The Last Voyage of the Demeter (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

The premise is brilliant. Taking a single chapter of a classic -- one often skipped in adaptations, or reduced to a feverish montage sequence -- and dramatizing it as a standalone work. It's a much smarter way of making a new movie about an old monster than something like Dracula Untold or Renfield, in my humble literary purist's opinion. Something about this particular story, too, feels catered to a dynamic and terrifying horror film. It's one of the scariest chapters in Bram Stoker's novel, written in segments of a captain's log as crew members of the titular ship start disappearing and paranoia sets in. The isolated nature of a ship on the high seas and the limited number of resources available turn the episode into an And Then There Were None situation, but with a bloodthirsty monster stalking the decks by night.

But telling this story is not without its risks, not least because of course its premise allows for remarkably little tension or suspense. Anybody even remotely familiar with the source material or its plentiful adaptations knows full well the fate of the Demeter and its crew. Everybody -- but everybody -- knows, moreover, that Dracula is the monster hiding onboard and that he does indeed make it safely from Transylvania to England. So if you're the kind of audience member who wants to be surprised by plot, and who feels jaded by anything familiar, steer clear of this voyage.

For me, director André Øvredal's (Trollhunter, The Autopsy of Jane Doe, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) latest film is at best a middling work between these exciting possibilities and dangerous pitfalls. His flair for thickly stylized visuals is on full force here, and clearly he's enjoying making movies with larger budgets these days. The problem with this is that he spends a lot of time with wide shots of the beautifully realized ship -- the production designers here deserve accolades -- drifting through sunrise- or sunset-adjacent ocean vistas and these repeated shots leech any claustrophobic tension from the film. The horror would be more effective had he taken more inspiration from Lifeboat than Life of Pi, if that makes sense. I'm glad he made a beautiful movie, but fewer color-graded waterscapes and more long takes in the bowels of the ship would have made it more appropriately atmospheric and effectively scary.

Not that there aren't scares aplenty, and most of them are expertly conceived and executed. By the time the Demeter leaves Varna and takes to the ocean, we're aware of mysterious boxes in its hull with diabolic insignia. We meet Captain Elliot (Liam Cunningham), his grandson Toby (Woody Norman), first mate Wojchek (David Dastmalchian), and most importantly, last-minute addition Clemens (Corey Hawkins). Clemens, a doctor, is fortunately added to the ship's roster, as his medical knowledge and skillset will soon come in handy. Perhaps the greatest surprise of the film is when, not long into the voyage, one of the Romanian boxes is accidentally opened and a stowaway is revealed. Her name is Anna, and she's played by the brilliant Aisling Franciosi; sickly and pale, and clearly afraid, she requires multiple blood transfusions facilitated by the good doctor.

While Anna's presence is unexpected, it does thankfully add some variation to the cast list. She was apparently offered to the vampire by her village; the idea seems to be that she is his reserve blood supply, which is creepy and weird, and doesn't make full sense as Dracula seems much more intent on eating the animals and crew. Each time night falls, the movie takes on the pacing of Alien, with a particularly monstrous Dracula preying on various seamen. I personally didn't like how monstrous they made him, though the mostly practical effects are wonderful. He's such an interesting character, and most of what makes him interesting is taken away when he's portrayed as a nonverbal gargoyle-like demon. I'd have much preferred, as in the novel, to see a shadowy man wandering around the ship, because that level of uncanny menace is much scarier to me.

But the internal logic of the film -- whether a fault of editor or writer -- hamstrings even these attempts at effective horror. The first scene of the film is of the Demeter washing ashore in Whitby, England, so that just in case you weren't quite sure what would happen to the ship (if not its crew or cargo), any curiosity or doubt is immediately put to rest. It's not unlike walking through a haunted house with a lit flashlight: some things may still frighten you, but you've got a lifeline and lots of warning time. Similarly, though perhaps less a problem for some viewers, the film's ending does not match up with the source material, which to me marginally defeats the entire premise of this film. In fact, even Dracula's modus operandi doesn't quite match up, and I was distinctly annoyed that the film suggests merely his bite can "infect" someone and make them become a vampire as well, which is absolutely unfounded in Stoker's work. The manner in which Dracula "escapes" the ship for England, the manner of the death of some of his victims, and the survival of one crew member who then embarks on a vendetta aren't supported by the novel, and I wish the screenwriters had asked themselves what exactly their goal was, then, in dramatizing this one chapter. The final minutes feel like a cheap gamble to open the door for a sequel, which is patently absurd.

Haunted Mansion (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

My most anticipated movie of the summer might also be my favorite. Haunted Mansion might be the third film adaptation of my favorite Disney ride (and, frankly, a favorite Disney property, period) -- after the delightful 2003 feature and the 2021 Muppets streamer -- but it's the best one yet. Star-studded, kinetic, uproariously funny and surprisingly scary, it's a nearly perfect addition to Disney's live action features of late and a delicious way to usher in the spooky season.

First things first: it keeps it simple. Disney has had some trouble with bloated, convoluted stories in the past, but with Katie Dippold's (The Heat, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call) screenplay and Justin Simien's (Dear White People, Bad Hair) direction, this one is pared down to a streamlined and relevant plot. Recently widowed Gabbie (Rosario Dawson) and her young son Travis (Chase Dillon) move from New York into a glorious antique manor in Louisiana. Almost immediately, they are chased out by its very active ghostly inhabitants. But the ghosts follow them away, drawing them repeatedly back to Gracey Manor until they give in and seek help. Gathering a team of astrophysicist Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), medium Harriet (Tiffany Haddish), priest Kent (Owen Wilson), and professor Bruce (Danny DeVito), the team takes up residence in the house to try and free the house of its increasingly dangerous hauntings.

While some may decry the blatant humor of the screenplay, I found it refreshing in a way not dissimilar to Jungle Cruise, especially to help temper the shockingly dark aesthetic and themes of this film. Each character, especially comedic character actors Haddish, DeVito, and Wilson, is given some ham-fisted one-liners, but their delivery and the nonstop pace make the entire affair delightful to the point that I was often breathless while laughing from one zinger to the next. And there are a few adult-oriented innuendos in true Disney style that really make the movie accessible to everyone. That said, it's also refreshing that there is no real romance in this film -- a small hint between Ben and Gabbie, but never explicit -- which makes it both more palatable for its audience and reliable as drama. 

Alongside its comedy, however, Haunted Mansion features some of the darkest material from the studio in many years. Gabbie and Travis are still reeling from the loss of their husband/father, and the movie leans heavily into the timely (and almost played-out, these days) trope of supernatural horror dealing with grief. Ben, arguably the protagonist of this story, is also still in debilitating mourning for the loss of his wife, which helps him connect with and help Travis in a way no other character does. Stanfield brings his always-reliable dedication to the role that could easily have been played as bland or starched; he fills every single beat with depths of emotion and weighty character history that the screenplay barely spells out. He brings a gravitas that is much needed, especially during the first half of the film, that stops the whole affair from derailing itself with speedy editing and an abundance of comedy.

Because things do indeed go dark, so to speak, when the real antagonist shows up. The house itself is of course the draw, and it showcases every moment from the ride in fabulous detail. Endless halls, impossible staircases, backwards spinning clocks and floating candelabras, ghostly portraits and busts, the ballroom, the attic, the stretching antechamber, the graveyard. It's all there, populated with the lovable and dubious ghosts that have become family for us niche community of fans. When the Hatbox Ghost (Jared Leto) shows up, things lurch into the second half, where the plot really kicks into high gear; I was surprised Disney wanted to showcase a serial killer as their villain, but this is obviously the material best suited for such a character, and he's a fittingly spooky addition. With the ghost's malicious goal of collecting and corrupting souls, Ben especially is driven to a place where we can experience the film's message that grief makes us vulnerable, and that vulnerability can help us connect with other hurting souls and live our lives more fully while we have life to enjoy.

It's not all perfect. Editing in the first half is jumpy and jarring, to say nothing of the screenplay, which could just as easily have cut the shenanigans of various ghosts following the characters home and forcing them to return to the mansion. Jump-starting them all at the mansion might have served this story better, allowed us more time with the characters to interact with each other and the ghosts, a la The Haunting of Hill House or House on Haunted Hill. There is no barbershop quartet of stone busts, sadly, and while "Grim Grinning Ghosts" gets a jazzy new dance version at the end, I'd have liked the full song at some point. And then there's the film's one true disappointment for me: Jamie Lee Curtis as Madame Leota looks weird, sounds awful, and does nothing interesting despite being, arguably, the most iconic part of the IP. Her stilted dialogue doesn't rhyme and her delivery feels disinterested and awkward at best, reminding me a bit of Jodie Foster's bizarre bad French and disconnected demeanor in Elysium. I may never recover from the disappointment of that character and performance, but the rest of the movie is just about perfect for my tastes. I'm already ready to watch it again!

Talk to Me (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

We're used to stories of high schoolers or college kids doing dangerous things like drugs or dares, and those stories are familiar to film as well. Many classic slashers cashed in on these coming-of-age dramedies, as they usually are, by suggesting "rules" and punishments such as doing drugs or having sex will get you killed, as will sneaking away from the adults or being alone too long. These kinds of moralistic messages have resurfaced somewhat in recent years as social media has led to real-life horrors like violent chatrooms that spawn school shootings or viral trends that have kids doing scary or reckless acts to gain notoriety. Even some recent horror movies or thrillers like Truth or Dare and Nerve have dramatized these trends to usually less-than glowing critical and popular response.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached Talk to Me, the latest indie horror from A24 and the directorial debut of the Philippou brothers (who previously worked in the filming crew of The Babadook). The familiar tale concerns a ceramic-looking severed hand, covered in graffiti and symbols that suggest a storied history; a person grasping it and speaking the title will allow the person to see a deceased person. This is no mere monkey's paw, however, for the living person can subsequently allow the ghost to enter and possess the living body. Again, none of this is particularly new or interesting material, but it allows for storytelling in a variety of ways. Talk to Me works best by choosing a less-traveled path and executing its artistic choices with a grim confidence surprising from new filmmakers.

To start, there is never a single question about the supernatural effects of the hand, which isn't given a name or title itself. It's taken largely as the deadly serious device it is; a few characters passively comment that the possessed folks are just faking it or that it's some kind of elaborate hoax, but most characters know it to be true and so do the filmmakers. That such an item exists and is casually passing around over an unknown amount of time is pretty chilling, especially given its introduction to us in a series of social media-related posts about it. Anyone who sees these videos is treated to a gruesome, Grand Guignol spectacle of rolled-over black eyes, guttural voice changes, and some deeply creepy pronouncements of a usually morbid or suggestive nature. The heightened social awareness of this has turned into a series of house parties in which inebriated adolescents take turns "doing it" and filming each other. It's something between hazing and a rite of passage, documented for the world to see and comment upon. That is to say, it's eminently plausible, like somebody mentioning eating Tide pods online, or falling under the influence of a Slender Man. 

The kids, moreover, treat it less as a game than as a drug. Even the filmmakers depict these party scenes as something between a circle jerk and a séance, often utilizing EDM-type music over montages of various young adults acting fools while under the influence, as the camera whirls around them dizzyingly. Once possessed, the sound drops out and the camera jolts back with the character in their chair as their eyes black out; they often shiver, choke, sweat, and stop breathing in ways that, frankly, look life-threatening. But thankfully the resident "experts" on the hand are at hand (pardon me) in the form of Hayley (Zoe Terakes) and Joss (Chris Alosio), who currently own the cursed object. They have rules about this dance of death -- though it's left totally unclear how these rules became known -- including lighting a candle to attract spirits, tying the possessed person to a chair, and limiting their exposure to ninety seconds.

All this is just the setup, and from here the story takes a typical path forward. Australian teens Mia (an excellent Sophie Wilde), her best friend Jade (Alexandra Jensen), and Jade's younger brother Riley (Joe Bird) go to one of these morbid house parties to experiment with the hand. Things go well -- that is, as well as summoning ghosts and inviting possessions can go -- until Mia lets a spirit in. We're allowed, in this moment, to see the ghost she sees, and the ghosts in this movie are nothing short of terrifying (thank goodness they opted for quality makeup over special effects). One spirit that possesses her looks over at young Riley and declares that he is desired by other spirits present. It's a moment of pure horror, one that bleakly allows us to guess at the plot's trajectory. It's especially troubling as Mia, whose mother died by suicide two years prior and who is unable to process that grief, seems a little too eager to reconnect with her mother; she has effectively become an intimate sibling to Jade and Riley. She wants her mother back, but she certainly doesn't want to lose her new chosen family.

So when the spirit that possesses Riley announces itself as Mia's mother, Mia is forced into a horrific headspace she wasn't prepared for, and she keeps talking to the ghost well past the 90-second mark. Riley ends up in a coma after a vicious episode of self-harm, and it seems less and less likely Mia's beloved mother is really in there. It's helpful that the performances are uniformly excellent, especially when the characters do stupid or cruel things to each other; in that way, it's very much a Gen Z - oriented film that pokes fun even as it humanizes a generation vastly different from those classic slashers I mentioned earlier. Morality has shifted, socialization has shifted, and this follows the vein of Bodies Bodies Bodies in humanizing and almost satirizing the conceits of our current younger generation. It doesn't talk down, it talks to and from, which makes all the difference.

Naturally, all this suggests that a franchise is waiting to be born, particularly as so little about the hand is revealed and several characters remain quite alive by film's end. One imagines a burgeoning series -- like A24 finally embraced with Ti West's X trilogy -- that may include a prequel about the hand's origins (or about Mia's mother) and a sequel about Jade's family moving on. Or, you know, anything else related to the hand. I kind of hope that happens, because as it stands, Talk to Me is fine for a simple, spooky viewing, but doesn't really offer much meat to chew. And that's okay, especially for an introduction to broader ideas to come, again, much like we saw in X. This one is mostly about the possessive dangers of grief and the ways we hurt our loved ones while in thrall to despair; it's a theme worth revisiting, but it's quickly becoming old hat these days. Interestingly, and if this becomes a series, I hope more films explore this, the film's ending ties into Mia's other primary character trait, which is a willingness to isolate herself from reality, which is also arguably a point to be made about her generation (and maybe our culture as a whole since 2016 and again since 2020). 

Oppenheimer (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

The American Prometheus, referring of course to the mythic titan who stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, is J. Robert Oppenheimer, the infamous physicist who developed the atomic bomb. This title isn't just about his invention or its valuable and dangerous fallout (so to speak); it also refers to his politically and existentially tortured life afterward. Christopher Nolan's newest film, for him unusual as a biopic, is a cerebral character study of one of the most interesting and consequential figures in human history. Taking place over three hours we're treated to a dual storyline, again one of Nolan's trademarks, here emphasizing two very different ways to destroy the world.

The first plotline, filmed in color, is subtitled "Fission," referring to the splitting of an atom's nucleus (and the means by which Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed). It dramatizes Oppenheimer's life on his way to his "great deed," from his times in various European universities to his PhD in the '20s and '30s, from his dabblings in communism to his marriage to Kitty (Emily Blunt) and his affair with Jean Tatlock (Florence Pugh), and of course his appointment to lead the top secret Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, circa 1942. It's the lead up to this last that makes up the driving force of the film, as even the score indicates a ticking clock toward doomsday. When General Leslie Groves (Matt Damon) verifies that Oppenheimer is not, in fact, communist, he's put in charge of the race to beat the Nazis in creating the first atomic bomb. The race is personal for Oppenheimer, who was Jewish, and he has fears of what Heisenberg may be developing; contracting his own scientists, he moves them and their families to a secret location with their families, building a town around them to keep everything close and tight-lipped.

Filmed in IMAX by the magnificent Hoyte van Hoytema, the location of this town is beautifully constructed against the beautiful scenery of New Mexico's deserts. It's a bit chilling, too, knowing what will happen to parts of the world in the wake of atomic disasters. The filmmakers here seem intent on impressing that contrast to the audience, often interjecting images of curling flames, flying debris, and sparkling explosions between images of Oppenheimer's intense, tortured face. His life, as brought to award-worthy performance by Cillian Murphy, seems a similarly tortured landscape, occasionally flaring with personal faults of impulsive pride and lustful greed. He's a Greek tragic hero, often dissociating from the hullabaloo of his life to think about his own fantasies of physics, sex, and impending doom. One wonders what it would be like to change the course of world history by creating the thing that could annihilate us all; Murphy delivers that.

The second plotline, in black and white, is subtitled "Fusion," a process by which two nuclei are combined and releases far more catastrophic energy than fission. This part of the film doesn't make as much sense for a while, as we follow Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) trying to get approved by the Senate as commerce secretary in the '50s. He's being held up and though he doesn't know why, he strongly suspects it's due to the influence of his old rival, Oppenheimer. The physicist, haunted by the hell of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, had urged President Truman (Gary Oldman) to restrict increased nuclear weapon development, which Truman dismissed as weak. We learn, through flashbacks (if that word is even applicable amidst all the time jumps here), that as an advisor to the Atomic Energy Commission headed by Strauss, Oppenheimer advocated against additional nuclear research that would lead to the creation of a hydrogen bomb. Strauss resented Oppenheimer for this and other perceived slights, and so proceeded to assassinate Oppenheimer's reputation and credibility during the latter's security hearing in 1954, resulting in neutralizing his influence on security as well as policy. The McCarthy-era fervor is brought to full flavor in these scenes, though thankfully Strauss gets his comeuppance eventually, primarily at the hands of testifier David Hill (Rami Malek), who publicly reveals the personal grudge match.

It's a fascinating way to frame the title character's life, and one that remarkably humanizes both the character and the director, Nolan being a prime case of director who notoriously leeches his films of sentiment or "humanity." This is his Amadeus, if you will, in which "great" men collapse under the weight of their own prides, jealousies, and pettiness. Add in, if you will, other personal faults hinted at but never really fleshed out by the film, including his adultery and Kitty's suffering and alcoholism, and Nolan is really going for gold here; that said, this film only strengthened my annoyance that Nolan is incapable of writing well-rounded female characters or of directing female actors (Pugh and Blunt are among the best, and they are wildly unsupported here in garishly archetypal roles that only use their bodies and emotions to function). It's a shame, because Kitty has a few lines that reveal her sharply tactical sense of logic, and some of Oppenheimer's worst choices would have been avoided had he listened.

On a similarly personal note, I found it dismaying that the film callously avoids direct reckoning with the bombings that effectively ended World War II. The arguments for and against the use of those bombs are voiced, briefly, but little to no consideration of the historical reality of those arguments is provided. Was Japan too determined to quit, or were they on their knees at that point in the conflict? The film espouses neither perspective, choosing instead a maddeningly cryptic approach that makes us, like Oppenheimer, get a bit paranoid. Leave it to Nolan to give us a puzzle box rather than a coherent story. It's this that, while feeling very much like the filmmaker, reminded me of several other auteurs; I've never considered Nolan as anything but himself, but this film repeatedly reminded me of Terrence Malick (especially in editorial style), Oliver Stone (especially in the hearing scenes, and with Oldman, Blunt, and Downey's almost camp performances), and of course Stanley Kubrick in its bleak sense of humor (a la Dr. Strangelove and when, notably, government officials debate over which Japanese cities to bomb). 

Like it or not, enjoy it or not, this is a masterful and galvanizing film, one that perhaps best exemplifies the best (and worst) tendencies of its profoundly complex creator. Never has Nolan so seemingly identified with his own subject, and never has his own theoretical interests meshed so flawlessly with those of the story he tells. Some of the best critical writing this year will be about this film, how its relentless editing matches some obscure physicist's understanding of human psyche, radiation fallout, or cosmic structure. Because ultimately that's the puzzling game Nolan plays, and frankly I don't much care for that level of masturbatory cleverness. What I love about this movie is its old-school approach to acting and melodrama, its deep understanding of the boundaries between personal and collective identity (and trauma), and its respect for the audience, along with its characters, to decide for ourselves the significance of these potentially world-shattering events and, worse, ideas.

Barbie (2023)

Score: 5 / 5

As someone who gives absolutely no shits about the source material, I went into Barbie expecting a candy-colored romp through pop feminist capitalism. And that's not inaccurate, but it's also far from encapsulating the beautiful, daring, and deeply subversive project from Greta Gerwig. It's the increasingly rare near-perfect example of a summer blockbuster, one that is at once intensely popular, perfectly relevant, highly marketed, and technically proficient. This is why Jaws, Grease, Jurassic Park, and others in that ilk have endured as pop culture touchpoints. They require a certain bravado, yes, and no small amount of popular interest, but they are also, critically, brilliant and novel films. The best summer blockbusters aren't just big-budget escapist fantasies (looking squarely at the hamster wheel of superhero movies every summer season); they tap into something vital of American culture. And what better way than with an icon like Barbie dolls?

The story, for what it's worth here, essentially concerns Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) as she spontaneously experiences an existential crisis. Fleeing Barbieland, and hoping to find purpose and understand herself by visiting the human world, she seeks her "owner" to learn what's happening to her. Her very casual boyfriend Ken (Ryan Gosling) joins her, as he only exists for Barbie to pay attention to him. But the real world is a far cry from Barbieland, and both are forced to learn scary and exciting new things before they return home and try to implement the lessons for everyone. The problem is that they both learned very different methods to self-enlightenment, leading to conflict between them and their friends -- the other Barbies and Kens -- that they must solve.

I'd compare the revelations of existence and purpose to Into the Woods, The Truman Show, and maybe even something like The Lego Movie, wherein notably unrealistic characters become more human as the complex realities of, well, reality set in. That's not to say they aren't interesting in their blissfully fantastic original circumstance; on the contrary, most of the fun of this film is their bizarre daily life dramatized in Barbieland. Everyone is modeled after various versions of "Barbie" throughout the decades, impeccably dressed and coiffed, and of course they're all named "Barbie" and "Ken," with a few identifying descriptors to differentiate each other for us. Gerwig and her team don't just recreate the branded forms, thankfully, but breathe somewhat campy, ironic life into each with knowing nods to the audience.

Loaded as it is with Oscar nominees and winners, I would be remiss to list some for you, in case you were too enamored of the film to pay attention during its credits. Costumes by Jacqueline Durran (Little Women and Anna Karenina Oscar wins) and the production design by Sarah Greenwood (six-time Oscar nominee who has worked on many of the same projects, including Beauty and the Beast and several from director Joe Wright) expertly craft a world of kitschy glamor, bubble-gum pink and almost two-dimensional; the details are so numerous and exquisite you couldn't possibly note everything in a single viewing. It helps that cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Oscar nominated for Brokeback Mountain, Silence, and The Irishman) shoots everything beautifully, of course, but with a somewhat cartoonish mind, emphasizing the other designers' work while establishing a visual attitude and flair of his own.

I haven't laughed aloud this much in a cinema in a long time, and based on the screening I attended, most everyone was feeling the same infectious energy. I won't waste time praising specific performances (though Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, and America Ferrera made the strongest choices for me), nor will I recount many specific sequences (such as the fabulous dance numbers), because it's all just wonderful. Instead, I'd like to point out that, despite Mattel's heavy branding of this -- and, due to its explosive success, we can surely expect more films based on their ubiquitous toys, for better or worse -- it doesn't really feel like the cash grab I expected. Sure, it's a bit icky to have corporate capitalism lording over this film so much, but Gerwig does her damnedest to critique it in clever, subtle ways. mostly through its inclusion of a ridiculous (but not annoying, for once) Will Ferrell as the CEO of Mattel. One wonders what her screenplay might have looked like before or without the influence of real-life Mattel producers and editors. Rather, this feels more like a movie lover's film than a toy lover's film; the endless references to other cinematic benchmarks brought vibrating joy to my viewing experience, starting right away with the opening sequence straight out of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

Much will be made of Ferrera's feminist monologue in the film's climax, of Gosling's delicious himbo energy in his totally '80s anthem, of Robbie's virtuosity in navigating Gerwig and partner Noah Baumbach's dialogue and characterizations especially when it complicates itself in the second half. Much will be made of the film's extraordinary feminisms, its relentless inspired comedy, its pink romp through something more than nostalgia and less than escapism. Sure, it's a fun popcorn flick to enjoy with the girls; it's also a deeply cerebral exercise in navigating huge -isms in our culture right now with a heart of gold, something even many arthouse flicks have trouble handling in these days of culture wars and renewed vitriol over identity politics. Bold and confident in itself, it surely has won fans simply due to its charisma, so I wonder how long our cultural tide will run pink. But despite its rather annoying popularity right now, its salient, precise assault on toxic masculinity, its condemnation of entitlement and the status quo, and of course its triumphant depictions of female cooperation and empowerment make it one of the most important movies we've yet seen this decade. 

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It's all a matter of taste, but the Mission: Impossible movies are probably my favorite action/spy franchise. I do not like the Bourne series, Daniel Craig's James Bond was the only one I've enjoyed, and I dearly love John Wick but those aren't, strictly, spies, and so they don't have much of the same trademark inventive humor. Tom Cruise, whatever your opinion on the real person, makes damn good movies, as a producer, an actor, and a stuntman. That's not to say everything he touches is golden -- I'll never understand popular love of Top Gun or its recent sequel -- but when it comes to a franchise like this, he knows full well what his audience wants. More importantly, he continues to challenge himself, increase stakes, push cinematic boundaries, and defy death at an age when most actors start slowing down or shifting genres.

And, other than possibly the third film in the series, Dead Reckoning may be the scariest entry simply due to its topical content. It's a fairly straightforward plot, thankfully, though the specifics of everything are kept annoyingly vague: an experimental AI called "the Entity" has gained sentience and gone rogue, infiltrating the top military and intelligence networks of the world, and so the world powers are hunting a certain "cruciform" key that should enable the wielder to control the AI. Naturally, IMF offers the job of finding the key to Ethan Hunt (Cruise), whose quick impression of the stakes is that control over this monstrosity is too great for one person, so he and his team tentatively plan to destroy the AI if possible. As I said, though, the specifics are intentionally vague: nobody knows what exactly the Entity may or will do, what exactly the key will allow its bearer to do, or even for sure what the key unlocks or where this lock might be. So it's a lot of red herrings and "who knows" amidst this breakneck globetrotting chase.

Which is fine, surprisingly, because the film was always marketed as "Part One," so there's no sudden dissatisfaction from a cliffhanger ending or latent frustration at not having a cohesive story yet. A lot happens during this movie, but the basic plot is so simple it flies by from brilliantly staged action sequence to action sequence. It's roughly 160 minutes long and feels maybe half that. A few scenes in which people drop exposition quickly and thickly are a bit clunky, especially when the dialogue gets repetitive about what the Entity might access and how bad it would be if it fell into the "wrong hands," but apart from those moments, we clip along at a speedy pace that never feels hurried or wasteful.

Sadly, we don't get more of Angela Bassett from Fallout or some of the other memorable players who have briefly appeared in the series, but we do get some exciting new faces. Chief among them is Hayley Atwell as professional pickpocket Grace, who gets unwittingly caught up in this apocalyptic mess and provides most of the film's humor and sex appeal. I cringe a bit saying that, but other than Cruise, it's kind of true; the women in these movies aren't your vapid (or vampiric) Bond girls, and though they tend to fall for Mr. Hunt's charms, they are always strong on their own. And Atwell finds the perfect blend of suavity and clumsiness as her character starts understanding she's in way over her head. She's beautiful and brilliant and funny and I don't know why she hasn't become an A-lister in demand in Hollywood yet because she deserves it.

Speaking of love interests, Rebecca Ferguson is back as Ilsa Faust (who joined the series in Rogue Nation) to round out her story in this franchise. I don't really love her character, but Ferguson is wonderful and I was glad to see her here to wrap up her business with Ethan. Esai Morales pops in eventually as Gabriel, an amoral mercenary who has set himself up as a sort of proxy for the Entity in the real world, a self-described chaos agent hoping to use any means necessary to watch the world burn. He's scary, but there's a lot more to unravel here, so I hope Part Two will give us more of his story. Pom Klementieff shows up for the first time in this franchise as a silent assassin working with Gabriel, and while her physicality is unquestionable, her character doesn't really make much sense and I couldn't stomach her costume or hairstyle; she looked like she stepped out of a totally different franchise, maybe John Wick or Blade Runner, and it just didn't work for me. But we get the wonderful Vanessa Kirby again as the White Widow arms dealer, along with the usual team of Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg. 

And then there's Henry Czerny, back for the first time since the 1996 original, as former IMF director Kittridge. He's wonderful, of course, and his presence keyed me into something special about this installment. It feels more like Brian De Palma's first film than any other in the franchise, even after the soft reboot of aesthetics and style with Ghost Protocol in 2011. Director and writer Christopher McQuarrie seems ecstatic to be able to close the loop, so to speak, and bring things back to the beginning. It's not just in casting, or even in themes, though the screenplay works hard to open up Ethan's mind for us as he questions why he's doing these impossible tasks and what end he imagines for himself. It's hard, given Cruise's age and work, not to read lots of parallels between the actor and the character, and that was much the same back in 1996. But McQuarrie and his cinematographer also use a lot of similar visual cues in this film that hearken back to the original, most often with the close-up Dutch angles during intense conversations. Similarly, this film relies on two key things often associated with this franchise if in lesser amounts: earned suspense (not just action), and a focus on constant kinetic movement, perhaps best summed up in the climactic fight atop a speeding train.

I suggested it earlier, but coming back to it now: there's something scarily timely about a celebrity like Tom Cruise attempting to stop AI while questioning his livelihood and purpose. Of everything I anticipated and expected from this movie -- and it was considerable, after Fallout quickly climbed the list of my favorite action films -- I certainly did not expect to feel so much unease deep in my stomach while watching this amazing movie. 

Insidious: The Red Door (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

How do you like your franchise-enders? Or, in our present hamster-wheel of entertainment, partial endings? Some prefer a balls-out spectacle-fest (think Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension), while others want some kind of nostalgic, legacy-oriented climax, usually with some doors left open for spin-offs or fanfiction. Neither is "right," but there can be a place for both; when a horror film opts for character development and artistic integrity instead of big budget effects and fan service, I'm always happier. Nobody really expects this to be the final Insidious film, but it certainly ends the story of the Lamberts, and in that it is a wonderfully rich and emotional finale.

The same actors return to their roles as the Lambert family, including an underused Rose Byrne as Renai and Andrew Astor as Foster. Ty Simpkins has grown a lot, and his Dalton has become a brooding art student ready to start his first term at college. Patrick Wilson, here pulling double duty as director in his debut as such, carries the heart of this story as Josh, the father who is at the end of his rope. He and Renai have separated, his mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey, tragically not in this film) recently died, and his relationship with Dalton is especially tenuous. To try and bridge the gap between them, Josh packs Dalton into his car to take him to school, though that ends bitterly.

We're reminded at the beginning of this film that Josh and Dalton, after their near-death experiences in Chapter 2, were hypnotized into forgetting how to astral project and enter The Further, in the hopes of protecting themselves from future hauntings. With this device, we're treated to a conundrum: the amnesia allows for return opportunities, which this film clearly capitalizes upon, but it also means we're always multiple steps ahead of the characters. We know full well why things go bump in the night and what Dalton and Josh should and most definitely shouldn't do, but they're working through flashbacks and hazy memories and doing arguably stupid things in the meantime. It makes for frustrating viewing, as we want more ingenuity and excitement (and answers) but we're bogged down waiting for these struggling men to catch up.

As such, when Dalton's art professor (Hiam Abbass in a fun but wasted role) effectively puts Dalton into a state of suggestibility and he paints the titular red door, all hell soon breaks loose. It's an interesting (if familiar) concept to have one's art open a portal, and I really admire this film for leaning into that, in no small way advocating for art therapy to purge the spirit of old demons. Once this happens, though, and the movie's plot gets going, the screenplay doesn't quite know what it's up to. The promising setup unravels into a strange series of events, bouncing back and forth between Dalton at school and Josh at home, forcing us into thinking of them as in a competition for who can remember their past first. It's just not as creative, narratively, as the other installments, particularly the first two.

I'm endlessly glad this film brought back the Lamberts (at least some of them, and to some extent) and ends their story on a really lovely note (the climax, I should note, had me rather angry due to SPOILER ALERT a sacrifice that isn't really a sacrifice, but the happy ending made up for it and my little weeping heart was glad). I'm less glad this film did not feature much from Lin Shaye's psychic guide Elise Rainier or her sidekicks Specs and Tucker (Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson), but chronologically Elise has been dead almost a decade at this point in the story, and this film really doesn't need those characters. We've had two other movies about them, and this time it's about the Lamberts dealing with grief and loss and regret, personal family matters, not about them venturing into other dimensions to find each other, which is where the paranormal team would come in to assist.

Wilson's direction is emotionally smart and creepily effective; his talents as an artist are always evolving and growing, and I respect the hell out of that. He's clearly learned a lot from James Wan and Leigh Whannell over the years, because the jump scares (it's an Insidious movie, of course there are jump scares!) are cleverly crafted and deviously deployed, particularly in the first half of the film. The best part is that many of the scares directly tie in with the plot or with certain character moments, so they rarely feel extraneous or exploitative. Wilson adds a few touches to recall other installments of the franchise, including Tiny Tim's chilling "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," and it's all pretty satisfying to see things come to a close.

On the other hand, as a fan since the 2010 original, I found myself annoyed that this film, advertised as the end of the series, didn't at least offer some answers or clarification or connective tissue between the various mysteries of its own mythbuilding. Maybe it's not necessary, as at least in my understanding, the red doors in the Further seem to be locations (apparently tied to regions in the real world) where demons reside, as opposed to the blue-green foggy Further in general where malcontented ghosts reenact their traumas. That seems somewhat obvious to me, though the films haven't made that clear and I suppose any other interpretation could topple mine. Mystery has its place in paranormal horror, but every once in a while, I'd like films with such specific concepts to elucidate a bit, especially if the concept is going to become a full-blown series. And The Red Door, for all its successes, doesn't actually share anything about the damn red door, which makes for a somewhat confusing final title.

But we get Wilson singing a hard rock new song with Swedish band Ghost, which is pretty cool, and a post-credits stinger that certainly makes me hope the producers will come up with a good reason to enter the Further again soon.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

We begin this adventure with a flashback to 1944 -- which, if you are anal about these things too, occurs about six years after The Last Crusade -- as Indiana and his colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) attempt to loot a Nazi train loaded with art and artifacts. They're looking for the Lance of Longinus, the "holy spear" that supposedly pierced the side of Christ during his crucifixion, which turns out to be a fake. The Nazis capture them, but it doesn't take too long for them to grab another great bit of mystery history: half of Archimedes' Dial, an "Antikythera" orrery meant to locate fissures in time and possibly allow for time travel. They escape with this half of the Dial before the train is derailed by the Allies.

Launching forward in time, the movie proper begins in 1969 (about twelve years after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), as Dr. Jones is preparing to retire from Hunter College. Harrison Ford breathes new vibrancy into this character, who is about a decade younger than the actor himself, not through any remarkable physical work but rather through his experience of age. We got whiffs of it in the previous film, but here Mangold works with Ford to showcase Indiana's world-weariness, yes, but not in a hard-boiled way. He's still smart as a whip, fiery and impassioned, and willing to just do rather than hem and haw about things. It's not the existential agony of aging Mangold handled so hauntingly in Logan from both Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman; this is poignant and resonant fulfillment (and some dissatisfaction) found at the end of a long and distinguished career, and it's fleshed out effectively over the course of this film. Unfortunately, Ford is aggressively de-aged here (which doesn't bother me as much as some who simply cannot abide the uncanny valley phenomenon); I say "unfortunately" because, physical appearance aside, it's jarring to hear Ford's gravelly, real-life voice of today coming from himself looking rather like he looked forty years ago.

Indiana's motives have never been particularly clear to me in this franchise, beyond a vague sense of historical responsibility and anti-fascism, but for the first time, I really understood what drives him in this film: he is, at heart, an academic, and so when the thought of time travel begins to gestate for him, his eyes spark to life at the prospect of ending his life in some of the history to which he's devoted his career. Why should this matter to him? Well, he's lonely and depressed. This film brusquely changes direction from the end of Crystal Skull by mentioning that Indiana's son Mutt (who was played by Shia LaBeouf) died in Vietnam and that Marion (Karen Allen) has left her depressed husband and filed for legal separation. It's a crude but workable way to cut out Mutt -- who everyone hated, and I will never understand why -- and of course Marion herself, who is probably still as capable of helping the action as Indiana. I'd have liked this story to include both those characters more, because Crystal Skull is unfairly maligned by audiences for completely mysterious reasons to me (I love it and have never heard any rational arguments against it beyond unspecific personal taste preferences... and of course the fridge scene), and I'd like to see how an aging Indiana Jones handles suddenly having an adult family.

But what about the plot? Without his family, who will Indy team up with? Never fear, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is here, playing Helena Shaw, the now-adult daughter of Basil Shaw from the prologue. Helena reveals that she is Indiana's goddaughter and that her father died after years obsessing over the Dial. She herself wants to pick up his research, and so Indiana reluctantly gives her his half of the Dial. Then enters the villain: Mads Mikkelsen plays a Nazi astrophysicist named Jurgen Voller. He is also de-aged in the opening flashback; Mikkelsen will always be the best casting choice for a villain from vaguely eastern Europe. Voller, who is after both pieces of the Dial, was working with Hitler during the war but now has his own aims, something that he announces in the film's dramatic lurch to its climax and which I won't spoil here. He attacks the school, murdering some faculty and framing Indiana, who takes to horseback in a spectacular chase sequence through a moon landing parade, an antiwar protest march, and the NYC subway.

Helena, meanwhile, is revealed to be an antiquities smuggler, seeking historical artifacts to sell on the black market to buttress her gambling debts. That, for me, was perhaps the single biggest disappointment in this film, because it's a contrived gimmick meant to spark action and comedy rather than reveal any characterization or offer storytelling originality. Her greedy opportunism allows the film, soon enough, to hop over to Tangier, where she's trying to sell and ends up collecting another sidekick in Teddy (Ethann Isidore). From here, it's a regular Indiana Jones adventure, with his ragtag team trying to thwart the pursuing fascists even as they lead them to the treasure.

But this is not a Steven Spielberg film, and it's also not particularly adept with its action sequences. Mangold is a wonderful director, but I can't help but wish Spielberg had agreed to direct the final Indiana Jones movie. There is some connective tissue -- call it artistic integrity -- missing between Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny; most people felt that between the third and fourth film, but not me. I feel it now. The editing is clunky and the action choreography is often awkward and incoherent; the fault could be on multiple heads, but this is a far cry from the thrilling precision of similar sequences in major recent action sequels like John Wick and Mission: Impossible.

Think I'm being harsh? Look at two sequences and tell me otherwise. First, the car chase through Tangier is an absolute mess, when it could (seemingly easily) be both visually satisfying and logically sound. Secondly, and more damningly to my mind, there's a scene in which Indy and Helena travel to the Aegean to ask an old friend to help them dive to an old shipwreck that might contain the other half of the Dial. The setup is frustrating enough, dramatically (looking snidely at the screenplay by committee that needed more workshopping), because the old friend is Antonio Banderas, getting top billing for roughly three scenes of work, who seems to be pretty gay with his hunky shipmates. After almost no time, they're all jumping into the deeps and Indy finds himself in a sunken ship surrounded by eels. It's a fabulous concept, of course, and scratches the "icky creature" scene in each movie of this franchise; Indy is taunted at one point that eels are like underwater snakes, which he fearfully and indignantly rejects the thought of. But the scene itself is so poorly composed that it's difficult to see and even harder to remember; terrible lighting, miserable cinematography, an over-reliance on CG action, little cause or reason, and a bizarre deus ex machina make what could have been a brilliant and terrifying scene a good time for a bathroom break.

And then there's the film's ending sequence, which I desperately wish to have had more of. So rarely in these films do we see the full effect of whatever magical item Indiana has rescued or restored: sure, the Ark lets out some ghosts that melt people, the Stones bring fertility to the village, the Grail saves Henry Jones from his nearly fatal gunshot, and the replaced Skull allows the aliens to reactivate their ship and leave Earth. It's usually a fast scene with little grounding in reality, lots of magic and mystery, and then we're done, so when this movie started hinting at time travel, I expected the same. I was so wrong. I don't want to spoil the ending, but they do indeed travel to another time -- one wholly unexpected and endlessly satisfying for both plot purposes as well as an insight into Archimedes himself -- and we hang out there for a while. It's a great sequence, one that allows Ford the chance to let Indiana be truly in awe of his life's work and the experience of being present in history. A climax to a series that reveals more about the main character than we've ever seen? Yes, please! I just wish we had had more time with that, or that it could have been more foregrounded in the two hours that led to this sequence, because it kind of comes out of nowhere, floors us, and then the movie ends.

I hope that, while this is the last Indiana Jones film, Harrison Ford isn't done making movies. His dramatic work here is the best he's given in a few years, and I'd love to see him lean into dramatically heavy roles for older men, maybe showcasing his real skills and remarkable humor in ways we haven't seen much from him since the '80s. I also hope this film doesn't fall prey to the polarized and polarizing critical commentary of our social media, because it won't survive that. Dial of Destiny is a multilayered puzzle box meant to satisfy young audiences as well as old fans of the series, to bridge the gaps between loved and unloved entries, and to ultimately try to end an iconic franchise. It's not going to win everyone, but I hope people don't mindlessly junk it along with Crystal Skull; even as a fan of that film, this new one made me want to rewatch it and enjoy it afresh. A final thought: Dial of Destiny is about two similar men (again, a familiar trope in this series between Indy and his villains), one who wants to control history, the other who, by appreciating history too much, has become inert and stuck in history with regret. There's a lot going on here, more than an Indiana Jones has the right to offer; I just wish it had been a little more. Or wasn't the end. Or both.

Asteroid City (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Another year, another Wes Anderson project. His titles are really hit-or-miss for me; out of his now eleven titles, I'd only happily rewatch five, while the others I prefer not to remember at all. Thankfully, Asteroid City falls squarely in the former category for me. Anderson's latest is a love letter to boyhood interest in space and to our love of theatre and television especially in an age of exciting (or scary) new advancements.

Asteroid City reimagines the luster and wonder of postwar curiosities and anxieties about the space race, radioactivity, and of course aliens. Reliably shot by Anderson's frequent cinematographer Robert Yeoman and beautifully, brilliantly designed by Adam Stockhausen (a regular collaborator with Spielberg, Anderson, and Steve McQueen), the film breathes excitement and ingenuity. The film opens in black-and-white square Academy ratio as if it were a televised special, a radio play or documentary in the mid-50s. Our host is Bryan Cranston, who does a sort of emcee-narrator riff as he tells the story of the fabulous new play "Asteroid City," to be presented presently, by fictional playwright Conrad Earp (Edward Norton). The play itself is presented to us in glorious widescreen and stylized technicolor and comprises most of the runtime. 

The mise en abyme here is perhaps the most clearly delineated in all of Anderson's films that include multiple layers or framing devices; I appreciated the simplicity for once. And the film -- the televised play, that is -- is a wonderfully realized production. Asteroid City looks not unlike those experimental "Stepford" type towns constructed in a remote desert for the dual purposes of being a sweet oasis for the weary traveler and to ostensibly be destroyed by bomb fallout at test sites. It's a bare place, with neat lines and cookie-cutter shacks and a certain retro charm, helped in no small part by the vibrant colors of the desert (the bright orange sand and light blue sky in stark contrast separated only by a thin horizon are picturesque and uncanny at once). The "city" is about to host a camp for science-oriented youth, drawn no doubt partly because it's also the site of a large meteor crater.

Comedy ensues partly due to Anderson's affinity for nerdy malcontents, naturally, and this film assembles quite an ensemble, which is saying a lot considering all Anderson's films have ludicrously large casts. The main character (arguably) is Woodrow (Jake Ryan), the oldest son of Augie Steenback (Jason Schwartzman), a war photographer who hasn't yet told his children that their mother has been dead for almost a month. Woodrow connects most closely at camp with Dinah (Grace Edwards), daughter of a melancholic but accomplished movie star (Scarlett Johansson), but their cohort of "Stargazers" also includes Ethan Josh Lee as a boy who questions authority and Aristou Meehan as a boy eager to be dared to enact dangerous or foolish stunts. Naturally, more comedy ensues when the camp's keynote speaker, General Gibson (Jeffrey Wright, a perfect casting for what is essentially the banality of evil), is revealed to be planning to steal the tech developed by these kids for the US government.

Those more interested in the human emotional core of this film should find it more accessible and relatable than in most of Anderson's films; at least, I did. The central family drama expands a bit when Augie's father-in-law (Tom Hanks) arrives to help his grandchildren process grief over their mother's death. Woodrow's sisters never quite land as real characters, but their interactions with Hanks are very cute. Surprisingly, I did not care much about the human part of this film -- perhaps I've been burned too often by Anderson to want to care about characters this time -- and much preferred the caricatures and form. That said, Johansson and Schwartzman completely blew me away with their performances; specifically Schwartzman, who has never done a role quite like this, and who plays Augie as well as the actor playing Augie as he convinces (seduces?) Earp to cast him. 

Asteroid City isn't wholly unlike those slice of life plays of a type of expansion-era mindset. Think October Sky meets Our Town. There's a lot of busy action, people talking and not listening, seeing and not appreciating, and connecting in unexpected ways. But by the final act, it all seems to boil down to everyone wondering what the meaning of human life is or could be. Because not only is their liminal space, floating precariously on ruin in the desert, an existential crisis itself, but during the camp they are visited not once but twice by an alien flying saucer. This revelation -- portrayed in brilliant stop-motion -- does very little to help anyone's existential crises, but it certainly provides opportunity for the characters to reflect and stay in town for another week. Which, really, is what we're all doing in life, right?

Anderson, of course, handles these themes deftly, perhaps even briskly here. His characters are agonizing for answers and purpose, and yet when given the metaphorical microphone, they voice their version of the questions we ourselves have as audience members: "I don't understand the play. Am I doing it right?" It's these moments that take us out of the play and into the film properly, and I loved that. Much as how every single detail of the sets and props are important and brilliant, these little "asides" from Anderson's screenplay are crucial and poignant. There is a lot of silly stuff here, much like in Moonrise Kingdom, but Anderson wants us to work our way though tough questions. One of my only notes from watching this movie came from Johansson, who while gazing through neighboring windows at Augie and discussing their melancholia, says, "We're just two catastrophically wounded people who don't express the depths of our pain because [...] we don't want to."

Elemental (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

People tend to place Pixar features on the top shelf of animation, and historically, rightfully so: consider the groundbreaking and visionary titles that came out every couple years after Toy Story and at least once per year since probably Ratatouille. But I try to remind myself and others often that the story of Pixar is also the story of Disney animation, and the two are hardly divisible anymore. And, more importantly, that Pixar hasn't had much real inspiration since Onward in 2020, and Coco in 2017 before that. Everything else they've put out has been sequels or "original" films that all have to do with nonwhite characters turning into animals for most of their respective films. Think I'm being harsh? Almost exactly a year ago they released Lightyear, and the three titles before that include Turning Red, Luca, and Soul. Not to mention that I've never forgiven the studio for creating the Cars franchise.

So when I heard the latest Disney/Pixar feature would release this summer, I took the news with dubious enthusiasm. Its trailer looks not unlike a cross between Inside Out and Zootopia, and that's pretty much what the film delivers. At least visually. Director Peter Sohn (who also directed The Good Dinosaur) and his team here imagines an urban metropolis in which the hoi polloi are anthropomorphic natural elements. That is, there are clear delineations between the earth/tree people, water peeps, air/cloud denizens, and of course the fire folks. As the characters traverse the bustling New York-like city, we're treated to endlessly clever inventions of visual flair, fully realizing the joys and humor inherent in its high concept. Of course most of the elements can mix in somewhat safe ways, with the exception of fire; most of the film's comedy and drama come, in tandem, from the plight of fire people to navigate the waterways and wooden infrastructure of Element City.

Naturally, then, the heart of the story lies with the fire people, flaming characters who have immigrated to the city and established a culturally specific neighborhood together. The film doesn't shy away from paining the fire folks as nonwhite, though it's not terribly specific beyond that (there are mixtures of Spanish, Arabian, Indian, and other historically nonwhite immigrant groups all rolled into the fire community, even including Irish in a brief but eye-catching gag: "Kiss me, I'm Firish!"). For the purpose of context, the water folk are generally meant to be wealthier white people, fully Americanized and sitting pretty in the city made by and for themselves. Whereas Zootopia focused its breakdown of discrimination and segregation on the "predator and prey" dichotomy in a social/political way, Elemental takes a more domestic approach, concerning itself with intergenerational conflicts, second generation migrant development, and of course young love.

Apart from a few excursions and brief scenes, we don't get much information about the gnome-like earth people or the puffy, athletic cloud puffs. I'd have liked some more effort to fully realize these communities, because the film instead packs so many sight gags that they're hard to recall and generally unsatisfying due to a lack of concern. What does get more focus, tellingly, is the romantic heart of the plot, between the star-crossed fiery protagonist Ember (Leah Lewis) and the watery simp Wade (Mamoudou Athie). Wade, a city inspector, got literally sucked into Ember's basement when her hot temper flares, bursting some pipes and revealing an existential threat to the infrastructure of Firetown. She initially pursues him to stop her father's store (soon to be her inheritance) from being closed, and then the two embark on a quest to save all of Firetown. It's a beautiful and happily ending interracial love story, one that rarely (if ever) has been told by Disney, at least not with human characters. Many sequences felt directly inspired by classic romances like Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and especially Moonstruck, and while it's not a genre I typically enjoy, it was interesting and entertaining to see Disney so openly embracing that particular cinematic tradition.

But there's nothing new or fresh about that part, as the two lovers "will they or won't they" through familiar plotholes and rote expository doldrums. The exciting parts of this film lie with Ember's family and their struggles to maintain their pride as well as their livelihood. The opening sequence dramatizes Ember's parents coming through the Ellis Island of Element City and getting Anglicized names (Bernie and Cinder). As Ember grows, her father grooms her as his heir apparent, a de facto store owner and manager, though she increasingly realizes that her gifts and interests do not align with the life plan her father has determined. Rather than on her flirty adventures with Wade, I cared much more about the impending fallout Ember prepares to have with her family. We're just not given much time to dwell on anything because of the film's frenetic pace and commitment to spectacle.

While the animation is uniformly brilliant, it feels a bit hindered by the lackluster storytelling, which can't quite decide just how My Big Fat Greek Wedding it wants to be. Voice acting is great, the score by Thomas Newman is phenomenal (and clearly sourced from a wide variety of international, multicultural musical traditions), and even Catherine O'Hara pops in for a few scenes as Wade's mother. I cried heartily by film's end, much as I did in Luca, and while the movie is indeed a delightful romp, it never quite manages to capture a sense of wonder and magic, preferring instead to rehash tired tropes of romance and play its own social and political ideas disappointingly safely.