Director: Kyle Mooney
Writers: Kyle Mooney, Evan Winter
Stars: Jaeden Martell, Rachel Zegler, Julian Dennison

Synopsis: Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year’s Eve 1999. The night becomes even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight.

It feels weird to see A24, a usually more cerebral-driven studio, release such a gonzo affair like Kyle Mooney’s Y2K, a movie that you will either be in or out within its first ten minutes. If you don’t like Mooney and co-screenwriter Evan Winter’s in-your-face, lowbrow comedy in that timeframe, the chances of you having a good time are minimal. Mooney only dials up the most grating qualities of his film as the story progresses, leading to an inexplicably out-there finale that won’t sit well with anyone, audience members and critics alike. 

Lucky for me, who lives for this type of sensorial affront meant to piss off audiences (but always in a playful manner, such as the work of Quentin Dupieux), I was fully on board with this wild gore-fest that won’t require you to think too much of its setting and plot to have a good time. It’s only when you start thinking about the machinations of its Y2K conspiracy gone real story that things begin to fall apart. 

Yet, it almost doesn’t matter. Mooney has more than one trick up his sleeves to keep us invested in the inert adventures of a pair of losers, Eli and Danny, respectively played by Jaeden Martell and Julian Dennison. The two haven’t done something meaningful throughout their high school years, and believe the last day of 1999 is where their transition from adolescence to adulthood (or, in this case, ‘manhood’) truly begins. 

Danny attempts to ‘fit in’ with its gangs by consuming alcohol and secretly smoking weed inside the ‘champagne room’ (Québec audiences would call this area the “Western doors” to anyone old enough to have visited a Superclub Vidéotron) of a video store. He encourages Eli to do the same, but more importantly, muster up the courage to speak to his crush, Laura (Rachel Zegler), before the year turns into a new century. 

Eli can speak to her in one of his AOL chatrooms but predictably freezes once in public. However, when the opportunity to attend the party of the century arises, he and Danny think they have nothing to lose as 2000 approaches. Of course, this is all occurring as more people believe in the Y2K scare, which is even illustrated through a speech delivered by then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in the film’s opening section, where “the federal government is Y2K ready and leading by example.”

Now, for those having experienced the shift from 1999 to 2000 (I was alive, but don’t ask me if I remember), the Y2K scare didn’t happen. But what if it did? This is what Mooney and cinematographer Bill Pope (yes, that Bill Pope. Mooney seems astute enough for ardent cinephiles to understand why he chose him to photograph his film) visualize in this breezy 93-minute affair. Through ingenious practical effects from WETA Workshop, technological objects begin to experience a mind of their own and start violently killing people in more brutal ways than one. 

From there, the craziness of its middling humor gets dialed up and becomes thoroughly entertaining, anchored by solid turns from both Martell and Zegler and a legendary appearance from the director of The Fanatic himself: Limp Bizkit. If I had a nickel every time he appeared in an A24 release this year (with Jane Schoenbrun’s I Saw the TV Glow), I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice. In any event, he joins the group later down the line and provides much-needed levity that’s both a hat tip to a (now old) generation of youngsters and a fun supporting performance that surprisingly showcases his acting prowess in a way that Schoenburn’s film didn’t. 

It also helps that the violence depicted on screen is mostly played for sick laughs, which got me more than a few times, especially regarding one sequence involving a character, a skateboard, and an improvised rail that was so pitch-perfectly timed I couldn’t stop laughing about it even thirty minutes after it ended. It’s an age-old cautionary tale, but the way in which Mooney stages it feels surprising. It’s a comedy where each character can die at any moment and attachment to the protagonists is thus minimal. That’s, however, by design. Since the situation is so unpredictable, we can’t expect many of its key players to make it out alive, acting as a quasi-riff of sorts on Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s This Is The End. 

However, even Rogen and Goldberg had time to flesh out the central character arcs in their film which made eventual deaths feel more impactful (albeit still keeping that darkly funny tone that makes that movie stand the test of time). Mooney attempts to do it with scenes that slow the pacing down and seem more obligatory than engaging, but they are still fairly effective thanks to game actors wanting to bathe in the film’s madcap presentation. But their performances can only bring its development so far when they (and the filmmaker) are clearly more interested in making Fred Durst jokes and having him sing a (pretty good) cover of George Michael’s Faith. 

Yes, it’s funny. Yes, it’s gory. Yes, the humor will not please the more elitist filmgoers out there, and that’s the point. Yet I felt an increasing distance from the protagonists as the movie advanced, almost as if it forgot the inextricable fact that such a production only works if you’re fully invested in the characters and not the madness. At first, we fully lean into how Mooney approaches Eli and Danny’s relationship through a hybrid visual style that deftly blends the ‘new’ ARRI camera techniques by intercutting with shots captured on a scuzzy Handicam. 

It gives the movie a decidedly personal aesthetic, but as the story reaches its Limp Bizkit-driven climax, it also forgets this essential part of Y2K’s filmic identity. And while Mooney ultimately gets the last laugh, one still leaves the theater feeling somewhat satisfied but not entirely fulfilled. It almost seems as if Mooney utilized the Y2K scare to make Limp Bizkit jokes, which are admittedly funny but don’t push this tantalizing subject to its fullest extent. It results in some old-school fun, but with several caveats that won’t posit this movie as A24’s finest hour. 

Still, it’s refreshing to see such a studio make a 180 swing on the aesthetic and filmic impulses they established for the past decade. Here’s hoping that by trusting newer and more exciting voices in film, we’ll get even wilder, off-beat stuff like this one, though maybe with an emphasis on story and character relationships beyond the effervescently versatile talents of Mr. Fred Durst, now in a first-look deal with A24? That would be fun. 

Grade: B

Directors: David Derrick Jr., Jason Hand, Dana Ledoux Miller
Writers: Jared Bush, Dana Ledoux Miller
Stars: Auliʻi Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Hualālai Chung

Synopsis: After receiving an unexpected call from her wayfinding ancestors, Moana must journey to the far seas of Oceania and into dangerous, long-lost waters for an adventure unlike anything she’s ever faced.

In Moana, a young, confident, naïve Moana (Auli’i Cravalho) sings about how far she’ll go. Every Disney animated musical has a song that becomes synonymous with the film, and the Oscar-nominated “How Far I’ll Go” (written by Lin-Manuel Miranda) became intertwined with Moana the film. Regarding Moana, the franchise, just how far they’ll go gets a bit more confusing. Over the past year, something has consistently been changing with this franchise, whether it be the announcement of a live-action remake, a Disney+ series, or that the once Disney+ series would be cut down and made into a film, that film being Moana 2. This announcement came as a bit of a shock since it was in February that Moana 2 would be released in November; this gave everyone involved only 9 months to change their show into a feature film. However, Disney seemed to be scrambling as their slate of releases seemed fairly weak; when I say fairly weak, I’m saying that for the first time since COVID in 2020, it looked as though there wouldn’t be an animated Disney film released theatrically. 

Thus comes Moana 2, which begins sometime after the end of Moana. Moana is a little older, much wiser, and now considered the leader of her island. As a Wayfinder, she travels the sea, still with her trusty pig and chicken sidekicks, searching for other people on other islands. She can’t find much but uncovers a pot that shows different people on an island under the stars. She returns this pot to her home and has a vision of her wayfinding ancestors, who tell her the story of an island called Motufetu that connected all the people in the ocean before it was sunken by the storm god Nalo who believed breaking up the people would provide him with more power. If humans were to touch this island, it would restore the channels in the sea and allow people to connect once more. Meanwhile, the demigod Maui (Dwayne Johnson) is searching for Nalo for his own reasons but gets caught by Matangi (Awhimai Fraser), Nalo’s henchman, who Nalo has trapped inside a giant clam. Moana must find Maui and make it to Motufetu before it is too late.

Moana is one of Disney’s best works in the last 20 years. The songs are beautifully written and performed, the film is gorgeously animated, and the emotional beats work so well not just as a film but telling a Polynesian islander story, one that hasn’t been explored much in cinema. Moana 2, on the other hand, misses almost every mark that the original nailed. The performances by Crevalho and Johnson, especially in the singing parts, are strong, but the rest of the cast never melded as they should have. These characters were never given enough time to flesh out and grow and instead were mainly stuck to the tropes they were started with before the film began. 

While the original songs were one of the first film’s best aspects, they are instantly forgettable here. I couldn’t even begin to think about which one would be the film’s theme, but that’s also because I don’t think there was a theme to explore. Because of that, nothing in this film comes close to the staying power of ‘How Far I’ll Go’ or even ‘You’re Welcome.’ There just was a different vibe, and the loss of Lin-Manuel Miranda (no matter how much he’s been meme’d) hurts the film’s overall tone. Every song was too on the nose (I wasn’t the biggest fan of one of the film’s opening numbers ending with “I am Moana”), or it felt incredibly out of place to the point it became unnecessary.

However, the biggest issue came in the pacing. As mentioned before, this was an almost completed Disney+ series that was transformed into a film that showed throughout. Scenes felt episodic rather than thematic, with some shots included that were clearly meant to serve as title cards or cliffhangers for the series format. It took far too long to get into the action of the story, and when they finally did, everything was resolved within a few scenes. Even moments assumed to struggle were set up as almost cheap ploys to bring these characters together; again, it felt like something that would take 3 or 4 episodes to get to. The third act also needed to be more complex to feel earned. The filmmakers tried their best to bring out genuine emotion, but even some of the best scenes had turnaround resolutions that killed any momentum the film might have had. It felt like a rushed project with much material that could have been used left unseen.

The visual aspect was also a hit or miss. One of Moana’s best traits was water use and the beautiful lights the water and some sea creatures could bring out. Moana 2, at times, looked gorgeous, but something about it felt artificial on the big screen. It became obvious early on that the animation itself wasn’t made for cinema, and this was a case where it almost became harder to look past. Some gorgeous shots and sequences began to feel misplaced as the scenes never lined up. The longer the film went on, the more apparent it became which scenes were finished before the change and which ones still could be adjusted.

Still, with all that, Moana 2 somehow finds a way to be at least average. There is enough good material to make a certain audience of a certain age while watching it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the original’s beauty or wonder. It was a rushed project with rushed results that neither Cravalho nor Johnson could save, even if they tried their best to hold this thing up. Ultimately, I was just left massively underwhelmed and disappointed, but I guess that’s what I have come to expect from a studio that used to create joy. Hopefully, they can turn this franchise around, but with yet another live-action remake on the horizon, how far they’ll go might be too far to return.

Grade: C

Director: Ridley Scott
Writer: David Scarpa
Stars: Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Denzel Washington, Connie Nielsen

Synopsis: After his home is conquered by the tyrannical emperors who now lead Rome, Lucius is forced to enter the Colosseum and must look to his past to find strength to return the glory of Rome to its people.

Gladiator II, directed by Ridley Scott, is a movie I am torn about. The highs of Gladiator II are some of the greatest parts of this year’s movies. The lows are ultimately disappointing and unforced – odd in such ways that it leaves the remaining experience fractured. In the hours since watching the film, I find myself wishing that it was a legacy sequel more in the vein of Blade Runner 2049 – helmed by a crew willing to distance themselves from the past to create a film as rich as the first and not indebted to it. 

Some parts of Gladiator II echo that type of legacy. It’s obsessed with Marcus Aruilious’ “dream of Rome” – that vision of a Rome where all people were free and lived in safety. That dream would be what ultimately set in motion Maximus’ plot for vengeance, but it wouldn’t be investigated in greater detail for the remainder of that film.

In Gladiator II, the dream of Rome becomes personified in Hanno (Paul Mescal) and Macrinus (Denzel Washington) – two individuals who live in tension with that initial dream. As we watch both these individuals find who they are, we begin to see how they fight for the soul of Rome. Macrinus is the ultimate antithesis of that dream: Macrinus rules through wealth and terror. Washington gives weighty dialogues about the power of being a free man in the Roman empire – the goal of the Colosseum isn’t to free yourself from your oppressor but to become the oppressor. Macrinus is the ultimate scheming character – gaining power by leading others to their hubris. The senate and twin emperors fall for his charms consistently – the charismatic Macrinus is disarming with his words. Washington’s ability to convey that faux vulnerability with a smile and a flicker of his hands is second to none. Washington has a knack for playing the lovable villain, and in the role of Macrinus, he shines. As Macrinus gains power and removes that mask of vulnerability, the layers of Washington’s performance are far more obvious. Entire shifts of demeanor occurring as a character heads off screen can be found, and Washington translates frustration into these small movements that enable the audience to follow the schemer with ease. Every word that falls from Macrinus’ mouth is primed to manipulate his subject – and while nearly every other character in the film falls for his charms, Hanno is the only individual to not be convinced.

Hanno is easily the strongest character in the film for me – because his loyalties aren’t to any one living person in Rome, but rather that long lost dream of Rome. Mescal rides this fine line between rage fueled anger and melancholic defiance that really works for me. There are a plethora of scenes in the film where Macrinus comments on Hanno’s unending rage – scenes that can feel out of place in the presence of Mescal’s walled-off expression. That straight face is Hanno’s purest act of defiance – he cannot be bought like Macrinus believes him to be. Hanno is far more secretive than Macrinus – he hides his true identity (or casts it away), and acts solely for himself in the arena. The rage that Macrinus speaks so highly of is present in every beat of the action – Mescal’s mastery of the choreography creates a performance that is as wild as Macrinus believes him to be.

I adore the way that Mescal is able to use apathy to create meaning in a scene. The script gives Mescal these moments of biting dialogue that utilize Mescal’s uncanny ability to ‘mask’ his emotions. It’s these moments that better show Hanno’s deeper conflict: Choosing whether to build a better Rome or abandon this world to its tyrants and return to his wife in the afterlife.

That core idea is very similar to that of Gladiator, but through the status of Hanno, it’s able to cut across with far more nuance in this film. Mescal’s lack of rage and embracing of apathy enables this character to grow far more intrinsically than Maximus did in Gladiator. There are moments in Gladiator II that attempt to create extrinsic motivation for Hanno in his quest to bring that dream of Rome to light…but sadly, these moments are far too reductive to truly work. 

That extrinsic motivation is linked to this film’s legacy characters – the politicians and senators of Gladiator who ultimately found themselves in charge of Rome after Commodus’ death in the Colosseum. These schemers are sadly at a loss of true narrative agency. While their actions provide the catalyst to launch Hanno into the third act with a reformed identity, they fail to serve the story in any new thematic ways.

Gladiator as a film gains greater meaning through its schemers’ attempts to dethrone Commodus – it highlights how complacency leads to evil’s rise and stems from a protective component of Maximus’ identity. Maximus’ escape plan being foiled is enabled solely by Quintus – and ultimately, that tension is broken in the final moments when Quintus chooses to not interfere during the final showdown of that first movie. The b-plot is fundamental to the story of Gladiator – in many ways, being the driving force that showcases our characters having the agency to undermine Commodus.

In Gladiator II, the B-plot is a condemnation of the subtle art of politics. Our schemers are unable to unseat the Twin Tyrants, only enabling a newer, far crueler individual, to gain power. That idea is a good idea – but it’s also shown to be the status quo from the minute the opening titles reveal that Twin Emperors have taken over Rome. The backstories of Hanno and Macrinus build this exact same idea. And they manage this without being reductive, carbon copies of the previous film.

This is the fundamental failing of the story created by David Scarpa and Peter Craig. The inclusion of Gladiator’s legacy characters falls flat – the story has little for these old schemers to do. Lucilla and Gracchus may both be the same rebels we knew from 24 years ago, but when their story hits the exact same beats – and the exact same snags – it fails to be fresh and innovative. These schemers’ failures may be what grants Macrinus his rise to power, but it’s done far too slowly, uninterestingly, and doesn’t effectively intertwine with the story of Hanno. 

That comes at a substantial cost for General Acacius (Pedro Pascal) – the new husband of Lucilla, who has so little agency in this film. The story is far too sympathetic to him too early into the film for Hanno’s revenge narrative to fully take off, and yet, Acacius is too pinned down by the narrative to add anything substantial to this story. Pascal is great in the film, being both charismatic and noble in all the ways that make him endearing to the audience despite his short screen time – but his talents are wasted in a film that traps Acacius into a two-dimensional character without any narrative agency. Connie Nielson’s Lucilla is dealt the same hand – and while she is given a heavier task in navigating the loss of Lucius – her role in the narrative is still extremely limited. 

In discussing Gladiator II and its themes of a Dream of Rome, I feel that I have failed to highlight why I care so deeply for this movie. The screenplay and writing can be, at times, derivative, leading to entire sections of the plot feeling far too exposable for an epic of this size. But I say this because I believe in this dream of Rome – a dream that comes to life through the sheer scale of Gladiator II. 

Ridley Scott certainly knows how to get the most bang for buck on a film set. Few directors can consistently create visual marvels for the silver screen – and Scott does it at such a pace that it must be celebrated. Over the past 5 years, we’ve been gifted with Ridley Scott’s signature low-fantasy styles with The Last Duel (2021) and Napoleon (2023). Both of these epics have the grand costumes I’ve come to expect, and highlight how Scott has evolved as an action director – but they don’t have the same sense of scale offered by the Roman Empire. That scale is what feels so unique to Gladiator II, and while it was present in its predecessor, it feels far bigger here.

One major shift from the previous film is the inclusion of naval combat. The film opens with the battle of Numidia, and here is where we are first introduced to the ships of Rome. Hanno (Paul Mescal), is the general of Numidia’s defense, and we are given mere moments to take in the beauty of this massive city – before being swept over the waves to be introduced to the great General Acacius & the full navy of Rome. Each of these ships is far more forbidding than any ground army could be – armed with catapults & boarding towers too large to be overcome by a single fighter. As the arrows from both sides fly, it becomes quickly apparent that something larger must be used to resolve this battle – the ships are coming, and arrows alone won’t stop them. At this moment, the full power of Numidia is revealed – the catapults and trebuchets that launch flaming balls hungry for the wood of these Roman ships. 

The artwork of creating ancient war machines for the big screen is at its height with Gladiator II – when trebuchets, catapults, cavalry, massive warships, and greater walls are captured on camera, it’s impossible to look away from this technical marvel. Even when the action becomes more and more theatrical within the Colosseum, it never loses its sense of danger and scope. This is aided by the tactile feel of the world – the environment, set design, and costumes are all gorgeous. Where the practical effects end and the digital effects begin, I cannot say, for this world is truly enthralling. Arthur Max’s production design is a grand statement to this majestic world: It shows a Rome full of beauty that you wish was real. The costumes, the shadows, the prop blades, the makeup – it all exists to showcase the disproportionate world of Rome in its glory. 

This grand artwork isn’t unique to Gladiator II – indeed, Gladiator has some of the best set and costume designs put to film. But the major cinematic upgrade is shown in the film’s action. Whether it’s the natural evolution of Ridley Scott as a more accomplished action director, or the inclusion of editors Sam Restivo and Claire Simpson, Gladiator II is a major step up from its predecessor in its action scenes. Where Gladiator was an action film created through covering broken continuity with phenomenal sound design, Gladiator II doesn’t need to fake the action. The geography of the action is followable throughout the fast-paced action – and it makes for a grand spectacle worthy of the silver screen. Now, when we see the action on the floor of the Colosseum, we are far more able to take in this beautifully broken empirical world. Through stronger editing in the action, Gladiator II is able to transport you into the world of Rome with ease. And the action now plays a stronger role in the characterization of key characters – Mescal is able to entertain as a wild beast through the choreography, and tell a story without any lines of dialogue. It’s a massive step up from its predecessor in these technical elements. 

Although the story wanders, Gladiator II sold me an entertaining time at the movies that inspired hope that a better world can exist. I feel far more connected to Hanno’s conflict than I did to Maximus – and Mescal’s performance walks a line between apathy and duty so perfectly for me. Add to this a stunning performance from Denzel Washington, and its easy to see why I am giving Gladiator II a thumbs up. It’s worth watching on the big screen and adds to the mythology of Gladiator in fascinating, worthwhile ways.

Grade: B+