Neil Sharpson's Blog, page 6

Hey buddy, spare a quarter?

It’s amazing (and a little scary), to think that the brand shiny new 21st century is already at the quarter mark. How did we already go through so many years in such a short period of time? They’re so bloody moreish, aren’t they?

Personally and professionally, 2024 was a quiet-before-the-storm kinda year. I’ve been working on several projects that will (some definitely and some hopefully) all burst on the scene in 2025 which, if we’re honest, sounds more like a proper important kind of year for that kind of thing anyway.

After a quiet year I will have not one, but two books hitting shelves and rest assured, I will be spamming about both of them merrily when the time comes.

Oh, and talking about new projects, Spouse of Mouse, myself and our friend Esther (mostly Esther) have started a new podcast called Now That’s What I call Nostalgia where we talk about the cartoon shows of our youth and discuss what drugs were most likely involved in their creation. First two episodes should be live now and you can listen to them HERE (if nothing happens the first two episodes were not, in fact, live now).

Here on the blog in 2024 I reviewed 1 Canon Disney movie, 2 MCU movies, 1 animé, 1 live action movie, 9 non-Disney canon animated features, 1 Bats versus Bolts, 4 Batman movies and one short film.

The standard of movies I reviewed this year was a huge improvement on 2023’s, not least because the MCU and Disney canon’s output have slowed to a greasy trickle as they to figure out just what’s gone wrong. But, like any bout of explosive diarrhoea, just because the first deluge has passed doesn’t mean it’s safe to get off the pot yet. I look at the horizon, with the MCU stunt-casting left and right and Disney bringing their early nineties cheap cash in sequel strategy into the sacred halls of the canon itself….let’s just say I don’t think the worst is behind us just yet. That said, it’s not like we deserve better.

$140 million opening. This is why we can’t have nice things.

So, with MCU and Disney reviews slowing to a crawl, that meant I got to focus on Batman reviews and the odder and more obscure articles in my backlog. And, I’m happy to say, I discovered (and re-discovered) some real gems. Best movie this year was…I mean, that’s hardly fair, is it?

I was very gratified at how many of you said you enjoyed my review of The Third Man and I think, yeah, a little culture around here wouldn’t kill us. I’m going to try and review some more classics.

Despite the overall uptick in quality, Worst Movie was actually the more fiercely competitive category as I did review some pretty egregious stinkers: Land Before Time XIII, Wish, The Marvels and Cool World.

But there was only one movie that I actively loathed and think you all know what it is. Dawn of Justice.

Lastly, I want to introduce a new category; Most Pleasant Surprise. These were the movies that I went in to knowing little and expecting less and came out with a new personal favourite. Honourable runner up is Joseph: King of Dreams, the scrappy little direct-to-video sequel that nonetheless set up shop in my head. Some bangers in the soundtrack too. But there was one movie that I was initially cool on but where my opinion of it grew and grew even after I watched it and reviewed it. So if you read my review of Your Name and felt that it was a little unenthusiastic, you’re right. So, let me set the record straight I adore this film.

Fantastic movie. Heart breaking. Yes, Makoto Shinkai fans. I get what you meant now.

Oh, and while I didn’t review it on the blog I may as well leave you with a recommendation.

I loved it as a thriller. I loved it as a character study. I loved it as a work of cinematic art. I loved it as a Catholic. Best new film I’ve seen all year. Whatever you think it is about it’ll probably surprise you. And I will definitely have to review it just so I can talk to someone about the ending. 

Anyway, hope you and yours have a safe, wonderful and happy Christmas and new year.

Nollaig shona daoibh go léir,

Mouse.

The Third Man (1949)

I don’t honestly know if I should feel sorry for Joseph Cotten or envy him. He had a long and storied career in theatre and film, appearing in several movies that are the mainstay of any respectable list of greatest films of all time. How could you pity any actor whose CV includes The Third Man, The Magnificent Ambersons and of course the big gorilla in the room, Kane?

At the same time, when you think of those movies Cotten’s name isn’t exactly the first one that comes to mind, is it? Of course not.

It certainly doesn’t appear that Cotten resented the fact that Orson Welles was essentially the star around which Cotten’s career orbited, as the two men maintained a close and warm friendship right up until Welles’ death in 1985. And it’s not like he was completely overlooked, either. In fact, it’s so common to say that Joseph Cotten was one of the most underrated stars of Hollywood’s Golden Age that he probably no longer even qualifies as underrated. But screw it, it’s my blog, and if I want to turn it into a Joseph Cotten appreciation corner who of you will stop me? That’s what I thought. We’ve Gotten Cotten Fever up in here!

Oh, fun fact. His hair was the model for Norman Osborn in Spider-Man. Orson Welles can’t say that, can he?

Before Monty Norman’s James Bond theme debuted in 1962, the piece of music that was indelibly linked to the spy genre was Anton Karas’ Zither theme for The Third Man. Which is weird for a number of reasons. Firstly, and I hope I’m not shocking any delicate constitutions here, but The Third Man is not a spy thriller. Nothing remotely connected to the world of espionage occurs during the run time of the film. It just feels like a spy thriller. And it’s also weird because Karas’ theme is just so wrong a choice for this kind of film. It’s bouncy and happy. It feels like a day at the beach. And yet it ends up complimenting the film so wonderfully. The Third Man feels like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Partly that’s the visuals. Partly the great script and the thoroughly inspired decision to film on location in the wrecked guts of post war Vienna. But a huge part is Karas’ score, which amplifies the weirdness and black comedy of the movie’s world and its situation. For this, if you’re in the right mood, is a wonderfully funny movie right from the off. Over a brief montage of life in Vienna the narrator (director Carol Reed) tells us:

“I never knew the old Vienna before the war with its Strauss music, its glamour and easy charm. Constantinople suited me better. I really got to know it in the classic period of the black market. We’d run anything if people wanted it enough and had the money to pay. Of course a situation like that does tempt amateurs…

(CUT TO A DEAD BODY FLOATING FACE DOWN IN THE DANUBE)

“… but, well, you know, they can’t stay the course like a professional. Now the city is divided into four zones, you know, each occupied by a power: the American, the British, the Russian and the French. But the center of the city that’s international: policed by an international patrol. One member of each of the four powers. Wonderful! What a hope they had! All strangers to the place and none of them could speak the same language. Except a sort of smattering of German. Good fellows on the whole, did their best you know. Vienna doesn’t really look any worse than a lot of other European cities. Bombed about a bit. Oh, I was going to tell you, wait, I was going to tell you about Holly Martins, an American…” 

I love this monologue and the way it puts us, the audience, in the character of someone who’s just sat down in a bar in Vienna and gotten chatting to some old scoundrel who’ll happily spin us a yarn in exchange for a round or two. It’s also hilarious to me that the central story, the entire reason we’re here, Holly Martins’ search for Harry Lime, is so inconsequential that the narrator almost forgot it altogether. I don’t know who described this movie as “the anti-Casablanca” but that’s pretty much a perfect description. In Casablanca, even the smallest acts are vitally important in a great, epic struggle between good and evil (“play Les Marseillais”). In The Third Man, nothing Holly does matters and everything he tries to achieve ends in failure. If Casablanca is the epitome of World War 2 heroism and optimism on the eve of victory, The Third Man is all about the messy, ugly reality of post-war Europe and the early Cold War. It sounds bleak, and it is, but there’s a lot of humour to be mined from a bleak situation if you’re a sick enough bastard. As, I hope, we all are.

So, Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) has arrived in post-war Vienna on the invitation of his friend, Harry Lime, who’s promised him a job. Worried when Harry fails to meet him at the train station, he goes to his hotel only to be told by the porter that Harry was struck by a truck and killed just outside the door of the hotel. Rushing to his funeral, Holly is just in time to watch his friend’s coffin being lowered into the earth and a mysterious beauty leaving his graveside.

Another of the “mourners” is Royal Military Police officer Major Calloway played with absolute perfection by Trevor Howard, and his adjunct Sergeant Paine, played by future M, Bernard Lee. Calloway takes Martins to a bar to find out what he knows about Lime and tells the American that his good friend was actually one of the most ruthless and notorious black marketeers in Vienna. Martins doesn’t like Calloway and doesn’t like cops and guesses that the Major is trying to frame the now dead Lime just so he can close the books on a few cases. He takes a swing at Calloway and gets laid on his ass by Paine, who’s very apologetic because it turns out he’s actually read Holly’s novels and he’s a huge fan. Calloway gives Martins some military money so he can stay the night at the British army’s hotel base and tells him he’ll get him a seat on a flight out of Vienna in the morning. But Holly smells a rat and decides to stay in Vienna and investigate Lime’s death.

He gets his first lead when he’s approached by a man claiming to be a friend of Lime’s, an Austrian named Baron Kurtz. Kurtz tells Holly that he and another friend of Harry’s, a Romanian named Popescu, were with him when he was struck and carried him to the side of the road and waited with him until the doctor arrived on the scene. Kurtz tries to convince Holly to give up his investigation and leave Vienna, but does steer him towards the woman at Harry’s grave; an actress named Anna Scmidt.

Anna is played by Alida Valli who was one of those mid-century European actresses. You know the kind I mean. Phenomenal performer. Brilliant. Spoke six languages. Personal life full of intrigue and tragedy and grand romance. You know the kind. Also, she was called “the most beautiful woman in the world” by Fascist leader Benito Mussolini.

“Yeaaaaah, I don’t really brag about that.”

Holly goes to see Anna’s show and meets her in her dressing room. Anna says that Harry was actually hit and killed by his own driver, and that the doctor who attended him was his personal physician, a man named Winkel, who just happened to be walking down that street. This sets Holly’s bullshit detector into overdrive as he realises that everyone on that street the night Lime was killed, the driver, Kurtz, Popescu and Winkel were all connected to Harry in some way. Anna admits she thought it was strange too and wondered if his death was really an accident (CUE OMINIOUS ZITHER MUSIC).

Holly goes back to Harry’s hotel with Anna acting as his translator, and is able to get more information out of the porter who tells them that it wasn’t just Popescu and Kurtz who moved Harry’s body. There was a third man.

“…”“Ohhhhh!”

Holly tells the porter that he needs to go to the police and tell them and the porter’s all “nah man, I ain’t snitchin’ and angrily tells Holly and Anna to get out. This altercation is seen by a little boy playing with a ball in the hall.

Holly leaves Anna home only to find Calloway there with a whole heap of military police turning her apartment over looking for information on Harry Lime. Calloway asks to see Anna’s papers and quickly deduces that they’re forged. Calloway tells Holly to go home and Holly says he won’t leave until he gets to the bottom of Harry’s death. Calloway replies “Death’s at the bottom of everything, Martins. Leave death to the professionals.”

Which is a line so badass that Holly asks if he can use it in his next book and I would absolutely say the same thing in his position.

Holly asks Anna what the problem is and she reveals that she’s actually Czechoslovakian and that if she’s discovered she would be deported to Stalin’s socialist paradise which she’s against for some unfathomable reason. What I love about this scene is that it shows that everyone here; Anna, Calloway, Paine and Holly…they’re all fundamentally good people. Anna’s facing deportation and still takes the time to ask Holly to give some cigarettes to her distraught landlady. Paine has to take Anna’s love letters to Lime but writes out a receipt and gently promises her that anything he sees will be in strictest confidence: “we’re like doctors, miss”. Even Calloway apologises to Anna after casually dismissing Lime’s death because he can see he hurt her. The movie is bleak, but never nihilistic, which is such a crucially important difference. None of these people may ultimately end up changing anything, but they will still, in their little way, try. Good fellows on the whole. Did their best, you know.

Anna’s taken into custody and Holly pays a visit to Doctor Winkel who gives serious “planning a retirement in Argentina away from cameras” energy. He corroborates Kurtz’s story about there only being two men with Harry when he died, but does it in such a shifty way that he pretty much confirms the opposite.

Meanwhile Calloway interrogates Anna about a man called Joseph Harbin who worked at a military hospital. He says that in one of Harry’s letters to her he asked her to call Harbin and get him to come to Harry’s place and that he disappeared that night. Calloway is very anxious to find Harbin and Anna replies “you’ve got everything upside down” which, as we will see, is not wrong.

Returning to the hotel, Holly is approached by the porter who’s had an attack of conscience and tells Holly to come back at night when his wife is out so that he can tell him the truth.

Holly visits Anna in her apartment. She’s still heartbroken over Harry’s death and he comforts her by telling her stories about his schooldays. It’s a lovely, lovely scene. Cotten’s easy, low-key charm and Valli’s capital S Star charisma work perfectly together. Holly’s clearly falling for her but doesn’t want to push her. And she’s so glad just to have a friend in her darkest hour. Her heart still belongs to Harry even as she can see that Holly is something special and that, if things had been different…well.

There’s a wonderful moment where, just as they’re leaving to go talk to the porter and she turns and gives him this beautiful, sad smile and says.

“You know, you ought to find yourself a girl.”

And every straight guy and lesbian in the audience thinks the same thought: what’s the point? She wouldn’t be you.

They go back to the hotel and find a crowd has gathered outside. They ask what happened and learn that Porter Kaput. The little boy recognises Holly and tells the crowd that he saw Holly arguing with the porter which is all it takes to turn the crowd into a mob. Holly and Anna have to amscray. Holly leaves Anna at a cinema and turns himself in to Calloway who believes that he didn’t kill the porter. Calloway then lays the whole thing out for Holly: Harry Lime was an absolute bastard. He was stealing penicillin from military hospitals, diluting it and selling it on the black market. When Holly asks if the police are too busy chasing stolen medicine to investigate murders, Calloway snaps that murder is exactly what they are talking about as dozens of men women and children have died, been injured or driven mad by Harry’s tainted drugs. He then proceeds to stuff Holly with so much evidence that his brain is walking funny afterwards.

Heartbroken, Holly says he’ll take that plane ticket and Calloway promises to send it along to his hotel. Meanwhile, the Russian envoy arrives in Calloway’s office and says that he needs Anna’s passport as she’s going to be repatriated. Calloway tries weakly to protest but even the Russian can only shrug and apologetically say “sorry, orders is orders”.

Holly gets proper messy drunk and shows up at Anna’s apartment with a bouquet of flowers to say goodbye. He tries playing with Anna’s cat but gets completely rejected which is probably symbolism for something. Anna says that the cat only ever liked Harry (okay, that’s definitely symbolism) and the cat then exits through the window and goes out into the street where it starts running up against a mysterious figure watching Anna’s apartment from the shadows. And I can’t believe it’s taken me THIS LONG to realise that this sequence uses three obviously different cats.

One.Two.And yes, mein herr, there was a THIRD cat.

They’re all white and tabby. And they’re all cats. That’s literally all they have in common.

Holly and Anna commiserate on learning that the man they both loved was a monster, Holly makes a half-hearted drunken pass at Anna and then leaves. Out on the street, he notices the figure watching him from the shadows and calls on him to reveal himself. A light goes on, the figure is revealed and…we get one of the greatest character introductions in the history of cinema.

Shocked to see Harry alive, Holly chases his old friend through the streets but loses him after Lime vanishes through a secret passage that goes into Vienna’s sewer system. Meanwhile, Anna is arrested and brought to the police station. Holly meets her there and gives her the good (?) news that Harry’s still alive. Calloway offers to help Anna if she’ll help the police track Lime down but she stonewalls him, just happy that Lime’s still alive.

The next day, Holly shows up at Kurtz’s place and tells him to tell Harry to meet him in the fairground or he’ll go to the police.

Sure enough, Harry makes their date and suggests they go for a little ride on the Ferris Wheel. What could be more fun?

So what can I say about this scene? As the carriage gets higher and higher over the gutted, bombed out corpse of Vienna, Holly slowly starts to realise that the war has turned his charming, mischievous childhood friend into a cold-blooded psychopath. I love just about every second of this scene. The dots monologue. Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax.

The look, and Holly’s slow, deliberate embrace of the wooden pillar. Innocent, but no fool this one.

Once he learns that the police know that he had Harbin murdered and faked his death, Harry becomes much more conciliatory, offering to cut Holly in on his racket and promising to meet up with him again. Before he leaves he gives the famous speech written, of course, by Welles himself:

“Don’t be so gloomy. After all, it’s not that awful. Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Which honestly? Makes it even better.

Holly goes to Calloway and agrees to help him bring Harry in, in exchange for getting Anna safely out of Vienna into the west. Calloway agrees and Holly watches Anna board her train from the train station bar. She sees him and confronts him, and figures out very quickly why Calloway let her go. Furious, she says:

“If you want to sell your services, I’m not willing to be the price. I loved him. You loved him. What good have we done him? Love. Look at yourself. They have a name for faces like that.”

Sick of everyone’s bullshit, Holly goes back to police headquarters and tells Calloway he’s out. His only motive for betraying Harry was to save Anna, if he can’t do that he doesn’t see a point. Calloway pretend to take him to the airport but stops in at a local children’s hospital so that Holly actually has to face the monstrosity of what Harry has done. Holly, reluctantly, re-joins operation Squeeze Lime.

He waits in a café for Harry but Anna arrives, having been tipped off by Kurtz right before he was arrested. She angrily demands to know what Calloway is paying Holly this time and, when Harry arrives, warns him that there are soldiers waiting to arrest him. Calloway, Paine and half the allied armed forces of Europe chase Harry into the sewers of Vienna.

Lime shoots Paine dead before being gunned down by Martins, dying in the sewer like the piece of shit he is.

The next day, Holly attends the second funeral of Harry Lime and afterwards, is offered a lift to the airport by Calloway. But he gets out and waits for Anna.

Perfectly framed between two rows of trees, she walks towards him, a tiny figure in the distance.

And the movie makes us wait. And wait. And wait.

And while you’re waiting you start anticipating what’s going to happen when they finally meet.

Will he take her in his arms?

Will they kiss passionately?

Will she have forgiven him?

Will she realise that he did the right thing by betraying the man she loved?

Will she finally realise that, let’s be honest here, he kinda earned this?

Nope.

It’s the Cold War, Holly.

Good intentions don’t get you jack shit.

***

If there was ever a movie that you could hold my feet to the fire and make me admit that it is actually, utterly perfect, I think this is the one. Every scene reveals new layers on every rewatch. Every time I find something new to entrance me. A stone cold classic.

Merry Christmas everyone.

NEXT REVIEW: 08 January 2025

NEXT TIME: Cowabunga dudes.

Joseph: The King of Dreams (2000)

1998’s Prince of Egypt is what you might call a hard act to follow and the first thing any discussion of Joseph: The King of Dreams should stress is that it is neither fair nor productive to compare the two. But I’d argue there is actually a lot to learn from putting the two movies side by side.

I’ve always believed that, when it comes to animation at least, “cheap” is not the same as “bad”. Obviously, a generous budget is rarely a detriment but plenty of animators have put out stunning work on a shoe-string. And plenty of movies had absolutely scads of money thrown at them and still managed to look like something that the cat puked up on the rug. What makes the Dreamworks Torah Cinematic Universe so instructive is that it’s two movies created at the same time by largely the same team of artists, just with very different budgets. King of Dreams was, like Return of Jafar, intended to be a straight to video sequel (or prequel in this case) of a much bigger, much more-high budget theatrical release. But, Aladdin was done by Disney Feature Animation and Return of Jafar was palmed off to Disney’s TV animation studios in Australia and Japan. By contrast, King of Dreams was animated concurrently with Prince with Egypt, and by the same team of animators. This makes the two movies a fascinating case study, showing how much a budget matters in determining quality and also how much it doesn’t.

Because yeah, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that the two movies are equally beautiful. Clearly they’re not.

And yes, the wonderfully detailed, semi-realistic style of human animation that Prince uses is absolute murder for the King of Dreams team trying to render it with less time and resources and it does sometimes end up looking a little janky. But honestly, more times it doesn’t. My point is, I honestly love this film for how hard it tries and frequently succeeds in escaping the creative ghetto. This is a straight to video cartoon sequel. Hell, this is a faith-based straight to video cartoon sequel. The fact that it’s not absolutely terrible is an achievement. The fact that it’s good, often touching great, is a genuine miracle.

Okay, so. Joseph. He was Jacob’s favourite son. Of all his children, Joseph was the favourite one. Jacob wanted to show the world he loved his son to make it clear that Joseph was the special one. So Jacob bought his son a coat, a dazzling coat of many colours. It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach…

Anyway, so Joseph is the youngest of Jacob’s eleven sons and the first by his favourite wife, Rachel. Jacob treats Joseph like his heir apparent, lavishing upon him a splendid coat of many colours. Oh, and he insists that Joseph stay at home and study scripture instead of hanging out with his brothers, tending sheep with their shirts off like Matthew McConaughey. Now if the Bible teaches us anything (and current scholarly consensus is that it does) it’s that brothers are bad news. Having brothers. Being a brother. The entire situation is always a net negative. So Joseph’s brothers start to resent Joseph because of their father’s blatant favouritism. Things get even worse when Joseph starts having dreams where the sun and the moon bow down before him.

“Now Joseph, scripture tells us that the sun and the moon only bow down before one being. And that’s Galactus. Are you Galactus?”
“No”.
“No you’re not.”

But Jacob is all “wait, maybe my son is Galactus” and this makes the other brothers even madder. Joseph tries to help out with the shepherding but his brothers are angry with him because his dreaming woke up the whole tribe and meant they had to start work early. Joseph counters that they’re actually tired because they were out drinking and carousing with women and committing genocide on entire cities by tricking the menfolk into circumcising themselves and then slaughtering them while they were recovering (Genesis is buck fucking wild).

Finally things get out of hand and in an altercation Joseph falls into a pit in the desert. This is a major softening of the brothers from the original text. In the Bible, the brothers (with the exception of Reuben) decide to just murder him in cold blood. Here, it’s more that the situation just escalated out of control. Because they’re terrified of getting in trouble with Dad, they decide to sell Joseph into slavery and tell their parents he was eaten by wolves. If you’ve had younger brothers, you can relate.

Joseph is taken to Egypt where we get the song “The Marketplace” which

Has

No

Business

Slapping

This

Fucking

HARD.

This song is crazy good I have been listening to it on repeat. And what’s really galling is that it’s just played in the background of the scene, beneath the dialogue. So you’re trying to listen to it and all you can hear is “How much for the Caananite? Move slave!”. Here’s the proper version:

I love it. The mixture of menace and opulent glory is such a perfect summation of the glory and cruelty of Egypt and it’s a stunningly well written piece. Every line hits like a train. I’ve been belting “YOU ARE EGYPT’S NOW!” in the shower for days.

So Joseph gets bought by Potipher, an advisor to the Pharoah and his wife Zuleika.

“Hiii…we noticed you across the bar and we really dig your vibe.”

Joseph, having been educated by his father, soon proves himself indispensable to Potipher. He also finds himself falling for Potipher’s daughter Asenath. It’s actually never explicitly stated in the Bible that Asenath’s father Potipherah is the same dude as Potipher but that is a theory in Jewish tradition and it makes for a stronger story so…

Now, if you’re familiar with the story and know what comes next and have seen that this movie somehow got by with an All Ages rating you might be wondering: HOW? HOW DID THEY DO THAT?

Well, honestly, just by being smart. So, as in the Bible Zuleika sexually assaults Joseph and, when he resists, falsely accuses him of rape. How the movie gets around it is by showing and not telling. No one ever actually says what Joseph is accused of doing, we just kinda get it from context. It’s all:

“Joseph! After I take you into my home how could you betray me by doing…that?”

“Master! I would never do…that! I would never dream of doing…that!”

“You’ve got it all wrong! I want to bang your daughter! Your DAUGHTER!”

Potipher orders Joseph to be put to death but Zuleika begs him to spare him (again, another villain in the story given a slightly more sympathetic portrayal here) and Potipher realises what actually went down. But, to prevent his wife being disgraced, he sends Joseph to prison.

It’s honestly a very well acted, very well directed scene dealing with extremely mature themes handled with great sensitivity and care. In a direct to video cartoon from 2000. God damn.

Like Prince of Egypt, King of Dreams had a team of religious scholars on hand to ensure Biblical accuracy. Now, you can make a Biblically accurate Bible movie or a good movie but not both. The stories of the Bible were not intended to be entertainment, they were both moral instruction and history, whose purpose was to explain and reinforce the tribal power structures of the time. This is why the Old Testament is so obsessed with lineage and explaining who begat who. They’re not meant to fit neatly into a three act structure because life and history don’t do that. So any Biblical adaptation has to streamline and omit and simplify. That said, King of Dreams is remarkably flush with the text. Partially I think that’s because Joseph is just an easier character for a modern audience to get a handle on. The era of Genesis and Exodus is just so alien to our own and the actions of the main characters can seem inexplicable and often barbarous.

Let’s just say that this guy did a lot of stuff that did not end up in the movie. Let’s just leave it at that.

Joseph, by contrast, is pretty chill. Sure, he’s a bit of a Mary Sue and a drama queen but he overwhelmingly acts in ways that seem good and moral even to modern eyes. The Bible also gives him many touching moments of humanity, like when he has to leave the room to cry because he’s overwhelmed with emotion over seeing his brothers again after so many years. The upshot of this is that King of Dreams is one of the more Biblically accurate movies I can recall seeing, certainly more than Prince of Egypt, which made some pretty big swerves like Moses and Ramses being raised as brothers (not complaining, that’s a great choice). Other than cutting that weird digression in the middle of the story where we can meet Onan and learn why you’re going to hell for touching yourself, the movie follows the story with remarkable fidelity. To whit:

Joseph gets thrown into prison with Pharaoh’s baker and butler who have both displeased their master. Both men are troubled by dreams and Joseph uses his skill to interpret them. Joseph tells them that the butler will be forgiven, but the baker will be executed. All this is faithful to the letter of the text. But it’s the little details, how the movie fills in between the lines. When the baker asks Joseph to interpret the dream, he first says that he doesn’t know, because he doesn’t want to tell the baker the awful truth. The whole scene is just a very strong example of taking, let’s call it “terse”, material and layering humanity and emotion over it in a way that’s still perfectly faithful. It’s a great adaptation is what I’m saying.

Anyway, Joseph spends two years in jail, with Asenath secretly sneaking him food. He goes through a whole cycle of anger and despair before finally finding meaning in caring for a tree in his cell and nursing it to health and re-discovering his faith in God. Finally, Potipher arrives and brings him before Pharoah who’s been troubled with dreams.

So, let’s talk about the dream sequences because they’re probably what the movie is best known for. They’re honestly a mixed bag. Some of them, like the Van Gogh inspired sequence where Joseph predicts the wolves attacking the flock is absolutely gorgeous. Some of them though, like these two of Pharaoh’s predicting the seven fat years and seven lean years are done in CGI and…

Woof.

Anyway, Joseph tells the Pharaoh that his dreams mean that Egypt will have seven years of plenty and seven years of famine and the thing to do would be to get someone really smart to create a reserve of food for the coming hard times. Pharaoh’s all,”you seem smart, how about you?” and Joseph’s all, “sure, beats jail, I guess”.

So Joseph becomes the new Royal Vizier and amazingly does not immediately become a traitorous, twisty-bearded bastard. He marries Asenath, has a couple of kids and becomes the second most powerful man in all Egypt.

The lean years come and soon everyone is coming to Egypt for grain. Including Joseph’s asshole brothers. Joseph, understandably, is not quite ready to forgive and forget. As none of his brothers recognise him, he refuses to sell them grain and accuses them of being spies. They tell him everything about them, including that Joseph now has a brother who he’s never met, named Benjamin. Joseph imprisons one of the brothers, Simeon, and tells them to prove their story is true by bringing him Benjamin. The brothers are confused not understanding why Benjamin even matters. But of course, in this life, it’s ALL about the Benjamins.

The brothers return with Benjamin and Joseph learns that Rachel is his mother and that she died many years ago. Joseph and Benjamin talk and he asks him about his brothers and whether he trusts them as they are only his half brothers. Joseph acts all chill, releases Simeon and then holds a feast for the Caananites. But afterwards, he stashes a golden chalice in Benjamin’s bag and accuses him of stealing from Egypt as they’re about to leave. The other brothers all offer themselves in exchange for Benjamin’s life, saying that they will not allow their father to lose another favoured son. And Joseph is so touched by this that he reveals to them the truth. He forgives his brothers and welcomes their whole tribe to come and live in Egypt and has a tearful reunion with his father.

***

Scoring

Animation: 14/20

A little janky in places, and certainly nowhere near the calibre of its older sibling but still striking, well executed and at times visually stunning.

Leads: 15/20

Ben Affleck is actually excellent. A far better voice actor than I would have expected. And this Joseph has a very compelling arc from naive, slightly brattish Golden Child to saviour of Egypt.

Villain: N/A

No, I don’t think it really applies. Antagonists, sure, but no one is a straight up villain here.

Supporting Characters: 11/20

Unlike Prince of Egypt, which had a good bench of supporting characters, the pickings are a bit slim here. Potipher is definitely a strong character though.

Music: 15/20

Seriously, a straight to video sequel has no business going this hard. You could put The Marketplace in Prince of Egypt and it would be one of my two favourite songs in that movie.

FINAL SCORE: 59%

NEXT UPDATE: 18 December 2024

NEXT TIME: Hey, it’s Christmas. Time to treat myself.

“Welcome to the MCU. You’re joining at a bit of a low point.”

Around the midpoint of Deadpool & Wolverine I had a rather chilling realisation during this exchange of dialogue between Elektra and Deadpool.

ELEKTRA: Every time one of us has gone up against her, they die. The Punisher,  Quicksilver, Daredevil.”

DEADPOOL: “Daredevil? I’m so sorry.”

ELEKTRA: (with an indifferent shrug) “It’s fine.”

So let’s unpack this joke. Here is everything you, the viewer, need to know for this gag to land.

This is Elektra, played by Jennifer Garner.Garner first played this role over twenty years ago, in the critically reviled Daredevil, and then again in the practically unseen spin-off Elektra.In Daredevil, she was the love interest of the title character.Daredevil was played by Ben Affleck.Garner and Affleck married shortly after making that film.They subsequently underwent an extremely public and acrimonious divorce.Hence, Elektra is not particularly cut up about Daredevil dying.

And virtually every joke in this thing is that kind of inside baseball uber-specific nerd bullshit that seems positively tailormade to appeal to me, a 40 something male who had comics instead of friends growing up. And yet…this thing made €1.8 billion dollars. This is as mainstream as movies get now.

Super niche nerd culture is no longer niche. The war is over. Everyone is a massive nerd now.

Total domination.

And I now find myself in a very difficult position as a movie critic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. I laughed my ass off from start to finish.

And yet, when I read, say, Donald Clarke howling in sackcloth outside the sinful Gomorrah that is the modern movie industry, I can’t help but nod along.

This movie isn’t a movie. It’s heroin. It’s very good heroin. And I very much enjoyed it.

But…I should probably be ingesting food instead.

The concept of “Refuge in Audacity” has been kicking around since the first century A.D. and it probably, as an artform, reaches its apotheosis in the opening moments of this film.

Yes, obviously, Logan was the perfect send-off to Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine.

Agreed, there was no need to bring him back.

Glad we’re all on the same page; the only possible motivation to bring him back is pure, naked, mercantile greed by a creatively bankrupt corporation that can now only regurgitate and re-cannibalise its former glories like some great eldritch wyrm that Clive Barker would dream up after drinking tainted cough syrup.

But it’s one thing to admit that. It’s quite another to literally open the film with Deadpool desecrating Logan’s grave.

It is so fucking disgusting. So utterly depraved. So devoid of anything even remotely in conversation with common human decency and morality.

I think it might be art.

Jon Waters WISHES he could be this transgressive.

Deadpool is interrupted by the arrival of agents from the TVA, who of course were the time cops from the TV show Loki I DON’T FUCKING CARE and proceeds to dismember them using Logan’s literal corpse.

Deadpool, as is his idiom, then narrates to tell us that we have to go back to understand what’s happening here.

So after using Cable’s time doohickey to fix time and unfridge his girlfriend Wade Wilson then used it to visit the MCU (no I will not be calling it Earth 616 thank you very much) and get an interview for the Avengers with Happy Hogan. I have…um, like a billion fucking questions.

And I hate that I have a billion fucking questions because this movie runs on pure uncut “lol nothing matters” and if I try to actually engage with this thing on a narrative level it’ll just give me a wedgie and steal my lunch money.

But fine.

Wade and Vanessa’s relationship is apparently on the rocks despite him changing time to bring her back to life because he somehow feels inadequete and wants to prove to her that he matters. So he goes to ANOTHER FUCKING UNIVERSE. SOME HOW. TO JOIN A SUPERHERO TEAM. WHICH SHE HAS PROBABLY NEVER EVEN HEARD OF .

Like, say Happy Hogan gave him the job? What then? Is he going to fucking commute? Is Vanessa going to move to another universe? What is the actual…OW!

“Ha! Nice underwear NERD.”

Oh my aching nuts. In the present day, Wade is back in his own universe, working as a car salesman for Peter, split up from Vanessa because the writers just do not know what to do with these two in a relationship and is retired from his particular blend of sociopathic murder fuelled super-heroism. His surviving friends (and Shatterstar) throw him a surprise birthday party which is interrupted when Wade is abducted by the TVA and is brought into the presence of Mr Paradox who tells him that he’s been selected to be brought into the “Sacred Timeline”. Wade is cock-a-hoop but is shocked to learn that his universe is dying because it lost its “Anchor Being” (Logan) and that Mr. Paradox, not willing to let it just die peacefully in its sleep, is planning to put it down like TJ Miller’s career. Deadpool then goes on a murder quest to first exhume Logan’s corpse assuming that he’s actually still alive (in which case, why would the universe be dying?) and, when that fails, he goes on a multiversal quest to find a new Wolverine to replace his one.

It’s all creamy Grade A fan-service of the finest vintage. Patch. Comic’s Accurate Wolverine. Old Man Logan. John Byrne Logan. Age of Apocalypse Wolverine and, of course, the first filmed sighting of the legendary Cavillrine.

Marvel, make it happen and I will never give you another bad review.

Eventually he finds a Logan hanging out at a lady’s cotillion dive bar who is too drunk to resist his advances and takes his unconscious body back to the TVA. Said Logan is also apparently wearing the yellow Wolverine costume under his street clothes while drinking entire bottles of whiskey.

Fuck off, he’d be sweating himself to death!

Well whatever, we have Hugh Jackman as Wolverine in a comics accurate costume after twenty fucking years. Problem solved? No. Because, as Mr Paradox explains, you can’t just slot any Wolverine into your universe. Especially not this Wolverine. This is the worst Wolverine. Yes, this random Wolverine that Wade picked up is apparently the worst Wolverine in the entire multiverse.

Really?Really?Really?!

Wade realises that Paradox’s supervisors don’t know what mischief he’s getting up to, and so Paradox banishes both he and Logan to the Void, the universe where the TVA hides all the characters that are no longer making Disney money.

Logan is right pissed and he and Deadpool engage in a little light foreplay before they’re discovered by a dude that Deadpool assumes to be Captain America but actually turns out to be Johnny Storm aka the best thing about the Tim Story Fantastic Four movies.

So, you already know the second they arrive here that there’s going to be a Mad Max esque tribe of barbarians ruled over by a sinister leader and right on cue, the big death cars arrive driven by Pyro, Sabretooth and other mutants. Logan, Deadpool and Johnny Storm get captured and are brought before Cassandra Nova, who is Charles Xavier’s long lost twin.

“You mean “triplet” don’t you?”“Eh?”“You also have a brother? P. Xavier?”“Oh yeah. How is Mummy’s Little Brownoser?”“He lapsed into a coma after a long illness and your brother stole his body to use as a flesh suit.”“BASTARD! I HAD DIBS!”

Cassandra, basically bald Mary Poppins gone to the dark side (and ain’t THAT a terrifying concept?) casually kills Johnny Storm with the Dark Willow special after Deadpool tells her that Johnny said some uncouth stuff about her. She then leaves Logan and Deadpool to be eaten by Alioth who was introduced in Loki I DON’T FUCKING CARE.

They escape, and run into “Nicepool” a supposedly nice variant of Deadpool who somehow gives off even more bad touch vibes than the regular one and is played by Ryan Reynolds’ real-life twin Gordon.

Nicepool gives them some advice, telling them that there’s a resistance group of heroes fighting against Cassandra and also a Deadpool Army that they don’t want smoke with. Wade tells Logan that if they can return to the TVA they can make Paradox fix his world so we got our quest. Nicepool also lends them his Honda Odyssey, a car whose modern design is perfect for quests and family adventures. From the redesigned grille and bumpers to the bold new 18 and 19 inch wheels and the LED headlights, the Honda Odyssey is the only choice for your family’s minivan needs.

“Oh what? The movie can whore itself out but I can’t? I have little mice to feed.”

After Logan realises that Deadpool was lying about being sure the TVA could fix his world, the two have a massive bloody battle in the Honda Odyssey, a car whose spacious interiors, easy cleaning upholstery and rugged Japanese design make it perfect for fights to the death.

They murder fuck each other into a deep sleep and then a mysterious figure comes and jacks their car. They wake up in the resistance base and meet the surviving members; Elektra, Blade and Gambit . So, little backstory. There was a plan to spin off an entire series of X-Men Origins movies after X-Men 3, of which X-Men Origins: Wolverine was merely the first. There was going to be a Magneto movie (much of which was later folded into First Class, )and a Gambit movie starring Channing Tatum which never left development hell and I think that’s probably for the best.

Good joke Gambit. Not good Gambit Gambit.

They also meet the last member of the team, Laura aka X-23. And aren’t we lucky that Dafne Keen was perfect to play the role as a kid and is still perfect to play the role as an adult? That rarely happens.

Anyway, Deadpool convinces the others to launch a big attack on Nova’s compound but Logan nopes out. Laura goes and talks with him and we find out just why he’s “the worst” Wolverine (actually we find out more during a scene he has with Cassandra Nova but I’m conflating the two because book edits are right up my ass and I need to finish this quick). Anyway, we find out the reason why he’s the worst Wolverine and…it’s really, really, really, really, really really, really, really dumb.

One night, when Logan was off getting pissed at the bar a group of ordinary humans showed up at the X-Mansion and killed all the X-Men. A group of X-Men, FYI, that included Cyclops…

Storm…

And uh…JEAN FUCKING GREY.

Yeah, they were all killed by a gang of random flatscans and THEN Logan went on a roaring rampage of revenge and apparently killed a lot more people than just the ones who killed his friends.

So that’s bullshit. That’s complete total bullshit. And yes, this is one of the few moments where the movie stabs at sincerity so it is fair to criticise. How would I fix it? Easy. In the story Old Man Logan a future Logan forswears violence because a supervillain messed with his senses and made him think that the X-Men were actually villains attacking the school and he massacred them all while they were too shocked to resist. In the comic it was Mysterio, which sucks, but what about if it was Cassandra Nova? Makes sense for her power set, it gives Logan a fantastic motive to be afraid of her and now Logan really is the worst Wolverine, the one who murdered the X-Men.

Anyway, the next morning the crew saddle up and head out in the Honda Odyssey, voted Best Car for Post-Apocalyptic Warfare by the American Car Association in 2020. Blade fires a bazooka which used to belong to one of the roughly 37 live-action Punishers and notes “there’s only one Blade. Only ever gonna be one Blade.”

*Sad trombone noise*

After a rather excellently choereographed fight (all the action in this movie kicks ass to be fair), Deadpool and Logan fight their way through and reach Cassandra. She quickly defeats Deadpool and gets inside Logan’s head and tries to enslave him, but wakes up to find Deadpool has clamped Juggernaut’s helmet to her head, cancelling out her powers. So now they’re at an impasse. They need Cassandra to use her powers to send them out of the Void, but if they take the helmet off she’ll kill them.

The situation is complicated when Pyro comes in and reveals that he’s been working for Paradox the whole time and shoots her. Logan punches him out but now Cassandra is dying and still promises that she’ll kill them if they take the helmet off.

Wolverine then gives her a speech about how he’s still an X-Man and he won’t kill her because he knows her brother and that’s not that Xavier would have wanted. And think how much more powerful this scene would be if they’d made the change I suggested above. I’m not saying I’m a better writer than these seasoned Hollywood professionals, I just think the evidence is compelling, that’s all.

Anyway, Cassandra actually does the honourable thing and uses a Doctor Strange ring to create a portal for them back to Deadpoool’s universe. She then wakes up Pyro and learns that Paradox betrayed her and decides to settle his hash but good.

Logan and Deadpool arrive and have to fight their way through an army of alternate Deadpool’s who just show up because. And we, finally, finally get to see a comic accurate full costume for Wolverine in liveaction.

Fucking glorious.

Cassandra arrives and takes control of Paradox’s Time Ripper, a device that he was planning on using to destroy Wade’s reality. Cassandra is all “you think too small”, and decides to erase all of the multiverse except for the Void which she will rule over as the Queen of Bald Hell.

But, by holding hands and with the power of Madonna, Logan and Deadpool are able to destroy the Time Ripper, killing Cassandra in the process. The TVA arrive and arrest Paradox and Logan is told that he can stay in Wade’s world and that they’ll see about rescuing the other heroes still trapped in the Void. And the movie ends with Logan now part of Deadpool’s circle of friends and Wade and Vanessa back together happily, until the next movie when she’ll probably be fired from a cannon into the sun or something.

***

Did I enjoy it? Yeah. Yeah, I did.

Did it make 1.3 billion dollars worldwide?

Indeed.

So that’s it? Crisis averted? The MCU is back on track?

No. Because this movie is The Sound of Music.

Just as the dying musical genre was given a temporary reprieve in the sixties by the massive success of The Sound of Music, so the moribund MCU has been given a temporary flush of good health by Deadpool & Wolverine. What it is not is a bold new way forward or a foundation for a new direction for the MCU. You can’t build a royal court around a jester. And you can’t live on fan-service and nostalgia alone. Soon enough, you run out of things that people are nostalgic for. And then? Then you start getting real desperate.

Strap in, everyone.

Scoring

Adaptation: 09/25

I’ll be honest, I fucking DESPISE continuity clean-up masquerading as big event stories. All of them. Yes, even Crisis on Infinite Earths. Overrated as fuck. And the problem with this kind of ultra meta narrative is that it’s really, really hard for me to suspend disbelief and actually care about the characters. It’s superb fan-service, and often pretty great comedy, but not a good story.

Our Heroic Heroes: 23/25

Hugh Jackman was born to play Wolverine. Ryan Reynolds was born to play Deadpool. That hasn’t changed.

Our Nefarious Villain: 20/25

Cassandra Nova is one of the most terrifyingly evil villains in comics and Emma Corrin absolutely does her justice.

Our Plucky Sidekicks: 23/25

Fine. Fine! When Snipes walked in as Blade I came all over the theatre. The screen. The front rows. The back rows. I jizzed over every one of God’s creatures in that cinema. Multiple times. I soaked every inch of the place. Is that what you want me to say?!

“Jesus Christ, NO!”

The Stinger

After an actually, honest to God touching montage of the pre-MCU Marvel movies set to Good Riddance by Green Day, we cut to Deadpool in the TVA, angrily decrying the allegations that he got Johnny Storm killed, and proceeds to show us unseen footage of Johnny saying…exactly everything that ‘pool said he did. Oh, fun fact. I was going to title this review: “Cassandra Nova. A megalomaniacal, psychotic asshole. A finger licking dead-inside pixie slab of third rate dime-store nut-milk. And I’ll tell you what she can do. She can lick my goddamn cinnamon ring clean and kick rocks all the way to bald hell. In fact, I don’t give a shit if she removes all my skin and pops me like some nightmarish blood balloon. If the last thing I do in this godforsaken cum-gutter existence is light that fuck-box on fire, I still won’t die happy! That’s right, Wade. I won’t be happy until I’ve urinated on her freshly barbecued corpse and husk-fucked the charred remains while gargling Juggernaut’s juggernuts. And you can quote me.”

Bur unfortunately, WordPress’ limit on title length is a little bitch. And you can quote me.

And the audience went…

God Chris Evans is so good at comedy.

Department of Duplication Department

After a long shuttering the Department of Duplication Department has been temporarily re-opened and HOLY SHIT business is booming.

Gambit, previously played by Taylor Kitsch is now played by Channing Tatum.

Henry Cavill plays a new version of Wolverine alongside Hugh Jackman (and will replace him if Marvel know what’s good for them).

Tyler Mane reprises his role as Sabretooth after being replaced by Liev Schreiber.

Toad is now played by Daniel Medina Ramos, replacing Ray Park and Evan Jonigkeit.

Azazel is now Eduardo Munoz replacing Jason Flemyng.

Callisto swops Dania Ramirez for Chloe Kibble.

Juggernaut is played by Aaron W. Reed after being played by Vinnie Jones and a load of computer trickery.

Lady Deathstrike was played by Kelly Hu and is now played by Jade Lye.

Psylocke, who may or may not have been played by Meiling Melancon (it’s complicated) in The Last Stand, by an unidentified child actress in X-Men Origins and in Apocalypse by Olivia Munn (yes, I’d forgotten as well) is now played by Ayesha Hussain.

Blob is now Mike Waters, and no longer Kevin Durand or Giant Ouiment.

Bullseye is now played Curtis Small, replacing Wilson Bethel from the Netflix Daredevil and Colin Farrell in the movie.

And for those that care, Arclight, who was previously played by Omahyra Mota is now played by Jessica Walker.

I…think I may have severe OCD.

How worried is Guinan right now?

Guinan was killed by New Mutants. I feel sometimes you people don’t pay attention to the lore.

Wait, Magneto is how old?

Magneto was apparently killed by Cassandra Nova so it’s kind of a moot point.

Mutant Heaven has no pearly gates, only revolving doors.

Shatterstar is back and alive with absolutely no explanation which, if you’re going to do that to me, at least explain why.

Hey, was that Stan Lee?

That was Stan Lee, on the side of a bus advertising “Stanlee Steamer” the cleaning company.

Today, mutants are…

Going to be doing this ’till they’re 90.

Okay, as an MCU movie it’s:

FINAL SCORE: 75%

And as a Deadpool movie:

This movie is…

INCRE-DEAD-ABLE!!!

Bleeding Deadly!

Dead Great

Dead Good

Deadly Dull

Dead Wrong

Dead on Arrival

And as a sign of the state of the movie industry it’s a fucking herald of the apocalypse.

See ya next time!

NEXT UPDATE: 05 December 2024

NEXT TIME: Seven lean years, or seven fat years?

Deadpool versus Deadline

Sorry guys, I realise this is becoming something of a habit but a load of edits just dropped on my head and I’m afraid I have to push the Deadpool and Wolverine review back a week.

See y’all on the 21st of November. Look after each other.

One November night eight years ago my wife was dreaming t...

One November night eight years ago my wife was dreaming that she was wandering through a dark castle during an earthquake.

She ran through the castle, the walls collapsing in on her, the ground shaking, the very Earth dancing beneath her feet.

She woke up, and realised that the world was still shaking. She looked over at me, hunched over my phone, literally trembling in fear hard enough to shake the bed as the election results rolled in.

It didn’t feel like that this time. Maybe I’m just jaded now.

I don’t write about politics anymore on this blog. I’d come to the conclusion that everybody spouting off about their political opinions 24/7 is a big reason we’re even in this hyper-polarised nightmare (not the only reason, but a big one).

I wish I could tell you that this isn’t what it appears to be, a catastrophe of terrible magnitude for America, for the West, for Ukraine, for democracy and for the world.

Is there cause for hope? Always.

In 1972 Richard Nixon won re-election with one of the most stunning electoral victories in history. Two years later he was on the ash heap of history. Things can change very, very quickly. A smart politician would not let a victory like this make him reckless. Trump is not smart, and was born reckless. He will fuck up, repeatedly, and badly.

Secondly, there is only one Trump and he is limited to four years. After that, MAGA has run out of road. There has never been anyone able to replicate the weird Svengali-like hold he has on his followers.

Of course now we have to consider the D word. Is he actually going to do it?

Maybe.

But the personal risk might give him pause. If he pulls that lever all bets are off.

Hitler would have been willing to die for a world purged of non-Aryans. Trump cares only about Trump.

But we are off the forest trail, now. There is no map.

Keep your eyes open. Keep your feet on the ground. Watch. Listen. Look after each other. Do not give in to despair.

Evil always contains within itself the seed of its own destruction.

We’ll be praying for you.

Mouse.

Bats versus Bolts: Piss on You! I’m working for Mel Brooks!

Comedy is a lot like politics, all careers eventually end in failure. There have been plenty of Bats versus Bolts matchups on this blog that have been, as one commenter put it “Glass Joe versus Mike Tyson” but this really is a foregone conclusion. On the one hand, Mel Brooks’ 1974 masterpiece Young Frankenstein, which would place in the low single digits on any creditable ranking of the greatest American comedies of all time. And on the other hand we have 1995’s Dracula: Dead and Loving It, a movie so critically lambasted on its release that it killed Mel Brooks’ directorial career stone dead, which is a bit like if Frank Sinatra sang a song that was so bad he was never allowed to perform again. I mean it’s Mel Brooks. If he hasn’t earned a mulligan or two, who the hell has?

The Adaptations

In early 20th century America Doctor Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced “Fronkensteen”) is a respected and reputable lecturing physician who has gone to great pains to distance himself from the actions of his deranged ancestor. But, when he learns that he has inherited his family estate in Transylvania, he returns to the old country and meets his grandfather’s old servant Igor and a buxom, beautiful lab assistant named Inga. Discovering his grandfather’s notes, Frederick realises that, far from being “doodoo” his method of bringing inanimate matter to life could actually work.

Assembling a massive body out of different body parts (complete with massive schwanzstucker) he plans to place the brain of noted “scientist and saint” Hans Deblruck into the creature’s brain. Unfortunately, Igor gets the wrong brain and tells Frederick that the brain they actually put in the monster was marked “Abby Normal”.

The monster escapes, recreates a few classic scenes from James Whale’s Frankenstein and then is lured home by the good doctor. Convinced the monster can be educated, Frankenstein puts on an all singing, all dancing reveal of the monster to the world which goes great until the flashing of cameras causes him to go berserk and go rampaging through the town grabbing women and climbing buildings like…uh…what’s his name? Sean Penn.

But, Frederick is able to transfer some of his intelligence to the monster who becomes erudite and reasonable and charms the angry mob of villagers who’ve come to burn down the castle and the movie ends with the monster marrying Frankenstein’s fianceé Elizabeth while the good doctor settles down with Inga.

MEANWHILE:

London lawyer Renfield arrives in Transylvania to oversee the purchase of land in England by the mysterious Count…

It’s the 1930s Dracula. The plot is the same, practically beat for beat with sub-Airplane style gags worked in at every opportunity. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, and it doesn’t really feel fair to judge either movie as adaptations of the source material. So, instead, let’s ask why Young Frankenstein is so revered and why Dracula Dead and Loving It got such a vitrolic reaction? And, does it deserve it?

Well…context matters a whole bunch.

In 1994, Dead and Loving It felt like the last gasp of a once great comedic giant. People seriously thought this was as bad as spoof movies could get. They…

They didn’t know.

They couldn’t know.

Fastforward to 2024, an era where not only spoof movies but pure comedies as a whole are practically a dead genre and yeah, Dracula Dead and Loving It starts looking a whole lot less offensive. Overall it’s fairly weak but there are solid gags and weak gags being sold by very game, very talented actors and it’s never gross or mean-spirited the way really bad spoof movies can be. That said, there are some desperately long, desperately unfunny scenes that are asking for a stake through the heart (or a scissor in the editing room). There’s one long dream sequence that goes on for roughly the length of the Triassic Period where Dracula thinks that he’s been cured of vampirism only to wake up and exclaim “I was having a day-mare…” and no, that’s it. That’s the joke. That’s where the scene ends. Someone looked at that and thought “good enough”.

By contrast, Young Frankestein is…well, it’s Young Frankenstein. I can quote this damn thing from memory. Schwanzstucker! Froderick! Abby Normal! Sweet Mystery of life at last I found you! Blucher!

It’s just wall to wall comedy gold.

So, on the one hand, the disparity between the two movies isn’t difficult to fathom. The script for YF is just orders of magnitude better and (while I absolutely do not want to shit on the DDAL actors) it’s got the kind of cast that Nick Fury would assemble if he was making a comedy film.

But I’d also argue that Mel Brooks’ parodies work better the more specific they are. Young Frankenstein is an absolutely adoring parody of the James Whale original, to the point of reusing sets and props from that film. Whereas DDALI feels a little all over the place. It has the plot of the Bela Lagosi version, the colour palette of the Hammer Films, and a few nods to the then recent Gary Oldman version. This makes the parody feel unfocused and lacking in bite (pun! kill me).

Anyway, we’ve dragged this out needlessly.

WINNER: BOLTS (duh).

The Monsters

Look. I love Leslie Nielsen.

I have a SOUL, don’t I?

But he was always at his best when he was leveraging the ultra serious gravitas of his earlier dramatic work and placing that in absurd, out there situations. The beauty of his performances in Airplane or the Naked Gun movies is that you could slot them into a serious film and they wouldn’t feel out of place.

As he got older, his comedic style moved into more broad farce and it never really worked as well. Nielsen’s Dracula is by no means offensively bad. Honestly, the dude is just so likeable I’m never unhappy when he’s onscreen. But I think the seventies was definitely the time for him to assay this role. By the nineties he was physically too stiff to be a truly imposing Dracula, and his comedic blade was more than a little rusty.

As for our monster, I kind of feel a little sorry for Peter Boyle, a journeyman comic actor who has to stand out in one of the most stacked casts of bona-fide comic gods ever assembled. And he’s good! He’s very good! But what’s “good” gonna do you when you’re acting against Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Gene Hackman, Marty Feldman and Cloris Leachman? He does, however, get his moment to shine in the end.

Some images you can just hear, can’t you?

WINNER: BOLTS 

The Scientists

Alright, something that’s entirely irrelevant but that I just need to get off my chest.

I think Mel Brooks as Abraham Van Helsing looks eerily like Patrick Stewart in Star Trek First Contact.

“NOOOO! I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. We’ve made too many compromises already; too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further! And I will make them pay for what they’ve done!”

Moving on.

Brooks’ Van Helsing is a high point of the film, doing his garrulous old Eastern European man persona to great effect. He also has surprisingly good chemistry with Leslie Nielsen, considering this was their only movie together. But, unfortunately for him, he’s up against…

I…may actually be legit in love with this man.

Mini-Mouse once asked me why I consider Gene Wilder to be the greatest actor of all time and I told her that there are three types of great actor:

There are the chainsaws. Towering, thundering forces of nature that carve through scenery and costars alike through sheer, raw acting power.

Then there are the scalpels. Masters of subtlety that can extract universes of meaning and emption from a raised eyebrow, a twitch of the lip, a whispered syllable…

And the third category is Gene Wilder who is a fucking…scalpel-saw. Working either side of the register, he completely dominates.

When making this movie, Wilder and Brooks had so many blazing rows that when it was done they decided that, for the sake of their friendship, they would never do another movie together. They remained best friends until Wilder died in 2016 along with most of humanity’s hopes and dreams.

So they sacrificed one of the greatest comedic partnerships in cinema history for the sake of a pure and true friendship that lasted 50 years.

Fucking selfish, I call it.

WINNER: BOLTS

The Dashing Young Men

Alright, I’ve been kicking DDAL around enough already. Time to give some praise. The supporting male cast in this is excellent. We have long time Brooks collaborator Harvey Korman as stuffy old Doctor Seward and Steven Weber as an unflappably British Johnathan Harker who manages to steal just about every scene he’s in.

But, hands down the MVP is Peter MacNicol doing a wonderfully unhinged take on Dwight Frye’s legendary performance as Renfield. It’s both a quite uncanny piece of mimickry, matching Frye’s inflections and body language, and also just a wonderful comic performance in its own right.

Meanwhile, Young Frankenstein has Inspector Kemp played by Brooks regular player and future King Triton, Kenneth Mars. And of course we have Marty Feldman as Igor, whose unmistakeable visage appeared in many films as well as my nightmares. Every night.

But, call this heresy if you must, I’m actually going to give this one to Bats. Korman, Weber and MacNicol are doing more with less.

WINNER: BATS

The Perpetually Imperilled Ladies

Again, say what you will about late period Mel Brooks, he still knew comic talent.

Amy Yasbeck and Lysette Anthony play Mina and Lucy respectively and in this version Mina has red hair and Lucy has dark hair and that’s WRONG IT’S WRONG!

Sorry.

Anyway, both Yasbeck and Anthony provide some of the finest “Ladies love playing Vampires” acting I can recall seeing. In fact, I’d be willing to give this category to Bats except…

Yeah, sorry. The queen has arrived. We can all go home.

WINNER: BOLTS

Are either of these movies actually, y’know, scary?

I am worried that the vein in Gene Wilder’s forehead is going to burst, but other than that, no.

WINNER: BOLTS.

Best Dialogue:

For Dracula Dead and Loving It I choose:

: The Impaler. He was a blood-thirsty butchah. He inflicted unspeakable tortures on the peasants: cutting off their hands and feet, gouging out their eyes and then impaling them on iron spikes!

: They had it coming.

For Young Frankenstein…fuck it, let’s just choose a line at random.

IGOR: “Blucher!”

WINNER: BOLTS

FINAL SCORE: Bats 1, Bolts 6

NEXT UPDATE: November 14th 2024

NEXT TIME:

New Horror

Hello boys and ghouls! Just in time for Halloween, the second volume of Irish horror anthology The Dark Corner is out and your favourite morbid murid has a piece in it!

My short (very short) horror (very horror) story The Kitchen can be read here as well as chilling contributions from some of the best current Irish horror writers, with a new one being uploaded every day.

Check ’em out!

Romeo & Juliet (Sealed with a Kiss)

You know that old saw about walking down a beach that represents the different times of your life and seeing God’s footprints beside yours? I kinda feel that way about animator Phil Nibbelink.

I knew it not, but he was there during The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron, The Great Mouse Detective, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Oliver & Company and American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Nibbelink worked on all those films and many others. This is a guy who has spent years at the very top echelon of American animation. And, around the turn of the millennium he and his wife formed Phil Nibbelink Productions to make their own independent animation without having to debase themselves before the Hollywood suits. This, mind you, puts me in a hell of a bind.

Because, I want to like Romeo & Juliet (Sealed with a Kiss) very much. This is an independent feature length film animated entirely by one possibly insane man. Nibbelink drew every cel of this. Himself. On a goddamn tablet. Over four years. That is, by any metric, an absolutely phenomenal achievement. Simply by dint of existing this film deserves a standing ovation and as many panties flung at the stage as can be thrown without damaging the structural integrity of the theatre. The movie is amazing. Incredible. Unbelievable. But is it good?

Something I’ve come to realise is that most people only have the time and energy to get really good at one thing, if they even manage that. Nibbelink is a phenomenal animator. Now, I could show you scenes from Sealed with a Kiss, and you probably would not be that impressed. And yes, the models are extremely basic and the animation is around the level of a mid-budget TV animation. But again, this is one man doing this with next to no resources and the fact that everything moves smoothly and crisply and stays on model is a goddamn miracle. So make no mistake, when it comes to animation Nibbelink is a powerhouse. But making a movie requires him to be not just an animator but a director, screenwriter, casting agent and editor. And, like I said, most people can only be very good at one thing.

Watching this thing, part of me was saying to myself “oh, like you could do better?” and another part was answering:

I think, first and foremost, I’d have had the sense to recognise that the play about the 16 year old who seduces a 13 year old, kills two people and then commits suicide right before the 13 year old stabs herself to death on his corpse is maybe not the best source material for an all ages cartoon.

Titus Andronicus, now THERE’S fun for all the family.

So we get some opening narration that goes; “Once upon a time, on a world not very different from our own…”

Stop.

Jesus Christ. That’s impressively quick to go off the rails.

Okay, an opening monologue is typically used to quickly and efficiently dump a load of needed exposition on the audience so we can get on with the actual story. It’s inelegant, but it’s forgivable. But the golden rule is that it should explain to the audience, not confuse them. This is a movie about seals (sea-lions, actually, but the movie is not going to survive that kind of rigorous scientific analysis). Seals live here with us. On Earth. They’re quite common. Depending on your distance from the sea, one might be reading this review over your shoulder as we speak.

So what’s this “world not very different from our own” bullshit? Is this movie not set on Earth? Is this a parallel universe? Did Phil Nibbelink spend four years of his life re-telling Romeo and Juliet with alien seals and, if so, has someone taken his car keys? Anyway, the narration continues.

“…there lived two families, alike in dignity. Differing only in colour.”

Ohhhhh it’s a racism allegory re-telling of Romeo and Juliet with alien seals.

“What could possibly go wrong?”

The Capulets are white seal(ion)s, the Montagues are brown seal(ion)s. Good times ahead, I’m sure.

We meet two Montagues, Benvolio and Mercutio.

Benvolio is your standard cowardly/fat sidekick who loves food. And Mercutio is…not even a character. He’s just a dispenser of schtick. His dialogue is a meaningless babble of jokes, non-sequitars and quotes from pretty much every major Shakesperean play other than Romeo and Juliet. So, y’know, perfectly faithful to the bard’s divine vision.

Benvolio runs afoul of some Capulets and before you can say “do you bite your fin at me?” there’s a massive brawl on the beach. And I really have to give credit here, this an absolute battle royal with dozens if not hundreds of moving models all done by a single man and…yeah….

Hats off for Mr. Nibbelink.

Actually, Hats off for Mr. Nibbelink sounds like a play that would run Off Broadway in the early seventies. Anyway, the fight is broken up by The Prince who is, far and away, the biggest problem with this movie. So, if you’re not familiar with the play, the Prince is a kind of reasonable authority figure trying to keep peace between the feuding Capulets and Montagues. In this movie, he’s the villain and is merged with the character of Paris as the rival suitor for Juliet’s hand. Okay, nothing too out there so far. But then the movie goes and makes him look like this:

It looks like UPA did an animated version of Dune.

There’s a reason why my scoring system has an entire category just for the villain. A good baddie is absolutely essential to a good animated film and this may be the most bafflingly incompetent stab at a villain I’ve seen in a very long while. He’s a big green elephant seal voiced with a “durr, okay boss” kinda affect. There’s also a running gag that he has really bad breath and breathes green vapour over everything which is gross and all but not exactly menacing. I could maybe buy this guy as a comedy henchman but as the main antagonist he’s a complete washout.

The Prince warns both families that if they broach the peace again they’ll be exiled to Shark Island, an island that is both shaped like a shark and has a shark perpetually swimming around it.

“What are the odds?”

Mercutio tells Benvolio that the Capulets are throwing a part and that they’re going to crash it despite that being a terrible, terrible idea. They run into Lord Montague who tells them that he’s worried about Romeo because many a morning hath he there been seen with tears augmenting the fresh morning dew adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs and so soon as the all-cheering sun should in the furthest east begin to draw the shady curtains from Aurora’s bed away from the light he steals home heavy and private in his chamber pens himself, shuts up his windows, locks far daylight out and makes himself an artificial night like a little emo bitch.

The two go and try to cheer him up and he tells them that he’s depressed because nobody loves him. Not because he’s had his heart broken, mind, just the general state of being single. No Fair Rosaline. Or rather, no Fair Ro-sealion.

“Jesus Christ, Nibbelink, that was a gimme!”

Shakespeare wouldn’t have let that slip. All I’m saying.

We get our first…song? Maybe? It’s really just Romeo whining in rhyme over the tune of We Go Together from Grease if We Go Together from Grease had been punched in the face enough times to be legally distinct.

Anyway, Benvolio and Mercutio drag Romeo along to the Capulet Ball which is held on a shipwreck that looks rather suspiciously like the one from The Little Mermaid. They sneak in by covering themselves in…well I thought it was snow but the wiki insists its white sand. Anyway. They do whiteface. The seals do whiteface and sneak onboard. There, Romeo sees Juliet and they fall instantly in love. So, a little problem I have with this. In the play, both Romeo and Juliet are young, sure, but in this movie they’re portrayed as being absolutely tiny compared to the other characters.

Which has the unfortunate effect of making them seem like actual children. Which makes scenes where they’re kissing or, even worse, where the Prince is sleazing on Juliet really, really uncomfortable.

Romeo’s discovered and has to am-scray but he finds Juliet later under a tree and they do the balcony scene and Romeo promises Juliet that she won’t have to marry the Prince because he’s going to marry her instead and, because she somehow has less agency than a character written 430 years ago, she’s all “okay then, you seem like you know what you’re doing”

Romeo visits Friar Lawrence who is a sea otter with a cauldron that lets him see the future (this was actually Shakespeare’s original intention but Burbage was too fat for the otter costume). Romeo convinces Lawrence to marry him and Juliet.

“I can’t do that, that’s bigamy!”
“Nah, it’s big a’ me!”

Oh, we have fun here. Anyway, he’s reluctant but then he consults his cauldron and sees that a wedding between Romeo and Juliet could bring peace between the Capulets and the Montagues.

Now, you wouldn’t think that a film that clocks in at a lean hour and 12 minutes and based on a play that, when performed in full, typically lasts three hours would have trouble filling its run time. But Sealed with a Kiss is padded to hell and back. Probably something to with not having the Nurse, Tybalt, Lady Capulet or Lady Montague. So there is a loooooong stretch in the middle that switches between Benvolio and Mercutio sitting on a beach making jokes about the Capulets while Romeo and Juliet play in the rusting, corpse infested hulk of RMS Titanic.

How…romantic?

They go inside the ship where a load of fish are throwing a jazz party with the music overseen by a crab conductor and…okay, the amount of lifting from The Little Mermaid is getting a little obnoxious. Phil, I know you worked for Disney but can you please restrict your grubby mitts to movies you actually worked on? We now get a weird ass scene where all the fish stop and stare in shock because they are horrified that a Montague and a Capulet are together. Like, one, why do the fish care this strongly about sealion segregation and two, why do Romeo and Juliet give a fuck what the fish think?

“Oh no. Our food doesn’t approve of our relationship.”

This would be like me enduring biphobic abuse from a hamburger.

Anyway, the Prince hears that Romeo and Juliet got hitched and goes on a rampage. Mercutio distracts the Prince through the power of fat-shaming and the Prince knocks him off a cliff into the water.

Well, I don’t see how he could survive that.

The Prince banishes Romeo to Shark Island and tells Juliet that he’s going to marry her tonight. We then get two songs and…oh Jesus. Okay, so the Prince gets a villain song called I’m So Hot that’s approaching Am I Feeling Love levels of inanity.

Do you want to know how bad the songs in this movie are? I can’t even find versions of them on YouTube. And the whole movie is on YouTube! No one on a planet of eight billion people thought it was worth their time to clip the songs.

Juliet goes to Friar Lawrence for help and he has a song that actually sounds more like a villain song. Specifically, it sounds like the final part of Pure Unfortunate Souls. He even gives her the fake suicide poison in a shell.

“Beluga sevrooga, come winds of the Caspian Sea!”

All the Capulets are waiting for the wedding to begin when Friar Lawrence shows up with Juliet’s corpse and is all “I hope you’re happy”. Benvolio races to Shark Island to tell Romeo and Lawrence, realising the rather massive gaping hole in his plan, follows to tell Romeo the truth and ensure he doesn’t do anything rash. Unfortunately, Lawrence gets waylaid by the shark and chased around the wreck of a ship…

Phil. Look. I know it sucks you left Disney right before the Renaissance started. I know that must feel like selling your Apple stock right before the iPhone launched. But please. This is not healthy.

Romeo is horrified to learn that Juliet is dead and un-banishes himself. He returns to find Juliet lying in state, kisses her on the lips and promptly poisons himself. The Montagues arrive and are horrified because they think Romeo. The two families see what a scourge is laid upon their hate as heaven finds a way to kill their joys with love and then Mercutio rides a wave in like he’s fucking Slurms McKenzie and wakes them both up.

Mini-Mouse literally booed the screen and that’s when I realised I’m a good father.

The movie ends with Romeo and Juliet both alive and the Capulets and the Montagues now at peace. And even the Prince gets a previously unseen elephant seal girlfriend.

Because interracial relationships are fine but the fatties gotta be siloed.

And that sound you hear is Shakespeare turning in his grave so fast he’s half way through the mantle of the Earth.

Scoring

Animation 17/20

Absolutely a case of “A for Effort”. Objectively the animation is acceptable. But this is a competently animated feature length movie that is the work of a single individual and I have to give props for that.

Leads: 03/20

Would you believe, not as good as the originals?

Villains: 02/20

Villains aren’t hard. Halfway scary design. English accent. Boom. You’re done. How do you fuck up this badly?

Supporting Characters: 06/20

It’s mostly just Phil Nibbelink’s friends and relations messing around. That’s nice.

Music: 05/20

Apparently Nibbelink just got a load of public domain music and wrote lyrics for it. Very apparently.

FINAL SCORE: 33%

NEXT UPDATE: 31 October 2024.

NEXT TIME: ‘Fraid I need to take another editing break, but I’ll be back on Halloween for the scariest, bloodiest, goriest Bats versus Bolts of all!

Your Name (2016)

I don’t know what Makoto Shinkai has against me but for some reason his reviews always show up on my schedule precisely when I have the least time to write them. Maybe he heard that I don’t particularly like trains or weather.

“Bastard!”

Anyway, this is the third movie of his that I’ve reviewed and, while I didn’t really love either of his previous offerings things are at least trending positive. I liked The Garden of Words quite a bit more than 5cm A Second and I like Your Name quite a bit more than either of them. I appreciate that “I like it okay” is so muted a response to this particular film that it might as well be scathing critique but…I dunno guys, I don’t know what to tell you. Shinkai’s stuff just leaves me kinda cold. EDIT: I wrote this opener before rewatching the film and I’ve since warmed to it quite a bit, as you will see.

But yeah, this movie is a huge deal. It was the most successful non-Western animated film of all time when it released, unseating Spirited Away in its native Japan before going on to conquer most of Asia.

Here’s how it goes.

As Taki Tachibana awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect teenage girl. Taki is an ordinary teenage boy from Tokyo. He studies hard, has dreams of being an architect and works part-time as a waiter in an Italian restaurant. None of which explains why he’s now a girl.

The next day (and the movie actually does a piss-poor job of establishing this and I was very confused) teenage girl Mitsuha Miyamizu walks to school and learns from her friends, Tessie and Sayaka, that she was acting very strange the previous day, being dishevelled and unkempt and unable to even remember her name. Mitsuha has no recollection of that, but she does remember having strange dreams of living someone else’s life. Meanwhile, her teacher explains the origin of the Japanese word for twilight and explains that it’s traditionally a magical time when the borders between different worlds are weaker (I know that seems random but it pays off later).

So, let’s just avoid any confusion and put our cards on the table. It’s a Freaky Friday. Taki and Mitsuha are just randomly swapping bodies. However, this particular Friday is freakier than most, for reasons which shall become apparent.

Anyway, Mitsuha’s friends think that she’s just acting weird because she’s under a lot of stress. Mitsuha’s family are the guardians of the local shinto shrine, which means that as well as regular teenage girl shit she also has to carry out public religious rituals like making sake by chewing rice and spitting it out to be fermented. Also, her home life isn’t great. Her father abandoned the shrine to go into politics and is now estranged from the family and also the mayor of the town while Mitsuha lives with her grandmother and little sister. And to top it all off, Mitsuha is just sick of small town life. This is something the movie captures very, very well: The tedium of living in a place where all the shops close early, there’s nothing to do and where “going to a cafe” consists of sitting on a bench at a bus stop drinking coffee from a vending machine. It’s not exactly a thriving hub and the most interesting thing the townspeople have to look forward to is Tiamat, a comet that will be streaking overhead for the first time in hundreds of years and will be clearly visible from Earth.

So later, some of Mitsuha’s classmates see her performing the kuchikamizake ritual and she’s deeply embarrassed (as a former altar boy, this definitely rang true). Leaving the shrine she angrily calls out “I hate this town! I hate this life! Please let me be a handsome Tokyo boy in my next life!”

Well.

Lot to unpack there, obviously, but this honestly threw me a little. I assumed that this was supposed to be the moment that begat the Freaky Friday shenanigans, she makes a wish outside the shrine and then starts body swapping. But…the body swapping has already started before Mitsuha makes her wish. This is actually (I think) a clever little clue as to what is really going on here. Or, it could just be an editing fuck up. Anyway.

Mitsuha wakes up the next morning in the body of Taki and has to go to his school. I kinda feel this story wouldn’t work anywhere other than Japan, where having your soul swapped with a stranger is not considered an acceptable reason for taking a sickie. She also has to deal with having to pee in a male body which leaves her deeply shaken. I don’t buy this, honestly. Peeing as a guy is great. You get to pretend you’re a fireman.

After a rough start, Mitsuha meets Taki’s friends and enjoys spending time with them and experiencing Tokyo. She then does a shift at the restaurant he works at and helps Taki’s co-worker Miki by repairing her dress after a customer slits it with a pocket knife.

Taki and Mitsuha finally realise that this is really happening and they aren’t just dreaming. This kicks off an extended montage of the two trying to navigate this situation. They bicker at each other via notes left on their phones and slowly they start to improve each other’s lives. Thanks to Mitsuha, Miki is now interested in Taki because who doesn’t love a man who sews? And Taki’s more assertive nature makes her more popular at school. This whole sequence is sped through, which really surprised me because in your standard Freaky Friday this stuff would be the bulk of the film. But as I said, this is a significantly Freakier Friday than usual. Taki wakes up one morning to realise to his horror that Mitsuha has set him up on a date with Miki and he has like ten minutes to get ready.

During the date Miki realises that Taki seems like an entirely different person and assumes that it’s because he’s fallen in love with someone else and very classily bows out.

Taki is left alone on a bridge leafing through the mountain of notes Mitsuha left him to prepare for the date and one of them strikes him as odd: “by the time the date’s over, you’ll be able to see the comet”. He has no idea what that’s supposed to mean. For the first time, he actually tries calling her but can’t get through.

He muses that he’ll have to leave a note telling her how badly the date went for when they next switch. But the switch never comes. Days pass. Weeks pass. They never switch bodies again.

Finally, Taki decides to do something. He draws as much of Mitsuha’s village as he can remember from memory and travels across Gifu Prefecture trying to find it. He’s accompanied by Miki and his friend Tsukasa who think that he’s trying to find a girl that he met online. Their search is fruitless so they stop in a café where the waitress recognises one of his drawings as Itomori. And Miki and Tsukasa are shocked by that because Itomori was destroyed three years ago.

Yup. It was a time travel body-swap. The reason that Mitsuha hasn’t been answering her phone is because it, and her, and her entire community were incinerated when a fragment of comet split off and destroyed her entire town three years ago. Not saying that’s an excuse for ghosting someone, but it is at least somewhat understandable.

As his memories of Mitsuha start to fade he searches for Mitsuha’s family shrine and finds an offering of kuchikamizake that he left there while he was in Mitsuha’s body. He drinks it, which causes him to warp back in time into Mitsuha’s body. We learn that the day before Taki went on his date with Miki she (Mitsuha) realised that she was in love with Taki and went to Tokyo to find him. She did, but he didn’t recognise her (because from his perspective they hadn’t met yet) so she returned home heart-broken just in time for Itomori’s destruction.

Back in the past, Taki!Mitsuha talks to Mitsuha’s grandmother who reveals that body-switching is just something that her family can do.

“I spent most of the fifties as Milton Berle. I assure you, the rumours were true.”

Taki hatches a plan with Mitsuha’s friends to fake a bombing using some demolition charges that Tessie is able to steal from his builder father. The hope is that this will trigger an evacuation of the town before the comet hits. Unfortunately, the evacuation order has to come from the Mayor. Taki visits Mitsuha’s father and, would you believe, when told by his estranged daughter that he has to evacuate the entire town in an election year because she’s got a hunch that a one in a billion cosmic event is going to destroy everything he says “No”? I know right, what a dick.

Taki is crushed, feeling that the town is going to die and it’s all his fault. Suddenly, he has a moment of inspiration and races to the shrine.

Meanwhile, in the future, Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body and his horrified to see what’s become of the town. Twilight falls and, because it’s a magical time, Taki and Mitsuha are able to talk to and see each other. Now back in their own bodies, they share a brief tender moment and Taki suggests that they write each other’s names on their hands so that their memories don’t fade. Mitsuha is just about to write her name when twilight ends and she vanishes. Taki tries desperately to remember her name repeating over and over “your name is Mitsuha, your name is Mitsuha, your name…”

But it’s gone.

Back in the past Mitsuha is able to convince her father to order the evacuation and the town is saved. realising that her memories of Taki are fading she looks at her hand to see what he wrote, thinking it’s his name.

Onions. Shut up.

Years later, Taki is a university student in Tokyo, studying the Tiamat event, when an entire town was miraculously spared by a sudden evacuation drill. He passes a strangely familiar girl in the street. They turn and look at each other and he asks her if he knows her from somewhere. Tears in their eyes they both say the same thing.

“Can I ask you your name?”

***

This one took me a second watch to really appreciate. It’s not a movie that holds your hand and the various time travel shenanigans demand you play close attention. But it repays your time with interest. A beautiful, beautiful film.

Scoring

Animation 18/20

My old criticism of Shinkai is that his character designs are a little generic and that’s not not a problem here but there’s a definitely a vast improvement over 5cm a second. The backgrounds are gorgeous, meticulously detailed and brimming with atmosphere and ambience. And there are some absolutely jaw-dropping shots where the camera will pan around a room in a way that makes it look fully three dimensional while still traditionally animated. Amazing stuff.

Leads: 17/20

A wonderful main couple, their tendency to grope each when in each other’s bodies notwithstanding.

Villains: N/A

Supporting Characters: 16/20

Everyone is just so nice.

Music: 17/20

Japanese rockband RADWIMPS provide a great, atmospheric soundtrack.

FINAL SCORE: 72%

NEXT UPDATE: 03 October 2024.

NEXT TIME: You had me at “Cartoon Adaptation of Romeo and Juliet with seals animated entirely by one dude” because I’m weird like that.