I think because the first two films in the quadrilogy were fantastic and the third one had more of an emotive story, this felt underwhelming in comparison. The stakes for the Chameleon were actually so low in comparison to the battles in the first three films despite the use of the Spirit Realm. I didn't see much of a sense of danger to Po or the Valley of Peace in comparison.
It just felt like it was a cop out…
This film shows that Robert Eggers become the Spielberg of horror. I think that the social media hype surrounding the film was overrated.
The aesthetics reminded me a lot of The Woman in Black and I think I would have worked better as a limited series on TV.
However, due to its success and mainstream appeal, I have a feeling that Nicholas Hoult and Lily Rose Depp will be typecast in these kinds of films and it could turn into a bit of a Tim Burton scenario.
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
A classic B Movie. You can't take the dynamation fight scenes seriously as one minute, they fend the Venusian off with a pole, the next, a flamethrower 🤣🤣
The funniest fight scene has got to be the one with the elephant that spills into the street 😭😭 It's a shame this wasn't parodied at the time by Ealing Studios...
However, even though Ray Harryhausen's talent as an animator is unparalleled, I don't think his style of animation really worked if they were intending on making this a scary film.
I liked the sombre premise but some of the songs made me want to fall asleep. At least Fantasia had the dynamic visuals to go with it.
Maybe I would have preferred the film more if they interviewed Sakamoto in-between the pieces he played to break it up a bit. However, if the Opus recordings are on an album, I would buy it to help my brain switch off.
