Jojo Rabbit is the new film by Taika Waititi and takes place in Nazzi Germany towards the end of World War 2 and a young boy nicknamed Jojo (Roman Davis) is sent to a young Nazi camp but is injured meanwhile he imagines their leader (Taika himself) as his imaginary best friend but one day in his mother (Scarlett Johannsson) house he sees a Jewish girl named Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) hiding in there.
Jojo Rabbit again was a movie I was very keen to see as I am a big fan of Mr Waititi’s work from Hunt for the Wilderpeople to Thor Ragnarok to his work on the Mandalorian series and this was a personal project for him to make so I was hoping that his winning streak would continue once again.
Sadly and it is so very sad to say this ends his winning streak in my mind as this movie for me was a big big disappointment but again before I go into that I want to talk about the good this movie has:
- Firstly there are some great performances here, both young Mr Davis and Ms McKenzie are very good in this movie and they play off each other very well, Mr Davis in particular for someone so young is so good carrying this movie on his little shoulders, Mr Waititi does a good job as the leader, Stephen Merchant has a very memorable role as an elite officer, Ms Johannsson is very good way better than in Marriage Story.
- Secondly there are some great moments in the film, firstly when Taika goes the full hog as the leader it works great, there are multiple scenes with JoJo and his Mum that are very good as well as between JoJo and Elsa that really do get to you emotionally.
But like with Bombshell this movie has a very inconsistent tone once again wanting you to look at this very serious subject while at the same time wanting to create these very broad laughs which has been a real strength of Mr Waititi’s work but here it just didn’t work for me one bit as I just couldn’t bring myself to laugh at this particular subject which for me personally is just too serious to create a sense of laughter at.
Now that isn’t to say you can’t have a light hearted and fun movie with that group in it, Raiders of the Lost Ark/Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and the Rocketeer are great examples of where you have fun light hearted adventures featuring them but not treating them like comedic farces whereas here characters like the ones Rebel Wilson, Sam Rockwell and Alfie Allen play are portrayed in a very comedic way and it really really bothered me.
I wanted to love Jojo Rabbit as Mr Waititi has not put a foot wrong to me prior to this but here he puts his face in the mud with this very ill judged comedy about Germany in World War 2 that just left a bad taste in my mouth and a bitter taste of disappointment once again, 1 out of 5.
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