The Little Mermaid (2023) is a fun remake with a strong performance from Halle Bailey!

The youngest of King Triton’s daughters, Ariel is a beautiful and spirited young mermaid with a thirst for adventure. Longing to find out more about the world beyond the sea, Ariel visits the surface and falls for the dashing Prince Eric. Following her heart, she makes a deal with the evil sea witch, Ursula, to experience life on land.

I’m going to skip over the whole conversation about Disney’s Live Action Remakes since I already briefly talked about it in my Peter Pan & Wendy review last month, anyway The Little Mermaid had me a bit worried. When the trailer dropped myself and a few others said that Halle Bailey would be the standout but mostly everything else would fall flat, it’s a common pattern that happens with a lot of these live action remakes. However as I said before in my reviews I like to be proven wrong when it comes to film and to my surprise…The Little Mermaid did just that.

The Little Mermaid is very flawed, the underwater parts don’t exactly look all that great as there are moments where the CGI is very noticeable. Javier Bardem gives a pretty poor performance as King Triton, Jacob Tremblay as Flounder is a very lifeless performance and Awkwafina as Scuttle is yet another addition to her bad performances post The Farewell. I’m not going to on a huge rant about the rap Awkwafina sings in the movie. I really don’t have that much to say about it, it’s bad of course but it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever heard. To be quite honest I found it more unnecessary and very unfitting than bad, it comes right out of nowhere and ends shortly after and is never spoken of again.

Now moving on to what really worked for the movie, let’s start with of course Halle Bailey who was the standout. Her film career is going to go very far and it really shows here, she captures the spirit of Ariel while bringing her own direction to the character, her acting really shines through when the film goes to the land portion of the film. Her screen presence is genuinely charming and she naturally connects with the rest of the cast, even if I didn’t like some of the other performances such as Awkwafina or Tremblay there is absolutely no denying that she connects with them easily.

Daveed Diggs as Sebastian took me a little bit to get used to, but he really did a great job. His version of Under The Sea is a whole lot of fun and he really does capture the character quite well, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula was also pretty solid obviously there is no topping Pat Carroll (voiced Ursula in the original) who delivered one of my favorite performances of all time. With that said I do think McCarthy did a pretty good job with what she was given, absolutely far better than some other depictions of iconic Disney villains (looking at you Jafar from Aladdin (2019). Finally there’s Art Malik who plays Grimsby, he’s genuinely fun and is just a very charming character. He’s a prime example of a fun side character that gets the job done quite well.

The music was surprisingly pretty great, I say surprisingly because yes while Rob Marshall director of Chicago (one of my favorite films) is in the director’s chair. This is Disney we are talking about, the music in these live action remakes have always been a hit or miss or some movies will have a few good songs and the rest would just be very forgettable. However that wasn’t the case here with The Little Mermaid, minus the previously mentioned rap. The rest of the songs are pretty well done renditions of the original songs, Under The Sea is a lot of fun, Kiss The Girl is one of the film’s highlights and Part Of Your World is truly fantastic due to Halle Bailey’s powerful singing voice. Which is why the music works so well the singing voices are truly great especially Halle Bailey who as I said before has a tremendous singing voice.

Lastly there’s Rob Marshall’s direction, his approach of “if it isn’t broken don’t fix it” is truly effective here, especially in terms of story. Rob Marshall’s touches on the music is absolutely felt here and he really does a fantastic job of connecting the cast to one another, there’s some genuinely well done moments of chemistry between Halle Bailey and Jonah Hauer-King.

Overall The Little Mermaid (2023) is quite solid, it’s definitely flawed but it’s a genuinely fun little film that manages to be a lot better than a lot of the other live action remakes.

The Little Mermaid is currently in theaters.

7/10 B

Crater is a coming of age movie but in space.

Caleb Channing is about to be relocated to an idyllic faraway planet following his father’s death. To fulfill his dad’s last wish before leaving, he and his three best friends hijack a rover to explore a mysterious crater.

Crater is yet another Disney+ Original Movie that a had a humongous amount of potential but falls very short when the movie tries to execute it’s themes.

Crater has decent enough act the standout is McKenna Grace who gives a strong performance that has some character moments that help develop her character, Kid Cudi is pretty fun but there is honestly not a whole lot to say about him here.

The main problems here are mostly the writing and world building, the writing leaves a lot more to be desired with character moments that are completely missing. Sure we are given some information about the characters but not enough to the point where the viewer will care about them, the world building is very poorly explained as well as having way too many scenes that spill out exposition for long periods of time.

What’s frustrating is Crater does wrap up pretty nicely, there’s some beautiful and emotional scenes during the final moments of the movie that actually could pull your heartstrings. But due to the very bumpy road to get to that point it really holds Crater back from being a decent movie.

Crater can be summed up as a coming of age movie but in space that has a lot of failed potential, there’s a good movie in here somewhere it’s just not showing up unfortunately.

Crater is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Peter Pan & Wendy is yet another forgettable Disney live action remake.

Wendy Darling, a young girl looking to avoid boarding school, meets Peter Pan, a boy who refuses to grow up. Wendy, her brothers, and Tinker Bell travel with Peter to the magical world of Neverland, where she encounters an evil pirate captain.

I’ve shared my thoughts on the whole Disney live action remake thing that Disney has been doing the last several years, while there are some that are genuinely good (Jungle Book, Pete’s Dragon Cinderella, Christopher Robin and Cruella) a majority of them are just not good and serve the purpose of being made for a quick buck. Peter Pan & Wendy I was hoping would be decent enough since David Lowery did a very solid job with Pete’s Dragon (which honestly could be argued that it’s better than the original), while you do feel Lowery’s direction here it’s nowhere near as strong as it was in Pete’s Dragon.

There is actually handful of things to like here, most notably some of the performances and the filming, David Lowery does what he does best and makes the film very stunning, while Neverland can be dark a lot of the time it does make that up with some quite strong visuals and beautiful shots. The performances that standout here is Jude Law as Hook, Ever Gabo Anderson as Wendy and Alyssa Wapanatahk as Tiger Lily

Jude Law really sells it as Hook he can be intimidating but also be goofy which actually does a pretty solid job of capturing the character, he honestly seemed like he was having an absolute blast playing Hook so that probably helps as well. Alyssa Wapantahk does a pretty solid job as Tiger Lily, while it’s not a performance to write home about she does a very decent job of capturing the character. Finally there’s Ever Gabo Anderson who’s definitely going to be a future star, she does really good job capturing the character of Wendy and ends up having some of the best scenes of the movie.

Where Peter Pan & Wendy falls short is memorability there’s a lot of scenes here that don’t really have anything of note going on, Alexander Molony is just not a very good Peter Pan, while he isn’t flat out bad he doesn’t really bring anything new to the character. His performance is more dull than anything else and technically gets the job done but that doesn’t make it good.

It’s also quite clear when the direction of the movie seems very lost, I hinted at earlier at that while there are some very beautiful shots here Neverland is still very dark and dreary, I’m not exactly sure what is making recent Peter Pan adaptions have this idea that Neverland was a depressing place, Neverland is an adventurous, lively and whimsical place where you never grow up. Although I will give credit Neverland does look far better here than it did in Pan (2015), at least with this movie you have Lowery’s direction and style.

Overall Peter Pan & Wendy isn’t something I would call bad, it just has a lot of flaws that sadly stack up and ultimately hold this movie back. It’s far better than a lot of the recent Disney live action remakes and it’s a huge improvement over Pan (2015) (then again that’s not exactly hard when you have a scene where the pirates randomly start singing Nirvana’s It Smells Like Teen Spirit).

Peter Pan & Wendy is available on Disney+

5/10 C

Beauty and the Beast 30th Celebration is half a movie.

In honour of the 30th anniversary of the animated classic, the cast and crew put on a blended special showcase of “Beauty and the Beast”, along with new musical performances, sets and costumes inspired by the classic story.

I was debating on whether or not to give the Beauty and the Beast 30th celebration but decided to since I love the original film so much, anyway this celebration isn’t exactly good. H.E.R. has her debut acting role here and she does quite a great job as Belle, her performance isn’t anything groundbreaking but she does capture some of the charm of the movie and makes it her own, Josh Groban has the excellent voice to back him up from the terrible Beast costume, Martin Short is fun as always, the songs are pretty great and stay quite true to the original movie. All the classics are here from Beauty and the Beast, to The Mob Song, Something There and heck even Evermore is here that one song that completely stole the show from the 2017 live action version that’s really neat! Everything else however is pretty rough, for starters I’m not entirely sure why they weren’t committed to making this into a complete live action stage show, half of the movie is just scenes from the animated film. We miss out on a lot of moments that I’m sure the cast would have nailed had they been given the opportunity, it’s just sort of that moment where if I wanted to watch the animated film I would put on the animated film. It’s nice to see Rita Moreno here and she tells a little history about Beauty and the Beast however all of it is common knowledge that can be easily looked up with Wikipedia articles, the storyboard art was at least pretty interesting and not something you see everyday. As for the rest it plays out the story we all know and love, I wouldn’t say this was bad but this was a very lacking 30th celebration that could have went a lot harder.

Beauty and the Beast: A 30th Celebration is available on Disney+

5/10 C

Disenchanted loses the magic of the first film.

Years after her happily ever after, Giselle, Robert and Morgan move to a new community and Andalasia and the real world are thrown off-balance.

Disenchanted is the long awaited sequel of 2007’s Enchanted a film that quickly gained a relatively big following including myself. Enchanted was genuinely really fun film filled with a lot of heart, passion, character and had a huge identity to it. It’s been one of those films where people have wanted a sequel for a long time, Disenchanted is the end result and they completely dropped the ball here. What’s sad is there just isn’t a whole lot to say about Disenchanted as it’s a forgettable movie that completely takes out all of the magic that made Enchanted so great. The positives come from Amy Adams who returns as Giselle, she’s clearly putting her heart into it and actually sings a lot of the songs very well, Idina Menzel is actually not bad here either a song she sings towards the end “Love Power” is actually quite great and beautifully sung. James Marsden who just isn’t given enough screen time here is truly charming and actually gives all the moments that made me laugh, you can’t help but smile whenever he’s on screen which is sadly just not enough. Everything else here is about as generic as you can get between a very typical disgruntled child or teen storyline that ends with learning a lesson, which really has the energy of something from the Disney channel in the early 90s it’s truly a huge missed opportunity to look at Morgan’s (played by Gabriella Baldacchino) character and her relationship with her mother Giselle in a way that could connect with the audience. But they just settled with the most generic way possible that is way too forgettable, Disenchanted is a frustrating movie because this is most definitely something you can make into a great movie, but the forgettable script, a lot of the basic original songs and the storytelling is severely lacking and loses the magic of the original.

Disenchanted is available on Disney+

4/10 D+

Lightyear is a decent enough adventure that could have went further.

Legendary space ranger Buzz Lightyear embarks on an intergalactic adventure alongside ambitious recruits Izzy, Mo, Darby, and his robot companion, Sox.

Lightyear is Pixar’s newest film which the whole idea of the movie is it is about who the toy Buzz Lightyear from the Toy Story films is based on. An idea that sadly doesn’t get fully utilized, but let’s go over the positives first. First off the animation is stunning, it compliments the whole space theme really well and is the very definition of having a sci-fi feel. The voice acting all around was really strong as well, particularly Keke Palmer, Chris Evans, Uzo Aduba and Peter Sohn. Speaking of which Sox the cat is hands down the best animal sidekick in recent memory, usually I’m not a fan of the usual modern Disney sidekick who’s just there for selling toys and making unfunny jokes. But Sox was a genuinely fun character who had a lot of charm and feels a lot more than a dollar sign, the first half of Lightyear felt a lot like what you would expect from Pixar…the first 30 minutes to be exact. There’s some genuinely touching scenes with a lot of emotions mixed in that really paint an interesting story about blaming yourself and trying to do everything you can to fix a situation. The major problem with Lightyear is what follows after that, the movie quickly becomes a very generic sci-fi story filled to the brim with cliches. A huge part of this is what they decided to do with Zurg, which was a very puzzling choice that really did not add much to the movie. There are some decent bits here and there in the second half, but it’s not enough to put this movie back to where it was in the first half. It’s a lot of sci-fi elements that don’t blend together very well. Overall Lightyear is definitely not a bad film (far from it) it just could have taken it’s ideas from the first half of the movie and pushed them even further.

Lightyear is now in theaters.

7/10 B

Better Nate Than Ever is harmless but doesn’t offer anything new.

Thirteen year old Nate Foster fantasizes about becoming a Broadway star. However, he struggles to even get roles in his high school play. When Nate’s parents leave for the weekend, he and his friends decide to make Nate a star.

Better Nate Than Ever is another case of a Disney Channel original movie disguised as a Disney+ Original. While it’s definitely not bad and overall pretty harmless, the plot is just way too generic and plays out exactly how you think it’s going to. The cast is at least decent giving some pretty entertaining performances as well as Rueby Wood’s singing which is honestly not bad, but do not go in expecting a musical. There’s only about 4 songs all of which are pretty solid in their own right, it’s just calling this a musical is a bit of a stretch. The main criticism comes down to the plot being really nothing special as well as some of the jokes, there’s a few jokes that might get a chuckle out of you. However there’s a ton of jokes that really make you question “who thought this was a good idea?” As far as the plot it’s very basic family movie stuff that feels a bit too familiar. Better Nate Than Ever is definitely better than expected but it’s not something I would recommend watching.

Better Nate Than Ever is available on Disney+

5/10 C

Encanto is a magical ride for all the right reasons!

The Madrigals are an extraordinary family who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia in a charmed place called the Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift — every child except Mirabel. However, she soon may be the Madrigals last hope when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is now in danger.

The last half of 2021 has really delivered a ton of surprises when it comes to film and Encanto is absolutely no exception. Before going into the film I was prepared for another nothing special about it Disney film that wouldn’t do anything interesting. Encanto is quite different, first off the characters are all actually really well done. The writing for this film feels much more grounded and feels like the writers wanted to give the characters their own personality and dive more into said personalities rather than just list them and that’s it. It really dives deep into family themes such as relationships and how families can be flawed, when you compare Encanto to a lot of other Disney films that have released over the last few years you can tell it’s very different. The world building is also quite incredible, it shows both the light and the dark side of the world and establishes early on how much the world means to the characters. The music is some of the best from a Disney film in quite awhile, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s choice of music is absolutely spot on and matches the tone, energy and style the film is going for. Which leads to the cast who have beautiful singing voices and completely hit it out of the park when it comes to emotions, each song really hits the viewer with a different emotion. As well as each song having it’s own identity with a lot of energy and strength put into them, overall Encanto is truly a charming film that surprised me. It’s one of the best films of the year make sure to watch this one.

Encanto is available on Disney+

10/10 A+

Jungle Cruise (2021) Movie Review!

Based on Disneyland’s theme park ride where a small riverboat takes a group of travelers through a jungle filled with dangerous animals and reptiles but with a supernatural element.

Jungle Cruise is the type of movie where I was expecting to absolutely hate it, while the movie is heavily flawed I couldn’t help but have a lot of fun with it. I’ll start with what I really liked, what made this movie worth watching through the end for me was Emily Blunt. I might be biased because she’s my favorite actress but she really did a solid job in her role, she looked like she had a lot of fun in the role and was very entertaining throughout the movie. The Rock also does a really solid job as well, if there’s one thing that can be said about The Rock it’s that he knows how to sell a movie to the audience. He’s pretty great in front of the camera and always looks like he’s having the time of his life, which fit this movie quite well. The jokes had their moments of genuinely being funny which was mostly the puns (again I might be biased since I love puns) finally I liked that the movie kind of just goes nuts towards the end like yes there are some stylistic choices that were terrible (I’ll get to that) but there are the moments are genuinely enjoyable that make for a really fun movie. As I said before Jungle Cruise is heavily flawed and some of the stylistic choices are some of the major problems, at times the movie tries to be way too serious Jessie Plemons plays one of the villains and I feel like his character feels completely out of place. It also doesn’t help that he wasn’t very good either, other weird choices include going back and forth between being comedic and being serious. Which I’m not saying a movie can’t do that, the editing just sort of made it very awkward in this case. Everything else in the movie such as the writing weren’t bad by any means just nothing really noteworthy, it did the job and that was about it. Overall Jungle Cruise could have been a lot worse, it’s a fun movie to put on during a lazy afternoon. It got the job done and sometimes that’s all a movie needs to do.

Jungle Cruise is now available in theaters and on Disney+ Premier Access!

6/10 C+

Luca (2021) Movie Review!

On the Italian Riviera, an unlikely but strong friendship grows between a human being and a sea monster disguised as a human.

Being who you are can be hard, coming out (in any given sense) and expressing who you are as a person is not easy. Luca is a film that does quite a fantastic job of showing just that, the animation is stunning and gives the characters, the environment and the interaction between the characters so much life. It gives off this raw feel to it which is actually not very common in a lot of animated films, the story is absolutely beautifully told. It’s told in this dreamlike feel to it that feels very real but also like a dream at the same time, it’s a very interesting approach and one that I definitely appreciated. As I said before Luca uses the theme of hiding who you really are and does it in such a clever way, as the movie goes on it uses the theme in a lot of interesting and clever ways. It is a common theme to use in a tv show or a movie but I would argue that Luca uses it in the most unique and far more interesting way. The character development is also spot on, instead of quickly rushing to meet several different characters the movie takes it’s time for the audience and the movie itself to get to know the characters. Luca gets more and more meaningful as it goes on which is truly something special, the writing has tons of powerful moments that did make me cry at times. Pixar really hit this one out of the park, Luca is one of my favorite films of the year! Definitely check this one out!!

Luca is now available on Disney+

10/10 A+