Review – Freaky Friday (1976)

This is a cut above most of the rest of the live action slop Disney was serving up back in the 1970s. Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster star as a mother-daughter duo who end up swapping personalities for a day. The situation provides enough comedy fodder to sustain the running time. On the other hand, I remember liking this as a kid, so maybe it’s just the nostalgia talking here. Mildly amusing

Review – Man in Space

This is an episode from the Disneyland TV series from 1955, so I shouldn’t be reviewing it as a stand-alone production. But it’s just such an intriguingly specific moment in the history of the space program, airing two years before Sputnik and six years before Yuri Gagarin. Plus the animated speculation about space travel was made possible in part by good old American know-how supplied by Dr. Wernher von Braun, who appears onscreen and served as a paid consultant. Mildly amusing

Review – Onward

This picture will likely be best remembered for its release date. It hit theaters right as the COVID lock-down began in 2020, forcing the studio to take a big box office hit and move the movie straight to Disney Plus. On its own merits, this is a reasonably entertaining situation comedy/drama about two elf brothers trying to magically resurrect their dead father. Dungeons and Dragons fans will derive endless entertainment from seeking out the dozens of sub-references to the game. Mildly amusing

Review – Strange Magic

Because Barbie Fairytopia would be way better if it got a Rock of Ages treatment with a ton of Boomer-and-Gen-X-era love songs. But then again no. See if desperate

Review – The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Two familiar tales get the late-1940s Disney treatment. The opening bit from The Wind in the Willows tells the anthropomorphic animal story of a rich a-hole who loses everything due to his own folly, imperils his friends and learns nothing from the experience. At least it’s narrated by Basil Rathbone. The second half is better, at least when it finally gets around to the part of the story with the Headless Horseman. Both bits relied heavily on physical comedy, making this seem less like a Disney approach to literary adaptation and more like the work being done by the rival Warner Brothers animation studio at the time. Mildly amusing

Review – Eternals

This movie helped me answer a question I’ve been curious about for some time: what would I think of a superhero movie if I had no idea who any of the superheroes were? In all of the MCU and DCEU movies I’ve seen, I was at least familiar in passing – if not a fan from childhood – of all the major players. But in this crew I’d never heard of any of them beyond their identities as the ancient sources of folk legends. Oddly, my lack of familiarity with the characters and plot elements didn’t affect my opinion much. It’s pretty. It’s loud. And ultimately it doesn’t amount to much. Mildly amusing

Review – The Deep House

I understand why guy-with-a-camcorder movies tend to suck. If you’re spending next to nothing to create your magnum opus, you don’t have much incentive to make anything that audiences might actually enjoy. But this isn’t guy-with-a-camcorder drivel. This is a story about a pair of social media producers who scuba dive down to a submerged house, remove a crucifix from the basement door and suffer the consequences. Most of the movie takes place during the dive, requiring a considerable amount of expensive underwater set and camera work. Those parts of the production were genuinely impressive (other than some small details such as modern-looking door handles in a house that had supposedly been at the bottom of a French lake for decades). Unfortunately, the story is nowhere near the equal of the technical quality. The movie hits its halfway point before anything even vaguely supernatural happens. And the script of the back half – consisting mostly of “Ben! Answer me!” screamed over and over – would have been way better suited for extreme low budget garbage than for something that should have been good. And the filmmakers seem to have given almost no thought at all to how viewers would react to the “running out of air” motif. If the protagonists are going to drown no matter what they do, being chased by ghosts is kinda beside the point. I was even disappointed by the bit at the end of the credits, which could easily have been more clever. See if desperate

Review – The Forever Purge

Trump’s white supremacist followers continue to supply storylines for Purge movies. This time around, extremists decide that they don’t want the Purge to end after its appointed 12 hours. After the whistles blow they just keep right on killing, transforming the entire country into one big January 6 insurrection. A racist rancher undergoes an almost Disney-worthy transformation when his family is menaced by the Purgers and rescued by Mexican immigrants. The production follows in the footsteps of previous entries in the series, supplying plenty of gory violence and mindless thrills. Mildly amusing

Review – The Batman

For anyone who (correctly) felt that Batman and Robin was far too cartoonish and silly, this go-around takes the exact opposite approach. Sadly, the moody art house version doesn’t work much better than its goofy predecessor. For starters, the self-conscious quest for edginess takes familiar characters in some odd directions. Colin Farrell plays the least penguin-y Penguin ever. Paul Dano’s Riddler is a cheap Zodiac Killer knock-off, which makes him simultaneously more scary and less interesting. Zoë Kravitz works well as Catwoman, and Jeffrey Wright does a competent job as James Gordon. But if Robert Pattinson ever hopes to distance himself from Edward Cullen, he needs to quit playing pasty, emo characters. The bat suit was clunky, as were the battles that employed it. And don’t get me started on the wreck of a muscle car Batmobile. But the thing that really ruined it for me was the pace. Everything seemed to take twice as long as it needed to. And losing most of the fight scenes in the shadows didn’t exactly help keep things moving smoothly. See if desperate

Review – Encanto

What a beautiful, awful movie. The story is absolutely uncomfortable: a magical family lives in a magical house. They bully the sister who doesn’t have magic powers, and they ostracize the brother whose gift is precognition of bad fortune. Sure, by the end everybody learns to be better people in an oh-so-Disney way. But it’s a long, sad time getting there. On the other hand, the visuals are incredibly complex and colorful. I wish there had been a way to watch the animation without following the plot at all. Mildly amusing

Review – Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

Simu Liu is absolutely charming in the title role of this big-budget fantasy effects piece. The story is standard stuff: a talented young martial artist discovers his secret destiny and goes on to save the world from the encroaching powers of darkness. The forces of evil have a slight Lovecraftian twist, which I enjoyed. Overall this is an apt MCU adaptation of the source material. Mildly amusing

Review – Thor

I first reviewed this years ago during its first run in theaters, but the review vanished from my computer. So today I did a re-watch. To the extent that I remember what I originally wrote, my opinion remains unchanged. I was unpleasantly surprised at some of the changes made between the comic books and the movie adaptation, particularly the decision to transform the hero into a jock dumbass. The effects are good, particularly the stylish interpretation of Asgard. But for the most part this serves as a set-up for future MCU installments rather than a good story by itself (something I probably didn’t see the first time around). Mildly amusing

Review – Turning Red

Disney puts a clever twist on the onset of menstruation in a precocious teenager’s life: rather than the typical effects, she starts transforming into a large red panda. The storytelling relies heavily on physical comedy, but along the way it makes some good points about growing up and maintaining connections to one’s heritage. And of course it’s nice to see any American-made media that centers around and remains sympathetic to its female characters. If this manages to increase red panda popularity, that alone would make it worthwhile. Mildly amusing

Review – The Pacific

If I was a Marine who served in the title location during World War Two, this follow-up to HBO’s Band of Brothers would really piss me off. The 101st Airborne got a nostalgic miniseries that would have seemed right at home back in the 1940s. This one, on the other hand, plays as half home front (or extended leave) soap opera and half jungle-war-is-hell-themed mayhem more closely akin to Hollywood depictions of the Vietnam War. Given the even split between brutal, bewildering combat and mooning over girlfriends, I can’t imagine who the target audience for this might be. Frankly, I found the whole thing a frustrating, unworthy follow-up to its ETO predecessor. See if desperate

Review – Death on the Nile (2022)

After finding some success with his version of Murder on the Orient Express, Kenneth Branagh once again pastes on Hercule Poirot’s ridiculous moustache for this similarly familiar Agatha Christie classic. Between the cast, the costumes and the sets, they spent a pretty penny on this production. And as a result they got a pretty picture. Despite all the red herrings, the ending seemed kinda obvious, especially for Christie. But the journey was entertaining enough to keep the destination from being too much of a disappointment. Mildly amusing