On Sunday, 24 June 2012, Janice and I met Thomas K.Y. & Kai-Yin H. and Sara F. at the Showcase Cinema de Lux at Legacy Place in Dedham, Massachusetts, for an early matinee of Brave. We enjoyed the Disney/Pixar computer-animated fantasy.
Wallpaper for computer-animated Scottish fantasy
Unlike many of its predecessors, Brave isn’t a retelling of a classic fairy tale or an adaptation of a popular children’s novel. The movie follows Princess Merida, a headstrong Scottish lass, as she struggles to find her destiny in a rugged land of colorful warriors and hidden magic.
While Brave is not historically accurate, I’m glad that actual Scottish and British actors were used for its voice cast. Kelli Macdonald (Gosford Park, No Country For Old Men) is an appealing Merida, and comedian Billy Connolly is her boisterous father King Fergus. Emma Thompson plays the controlling Queen Elinor, and Julie Walters is an old witch who grants Merida an ill-advised wish.
Robbie Coltrane, Kevin McKidd, and Craig Ferguson are other Scots in Brave‘s cast, and of course, Cheers and Pixar alumnus John Ratzenberger is also aurally present. Brave‘s character designs are cartoonish but manage not to be too jarring against the realistic landscapes. As an archery fan, I enjoyed the tournament scene, even if most of it had already been shown in commercials and trailers.
The script and plot are a bit more straightforward than other Disney flicks, but I appreciated the fact that the movie is somewhat less sentimental — or emotionally manipulative — than other Pixar films (see Up). Some reviews focus on Merida as a stronger young woman than past Disney princesses, but what about Mulan?
Others have noted that most of Pixar’s pics have been more boy-oriented, such as Toy Story and Cars, but Brave actually has more in common with recent movies from Dreamworks, such as How To Train Your Dragon or Kung-Fu Panda. Brave also bears a strong resemblance to Dragon Hunters and Brother Bear, but isn’t as tragic in tone as Sintel. In addition, Brave‘s Celtic knotwork and mythic medieval setting reminded me of the delightful Secret of Kells.
I was pleased to see Brave tackle mother-daughter relationships, since much folklore and more recent movies tend to focus on father-son or father-daughter ones. Merida‘s suitors and three younger brothers are also a source of some amusement.
Overall, I’d give Brave, which is rated PG for some violent scenes, three out of five stars, an 8 out of 10, or a B+. Brave might not go down as a classic, but it’s still solid family entertainment. The next movie I’ll probably see in the theater is The Amazing Spider-Man.
This past weekend was a good one for superhero fans. Janice and I visited four comic book shops on Free Comic Book Day, including the Comic Stop in Watertown, Massachusetts. I hadn’t visited that store before.
It’s smaller than my usual haunts of the Outer Limits in Waltham and New England Comics and Newbury Comics in Needham, but it was well-organized, and the proprietors were hospitable. I was glad to see that lots of families visited all of the shops for the event. I picked up several free issues for myself, nephews and nieces, and David I.S.
Disney/Marvel has been building its shared cinematic universe toward The Avengerssince at least 2008’s Iron Man. I’m not sure the movie would be particularly accessible to viewers who are unfamiliar with its predecessors or with Marvel’s characters, but for those of us who are fans, The Avengersis a long-awaited reward for our faithfulness.
The Avengersmanages to compress several decades of fictional continuity, adhere to comic book tropes such as superheroes fighting when they first meet, and provide enough explosions to launch the summer 2012 movie season. I’ll try not to give away any “spoilers” here, but note that a few of the links in this review may have some.
The basicpremise of The Avengers, in both print and film, is that the world’s greatest and most powerful heroes band together to fight a common threat. Of course, getting there is half the fun, at least for the audience, if not the battered costumed characters.
A major strength of recent superhero movies has been in casting good actors and treating the material seriously, without the campy excesses of the 1960s through 1980s. (Since then, we’ve suffered through angsty melodrama with the X-Men, Batman, and others.) It’s no surprise that Robert Downey Jr. is witty and charismatic as “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Chris Evans holds his own as supersoldier Steve Rogers/Captain America, the team’s moral and tactical leader. Chris Hemsworth is mighty as Thor, Norse god (OK, extradimensional entity) of thunder, and Tom Hiddleston is delightfully smarmy as mischievous nemesis Loki. Scarlett Johansson returns as superspy Natasha Romanov, the only woman in this version of the group (founder Wasp is absent, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts has a brief supporting cameo).
Mark Ruffalo joins the merry band as Bruce Banner/the Hulk, the third actor in as many movies to tackle the dual role of compassionate scientist and rage monster. Even though I liked Ed Norton’s paean to Bill Bixby’s TV version, I think Ruffalo did fine with the computer-assisted role, and the Hulk gets some of the funniest scenes in the movie.
Samuel L. Jackson and Clark Gregg are joined by Colby Smulders as SHIELD agents Col. Nick Fury, Agent Phil Coulson, and Agent Maria Hill, respectively. The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division is the shadowy organization that initially gathers the high-profile metahumans. Jeremy Renner is no-nonsense as expert marksman Clint Barton/Hawkeye — he’s not quite as flamboyant as his comic book counterparts — a former circus performer or DC’s GreenArrow.
I did like that the colorful vigilantes eventually found a way to work together to protect humanity from the invading Chitauri. The “Earth’s mightiest heroes” may not see eye to eye –leading to some drama and humor, as seen in previews and trailers — but both their squabbles and eventual teamwork are impressive to watch.
As expected, the visual special effects are especially spectacular, with SHIELD’s helicarrier, the Hulk’s rampaging physique, and numerous powers all rendered more realistically than many artists or kids in Halloween costumes could have ever dreamed. The costumes were redesigned to be harmonious, and I’ve long maintained that spandex or tights, if handled properly, can be just as good as the black leather of the X-Men movies. I picked up the HeroClix miniatures, and I look forward to seeing more action figures and Lego sets based on The Avengers.
As with any “juvenile” entertainment, a few critics in the mainstream media gave The Avengersnegative reviews. Some of their points are valid — mostly around pacing, some frenetic scenes that are hard to follow, and more characters than time to develop them equally well — but they assume falsely that popcorn entertainment and high art must be mutually exclusive.
I’d give The Avengers, which is rated PG-13 for violence, an 8.5 out of 10, three to four stars, or a B+/A-. It deserves to be on many of the “best comicbook movie” lists that can be found online.
We also sat through 20 minutes of previews. I was already interested in Disney/Pixar’s Brave, and I’m now a bit more curious about The Amazing Spider-Man and Alien prequel Prometheus. I am not interested in shoot-’em-up Battleship, Tim Burton’s quirky Dark Shadows, or 1980s flashback Expendables 2. As Stan “the Man” Lee says, Excelsior, true believers!
I recently screened Disney’s John Carter with Josh C. & Sara F. I saw the sword-and-planet movie again later with Janice, who was at a technical writing conference in Memphis this past week. She has also been busy with extra shifts as a volunteer at the Dedham animal shelter. All of us enjoyed the adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ “Barsoom” stories.
The movie is framed with scenes of a young Burroughs, played by Spy Kids‘ Daryl Sabara, being summoned to the estate of his late uncle, a world traveler and former Confederate cavalryman. Taylor Kitsch, from Friday Night Lights and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, is the eponymous Capt. Carter, who finds himself mysteriously transported from late 1860s Arizona to an inhabited Mars.
On the desert world, Carter encounters tribes of Tharks, four-armed green men, led by the honorable Tars Tharkas (voice and motion capture of Willem Defoe). Despite his initial reluctance to become involved in another civil war, Carter is soon entangled in the conflict between the city-states of Zodanga and Helium, both of which are populated by humanlike “red” Martians.
After meeting the beautiful scientist and princess Deja Thoris (played by X-Men Origins‘ Lynn Collins), Carter decides to fight Sab Than (Dominic West), the Jeddak (chieftan) of Zodanga, and Thern mystic Matai Shang (Mark Strong). He’s aided by Sola (Samantha Morton), the compassionate daughter of Tars Tharkas, and doglike calot Woola.
If this plot seems familiar, it’s because Burroughs created the template for the “planetaryromance,” which led to a century of space operas from Flash Gordon,Buck Rogers, and even Superman to Dune, Star Trek, and Star Wars to Stargate, Farscape, and Avatar. The lost but brave Earth man, the spunky princess and sidekicks, the honorable alien warriors, and the mystic duels have become clichés, but John Carter shows us the vitality of their source.
The actors seem to be enjoying themselves with the interplanetary swashbuckling. The script by Michael Chabon takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, with humor similar to that found in the original Star Wars or another pulp revival, The Mummy. I’m currently reading Chabon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay for former co-worker Ken G.‘s “Escapists” book club.
Even in this age of computer-enhanced visuals, the Tharks’ facial expressions, the fleet-footed Woola and fierce white apes, the crawling city of Zodanga, and the steampunk airships were all impressively designed and rendered. The aliens interacted smoothly with the human actors. Despite the daunting amount of exposition required for such a movie, I thought that director Andrew Stanton, who also directed Pixar’s Wall-E, did a decent job of pacing.
The grand vistas include the rough-and-tumble frontier of the American west, the windswept deserts of Mars, the rain-soaked streets of New York, and soaring structures and ancient ruins of Barsoom. The soundtrack also evokes a lost age of adventure, although it’s not as memorable as the works of John Williams.
I’d give John Carter, which is rated PG-13 for violence, an 8.5 out of 10, four out of five stars, or an A-. Many critics have gleefully pointed out that Disney’s adaptation is somehow subject to the “curse of the Mars movies” and gotten less-than-stellar box office. However, I and other fans feel that many of their criticisms are unfair and typical of mainstream prejudice against genre entertainment.
I’m still catching up on work, contacting friends, and recorded genre television after last week’s business trip to Chicago. So without further ado, here’s my review for Disney’s latest Winnie the Pooh movie.
Fans of A.A. Milne’s stories or Disney’s 1960s and 1970s film adaptations will be charmed by Winnie the Pooh‘s traditional animation style, its gentle humor, and a cast that’s closer to the familiar voices than the hyperactive shorts or TV shows from the past two decades.
My sister in law Melinda and several young nieces will no doubt be pleased that once narrator John Cleese (of “Monty Python” fame) begins reading from the book of Pooh’s misadventures, viewers are drawn back to Christopher Robin’s playroom and the Hundred Acre Wood as if no time at all has passed since our collective childhoods. The device is similar to Pixar’s Toy Story.
The plot is fairly simple: Pooh Bear goes looking for honey, but his dour donkey friend Eeyore has lost his tail. Pompous Owl, timid Piglet, supportive Kanga and Roo, and nervous Rabbit end up misreading a note from Christopher Robin and look for a monster called “Backson” instead. Sight gags abound, and the script has clever allusions that would likely sail over the heads of younger audience members.
Winnie the Pooh lacks the cynicism, off-color humor, or flashiness of many popular movies, but it is better for omitting them. I’d happily recommend this movie, which was rated “G,” to any parent. Not to slight other works, but Winnie the Pooh is the first film in a long time that felt to me like the Disney classics I watched on Sunday nights.
I’d give Winnie the Pooh a “B+/A-,” three and a half out of five stars, or a solid 8 out of 10. Let’s hope that Disney can continue shepherding quality to the big screen with its upcoming The Greatest Muppet Movie Ever Made, which also looks to revive popular awareness of clever humor, simple joys, and humane (if not human) entertainment.
In related — if somewhat lower-brow — animation, Janice and I have been enjoying the Cartoon Network’s Looney Toons Show, which combines Warner Brothers’ Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck with the absurd situations of Seinfeld.
I’m also catching up on multimedia announcements from San Diego Comic-Con 2011, but I look forward to the upcoming revival of Thundercats, as well as to the return of Young Justice. I’m also impatiently awaiting next year’s Avatar: the Legend of Korra, sequel to the underrated fantasy Avatar: the Last Airbender (not to be confused with James Cameron’s Avatar movie or The Last Airbender movie adaptation dud).
In the coming week or so, I’ve got more movies to review, including Harry Potter [8] and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Captain America: the First Avenger!
Although I’ve recently posted my roundups of genre entertainment, I had intended to write “Best of 2009” blog posts before year’s end. As usual, however, I’ve fallen behind with holiday correspondence, so I may have to combine them with my looks at the year ahead.
In the past few weeks, I’ve been busy with work, attending local industry events, tackling budgeting, and trying to get ahead with editing assignments. I’ve also been dealing with conflicts in local and remote social/gaming groups. Janice and I easily completed our Christmas shopping and decorating, and we look forward to seeing her folks in Upstate New York next week.
Although the plot, soundtrack, and characters weren’t particularly original (female lead, singing animals, romantic plot), I’m glad that John Lassiter recognizes the value of preserving multiple types of animation in addition to the currently popular CGI. (On a related note, I may try to catch James Cameron’s derivative but apparently spectacular Avatar.)
For example, stop-motion had a bit of a resurgence this year, with the well-received Coraline, 9, and The Fantastic Mr. Fox. I’d give the all-ages Princess and the Frog three out of five stars, 8/10, or a “B” grade, and I hope it’s successful in reviving interest in 2-D
animation in the U.S.
Gene's Worlds 