Moana 2: More fantasy ocean action

Moana 2 (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for fantasy peril

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.1.24

Although some sequels feel like little more than cash-grabs — and Disney, of late, has been particularly guilty of this — 2016’s Moana definitely deserved a second chapter.

In an effort to help get the grumpuy Kele into the spirit of things, Moana (far left), Moni
and Loto do their best to turn his frown upside-down, during a lively song (which is
only partially successful).

The resourceful and strong-willed 16-year-old, who earned her stripes as a “Wayfinder” in her debut outing, has blossomed into a mature young woman who has embraced her role as spiritual guide of her Polynesian island community of Motunui. By seeking her calling, in the first film, she also discovered her people’s long-ago tradition as voyagers of Oceania’s vast expanse.

Moana’s bold, sea-faring nature is re-introduced here via composers Opetaia Foa’I and Mark Mancina’s up-tempo tune “We’re Back” — a lively, Broadway musical-style anthem very much in the mold of “Belle,” from 1991’s Beauty and the Beast — which also showcases this story’s new and returning key players.

 

As this second chapter begins, Moana (again voiced with robust intelligence and spirit by Auli’I Cravalho) once again is visited by the spirit of her beloved Gramma Tala (Rachel House), who warns that a long-ago curse has isolated Motunui from numerous other Polynesian communities ... and that, thus divided, all will perish.

 

The only way to break the curse is to travel distant seas to the sunken island of Motufetü, which is guarded by Nalo, the god of storms.

 

This time, Moana has the full support of her parents: Chief Tui (Temuera Morrison) and Sina (Nicole Scherzinger). Alas, 3-year-old toddler sister Simea (Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda) is quite upset, fearful that her beloved “big sis” might never return. Simea is the spitting image of toddler Moana from the first film’s introduction, and an adorable addition to this expanding cast.

 

A journey of this magnitude will require a larger canoe, and an able crew: Loto (Rose Matafeo), a genius problem-solver and proto-engineer whose chaotic enthusiasm often overwhelms her common sense; Moni (Hualalai Chung), the community’s designated story keeper, who whips out drawings in nothing flat; and the grumpy Kele (David Fane), an elderly gardener who will tend the “canoe plants” that wayfinders need, to survive long journeys.

 

All three are well-conceived characters, granted considerable personality by the voice actors.

Wish: Wish it were better

Wish (2023) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.24.23

Sigh.

 

What a mess.

 

The proverbial roomful of chimpanzees, banging away at typewriters, could have written a better script. 

 

Asha initially is enchanted when Magnifico shows her one of the thousands of "wish
spheres" he protects in his castle study ... but she quickly realizes that his outward
benevolence conceals something much darker.

The Disney Animation folks desperately need to pay closer attention to how their Pixar colleagues develop a storyline. And the six (!) writers credited here need to be reminded of the most crucial axiom, when it comes to fantasy: It’s even more important, than with real-world dramas, to establish a logical set of rules and stick to them.

Co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn’s bewildering train wreck is a blatant example of “art” submerged beneath crass commercialism: dictated solely by the need to reinforce the Disney brand and traditions ... and it certainly ticks all the boxes.

 

• Plucky young heroine? Check. (Another outfit to be worn by young Disney Princess fans).

 

• A tragically absent parent? Check. (Goes all the way back to Bambi, donchaknow.)

 

• An insufferably cute animal sidekick? Check. (The plush toys will fly off store shelves.)

 

• A plethora of new songs, each one striving to become the next popular power ballad? Check. (Great for social media clicks.)

 

• Frequent “clever” references to previous Disney films? Check. (In this case, scores of such references ... clearly a case of the tail wagging the dog).

 

The only thing missing is a coherent narrative. And characters we actually care about.

 

Actually, that isn’t entirely fair. Our heroine, Asha, is captivating: intelligent, resourceful, ethical, and granted a wide range of emotions courtesy of Academy Award-winning voice actress Ariana DeBose. But one can’t help feeling sorry for Asha, stuck in this poorly constructed story. She deserves better.

Peter Pan & Wendy: Fails to fly

Peter Pan & Wendy (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated PG, and too generous, despite violence, peril and child endangerment

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang

On the one hand, Scottish novelist/playwright J.M. Barrie would be delighted to know that the characters he created, more than a century ago in a 1904 play, resonates strongly to this day.

 

Peter Pan (Alexander Molony, far left) and his new friends — from left, Wendy
(Ever Anderson), John (Joshua Pickering) and Michael (Jacobi Jupe) — carefully spy
on Captain Hook and his motley pirate crew.

On the other hand, I suspect Barrie would be horrified by the liberties that scripters David Lowery and Toby Halbrooks have taken, with respect to the key relationship between Peter Pan and his arch-nemesis, Captain Hook.

But although absurd, that isn’t this live-action film’s biggest problem.

 

Ever Anderson is excellent as Wendy Darling, but Alexander Molony’s Peter Pan is a sorry excuse for this “boy who never grew up.” Lowery — who also directs — fails to draw a credible performance from his young actor. Molony’s line deliveries are flat and uninspired, and he fails to project the mischievous spirit — the sense of magic — that is essential to this character.

 

Far too often, Molony seems disinterested: unwilling — or unable — to display more emotion than one would expect during a first-round script reading.

 

No matter how well everybody else performs, they can’t overcome this lack of a convincing Peter Pan.

 

That’s a shame, because in other respects — the Pan/Hook gaffe aside — Lowery and Halbrooks are faithful to many of the clever details Barrie wove into his play, while making subtle adjustments more appropriate to our 21st century.

 

The story begins in 1911, mid-Edwardian England, as 13-year-old Wendy laments her imminent departure to boarding school. Dismayed by the thought of no longer being able to play with younger brothers John (Joshua Pickering) and Michael (Jacobi Jupe), she defiantly proclaims that she doesn’t want to grow up.

 

That plea is heard by Peter, far away in Neverland; he immediately floats into the Darling children’s bedroom, accompanied by his fairy companion, Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi). Peter first must capture his errant shadow, which Wendy sews back on with needle and thread, stabbing him slightly in the process. She soothes the pain by giving him a kiss (a thimble); he later reciprocates by giving her an acorn pendant (all details from Barrie’s play).

 

Thanks to an application of Tinker Bell’s sparkly pixie dust, Wendy, John and Michael are able to fly into the night sky, following Peter’s directions to head “second star to the right, and straight on ’til morning.” Daniel Hart and Oliver Wallace’s lush score swells at this point, with an orchestral echo of Sammy Cahn and Sammy Fain’s “You Can Fly! You Can Fly! You Can Fly!,” from Disney’s 1953 animated classic (a nice touch).

 

Rogue One: Plenty of thrills in this Star Wars entry

Rogue One (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.16.16

The Force is strong with this one.

Rogue One is a crackling entry in the Star Wars canon, perhaps most accurately subtitled Episode 3.95. It takes place immediately preceding 1977’s original Star Wars, and in fact can be viewed as the events abridged in that film’s opening text crawl.

Once Jyn (Felicity Jones) agrees to join Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) on a mission to find
and rescue her father from the evil Empire, she's startled to discover that her new
partner's companion droid, K-2SO, is a former Imperial Enforcer Droid ... with a
distinct inferiority complex.

The fast-paced script — credited to John Knoll, Gary Whitta, Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy — is equal parts heist thriller and down ’n’ dirty war film: a fairly grim escapade, by this series’ usual standards, taking place at a time that finds the severely overmatched rebel Alliance without much of the “new hope” promised by the eventual arrival of Luke, Han and the many others destined to enter the fray.

This film’s essential place in series continuity notwithstanding, director Gareth Edwards and his scripters manage the neat trick of making it a solid stand-alone adventure, for the benefit of any first-time Star Wars viewers (assuming such individuals still exist). This adventure builds to a terrific climax, while also delivering an unexpected degree of emotional gravitas.

The prologue and first act are a bit top-heavy with exposition and the need to introduce a lot of new characters, but — once beyond the information dump — it’s smooth sailing.

Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), once a respected scientist with the evil Empire, became appalled by the weapons of mass destruction he’d been fabricating for his masters; he fled to an outworld planet with his wife Lyra (Valene Kane) and their young daughter Jyn, hoping to remain beneath the Imperial radar. As the film opens, they’ve just been found by Imperial Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), a former colleague, and now an implacable enemy determined to put Galen back to work on a massive new project.

From the moment we meet him, Mendelsohn oozes the “foul stench” that has characterized the best of the Star Wars middle-management villains. His curled-lip sneer and quietly condescending tone make him the pluperfect martinet.

Krennic succeeds in his task, but little Jyn manages to escape and hide in a bolt-hole, where she’s eventually rescued by Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker), a rebel guerrilla fighter given considerable exposure in TV’s animated Clone Wars series. (It’s nice to put a live-action face to this character.)

Zootopia: A menagerie of fun

Zootopia (2016) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild rude humor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.4.16

I’ve said it before: Many of the best scripts these days are attached to animated films.

Disney’s Zootopia is work of subversive genius: an enormously clever project that functions both as a charming, suspenseful and even exciting adventure, and as a compelling parable of tolerance and inclusion. Its arrival in theaters today could not be more perfectly timed, given the current state of this country’s social fabric.

Hoping to track down a license plate that'll lead to a key suspect, and with time of the
essence, Officer Judy Hopps is forced to deal with a sluggish DMV clerk misleadingly
named Flash, much to the amusement of the foxy Nick Wilde.

Pixar’s Wall-E was pretty sneaky, in a similar vein, with respect to its strong environmental message about the need to be better stewards of planet Earth. But Zootopia is even more pointed, without really seeming that way. Rarely has a moral gone down more easily, or more enjoyably.

I’m reflexively wary of screenplays that credit multiple writers, since too many cooks generally spoil the soup. But executive producer John Lasseter’s success in fine-tuning by committee definitely pays off here: This film’s eight (!) credited writers have delivered a savvy, witty narrative that flows smoothly from one scene to the next, carefully developing numerous character dynamics, and building to a delightfully satisfying conclusion.

Even the small stuff is handled well. Following Chekhov’s maxim that every memorable element in a story must be necessary and irreplaceable, we get a thoroughly satisfying payoff — during this film’s climax — to a cute bit in the first few minutes: something that you’re likely to dismiss as a throwaway giggle, until its resurrection. That’s the hallmark of skillful scripting, and an excellent indication of the meticulously crafted care that has gone into this project.

Better still, all these elements are chaperoned with similar skill by co-directors Byron Howard, Rich Moore and Jared Bush.

Our saga takes place in an alternate universe where all the other members of God’s mammalian kingdom have evolved to control their world. (In other words, no people.) As explained during a school play prologue featuring a young and irrepressible bunny named Judy Hopps, their society has evolved beyond the traditional roles of predator and prey, so that all animals co-exist peacefully, and with the belief that no matter what your species — from the largest elephant to the tiniest shrew — you can become anything your heart and dedication desire.

Even so, the unspoken reality is that larger and more powerful animals (“predators”) generally are viewed as higher-class, and possess esteemed and politically controlling careers. Lower-ranking mammals — particularly smaller herbivores (“prey”) — remain a lesser group, consigned to farming or blue-collar livelihoods, and often are looked down upon ... despite being the majority of the overall population.

Trumbo: The writer as triumphant gadfly

Trumbo(2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity and coarse sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.4.15

You have to love ironic serendipity.

When Trumbo was scripted, and then green-lighted for production, and then filmed — with much of its dialog lifted directly from legendary Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s actual speeches and testimony, and delivered so superbly by star Bryan Cranston — nobody could have anticipated that this impeccably mounted and rigorously authentic drama would be released just as our country is poised to repeat the same ghastly mistake made with Japanese American citizens during World War II, and the so-called “Communist sympathizers” who were blacklisted during the 1950s.

Packed tightly into a movie theater filled with eager patrons, Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston)
and his wife, Cleo (Diane Lane), await the film's all-important credits.

One of whom — Trumbo — is the subject of director Jay Roach’s heartfelt and thoroughly mesmerizing film.

Mesmerizing for two reasons: because of scripter John McNamara’s skillful adaptation of veteran journalist Bruce Cook’s 1976 biography, written with Trumbo’s full cooperation; and because of Cranston’s richly nuanced portrayal of the feisty novelist, screenwriter and social agitator.

No question: Trumbo was a character, and Cranston captures the famed scribe’s numerous eccentricities, righteous indignation and insufferable idealism. Trumbo fought the good fight, and lived to talk about it; his thorn-in-the-side persistence — assisted, at just the right moment, by a few Hollywood heavyweights — helped break the blacklist, and put an end to the ultimately ineffectual scare-mongering tactics that emanated from the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Roach and McNamara re-create this shameful bit of American history with the same darkly droll tinge of humor with which Trumbo peppered both his casual conversation and his screenplays. Actually, that’s an misstatement; Trumbo’s conversation rarely was casual, and Cranston gleefully chews into McNamara’s dialog — and Trumbo’s own words — with the enthusiasm of a hyena tearing at a carcass.

We’ve been down this road before, notably with 1976’s The Front — made with numerous individuals, both in front of and behind the camera, who had been smeared by the blacklist — 1991’s Guilty by Suspicion and 2005’s Good Night, and Good Luck.

The latter was highlighted by David Strathairn’s eerily authentic portrayal of broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow. Cranston takes a slightly different approach with Trumbo, nailing the man’s behavior and wonderfully rich verbal vitriol, without really trying to imitate him. As easily observed in the period photos and news clips that appear during the closing credits, Cranston doesn’t really look much like Trumbo.

By my, he sure sounds and acts like him.

Big Hero 6: Rather insubstantial

Big Hero 6 (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for animated action
By Derrick Bang

This film has a serious identity crisis.

Although it begins as a gentle character saga about a boy and his plus-size Personal Healthcare Companion — read: big, poofy robot — co-directors Don Hall and Chris Williams rather abruptly changes things up in the second act, and suddenly we’re watching a frenetic action comedy that feels like an alternate-universe take on the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Is there such a thing as too much comfort? After expressing some fairly trivial frustration,
Hiro discovers that his new Personal Healthcare Companion — dubbed Baymax — has
the "perfect" solution: an all-enveloping hug.

Frankly, it felt like whiplash.

Far more troublesome is this film’s frequent echoes of The Incredibles and How to Train Your Dragon: derivative chunks at times so glaring, that they’re impossible to overlook. The result feels less like an organic concept built from a carefully plotted narrative, and more like a movie designed by committee, and determined to hit crowd-pleasing notes ... a suspicion sharpened by the presence of eight (!) credited scripters.

Indeed, the out-of-left-field shift in tone is as clumsy as the mid-film transition that also spoiled the second half of Pixar’s Brave. And since John Lasseter has the executive producer’s credit on this newest Disney release, the buck obviously stops at his desk.

On the positive side, Big Hero 6 certainly is entertaining, and it’s laden with both laughs and moments of well-timed pathos. But the storyline remains something of a mess, and ultimately feels like a very clumsy attempt to build a new franchise.

The setting is a vibrant, tech-laden future in the massive Northern California city of San Fransokyo: very much a cheerful, gaily colored response to the polyglot Amero-Asian backdrop of Blade Runner. Fourteen-year-old Hiro Hamada (voiced by Ryan Potter, of the TV series Supah Ninjas) is a genius inventor but also something of a tear-away, spending his evenings hustling opponents at illegal underground robot duels.

These hijinks are a source of constant frustration to older brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) and their Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph), the latter charged with the two boys’ care after the never-explained death of their parents. Hoping to channel Hiro’s energy in a more positive direction, Tadashi introduces younger bro to his colleagues at the prestigious San Fransokyo Institute of Technology, and particularly to its head instructor: world-renowned roboticist Robert Callaghan (James Cromwell).

Callaghan, seeing great potential in the boy, encourages Hiro to apply for admission. Our young hero, immediately star-struck by these nifty-gee-whiz surroundings, needs no encouragement.

42: You know the number

42 (2013) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for dramatic intensity, profanity and unpalatable language
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.12.13

42 is an unabashed valentine to baseball great Jackie Robinson: an old-style film laden with the sort of calculated sentimentality that Frank Capra delivered back in the day.

Relying on the split-second timing and sprinting ability that have made him a
sensational — and crowd-pleasing — base-stealer, Jackie Robinson (Chadwick
Boseman, left) delights in messing with the minds of pitchers who, after a few rounds
of this, sometimes lose their cool completely.

The pacing is leisurely and graceful, with unhurried takes granting us time to absorb the story and appreciate the performances. Writer/director Brian Helgeland and editors Peter McNulty and Kevin Stitt avoid the staccato pacing and smash-cuts that have become a 21st century norm, preferring instead to let events unfold in a manner that reflects the poetry of baseball itself.

Honestly, I found it quite refreshing.

Although Helgeland has taken pains to be faithful to the firestorm that erupted in 1947, when Robinson became the first player to break Major League Baseball’s infamous color line, the approach here is — at the risk of unintended irony — acutely black and white. All the positive (i.e. progressive) historical figures are extraordinarily virtuous, their memories honored here by behavior that is, for the most part, nothing short of saintly.

The racist crackers, on the other hand, are one-dimensional and mostly anonymous: a redneck sheriff here, a small-town gaggle of thugs there. The one exception, almost startling in a film that until this point has (rather unrealistically) avoided much blatantly racist language, comes from Alan Tudyk’s portrayal of Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman. No doubt Helgeland felt safe with this choice of highly visible villain, since by all accounts the actual Chapman’s on-field behavior was even worse than what we witness here.

But that’s getting ahead of things.

Although characters too good to be true often don’t work in our increasingly cynical age, this film gets its crucial dramatic juice from the sublime lead performance by Chadwick Boseman, an actor, playwright and stage director whose screen work thus far has been confined mostly to TV shows such as Lincoln Heights and Persons Unknown. I suspect that’s about to change, because Boseman never puts a foot wrong here.

It’s difficult to convey the mesmerizing, deeply stirring lightning in a bottle that emanates from a genuinely inspirational person: the breathtaking whoosh that erupts when a truly electrifying individual strides through a door and sucks all the air out of a room. We feel it in the presence of a gifted politician or preacher, or when a commanding actor takes the stage during a live theatrical performance.

Boseman has that sort of presence, and Helgeland coaxes truly fine and sensitive work from this young actor. Boseman’s line readings are heartfelt and well timed, but that’s only part of it; he carries himself in a manner that suggests the brave self-assurance that Robinson himself must have displayed, every waking minute during this tempestuous point in his career.

In a nutshell, Boseman’s performance is inspirational in the same way that Robinson himself must have stirred so many people, back in 1947.

Wreck-It Ralph: A sweet surprise

Wreck-It Ralph (2012) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG, for kid-level rude humor and mild action/violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.2.12

I haven’t had this much fun since 1988’s Who Framed Roger Rabbit blended classic Disney and Warner Bros. cartoon characters in a similarly madcap adventure.

After crashing his way into the candy-laden realm of the game Sugar Rush, the clumsy
and destructive Ralph only wants to retrieve his hard-earned gold medal. Alas, impish
Vanellope von Schweetz has her own plans for that medal, and they involve her own
desire for "street cred" among her peers.

Wreck-It Ralph, like numerous fantasies before it, concerns the activities of playthings after pesky humans have gone to bed (or otherwise departed the scene). Pixar owns this sub-genre most recently, with its Toy Story franchise, but the concept is much older, dating back to Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Ballet and Victor Herbert’s 1903 musical, Babes in Toyland. Both have been staged and filmed many, many times.

To my knowledge, Wreck-It Ralph is the first such storyline set in the world of arcade gaming. It boasts a sharp script by Jennifer Lee and Phil Johnston, the latter responsible for writing last year’s delightful Cedar Rapids. Most crucially — and as is the case with the Toy Story films — Wreck-It Ralph takes place in a colorful world that is laden with goofy characters, but includes plenty of droll and clever dialogue.

The result: It will delight both youngsters and their parents, and the latter also will recognize all sorts of inside jokes and familiar references.

The action unfolds at Litwak’s Family Fun Center & Arcade, where — as longstanding tradition demands — local kids reserve next-play status by lining up their quarters. Game choices include everything from the cutesy-poo, animé-flavored Sugar Rush, where players race adorable girl avatars through a track bordered by gumdrops, cotton candy and all manner of sweet stuff; to the hyper-realistic, first-person shooter thrills of Hero’s Duty, a nightmarish storyline right out of Starship Troopers, where a combat platoon battles scary cy-bugs that threaten to annihilate the universe.

Somewhere in between is the retro appeal of Fix-It Felix Jr., a 1980s game mildly reminiscent of Nintendo’s original Mario Bros. (whose characters, perhaps tellingly, are not in this film). The game’s villain, Ralph, is a 643-lb. man monster who is determined to destroy the apartment building that the game’s Nicelanders call home. Players (in our real world) control plucky little Felix, whose magic hammer repairs all the damage. Successfully completing the level means that Ralph gets tossed into a nearby mud puddle.

Unhappily, Ralph (voiced by John C. Reilly) is a sensitive soul, and has grown tired of always being the bad guy, and of living his off-duty hours alone in a brick pile. He even joins a support group, Bad-Anon, where familiar villains from various games (Street Fighter, Altered Beasts) share their tales in sessions hosted by Clyde, the orange ghost from Pac-Man.