The release of Moana continues Disney’s strong string of animated features. I would go as far to say that it is the best “Princess” movie they have put out since Beauty and the Beast – which you will remember I called the best of Disney’s animated films – though the only real competition it has in that timeframe is Frozen. Of course, I would also argue that Moana has more in common with Aladdin than with Tangled or The Little Mermaid. Moana isn’t perfect but it’s collection of songs and set pieces, as well as its beautiful animation, make for an excellent experience.

Young Moana is the heir to chief on her small island, but she yearns to sail the seas, something her people do not do. When the crops and fishing hauls start to fail on her island, she embarks on a quest to find the demigod Maui who long ago stole the heart of Te Fiti, which is the source their problems, and force him to return the heart. While the plot isn’t remotely complex, it does its job well. Moana’s struggle is understandable, as is Maui’s. The bulk of the movie is taken up with catchy, engaging musical numbers and gorgeously animated action scenes and sometimes a combination of the two. I don’t know that there is a song in this movie that will take off like “Let it Go”, but the songs of a higher average quality than Frozen’s.

For as much of the film that takes place on the open ocean, Moana can feel a little suffocating. There are only two characters for the bulk of the movie: Moana and Maui. There is no villain or any secondary characters after the opening. All they have to play off of is the braindead chicken Heihei, a character I found insufferable but did delight the target audience. For most of the second and third act it is all Maui and Moana. They are great characters; don’t get me wrong, with a sort of Aladdin and Genie dynamic going on. Moana is one of the most dynamic protagonists in a Disney movie. The weight of the story falls almost entirely on her. She gets some advice from her grandmother and some sailing training from Maui, but she is the driver of the plot. Things don’t happen to Moana, Moana makes things happen. Maui is an over the top hero character who revels in his powers and fame, like a combination of Hercules and the Genie. His bravado is shown, though, to be there to mask his lack of self-worth.

As entertaining of characters as they may be, something does feel lacking with just two characters of note. Some of that comes from the film’s episodic nature. The islanders are there in the beginning, but disappear once Moana sets sail. Her and Maui tangle with a giant crab, but he’s only on screen long enough to sing a song. There are a few other misadventures, but the only consistent parts are that heroic duo. It sometimes felt like it needed a third angle, someone else. Specifically someone for Maui to interact with, since he only ever talks to Moana.

Moana is excellent, even my complaints about it seeming limited are more nitpicking than any real flaw. It feels like a traditional Disney musical, which is to be expected with Clements and Musker behind it. It looks great, with beautiful islands and appealingly designed characters. While it doesn’t do everything, everything it does it does well.

****

I was a fairly big Harry Potter fan years ago, though I haven’t touched the books since I first read Deathly Hallows and I haven’t seen any of the movies since the last, other than catching a bit here and there on ABC Family, ahem, Freeform. Still, I am generally a fan of the series. I wasn’t especially excited for the return to cinematic version of Rowling’s Wizarding World; at least I wasn’t until I learned that Rowling was writing the screenplays and that it would be set in the Roaring 20’s. Fantastic Beasts turned out of be one of the most satisfying forays into this magical world.

For all that Fantastic Beasts deals with a lot of still extant social issues, it works very well as a delightful distraction. The movie follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) a British wizard visiting New York for the first time. He manages to get his suitcase, which holds an entire magical menagerie, switched with that of the non-magical baker Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). At the same time he gets embroiled with Porpentina Goldstein, an ex-auror – think magical cop – who is on thin ice with the American wizarding government after an incident involving a group of New Salemers who are trying to rid the USA of magical folks, for illegally bringing many of the animals in his case into the country. There is also apparently a magical beast running loose in New York City causing havoc everywhere it goes. Newt and Jacob search out Newt’s missing beasts, while tensions in the city grow higher and higher. Things eventually build to a head and a big confrontation, as things do. The big conflicts are much less interesting than the Magical Beasts themselves, with the improbable and impossible physiology. Having Jacob doused with the pheromones of some kind of glowing amphibious rhinoceros so he is chased around Central Park while Newt tries to coax the beast back into his suitcase is wonderful.

What Fantastic Beasts does best is create characters, something Rowling was great at in the books. Newt is the right kind of awkward, nervous and furtive around other people while being uniquely competent when dealing with the various animals that show up. Jacob adapts well and believably to being suddenly pulled into this magical world, with awe and fear and curiosity, with skills that have nothing to do with the task at hand, but not just some dolt pulled along for the ride. The too earnest Tina and her delightfully flighty sister Queenie are likewise well fleshed out characters. The villains are not as well shaded, but there does seem to be some life behind them.

For all that the bulk of the runtime is a delightful romp; it has quite the downer of an ending. The immediate conflict has ended, but none of the problems shown in the film have been solved. The biggest being the tense relations between the magic and non-magic communities. That conflict is what leads to the most emotional part of the ending, when something that has been inevitable from the beginning finally happens. Still, with the handful of codas it does manage to pull out some semblance of happy feelings.

After a summer that can best be described as a disappointment, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them continues a strong fall. I don’t know how well it will stick with me, but its combination of wonder and its terrific setting make it one of the more enjoyable tentpole movies of the year. It isn’t perfect, it is rather messy in spots, but it brings a certain ineffable sense of wonder to the screen that is always enjoyable.

****

Arrival is the next in the recent spat of thoughtful, adult sci-fi, following in the footsteps of films like Gravity, The Martian, and Interstellar. While it isn’t the crowd pleaser that The Martian was nor does it go as big as Interstellar, Arrival is maybe the most successful of those movies. It is genuinely thoughtful and intelligent, though it can’t quite stick the landing with the same confidence that pulls the viewer through the rest of the movie, a problem it shares with the other movies mentioned.

The movie stars Amy Adams as a linguist who is recruited by the military to help them deal with mysterious alien “shells” that have appeared in the sky in a dozen places around the world. She is teamed with Jeremy Renner, playing a physicist, as they try to translate from a completely alien form of communication. It mostly becomes a slow procedural, as Louise breaks down language to its smallest components to try to have a way of speaking with the aliens, dubbed hectapods. Meanwhile, all around the world people’s trigger fingers get itchy the longer things go without learning the alien’s purpose on earth

Arrival is a movie about communication. That guides the central plot, with Adam’s Louise and Renner’s Ian trying to talk with the alien hectapods that have shown up on earth as it likewise runs through all of the side plots with the world’s reaction to the mysterious aliens in our midst. Communicating can be difficult, with people who speak the same language, let alone a different one or beings that treat language as something different altogether. At first many of the effected countries work together, but as things get more tense and possibly more dangerous, the start to cut themselves off. It is the worst thing that can happen Arrival posits, since open communication is the only way to solve problems. It is telling that the plots central conflict is solved with a phone call. It is also telling that the most heinous act committed is spurred by brain dead political commentators. It is also telling that in the slowly unfolding story of Louise and her child that what drove her and her husband apart was also communication based. Louise chooses to not share information and when it finally came to light it drove them apart.

Enjoyment of this film all comes down to how the viewer takes the twist in the back third.  The movie expertly lays the groundwork for its twist, so it is at the same time surprising and completely logical.  Still, it is a massive change to how things proceed. Louise’s expertise with language eventually leads to her deciphering their circular method of writing, which ties back into the movie’s other theme of time. It opens with narration that humanity is too focused on sequence and by the end it escapes that trap.

Usually a movie with this sort of cerebral is also somewhat cold, but Arrival is a thoughtful, intelligent film that is also really emotional.  Unlike last year’s Interstellar, which tried for the same thing, Arrival makes each part feel like it was earned.  It helps that it is not swinging quite so hard as that movie, being both smaller and more personal.
Arrival isn’t perfect; it can be slow and plodding and the final twist is a tough pill to swallow, but it is smarter and more entertaining than just about anything else I’ve seen this year. Amy Adams is as outstanding as usual, and the rest of the cast is solid.

****1/2

Based on the true story of Medal of Honor winner Desmond Doss, Hacksaw Ridge is a lot of things, many of them contradictory. It is compelling, gory, uplifting and hokey. It celebrates a famous pacifist with lovingly detailed violence. In the end, it is highly flawed but always entertaining. Whatever else may be true of Mel Gibson, he knows how to make a film.

Desmond Doss, played by former Spider-Man Andrew Garfield, comes from rural Virginia. His father is an alcoholic, his life shattered after his service in WWI. A couple of incidents in young Desmond’s life, in one of which he nearly kills brother during a fight, cement his religious belief to never use, or even hold, a firearm. He is an avowed pacifist. After a quick, and awkward romance with a pretty nurse, he feels compelled to join up when WWII starts. His problems start in basic training, when his refusal to carry a weapon and serve as a medic is challenged. That is the essential part of the story, how can a pacifist serve during his country during war? For Doss this means as medic on the battlefield, attempting to save lives as others are taking them. His fellow recruits and superiors feel he would be a liability. While it is easy to see the military’s point, or at the point of those immediately around Doss, it is impossible to not admire his perseverance and conviction. They try everything to drum him out, up to an attempted court martial, only for him to refuse and stick around, determined to do his part.

That is the first half of the movie, and while it does tend toward some hokeyness, it is a solidly entertaining story. That hokeyness comes from Garfields over the top hick accent and his fellow recruits. His meeting the recruits almost feels like a scene out of Forrest Gump, with their array of similarly strong accents and immediately evident personalities. Vince Vaugh plays the drill sergeant and he is clearly having fun. Still, it is enjoyable. Then they go to war.

The movie does some early prep for the carnage that unfolds during the fighting. Early on Doss saves a man from a car accident that leaves a blood spurting gash in an artery. Nothing, though, can prepare the viewer for the amount of blood and guts strewn across the scene in the battle that takes up that back half of the movie. If it were accompanied by a restrained take on the violence, showing Doss the sane man in a world of madness, it could have been very effective. But Hacksaw Ridge doesn’t show restrained, somber, terrible violence; it shows heroic, exploitative, action movie violence. It is a bad mix. This is a movie celebrating a pacifist, but it spends a lot of time glorifying violence. No chance for extra violence or gore is left on the table. The movie loving shows rats feasting of the corpses of those killed in the battle. It even adds some seppuku and a beheading just because it can.

All that only obscures the simple beauty of the central story. After a bad day of fighting with the Americans forced to retreat, Doss stays behind to rescue as many of his wounded comrades as he can. It is a magnificently heroic thing, worth all the buildup it gets. It being surrounded by that violence would really help cement the sheer heroism of his actions if the movie didn’t go out of its way to show everyone else as heroes too. I am not objecting to the idea of their heroism, they were all undoubtedly brave and valorous men, but this isn’t their story. A lot of what is shown seems to only be there for sake of having more blood and guts.

Even as I write this review I’ve been waffling about how much I like this movie. There are times I am sure it is a genuine classic and others where I think it is a piece of crap. It is certainly an uneven. It is an amazing true story, told in a way that mostly does it justice.

***1/2

Dr. Strange is a big leap forward for the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of special effects. MCU movies’ special effects tend to be adequate, generally fine but occasionally a little cheap looking. That is not the case in Dr. Strange. While it makes no effort to differentiate itself from other superhero movies in terms of plot or characters, it does raise the bar with its trippy and impressive special effects.

On the surface there is a lot to like about Dr. Strange. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Stephen Strange, a talented but arrogant neuro-surgeon. After a car accident destroys his use of his hands, he becomes obsessive about finding a way to repair the damage. That leads him to Kathmandu, where he is initiated into training in the mystical arts. It is essentially the same story that Marvel showed us in Iron Man. And in Thor. And in Ant-Man. Dr. Strange is the same as all the other Marvel heroes, and his story is the same. Like the rest of those movies, it plays out the same sort of origin story, hitting all the same beats in essentially the same order. Unlike Ant-Man or Iron Man, though, Dr. Strange’s attempts at humor generally fall flat. The best gag is with his cloak of levitation, which acts much like Aladdin’s flying carpet with a mind of its own, only the movie keeps going back to it with consistently diminishing returns.

There is a slew of potentially interesting secondary characters, all played by talented performers who are given absolutely nothing to do. The worst is Rachel McAdams as a completely empty love interest of sorts. Her character, Christine, has nothing to do but be the target of Strange’s “wit.” Tilda Swinton’s role as The Ancient One should have made the movie, but even she can’t make something from nothing this time. While she supposedly plays Strange’s teacher and mentor, the movie doesn’t give enough examples of her teaching to make any later revelations have any impact. The only character that actually feels like a character is Mordo, who acts as the Ancient One’s second in command and actually does more training with Strange than anyone else. Like the rest of the details of Kamar-Taj, what exactly is Mordo’s deal is never exactly clear, but it is clearer than anyone else’s.

While the characters and story are largely flat, the visuals make up for it. While the movie spends a lot of time using very normal portrayals of magic, glowing flaming lines and symbols that are as unnecessary as they are uninteresting, the way the movie shows the various characters warping reality is stunning. Dr. Strange takes the folding city bits from Inception and bumps them up to 11. During one of the big fight scenes they turn the entirety of New York City into essentially a 3D kaleidoscope. It is stunning, unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a movie before. The special effects are consistently jaw-droppingly excellent.

Dr. Strange ends up being kind of a mixed bag. The story provides absolutely nothing new, not even on the level of Ant-Man’s turning the hero into a petty crook. This is the same super hero origin movie we’ve seen a dozen times before. It is not a badly done rendition of the story, but it feels really tired. However, the special effects are enough to keep someone watching. It left me constantly wanting to like it more, even as I grew bored of its characters and plot. It has such a great cast and a hook that I am a sucker for, but it only brings a visual pop to the table.

***1/2