nicholasabadzis

Don't believe the haters. Enormous fun from start to finish (that's season one, folks. We need a season 2 please, Disney+). It might start with a bit of a slow burn, but then the quest kicks in and it really picks up speed. With this set of characters played by such a hugely engaging, charismatic cast, the journey goes from set piece to set piece, but you never quite know if things are going to pan out, not with so many threats and monstrous encounters along the way. It's a traditional fantastical, magical adventure, albeit with plenty of laughs and imaginative tangents - I think my favourite is the Shattered Sea, a mudscape so vast it literally stretches to the edge of the world. Except, that's not the end of the world, oh no. Watch it and see.

This film is reaching for richly textured, reflective European-styled ambiguity, a portrait of different states and dynamics of a modern female and motherhood. Instead it's a meandering exercise in "Look how clever I am." The most intriguing scene comes early and shows an entitled American family trying to take over a beach, after which you really hope it's going somewhere, but that's the high point. The rest asks you to appreciate the director's artfulness and subtlety, but why? For what? There's nothing fascinating or psychologically involving about any of these depthless, selfish characters. Olivia Colman is always great (as are all the players here - it's a superb cast) but what waste asking them to portray a group of people not worth telling a story about. Frustrating and disappointing.

Starts well with some overt meta-observations of the Hollywood machine's tendency / necessity to make sequels no-one wants. That lasts maybe 20 minutes, after which it abandons any such audacity or self-aware capitalist commentary and descends into a reheated, deflated blancmange of remixed moments from the earlier three films. Sure, it looks cool, but there's absolutely nothing new on offer and it only succeeds in making everyone involved look foolish. Neil Patrick Harris is a terrible villain, too. This doesn't diminish the original film's status as a classic, but what a shame it wasn't suprising in any way and just proved the point the first few scenes make.