Wolfwalkers: An enchanting fable

Wolfwalkers (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG, for dramatic intensity and sequences of violence and peril

By Derrick Bang

The best animation houses have their own distinctive appearance, pacing and storytelling approach.

 

Classic 1940s and ’50s Warner Bros. cartoons looked nothing like their Disney cousins, and nobody would confuse one of Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli efforts with a Pixar entry.

 

After spending some time with the forest-born Mebh, left, the town-bred Robyn begins
to realize that her assumptions about her walled town's relationship with the
surrounding woods are not only wrong, but harmful.

The same is true of Ireland’s Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart, who — as artists, writers and/or directors under the Cartoon Saloon banner — have previously brought us 2009’s The Secret of Kells and 2014’s Song of the Sea, both of which earned Academy Award nominations.

 

Their unique touch is equally evident in Wolfwalkers, which they’ve co-directed and co-written, with scripting assistance from Will Collins and Jericca Cleland. As with the earlier films, this new animated opus — available via Apple TV+ — is steeped in Irish mythology and folklore, and includes a strong environmental message.

 

There’s also a rather nasty jab at Oliver Cromwell’s 17th century invasion and subsequent occupation of Ireland, for those with an historical bent. (Some transgressions never are forgiven, and the Irish have very long memories.)

 

The year is 1650, the setting a British-occupied walled hamlet in Kilkenny. Rule is maintained by the oppressively Puritan — and ironically named — Lord Protector (voiced by Simon McBurney) and his soldiers. The “heathen” Irish townsfolk are essentially feudal serfs: the men tending sheep and working the land, the women enduring back-breaking labor in the cringingly named “scullery.”

 

Over time, the Lord Protector has ordered that the surrounding woods be systematically cleared away, as a means of “protecting” the town from “vicious” wolves. This does not sit well with the wisest townsfolk, steeped in local lore, who understand that a symbiotic balance must be maintained between people, forest and wolves.

 

The wolf pack has long been protected by the powerful, magic-laden Moll MacTíre (Maria Doyle Kennedy), a “wolfwalker” who is human when awake, and transforms into a wolf when her human form sleeps. Aside from her many others gifts — most related to a wolf’s extraordinarily enhanced senses — Moll has the ability to heal wounds.

Sing Street: A joyful noise

Sing Street (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic candor, profanity, underage smoking and other questionable teen behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.29.16

I’m in love.

Much the way the young star of this indie charmer worships the mysterious girl who lives across the street from his school, I adore the filmmaking chops of Irish writer/director John Carney.

Having worked up the courage to chat up the intriguing girl (Lucy Boynton) who often
stands across the street from his school, Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) concocts an
improbable scheme to get her attention. The problem, then, is making good on his
grandiose claims...

He came to our attention Stateside with 2007’s endearing Once, and its music-laden saga of a Dublin busker and Czech immigrant who meet and then bond over their shared love of songwriting and performing. Stars Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová fell in love during production, and it showed; nothing could have been sweeter than their Academy Awards performance of the film’s signature tune, “Falling Slowly,” which deservedly galloped home with an Oscar.

Carney detoured with a couple of less successful projects before returning to the music world with 2013’s equally appealing Begin Again, which found washed up, Manhattan-based music exec Mark Ruffalo embracing one last career shot by encouraging the efforts of fledgling singer/songwriter Keira Knightley. As with Once, the action unfolds against a backdrop of catchy, radio-ready new songs: another instant soundtrack hit for delighted fans.

Pleasant as it was, though, a certain something was missing from Begin Again: something that has become obvious with the arrival of Sing Street. As a writer, Carney clearly has the most fun exploring his Irish roots; this new film’s hard-scrabble, working-class Dublin setting affords a rich tapestry of young angst and earthy ensemble dynamics.

Carney sets his story in the 1980s, as a bleak employment depression sends ferryloads of young Irish citizens to London, in the (often vain) hope of landing a steady paycheck. Against this backdrop, 15-year-old Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) finds life at home increasingly distressing. Parents Robert (Aidan Gillen) and Penny (Maria Doyle Kennedy) are heading for a messy divorce, heedless of the impact the process is having on Conor, his sister Ann (Kelly Thornton) and their older brother Brendan (Jack Reynor).

Financial stress contributes to the trauma, and one immediate change affects Conor personally. To save money, he’s moved from his posh Jesuit private school to an inner-city comprehensive: Synge Street School, laden with cigarette-smoking bullies barely kept under control by mostly ineffectual priests. The one exception is the smugly authoritarian Brother Baxter (Don Wycherley), a tyrannical monster who takes pleasure in humiliating his students.

Barely into his first day, Conor runs afoul of both Brother Baxter and the hulking Barry (Ian Kenny), a vicious older student likely passed from one grade to the next, just so his previous instructors can get rid of him.

Jupiter Ascending: Overcooked sci-fi slop

Jupiter Ascending (2015) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and brief chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang

Back in the day — way back in the day — sci-fi pulp magazine covers were known for their wonderfully lurid images of scantily clad maidens being menaced by all manner of strange creatures, usually of a reptilian or insectoid nature.

With several nasty spaceships chasing them through the urban canyons of downtown
Chicago, Jupiter (Mila Kunis) and Caine (Channing Tatum) just barely manage to dodge
the laser blasts, thanks to his anti-gravity footwear, which allows him to "skate" on air.

Such covers generally accompanied thoroughly ludicrous space operas that were light on credible characterization or plausible plotting, and heavy on high-tech hardware and weaponry.

This laughably ridiculous flick belongs squarely in that sort of company.

In fairness, Jupiter Ascending isn’t as inane as the Wachowski siblings’ nadir, a spot forever and always to be occupied by 2008’s ill-advised big-screen adaptation of Speed Racer. (At least, one hopes they never plumb lower depths.)

At times, though, it seems a pretty close call. Despite some genuinely thoughtful “big ideas” that percolate throughout this clumsy original script, Jupiter Ascending will be remembered — if it’s remembered at all — for its howlingly dreadful dialogue and relentless, protracted, video game-style action scenes.

Rarely has an ordinary, flesh-and-blood human being endured such punishment, violated so many natural laws of physics, and emerged with nary a scratch. Heck, our heroine’s hair never even gets mussed. We can but roll our eyes, as she survives megascale carnage that should have pulped her fragile body many times over. Scores of times over. Hundreds of times over.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Outer space fantasies can be a tough genre to mine successfully; it’s difficult to qualify what separates an engaging, rip-roaring homage — such as the original Star Wars trilogy — from the sort of overcooked mess being served here. I guess the distinction becomes obvious only when filmmakers egregiously succumb to the dark side of the Force, as Andy and Lana Wachowski have done so ostentatiously.

And the silly names don’t help much.