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

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

It’s strange to think that even just 10 years ago that it was considered cinematic suicide to make a movie based on video games.  Hollywood for many years before had tried to take their shot at capturing the zeitgeist that was the video game boom, but any attempt only resulted in colossal failure.  One of the earliest attempts was an adaptation of the Super Mario Brothers video games from Nintendo in 1993.  That film, starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper went completely bust at the box office and went on for years as being the cautionary tale that prevented movie studios from ever making a movie based on a video game ever again.  While there were some smaller attempts to bring video game movies to the big screen, especially in the horror genre like the Resident Evil series, the big studios pretty much refrained from ever trying to tackle video game adaptations again.  That was until the last few years, and specifically with the little blue blur that is Sonic the Hedgehog.  The Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) movie didn’t become a reality very easily, as it famously had to be put on hold and fixed in post after the negative reception to Sonic’s CGI model was shown in the first trailer.  In this case, the studio making the film (Paramount) learned a crucial lesson that when the audience asks for authenticity in the adaptation of their favorite video games, it’s better to take their inputs seriously.  Sonic’s new CGI model was made more in line with how he looks in the games and the troubled film managed to become a surprise hit, even before Covid began to shut everything down.  Since then, Sonic the Hedgehog has spawned a franchise of two more films (and a third one on the way), with each one becoming bigger than the last.  What was learned from the Sonic experience was that it was better for Hollywood to not try to force these game franchises to be more cinematic, but to instead embrace the wild and colorful aesthetics of the games that audiences already love.  And since then, video game movies have boomed and become a new craze in Hollywood.  The Sonic movies continue to do well, and just last year we saw a huge box office run for A Minecraft Movie (2025).  But as far as video game movies go, no one has represented the recent boom better than that lovable Italian plumber, Mario.

Nintendo partnered up with the wildly successful Illumination animation studio (the same people who brought us the Minions) to bring their flagship franchise to the big screen.  The match seemed pretty ideal.  The Mario Bros. games are bright and colorful with simple aesthetics that appeal to a broad audience, which is pretty much the in house style of Illumination as well.  What did surprise a lot of people, however, was the announcement of an all-star voice cast to play the roles of the iconic role of Mario and company.  Some of the casting made sense, like Charlie Day as Luigi and Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, but others left people scratching their heads; none more so than Chris Pratt cast in the role of Mario himself.  Pratt is no stranger to voice acting, with some standout performances in The Lego Movie (2014) and Pixar’s Onward (2020).  But he was certainly not what everyone expected when they thought of a voice for Super Mario himself.  Even still, the movie hit theaters in the Spring of 2023 and it shattered multiple records at the box office.  The movie would go on to gross over $1.5 billion worldwide, with a full third of that coming from the North American market alone, where it crossed the half billion mark.  With The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023), Hollywood now could see that video game movies indeed had huge box office potential.  Pretty soon a huge number of other video game adaptations were put into production, including a long awaited live action adaptation of Nintendo’s other massive franchise, The Legend of Zelda.  But, the question for the Mario series was where it was going to go next.  The Mario game series itself has gone through numerous phases itself, as it’s expanded into so many different worlds ever since Mario jumped his way through the Mushroom Kingdom in the original NES classic.  So, for Nintendo and Illumination, it made sense to look at the game that more than any other expanded the reaches to the world of Mario; Super Mario Galaxy.  The interstellar adventure took Mario to many far flung worlds across the universe, and this seemed to be the ideal place to go for a movie sequel.  The only question is, does The Super Mario Galaxy Movie succeed in opening up the possibilities of the Mario movie franchise, or does it double down on some of it’s shortcomings.

The story takes place some time after the events of the first movie.  Mario (Chris Pratt) and his brother Luigi (Charlie Day) have settled themselves in the Mushroom Kingdom and now spend their time helping the citizens of that world with their various plumbing related problems.  On one mission, they come across a pipe located in a desert pyramid that seems to have been taken over by a mysterious creature.  Upon investigating, they learn that the creature is a little baby dinosaur named Yoshi (Donald Glover), who becomes instant friends with the brothers.  Meanwhile in another far off part of the galaxy, the home of the mystical star Princess Rosalina (Brie Larson) is attacked by Bowser Jr. (Benny Safdie), who’s on a mission to steal Rosalina’s power and rescue his father Bowser (Jack Black), who is still imprisoned in the Mushroom Kingdom for his crimes.  One of Rosalina’s star children makes it to the castle of Princess Peach (Anya-Taylor Joy) and tells her that Rosalina has been kidnapped.  Without telling Mario about what has happened, Peach goes out to search for clues about Rosalina’s disappearance, along with her resourceful companion Toad (Keegan-Michael Key).  Mario and Luigi are left to look after the Mushroom Kingdom, which includes keeping an eye on Bowser, who swears that he is reformed.  Unfortunately for them, Bowser Jr. sneaks his way into the Mushroom Kingdom and ambushes them, leading to the destruction of Peach’s castle.  Mario, Luigi, and Bowser manage to escape, but they now have to catch up to Peach so they can warn her that Junior is out looking for her too.  Peach eventually learns that Rosalina is being held captive at the Bowser Planet and she needs to hire a pilot to get her there to attempt a rescue.  Thankfully one is available named Fox McCloud (Glen Powell).  Will Peach and the Mario Brothers manage to save Rosalina in time, or will Bowser Jr.’s plan for the destruction of the universe bring an end to all of them.

To be frank, I was not a fan of the first Mario Bros. Movie.  I felt that it was overstuffed with too many game Easter eggs that was made to satisfy the hardcore fans of the game, but lacked a coherent story to make all of those references resonate.  I cared very little about what was happening, because the movie never allowed for crucial things like character or world building to take hold in the experience.  More than anything, it failed at being anything more than just a glorified commercial for the games.  When they announced that they were making a sequel (which was a no-brainer given the box office success of the first) and that it would be based on the classic Galaxy games, I thought that this made a lot of sense, because the Galaxy games did such a good job of expanding the reach of places that Mario could go to.  My hope was that with this expanded universe that we would actually see more creativity in the storytelling and have a more coherent plot overall, instead of things just being a collection or reference and gag set-ups.  Sadly, the Mario Galaxy does not improve on any of the problems of the first film.  In fact, it just doubles down on not caring about the plot at all.  The Super Mario Galaxy Movie just moves along from scene to scene without regards to things like theme, character motivations, or just tone in general.  Stuff just happens, and that’s pretty much the overall experience of the movie.  The film seems more concerned about throwing every possible reference to the games that they can think of purely to get a reaction of recognition out of it’s audience.  It’s the most “member berries” movie that I have seen in quite some time; even more so than the first film, which at least had to do some work in order to lay the rules for the world they were creating in the film.  For me, this film represents all that I dislike about the house style of Illumination.  They are gag factory more than anything else, with story being an afterthought.  Sure, this makes their movies appeal to the broadest possible audience, and they have the box office success to show for it, but the stories in their movies always ring hollow because there is no thought put into them.  They are the anti-Pixar in this manner, and it makes it all the more frustrating that this is the approach they are taking to bringing the world of Super Mario to life.

One of the clearest examples of the story not meaning anything to the makers of this film is the lack of care put into establishing the characters and why they are important.  The introduction of Yoshi in particular felt rushed and wasted.  Pretty much the way that it goes down in the movie is that Mario and Luigi find Yoshi and he takes a liking to them and now he’s just a part of the team.  This abrupt approach is even called out in the movie by one of the character’s who says, “Okay, so he’s just a part of the group now.”  It’s like even filmmakers knew how lame this intro was.  Mario meeting Yoshi for the first time should feel special, and it sadly is not.  This is a recurring theme throughout the movie, where so many things that should carry a weight of importance just don’t.  Now of course this a Mario Bros. movie, so we aren’t exactly dealing with Shakespeare here.  But, there have been plenty of other animated films made in the past that managed to find some emotional depth in places you’d never expect; The Lego Movie being a prime example.  The Illumination Mario movies just never allow for any of that because they are too busy trying to cram in gags and Easter eggs to please the die hard fans.  They don’t want us to feel, they just want us to react.  Are some of the visual gags clever?  A few do get a laugh, and some of the video game references are clever.  But, that’s all that this movie ends up being.  It makes it all the more disappointing given that there was a lot of potential with this movie.  The galaxy is literally open to explore endless possibilities.  But what we end up getting is movie that never fully commits to a plot thread or a creative vision.  What it just does overall is remind you how much better it was when you were playing the games that these movies were based on, especially the classic Mario Galaxy games.  At least with those you could self insert your journey with Mario’s as he travels from world to world.

The sad thing about the shortcomings with the story is that it wastes what is definitely a talented team of animators.  There are certainly far fewer complaints that I have with the overall look of this film.  Illumination has done a good job of translating that Nintendo style into their own.  Mario and his friends always look on model and always are animated with a lot of personality.  The film also does well in creating a sense of scale for these films.  The Mushroom Kingdom is a wonderfully realized place, and it’s great to see how the animators take things that were originally two dimensional in the old platform games and give them weight and texture to help make this a fully lived in world.  They also do well in crafting the many different new world that we visit across the galaxy.  Mario Galaxy was already a very well detailed game for it’s time, and the movie does a good job of recreating iconic places from the game, especially Rosalina’s space ship/palace.  One thing that I wish they had played around with a bit more is the gravity mechanics that were such a big part of the game.  One of the great innovations of the Mario Galaxy game was the way that gravity worked as a part of the game play experience; where you could jump from one small planetoid to another and the pull of gravity would allow you to make that leap, as well as be able to fully run around the planet, including the underside where you’ll be upside down.  The movie doesn’t get to play around with that game mechanic too much, apart from a scene where Peach and Toad arrive at an underground casino, where characters are walking around the space on the floor level as well as the walls and ceiling, similar to how it worked in the game.  It makes the scene one of the few highlights, and I wish there were more moments like that.  It would’ve been neat to see Mario and his crew make these leaps of faith in empty space to go from one tiny planet to another.  The animation team should be given better material to work with, because they clearly are doing their job right.  For whatever reason, the film’s directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic (who have returned from the first film) just don’t have the drive to do much more with the Mario Bros. property than what they have.  They follow the Illumination formula to a fault and if there was ever a movie that demanded some bold creative choices, this is the one.

The movie’s cast is also a mixed bag.  One of the things that I think is another of Illumination’s faults is that they tend to value marquee names for their voice roles over actors who would be clearly better as the character.  In some of the cases, they do get it right here in the Mario movie.  Charlie Day is honestly the best possible choice for Luigi, and Jack Black was the biggest scene stealer of the first film with his hilarious take on Bowser.  Both Day and Black return here, and are still doing great work as these characters, especially Jack Black who continues to be the MVP.  But, I’m sorry, Chris Pratt just doesn’t work as Mario.  His performance just lacks what the character needs, and all I hear is just Pratt reading the lines and not trying to get into the character of Mario, and it’s distracting.  I was hoping he would improve between movies, but alas his Mario still feels out of place with the rest of the movie.  Illumination also extended it’s search for marquee names for all of the new characters too.  Brie Larson, who is a Nintendo fan girl in real life, does make for a good choice as Rosalina.  She brings a warmth to the character that is welcome.  The only problem is that she isn’t in that much of the movie, acting mostly as a human McGuffin to motivate the plot and not much else.  Perhaps the best new addition to the cast is Glen Powell as Fox McCloud, aka Star Fox.  If his presence here is a slick way to back door pilot a Star Fox movie spin-off I wouldn’t be upset because I thought Powell did a great job embodying the character, tapping a little into his Top Gun: Maverick (2022) experience.  Benny Safdie is a little surprising as Bowser Jr., because he’s trying to put on a cartoonish, juvenile style voice to play the part and it’s not what you’d expect from an actor like him.  He does alright, though I would’ve liked to have heard a bit more menace in his performance.  But of all the new cast in this movie, none is more baffling than Donald Glover playing Yoshi.  You would never in a million years know that Childish Gambino was playing Yoshi in this movie unless you saw his name in the credits.  He’s just doing an impression of the high pitched Yoshi voice that we all know from the games and that’s it.  There’s no trace of Glover’s actual voice at all in the film.  It sounds fine, but I have to ask, why?  It just read to me that Illumination was just looking for another celebrity name they could throw on the marquee, but I worry that it sends a bad precedent because chasing after celebrity names takes away chances for professional voice actors to have the opportunity to have their name on a big movie like this.

Frustration is honestly the feeling I get when I come away from these Illumination Mario movies.  They have the potential to be really good and do justice to the source material that they are based on.  But Illumination seems to be an animation studio built more around commerce than creativity.  Their movies are meant to be easily digestible by the broadest audience possible, and they offer nothing more than than.  But, the Super Mario games deserve so much more than that.  Nintendo’s Game studio has always given Mario and his franchise the greatest amount of care, because he is the face of their company.  That’s why the Mario games always represent innovation in the gaming community, because they are the ones where Nintendo tests out all of their newest game mechanics.  They know that Mario games sell well, and that’s why they trust their little plumber friend to be the best showcase for all the new innovations.  The Mario Galaxy games, with their breakthrough gravity mechanics, was an especially great demonstration of Mario’s ability to change the direction of gaming in general.  Mario is a character that deserves to have movies that reflect that sense of innovation.  But Illumination never makes anything that innovates in the animation industry, unlike it’s contemporaries like Disney, Pixar or Sony.  They just deliver us the movie equivalent of empty calories.  Sure, the movies look nice thanks to a talented team of animators, but that’s all the movies offer.  All I can say is thank God they are not giving this treatment to The Legend of Zelda, which is one of my favorite video game franchises.  That is getting the live action treatment, which it honestly needed to do the games justice.  There’s nothing wrong with doing an animated version of Mario Bros., but I feel like an animation studio such as Illumination, which has some low standards when it comes to quality of story, is holding the Mario franchise back.  Imagine Mario with this kind of animation, but backed up with the strength of story like what we saw with The Lego Movie.  Sadly, The Super Mario Galaxy Movie does nothing to improve on the last film, and may in fact have even dropped the ball even more.  But, of course nothing I say will make much of dent on what will likely be a huge box office win for both Illumination and Nintendo.  If what you want is a nice easy to digest movie based on the Mario Bros. games, you may end up getting what you wanted in this movie.  But for me, I would’ve rather spent my time playing the video games again.

Rating: 5/10

Author Andy Weir has become of the most surprising rising stars in the world of science fiction literature.  Fifteen years ago, he was a programmer living in a two bedroom apartment in Mountain View, CA writing short stories for free on his website in between gigs at AOL and Blizzard.  In 2011, he began to self publish chapters of what would end up being his first novel on his website, and his readers convinced him to take his work to a publisher and make it available to a wider reader base.  That novel would turn into The Martian, a heavily researched and detailed account about how an astronaut stranded on Mars manages to survive the conditions on the Red Planet before being intercepted by a rescue mission.  The Martian was a critical and commercial success, becoming a best-seller and launching Weir into a new career as a novelist.  The book also captured the imagination of Hollywood too, and the novel was quickly adapted into a 2015 blockbuster film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon.  Weir quickly went to work on his next novel, which would be a much more high concept science fiction story called Artemis (2017), which was less grounded in real science as The Martian was.  Several years later, Weir would write his next novel, a project that incorporated the high concept strangeness of Artemis, but also would have the grounded foundation of real science like The Martian.  That book would be Project Hail Mary; a story about a lone scientist out in the cosmos who is humanity’s last hope for survival in a future where the Sun is dying.  The book won acclaim from readers everywhere, and the book was a finalist for the prestigious Hugo Award.  Of course, just like The Martian, Hollywood was interested in adapting this novel as well.  Screenwriter Drew Goddard, who also adapted The Martian, would return to tackle the adaptation of Hail Mary to the big screen as well.  But, instead of seeking out someone of Ridley Scott’s caliber to direct, the executives at MGM decided to look outside the normal pool of likely filmmakers.

Who MGM ultimately settled on was the directorial team of Chris Miller and Phil Lord.  Lord & Miller as they have been more widely called have been one of the more unconventional teams of filmmakers working in Hollywood over the last decade.  The two started of in animation, working on the cult adult animation series Clone High before getting their first feature film at the still fledgling Sony Animation Studio called Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009).  But, they didn’t just see themselves as animation directors.  Instead of working on a sequel to Cloudy, they opted to jump into live action, and were given the job of directing a movie adaptation of the 90’s crime drama series 21 Jump Street (2012).  But their Jump Street film wouldn’t be just a simple one-to-one adaptation.  It would be a self-aware, comedic adaptation that matched the duo’s irreverent sense of humor.  The movie was a hit with audiences, and it led to them moving over to Warner Animation, where they would create the surprise hit, The Lego Movie (2014).  With both 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie, Lord & Miller created a reputation for themselves as being filmmakers who could take bad movie ideas and turn them into beloved classics.  But, since the sequel 22 Jump Street (2014), the duo have not directed a film together until this year.  One of the reasons for this is the bad experience they had as the original creative team behind the Star Wars spin off movie Solo (2018).  They left their lucrative gig at Warner Brothers because they were eager to work in the Star Wars franchise as long time fans, but Lucasfilm didn’t like their approach and they were fired halfway through filming and replaced with Ron Howard in the director’s chair.  Now freelance again, Lord & Miller returned to Sony Animation, where they helped to produce the enormously popular Spider-Verse series, which also earned them their first Oscars as the film’s producers.  They would continue to work on many other projects throughout the 2020’s, including a brief revival of Clone High, but the sour taste of the Solo experience left them reluctant to step back into the role of directors again; unless the right project came along.  Surprisingly, MGM was interested in their involvement in this adaptation of Project Hail Mary, and now we have our first Lord & Miller directed film in nearly a decade.  The question though remains if was indeed worth all that wait?

Project Hail Mary takes place mostly many light years away from planet Earth.  On a space ship hurtling through the cosmos, Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up from a medically induced coma that has kept him in hibernation throughout the multiyear journey in far reaches of space.  He has no memory of who he is or why he’s on the ship, but he uses his scientific mind to quickly piece together what mission he was meant to undertake.  Flashbacks help to fill in the blank spots of his past.  Ryland became part of a top secret department made up of leading scientists from all over the world, led by a stern but encouraging project leader named Eva Stratt (Sandra Huller).  A groundbreaking discovery uncovers the terrifying secret that microscopic parasites called Astrophage are absorbing the energy of the sun and causing it to dim.  The dimming is resulting in the plummeting of temperatures on Earth, which could lead to the extinction of all life on the planet, including humans.  Ryland became the first scientist to document and understand the properties of this mysterious single celled organisms, and his research makes him one of the most valuable minds in the agency’s team.  Their research has shown that what is happening to our Sun is happening to stars all over the local cluster, except for one, Tau Ceti.  The mission becomes clear; a team of astronauts must travel to the Tau Ceti system and discover why it has not been infected like all the other stars around it.  The amount of energy that Astrophage gives off when it consumes electromagnetic radiation and Carbon Dioxide also proves to be a good source of fuel for near light speed propulsion, so the engineers on the team manage to create an engine for just that purpose using the very thing that’s destroying their world as the key to humanity’s survival.  Many years later, Ryland finds that he is the last surviving member of a crew that died during hibernation.  He makes it to the Tau Ceti system, but he learns that he’s not alone, as an alien space craft intercepts his.  Though imposing at first, Ryland finds that the life abord the craft are in the same situation he’s in; trying to help save their planet as well.  He makes contact and finds an alien being that looks like it’s made of stone.  Ryland makes attempts to bridge the communication gap, and even gives his new friend the name Rocky.  It then falls on Ryland and Rocky to put their minds together to help stop the Astrophage and save their respective worlds.

We’ve had a lot of amazing space based movies over the last decade.  Christopher Nolan delivered his IMAX screen spectacular with Interstellar (2014), and of course there was the already mentioned The Martian from Ridley Scott as well as Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity (2013).  Ryan Gosling also is no stranger to space based epics, as he got to play legendary first man on the Moon, Neil Armstrong, in the film First Man (2018).  One of the reasons why we’ve had so many of these types of movies lately is because the vastness of space and interplanetary travel lends itself very well to big screen spectacle.  You even see it be a major part in epics fantasies like the Star Wars and Dune franchises.  These movies especially seemed designed for the grandeur of the big screen.  This is something that we’ve known since the days of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).  Project Hail Mary follows in the footsteps of these space based epics, and is intended to be a major crowd pleaser.  For the most part, it succeeds in what it hopes to accomplish.  It’s an incredible spectacle that really need to be seen on the big screen to fully appreciate.  It also does a great job in grounding it’s scientific concepts in ways that make sense to the average viewer, without also insulting the true science that forms it’s foundation.  But, the movie also seems to hold us at a distance, which unfortunately undercuts the effectiveness of the story.  The way the movie is structured is that it tells the story in a non-linear way, cutting away from the main story of Ryland in space to show us why and how he got there.  While all the individual scenes are fine on their own, the way they are structured together kind of makes the pacing of the film feel a bit uneven.  The main plot, involving Ryland and Rocky forming their bond and working together to solve the mystery behind the Astrophage is definitely the best part of the movie, but every time the movie cuts back to the past, it felt like the momentum of the main story was being halted.  I understand that it’s supposed to be like in the book, as Ryland slowly pieces together his memory, but it just felt like a whole different movie was trying to force it’s way into another one.  It just made the whole experience feel awkward and keeps a pretty good movie from becoming a great movie.

Despite that, there is still a lot to like about the story of the Project Hail Mary.  Just like The Martian, the movie takes it’s time to give us details about what the problem is and how our heroes must solve it.  While it’s science is a little more on the fictional side that the far more grounded Martian, it’s nevertheless treated like something that actually could be scientifically true.  Just like The Martian, it’s great to see a movie treat science so respectfully.  At a time when scientific literacy is at a low point, it’s great to see movies like this show why it’s essential for the fate of humanity to “science the shit” out of our current problems.  But the movie doesn’t treat it’s audience as idiots either.  It does go out of it’s way to be true to real science as possible.  There are some leaps of logic at times, but none that come across as insulting to the audience’s intelligence level either.  Lord & Miller assume that their audience has the basic understanding of how space based physics work.  Sometimes they even play against your expectations, like how objects move in the vacuum of space, or moments when they play around with the complete silence of space as well.  Of course, Lord & Miller use their background in comedy to help lighten many moments in the movie, and some of their best gags are reserved for those subversions of how physics work in space.  At the same time, they don’t undermine the seriousness of the situation either.  As far as their filmography goes, this movie is probably the most dramatic film that Lord & Miller have made.  It shows that they are indeed branching out as filmmakers, not just confining themselves to comedy alone, even if it is their strongest suit.  One wonders what might have been with their version of Solo.  Were they really that bad of a fit for Star Wars?  This movie does prove that they were capable of pulling off the spaced based spectacle on the big screen, and they could even take themselves a little bit more seriously in the process.  Regardless, I hope some of that experience is what helped to fuel their approach to this film, which while uneven still demonstrates a strong step forward for these two filmmakers.

One of the things that was central to making the movie work as a whole was the casting of Ryland Grace himself.  The movie for the most part is almost entirely a single-hander, with his only co-star being an alien creature without a discernable face.  It would require an actor with a lot of charisma to hold a movie like this together almost completely solo.  Ryan Gosling proves to be the right guy for the job.  Gosling embodies this charming everyman quality that makes it easy to like him on screen with not much interference.  Given that he’s by himself for a good chunk of the movie, you need that everyman quality to center the movie in something grounded and genuine.  He can be aloof and funny, but we also buy him as a man who seriously is trying to think his way out of a problem.  Some readers have raised concerns that Ryan is too handsome an actor to play Ryland Grace, as the character in the book is described as being more of a plain looking, out of shape guy.  And while there are attempts to make Gosling look a tad more plain in the movie, it really doesn’t matter in the long run.  We just need to believe in him as this character; someone who will use his mind to science a way out of this situation.  Of course, what a lot of people are going to talk about is the on screen chemistry that Gosling will have with the alien Rocky.  Rocky may be the movie’s greatest triumph because of the limitations on how he is able to communicate.  He’s a stone based creature that walks around like a crab and has no discernable facial features.  And yet, he’s incredibly expressive, showing emotion through pantomime, often imitating what Ryland does to show he’s friendly.  What’s remarkable is that Rocky was actually an on-set physical puppet for many scenes, puppeteered by James Ortiz, who also provided his the voice of Rocky’s computerized translator.  Obviously for some of the more complex movement scenes, Rocky’s puppet was switched out for a digital model, but you really have to give credit to the movie for actually going out of their way to build a real puppet for the film, which I’m sure Gosling really appreciated as an actor needing something to react to on set.  And though her presence in the movie is minimal, Sandra Huller also brings a great presence in what is her debut in a Hollywood studio film after a distinguished career working in German cinema.   It may not be a big cast, but they manage to carry this movie very well, even through it’s big epic moments.

Of course what a lot of people are going to discuss about this movie are the visual.  The film is grandiose in scale, but it also manages to capture the small moments pretty well in between.  Most of the movie takes place on the space shuttle Hail Mary, and the production team did an excellent job of making the sets for the shuttle look true to life as possible.  The filmmakers certainly must have done their research with how space stations are built and function, and also included theoretical plans about how such facilities would work in the near future.  Of course, the movie also plays around with theoretical science as well, especially in the way it imagined what Rocky’s own space ship would be like, and how it functions.  The planets of the Tau Ceti system are also incredibly realized.  To create these visuals in a way that does the vastness of space justice, it’s easy to see why Lord & Miller got Oscar winning cinematographer Greig Fraser on board, given that he’s been the one who’s photographed the Dune movies for Denis Villeneuve.  The movie uses two types of film formats.  The scenes on earth are shot in the standard scope widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1.  But all the scenes in space (which is roughly 70% of the film) was shot on 70mm IMAX.  If you are lucky enough to see the movie projected in 70mm IMAX (as I was), you are seeing the movie as it was truly meant to be shown.  The vastness of space can only really be appreciated in the IMAX format.  Greig Fraser does an incredible job of capturing both the emptiness of that void, as well as the overwhelming scale of the planets once these space ship arrive near a celestial body.  Fraser also does a great job of shooting the interior spaces of Ryland’s space shuttle.  The movie does a nice job of playing with perspective sometimes, where Gosling moves around the spaceship contrary to where we expect the floor and ceiling to be; a trick also used very well in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The visual effects team should also be applauded because it also appears that a lot more practical effects were used on this film than what we’d expect.  The Rocky puppet is one thing, but it’s also clear that a lot of scenes of the two space ships were done with real physical models as opposed to CGI; another nod to 2001, but also something that Christopher Nolan also made extensive use out of for Interstellar.  Lord & Miller clearly wanted to make this film feel grounded, and it’s great to see that they didn’t just rely on heavy usage of CGI to do the job.  It works so much better to make this story believable when what you are seeing are real, physical things shot on camera.

There is certainly a lot to like about Project Hail Mary, and I have no doubt that this will be a winning film for most audiences.  It’s got a positive message about teamwork and making personal sacrifices for the sake of saving others.  It’s also a beautiful looking movie that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible.  But also I felt coming away from the movie that it lacked that certain element that could have made it even greater.  I feel like it’s fundamental flaw resides in it’s uneven pacing.  The movie is 2 hours and 36 minutes long, and I feel like it could have worked better if it maybe reduced those flashback scenes to a minimum.  The problem is that those flashbacks end overstaying their welcome and they don’t really add much overall to the story other than providing context.  There are some nice flashbacks in there, especially the karaoke scene with Eva, but what we learn about Ryland as a character is mostly found in his scenes out in space, and that ultimately makes the flashbacks superfluous.  The main thrust of the story is Ryland and Rocky, and that’s where the heart is.  Whenever it cut away from the their story to one of these flashbacks, I felt that momentum of the movie got halted, and it reduced the overall experience.  It needed consistency in it’s pacing, and that was found mostly in those space scenes.  That’s why I feel that it didn’t work as well as The Martian did as an adaptation of Andy Weir’s writing.  The Martian has a much clearer and linear line in it’s storytelling, and that’s what helped it to be a much briskier film overall, even with the near identical run time of 2 1/2 hours.  Even still, Lord & Miller are showing a lot of growth as filmmakers, and this movie shows just how well they can handle big spectacle in a live action movie.  Their handling of the Ryland and Rocky storyline is especially well done.  If anything, that the thing that most audiences are going to take away from this film, which is the surprisingly charming bromance between Ryland and Rocky.  Project Hail Mary follows in the footsteps of some major cinematic classics like 2001, Gravity, and Interstellar, and while it may fall short in terms of the execution of it’s story, it still nevertheless does justice to the visual legacies of those films as spectacles.  I have my misgivings about how the story was told, but I certainly recommend seeing this movie for the big screen spectacle it offers.  It’s movies like these that bring us the closest to sailing through the stars.

Rating: 7.5/10

It’s been a tumultuous road in the 2020’s for Pixar Animation.  They were caught up in the massive disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, with their spring 2020 release of their movie Onward (2020) getting shut off once theaters began closing for the lockdown.  Then for the next 3 releases on their line-up, the powers that be at their parent company Disney decided to skip theatrical releases altogether and take their movies directly to streaming. Pixar wouldn’t see the big screen again until the release of the Toy Story (1995) spin-off film, Lightyear (2022), which was a highly divisive film that alienated longtime Pixar fans.  While a lot of Pixar’s problems were out of their control, such as with the pandemic, they were nevertheless determined to keep their high quality standards up at the studio, but internal pressures were also taking their toll.  The re-shuffling of management at the top of Disney, with the much disliked Bob Chapek lasting only 2 disastrous years as CEO before being replaced by his predecessor Bob Iger who came back to clean up his mess, also negatively affected Pixar.  During Pete Doctor’s tenure as head of the studio, Pixar has unfortunately seen massive layoffs come down on them from Disney’s corporate offices, and it has affected the creative culture that helped to fuel Pixar’s rise.  Doctor has tried the best that he can do to keep Pixar humming along through all the turmoil.  Despite the falling box office, audiences are still approving of Pixar’s output, with their movies often getting strong critical and audience scores.  Elemental (2023) managed to survive a disastrous opening weekend and become a modest hit through strong word of mouth.  And Pixar did have it’s biggest hit ever a year later with the box office phenomenon Inside Out 2 (2024).  But a year later they suffered their biggest box office failure ever with Elio (2025), which became their first non-pandemic affected film to ever fail to gross over $100 million.  It seems that Pixar’s only saving grace now is in making sequels to their past hits, and that in itself is yet another demoralizing blow to the studio.

It’s disheartening to see Pixar having to justify it’s existence now by banking on their already established franchises, but sadly they are at the mercy of the accountants over at Disney.  The corporate offices aren’t taking into consideration the quality of the story or the animation.  What they look at is the fact that Elio lost Disney a lot of money, while Inside Out 2 made all of the money.  That’s why the future line-up of Pixar Animation is so sequel heavy, with movies like this summer’s Toy Story 5 in the works as well as Incredibles 3, Coco 2, and Monsters Inc. 3 all coming in the years ahead.  Now, of course Pixar is no stranger to sequels.  In the past, they have put out four Toy Story’s and three Cars film, plus sequels to Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Monsters Inc. and the aforementioned Inside Out 2.  But in between all of these sequels, they have continued to also put out original movies, and these are the ones that more often have the longer staying power.  In fact, the eras that seem to define Pixar the most are when they are trying new things.  The 2000’s was the time period where Pixar was at their strongest, with movies like The Incredibles (2004), Ratatouille (2007), Wall-E (2008) and Up (2009) helping to define Pixar as not just another animation studio, but as a brand that defined quality.  The 2010’s saw them still continue to perform strong, but they also seemed to be relying a bit too much on sequels to help boost their box office.  However, their justification for these sequels was that it would help keep them financially secure so that they could keep experimenting with their untried new ideas.  Sadly, the pandemic cut short what would have been a planned roll out of nothing but originals for a solid five year run.  Onward, Soul (2020), Luca (2021), and Turning Red (2022) all were movies that came from new original ideas from first time filmmakers who were being promoted through the ranks at Pixar (except Soul, which Pete Doctor made himself).  Because none of these movies got the big screen exposure that they deserved, they unfortunately have muted Pixar’s reputation as an innovator, and now they are sadly trying to play it safe.  There is one last original film coming this year from Pixar that could help salvage the studio and prove that they can still prosper on original ideas.  The only question is whether Hoppers (2026) can be the movie that can do that?

Hoppers tells the story of a spirited young woman named Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda).  Mabel is passionate about nature, which was passed down to her from visits to a special secluded glade outside of town with her Grandma Tanaka (Karen Huie).  Unfortunately, the glade is about to be paved over for a new beltline freeway, promoted by Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm), who Mabel has had a longtime beef with.  Mabel has tried every tactic to slow down the construction of the freeway, but to effect.  She then comes up with the idea of reintroducing the beaver population into the area, with the hopes that their construction of a beaver dam will help bring the wildlife back.  However, when she finds a beaver in the wild, she sees it behaving very weirdly.  She follows it to a secret laboratory at Beaverton University, where she attends school.  There Mabel finds her professor Dr. Sam (Kathy Najimy) has created a top secret program that allows human consciousness to be transferred into robotic animals, which has allowed them to better observe the behavior of animals.  Seeing this technology as a perfect way to communicate directly with the animals in nature, Mabel puts herself into the machine and transfers her mind into that of a robotic beaver.  She manages to make it to the woods outside of town, where she quickly realizes that she can understand everything the animals are saying.  Not only that, but she also learns there’s a code that they all live by called Pond Rules.  Confused by their social order, a couple of the animals called Ellen the Bear (Melissa Villasenor), Tom Lizard (Tom Law) and Loaf the Beaver (Eduardo Franco) decide to bring Mabel to the Pond where she can talk to King George (Bobby Moynihan), the leader of their animal community.  George turns out to be a welcoming leader who respects Mabel’s passion about saving their community from human development.  But, Mabel wishes to stop Mayor Jerry’s plan once and for all, so King George summons the Animal Council, which includes the Bird King (Isiah Whitlock Jr.), the Amphibian King (Steve Purcell), the Fish Queen (Ego Nwodim), the Reptile Queens (Nichole Sakura), and the most feared member, the Insect Queen (Meryl Streep).  Mabel makes her case to the Council, but they unfortunately take the wrong conclusion and decide that Mayor Jerry must be “squished,” leading Mabel to realize that she may have gone a tad overboard in her crusade.

The one thing that helps Hoppers to stand out is the fact that it not only is an original idea for a movie, but it also is one that never once goes down a familiar path.  One of the great things about Pixar Animation is that their ideas for movies have always been atypical, and embraced original concepts that may have sounded too weird at first.  That’s why you had movies where Monsters power their energy grid off the screams of children, or a rat becoming a gourmet chef by puppeteering a human by pulling on his hair.  They are a studio that has always embraced weird ideas and it’s what has made their movies feel so fresh over the years.  Hoppers thankfully embraces that oddball spirit, and even goes a step further.  What I particularly loved about Hoppers was the fact that it was so unpredictable.  The concept itself is not the strong point of the movie.  The idea of our main character doing a body swap to put their mind in the body of an animal is nothing we’ve never seen before.  In fact, the movie itself points this out with Mabel herself saying this is just like Avatar (2009), to the chagrin of Dr. Sam.  But it’s what the movie does with that set-up afterwards where the story really shines.  The story doesn’t just follow plot points, it just kind of unravels in an ever escalating series of chaotic situations, each more bizarrely inspired than the next.  It has a very stream of conscious flow to it, where one bizarre idea flows into the next, and that made the movie all the more enjoyable because it always kept us the audience guessing what may happen next.  And yet, in typical Pixar fashion, it doesn’t lose track of the heart at it’s center.  There in fact is a strong through line of Mabel learning to be more responsible with her activism and finding better ways to inspire others to follow her lead.  The friendships she builds along the way are also a strong point of the movie, especially the bond she makes with King George.  The movie also delivers a potent message about conservation and living in communion with nature that thankfully naturally flows out of the story and never feels heavy handed.

If the movie has a flaw, it’s that it doesn’t really find it’s footing until midway through the film.  The pacing in the first half of the movie is a bit too frantic, making it difficult at times to connect with Mabel and her plight.  I’d say it’s at the point where King George enters the picture close to the mid section of the movie that things start to settle, and that’s also the point where the movie begins to let loose and defy convention.  One of the most surprising things about Hoppers is just how funny it is, and I don’t mean in the usual Pixar family friendly way.  Hoppers‘ sense of humor can get surprisingly dark at times, to the point where I was shocked that Disney allowed them to get away with some of these gags.  Not that this is adult humor that is inappropriate for children, or something that may end up traumatizing little kids.  It’s just so surprising that this movie was allowed to be as weird as it is.  There’s a bit with a shark that especially had me giggling in the theater.  There’s also another moment where something is “squished” that may be the darkest gag that Pixar has ever put into one of their movies, and it got a massive reaction out of the audience I was watching the movie with.  This is the thing that I think may be the difference maker for Pixar with Hoppers; the fact that it didn’t try to play things safe and just repeat formula.  While many of their recent slate of films have all still had a lot of heart and charm to them, Pixar also really hasn’t taken this big of a swing either.  By embracing a wildly stranger tone and sense of humor, Hoppers really does feel the most like the Pixar of old, where the attitude was more centered around “anything goes.”  When they were creating the original Toy Story, the Pixar creative team actually threw out much of their original script because it was too formulaic, and they instead went with the philosophy of making something that isn’t aimed at all audiences, but rather aimed at what they themselves would want to see, and that in turn made their movie funnier and more daring in the flow of it’s story.  From that point, Pixar followed this ethos for a long time, making sure they only put the work into the movie if the story felt right.  Hoppers feels like the best implementation of that idea from Pixar in a long while.

One of the reasons why the humor in this movie hits so well is because the voice cast does such a great job of bringing character and personality to the film.  Piper Curda brings a lot of passion and energy to the character of Mabel.  She may come across as too strong in the beginning, which may be a result of the first half’s awkward pacing, but Piper manages to nail the more heartfelt moments later on in the film when Mabel goes through her realization phase in the story.  But perhaps the one who stands out the most in the film is Bobby Moynihan as King George.  Moynihan is no stranger to voicing cartoon characters, and in fact he’s been in a couple past Pixar films already in minor roles, such as Monsters University (2013) and both Inside Out movies.  Here he now gets to play a featured role for the first time for Pixar, and the Saturday Night Live alum makes the most of it.  He brings so much warmth to the character of King George, making him a bright ray of optimism in an often cynical world.  He might actually be my favorite character from a Pixar movie in a very long time, just based on his upbeat demeanor that both is funny in contrast with Mabel’s sharper edges and also in how he constantly tries to make the best out of impossibly bad situations.  Moynihan embodies that perfectly in his vocal performance, managing to deliver on both the more hysterical and tender moments with the character.  The remainder of the cast also delivers some great moments, and in typical Pixar fashion, they always look for the voices that are best suited for the characters, rather than chasing after a big marquee name.  Jon Hamm does a great job voicing Mayor Jerry, allowing him to be more than just a stock antagonist for the film and even finding ways to be as silly in his performance as the rest of film.  It’s also hilarious how they end up using Meryl Streep in the film, given how prestige she brings with her.  Just like the movie itself, it’s great to see the cast letting loose in their roles, embracing the oddball vibe that pervades the story.  But, Pixar also manages to make their roles work in service of the story as well.  It’s one thing that I always appreciate about Pixar movies, where you feel like the voice actors are embodying the characters, and you never get the sense that this was just a quick job in a recording booth for them.

Hoppers is also a visually impressive movie as well, which for Pixar is standard practice.  A lot of naysayers of recent Pixar have lamented over how the studio has changed their style in recent years, particularly with their character animation.  This has been dubbed the “bean mouth” era of Pixar by some critics, as Pixar has used a simplified character modeling style where the characters (particularly human ones) have open mouths that appear bean shaped.  This can be seen in movies like Luca, Turning Red, and Elio, where the human characters are very much more stylized and simple in design that Pixar characters of the past.  I for one don’t mind this kind of style, because one I find it charming and two Pixar isn’t the first animation studio to try to update their house style.  Look at their sister animation studio Disney, which has updated their house style many times; even in Walt’s era this was true, with Sleeping Beauty (1959) looking vastly different from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves (1937).  Hoppers continues this trend with the “bean mouth” style, and it honestly helps to make the movie look even better.  I love the highly expressive faces that these characters make, and their more stylized look fits better with that manic nature of the humor in this movie.  One of the best visual ideas in the movie is how characters appear different through the perspective of hopping from human to animal.  From the perspective of the humans, all the animals (including the robotic ones) looking like animals, with beady eyes and expressionless faces.  But once the characters transplant their consciousness, or find a way to communicate with the animals, the faces on the animals change, with big expressive eyes and human like mannerisms.  It’s a simple visual idea, but one that works very well and also helps to enhance some of the comedy, especially when the perspectives suddenly change.  The movie is also colorful and beautifully detailed.  This will be a movie that’ll play especially well on home video, especially if people have HDR set ups on their TV sets.  But, it should definitely be experienced on a big screen first, because it’s a beautifully immersive experience.  It’s great to see that even through the ups and downs of Pixar’s fortunes, they still haven’t lost their edge as visual artists.

It may not be the absolute pinnacle of Pixar Animation overall; seriously this studio has the highest bar to clear of any animation brand in the world.  But, Hoppers is probably the most assured and daring movie they have made in quite some time.  I’ll need to stew a bit longer over where I would rank it among the best of Pixar’s films, but for what it is, I definitely say that I had a lot of fun watching this movie.  The thing I appreciate the most is that it refuses to stick with formula and go by the Pixar playbook.  The way this movie unfolds, with each twist and turn being unexpected is what really helped to make this movie so entertaining.  In an animation industry that has been hit hard by layoff and facing the existential threat of AI, it’s inspiring to see Pixar defying the headwinds that’s pushing them towards just coasting on their brand.  Pixar has always been an industry leader, setting the bar high, and they should indeed continue to be challenging themselves by taking chances.  It’s certainly seems like Hoppers is an unexpected example of this, because on the surface a movie about talking animals seems like the most formulaic movie idea of all in animation.  And yet, Hoppers throws out convention at every turn and makes this a movie that truly does feel unlike anything you’ve seen before.  I love the bold swings it took to make it funnier at every turn, and not be afraid to go a little dark at times.  This is the same kind of spirit that fueled Pixar’s rise in the first place, and it’s inspiring to see a little bit of that still alive at the Emeryville, CA based studio offices.  Whether we can still see that spark of creativity inspire more original ideas in the future remains to be seen, as Pixar’s upcoming slate seems to be very sequel heavy.  My hope is that Hoppers manages to do well enough to convince Disney that there needs to be more original films sprinkled within all these sequels to help keep the spark of originality going, both at Pixar and at Disney’s own studio.  For the time being, Hoppers proves to be a genuinely pleasing surprise that I think represents the best of what Pixar has to offer, and hopefully audiences will agree and help bring Pixar back to the peak of their powers once again.

Rating: 8.5/10

Few works of literature have managed to enchant generations of readers the same way the Wuthering Heights has.  The sole published novel of 19th century author Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights has remained one of the most beloved stories of lost love ever put on page since it’s debut in 1847.  It is the quintessential story of forbidden love that has inspired countless imitators throughout the years.  And of course, it was perfectly suited for the cinema as well.  There has been over 30 film and television adaptations of the story throughout the years, ranging from the very faithful to the wildly re-imagined.  Of course, the most well known version is the 1939 Hollywood classic, directed by William Wyler and starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.  It’s also a surprisingly international story as well, with adaptations found throughout the world in places like India, the Philippines, and Mexico.  But given that the story has been re-adapted so many times, one has to wonder if there is anything new that can be brought to the story that can make it feel new to a whole different generation.  Some have tried to re-examine the story through a different prism of context.  British filmmaker Andrea Arnold famously created a very stripped down version of the story, keeping it within it’s Victorian setting but shooting it in a very modern documentary like style.  She also finally realized something from the book that has never truly been done in other adaptations, which is to cast an actor of color in the role of Heathcliff, whom Emily Bronte described in novel of being of Romani descent.  But, even by modernizing the aesthetic used to tell the story, the roots of Wuthering Heights are still bound by the gothic Victorian setting, though Bronte’s novel was still ahead of it’s time in many ways.  There are many different ways to modernize the story, but the most effective way to help audiences today connect with this nearly 200 year old tale is to stick close to what is at the heart of the narrative.  In essence, it a story about the obstacles we put upon ourselves in the pursuit of love, and the terrible things that can come from unquenched desire.

What is interesting now is what a provocative filmmaker like Emerald Fennell saw in Wuthering Heights that made her want to adapt the story her way.  Fennell has been something of an interesting rising star in filmmaking recently.  After working for a while as an actress, including a featured supporting role on the hit series The Crown, Emerald got her chance to write and direct her debut feature film.  The film was a thriller called Promising Young Woman (2020), starring Carey Mulligan, and it won enough acclaim to propel Emerald to an Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay.  And while Promising Young Woman had it’s provocative moments to be sure, it was nothing compared to her next film, Saltburn (2023).  Saltburn was a daring and taboo busting satire of wealth inequality that has since become something of a cult hit.  While the movie didn’t do much at the box office, and was completely ignored during Awards season, it became a streaming sensation, especially with reactions to some of the movie’s more shocking and gross out moments.  It certainly showed us what Emerald Fennell was capable of as a filmmaker.  She could create these lush, exquisitely produced shot compositions with incredible artistic vision, and use that same vision to showcase the grotesque and weird, as well as frame it in a shockingly erotic manner.  Saltburn’s twisted story of decadence and desire was well suited for Emerald’s provocative vision, and for me personally it was one of the best movie experiences that I had that year, mainly because I just admired the daringness of the whole thing.  But, what was Emerald going to do as a follow-up.  In a way, Wuthering Heights seemed to be an odd choice.  As daring as Bronte’s novel was at the time, it is still chaste compared to what we have now in modern media.  Could the shocking sensibilities that we saw in Saltburn work in a classic piece of romantic literature that has lasted centuries, or was Emerald going to have to tame her directorial instincts in order to remain faithful to the book.  Regardless, Emerald Fennell managed to get Warner Brothers to finance her adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic novel, and place it in an ideal pre-Valentine’s Day release window.  But, does Emerald Fennell’s take on Wuthering Heights breath new life into this classic tale, or was she a bad fit from the beginning.

The novel Wuthering Heights has been a part of many English and Literature class curriculums throughout the world, making it one of the most widely read novels in history.  But if you did manage to miss out on the novel through both your high school and college years, here’s a brief over view.  Set in the Yorkshire moors of Northern England during the early 19th century, the story centers on a young girl named Catherine Earnshaw (Charlotte Mellington) who lives in a dreary old manor house called Wuthering Heights.  Her father Mr. Earnshaw (Martin Clunes) one day brings home an orphaned boy (Owen Cooper) whom he takes in as a ward of the estate, mainly to keep Catherine company as something like a pet. The boy has no name, so Catherine names him Heathcliff.  Over time, Catherine and Heathcliff grow closer together, and Heathcliff becomes very protective of her, shielding Catherine from her father’s alcohol fueled fits of rage.  As they grow older, Catherine (Margot Robbie) and Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi) remain friends but something between them seems to be building, which is noticed by Catherine’s close friend Nelly Dean (Hong Chau).  But, the years of drinking and gambling by Mr. Earnshaw have take their toll on the wealth of the Wuthering Heights estate.  In order to avoid financial ruin, Catherine takes it upon herself to attempt to court the wealthy Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif), who live on his vast estate with his eccentric sister Isabella (Alison Oliver).  Linton is smitten by Catherine almost immediately upon their first encounter, and in a short amount of time he asks to wed her.  Despite getting what she wanted, Catherine feels like she is betraying her love towards Heathcliff, whom she loves in a more visceral way than she does Edgar.  But, the choice to marry becomes more essential when Heathcliff suddenly leaves Wuthering Heights.  Years pass, and Catherine is living a luxurious life at the Linton estate, though she is largely romantically unfulfilled.  Then she learns that Heathcliff has returned, now a man who has gained his own fortune and has just bought Wuthering Heights from her dead beat father.  Is it too late to rekindle the flame of their old love, and will it bring both Catherine and Heathcliff to ruin if they act on their desires while she remains a married woman?

Emerald Fennell has more than just the classic Bronte novel to live up to with regards to her adaptation.  Her film is also going to have to stack up to the classic 1939 adaptation, which many herald as one of the great works of early Hollywood cinema.  Indeed, it’s hard not to think about the version with Olivier and Oberon when watching this movie, but I’m also an avid consumer of classic cinema as well.  I don’t think most modern day audiences are as familiar with that movie, and that’s probably who Emerald Fennell is appealing to more with her version of Wuthering Heights.  Her take on Wuthering Heights is definitely made to appeal more to a millennial and Gen Z audience, especially with a lot of the modern touches she adds to the film, including a soundtrack with contemporary sounding original songs by Charli XCX.  It’s definitely a modern kind of movie with the trappings of a period costume drama.  But, for literary purists looking for a faithful adaptation of the novel, this is definitely not it.  Emerald’s adaptation is very loosely tied with the original novel, retaining it’s core premise and characters, but throwing in some bold detours away from the original narrative itself.  But, does it all work out?  In some ways yes, and in other ways no.  The generally positive side is that the movie is never boring.  In it’s nearly 2 hours and 20 minutes, the movie manages to keep us engaged with it’s often manic pacing and bold choices that definitely cause a stir.  But, Emerald Fennell also perhaps pushes a bit too much in the direction of being provocative and shocking that she in a way kind of misses the point of the story in general.  Wuthering Heights at it’s heart is a tragedy, even before (Spoilers ahead, even though this widely read book has been around for almost 200 years) Catherine dies at the end.  It’s a tragedy about how two soul mates miss their opportunity for happiness together due to finances, and when they reconnect years later, it’s too late.  And that unrequited love turns toxic as a result, leading to a lifetime of bitterness, especially for Heathcliff who far outlives her and remains haunted by her memory.  Emerald Fennell seems less interested in that, and sees the story more as a vehicle to present some twisted portrayals of sexual awakenings through the prism of a classic literary romance.

It stands to reason that Emerald Fennell is very much a fan of the novel; I don’t think that she would have chosen it otherwise as her next movie project if she wasn’t.  But there is so much more to Bronte’s novel that Fennell chooses to leave out.  What is interesting about this in comparison to the classic Olivier version is that both movie adaptations stop at the same point; at Cathrine’s tragic demise.  Bronte’s novel actually has this as the halfway point, where the story skips ahead many years later in the second half of the novel.  There we see the toll of losing Catherine has had on Heathcliff, as he has become bitter and meanspirited.  That’s the tragedy of the novel, Heathcliff becoming a far worse person over time as his time with Catherine was all too brief and un-fulfilled, and he spreads that pain to the next generation, with Cathine’s only child Cathy being the target of most of his wrath.  In a strange way, both movie adaptations look more kindly upon Heathcliff than Emily Bronte does, where she largely portrays him as brute.  I can see why the change is made, because it makes the role a more attractive one for leading men, and Heathcliff is inherently the most fascinating character of the whole book.  In place of that darker aspect of the character, the classic 1939 makes Heathcliff and Catherine’s story more about the tragedy of lost love.  You would think that Emerald Fennell would use her version to examine the dynamics of passionate love versus a life of privilege creating friction between these two tragic characters, but that seems to get lost in some of her cinematic indulgences.  The movie treats it’s romance in a steamy way, but Emerald rather interestingly doesn’t seem to portray any of her characters in a favorable light, and that makes it more difficult to sympathize with the romantic side of the story.  Heathcliff is a brute, but Catherine is also equally detestable in the way she manipulates everyone around her in order to get her way.  And it seems every character has that flaw, treating each other poorly in the pursuit of their own gain.  It seems like Emerald still seems to be in the mindset of what she brought to the narrative of Saltburn, where everyone was contemptable in that story.  It worked spectacularly in that story, but feels out of place in Wuthering Heights.

On the positive side, Emerald does make this movie look gorgeous from beginning to end.  Not only that, but her fearlessness in visual aesthetic actually helps to make this movie stand out that much more.  I certainly would never have expected some of the bold design choices in this movie.  The design of Wuthering Heights itself, built in the middle of these jagged, black stone rocks jutting out of the ground, feels like something out of a Tim Burton movie, and that’s just the first taste of all the weird things to come.  The interior design of the Linton estate is equally bizarre in concept.  There’s one room that has a floor that is blood red, and it spotlighted by the sheer white walls that rise up from it.  There’s also a clever reference to Jean Cocteau’s classic 1946 re-telling of Beauty and the Beast, with the wall sconces holding up the candles that light the room being modeled after human hands.  Fennell also does a remarkable job of shooting the remarkable landscapes of the moors.  The movie was shot by DP Linus Sandgren, who has worked on films like La La Land (2016), No Time to Die (2021), and of course Emerald  Fennell’s Saltburn.  For this film, he shot much of the movie with Vistavision cameras, marking yet another major studio movie to re-vitalize this long dormant format after The Brutalist (2024) and One Battle After Another (2025) have brought it back to prominance. The results are undeniable, as some of the wide angle shots in the outdoor scenes has some epic sweep to them.  This is definitely a movie that benefits from a large screen experience.  I also appreciate the fact that Emerald Fennell isn’t afraid to get a little strange in her visual storytelling.  There is one room in the Linton estate that is made to resemble the color and texture of human skin on it’s walls, even with the details of imperfections like moles included.  It’s where Emerald Fennell’s oddball sensibilities work in the film’s favor, even while the story is a let down.  It’s a mess, but it’s one of the prettiest messes you’ll ever see.

The film also benefits from committed performances from the actors.  This movie wasn’t just a passion project for Emerald Fennell, it was also spearheaded by Margot Robbie as well, who also served as producer.  The two have history of working together, with Margot being a producer on Emerald’s first two films in addition to this one, and Emerald getting to appear alongside Margot in the movie Barbie (2023), playing Midge, the pregnant Barbie doll.  While the character herself may be a tad difficult to like as a whole, you’ve still got to give Margot credit for her committed performance.  She balances the performance well, playing so many sides of the character including being charming, amusing, and also cunningly manipulative.  Jacob Elordi does fine in the role of Heathcliff, though I do think that he gets less to do here than he should.  It may be an unfair comparison, but I feel that Olivier brought a lot more gravitas to the role of Heathcliff.  Olivier made his version far more brooding and a force of nature.  Elordi’s Heathcliff is certainly an imposing figure, with that 6’6″ frame of his making him tower over everyone else.  But his Heathcliff is a lot more passive in this version of the story, never quite leading us to believe that he becomes the brute that he eventually turns into in the book.  It’s interesting that this is the second movie in a row where Elordi has brought to life one of the great brutish characters of English Literature.  However,  I feel like he brought a lot more to his performance as Frankenstein’s creature in last year’s film from Guillermo Del Toro.  Even still, Elordi does deliver when it comes to the romantic fireworks boiling under the surface.  There’s also a lot to be said about the strong performances coming from the young actors who play Catherine and Heathcliff in the opening part of the movie.  For Charlotte Mellington, this is her film acting debut, and she does a great job portraying the chaotic, impulsive nature of Catherine in her youth, and she is complemented perfectly by young actor Owen Cooper in the role of Heathcliff, with this coming off the heels of his awards winning performance in the hit Netflix series Adolescence.  Another standout is Alison Oliver as Isabella, whose eccentric performance helps to bring some unexpected levity to this film.

I do admire the fact that Emerald Fennell wanted to take on this classic story and do it in her own way.  And the movie is elevated by it’s incredible visuals and strong performances.  But I also feel that it falls way short in it’s re-telling of Emily Bronte’s classic story.  Wuthering Heights has endured because it’s far more than just another steamy romance about forbidden love.  It’s also a great exploration about the way love and desire can turn even the purest souls into dark and meanspirited people when it’s denied them, and how that extends across generations.  Emerald seems to have gotten the steamy romance part right, but she doesn’t add much else.  It’s a very shallow examination of the themes of novel, and for the most part it just seems like Emerald is using the premise of the story as a means of injecting her own indulgences.  While Wuthering Heights has never truly been adapted fully on the big screen, with most adaptations leaving us with the two lovers being seperated by a tragic death, Emeral Fennell’s version seems even more detached from the source novel.  It’s going to be interesting how people will react to this movie.  I feel like most people who are familiar with the book probably won’t like it, while casual audiences might embrace it more; if they aren’t put off by all the weird choices Emerald Fennell made with her version.  For me, I feel like you’ll get a better understanding and experience overall if you seek out the classic Laurence Olivier version.  While it isn’t perfect, it’s closer in spirit to the original book than this new version.  All that being said, Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights is still a visual treat that warrants seeing it in a theater.  And some of her artistic choices are pretty bold and daring, even if they clash a bit too much with the story being told.  I’d say go in with an open mind and see if the weirdness works for you.  Emerald Fennell certainly loves this strory and it’s characters, but her indulgences don’t do a whole lot of favors for them in the end.  I’d say if you end up being quizzed about the story in literature class, don’t uses this version as you Cliff Notes quide to the story’s meaning.  It’s very much Emerald Fennell’s take on this story for better and worse, and while she delivers on the visual spectacle, I feel like she should probably choose something other than a beloved literary classic as her next project, unless it’s something that makes for a better fit for her style.

Rating: 6.5/10

It feels like it was only yesterday that we were revisiting the post-apocalyptic world of the 28 Days Later series on the big screen, and that’s not too far off from the truth.  It took 20 years for director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland to revisit their zombie movie classic with a fresh new sequel, 28 Years Later (2025).  In that time, Danny Boyle would become an Oscar winning filmmaker with the success of Slumdog Millionaire (2008).  Also in that same time, Alex Garland would become a director of note, with movies like Ex Machina (2015) and Civil War (2024) to his name.  So, a lot of fans of the original 2002 classic were very happy to hear that both Boyle and Garland were coming back to this franchise; hoping that they would bring all the prestige that they’ve acquired over the years and bring new life into this world of the living dead.  And for the most part, the long wait was worth it.  While it was not as groundbreaking as the original film, 28 Years Later nevertheless was a strong return to form for the series, and the film received praise from audiences and critics.  But what surprised many was that there wouldn’t be a long wait for another film in this series.  In fact, we wouldn’t even have to wait a full year.  A mere 7 months after the release of the last film, we are getting another movie picking up right where the last one left off.  This was always by design, as Alex Garland conceived of this new story thread as a trilogy.  And Sony Pictures, the studio behind this series, remarkably agreed to this concept, greenlighting the two films to be shot back to back.  There was only one big difference in the development of this project; Danny Boyle would only be directing the first film.  Instead of filming one movie at a time, these two films would be getting made simultaneously, and that would require the talents of two directors.  Surprisingly, Garland did not take up the opportunity to direct the second film himself.  Instead, the team looked outside their pool and sought someone else who would be a good match for the series.

They managed to find that someone in American filmmaker Nia DaCosta. DaCosta has had experience working in the horror film genre, having directed the Candyman (2021) remake.  She also was just coming off a stint working at Marvel, directing the Captain Marvel centered The Marvels (2023), which unfortunately ran into some headwinds at the box office due to the strikes that year.  She may have been an outside the box choice for this very British production, but DaCosta was very much up to the challenge.  The only question though was if she could pick things up from where Danny Boyle left off.  Boyle is a filmmaker with a very distinct style.  He shoots his movies in almost a guerilla like way, often handheld and with something as simple as a camcorder.  The original 28 Days Later was filmed using MiniDV tapes, which gave it that very gritty, visceral look; like we were watching found footage a la Blair Witch Project.  28 Years Later did something very similar, albeit with updated technology, by shooting the movie using iPhones.  Nia DaCosta by contrast is a much more conventional filmmaker, shooting her movies with industry standard digital cameras.  While the movie may have a different overall look to it, it’s still carrying over a lot from the last film.  Alex Garland is still the writer of both movies, and much of the same crews of production designers who crafted this post-apocalyptic world have their fingerprints in both movies.  For both Garland and Boyle, they clearly saw what Nia DaCosta could bring to this series and they trusted her with telling this next chapter in their story.  But, the question remains if audiences will react to this movie in the same way.  We barely digest the last film from seven months ago, and now it’s time yet again to pick up the story.  So, does 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple maintain the momentum of the last film or is it all too much too early.

In the closing minutes of 28 Years Later, the young man at the center of that film named Spike (Alfie Williams) has chosen to leave behind the commune that he had called home and instead live out on his own in the pandemic ravaged wasteland that was once Northern England.  Out in the wild, there are still dangerous hordes of zombies, all infected with the Rage Virus that instantly turns it’s victims into mindless feral beasts.  But that’s not the only danger out there.  In the final scene of the last movie, Spike has been captured by a gang of track-suit and blonde wig wearing warriors known as the Fingers.  Their leader, Sir Jimmy Crystal (Jack O’Connell) is a ruthless man, leading his follower with a cult like fervor, terrorizing any small civilized settlement they come upon.  He names them each Jimmy, including Jimmy Shite (Connor Newall), Jimmy Ink (Erin Kellyman), Jimmy Jones (Maura Bird), Jimmy Snake (Ghazi Al Ruffai) Jimmy Jimmy (Robert Rhodes), Jimmy Fox (Sam Locke) and Jimmima (Emma Laird), and they look up to him like he’s the second coming.  But Jimmy Crystal is not a Christian man, instead leading his followers in worship of the Devil, or Old Nick as he likes to call him.  Spike is about to become their latest victim, but he manages to become accepted into their gang after he defeats one of them in combat.  Meanwhile, the doctor who had helped bring a human and peaceful end to Alfie’s ailing mother’s life days before, Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) is conducting a new experiment with one of the zombies that has been roaming his territory.  An “alpha” zombie, which has evolved over the years to be able to command the lesser specimens, has been given the name Samson (Chi Lewis-Parry) by Kelson and the doctor believes there may be something to the monster’s display of intelligence.  Using a powerful sedative, Kelson has managed to subdue and even domesticate the powerful creature, and his hope is that with a careful dosing of drugs on hand, he may have found a cure to the virus.  But Kelson’s plans may run into some interference when Jimmy Crystal and his Fingers come across the Bone Temple that Kelson has spent years erecting from the bones he’s collected.  Can Kelson and Spike manage to survive the threats they face from both zombie kind and human kind, and which one is more likely to spell their doom.

When two movies from the same franchise release in such close proximity to each other, there is inevitably going to be immediate comparisons between the two.  While 28 Years Later was a very well made movie, it was also not without some flaws.  The inconsistency of tone was a major issue, with Danny Boyle being somewhat scattershot in his approach to telling the story.  With a different filmmaker taking the reigns for the second movie, many people became interested in seeing how someone else would approach this same world in their own style.  While I do admire what Danny Boyle did with 28 Years Later, I do think that Nia DaCosta did things much better with her film The Bone Temple.  Tone wise, this film is just much more consistent and free of the abrupt shifts that Boyle included in his movie.  The Bone Temple is a much more methodical movie; allowing scenes to flow better together.  Danny Boyle has a very flashy sort of style when it comes to editing his movies together, harkening back to his Trainspotting (1996) days, which also harkens back to the original 28 Days Later.  This works well in some parts, like the harrowing montage early in the film, underscored with the haunting reading of the Kipling poem “Boots.”  But other time, it just makes the scenes where they are being hunted by killer zombies feel too disjointed and artificial.  Nia DaCosta avoids that, and instead allows for scenes to build through atmosphere, which sometimes takes it’s time to pay off.  And it’s not just with the scenes with the zombies either; there’s some very effective tension built up with the Fingers gang too.  The way that she films the scenes where the Fingers are torturing their victims brings us the audience uncomfortably close to the action and holds us there.  This allows for the moments when the chaos happens to feel all the more visceral.  But Nia DaCosta also balances things out with some beautiful natural photography as well.  The way she films the Bone Temple itself is pretty captivating, making it feel like a character onto itself.  One show near the end in particular, where the point of view is literally flipped on it’s head, gives the Temple a very otherworldly feel.

A lot of praise should also certainly go to Alex Garland as well for finding a way to avoid just telling the same story over again in the same world.  This movie in particular is very different from any other zombie movie, because it really isn’t about the threat of zombies.  28 Years Later was much more of a survivalist story, with Spike and his mother (played by Jodie Comer) having to survive out in the wild with zombies at every turn.  In this movie, the zombies are almost an afterthought, with the focus put far more on Dr. Kelson and Jimmy Crystal’s gang.  But this opens up the film to a whole lot more different opportunities.  For one thing, this is the first zombie film that I can think of that puts some hope into the fate of the zombies.  The character of Samson, who was merely an existential threat in the first movie, is actually given some character development here, as we see him actually evolve and remarkably find a way out of the nightmare that has been his existence as a monster.  While the first movie did it’s job as a fairly harrowing coming of age tale in a zombie filled apocalypse, The Bone Temple is a story that ponders how a world like this can find ways of rebuilding itself.  I get the feeling that this movie is closer to what made Alex Garland want to revisit this world again, and the first movie was just a prelude to get here.  The hope in a hopeless world angle is a far more thought provoking one, and it shows much more than the first 28 Years movie that there are fresh ideas to explore in this series.  I also appreciated the subtext of the story, where science and reason are the paths to a brighter future, and not superstition and false prophecies from flashy con artists.  While some may lament that characters like Spike take a back seat in this story compared to how they were in the first, I think that this is the aim of Alex Garland with regards to how he sees this series progressing from here out.  The way he wants to tell the story is to casually move around this world finding the different tale within it.  Some stories will intersect, but for the most part, Garland sees this world as a very broad canvas.  Spike had his story told, now it’s time to see others.

In the whole of the movie, there is now doubt that the one who stands out the most is Ralph Fiennes.  He was already great in the first film, playing the eccentric hermit Dr. Kelson.  But here he is the primary focus of the story, with his (perhaps foolhardy) pursuit of a cure being the driving force.  The way he deals with Samson in particular, gently nursing him back to health and even over time considering him a friend, is captivating to watch.  Fiennes hits just the right tone for the character, making him deeply sympathetic, but also showing that he’s got a dangerous streak within him as well.  A lot of praise should also go to Chi Lewis-Parry, who brings a surprising amount of humanity to the character of Samson.  Similarities to the development of Frankenstein are probably intentional, as Samson goes from animal-like back to being human in a surprisingly emotional way.  Some of the most surprising moments in the film come from him showing that there is indeed intelligence behind those crazed, bloodshot eyes and that he needed the help of Kelson to bring that dormant humanity back out.  On the opposite end we also have Jimmy and the Fingers.  Jack O’Connell is having a pretty good run lately playing some memorable villains in high profile horror flicks.  Just last April, he was a scene-stealing vampire in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, and through this and last year’s 28 Years Later he’s proven he can be equally as sinister a presence.  Jimmy Crystal is a truly terrifying presence in the film, lording over his cult followers like a king, espousing platitudes that sound erudite, but are in fact all hogwash.  Jack O’Connell does a fantastic job portraying the character, making him both unnerving while also funny in many ways.  The way his flashy style clashes with Fiennes very subdued performance as Kelson also makes for some of the film’s most entertaining back and forth exchanges.  When the characters are this rich and full of personality, you really forget that this is a zombie film at it’s core, and that’s a good sign that Alex Garland has managed to enrich his post-apocalyptic world with enough fascinating stories to sustain this series for years to come.

One other thing to appreciate with Nia DaCosta’s direction on this movie is just how good it all looks.  For this film, she’s working with veteran cinematographer, who among other things was the DP on films like 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Judas and the Black Messiah (2021).  He gives the movie a gritty but still naturalistic feel.  It’s very different than Danny Boyle’s handheld, guerilla style approach to shooting the movie, which was done with Anthony Dod Mantle (who also won an Oscar for Slumdog Millionaire).  Both styles work for their respective films, and it’s interesting to see them both work in service of showing the same world.  I for one just appreciated that we get to live within this one more without all of the Boyle flourishes that get a little distracting.  The production design across both films is exceptional, making this feel like a world being reclaimed by nature.  We’ve seen that many times before, like with the recent Planet of the Apes movies, but perhaps not with this kind of accuracy involved.  The bones of the old world are still there, and perhaps could still function if things were to improve.  As it stands, it’s the world we know, but twisted ever so slightly into a harsher reality.  Of course, the location that stand out is the titular Bone Temple itself.  We were introduced to it in 28 Years Later, but it definitely plays a more significant role in this movie, and the filmmakers knew exactly how to film it to make the place feel both foreboding and also ethereal.  The movie’s make-up and effects team also do an amazing job with this movie, and that’s not just with the work they did to create the many different zombies.  The look of Dr. Kelson is pretty iconic, with Ralph Fiennes covered in orange paint for most of the movie.  Also the costume choices for Jimmy Crystal and the Fingers bring a lot of personality to the characters, especially with the combo of track suits and platinum blonde wigs.  I also love how Jimmy Crystal’s whole get up involves him wearing all the jewelry they’ve stole off unfortunate victims, including a tiara.  And there’s a sequence towards the end of the movie that I don’t want to spoil, but it does something pretty spectacular with the Bone Temple itself with the way it’s lit up at night.

It’s not a flawless movie, but 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple is still a worthy successor to the film we saw last summer, and in many ways it’s an improvement.  The first 28 Years seems much more now like a warm up for what Alex Garland and Danny Boyle really want to do with this franchise, which is to broaden the scope of their world and tell many more stories within it.  Sure it picks up where the last one left off, but after the quick reintroduction, the movie moves away from Spike’s story to tell an entirely different one.  I like that these filmmakers aren’t trying to serialize this narrative, but instead introduce the idea that the world itself has many different stories worth telling.  The next film we get in this franchise may not even have any connection to the first two at all, though the final scene in this movie (without spoiling anything) hints at more familiar character returns.  I like the fact that these movies aren’t just recycling old zombie movie cliches.  They are exploring all the quirks and odd things that may occur when society falls apart, and having that be the thrust of their storyline.  The original 28 Days Later was perhaps the most influential film to come to the zombie movie subgenre since George A. Romero’s Dead series; creating it’s own set of rules and also changing the way movie like it could be presented.  While Danny Boyle’s iPhone shot style is perfectly suited for him, I actually prefer the more traditional approach that Nia DaCosta brought to this movie.  It may be less experimental, but it at least works in the service of allowing us to absorb this world and it’s many intricate details better.  It will be interesting to see who takes the reigns next.  Does either Boyle and DaCosta make a return behind the camera, or does Alex Garland close out the trilogy himself?  Or do they find someone else outside of their circle.  Regardless, this and the movie we got last summer proves that this franchise is very much alive and well, and in many ways is getting even better.  It was a short, 7 month downtime between these movies, and usually absence makes the heart grow fonder, but that’s not an issue with Bone Temple.  It is a movie that only builds on the goodwill set by the last film, and it hopefully is a positive sign of things to come.

Rating: 8.5/10