“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken,” a new animated coming-of-age story from Dreamworks, now playing in theatres, flips the usual idea of the tentacled sea creature from fearsome to heroic.
The Kraken-out-of-water tale isn’t a franchise—although it may be the beginning of one—but it does owe a debt to recent Pixar films “Turning Red” and “Luca,” movies about the transformation of body and expectations.
Years after leaving the sea to live on land and raise their family, ocean creatures Agatha (Toni Collette) and Peter Gillman (Colman Domingo) are secretive about their past. “We’re from Canada,” they say to explain away their blue skin, gills and lack of spines.
Fifteen-year-old daughter Ruby (Lana Condor) goes along with the lie, and admits to “barely pulling off this human thing.” At school, she feels different and has a hard time fitting in outside of her squad, a small group of BFFs.
“I just want to be Ruby Gillman, normal teenager,” she says.
Despite her mother’s strict rule of never going near the water, days before the prom, when her high school, skater-boy crush Connor (Jaboukie Young-White) almost drowns, Ruby dives into the ocean to rescue him. Contact with salt water releases out her true self, a giant luminescent, kraken. “I’m already a little weird,” she says, “but I can’t hide this.”
In short order Ruby learns of her heritage, and that her grandmother, Grandmahmah (Jane Fonda) is a warrior queen, the Ultimate Lordess of and ruler of the Seven Seas, and charged with keeping the undersea world safe from the main maritime threat—evil mermaids.
“But people love mermaids,” says Ruby.
“Of course they do,” says Grandmahmah. “People are stupid.”
Grandmahmah wants Ruby to become her successor and possibly settle an age-old score.
Themes of self-acceptance, family love and overcoming insecurity are common in films for kids and young adults, and “Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” is no different. But what it lacks in originality—“Turning Red” got to the transformation as a metaphor for coming out of your shell first—it makes up for with good humor, fun voice work, particularly from Jane Fonda and Annie Murphy as a mermaid, and an engaging lead character.
Ruby is a sweet-natured math nerd wrapped up in a blanket of insecurity. As she attempts to navigate high school and her newfound kraken alter-ego, she never loses the teen aura that makes her so relatable. She may be able to morph into a giant, but the biggest things in her life remain her family and friends. It’s heartfelt, and somehow, not as sappy as it sounds.
“Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken” may not break new ground, or part the oceans, but it tells its story with panache, finding a way to merge a kid-friendly story with some decidedly adult jokes.
“Lock up your children,” says Winifred in “Hocus Pocus 2.” “Yes Salem. We are back!”
Twenty-nine years ago, the original “Hocus Pocus,” a comedic fantasy about the Sanderson sisters, a trio of witches played by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, was a middling hit in theatres, and labelled “dreadful” by Gene Siskel.
But despite critical lashings and a current score of 39 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, over the years, the Sanderson sisters have become Halloween favorites, so much so, that the town of Salem, Massachusetts threw a celebration in honor of the film’s 25th anniversary.
Disney+ gives fans another wave of the wand with “Hocus Pocus 2,” a sequel that gives new life to the Sanderson sisters.
The new film begins with a flashback to hundreds of years ago in Salem. The Sanderson sisters, played as teens by Taylor Paige, Nina Kitchen and Juju Journey Brener, become outcasts, sowing the seeds of the rage that will consume them for hundreds of years.
Cut to present day. Salem teens three teens are Becca (Whitney Peak), Cassie (Lilia Buckingham), and Izzy (Belissa Escobedo) are best friends, who hang out at the local magic shop run by Gilbert (Sam Richardson). With the help of a special Black Flame Candle, supplied by Gilbert, the teen trio resurrect the sister witches, just as Max (Omri Katz), Allison (Vinessa Shaw), and Dani (Thora Birch) did decades before in the original film.
But Salem is a much different place since the sisters last visited. In the midst of a Halloween celebration, the sisters don’t inspire fear as much as admiration. So many revelers are dressed as the Sandersons, that the city hosts a look-alike contest.
But it’s not all fun and games. The sisters are looking to gather up some tasty teen life-forces and get vengeance for the mistreatment they suffered years before. It’s up to the high schoolers to stop them.
Part horror comedy, part musical (the sisters don’t understand modern day traditions, but somehow are able to belt out Blonde’s “One Way or Another” at the drop of a witch’s hat) and all nostalgia. The spectre of the 1993 haunts the new film as it pays homage to the original to the point where the new stars—Peak, Buckingham and Escobedo—get lost in the shuffle once the original sisters show up.
As fans of the first movie might expect, Midler, Najimy and Parker chew the scenery, offering up larger-than-life performances, heavy on the whimsy. They are campy—particularly when singing a revamp of Elton John’s “The Bitch is Back,” reworked as “The Witch Is Back”—and often funny in an outrageous but family-friendly way.
“Hocus Pocus 2” is fan service. It expands the Sanderson sister’s story, providing an origin story (probably the best part of the movie) and gives Parker and Najimy more to do than the original. Mix in some modern sensibility about accepting people’s differences and you have an hour and forty minutes of forgettable fun. It’s not nearly as bewitching as the 1993 film, but may cast a spell over longtime fans.
A high school, coma comedy with a fish-out-of-water twist, “Senior Year,” a new Netflix movie starring Rebel Wilson, plays like a mix between “While You Were Sleeping” and “Billy Madison.”
Stephanie Conway (Angourie Rice as teenager, Wilson as an adult) was on track to have a perfect life. A high school star, she was a cheerleader, president of the fashion club and prom queen candidate until a head injury, caused by a tumble off the top of a cheerleading pyramid, put her into coma for twenty years.
Waking up at age 37, it is like no time has passed. As far as she knows, it’s 2002, words like “shiznit” and “bomb diggity” are still hip and she still wants to be prom queen, the pinnacle of high school success. “It’s more than just a crown to me,” she says.
But she is a relic. Social media is a new-fangled thing, political correctness is like science fiction, cheerleaders now do routines about the climate crisis and gun control, and her former classmates are now the parents of high schoolers.
To get on with her new life, its’s time for some adult education… in high school. “I can’t move on to the next chapter in my life,” she says, “if I am still stuck in the old one for twenty years.”
With just a month before graduation, she enrolls, trying to pick up where she left off. But she finds times gave changed. “I had more fun in the coma,” she sighs.
“Senior Year” is a comedy with a scattergun approach.
The coming-of-age story is meant to be a poignant look at Stephanie as she matures and comes to understand that there is more to life than cheerleading and being prom queen. The power of friendships and loyalty are examined—”It doesn’t matter who has the most friends, or likes, or followers,” says Stephanie. “If you just have one or two great friends, they will support you. Then you have got it all. That is worth fighting for.”—butted up against the notion of being true to yourself and the idea that who you are in high school doesn’t define you.
Doesn’t sound that funny, does it?
That’s because it isn’t. At least, not all the way through. “Senior Year” takes a one joke premise and milks it for humor in the first couple of acts. Funny, situational lines are sprinkled throughout the first hour or so. “You survived twenty years without solid food,” says Stephanie’s dad (Chris Parnell), “you can make it through a weekend without your phone,” but they dry up as the movies goes on.
It also goes for laughs from the culture clash between 2002 and 2022. Stephanie has much to learn about political correctness and world events, but to its credit, the film doesn’t treat the teens as woke zombies, spouting catchphrases, but as decent kids who care about their friends and the future.
It sounds like a lot, because it is a lot. Wilson does what she can to keep things moving along, but when the feel-good messaging begins, she is saddled with prosaic, by-the-book truisms that suck away the whatever fun had been established in the film’s first part.
Talented comic actors like Mary Holland and Zoë Chao bring both humor and heart to their roles, but “Senior Year” still feels messy. Too long, it toggles back-and-forth between the sincere and the silly like it is changing gears in a high-speed Formula One race, but, unfortunately, never finds its pace.
