Charm can get you a long way, and Encanto is certainly charming. It brims with life, love and family and goes down exceptionally easily. It is also incredibly beautiful, matching clear technical proficiency with imaginative art design and consistent creativity. It is light, though: light hearted, light on story (which is mainly a positive) and … Continue reading Encanto (Review)
Tag: Disney
Cruella (Review)
Though a step up from the atrocious Mulan, Cruella is another poor live-action outing from Disney. This time, they've taken a slight step towards originality, moving away from adapting their animations and instead making prequels to them. An interesting choice, especially when the films never needed prequels in the first place. Rather than letting Cruella … Continue reading Cruella (Review)
Mulan (2020) (Review)
Seeing as there are many legitimate reasons to boycott Mulan, it certainly helps that it is awful. This takes an animated classic, and an evergreen story, and repurposes it as a flat, nonsensical mess with almost nothing of value. The film prods at the wuxia genre, as a way of legitimising it not being a … Continue reading Mulan (2020) (Review)
Onward (Review)
The beauty of Pixar films often stems from a crystal clear premise, the kind of singular idea that a film just laps out of - and that is then effortlessly surrounded by accessible yet deep themes. Toys come alive at night; monsters want to care rather than scare; a discarded robot is in search of … Continue reading Onward (Review)
Hamilton (Review)
The concrete legacy of Hamilton will always be important: giving starring roles to people of colour and putting them on the biggest broadway stage, a stage that was hitherto dominated by whiteness and homogeneity. Though this is no saviour of theatre, and has done little to inspire similar shows in its wake, it did provide … Continue reading Hamilton (Review)
Soul (Review)
There is a lot going on in Pixar’s Soul, which is somewhat of a problem. It is an ambitious film with existential aspirations which, to an extent, go unfulfilled and weigh things down. The very heart of this film, its soul perhaps, is touching and charming; it is just that there is too much surrounding … Continue reading Soul (Review)
Frozen 2 (Review)
Obviously, I am not the target audience for Frozen 2. However, this didn't stop me from resonating with the original - and from being hugely impressed by it. To a certain extent, Frozen 2 is also very impressive - primarily visually. It is a stunning technological achievement but is full of real artistic beauty. The … Continue reading Frozen 2 (Review)
The Lion King (Review)
Despite being a great technical achievement, it would be fair to categorise Disney's Lion King reboot as an artistic failure. Even if you don't wish to go this far - as the technical skill on display is its own kind of artistry - it is at least pointless: an irrelevant update to a classic in … Continue reading The Lion King (Review)
Spider-Man: Far From Home (Review)
The opening act of Far From Home is one of the best in the Marvel franchise. The latest Spider-Man establishes itself as a sharply written teen comedy determined to sidestep the conventions and baggage of normal Marvel fare. This is established through a simple premise: Tom Holland's Peter Parker wants to take some time off … Continue reading Spider-Man: Far From Home (Review)
Toy Story 4 (Review)
Does Toy Story 4 need to exist? No. But it does and it's actually pretty good. In fact, the necessity of existence is an idea toyed with by the film itself, primarily through the introduction of Forky - a collection of rubbish anthropomorphised into a toy by Bonnie (the new child protagonist now that Andy's … Continue reading Toy Story 4 (Review)
Assorted Opinions 