Coco an emotional, spiritual journey

Miguel enters the Land of the Dead in Coco. Image courtesy Disney.

Coco is the darkest movie in Pixar history. Pixar has a knack for diving into some dark and sad territory, but this is the first time the company has centered its story on death. This story is literally about spirits and aging and the ever present thought of mortality. Pixar, being Pixar, translates a story about death into a visually-stunning, family-oriented, crowd-pleasing musical rife with joy and a few lessons for everyone. (Except the bad guy, whose moral retribution is among the most dreadful in Disney's long history of making the villains pay for their transgressions.)

At stake in Coco is both life and eternal life. The life of the precocious but impetuous Miguel (voiced by Anthony Gonzalez) is the most trenchant threat the movie has to offer, given the fear of dying at a young age is about as close to a universal horror as it gets for Coco’s young target audience. More existentially horrifying is the death that comes after death, as the spirit Héctor (Gael García Bernal) describes to Miguel after watching the already dead dissolve away into nothing. All life effectively ends once the world has forgotten about you, the memory imprinted into others is the flickering candle that keeps the souls fresh in the Land of the Dead. Death is inevitable, but a second death caused by the world forgetting you, and knowing that is exactly how one is fading toward oblivion, is terrifying and inevitable. Coco attempts to cover the darkness of its subject matter with what is a gorgeous depiction of the Land of the Dead. What could be shown as a dark and morbid place is depicted instead as a lively city light brightly and festooned with garish lights and lots of light hues, showing how the denizens of the Land of the Dead haven’t lost their humanity.

And yet, this is still a movie about an impossible to know subject explained to children with little cognizance of what death actually means. Coco resides in a very dark place for a Pixar film, putting its child protagonist at risk of a premature entry into the Land of the Dead from the start of act two. The film gives its young character an easy out by requesting forgiveness from long-dead matriarch Mamá Imelda (Alanna Ubach), under the condition Miguel abandons his love for music and adopts his family's shoemaker life. Miguel actively resists his dead family's help and instead searches for  guitar legend Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt) for absolution, preferring the possibility of death over the death of his passion. It's a headstrong and dangerous choice, albeit one the movie doesn't fault him for either. It's a Pixar tradition to have complicated moral lessons, never quite showing one side of an argument to be more right than the other. There are shades of correctness, areas in which compromise between the warring parties should take precedence because of their shared bond. A lesson is learned by all, but everyone learns their own lesson to reach the important middle ground. The problem, at least for Coco, is the plot machinations to get to those points is a little sloppy, even granted the relative lower bar set for animated movies (and the expository nature of musicals). The lessons are a little too easy to figure out for the characters, the journey toward self discovery a little too convenient. One of the major plot points is telegraphed in a manner that remains inexplicable, relying on a character making an incredibly dumb admission of guilt in a fictional format. The narrative can’t be this pointed to work as effectively as it could; being too blunt about the process lessens the effect of the lesson shared to the character, and to the audience as well.

It’s a frustrating problem, but forgivable for how wonderful the rest of the movie is. Coco is really, really easy to get lost to, the visuals complementing the music, which adds brightness to the morbid story. This movie is a reminder of what Pixar is capable of when it isn't chasing Cars money, providing joyous and heartfelt viewing experiences for children and adults. It's hard not to bob one's head along to the addicting songs and laugh at the gallows humor and enjoy Miguel’s family run by his Abuelita (Renee Victor). And it's especially hard not to sob uncontrollably in the third act when Miguel plays a heart-wrenching song to his great grandmother, the eponymous Coco. The build up to that moment is brilliant, the moment plays out gorgeously, and the movie earns every tear that will cascade from your eyes.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG

Run time: 109 minutes

Genre: Animation

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Target audience: Families and Pixar junkies.

Take the whole family?: Coco is appropriately morbid given the subject matter, but it's bright enough to not scare off kids much younger than 7.

Theater or Netflix?: Totally worth watching it in theaters with the kids, especially after a long day of Black Friday shopping.

How's the soundtrack?: Pretty great, actually. Inspired by the Mexican milieu and its themes of memory, the music oscillates between fun and cheerful to mournful and heartbreaking. They're catchy, but in a quality way that doesn't make replaying the music for two days straight feel regrettable.

Watch this as well?: Most of the Pixar library is some variation of good to excellent. This one fits alongside Inside Out and Up in the break your heart category.

Waiting for Superman

Ezra Miller, Ben Affleck, and Gal Gadot in Justice League. Image courtesy Warner Bros.

What makes the generally dire Justice League somewhat worth watching is Wonder Woman. Gal Gadot's fiery, intense warrior remains a delight to watch as she charges headfirst into a fight, sword and shield in hand ready to strike down the foes who oppose her. Aside from the satisfaction wrought from having Wonder Woman serve as the toughest character among a collection of super powered folks – a trait shared with the great Justice League animated show from the 2000s – Gadot gives the character a little charm to add a touch of humanity to her character. Some adaptations, for example recent video game entries, have centered her character on the character's warrior spirit they lose touch of the humanity that allows a god to embrace life among humans. DC has a good thing going with Wonder Woman, so it totally makes sense for the company to add a male version of her in the form of Jason Momoa's Aquaman. They’re effectively mirrors of each other, one serving to make the other moderately redundant. Because having a unique, distinguished female character is a step too far for DC, and Aquaman needs to do something besides speak to fish.

One way or another, DC can't get out of its own way when adapting its comic properties to film, which is the driving force of Justice League's failures. The decisions made in the filmmaking process by director Zack Snyder and writers Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon are more often than not wrong, resulting in a disjointed, slight movie instead of the powerful blockbuster the company needs. This was DC's shot at a franchise centerpiece, and it fell remarkably short of achieving that goal.

The most fundamental flaw with Justice League is a story that feels incomplete, as if key components were removed to keep the run time at around two hours. The movie brings back Wonder Woman and Ben Affleck's Batman (who spends the movie being fairly useless among his powerful friends) from, but takes time out for the origins of new heroes Aquaman, Cyborg (Ray Fisher), and Flash (Ezra Miller). All three will get their own movies in the next few years, but they are new to this DC Cinematic Universe, and Justice League has to take time to introduce all three from scratch. The process is clunky, stealing time away from the save the world narrative while missing opportunities to understand the team dynamic. DC would have been better served properly introducing Aquaman, Cyborg, and Flash in separate movies ahead of this one, as almost a third of this movie is devoted to introducing those three.

Cutting down on the new character introduction would then provide more time to focus on the aforementioned save the world story audiences came out to see. Justice League would benefit from additional time to flesh out an uninspiring, rote plot. Part of the issue is from the choice of villains – the alien Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciarán Hinds) is not a major DC villain, certainly not as intimidating as Darkseid or even a deranged Lex Luthor. Once the team of beings with godlike powers (and Batman) assembles, Steppenwolf's inevitable defeat becomes clear and anticlimactic. The build up of a grand battle to save the earth ends in an blasé fashion, concluded with neither of the movie’s two proud warriors, Wonder Woman and Aquaman, ending the battle with the killing blow.

If the plot feels a little familiar, that’s because Marvel already did it in The Avengers, although Marvel did a much more competent job. And it doesn’t take too close of a look to see where Snyder and crew lifted from other sources with small to no traces of shame. A flashback to a previous battle with Steppenwolf is formatted like a Lord of the Rings rip off. The bits about Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and the world losing hope after Superman's death (Henry Cavill) has elements of Ghostbusters II to it, and there’s a rather blatant rip off of Frankenstein. Throwing these elements together just makes the story feel weak, as if the writers weren’t confident in the path they chose for their superhero team.

The overarching vibe for Justice League is disappoint. Is this all DC has to offer for the most memorable superhero team of all time? A recycled plot with poor characterization is the best this company has to offer fans who've already been stuck with Dawn of Justice and Suicide Squad and murderous interpretations of otherwise pacifistic heroes? None of this bodes well for the impending Justice League sequel and the rest of the onslaught of DC movies, so strap in for a bumpy ride.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 120 minutes

Genre: Action

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Target audience: People who love DC Comics.

Take the whole family?: There's a lot of violence with minimal amounts of human blood, so for parents who are good with that this won't be too much for kiddos.

Theater or Netflix?: Really, really don't pay the extra money to see it.

What about the little things?: What irked me the most was how the little things kept getting messed up. Most notably is how every superhero calls each other by their real first names, no matter how close they are to, say, a group of cops or Bruce Wayne's employees. These heroes hide their identities for many, many reasons, and there's no way Batman would allow anyone to call him Bruce in open quarters.

Watch this instead?: Wonder Woman is the best of the recent DC Comics movie adaptation, although it still isn't that great. The Justice League cartoon from the 2000s is excellent, and the ongoing Justice League Action is pretty fun. If you do want to go out, just hit up Thor: Ragnarok and enjoy the madness that ensues.

Murder on the Orient Express a lackluster character study

Kenneth Branagh as Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express. Image courtesy 20th Century Fox.

Murder on the Orient Express is a pretty adequate movie. It boasts a lovely (albeit underutilized) supporting cast, good imagery, and an ending that, more than 80 years after Agatha Christie wrote it in the book of the same name, remains brilliant. But on the whole, the movie is just adequate, which is a low bar to achieve for a film based on such a nuanced, immersive story. Director Kenneth Branagh and writer Michael Green definitely aim for greater than adequate, but their interpretation of the source material misses on several important aspects that the best this film can achieve is adequacy, heavily disappointing adequacy.

Branagh and Green bank a lot on the cachet of Murder on the Orient Express protagonist and world's greatest detective Hercule Poirot, betting the famous fictional Belgian with the established mustache could carry what is, at heart, an ensemble piece. Ego drives the decision quite a bit – Branagh himself dons the detective’s legendary (and ridiculous) mustache and a wavering accent – but from a distance the logic is there to support that decision. The mind of a genius is interesting to observe, to learn more about what drives such brilliance and how a mind as brilliant as Poirot's processes a complicated case and finds the truth amid a collection of lies. Branagh and Green instead effectively portray him as Sherlock Holmes combined with Tony Shalhoub's Monk (who is, again, based on Sherlock Holmes), and Poirot becomes a fussy, egotistical fellow with a nasty self-righteous streak. It's been done, and it's been done far better than what Branagh and Green have to offer. They scrub much of the character's sense of whimsy and create a sourpuss with an unclear devotion to a mysterious woman from his past. Which, again, has been done.

Fittingly enough, that lost love is mentioned fleetingly in a movie about Hercule Poirot. So too is Poirot's investigative process, which is clipped by the film's script. Key clues are conjured from thin air in Murder on the Orient Express, with the ones that could be caught by the audience sometimes ignored in exchange for some bit of background Poirot figures out away from the viewers. This is a cheap trick that murder mysteries have gotten away with for years, but the issue is less egregious in other formats because the stories focus on the mystery, not the detective. Switching the focus back over to the detective, as Branagh and Green do, both makes those cheats more pronounced and frustrating, and reduces a lot of vital character development. If the movie is about Poirot, the steps Poirot takes to solve the eponymous crime need to be outlined, not worked around.

Swept aside by all the love for Poirot is a pretty deep supporting cast and the characters they portray. Keeping the movie under two hours (although it feels much longer than that) restricts the screen time for talented performers like Penelope Cruz, Michelle Pfeiffer, Daisy Ridley, Leslie Odom Jr., Derek Jacobi. Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, and Willem Dafoe, all of whom could do wonders with their roles as the murder suspects and the victim. Aside from Pfeiffer getting her (possible) Oscar moment toward the end and Odom Jr. and Ridley stepping up for a few moments, the supporting case otherwise blends in together, stuck waiting for Poirot to got talk to them. Poirot is better served as an audience surrogate to learn about the passengers on the train, not as the center of attention.

Murder on the Orient Express replaces much of its character development with an overarching sense of despair. This Hercule Poirot is kind of emo, haunted by a mysterious past and tired of his own greatness at solving crimes. The pursuit of knowledge, the intellectual curiosity of discovering the motives and method of an impossible murder, mean little to this version of Poirot. He's out for a very black and white version of justice that doesn't necessarily fit a character who otherwise lives in the grey area of life. Even the actions around the murder are portrayed with a great level of heft and severity, the stakes raised to add some drama to what, ideally, is a fun little murder mystery. Instead, Green and Branagh went for gritty in a genre that works best as either noir or as a sort of popcorn movie where the audience tries to figure out who did the deed. Ideally a movie like Murder on the Orient Express would be more joyful than stern, the darkness of the murder lightened by the cast and the quirks of Poirot's investigative method. What’s offered instead is the token gritty reboot, which are a dime a dozen these days.

Review: Two and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 114 minutes

Genre: Mystery

Ask Away

Target audience: People who've either read Murder on the Orient Express and any of Agatha Christie's other novels with Hercule Poirot, have watched one of the previous adaptations, or like Kenneth Branagh movies.

Take the whole family?: Keep it around the PG-13 rating, especially given how uninteresting the content would be for younger viewers.

Theater or Netflix?: Netflix is better.

Does this movie have issues with racism?: It does cross a few lines that it can't talk its way out of. The language is a problem despite the era the film is set in, but what doesn’t pass the thin “it was a different time” excuse is an action taken by Leslie Odom Jr.'s character late in the movie that falls back on a trope about African-Americans and violence. The moment is unnecessary for both the character – other versions have shown that character's temper in less overt ways – and the movie itself.

Watch this instead?: The 1974 Murder on the Orient Express is a classic with a much lighter touch than this version. Also worth a look is Murder by Death, a delirious parody of murder mysteries featuring Peter Falk, Peter Sellers, David Niven, Eileen Brennan, Maggie Smith, and, randomly enough, Truman Capote

Ragnarok finds humor at the world's end

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) in Thor: Ragnarok. Image courtesy Disney.

Thor: Ragnarok is a weird movie. It's weird because it's a movie about Norse mythology that focuses more on technological marvels than the mythology inherent to its title. It's weird because of the dramatic tonal shift from the other Thor movies. And it's super weird because Jeff Goldblum shows up with shockingly blue facial hair and literally melts a man with a stick. Ragnarok is a trip, but it is one heck of a journey to a place more bizarre than other Marvel movies have ventured.

What's so hard to reconcile about Ragnarok is how lightly the movie takes the end of a world. Superhero movies are all about saving planets from destruction while making sure the people are safe and the damage is minimal. A few jokes are sprinkled in to ensure the story doesn't get too dark, but for the most part the superhero as savior concept is a foundation for a lion's share of comic book-related lore. Except for Ragnarok, in which the threat of the destruction of Asgard starts as a gag between Thor (Chris Hemsworth reprising his role) and a skeleton just above a pit of fire. It sets the rhythm for the rest of the movie, with the comedy taking a precedence over the gravity of the situation the characters face. Everyone cracks a few jokes, from the naturally talkative Loki (Tom Hiddleston), to the goddess of death/destroyer of world Hela (Cate Blanchett), to the otherwise stern Heimdall (Idris Elba), to the fallen Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). Even the Hulk, the Incredible Hulk and not Bruce Banner (both of whom are versions of Mark Ruffalo) showcases something resembling a sense of humor.

And you know what? It's actually kind of glorious in its own way. The sense of humor is akin to what’s found in the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but Ragnarok makes it unique by changing the context to make the jokes a greater joke itself. Ragnarok is a slightly different family tree as Dr. Strangelove, in which the biggest laugh is earned by the insanity of the movie mocking the inherent somber nature of earth's destruction. The story Ragnarok tells is just as dark as Dr. Strangelove, but with brighter colors and Disney's stamp of approval. That also means the Thor movie can't be as nihilistic as Dr. Strangelove is; it is still a blockbuster first and foremost. But director Taika Waititi and the screenwriters push Ragnarok further than the other Thor films to do what the best MCU movies have done; make a movie with their own imprint on it. There are, again, limits to how far creatively the filmmakers can get with the Marvel movies – an entire cinematic universe is at stake – but Waititi and company turned a Thor movie into a comedy. Like the excellent Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the very good to great Guardians of the Galaxy movies, Ragnarok stands on its own as a piece of cinema.

Still, there remains a bit lacking with Ragnarok that pushes it a step or two down from the aforementioned Marvel movies and puts it more on par with the fun Spider-Man: Homecoming and Iron Man 3. There is what should amount to a great story arc involving Thor and the uncovering of his father Odin's (Anthony Hopkins) past, something that should force the mighty god of thunder to confront his own background and the demons his father has wrought upon his people. It's a Shakespearean bit in line with the first Thor movie, with the evil Odin committed living far beyond the good he brought in. Ragnarok barely touches the surface of this story, having Thor just sort of go with the news that his father was a monster for a very long time. That could be marked as a sign of character growth, but Thor does drop a few tears for Odin early on, and the amount of time the movie spends reconciling Odin's history is disappointingly minimal.

But the baseline for a quality superhero movie – good action, likable characters, expansive world building – remains intact, and the goofy nature and general oddness of the situation only add to those key elements. To repurpose another classic literary line, Ragnarok opts to end the world not with a whimper but with a bang and a lot of laughs along the way toward doom.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 130 minutes

Genre: Action

Ask Away

Target audience: As with every Marvel film, everyone who has ever watched a movie from the MCU and wants to keep up with the ongoing story.

Take the whole family?: Really depends on how OK the parents are with a lot of violence but little blood to show for it. A couple years under the PG-13 mark should be fine.

Theater or Netflix?: It's fun for a trip to the theater, although the 3D isn't really worth it though.

How has 2017 been for the MCU?: Pretty great. Despite releasing three movies, two of which were a second and a third installment to long-running series, this is the first time in a while that Marvel fatigue hasn't hit that hard. It helps that the three movies released were good and different enough to offer some separation to the weary viewers. It also offers some hope for 2018, with the release of Ryan Coogler's Black Panther and the probably stupidly stuffed Avengers: Infinity War.

Watch this as well?: Along with the other MCU entries, comedian/author John Hodgman has a comedy special devoted to the impending Ragnarok, called John Hodgman: Ragnarok, that is quirky and hilarious, highlighted by his decision to send a kid out in the cold to wait for doom to come