"Star Wars: Attack of the Clones" - April 2023 review

Next step in the journey.  Here was the first step - The Phantom Menace.

The poor decoy for Senator Amidala is killed in an attack while the real Padme is in a fighter with R2.  Did / do all the queens and senators have decoys, or just Padme?  Rough job being her handmaiden.  "We are brave."  Indeed.

The Jedi are just "keeping the peace".  That sounds so different now.  "We're not picking sides."  Dudes, sometimes, you *have* to pick sides, or you're just letting the bad side take advantage.  But which is the correct side?  The separatists or the current government?

Padme suspects that Count Dooku is behind her assassination attempt, but Mace says he would never do that, because he used to be a Jedi.  Hmmm, that’s not really a good enough reason, Mace.

Count Dooku was once a Jedi?  I forgot about that.  I only remembered that he's also secretly a Sith.  How was he able to no longer be a Jedi?  Yes, I know Ahsoka was a padawan / Jedi and then she wasn't, but we didn't know about her yet at the time that we found out Dooku was a former Jedi.  So did Dooku become Darth Tyranus when Maul died, so there are always two?

It's been 10 years since the events of "The Phantom Menace".  Obi-Wan is sent to protect Padme, and Anakin goes along.  It's the first time he's seen her in 10 years.

Anakin shows defiance just like Qui-Gonn did.  He's determined to protect Padme and find whomever wanted to kill her.

Caught that bit where Obi-Wan and Anakin were talking about politicians, and Anakin says that the Chancellor (Palpatine) seems ok.  Ahhh, the courtship has already begun.

I remember liking the character of Zam Wesell.  Cool outfit too.  She was the assassin hired to kill Amidala.

Anakin has been fixated on Padme for 10 years, starting when he was that little?  That's ... disturbing.

Those poison worms are creepy.  I wonder what they were supposed to do, bite you to expel their poison or crawl into you like those creepy things in "Star Trek:  Wrath of Khan".

Anakin uses his speeder to catch a falling Obi-Wan, who did a pretty good job hanging onto that probe for as long as he did.  Anakin does a similar drop-in to Zam's ship.

For her safety, Padme has to go into hiding and temporarily gives up her senator seat to Jar Jar.  So they only want to kill her specifically?  Jar Jar isn't going to be in danger in the senator job?

Aww, those younglings were so cute.  First time we saw such little ones, other than little Anakin.  Let's not think about the implications of young children being taken away from their families to be trained into what is essentially a cult.  They did that to Natasha with the widow-makers in the Avengers too.

Obi-Wan cannot find Kamino, the water planet (all these one-climate planets...), in the charts.  Yoda deduces that their removal from the charts had to have been done by a Jedi.  It seems like that prospect should worry them more than it appears to.  Seems like that would be a big deal.

With Anakin on Padme's security team, he bristles when she knows what she wants with regard to security, shooting down what he was going to suggest.  Dude, it's her planet, she was queen and is now a senator, and she knows her planet.  I can't tell if he's just generally annoyed at being overridden or if he's specifically annoyed that he can't show off for her.

Oh, right, Obi-Wan's hyperspace ring.  I've wanted that since I first saw it.  I don't know if they ever actually released a toy like that.

Obi-Wan heads to Kamino and unexpectedly finds a sort of welcoming committee.  He plays along to find out what's going on.  They say that the clone army was ordered by Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas on behalf of the Jedi Council, but Obi-Wan says he was killed 10 years prior.

Padme has a ton of pretty dresses in this film, but I think that faded rainbow one is my favorite.  It's really gorgeous.

At Star Wars Celebration in 2019 in Chicago, I happened upon an impromptu gathering of women in various of Padme's dresses.  They were wonderful to see.

 

Obi-Wan gets taken on a tour of the clone farm and is told that they've been genetically engineered to be less independent, easier to take orders.  The operation is run by Jango Fett, who is also used as the donor for the clones.  Jango had one request though - he wanted one unaltered clone, who he then raised as his son, Boba Fett.  Jango says that he was recruited by Tyranus, who we know is Count Dooku.  So is Count Dooku the one who erased Kamino from the Jedi library?  Or was that Sifo-Dyas?

Great way for Temuera Morrison to make his entrance into the Star Wars universe.  And Daniel Logan as little Boba Fett.

On the subject of Padme's outfits, her leather bustier is a far cry from Carrie Fisher having her breasts taped down in the original Star Wars because there was no jiggling in space.

As Padme and Anakin discuss their budding relationship, it's interesting that Padme is all reason, for why they can't be together, while Anakin is all emotion, about why they should be together.  Padme's training as queen of Naboo and then senator has taught her how to control her emotions and to think logically.  Anakin's training to be a Jedi should have done the same, but he's missed a few lessons in those areas.  He's got way more fire in him than you'd expect from a trained Jedi.  Though I guess his excuse is that he's still a padawan.

Interesting discussion between Yoda and Mace Windu about the Jedi's diminishing ability to use the Force, given that they didn't sense the presence of the clone army, and that only the Sith know about this fact.  I wonder where that was supposed to go and what it was supposed to imply, because I don't think they take up that subject again.  Unless it's just a throwaway line to explain how an entire army was created without them knowing about it, not to mention the presence of Darth Maul, and Darth Sidious and Darth Tyranus for that matter.  Really falling down on the job, guys.

Anakin has a nightmare about Shmi and decides he needs to go rescue her.  Wonder how long he's been having them.

So I guess Obi-Wan made himself a new lightsabre, and it's blue again.  What did he do with Qui Gonn's lightsabre?

In Obi-Wan's fight with Jango, why doesn't he use a Force push?  Wouldn't that dispatch Jango faster?  See, still need to know the rules about Force push and why they don't just use them all the time.

Anakin returns to Tattoine and Watto tells him that he sold Shmi to Cliegg Lars, who is a farmer, and Cliegg married her.  So Cliegg bought himself a wife.  Not sure how I feel about that.  I guess it was a better life for Shmi?  I presume she had the choice to stay or leave, to marry him or not?

Obi-Wan follows Jango to Geonosis after he put a tracker on Slave I.

Anakin and Padme go to the Lars homestead and meet Owen (Cliegg's son) and Beru, Owen's girlfriend.  Oh, so Uncle Owen really is Luke's uncle, since Anakin and Owen are sort of brothers by the marriage of their parents.  Anakin arrived just too late though, as he is told that Shmi was taken by Tusken Raiders only a month prior.  Maybe he started having nightmares about her after she was kidnapped.

The Trade Federation Viceroy and Count Dooku are at the battle droid factory on Geonosis.  So the battle droids are for the Trade Federation.

But Count Dooku is playing both sides of the fight?  He recruited Jango to make the clones for the Republic, but he's also overseeing the production of the battle droids for the Trade Federation.  He's arming both sides of the coming war.

Anakin finds Shmi, but it's too late as she dies in his arms.  He's so angry and can't control it, resulting in him slaughtering the entire tribe.  He eventually confesses the murder to Padme.  The look on her face as he's telling her.  But then I guess she lets it go?  I mean, she looks horrified as he's telling her, but then she changes and seems to soften and then goes to comfort him.  I get he was angry and why he was angry, but that seems like a lot for her to just smooth over.  Nice use of the Imperial March theme in that scene.

Mace tells Anakin to protect Padme, but it's clear that Obi-Wan needs help, but Anakin refuses to leave her.  Padme basically forces his hand by deciding that she's going to help Obi-Wan, so Anakin has to go with her.  All of Padme's stubbornness was passed down straight to Leia.

As acting senator, Jar Jar is manipulated into calling for a vote to give Chancellor Palpatine emergency powers to authorize the creation of the clones, after the fact, since they're already in the process of being made.  Oh, that's why he wasn't in danger of being killed, because he was going to be easy to manipulate.

Qui Gonn was Count Dooku's apprentice.  Count Dooku tells Obi-Wan about corruption in the Imperial Senate and how Darth Sidious is controlling multiple senators.  Is Count Dooku's influence what made Qui Gonn rebellious against the Jedi Council?  And why is Count Dooku telling Obi-Wan this and asking Obi-Wan to join him in destroying the Sith when Count Dooku is a secret Sith?  Is he just sowing discord and suspicion everywhere?

On Geonosis, when Padme falls onto the manufacturing assembly line, her avoiding all the various mechanisms was like running the gauntlet in Galaxy Quest.

Anakin and Padme in the gladiator arena reminded me of the Hunger Games.  But why do they have an arena for this?  Is it something that happens often?  What are those creatures kept around for?

Three dangerous creatures are unleashed on the trio.  Anakin manages to sort of tame the horned dude and helps Padme with the kitty while Obi-Wan gets away from crabbie. Aww, I liked that kitty, much like I like the rancor in "Return of the Jedi".  I want that kitty.

The fight between the Jedi and the battle droids was pretty awesome.  Hard to keep track of all the lightsabres and colors though.

Why don't all the Jedi use Force push against the battle droids?  Yep, still fixated on the Force push.

Mace killed Jango, which Boba sees.  Aww, poor kid.  That would not make him fond of Jedi.

Yoda and the clones arrive.  When I first saw this, my head exploded from seeing Yoda commanding troopers.  And then, we're supposed to be rooting for stormtroopers.  How weird is that, given the events of the original trilogy?

So the Geonosians originally designed the Death Star and were planning to build it?  Then when that didn’t work, the Empire did it themselves and then brought Galen Erso in to help?

I want Yoda's lightsabre.  I'd totally buy that if they offered it at Dok's.

Count Dooku escapes and reports back to Darth Sidious, who is pleased with the news.  Seeds of discontent and disruption have been sown on both sides.

So they're preparing for a war.  But who are we supposed to root for?  Generally, I guess we'd root for the Republic since that appears to be the side that the Jedi are backing, but we know that the Senate is controlled by the nefarious Chancellor Palpatine.  If we root against the Republic, then we'd be rooting for the separatists, who are led by the Trade Federation, and we were already rooting against them in the prior film.  But we also know that the Trade Federation is aligned with Count Dooku, and that ultimately, control goes to Darth Sidious aka Chancellor Palpatine.  I think that's why I find this movie so confusing, every time I saw it when it initially came out, and even during this re-watch.  You don't know who to root for because there really isn't any side to root for.  Palpatine is controlling both sides of the war.  Even the Jedi are misguided.

So at the end, when Anakin and Padme get married, I remember the third time we saw it was with a particular set of friends.  After the movie, they were marvelling at Anakin's metal hand.  We were confused because we'd seen the metal hand every time.  This was the friends' first time seeing a digital version of the film (remember when digital was a thing that wasn't very available?), and they said that when they'd seen the regular version of the film, it was just his hand.  And we remembered that George Lucas, infamous for never wanting to finish a movie, was still messing with the film right up until release.  The film versions had to be finished first because they needed to be duplicated and distributed to theatres, but he could work on the digital version right up until the end, so if you saw a digital screening of the film, you saw Anakin's metal hand, but if you saw a regular filmed version, you didn't.  At least that's my understanding since I never saw his regular hand because the three times we saw the film during its initial release, it was a digital screening.

"Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" - January 2023 review

As I begin a journey on a path I have not yet taken, the first step starts here.

It's been far too long since I've seen this film.  There were actually quite a few details I didn't remember.

Awww, the Fox logo and accompanying fanfare.  It's really not the same without them.

I really liked the battle droids the first time I saw them.  Simple, clean, and "roger roger".  I still hold a fondness for them.

So this started a question I've had ever since, as far as the rules for using the Force.  I believe this was the first instance we saw of a Force push.  Cool, right?  But there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when they choose to use the Force in this way and in when they *can* use the Force in this way.  For the brief amount of time that I was playing computer adventure games, I got used to the idea that when you used magic, it took away points, and you only had so much to use, so if you cast a spell, you had to build back enough energy to cast another spell.  That doesn't seem to be the case with the Force.  There doesn't seem to be a time (at least that I recall) when a Force-user runs out of energy by using the Force too much, other than when they're being drained of energy because they're under attack and sustaining injuries.  If that's the case, why don't they just use the Force all the time for everything?  Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonn fight the battle droids with their lightsabres for a bit, and then Obi-Wan just uses a Force push on a trio (?) of them.  That happens in a later fight as well.  Well, if the Force push works, why go through the time and trouble of using lightsabres (though I do like the bounce-your-blaster-bolt-back-into-you trick) where you're basically dispatching them one at a time?  A Force push can take out three or four or probably more at once and is much faster.

I love Qui-Gonn using his lightsabre to carve a C into the blast door.  I have a toy that depicts that scene with the indentation in the door.

Destroyer droids!  Or as they call them, Droideka.  The first time I saw those things, I absolutely loved them.  So cool-looking.  I can't remember which exhibit it was, but I saw a life-size one at one of the Star Wars props exhibits.  Amazing.

Ahhh, the much maligned Jar Jar Binks.  I'm less concerned with him now than when I first watched the movie.  Part of my frustration with him was that I had trouble understanding what he was saying.  His syntax and speech pattern was more difficult to figure out than Yoda's jumbled words, and his "accent" was hard to make out for me.  I still had that problem this time but for the most part, he doesn't have a lot of vital stuff to say, so I just hear him, understand him or don't, and move on.  In discussions, I always find it amusing when people say there's been no one more hated in Star Wars history, and when I reference the ewoks, so many people either have no memory of when "Return of the Jedi" came out, or they weren't born yet or at least not old enough yet.  The vitriol that was directed at the ewoks was pretty epic.  I felt that same energy when people talked about Jar Jar.  As I've thought about it more, and as I've seen the various movies more, I've started to see a lot of C-3PO in Jar Jar, and not in a good way.  On many occasions, 3PO is actually pretty annoying.  He complains a lot, and he's often yelling at R2-D2 about something, even things that R2 isn't responsible for.  I've found myself often being less and less interested in seeing / hearing 3PO.  Jar Jar evokes the same feeling in me in that he complains a lot, especially in times of fear and battle, so I ignore those too.

It's really nice to see Liam Neeson in this role, something he hadn't really been doing at the time.  He was doing mostly "serious" roles, so it was great to see him bring that kind of ability to a Star Wars film.

And boy, look how young Ewan McGregor was back then.  (Yeah, we've all gotten older.  I can't believe it's been more than 20 years since this film came out.)  I love seeing the little padawan braid on him, and watching as Obi-Wan maneuvers through walking the line between being respectful of his Jedi master and mentor, and expressing his opinions based on his own understanding and teachings of the Force and the Jedi ways, when Qui-Gonn goes against them.

Boss Nass, head of Gungan City, is an interesting character but another one I have difficulty understanding.  I would be interested in learning more about how that whole city works, how he came to be in charge, and what his backstory is.

I didn't remember that Jar Jar was indebted to Qui-Gonn because Qui-Gonn saved his life.  Gungans have a life debt obligation like wookies do?

"There's always a bigger fish."  I've always loved Qui-Gonn's line.  So true.

I remember having such a hard time trying to figure out when it was Queen Amidala's double and when it wasn't, but I didn't know who Natalie Portman was then.  I think it took me until the third or fourth time seeing the film to figure it out.  Now, of course, it's very obvious to me when it's her and when it's not.  But even knowing that her double is played by Keira Knightley (Since her credit is as "Kiera", I'm wondering if they spelled her name wrong or if she changed the spelling for some reason.), I'm not seeing her as clearly.  I don't think we get a good look at her when she's simply a handmaiden, unlike with Natalie Portman, so it may be that the makeup masks her more.

I always laugh at the battle droid who has been cut in half but the legs are still wobbling around.

It's always hard to watch the scene where the droids are on the surface of the Naboo ship trying to fix the shield generator, and they're just getting picked off by the ships attacking them.

Yay, R2!  One of the unsung heroes of the rebellion.  (Yeah, he didn't get a medal for any of his contributions either.)

I've always thought Watto was an interesting character.  That's the first time we've seen where the Jedi mind trick influence doesn't work on some people.  Obi-Wan told us that the Force can have a strong effect on the weak-minded, but we haven't seen anyone strong-minded enough to withstand that.  We see in "Return of the Jedi" that it doesn't work on Jabba the Hut either.

Awww, tiny little Anakin.  Some of his mannerisms actually remind me of Luke from the first Star Wars movie.

Pit droids!  I love them, especially the "bonk the nose" part.  I love how they're used in the video in the queue of Star Tours, as they're trying to attend to the Starspeeder.  And that they also show up in "The Mandalorian".  A good all-purpose droid is always a good thing to have around.

Speaking of tiny little Anakin, seeing the age difference between him and Padme is why it's creepy knowing about the coming romance.  They wanted him to be young enough to be impressive with the podracing and skills and such, but she had to be old enough to be queen.  And it still might not have been so bad if they'd met later, when their age differences wouldn't have mattered.  But it's hard to watch her see him as a little boy that she almost feels the need to take care of, when we know they're eventually going to be a couple and have children together.

Shmi is a very accommodating mom.  Her kid comes home with some random strangers, and she welcomes them, not knowing anything about them.  Was this something Anakin did all the time?  Or maybe she knew that since everyone knew that she/they belonged to Watto, no one would start any trouble with them.

I've always said that even given all the murder and destruction that Vader was responsible for, the worst thing Anakin did to the galaxy was building C-3PO.

It's interesting that the concept of slavery is so easily slid into the Star Wars universe, and involving a character that we've known from the very beginning.  Who knew that the commanding, dominating, terrifying Darth Vader was once a child slave himself.  Is that what propelled some of his actions in the future, wanting to be in control?  But he then didn't seem to think twice about subjugating others.  And the Jedi don't blink at finding out that slavery still exists.  That should have told us something about the Jedi order in and of itself.

The pod racing segment was fantastic and always a lot of fun.  My favorite bit, of course, were the Tuscan raiders taking potshots at passing competitors.  But Sebulba cheats, and everyone *knows* he cheats, but he continues to race and win?  I guess since Jabba is in charge, if Jabba doesn't care, then everyone can do whatever they want.  And he's not cheating Jabba, just the other racers, so I guess Jabba wouldn't much care.

I forgot that Qui Gonn bought Anakin's freedom by betting on Anakin in the race.

Anakin's goodbye with Shmi was just heartbreaking.  I would love to know more about her story.

That Senate chamber was pretty cool, and at some point when I was at the Dolby Theatre, it reminded me of that chamber.

Padme is still young and mostly trusting, and she is manipulated by Senator Palpatine to vote out the current Chancellor.  I can't remember if we ever get her reaction when she finds out that Palpatine is the Emperor, because that has got to be fairly devastating.  But I guess not as devastating as your husband turning into a Sith lord.

So in my previous viewings, I'd missed these lines from Obi-Wan to Qui Gonn:  "If you would just follow the code, you would be on the Council." and "Do not defy the Council, Master, not again."  Oh, so we know that Qui Gonn has gone rogue before.  Seems like being that defiant would go against the Jedi teachings, wouldn't it?  Surprised they continued to allow him to have padawan, to pass along his errant outlook.  But they appear to continue to allow the behaviour, because even though they initially deny his request to have Anakin as a padawan, they eventually give in.  I would be curious to know if there's an official story on what Qui Gonn's prior deeds and defiance to the Council were.

"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering." - Yoda's well-known line describes the path that leads Anakin to the dark side.

One of the candidates for being the new Chancellor is Bail Antilles from Alderaan.  Was that supposed to have been Bail Organa?  Did they just decide to throw in a random reference to an Antilles there?  I can't remember where Wedge is supposed to have been from.

The Trade Federation people keep saying that they need to capture Queen Amidala so that they can force her to sign the treaty.  And how exactly are they going to force her to do that?  Are they going to tie her down and just manipulate her arm?  Are they going to threaten people?  They're already threatening and imprisoning her people, and that's not working.

I appreciated Padme's approach to appealing to the Gungans for help.  Never mind that she's Queen, but she humbles herself to them.

Those racks of battle droids were pretty impressive looking as they unfolded.  Did they ever release a toy like that?  Because they should have.

How amazing was the reveal of Maul with his double-bladed lightsabre?

Duel of the Fates - The song and the entire segment were amazing.  One of my favorite Star Wars bits.  On a side note, I remember being at a John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, the first time they performed the song live, with a full choir behind them.  Incredible.

We saw the small fight between Maul and Qui Gonn earlier, but it's full scale *on* when Maul is fighting both Qui Gonn and Obi-Wan.  First time we see a major fight between fully trained users of the Force in their prime.

So, that hallway that Maul and Qui Gonn run through and that Obi-Wan is trapped in - what is that for?  Is it some kind of weird security measure?  Why does it need to be structured so that you can't make it all the way through and have to hang out in those little partitioned sections?  It's like that scene in "Galaxy Quest":  "Why does this room exist?"

The absolute anquish of Obi-Wan having to helplessly watch as Maul kills his master.

Maul flings Obi-Wan's lightsabre into the abyss.  Where did it end up?  Does someone have it?

Anakin climbs into a Naboo fighter, and the helmet happens to fit his tiny head?  All the other pilots are adults, so presumably, the pilot whose ship Anakin climbs into is also an adult.  Just one with a tiny kid head?  Of course, it's funny that Anakin stays in the cockpit because that's what Qui Gonn told him to do.  I believe that's called "malicious compliance"?

Anakin is the one who takes out the Trade Federation ship which then disables all the droids.  I guess that's the risk you run when there's one off switch.  On a different note, was anyone complaining then about how he was a "Mary Jane"?  Probably not.

Poetic justice that Obi-Wan kills Maul with Qui Gonn's own lightsabre.

I don't think we focus enough on the fact that Obi-Wan's responsibility for Anakin was forced on him by Qui Gonn.  This was not a decision that Obi-Wan chose, and it wasn't a path that he even approved of for Qui Gonn.  But when it's your Master's dying wish, how do you say no?  At the end of it all, Obi-Wan feels that he failed Anakin, but it's actually Qui Gonn who failed them both.  There's no indication that Qui Gonn would have done any better had he been alive to train Anakin.  But the biggest trauma of Obi-Wan's life is inflicted on him by the burden that Qui Gonn forces on him.

So is Anakin the Chosen One, the one who was to bring balance to the Force?  If not, who is?  If so, is that saying that his turning to the dark side was necessary because there needed to be balance to the Jedi, which is an interesting concept.

"Empire of Light" - NO SPOILERS movie review

I saw "Empire of Light" last night, and I absolutely loved it.  It spoke to me as a huge movie geek and a film studies student.  It's pretty meta to watch a movie about the power and effect of movies in a movie theatre, and it absolutely works.  Even though we make fun of the AMC Nicole Kidman clip, she's right.  Well, whomever wrote those lines for her is right.  There is something about the dark room and the beam of light that so many of us find mesmerizing.  Stories that are familiar to us, stories that are alien to us because they involve cultures and situations that we don't know about, stories that are alien to us because they're set on other worlds and times.

It's a very quiet movie but don't take that to mean that it's boring.  It's very contemplative in its quiet moments, and it gives us a chance to meet and get to know everyone in the film.

Not surprisingly, the leads, Olivia Coleman and Micheal Ward, are outstanding.  But the film is also an ensemble piece, and the supporting cast is absolutely at the same level of being vital to the success of the film.  In particular, I think there are two supporting parts that add so much more heart to the film, but I won't name them so that you can discover them for yourself.

One of the things this film reminded me of is someone I used to know that I met when I was in college.  Among other things, he was the projectionist at the movie theatre on campus, and we became friends.  Sometimes, I'd hang out in the booth with him during a movie.  Occasionally, it was to watch bits of a movie, but oftentimes, it was just to hang out with him, to chat with him for the periodic minutes of free time that he had in between reels.  Back then, like in this film, there were big cannisters of reels of film, and he would show them to me, and he would have to inspect them.  Those old projectors were massive, and the sound of them as they were running was a thing like no other.  Through a peculiarity of circumstance, I had learned to see the dot on the upper right hand corner to signal a reel change, and back then, it was a manual reel change, so he and I laughed about the fact that I knew all that, and I got to watch him do it.

In more modern machines, the reel change was no longer done manually but had become automated, so projectionists no longer had to push switches to change to the next reel.  In current times, of course, with digital projection, there are no reels.  That also means they likely have one projectionist who monitors multiple screens, but that means there isn't someone always watching to make sure nothing goes wrong.  BTW, are they even still called projectionists?  Because of digital projection, are they now called techs or something else?  I would love to learn more and even have the chance to visit what a modern projection booth is like and the process of showing films.

The other thing that "Empire of Light" makes me appreciate are old-school movie houses, like the one in the film.  Multiplexes are great to provide a wider variety of films to watch, but I love the grandeur and beautiful decor of places like El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood and the Paramount Theatre and Grand Lake Theatre, both located in Oakland.

There are so many other subjects that are brought up in the film, but I can't talk about them without providing spoilers.  There are many moments that are a joy to watch, but there are also some that are incredibly difficult to watch.  In any case, I highly recommend this movie.

Snake Eyes - SPOILER movie review

I liked the trailer for "Snake Eyes", and I've liked Henry Golding in everything I've seen him in so far ("Crazy Rich Asians", "Last Christmas" and "A Simple Favor"), so I was interested in seeing the film.

And since I saw the film this past Thursday, I'm pissed off that they've basically made it so that I won't watch any more films in this series.

I don't know much about the G.I. Joe franchise, other than that I know they were a bunch of toys. I watched the two films they've released so far, and while I think I liked them, I don't remember anything about them or even who was in them. So going into this film, I knew nothing other than that the film was labeled as a G.I. Joe original story.

Generally, I thought the film was interesting. For the most part, I liked the story. From the set-up, you knew that the rest of the story was going to revolve around him seeking revenge on the man who killed his father. I liked the twists in the story, not knowing who he was working for, not knowing whose side he was on, being surprised (I was at least) when it was revealed that he was a spy for the other side because he'd been promised information leading to the man who'd killed his father. I really liked the set-up of the warring factions between the yakuza and the ninja, and the relationship between the two.

I was on board with the film this entire time.

Until they got to the third challenge for Snake Eyes. Because he was keeping the secret that he was working for Kenta, a bigwig in the yakuza, while pretending to be loyal to Tommy and the ninja clan, he did not have a pure heart, and the snakes would kill anyone who was hiding anything unclean in their heart. Snake Eyes was about to be killed for his deception when Akiko, the bad-ass head of security for the clan, decided to save him and allow him to escape unharmed. Of course, the bad-ass female head of security had to betray the oath she swore to the clan who adopted her, when she had no family before, because of her feelings for a man.

What incredibly lazy and infuriating writing. They couldn't find ANY reason for him to get out of that without completely ruining Akiko's character and integrity? We have to go back to the old, tired, overused trope that a woman will throw away EVERYTHING because of her feelings, no matter how minor, for a man? She gave this whole speech about her loyalty to the clan and what they mean to her, but she's willing to sacrifice all of that for him, a man she barely knows? And from then on, he goes on to do all kinds of stuff to "redeem" himself and make him seemingly worthy to be a Joe, but he only has that opportunity because of HER. He should have died. He wasn't worthy to survive the third challenge. He did nothing to deserve it. He got a second chance that he didn't earn. Everything else he ever does is tainted by the fact that HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD INSTEAD. There wasn't some way to write it so that he at least had a hand in his own save from the snakes, so that there was SOMETHING that he did that contributed to him being spared by them or escaping from them?

One other thing I didn't like about the film was at the end, when Scarlett was telling Snake Eyes about this father. "He was one of us, a Joe." she tells him. OK. And then she goes on to talk about him like she'd worked with him and how Snake Eyes could totally be a Joe just like his dad. That struck me as being odd because Scarlett didn't seem old enough to have worked with the dad, but she was talking about him in terms like she had, like Snake Eyes measured up to her experience of working with his dad. I would have liked someone older, who reasonably could have known and worked with the dad, to have said all this, or at least have Scarlett clarify that everything she was saying was based on what she'd read and heard about his dad. What she was saying just didn't ring true coming from her.

One other thing that bothered me about the film - while I generally liked the action sequences, the hand-held combat was absolutely nausea-inducing for me. It wasn't just that they often used a hand-held camera, but even in shots where the actors were static for a second during their fight, the camera still had motion on its own. It meant that for many of the fight scenes, I couldn't really watch them because it was starting to make me feel ill, and I really didn't appreciate that. Hand-held cameras are not my preference - God invented dollys for a reason - but I know this is not a complaint that affects most people.

I liked most of the actors in the film. Takehiro Hira was good as Kenta, and I really liked Andrew Koji as Tommy. I'd love to see more of him but that's not going to happen. Other than the writing pissing me off, I really liked Haruka Abe as Akiko, and it probably made me even more irritated, because I really liked her. I liked Iko Uwais as Hard Master and Peter Mensah as Blind Master, and I even liked Ursula Corbero as Baroness, even though she was a little cartoony, but she was fun to watch. I absolutely loved Eri Ishida as Sen, the head of the clan, and if they could figure out a way for her to be the star of a film that focussed on her character, I'd make an exception to not watching another film in this franchise.

I thought Henry Golding was good in this film. I thought this role gave him a little more acting depth to show than the three films I mentioned previously. It gave him the ability to show that he could do more than be the pretty-boy male half of a rom-com. (He didn't really have much to do in "A Simple Favor".) You could see in his eyes and face and demeanor when he realizes that the people truly responsible for his father's death wasn't the man in front of him, but the group that he'd just helped. There's been a lot of talk of the Asian representation because Henry Golding was cast as the lead in a film like this, and I'm all for that. Let's absolutely do that on a more regular basis. But it's completely not required and not necessary and not acceptable to uplift a role played by a male Asian actor by sacrificing the integrity of a role played by a female actor, Asian or otherwise.

Godzilla vs. Kong - SPOILER film re-cap and review (LONG)

(WARNING: This is long. Really long. REALLY LONG. Remember that time I wrote a re-cap / review of a half-hour sitcom, and that write-up was like 12 pages long? Yeah, like that. I'm not kidding.)

I'm definitely a Godzilla fan. I should say that I'm a fan of original Godzilla, the Toho version, not the weirdo movie that Matthew Broderick was in that came out in 1998, though I did very much like their marketing campaign. In the recent series of films, I liked the second film more than the first film, and I liked aspects of the new King Kong movie, so I was looking forward to the clash between the two.

I thought the augmented Warner Bros. and Legendary logos were pretty cool.

So we get re-introduced to Kong as he's doing things that we're familiar with - waking up, scratching an itch, taking a shower. He's just like us. And he clearly has some kind of rapport with the little girl.

And then Kong makes a spear out of a tree that he tore up, and he throws it at the sky, which breaks, revealing that it's some kind of electronic dome. 3 minutes and 19 seconds into the film, Kong turns out to be Katniss Everdeen. And that is a precursor for much of what happens throughout the rest of the film.

The graphics tell us that Kong is in a containment dome on Skull Island. Why? Why did they feel the need to build a "containment dome"? Was he going to leave? Skull Island seems pretty secluded from the rest of the world. Is he going to swim somewhere? Build himself a canoe? Catch the next JetBlue flight? He showed no indication that he was going to leave the island in his last film. In dialogue, we're told that if Kong leaves Skull Island, Godzilla will come for him. Godzilla didn't seem to care much about him before. It's not like either of them just popped into existence. They seemed to have co-existed on the same planet perfectly fine before. Godzilla only cares if Kong leaves the island? Why?  They also set up the relationship that they need to protect Kong from Godzilla. Kong is the sympathetic one who needs protection. Godzilla is the menace that they need to protect someone else from. Already, Kong is set up as the good guy, and Godzilla is set up as the bad guy. I did like the hieroglyphics of them, though.

We're introduced to Apex Cybernetics, owned by Walt Simmons, who seemed like a reminder of John Hammond, who opened Jurassic Park. Apex has some facility in Pensacola, Florida that Godzilla attacks for "no reason". People are so shocked and angry that after 3 years of peace, Godzilla attacks unprovoked, which he's never done before. Yeah, maybe think about that. He's never done it before. Don't you think that something has provoked him into attacking? Maybe look into that? So, Godzilla has been set up not only as a menace to Kong but also to humans.

Simmons goes to recruit some dude (I like the line about him having 30 boxes of his non-selling book in his apartment.) who had posited the concept of Hollow Earth. (His name is Nathan, but I like referring to him as Book Dude instead.) Simmons says there's something in Hollow Earth that will help them create a weapon against Godzilla. Because we've already been told repeatedly that Godzilla is a menace.

The scientist lady (Ilene) who's been studying Kong on Skull Island has evidently sort of adopted an indigenous child (Jia) whose entire people were killed in some major storm, and Kong only saved her. When Ilene tells Jia that they need to take Kong away from Skull Island, Jia protests that it's home, for both her and Kong. It just did not sit well with me that the white lady was taking the indigenous kid away from home and telling her that her "home" doesn't matter as long as the two of them are together. Umm, lady, evidently, Jia doesn't feel that way. I mean, I get that she's a complete orphan now, having lost not just her parents, but her entire civilization, but taking her away from Skull Island seems a bit much to add on to her already overwhelming loss, don't you think, and you're of the opinion that only the relationship between the two of you should matter to her?

So they drag Kong, and Jia, away from their home so that he can help find Hollow Earth, because they think that he has some genetic Google maps connection to it. Simmons' daughter Maia comes along on the mission to supervise, and she's immediately telegraphed as being an annoying bitch because she emphasizes that her father will get what he wants, and all the money he has and is spending on this mission, and she keeps referring to Kong as a monkey. Yeah, bitch.

And then they discover that Kong knows sign language and that he's been talking to Jia, who is mostly deaf and doesn't speak and communicates with Ilene through sign language. Jia tells Ilene that Kong is sad, and Kong forlornly signs "home". Awwww.  In case you haven't figured it out yet, we're meant to empathize and root for Kong.

We get glimpses of Madison, who we know from the Godzilla movies, and she recruits her friend Josh to help. I just kept thinking that Josh was the British accent version of Ned, Peter Parker's "guy in a chair" best friend in the Spiderman films. Then I come to find out that the actor was in "Deadpool 2", and I thought he was terrific in that. He's kind of wasted in this film, but I guess when they ask you to be in Godzilla vs. Kong with significant screen time, you don't really turn that down.

There's a whole bunch of stuff with Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie, who's the Titan conspiracy theory guy. I think he was my favorite human in the whole movie, and I really enjoyed his scenes.

So they rip Kong away from his home because he will save the world by leading them to a power source in Hollow Earth that will save them from Godzilla. Kong the hero vs. Godzilla the menace, again.

As they predicted, Godzilla has some kind of GPS device that tells him when Kong leaves Skull Island and Godzilla is now coming for Kong, but Kong is shackled to the aircraft carrier ship. When Maia hears that Godzilla is coming for Kong, she wants to dump "the monkey" overboard. Yeah, just abandon him. Bitch. As Godzilla approaches, and Simmons' forces move to intercept, Godzilla destroys ships and kills people, living up to being the menace that he's been painted as. Kong's ship flips over, but Book Dude manages to release the shackles so that Kong can at least fight.

So, in the first head-to-head fight between Godzilla and Kong, we see that they are pretty much the same size. That is so wrong. They should be nowhere near the same size. One article I read said that if you pause the film at certain points, it gives you the dimensions of both creatures. Godzilla is almost 400 feet tall, and Kong is something like 150 feet tall. Godzilla should be more than twice the size of Kong, which sounds about right. And yet, they can just about look each other in the eyes while fighting. So they had to make Godzilla so much smaller just to give Kong a fighting chance?

After they've been fighting for a bit, Kong ends up in the water again, and Godzilla tries to drown Kong. He would have succeeded too, except that Simmons' forces intervene by blowing depth charges to try to disorient Godzilla, which works as Kong is able to surface and climb back on the ship, half dead. They then cut the power to everything and play dead so that Godzilla will think he's won and leave, which he does. So Kong would have been a goner if not for the intervention by humans. Godzilla is the definite winner of round 1.

During that entire battle sequence, I noticed that Godzilla was often filmed and shown in the water like they did with the great white shark in "Jaws". His spikes stuck out of the water like a shark's fin, and when he approached Kong's ship, he submerged, just like the shark in "Jaws". The great white shark was the mindless killing machine menace in "Jaws". Godzilla is repeatedly portrayed as that in this film.

Madison and Josh and Bernie get tubed to Hong Kong like one of those old time containers that they used to use in banks to send documents from one part of the bank to another. That sequence was odd. I guess they just needed to get them all to Hong Kong.

After the encounter with Godzilla, the Apex folks decide the better way for Kong to travel is to get airlifted to Antarctica, where the entrance to Hollow Earth is. But once there, Kong doesn't want to go into the entrance. He's in an unfamiliar place, he's cold, and he just wants to go home. Book Dude gets Ilene to convince Jia to tell Kong that his family might be inside that entrance, and that works to get him to go in. Oh, great, manipulate Jia into lying to Kong for your own purposes.

And we get to visit Hollow Earth, which has pre-historic creatures like snakes with wings so they can fly. Yeah, that was fun. One of them coils itself around Kong and covers him with a wing like it's going to suffocate him. The Apex folk have to fire on the creature so that Kong can fight back and kill it. So again, the humans have to come to Kong's rescue.

At one point in their journey in Hollow Earth, gravity has reached an equilibrium so rocks float. That was pretty cool. Kong pushes off a rock so that he floats up to another giant rock formation.

So when Madison, Josh and Bernie arrive in Hong Kong, they end up wandering into what Bernie refers to as a nice corporate version of a sacrifice pit. And then, out comes the creature that Bernie refers to as Robot Godzilla and which Josh more accurately calls Mechagodzilla. I'll admit that I've never seen those movies, so I don't know how they were operated, but this version reminded me of a cross between how the metal defenders were controlled in "Pacific Rim" and the device that Professor X from the X-Men uses. And as Mecha unfurls, they then notice that another creature is being unleashed - a skull crawler. Why are Madison, Josh and Bernie still standing in the middle of the death pit during all this and don't start to run until the skull crawler comes after them? As soon as Bernie identified it as a sacrifice pit, maybe they should have thought, hey, instead of going out and standing RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE, maybe go back towards the sides where they're not so obviously a target and at least might have somewhere to hide or at least be more inconspicuous? At the very least, they should have done that when Mecha made his appearance. Nope, let's just stand here until the other deadly things are unleashed. So, they're trying to run away from the skull crawler, and just as the skull crawler is about to pounce on them, it's snagged by the Mecha. Oh, yeah, just like when the T-Rex in Jurassic Park snagged the attacking raptor.

After the fight where Mecha defeats the skull crawler, we discover that their current power can't sustain Mecha. After that exertion of energy, Mecha has to power down. What they're looking for in Hollow Earth is a source that will power Mecha with no problem. And we find out that whatever is in one of Mecha's eyes is what got Godzilla's attention when it was at the Apex location in Pensacola. That's what Godzilla was after there. And with the eye triggered again, it again gets Godzilla's attention, and he heads towards Hong Kong.

At the upper rock formation, Kong finds a throne room and an axe, and as he takes his place on the throne, majestic music plays and swells. Yes, we know, he's the star. The king has returned to his throne. We don't know if his magic axe has a name like Thor's does. I'm still trying to figure out why Kong has a magic axe. Have we ever seen him use an implement before? I mean, that doesn't preclude him from using one, but it was unexpected and a little weird to me.

While wandering around the Apex location in Hong Kong, Madison, Josh and Bernie make the ultimate discovery - Apex has the Ghidorah head that we saw being retrieved at the end of the last Godzilla movie. One of the Apex guys is using Ghidorah's weird bluetooth capabilities to control Mecha. No, I didn't entirely understand the "how" of that part.

So Godzilla arrives in Hong Kong and stomps around. Well, at least he's not destroying Japan this time. Change of scenery, I guess.

Back in Hollow Earth, Kong somehow figures out that the magic glowing axe needs to be put in the nicely indented magic axe slot because that's like some kind of magic axe recharger, drawing radiation from the core to charge. I don't really understand why it needs to be charged because he really just uses it like a regular axe later, but I guess it's like Thor's hammer that can be charged with lightning? I don't know.

Godzilla somehow figures out that Kong is in Hollow Earth and uses his atomic fire breath to make a hole to Hollow Earth. That seemed a much easier route than the one Kong et al took.

While Hollow Earth is glowing with the charging of the magic glowing axe, Maia extracts part of the glowing rock and sends that information back to her father. Once they analyze it, they can replicate the properties of the glowing rock and use it to power Mecha. So they have all the materials necessary on regular Earth to replicate the magic glowing properties in Hollow Earth?

Giant bird creatures come to attack, and Maia thinks it's time to get out of town. As they're trying to escape, her vehicle is intercepted by Kong, who stares inside it and then crushes it. Yay! We knew she was going to die at some point. It seems fitting that it was literally at the hand of Kong, since she was so uncaring about his life and kept calling him a monkey. I'm not a huge Kong fan but hey, don't be dismissive and insulting to him.

Kong then comes back up to the top using Godzilla's handy new route, and Kong and Godzilla have another massive fight, this time on solid ground. (I need an interlude here. At the beginning of their fight, I think Godzilla throws Kong against a building, and we see what appears to be people running away in terror. They were still sitting at dinner in a restaurant? Godzilla has been stomping around outside, and there was some dialogue around that time that they were evacuating the city. These people decided they'd stay and finish their dinner, maybe have some dessert and coffee first before evacuating? It's not until TWO titans are fighting that they think it's a good idea to leave? What the hell?)

So during Godzilla's and Kong's fight this time, we learn that the magic glowing axe absorbs Godzilla's atomic fire breath. I started to wonder if it was like Wakandan vibranium in that it would absorb the energy and then you could release it and use it against other people. Nope, that didn't seem to happen.

During the course of the fight, Kong climbs and hangs on multiple tall buildings because Kong.

Massive fight, massive fight, massive destruction (Godzilla and Kong have nothing on the Avengers as far as the scale of destruction left behind), and at the end, Godzilla has Kong pinned. Godzilla screams at Kong but lets him live. Godzilla decidedly wins round 2. After Godzilla walks away, Kong tries to get up but falls back down.

And then something goes terribly wrong. Because we knew it would. The pilot who is attached to Ghidorah's head and controlling Mecha gets disconnected and ultimately fried so no more human controller. I figured Mecha was just operating on his own now, but the husband explained to me that it meant Ghidorah was actually controlling Mecha. That kind of made sense, given how destructive Mecha then becomes, so I can go with that. I did like when Simmons was talking, and Madison, Josh and Bernie notice Mecha coming for Simmons. That was pretty funny when Simmons starts to realize something is wrong and then turns around.

Mecha makes his way out of the installation, and Godzilla engages him. Godzilla isn't doing all that well because Mecha has a definite unfair advantage, but Godzilla continues to fight.

Book Dude, Ilene and Jia make it back to the surface as well, and they go to Kong, but Jia can feel that his heart is slowing down, and Ilene tells Book Dude that he's dying. If only there was a way to shock his heart, cause, I guess that will bring him back to life? Book Dude figures out that he can use the ship to restart Kong's heart. It works, and Kong jumps back to life. Except that he seems to have a dislocated shoulder. Which he puts back in place by slamming it into a nearby building. Hey, why not make Kong even more likable by having him imitate Mel Gibson in "Lethal Weapon"?

Kong's resurrection comes just in time as Mecha is about to stuff his own brand of atomic fire breath down Godzilla's throat, but Kong redirects the atomic fire breath just in time to save Godzilla. One point for Kong. Godzilla and Kong then work together (Kong was convinced to help Godzilla by Jia, who told him that Godzilla wasn't the enemy, that the other thing was.) to fight Mecha, and Kong eventually retrieves his axe to use in the fight.

Meanwhile, "guy in a chair" Josh has been trying to figure out how to disconnect Ghidorah's head from Mecha but is having no luck guessing the password. (No, I don't know if he tried "pencil" or "Joshua".) He has a moment of inspiration when Bernie pulls out his flask of alcohol, and Josh grabs the flask and pours the liquid into the computer, causing it to short circuit a bit. That disruption causes Mecha to falter, and the titans take advantage of the situation as Godzilla uses his atomic fire breath to charge the magic glowing axe, which Kong then uses to kill / destroy / de-spine Mecha, thus cementing Kong as the hero who defeats the villain.

There is one last confrontation between Godzilla and Kong, but after the staredown, Godzilla leaves Kong be.

The final scene reveals that Kong lives in and rules Hollow Earth, which he now considers his home.

So Kong is regarded as the hero who saves the day since he is technically the one who kills Mecha, but there is zero acknowledgement of everything that Godzilla did and that Godzilla was right. He attacked the Apex location in Pensacola to get to the thing that was then put in Mecha's eye, and if he'd been allowed to destroy it there, Mecha's terror would have never been unleashed. Kong actually led Apex to Hollow Earth so that they were able to obtain the means to power Mecha. If Kong had not done that, Mecha wouldn't have had the sustaining power they were able to replicate, so Kong is actually partly responsible for Mecha's reign of terror.

I've seen a number of comments from people that plot doesn't matter in films like this, that's it's just monsters fighting each other. OK, then why fabricate such a convoluted plot? Just make up a flimsy reason why Godzilla and Kong end up in the same places and then let them fight and destroy everything in their vicinity. I'm all for that. That's essentially what they did in the third Jurassic Park movie. They made up a reason to go back to the island so that we could see the dinosaurs again and also so we could finally see pterodactyls. Great, I love a good popcorn movie.

But instead, they created a plot and a movie that made Godzilla a secondary character in his own film, and it was character assassination of him to boot as he seemingly turns violent for no reason after three years of peace. We learned nothing about him or his reasons or motivations, even when he was trying to destroy the bad things. He was just thought to be causing destruction and killing for no reason. If you're a Godzilla fan, this is a terrible use of him in this movie. If you're a Kong fan, you're likely loving his movie because he is set up as the underdog who becomes the hero, the one you're supposed to root for. I mean, heck, he's friends with an adorable little girl who's deaf and sticks up for him - how could you not love him? All along, he's humanized - because after all, if you don't give him human qualities, how are we supposed to relate to him and empathize with him and root for him? Godzilla was never given those qualities and remained "the other", the monster, the entire time. At the end of this film, he is still going to be hated and feared, until the next time something terrible happens because of some creature, and they're going to need Godzilla to save their sorry asses.

The other thing that irritated the heck out of me is that this was billed as a clash of the titans, the battle for supremacy between Godzilla and Kong, and into this epic battle, you introduce a third party? The promise of the two of them in battle isn't enough, that you have to bring Mecha into this NOW? They couldn't figure out another way to have Godzilla and Kong interact with each other without bringing in another creature? When I realized it was Mecha, my reaction was "are you kidding me?" It's a party to ostensibly celebrate Godzilla and Kong, and they invite an interloper to crash the party.

One of the things I've really been disappointed in with this series is that they seem to have done so much to disrespect Godzilla. In the first film, we never got a good look at Godzilla. Every time he was fighting something, our view was obscured, even to the point of shutting the doors during what looked like the start of a major fight between Godzilla and another creature. Why would you not let us see him? I can learn to live with the redesign of Godzilla's head. But what happened to Godzilla's signature roar? Everyone knows what he sounds like. Everyone recognizes who he is from his roar without needing to see him. There are momentary hints of it at times, but that's it. Did Toho not license them to use his actual roar? Or did they choose not to use it? I really, really don't understand how Toho can allow Godzilla to be treated the way he's been in this series. Even though there were too many new characters that they focused on in the last Godzilla movie, at least in the end, they rightly bowed to their leader. But otherwise, Godzilla has not been treated very well in the course of this series.

"Onward" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "Onward".

From the first trailer that I saw of this movie, I had already decided I wasn't going to see it. It really turned me off. It wasn't until the third trailer that I saw that I didn't immediately think NO, and that was when they were actually telling the story of the movie, with the two brothers on their quest. But even that trailer and then finding out that Tom Holland played the younger brother didn't inspire me to see the film.

The prelude in the film gives the backstory that once upon a time, the world had magic, and it was cool. But it was hard, and not everyone could do it, and then technology and innovation allowed everyone to do the "magic" things without having to master magic, and so magic faded from the world.

If you read my review of "The Emperor's New Groove", you know that I had trouble getting past the first 5 minutes and only made it through because of this project. For this film, I made it to 10 minutes in before I wanted to bail. I did end up liking parts of this film more than I did "The Emperor's New Groove", but that's not just a low bar, it's a bar that's on the ground so not hard to get over.

Oh, here's one thing I liked - at one point when someone was driving around, I noticed that the normal STOP signs said HALT instead. That made me laugh.

So the story is that younger brother Ian is shy and unsure of himself, and his father died before he was born, so he never knew him. It's his 16th birthday, but he's too nervous to ask a group of kids to come to his party. He finally gets the courage to utter a convoluted invitation, which they happily accept, but then his older brother pulls up and the kids don't have a favorable reaction to him (older brother), so he (Ian) hastily withdraws the invitation with the excuse that the party is cancelled. Once Ian gets home, he pulls out a cassette tape (I guess they haven't gotten that far in the technology and innovation timeline.) and a cassette player and pops in a tape. As it plays, it sounds like a test tape that his dad made, trying it out for the first time. After playing it through once, he plays it again, this time adding his own dialogue at the right time so that it sounds like he and his dad are having a conversation. He's clearly listened to this enough times that he knows it all by heart, words and pauses both.

Older brother Barley is loud and brash and annoying as hell.

Because Ian is so down, their mom (Laurel) decides to bring out a present early (she had meant to do this later in the evening) and give a present from their dad that is actually meant for both brothers, once they're both at least 16. They unwrap a wizard's staff and a magic gem and realize that their dad was a wizard. There are instructions that, when the spell is cast, will bring their father back for 24 hours. Barley attempts the spell and nothing happens, disappointing them both, as well as their mother. After they leave his room, Ian absentmindedly starts reciting the spell and doesn't notice that the gem is glowing. He finally notices, and Barley comes in and sees what's happening, and as the spell proceeds, their father starts to materialize, from the shoes up. Ian is struggling to control the staff, and Barley jumps in to help him, but in doing so, it throws the spell awry.

Once everything settles, they discover that their dad has only materialized up to his waist. With no other way to communicate with him, Barley taps "shave and a haircut" on his dad's shoe, and his dad responds. This was something they used to do, so Barley in this way communicates to his dad that it's him, and his dad acknowledges him. Dad's feet then go searching for Ian's, which he finds.

So then there's this whole story where Barley is really into gaming quests which are based on real events, so Barley knows one game that is exactly like the quest they're on - they're in search of another magic gem so that they can materialize the rest of their dad. Their quest takes them to the Manticore's Tavern, run by Corey, who's a manticore, of course. The formerly fierce tavern has now been turned into a sort of Chuck E. Cheese, with a cute, fuzzy mascot of Corey. Barley is disheartened that she's now just a businesswoman and implores her to rediscover herself, when she was fierce and loved adventure. After Ian and Barley leave, Corey does just that and turns ferocious. Laurel has just arrived in search of her boys, and Corey says they're already on their way, but she forgot to tell them about the curse, so she and Laurel try to catch up with them. I was thinking at that point, she has wings, why can't she use them? And then later, Corey and Laurel have a conversation where Corey says that her wings don't work very well because she hasn't exercised those muscles much. OK, point taken.

Ian and Barley are in need of gas, and Barley comes up with the idea that Ian can make the gas can bigger and that will increase the amount of gas. And I'm thinking, how do you know it works that way, that they won't just end up with the same amount of gas in a giant gas can? And after this whole elaborate explanation to Ian that he {Ian} has to concentrate and not be distracted while he's (Ian's) casting the spell, Barley proceeds to break his concentration and distract him the whole time, throwing the spell off. Are you seeing a pattern?

So instead of making the can bigger, it turns out that Barley is made tiny. They have to continue their quest, and because Barley is too small to drive, Ian has to drive, even though he doesn't know how and is terrified to try again after messing up really badly in Driver's Training.

Other stuff happens, and then while trying to get out of another scrape, Barley ends up finding out that Ian thinks he (Barley) is a screw-up. Ian tries to deny it, but Barley doesn't believe him. I don't remember what happened next, but at some point, there's music, and their dad can feel the vibrations so starts dancing to the music. Dad wants them to join in so goes to get them one by one, but how does dad know where they were?

Then there was a giant cheese puff floaty thing. They eventually get to where they're going and make their way through a maze of things to conquer. It was kind of like what Indiana Jones had to do to get the idol, but instead of a giant rolling boulder, they had to escape from a giant gelatinous cube. Barley said that the gelatinous cube dissolved anything it touched, but I saw bits of stuff in it, so I guess it doesn't dissolve every little bit? I just kept thinking it was a Borg ship made of jello with fruit bits in it.

And after defeating all of the obstacles, they get to the light at the end of the tunnel and finally make it through - back to their own town, right near Ian's school. Ian is incensed that they've wasted so much time because the 24 hour time limit is closing quickly, so he goes off to spend what little time he has left with his dad. Barley is determined to find the gem and follows a hunch and ends up retrieving the gem from the nearby water fountain. But then the curse is triggered, and red smoke pours out from the top of the fountain and permeates the area, destroying and absorbing things, and it turns out that it is taking rocks and wood and metal in order to create a giant dragon pieced together from those bits. The friendly school mascot picture as its face was pretty funny.

A battle ensues (and Corey [who has rediscovered the use of her wings] and Laurel arrive, and Corey joins in the fight) and the staff ends up getting knocked out of Ian's hand, but he realizes that he still has a splinter in his hand, so he pulls that out, and it magically regenerates into another staff. I wasn't really keen on that save-the-day measure. He's had to climb rocks and all kinds of other things that involved using his hands, and there's still a big enough piece of intact splinter in his hand?

Ian is able to use the staff and gem to cast the spell again, and this time, the spell is completed, and the rest of their dad starts to materialize. But the dragon is hell-bent on destroying them all, and while Ian had really, really wanted to meet his dad, he tells Barley to go instead, while he (Ian) fights the dragon. Earlier, Barley had told Ian that when their father was dying and almost gone, he had the chance to see him one more time, but dad had tubes and other stuff all over and didn't look like himself anymore, and Barley was too afraid to see him, so he never said goodbye. Ian wants Barley to have the chance to say goodbye to their dad.

Ian manages to defeat the dragon, and he's able to watch the final minutes that his dad has, talking to Barley, and it ends with a hug before dad disappears. When Barley comes to Ian, he (Barley) gives him (Ian) a hug on their dad's behalf.

At the end of the movie, when they're driving off and lift into the air, the husband and I both said, "Where we're going, we don't need ... roads." Geeks.

Barley bugged the crap out of me. He was the main reason I disliked the film so much, because he was such a jerk and pretended to know everything. And when Ian kept saying that it was all his fault because he messed up the spells, I was yelling (mostly in my head but maybe some got out), "No, it's not. It's Barley's fault." He insisted on grabbing the staff when their dad was materializing, so it was his fault that only half came through. He kept talking and talking and talking to Ian and distracting him, which resulted in Barley getting shrunk, so again, his fault. I'll admit, the moment he had with his dad was really sweet (as was his passing along a hug from their dad to Ian), and I almost cried at that (both of those), but I would have felt it more if I'd had ANY positive feelings about Barley prior to that point. Mostly, I thought how nice it was of Ian to let Barley have that moment, which would hopefully be a healing for him (Barley), and maybe it'll make him less of a jerk (that part is my thinking, not Ian's).

I thought Ian's story arc was unremarkable. I wish they had structured the earlier part of the story differently, so that it was that there was this list of things he wanted to do, but he thinks he never got to do them because he didn't have a dad, but it turns out, Barley filled that role. Instead, he had a list of things he wanted to do WITH his dad, but doing them with Barley was enough? If he'd been looking for a dad the whole time and then realized that Barley was there all along, I would have bought it more. Also, with the "flashbacks" to the things that Barley did for him when they were younger, we're supposed to all of a sudden see what a great brother Barley has been? A minute or two of flashbacks that I didn't see happen, per se, is not going to change my opinion that quickly. I would like them to have mentioned maybe one or two of them during their adventures, so we would have known that Barley hasn't been a jerk with Ian his whole life.

I thought Tom Holland was fine as Ian, but other than playing Spider-man, I really want him to not play "nervous, unsure teenage boy" anymore. I want to see something else from him. Even though it wasn't a big part, I liked him in "The Current War". More of that kind of stuff, please. I know, he still has a very young face, but that didn't distract from his serious role in "The Current War".

I liked Corey, moreso after I found out that she was voiced by Octavia Spencer. She does fantastic work in everything I've seen her in (I recommend "Gifted" and "Ma", yes, very different films from each other and this film, but she's fantastic, and both are films that I don't think got enough attention.), but I like Manticore Corey better than Tavern Corey. I don't plan to see this film again, but if I'm ever in a position where it happens, I'll be paying more attention to Corey.

I think part of my disinterest in this film (other than being constantly irritated by Barley) is that the fantasy genre has never been my thing. I like some stories in the fantasy realm, but I wouldn't choose it.

There were some parts of this film that reminded me a bit of "Wall-E". Automation had turned everyone lethargic so that they were all lazy and overweight and spent all their time in chairs that moved them around. In this film, technology and innovation had similarly made some of them forget themselves, with Laurel's minotaur boyfriend driving instead of running, and Corey not having used her wings in a long time, and magic had been neglected.


So this is the last film on my list for this project. Other than "Mulan" (which will be crossed off the list at some point after I've seen the new live-action version, whenever that is), I've seen all the Disney animated films I hadn't seen previously. Well, all the Disney animated films I hadn't seen previously that I was willing o watch. I haven't seen "The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh", "The Rescuers Down Under", "A Goofy Movie", "James and the Giant Peach", "The Tigger Movie" and "Dinosaur". I'm not counting them on my list. Why? Because it's my project, so I get to make the non-existent rules.

Speaking of unseen Disney animated movies, I want to mention three movies that I don't think got nearly the attention and love they should have, either when they were released or any time discussions of animated Disney movies arise. If you haven't seen them, I would highly recommend them.

1. "Meet the Robinsons" - I just wrote a short sentence to describe this movie and realized it's kind of a spoiler. Anyway, I do think it's a terrific movie with good things to say to kids and adults alike, and it also contains one of my favorite Disney animated characters.

2. "Bolt" - It's a lot of fun, and Bolt (who's a dog) is really cute, and you get to meet his friends Mittens (a cute cat) and Rhino (a funny hamster). Some of the characters are voiced by people I'm not fond of but they're good in this movie.

3. "Chicken Little" - Yes, it's that story, but with a twist, of course. I loved this movie. I thought it was so much fun. And Chicken Little is cute!


I haven't quite decided what I'm doing next, if anything. Thanks for coming along on this journey. I hope you've enjoyed it.

"Coco"- Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "Coco".

I'd seen the trailers for this film, so I had an idea of the general premise, but the trailers didn't interest me enough to see the film previously.

The mariachi version of "When You Wish Upon a Star" that plays over the castle image before the film - I loved it!  I know they don't generally like to mess with the icon of the image or the music, but when they do, they do such a great job.  My favorite was the imagery change they did for "Tron:  Legacy".

I loved the telling of the backstory through the images on the papel picado (paper decorations).  (No, I didn't know that's what they were called.  Yes, I looked it up.  Movies that are entertaining and informational, yay.)

Oh, so Coco is the grandmother.  Ok, didn't know that.  Miguel Rivera tells the story of his family.  Coco's dad was a musician who went off to pursue his dream, leaving his wife (Imelda) and young daughter behind.  Imelda is so infuriated that she banishes anything musical from her family, and she starts a shoe-making business, which then becomes the family business.  But Miguel has a secret - he loves music.  He's just not sure how to let his family know.  There's a singing contest the next day, and while Miguel is shining the shoes of a member of a mariachi band, he encourages Miguel to enter the contest.  Just then, Miguel is found by his family, and his Abuelita is furious and marches the family home.  On the way, she's annoyed with someone (something?  I can't remember) and throws one of her sandles at him/it.  And I'm thinking, so now you've only got one shoe.  And sure enough, she continues the walk home with one shoe and one bare foot.  In the next scene, I specifically looked at her feet, and she had two shoes on, so she must have put on another pair from home.

Miguel idolizes a local hero - Ernesto de la Cruz, a famous musician and actor who was tragically killed when a giant bell fell on him onstage.

It's Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), when families put up pictures of dead relatives and offerings of their favorite food and other things so that the relatives can come and have a pleasant visit.  On this fateful day, Miguel discovers that he's related to Ernesto - Ernesto is Coco's father!  Miguel is more determined than ever to participate in the singing contest, but when Abuelita hears about it, she's so infuriated that she smashes the guitar that Miguel has made himself.  Miguel can't join the contest if he doesn't have a guitar.  After futile attempts to borrow one, he gets an idea - there's a guitar in Ernesto's mausoleum, so he decides to borrow the guitar just for the contest.  Kid, stealing things from someone's mausoleum is not a good idea, even if you think of it as "borrowing", and even if it's family.  Miguel retrieves the hallowed guitar and gives it a strum, and the leaves are illuminated and flutter.  Miguel then hears people outside say that someone is inside and trying to steal things.  Miguel prepares himself for the confrontation ... when people literally walk right through him and don't know that he's there.

Apparently, the strum on the guitar has now made him invisible to the living but visible to the dead, and he can see them too.  Not sure who was more startled, him or them.  He sees all the people crossing the bridge to visit their loved ones in the land of the living, but there's a catch - you can only cross over if someone puts a picture up of you.  The person is scanned, and if there's a matching picture put up, they can go through.  If not, they're turned away.  It reminded me a little of the entrance turnstiles at Disneyland, where they scan your admission media to find out if you're allowed to enter that park on that day.

Miguel decides to track down his great, great grandfather Ernesto, and street dog Dante decides to follow him.  OK, I knew there was a dog in this movie, but I didn't know he was just a random stray.  And why is Dante allowed to cross over when he's not dead, and he wasn't there when Miguel strummed the guitar?  Is it like a Twilight Zone thing where dogs can sense evil, so they can go anywhere, and they provide protection and guidance for their masters?

Miguel meets Hector, who asks Miguel to put his picture up when he returns to the land of the living so that Hector can visit his girl.  Hector says that he knows Ernesto and can help him.  They eventually have a falling out, and Miguel sets out on his own with Dante.

I can't remember where they were, but random dude says that he's allergic to dogs.  Miguel points out that Dante has no hair.  Random dude:  "And I have no nose, and yet, here we are."  I busted out laughing at that line.

Imelda has a spirit animal named Pepita that's kind of like a ginormous mountain lion with even ginormouser wings.  He soars and plays fetch pretty well as he goes in search of Miguel, who has run away because Imelda insists that he promise not to be involved with music anymore, and none of the rest of the family is willing to go against her.  In order for Miguel to return to the land of the living, he must have a family member give their blessing before midnight.  (Are you not supposed to feed him after midnight also?)  Miguel refuses to accept Imelda's no-music restriction and decides to look for Ernesto instead, since he's sure Ernesto will give him his blessing with the music restriction

Some mariachi band somewhere is playing, and I'm thinking, how can they play brass when they have no lungs?

Miguel eventually finds Ernesto.  Ernesto's spirit animals looked like multi-colored gremlin to me.  Not Spike-gremlin, but Mogwai gremlin.  (Hmmm, gremlins, midnight deadlines.)  Miguel tells Ernesto that he's his great, great grandson, and Ernesto shows him off at various events.  Eventually, it's time for Miguel to return home, so Ernesto gives his blessing and ends it with "I hope you die very soon", which would normally seem like a terrible thing to say to someone, but in this case, it's very sweet because it means Ernesto wants to see Miguel again soon.  Awwww...

But before Miguel can return home, he's intercepted by Hector, and it turns out that Hector does indeed know Ernesto.  Hector and Ernesto used to perform together, and Hector is actually the one who wrote all of their songs, including what had become Ernesto's signature song, "Remember Me", while Ernesto has been taking credit for writing all the songs himself.  And Hector remembers what else happened.  He had decided that his family was more important to him, and he was going to give it up and return home.  Ernesto tried to talk him into staying, but to no avail.  And then he came up with an idea - a final toast with Hector.  Hector agreed, but he didn't know how final it was going to turn out to be, because Ernesto slipped a poison in Hector's drink, and after Hector died, Ernesto took all of his songs and music and went on to become super famous.  Miguel, who knows all of Ernesto's movies, is horrified when he reveals that that very same poisoning scenario was duplicated in one of Ernesto's films.

Ernesto orders his guards to remove Hector, which they do.  Miguel nervously waits, hoping Ernesto will still send him home, but Ernesto is worried about what Miguel just heard, and Ernesto will do anything to protect his reputation and his name, so he summons his guards to take care of Miguel as well.  Dude, your own great, great grandson?  Heartless.

Miguel is tossed down some giant cavernous hole, which it turns out is the same giant cavernous hole that Hector had been tossed into.  (Miguel lands in water, so I guess there's no warning about not getting him wet.) Hector laments that he's never going to see his girl, and it's only then that's it's clarified that he means his daughter.  He had hoped to see her again, if not when he could cross over, but when she eventually arrived at the land of the dead.  But, Coco's memories of him are fading (Coco is experiencing some effects of Alzheimer's), and she's the last to know him, and no one in the family was allowed to talk about him, and once no one remembers him anymore, he will even disappear from the world of the dead, and he will really never see Coco again.

At the mention of the name "Coco", Miguel is stunned.  HECTOR is Miguel's great, great grandfather, not Ernesto!  Hector talks about the song "Remember Me", and that he wrote the song for Coco, because he knew he was going to be away for a while and didn't want her to forget him.  He sang the song to her, and she'd sing it with him.  (In the footage when Coco is a little girl sitting on the edge of the bed listening to him with her little feet dangling and swinging - how cute!)

Miguel is eventually rescued by Imelda and Pepita, but she is decidely not happy to see Hector again after all these years.  She learns what actually happened to him, that he didn't just abandon his family, but while she's not ready to forgive him yet, she is willing to help him.  The picture of himself that Hector had originally given to Miguel to put up for him is now in the hands of Ernesto, and they need that picture back so that Miguel can take it back with him, with Miguel's deadline looming as well.

A whole bunch of stuff happens, and when the podium rises, it takes Imelda up into the spotlight on stage that was supposed to have taken Ernesto instead.  (As the circle she was standing on started to rise, I totally thought of "The Hunger Games", when Katniss is sent up into the arena.)  And then a miraculous thing happens.  Imelda starts to sing.  (Now that I think about it, I think she sang at a running-away Miguel earlier, but I don't remember why.)  It turns out that she used to be a singer but gave it all up as part of her banishment of music from her life and family after she thought Hector had deserted them.  Hector goes out with a guitar to join her, and then the band plays along too, and everyone is happy!  Until Ernesto takes the stage with Imelda, in an effort to retrieve Hector's picture that she now has.

A bunch of other stuff ensues that I don't remember, but as Ernesto is about to confirm to Miguel that he (Ernesto) did poison Hector and that he (Ernesto) did then steal his (Hector) songs and go on a diatribe about how he's willing to do anything to keep what he has, no matter what, someone turns on the microphones, so all of his secrets are out as the audience hears his confession.  And they are not in a forgiving mood.  Something happens, and Ernesto ends up getting a bell dropped on him again.

They weren't able to retrieve Hector's picture, and Hector is about to fade away, but Miguel's time is up.  He has to go back to the land of the living or be stuck in the land of the dead forever.  Imelda gives her blessing with no conditions, and after Miguel wakes up back in Ernesto's mausoleum, he races home.  The rest of his family tries to stop him, but he makes his way to his great grandmother Coco, and he tries to get her to remember Hector.  Coco is non-responsive to his pleas, so Miguel starts to play and sing "Remember Me" and reminds her that her dad used to play this for her.  And soon, Coco is smiling and singing with Miguel.  She then takes out something and gives it to Miguel - it's the piece of the picture that was ripped off that had Hector's face.  Miguel holds it up with the entire picture, and the family picture is complete.

And the next year, everyone is able to cross over from the land of the dead to the land of the living.  And Imelda and Hector are together again.  Even Dante and Pepita come back, and Pepita turns out to be a regular cat.  So they both have dual lives, regular animals in the land of the living and spirit animals in the land of the dead?

Overall, I enjoyed this movie.  I'm not sure what they could have done with the advertising that would have gotten me interested enough to see the movie in the first place, though.  I did like that they gavve you part of the story in the trailer, but that turns out to not be the real story.  Oh, and the husband actually figured out ahead of the reveal that Hector was the great, great grandfather, not Ernesto.  He said that when Ernesto gave Miguel his blessing, the leaf didn't glow like when other people did it, which it wouldn't have since they weren't really related.  I'll have to look for that next time.

So since Hector kept pretending to be Frida Kahlo, I was thinking she better show up at some point, and she did!  Yay!

Ernesto is a jerk.  Like seriously, he's an asshole.  But I like Benjamin Bratt, so conflicted feelings

I wasn't too keen on Abuelita either.  She was bossy and much too overbearing.  I was so mad at her when she broke Miguel's guitar.  She had no right!

"The Great Mouse Detective" - Disney animated film review

The Disney animated movie that I watched for the first time last week was "The Great Mouse Detective".

Back to movies I knew nothing about ahead of time.  Hmmm, Disney movie starring a mouse.  It's not Mickey, is it?  Nope, not Mickey.  Minnie?  Yeah, not likely if the mouse is a detective, especially back then.

And two of the four directors credited on this picture are the ones who directed "The Princess and the Frog", the movie I saw last week.  How weird is that?  Nope, not planned that way.

Awww, little girl mouse named Olivia.  She has a British accent but she also had some affectation I couldn't pinpoint.  Or maybe it's just that she's young, and youngsters don't pronounce everything the same as adults.  And then something terrible happens..  Her dad, Hiram Flaversham the toymaker, is attacked by a bat and then goes missing.  Well, this sounds like a case for a detective!

Poor little crying Olivia is found by Dr. Dawson, who just retired from working for the Queen.  She tells him what happened, and they go in search of Basil of Baker Street.

Dawson and Olivia arrive at 221 Baker Street and knock on the little door.  It looked like the address was 221s, but I couldn't see it clearly enough.  The husband is the one who recognized the silhouette upstairs playing the violin as being Sherlock Holmes.  The husband also recognized the address as Holmes'.  Ahhh, so this is going to be a sort of mouse version of Sherlock Holmes.  OK, that makes sense.  (I asked the husband, and he said the movie title did not make him presume that this is what it was going to be about.  OK, so it's not just me.)  So tall, skinny Basil is supposed to be Holmes, and more rotund Dr. Dawson is supposed to be Watson.  Got it.  (For some reason, I find myself wondering if there's a Muppet version of the Holmes story.  In my head, I'm seeing Kermit with Holmes' hat, but I don't know if I've actually seen that picture or if I'm just making it up.  Yeah, I know, I can look it up, but I'm just musing.)

While Basil is not interested in talking to Olivia at first (Did Holmes have an aversion to children?), Dawson convinces him to listen, and Basil is much more interested once he hears about the bat that attacked Flaversham.  (I noticed that Basil is left-handed.  Was Holmes left-handed?) Basil says it must have been Fidget, the bat with a peg leg.  Bat with a peg leg.  Didn't see that coming.  Someone needs to cosplay that at D23 Expo next year.

Basil goes on to say that Fidget works for Professor Ratigan, Basil's archenemy, who Basil has been after for quite some time.  Ratigan had Fidget (every time I type his name, I want to type "Figment" - mash-up cosplay?) kidnap Flaversham because Ratigan wants him to work on a secret project for Ratigan, some kind of robot thing.  Ratigan wants to be supreme leader of all mousedom.  I liked that title.  Ratigan can put that on a business card:

Supreme Leader of
ALL MOUSEDOM

And Ratigan sings!  I did not expect that.  And we find out that Ratigan has one trigger point.  He hates being referred to as a rat, even though that's what he is, and even though his minion mice refer to him as a big mouse.  (BTW, what was up with the ONE lizard minion amongst them?) The drunken mouse who refers to him as a rat has serious consequences - Ratigan feeds him to Felicia, his ginormous cat.  OK, now that I think about it, Felicia isn't really ginormous.  She just looks ginormous in relative size to Ratigan and the mice.  Speaking of looks, Felicia seemed like a cross between Lucifer from "Cinderella" and Marie from "The Aristocats".

Meanwhile, Basil has figured out where they need to go, and he takes Dawson and Olivia upstairs to meet Toby the bassett hound, who I'm guessing is supposed to be Holmes' dog.  (Did Holmes have a dog?  Have you gotten the idea yet that I kept wondering if the info about Holmes was "true"?)

I don't remember now who was offering them cheese crumpets, but Olivia seemed to really like those, and when she was stuffing them in her pockets, it reminded me of Meeko the raccoon from "Pocahontas" when John Smith was dropping biscuits.

Basil brought Toby to sniff out Fidget.  Meanwhile, Basil instructs Dawson to keep an eye on Olivia, but like not-Peter-Pan in "The Black Cauldron" with Piggie, Dawson has one job and fails, as Olivia is lured away by a toy Dumbo (!) that blows bubbles.  A giant fight ensues because Fidget has a laundry list of "honey-dos" from Ratigan, and next on the list is to kidnap Olivia, and toys are attacking Basil and Dawson as they try to get to Olivia.  At one point, this giant doll (again, probably not giant, just in perspective in relation to the mice) crashes down, and she reminded me of Gabby Gabby from "Toy Story 4".

Fidget escapes with Olivia and brings her to Ratigan, who instructs him to put Olivia in a bottle as a prison.  Fidget puts a cork in the opening, and I'm thinking, she's gonna suffocate!  Fidget makes the mistake of telling Ratigan that Basil was trying to intercept Olivia, and Ratigan gets so mad that he tries to feed Fidget to Felicia, but it doesn't take, and Felicia is cheated of a snack.  Ratigan allows Flaversham to see Olivia, but the reunion is short-lived because Ratigan is using Olivia as leverage to get a defiant Flaversham to continue the work that Ratigan wants him to do.  Flaversham complies.

Dawson finds the honey-do list that Fidget dropped, and Basil figures out that it belonged to Fidget and tries to figure out where Ratigan's hideout is.  As Basil is inspecting and tasting the list and talking about the composition of the paper, I was totally thinking of Goren from "Law and Order:  Criminal Intent".  Goren, I mean, Basil figures out that the note has come from the docks, so he and Dawson head there and wander into a pub, dressed with disguises.  Dawson looked to me like Smee from "Peter Pan", though his colors weren't the same.

They sit and the Moulin-Rouge-esque show starts, with Miss Kitty Mouse doing her show-stopping song.  The hardened pub patrons melt at the sound of her voice.  I thought she was dressed much more risque, with feathers and a garter, than I normally expect from Disney films.

Musical interlude over, Basil and Dawson follow Fidget to Ratigan's lair, which looks like it's inside a beer keg.  But it turns out that they've walked into a trap, as they are greeted by a banner and confetti (Disney confetti usually means the show is over, but not in this case.) to welcome them.

I forget what happens at this point, but eventually, we find out that it's the Queen's jubilee, celebrating her 60 years of queendom.  (I had started to realize that things in this film were a lot like in "The Rescuers", where there are mouse equivalents to their human counterparts.)

We then find out what dad was working on - a robot of the Queen, kind of like a Stepford version.  The plan is for Stepford Queen to take the real queen's place, and then Ratigan is announced as the Queen's consort, and now, Ratigan is in charge.  (Fidget wearing Mary Poppins' hat!)

But, here comes the cavalry.  Toby arrives to chase after Felicia as she was menacing Basil.  (And with seeing Felicia in proportion with Toby, Felicia is indeed a big cat, but she's not ginormous.)  Basil liberates Flaversham (even though Basil can't pronounce that name to save his life, which is a running joke throughout the film as he's talking to Olivia) from Ratigan's minions, and Flaversham makes Stepford Queen turn on Ratigan and announce all of Ratigan's dastardly misdeeds, and then Stepford Queen destructs in the time-honored tradition of Stepford women.

It's not over yet though, as Ratigan makes off with Olivia again, and a blimp / balloon chase ensues high over London.  Chase, chase, other stuff happened, they crashed into Big Ben (neither Peter Pan nor not-Peter-Pan were standing on the hands of the clock face), they save Olivia and Basil does not in fact plunge to his doom but ends up pedaling himself to safety.  (As he was falling, the husband called that.)  I don't remember what happened to Ratigan.  I think Fidget found a female bat?  I can't remember that either.

I enjoyed the film but likely won't see it again as I'm not really into the Holmes thing.  I don't know if a Holmes fan would like or hate this film.  (Even though I'm not into Holmes, I did enjoy the film "Young Sherlock Holmes", though I heard that lots of Holmes fans hated it because it didn't stick to canon.  Pretty sure they weren't trying to be canon, but hey, not my fight.)  I liked Olivia.  Fidget reminded me of Bartok from "Anastasia".

Vincent Price as Ratigan was a riot to listen to.  I so wanted to see the footage of him in the recording studio.  You could see him chewing the scenery even though you couldn't see him!  And he even did his own singing.  Actual singing, not just reciting, like he did for "Thriller".

While I thought Miss Kitty Mouse was just ok, I did really like her song, and I thought whomever sang it was fantastic.  And then I found out that it was sung by Melissa Manchester, who I like.  Well, of course, I liked her song.

I don't know if the name Basil was simply taken from the book which was the inspiration for this movie, or because it was in honor of Basil Rathbone, who was famous for playing Sherlock Holmes in films.  Or maybe the book picked that name to honor him.  In any case, I choose to believe that they were paying tribute to Rathbone because that would be cool.

The End