Film Review - Moana 2 (2024)

Moana 2 is the new Disney Animation film (though it was originally going to be a streaming series on Disney Plus before being retooled to become a film) and once again sees Auli Cravalho as Moana once again exploring the seas around her home island and one day she finds out about a cursed island that if freed from its curse could reunite the vast waters of her home and so with a gallant crew she sets sail to break the spell with the help of the Demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson.)

Moana 2 is not a bad movie per se but the more I’ve let it sit in my mind since seeing it it is also one that I wish was so much better than it is, the film has some good animation and action moments especially in the third act climax and Cravalho and Johnson still play off well together as Moana and Maui and there is some good humour in there as well.

But the films storytelling suffers from the change from a streaming series to a feature film as the first half of the film is a mess where it feels like so many scenes and character moments and storyline development is on fast forward as it goes by so quickly it feels like the film is rushing through all of this stuff to cram it all in under a 2 hour runtime and at times it felt like whiplash as the moments are here were clearly meant to be their own streaming episodes before being cut and pasted together in this movie edit version of the story.

Eventually the second half of the film finds its rhythm and pace much better but I also can’t help but feel that the second half probably would’ve been the last episode or 2 of that abandoned Moana streaming series as that feels the most coherent and connected in terms of its storytelling and character work and action climax.

And as someone who loves Disney Animation so much it feels disappointing that fans are served up this when other studios who for a long time I felt were the ones who were not delivering the goods like Disney used to with their films are now setting the standard I mean recently we’ve had:

- Transformers One
- The Wild Robot
- The 2 Sonic films
- The 2 Paddington films
- The Despicable Me series

And all of those listed above have set the standard in my eyes in family entertainment on the big screen and Disney between this movie and Wish and Strange World and Encanto just aren’t measuring up anymore and I can’t help but think that Disney as a studio has become so big that it can’t fail and also so fearful of upsetting anyone that their not taking the swings and the risks that a leaner and more tightly focused studio like Paramount and Universal and StudioCanal are and I know thus movie will probably make a lot of money but sooner or later Disney will no longer be able to play it safe and will have to start taking some risks and swings again.

And it also doesn’t help that this movie is opening only a week after Wicked which like the other family movies I listed above is delivering the kind of musical/family movie magic that Disney used to excel at and that film isn’t afraid to wear its politics on its sleeve, develop a proper villain, have strong musical numbers and work for young and old audiences alike as well as take its time to properly tell its story within a films runtime requirements and this movie just isn’t good enough.

And that is how I feel about Moana 2 it isn’t a bad movie but it’s simply not good enough anymore, CIC (Paramount and Universal’s umbrella holder here in Australia during the 80s and 90s) and StudioCanal are delivering much better in this space and Disney has to shed its bloated size and get back into shape if its going to get back on top again as this kind of “it’s good enough” mentality has to stop especially when movie going is as expensive as it is right now, 2 out of 5.

Film Review - Wicked (2024)

Wicked is based off of the long running Broadway musical and is directed by John M. Chu who also directed In the Heights, the story concerns Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) who is born with green skin and frequently the subject of bullying by other kids and scorn by her governor father but one day she finds herself enrolled in Shiv University a prestigious school run by a headmistress (Michelle Yeoh) who recognises her potential as a sorceress and there she meets Glinda (Ariana Grande) and they become friends for the most part.

Wicked was a movie that I didn’t have huge hopes for mainly because I’m not a big musical guy, don’t get me wrong I love Grease, Little Shop of Horrors with Rick Moranis and Steven Spielberg’s remake of West Side Story but those are really about it and the previews for this film seemed to want to advertise it as a straightforward fantasy film rather than a musical.

But to my surprise and delight this movie is really good and thoroughly enjoyable and a very large part of that is down to 3 performances the first of those is Grande as Glinda who is simply wonderful here, she has this nice and sweet persona on the surface but sometimes her inner bitch can come to the surface in the right circumstances and Grande dances both sides of that character very well plus she does some great singing as well and her physical comedy as well is superb, doing hair tosses and pratfalls in a way that makes me hope she gets a good comedy role in the future.

Also Jeff Goldblum as the Wizard of Oz is inspired casting and if you know how that character ultimately plays out you can see why Goldblum was a great choice and he does the role very well.

But for me the heart and soul of this movie is Erivo as Elphaba, I’ve always enjoyed seeing her in movies since I first saw her in Bad Times at the El Royale in 2018 but since then I haven’t seen her in as many films but here she finally gets a good role to shine in and boy does she do so not just with her acting where you can see the seeds of what she will ultimately become grow more and more inside of her as the film goes on but also in her singing where she hits some incredible high notes.

In fact watching her and Grande reminded me a lot of when I first saw James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as the young Professor Xavier and Magneto in X-Men First Class in terms of character becoming friends only for their differences in seeing the world and the people in it driving them apart to become enemies and Elphaba in particular reminded me a lot of Magneto from the X-Men movies.

However, there are a couple of issues I had with the film:

- The first of those is that at times the film feels it’s 160-minute length and that mainly came for me with the transitions from the dramatic moments to the musical numbers now don’t get me wrong the songs are very good but the way the film transitions into them felt a little jarring at times as I would get into a dramatic scene and then I would be pulled into a musical number and feel pulled out of the mood I was in during the dramatic moments.

Now great musicals like the ones I mentioned above handle that transition well but here not so much.

- And secondly this movie looked a little too clean visuals wise now that isn’t to say the film looks bad it does not there’s some great production design and costumes on show but it feels like it’s hidden behind the standard digital grey that keeps showing up more and more and more in movies nowadays and I can’t help but feel that if that wasn’t there then this movie would look far more colourful and magical than it does.

But perhaps this speaks to a wider problem within the industry itself and that is you only have a finite number of Visual Effects companies taking on more and more work be it movies and television and streaming shows/movies that they can only roster so much time onto one project before having to quickly move to the next one to get that ready for release and this has to change as 10-15 years ago this problem didn’t really exist and it has to stop because more and more projects are suffering as a result.

And so that was Wicked and it is a really enjoyable time at the movies despite some slight stumbles, 3 and a half out of 5.

Film Review - Lee (2024)

Lee is based off of the life of Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) a photographer in France when World War II breaks out and she volunteers to photograph the fighting on the front and the aftermath of the War it had on Europe.

Lee is a pretty solid little film, it doesn’t try to be anything more than it isn’t and I was okay with it for the most part, the film tells its story pretty well though at times it cuts back to Lee as an older woman (including Winslet in old age makeup and Josh O’Connor as a young journalist interviewing her about her time during the war.) and when those cutaways came in they bothered me because I felt like they took me out of the WW2 scenes in the film, it would’ve been better if it had been a voiceover narration so that you could stay in the WW2 moments.

As for the performances they are pretty solid, Winslet is good in the title role even though the old age version of the character didn’t work as well for me, O’Connor is good as well as is Andy Samberg and Alexander Skarsgard and while it is nice to see Marion Cotillard again on screen her screen time is sadly too small, hopefully she takes a bigger role in the future.

And so that was Lee and it’s a good little film that is not the best I’ve seen but far from the worst either, its solid and does its job well, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Gladiator II (2024)

Gladiator II is the highly anticipated sequel to 2000’s Gladiator which helped bring Ridley Scott back to revelance after a period of doldrums in the 1990’s, brought Russell Crowe to international stardom and an Academy Award for Best Actor and won Best Picture at the Academy Awards as well, this time Paul Mescal plays a farmer who’s land is conquered by a Roman General (Pedro Pascal) and he is taken to Rom as a slave for the Gladiator Games where his fight and tenacity catch the attention of a slave trader (Denzel Washington) who sees in him a path towards a much bigger prize.

Gladiator II was a film that I did not have a lot of high hopes for mainly because Ridley Scott’s output over the last 10-15 years has left a lot to be desired as many of those films were either Stodgy (The Counselor), stupid (Prometheus, House of Gucci) or just laughably bad (Exodus: Gods and Kings) and his previous film prior to this one was Napoleon which was shockingly bad with its focus on a man who conquered most of the known world and transformed France being as a petulant manchild rater than a fascist emperor.

But surprisingly Gladiator II is easily Ridley’s best film for me since the Martian in 2015 (2021’s The Last Duel was okay but discomforting to watch at times) and this definitely a film that is worth watching on a big cinema screen as the Gladiator games in this movie are fantastic be it fights with a Rhino, a flooded Roman Colosseum with boats and sharks, fights with Baboons that look like they came off of the Hunger Games set and plenty of hand to hand combat fights that Ridley Scott directs the crap out of and puts many of his contemporaries to shame with his work here.

As for the performances, Paul Mescal is fine but at times he struggles to fill the big hole left behind by Russell Crowe’s Maximus from the first film, Connie Nielsen is solid here but isn’t given a huge amount to do, Pedro Pascal is watchable but like Nielsen doesn’t get a huge amount to do while Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger are fun as the dual emperors of Rome who enjoy all the power and wealth and debauchery at their fingertips.

But this movie belongs to one man and one man alone and that is Mr Denzel Washington who reaffirmed in my mind that he is quite simply the man as he devours every scene he’s in with relish and skill that makes chewing the scenery look like an artform and in his hands it is and every moment he’s on screen you have a big smile on your face as he plots and schemes his way to power while turning on that unmistakable Denzel charm and badassery that makes you can’t help but love him.

As for the films script well at times it’s a bit of mess not unlike Beetlejuice 2 was back in September, there’s at least 2 or 3 separate stories going on here that at times each of them struggles for screen time and one is pretty quickly dealt with while another heads to a somewhat anti climatic finish which is a shame but I wasn’t as bothered with it here like I was in Napoleon last year.

And so that was Gladiator II and it is a fun spectacle with a performance by Denzel that deserves to net him an Oscar, never has one man carried a film on his back so much and make it look easy while also chewing the scenery like it’s an all you can eat buffet, 3 out of 5.

Film Review - Red One (2024)

Red One stars Dwayne Johnson as Callum Drift the head of Santa’s (JK Simmons) secret security unit known as ELF, one night however Santa is kidnapped by an evil witch (Kiernan Shipka) and he along with Zoe (Lucy Liu) track down a hacker (Chris Evans) who might be able to help save Santa and Christmas.

Red One is definitely a lump of coal of coal in the Christmas stocking and it will also make you want to pull an Alan Rickman from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves and say “CALL OFF CHRISTMAS” because this movie is so deathly dull to sit through, it is extraordinary that Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans two actors with charm, likeability and charisma to spare are so boring to watch here.

Johnson looks and sounds like a man who is going through the motions like the failure of Black Adam in 2022 just took all of that winning charm out of him and he’s just been sore about it ever since while Evans once again is trying to say to everyone “SEE I’M NOT CAPTAIN AMERICA ANYMORE, DUMB ASS” as once again he plays a slimy smartass and it really doesn’t work here, it did work in the first Knives Out film in 2019 but that film had Rian Johnson in the directors chair and he knows how to direct actors whereas Jake Kasdan who directed this movie just tells everyone to stand still, hit their marks, say their lines and he’ll put all the winter wonderland scenery in during post.

Speaking of the visual look of this movie, it is so horrible due to that trademark murky digital camera grey that we see more and more and let me remind you all this movie HAD A HIGHER BUDGET THAN DUNE PART TWO and not once did it show on the screen and between this and Joker Folie a Deux having the same budget as Dune Part Two I am getting sick to death of this recklessness in budgetary spending.

A movie like Dune Part Two having a big budget I understand because that film was the follow on to a well liked film that won multiple Academy Awards, made money at the box office despite being available day and date on streaming/piracy and was very well liked by critics and audiences for the most part.

James Cameron getting the budgetary equivalent of the United States Federal Reserve to make his Avatar sequels also makes sense because Cameron has 3 of the top 4 biggest movies of all time worldwide and 2 of those are from a group of films that so many love to say “has no cultural impact” and that budget will be made back in spades.

But what should be a fun lighthearted Christmas family comedy having a 250 million dollar budget is gross recklessness and irresponsibility of the highest order and to quote Kevin Rudd “This Sort of Reckless Spending Must Stop.”

As for the storytelling here well it’s the usual Christmas cheer, broken families, naughty person learning to be nice again and reconciling with his long lost son, fairly standard stuff but it all just bored me after a while because it’s all been done so much better elsewhere.

And so that was Red One and Bah Humbug from me on this one because this is a movie that does not in any way justify its huge budget and it suffers because of it, 1 out of 5.