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Moana 2 (2024)
It’s hard not to see the DNA of its original incarnations as a TV series for Disney Plus, as well as the awkward adjustments to slap this together into a feature film. Unless you’re a super fan of the original Moana who needs any additional content, you’ll likely have a less than impressive response to Moana 2. It feels quite episodic from villains and storylines popping up for small increments of time only to go away and be replaced by a new storyline, to a new batch of characters meant to hold our attention while other main characters, in particular Maui (Dwayne Johnson), sit out for long stretches. The animation is a notable step down as well, and while it’s still pleasing to watch and far from bad, it’s lacking the detail and refinement of the feature team, especially with lighting, as everything in this world lacks shadows with such high key lighting washing everything out. Without Lin-Manuel Miranda returning, it’s obvious the songs will not be nearly as catchy and enchanting, and the tunes for Moana 2 are pretty instantly forgettable. I’m struggling to rethink any melody right now as I write this. It’s hard not to feel like everything is so slight, from the storytelling to the visuals to the songs to the inclusion of the beloved characters from the original. I loved Moana and consider it the best of modern-day Disney, and I’m clearly not alone from the box-office dominance that the sequel was able to achieve. I actually think I would have preferred future Moana adventures as a TV series because the mythology and world has more to explore. But that version of new Moana has been transformed, Frankenstein-style, into a releasable feature film, one that suffers in the transformation into something it’s not suited for. Disney made a billion dollars from this gamut, but the rest of us are left with a Moana 2 that had much further to go.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Smile 2 (2024)
In 2022, thanks to genius viral marketing and the acknowledgement how deeply unnerving happy people can be, Smile was a surprise horror smash hit. Writer/director Parker Finn expanded on a previous short film and made serious money, which meant a sequel was a given. Finn returns to lead Smile 2 to even creepier genre pastures, this time following the mental demise of a pop star, Skye Riley (Naomi Scott) trying to make sense of this malignant curse. As much as I enjoyed the first Smile for its careful development and visceral intensity, I think Smile 2 might be even better.
From the opening sequence, it’s clear that we’re in the hands of a filmmaker that knows exactly what they’re doing. This is not merely another paycheck for Finn. He’s thought about how a sequel can build from its predecessor, stand on its own, incrementally build out the mythology, but mostly how to be an expertly made horror thriller designed to get under your skin. There were multiple sequences where I kept muttering variations of , “No,” or, “I don’t like that at all,” enough so that my wife in the other room would inquire what was directing these responses. Finn is tremendous at setting up the particulars of a scare sequence and allowing the audience to simmer in that anxious period of dread as we wait for something sinister to happen. He reminds me of James Wan and his ability to set up a nasty little scenario and then traps you inside awaiting the worst. There are sequences that compelled me to look away, not simply because they were overpowering, though the gore and makeup effects can best be described as impressively gross, but because the movie was finding different ways to make me uncomfortable, but in that good horror movie way. Finn’s camera makes what we should fear very clear, and his editing is precise. This is a movie that wants you to see the darkness and persistently worry about what’s coming just out of the frame.
One of my minor complaints with the first Smile was that there wasn’t much below its grinning surface. Sure, the entire premise of a curse that spreads through witnessing horrific acts of self-harm lends itself toward the discussion of how trauma begets trauma, but beyond that the first film was more reliant upon supreme craft and well-engineered scares. There’s nothing wrong with a movie that exists primarily as a thrill ride as long as those thrills deliver upon their promise. However, with Smile 2, Finn uses the character of Skye Riley as a beginning point to discuss the toxic relationships that come with fandom. It should be very obvious for every viewer that Skye is going through some serious issues. She’s overcoming addiction, physically rehabilitating her body as well as socially rehabilitating her image, and trying to learn all her new choreography for an intense world tour. This is a woman who could use a significant break. And yet, as the movie progresses, you start to sense that there is this large machinery around her that needs her to perform because that is how she makes them all money. Even her own mother-as-manager (Rosemarie DeWitt) can seem questionable as far as her motivations; is she pushing her child because she knows it’s what best for her to focus on for recovery, or is she pushing her because the tour pays for her lifestyle? As the movie progresses, the characters fret that Skye’s increasingly bizarre behavior is going to ruin the tour first and foremost, and concern for her actual well-being is secondary at best. All these people have their paychecks attached to this woman fulfilling her contractual obligations. You can also extrapolate the intense pressure the industry places on people with mental illness and self-destructive personalities to conform to standards that are unfair and often un-meetable. You might question why more pop stars don’t have head-shaving outbursts.
Because we know that the evil entity has the power to alter our sense of sight and sound, it means the viewer must be actively skeptical about what is happening. Is this really happening? Is this sort of happening but elements are different? Or is this completely a hallucination? It makes the plot the equivalent of shifting sand, never allowing us to be comfortable or complacent. This can lead to positive and negative feelings. It keeps things lively but it can feel like the plot never really moves forward, at least in a cause-effect accumulation. It can often feel like the movie is moving in starts and stops, and if you’re not onboard for the craft, the acting, and the scares, then the results can likely feel frustrating, especially when large swaths of time are canceled out. For me, I enjoyed the extra sensory game of keeping me alert because it led to a barrage of surprises and rug pulls, some of them admittedly annoying, especially losing what amounts to maybe an entire act of the movie, but also they were a definite way to keep upending the narrative certainty. This sneaky approach also very viscerally places us in the paranoid mindset of our protagonist, as we too are unable to trust our senses and tense up with certain unsettling auditory cues. Mainly, I was having too much fun with the devious twists and turns, and some wickedly disturbing imagery from the director, that I felt like it was an ongoing thrill ride through a funhouse of insanity that kept me guessing.
In a just world, Scott (Aladdin, Charlie’s Angels) would be at the front of the pack in the discussion for the Best Actress Oscar. This woman is put through the proverbial wringer and she showcases every frayed nerve, every degenerating thought with such verve and command. It’s essentially a performance of a woman completely breaking down mentally, but Scott doesn’t just go for broke, putting every ounce of effort into inhabiting the breakdown, she creates a character that reveals herself through the breakdown. It’s not just screaming hysterics and histrionics; there are different levels to her dismantling psyche, and Scott portrays them beautifully. I felt such great levels of dread for her because of how successfully Scott was able to anchor my emotional investment. She’s also portraying different versions of Skye, and some key flashbacks reveal just how toxic her former addict self was that she’s trying to put to rest. It’s a performance about metaphorical demons and literal demons haunting a woman, as well as guilt that is eating her alive. Scott allows us the pleasure of watching a first-class performance through her shattering.
There’s a curious motif to the movie that many will probably ignore but my wife and I fixated on, and so I feel the need to briefly discuss this so that, you too dear reader, can have this fixation as well. There are at least four scenes where Skye drinks a large bottle of water in a manner that can be best described as monstrously destructive. She drinks that bottle like a lost man in the desert finding his first drink of water. She attacks it. My best analysis is that this is a character detail about Skye’s addictive personality and sense of dependency, projecting the same all-consuming need onto water that she had previously for narcotics. One of the best laughs is when a doctor takes stock of Skye and says how dehydrated she is. Regardless, take in how desperately Skye Riley drinks and think about perhaps applying that technique next time you need a refreshing drink.
By its nightmarish conclusion, Smile 2 finds a fitting and satisfying end stop that promises a possible even bigger and more disturbing escalation for a Smile 3. Finn has established himself with two movies as a major horror filmmaker who can work within the mid-major studio system and still keep a perspective and integrity. I’m pleased that Smile 2 isn’t just more of the same old Smile, and in fact very few instances involve strangers with that signature facial expression. By the time you’re seeing the smile, it’s usually too late. I enjoyed the choice to find menace and darkness in a world of pop music brightness (the fake pop songs actually sound indistinguishable from what currently airs on the radio, bravo). I enjoyed the continuing tradition of casting famous Hollywood scions, like Jack Nicholson’s son playing Skye’s dead boyfriend (that family grin is uncanny, also bravo). What I really enjoyed was Scott’s uncompromising performance. Smile 2 has convinced me that Finn is the real deal, Scott might be one of our best modern scream queens and young actors, and to confirm introverted habits to avoid anyone who looks directly at me and smiles.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Gladiator II (2024)
It’s been twenty-four years since Russel Crowe, in his Oscar-winning role, bellowed, “Are you not entertained?” We were, we really were, and Gladiator was a huge hit in 2000 but has also held up as a twenty-first century classic that revived the sword-and-sandals epic. The late sequel hews quite closely to the path of the original Gladiator, a rare example of a movie that was quite literally writing the script as they went and succeeded wildly. The second go-round has a strong same-y feel, which is natural with sequels, but it also has trouble simply standing in the shadow of its superior predecessor.
This time we follow Paul Mescal (Aftersun) as a Roman expat who’s been living abroad as a simple man of the people, except when violence is called upon. His land is conquered by Rome, his beloved is killed, and he’s sold into slavery only to be selected to be trained as a gladiator and only to become a fan favorite who could possibly unseat the Emperor(s). Sounds familiar, right, plus with the revenge motivation? Mescal is playing Lucius, the adult nephew to the late emperor played by Joaquin Phoenix. He’s all grown up and with abs. This Maximum stand-in is actually the blandest character in the film, a scolding figure who says little and doesn’t want to be in any position of leadership. It makes for a lackluster hero especially compared to the presence and magnetism of Crowe in his leading man prime. Fortunately there’s entertaining side characters, notably Denzel Washington (The Equalizer) as a bisexual wheeler-dealer who manipulates his way to the top of the Roman Senate, even garnering the attention of the hedonist twin emperors. The script utilizes a lot of conveniences, from revelations of bloodlines to an adjacent crypt that just so happens to have old Maximus’ armor and sword. Washington’s schemes, more loose-goosey and the benefit of convenient luck than machiavellian plotting, provide the missing entertainment value from Mescal’s underdog-seeking-vengeance arc. Director Ridley Scott returns and stages some fun Colosseum action set pieces, including an aquatic based naval battle with literal sharks. The opening siege against a coastal city by the powerful Roman army is wonderfully visualized. I was never bored but I can’t say that the movie is operating at close to the same level. The second half kind of creaks to a close, with a final one-on-one that feels too lopsided and unfulfilling. The emotional resonance of the prior movie is sufficiently lacking. While Gladiator II can still get your blood moving, it’s also an exercise in rote blood-letting as diminished franchise returns.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Joker: Folie à Deux (2024)
Movie musicals can be sweeping, invigorating, and at their very best transporting, They mingle the high-flying fantasies and visual potential of cinema, and we’ve gone through many waves of kinds of musicals. Today, we’re in an outlandish world of the outlandish musical, an experience in ironic air quotes, where stories that you never would have thought could be musicals would then dare to be different and attempt to be musicals. The much-anticipated Joker sequel, Folie a Deux, dares to be a challenging jukebox musical of old favorites. The French movie Emilia Perez tells the story of a cartel leader that undergoes a sex change and tries to do good with her second life. Both movies are deeply interesting messes as well as experiences I don’t think actually work as musicals.
Joker 2, which I will be referring to it as for the duration of this review mostly because I don’t want to type out Folie a Deux, and not due to some explicit dislike of the French, is a fascinating misfire that comes across as downright disdainful of its audience, its studio, and its very existence. The last time I felt this way from a sequel was 2021’s Matrix Resurrections, another fitfully contemptuous movie that was alienating and self-erasing and also from Warner Brothers. The first Joker movie in 2019 was a surprise hit, grossing over a billion dollars, which meant that the studio wasn’t going to sit idly by and not force a sequel for a movie clearly intended to be one complete movie. While the first movie cost a modest $50 million, the sequel cost close to $200 million, with big pay days for Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, and co-writer/director Todd Phillips, who I have to remind you, dear reader, was actually nominated for a Best Director Oscar in 2019. Having gotten their paydays, it feels like Phillips and his collaborators have set out to scorch all available earth, going so far as to even insult fans of the earlier movie. Add the bizarre musical factor, and I don’t know how else to describe Joker 2 but as an alienating and miserable protracted exercise in self-immolating artistic hubris. It’s so rare to see this level of artistic clout used to proverbially stick a finger in the eye of every fan and studio exec who might have hoped there could be something of value here.
Let’s tackle the plot first, as we pick up months after the events of the 2019 film where lowly Arthur Fleck (Phoenix) is being tried for the murders he committed, most famously on a TV talk show where he debuted his stand-up comedian persona as Joker in full regalia. There’s an (un)healthy contingent of the rabble that idolize Arthur, finding the Joker to be some kind of mythic hero of class-conscious revolution, pointing out how society is failing all the little guys getting crushed by the rich and powerful and privileged, like that dead Wayne family. One of those fans is Lee (Gaga), a.k.a. Harleen Quinzel, a disturbed young woman obsessed with getting closer to Arthur, and he is extremely appreciative of the fawning attention. The defense case hinges upon whether or not Arthur was acting on his own accord or had a psychotic break, disassociating as “Joker,” and thus cannot be held accountable for the murders. Except it seems “Joker” is all the people of Gotham want to talk about, whether it’s the media or the public, and what about poor lonely Arthur?
If I had to fathom a larger thematic point, it feels like Phillips is trying to put our media ecosphere and comics fandom into judgement. He’s pointing to his movie and saying, “You wouldn’t have cared nearly as much about this project had it just been some other spooky, disturbed man losing his sanity and lashing out. You only care because he would eventually become the notorious Batman villain or lore, and that’s why you’re back.” Well, to answer succinctly, of course. When your movie’s conceptual conceit is all about providing a gritty back-story for a famous supervillain, don’t be surprised when there’s more attention and interest. This would be the same if Phillips had made a searing drama about teenage nihilism and easy access to guns and then called it Dylan Klebold: The Movie (one half of the Columbine killers, if you forgot). Stripping back layers to provide setup for a famous killer will always generate more interest than if it was some fictional nobody. It’s an accessible starting point for a viewer and there’s an innate intrigue in trying to answer the tantalizing puzzle of how terrible people got to be so terrible.
I found the 2019 movie to be a mostly interesting experiment without too much to say with its larger social commentary. It felt like Phillips relied a bit too heavily on that assumed familiarity with the character to fill in the missing gaps of his storytelling. It was a proof of concept for that proved successful beyond measure (a billion dollars, 11 Oscar nominations, including THREE for Phillips). This time, Phillips is taking even less subtlety with his blowtorch as he actively annihilates whatever audiences may have enjoyed or appreciated in the first movie.
And in order to fully appreciate the scope of this movie’s active distaste for its own existence, I’ll be treading into some major spoilers, so jump forward a paragraph if you wish to remain unspoiled, dear reader. The conclusion of this sequel is a miserable succession of hits that degrades Arthur. At the conclusion of the 2019 original, at least you could say he was becoming a more realized version of what he wanted to be, albeit a disturbed murderer, but one who became the face of a revolution and gained a legion of adoring followers that he desperately craved. At the end of Joker 2, Arthur pathetically admits in his trial there is no alternate Joker persona and that he’s just a sad loser. Then Lee admits that she was only ever interested in “Joker” and wants nothing to do with Arthur the sad loser. And then upon returning to prison, another inmate confronts Arthur, apparently feeling personally betrayed for whatever reason. This irate prisoner stabs Arthur to death and then laughs in a corner, slicing a smile into the sides of his mouth, Heath Ledger-style. The movie literally ends with Arthur laying in a pool of his own blood, staring dead-eyed into the camera, with Phillips metaphorically painting emphatically at his corpse and defiantly saying, “Look, he’s not even the Joker now! Do you still care? Do you?” These movies were designed to be the untold history of the man who would be Joker, and they now have ended up being four hours about the guy whose idea maybe inspired a criminal lunatic to improve upon what he felt was another guy’s brand. What’s even the point? We followed two movies about the guy who isn’t the Joker? Seems pretty definitive there won’t be a third Arthur Fleck movie, as there’s nothing left for Phillips and his anarchic collaborators to demolish to smithereens.
When I heard that Joker 2 was going to be a musical, I actually got a little excited, as it felt like Phillips was going to try something very different. Now the curse of many modern movie musicals is trying to come up with an excuse for why the world is exploding in song and dance, like 2002’s Chicago implying it’s all in Roxy’s vivid imagination. Joker 2 takes a similar approach, conveying that when Arthur is breaking out into song that it’s a mental escape for him, that it’s not actually happening in his literal reality. Except… why are there sequences outside Arthur’s point of view where other characters are breaking into song, notably Lee? Is this perhaps a transference of Arthur’s perspective, like he’s imagining them on the outside joining him in tandem? The concept fits with his desperate desire to forge meaningful human connections with people that see him for who he is, and having another character harmonize with him provides a fantasy of validation. Except… there’s no meaningful personal connection between Arthur and the allure of movie musicals. It’s not like he or his domineering mother, the same woman he murdered if you recall, were lifelong fans of musicals and their magical possibilities. It’s not like 2001’s Dancer in the Dark where our lonely protagonist dreamed of being in a movie musical as an escape from her depressing life of exploitation and poverty. It just happens, and you’re listening to Phoenix’s off-putting, gravelly voice straining to recreate classics like “For Once in My Life” and “When You’re Smiling (The Whole World Smiles With You).” It’s also a criminal waste of a perfectly game Gaga.
Phillips’ staging of his musical numbers are so lifelessly devoid of energy and imagination. Most of our musical numbers are merely in the same setting without any changes besides now one, or occasionally two, characters are singing. There’s one number that becomes a dance atop a roof, and several duets that appear like a hammy Sonny and Cher 1970s variety TV show, and that’s all you’re getting folks in the realm of visual escapism and choreography. In retrospect, it feels like the musical aspect of the sequel might have been a manner to pad it to feature-length, adding 16 performances and over 40 minutes of singing old standards. There’s a good deal of repetition with this sequel, as much of the plot is restating the events of the first film; that’s essentially what the courtroom drama facilitates as it trots out all the previous characters to recap their roles and point an accusatory finger back at Arthur.
There is one lone outstanding scene in Joker 2, and it happens to be when Arthur, in full Joker makeup, is cross-examining his old clown entertainer work buddy, Gary Puddles (Leigh Gill). Arthur admonishes Gary, saying he spared him, and Gary painfully articulates how hellish his life has been as witness to Arthur’s killing, how little he sleeps, how it torments him and makes him so afraid. For a brief moment, this character shares his vulnerability and the lingering trauma that Arthur has inflicted, and it appears like Arthur is wounded by this realization, until he settles back into the persona he’s trying to put forward, the “face” for his defense, and goes back to ridiculing Gary’s name and turning the cross-examination into an awkward standup session. It’s a palpable moment that feels raw and surprising and empathetic in a way the rest of the movie fails to.
Is there anything else to celebrate with Joker 2’s troubled existence? The cinematography by Lawrence Sher can be strikingly beautiful, especially with certain shot compositions and lighting contrasts. It makes it all the more confounding when almost all the musical numbers lack visual panache. The Oscar-winning composer returns and while still atmospheric and murky the score is also far less memorable and fades too often into the background, like too many of the technical elements. Joker 2 has plenty of talented people involved in front of and behind the camera, but to what end? What are all their troubles adding up to? It practically feels like a very expensive practical joke, on the audience, on the studio, and that is genuinely fascinating. However, it doesn’t make the end product any better, and the film’s transparent contempt sours every minute of action. Even if you were a super fan of Joker or morbidly curious, steer clear of Folie a Deux, a folly on all of us.
Nate’s Grade: D
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Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024)
Usually sequels over thirty years later reek of desperation, trying to rekindle the past while usually only hoping to tickle people’s fading sense of nostalgia. Rare is the 30-year-plus sequel that excels by breaking free of its imitator and making us see the original in a new light. It helps to keep your expectations in check, especially for a project that is so miraculous as the original 1988 Beetlejuice. What a wild movie that was, an introduction to horror comedy for a generation, and a near-perfect balance of creepy, silly, and imaginative. From director Tim Burton’s career-launching sense of style, to Michael Keaton’s electric comedic performance, to Danny Elfman’s outstanding score, to the stop-motion visuals, fun and freaky makeup effects, and you had a madcap movie that felt like a unique discovery. Recreating that is near impossible, but if Beetlejuice Beetlejuice can recreate some of the elements and feelings that made the original what it was, then it can be considered a modestly successful late-stage sequel.
Lyrdia Deetz (Wynona Ryder) has become a long-running host of a paranormal TV talk show connecting people with messages from loved ones from beyond the grave. Her teenage daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega), is moody and embarrassed by her mother, feeling that she “sold out.” Mother and daughter return back to Connecticut to attend the funeral of Charles Deetz, Lyrdia’s father. Her pretentious and snippy stepmother, Delia (Catherine O’Hara), is trying to better commune with his spirit, and the entire town has become famous for its spooky seasonal history. Meanwhile, Beetlejuice (Keaton) is trying to avoid his former wife, Delores (Monica Bellucci), who naturally is seeking to obliterate him to ectoplasm. He’s still got his sights set on Lydia, who spurned his marriage hopes, and might be able to manipulate the Deetz family back into his control.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice gets the closest to rekindling that lightning-in-a-bottle alchemy from the 1988 original, serving as an appealing and enjoyable sequel. Nothing will ever be as original and wild and such a discovery as that first movie, which serves as a point of entry for many a Millennial fan who discovered that irresistible Tim Burton Neo-Gothic aesthetic. However, it recreates enough of the qualities that stood out about the original. The skewed sense of humor and surreal visuals, as well as goofy slapstick and vibrant imagination about life after death, it’s all such a fertile playground for Burton’s visual charms. The genius of the original was telling a ghost story from the ghost perspective as they learned about how to be better ghosts to try and scare their new living owners away. Given the world of the dead, there’s such tremendous storytelling and world-building possibilities here, explored richly in the animated 90s series for kids. Further stories in this universe have an automatically appealing power, and it’s just nice to watch Burton apply his specific aesthetic again, something fans haven’t really seen since 2007’s Sweeney Todd. I appreciated the weird morbid details and the practical production values; the Alice in Wonderland movies have shown that the “Burton look” isn’t best complimented by massive green screen sets. Having Burton, the “Burton look,” the original actors, with some exceptions (more on that later), and enough of that offbeat, chaotic, morbid tone return is a victory.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice doesn’t so much alter our understanding of the world of the dead as established; it doesn’t radically rethink the landscape but it doesn’t repeat the same plot events either. I really liked the evolution of the adult Lydia as a jaded TV host. There’s a real dramatic punch to the reality that she sees the dead but has yet to see her deceased husband. She is incapable of reuniting with the man she misses the most, and she doesn’t know why. That yearning, paired with a lingering thematic mystery, can be a palpable storyline to explore. Pair that with some three generations of Deetz women trying to understand one another and work through personal resentments and we have fertile narrative ground. The three women were my favorite part of the movie, and their interactions and reflections on parenting and the challenges of trying to better understand one another are the foundation of the movie’s sense of heart. I really enjoyed the dynamic between the three, significantly upping Delia’s screen time and finding room to give her more dimension, an artist struggling in the wake of her grief. I’m a bit surprised that Ortega’s character isn’t more central to the drama. For all intents and purposes, she’s Lydia 2.0, so butting heads with Lydia 1.0 I guess feels redundant, so the story sends her off to find a cute boy in town and use that as an excuse for several unexpected needle-drop song use. There’s something inherently wrong watching a Tim Burton movie and hearing contemporary music. Imagine the Beetlejuice “Day-O” singalong but to, say, Sabrina Carpenter instead. No.
Beetlejuice, as a character, is such an exciting agent of chaos, a horny ghost who operates on the same tonal wavelength as a Looney Tunes cartoon character. Even though the original movie is named after the guy, he’s only in the film for approximately twenty percent. Keaton was absolutely incredible in his comedic bravado, creating much of the character through his ad-libs and hair and makeup choices. Keaton is still fantastic in this go-for-broke sort of performance, a performance we’ve seen far less as he’s settled into a respectable dramatic acting career. It’s hard to remember, dear reader, but when Keaton was initially cast for Burton’s Batman, the fan base at the time was up in arms, considering Keaton more of an un-serious funnyman. It would have been easy to have Beetlejuice front and center for the movie, so it’s admirable that Burton and Keaton decided to keep his on-screen appearances short, leaving people wanting more. There’s a late turn of events that pairs Lydia and Beetlejuice together, and I wish this fractious pairing had been the bulk of the movie. The whole enemies-to-uneasy-allies would have put much more emphasis on their character dynamic and the comic combustibility. Still, seeing these characters come back and retain their appeal and personality without obnoxious pandering is welcomed.
The screenwriters find a clever solution for the Jeffrey Jones Dilemma. For those unaware, Jones, who portrayed Lydia’s father in the original, and best known for pugnacious supporting roles in movies like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Howard the Duck, and HBO’s Deadwood, was charged with soliciting a child for sexual exploitation. The movie continues with the character of Charles Deetz but without the involvement of Jones. The character gets his top eaten by a shark, so for the rest of the movie he’s a walking half of a corpse with a mumbly voice. It’s a clever way to include the character without the need for the actor.
With that decision to limit the Beetlejuice quotient of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, it makes for a sloppier movie juggling a few underwritten subplots and side characters. The biggest non-factor is the return of Mrs. Beetlejuice. Here is a powerful antagonist who has the literal ability to suck out the souls of the recently dead and turn them into shriveled husks. She’s seeking vengeance against her ex and tracking him down through the netherworld. And yet, she could be completely eliminated from the movie without really affecting the other storylines. The whole Mrs. Beetlejuice/vengeful ex-wife character feels like a holdover from a different sequel script, clumsily grafted onto this other project, a vestigial artifact of another path not taken. There’s plenty of potential with the concept of the past victims of Beetlejuice coming back to seek retribution, and especially a trail of angry former lovers. It would explore the character’s history more meaningfully than an albeit amusing silent film interlude about how he married her during the era of the Bubonic Plague. We see how he died as a human, but there’s hundreds of years that can be illuminated from his failed schemes and odd jobs. Certainly there could be a whole club of ax-grinding malcontents sharing their mutual hatred of the Ghost with the Most. This character should better reflect Beetlejuice, and instead she’s just a monster on the prowl that eventually gets indifferently cast aside. It feels like Burton was looking for something for Bellucci to portray (Burton and Bellucci have officially been dating since 2023).
She’s not alone as an antagonistic villain that pops up to provide momentary danger but is also hastily resolved to the point that it raises the question why they were even involved. There are three antagonists, not counting Beetlejuice, that appear throughout to threaten our Deetz family members in Act Three, each of them individually interesting and targeting a different member of the family for ill-gotten gain. Yet each one of these characters is conquered so easily that it nullifies their importance and overall threat. If Beetlejuice could, at any moment, just open a trapdoor to hellfire at a moment’s notice, what danger does any other character pose then? If a sand worm can just appear from nowhere and consume our pesky antagonist, then why can’t this be a convenient solution earlier? The defeats feel arbitrary, which make the antagonists feel arbitrary, which is disappointing considering that we have the full supernatural arsenal of undead possibilities to tap into. I enjoyed these characters for the most part, but it’s hard not to feel like they’re tacked-on and underwritten. The same can be said about Willem Dafoe’s police chief, a former actor who played a chief on TV and now tries to fill the role for real after death. I’m always glad to have more Dafoe in my movies (woefully underrepresented in rom-coms, you cowards!) but he’s just mugging in the corner, waiting for some greater significance or, at minimum, more memorably morbid oddity to perform.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is better than a desperate sequel cash-grab, though there are elements, ideas, characters, and jokes that could have been smoothed out, better incorporated, and developed to maximize the potential of the undead setting. It’s an enjoyable throwback for the fans of the original that does manage to tap into enough of those potent elements that made the original so memorable. It’s definitely less edgy and transgressive, maybe even a little too safe given the territory of spooky specters; the entire Soul Train bit felt like a bad Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1980. However, it’s still got enough of the charm and silliness to leave fans, old and new, smiling and wondering where it might go next in its wild world.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)
Thanks to some release shuffling, there was only one Marvel movie being released in 2024, the fewest since 2012 (excluding the COVID punting of 2020). There’s been a lot of ink spilled over “superhero fatigue,” especially the recent downturn of certain Marvel movies like Quantumania and The Marvels, though as I’ve written before, I don’t think audiences have become sick of superhero cinema, they have become more demanding from mediocre superhero cinema. Audiences just want something more than the same old same old. Enter Deadpool & Wolverine, resurrecting one of the greatest Marvel heroes and transplanting the first new Fox hero into their new corporate landscape. It’s the least serious Marvel movie yet by design and, judging by its runaway box-office success, that was what the people wanted in a summer blockbuster that made them remember the escapist joys of men in tights with anger issues.
Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), a.k.a. the merc with the mouth Deadpool, is a man out of time. His universe is scheduled for elimination by the Time Variance Authority (TVA) because of the demise of Logan (Hugh Jackman) who served as an anchor being. Apparently, for reasons that don’t seem to make sense if you think of universes lasting longer than one human lifespan, once the anchor being goes, the universe dies out. Wade is thus in search of another Wolverine, but the one he finds is “the worst Wolverine,” a tragic hero drowning his sorrows and refusing to help. The two bickering mutants get cast to a dimensional dumping ground where they run into all sorts of castoffs and forgotten figures, chief among them Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin), the twin who ate Professor Xavier in the womb rather than the other way around. She holds dominion in this strange realm, and Wade has to appeal to her, or eliminate her, to get out of this ashy purgatory and convince this wounded Wolverine to be a hero.
The Deadpool half of the title means that this movie is interested in serving as a meta-satire of superhero cinema, which means its breezy, surface-level charms can feel after a while like a fanboy sugar high. It’s hard to maintain the novelty of a fourth-wall breaking vulgar superhero with the third movie, but now we have Deadpool closing the book on the Fox era of twenty-first century superhero cinema as well as getting to play in a new sandbox of pop-culture references and superhero cliches. Welcome to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Wade Wilson, though, as stated on-screen, you’re entering at a bit of a low point. For a while, at least, the movie can get by by having its resident prankster mug his way through the MCU catalog, fawning like the biggest fanboy (he did unsuccessfully audition for the Avengers). The opening sequence literally involves Deadpool digging up the adamantium corpse of Logan and using his unbreakable bones to inflict bloody carnage. It’s quite an attention-getter as well as something of a promise: we’re not going to undo the dramatic conclusion of 2017’s Logan, and even though this is the MCU, this movie isn’t going to go soft as it wades in its signature off-color comedy and bloody chaos.
Your mileage will vary depending upon what the hit-to-miss percentage is with the comedy. I found a lot of the homoerotic/homophobic banter to be dull and repetitive, but this kind of comedy ethos has been present from the first movie, the more-is-more approach. There’s an extended series of cameos that are fun castoffs from Fox comics universes, and the actors are definitely having a blast reliving their characters, or in one very special case, getting to live it once and for all. I wish there was more specific MCU commentary, but I cackled loudly when Reynolds turns to Jackman and taunts, “Disney’s going to make you keep doing this until you’re 90!” I really wish there was an extended critique of the state of post-credit scenes introducing new characters that we all know will never be seen again (remember Harry Stiles or Brett Goldstein?). Deadpool could have gotten stuck in an endless loop of end credit sequences. I enjoyed that a car’s product placement was subject to constant abuse and destruction, while still trying to maintain that sleek car commercial framing. The angry/shouty dynamic between Wolverine and Deadpool makes up for a lot, so even if the jokes are less than stellar, the cranky buddy dynamic still delivers.
However, much like the 2022 Multiverse of Madness, the actual multiversal trips are quite few and quite disappointing. There’s a silly montage of Wade approaching the different Wolverines of different universes (no Dougray Scott, huh?) but almost all of the movie is spent between a dusty netherworld and a subway station. Again, with the promise of great possibility, these movies seem to say, “Will you settle for maybe TWO gray locations?” I was let down by the main setting reminding me of 2009’s Land of the Lost dumping ground for the nexus of discarded universes. When this whole multiverse phase comes to its inevitable conclusion, it’s going to feel like a promised epic family vacation that went about an hour down the road, visited two gas stations, a McDonalds, and then hastily turned around.
On the other side of the titular ampersand, Jackman is acting in a completely different movie, perhaps giving one of his most dramatically rich performances as the superhero. This is a different Wolverine than the one we saw in 2017’s Logan, so it allows Jackman the freedom to be able to hit some of the essential elements of the character while also getting a new opportunity to follow a different direction. This is a Wolverine haunted by his own sense of cowardice and blaming himself for the death of his X-Men. This is less the grumpy antihero we’ve grown to love over twenty years and more akin to the main character in 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, a war veteran who folded under pressure and attempts to live through their guilt and shame, ultimately finding solace in seeking the noble sacrifice but on the bigger stage now. This is a genuinely traumatized character working through the different dimensions of his trauma, and Jackman doesn’t for a second treat it like a joke. He’s set up to be the cranky straight man to Reynolds’ chatty goofball, and there is comedy to be had with that dynamic, but Jackman is so convincing with his portrayal, again twenty-four years into this character, that he made me tear up at a few points. That’s right, dear reader, Hugh Jackman is so great in his role, that he almost made me cry. Yes, in a third Deadpool wankathon movie. And that is why Jackman is such an incredible actor. The attempt at heart has never felt authentic for me with Deadpool, no matter how many side characters he collects and assures us that they “mean something.” However, by including Wolverine, the filmmakers allow the viewers to import our decades of accrued feelings onto him. It’s a cheat, but it works with an actor of Jackman’s caliber. Plus, who wouldn’t want to see more of this man in the role that he defined for a generation?
Look, the movie operates more so than any other MCU enterprise on an expectation reflection system, likely supplying what you want out of a project like Deadpool & Wolverine. If you’re looking for a darker, sillier jaunt, there’s probably enough to serve as a diversionary change-of-pace. If you’re looking for a low-stakes reset, you’ll likely find it, though much depends on Where We Go From Here. If you’re looking for the same brash sense of humor and vulgarity from the two previous Deadpool movies, you’ll be satisfied. If you’re looking for something a little more thematically rich and rewarding, well this is the third Deadpool movie and I would ask why that’s a priority, but Jackman practically delivers just that. If you’re looking for a movie that rewards impish fan service, then here’s your winner, rewarding viewers who can even recall the vague minutia of the rise and fall of studio projects of old. I’ll always wish that more of the jokes hit their marks, or that the action could be a little more stylish, or that Reynolds and company had more trenchant satire for their corporate overlords rather than an occasional naughty tweaking that feels pre-approved, like writing a roast of a host. I would say it’s no more than the sum of its parts, but it almost made me cry and ended in such a jubilant fashion that I didn’t really care about the wishy-washy timey-wimey nonsense that the movie barely wants to pay attention to as well. Deadpool & Wolverine is an unexpected elegy for the Fox universe but also a reminder of the appeal of both of its titular stars.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Alien: Romulus (2024)
I will maintain that over the course of forty years that there have been no bad Alien movies. While 2017’s Alien Covenant gets the closest, I think each of the four Alien movies from 1979 to 1997 are worthy of praise for different reasons. The Alien franchise is unique among most sci-fi blockbusters in that each of its movies feels so radically different. The groundbreaking first movie is the hallowed haunted house movie in space; the 1986 sequel set the foundation for all space marine action movies, with Sigourney Weaver earning a Best Actress nomination, a real rarity for any sci-fi action movie; the much-derided third film from 1992 is much better than people give it credit for, and while flawed it has really intriguing ideas and characters with a unique setting and a gutsy ending; the fourth film from 1997 might just be the most fun, going all-in on schlocky action and colorful characters. Each of them is different with a style and tone of their own, and each is worthy of your two hours. Enter director/co-writer Fede Alvarez’s Alien: Romulus, meant to take place between the fifty-year time span between Alien and Aliens. It was intended to be a Hulu streaming movie but got called up to the big leagues of theatrical release, and while it has some underwritten aspects and clunky fan service, Romulus is another worthy sequel for a franchise that admirably keeps marching to its own beat.
It’s 2142 and life on an off-world colony isn’t exactly the adventure advertised. It’s a mining colony that’s slowly poisoning its huddled masses. Rain (Cailee Spaeny) has just finished her two-year contract only to be informed by her greedy company that, because of worker shortages, she’s locked in for another two years of indentured servitude. She’s also in charge of her adoptive brother, Andy (David Johnsson), a malfunctioning android that her late father reprogrammed. An ex-boyfriend comes back into Rain’s life with a plan: there’s an old derelict research station that they can scavenge and retrieve the cryo chambers, which can make long-term travel to a new life in a new system a possibility. There’s also a catch: they need Andy because only he can open the ship’s locked gates. The ragtag crew flies out to the derelict ship orbiting a ringed planet and, of course, discovers far more than they bargained for as the ship, of Weyland-Yutani origins, is crawling with face-hugging fiends just waiting for new faces.
Despite my grumbles, I found Alien: Romulus to be a very entertaining new entry that had the possibility of genre greatness. The setting and central character dynamic are terrific. The Alien franchise hasn’t exactly been subtle about its criticisms of multi-faceted corporations and their bottom-line priorities, but it’s even more effective to see the dinghy world of this mining colony. It’s a bleak existence of dystopian labor exploitation and you get an early sense of the desperation that motivates the characters to flee at any opportunity. Eventually, the evil corporation’s big plans for the “perfect organism,” a.k.a. the xenomorph, are to replace the depleting labor force. Humans, it turns out, aren’t built to work in space long-term, and the human cost is felt effectively in Act One. Another key part of what made the movie so immediately engaging for me is the sweet surrogate brother-sister relationship between Rain and Andy. He’s vulnerable, an older android model who needs some repairs, but he’s loyal and kind and loves pun-heavy jokes. This central relationship hooked me and gave me something to genuinely worry over as things get more dire, and it’s not just the scary aliens. Once onboard, Andy uploads the programming of a different android, and the competing objectives make him become a different person, all wonderfully played by Johnsson, who was supremely appealing in Rye Lane. While literally every other character is remarkably underwritten (this one doesn’t like robots, this one is pregnant, this one is… Buddhist?), the genuine bond between Andy and Rain grounded me.
Romulus also has some sneaky good set pieces that kept me squirming in my seat or inching closer in excitement. Alvarez (Don’t Breathe, Evil Dead) can concoct some dynamite suspense sequences and knows how to draw out the tension to pleasingly anxious perfection. This is the best Alien movie yet to really sell the danger of the springy face-huggers. There’s a taut sequence where the humans have to slow their movements to walk through a face-hugger minefield lest their spike in temperature alert the deadly creatures. There’s another later sequence that ingeniously utilizes space physics to escape the xenomorph acid blood. I loved how well it was set up and then the fun visuals of zero-gravity acid blood. The practical effects make for lots of great looking in-camera effects, and the production design is incredibly detailed while achieving a chilling overall mood of dread. Alvarez leans upon the visual frameworks of Ridley Scott and James Cameron, as who doesn’t, but finds ways to make his Alien movie his own. I really appreciated the dedication to the sprawling vistas of space, like extended shots outside the ship that really translate the sheer majesty and terrifying scale of space. The last-second threat of demolition is made all the more arresting by crashing into the rings of the planet. I think most people confuse a planet’s rings like it’s some kind of water vapor when instead it’s like a crowded highway of debris.
However, there are some misguided nods toward fan service that go overboard and become groan-inducing. There’s a fine line between homage and back-bending fan service, and Romulus skirts over occasionally into the dangerous territory, given over to references to the other movies that lack better context to make them anything more than contrived callbacks. Take for instance a triumphant killing of a xenomorph where a character utters, “Get away from her,” which itself would have sufficed, as any Alien franchise fan knows this reference point. Then the character continues, in an awkward pause, almost stumbling over the words and translating the awkwardness directly for us, as they add, “…You bitch.” Why? Why would this character need to say this exact same line (although, timeline-wise, this is now the first use of the phrase as Ripley is still in hypersleep)? The moment doesn’t call for this specific line; it could have been anything else, but they made it the line we all know from Aliens. There’s also the familiar ending where the characters think they’ve won and, wouldn’t you know it, there’s one more tussle to be had with a xenomorph who has snuck onto the escape ship. I’m less bothered by this continuation as it’s almost a formula expectation for the franchise at this point, though keeping Rain in her sleeping undies for the final fight seems like another unnecessary nod to the 1979 original. They even tie back the mysterious black goo from the Engineers via Prometheus, though as a vague power-up when, if I can recall, it was a biological weapon of mass destruction, but sure, now it’s a power-up elixir.
But the worst and most misguided act of fan service is where the movie literally brings a performer back from the dead (some spoilers ahead, beware). When Rain and the gang stroll through the derelict company ship, they discover the upper torso of a discarded android, like Ash (Ian Holm) in the original Alien. Not just like Ash because for all intents and purposes it is Ash, as the filmmakers resurrect Holm (who passed away in 2020) and use Deepfake A.I. technology to clumsily animate the man. This isn’t the first instance of a deceased actor brought back to screen by a digital double, from Fred Astaire dancing with a mop to Peter Cushing having a significant post-death supporting role in 2016’s Rogue One. Here’s the thing with just about all of these performances: they could have just been a different actor. Why did it have to be Grand Moth Tarkin (Cushing) and not just any other obsequious Empire middle manager? With Alien: Romulus, why does it have to be this specific version of an android when it could have been anyone else in the world besides the dearly departed Holm? I just can’t comprehend why the filmmakers decided to bring back Holm in order to play A DIFFERENT android who isn’t Ash but might as well be since he’s also been torn in half. Why not have the android be another version of Andy? That would have presented a more direct dichotomy for the character to have to process. The effects reanimating Holm are eerie and spotty at best, apparently built from an old scan from The Lord of the Rings. It’s just a distracting and unnecessary blunder, the inclusion of which can only be justified by trying to appeal to fans by saying, “Hey, remember this character? Even though he’s not that character. Well. Here.” We used to readily accept other actors playing the same character before the rise in technology. Nobody watching The Godfather Part II wondered why Robert DeNiro wasn’t a slimmed-down Marlon Brando.
As an Alien movie, Romulus starts off great and settles for good, but it still has several terrific set pieces, its own effectively eerie mood and style, and a grounded character dynamic that made me genuinely care, at least about two characters while the others met their requite unfortunate ends. It doesn’t have the Big Ideas of a Prometheus or the narrative arcs of Aliens, or even the go-for-broke schlock of Alien Resurrection, but Romulus delivers the goods while also feeling like its own movie, a fact I still continue to appreciate with the Alien franchise. It’s an enjoyable genre movie that fits in with the larger franchise. I wish some of the clumsy nods to fan service, especially the resurrection of a certain character, had been reeled back with more restraint to chart its own course, but it’s not enough to derail what proves to be a winning sequel.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
I am a lifelong Ghostbusters fan, I enjoyed the 2021 reboot, and I come to the sequel, Frozen Empire, as one of those fans that grew up with the cartoon series in the 1980s. There is a contingent of Ghostbusters fans who dismiss the movie as merely a comedy about a bunch of schlubs who resort to paranormal shenanigans to make a buck, and these fans dismiss anything larger in world-building, mythology, or direct sincerity as missing the point. I disagree. There can be a vivid, flourishing world of supernatural beings and connections to the human world, if you can tell a compelling story with characters we want to follow. Frozen Empire is an okay TV episode expanded into movie form, finding little for most of the voluminous characters to do. There’s an ancient evil and tying back the legacy characters, who don’t present much meaning beyond extended cameos. The 2021 movie had me on an emotional level, saying goodbye to a character and seeing how that loss has affected multiple generations of his estranged family. The closest thing Frozen Empire features to emotion is young Phoebe Spangler (Mackenzie Grace) wanting to be treated like a responsible adult and making friends with a ghost girl. It’s kind of sweet, and it’s smart to tie this friendship into the larger threat. The movie has several side plots littering the peripheral, from Finn Wolfhard trying to catch Slimer and being trusted to drive the Ecto-One, to Paul Rudd trying to find his footing as a stepdad, to Kumail Nanjiani as a junk dealer learning to follow his family’s noble mission of protecting others. I liked learning more about Winston’s (Ernie Hudson) Men in Black-style secret agency of studying ghosts and testing out new supernatural tech, and it presents a fun new setting where we can learn more. The ultimate story about defeating an evil spirit, coming together as a team, and learning to give others room to succeed or fail all seem a little pat, a little too familiar. It’s fine that this movie has lower stakes, even with a would-be apocalyptic threat of ancient evil. Not every movie needs to avert the apocalypse. It feels like little thought has been given to extending the new characters from the 2021 movie. There are too many characters to service here, which is why everyone other than Phoebe feels like a nascent supporting character or overextended cameo at worst (did we need the return of Podcast?). It’s still a fun movie that any Ghostbusters fan will likely find enough to enjoy, but it also feels like it might be the last Ghostbusters movie, at least this iteration, and it ends with a reminder of what the franchise can be, at its best, but also a warning of what it can be without careful development and vision.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Inside Out 2 (2024)
Of all the Pixar hits, 2015’s Inside Out is one of the better movies to develop a sequel for, and thankfully Inside Out 2 is a solid extension from the original. The internal world of Riley’s burgeoning sense of self is so deeply imaginative and creatively rewarding, balancing slapstick and broad humor with a deeper examination of abstract concepts and human psychology (Freud would have loved this movie… or hated it… or just thought about his mother). The unique setting was made so accessible by the nimble screenplay that the viewer was able to learn the rules of this setting and how interconnected the various parts are. While not being as marvelously inventive as its predecessor, nor as poignant (R.I.P. Bing Bong), Inside Out 2 is a heartwarming and reaffirming animated movie that will work for all ages.
Riley is now turning thirteen years old and in the midst of puberty. That means new emotions, and Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler) has to learn to work well with her co-workers, such as Envy, Embarassment, and Ennui. The biggest new addition is Anxiety (voiced by Maya Hawke) who wants to prepare Riley for her life ahead, which seems especially rocky now that Riley knows her two best friends will be going to a different school. A weekend trip to hockey camp becomes Riley’s opportunity to test drive the “new Riley,” the one who impresses the cool older kids and gains their acceptance. This will force Riley to have to determine which set of friends to prioritize, the new or the old, and whether the goofy, kind version can survive to middle school or needs to be snuffed out.
With the sequel, there aren’t any dramatically new wrinkles to the world building already established. We don’t exactly discover any new portions of Riley’s mind, instead choosing to place most of the plot’s emphasis on another long journey back to home base. This time the other core emotions get to stick around with Joy, each of them proving useful during a key moment on the adventure. The externalization of the emotions invites the viewer to feel something toward feelings themselves. When Joy, at her lowest, laments that maybe a hard realization about growing up is that life will simply have less joy, it really hit me. Part of it was just the sad contemplation that accepting adulthood means accepting a life with less happiness, but a big part was teaching this concept to children and being unable to provide them the joy they deserve. Since the 2015 original, my life has gone through different changes and now I watch these movies not just as an individual viewer recalling life as a former adolescent figuring things out, but now I also come from the perspective of a parent with young children, including one turning thirteen. The development of the mind of this little growing person is a heavy responsibility given to people who are, hopefully, up to that very herculean task. We can all try our best, but recognizing limitations is also key. The kids have to have the freedom to be themselves and not pint-sized facsimiles of a parent.
The emotions inside Riley’s mind are featured like internal surrogate parents, tending to the development of Riley’s emotions, morals, and personality. They presumably want what’s best for her, there just happen to be opposing interpretations of what that exactly means, which leads to the majority of conflict with Anxiety. However, there’s also an understanding that Riley has to do things on her own and be able to make mistakes and learn from them. Inside Out 2 is ultimately about accepting the limitations of providing guidance. Joy and Anxiety are both trying to steer Riley down a deliberate path they think is best, but Riley needs to discover her own path rather than have it programmed for her. I appreciated that Anxiety is not treated as some dangerous one-dimensional villain hijacking Riley’s brain. Much like sadness, there is a real psychological purpose for anxiety, to keep us alert and prepared. Now that can certainly go into overdrive, as demonstrated throughout Inside Out 2, including a realistic depiction of a panic attack. It’s about finding balance, though one person’s balance will be inordinately different from another. The stakes may be intentionally low in this movie, all about making the hockey team and being welcomed by the popular girl she may or may not be crushing over (more on that later), but the focus is on the sense of who Riley chooses to be through her life’s inevitable ups and downs. It’s about our response to change as much as it is our response to the presence of anxiety.
Inside Out 2 also answers a thorny world-building question that the original creators never thought to go into greater detail. It’s established in the 2015 original that even the adults have the same five core emotions manning their brain battle stations: Disgust, Fear, Sadness, Anger, and Joy. So if adults only see these same emotions, what happens to those new puberty emotions? Do they go away? As an adult, do we gradually work through anxiety and embarrassment to the point where they are no longer present (this is where every adult can wryly laugh)? There’s an emotion introduced as Nostalgia, depicted as a kindly grandmother so eager to remember the ways things were. Joy tells Nostalgia to leave, as it’s not time for her to be developed yet until Riley is older. This one moment clears up the world-building question; the emotions don’t leave, they just sit out for periods of time like bench players waiting to be called into the big game. And just like that, it all works and makes sense. I wonder what other new emotions make their appearances later in life. Resentment? Choosing to rather die in authority rather than give up an iota of power to a younger generation? Sorry, that last one was more directed at those stubborn folks clinging to Congressional offices.
There is some sight narrative and thematic redundancy here. The first movie was about learning the importance of accepting sadness as a vital part of the human condition and how we can process our emotional states. It was about Joy learning that not every moment in life can or should be dominated by joy, and that the other emotions are also necessary functions. With the sequel, we have a starting point where Joy is picking and choosing what memories are worthy of being remembered, banishing the “bad moments” to the back of Riley’s mind, forming a cavernous landfill of junked memories. It’s treading some pretty similar ground, prioritizing one set of memories or emotions over others wherein the ultimate lesson is that repression in all forms is unhealthy and robbing one of the necessary tools for self-acceptance and growth. This is further epitomized by a trip to one of these memory vaults where Riley’s Deep Dark Secret is willfully imprisoned. The movie proper never comes back to this self-loathing figure, and the revelation could have really supported the overall message of self-acceptance. Pixar could have done something really special here, like having Riley coming to terms with being bisexual/queer, and that perhaps something we may personally agonize over as a horrifying secret could, once shared, be far from the dreaded life-destroying culprit our minds make it out to be. This would have really worked with the perceived lower stakes of the movie, naturally elevating the ordinary to the profound, as life can often unexpectedly become. Alas, the Deep Dark Secret is just a setup to an underwhelming post-credits joke – womp womp. That’s it? Again, if you’re going to tread the familiar thematic grounds about the dangers of repression, at least give us something bigger to reach than the same lesson that all emotions have a place.
The first Inside Out was a masterpiece. That’s a hard act to follow. This sequel, of which we can all assume there will be more given its billion-dollar box-office, is a solid double to the original’s home run of entertainment. It’s not among their best but it’s one of their better non-Toy Story sequels. Inside Out 2 is a heartwarming winner.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 (2024)
The first Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey was, unquestionably, my worst film of 2023. It wasn’t merely a bad horror movie, it was a depressingly cynical cash-grab with such little forethought of how to subvert the wholesome legacy of its classic characters. As I said in my review: “The startling lack of imagination of everything else is depressing, as is the fact that this movie has earned over four million at the global box-office, hoodwinking enough rubberneckers looking for a good bad time. The problem is that Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is only a bad bad time.” Oh, dear reader, I wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable deluge of follow-ups, as writer/director Rhys Frake-Waterfield would resupply his surprising success with further sinister revisions to public domain properties. He’s planning on a “Poohniverse” crossover event with a combination of Pooh, evil Pinnochio, vengeance-fuelled Bambi, and a traumatized or villainous Peter Pan. Again, schlocky movies that lean into their schlock can be wonderful things, but a movie that does next to nothing with its subversive hook, with the history of its cutesy iconography, and could be easily replaced with any other menacing slasher killer is beyond lazy, it’s insulting. I figured there could be nowhere to go but up with a sequel, and while Blood and Honey 2 is an improvement in just about every way, it’s still not enough to qualify as a fun or ironic treat.
Wakefield and new co-writer Matt Leslie (Summer of 84) completely rework the mythology and history established in the first movie, which is now revealed to be the literal movie-within-a-movie of the account of the Massacre of the 100 Acre Wood where Pooh and Piglet slaughtered a troupe of bad-acting British coeds. In this prior film, it was established that Pooh and his buddies were angry with Christopher Robin (Scott Chambers, replacing Nikolai Leon) when he left for college. They felt abandoned and grew feral and monstrous, rejecting the ways of man (though still wearing the clothes of man and driving the cars of man). However, now in the sequel it’s revealed they were always feral and blood-thirsty and it was Christopher who incorrectly remembered them as cute and fluffy. This scene makes for the hilarious visual of a child waving innocently at a blood-strewn manimal lurking about. Also, Christopher had a young brother who was abducted by the creatures of the 100 Acre Wood and never seen again. Also also, there was a mad scientist who was creating human-animal hybrids from missing children, so the blood-thirsty animals might not be actual animals after all (can you see where this is going?). While the first Blood and Honey movie did nothing with the characters, this movie actively gives them a tragic history with some twists and turns, enough to lay a mythos. The use of hypnotherapy-induced flashbacks isn’t exactly smooth or subtle, but I’ll take it. At least this movie provides a distinguishing plot that makes some use of its particular elements. Don’t mistake me, dear reader, this is faint praise at best, but after enduring the creatively bankrupt first film, it’s like a desperately needed oasis. Ultimately, it might all just be a mirage but at least it’s something to those of us who suffered!
In the grand sequel tradition, bigger is better, and now instead of two ferocious beasts wreaking havoc, it’s four, with the addition of Owl (Marcus Massey) and Tigger (Lewis Santer). None of these monsters has a particular style or attitude that distinguishes them. I guess Tigger calls people “bitch” a lot and slashes people. There is one point where hapless cops are investigating a crime scene and say, “Let’s bounce,” and Tigger says from the luxury of the shadows, “Hey, that’s my line.” I figured they’d incorporate the signature Tigger bounce on his tail, but perhaps that was too expensive to perform or that bounce was more a byproduct of the Disney version of the character, still under copyright, and not the available A.A. Milne version. The animal costumes look better than the cheap Halloween masks of the original, though for my money Owl looks more like a turkey vulture wearing cray paper. I’m sure we’ll get Kanga in the inevitable third movie in 2025 where her zombie baby leaps out of her pouch to feed on brains. There is a snazzy addition late into the proceedings where Pooh is welding a fiery chainsaw. It makes little sense for the character but it’s cool, so it’s excusable in lapsed movie logic.
I was hoping for more unique kills, twisted takes related to the characters, like Pooh turning some poor soul’s head into a honeypot. The kills are just grizzly and extensive, favoring quantity over quality. There are plenty of decapitations, gougings, impalings, and other fraught and violent encounters, nearly all of them featuring squealing, terrified women. It’s always women that seem to get the worst in these movies, but of course this is a feature and not a bug of the genre back to its 80s heyday. It gets relentless but I suppose at least these girls aren’t having their tops mysteriously fall off while they’re being butchered. A third act rave set piece features maybe two dozen kills and risks becoming tedious slaughter. It got to the point where I was hoping not to see another cowering person hiding behind a corner because it meant the sequence was going to be even more unbearably long (I’m not personally cut out for the Terrifiers).
In between the spillings of blood and guts is the attempts at human drama, namely Christopher Robin trying to live a normal life while also re-examining his past. Apparently people think he’s to blame for the massacre from the 100 Acre Wood, and so he’s become a pariah, whose very presence unsettles others. He’s trying to find steady work in a hospital setting but he’s blacklisted from pursuing his career because of the negative attention his name generates. He even has a romance with a single mom so that when the Robin family is inevitably skewered we have other characters that can be personally threatened to provide meaningful stakes. The life of Christopher Robin and his discovery of repressed memories makes for a surprising story foundation for Blood and Honey 2, especially when the plot of its predecessor was mostly Christopher being held prisoner and the baddies casually roaming and killing coeds. I think Chambers is a better actor as well, and he’s posed to be the writer/director of Neverland Nightmares, which just began principal photography a month and a half ago as of this writing. Good luck, guy.
While the budget has increased tenfold, Blood and Honey 2 is still a scuzzy, sleazy slasher movie at heart. If you’re in the mood for a low-budget exploitation movie heavy with gore, there may be enough to qualify this sequel as moderately mediocre, which again is a marked improvement from what I declared the worst movie of 2023. I’ll credit the influence of co-writer Matt Leslie to try and put some standards in place for this runaway gravy train of IP allocation. What’s scariest of all is what Frake-Waterfield’s unexpected success has wrought, encouraging imitators to jump on his now proven novelty act. There’s a 2025 Steamboat Willie horror movie called Screamboat as Steamboat Willie has now entered the public domain (but not other versions of Mickey). Will it be any good? I sincerely doubt it. Will it make money from curious horror hounds looking for an ironic twist on a wholesome childhood fixture? Most assuredly. This is our present. This is our future, and it’s the legacy of Frake-Waterfield and his ilk that stumbled onto a lucrative novelty act. Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey 2 is just bad, and for that it’s an improvement.
Nate’s Grade: D+
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