Neil Sharpson's Blog, page 7

“Vengeance won’t change the past, mine or anyone else’s. I have to become more. People need hope.”

While I know it isn’t true, I like to imagine there’s one guy in Warner Bros who was put in charge of the Batman films in 1989 despite knowing nothing about comics in general or Batman in particular and who spends every day banging his head against a desk and screaming “what the FUCK do you people even WANT?!”

Because to a casual observer, there really is no rhyme or reason to which Batman movies succeed and which fail. Why was Batman Forever a massive hit and Batman and Robin a franchise-killer? Why did audiences love Batman and largely steer clear of Batman Returns? Why is a grim and gritty Batman great with Christopher Nolan but not with Zach Snyder?

And there’s no one answer, really. Audience expectations. The marketing. The directing. The acting. The writing. The music. There are hundreds of factors that decide whether a Batman movie will succeed, same as any other movie. And added to that there is a very specific problem with adapting this character to screen: nailing the tone.

Getting the tone of a Batman story right is a damnably tricky thing, and it’s something that writers have struggled with ever since the character was introduced 85 years ago. Let’s take a moment, firstly, to acknowledge that Batman has often been campy and fun and played for laughs. And often, as in the sixties Adam West series, or Batman: The Brave and the Bold, it’s been done to great effect. But, fundamentally, this is a character rooted in a mashup of crime fiction and the horror genre. Batman stories, from their very beginning, deal with murder, corruption and violence. A child witnesses his parents’ brutal slaying and devotes his life to waging violent nocturnal war against the criminal element. It ain’t baby-town frolics. And I think what trips up a lot of Batman writers is that they succumb to the temptation to wallow in miserabilism. They lean into the violence and the horror and the awfulness of the setting to a degree that it stops being in any way enjoyable.

The best Batman stories have stakes and drama and darkness, but it’s a certain kind of darkness. A darkness that takes itself seriously, but not too seriously. There is a dusting of pulpy camp that stops the darkness becoming overwhelming. It’s a very, very tricky tone to capture and, if I’m perfectly honest, no single live action director has ever managed to capture it perfectly.

That is, until Matt Reeves knocked it out of the fucking park in 2022.

So I remember seeing this trailer below and absolutely loving it:

I loved the mood. I loved the use of Nirvana’s Something in the Way, I was about as excited for a Batman movie since Nolan’s heyday and then I got to the bit where Batman beats the snot out of some punk, beats him again while he’s still on the ground and snarls “I’m vengeance!”

And all my alarm bells started ringing.

Because, holy shit, we need Batman, but we don’t need that Batman right now. Or ever, honestly.

Thankfully, Matt Reeves played me like a fiddle and I’m not even mad. The movie opens in Gotham where the mayor, Don Mitchell is brutally murdered by the world’s scariest mouth-breather. It’s so weird to think that we’ve never had a Batman-versus-a-serial-killer movie before but Reeves makes up for lost time by taking what feels like every major serial killer film of the last thirty years and putting them in a bat-blender. There’s shout-outs to Silence of the Lambs, Manhunter and Se7en and those are just the obvious ones. Not a criticism, by the way. I love all those films and the references are used effectively and intelligently.

Over a hard-boiled monologue Batman tells us that he’s now in the second year of his mission. This is a great choice, story-wise. The movie wants to show a younger, rawer, angrier Bruce Wayne who’s not yet the super-competent plot armour model he will one day become. But, it also doesn’t want to be another origin story. This choice lets us have it both ways. This is still a relatively inexperienced Batman, but all the setting up (choosing the bat motif, meeting and establishing a relationship with Jim Gordon, his first encounter with the Joker) has already happened so we can actually see something new. And, we also get what I’m just going to go ahead and say is my favourite onscreen depiction of Gotham City.

Burton’s Gotham was a gothic hell, Schumacher’s was a neon-dripping fever dream, Nolan’s was…Chicago. But Reeves’ team takes the colour and feel of New York at the height of the eighties crime wave and paints a dripping, ghastly, beautiful portrait that still manages to feel like something that actual human beings might realistically live in.

We follow a subway commuter who’s chased through a dark station by a gang of clown-makeup wearing thugs who want to beat him for views on the Facebook or Tik Toks or whatever you kids use when they’re interrupted by a man dressed as, of all things, a bat.

So firstly, I love the suit. Is it noticeably accurate to the comics? Not especially. But it works very well with Pattinson’s performance. Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne is…um, well…

There is something downright unsettling about this guy. And that, coupled with the vaguely “home-made gimp outfit” feel of his costume combines to make the first screen Batman that I actually find scary. Which, given the story this movie is telling, is just perfect.

Batman dispatches the goons easily enough although but the guy he saved cowers in terror and begs him not to hurt him so clearly some more brand out-reach is required. And then Batman sees the bat-signal.

Batman arrives at the scene of the mayor’s murder and assists Gordon and the other cops with examining the crime scene. This scene establishes that Batman’s relationship with the police is…well, let’s just say we’re a long way from Adam West giving press conferences in Commissioner Gordon’s office. The cops view Batman as a weird freak and are not happy with having him around. Comissioner Savage (not Loeb, which is interesting. To me. And no one, probably) arrives and chews Gordon out and Gordon reveals why he called Batman in: a note addressed to the Batman, with a riddle.

Well, we all know who that is, right?

YOU GO TO HELL! YOU GO TO HELL AND YOU DIE!!

Alright, so here are my thoughts on this portrayal of the Riddler. First of all, let me tell you about one of my all time favourite Batman comics, Secret Origins Special #1 from 1989.

In this issue a documentary film crew come to Gotham to make a film about Batman’s rogues. They interview Harvey Dent’s wife and one of the Penguin’s goons but only one super-villain actually reaches out to them offering to be interviewed: The Riddler.

He takes them down to a warehouse and shows them all the old goofy death-traps and gadgets that he used to use and poignantly reminisces about the good old days before everything got so bloody serious.

And this just always stuck with me and it’s why, however much time passes, this is always my favourite take on the Riddler: the old-fashioned costumed criminal who time has passed by. The guy who’s not actually trying to hurt anybody. So, call me a little bit precious, but the idea of the Riddler getting crossed with John Doe from Se7en was always likely to rub me the wrong way. That said…if you’re gonna do it, do it well and they really did.

But we’ll get to that.

Following the clues the Riddler left at the scene, Batman and Gordon find a thumb drive (complete with Mitchell’s severed thumb) which shows that hizzoner was playing around with a Russian woman who worked at the Iceberg Lounge, a known mob-hangout run by Oswald “Oz” Cobblebot who’s the lieutenant to mob boss Carmine Falcone. Look, it’s a mob movie, some of this is just gonna be like that.

Batman rolls up to Iceberg Lounge, beats the crap out of Penguin’s goons before being politely and cordially welcomed into the big man’s office. This is a brilliant take on the Penguin, by the way. It takes the comic version’s schtick of being a gentleman criminal and filters that through a mafia mob boss. He’s a gentleman like Don Corleone is a gentleman, he’s warm, friendly, generous, open-handed and only uses violence as a last resort. But, y’know. He absolutely will use it.

Penguin claims to not recognise the woman in the picture but a random waitress who comes into his office seems to know her so Batman tails her back to her apartment and learns that the Russian woman, Annika, is living with this waitress as her…roommate?

And then the waitress goes into the backroom and changes into a skin tight cat burglar outfit and okay, I think we all know who she is…

GOD DAMN IT!

So Selina is trying to get the fuck out of dodge with Annika because they’ve heard of Mitchell’s murder and are worried that she’s going to be next. But, Mitchell was keeping Annika’s passport in a safe in his office so Selina goes to burgle it and gets stopped by Batman.

So…I think I’m very much in the minority on this but I actually love the Batman/Catwoman relationship here. Keaton/Pffeifer had some sweet moments but that movie was too gonzo to really be taken seriously. Are for Bale and Hathaway, you could probably have replaced Catwoman with Catman for all it would have effected the sexual chemistry between those too. But this really works for me. There’s a scene…look, most of this movie is so dark that finding useable screencaps is a nightmare so I’m just gonna have to describe it. Batman surprises Catwoman in the Mayor’s Office and they fight and he has her in her in a hold but then the security guard comes in and they have to freeze or they’ll both be caught. And she’s still struggling but then she stops and they’re just…holding each other. And it’s just perfect.

Batman gives her the passport in exchange for being allowed talk to Annika to see what she knows. But when they go back to Selina’s apartment, the place has been raided and Annika is gone. There is one of those convenient plot-exposition TVs left on though, which tells them that the Riddler has kidnapped Commissioner Savage and strapped his face to a cage full of rats, presumably so he can be set straight on whether we are war with Eurasia or East Asia (it’s Eurasia). Savage turns up dead, injected with rat poison and another message from the Riddler telling Batman to “find the rat”.

Bruce recruits Selina into helping him investigate the iceberg lounge and he equips her with a set of contact lenses that record everything she sees and hears. With her help, he learns that the D.A., Colson, is a regular at the club. She gets chatting to him and Colson reveals that the rat was a mob informant who helped the DAs office shut down Sal Maroni. Colson is freaking out because the Riddler apparently knows about it and says that when the truth comes out, the whole city will go berserk. Selina then runs into Carmine Falcone who obviously knows her. Bruce chews Selina out for not revealing that she has a relationship with Falcone and she angrily takes out the lenses and ends the transmission.

Back at the Batcave, Alfred tries to get Bruce to dress for Mitchell’s funeral. So, in this version of Batman, to all intents and purposes, there is no Bruce Wayne. There’s no public facing persona. Bruce is this weird, never-seen billionaire recluse whose whole life has been eaten alive by the mission. Alfred tells Bruce that he’s translated the latest Riddler cypher as “You Are El Rata Elada” which Bruce assumes means “Stool Pigeon”.

At the memorial, Bruce is collared by Bella Réal, the woman who was running for mayor against Mitchell who wants to talk to him about maybe getting his head out of his ass and giving back to the city. Possibly by donating to a political campaign, which is a great way of giving back to the city, maybe the best way. She’s interrupted when a car crashes into the church with Colson who has now got a time bomb strapped to his neck and a ringing phone duct-tapped to his hand.

The police clear the church and Batman has to solve the Riddler’s riddles to free Colson. But, the answer to the final riddle is the name of the rat and Colson refuses to nark because he’s cool. So the Riddler blows him up.

Knocked unconscious, Batman wakes up in police headquarters and, with Gordon’s help, he has to escape and wingsuit gracefully of the top of the building into an oncoming truck. It is very, very funny.

Gordon and Batman eventually track Riddler’s trail to an orphanege that was funded by the Wayne Foundation before being shut down. Realising that the Riddler has a grudge against the Waynes, Bruce races home. The movie frames this as Bruce racing against the clock and trying to reach Alfred before he opens a letter bomb addressed to Bruce, only for the call to be answered by Bruce’s secretary who reveals that the actual bombing has already happened.

While Alfred lies comatose in the ICU, the Riddler reveals Thomas Wayne’s secrets; that when he ran for Mayor years ago, a journalist threatened to expose Martha’s history of mental illness and so Thomas had his friend in the mob, Carmine Falcone, assassinate him.

I don’t know if it’s just been bad luck on my part of whether this is a genuine trend but it feels like every second piece of Bat media I consume goes out of its way to make Thomas, or Martha, or both, awful people. And, as I said in my look back on the Telltale Batman games; that’s just bad story-telling. If the Waynes aren’t good people, their death isn’t a tragedy and Batman becomes a weakly motivated character. Making Thomas Wayne a bastard is just adding another layer of grimness to a story that really doesn’t need it, and makes the story much, much weaker. But this is not what that is. As the movie later makes clear, Thomas Wayne didn’t actually have the journalist killed. He did ask Falcone to lean on him, to protect his wife, but when Falcone actually had him killed he was going to turn himself into the police. And this, according to Alfred, is why Falcone had the Waynes killed (smartly, the movie doesn’t set this in stone either, simply mooting it as a possibility). And this is fine. Bruce learning that his father wasn’t perfect and made a terrible mistake but was still a fundamentally decent guy? That works. It fits the themes of the movie about needing to confront the sins of the past, while still leaving Batman’s character intact. Good job.

The bat-signal is lit and Gordon and Batman arrive to find Selina with a gift for them; one of Penguin’s dirty cops and a recording that Annika sent her right before she was brutally killed by Falcone. Selina reveals that Falcone is her father and the cop tells them that Falcone has been raiding the investment fund the Waynes left to rejuvenate Gotham and using it to assert control over the entire justice apparatus of the city. Cops, judges, mailmen, all of it. Oh, and Falcone was the rat all along and fed information to the cops to get Maroni, his biggest competitor, taken off the board.

Selina goes to get revenge on Falcone. Bruce stops her and Gordon and the cops arrive and take Falcone into custody, only for the mob boss to be shot by a sniper from an apartment overlooking the club. Batman and the cops sweep the apartment which has your standard-issue serial killer wall o’crazy and Gordon gets word that the shooter has been arrested in a local diner. But looking over said wall o’crazy Batman realises that this killer is obsessed with both him (Batman) and also him (Bruce Wayne) and seems to have stumbled on some kind of big secret about the two of them. Which, you can appreciate, is rather ominous.

And then, Batman gets word that the killer is one Edward Nashton (not “Nygma” boooooo) and would really like to talk to him about something super important.

So, it doesn’t take the world’s greatest detective to figure out that the game is up.

Batman turns to Gordon and says goodbye the only way he can: “You’re a good cop.”

Batman travels to Arkham Asylum to talk with Nashton and we get…um….yeah, fuck it. We get the best scene in any Batman movie, period.

What a sickeningly well executed twist.

We start with Batman, a shaken, shell-shocked figure, almost cowering before the small, be-spectacled little man who he thinks is about to blow his entire world sky high. Nashton stares straight at him and moans almost seductively.

“Bruce…Wayne…Bruce…Wayne…”

And then the bomb drops. But it’s not the one Bruce was expecting. It’s even worse.

“We almost got him, didn’t we Batman?”

And so it’s revealed that the Riddler never actually thought of Batman as a rival, but that, in his insane mind, they were working together to expose the corruption at the heart of Gotham City. Remember this scene in Batman Begins?

Well, this Batman too became a symbol. He too shook people out of apathy. But he didn’t inspire them to become their better angels. He inspired them to give reign to their demons. Everything that the Riddler did, he did for Batman.

Because this Batman isn’t hope.

Batman and Riddler stare at each other in mutual horror, realising just how badly they have misjudged one another. And Riddler hints that the worst is yet to come.

Racing back to Riddler’s apartment, Batman discovers that the Riddler has formed an army of disaffected Gothamites to launch a terrorist attack onthe city, bombing the city’s flood defences to submerge the streets, forcing the citizenry to retreat to a stadium on the high ground where Réal is holding a political rally. And then the shooting will start.

Bruce is unable to stop the flooding and races to the stadium. With Selina’s help he’s able to stop the gunmen, but when one of them almost kills her Bruce loses it and beats the guy to mush, only just barely pulling back when Gordon intervenes. Gordon unmasks the gunman and demands to know who he is and he replies: “I’m vengeance”.

And then the lights go out and the floodwaters come crashing in.

And Batman finally realises what the city actually needs.

After almost electrocuting himself to save the people below, he plunges into the floodwaters and leads the survivors to safety.

The movie ends with Gotham struggling to rebuild. Half the city is underwater. The Penguin is preparing to take control of the underworld. Gotham seems worse off than ever.

But now, at least, she has something that she never had before.

Hope.

***

This is the Batman movie I’ve been waiting for all my life.

The Dark Knight Detective

I’ll admit it, I was skeptical of the sparkly vampire man playing Batman, just as I was of the Brokeback Mountain Gay Cowboy playing the Joker. I’m an idiot, and so is anyone who pays attention to my opinions on movies. Now the question is whether Pattinson gives the best live action Batman performance or if he takes the silver after Bale. Maybe it’s too early to say. Bale, after all, had a whole trilogy whereas Pattinson has just had one bite of the pie at the time of writing.

Nah, fuck it. I think Pattinson’s better.

Here’s the thing, with Bale we have the best Bruce Wayne and a Batman that started out excellent and then descended into parody. With Pattinson, well, we don’t really have a Bruce Wayne. That’s kind of the point of this version. There is no billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, there’s just Batman with the mask or without. I’m assuming that future installments will have Batman building up the Bruce Wayne persona but for now we just have Batman. But it’s such a good Batman. Unsettling, intense, the voice just right.

And this is the best written Batman by far. It’s not even close. Starting with the angry, edgelord vigilante that people assume Batman is, and ending with the noble, inspiring symbol of hope that he actually is and making that his character arc? Brilliance.

His Faithful Manservant

Is he though? What I mean is, I don’t think it’s ever actually stated in the movie that this Alfred is even a butler and he seems more like the family’s head of security. I don’t think Andy Serkis will ever replace either Michael, Gough or Caine in my personal pantheon of Alfreds but he’s very good in a very different take on the character. Not a hint of upper class refinement here, Serkis’ Pennyworth is all big, tender working-class masculinity. But, while this is a very different version of the character, his love and loyalty to Bruce and the Wayne family is clear as day, and that’s what makes him Alfred.

The Comish

Jeffrey Wright is one of my favourite actors and I’m not just saying that because I pray every night that he’ll get cast as Nikolai South in a future screen adaptation of When the Sparrow Falls. Wright is the Jim Gordon I’ve always wanted. And this Gordon/Batman relationship is such a great depiction.

The Clown Prince of Crime

Hah! I just realised this is the first movie since 1966 to feature the entire Big Four. The Joker barely makes an appearance but if you haven’t seen the deleted scene where Batman consults him Manhunter style, go do that. It’s probably the only deleted scene that I consider to be the best scene in the movie it’s from. I’ve heard of killing your darlings but that’s ridiculous. Anyway, Joker is played by Barry Keoghan.

Keoghan’s Joker (what little we see of him) looks like someone said “oh wait, wasn’t this guy dipped in acid? What if he actually looked like he was?”

Keoghan’s take is, in my opinion, excellent, the wheedling, mocking, lecherous voice works very well. But what really makes this scene shine is the writing. The choice to set this movie two years after their first meeting means we have a Joker who’s already living in Batman’s head rent free and who is dangerously good at getting under his skin and playing his nerves like a violin. Part of me desperately wants to see more of this Joker, and the other part is terrified that it could never live up to this introduction.

The Prince of Puzzles

As I previously stated, this take on the Riddler is about as hard a sell for me as it’s possible to be but, damn it, it works. Paul Dano’s performance as Riddler is genuinely unsettling, at times pitiful and sympathetic while also being possibly the single scariest villain this series has ever seen.

That pompous, waddling maestro of fowl play, master of a million criminal umbrellas!

Once again, nobody changes as much as the Penguin. This iteration of Oswald Cobblepot is played by Al Capone played by Robert DeNiro played by Colin Farrell.

First of all, holy shit the makeup. This is the kind of makeup job where you can logically know that that’s Colin Farrell under there and your brain simply refuses to believe it. It’s not at all noteworthy to say that this is the most layered Penguin we’ve seen but for what it’s worth, I can absolutely see why HBO decided that a series could be built around this guy. Not a top hat or umbrella in sight, this Penguin is a true gangster but with a code of honour, intelligence and personal courage that makes him very appealing. And the sight of him ragging on Batman and Gordon for their terrible Spanish never gets old. The only quibble I have is how the hell a guy named “Oswald Cobblepot” ever got to be a made man.

The Queen of Criminals, the Princess of Plunder

Okay, my one criticism out of the way first and foremost. Selina’s scene in the taxi trying to calm her upset girlfriend is one of the least convincing pieces of “talking to myself on the phone” acting I’ve seen in a long while. Otherwise, this is a great Catwoman. Not the best, but definitely the Catwoman who has the best relationship with Batman. Kravitz gives a less playful, angrier performance than previous Catwomen that suits the story very well.

Batman NEVER kills, except: 

He doesn’t! Not once! Hurray!

Where does he get those wonderful toys?: 

We get the Advanced Contact Lenses, a supremely cool (and creepy) bit of kit that allows Batman to record everything he sees. Oh, and a Batman wing suit which actually makes him look less like a bat and more like a flying squirrel.

It’s the car, right? Chicks dig the car:

In keeping with the stripped down, back-to-basics approach of the rest of the movie Batman is now driving an actual goddamned car and not something out of Mad Max.

I like it more in concept than in execution. On the one hand, this feels like the right kind of Batmobile for this Batman. Practical, simple, gets the job done.

On the other hand, I kinda feel that the Batmobile is such a goofy concept that if you’re going to do it you might as well go whole-hog and make it something that Dracula would drive in a drag-race themed Hanna Barbera cartoon from the seventies. Whatever, it’s perfectly decent and it doesn’t have any fucking guns. B+

FINAL SCORE OUT OF TEN:

NEXT UPDATE: 19 September 2024.

NEXT TIME: I guess the movie’s called “Mouse”?

Titan A.E. (2000)

“Don Bluth” and “Science Fiction” is not an association you might automatically make even if, like me, you believe that An American Tail should rightly be considered part of the Giant Fighting Mech Animé genre.

Get in the robot, Fievel.

And that would be entirely correct. Apart from his video game Space Quest, there’s nothing in Bluth’s oeuvre to suggest that he would ever make a big epic space opera. So, why Titan A.E?

Well, firstly we have to remember where Bluth was in his career at this point. After finding early indie success with Secret of NIMH, Bluth hit the big time by partnering with Stephen Spielberg. When that relationship broke down, Bluth floundered with a number of increasingly bizarre and often subpar films before finding a place with Fox’s new animation studio, essentially as a hired gun. So, if Titan A.E. seems like a complete break from Bluth’s usual fare, that’s because this was basically a work for hire job. And, at the risk of sounding like a heathen…good?

Look, I respect Don Bluth a whole lot, I think he’s a true auteur and one of the most important figures in American animation. But I can’t help but feeling that his best work was done when he was executing someone else’s artistic vision. The Land Before Time is very much a Stephen Spielberg film. Anastasia is transparently Fox demanding a Disney princess movie and Bluth dutifully providing them with one. It just so happens to be the best Disney princess movie that Disney never made and one of Bluth’s most accomplished films to boot. So if you tell me that a certain movie was just a job for Bluth and not a passion project, I’m actually more inclined to breathe a sigh of relief than shake my fist in impotent rage. Because I’ve seen Don Bluth’s passion projects.

And they’re weird as the dickens.“Mouse, you seem to be swearing a lot less than usual. Are you feeling alright?”

Oh. Yeah. So, here’s the thing. Mini-Mouse has been asking to read my reviews so I’m gonna try and keep this one family friendly. Say hi in the comments, folks!

“Can I say “hi” back?”“To THAT shower of degenerates?! Absolutely not.”

Okay, so, Titan AE entered production in the late nineties which was a weird, febrile and exciting time in American animation. The Disney renaissance was still very much in effect, but Toy Story had landed like a nuclear bomb and everyone was holding their breath to see whether CGI animation would supplant traditional animation or simply supplement it. Additionally, there was a cultural sea-change in how animation was viewed, being driven both by the ever increasing popularity of animé and the success of television animation aimed at adults like The Simpsons, Batman the Animated Series and Beavis and Butthead. In the new millennium, both Disney and its competitors would try to expand the core demographic for feature length animation from pre-teen and predominantly female and try to convince teenage boys that cartoons weren’t just for little kids and chicks. Of this little mini-genre, in which you can include Treasure Planet and Atlantis: The Lost Empire the first was Titan A.E.

The movie opens in the year AD 3028. We witness the evacuation of Earth through the eyes of a young boy named Cale Tucker. Cale’s father, Professor Sam Tucker was working on something called “The Titan Project” which drew the attention of an alien species known as the Drej. Sam bundles Cale up, puts him on a transport with his friend Tek, an alien scientist, and hands him a gold ring that might as well have “Plot Relevant Maguffin” engraved on it. He tells Cale to stay with Tek and that he’ll see him again soon, but that he’s got to get the Titan to safety. Cale has to watch his father leave and then has to watch his planet get destroyed by the Drej. That’s a lot for a five year old.

As an opening, it’s excellent. First thing that strikes you is the animation. One of the things I really admire about Don Bluth is that he never stopped improving as an animator. There are definitely dips in quality across his films but on the whole the trend was always up. I have made many criticisms of Bluth’s animation over the years; over-acting, overly busy designs. None of those criticisms apply here. This is excellent, semi-realistic human animation and I would put it in the top tier of Bluth’s filmography if judged solely on technique. There’s also some strong visual storytelling here. Cale first realises something is wrong he’s playing in a forest by a clean, sparkling stream and looks up to see a massive flock of birds of many species fleeing the disturbance caused by the evacuation. Why does that matter? Because, the time constraints of the movie mean we can’t spend much time on Earth before its destroyed. But this scene shows us that this far future Earth is healthy. It’s green, and living and full of life. The humanity of this far off time actually got their shit together and the planet is thriving. So when the Drej come and destroy it, it feels all the more tragic.

The next thing that strikes you is the CGI. While the characters are traditionally animated (with some exceptions), the vehicles and spaceships are done in primitive CGI. Really primitive CGI. Swinging a club, ooga booga, sacrificing the chief’s daughter to appease the great hot sky fire kinda CGI.

But, much like how mediaeval art has a charm and beauty that transcends its technical limitations, I think enough time has passed that Titan A.E.’s shonky CGI kind of adds to the film’s whole appeal.

Take this shot:

After the destruction of Earth we move forward 15 years to find the now adult Cale making a living in a spaceship junkyard. And, while he’s traditionally animated, the space-suit that he’s in is CGI. And…if the idea is just to be a seamless integration of both styles of animation it does not work at all. It’s distracting as all hell. But it’s also kind weird and trippy and cool looking and, I guess I’m saying that enough time has passed that this CGI has stopped being bad and has become kind of a vibe.

So one thing you’ll notice with this weird little sub-genre of turn-of-the-millenium science fiction adventures desperate for male teenage audiences (let’s call them “Boy Thirsty Movies”. Wait, let’s not) is that they are visually audacious and beautiful…

…and incredibly risk-averse when it comes to story and characters. Not bad, mark you, but thuddingly conventional. For example. I want you to imagine what kind of character Cale has become after that opening. Did you guess a cynical bad-boy loner with a secret heart of gold and unresolved Daddy issues? Congratulations! You have psychic powers, and shall rule over all us lesser mortals.

Another way this movie was a real trailblazer in terms of where animation was heading was in its all-star cast. Indeed, Fox executive Chris Meledandri called it “about the finest assembled for an animated film.” That “about” is doing Trojan work (and Antz was already in production) but sure, they managed to get some pretty big names on board. Drew Barrymore, Bill Pullman and of course Matt Damon. Now, I have nothing against Matt Damon. Why would I? That would be like having something against potatoes. He’s a perfectly solid staple of a balanced movie diet. But this is a classic example of one of my biggest bugbears, casting for star power rather than vocal acting ability. Fortunately, there are some more distinct voices in the mix. Nathan Lane as a giant smarmy fruit bat is not something I thought I needed in my life. But, I can’t argue you with you movie. I needed this.

So Cale’s all bitter and hot-headed ever since Dad went out for space cigarettes and never came back. He gets rescued from some space-racists by Captain Joseph Korso (Bill Pullman), who tells him he worked with his father on the Titan Project and that he needs Cale’s help to find it. Cale, obviously, refuses the call because it’s that kind of movie but suddenly the station is attacked by a Drej invasion from a PS1 cutscene.

I kid, but I actually love this design. Having the Drej be the only characters rendered in CGI works to make them seem truly alien, I dig it.

So Cale has no choice but to join Korso on his ship, the Valkyrie, where he meets his crew of loveable archetypes. There’s Preedex, the Nathan Lane voiced fruitbat alien first mate. Gune (John Leguizamo) a turtle scientist, Stith (Janeane Garfolo), a trigger happy kangaroo and Akima Kunimoto (Drew Barrymore, maaaaaan that would not fly today) who is a human woman and the ship’s pilot.

Korso activates Cale’s ring which causes a holo-map to light up on his hand. So we got us a Maguffin hunt. The Valkyrie sets course for the planet Sesharrim.

Titan A.E. was originally conceived as a live action movie before it was decided to make do it in animation and the Sesharrim sequence really shows why. This movie is committed to taking the kind of stuff you’d see on old the cover of old mid-century sci-fi pulp novels and putting it up on the big screen.

A sense of exploration and sheer wonder is something I feel is sorely missing from modern sci-fi but Titan A.E. uses its medium to the fullest extent to show worlds that are actually alien.

The planet is inhabited by the Gaoul, the demonic looking bat creatures who show Cale how to use the map. Cale has a moment where he realises that his father probably stood right where he’s standing, but it’s cut short when the Drej attack. Akima and Cale are taken prisoner and the Drej learn of the Titan’s location and jettison Akima into space in a stasis pod.

Here the movie kind of feels like there’s a few scenes missing. Akima’s pod gets taken on board an alien trading station and we meet Korso, Preedex and Stith in the middle of a plan to rescue her by posing as slave traders who are trying to sell Korso. We then get this scene:

: [attempting to pass himself and Stith off as slave traders and Korso as a slave] Hello. Ah. Uh, I’m an Akrennian trader. I wonder if we might sneak a peek at the new shipment before they go on the market.: You’re not allowed.: Traditionally, no. You’re absolutely right. But you see, I need a new slave rather badly.[slaps Korso]: Stop fidgeting, worm! And I can’t wait till auction. I have to be on the shuttle. I have an appointment to have my ear shaved. It has to be booked months in advance. You see my problem.: Hmm. You’re lying. He’s not a slave, and you’re not traders.: But…: [pointing to Korso] He doesn’t carry himself like a slave. Look at the way he stands. Probably ex-military.: How…: Akrennian traders always threaten before they ask a favor. It’s tradition.[to Stith]: And your robes are made out of bedspreads.: Ah. Just out of curiosity, did we have a plan ” B”?[Stith knocks the guard out]: Hmm. An intelligent guard. Didn’t see that one coming.

And, no lie, my first thought watching that scene was “wait a minute, that’s Whedon dialogue, by cracky!”

And I checked and, yeah, Joss Whedon did a rewrite on the script.

“By cracky”? God, fatherhood has tamed your wild spirit.

They rescue Akima and race to beat the Drej to the Titan. Meanwhile, Cale manages to escape the mothership and hijack a Drej fighter and rejoin the crew. Anyone else getting a “running in place” kinda vibe. We now, unfortunately get my single least favourite part of the movie.

The ship stops at a human colony for supplies and Cale and Akima just happen to be walking by Korso’s office and they hear him yelling at the Drej queen over the holo-scanner. Because he’s actually working for the Drej.

So…this is stupid. This is real stupid. Firstly the “yelling about your plan to help your species go extinct and not even locking the door” part is howlingly dumb. Secondly, like any bad twist this comes out of nowhere. There was no hint that Korso was actually in league with the Drej. They tried to kill him plenty of times. And lastly, this just completely torpedoes Korso’s character. They try to play it for tragedy because Cale’s been starting to look on Korso as a father figure and at the end he kinda redeems and switches sides again…but, I’m sorry. This guy collaborated in the attempted genocide of the entire human species…for money. I don’t see a guy like that repenting and seeing the error of his ways. That’s just pure scumbaggery.

Anyway, Cale and Akima are taken prisoner by Preed who is also a baddy now (this is less of an asspull). They make a break for it but Akima is shot during the escape and the Valkyrie leaves without them. Cale brings the injured Akima to her family on the station and, for the first time, gets to experience life amongst other human beings and finally understands what was lost with the destruction of Earth.

Akima gets fixed up and, with the help of the human colonists, they’re able to fix up an old spaceship and chase after the Valkyrie which has tracked the Titan to the middle of an ice field. This leads to a scene which is simultaneously freaking cool and dumb as hell where the two ships try to spot each other between infinite reflections in the ice like they’re Batman and the Joker in a house of mirrors.

Stith and Gune have a moment of…

And mutiny against Korso and Preet. The two sides reach the Titan, which was apparently drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci…

God this movie is gorgeous.

Cale hears a message from his father explaining that the Titan is actually a planet-maker that can make a new Earth to replace the one that was destroyed by the Drej to stop the Titan from making a new Earth to replace the one that hadn’t been destroyed yet. I dunno. This seems like a lot of work for a universe where habitable worlds seem about as common as they are in Star Trek.

Anyway, the Drej attack, and Preet reveals that he’s been working with them against Korso while pretending to work with Korso and the Drej against Cale while pretending to be working with Korso and Cale against the Drej. Blimey. It’s the back-stabbing equivalent of the Korbut flip.

Korso kills Preet and seems to plummet to his death. Cale and Akima try to activate the Titan but it’s not working and the Drej are about to open fire. Cale runs down into the engine and finds a still living Korso who has a change of heart and sacrifices himself against the Drej to allow Cale to fire the Titan. The Drej mothership and the surrounding ice cloud is destroyed and formed into a new planet that Cale names “Bob”. They share a completely unearned kiss and the movie ends with humanity arriving on Bob to get this whole crazy human race thing going again.

Jesus, Re-Boot could do better than that.

***

I don’t need to tell you that this movie has a cult following. It’s a weird genre animation that failed at the box office but has a ton of gorgeous art design and hints at a fascinating larger world. Course it has a cult following. I remember not liking it as a child but as an adult I can definitely see its strengths.

Don Bluth is approaching 90 now and Titan A.E. will probably be his last film. It is dark, weird, flawed, beautiful, simultaneously ahead of and of its time and no one else could have made it. As a capstone to a great career in animation, you could do a hell of a lot worse.

Scoring

Animation 16/20

Knock off a point for the CGI but still excellent.

Leads: 08/20

Pure boiler-plate.

Villains: 14/20

A mixed bag. The Drej are cool and genuinely alien. Preet is a fun henchman. Korso makes no sense as a character.

Supporting Characters: 13/20

A veritable cantina of fun and interesting alien designs that don’t quite get enough screentime to make them real characters.

Music: 10/20

Standard action movie pomp.

FINAL SCORE: 61%

NEXT UPDATE: Sorry, another longer than usual gap. I have to start planning holidays in a more blog friendly way. 05 September 2024.

NEXT TIME: He likes little puzzles, doesn’t he?

Review delayed

Really sorry folks, I have a deadline approaching this week link an oncoming train. Titan A.E. review should be on your screens 15th August.

Much love, Mouse.

Cool World (1992)

“Hey, what if cartoons, like, had sex?” is actually not as new a question as you might think. The cartoons have actually, like, having sex far longer than many people realise, with the first pornographic animations appearing at least four years before Micky Mouse did Steamboat Willy (which was not a porno which now seems like a bit of a missed opportunity).

But, while there has been sexually explicit animation for almost as long as there has been animation, it was always restricted to “stag” films. The mainstream perception of animation in the West, especially after the Hays office started cracking skulls, was that cartoons were for children.

Enter Ralph Bakshi.

Okay, if you’re a longtime reader of this blog then this isn’t your first rodeo. We have discussed his work here many a time and oft. Short version: Ralph Bakshi is at once a towering and transformative figure in the history of American animation and also kind of a terrible animator and film-maker. I can’t say I have actually enjoyed any of his films, but his best work tends to be the kind of grungy, ugly, politics-heavy film-making that you aren’t really supposed to enjoy. And, at least, Bakshi at his best his never boring.

No, you want really bad Bakshi you got to look at his tamer stuff. Either because he was taming himself to try and appeal to a broader audience (like Wizards) or because the studio held him down and cut his hair and forced him to conform to their, like, rules, maaaaan (like this fucking thing we’re about to review right here).

I will not mince words. This is the last of all Ralph Bakshi’s feature animations. I say “last” as in “last one he made” as well as “if all his movies were in a race, this is the one that wouldn’t even cross the finish line because it ate its own legs.”

This movie had a troubled history in the same way like, the Balkans, have had a troubled history and it’s easy to just blame the studio. In 1988 Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, gave Disney their biggest hit in history up to the that point, due in no small part to the instantly iconic appearance of Sexiest Cartoon of All Time Jessica Rabbit. Ralph Bakshi decided that, as the grandfather of sexy cartoons, the time had come for selling out. Bakshi approached Paramount and pitched them a dark cartoon horror story about a live action human who has sex with a cartoon woman and fathers a demonic half-human/half-toon child. Paramount greenlit the movie but forced Bakshi to cast Kim Basinger as the cartoon woman. Basinger wanted a more family friendly movie which led to the studio and Bakshi butting heads and resulting in the deeply compromised, barely coherent mess of a movie that we were left with. Everything that could go wrong with this movie did go wrong. Paramount launched a raunchy marketing campaign that completely oversold the limp PG 13 offering as some kind of taboo shattering sex-fest and then pretty much bribed the City of Los Angeles to allow them to descerate the Hollywood sign with a 75 foot cutout of Basinger’s character, Holly Would, which brought a hurricane of negative publicity.

What kind of monster would try and make the Hollywood sign TACKY?

Savage critical reaction and utterly abysmal word of mouth did the rest.

As I said, it’s easy to read that and assume that Bakshi was just another brilliant creative screwed over by the soulless suits but you know me. I never do things the easy way. Frankly, I think this project was doomed the second Ralph Bakshi thought he could do his own Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

See, the animation on Who Framed Roger Rabbit? was overseen by Richard Williams who I would probably rank as the single most brilliant animator I have ever had the pleasure of reviewing if Hayao Miyazaki didn’t exist. And one of the reasons why Roger Rabbit works so well (apart from the fantastic script, excellent direction, phenomenal world-building, perfect score, terrifying villain, a career best performance from the late great Bob Hoskins and Jessica Fucking Rabbit ushering an entire generation into sexual awakening) was that there was literally nothing Williams could not do as an animator. That movie has characters from eight different animation studios from across three decades and they’re all rendered flawlessly. That movie is like Once Upon a Studio but without the benefit of modern technology and feature length. That’s Richard Williams. That’s the guy.

Whereas Bakshi…Bakshi is not that guy.

“Fuck you, man.”

The movie begins in 1945 when Frank Harris (played by an impossibly young Brad Pitt), returns home to Las Vegas after the end of the war and tearfully re-unites with his mother. After winning a new motorbike in a poker game he takes his mother on a joyride. A drunk-driver hits them and Frank’s mother is killed. And as a weeping Frank watches as his mother’s lifeless body is stretchered into an ambulance we learn that CARTOONS ARE REAL IN THIS WORLD.

No, serious, that’s how abrupt it is.

No transition, no establishing shot. It is jarring as fuck.

Alright, so the little bald dude up there is Doctor Vincent Whiskers who has built a device that he hopes will allow him to cross over into our world. Instead, the device pulls Frank into the cartoon universe. Frank, understandably still traumatised by his mother’s death, thinks he’s going crazy but Whiskers tells him that he’s in “Cool World” and wastes no time recruiting him as a police officer to protect Cool World from other “noids” (humans) who might crossover.

It’s about as rushed and nonsensical as it sounds.

Fast-forward to present day Las Vegas and cartoonist Jack Deebs (Gabriel Byrne) is being released from prison for killing the man he found in bed with his wife. While in jail, he created Cool World, a comic book centred around blonde femme fatale Holli Would. In fact, Deebs has been getting visions of Cool World and Holli which have started become more and more real. After his release he visits a comic book store on the Las Vegas strip and gets talking to the cashier who recognises him and starts fangirling over Cool World. I’m going to be praising very, very little in this movie so let me say this. This cashier is probably the best acted and most likeable character in the whole movie. This film has career worst performances from Gabriel Byrne, Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger and they’re all acted off the screen by this one bit player who is in exactly one scene.

I actually looked her up and it turns out that’s Carrie Hamilton, daughter of Carol Burnett! Apparently she was a singer and playwright as well as an actor and inspired the hit single “Carrie’s Gone” before dying tragically young of cancer at the age of 38. She is awesome, and by far the best thing in the whole show.

Anyway, the cashier says that so many of her friends wanted to be Holli Would when they grew up and this is probably as good a time to talk about Holli as any.

Now, there are absolutely scads of female fictional characters who were conceived primarily to pander to male tastes which nonetheless managed to resonate with female audiences. A great example would be, well, the reason why we’re here in the first place.

I already went in depth in my Who Framed Roger Rabbit? review as to what makes Jessica Rabbit work and why she is so much more than just a cartoon thirst trap. The Lauren Bacall influenced design, the flawless, breathy vocal performance by Kathleen Turner and most importantly the power. You can be attracted to Jessica Rabbit. You can whistle and drool and have your eyes pop out of your head like a hormonally maddened wolf. But that just means she has power over you, bucko. You don’t have power over her. It’s a very, very tricky needle to thread and it could have gone so wrong. I know, because I’ve seen Holli Would:

If all you knew about Bakshi was that he created the first X-rated animated feature you might assume that he, at the very least, knows how to make sexy cartoons. But Imma let you in on a little secret.

Bakshi’s movies are not, and never have been, sexy. What they are is horny and there’s a big difference. There’s a crude, aggressive sexuality to much of Bakshi’s work but that’s a million miles from being something that any reasonable person could find genuinely titillating. Creating an animated character that can bypass the audience’s knowledge that this is just a collection of drawings and get to the lizard brain…that’s actually really, really challenging. And there is no way that Bakshi’s rough, jerky, slovenly style of cartooning could ever get there. So Holli is a nightmarish shambling creature from the Uncanny Valley with wandering lips and dimensions that shift like a lava lamp. But surely, legendary Oscar winner Kim Basinger can salvage this?

Look, I’m trying not to be mean here but I’ve never seen a Basinger performance that was better than “fine” and here she is sooooooo far out of her wheelhouse that I’m worried about her wheel being left unattended for so long. Some of that is not her fault. It’s a tragic truth of acting that a lot of things that make an actor suitable for a role are things that are completely outside of their control. Like, I have no doubt that Jim Carrey has worked his ass off perfecting his comic timing but you can’t deny that a big part of his success as a comedian is the fact that his face seems like it was designed by Tex Avery. Some people just have more expressive features. And Basinger is the opposite of that. She just doesn’t have a very expressive face. The studio basically forced Bakshi to cast Basinger because some no name like this “Brad Pitt” couldn’t be expected to carry a movie himself (crazy times). She was hired pretty much exclusively for star power. And it really shows. This is probably the most egregious example of miscasting I can remember seeing. Holli is a mess of a character, going from innocent ingenue, to manic pleasure seeking sex kitten to sultry, predatory femme fatale at a moment’s notice. And it would be nice if Basinger could do any of that but she can’t. And what makes this doubly comi-tragic is that this movie was counting on Holli so hard. She is front and centre on all the advertising. They draped her over the fucking Hollywood sign. They really thought they had the next Jessica Rabbit on their hands here.

But getting back to that line; “all my friends wanted to be Holli Would when they grew up”. I don’t have to imagine girls wanting to be Jessica Rabbit because I know many do, but I cannot for the life of me picture any woman wanting to be Holli Would.

Anyway, Jack Deebs is pulled into Cool World and we get my next big problem with this movie. You know the Toon Town sequence in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

You know, Bob Hoskin interacting with a completely animated world? Well, Cool World also has real human beings interacting with a cartoon world and it fucking looks like this:

Yeah. They’re just sets. The cartoon world is just a series of sets with flat painted backdrops designed to look vaguely cartoony. In any given scene with a human character set in the cartoon world, the only thing animated is the actual cartoon characters. It is the laziest fucking shit.

“Yeah? Well, you’re forgetting something crucial about integrating live action actors with an animated environment!”“Oh? What’s that?”“IT’S REALLY HARD, MAN!”

Sorry, Jesus Christ, if I don’t stop ranting at every single aspect of this film we’ll be here forever. JACK DEEBS ARRIVES IN COOL WORLD. Cool World is basically Wackyland from Looney Tunes except, instead of being kooky and funny, everyone is just an incredibly obnoxious asshole. After getting set upon by a bunch of characters he thinks are his own creations, he’s found by Holli and she bundles him into her car and takes him to a nightclub across town.

So here’s another bit of praise I’m willing to extend this movie. Like Wizards, this is a Bakshi movie with bad animation but absolutely jaw-dropping backdrops.

I don’t think the necessarily work for the story the movie is trying to tell (I’ll explain why in a minute) but I can’t deny these are amazing works of art in their own right. Bakshi absolutely excels when nothing onscreen is moving, which admittedly something of a handicap for an animator.

Anyway, Holi and Jack arrive at the nightclub and Jack instantly set upon by our old pal Frank who’s been living, ageless and unchanged, in Cool World since 1945. He confiscates Jack’s pen (because in Cool World anything that can draw is potentially a lethal weapon) and explains that he’s a cop whose sole job is basically state-sanctioned cock-blocking. It seems that if a noid and a doodle (cartoon) ever have sex, that would destroy both worlds. It’s a pretty out there concept, so I have taken the time to compose a Seussian rhyme to explain:

For you see, should a noid and a doodle canoodle

That noid/doodle canoodle creates a whole boodle,

Of problems that puzzle and stump the ol’ noodle

Ending the universe, kit and caboodle.

See, this is what happens when you conceive your entire movie around getting to watch cartoons having sex and then have to build a story around it. We have to now accept that Frank has spent the last five decades just wondering around Cool World and making sure that no random humans have somehow come through and starting sexing up the locals. What the fuck kind of life is that?

Anyway, Frank warns Jack not to have sex with the insanely hot (I mean, meeting the fictional reality presented on its terms, here) blonde and then just…lets him go. Like, I’m all for innocent until proven guilty but the man’s dick is a reality ending weapon, lock him up already.

Jack then gets warped back to the real world and Frank goes and visits Lonette, his cartoon girlfriend.

His INSANELY hot, cartoon girlfriend who he is obviously insanely attracted to and who wants to jump his bones but they CAN’T because that would end the universe. And this situation has persisted, presumably, for the better part of fifty years. The man’s balls must be bluer than Vermont on election day.

Seriously though, there is actually something quite sweet about this scene. Lonette asks Frank if he’d ever go back to the real world so he could be with someone and he says that he could never leave her, despite the fact that they can never actually be intimate. And I gotta say, Pitt’s low-key performance and Candi Milo’s excellent voicework (the difference when you actually hire a voice actor rather than a movie star) actually sells the scene as something genuinely tragic rather than ridiculously contrived.

Okay, this movie is padded to buggery so let’s just skip ahead to the reason why we’re all here, sick animals that we are. Jack returns to Cool World and, despite Frank’s best efforts he ends up in Holli’s bed where she proceeds to demonstrate six out of the twelve basic principles of animation: Anticipation, Straight Ahead Action, Slow In and Slow Out, Squash and Stretch, Follow Through and maybe a little Secondary Action if they’re not too tired. Oh, and Exaggeration too, because I’m pretty sure…y’know.

Sex turns Holli into Kim Basinger who decides that she wants to escape with Jack back to the real world. She goes to say goodbye to some of her friends and gets accosted by Nails, Jack’s partner, a cartoon spider. Shocked at her appearance, he tries to arrest her and she calls him “An Eight Armed Ink Spot”.

How do you fuck that up? HOW DO YOU FUCK THAT UP?

And she useS Jack’s pen to suck him up. Like, he’s ink so she sucks him up into the pen. You get it.

Oh, and this is the scene where Kim Basinger tries to act tough and streetwise and it’s like your mother throwing up gang signs. I don’t even know if she has kids but I feel embarassed for them.

“She does. With Alec Baldwin.”“Oh JESUS.”

Alright, so Jack and Holli return to the real world and their is so explosive that it draws the attention of two of Jack’s neighbours, Isabella and her daughter Jennifer, who just walk into his house to see if he’s okay. He assures them he is while Holli acts like she’s suddenly regressed to being a three year old. This whole scene is basically just we can introduce Jennifer who’ll be playing the role of audience surrogate who gets all the shit the movie pulls out of its ass to try and force a resolution at the end. Which is weird to me because this so obviously should be the comic book store cashier from before in this role. She’s introduced earlier, she knows Cool World and she even asks Jack out on a date. He turns her down in the movie but having her involved in his life would have made her a much more organic choice to show up again in the final act. Well, whatever.

Back in Cool World, Frank discovers that his partner has been seemingly killed and realises that it’s time to return to the real world to stop Holli and get revenge. Remember when I said that the backgrounds, while certainly striking, were actually to the detriment of the story? Here’s what I meant by that. Frank’s whole character arc is that, after the death of his mother, he’s basically been hiding in Cool World rather than face the hardships of real life. The problem is…I cannot buy anyone wanting to stay in Cool Word for eternity. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stay in Cool World for a stopover flight. Because Cool World is hell. Look at those backgrounds again. It looks like Gotham City’s mother got fucked by Hieronymous Bosch who then went out for cigarettes and never came home. 99.9999% of ever character we see in this place is a demonic sex-and-violence crazed gremlin. And Frank seems to know it. Pitt doesn’t crack a single solitary smile all the time we see him here. He seems to hate the place almost as much as I do. So, other than Lonnie, I can’t think of a single reason why he wouldn’t want to return to the real world and I feel no sense of tragedy when he has to give this nightmare up.

Back in the real world, Jack and Holli start to glitch and turn back into cartoons. Holli is desperate to stay human and she tells Jack that there’s a legend that a doodle cross over to the real world decades ago and became the proprietor of a casino. She says that there’s something called “The Spike” at the top of the Union Plaza Hotel that will allow her to remain human permanently. Jack, realising that Holli is a few similes short of an analogy. He gets arrested by Frank who explains that if Holli touches the Spike the barriers between the two worlds come down and Jesus you can practically smell the flop-sweat from the writers as they try to bring this thing in to to land.

Jack, Frank and Jennifer (the neighbour girl) head to the hotel to stop Holli where they meet up with Doctor Whiskers, who it turns out was the doodle who crossed over and has been living in the real world ever since.

Frank tries to stop Holli from reaching the Spike and falls to his death, which means that it’s up to Jack to stop her. Holli pulls the spike out, causing all kinds of cartoons ghouls and ghosts to flood into the Las Vegas skyline because why limit yourself to ripping off Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when there’s so much good Ghostbusters scenes you could be ripping off too?

At the top of the hotel, Jack gets transformed into a square-jawed superhero voiced by Maurice LaMarche and…he never gets turned back. Gabriel Byrne’s character might as well be dead from this point on.

Oh yeah, another weird thing. Ralph Bakshi, celebrated American animator probably most famous for adapting comics to animation…doesn’t seem to know the difference between cartoons and comics. Cool World is definitely a CARTOON world, not a comic book one. There’s nothing that makes Cool World seem like a depiction of American comics, not even the kind of underground “Comix” that folks like R. Crumb were making. This appearance of a superhero is the first thing that made me say “oh yeah, these characters were supposedly dreamed up by a comic book artist”.

Anyway, Super Jack is able to return the Spike to it rightful place and he and Holli are both return to Cool World along with Frank’s body which is given to a tearful Lonnette. But! Because Frank was killed by Holli while she was in doodle form, he gets resurrected as a doodle.

Which, on the one hand, is the most grotesque ass pull I’ve seen outside of some pretty niche websites.

On the other, it allows the move to end so it’s my favourite part.

Go and have sex with your girlfriend, you weird Tintin looking motherfucker you.

Scoring

Animation: 03/20

In a recent interview, Ralph Bakshi appears to have warmed to this, his final feature film and walked back his earlier disavowal. He also claimed that Cool World has some of the strongest animation he has ever done. To which I say:

“We are men of action, sir. Lies do not become us.”

Leads: 05/20

It’s a rare film that has a true dual-protagonist structure and I wish I could say that was as a result of bold, radical story-telling rather than a deeply compromised script stuck between several versions of what it wants to be. Both Brad Pitt and Gabriel Byrne are find actors but I would struggle to remember a worse performance from either of them.

Villain: 02/30

If you ever find yourself doubting whether you’re good enough to make it in life, just watch this film and remember that Kim Basinger was able to win an Oscar a mere five years later.

Supporting Characters: 03/20

A few of the background human characters have charm. Almost everyone in Cool World seems designed to be as aggressively obnoxious as possible.

Music: 03/20

Ill admit there are a few good tracks on the soundtrack but the background music is about as obnoxious as the rest of the movie. Points for consistency, I guess.

FINAL SCORE: 16%

NEXT UPDATE: 08 August 2024

NEXT TIME: Keeping with the theme of final movies by famous animators:

(New!) New Book News!

Hey folks! As I’ve already mentioned, my third book The Burial Tide is due to hit shelves in Spring of next year. BUT! I can now reveal that my FOURTH book will also be released at around the same time!

That’s right! There will be twin Sharpson book babies in the new year. So what’s the newest addition about? Well, after starting out with a hard-boiled sci-fi/spy-thriller and two Celtic mythology influenceD horror novels, I’ve decided the next step in my writing career will be…a picture book about fish for kids aged three to seven.

Don’t Trust Fish will be published by Penguin Dial in the US, Andersen Press in the UK and Ireland and Penguin Australia in Kazakhstan *checks notes* I mean Australia and New Zealand.

Oh, and it’s illustrated by DAN FREAKING SANTAT, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLING AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR AND WINNER OF A FRICKETY FRUCKETY CALDECOTT MEDAL.

Dude. Is. Legit.

Anyway, this is something I’ve been sitting on since the Pandemic and I cannot tell you how happy and proud and excited I am to finally get this out in the world.

More news to come!

MOUSE OUT.

Superman versus the Elite (2012)

Here’s the big problem with writing a character like Superman: he can’t change the world.

The superhero genre is about taking our world, the recognisable world we live in, and adding a few discreet fantastical elements. That’s the appeal. Ordinary people, trudging to their ordinary jobs look up and see a brightly coloured figure streaking through the air. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s Superman!

That’s the magic that the entire genre runs on. Which can create problems when, say, certain real world events have to be incorporated into the fictional reality of the universe.

Yeah Spider-man. You should have used your…webs…to stop 9/11.

And that can throw up all kinds of logical head-scratchers. Like (and I’m really, really not trying to be offensive here) ask yourself; would 9/11 even be that big a deal in the Marvel universe? Given that this is the same world where Kang the Conqueror once wiped out the entire population of DC or New York is under constant attack from Galactus, Symbiotes and God knows what else?

This is not a new problem. In 1940, Siegel and Schuster wrote a non-canon Superman story for Look magazine called “How Superman would End the War”, where Supes abducts Hitler and Stalin and drags them before a tribunal to stand trial.

The League of Nations being useful. There’s some comic book logic for you.

But in the main Action Comics and Superman titles the war went largely unmentioned apart from some now deeply uncomfortable covers schilling war bonds.

Out of universe, the reason for that is obvious. If Superman takes a more active role in world affairs and gets rid of Hitler (or Stalin. Or Saddam Hussein. Or Putin) then his world diverges too far from our own and the story loses that central appeal. It stops being our world and becomes an almost alien alternate reality.

But in-universe, you need to explain why Superman doesn’t just stop every dictator and despot around the world. It’s a problem that a lot of great Superman media has grappled with, and a lot of shitty media too.

Oh fuck, the Problem of Evil. What a radical new concept.

So in 1999, Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch launched The Authority, a series about a Justice League pastiche that actually does take out dictators and get its hands dirty in global geo-politics. While Ellis intended the Authority to be seen as villain protagonists, when Mark Millar (OF FUCKING COURSE) took over as writer the team’s extreme and violent tactics were portrayed much more positively. The incredible popularity of this run prompted some fans and critics to claim that the nice old status-quo reliant heroes like Superman were strictly squares-ville, daddio, and that political assassinations and low-key fascism were what the cool kids were into. This prompted Superman writer Joe Kelly to pen What’s so Funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way?, where Supes comes face to face with a very thinly veiled pastiche of the Authority and demonstrates that wanting Big Daddy Strongman to come in and fix all our problems and punish our enemies is the cause of, like, 90% of the bad shit in our history as a species.

And…here’s where I have to confess to being a fraud and a coward. I haven’t actually read it. Yeah, I know. Even though I self righteously quoted it in the Dawn of Justice review I haven’t actually read the entire story. But, I have seen the 2012 animated adaptation Superman versus The Elite. And I am going to review it. And that is the thing you are reading now. If you’re a long time reader, you probably knew that, but I try to keep things accessible for the newbies.

So we get a cold open on a shadowy figure watching multiple TV screens at once in the way that only villains do. The news is pretty bleak. The supervillain Doctor Light has escaped from jail, again. The nations of Bialya and Pokolistan are inching towards war and Superman has to deal with all this despite a crippling case of “weird chin”.

“Square” Jawed. “Square”. As in: “the easiest possible shape to not fuck up”.

The shadowy figure then smiles and says “time to take yer medicine, love” in the most awful attempt at a Mancunian accent I have ever heard onscreen. Seriously, it’s so bad I assumed the voice actor must be American.

Turns out, he’s actually a Londoner. I dunno, it’s not even an accent I’m particularly familiar with but it just feels real forced. Anyway, we then get the opening credits which are frickin’ awesome.

I love it, it’s like the Spider-Punk sequence from Across the Spider-Verse spliced with clips from old Fleischer, Filmation and Hanna-Barbera Superman shorts.

We see Clark and Lois watching a new Superman cartoon show through a shop window and Lois cattily remarks that she didn’t think the “S” stood for “silly”. So right off the bat I take issue with this. Lois Lane should be abrasive, tough and no-nonsense but she should never be mean. And, I’m sorry to say, Lois in this movie is kind of horrible to Clark. It’s one thing when they’re razzing each other and there’s a friendly give and take, that’s the key to a great Lois and Clark relationship. But that’s not what we see here. When Lois makes fun of his cartoon, the poor dude honestly looks devastated.

God damn. Guess Kryptonite isn’t the only thing that can hurt him.

Suddenly, Metropolis is attacked by the Atomic Skull, who is just walking down the street and turning people to ash because, when your head is a flaming skull, what fucks do you really have left to give?

Clark turns into Superman and knocks the Skull around before dumping him in a lake. Standing over his unconscious body, we see Superman’s fist tighten, implying that he’s actually considering finishing the Skull off. But instead, he flies off with him while the crowd cheets.

Meanwhile, a quartet of new superheroes arrive in Metropolis. These are The Elite.

We have Manchester Black (telekineses, telepathy, dodgy Mank accent), Coldcast (a black guy with electricity powers if you can believe such a thing), Menagerie (she’s got worms, no seriously, that’s her power) and The Hat, who has a hat that he can pull literally anything out of and also just really suits him because he’s got one of those faces.

We get a weird scene where Superman is standing in front of the UN and a man named professor Baxter gives the following speech:

Millions in property damage…helpless bystanders killed by a repeat metahuman felon who’s now enjoying three square meals a day as a guest of the state. You had the power to end Atomic Skull’s criminal career right there, permanently. Why didn’t you? Are you the Superman that the 21st century needs? Why not use your power to fix the world? Let me reiterate that I’m playing devil’s advocate. I’m a huge fan.

So…I have a few questions. What is Baxter doing here? What is Superman doing here? What is the purpose of this whole…what even is this? A debate? A presentation? Why is this even a matter for the UN?! Superman, an American citizen, stopped an American criminal on American soil, why is the UN even looking at this?

Also, I really hate this trope. It crops up a lot more in relation to Batman than Superman and it really grinds my gears. It’s one thing for your ordinary schlub on the street to be asking “why doesn’t Batman just kill the Joker?” because, honestly, after the millionth time he’s escaped Arkham and racked up a bigger kill count than frickin’ Gadafi it’s a fair question. But it really bugs me when you have congresspeople and politicians doing the same thing. There’s one comic (I think it’s Injustice but I can’t find a screenshot) where a government spokeswoman is taking Batman to task for bringing criminals in alive instead of killing him and I feel like screaming “THAT’S NOT HIS FRICKIN’ JOB IT’S YOURS!”. Like, if you really think these guys should die, why don’t you just execute them when he brings them in?!

Anyway, Superman gives a speech where he says that he shouldn’t be judge, jury and executioner and that the world doesn’t need him to “fix” it because people are essentially good. It’s a fine speech, and it’s a wonderful summation of Superman’s outlook but unfortunately George Newbern, who voices Superman, is just kinda flat.

His speech is interrupted by the news that Bialya has invaded Pokolistan (or possibly the other way around). Superman tells Professor Baxter “to be continued” (whatever this is that’s currently happening) and flies off to Bialya (or maybe Pokolistan? They’re like the Ant and Dec of fictional countries).

Arriving in…the country, Superman comes face to face with giant insect Kaijiu that have been released by the other country’s weapons programme. The Elite arrive and Superman works with them to quickly and effectively stop the monsters. Superman is actually impressed by these young feller-me-lads and the Elite are starstruck at getting to meet him which is a nice choice, I feel. It gives the relationship between the two sides more layers and gives the final conflict a bit more emotional weight.

Back in Metropolis, Perry White demands to know who Elite are, saying that they’re the biggest news since “Brainiac Ate Boston”.

Lois gets a tip that an old lady in Britain is talking to the press claiming that she knew Manchester Black as a child so Superman flies her over there. The old lady says that Black was always getting into trouble but that he was a good kid who “always helped with the harvest”.

I’m sorry.

With the fucking what?

Ah yes. Inner city Manchester. Good apple country.

Lois is suspicious (I mean, yeah) and says “if she’s telling the truth, I’m the Martian Manhunter” to which Clark replies “there go all my fantasies”.

I’ve often said the Martian Manhunter doesn’t get enough love, but that’s not exactly what I meant.

Manchester Black approaches Superman and offers to give him a proper introduction to the team, including a telepathic re-telling of his own origin story growing up in Britain, which the movie renders as a kind of sepia toned mashup between the bleakest parts of Charles Dickens crossed with A Clockwork Orange. Like, guys, Thatcher was bad. She wasn’t that bad. Black lived with his abusive alcoholic father…

and he and his sister Vera (of course she was called Vera) used to run around in literal rags filching handkerchiefs and avoiding the rozzers. But, when Vera fell in front of a moving train, Black’s telekinetic powers manifested (although he doesn’t tell Superman or not he was able to save his sister). Black says that after his powers were revealed, the British government took him in and trained him as an operative until he met the rest of the team in Africa and they decided to go freelance. They’re interrupted by a terrorist attack on the Channel Tunnel and Superman and the Elite work to save all the trapped passengers.

Superman congratulates Manchester on a job well done, saying “not bad for a guy who just kicks the snot out of wankers”.

You know when your grandmother sings along to rap songs while not knowing what the words actually mean? Yeah, this kinda feels like that.

Everything’s really chill until the Elite find the terrorists and Black practically tortures them to death before Superman intervenes. Oh and then Menagerie kisses Superman without his consent and later Lois gives him the third degree because she’s the worst. And when Superman tries to explain she throws the remote control at his head.

Uh the fifties called, they wanted their awful, jealous, harridan Lois Lane back.

Oh, complete tangent here but I love how Menagerie is a demonic looking green skinned woman who’s in a symbiotic relationship with mutated monster worms but she never uses her codename and just goes by her real name. Which is “Pam”.

Yeah, yeah. She looks like a “Pam”.

Clark admits that he’s not at all sure about these crazy kids and Lois replies that he’s in the minority because the internet loves the elite. She also says that she hasn’t been able to verify as much as a word of Black’s account of his origins. Suddenly, Manchester Black appears on every screen in the world and announces that the Elite will take out any dictator or supervillain that they see fit to. And the crowd goes wild.

Superman races to the Fortress of Solitude to try and track the Elite’s broadcast but can only ascertain that it’s coming from another dimension. Superman has to reckon with the fact that the public largely support the Elite and wonders if the world really has moved on from him. A fresh wave of fighting breaks out in Bialya and he flies off.

But, he gets hit a blast of energy from Coldcast that weakens him to the point that he actually has to be rescued from Pokolistani soldiers by the Elite, who take him back to their headquarters to recover. Said headquarters turns out to be a giant alien fish that can travel between dimensions and which the Elite have enslaved to serve as their base (yes yes, I know you all saw that coming). Superman angrily confronts Black, saying that the Elite can’t kill people and call themselves heroes to which Black responds “why not? Your government does it all the time.”

Meanwhile, in the UK, Lois is approached by mysterious woman who gives her a flash drive with details of Manchester Black’s true past.

Clark goes home to visit his parents and his father tells him that people will jump on any bandwagon when they’re scared but that, sooner or later, they come to their senses. He tells Clark not to worry and to be true to himself. It’s a lovely scene, and a great example of just how important it is to get the Kents right in any Superman story.

And then everything goes to hell.

The Atomic Skull escapes from prison and goes on another rampage, killing many more people including Professor Baxter. After a brutal battle, Superman and the Elite manage to defeat the Skull. Superman tries to take him in but Manchester Black has had enough, executing Atomic Skull in the middle of the street as a crowd of onlookers cheer. In a lovely touch, Superman covers the Skull’s body with his cape.

The next day, Superman thwarts a Bialyan airstrike on Pokolistan and demands that the governments meet at a neutral location for peace talks. But Manchester Black appears to inform him that the governments can’t have peace talks because they’re in pieces. Literally. The Elite just massacred the governments of both countries.

Superman is so outraged that he actually punches Black and, even with Black’s forcefield, manages to make him bleed.

Black tells Superman to write his will because the Elite are coming for him.

Even as the international community condemns the Elite’s actions, polls show that they still have broad public support. So Superman decides that he’s gotta do what he’s gotta do.

The next morning the Elite’s Space Fish (who is named “Bunny” by the by) appears over Metropolis. Superman agrees to fight the Elite, but only somewhere where there’s no risk of civilian casualties. Black agrees and teleports them to the moon, while he broadcasts the whole Donnybrook to the planet below.

The fight starts badly with Superman getting the super-snot beaten out of him while everyone watches in horror. Manchester Black gives a pretentious villain speech about Superman standing for “Truth, Justice and the Capitalist Military Complex” which is pretty big talk from a man with a full chest Union Jack tattoo who’s basically the walking embodiment of the Bush Doctrine. And then the Elite seemingly murder Superman, vaporising him and leaving only a scrap of his cape behind.

And then…then they hear a voice.

“Thank you. I finally get it.”

So, it often feels like pop culture has more evil versions of Superman than good these days. You have the tyrant Superman from the Injustice series. Evil Superman from Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League. Homelander from The Boys. Omni-Man from Invincible (spoilers). And I’m sure there are plenty of people who will tell you that that’s a symptom of the times we live in. It’s because America no longer believes in itself or sees itself as a force for good in the world. Or it’s a reflection of the crisis of masculinity in the 21st century. To which I say, no, you’re all dumb.

It’s because a good Superman takes a really good writer to make interesting, and an evil Superman is fucking terrifying with almost no skill required whatsoever.

It’s not rocket science. Superman Who Wants to Kill You = Brown Trousers Time.

You see, Superman is like Taylor Swift. And now, he’s in his Reputation era.

“Look at you, being hip to the trends.”

Superman proceeds to straight up murder the Elite one after the other, poisoning Pam, suffocating the Hat and throwing Coldcast into space until only Black remains. Black teleports down to Metropolis, reasoning that Superman won’t bring the fight down there. This turns out to be incorrect.

“Oooh! Look what you made me do! Look what you made me do!”

Superman uses his heat-vision to PERFORM A LOBOTOMY ON BLACK TO ROB HIM OF HIS POWERS and then raises his fist to finish him off. Black tells Superman that the whole world has now seen that he’s no different or better than the Elite.

And Superman says that they’ve seen just how terrifying it would be if he acted the way the Elite does. Fortunately, he doesn’t. He reveals that this was all a big prank, and that the Elite are actually fine and are recovering in the Fortress of Solitude.

“So…you didn’t lobotomise me?”
“No, that part was real. I carved your brain up like a frickin’ ham.”

And the movie ends with the world realising that maybe it’s better if the most powerful man on Earth isn’t a deranged psychopath who answers to no one.

Even though…you know. Going to those kinds of lengths to terrify the whole world into thinking you’d gone psychotic is, in and of itself, terrifyingly psychotic.

***

This is a movie I think I love more in concept than in execution. It’s not bad but there’s enough flaws and niggling little weaknesses that keep it from the top tier of DC animation. Still though, it’s not a bad little flick, and I found I enjoyed it better on a second watch through which is always a good sign.

Scoring

Animation: 08/20

This is obviously not a particularly high-budget joint and the animation is quite flat. I’m also not particularly fond of the character designs. On the plus side, the animation is quite fluid and the fight scenes have a nice sense of momentum.

Leads: 16/20

Not surprisingly, what with this being a very faithful adaptation of a great comic book story that even has the original writer on board, this movie doesn’t put a foot wrong with Superman on the writing level. George Newbern’s vocal performance is…mixed. But when he gets to unhinged, “no-fucks left to give” Superman he’s utterly chilling.

Villains: 13/20

Again, great concept somewhat let down by mid execution. Once you get past the accent, Robin Atkin Downes gives a decent performance but I kinda feel that this movie might have benefitted from a longer run time to expand on this character. The other members of the Elite are fun, with hints of hidden depths. And I especially love The Hat who’s always just off in the corner living his best life.

Supporting Characters: 11/20

One movie where Lois Lane isn’t utterly awful, is that too much to ask?

Music: 13/20

Superman and punk shouldn’t go together. And yet, here we are?

FINAL SCORE: 61%

NEXT UPDATE: Sorry folks, going to need to take a little time off, next update is 25th July 2024.

NEXT TIME: Jesus, you people won’t rest until I’ve reviewed every last Ralph Bakshi film, will you?

New Interview!

I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down for a chat with Nick and Bex on the Unlocked Tomb podcast where we chatted about Knock Knock, Open Wide, When the Sparrow Falls, writing, horror, Irish folklore, my upcoming books and…honestly just about everything. This was one of those interviews that felt more like just hanging out with chill people and shooting the shit, so if you enjoy listening to me rambling about every subject under the sun (and, I mean, you’re HERE) then stick it in your ears.

Once upon a Studio (2023)

The Walt Disney Corporation is very good at some things, and very bad at others. And, personally speaking, the one thing they’ve always been worst at is making me like the Walt Disney Corporation.

I love the movies. I hold them dear to my heart. But whenever I see one of those corporate promotional videos where everyone is wandering around Disneyland in a state of wide-eyed joy like they’re the first good souls to be welcomed into God’s kingdom I come out in hives. You know what I’m talking about.

CHARACTER 1: It’s so incredible that [text from marketing press release announcing newest venture] is finally here!

CHARACTER 2: Woooooooooow…

I hate it when Disney tries to sell itself because it always feels so…the vibes are wrong. I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s probably why the Oh My Disney sequence in Ralph Breaks the Internet is still my least favourite few minutes in the entire canon. It’s also probably the reason why I steered clear of Once Upon a Studio for so long, and why it took me two tries to actually watch it all the way through. And that’s because it begins like this:

“It’s so incredible to think that Disney founded Walt Disney animation 100 years ago today!” “Wooooooow.”

Hives. Hives all over.

And look, I think it’s awesome that the short is dedicated to and stars the old man on the right. That’s Burny Mattinson, the longest serving Disney employee who died a few months before the short came out. It’s great that he was honoured like this and it’s also impressive that he gives a more believable and nuanced performance than his co-star, an actual professional actor. But yeah, the opening live action sequence just feels wrong to me. Just the worst kind of forced Disney jollity. But then…oh, but then.

The last of the animators leave and the camera comes to rest on a photograph of Mickey and Minnie:

The transition from a still cell of Mickey’s Birthday Party to Mickey coming to life is pulled off so flawlessly that you almost don’t really register just how impressive it is. Which I suppose brings me neatly to the subject of the animation.

“OH MY GOD THIS ANIMATION!”“No words. Should have sent a poet.”

And again, it’s not something that hits you immediately. Because it’s not visually spectacular. You’re just watching a load of cartoon characters getting ready for a group photo. It’s only when you stop and realise:

Oh wait, that’s Moana, Flounder, Merlin, Sugar Bowl, Mrs Potts, Chip, Cogsworth, March Hare, Doctor Krunklehorn and the Mad Hatter interacting with each other and a live action background all while flawlessly rendered in their original designs and animation styles.

Holy SHIT that’s impressive.

And yes, the the short’s joys outside of marvelling at the sheer technical wizardry of what’s been achieved are mainly just limited to watching characters interact who’d never normally get to meet. But you know what, so many of the pairings are fun and interesting that it’s more than enough to carry the short. Of course I could quibble. Some characters get short-shrift and some get more screen-time than their importance to the canon might strictly justify.

Flash the Sloth has dirt on somebody in the studio, I’ll tell you that much.

But many of the pairings are interesting and genuinely clever. Pluto and Joanna? Gaston and the Cheshire Cat? Ursula and fucking Splat from Strange World?!

I never would have thought of that (mostly because that would require thinking about Strange World) but it works!

And there’s a genuinely sweet moment where Micky stands before a portrait of Walt and quietly murmurs. “Gotta go. But thanks. On with the show.”

“Minion! Release me!”
NO.

And I do love Mickey’s polite, “after you” to Oswald the Lucky Rabbit when they’re getting ready to have the picture taken, that just made me happy.

So, fun fact, there 543 Disney characters in this movie, and the one they gave the job of climbing a ladder and taking the group photo was:

Why? For the love of God, WHY?

Shit goes wrong (hold the phone, GOOFY FUCKED SOMETHING UP?) and the characters are devastated because they think they’ll have to wait another hundred years to get a photo. But Alan-a-Dale, Scat Cat and Mirabel start playing “When You Wish Upon a Star”, Fix-It Felix fixes the camera and the whole cast sings together

Is it just fan service?

Yes. It is just fan service. From start to finish. Pure indulgent, empty calorie sugar-rush fan service.

But it was made for ME, personally. So that makes it okay.

Disney’s centenary year will not, to put it bluntly, be remembered fondly. It was an absolute dumpster fire, a nadir for the company in terms of both artistic achievement, audience goodwill and even by the metric which should matter least but to them matters most; financial success.

But this short shows that there is still talent, and artistic drive and pure magic to be found there.

As a pure, sincere love-letter to everything that was and still is great about Disney animation, it’s damn near perfect.

“No. Thank you.”

NEXT UPDATE: 20th June 2024

NEXT TIME: Do you bleed? You will…

Megamind (2010)

Before you ask, no, this wasn’t planned. It’s just a coincidence that I’m doing this review so soon after Megamind: The Doom Syndicate defiled everyone’s childhood memories like a randy Gungan. Not my childhood memories, obviously. I was engaged when this thing came out. But apparently there are people out there who were children when the original movie released and now are, like, allowed to vote and stuff? It’s a mad world.

I haven’t seen the sequel but I did watch the trailer on YouTube. This was the most upvoted comment and the sense of historical tragedy and pathos was just too great for me not to share with you all.

My God. It’s like the fall of Paris.

I’ll be upfront, upfront. I like Megamind just fine but I don’t know how much I have to say about it. It doesn’t have a special place in my heart but neither is there a lot of stuff to make fun off. Plus it’s a comedy that is actually unironically funny on its own merits and you know how much I love writing about those!

But that doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting movie. It actually belongs in the category of film that I would argue are among the most interesting; movies that were re-appraised after their initial release. When it dropped in 2010 Megamind was mostly dismissed as an inoffensive but unremarkable bit of fluff chasing the trend started by The Incredibles and Despicable Me. Since then it’s been re-evaluated as one of the best Dreamworks movies with a devoted cult following. And that’s interesting (to me, at least) because when that happens it’s usually less to do with the movie itself and more to do with society changing and seeing the movie in a new light.

The movie opens with Megamind plummeting to his death while doing the whole “Hi this is me. I suppose you’re wondering how I got here?” schtick that I definitely haven’t gotten sick of.

We flashback to Megamind as a child and learn that he was born on a doomed alien world and was sent to Earth in a rocket ship by his parents alongside a little fish minion named “Minion”. Unfortunately a neighbouring planet was also being destroyed and they too launched a space baby, a child who would become the superhero Metro Man.

Metro Man landed in a mansion and was raised by blue-bloods, Megamind landed in a prison and was raised by the Bloods. As they grew older, the settled into a nice cosy, Superman v. Lex Luthor style relationship with many battles over the decades with Metro Man winning some and Megamind almost winning others.

So our story begins with Megamind in jail and Metro Man about to open a new Metro Man Museum. The Warden visits Megamind’s cell to deliver a present from Metro Man, a watch “to count every second of your 85 life sentences”.

Guys, do you have any idea the kind of heinous shit you have to do to get 85 life sentences?

Definitely killed lots of people. Probably some weird sex stuff. Sorry.

The watch actually turns out to be a holo-guise that Megamind is able to use to escape the prison. This scene is great because it’s a good introduction to the holo-guise and also because the escape attempt is genuinely clever, unwittingly using the watch to disguise the warden as Megamind, who gets thrown in to the cell by the guards allowing the real Megamind to take it back and escape by disguising himself as the warden. The movie walks a very fine line between portraying Megamind as someone who is simultaneously a complete goober but also genuinely brilliant and this scene does that very well. Megamind is picked up from jail by Minion driving an invisible car and the pair set off to ruin Metro Man’s big day.

Now, one of the biggest liabilities of any Dreamworks movie is the fact that this studio is a bunch of star-fuckers. What I mean is, whereas a company like Disney looks at a character and says “okay, we could get Jim Cummings or Alan Tudyk for this”, Dreamworks always goes for big name A-list stars regardless of whether or not they have any experience or obvious affinity for voice-acting. Now, admittedly, sometimes this works very well. Jack Black wasn’t really known for much voicework prior to Kung Fu Panda but that casting worked like gangbusters. On the flipside:

Yeah, you forgot about the Angelina Jolie fish, didn’t you? You’re welcome.

But here, thankfully, Dreamworks’ tendency to shame-lessly fame-whore actually works out quite well. Will Ferrell is fantastic as Megamind, Tina Fey is a great Roxanne and even Brad Pitt, who’d normally be my go to example of someone hire to do voicework because of fame rather than ability, is not bad at all as Metro Man.

Roxanne Ritchie is our Lois Lane analogue and she’s covering the opening of the museum with her partner/stalker Hal Stewart.

Someone writing this either loved Green Lantern or hated Green Lantern and I’m honestly not sure which.

Roxanne gets kidnapped by Megamind and is held hostage just as Metro Man is about to open the museum. These three have been doing this dance for so long that Roxy is clearly bored with Megamind’s whole schtick. However things take a shocking turn when Metro Man is trapped in a copper observatory (copper being his one weakness) and is apparently killed by Megamind’s solar powered death-ray.

Well, at least his death was carbon-neutral?

So now Megamind is very much the dog who caught the car. He’s defeated his arch-enemy, conquered the city and…life is now meaningless. He quickly spirals into a depression and decides to blow up Metro Man’s museum because it reminds him of everything that he’s lost. However, Roxie is also at the museum and Megamind has to disguise himself as Bernard, a guy who works at the museum and who Megamind turns into a little cube. While Roxie reminisces to “Bernard” about how amazing Metro Man was, she says that “heroes aren’t born, they’re made” which gives Mega Mind the idea of creating his own hero.

“Hey sweetie, how’s the review going?”“I dunno. I like the movie just fine I just don’t know if I have a lot to say about it.”“Have you mentioned that given how tight his pants are and the complete absence of a bulge it’s most likely that Megamind’s species don’t have dicks?”“I…have not.”“Or it could be retractable. Megamind might have a dog penis.”

Not a bit, by the way. That was a real conversation we had.

Anyway, Roxie calls Megamind thinking that he’s Bernard to let him know that she’s found Megamind’s secret lair. This leads to a genuinely funny scene in the warehouse with Megamind switching between his Bernard and Megamind identities. I found it very entertaining. I fucking hate recapping comedies.

Anyway, Megamind accidentally fires the hero creating device at Hal and decides to just roll with it. He shows up Hal’s home disguised as his “Space Dad”, pretending that Hal is actually an alien. And of course, Will Ferrell plays him with a Marlon Brandon impression.

To make the impression truly flawless Ferrell refused to learn his lines and got paid $20 million dollars for two minutes of screentime.

Hal is absolutely on board with becoming a superhero because he thinks it’s a surefire way to get into Roxie’s pants. While Space Dad trains Hal to use his new powers to fight Megamind, he begins to date Roxie as “Bernard” while ostensibly helping her track down Megamind, who, I remind you, is actually him. It’s a classic pentagon where three of the sides are the same person.

Okay, so. Let’s put aside the issue that Megamind is dating a woman while lying to her about basically every facet of her existence because obviously that’s sketch as hell but is necessary for us to have drama. I think the reason why this movie’s movie’s reputation has only grown from strength to strength is just how on the money its portrayal of Hal’s entitlement is and how genuinely wholesome Megamind and Roxie’s relationship actually is. Next time you watch this movie, listen to Hal’s dialogue and you’ll see he never actually talks about Roxie in any way that doesn’t centre on her appearance. By contrast, Megamind actually becomes a better person and makes the city a better place because he truly wants to see Roxie happy. In fact, his two-shoes have become so goody that Minion tries to get Megamind to break up with her, saying that “the villain never gets the girl”. Megamind yells that he doesn’t want to be a bad guy anymore and a shocked Minion packs his fish food and leaves.

Megamind goes for his date but Roxie shows up late because Hal paid a visit to her apartment and re-enacted the “can you read my mind” scene from Superman only a thousand times more rapey.

Sidenote. This is one of the greatest movies ever made and I love it so goddamn much.

Roxie and Megamind share their first kiss but her hand brushes the holo-guise and she finally learns the truth. Not surprisingly she tells him to hid the road so he responds by getting into a giant mech suit and going on a rampage through the city.

Honestly? Throwing yourself into your work is not the worst way to handle a breakup.

However, Hal refuses to show up and Megamind has to go to his apartment. To his surprise, Hal handled being rejected by Roxie by giving up on the whole idea of being a hero and turning to villainy. Megamind provokes him by revealing that he was actually Bernard the whole time and proceeds to get the EVER LIVING SHIT BEATEN OUT OF HIM. Megamind realises that Hal is actually trying to kill him and says “that’s not how the game is played!”

It’s…not?

Megamind activates his failsafe, encasing Hal in a massive orb of copper, which should weaken him as Hal’s powers come from Metro Man’s DNA. When that doesn’t work, he’s forced to flee for his life and Hal proclaims himself ruler of Metro City.

Megamind turns to Roxie for help and asks her to take him to Metro Man’s old hideout to look for clues as to why the copper failed to stop Hal. And in the hideout they find…

So Metro Man tells them on the day of museum opening he had realised that his life was just an endless repeating series of battles with Megamind and decided to fake his own death to start a new life as Music Man (I swear to God, Eddie Murphy did the exact same thing in the eighties).

Metro Man refuses to come out of retirement to save the city so it looks like all is lost.

Megamind surrenders himself back into the Warden’s custody and Roxie tries to reason with Hal by explaining that his attraction to her is actually an unhealthy obsession caused by toxic social expectations foisted on young men that still defines sexual conquest as a yardstick of worth and masculinity but that he seems like a really nice guy and there’s definitely someone out there for him.

Well. You tried.

Hal takes her hostage and demands that Megamind come and fight him. Minion arrives in the nick of time to bust him out and we get our final showdown with Megamind arriving with all the glitz and glamour of a Las Vegas floorshow.

Slay it, Queen.

Megamind is able to defeat Hal, Roxie and Megamind get back together and the movie ends with Metro City opening a brand new Megamind museum, which is remarkably generous when you remember that everything bad that happened in the movie was entirely his fault. And whatever he did that earned him 85 life sentences before the movie even started which almost definitely involved weird sex stuff.

I hear there’s an entire wing dedicated to explaining his weird dog penis.

***

After the claggy manure fire that was the Wish script, it was so damn refreshing to watch a movie with such rock-solid writing. I mean it, this is a lean, mean, wonderfully structured little piece. The acting is great, the themes are relevant and the characters are at once bold and archetypal while being surprisingly deep and layered. It’s a really good movie and you should definitely check it out if you haven’t already.

Scoring

Animation: 13/20

Not bad, but a little flat.

Lead: 15/20

Great design. Great vocal performance. Great arc. Thumbs up.

Villain: 16/20

Well, this aged like a fine wine.

Supporting Characters: 15/20

It’s a small supporting cast, but a good ‘un. Oh, if any of you ever wondered why Minion’s robot suit has fur it’s a reference to this:

That’s Ro-Man from the 1953 movie Robot Monster, which had such a small budget that instead of a robot costume they had to use a gorilla suit with a diving helmet. Well, I mean, they didn’t have to. It honestly would have made more sense to just paint a human being silver and stick the helmet on him. They chose it. They chose to do this.

Music: 09/20

Holy shit did you know Hans Zimmer did this? Kinda phoning it in, to be honest. But any sound-track that includes Michael Jackson’s Bad is worth a listen.

FINAL SCORE: 68%

NEXT UPDATE: 06 June 2024

NEXT TIME: Alright, my children. I have heard you.

Disney Reviews with the Unshaved Mouse #62: Wish

Missed you all!

So, what’s next on the old docket? Why what’s this? A canon Disney movie? One of the films that this very blog was established to review?

Why, this is something of an occasion! Maybe we’ll have lots of cameos from long running characters like The Horned King or Walt Disney himself? Maybe a long and overly complicated kidnapping arc? Might Otto Von Bismarck appear? He bloody might!

“Mouse, quit stalling, I’ve got fifty bucks on you giving this shitpile a good review just to be contrarian.”“Then you, sir, just lost fifty bucks and my respect.”

But before surgery commences, I want to talk about conspiracy theories.

Conspiracy Theories, counter-intuitively, are a way to make the world seem less scary, to make sense of an otherwise terrifyingly random existence.

To many Americans, the idea that a shadowy cabal within the US government would kill a sitting president of the United States was actually a less unsettling prospect than the idea that some random nutjob could decide to kill the most powerful man on Earth and just…do it.

Or that a lunatic fundamentalist in a cave with a few followers and some bolt cutters could have handed the US its most devastating attack on home soil since Pearl Harbour. Or that…a majority of Americans just didn’t think that Donald Trump should get another term.

Which is why, if you’re about to get angry at me for bringing up the extremely well known conspiracy theory that Wish was either wholly or partly the creation of generative AI, I think you’re missing the point. To understand a conspiracy theory’s appeal, you have to look not at the theory itself but the reality that it would replace if it were true. People want to believe that Wish is AI generated because it’s less scary than believing that this is just the kind of film that Disney’s creative process produces now.

Recently I gave an interview for a podcast where we discussed how the publishing industry is becoming totally, crushingly data driven and where books are increasingly commissioned, marketed and read for and by micro-targeted audiences. Books are becoming products rather than pieces of art, not something the artist wrote because they cared about it but because the algorithim says that Becky in Minnesota is jonsing for an enemies-to-lovers mafia werewolf story. And this isn’t just limited to publishing, the whole entertainment industry is sick with it.

So I know why so many people believe this theory is true*, because the reality is actually scarier. The same market and technological forces that make AI art so…off are now infecting even human created art. The machines aren’t just getting more human-like. We’re meeting them in the middle.

Although…okay, I’ll be honest here. Before I’d seen the movie I thought the whole notion that it was an AI generated film was ridiculous. Because of course Disney would not be able to keep that a secret. Of course they wouldn’t risk it when the prevailing legal wisdom is that AI generated content can’t be copywrited. Of course it’s insane to suggest that Disney would get so spooked by the Writer’s Strike that they would look for a way to cut creatives out of the process rather than having to deal with unionised labour (this is Disney we’re talking about people, Disney!).

And yet, having seen the movie? I’m…honestly not so certain. It just has all the hallmarks. That weird Stepford Wives flavour of bland and weird. The nonsensical plot. The “no soap, radio!” quality of the dialogue. The LYRICS. Oh my word. Actually, I take that back. I asked WordPress’s AI bot to write a better villain song than “This is the Thanks I get?” and this is the song I got:

Title: Shadowed Desires

(Verse 1)
In the depths of darkness I arise,
Forged in treachery and lies,
My ambition burning bright,
Beneath the stars that mock my plight.

(Pre-Chorus)
Every sliver of discontent,
Feeds the hunger, my intent,
To claim what’s rightfully mine,
And leave the world in my design.

(Chorus)
I’ll carve my name in history’s stone,
The throne is calling, I’ll claim my own,
No hero’s heart can staunch the fire,
Of my shadowed, relentless desire.

(Verse 2)
Watch the puppet strings I deftly weave,
As I spin webs to deceive,
Luring all into my grasp,
They’ll kneel before my chilling rasp.

(Pre-Chorus)
Every whisper, every breath,
Carries echoes of my conquest,
No force can quell this rising tide,
I’ll rule with darkness as my guide.

(Chorus)
I’ll carve my name in history’s stone,
The throne is calling, I’ll claim my own,
No hero’s heart can staunch the fire,
Of my shadowed, relentless desire.

(Bridge)
They’ll tremble at my wicked decree,
As I shape a world to bow to me,
No savior can undo my reign,
My legacy forged in endless bane.

(Chorus)
I’ll carve my name in history’s stone,
The throne is calling, I’ll claim my own,
No hero’s heart can staunch the fire,
Of my shadowed, relentless desire.

(Outro)
I’ll carve my name in history’s stone,
The throne is calling, I’ll claim my own,
No hero’s heart can staunch the fire,
Of my shadowed, relentless desire.

And you know what? Little on the nose. Rather obvious imagery. But I at least feel like the bot understood the assignment.

Yes. Let’s have a peppy, upbeat Disney villain song that sounds like it’d be right at home in Highschool Musical. Let’s do that. That would be a smart thing to do.

We get a story-book opening where our narrator, Asha, gives us the history of the Kingdom of Rosas, a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea. The kingdom was founded by King Magnifico and his wife Amaya with the purpose of protecting people’s wishes. See, Magnifico realised that wishes are what drive people through life…

But that sometimes people’s wishes don’t come true and that makes them sad.

So he created a kingdom where, when ever a citizen turns eighteen, they give him their wish for safe-keeping and then they forget about it. And every month, Magnifico chooses a wish to grant. Everyone seems to be okay with this system and enters into it with a clear understanding of how it works.

So…right off the bat I am baffled by this. Magnifico has a lot going for him. He’s voiced by Chris Pine who is a seriously underrated voice actor and singer. I like the design well enough. And magocracies are cool, who doesn’t love a good magocracy? But Magnifico just doesn’t make sense as a character. He starts out as a peasant boy whose family are massacred by thieves. He studies magic. He becomes the most powerful sorcerer in the world. With you so far. Then he establishes a kingdom and starts doing weird shit with wishes.

What the fuck? How did we get from Magical Batman Origin Story to this guy basically running what amounts to a lottery?

We cut to Asha’s house where the narration is revealed to be her talking to her 100 year old grandfather Sabino who presumably already knows this shit. Asha lives with Sabino and her mother Sakina and her Happy Meal bait pet goat Valentino, who manages the seemingly impossible task of making me unhappy to have more Alan Tudyk in my life. Now, I’m going to be critiquing this movie’s…everything pretty much and that includes the animation. But, this one I actually feel a little guilty about because it is at least trying to do something that the canon has desperately needed for a while. That is, it’s trying to innovate and shake up the house style.

For almost 15 years now, Disney’s canon features have been tangled in, well, Tangled. That movie’s art-style and aesthetic have dictated how these movies look. And while I absolutely adore most of those films, there’s no question that the canon needed to innovate and move on. And Wish does do that. Unfortunately, I don’t think it works.

“You bastard, I did THIS FOR YOU!”

So, the movie eschews the hyper-real look of Tangled for more of a “Hand-Drawn 3D” look. That’s honestly not a bad idea. If you’re not going to celebrate Disney’s centenary with a proper traditional 2d animation (which would be a VERY good idea but who cares what I think?) then going down this route is an acceptable middle ground. In fact, this style has been used very effectively in the Spider-Verse films and Puss in Boots 2. Unfortunately, those movies had visual flair and fantastic direction whereas Wish just feels safe and unambitious in comparison. Also, how fucking sad is it that DISNEY, the greatest American animation studio in history bar none is left playing catchup with goddamned SONY? Strange times, my friends.

Okay, so it’s Sabino’s birthday and Asha tells him that she’s really confident that he’s finally going to get his wish granted. You know…I’m pretty sure that if I reach 100 and the wish I made when I was eighteen comes true that will not end well.

Yeah. Yeah, I’m not surviving this.

Asha works at the palace as a kind of tour guide for new visitors to Rosas and we get our first song; Welcome to Rosas. It’s…not terrible. The beat is actually kinda catchy and the lyrics at least sound like something that a human wrote. That human being someone who really, really, really wishes they were Lin Manuel Miranda and isn’t.

“Welcome to the family Madrigal…I mean. Shit! I did it again!”

Her song done, Asha runs into the kitchen and meets her friend Dahlia who is the leader of the seven teens, basically what would happen if the Seven Dwarfs and the Burger King Kids club were Tuvixed in a transporter accident. She greets Dahlia with this line:

“Help me! Best friend and honorary doctor of all things rational my interview is in one hour and I’m so nervous I think I’m going to explode!”

I’m sorry, no. You can’t get mad at people for saying AI wrote this script. That is how AI talks. That is not people speak. Human no talk like that.

Also, really? “Honorary Doctor of all things rational?”. That’s the most elegant way of letting the audience know she’s the “Doc” of the group? Jesus Christ.

Anyway, Asha gets into an argument with the “Grumpy” of the group, Gabo, Gabo, GABO!

Gabo implies that Asha wants to become Magnifico’s apprentice so that she can corruptly rig the system and get her grandfather’s wish granted, something that Asha angrily denies and which is absolutely, 100% correct. Queen Amaya arrives in the kitchen to tell Asha that it’s time for her interview. As they ascend the stairs, Amaya briefs her on the apprentice’s duties saying that some of the things she might have to do for him “might seem strange, but why a sorcerer needs what a sorcerer needs is not your concern”. Which…yikes.

“Do I claim to understand why magic will sometimes require you to come to work in a French maid’s outfit and a Donald Duck mask? No. Because I’m not a sorcerer. We must remember our place.”

Asha meets Magnifico after triggering a magic alarm he’s placed around a secret evil mysterious book of evil. They get talking and form a bond over their losses (Asha’s father died of illness and Magnifico’s parents, as discussed previously, were lost due to him being magical Batman). The dialogue in this scene is really clunky and on the nose, which is why it’s such a testament to Chris Pine and Ariana DeBose that it kinda…works? I don’t hate this scene. Magnifico takes Asha to see the wishes which are just blue globes floating around his room like globs of wax in a lava lamp. They both sing At All Costs which is a kind of a…love song? I guess? Magnifico and Asha sing to the wishes how they’ll never let anything bad happen to them. I’m kinda conflicted on this one because the melody is actually quite nice and both Pine and DeBose are really selling the fuck out of it. But the lyrics are just…weird. This movie does not deal well with words, lemme tell ya.

So, Magnifico, no doubt glad to find an apprentice he can harmonise with, offers Asha the job. Asha wastes no time abusing her position and asks Magnifico to grant her grandfather’s wish.

“Remember kids, using a position in government to enrich yourself and your family at the expense of your fellow citizens is just something everyone does.”

Magnifico is (quite understandably) hurt at this sudden, immediate cashing in on her newfound power and influence but agrees to take a look at Sabino’s wish. He says that Sabino’s wish, “to inspire the next generation” is simply too vague and therefore dangerous. Uh…I’m sorry, am I supposed to think that Magnifico is wrong here? Ask yourself, how many stories have you seen where a vaguely worded wish leads to disaster? Fuck, how many wish stories have you seen where a poorly worded wish doesn’t have have some kind of terrible repercussion for the wisher?

As Magnifico points out “inspire the next generation” could mean LITERALLY ANYTHING.

You know who inspired the next generation? HITLER.

Magnifico tells Asha that’s a hard pass and she is shocked to realise that most of the wishes will never be granted.

Asha. Sweetie. You know this. You HAVE to know this. You…you told us that. You said Magnifico chooses which wishes to grant which obviously implies that there are wishes that he does not choose to grant.

And look at all these!

More people are coming to the kingdom every day. He’s granting TWELVE A YEAR. You HAVE to know that he’s not going to grant all of them. EVERYONE HAS TO KNOW THAT. THIS SYSTEM MAKES NO SENSE OTHERWISE.

This system makes no sense anyway, but this is the part that is pertinent for our current discussion. Getting back to the lottery analogy, Asha’s basically showed up to work and is horrified to learn that not everyone that plays a scratch-card wins. HOW did you not get this? The ceremony happens and, obviously, Magnifico does not grant Sabino’s wish and tells Asha that she didn’t get the job. At dinner, Asha tells her grand-father that she saw his wish and that it was beautiful but that it’ll never be granted. And Sabino stands up and says “are you trying to break my heart, child?!” and what the fuck is this shot?!

Look, I didn’t go to film school. I know practically nothing about cinematography and even I know this shot is wrong. This is a big, emotional beat and look at this. Medium distance, Sabino is facing sideways so we’re missing half his face, Asha and her mother are clustered close together so the weight of our focus is pulled away from Sabino onto them and there’s a metric shit ton of dead space on the other side. You hear that sound? It’s Stanley Kubrick puking in rage inside his coffin.

Asha runs out into the lush, green forest which looks about as authentically Mediterranean as Björk and we get our “I Want” song, So I Make This Wish, which is a real pretty song if you don’t speak English as a first language.

Disney? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but stop trying to remind me of Pocahontas. Because I genuinely would rather be watching Pocahontas. You degrade us both.

Look, you’ve already had the “throw caution to every warning sign” line mocked from here to buggery, you don’t need me for that. Asha sees a star and makes a wish and it crashes into Earth, incinerating all life on the planet.

Hah.

If only.

The townspeople are delighted by the light of the star coming to Earth but Magnifico notices that all the wishes are getting skittish and says “I believe I’ve been threatened” like the sky just pulled a shiv on him or something.

In the forest, discovers that the star has actually come down to Earth and has taken a form seemingly tailor-made to sell plushies.

Fuck. Every. Damn. Thing.

So Star starts flying around and shedding flakes of star-dandruff any which way and all the animals and plants start eating it and become sentient and start talking. Wait a minute, I’ve seen this before.

Valentino starts talking and is now voiced by Alan Tudyk doing what I think is supposed to be an impression of Patrick Stewart. Oh, wanna know a little fun bit of trivia? Traditionally, many Disney sidekick characters start off in conception as having a posh British accent. Iago had one, Sebastian had one. So i usually take it as a bad sign when a supporting sidekick still has a British accent in the final film. Kinda screams that they half-assed it. The newly ensouled animals then sing I’m a Star, which, ironically, would get anyone singing it booted off You’re A Star. At the end of the song we learn that two of the animals, a bear and a stag, are named “John” and “Bambi”. Okay, stop.

So about the references. I’ll admit, there is a kind of “Where’s Wally?”-esque fun to be had in spotting what movies are being referenced but here’s why it backfires. Wish, which ostensibly is supposed to be a celebration of the last century of Disney, does not feel like a Disney movie. It’s got none of the charm, none of the darkness, none of the heart, nothing. It feels more like a high-end CGI ad for a mobile game than Snow White. To the point where the constant Disney references actually feel less like paying homage than the movie saying “this is actually a Disney movie. Did you forget? Don’t worry, there’ll be another reminder in like two minutes”.

Asha asks Star if it grants wishes and apparently it doesn’t even though we just saw it grant Valentino’s wish to talk so what even the fuck? Asha fills Star in on the whole deal with Magnifico and the wishes and Star apparently suggests that she just steals the wishes back. Well, actually, we just kind of have Asha’s word on that. As far as we the audience are aware, Star just flies around and stares at Asha with the gormless blank gaze of a cereal mascot. I think it’s entirely possible that Asha is just projecting her secret desires onto this barely sentient glob of space goo.

“What’s that? I should steal the wishes back? And take all their money? And kill them all? And do WHAT to the corpses? Oh, I couldn’t do that. Then again, if YOU say it’s okay…”

Asha sneaks into the palace with Valentino and Star. Star has knitted some yarn into a little outfit and starts shimmying around in it and Valentino says “thank you, I feel seen”.

Okay. Bring out the wall of shame.

“When you use a bird to write it’s called tweeting.”“What can I say? Bling is my thing.”“Thank you. I feel seen.”

Okay, do you know what I would do if was put in charge of Disney Animation? Have a nervous breakdown and run it into the ground, obviously. But before that, I would put a massive fucking sign over the door. And it would read:

YOU ARE NOT COOL. YOU ARE CLASSIC.

Disney should not be chasing trends or trying to appeal to “the youth”. Disney should be trying to make movies that kids will still be watching A CENTURY from now. Movies that are timeless, and universal and that don’t age.

Asha recruits the seven teens to help her and sneaks into Magnifico’s study and manages to steal Sabino’s wish. Magnifico summons the townspeople to see if anyone knows anything about the lights in the sky and gets so enraged by people asking about their wishes that he storms back into his study singing This Is The Thanks I Get, our first Honest to God villain song since Mother Knows Best all the way back in Tangled.**

And I’ll confess, that hook is catchy as hell. But this is still a terrible villain song. There’s no menace. There’s no camp. It actually feels more like a hero song. And I suppose you could say it’s a clever subversion because Magnifico is the hero of his own story. You could say that. And I would reply: SHUT UP.

I don’t want a clever subversion. I want THIS.

THIS IS WHAT I WANT.

Am I crazy? Do none of you remember how good we had it? DO NONE OF YOU SEE HOW FAR WE HAVE FALLEN!?

“Sweetie? You promised me you would take your meds.”“I TOOK THEM ALL!”

Magnifico finally cracks open the evil book of mysterious evil and is consumed by the raw power of its pure malevolence.

This is why we don’t trust BookTok recommendations.

Asha returns home and gives Sabino his wish back and he’s delighted. Magnifico rolls up to the house and tells Asha that somebody ratted her out and demands that she hand over Star. He also destroys Sakina’s wish right in front of her and draws more power from it. With Star’s help they flee and escape.

Meanwhile, Magnifico forges a new staff by destroying three wishes, including the one belonging to the lady who wishes to fly and spends literally every hour of every day by the fountain looking at birds.

This lady does not need a wish. She needs therapy.

Magnifico blames this wish-murder on Asha and tells the people that she must be brought to justice. He then reveals who betrayed her and it turns out it was Simon O’Donoghue, the Sleepy of the Seven Teens?

Apparently he’s scum?

As a reward, Simon gets his wish granted, which is to be a Knight of Rosas (I didn’t realise the recruitment standards were so strict that you have to resort to literal divine intervention to be allowed to hold a pike but what do I know?). Magnifico then takes complete control of Simon who promptly rats out the rest of the teens who have to go into hiding. Asha tracks them down and we get our next song Knowing What I Know Now it is hot trash moving on. The Queen shows up and is all “oh woe is me, my husband the King is gone mad with power if only some helpful peasants could remove him so that I could rule and be…nice.”

Working together, they hatch a plan to free all the wishes. Asha confronts Magnifico on the roof of the palace where he’s trying to absorb all the power from the wishes. Magnifico is far too powerful for her, but Asha leads the people of Rosas in a sing-along that channels the power of friendship and they all wish on the stars that they are and…I dunno, do the Care Bear countdown or some shit. Their combined power draws their wishes out of Magnifico who then gets sucked into the mirror on his own staff.

The people celebrate Amaya becoming the new Queen, and she is noticeably chill about the love of her life having succumbed to evil magic and now being trapped in a mirror for all eternity. Obviously, we can see where this couple is headed.

And movie ends with Asha becoming a fairy godmother complete with wand and blue cloak. We then get a credits sequence that supposedly references ever canon movie but which makes some rather fascinating omissions. So, apparently, the movies that Disney has black-bagged like Stalin tidying up old party comrades are:

Saludos Amigos.

The Three Caballeros.

Make Mine Music

Fun and Fancy Free

The Rescuers

The Black Cauldron

The Rescuers Down Under (Fucking WHAT?)

Meet the Robinsons

Winnie the Pooh

Ralph Breaks the Internet

Frozen 2

Which, okay, I understand leaving out sequels and the package films have never got no respect, no change there. But Cauldron? Robinsons? The entire Rescuers saga? What the hell?

Anyway, we then get an after credits sequence of Sabino setting out to write a song that will inspire the next generation which we learn is When You Wish Upon a Star.

That’s right. We were watching the origin story for a FUCKING SONG.

I can’t wait to find out if Nick Fury will ask the song to join the Avengers.

***

So before anyone accuses me of “jumping on the bandwagon” keep in mind this movie came out half a year ago. All the furore has died down by now and I didn’t even pay attention to most of the reviews at the time. I have heard people tell me this movie is nowhere near as bad as its reputation and I purposefully went in with as open a mind as I could.

This movie not only failed to rise to expectations, it tunnelled under them like Bugs Bunny on his way to a carrot convention. In fact, it quickly became apparent to me that the question before me was one that I’ve not had to ask myself for over a decade:

Is this the worst one?

As in, did Disney actually manage to mark their centenary by creating the single worst movie in their 62 film animated feature canon?

Obviously, that would be a very bold claim to make and I wouldn’t make it lightly. So I set myself this test:

I would take my three lowest ranked Disney movies and see if I could find one scene in each of them that I would consider to be better than anything in Wish.

So, first up. Third from the bottom. Brother Bear. I chose the transformation scene.

Better than literally every scene in Wish?

Fuck yes. Hands down. No question. The music, the animation, the atmosphere. This is easily one of the worst animated films Disney made in 21st century and it is light-years ahead of Wish.

Next up. Home on the Range. Let’s go with the yodelling cattle rustling sequence.

My God. Lyrics that are witty and make sense. Bold and inventive use of colour. And what is this weird sensation? Fun? Is that what you call it?

Yeah, this is also better than Wish and I’m actually feeling nostalgic for goddamned Home on the Motherfucking Range.

Okay. Last stop. My personal bete noir. The canon movie that should never have been considered a canon movie. The unclean one. The Adversary. Dinosaur.

I guess I’ll go with…the asteroid scene.

Hmmmmm…

No. No. Sequences like At Any Cost just about manage to scrape enough fumes of Disney magic to make me prefer Wish over Dinosaur.

Congratulations, Wish. You stopped an inch above Hell itself.

Scoring

Animation: 12/20

Points for trying to shake things up. And maybe they’ll find a way to make this new style work. Right now though, it looks flat and kinda dull.

Lead: 04/20

Standard Disney quirky hero-girl type 24-b. Ariana DeBose is actually very strong but she’s given nothing here. The dialogue is something any actor would struggle to say, let alone elevate and the animation has a tendency to make Asha over-act hideously.

Villain: 04/20

Oh great. Disney are doing villains again.

Supporting Characters: 03/20

Hi ho. Hi Ho. It’s off to suck they go.

Music: 05/20

The melodies are passable but the lyrics are unforgivably awful.

FINAL SCORE: 28%

NEXT UPDATE: 23 May 2024

NEXT TIME: Okay Dreamworks, show ’em how it’s done.

*It’s not true. Probably. I’m like…68% certain it’s not true.

** Fine, Shiny might also qualify, we won’t fight.