Entertainment

Toy Story 4 did it! It managed to continue the series’ nearly twenty-five year legacy of excellence. What could have been a disappointment or a money grab instead turned out to be a fun adventure and an even more fitting conclusion for one of the franchise’s most important characters. 

When I first saw the announcement of Toy Story 4, I was saddened because I was afraid that making a 4th movie in the franchise would tarnish the other three. Toy Story showed us what our toys do when we are out of the room, and ushered in the concept of fully CGI films. It changed the animation industry forever. Toy Story 2 was an excellent followup that explored the world of mint condition toys and toys that get outgrown by their owners. And Toy Story 3? To me, it felt like the proper end of a long era. It advanced time forward so that we saw Andy grow up. It took a fun look at the hyperactive toddlers that toys sometimes have to endure. It provided a peak at how toys might feel to be replaced by the same model. And it provided a tearful passing of the torch from Andy to the incredible cute Bonnie. Andy’s toys were safe with a new child and had another lifetime of adventure ahead of them. What more needed to be said?

Well, as positive as the Toy Story films were about the way our toys view us, the previous movies left a few dark corners unexplored. In Toy Story and Toy Story 2, we’re given the impression that lost toys and toys without a child to play with them are destined to be bitter or emotionally traumatized. Toy Story 3 showed us one way our toys can still be happy once we outgrow them. That by passing our toys down they can continue to be there for a child. But it also left open a cycle of happiness but with an ever looming sadness on the horizon. But now, Toy Story 4 has shown us that even the toys we lose track of can have happy endings. By showing us additional positive outcomes for toys without owners, Toy Story 4 earned it’s place among its predecessors.

Toy Story 4 did this by giving Woody an even better ending. I think it took a lot of effort and talent for Pixar to recognize that Woody’s story never really had a happy ending before. It wasn’t that Woody wasn’t happy to be passed down to Bonnie, he was, but was that enough for the character? I think someone must have come back to Woody’s quote from Toy Story 2 and realized that it left some little dark corner unfulfilled for the character. Near the end of Toy Story 2, Woody says, “You’re right, Prospector, I can’t stop Andy from growing up, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” This was a great decision for Woody in the moment, but even after being passed down to Bonnie, this same statement delays the inevitable for Woody. Or maybe it too strongly linked  Woody’s happiness to the times he has an owner. By the end of Toy Story 4, Woody no longer has dark times ahead of him. Toy Story 4’s ending is also in line with Woody’s character. Woody was always helpful and heroic, but was also always afraid of being left behind and even somewhat afraid of not being in charge. All of those fears are wiped away by the end of Toy Story 4. 

Along with wrapping up Woody’s story, Toy Story 4 also excels at everything the series is known for. It is prettier than ever. Having only seen it once, so far, I can’t give a lot of examples. Thing just looked amazing in general. I can’t wait to get this film on Blu-ray to pause and admire the sheer amount of artistry Pixar has put into this movie. Also, I didn’t catch many of the classic Pixar Easter eggs, so I can’t wait to hunt those down as well. 

Toy Story 4 is also well written, very funny, and is tearfully touching in the moments it wants to be. The story team did not check out for the fourth movie like I feared they might. I think the only things I wasn’t 100% happy with was the way that Buzz got just a little stupider between Toy Story 3 and 4, and the presence of Forky. Buzz not quite grasping the concept of his inner voice was hilarious but also slightly disappointing given that he seemed much more together in Toy Story 2 and 3. And Forky? He was a funny character and an amusing twist on the question of why toys even are alive… but ultimately I think they could have left him out and had some other toy lead our heroes to the antique shop just as easily. Is fun but unnecessary really want we wanted out of a new character four movies in?

Overall, maybe Toy Story 4 fails to find a new big issue to address, but it more than earns its keep with its clever, heartfelt writing, laugh out loud humor, and a second look at some of the more subtle troubles past movies set up. Visually, it looks as amazing as any Pixar movie made and storywise it stays consistent to its characters while finding new, positive solutions to their problems. This time around, Pixar showed it could continue to make Toy Story films after achieving a near perfect conclusion in Toy Story 3. Because of that, I think I would welcome a Toy Story 5 with much less trepidation that I greeted 4 with. It is beyond hard to find any entertainment property that has a string of four outstanding successes. But with Toy Story 4, Pixar has somehow managed to make a thoroughly enjoyable movie that does right by its predecessors. When the work you are being compared against is the Toy Story franchise, that is some of the highest praise that can possibly be given. 

I enjoyed Toy Story 4, and I hope to see it again soon.  

When the credits began to roll on the Aladdin (2019) showing I went to see, there was a small, but significant amount of applause. There were children and adults dancing to the music. On the way out of the theater I heard someone mention to someone else that they were glad that they had come to see the new movie. Unfortunately, I did not share the enthusiasm that gripped many of those around me. I came away from this new, updated version of Aladdin entertained, but also fairly disappointed. 

For the past few years, Disney has been remaking some of its most famous animated movies into live action films. This current wave of Disney remakes started, more or less, with 2014’s Maleficent which was highly successful and is soon getting a sequel.  The Jungle Book in 2016 and 2017’s Beauty and the Beast were both worthy takes on their animated predecessors with the new version Beauty and the Best now ranking as one of my favorite films of all time.

In large part, I have enjoyed these Disney remakes. Some argue that there’s no point in updating classic films with live actors and large doses of CGI, but I think Disney has made some great choices so far, and added new scenes, songs, and substance to the films they first released decades ago.

Until now.

The long and the short of it is that this live action remake of Aladdin lost something. Honestly, I think it lost a lot of things that hurt it in a number of ways. Let’s start with the obvious. Yes, Robin Williams is dead. Yes, he was missed. But, contrary to my expectations, Will Smith did an ok job and even had some fun new moments of his own. The movie would have been better with a reprisal by Robin Williams, for sure, but Will Smith’s genie is not a reason to avoid this movie. I was never really worried about that. I think if Disney knew anything, it knew that it needed a strong performance by whoever it choose to replace Williams. And I think Will Smith mostly delivered.

Interesting, Aladdin is one of the biggest reasons I was disappointed by this movie. The animated version of Aladdin was clever, resourceful, honest, and, for the most part, charming. This live action version of Aladdin lacked those last two traits. 2019’s Aladdin got a lot of milage of being a great pickpocket, but I think maybe he got too much milage out of it. Aside from a few resourceful costume changes as he infiltrated the palace, this new version of Aladdin showed almost no smarts at all. Time after time, I longed for him to charm his way out of a situation, but time after time he either bumbled along until everyone else in the scene got fed up with him, or he managed to get Genie to bail him out at the last instant. The animated version of Aladdin wasn’t a brilliant charmer, but he had enough charisma that he could usually talk his way out of the trouble he got himself in. The more I saw of this updated version of Aladdin, the less I liked him. It’s not that Mena Massoud was bad in the role. He did a good job with what he was given. I think it was just bad writing that did not give him anything clever to do aside from a few instance of slight of hand that were almost never on camera. 

I also didn’t like that they put more emphasis on Aladdin’s lack of moral character. 1992’s Aladdin wasn’t unimpeachable, he was lying about being a prince, after all, but this more modern Aladdin certainly succumbed more to the lure of power and greed than the original did. It was with sadness that the animated version of Aladdin told the Genie that he could not set him free. Live action Aladdin? His motive were both more about himself and he was somewhat more mean and less sympathetic about it. That made me sad because I feel it actually did some small amount of harm to the character.

Naomi Scott as Princes Jasmine was a lot better written. She was smart. She was capable. She was resourceful. I largely appreciated the attempt this film made to expand Jasmine’s story. In the 1992 movie, she really didn’t have much of a role other than not being “a prize to be won.” This new, updated version of Jasmine had the intelligence and ambition to succeed her father as Sultan, if only her father and the law would let her. I don’t think Jasmine’s transition from trophy princess to potential Sultanness was quite as successful as expanded role Belle got in the new Beauty and the Beast, but I think Aladdin (2019) had a far lesser 90’s animated character to start with and did an ok job at trying to modernize her. I didn’t think Jasmine’s new songs fit anywhere near as well as the new songs in the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast, but there’s no denying that Jasmine’s final song about not staying silent had some real power behind it. 

If Aladdin’s character was poorly written, I think the second disappointment of this updated movie was the songs. The music and updated lyrics were both ok. There were some lines in “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali” that weren’t as good as Robin Williams’ in the animated version, but mostly it was the visuals, not the lyrics, that disappointed me. There were more visuals in the 2019 version, to be sure. 1992’s “Friend Like Me” has a surprising amount of blank, one color backgrounds. The 2019 version didn’t have that problem. There was a lot of stuff to see in every frame, but I felt like they didn’t do enough with that stuff. It’s 2019! Disney has all the money in the world! And yet it felt to me like both “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali” had less spectacle and less fun than their animated versions.

For instance, in 2019’s Prince Ali, the line “strong as ten regular men, definitely” was not accompanied with Genie granting Aladdin the brief ability to lift several men above his head. I was looking forward to that in live action to see how they’d do it. Likewise, in the same song, they replaced giant elephant Abu kicking open the palace door in exchange for the entire song pausing until the Sultan picked up the beat. I thought it was almost a fair trade, but the animated version was just a little spectacular. Even “A Whole New World” suffered a little, too. In the animated version, Aladdin, Jasmine, and Carpet do more loops and changes of direction. Their flight above the clouds and among the birds felt a little more magical. The live action was disappointingly tame by comparison. 

Lastly, I felt that the 2019 movie just lacked some of the great pacing and scenes than were in the 1992 version. Just a few examples: 

• I missed the moment where Jasmine made the same rooftop jump as Aladdin and then declared that she was a fast learner. In the 2019 version, she stops short and clings to a pole on the near side, instead. They actually managed to cut one of Jasmine’s few strong character moments in this new film.
• Aladdin and Jasmine’s conversation overlooking Agrabah was great in the 1992 version. Their back and forth and their contrasting views of life in the palace worked very well interleaved with each other. Most of that wonderful scene was lost in the live action version. 
• Aladdin telling Genie about Jasmine for the first time is an excellent scene with good voice acting and animation in the ’92 version. It just wasn’t as good in the ’19 version. 
• I was sad that we didn’t get to see Jasmine pretend to fall in love with Jafar like she did near the end of the 1992 film. Maybe it wasn’t in this new Jasmine’s character, but I was hoping to see that scene. The silly things Jasmine says to compliment Jafar in the animated movie was just delightful. She mentions his eyebrows and the gaps between his teeth and the line “Your beard is so… twisted.” was delivered amazingly well. Now, it’s not even in the 2019 version of the movie. 
• We also didn’t get Jafar’s “Prince Ali” refrain which I was hoping to see. 

But more than those specific scenes, I felt that the new movie changed too much of the pacing. Not just in the new scenes or the added gags. Much of the movie felt off to me. Ultimately, while the new version did make an attempt to add in the idea of the responsibility a leader should have towards his or her people, I think the animated version had a stronger, cleaner storyline that was lost somewhere along the way. 

I didn’t hate this movie. It was nowhere near as disappointing as some other live action movie adaptations I’ve seen in recent years. (Ghost in the Shell, I’m looking at you…) It had a few great moments and plot points that I enjoyed. The Genie’s romance with Dalia, Jasmine’s handmaiden, was a highlight of the movie, for instance. And, even though Aladdin was overly defined by his slight of hand, it did generate some tender moments here and there. I also enjoyed that Jafar described himself as the same sort of pickpocket street rat as Aladdin, and that he was just one who fully gave into a need for power. And, you know what, turning the Genie into a human at the end did us the favor of sparing us a Return of Jafar or Prince of Thieves. That might be the best move the 2019 movie made! 

Aladdin (2019) is not a movie that must be avoided at all cost. Kids will enjoy it, for sure. But, they will enjoy the animated version just as much, and the animated version is just all around a better movie. If you want to see a classic Disney movie redone in live action, I’d highly recommend 2017’s Beauty and the Beast. I thought it updated and added to its animated predecessor in ways that this new version of Aladdin largely failed to do. This new version of Aladdin more or less just made me wonder why it even existed. 

I just got back from seeing Tomb Raider (2018) and… I think I probably saw it so you don’t have to. 

Ok, what do I mean by that? Is Tomb Raider a typical “they should never have made this” video game movie? No. Not even close. As a live action rendition of the 2013 video game, it was somewhere between “ok” and “all right.” It had several missteps, but ultimately, while it wasn’t something like “the video game movie that puts video game movies on the map” or whatever, it did give the Tomb Raider (2013) era property due respect and, unlike so many other movies based on established games or beloved animated series, it pretty much completely avoided embarrassing its source material.

You can do far worse than this Tomb Raider movie. The live action Avatar The Last Airbender was a total embarrassment. Last year’s Ghost in the Shell totally screwed up with some of the most important areas of Motoko Kusanagi’s understanding of her identity. Tomb Raider made no such fundamental errors. 

So, what did Tomb Raider (2018) do right, and what did it do wrong? 

What It Got Right: 

• • It correctly and faithfully portrayed Lara Croft as an smart, independent, tough (but not invincible) character.

Sure, Lara gets beat a couple times in the movie. First, early on in the boxing ring to show that she is tough and scrappy but also small and able to be overwhelmed by a larger opponent. And near the end by the main bad guy who she fights pretty well against but who is just bigger than she is. But, in both of these fights, Lara gets in some good hits and in both of them she comes very close to winning. 

• While this movie significantly changed and paired down the circumstances surrounding Himiko and her curse, and essentially removed the supernatural element entirely, I think it still did it justice. Part of that was because there’s a nice little twist that Lara realizes at the end. In this telling, Himiko was a queen with some sort of disease that rotted those she came in contact with and drove them mad. So, she organized her servants and army to bury her away on Yamatai to rid her people of her “curse.” Himiko’s selfless act was a neat change from the vengefully evil character behind the game.
• It had very good, perhaps even excellent, renditions of two of the 2013 game’s most memorable scenes:First, the reaching for the parachute as the old bomber breaks apart scene looked good in live action. It was well shot. It was well acted. It maintained that “Oh crap. Oh crap. Oh crap.” feel that made it so great in the game. Second, the scene where Lara first has to kill, while a bit different than in the game, is still excellent in the movie. It is certainly the movie’s best scene and Alicia Vikander does a truly terrific job going from fighting for her life, to realizing just what a terrible thing it is that the man she was fighting made her do.
• While this is not a “funny movie” or even a “Marvel quippy” movie, Lara’s sense of humor worked for me multiple times during the first hour of the movie.

What It Got Wrong:

• While you spend much of the 2013 game playing a Lara off alone in the wilderness or temple ruins, it was actually something of an ensemble game, with a surprisingly strong cast of secondary characters. From Lara’s mentor Conrad Roth, to Lara’s best friend Samantha Nishimura, to Jonah and Reyes, and Grim, and Alex, the team that Lara journeyed to Yamatai with and fought along side, and occasionally saw killed ended up feeling important and almost like a family. Certainly, this was helped by some of the flashbacks and the voiced journals you could discover while playing the game. By removing these elements, the story and Lara’s actions became smaller and less meaningful.
• Even though there was a small, decent twist to the reason Himiko was buried on the island, a good deal was lost by removing the supernatural elements from the story.Most notably, in the game Lara and company could not leave the island no matter what they did because Himiko’s power would sink their ship or strike down their plane or helicopter. That gave weight to having to find an actual solution. In the movie, the only reason anyone is trapped on the island is because nobody has a ship or aircraft handy at the moment. So it sorta removed the urgency and the feeling of being helplessly trapped that made the game so interesting.
• The descent into Himiko’s tomb didn’t work so well because someone (the writers and or the director) decided that they had a well acted daughter and a decent actor as her father… so they might as well shoot for Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade.The tomb traps and the not letting the book with all the information fall into the wrong hands felt too much like a poor imitation of The Last Crusade. The puzzles and traps weren’t nearly as iconic and really the whole thing just felt a bit unnecessary. So, the whole sequence from finding the way into the tomb to getting to Himiko’s coffin just sorta dragged where it shouldn’t have.
• The movie kept cutting back to the boat captain who helps Lara get to Yamatai even though he was entirely disconnected from the plot and happenings for the final 3rd of the movie. While Lara is off playing Indiana Jones in Himiko’s cavern and tomb, this guy is rallying the oppressed workers to go back to Lara’s aid… except neither he nor they are ever actually relevant ever again. We get scenes of him saying “I won’t leave without Lara” when she is nowhere nearby (since she’s deep underground by that point) and he exactly zero ability to help her in any way.Honestly, I think it would have worked better if he’d attacked the guards to cover her escape and then been killed by the main bad guy.
• There were a few places here and there that you could just kinda tell they didn’t have enough budget.Like the reveal of Hikimo’s burial structure felt a bit underwhelming. When Lara is parachuting through the trees the action felt a bit… indistinct and blurred as if they didn’t have the time or budget to render the tress whipping by in high resolution. This wasn’t too bad, and it felt like they correctly made sure not to reach too far and have things end up looking awful. But, yeah, it was also clear that it would have been nice if they’d had just a bit more to work with.

Ultimately, Tomb Raider (2018) is not a great movie, but it is also not a terrible one. There are better options out there right now if you want to go to the theater. But, at the same time, it is not a cheesy, disrespectful rip-off like so many video game movies are. There are moments of cleverness, fun, and excellent acting. And there are moments where I felt they should have stuck closer to the 2013 game. The movie finishes a bit weaker than it starts, but at the end of the day there’s at least a chance that this thing gets a sequel. Because, at the very least, Alicia Vikander deserves another chance to portray Lara Croft. 

Side Stuff:

1. There were a couple of bad reviews I saw over the last week that I wanted to call out. In ine the reviewer said:
   

   Also, for all the talk about female power and badassery, she was being saved by everyone else really often, and always crying.

   I would say this is flat out false. As noted above, Lara is bested in the boxing ring by a fellow fighter. The two appear almost equally matched except the other woman was just a good foot or two taller than Lara and won the match by having more weight and strength to throw around. Then, near the end of the movie Lara almost loses to the bad guy, but this is in the same way that Malcom Reynolds almost loses to the Operative in Serenity. A good, even fight where the bad guy almost wins but then the good guy (or girl in Lara’s case!) breaks free and strikes the winning blow.

   Lara also gets impelled by a large splinter coming down through the trees similar to how she is injured in the 2013 game. And she is in some decent pain because of this for a while until her father is able to patch her wound. But… Lara also strangles and drowns the man hunting for her during this time, so she is hardly helpless and did not need to be saved by anyone.

   Throughout the movie, just like throughout the two recent games, Lara is often at a disadvantage due to the numbers she faces or due to being physically smaller than her opponents. But in terms of tenacity, demeanor, intelligence, cleverness, and all tha? Lara is more than an equal for any other character in the movie.

2. There were one or two reviews online that made it an issue that this movie is a reboot of the two previous movies and it is a movie based on the 2013 game that is itself a reboot of sorts of the previous games in the Tomb Raider series.To me, that’s backwards thinking. Tomb Raider (2013) is widely considered one of the most successful re-envisionings of a video game character. It took a franchise that was all but dead and brought it back to life in spectacular fashion. And, while I’ve never seen the two previous Tomb Raider movies, they both struck me as perhaps a bit over-sexed, and overly silly. This movie, in contrast, follows in the 2013 game’s excellent portrayal of Lara Croft as a more down to earth character character who is intelligent, resourceful, and physically capable.

   To me, the idea that Tomb Raider (2018) is a rebooted movie based on a rebooted game is actually a big positive in its favor and certainly not the negative that these reviewers made it out to be.