Incredibles 2 review

Nearly fifteen years have passed since Disney released Pixar’s "The Incredibles." The movie arrived just as the superhero film boom was heating up and it remains one of the best examples of the genre. Hype for a sequel maintained, even as Pixar further expanded their brand and gave some of their lesser properties multiple sequels of their own. Now with “Incredibles 2” finally here, we are at a different vantage point; the genre clichés and tropes that the first film was poking fun at are now used without irony by every studio who wants to stay competitive. “Incredibles 2,” while perfectly enjoyable and a worthy successor of its original is both too little too late to the party and unfairly judged against a type of filmmaking it helped to foster.

This story picks up minutes from the point where the last film ended. After a battle with a villain called the Underminer, the authorities charge Mr. Incredible (Craig T. Nelson) and his family with illegally engaging in vigilantism. While away from their home, awaiting legislation, a wealthy philanthropist named Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk) and his techy sister Evelyn (Catherine Keener) approach the family with a proposition. Together, these two mysterious investors plan to reinstitute superhero legality by body-camming Mrs. Incredible/Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) and showing the public that she can save lives while keeping collateral damage to a minimum.  With Helen now away fighting for their futures, Bob is stuck at home helping their kids Dash and Violet with their school lives, as well as trying to maintain their unpredictably powerful baby Jack-Jack.

Whereas the first adventure with this family focused on the concept of the retired-superhero as a metaphor for post-war threatened masculinity, this film extends the metaphor now to American men of a certain age coming to terms with the wife working while they stay at home. Writer/Director Brad Bird certainly has his finger on the pulse of these classically American moments in time, as well as a fascination of pulp, science-fiction archetypes from the 50s and 60s, sprinkled with a dash of Ayn Randian objectivism by way of Alan Moore's dystopian deconstruction of the superhero myth within works such as "Watchmen." All of that is very interesting and gives this world a totemic universality that informs the relatable family concerns and the smaller-scale character work.  What's less interesting is the basic mechanics of this adventure when it comes to the nuts and bolts of its storytelling and way that it manages screen-time between the A and B plot

The mystery Helen solves involving a technological terrorist called the Screenslaver is disappointingly easy to solve and a bit tedious to follow as it's telegraphed from beat to beat. While the animation that goes into these high-octane action-sequences is beautifully rendered and the set-pieces themselves are designed with detail and care, it's difficult not to feel that in this go-around action is often supplanting story.  As far as Bob's adventures with the kids goes, the concept is a nice change of pace, but where Bird could have used these moments to deepen the characters and speak more specifically to Bob's frustrations as a sidelined super, we're treated instead to fluffy sit-com set-ups that only connect to the overarching narrative during the final act, when story is almost forced to dovetail.

While I might be a little hard on "Incredibles 2" I'm aware that the demographic for this film is young enough that these nuanced concerns will likely not register.  Plot contrivances aside, I still recommend this sequel for its achievement in action direction, its impressive animation and the characters I still like hanging out with, but when comparing this to the pillars of Pixar's output, including the movie's 2004 predecessor, the grading curve becomes steep--perhaps unfairly so.

Grade: B -

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2018

Kubo and the Two Strings review

Laika studios, the animation studio based in Portland Oregon, has built its brand recognition on a style of detail oriented and highly stylized stop-motion puppetry. Their features, “Coraline,” “ParaNorman,” and “The Boxtrolls,” have primarily catered to the same audience who followed “Coraline” director Henry Selick from Disney’s “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” which shares a similar gothy aesthetic. In contrast, Laika’s latest project “Kubo and the Two Strings” is less interested in introverted protagonists and macabre dark comedy and is more concerned with widening the scope and visual boundaries of their storytelling with an eastern-themed, mythic adventure.

The film interweaves an intricate story-within-a-story that purposely blurs the lines between depictions of imagination and actual magic. The movie follows the multi-faceted coming of age of Kubo (voiced by Art Parkinson), a young boy who lost an eye as an infant and who lives with his mother on the top of a Japanese mountain that overlooks a small village. His shut-in mother encourages him to mingle with the others during the daytime hours, but warns her son to return home before dark. While visiting, he relays the bits and pieces of his mother’s stories/memories for the townsfolk in the form of origami puppet shows, created and directed by the music of his rudimentary three-stringed guitar. One day after staying out too late, Kubo is visited by his mother’s evil sisters (voiced by Rooney Mara) who wish to claim him as their own. Their sudden arrival forces the boy into perusing an Odyssey to find three pieces of a magic armor. Once collected he hopes to destroy the evil Moon King; the mysterious and dark magician who’s most likely responsible for his mother’s sudden disappearance. In her place, Kubo is joined by an enchanted and overly-protective Monkey (Charlize Theron) and a charming Beetle samurai (Mathew McConaughey) with a lot of hard-headed courage.

Fans of Japanese entertainment will likely see in “Kubo” shades of the sensitive fantasies that Hayao Miazaki produced with Studio Gibli, as well the airy and patient pacing of Japan’s classic edo-period action cinema. Elements of the plot also recalls the structure and archetypal symbolism of “The Wizard of Oz.”

The animation exhibited here is by far the most ambitious and expansive work we’ve seen from Laika thus far, and the movie’s camera technique and its consideration of the frame allows for wider shots and wilder pans and zooms than previously implemented in their painstaking form of animation. On a technical level, It’s nearly impossible not to give into director Travis Knight’s vision, even if the ending is clumsy and screenplay’s vague mythology sometimes muddles its themes.

This story is interested in familial legacy, adopted communities, and what it’s like to grow up without a sense of personal history, while simultaneously trying to overcome an unwanted path set before you, but the film sometimes struggles in tying all of these ideas together in succinct and assured way. The team behind this project surly deserves much praise for creating a product for children that is thoughtful and contemplative while also beautifully crafted and creatively art-directed. With that said, admiration doesn’t always translate into a full immersion. “Kubo and the Two Strings” is a significant progression for this studio and it’s more than worthy of your attention but as a story it merely nudges the shoulders of greatness.

Grade: B

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal - Sep/2016

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Kubo and the Two Strings."

Boxtrolls review

                “Boxtrolls,” the most recent film by Laika Films (creators of “Coraline,” “9,” and “ParaNorman”) is a wonderfully detailed political parable, keeping the faith in painstaking stop-motion animation and model-work. It’s an ambitious effort both in practical execution and narrative scope, as it tries to connect many different levels of satire, storytelling and complicated subtext. However, while never failing to keep you dazzled visually, it loses some connection with the audience as it moves around quickly to keep all its plates spinning in the air.

                The story seems to take place in an alternate turn of the century Britain, where the currency is cheese and the economic classes are denoted by the colors of each individual’s hat—the poor wear red top hats, while the rich wear white. The ruler of the town of Cheesebridge, Lord Portley-Rind (Jarred Harris), is out of touch with the working class, concerned only for his cheese fortune, leaving his daughter Winnie (Elle Fanning) emotionally uncared for as well.  Unbeknownst to him, a treacherous worker named Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsly) plans to leverage his way up to the white-hat level by faking the disappearance of an inventor’s child, throwing him to the mysterious under-dwellers of the city known as the Boxtrolls. They’re peaceful enough, only wanting to take human trash to build neat-looking, gear-oriented devices out of it, but in order for Snatcher to lead a culture war, he needs a social boogieman to keep the town’s people afraid. He then makes a deal with the village leadership to capture and destroy all of the monstrous Boxtrolls, in exchange for his promotion. Twelve years later, the human boy (Isaac Hempstead Wright), affectionately renamed Eggs, has been raised to live as a Boxtroll, where he occasionally takes trips to the surface to steal garbage for the survival. After Snatcher arrests a member of his adopted family, with the help of the Lord’s precocious daughter, he ventures above-ground to uncover the grand conspiracy. 

                There’s a lot to admire in the details of this complicated world-building. The design of every individual character, as well as the city and environments they inhabit, is meticulously conceived; not only because of the difficult nature of stop-motion animation, but in the graphic consideration of every shot and every prop and every piece of clothing and how it all culminates to occupy every frame of the motion picture.  With its dynamic camera set-ups, moody lighting and fluid action set-pieces, this film constantly reminds you how far this art form has come since the days of Gumby. Technically speaking, Laika is miles ahead of their competition, providing a warm humanity and tactility that modern CGI animation just can’t replicate. 

                Unfortunately, the story isn’t as methodically executed. Though things move along fine enough and the allegories concerning class warfare, political deception, and the ‘othering’ of stigmatized minorities are dealt with in intelligent and entertaining ways, the emotional component lacks, largely because Eggs, our hero, is undefined and underwritten. He’s a boy raised as a monster and learns halfway through the film that he was adopted by a different species, and that’s a lot for any character to go through in 90 minutes, but in this film revelations are treated only as motivators to make him pass from one set piece to another. He’s too vague to root for, and though his partnership with the slightly more entertaining Winnie character is occasionally heartfelt, his role is primarily only fulfilling as the audience’s cypher through this world. Lucky for us, this world is pretty damn neat to look at—filled with creatures, drag-queens, and steam-punk, humanoid mech-tanks—and though the subtext should never drive the story, at least it keeps things interesting, even if we feel a little distant from (and occasionally bored with) our protagonist’s personal journey.

Grade: B-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Sep-2014

Mr. Peabody and Sherman review

 

            Based on a series of companion shorts aired during “The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show”, “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” is another sugar-high 3D animated spectacle, aimed at keeping your kids quiet, while giving you 90 uninterrupted minutes to balance your check book. Thing is, if you happen to be a in the same room while it’s on, than you might actually find yourself glancing up at the TV every now and then and slowly getting sucked into its serviceable storytelling.

         I say TV because unless your children are literally begging you to take them to see this, waiting four months is absolutely appropriate for the level of care and attention that was devoted to this production.  However, if you do end up dropping your moppets off at the movies as you enjoy a Cinnabon a few stores away, you can rest easy knowing that while this isn’t exactly an educationally focused look at history it at least has some aesthetic interest in its academic façade.

                Mr. Peabody (voiced by Ty Burrell) is a genius dog inventor with a Harvard PHD and an adopted human son named Sherman (Max Charles).  Peabody is an attentive and playful father but slightly emotionally detached, asking his son to refer to him by his full name and struggling to express simple feelings in a simple way.  When know-it-all Sherman gets into his first school fight with a girl named Penny ( voiced by Burrell’s ”Modern Family” co-star Ariel Winter) he is then threatened to be taken away from his doggy father by child protective services.  Later, during an over-prepared peacemaking dinner with the girl's family, Sherman gets the group into a boatload of trouble when he tries to prove his knowledge to Penny by taking her back in time in an orbital device called The Way-Back machine.  

                While this film jumps from one bouncy, brightly colored episode to another, we are made spectators of history, reformed as pop-culture mythology, where important figures such Marie Antoinette, King Tut, and Leonardo DaVinci become theme park plushies, only expressing broad gestures and flat parodies of their real-life cultural counterparts. Ultimately, in a “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” kind of way, this dumbing down of history is fine as long as it at least gives children an entry point into the rest of the (usually gruesome) truth.

                Surprisingly, what plays really well in this adaptation is the character stuff between Sherman and his father. The story is structured well enough that we care if they are legally separated, and the stakes we have in their emotional journey tends to activate the banality of the time-hopping set-pieces. The film boldly stands up for non-traditional modern families and when Sherman gets accused of acting like his father and is then forced to defend himself, swearing that he IS NOT a dog, we can imagine similar playground fights today, where a minority of children are forced to defend their parents when their classmates call them a different three letter word ending in G.

                Despite its clunky plotting , a muddled ending,  punny humor that almost never lands, as well as a host of silly butt jokes that undermines whatever scholarly intentions this movie proposes to illustrate, this kiddy contraption basically works. It’s unpretentious and it manages to draw you into the character’s dilemma, even if it is a restructured, hand-me-down dilemma from “Finding Nemo”.  I walked out of “Mr. Peabody and Sherman” unoffended and slightly charmed, and sometimes that’s more than we should come to expect from a mid-winter Happy-Meal like this.

Grade: C+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/March-2014