a memorable character without venturing into spoiler territory, so I'll stop there. Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders make a welcome return as Nick Fury and Maria Hill, respectively, though stick around for the usual end-credits treats if something about them seems a little off to you.
And whatever you do, do NOT miss the mid-credits stinger.
8.5/10
Wednesday, July 10, 2019
Sunday, July 7, 2019
Disney's Disturbing New Advocacy (HEAVY SPOILERS FOR TOY STORY 4, AVENGERS ENDGAME and WRECK-IT-RALPH 2)
In late 2018, I was quite surprisingly infuriated with the sequel to 2012's Wreck-It-Ralph, I movie I had actually loved, when it became clear that this film (the sequel) was clearly advocating the plan of Vanellope Von Schweetz (Sarah Silverman) to abandon her game, "Sugar Rush," so that she could hang out in the hellish wasteland of some Grand Theft Auto knockoff. I thrashed that movie harder than I ever have or probably ever will again for no other reason than that it felt like a complete betrayal of everything the first movie had stood for so eloquently. I moved on, though.
Last April, I was vaguely disturbed when the otherwise sublime Avengers: Endgame ended with one of the original six Avengers, Thor no less, the King of Asgard, deciding to abdicate his throne at the end of the film to go traipsing off to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Not to pursue some higher calling, mind you, but simply to "find himself" by hanging out with a gang of adventurers. It bothered me, much in the same way that Captain America's "retirement" to grow old with Peggy bothered many other viewers, but the movie that had come before it was just so thoroughly enjoyable that it was a niggle I was willing to forgive, if only just.
Finally, less than two weeks ago, I found myself genuinely shocked when, at the end of Toy Story 4, Woody the Cowboy played by the incomparable Tom Hanks, who has spent all three movies advocating loyalty to "his kid" and togetherness of his family, decided to abandon his owner Bonnie and his entire gang to hang out with his old flame Bopeep and her new crew of toys. This was how the movie ended, and we the audience are clearly meant to cheer on Woody in his new status quo, just as we're meant to look forward to seeing Thor gallivanting across the galaxy with Peter Quill and company, instead of being the King he was clearly set up to be at the end of his own trilogy of films, and just as we're meant to agree that Ralph is a "toxic friend" for wanting to help Vanellope save her game when she clearly just wants to bail out.
So basically, that's three high-profile movies that Disney has clearly advocated for walking out on one's obligations and responsibilities. It's less egregious in Woody's case because it is strongly suggested at the very beginning of the film that the person he's walking out on, namely Bonnie, doesn't really need him, but it's still a betrayal of everything he's stood for his entire life. It's way, way worse with Thor because he's effectively a head of state abandoning his people, and basically leaving a former soldier who happens to be a recovering alcoholic, in charge of everything. But hey, at least Thor left someone in charge. Vanellope just dismissed the concerns of her game saying "they'll be fine without me" and hightailed it to her new home, making her, hands down, the worst of them all.
What the hell is going on, Disney? After giving Woody and his pals a perfect ending in Toy Story 3, why on earth would you follow it up with an ending that is positively hateful? After taking all the time and effort to develop Thor from a brash, arrogant whelp to a king who has gained both humility and wisdom from his many experiences, why would you want to regress him to a beer-guzzling man-child who doesn't give a shit about anything except his next adventure? And why, oh, why after sweetly telling audiences that it's okay to accept your lot in life even you have a shitty job and will never live in a penthouse, are you now telling them that when some rich asshole wants to abandon their responsibilities and go slumming somewhere else, you should just let them? How is this teaching kids anything positive?
I really want to know, because as someone who has grown up with your product, and as someone who has exposed his children to the same, I honestly want to know if it's just time to take my money and go elsewhere.
I'm really glad Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse kicked your sorry asses at the Oscars, and I'm hoping someone else does it again next year.
Last April, I was vaguely disturbed when the otherwise sublime Avengers: Endgame ended with one of the original six Avengers, Thor no less, the King of Asgard, deciding to abdicate his throne at the end of the film to go traipsing off to space with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Not to pursue some higher calling, mind you, but simply to "find himself" by hanging out with a gang of adventurers. It bothered me, much in the same way that Captain America's "retirement" to grow old with Peggy bothered many other viewers, but the movie that had come before it was just so thoroughly enjoyable that it was a niggle I was willing to forgive, if only just.
Finally, less than two weeks ago, I found myself genuinely shocked when, at the end of Toy Story 4, Woody the Cowboy played by the incomparable Tom Hanks, who has spent all three movies advocating loyalty to "his kid" and togetherness of his family, decided to abandon his owner Bonnie and his entire gang to hang out with his old flame Bopeep and her new crew of toys. This was how the movie ended, and we the audience are clearly meant to cheer on Woody in his new status quo, just as we're meant to look forward to seeing Thor gallivanting across the galaxy with Peter Quill and company, instead of being the King he was clearly set up to be at the end of his own trilogy of films, and just as we're meant to agree that Ralph is a "toxic friend" for wanting to help Vanellope save her game when she clearly just wants to bail out.
So basically, that's three high-profile movies that Disney has clearly advocated for walking out on one's obligations and responsibilities. It's less egregious in Woody's case because it is strongly suggested at the very beginning of the film that the person he's walking out on, namely Bonnie, doesn't really need him, but it's still a betrayal of everything he's stood for his entire life. It's way, way worse with Thor because he's effectively a head of state abandoning his people, and basically leaving a former soldier who happens to be a recovering alcoholic, in charge of everything. But hey, at least Thor left someone in charge. Vanellope just dismissed the concerns of her game saying "they'll be fine without me" and hightailed it to her new home, making her, hands down, the worst of them all.
What the hell is going on, Disney? After giving Woody and his pals a perfect ending in Toy Story 3, why on earth would you follow it up with an ending that is positively hateful? After taking all the time and effort to develop Thor from a brash, arrogant whelp to a king who has gained both humility and wisdom from his many experiences, why would you want to regress him to a beer-guzzling man-child who doesn't give a shit about anything except his next adventure? And why, oh, why after sweetly telling audiences that it's okay to accept your lot in life even you have a shitty job and will never live in a penthouse, are you now telling them that when some rich asshole wants to abandon their responsibilities and go slumming somewhere else, you should just let them? How is this teaching kids anything positive?
I really want to know, because as someone who has grown up with your product, and as someone who has exposed his children to the same, I honestly want to know if it's just time to take my money and go elsewhere.
I'm really glad Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse kicked your sorry asses at the Oscars, and I'm hoping someone else does it again next year.
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Yet Another "Ending": A Review of Toy Story 4
directed by Josh Cooley
written by Andrew Stanton, Stephanie Folsom, Rashida Jones, Valerie LaPointe, Will McCormack, Martin Hynes, Cooley and John Lasseter
I'll be honest: when I heard this movie was being made, I groaned. Toy Story 3 which came out nine years ago, was the perfect sendoff for these characters, and even just the thought of a follow-up left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, they had subsequent adventures in short films and TV specials, but these were inoffensive affairs that went down easy, like canapes at a party. It was nice to check in on Woody and the gang every once in a while. While I understood the logic behind a sequel, I did not at all welcome it, and I dare say, having seen the film, that Disney and Pixar have done very little to change my mind.
The movie starts with a flashback; it's been established by Toy Story 3 that Bopeep (Annie Potts) left the group at an undisclosed time between the second and third movie, and Toy Story 4 finally plays that moment out. It's a moment full of regret and heartbreak for Woody the Cowboy (Tom Hanks) in particular as he is forced to choose between his loyalty to Andy and his love for Bopeep, who is about to be given away to a new owner, and we already know how that played out. Moving back to the present after a brief title sequence, we now find Woody and friends at their new home with Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw). It's a period of adjustment for Woody, who is no longer the "head toy" of this group, that distinction belonging to Dolly (Bonnie Hunt). Desperately in search of purpose for a kid who doesn't seem to need him as much as Andy did, Woody finds it when he sees that Bonnie is terrified of going to pre-school. He then stows away in her backpack and, when she gets to school, sneaks a bunch of art supplies onto her desk. As a result, Bonnie makes herself a toy out a spork, pipe cleaner, clay and Popsicle sticks, names him Forky, and instantly falls in love with him. Seeing her attachment to her new toy, Woody takes it on himself to protect him, which becomes more difficult than Woody imagined when Forky comes to life (voiced by Tony Hale) and, in a franchise-first twist, rejects his status as a toy and constantly tries to throw himself in the trash. Thing get even worse when Bonnie's parents decide to take her on a road trip and Forky flings himself from the RV (a shot spoiled in the trailers, so give me a break). In his efforts to save Forky and reunite him with the others, Woody finds himself meeting an unsettling doll named Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) who has an eye on his voice box, and then meets a most unexpected blast from his past.
I won't dare go into spoiler territory with this review, and to go into my problems with the film involves very heavy spoilers, so I'll limit my comments to Pixar's technique, which is utterly superb. Given that the last time viewers saw Bopeep onscreen was nearly twenty years ago the leaps and bounds in the way in which she is rendered are quite noticeable, even moreso than the improvements made to Helen Parr in last year's The Incredibles 2. Basically, the technical proficiency on display here is beyond reproach; Pixar may not be the innovators they once were (with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse having stolen their thunder at the last Oscars for this very reason) but they are definitely at the very apex in terms of technique.
Bopeep is the highlight here, and Annie Potts really seems to relish her return to this role, which is bigger in this film than it has ever been, and of course Tom Hanks continues to make Woody the most likable animated character in Pixar's entire library. This is primarily their story, as the rest of the original crew are very much relegated to the background, with only Buzz getting the slightest hint of a subplot. New characters get the chance to shine, like Ally Maki as Giggle McDimples, Bopeep's tiny sidekick, Keegan Michael Key's and Jordan Peele's carnival prize toys Ducky and Bunny who have a number of funny scenes, especially their "winner-winner-chicken dinner" routine, and of course Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom, who steals every scene he's in and, as incredible as this may sound, actually gets his very own character arc. If I'm honest, this movie has a lot of what made the original trilogy as enjoyable as it was.
Why the low score, then? Well, I'll have to go deep into spoiler territory for that elsewhere, but suffice it to say the writers took the characters in a direction that feels like a complete betrayal of everything that the previous films stood for. This kind of cast a pall on everything, to the amazing upgraded graphics, to Randy Newman's score and even the more entertaining performances. In fact, it made Pixar's patented third-act weepy moment that much more infuriating.
This movie is basically the animated version of Jason Bourne, a completely superfluous follow-up to a perfectly-concluded trilogy which is made with considerable technical prowess, but feels narratively bankrupt. In fact, TS4, goes one further; it actually spits on the values espoused by the old trilogy.
6/10
written by Andrew Stanton, Stephanie Folsom, Rashida Jones, Valerie LaPointe, Will McCormack, Martin Hynes, Cooley and John Lasseter
I'll be honest: when I heard this movie was being made, I groaned. Toy Story 3 which came out nine years ago, was the perfect sendoff for these characters, and even just the thought of a follow-up left a bad taste in my mouth. Sure, they had subsequent adventures in short films and TV specials, but these were inoffensive affairs that went down easy, like canapes at a party. It was nice to check in on Woody and the gang every once in a while. While I understood the logic behind a sequel, I did not at all welcome it, and I dare say, having seen the film, that Disney and Pixar have done very little to change my mind.
The movie starts with a flashback; it's been established by Toy Story 3 that Bopeep (Annie Potts) left the group at an undisclosed time between the second and third movie, and Toy Story 4 finally plays that moment out. It's a moment full of regret and heartbreak for Woody the Cowboy (Tom Hanks) in particular as he is forced to choose between his loyalty to Andy and his love for Bopeep, who is about to be given away to a new owner, and we already know how that played out. Moving back to the present after a brief title sequence, we now find Woody and friends at their new home with Bonnie (Madeleine McGraw). It's a period of adjustment for Woody, who is no longer the "head toy" of this group, that distinction belonging to Dolly (Bonnie Hunt). Desperately in search of purpose for a kid who doesn't seem to need him as much as Andy did, Woody finds it when he sees that Bonnie is terrified of going to pre-school. He then stows away in her backpack and, when she gets to school, sneaks a bunch of art supplies onto her desk. As a result, Bonnie makes herself a toy out a spork, pipe cleaner, clay and Popsicle sticks, names him Forky, and instantly falls in love with him. Seeing her attachment to her new toy, Woody takes it on himself to protect him, which becomes more difficult than Woody imagined when Forky comes to life (voiced by Tony Hale) and, in a franchise-first twist, rejects his status as a toy and constantly tries to throw himself in the trash. Thing get even worse when Bonnie's parents decide to take her on a road trip and Forky flings himself from the RV (a shot spoiled in the trailers, so give me a break). In his efforts to save Forky and reunite him with the others, Woody finds himself meeting an unsettling doll named Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks) who has an eye on his voice box, and then meets a most unexpected blast from his past.
I won't dare go into spoiler territory with this review, and to go into my problems with the film involves very heavy spoilers, so I'll limit my comments to Pixar's technique, which is utterly superb. Given that the last time viewers saw Bopeep onscreen was nearly twenty years ago the leaps and bounds in the way in which she is rendered are quite noticeable, even moreso than the improvements made to Helen Parr in last year's The Incredibles 2. Basically, the technical proficiency on display here is beyond reproach; Pixar may not be the innovators they once were (with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse having stolen their thunder at the last Oscars for this very reason) but they are definitely at the very apex in terms of technique.
Bopeep is the highlight here, and Annie Potts really seems to relish her return to this role, which is bigger in this film than it has ever been, and of course Tom Hanks continues to make Woody the most likable animated character in Pixar's entire library. This is primarily their story, as the rest of the original crew are very much relegated to the background, with only Buzz getting the slightest hint of a subplot. New characters get the chance to shine, like Ally Maki as Giggle McDimples, Bopeep's tiny sidekick, Keegan Michael Key's and Jordan Peele's carnival prize toys Ducky and Bunny who have a number of funny scenes, especially their "winner-winner-chicken dinner" routine, and of course Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom, who steals every scene he's in and, as incredible as this may sound, actually gets his very own character arc. If I'm honest, this movie has a lot of what made the original trilogy as enjoyable as it was.
Why the low score, then? Well, I'll have to go deep into spoiler territory for that elsewhere, but suffice it to say the writers took the characters in a direction that feels like a complete betrayal of everything that the previous films stood for. This kind of cast a pall on everything, to the amazing upgraded graphics, to Randy Newman's score and even the more entertaining performances. In fact, it made Pixar's patented third-act weepy moment that much more infuriating.
This movie is basically the animated version of Jason Bourne, a completely superfluous follow-up to a perfectly-concluded trilogy which is made with considerable technical prowess, but feels narratively bankrupt. In fact, TS4, goes one further; it actually spits on the values espoused by the old trilogy.
6/10
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Thank You for Voting with Your Wallets
It seems all the trades like Variety, the Hollywood Reporter and Deadline can talk about now is how Dark Phoenix (also known in some parts of the world as X-Men: Dark Phoenix) crashed and burned at the box-office, bringing the Fox Era X-Men films to an ignominious end (assuming they decide not to release The New Mutants).
For me, though, the bigger news is that for two weekends in a row, audiences all around the world have given lukewarm to downright cold receptions to limp sequels to big movies such as Godzilla, The Secret Life of Pets, and the aforementioned X-Men series of films, the last entry of which was the much reviled X-Men: Apocalypse. I detested the first of those two films and was disappointed by the third and in truth of the sequels I was only really interested in watching Dark Phoenix, but only out of a desire to close out the Fox X-Men movie series by watching the last one, and not any real interest in the film itself. I figured, though, that they were all destined to make bundles of money no matter what I thought and therefore perpetuate Hollywood's sequel-churning machine. That was how we managed to get five awful Transformers movies, after all.
It is therefore with utmost gratitude that I address the audiences world over for having decisively told Hollywood, "NO."
To all of you: THANK you. Thank you, at least for the moment, for telling those money-grubbing, cocaine-snorting, IP-plundering, suit-wearing zombies trying to pass themselves off as artists to go fuck themselves. Thank you for teaching them that a sequel isn't worth your time or money unless they do it well, and that if they're going to get your hard-earned currency, they had better earn it.
In particular it is with great satisfaction that I take note of the failure of The Secret Life of Pets 2, because of how much I despised the first installment, which is basically a retread of Toy Story with assholes in the lead roles. Illumination Studios has coasted by for years on sub-par products like the Despicable Me sequels and the Minions spin-off often made for a fraction of the money that the likes of Pixar spend on their films. Illuminatio's devil-may-care attitude towards whether or not their films are actually any good has finally come and bitten them on the ass. Sure, considering how frugal the folks at Illumination are, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is still bound to make money at the global box-office (unlike Godzilla: King of Monsters and Dark Phoenix, whose return on investment is not at all guaranteed), but they've surely gotten the message loud and clear that they can't keep on churning out crap and expect to rake in easy billions. It's also a stern lesson global audiences taught the producers of Transformers two years ago when The Last Knight flopped, which, if nothing else, has at least prompted a re-think among Paramount execs on how to make these movies going forward.
I'm not actually averse to sequels. Heck, I have the Jason Bourne trilogy, all four James Bond movies starring Daniel Craig, Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, the Toy Story trilogy, the Kung Fu Panda trilogy, and virtually every movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in my collection. So obviously I don't have any problem with sequels. It just irks me when they are painfully obvious cash grabs, without any real effort on the part of the filmmakers to earn that cash. Perhaps my favorite example of this, outside the godawful Transformers films is 2015's Minions, but suffice it to say there are many, many others, and personally, I'm glad that, at least this year, audiences are repeatedly saying "NO" to lousy sequels. We all deserve better, and I'm glad we're finally realizing it instead of handing over our hard-earned wages to these suits, many of whom who wouldn't know decent filmmaking if it kicked them in the shins.
For me, though, the bigger news is that for two weekends in a row, audiences all around the world have given lukewarm to downright cold receptions to limp sequels to big movies such as Godzilla, The Secret Life of Pets, and the aforementioned X-Men series of films, the last entry of which was the much reviled X-Men: Apocalypse. I detested the first of those two films and was disappointed by the third and in truth of the sequels I was only really interested in watching Dark Phoenix, but only out of a desire to close out the Fox X-Men movie series by watching the last one, and not any real interest in the film itself. I figured, though, that they were all destined to make bundles of money no matter what I thought and therefore perpetuate Hollywood's sequel-churning machine. That was how we managed to get five awful Transformers movies, after all.
It is therefore with utmost gratitude that I address the audiences world over for having decisively told Hollywood, "NO."
To all of you: THANK you. Thank you, at least for the moment, for telling those money-grubbing, cocaine-snorting, IP-plundering, suit-wearing zombies trying to pass themselves off as artists to go fuck themselves. Thank you for teaching them that a sequel isn't worth your time or money unless they do it well, and that if they're going to get your hard-earned currency, they had better earn it.
In particular it is with great satisfaction that I take note of the failure of The Secret Life of Pets 2, because of how much I despised the first installment, which is basically a retread of Toy Story with assholes in the lead roles. Illumination Studios has coasted by for years on sub-par products like the Despicable Me sequels and the Minions spin-off often made for a fraction of the money that the likes of Pixar spend on their films. Illuminatio's devil-may-care attitude towards whether or not their films are actually any good has finally come and bitten them on the ass. Sure, considering how frugal the folks at Illumination are, The Secret Life of Pets 2 is still bound to make money at the global box-office (unlike Godzilla: King of Monsters and Dark Phoenix, whose return on investment is not at all guaranteed), but they've surely gotten the message loud and clear that they can't keep on churning out crap and expect to rake in easy billions. It's also a stern lesson global audiences taught the producers of Transformers two years ago when The Last Knight flopped, which, if nothing else, has at least prompted a re-think among Paramount execs on how to make these movies going forward.
I'm not actually averse to sequels. Heck, I have the Jason Bourne trilogy, all four James Bond movies starring Daniel Craig, Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, the Toy Story trilogy, the Kung Fu Panda trilogy, and virtually every movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in my collection. So obviously I don't have any problem with sequels. It just irks me when they are painfully obvious cash grabs, without any real effort on the part of the filmmakers to earn that cash. Perhaps my favorite example of this, outside the godawful Transformers films is 2015's Minions, but suffice it to say there are many, many others, and personally, I'm glad that, at least this year, audiences are repeatedly saying "NO" to lousy sequels. We all deserve better, and I'm glad we're finally realizing it instead of handing over our hard-earned wages to these suits, many of whom who wouldn't know decent filmmaking if it kicked them in the shins.
Monday, June 3, 2019
From Development Hell to Going Like Hell!
Today, the Disney-owned 20th Century Fox finally dropped the first trailer for James Mangold's 1960s set motorsport epic Ford vs Ferrari, or the extraordinary story of how the Ford Motor Company, through the efforts of a crack team of engineers and racing car drivers, took on racing giant Ferrari at the most daunting race of them all, the 24 Hours of Le Mans. While I feel the title could have been a tad more creative (like the title of the book "Go Like Hell" which narrated the events on which the film was based), the trailer itself did not disappoint in the slightest.
As I indicated here and here, this is a movie I have been eager to see for a long, long time. It's a film that's changed creative hands so many times in so relatively short a time that I'd begun to wonder if the production was cursed somehow, but seeing the trailer has basically allayed all of my fears.
That a film like this, with its hefty $100 million price tag, even got made given that Hollywood's current obsession is the next big extended/cinematic universe franchise, is honestly nothing short of a miracle. The fact that Fox has been acquired by Disney is icing on the proverbial cake considering that, even though the Mouse House didn't have a hand in making this film, judging by the trailer they've just cut they sure as heck know how to promote this. Right off the bat, they've zeroed in on the David vs. Goliath nature of the story, focusing less on Henry Ford II's obsession with defeating Enzo Ferrari (who humiliated him by offering to sell him his car company, only to pull out at the last minute and do a deal with Fiat instead) and more on the indomitable spirit of legendary racer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and his driver and good friend Ken Miles (Christian Bale). This is the kind of story that puts butts in seats.
Marquee names like Matt Damon and Christian Bale, both Oscar winners, as well as a highly-pedigreed director like James Mangold, who knows his way around both blockbusters and awards fare, have both given this film a shot at commercial success and awards glory, especially given its plum November release date.
Of course, it's too early to predict just what kind of business this film will do, but I for one, am definitely giving these guys my money.
As I indicated here and here, this is a movie I have been eager to see for a long, long time. It's a film that's changed creative hands so many times in so relatively short a time that I'd begun to wonder if the production was cursed somehow, but seeing the trailer has basically allayed all of my fears.
That a film like this, with its hefty $100 million price tag, even got made given that Hollywood's current obsession is the next big extended/cinematic universe franchise, is honestly nothing short of a miracle. The fact that Fox has been acquired by Disney is icing on the proverbial cake considering that, even though the Mouse House didn't have a hand in making this film, judging by the trailer they've just cut they sure as heck know how to promote this. Right off the bat, they've zeroed in on the David vs. Goliath nature of the story, focusing less on Henry Ford II's obsession with defeating Enzo Ferrari (who humiliated him by offering to sell him his car company, only to pull out at the last minute and do a deal with Fiat instead) and more on the indomitable spirit of legendary racer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and his driver and good friend Ken Miles (Christian Bale). This is the kind of story that puts butts in seats.
Marquee names like Matt Damon and Christian Bale, both Oscar winners, as well as a highly-pedigreed director like James Mangold, who knows his way around both blockbusters and awards fare, have both given this film a shot at commercial success and awards glory, especially given its plum November release date.
Of course, it's too early to predict just what kind of business this film will do, but I for one, am definitely giving these guys my money.
Saturday, June 1, 2019
When Compassion Outweighs Convenience: A Review of Quezon's Game
directed by Matthew E. Rosen
written by Janice Y. Perez and Dean Rosen
A few years before German businessman and Nazi party member Oskar Schindler grew a conscience and decided to save several hundred Jews from sure death in the dark days of World War II, the dying president of the Philippine Commonwealth, Manuel L. Quezon, defied his colonial masters in the United States of America to do the unthinkable; he opened the Philippines to over a thousand Jews living in Germany and Austria who would otherwise have been rounded up and placed in Nazi death camps. Quezon's Game, directed by Matthew E. Rosen, is the dramatization of this extraordinary story.
Veteran actor Raymond Bagatsing essays the role of the late President Quezon. Bagatsing, whom I first saw as Stanley Kowalski in a local staging of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire over twenty-three years ago, brings all of the craft he had then (and everything he's picked up along the way since then), to what is arguably the role of a lifetime. He does his level best to portray a President knowing he's on the brink of death and desperate to seal his own legacy as the one person who would do the right thing when no one else would. Judging by Quezon's old archival footage, Bagatsing apparently takes real effort to capture Quezon's speech inflections as Daniel Day Lewis tried to recreate what historians believed to be Abraham Lincoln's actual voice in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, but his performance goes well beyond mere mimicry as he strives to embody both Quezon's despair and yet his unflinching resolve in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. He receives able support from veteran Filipino actors Rachel Alejandro who plays his devoted wife Aurora and Audie Gemora who plays Quezon's Vice President, Sergio Osmena, in a nicely-nuanced turn that captures the difficulty of balancing interests that all politicians have to make.
Far more uneven, unfortunately, are the key supporting roles played by various Caucasian actors, including, most prominently, Billy Ray Gallion (of Lost fame) as Alex Frieder, a prominent American Jew who first brings the attention of the imminent need to evacuate Jews to Quezon's attention, James Paoleli as High Commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt, and David Bianco as then Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower. Of the three of them, Gallion is the most consistent, followed by Bianco and finally Paoleli. It feels halting at times; there are scenes in which this ensemble recites their lines as if their acting in a 1930s movie as opposed to a movie set in the 1930s and even though the script itself rarely falters (and I will discuss that later), the actors often do. Due to a sparse IMDB page, I can't remember the names of the other actors who played Americans, (with the exception of stage veteran Miguel Faustmann who played General Douglas MacArthur and nonetheless managed to chew the scenery in the fleeting moments he was onscreen), but it's just as well because I don't have flattering things to say about any of them, such as the actor who plays the bigoted American official named Cartwright, who plays the part a bit too broadly, or the guy who plays Alex Frieder's brother Herb. Also the less said about the actor who plays a Nazi, the better, but suffice it to say they couldn't have done any worse had they replaced him with a cartoon character. There are a few other infuriating bit actors, like the actress who plays the slinky proprietress of a hotel who also doubles as a lounge singer, but their exposure is mercifully short.
It's actually a shame that the acting falters, especially when it comes to the smaller but nonetheless pivotal roles, because otherwise the script, written by Dean Rosen and Janice Y. Perez, is incredibly tight, with dialogue that never feels overwrought or melodramatic, and quite effectively ratchets up the urgency of the situation with nothing more than words and a few foreboding musical notes. It's fortunate that the lead actors, particularly Bagatsing, Gallion and Bianco, hold the line, even when Paoleli fumbles ever so slightly. Personally, I most enjoyed the scenes between Bagatsing and Gemora, who spoke in a mix of English and Tagalog, as it really seemed like the sort of dialogue in which statesmen would engage, and it's made all the better for the fact that both the script and Gemora portray Osmena as a conflicted man, one who wants to do the right thing in his heart but who also tries to be realistic about what he can achieve. One flaw of the script, actually, is how it tends to lionize Quezon, papering over what are no doubt his many flaws as both a statesman and a human being, even as it makes oblique reference to them, but it's an omission I can forgive, given the story imperatives.
One thing I can't forgive, however, is the godawful music score, also composed by Dean Rosen, which is equal parts anachronistic (with what sounds like an abundance of synthesized music), and overbearing as it plays long and loud in scenes that don't really require it. Also, I just didn't really think it was very good. I get that this was a low-budget film, and it shows on many, many occasions, and that there wasn't any money to hire a 100-piece orchestra or something like that, but even though I'm not a composer or a musician, I respectfully suggest that for a movie like this, a handful of musicians, led by a soloist on piano, violin or even guitar would have been far more effective than this mess of a music score. I mean, I'm almost certain that the one piece of music people remember more than any other from the similarly-themed Schindler's List was Itzhak Perlman's superlative violin solo playing the film's mournful theme. I'm fairly shocked this isn't a lesson the filmmakers took to heart when making this.
So, as much as I liked this movie's ultimate message, its script and the performances by its main players, I still couldn't quite come to terms with how rough around the edges it felt. Compared to the two period films released by Jerrold Tarog over the last few years, namely the now iconic Heneral Luna and the lesser, but nonetheless highly-competent Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, Quezon's Game has moments in which it feels downright amateurish in its execution. While I imagine that budget constraints might have played some part in compromising the quality of the finished product, I do feel there's something missing from Rosen's craft regardless of how much or how little money the filmmakers had in their coffers for this film.
Still, I can't deny that he extracted some extraordinary performances from his main actors which basically transcend many, if not most of this film's other artistic shortcomings. That, and the script, really make this movie worth watching. There may be some utterances of harsh language here and there, but this film is still worth showing to Filipino students and other young people, if only to show them the kind of thing that true statesmen are capable of doing.
7.5/10
written by Janice Y. Perez and Dean Rosen
A few years before German businessman and Nazi party member Oskar Schindler grew a conscience and decided to save several hundred Jews from sure death in the dark days of World War II, the dying president of the Philippine Commonwealth, Manuel L. Quezon, defied his colonial masters in the United States of America to do the unthinkable; he opened the Philippines to over a thousand Jews living in Germany and Austria who would otherwise have been rounded up and placed in Nazi death camps. Quezon's Game, directed by Matthew E. Rosen, is the dramatization of this extraordinary story.
Veteran actor Raymond Bagatsing essays the role of the late President Quezon. Bagatsing, whom I first saw as Stanley Kowalski in a local staging of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire over twenty-three years ago, brings all of the craft he had then (and everything he's picked up along the way since then), to what is arguably the role of a lifetime. He does his level best to portray a President knowing he's on the brink of death and desperate to seal his own legacy as the one person who would do the right thing when no one else would. Judging by Quezon's old archival footage, Bagatsing apparently takes real effort to capture Quezon's speech inflections as Daniel Day Lewis tried to recreate what historians believed to be Abraham Lincoln's actual voice in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln, but his performance goes well beyond mere mimicry as he strives to embody both Quezon's despair and yet his unflinching resolve in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. He receives able support from veteran Filipino actors Rachel Alejandro who plays his devoted wife Aurora and Audie Gemora who plays Quezon's Vice President, Sergio Osmena, in a nicely-nuanced turn that captures the difficulty of balancing interests that all politicians have to make.
Far more uneven, unfortunately, are the key supporting roles played by various Caucasian actors, including, most prominently, Billy Ray Gallion (of Lost fame) as Alex Frieder, a prominent American Jew who first brings the attention of the imminent need to evacuate Jews to Quezon's attention, James Paoleli as High Commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt, and David Bianco as then Lt. Col. Dwight Eisenhower. Of the three of them, Gallion is the most consistent, followed by Bianco and finally Paoleli. It feels halting at times; there are scenes in which this ensemble recites their lines as if their acting in a 1930s movie as opposed to a movie set in the 1930s and even though the script itself rarely falters (and I will discuss that later), the actors often do. Due to a sparse IMDB page, I can't remember the names of the other actors who played Americans, (with the exception of stage veteran Miguel Faustmann who played General Douglas MacArthur and nonetheless managed to chew the scenery in the fleeting moments he was onscreen), but it's just as well because I don't have flattering things to say about any of them, such as the actor who plays the bigoted American official named Cartwright, who plays the part a bit too broadly, or the guy who plays Alex Frieder's brother Herb. Also the less said about the actor who plays a Nazi, the better, but suffice it to say they couldn't have done any worse had they replaced him with a cartoon character. There are a few other infuriating bit actors, like the actress who plays the slinky proprietress of a hotel who also doubles as a lounge singer, but their exposure is mercifully short.
It's actually a shame that the acting falters, especially when it comes to the smaller but nonetheless pivotal roles, because otherwise the script, written by Dean Rosen and Janice Y. Perez, is incredibly tight, with dialogue that never feels overwrought or melodramatic, and quite effectively ratchets up the urgency of the situation with nothing more than words and a few foreboding musical notes. It's fortunate that the lead actors, particularly Bagatsing, Gallion and Bianco, hold the line, even when Paoleli fumbles ever so slightly. Personally, I most enjoyed the scenes between Bagatsing and Gemora, who spoke in a mix of English and Tagalog, as it really seemed like the sort of dialogue in which statesmen would engage, and it's made all the better for the fact that both the script and Gemora portray Osmena as a conflicted man, one who wants to do the right thing in his heart but who also tries to be realistic about what he can achieve. One flaw of the script, actually, is how it tends to lionize Quezon, papering over what are no doubt his many flaws as both a statesman and a human being, even as it makes oblique reference to them, but it's an omission I can forgive, given the story imperatives.
One thing I can't forgive, however, is the godawful music score, also composed by Dean Rosen, which is equal parts anachronistic (with what sounds like an abundance of synthesized music), and overbearing as it plays long and loud in scenes that don't really require it. Also, I just didn't really think it was very good. I get that this was a low-budget film, and it shows on many, many occasions, and that there wasn't any money to hire a 100-piece orchestra or something like that, but even though I'm not a composer or a musician, I respectfully suggest that for a movie like this, a handful of musicians, led by a soloist on piano, violin or even guitar would have been far more effective than this mess of a music score. I mean, I'm almost certain that the one piece of music people remember more than any other from the similarly-themed Schindler's List was Itzhak Perlman's superlative violin solo playing the film's mournful theme. I'm fairly shocked this isn't a lesson the filmmakers took to heart when making this.
So, as much as I liked this movie's ultimate message, its script and the performances by its main players, I still couldn't quite come to terms with how rough around the edges it felt. Compared to the two period films released by Jerrold Tarog over the last few years, namely the now iconic Heneral Luna and the lesser, but nonetheless highly-competent Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, Quezon's Game has moments in which it feels downright amateurish in its execution. While I imagine that budget constraints might have played some part in compromising the quality of the finished product, I do feel there's something missing from Rosen's craft regardless of how much or how little money the filmmakers had in their coffers for this film.
Still, I can't deny that he extracted some extraordinary performances from his main actors which basically transcend many, if not most of this film's other artistic shortcomings. That, and the script, really make this movie worth watching. There may be some utterances of harsh language here and there, but this film is still worth showing to Filipino students and other young people, if only to show them the kind of thing that true statesmen are capable of doing.
7.5/10
Sunday, May 26, 2019
Charming...But Not Quite Magical: A Review of Aladdin
directed by Guy Ritchie
written by John August and Guy Ritchie
It becomes much easier to watch these live-action remakes of classic Disney animated films when one accepts they exist for no other purpose than to make money. It also becomes easier to set aside the agonizing question of why these things even need to exist (one I asked myself quite a bit while watching the nigh-unwatchable Dumbo a few months ago) when, as in the case of Aladdin, the movie itself is actually pretty decent.
Aladdin, loosely based on the fairy tale, is the story of a clever street thief (Mena Massoud) who scrapes by for a living in the fictional Pan-Arabic/Asian country of Agrabah, which is ruled over by an aging Sultan (Navid Negahban) who longs to see his only daughter Jasmine (Naomi Scott) married off before he dies. Little does the Sultan know that his grand vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) plots to overthrow him using an enchanted lamp buried deep in the deserts of Agrabah. The Sultan is likewise unaware that Jasmine, who hopes to one day succeed her father as Sultan (even though there's never been a female Sultan in the history of the country), often sneaks out of the palace and into the city to see what life is like outside. During one such excursion she has a chance encounter with Aladdin and his monkey, Abu. Jasmine, with whom Aladdin is now smitten, passes herself off as her own handmaid, Dalia (Nasim Pedrad), but when suitors come calling to the palace, she has to hurry back, only be upset when Aladdin is unable to return a bracelet Abu stole from her. Aladdin sneaks into the palace to give the necklace back, but his stealth and skill gets the attention of Jafar, who promptly recruits him to find the lamp. Aladdin succeeds, but when Jafar double-crosses him, he is trapped deep in the underground cave with the Abu, the lamp, and, of all things a flying magic carpet with quite a personality. When Aladdin rubs the lamp at the carpet's urging, a blue genie (Will Smith) with even more personality emerges, with the promise that he can grant Aladdin three wishes. Wanting to woo Jasmine, Aladdin wishes to be transformed into a prince, and the Genie obliges. High jinks ensue.
There's actually very little to spoil here, especially considering how the original, animated version of this film has been doing the rounds on both home video and cable television for the better part of three decades, but for the select few coming in cold, suffice it to say that the movie pretty much pays off most of its setups throughout the film. For those who've seen the cartoon, there's very little here that's new, and what is new is a bit of a mixed bag, if I'm honest. It's basically a question of what works versus what doesn't.
I'd like to get this out of the way straightaway: the actors playing both Jafar and the Sultan are awful. I recognize that Ritchie went for a more weaselly approach to Jafar rather than the oily Euronasty he was in the original, and with a better actor it could have worked, but Kenzari just comes across as a tad too weaselly and not nearly as threatening as he should be, even in a scene in which he literally has Aladdin by the throat. Also, unlike Jonathan Freeman's voice performance in the 1992 original, Kenzari is basically devoid of any humor, and while one might be tempted to apportion some of the blame to the screenwriter, I can't help but feel that Kenzari wouldn't have been able to carry any of the jokes anyway. This marks the second time Disney fumbled the ball with the big bad guy; I rather disliked Luke Evans' take on Gaston in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake as well. One thing Beauty and the Beast had going for it, though, was a nicely understated performance by veteran actor Kevin Kline as Belle's father. Here in Aladdin, Navid Negahban takes his small but pivotal role as the Sultan and messes it up as he mumbles most of his lines and doesn't come across as the slightest bit regal. It's a bit of a puzzler, as I've seen Negahban's work elsewhere and I know he can act, but he's definitely off his game here.
Now for the good news: the leads, from Massoud as Aladdin to Scott as Jasmine to Smith as the Genie, all hit the mark. Massoud just about perfectly captures the youthful energy of his animated predecessor, especially in the action-packed roof-jumping sequences, as well as his insecurity, a key facet for someone who would rely on magic wishes to get ahead. He can also carry a tune quite decently, and was able to pull off the recreation of two of the 1992 film's most well known songs, "One Jump" and the legendary "A Whole New World." One can almost understandably overlook his contribution to that signature duet, though, because his co-star, Naomi Scott, really dishes out a powerful performance that is emblematic of just what she brings to this role. Jasmine, who already had a bit of spunk in the animated film, gets a serious upgrade here in terms of her character's strength, motivation and even the power of her singing voice as she seriously belts not only "A Whole New World," but an all new song, "Speechless," written by the original Aladdin composer Alan Menken and new recruits, lyricists Benj Paul and Justin Pasek. Scott is definitely the breakout star here. Incidentally, Nasim Pedrad is a welcome addition to the cast as Jasmine's handmaiden Dalia. Pedrad has excellent comic timing and it's also nice that Jasmine has an actual human for a friend and confidant, unlike her animated counterpart, who only had a tiger.
Of course, Will Smith has always been, and remains the main talking point here. He turns in a performance that completely justifies the highly-controversial decision to cast him, and as unthinkable as this may have seemed all those months ago, makes the role all his own. The important thing to emphasize is that he is not Robin Williams, nor does he, at any point, attempt to emulate the late comic genius' career-defining turn. He brings his own energy to the role, and while it may not be the manic, inimitable wackiness that Williams infused his Genie with, it serves this particular film well. Massoud and Scott do okay work, but this film would be lost without Smith.
Apart from empowering Jasmine and making some tweaks to make the film a little more culturally-attuned including the much ballyhooed casting of mostly ethnically appropriate actors and the tweaking of some song lyrics (e.g. "Sunday Salaam" is replaced with the more appropriate "Friday Salaam" in the "Prince Ali" number) and other little touches here and there, the film is pretty much the remake of the 1992 animated film that Disney were selling it to be. Thanks to the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic, snappy visual effects help the filmmakers realize the more fantastical aspects of the cartoon, like the Cave of Wonders, the flying carpet, Aladdin's furry friend Abu, and, of course, the Genie. Computer-generated imagery is also heavily used to transform sound stages in England into the fictional Agrabah, though most of the desert scenes were actually filmed in the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. All in all, this is a movie with solid production value, and it helps that, unlike the downright embarrassing "singing" in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast, there doesn't appear to be any auto-tuning here.
Still, like Beauty and the Beast, the film neither aspires to nor achieves any real excellence on its own merit, content to faithfully recreate what came before it, and while it's clearly achieving its goal of making a ton of money, I still can't quite see the artistic merit of this business of just regurgitating old animated films, though I'll admit I'm willing to keep an open mind for The Lion King, which comes out in a couple of months.
7/10
written by John August and Guy Ritchie
It becomes much easier to watch these live-action remakes of classic Disney animated films when one accepts they exist for no other purpose than to make money. It also becomes easier to set aside the agonizing question of why these things even need to exist (one I asked myself quite a bit while watching the nigh-unwatchable Dumbo a few months ago) when, as in the case of Aladdin, the movie itself is actually pretty decent.
Aladdin, loosely based on the fairy tale, is the story of a clever street thief (Mena Massoud) who scrapes by for a living in the fictional Pan-Arabic/Asian country of Agrabah, which is ruled over by an aging Sultan (Navid Negahban) who longs to see his only daughter Jasmine (Naomi Scott) married off before he dies. Little does the Sultan know that his grand vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) plots to overthrow him using an enchanted lamp buried deep in the deserts of Agrabah. The Sultan is likewise unaware that Jasmine, who hopes to one day succeed her father as Sultan (even though there's never been a female Sultan in the history of the country), often sneaks out of the palace and into the city to see what life is like outside. During one such excursion she has a chance encounter with Aladdin and his monkey, Abu. Jasmine, with whom Aladdin is now smitten, passes herself off as her own handmaid, Dalia (Nasim Pedrad), but when suitors come calling to the palace, she has to hurry back, only be upset when Aladdin is unable to return a bracelet Abu stole from her. Aladdin sneaks into the palace to give the necklace back, but his stealth and skill gets the attention of Jafar, who promptly recruits him to find the lamp. Aladdin succeeds, but when Jafar double-crosses him, he is trapped deep in the underground cave with the Abu, the lamp, and, of all things a flying magic carpet with quite a personality. When Aladdin rubs the lamp at the carpet's urging, a blue genie (Will Smith) with even more personality emerges, with the promise that he can grant Aladdin three wishes. Wanting to woo Jasmine, Aladdin wishes to be transformed into a prince, and the Genie obliges. High jinks ensue.
There's actually very little to spoil here, especially considering how the original, animated version of this film has been doing the rounds on both home video and cable television for the better part of three decades, but for the select few coming in cold, suffice it to say that the movie pretty much pays off most of its setups throughout the film. For those who've seen the cartoon, there's very little here that's new, and what is new is a bit of a mixed bag, if I'm honest. It's basically a question of what works versus what doesn't.
I'd like to get this out of the way straightaway: the actors playing both Jafar and the Sultan are awful. I recognize that Ritchie went for a more weaselly approach to Jafar rather than the oily Euronasty he was in the original, and with a better actor it could have worked, but Kenzari just comes across as a tad too weaselly and not nearly as threatening as he should be, even in a scene in which he literally has Aladdin by the throat. Also, unlike Jonathan Freeman's voice performance in the 1992 original, Kenzari is basically devoid of any humor, and while one might be tempted to apportion some of the blame to the screenwriter, I can't help but feel that Kenzari wouldn't have been able to carry any of the jokes anyway. This marks the second time Disney fumbled the ball with the big bad guy; I rather disliked Luke Evans' take on Gaston in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast remake as well. One thing Beauty and the Beast had going for it, though, was a nicely understated performance by veteran actor Kevin Kline as Belle's father. Here in Aladdin, Navid Negahban takes his small but pivotal role as the Sultan and messes it up as he mumbles most of his lines and doesn't come across as the slightest bit regal. It's a bit of a puzzler, as I've seen Negahban's work elsewhere and I know he can act, but he's definitely off his game here.
Now for the good news: the leads, from Massoud as Aladdin to Scott as Jasmine to Smith as the Genie, all hit the mark. Massoud just about perfectly captures the youthful energy of his animated predecessor, especially in the action-packed roof-jumping sequences, as well as his insecurity, a key facet for someone who would rely on magic wishes to get ahead. He can also carry a tune quite decently, and was able to pull off the recreation of two of the 1992 film's most well known songs, "One Jump" and the legendary "A Whole New World." One can almost understandably overlook his contribution to that signature duet, though, because his co-star, Naomi Scott, really dishes out a powerful performance that is emblematic of just what she brings to this role. Jasmine, who already had a bit of spunk in the animated film, gets a serious upgrade here in terms of her character's strength, motivation and even the power of her singing voice as she seriously belts not only "A Whole New World," but an all new song, "Speechless," written by the original Aladdin composer Alan Menken and new recruits, lyricists Benj Paul and Justin Pasek. Scott is definitely the breakout star here. Incidentally, Nasim Pedrad is a welcome addition to the cast as Jasmine's handmaiden Dalia. Pedrad has excellent comic timing and it's also nice that Jasmine has an actual human for a friend and confidant, unlike her animated counterpart, who only had a tiger.
Of course, Will Smith has always been, and remains the main talking point here. He turns in a performance that completely justifies the highly-controversial decision to cast him, and as unthinkable as this may have seemed all those months ago, makes the role all his own. The important thing to emphasize is that he is not Robin Williams, nor does he, at any point, attempt to emulate the late comic genius' career-defining turn. He brings his own energy to the role, and while it may not be the manic, inimitable wackiness that Williams infused his Genie with, it serves this particular film well. Massoud and Scott do okay work, but this film would be lost without Smith.
Apart from empowering Jasmine and making some tweaks to make the film a little more culturally-attuned including the much ballyhooed casting of mostly ethnically appropriate actors and the tweaking of some song lyrics (e.g. "Sunday Salaam" is replaced with the more appropriate "Friday Salaam" in the "Prince Ali" number) and other little touches here and there, the film is pretty much the remake of the 1992 animated film that Disney were selling it to be. Thanks to the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic, snappy visual effects help the filmmakers realize the more fantastical aspects of the cartoon, like the Cave of Wonders, the flying carpet, Aladdin's furry friend Abu, and, of course, the Genie. Computer-generated imagery is also heavily used to transform sound stages in England into the fictional Agrabah, though most of the desert scenes were actually filmed in the Wadi Rum desert in Jordan. All in all, this is a movie with solid production value, and it helps that, unlike the downright embarrassing "singing" in the 2017 Beauty and the Beast, there doesn't appear to be any auto-tuning here.
Still, like Beauty and the Beast, the film neither aspires to nor achieves any real excellence on its own merit, content to faithfully recreate what came before it, and while it's clearly achieving its goal of making a ton of money, I still can't quite see the artistic merit of this business of just regurgitating old animated films, though I'll admit I'm willing to keep an open mind for The Lion King, which comes out in a couple of months.
7/10
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