Animated Movies Archives - The Wide Screen

July 21, 2021

“Nightmare Of The Wolf”, More Like “Daydreams Of Vesemir”, Am I Right?

So…remember when I reviewed the first brief teaser for Netflix’s upcoming Witcher anime prequel Nightmare Of The Wolf, and I said that from what we could see of the film’s protagonist, Vesemir, he looked, you know, moderately attractive? Yeah, well, that was then. This is now. And today, we were blessed with a full-length trailer for Nightmare Of The Wolf…and a much, much better look at Vesemir, the gorgeous, sassy, hilarious 2D hunk with whom the entire Witcher fandom is currently obsessed.

But why? Why is Vesemir hot? Who looked at the grouchy, solemn, closed-off elderly character from Andrzej Sapkowski’s Witcher novels and thought “he was probably a total beefcake once upon a time”? To be honest…I don’t know. Trust me, I wish I knew, so I could give that person a well-earned shoutout for their bold imagination.

But looking at it from a thematic perspective, I can see where it makes sense. Vesemir, as in the Vesemir we’ll be introduced to in Nightmare Of The Wolf just a month from now, is a completely different kind of Witcher from his student, Geralt of Rivia, whose journeys we’ve followed in The Witcher season one. Vesemir is vivacious, talkative, and confident. He already seems genuinely appealing to be around, and to say he’s easy on the eyes would be an understatement. Geralt is…none of that (well, let’s be honest, he’s still easy on the eyes because Henry Cavill is still Henry Cavill no matter how hideous the wig and contact lenses he’s forced to wear, but he’s definitely more weathered than Vesemir). By Geralt’s time, the Witchers enjoy none of the privileges and luxuries they were awarded during Vesemir’s heyday, so this kind of deterioration is logical.

So what changes? What happens to Vesemir that transforms him from a cheeky, stunningly attractive maverick into a dour, gloomy old man wasting away in the mountaintop fortress of Kaer Morhen with the rugged remnants of the once-mighty brotherhood of Witchers? Well, I’m gonna guess that in Nightmare Of The Wolf at least, it will be explained as the aftermath of an attack on Kaer Morhen which, in Sapkowski’s novels, plays a pivotal role in Vesemir’s early life, sobering him to reality. Because it’s no horde of vampires or leshen or werewolves who attack the citadel of the Witchers, but a mob of ordinary people stirred up to violence against a group they view as not only outsiders, but literally subhuman. That the Witchers are also keeping ordinary people safe from the vampires and leshen and werewolves is something that only becomes apparent in hindsight, after their ranks have been depleted in the massacre.

By Geralt’s time, there’s only a couple of Witchers still roaming the Continent, scavenging for an existence and still doing the wearisome work of hunting and killing monsters to protect people who view them as no better than beasts themselves. There’s plenty of juicy thematic material to work with there, if you’re not won over by the sheer sight of a bare-chested Vesemir lounging in a bathtub – a wonderful homage to the iconic image of Geralt in a bathtub from the CD Projekt Red video games that was also mirrored in season one of The Witcher. Even though Geralt won’t have any more bathtub scenes in season two, the franchise will continue to provide us with more “man flesh”, according to Cavill, and Nightmare Of The Wolf‘s Vesemir proves that that is very much the case.

And if you’re just here for monster battles and epic fight scenes, that’s cool! Nightmare Of The Wolf seems to have plenty of those, too. But I’m gonna be honest with you, I am living for the irreverent humor and light-hearted tone of this trailer. It’s a complete heel-turn from the dark and gloomy teaser, and it makes me a lot more interested in Vesemir as a character, rather than a monster-killing machine – and not just him, but also his supporting characters, including the sorceress Tetra Gilcrest. I believe she’s an entirely original character created for Nightmare Of The Wolf, and I wonder if she’ll appear in live-action at some point and reunite with the older Vesemir, played by Kim Bodnia, whom we’ll meet in The Witcher season two come December. I’m not really sensing any romantic chemistry between the two, but the gay/lesbian solidarity vibes are off the charts.

Trailer Rating: 8.5/10

July 9, 2021

“Nightmare Of The Wolf” 1st Trailer Review

The Witcher franchise has already expanded from page to live-action to video games – animation is a logical next step, and anime specifically provides an excellent medium in which to tell a number of stories from The Continent that are abundant with the same kind of visceral action and chilling horror that made Netflix’s dark supernatural anime series Castlevania hugely successful. Nightmare Of The Wolf, a feature-length film produced by Netflix Animation in collaboration with Studio Mir, will be the franchise’s first foray into 2D anime, exploring the backstory of one of the greatest Witchers of all time: Vesemir.

One of the most instantly recognizable characters from The Witcher thanks to his prominent role in the CD Projekt Red video games based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s original novels and short stories, Vesemir has a lot of backstory that could be covered in this film – but Nightmare Of The Wolf‘s exceedingly brief teaser trailer, released today, barely gives us a clue as to what’s going on, or what the infamous Witcher’s character arc will be. Hell, we don’t even get a full face-reveal: which is doubly perplexing because the trailer for The Witcher‘s second season, which will feature live-action Vesemir as an old man, is also hiding the character’s face for some reason. We know what he looks like, Netflix!

Because Nightmare Of The Wolf premieres on August 23rd, just a little over a month away, we’ll have already met animated Vesemir by the time we catch up with him in The Witcher proper – so it’s possible the live-action series will include references and callbacks to events in the film, making this an important next stop for Witcher fans who want all the details about who Vesemir is, where he comes from, what his motivations are, and of course, what monsters he’s battled and slain during his journeys. Let’s do some speculating, shall we?

I’m not kidding when I say this teaser is exceedingly brief: it’s a mere forty-five seconds long, and some of that is just title cards flashing by. But from what we can see, Nightmare Of The Wolf follows an attractive young Vesemir (I mean, take the “attractive” part of that with a grain of salt as we literally only see the back of his head, his beard and, like, a quick profile shot that’s mostly just his nose) on adventures through the wilderness, battling all kinds of beasties while helping to establish the warrior traditions of Kaer Morhen that will still be place when Geralt and Ciri train there many decades later.

I assume his primary antagonists in Nightmare Of The Wolf will be vampires (speaking of Castlevania). A notable incident in Vesemir’s backstory, during which he was injured, was his defense of Fox Hollow from a swarm of bloodthirsty vampires (why did I specify bloodthirsty? Are vampires in horror ever not bloodthirsty?) led by a higher vampire named Emiel Regis Rohellec Terzieff-Godefroy, and we do see a flock of bats with glowing green eyes forming the shape of a leering death’s head in the night sky above Vesemir, followed by a shot of a demon with similar glowing green eyes and pronounced fangs. I’m not saying it’s Emiel, but I’m definitely hoping it is because vampires are awesome.

Of course, Vesemir is a Witcher, so his most consistent and organized opposition comes not from monsters lurking in the woods, but from humans who distrust or fear him and his kind. During Vesemir’s youth, the newly-constructed citadel of Kaer Morhen where he and many other Witchers were training was brutally attacked by an angry mob of villagers from the surrounding lands, and Vesemir – one of the survivors of the tragedy – subsequently rose through the significantly-depleted ranks of Witcher hierarchy to become Kaer Morhen’s leader. His “School of the Wolf” was very powerful for a while, but gradually became too powerful, leading to yet another attack from humans; this time stirred up by King Radowit II, whose crowned visage perhaps appears on the gold coins we see in the trailer.

Vesemir’s negative experiences convinced him to follow a policy of strict isolationism after this second massacre, but he wasn’t always a loner like his adopted son, Geralt – he formed a close bond with Guxart, a rival Witcher who mentored at the School of the Cat, and with whom Vesemir was arrested and held captive by Radowit. Anyone getting rivals to lovers vibes from these two? Just me? Either way, the School of the Cat goes undercover, leaving Vesemir pretty much alone at Kaer Morhen for decades, raising a dwindling generation of new Witchers – including Geralt of Rivia, and later Cirilla of Cintra, which is where The Witcher will resume with the story.

All in all, I’m very excited to see where this goes. This teaser doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on regarding plot, action, or even voice-acting, so I’m not sure exactly how to rate it, but I will be definitely be tuning in to see Nightmare Of The Wolf, and I hope it can tide me over while I wait impatiently for The Witcher to return this December.

Trailer Rating: 7/10

July 8, 2021

“Encanto” 1st Trailer Promises A Return To Disney Musicals

For the fourth-largest continent on the planet Earth, South America has only served as the setting of one major Disney Animation film to date – the ambiguously Incan-inspired The Emperor’s New Groove – while Europe, only the fifth-largest continent, is the backdrop to innumerable Disney fairytales, from Snow White to Frozen II. But that’s going to change later this year with the release of Encanto, a completely original musical from the mind of Tangled director Byron Howard, which will turn a spotlight on Colombian culture and folklore. And today, we got our first good look at Encanto in a short but visually stunning teaser that effortlessly nudges the film to the forefront of the race for Best Animated Feature at next year’s Oscars.

Encanto continues Disney Animation’s recent trend of experimenting with their tried-and-true Disney Princess formula, as the film’s frizzy-haired, bespectacled heroine Mirabel isn’t technically a Princess by the studio’s strict standards. Instead, she hails from a highly-esteemed family of matriarchal multigenerational magic-users who live together in a marvelous house called Casa Madrigal on the edge of the Amazon Rainforest. She wears a dress, so by Maui’s definition she’s at least halfway to being a princess already, but the only animal sidekicks at Casa Madrigal seem to be devoted to another young scion of the family tree; a boy whose name is probably Carlos, if character details obtained by The DisInsider in December of last year still hold true.

And oh, the animal sidekicks! Honestly, most of the Disney Princesses should be embarrassed, parading around in the forest with their deer and chipmunks and the occasional singing crab, while Carlos is out here riding a jaguar, accompanied at all times by a tapir, a flock of macaws and toucans, a family of capybaras, and a couple of ring-tailed coatis. The sheer abundance and diversity of South American wildlife on display in Encanto is something I could ramble on about for quite some time, but I think I’ll spare you. I just hope there’s plenty of scenes in the rainforest, so we can see some tree-frogs, maybe an anaconda or two, perhaps a sloth.

But I also want to spend as much time as possible in Casa Madrigal, the sentient house. We’re so used to seeing magic – particularly in animation – as clouds of multi-colored CGI glitter and smoke, that it’s a really welcome change to visit Casa Madrigal, where the magic is almost entirely conveyed through ripples in the stonework, tiled surfaces, and floorboards, which create kaleidoscopic patterns or help the Madrigal family in small ways. Each of the Madrigals has their own individual talent, which they bring to the design and decoration of their little corner of Casa Madrigal – from one girl’s bedroom balcony being weighed down by the giant pink flowers she’s able to conjure from thin air (based on The DisInsider‘s reporting, I suspect that girl’s name is Ines), to Carlos’ being decorated with paintings of the animals with which he can communicate. I love it when a film is able to make a location feel vividly real, and Encanto definitely seems to be doing just that.

The crux of Encanto‘s plot, however, is that our protagonist, Mirabel, is the only member of the Madrigal family who doesn’t have a magical gift – and it inspires an amusing, if slightly awkwardly written gag in the trailer where she gets a gift from the postman as a kind of “not-special special”. I can’t pass judgment on the story just yet, because that’s essentially everything we know: and to be honest, a few of the shots in the trailer don’t even look like scenes from the actual movie, but more like some kind of pre-vis animation designed to showcase character movements and mannerisms (although if they are from the movie, I suspect many of them are from some kind of introductory montage at the beginning).

We also don’t get to hear too much of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s original music for Encanto in this teaser – just bits and pieces of something that sounds reminiscent of Miranda’s work on In The Heights, his first stage musical and the source material for a recent film adaptation which Miranda produced and cameoed in. That being said, Miranda is still undeniably a big part of Encanto – for instance, I can’t imagine it’s a coincidence that Stephanie Beatriz went from having a scene-stealing role in In The Heights to being confirmed as the voice of Mirabel Madrigal – and I’m sure it won’t be long before the airwaves are deluged with whatever catchy new earworm he’s cooked up.

It’s early to be making predictions about Encanto‘s quality when the film is still several months away, but I know that there’s a number of people who will love this, and I expect it to be a big hit with viewers who are excited for the mix of Colombian representation and Disney magic, fans who have been starved for Disney musicals recently, and folks who are really just here for Mirabel’s muscular older sister Lydia, whose biceps are giving Princess Namaari’s rhomboids a run for their money.

Trailer Rating: 8/10

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