Tag Archives: Rob Marshall

Movie Review ~ The Little Mermaid (2023)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A young mermaid makes a deal with a sea witch to trade her beautiful voice for human legs so she can discover the world above water and impress a prince.
Stars: Halle Bailey, Jonah Hauer-King, Melissa McCarthy, Daveed Diggs, Awkwafina, Jacob Tremblay, Noma Dumezweni, Javier Bardem
Director: Rob Marshall
Rated: PG
Running Length: 135 minutes
TMMM Score: (9/10)
Review:  Of all the live-action remakes the Walt Disney Studios had announced, I was most apprehensive about The Little Mermaid. It’s not so much that I had been holding the library of Disney animated classics close enough to my heart that I couldn’t see the vision of transforming them for a new generation; it’s that I didn’t want a new audience to be robbed of the magic I felt when I saw the original in 1989. It was Thanksgiving, and my mom had taken a few friends and me to the Southtown, formerly one of the few Cinerama houses in MN before it was twinned. I’ll never forget being in that audience and seeing Disney’s take on the Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale for the first time.

Of course, the rest was history. Going on to become a multi-Oscar-winning lifesaving hit for Disney and ushering in a second golden era for the studio, there wouldn’t (couldn’t) have been a Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin without the blockbuster red carpet The Little Mermaid laid out. The film would get poor-quality direct-to-video sequels, a truncated theme park show at what was then MGM Studios in Orlando, and a full-scale ride/attraction in the Disney theme parks. A Broadway musical was well-intentioned, but with mermaids floating around on Heelys and the dimensions not quite right, it felt like a more expensively priced version of the show you could have seen as part of your day at the park.

A partially live-action version was presented on television in 2019, with filmed portions interspersed with the animated film. In that eye-rolling endeavor, Queen Latifah played Ursula, ’90s musician Shaggy was Sebastian, and Moana breakout Auli’i Cravalho was Ariel. Yet in the multitude of Disney big screen adaptations, there was a noticeable gap The Little Mermaid had yet to fill. In truth, any success has been spotty, with 2015’s Cinderella the high point and 2022’s straight to Disney+ Pinocchio the absolute dregs. Landing somewhere in between, you have Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast, Dumbo, Mulan, Lady and the Tramp, The Lion King, and The Jungle Book.

Could it be that The Little Mermaid was waiting this long to surface because it was going to, like its cartoon inspiration, signal a turning of the tides for the simple remakes that have come before it? Or maybe Disney Studios has taken enough queues from what didn’t work in their previous attempts and vowed not to make the same mistakes again. Either way, The Little Mermaid emerges as the studios most assured and shimmering live-action revision to date, one that takes the original off the shelf, lightly dusts it off, and puts a shine on it for the viewer of today without forgetting about the audience that made it a classic to begin with.

Crashing waves and a ship unwilling to yield to a thundering sea determined to swallow it whole are the first images we see in director Rob Marshall’s (Into the Woods) interpretation. Here, Prince Eric (dreamy Jonah Hauer-King, who often looks strikingly like his animated inspiration) is the adopted son of a country dependent on its export business and grieving the loss of its King. It’s now time for Eric to return home and get serious about the responsibilities bestowed on him by his Queen (Noma Dumezweni, Mary Poppins Returns). Yet, he longs to explore other territories of the ocean not mapped out, wild undiscovered waters they only sing about in sailor songs (and one he power ballads about in a new tune).

Gliding just below the water’s surface is a young mermaid, Ariel (Halle Bailey), who is also struggling with living up to the expectations of life in royal service. As one of the daughters of the seven seas, her father, King Triton (Javier Bardem, The Good Boss), demands that she participate in the duties assigned to her at birth. Her curiosity couldn’t be contained in any number of oceans, though, and she can’t help but wonder about the world above the water, hiding away any object that falls into the sea in her secret cave of treasures. Accompanied by sidekick Flounder (Jacob Tremblay, Doctor Sleep) and the King’s servant Sebastian (Daveed Diggs, DC League of Super-Pets), she occasionally gets (wrong) advice from dotty bird Scuttle (Awkwafina, Renfield) about the items she happens upon.

Watching Ariel from afar, and clocking her desires for something more than what she has, is Triton’s sister Ursula (Melissa McCarthy, Spy). A tentacled sea witch with a fishbone to pick with her brother that banished her years before, she’s found a vulnerable spot in his impenetrable armor in the form of his youngest daughter. When Ariel saves Eric from drowning and quickly falls in love with him, dreaming of a life out of the sea, Ursula exploits Ariel’s plans for her gain. She entices her to strike a deadly bargain, bringing about a tidal wave of danger for all swept up in the churn.

Purists will find that not much has changed between the 1989 movie and the 2023 adaptation from David Magee (The School for Good and Evil). The story is essentially the same, with a few tweaks here and there to remove dated references and smooth out passages that even the most ardent viewers would admit were growing a bit stale. It hasn’t been woke-ified but has made it even more of Ariel’s story of reclaiming her voice in a literal and figurative manner during the film’s highly stylized final act. Whereas the finale of the new Pinocchio found the filmmakers committing the grave mistake of making a change they thought the audience wanted, here the studio has trusted that the original story has stood the test of time and if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. 

I’m not going to comment on the nasty debate that has gone on over the casting of Ariel because none of those people had seen the film yet. I have seen Bailey’s performance as Ariel and can attest that it gives the Disney princess a beautiful new face and, if possible, an even more gorgeous voice. Unlike the original, it takes a while to get to Ariel’s first song, ‘Part of Your World’, but it’s a build-up worth waiting for. Time freezes for a bit the higher Bailey gets up in her dynamic range, creating a goosebumpy ride for a song we’ve heard hundreds of times before but never sung so stirringly. There’s more lovely singing as the film goes on, but this initial intro sets the bar high for everything that follows.

Another surprise I wasn’t prepared for was how good McCarthy is as Ursula. When I first heard of her casting, I felt it was…oh…too expected? Couldn’t Marshall/Disney dig a bit deeper into their creative wells and find a name that would be more exciting? As it happens, McCarthy is a spitfire as the villain, largely eschewing her usual schtick and instead tipping her tentacle to Pat Carroll’s original take on the role. McCarthy can add some of her own shade to the part with her skilled line readings, and her singing is solid, but the overall mood of the interpretation works like a charm.

Marshall fills the rest of the cast with solid actors and good singers. Diggs is a scream as Sebastian, as is Awkwafina, who takes a usually annoying role and makes it memorably funny. Diggs and Awkwafina are saddled with the wackiest of several new songs (written/contributed by Lin Manuel Miranda…still desperate to EGOT by hook or crook) but make it singular because of their delivery. 

More than anything, this new version of The Little Mermaid retains the spirit and soul that has kept the original playing on repeat in homes for the last three decades. It’s swoon-worthy romantic when it is called upon to do so and a five-hanky weepie when the time comes to shed a tear. I should also say that the scary moments back in 1989 (i.e., the shark and the Big Ursula finale) are extra scary here – this leans heavily into a strong PG at times. See it on the most giant screen possible to catch the expressive creatures brought to colorful life by the Disney effects team and hear those earworm Alan Menken tunes at the maximum volume possible.

Movie Review ~ Mary Poppins Returns

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Decades after her original visit, the magical nanny returns to help the Banks siblings and Michael’s children through a difficult time in their lives.

Stars: Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Ben Whishaw, Emily Mortimer, Julie Walters, Colin Firth, Meryl Streep, Dick Van Dyke, Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, Joel Dawson

Director: Rob Marshall

Rated: PG

Running Length: 130 minutes

TMMM Score: (9/10)

Review: The journey to make Mary Poppins in 1964 was so fraught with tension and hard feelings that it’s no wonder it took 54 years for a sequel to make its way into theaters. If you don’t believe me, check out the entertaining Saving Mr. Banks for a little history lesson…however revisionist it may seem to be.  What child didn’t grow up seeing the titular magical nanny educate the Banks children and bring order to their family while teaching the biggest lesson of all to their workaholic father? I vividly remember seeing it not only in my house but at school on special occasions when they’d get out an old reel-to-reel projector and gigantic screen.

Over the years the popularity of P.L. Travers creation never really went away, even inspiring a long-running West End and Broadway musical that’s now making the rounds in a community theater near you. You can’t keep the old girl down and in 2018 she’s returned in an all new sequel that’s a surprisingly spry near-equal to its half-century old predecessor. The Walt Disney Company took a huge gamble in dusting off this treasured property and turning it over to director Rob Marshall and it has paid off handsomely; Mary Poppins Returns is a true movie event, a hard-working winning combination of fantasy, music, and heart-tugging emotion.

It’s been thirty years since Jane and Michael Banks spent a wondrous few weeks with Mary Poppins but life at #17 Cherry Tree Lane has moved on. Having recently lost his wife, Michael (Ben Whishaw, Skyfall) now lives in his family home with his three children and gets the occasional visit from Jane (Emily Mortimer, Hugo) who has followed in her mother’s footsteps and continued the fight for equality for all. When the bank threatens to foreclose on his house and gives them less than a week to come up with the money all hopes seems lost…until a familiar figure appears from the sky.

Making her grand entrance clutching a kite, Mary Poppins (the divine Emily Blunt, A Quiet Place) has lost none of her dry wit and charming aloofness. She soon sets up shop with the new generation of Banks children while keeping her eye on Jane and Michael as they scramble to find a lost set of bank bonds that could get them out of debt. While their father worries about their future, Mary Poppins helps his children adjust to the present through adventures in undersea realms, at the upside-down dwelling of Mary’s cousin Topsy (a wack-a-doodle Meryl Streep, Hope Springs), and in the painting on a porcelain pot.

Having directed the film versions of Chicago, Nine, and Into the Woods, Marshall knows his way around a movie musical but this is far and away his most accomplished and polished work to date. With the old-school appeal of a Hollywood song and dance spectacular, Mary Poppins Returns is the kind of throwback everything-including-the-kitchen-sink experience they just don’t bother to make anymore. Disney and Marshall had the good sense to give audiences exactly what they want in a sequel to a cherished classic…and then some. While not a remake of Mary Poppins per se, it does seem to hit the same beats as that earlier film even down to a splendid animated sequence and a visit to one of her zany relatives.

Even if Marc Shaiman’s songs don’t stay in the brain quite as well as the tunes created by the Sherman Brothers, they feel like they exist within the same universe and are performed with exuberance by Blunt and company. There’s no ‘Feed the Birds’ level accomplishment here but ‘The Place Where Lost Things Go’ stirs the right amount of feelings and ‘A Cover Is Not The Book’ is a clever bit of wordplay that the Sherman Brothers would get a kick out of. Streep’s oddball ‘Turning Turtle’ is something only she could pull off and Whishaw’s plaintive ‘A Conversation’ gives the actor a nice jumping off point early on in the film. Marshall and his co-choreographer John DeLuca also nicely avoid the trappings of filming huge musical numbers for the screen by letting the audience see the entire company dancing rather than always cutting into close-ups. ‘Trip a Little Light Fantastic’ arrives late in the game but is a true show-stopper.

If the film makes one miscalculation, it’s in the misappropriation of time given to Lin-Manuel Miranda (The Odd Life of Timothy Green) as Jack, a lamplighter friend of Mary’s that’s a stand-in for Bert the chimney sweep from the first film. Whereas Dick Van Dyke’s Bert was someone that occasionally popped up in the action, it feels like Jack is shoehorned into the plot at every turn and it begins to take away from the time we want to spend with Mary and the Banks family. At times, Jack becomes the driving force of play and that made the movie feel like it was veering too far in the wrong direction.

Still, it’s hard to argue that Blunt commands the movie in no uncertain terms whenever she’s even close to the screen. I personally think Blunt is the perfect choice for any part she turns up in but here there’s a real chemistry between actress and role that is rarely seen. No one is going to erase the performance of Julie Andrews from our memory and Blunt doesn’t even try to recreate that particular take on the role. Smartly choosing to give Mary an updated look that sets her apart from her 1964 appearance, Blunt’s Mary is just as staunch as Andrews but doesn’t soften quite as easily. She’s also riotously funny with her droll line readings and incredulity at the state of affairs she encounters upon her return. Andrews won an Oscar for her work and I expect Blunt will get a nomination as well.

Filling out the cast is Colin Firth (Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again) playing a rare villain role as a bank manager eager to claim the Banks house, Julie Walters (Paddington) as put-upon maid Ellen, David Warner (Waxwork) as Admiral Boom, and Angela Lansbury (Beauty and the Beast) as a wise Balloon Lady with a magical touch of her own. Then there’s Van Dyke (Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) dancing up a storm and keep your eyes out for the original Jane Banks, Karen Dotrice, making a cameo outside of Cherry Tree Lane.

Bound to rake in some serious money this holiday season, Mary Poppins Returns is that rare sequel that feels like it wasn’t done for the money but for the greater good. I know it’s all about the bottom line but this is one film that feels like it could heal what ails you…even if just for two and a half hours.

Movie Review ~ Into the Woods

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A modern twist on the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tales, intertwining the plots of a few choice stories and exploring the consequences of the characters’ wishes and quests.

Stars: Meryl Streep, Chris Pine, Emily Blunt, Tracey Ullman, Frances de la Tour, Johnny Depp, Lucy Punch, Simon Russell Beale, Tammy Blanchard, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Christine Baranski, Billy Magnussen, Lilla Crawford, Daniel Huttlestone, MacKenzie Mauzy, Richard Glover, Joanna Riding, Annette Crosbie

Director: Rob Marshall

Rated: PG

Running Length: 124 minutes

Trailer Review: Here & Here

TMMM Score: (7.5/10)

Review: If there’s one take-away from the big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine’s Into the Woods it would be that director Rob Marshall proves once again that it’s possible to transition a stage-bound work quite nicely to the silver screen.  As he did with his Oscar-winning Chicago (which, to be fair, was a far trickier beast to wrangle), Marshall brings a sense of wonderful theatricality to the proceedings that helps keep a saggy second act afloat.

Arriving on the heels of the disappointing remake/reboot of Annie, the first 75 minutes or so of Into the Woods is a gleefully wry take on the fairy tales we all grew up with.  There’s Little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford) spunky as all get-out, even when faced with a zoot-suited Wolf (Johnny Depp, The Lone Ranger) intent on making her his next meal.  Depp is, pardon the pun, howlingly bad in his brief cameo and you’ll be glad to know that his total screen time amounts to about 5 minutes…which still feels too long.

We also get Cinderella (Anna Kendrick, Pitch Perfect) fresh-faced and clarion voiced even under a pile of soot.  Kendrick has true musical theater chops and Marshall gives her a wonderful moment to shine in a delightfully reimagined “On the Steps of the Palace” which takes place in a bit of suspended time as Cinderella ponders her next move.

Then there’s the Baker (James Corden, One Chance) and his wife (Emily Blunt, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen) so desperate for a child they agree to fetch items for a next-door Witch (Meryl Streep, Hope Springs) who promises in return to have the ‘curse reversed’.  Venturing into the woods (a-ha!) to find the items they run into Little Red, Cinderella, as well as a pre-Beanstalk Jack (Daniel Huttlestone), Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), and a variety of other storybook figures.

It’s within the first half of the film that the best scene arrives featuring two puff-chested Princes (Star Trek’s Chris Pine and Broadway newcomer Billy Magnussen) hysterically belaboring their romantic entanglements (one with Cinderella, one with Rapunzel) while traipsing around a waterfall.  It’s the crown jewel of a film sparkles quite a lot.

Then something happens…and if we were in a theater I would say it was Intermission.

You see, it’s in the second half of the film that I found the same sort of problems I have with the stage show.  I know that the whole point of the second act of Into the Woods is to show what happens “after happily ever after” and that’s all well and good but where the stage show becomes somewhat intriguingly heavy handed the screen musical loses its spark and never fully recovers.

That’s due in some small part to the ‘Disney-fication’ of the film.  With the House of Mouse forking over the dough for funding certain adjustments were necessitated and that includes softening of more than a few rough edges that helped define the stage musical.  Now, certain tragedies that helped drive the musical to a conclusion onstage are rather toothless here…with some changes downright confusing from a narrative point of view.  Even die-hard fans of the show may be left scratching their heads wondering what just happened.

Were the performances not so strong, this type of late in the game mishap may have spelled certain doom for Marshall and company but he’s assembled a frothy cast with several unexpected delights.  Streep is, of course, right on the money with her hag witch popping up (and in and out) at just the right moments.  She eschews the delivery of any previous Witch and makes the part wholly her own.  I question the decision in the second half to give her a peculiar set of buck-tooth veneers that have a worrisome impact on her speech but otherwise she looks and sounds exactly how you’d imagine.

The roly-poly Corden and ethereal Blunt make a nice pair and the two play off of each other quite nicely.  Both have pleasant voices with Blunt the real surprise as she tackles the difficult passages Sondheim created.  Crawford, Mauzy, and Magnussen acquit themselves nicely but as the film progressed I found that Pine’s bo-hunk royal, with his affected upper-crust accent, didn’t work for me.  Pine takes the cartoon-y nature of his character a bit too far and Marshall should have reined him in a bit.

With a gorgeous production design (the majority of the film was shot in a man-made forest) and Colleen Atwood’s trusty duds the film looks like a fairy tale come to life.  Even with a slower second half the film doesn’t feel long and breezes by as fast as Sondheim’s score.  Worth a trip into the theater.

 

The Silver Bullet ~ Into the Woods (Trailer #2)

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Synopsis: A witch conspires to teach important lessons to various characters of popular children’s stories including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel.

Release Date:  December 25, 2014

Thoughts: Though some have turned their noses up at Stephen Sondheim’s musical being given the big screen treatment by Walt Disney Studios, this final trailer for Into the Woods looks positively charming. Considering the budget was “only” 40 million dollars, I’m happy to see that a lot of that money was seemingly spent on actual sets and not some CGI created world for the impressive roster of actors to play out Sondheim and James Lapine’s sly take on the fairy tales we all grew up with. Meryl Streep (Hope Springs) sounds like a perfect Witch and while I’m not too keen on the notion of Anna Kendrick (Pitch Perfect) as Cinderella or Johnny Depp (The Lone Ranger) as a zoot-suit wearing Wolf, I’ve got a feeling director Rob Marshall will wrangle this into one enchanting evening.

The Silver Bullet ~ Into the Woods

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Synopsis: A witch conspires to teach important lessons to various characters of popular children’s stories including Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel.

Release Date:  December 25, 2014

Thoughts: The anticipation is certainly building for the big screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim & James Lapine’s 1987 Broadway musical Into the Woods, with Disney carefully releasing nice bits and pieces in recent days.  After dropping some dreamy looking pictures earlier this week of the star heavy ensemble all fairy-tale-d up, the first preview is finally at hand and it’s a nifty little teaser that pleasantly keeps some of the bigger names in shadows while  predictably avoiding any musical cues hinting that the film is largely sung.  No matter, with Meryl Streep (August: Osage County), Johnny Depp (The Lone Ranger), Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow), and Chris Pine (People Like Us) leading the cast the stage is set for a lovely transition from stage to screen.