The Little Mermaid got a lot of shit when it came out, by people who probably never saw it. Without going into any of that, I had personal trepidation going in, just because the original is a masterpiece (and yes, I’m biased; I was 9 when it came out, so it was right in my wheelhouse, not to mention it has IMO the best Disney song ever, Part of Your World. Halle Bailey is a fine singer but Jodi Benson crushes it in the cartoon). But if you ignore all the talk and just sit down and watch the new version, it is quite good by itself. There’s no need to give you a synopsis, because everyone has seen the story, but I can talk about what is good and not-so-good. The good: it’s beautiful. Some people had a problem with the CGI, but honestly I thought the movie was gorgeous. Bright and colorful, just about every scene pops off the screen and takes your breath away. Also good: Eric got a song! Coming before Ariel comes to land, this tune really fleshes out his character and gives him some dimension. Let’s be honest, in the cartoon, Eric isn’t much more than arm candy. (The second added song, Ariel “singing in her head” after she’s lost her voice, really is superfluous though.) And the not-so-good: it is long, at 2 hours 20 minutes. I like the 90 minute mark for a true kid’s film; any more than that and they’ll often be on to something else. But if that’s my biggest complaint, then you know it isn’t so bad. Really enjoyable film for kids and kids-at-heart. ★★★★
Klondike is a film out of Ukraine, and yes, it is about what everyone thinks when you hear “Ukraine” these days. It takes place in Donbas, an area in Eastern Ukraine with many pro-Russian citizens, which Russia annexed in 2022. This film though takes place in 2014, shortly after Russia has invaded the country. Irka and her husband Tolik live a peaceful life in a rural community, until a stray rocket takes out the front of their house. The rocket was accidentally launched by pro-Russian separatists, and Irka is having nothing to do with their folly. She derides her husband because many of his friends are on the separatists’ side, but Irka’s brother, Yurik, who has been a student in Kiev, is definitely pro-Ukraine. As Tolik and Yurik make increasingly violent threats towards each other, Irka tells them both to shut up. With a baby on the way, she doesn’t seem to care which side wins, as long as the winning side leaves her alone. It’s a decent enough film, though honestly it seems like the film was mostly made just to draw attention to the conflict and events around that area, including the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which figures prominently in the movie. Nothing wrong with shining a light on a topic that needs attention, but I do wish the film had more of a plot on its own feet too. ★★★
It seemed that once upon a time, Jennifer Lawrence was a star who could do no wrong, but that was a decade ago. After a string of flops in the late 2010’s, she stepped away for a couple years, returning slowly to release just a couple of movies over the last 2 years. I really liked her indie film Causeway last year, but her newest, No Hard Feelings, is just an average comedy. She plays a 30-something whose family has always lived in Montauk, NY, but after the death of her mother, she’s the last of them, and with tourists and transplants raising property values, she can barely afford to keep her family’s house. She answers an ad from some helicopter parents looking to “grow up” their 19-year-old son, basically paying her to have sex with him and get him to party more. They are afraid that he, being as shy and introverted as he is, he’ll get eaten alive when he goes away to Princeton in the fall. I think a lot of people would find fault in the dated and often sexist humor in the movie (and the filmmakers seem to know this, poking fun at their own movie when Lawrence’s character goes to a college party) and while I didn’t have a problem with that, I just didn’t think it was all that funny. Plenty of chuckles, very few belly laughs. Pure comedy fans might enjoy it more, but I think it was just a hair above average. Worthy of a single viewing but not much more than that. ★★★
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse surprised everyone when it came out in 2018, and I loved it. It won the Oscar for best animated film and took in a hefty $384 million on a smaller-than-average budget of $90 mil. This year’s sequel, Across the Spider-Verse, came with some fanfare after the success of the first film, and delivered on all accounts, amassing $690 million on a similar budget. And it is just as good, if not better, as the first one. In one universe, Gwen Stacy’s dad finds out that she is Spider-Woman, and he cannot accept her as such. She runs away and joins the Spider-Society, a group of Spidermen across the universes who seek to keep the balance, knocking down anomalies that cross into universes where they do not belong, basically anything that would threaten Spider-Men in each universe. One such anomaly is the villain the Spot, who shares the universe with Spider-Man Miles Morales, the main character from the first film. The Spot has a new power allowing him to traverse the multi-verse, and he does so in order to get stronger in order to kill Miles, who he sees as the person responsible for ruining his life. Gwen goes to Miles’s universe to subdue the Spot, but when she leaves to follow him to the next universe, Miles follows, and in doing so, he himself becomes a problem to be dealt with by the Spider-Society. As I said for the first film, this movie is tremendous. Animated in a comic book style and giving tons of homage to Spider-Man’s roots in the form, the movie is more than just pretty dressings. There are some big surprises near the end that add emotional heft. There’s lots of talk about “superhero film fatigue,” with Marvel and DC films not doing too well of late, but Sony is showing that you can still make a incredible movie that will please just about everyone. I can’t wait for the next sequel (because this movie does end on a cliffhanger…). ★★★★★
Blue Jean has the subject matter that critics love, and while the leads are up to snuff (the supporting cast is more hit-or-miss), the whole doesn’t quite together as I think it should have. Jean is a P.E. teacher at a high school in the UK in the late 80s, and she has a secret. Since the government is cracking down on teachers “pushing homosexual agenda” to kids, she has to hide that she’s a lesbian, for fear of losing a career that she loves. Until now, she’s been able to keep her personal and private life separate, but there’s a new girl in school, Lois, who is getting teased because her fellow students think she is gay. It is confirmed when Jean runs into her at a gay bar one night. Lois is not ashamed of who she is, and unlike Jean, is not about to hide it, which earns her further persecution at school. With Jean’s girlfriend Viv also pushing her to stop hiding who she is, Jean has to make a decision on what is important to her and how to move forward. Rosy McEwen is excellent as the conflicted Jean (she won a British Indie Film Award for the role) and newcomer Lucy Halliday is very good as Lois too, but as a whole, it didn’t do enough for me. ★★½
- TV series currently watching: Dark Winds (season 2)
- Book currently reading: The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan
Jons Movie Takes 