Category Archives: Fantasy

Pinocchio

Pinocchio             3 ½ stars

Last year’s Pinocchio by Matteo Garrone updates the Disney animated movie to a live action version, where the bright fairy tale gets converted to a much more grimy version about a wooden boy puppet who desires to become a real boy. Having never seen the Disney cartoon I didn’t have anything to compare it to, but I understand that it is more true to the original novel than the 1940 Disney version. Pinocchio and company live in a fantastical world where fantasy and magic abound. We can understand why the puppet wants to run from Gepetto (Roberto Benigni) and find a better life. The problem is that Pinocchio is not all that smart and constantly finds ways to get into trouble, leaving others to rescue him including a fairy who looks out for him. The movie is long but is suitable for children and brings with it a message about the consequences of mischief and disobedience.

Encanto

Encanto                4 stars

The newest animated Disney movie, Encanto takes us to the mountains in Columbia where an extended family all live in a magical house in an isolated village. The main character is Mirabel, a young woman who sings around town and generally brightens everyone’s day. In this family every member is granted a special magic gift as they grow up. Mirabel’s sisters and cousins all found their gifts but when it was Mirabel’s turn she was told by the house that she had none, a burden that is hard to accept. She then takes on the mission to find out the family secret involving a hidden vision, a lost uncle and impending signs of doom in the small town. With plenty of whimsical songs, colorful scenes and amusing characters, the movie provides the expected Disney magic that is well suited to children. Some of the original songs were composed by Lin-Manuel Miranda, but they may not be as memorable as his best works. The film brings an encouraging message that our families are not perfect, but we can be willing to accept them for who they are and celebrate what they bring to our lives.

Love and Monsters

Love and Monsters         4 ½ stars

It’s almost Christmas so what better time to see a movie about the end of the world? In the action comedy Love and Monsters we follow the exploits of Joel, a young twenty something man on a journey to be reunited with his high school sweetheart. The only thing is that most of the human population has been wiped out by giant mutant creatures that have infested the planet after multiple rockets were fired into space to destroy a comet that was on a collision course with earth. But the pollution from the rockets resulted in said mutant creatures. Does this sound completely implausible? Yes, but don’t worry about it. Joel leaves his underground colony of fellow citizens on an 85 mile journey across hostile terrain to find his love, Aimee, who he has not seen in seven years. Along the way he is accompanied by a dog named Boy who aids him as he battles some giant carnivorous creatures. So far this sounds like a very tame variation on A Boy and His Dog. (If you haven’t seen the movie from the seventies you should check it out.) This movie, though is very family friendly due to the personality of the star, Dylan O’Brien as Joel. Like any family oriented movie it has a positive message like learning to gain self confidence and to appreciate those we love. It deserves some special recognition for some impressive effects that bring the monsters to life. I didn’t know what to expect when I started the movie, but found it enjoyable. It seemed odd though that there was a near lack of firearms with the humans relying mostly on crossbows, spears and swords for defense. Along with an occasional hand grenade.

Turning Red

Turning Red                        4 stars

Pixar’s 2022 animated film Turning Red takes a different twist on the coming-of-age theme. This first full-length Pixar film to be directed by a woman (Domee Shi) tackles the subject of puberty and menstruation in a teen-age girl by using a metaphor in the form of a giant red panda. 13-year-old Chinese Canadian Mei lives with her immigrant Chinese family in 2008 Toronto and is a normal kid, though anxious and an overachiever in school. Her mother, Ming (Sandra Oh) is very controlling and likes to keep a watchful eye on her only daughter. Mei likes to hang out with her girlfriends and talk about their favorite boy band. Things seem perfectly normal, that is until she experiences a sudden change in her mood and finds herself very attracted to a certain boy in school. It is then that she discovers that feeling strong emotions makes her transform into a giant red panda with extraordinary strength. This is symbolic in movie terms of something powerful going on in her body, making her temporarily lose control of her emotions, a common occurrence in teenagers. Naturally, she tries to hide the transformation from her friends; that is, until she finds it can be a way to be more popular. Then the trick is to hide the change from Mom and her family. The girls secretly scheme to use Mei’s gift to raise money so they can attend a concert of their favorite boy band, 4 Town. (Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell wrote much of the original music that makes the boy band seem genuine.) But then there is more to the story when it is revealed that the giant red panda is really a sort of family curse that is visited upon all the female members of this family. Traditionally, they must perform a ritual that will keep the panda in check. The movie is a tactful yet amusing way of presenting the change that will relate to teenage girls while likely be over the heads of, yet be fun to much younger viewers. Turning Red adds to Pixar’s list of successful films dealing with certain human conditions that includes Coco, Soul and Inside Out. In a way, Inside Out 2 addresses the same subject as Turning Red but is a little more abstract. Unfortunately, for Pixar, they were forced to remove the movie from theaters and show it exclusively on streaming platforms because of pressure put on them from concerned parent groups who found the subject matter too controversial for their sensitive tastes. But at least young audiences have a way of seeing this colorful, action-filled film from Pixar. Domee Shi is an Academy Award winner having previously made the animated short film, Bao, about Asian parents becoming empty nesters.

Oxygen

Oxygen                 3 stars

Oxygen is a new sci-fi horror thriller from director Alexandre Aja that has one of the most limited sets I have ever seen. It opens with a young woman (Melanie Laurent of Operation Finale and Now You See Me) who awakens inside a futuristic cryogenic pod with only a computer voice named MILO for company. She is told that her oxygen supply is running out and to make matters worse she has no memory of where she is or even who she is. To say the movie is thin on plot is a colossal understatement. The woman slowly pieces together who she is through visual clues provided by MILO who is not always very helpful, and phone calls she is able to make to the authorities who it seems have something to hide. The hidden secrets eventually do get revealed but the events seemed to take forever to get there. It helps not to think about the situation too much or you will start to see some holes in the story. The movie is aided by a great performance by Laurent who puts plenty of energy into this very limited role. In fact the entire movie depends on how convincing she is. The movie could have been significantly shorter without losing any of the story. The director is known for other stylistic horror thrillers like Crawl, Horns and Piranha, so if you have seen any of these you have some idea of what to expect. The movie is in French with subtitles. If you ever saw the French horror film High Tension (also filled with plot holes) you will know what I mean. Oxygen is available on Netflix.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness      4 stars

The world’s most powerful sorcerer, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch returning to the role after an outing as a cowboy in The Power of the Dog) makes another entry in the Marvel universe in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. This second installment about the man who can control portals to other realities and can battle demons is directed by Sam Raimi, the man who brought us the Spiderman movies of the early 2000’s and a host of horror movies including the popular Evil Dead movies. This time out Doctor Strange crosses paths with a young girl named America (Xochitl Gomez) who is being pursued by demons and is forced to become involved and protect her. It seems that America has the power to travel to other universes that make up the multiverse, a reality that exists in the MCU. This power and a book that figures in the story is what some entity is seeking to obtain for itself, and it is Strange’s mission to prevent this union that could result in the destruction of the universe. (What else?) For help Strange goes to an associate, Wong (Benedict Wong) and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olson). I can’t go into the story much more than that except to say that the viewer is in for a real roller coaster of an experience as the characters travel to other universes, battle demons and meet alternate versions of themselves and other people in their lives including some very different Avengers. The movie is very action packed as one would expect in a Marvel movie and has a story that can be followed by most viewers. Fortunately, it does keep the number of characters limited, which can’t be said for two recent Avengers movies. The concept of a multiverse was used recently in Everything Everywhere All At Once, but with much greater comic effect than Doctor Strange, something I greatly enjoyed. Strange gives it a more serious tone which I also approve of. It has been nine years since Raimi’s last directorial effort, Oz the Great and Powerful. Let’s hope that he finds another suitable project without waiting that long. Be sure to watch for some interesting cameos, including one of a street vendor by Bruce Campbell!

Suspiria

Suspiria                 3 stars

To say that the horror movie Suspiria is not for everyone is putting it mildly. The 2018 “remake” of the seventies Italian horror movie by the same name is greatly expanded at two and a half hours from the original. Set in 1977 Berlin, a young American dancing student, Susie (Dakota Johnson) auditions for a world renowned dance academy and is soon accepted by one of the instructors, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) to be a lead dancer. While this is going on an elderly male psychoanalyst, Dr. Klemperer is taking in a story from one of the young women (Chloe Grace-Moretz) of the dance troupe about strange goings on in the company, but he initially writes them off as hysteria. The movie credits didn’t acknowledge it, but Dr. Klemperer was apparently also played by Tilda Swinton in heavy makeup. (I thought the voice sounded off.) The viewer soon becomes aware that the academy is actually run by a coven of witches who are looking for certain special female dancers that they hope to feed off of in some horrific fashion. The movie is set against the backdrop of the terrorist actions of the anti-Nazi Baader-Meinhof Gang, that was plaguing Germany in the seventies. There are references to the past horrors of the war and the Berlin wall that divided the city at the time. The film goes into full blown supernatural horror scenes mainly while the dancers are rehearsing. One of the dancers is brutally beaten and her body bruised and disfigured beyond recognition as a result of a supernatural connection to the lead dancer. At this point you must be advised that this movie is not for the squeamish and you should probably avoid it if such a description bothers you. It is one of those movies you either love or hate. Internally in the coven there is a struggle for control between the witches that will end badly for some when the witches all gather for a ritual of feasting on the new blood. I like a good supernatural horror movie, but this one got a little too intense too long for me. For a good movie of this genre you should check out Hereditary or even Mother!. I was very curious about Suspiria so now I know what it is about.

The Sea Beast

The Sea Beast                    3 ½ stars

With The Sea Beast, presented on Netflix, director and animator Chris Williams allows us to enter a world where those sea monsters of legend reputed to roam the seas actually exist. Here there are a cadre of heroes (both men and women) who sail in their wooden ships and hunt down and battle these giant creatures in defense of their kingdom. In this story, our two heroes are Jacob, a young man who was rescued from the sea as a boy and has served under Captain Crow of the Inevitable, (one of the best monster hunters who has served for decades); and Maisie, a young, orphaned girl whose parents were themselves monster hunters who lost their lives fighting the creatures. Maisie can’t get enough of the stories of the glory of the hunt, having read of them in her books, even including stories of Jacob. After Maisie stows away on Jacob’s ship and they do battle with a few of these monsters, including the most fearsome Red Bluster, Jacob and Maisie find themselves separated from the ship and her crew, stranded on an island inhabited by some of the creatures, including the giant Red Bluster himself. It is only after this encounter that they come to realize that Bluster and the other monsters may not be the dangerous creatures as told in the old stories. Perhaps the books are not telling the whole story. The film is another variation on the misunderstood creature that is befriended by a young person, who then must persuade the misguided adults into seeing things differently. This theme was present in the How to Train Your Dragon movies and in Raya and the Last Dragon as well as Nimona. The Sea Beast is much the same story, with the high seas as the setting. Chris Williams was the animator behind Big Hero 6 and Moana and has expanded his role to include director in The Sea Beast. It’s a good story for all ages but is clearly not original. It is reported that it may be getting the How to Train Your Dragon treatment with plans for a sequel. See it if you are a fan of animation. I recommend though to be wary of whales and sharks.

The One and Only Ivan

The One and Only Ivan   3 stars

The One and Only Ivan was brought to us in 2020 by Disney and stars Sam Rockwell as a silverback gorilla, Ivan who is kept in a cage and serves as the main attraction at a small-time mall, video-arcade managed by Mack (Brian Cranston). This combination live action-CGI film is intended primarily for children and is told in a quiet manner, focusing on how the animals feel about their situation. The computer animation is excellent, but the movie lacks the action one would associate with the usual Disney style for children’s movies. Also included among the mall animals are an elephant named Stella (Angelina Jolie), a chicken named Henrietta (Chaka Khan), a glam poodle named Snickers (Helen Mirren) and Bob, a lovable mutt (Danny DeVito) who provides the comic effect. This unlikely crew vacillates between wanting to put on a good show for a dwindling audience and longing for a better life away from captivity. But it is only when owner Mack tries to get Ruby (Brooklynn Prince), a very young elephant to perform on her own that Ivan feels driven to action. The movie is based on a popular children’s novel by Katherine Applegate which itself is based on a real life gorilla named Ivan who lived for 27 years in a cage in a mall and was ultimately moved to the open spaces of Zoo Atlanta after getting the attention of protesters decrying the living conditions of the ape. The script is by Mike White who also did School of Rock. The movie is a good one for the kids but may go a little light on its subject of animal captivity. It is available on Disney +.

Mami Wata

Mami  Wata.   4 stars

From the country of Nigeria comes the movie Mami Wata by C. J. “Fiery” Obasi. This is a story taking place in a fictional African village called Iyi where the old traditional ways are still observed,  but the influence of Western culture is pressuring the people with its promises of development and technology.  Mami Wata is an all powerful water diety that protects the people,  but can only be reached through the Intermediary,  Mama Efe. Mama has two daughters,  one of which,  Zinwe is to be Mama’s successor as Intermediary.  Then a mysterious visitor arrives who is a rebel deserter from a nearby wartorn country and will change everything in this small village.  The movie depicts the struggle between a traditional matriarchal culture and modern militants common in African societies.  The production is relatively simple and is done in black and white.  The language is some combination of an African dialect mixed with English.  Subtitles are provided. The story is full of deceit, treachery, intrigue and murder, all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy making it fascinating and emotional as the conclusion is reached.  I am hoping to see it chosen as one of the award winners this weekend.