Author: msobczak1138

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Zootopia 2

Zootopia 2

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A lot has changed since Zootopia was released in 2016.  For starters, the buddy cop movie is practically nonexistent.  Decades ago, these movies regularly appeared in theaters in the form of action-comedies (Lethal Weapon, Rush Hour), spoofs (21 Jump Street), satires (The Other Guys) or fresh takes on the genre (The Nice Guys).  Besides the evergreen Bad Boys franchise, I’m hard-pressed to recall a notable buddy cop movie from the past ten years besides the one starring Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling.  If sneaking the genre into a family film helps keep the genre alive, I’m all for it.  I wish the filmmakers had given their animal detectives a better case to crack than the one in Zootopia 2.  Ah well, perhaps they’ll get one in the next sequel, which is hinted at in a credit cookie.

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The Thing With Feathers

The Thing With Feathers

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If grief appeared before me as a gangly, foul-mouthed, eight-foot tall crow who spewed insults, I’d assume I was done for.  Which is what makes The Thing With Feathers so oddly compelling.  The crow doesn’t appear before the Sad Dad in this film (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) to harm him, but help him.  The crow wants to shock him out of his grief so that an even worse creature doesn’t do him in, Despair.  As far as therapy options go, this one beats Yoga and keeping an “emotion journal”, either of which would push me off the deep end.

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Wicked: For Good

Wicked: For Good

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A year ago, I wondered how the sequel to Wicked would incorporate the source of its inspiration, The Wizard of Oz.  The answer arrives with Wicked: For Good, a noisy and unwieldy  contraption that sabotages much of the goodwill from the first movie while it furiously crams the classic movie into the plot.  Despite all of its clunky contrivances, the film is still modestly entertaining due to Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, who save the film from collapsing under its own weight.  If it weren’t for them, I would have prayed for flying monkeys to pluck me out of the theater and carry me to safety.

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Nuremberg

Nuremberg

msobczak1138

WWII movies fall into two categories, those that following tradition and those that chart new territory.  Those that opt for the former envelop you in their warm, cozy familiarity with the genre, like your favorite quilt.  They don’t challenge you, but they’re entertaining.  WWII Movies that eschew tradition in favor of bold and daring choices are more admired than loved.  They’re the quilts you receive with a polite “thanks” that currently reside in the dark recesses of your closet.  Nuremberg is solidly in line with the first approach, a direct descendant of the WWII movie from the Forties or Fifties.

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Roofman

Roofman

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Raising children is expensive.  Combine that with how difficult it can be for veterans to find suitable work after leaving the military and you have the origins of Roofman.  The movie is about a thief who earns his nickname by chopping through the roofs of businesses before robbing them at gunpoint.  Since Channing Tatum is in the leading role, I’ll confirm what’s most important to his fans: his trademark abs and glutes are prominently on display.  That said, Tatum is far more than a beefcake actor, and this movie provides him with an opportunity to showcase his seldom-used range.

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Black Phone 2

Black Phone 2

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When The Black Phone did well at the box office in 2021, it was a foregone conclusion that a sequel would be coming.  This posed a challenge to writer-director Scott Derrickson and co-writer C. Robert Cartill: how to continue the story with a dead villain?  For Black Phone 2, the solution was to delve into the origins of the Grabber (Ethan Hawke).  While there’s no evidence of an unhappy childhood, we do see how he honed his skills before taking up residence in a Colorado suburb.  Practice makes perfect, right?

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Tron: Ares

Tron: Ares

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Tron: Ares isn’t a continuation of Tron and Tron: Legacy, but a spin-off.  It’s Tron-adjacent, set within the Tron universe with only the slightest connection to the previous films.  It’s the same approach behind this year’s Jurassic World: Rebirth, which was basically a CGI dinosaur movie  populated with entirely new characters.  This movie offers Tron-styled action and aesthetics with a completely different cast.  In both cases, branding propels the endeavor instead of storytelling continuity or narrative cohesion, with logic not entering into the equation.  On the plus side, members of the audience with minimal knowledge of what came before can still enjoy these films on the basis of the sheer spectacle they provide.  While that ultimately wasn’t enough in the case of Rebirth, it does make Tron: Legacy a very watchable experience.  It’s the most captivating screen saver ever created.

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Good Boy 2025

Good Boy

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The role of the dog in a horror movie is a thankless one.  They appear early on, growl at something unseen and vanish into the night chasing after it.  The dog is found dead soon afterwards, a bad omen that the human characters never take seriously.  Good Boy turns that cliche on its head by telling the entire story from the dog’s point of view, an inspired choice that makes a run-of-the-mill ghost story harrowing and unpredictable.  In addition to its solid horror movie trappings, the movie is also a sobering meditation on what it means to be “man’s best friend”.

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