Triple review: Fantastic Beasts, Moana, and Allied
Hey everyone! We’ve had a little bit of a movie dump over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, so here’s my thoughts on what I saw over the past week.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
I’ll say this right up front now, I didn’t like Fantastic Beasts all that much. It’s not that I totally loathed it, not that it’s a terribly made or unwatchable movie, and not that I’m just not the right audience for it, seeing as how I’ve basically been a lifelong Potter fan; but I can’t really look at Fantastic Beasts and say it works as a whole.
Now I’ll say this, Fantastic Beasts works as straight Harry Potter fan-service. It’s clear that J.K. Rowling really did think about this new corner of the Potter universe she’s created and it’s packed full of detail and interesting things that catch your eye. Even when something’s being shown that you immediately don’t get, it’s still just fun to look at and think about. The visuals and CGI also should be commended, though at the rate CGI progresses I can’t say if these will look any good in about five years. I can’t say I was all that impressed with Eddie Redmayne’s character of Newt Scamander (he’s honestly just a much more socially awkward Doctor Who) but I was really impressed with how likable the side characters are. Dan Fogler’s character might just be one of the best comedic side-characters I’ve ever seen; he injects so much humanity into the story that I kinda wish the film was entirely from his perspective. Collin Farrell also ends up having a surprisingly complex and engaging antagonist character, before the movie accidentally shoots itself in the foot with a totally unnecessary reveal that I felt killed what could’ve been a significantly interesting more angle to go with his character. Every side character brings so much life and depth to them that I really do wish the movie just spent more time with them being themselves.
Unfortunately that’s where the biggest problem’s of Fantastic Beasts come into play. This movie has absolutely abysmal pacing and it’s story feels just way too crammed. You see in typical Potter fashion there’s an A) plot to the story that mostly concentrates on character growth and a B) plot usually dealing with the more serious thematic beats that eventually becomes the “real” plot of the movie during the final act. In this case the A) plot is basically “Harry Potter meets Jumanji” and the B) plot is a significantly more interesting, darker plot involving an anti-wizard hate group, the magical radicalist Grindlwald, and a highly destructive monster running around New York generally heightening tensions. Now this worked a lot better in the Potter books because they were books; they had time to side-track themselves to explain the minutia of what was going on. They also transition tone a lot more more effectively. Fantastic Beasts doesn’t have the benefit of the pacing of a book; so as a result the movie just gets REALLY all over the place. Some scene’s are character development moments that go on just a bit too long, some scene’s are important plot-points that go by too fast. Some scene’s are so light-hearted and shennanigans -filled it feels like an early 90’s children’s movie, and then the very next scene will transition to an almost horror-movie esque tone. It’s jarring.
Fantastic Beasts feels like its part of a larger problem with movies today, in that it’s clearly only been made so about 4 more of these can get greenlit; but that’s something I don’t have time to go into now and that I hope I’ll do a piece on at a later date. I get that this was basically ONLY made for Harry Potter fans and that this is one of those self-sustaining microcosm movies where it’ll do well no matter what anyone thinks, but I’m just not sure if this is something I really needed right now.
The Media Fire gives this movie 5/10
Moana
My biggest problem with Moana is honestly that only 2 of the songs are really all that memorable. It’s not that I’m expecting every Disney-Princess-Musical to be Frozen in turns of memorable and fun songs, but seeing as how much they’ve been hyping Lin-Manuel-Miranda’s involvement in this, I’m a little sad. Other then that, honestly there’s not much to say about Moana. It’s pretty good! It’s regrettably formulaic at times, and seeing as how this is Disney that’s to be expected, but what works is good enough to hold me over. Dwayne Johnson is one of the most fun characters Disney’s made in a while, Moana herself is a worthy addition to the established princess line-up, the animation is (as expected) absolutely gorgeous, it’s basically just overall as good as your probably expecting it to be. It has legitimate problems, like the fact the first act really basically struggles under the weight of the established Disney tropes so it can get to the fun stuff in the second and third acts. But honestly, what do you want from me at this point? It’s Disney, they’re just GOOD at this stuff now and it’s been a little while since they’ve had a legit misstep. The freaking water-animation is good enough to go see this in theaters. Just stop reading this and go see it.
The Media Fire gives this movie 8/10
Allied
Allied comes to us from writer Steven Knight and director Robert “I can and will do literally anything” Zemeckis and I guess completes some kind of bizarre trio of Brad Pitt WWII movies. Anyway I’ll tone down my snarkiness because I actually really liked Allied even if I confess I’ve seen better movies this year and honestly may not remember this in a couple months. (And not that anyone was wondering but that’s how I also felt about The Accountant.)
Allied’s greatest strengths and weaknesses come from it’s story and writing. I’ll assume you’ve seen the trailer for this and can get a basic idea of the plot, and there really isn’t anything in this movie that I think will surprise you very much, but it’s real strength comes from how well its characters are actually written. This is a surprisingly smart and mature movie when it comes to understanding its characters and conveying some pretty dang complex emotional moments. To give you an example; I initially thought that an early scene between Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard was really awkward until the movie conveys to you that’s the point; these are two characters who aren’t used to letting their guards down in private. I’ve seen movies that convey this a lot better, but it’s nice to see the movie making the effort. And the script is just filled with really well done character beats, really awesome moments of tension or action, and even just little touches to flesh out the world of the movie. It also helps that there’s a hilariously large amount of talent behind the scene’s. Say what you will about Zemeckis, and believe me I will, the dude’s a ridiculously talented director and he steers the movie impeccably. The performances are also great, as you can probably expect, and cinematography is also surprisingly great. All of this is good, because Allied does have some legitimately inexcusable plot-holes that kinda drag the movie down a peg or two. One in particular I won’t really spoil because it has major pertinence to the plot; but when I actually thought about how it was being used to attempt to drive the tension of the movie, it kind’ve made me laugh out loud because of how unnecessary it was.
Still, I liked Allied and would recommend at least catching a matinee of it if you’re interested. It’s not really a hugely ambitious movie and one that might not stick in your mind, but I appreciate the effort put into it and I’d personally take every intelligently written movie I can get nowadays.
The Media Fire gives this movie 8.4/10
So that’s all for now everyone! Stay tuned for future reviews and my incoming end-of-the-year pieces!
