By now, we have all seen or heard that AMC puts up signs asking people to refrain from singing while watching Wicked. We all got a laugh out of this, and time rolled on. Now, during Moana 2’s UK premier, Dwyane Johnson had to enter the fray. “You’ve paid your hard-earned money for a ticket, and you’ve gone into a musical, and you’re into it. Sing,” he said. “Especially if you love music, that’s the fun part.” I respect his opinion, but he is so far off. Watching a movie can be a wonderful thing, but much like a long car ride, singing by those around you can ruin the experience. We have sing-along showings for these musicals, so there is a place for all of that. Not everybody is a broadway level singer, so subjecting everyone to those less than melodious noises is no better than talking on the phone or having conversations during the film. It’s just distracting. This concludes another edition of me screaming into the void about things not important. On to the reviews!
This was a very interesting film to watch. The film is about an FBI agent going after a white supremacy group in the Pacific Northwest called The Order. This group in the 1980’s would get their funding through robberies, and would start by placing bombs in porn theaters, but would escalate to assassinations and possible coups. Our FBI agent we are following is played by Jude Law, and he is fine here. He plays this in a sensible way, but his character is also coming off a traumatic incident that caused him to go somewhere he thought was quieter. What ruins that is his discovery of The Order, and their leader Bob Matthew’s, played by Nicholas Hoult. Hoult is the one in this that makes it worth watching. He is so great in this saying some awful things. A big part of this is tying the Turner Diaries to the Orders actions. While that made sense since that book is the basis of The Order and their plans, what I thought was tacked on the end unnecessarily was tying that book to the January 6th incident. Didn’t really need an opinion added to something rooted in fact, but it is what it is.
I am a child of the 90’s, so the Disney Renaissance was a big thing for me. However, after Tarzan, the House of Mouse lost it a bit there. It wasn’t until (save Princess and the Frog in 2009) Wreck-It Ralph in 2012 that the hits started rolling out again. We had Frozen, Zootopia, Encanto, and Moana. Since those are all hits, the sequel monster came for them, much like it did for nearly all the previous animated films at the studio (that is a different post here all together). Wreck-It Ralph and Frozen both got theirs in 2018 and 2019, respectively, but the monster comes for everyone eventually. Thus, we have Moana 2 now. Here is the thing with a majority of the Disney animated sequels: they are inferior to the original. Unfortunately, Moana 2 joins that club. It’s not to say this is a bad movie at all. It just is so much less than the 2016 film in nearly every way. The plot is very simple with very few side stories. We do have a interesting secondary “villain” in Matangi, she wasn’t nearly as fun as the shiny Tamatoa in the original. As for the main antagonist, it isn’t really a good comparison. Where in Moana, we had Te Fiti and that really nice wrap to the story, here we get Nalo, who only shows up as a giant storm. It’s kind of a let down when you see in a mid-credits scene that he does have a physical state. Why not show in that in the actual movie?
It’s a Disney film, so you know there will be songs, and while the original had songs written in part by Lin-Manuel Miranda, he is not part of the sequel. What you are left with is a set of songs in the sequel that want so bad to be like the original ones, but they just aren’t. Moana’s I Want song in this is not “How Far I’ll Go”, Maui’s song in this isn’t “Your Welcome”, and as much as I do like Matangi’s song “Get Lost”, I doubt I will ever listen to it as much as “Shiny”. We also didn’t get a lot of added character development we sometimes get in a sequel. This just seemed like another adventure, which kind of makes sense when you know this was originally going to be Disney+ series until Disney saw dollar signs.
I know all of that was a lot of negatives, but there is big positive that makes up for a lot of that. This film looks amazing. The animation that was done for this is simply something to behold. As we progress in the genre, it is really special to see how animation can continue to get better and better. Also, this movie is clearly for kids, and not for a 30-something seeing it by himself. I know the audience, and I’m not it, so this will play very well for the kids, and for years to come on Disney+, so parents prepare for that now. With Moana succumbing to the sequel monster, it now sets it sights for Zootopia next Thanksgiving. There is another Disney monster coming for Moana though next year: the live-action adaptation.
An adaption of a 1987 play by August Wilson, this is about a family and the discussion about a piano that is a family heirloom of sorts. Said piano was owner by their ancestor’s slave owner, but the piano was carved by their ancestor. It was stolen years later by the family we are following, but when we get into the story, there is something wrong with the piano. I won’t get into that here. With this being a play, you can really see it as such with some of the monologues that are said. John David Washington, who is playing the son who wants to sell the piano to buy land, at points is playing his character like he is on the stage. Samuel L Jackson plays their father and he is given the least to do here. This is more of a story between his children. Michael Potts and Ray Fisher are really good in this, but it’s Danielle Deadwyler is the best one in this. She is the one who has the most to do, especially in the third act. She is in discussions surrounding Best Supporting, and after the 2022 To Leslie debacle, I bet she gets a nomination this year.
As we begin the final month of 2024, there isn’t a lot that will stop Moana or Wicked. I see those two running things for a couple weeks longer still.
- Moana 2
- Wicked
- Gladiator 2
- Y2K
- Red One
We now venture into the holiday season with right now a trio of horror films. What a great way to ring in the season.
Mitten Film Nerd 
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