Glen Keane brings 43 years of Disney character animation experience to a new film now streaming on Netflix. From “The Little Mermaid’s” Ariel, “Beauty and the Beast’s main character—the Beast, not the Beauty—to the eponymous folks in “Aladdin,” “Pocahontas” and “Tarzan,” he’s the Disney Legend who created some of the most indelible characters of several eras.
This week he turns his eye, as character designer and director, to “Over the Moon,” a fanciful animated musical loosely based on the Chinese legend of Chang’e, starring the voices of Sandra Oh, Phillipa Soo and Ken Jeong.
The action begins in modern China, four years after the passing of Fei Fei’s (Cathy Ang) mother. She’s smart, funny and a romantic who believes in the legend her parents told her about Chang’e (Phillipa Soo), the Moon Goddess who yearns to be reunited with her true love. Fei Fei is still grieving her mother’s loss when her father (John Cho) becomes involved with another woman Mrs. Zhong (Sandra Oh) and her 8-year-old child, Chin (Robert G. Chiu).
To prove that love is forever and that her father’s affection for Mrs. Zhong is misplaced, Fei Fei concocts a plan. She builds a rocket ship to visit the moon so she can get evidence of Chang’e existence to prove to her father that love burns eternal. Unbeknownst to her Chin stows away on the adventure to the moon that will help her appreciate what she thinks she is missing on Earth.
“Over the Moon” isn’t a Disney picture, but it feels like one thanks to the Keane touch. The familiar tropes, a deceased parent and adventure, are given a zippy new life with colourful, fun animation and some beautiful sequences like the cross cut between the CGI to the more traditional hand drawn animation in the telling of the legend. There are flashier more fluorescent sequences later on, particularly in the vivid and abstract Lunaria scenes, but the use of an organic style of animation to illustrate a time-honored story is the first of many of the film’s good decisions.
Also strong is the voice work. As Fei Fei, Ang is feisty and smart as a self-sufficient youngster on a journey of self-discovery. She is no damsel in distress, just a kid looking to make things right in her world. The supporting cast, like Margaret Cho in a dual role and Ken Jeong as Fei Fei’s sidekick Gobi bring the goods as does Soo, who earned a Tony nomination for her work on Broadway in “Hamilton,” but her work leads to one of the film’s minuses.
Soo is a great singer, and has one of the movie’s show-stoppers, a Broadway-by-way-of-Beyonce tune called “Ultraluminary,” but each of the songs feels tacked on in an effort to sell soundtrack downloads. A mix of show tunes, K-Pop and pop music, with the exception of “Rocket to the Moon” none of the tunes feel necessary.
“Over the Moon” is a beautiful movie that celebrates Chinese culture, tells a story of overcoming grief and has some great animation and while the main story beats feel familiar, the high gloss visuals are unpredictable and consistently interesting.
It is a rare comedy for kids that starts with explosions and the execution style deaths of bad guys, but here we are. “My Spy” is an action adventure co-starring a nine-year-old and a hulking action star in a story with no blood and guts but plenty of violence but also plenty of charm.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” star Dave Bautista is JJ, a tough talking mountain of a man whose closest friend is a fish named Blueberry. As a C.I.A. agent he gets the job done, usually in the least subtle way possible. After one action packed adventure he is assigned the relatively quiet gig of surveilling Kate (Parisa Fitz-Henley), a single mother who was once married to a very bad man. Their mission is to gather information to determine if anything nefarious is happening inside the apartment.
When preteen Sophie (Chloe Coleman) discovers the camera’s in her mom’s apartment she tracks down JJ and his sidekick Bobbi (Kristen Schaal) in their “secret” apartment down the hall. Instead of being freaked out Sophie threatens to expose their operation unless JJ teaches her how to be a spy. As he clandestinely trains the youngster how to beat a lie detector and other 007 moves, he lets his bullet proof façade drop, becoming a father figure of sorts to Sophie and a love interest to Kate. “You opened up a part of me that has been closed for a long time,” he tells her.
When the baddies show up JJ and Sophie must team to keep Kate safe.
“My Spy” has many of the earmarks of a kid’s flick. There’s the young co-star, some silly humour and even a dance number of sorts at the end. It also has some bad language, violence and gunfire so keep the little ones away even if they are fans of the larger-than-life Drax the Destroyer’s more kid friendly adventures. Just as this movie is somewhere between a kid’s movie and an action film, the audience is best limited to tweens.
Bautista is following in the footsteps of other muscle-bound stars like Arnold “Kindergarten Cop” Schwarzenegger, Vin “The Pacifier” Diesel and Dwayne ” Tooth Fairy” Johnson in kid’s odd couple—big and burly, small and smart—films. The movies only work if there is chemistry between the leads and here the film’s biggest asset—and no, it’s not Bautista’s bulk—is the charming spark between Bautista and Coleman. The story is predictable, the villain is super evil and some scenes seem overly familiar (didn’t Schwarzenegger already speak to a class of kid in “Kindergarten Cop”?) but despite all that, it raises a laugh or three.
Bautista is funny here, he can do the physical stuff, deliver a one liner and doesn’t seem to be taking himself too seriously while Coleman delivers, presenting Sophie as naturally smart and independent.
“My Spy” owes a debt to the other tough guy babysitting movies that came before it but succeeds through personality over predictability.
Richard speaks with “Lady and the Tramp‘s” Yvette Nicole Brown about her role in Disney’s newest remake, adopting rescue dogs, wearing corsets and if Brown agrees that her character is the villain of the story.
New to the Disney+ screening platform comes a glossy live-action—that means real dogs!— remake of “Lady and the Tramp,” the House of Mouse’s 1955 animated classic.
The updated version maintains the heart of the original. The story of two dogs from different sides of the tracks, a pampered American Cocker Spaniel named Lady (voiced by Tessa Thompson) and Tramp (voiced by Justin Theroux), a Schnauzer-mutt who lives on the street, is a study in class divides aimed at kid’s imaginations. The plot thickens when Lady’s owners (Kiersey Clemons and Thomas Mann) welcome a baby and, through circumstance, she finds herself on the streets, eking out a life with her new friend Tramp.
This is not your father’s “Lady and the Tramp.” The Disney+ version of is half an hour longer than the original version and comes with a modern sensibility. That means the regressive and racist “The Siamese Cat” song is nowhere to be found (the cats are no longer Siamese and they sing a new tune called “What a Shame.”), irritable Scottish Terrier Jock is now named Jacqueline and Tramp no longer has to defend Lady from a group of wild dogs. She’s more than capable doing that herself. Also, Tramp won’t be defined by the name Tramp. In this outing he has no name. “Who needs a name?” he says. “I’m free to be whoever I want to be.”
To my eye the changes and new additions don’t justify the extended running time but as a family television experience “Lady and the Tramp” offers up several pleasures. Once you adjust to the inherent strangeness of watching dogs speak, the canines hand in good performances (never thought I would ever actually have to write that in a review). They don’t have the range of expression their cartoon counterparts brought to the story but, as we saw in “The Lion King,” the technology that brings them to anthropomorphic life is state of the art if not quite the magical experience you might hope for.
Ken Jeong speaks about his transition from the world of medicine to entertainment on this August 21, 2019 encore presentation of “Pop Life.” Jeong also opens up about his wife becoming cancer-free.
Tune in Saturday nights, 8:30 pm (ET) on the CTV NewsChannel and again at midnight on CTV or watch the whole thing HERE!
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including rock legends Sting and Meat Loaf, musicians Josh Groban and Sarah Brightman, comedian Ken Jeong, writer Fran Lebowitz, superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actors Danny DeVito and Jay Baruchel, celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Nigella Lawson, and many more.
If nothing else the new animated film “Wonder Park” will teach kids how to use and possibly overuse the word “splendiferous.” Good lessons on self reliance and facing fears abound, but “splendiferous” appears so many times it’s as if the screenwriters earned a bonus every time a character utters it.
Precocious ten-year old June (Brianna Denski) spends most of her days hanging out in a world of imagination. Encouraged by her loving mother (Jennifer Garner), June is a mini P.T. Barnum, inventing a fantasy theme park, Wonderland, “the most splendiferous park ever,” using nothing but bendy-straws, stuffed animals like her monkey Peanut and her creativity.
When her mother falls ill and has to be hospitalized June puts away childish things, putting Peanut and all of Wonderland into boxes. Looking after her father she becomes obsessed with running the house. Concerned he cannot survive without her, she plays hooky from math camp, creating a diversion so she can get of the bus and cut through the woods to get home. On the way she discovers a discarded amusement park ride that transports her into the land of her imagination.
But things aren’t quite how she imagined them. Her beloved stuffed animal mascots are on the run from hoards of chimpanzombies determined to destroy the park. As the architect of the park her imagination will be put to the test as she searches for a way to restore harmony to her beloved Wonderland.
Even at just one hour and twenty-six minutes “Wonder Park” feels padded. Music montages and several frenetic action scenes stretch the story to feature length but there is much to like nonetheless. Good messages about the power of imagination to help work through life’s challenging moments and self-belief are sincere and powerful—“There is wonder in all of us!”—but it is the film’s willingness to expand beyond the eye-distracting action scenes into more personal territory that earns it a recommend.
The mother’s illness sub-plot is handled subtly and carefully but drives the entire story. “I got so scared of losing her,” June says, “that I lost myself.” It’s poignant and more heart-tugging than you might expect from a movie featuring a talking porcupine (John Oliver, doing some fun voice work).
“Wonder Park” is a movie that respects its audience. That understands children can handle complex ideas about real life and for that, it is splendiferous.
Film critic and pop culture historian Richard Crouse shares a toast with celebrity guests and entertainment pundits every week on CTV News Channel’s all-new talk show POP LIFE.
Featuring in-depth discussion and debate on pop culture and modern life, POP LIFE features sit-down interviews with celebrities from across the entertainment world, including superstar jazz musician Diana Krall, legendary rock star Meatloaf, stand-up comedian and CNN host W. Kamau Bell, actor and best-selling author Chris Colfer, celebrity chef Jeremiah Tower, and many more.
“Crazy Rich Asians,” based on the phenomenally successful books by Kevin Kwan, is a mix of “Cinderella” and a rom com with a side order of “Pride and Prejudice.”
Constance Wu plays Rachel Chu, an NYU economics professor, who dates historian Nick Young (Henry Golding). After a year of seeing one another he invites her to his best friend’s wedding and to meet his family in Singapore. She jumps at the chance because she knows nothing about them. Every time she brings up the family he changes the subject. “Maybe his parents are poor and he has to send them money,” says her mother Kerry (Kheng Hua Tan).
Turns out just the opposite is true.
When it begins to dawn on Rachel that his family is well off she asks him straight up. “We’re comfortable,” he says. “That is exactly what a super rich person would say,” she says. He is the son of unimaginably rich parents, the wealthiest people on the island. Nick is prince charming, a good-looking heir to a fortune who downplays his status. “Damn, Rachel, says Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina), “he’s like an Asian Bachelor.”
She is the Meghan to his Harry but there are problems. Catapulted into a world of opulence Rachel finds herself under scrutiny. Nick’s family doesn’t approve of her job, her background or the fact that a single mother raised her. “If Nick chooses me,” she says to his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), “he would lose his family. And if he chooses his family, he might spend the rest of his life resenting you.”
“Crazy Rich Asians” is an effervescent concoction so fizzy it’ll make your tongue tingle. A glittery surface built around a solid chassis, it contains a bit of something for everyone, from romance and Lifestyles of the Rich and Singaporean to melodrama and philosophy, from exotic locations to comedy. But at its heart it is the story of a woman, Rachel, who is secure enough in her own place in the world to not be seduced by the cornucopia of riches on offer. It’s about character and how it relates to individualism versus tradition.
The plotting is pure rom com—couple fall in love, are forced apart and (SPOILER ALERT ONLY IF YOU’VE NEVER SEEN A ROM COM BEFORE) yet find a way to make their love work despite all obstacles—but it is populated with appealing characters to guide the story.
Wu is the film’s beating heart, bringing empathy and humanity to the high-flying world portrayed. Ditto Gemma Chan, an extravagantly wealthy woman trying to make sense of a marriage torn apart by money and status. As Nick’s icy mother Michelle Yeoh displays an ability to reveal much by doing very little.
On the com side of things is Awkwafina as Rachel’s best friend. She steals every scene she’s in, even when up against veteran eye catcher Ken Jeong.
“Crazy Rich Asians” is an escapist fantasy that entertains with its labyrinthine soap opera twists and turns, lush settings and all Asian cast—a first in a quarter century in Hollywood—but also digs a little deeper into the similarities and differences between the characters and cultures.
There will be a time in the near future when “Inside Out” and “Norm of the North” will be listed on your Netflix queue as animated films, but make no mistake they don’t belong in the same category. Where “Inside Out” is a happy serving of eye candy topped with a transcendent story, “Norm” seems to exist not as a story but simply as a vessel for cute characters.Set in the Arctic, where Ivory Gulls speak with English accents, lemmings are indestructible and polar bears twerk (and speak English) for the amusement of tourists, the movie wraps an environmental message for kids human encroachment in the Arctic around a feel-good story that left me feeling bad.
Norm (voice of Rob Schneider) is an insecure polar bear who must remind himself that he has top of the Arctic food chain. “You’re an animal, “he says, “literally.” He’s timid polar—he’s a “a bear with too much care and not enough scare”—but when an evil New York developer named Mr. Greene (Ken Jeong) plans to build condos in his corner of the arctic he springs into action. Overhearing the builder’s associate Vera (Heather Graham) say she’s looking for a symbol of the arctic who can talk to potential customers, Norm hatches a plan. He stows away to New York City (with three lemming henchmen in tow) to become the Greene’s spokesbear. His idea is to “use the Arctic to save the Arctic.”
“Norm of the North” is as entertaining as you’d think a children’s cartoon starring Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo will be. It’s cut rate Saturday morning cartoon level animation—some scenes don’t even look fully rendered—that relies on kid-friendly characters rather than story or jokes. In other words, if “Inside Out” is the Ferrari of kids animation, sleek and well-made, “Norm of the North” is the Edsel.
It assumes children don’t need entertainment that works on any other level than, ”Where can I buy a cute stuffed Norm doll?” Despite its family friendly messages about friends, family and loyalty, the movie doesn’t try and disguise its cynical heart. At the spokesbear audition Vera gushes over Norm, “He’s cute and marketable, it’s perfect.” You can only imagine a similar conversation in the design phase for this movie. Also, is Norm’s description of Mr. Greene as “a creepy one note villain” dialogue from the script or a passage from the stage directions that accidentally made it into the film? It’s hard to know.
“Norm of the North” has little to recommend it. Padded with dance numbers—two in the first fifteen minutes alone—and montages, the best that can be said is that bad movies like this are important to remind us that the Pixar movies aren’t flukes.
