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Barbie (2023)
Who would have guessed a movie based upon a ubiquitous doll that dates back to the 1950s would become not just a cultural force and reclamation project but also the biggest moviegoing event of the year, as well as the highest-grossing movie in Warner Brothers’ history, even outpacing The Boy Who Lived? In 2023, it turns out we are all, every one, a Barbie girl living in a Barbie world. I came to this experience late, wondering if writer/director Greta Gerwig’s movie could live up to the lavish hype, the fawning praise, the hilarious offenses that many fragile males have levied against it. It couldn’t possibly be that good, could it? I saw it with three generations of women in my family, something I will privilege, and I must say, it is that good. Barbie is one of the best movies of the year and a shining example of what vision and passion can do to elevate any story. There’s so many ways this movie could have just been cheap corporate slop and instead it becomes an existential yet deeply personal treatise on life and death.
In the world of Barbies, women rule and the men are just afterthoughts. In this creation myth, the Kens were meant to compliment the Barbies. We watch “Stereotypical Barbie” (Margot Robbie) go through her daily routine of fun, frivolity, and nightly dance parties with all her best gal pals (no boys, er Kens, allowed). Then one day, this blonde Barbie started walking differently, started seeing the world differently, and started wondering about dying. Was there something wrong? Her human owner, in the real world, was in trouble, so Barbie sets off on an adventure to find her human owner and save the day, with help from her boyfriend, Ken (Ryan Gosling). Except for these two, the real world is very different from what they were expecting.
It’s easy to see how this movie could have been a mediocre fish-out-of-water comedy, with Barbie clashing in our modern-day world with its modern-day views of fashion, body image, and what skinny, buxom dolls represent to generations of young impressionable children. It’s clear to see what the scrapped version could have been when Amy Schumer was attached to star. What really impressed me with Barbie, beyond its delightful and inspired production values, is how ambitious and well-realized this movie is at every turn. It could have settled for easy jokes about Barbie and Ken not fitting in, not understanding human relationships and sex, and that stuff is there and it’s quite funny, but Gerwig and co-writer Noah Baumbach want to do so much more. This is a studio blockbuster, based upon a decades-long popular toy, that wants to do more with its platform. It aims higher, and in just about every measure, Barbie admirably succeeds. As a comedy, it had me howling with laughter, enough so that my response was providing another level of entertainment for my wife. There are jokes that are so specific, so beautifully targeted, that when they detonated, I was in awe and appreciation, (a reference to the literal definition of fascism and a Snyder Cut throwaway reference were perfectly attuned to my comedy sensibilities, thank you, Greta). As a frothy and fun fantasy, the movie has excellently crafted sets and costumes and retro visual aesthetics, making the movie a pink-accentuated sensory bombardment. But as a satire is where Barbie really becomes special.
Again, it would be easy for Barbie to learn lessons about body diversity and positivity and likely be browbeaten into what a good feminist is supposed to be, that the real world is a harder place for women than she previously thought. All of that is there, along with a consistent and entertaining critique of the faults of patriarchal society, but Barbie isn’t some reductive, man-hating screed to indoctrinate women into thinking they don’t need men (men are already very good at convincing women they don’t need men). This is a treatise on the power of inclusion and how this benefits society, both for men and for women. In Barbie Land, it’s a matriarchal society where girls rule and boys drool, but it’s a fantasy world reminiscent of a caste system, where the Kens will always be lesser afterthoughts because, well, they’re not Barbies, they’re just Kens. They are excluded in their own world. That’s why Gosling’s Ken is so excited by the real world, where the status quo is flipped, where the world is run by men, as he now sees this as an opportunity that has been denied to him. He wants to recreate his own version of the patriarchy not because he thinks women are inferior but because he just wants to be in power and respected, so he’s replicating his misguided understanding of what men in power are like, which naturally involves lots of horses. In the real world, Ken admonishes a suit-wearing corporate executive that they aren’t doing patriarchy right, to which the man winks and says, “We’re just better about hiding it.” The final act isn’t about “bringing down the patriarchy,” it’s about making a more inclusive world where people don’t have to feel marginalized and stuck and resentful.
Besides its social satire, there are other areas where Barbie goes deeper in surprising and affecting ways. There are more than a few applause-worthy moments explaining the perspective of women, particularly a monologue that is destined to be an audition piece for the rest of time, and it all works and is cutting without being too didactic. Gerwig even gets in a few jabs about corporate culture (“Are there any actual women in this boardroom?” “I’m a man with no power, does that make me a woman?”) and Mattel as an organization becomes another force of antagonism spearheaded by hapless buffoonish men (of course you get Will Ferrell to play the Mattel CEO). The biggest surprise is how emotional and deep the movie can become. There will be plenty that tear up just having a big Hollywood movie recognize their day-to-day emotional toil of being a woman in modern society. For me, the questions over what to do with the life we have flirted with some surprising existential contemplation, as Barbie is reminded at several points that death is a reality and yet would she want to move to the human world? An emotional highlight occurs when Stereotypical Barbie is speaking with the equivalent of her creator, and Billie Eilish’s tender-to-the-point-of-breaking song “What Was I Made For” lilts onto the soundtrack, and the sincerity of this sequence, topped with insert home video footage from the production cast and crew, really hit home how much more this movie is going for then bringing different dolls to life. It’s not just jokes about crotch-less creatures and weird feet, it’s about how we can live and why we do so, what inspires us. It’s a big studio summer release that flirts with the profundity and brevity of life.
There is one actor who deserves their own special recognition and that is Gosling (The Nice Guys), who so rarely gets to showcase his sharp comedy skills with the dour, serious, insular roles he gravitates to. Gosling is so committed to his role that he is operating on another plane of excellence, hitting sly jokes within jokes and selling every wonderfully stupid moment with Ken. This man isn’t afraid to look silly, he fully courts it, embraces it at every opportunity, and yet his performance doesn’t detract from Robbie but only makes them both shine brighter. He reminded me of Tommy Wiseau at points. His hilarious ballad “I’m Just Ken,” which segues into a wild West Side Story-style dance battle that is peak peacocking, is a phenomenal run of inspired silliness (the storming of the Malibu beach had me rolling), yet also connected to the character’s co-dependent arc and dissatisfaction with himself (when feeling down, just quote: “I’m just Ken, and I’m enough, and I’m great at doing stuff”). Ken has to learn to think of himself outside his combined definition with Barbie, and they both need to spend time discovering who they really are rather than who they think they’re supposed to be before considering forming attachments. I would not be surprised if Gosling earns a Best Supporting Actor nomination. It was the role he was born to play: insecure accessory doofus.
Gerwig has launched to mega-stardom with just three directing efforts (four if you count her co-directing effort in 2008 with Nights and Weekends, back in her early mumblecore breakout days). Already this woman has been nominated for Best Director, one of only seven ever, and she now owns the highest grossing movie of the year as well as in studio history. She’s proven herself with her 2017 coming-of-age semi-autobiographical Lady Bird, richly realized and achingly felt, with an established literary classic that is a foundation to generations, and had been adapted a dozen ways for the cinema, and yet she found ways to make her 2019 Little Women modern and personal, and now, on her biggest stage, being handled corporate IP that would be perfectly fine with just selling more toys, she has made a movie for the moment, something that compelled audiences back to theaters in droves, that will become a staple for a generation of film lovers. With just three movies, Gerwig has established herself in a league of her own as a director. Anyone who can turn the Barbie movie into a hilarious, poignant, and meaningful meditation on our times, on the relationships between mothers and daughters, and on life itself is a talent that deserves every creative latitude to achieve her vision. The voice and vision behind this, even to the smallest detail, is so impressive and fully committed and well developed and fabulous. Barbie is one of the best movies of the year and proof that studio blockbusters can indeed be more.
Nate’s Grade: A
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Asteroid City (2023)
It’s not a good sign that a week after watching a movie I was racking my brain to try and remember what I had watched, and it’s even worse when it’s a movie by Wes Anderson, a filmmaker with such a distinct sense of intricate style it’s now become a go-to A.I. test for untalented people. Asteroid City has the makings of an appealing comic escapade set in a Southwest small town known for its tiny asteroid, and once aliens make their presence known, the entire town and its tourists and wanderers and scientists are quarantined. The problem comes almost immediately, as the movie is presented through several added layers of obfuscating framing devices. The story itself is a play, and we’re watching a movie version, but then also the play of the movie, and the behind the scenes of its now-deceased playwright toiling with his authorial messages and stubborn actors, and it feels like two different movies at odds with one another. The Asteroid City sequence is the more engaging, with some sweet storylines like Jason Schwartzman as a widower processing loss with his family, including his father-in-law (Tom Hanks) who never liked him, while beginning to find a possible romantic kinship with a struggling actress and single mom (Scarlett Johansson). I enjoyed weird little asides about the history of this little town, like a vending machine for land ownership, and s science fair with brainy whiz kids finding their own comradery. There’s even a nice moment in the meta-textual framing where the Schwartzman actor recites an exorcised dialogue scene with the actress who played his deceased wife in the play. It’s elegantly heartfelt. However, the added layers don’t really add extra insight or intrigue but serve as muddy trappings, making meaning less likely rather than more. It feels like Anderson didn’t have enough material with the central story so he added on the meta to make up the difference. There are too many moving pieces and too many characters, and versions of characters, here to settle into something grander. The whimsy and visual style of Anderson is still evident throughout every highly-crafted and pristine arrangement in the movie, so if you’re an Anderson diehard, he still has his charms. This is two Anderson movies in a row that felt disorganized, distracted, and chiefly under-developed, and I’m starting to worry that the form has taken over the function as storyteller.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Obstacle Corpse (2022)
Hope Madden has been an esteemed critic, journalist, and writer for many Columbus media publications and television for years. She and her husband, George Wolf, run MaddWolf, a popular film blog, and head the Fright Club podcast and horror film programming at the Gateway Theater. They know movies inside and out and they know horror. So it makes sense for Obstacle Corpse to be Madden’s first feature as a writer and director. It’s a high-concept horror comedy filmed in the Columbus, Ohio area and now available to watch on Amazon. Madden and Wolf are both part of my Columbus film critics’ group, and so I will, as I always strive for with reviewing Ohio-made indies, attempt to be as objective as possible knowing many involved in the cast and crew. Obstacle Corpse is, above all things, enjoyably demented. It’s a low-budget horror movie that understands that an indie horror movie is going to succeed through concept, personality, and mood, and Madden pays attention to each of those winning dimensions.
Sunny (Sylvie Mix) just wants to impress her domineering and dismissive father. She signs up for the Guts and Glory competition, a twelve-event obstacle course, to prove herself. Each contestant is expected to bring a partner, so she brings her best friend Ezra (Alan Tyson) who is ready to get back home and out of the woods pronto. That’s even before they discover that the teams have gathered for some brutal competition. Each team is also required to kill their teammate over the course of the grueling events, so will Sunny and Ezra survive, and will they possibly turn on one another to save themself from the deadly games?
The premise is a quick hook, a deadly version of an obstacle course, and makes twisted sense, not just from a canny take-something-from-childhood-but-make-it-deadly calculus of recent gimmicky horror. There are plenty of adult-oriented obstacle courses known for their physical endurance, like the Tough Mudders and Spartan Race and Ninja Warrior, so an escalation into literal life-and-death stakes as an experiential attraction makes sense in a twisted fashion. Madden has also done what I wish several other indie filmmakers would and distinguished her large net of crazy characters. There’s a wonderful sense of personality to the different groups, which helps the audience keep track of the many different faces, but it also allows the characters to be more playful. I don’t care why some would dress up like clowns for this competition and others as baseball players, I’m just glad that these characters are happy to stand out. I enjoyed a middle-aged man eager to transform every moment into a phony social media tableau. I readily enjoyed the hyper-competitive nature of Stephanie (Gareth Tidball), an intense woman who gets off on the thrill of each challenge. I enjoyed one grumbling angry man (Wolf) who could be counted on to struggle in last place no matter the obstacle. I enjoyed a tracksuit-clad bickering couple. I liked a family of siblings that distinguished itself in paired T-shirts, with one pair wearing “single” and the other wearing “double.” I didn’t quite understand it since they were both pairs but I liked the effort all the same. Even little details can add much.
The mood of Obstacle Corpse is chiefly one of carefree fun, an amiable tone that brings a comedic lightness to even the most ghastly of circumstances. It’s prevalent throughout the movie and makes the 80 minutes easy to digest. Madden’s good times are best summarized by the scene-stealing performance of Mason (Donovan Riley Wolfington, Madden’s son), a costumed chef dishing out cold vengeance from his ice cream truck. This character is presented as a change agent, an unexpected wildcard who is disrupting the establishment overseeing the games. He’s a live-wire of energy, channeling Deadpool or a Looney Tunes cartoon at different points, and he will dismember contestants while gleefully singing his violent versions of Christmas carols. It’s a standout performance in a large cast of varied characters, and Wolfington is just operating on another level of insane amusement. The character also becomes one to easily root for because he’s an antihero underdog taking advantage of others underestimating him, and he’s also that change agent, bringing a bloody sense of justice to those involved in the continuance of the games. A late-in-the-game revelation about his history made me wish for more development to better utilize the key info, but Wolfington is the best mascot for the movie’s demented charms.
Given its large cast, there are several that made a favorable impression as they navigated the comedy aspects. Mix (Poser, Double Walker) is a definite find for Columbus cinema and will be going places in no time. She is a natural actor and serves as our baseline of normality, a shifting concept in a world of violent mayhem. Tyson (Stowaway) is a great foil as Sunny’s friend. He’s more effete and unimposing, at first glance, so his incredulous reactions are a welcomed source of comedy and reason. Tony White does a lot as a clown/mime who befriends our “normal” characters. He gives a very expressive and charming performance, and yet there are a couple of moments where his tortured emotions serve as a surprising well of feelings (he is labeled as Sad Clown, after all). Even producer Jason Tostevin (Hellarious) has a laconic menace as the head of the games security, and he delivers a monologue about achieving your peak greatness that sounds like a self-help guru comfortable into the exploitative routines. He’s our face of the establishment, so as things begin going haywire from our anarchic chef, his discomfort provides a consistent outlet for satisfying comeuppance. You can tell the cast is enjoying themselves, and that casual camaraderie helps to add to the overall silly and bloody fun of the movie.
I wish the parameters of this killer event had a bit more clarity and development to really maximize the possibility. First, I thought that these many obstacles were themselves going to be part of the killer challenge, something akin to Squid Games where familiar childhood playground games have been transformed into life-and-death contests. That’s not the case, so watching characters overcome a cargo net or a set of tires feels somewhat disappointing because what would the appeal of this physical track be beyond the murdering? I think part of the joke is that these are ordinary park obstacles that are causing so many so much struggle. The rules of this course can also be rather murky. We see the enforcement of what happens when a contestant kills outside of an official obstacle course event, but the rest of the rules are left too vague. Contestants are welcome to bring their own weapons, like bats and knives, so could someone simply bring a high-powered gun and mow down the entire competition? How does this work exactly? What prize do the winners receive at the end other than having killed their partner? Did Sunny’s father understand what exactly she was getting into and approved? I’m also left slightly bewildered how many of these teams are family members that are so eager to kill one another. I’m not opposed to the possible fratricide plot, but I think the movie needs to present more conflicts within the couples to present as possible explanation for this murderous intent (maybe an old score to settle like stealing a girlfriend, maybe it’s an inheritance battle, maybe it’s sussing out what the particulars are of the familiar tension, etc.). It’s shocking to watch an older brother pitch his younger brother into a fire and kids killing kids (off-screen), but the shock value only goes so far, and having more setup or context could have added more satisfaction. I guess many are just wannabe psychopaths looking for any excuse to indulge their darker impulses.
I think about the brilliant simplicity of 2019’s Ready or Not. The movie’s premise is essentially a killer game of hide and seek, already a rather uncomplicated children’s game. But the filmmakers carefully established the rules and stakes, with the family holding to he belief they need to kill the person hiding before sunrise or else they will all die thanks to a generational curse. It’s outlandish but the movie presented all the vital information and then let things rip. In the case of Obstacle Corpse, it’s around the fifty-minute mark before our main characters, the normies, discover the actual deadly stakes of the game, and their response seems a tad… relaxed. Part of this is, as earlier described, the amiable low-stakes charm of the movie, so nobody ever brings too much of a sense of actual reality to the absurd competition and its slapstick violence.
I also wish Obstacle Corpse had coalesced more of a class-conscious political commentary. We are introduced to a wealthy couple who are bankrolling the games under the auspices of live online betting, a concept also explored in many other movies that summarize the villains as bored rich people betting on the lives of the poor (Squid Games, Escape Room, The Hunger Games, etc.). That works, though the script only gives us one or two check-ins with our wealthy couple as they seem more interested in canoodling than keeping up with their own spectacle. Maybe that signifies how blase they are about human life but it felt like a missed opportunity. I kept envisioning a version of Obstacle Corpse that really trained its fire on the callousness of the rich, with the teams each being a boss or CEO and some lackey or intern that they’re stringing along, meaning each competitive couple already has a class distinction. The plot informs us that the veterans know they are inviting their guest to their intended doom, so why not project onto a corporate or wealthy head and their contempt for a lower-class worker they see as literally disposable? Perhaps these fragile wealthy men think they’re so much more capable or threatening than they really are, a concept given some attention through the hyper-macho character of Richard (Brian Spangler) who can’t live up to his overblown expectations. There’s an overinflated sense of toxic masculinity that relates to physical dominance that was worthy of even more deconstruction and criticism. I think this dynamic would have allowed the movie to hone and target its ire with more potent satirical firepower.
Even with some of my misgivings about clarity and untapped thematic potential, Obstacle Corpse is an enjoyable horror comedy for fans. The blood gushes constantly and the gore is impressively grotesque for its minimal budget. There are some impressive shots for a movie 95 percent filmed in the woods. Madden has crafted a movie that works regardless of budget, with its larger-than-life characters and conflicts resulting from a strong and memorable high-concept premise. The emphasis is more on comedy than horror, like the world’s most demented summer camp outing. Given the large cast of characters, the movie always has a new batch of people to jump through, which keeps the movie fresh even when the suspense can slacken because of the comedic emphasis. It’s not a one-joke movie, and the fun of the cast can often be felt, especially the grand ball of a time had by Wolfington. There are things left out I wish had been explored further, but this is a solid start for Madden and her team in the realm of indie genre filmmaking. If you enjoy your comedy with a heaping helping of blood and bad taste, give Obstacle Corpse a chance.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Robots (2023)
Robots takes the romantic comedy genre and adds a dash of science fiction satire. Charles (Jack Whitehall) is a sleazy womanizer who likes to use his robot double, named C2, to put in all the getting-to-know-you effort with dates so then Charles can jump in for any later physical intimacy. Elaine (Shailene Woodley) uses her robot double, named E2, to bilk dumb men out of money and gifts. Then one day Charles and Elaine meet cute at an ice skating rink and begin a relationship. She doesn’t know Charles is really C2, and he doesn’t know Elaine is really E2. This confusion is cleared up when E2 and C2 run away together and abandon their human selves. The real Elaine and Charles must work together as they cross the country to find and regain their robots before they cause trouble.
Where Robots goes wrong is with its clunky execution, as its promising premise succumbs to gassed rom-com cliches and some tonally confounding comedy, when it does remember to be a comedy. It’s a given that our two human characters, or at least the flesh-and-blood versions, will grow closer together over the course of their road trip to find their runaway mechanical selves. This unique situation pushes them out of their comfort zones and allows them to better open up. The possibility is there to even follow a strict rom-com formula and still be satisfying, if the romance felt organic and charming. It does not. If anything, the movie uses your knowledge that these two will likely fall in love against you, speeding through the process with haste. The movie’s idea of romance consists of a montage sequence where our two characters laugh, get drunk, and hang out in a hotel room. It’s like the screenplay zapped over the actual development of the romance, the moments where one character saw another differently, where the initial conflict began to thaw, so what we’re left with feels hollow and artificial. The actual robot versions have a stronger bond than their human counterparts (I’m sure this is part of the joke). I didn’t care about our romantic couple because the movie itself didn’t seem to care enough about them to develop their romance beyond the basic framework of convention.
The comedy and commentary can also be very off-putting and incongruous. The premise deserves more scrutiny, either by the characters or the script itself. These two people are duping their prospective dates, one for money and the other for sex, and the movie just kind of shrugs about using robotic slaves for manipulative gain. I assume the filmmakers wanted to keep things light, but there’s at least more comedy to be had from the bad things these bad people made their innocent robots do for them, even a point of arguing who is the worst person. If they’re bad people, then dig into it. The movie also dispels with the contrasts between the couples too quickly. The screwball romance ramifications are ditched too early to send Charles and Elaine on their mission. When your premise has mistaken identity programmed front and center, you would think the comedy would take full advantage of this and escalate to farcical levels. Nope. There isn’t even anything approaching the cringe comedy co-director/co-writer Casper Christensen (Klown) is better known for. The humor is stuck on broad slapstick and easy jokes that confuse vulgarity with instant comedy. Robots includes a video of C2 and E2 committing a mass shooting. The plot purpose of this is for the robots to vilify their human identities and to force them to hide from the public out of fear of being caught, but why an implied mass shooting, especially in this day and age? Why not have them rob a bank? The purpose is to commit a crime and publicize themselves to make life harder for their humans. It’s too blunt a choice to work.
Likewise, the political commentary that pervades the opening is completely absent throughout the rest of the movie. We open with a buffoonish U.S. president celebrating the construction of a border wall with Mexico, never mind that it’s easy to slip through. Unexpectedly, the cry of “them Mexicans took our jobs” has now been replaced by “them robots took our jobs.” You would think there would be ample room here for satire on the economic struggles of Americans, the salivating exploitation of big business, or even the xenophobia that often coincides with economic distress. Any political commentary is done away with after this opening. If offices can just have robot doubles doing all the boring drudgery, then what does that do for human interaction? Surely businesses would prefer workers who technically lack human rights and never need to eat or sleep. The screenplay gives us one character to discuss any of these topics, an obnoxious best friend (Paul Jurewicz) to air out his hatred of robots. There’s also another character that serves as a plot convenience for how our two leads got their doubles. Other than that, the world seems oddly absent from any significant cultural shifts from robot inclusion. Part of this is the convenient plot point that “personal use” robots are outlawed, which again you would think would produce more conflict with our pair having to hide their ownership. Mostly though, it feels like the writers just didn’t think through how their world would be different in a meaningful way, which robs the movie of better satire, comedy, and simply ideas.
What makes the movie mildly worth watching are the talents of its two leads. I wouldn’t exactly say Woodley and Whitehall have a spark-worthy chemistry, but both actors are professionals who have no qualms about getting silly in the name of comedy. Whitehall (Jungle Cruise) is amusingly droll, and while his deadpan can be hilarious, it can also sap the energy of certain scenes. Still, he’s an enjoyable performer who has fun playing a louse. Woodley (Divergent) isn’t exactly the actress you’d think of for broad comedy but she has great fun playing the different versions of her character and tweaking sexist male fantasies. Both of these actors are good with the material that they’re given, so it makes you even more wistful about what could have been with even better material for them to really shine.
Robots is a comedy that could use more comedy, a romance that could use better romance, and a social satire that seems to forget pretty suddenly what it’s satirizing. That’s quite a surprise considering one of the co-writers/co-directors has both Borat films on his resume. It feels like a poorly developed episode of Black Mirror; however, I know I’m in the minority on this one, I find the majority of Black Mirror episodes to have intriguing premises that go nowhere. So, by that assessment, it is a Black Mirror episode. The actors are enjoyable and some of the jokes land, but you’re mostly left wondering what could have been from this wasted premise. The whole enterprise just seems to run out of ideas and energy and inspiration halfway through, stranding good actors and a fun premise in a movie that needed more beta testing to be its best version.
Nate’s Grade: C
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The Flash (2023)/ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Released within two weeks of one another, two big summer movies take the concept of a multiverse, now becoming the norm in comic book cinema, and explore the imaginative possibilities and wish-fulfillment that it proposes, but only one of them does it well. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the sequel to the Oscar-winning 2018 revolutionary animated film, and it’s a glorious and thrilling and visually sumptuous experience, whereas DC’s much-hyped and much-troubled movie The Flash feels like a deflated project running in place and coming apart. Let this be a lesson to any studio executive, that multiverses are harder than they look.
Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) has the ability to travel at fantastic speeds as his superhero alter ego, The Flash. He’s tired of being the Justice League’s errand boy and still fighting to prove his father is innocent of the crime of killing Barry’s mother. Then Barry discovers he can run fast enough to actually travel back in time, so he returns with the intention of trying to save his mother. Except now he’s an extra Flash and has to train his alternate self (also Miller) how to control his powers. In this different timeline, there is no Justice League to combat General Zod (Michael Shannon, so thoroughly bored) from destroying the planet for Kryptonians.
This is the first big screen solo outing for The Flash, and after none other than Tom Cruise, Stephen King, and James Gunn calling it one of the best superhero movies of all time, it’s hard to square how trifling and mediocre so much plays out as an example of a creative enterprise being pulled in too many directions. Miller was cast as the speedster almost ten years ago, and this tale has gone through so much tortured development, leaping through numerous filmmakers and writers, that its purpose has now gone from being a pillar of the expanding DC cinematic universe began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013 to becoming the Snyderverse’s death knell. The premise of traveling back in time is meant for Barry to learn important lessons about grief and responsibility and the limits of his powers, but it’s also intended as the reboot option for the future of these cross-connected comic franchises. It allows Gunn, now the co-head of the new way forward for DC movies and TV, to keep what they want (presumably Margot Robbie and Jason Momoa) and ditch the rest (Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Black Adam, Shazam, and Zack Snyder’s overall creative influence). So reviewing The Flash as only a movie is inadequate; it’s also a larger ploy by its corporate overlords to reset their comic book universe. In that regard, the quality level of the movie is secondary to its mission of wiping the creative slate clean.
Where the movie works best is with its personal stakes and the strange but appealing chemistry between the two Millers. It’s an easy starting point to understand why Barry does what he does, to save his mother. This provides a sturdy foundation to build a character arc, with Barry coming to terms with accepting his grief rather than trying to eradicate it. That stuff works, and the final talk he has to wrap up this storyline has an emotional pull that none of the other DCU movies have exhibited. Who wouldn’t want one last conversation with a departed loved one, one last opportunity to say how you feel or to even tell them goodbye? This search for closure is a relatable and an effective vehicle for Barry to learn, and it’s through his tutelage of the other Barry that he gets to see beyond himself. The movie is at its best not with all its assorted cameos and goofy action (more on both later) but when it’s a buddy comedy between the two Barrys. The older Barry becomes a mentor to himself and has to teach this inexperienced version how to hone and control his powers as well as their limits. It puts the hyper-charged character into a teaching position where he has to deal with a student just like him (or just him). It serves as a soft re-education for the audience alongside the other Barry without being a full origin story. The impetuous young Barry wanting to have everything, and the elation he feels about his powers, can be fun, but it’s even more fun with the older Barry having to corral his pupil. It also allows the character an interactive checkpoint for his own maturity and mental growth. Miller’s exuberant performances are quite entertaining and never fail to hit the comedy beats.
The problem is that the movie puts so much emphasis on too many things outside of its titular hero. Much was made of bringing back Keaton to reprise his Batman after 30 years. I just wish he came back for a better reason and had legitimate things to add. His role is that of the retired gunslinger being called back into action, and there’s an innate understanding with Barry wanting to go back in time and save his family, but too much of this character’s inclusion feels like a stab at stoking audience nostalgia (the callback lines all made me groan). I highly enjoyed Keaton as Batman and appreciated how weird he could make the billionaire-turned-vigilante, but he’s no more formed here than a hologram. The same thing happens with the inclusion of Super Girl a.k.a. Kara Zor-El (Sasha Callie). In this universe, there is no Superman, so she’s our requisite super-powered alien that Zod is hunting to complete his plans for terraforming Earth. She’s an intriguing character as a tortured refugee who has lingering doubts about whether humanity is worth the sacrifice, but much of her usage is meant only to make us think about Superman. She’s not given material to make her own impression, so she simply becomes the imitation of the familiar, the shadow to the archetype already being left behind. But these character additions aren’t even the worst of the nostalgia nods, as the final climactic sequence involves a collision of worlds that harkens to just about every iteration of the famous DC heroes, resurrecting several with dodgy CGI and uncomfortable implications (spoilers… the inclusion of George Reeves, when he felt so typecast as TV’s Superman that he supposedly killed himself because he thought his acting career was over, can be galling).
The action of The Flash is mostly fine but with one exceptional example that boggles my mind. In the opening sequence, no less, Barry is trying to help clean up a crumbling hospital when it collapses and literally sends a reign of babies falling through the air. I was beside myself when this happened, horrified and then stupefied that this absurd action sequence was actually happening. Barry goes into super speed to save the day, which more or less reverts the world into super slow-mo, though he needs to power up first, so we get a quick edit of him stuffing food into his face to load up on calories. We go from Barry breaking into a falling vending machine, stuffing himself in the face with snacks, getting the green light from his suit which I guess measures his caloric intake, and then grab a baby and literally put it in a microwave to shield it from danger. Just describing this event makes me feel insane. I figure the filmmakers were going for an over-the-top approach that also provides light-hearted goofiness to separate the movie from the oppressively dark grist of Snyder’s movies. However, this goes so far into the direction of absurdity that it destroys its credibility. It’s hard for me to fathom many watching this misguided and horrifying CGI baby-juggling sequence and say, “Yes, more please,” rather than scoff and shake their head. It’s not like the rest of the movie keeps to this tone either, which makes the sequence all the more baffling. There are Flash rules that are inconsistently applied to the action; Barry’s caloric intake is never a worry again, and the effects of moving a person during super speed don’t ever seem to be a problem except for one spewing gross-out gag.
While not being an unmitigated disaster, it’s hard for me to see the movie that got so many figures in the entertainment industry raving. The Flash has some notable emotional stakes, some amusing buddy comedy, and some goofy special effects sequences that run the gamut from amusing to confounding, but it’s also quite a mess of a movie, and too many of its nods to the fandom feel like empty gestures of nostalgia compensating for imagination. For all it gets right, or at least keeps interesting, it seems like another cog in a multi-billion-dollar machine, a stopping point also intended to be a reset and starting point. It feels like the character wasn’t trusted enough by the studio to lead his own solo movie even after years of buildup with Miller, nine seasons of the popular TV series, and 80-plus years of prominent placement in DC comics.
Conversely, Across the Spider-Verse is a sequel that expands an already stuffed story but knows what stories and themes to elevate so they don’t get lost amidst the fast-paced lunacy. Taking place a year later, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) has grown into his role as the new Spider-Man for his world. He strains to meet the expectations of his parents, and keep up his grades, while fulfilling the duties of a superhero jumping into danger. When Gwen Stacey (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) reappears to discuss joining the multiverse police, Miles jumps at the chance, having genuinely missed his other Spider friends, especially Gwen. There are countless Spider people in countless worlds, even including a Spider-T. Rex and a Spider-Car (Peter Parked Car, I believe the name was). Miguel O’Hara (voiced by Oscar Isaac) is the Spider-Man tasked with keeping order across the many interconnected multiverses, and he insists that sacrifice is essential to maintain balance, one that hits too close to home for Miles to abide.
The 2018 original is a hard act to follow, and while Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t quite overrule its predecessor it is a more than worthy sequel that has everything fans loved about the first trip. The visual inventiveness has been taken even higher, with the mixture of even more different animation and art styles. I loved seeing each Spider person and how they fit into their unique art style of their world, like the living water colors of Gwen’s world and the punky paper collage style of Spider-Punk (voiced by Daniel Kaluuya). There’s a villain that comes from a paper universe, so he resembles a three-dimensional paper construction with hand-scribbled notes appearing around him like Da Vinci’s commentary. There is something to dazzle your senses in every second of this movie. The visuals are colorful, creative, and groundbreaking with the level of detail and development. There’s probably even too much to fully take in with just one viewing. I want to see the movie again not just because it’s outstanding but so I can catch the split-second vernacular asterisk boxes that pop up throughout the movie. Going further into living comic book aesthetics, new characters will be introduced with boxes citing their comics issue reference point, and certain names and vocab will get their own citations as well. These are split-second additions, nothing meant to distract from the larger narrative. Simply put, this is one of the most gorgeous looking movies of all time, animated or live action. It’s bursting, thrumming, nearly vibrating with life and love stuffed into every nook and cranny, and it’s exhilarating to just experience a vivid, thriving world with animators operating at peak talent.
However, the movie has an engrossing story to better position all those eye-popping visuals. The worry with any modern multiverse story is that the unlimited possibilities of variations and opportunities for characters to do just about anything will overwhelm a narrative, or like The Flash, become a checklist of overburdened and empty fan service. The screenplay by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham is all about relationships. If Miles’ relationship with his stern police lieutenant father (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) wasn’t such an important focal point, then the emotional stakes of the movie would be meaningless. We see a relatable struggle from both sides, the parents trying to connect with their growing child and give him enough space to find himself, and the child who clearly loves his parents but doesn’t fully appreciate or understand their concerns. They worry about Miles leaving them and whether others will love and support him like his parents. Miles has to experience a wider world of possibility, but these experiences make him appreciate what he has at home, and what could be permanently lost. I don’t mind saying there were more than a few moments that caused me to tear up. I found Gwen’s storyline equally compelling, and her turmoil over keeping her secret identity and then coming out to her father was rather moving. The family bond resurfacing will get me every time, and the simple action of a hug can be as heartwarming and fulfilling as any romantic ode. Across the Spider-Verse makes sure we care about the characters and their personal journeys.
At a towering 140 minutes, this is the longest (American) animated movie ever, and it’s still only one half of a larger story. I knew ahead of time this was only the first part so as soon as we entered Act Three I kept gearing up for the cliffhanger ending. Every five or so minutes I thought, “Okay, this is going to be the end,” and then it kept going, and I was relieved. Not just because I got to spend more time in this unique universe but each new moment added even more to raise the stakes, twist the intrigue, and make me excited for what could happen next. I was shaking in my seat at different points, from the excitement of different sequences to the emotional catharsis of other moments. I cannot wait to experience this same feeling when the story picks back up reportedly in March 2024, though I fear it will get delayed to late 2024.
Even with the unlimited possibility of jokes and silly mayhem, the filmmakers keenly understand that it doesn’t matter unless we care about the characters and their fates. I am shocked that a goofy character I thought was going to be a one-scene joke, The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), could end up becoming the ultimate destroyer of worlds. I think this reflection nicely summarizes the impeccable artistry of Across the Spider-Verse, where even the moments or characters misjudged as fleeting or inconsequential can be of great power. It’s a movie that is full of surprises and thrills and laughs, all in equal measure, and a blessed experience for a movie fan. In the crush of comic book multiverse madness, Across the Spider-Verse is a refreshing and rejuvenating creative enterprise, one that builds off the formidable talent of its predecessor and carries it even further into artistic excellence that reminds us how transporting movies can be. If you see one superhero multiverse movie this summer, the choice should be as obvious as an inter-dimensional spider bite.
Nate’s Grades:
The Flash: C
Across the Spider-Verse: A
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Elemental (2023)
The joke is how Pixar has taken its storytelling motif of examining The Secret Life Of [Blank] and showing what happens in our world when we just aren’t paying attention. We’ve had toys with emotions, bugs with emotions, fish with emotion, cars with emotion, robots with emotion, rats with emotion, and even emotions with emotions, so why not break things down to their basics and give the elements of carbon-based life their own emotions too?
In Element City, Ember (voiced by Leah Lewis) belongs to the fire community living on the outskirts of town, as the big city wasn’t built for their kind. The earth people, and water people, and air people go about their business while the fire people form their own thriving offshoot. Her father and mother came across the sea to give their baby a new life, and the family shop will pass over to Ember’s management when her traditionalist father thinks she’s ready. Her whole life has been about serving her family and trying to live up to their hopes and dreams. This gets more complicated when Wade (voiced by Mamoudou Athie), a water person and a health inspector, has to report her family’s shop for code violations. They work together to save the shop and also learn from one another’s cultures and differing perspectives, and then this unexpected friendship becomes an even more unexpected romance, but can elements so different stay together?
I was pleasantly surprised at how enjoyable Elemental is to experience and how wondrous its visual presentation is to watch. It is a certifiable treat for the eyes, with so many dazzling colors and quirky but easily readable character designs. There’s a mixture of hand-drawn animation used as Spider-Verse-style accents that provides a pleasing element that allows the images to pop even more. I was never bored looking at a single second of this movie, and even with my theater’s 3-D presentation, the glasses didn’t darken the screen and lessen my overall enjoyment. By existing within a fantasy universe, it allows for every scene and every location to better inform you about this new world and its rules and highlights (fire baby carriages that are barbecue grills). This is a bright, colorful, and supremely enchanting movie to watch because, at least visually, it feels very well developed as far as its world building and atmosphere. What would a community of fire people tend to look like? What would their jobs be? What would their celebrations be like? Their heritage from the Old Country? Naturally, with any fantasy universe, you can nit-pick it to death with questions, such as why do people even bother wearing clothes in this world? What part of the exposed fire or water is observed as obscene? How exactly do these different communities have their offspring? What does air exactly eat for food?
Where Elemental really takes off is with its charming and affecting romance. It’s been a while since romance was at the forefront for a Pixar movie, since 2008’s WALL-E (a.k.a. the greatest Pixar movie). Now there are themes and resonance that go beyond the romance and also enrich it, like Ember’s personal conflict of being a first-generation immigrant daughter and upholding the traditions and wishes of her family at the expense of her personal desires, but the core of this movie is on the burgeoning feelings between Ember and Wade. The movie begins with them butting heads as two elements seemingly in conflict but it doesn’t exactly follow an enemies-to-lovers path. She runs hot and explosive with trying to keep things under control whereas he is deeply empathetic of others and wants to help them become their best selves. He accepts who he is, and the movie doesn’t equate his full-bodied embrace of big feelings as some point of weakness. It brings about laughs from exaggeration, the streaming rivers that burst forth from his eyes upon crying, but it’s his compassion and acceptance that challenges Ember for the better and helps her assert her sense of self. They’re good together, and Wade helps serve as a guide to the wider world for Ember as she’s been isolated her whole life. Their interactions are cute and heartwarming and elevated by pleasant vocal performances. I was drawn into their story and cared about their well-being, enough that I don’t mind sharing that I shed some water myself by the end (I guess this could also make some people mistake that I peed my pants, and I assure you that was not the case, dear reader).
While the core relationships are poignant and winning, the world building and metaphorical allegories feel half-finished and a tad confusing. The movie also goes surprisingly soft exploring its miscegenation metaphor of two elements being forbidden to mix romantically. This universe has four communities of living elements, though air is represented as clouds and those are, literally, water vapor, and the xenophobia and discrimination that the fire people endure feels like a direct parallel to a disadvantaged minority group. However, this isn’t explored in any satisfying depth. We’re told that fire people aren’t really wanted in the city, and the city isn’t really built for them, which is typified by a rail line that splashes water discharge. There’s a lot more that could have gone into this including a more elaborate examination of the harm of red-lining and restricting the economic mobility of one group for bigoted reasons (I know, I can already hear people scolding me for even asking for such socio-political commentary in a family film). However, this metaphor gets a little murky when you take into account the literal danger that living fire exudes. Yes, you can drown, and you can get crushed under earth, but these creatures aren’t walking incendiary devices. This doesn’t translate directly to people, and thus applying class metaphors to actual races can be circumspect. Ember’s worry is that she’ll explode if she gets too angry, and this causes literal physical destruction around her. You can say it’s meant to represent when hurt, angry people lash out that they can inadvertently harm others, but not everyone can incinerate a block because they lose their temper. This kind of undercuts the lesson on misplaced fear.
Also, so much of the external story consists of bad public planning and everyone’s lackadaisical attitude toward fixing this infrastructure miscue. Again, if the larger point was a society that is actively hostile to the fire people, then the ignorant city planning that actively harms a disenfranchised group of people makes sense, but without that larger underlying conflict, it all seems so strangely forgotten. Much of this conflict is on the structure of a wall against a coming buildup of water, something possibly deadly to the fire community, so you would think this community would be a lot more concerned about this looming conflict. You might think that others would organize to provide better safeguards or maybe they would get the city’s attention. That this threat goes unreported and is played at such low stakes makes it all feel forced and manufactured. If the characters don’t seem to think it’s a big deal, then who are we to worry as well? And I can hear some of you trying to branch this out into, say, a metaphor for larger problems that go ignored, like climate change or societal inequalities, but that’s giving Elemental too much credit.
Elemental reminds me of 2020’s Onward, coincidentally one of the last movies I saw in theaters before the pandemic shutdown. I was worried that the core story looked weak but it was actually the world-building that was a bit hazy and under-developed and the emotional core was strong and authentic. It’s the same with Elemental, and while I can quibble about its dropped potential and misshapen world, it has a strong foundation that matters more. The relationships between Wade and Ember and Ember and her family are what makes the movie work and ultimately what made me smile and tear up. It’s an emotional nourishment that makes the movie feel satisfying and worthwhile no matter the lingering questions for this bizarre world. It’s also one of Pixar’s best looking movies, fully deserving of being seen on a large screen for added impact. Elemental has the right DNA for a charming and enjoyable family film for everyone.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Colorful and eminently pleasant, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is about everything you would expect from an Illumination project. To begin with, there’s not a lot of story in the 30-plus years of Mario video games, so it’s not surprising that the story is kept relatively familiar with characters each inhabiting simple motivation (Mario wants to impress his dad, Luigi wants to be brave, Peach wants to protect her people, Bowser wants to be accepted by his unrequited love). Much of the movie is establishing a new location and giving some moment of fan service before moving on, like an extensive Mario Kart Rainbow Road sequence or Mario meeting Donkey Kong. It feels like the risk-averse creative process started with a list of characters, levels, and references and then how to squeeze them in. This is a movie kept at a kiddie level, which is fine even for adults to enjoy, but it means there is a lowered ceiling of ambition (so… many…. needle-drop song selections…). Much of the movie is fleeting and fine, with highlights including Jack Black’s performance as the love-struck Bowser, the training sequences making use of the bizarre physics and accoutrements of the Mushroom Kingdom, and a delightfully nihilistic little blue star with a cheery child’s voice. The movie is earnest to the point of being a little corny, which might be refreshing for parents and children used to a recent slate of overly glib kid’s movies trying to act smarter than they are. This movie is cute and harmless and a sugar rush to be forgotten after it wears off. Now re-watch the 1993 version that attempted to take the same source material and make a parallel world Blade Runner with Dennis Hopper as King Koopa. There’s also one hundred percent less Chris Pratt.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Ghosted (2023)
Have you ever watched a movie that felt like it was created by soulless robots? That was the overwhelming feeling I had with Ghosted, a supposed “romantic” “comedy” and spy thriller debuting on Apple Plus with big stars and a big budget and lacking anything that feels recognizably human. 2023 has been a year of exciting and precarious technological advances, and the emergence of A.I.-assisted chat and performative generators, from art to stories, is a Pandora’s Box that will not go away, especially for an industry looking to cut corners wherever possible to save a buck. Super producer Joe Russo has bleakly predicted it’s only a matter of time before studios lean into A.I. programs to help them write bankable screenplays. When that dark day arrives, if we haven’t already crossed that Rubicon, I imagine those A.I. ghostwritten scripts will feel a lot like Ghosted, a movie that feels like it was constructed from imperfect observers.
It all begins when boy meets girl at a farmer’s market. Cole (Chris Evans) refuses to sell a potted plant to Sadie (Ana de Armas) because her job keeps her away for up to months at a time. He cannot, in good conscience, sell this woman a plant he knows will be neglected. From there, they spend a whirlwind first date getting to know one another in and out of the bedroom. Then Sadie never returns Cole’s messages and calls again. He frets that he’s yet another modern dating victim of being ghosted when strange men kidnap him and ask him scary questions about things he has no clue about. He’s rescued from this interrogation by none other than a gun-toting Sadie. She reveals she’s really a secret C.I.A. agent and somehow her enemies have mistaken Cole for “The Tax Man,” a dangerous and mysterious assassin that’s actually Sadie. Now they’re on the run and Cole has to learn the ropes of spy business or else, and maybe he can get a second date while he’s at it.
The premise alone is a workable high-concept we’ve seen comedy variations of before, from Charade to Knight and Day to The Spy Who Dumped Me (remember that movie, anyone?). It’s the perspective of the novice being plunged into the chaotic and overwhelming world of spy-craft and having to rapidly adjust to a world they thought was just the stuff of movies and beach reads. It’s the kind of story that pokes fun at spy movies while embracing them as well, and it posits what would happen if one of us normies ever accidentally found ourselves in this high-stakes world. Where Ghosted doesn’t work is that the characters are both awful versions of the Novice and the Expert. There’s a slight amusement watching Evans plays out of his depth in action contexts, running counter to a decade of Marvel heroics, but this is short-lived. He eventually begins to be a capable partner for Sadie as she learns to trust another, which is the most expected and basic character arc for each of these people. However, Sadie is also boring, and even when the truth about her profession is revealed, it doesn’t make her that much more interesting. I was already doubtful when we opened with her talking to her therapist over her car’s phone and this was the first scene. She’s been slotted as Killing Machine with Trust Issues, and he’s been slotted as Too Afraid to Seek His Dreams, and so their conclusions are predictable and bland. There’s even a lack of a technique that Sadie teaches Cole that comes into play at a pivotal moment. That’s the most basic thing and they miss that.
There is also a notable absence of chemistry between the leads. While de Armas and Evans have co-starred in two prior films, they were opposed in 2019’s Knives Out and 2022’s The Grey Man. Actor chemistry is one of those ineffable qualities that you can tell pretty quickly whether it’s evident or lacking, and within minutes of the tortured house plant meet-cute, I sensed a gaping black hole of palpable chemistry. It’s even more obnoxious when MULTIPLE characters in MULTIPLE scenes implore the two to “get a room” because their supposed sexual tension is off the charts. Sure thing, movie.
Another quality that becomes very apparent is how forced everything in Ghosted feels. The romance feels forced but the comedy especially feels forced. The four screenwriters include the writers behind the Deadpool, Zombieland, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, and recent Jumanji movies, so we know these credited writers have a keen understanding of comedy. It makes the results on screen all the more mystifying and disappointing. The jokes generally feel off (“He expected a hottie not Mata Hari,” womp womp), the rhythm and tone feel a little too much, too forced, like the actors are desperately trying to compensate. It comes across like they were instructed to speak at a more fast-paced and clipped rate to attempt to emulate screwball comedy patter, but the material isn’t there to match the hyperactive verbal presentation. The music is also another factor in trying to better compensate. It’s trying to provide a jaunty, breezy energy level that isn’t sustained in the movie by its comedy, action, or romance. The number of needle drop song selections can also be insufferable and dumbfounding. The characters will start a gun fight and then “My Sharona” will crank up or, even more inexplicably, “Uptown Funk.” The relentless fallback of familiar pop and rock ditties intruding over the action doesn’t so much elevate the moment as make you realize just what would be missing without the song. I’m all for the clever use of music to jazz up a scene, but the final action sequence shouldn’t have to rely on Bruno Mars for any nascent fun.
There are a handful of moments and ideas here that could have worked in a better movie. I enjoyed a stretch in the middle where Sadie and Cole are ambushed by one bounty hunter with an absurd name after another, and each is a cameo from a familiar face and each gets dispatched swiftly. The movie also takes pains to make fun of Cole’s smothering qualities, including his snapping a picture of Sadie while she slept in his arms post-coitus and unaware. I wish this line of criticism would pick up more momentum but there’s only so much heat that Cole will take when he still needs to be the handsome and appealing lead. I also liked the idea of a villain, played by Adrien Brody like his copy of the screenplay didn’t have a single joke inside it, who is simply trying not to be revealed to be incompetent. I think there was especially more room to mine with the confusion over which character was the infamous Tax Man. The assumption that it must be a man could have opened up a broader and interesting subplot over sexist gender assumptions, with nobody believing that a g-g-g-girl could be such an accomplished trained killer (alas, the “girls can do it too” message seems to be all the movie offers in response).
Ghosted is not a good action movie, as it’s poorly sourced and edited, it’s not a good comedy, as the jokes are iffy and delivered in such an exaggerated and clunky manner, and it’s not a good romance, with two bland and under-developed genre character cliches portrayed by two actors who have a startling lack of chemistry together. The music is obnoxious and trying to compensate for the flagging energy level and forced comedy, the movie runs too long at almost two hours, and director Dexter Fletcher (Rocketman) has no feel for action or romance. It’s the comedy that made me most depressed, as no character talked like a semblance of a real human being, nor was their fast-paced, quippy dialogue truly zingy and entertaining. t was like watching a desperate person try and prove they are not, in fact desperate, but with every word only proving more and more their desperation. I’m sure some people out there will find this movie passably breezy or charming or at least inoffensive for two hours of inattention. It all felt so forced and inauthentic and tired to me. It’s best to just ghost this film in real life.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)
As required for every film critic before discussing the new Dungeons and Dragons movie, subtitled Honor Among Thieves, I must tell you my personal history with the seminal tabletop game. Well, I don’t think D&D is for me. Many of my friends are heavily involved in D&D, several as the quest-fashioning dungeon masters, and I’ve even sat in for a few games, but there’s something about the group improv experience that I never feel comfortable while playing, like my mind just runs into imagination roadblocks trying to come up with options in a near limitless space. Plus I think character creation is one of my lesser storytelling skills; I typically build characters more out of plot and concept and theme. Also, the demanding time commitment to play a game that can take possibly months or years to conclude makes me hesitant. I already think Monopoly lasts too long and has a habit of ruining friendships (if I was ever paid to write a Monopoly movie, that would be my starting point, not bringing to life Mr. Moneybags).
Anyway, D&D has had something of a cultural renaissance the last decade, reaching new levels of wider acceptance partly thanks to its prominent placement in Stranger Things. Pretty good for an ever-evolving 50-year-old game system that was at one point blamed for luring impressionable youth into the ways of Satanism and insanity (see the ridiculous 1982 movie Mazes and Monsters starring a young Tom Hanks as a student who cannot distinguish between reality and the game world to murderous effect). It’s such a substantial fantasy property that it was only a matter of time for movies to follow. There was an abysmal D&D movie from 2000 co-starring Thora Birch and a go-for-broke Jeremy Irons that isn’t worth your time. I wasn’t excited for a new Dungeons and Dragons movie until I saw that its directors and co-writers were Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. I was a big fan of 2018’s Game Night, their last directing effort, and they’ve been a dependable comedic writing duo. It was with them that I placed my faith and that faith was fully rewarded when my wife and I watched Honor Among Thieves and had a delightful time. This is a wildly fun D&D movie for every viewer.
In the world of owl bears and sorcerers, Edgin (Chris Pine) and his trusted partner, Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), are looking to settle the score. They’ve broken out of prison and are trying to gather their old team back together but everyone has a grudge. Forge (Hugh Grant) has betrayed the group for power and especially riches, serving as the city’s reigning lord. He’s recommissioned a gathering of games and sport, drawing crowds back to the city, and with games comes betting and with betting come large sums of money from the rich. Edgin plans to rob from the treasure hold for the games and with that score he can regain his daughter and possibly reclaim a magical totem that can bring his dearly departed wife back.
I have no prior understanding of anything relating to the world and lore of D&D, and I found it to be extremely accessible and engaging. That’s because Goldstein and Daley have put the emphasis of their movie not on its lore or history or locations but on its characters. I appreciate that here is a major work of IP for a studio that is attempting to tell one very good and accessible story for the masses rather than set up a cinematic universe and ready it for possible sequel bait. Get the movie right and have that make me desire more movies rather than establishing a world that has potential but otherwise goes unfulfilled. The very concept of Honor Among Thieves helps to keep things light-hearted and moving. My pal Ben Bailey and I have been clamoring for years for a heist movie set within a fantasy world. It was ready-made to satisfy with the genre structure of heists, and putting a team together that rolls with unexpected adversity, and the cleverness of incorporating fantasy abilities and elements into heist genre familiarities. Thankfully, Goldstein and Daley realized how entertainingly plentiful this combo can prove.
The fun characters are what help to make the movie so enchanting. Rather than settling on a subsection of class representation (one dwarf, one elf, one wizard, etc.), the characters are more about what they bring to the team and what motivates them for character arcs. We have a shapeshifter (Sophia Lillis) who is trying to protect the kingdom’s encroachment on her kind. We have a shaky wizard (Justice Smith) who is battling for his own self-confidence and respect. Nobody feels like a token appointment. Even characters that would seem like a D&D player’s dream, a powerful paladin played by the dashing Rege-Jean Page (Bridgerton), are given more purpose. He serves as a contrast to our hero’s journey back to respectability, and the character is so noble and serious that it’s yet another shade of comedy to explore. His obliviousness to irony and sarcasm reminded me of the very literal-minded Drax (Guardians of the Galaxy). This is a character that would appear in standard fantasy epics, and yet he’s played for laughs just through sheer juxtaposition without ever mocking the reality of this world. At no point will characters condescend to their reality, saying self-aware critiques like, “Well that’s a very inconvenient and stupid place to put a castle,” etc. There is a cameo where the gag is that this person is much smaller. The appearance is played for goofy laughs and yet it’s also shocking in its emotional sincerity. If you removed the size differential, this would be a dramatic and eventful scene (I did enjoy the unspoken preference of this individual when it comes to a romantic partner). The movie is very funny and very skilled at being funny without reliance upon meta genre riffs.
Elevating an already great movie, Pine (Don’t Worry Darling) is robustly charming as a bard/secret agent. He secured my loyalty within two minutes of the movie when he gave up on his prison knitting project and said, summarily, “I’m just gonna make a mitten. Who am I trying to impress?” Pine has long been one of our most effortlessly charming leading men, and playing a rakish heist leader who also sings will only magnify the man’s innate appeal to the masses. He works even better alongside Rodriguez (any Fast and Furious movie after 6) who becomes the real physical presence. This is a career-best performance with Rodriguez sliding right into exactly the comedy wavelength she’s needed for – the gruff and cynical worldview of the weary warrior. They make for a great bantering lead duo.
The set pieces are also tailored to the character arcs while still being memorable and entertaining. This is a movie that doesn’t get complacent over its 134 minutes. Each sequence must stand out, whether it’s because of creative and intuitive fight choreography that makes keen use of geography and circumstance, or a graveyard Q&A with very constrained magical rules to follow that leads to a lot of digging to find the right corpse with the right information, or escaping from an obese dragon (with its “widdle wings”) that resembles a chonky cat, or a dangerous trip through a maze that abruptly reconfigures itself, or a prison escape that doesn’t quite go as you expect, nor at the characters expect. Every scene has a purpose. Every magical item has a specific use, and every set piece sets itself apart visually and from a story standpoint.
Goldstein and Daley have excelled as writers, but they’re also proving to be visually adept directors. With the emphasis on characters, it’s not CGI spectacle for spectacle’s sake. There’s a pleasing physicality to this world. The budget is in the $150-million range, which is quite a show of confidence for the directors, but the emphasis is on what best elevates the moment. There’s a thrilling escape performed as a tracking shot with a zooming camera tracing the escape of our shapeshifter from harm, and there’s fantastic visual inventiveness with a magic portal and its application for the film’s equivalent of a rollicking stagecoach robbery. There’s a noted intention here with the shots and scenes and visual arrangements, so Honor Among Thieves feels like a studio film with vision.
Allow me to take one very fleeting moment to digress just how much care Goldstein and Daley put into even the smallest of details. After we’ve met the last core member of our crew, he confidently leans backwards and falls into a pit leading to an underground cavern. The rest of the crew creep toward the opening and stare down below with trepidation. Simon then says, “I’m going last.” We then cut to the group at the bottom of the cavern. It’s such a small detail, but the previous scene ends on a character-appropriate punchline for Simon reconfirming his squeamishness, but then by transitioning to the entire collected crew together, we know he was last and so we’re ready to move forward. Again, it’s a small detail but it’s a microscopic example that proves, to me, how much thought and care the directors have given.
As a novice to the famous role-playing world, I found Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves to be an exhilarating and highly entertaining fantasy adventure where fun is the chief priority. It’s not at the expense of great characters, good humor, and satisfying payoffs with well-developed setups strewn throughout. It’s a reminder how enjoyable and escapist blockbusters can be when you have the right artists using the expansive box of paints. It’s great for all ages and families too. I don’t have any personal connection to this sword-and-sorcery universe but now I want many more adventures if this is kind of quality they’re offering.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023)
I enjoyed 2019’s Shazam! because it felt like a breath of fresh air, a lighter story compared to the relentless gloom and doom of the DCU. It was more a silly Big-style body swap movie than a super hero romp, tapping into childhood wish fulfillment of getting to transform not just as an adult but as a super-powered adult on a whim. It was funny, sweet, and different. The 2023 sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, feels like the definition of a sequel for the sake of a sequel. It is thoroughly mediocre and lacking the charm and heart of the original. I’ll try and deduce why this super-charged sequel feels so lacking and why the fun feels so forced.
Billy Batson (Asher Angel) can turn into Shazam (Zachary Levi) by uttering the magic name, and now his foster family share his same super abilities. They’re trying to adjust back to “normal life” when the Daughters of Atlas, Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Luicy Lui), arrive with a vengeance. Turns out Shazam’s powers were stolen from the Greek gods, and now they want them back, and if they don’t reclaim their power, the gods will destroy the world of man.
I think one of the most lacking elements of Fury of the Gods is that it loses its core appeal. The first movie was about a child fulfilling their adult dreams and leaping into maturity before their time. Levi (Apollo 10 1/2) was goofy and enjoyable in his broadly comical fish-out-of-water portrayal as a kid in an adult’s body. Now, the growing pains of being an adult, and a superhero, have been eclipsed. In fact, the amount of time we spend with Billy is pretty sparing. It’s all Shazam all the time, and this hurts presenting a worthwhile contrast between the mythic and the recognizably human. You forget the initial dynamic of this kid pretending to be an adult and what advantages this affords. At this point, being an adult is the same as being Billy Batson, who is approaching 18 and will age out of the foster system. This reality creates an existential crisis for Billy, as he’s afraid his family will move on so he’s eager to keep them together all the time, trying to maintain control. It’s about fear of change; however, I never fully understood why Billy was so worried. He’s already found a home with a loving mother, father, and extended clan of siblings, so why does aging out matter? He’s not going to be removed from his home. His siblings also aren’t talking about shipping out to the different corners of the world to begin careers or higher education. It’s a forced conflict to make the character uneasy about growing up. If the first movie was about a kid coming to terms with himself and letting others in, then this movie is all about a kid worrying his relationships will arbitrarily evaporate. This anxiety over losing something meaningful could have been an interesting storyline, but it’s all so contrived, and the whole body swap dynamic, the selling point of the first film, feels strangely absent.
Likewise, the villains have questionable motivation and character development. The movie begins with cloaked and masked figures wreaking havoc in a museum, and then it makes a big deal that these figures happen to be… women (also middle-aged and older at that). The opening is meant to be surprising in a way that feels out of date (what… g-g-girls can be powerful too?). It’s a strange point considering we’ve already had Wonder Woman. This same easily-satisfied, lowest common denominator plotting is disappointingly prevalent. These powerful gods want their father’s powers back but they already seem pretty powerful, so the movie lacks a fitting explanation of why these extra powers are worth all this effort. I suppose there’s a general revenge and righting of wrongs but the characters don’t play their parts too scorned. They’re more annoyed and tired, which doesn’t make for the most compelling villains. Another Daughter of Atlas has the power to mix and match the world like a volatile Rubix cube, but what is this power? It’s virtual obstacle-making but it feels arbitrary too in the world of superpowers. The ultimate scheme to conquer the world is as flimsy as the reasons it’s ultimately defeated.
Let me dissect that part for a few words, the solutions to overcoming our vengeful gods. They raise an army of mythical creatures to destroy Philadelphia and it’s Ray Harryhausen character designs with cyclops and unicorns and the like. The way to reach through to the monsters and bring them on your side is to offer them a gift of “ambrosia,” some tasteful bounty that they can’t help but fall in love with. So what is the solution to this? One of the kids literally drops a handful of Skittles onto the street and the unicorn happily snarfs them down. Yes, through the power of Skittles-brand candy the heroes are able to save the day. There’s even a moment where the kid is riding the unicorns into battle and screams, “Taste the rainbow,” before the movie cheekily cuts her off before she can unleash an added “MF-er.” What is this? I’m usually agnostic on product placement in movies; characters have to eat and drink, etc. But when it’s egregiously transparent and played as the key to victory against all odds, that’s a bit much. If the joke is that contemporary food is a blast of flavor that nobody would have been prepared for thousands of years ago with their palettes, then any modern food could have worked. It didn’t have to be a brand-name candy with its brand-name slogan screamed in battle. This is but the first of several contrived and unsatisfying deus ex machina solutions that erase consequences.
Even with returning director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out), the enterprise feels like an empty retread relying too much on rote spectacle and missing the heart and perspective of its predecessor. There is an action sequence atop a collapsing suspension bridge and the song “Holding Out for a Hero” plays, and then we have a character comment on it, and it all seems like a desperate attempt to add some energy or style or fun to the sequence that is absent. The action relies on a lot of watching characters zip pedestrians to safety, but it’s the end result we see, not the whoosh and flurry of the arduous mission. The whole sequence feels like it’s going through the motions, as much of the movie does, falling back on a formula of superhero blockbuster autopilot. The CGI army of villains, the face-offs between characters shooting magic beams at one another, the overly quippy and tiresome dialogue and mugging cranked up to overdrive, the world-saving stakes feeling so minor. I was longing for some of the ’80s Amblin tone of the original, which got surprisingly dark. With Fury of the Gods, everything feels so safe and settled, with the stakes feeling inauthentic and the action reinforcing this with effects sequences that feel like Saturday morning cartoon filler.
There’s a strange question with the family powers. The extended brothers and sisters can utter “Shazam” and turn into adult alter egos, but the character of Mary (Grace Caroline Currey, Fall) now transforms into a super suited version of herself with slightly different hair. In 2019, she transformed into actress Michelle Borth (Hawaii 5-0). Mary is the oldest sibling, and we’ve undergone a time jump of years to account for the ages of the kid actors, so does this mean that as the kids get older they will just turn into versions of themselves? Does this mean that the Zachary Levi-persona is set to expire once Billy turns legally an adult at 18? The implications of this casting choice made me question the very reality of the Shazam universe’s mechanics.
I can see certain audiences enjoying the slapstick and gee-whiz goofiness of Shazam! Fury of the Gods, and I have no doubt that the people making the movie wanted to tap into that childlike wonder of magic and myth. The problem is that this feels like the most inessential of the dozen DCU movies, going through the motions rather than exploring cogent and potent drama. Just take the character of Pedro (Jovan Armand) who is unhappy with his larger body and transforms into a handsome, slim, musclebound version of himself as a fantasy. That’s an interesting psychological exploration for the character, on top of his own self acceptance on a whole other front. Or take the sidekick from the first movie, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), and his Romeo and Juliet-esque romance of a super-powered being from the other side of the conflict. There’s some drama there as well as his understanding of who the good and bad guys can be. Or simply take the perspectives of the parents trying to raise a household of kids who can transform at whim and what worries and joys this can offer. There’s material here to be finely explored, fun dynamics going beyond just repeating the Big-style body swap hi-jinks. Unfortunately, this is a sequel that feels like what made the original special has been replaced by blockbuster status quo.
Nate’s Grade: C
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