Adventure Archives - The Wide Screen

June 19, 2021

“Luca” Is The Trenette Al Pesto For The Soul We Need In 2021

Luca‘s greatest misfortune, I fear, will be its timing. Pixar’s critically-acclaimed, Academy Award-winning, almost universally beloved maybe masterpiece Soul was always going to be a tough act to follow, especially when audiences hold Pixar films to such a abnormally high standard that anything less than “perfect” is seen as an abject failure, and a Pixar entry’s worth is apparently based on how many tears it can force out of you. And preceding Disney Animation’s Encanto by a sizable distance into the race for Best Animated Feature at next year’s Oscars was always going to be difficult to justify, in a race where the strongest competitors enter nearer the finish line.

Luca therefore finds itself in a situation much like last year’s Onward, and the similarities don’t end there. Luca too will suffer from a botched release that is sure to damage the film’s profitability and franchise potential – but whereas Onward enjoyed a few days in theaters before the entire world went into lockdown in March 2020, Luca is a Disney+ exclusive: and like Soul, it’s completely free for anyone with a subscription to the service. This has understandably caused some tension between Disney and Pixar, which is essentially being asked to survive on awards recognition for the time being – awards recognition that, as previously mentioned, they’re having to battle their own corporate overlords to achieve.

And unfortunately, Luca is excellent – but not in the way hardcore Pixar devotees consider the studio’s “best” films to be excellent. In other words, it’s not making enough people bawl their eyes out or reconsider their entire perception of the cosmos and their place therein, therefore it must be an unsightly blemish on the studio’s spotless reputation, which will be just fine, I promise you: Pixar survived The Good Dinosaur, and Cars 3, and Ratatouille (oops, did I say that out loud?). Instead, Luca is a summertime comfort film that is bigger at heart than in scope, with colorful landscapes more sweeping than its sweet message, likely to produce more laughter than tears – although I’m gonna be honest, you’re heartless if your eyes don’t at least well up a little bit at the final scene.

And there’d be no shame in full-on crying, because Luca is far more raw and emotional than most critics have cared to warn you. On the surface, sure, it’s just a story about two young sea monsters, named Luca (voiced by Jacob Tremblay) and Alberto (voiced by Jack Dylan Grazer), who leave the water and journey on land through the Italian Riviera, finding themselves in a cheerful seaside town named Portorosso – a town which just so happens to have a long and storied history of hunting and killing sea monsters. But the film uses its peculiar premise as an opportunity to explore some truly beautiful themes of friendship, specifically the importance of surrounding yourself with people who accept you for who you are, and who understand what isn’t within their rights to try and alter about you.

All of which is to say, the queer-coding is strong with this one. Director Enrico Casarosa has claimed that the film is necessarily set in a “pre-puberty world” and that no romance enters the equation as a result, but Luca and Alberto’s dynamic doesn’t have to be interpreted as romantic for a queer reading to be applicable. Luca’s journey on its own is already representative of many LGBTQIA+ experiences (minus the shapeshifting sea-monster part): from being found out by his overprotective, close-minded parents, who threaten to send him off with an even more conservative relative for some kind of moralistic reeducation, and running away from home as a result, to finding healing and validation with someone like Alberto, whose street-savvy makes him a kind of Mentor In Queerness archetype in this reading.

I also appreciated that Luca‘s queer-coded sea monsters aren’t fearsome beasts. Using inhuman creatures of any kind as a stand-in for marginalized communities who are often met with accusations of being less than human is always a balancing act to some degree, but Luca is leaps and bounds above, say, Zootopia. Crucially, Luca‘s sea monsters aren’t innately dangerous (in fact, they’re downright pacifistic, based on the rural life they lead under the Mediterranean), and with their vibrant colors and wavy, luminous hair, they’re more entrancing than monstrous…well, except for Uncle Ugo (voiced by Sacha Baron-Cohen), an anglerfish/sea monster hybrid from the depths of the ocean, who doesn’t respond well to the pressure change near the surface.

But, perhaps in an effort to avoid comparisons to Finding Nemo, Luca spends significantly more time on land than underwater – and the film’s animators and artists, working mostly from their homes during the pandemic, clearly focused their efforts on enriching the tranquil environment of Portorosso, its people, and its culture. I have to admit, their efforts were not entirely successful: the Italian landscapes are beautiful, and I was left in awe of some of the most impressively realistic lighting I’ve ever seen in animation, but the setting feels like it was chosen for the lavish backdrops it could offer the simplistic story, rather than to enhance the story’s themes, and I never felt – as I did watching Coco – that the two intertwined as cohesively as they could have, or that we were allowed a glimpse of the Riviera’s cultural identity that amounted to anything more than a microcosm of Italy in general.

Also, as a Eurovision fan, I feel legally obligated to note that Pixar missed an opportunity to incorporate Italy’s Eurovision-winning band Måneskin onto this film’s soundtrack somehow. I wish I was sorry about derailing an otherwise normal film review like that, but I’m not.

But leaving that aside (if I must), the film commits few errors glaring enough to warrant the criticism it’s received from some folks who expect every Pixar film to be a paradigm-altering piece of modern art. Comfort is important too, especially what with everything going on in the world: and Luca feels like it understands that, and is offering audiences in 2021 exactly what we all need – the “Trenette al Pesto for the soul” that I referenced in the title (and no, I didn’t just hop online and pick a random Italian pasta dish: they actually eat Trenette al Pesto in the movie, and it’s a dinner scene worthy of Studio Ghibli).

So I genuinely hope Luca finds its audience on Disney+, and that it gets at least some of the recognition it deserves when awards season rolls around. But even if it doesn’t, it left me feeling warm and cozy and deeply satisfied, like good Italian food, and I’m thankful for that.

Rating: 9/10

January 13, 2021January 13, 2021

May Calamawy Joins “Moon Knight”!

Although Oscar Isaac has yet to be officially confirmed as the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Moon Knight (though it’s pretty clear at this point that he will indeed be donning the antihero’s iconic mantle), the series is moving full steam ahead with a production start date already set for March, and has now begun casting other key supporting roles. May Calamawy has become only the second cast member to join the series, playing an as yet unnamed character who will join the Moon Knight on what Marvel president Kevin Feige described as a globe-trotting, “Indiana Jones-type” adventure.

Calamawy, a Bahraini actress with Egyptian heritage, has risen to stardom through her popular role on Hulu’s Ramy, where she portrays Ramy Youssef’s younger sister, Dena Hassan, and has helped to break barriers for MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) representation in TV. She will have a chance to do so again in the Moon Knight series, where she is likely filling the role of Marlene Alraune: an important figure in Moon Knight’s backstory. A casting call that MCU Direct was able to reveal back in September of last year suggested that Marvel was searching for actresses of any ethnicity, and in the same age-range as Calamawy, to play a character believed to be Marlene.

At the time, Marvel provided only a few details about the character, including that she would be “a manipulative operative working for a secret organization”, possibly hinting at a connection to the MCU’s S.H.I.E.L.D., or even S.W.O.R.D., which is being set up to have a major role going forward: S.W.O.R.D. agents will be tasked with trying to restrain Wanda Maximoff in WandaVision, and will likely show up again in the Secret Invasion series. In the comics, Marlene’s character has never had ties to either of these organizations, but then again, she’s also been little more than a rip-off of Marion Ravenwood from the Indiana Jones franchise – so I don’t mind if her backstory gets rewritten to better suit the modern setting.

Marlene in the comics is a stereotypical “archaeologist’s daughter” (not to be confused with the very similar “scientist’s daughter”), and is most often utilized as a love interest to Marc Spector, a.k.a. Moon Knight. While accompanying her aging father on his final research trip to Egypt, she accidentally becomes embroiled in a fight between Spector and his nemesis, The Bushman, who kills her father and attempts to kill her too but is stopped by Spector: who is left mortally wounded in the attack. Spector is then revived by the ancient Egyptian moon deity Khonshu, and given a second chance at life in exchange for his services as an assassin and mercenary, carrying out the god’s dirty work on earth. Marlene accompanies Marc Spector occasionally on his crime-fighting missions, and has some fighting skills of her own that she’s able to put to good use, but most comic readers still only know her as Spector’s on-and-off girlfriend, who at one point leaves him for her ex-husband and then reunites with him later. The MCU has never been great at creating truly messy romantic drama, but WandaVision seems like it might finally reflect a widescale shift towards writing more complex romantic relationships – so I guess we’ll have to see what happens.

But regardless, this is still very exciting casting, and bodes well for Calamawy’s career beyond Ramy. I hope that we’ll soon see other MENA actors join Moon Knight in significant roles, making up for the MCU’s earlier, dated, and deeply offensive portrayals of Middle Eastern characters as terrorists. This stereotype continues to be perpetuated in mainstream media – just last month, Wonder Woman 1984 tried to get away with it too: in what may have been an ill-conceived and tasteless attempt to pass it off as just another hallmark of the 1980’s films upon which the DC sequel was based, like troubling depictions of women, dubious consent issues, and queerbaiting.

So what do you think about Calamawy’s casting, and how excited are you for Moon Knight? Share your own thoughts, theories, and opinions, in the comments below!

December 26, 2020

“Wonder Woman 1984” Review!

There’s a small but memorable scene in Wonder Woman 1984 in which the film’s major antagonist, Maxwell Lord (the irresistibly charming Pedro Pascal), having just worked his dark magic on the President of the United States and sparked an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union, tries to escape from an altercation at the White House only to find himself awkwardly handcuffed to Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), Wonder Woman’s quick-thinking sidekick and lover. I bring this up because it’s representative of the film overall, which handcuffs itself to Pine’s Trevor and stubbornly sticks to him even as his very presence in the story demands that the entire plot revolve around him and not the lead character. The only way this metaphor could have been made even stronger would be if Wonder Woman herself were handcuffed to Trevor in this scene to reflect the film’s inability to give independence or agency to its female characters.

Make no mistake, I loved Pine in the first film – and I adored the mature, elegant romance between him and Diana Prince (Gal Gadot): which was written in such a way that both characters could be strong and vulnerable with each other, and both had equal footing – with Diana clearly and effortlessly remaining the lead. Trevor’s death in Wonder Woman was a heartbreaking and powerful moment that allowed us all to see the good in humanity. And yet he’s back in Wonder Woman 1984, nearly a century after his death in World War I, doing pretty well for a guy whom we last saw get blown to bits in mid-air. Prior to the film’s release, I was as excited as anyone to see him return: in hindsight, I’m beginning to realize how foolish it was to ever attempt something that could so easily go so wrong…and did.

It’s blasphemous to even suggest, I know. The first film relied so heavily on that spark of chemistry between the two actors and their characters. But Wonder Woman 1984 had the means to substitute that timeless pairing for another one that could have been just as well-written and well-received, if director Patty Jenkins and her team of screenwriters hadn’t decided to resurrect Steve Trevor for one last lackluster hurrah: because let me tell you, everything that’s bad about this film’s flawed script, from the convoluted globe-trotting adventure to the random interlude with a Mayan shaman, feels to me like the inevitable side-effect of having to devise an excuse for how Steve was even able to come back at all.

And with the return of Steve Trevor, Diana herself gets sidelined in a story that seems almost uninterested in her as an individual. She’s got nowhere left to go and nothing new to learn, essentially. A vague theme about the importance of being true to yourself is woven throughout the film, but it’s not exactly an urgent message that Diana personally has to embrace, unlike the first film’s timely reminder to believe in the goodness of people. She was being true to herself anyway, before Steve randomly came back into her life and took over her entire storyline (oh, the parallels to Avengers: Endgame). I mean, it’s really a shame there was no way to weave this message more cleverly into the plot and romantic subplot by…oh I don’t know, making this a queer love story?

Just as DC preceded Marvel in the department of successful female-led superhero movies, many of us had hoped they’d be the first to give us a proudly and openly LGBTQ+ superheroine onscreen in the form of Diana Prince (Harley Quinn was vaguely bisexual in Birds Of Prey, and a supervillain anyway). We’ve known for some time that wouldn’t be the case, with Patty Jenkins confirming that wasn’t the story she wanted to tell. But what we get instead is a film that tiptoes around even the possibility of a same-sex romance as clumsily as Barbara Ann Minerva (Kristen Wiig) strides around the Smithsonian in high heels. Now, to be fair, most of the romantic tension between Diana and Barbara is more a result of the palpable chemistry between the two actresses (the quiet, ethereal Gadot and sparky, exuberant Wiig complimenting each other very nicely), rather than necessarily indicative of anything intentionally written into the script, but at the same time…come on. Both Diana and Barbara are canonically bisexual in DC Comics, and you’re telling me Patty Jenkins didn’t know what she was doing by casting a romantic filter over their awkwardly flirtatious lunch overlooking the Washington Monument, or having Barbara tumble into Diana’s arms in a subversion of a dated Hollywood romantic trope? It’s queerbaiting that only serves to underscore the fact that the rest of the movie is, in the words of one of my favorite reviewers, Valerie Complex; “aggressively heteronormative”.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the scenes that center women are the highlights of the film: from those early interactions between Diana and Barbara, to the epic prologue action sequence on the Amazonian isle of Themyscira, to a cheeky and delightful mid-credits scene. But none of these isolated scenes make up for the fact that the character arcs of both female leads in Wonder Woman 1984 (one of those female leads being a literal icon of feminism) revolve almost entirely around men. For Diana, that’s Chris Pine’s Steve, who returns with the help of an incredibly convenient plot device and plays fish-out-of-water for a while…a really long while, during an excruciating montage that exists solely to trot out every semi-nostalgic 80’s cultural trope you can imagine. Pine is still perfectly likable and has some laugh-out-loud line deliveries, but never truly recaptures what made his character so special – and thus feels like a burden the film must carry.

For Barbara Ann Minerva, it’s Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord – who is quite an interesting character, despite being surprisingly little like the young Donald Trump we all assumed he would be based on the promotional material. An oil tycoon with his eye on a legendary ancient wishing stone forged by the Gods, Lord seduces the world with his voice and power to make the impossible possible. He’s got Trumpian elements to his character, of course (among the more obvious examples: he yells “You’re hired!” at one point), but his motivations are relatable, and his charm genuine. Pascal also just oozes the kind of unshakably consistent charisma that can turn a silent, faceless gunslinger into a beloved icon, or make a dumpster fire of a movie like We Can Be Heroes shockingly entertaining.

Minerva herself does get to transform into the anthropomorphic Cheetah we know from the comics, and the CGI isn’t entirely awful as she flails about in her dimly-lit third-act duel with Diana (or perhaps Diana’s Golden Eagle armor is so distractingly awful I didn’t notice), but she deserved to be the major antagonist of this film, and not merely Maxwell’s loyal henchwoman. I’m also afraid that Wiig’s excellent dramatic performance and thrilling action sequences will be overshadowed in the larger fandom discourse.

Apart from Wiig’s notable fights (particularly her brutal takedown of a drunk man who continually harasses her on her jogging route), the action in Wonder Woman 1984 is fairly slight, with the only other standout being the prologue on Themyscira, where the Amazons compete for honor and glory in a series of challenges that test their physical abilities. If Jenkins is going to commit to having Diana only use her Lasso of Truth as a weapon (an idea I actually really like, as it reflects the character’s refusal to kill), she just has to find better ways to incorporate it into action scenes, because it can too easily come off as overly ridiculous.

Jenkins did make other “campy” elements from the character’s mythology work for Wonder Woman 1984, though, including Cheetah (doesn’t matter if she’s dressing up as a cat, or literally morphing into one: it’s still a hilariously campy concept), and the Invisible Jet – which comes about through a bizarre but acceptable deus ex machina. Unlike Shazam, this film isn’t trying to be goofy or funny: it still takes itself very seriously, and thus comes across as uniquely earnest for a superhero movie. In some ways, I’d say that’s one of several ways in which the movie evokes real 80’s adventure movies: both the good and the bad. The heightened sense of adventure, the not-so-great CGI you’re willing to excuse because everything happening onscreen is just so much fun, and the outdated perceptions of women and foreign nations that make us cringe deeply in our souls (we just need to collectively stop letting white American directors write North African and Middle Eastern nations into their scripts, because they’ve proven they’re not up to the task of handling those nations and their individual cultures at all well).

There’s still plenty of hope for the Wonder Woman franchise in the near future. We’re not dealing with another Crimes Of Grindelwald here (although the box-office reception would seem to disagree). But the divisive audience reactions and legitimate criticisms of Wonder Woman 1984 should hopefully alert Warner Brothers to the need to put this series back on track with better screenwriters and a stronger, more cohesive focus on women as individuals with their own storylines….even (and especially) if that means no more Steve Trevor.

Movie Rating: 6.5/10

March 10, 2020

“Jungle Cruise” Second Trailer Review!

Whereas the first trailer for the Jungle Cruise movie leaned heavily on old action movie tropes, wondrous and fantastical elements, and a good old-fashioned spirit of adventure, this second trailer does…well, less of that, making me ever so slightly concerned about the quality of this upcoming adaptation of a Disney theme park ride. Nonetheless, there are still reasons not to be afraid, and most of them are right here in this trailer.

Firstly, the chemistry between Dwayne Johnson as a cranky, underpaid riverboat captain on the Amazon River manning the titular jungle cruise and Emily Blunt as a wealthy, idealistic British explorer hunting for a magic cure-all in the jungle is off the charts: they’re hilarious together. I don’t know if their characters will end up in a romance in the film, but it seems almost a shame to put an end to their snappy, irritable banter with each other.

Then, of course, there’s the ridiculously fun scenarios we find our protagonists in: they get attacked by leopards, torpedoed by a rival explorer’s submarine, and stalked by an enraged demonic snake-god from the heart of the jungle: one whom I wish they could have hidden for a while longer. I assume this demon is their ultimate antagonist on the quest for the cure-all tree, yet we already see scenes of him that, unless cunningly edited, look like spoilers to me.

Interestingly, although Disney felt comfortable revealing the big bad in this trailer, they still haven’t shown us anything of their “first openly gay character”, who is here played by comedian Jack Whitehall, and should probably have had a sizable role in the film as Blunt’s character’s brother and the only other member of the Johnson/Blunt exploration down the Amazon.

But my main issue with this trailer is that it’s devoid of some of the antiquated charm that the first trailer had: it makes me feel that the first trailer was lying to me about the tone and atmosphere of the movie, and that’s not a good feeling. After that trailer came out, I raved about Jungle Cruise‘s nostalgic magic. I don’t feel the same way about this trailer. It’s good, but it’s not particularly engaging or eye-catching.

What did you think of this second trailer for Jungle Cruise? Share your own thoughts, theories and opinions in the comments below!

Trailer Rating: 6/10