The Little Mermaid

The earliest film I remember seeing was Disney's 1989 film of The Little Mermaid. It was theatrically, even. I'd imagine Rob Marshall's live-action transplant should be as momentous to its youngest audience members as the original film was. It's just that good.

The Little Mermaid is Ariel (Halle Bailey), who is the youngest of sea King Triton's (Javier Bardem) seven daughters. Triton forbids the merpeople from going fathoms above. But Ariel does so anyway and meets the heroic Prince Eric (Jonah Hauer-King). She's charmed by his dreams of sailing beyond his kingdom. A pesky hurricane keeps them from exchanging first words. She saves him from the storm, and while he can't get a good look at her, he's charmed by her siren's voice.

Eventually, Triton's overparenting drives Ariel into the tentacles of her aunt Ursula the Sea Witch (Melissa McCarthy). Ursula agrees to make Ariel into a human for three days. It's permanent if Ariel and Eric share a true love's kiss. If not, Ariel will spend eternity in Ursula's clutches. She also has to give up her voice for the duration. Ariel agrees to Ursula's terms, unaware that Ursula plans to cheat to victory. It's up to Ariel's animal friends - Sebastian (Daveed Diggs), Scuttle (Awkwafina) and Flounder (Jacob Trembley) - to help her get a happy ending. 

Unlike the ending in Hans Christian Andersen's original tale. But that's beside the point.

This film runs nearly an hour longer than the original film. Fortunately, the additions by screenwriter David Magee compliment the story rather well. Prince Eric's new backstory is compelling, as is his new song, Wild Uncharted Waters. He and Ariel have great chemistry; how he learns her name is pretty amusing. King Triton's isolationism has a tragic explanation. We do sympathize with him despite his rough behavior, especially near the end. Ursula being Ariel's aunt originated in early drafts of the 1989 film. It's a good thing that and Ursula's "forget the kiss charm" were incorporated here. It makes her all the more menacing. All in all, the main plot points are just as profound as they were in 1989.

We now get to the musical side of these additions. Lin Manuel-Miranda collaborated with original composer Alan Menken in composing several new songs. Ariel's new song lets her inner voice sing her amazement of the human world. Wait till you hear Scuttle and Sebastian's new song. Miranda also revises Howard Ashman's original lyrics when needed. These few line additions blend well with the rest of the lyrics. Menken's new score and orchestrations are stellar. McCarthy, in particular, steals the show with her rendition of Poor Unfortunate Souls.

Bailey makes for a compelling mermaid as Ariel. She's quite likable when she gushes over the human world. We feel for her when she longs to be Part of Your World during that iconic song and its reprises. We cheer for her when she fights Ursula herself in the climax. Bailey's Ariel is just as memorable as Jodi Benson's one in the original film. Speaking of Benson, she gets a nice cameo as a human vendor. You can't miss her. 

Now for the visual aspects. The undersea world is impressive, particularly when we first see it as the film follows a periscope falling into the ocean. The sea life is convincing, both as creatures and as characters. Some of the most impressive effects are the CGI enhancements for the undersea characters. You'll be shocked once you see how much CGI was used to make Bailey into Ariel. These enhancements blend well with their actors. Whether CGI or real, the makeup and costume designs are stunning. It's no surprise considering that Peter Swords King (The Lord of the Rings) and Colleen Atwood helmed those departments. The only visual negative is the final battle with giant Ursula, only because it was too dark to see at times.

But the final battle is an odd complaint, for on the whole, The Little Mermaid is more than quaint. It's a natural expansion of a classic animated film and fairy tale. See it in the best screen you can find. A very packed theater forced me to watch it on the edge of the front row. Hopefully, you can find a better seat than that. But there's no shame if you can't. It's still an impressive film whether you see it in the front or back. Give it a chance.

Fast X

 Last time, I said that The Fast Saga will end in two more movies. Guess what? Universal wants to go for number twelve. That means, this time, The Fast Saga will end in two more movies. At least nothing went wrong with the screening for this entry, Fast X. Yay.

It turns out that Hernan Reyes (Joaquin de Almeida), the drug lord that Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his crew dealt with in Fast Five has a son named Dante (Jason Mamoa). Dante led the chase when Team Dom made off with the old man's safe. It didn't end well for him. 

Ten years later, Dante kicks off his revenge scheme. That involves tricking the crew into a Rome heist and framing them as nuclear terrorists. Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) is arrested along with former villain Cipher (Charlize Theron), Dom pursues Dante himself, and Roman (Tyrese Gibson), Tej (Ludacris), Han (Sung Kang) and Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) try to find help in London. Meanwhile, Jakob Toretto (John Cena) takes his nephew, Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry), to safety.

Everybody got that?

I think you know this franchise's stock and trade by now. But where do our heroes go from space? The climax involves racing down an exploding dam, while Jakob and Little Brian drop from a passenger jet in a miniature plane. It seems kind of ordinary. Team Dom's overlong Rome heist is a bit exhausting. But I liked the film's opening, in which it reworks Dante into Fast Five's climactic heist. Mamoa and de Almeida's de-aging and the editing are seamless here. A second favorite is the four-way street race Dante, Dom and a few others partake in. The paint jobs on those cars are alluring.

Mamoa runs circles around the main cast with gusto. His Dante makes for one of the most instantly memorable villains in the series. He wins the aforementioned street race with explosive cheating. He regularly threatens the loved ones of his enemies. He even has tea-time with the corpses of a few victims. Mamoa is clearly having fun as a dangerous and childish fop, while his chemistry with Dom is beyond entertaining. 

The film struggles to balance the franchise's ever-growing ensemble with its multitude of subplots. In addition to the ones up top, we also have Isabel (Daniela Melchior), the never-before mentioned sister of Dom's lost love, Elena. Dom and Jakob's subplots lead the way, while Roman and co.'s subplot is rendered anti-climactic by the cliffhanger finale. The finale involves a profound heroic sacrifice. But who wants to bet they'll turn up alive like Han did last time, or another character who shows up just before the credits? On a positive note, Rita Moreno makes the most of her limited screentime as Dom's grandma, while Alan Ritchson is fine as law-abiding antagonist Agent Aimes.

Yes, the Fast and Furious movies are supposed to be silly action films. But they also hope its audience has done its homework concerning the other films. It's an unusual contradiction. Here's hoping the next few films have better plot traffic than this one. Anyone looking for wild speed action will get it in Fast X. Despite a few gripes, the fast and furious cars are still fun to watch. But it's Mamoa's flamboyant and threatening villain that makes the film's 141-minutes worth it. Here's to his comeuppance. 

Knights of the Zodiac

One of the first films I publicly reviewed was the infamous Dragonball: Evolution. Its story was underdeveloped - I don't mean its loopy takes on its source material - but it's weirdly amusing looking back at it. 14 years later, I now come to another live-action version of an 80s manga and anime, Knights of the Zodiac, based on Masami Kurumada's Saint Seiya. I'm a weekend late, so let's go.

The eponymous Seiya (Mackenyu) opens the film an orphaned street fighter. He's been looking for his sister, Patricia (Kaylan Teague), who was seized by the evil Vander Guraad (Famke Janssen) years ago. By chance, her ex-husband Alman Kido (Sean Bean) is looking for Seiya. It seems Seiya is adept in Cosmo, basically the Force for Olympian Gods, and he's destined to defend Kido's adopted daughter Sienna (Madison Iseman) as her Knight. 

Sienna is the reincarnation of Athena, whose Knights are powered by the various constellations. Seiya's armor is powered by the Pegasus. But Seiya has to earn that armor, first. That involves training with Marin (Caitlin Hutson), the masked Eagle Knight, to master his Cosmo. Meanwhile, Guraad, who was injured by Athena's Cosmo years ago, drains other folks' Cosmo to sustain herself. She and her personal Knight, Nero the Phoenix (Diego Tinoco), plot to neutralize Athena, who if left unchecked, can destroy the world. That would involve killing Sienna. Seiya can't let any of that happen, can he?

For those interested, the film draws more from the franchise's recent Netflix series than its original incarnation. That includes a few character names and the character Guraad. That may or may not interest the franchise's long-time fans. At least the film retains the services of the show's composer Yoshihiro Ike, who also composed the Legend of Sanctuary film. His score's pretty good, overall. But Seiya first donning the Pegasus Armor is awe-inspiring due to its instrumental of the anime's first and most iconic theme song - Pegasus Fantasy. It's somewhat undermined by the poorly integrated CGI (much of it is), but it still works. 

Director Tomasz Baginski (Oscar nominated for the 2002 short, The Cathedral) and his writing team get the ball rolling with Seiya's first cage match. Seiya faces off against the brutish Jaki (David Torok) until the even-more brutish Cassios (Nick Stahl) literally kicks Jaki out of the ring for his own shot. It's an audacious development, to say the least. The ball keeps rolling with its outstanding fight choreography and Seiya's palpable tenacity. It gets delightfully goofy with one unlucky mook who fights Alman's bodyguard, Mylock (Mark Dacascos). Visually, the bad guys' black armors are fine, though downgrading Seiya and Nero's armor to dull blue is a bit off. Yet, Sienna as full Athena is a perfect recreation of her original counterpart - complete with purple hair.

Now for the cast. Mackenyu livens up Seiya's standard hero journey with a wry personality. His best acting comes when Seiya realizes Alman had a hand in his sister's disappearance. The resolution of that arc, though, is somewhat underwhelming. Sienna gets the film's best line, "I feel like I'm a guest in my own body." When Athena's Cosmo periodically overwhelms her, we fully comprehend how dire the situation is. The climax is basically lifted from X-Men: The Last Stand, though with a different outcome, which is fortunate as Sienna and Seiya's relationship is quite likable. 

Meanwhile, Guraad is a sympathetic villain who still cares about Sienna. Their last scene together is well-acted. Sienna and Alman have an equally compelling relationship. Still, the film's attempts to smooth over Alman's complicity in Guraad's actions aren't the best. He still tries to make up for them in the end, though. Mylock is the film's best character, a man who gives a great a peptalk as a beatdown. To conclude, Cassios is quite funny, while Marin's body language is quite good.

Knights of the Zodiac's take on its source is sounder compared to some other live-action anime films. The visual effects and story weren't perfect, but the cast does a good job with the material. Its release is so limited you'd think that Sony, its distributor, doesn't want anyone to know of its existence. The nearest theater showing it in my area wasn't exactly in my area. You might want to wait for streaming, supposing you're able to see it theatrically at all. Still, if it sparks some interest in the source material, even if you haven't thought about it in years, watching it theatrically won't be so bad.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

I've come across a few AI story generators online. Just type something and let the magic of artificial intelligence type you a story. I could have used one to type up a review for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. But none of them generated anything close to describing the plot. So, it's back to brainpower to generate the review.

Worth it. 

As is the movie.

This time, the Guardians get an unwelcome visitor to their planet Knowhere. He is Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), the perfect being created by Ayesha the Sovereign (Elizabeth Debicki) after the Guardians trounced her in Vol. 2. He mortally wounds Rocket Racoon (Bradley Cooper) before Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) drives him off. Rocket's cybernetic implants will kill him if the Guardians try to fix him. So, the team sets out to raid Orgocorp, the company that created Rocket, to find his medical records.

The Guardians team up with Star-Lord's old crew, the Ravagers, now led by Starhawk (Sylvester Stallone) and joined by the time-displaced Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Their raid gets them noticed by the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), the mad scientist in charge of Orgocorp, who created not only Rocket but the Sovereigns as well. Meanwhile, Rocket's life flashes before our eyes as we see how the Evolutionary created him. It's not pretty. The Guardians have to hurry before Rocket either dies or Adam gets him for the Evolutionary (after which, he'd surly die). 

All of this and more unfold over 150 minutes. But the subplots are mostly good, so you'll barely notice. During the film, Star-Lord tries to reconnect with Gamora, Nebula (Karen Gillan) tries to cope with Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis's (Pom Klementieff) silliness and Kraglin (Sean Gunn) and Cosmo the Dog (Maria Bakalova) fall out. The Ravagers are mostly there, while Adam's Heel Face Turn is pretty amusing. Rocket's origin story is the most compelling subplot. We meet young Rocket and a few experiment buddies as they cope with their living conditions. It's quite endearing to see them bond, which makes it painful by the last flashback. You'll even feel for the denizens of the High Evolutionary's Counter-Earth even if you can't understand them.

You'll also feel something for the High Evolutionary. Unsurprisingly, it's contempt. Iwuji's performance makes him one of the vilest villains to ever exist in a comic book film. He's not just cruel to his experiments but is unbelievably petty. He loses it when Rocket shows signs of being smarter than he. If there's a problem with the film's massive length, it's that his inevitable demise doesn't come sooner. Indeed, one of the film's most brutal moments is when Rocket extracts revenge for his cruelty. It's as satisfying as it's shocking. His resulting Robocop face mask is a highlight of the film's great makeup work. You won't forget his actual face.

Once again, James Gunn assembles a mighty crew of technical Marvels. Once again, the makeup and visual effects Marvels conjure up a variety of impressive intergalactic residents. You can barely tell which of Counter-Earth's residents are makeup or motion capture (I think the rabbit was the latter). The High Evolutionary's other experiments, including Rocket's old pals, are quite unnerving. A highlight of these experiments is a brutish creature I nicknamed "Chthulu-Chewbacca." Its stunning production design is highlighted by the utterly alien Orgosphere, the Orgocorp headquarters, as well as the High Evolutionary's massive ship. The Orgocorp guards' bulky armor makes for a fun costume design. I can go on, but I won't.

The film is meant to be the last adventure for Marvel's favorite intergalactic rogues. To drive the point, the film's mid-credit and end credit scenes are meaningful codas. Its character moments help the time go by. It took them six years to make it, but Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, a funny and gripping space adventure, was worth the wait. Why not blast off?

The Magic Flute

 It's time to get classical. 

This time, we're talking about The Magic Flute, the latest film of Mozart's Opera. Ingmar Bergman's 1975 film presented life backstage and in the audience during a performance. Kenneth Branagh's 2006 film updated the story to World War I to splendidly silly results. Director Florian Sigl, writer Andrew Lowery and producer Roland Emmerich's angle is to turn it into The Neverending Story. The results are weird.

Our hero, Tim (Jack Wolfe), reluctantly transfers to the Mozart International Academy of Music following his dad's death. His dad was a fan of The Magic Flute, and even gave him an old libretto of it to return there. So, he's interested once he learns of the Academy's upcoming production of the opera. The headmaster Dr. Longbow (F. Murray Abraham) doesn't think Tim's cut out for the lead role of Prince Tamino. But three spirits think otherwise.

One night, Tim shelves the libretto in the library at the stroke of 3. Suddenly, Tim's in the universe of The Magic Flute, where he must play through the story as Prince Tamino. So, what's the story? The Queen of the Night (Sabine Devieilhe) tasks her bird catcher, Papageno (Iwan Rheon), and Tamino to save her daughter, Pamina (Asha Banks) from the clutches of the evil King Sarastro (Morris Robinson). Otherwise, she'll cast the land in Eternal Night. But things aren't simple; for one, Sarastro isn't actually evil. 

The relationship between the story fronts is its biggest hindrance. It sometimes feels both fronts are two separate movies intruding on each other. Tim is cast back into the real world after a few hours. But he doesn't, say, study up on the opera in-between visits. The three spirits leave him to his own devices after laying out his mission. A few more visits could've added some urgency to the plot. It doesn't help that the real-world story isn't that interesting. The subplots concerning Tim's roommate Paolo (Elliot Courtiour) and school-bully Anton (Amir Wilson) are far more compelling than Tim's hero quest.

Mozart Land is where the film gets good. Martin Stock's adaptation of Mozart's score is spectacular and the actors do a reasonably good job singing their parts. Papageno is the film's best character, by far. He's quite funny and his duet with his Papagena (Stefi Celma) is nice. Not even him losing his mouth for a bit (long story) takes away his hilarity. Monostatos (Stefan Konarske), Sarastro's captain-of-the-guards, is extremely silly, though I couldn't tell if he was meant to be taken seriously. Sarastro is quite likable, as are the Queen's three servants (Larissa Herden, Jeanne Goursand and Jasmin Shakeri).

Its good production and costume designers ironically shine with the Queen of the Night. She's a formidable presence as she blends into the dark and sings her legendary arias. Peter Matjasko's cinematography deserves some kudos for making her towering in her first scene. The film's best CGI creation is the monster serpent that threatens Tim/Tamino in the opera's first scene. Back to the real world, the Mozart Academy makes for an interesting locale. 

The Magic Flute doesn't exactly blend its two stories rather well. Its supporting cast is much more compelling than its lead character. But the lively world of Mozart's opera makes it worth the watch. The orchestrations and original score make it worth a listen. Check it for yourself once you rent it on streaming now or wait next week for the Blu-Ray/DVD. You might find a past version or two during those searches. As for me, it's time to venture off to the next review.