movies: wish

I feel like I owe Strange World an apology. Because, in that review, I said that it wasn't a real movie.

That was before I watched Wish.

Wish is not a movie.

Wish is what happens when a multinational conglomerate strip-mines nostalgia in order to make a profit. 

Wish is what happens when you give an AI references to previous Disney movies and ask it to write a script. 

Wish is what happens when you utterly fail at a thing.

Wish is ugly, badly written, lifeless, has instantly forgettable songs, no charm or character and is a ham-fisted collection of references to the 100 years of Disney history.

Let's just back up there a second. Yes, I'm describing a Disney movie as UGLY. Because normally even when a movie is terrible or just, you know... m'eh, I at least can say that it looks lovely. Wish is horrible to look at.

Wish is also trying so fucking hard to steal Sleeping Beauty's lunch money that it's embarrassing. I mean, it's literally stealing from everyone, but, visually, it's stealing so much from Sleeping Beauty and just getting it wrong consistently.

Honestly, I could have gotten behind Wish with all the references and nostalgia if they were well done or if the story and songs had been good. They're not. The references are clunky, stupid and desperately out of place, the story makes no sense, and the songs are... nothing. They're empty air, instantly forgettable and painful to listen to.

Nothing about this movie is good. 

Even the villain is ridiculous and so deeply just an uncanny valley version of Chris Pine that I was instantly repulsed every time he was on screen. 

I could rant about this movie for a long time, but, to be honest, it's not worth my time or yours. It either marks the point at which Disney Animation literally jumped the shark and began it's slow but inevitable decline into pumping out trash or will be quickly swept under the rug and never spoken about again.

Everybody involved in this movie should be ashamed of themselves. This is an embarrassment to 100 years of Disney history. Do better.

So yes, this is the second Disney movie in a row to get no score out of 5, because this isn't an actual movie.

yani's rating: [vomit emoji] references to better films out of 5

movies: strange world

Let's start out with a little creative exercise. I want you to furrow your brow... like someone has just told you something that makes no sense, or you're trying to read really small text. Okay, now open your mouth slightly, like you've forgotten to close it for about 20 minutes.

Got it? You there? Great. 

Now you know the expression I had on my face for essentially the entire run time of this movie.

Actually, I'm not even sure this qualifies for any of the technical definition of "a movie".

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Welcome to Disney's Strange World.

I do not know what this is. It is not, however, an actual movie. Because a movie has a plot. And characters with personality and motivation. An actual movie makes me feel something other than "confused".

What this is, is if an AI was given the scripts for every Disney and Pixar movie ever (most specifically Raya and the Last Dragon, Finding Nemo, Onward, Atlantis and Moana) as well as Journey to the Centre of the Earth (all versions), Fantastic Voyage, Inner Space, Flubber and a description of that one dream you had that time when you had a really bad fever and were slightly delirious. And then it shat out this script.

Also. I have said this many times. And I'm saying it again.

Disney. Stop. Just flat out stop.

Stop mistaking "appearing on screen" for "representation". Making a main character "gay" by giving them a highly stereotyped same sex crush (oh, he's got blonde tips, wears pink and a skirt over his pants... groundbreaking), mentioning it at the start of the movie, once during the movie and again at the end while it having absolutely zero effect on that character, their journey or their personality is NOT having a gay character.

You know how you fix that. You send the crush with them on their adventures and those two characters say more than... I don't know... 9 words to each other. They develop a relationship. You know, like existed in Raya before you look all the lesbian out of it.

Or you just, and I can't emphasis this strongly enough, fucking stop.

While we're on the subject.

Having a character show up on one side of the screen for 11 seconds in a wheelchair is not representing disability. Putting a three legged dog in the same movie is even worse because the dog with a disability is on screen longer than the wheelchair woman.

You do get a very, very, very small amount of points for having the physical ethnicity of the characters in the movie match (or thereabouts) the ethnicity of the voice actors portraying them. And by points, I mean "doing the bare minimum".

Speaking of the cast. They deserved a better movie. Wasting Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhall, Gabrielle Union and Lucy Lui on this piece of trash is insulting to all of them. And me as the audience.

The writer/co-director, Qui Nguyen, and director, Don Hall, wrote/directed Raya and the Last Dragon. So, clearly, those "gay pages" from Raya ended up here. Half the characters look like background extras from Raya anyway.

But it's also incredibly clear that this movie had no actual script or story. It has some words. But it's over 100 minutes long, rushes through any set up for story and character in the first ten minutes and somehow rushes through the next 90 minutes without saying anything that Disney hasn't said before or Pixar hasn't made into a masterpiece. And leaves you at the end going "whut?".

Also, Disney, as a company, can you please ensure that your male Animation Department employees have access to mental health care, because they're all very clearly suffering from some unresolved issues with both their fathers, children or both. And writing it into a movie script for the 10th time isn't the same as actual therapy. Or maybe it's time to let some women write and direct. The men clearly need a nap.

And, if you're paying enough attention, the twist in the movie becomes obvious at a certain point. Or if not "obvious", I found myself thinking "well that looks like [blank]" many, many times, and it turns out that, yes, that's because that's exactly what that was.

As an idea, it's fascinating. But it breaks down in so many different ways if you think about it for more than about 11 seconds. And no, I'm not spoiling it. It's the single thing the movie has going for it.

But the movie does not earn the reveal or have me care about the characters in the movie enough that I'm still interested in the movie by that point.

I continued to watch this movie mostly because by that point I needed to know what they thought the pay off for the movie was supposed to be and what they thought a successful resolution was. It is none of those things.

I honestly need a behind the scenes featurette about this movie. I need to know what they thought they were making. Because they failed.

This is a movie based on listening to too many Twitter threads, Tumblr memes and YouTube hot takes. And then failing, fundamentally, to make an actual movie.

This is that Disney movie that you will 100% forget existed. Or that in future will become the subject of many long video essays on YouTube that include the terms "developmental hell" and "plagued with problems from the start"... or even my absolute favourite "started principal production without a finished script".

It's this generations Meet the Robinsons (also written by Hall), Home on the Range, Dinosaur, Oliver and Company or The Black Cauldron. A movie that in about 5 years, if someone mentions it, you'll say "Oh, I totally don't remember that one... are you sure that was Disney?". Or you'll just shake your head and say "nah, never seen it", even if you did.

It's instantly forgettable.

The usual caveats apply. The imagery of the movie is stunning. As always. It's Disney Animation. Of course it's stunning. But it's candy floss and marshmallow... it's empty calories with no substance. None of it made me go "wow" because it's either weird and off-putting images or else I was staring at the movie with a confused look on my face going "but why?".

So, for the first time ever in the history of the blog, I'm introducing a new rating. Which hopefully I will never have to use again, because hopefully I won't encounter something like this again.

This isn't a real movie. It's an exercise in pretty images with nothing behind it.

yani's rating: Whut? electric brussel sprouts out of 5

movies: encanto

Well... Encanto...

This was a movie I... didn't see coming. I mean, I knew that it was a movie and I knew that it was coming out, and I'd heard good things. But I had no idea what the hell this movie was. Because I don't do trailers anymore, and I prefer going into a movie knowing nothing about it.

And thus, we have situations like Encanto. Where knowing nothing about a movie let's it hit me like a ten-ton truck.

If you haven't seen anything about the movie, but generally like Disney movies, I'd say, go and see it.

Encanto is another Disney movie in an developing list that takes on a different culture and sets it's story deep within that culture. See also Raya and Moana. 

But this feels more successful than either of those, even though I liked Moana very much. And like Moana, this movie has a number of Lin-Manuel Miranda songs throughout, but more on that later.

At it's core though, Encanto is the story of a family. And what that means, both for good and for bad. It's a very special extended family with a set of gifts, but a family none-the-less. The interesting part comes in because it's a Latinx family, who live in a wonderful house, in a non-specific timeframe, in an isolated rural village location in Columbia. It's also great that the movie's cast is predominantly Latinx and a number of them also reprised their roles in the Spanish language dub of the movie, which is nice.

But maybe 90% of the movie takes place in, or very close to that house. They also manage to give the house something of a personality or at least set it apart from other... magical buildings. Plus there are only a handful of other characters with speaking roles or who affect the plot in any significant way.

The movie is visually... lush. There honestly isn't any other word for how beautiful this movie looks. I know that's generally my go-to description of any new Disney animated movie, but this one is set in a colourful house in a jungle location with flowers and bright costumes and magic and colours everywhere.

The movement of the characters, especially when people move to the music without seemingly meaning to or just dance, are beautiful. They're fluid and have weight and feel real. 

It also has some great songs, one of which, "Surface Pressure" is my favourite of the movie, and something of an earworm that has been bouncing around in my head since... well, not since last night, because I watched it again this morning, but it's certainly catchy.

However... here we get to one of a couple of very minor complaints that I have about the movie.

The first of which is that Lin-Manuel Miranda is amazing at writing songs that move the story along and that focus on character and emotion and what's happening in the scene. What I feel like he's pretty bad at is writing a song you can sing along to. 

None of these songs are "Be Our Guest" or "Never Had A Friend Like Me" or "Under the Sea" or "Hakuna Matata".... and not a single one of them are "I'll Make A Man Out Of You". These are lyrically dense songs that work within the confines of the movie, but I very much doubt will endure or find a life outside of the movie.

And as much as I loved the Moana soundtrack (I bought it on CD after all), there are at least a couple of songs on there that are more generically Disney songs (specifically "How Far I'll Go")... this feels like they just let him go full Lin-Manuel. Which is great, but, like I said, these songs won't endure. Or show up as karaoke songs in ten years times or be a thing you randomly quote if somebody happens to accidentally say a line from.

The other complaint is something of a... "good problem to have" I guess. I like a lot of the characters, both visually and for their part in the story... but... there may be too many of them. Because there are character who don't get enough screen time or don't get fleshed out in any significant way. And I really wish they did. 

It's better than having too few characters who don't get fleshed out, but it's still a problem. There needed to be a lot of characters to get an authentic extended family feel, I get that... but at the same time some of the characters don't get much of a personality beyond the singular character traits outlined for them in the opening number of the movie. Too much of a good thing maybe.

It feels like they came up with some great ideas for individual gifts but were loathe to lose any.

Also... beyond being nice... I'm not completely sure that our main character has a full personality. It works within the context of the movie, because we get enough about her for you to go along with her for the movie and what she has to do within it... but beyond "nice" and "the main character", her personality seems to be "wants to fix the thing that is wrong". And yes, the thing everyone wants to point out is that she's the first female protagonist in a Disney movie who wears glasses. Which is... great, I guess, but it's still not a personality. 

I really like her, don't get me wrong. But I'm damned if I can actually come up with a personality trait for her beyond "protagonist". She loves her family and she works out what's wrong at the end of the movie and why, but only because she's following a completely different plot thread and kind of stumbles on the answer by accident.

Which is fine and good and adequate for a family movie. But, on reflection, a lot of the characters are fairly thinly realised.

Like I said though, it still works for me.

I also knew where the plot was (mostly) going, from early on, but I enjoyed the journey of getting there. And it made me cry at the end. Which is really where the ten-ton truck comes in. Maybe a train is a better analogy... I saw it coming on the tracks, I didn't want to get out of the way, and it ran completely over me.

yani's rating: 4 butterflies out of 5

movies: cruella

Let me start this review of Cruella by setting the tone for a lot of what is to follow.

Fuck. This. Movie.

Not the whole, entire movie. But very, very specifically fuck Disney for making another "villain with a tragic backstory" movie and especially fuck the screenplay writers, Dana Fox and Tony McNamara... and Aline Brosh McKenna, Kelly Marcel and Steve Zissis, who all have a story credit.

Fuck all y'all for thinking that "clumsy" is a personality trait. In fact, fuck you for putting Roger in this movie AT ALL. He does not need to be in this movie. He is pointless in this movie. I know this because you had to make him a lawyer in order to shoehorn him into this dumpster fire of a movie. He's only there because you were going down a checklist of 101 Dalmatian references and needed to check them all off. No you don't. He shouldn't be in the movie, and if you absolutely insist he needs to be there, then he should have a personality beyond "clumsy".

Fuck you for the late second act reveal about Estella/Cruella's parentage. I was like... "nah, they won't be THAT stupid and obvious... that makes no sense"... and yet, 45 minutes later... there we are, stupid, obvious and stealing liberally from the beginning of Snow White.

And especially fuck you for the inclusion of so many fucking dogs in this movie and their place in Estella/Cruella's life, and especially that she ends up the owner of three Dalmatian "attack dogs". I mean, Wink the chihuahua (played by Bluebell) is a sweet cinnamon roll and must be protected. But otherwise, fuck you.

Fuck you for having Estella/Cruella continually TALK TO A FOUNTAIN. It's a FOUNTAIN. I feel like it was actually her mother's grave at some point in the script, then things changed and now it's a fountain.

Most of all though, fuck you for that scene at the very end of the movie where it's revealed that Cruella... CRUELLA DE VIL... the notorious homicidal puppy killer... if people only know two things about Cruella, they know she has black and white hair and that she MURDERS PUPPIES. That Cruella, is the one who gave Pongo and Perdita to Roger and Anita. You know, the main characters from 101 Dalmatians.

Fuck you so especially hard for that one.

Yes, for the pedants in the room, I know that at no point in the original book, the 1960's animated movie, the 1990's live action movie or it's 2000's sequel does Cruella ever actually kill a puppy. Because they are entertainment for children, and that's not going to fly. I am aware. I am also hyperbolic.

And yes, I don't much care about spoilers for this movie. Firstly, it's been out a while and secondly, the plot is bad. It's just bad. 

You cannot make a movie about a person who's defining trait is "wanted to kill a bunch of puppies" and then try and make her sympathetic. It just doesn't work. Like Maleficent before her... this movie should be filed in the dictionary under "tonal whiplash". 

If they had tried to make this movie about Cruella's slow descent into "madness", from victim to villain, maybe that could have worked. But they wanted to make her sympathetic. Which is where the plethora of writers are to blame. We have parts of the movie where she's arch and over the top and making plans and being crazy. But then next minute she's apologising or repenting or explaining herself to Jasper and Horace.

That brings us back to that "101 checklist"... it has Jasper and Horace on it. Jasper and Horace, who are, according to the wiki of the animated version, "two burglars hired by Cruella". And then turn them into Estella/Cruella's trusted friends... in fact she calls them "family" at one point. No. They don't need to be in this movie.

It's completely unsurprising to me that story writer McKenna wrote The Devil Wears Prada script... this movie steals from that movie liberally and consistently. In fact, the whole central core of the story of Estella/Cruella and the Baroness is just the 1970's variation of that story. The fact that screenwriter Fox has written a LOT of number of lackluster rom-coms also doesn't surprise me... often times "clumsy" is a personality trait in those movies too. And the fact that Marcel was a writer on Fifty Shades of Grey, Venom and Saving Mr Banks tells me that maybe she's the person you call in when your script has gone off the rails and you need to bring it back.

Looking at the writing team and their past credits, it's no wonder this movie feels... what's the term we use now instead of schizophrenic... that. That in spades. In any case, this movie doesn't have one strong voice. It has a lot of ideas, many of which don't gel with the others.

Also, while I'm laying the boot in... fuck the music in this movie. 

Because if I am actually noticing the amount of music they're playing, and it's getting on my nerves, we're into a bad place. I am notorious for not noticing the music a lot of the time, so this is just egregious.

It approaches the realms of the first Suicide Squad movie and it's use of music (too much, too often, too obvious)... but at the same time, a lot of it is... kinda bad. I say this because I've been listening to the overly extensive soundtrack while writing this. Yes, there's a lot of cool 60's and 70's songs here, but there's also some hot, hot garbage. Or possibly they just crap up the versions they're using, I'm not completely sure. 

They really needed to have cut down the list of songs by at least two thirds. 

However.

Having said all of that... and having ranted about this movie a number of times both last night and earlier today... about how bad the writing/story is, about how the character motivations and ideas are a mess, about the fact that they needed to fuck off the 101 Dalmatians checklist...

I don't... hate this movie. 

Oh, I loathe large parts of it, don't get me wrong. However, there are parts of it that are exactly in both my ballpark and directly up my alley.

First and foremost. Ms Jenny Bevan, costume designer extraordinaire, step forward.

You might recognise Ms Bevan from her previous work on Sherlock Holmes, The King's Speech and Mad Max: Fury Road... the latter she won an Oscar for... so we're in good hands here.

The costumes in this movie are exceptional. And I mean ALL of the costumes, not just Cruella's showy outfits or the Baroness's couture gowns... everything. The men's suits have that very specific 70's cut and the men, especially those who work for the Baroness, look amazing.

And I need to give both Bevan and assistant costume designer Sheara Abrahams (who was responsible for Jasper and Horaces costumes according to an interview I read) a specific shout out for the outfit the preteen Jasper (Ziggy Gardner) wears... it's on screen for maybe two minutes... and I loved everything about it.

Basically every time we went to a new scene and there were new costumes, I was living for it all.

Add to that the hair and makeup departments, who do exceptional work with every single person on screen. Those horrific but accurate 70's haircuts... so many 70's haircuts.

Likewise Fiona Crombie and Martin Foley as the production designer and art director respectively... gorgeous work.

Everything visual about this movie is stunningly gorgeous.

And then we have the Emmas. Ms Stone as Estella/Cruella and Ms Thompson as The Baroness do amazing work with what they were given. They are clearly having the best time, and when Stone really gets to let loose as the titular character it's great. But the movie doesn't let her do that nearly enough. Thompson is an evil bitch throughout and I loved every second of it.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't call out Andrew Leung as The Baroness's secretary, Jeffrey, who doesn't get much to do plot-wise (and has maybe a dozen lines, maybe of which are variations of "she wants to see you, now"), but is very often in the background of scenes, and acting his little heart out. And he's both pretty and amusing.

With all that said and done, at the end of the day, fuck you movie. You had moments, you could have been good, you were very pretty... but fuck you.

yani's rating: 2 golden chrysalises out of 5

movies: raya and the last dragon

It has been 1 year, 2 months, 21 days (or 449 days) since the last time I set foot in a movie theatre.

And while it feels like no time has passed, it also feels like it's been forever.

Which is just to give some general context to my experience with Raya and the Last Dragon.

As is my way of approaching movies for the last few years, I went into this knowing nothing. Not having seen any trailers, not reading anything. Nothing. No, that's a lie. I saw two seconds of trailer footage that was about an inch tall, when I hovered over a YouTube video thumbnail that didn't seem to be about this movie at all. Oh, and I saw at least one of the posters. But that was it. I'm not even sure that I'd seen the full dragon design.

So I didn't really have any expectations beyond the general Disneyness of it all. And knowing that it I was fairly certain that it would have both Raya and the last dragon.

And... I'm still not sure how I feel about it.

Oh, it was gorgeous. The world, the lighting, the hair and clothing textures, the water effects. Everything. There were moments I was legitimately unsure whether some of the establishing landscape shots were either partially a model or real actual landscape photography. That's how good we're talking. Unable to tell CGI from reality good.

And the clothing... especially on one of the characters, where you could see the weave on the cloth of her outfit, and I just knew how that it would feel if I touched it.

But that's my general refrain at every new Disney or Pixar movie. The technology has always come along in great leaps and bounds and, as is expected, totally blew my hair back.

I also really loved the ideas and design that went into the world. It was very much based around South East Asia... Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, which I absolutely wasn't expecting. And it made for an interesting "Asian dragon story" without being China or Japan. I have no doubt that somewhere, someone who watched this movie is already writing up a RPG version of the world. Because it's absolutely perfect for that. There's very much an "Avatar The Last Airbender" vibe to the world of Raya. And I dug it.

And I also dug Raya, a flawed hero at times, but one who can definitely kick your ass all day long.

I will also say that the resolution of the movie didn't go the way I expected it to. It took a turn, but one that I appreciate, and one that made sense within the world of the movie.

But... and there sadly is a but... I don't quite know what the problem with it was and why it didn't completely grab me. I cried more at the wonderful, wonderful short, Us Again, which was AMAZING, than I did at Raya.

It may have been the pure Disney of it all. The sugar coating, the urge to dip into the wacky bucket. As opposed to the same kind of story from Pixar. Which would have had me bawling my eyes out, I'm sure.

It maybe have been that there were four directors (well, two directors and two others listed as "co-directors", whatever that means), or the fact that it had two screenplay writers and eight "story by" writers (two of whom were the same as the screenplay writers).

Especially when you compare it to something like Onward which has one director who was also one of three writers who all had a "story by" credit.

This just... had too much going on.

And I didn't like the dragon, or at least not in the way I wanted to. I'm sorry, I just didn't. The design was fine... and yes, she had her moments, and there were times I didn't mind her. But overall... I wasn't feeling it. And while I kept thinking that I recognised Awkwafina's voice, I don't know how I could have, only having ever seen her in Ocean's Eight. It's more that they were trying too hard to go for a Genie from Aladdin vibe I think. It wasn't quite that obvious, but I feel like Awkwafina did some improvising and they left it in. If it wasn't that, they the dragon was, in parts, not the most well written.

There were also "wacky characters for the sake of being wacky" as I mentioned, but which don't make any logical sense if you think about it for more than about eight seconds.

The world was going for a Last Airbender "weird animal" vibe but only a little bit (I can only think of... four animals in total, two of which are on this version of the poster)... it was like they said "well, we have these animals in the story already, we should put some animals in the world" and then added one. And it was set in a world that is like part of our world, but not... with people who are divided very neatly into different tribes who all live in geographically different parts of the land.

There were also story threads that felt like they should have gone... somewhere... but didn't. And a flashback introduction that I felt just went on entirely too long. I mean, I got the point of it (oh, and take a drink for another absent Disney Mother), fairly quickly, it just seemed to take too long to get to the place that seemed like the foregone conclusion.

And I also disliked that there aren't really repercussions to the actions of certain characters. Well, a certain character. Not having the movie calling that out, in the context of the movie, stuck out to me like a sore thumb. And yes, that wasn't the theme or moral of the movie, but still... it stood out to me.

I did appreciate that they clearly (like in Moana before it) had a group of experts they went to about the region they were basing their world on... it had a specific name in the credits, "story and cultural consultants" I think, and there were a number of names listed, which is always good.

The other thing that stood out to me about the credits was a message which read:

The making of this movie from over 400 individual homes was completely unprecedented, and relied entirely on the talent, ingenuity, and dedication of everyone at Walt Disney Animation Studios. The filmmakers would like to thank them for their tireless hard work, good humor, and most of all patience... with our inability to properly use the internet. (Dude, you're still on mute.)

Which makes perfect sense when you think about it, but was something I hadn't even considered. The fact that they made this, essentially, from home. I mean, I'm sure that a lot of the storyboarding and maybe a first animatic, maybe the temp voices, has been done by March last year, but just the fact that they, potentially, took their work computers home and worked on this remotely for almost a year is kind of mind blowing.

yani's rating: 3 crystal shards out of 5

movies: ralph breaks the internet

What do you do six years after you make a Disney movie about gaming?

Why, you take on the internet of course... so what Wreck it Ralph did for gaming, Ralph Breaks the Internet does for 2018 internet culture.

Or the Disney-fied version of it anyway.

This does feel at times like it's hitting some of the same story themes that the first movie touched on six years ago, but overall it does feel like a more mature story, in a completely Disney way, obviously.

At it's heart, this movie is about growing up and realising that if you love something, you can set it free. But also that it's okay to want to want to stay behind.

Along the way, there's a lot of references to the internet that are going to go flying over the heads of very small children, but at the same time, they do get the message out there that you never read the comments, which is good. Also, Disney princesses... a lot of Disney princesses.

I will say, without spoilers, that I very much appreciated the return of the princesses at the end of the movie, tonally it was just right.

It will be interesting to watch these two movies back to back, given that the first one is beautifully rendered and full of colour and great visuals... but with this much time having passed, I did notice details in this movie I don't remember from the first one... the patch on the back of Ralph's overalls for example... but the lighting, effects and rendering of "the internet" are all amazing.

It's a shame in some ways that there weren't more of Felix and Calhoun this time around. I get it, they've been happily married for the last six years and having them there would have pulled focus from the Ralph and Vanellope story. There is a nice set up and payoff with them at the beginning and end of the movie though.

Of the new characters, princesses notwithstanding, it's a toss up between Taraji P. Henson as Yesss (thankfully not Yasss) and Gal Gadot as Shank... both strong female characters (and in Shank's case, in a role that would probably be male in most video games) but in very different ways.

Just touching on Shank for a minute... or more on Shank's game... and mild spoilers follow. So the world is just going to be cool with having essentially a seven year old girl showing up as a character in a violent online car game? Nobody is going to have a massive internet outcry? Yeah, I think they just might. It's a completely minor thing, and I'm not even bothered, but it's the one moment that threw me out of the movie to be honest.

I will also say that it's one of the few Disney/Pixar movies (this, and the first one are both Disney movies, but honestly feels like they should have been the other side of the street) that is going to age horribly. Yeah, they mostly stayed away from anything on the internet that wasn't one of the larger names, but still, there's going to come a point when things in the movie aren't things that exist any more.

But that's the price you pay for putting internet things in your movie I guess (and the major plot items are mostly made-up companies).

It's a good movie overall though... not top tier for Disney stuff, but lots of fun, especially for people like me who spend too much of their time on the internet.

Oh, and this is definitely a movie that you want/need to stay all the way through the absurdly long credit sequence... you can thank me later.

yani's rating: 3 steering wheels out of 5

movies: moana

Disney's latest, Moana, is truly beautiful.

It also, unsurprisingly given it's directing and writing pedigree, feels properly old-school Disney (while still being all kinds of modern and shiny). Ron Clements and John Musker also directed and had writing credits on The Princess and the Frog, Treasure Planet, Hercules, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid and The Great Mouse Detective.

Not to mention Don Hall and Chris Williams who co-directed Big Hero 6 (amongst a bunch of other writing and directing credits between them).

And add to that the current superstar of the musical theatre world, Lin-Manuel Miranda (of Hamilton fame for anyone who's been living on an island in the middle of the Pacific... although he started work on this film before Hamilton blew up into the phenomenon it is currently) wrote all the songs along with "South Pacific fusion" musician, Opetaia Foa'i. I actually have an online version of the soundtrack on shuffle in the background while I'm writing this and while I'm not usually a music guy (although I do love me a good musical), this is really, really lovely... and I'm pretty sure I'm probably going to end up going and getting the album before the week is out.

Normally I wouldn't drill this much into a Disney movie's lineage but this one has some seriously talented people behind it.

It's also stunningly, stunningly beautiful.

From the hair to the water (oh my god, the water... ALL the water... and the wet hair... so much wet hair), to the flora... and just the way the characters, Moana especially, move and pose... she's essentially a fully flesh and blood character.

Clearly Disney have taken everything they've learned from 2 Finding Nemo/Dory movies over at Pixar and really gone to work on the water in Moana. I'm also guessing that work on Tangled didn't hurt when it came to hair technology.

It also feels like an incredibly accurate and respectful interpretation of Polynesian culture... I'm sure they've taken bits from different places and mixed them together, in the usual Disney fashion. But a little bit like (my all-time favourite Disney movie) Lilo and Stitch took the Hawaiian culture, especially hula dancing, very seriously within their story, Moana appears to treat the traditional elements both seriously and respectfully.

Interestingly, because Polynesian covers such a wide area (essentially a big triangle between Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island), the voice cast includes people of Hawaiian, Maori, Samoan descent... which is awesome.

This is also a movie with no romantic sub-plot... if anything, Moana is really an action/adventure movie. The plot is simple (and very Disney)... girl with a path laid out for her by other people feels the tug of the outside world/her own path... follows her path, learns who she really is and has an amazing adventure. In her case the adventure includes sailing across the ocean, finding a demi-god and returning the heart to a goddess.

Oh, and I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout-out to both Rachel House and Michael Woodside as the voice and animator respectively of Gramma Tala, Moana's grandmother and self proclaimed "village crazy lady". She's amazing, and probably my favourite character in the whole movie.

And Auli'i Cravalho, who was only 14 when she was cast, does a fantastic job as Moana.

yani's rating: 5 fishing hooks out of 5

movies: zootopia

Disney's latest offering is Zootopia, the tale of a rookie bunny cop and a con artist fox teaming up in the tradition of all good odd couple stories.

Judy, the bunny, is voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin, while Jason Bateman feels perfectly cast as Nick, the fox.

There isn't a whole lot of new ground covered as far as the plot is concerned... there's a mystery, the odd couple must come together to solve it... and find out they're better as a team. There's also a lot of "cop movie" clichés thrown in for good measure. And they even found space to make fun of Disney... there's a great jab at Frozen in there, and a funny reference to the "Zootopian" version of various Disney movies. Not to mention other movies (particularly The Godfather) and general pop culture references.

There's also some really subtle (or not, depending on how much you're looking for it), references to stereotyping, and basically racial profiling of people who are considered dangerous (or have been in the past). You can pretty much slot any ethnic or minority group into the story and still see the allegory.

As you would expect from a Disney movie, it looks amazing... from all the intricate detail of the fur on the animals, to just the fact that the world of Zootopia feels alive and full of movement and animals. I did appreciate the fact that they didn't go for the idea of "oh it's an animal city, all the buildings should be animal shaped or referenced" low hanging fruit. Sure, there's a number of natural world references throughout some of the buildings, but they're just beautiful buildings.

And the animals themselves are beautiful to look at... from the big luminous eyes, to the soft, petable looking fur all the way through to the personalities and animation... there's a lot to like about Zootopia's citizens.

One thing I don't really understand though it why they feel the need to shoehorn in "local content"... one of the characters is a newsreader... in the original version he's a moose and is voiced by a famous journalist, which is fine. But for the Australian version he's been replaced with a koala and is voiced by David Campbell (ie not a journalist). And in the Japanese version he's a racoon dog, the Chinese get a panda, the British version is a corgi and Brazil gets a jaguar. Seriously? Why? Anyway...

All in all it's a sweet movie, perhaps not their best from a story perspective, but a definite visual feast.

yani's rating: 3 carrot pens out of 5

movies: big hero 6

Before I get into talking about Big Hero 6, I have to spare a few words for the Disney short that preceded it, Feast.

Disney really is, to use the sporting analogy, hitting out of the park with their shorts... first Paperman, then The Blue Umbrella, now Feast. A simple story of a man and his dog... and food. Once again it has essentially no words, it's all played through the dog and his reactions... and it's GORGEOUS! And because I'm a big softy, I did get all choked up during it, especially at the end.

But, now on to the main event.

I won't lie... Disney had me early with this movie... they had me at the production design of San Fransokyo, a hybrid alternative universe combination of San Francisco and Toyko. They had me as soon as the older brother, Tadashi Hamada (voiced by Daniel Henney) showed up (yes, cue a new Disney crush) and the first time Baymax inflated I just threw in the towel.

This is also one of those movies that is just crammed to bursting point with little hidden Easter eggs, especially superhero and those of the Japanese robot persuasion, but they're not obnoxious, they're just layered into the background.

It's also amazing how much personality they can imbue Baymax with given that he's a big puffy marshmallow with just eyes and the amazing voice of Scott Adsit to convey warmth and sweetness.

The plot is fairly standard origin story stuff, avenging a wrong takes a dark turn and using what you're good at and the tech at your disposal to become a hero. And there were a couple of minor, minor things that bugged me about the story (mild spoilers... if Hiro made the thought powered controller that the bad guy stole from him, why can't he make a new one or make something that will block the signal... it wouldn't bother me so much if they'd addressed it, but it seemed so damn obvious and yet, nothing).

Also the comic relief character of Fred kinda got on my nerves a bit (T.J. Miller plays a similarly "annoying" character in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise)... although the post credit scene with him almost makes up for it. But I liked that in at least some small way, they played the other four members of the Six somewhat against type, and although there isn't a lot of time for major character development, they still managed to make them all distinct, rounded characters who make sense within the world.

But the heart of this movie are the relationships between Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter), Tadashi and Baymax. And it's where the movie shines brightest.

yani's rating: 4 personal healthcare companions out of 5

movies: frozen

I know there have been a few Disney movies in the last few years that have contained singing, but Frozen is the first one in a good long while that's structured like a musical... and to be honest I'm not sure how I feel about it.

Don't get me wrong, the movie is absolutely gorgeous to look at (and I would imagine doubly so in 3D) and the major relationship at the heart of the movie (quite literally) is between two sisters, which while it isn't a first for Disney (Lilo and Stitch takes that honour), it's a very different kind of relationship.

However the portions of the movie where the characters were half-singing what probably should have been straight dialogue (or else a full blown song) bugged me.

It's a pet hate of mine... if you're going to do a musical, do a musical properly. Have a song, start the song, move the character development or plot along as required with the song, stop singing the song, move on with actual dialogue... not this namby pamby speak-singing half a song thing that it seems like the majority of modern musicals go in for.

And venturing a little into spoiler territory, I also had a bit of an issue with the song the character of Elsa sings after she runs away from the castle and creates an ice palace in the wilderness... not the song itself, that was fine, but the fact that in the space of this one song she goes from a character who has lived her entire life being fearful of her powers, thinking there's something wrong with her because of them and repressing both her power and her emotions. And in the space of one walk up a mountain and one song she goes from that to revelling in her powers. It just didn't sit right with me.

Yes it's supposed to be a positive, uplifting song, but I just couldn't see someone that emotionally damaged essentially fixing herself in a couple of minutes.

I will say that overall the story held more than a few surprises... I don't know the original story, The Snow Queen, that the movie is (loosely, I'm guessing) based on, so I didn't really see any of the twists and turns coming... well other than the fact that the two leads were going to fall in love, that's pretty much a given.

And I can't help thinking the trolls were hideously underused... and only really in the movie because the original story had trolls... the same role could have easily have been filled by the old magical woman in the woods, but maybe they didn't want to do that after Brave (or to a lesser degree, Tangled).

Speaking of the leads, it was nice to hear one of my favourite actresses, Kristen Bell, as Princess Anna, but it was also nice that, to me at least, the rest of the cast were either mostly unrecognisable or else relatively unknown.

The visual style of the movie was incredibly beautiful, from the design of the town and the costumes, through to the ice and snow effects... once again, I can only imagine that they would be even more impressive in 3D.

It's also nice that Disney has finally had a female director (although technically Jennifer Lee does share a co-director credit with Chris Buck) and the first female screenwriter since Beauty and the Beast... especially on a story that is based around a female relationship.

yani's rating: 3 carrot noses out of 5

movies: planes

First Pixar brought us Cars, then came Cars 2... and now we have Planes.

In some ways it's the logical progression... especially after a plane character showed up in the second Cars movie. Given that, I kind of assume that if there's another spin off, it will probably be "Ships" (or possibly "Boats").

But taking to the skies in Planes definitely allows for some visually interesting new characters to this world.

Going in, I assumed that this was a Pixar movie... it's set in the world of Cars, which came out of Pixar, but it turns out it's actually from DisneyToon Studios who seem to be responsible for the majority of Disney's direct-to-video movies... and it actually explains quite a lot. Although John Lasseter had a hand in this movie, it doesnt' have the touch of Pixar magic.

The story is about a cropdusting plane with a fear of heights who competes in a famous around-the-world aerial race... but I have to say that the story was possibly the weakest part of the movie. It wasn't predictable like the first Cars movie, but it also wasn't overly fleshed out or strong.

To be honest I didn't feel like the characters were given enough time to really come together... in a lot of ways it's almost a rehash of Cars with Dusty Crophopper in the Lightning McQueen role, and a number of other parallel roles for the other characters... even down to the fact that the "villains" from both movies have a similar green, yellow and orange colour scheme.

I did find myself sitting there wondering what kind of aircraft the plane characters were based on though... particularly the character of Ishani, the Indian race contestant... who it turns out is based on the AeroCanard FG kit aircraft... which is a very visually distinctive looking plane. All of the planes have a really great look to be honest, although in a lot of ways it was a visual sensibility that I wished they'd pushed further.

One of my favourite things about Cars 2 was the fact that when they travelled to Japan, France, Italy and England, each of the cities was given a car themed makeover... and in the first movie a lot of the landscape around Radiator Springs was made to look like cars or car parts. And that was decidedly lacking in this movie.

I don't know if they didn't want to confuse things by having the main characters all be planes and then having car themed landmarks, but it definitely stood out to me as something that was lacking. Doubly so given the fact that they visit the Taj Mahal at one point and the "car'ed" version of that already showed up in the end credits for the second movie, but it doesn't look anything like that this time around.

The other thing that I noticed was an overall lack of cars in the world of Planes. Yes, there are a few, but the majority of the ground vehicles are the little forklifts (based on Guido from the first movie)... which again struck me as strange... whether it was to not let the planes be overshadowed by different types of cars or literally so that they were smaller than the planes, I'm not sure... I just know it was something that called attention to itself.

Having said all of that, it's not a bad movie. As always with anything that comes out of Pixar, it's visually gorgeous... from the beautiful look of the cars to the really gorgeous landscapes, it's a treat to watch.

It's definitely not as good as the second Cars movie, and even though the story felt fresher than the original Cars, it still wasn't completely up to the Pixar standard.

yani's rating: 1 tailwind out of 5

movies: wreck-it ralph

Before I talk about the main feature I need to say a few words about the short that precedes it...

Both Disney and Pixar do their best work in any of their short features that include no dialogue. Paperman is, without doubt, the best example of this, and unquestionably the best Disney short I've ever seen.

It's the story of love at first sight and a missed connection, and presented almost entirely in black and white (with a very small amount of red that represents a plot point).

And it just got to me... it's so lovely and so sweet and so artfully presented and so surprising that it really touched me.

Which brings us to Wreck-It Ralph.

One of the things I love about the way the movie was put together is that they contacted a range of video game companies and actually have real game characters featured. There's Sonic, Pac Man, Bowser from Super Mario Brothers, even all the way back to Pong. It makes the world of Ralph and his friends feel much more real.

And each of the game worlds, no matter how simple or 8-Bit their video games might be, are all wonderfully rendered. I do kind of wish we'd seem a little more of the second game world, the Starship Troopers/Halo style game, Hero's Duty... it's only really featured long enough to be a plot point before the story moves on, but I suppose spending too much time there would have made the game feel a lot darker.

The location of the majority of the movie, the descriptively titled Sugar Rush, features exactly what you would expect from a game with a title like that... everything is chocolate and cream and sugar and every manner of sweet treat you can imagine. It's a great world that doesn't feel confined though... there's a range of locations, all of which are wonderfully detailed.

What I also enjoyed was some of the really subtle animations, especially with the people in Ralph's game... because they're 8-Bit characters their animation is jerky and while both Felix and Ralph (the hero and villain) have fluid animation, the other characters have had their "in between" animation removed, so even though they're beautifully rendered they still have this great rapid, jerky movement that actually works really well.

The story is about what you would expect... but I think almost all animated movies follow a fairly standard pattern, but that's okay, it's an archetypal story that is given an interesting interpretation here.

The four main cast members, John C. Reilly as Ralph, Jack McBrayer as Felix, Jane Lynch as Calhoun and Sarah Silverman as Vanellope all do an excellent job... of course Lynch will probably always be typecast as that gruff acerbic character she plays in Glee and other things... but her voice suits the Hero's Duty character perfectly. Plus it's nice to see a main character from a game like that be a woman.

Reilly has the perfect gruff tone to his voice for this giant, ham handed character and while I'm aware of Silverman and McBrayer I'm not really familiar with their work, but their voices seemed to fit their respective characters.

I also enjoyed the credit sequence, which is all presented as though its 8-Bit graphics and works perfectly. There's also a great "glitch" over the Disney end logo screen that surprised both me and the woman who was waiting to clean the cinema.

yani's rating: 3 first person shooters out of 5

movies: bolt

Three-D movies give me a headache... and I mean that literally. I don't know if it's because I have different focal ranges in each of my eyes (I can't remember which one is weaker... the left one I suspect), or what it is, but any time I've ever seen anything in 3D I've ended up with a vague headache.

The new "Real 3D" process is better than the old "blue and red" one, but not perfect.

So, obviously we went to see Bolt this afternoon... and it should also be obvious given my little lead-in, that we went to see the 3D version.

One thing that's definitely a big fat plus about going to see a 3D movie is that there aren't all the annoying ads beforehand, they just skip straight to the trailers (one of which was the teaser trailer for the new Pixar movie, Up... I think I'm going to have to risk the headache and go and see that one in 3D when it comes out... totally looks like it'll be worth it), and then MOVIE.

Now, I know this is usually the place where I rave about how GAWJUS the rendering is in whatever the CG movie of the moment is... and I will do that in a second, but I just need to add a caveat (caveat lector in fact) to my ravings. This movie (as I've mentioned about 100 times so far) was in 3D... so I'm not sure how much of the OMGing about the renders and texture I could be doing is due to the 3D and how much is just good CG. Okay, now that that is out of the way...

The movie is absolutely STUNNING... between the pettably soft fur on Bolt (both he and Mittens the cat are almost criminally cute to be honest), to grass, pigeon feathers and a plastic hamster ball and, well, pretty much everything... it's, in a word, lush. And when you add on top of that the pretty much flawless 3D work, it's one damn fine looking movie. Seriously, my hat goes off to everybody involved from that whole 3D, texture, lighting, render department.

And I'm guessing that those of you familiar with my movie reviews are sensing a "but" hovering around in the air.

There really isn't one though... okay, there kind of is, however it's only a teeny teeny tiny one...

Like any number of other kid's movies (and, if I'm being honest, a large proportion of Disney movies), the plot is fairly predictable (think any one of about a million buddy/road movies where Character X needs to get back to his beloved Character Y)... although I'll be honest, I think I was so caught up in how gorgeous the whole thing looked and that it was all three dimensional and whatnot, that unlike previous animated movies I didn't really stop and think about where the story was going to go, I just let it happen.

On the upside, it didn't actually make me cry, which is always a bonus (sniffling in a G rated movie is never a good look).

I will admit to a slight degree of confusion about how Bolt got from LA to New York at the beginning of the movie... Ma seems to think he was transported in a crate, I don't remember seeing any "crate related journey montage", so it will be interesting to see it again later and work out what the hell happened.

It's also one of the few movies with celebrity voices where I didn't really stop and analyse who was doing what voice and nobody's voice really pulled me out of the moment (okay, Malcolm McDowell as Dr Calico did a tiny bit, but that was only because I couldn't work out who the hell it was until the end of the movie)... even John Travolta as Bolt only made me go "oh yeah, Travolta" for a split second when Bolt first speaks, and then I never really thought about it again.

While I haven't really seen very many movies in 3D (specifically ones that were designed to be shown in 3D rather than having 3D thrust upon them after the fact), I did find myself wondering at several points throughout the movie whether it would be quite as interesting and engaging a movie in regular-D. Supposedly it was the "first Disney animated feature conceived and produced in 3-D", but I never felt like it had to fall back on the same tired old bag of tricks that the live action 3D movies seem to be hauling out (from what I've seen and read anyway)... there's never anything specifically flying at your face or racing towards camera for no good reason other than 3D... which is good, and the live action folks should take note... just make a good movie, make it in 3D and the people will come anyway.

yani's rating: 3 New York pigeons out of 5

movies: chicken little

What do you do when you've seen all the good movies that are out?

You scrape the bottom of the barrel...

This was how we wound up at Chicken Little tonight.

I kind of expected it to pretty much suck... and it did exceed my expectations, it didn't suck anywhere near as much as I thought it was going to.

But if this was supposed to be Disney's big foray into CG Animation, Pixar have NOTHING to worry about... the CG was pretty good throughout (even if they did get a little lazy with certain background characters and just repeat multiple versions), but the story... well, what there was of it... was pretty much all over the place, and very, very light on... when it wasn't trying to be overly sappy.

Thankfully at only 81 minutes you don't really get a chance to be that worried that its all fluff.

I'm kinda sweet on Zach Braff anyway, and his voice as Chicken Little was just right, that real geeky edge he has... but seriously, the star of the show was Fish Out of Water (the "voice" of whom was performed by one of the editors vocalising through a tube into a water cooler tank full of water)... he stole just about every scene he was in, and was very, very similar to South Park's Kenny (who happens to be my favourite character in that show too)... they're both orange, they both have their heads covered in things that makes it impossible to understand them, they can both be understood by other characters but not the audience, they're both pretty much ahead of the rest of the characters and they're both slightly cocky. The scene in the school gymnasium where Fish gets bored and starts doing origami just cracked me up.

All in all though, it's as light on laughs as it is on story. Most of the good stuff was included in the trailer, so I'd already seen all those jokes way too many times. The last five minutes or so was probably the funniest part of the movie (Fish and his origami notwithstanding).

yani's rating: 1 falling acorn out of 5