Director: David Kabbe
Writer: Sarah Padbury
Stars: Iosua Barbu, Sarah Padbury, Lucian Igna

Synopsis: Disabled children are banished in 1988 communist Romania. But one daring nanny resolves to take 8-year-old Izidor outside for the very first time. She never could have imagined the consequences.

It is no secret that people with disabilities have been treated differently than those without. This has taken many forms in many cultures, and to varied extremes. Even something as simple as visibility and representation plays a large part in othering those with mobility issues. This is bad enough, but during some parts of history, the treatment was much worse. For example, in the mid-to-late 1980s in Romania, the communist regime essentially banished disabled children to orphanages. Talk about visibility, they were not allowed to be seen on the streets at all. This is a drastic decision, and one that seems deeply disturbed and barely real. But these histories must be faced, so we can learn from them across cultures. 

David Kabbe’s Izidor tells the story of one of these children hidden away in Romania during this time. An opening scrawl tells us that in Romania, the law demanded that all couples have five children. If and when parents cannot provide for them, they are transferred to state-run institutions. But, if children have disabilities, they are housed in asylums. And more than that, they are not to be seen on the streets at all. This is where we meet the film’s titular character (Iosua Barbu),  a young child housed in one of these asylums.

Visually, the film takes some chances stylistically. With the opening, the outside world is shown in lovely detail, giving a sense of beauty and freedom, with birds flying over lush, green trees. But, as the camera moves to the asylum, the oppression is palpable. And as the film transitions inside the building, the style changes from standard film to roughly performed animation. This decision is both odd and effective. Though most filmmakers use animation to detail freedom and vibrancy, Kabbe does the opposite to incredible effect. The animation is technically in color, but only just so. The quality gives us a sense of ugliness and a dour feeling that hangs over the scenes. Effectively, we wish for it to end or change, just like Izidor must in every possible moment.

And it does change, as a kindly nurse, Onisa (Sarah Padbury, also the screenwriter) at the asylum convinces the doctors to allow her to take Izidor for a day out. But, of course, she must be cautious as if he is seen on the streets, there will be trouble for everyone involved. Kabbe does a tremendous job of immediately making us feel this threat, just as the film begins to move back to live action film. This decision gives us a sense of reality that fools both us and the child into thinking that this is his new life. As the film is from his perspective, we are not allowed a lot of detail into what will happen later. Only this moment matters. And this moment is full of love, life, and happiness.

We are introduced to an entirely new world. A world with a kindly patriarch and adoring children. There is an extended scene with the father (Lucian Igna) telling the story of the “Bigmouth Frog” that is a perfect encapsulation of a cheesy Dad joke, but never loses its charm. The children laugh and Izidor joins in, for the first time being given both the feeling of home and a genuine family. This dinner scene, paired with Izidor’s discovery of fruit on the vine and fresh mushrooms creates a sense of wonder that feels almost like we can taste it with him. 

Although some of the actors are clearly amateurs, this actually works for Izidor. The delivery of heavily accented English draws the audience in and helps us want to experience this and build the same trust that Izidor does. But Barbu, in his acting debut, gives a stunning performance. His move from frightened to trusting back to terrified must feel genuine. And he does not have much time (the entire film is less than a half hour) to accomplish this. But through small facial expressions and gestures, we see and feel it all. He provides first a meek personality, then a sense of awe at the world around him, and then near defeat when he is returned to the asylum after one perfect day.

These stories of abuse and maltreatment must be told, no matter how difficult they are to experience, even through the distance of film. Kabbe does honor to Izidor and the countless other children who were starved and hidden away from sight. Our disabled community deserves much better and this is a reminder of both how far we have come (so far) and what we must fight to avoid in the future.

Grade: B+

Directors: Adrian Molina, Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi
Writers: Julia Cho, Mark Hammer, Mike Jones
Stars: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldaña, Remy Edgerly

Synopsis: Elio, a space fanatic with an active imagination, finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with alien lifeforms, navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions and somehow discover who he is truly meant to be.

It has finally happened: Pixar has found its own The Emperor’s New Groove. No, Elio is not like that film—a 2000 animated comedy that Vulture’s Bilge Ebiri once described as “an irreverent, pratfall-heavy, non sequitur” in Disney’s otherwise fabled ‘90s filmography. Elio has no pratfalls to speak of, is occasionally irreverent—almost by accident—and is absolutely a non-sequitur in Pixar’s recent slate of films, which has hit a rough patch with titles like Elemental, Lightyear, and Onward. I’ll also go on record as one of the few critics who believe Inside Out 2 is one of the most overrated films of the decade.

Elio doesn’t follow Pixar’s usual narrative arc, failing to forge a coherent connection to the studio’s defining theme of exploring the human condition. Instead, the story leaps into a visually dazzling, kinetic sci-fi fantasy that feels exhaustingly hollow. Let’s look at the setup: Elio (Yonas Kibreab), an eleven-year-old boy who has just lost his parents, is taken in by his Aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña), who gives up on her dreams of becoming an astronaut to care for him.

The script, by Julia Cho (Fringe), Mark Hammer (Shotgun Wedding), and Mike Jones (Luca), never meaningfully explores Elio’s loss or the trauma of abandonment. These themes should be the emotional glue binding Elio and Olga together, but they’re only briefly hinted at in the opening and closing scenes. The script wanders aimlessly when it comes to an emotional trajectory. Elio feels lost, so he looks to the stars for connection, hoping to bond with aliens so he doesn’t feel alone. You’d think the script might tie this into the memory of his parents—the sky as heaven, a metaphor for grief, a theme of terminal loneliness—but it’s barely touched.

Then, Olga intercepts a message from an alien civilization called the “Communiverse.” Through a mishap, Elio mistakenly identifies as Earth’s leader and is beamed into space to receive their message. Unfortunately, he’s tasked with negotiating a truce between his new alien friends and Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), a worm-like warlord in a Tony Stark-style Iron Man suit. Grigon wants to destroy the Communiverse—and Elio—until our young hero meets Glordon, an adorable alien worm creature who, it turns out, is the villain’s son.

This is where the story should focus, but it takes far too long to arrive, and the third act sidelines Glordon, who barely interacts with Elio. Directors Madeline Sharafian (Coco), Domee Shi (Turning Red), and Adrian Molina (The Good Dinosaur)  fail to meaningfully connect Elio’s coming-of-age arc with the necessary emotional realism that Pixar is known for. If they tried, they didn’t make that connection resonate with the audience. By the time the film navigates its own cosmic whimsy and absurdities, there is a touching and beautifully realized moment about fathers and sons. Still, the Elio storyline is left cold, detached, and emotionally vacant.

And the journey to get there? Just plain weird. Most of the jokes fall flat, including supposedly irreverent moments like Lord Grigon blasting cute space dandelions from the sky. Glordon is the film’s breakout star—mark my words, plush alien worms will be a hot Black Friday item—but that feels like the movie’s larger purpose: to be a visually kinetic feast for the eyes, primed for marketing. It’s a film tonally out of sync from start to finish as if pieced together from ideas pulled from different movies and forced together like mismatched puzzle pieces that never quite click.

Overall, Elio reflects a new Pixar trend: underdeveloped, not fully realized scripts. I might call it an homage to the studio’s earlier work—if it didn’t feel so much like self-plagiarism of better efforts. At least the film is coated in that signature Pixar animation goodness. 

If only it had the heart to genuinely tackle family issues, like the studio’s classic films did, with a little more heart and soul.

You can watch Elio only in theaters on June 20th!

Grade: C

Director: Joseph Kosinksi
Writer: Joseph Kosinski, Ehren Kruger
Stars: Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Synopsis: A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.

The new Brad Pitt summer tentpole vehicle F1®: The Movie follows the classic tradition of proving you can’t teach an old dog new tricks—but you can teach a pack of puppies a few new ones. It’s a film that’s big, flashy, and, for the first ninety minutes or so, a genuinely engrossing piece of gluttonous popcorn entertainment that is as American as, well, a bucket of buttery popcorn. 

However, as Pitt’s cinematic skid mark loses control, where even Jesus cannot take the wheel, into its final turn, F1®: The Movie becomes self-indulgent and even arrogant, unsure of when to walk away. It ultimately lets the big climactic moment it builds toward slip through its fingers despite its old-fashioned Hollywood trappings. 

The story follows the aging and weathered (and, of course, still breathtakingly handsome) Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a former Formula One driver who hasn’t raced in the league in nearly thirty years. We first meet Sonny during the 24 Hours of Daytona, where he’s racing for Chip Hart (Shea Whigham), the scrappy principal of a ragtag team.

Hayes brings his menacing, wrecking-ball style to the track, taking out a rival driver to help his team regain the lead. After earning a quick five grand for his trouble, Sonny retires to a pinball machine in a laundromat—until an old friend shows up.

That friend is Ruben (Dune’s Javier Bardem), a fellow veteran of the racing circuit who now owns his own Formula One team. Unfortunately, Ruben is $350 million in the hole, and the board is ready to replace him—unless he can shake things up and consistently finish in the top ten. He convinces Sonny to come out of retirement, not only to lead the team as its head driver but also to mentor a hotshot young prodigy, Joshua “Noah” Pearce (The Commuter’s Damson Idris)—a driver in whom Ruben sees shades of Sonny himself.

F1®: The Movie is directed by Joseph Kosinski (Only the Brave), who has been riding the high of Tom Cruise’s “saving cinema” with Top Gun: Maverick. At first, we’re swept up in the film’s breakneck pace and immersive style, which puts the audience right inside the helmet of Pitt’s Hayes. 

He comes across as the William James of racing—someone who not only endangers everyone around him but also demands they treat the sport like combat. Pitt delivers a magnetic, even visceral performance that’s deeply felt.

However, the rest of the characters are two-dimensional, with the villain telegraphed from the start. Damson Idris is fine, but his character is a cliché—used primarily to humanize Pitt’s Sonny, giving him redeemable value by mentoring Pearce to be a leader, even though he doesn’t behave like one. It’s the old trope of leadership being thrust upon the reluctant hero.

The script by Ehren Kruger—who also wrote Top Gun: Maverick and has a history with Reindeer Games, The Ring films, and Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise—suggests his Academy Award nomination may have been an outlier. You learn almost nothing about Formula One racing, not even during scenes focused on Kerry Condon’s character, Kate McKenna, a technical director and former aerospace engineer explaining changes to the cars.

Worse, there seems to be no clear logic to what the team must accomplish to save Ruben’s job, leaving the stakes muddled and convoluted. The film is also overstuffed with exposition—not just from the characters, but from the overhead announcers, who commit racing’s cardinal sin: constantly “mouth-vomiting” exposition in a desperate attempt to explain the sport’s mantra and throw out red herrings. It quickly becomes laughable—and more than a little grating.

To make matters worse, Kosinski lets the big moment slip away the movie is building towards. The final race, especially in IMAX, gives the audience a sense of flying that is immersive and, for some reason, cuts away from some trivial scenes that take away from a moment where F1 finds footing in cinematic wonderment. Along with an overabundance of goodbyes where the movie refuses to end, F1®: The Movie squanders an exhilarating premise, by overstaying its welcome. 

You can watch F1® THE MOVIE only in theaters on June 27th!

Grade: C

Director: Yûta Shimotsu
Writers: Rumi Kakuta, Yûta Shimotsu
Stars: Masashi Arifuku, Kotone Furukawa, Yoshiko Inuyama

Synopsis: A young woman navigates a discovery within her immediate family only to find much more.

Happiness for everyone looks, and feels different. For me it’s a quiet night at home with my cats, for others it’s a good book, or even their careers. It’s a basic human emotion, and when it’s missing from your life, the consequences are often dire. How does one quantify the price of the sacrifices that must take place to obtain happiness? And how do we justify happiness in a world filled with cruelty? Best Wishes to All attempts to answer these questions while making sure you’ll never want to sleep over at your grandparents house again. It’s uncomfortably isolating with its small village atmosphere that has paranoia lurking behind every closed door.

Grandparents’ homes are a place many people attribute nostalgic feelings of happiness; I often think back to the many holidays spent around a large table enjoying countless meals. As an adult, looking back at those memories has me daydreaming about the lives of my grandparents and what they sacrificed for me to allow me the success in life I have. In Best Wishes to All, we are introduced to a young nursing student (Kotone Furukawa), who remains unnamed for the entirety of the film. She’s on her way to her grandparents’ house while on a short break at school. Planning on meeting her parents and younger brother there, she ends up at her destination a few days earlier. From the moment she arrives, something about her grandparents’ home feels off; she’s not new to this feeling, as a child she’d often hear noises coming from the ceiling above her as she attempted to fall asleep.

Curious to find a reason for the strange noises coming from behind a locked bedroom door, the young woman begins to notice her grandparents are not acting the way they normally would. Both unassuming from the outside, her grandparents are eager to share with her a secret, each time showcasing stranger behavior, like standing in the middle of a hallway, mouth agape, staring at a locked door. Or eating a delicious meal with their granddaughter and coming over the table to both grab her fingers and suck on them. It’s safe to say she is disturbed, and tries to find answers for her grandparents’ sudden shift in personality. But what turns out to be a getaway trip to a once dear place quickly becomes dark while discovering the secret to happiness.

Best Wishes to All breaks the sense of normality in this young woman’s life by creating increasingly disturbing situations for her to encounter. As she navigates through the film, the answers to her questions don’t render any real solutions she can decipher, throwing her deeper and deeper into confusion even after the remainder of her family arrives for their visit. Director Yuta Shimotsu makes sure to not only keep the audience on their toes, but his lead character as well. Choosing to let us discover the evil truths and the cost of her and her family’s happiness alongside her, Shimotsu drives home the differing ideals between young and old and how the willingness to make irreversible sacrifices in the name of happiness comes easier for some than others.

There’s a lot going on within Best Wishes to All, and for those who aren’t used to Japanese horror it could become overwhelming. There’s plenty of disturbing imagery within this film, and it comes in different forms. The big reveal of the film, which is best left without spoiling, is a shock in concept alone. Paired with plenty of bleeding eye sockets and axes to the head the, visuals add an extra layer of ick. Making the main character feel like the odd one out from the start makes her easy to root for, even when she makes a decision that is hard to accept. The film tends to get lost in the more over the top ideas, leaving some of the most compelling conversations the film is trying to invoke to the side. Making it seem that the dark truth behind her family’s happiness is something she needs to accept, giving her no real choice for herself in the end.

Taking place in a close-knit community adds yet another layer to the film’s bleakness and the paranoia felt by the film’s lead. Captured through the lens of cinematographer Ryuto Iwabuchi, the focus on architecture makes the film feel like it takes place in two different realities: the home of her grandparents and the life she lives as a nursing student. Newer buildings in Tokyo capture the film’s youthfulness and progressive innovations, paired with the older, more broken-in homes of the aging neighborhood she grew up in. Iwabuchi’s work blends these two worlds together for her, giving her reminders of her family’s sacrifices even when they physically aren’t there.

Leading a film filled with some truly stomach-turning plots and visuals cannot be easy, but Furukawa surely makes it look that way. She has a unique ability to match the film’s increasingly bizarre atmosphere through the way she smiles. Earlier in the film, her smile is natural and lights up a film that has a bleak color palette. As she finds more and more darkness within her family life, the corners of her smile become sharper, and the giggles behind her smiles sound forced, making her look like she’s in pain rather than exuding real joy. She plays a bright-eyed nurse who only wants to help others like a natural; even when the film gets overstuffed with ideas, she shines as the film’s relentless lead.

Moreover, Best Wishes to All is a solid thriller that shocks with its plot and will have your stomach in knots from its visuals. Even when there’s one too many things going on at once, the film gives unconventional answers to life’s most existential questions about the costs of happiness. Shimotsu crafts an impressive film that leaves a lasting impact long after the credits roll.

Grade: B

Director: Fawzia Mirza
Writer: Fawzia Mirza
Stars: Amrit Kaur, Nimra Bucha, Hamza Haq

Synopsis: Azra is worlds apart from her conservative Muslim mother. Following a tragedy, Azra finds herself on a Bollywood-inspired journey to Pakistan – guided by memories of her mother’s youth in Karachi and her own coming-of-age in rural Canada.

It’s safe to say that The Queen of My Dreams is a deeply personal directorial debut from Fawzia Mirza. Starting off as a short film of the same name from Mirza in 2012, she turned her short film into a stage play titled Me, My Mom & Sharmila. Over 10 years later, Mirza brings this story of a young woman of two cultures navigating complicated familial relationships and loss to the big screen. Using her own life as inspiration,  Mirza explores being queer as a Pakistani woman who has lived her entire life in Canada. This gives audiences an authentic view into growing up queer in two different worlds.

We first meet, or rather hear the film’s lead Azra (Amrit Kaur) as The Queen of My Dreams shows her mother, Mariam (Nimra Bucha), sitting in front of a mirror staring at her reflection. Azra recounts fond memories she has with her mother from her childhood, how beautiful her mother is, and their shared love of Bollywood, especially Sharmila Tagore and Rajesh Khanna in the film Aradhana. As the memory fades, we see Azra, who is at college, living with a woman, Rachel (Kya Mosey), she tells her family is her roommate, but is definitely something much more. A call to her parents’ house has her chatting with her father, Hassan (Hamza Haq), catching up about her schoolwork. As her father passes the phone to her mother, it’s clear that there is a rift in their once happy relationship, leaving questions about how there is such a frigid coldness between two that seemed so close.

After Azra’s father has a fatal heart attack, something she learns over a voicemail left after several calls made to her apartment went unanswered. She must travel to Pakistan to be with family and start mourning her father. From Azra’s perspective, her father was kind, understanding, and the only parent who gave her warmth. Her mother, at some point in her life, turned cold to her, and they don’t even get along well enough to speak to each other on the phone. The film often shifts to flashbacks from Azra’s past, showing that she and her mother were once inseparable, even being a mother-daughter sales duo selling Tupperware to their neighbors. The Queen of My Dreams tugs hard at those moments, making the reveal of why their relationship is strained that much more heartbreaking.

When Azra arrives in Pakistan, Mirza makes sure to show how out of place Azra feels; her clothing makes her stand out right away. But she soon feels at home as a familiar face picks her up from the airport. As Azra is traveling, the film shifts into 1960s Pakistan, where Kaur is now playing the younger version of her mother, Miriam. The colors are vibrant, and her clothes are a bit more revealing, portraying the younger version of her mother who is full of life and ambition. This is where the most about Miriam is learned, how she met and fell deeply in love with her husband, Hassan, and how their love story bloomed from secret dates to their wedding. Mirza uses these flashbacks to also show the parallels between Azra and Miriam’s lives as they were growing up; although Azra grew up in Canada and Miriam in Pakistan, the foundation of their girlhood and finding their sexuality is rooted in their shared love of Bollywood films.

The non-linear way that Mirza tells the story in The Queen of My Dreams is where the most is learned about Azra and her mother. Constantly shifting from young Miriam to Azra keeps the audience’s attention, but it can be a tad confusing for the film’s narrative. Information on Azra and her sexuality takes a back seat during the majority of the film as there’s a larger emphasis on Miriam and her backstory, and even though her younger life is often more lively than her daughter’s, it is easy to lose interest in Azra. The best of this storytelling comes when a younger version of Azra (Ayana Manji) is introduced in a flashback, and a young woman’s love and admiration for her mother is slowly chipped away as her mother walks in on something she shouldn’t.

What makes The Queen of My Dreams tick is the performances from Kaur, as both Azra and  young Miriam. Fully embracing both Mirza’s Canadian and Pakistani side, the duality between a young queer college student and an outgoing Pakistani woman is captivating. My favorite moments from Kaur are when she arrives in Pakistan back with her family, learning how to dance, taking the male part in a couples dance, causing gossip among her female family members. She makes it look so easy shifting from Miriam to Azra, giving committed performances for both. Paired with Bucha as an older Miriam, their work together is captivating to watch; their ability to show a quiet tension that is easily agitated is a wonder to watch.

The Queen of My Dreams is easy to fall in love with from its visuals, especially during the 60s flashbacks with a youthful Miriam. The bright colors of the clothing, cars, and food in Pakistan pop with the saturated color grading. Cinematographer Matt Irwin balances the narrative shifts between the past and present incredibly well, making a clear distinction between then and now. What stands out the most with Irwin’s work is during the Bollywood recreations where Azra and Miriam place themselves in their favorite film. Irwin mimics the framing of it well and captures the romance through the glowing colors and lingering close-ups of women in love.

Ultimately, Mirza captures a queer story that is deeply connected to her personal experience; its heartbreaking and often charming moments show just how much potential this film has. It’s easy to get lost in the film, but the performance from Kaur makes each passing minute more interesting than the last, especially when she’s being a rebellious young woman. The Queen of My Dreams works best when exploring the generational differences between a mother and daughter and how getting to know your mother’s past helps you understand your own life.

Grade: B+

Director: Aimee Kuge
Writer: Aimee Kuge
Stars: April Consalo, Nate Wise, Clay von Carlowitz

Synopsis: An exploration of one’s relationships with food, sexuality, and revenge. It asks, “How far would you go in the name of love?”

Food and sex aren’t the strange combination we, in our most vanilla moments, believe them to be. Popular sexual innuendo includes some reference to eating or parts of anatomy that are referred to as food items. This combination, when taken to extremes, can contribute to the use of cannibalism as a version of sexual desire or as a catalyst for arousal. It’s not everyone’s proclivity, of course, but this avenue of eating, sex, and cannibalism is something worthy of being explored.

As much as these elements are all a part of Cannibal Mukbang, the story often doesn’t go far enough, or push deep enough into the psyche of its characters. In some ways, there are points where the depths could be plumbed with precision like a sharp knife through a tomato, but instead, the script, by writer/director Aimee Kuge, seems to smash the tomato first and then try to cut the pieces with a different and less effective mode of communication. It may be that the holes in the logic are just more visible when taken as a whole because the ending is a surprise, but not in a good way.

There are many things to like about Kuge’s script, though. The way she builds her metaphors about truly knowing someone and the anonymity that is built into our lives on the internet is well thought out. It’s clear that Mark (Nate Wise) has had a lot to unpack with his therapist and that his hesitancy with Ash (April Consalo) is coming from a real anxiety. It feels true to life that no matter how much Ash opens up to Mark, she has to remain guarded because of her mission and how she proceeds with it. It’s actually sweet, in spite of the circumstance, to see the two of them growing to trust and open up to one another.

That’s also thanks in part to Kuge as director and co-editor. The story is crafted like a pre-internet age horror film and a pre-internet age romance. There are multiple montages set to upbeat music and terrifying angles to cut between. This gauzy, emotional killing spree is also benefited by the eye of cinematographer Harrison Kraft. Kraft and Kuge are obviously aficionados of B movie horror and, in the midst of this modern tale of internet life, they find a way to create a throwback that at once looks familiar, but is distinctly modern.

One of the best crafted sequences of the film is also a terrific example of the “show, don’t tell” mantra of storytelling. Ash is ready to open up about her past and in a flashback made to look like a B movie scene, we see the story of Ash and her sister Allie (Autumn Consalo). The scenes are wordless, but the shift from something innocent to something horrible is deftly handled with careful staging. The sequence is ultimately a triumphant origin story for Ash.

This scene is helped by the fact that April Consalo fits that mold of classic femme fatale and modern “e-girl” stand in so perfectly. She has an arresting presence and a depth to her performance that makes you wish she was the focal character of the film and not just Mark’s love interest. She can shift easily from the vulnerable to the frightening, and from the cheesy to the serious. Consalo becomes every bit of Ash, or at least what Ash is willing to show.

Cannibal Mukbang might make you hungry or horny or both. It is a horror-romance, after all. These strange feelings will arise from these seemingly disparate ideas, like sex and food, mingling together. Cannibal Mukbang had the potential to be a truly awesome experience, but a few narrative missteps, including a tragedy of an ending, and slow pacing keep it from the upper echelons. It’s still a film to see to believe and worth seeking out wherever you can find it.

Grade: B

Director: Dean DeBlois
Writer: Dean DeBlois
Stars: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler

Synopsis: As an ancient threat endangers both Vikings and dragons alike on the isle of Berk, the friendship between Hiccup, an inventive Viking, and Toothless, a Night Fury dragon, becomes the key to both species forging a new future together.

It’s interesting to see Dean DeBlois’ readaptation of Cressida Cowell’s How to Train Your Dragon, fifteen years after seeing the original animated masterpiece on the big screen. I may be the biggest hater of these cash-grab live-action remakes that Disney sadly popularized since 2010, but there’s something about How to Train Your Dragon that, for me, feels semi-earnest, so I couldn’t not give it its day in court. 

DeBlois has never directed a feature film in live-action and has been making animated masterpieces ever since bringing Lilo & Stitch to the world with Chris Sanders, which makes this shift as intriguing as Brad Bird going from Ratatouille to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Obviously, this remake doesn’t reach the heights as Bird’s transition to live-action, but it makes sense for DeBlois to have a desire in bringing this story back to life with new challenges and constraints, even if the plot, dialogue, and musical score from John Powell is the exact same as the original. 

Literally – and I guarantee this will happen when the film eventually reaches homes – you can do a side-by-side comparison of the animated and live-action films, and nothing has changed. DeBlois doesn’t deepen any of the side characters further or flesh out aspects that might have been briefly touched upon in his animated movie. It’s the exact same product, but done through the prism of live-action. In a sense, the film severely lacks originality and inventiveness, especially if someone knows the animated entry by heart. 

The biggest cynics may think this transposition is nothing more than a shameless piece of “content” designed to milk as much money as possible, as its release has been positioned with the opening of Universal’s Epic Universe, and they would be right to think so. However, what I found most fascinating was how DeBlois used the limitations he had at his disposal, which animation does not have, to essentially make the same movie, almost as if this entire thing is nothing more than an exercise for him to know if he indeed can direct something in live-action. 

In that regard, he mostly succeeds. Mostly, because the entire back half of the movie does not hold weight (at all) compared to the staggering visuals of the animated film’s climax, and is instead a largely artificial, sludgy action setpiece where the costumes look like poor cosplay, and the green screens stick out like a sore thumb. There’s little to no excitement in seeing Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler, reprising his role from the animated film) stand aimlessly in front of an entirely synthetic background as he gathers his troops to invade a Dragon’s Nest and kill all creatures who live there. 

There’s also little excitement in seeing Hiccup (Mason Thames) and Toothless fight against the Red Death, even if cinematographer Bill Pope tries his hardest to give it some form of life, but to no avail. The emotional impact is also dampened because anyone who’s seen the original knows what will happen. DeBlois likely took his screenplay from the 2010 movie, did CTRL + C and CTRL + V on his computer, added “2025” to the new script, and delivered it to Universal. That’s how close it follows the original movie – no stone is left unturned in replicating it down to a tee, but with living actors as opposed to the staggering artistry of the animated film. 

However, one thing that differentiates both movies is how DeBlois can employ large-format photography in key sequences to immerse the audience in Hiccup’s bond with Toothless in ways he couldn’t, even with the use of 3D in 2010. Utilizing the immense power of IMAX cameras (with the aid of 3D, creating an even more powerful effect than in 2D), DeBlois and Pope frequently expand the frame and plunge us straight into the world of Berk, creating jaw-dropping flight sequences that will genuinely make you jump out of your seat in pure adrenaline, as Powell’s score blares through the speakers and reminds you exactly of why the animated offering has stood the test of time. 

These first-person shots are exacerbated by some of the most lifelike CGI you’ll see in a modern movie, especially regarding Toothless’ design. The Night Fury looks like a living, breathing entity next to Hiccup, even if it’s entirely created through the artifice of computer-generated animation. Thames is also very good as the protagonist, though he doesn’t possess the same range as Jay Baruchel, as illustrated during scenes of confrontation with his father. The dramatic intensity of those moments doesn’t hit the same, especially when Butler approaches Stoick with the exact same register as when he voiced him fifteen years ago. 

Moreover, the alchemy Hiccup possesses with Astrid (Nico Parker) doesn’t work. The two aren’t on the same wavelength at all, and it’s highly evident when DeBlois attempts to pair them together in the romantic sense of the term. They only work when in the ring, competing against each other, as Hiccup has found ways to subdue the dragons as opposed to brutally killing them, which is what Stoick and Gobber (Nick Frost) are training them for, and the path Astrid is following. 

These moments are wondrously directed and engaging enough for us to ultimately care about this reheated story (the IMAX aspect ratio shifts certainly helps involving us in the live-action world), with enough care for DeBlois in wanting to flex his filmmaking muscles a bit and show that he can transpose his story in a different language and environment. While it may not be a perfect shot-for-shot remake, it’s certainly an admirable one, notably thanks to DeBlois’ reverence for Cowell’s source material. He would never make something outright egregious, even if one can feel that he can sometimes get pressured by the limitations he’s working with. 

The climax, in particular, is an absolute visual nightmare, and incomparable from what was showcased in the 2010 film. And yet, it’s miles ahead from the other live-action remake of a Dean DeBlois movie released last month, especially in how its filmmaker thinks about how his story should be told through a different medium. That alone made it somewhat compelling, even though I was watching the exact same movie as I did when I stepped foot in the world of Berk for the first time, fifteen years ago, and my appreciation of animation as a medium forever changed. 

While feeling was not present while watching this readaptation, I still left the cinema moderately satisfied, knowing that it could’ve been worse. But in the hands of DeBlois, this source material will always be treated with the utmost respect, but I don’t think I’m ready to relive the emotional trauma of How to Train Your Dragon 2 in live-action just yet…

Grade: B-

Director: Michael Pearce
Writer: Brad Inglesby
Stars: Julianne Moore, Sydney Sweeney, Domhnall Gleeson

Synopsis: Kate is dealing with a personal tragedy while owning and training horses in Echo Valley, an isolated and picturesque place, when her daughter, Claire, arrives at her doorstep, frightened, trembling and covered in someone else’s blood.

The conceit of Michael Pearce’s Echo Valley promises a riveting psychological thriller between mother, Kate (Julianne Moore), and daughter, Claire (Sydney Sweeney), as the two carry a fractured relationship, but not as heated as when Kate is with her ex-husband, Richard (Kyle MacLachlan), who has now wiped his hands clean of his past life and lets Kate take care of their daughter. We learn that Claire has been in and out of rehab, and promises to her mother that she is finally clean, when the two reunite for the first time in a long time. 

Things seem to be going relatively well, until, one night, Claire arrives at Kate’s door covered in blood, and demands that she helps her out. I won’t reveal more specific detail, as Pearce and screenwriter Brad Inglesby essentially hope that you watch this movie without having seen a piece of footage or know the bare minimum. This is a thriller which thrives on the audience not knowing what will come next, for its reveals to act like a shock to the system, especially its final needle-drop that supposedly ties the entire story together. The only problem is that, at every turn, Pearce and Inglesby make some of the most ridiculous screenwriting decisions that constantly shift the movie from point of interest to the next, without much thought behind the machinations of its story. 

It starts out as a quiet, almost poetic drama in whichKate still reels from the loss of her wife (the reason for the divorce with Richard was her coming out) and has trouble keeping her ranch afloat. When Claire arrives in the picture, the movie becomes something else entirely, one that feels like a reconnection picture, as Kate attempts to help her daughter out in getting back on her feet, until Jackie (Domhnall Gleeson) comes into the picture, and the movie once again shifts gears. It’s at that point where it began to lose my grip, particularly during a confrontation between Kate and Claire, with Sweeney being especially terrible in moments of raw dramatic power. 

We’re supposed to fear for Kate’s life, at the grasp of Claire, who is still clearly using, but each occasion of terror, where Jed Kurzel’s music creates bludgeoning impact, doesn’t feel at all tangible, either through Sweeney trying way too hard to sell strong emotions that don’t need to be exaggerated this way, or with a defenselessMoore having little to no chemistry with the actress playing her daughter. It doesn’t work, and the movie sadly never recovers from that scene, since most of the emotional beats that follow are built around it. 

Moore does try her best on several occasions, especially when pitted against Gleeson’s Jackie, but he gives one of the worst performances of his career. It creates a wobbly sense of tension when one veteran actor is terrific, or at least tries to imbue her thinly written character with as much humanity and emotional attachment as possible, while the other completely misunderstands the assignment, even during the final scene, where all is revealed. None of it works, and very little actively feels earned. 

The only saving grace the film offers in its 104-minute runtime is fleeting appearances from Fiona Shaw, as Les, one of Kate’s closest friends. Whenever the two are paired together, the film lights up, especially during Shaw’s perfect delivery of “Grief: There is no roadmap for that shit.” She brings a much-needed emotional anchor for a movie that’s in desperate need of something, anything, for the audience to cling to. Their relationship works, and even though Shaw sparsely appears, her presence is always most welcome. 

When Echo Valley eventually culminates in a scene where the audience realizes they were tricked and everything is revealed, every scene of importance we saw before feels pitifully unearned, as if all the narrative and thematic threads Pearce wanted to present led to nowhere intriguing. Cinematographer Benjamin Kračun certainly tries to develop an arresting visual language for the movie, but when the story never engages its audience to a real point of interest, most of what we get is a series of striking images with little to no meaning while many A-list actors deliver some of the flimsiest performances of her career. 

Thank God for Fiona Shaw, because if it weren’t for her, I would’ve turned it off ages ago. 

Grade: D-