Delayed Reaction: The New Mutants

Premise: A teenage girl gets sent to a sort of medical asylum for young mutants learning to control their powers.

 

Woof...Where to begin? It's hard to be in a worse position than The New Mutants was from production to release. To start with, it's part of X-Men film series, which has an odd history. It really started the comic book boom in theaters and is a relic of the early days that has a confounding continuity over 20 years. This was developed before Disney acquired Fox, so the X-Men franchise was still figuring out its path to relevancy. The pseudo-reboot of X-Men: First Class was already fizzling with X-Men: Apocalypse. The surprise success of Deadpool and the decent success of the Wolverine standalones convinced Fox to try something only tangentially related to the main franchise. So, they tried out The New Mutants. As filming was completing on The New Mutants, they screened a spooky trailer that focused on the horror elements of the movie. This trailer did so well, that they decided to reshoot some of the movie to match that tone more. That caused the first delay. Then, the Disney acquisition of Fox was announced and it was especially unclear where The New Mutants fit in the now massively more wide-open Marvel universe on screen. It's not part of the MCU proper. It's not part of the X-Men franchise proper either. Due to scheduling and shifting studio priorities, The New Mutants kept getting pushed back and looking like damaged goods. It got a release date in Spring 2020, then COVID strikes, shuts theaters down temporarily, and tanks the box office. At this point, Disney just had to be done with the movie. It finally released it in August 2020, nearly three years after filming wrapped. I don't believe any of the planned reshoots were ever done thanks to uncertain studio marching orders and eventually because the cast was noticeably older. The film bombed, and along with the Dark Phoenix disaster the summer before, ends any hope of remnants of the Fox X-Men universe continuing into the Disney era (except Deadpool which is fully in its own bubble). When the MCU inevitably invites the X-Men in, I don't expect it to include Jennifer Lawrence, Sophie Turner, Anya Taylor-Joy, or Maisie Williams as their current characters.

 

The oddest thing about The New Mutants and the X-Men franchise as a whole is how good the casting was. They cast Anya Taylor-Joy fresh off The Witch. Charlie Heaton came from the first season of Stranger Things. Maisie Williams was known from Game of Thrones, but I don't think anyone was sure how well she'd work outside of Westeros. There's even a decent chance that Blu Hunt and Henry Zaga could turn into something. The X-Men franchise at times feels like a smaller soccer club that develops players really well so the bigger clubs can go and poach them later. It's crazy to me to think that the same year that Anya Taylor-Joy blew up with The Queen's Gambit, she also had a major studio Marvel movie that bombed. That's not how fame should work, right?

 

I don't think The New Mutants is great. I do think its reputation is worse than the movie itself. I like the idea of the movie. It's a mid-budget Marvel movie ($60-$80 million). Young cast with a lot of up-and-comers. The idea to make it spookier and more isolated, almost entirely shot in and around this old building being used as their asylum, is cool. I even like how the villain is a little more discrete. They are essentially fighting Blu Hunt's inability to control her powers and Alice Braga's demands from the faceless Essex Corporation. It sneaks in the first same sex romance I can remember in any Marvel movie between main characters, which is cool. I certainly enjoyed the movie more than I expected. Granted, I expected a complete shit show.

 

That's not to say the movie was perfect either. It's a little dull at times. The logic of this facility didn't make a ton of sense to me. Were Alice Braga's powers really the only thing keeping them in? Is Braga really the only employee on site? And how did they even spike her drink? I'm not a fan of the accent work in the movie. Anya Taylor-Joy goes a little too heavy with the Russian accent. As someone from Kentucky, I also get defensive when a character like Charlie Heaton puts on that thick accent. I know it's accurate to the mining regions of Kentucky, but it sure makes my work even harder to convince people that we don't all talk like that. Also, the giant dream bear being the final boss was a little silly and confusing. I get the symbolism or whatever, but if Blu Hunt really has that little control over her powers, maybe she should be in a secure facility.

 

The dark tone and less obvious hook probably meant this movie would never have been a big hit, but I think without all the delays and the COVID it would've been a worthwhile experiment that turned a small profit. I'd certainly rate Dark Phoenix or X-Men: Origins - Wolverine below it. It still baffles me that Fox could never find a way to make the X-Men work even better for them. With the characters and casting they had, how did none of the movie in the franchise ever get over $250 million*?

 

*I'm excluding Deadpool since it functions more as an X-Men parody outside of the franchise timeline.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Another Round

Premise: Four teachers test a theory that their lives would be a little better if they remained tipsy all the time.

 

Part of the fun of these Reactions for me is that I don't always know how I feel about a film before I start typing. I'm still actively processing. That's why when you look at my Reactions to some of my favorite films, they may sound pretty tame or why I rave about movies that 2 months later I can barely recall.

 

I'm definitely still processing Another Round. The idea behind the movie sounds like a vintage Apatow comedy. Found teachers, all hitting middle age, realize they've hit ruts in their lives. At a dinner, one mentions a theory from a philosopher that humans actually function best at a .05% BAC. After one of them, Martin (Mads Mikkelsen) decides to test that theory, the others join in. They attempt to legitimize it by typing it up like an experiment to measure the results. At first, it works out great. They all seem more fulfilled by their jobs. Martin reconnects with his wife and kids better than he has in years. Before long though, they run into a little trouble. They start testing the theory that only .05% BAC isn't optimal for everyone and start pushing it higher. Also, it turns out, alcohol is addictive. So, it all falls apart when they lose control and everyone in their lives starts to notice the drinking.

 

I really like the setup. I too have tried to legitimize bad ideas by telling myself they were part of a contract or experiment that I tracked. I love seeing the men's transformations from tired and defeated to loose and relaxed. They look like they know how to have a good time. I think where the movie lost me is how it arcs the rise and fall. I'm never sure how long any phase has been going on. So, it appears that they are pushing the limits of the experiment almost immediately. I would've liked to spend a little more time with when it was all working out and to get more gradual hints of the downsides. Because, as is, it appeared that life was good, then they do one night of really heavy drinking and everything goes to shit. I would've liked to see family members getting more suspicious over time or seen a few small examples of things they are messing up. I don't think the intent of the movie was to look like a bunch of alcoholics hatched a plan to explain their drinking.

 

This movie is a great example of a good ending going a long way. Mads Mikkelsen dancing under a shower of champagne is about as joyous as cinema gets. I'm not sure it really matches the message of the rest of the movie, but I don't care either.

 

So, I guess where I land on this movie is that Mads Mikkelsen and the rest of the cast are pretty great. The movie has high highs and low lows that are both well done. I just wish they would've felt more of a piece.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Ammonite

Premise: A gruff female paleontologist bonds with and eventually has an affair with the depressed wife of an amateur paleontologist.

 

If I never visit England, it will be because of its depiction in movies. My impression of England is that it is cold, wet, perpetually overcast, and devoid of any vibrant colors. My only solace is that this depiction is mainly period films about England. Most modern movies try to keep everything in London, where I imagine they've built some sort of biodome to simulate a climate in which humans are allowed to experience joy. The number of times I've seen damp English period pieces that I immediately followed with a warm shower, just to get the chill out of my bones, is getting alarming.

 

Ammonite is a cold movie in many more ways than the dreary English countryside. There's hardly any dialogue for long stretches. There's barely a smile to be found. Everyone looks depressed the entire time. To director Francis Lee's credit, I am sure this is exactly what he was going for. I think the movie sticks to his vision. I just don't care for that vision, apparently.

 

Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan are fine in this. They fit into the world nicely. I like Kate Winslet as a grump. She tends to be in this mode in more contemporary movies. Ronan is more of an empty vessel in the movie. Her character starts the film depressed over a miscarriage and, presumably, an unhappy marriage to begin with. She opens up over time, but she's not really injected with much personality. Winslet is so guarded and Ronan so undefined, that I didn't get any heat from their romance. Sure, there is a steamy sex scene or two. I guess the idea is that they are so repressed that those moments are the only time they can be open, but they felt incongruent with the rest of the film. This struck me as a movie about repression for the sake of repression.

 

Some of the problem is that the 19-year age gap is very noticeable between Winslet and Ronan. I wonder if swapping either of them out with a Carey Mulligan would've played a little better. That would only be a 10-year age gap either way which puts them on more equal footing. Because, I didn't really get the sense that this was trying to be a movie about a middle-aged woman finding a new wind after connecting with a much younger woman. Again, maybe I would've read that more if everything wasn't so dreary.

 

This was a bummer for my 4000th movie. Granted, to see 4000 movies, it hard to save one that I know will be great. Winslet and Ronan are decently engaging to watch, despite what little they are asked to do. Fiona Shaw shows up briefly as Winslet's ex and I immediately wanted to follow her around instead. I wish that Francis Lee would've been less concerned with being accurate to the period and location in order to inject some more life into the movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Over the Moon

Premise: A girl builds a rocket to the moon to prove a legend her deceased mother told her was true.

 

I appreciate that Netflix will take a chance on just about anything. Their strategy is to make one of everything and see what become the most popular. They don't have the highest hit rate, but they are winning the volume game. Over the Moon appears to be Netflix exploring the viability of the 90s Disney musical with some Pixar imagination. Like, the poster for the movie even has a Cinderalla's Castle-looking structure just below the title. I don't think the movie is that successful, but it's also not a woeful failure.

 

What's that look like down there at the bottom?

 

Before I get too far, I need to admit that I know very little about the Chinese culture and folklore the film is based on. That's a bit of a barrier to judging the story, because I know I'm missing a lot of references. Apparently, there are numerous versions of the legend of the Moon goddess Chang'e. I'm sure all the beings on the moon are references to things in some way that I'm missing. For all I know, this movie could be incredibly clever. I mean, I don't think it was. Most of it felt like a scatter of disparate ideas they worked into a story about a girl missing her dead mother. I acknowledge my ignorance though. The movie is lively and fun. I followed the broad strokes of the story that I needed to.

 

I'm not a fan of the music. The fun of musical number in an animated film are that they can be enormous showstoppers. There are no restraints to them. Over the Moon keeps the musical numbers really grounded though. I could imagine each of them being performed on a stage. I'm no expert on musicals either, but I've noticed that songs in a musical are normally mood songs or place setters. The place setters are the ones that could've just been dialogue. They get the story from point A to point B, and people just happen to be singing. The mood pieces stop the story to capture a mood. That's what most of the 90s Disney songs were. "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" isn't moving the story. It's just capturing Simba's cockiness and attitude. Over the Moon is full of the place setting songs. They expressed things that could've been spoken, which makes me ask, "why bother with the songs?"

 

I didn't care that much for the movie, but it's hard for me to knock it too much. I'm outside of the age demographic for it. I like seeing something that isn't so US or Euro-centric. Really good voice cast. I'm always pro-John Cho and will never turn down a chance to hear Phillipa Soo sing. Ken Jeong is nice comic relief, and I appreciate that a lot of recognizable names played the extended family members. It gives me the impression that a lot of people were excited to participate in it in any capacity. This definitely feels like an Oscar nominee that they picked to fill out the field. The animation is pretty generic. Or maybe saying it's not that crisp or detailed is a better way to say it.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Big Chill

Premise: After one of them commits suicide, a group of college friends all get together for the first time since graduating for the weekend of the funeral and realize they went from being hippies to yuppies.

 

I know Boomer bashing is all the rage these days, but I really liked this movie. Because, even though this happens to be about some Boomers, it's about a pretty universal story at its heart, especially if you went away for college. This is about nostalgia, really. Not the dangerous kind of nostalgia. It's about the inevitable kind. We all remember a time when we were young and experiencing freedom for the first time. My friendships from college are different than any of the other friendships in my life. That was a time when I had adult freedom, but really not a lot to do. I hung out with those friends more frequently than any non-family member I've ever had. I miss the days of being about to go on an adventure with a friend on a Wednesday afternoon with no prompting because we were already done with classes that day. It's not necessarily better or worse than what my life at other periods. It's unique from them all.

 

Add that to the fact that my college friends have all scattered since then. We've all stayed closer than the people in The Big Chill, but we all live in different places now, have more immediate groups of friends, and aren't as tied into each other's lives. It sad, and I miss that, even while I understand the reasons for it. This movie captures all those feeling so well.

Sure, I don't relate to everything. I never believed I would change the world in college (although I did have my own forms of idealism that have morphed as I came to understand the world differently). The amount of success this group had is rather extreme. At least to my knowledge, none of my group are dealing with problems that are as extreme. You know, everyone's genitals are still intact. It's the smaller moments that the film gets so right. I love the web of who has and hasn't kept in touch. I love the way that people who haven't seen each other in years start talking to each other like no time had passed at all. My favorite moment of the movie is at the end with them all eating breakfast together, completely comfortable. This movie feels like required viewing for anyone older than 30.

 

The cast is unimpeachable. Glenn Close, Jeff Goldblum, William Hurt, and Kevin Kline to name a few. Find a weak link in this ensemble. The plot is scattered by design. It's more a collection of assorted adventures than a single main narrative, which works wonderfully here. I love the 60s-heavy soundtrack, and this is one of the all-time great "Soundtrack Movies".

 

I do get that some people have had their fill on Boomer nostalgia, and this won't fix that. Although, it is worth noting that this is one of the earlier examples of it. The film is pretty myopic too. While the feelings of the movie are universal, the demographics and history of it are pretty narrow. Like, I imagine a black character might have a much different opinion about the 60s, but it's a little unfair to judge the film by what it isn't. I can see this movie growing on me even more over the years.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Invictus

Premise: Newly elected Nelson Mandela uses the national Rugby team as a tool to bring racial harmony to a healing nation.

 

This movie is absolutely that thing that people attack Hollywood movies for all the time. It's an inspirational movie about fixing racism. It oversimplies a deeply complex history and the racial dynamics of South Africa into a feel-good story. It's fair to go after it like a Green Book if you want. Clint Eastwood isn't the best director for this kind of topic. All of this is true in aggregate. Hollywood is way too fond of praising small gains as great triumphs.

 

That doesn't mean Invictus is bad though. In fact, I kind of liked it. Morgan Freeman is one of the few actors who can pull off the gravitas of Nelson Mandela. The film does a great job of explaining the challenge Mandela faced when he was elected. It's true that the black population of South Africa owes nothing to the white population that oppressed them for so long, but the power structure of the country was so precarious that meeting them with spite was never going to work. Meanwhile, the rugby side of the film with Matt Damon is more about the team realizing their position as a unifying symbol than it's about being a straight sports movie. This is much less of a sports movie than I expected. Eastwood really isn't very interested in capturing the strategy of the rugby or the exact path to victory. I have no idea what the final score was or what it would mean by the end.

 

What's funny about movies like this is that most are perfectly fine. I liked Green Book. It's a perfectly fine movie. There are just a lot of movies like it or Invictus and they rarely have anything new to add to the discussion. At some point it seems like Hollywood or society collectively saying "See racism isn't that bad, because we can find these individual stories of things turning out alright". It feels like they are placating audiences. So, when something like a Green Book wins Best Picture, it feels like people are saying that's as deep as the discourse needs to get.

 

So, yeah. Invictus is a good enough movie, but it's not the end of a discussion. It's really the kind of movie that should make you curious to look up Apartheid on Wikipedia, and there's value in that. It's pretty mediocre as a sports movie. It's the best role Morgan Freeman has had since it came out 12 years ago. The Matt Damon Oscar nomination for this is really silly but what are you going to do? This should not be seen if you are looking for a sports movie. 

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Mortal Kombat

Formula: Mortal Kombat ^ Power Rangers + More Blood

 

Mortal Kombat was not my game growing up. I either had the wrong console for it or my parents were against it. I really don't remember*. So, I have a small list of things I associate with the game: fatalities and extreme gore, Sub-Zero and Scorpion, and that music. With that as my rubric, I'll call the recent film a base hit.

 

*Probably the former. My parents were not strict at all about the content I could play/watch.

 

Even if I was a huge fan of the game series, the mythology isn't what I'm showing up to the movie for. Smartly, the movie gives the bare essentials of a story. There's a mythical tournament called Mortal Kombat. There's Earthworld and Otherworld, and if Earthworld loses another tournament, humans become enslaved or something. Each world has "champions" who can compete in Mortal Kombat. The champions have special powers they have to unlock. More specific to this movie is that the Otherworld champions come to Earth to kill the Earthworld champions before the tournament even begins, so the Earthworld champions have to discover their super powers in time to fight back. This is very much chapter one in a planned film series, because it doesn't even get to the actual Mortal Kombat tournament. In that way, this movie reminded me a lot of that recent Power Rangers movie. It's a lot of exposition and set up. For most of the movie, the protagonists haven't discovered their powers. I was very aware that they weren't dialing the action or stakes up to the max. While I could tell this movie was holding back, it laid all the groundwork to go completely nuts with any sequels they make. For that reason, this movie gets a somewhat incomplete grade. I won't know until the sequels whether or not the holding back in this movie was worth it.

 

That isn't to say this movie holds back on all the goods. There are plenty of fights and, more importantly, gory fatalities. It never goes too long between fights and the choreography of said fights is satisfying. I could tell the movie was full of callbacks from the game, even if I didn't get them all. However, even I got chills when I heard a Scorpion "Get over here!"

 

I don't have investment in any of the characters, so none of those inclusions or exclusions bothered me. Apparently, the protagonist of the movie, Cole Young (Lewis Tan), is an invention for the movie. Given that, I wish he was a little more interesting as a character. But he could fight, and that's all that matters. Joe Taslim plays a good Sub-Zero, playing the character much like a cocky Terminator. Hiroyuki Sanada makes a great Scorpion. Josh Lawson's Kano is the stand out character as the primary comic relief. No one in the cast is a big name or (not to be mean) likely to ever be one. They seemed to cast more for fit. What's nice too is that they don't have to worry about keeping the cast together for sequels, so they can keep future movies relatively cheap. I'd be fine with this becoming another Underworld series.

 

There is one absolutely unforgiveable aspect of the movie. They don't really use the Mortal Kombat song until the end credits. That's inexcusable. There isn't a 90s kid alive who wasn't watching this movie waiting for that needle drop to let them know that things were about to get nuts. I'll say, that's a lot of the reason I came out of this movie feeling like I only got act 1 of something. I appreciate the desire to save something for the sequels. There's a long list of characters they didn't get to yet. They don't even have the titular tournament in this. The song is not something you sit on for long-term payoff. That needs to be used once a movie. Hell, I'd be fine if they used it once a fight.

 

Mortal Kombat shows considerable restraint, even with all the excesses it does include. There's plenty to entertain the people who turn on the movie with the right expectations. It lays a great foundation for what I hope is at least a couple more movies. Other than the song whiff, I'm not sure what else I could've asked for.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Irresistible

Premise: Major D.C. campaign operatives come to a small town to invest major resources into their mayoral campaign.

 

Midway through the closing credits, there's a clip of an interview Jon Stewart gets with a major political campaign chair or something. I forget the exact person or title. He goes on to succinctly explain how with the current campaign laws, Super PACs could raise an extraordinary amount of money for an election using deceptive tactics then use the money for anything they wanted. This really bothered me. Not the truth of that statement. I already knew most of that and have tempered my irritation of that over time. No, what bothered me was that in about 2 minutes, they summed up the entire point of the movie. They could've just had Rose Byrne record that exact answer, call it a short film, and I would've liked it significantly better than this movie.

 

(A reminder that I'm not really concerned about if I give away a twist here, because I'm digesting my own thoughts about the movie. I figure you've either seen it already or don't care that much. Besides, I'll be doing you a favor.)

 

It's really easy to come out of this movie saying that the big twist is what ruined it for you. The entire election was a big hoax to trick national campaigns to give the townsfolk the money they need to revitalize the small town. It was a ruse by the small townsfolk. It's a twist that's as impractical as it is patronizing. The idea that a population of 5000 could pull off a national ruse like this is ridiculous. Even if there are only a handful of principles in the act, getting no one to break or refuse to buy in is impossible. Are you telling me there's not a single reddit teen in that town who thinks everything is lame and blabs about it? I mean, a lot of what drives our new cycle is internet sleuthing to bring up any dirt on people. Remember how quickly things turned for Ken Bone? And the movie doesn't play fair about it. The movie starts with Chris Cooper delivering that speech in "real time". It doesn't come to us as a YouTube video. It's presented to the audience as authentic in its cutting and presentation. I don't like when movies don't play fair then congratulate themselves for fooling the audience at the end. Frankly, the more interesting movie to me would be from the perspective of the town trying to pull off the hoax. Making Steve Carell's character the lead character makes the audience an adversary of the storytelling.

 

It's also hard for me to see it all as anything but patronizing. And, I'm not stupid. I get that that's the point of the movie in a lot of ways. From the moment that the movie gives a location setter of "Rural America. Heartland, USA", I'm aware that the movie is about how coastal elites patronize the "flyover states". So, most of the movie is about Carell and Byrne patronizing the small-town people and the small-town people patronizing the D.C. invaders. By the end though, it just felt like it was all patronizing the audience. The big twist is that the audience thought it was smart enough to see that the D.C. people are phonies and that the small-town folks aren't lesser. They just move at a different pace. As an audience, I'd never dream to think that the townsfolk are sophisticated enough to understand how to fraud a Super PAC or that they'd even know the difference between a simile and a metaphor. You see, I must also be blinded by my misconceptions, so the movie must rub my nose in it at the end.

 

I think of it like this. Let's say I see an old lady twist her ankle walking down the street, so I go over to help her. I offer my arm and help her walk a few blocks until she gets home. If right as she gets to the door, she tells me "My ankle was fine the whole time. I didn't need any help. I can't believe you fell for that", I'm not the bad guy for thinking I was helping. That's kind of like watching this movie. I was meeting the movie at the level it was presenting itself as. I know that small towns aren't as backwards as they are presented in movies. I rolled my eyes at most of the ways this movie depicted small town life. I went with it because I'm used to movies pulling this Doc Hollywood move. So, at the end, when it turns into a gotcha on the audience, it falls incredibly flat. It's the "The doctor is a woman" of endings. Speaking of endings, I think fake end credits sequences are among my least favorite tricks in a movie. Just give me the fucking ending. It's not clever to trick the audience by using the universal indicator that a film story is complete. It's just annoying.

 

It doesn't help that the movie isn't very funny. Steve Carrell is in that hyper Michael Scott mode of trying to be unlikable but without balancing it with anything human or humorous. I was hoping for more Rose Byrne. That rivalry with Carrell could've been fleshed out so much more. This just wasn't very good all around. I'm starting to think Jon Stewart (who wrote and directed this) is much better responding to daily events than commenting on larger issues on a more theoretical level.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: Raya and the Last Dragon

Formula: Mulan - songs - hidden identity + world-building

 

I never get tired of examining the family rivalry between Disney Animations Studio and Pixar Studio. Disney Animation was a dominant cultural force throughout the 90s, but when it slipped in the early 2000s, Pixar swooped in and has claimed the King of Animation throne ever since. Even though it often feels like Disney Animation is perpetually playing catch up with Pixar, I was surprised to realize that on average, Disney Animation, not Pixar, has actually been more successful globally lately. From 2012-2019, Disney Aminations releases have averaged $865 million worldwide, while Pixar has "only" averaged $779 million. Obviously, there's some noise in those numbers. Pixar has released more movies, including Cars 3, which was more of a merchandising decision than a box office one. That deflates the average. Also, in the U.S., Pixar still edges Disney Animation out $320 million to $297 million. It's closer than I would've thought though. And Disney Animation has found this success by sticking to its roots mainly. Sure, there's a Wreck-It Ralph or Big Hero Six in there that's a bit more modern. Zootopia certainly feels like a Pixar movie under a different name. But much of the success has been in new fairy tales. The Princess and the Frog, Moana, and Frozen were big hits with original characters under the classic "Disney princess" formula. Tangled fits in there too, although it is a play on a known classic. So, it makes a lot of sense that they'd go for the formula again with Raya and the Last Dragon.

 

We'll never really know how Raya would've done in a normal box office. It would still be coming a year after the live-action Mulan, which is a similar ancient fantasy adventure with an Eastern flair. It's a fully original idea though, and I could see audiences responding well to it. They have in a COVID box office, and we'll never know exactly how much it made from Disney+ Premiere purchases. Hopefully, the results are encouraging enough for Disney to keep trying ideas like this though.

 

Raya and the Last Drago takes place in the fictional fractured kingdom of Kumandra. There's an ancient legend there that dragons saved the world from evil spirits calls the Druun that turn people to stone. The dragons sacrificed themselves though to do it and there's only one remanence of dragon magic still left in the world. It's protected by Raya's (Kelly Marie Tran) family. You see, after the dragons' sacrifice, the land broke into five kingdoms, defined like a Zelda map. There's the desert land, the snow land, the sea port land, etc. The five factions feud over this orb that contains the last of the dragon essence. As a child, Raya's father, Chief Benja (Daniel Dae Kim) invites all the other factions for a feast, trying to extend a hand out for peace. Instead, they try to take the orb, breaking it in the process, and unleashing the Druun on the world again. Most of the movie takes place several years later when Raya awakens the last dragon, Sisu (Awkwafina) and tries to collect all the pieces of the orb to end the Druun plague. In that sense, it's a pretty typical action movie. She goes to the different lands, has assorted challenges collecting the orb piece in each, and adds to her travel party each time. There's also Namaari (Gemma Chan) the similarly aged daughter of another chief who is trying to collect the pieces of the orb for herself. And it turns out that Sisu isn't the mighty dragon Raya expected, which you probably assumed when I said Awkwafina was the voice. Sisu is very much a Geenie or Mushu type: magical, but mostly silly.

 

Overall, I love the world-building of the movie. It's designed with a Southeast Asian influence but isn't trying to resemble any real-world area. The different areas of the land are distinct and cool in their own ways. The movie establishes each quickly and effectively. Truly, my only issue with the movie is that I wanted it to be in a longer format. Like, I wish this was a trilogy or even a TV series. I wanted to explore each part of the world for longer and get to know each of the characters better. I imagine the production bible for this was intense and they had to throw out so many ideas for time. This movie races through every beat. For anyone wondering how they could adapt a Zelda game into a movie, here you go. This is the blueprint. I would love to play the video game version of this movie, because that's what this world is.

 

Tran and Chan's roles are a little thankless, since they are the two most serious characters. I like that Disney is keeping Tran in the family. Even though I questioned the need for her character in the new Star Wars trilogy, I liked her in the movies and Tran as an actress in general. Awkwafina has fun playing Awkwafina in this. I love how quickly she's established herself as a personality. And she does successfully add some emotional depth to Sisu. That's the secret to comic relief characters in these movies. They need to be characters who take things seriously yet have a goofy personality. They can't be undercutting what's going on.

 

I do think the level of worldbuilding creates some small problems in the movie. Some of the logic about the dragon orb and how to defeat the Druun don't make a lot of sense if you stop and think about them. The internal logic of the movie is a bit wacky, but a lot of that seemed tied to keeping the movie short.

 

If my biggest complaint about a movie is that I wish there was more of it, I'd say that's a great sign. Raya and the Last Dragon is by no means a new Disney gold standard, but it's pretty damn enjoyable. Disney seems to have figured out that if they don't have new stories to tell (because I could point to numerous ways that Raya was inspired by past Disney movies), then new locations and influences have the same effect to keep things fresh.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The One and Only Ivan

Premise: An ape in a strip mall circus dreams of a life outside of a cage.

 

The impressive thing about The One and Only Ivan is that I don't even remember it getting released. I remember August 2020. There wasn't a hell of a lot going on. Disney+ in particular had a slow drizzle of content thanks to poor COVID timing. I remember all the Star Girls, Artemis Fowls, and Godmothereds. No memory of this movie though. The only reason I even found it is because I'm catching up on Oscar movies. Which, by the way, the Visual Effects category is where you can feel the effects of COVID more drastically than anywhere else. In any other year, this never would've had enough attention to be nominated. That's not Ivan's fault though.

 

The One and Only Ivan is my favorite kind of "Based on a true story" movie. Here's what's true: There was an ape named Ivan who lived in a strip mall circus for 20+ years. He painted some crude pictures. He was eventually released to a wilderness reserve. That's it. Yet, this is a movie about talking animals, temporary escapes, and ape-painted wilderness paintings. Disney seems to believe they can get extra mileage by pointing out the basis of the story, but this could've just as easily left that off and been called an original story.

 

This movie is fine. I'd like to come up with stronger words, but they just aren't there. The animation of the animals is pretty good. I was never distracted by how clearly fake they looked. The voice cast is pretty stellar with Sam Rockwell as Ivan, Danny DeVito as his dog best friend, Angelina Jolie as an aging elephant performer, Brooklynn Prince as a new baby elephant, and several others. Bryan Cranston is the big name in the live cast as the conflicted owner of the failing circus. There's a nice enough message about animals not belonging in cages, and I'm a sucker for stray dogs finding a home. The story is a bit scattered though. It can't figure out how vital the painting skill of Ivan's is to the story. The "Some Pig" moment happens pretty late, and doesn't really have much impact.

 

It's hard for me to believe this was going to be a theatrical release by Disney before COVID hit. It's a small movie. It takes place mostly on two sets. The story is pretty simple. If not for the Awards credentials of the voice cast, I would've sworn this was always meant for Disney+. Not a bad movie, but a slight one. Like a less ambitious Dumbo.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend