Spiderman and friends
Titles Covered: Into the Spiderverse, Nutcracker and the Four Realms, Persepolis, Gunga Din, Bumblebee, A Series of Unforunate Events (Netflix), and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (**** and a half)
Fan-freaking-tastic!
Spiderman had an uneven cinematic run. After a successful trilogy, we got that dreadful Amazing Spiderman reboot, a discontinued series that led to Spider-man being handed over to Marvel. I’ve liked Marvel’s new Spider-man (played by Tom Holland) well enough, and I’m sure his next movie will be fine, but I’m not excited for it. I’d rather see more sequels for the animated Spiderman.
The bold premise of “Into the Spiderverse” is that there are in fact many different spider-people from alternate timelines. The new protagonist, Miles Morales, has a different background and different powers. While Miles has his origin story, he gets training and help from several alternate-universe concepts of Spiderman, some of whom are quite silly, but others who are more poignant. In particular, I laud the story arc for an older burned-out Peter Parker, who provides both a mentor and a cautionary example for young Miles. Especially touching is the reverence that the film gives his marriage and divorce. A lesser film would have just given him a sexy new love interest and called it a day.
With so many characters, the film can’t give even time to everyone, so most of the character development is given to Miles Morales, Peter Parker, and Gwen Stacy (from a timeline where she was bitten instead of Peter Parker, and failed to save him instead of vice-versa). Still, the film gives just enough substance to the other 3 weirder spider concepts (looney tunes talking animal, depression-era detective, and anime robot suit) to make them work as supporting characters in the second half of the movie.
Add to this a genuinely frightening but nuanced depiction of Daredevil nemesis “Kingpin” and a solid father-son story for Miles Morales and you have one of the best Spiderman movies. The action scenes are incredible, the animation style is a work of art, the story is emotional, and every joke hits it out of the park. Into the Spiderverse is easily one of the best movies of 2018, and is better than every movie nominated for Best Picture.
Nutcracker and the Four Realms (** and a half)
It’s not that bad.
2018 marked a mixed year for Disney films. Marvel and Pixar continued to dominate, but Star Wars struggled to reach its lofty expectations, Wrinkle in Time was a failure, and even Christopher Robin and Mary Poppins Returns were mild disappointments. But at the bottom of this pile was Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a flop that few people even noticed.
If you’re one of the few who was curious about this movie, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is worth a watch, as long as you can ignore the plot. Nutcracker and the Four Realms tells the story of a girl who journeys to a magical world and has to save everyone from an evil witch. If that sounds like a pretty cliché fantasy movie premise, that’s because it is. TVtropes calls this the Portal Fantasy, the story where a sad kid goes to an alternate world in which they are super important. It’s the premise of Oz, Narnia, Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and dozens of other stories. That’s not a bad thing, but when you combine a cliché premise with a cliché Twist Villain, and a cliché girl power heroine, you get a very forgettable movie.
(Seriously, Disney, you can stop with the Twist Villain cliché. It’s getting old. It was already getting old when Frozen came out. It was lame in Big Hero Six, it weakened Incredibles 2, and it ruined the 3rd act of Zootopia.Give it a rest already!)
That’s too bad, because there’s much to like in the rest of the movie. The imagery is interesting, alternating between fanciful and silly to spooky and unsettling. Most of the actors do well with what they’ve been given, and the integration of ballet is done well. Misty Copeland, star of the American Ballet Theater, is given extensive time to portray the story of the nutcracker in the traditional medium, with nods to Disney’s Fantasia. This is probably the highlight of the film, and it’s actually integrated into the story in a way that makes sense. Other highlights include Morgan Freeman as Uncle Drossmeier and a surprisingly-sympathetic disapproving father.
Otherwise, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is passable kid’s fair. It’s certainly better than Wrinkle in Time, but not a movie I can give a strong recommendation.
Persepolis (***)
For whatever reason, I find 20th century Iran an interesting and very relevant political fable.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also known as “the Shah,” ruled Iran until the late 70’s when he was ousted by revolutionaries. There are many, many bad things that can be said about the Shah, but I’d hope that by now we can admit that his replacements were MUCH worse. It’s an important cautionary lesson: tearing down the existing structure doesn’t create freedom unless you have something worthwhile to replace it with.
The movie Persepolis explores an on-the-ground perspective of this chapter of history, from a middle-class Iranian girl who has a front-row seat to the revolution and subsequent wars. She has a variety of influences, and ultimately watches a war between 3 forms of tyranny: communism, monarchism, and theocratic fundamentalism. These subjects are of interest to her, but don’t necessarily occupy a higher priority than finding a black-market copy of banned heavy metal music. The movie is drawn in somewhat abstract way, illustrating its unique perspective.
However, the movie lost me in the second half, when the compelling story about the Iranian revolution turns into a banal tale of a mopey teenager. I’m aware that this is based on the author’s life, but we all have a choice of how to frame our story when presenting it. And she presents herself as a useless waif who apparently spent her teenage years mooching off other people and whining about it the whole time.
Comparisons can be drawn between Persepolis and The Bread Winner, both stories about girls under totalitarian middle-east regimes, and what makes The Bread Winner an infinitely better story is that the girl actually takes charge to correct her situation the best she can. The Breadwinner is the story of an underdog; Persepolis is the story of a victim. And yes, I am very, very, very tired of victim stories.
Persepolis starts strong, but burns out early. The art style and viewpoint are interesting, but I wish it was a bit more coherent and compelling.
Gunga Din (**** and a half)
Woah!
First of all, this is definitely a movie you could not make today. It would be protested everywhere.
Second, Gunga Din is awesome, even more so than its unofficial sequel: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
(Those guys who showed up deus ex machina at the end of “Temple of Doom”? They were supposed to be the heroes of Gunga Din.)
Based on a Kipling poem, “Gunga Din” tells the story of a simple-minded waterboy in the Indian army (during British colonialism) who dreams of being a soldier. When British soldiers start to go missing and entire towns get taken over by a murderous Kali-worshipping death cult, Gunga Din accompanies a trio of bumbling Englishmen to stop the baddies.
What follows is one of the most gripping, exciting, and yet playfully silly adventure movies I’ve ever seen. At times, the movie becomes a bit of a farce, with pratfalls and goofy misunderstandings. Somehow, in the context of an old-timey adventure film, this doesn’t seem out of place paired next to lavish battle scenes and life-or-death situations. You could compare it a bit to The Mummy with Brendan Fraiser: just enough self-awareness to pull off comedy, but without letting anyone break character.
The battle scenes and the build-up to the battle scenes is holy-crap-intense, and masterfully directed. When the heroes first investigate the Kali deathcult, they arrive in a ghost town. It’s quiet, too quiet, and we know bad things are afoot. Then, in the corners of shots, we spot evil henchmen lurking in the shadows and Indian soldiers getting jumped in the background. When the action finally heats up, it goes balls-to-the-wall crazy with wild stunts, shoot-outs, martial arts, and lots of practical effects as an entire town turns into a battlefield.
Gunga Din is solid action-adventure fun, with a very emotional ending. The practical stunts and use of live extras and models give it an authenticity that is sometimes missing from modern blockbusters, and the chemistry between all the actors is great. Sure, there’s plenty of things to offend PC Principal from South Park, but screw that guy… Gunga Din is a great movie!
Bumblebee (*** and a half)
“So, here’s the pitch… What if we remake the 2007 Transformer movie, the one the people kinda liked? But… we re-write the teenage kid to be sympathetic and interesting. Then we take out the superfluous subplots with computer hackers and all that shit that nobody remembers. We’ll keep that likeable soldier (originally played by Josh Duhamel), but merge him with the shadowy government agent (originally played by John Turturro), to give the character more relevance and keep the plot more condensed. And we keep the movie under 2 hours. Sound like a deal?”
It’s immediately obvious from the first 5 minutes of Bumblebee that it’s going to be the best Transformers movie. The robots are brightly colored and attractively designed, the transforming effects are amazing, and the action scenes are all beautifully directed by Travis Knight, the man behind animation studio Laika. It truly looks like a CGI version of the 1980’s cartoon, similar to some of the recent videogames.
From there, the plot treads familiar territory: teenager gets old car that happens to be a Transformer and becomes swept up in a bigger plot. The difference is the nuance in character. Shia LaBeouf only wanted a car to impress Megan Fox. Hailee Steinfeld fixes up old cars to feel a connection to her recently-deceased father, ends up reviving a heavily-wounded Bumblebee in the process, and forms a bond that brings her out of her self-imposed isolation. In other words, she has an actual story. The story reminds me a lot of E.T. The Extraterrestrial, another story about a child from a broken family who finds an outlet with an alien visitor.
Bumblee isn’t perfect. The plot is still pretty standard stuff, and some of the teen dramedy stuff is somewhat stupid (the “mean girls” could have been cut entirely, IMO). Still, it’s a very welcome change of pace for a series that previously worn out its welcome, and a solid live-action debut for Travis Knight. If you only watch one Transformers movie, watch this one.
Mirai (***)
I want to take a second to address a side-issue, since I’ve voiced disapproval or disinterest in anime. Of course there are good animated films from Japan. Some are even excellent. However, the fact remains that movies, TV, and literature are all cultural products, and it’s often hard for someone outside the culture to fully understand them. So a lot of anime can seem weird or unappealing to Americans like myself. On the other end of the spectrum, obsessed American anime fans often elevate all anime to a level that I don’t feel is warranted, and that gets a bit tiring.
Anyway, Mirai was the lone anime inclusion in last year’s “Best Animated” Oscar category, and it’s a pretty good movie. It’s sweet, interesting, and has a pretty killer premise. It’s also episodic and ultimately a bit hard to get into.
The film centers around a preschool boy who is jealous of his baby sister. Though initially intrigued, the boy decides that he doesn’t like the baby, who cries and isn’t much fun. Through an ambiguous combination of imagination or magic, he meets his sister from the future, an energetic middle-school-aged time traveler who berates him for his bad behavior but still seems to need his help. This is the film’s best angle, providing the perspective of who Mirai could be, and using that to inform how she should be treated in the present.
However, the time-traveling Mirai keeps getting “benched” as the film explores other time-bending ideas, with the boy meeting past versions of relatives, human versions of dogs, or getting lost in a surreal Terry Gilliam-esque dystopia. These are all compelling segments on their own (the WWII-era great-grandfather is a real highlight), but they make the vision of the film seem somewhat scattered. At some point, the episodic nature of these adventures makes the innovative film turn predictable. The kid will throw a tantrum, run into the magical garden, get taught a lesson by someone from the past or future, and then the whole cycle repeats.
Mirai is interesting, but never quite reaches the poignant or mind-bending heights suggested by its wonderful premise. Still, I give it a mild recommendation for its positive messages and good moments.
Netflix Series:
A Series of Unfortunate Events (*** and a half)
Did we need another adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events?
I’ve read the first book, and honestly, I felt that the 2004 movie with Jim Carrey was a pretty good adaptation. It was an entertaining movie that largely captured the absurdism, dark comedy, and wordplay of Daniel Handler’s original narrative. I know purists may not have liked it, but frankly, the changes to the narrative made perfect sense. Season One of the Netflix series is entertaining, but felt somewhat superfluous. The story and style is pretty much the same as the movie, but the supporting actors are not as good. Specifically, Bill Connelly, Timothy Spall, and Meryl Streep are far superior to their TV replacements. That said, Neil Patrick Harris is about as good as Jim Carrey (the kids are also similar in quality to their movie counterparts), and I really liked the scenery, theme song, and Patrick Warburton’s interesting take on Lemony Snicket. The series also does a lot of world-building, though I was skeptical that it would pay off.
And then Season 2 and 3 happened. These seasons were much better, ratcheting up the social satire, world-building, and absurdist comedy. The actors were also better, with special mention to Lucy Punch, Tony Hale, Allison Williams, and Nathan Fillion. The story is a bit frustrating, as VFD turns out to be a bunch of man-children pretending to be spies, but the series does well with keeping the audience interested, and it wraps up well in the final episodes.
A Series of Unfortunate Events succeeds based on the bizarre humor and wordplay of its source material, weird but compelling plot, and absurdist setting. It’s sometimes an uncomfortable series, one in which you wish for one competent adult to come and save the day, but that’s sort of the point. Definitely worth a watch.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (***)
As a kid, I watched a lot of “Masters of the Universe.” I was curious when it was announced that there was reboot on Netflix, and simultaneously befuddled and intrigued by the character design. The reviews were ecstatic, but also tainted with a lot of identity politics. Also let’s be honest: TV critics on RottenTomatoes are more easily impressed than the average toddler.
(Slightly off-topic: Are TV reviews always positive because we’re expected to watch entire seasons before having an opinion, so only fans volunteer to review them? Just a thought, because aside from an occasional gem like Breaking Bad, I feel that most shows in the “golden age of television” are unworthy of high praise.)
Anyway, the premise is identical to the original She-Ra show from the 80’s, just without He-Man, and with a much younger cast. Most of the characters are portrayed as pre-teens, with the “adults” giving them little respect. This gives the show an interesting angle: the main civil war is being fought offstage, while our heroes help the little people who have been trampled by the Horde and ignored by an isolationist aristocracy. OK, I dig it.
The writing and acting are pretty solid. The dialogues between the 3 lead heroes are entertaining to watch, and the comic relief elements are genuinely funny. Some of the comic elements are somewhat cliché (the flamboyant over-confident pirate), but others are more surprising (the pirate’s on-and-off mermaid girlfriend who just “can’t even”). Adora and Catra are pretty interesting central characters and I like that She-Ra’s physical strength is counterbalanced by a lack of knowledge.
On the other hand, the stories feel rushed. Some episodes will have pretty good build-up… and then suddenly the bad guys are suddenly defeated in a quick, silly battle. The two-part pilot episode gets a solid conclusion, but Part 1 is terrible, rushing Adora from “respected Horde Captain” to “Superhero questioning her entire upbringing” in just a few minutes.
Also, the character design is too kiddy for the premise of the show (or the backgrounds, for that matter), and the tone is wildly inconsistent. At times it goes for the more serious, mythic feel of shows like Avatar the Last Airbender, Gargoyles, or Pirates of Darkwater, but other times it feels more in line with Smurfs or Care Bears. Honestly, I’m not sure who the target audience is supposed to be. Ideally, a show like this would be something that fans of the original would want to watch with their kids (like Clone Wars or Batman The Animated Series). She-Ra tries, but is hampered by silly artistic choices and a lack of depth.
On the whole, She-Ra is a decent update of the (admittedly not very good) 80’s adventure series, but it could be a lot better. Still, I liked the characters (especially the chaotic neutral mad scientist) and found the series an easy watch. With more realistic fight scenes and more complex plots it could be really awesome. And it’s really not political at all. Yes, there are 2 minor lesbian characters and a few other jokes/innuendos, but people are reading way too much into it.
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (**** and a half)
Fan-freaking-tastic!
Spiderman had an uneven cinematic run. After a successful trilogy, we got that dreadful Amazing Spiderman reboot, a discontinued series that led to Spider-man being handed over to Marvel. I’ve liked Marvel’s new Spider-man (played by Tom Holland) well enough, and I’m sure his next movie will be fine, but I’m not excited for it. I’d rather see more sequels for the animated Spiderman.
The bold premise of “Into the Spiderverse” is that there are in fact many different spider-people from alternate timelines. The new protagonist, Miles Morales, has a different background and different powers. While Miles has his origin story, he gets training and help from several alternate-universe concepts of Spiderman, some of whom are quite silly, but others who are more poignant. In particular, I laud the story arc for an older burned-out Peter Parker, who provides both a mentor and a cautionary example for young Miles. Especially touching is the reverence that the film gives his marriage and divorce. A lesser film would have just given him a sexy new love interest and called it a day.
With so many characters, the film can’t give even time to everyone, so most of the character development is given to Miles Morales, Peter Parker, and Gwen Stacy (from a timeline where she was bitten instead of Peter Parker, and failed to save him instead of vice-versa). Still, the film gives just enough substance to the other 3 weirder spider concepts (looney tunes talking animal, depression-era detective, and anime robot suit) to make them work as supporting characters in the second half of the movie.
Add to this a genuinely frightening but nuanced depiction of Daredevil nemesis “Kingpin” and a solid father-son story for Miles Morales and you have one of the best Spiderman movies. The action scenes are incredible, the animation style is a work of art, the story is emotional, and every joke hits it out of the park. Into the Spiderverse is easily one of the best movies of 2018, and is better than every movie nominated for Best Picture.
Nutcracker and the Four Realms (** and a half)
It’s not that bad.
2018 marked a mixed year for Disney films. Marvel and Pixar continued to dominate, but Star Wars struggled to reach its lofty expectations, Wrinkle in Time was a failure, and even Christopher Robin and Mary Poppins Returns were mild disappointments. But at the bottom of this pile was Nutcracker and the Four Realms, a flop that few people even noticed.
If you’re one of the few who was curious about this movie, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is worth a watch, as long as you can ignore the plot. Nutcracker and the Four Realms tells the story of a girl who journeys to a magical world and has to save everyone from an evil witch. If that sounds like a pretty cliché fantasy movie premise, that’s because it is. TVtropes calls this the Portal Fantasy, the story where a sad kid goes to an alternate world in which they are super important. It’s the premise of Oz, Narnia, Harry Potter, Peter Pan, and dozens of other stories. That’s not a bad thing, but when you combine a cliché premise with a cliché Twist Villain, and a cliché girl power heroine, you get a very forgettable movie.
(Seriously, Disney, you can stop with the Twist Villain cliché. It’s getting old. It was already getting old when Frozen came out. It was lame in Big Hero Six, it weakened Incredibles 2, and it ruined the 3rd act of Zootopia.Give it a rest already!)
That’s too bad, because there’s much to like in the rest of the movie. The imagery is interesting, alternating between fanciful and silly to spooky and unsettling. Most of the actors do well with what they’ve been given, and the integration of ballet is done well. Misty Copeland, star of the American Ballet Theater, is given extensive time to portray the story of the nutcracker in the traditional medium, with nods to Disney’s Fantasia. This is probably the highlight of the film, and it’s actually integrated into the story in a way that makes sense. Other highlights include Morgan Freeman as Uncle Drossmeier and a surprisingly-sympathetic disapproving father.
Otherwise, Nutcracker and the Four Realms is passable kid’s fair. It’s certainly better than Wrinkle in Time, but not a movie I can give a strong recommendation.
Persepolis (***)
For whatever reason, I find 20th century Iran an interesting and very relevant political fable.
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, also known as “the Shah,” ruled Iran until the late 70’s when he was ousted by revolutionaries. There are many, many bad things that can be said about the Shah, but I’d hope that by now we can admit that his replacements were MUCH worse. It’s an important cautionary lesson: tearing down the existing structure doesn’t create freedom unless you have something worthwhile to replace it with.
The movie Persepolis explores an on-the-ground perspective of this chapter of history, from a middle-class Iranian girl who has a front-row seat to the revolution and subsequent wars. She has a variety of influences, and ultimately watches a war between 3 forms of tyranny: communism, monarchism, and theocratic fundamentalism. These subjects are of interest to her, but don’t necessarily occupy a higher priority than finding a black-market copy of banned heavy metal music. The movie is drawn in somewhat abstract way, illustrating its unique perspective.
However, the movie lost me in the second half, when the compelling story about the Iranian revolution turns into a banal tale of a mopey teenager. I’m aware that this is based on the author’s life, but we all have a choice of how to frame our story when presenting it. And she presents herself as a useless waif who apparently spent her teenage years mooching off other people and whining about it the whole time.
Comparisons can be drawn between Persepolis and The Bread Winner, both stories about girls under totalitarian middle-east regimes, and what makes The Bread Winner an infinitely better story is that the girl actually takes charge to correct her situation the best she can. The Breadwinner is the story of an underdog; Persepolis is the story of a victim. And yes, I am very, very, very tired of victim stories.
Persepolis starts strong, but burns out early. The art style and viewpoint are interesting, but I wish it was a bit more coherent and compelling.
Gunga Din (**** and a half)
Woah!
First of all, this is definitely a movie you could not make today. It would be protested everywhere.
Second, Gunga Din is awesome, even more so than its unofficial sequel: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
(Those guys who showed up deus ex machina at the end of “Temple of Doom”? They were supposed to be the heroes of Gunga Din.)
Based on a Kipling poem, “Gunga Din” tells the story of a simple-minded waterboy in the Indian army (during British colonialism) who dreams of being a soldier. When British soldiers start to go missing and entire towns get taken over by a murderous Kali-worshipping death cult, Gunga Din accompanies a trio of bumbling Englishmen to stop the baddies.
What follows is one of the most gripping, exciting, and yet playfully silly adventure movies I’ve ever seen. At times, the movie becomes a bit of a farce, with pratfalls and goofy misunderstandings. Somehow, in the context of an old-timey adventure film, this doesn’t seem out of place paired next to lavish battle scenes and life-or-death situations. You could compare it a bit to The Mummy with Brendan Fraiser: just enough self-awareness to pull off comedy, but without letting anyone break character.
The battle scenes and the build-up to the battle scenes is holy-crap-intense, and masterfully directed. When the heroes first investigate the Kali deathcult, they arrive in a ghost town. It’s quiet, too quiet, and we know bad things are afoot. Then, in the corners of shots, we spot evil henchmen lurking in the shadows and Indian soldiers getting jumped in the background. When the action finally heats up, it goes balls-to-the-wall crazy with wild stunts, shoot-outs, martial arts, and lots of practical effects as an entire town turns into a battlefield.
Gunga Din is solid action-adventure fun, with a very emotional ending. The practical stunts and use of live extras and models give it an authenticity that is sometimes missing from modern blockbusters, and the chemistry between all the actors is great. Sure, there’s plenty of things to offend PC Principal from South Park, but screw that guy… Gunga Din is a great movie!
Bumblebee (*** and a half)
“So, here’s the pitch… What if we remake the 2007 Transformer movie, the one the people kinda liked? But… we re-write the teenage kid to be sympathetic and interesting. Then we take out the superfluous subplots with computer hackers and all that shit that nobody remembers. We’ll keep that likeable soldier (originally played by Josh Duhamel), but merge him with the shadowy government agent (originally played by John Turturro), to give the character more relevance and keep the plot more condensed. And we keep the movie under 2 hours. Sound like a deal?”
It’s immediately obvious from the first 5 minutes of Bumblebee that it’s going to be the best Transformers movie. The robots are brightly colored and attractively designed, the transforming effects are amazing, and the action scenes are all beautifully directed by Travis Knight, the man behind animation studio Laika. It truly looks like a CGI version of the 1980’s cartoon, similar to some of the recent videogames.
From there, the plot treads familiar territory: teenager gets old car that happens to be a Transformer and becomes swept up in a bigger plot. The difference is the nuance in character. Shia LaBeouf only wanted a car to impress Megan Fox. Hailee Steinfeld fixes up old cars to feel a connection to her recently-deceased father, ends up reviving a heavily-wounded Bumblebee in the process, and forms a bond that brings her out of her self-imposed isolation. In other words, she has an actual story. The story reminds me a lot of E.T. The Extraterrestrial, another story about a child from a broken family who finds an outlet with an alien visitor.
Bumblee isn’t perfect. The plot is still pretty standard stuff, and some of the teen dramedy stuff is somewhat stupid (the “mean girls” could have been cut entirely, IMO). Still, it’s a very welcome change of pace for a series that previously worn out its welcome, and a solid live-action debut for Travis Knight. If you only watch one Transformers movie, watch this one.
Mirai (***)
I want to take a second to address a side-issue, since I’ve voiced disapproval or disinterest in anime. Of course there are good animated films from Japan. Some are even excellent. However, the fact remains that movies, TV, and literature are all cultural products, and it’s often hard for someone outside the culture to fully understand them. So a lot of anime can seem weird or unappealing to Americans like myself. On the other end of the spectrum, obsessed American anime fans often elevate all anime to a level that I don’t feel is warranted, and that gets a bit tiring.
Anyway, Mirai was the lone anime inclusion in last year’s “Best Animated” Oscar category, and it’s a pretty good movie. It’s sweet, interesting, and has a pretty killer premise. It’s also episodic and ultimately a bit hard to get into.
The film centers around a preschool boy who is jealous of his baby sister. Though initially intrigued, the boy decides that he doesn’t like the baby, who cries and isn’t much fun. Through an ambiguous combination of imagination or magic, he meets his sister from the future, an energetic middle-school-aged time traveler who berates him for his bad behavior but still seems to need his help. This is the film’s best angle, providing the perspective of who Mirai could be, and using that to inform how she should be treated in the present.
However, the time-traveling Mirai keeps getting “benched” as the film explores other time-bending ideas, with the boy meeting past versions of relatives, human versions of dogs, or getting lost in a surreal Terry Gilliam-esque dystopia. These are all compelling segments on their own (the WWII-era great-grandfather is a real highlight), but they make the vision of the film seem somewhat scattered. At some point, the episodic nature of these adventures makes the innovative film turn predictable. The kid will throw a tantrum, run into the magical garden, get taught a lesson by someone from the past or future, and then the whole cycle repeats.
Mirai is interesting, but never quite reaches the poignant or mind-bending heights suggested by its wonderful premise. Still, I give it a mild recommendation for its positive messages and good moments.
Netflix Series:
A Series of Unfortunate Events (*** and a half)
Did we need another adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events?
I’ve read the first book, and honestly, I felt that the 2004 movie with Jim Carrey was a pretty good adaptation. It was an entertaining movie that largely captured the absurdism, dark comedy, and wordplay of Daniel Handler’s original narrative. I know purists may not have liked it, but frankly, the changes to the narrative made perfect sense. Season One of the Netflix series is entertaining, but felt somewhat superfluous. The story and style is pretty much the same as the movie, but the supporting actors are not as good. Specifically, Bill Connelly, Timothy Spall, and Meryl Streep are far superior to their TV replacements. That said, Neil Patrick Harris is about as good as Jim Carrey (the kids are also similar in quality to their movie counterparts), and I really liked the scenery, theme song, and Patrick Warburton’s interesting take on Lemony Snicket. The series also does a lot of world-building, though I was skeptical that it would pay off.
And then Season 2 and 3 happened. These seasons were much better, ratcheting up the social satire, world-building, and absurdist comedy. The actors were also better, with special mention to Lucy Punch, Tony Hale, Allison Williams, and Nathan Fillion. The story is a bit frustrating, as VFD turns out to be a bunch of man-children pretending to be spies, but the series does well with keeping the audience interested, and it wraps up well in the final episodes.
A Series of Unfortunate Events succeeds based on the bizarre humor and wordplay of its source material, weird but compelling plot, and absurdist setting. It’s sometimes an uncomfortable series, one in which you wish for one competent adult to come and save the day, but that’s sort of the point. Definitely worth a watch.
She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (***)
As a kid, I watched a lot of “Masters of the Universe.” I was curious when it was announced that there was reboot on Netflix, and simultaneously befuddled and intrigued by the character design. The reviews were ecstatic, but also tainted with a lot of identity politics. Also let’s be honest: TV critics on RottenTomatoes are more easily impressed than the average toddler.
(Slightly off-topic: Are TV reviews always positive because we’re expected to watch entire seasons before having an opinion, so only fans volunteer to review them? Just a thought, because aside from an occasional gem like Breaking Bad, I feel that most shows in the “golden age of television” are unworthy of high praise.)
Anyway, the premise is identical to the original She-Ra show from the 80’s, just without He-Man, and with a much younger cast. Most of the characters are portrayed as pre-teens, with the “adults” giving them little respect. This gives the show an interesting angle: the main civil war is being fought offstage, while our heroes help the little people who have been trampled by the Horde and ignored by an isolationist aristocracy. OK, I dig it.
The writing and acting are pretty solid. The dialogues between the 3 lead heroes are entertaining to watch, and the comic relief elements are genuinely funny. Some of the comic elements are somewhat cliché (the flamboyant over-confident pirate), but others are more surprising (the pirate’s on-and-off mermaid girlfriend who just “can’t even”). Adora and Catra are pretty interesting central characters and I like that She-Ra’s physical strength is counterbalanced by a lack of knowledge.
On the other hand, the stories feel rushed. Some episodes will have pretty good build-up… and then suddenly the bad guys are suddenly defeated in a quick, silly battle. The two-part pilot episode gets a solid conclusion, but Part 1 is terrible, rushing Adora from “respected Horde Captain” to “Superhero questioning her entire upbringing” in just a few minutes.
Also, the character design is too kiddy for the premise of the show (or the backgrounds, for that matter), and the tone is wildly inconsistent. At times it goes for the more serious, mythic feel of shows like Avatar the Last Airbender, Gargoyles, or Pirates of Darkwater, but other times it feels more in line with Smurfs or Care Bears. Honestly, I’m not sure who the target audience is supposed to be. Ideally, a show like this would be something that fans of the original would want to watch with their kids (like Clone Wars or Batman The Animated Series). She-Ra tries, but is hampered by silly artistic choices and a lack of depth.
On the whole, She-Ra is a decent update of the (admittedly not very good) 80’s adventure series, but it could be a lot better. Still, I liked the characters (especially the chaotic neutral mad scientist) and found the series an easy watch. With more realistic fight scenes and more complex plots it could be really awesome. And it’s really not political at all. Yes, there are 2 minor lesbian characters and a few other jokes/innuendos, but people are reading way too much into it.