Ever think you knew what a film was all about before you actually even saw it? Thanks to trailers giving away way too much these days- looking at you, Pet Sematary; way to give away your big (and probably only major) twist- a lot of people understandably feel that way, leaving many feeling like they've already seen a movie before they've actually seen it for real. For that reason, many people, myself included, have started avoiding movie trailers like the plague and I completely get why.
Widows was one such example for me. I thought it was a thinly-veiled reinterpretation of a TV-movie/miniseries that I saw a while back, in which a group of ladies whose husbands were mob-affiliated found themselves widowed at relatively early ages and had to step up and assume the respective positions of their husbands or risk losing it all. I think it was called something like Mafia Princesses or something like that. (Mob Wives?)
Well, it turns out that Widows isn't about that at all, and shame on me for being so dismissive of it for that reason. But like I said, I blame the trailer, which I saw maybe once and was like: meh. I wasn't wrong about it being an adaptation of a previous miniseries, but it wasn't one I'd seen- it's also called Widows, and it was British, not American, unlike the one I was just referencing.
Anyway, this one is actually about a group of women whose husbands are relatively low-level crooks that take on jobs for local heavy-weights, typically of the heist variety. On one such heist, everything goes sideways, and, as you might have guessed from the title, said husbands are killed. The problem is, the person the husbands were working for, local thug and would-be politician Jamal Manning (Bryan Tyree Henry, TV's Atlanta), was counting on that money to finance his campaign to become his city's new alderman.
As such, he holds the wives responsible, particularly the wife of the team leader, Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson, taking a break from being the center of attention to let someone else take over), who seems to be the one most likely to be able to come up with his money, as she is living pretty large in comparison to the others. To that end, Jamal pays Veronica Rawlings (Viola Davis, TV's How to Get Away with Murder) a visit and gives her an ultimatum: come up with the $2 million he's owed, or he'll be back to take it from her by "liquidating" her assets in a week.
At first, Veronica, who knows the sort of thing her husband was up to, but was not in the habit of asking questions about it, has no idea what she's going to do. Then she gets wind of something her husband left behind for her: a notebook featuring details on every job he ever pulled... including one he hadn't gotten around to yet, which would land her the money she needs and then some.
To that end, she contacts the other ladies and makes them a proposition: what if they pulled the job themselves, paid off Jamal and kept the rest for themselves, dividing it up equally? At first, the women are skeptical- one of them, Amanda (Carrie Coon, TV's Fargo), doesn't even show up to the scheduled meeting and opts out of the robbery altogether.
But the rest, including Linda (Michelle Rodriguez, The Fast and the Furious series) and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki, The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) are all on-board, as they are struggling financially much more than Veronica, having been left with virtually nothing in the wake of their husbands' deaths. Linda recruits friend and babysitter Belle (Cythia Ervos, Bad Times at the El Royale) to fill the void left by Amanda, and they're off to the races.
Also figuring into the action are local politician Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell, making some decent choices lately between this and movies like The Lobster and The Killing of a Scared Deer), whom is the target of the ladies' upcoming heist and Jamal's opponent in the alderman race; Tom Mulligan (Robert Duvall, in a fiery turn), Tom's father, an old-schooler who is at odds with his son's more above-board approach to politics; Jamal's psychotic gangster brother, Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya, Get Out, in a scary, intense turn); Bash (Garrett Dillahunt, Fear the Walking Dead), Veronica's driver, who she recruits to do the same for the heist; and Alice's scheming mother, Agnieszka (Jacki Weaver, Silver Linings Playbook), who talks Alice into hooking to pay the bills left in her husband's wake!
Needless to say, that's quite a top-tier ensemble there, and it's made all the more impressive by their own team leaders, director Steven McQueen (12 Years a Slave) and co-screenwriter (along with McQueen) Gillian Flynn, hot off the critically-acclaimed adaptation of her own novel, Sharp Objects, which she also wrote.
As with that miniseries and the hugely successful Gone Girl (which she also wrote the source material for), Flynn is fascinated by complicated women who don't always do the "right" thing, which I'm completely in favor of- better that than a lot of the cliché stuff we tend to see from most Hollywood productions.
It certainly works like gangbusters here, as this film could be seen as the complete antithesis of something like Ocean's 8, which was entertaining enough, I suppose, but also considerably more fanciful than what we get here, which is a much grittier, harder-edged version of a similar kind of heist flick.
I mean, can you imagine a version of Ocean's 8 in which one of the characters hooked on the side to make ends meet? If so, it would most certainly be more Pretty Woman than what we get here, which goes from a meet-sexy to exposing the job for what it really is- yet another way for men to try to control women. (Debicki is just fantastic in the role, BTW, in her best acting turn to date, as a woman used and abused by everyone in her life that finally reaches her breaking point.)
You see that sort of thing all over Widows- men are constantly interfering, trying to control the women here, without much success, as it turns out. Flynn isn't above making one of the women, Alice's mom, arguably just as bad as the men in question- after all, it's her bright idea to have her own daughter to prostitute herself to keep a roof over their heads. That's pretty icky.
On the other hand, it's not like Alice's mom is going around capping people in cold blood, a la Jatemme- wait till you see the scene with the would-be rapper- or engaging in dirty politics, like Tom Mulligan, who can't understand why his son would want to be "clean" and is convinced it will cost him. There are also some great twists here that I won't ruin for you that expose other nasty actions by some of the other characters, male and female alike.
Had I seen it sooner, Widows almost certainly would have made my Best of the Year list a few weeks back- shame on me for having preconceived notions about what it was going to be. But that's standard operating procedure for Hollywood these days, what with all the substandard product out there that actually is cliché, so you can see where I might have made that mistake initially.
About the only complaint I have about the movie is that, strangely, it kind of gives the male characters short shrift in the end. I mean, the film is called Widows, so that makes sense, but it does sort of mishandle Henry's character, Jamal, who has some strong scenes early on- wait until you see the bit with the dog- but basically drops out of the movie altogether around about the halfway mark.
It would have been nice to see the final confrontation between him and Veronica, especially after that first one, and actually more so to see her have the upper hand this time around, instead of having left the film with his having successfully intimidated her into doing something crazy to pay him off. In other words, I'd have actually like to have seen her have the final word in that particular relationship, rather than needing closure for his character, per se.
Granted, the film is already over two hours long, but a short scene with those two would have been welcome, and perhaps one with Colin Farrell's character as well, given that we never see his reaction to what goes down in the end, either, and given all that happens, it would have been nice to see a brief scene of his response to everything.
But that's a small quibble, to be sure, and it's much more important that the main characters, which is to say, the widows of the title, do get nice moments of closure at the end. Besides, how many times have you seen a more male-centric film that didn't give the ladies in it a final moment to themselves, either? It's hard to complain when that sort of thing has happened so often with women in film, but rarely has the shoe been on the other foot. Or the high heel, in this case. So, yeah, a minor complaint at best.
Instead, see this for the strong performances, especially from the ladies- though, make no mistake, the guys all have their moments, too- and the excellent script from McQueen and Flynn, as well as some unique cinematography from Sean Bobbitt (The Place Beyond the Pines, Oldboy) that frames things in unexpected ways that's sort of hard to describe.
For instance, there's a scene in which Colin Farrell's character is rushing from a press conference back to his home after being harassed by a reporter where we hear him complaining to his underling, but the scene is staged completely from the outside of the car- we never see inside it.
It's meant to show how, even though the distance from the location of the conference to the character's house is short, the divide between the politician and his constituents couldn't be further- nor the living conditions. It's a very clever gambit that I don't recall ever seeing before, and it really worked for me. McQueen and Bobbitt take a similar approach to the heist that begins the film, which is also shot in a unique way- mostly from the back of the getaway van, which is very cool.
Like I said, it's hard to explain, but you'll get what they were going for when you see it for yourself- and you really should. Indeed, I hate I didn't see this one sooner, as it would have been a shoe-in for my Top Ten films of the year. As it stands, it should be a front-runner for films you see next, that's for sure, especially if you like left-of-center action/heist films. Like I said, Ocean's 8 this ain't- it's so much better than that, and I didn't mind that film.
Whatever the case, it's well-worth seeing, and I'd be hard-pressed to name much more in the way of negative things to say about it than the one I mentioned, and that was a minor complaint at best. As such, it's a must-see from me, and should go on the top of your list, especially if you dig a good heist flick. Check it out, by all means. 😃
The latest attempt to reinvent the "possession" film, a la The Possession or The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Possession of Hannah Grace isn't nearly as entertaining and/or groundbreaking as either of those films, but it does bring a sort of Sam Raimi-esque Evil Dead-style approach to the table, only nowhere near as good as that series. What it does bring to the table is a somewhat novel concept overall.
For instance, here, the patented exorcism scene occurs in the first five minutes or so, and, as you might guess, it fails miserably, or we wouldn't have a movie in the first place. Fast-forward three months and we meet our main heroine, Megan Reed (former Pretty Little Liar Shay Mitchell), a troubled former cop who went off the deep end after a tragic occurrence on the job led her to drugs and drink, eventually leading to her dismissal.
It also resulted in the end of her relationship with fellow police officer, Andrew Kurtz (Grey Damon, Station 19), who we see picking up the rest of his things from the apartment they once shared at the beginning of the movie. In the meantime, Megan has gotten herself clean, with the help of AA, where she met fellow addict and nurse, Lisa Roberts (Stana Katic, Castle), who helped her get a new job at the local hospital as a morgue attendant on the graveyard shift.
This being a horror movie and all, it naturally isn't long until things go off the rails, beginning with the appearance of an irate, seemingly homeless man demanding to be let into the morgue after hours, which Megan naturally refuses. However, soon after that, a goofy paramedic (stand-up comedian Nick Thune, Venom) arrives and asks for help bringing in a body, leading Megan to take her eye off the ball- guess what happens?
The creepy guy turns out to be the least of her worries, though, as the corpse the paramedic dropped off is none other than the titular Hannah Grace (Kirby Johnson, a former gymnast/dancer and contortionist, who does a lot of her own stunts, save the obvious CGI-aided effects). It seems that Grace is dead...but only to a certain extent.
When Megan cuts herself and the blood drops on Hannah's seemingly lifeless body, it triggers her awakening and it isn't long before the bodies start to pile up. But hey- they're in a morgue, conveniently enough, so, you know, the victims don't have far to go. That's helpful, at least.
Kudos to the film for at least trying something new, even if it isn't as radical as Emily Rose, which grafted a courtroom drama into the mix, or as ambitious as the recent, underrated The Exorcist TV series. This one adopts the more time-honored limited setting gambit, but what a setting- the morgue looks fantastic, and the director's idea to use those motion-detected lights was a good one- note that some of them form the sign of the cross, wink wink. 😉 (See the poster at the top of the article.)
But for a low budget horror flick- the budget was in the $6-8 million range, and it grossed around $43 million worldwide, which is not too shabby- it looks great, which is all the more impressive considering the film was shot on a relatively cheap $2000 consumer camera. (Director Steven Soderburgh pulled off an even more impressive feat when he shot Unsane on a freaking iPhone!)
I'm not gonna lie, though, as a former PLL fan, it took some doing to buy Shay Mitchell as a morgue attendant, much less a cop. Although in her early thirties, remarkably enough, she still could pass for a teenager. I mean, don't get me wrong, she's decent in the role. She just looks way too young for the part, quite frankly, albeit extremely easy on the eyes and certainly likable. Perhaps those unfamiliar with the show won't have such preconceived notions getting in their way.
Incidentally, and perhaps not unsurprisingly, given the show they came from, Mitchell is the fourth of her fellow PLL stars to headline a horror flick, with Lucy Hale doing the honors for Truth or Dare, Troian Bellisario starring in the remake of Martyrs, and another erstwhile Hannah, Amber Benson landing the lead in the decent computer screen thriller Ratter. In the battle of the former liars gone Scream Queen, Hale has emerged the victor, with TOD raking in an impressive $95 million on a measly $3.5 million budget, but Mitchell landed herself a solid second place with this one.
All in all, it's not a bad little horror flick, but sadly, the director, Diederik van Rooijen, relies a little too heavily on standard jump-scares instead of trusting the source material to do the heavy lifting for him. The script, by screenwriter Brian Sieve- who also wrote for MTV's Scream: The Series and Teen Wolf- isn't bad, and I get the sense that it would have worked just fine without all the obvious scares, thanks to a bravura turn from Johnson, who contorts her body into some cringe-inducing positions throughout the film, with only occasional CGI-abetted shots that are pretty readily apparent.
But one also gets the sense that the director (who rewrote the script along the way) and perhaps the studio wanted a more conventional horror flick, so that's exactly what we end up with in the end. When are studios going to get that horror fans respond better to more straight-forward material? Probably when mediocre films like this stop making big bucks at the box office. Even then, I'm not sure there's any end in sight to the jump-scare crutch.
Fortunately, there are still filmmakers out there at least trying to do something different, from the warped black comedy of Thoroughbreds to the ambitious ghost story Hereditary, so it's not all bad news. Horror remains one of the quickest ways to turn a fast buck, so as long as that remains the case, they'll keep making them, and every now and then, someone will get one right.
The Possession of Hannah Grace isn't great, but it gets the job done, I suppose, and the cast is decent. I just wish it had the courage of its convictions, and trusted the source material to deliver the goods, instead of falling back on tired jump scares. It has creepy atmosphere to spare, and that morgue location does half the job for the filmmakers, honestly. It manages to be both sterile and modern and freaky and overwhelming all at once.
I will give credit where its due for the director's clever motion-detector lights idea, though Lights Out ultimately makes better use of it. And Johnson does her best to sell her character, contorting her body in admittedly ick-inducing ways throughout the film that make for a worthy addition to the possession victim canon.
But yeah, too much reliance on modern horror cliches don't help matters, unfortunately, leaving this film as sterile as the hospital environment more often than not. And naturally, the film can't resist leaving the door open a crack for a sequel- though, to be fair, it could be interesting, if handled well. Oddly, there's a new trend of sequels often ending up being better than the originals as of late- witness the second installments of Annabelle and Ouija, both of which are far superior to their predecessors- so you never know.
Overall, though, I can't recommend this one much more than as a decent time-waster that will likely be all but forgotten in a few years, save maybe by Mitchell fans, of which there are admittedly quite a few. Beyond that, it's strictly meh-inducing from this horror fan. Better luck next possession! 😈
Writer's Note: Had a thing this Tuesday that couldn't be avoided. Back on schedule now. I have a few more new reviews to do and I'll be all caught up with the stuff I've watched over the last few months, then it'll be back (mostly) to reviews of older stuff, with the occasional new review here and there. I also have my next franchise review already picked out, which ties in nicely with a new streaming series- hence my picking it.
I also have Netflix back for the first time in a while (years, actually), so I'll be playing catch-up there, particularly in regards to their shows and original content, with the occasional new review of something I watched there as well, starting with this review!
When I was a kid, I just loved "Choose Your Own Adventure" books. Remember those? For those unfamiliar, they were "interactive" books in which, you, the reader, helped control the narrative by, every so often, choosing from a selection of given choices to propel the story forward. Choose wisely, and you could earn yourself a happy ending. Choose poorly, and you could end up dead.
Basically, it was sort of the whole "Lady, or the Tiger?" story where you did the choosing, only this time, stuff actually happened as a result of that choice, rather than leaving things up to one's imagination. Of course, the "free will" offered up in such stories was a bit of an illusion, as there were only so many choices one could make (or that one was given, for that matter), and all of them were predetermined by the author, with only one given outcome for each choice possible.
In the latest episode of Black Mirror, entitled Bandersnatch, series creator Charlie Booker undergoes his most ambitious narrative yet, tackling precisely such an interactive story, only this time, done as a movie, in which the viewer (or viewers, as the case may be) encounters a series of choices along the way that determine which route the story will take. For instance, at one point, you choose between two types of cereal to eat. At another, you choose between two Tangerine Dream albums at the record store. And so on.
These seemingly innocuous choices can lead to happiness for the main character, but just like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, more often they lead to death or some other such twisted fate. This is Black Mirror, after all, so truly happy endings are in short supply, anyway- San Juniper is the only one that comes to mind, though more than a few have an ending that delivers a twisted justice to those who have been wronged, which is a sort of happy ending in Black Mirror-land, I guess (i.e. Black Museum).
On an amusing side note, the company behind the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books sued Netflix for "tarnishing their brand," lol. To be fair, not only were those books the first thing I thought of when I heard about the premise, but I seem to recall a character even mentioning it within the film itself, so they may have a point there.
According to an article I read, the company in question, Chooseco, LLC, has been actively pursuing a similar type of movie/series for years now, and Netflix not only knew about it, but even went so far as to try and license the rights for themselves, unsuccessfully, so Chooseco may have them dead to rights, there, especially after sending them a "cease and desist" letter after finding out Netflix were moving forward on their project anyway. I also remember a similar type of thing with a videotape-driven Clue game when I was a kid- not sure if they got sued as well.
Anyway, whatever the case, it really is a neat idea, and if the execution has its flaws, kudos for trying to do something different. Here, the issue is that, in order to get to "new" choices, or redo older ones, the viewer pretty much has to repeat certain sequences all over again, which can become annoying AF, especially once you've seen certain scenes more than a few times. On the plus side, Netflix does remember your choices and offer you the chance to go back and try another, but it does reset if you start the entire film again, so there's that.
While this sort of thing can be fun in a movie like Groundhog Day or the Happy Death Day series, there the choice is out of your hands, so you don't really have to do anything, and there are enough differences to make it a "new" experience each time its repeated, which helps the recurring sequences to be more tolerable. Here, you just have to re-watch the same exact thing over and over again to get to the alternative footage, which can be a chore.
To that end, if even the thought of re-watching the same stuff over and over again sounds annoying to you, then I highly recommend the "feature" version, in which a healthy dose of the choices are selected from and presented as a non-"playable" movie, as in the choices are made for you, and you can just sit back and watch many of the potential endings and various events that occur from making a specific choice without actually doing anything.
You will still have to re-watch certain scenes, but you get a lot of the best scenes and endings without having to lift a finger, so there's that. Also, the film version kind of blares through the repeated stuff for you as well, while still amusingly repeating certain elements, almost in a "stuck in a loop" fashion, a la a "gif," to hammer home where the divergence occurs and the choice would be made if you were watching the "playable" version.
As for the story, it revolves around a teen that, inspired by, you guessed it, a "Choose You Own Adventure"-style book by the name of Bandersnatch- hence the title- decides to put together a computer game based on it. "Bandersnatch" is an allusion to a fictional creature created by author Lewis Carroll, of Alice in Wonderland fame, which also informed another "choice"-based adventure, The Matrix- remember the whole "red pill or blue pill" thing?
The Bandersnatch crops up in a number of Carroll's works, notably the Alice sequel, Through the Looking Glass, which figures into the premise here. In one of the pathways you can go down, the main teen literally does just that- goes through a mirror into an alternate reality, albeit his own, but in the past, ostensibly to "change" things that didn't turn out too well the first time around, not unlike the classic cult film Donnie Darko. I'll leave it to you to find out if he succeeds.
Like that film, this one is set in the past, in this case, 1984, a few years before Darko. At this time, computer games were still in their relative infancy, so programmers were still working out the bugs, to say nothing of the wonky graphics. As you might guess, this leads to a lot of retro goodness, so if you're a fan of 8-bit games, you're in for a treat.
Ditto if you love 80's-era music. The soundtrack features- along with the aforementioned Tangerine Dream, who figure prominently into the narrative- stuff like The Thompson Twins, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Depeche Mode, Kajagoogoo, Eurythmics and XTC.
The fun begins in earnest when, after landing a deal to make his video-game a reality, the teen in question, Stefan (Fionn Whitehead, of Dunkirk) begins to go down the rabbit hole of his own mind, and loses touch with reality as he gets deeper into the world of the game which he created and the problems that arise in his trying to perfect it.
As you might guess, this leads to concern from his father (Craig Parkinson, Misfits), who worriedly forces Stefan to regularly visit a psychiatrist, Dr. R. Haynes (Alice Lowe, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, which is probably what helped her land this role, as there are certain similarities between this and that show).
In addition, there's pressure from his employer, Mohan Thakur (Asim Chaudhry, People Just Do Nothing), and encouragement that may or may not be self-serving from fellow game programmer, Colin Ritman (Will Poulter, The Maze Runner series), who has some interesting ideas for how Stefan can loosen up and crack the code of the game- to say nothing of life. Colin is sort of the "Morpheus" of the film, one could say.
I won't spoil anything from there, except to say that, in patented Black Mirror style, things get mighty dark along the way, and, depending on what paths in the road you choose, so to speak, they can be deadly... or even amusingly meta. Wait until you come across the Netflix "option"- you'll see. Another meta-pathway kind of reminded me of a similar gambit in the recent Romanoffs mini-series.
I'm not sure there's truly a happy ending here, no matter what route you take, but some of the endings are more clever than others, that's for sure. I also dug the one that brings things to present day, involving another game programmer working on a similar type game, leaving open the possibility of a follow-up in the future. Others involve murder, suicide, and/or prison time for our main character, and there are a few dead ends that really lead nowhere. There's maybe 10-12 endings in all.
I suppose how much you enjoy this depends on your own attachment, or lack thereof, to the whole "Choose Your Own Adventure" thing, or perhaps to old-school video-games. That, and your level of patience when it comes to the approach. Like I said, if you get bored, there's always the "feature" option, which takes the whole choice-making thing out of your hands for you.
Also of note to Black Mirror fans is the presence, as ever, of Easter Eggs within the film alluding to previous episodes. Some are obvious- the recurring symbol from White Bear, for instance, and the "Saint Juniper" clinic, where Stefan visits his psychiatrist, a clear nod to San Junipero- while others are more hidden. Keep an eye out for newspaper headlines, for instance, and the titles of some of the video-games shown, as well as TV news reports. Apparently, there are references to upcoming episodes as well, though I can't speak to that, for obvious reasons.
I myself really enjoyed the experience on the whole, and, as a recent returnee to Netflix, it was a nice sort of "welcome back," as it were, showing that the streaming service remains a cut above the rest. It does suck that the price is going up soon, though. Hopefully, I'll be able to hold on to it for at least a few months this time before taking another break. I'm tempted to try out the upcoming Disney one whenever it comes out, though, so we'll see- I might have to make some choices of my own soon IRL as well, as it turns out. 😨
The original Wreck-It Ralph was a delightful 8-bit chunk of retro arcade goodness that did for old-school video-games what Toy Story did for action figures and dolls and (of course) old toys. That is to say, an exercise that was equal part adult-baiting nostalgia and kid-friendly Disney designed for maximum entertainment value for all ages, without forgetting to tug at the heart-strings for good measure.
While perhaps not as enthusiastically received as the Toy Story franchise- which, lest we forget, only got better over time and subsequent sequels- Ralph was nonetheless successful in its aims to win over those raised on a steady diet of video-games over the years, which is, after all, inherently more of a niche audience.
Perhaps recognizing that after the fact, the second installment, Ralph Breaks the Internet, casts its net considerably wider, this time tackling, as one might glean from the title, the World Wide Web, something with a decidedly bigger appeal than video-games on the whole, as popular as they may be amongst a certain contingent.
Just as the first film delightfully preserved a certain generation's childhood compadres in amber, not unlike a modern-day Who Framed Roger Rabbit?- see also the "live-action" (sort of) Ready Player One- so does this new film do the same with the internet, gleefully tossing in all the stuff we've become enamored with, often in patented "Easter Egg"-style, which means you sometimes have to keep one eye open at all times to catch it all.
As such, also a la the films I mentioned, this is a film that lends itself nicely to repeated viewings, as evidenced by the bonus feature that points out a mere fragment of the goodies that can be found within the film for the especially sharp-eyed viewer. You want the ever-popular "Hidden Mickeys"? You better believe they're in there. How about a tongue-in-cheek handful of references to the WWW fallen, such as Geocities and Netscape? It's in there, and depicted as part of a literal internet dumping ground, no less.
You want memes? Ralph's got 'em. Cat videos, babies and people/animals busting ass? Check, check and double check. And you better believe there's a "Rick Roll" joke, complete with star John C. Reilly warbling the famed "Never Gonna Give You Up" trolling tune. And, mind you, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
There's also plenty more video-game references- notably an extended Grand Theft Auto sequence, albeit considerably Disney-fied: here, the heroes of the game defend the cars from being stolen, they don't do the stealing themselves- although, to be fair, Vanellope does, in fact, steal a car at one point. The film also smartly casts erstwhile Fast and Furious star Gal Gadot as the leader of the car-protecting pack for good measure, in a winning turn that also finds her adeptly warbling a tune at one point.
Don't worry, musical haters, there's only the one song, and it's played more for laughs than tugging at the heart-strings- although it does a little of that, too, albeit slyly between all the goofy stuff- courtesy of none other than Disney legend Alan Menken. (If you have to ask... see here.)
That said, the song is ably reprised by Julia Michaels over the credits, along with a new song by the rock band Imagine Dragons, "Zero," both of which also get music videos, included on the DVD/Blu-Ray, along with a copious number of extras, as to be expected.
The story-line is better than the original film as well. It revolves around BFFs Ralph (Reilly) and Vanellope (comedian Sarah Silverman, born to be in cartoons, given that voice), who face an unexpected issue when the steering wheel breaks on the latter's arcade game and the arcade owner says it isn't worth fixing, as the game doesn't make enough money to warrant paying for a new one. As such, Vanellope's game is in serious danger of being shuttered for good if she and the gang don't do something about it.
The solution presents itself via a gamer at the arcade, who points out that a new steering wheel can be found on- what else? - the auction site eBay. When the arcade owner balks at paying the cited price, Vanellope and Ralph take matters into their own hands and decide to infiltrate the internet and buy the steering wheel themselves. Of course, this is easier said than done, what with their having no money and being, you know, animated characters in a video-game.
While getting into the internet itself proves to be no big, it's how to get the money that proves to be the real issue, not exactly helped by their complete ignorance of money as a concept. Indeed, it's their own fault that the price they have to pay for the wheel is so high, as they gleefully drive it up by outbidding each other (as opposed to other bidders) until the time expires, lol.
Now faced with a limited amount of time in which to come up with the money, the two turn to the shady world of J.P. Spamley (Bill Hader) - get it? - to earn some quick cash online to pay off their auction win and save the day. Along the way, Vanellope enters the new-fangled, gritty world of Slaughter Race, the aforementioned Twisted Metal/Grand Theft Auto-esque racing game, where she meets tough gal, Shank (Gadot), who is impressed by Vanellope's driving skills and invites her to "join" the game and forgo returning to the squeaky-clean world of her own game, Sugar Rush, which she has grown bored with over time.
Thus forms the crux of the movie: should Vannelope stay or should she go? If she stays, then obviously it will mean the end of her and Ralph's friendship as they know it, but if she goes, will she forever regret what could have been? The end result is a poignant exploration of friendship and what it means to cling too tightly to someone and risk losing them anyway by standing in the way of their growth as a human being. Or a video-game character, in this case, obviously, but you know what I mean.
I gotta say, this one hit me harder than I expected it to, simply because, not too long ago, I had to deal with exactly this sort of thing myself, when I graduated from University and had to part ways with many of my friends, who, up until then, I saw, or at least talked to, almost every day. I mean, I still talk to a lot of them, but, in both my moving away, as well as said friends doing the same, it was a given that we were going to see each other a lot less in the years to come, and that has indeed proven to be the case. Now, we mostly communicate via, you guessed it, the internet.
On the one hand, the internet is a godsend, because it allows us to both stay in touch and reconnect with those we've lost touch with over the years, something that was a lot tougher to do before the net was a thing. So, I suppose my generation and those younger have it a lot easier in that regard than past generations, so there's that, but I'm sure everyone watching this, even if they only have a rudimentary understanding of video-games and memes and the like, can relate to this core idea at the heart of the movie, which is where it succeeds more than its predecessor.
In addition, living up to the "breaks the internet" part of the title, the movie is filled with references that are sure to win over even the wariest of fans of this sort of thing, by which I mean, Disney flicks. To be sure, if you are a Disney fan, boy, are you in for a treat. As you've probably heard by now, the much-hyped "Princess" scenes are alone worth the price of admission, featuring a gleeful self-awareness that older Disney films don't have one iota of in retrospect.
In one delightful fast-paced exchange, after peppering Vanellope with a barrage of questions designed to test whether or not she qualifies as a Princess herself, Rapunzel ends with the following question: "Do people assume your problems got solved because a big strong man showed up?" Taken aback, Vanellope, answers with a resounding: "Yes! What is up with that?" "She IS a Princess!" shout the girls in unison, delighted. If that doesn't say it all, I don't know what does. It's official, everyone- Ralph Breaks the Internet is the first truly "woke" Disney movie.
The fun hardly stops there- the attention to detail in these scenes alone is head-spinning. Check out the Princesses' various T-shirts, for instance: Anna wears one that says "Finish Each Other's" and a picture of a sandwich- if you don't get it, talk to anyone who's seen Frozen- while The Little Mermaid's Ariel has one that declares "#shiny" and so on.
In addition, the majority of Princesses' voices are done by their original voice talent, save the older ones that are no longer with us and Mary Costa, who couldn't quite reach the voice quality of her Aurora character from back then- she's nearly 90 and the movie Sleeping Beauty was released back in 1959, so pretty understandable- but kudos for going the extra mile to get as many of the original actresses in there as possible.
As you might have heard, the clip of that scene, much less the "selfie" posted online, did indeed come close to "breaking" the internet, and it's no wonder- I'm a guy and I was charmed by it within an inch of my life. There's plenty more where that comes from, including lots of more guy-friendly stuff- lest we forget, Disney also owns the rights to Marvel (look sharp for a Stan Lee "cameo"- and an adorable "Groot" press conference is a highlight), Star Wars (lots of character cameos, as well as a cameo by the Millennium Falcon) and The Muppets.
Hell, if anything, all this sort of thing could have been the movie and I doubt I'd have complained that much, but the fact that they managed to graft a touching central story-line into all this on top of everything else is a testament to the frankly astonishing level of detail that makes Disney a cut above the rest. I mean, seriously, it's all pretty awe-inspiring, and a hell of a lot of fun, and the sort of thing that, unlike, say, something like Frozen or Moana, parents won't mind as much watching over and over without it getting on their last nerve. And did I mention there's only one song?
So, yeah, I'm not gonna lie. I really loved this one, much more that I thought I would, and I liked the original film just fine. But this one not only hit me right in the feels, the attention to detail really floored me in a big way, even more than I expected.
Kudos to Phil Johnston and Pamela Ribon for the former and the seemingly endless number of animators (the credits run a whopping thirteen minutes!) and their inventiveness for all the latter stuff. And I didn't even mention the excellent Kaiju-inspired monster towards the end of the film, which must have taken some doing (you'll see- but, in a word: wow), or the fact that the film features more characters- 434 in all- than in any previous Disney animated movie.
And trust me, there are plenty more in-jokes and pop culture references than I mentioned, from famed YouTuber cameos (the "crushed" avatar girl whose internet crashes is Colleen "Miranda Sings" Ballinger, for instance), to lots of hall-of-fame level internet memes (the screaming goat, "Can I haz?...", the hot pepper eating challenge, etc.) that are blink-and-you'll-miss-them lurking in the background. In short, this is definitely a film that both warrants and rewards multiple viewings, and by now, you all know how I feel about such films- they're a cut above the rest, in my book.
So, by all means, check this one out, even if Disney flicks aren't usually your cup of pixels. This one is savvier and cleverer than most, and is absolutely hipper than your average Disney movie, animated or otherwise. I can't recommend it enough, in fact. 😎
