The Little Mermaid (2023) - Review: Keeping Your Head Above Water

 

When you have as many cultural monoliths as Disney does, what’s the harm in remaking a few of your most beloved animated films in live action? Well, there’s hardly any harm apparently if you keep getting a return of around eight-hundred-to-a-billion dollars per remake. Who cares if they’re almost always worse than the originals? If anything, that’ll bolster the love for those original versions. Well, now we’re back at it again with a new, live action remake, this time of Disney’s beloved undersea classic “The Little Mermaid,” directed by modern Disney musical mainstay Rob Marshall (“Chicago,” “Mary Poppins Returns”) and written by David Magee (“Life of Pi,” “Mary Poppins Returns”) 

Adapted from the animated film, which itself was an adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale, this new adaptation follows Ariel, played by Halle Bailey (“grown-ish,” “The Color Purple (2023)”), a mermaid princess who longs to experience the human world, but is forbidden by her father King Triton, played by Javier Bardem (“No Country For Old Men,” “Dune Part Two”). After saving human prince Eric, played by Jonah Hauer-King (“World on Fire,” “A Dog’s Way Home”), from drowning, she enlists in the help of the sea witch Ursula, played by Melissa McCarthy (“Bridesmaids,” “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”), to give her legs to experience the human world in exchange for her voice. If she can convince Eric to kiss her in three days' time without speaking, she can remain on land with her voice. 

Bailey is the film’s secret weapon, a bolt of smiles and charm and wonder, keeping everything afloat anytime she’s onscreen. Hauer-King is also surprisingly good, breathing a good amount of life and depth into his version of Prince Eric, helped a lot by his fantastic chemistry with Bailey. McCarthy continues the trend; although she isn’t as good as Bailey or Hauer-King., she still manages to bring Ursula to life, even through thick layers of CGI overlays on her face. That’s unfortunately where the good things about the cast end, as the rest is either forgettable or just plain bad.  

Daveed Diggs (“Blindspotting,” “Hamilton”) gives Sebastian a shaky, almost cartoonish Jamaican accent that ends up feeling like a bad impression of the original character rather than another version of him. Jacob Trembley (“Wonder,” “Good Boys”) voiced Flounder in such a disaffected way that you’ll easily forget he’s voiced by the talented young actor until you see his name in the credits. Bardem is egregiously lethargic as Triton, with numerous moments coming across as if he’s half asleep during them. Awkwafina (“Oceans 8,” “The Farewell”) may be the worst of the bunch though; although she can normally do a decent job, her role as Scuttle the bird indulges in her worst and most annoying vocal tendencies, creating a character that simply sounds and feels like nails on a chalkboard. 

This mixed bag continues with the music of the film. While some of the new songs are remarkably good, such as Eric’s solo ballad “Wild Uncharted Waters” and Ariel’s internal monologue of a song “For the First Time”, the third original song for the film “The Scuttlebutt” is genuinely one of the worst original songs to grace a movie musical, or any musical, in a very long time. It’s not only annoying and grating itself, its woefully out of place given the rest of the film and where it’s placed. 

Visually, the film is an exceptionally mixed bag. Whenever the camera goes under the sea, it can be a mashup of muddy colors and poor green-screen work, whereas the dry land sections benefit from fantastic production designs and costuming works. The undersea sections also clearly have a lot of effort put into them, but their visuals come across as overly detailed and overly designed. It leads to a feeling of intense detail without making an impact, like watching a highly rendered promotional reel on a television at Best Buy. 

It really does feel like, for every one good thing that’s in “The Little Mermaid (2023)”, there’s an equally bad or annoying detail that harms the film itself. Bailey and Hauer-King are great, as are the dry land segments and most of the music. But you also have plenty of messy underwater visuals, a truly awful new song, and a large swath of actors who just don’t make any impact. It's not an unwatchable film by any means, and it more so serves as a testament to the star power of Halle Bailey that her performance, charm, voice, and overall presence makes the film break even and worth seeing on a base level. 3/5

Blackberry (2023) - Review: Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

 

There’s a fascinating subgenre of film all based around “how the thing you love was made.” It’s different from your typical biopic, where the focus is someone’s life, or a “based on a true story” film where the subject is a particular stretch of time. Rather, movies like “Air,” “Tetris,” “The Social Network” tend to contain elements of both previously mentioned genres, with an added layer of capitalistic excitement: “I can’t wait to pay to see how the thing I paid for was made and how the people who made it got rich off people like me who bought it.”

In a sense “BlackBerry” is a weird kind of film, because while on the surface it seems exactly like another one of those movies, underneath there’s a cheeky sense to it all. It’s not a full-blown comedy or satire like “Walk Hard,” but it isn’t not being just a tad bit silly and a tad bit self-aware.

Directed by Matt Johnson (“The Dirties,” “Operation: Avalanche”) and written by Johnson and Matthew Miller (“The Dirties,” “Nirvanna The Band The Show”), “BlackBerry” is about the creation of the titular phone and the sharp decline in both its popularity and its company, Research in Motion. It stars Jay Baruchel (“How to Train Your Dragon,” “This is the End”) as Mike Lazaridis, the co-CEO and co-founder of RIM and the creator of the original phone, Johnson as Douglas Fregin, Mike’s best friend and co-founder of RIM, and Glenn Howerton (“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” “A.P. Bio”) as Jim Balsillie, the businessman whom they pitch the phone to who eventually joins RIM as co-CEO in an attempt to become rich and famous off of the phone.

The film rides a very thin line between seriousness and silliness between its entire runtime and somehow doesn’t manage to tumble into either entirely. While based on a true story, Johnson and Miller have clearly embellished plenty of elements to play them up to their logical extremes. Balsillie was a bit disagreeable in the workplace? Then crank him up to 11 degrees of asshole-ish-ness and have him be played by one of the best assholes in the business. The film is so wildly entertaining because of its committed cast that its hard to see anyone complaining about the historical inaccuracies because its all just so much fun.

Johnson himself has mentioned that the film’s opening “based on real events” disclaimed came from a request from lawyers more than a creative desires, but it works to explain the film overall. This is a very Canadian, very sly satire of this genre, while still managing to be a flat-out entertaining movie even if you don’t piece that together. Howerton is absolutely stealing the entire show here, channeling his insane levels of self-centeredness from “Sunny” without seeming too overblown for the reality of the film. Baruchel balances the same kind of thing with his nerdy inventor persona, and Johnson as Douglas manages to be a beacon of normalcy in this storm of big egos and big drama.

Even with the undercurrent of sly wit here, Johnson and Miller still find time to actually recount the events they advertise. We see the explosion of popularity for the BlackBerry, the rise and fall of RIM, how the iPhone affected them, and so on. It’s not only an accurate tale of the industry, but its shot wonderfully. While the handheld camera technique could have gotten annoying after a while, the way Johnson keeps everything either stationary at afar but tight and wobbly on character closeups helps to balance the tension and big personalities. The score by Jay McCarrol (“The Kid Detective,” “Operation Avalanche”) also manages to be just evocative enough of other electronic dramatic scores to work, but is used smartly and calmly throughout so as to not overwhelm.

While nothing that will upend the genre due to its satire or its dramatic content, “BlackBerry” proves that when you have a good cast and a good script, you can still make a great film even as the genre its in seems destined for self-parody. Johnson’s film is smart, its fun, its well-acted, and it manages to be just a really good time, plain and simple. 4/5

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 - Review: The Best Marvel Has Been In Almost a Decade

 

While James Gunn (“The Suicide Squad,” “Super”) is not the first director in the MCU to handle his own entire trilogy, both Peyton Reed and Jon Watts got to do that first, he certainly is the first person to deliver a thoroughly satisfying and emotionally sound throughline for his characters. Because more than any others in the MCU, these are characters that really feel like they belong to Gunn. He's built our love of them up over the previous two films and now we get to send them off on a farewell tour that ends up being a fantastic swan-song. It's the best of the three films, due in no small part to Gunn's evolving emotional honesty, killer technical ability, and gorgeous visual style.

Like the previous two films, this one follows the Guardians, now consisting of Peter Quill/Starlord, played by Chris Pratt (“Parks and Recreation,” “The LEGO Movie”), Nebula, played by Karen Gillan (“Doctor Who,” “Dual”), Drax, played by Dave Bautista (“Knock at the Cabin,” “Glass Onion”), Rocket, played by Bradley Cooper (“The Hangover,” “A Star is Born (2018)”), Mantis, played by Pom Klementieff (“Oldboy (2013),” “Ingrid Goes West”), Kraglin, played by Sean Gunn (“Gilmore Girls,” “The Suicide Squad”), and Groot, played by Vin Diesel (“Fast Five,” “The Iron Giant”), as they team up with an alternate universe Gamora, played by Zoe Saldaña (“Avatar,” “Star Trek (2009)”), to face the High Evolutionary, played by Chukwudi Iwuji (“Peacemaker,” “The Split”), a scientist seeking to make a perfect species.

There is one major thing to make note of before going into this: Vol. 3 is the darkest MCU film by a large margin. If you’re overly sensitive to animal testing and mutations, you should probably wait until the home release for this one. But that darkness isn’t there just for set-dressing, its integral to the arcs present in this adventure. Without it, the threats on our heroes don’t feel as real or impactful, and likewise it doesn’t land as darkly as it does if we don’t already care about this crew.

Because that’s what Gunn does best in his films: he knows that if he puts his group through hell, it doesn’t land if we don’t care about what’s happening to them and we won’t care about what’s happening to them if we don’t care about them. So therefore, everything needs to be in service of building those characters through the story instead of to serve it. And that’s where Gunn excels, as this ends up being an extremely emotional two-and-a-half-hour-long adventure because he excels in building that.

It isn't perfect, with that length there’s certainly some elements that aren’t pulled off flawlessly. Adam Warlock, played by Will Poulter (“Midsommar,” “Dopesick”), for example, isn’t utilized as much as some might have expected, but he’s still excellent when he does appear and it certainly doesn’t feel like Gunn forgot about him while writing the film. The same goes for Cosmo the Space Dog, voiced by Maria Bakalova (“Bodies Bodies Bodies,” “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm”) and her adventures with Kraglin.

Each cast member is expectedly excellent, but the true star of the show this time around is Rocket, and Cooper is delivering some of his finest work here. Despite only providing his voice, Cooper clearly loves this character and is able to provide him with a sense of soul that few other vocal performances can. Gillan also turns in her best work of the trilogy, and everyone just seems to be firing on all cylinders to deliver the kind of third act emotions that typically come out of a “last ride” like this one. Pratt is also unexpectedly good, tapping into a compelling desperation that we haven’t seen Quill go through yet. Gunn and the Guardians’ trademark humor hasn’t been forgotten either, and it’s not overshadowed by the grimness either. Rather, both complement each other without ever overwhelming the other, because of course these people would crack jokes in moments of terror.

Gunn continues to craft one of the most beautiful films, not just in the MCU, but of any movie out today. Not only are the visual effects nearly flawless, with nary a green screen wiggle in sight, but the use of color and the cinematography from Henry Braham (“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” “The Suicide Squad”) are nearly flawless. It’s the sort of movie that makes you lean back and say ‘wow’ at what’s happening onscreen. It’s not just how things look through the camera either, as the creativity of this corner of the galaxy is exceptional. For example, one location that could have easily been a metallic space station or factory ends up being an environment made almost entirely of flesh, a stylistic decision that not only influences the costumes and technology within the location, but also makes it far more memorable and beautiful than it otherwise would have been. There’s no plot reason for it to be like this, it’s a complete stylistic decision that pays off in droves.

The action also deserves praise, and despite this being a far more emotionally driven film, there are still plenty of whiz-bang moments of action. It’s choreographed beautifully, and there are sequences with brightly lit backgrounds and white environments that almost feel like Gunn consciously chose them to showcase the expert chorography and effects instead of hiding behind dark shadows and dimly lit arenas.

Even the film’s length isn’t entirely an issue, as it takes full advantage of it, making this an adventure that doesn’t feel overstuffed or meandering, but just as long as it needs to be given what’s going on. It earns the length, and while it doesn’t feel shorter than it is, it would be a shame to have this last adventure with this gang of misfits be any less than it wants to be.

While there have been bright spots in the MCU since the release of “Endgame”, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” is the first time in a long time that it’s succeeded on virtually every front. This is an emotionally charged, dark as hell, gorgeous rollercoaster of an adventure, that fully cements the reasons we love this group and why Gunn is one of the best to ever take on a superhero film. It’s easily one of the best in the series and a thrilling swan-song for this bunch of A-holes. 5/5