Zootopia 2 (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

After almost a decade (wow, that hurt to say), Disney takes us back to the wonderful world of Zootopia with a rambunctious and highly entertaining follow-up to their 2016 hit. There's not much for me to say here, so this will be brief.

Arguably funnier than the first film, Zootopia 2 launches at breakneck speed and barely lets up. For those of you who have some trouble with the speed of animated films these days, be warned, because this one is a doozy. It's hard to understand the story when you're trying to understand the dialogue while processing visual gags and appreciating voice acting, an evocative score, and everything else the filmmakers are throwing at us. And you can tell the material is there for fans who will rewatch at home, with subtitles and the ability to pause, because some of the jokes are brilliant. Disney has its usual cleverness on full display here in turning familiar IPs, places, services, and archetypes into animal versions, often merely providing set dressing and background curiosities to the scenes. A compiled list of all the punny advertisements and products and channels included in this film would probably be longer than the screenplay itself.

And this is what makes Zootopia one of Disney's best stories from the last decade: its determination to speak to our contemporary world through the eyes of anthropomorphized animals. Like its predecessor, this film functions as a sort of primer for civics, a lesson about community-building and the pursuit of justice in an overwhelming and chaotic world often hostile to those goals. Kids will appreciate the unlikely friendship of its protagonists and the example they provide regarding how trust and forgiveness can be practiced and built. Adults may find meatier morals in its dissection of the interplay between vast wealth and city planning, with all the political and commercial consequences that implies. It's all here, in a palatable, fast-paced adventurous romp through various urban biomes in a fantasy world.

More importantly, the story's theming (like Frozen 2, among others) stems from its interest in roots. What happened, in the past, to make things the way they are now? The first film dealt with this too, though to a slightly lesser degree. In this sequel, Judy and Nick again must uncover a conspiracy and plot; the first time, it was about prejudice and injustice being weaponized by political leaders and law enforcement, but this time, it's about founding fathers and oligarchs hiding the truth of their ill-gotten wealth and status. Hinging on concerns about the "haves" and "have-nots," the story showcases how propaganda becomes less visible when it's enshrined as history by those it benefits. Silenced voices, in these situations, are the crucial ones needed to effect justice.

I eagerly await a rewatch of this film. First, I was awed by its visual imagination and creative riffs on everything from YouTube (EweTube, if I recall correctly) to a massive water Tube that functions like the nominally linked London Underground yet could prove dangerous to mammals trying to drift to other parts of the metropolis. But as the film continued, I admit to having found myself lost among its rather complicated plot. It helps you understand the most important bits -- and rehashes some of its finer points as you continue, keeping you up to speed on anything of comprehensive necessity -- but as a sort of mystery, it bears further consideration. Thankfully, with its post-credits scene, the film itself suggests that another installment is coming; I certainly hope that is the case, though I hope they go in a slightly different direction with it (though each film so far has dealt with what we might call racism and ethnic prejudice regarding predators/prey and reptiles, and the next may as well with birds) to avoid a rinse-and-repeat scaffolded approach.

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

Score: 3 / 5

Seemingly taking some inspiration from To Kill a Mockingbird, this source material was destined for the big screen. Where the Crawdads Sing has been on just about every best-seller list and book club list since it was released in 2018, and then Reese Witherspoon and Taylor Swift got involved with the film adaptation. I haven't read the novel yet, but the film is a strange hybrid between two storytelling traditions: the first, as I mentioned, is a kind of courtroom mystery-drama in the vein of Harper Lee's masterpiece, and the second is the sort of location-based romantic shlock that made Nicholas Sparks famous. It wouldn't have bothered me so much except that director Olivia Newman (in her second feature after Netflix's First Match) and her team seem intent on making the film also look like a Sparks adaptation rather than just feel like one. Some people will like the aesthetic; I find it repugnant.

In October 1969, in the marshy coves of the North Carolina coast, some kids discover the dead body of Chase Andrews, a young local man held in high esteem due to his family's money and his celebrity turn as high school quarterback. Authorities immediately come to arrest Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones, really breaking out this year in this and Under the Banner of Heaven), a young woman living alone in a shack in the swamp, known pejoratively as the "marsh girl." She's a little rough around the edges, you might say, or perhaps boggy, keeping mostly quiet in her cell, even when a benevolent lawyer (David Straithairn, in the kind of role he's made a career of mastering) comes to offer his help. He's a thoughtful, reserved Atticus Finch figure, coming out of retirement to help the outsider from becoming the local scapegoat. Even when it's frustrating that his defendant won't open up to him.

We launch back and forth in time throughout the two-hour film, experiencing various testimonies and defense strategies in and around the courtroom in '69/'70 just as we learn all about Kya's past, starting with her childhood almost twenty years prior. Her abusive, alcoholic father drove her mother away and then each of her siblings until only Kya was left alone at the age of seven when her father, too, disappeared. The child harvests mussels from the marsh and sells them to the only kindly people she knows, an older Black couple (Sterling Macer Jr. and Michael Hyatt) who run the convenience store and give her helpful advice and gifts. Kya tries to go to school but flees almost immediately. Jojo Regina plays Kya at this age, and she's utterly incredible to behold; these scenes are perhaps the film's most emotionally resounding, even if they do smack of poverty porn.

Speaking of which, screenwriter Lucy Alibar certainly had her job cut out for her in terms of adapting the beloved text. Her only previous work I've seen is the original Beasts of the Southern Wild, with which this story shares several similarities. Unfortunately, due to the nature of a courtroom drama and the source material, Alibar is forced to jump back and forth in time; I'm not entirely sure if it's her or Newman that makes this process laborious, but almost every time we jumped I lost any sense of momentum in the story. It starts to feel inevitable rather than exciting or revelatory. Maybe it's partly cinematographer Polly Morgan (A Quiet Place Part II and upcoming The Woman King), who douses everything in warm amber lights (or faded blues at night) so that different scenes are visually interchangeable. But her intense efforts to bring the ethereal, complex beauty of the marshes onto the screen are indisputable, so I don't want to harp on that. Maybe it's Mychael Danna's very pretty score, which doesn't seem to differentiate between time periods. Regardless, another viewing would see me focus my attention on the screenplay and direction for answers to why the jumps were so jarring, as I'm not even convinced it is really the editing at fault (as one would typically assume), though upon some research, the editor for this is Alan Edward Bell of The Hunger Games movies, and some of the editing in those was a bit jarring as well.

Edgar-Jones takes over as Kya before long, and her performance is really rather wonderful. But then the Sparks-esque storyline pops in, as she is courted first by the angelic Tate (Taylor John Smith of Sharp Objects), who befriended her in childhood and has since taught her to read and write. They're just perfect together -- he even stops their burgeoning love from becoming sexual until he can ensure their life together will be what they both need it to be -- until he leaves for college. In Tate's absence, which remains quite uncomfortably unexplained, Kya is courted by the eventually ill-fated Chase. His interactions with her are perhaps the best feature of the screenplay and the best acting in the film from both Edgar-Jones and actor Harris Dickinson (Beach Rats, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, The King's Man). He's arrogant and entitled, pushy and even occasionally bullying, and it's clear almost from the start that he's bad news; the casting is especially interesting because the two suitors look so similar that they could be Hitchcockian doubles.

The climax and denouement and ultimate twist of a solution are all quite wonderful in theory, and I was completely gobsmacked by the ending. It's too bad the filmmakers squished so much of the most exciting parts of the story into the last thirty minutes or so; after such an ominous opening act and several red herrings and significant clues early on, most of the film wallows in a sort of melancholic "which guy should I pick" mentality for Kya, who is much more fascinating than that characterization allows. Edgar-Jones is at her best when she's alone, watching the horizon and drawing her magnificent pictures of wildlife; she also does really well when interacting with the townsfolk, awkward as the interactions are. She should be brave and unpredictable, much like her home, but the film is so conventional and tired in its approach to her story that much of her raw power is diminished by the presentation. I wish the filmmakers had taken the story to the titular place beyond the reach of norms and expectations and let her shine the way she clearly deserves.

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Score: 5 / 5

I'm embarrassed to admit I knew nothing of the William Lindsay Gresham novel on which this movie is based, nor on the 1947 film adaptation. But that perhaps made watching this Nightmare Alley the most darkly pleasurable cinematic experience this year. Despite gauging early on that this was no typical fare from writer/director Guillermo del Toro, whose work always seems to include elements of the supernatural to buttress his real aims of skewering wealth, the pious, nuclear families, and genre conventions, it became clear quickly that this is one of his best. There are no fairies or ghosts in this film, at least not literal ones; Nightmare Alley is his astonishing foray into film noir, a crime thriller dripping with style, hinging on plot, and toying with no small amount of irony.

While the ending initially surprised me, it shouldn't have. Without spoiling things, del Toro here crafts a parable about the cyclical nature of self-destructive behavior. Primarily interested in his antihero protagonist, Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper at his best), del Toro frames the film as a character study. Generally nonverbal, Stan leers his way through each scene with Macbeth's ambition glinting from his hungry eyes. Before he says any words at all, we've already seen him drag a corpse into view before setting a house on fire; fleeing the scene, he materializes in a circus circa 1930. Think AHS: Freak Show with a distinctly Gothic palette. Upon seeing the carnival "geek," a feral man who has been abused and dehumanized by the owner (Willem Dafoe) to sell more tickets, Stan gets the itch to make money with this traveling group.

Del Toro, by this point, has shown us a world rich only in desperation, selfishness, and violence. We're keenly aware that Stan's decisions -- mysterious as his criminal past is -- are entrapping him, and we suspect that he is a little masochistic. It's telling that, in walking through the circus before encountering the geek, the only attraction he enters is a giant devilish facade for a "fun house" themed after the circles of hell. It seems Stan knows he is destined for damnation. What he doesn't know, and what del Toro brilliantly highlights through production design, lighting and colors, and cinematography (the excellent Dan Laustsen), is that he is seeing his own future unfold before his eyes. The circus, much like the as-yet-unknown interiors of Stan's mind, is a downward spiral, one that will repeat and deteriorate until he is hopelessly enmeshed in a web of his own making.

Speaking of spidery predators, let's move on to a few other delightful characters. After learning the arts (and tricks) of mentalism from the circus fortune-tellers, Zeena (Toni Collette) and her partner Pete (David Straithairn) who use a clever code to read and cheat people, Stan desires power over the simple-minded masses. Courting another carny named Molly (Rooney Mara) as his lover and assistant, Stan leaves to make a name for himself as a traveling psychic. When things get a little boring or he's not raking in enough money, he starts offering "spook shows," meaning preying on the bereaved and suggesting ghosts of their loved ones mean to communicate. He was forbidden to do this by Zeena, who knew the emotional pain this can cause, and Molly is deeply uncomfortable with the practice too. But Stan, in Cooper's hands, uses his charm and panache just enough to make us doubt that he's a heartless, avaricious wolf in handsome skin. Could his daddy issues -- flashbacks reveal his boyish need for approval and his earnest hope to succeed at any cost -- be sincere, or did they create a black hole of sociopathy?

Enter Dr. Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a psychologist with no small amount of hatred for those who prey on the weak-minded, just as Stan reaches the height of "making it big" in Buffalo, New York. His high society aspirations -- and his disgusting new moustache -- are challenged publicly by the deep alto and satin-sleek woman of his dreams. From her introductory shot, we are keenly aware that she is a standard femme fatale. As written, she's a panther stalking the man she will destroy; in Blanchett's uncommonly intelligent and elegant style, she's a demon in curls and heels, knowingly disarming in her every movement and turn of phrase. As she lures Stan into her sanctum, she vampirically sucks him dry, romantically, sexually, cognitively; his masochistic tendencies make him feel drunk with power in these moments, but we know it's only a matter of time before the good doctor's fangs are bared. It's a masterful performance and one of the most exciting characters on screen this year.

Laustsen's lighting has the uncanny glow of timelessness, a youthful aura that is deeply unsettling as it de-ages its subjects. I'd kill to see this movie in black and white, if only to better appreciate the noir aspects: deep, opaque shadows, sets that feel more like prisons than offices or houses, shades that frame characters like bars on a cell or cages in a zoo. Then again, the gorgeous colors -- strong especially in gold and green hues, the colors of money -- add immensely to the toxic atmosphere and beguiling nightmarish aesthetic. The circular imagery is inherent too repeatedly, from the giant Ferris wheel over the circus to the funhouse tunnel Stan traverses to reach the geek, from the dark and narrow streets of Buffalo to Dr. Ritter's recording cylinders and even the deep hallways of her office building. Even some transitional editing uses old-fashioned iris out before a scene ends. And then, by its final tragic shot, the film suggests to us that we are not so removed from this waking nightmare as we might have hoped. Del Toro's craftsmanship here is one that will keep you thinking long after the credits have rolled; a nightmare indeed.

Nomadland (2021)

 Score: 3 / 5

The problem for me is that it's so boring. I felt similarly about First Cow and Roma, though I only actively hated the latter of those. And I certainly found this movie more interesting, more engaging, and more satisfying than the former. "Slice of life" movies can be important, and Nomadland arguably fits the bill for that distinction. Quiet chamber pieces reflecting on lives on the edge of civilization can be nice, though I prefer horror movies to Wild or Land or similar Oscarbait, which is what this flick certainly is. While its star is digging deep into herself to carry this movie, the rest of it feels voyeuristic and transitory, largely inconsequential despite the growing movement it seeks to unveil and the increasing need for legal and political aid for people forced into this lifestyle.

What lifestyle? That of a nomad, of course. Frances McDormand plays Fern -- although I don't know why they didn't just call her Fran in accordance with the cinema verite style of this picture -- who loses everything. Actually, you could rightfully say everything has been taken from her, as the film's beginning describes how once the manufacturing plant in rural Nevada closed, the town quickly became a ghost town. In half a year, its zip code was eliminated. It was the company that employed Fern and her late husband for many years, so she sells everything and buys a van as her home. Quite alone, she hits the road in pursuit of seasonal work in the wide plans of the American West. Typical for movies starring McDormand -- is it her talent that shines through, or her choice of roles, or a result of rare, brilliant typecasting -- the film focuses tightly on an unusual kind of person for movie subjects. More importantly, given the increasing polarization of wage gaps in this country, this movie is at once fiercely political and hauntingly poetic.

During her travels across sometimes bleak, often deserted landscapes, Fern connects occasionally with a community of nomads. That is to say, with communities of nomads, sometimes finding familiar faces at seemingly random sites and often making new friends. And while the people seem to know they may never meet again, their interactions are not shallow. Sometimes they barely talk, if their business with each other is transactional: bartering for goods, networking for jobs, offering advice on living well out of your vehicle. But as they sit by a fire, share canisters of water and pots of food, conversation dives much deeper than casual small talk. These people know how to really connect with strangers in ways most of us living in towns and cities, attached to social media, with filled schedules and no room for adjustment will never understand.

This came across to me quite clearly as a result of the film's unflinching desire to understand Fern's adopted (or forced) lifestyle. She seems to drift at times, and at other times her drive is infectious. She's often alone but doesn't seem to deserve pity. Though she's of course sad, about many things, she rarely shows it, preferring to simply live the life she's determined to eke out. Director and writer Chloe Zhao has no interest in forcing this character into dramatic tumult or stretching an otherwise honest portrayal into sensationalism. It's an exercise in empathy, and so it is only fitting that McDormand -- even more nuanced than usual, which is extraordinary -- is her star. She always imbues her briefest of scenes with history and pain and curiosity and strength, but with the slightest of looks; it's calculated, make no mistake, but so are the many ways she counters any ingrained attempt to "act" or, heaven forfend, overact. People will call her performance raw and earthy, but that's not to say it isn't stunningly smart.

I do wonder, though, how much (if any) of the film was unscripted. So many of Fern's interactions with fellow nomads feel improvised. Not in a showy way, but truly unrehearsed and perhaps unwritten. Knowing that many people filmed are actual nomads, not actors, increases my suspicions. Apart from that, though, is the beautiful weight these people add to what must be the film's primary conceit: a simple reminder of how large and wide our country is, and how many people live and work in places we often forget make up a huge swath of our geography. Each of these people, like Fern, have a story to tell, probably many, and how few of them are heard any measurable distance from their little, moving communities. It's sad, I suppose, especially in our viewing of it, filtered as it is through Fern's grief and loss. But this is not a tragedy, and it's not an example of a "woman takes off to discover herself" film. It just exists. Which is why it is often so transcendentally beautiful and so frustratingly dull at the same time.

Fast Color (2019)

Score: 4 / 5

In a future world covered in deserts where water is a rare commodity, you might find someone like Mel Gibson in leather or Clint Eastwood slinging guns. Or you might find Gugu Mbatha-raw in this charming little movie that plays like an antidote for the big-budget plot-driven sci-fi superhero flicks of our era. This is an American Midwest story that operates as a chamber piece about the women in a small family, a feminist Black folktale in the form of arthouse indie cinema.

Mbatha-raw plays Ruth, a lone vagrant in the desert wastes prone to seizures. Unfortunately, her seizures seem to cause earthquakes, a phenomenon that has caught the attention of scientists (and maybe the government) who seek to capture and study her. After a narrow escape, Ruth returns to her home, now occupied by her mother Bo (Lorraine Toussaint) and daughter Lila (Saniyya Sidney). These two women share telekinetic powers: they can dissolve and reassemble material objects, and can see a mysterious spectrum of light they call "the colors." Lila has never met her mother, and so the two begin their relationship on timid ground, while Bo and Ruth seem to have some unresolved history.

We learn along with Lila that Ruth once had the same powers as her mother, but they have long since been neglected. The suggestion is that some trauma -- or, perhaps, the normalized trauma enacted on black women in America -- caused Ruth to suppress her abilities, which then manifested as the disastrous seizures we have witnessed. Bo and Lila work with Ruth to make peace with herself, but their idyll is broken when the scientist returns. Eventually, Ruth realizes her potential, breaking the drought and, enabled by the sacrifice of her mother, fleeing with her daughter to a safe haven.

Does it all sound a bit weird? It is, but in the best way. Major elements here are laughably bizarre, including Ruth's unexplained control over nature (earthquakes, the drought) and the exact nature of these titular colors we occasionally see but seem to have no concrete significance. And that ending: sure, it's heartbreaking when Bo gives herself up to be studied by the white scientist, but then to have Ruth flee with Lila for a safe haven in...Rome? What?

But there is no denying that these elements mean something to director and writer Julia Hart, whose vision here is myth-making gold. Not unlike the confidence David Lowery has in folktale-craft, Hart here keeps everything at a slow and steady pace, letting us soak in the scenery, details, and characters in peace. And all that's to say nothing of Mbatha-raw's performance, which deftly straddles wry humor and genuine heart, or Toussaint, whose Bo is a creature of rare beauty and grace. And while the performances and aesthetic are entrancing, it's no less brilliant of the film to force its audience to do some work along the way: filling in blanks and allowing the strangeness of Fast Color to charm us.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The third installment in Legendary's MonsterVerse ushers in a smash-bang summer blockbuster season, and I'm here for it!

Following Godzilla's disappearance after the events of his first outing in 2014, the cryptozoological organization Monarch has redoubled its efforts to identify, locate, and study the race of dormant Titans around the world. One of its scientists, Vera Farmiga (the characters all have names but nobody cares), is present for the hatching of one named Mothra. She has also developed a device called ORCA which uses sound waves to influence or attract the Titans.

As is so often the case, the ORCA device is stolen by eco-terrorists led by Charles Dance, who kidnaps Farmiga and her daughter Millie Bobby Brown. Enter Kyle Chandler, the estranged father, to save the day. Or as much of the day as he can save, considering the massive size of destructive forces he faces. The film has more than a little heart, and at its center is this family drama framed with some surprisingly effective philosophy on the relationship between humans, our world, and the monsters we create vs. the monsters here before us. The story may be basic -- if drawn out effectively -- but its ideas are not, and it strikes a brilliant balance between action and meditation.

Balance is the key word for a film like this, in which so many things are juggled at once. First, there's the sizable cast, not even including the CGI characters. Then there's the monsters themselves, all but two of whom are brand-spanking new to this franchise. We've got the weighty ideas about terrorism and the environment, historical fantasy and geopolitics, dangerous new technology and the responsibilities we have to each other and our world. It's a lot for any movie to handle; the more Avengers movies we see, the easier it is to forget that most films can't perform at the same breadth and scope.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters works well on its own terms, though, and remains fabulously entertaining throughout. Drenched in a wet, gritty imagery and suffused with thick lighting, the film veers away from the realism of its predecessor -- and avoids they hyper-stylizations of Kong: Skull Island -- to craft its own brooding atmosphere. In fact, it seems that director Michael Dougherty is more in awe of these creatures than other filmmakers in this series; the grandeur inherent in calling them Titans and the dramatic flourish of lighting and effects frame them as almost godlike. Case in point: as the final showdown commences, Ghidorah poses regally atop a volcano while other Titans bow to him, and silhouetted in the foreground is a giant cross.

Dougherty seems to want us to feel a religious attraction to these creatures, a sort of sublime draw toward that which is great and terrible and utterly unconcerned with us. It's a delicious change in tone from the other films, and one that isn't necessarily more or less effective so much as a showcase for another artist's attitude toward the same subject matter. Gareth Edwards wanted his film shot primarily from the human perspective, and its realism meant there would be less direct access to the monster itself. Jordan Vogt-Roberts layered his film under lurid imagery, psychedelic colors, and period rock music, making it feel like a jungle fever dream. Here, we get a cold, wet vision of a world at war with forces of nature more than monsters running amok.

It's just a lot of fun, which is really all a Godzilla movie should be.

Godzilla (2014)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Infinitely superior to Roland Emmerich's 1998 attempt, this Godzilla is a welcome reboot of the franchise. Hardcore Godzilla fans are particularly pleased with the titular monster's design, as he looks like a contemporary version of the original monster rather than a glorified dinosaur. And this one has fiery blue breath, so of course he's better. Gareth Edwards brilliantly directs this two-hour, big-budget sci-fi thriller like a drama or art film, drawing attention to atmosphere and character rather than spectacle.

The main story is familiar enough: humanity's aggressive scientific efforts have brought forth monsters, the otherwise unnamed MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms), which feed off radioactive material. Godzilla rises from the ocean to eliminate this new threat and bring balance. The heart of the film, though, resides in its characters. The Brody family seems intertwined with these monsters, and suffers both tragedy and redemption through the horrors of their rampage.

Joe and Sandra Brody (Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche) work in a Japanese nuclear power plant until its destruction in 1999, following unusual seismic activity that causes a radiation leak and Sandra's death. In the present day, Joe enlists the help of his son Ford (the very hunky Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in returning to their old home -- now in quarantine -- to retrieve his old research on the true case of the seismic activity. When they are detained by soldiers working to cover up the secret workings inside the ruined plant, the first MUTO awakens and Joe is killed. Ford works with special task forces in tracking and observing the monsters, in an unspoken effort to fulfill or honor his father's work. The emotional core of this movie isn't Ford becoming a hero; it's his coming of age and learning to love his family again.

The film feels a lot like War of the Worlds (2005). Tonally and chromatically, it's gritty and dark and bleak, because when a disaster movie is centered on the human experience, the horrors of the proceedings come into focus. We aren't battered into submission by endless images of buildings crumbling and clouds of dust everywhere; instead, we follow the characters into the dust and see just about what they see. The big Cinematic Moments are reserved for the profoundly human images. In fact, my favorite scene was a shattering surprise to me: I'm talking about The Scene. The scene that seems to be highlighted in every promotional image of the movie, wherein soldiers skydive into the hellish San Francisco skyline, trailed by red smoke, in search of a warhead. It's a gamble of a mission, and the jump is in many ways the central metaphor for the movie. I had wondered why this scene was getting so much promo attention, and now I get it. In context, it is the emotional turning point of the film, and the camerawork/editing is particularly beautiful. You'll just have to watch it to understand.

And watch it you should! Haunting and thrilling, dramatic and beautiful, I hope this one does well for Oscar nominations (though it's far too early to predict with any certainty, we can hope it'll get nods for visual effects, sound mixing and editing, and maybe even cinematography and score). Oh, I almost forgot: the lovely score, composed by the incredible Alexandre Desplat, can be added to his already lengthy list of masterpieces. He's one of the best. I've said it before and I'll say it again, but this year we've seen a lot of special effects-driven movies. Godzilla may be one of them, but it's got real craft too.

IMDb: Godzilla