Movie, music and TV reviews by Matt Neal, a Rotten Tomatoes-accredited ABC Radio film critic (also an author, musician, journalist and all-round okay guy).
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on January 22, 2025.
(PG) ★★★★
Director: Edward Berger.
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Sergio Castellitto, Isabella Rossellini, Lucian Msamati, Carlos Diehz, Brían F. O'Byrne, Jacek Koman, Merab Ninidze.
At any moment, a well-choreographed dance routine was about to break out.
Sometimes a movie makes you feel like you're prying into a world you're not supposed to see.
Such is the case with Conclave, a "political thriller" that's unlike any other political thriller you can probably think of - its politics are unique, and its thrills are mostly lowkey, but no less thrilling for this fact.
The film takes us inside the decision-making process that selects a new pope. It's like the election for a high school class president, but with weirder costumes and more Latin. And it's endlessly fascinating, not just for its peak into a world most mere mortals will never see, but for its considerations about the Catholic Church's strange position trapped between its traditions and the modern world.
While it's thematically about politics, popularity and power, it's very much about the Church - it's about faith, doubt, a higher calling, and the limitations and expectations of tradition, and how all of that rubs up against the very human traits of ambition and greed.
Central to the story is Cardinal Thomas Lawrence (Fiennes), the man in charge of getting all the cardinals in one room and casting their vote for a new Pope.
Around him are a colourful array of cardinals vying for the position of top dog - Tucci's determined liberal, Lithgow's ambitious moderate, Castellito's fire-and-brimstone traditionalist, Msamati's popular conservative, and Diehz's little-known dark horse.
Peter Straughan's script, based on Robert Harris' book, throws in casual intrusions from the outside world to ensure the intrigue continues, and everything moves at a comfortable pace so you won't even notice you're on tenterhooks.
The great screenplay is heightened by some great performances, but the cinematography really helps us get into the heads of characters. There are a lot of close-ups of Fiennes, and it never ceases to amaze how he can convey so much with so little. His is not a flashy performance - a lot of it takes places behind the eyes. But Berger's camera captures that, giving us another great Fiennes turn in a very long list of great Fiennes turns.
He's ably supported by a cast that could easily have stolen the show, were it not for Fiennes' commanding yet comfortable performance. Tucci, Lithgow and Rossellini are no slouches, and as great as you'd expect, while Castellito, Msamati and Diehz are also excellent.
Volker Bertelmann's score is quite powerful in places, subtle in others, and does a stellar job of enhancing the mood throughout. Also, major kudos to the team that turned Cinecittà Studios into a replica Vatican - you wouldn't know it wasn't the real thing.
Conclave's plot has moments that may tip you out of the reality of the film. The final act will definitely test some people's suspension of disbelief, especially the ending, but it remains fascinating and thought-provoking nonetheless.
All in all, a fascinating sermon on the state of the Church and its place in the world, with a Fiennes performance worthy of being put on an altar.
Anyway, I love the absolute shit out of triple j's Hottest 100. Much like Christmas, it's an occasion that brings people together to argue and drink too much, but with the greatest gift of all - quantifiable statistics about music.
The 2024 countdown is on January 25, and will once again deliver what triple j listeners deem to be the best songs of the past year, creating a musical time capsule for decades to come.
Can we predict the winner? Well, social media-scraper 100 Warm Tunas has been right five out of eight times, but last year it was way off, placing hot favourite Doja Cat's Paint The Town Red at #9, despite the addition of machine learning (ML) to improve the algorhythm (which doesn't appear to be in play this year).
(EDIT: Nick Whyte, the brains behind Warm Tunas, says last year's aberration was due to "spam that got past my spam detection filtering", as detailed here.)
So what happened? Apparently Tik Tok happened, and its influence was apparently a major factor in the wins of Glass Animals' Heat Waves in 2020 and Doja Cat last year, with both songs massive on that platform.
But the influence of Tik Tok doesn't seem to be something Warm Tunas can measure, partly because it's hard to get good data on it. But let's see if we can we throw that in the mix this year as much as we can, along with the other factors I look at each year - the bookies, the ARIA charts, and Spotify and YouTube plays.
Why it will win: Good Luck, Babe! is the only Chappell Roan song in the voting guide. That means all the power and momentum behind the belated success of her massive 2023 album The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is laser-focused into one mega-hit banger (that's not even on her huge album). For once, the bookies and Warm Tunas are in agreement.
Why it won't win: While it's hard to see anything beating this, stranger things have happened. There are other acts supposedly with a bigger Tik Tok influence, and this might be the moment where we truly see just how significant the whole Tik Tok thing is.
100 Warm Tunas: #1
Sportsbet: $1.68 (favourite)
TAB: $1.75 (favourite)
ARIA: #4
Spotify streams: 1.18 billion
YouTube plays: 72 million
Royel Otis - Murder On The Dancefloor
Why it will win: Ever since The Wiggles won in 2021, all bets are off when it comes to whether Like A Versions can win. This is the LAV to watch (G Flip's Cruel Summer is a close second) if one is going to get up, and the bookies and Warm Tunas agree this is the song with the best shot at giving Good Luck, Babe! a run for its money.
Why it won't win: This Sophie Ellis Bextor cover got some traction outside triple j (which is what got The Wiggles over the line in 2021), but if mainstream crossover appeal is still a thing in the Hottest 100, then we'd need to compare Royel Otis' traction with Good Luck, Babe!'s zeitgeist ubiquity, and it's really no contest.
100 Warm Tunas: #2
Sportsbet: $2.75 (second favourite)
TAB: $4.50 (equal second favourite)
ARIA: #35
Spotify streams: 60.3 million
YouTube plays: 7.5 million
Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us
Why it will win: The Kendrick-Drake beef was one of the biggest things of 2024, and Not Like Us was Lamar's coup de grâce. The diss track not only effectively ended the battle in favour of Lamar in the eyes of the public, but it also turned out to be a killer a tune loaded with zingers. Lamar has won the Hottest 100 before (and finished second too), so there's a really good chance he can do it again given the attention on his war of words with Drake - Lamar is arguably bigger than he was when he won with Humble in 2017.
Why it won't win: The bookies have been spot-on in recent years, and they have four songs ahead of Not Like Us. Could a diss track really win, and is there enough people who gave a shit about the Kendrick-Drake beef to get this song to top spot? It might seem like Not Like Us has the best shot at toppling Chappell Roan, but this track's moment in the sun has likely passed. It's certainly been slipping in the odds with bookies over the past couple of weeks. Also, Lamar had a crazy 14 songs in the voting guide, which could split his vote dramatically. Furthermore, winning the Hottest 100 twice is still a rare feat.
100 Warm Tunas: #3
Sportsbet: $10 (fifth favourite)
TAB: $11 (fifth favourite)
ARIA: #5
Spotify streams: 1.02 billion
YouTube plays: 401 million
Billie Eilish - Birds Of A Feather
Why it will win: If Tik Tok is really such a big deal in the Hottest 100, then Birds Of A Feather could steal Chappell's thunder and give Eilish her second win. This was the eighth biggest song of the year among Aussies on Tik Tok, and only one of two Tik Tok hits that look likely to go high in the Hottest 100. An added bonus is that this is one of only a handful of contenders that has topped the ARIA charts, and that its odds have been getting shorter and shorter by the day.
Why it won't win: Much like Lamar, Eilish had a lot of songs (10!) in the voting guide and is at risk of splitting her vote big time. And between Warm Tunas, Sportsbet and TAB, no one has Eilish winning - just getting really close. Also, much like Lamar, only Flume and Powderfinger have won twice, so that's a tough ask.
100 Warm Tunas: #4
Sportsbet: $6.50 (third favourite)
TAB: $6.50 (third favourite)
ARIA: #1
Spotify streams: 1.9 billion
YouTube plays: 320 million
Tommy Richman - Million Dollar Baby
Why it will win: This was the biggest song on Tik Tok in Australia this year. So the Warm Tunas may not rate it, and the bookies have it back in the pack, but the Tik Tokers will vote for this in droves. It's also spent 33 weeks in the ARIA charts, including two weeks at #1.
Why it won't win: Will the Tik Tok army be enough to send this to the top of the Hottest 100? And does topping the ARIA charts even matter anymore? Probably not and probably not, but it will be interesting to see how much raw Tik Tok popularity can outdo the Warm Tunas and gamblers.
100 Warm Tunas: #65
Sportsbet: $51 (equal 13th favourite)
TAB: $31 (eighth favourite)
ARIA: #1
Spotify streams: 1.05 billion
YouTube plays: 88 million
Charli XCX & Billie Eilish - Guess
Why it will win: Only Kendrick Lamar had more songs in the voting guide than Charli XCX, and seemingly only Taylor Swift influenced pop culture more than Charli XCX and her brat summer. After being overlooked by the Hottest 100 for so long - just two appearances in 12 years, and none since 2017 - it feels like Charli XCX's moment has arrived. Her fans have a lot to pick from, but this one is the biggest of them all. And throw in Billie Eilish, who also had a massive 2024, and it may just be the collab that gets them both across the line.
Why it won't win: Charli XCX will likely get a lot of songs in the countdown - she may even give G Flip's record of seven a shake - but it's really tough to win when you split your vote so much. The bookies don't rate it, though they have Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso higher and it's not even in the voting guide, so what do they know? And Warm Tunas has it at #5.
100 Warm Tunas: #5
Sportsbet: $41 (10th favourite)
TAB: $41 (10th favourite)
ARIA: #1
Spotify streams: 430 million
YouTube plays: 50 million
Also watch out for:
Lola Young's Messy - been rapidly rising up the Warm Tunas chart (now at #6), and come from nowhere to be fourth favourite with the bookies, and has been the big hit of summer so far.
Dom Dolla's girl$ - another hit with the bookies, and top 20 on Warm Tunas, plus Dom Dolla got two songs in the top five last year, so he's got form.
G Flip's Like A Version of Cruel Summer - top 20 on Warm Tunas, top 10 with the bookies, this has the added Tik Tok edge, as G Flip was the 10th biggest artist on Tik Tok in Australia last year.
Sabrina Carpenter's Espresso - not in the voting guide, but the bookies rate this very highly, so maybe there's a strong write-in vote, though it seems unlikely.
Spacey Jane's One Bad Day - they've been in the countdown five years running, plus the bookies and Warm Tunas have this going top 10.
For the record, here are my votes.
And my predictions are usually way off, but here goes:
1. Chappell Roan - Good Luck, Babe!
2. Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us
3. Royel Otis - Murder On The Dancefloor
4. Billie Eilish - Birds Of A Feather
5. Charli XCX & Billie Eilish - Guess
6. Fred Again, Anderson Paak, CHIKA - Places To Be
The 32nd annual triple j Hottest 100 countdown is upon us.
Every year brings with it a new batch of music to be added to the archive, a new (or old) winner to be crowned, and a new bunch of ageing listeners complaining that the Hottest 100 was better in their day.
But the legacy of the countdown means there interesting stats and records that accumulate each year.
Here are some of the big ones to watch this Saturday January 25, 2025, as triple j counts down the best songs of 2024.
Most appearances of all time
G Flip shot up the leaderboard last year with an incredible seven entries, which was a new record (more on that in a moment).
It gave them 21 appearances in the annual countdown over the years (22 if you count them playing percussion in Alex Lahey’s Like A Version of The Black Parade) and took them to fifth on the leaderboard behind only Hilltop Hoods (25), Powderfinger (22), Foo Fighters (22) and Flume (22).
If they’re cover of Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer gets a guernsey this year, it will put them equal second alongside with the ‘Finger, the Fooeys and Flume - or outright second if we count the Alex Lahey thing… which we totally should.
Oh, and Flume has a song in the voting guide - One More Night with KUČKA - which could move the Sydney producer into clear second place.
It’s unlikely Hilltop Hoods will get knocked off the top of the table this year, but it’s worth keeping an eye on some Hottest 100 stalwarts with a lot of tracks in the voting guide who could make some big moves - Tame Impala (19 appearances over the years), Lime Cordiale (18), Billie Eilish (17), Bring Me The Horizon (15), Rüfüs Du Sol (13), and Kendrick Lamar (13).
Most songs in a year
Few expected G Flip to get seven entries in a year, breaking the record set by Wolfmother in 2005 and equalled by Spacey Jane in 2022.
But could it happen again?
There are a lot of big names in the voting guide with a lot of songs listed, so theoretically G Flip’s record isn’t safe.
In case you’re wondering about the significance of the voting guide, songs that aren’t listed in it rarely place in the countdown (yes, they sometimes do, but "rarely" is the key word there).
Rapper and previous winner Kendrick Lamar has an incredible 14 songs listed in the guide, while Charli XCX (who has only been in the countdown twice previously - her song Boys in 2017, and as a featured artist on Icona Pop’s I Don’t Care, way back in 2012) has 13.
Then there’s Billie Eilish with 10 (counting her Charli XCX collab Guess) and Beyonce with nine tracks.
There are also a heap of acts with eight (Amyl & The Sniffers, fred again, Hockey Dad, Lime Cordiale, Skegss, Sycco), and seven songs listed (beabedoobee, The Buoys, Dice, Gracie Abrams, Northeast House Party, Remi Wolf, Rüfüs Du Sol, South Summit).
Past winners
Flume and Powderfinger are the only acts to win twice, although any time this stat is mentioned we have to point out Powderfinger frontman Bernard Fanning is a three-time winner thanks to his solo hit Wish You Well.
Flume’s collab with KUČKA could get him into the Triple Crown Lounge with Fanning, but it’s more likely someone will join the Two-Timer’s Club.
So which past winners are listed in this year’s voting guide and are therefore in with a shot for a second win?
The answer is Doja Cat (2023), Glass Animals (2020), Billie Eilish (2019), Ocean Alley (2018), Kendrick Lamar (2017), The Rubens (2015), Macklemore (2012), and Angus & Julia Stone (2010).
By the way, the most previous winners to appear in a single countdown was in 2021, when six champions showed up in the one list - Vance Joy (2013), The Rubens, Kendrick Lamar, Ocean Alley, Billie Eilish and Glass Animals.
Five previous winners appeared in the 2017 and 2022 countdowns.
If we get another two-time winner, then we could start looking at biggest gap between wins - Flume had six years between victories (Powderfinger did theirs back-to-back).
The oldies
The Hottest 100 is a young person’s game, but every so often an elder statesman or stateswoman pops up to remind the young ‘uns what’s what.
Last year, Kylie Minogue dropped in at #48 with Padam Padam, temporarily claiming a record for the oldest woman to appear in the countdown - Australia’s Queen of Pop was 55 at the time, ousting Marianne Faithful from the mantle, who was 51 when she featured on Metallica's The Memory Remains in 1997 (#38).
Minogue’s victory was short-lived - Madonna, 65, swooped in five tracks later to take the crown via her appearance alongside The Weeknd and Playboi Carti on the track Popular (#43).
But that could mean little come January 25 if Dolly Parton’s collab with Beyonce - Tyrant - makes the grade, as Ms Parton turned 79 on January 19.
For the record, the oldest winner of the Hottest 100 is Jeff Phat of The Wiggles, who was 68 when their Tame Impala cover took home the top prize, while the oldest person ever to appear in the countdown was John Lee Hooker, who was either 81 or 76 when he teamed up with Van Morrison on a version of Gloria and reached #100.
Old song, new life
Speaking of Dolly Parton, her track Jolene could manage a rare feat if Beyonce’s cover gets a run on January 25.
It would be only the fourth time a song has had two covers make the countdown - The White Stripes’ live cover of Jolene reached #10 in 2004.
The other songs to achieve this feat to date are Crowded House’s glorious singalong Fall At Your Feet (Boy and Bear got it into the countdown at #5 in 2010, while Peking Duk & Julia Stone followed suit last year 2023 at #64), Men At Work's Down Under (covered by Pennywise in 1999 and Luude - with some help from Colin Hay - in 2021), and Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb (done in full by Scissor Sisters in 2004 and in part by Ocean Alley in 2021).
The streak
If Billie Eilish features in the upcoming Hottest 100, she will have appeared in every countdown since 2017.
Eight years in a row would tie her with Peking Duk when it comes to Hottest 100 streaks, but it’s still two years short of the record.
That’s held by Aussie rock icons The Living End, who never missed a year between 1997 and 2006.
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on November 28, 2024.
(PG) ★★★
Director: Jon M. Chu.
Cast: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande-Butera, Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yeoh, Ethan Slater, Marissa Bode, Jeff Goldblum, Peter Dinklage, Andy Nyman.
"Don't shoot - it's Optimus Prime!"
People love to complain about how there are no original ideas in cinema any more; how most movies today are based on existing intellectual properties, whether they be sequels, remakes or adaptations. It's not an unreasonable complaint. Check out the highest grossing films of 2024 - at the time of writing, the highest ranking original film (ie. not based on an existing IP) this year was IF at #21.
While no one has been levelling this objection at Wicked - most people seem pretty amped to see this story hit the big screen - it's a great example of how existing IPs can get re-born, re-spun and re-tooled to make old stories new again. This is a big-budget blockbuster based on a popular Broadway musical based on an acclaimed 1995 novel that re-interpreted the events of a much-loved 1900 novel.
I haven't seen the stage musical or read Gregory Maguire's book, but The Wizard Of Oz is one of my favourite films, and I treasure the original book. With that in mind, I find the revisionist storyline fascinating, and the characterisations of Good Witch Glinda (Grande-Butera) and Wicked Witch Elphaba (Erivo) intriguing. It's also a joy to spend more time in Oz - an itch that Sam Raimi's forgotten prequel Oz The Great & Powerful scratched somewhat a decade ago.
Wicked is a fun story but it goes on way too long - you really feel its 160-minute run-time. So many of the musical sequences drag on, the worst offender being Popular, which is a fantastic song that could have achieved the same outcome at a quarter of the length, while Dear Old Shiz and Dancing Through Life eventually also wear out their welcome.
Musically, the highlight is Defying Gravity, an absolute belter of a tune. But am I the only person perplexed by the weird '90s pop-ballad production sound? Of all the eras and styles of music to emulate sonically, why that one?
Erivo and Grande-Butera do a stellar job in the leads, handling the musical numbers with ease, and flexing their dramatic chops equally impressively. Erivo nails the weariness and frustration of Elphaba, while Grande-Butera's cartoonish take on the wide-eyed Glinda is disarming despite the character's self-absorbed nature. Yeoh is also excellent, while Goldblum is perfectly cast as the Wizard himself.
But back to the length. It's an issue because a) the film feels long in places, but b) because we get too much song instead of some much needed plot. A central element of the story is an apparent uprising against one section of Oz society, but we see so little to demonstrate it. There's one bit of graffiti, some mutterings, and a clandestine meeting (with a song, naturally). It's a lot of tell, not show, and it's hardly enough to convince viewers of the large-scale racism purported to have riven Oz.
As with most Oz films, Wicked looks amazing, and it's a fun world to hang out in. Its ideas about the nature and perspective of good and evil are strong, as is its inspection of otherness and racism and fitting in. And, it bears repeating - Defying Gravity is a killer moment.
It has a heart, a brain and courage, but Wicked spends a lot of time singing and dancing when it could be storytelling.
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on November 14, 2024.
(M) ★★
Director: Jake Kasdan.
Cast: Dwayne Johnson, Chris Evans, Lucy Liu, J. K. Simmons, Kiernan Shipka, Bonnie Hunt, Kristofer Hivju, Nick Kroll, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Wesley Kimmel, Reinaldo Faberlle.
"Gwar, you say? No, never heard of them. I'll check them out."
The current craze in Hollywood is franchises. Unfortunately this means a lot of films are getting made with the starry-eyed approach of setting up a potential film series, while forgetting to make a good movie worthy of a series first.
It’s a particularly fatal flaw in Red One, though it's actually just one of many major problems besetting this huge-budget Christmas turkey. The film is so intent on world-building that its story of Santa (Simmons) getting kidnapped becomes unnecessarily flabby early on and never recovers.
It also struggles to nail down who the main character is - another reason for the early flabbiness - with Dwayne Johnson's uptight North Pole security chief Callum Drift battling it out with Chris Evans' douchebag-with-a-heart-of-gold Jack O'Malley for top honours. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - movies can have more than one lead protagonist - but this particular jostling for poll position slows the narrative, and is another reason Red One stalls out of the blocks.
If it's not clear yet, most of the problems in this film are in the early stages, where the filmmakers seemingly choose world-building and The Rock over a sensible narrative structure. Allow me to explain.
Evans' Jack is a type of character known as an "audience surrogate". He's the character that knows as much as the audience knows, and as he is drawn into a new fantastical world or situation, we, the audience, learn how this new world/situation works by watching the audience surrogate learn and experience it. Think Dorothy dropping into Oz, Alice heading into Wonderland, Frodo stepping out of the Shire, or Neo discovering the Matrix exists. For the most part, we know what they know, and we learn as they learn.
In Red One, after a flashback to Jack's youth and a brief scene in a mall, we enter the fantastical world of Santa and his sidekick Callum Drift. We are taken to the North Pole and introduced to a mythological realm that is new to us, filled with giant reindeer, polar bears, elves, the works. It doesn't take long for Santa to get kidnapped (this isn't a spoiler, it's basically the film's selling point), sparking a chase sequence filled with plenty of dubious-looking CG.
Then we meet Jack, our audience surrogate. He's some kind of hacker/private eye/bounty hunter, and has a loose and unclear connection to the kidnapping, but he's very much from the real world (even if he's cartoonishly "bad", thus setting up a painfully obvious arc where he is going to reconnect with his estranged son and discover the meaning of Christmas or some shit).
At some point, these worlds are going to collide. In Red One, that takes way too long to happen. And when it does happen, we have to go through the rigmarole of watching Jack learn about Santa and the giant reindeer and all the rest of it. Which we already know about. So there is no surprise or tension in Jack's discovery. If it was funnier, maybe it would be excusable, but watching Jack find out that Santa is real and that he's been kidnapped just becomes tiresome because we already know it.
(For a really great example of how bad this needless repetition can be, I recommend Green Lantern.)
By this point we're close to 40 minutes into the film. That's a lot of time to waste with effectively retelling stuff. One can’t help but wonder if the reason for taking us to Red One's mythical world to start with, instead of having the audience discover it while Jack does, is because of Dwayne Johnson’s presence as top-billed star and producer. It would make much more sense to bring his North Pole security chief in when Jack enters the mythological world, but instead we get a first act where Johnson's Callum is the lead character, and then another first act where Jack is the main character.
(Are you bored yet?)
The film never recovers from there. The momentum is lost, which impacts the odd-couple relationship of Callum and Jack and the general pacing of the film. It also makes it hard for the script to zing, so it's never funny enough, despite the best efforts of Evans.
It's also painfully predictable. Evans’ Jack is despicable, but in that annoyingly unrealistic way - the perfect-looking alcoholic, who is amazing at his job but shit at being a dad, and we just know where it's going to end up.
Far be it from me to tell screenwriter Chris Morgan how to do his job - I mean the dude's written seven Fast & Furious movies, including the good ones. And there's likely a fair amount of producer/director meddling involved here to get this weird, bloated, repetitive first act to happen, and the screenwriter is just trying to keep the more important people happy.
But if this is what Red One is, don't expect a Red Two.
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on October 17, 2024.
(MA15+) ★★
Director: Todd Phillips.
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson, Catherine Keener, Zazie Beetz, Steve Coogan, Harry Lawtey, Leigh Gill, Ken Leung, Jacob Lofland, Bill Smitrovich, Sharon Washington, Connor Storrie.
Coming this year to Netflix - the hit new reality show, Clown Court.
The most surreal moment of Joker: Folie a Deux comes after the credits have rolled and the DC Comics logo comes on the screen and you go, "oh yeah, that's right - this is a film about a Batman villain". Joker was a long way from what you'd expect from a so-called "superhero" movie, but its sequel makes Joker look like Superman 2.
This is the most un-comic-book comic book movie you could think of it. It's a gritty prison drama, a bonkers courtroom thriller, and a jukebox musical, all rolled into one overlong mess.
Bold and daring, Joker: Folie a Deux is also deluded. It's a ridiculous misfire that takes an awful long time to get nowhere and struggles to say anything coherent along the way.
Picking up about two years after the original, it follows Arthur Fleck AKA Joker (Phoenix) as he meets and falls in love with fellow Arkham Asylum inmate Harley Quinzel (Gaga). Meanwhile Fleck is preparing for his big day in court for the murders of the five people he killed during the events of Joker.
Folie a Deux is a reaction, a rejection even, of its predecessor, and I kind of admire that. Much as the first film left its Batman roots far behind, this one is at pains to leave Joker behind. Phillips throws out pretty much everything that made the first film great (except Phoenix's incredible performance), and has made a film that anyone who liked the original will probably hate, especially those dipshits who saw the main character as some kind of hero to idolise.
The truly great thing about Joker was its political and philosophical premise - how does a society make a killer? Here, there is no such fascinating idea to dig into. There are fleeting notions about killer worship and the media, which could be seen as an admirable cinematic reaction to some of the idiotic takes on the first film. But these themes flutter past like bats in the night.
Amid these half-baked talking points are two stars doing great work on gorgeous sets, captured by great cinematography. Phoenix and Gaga bring complexity to their famous comic book villains, and have fantastic chemistry. Their musical performances are also great, even if there are too many and they go on too long.
Elsewhere Gleeson and Keener are their usual fantastic selves, even if their roles are as thin as the comics their characters never actually appeared in. Steve Coogan also pops up briefly to chew a bit of scenery, though he has the most interesting role outside of Phoenix and Gaga.
I didn't hate Joker: Folie a Deux - like I said, I kind of admire the film. It takes real balls to not only reject the reactions to the original movie, but to also potentially make a movie that the original audience wouldn't want to see, complete with songs from the '30s to the '60s. So kudos there. But Folie a Deux is an overlong disappointment that wanders along, being mildly interesting without ever being good before hitting a suckerpunch ending that comes too late for anyone to care.
This is a version of a review airing on ABC Victoria's Statewide Mornings program on October 3, 2024.
(PG) ★★★★
Director: Chris Sanders.
Cast: (voices of) Lupita Nyong'o, Pedro Pascal, Kit Connor, Bill Nighy, Stephanie Hsu, Mark Hamill, Catherine O'Hara, Matt Berry, Ving Rhames.
"Fantastic? You're barely Average Mr Fox."
It's ok to cry at films. If you ever needed permission to bawl at a film, I give it to you. Cry your little heart out. God knows I do.
Just about every family film, especially these days, wants to make you cry. But their efforts are often undone by their own smart aleckness - so many CG-animated outings have some kind of fourth-wall-breaking meta-ness to it, or a single character who's there for the wise-crackin' and the wise-crackin' alone, and this tends to undo the emotional core too frequently. I'm looking at you, Trolls/The Secret Life Of Pets/The Boss Baby etc.
By comparison, The Wild Robot is a welcome throwback to a time of film-making when things weren't so smug. It hints at old-school Disney in its big-hearted sentimentality, with a visual dash of old-school Studio Ghibli in its pastel-paint look, and even a touch of The Iron Giant in its story of a robot learning to love. It is many old things wrapped up in something new, and it's a wonderfully uncynical creation.
Based on a couple of kids books by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot is the story of Rozzum 7134 (Nyong'o), a robot that accidentally washes up on an inhabited island. Desperate to fulfil its programming, Roz learns the ways of the local animals and inadvertently becomes the surrogate mother of a gosling.
Beautifully animated, the film buffs out its sharp digital edges with a hand-painted finish. Similarly, it takes its modern robot protagonist and plants it in an old-fashioned story about kindness, purpose and motherhood. There are still the frenetic CG sequences for the young ones wowed by colour and movement, but it's a great mix of a new approach to old approaches.
Nyong'o's voicework is exquisite, evolving as the robot does, while Pascal sounds unrecognisable as a fox, which is the closest the film comes to the token wise-crackin' character. They head an incredible team of voice actors - Hamill, O'Hara, Rhames, Berry and Nighy are all great and perfectly cast.
Best of all is the heart of the film. If you're a mum, take your kids, and feel seen. It's a beautiful ode to parenthood, as well as being about survival, kindness, caring, and teamwork.
It will perhaps be too sentimental for some tastes - "how many more talking animal movies do we need about finding your place in the world?" some bitter and twisted souls may ask. But open your cold robotic heart and find a home for The Wild Robot.
