Moana review

MOANA:

BREATHTAKING ANIMATION, STORYTELLING WITH WIT AND HEART, TALENTED VOICE ACTING, CATCHY SONGS, AND ONE AWESOME FEMALE LEAD!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: **** out of 4

DISNEY

Moana and Maui off on an adventure at sea in Disney’s Moana

            A double win for Walt Disney Animation Studios, we had Zootopia earlier in March which was critically and commercially successful, the second highest grossing animated film of all-time (Guess what #1 is, no seriously just guess!), and now for the Thanksgiving weekend, we have Moana. The film is the 56^th animated movie in Disney’s library as well as their second film to take place in Hawaii, the first being Lilo & Stitch in 2002 and the first CG animated film to be directed by the duo, John Musker and Ron Clements (The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Princess and the Frog).

            We could very much be in another Disney Renaissance after the massive success of films such as Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Zootopia. Like Frozen, Moana takes several Disney clichés and does new things with them, even a brilliant stereotype that a pretty girl wearing a dress and has a cute animal sidekick is a princess, and that’s only one out of many.

            Three thousand years ago, the greatest sailors in the world embarked on a journey across the pacific, and discovered the islands of Oceania. Life was created by an island goddess called Te Fiti and the source of her magic is her heart, which is a pounamu stone.

            After a demigod named Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson-Fast & Furious franchise, The Scorpion King, Race to Witch Mountain), who is a shape-shifter, stole her heart, the voyaging mysteriously stopped and caused the islands of Motunui have been cursed. A young girl and named Moana (voiced by newcomer, Auli’i Cravalho) and daughter of the chief of the Motunui island, discovers that she is literally friends with the ocean and wonders why the adventuring stop.

            She learns that Maui has stolen the stone and if she can obtain it, Moana can summon Maui and help her save the village from destruction by the Gods. But she’s not alone on her journey, Maui with his mighty shape-shifting fish hook, a dim-witted chicken named Hei-Hei, and the ocean assist Moana on her quest to return the heart to Te Fiti before the Gods destroy her village.

            Overall, Moana is a breathtaking animated feature for the entire family, the animation is gorgeous, the characters are very likable and poke fun at the typical Disney tropes, the humor is decent, and the songs are very catchy. I’m serious, I’ll gladly buy the soundtrack to this movie because the songs in this are just as good as Frozen’s, especially Cravalho’s song, How Far I’ll Go, it’s something I would put on my iTunes.

            I also like how there’s no real villain in this movie, which at the same time is a little odd, even Frozen threw in a last-minute villain, though it made sense as the movie progressed. This one however, it’s just a misunderstood action that a hero character did that caused the problem, and not to mention how the climax is resolved is very refreshing for a Disney adventure film.

            Moana is one of my new favorite Disney movies, just like Wreck-It Ralph, Frozen, and Zootopia and so far, my pick for 2016, better than Finding Dory. It delivers everything I look for in a great film, memorable characters, impressive visuals, good storytelling, and so on, it’s something that leads to family fun guaranteed.

            The Moana character I consider to be one of the best female movie characters of all time, she is far from being a damsel in distress, has an adventurous personality, can fight her own battles, and she doesn’t need a man to fall in love with. She is also one of my new favorite Disney Princesses (or heroines), Aurora should take some lessons from Moana so she can be a good character.

            This is my Go-To family film for the holiday season, Trolls can wait, Moana is a priority, Disney magic on vacation in Hawaii, with beautiful visuals and fun characters. Even if some of the visuals look like an underwater Avatar, they’re in a movie where you really don’t care.

            It’s an adventure at sea with Moana and Maui that is worth the ride.

Allied review

ALLIED:

NOT ROBERT ZEMECKIS’ BEST WORK BUT THROUGH TALENTED LEADS AND SMART STORYTELLING, IT KEEPS YOU GUESSING!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

PARAMOUNT PICTURES

Marion Cotillard (left) and Brad Pitt (right) in the World War II spy thriller, Allied

            Director, Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future trilogy, Forrest Gump, Flight) has quite an interesting directing career. He directed the iconic sci-fi/comedy franchise, Back to the Future, the groundbreaking live-action/animated hybrid, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Oscar bait with Tom Hanks like Forrest Gump and Cast Away, the CG motion capture animated films, The Polar Express and A Christmas Carol, and most recently Flight and The Walk, now he takes us back in time to World War II in the spy caper, Allied.

            Like many directors, Robert Zemeckis is another one of my favorites, he has a variety of different and unique films and many of which were critically and commercially successful. Not to mention it helps that he doesn’t have that many bad films in his filmography (Ahem, Mars Needs Moms!) and this is supposedly his first World War II film as well as his second film to take place in the 1940s following Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988.

            The film is based around World War II but its story is fictional, which is not a bad thing, but I don’t want people talking to their History teachers and finding false information, but I digress. In terms of movie-watching, it’s not bad, I don’t consider it one of Zemeckis’ best films but for what he did, Allied kept my interest until the end, I like period films, I like spy films, put them together, I don’t see how I could miss it.

            Set in 1942, the film follows Canadian intelligence officer, Max Vatan (Brad Pitt-Inglourious Basterds, Moneyball, World War Z) who meets a French Resistance fighter, Marianne Beausejouir (Marion Cotillard-Public Enemies, Inception, The Dark Knight Rises) while on a mission behind enemy lines in Morocco, and fall in love. The two of them reunite in London, get married, and have a little girl, everything is perfect.

            That is until their relationship is threatened when Vatan is president with the possibility that the love of his life might be a spy working for the Germans. If her guilt is proven Vatan will have to kill her or be executed for failing to follow orders.

Convinced that she is innocent, he sets out on a dangerous mission to clear her name.

            Overall, Allied is a thrilling experience that keeps you guessing, even if it isn’t that original with its concept. We have had other romantic war films in the past like Michael Bay’s infamous, Pearl Harbor, but this film destroys it in every way.

            What Robert Zemeckis does with Allied that Michael Bay failed to do with Pearl Harbor was making movie-goers care about these characters. You grow attached to Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard and you feel bad when something terrible happens to them, because the characters in Pearl Harbor are about as interesting as cardboard cutouts.

            Visually, Zemeckis nails the World War II style in the production design, the traditional brown tint, the designs of the buildings and vehicles, and the costumes and hairstyles of the characters. I’m serious, Robert Zemeckis can take us back in time even without a DeLorean.

            It’s no war movie masterpiece or anything like that, but the movie delivers thrills and suspenseful storytelling without having to focus on tanks and planes but rather through interesting characters. Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard have good chemistry together and you don’t know what is going to happen to them as the movie progresses, until a shocking end.

            I doubt this would be an Oscar contender like Forrest Gump or Cast Away, the film is good but it’s not amazing or new. But if you want a spy thriller with talented characters and storytelling that will keep you on your toes, Allied may be the movie for you.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them review

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:

A MAGICAL RETURN TO THE HARRY POTTER WORLD!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Newt Scamander (right) and Jacob Kowalski capturing magical creatures in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

            Just because the final installment in the enormously successful Harry Potter film franchise was released a few years ago, does that really mean we’re done with J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World? Of course not, director, David Yates (Harry Potter 5-7 Part 2, The Legend of Tarzan) and producer, David Heyman (Harry Potter franchise, Yes Man, Gravity) have returned to the magical world of wizards brought to life through the pages of author, J.K. Rowling’s novels with a new prequel/spinoff franchise to the Harry Potter films, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, inspired by Rowling’s book of the same name.

            Seeing how Hollywood is heavily focused on bringing the past back to life, films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Ghostbusters (2016), and The Hobbit trilogy, it makes perfect sense to do the exact same thing with the Harry Potter world. I was excited to see this, like everyone else, mainly because the film explores how the rest of the world views wizards and the events leading up to the rise of Voldemort and the “Boy Who Lived”.

            What was very refreshing about Fantastic Beasts is that the movie doesn’t have much of a literary reference for its screenplay. Yes, the film in inspired by a book, but it was written as a fictional guide to the creatures in Harry Potter.

            That’s pretty much an open gate for the filmmakers to just do whatever they want and create an original story around the creatures in Rowling’s book. Shortest response ever…they succeeded.

            Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is just as exciting and magical as the earlier Harry Potter films. The movie explores more of the mythology of the Harry Potter world, introduces new characters, throws a few references to elements like Hogwarts and Dumbledore in there, and delivers all the creativity and imagination that only J.K. Rowling can offer.

            The film follows a young man named Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne-Les Miserables, The Theory of Everything, The Danish Girl) who is a wizard from London, traveling to New York with a magic case. A case that holds creatures, Fantastic Beasts from the Wizarding World.

            After an accidental switch of cases with an American No-Maj (or Muggle) named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler-Kung Fu Panda, Fanboys, Secrets and Lies), the creatures have escaped the case and are unleashed on New York City. So it’s up to Newt, Jacob, a former Auror of the Magical Congress of the United States and witch, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston-Inherent Vice, Steve Jobs, Alien: Covenant), and her sister, Queenie (Alison Sudol-CSI: NY, Transparent, Between Us) to capture the creatures and put them back into the case before a major catastrophe hits the world of wizards and muggles.

            The film also stars Colin Farrell (Daredevil, In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths) as Percival Graves, Carmen Ejogo (Away We Go, Selma, Alien: Covenant) as President Seraphina Picquery, Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Trainwreck, DC Extended Universe) as Credence Barebone, Samantha Morton (Sweet and Lowdown, Minority Report, The Messenger) as Mary Lou Barebone, Ron Perlman (Hellboy, Pacific Rim, The Book of Life) as Gnarlack, Jon Voight (Holes, National Treasure, Transformers) as Henry Shaw Sr., Ronan Raftery (Captain America: The First Avenger, Death of a Superhero, The Siege of Jadotville), Jenn Murray (Dorothy Mills, Brooklyn, Love & Friendship) as Chasity Barebone, Johnny Depp (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Pirates of the Caribbean franchise) as Gellert Grindelwald, and Zoe Kravitz (X-Men: First Class, The Divergent Series, Mad Max: Fury Road) as Leta Lestrange.

            Overall, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a satisfying return to the Harry Potter world as well as an exciting adventure movie on its own. It doesn’t hammer down references to what’s going to happen in the Potter films like a lot of prequels in the past, but rather expands the story and explores how wizards are viewed outside of England.

            This is obviously a cash grab due to the massive success of the Harry Potter films, but they don’t slack off in the film’s development. The filmmakers and writers had to work extra hard on developing equally likable characters that movie-goers and wizard enthusiasts would want to follow just as much as Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger, and we did not have a book to refer to with these characters.

            I would gladly follow these new characters in a franchise, while they don’t stand as tall as Harry, Ron, and Hermione did, they’re still very likable and have unique personalities. Eddie Redmayne’s performance as Newt is very hit or miss, but I thought he portrayed the role well, Dan Fogler is hilarious as Jacob, and Colin Farrell pretty much steals the show as Percival Graves, he makes an excellent Harry Potter villain.

            Visually, I mean come on, it’s Harry Potter, of course it’s going to be impressive, the shots of New York, special effects, and CG animation all look great and they scream Harry Potter. The creatures are all very imaginative and look like they were straight out of a traditional Harry Potter book or movie, I’m serious, I could see an original Harry Potter character encounter these creatures.

            Fantastic Beasts is a ton of fun, but I do have some narrative problems, there are some scenes involving exposition and wizard laws that really don’t add up when you connect the film to the other movies. But once you get past those moments, it makes up for it with more magic and action.

            November has been a great month for magic-themed movies, we had Marvel’s Doctor Strange a couple weeks ago and now a new beginning to the Harry Potter franchise. This would make a great double-feature, see this and then follow it up with Doctor Strange and I can guarantee you’ll get all the magic you need for the holiday season.

            This is guaranteed to be a hit at the box-office for a few weekends and it shows that the world of Harry Potter can be experienced even without the presence of the titular character. Plus it’ll keep us nerds busy until Rogue One: A Star Wars Story comes out next month.