Ralph Breaks the Internet

Expansion is sometimes a good thing, sometimes not. This movie here is a case in point. Overall, the story is a bit too ambitious; when the characters achieve their originally stated goal, it seems like a good place to wrap up the proceedings and call it game over. But then things move in an altogether new direction, and not always successfully. The additional plot and resolution does not really add anything onto the story that needed to be there, beyond making an animated movie feel more cinematic by virtue of its being what is generally regarded as feature length. But that’s not to say that all of the story’s twists and turns are unwelcome. There’s good stuff in this flick, especially when the thing turns kind of twisted and starts sending up its own studio’s sacred cows, which leads to many of the movie’s laugh-out-loud moments. On the downside, one thing that looms over the entire tale is its vision of the internet, which includes a slew of major names (almost certainly paid product placements) and is hard to view without considering, from today’s standpoint, how much of all that has proven to be problematic, if not outright malevolent. That drops a bit of a buzzkill onto the presentation. Still, there’s enough satisfying entertainment here to get this flick just over the threshold for a PURR rather than a MEOW. One might accept another sequel with this cast, if someone comes up with a truly fresh idea—there were certainly possible story developments left on the table in this outing—and if the filmmakers can get everyone (including the studio) on board for the ride. If not, this would probably be a fine time for this crew to check themselves before they wreck themselves.

Don't Worry Darling

The Stepford Matrix. Sorry for that sorta spoiler, but one must acknowledge that this kind of thing has been done before. Which is not to say this outing is automatically inferior to its antecedents. Indeed, this flick has a lot going for it, including a powerful performance from lead Florence Pugh, a shrewd choice by director Olivia Wilde to use the trappings—and especially the music—of mid-century, golden age (of a sort) America as the staging for this investigation into what’s what in a given life, and a tight, well-crafted presentation that grips the viewer's interest throughout. Life may be but a dream—or more likely, a nightmare—but at least you can be assured that these two hours are hardly the worst you’ll ever have.