WONKA

Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B-
Special Effects: C+
Music: B-

An argument has been made that, well, Wonka is for kids, and kids deserve movies too, right? Well, here’ s my counter-argument: the likelihood that kids will indeed enjoy Wonka notwithstanding, there are still kids’ movies out there that are actually good. This is not one of them.

Mind you, it’s not terrible either. But that’s just the thing: there is a Roald Dahl legacy to live up to here, as well as a Gene Wilder legacy, and Wonka falls short on both counts. This movie doesn’t even live up to the 2005 Tim Burton film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which I still insist was wonderful, I don’t care how many haters there are out there. Of course, that’s not to say any of these films have held up to the truly classic, enduring 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—which, astonishingly, was rated G—but, on the flip side, kids today are neither likely to know anything about that film, nor have much interest in watching it if they do. It would be the equivalent of me having any interest in a film released in 1934 when I was ten years old.

The bummer of it right now is, if you want to take your kids to the movies, Wonka is nearly the only option. The only others in multiplexes right now are the animated films Migration and Wish, which are both getting worse responses than Wonka. Wonka, at the very least, is sprinkled with several genuinely charming moments, of the sort that are a signature of director Paul King. (King directed both of the Paddington films, and both of them are far superior to this.) If you’re one of the adults taking kids to this film, well, you’re kind of shit out of luck.

And, to be fair, it’s not just that it doesn’t live up to Roald Dah’s cinematic legacy. From the opening scenes, in which Timothée Chalamet dances with a bunch of people holding “Wonka” umbrellas behind him, the choreography middling and the lyrics unmemorable, I thought: Oh. This isn’t going to be great. The sequence ends with Wonka getting charged a fee for daydreaming, a brief gag that works better than any of the extended theatrics that came before it.

My biggest issue with Wonka is the visual effects. This movie was made on a budget of $125 million, and I just have to wonder: where the hell was the money spent? Just on the talent? Chalamet’s $9 million paycheck is objectively ridiclous, and yet even that is but a fraction of that budget. Once again, the shockingly good Godzilla Minus One comes to mind—that film was made for $15 million, and it looks far better than this.

Wonka is appropriately color saturated for a film that is clearly presented as a musical fantasia. And yet, a huge amount of it is rendered in subpar CGI, giving it a far more artificial look than films about the same character released 52 and 18 years ago. I was especially mystified by the one Oompa Loompa, whose movements are noticeably jerky-jerky. How can a film this expensive to make look so bad? To give credit where credit is due, Hugh Grant imbues the Oompa Loompa with more personality than any single other character in the film, which almost makes up for the bad visual effects. Almost. (Side note: it’s also in this film’s favor that the Oompa Loompa is given full autonomy, and never becomes the stand-in for slave labor that the Oompa Loompas were in either of the previous films.)

To be fair, Timothée Chalamet, an objectively great actor, does his best with what he has to work with. As do a bevy of other big names who make up the supporting cast: Olivia Colman as Mrs. Scrubitt, the innkeeper who tricks Wonka into indentured servitude; Keegan-Michael Key as the Chief of Police, so easily bribed by Wonka’s rival chocolatiers with chocolate that he gains a ton of weight over the course of the film (and I find the idea that this is “fat shaming” to be debatable at best); Rowan Atkinson as Father Julius, also easily bribed with chocolate; Jim Carter as Abacus Crunch, one of the other indentured servants slaving away in the inn basement; even Sally Hawkins, the mom in the Paddington movies and here playing Wonka’s mother in a few flashback sequences. In none of these cases does the actor get as much to chew on as they deserve, in spite of Olivia Colman’s extensive screen time as one of many villains, but the one who most directly steals Wonka’s luck away from him.

Fundamentally, Paul King seems to have missed the point entirely, of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which is about a possibly-corrupt, borderline sociopathic chocolatier weeding out the one good little kid in a group of spoiled brats. The only way Wonka’s return to that character’s story, particularly as a prequel, would make sense would be for Willy to learn the same kind of lesson himself as a youngster. Instead, Wonka is presented as pure hearted, and constantly taken advantage of by the adults around him who are the spoiled brats.

There is only one genuine kid in this movie, Calah Lane, who plays Noodle, also toiling away indefinitely in the inn basement. Lane is quite lovely, actually, one of the best things about Wonka, with onscreen charisma that helps keeps the proceedings watchable. But Noodle and Willy are both similarly pure of heart, dealing with heightened, standard kids-movie villains. Willy Wonka is supposed to be backed with subtext, and Wonka, generally pleasant as it is to watch, is all text.

All of that brings us back to this: kids will have a great time. The group of kids in the row of seats behind me, who did not shut the fuck up the entire film, certainly did. Surely they neither know nor care anything about Gene Wilder’s or even Johnny Depp’s iterations of Willy Wonka. For them, there is only Timothée Chalamet. But here’s the key difference: none of those kids are going to grow up regarding this as an unfortgettable classic from their childhoods. It’s just another passable outing at the movies, and in the context of its cinematic legacy, that’s a real shame.

Hugh Grant’s ample charms can’t elevate a middling achievement.

Overall: B-

GUILLERMO DEL TORO'S PINOCCHIO

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+
Animation: A-

The stop motion animation in Guillermo del Toro’s Pinoicchio may be the best I have ever seen. It’s not quite perfect, but then stop-motion never is. Usually it’s a lot easier to see how it’s done, with diorama scenes shot frame by frame, but for the most part in this film, the character movements are almost shockingly fluid. I can’t imagine the hours that would have had to go into this, and still, this is the longest stop-motion film ever made. (It clocks in at an hour and fifty-seven minutes, although the animation gives way to extended end credits at about 1:50.) The fact that virtually every frame is a uniquely beautiful work of art makes it all that much more of an achievement.

I only wish I could have seen it in a theater. It was released in select theaters on November 9, but apparently not in my local market—both rare and a disappointment. Now, exactly one month later and as of December 9, it is streaming on Netflix. At least a lot more people will now actually be able to see it, I guess. Will they bother, with Netflix’s massive library to choose from? It would seem so: it remains in their top 10 movies currently. Perhaps one day they will figure out they can get the best of both worlds by giving their movies a wide release in theaters, after which millions will still watch it streaming. I would have much preferred seeing this wonderful film in a cinema, but I’m just glad it exists.

Presumably co-writer and co-director Guillermo del Toro’s name is part of this film’s official title in order to differentiate itself from the critically reviled Disney live action version that was also released, all of three months ago. This one might as well be called The Pinocchio Movie Worth Watching.

Parents of small children may well want to be strongly cautioned, however. This is still del Toro we’re talking about: this film goes into some weird, very dark places. I can’t remember another animated feature film that deals with death so frankly—and so extensively. The entire narrative is bookended by deaths pivotal to the plot, and one of the story threads is about Pinocchio himself being impervious to death. Except, because this is a Guillermo del Toro film, Pinocchio is killed and revived several times, each time spending longer in a netherworld populated by card playing rabbit skeletons and a magical Chimera voiced by (naturally) Tilda Swinton. It should be noted that none of this suggests permanent immortality, as human death in this world is indeed permanent, and the rules are different for Pinocchio because he isn’t actually a real boy.

He is, however, a gift offered to Geppetto (David Bradley) by the Chimera’s empathetic sister Wood Sprite (also voiced by Tilda Swinton), in a misguided attempt to ease his grief still unabated many years after the death of his ten-year-old son, Carlo. Both Carlo and Pinocchio are voiced by the immensely talented Gregory Mann, a pubescent boy with a heavenly voice. (His voice reportedly changed during production, necessitating the editing of his voice to match how it sounded from the start.) I didn’t really expect this Pinocchio to be a musical, but it technically is, with characters breaking out into song, albeit not particularly frequently. The songs themselves are just fine, but the voices across the board are wonderful—including that of Ewan McGregor as Cricket. He sounds even better now than he did in the 2001 smash Moulin Rouge!

Cricket, incidentally, provides some much-needed comic relief in an otherwise rather dark movie. This humor itself is also dark much of the time (he keeps getting squished and saying things like “Life is such hideous pain,” which ironically brought me endless joy). In addition to McGregor, though, this deeply stacked cast also includes Christoph Waltz as the villanous carnival puppetmaster; Ron Perlman as a fascist government official in this film del Toro chose to set in World War II Italy; John Turturro as the local village doctor; Tim Blake Nelson as the aforementioned Black Rabbits (apparently based on “Undertaker Rabbits” from the original story). Most amusing of all is Cate Blanchett, who was reportedly so eager to be a part of this film that, when it was the only part left, she happily took the part of Spazzatura, an assistant carnival monkey who speaks almost exclusively in squawks and grunts.

All of these elements combined to leave me thoroughly charmed by Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, which is both recognizably a product of his mind and a uniquely imaginative venture, narratively as well as visually. It does feel a bit more skewed toward adult interests, but it is appropriately rated PG, and older children may enjoy it. They may also be disturbed by it. And that is honestly the most fun thing about it.

Therein lies a rich world of discovery.

Overall: B+

STRANGE WORLD

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Animation: A-

I can just imagine the “anti-woke” mob reacting to Strange World, and how it seemingly checks off all the boxes, making it by far the most pointedly diverse animated feature they have ever made. “Pointedly” can itself be a loaded word, however, because the thing is, within this movie’s premise, the diversity makes literal logical sense: these characters live in a utopian society. The only way that could be true, from global point of view at least, is if several races and sexualities are represented among its population—even if the land of Avalonia is a relatively small, isolated community surrounded by mountains.

Some may argue that Disney Animation Studios is playing with fire, featuring a central character who is an out, gay teenager—much less a multiracial one. Sixteen-year-old Ethan Clade (voiced by eighteen-year-old Jaboukie Young-White, who would have to have been seventeen or maybe even sixteen when recording) has a Black mom, named Meridian (Gabrielle Union), and a White dad named Searcher (Jake Gyllenhaal). He also has a paternal grandfather named Jaeger (Dennis Quaid), and when Jaeger starts asking Ethan if he has a “special someone,” I instinctively braced myself for homophobic judgment from an old White man. Notably, what Jaeger does instead is try to teach Ethan how to impress his crush by showing off. Ethan’s response? “That sounds like a pretty toxic way to start a relationship.”

Which is to say, it’s not as though Strange World is without conflict. It just doesn’t have the types you expect. It doesn’t even have any villain, or even a single hero; it has flawed and wonderful, individual people trying to make their way in the world. The world they inhabit just happens to be a fantastical one—even more so when, in an expedition to find out why the green-electric crops they grow that powers their utopian society finds them deep underground, where every single thing that exists is alive. Eventually, you realize the real premise of this movie is a modern update on the eighties film Innerspace, in which a guy explores the inside of a human body in a microscopic little ship.

Without spoiling too much, I’ll say that it isn’t a human body this time, and actually, the widely diverse cast of characters—including an Asian woman community leader voiced by Lucy Liu and an (also possibly gay) Indian character voiced by Karan Soni—are part of a much larger metaphor Strange World is making. This theme of the film, revealed more clearly as it goes along, has a lot to do with the global community and, as Ethan himself notes when trying to play a specific kind of card game with both his father and his grandfather, “living harmoniously with their environment.” In truth, it’s a little on the nose, even more than I realized: the crop the Clades grow which powers their community gives everything it touches a green shock of electricity. We’re clearly meant to take the idea of “green power” quite literally there.

This isn’t a bad theme, per se, so long as there is finesse in execution, which unfortunately, Strange World somewhat lacks. The script, by Qui Nguyen (who also co-directs, with Don Hall), leans heavily on father-son relationships: Jaeger’s obsession with Searcher continuing his legacy as an explorer, and then Searcher’s similar obsession with Ethan being a homebody farmer just like him. This is the only real source of interpersonal conflict, all of it pretty rote and retreading countless similar relationships in other movies.

What does truly make Strange World worth watching, particularly on the big screen, is its fantastic, and fantastically imaginative, animation. It never reaches the heights of Pixar’s excellence, but it’s fully absorbing nonetheless. The strange under-world of living plants and animals and land masses is a delight to exist in once the Clade family gets there, and the adventurous plot, such as it is, gets much more exciting at that point as well. They are surrounded by organisms they cannot identify, or infer what is a threat to them and what isn’t.

I must also commend the animators in their rendering of Ethan himself. I was genuinely impressed with how he has a recognizably, but subtly, queer vibe. And it’s done without ever resorting to any kind of stereotypes. I cannot help but come back to the diversity of the film’s characters overall: setting aside the fact that its inclusion represents something more nuanced than just “checking boxes,” there remains the fact that, for instance, multiracial families actually exist. When do they ever see themselves in media like this? And then, there is a moment of chaste affection between two gay teenagers that genuinely moved me, just to see it. The world is a much different place than when I was sixteen.

Strange World’s actual subversive message is about the literal world itself, and how it needs to be saved from destruction by the fully diverse spectrum of people who live on it. It even goes so far as to represent how this threat to the very biosphere (though that word is never used in the film) is the result of well-intentioned actions thought to be in humanity’s best interests. As in, it’s nobody’s fault really, but we see the problem now and need to correct it.

It’s just the telling of that particular message that’s a little clumsy, thrown together with the parallel theme of familial legacy. The script could have used a great deal of finessing—this more than anything being why this movie has flopped at the box office—but Strange World is fun to watch anyway, a visual feast.

Ethan talks to the most fun character in the movie, “Splat.”

Overall: B

LIGHTYEAR

Directing: C
Acting: B
Writing: C
Cinematography: B-
Editing: C+
Animation: B

At the beginning of Lightyear, we are informed that in 1995, Andy’s favorite toy, Buzz Lightyear, was a toy from his favorite movie. “This is that movie,” it says. After that movie finishes, though, I was left thinking about how children often have bad taste. Like, why would he obsess over toys from this movie?

It’s not that Lightyear is bad. It’s just . . . bleh. And when it comes to the bar set by Pixar Animation Studios in the nineties and 2000s, it might as well actually be bad. If it were actively bad, at least then it would be more interesting. Also, there’s a truly strange irony in this film: easily the most fun character in it is a robot cat, the kind of thing tailor made for merchandising. But in 1995, the marketers of this “movie” never made any toy SOX the Robot Cats to sell? And Andy was only interested in Buzz Lightyear, and (in the case of Toy Story 2), Zurg toys? Apparently Andy was a lot weirder kid than we realized.

Lightyear is clearly, objectively, a crowd-pleasing movie. The showtime I went to had plenty of actively engaged children in the audience, which erupted in applause when the film ended. It’s always so strange to me when people do that. Who do they think is there to appreciate it? This movie is getting relatively mixed reviews, and it’s easy to see why.

That’s why, even though the movie is successfully, if formulaically, entertaining, I found it to be kind of a bummer. I won’t go so far as to say Pixar has jumped the shark, but this movie is a definite step in that direction. We already got an arguably unnecessary Toy Story 4 in 2019, but at least it had the comfort of a familiar universe with long beloved voices. Now Disney and Pixar is just milking the original Pixar intellectual property for all it’s worth, branching out into odd-angled spinoffs.

And the thing is, the principal characters in Lightyear just aren’t nearly as compelling as those in the Toy Story series. That franchise had a novel concept: kids’ toys come to life when they aren’t looking. Lightyear is just a straightforward science fiction tale, with a lot of production design oddly reminiscent of the Alien franchise. Nothing here feels particularly original. I should be lauding Disney, I suppose, for making Lightyear’s best friend a lesbian (voiced by Uzo Aduba). But the trouble I have with this “feature” of the film is that it feels written expressly for that purpose, and that purpose only.

The one character I kind of loved was SOX, the aforementioned robot cat. Nearly all of the humor in Lightyear that actually lands is in relation to SOX. Very little of SOX’s critical role in the plot makes sense, but then neither does the rest of the plot. But, there are several gags delivered by or through SOX, as voiced by Peter Sohn, that got to me. I love me a cat character, even if it’s actually a robot, and any humorous bit involving a hairball. Or robot-paws typing away at a computer and figuring out complex equations. Everything about SOX is amusing and cute as hell. I wish the movie had been about SOX.

Chris Evans is well cast as the voice of Buzz Lightyear, but Lightyear lacks a certain angle, maybe even a gimmick—like, say, a Buzz Lightyear toy who doesn’t realize he’s a toy. That’s funny stuff. The “movie character” Lightyear just has to learn to accept that he makes mistakes. Yawn!

There’s a lot of time-travel that happens in Lightyear, with the title character obsessively “testing the hyperdrive” of a ship meant to get a marooned community off of a hostile planet. These are complex ideas that must by definition be oversimplified in an animated feature, and every time Buzz leaves the planet, only a few minutes go by for him but anywhere from four to 22 years passes for the people on the ground. This is how he winds up returning after one of many trips to find his best friend has passed away, and later meeting her grown granddaughter, Izzy (Keke Palmer). I’d be a lot more interested in a live-action drama about the implications of these evolving relationships.

But, of course, I’m a sometimes cynical 46-year-old, trying to hold Pixar to the same standards they had 27 years ago. That fact would be easier to dismiss if not for the fact that Lightyear exists on the assumption of an audience connection with a film that came out 27 years ago. True, the Toy Story movies have captured the imaginations of multiple generations of children, but it’s difficult to see how any of them will connect with Lightyear the same way just because of that tenuous connection. The young children dazzled by this movie don’t know any better.

The animation is competent, at least, if not jaw dropping the way that so many of Pixar’s previous films have been. And while Lightyear is engaging from start to finish, if a little rushed in its plot development (something no child is going to give a shit about), there’s a bit of Pixar soul that feels like it’s missing. I may need to rewatch Soul (2020) just as a palette cleanser.

We’re also treated to Taika Waititi and Dale Souls as … more forgettable characters. Stick with SOX the robot cat.

Overall: C+

CHIP 'N DALE: RESCUE RANGERS

Directing: B-
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
Animation: B

I went back and forth as to whether I would even review this movie, my reaction to it was so . . . lackluster. I daresay I was disappointed, but that’s not entirely the movie’s fault: I let people whose opinions I respect convince me to expect something far better than it was.

The common comparison is to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the groundbreaking film blending live action and animation in 1988, now a marvel also because of its unique blend of both Warner Brothers and Disney cartoon properties. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is also packed with cultural references, not all of them Disney—but I didn’t notice any Warner Brothers cartoons.

I even heard someone call this movie a new “classic,” and that was really what finally cinched my decision to fire up Disney+ and watch it. A “classic,” this movie is not. If you want to see what a classic really is, just watch Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, right there on that same streamer. It’s a far, far superior film. Not only that, but it’s a period piece and it holds up: that film could have been released today and it still would have impressed.

Plus, it’s packed with both verbal and visual gags that are far quicker and far smarter than the ones peppered in Chip ‘n Dale. To be fair, the original Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers TV show that ran on the Disney Channel from 1989 to 1990 was not something I ever saw, and nostalgic fans of the show will likely delight in this film and how it trades on that nostalgia. I can understand that much, and appreciate the conceit in this film, in which the characters are the chipmunk actors who played Chip ‘n Dale in the TV show over thirty years ago, and are now a bit washed up. Chip (John Mulaney) works as an insurance agent (“Coercive Insurance” being one of my favorite subtle gags). Dale (Andy Samberg) is attending fan conventions to sign autographs—something that provides ample opportunity for the presence of many other kids’ programming character cameos.

Their friend and former coworker Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) finds himself kidnapped by a shady organization that alters cartoon characters for the purpose of overseas bootlegging, itself a running gag that runs kind of stale, and thus the estranged Chip and Dale reteam in order to attempt a real-life rescue.

It should be noted that the Chip and Dale characters speak with regular voices, not the high-pitched, sped-up voices of their “characters.” This film is filled with meta jokes about “making it” in Hollywood (or not), as well as the seedy side, and has some surprisingly adult jokes that little kids won’t understand: “Now he can’t have kids.” There’s a fun sequence on “Main Street” in which we discover the seedy underbelly of Hollywood toons, who push things like cheese as though they are drugs (Monterey Jack has a problem).

My main criticism is that not all of the gags land, and sometimes there is too much time spent between the gags for things like exposition or character development. I’m sorry to keep coming back to Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, but that film expertly blended all of those things with its clever humor, and often Chip ‘n Dale goes for easy rather than clever humor. Admittedly, it did get me to laugh out loud a few times.

The overall sense I got from Rescue Rangers, however, was one of a “direct to streamer” movie—and I mean of the sort that was typical before the pandemic. We now can get true quality films direct from streamers, but what Chip ‘n Dale is, is . . . fine. I can’t muster enough enthusiasm to think of it as something to get excited about, and that’s what disappoints me. I had hoped that, at the very least, I could tell people you don’t have to be familiar with the original Disney Channel show for this movie to come highly recommended. Instead, I think perhaps you do need to have seen the show. I have no connection to it, so, in spite of this movie’s many pop culture references, it just didn’t land the way I wanted it to.

At the very least, I will compliment the voice work: John Mulaney and Andy Samberg are great; as are the vast supporting cast of characters, including J.K. Simmons as the police “Captain Putty”; Will Arnett as “Sweet Pete,” an overweight, grown-up Peter Pan; and even Flula Borg as “DJ Herzogenaurach.” We also get Dennis Haysbert as Zipper; Seth Rogen as several characters; and Tim Robinson as “Ugly Sonic,” playing on a notorious internet controversy that no one knows about, and I am unconvinced will be as hilarious as intended for those who do.

Basically, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is entertaining enough, for something to watch at home with the family. It just fell short of what I wanted or expected.

Did I mention that Dale got “CGI” surgery? Hilarious!

Overall: B-

TURNING RED

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: A
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B+
Animation: B

Turning Red is simultaneously about adolescent friendship and about mother-daughter relationships, and it handles both fantastically. The premise seems simple, in which a 13-year-old discovers she transforms into a giant red panda whenver she gets too emotionally excited, but it winds up being a great allegory for multiple shared experiences at once. There’s the idea of “harnessing your inner beast.” There’s acknowledging your “messy side.” There’s the literalness of the title, when an adolescent goes beet red with embarrassment. There’s even a brief sequence in which it effectively stands in as a symbol for when a girl has her period for the first time: “I’m a gross red monster!” One might thing I’m reaching with that one—except it literally happens when Mei’s mother, not yet understanding the true nature of the situation, is trying to offer her pads.

Things like this are surely why Turning Red is rated PG. It’s also the third Pixar movie to be released directly to Disney+, although it’s arguably the first not to be done out of necessity. That said, after having watched it, this film feels right for an at-home streamer. Perhaps we’ve just been spoiled by 27 years of Pixar Animation’s visual excellence, where in many cases the animation largely made up for somewhat waning story quality. Turning Red flips the script, so to speak, and offers animation that is . . . fine. It’s the story that truly elevates it, and makes for a wonderfully cozy, adorable, funny and moving at-home watch.

This movie happens to be the second Pixar film directed by a woman (the first was Brenda Chapman, though she co-directed Brave in 2012 with two men), the first to be solo directed by a woman, and the first to be directed by a woman of color. Domee Shi, who also co-wrote this delightful script, was born in China but grew up in Toronto, and having written largely based on her own family experience, thus provides the explanation for the film’s Toronto setting. Characters mention the city of Toronto regularly, and there are many establishing shots of the Toronto skyline, always with the CN Tower figuring prominently. I just found myself wishing those shots were rendered with a little more depth and personality; instead, they sometimes feel a little like a cartoon version of old movie matte painting backdrops.

Admittedly, this sort of thing was why it took a few minutes for me to really feel hooked into the story of Turning Red. The visual design of the characters themselves are a little “cartoonier” than normal for Pixar, and for the first several minutes we see the establishment of setting and the introduction of characters, particularly Meilin (voiced by 16-year-old newcomer Rosalie Chang) and her diverse group of three best friends (voiced by Ava Morse, Hyein Park and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan). We see them quite pointedly and realistically acting like giddy, sometimes shrill, 13-year-old girls, and for a moment there I wondered if I would be able to tolerate this movie.

But, then we get introduced to Mei’s perfectionist mother, Ming (Sandra Oh), and we understand the central conflict of the story, which is a tension between Mei’s love for her mother and her love for her friends. Domee Shi and her two co-writers, Julia Cho and Sarah Streicher, write about these relationships exceedingly well, never painting anyone involved as inherently malicious. They are just people who make mistakes, who sometimes make misguided decisions in the service of the people they love.

By the time Meilin’s red panda is unleashed, Turning Red takes a quick turn, becoming equal parts entertaining and surprisingly layered, both with thematic meaning and cultural tradition. I love the diversity of both the characters and the voice cast here, not just for its own sake, but more importantly, because it accurately reflects the city in which it’s set: Toronto is one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the world, more than half its residents belonging to a visible minority group, and just under half being immigrants born outside the country.

Mei’s family is well established, though, both her and her mother speaking with American accents; only Mei’s grandmother, Wu (voiced by Wai Ching Ho), speaks with a Chinese accent. Cantonese is regularly spoken, particularly when Grandma Wu arrived with reinforcements—both herself and other family members, presumably aunts, who have all at one point participated in a ritual that breaks the family spell of the red panda.

I also love how centered this story is on women and girls. Turning Red is written and directed by a woman, largely based on her childhood experience with several girl friends, and nearly the entire principal cast is girls or women. The most notable male character is Ming’s husband and Mei’s father, Jin (Orion Lee), and even he is written with more dimension than typically found with a part of that size. Which is to say, he doesn’t get a huge amount of screen time, but he is well woven into the fabric of the story.

The focus here, though, is on Mei’s relationship with the girls and the women in her life: her three best friends; her mother; her grandmother. The story even gets into how that mother-daughter relationship is informed by Ming’s relationship with her own mother—an idea relatable to a great many daughters and mothers, regardless of ethnic or cultural background. Were Turning Red made in an earlier cinematic era, most of the story would have revolved around Mei trying to keep her red panda spell a secret. Instead, Mei’s mother, her friends, and most of her classmates learn about it surprisingly early on. What follows is a struggle for Mei to control it, and her mother’s insistence that it needs to be locked away completely. There’s a lot to unpack here in terms of accepting ourselves—and our children—as who they really are, and not so much taming but learning to live with the beast within.

There is a climactic sequence in which an even more giant panda terrorizes a stadium during a boy-band concert, and it’s a little like a red panda version of Godzilla. If that were all it was, I might have rolled my eyes at it. But there is so much depth to this story, even a showy sequence like that works really well. Given Pixar Animation Studio’s increasingly spotty record in recent years, and the somewhat surprising choice to release straight to streaming, Turning Red exceeds expectations on nearly every level . . . except the animation itself. But, as with our relationships with our children and our parents, we can’t always expect perfection.

This is so embarrassing!

Overall: B+

ENCANTO

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B-
Music: B
Animation: B+

Encanto is Spanish for Charm, and when it comes to this movie . . . it has its moments. It’s hardly a complete waste of time, but, when it comes to a magic house containing a family of people who nearly all possess a magical gift, I expect the experience to be a little more . . . well, magical.

I don’t quite know how to put my finger on it, except to say that Encanto is adequately entertaining, which leaves it below the standards of your average Disney Animation feature. Granted, even with their own slight falterings over the past decade or so, Pixar is a far more reliably great source for feature animation, but Walt Disney Animation Studios has more than proved its own capability, from Bolt (2008) to Zootopia (2016)—even Frozen (2013) is quite good, if you can get past how wildly overrated it is. Listen to me, over here harping on kids whose obsessions have made a movie “overrated.”

I suppose that brings us to a possibly crucial distinction with Encanto. Will kids like it? I don’t have a clue, although I would bet money it won’t hit a zeitgeisty nerve the way Frozen did. I can only speak from my jaded adult perspective, which isn’t even as jaded as I can try making it out to be; I am powerless to the charms of animated features, when their charms are effective.

I do find myself wondering how Encanto will play in Colombia, the nation in which the film is set, with most of its voice talent either Colombian or of Colombian descent. This of course elicits immediate comparisons to the stellar 2017 Pixar film Coco, with its Mexican setting, cast and themes. Bestowing such homage to any other country and culture, provided it is done with sincerity and sensitivity (and ethnically appropriate casting), would be wonderful. I rather wish Colombia had gotten the same treatment, but this pales a bit in comparison. But what do I know? I’m just a white guy who has never been any closer to Colombia than Texas. Clearly, though, the power of representation cannot be overstated, and yet it’s not difficult to find mixed reviews or debates among Colombian people.

For me, Encanto just didn’t reach me the way I wanted it to. There was something inaccessible about it, perhaps partly because of the original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is of mostly Puerto Rican and not Colombian descent. He’s also very much an American, and although the songs here have certain flair that reference Latin styles, it hews far closer to Broadway tunes. They are very competently written songs, but nothing within the realm of unforgettable or classic music. (The music of Coco came across as far more specific to the culture being represented.) As a result, much of Encanto comes across as a by-the-numbers musical.

It’s quite pretty, at least; there is no question the animation is the best thing about it, with its tropical landscapes and floral tableaus. The protagonist is Mirabel (Stephanie Beatriz), the only person in her extended family who was never granted a magical gift. She has a mother who can heal people with her cooking; a sister who can make roses bloom at her touch; a cousin who is so strong there is nothing she can’t pick up; another cousin who can shape shift; another who can communicate with animals. A reclusive uncle, Bruno (John Leguizamo, by far the most famous voice in the cast), can see quasi-abstract visions of the future. Mirabel is the only one in the family really seen talking to the house itself, which communicates right back, but apparently this doesn’t qualify as a “gift.”

All of this makes for a lot of fun and often amusing antics, but it also serves to convolute the plot, which never quite finds true clarity. Sure, it’s a little boneheaded to demand that a cartoon make logical sense, but having a fully coherent narrative structure isn’t too much to ask. This movie’s team of three directors and eight writers seem to have thrown all their ideas at a wall and just run with anything that did not immediately slip away. Unfortunately, this movie’s story immediately slipped away from my memory as soon as I left the theater.

Encanto is fine, but its disappointment lies in how much better it could have been, instead of something the skates a little close to rote. All films are a collaborative effort, but none more than an animated feature, and the animators go a long way to making this movie watchable—although, alas, I can’t say it commands viewing in the theater. This would have done just as well as a streaming release, or maybe even better. The filmmakers do well in their casting of Latin voices, and showcasing Colombian culture and history, however superficially. It occurred to me that this is an animated feature film without a single non-Latino white character in it, and the characters onscreen run the gamut of skin tones, from quite pale to Black. These are very much good things, and hopefully a step toward such diversity of representation more often. Here’s hoping the next one to come along has that spark of narrative magic not yet reached.

At least it’s pretty.

Overall: B-

CRUELLA

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B-
Special Effects: C+

If you’re a skeptic but open to giving Cruella a chance, you may find yourself a bit more entertained than expected. I certainly did. The irony is that, even for what limited vision this movie has, it really could have been a lot better. Shaving about 30 minutes off its insane 134-minute run time probably would have done the trick alone.

This is, effectively, a kids’ movie, is it not? If it isn’t, then I don’t know who the hell it was made for—maybe boomers still nostalgic for the original 1961 Disney animated feature One Hundred and One Dalmatians. I never saw the 1996 live action film 101 Dalmatians or its 2000 sequel 2002 Dalmatians, but I can find no indication of any ties between this film and those, aside from Glenn Close executive-producing here. I couldn’t even tell you precisely why I went ahead and saw this one when I actively avoided those other live action films; they all got fairly mixed reviews, after all—except Cruella remains by a fair distance the best-reviewed of the three.

To be honest, the deciding factor was probably rather simple: options. We we living in normal, pre-pandemic times, there’s little doubt there would be many other new releases to choose from this weekend that held far greater interest to me. As it happens, this was the third film I’ve gone to see in a theater since returning to theaters, and there literally was no other better option.

I’m happy to say I don’t regret it, at least. I had heard this film had great costume designs, and to be sure, on that front, Cruella absolutely does not disappoint. The gowns worn both by Emma Stone as the title character, and Emma Thompson as her nemesis, The Baroness, are consistently fabulous. The same goes for the production design, all of which is better appreciated on a large movie screen.

Another point in this movie’s favor is the casting, as Emma Stone nicely fills the role of a young woman we freely empathize with even though we fully understand she will eventually become a psychopath who literally wants to skin Dalmatian dogs in order to make a coat. This never actually happens in Cruella, be assured, although there is a sequence in which she’s convinced other characters she had—and, let’s be honest, that’s sociopathic enough.

The real draw of Cruella, however, is Emma Thompson, who gets to wear the best costumes and infuses those incredible gowns with just the right amount of villainous attitude. Furthermore, her Baroness has murderous intentions for far more than dogs (in fact, here she’s the one with Dalmations, who are the only beings she seems to offer any real love or compassion) and she makes even later-life Cruella look like a saint in comparison.

Side note on the Dalmatians: in many of their scenes, they are CGI rendered, and it’s distracting enough to take you out of the movie, because they never look quite real. This issue is by no means limited to the dogs, though. Almost every clear visual effects shot is rendered as though whoever worked on it decided its audience would be too young (or too stupid?) to notice. We regularly see far better visual effects work on cable or streaming TV series, so this is a bizarrely preventable flaw for a blockbuster motion picture to have.

Rounding out the supporting cast are Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser as Cruella’s henchmen Jasper and Horace, respectively. Hauser, for his part, joins Emma Stone as principal actors here who are Americans playing British, which is an interesting, it not unnecessary, choice. Surely they could have found plenty of rotund British actors (not to mention plenty of young British actors who could have been cast in the title role) who fit the part perfectly—but, to Hauser’s credit, he’s surprisingly good at the Cockney accent, and as a result some viewers might even miss that that’s the same guy from I, Tonya and BlacKKKlansman.

Jasper and Horace serve as plot devices here for Cruella to learn “the true value of friendship,” which brings us back to who the audience for this movie is. Once you realize Cruella is rated PG-13 (almost certainly due to the aforementioned allusions to, if not outright animal cruelty, then certainly intentions to it—and also straight up human murder), it can’t be for genuine children. The “Disney” wholesomeness otherwise incongruously thrown in here would suggest that it is, but I can only conclude it’s meant for . . . teenagers? How many teenagers today would actually think this IP from the sixties is actually cool, anyway?

This is a movie that clearly can’t decide exactly what it wants to be. And the thing is, this “Battle of the Emmas” could have been part of a far better movie with basically the same concept but not relying on decades-old, pre-existing IP. Many of these live action remakes and origin stories of old Disney animated features work better than expected, but never surpass or even come close to equalling the originals. Apparently, and unfortunately, recycling the same shit over and over is the only way studios seem to be able to rake in the box office profits anymore.

In other words, there’s a ton of unrealized potential here, between the story and the actors. Does no one even think about the objective impracticality of turning Dalmatians into fur coats? Sure, the spots are cool looking, but Dalmatians are short-haired dogs; a fur coat is meant to be not just posh but lush, and maybe warm? In other words, I just wish I could have seen a great, clever movie with Emma Stone and Emma Thompson as viciously sparring fashion designers. (Another side note: Cruella never offers any explanation for her succeeding at creating a public rivalry with The Baroness, beyond mere publicity stunts. No one in this movie ever questions: where does Creulla create, design, manufacture, or sell her clothes? I suppose here I’m just getting nitpicky. It’s my job!)

Cruella is a potentially good idea, limited by the constraints of being a prequel none of us ever needed. I have to admit, though, that even within those limitations, and especially thanks to delicious performances, it’s still a good time.

No Dalmatians were harmed in the making of this coat … because they’re all CGI anyway.

SOUL

Directing: A
Acting: B+
Writing: A+
Cinematography: A
Editing: A
Animation: A+
Music: A-

I have no critical notes on Soul. Only praise: this is among the most inventive, imaginative, clever works in the entire Pixar Animation canon, one of the best movies of the year, a crowd-pleaser if there ever was one but with so much depth and layered intention of meaning that it will almost certainly reap new rewards upon rewatching. I can’t wait to watch it again. My love for this movie runs so immediate and so deep, the closest I can come up with as a complaint is that this is truly the first film I have seen all year that left me earnestly wishing I could have seen it in a theater.

Outside of the world of Pixar, its visuals are unparalleled. Multiple times I was transfixed, beginning the instant jazz musician Joe (Jamie Foxx) has an accident leaving his body in critical condition, and his soul untethered and confused, on an astral conveyor belt headed toward the giant white light of “The Great Beyond.” You might think this idea of near death might bring an unwelcome darkness or sadness, but there is nothing like the tragic introduction to Up here; Joe is merely walking down the street after landing the musician gig of his life (where a delightfully aloof but wise band leader is voiced by Angela Bassett), passing a series of comic near-misses before even the accident itself passes as a punch line.

And then, suddenly, Joe wakes up as the “soul” form of himself, a little blue ghost-like creature still recognizably similar to his human form. He rejects his apparent fate headed into The Great Beyond, falls into the astral depths and finds himself in a place called The Great Before. And this place is both far too complex to describe here—it really must be experienced—and the most imaginative rendering of abstract concepts since Pixar’s own, also-spectacular Inside Out (2015). It’s not often that the script is among the things that I am consciously impressed by the most in an animated feature, but Soul’s is one of them: shout out to Pete Docter and Kemp Powers (these two also co-directed), and co-writer Mike Jones, for writing such a uniquely thoughtful and sensitive story, which so directly addresses death without ever once bringing down the mood.

It is also relevant to note that co-director / co-writer Kemp Powers is a Black man, making him the first to direct a Pixar film, an essential element of this also being the first Pixar film with a Black protagonist. These are all fairly significant changes from Soul’s initial story incarnations, which at first had no connection to the Black community; it was when they decided Joe would be a jazz musician that they also decided he therefore should be a Black man. And all of this is simply to say, had they stuck with making “22,” the other soul companion to Joe for most of the film, the main protagonist as initially imagined, Soul would likely have been fine, perhaps even very good—but these changes clearly improved the story a great deal. It seems it’s a kind of happy accident that the film’s title thus takes on a double meaning, as do so many other things in the film.

“22,” the soul whose number-name indicates how long she has been in “The Great Before” before being passed on to Earth—the implication being she was merely the 22nd soul ever created—is voiced by Tina Fey, although that voice is explained to be “a hypothetical” and she could really use any voice she wants. But, she uses that of “a middle-aged white lady” because “it annoys people.” I can imagine that one, otherwise throwaway line might trigger a bit of white fragility in a few people, who could then blow it all out of proportion. To that I say: oh, well! Incidentally, the gag barely even works on me since it’s impossible for me to imagine Tina Fey’s regular speaking voice as annoying in any way, but then, I’m gay and programmed to love middle-aged women as a general rule.

Speaking of stereotypes, Soul conscientiously avoids them among its many characters of color, offering a cast of characters heretofore missing from the Pixar canon, and giving a whole new audience something both to relate to and be delighted by. This may even be the most diverse cast of any Pixar film, also featuring the voice talents of Daveed Diggs, Questlove, Phylicia Rashad, The It Crowd’s Richard Ayoade, Brazilian actress Alice Braga, New Zealand actress Rachel House (curiously, all the Great Before “staff” seem to have accents from the non-American British diaspora), and then a little out of left field, Graham Norton. And this is not to mention the brief cameo appearances by countless other recognizable voices, from the likes of June Squibb, Fortune Feimster, and more.

I was also struck by the music, something I do not often pay much attention to in a movie that is not a musical. Soul is filled with a lot of jazz, which usually does not much speak to me but I quite enjoyed it here, especially in context; I liked it enough that I may buy the soundtrack—but also because of the truly fantastic ethereal score that is heard in the “Great Beyond” and “Great Before” sequences, which, it turns out, were co-composed by Trent Reznor. I was taken by this score to an unusual degree, and it was one of countless details that only made the movie better.

And I haven’t even mentioned the humor, with which, in true Pixar style, Soul is packed to the gills. In many moments I was nearly moved to tears, just by the profundity of the concepts being examined, and still all around those moments I also laughed—a lot. There’s an extended sequence involving a human soul accidentally having been put into a cat, creating an environment and tone wildly different from that of “The Great Before,” and yet the different set pieces still complement each other perfectly, creating a whole film in which all the pieces fit together just right.

It’s doubly impressive that Docter and Powers are offering a story about people’s souls, without ever coming close to making it religious in any way. Instead, the overriding message is that of appreciating life itself, and especially as it pertains to our time on Earth—related lessons needing to be learned by both Joe, who is desperate to get back to his body and live the rest of his life in pursuit of his dreams (a desire more complicated than he realizes); and “22,” who is so contented with her existence in The Great Before that she’s been purposely failing all her tests for moving on to Earth, for thousands of years.

Soul truly has something to offer for everyone, a work of art in the grand tradition of Pixar, which is so beautiful to look at and so completely entertaining that it works for children on their level, without any need for them to catch its many truly complex concepts, which only enrich the text for the adults in the audience. If only I could have seen this one in a crowded theater . . . but, even as it is now, accessible via Disney+, Soul is truly a gift.

You kind of have to be there . . . but if you take the journey, you’ll be so glad you did.

Overall: A

THE WITCHES

Directing: B-
Acting: B-
Writing: B
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B
Special Effects: C+

And here we are again, with yet another remake—at least this time, no one can claim the film being remade was “a masterpiece.” I saw Nicolas Roeg’s 1990 adaptation of Roald Dahl’s children’s book for the first time just a few years ago, and I did not find it particularly memorable on its own. I recall thinking it was . . . fine.

This means a remake in this case is, if not particularly exciting, then also . . . fine. And Robert Zemeckis is a great choice to direct a film like this. In fact, coming in already armed with the knowledge of how mixed the reviews of this 2020 version have been, I spent the first quarter or so of this version of The Wtiches thinking it was going a lot better than I expected. I was quite enjoying myself.

In the first several scenes of this story, we learn the backstory of the orphaned boy whose story this is: his parents killed in a car accident (in a cleverly rotating-camera shot of him still strapped into the backseat of the overturned car), he is taken in by his grandmother (Octavia Spencer). When they realize a local witch has tried to offer him candy in a grocery store, Grandma takes him into hiding at an opulent resort where her cousin is the chef—and where, it turns out, a local conference of witches is convening. What bad luck!

The setting in this iteration is shifted to 1960s Alabama, and there’s something odd about the choice to make the principal characters Black, particularly from that era. The choice itself is not necessarily odd, but there are only two logical approaches here: either keep the characters as they were in the book, or, if the focus will be shifted to a Black family in the Jim Crow-era American South, there should be more direct acknowledgment of very real racial inequities. Minority actors (not to mention female leads, of which this film has both) getting work is always good to see, but pretending their unique real-world experiences don’t exist doesn’t make much sense. The closest we get here is Grandma telling the boy that witches are more prone to prey on “the poor” because their children aren’t as missed when they are gone.

That said, I did very much enjoy Octavia Spencer’s performance in this movie. Anne Hathaway, as the Grand High Witch, is a bit more spotty. There are moments when her delivery has some hilarious subtlety, and also moments when she goes too far over the top. That is when The Witches kind of goes off the rails.

The first half is much better than the last half. The Witches introduces itself with compellingly stylized visuals, and a nice sprinkling of humor. I laughed out loud several times, more than I had expected. The laughs evaporate in the second half, when the story gets overrun with slapstick antics and Zemeckis’s over-fondness for the grotesque: the witches’ hoof-like feet, their clawed hands with only three fingers, Hathaway’s SGI grin so wide on her face she looks like a second-rate Joker. To the credit of the effects team, the look still manages to be genuinely creepy.

I must bring up the effects, however. The cinematography in this film is its best feature, highlighting a production design packed with vibrant colors. The special effects never hit the mark. The Grand High Witch has a cat, which she has amusingly named Hades (mental note: name for a future pet cat of my own?), and rather than deal with a real cat on set, it is entirely rendered in CGI. I don’t know how they allocated this movie’s clearly big budget, but not much of it went to that cat. Even worse is the three talking mice that are also CGI rendered, all of them way more expressive than they need to be, as though literal cartoons inside what is supposed to be a live-action film.

I do go back and forth regarding how well this film works for children themselves. This is a kids’ movie, after all, and such movies have no obligation to speak to adults at the same time—though it’s always convenient when they do. Depending on the age of the child, The Witches might be eye-roll-inducing and dumb; it might be riveting from beginning to end; for younger children it could easily be terrifying. It all depends on the child’s age and maturity level, although I do like the dark places this film is unafraid to go, and that it doesn’t quite offer the type of “happy ending” one might expect—though it is one viewers can live with. It’s the getting there that is definitively a mixed bag.

I mean, okay. That’s a little much.

Overall: B-