Critique: Onward

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

 

I know this film wasn’t a box office success but it’s definitely up there with my favourite Disney films.

 

There were plenty of good things to talk about.

The plot was simple and engaging. They resurrect their father’s legs and have to go on adventure to bring their dad’s torso back, too, by the end of the day.       The introduction about magic and how it faded was good.      

Elves being blue was good.

The police centaur taking off his hat, letting his long hair flow in the wind (so graceful!), and then galloping off was fantastic. It was a fun way to end a fun film.

 

The Manticore was by far my favourite character.

Most of the humour came from her but she didn’t feel like a cast-aside comic relief character. The one that made me laugh most was: “Last name ‘Manticore’. First name ‘The’.”

I do have one question about her, though. It’s from her, this very same manticore, that people got their quests from. Yet magic has long faded from the world. So that makes this manticore very, very old. Magical creatures often live a long time but for how long magic’s been gone, how old is she? Could she really still be alive if she was that old?

 

Clever and moving, the conflict at the end between the characters and the dragon was perfect.

Every spell he learnt on his adventure was used. Some were used in new ways and paired with a new concept. Such as making his magic staff splinter large so the splinter could be used as a magic staff.

The dragon is made from bits and pieces of the school. The cute dragon mascot became the scary stone dragon’s face. that in itself was hilarious. But then its eyebrows slanted to make it look angry (sometimes cute-angry and other times just plain scary). That was perfection.

The first we see of their mother is her exercising saying, “I am a mighty warrior!” Then in the final fight when her boys are down, she joins in the fight and again says she’s a might warrior.

He tells his brother to say goodbye to their father because he never got to, even though he never got to say hello. That was so touching. Then he realises that his brother had always been the one looking out for him, like a father figure, so he didn’t need to speak to his actual father. So moving!

 

Update

 

I watched Onward a second time and a few new things stood out to me.

Bailey’s toy soldiers are on the landing so his mum shouts, “Keep your soldiers off my land or we’ll go to war!”

Putting their dad on a lead and Bailey saying, “I definitely remember him having a top half” were hilarious.

They call the centaur the ‘main [mane] man’ and his name is Colt Bronco, two great names for a horse-being. Then he counts with his hooves!

When Bailey’s van, his noble steed, loses its back wheels, the van start to gallop like a horse.

The roar of the dragon made of the school sounds like the school bell.

Really, only one weapon in the entire world can destroy a curse? Also, how did Ian’s notebook survive being submerged in water? We didn’t see him do a spell to dry it out.

Critique: Why Women Kill (Series One)

 

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

One house over different decades houses three families.

The programme follows the motivations that three women have to commit murder. I wouldn’t say it builds sympathy for their causes but it builds understanding. Reasons for the crime that would usually be seen as petty in crime dramas now seem reasonable.

The crimes aren’t connected by the same people or the same time but simply by the same location. For location to be a factor with the absence of people/time was original.

Dancing the tango was a theme throughout the show. It was a clear reference to the musical Chicago, another story that makes the audience understand the reasons behind murder. This created a link between the two stories so that if the audience knew Chicago, they’d already be prepared to accept why these women kill.

 

I laughed so much. If I had to pick out my favourite moments, I would basically have to write the script word-for-word.

One of the most stand-out moments was the part of the advert which made me want to watch the show in the first place: wife says she knew someone who died choking on a nut; husband asks the new ingredient in dinner; wife says nuts.

The mistress accidentally finding out her new friend is the wife of her boyfriend was pure gold, too. Then at the very end, it’s hinted that the second wife (now elderly) has sex with her husband. Yeah, get it, gurl!

 

Three things gave me pause. (Four, if you count the first wife’s bizarre falling out with her neighbour. That was neither realistic nor believable.)

When the third couple are buying the house from the second wife, they’re discussing Tommy and second wife says, “He has my face tattooed on his ass.” The tattoo is on her thigh. Now, she’s hilarious and there’s no way for the third couple to verify the tattoo’s location. So I hope this is her being funny, not a mistake with the script.

Near the end, the drug addict says, “I didn’t know Jews hunt.” Um, what? Is this another stereotype Americans have, like that episode in Modern Family where they joke about Asians being bad drivers?

When third husband asks, “Are you fucking her?” I was a bit like oh shit he’s possessive and jealous I know why he’s going die. But then it’s an open marriage. It was good to have a poly relationship explored in the show but it concludes with the spouses deciding to be monogamous. It was almost like polygamy was blamed for what happened, not bat-shit crazy Jade.

 

The first wife’s husband is cheating on her so she befriends the mistress. The second wife’s husband is gay so she has an affair with her friend’s son. The third wife brings Jade into the marriage to create a thruple.

The thought of the sweet and innocent first wife being a murderer is preposterous but she turns out to be the most ferocious. No she doesn’t kill her husband but she orchestrated it.

The thought of the second wife killing her husband was realistic, even if it was petty. The only one without a reason to kill their husband is the only one who actually did kill him. But the fact that it’s euthanasia and not out of spite (like how the storyline builds it up to be) redeems her.

The third wife is a strong, independent woman who doesn’t take any shit. I never thought that she could murder but I’d no reason to think she couldn’t murder, either. But then in a complete twist, it’s not the wife but Jade who attempts murder. The fact that it was the only case of attempted murder in the show was a complete surprise.

Whilst Jade being the antagonist was a twist, it was fully believable. The husband’s movie script included a good girl and Jade became furious, saying how good girls aren’t two-dimension, simplistic characters. This set off warning bells. It made me tense about Jade long before she made the characters tense.

 

This show was engaging and entertaining. The script was constructed really well and the actors were believable. Even though the title gives away the conclusion from the get-go, there were still surprises and elements of suspense. It was enjoyable through and through, easily something I’d watch again.

 

Critique: Raya and the Last Dragon

 

*****SPOILERS*****

 

This was a really fun film. The woodlouse/armadillo/pangolin Tuktuk was adorable and the sound effects of him rolling along were perfect. It’s just a shame Raya didn’t give him an actual name (‘tuktuk’ is his species name).

 

Kumandra was ravaged by druun who petrify humans and dragons. The dragon Sisu, they believe, created the Gem to save people: the druun were banished and humans were un-petrified.

Five hundred years later, Benja, Chief of Heart and Raya’s father, believes people can unite. Raya shows Namaari, Fang’s princess, the Gem and Namaari breaks Raya’s trust. The Gem breaks and each tribe steals a piece of it. After this, the druun reawaken.

 

Six years after the betrayal, Raya brings back Sisu. As they collect Gem pieces, Sisu gets the powers of her siblings.

When Raya says she still has a chunk of the Gem to make Sisu feel better, Sisu compares it to losing a puppy: “If I said you still have a big chunk of it, would you feel better?” Another line that awakened the cackle was, “Actually I think the lying made you look like a liar.”

So it’s very tempting to say the dragon was comic relief. But every member of Raya’s company took up that humorous role. Often funny sidekicks are unnecessary to the story but by making every sidekick funny, their role in the story was solidified. Increased, even.

Sisu’s hair in human form was spectacular.

 

There are a few problems.

At the end of the film when the Gem is reunited in full, all the dragons come back. The first time, the Gem didn’t bring back the dragons yet this time it did? Why? How? With all the information we have, this doesn’t seem plausible.

Each dragon has their own powers, like transformation or walking on rain. Sisu only gets extra powers because of the Gem. Yet at the end, all the dragons can walk on rain. Again, how and why? Unless every single dragon touched the Gem. They couldn’t have walked on rain until they got to the Gem, but they couldn’t have got to the Gem without walking on rain.

I wasn’t a fan of Noi. The film had a series tone to it. Noi’s silliness seemed completely out of place.  Besides, there was already enough appropriate light-heartedness in the film. I did, however, like how her monkeys had gills.

So Raya says that the dragons brought people rain and water. Um, rain is water. I think the implication was rivers so that should have been said instead (lakes/ponds can be formed by rivers, rain or both so they wouldn’t need to be specified in the list).

 

Trust was the clear message of this film.

This is a message Raya refuses to learn from Sisu because Raya blames her trust in Namaari and Benja’s trust in the other tribes for causing this mess. But Sisu points out that if they’d trusted each other to start with, there would have been no betrayal.

To trust in people when you think you shouldn’t, to give everyone a chance, multiple chances. To trust in who someone could be, not necessarily who they are now. Hence forgiveness is the other message of this film, clear via implications but hidden with subtlety.