Review: Zootopia 2

The first Zootopia was a pretty funny buddy comedy that also happened to be set in a society where the citizens were largely expected to act in species-specific ways. Which makes sense for animals, but when it's an animated film where "animals" sort of maps onto "ethnic stereotypes"... well, you can kind of see the problem.

Fortunately Zootopia went on to say this kind of thing was bad - it was a story about a hero rabbit (a prey animal) succeeding at being a cop (a predator job), after all - so all good, the coast is clear for a sequel that's a bit less politically fraught, right? And not at all about, say, a conspiracy by one kind of animal to dispossess another species and cast them out of their homeland to live in the desert for a hundred years while they claim the cast out species are murderers who deserve their exile? Hang on, I'm getting an update...

Back at the beginning, Officer Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and former street hustler turned partner Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) are in a bit of a bind. Their fellow officers see them as chumps who got lucky with their last big case; Hopps is determined to prove them wrong, while Wilde is (as usual) a bit more laid-back about the whole thing.

Adding to the problem, they're a mixed team (she's a rabbit, he's a fox), which has people thinking they'll never be on the same page. And maybe they're right: their next attempt at a big bust goes wrong big time, embarrassing the new Mayor - a former action movie actor horse with flowing locks named Brian Winddancer (Patrick Warburton) - and sending them off to couples therapy.

Undeterred, Hopps doubles down. With evidence a snake was at the scene of the failed bust, she figures out the reptile is in town to attack the Zootenial Gala. It's an event celebrating 100 years since the founding of Zootopia (the creation of the various climate-controlled zones, to be specific), which also saw reptiles largely exiled from the city after a terrorist attack.

If you've ever seen a buddy cop movie before, you have a pretty good idea of what comes next. Our heroes are soon on the trail of what really happened, while the rich and powerful are out to crush them and the system has them marked as criminals. Worse, the rift between Hopps and Wilde seems to be growing: what's even the point of solving the big mystery if it tears the two of them apart?

It's a mystery that's nice and twisty, and a great excuse to propel our leads through all manner of situations and settings. Most of which are at least partially played for laughs, though this isn't afraid to get serious when it's time to crank up the stakes, and the action scenes are possibly a little much for very young viewers.

The jokes are pretty solid too, ranging from pop culture references to silly sight gags to physical comedy to the return of the Sloth, everyone's favourite character from the first film. Speaking of pop culture, there's one shock development that makes more sense if you get the reference the bad guys are based on, but it works even if you (like most kids) don't pick up on it. 

The "partnership" (it's a relationship in everything but name) between Hopps and Wilde is also well handled. Hopps is always right, of course - she's the one driving the story - but Wilde's side of things makes enough sense that he's not dead weight. Pretty much everyone else just gets off a gag or two, but conspiracy theorist / guide to the bad part of town Nibbles Maplestick (Fortune Feimster) does stand out.

The result is a surprisingly entertaining adventure of a kind Hollywood doesn't make anywhere often enough. You wouldn't say it's a kids version of One Battle After Another, but there's a similar commitment to old-fashioned story-driven running-around action. Which is fun to watch! Who knew.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Wicked For Good

Prequels can take two paths. In one, they fit relatively seamlessly with what lies ahead - events often build to a finale that's just a rehash of the next film's opening. In the other, all bets are off; you might get a bunch of superficial similarities, but the goal isn't just to provide backstory, it's to recontexualise what we think we know. Even by the end of the first Wicked it was clear we were wandering far from the yellow brick road, and the second half of the story just keeps on going.

When we last left Oz, Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) had decided to embrace the whole "Wicked Witch of the West" thing. Enough time has passed (the official version is five years, but the film keeps it vague) that she's now an official symbol of terror in the Emerald City, whereas former bestie Glinda (Ariana Grande) is now Glinda the Good... they're working on the witch side of things, as she still displays no magical abilities.

Behind the scenes, Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) is pulling the strings, while the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) is the slightly more well-meaning front man. Talking animals are fleeing the new repressive regime, while Munchkins are next in line. Elphaba's sister Nessarose (Marrisa Bode) is now governor of Munchkinland, and everyone else is trapped in a web of doomed relationships, which are as follows (deep breath) - 

Nessarose loves munchkin Boq (Ethan Slater), who loves Glinda, who loves former classmate turned Captain of the Guard Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), who is hunting Elphaba because he secretly loves her, and she loves... well, him, which would set her up for a happy ending if we didn't already know where things were heading. 

As musicals go, this is good but not great. There's no real standout song or dance sequence here, and by its very nature the story doesn't build to a big musical climax. It's almost easy to forget this is a musical for long stretches, as the plot becomes too complex and the storytelling too brisk for there to be time to stop everything for a musical number to clarify things. 

Dramatically, this makes up for it by cranking up the stakes. The talking animal subplot comes up just enough to make it clear that things are rotten in Oz; the munchkin repression (Nessarose doesn't want Boq to leave her, so she locks down Munchkinland) only makes things worse. When an attempt to lure out Elphaba brings a familiar Kansas house crashing down, it's clear things are going to change. But which way?

Grande and Erivo are pretty much carrying this, and they're easily the strongest elements here (aside from the set design, which remains gorgeous). Both wring every drop of emotion out of characters drawn in broad strokes, justifying the film's reliance on sentiment to sell a drama where much of the late-stage storytelling is about moving characters into their familiar settings. 

Even then, some of that storytelling is a bit too pat. If you ever wanted origins for The Scarecrow and The Tin Man beyond "Oz is full of weird stuff", you'll find them here, though they mostly just make Oz feel like it only contains maybe half a dozen actual people. The flying monkeys get redeemed too, which is certainly a choice for one of movie's more iconic threats.

But the fact this is actually about something rather than simply an excuse to play with some much-loved toys carries it over the line. The politics have their heart in the right place, and if a few of the classic characters are done dirty - Tin Man fans may not look kindly on the revisionism, though the Scarecrow definitely levels up - for the most part the new angles revealed here make things more interesting. 

Though if you end up watching this before you see The Wizard of Oz - something that it's now and forever possible for people to do - you're going to have a pretty wild ride.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: The Running Man

Edgar Wright's adaptation of the Stephen King novel The Running Man presents audiences with a grim future in which deadly game shows are seen by many as the only path out of poverty. Back in the 1970s, it was bleak satire; today, it's a less compelling version of The Amazing Race. Say what you like about the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger version (which gets a few nods here), but it did a bang-up job of predicting the future of television. Well, aside from the lengthy dance routines.

Working stiff Ben Richards (Glenn Powell) is the angriest man in the crapsack future USA. Whether he's angry because he keeps getting fired for trying to do the right thing, or he keeps getting fired because he's angry, who can tell; all he knows is, he needs money for medicine for his baby. Some things never change, at least not in Hollywood thrillers.

Even his attempt to audition for a low-risk game show makes him angry, which attracts the attention of The Running Man producer Dan Killian (Josh Brolin). Angry is what his show needs, mostly because the whole thing is an exercise in riling the audience up; Richards gets fast-tracked into a jumpsuit and away we go.

Unlike the Schwarzenegger version, which took place in a confined stretch of trashed city blocks, here the whole USA is Richard's hiding place, with a ticking clock that runs for 30 days. It doesn't really make a lot of sense as a television show; much of the appeal seems to be for regular folks out on the street who can cash in by spotting the contestants. But it's implied the whole thing is just a barely coherent distraction where the real goal is to get people cheering the execution of various cliched undesirables.

Once Richards is on the run the film takes on an episodic feel, as he goes from city to city finding himself in new scenarios, from a flophouse attack to hiding out with various rebel factions who see his growing fame as a way to get the public on side. The hunters here are just generic military goons (no Sub Zero here) aside from their masked leader (Lee Pace) - no catchphrases or one-liners here, though they do seem to like giving their weapons names. 

Richards himself is much more of a regular guy than in the previous film, so most of the action scenes are more about escaping than colourful kills. The pace is where Wright really succeeds here; the film moves fast enough to keep you leaning in, rushing past points where the story or setting feel just a little flimsy.

Powell himself seems to take a little time settling into the role - or it's just that all his big angry moments are early on, and once he's running he settles down and focuses on dealing with a string of tight situations. He gets enough good moments to come off well, but like everything else here he's a bit all over the place.

One problem is that Wright keeps dropping in moments designed to remind us that we can't trust what we're seeing. Richards has brief (violent) fantasies that are revealed to have never happened; at one point he has a lengthy stress dream which may or may not have taken place for real. Plus it's made clear from the start that the Network can fake any footage; how can we believe anything we see on a screen really happened?

So while this has effective scenes, the overall feeling is of a film that's a little too unstable to buy into. It's not about a world where we don't know what's real - Richards is definitely on the run - but the specifics remain a little too blurry, especially as his character's arc is more about staggering from one desperate scene to another rather than any kind of plan to succeed.

No spoilers, but the ending(s) take this to a whole new level, providing multiple scenarios that pummel any real tension or triumph out of proceedings. Whether studio meddling required a change from the novel's conclusion (which this seems firmly heading towards), or Wright wanted to reflect our current conspiracy-heavy culture, it doesn't really matter.

This isn't a failure, but it's not going to replace the original movie either. Fans of the novel will appreciate its largely faithful approach; fans of the earlier film will enjoy the occasional in-joke. As for fans of futuristic thrills, they'll find plenty to enjoy here - even if this Running Man sometimes runs out of breath.

- Anthony Morris 

Review: Now You See Me: Now You Don't

The idea of a crack team of stage magicians using their abilities to right wrongs and take down Bond-level bad guys is... look, you either buy in or you don't. This long-delayed third installment in the Now You See Me series does pretty much everything right, and the result is exactly what you'd expect: a very silly movie. You have been warned.

It's been ten years since global magic sensation - these movies take place in a parallel dimension where stage magic really is as cool as Chris Angel: Mindfreak thinks it is - The Four Horsemen performed on stage, so of course rumours of a hard-to-find comeback gig bring fans out of the wood work. As usual, the Horsemen do their standard trick of using magic to right wrongs (bad news for an embezzling finance bro), but there's a twist: these aren't the Horesemen you were expecting.

Charlie (Justice Smith), June (Ariana Greenblatt) and Bosco (Dominic Sessa) are young magicians who figured using the OG Horsemen's images was fair enough. Enter J Daniel Atlas (Jesse Eisenberg), original leader of the Four Horsemen, who is less than impressed at these kids ripping off his act but a magic card told him he needs them to take down a bad guy so all good.

The bad guy is evil South African diamond miner Veronika Vanderberg (Rosalind Pike), who launders money for arms dealers and drug lords via selling overpriced diamonds and holding fancy events. The new teams' attempt to steal her family's Hope Diamond on a rare trip outside of its high security vault proves to be more difficult than they thought. Luckily the rest of the Horsemen - Merritt (Woody Harrelson), Jack (Dave Franco) and Henley (Isla Fisher) also received magic cards so they're on the scene as surprise backup.

From there the movie is pretty much just a bunch of illusions that mostly work and a couple of surprise reveals that again, mostly work. The best thing you can say about the story is that it does a great job of giving everyone enough screentime to make their characters feel essential, while jumping from set piece to set piece that, again, gives everyone enough to do to make them feel essential. Remember how The Fast & The Furious movies got a lot better once they started bringing all the old characters back? Same here.

The secret to this franchise's success - aside from finding a lot of actors who can come across as likeable, and also Jesse Eisenberg - is that it took a pair of genres that relied on outsmarting the audience (that'd be heist movies and movies about magic tricks) and made them as stupid as possible. Not always a bad thing! Much like magic itself, all the pleasures here are surface level: the second you start thinking about anything you're seeing, you've ruined it for yourself.

The result is a hangout movie best experienced as a chance to watch a group of good-looking airheads run around trading quips while everything around them is either glamourous, fake or a chance to make cops and security guards look silly. Not the best time you'll have in a cinema; not the worst time either.

- Anthony Morris 

 

Review: Predator: Badlands

A big part of the reviewing business is accurately identifying what it is you're reviewing. It's not much good attacking a film for being a boring action movie when it is, in fact, a romantic comedy. And sometimes the identifying part of the review is the whole point - when, for example, a franchise known for being one thing takes a turn towards something else entirely.

Stymied by the demands of turning a one-off story into a franchise, the Predator movies have largely drifted in and out of focus over the years. Aside from the car crash that was The Predator, none of them have been outright bad (we're only talking about solo Predator movies here; enter at your own risk the world of the Aliens crossovers), but none of them have really been solid enough to set a firm path for the series to walk.

The recent direct-to-streaming (but was really good enough for cinemas) Prey made things work by getting back to the basics: badass in regular trouble, then a Predator arrives and the real trouble begins. Predator: Badlands - directed by Dan Trachenberg after helming Prey and the animated Killer of Killers - takes things in a very different direction. So much so that it's a far question to ask: is this really a Predator movie?

Well, it definitely features Predators, if that's what you're asking. After a bunch of family feud backstory - turns out our lead Dek (New Zealand actor Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is the runt of the litter, which is not a good thing to be in Predator (or as they prefer to be known, Yautja) society - Dek is off to Genna, aka "The Death Planet" to prove his worthiness by killing the most deadly creature in the galaxy, the Kalisk.

Also after the Kalisk is Weyland-Yutani, the evil corporation from the Alien movies. That explains why, after a lengthy stretch of struggling to survive on a planet where everything is trying to kill him in entertainingly inventive ways, Dek finds the top half of Thia (Elle Fanning), a synthetic damaged and left behind after a WY attempt to capture a Kalisk.

She says she can help him find and defeat it if he takes her with him. He disdains co-operation - but if she's merely a tool, then okay. Is this the start of a beautiful friendship? There's a lot of competing agendas standing in the way of any kind of bonding, and that's before Thia's much more committed to the mission sister Tessa (Fanning) shows up with an army of identical synthetics.

This works very hard - and mostly succeeds - to hide the fact that this is very much a PG-Disney coming-of-age movie. The WY forces are 100% robots (WY has a long history of using them), which means a lot of "killing" where no people get hurt. The plot is very much about the importance of working together and the value of found family over those violent losers you were born (or made) with. Is there a cute animal sidekick? Sadly yes, though they do play a useful part in the plot (and the killing).

Judged on its own merits, this is a highly entertaining romp. Fanning is a perfect foil as the chirpy Thia, Dek is a classic earnest teen (whose youthful Yautja features are surprisingly expressive), and their story is a legitimate "fun for the whole family" (well, maybe not little kids) adventure. There's lots of exciting action and thrilling danger that never gets too scary because it's almost all plants and robots. But is it a Predator movie?

Fans of old school Yautja action - skinning people alive, ripping out their skull and spinal column, slaughtering dozens of heavily armed men (as opposed to robots) at a time - will notice a distinct lack of that kind of thing here. It's a good film, but the term "Disney Predator" is a pretty accurate description of what this is, no matter how well it plays up all the (plentiful) action, (limited) violence and (non-existent) gore it can get away with under that heading. 

The obvious path for Predator sequels would have been a string of movies that seem like they're going to be something else entirely (workplace drama, family comedy) only to have a Predator turn up out of nowhere at the end of act one and start hunting people. But they couldn't market that kind of movie as a Predator movie without spoiling the surprise, and so instead we've had decades of films striking out in different directions trying to find a way forward.

This probably isn't going to be the long-sought-after new direction. A big part of why Predator: Badlands works is that it's running against what you'd expect to get from a Predator film, but it never just ignores the franchise's violent past. The whole "found family" thing wouldn't hit as hard if we hadn't seen a bunch of films showing us just how brutal and murderous Yautja are.

The result is yet another Predator movie that tonally doesn't have much to do with what came before. As such, it brings honour to the franchise. 

- Anthony Morris