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Manifest (2018)
Starts off great, takes a lot of detours, but the series finale episodes pay off nice!
If you've been watching Manifest from the beginning, you should be so glad that Netflix picked it up to give it the final season it deserved. The first season sci-fi mystery premise was strong and right up our alley, and pretty tightly scripted. Second season was good, but there were a few too many diversion/filler episodes - probably to pad out the season to the # of episodes NBC required. Third season was more of the same. Some interesting plot points and a sensational cliffhanger, but too much...when you have a disappearing plane of 191 people, that's a lot of storylines to follow.
Season 4 may have jumped the shark a bit (okay, a lot), but the finale episode was satisfying and paid off big time...raised lots of questions and discussion at our house.
One thing to know - there are callbacks in Season 4 to very small bits in the first 1-3 seasons...love that the writers tied things together, but with all the gaps between seasons, there were many times when we were asking each other, "wait...who was that again? When did that happen?" Amazing that the show was able to get back pretty much everyone they needed, even small parts, several years later!
If ever a show needed to be binged, it is this one. Just wish that every episode was as tight and relevant as the best episodes.
Jupiter's Legacy (2021)
This Is Us meets The Boys
Not familiar with the source material. But you shouldn't have to be in order for a show like this to work. It has to pay service to the fanboys and also the general public.
As a member of the general public, I like the idea of the show. I love superhero shows comedy or drama. I think this show doesn't work because there's not enough character development. A lot of the characters if not all are one-dimensional. It's very difficult to identify with them or feel for them. I like Josh Duhamel, but he isn't given much to work with as the main character of the show. The same goes even more for the rest of the ensemble cast. Another big reason this is an issue is because most of them have generally similar powers. One (which one, lol?) even states in the final episode something like "we can all fly and have super strength and stuff." Why?
As several other reviews mentioned, the time jumps are distracting. This might have worked better if the producers had focused all of...episode 3 for example, on the origin story. Again, this may be based on the structure of the comics, but it's tedious to follow abrupt time jumps when you are engaged with one story and forced into seeing the other.
I'm sorry this was canceled after one season. I think it deserved a chance to find its chops, maybe develop the characters more and at least continue the story if not conclude, sounds like they were looking to do a 40 episode run so four seasons. Maybe this will receive some kind of fan resurrection in the 11th hour?
Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)
Not a hater, but it just...doesn't do it.
I wanted to love this, I really did. I give many props for the representativeness of the cast, especially with the theme of empowering women and people of color in engineering, science and math.
Visually, this is a really good looking film. A few (not all) of the original songs are catchy, and much of the dancing is off the hook. And then, that's it.
Many of the negative reviews on here mention how the film is derivative of many other holiday films that have come before it. True, but not a deal breaker - after all, there are only so many ways to be original when compared to the 1000s of other holiday movies out there. My problems are plot, pacing, characterizations and motivations - the writing seems to be last on the list in Jingle Jangle.
Forest Whitaker is a Academy Award winner and a national treasure. He has nothing to work with here. Mr. Jangle moves from resenting his granddaughter to screaming "I love you" in the course of minutes - I felt like I had fallen asleep and missed important plot points, but nope. The rest of the cast fares little better - what are their motivations? Why are the evil characters so "evil"?
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD (but c'mon, it's pretty formulaic...)
We are told through the frame story that the Jangles "didn't have any proof" about the evil deeds of Gustafson and I guess we should just accept that? Lazy writing.
There is no development of Lisa Davina Phillips' character other than her odd obsession with Jangle...the obsessed fluffy girl trope - lazy characterization.
The conflict comes almost solely from the vague threat that the bank(?) is going to foreclose(?) on him, despite the fact that his "friend" (we know this because he calls him "old friend" a couple of times) will save him, if only he can complete his astonishing invention. Lazy plotting. I wonder if THAT will happen.
Speaking of, the astonishing invention only interacts with the characters for like 5 minutes and suddenly he's their best friend and the most important thing in their world? Or, he's just there to sell toys (look out Baby Yoda!)
Everything that happens is a huge MacGuffin - it's never explained how Jangle rediscovers his power to believe. The magical math that Journey can do extends to "the square root of possible." Um. I'm not looking for "A Beautiful Mind" here, but this is so trite and meaningless that it almost undercuts the important work the film does to show that black girls and women can succeed in science and math.
And the big ending reveal that our narrator, Phylicia Rashad is...gasp...well, rather than spoiling it, how would these kids NOT have known about Jangle's toy factory - the factory of the greatest toy inventor who ever was - that happens to be across town and visible from grandma's window?
It feels like this is a big budget film that spent all its money on visuals, music, dancing, and then there was no money left to polish a script/story. It's not even particularly holiday-oriented other than the glurgy good feeling. Hey, I love glurge, and I'm all in favor of good feeling, especially around the holidays, but glurge has to be backed up with clear character development, or a real experience of something miraculous happening. Both of these are missing from Jingle Jangle.
Someone once said that the only thing more disappointing than a bad movie is a movie that could have been good.
Mr. Church (2016)
Eddie, you deserved better
It looked like a sure thing. "Driving Miss Daisy" in the 70's and 80's in California. Eddie Murphy must have jumped at the chance to be part of what seemed like surefire Oscar-bait. And the acting is not bad. Eddie Murphy is the clear standout, although he doesn't have much to work with. Natasha McElhone really classes up the first third of the movie (as you may know from the preview, she doesn't last too long). Even Britt Robertson is fun to watch, although her character is one of passivity - things happen for her and to her, there is not much that she takes an active role in. She explains in the film that after her mother was gone, she "lost her way" but it's never clear she has much of a way to begin with. Plenty of interesting characters with potential.
The real problem is the writing. None of the people that we meet are fleshed out fully and are end up tropes of people we've seen before. Dying Cancer Mom. Independent Daughter Who Never Knew She Needed a Dad. "Magical Negro." Mr. Church's life and motivations are a mystery, never even fully resolved at the end of the film - why? The film hints toward the beginning about some great reveal as to why Mr. Church has come to live with Marie and Charlie, but there is never any satisfying payoff. The narration from Robertson's character is annoying to the point of distraction at points in the film, bless her for not laughing her way through hackneyed narrative like "my mother was the sun, Mr. Church was the moon..." Most everything is predictable and telegraphed, or sometimes plot points are telegraphed with little resolution. Mr. Church goes to that "naughty" jazz club twice a week and also somehow plays a mean jazz piano...OMG, what to make of that? Sounds like an important life choice to keep secret from the only people in your life!
This smacked of an important story about a non-traditional family, but ended up being a glurgy mess.
Junebug (2005)
Better than average, but falls far short of fantastic
I can see from reading other reviews that people either loved this film or hated it. I do think that many of the people who gave this 1 star really missed the point...this is not a film about Southerners being "dumb," "slow" or "backward", it is about what it feels like to be an outsider.
******** MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ********** George & Madeline are both outsiders. Madeline is the clear fish out of water, and I give this director and writer props for NOT making the culture clash over-the-top. If anything, it is clear that the hosts have the upper hand in nearly every situation, and Madeline is trying her best to be a gracious guest...it is the small moments of discomfort that really hit home (ever called your host by the wrong name? Or broken something at the home of someone you are trying to impress? Awkward!). It would have been a cheap sitcom sell out to show Madeline practicing yoga on the dining room table, and a worse one to have Johnny become enlightened and join her. If this movie starred Will Ferrell, it would have included a montage of the whole family doing yoga at the middle of the third act.
As for George, even though he is in his natural habitat, his need to escape is painfully evident as there is barely a scene where he is in the house when he is not sleeping -- most of his scenes take place outside the house. His hometown is like kryptonite to the person George wants to be. That doesn't make him a bad (or a good) person, just an outsider.
I think these characters are more complex than casual viewers give them credit for. Clearly there are a lot of things that are not completely spelled out, such as reasons for the tension between George & Johnny that finally boils over (though the golden boy/kid brother archetypes are blatantly obvious). A few posters wrote in their comments that "nothing really changed" which is patently untrue. Nearly every character changed, but subtly, and not in a big fat Hollywood juxtaposition like the end of a 1980's sitcom.
*********************** SPOILERS BE HERE ************************* This subtlety is part of what makes this movie good. I think a few posters also missed that the "outsider art" subplot was intentionally ironic and a parody of the other "artists" in the film. Dad Eugene carves realistic wooden birds. Mama Peg "does arts and crafts". George sings hymns in 3 part harmony. Good, solid things that are what they are, are pretty, and don't require interpretation (get it?). The director and writer wanted to contrast this with the most off the wall thing they could think of to counter the subtlety of the Johnston family. And it works: the homo-erotic, racist(?), Civil War dioramas full of half-understood religious iconography and their "touched" artist come off being more sad than disturbing (all right, a LITTLE disturbing). This wouldn't have worked if the outsider artist had been a flaming cross-dresser, or a one armed old black man who paints with his toes or a similarly blatant sitcom cliché.
************************* BIG OL' SPOILER ************************** One place where I have to fault this movie is the hypocrisy of George (which may be one of the faults he refers to near the end of the film). As others have noted, he is clearly ready to leave town as soon as he arrives, yet he lambastes his new wife for not choosing to be with her sister in law when the baby comes. George is there for Ashley, but then he abruptly leaves (without getting her the peanuts she wanted!) without ceremony as if there are important art deals he and Madeline MUST get back to. They drove, for god's sake! Can't they take an extra day? At least stop by the hospital so Madeline can say goodbye to the young woman who clearly idolizes her and was the only person who showed unconditional friendship to a "stranger in this strange land?" This was one big glitch in the film that jarred me and felt like it was missing. Couple it with George's final line of the film, which was perfectly natural and great in every other way, and the leads come off looking unfairly callous instead of desperately out of place and in need of escape.
I recommend that you see this movie, or at least don't take to heart the people who gave it 1 star...if you must "read ahead," consider the middle of the road comments that detail the good and the bad.
Mirrormask (2005)
Good, but not good enough? Well, it's no Labyrinth!
I was attracted to MirrorMask because I do love the film Labyrinth. I actually first heard about MM on IMDb when I was reading some of the Labyrinth discussion boards. I saw a lot of "if you liked Labyrinth, then you should see this!" Likewise, MANY of the reviews on this board mention how like MirrorMask is to other Henson films. Now I will start by saying that it is not really fair to compare any film against any other...each should stand as its own piece of work. But it would be impossible not to compare MM with similar films of the Henson fantasy genre, especially Labyrinth. So this review is focused on why Labyrinth was the better film.
Before I begin, let me say that I mostly love Neil Gaiman, though I must admit sometimes he annoys with unintended(?) pretentiousness. And of course I love Henson, god rest his soul. And though I really love the movie Labyrinth on many different levels, I'll be the first to admit it is not the world's greatest film, and that not everyone loves it. Maybe this review is for those of you who did love it, and wonder if you should see MirrorMask, or why so many who liked Labyrinth did not like MirrorMask as much. With all that said...
First, the plots are very similar. The problem with MirrorMask is that while Sarah (in Labyrinth) makes some real and metaphorical changes throughout the film, Helena (in MirrorMask) doesn't really appear to change, other than the way she changes as the events of the film act upon her. You get the sense in Labyrinth that Sarah has changed, even though the change is still far from complete and she admits this readily at the end of the film ("sometimes...I do need you" etc.). That's REALISM, coming out of a fantasy world. I love it when everything is NOT just tied up in a neat bow, even though you may have slayed the dragon. For Helena, she hates the circus, she wishes her mom dead, her mom gets sick, her mom gets better and now everything is back to normal and she loves the circus (all it takes is one weird dream in sepia tone)! Sarah goes on a journey. The Labyrinth is very linear in that she is progressing forward -- or at least progressing. She has a goal in saving Toby, but she is not sure whether she can achieve it. The journey itself is the important part, along with all the self-discovery that occurs during her journey. Helena is also on a journey, with a goal, but there was not any clear progression. She just sort of jumped around from one strange iconic metaphor to the next -- no clear motivation except trying to make every "stop" more trippy and surreal than the last.
I was also not concerned in the least that there was any chance Helena wouldn't reach her goal (since it was HER "dream"). Maybe the tension is more important in Labyrinth because Sarah is seeking something she mistakenly gave away (and that wasn't hers), instantly regretting it. Helena is seeking something she knows and cares nothing about, other than its power to save the Light Queen and get her home -- and this is before she seems to have any more than a vague idea that the Light Queen is a metaphor for her mother, even though the rest of us knew that from square one.
The metaphors in Labyrinth are subtle. I'm still ruminating on them, even as an adult (kids undoubtedly miss many of them, and that may be a good thing). There is a ton on the net about the Freudian themes in Labyrinth and how Sarah matures in her perceptions of men. It's deep stuff, but it works as a kids' movie, too. The metaphors in MirrorMask are heavy-handed. Gosh, Helena's mom is both the Light Queen and the Dark Queen? You mean (gasp) sometimes she loves her mother and sometimes she hates her for being so controlling? Whoa! No one over the age of 9 could miss that metaphor, and really, that's all the meaning there is in this film. I mean, I didn't see any point to Valentine's character, except for exposition and comic relief. The bit players were visually spectacular in many cases (especially the Orbiting Giants) but they weren't interesting outside of the visual, because it wasn't clear what they were supposed to represent except some crazy images from inside Neil Gaiman's head (Film budget: $4 million. Wackyness allowance: $3.95 million. Hmm, doesn't leave much cash for the scriptwriters...).
There's just not enough "magic" on a kids level to make MirrorMask work, in my opinion. This is the kind of movie I might have seen as a child and said, "Wow, it looks like a lot of really cool stuff is happening, but I'm not smart enough or old enough to get it." Now, having seen it as an adult, I say, "Wow, there's a lot of really cool stuff happening, but I'm too smart and too old to get it." You see, Labyrinth works at almost every level, and MirrorMask doesn't really deliver on any level. Should you see it? I love film, so I'd say definitely yes. Just don't go into expecting miracles...even if that's what Helena is hoping for.