DESCENDANTS 2 – Disney Channel’s original movie “Descendants 2” stars Cameron Boyce as Carlos, Sofia Carson as Evie, Dove Cameron as Mal, Booboo Stewart as Jay and Mitchell Hope as Ben. (Disney Channel/Bob D’Amico/Craig Sjodin)
The story deepens in the music-driven sequel to the global smash hit “Descendants,” as the teenage sons and daughters of Disney’s most infamous villains — Mal, Evie, Carlos and Jay (also known as Villain Kids or VKs) — try to find their place in idyllic Auradon. When the pressure to be royally perfect becomes too much for Mal, she returns to her rotten roots on the Isle of the Lost where her archenemy Uma, the daughter of Ursula, has taken her spot as self-proclaimed queen of the run-down town. Uma, still resentful over not being selected by Ben to go to Auradon Prep with the other Villain Kids, stirs her pirate gang including Captain Hook’s son Harry and Gaston’s son Gil, to break the barrier between the Isle of the Lost and Auradon, and unleash all the villains imprisoned on the Isle, once and for all.
To keep up with the latest on the sequel, follow this hashtag: #D2Deets
The animation is quite good in “The Wild Life,” with exceptional use of space designed to make the best use of 3D and cleverly constructed mechanics. But the voice talent is poor, the characters are dull, and the story and script start out badly and go downhill from there.
It is inspired by but bears little relation to the classic shipwreck story Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe, memorably illustrated by the great N.C. Wyeth (father of Andrew). But in this version there is no Man Friday. Instead it is, for no particular reason, told as a flashback from the perspective of the animals on the island, including a pangolin, a hedgehog, a tapir, and a parrot named Mak, later dubbed “Tuesday” by Crusoe.
The movie begins with pirates seeing what they think is a signal flame on a remote island. The captain sends his men to check it out and bring back anything of value. They capture Crusoe, and Tuesday settles in with some friendly mice on the ship to tell them the story from the beginning.
We meet Crusoe and his dog Ainsley onboard La Luna. They are novices at sea travel and looked down upon by the seasoned sailors. Crusoe does a lot of looking down, too, at the ocean, as he barfs into it. Also on board are two scraggly cats with Cockney accents, the scheming May and henchman Mal (Debi Tinsley and Jeff Doucette). A storm destroys the ship and Crusoe and Ainsley are trapped when the sailors depart in the lifeboat. The ship crashes on the shore of a tiny uninhabited island. Well, uninhabited by humans. The animals live in a predator-free paradise, with daily luaus, and they are all very happy except for Mak the parrot, who dreams of finding something exciting and different.
Crusoe, Ainsley, and the splintered remains of the ship are thrilling for Mak but terrifying for the other animals. Eventually Crusoe gains Mak/Tuesday’s trust and the animals begin to make friends with him, helping him to build a treehouse complete with running freshwater. But May and Mal, briefly stuck on an adjacent rock and soon accompanied by a litter, are determined to return to the island and pretty much eat and/or destroy everything and everyone.
Illuminata had the same mix of exceptional animation technique and underwritten story in “Fly Me to the Moon.” I wrote in my review, “Unfortunately, the dull characters and weak story keep getting in the way of the gorgeously produced backgrounds.” My strong recommendation for their next film is that they try to find writers and performers as capable as their visual artists.
Parents should know that this film includes a scary shipwreck, mean cats, pirates, guns, and fire, characters drink alcohol and there is a sad offscreen death of a character.
Family discussion: Why is Mak the only one on the island who is curious about the rest of the world? Why did Mal do what May said? How can you tell the difference between a coincidence and a bad omen?
If you like this, try: “The Pirates! Band of Misfits” and “Shipwrecked”
A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness, inspired by the late Siobhan Dowd, is the story of a boy whose mother is critically ill. He feels utterly isolated. His father has a new family. His grandmother is cold and unsympathetic. The sympathy of his teachers just makes him feel worse. And then one day, a monster calls, a monster with stories to tell. The film stars Liam Neeson, Felicity Jones, and Sigourney Weaver.
Rated PG for thematic elements, scary images, action and peril
Profanity:
None
Alcohol/ Drugs:
None
Violence/ Scariness:
Monsters, peril, sad offscreen deaths
Diversity Issues:
None
Date Released to Theaters:
August 19, 2016
Date Released to DVD:
November 20, 2016
Amazon.com ASIN:
B01KMKM4TW
Copyright 2016 Focus
LAIKA Studios’ fourth film, “Kubo and the Two Strings,” is a fable of exquisite beauty and meaning, gorgeously produced in the most painstaking of all forms of filmmaking, stop-motion animation. They are the modern-day equivalent of the monks who labored for years on each page of illuminated manuscripts.
Every detail in every frame and every element of the story, set in a magical version of ancient Japan, reflects the simple profundity of the ancient and contemporary Japanese art that inspired it. LAIKA’s last film, “The Boxtrolls,” was set in a cluttered, sooty, steampunkish imaginary Victorian London, and the studio’s motto was “no square corners, no straight lines.” This time it went in the opposite direction, with the muted palette and spare, carefully balanced settings of Japanese woodblock prints and the sharp lines and perfect corners of origami.
One of the hardest elements to get right in stop-motion is water, because it is impossible to control it frame to frame. In “Boxtrolls,” the studio’s greatest technical triumph was an elaborate set-up for a brief scene in which a character touched standing water and created some ripples. LAIKA loves to challenge itself, and so this film starts with a storm at sea. A woman we will learn is Kubo’s mother is desperately trying to stay upright on a tiny boat. We know she is escaping someone or something, but we are not sure yet what or who it is. And we do not learn until she is washed up on the shore, exhausted and hurt, that she is not alone. In her backpack, there is a baby. It is Kubo.
Like Harry Potter, Kubo had a father who died trying to protect him from a danger so great that Kubo bears a wound. One of his eyes is gone. Kubo’s mother survived, but she used all of her magic to save him and now she is frail, forgetful, and inconsolable.
When we next see them, he is about 11, and has been caring for her all his life. Each day, he makes her food and feeds her. And then he walks from their home in a cave on top of a cliff into the nearest town, where he tells stories in the market. He has the power to bring origami characters to life to act out thrilling tales of the great samurai warrior Hanzo. The townspeople love his stories, which always end with a cliffhanger, and they toss him coins.
The community has an annual Obon festival, where they light lanterns and remember the dead. Kubo wants to go, so he violates his mother’s rule about never being out after dark. And the danger she protected him from years ago comes after him in the form of his mother’s two spooky sisters, both voiced by Rooney Mara and both wearing implacable-expression white masks and terrifying swoopy capes made of black feathers.
Kubo’s mother has just enough magic left to save him one more time. And then she is gone, and Kubo finds himself on a journey, accompanied by the live version of the small monkey charm he always carried in his pocket. He and Monkey (Charlize Theron) set off to find the three pieces of Hanzo’s armor that he will need to fight the sisters and their father, who wants Kubo’s other eye. Along the way they meet a samurai who has been cursed and turned into a giant beetle (Matthew McConaughey). And they meet and fight three different monsters, a giant skeleton, an underwater garden of eyes, and an enormous, floating, reticulated moon serpent, each giving Kubo a chance to discover his courage and power.
This is a gorgeous, epic adventure with grandeur, scope, and spectacular settings, every bit of it wonderfully imaginative. It reflects LAIKA’s own adventurous spirit in taking on narrative and technical challenges as daunting as that faced by any hero. Who else would try to create a stop-motion battle under water? Or take on, in a family movie, a quest that encompasses themes of family, story, courage, loss, destiny, and meaning? LAIKA understands that the most enduring fairy tales are not afraid to deal with darkness because that is the only way to understand its true message, here delivered in a breathtaking conclusion, of tenderness and forgiveness.
Parents should know that this film includes fantasy-style peril and violence with monsters and magic, and sad deaths of parents.
Family discussion: Why did Kubo answer his grandfather’s questions the way he did? Why didn’t Monkey tell Kubo where she came from? Why did the two strings make a difference?
If you like this, try: “Coraline,” “Paranorman,” and “The Boxtrolls”
