SHORT Toy Story 4 picks up some short amount of time after the third entry, with young Bonnie now the custodian of the toys and about to start kindergarten. When she fashions a new pal, Forky, made from pipe cleaners and a plastic spork, he's slightly neurotic although begins to fit in with Woody, Buzz and the gang. But things go awry during a road trip when Forky becomes lost, Woody goes on an adventure to rescue him, and meets an old friend in the process...
Clocking in almost a quarter of a century after the first entry, Pixar's fourth full-length chapter in the Toy Story series can hardly be accused of being a quick cash-in. The studio's quality levels are (usually) high, and they're one of the few safe bets when it comes to animated entertainment - not only working to ensure the film takes all the time it needs to be created, but also that it tells a story worth watching.
BANG Concentrating more on high-adventure this time rather than heart-melting nostalgia, the animation here is better than ever (even if Andy still looks weird), with the photo-realistic scenery and smoothly-moving, well sculpted and weighted models*1 you'd expect from an industry leader. The pacing is brisk, the stakes are reliably high, Andrew Stanton and Staphany Folsom's script is tight and often laugh-out-loud funny, although it's notable that those moments usually come from the newly introduced characters (Forky, Duke Caboom, Ducky & Bunny). On that subject, it's also good to see Disney/Pixar embracing the idea of more sinister dolls*2, although it feels a little Goosebumps at times.
The old gang are present, correct and on-character (as far as they're used - this is very much Woody's show), but tend to bring wry smiles rather than outright guffaws. Despite the frequent action, the film doesn't have the peril of previous adventures (although Toy Story 3 really pushed that to its limit anyway), but it's still great.
Toy Story 4 is an enormous amount of fun, but is it more that that?
More to the point, does it need to be?
CASH Although it's been asked countless times since the film was first announced, the question isn't so much 'does the Toy Story series need a new chapter?', more 'now that two Lego movies have taken the idea of sentient toys in parallel interacting realities and moved it on a notch, is there still a story to be told with Woody and Buzz?'. The Lego movies don't have the emotional punch of the Toy Story ones, but they seem more adept at making broader, more societal points.
On an entirely smaller level, it feels a bit wrong where the toys band together to control the RV in the final act, wresting control from the human driver. The Toy Story films have always played with the 'just out of sight' motif - it's not as if the toys can't move when people are just watching, they just have the discipline not to - but the tension has previously arisen from the 'OMG will they be seen?' moments. In Toy Story 4, our heroes are pretty much running around in plain sight, and by the end almost causing a fatal traffic accident. If I want that, I'll watch Gremlins, thanks.
BRAVO There also appear to be a couple of glaring tonal mis-steps in the final moments (even though these are thoroughly cued up by the preceding film). When Woody chooses a life as a 'lost toy' with Bo Peep and is assured by Buzz and Jessie that "Bonnie will be alright", doesn't this completely undercut the final scene in Toy Story 3? Woody was going to be the one toy that Andy kept and took to college, the lone memento of his childhood. He's been Andy's action companion throughout the years who's now earned a comfortable retirement, as adulthood beckons but with one nostalgic eye on the formative past. When Andy sees Bonnie's face light up on discovering Woody at the bottom of the box, he knows that Woody's adventures can now continue in new hands, that it's okay to let his favourite cowboy go knowing he'll be fulfilling his purpose all over again. So then we fast-forward a few months and what? Woody's picking up dustballs in the closet while Bonnie plays with plastic cutlery? Is that all Woody counts for? Is that all the affection Bonnie can manage? She got these toys for free and she treats them like trash, no wonder she makes her own ones from the bin, the entitled little shit. Bonnie deserves to play in garbage. There, I said it.
But it's not just the kid who's to blame here*4. With Bo Peep assuring Woody that kids lose toys every day and that Bonnie will quickly get over it, not only is Bo underlining the point above about the kid's attention span, she's also ignoring the very point of the previous three films, surely? Bo abuses the goodwill of her previous relationship with Woody to get him to gainsay his own golden rule - a toy must be there for their kid. Bo's own abandonment issues have morphed into soft-spoken nihilism over the years, and now she's passing on her blithely hedonistic manifesto to any toy she encounters. As a cowboy, Woody symbolises the hardworking optimism which forged America's early days - the truth, compassion and family values which Woody has preached throughout the series. Now Disney (of all people) are showing us how easily these can be disregarded in the 21st century, and ultimately how replaceable we all are*3.
HALLOWEEN H Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy Toy Story 4. But I’m happy to join the consensus on this one and be like “Great work guys, now stop”.
Although fair play to Pixar for making a movie showing a young black girl getting lost in a fairground at night then being reunited with her parents, and not having her wear a Michael Jackson's Thriller t-shirt. Don't think I'd have been able to resist, especially with Jordan Peele in the voice-cast...
Well, the Toy Story flicks.
It is.
It is.
It's not but let's be fair, that's a very high bar.
*1 And yes, I would totally buy a three-pack of 3¾"-scale Combat Carl figures in their different fatigues. Yes please. [ BACK ]
*2 Although on that subject, I don’t think that Gabby Gabby earns her redemption here. She spends more than half the movie wanting to disable the hero and is just one of those weird old toys to begin with. [ BACK ]
*3 If you think this is harsh, don't even go near my ideas on what The Boss Baby is really about… [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Us (second-pass*1)
Cert: 15 / 116 mins / Dir. Jordan Peele / Trailer
I'm always in awe of any film which manages to convincingly show a maze of mirrors without also revealing the camera crew. And here, that's not even the cinematic finale, it's on the starter menu...
So as well as sounding like one of the nicest and most erudite people you'd ever want to meet, Jordan Peele goes from strength to strength artistically, using the tempered fury of Get Out then changing direction a little (without dropping down a gear) for his new film, Us.
Peele creates a movie which can be simultaneously enjoyed as a slickly assembled, surreal home invasion horror, and also a bitingly acerbic breakdown of repression, duality and societal paranoia. Best of all, he makes this look effortless. Us is a film about reflections, shadows, the differences between the two and the places where they overlap. It is almost oppressively intricate.
ESCALATING Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis makes great use of the 360° sets, escalating the claustrophobia and submerging the audience right in it. And even with the everyone gradually dialling things up to 11*2, there's not a dud performance int the entire movie. It's excellently cast and Peele brings them all together like a conductor at the top of his game. First and deservedly foremost among these though is Lupita Nyong'o, with what could well be a career-defining turn as both Adelaide and her counterpart, Red. She manages to take what in any other production would be a pantomime partnership and instead produces a sinister dramatic ballet of unhinged threat.
STAIRING Us sells its absurdist concept so well that even when the established beats of conventional horror flicks occur, they still work in the heat of the moment*3 - because 'reason' becomes theoretical when you can't tell what's real. Much like Get Out, when the plot mechanics are finally revealed in the third act of Us, the inherent silliness of the premise means that the film arguably makes even less sense than it did earlier. But anything which can be cinematically brilliant and still raise a plethora of 'how would that work?'*4 questions long after viewing is clearly doing a lot of things right.
A thematic kaleidoscope meets an absolute masterclass. We do not deserve Lupita Nyong'o, and we do not deserve Jordan Peele
Well let's start with Get Out, even though Us comes from a markedly different direction.
It is.
It is - repeat viewings are in order.
Jordan Peele will go from strength to strength, but this is (another) high watermark.
*1 My first-pass of Us was captured in a belated micro- review because as much as I loved the movie, I couldn't quite pull everything together into a full piece (pretty much the point of the micro-reviews, to be honest). Anyway, this second-pass is now late too, but let's just say that Us is every bit as tense the second time it's viewed. The threat, the intensity, the intrigue, every bit. And if that's not a sign of a fantastic flick then what is? [ BACK ]
*3 You know the drill: Why would they investigate where that noise is coming from? Why would they peek out from that open door? Why would they not just run the absolute fuck away at the earliest opportunity? That sort of thing. [ BACK ]
*4 Spoilers, but: Yeah the rabbits are an easily renewable source of food for The Tethered, but what do the rabbits eat? How can a society the same size as the population of the US survive living in tunnels without dying from vitamin deficiency and scurvy from just eating raw rabbit meat? Where did they get all the red fabric to make the outfits from? If the project was long-abandoned by the government, how come there are doubles of the kids? That's not how genetics work, otherwise all brothers/sisters of different ages would look identical. Is the system meant to be running itself down there? What happens to a double when its surface-dweller is killed accidentally? The '11:11' guy carried on living after his counterpart died. What happens when a surface dweller's life is saved with an operation from a naturally occurring genetic condition like cancer, but the double doesn't undergo that operation? What about people arriving in the country via immigration? Where are their doubles? What about Americans leaving the US? This can't work on any technical level, surely? The best part is that I still unconditionally love Us and have still barely even begun to unpack it. [ BACK ]
*5 Seriously though, so much of this movie makes no fucking sense that I cannot in good conscience award it full marks. But I do love it, though. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well it's not every day I'm pleasantly surprised by a film that's essentially a mashup of Weird Science and a 1986 Viz character. Not least when it deftly borrows the freeze-frame fourth-wall-breaking of Deadpool, the evil genius with a shrink/enlarge weapon from Ant-Man and the mass-mutation beam of the X-Men movies, and manages to clock in with a U certificate, to boot.
Dreamworks' Captain Underpants is the big-screen debut of Dav Pilkey's books by the same name (and alas clocking in too late for this year's Adaptation series) and follows school-friends Harold and George as they unwittingly bring to life their own cartoon creation, the eponymous captain.
First things first, this is a silly film. Delightfully, masterfully silly, in fact. Don't let the BBFC rating make you think it's been unduly sanitised on its journey to the cinema, although there's comparatively little in the way of double-entendres*1 'for the parents'. If you're going to enjoy this with your youngsters, it'll be because you're on the same level*2. Which is, in all honesty, the best way anyhow. While the film isn't entirely devoid of 'message', comedy is the foundation here. And if the grown-ups can have movies like that, why shouldn't the kids? The bottom line is, I laughed more in the first five minutes of this film than I did in the entirety of Cars 3.
Although it dips in and out of various animation styles for small set-pieces, the majority of presentation is in smooth CGI models (thankfully in the artwork style of the source-text). Personally I'd have preferred something which felt like it held a little more weight, ie stop-motion style, even if that was simulated. But at the end of the day, this is Dreamworks, not Laika. And speaking of such matters, the two lead characters would probably be better if they'd been voiced by kids instead of 'enthusiastic sounding men', but it's not like this pulled me out of the fun at all.
At 89 minutes this is a lean show, but the runtime fits the story that's being told and the film ends just before it runs out of narrative steam (there's a mid-credits scene if you're so-inclined). Sure, in the long-term maybe it's a little forgettable, but as some animated features are forgettable while you're watching them, it's ridiculously entertaining throughout. And in the Summer-holidays, that counts for a lot.
The cleanest toilet-humour you'll see this year, and all the better for it. If you don't laugh during this film, you were probably never a child.
Minions, Weird Science, things containing fart-jokes.
If you have padawans you'll probably be dragged along to it anyway.
That's no bad thing.
Yep.
Well, I think Kevin Hart has found his natural cinematic home…
Nope.
No.
Which, in a film like this, is frankly ridiculous.
Level 1: This film features the work of Thomas 'additional voices in The Old Republic' Middleditch.
*1 That said, the 'uranus' joke is mined on more than one occasion and like a Stewart Lee routine, just gets funnier each time. [ BACK ]
*2 Because y'know, not every building in a movie that's numbered '213' is a reference to Jeffrey Dahmer/Slayer. I accept that now. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Get Out Cert: 15 / 104 mins / Dir. Jordan Peele / Trailer
Oh. March. The third month of the calendar-year, just after the earnest hand-wringing of the Oscars and before the deafening explosions of the Summer blockbuster, is regularly the release-window for substandard weirdness (cf 2016, 2015, 2014), indeed that's what we've come to expect. But even I'll admit that the trailer for the Blumhouse-produced Get Out looked like it could be set to buck that trend by bringing far more to the party than was expected of it...
Setting off for to meet his girlfriend Rose's affluent white parents for the first time, young photographer Chris is already fairly trepidacious as they haven't been told he's black. When they arrive however, the atmosphere is weirder than even he imagined; the parents are nothing but welcoming, yet something is very, very wrong. As the weekend progresses, tensions rise and strange events escalate, but will Chris solve the puzzle, or just be one of the pieces?
A combination of a particularly heavyweight awards season and an off the cuff comment by someone who should really know better has perhaps written a reputational cheque that Jordan Peele didn't realise he'd need to cash. Don't get me wrong, this is certainly a good film but I'd struggle to call it more than that. Third-act silliness prevents Get Out from being quite as incisive as it'd like. In terms of Satire™, the film is more of a sledgehammer than a scalpel, although obviously some nuts are harder to crack.
But great performances from Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams as the central couple are key to the film's cinematic efficiency. The supporting cast range from textbook to scenery-chewing, but they're largely fine given the context of the film. Unexpected praise also goes to LilRel Howery as the 'funny best friend on the end of the phone' archetype, who is far better than a film like this would normally allow (although he does more than his share of plot-lifting, too).
Leaving aside the obvious current socio-political relevance, the mechanics of the movie are... well, pretty mechanical. The creeping paranoia is implemented fantastically, being psychological rather than supernatural. Foreshadowing plot-points are meticulously laid out and counted neatly back in again although never with a heavy-hand, a move which should make re-watching the film workable (no mean feat with this narrative structure). Get Out is a big fan of traditional jump-scares too though, which lets down a screenplay that's clearly more self-aware than its contemporaries. None of it's badly done, but this certainly feels like Jordan Peele has managed to paint an interesting picture using the same old worn out brushes we've seen other artists use.
All in all, Get Out is more than reasonable, although I'm already worrying about the movies which will try ride in its slipstream.
But if the weight of real-world politics is perhaps putting you off this psych-horror, don't worry too much; the film features an almost unhealthy amount of Microsoft product placement. Now I'm someone who raises an eyebrow when everyone on-screen uses devices with an Apple logo on them, but seeing the MS/Windows branding this much, all in the same place? Rest assured, you're watching fiction...
For full tension, yes.
If you already have any kind of hearing-damage, no.
It does.
Probably not best, but it'll be one of the best-remembered.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: Daniel Kaluuya also appeared in Sicario, alongside Benicio 'as-yet unnamed character from The Last Jedi' Del Toro.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
