Prime Time: DC League Of Super-Pets (2022)

While I don't consider myself any kind of expert on the vast history and array of comic books, I am aware that super-pets have been a thing for some time. Which makes this animated movie an obvious choice for those wanting to appeal to younger viewers wanting to continue, or begin, their journey through the landscape, one full of masks and capes, that has dominated the box office for most of the past decade. It should be an easy enough recipe, and it is, but it's a shame that those involved didn't add just a bit more flavour.

Dwayne Johnson voices Krypto, the pet dog of Superman (voiced by John Krasinski). All seems to blissful, until Superman starts to think more about making plans with Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde). Meanwhile, a group of animals living in a shelter are far removed from bliss. Those animals include a dog named Ace (Kevin Hart), a guinea pig named Lulu (Kate McKinnon), and a few others we will get to see more of as the story plays out. Take some kryptonite, the fact that Lulu wants to impress the man who once ran tests on her (Lex Luthor, voiced by Marc Maron), and a bit of soul-searching, and you have the movie. Krypto loses his super-powers, but Ace and friends gain some, which leads to them trying to resolve some issues that will get in the way of them working together as a team.

Co-directed by Sam J. Levine and Jared Stern, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Whittington, this is strangely better than I expected it to be, yet also full of unrealised potential. If the writers had found a way to focus on the animals without even needing (super)human characters involved then it may have been a much more enjoyable experience, able to play around in the DC universe without feeling attached to anything else. Sadly, the other characters are given some time, even if it is limited in comparison to the animals. And there's a cameo at the end of the film that is both sad and hilarious for a reminder of the hubris that Dwayne Johnson had in 2022.

Johnson and Hart are both fine in their roles, both managing to use nicely intertwine their onscreen personas with the essence of their canine characters, and I cannot think of any of their many film collaborations that I have completely disliked. McKinnon is great fun as the nefarious Lulu, an evil mastermind contained within a decidedly non-evil-looking guinea pig physique, and Maron makes a very good Lex Luthor (so much so that I think he'd be great doing it in live-action form). As for the other main animals, you have Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, and Diego Luna having a lot of fun in their roles (playing, respectively, a potbellied pig, a short-sighted turtle, and a very nervous squirrel), and cameos from Keith David, Thomas Middleditch, and Ben Schwartz to listen out for. Krasinski and Wilde do fine, but the other superheroes are entertainingly voiced by Jameela Jamil, Jemaine Clement, and, best of all, Keanu Reeves (who is a surprisingly great fit for the Batman voice).

Younger viewers will enjoy the animal antics and silly jokes. Older viewers will enjoy the voice talent. I don't think anyone will enjoy everything about it though. The animation style is cute, but not on par with the seemingly effortless brilliance from other studios, the plot is as predictable as it is ultimately inconsequential, and it's the kind of thing you can watch and rewatch as a harmless distraction, rather than any beloved classic. 

But hey, no matter what I have said here, it still probably sits above most of the live-action DC features we've seen in the past few years.

6/10

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Mubi Monday: If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

It's a difficult job to follow up a film as impressive and moving as Moonlight but that is the job that writer-director Barry Jenkins has given himself. The fact that this isn't quite as good as that film doesn't mean it's a bad film. Not at all. It just means that it could have been better.

Kiki Layne is Tish Rivers, a loyal girlfriend to her partner, Alonzo 'Fonny' Hunt (played by Stephan James). That loyalty, and her strength, comes to the fore when Fonny is put in jail for a heinous crime that he didn't commit. With the help of her family, Tish does all she can to maintain a good lawyer and work on achieving the break that they need to get Fonny released, hopefully in time for the arrival of their baby.

Perhaps it was inevitable that this would prove slightly underwhelming, because only something close to perfect would rival the previous film from Jenkins, and there's a familiarity to the storyline here that stops it from feeling as unique and vital as Moonlight, but that familiarity is also part of the reason why Jenkins must have wanted to make it. Adapting the book by James Baldwin, Jenkins has another tale full of love and race, but it also has a sense of resignation to it, a sad inevitability as we follow the plight of yet another young black man wrongly imprisoned.

Set mainly in New York of the 1970s, Jenkins does an impressive job of evoking the atmosphere of that time without trotting out the expected selection of tunes and pop culture references, instead painting a much more detailed picture with the attitudes of the main characters and the muted colour palette used throughout.

Layne and James are both very easy to root for in the lead roles, with the former a constant source of quiet strength and dignity throughout and the latter trying to act likewise, despite viewing the world around them with more of a cynical and self-defensive attitude (the difference between the two highlighted as Fonny tells another character about a prospective landlord who was a lot more accommodating before he realised that Tish had a partner). Regina King is the standout, however, as Sharon Rivers, the mother of Tish and a woman determined to do whatever is necessary to keep her family happy, healthy, and safe. The film arguably revolves around one moving scene, featuring King and Emily Rios, and it's a moment that illustrates both great pain and great futility for both women. Ed Skrein is a loathsome police officer, and there are uniformly excellent turns from Colman Domingo, Teyonah Parris, Michael Beach, Aunjanue Ellis, Diego Luna, Finn Whitrock, and everyone else involved.

Despite the romantic notions of the main characters, love cannot solve all problems and overcome all obstacles. But it can make a bad situation more bearable, just knowing that someone who cares for you is always on your side, always has faith in you. Sometimes the doubt and judgement of everyone else in the entire world doesn't matter one bit as long as the contents of your heart and soul are an open book to the one you love, and the fact that Jenkins makes this a clear, positive, message in a story that also focuses on the bias of the American justice system and the way in which so many African Americans can be punished for crimes that police want to pin on any black individual . . . well, that's why it's not a bad film. In fact, it comes very close to being a great one. And I look forward to his next one.

8/10

You can buy the excellent Moonlight here.
Americans can buy it here.

Flatliners (2017)

I am not going to tell you that the original Flatliners was a classic horror movie. It was a fun Joel Schumacher film, utilising a fun premise, decent enough script by Peter Filardi, and a cast of hot young stars of the time. I just never thought it as great as some others. I did like it though.

This remake starts with the same basic idea (medical students get themselves involved in experiments that lead to them dying for some time, which subsequently leads to them bringing something back over from the other side). But we get Niels Arden Oplev directing, and a script by Ben Ripley.

Ellen Page is Courtney, the first medical student to come up with the plan to flatline. She actually wants to do so because she thinks reading the data from the experience, as she does it while her brain activity is recorded,  could help deal with certain medical situations. She's joined by Jamie (James Norton), Marlo (Nina Dobrev), and Sophia (Kiersey Clemons). And eventually, reluctantly, Ray (Diego Luna) gets caught up in the whole mess. Things start getting weird, and death isn't necessarily going to let anyone go without a fight.

When it comes to the actual logic of the way events pan out, Flatliners does a surprisingly good job. It starts off as being about more than people just trying to get their kicks, but eventually shows competition between the leads and the element of thrill-seeking involved. Ripley has done a decent enough job of updating a premise that didn't feel too badly dated to begin with, bringing in an interesting element that removes it slightly from the original (although I won't detail that - no spoilers here). It's just a shame that the new element also ends up proving the undoing of the film during the third act. Things feel a bit tamer than they could have been, even compared to the original film, which wasn't exactly pushing the boundaries of the horror genre. 

Oplev directs competently enough, but only just. The scares are, for the most part, the easiest options, the visuals are quite drab and lacking any sense of foreboding or decent atmosphere, and even the grand finale feels more like a whimper than a bang.

Then we have the cast. I like most of the people involved. Page, Dobrev, and Luna are all good enough for me to watch. I can't recall what else I have seen Norton and Clemons in, if anything, but they seemed just fine in their roles. They aren't, however, the hot stars of today. That doesn't make them bad actors, it just removes some of the spark that this premise had when it was first put in front of viewers. I'd imagine that some of you reading this will have no idea who half of these people are, yet we all STILL know Julia Roberts, Kiefer Sutherland (who cameos here), Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin (okay, you don't remember him individually but you know there's a Baldwin clan), and maybe even the great Oliver Platt.

All of these elements add up to make something that's just a bit . . . disappointing. The tame script, the unspectacular and drab visual style, the star cast that doesn't feel exactly stellar. It makes a good attempt to rework the original material but there are too many mis-steps for it to become something decent (even the score by Nathan Barr is just average, at best).

4/10

UK folks can buy Flatliners here.
If in America you can buy it here.