(no subject)
Titles covered: Incredibles 2, 8th Grade, Antman and the Wasp, Equalizer 2, Early Man, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Christopher Robin.
Incredibles 2 (****)
Oddly enough, I remember the original Incredibles being accompanied by a weak short film (Boundin’), a tradition that is upheld once again. Incredibles 2 is packaged with Bao, a weird film in which the character design is so overstylized that Kat and I weren't sure what age and gender the main character was supposed to be.
Oh well, at least Incredibles 2 is pretty awesome. In fact, it might be the best action movie of 2018.
Incredibles 2 picks up right after the conclusion of the first movie, with the super family being pitted against The Underminer. After a disastrous battle, the supers are put under renewed scrutiny and need a public relations stunt to sway world leaders to their side. OK… so far, so good. The plot then splits between an action story about Elastigirl battling a villain called the Screen Slaver, while Mr. Incredible does a Mr. Mom sitcom routine, trying to take care of the 3 kids. Both of these segments work well, with Mr. Incredible holding up the comedy end, while Elastigirl gets into some crazy action against the Screen Slaver.
The action bits are absolutely incredible, and remarkably brutal for a Disney flick. I thought it was a shame that Disney shied away from action-adventure after the failures of Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but at least we have The Incredibles to show us just how good fight scenes can get when they have the limitless possibilities of animation available. The action is wild and crazy, but maintains enough consistency to make us believe in it.
The one flaw I’ll acknowledge in this movie is that it once again commits to the “surprise villain” trope that was already getting old when Frozen came out, and was simply inexcusable in Zootopia and Big Hero 6. It works OK in Incredibles 2, but makes the movie feel somewhat derivative of the first movie. Frankly, I think the story would have been more interesting if the Screen Slaver actually was who he said he was: a fanatical Luddite trying to break humanity to make it stronger.
Aside from that, Incredibles 2 is great and you should see it. I’m not quite sure we needed to wait 14 years for this story, but I’ll gladly accept it nonetheless.
Why You Shouldn’t Get your Kid a Smartphone (***)
(Also known as "8th grade”)
I never attended middle school.
Being homeschooled from 3rd-8th grade, I feel that I pretty much skipped the middle school experience. Until high school, I only interacted with my teenage peers at Boy scouts and Church. My recent experience with middle-school is second-hand, as I have volunteered as a youth group leader. And I've noticed that today's kids are a lot different than I was. All of them have smartphones (even 6th graders), and it’s incredibly hard to get them to pay attention to the real world and the people around them. This has led to the recent critical darling, 8th Grade, a bleak teenage drama about young teenagers who live on Instagram and Youtube.
This concept was tried before in Jason Reitman’s Men, Women, and Children, an interesting ensemble movie that didn’t quite stick the landing. 8th Grade isn’t tremendously better, but it does feel a bit more genuine. Elsie Fisher (the little girl in Despicable Me) carries the movie well, presenting an honest and believable portrayal of an awkward teenager with very poor speaking skills. I also applaud the movie for showing how teenagers like to test the boundaries (yes, even I played “truth or dare” in high school). And Josh Hamilton absolutely nails his last big scene as the clueless dad, making up for a somewhat silly character.
And yet… I felt that there needed to be something more. Yes, you can nod along with the movie and feel that it’s saying something important, but it ultimately doesn’t give the main character much to do.
I respect that 8th Grade is a very current, very topical movie with a realistic view of the teenage psyche in a social-media-obsessed world. It’s also slow, pretentious, and lacking a central conflict. On the balance, it’s good, but not as good as the critics have made it out to be. And seriously, don’t get your kid a smartphone.
Antman and the Wasp (*** and a half)
The original Antman was a pleasant surprise. It took a relatively obscure Marvel hero and made a hit movie by emphasizing comedy and clever action scenes based around the ability to suddenly change size and mass. Antman and the Wasp is more of the same… but done even better! I probably laughed more during this movie than any other movie this year. Comic actor Paul Rudd does well again as Antman, but the real star of the show is Michael Peña (A ha! I still remember the alt-code for ‘ñ’!) as his bumbling ex-con business partner. A mid-movie scene in which Peña is interrogated by the villains is easily one of the funniest bits in the MCU. Also along for the ride is sitcom actor Randall Park as an affable FBI agent in charge of keeping Antman in line.
On top of that, Antman and the Wasp plays with a lot of fun size-changing ideas, as characters constantly get bigger or smaller (or make objects get bigger or smaller) as part of fight scenes. Combined with a villain who can phase in and out of existence, this makes for some interesting fight scenes that go beyond the usual standard punch-fests of superhero movies.
If there’s a weakness in Antman in the Wasp, it’s the plot. The story is OK, but it’s pretty simple and straightforward, and the marketing kind of betrayed the idea of spending an entire movie rescuing Hope Van Dyne. That said, I did like the sympathetic backstory for “Ghost” and the fact that Lawrence Fishburne’s quasi-villain actually has a moral compass.
I guess you can think of Antman and the Wasp as the MCU’s equivalent of a Jackie Chan movie. The story is secondary; the laughs and action come first. But it does such a good job with the action and comedy that I couldn’t help loving it.
The Equalizer 2 (** and a half)
Oh man, there were so many good ideas here…
I rather liked The Equalizer, an interesting action thriller with Denzel Washington as a widower leading a double-life as a righteous vigilante. The sequel starts things off right, as the Equalizer has become a Lyft driver, which allows him to meet many people and hear their stories. This is an interesting angle that ties into real-life intrigue (what do the people we only meet once in a car think of us?) and provides a logical way for the Equalizer to find more people to help.
As expected, the Equalizer finds people who need his skills and secret-agent connections, which leads into a wide variety of subplots. The only problem: ALL of these subplots are more interesting than the main plot. Seriously, why couldn’t the whole movie have been about the Equalizer tracking down a Holocaust survivor’s stolen painting? Because he wouldn’t have to kill anyone?
The main plot starts off well, but it’s one of those stories that falls apart once the mysteries are revealed. I’ll try to discuss this without spoilers: the movie starts off by suggesting that someone is murdering the spies in the Equalizer’s former agency. This is an intriguing idea, but then it turns out that everything was just sort of a coincidence, and none of the villain schemes make any sense. This leads to a technically impressive but hollow climax in which the bad guys follow the Equalizer to an evacuated island in the middle of a hurricane. Yes, it’s interesting to see a cat-and-mouse fight sequence in a hurricane, but it stretches plausibility, and the brutal deaths clash with the moral ambiguity built up earlier in the movie.
I loved the first half of this movie, but the ending left me wishing for something better. Oh well, hope Equalizer 3 can raise the bar.
Early Man (***)
Several years ago, Aardman animations released an interesting cartoon called Arthur Christmas. The first 15 minutes or so present an inventive and brilliant movie with great world-building. The rest of the movie is a cliché, forgettable kids cartoon. I was reminded of this again when watching Early Man, a film that uses most of its best ideas and world building in the 1st act… before turning into a cliché underdog sports movie.
Maybe that’s unfair. Early Man is certainly more even than Arthur Christmas, but still feels a bit tame coming from the guys who did Wallace and Grommit.
The film starts out with a small tribe of cavemen trying to survive as hunters, despite having only 2 semi-intelligent members. Pretty soon (spoiler alert!) it turns out that the film actually doesn’t take place in the Stone Age, and the cavemen will have to fight for their territory against a far more advanced civilization. By winning a game of soccer. Yes, really.
This is where the film sort goes wrong. It starts off inventive and interesting, but then becomes a predictable sports film with a group of underdogs who suddenly get good with the help of a new mentor and a montage. If you’ve seen any of the Disney sports movies from the 90’s, you’ve seen this story before. That’s not to say that Early Man’s version of this story is bad. It has some very funny visual gags, such as an intelligent pig, a messenger pigeon who is good at impressions, and “instant replays” done with stick puppets.
Early Man starts off great, but ends up being decent. It’s a solid movie for children, who likely haven’t seen this story overplayed as much as we adults have. And I actually do recommend the movie for its moments of brilliance. Beyond the cliché plot, the only real problem is a lack of localization (I honestly didn’t understand any of the jokes made by the sports commentators). Decent film, especially for kids and families.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (** and a half)
Maybe instead of referencing the original Jurassic Park with Easter Eggs, sequel film-makers should look at why it was so good in the first place.
There’s a lot of reasons why Jurassic Park is a great movie, but one reason is that every character death matters. The movie could have just been a schlocky gore film, but instead treats every dinosaur attack as a significant moment in the film that will affect the story. Even the death of the anonymous worker at the beginning of the movie actually sets the whole plot in motion. This lesson wasn’t followed in The Lost World, which spent much of its run-time slaughtering forgettable minor characters with no consequence. And it definitely isn’t followed in Fallen Kingdom, which opens by killing three random people for no reason at all. If all three of those guys narrowly escaped, the story would be exactly the same. This proves to be a problem throughout the entire movie.
That isn’t to say that Fallen Kingdom doesn’t have any ideas. It actually has several ideas, but few of them matter. There’s a retconned backstory for InGen that comes off like the continuity to the Resident Evil videogames (“Guess what? There was yet another mad scientist with a spooky old mansion who worked on the zombie virus!”). There’s also human cloning, but it doesn’t matter at all and the timeline doesn’t work. Blue the Raptor is supposed to be special and show empathy, but this never happens. There’s a spooky mansion/museum, but the movie doesn’t have the patience to use it properly (i.e. there’s no equivalent of the original movie’s famous “kitchen scene”). Worst of all, the new “IndoRaptor” turns out to just be a dark-colored large raptor, as the plotlines about it being “militarized” or responding to human command are both dumb and irrelevant. The bad guys are all complete morons who have stupid plans, betray the heroes too early for no reason, and open up a dinosaur cage to do some dental work. Seriously.
The funny thing is… the first half of the movie is actually pretty good! Most of this stupidity comes in the second half of the movie. But that first half… Man, there was some real potential here! Before the film gets lost in stupid, stupid subplots, it finds a compelling angle, as everyone goes back to the ruins of Jurassic World to rescue the dinosaurs from a volcano. It provokes some discussion about ethical obligations towards nature, and really intense action as the volcano provides a ticking time bomb to keep the tension high. The dinosaurs are both the threat and the helpless animals in need of aid, which works remarkably well. Seriously, this stuff is great! If the movie had spent more time exploring the island, and left the human-villain conspiracy plot as a cliffhanger, Fallen Kingdom might be the best sequel in the franchise.
Instead, the volcano goes “boom” too early, and we move into the terrible second half, which does very little right aside from a few compelling visuals here and there. Sigh…
Ralph Breaks the Internet (*** and a half)
The original Wreck-it Ralph is one of my favorite movies, and I was surprised and delighted to see that it was getting a sequel. In fact, Ralph Breaks the Internet is the only movie I bothered to see in theaters in 2018.
For the most part, Ralph Breaks the Internet is a satisfying continuation that further explores the idea of electronic lifeforms. Like the first movie, Wreck-it Ralph 2 does a lot of world-building to create a sentient civilization within the digital realm. I liked the way the internet was portrayed, with the human avatars, flashy website pavilions, and speedy transportation. The interaction with humans is especially interesting, in that the human avatars are portrayed as robotic and unexpressive compared to the digital characters. Some of the best bits involve cutting away to the real world to show the humans’ reactions to the movie’s events. There is a lessened focus on videogames, but at least we get “Slaughter Race,” a spoof of Twisted Metal and Grand Theft Auto that fits surprisingly well into a Disney movie (complete with musical number!).
Some critics on the Internet complained that the original Wreck-it Ralph didn’t feature more game worlds. Almost the entire second half of the movie takes place in Sugar Rush. However, I’d argue the story of Wreck-it Ralph was much more focused and dramatic because of this choice to pick a setting and develop a conflict in it. Ralph Breaks the Internet spends very little time in its new game world (Slaughter Race), and instead jumps around to many different Internet and website parodies. And… the results are somewhat mixed.
Sometimes the movie gets it right, using the websites to accomplish a clear plot goal and then moving on (EBay and Knowsmore come to mind). Other times it gets sidetracked with trendy references that don’t justify their screen time. The most obvious example is the OhMyDisney sequence, a trailer gag that goes on too long and adds very little to the story. However, even the long Buzzfeed/Youtube segment doesn’t entirely work. Sure, it’s more relevant to the plot, but ultimately doesn’t develop the central conflict or produce any tension. It would be one thing if the characters had to struggle to produce a popular Internet video- there are plenty of good stories about the creative process- but Ralph just kind of accidentally becomes a star. He might as well have won the lottery.
For what it’s worth, Ralph Breaks the Internet wraps things up pretty well in the final act, when the storylines converge and we finally get a clear view of the dramatic center: Ralph is a dad who can’t stand to watch his little girl grow up. It’s a theme that kind of sneaks up on the audience, but becomes crystal clear in the emotional climax, which hit me hard.
With a weaker ending, Ralph Breaks the Internet would merely be a passable sequel. However, I think this movie did enough right to be a very solid entry in the Disney canon, even if it’s not nearly as good as its awesome predecessor. It also proves that the franchise has legs, and could probably make for a good TV show.
One noticeable plot hole, though…. Who took over for Ralph when he left his game? Donkey Kong? Bowser? Strong Mad?
Christopher Robin (***)
In case you haven’t noticed, Disney has been remaking all their animated properties as live-action movies. We’ve seen the good (“Cinderella”), the bad (“Maleficent”), and the redundant (“Beauty and the Beast”), and now we have Christopher Robin, a unique take on the Winnie the Pooh stories. The story is essentially that of Steven Spielberg’s Hook, in which Peter Pan grew up into a boring adult and had to rediscover Neverland again. Christopher Robin is a bit of a subtler story, since we always knew that Christopher would grow up one day, and he does indeed remember Pooh (even if as a childhood fantasy).
The creatures of the hundred-acre wood are interesting indeed, rendered with competent CGI and voiced by talented actors (Brad Garrett as Eeyore was my favorite). Owl and Rabbit are portrayed as real animals, while the others are living stuffed dolls, an interesting artistic choice that apparently harkens back to the original stuffed animals that A.A. Milne got his son. I liked the integration of the animals in the real world. Pooh does a great job of annoying Christopher Robin without breaking character, and the interactions between the animals as Christopher’s daughter are adorable.
On the other hand, the character arc of Christopher Robin is somewhat half-baked. To review: the film casts him as the classic movie dad who works too much and doesn’t spend enough time with his family. Besides being a cliché, this is confounded by the fact that Christopher has a genuinely noble reason for working all weekend instead of enjoying a holiday. Christopher never even explains it to his wife, which feels like the script is just avoiding the complexity of the issue. Also… how did he become distant from his family in the first place? The first act of the movie goes out of its way to show his military service. Couldn’t that have worked its way into Christopher’s psyche in a more clear and dramatic way, rather than being forgotten for 75% of the movie?
Christopher Robin gets kind of boring in the middle, when it loses the plot. However, I thought it ended pretty strong, with the animals getting to run amuck in London, and inspiring Christopher Robin to come up with a logical solution to his real-life problems. In total: pretty good movie, but could have been better.
Incredibles 2 (****)
Oddly enough, I remember the original Incredibles being accompanied by a weak short film (Boundin’), a tradition that is upheld once again. Incredibles 2 is packaged with Bao, a weird film in which the character design is so overstylized that Kat and I weren't sure what age and gender the main character was supposed to be.
Oh well, at least Incredibles 2 is pretty awesome. In fact, it might be the best action movie of 2018.
Incredibles 2 picks up right after the conclusion of the first movie, with the super family being pitted against The Underminer. After a disastrous battle, the supers are put under renewed scrutiny and need a public relations stunt to sway world leaders to their side. OK… so far, so good. The plot then splits between an action story about Elastigirl battling a villain called the Screen Slaver, while Mr. Incredible does a Mr. Mom sitcom routine, trying to take care of the 3 kids. Both of these segments work well, with Mr. Incredible holding up the comedy end, while Elastigirl gets into some crazy action against the Screen Slaver.
The action bits are absolutely incredible, and remarkably brutal for a Disney flick. I thought it was a shame that Disney shied away from action-adventure after the failures of Atlantis and Treasure Planet, but at least we have The Incredibles to show us just how good fight scenes can get when they have the limitless possibilities of animation available. The action is wild and crazy, but maintains enough consistency to make us believe in it.
The one flaw I’ll acknowledge in this movie is that it once again commits to the “surprise villain” trope that was already getting old when Frozen came out, and was simply inexcusable in Zootopia and Big Hero 6. It works OK in Incredibles 2, but makes the movie feel somewhat derivative of the first movie. Frankly, I think the story would have been more interesting if the Screen Slaver actually was who he said he was: a fanatical Luddite trying to break humanity to make it stronger.
Aside from that, Incredibles 2 is great and you should see it. I’m not quite sure we needed to wait 14 years for this story, but I’ll gladly accept it nonetheless.
Why You Shouldn’t Get your Kid a Smartphone (***)
(Also known as "8th grade”)
I never attended middle school.
Being homeschooled from 3rd-8th grade, I feel that I pretty much skipped the middle school experience. Until high school, I only interacted with my teenage peers at Boy scouts and Church. My recent experience with middle-school is second-hand, as I have volunteered as a youth group leader. And I've noticed that today's kids are a lot different than I was. All of them have smartphones (even 6th graders), and it’s incredibly hard to get them to pay attention to the real world and the people around them. This has led to the recent critical darling, 8th Grade, a bleak teenage drama about young teenagers who live on Instagram and Youtube.
This concept was tried before in Jason Reitman’s Men, Women, and Children, an interesting ensemble movie that didn’t quite stick the landing. 8th Grade isn’t tremendously better, but it does feel a bit more genuine. Elsie Fisher (the little girl in Despicable Me) carries the movie well, presenting an honest and believable portrayal of an awkward teenager with very poor speaking skills. I also applaud the movie for showing how teenagers like to test the boundaries (yes, even I played “truth or dare” in high school). And Josh Hamilton absolutely nails his last big scene as the clueless dad, making up for a somewhat silly character.
And yet… I felt that there needed to be something more. Yes, you can nod along with the movie and feel that it’s saying something important, but it ultimately doesn’t give the main character much to do.
I respect that 8th Grade is a very current, very topical movie with a realistic view of the teenage psyche in a social-media-obsessed world. It’s also slow, pretentious, and lacking a central conflict. On the balance, it’s good, but not as good as the critics have made it out to be. And seriously, don’t get your kid a smartphone.
Antman and the Wasp (*** and a half)
The original Antman was a pleasant surprise. It took a relatively obscure Marvel hero and made a hit movie by emphasizing comedy and clever action scenes based around the ability to suddenly change size and mass. Antman and the Wasp is more of the same… but done even better! I probably laughed more during this movie than any other movie this year. Comic actor Paul Rudd does well again as Antman, but the real star of the show is Michael Peña (A ha! I still remember the alt-code for ‘ñ’!) as his bumbling ex-con business partner. A mid-movie scene in which Peña is interrogated by the villains is easily one of the funniest bits in the MCU. Also along for the ride is sitcom actor Randall Park as an affable FBI agent in charge of keeping Antman in line.
On top of that, Antman and the Wasp plays with a lot of fun size-changing ideas, as characters constantly get bigger or smaller (or make objects get bigger or smaller) as part of fight scenes. Combined with a villain who can phase in and out of existence, this makes for some interesting fight scenes that go beyond the usual standard punch-fests of superhero movies.
If there’s a weakness in Antman in the Wasp, it’s the plot. The story is OK, but it’s pretty simple and straightforward, and the marketing kind of betrayed the idea of spending an entire movie rescuing Hope Van Dyne. That said, I did like the sympathetic backstory for “Ghost” and the fact that Lawrence Fishburne’s quasi-villain actually has a moral compass.
I guess you can think of Antman and the Wasp as the MCU’s equivalent of a Jackie Chan movie. The story is secondary; the laughs and action come first. But it does such a good job with the action and comedy that I couldn’t help loving it.
The Equalizer 2 (** and a half)
Oh man, there were so many good ideas here…
I rather liked The Equalizer, an interesting action thriller with Denzel Washington as a widower leading a double-life as a righteous vigilante. The sequel starts things off right, as the Equalizer has become a Lyft driver, which allows him to meet many people and hear their stories. This is an interesting angle that ties into real-life intrigue (what do the people we only meet once in a car think of us?) and provides a logical way for the Equalizer to find more people to help.
As expected, the Equalizer finds people who need his skills and secret-agent connections, which leads into a wide variety of subplots. The only problem: ALL of these subplots are more interesting than the main plot. Seriously, why couldn’t the whole movie have been about the Equalizer tracking down a Holocaust survivor’s stolen painting? Because he wouldn’t have to kill anyone?
The main plot starts off well, but it’s one of those stories that falls apart once the mysteries are revealed. I’ll try to discuss this without spoilers: the movie starts off by suggesting that someone is murdering the spies in the Equalizer’s former agency. This is an intriguing idea, but then it turns out that everything was just sort of a coincidence, and none of the villain schemes make any sense. This leads to a technically impressive but hollow climax in which the bad guys follow the Equalizer to an evacuated island in the middle of a hurricane. Yes, it’s interesting to see a cat-and-mouse fight sequence in a hurricane, but it stretches plausibility, and the brutal deaths clash with the moral ambiguity built up earlier in the movie.
I loved the first half of this movie, but the ending left me wishing for something better. Oh well, hope Equalizer 3 can raise the bar.
Early Man (***)
Several years ago, Aardman animations released an interesting cartoon called Arthur Christmas. The first 15 minutes or so present an inventive and brilliant movie with great world-building. The rest of the movie is a cliché, forgettable kids cartoon. I was reminded of this again when watching Early Man, a film that uses most of its best ideas and world building in the 1st act… before turning into a cliché underdog sports movie.
Maybe that’s unfair. Early Man is certainly more even than Arthur Christmas, but still feels a bit tame coming from the guys who did Wallace and Grommit.
The film starts out with a small tribe of cavemen trying to survive as hunters, despite having only 2 semi-intelligent members. Pretty soon (spoiler alert!) it turns out that the film actually doesn’t take place in the Stone Age, and the cavemen will have to fight for their territory against a far more advanced civilization. By winning a game of soccer. Yes, really.
This is where the film sort goes wrong. It starts off inventive and interesting, but then becomes a predictable sports film with a group of underdogs who suddenly get good with the help of a new mentor and a montage. If you’ve seen any of the Disney sports movies from the 90’s, you’ve seen this story before. That’s not to say that Early Man’s version of this story is bad. It has some very funny visual gags, such as an intelligent pig, a messenger pigeon who is good at impressions, and “instant replays” done with stick puppets.
Early Man starts off great, but ends up being decent. It’s a solid movie for children, who likely haven’t seen this story overplayed as much as we adults have. And I actually do recommend the movie for its moments of brilliance. Beyond the cliché plot, the only real problem is a lack of localization (I honestly didn’t understand any of the jokes made by the sports commentators). Decent film, especially for kids and families.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (** and a half)
Maybe instead of referencing the original Jurassic Park with Easter Eggs, sequel film-makers should look at why it was so good in the first place.
There’s a lot of reasons why Jurassic Park is a great movie, but one reason is that every character death matters. The movie could have just been a schlocky gore film, but instead treats every dinosaur attack as a significant moment in the film that will affect the story. Even the death of the anonymous worker at the beginning of the movie actually sets the whole plot in motion. This lesson wasn’t followed in The Lost World, which spent much of its run-time slaughtering forgettable minor characters with no consequence. And it definitely isn’t followed in Fallen Kingdom, which opens by killing three random people for no reason at all. If all three of those guys narrowly escaped, the story would be exactly the same. This proves to be a problem throughout the entire movie.
That isn’t to say that Fallen Kingdom doesn’t have any ideas. It actually has several ideas, but few of them matter. There’s a retconned backstory for InGen that comes off like the continuity to the Resident Evil videogames (“Guess what? There was yet another mad scientist with a spooky old mansion who worked on the zombie virus!”). There’s also human cloning, but it doesn’t matter at all and the timeline doesn’t work. Blue the Raptor is supposed to be special and show empathy, but this never happens. There’s a spooky mansion/museum, but the movie doesn’t have the patience to use it properly (i.e. there’s no equivalent of the original movie’s famous “kitchen scene”). Worst of all, the new “IndoRaptor” turns out to just be a dark-colored large raptor, as the plotlines about it being “militarized” or responding to human command are both dumb and irrelevant. The bad guys are all complete morons who have stupid plans, betray the heroes too early for no reason, and open up a dinosaur cage to do some dental work. Seriously.
The funny thing is… the first half of the movie is actually pretty good! Most of this stupidity comes in the second half of the movie. But that first half… Man, there was some real potential here! Before the film gets lost in stupid, stupid subplots, it finds a compelling angle, as everyone goes back to the ruins of Jurassic World to rescue the dinosaurs from a volcano. It provokes some discussion about ethical obligations towards nature, and really intense action as the volcano provides a ticking time bomb to keep the tension high. The dinosaurs are both the threat and the helpless animals in need of aid, which works remarkably well. Seriously, this stuff is great! If the movie had spent more time exploring the island, and left the human-villain conspiracy plot as a cliffhanger, Fallen Kingdom might be the best sequel in the franchise.
Instead, the volcano goes “boom” too early, and we move into the terrible second half, which does very little right aside from a few compelling visuals here and there. Sigh…
Ralph Breaks the Internet (*** and a half)
The original Wreck-it Ralph is one of my favorite movies, and I was surprised and delighted to see that it was getting a sequel. In fact, Ralph Breaks the Internet is the only movie I bothered to see in theaters in 2018.
For the most part, Ralph Breaks the Internet is a satisfying continuation that further explores the idea of electronic lifeforms. Like the first movie, Wreck-it Ralph 2 does a lot of world-building to create a sentient civilization within the digital realm. I liked the way the internet was portrayed, with the human avatars, flashy website pavilions, and speedy transportation. The interaction with humans is especially interesting, in that the human avatars are portrayed as robotic and unexpressive compared to the digital characters. Some of the best bits involve cutting away to the real world to show the humans’ reactions to the movie’s events. There is a lessened focus on videogames, but at least we get “Slaughter Race,” a spoof of Twisted Metal and Grand Theft Auto that fits surprisingly well into a Disney movie (complete with musical number!).
Some critics on the Internet complained that the original Wreck-it Ralph didn’t feature more game worlds. Almost the entire second half of the movie takes place in Sugar Rush. However, I’d argue the story of Wreck-it Ralph was much more focused and dramatic because of this choice to pick a setting and develop a conflict in it. Ralph Breaks the Internet spends very little time in its new game world (Slaughter Race), and instead jumps around to many different Internet and website parodies. And… the results are somewhat mixed.
Sometimes the movie gets it right, using the websites to accomplish a clear plot goal and then moving on (EBay and Knowsmore come to mind). Other times it gets sidetracked with trendy references that don’t justify their screen time. The most obvious example is the OhMyDisney sequence, a trailer gag that goes on too long and adds very little to the story. However, even the long Buzzfeed/Youtube segment doesn’t entirely work. Sure, it’s more relevant to the plot, but ultimately doesn’t develop the central conflict or produce any tension. It would be one thing if the characters had to struggle to produce a popular Internet video- there are plenty of good stories about the creative process- but Ralph just kind of accidentally becomes a star. He might as well have won the lottery.
For what it’s worth, Ralph Breaks the Internet wraps things up pretty well in the final act, when the storylines converge and we finally get a clear view of the dramatic center: Ralph is a dad who can’t stand to watch his little girl grow up. It’s a theme that kind of sneaks up on the audience, but becomes crystal clear in the emotional climax, which hit me hard.
With a weaker ending, Ralph Breaks the Internet would merely be a passable sequel. However, I think this movie did enough right to be a very solid entry in the Disney canon, even if it’s not nearly as good as its awesome predecessor. It also proves that the franchise has legs, and could probably make for a good TV show.
One noticeable plot hole, though…. Who took over for Ralph when he left his game? Donkey Kong? Bowser? Strong Mad?
Christopher Robin (***)
In case you haven’t noticed, Disney has been remaking all their animated properties as live-action movies. We’ve seen the good (“Cinderella”), the bad (“Maleficent”), and the redundant (“Beauty and the Beast”), and now we have Christopher Robin, a unique take on the Winnie the Pooh stories. The story is essentially that of Steven Spielberg’s Hook, in which Peter Pan grew up into a boring adult and had to rediscover Neverland again. Christopher Robin is a bit of a subtler story, since we always knew that Christopher would grow up one day, and he does indeed remember Pooh (even if as a childhood fantasy).
The creatures of the hundred-acre wood are interesting indeed, rendered with competent CGI and voiced by talented actors (Brad Garrett as Eeyore was my favorite). Owl and Rabbit are portrayed as real animals, while the others are living stuffed dolls, an interesting artistic choice that apparently harkens back to the original stuffed animals that A.A. Milne got his son. I liked the integration of the animals in the real world. Pooh does a great job of annoying Christopher Robin without breaking character, and the interactions between the animals as Christopher’s daughter are adorable.
On the other hand, the character arc of Christopher Robin is somewhat half-baked. To review: the film casts him as the classic movie dad who works too much and doesn’t spend enough time with his family. Besides being a cliché, this is confounded by the fact that Christopher has a genuinely noble reason for working all weekend instead of enjoying a holiday. Christopher never even explains it to his wife, which feels like the script is just avoiding the complexity of the issue. Also… how did he become distant from his family in the first place? The first act of the movie goes out of its way to show his military service. Couldn’t that have worked its way into Christopher’s psyche in a more clear and dramatic way, rather than being forgotten for 75% of the movie?
Christopher Robin gets kind of boring in the middle, when it loses the plot. However, I thought it ended pretty strong, with the animals getting to run amuck in London, and inspiring Christopher Robin to come up with a logical solution to his real-life problems. In total: pretty good movie, but could have been better.