Frozen II sees sisters Anna and Elsa venturing to the Enchanted Forest, upstream from their own kingdom. There, they will discover a land in need of saving and learn some shocking secrets about their own family history.

Astonishingly, the pre-title sequence is really, really rough. Like, first draft rough. (More likely, it’s the result of too many rewrites, but you get the idea.) The film soon picks up, but even at its best, the script needed one more dialogue pass. The writing simply doesn’t pop in the way that Frozen and Moana‘s scripts did.

We get a few new characters, none of which stick in the mind after the credits roll, except one, who exists purely for the purposes of further queerbaiting (seriously, the sooner Disney takes the plunge with regards to Elsa, the better.) There’s subtext to be found – something about the environment, something about addressing our colonial past – but there’s nothing bold or thought-provoking about it.

The animation is 2019-standard, nothing mind-blowing like the water or hair animation in Moana.

Acceptable describes just about everything in Frozen II. It feels like it could have been a Disney+ exclusive, rather than a fully-fledged cinema release. This film had the same $150 million budget that the first did six years ago, which surprised me. Surely the highest-grossing animated film of all time deserved a bigger, bolder sequel?

I’m curious to see what the legions of fans thought of this. A significant proportion of them may have actually ‘grown out’ of the property, which is the risk you run when you take such a long time developing a follow-up.

Whilst I was never blown away by Frozen, I could at least see why it captured the hearts and minds of so many. With Frozen II, there is very little to set it apart from the scores of other 3D animated movies of the past ten years.

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I’m not sure I can even go into this film in any depth – I’m too angry.

The Rise of Skywalker feels like it was specifically made to appease the group of fans who hated The Last Jedi. Like someone ran through the half dozen plot points that frustrated them the most, then set out to retcon them, one by one. It’s truly astonishing how many things achieved by the last film are undone by the return of J.J. Abrams.

Chief among The Last Jedi’s accomplishments was the notion that we have to move on from the past. Rey (Daisy Ridley) wanted to learn from it and take the next step; Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) simply wanted to kill it. “We are what they grow beyond”, Yoda said. Clearly he wasn’t talking about Episode IX, which has no interest in taking up the opportunity presented at the end of Episode VIII, instead content to retread old ground – even more than The Force Awakens. So expect to see old faces, endless callbacks and rehashed scenes from the original trilogy.

I won’t list the major plot points that infuriated me – to do so would be to spoil the film – but suffice to say, it feels like an apology. Which, historically speaking, is strangely fitting, considering Return of the Jedi was an apology for The Empire Strikes Back (which was not universally well-received at the time, despite what revisionists claim) and The Last Crusade was an apology for Temple of Doom. So yet again – it’s something we’ve seen before with George Lucas’ creations.

J.J. Abrams lets loose with a couple of things that annoyed Star Trek fans back in 2009 and 2013 – namely, messing with what can and can’t be done during faster-than-light travel, and giving his characters power over life and death. Sure, the end of The Last Jedi featured an astonishing show of power, but it also came at a cost. In Rise of Skywalker, Kylo and Rey are flinging the Force around like demigods.

What did I like about this film? Well, this won’t take long. The visuals are stunning, the VFX fantastic. There are some cool new worlds to explore. Most significant of all is the fact that the cast are acting their damn pants off. Despite the awkward exposition, plot contrivances and characters doing random 180s, they carry it off with aplomb. The undisputed hero of this trilogy is Adam Driver, who has consistently sold even the most ridiculous writing in all three of the films. But then there are so many characters that given short shrift. Leia, we can understand. But Lando? Luke? Rose? Finn? Wasted. Even new characters like Jannah (Naomie Ackie) serve little purpose.

So this is how it ends. At best, a constrained act of obeisance…and at worst, a whimpering apology. I’m sad to say that this trilogy will have to remain a two-parter on my Blu-ray shelf.

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Like many Stephen King stories from the past 20 years, this feels like a remix of things he’s done before. Specifically, it’s reminiscent of ‘Children of the Corn’, ‘The Stand’ and ‘Desperation’. Twins Becky (Laysla De Oliveira) and Cal (Avery Whitted) are driving cross-country when they stop to assist someone lost inside a field of tall grass. You won’t be surprised to learn that doing so is a bad idea…

I often find it exciting when King reverts to a back-to-basics story. As fantastic as some of his bigger, more complex tales are, sometimes you just want to read something like ‘The Raft’, you know? In the Tall Grass is like that, though it always hints at something else, just seen off-camera. It’s a bit like Lovecraft’s work in that way – there’s something bigger than us in the universe, it’s been here much longer than us, and will be here long after we leave. And it does not care about us.

The setup is intriguing, even if it does rely on the twins making some dumb mistakes. And the moment new characters appear, we as the audience are immediately more suspicious than Becky and Cal. It’s like they’ve never read a Stephen King story before.

Natali does some really interesting stuff with VFX here, as he has done all throughout his career. The budget is decent enough, but I never forgot that we were almost always in a studio, especially when there was obvious sky replacement going on…

I was never bored, but the film could have ended at any time after the 45 minute mark. There are dozens of mini-climaxes that felt like endings, and when the actual ending arrived, my only response was “ehh, good enough. That makes sense.” There’s no narrative urgency, no real oomph. The film successfully shifts gears from first to second act…and then plateaus.

In the Tall Grass is a competent film, well made. But that’s about it. The only highlights are Natali’s visual flair and Patrick Wilson, who is making a habit of hitting it out of the park even when the film around him is rather silly (see also Aquaman).

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The original film is a curious beast. Supposedly beloved by many, I’ve yet to find anyone who genuinely enjoys Jim Henson’s film as an adult. Even as a child, I found it a slow, plodding affair that failed to excite any emotions. The puppetry was the only thing worth writing home about. Henson’s next film, Labyrinth, was an improvement in every single way.

So I’m damning Age of Resistance with faint praise when I say that it’s a marked improvement on the original film. A prequel, it shows the world of Thra under the benevolent dictatorship of the Skeksis. The various tribes of Gelflings pay tribute to their overlords, variously in a state of denial or blissful ignorance as to fact that they are being taken advantage of. Everything changes when one of the Skeksis discovers they have the ability to use the Dark Crystal to siphon life force from the Gelflings, and extend his own life. Meanwhile, a mysterious force known as the Darkening (seriously) is taking over Thra…

With an expansive cast of characters, Age of Resistance sees the individual story threads spread across Thra, then intersecting more and more frequently until it all comes together at the end. If you’re fascinated by fantasy world-building, then this show has it in spades. The different landscapes, flora and fauna, various tribes and races – there’s a lot to take in, and I don’t remember the last time I watched a TV show that paid this much attention to the setting.

I should make clear that Age of Resistance has wonderful production values. The score is bold and uplifting, even if the main theme sounds distractingly reminiscent of Tears for Fears’ ‘Everybody Wants to Rule the World’. The physical sets are incredible, and the costuming is stunning. When it comes to the puppets themselves, however, I’m on the fence. I’m not a huge fan of rubbery-looking puppets, so the Gelflings themselves are unimpressive. Then there’s the fact that the puppeteers aren’t providing the actual voices. Now, I mightn’t have noticed this if Brose Avard (head honcho of the Chatflix podcast) hadn’t mentioned it, but as with the original film, the voices are replaced by other actors’, which means that the physical ‘performances’ aren’t as impressive as they could be. Put simply, ‘Sesame Street’ puts on a better puppet show.

The voice cast is…overwhelming. Taron Egerton, Anya Taylor-Joy, Jason Isaacs, Simon Pegg, Benedict Wong, Mark Hamill, Keegan-Michael Key, Awkwafina, Eddie Izzard, Helena Bonham Carter, Lena Headey…I have to stop, because the list goes on. It’s basically a who’s who of actors from fantasy and sci-fi productions of the last 20 years. Also, could we take a moment to note that Simon Pegg has appeared in reboots of Star Trek, Star Wars, Tintin, The Chronicles of Narnia, ‘Doctor Who’ and now this? Are there any iconic geek properties from his childhood left for him to take part in?

Age of Resistance is a love letter to the original, but thankfully much more entertaining. I wasn’t exactly enthralled, and was regularly conscious of scenes or plot points that only served to pad out the episodes, but perhaps that’s because I’m aware that this is yet another example of a proposed film being changed to a TV series by Netflix (see also ‘Stranger Things’ Season 1). The potential for more big budget puppetry on streaming networks does get me excited, however. I’m glad that the art can still get the big budget treatment in 2019.

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Whilst I’ve only mentioned She-Ra in passing here on hoopla.nu, it’s a show of such high quality that it consistently surprises me. With Noelle Stevenson behind the wheel, it was always going to be good (seriously, ‘Lumberjanes’ is one of the best kids comics I’ve ever read), but this show excels on every level.

First off, the character designs are great updates of the originals. Whenever we’re introduced to someone new, it’s fun to Google the old toys to see how much they’ve changed whilst still retaining the spirit of the original. The background art is also reminiscent of late 70s/early 80s sci-fi and fantasy. Overall it’s got a Moebius-meets-80s-Miyazaki vibe.

The script is equally impressive. Snappy and hilarious, the dialogue ensures the pacing never drags. Even better, all of the villains actually have depth. It’s invariably a case of “doing the wrong thing for the right reasons”, which ensures that, whilst it’s a cartoon, the antagonists are never purely cartoonish. And central to the drama is of course the relationship between Adora and Catra – one of the most interesting examples of friends-turned-rivals-turned-enemies that I’ve ever seen in children’s programming.

Season 3’s arc is epic, even if it only comprises six episodes. The mythos gets expanded in a big way, and we learn more and more about Etherea and Adora’s place in the world.

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is effortlessly inclusive whilst also, at its core, being about your traditional good-versus-evil struggles. The emotional complexities put most of the 80s cartoons I watched growing up to shame. I can only hope that, like She-Ra, Kevin Smith’s recently-announced ‘He-Man and the Masters of the Universe’ reboot also manages to be as good as I remember the original series being, and not as lame as it actually was. (Seriously, if there’s one show that should remain in your memories, it’s He-Man; don’t be tempted to try and relive the glory days by rewatching it, folks.)

From a show purely designed to sell toys to a complex, hilarious and inclusive cartoon, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power continues to go from strength to strength. I’d just prefer if they released each actual season in its entirely, rather than splitting them up.

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The first thing that strikes you about The Clear Card is how little has changed. It’s incredible just how much this feels like 90s CCS. The character designs have been updated ever-so-slightly, but this is definitely a show designed to appeal to people who grew up watching the original. The background art is where the biggest difference can be seen, with some beautiful 3D work and contemporary lighting techniques. Madhouse animation studio has created the perfect visual update.

The story is a reboot of sorts. There are more cards for Sakura to tame, a new mystery to unravel. Like the original series, however, it’s not the kind of show that’s in a hurry to advance the ongoing plot. The day-to-day struggles of life in junior high are the focus, as Sakura and Syaoran get – gasp – serious (or at least as serious as junior high relationships can be). This would be my main criticism – the story isn’t moving fast enough. There’s also a strangely obsessive focus on food. I don’t remember the characters being quite so food-oriented in the original show, but it’s on full display here. Be prepared to watch everyone cooking, looking at, anticipating, eating and then finally reminiscing about food.

The one thing I’m glad they ditched is Sakura’s continued surprise that the source of any one episode’s chaos is a card. The number of times she expressed shock when someone said, “Hey, maybe this is the result of a Clow card?” was mind-boggling.

At this point in the show, 11 episodes in, I have no idea if 2019 Cardcaptor can be more transparent in presenting the non-heteronormative relationships portrayed in the manga. Toya and Yukito seem to know where the other one is and what they’re doing at any one time – as if they were a couple – yet the show never actually says as much. I suspect that, in the interests of maintaining canon with the original anime, they will continue to simply insinuate, rather than be as up front as the manga was.

It’s – ahem – clear that The Clear Card isn’t simply made for grown-up fans of the original show. This is still a kids’ show, and as such don’t expect any complex stories or challenging plot twists. As an exercise in updating a dormant story without reinventing it, however, The Clear Card is excellent.

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I’d like to say that such an approach has yielded quality results. And it has…up until now. Alas, The Hidden World is unspectacular. It’s not that there’s a lot wrong with it; more that it feels like an addendum rather than a glorious final chapter.

Hiccup (Jay Baruchel) has taken the village of Berk into a bold new world, but he still doesn’t feel confident in his role as their chieftain. When Berk is threatened by a new villain, Hiccup and his friends must find a new land for his people and their dragons.

The story is so slight that you could spoil the whole thing in a sentence or two. There isn’t much in the way of subplots, and there are no real character arcs. Astrid (America Ferrera) was cool and kick-arse by 2010 standards, but here she’s simply playing second fiddle to Hiccup, apparently existing only to support her man. I have no sense of what her ambitions or dreams are. Hiccup’s mum, Valka (Cate Blanchett), is present also…but has nothing to do. The new villain, Grimmel (F. Murray Abraham), shows promise but is never much of a threat. Continuing the trend of underwhelming the audience, even the titular Hidden World proves to be…just around the corner.

In fact, the writers messed up big time with regards to the geography. Berk always felt like an isolated village, and yet we have a whole new evil army nearby that no one’s mentioned before, and it’s only a few hours’ flight to the nearest island. Everything about this film is small. Inconsequential, even.

The animation is, of course, impressive. And it’s cool to see how much has changed in the industry in the last nine years. But it seems DreamWorks was too distracted by the technology. The dynamic lighting, the various textures and the ability to have hundreds of characters on screen at once is incredible. But it also makes it hard to watch at times. Sometimes, there’s simply too much going on. This is where good animation would utilise various techniques – composition, lighting, focal depth, no matter how unrealistic – to focus the eye on the important bits. At worst, it’s like the Special Edition versions of the Star Wars films, where locations such as Mos Eisley became distractingly busy.

The Hidden World is a disappointing end to a strong franchise. It’s not as epic or action-packed as the second film, nor is it as emotionally effective as the first. They should have gone out with a bang, not with a whimper.

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I’m sure the Justice League reshoots necessitated some last-minute fiddling with this film, because whilst Aquaman has very few links to the DC films that preceded it, there are a couple of moments that made me go “huh?” For instance, here he doesn’t even know Mera’s name, despite their conversation in Justice League suggesting some kind of history between them.

But the thing is, it doesn’t really matter, because this film is almost entirely self-contained. It worked for Wonder Woman, and it’s clear that DC decided this was the way to go here, also. Sometimes people don’t want to worry about whether they’ve seen the 19 prequels before they go to the next superhero blockbuster (not naming any studios there, whatsoever. Oh no, I would never!)

One thing’s for sure: James Wan knows how to go big. I didn’t see his Fast and the Furious sequel, so for someone like me who’s only really known him for his horror movies, it’s surprising just how many stunning, large-scale VFX sequences impress. In fact, they’re pretty much the best parts of the film.

Because, to be honest, Momoa isn’t the greatest actor in the world. He’s amazingly good looking and definitely charismatic, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who has a genius acting instinct. Basically, he’ll do what he’s told by the director – and sometimes, despite his best efforts, it just doesn’t work. They’re at pains to explain that Arthur is a laid-back, cool dude who you’d sink a few beers with at the pub. But such moments always feel forced. He’s spent too much time at the gym for someone who apparently doesn’t have any aspirations. And considering he spends much of the film ignoring the hero’s call, this conceit has its work cut out for it.

The other performers succeed to varying degrees. Patrick Wilson is excellent, and manages to act convincingly even when half his face is obscured by a helmet (training in Watchmen must have helped). Dolph Lundgren also does a great job, whilst Nicole Kidman and Temuera Morrison are simply okay. Willem Dafoe struggles, however. He never looks comfortable. Finally, Amber Heard is…decent. She won’t blow you away, but there’s nothing poor about her performance either.

A lot about this film is just fine. But what really works is just how outlandish it all gets. Aquaman dials it up to 11 for much of the runtime, and isn’t afraid to go full fantasy. And when you have High Elves wielding laser guns whilst riding giant seahorses, you just have to sit back and let it happen, you know?

We’ve come a long way from Batman Begins, which was at pains to explain how such outlandish things could exist in the real world, or even Thor, which resorted to the “fish out of water” story so that the really fantastical stuff was pushed to the side. Now, a film like Aquaman can come out looking like a mash up of TRON, Lord of the Rings and HP Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos. And…I’m kinda okay with that.

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Unsurprisingly, Warner Brothers pushed this film back by 18 months or so, and it’s only now crept straight to Netflix. And I can see why they changed the release date, because this is very similar to Disney’s film. Or at least, the first 15 minutes are. At that point, I was prepared to switch off, so pervasive was my sense of déjà vu. But I’m glad I didn’t, because Mowgli quickly becomes an intriguing, if flawed, feature.

The first thing those familiar with the recent Disney version will notice is that Serkis et al went for a different visual style. The CGI animals are less photo-real and more caricatured. It means that they’re more expressive, to be sure, but it didn’t quite work for me. They all have a tendency to look a bit…off. If anything, it’s definitely more artistic than Favreau’s film, but it may bother some people.

The acting is uniformly excellent – particularly Christian Bale as Bagheera – and it must be said that Serkis is a great director. There are a dozen outstanding scenes here, even if it doesn’t hang together in toto. I’m not sure if they stuck to the script or went through reshoots and/or a particularly aggressive edit, but the narrative lurches forward more than once.

Most significant is the tone. It seems Serkis was determined to deliver a film that was less black and white and all shades of grey. Nobody is out-and-out evil. The humans encroaching on the jungle aren’t malevolent, nor are the members of the pack who bully Mowgli. Aside from Shere Khan, they’re all doing what they think is for the greater good. And even big, bad Khan is portrayed as aged and lame, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

All this is mature and well-written, but the film simply left me feeling bereft. When the credits rolled, it was a case of “everything was shit, but now it’s slightly less shit. Maybe.” And I’m not sure that’s what audiences were expecting. (Word to the wise – it gets very dark at one point. Almost Artax-level dark. Show this your kids judiciously.)

This does have something to offer those who’ve already seen Favreau’s attempt. Mowgli is a strange film, with some stunning VFX and powerful scenes. The tone misses the mark, however, and the pacing is slipshod.

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So season 2 starts with a bang…and never lets up. A horde of Titans is on their way to wall Rose, and Eren and the other scouts set out to meet their enemies head on. Except, this being Attack on Titan, it isn’t long before plot developments flip our understanding of the world upside-down.

I can only assume that Hajime Isayama is making this stuff up as he goes, because the narrative shocks frequently feel like writing challenges. It’s all so completely nuts, and the show doesn’t pause to spend too long on any of these revelations, instead moving onto the next gory plot point.

And boy, does the gore come thick and fast. The titans are as horrific as ever, and there’s some pretty amazing dismemberment on show. The action is incredible also, and it never fails to get your pulse racing during the battle scenes.

You want to know how else AoT s2 was catering specifically to me? They gave us a Sasha episode! That’s right, the potato-obsessed scout is the focus of possibly the best episode of the season, which gives her a decent backstory too. As much as we all love Mikasa – who, make no mistake, is amazing – I love that a character as offbeat as Sasha gets her time to shine.

The narrative of season 2 overall is strong…up to a point. When we get to episode 34, the pace suddenly grinds to a halt, and the dreaded labored exposition rears its head once more. It’s almost as if the make-it-up-as-you-go-along technique has run out of steam, and the writer felt explanations were in order. As such, the season crawls over the finish line. It’s frustrating because, as I said, the first eight episodes are pure, unadulterated fun.

It goes without saying that the Blu-ray presentation is excellent. This is top-shelf animation, and the action practically leaps from the screen. The audio is excellent, although we only get a 2.0 mix in Japanese (which is, naturally, the One True Way to consume anime!) There are also commentaries, interviews, a quiz, galleries…basically it’s like the early 2000s back when everyone was competing to see how many special features they could cram onto a disc…

Somewhat disappointing conclusion aside, this is a strong season. Anyone who was on the fence the first time around should give this one a go…

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