If there ever was a character that felt like he was bulletproof at the box office, it would be Spider-Man.  Since Sam Raimi’s 2002 blockbuster of the same name starring Tobey Maguire as the webslinger, Spider-Man has been an absolute juggernaut in the cinemas.  Out of all the Spider-Man movies that have come to the big screen, only one can be considered a box office disappointment, 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2.  And that movie’s just slightly over $700 million worldwide gross is still far better than most recent comic book movie grosses today.  Spider-Man has managed to maintain it’s successful run at the box office not just through live action, but also animation with Sony’s Spider-Verse series of films.  But one thing that has emerged through the nearly 25 years of Spider-Man’s box office dominance is the different eras that have become defined.  Of course the Sam Raimi movies stand on their own, with Spider-Man 2 (2004) particularly being singled out as one of the greatest super hero movies of all time.  But the mixed response to the third film in the trilogy, Spider-Man 3 (2007), led to a period of flux for the franchise.  Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire moved on, and Sony was determined to start fresh with a whole new team and a whole new Spider-Man.  This led to the launch of The Amazing Spider-Man era of the character on the big screen.  Andrew Garfield definitely brought a whole new kind of energy to the character and was largely celebrated as an acceptable replacement for Tobey Maguire as the character.  The movies on the other hand were a different story.  While the first Amazing Spider-Man (2012) had a decent reception from the critics and fan community, the second film is considered by most to be one of the worst super hero movies ever made; a convoluted mess that was embarrassing for all involved.  Sadly for Andrew Garfield, it would be a short lived stint as Spider-Man, as all the parties involved were looking to reboot the series once again.  This time, Sony was willing to play ball with Marvel Studios and their parent company Disney in having them take on the creative control of the Spider-Man franchise while Sony held onto the film rights.  And this would lead to MCU era of Spider-Man.

Instead of starting from scratch again, Marvel and Sony decided to establish their new Spider-Man in the middle of him already having been a super hero for a while.  So no radioactive spider and no Uncle Ben.  His arc would instead be centered around how he was going to fit in as part of the larger MCU.  His introduction in fact didn’t even happen in his own franchise, but rather in Captain America: Civil War (2016).  The role also went to a much younger actor than the previous films.  Both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were in their mid 20’s when they were cast in the roles.  When he was cast as the third Spider-Man, Tom Holland had just turned 18, marking the first time this teenage super hero was played by an actual teenager.  But even as young as he was, Holland was perfect match for the character.  Having come from a background in dance and gymnastics, Tom had a built in ability to perform some of Spider-Man’s more physical feats of agility without relying all the time on a stunt double.  But beyond all that, Tom was also incredibly charming and likable as the character, and audiences took to him pretty much immediately.  The success of his debut in Civil War carried over into the first film of his own franchise, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017).  In contrast with the other Spider-Man films before, these MCU movies focused more on Spider-Man being a kid, making his story more of a coming of age arc rather than super hero origin.  All at the same time, Marvel continued to feature Spider-Man as an important part of their universe, even getting promoted to an Avenger in Avengers: Infinity War (2018).  The MCU era for the character did hit a high point post Avengers: Endgame (2019), with Spider-Man now playing a part in the ongoing MCU’s new Multiverse Era.  This led to an opportunity for Marvel to tie all the past Spider-Man movies together into one film, and Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021) would prove to be a monumental film.  Tom Holland would end up sharing the screen with both Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield in a team up for the ages of three generations of Spider-Men, and it led to record-breaking box office the likes that even this always successful franchise had seen up to that point.  For Marvel, it would be a difficult feat to try to follow up a movie like this, which is probably why both Marvel and Sony took a five year break.  But now Spider-Man is back in Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026).  But does it live up to the strength of the rest of the series, or did this Spider get flushed out.

At the end of No Way Home, we found Spider-Man’s entire world flipped upside down.  In order to prevent a multiversal catastrophe from happening, Spider-Man had Doctor Strange cast a spell that caused everyone in the world to forget that he, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) was the webslinger, including those closest to him: his best friend Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) and his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya).  For the next couple years, Peter has lived alone in New York, continuing to perform as his super hero duties, including stopping dangerous super powered villains like Scorpion (Michael Mando).  Though not every mission goes so smoothly, especially when Spider-Man has to compete with another vigilante hero named Frank Castle, aka The Punisher (Jon Bernthal).  But for Peter, diving himself fully into his work still can’t beat back the feeling of loneliness, which only intensifies when both Ned and Zendaya return home from college.  Despite wanting so badly to rekindle the relationship he once had with them, he also knows that the best way to keep them safe is to keep his distance and leave them ignorant of his Spider-Man identity.  But things begin to unravel as his body is going through some transformations.  The spider DNA that gave him his powers is starting to overwhelm his human DNA, and it’s causing Spider-Man to lose control and become more aggressive.  In order to understand what is going on, he seeks the advise of Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who has invented a technology that inhibits his transformation into the Hulk.  Peter hopes to use the same technology to balance himself out.  However, the city is facing a whole new threat with a unseen enemy who has the power to take over someone’s mind.  Not only that, but this mind-hopping foe (Sadie Sink) can jump from one mind to another, and only Peter is immune to the effect.  Whoever this person is, they seem intent on attacking the local office of the Department of Damage Control, searching for something that lies deep within their vaults.  Can Spider-Man manage to overcome the changes that are happening to his body?  And who is this individual who can posses anyone they want and what is DODC hiding that this person is so intent on finding?

Now Way Home in many ways felt like a closing chapter, not so much for the character of Spider-Man, but for that part of the arc of his story.  From Spider-Man: Homecoming to No Way Home, Spider-Man’s maturity was very much centered around his orbit with the Avengers and the larger MCU.  It was an interesting way to portray Spider-Man’s development, but it was also a departure from the comics, which frequently shows Spidey as someone struggling to make a living.  With the spell cast in No Way Home, this MCU Spider-Man in a way was given a re-set, where he’s been cut of (by choice) from all the luxury and connections he had before.  But the only way they would be able to make that change to the status quo land was if they followed through with this idea and fundamentally change what Spider-Man needs to be in the MCU.  And with Spider-Man: Brand New Day, they managed to do that spectacularly well.  This movie did exactly what it needed to do, which was to deliver a very different kind of Spider-Man movie, while at the same time honoring all the ones that have come before.  There is continuity between this and the previous trilogy of MCU Spider-Man movies, but stylistically, it feels grittier and more mature while also still maintaining the fun.  A lot of this has to do with the change in creative direction between this and No Way Home.  The previous three Spider-Man movies were all directed by Jon Watts, who moved on to other projects outside of Marvel.  In looking for his replacement, Marvel stayed in house and tapped Daniel Destin Cretton for the job.  Cretton has been a fixture at Marvel for some time, having directed the beloved Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) as well as his recent hit series Wonder Man for Disney+.  Cretton was also going to direct the ill-fated Avengers: The Kang Dynasty before that got scrapped after Marvel abandoned the Kang storyline in favor of Avengers: Doomsday.  But, knowing just how talented he is with making projects both big and small, Marvel wanted to keep Cretton within the family by allowing him to direct their newest Spider-Man film.  And Cretton did not disappoint.  What he ended up doing was make what is probably the best Spider-Man movie we have seen in over 20 years.

Daniel Destin Cretton gives the series the new energy it needed.  It’s still the familiar Spider-Man formula we know, but framed through his own vision, which seems more grounded than the previous trilogy films.  That works in this movie’s favor, as it definitely focuses on Spider-Man returning back to his friendly neighborhood savior roots.  This isn’t a Spider-Man dealing with celestial threats or high tech calamity.  He’s just helping the streets feel safer for his fellow New Yorkers, which is exactly what he’s always been in the comics.  The change in tone also helps make this movie feel more mature as well.  It’s kind of like how things changed in the Harry Potter films as they went along, with the latter movies taking on a more serious tone the further they went.  But what’s even more important is that Daniel’s approach to this movie also puts the focus back on Peter Parker and what it now means for him to be anonymous in the world again.  The people still love Spider-Man and everything he does, but we also see how Peter is becoming more and more lonely behind that mask.  Watching the movie, I found this movie had a lot of parallels with Raimi’s brilliant Spider-Man 2.  That film also put the hero through an existential crisis of identity, though in that film it was through Spidey losing his powers, whereas in this film his powers are getting stronger and more erratic.  There’s a very strong message found in there, where Spider-Man is confronted with the fact that he can stop things from changing, whether it’s the past life he had with Ned and MJ, or the transformation he’s going through physically, and that it’s better to not fight it but instead embrace it.  This is strongly laid out in the film, especially with the fact that it’s also reflected in the storyline with the protagonist in the film as well.  I can’t say who that person is, because it’s a major reveal, but suffice to say the movie deals with her own crisis of identity very well as it is a mirror to Peter’s own journey.  If there is one thing that works against the movie is that even at 2 1/2 hours it still feels like some of these explorations are rushed, because it is a movie stuffed with so much.  But at the very least, all of the stuffing put into this movie is still a lot of fun.

One of the great things about this movie is that it did allow for the time passage to be reflected in the story.  The movie does skip these characters’ college years, because they had to.  Tom Holland and Zendaya are getting close to their 30’s and it will be increasingly hard to still depict them as college aged.  Even with them now matured, both actors still perfectly fall back into character like no time has passed.  Tom Holland may very well be the best actor to ever take on this role, and it’s something that he’s now done for over a decade.  He still brings a warm-hearted charm to the character, and it’s great to see the movie allow him to go deeper with the character.  Zendaya doesn’t feature as much in this story as she has in the previous films in the series, but she does make the best of the scenes she has.  And no surprise, this real life power couple still have tremendous on screen chemistry.  What also stands out in this film is the performance of Sadie Sink as the film’s antagonist.  Again, can’t say who she is because that would be a spoiler, but I’ll just say that she is indeed a comic book character and Sadie is perfectly cast for this part.  She manages to give this character a fantastic presence, and it will be interesting to see how this role plays a factor in her career moving forward.  It’s also interesting to see how this movie departs from the traditional rogues gallery formula of Spider-Man movies, giving Spider-Man a different kind of challenge with a foe that is very different from the ones he faces in the comics.  My favorite part of the movie though would have to be Jon Bernthal’s Punisher.  It’s an inspired choice to put him in this movie, because he brings a wonderful bit of chaotic energy to the story.  It’s a risk putting this very R-Rated Marvel character into a PG-13 movie, but they manage to allow the character to feel like he fits in this story without having to soften the character too much.  He’s strangely enough one of the funnier characters in the movie, and that’s even with him still being in line with the comic book character.  And Jon Bernthal also has incredible chemistry with Tom Holland, with The Punisher definitely giving off a big brother kind of energy.  The appearances of other Marvel characters in the story, such as Mark Ruffalo’s Dr. Banner also feels organic to the story, and it doesn’t make the movie feel like it’s shoehorning in MCU content just to reinforce Spider-Man’s place within it.

It should also be noted that this may also be the most beautiful looking Spider-Man film we’ve ever seen; even more than the Raimi films.  What I really appreciated with this movie is the muted color palette.  Because the Jon Watts Spider-Man films were more lighthearted, they also incorporated a much more saturated color palette to match the tone, which worked for those film even if it did make them look a little flat.  Daniel Destin Cretton’s team changed the color scheme completely by taking the saturation out and giving the movie a more silvery shine to it, which really makes the colors pop more; especially Spider-Man’s red and blue suit.  They also reimagined how they visualized Spider-Man’s fighting abilities in this film.  You can definitely see the lessons learned from Shang-Chi, with a lot more emphasis put on the staging of the action sequences, allowing us to follow what is actually happening.  One of the definite highlights is a showdown between Spider-Man, The Punisher, and the Hulk.  And to think that you would ever see a fight scene in a movie involving that trio of characters on the big screen become a reality.  Sure it involves a lot of visual effects, given that the Hulk is involved, but you still feel the visceral force of the action, and there are a lot of clever dynamics that go on in that fight.  And it perfectly spotlights all the things that we like to see each of these characters do, with Spidey’s agility, Punisher’s expertise with weaponry, and of course Hulk smashing.  The movie even reimagines how to visualize Spider-Man’s swinging through the skyscrapers of New York.  The “camera” sticks close to Spidey in these moments, so it feels like we are swinging right beside him and seeing the world through his eyes as the city literally flies by us.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the creative team took some inspiration from the popular Spiderman games on the PlayStation.  I also love the way that New York feels like a character all it’s own in this movie.  This isn’t a city defined by landmarks, but rather by the people that Spider-Man interacts with everyday.  We get to see a lot more of that interaction this time around, which is another thing that this movie has in common with Spider-Man 2, showing just how important the connection between the hero and the city really is.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day really is everything you want out of a Spider-Man movie, and it will absolutely stand as one of the best.  It’s perhaps too early to know if it should dethrone Spider-Man 2 from the top, but it’s definitely a contender.  I do think that this is definitely the best of the Holland Spider-Man films, and each of the previous ones were all really good.  It was definitely going to be tough to surpass a movie like No Way Home, but honestly by keeping things simple and centered around the main hero, it actually found a way to become an even better movie.  Sure, the movie still has connecting threads to other past MCU films, and it is also planting seeds for the future as well.  But this movie doesn’t feel like it’s a way station for other Marvel properties.  A movie like Captain America: Brave New World (2025) was so bogged down by it’s adherence to checking off different MCU touchstones that it ultimately ruined the film as a result, making it feel less like it’s own movie and more like an episode of an ongoing shoe.  That doesn’t happen in Brand New Day.  While it does reward you with nods to past MCU projects (and hints of future ones), it also works them in organically into the story to the point where they won’t be distracting.  This story isn’t about setting the stage for what’s next; it’s focused on what’s present, and that’s Spider-Man fully embracing the hero he should be.  The movie does a lovely job of delivering that message of self-respect and not being anchored down by your past.  Things have changed for Marvel and Spider-Man, and the movie reflects that very well.  I don’t know how much more involved Daniel Destin Cretton will be in the future of this franchise, given that he also has the option of returning to Shang-Chi, but my hope is that he does stay involved in the shaping of Spider-Man’s story from here out in some way.  He did a great job of giving us something new and expected, while also honoring the movies that have come before.  While the revelations in No Way Home were a bit crazier and more mind-blowing, it also showed that there wasn’t much else to the story other than the the surprises they sprung on us.  That’s why Brand New Day is the better movie as a whole, even without all the fan service.  It hits a lot stronger with the emotional core, and that’s what will help it resonate more over a longer period of time than No Way Home, even if that movie was also pretty memorable itself.  It’s great to see this franchise still doing right by the iconic webslinger, and it will be interesting to see where both Spider-Man and the MCU go from here.

Rating: 9/10

Disney has had a turbulent time as of late with their trend of turning their animated films into live action ones.  During the 2010’s, this was a money printing machine that greatly filled the coffers of the Disney Company, with remakes of The Jungle Book (1967), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and The Lion King (1994) all crossing the billion dollar mark at the worldwide box office.  They were making a mint by re-packaging all the classic films they had made before with a new live action sheen to them.  But even though these movies were making a killing at the box office, it was also alienating long time fans of the originals.  Many people saw these movies as a shameless cash grab that was exploiting the Disney brand and creating a feedback loop that was stunting the creativity at the studio.  From their perspective, it appeared that Disney is more willing to cash in on audience nostalgia than putting the effort into creating bold new things that could sustain the future of the studio.  These remakes very much represent an era of creative stagnation at the studio, which seems more inclined on doing what’s safe and easy rather than what’s daring and risky.  That’s not to say that every remake of theirs has been terrible.  The one’s that actually make the most to change up enough in their film to help make them distinguishable from the original tend to be the best, such as 2015’s Cinderella (2015), which is a genuinely great movie on it’s own.  While this trend of remakes has been a big money maker in the past for Disney, their results have been a bit more mixed in the 2020’s.  They experienced a lot of success with the remakes of The Little Mermaid (1989) and Lilo and Stitch (2002), especially with the latter as it became a billion dollar grosser.  But those successes were dampened by the colossal box office failure of their Snow White (2025) remake, a movie that Disney took a massive financial hit on.  It makes many wonder if this remake trend has hit it’s breaking point, as audiences seem less interested now in these nostalgia bait films.

Another thing that Disney has to contend with is that their well has tapped out when it comes to the movies that they can adapt into live action.  They’ve already remade all the biggest films of the Disney Renaissance era, and the ones that remain un-remade are the ones that weren’t box office successes to begin with.  They are also learning that it’s more difficult to remake the movies of Walt’s era as well, as the failures of their remakes of Snow White, Pinocchio (2022) and Dumbo (2019) will attest.  But, at the same time, the Disney company did see Lilo and Stitch (2025) cross the billion dollar mark, so there are some in the company that still see money to be made in mining their library.  It seems to be less about the different eras of Disney Animation and more about what individual movies have their own built in audiences.  One thing Disney is learning about is how well the fandoms of these movies carry over through each film.  Despite the divisive reaction from critics, 2019’s The Lion King still landed with audiences and became a massive success.  And that success surprisingly maintained itself as Disney followed that film up with a prequel called Mufasa: The Lion King (2024).  While that movie didn’t make nearly as much as it’s predecessor, it still put up an impressive worldwide gross of over $700 million, showing that even a prequel of a remake of The Lion King was still able to capitalize on it’s built in audience.  So, Disney is making it’s choices of remakes more geared around what they know has worked well for them in the past.  One of the studio’s current heavy hitters is the animated classic Moana (2016).  The final film from animation legends John Musker and Ron Clements, Moana had a fairly respectable run at the box office when it first released, but it only has grown in esteem since then.  Moana has consistently been one of the top performing films in streaming, putting up bigger watch time numbers than even Disney’s Frozen films on the same platforms.  It is an indisputable hit for Disney, and it prompted them to scrap a straight to streaming animated series in favor of an actual theatrical sequel, which then of course went on to break several box office records.  Moana 2 (2024) proved that this was a juggernaut franchise for Disney, so it’s not at all surprising that they rushed forward to create a live action version as well, marking the shortest window between any Disney remake and their original.  But is this a journey that was worth taking for Moana and Disney, or is it washed out to see like many of the other recent remake stumbles.

The story of Moana will be familiar to anyone that has seen the original, as it pretty much is beat for beat the same.  Moana (Catherine Laga’aia) is being instructed by her father Chief Tui (John Tui) in the ways of running the community on their island of Motunui as she is next in line to become their chief.  But Moana sees a different destiny for herself as she longs to break her father’s decree of never leaving the security of the reef and explore the greater ocean beyond it; a destiny that her Gramma Tala (Rena Owen) encourages.  Fate intervenes when the crops begin failing on the island, which puts stress on the survival of the islanders.  Thanks to Gramma Tala, Moana learns that her ancestors were voyagers that sailed out into the ocean to find new land and that there is a reason why the island is in danger now.  A thousand years prior, the heart of the goddess Te Fiti was stolen by the shape-shifting demi god Maui (Dwayne Johnson), and with the heart stolen, a curse was placed on the ocean, with disease and famine spreading from island to island.  That curse has now reached the shores of Motunui, and Tala reveals to Moana that she has been chosen by the Ocean itself to find Maui and force him to return the Heart of Te Fiti to it’s rightful place.  Moana leaves her home island behind, venturing out onto the open ocean alone (apart from her bird brain pet rooster Hei Hei).  She manages to stumble upon a deserted island where Maui has been exiled for hundreds of years, and discovers that he is powerless due to having lost his magic fish hook, the source of his power.  In order to reverse the curse placed on the islands in the ocean, Moana and Maui must band together and locate Maui’s hook so that he can then restore the heart and undo the mess he has made.  But to do that, they must face a harrowing trial of dangers, including facing the dreaded tribe of Kakamora, a giant treasure hoarding crab named Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement), and the fearsome lava monster Te Ka that guard the island of Te Fiti.  Will Moana and Maui manage to restore the heart and restore life to the ocean?  If you’ve seen the original movie, you probably already know the answer.

I’ve had fairly mixed feelings about the Disney remakes.  On the whole I find them pointless, because for most of them, they come nowhere close to matching the original movies.  And yet, I still find nuance in my reactions to them, because even though they are remakes, that doesn’t mean that they are all bad.  I already stated that I think the Cinderella remake is a genuinely great movie, and one worthy of carrying on the legacy of the original while also being it’s own thing.  I also was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked The Little Mermaid (2023) and Aladdin (2019).  They were still flawed and nowhere near as good as the originals, but there was enough good things in them that I still enjoyed watching them.  The same goes for the movies that aren’t quite remakes but are inspired by the original films like Cruella (2021).  Otherwise, for the most part I just feel like a lot of these movies are just pale imitations, like Lilo and Stitch (2025), The Jungle Book (2016), Peter Pan and Wendy (2023), and yes even Snow White, which was far from the worst one.  The ones that I genuinely don’t like are the remakes that completely miss the point of the originals or just fumble the adaptation so poorly, like Beauty and the Beast (2017), Maleficent (2014), or Pinocchio (2022).  But the worst of the bunch are the movies that don’t even try to be anything other than just a copy and paste job, changing nothing except the visual look of the film going from animation to live action, which is always a downgrade.  This was made me hate The Lion King (2019) remake so much, because it was a shameful low effort remake that just did the whole film again almost shot for shot, but removed all the charm that the original had through it’s animation.  I hate to say it, but that’s what this Moana remake is as well.  While this remake does get points for actually using real actors unlike The Lion King’s all-CGI “live action,” it at the same time is the same low effort copy and paste job as that movie was.  They literally changed nothing, except for the live action part.  It’s the same exact script, and the movie even recreates exact shots from the original.  You are going to get a weird sense of Deja Vu while watching this movie because it repeats every single beat, and yet feels lifeless by comparison.

The film was directed by Thomas Kail in his feature film debut, and it definitely shows.  Kail has previously been a director of stage musicals, most notably helping bring the musical Hamilton to Broadway for it’s historic run.  The reason he got this gig directing a Moana remake is because Hamilton’s creator and leading man Lin-Manuel Miranda also wrote the hit songs from the original movie.  That connection likely landed him this job, as Disney already had him in the family due to the premiere of the Hamilton pro-shot version of the musical that he also directed that premiered on Disney+ to great success.  Kail is no doubt a skilled director for the medium of the stage, but directing for a feature film is another kind of disciplined, and it probably wasn’t good for Kail to cut his teeth on a project of this scale right off the bat.  Despite the movie using the blueprint of the original, the film just feels lifeless.  You always get a sense of the actors acting in front of a green screen as there is a very stagey way to how the film is blocked and framed.  The only time the movie tries to dazzle us with it’s impressive scale is when it is literally calling back to shots from the original film.  If there was ever a movie that stressed the superiority of animation, particularly when it comes to these remakes, this is the one.  There is no surprise to this movie; it’s just the same exact movie over again, but done worse.  All the jokes are the same, but somehow land with less impact (yes, they even do the Disney Princess joke again, word for word).  As much as I criticize what Kail brought to this film, I don’t want to put the blame on him solely.  He was hired to do a job, and he tried the best he could given his limited experience.  It’s not his fault that the movie is just a mediocre rehash; that’s Disney’s fault for not taking any chances.  There could have been a decent remake of this movie made had they tried to change things up to make it more surprising.  Hell, even Snow White did better at this by changing parts of the story to differentiate itself from the original.  You can make these remakes better if you give us the thing that we didn’t expect to happen and also have fun with that.  Moana doesn’t take any chances and it just believes that it’s audience will show up no matter what even if we are getting the same movie all over again.

Like I said, at least we have real actors this time on screen as opposed to the CGI animals with celebrity voices in The Lion King.  Austrailian actress Catherine Laga’aia has the daunting task of bringing the iconic character to life on screen.  To her credit, she looks the part and she does try her hardest to play the part right.  The problem is the lifelessness of the rest of the film, which likewise leaves her looking lost on screen.  There’s no way she can manage to match the liveliness of her animated counterpart, and sadly her singing voice (while still good) can’t quite hit the high notes as well as Auli’i Cravalho did in her vocal performance.  But as wooden as Catherine’s performance may be at times, it’s nothing compared to Dwayne Johnson’s performance as Maui.  The strange thing is that this should have been a cake walk for him as Dwayne originated the role in the animated film.  His vocal performance as Maui in the original is rightly praised for the energy and personality he put into the character, and he continued to do that in the sequel alongside Auli’i who also reprised her role.  But all of that is missing here in this version of Maui.  Dwayne just looks bored throughout the film.  He’s delivering the same exact lines, but he comes across as more aloof and distant.  Also, it’s clear that he can’t pull off Maui’s look either.  It’s obvious those aren’t Dwayne’s real muscles and flowing mane of hair just looks like a cheap wig.  It’s not the first time we’ve seen an actor reprise a role from animation to live action, as Gerard Butler did the same in the How to Train Your Dragon remake from last year.  But Butler actually put in some effort to bring his character to life in live action, and honestly gave the best performance in that film, which is really saying something.  Here it just looks like Dwayne Johnson is just going through the motions to collect a paycheck.  Sadly he has absolutely no chemistry with Catherine Laga’aia, which really hurts the movie because the chemistry between the characters of Moana and Maui is central to the story.  There is one performance that does manage to shine in this film, and that’s Rena Owen as Gramma Tala.  The veteran Maori actress takes on the role originated by fellow Kiwi performer Rachel House, and she brings a wonderful sense of warmth and soul to the character.  She easily steals every scene she is in, even if all of it is exactly a repeat of the original film.  The other positive about this movie is that it’s likely the first big budget studio film to have the entire cast be of Polynesian ancestry, which is historic in it’s own right.

A large reason why people still watch these movies is because they want to see what these animated worlds look like when brought into live action.  This often is a mixed bag when it comes to these Disney remakes.  While some characters manage to translate successfully into live action, like Stitch from Lilo and Stitch, other times the live action translation just doesn’t work out.  Check out the monstrosities that were the enchanted appliances in Beauty and the Beast, or the expressionless animals of The Lion King.  Disney also ran into hot water by making the Seven Dwarves CGI characters rather than casting real little people in the roles for Snow White.  While the use of real actors for the main roles is a positive, the film also loses something when bringing the animals to life in this movie.  Hei Hei and Moana’s pet pig Pua are entirely CGI animated, and of course lack any of the personality of their cartoonish counterparts.  The same goes for Tamatoa, who has that weird live action/cartoonish hybrid look that also made Sebastian from The Little Mermaid feel off in that remake as well.  I guess it is nice that they got Jemaine Clement to return to voice the character, though it’s kind of pointless given that he’s just doing the same lines all over again.  You could’ve used all of the original vocal tracks and no one would’ve known the difference.  One of the many problems with these remakes is that they often feel over produced.  There is so much visual effects work put into the film to make it exactly like the original animated movie, that you wonder why they even felt it necessary to remake this movie at all.  The budget for this film was a reported $250 million, which is probably twice the amount that was spent making the original.  And it barely looks realistic at all, which is kind of missing the point of remaking something in live action.  The credits say it was shot on location in Hawaii, but I couldn’t tell you what, because the whole movie has this whole desaturated feel that makes it feel like all of it was run through a computer with the actors performing in front of a digital background.  It’s not AI levels of detached reality, but it also shows that even the best computer animation that money can buy can still feel flat when you don’t know how to use it.  If anything, it just shows why animation is vastly superior in telling a story like this because it allows for more creativity in the visuals than being weighted down by the limitations of what you can shoot on set.

Unfortunately, this Moana is in the lowest tier of Disney live action remakes, and that’s mainly due to it lacking any identity unto itself.  It is quite simply an inferior version of the original in every way.  On the bright side, it’s so utterly forgettable that I don’t think it’s going to ruin the legacy of the original.  If anything, it’s going to spotlight just how much better the original Moana is by comparison.  But, even so, this is another warning sign that these movies are not doing any favors for the Disney brand other than a short term financial gain, and even that cash cow is running dry.  It’s only been 10 years since the original film hit theaters, which I don’t think has even been long enough for audiences to have built up a feeling of nostalgia for it.  One of the reasons why the Disney Renaissance era classics led to these ultra successful remakes is because the audience that came of age during the release of the originals are now adults with their own kids today, and that’s what made them come to the theaters in such high numbers, through that sharing of their love of these stories through multiple generations.  The people who grew up with Moana are still likely kids themselves, and haven’t had children of their own yet to bring to the theaters with them yet.  I don’t know ultimately how this movie will perform, but it likely won’t be enough to justify the $250 million price tag.  If anything, Disney needs to reassess whether or not it’s worth putting in a quarter of a billion dollars into making a movie that they already made before.  Sure, you do occasionally get a Lilo and Stitch like payoff (which cost much less to make by the way, thus making it more profitable), but you also risk a steep financial cost if it doesn’t work, like with Snow White.  And Snow White actually looks better than Moana by comparison, because it actually attempted to do things different.  I feel like people are just going to ignore this remake in favor of rewatching the original.  There already seems to be signs that Disney is winding down their remake pipeline, with only a Tangled (2010) remake and a Lilo and Stitch sequel in the foreseeable future.  They got some big wins, but those are now being overshadowed by the failures, and they should probably put a stop to them before they do any more damage to the Disney legacy.  They need to be innovators again, and not just cashing in on their past glory.  This Moana is unfortunately dead in the water and no amount of nostalgia magic is going to come to it’s rescue.

Rating: 4/10

We are in an interesting time now with Super Hero movies.  The genre flat out dominated the box office throughout the 2010’s, built on the backs of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy and the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It seemed for a while like movies based on comic books would be the golden goose that would never stop laying golden eggs, and it was true across the board.  Not only was Marvel riding high, but so was their cross town rival DC, which saw massive hits with even their second tier heroes like Wonder Woman (2017), Aquaman (2018) and Shazam (2019).  But after Covid and the continued rise of streaming, viewing habits began to shift, and these Super Hero movies were no longer gaining traction anymore at the box office.  That’s not to say that comic book movies are a dying genre; big hitters like Batman, Spider-Man, and Deadpool have still been able to deliver billion dollar grosses for their respective studios.  But it’s the lesser known characters that are underperforming at the box office, showing that there are limits to the coat tail riding that these franchises are capable of pulling off.  While Marvel can still find success with their big franchise characters like Spider-Man, Thor, and Deadpool, they have a far more difficult time now getting us excited for something like say the Thunderbolts (2025) for instance, even despite that movie getting generally positive reviews.  This is leading to a major re-evaluation of the genre as a whole.  Marvel seems ready for a re-boot of sorts once they get past the next batch of Avengers movies.  Meanwhile, DC has already started again from scratch with a whole new cinematic universe under the supervision of director James Gunn.  The Gunniverse as some have dubbed it is still in it’s infancy, but like their counterparts at Marvel, DC is looking far ahead to what this cinematic universe could actually be.  The hope from parent company Warner Brothers is that this re-boot will help ensure the health of the DC brand for the foreseeable future, but in a changing world where audience tastes are changing rapidly, this is not something that is guaranteed.

Thankfully, James Gunn and his DCU initiative couldn’t have asked for a better start.  The choice was made to have the most iconic super hero of them all, Superman, lead the charge with a new film directed by Gunn himself.  It was risky, given that Superman has had a hard time connecting with audiences over the years, with Superman Returns (2006) and Man of Steel (2013) being very polarizing films.  But, James Gunn’s Superman (2025) managed to break that curse with a box office hit that was praised across the board by critics and audiences alike.  Most of the praise was given to David Corenswet especially, with people proclaiming him to be the best Superman since the beloved Christopher Reeve.  Gunn, who of course is no stranger to making comic book movies with broad appeal like he did at Marvel with the Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), showed that he could do the same thing at DC, and this made a lot of people hopeful that they indeed could stay competitive with Marvel and continue to keep the super hero genre alive.  But that would also all depend on what comes after the big hits.  James Gunn of course can’t direct every movie in the DC pipeline, so he has to delineate to other filmmakers in order to keep the slate of films coming.  It’s an unusual situation where Gunn has to be what Kevin Feige is to Marvel, which the overseer of the entire enterprise, while at the same time being hands on with his own projects.  The beginning of the DCU is very much frontloaded with Gunn’s own projects, which includes the Superman movies as well as his hit Peacemaker series on HBO.  The test of the DCU will very much depend on the strength of the properties that Gunn has less involvement in.  This summer we are getting the first film in the DCU from a different director, and it involves a character who has had a more difficult time connecting with audiences over the years than Superman has.  The character of Kara Zor-El, aka Supergirl, has been a popular fixture in the comic books since her debut in 1959, but has yet to have that big breakout hit on the big screen.  The last time she had her own movie, it was the disastrous 1984 film starring Helen Slater and Faye Dunaway.  Can this 2026 reverse that trend, or is Supergirl just too unlucky at the box office.

Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) has lived a fairly lonely life as one of the last of her kind.  She was born on the last remaining city of the planet Krypton called Argo, which itself began to die off when Kryptonite poisoning took hold of the population.  Her father Zor-El (David Krumholtz) believed that the only way Kara would be safe is if she were sent to Earth to live with her cousin Kal-El as the only other survivor of Krypton.  With her loyal dog Krypto by her side, Kara escaped Argo on a pod sent to Earth.  Once there, she was greeted by Kal-El, now named Clark Kent (David Corenswet) who has become the hero known as Superman.  On Earth, Kara has learned to fit in like her cousin, as well as master the new powers she has thanks to Krytonian ability to absorb energy from yellow suns.  But, she still feels alone and isolated.  So, she leaves Earth behind and heads out into the cosmos once again.  She ends up visiting planets that orbit red stars because there her powers are lessened and she’s able to get drunk.  During her bar hopping across the galaxy, she comes across a planet where the local population is being harassed by a group called the Brigands; a nasty gang or rogues known for pillaging innocent people across multiple planets and stealing their women and girls to perpetuate their all male race.  The Brigands leader, Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) attacked and killed an entire family belonging to a local weapons smith, except for the daughter named Ruthye (Eve Ridley).  Ruthye runs into Kara at one of the seedy bars on the planet, and is astonished by her incredible bravery and strength, even with Kara’s powers in a reduced state near the red star.  She tries to enlist Kara’s help to stop the Brigands and get her revenge on Krem, but Kara is not interested in getting involved.  However, things change when the Brigands raid Kara’s own ship and more distressingly shot her dog Krypto with a Kryptonite laced dart.  Kara has only three days to find the Brigands who carry the antidote and save Krypto from a painful death.  This puts her in a reluctant alliance with Ruthye as their goals are now aligned.  But, trouble still arises in their hunt as another party is also searching for the Brigands; a bounty hunter named Lobo (Jason Momoa).  Can Kara save her dog in time while also guiding the young Ruthye down the right path?

The hope was that Supergirl would carry the momentum of Gunn’s Superman, and make audiences care about all the different characters that make up the DC canon.  This particular film takes it’s inspiration from the 2021-22 comic book miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, which follows the same basic premise of Kara helping a young alien girl avenge her family, which is a story that takes heavy inspiration from the Western novel True Grit by Charles Portis.  It’s clear that the movie adaptation is also heavily inspired by James Gunn’s own Guardians of the Galaxy movies, with it’s interplanetary world-building and embrace of the weird and quirky.  But, despite Gunn being a producer of this film, it is not a James Gunn movie.  Instead, director Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya, Cruella, Lars and the Real Girl) takes the reins of this adaptation and that is probably where a lot of the problems with this film stand.  Gillespie is a filmmaker that excels at smaller, character driven films.  He seems to be lost a lot more when called upon to direct a big franchise project, and it really shows with Supergirl.  This movie is sadly a mess from beginning to end.  The plot is flimsy, the action set-pieces are non-sensical, and it’s horribly paced and edited as well.  It’s clear that they wanted to create a movie in the same vein as Gunn’s Guardians trilogy, but it has none of the fun of those films.  Truth be told, there are a lot worse super hero movies; this movie easily is better to sit through than Madame Web (2024).  But, as a follow-up to a movie that worked on almost every level like Superman, this film is very much a big step backward.  It’s honestly that feeling of disappointment while watching the film that hurts it the most, because the ingredients are there to make a great movie.  I feel like it all comes down to Craig Gillespie being a bad match for the material.  He could have delivered a better film if it played to his strengths as a filmmaker who is good at delving into his characters.  We do get a little bit of that with the flashbacks to Kara’s childhood in the city of Argo, which is one of the film’s few highlights.  Gillespie manages to successfully make us care about Kara as a character in those moments, but once we get back to the main plot, the character development gets buried under the weight of a lot of mindless action.

The movie’s saving grace is undoubtedly Kara herself.  While the movie gets so much wrong with her story, there is no denying that Milly Alcock nails the character in her performance.  She perfectly encapsulates Kara as a character, perfectly displaying the despair that is driving her self-destructive ways, while at the same time still showing her as a woman with agency.  Milly manages to make Kara funny, but never to the point where she becomes a parody of herself.  The biggest disappointment of this movie is that Milly’s performance is the only thing that works; it’s a performance in search of a better movie.  She keeps you interested all the way through, and you want to see her succeed.  And I do like the fact that they don’t put her into the Supergirl suit until the very end.  It allows for Kara to stand out as an individual first and foremost and not have her be defined as a symbol.  The best action movies are the ones that allow for their super heroes to be interesting characters both in and out of their costumes.  While the movie as a whole doesn’t work very well, it at least allows for Kara to stand out as a more well rounded character.  It’s all about her coming to accept herself as the hero everyone else sees her as.  The whole point of her being on that bender at the start of this story is to show that she’s a lost soul in need of regaining her faith in herself.  It’s one of the ingredients that is present in the story and could have become something special overall.  But it unfortunately is undermined by the movie’s inability get anything else right.  Milly Alcock still remains a great choice to play Kara, and hopefully she still remains a part of the DCU moving forward.  But this movie does her no favors as it just feels lifeless in every other aspect.  Her performance very much is like a small golden nugget buried under a giant mound of mud.  It’s trying to shine through as best as it can, but you really need to dig through a lot of ugly to get to it.

It doesn’t help that a lot of the other performances in the film are fairly subpar.  Eve Ridley seems like a nice kid who’s capable of giving a heartfelt performance.  But her character Ruthye in this film is just the worst.  She is a horribly one note character that never stops whining throughout the film about how she was wronged and that Kara is not living up to her potential.  I chalk it up more to how the character is written than how Eve is performing her.  Ruthye is an obnoxious character who constantly throws herself into harms way, which just ends up leading Kara to have to save her again and again constantly.  She exists in this movie purely to move the plot forward and that’s it.  And unfortunately, she is in nearly the entire film, right by Kara’s side.  That’s probably why the Kara’s backstory scenes were the best parts of the movie, because it allowed us to actually focus on the only character we care about.  But it’s not just Ruthye that drags the movie down.  The film also unfortunately suffers from having a very weak villain as well.  Matthias Schoenaerts’ Krem is as bland as they come; never once feeling as intimidating as the movie tries to make him be.  He just is a brute that grunts and chuckles his way through the chaos he creates.  It’s especially disappointing given just deep the rogues gallery of DC comics is that they couldn’t find a more interesting adversary for Kara to face.  Krem has no connection to Kara or her story whatsoever; he’s just a nuisance that Kara could easily either destroy or just ignore completely.  Krem obviously means more to Ruthye’s story, and the fact that they are both so one note as characters just illustrates the weakness of this plot overall.  The only performance that comes anywhere close to standing out as well as Milly’s performance as Kara is Jason Momoa as Lobo.  Lobo, the gritty monochromatic motorbike riding alien mercenary has been a fan favorite in the comic books for years, and it is nice to see him finally make his big screen debut.  Momoa of course famously played the character of Aquaman for DC in the past, but it’s pretty clear that Lobo was a better fit for him as a performer because he more closely fit’s Momoa’s personality type, and James Gunn clearly agreed.  Momoa is an ideal match for the character and he does make the most of his presence in this movie.  It’s just unfortunate that Lobo doesn’t get much screentime.  He comes and goes without much impact to the story, which again becomes a missed opportunity.  It’s a shame that he had to make his debut this way.  They are clearly setting Momoa’s Lobo up for bigger things in the future, including possibly a solo film.  But if you want audiences to embrace the character, he should be given a better role to play from the start.

Another thing that works against the movie is the way it looks.  This is a very ugly looking movie, with the majority of the film cast in garish shades of brown and green.  It’s trying to go for that Guardians like aesthetic, where the outskirts of space has a vey lived in and grimy feel to it.  But Guardians of the Galaxy was also a vibrant movie with lots of color, which helped to balance out the grime and rust of the different worlds it showcased.  Every world in Supergirl just feels the same, and they all look dirty and unappealing.  And none of the planets that the characters visit feel distinct.  The only identifying aspects of the locations is that one planet is desert like while another has the feel of a prairie.  None of the different locations feel unique or like anything you’ve ever seen before.  Another aspect working against the movie is that the action scenes are poorly constructed.  The fight choreography feels uninspired and it’s shot in a way where you have a hard time following what’s going on.  The movie also is terribly edited.  A lot of the action scenes just kind of peter out without a good button to bring them to an end.  It just all feels like the movie’s storyline was put together through bullet points with no actual thought put into how each scene would flow together.  I hate keep bringing up to how this compares to James Gunn’s own films, but Gunn is an expert in crafting action scenes that feel lively, inventive and unlike anything we’ve seen before.  Take for instance the prison escape scene with Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn in The Suicide Squad (2021), which was an extremely inventive and well choreographed scene.  The Mr. Terrific beachfront fight scene from Superman was also a great example of James Gunn putting some extra creativity into his action scenes.  I think that the reason we don’t see any of that here is because Craig Gillespie is not that kind of director, and he is out of his league when called upon to make a movie that is full of nothing but action set pieces.  That’s why the film feels like it drags, despite being only a little over 100 minutes.  I’ve seen comic book movies that run between 2 1/2 to 3 hours that fly by, so for this movie to feel so long despite being relatively short is a clear sign that something is fundamentally wrong with the film as a whole.

What worries me the most is that the failure of this movie is just going to send the wrong message to Hollywood.  There is a contigent of the internet that has been very much rooting for this movie to fail, and their reason for wanting to see it fail is because of their own bigotted misogyny.  They want to send the message to Hollywood that movies that center on female super heroes are destined to fail and that they should never be made in the first place, thereby ensuring that comic book movies remain a male centered genre.  This is a horrible thing to believe, and my hope is that Hollywood ignores them.  We shouldn’t be ignoring stories centered around female heroes; we just need to make them better.  Supergirl deserves a much better movie than what she got here.  She is a wonderful character that can easily hold her own.  And I certainly wouldn’t trust the misogynistic haters online to determine what direction to take with the character either, because you know all they would do is just sexualize her and turn her into a one note character that fits within their idea of what a woman should be.  The movie does deserve credit for at least trying to make Kara more than just a symbol of womanhood.  She is a character that goes through struggles just like everyone else.  The movie, for all it’s flaws, still got it’s main character right, and that’s not nothing.  Milly Alcock deserves a lot of credit for making Kara a character worth rooting for and I do hope she manages to shine a bit brighter in James Gunn’s next Superman film, in which she’s going to play a substantial role in.  But, what this movie shows is that there needs to be a better vision for everything else in the DCU.  We can always count on James Gunn to deliver, but there needs to be better talent involved in the making of all the other upcoming films.  The other directors in the DCU should not feel like they need to ape Gunn’s style, and instead find their own voice in telling these stories.  Craig Gillespie was just not the right guy for this kind of movie.  It’s been a tough road for Supergirl on the big screen, from the 1984 original to the unfortunately wasted potential of her appearing in 2023’s The Flash.  This film is not the absolute worst it could have been, as they did get her right as a character, but it too also feels like a wasted opportunity that unfortunately will have a chilling effect on female based comic book movies and only empower the worst kinds of voices on the internet.  Supergirl deserves better, and I hope we do get to see her given the cinematic treatment she deserves in the future.

Rating: 5.5/10

It’s pretty remarkable looking at the resiliency of the Toy Story franchise.  The original 1995 film began the digital revolution of filmmaking, upending years of tradition in animation and forcing a sea change in the kinds of animated movies that would be made for decades to come.  Within a decade of it’s premiere, all hand drawn movies would disappear from the multiplexes, including the ones from industry leader Disney, and all animated movies would be almost entirely computer generated.  Pixar Animation, the Bay Area studio behind the creation of Toy Story, quickly became the new standard bearer of quality animation, and knowing just how valuable their name in the industry was, Disney decided to acquire them rather than see them grow into a competitor.  Even under the wings of Disney, Pixar still managed to flourish over the next thirty years.  With each new film they pushed their artform further, refining computer animation to the point where the lines between realism and hyper-realism become very blurred.  And even with all the advancements they’ve made over the years, Pixar still manages to find time to revisit their roots with Toy Story.  Rather than stay a relic of the past when computer animation was in it’s early rough stage, Toy Story has managed to remain relevant and popular with audiences.  It’s a tribute to the timelessness of the original that it makes you forget about the rougher edges of that early 90’s computer animation.  Apart from the innovative animation, Pixar has always prided themselves in putting characters and story at the forefront of what they do.  They don’t move forward with a movie unless they believe that it’s a story worth telling, and they will often put years into refining those stories until they meet the high standards they set for themselves.  While Pixar has brought us dozens of brilliant and wonderfully original stories, it is surprising how many different new ways they are able to expand the story of their original groundbreaking movie.  Even after 30 years, we still haven’t seen the last of Toy Story.

It didn’t take long for the studio to devise a sequel.  It fact, Toy Story 2 (1999), was only their third feature ever after the original and A Bug’s Life (1998).  And what was more surprising was the fact that they managed to surpass the original in every way.  While the first Toy Story was iconic in a lot of ways, 2 delved even deeper into the characters of Woody and Buzz Lightyear, and even raised the stakes, showing us what can happen when toys are no longer played with.  For a long time, Toy Story 2 was considered the Empire Strikes Back of animation, because of how well it built on something that was already iconic, and made it even better.  But, after a 10 year run of classic original films, the team at Pixar decided it was worth revisiting Toy Story again.  Toy Story 3 (2010) somehow managed to build upon it’s already beloved predecessors and become an even bigger hit.  It became only the third animated film to earn a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars and for many, it had what is considered the best ending of any Pixar film, with the toys saying their final goodbyes to the boy who once played with them before he heads off to college and adulthood.  For a lot of people, they thought that this was the perfect way to bring the story of Toy Story to an end, but that’s not how the filmmakers at Pixar felt.  In particular, Pixar legend Andrew Stanton, who was one of the writer on the first two Toy Story’s as well as the director of classics like Finding Nemo (2003) and Wall-E (2008), felt there was more to story to tell, especially for the character of Woody.  He developed a new epilogue storyline for Woody which involves the old toy discovering a new direction for his life outside of being a child’s plaything, which also included him reconnecting with a lost love as well.  Toy Story 4 (2019) was risky, picking the series up after another long gap in time and doing so after many felt the story had already completed on a perfect final note.  But, again, Toy Story 4 defied expectations and won over audiences, becoming the highest grossing film in the series yet.  Despite the odds, Toy Story has managed to deliver each time it comes back, showing resiliency that no other animated franchise has been able to match.  But can Pixar manage to do it again with the release of yet another risky new chapter to this story with Toy Story 5?

Toy Story 5 takes place a short couple of years after the events of 4.  The toys’ playful and creative little girl owner named Bonnie (Scarlett Spears) is now 8, and still hasn’t grown out of playtime.  But, they also notice that Bonnie is also very shy and is struggling with making new friends.  Jessie (Joan Cusack) becomes concerned and wonders why none of the other children in their neighborhood is playing with toys the same way that Bonnie is.  She learns that all the children are not playing with toys, but rather are playing games on screen based tech gadgets.  Jessie immediately becomes concerned about the encroachment of technology into the lives of children and that Bonnie might succumb to it too, but the other toys including Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) don’t share that same concern.  However, Jessie’s fears are realized when Bonnie’s parents buy her a tech toy named Lilypad (Greta Lee).  Lilypad wastes no time taking up all of Bonnie’s time, as she spends all day and night playing games on the toy tablet, while all the other toys are neglected.  Jessie, who sees Lilypad as an existential threat, tries to prove that she is better at helping Bonnie connect with new friends, but a failed attempt to sneak her way into joining Bonnie on a sleep over causes Jessie to be lost and mistakenly picked up by strangers.  Due to the address that’s been inked onto her boots for decades, Jessie ends up at the same rural home that was once owned by her original owner Emily; the same girl who abandoned her years ago.  Jessie tries to find a way to get back to her new home, but she’s going to need the help of strangers in the form of some long neglected toys owned the new family that lives at the ranch house.  One of them is an old school tech toy named Smarty Pants (Conan O’Brien), who challenges Jessie on her anti-tech bias.  Meanwhile, Buzz Lightyear enlists the help his old buddy Woody (Tom Hanks) to help in finding out where Jessie has disappeared to, and that means finding ways to force the information out of Lilypad, who herself is also finding it difficult trying to get Bonnie to connect with other children.  All the while, an army of Buzz Lightyear toys are making their way to civilization after their shipping crate washed up on a deserted island, with their only drive being their need to rendezvous with Star Command.  With the toys scattered to the far winds again, will they all manage to find their way home, and more importantly, will they manage to get Bonnie to find happiness in friendship rather than wasting her time glued to a screen alone in her room.

Andrew Stanton, who has had a hand in scripting all 5 films in this series, takes the helm as director this time around in the series, which is a great benefit for this long running franchise.  Under Stanton’s direction, he helps to keep that continuity from all the way back to the beginning in this franchise, which is very much needed in order to have this movie come anywhere near the high bar that’s been set.  You would think that with four films already that Toy Story would be pretty much spent as a franchise, and for some, they believed that 4 was too many, given 3’s perfect ending.  But, because this is Pixar, they wouldn’t have gone ahead with another film in their flagship franchise unless they had the right angle to explore, and thankfully they found it.  The tech vs. toys angle is a brilliant way to not only bring new life into this long running franchise, but also make it timely as well.  After 30 years, childrens’ attention spans have been altered by the introduction of gadgets like tablets and smart phones into their life, which may keep them occupied for a while, but it also disconnects them from the world as well.  In the writing of this story, Stanton became concerned about the amount of time that young children are spending playing on these smart devices, and that it’s in a way robbing them of a childhood.  Moreover, he’s also noticing that it’s causing a lot of children to ignore the other toys they have, which proved to be a great perspective to explore in this franchise all about toys and their want to be loved and played with by children.  It is pretty remarkable that even after 30 years, the Toy Story franchise has yet to drop the ball and thankfully Toy Story 5 manages to live up to that high standard as well thanks to it’s smart and insightful take on how toys would react to the introduction of tech into their lives.  Now, Stanton could have easily fallen into the trap of making an easy “toys good, tech bad” diatribe as part of the story, but thankfully Toy Story 5 is more nuanced than that.  The presence of tech is not the problem.  Obviously, the Pixar team would have come across as pretty hypocritical if they made that case, as their whole studio production line is run on computers.  The case made in the movie is that the belief that tech is a solve all for all of our problems is the thing that is bad in our lives, and it’s even worse when children are involved.

Where the brilliance lies in this movie’s story is that they tells this story through the perspective of Jessie.  Here, she is elevated to main character status, as it’s pretty clear that Buzz and Woody have already had their arcs fulfilled in past films.  For Jessie, there is still some unprocessed trauma in her story, and the fight against tech gives her a perfect reason to finally confront some of that.  No other character in the Toy Story franchise has had to deal with the tragedy of abandonment like her, which was also a main crux of her character development in Toy Story 2.  So, to have her confront the existential threat of tech taking over a children’s playtime stirs up all of these old bad memories, and it thrusts Jessie’s story to the forefront in a way that we haven’t seen yet.  What this also does is to help differentiate the movie from all the other Toy Story’s  as the focus shifts to a different protagonist.  And even though Jessie does get the lion’s share of development in this film, the movie doesn’t ignore the rest of the toys we’ve grown to love as well.  Some even get more of a spotlight than we’ve ever seen before.  The toy horse Bulls Eye also gets a lot more to do in this film than he has in the last three, and it’s great to see him actually be an active force in the story rather than just a funny animal sidekick.  Buzz and Woody may take a back seat this time, but the movie still finds some fun ways to keep them engaged in the plot, including rekindling their rivalry in some ways again.  If the movie has a bit of a flaw, it’s that the cast of characters seems a bit too overstuffed as most of them make a return here.  Quite a few of the characters literally contribute nothing to the story and are just there to be seen so that longtime fans know they are still okay.  But probably the best character development of all belongs to the girl Bonnie, as we see her struggle with growing up and not being able to fit in.  Her growth as a character is at the heart of the story, and it becomes of the more emotional parts of the movie.  At the same time, the movie still manages to balance the more emotional scenes with a lot of well earned humor as well.  While it’s not the funniest movie in the series (I happen to think that Toy Story 4 had the best ratio of jokes that landed of all the films in the franchise), this movie will still leave you smiling with some really hilarious moments.

Of course this is a long standing franchise that has seen many great characters come and go over the years.  It is particularly heartening to see longtime series fixtures like Tom Hanks and Tim Allen return every time to continue voicing their iconic characters.  And it’s not just them, as other mainstays have also come back, such as Annie Potts as Bo Peep, Wallace Shawn as Rex and John Ratzenberger as Hamm have also returned, albeit in far more minor roles.  They are all definitely welcomed back, but there’s no denying that the star of this film is Joan Cusack as Jessie.  Here she gets the mainstage and she makes the most of it.  She really comes into her own in this film, putting Jessie through an emotional roller coaster and brilliantly grounding her in some real emotional truth.  This movie, in many ways, feel most like a companion piece to Toy Story 2 in the way that it delves deeper into the experience that helped to shape Jessie into who she is.  She can definitely still play the boisterousness of Jessie in her most playful mode very well, but it’s the scenes where she has to get Jessie to some deeper reflection that Joan’s vocal performance really shines.  And all the while, it still feels in line with all the other times she’s played this character over the last 27 years.  Even though the movie seems a little overstuffed with characters that the series has collected over the years, it still manages to allow the new characters to leave a strong impression.  The best of all of them is Conan O’Brien as the potty training toy Smarty Pants.  He is a great addition to the cast, and Conan perfectly brings his already hilarious persona into the characterization of his character.  A lot of credit should also go to the vocal performance of Greta Lee as Lilypad.  It could have been too easy for Lee to play Lilypad as sterotypical villain for this story, but she managed to find several layers to the character that allows Lilypad to be a bit more complex than that.  An antagonist for sure, but one who’s honestly motivated by the same goals as the heroes, which is to help Bonnie fit in with the other kids.  Greta does a great job of helping to find that balance, making Lilypad adversarial but by no means malicious in her motivations.  Overall, even though the cast seems a bit overwhelming, the film still finds enough time to let most of them shine, and that’s especially impressive given that some of these actors have been sticking aorund for over 30 year now.

I still maintain that Toy Story 4 is the most visually stunning of the Toy Story films, but 5 is no slouch either.  Pixar would undercut their marquee franchise, so this sequel still meets the high standard that’s been set by the studio.  It is interesting to see how computer animation has progressed over the years just by looking at the differences in detail between movies 1 and 5.  Much of the original Toy Story is crude and flat in it’s background detail, given how their rendering resources were so limited at the time.  Each subsequent movie since then has gotten better at not just animating the characters, but also making their worlds feel fleshed out.  5 continues that tradition of raising the bar, and it has some incredible visuals throughout.  The subplot involving the army of Buzz Lightyears venturing through the wilderness offers up some of the best visuals in the movie, including a scene with a hilarious reference to Bambi (1942) of all things.  The movie may not be as big of a visual breakthrough as some of Pixar’s other movies, like Inside Out (2015) or Coco (2017), but I don’t think that’s the intention either.  It’s purpose is to feel in line with all the Toy Story’s that have come before it, and those movies have always been more story driven than anything else.  But one thing that does still impress is the subtlety that they are able to bring into the character animation.  While the original Toy Story team managed to do the best they could with character expressions given the limited software they had back then, today Pixar is able to run the gamut with no limits to the kinds of expressions they can give their characters.  This is especially true with Jessie, who has to emote quite a bit in this film.  And the animators did a great job capturing just the slightest little subtleties in the characters in the moments when they are meant to be introspective.  The film also makes great use of the locations in the film.  This is probably the Toy Story film with the most varied locations, and they all feel lived in with a lot of character all their own.  Where I feel 4 still exceeds the rest is in the stunning use of color throughout the movie, and 5 keeps things a bit less saturatred and more grounded.  It’s nevertheless a visually stunning film to look at and definitely on par with Pixar at their best.

I’ll have to reflect on the movie a bit longer to properly know where I would rank it in relation with the other Toy Story movies.  The one thing that I know is that regardless of where it ranks, it still feels like a worthy successor to all the previous movies in the series.  I still think Toy Story 2 is the best one, but this movie makes a strong case of knocking out 3 and 4 for the third and/or second place in the series.  What I love best about it is that it found a way to be different from the rest.  Making this a Jessie centered story was the right call, because Buzz and Woody really had no more angles to explore in their storylines, wheras there was still more to unravel with her.  I love the fact that it ties back into that story of abandonment that shaped her as a character before, and it allows her to finally process that lingering trauma that she still had in the back of her mind.  I also love the fact that Andrew Stanton and his team took a more nuanced approch towards tackling the issue of technology replacing toys.  Tech is only as evil as the way it’s been used; or misused to be sepcific.  The movie shows that tech can be fun and sometimes useful, but it’s not a substitute for actually human interaction.  What’s troubling today is that too many kids are getting addicted to these screen based tech toys at too early a stage and it’s leading to social isolation, which just makes things worse for children overall.  The movie’s main thesis is that moderation should be a guiding principle in life, especially when it comes to using this kind of technology.  Too much screen time is bad for anyone, let alone kids, and Toy Story 5 wants us to be reminded of the fact that a fancy technology like tablets and smart phones should never be substitutes to living life in the real world.  I feel like most audiences will be happy to see all their favorite characters returning the big screen again.  Toy Story 5 may feel superfluous to some, but I think it shows that there still are worthwhile things worth exploring in this franchise, even after 5 films.  It will be interesting to see if Pixar decides to go further beyond with a Toy Story 6.  If it keeps going, it wouldn’t surprise me, but if this is the final chapter of the Toy Story series, I also think it does an adequate job of capping the series off, even though 3 has the best ending to be sure.  It’s very reassuring that we still have a friend in these lovable toys, and that they are still capable of going to infinity and beyond.

Rating: 8.5/10