Animation is very big at the movies this summer. Inside Out 2 is here now, Despicable Me 4 is coming in three weeks and the comparatively smaller, but no less noisy, Ultraman, just started on Netflix. It's got enough history to be dubbed "a world-wide phenomenon." You can read about it below, along with these:
Inside Out 2: 3 ½ stars
Ultraman Rising: 2 ½
Yintah: 4
Red Fever: 3
Kidnapped The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara: 4
INSIDE OUT 2: Nine years after the original, eight years after it won the Oscar for best animated film, here's more exploration of a child's emotions by Pixar. It's just as clever and feels even livelier but not as funny and, understandably, not as fresh. Partly that's because the format repeats: emotions in some sort of command center again control the moods of young Riley.
Last time she had been uprooted to a new city. This time she's entered puberty and you know how volatile that can be. Her feelings of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger are back, and are now accompanied by four new ones: Envy, Embarrassment, Ennui and most notably Anxiety. The film could have run wild with them but opts for restraint instead. Good. Riley's worries are typical, fitting in, being accepted. She's trying to get the hockey coach to notice her and take her on the team. She's becoming friends with a star player and has to choose between her and two old friends. She has one outburst, yelling at her mother, but generally is pretty calm. Except for that anxiety. It comes on to her repeatedly and makes her fear what could go wrong. Potentially there's a good life lesson there.
Kelsey Mann directed and co-wrote. Many of the voice actors repeat their roles, including Amy Poehler as Joy. Kensington Tallman is the new Riley and the standout voice actor is Maya Hawke as Anxiety, all gruff and acerbic, as should be. (In theaters) 3 ½ out of 5
ULTRAMAN: RISING: Also animated but far different is this Netflix presentation which has a hugely successful and long-running series behind it. It started on TV in Japan in 1966, spawned more series and then evolved into movies, comic books and other formats and grew into “An international pop-culture phenomenon.” The basic story idea is that an extra-terrestrial force helps humanity on earth fight off the many giant monsters (generically known as Kaiju) that threaten us. Sounds like Godzilla and all those other monsters that have come at us in the movies.
In this series Ultraman is there to save us. Rather reluctantly at first. He's a baseball player in Los Angeles, who returns to Tokyo and, because he has the ability to turn into the superhero, is compelled to become Ultraman. I didn't detect an extra-terrestrial assist though. He defeats Gigatron in one of the many robot-action, light-ray spouting, blasting sequences to come. (Created, incidentally, by Industrial Light and Magic in three of their locations including Vancouver).
And he's left holding an egg that hatches a creature that grows into a baby monster that breathes fire when it sneezes. And thinks that he's its mother.
They have to work together and avoid the government force, KDF (Kaiju Defence Force) which is after them. Its leader, Dr. Ondra, thinks the baby can show the way to Kaiju Island. Typical comic book stuff but as envisioned by director Shannon Tindle it has a strong family theme for which he drew on his own childhood. Distracted fathers and calls for balance are in there. (Netflix, also in two theaters right now: Montreal and Vancouver) 2½ out of 5
YINTAH: Of all the recent films by and about Indigenous people in Canada, this is easily the strongest. And the angriest. “You are invaders” is shouted at workers and RCMP members. Later: “You're trespassing. This is our land.” One of the wilder and surely questionable charges: the RCMP was created to drive people off their land. There's direct shaming of the officers. And the defiance is unmistakeable in this: “We are peaceful and we are unarmed. But we are powerful and we don't fear you.” Statements like that are said right face to face to Mounties by protesters trying to stop a pipeline project. Tsakë ze’ Howilhkat Freda Huson and Tsakë ze’ Sleydo’ Molly Wickham, both Witsuwit'en chiefs are prominent among them.
The film by Jennifer Wickham, Brenda Michell and Michael Toledano followed the opposition to the project in northern British Columbia for several years. The Witsuwit'en leaders co-operated with them and we get to see a series of blockades and stare-downs up close. As if we're standing right there. The pipe was built to carry natural gas to the coast for export. Justin Trudeau called it “the single largest private investment in the history of Canada.” He looks proud. The opponants laugh. The film doesn't explain all, the split between heredity and elected chiefs for instance, or that other bands have accepted pipelines. However you do get involved. You feel the protesters' commitment to the cause. Yintah is the traditional name for their territory. (In multiple theaters from now (Vancouver) to August (Quebec). 4 out of 5
RED FEVER: This is a quieter but no less effective film about Indigenous issues. I covered it when it played at two festivals a couple of months ago. It's now in regular theaters across the country. It's a recounting of what filmmaker Neil Diamond says is a fascination felt around the world with North American Indians. He travels far to find out why.
The noble warrior is a common image, revered by many, often abused by Hollywood. There are a lot of film clips from there, but not enough criticism, I'd say.
This film does go into matters far beyond that though, and becomes an essay on the history and status of North American natives in general. Did you imagine that the US Constitution was influenced by them? That the authors were copying the democracy they saw in the five nations confederacy in what is now New York. And that the Enlightenment in Europe drew on it too, even more than ancient Greece? As Gloria Steinem puts it: "The ideas for a working democracy weren't from Europe." The film goes on to state again that Indigenous people take care of the land, and have done so for thousands of years. It also says George Washington sent soldiers to burn native villages in a land grab. Not correct though, it says natives in British Columbia got fish farms shut down. Not yet. So, it's an interesting essay with lots of ideas and some weak spots. (In theaters) 3 out of 5
KIDNAPPED: THE ABDUCTION OF EDGARDO MORTARA: This is a terrifically engrossing film for two reasons. It's a beautiful period piece filmed in grand Italian locations and its story feels almost too strange to be true. But it did happen. The film is based on a book that recounts it all and Marco Bellocchio's lively direction keeps us rapt through the whole 2 ¼ densely-plotted hours. It's not perfect but is a fine introduction to an apparently famous but I think not widely-known story.
It happened in 1858 in Bologna, Italy. Police sent by the Pope's main representative in town burst into the home of a local merchant to take away one of his children. Edgardo it seems had been secretly baptized which, as the Pope explains, means that he is no longer Jewish. “A baptism cannot be annulled, “ he tells the father. “Your son is Christian for all eternity.” He's schooled in a Catholic institution and for a time tries to keep up his heritage by reciting Jewish prayers. Meanwhile his family gets nowhere appealing for his return, accuses a former nanny of performing the baptism when the boy was still a baby and waiting years to tell the church and thereby triggering the abduction. Those details come out in a court case.
It became a cause celebre and was followed as far away as the United States. The film tells it all, including the outcome, but is strongest in depicting the fight of the Jewish family against attacks on their faith. That will resonate. (In theaters in Toronto and Vancouver) 4 out of 5
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