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

The year 2019 was a pivotal year in the history of the Star Wars brand.  It was the year that Sequel  trilogy was going to cap off with the release of the highly anticipated Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker.  It was also the same year that Disney+ was launching in the Fall, within a couple of weeks of Skywalker’s release date.  And one of the shows that launched on Day One of the new streaming platform was a series set in the Star Wars universe called The Mandalorian.  Created by filmmaker Jon Favreau and longtime Star Wars animation showrunner Dave Filoni, The Mandalorian centered around a bounty hunter protagonist who was hunting down bounties in a post-Empire setting within the Star Wars universe.  A Mandalorian in the Star Wars mythos is a highly skilled warrior-based religious sect, always defined by their bullet shaped helmet, which they never take off in public view.  The bounty hunter from George Lucas’ original trilogy, Boba Fett, was one of these Mandalorians, and subsequent Star Wars media would expand on the culture of this mysterious group of people.  The Mandalorian series would mark the first time that one of these characters would be front and center in the story.  When the show premiered in November of 2019, it immediately sparked a lot of buzz and not for anything people expected.  While people raved about the show’s action set pieces and cinematic look overall, what really helped the show go viral was the revelation of another character in the show that audiences instantly dubbed Baby Yoda.  The craze around this adorable little character (who by the way was never even mentioned in the pre-release marketing of the show) helped to turn The Manadalorian into an instant hit for the fledgling Disney+, and it came at a crucial time to, as The Rise of Skywalker fell flat and disappointed a lot of Star Wars fans.  Instead of the box office strength of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, it actually looked like the future of the brand would lie on the line up of shows coming to Disney+, and if they were anything like The Mandalorian, then things were starting to look fairly bright for Star Wars.

However, a lot of forces both external and internal messed with all of Star Wars long term plans.  Only a couple of months after both The Rise of Skywalker and The Mandalorian premiered, the world was plunged into the Covid-19 pandemic.  While this caused a lot of disruption to the production workflow in Hollywood, it actually didn’t hurt the production that much of Season 2 of The Mandalorian that much, because it was a show well equipped to work within a bubble.  The entire show was filmed in soundstages with a new high tech innovation called the Volume, which uses LED screens in place of blue screens to create photorealistic backgrounds rendered on a computer there on set.  Season 2 of the series managed to premiere on time a mere year after the start of the first season, and it came at a great time for everyone as 2020 proved to be a rough year with the Covid lockdowns and political unrest causing severe anxiety.  It was a comfort watch when we really needed it.  The second season also got us to finally learn Baby Yoda’s true name, Grogu, and by this point he had become a cash cow for the Disney company, with Grogu dolls selling out fast for holiday season shoppers.  But, as season 2 of The Mandalorian came to a close, a lot of uncertainty about Star Wars remained.  Lucasfilm, the company behind the creation of Star Wars, had promised a lot of new properties to come, but shake-ups at the Disney company resulting from the tumultuous tenure of failed CEO Bob Chapek led to a lot of broken promises for Star Wars fans.  A lot of projects that were announced coming from directors Rian Johnson, Taika Waititi, Patty Jenkins, and the creative team of Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss all failed to launch past the development stage.  And the projects that did get made were a mixed bag as well.  There was high praise for the shows Andor and Skeleton Crew, but other shows like The Acolyte, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Ahsoka either divided fans or were just outright despised.  Even a third season of The Mandalorian divided fans.  A lot of the blame for Star War’s mixed reception over these last few years fell on the shoulders of Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy, who in the last year stepped down from the job.  In her place is a duo of company heads, including Mandalorian co-creator Dave Filoni.  What Star Wars needed was a refocused vision of what it needed to be, and one of the things that Star Wars needed to do was to return to the cinemas.  It has been 7 years since The Rise of Skywalker, and Star Wars has been absent from the big screen since then.  So, to bring the once mighty juggernaut back to box office prominence, who better than the duo that has helped to carry Star Wars through these last few year in the world of streaming; The Mandalorian and Grogu.  But, is it a galaxy too far, far away for even these beloved characters to reach?

As typical with any Star Wars film, the movie begins with an opening disclaimer to give context to the story.  In it, we learn that this story is set like the show in the post-Empire era of the galaxy.  The fledgling New Republic is seeking to bring former imperial criminals out of hiding to face justice.  One New Republic officer, Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver), has been enlisting the help of a Mandalorian bounty hunter named Din Djarrin (Pedro Pascal), who everyone either calls “The Mandalorian” or “Mando” for short.  Mando, has a respected reputation with the Republic starfighters, including ace pilot Zeb Orrelios (Steve Blum) who occasionally assists him on missions, but Mando’s also got a reputation of stubbornly doing things his way rather than the “clean way.”  Alongside Mando all the time is his ward, Grogu, a youngling with a strong connection to the Force, which he often uses to help his guardian on missions.  Colonel Ward offers Mando a new mission that could lead them to a very high ranking Imperial fugitive.  To learn of his whereabouts, Mando must visit the Hutt twins, the successors of the notorious crime lord, Jabba the Hutt who know rule his empire.  In exchange for their information, the Twins demand that Mando travel to the planet Shakari, where their nephew Rotta, Jabba’s sole son and heir, is held as a slave.  Mando and Grogu travel to Shakari, attempting to seek information on the whereabouts of Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White) from anyone who might know, including street chef Hugo Durant (Martin Scorsese).  It turns out that Rotta is not so hidden, and is in fact a beloved gladiatorial fighter on the planet.  Despite Rotta’s reluctance to return home, due to the fact that he refuses to follow in his cruel father’s footsteps choosing to be beloved rather than feared, Mando must still complete his mission.  But, as things begin to sideways, Mando gets embroiled in a larger problem that will test both him and Grogu.  Amidst a whole lot of betrayal and insurmountable odds, Mando and Grogu must use every skill they have to survive this mission.  But is it one that even they cant’ get out of.

For one thing, it is nice to finally see a Star Wars property on the big screen again.  Especially considering that it’s been 7 years and that the last time we saw this world in cinemas was the much hated Rise of Skywalker, having The Mandalorian and Grogu leading the charge back into theaters for this franchise is very much welcome.  The only question is, does it do the job it needed to do.  I feel like that is very much going to depend on what baggage you are bringing with you when you watch the movie.  If you love The Mandalorian streaming series, I feel like you’re going to end up loving this movie as well, because it is exactly like an extended episode of the show.  If you are not a fan of the show, and have been frustrated with the direction of Star Wars over the last decade or so, you’re unlikely to have you mind changed by this movie either.  The Mandalorian and Grogu is a straight shot down the line for the Star Wars brand, neither upsetting the established order of the franchise or taking any risks to make any changes to the formula.  And for a lot of people, that’s enough.  But of course, as we’ve seen the discourse around Star Wars has oftentimes been pretty sour and even toxic, and I don’t see this movie putting to rest all the haters.  For me personally, I am not the most die hard of Star Wars fan.  I appreciate quite a lot of it, and even have a great deal of love for some of it (I consider Andor to be one of the greatest TV shows ever made for example).  I also really liked The Mandalorian series for most of it’s run, and was even fine with most of the more problematic Season 3.  And because of my own baggage coming into this movie, I found most of The Manadalorian and Grogu perfectly enjoyable as well.  Is it peak Star Wars?  Of course not.  But as a fun romp and extension of the TV series itself, I feel like it did the job it needed to do.  It’s a movie that’s going to depend a lot on expectations, and what I expected and wanted was a movie that wasn’t trying too hard to please everyone and instead just stuck to what it needed to do which was to continue the adventures of Mando and Grogu.  That’s enough for this casual fan, but I worry that a lot of people are going to frame this movie in the wrong way; saying that it’s the film that’s going to make or break Star Wars as a whole.

The movie does have it’s flaws to be sure.  I do think it suffers from some pacing issues.  The Mandalorian series was very well paced for what it needed to be, an adventure of the week with an average runtime between 30-45 minutes.  Given the bloated nature of some of the sequel trilogy movies, the more modest scale storytelling of The Mandalorian series was a breath of fresh air.  I loved the fact that they kept things simple, having the Lone Wolf and Cub dynamic carry most of the show, often having just those two characters be the only characters in any given scene.  Sure the cast would be filled out, including with legacy characters like Ahsoka Tano, Boba Fett, and even Luke Skywalker making appearances, but the heart of the show was always Mando and Grogu.  But, what works on television sometimes doesn’t translate so well to the cinemas.  What The Mandalorian and Grogu feels like is a standard episode plotline padded out to 2-plus hours.  While the dynamic of the show still feels familiar, it also does feel padded here.  I honestly think that a good 20 minutes could have been trimmed from the movie and it would have benefited.  A lot of dialogue gets repeated, a lot of action set pieces do feel repetitive, and in the end, it feels like none of that extra material was necessary.  At the same time, I don’t think these issues ultimately ruin the movie.  I still found myself engaged throughout, but I can see how a lot of other people might find this movie boring at times.  One of the things that co-creator Dave Filoni often gets with his handling of the Star Wars franchise is that he sometimes gets a little too precious with the universe he’s expanding.  While it is worthwhile to have a person like Filoni, who probably has the best understanding of the Star Wars universe of anyone in the business other than George Lucas himself, being in charge of the lore, it also can sometimes be a problem because someone like him is less inclined to take risks.  And as much as it divides the fan base, I still love Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi because of the fact that he did take risks and tried to do something different with the Star Wars mythos.  One thing that is good is that Filoni has the backing of someone like Jon Favreau, who has a pretty good handling of how to craft exciting action scenes.  While it’s not the Iron Man director’s most exciting action film, it still shows him using some creative staging that certainly feels like classic Star Wars action.

One of the things that really helps with the overall experience is if you see this on a huge IMAX screen like I did.  While my screening wasn’t quite the coveted 15perf 70mm IMAX experience like I would get with a Christopher Nolan film, the movie still had a special presentation made for the IMAX experience.  I’d say that a good 70% of the movie opens up to the full 1.43:1 IMAX aspect ratio, utilizing the full breadth of the screen, helping to make the marquee action scenes all the more exciting.  One particular sequence in the film’s 007-esque prologue has Mando and Grogu going up against Imperial Fighters on the slopes of a snow-capped mountain.  This includes fighting against the iconic Imperial Walkers, or AT-AT’s, which were famously featured in the film The Empire Strikes Back (1980).  This sequence really used the IMAX format well, and it’s an exciting sequence to start the movie on.  Cinematographer David Klein also shot most of the episodes of the series as well, so he has a pretty good handle on the look of this side of the Star Wars universe, and he does deliver some pretty stunning images throughout the movie.  One particularly beautiful shot is when the X-Wing fighters fly in front of a setting Sun.  The movie also uses it’s low light scenes pretty well, particularly on the planet Shakari, which feels very much like a space themed version of Hong Kong at night.  But apart from the look of the movie, one other aspect of the film that is especially worthwhile is the music, provided by now 3 time Oscar winner Ludwig Goransson.  Goransson already had the movie Black Panther (2018) on his resume before Disney commissioned him to write a theme for The Mandalorian series.  His show theme itself has become an iconic piece of music and it makes a spectacular return here as well.  But Goransson doesn’t just stop there, as he returns to score this movie as well.  He created a whole slew of new and interesting aural pieces for this film as well, and not a single one other than the main theme is a rehash of what he did on the show.  The main theme also gets an orchestral boost as well.  What has been especially valuable about Goransson’s musical contributions is that they all feel at home in the Star Wars franchise, but are also uniquely distinct from the iconic John Williams themes.  It shows that not everything in the Star Wars series has to be a copy of the past, and that indeed new ideas and concepts should be welcome in the franchise, while at the same time still honoring the icons of the past like William’s iconic score.

The movie also does well with continuing on the story of Mando and Grogu.  Pedro Pascal returns to the role of Din Djarrin, but it’s hard to know when it’s really him under the mask.  His two stunt actors also get star credit right under his name, those being Lateef Crowder and Brendan Wayne (John Wayne’s real life grandson), because it’s very likely that most of the movie has them on screen instead.  But Pedro does do the voice throughout, and when the mask does come off it is definitely him on screen.  A lot of people may find his performance to be a little cold and wooden, but it’s honestly what the character has always been before on the show.  He’s a rugged, man of few words character like Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, and that’s what works for the character.  Of course Grogu is as adorable as ever.  I love the fact that he’s still a live action puppet rather than a CGI creation, harkening back to when Frank Oz was puppeteering Yoda on set in the original trilogy.  The movie is even expanding on things Grogu is able to do on screen.  He’s no longer confined to his hovering pram, but is actually moving around on his own.  I don’t know why seeing Grogu climb a drainage pipe impressed me so much when I saw it in this movie, but it’s a great example of how skilled they’ve gotten in making this little pint sized puppet feel so real.  Surprisingly this movie leaves out most of the extended cast of the series.  It makes sense in many ways.  Katee Sackhoff’s Bo-Katan has no real business being in this story; Carl Weathers is sadly no longer with us; and Gina Carano is persona non grata at Disney right now because of her problematic past.  But I’m also surprised that the Mandalorian’s main foe, Moff Gideon (played by the amazing Giancarlo Esposito) is also not involved as well.  Instead, it’s just Mando and Grogu crossing over in a story unrelated to the main series.  We do get some newer faces here.  One legacy character is included, Zeb from the animated series Star Wars: Rebels, who surprisingly translates very well into live action and is still voiced by the veteran voice actor Steve Blum.  Sigourney Weaver also gets to pad her sci-fi resume by adding a Star Wars role, though I feel like she was a bit underused her.  The most substantial new addition is Jeremy Allen White playing Rotta the Hutt.  It’s strange that Star Wars would go out of it’s way to cast a very famous and award winning actor like him to essentially just voice a CGI character, but Jeremy does do a fine job in the role.  It’s also weird seeing a Hutt that can speak English and is actually likable.  But what’s even weirder is hearing Martin Scorsese voicing another alien in the film.  How this character ended up being voiced by a living legend like Marty is beyond me, but it is quite the get for this film, and pretty jarring when you see his name in the credits.

Unfortunately, this movie is unlikely to change many hearts and minds in the fractured Star Wars fandom.  It plays it safe, but also at the same time, it avoids being pandering to it’s audience as well.  That was the fatal mistake of The Rise of Skywalker, a movie that tried too hard to please everyone, and in the end pleased no one.  I do think that fans of the show will be pleased with The Mandalorian and Grogu.  It’s an easily digestible movie that delivers on what it needs to.  Could it have been done better? Possibly.  The sluggish pace indicates to me that they filmmakers were less inclined to make this movie any more than an extension of the show.  It unfortunately had to ride that fine line between doing too little, or too much, which is the complaint that has been leveled at a bunch of Star Wars media as of late.  For me personally, it was just enough, but not that much more.  The best thing about it is that it is very welcoming to casual viewers.  Even if you’ve never seen a single episode of the show, or seen any previous Star Wars movie, you can easily still follow along with this story, because it has a simple entryway through the two-handed dynamic of Mando and Grogu’s story.  As long as you connect with these two characters, you are along for the ride.  And the movie does do a fine job of getting you to care about these characters still.  It’s essentially a story about a father and his son, passing along skills through generations and seeing that bond grow over time.  As Mando says in the film, “First the old protect the young, then the young protect the old.”  While most of the film’s plot does feel inconsequential to the larger Mandalorian storyline, the one thing that it does do is reinforce how much Mando means to Grogu.  Grogu comes into his own much more in this story, and to see his growth as a character is very meaningful.  It’s very clear that even though he has the skill to be a Jedi, his path in life is to be a Mandalorian fighter like his adopted father, and we see him take that step further in this film.  I hope that this leads to more adventures down the road for these two characters, whether that’s in another theatrical film or another season of the show.  Regardless, it is nice to see Star Wars on the big screen again, and that the Mandalorian and Grogu were able to make the translation effectively.  It likely won’t satisfy all of the fandom, nor will it wash out the bad taste of The Rise of Skywalker for most movie goers.  But, if you go in with an open mind, you might find this to be a fun time at the movies, and for some, this is the way.

Rating: 8/10

A decade ago, it could be said that Hollywood was in it’s Super Hero era as comic book movie adaptations were dominating the box office off the backs of what Marvel and DC were bringing to the big screen.  But now, it could be said that Hollywood has shifted into a Video Game era.  What once was considered box office poison has suddenly evolved into powerhouse in the cinemas, with movies based on video games now becoming some of the most successful films of the last several years.  It could be said that the surprising success of the Sonic the Hedgehog movies helped to propel us into this era, but when it really began to go to the next level was when The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) broke all sorts of box office records.  Then, just a couple years after, A Minecraft Movie (2025) defied all expectations and grossed nearly a billion dollars at the box office.  Now, Hollywood studios are looking around at what other game franchises could possibly make the transition to the big screen.  These games have built in fanbases already, and that proves to be a strong asset in helping to launch a new film series.  Video games are even having that same effect on television, with hit shows like The Last of Us and Fallout performing well in both ratings and in awards season accolades.  But, video game movies aren’t entirely new.  Even back in the 16 bit era when Nintendo and Sega were the only two competitors in the market, there were some ambitious attempts to try to bring video games to life as movie franchises.  Most of them didn’t work, like Super Mario Brothers (1993) and Double Dragon (1994), but there were a couple that while not smashing success did still at least develop a following over the years.  The fighting games in particular managed to spawn some cult hits, such as Street Fighter (1994) and Mortal Kombat (1995).  Mortal Kombat in fact did well enough at the box office to get a sequel, though Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) pretty much killed any chance of there being another film in the series for a while.  But with video game movies now becoming a genre with box office potential again, it seemed worth it to try once again to make something of the Mortal Kombat brand.

Mortal Kombat (2021) had a fairly rocky start to it’s theatrical debut.  It was delayed for months by the Covid pandemic, and then when it finally was set to debut in theaters, attendance was stunted by the gradual re-opening which saw reduced capacity in most auditoriums.  Not only that, but Mortal Kombat was also one of the movies that fell under Warner Brothers’ ill-fated “Project Popcorn” initiative, which saw their enitre 2021 slated released simultaneously in theaters and on streaming.  Suffice to say, the box office ticket sales were pretty low when the movie first came out in April 2021.  But, the movie somehow managed to find it’s audience through streaming.  Critical reception was fairly indifferent to the movie, but general audiences seemed to really dig it.  The film began to win praise for it’s well-choreographed fight scenes as well as a general fun atmosphere, with plenty of humor mixed in with the fight scenes.  While no one was saying that it was a great movie, nor even a good one, most still came away from the film saying that it was entertaining and more importantly, in the spirit of the original game.  One thing that really helped the movie out was that it stuck to it’s “R” rating and seemed to wear that like a badge of honor.  The movie wasn’t afraid to be a little gory at times in a very over-the-top way, which has always been the thing that set the original games apart; it’s unsensitized excess.  Most video game movies of the past tried to sanitize and de-fang video game violence in order to gain a broader audience.  2021’s Mortal Kombat embraced it’s violent edge, and that’s what ultimately helped it to become an underground success, even despite it’s suppressed run in cinemas.  Given some time, Warner Brothers (or more specifically it’s specialty label New Line Cinema) saw how well Mortal Kombat was performing as well as the growing video game genre as a whole, and decided it was worth it to give the movie a sequel.  So, now five years later and under a much different management team at New Line/Warner Brothers, Mortal Kombat II is finally continuing this franchise and expanding it’s roster of fighters.  But the question remains if this movie manages to make it to the next level or is it game over?

In another dimension, the land known as Outworld has been ruled with an iron fist by the warrior emperor Shao Khan (Martyn Ford).  Every several decades, tournaments between the greatest warriors of the realms are held to decide the who rules over those realms, and this time Outworld is set to battle Earthrealm.  Lord Raiden (Tadanobu Asano), the god of thunder and protector of Earthrealm, means to assemble the greatest warriors Earth has to fight Shao Khan’s forces.  On his team are Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), Liu Kang (Ludi Lin) Cole Young (Lewis Tan) and Jax (Mehcad Brooks).  But, they are still short one more to compete in the tournament.  Fate ultimately brings the Earthrealm warrior to a washed up action movie actor with a karate background named Johnny Cage (Karl Urban).  Cage at first is reluctant to join Raiden’s band of warriors, knowing that he will be easily outmatched by all the super powered beings that he would have to go up against.  But, he soon learns that he has no choice in the matter, as the Gods have chosen him specifically to fulfill a purpose.  Meanwhile, in order to boost his roster of fighters, Shao Khan has enlisted the necromancer Quan Chi (David Herriman) to resurrect some of Earthrealms’ fallen warriors.  They bring back the warrior Kung Lao (Max Huang), brother of Liu Kang, and the foulmouthed mercenary named Kano (Josh Lawson), who has managed to plunder an artifact from Netherworld that can steal the power of Lord Raiden and help make Shao Khan immortal.  But, unbeknownst to Shao Khan, his adoptive daughter Kitana (Adeline Rudolph) has been aiding Lord Raiden in secret.  Their hope is to neutralize the artifact in order to keep Shao Khan from achieving immortality.  And that would require the warriors having to go to Netherworld, the land of the dead, where two mortal enemies known as Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim) and Scorpion (Hiroyuki Sanada) reside.  Will the warriors of Earthrealm be able to win the tournament and defeat Shao Khan, or will their world become another realm fallen into Shao Khan’s unholy empire.

A lot of people’s response to a movie like Mortal Kombat II will likely be depend on what they expect from it.  I get the feeling that most people aren’t going to see this movie expecting it to be an awards worthy achievement.  Mortal Kombat II is pure and simple popcorn fare.  There’s nothing particularly enriching about the plot and the characters are about a fleshed out as they are from the video game selection boards.  But, if that’s all that you’re looking for in a Mortal Kombat movie, than you’ll likely be satisfied by this sequel.  Mortal Kombat II pretty much delivers on exactly what it needed to, and no more.  We’ll, I wouldn’t say exactly no more.  The best thing I can say about the movie is that it is an improvement over the first film.  The stakes feel higher in this one, and it’s clear that they were granted a more substantial budget for this movie, which the filmmakers do put to good use.  At the same time, it still has some of the shortcomings of the first movie, namely in some of the characterizations as well as some of the pacing issues.  For those who like combat, you will be satisfied as this entire film does feel like one great big fight sequence, which makes sense given the tournament plot device.  But, by focusing on the fight scenes, the movie takes away time to focus on the characters.  Especially early on in the film , there is a heavy amount of exposition dialogue, mainly so that they can fit a movie’s worth of character motivation into these short little scenes so the film can get back to the fighting.  I would have liked a little more character interaction, just so the context of each fight scene could make more sense.  But, at the same time, the fight scenes are easily the highlight of the movie.  Most of the fights don’t quite feel as iconic as the ones in the first movie between Sub-Zero and Scorpion.  But there are a few in this sequel that do come close.  And the movie thankfully doesn’t minimize the gore either.  There are some great kills in this film (or should I say “Fatalities”) and it’s with these where the movie does feel like it does justice to the original games.

One thing that I do appreciate about this film is the world-building.  A lot of the movie takes place off Earth in another realm, and the movie does a good job of establishing the atmosphere of the Outworld.  Shao Khan’s palace in particular is a wonderfully gothic looking structure, and it provides a nice spooky backdrop for some of the more intense fighting.  One thing that a lot of fans of the games will appreciate are the faithful re-constructions of actual battlefields from the games.  It isn’t just done for nostalgia bait purposes (though I do think that some of that might have been a factor).  The battlefields in this movie do indeed have context within the story, and it’s great that the filmmakers managed to find a way to incorporate that into their overall world-building.  There are even some moments in the movie when the camera pulls away from the actors, until they are framed on screen just like the side-scrolling perspective that fans of the games will recognize immediately.  The visual effects are also very much improved in this film over the last, which allows for some more creative elements in the fights.  Sub-Zero for one has a new skill set that allows him to dissolve through solid rock and even make clones of himself with a inky substance.  The visual effects also grants a better sense of scale to the film.  The first Mortal Kombat was confined to a lot of small sets with narrow passageways.  The sequel has nice big open spaces that allow for more freedom with the stunt work in the fights.  The way the environments are used is also well done in the movie.  An early fight between Kitana and Johnny Cage is especially effective given how both fighters are forced to reckon with the fact that they are battling in the middle of town, and a few of the buildigs around them make for great obstacles in the course of the battle.  While the story is just barely above par compared to the last film, it is definitively the case that this movie is very much an upgrade in the visual department.

The cast is a mixed bag overall.  Most of the cast from the first film make a return here, including Japanese actors Tadanobu Asano and Hiroyuki Sanada, hot off of their award winning success on the hit show Shogun.  For the most part, they are all doing okay with the material given to them.  Interestingly enough, the lead character from the first movie, Lewis Tan’s Cole, is pushed to the background this time in favor of focusing on the new characters; which isn’t a big loss given that Cole made for a fairly weak protagonist.  Instead, the movie most focuses on the characters of Kitana and Johnny Cage.  Kitana is a decent lead, with a very predictable hero of destiny arc, as she fights to reclaim her throne.  But, the standout in this film is without a doubt Karl Urban as Johnny Cage.  Urban does a fantasitc job of playing the iconic game character, capturing exactly the kind of brash and self-indulgent character traits that Johnny Cage needs.  Urban brings plenty of fun swagger to the role and is a lot of fun to watch.  I’m glad they waited until the second film to introduce him into the story, because Cage is the kind of character you build anticipation for, and Karl Urban does not disappoint.  Also stealing plenty of moments in the film is Josh Lawson as Kano.  He was already the best part of the first film with his hilariously over-the-top Austrailian bravado, and he brings even more of that here, and still manages to go more over-the-top.  I also like the fact that the movie manages to have both Lawson and Karl Urban share scenes together, and it doesn’t feel like either steals the other’s thunder, but instead they work off each other’s energy to create some of the movie’s funniest moments.  Another highlight in this movie is Martyn Ford’s work as Shao Khan.  He spends most of the movie with his face masked behind an effectively creepy element, and yet he still manages to create an air of foreboding menace on screen, even when he’s not fighting in battle.  Shao Khan stands outs as a particularly effective villain as a result, and that’s helped in large part (and I do mean large) by the performance of the very statuesque actor behind the mask.

One other thing the movie does right is that they keep the fight scenes from feeling mundane.  There is a little bit of inspiration here from the John Wick movie franchise, in that this movie does a good job of making each fight feel different from the last.  Each fight in the movie has it’s own identity, whether it’s fighting in a small room in a dungeon, where sharp spikes pop out of the floor, or fighting in the grand hall of Shao Khan’s throne room.  One mistake that action movies make is to have every single one of their action scenes feel the same.  A lot of that has to do with limited budgets, which is why you see so many action movies set themselves in places like abandoned warehouses.  But, the fight scenes in Mortal Kombat II all feel unique because they all take place in different places.  The other appealing thing about the fight scenes is that they are brutal.  One of the worries about this film being made by a major studio was that it would cause the filmmakers to dial back some of the violence in order to make the film more palatable for younger audiences.  Thankfully, the filmmakers behind these Mortal Kombat movies have demonstrated that gory violence is their goal, and this sequel is prime evidence of that.  There is a lot of gushing blood in this movie, and characters meeting their end in pretty gruesome ways.  What helped Mortal Kombat stand out as a game back in the 90’s was the fact that it was super violent and filled with blood.  It’s one of the games that actually led to the adoption of a rating system for video games, as the gaming industry was starting to feel pressure from the federal government who were threatening censorship.  It’s hard to believe that the furor over the release of Mortal Kombat the game would become one of the defining free speech moments that defined the industry for many years after.  By keeping these movies excessively violent, almost to the point of parody, they are helping to honor the legacy of the games, both as a work of art but also as a statement about the right to make and play any video games we wish to.

There is a lot to like about this new Mortal Kombat movie, but it still is not a masterpiece by any means.  It definitely falls into that category of “dumb fun.”  You’ll know right away that this is going to be a film with fairly mediocre dialogue and an unfcoused plot.  But, the whole cheese factor of the movie is also what helps it to succeed as a popcorn flick.  The plot and some of the lines in the movie are definitely the weak points of the movie, but they are easy to overlook when the movie shifts to combat more, which thankfully takes up most of the film.  The stunt choreography in particular is really top notch, and the stunt directors and coordinators did a great job keeping things fresh and different from scene to scene.  In addition, it’s great to see Karl Urban absolutely nailing the role of Johnny Cage.  This was honestly the hardest role for the filmmakers to get right, because so many people have a certain idea about what Cage should be like, from both his persona presented in the games, and also from numerous year’s of casting speculation.  Urban has been around for a while, from top tier franchises like Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, not to mention his starring role on the hit Amazon series The Boys, so there was a risk that he may have been too big of a name to cast as Johnny Cage.  A fresher face might have helped to define Cage anew compared to all other versions of the character, but having Urban there as a veteran actor also works pretty well.  He helps to make Johnny Cage feel like a real character, and it looks like he’s having fun making this movie as well.  It’s also great to see this franchise getting better when it comes to the visuals, showing that Warner Brothers was confident enough with this franchsie that the determined it necessary to grant it a bigger budget.  The film does end with a tease for more adventures to come, and I welcome that.  I just feel that there needs to be more polish put into the scripts for these movies.  Things could be worst, and the movie knows that audience doesn’t want to wait too long to see some action, but I do wish they did more to flesh out some of the characters.  Certainly this isn’t supposed to be Shakespeare, but a more thought out presentation of exposition and character motivation would be appreciated.  In any case, Mortal Kombat II should please many longtime game fans, and even some who’ve never played the games at all.  You want some mindless fun at the movies, then perhaps you should “GET OVER HERE” and enjoy a little mortal kombat.

Rating: 7/10