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This has been a tremendous year for animated films. The best ever, according to one site I read. Think of the titles: The Wild Robot, Ultraman: Rising, Flow, Inside Out 2 (the highest-grossing ever) and two that I review today. All in one year. This is not kid stuff.
There's also courtroom drama and equal rights for black women on the list today.
Mufasa: The Lion King: 4 stars
Wallace & Gromit Vengeance Most Fowl: 3 ½
Juror #2: 3
Bird: 4
The Six Triple Eight: 3 ½
MUFASA: THE LION KING: I haven’t seen all the re-makes and spin-offs Disney has made from The Lion King, its huge hit of exactly 30 years ago. So I can’t say whether this one is better or worse or even if it was needed. I did find it beautiful though, done in tremendous computer animation and carrying an enthralling story along with some brutal animal action. Credit Barry Jenkins for much of that. He won an Academy Award for Moonlight, a film with a completely different feel and narrative. This story has the same arc as Wicked and the recent Transformers movie, childhood friends who become enemies.
It gives some of the background to the original film, how the king and Scar came to fight each other. As a young lion, Mustafa (Aaron Pierre) is separated from his family, washed downriver and adopted by a lion family whose leader doesn’t want him; calls him a stray. He warns his son, Taka (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), that he’ll only betray him. That does seem likely when they connect with a young lioness and Taka is jealous at Mustafa’s interest in her. And fears he might replace him as prince of his pride. We get the story in flashback as it’s related by Rafiki while Timon and Pumbaa (Seth Rogen) crack jokes. All three are back from the original film.
When a gang of white lions attack (Mads Mikkelsen voices the leader) Taka is invited to join them. That fuels the enmity again. Snarling battles ensue, one in an avalanche. The look is so photorealistic you might doubt it’s animation. The animals look like they’re expressing real feelings. The songs are hit and miss doing. Focus on the remarkable animation instead. (In theaters) 4 out of 5
WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL: The very funny British humor and artful claymation are back and as enjoyable as ever. And this is a sequel, not to a full-length film, but a short in which Feathers McGraw went to jail for stealing a huge diamond. He’s the one seeking revenge, manages to escape prison and comes after Wallace and his trusty dog.
Wallace has been inventing again and has produced a gnome that once activated can do garden chores. He’ll cut the hedge, mow the lawn and anything else. He’s not an artist, just a straight-cutter. Well, before you know it he’s on the TV news, Feathers is watching, escapes and a whole army of gnomes is produced and marching. There’s a boat cruise, Feathers is disguised as a nun (who would imagine she’s a criminal), a police chief double checks that the diamond is properly locked away in a vault and well, what can go wrong, someone asks? Havoc, that’s what. And great fun, co-written and co-directed by 4-time Oscar winner Nick Park. (Select theaters now; on Netflix next month) 3 ½ out of 5
JUROR #2: Clint Eastwood delivers another of his sharp, edgy dramas and at his age (86) too. It’s a captivating watch though, energetic, engrossing, even if it has two story problems. One is an improbable premise; the other is an improbable solution. Get around that and you’ll be rapt up in it.
The premise is that a young man (wife about to give birth) is called to jury duty in a murder trial. The problem is that he (Nicholas Hoult) knows more than he lets on about the case (no spoiler about what that is). There’s rising tension as he tries to keep it secret as the case is heard in court (Toni Collette, as the prosecutor, Chris Messina, as the defending lawyer) and discussed in the jury room. There the absolute trial protocol is broken. One of the jurors (J.K. Simmons), a former police detective, does his own investigation. He senses from Juror #2 that there’s some doubt in what looks like a clear-cut case. The prosecutor does her own sleuthing too and then fast and almost accidentally finds the answer. Like a true crime drama, it works anyway. (Streaming on CRAVE) 3 out of 5
BIRD: Marginalized people and are in Andrea Arnold’s writing and directing sightline again and as is usual with her the probe is humanistic, captivating and imbued with social realism. And a positive end. It’s set in the Kent area of England, where she is from, and brings us 12-year-old Bailey who wants to escape the grim graffiti-spattered neighborhood where she lives and where her father, named Bug and played well-down market by Barry Keoghan, pretty well disregards her. She’s looking for adventure. “Mom said I was born looking for trouble,” she says. What she finds is more mysterious than that, a man who dances as he walks and calls himself Bird. He’s played by the fine German actor Franz Rogowski.
Bailey sees him again standing on the edge of a roof, not to jump, but what for? She goes up to ask and gets a somber story. He wants to see the land from up high; he used to live here and wants to find out why he was sent away. Baily offers to help him and they go off searching for anyone who remembers his parents. All this while her derelict dad is about to get married again and a horrible man is over at her mother’s house, in bed with her. It’s a gritty study of this one level of society. It veers occasionally into magic realism and tosses in a lively Cotton Eyed Joe at a dance party and a song that says repeatedly “It really really could happen.” Despite it all, it’s a buoyant film. (Streaming at MUBI) 4 out of 5
THE SIX TRIPLE EIGHT: True story: (Michele Obama honored a couple of these women and Fort Bragg was renamed after two others) but who of us had ever heard of it? That's one plus for Tyler Perry's latest film: learning the history. Solid acting and crisp direction are two others.
The 6889 was an American army battalion in World War II, the only one made up exclusively of Black women. Or Negroes, as this old-style film refers to them all the way through. Like this newspaper headline: "Negro women not fit to serve" which the film works hard to disprove. There's a lot of talk about the women's disadvantages in white society. And scenes of condescension by white officers. One eventually leads to a rousing scene as the battalion leader (Kerry Washington) stands up to a gruff Gen. Halt (Dean Norris).
The assignment these women got in Europe was nowhere near the fighting. It was to clear up a huge backlog of mail. For the good of morale, their leader argued, and "to represent the Negroes of America." When she faced the mean-spirited General she refused to step aside ("Over my dead body"). Big shock but good. We’d heard a number of personal stories, notably about Lina (played by Ebony Obsidian) who had felt discrimination and was grieving a loss. Sam Waterston and Susan Sarandon appear briefly as FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt and Oprah Winfrey has a cameo as a racial equality activist. This film is obvious but satisfying. (Netflix) 3½ out of 5
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