Category / Disney

by hutchwp

かぐや姫の物語 / The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata, 2013)

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a faithful interpretation of the classic Japanese fable The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, one of the oldest folklore tales in the history of the country. It is also Isao Takahata’s fifth film as director for Studio Ghibli, following the dark Grave of the Fireflies, the fun ecological adventure Pom Poko, the episodic comic strip interpretation My Neighbours the Yamadas and romantic drama Only Yesterday.

It tells the story of Princess Kaguya, a tiny girl found inside a stalk of bamboo by an aging bamboo cutter and his wife. She rapidly grows in size into a beautiful young lady, though she hides a secret for which she must, eventually, face the consequences.

The first thing that hits you when watching this film is the breathtaking quality of the animation techniques. Putting aside the great storyline, the film is worth watching just for the fact it is so beautiful to view. It really serves to remind us how effective 2D animation can be and we’re lucky that Studio Ghibli is yet to embrace 3D animation in the same way as Disney has, all but throwing away their heritage (though nontheless still churning out mostly excellent films).

My favourite scene involved the princess running away from her adopted home in panic and fear. At this point the art style subtly changed and became more expressive and less controlled, with darker greats and blacks filling the screen, and it was an intelligent way to channel her emotions into the visuals.

There is an immediacy of beauty in the animation style.

There is an immediacy of beauty in the animation style.

The film arrives in North America and Europe with a lot of endorsements, not least the nomination at this year’s Adademy Awards in the category of Best Animated Feature (it lost out to Big Hero 6). I usually prefer the Japanese voice-overs with subtitles and was lucky to find a screening with this option, but the English-language cast is nothing if not star-studded (including Chloë Grace Moretz, James Caan, Lucy Liu, Mary Steenburgen and Beau Bridges). I look forward to being able to hear this version once it reaches home media later this year.

At 137 minutes it might be too long for most children but if youre looking for an intelligent way to entertain your family this weekend I heartily recommend this film.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya is out now at selected cinemas across the UK.

by hutchwp

Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014)

As the first Disney-animated motion picture based on Marvel IP, Big Hero 6 was always going to be carefully scrutinised by both extremes of the target audience. At one end you have the die-hard Marvel comics fans, keen to see their beloved heroes done justice on the big screen. At the other end you’ve got fans of Walt Disney Studios, worried that hot on the heels of Frozen, Tangled and Princess and the Frog, Big Hero 6 might not be for them [1].

For the uninitiated (you mean you never read the comics!?), the story focuses on 12-year-old parentless robotics genius Hiro, who is being looked after by his aunt, along with his older brother and sort-of-guardian Tadashi, who also studies robotics at the local university. When further tragedy strikes through the death of his brother, he is left to pick up the pieces with the help of his brother’s greatest work – healthcare-robot Baymax. Banding together with Tadashi’s fellow student friends, Hiro goes on an adventure of vengeance and self-development as he finds taking matters into your own hands can lead to some shocking revelations.

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So the first thing to clarify is that the Big Hero 6 comics were never very popular. Very few people had heard of them before the film was announced, sparking a huge clamber across the internet to find the comics, read them, then form an opinion on why Disney was going to ruin them. They weren’t completely unknown, but they were nowhere near as popular as, say, Spider-man or X-Men. It was interesting to see the negative reaction the series got when it was announced. It’s amazing how many experts on everything we see now that people can form their arguments in one window whilst Google is open in another. I was one of the people who bought post-announcement – I managed to pick up all five of the 2008 comics and I read straight away (the original three-part series was by then already prohibitively expensive, much like the five-parter is now). They were obviously aimed at children, but were reasonably fun and easy to read. I thought they were a good choice for Disney to tackle, with plenty of characters and merchandising opportunities.

Secondly, I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the recent Marvel Animation films, but they are by-and-large terrible. I picked up the Ultimate Avengers steelbook about a year ago and watched one of the films, but couldn’t get through the second. The animation is really poor and the voice acting is clumsy and difficult to listen to. So if you’re a Marvel fanboy and want to square on an animated film that doesn’t do your source material justice, you should start there.

Finally, the recent films have been very successful, and I’m sure Frozen’s enduring popularity caused a delay to the release of Big Hero 6. I mean, it’s now on the West End in sing-along form! They just play the film on loop there all day. It has been out for 18 months! Princess and the Frog and Tangled were very successful too. But so was Wreck It Ralph, and that definitely wasn’t aimed at the female market. Neither was Bolt (directed by Chris Williams, by the way). Nor were half of the Pixar releases. Or, say, How to Train Your Dragon or Despicable Me. What I’m saying is – who knows what is going to capture the imagination of the children. Probably the main thing to go for is a great storyline, great characters and some top-drawer visuals. You get all three in abundance here.

I think the animation is the really mind-blowing element of a film that scores highly across the board. It’s fast-paced without ever feeling like it’s trying to lose you in action. The detail given to the plethora of uniquely designed characters is notable, too, and this serves to make each character feel worthy of your investment. If they’re going to spend that long making Hiro’s hair look so awesome, he must deserve a bit of attention on an emotional level too.

The storyline, to be fair, isn’t particularly original. I didn’t feel it was too detrimental overall. Its target audience is definitely under 12 years of age, and it was pitched perfectly.

There was, of course, a post-credits sequence that gave us some juicy details and opened the door to a sequel. I really hope this becomes a reality. I’m sure there are plenty more storylines to be told about these characters yet.

Big Hero 6 is out in cinemas in the UK now, and it has also just this week been released on Blu-ray and DVD in USA. If you’re quick and keen, you could buy the 3D Blu-ray steelbook from Zavvi.

[1] Anatomy of an unprofessional reviewer – I’ve deliberately put in several sweeping and largely incorrect statements in the first paragraph to allow me to argue against them later in the review. Oh how clever I am.

by hutchwp

Into The Woods (Rob Marshall, 2015)

Into The Woods is the big screen adaptation of the classic Sondheim musical of the same name, courtesy of Walt Disney Studios. With a big cast and even bigger budget, it is a film hotly anticipated by fans of musical theatre the world over. So was it any good?

Well, first things first. If you’re thinking of going to see this, you’d better like musicals. If you went to see Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd and thought “I wish these songs would stop”, then you’ve got to avoid this. This is a Sondheim musical (he also wrote the music for Sweeney Todd) and the songs really aren’t a patch on his best work. Having been part of amateur theatre groups in my time, I’m familiar with picking up songs quickly and memorising their melodies with just one or two listens. I can’t even hum a single song from this. It’s probably because they’re just relentless. It doesn’t break you in easily either. The first song either was 12 minutes long or felt like it was, with characters weaving in and out of each other’s motifs in a really clever but essentially quite annoying manner. It was just too much.

If you don’t know, Into The Woods is a story that inter-weaves the plots from four classic fairy tales: Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood and Rapunzel. It’s quite clever, although a bit pantomimey at times. However, you have to be willing to go along with the storyline, as with many musicals, and allow yourself to be entertained. As best you can.

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The cast is full of huge stars: James Corden and Emily Blunt play the cursed bakers set a task by Meryl Streep’s evil witch. Anna Kendrick is Cinderella, Chris Pine is the charming but cringeworthy Prince Charming, Tracey Ullman is brilliant as the mother of Jack, and Johnny Depp manages to portray Riding Hood’s Wolf at a notch slightly less creepy than his take on Willy Wonka, despite the first half of the song sounding like he is a paedophile (though this is just a criticism of the quite awful Charlie and the Chocolate Factory if I’m honest).

There are some wonderful moments. If you’ve never seen the quintessential male bravado one-upmanship song “Agony”, then Chris Pine and Billy Magnusson do a mighty fine job of it. Emily Blunt and Anna Kendrick are both excellent in their respective roles and continue to impress me as they develop through their careers. Tracy Ullman, as I’ve already mentioned, was another highlight.

My overarching feeling is that I am well-positioned to really like this. One of my guilty pleasures is a good Disney film when I’m feeling down. I’m a fan of musical theatre. I think all of the cast have been brilliant in plenty of other films and this film doesn’t represent a career-lot for anyone. I just left the cinema feeling indifferent and worn out.

It’s well timed because it goes hand-in-hand with Disney’s other big release in Q1 2015, Big Hero 6, which is due out in just under a month and probably has minimal cross-over with the younger target audience.

It is a faithful but watered down version of the stage musical, aimed squarely at the family audience. It retains some of the darkness and some of the magic, but falls short across the board.

Into The Woods is out now at cinemas across the UK.

by hutchwp

Films I’m Excited About – Autumn/Winter 2014

There are quite a few films in dying to see at the moment. Here are a handful of them: Big Hero 6, Bayonetta: Bloody Fate, Interstellar, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Enemies and Shoah.

Big Hero 6 (Don Hall and Chris Williams, 2014)
Release date: 7th November 2014
This came out in Japan earlier this week. It’s an interesting prospect. Disney have capitalised on their purchase of Marvel Studios and raided their vaults for untapped stories and potential franchises. The first one, Big Hero 6, concerns a child genius Hiro, his self-designed personal robot Baymax, their team of crime fighters and a sinister plot they fight to get to the bottom of. So not really classic Disney. This will enter as 54th on the list of Walt Disney Animated Classics, and I suppose Disney are hoping it will do well both at the cinema and in merchandising. For me, I’m really excited about it. I am, however, cautious. There is a huge risk that it pitches itself right in the middle of everyone who could like it, alienating all of them in the progress. It certainly won’t be as successful as Tangled or Frozen, and films traditionally aimed at boys (gender stereotyping alert but you know what I mean) tend to be less successful – even excellent films like Meet The Robinsons often get overlooked and then forgotten. However, with solid reviews and a hilarious trailer it could hit the ground running next month.

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Bayonetta: Bloody Fate / ベヨネッタ ブラッディフェイト (Fuminori Kizaki, 2013)
Release date: 24th November 2014
Okay so it has been out for over a year in the Asian markets, but Bloody Fate will finally see an English-language release next month courtesy of Funimation. It has received mixed reviews so far, but the trailer shows off just how over the top it is and it promises to be of a similar tone to the games. Unfortunately we’ll have to settle for a Blu-ray release as I don’t know any cinemas that will show it.

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Interstellar (Christopher Nolan, 2014)
Release date: 7th November 2014
Because… Have you seen the trailer?! Christopher Nolan is one of the greatest filmmakers of out generation and keeps turning out films in new genres that challenge and excite audiences the world over. Having been linked for a long time with the upcoming Star Wars trilogy, it’s almost intentional that he has made a film set in outer space, like he’s pointing out the downside of getting involved with an already established franchise whilst making a mind-blowing one-off that is sure to be a huge success. This is one that has to be seen at an IMAX, apparently. To be fair, I wholeheartedly believe this is the case with Gravity, so I can fully see why people are saying the same about this one.

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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Enemies
Release date: 12th December 2014
I think by now we’re all in agreement that this trilogy should have been a maximum of two films. There has been a thorough exploration of everything in the book, but perhaps this came at the expense of a faster pace and a set of films that grips viewers from start to finish. That said, they have been a visual spectacle and I’ve enjoyed seeing a great collection of fine British actors uniting on the big screen to tell such a fantastical story. I’ll be there on opening weekend making sure I don’t miss out on the fun.

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Shoah (Claude Lanzmann, 1985)
Release date: January 2015
Released in the middle of the 1980s and clocking at a huge nine hours and twenty-three minutes long, Shoah is not a documentary to be entered into lightly. It has a controversial reputation but on a critical level the film has always been highly rated. Now seeing an HD release courtesy of the Masters of Cinema, now is your chance to see this masterpiece in the comfort of your own home – crucially with ultimate control over when you take a break from the action.

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by hutchwp

Film review – Star Wars Episodes I-III (George Lucas, 1999-2005)

I have a special guest reviewer for the Star Wars prequels, which were released to much fanfare and equal amounts of dismay from 1999 onwards. It’s my fabulous wife, a week after our wedding day!

I say review. It’s more of a quote. Here goes…

“The prequels are to Star Wars what Crocs are to shoes. An abomination.”

If you wish to remind yourselves of said abominations, they are available as a complete box set with butchered versions of the original trilogy now from here.

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by hutchwp

Frozen 3D (Chris Buck, 2013)

Walt Disney Studios. Hans Christian Anderson. Chris Buck. Idina Menzel, Kristen Bell and a voice cast full of talent and experience. It’s almost a kids’ Christmas blockbuster by numbers. Yet something isn’t quite right.

The character design for the two lead females – Anna (Bell) and her older ice-cursed sister Elsa (Menzel) – is superb. They’re fantastically realised and will be great additions to the Disney princess catalogue I’m sure. Outside of these though, the men are beyond generic. Indeed, Kristoff – the man of the mountain who helps Anna in her quest to find Elsa – could just be an extension of Flint from Tangled, complete with wisecracking animal sidekick Sven. The award for worst design goes to Olaf the snowman. This is a shame because he is responsible for some of the film’s biggest laughs, the best of which is the song “In Summer” – a song about how much he longs to experience the joys of the hot season. It’s undermined because he looks like a cheaply produced character from the early days of digital 3D animation.

The music is also, largely, a let down; bland and forgettable. I remember liking the opening song and the Olaf song (as mentioned earlier), but it’s a far cry from when I first watched Aladdin or The Lion King and was singing the songs for days. Only one song has a chance of going down as a classic and that’s “Let It Go”, sung by Menzel. It was the only serious song of any quality, but whether that’s enough to stand the test of time remains to be seen.

Despite this, one thing that distracted me was Menzel’s voice. She is in possession of one of the best singing voices to grace musical theatre in the last twenty years but the character she is playing, by my best guess, is about 21 years of age. Menzel is 42 and it must be said that when she is belting out the songs, she sounds like she’s 42. Not that any of the kids in the theatre would have noticed. I must reiterate that her voice is outstanding and she nails the songs, but there are plenty of great young female singers out there that could have done a tremendous job. It baffles me why they made this choice.

If there’s one thing the film should be applauded for, it’s pulling off the difficult task of finding space to develop not one but two extremely strong female lead characters. It would have been very easy to let one of them fall into the background but they do get the balance right. This is important move for the Disney merchandising departments, with a predominantly boy-centric year coming up in 2014 (Both Big Hero 6 and Star Wars VII will dominate the big screens next year).

Overall, the film ticks all the boxes and the younger generation will be thoroughly entertained throughout. In comparison to the non-Disney animated features that have been released in 2013 it wipes the floor, but this isn’t any old studio. It’s Disney, and we’ve come to expect much much more.

If you want to find some real Disney magic, then you’ll get that before the main feature itself. Get A Horse! Is a fantastic short film, featuring Mickey, Minnie and Peg Leg Pete. It’s a mixture of black and white and colour, 2D and 3D, and it mixes them to good effect. It’s seriously entertaining, fast-paced stuff and only served to underline so much that was missing from Frozen.

Frozen is released in cinemas in the UK on 6th December 2013.

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