Better Nate than Ever: Broadway dreams

Better Nate Than Ever (2022) • View trailer

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

Available via: Disney+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.1.22

A film that opens with George Benson’s “On Broadway” definitely gets off to a good start.

 

And yes: For the most part, writer/director Tim Federle’s endearing teen fantasy achieves its modest goals. This is a fairy tale for young theater nerds, and while the first act is a bit ragged, the story — and its talented title character — easily win us over in time.

 

At low ebb, with everything apparently going wrong, Nate (Rueby Wood, center in green)
stumbles across a busking band that happens to be playing — what else? —
"On Broadway."

That said, the relentless “Disneyfication” is quite distracting. This appears to be a world dominated on stage and screen solely by other Disney efforts, which is rather boorish. The Mouse House may desire world domination, but they could be more diplomatic along the way.

 

Anyway…

 

Thirteen-year-old Nate Foster (Rueby Wood, in an energetic film debut), a small-town kid, has long nurtured massive Broadway dreams; alas, nobody else shares his view of his own talent. His parents are quietly tolerant; older brother Anthony (Joshua Bassett) is horrified to discover that Nate attends school wearing — gasp, shudder — lip gloss.

 

The story opens on what Nate assumes will be his big day, with the newly posted school play cast list granting him the starring role in a musical about Abraham Lincoln. Instead, to his horror, he’s relegated to an ensemble part.

 

As a tree.

 

Disappointed beyond words, he’s all but immune to the comforting words of best friend Libby (Aria Brooks), who counsels patience and calls him out at the slightest whiff of a bad attitude. 

 

Ah, but Libby also has Big News. A hot-shot New York director is mounting a Broadway musical adaptation of the 2002 animated film Lilo & Stitch (ahem), and has announced an open casting call for the mischievous, blue-furred title character. Better still, this will take place on the same upcoming weekend when Nate’s parents will treat themselves to a spa experience … and therefore won’t be home to monitor their sons’ activities.

 

Libby has it all worked out (well, mostly). They’ll claim sleepovers with their respective parents, then hop a red-eye bus for the long trip to Manhattan. Once at the casting studio, everything will fall into place … right?

 

Well, no. Predictably.

Wonder Park: Far from it

Wonder Park (2019) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG, despite quite scary sequences
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.15.19

This animation misfire is a total disaster.

Actually, it’s worse than that. I’ve been bored, nauseated, disgusted and repulsed by bad films over time, but only rarely do stinkers prompt the degree of hostility that swelled exponentially, as Wonder Park slogged to its conclusion.

June is delighted to discover that one of her favorite stuffed toys is a living, talking blue
bear in the parallel realm where her fantasy theme park also is real. Too bad her joy is
about to be shattered by a relentless hoard of chattering zombie monkeys...

To paraphrase the title from one of Roger Ebert’s books, I hated, hated, hated this film.

The premise is hopelessly weird, the execution deeply flawed. Mind you, we’re talking about a medium that has successfully made heroes of gourmet rats, frost-generating princesses, and dogs struggling to survive on an island of trash.

I’m surprised Josh Appelbaum, André Nemec and Robert Gordon are willing to acknowledge having written this clumsy, incoherent, ill-conceived mess. I can’t imagine how the initial elevator pitch would have gone. What in the world could have prompted Paramount execs to believe this notion ever could have been made into a coherent film?

We’re talkin’ irredeemable stinker, folks.

The story, such as it is:

June Bailey (voiced by Brianna Denski), a precocious young genius probably destined for an engineering career, loves amusement parks. She and her mother (Jennifer Garner) have spent years sketching out the ultimate fantastical theme park, filled with delightfully crazy rides. They call it Wonder Park, and its pretend “ambassadors” — who “put the ‘wonder’ in Wonder Park” — are June’s assortment of stuffed animals.

But here’s the thing: Every outrageous new ride that June whispers into the ear of her stuffed monkey, Peanut, is heard and instantly fabricated by a living, breathing Peanut, who — in some alternate universe — is the magical architect of an actual Wonder Park. Which is stuffed with happy human patrons, who aren’t the slightest bit fazed to be hosted by a talking monkey (Norbert Leo Butz) and counterparts of June’s other stuffed critters: Greta, a wild boar (Mila Kunis); Boomer, a narcoleptic blue bear (Ken Hudson Campbell); Steve, the porcupine safety officer (John Oliver); and beaver brothers Gus and Cooper (Kenan Thompson and Ken Jeong).

Ohhhhh-kay. This is a stretch. Probably an impossible one, but we gotta roll with it.

(As the story proceeds, there’s a strong echo of the real-world/fantasy-world divide in The LEGO Movie, which feels a bit like copycatting.)