Glad to see that with Moana 2, WDAS has finally figured out that their sequels need an actual direction instead of aimlessly lumbering around in search of one, but I guess that comes at the expense of any real emotion, character development, or even decent pacing. So it’s kind of a wash, pun intended.
Maybe with Zootopia 2, fourth time will be the charm? Please?
Honestly surprised to find this had a lot more effort put into it than I expected. For what even Warner Bros. executives admitted was a rights ploy, War of the Rohirrim owes its positives to beautifully crafted 2D backgrounds (though it falls apart whenever the film tries to go three-dimensional, which is funny given Sola Animation’s resumé), a score that succesfully harkens Howard Shore’s legendary work without cheapening it too much, and a darker tone that ups the stakes through some surprisingly…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Have you ever gone into a movie thinking "I don't know what this is about, but it's got a whole bunch of actors I dig and it's only 105 minutes, so what the heck," started to increasingly like it as it went along, had to pause about twenty minutes before the end because you had to eat dinner and spent that whole dinner thinking "you know, this movie has actually been really good so far, four stars easy," and then…
This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Del Toro's version of Pinocchio is beautifully animated, rich with both joy and melancholy, and is undeniably a far more enjoyable experience than the mess Disney and Robert Zemeckis released on their streaming service a few months back, but there are some issues that still hold it back for me.
Where I think Pinocchio stumbles for me, outside of the plot feeling somewhat crowded in areas, is in two places—One, it's (partially) a musical, but none of the songs outside…
