Zootopia 2: Another sure-fire hit!

Zootopia 2 (2025) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for action violence and mild rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.30.25

This was a brave gamble.

 

2016’s Zootopia was a perfect film, and (as I wrote, at the time), a work of subversive genius: an enormously clever project that functioned both as a charming, suspenseful and exciting adventure, and also as a compelling parable of tolerance and inclusion.

 

While doggedly pursuing a fleeing sspect through waterlogged Marsh Market, Nick and
Judy accept transport from a rather unusual source.

Making a sequel, and risking the possibility of tarnishing the original film’s reputation, seemed foolhardy.

But they pulled it off.

 

Trust the talent involved: Co-directors Jared Bush and Byron Howard have returned, along with all the key voice actors. Bush also has the sole writing credit, and his cunning script is another impressive blend of cheeky character interaction, suspenseful action set-pieces and sly references to real-world issues, once again set in an alternate animals-only universe that hilariously sends up human behavior.

 

This film’s overall look and settings are just as visually rich and detail-laden as its predecessor, once again stuffed with far more sight gags and little bits of sidebar business than can possibly be absorbed in one viewing. 

 

The core plot also involves a cheeky nod to 1974’s Chinatown, which is rather audacious on Bush’s part.

 

Events resume where they left off. Plucky bunny Judy Hopps (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) and street-smart con artist-turned-good-guy fox Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) have become the newest partner team in Zootopia’s police force. This naturally annoys the much larger, more ferocious teams of Hoggbottom and Truffler (razorback hogs), Bloats and Higgins (hippos) and Zebro Zebraxton and Zebro Zebrowski (zebras, of course … and the coolest cops in the station).

 

Mindful of the high expectations under which she and her new partner are operating, and desperate to prove that their first success wasn’t a fluke, Judy naturally disobeys orders, much to Nick’s exasperated consternation. She recklessly follows another of her shrewd hunches, nearly ruins an ongoing investigation, and wrecks untold city property during the first of this film’s madcap chase sequences.

 

This naturally confirms the dismissive opinions of her razorback, hippo and zebra colleagues, and also earns a stern public scolding by exasperated Chief Bogo (Idris Elba).

 

Privately, though, Bogo tells Judy that he likes and respects her, but warns that her unchecked behavior could jeopardize the dreams of other rabbits hoping to follow in her footsteps. Elba’s softened tone, during this gentle caution, is note-perfect.

Wicked for Good: A satisfying finale

Wicked for Good (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and fantasy violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.23.25

This one is better than last year’s first half … and not merely because it’s 30 minutes shorter.

 

As in the stage play, this second act cleverly interlaces its action with key events from the 1939 film: offering a Rashomon-style version of what we didn’t see back then, taking place behind the scenes after Dorothy, Toto and her house were dumped by the tornado.

 

Enraged by the "convenient" arrival of a massive tornado that has dumped a Kansas
house into the middle of Munchkinland, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) vows to discover who's
actually responsible for this calamity.

That said, the primary attractions once again are the powerhouse performances from Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as (respectively) Elphaba and Glinda. They aren’t merely phenomenal singers; they’re also strong actors and commanding screen presences. As gorgeously mounted as this film is, it would be very little without them.

Events pick up where they left off, as the newly empowered Elphaba banishes herself from Emerald City. The Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and his malevolent abettor, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh), immediately mount a disinformation campaign that paints Elphaba as a vicious figure of evil who must be caught and killed.

 

Superficially, she seems to deserve this label; the story begins as she disrupts completion of the glistening yellow brick roads that will lead to Oz. In truth, she does so in order to free the enslaved animals being abused in the process … but that distinction is lost on the Ozian workers.

 

Back in Emerald City, Madame Morrible’s scheme expands to “sell” Glinda as a begowned savior, now christened Glinda the Good. To offset her complete lack of magical powers, she’s given an ingenious “transport bubble” — along with a visually striking but wholly fake wand — that will convey an illusion of her powers.

 

The delicacy of Grande’s acting chops make this sequence a hoot, as Glinda repeatedly tests this device, like a little girl with a new toy.

 

To further enhance this elevation to public exaltation, Madame Morrible announces Glinda’s engagement to Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), captain of the Ozian guard, which comes as a surprise to both of them: deliriously happy for her, clearly uncertain for him.

 

Meanwhile, back in Munchkinland, assuming the governor’s chair has transformed Nessarose (Marissa Bode). Her simmering disappointment and petulance, galvanized by this intoxicating access to power and control, have blossomed into full-blown evil. This is tearfully acknowledged in song, when she admits to having become the Wicked Witch of the East (and we all know what eventually happens to her). 

 

Nessarose takes this out on the kind and devoted Boq (Ethan Slater), who is horrified by what she has become. 

 

As are we. How could these five previously closely knit friends — Elphaba, Glinda, Fiyero, Nessarose and Boq — have fractured so catastrophically?

In Your Dreams: A lovely little fantasy

In Your Dreams (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for fantasy peril and mild rude humor

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

File this one under the old warning: Be careful what you wish for … you might get it.

 

Directors Erik Benson and Alexander Woo have delivered an animated charmer — feeling a bit like Pixar Lite — which also serves as a gentle life lesson about sibling rivalry and messy family dynamics. Indeed, the moral here is the importance of recognizing that sometimes “messy” is the best one can expect.

 

Having figured out some of the means by which the "dream realm" operates, Stevie, her
younger brother Elliot, and his beloved stuffed giraffe, Baloney Tony — brought to
chatterbox life — find a highly unusual means of transportation.

The story — written by Benson, Woo and Stanley Moore — opens on an idyllic tableau, finding 4-year-old Stevie enjoying one of her favorite activities: making breakfast pancakes with her parents. All three are mutually devoted; Dad (Simu Liu) and Mom (Cristin Milioti) share a career as musical partners.

But as a slightly older Stevie (voiced by Jolie Hoang-Rappaport) laments, in voice-over, this is merely a fondly remembered dream. “This is a disaster movie,” Stevie insists. The actual disaster? The fourth addition to the family, her younger brother Elliot (Elias Janssen), with whom Stevie is forced to share a bedroom.

 

Elliot is a relentless pest, forever in Stevie’s face, whether trying to impress her with silly magic tricks, or simply being annoying. He clearly just wants to be an important part of his big sister’s life, but she isn’t interested. She’s much more concerned about the growing rift between her parents; Mom is interviewing for a job that would take her elsewhere, while her husband — still hankering for songwriting fame — refuses to leave. To Stevie’s additional annoyance, Elliot is oblivious to this potential crisis.

 

For Stevie, dreams are a way of fixing things in the real world. A storybook depiction of a magical dream being known as the Sandman fascinates both children; after reciting a mystical incantation, they discover that they can remain conscious while dreaming, thereby altering what they experience. 

 

“Find me,” the distant Sandman intones, “and your dreams will come true.”

 

The resulting “dream realm” is a chaotic whirlwind of imaginative pocket lands populated by colorfully exaggerated creatures concocted from real-world experiences. Elliot’s beloved stuffed giraffe, Baloney Tony (Craig Robinson), bursts into wisecracking life, serving as a snarky, often frightened Greek chorus to subsequent events. Frolicking breakfast foods hearken back to Stevie’s cherished memories of making pancakes with her parents.

The Running Man: A giddy, violent sprint

The Running Man (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for extreme violence, gore and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.16.25

This Stephen King dystopian nightmare is an evergreen: It can be re-imagined anew for each generation, thanks to changes in technology, geo-political shifts ... and an increased level of hyper-violence.

 

Ben (Glen Powell, left) has serious doubts when Elton (Michael Cera) invites gun-toting
thugs into his home, believing that his many jury-rigged defense systems will save the day.

The 1982 novel — the fourth and final book initially published under King’s “Richard Bachman” pseudonym — initially hit the big screen five years later, with Arnold Schwarzenegger playing protagonist Ben Richards. It’s an acceptable adaptation, although this new version hews more closely to King’s book.

This film also is directed by Richard Wright, whose snarky blend of thrills ’n’ chills has been evident since 2004’s Shaun of the Dead, followed by equally clever (and sometimes mildly deranged) hits such as Hot Fuzz, Baby Driver and Last Night in Soho.

 

Point being, Wright’s sensibilities are spot-on for this angry high-tech parable. Given the current slide into fascism in the United States, and elsewhere in the world, many of the plot points in this adaptation — co-scripted by Wright and Michael Bacall — feel disturbingly conceivable.

 

The time is the near future, the setting a United States where the gap between the Haves and Have-nots has become a yawning chasm. It’s effectively a police state designed to ensure that the lower classes remain that way. Chances for advancement are restricted to participation in demeaning and barbaric televised “reality game shows.”

 

The worst challenge — and therefore the most popular — is The Running Man, where “contestants” try to stay alive for 30 days, while being hunted by professional gun-toting pursuers. Contestants also must be wary of their fellow citizens, who earn rewards for identifying or even killing them. The longer a contestant survives, the more s/he earns in “new dollars” (with, as a droll inside joke, Schwarzenegger’s photo in the center of each bill).

 

Ben Richards (Glen Powell) lives with his family in a poverty-level district dubbed Slumside. As the story beings, he simply wants work. His infant daughter is quite ill, and his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) is exhausted, working multiple shifts as a “hostess” in an upscale club. Ben has lost numerous jobs: branded as chronically insubordinate for his tendency to selflessly assist fellow employees who need help (apparently a no-no in this society).

 

Production designer Marcus Rowland, cinematographer Chung-hoon Chung and a massive sfx crew bring this oppressive futuristic society to persuasively chilling life. (Shades of Blade Runner!)

Frankenstein: Less than the sum of its parts

Frankenstein (2025) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for bloody violence, gore and grisly images

Available via: Movie theaters and Netflix

By Derrick Bang

If this film doesn’t win an Academy Award for Tamara Deverell’s stunning production design, there is no justice.

 

Although initially delighted that he has brought life to a creation (Jacob Elordi, center) 
stitched together from scores of corpses, Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac) just as
quickly worries that he may have made a colossal mistakes.

And if the Oscars included a category for atmospheric dread, director/scripter Guillermo del Toro also would have that one locked up. He has been unsettling viewers since 1997’s Mimic and particularly 2006’s Pan’s Labyrinth. And only del Toro could have jump-started the goofy 1950s Creature from the Black Lagoon franchise, and transformed it into 2017’s brilliantly disorienting The Shape of Water, winning Oscars for Best Picture and Director in the process.

All this said, I wish del Toro had matched his new film’s visual dazzle with a similarly exhilarating script. His take has about as much in common with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 1818 Gothic masterpiece, as director James Whale’s 1931 adaptation. 

 

Which is to say, del Toro has taken serious liberties with the original plot and character roster. A few high points remain faithful to Shelley’s novel — along with occasional references to Prometheus, as befit the subtitle of Shelley’s novel (“The Modern Prometheus”) — but for the most part del Toro merely borrows the concept of Frankenstein and his monster.

 

That would be fine, if the results were more consistently engaging. At times — and I can’t believe I’m saying this about a del Toro film — the narrative is protracted and boring. As often has been the case with other filmmakers, one must be cautious about embarking upon a pet project which — in del Toro’s own words — has been a “quest” ever since he saw Whale’s film for the first time, at age 7.

 

Del Toro has moved the timeline half a century forward, to allow the key players a greater understanding of advances in electricity. The saga therefore begins in 1857, with a prelude aboard the Royal Danish Navy ship Horisont, trapped in arctic ice while hoping to reach the North Pole. While attempting to free the ship, crew members spot a badly injured man, and bring him aboard.

 

He barely has time to introduce himself as Baron Victor Frankenstein (Oscar Isaac), before the ship is attacked by a powerful, towering creature that demands Victor be surrendered to him. Ship’s Captain Andersen (Lars Mikkelsen) refuses, and six of his men are killed in the subsequent violent melee; the creature withstands all manner of gunshots and other damage.

 

The calmly resolute Andersen wins the moment only after using his blunderbuss to shatter the ice beneath the monster’s feet. It sinks into the icy waters.

 

“It’ll be back,” Frankenstein warns. “It can’t be killed.”

 

Sorry, Baby: An acting, scripting tour-de-force

Sorry, Baby (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual content and constant profanity

Available via: HBO MAX

By Derrick Bang

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard” — a quote most often attributed to character actor Edmund Gwenn, as he lay dying in bed — has been oft-repeated film and theatrical wisdom ever since.

 

At her lowest ebb, Agnes (Eva Victor) is treated with unexpected gentleness by Pete
(John Carroll Lynch), a deceptively gentle guy who believes that a good sandwich can
go a long way toward healing one's soul.

I’ll go it one better: Persuasively depicting the aftershock of deep trauma is even more difficult ... but Eva Victor truly nails it, starring in this intimate drama that she also wrote and directed. Her performance is quietly, deeply powerful.

Her film is divided into subtitled chapters. The first — “The Year with the Baby” — takes place in an unspecified time: could be present day, perhaps a bit earlier. Agnes (Victor) is a literature professor at Fairpoint, a liberal arts college in rural New England. She’s smart, sensitive and witty, and lives alone in a big house in a quiet, forested area; her only companion is a gray cat named Olga (likely after one of Chekhov’s Three Sisters).

 

The film actually opens with cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry’s lengthy framing shot of this house, during early evening: a disorienting touch that’ll be repeated in a subsequent chapter, with a different house, and a far different implication. 

 

Henry also favors distant framing shots of Agnes, which emphasize her isolation.

 

But she’s delighted, on this particular day, by the arrival of long-time bestie Lydie (Naomi Ackie). Their bond is palpable, their rapport delightfully uninhibited and bluntly profane; they’re both truly themselves with each other. Victor and Ackie are marvelous together; the latter is a joyful, irrepressible free spirit.

 

(We all should be blessed a friendship this intense.)

 

But something is off. Even at her happiest moments — as when both lie down, warmly jacketed, in an open field — Agnes’ giddy smiles aren’t entirely matched by the flicker of wariness in her gaze. A bit later, she comes closest to true joy when Lydie announces her pregnancy; Agnes playfully chats with the baby, lips pressed close to her friend’s stomach.

 

The two also spend an evening visiting Natasha (Kelly McCormack), Logan (Jordan Mendoza) and Devin (Cody Reiss), all of them former Fairpoint graduate students. Agnes’ presence is reluctant, and no surprise; the grouchy Natasha clearly has a long-simmering antipathy toward her.

 

McCormack overplays this card, sullenly looking more like a character in a horror movie, than somebody who simply has a stick up her fundament.

 

Alas, all visits must conclude, when Lydie returns to her life and responsibilities. Agnes’ disappointment is palpable; it feels more like grief.