Uh oh! Because of Thanksgiving, my Film Critic pants are pretty snug, but I have put them on again for three new film releases and this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, November 29, 2024 (for the exclusive video versions of these weekly reviews, become a paid subscriber on Patreon!)
1) MOANA 2
Disney's follow-up to their massive hit from 2016 is a largely disappointing sequel that started out as a Disney+ streaming series and not a feature film, and you can tell. The film lacks the emotional core and solid storytelling of the original. It is left with a recycled narrative and unfocused sentiment.
The plucky Polynesian heroine (voiced, as in the first film, by Auli'i Cravalho) is back, and once again, she is teamed up with hunky, tattoo-covered demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson, again) to fight the evil god Nalo and remove a curse that has been placed on the sacred island of Motufetu.
Upon removing the curse, Moana and her generations of people will be reunited with tribes from islands worldwide, and happiness will be spread throughout the lands. Laughs, songs, excitement, and thrills will take place during this journey, along with meeting new friends and wacky characters who will all share in the adventure.
On paper, it sounds fun and interesting, but in execution, it's stale, uninspired, and pretty dull. The new sidekicks are unmemorable, and the many extraneous subplots and characters seem forced and are often annoying.
A crabby old man, a far too excited and hyper teenage girl, a dumbstruck, hero-worshipping young warrior, and several wacky animal sidekicks take up screen time with average to irritating antics that are meant to be charming but are usually just shrill.
Even the songs (so memorable in the original) feel recycled, uninspired, and repetitive. Only Johnson's solo tune, the exuberant "Can I Get A Chee Hoo," a fun pump-up song performed to inspire a sad Moana, stands out with any special feeling, even if it is a rehashed version of "You're Welcome" from the original.
The animation, however, is truly spectacular. It is colorful, imaginative, and quite beautiful, with some action sequences being breathtaking and exciting. I wish the screenplay and music had matched the technical aspects of the film because if they had, this movie would have been a home run.
As it is, "Moana 2" is... fine. Just fine. It's worth a look, if only for the animation and visuals, and it's certainly better than some of the other family options in theaters right now. Just don't expect greatness. I don't think this movie will take off the way the original did, but I think it will make fans of "Moana" happy and lovers of the culture satisfied. - ⭐️⭐️1/2
Adapted by Virgil Williams and director Malcolm Washington from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson, the film version of "The Piano Lesson" is deeply flawed and often clumsy in its execution.
The story takes place in 1936 Pittsburgh at the home of Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson). It tells the story of the Charles family, their history, and how they deal with a piano heirloom that symbolizes the family's tortured past.
The source material is stunning and beautifully written, but director Washington's handling of the play is shaky at best, and the adaption is bulky and filled with distracting and unnecessary additions.
This is Washington's feature directorial debut, but unlike his father Denzel (who serves as a producer here), who did a magnificent job directing a film adaptation of Wilson's "Fences" in 2016, Malcolm has made a disappointingly inconsistent movie that often doesn't work.
The camera work is sloppy, the editing lacks rhythm, and Washington's direction of the actors is annoyingly inconsistent. Some performers make theatrically loud stylistic choices ("playing to the back of the house," as they say), while others do much more subtle work, which is more appropriate for the film.
The combination of styles is jarring, to say the least. Still, a couple of performances stand out: Danielle Deadwyler and John David Washington have some beautiful moments, but it's Samuel L. Jackson who gives the most solid turn.
The film opens with a wholly unnecessary and badly staged flashback that only exists to boost the budget and make the movie feel more epic. What happens in the flashback is detailed and discussed in dialogue several times throughout the play/film already, so there is no reason for it to be in the movie.
There are even more flashbacks and embellishments to follow, further distracting from the beautiful text and making the already choppy screenplay more literal and less mysterious.
The final 10 minutes of the film are, in fact, disastrous, with Washington taking the subtle metaphor and allegory of the play and replacing it with heavy-handed on-screen antics that strip away any mystery, replacing it with loud paranormal cliches that are painful to watch. - ⭐️⭐️
This odd and not particularly special film tells the story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a German Protestant pastor, theologian, and leader in the Resistance movement against the Nazis. He became famous for that resistance and for his assassination by the Nazis in a concentration camp in 1945 after two years of imprisonment.
Written, produced, and directed by Todd Komarnicki and starring Jonas Dassler as Bonhoeffer, this film has become a political pawn used by its makers and studio to support a certain political figure and recently elected official.
Separating the politics from the product is a bit difficult here, especially when Komarnicki (who produced Jon Favreau's Christmas classic "Elf" and wrote Clint Eastwood's marvelous "Sully") seems to be on an overbearing mission with his Christian messages and political leanings.
So, as a movie, this thing is quite stiff, monotonous, and heavy-handed. The story is certainly interesting at its core. It could have been a sharp look at a specific perspective that held true during World War II, but it all comes off as overbearing and clumsy.
The acting ranges from quite good (Dassler in the lead) to downright awful (comedian/weirdo Flula Borg as German jurist Hans von Dohnanyi). The tech credits, music score, and visuals are mediocre at best.
It plays like a basic cable TV mini-series based on what should have been a very compelling story but needs to be more balanced by agendas, messaging, and, quite simply, poor filmmaking. There is a good story to be told from this part of history, but "Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin." is not it. - ⭐️1/2
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