Brightburn offers a promising take on the superhero genre, clearly riffing on Superman by offering the story of an alien child who lands on Earth and is raised on a quiet farm as if he were human. It’s classic “What If” fodder; where perhaps the most famous comic to change up Superman’s origin simply switches his landing to the Soviet Union, Brightburn instead presents an all-powerful being with ill intent.

This is a film that opens on a shot of a bookcase with at least four separate books on fertility, the camera panning to show the eventual adoptive parents getting ready for yet another attempt before being interrupted by the crash landing. The entire film has this amateur quality, over-explaining every detail as if we’re completely incapable. For example, Brandon Breyer, our evil alien child, comes up with a signature that he leaves at his crime scenes – we get scenes of the sheriff finding this marking at both, and then another where he goes back to his office to match up pictures of the two to show that, yes, he recognizes the connection.

The movie sold itself on James Gunn’s name, but it was written by his brother and a cousin and directed by David Yarovesky, a man with little experience but carrying a clear connection to Gunn considering his credits. It’s hard to view this as anything beyond classic Hollywood nepotism, a film elevated to a bigger budget and release than its screenplay deserves.

While promising a dark twist on the Superman mythos, Brightburn has little ambition beyond any run-of-the-mill ‘creepy child’ story. The whole tension of such a plot should be a family coping with the realization their beloved child is turning into a monster, but we simply gloss over their bonding and Brandon’s transformation is too sudden to have any real impact. The Gunns also take the most boring option for why Brandon becomes evil; it’s no internal discovery or inherent trait that bubbles up as he grows, but rather outside interference that essentially amounts to brainwashing. He simply isn’t the same character before and after, which voids any sense of emotional weight.

With any horror movie, I think it’s important to question what acts as the source of terror; Brightburn‘s narrative hook is a fresh domestic horror concept, suggesting a family with a dark secret that they must either learn to accept or perish. Brightburn all too quickly pits Brandon against his family; he is posited as an outsider, completely negating the familial connection. The Gunns don’t even suggest the parents might go along with his atrocities out of misguided love; they are immediately wary once they see clear signs of his lunacy.

Because of this, the source of horror instead stems from an untouchable, mindless killer hunting down innocent people; Brightburn is a slasher film. This could be fine; a superhero slasher would also be a unique concept, but instead of relying on tension, Brightburn simply tries to be as gory as possible. As the trailers were far too eager to show off, there’s a disgusting shot of a woman pulling a piece of glass from her eye. It’s not scary, it’s just gross and discomforting. This scene sets an atmosphere where, instead of being afraid for its characters, I’m instead annoyed with an expectation that any moment of horror is going to be unnecessarily crude.

Having any tension during these moments would require some sense of character, but I really can’t make any firm statement about who these people are. The entire family is purely defined by their perception of Brandon; what do his parents do besides worry about him? Do they have their own lives? The only reason Brandon goes after anyone is because they seem aware of his evil side, but he also does absolutely nothing to hide that aspect. A typical slasher keeps the villain at a distance, but Brandon is just as vapid while being a central focus.

Brightburn is a prime example of why writing matters so much more than a strong concept; there’s so much promise here, but the Gunns do nothing besides perhaps blocking a better writer from tackling a similar idea for the next several years. Don’t be fooled by the superhero coating, this carries all the weight of a Conjuring universe spin-off.

1.5 Stars Out of 5

Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut, Booksmart, is a stellar tale of two intelligent best friends who realize on the eve of high school graduation that the kids they derided for having fun actually ended up getting into the same schools. Taking this information as a wake-up call, the two end up on a journey of identity and self-discovery.

Booksmart stays tightly focused, largely set over a single night as Amy and Molly desperately search for the party hosted by the most popular kid in school. In some sort of Gatsby-inspired curse, they wander from wrong location to wrong location, hitting all the other parties by mistake.

A film like this rides on the essence of its characters; each of these parties is imbued with how the host (sometimes wrongly) views their own image – much of this movie finds characters having to take a hard look in the mirror as they realize no one they’ve grown up with really knows them, at least not in the way they’ve come to know themselves.

What is the self, anyway? True to life, those characters who aren’t questioning this seem assured of their own standing – but most are lost in a game of identity, grandstanding with a certain image to hide the uncertainty bubbling beneath.

Being a proper take on the high school experience, Booksmart is in many ways crass – this is a comedy of drugs, lust, and cringe-inducing awkwardness. However, none of these jokes operate at the expense of the characters; if they appear to be, it’s only so the film can later come back and question why. A movie like this can only reach such heights with a certain level of sincerity that Wilde delivers with grace.

Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein are phenomenal as these two best friends. The movie expertly starts us off by giving these two some alone time, engaging in an intentional bout of awkward dancing. Amy and Molly are dorks, but they’re dorks with an awareness and appreciation of that fact. It’s only in the presence of others that they fold and put up visible barriers.

This quality stretches well beyond the leads; this is a rare story that fleshes out nearly every character it introduces. The standout here is Billie Lourd as Gigi, the depressive rich girl who just keeps popping up, an almost mystical figure that adds to that bizarre sense there’s some outside presence guiding the girls through this night. We meet Jared, the other rich kid who hands out shirts with his own face printed on the front, comically pathetic until it becomes understood as ignorant desperation. Most of the characters get some sort of arc, revealing something way beyond our tainted first impression – the whole film glides by, eventually jumping between characters as it nears the climax.

This movie is going to be compared to Lady Bird for obvious reasons, both covering the feeling of high school graduation and also featuring Beanie Feldstein in a prominent role – but the film I kept drawing comparisons with is Burnham’s Eighth Grade. Beyond being tales of awkward school life, both films really understand the power of sound.

Where Eighth Grade would seamlessly blend montage through ambience, Booksmart backs its best scenes with an equally stellar soundtrack. A scene that follows Amy through a pool becomes mesmerizing with the assistance of Perfume Genius’s achingly beautiful “Slip Away,” while LCD Soundsystem’s gently longing “Oh Baby” helps wind down the eventful night. These choices are so precise – and the film is smart enough to hit an emotional height during a key scene by reducing sound altogether.

Like Eighth Grade, Booksmart pushes beyond simple humor and acts as a constant reminder of the dread that underlines growing up in a community where you know the same group of people for years, and despite all that time together, no one really sees you. This carries the same sort of awkward humor that drives the most brutal cringe comedies, but by showing the characters as at least somewhat aware of their flaws, this awkwardness is marked with a certain anxiety. Teenage awkwardness is understood by this film as largely rooted in kids trying and failing to present the image they want to be seen with.

Booksmart should go down as one of the all-time great high school comedies, one that balances a hysterical script with truly meaningful observations. This film is a celebration of those early academic years, not by idealizing youth but by acknowledging how wonderful it is that we manage to carry through such adversity and come out with a better sense of self. Like the characters it studies, Booksmart is a film of several layers, one that masterfully merges teen antics with self-aware statements about why teenagers perform the way they do.

5 Stars Out of 5

John Wick has become a definitive name in modern action cinema. The first film established a certain visual flair by leaning hard into gun fu tropes, while Chapter 2 ramped it up with an ever-expanding world while maintaining focus on phenomenal choreography. The series carries an almost surreal air, giving just enough information to link these sequences of violence together, and Chapter 3 – Parabellum runs wild with the threat established at the end of the previous film.

A common complaint I’ll have about modern spectacle films is their apparent need to justify the visuals. Films like Alita and Detective Pikachu dive into concepts they don’t need to as if it will add some sort of meaning, as if a unique style isn’t reason enough. John Wick stands above so many action films because it realizes just how little you need to give; its minimal set-up lends the franchise an ethereal quality. Watching Parabellum is like falling into a violent dream.

For the third chapter, the world of John Wick has already been set in motion; assassins line every street, the entire world coming down on our protagonist who just wanted to avenge his dog. Parabellum basks in the freedom allotted by the end of Chapter 2 – however, this also means the film lacks the sense of escalation from the previous films. How do you go further than this suggestion that the organization is literally everywhere?

What it lacks in mystique, Chapter 3 makes up for with stunning choreography – this has always been a high point of the series, but it reaches new heights here. A motorcycle chase along a bridge, an attack dog-assisted shootout in Morocco, a barn with weaponized horses – each scene is striking in its physicality while touring several vibrant locales. We know what John Wick can do with a pencil, but what about a library book?

Chapter 3 introduces two new major characters, one which reinforces the mystique while the other adds an entirely new layer to the franchise. Asia Kate Dillon appears as the Adjudicator, carrying a severe presence (and a pair of gloves) as they promise future hellfire upon everyone that dared to assist John Wick during the previous film. They appear emotionally void, a heartless enforcer of the High Table’s will – just inhuman enough to remind us that this world is a mere simulacrum of our own.

Zero, played by Mark Dacascos, becomes an absolute scene stealer. Despite its bizarre nature, most everyone within this franchise treats their situation as they should, living in states of paranoia that any stranger could be in a position to profit from their death. Zero, however, operates as a disconnected fanboy, someone who admires John Wick and hunts him down as much because he wants to see the legend in action as he feels guided by the High Table.

This character carries an almost humorous tone, but his presence is so out of place that it instead turns uncanny. In such a dire world, a character this carefree is the best way to capture someone truly mad. One thing I found lacking in the first two John Wick films was a compelling villain for Wick to face off against; the villains were people in power, not ones who did their own fighting. Despite not being the true villain of the story, Zero plays a perfect dragon to the High Table, allowing the film to build up to a distinctive climactic battle.

John Wick is simply the most consistently strong action franchise Hollywood has put out in decades. It has never missed a beat, pushing past easy options to make sure every scene carries some new purpose, whether building its macabre world or exploring radically stylized methods of violence. The series has always been a beautiful ballet of blood and bullets, and the third manages to outshine its predecessors on nearly all levels.

4 Stars Out of 5

Six middle-aged best friends decide to celebrate a 50th birthday by taking a trip to Napa Valley. It’s a comedy of old friendships, women clashing over issues that have gone unstated for years. Starring Amy Poehler (who also directs), Maya Rudolph, and a bunch of other SNL alumni, a film like Wine Country should hopefully have at least something to offer on the comedy front.

Despite their presence, Wine Country is simply uninspired – it has all the styling of a made for TV movie, which seems to be Netflix’s standard quality line. There’s nothing very cinematic about this experience; if you’re setting a movie in Napa Valley, you think you’d want to fit in a few nice shots of the vineyards, as it’s a wonderful countryside. But, no, Wine Country serves up little beyond medium shots of people speaking, never paying much attention to the location it named itself after besides a few establishing shots – it’s real easy to joke that Poehler and friends simply wanted a paid vacation.

Naturally, a film like this is focused more on its writing and performances, specifically humor, and while some jokes land, it never goes beyond much of a chuckle. The highs aren’t very high and a ton of moments fall flat – the women involved in this movie have much better work I’d rather revisit. My one exception is Paula Pell, and not just because I’ve never really encountered her before – Val’s story simply covers fresher territory than the others, following her as she falls for a woman much younger than her.

I started writing this review as soon as I closed my Netflix tab, and I’m already struggling to recall the highs. Instead, I find myself focused on how tone deaf the whole thing feels. These characters are swimming in personal issues, but they’re all so specifically upper-middle class that it’s hard to relate. Marital and work drama is a bit harder to sympathize with when the same characters are also dropping hundreds of dollars on novelty goods.

There’s one scene in the middle of the movie that really drags everything down with it. Val’s crush, the waitress from their first night, invites the group to her art exhibit. She’s portrayed as this shallow caricature making obviously meaningless art, and we end up with a scene where a bunch of well-off white women publicly tear into the art of a queer Asian woman who, again, works as a waitress. It’s all so condescending, falling back to that old cliche of how ‘coddled’ the young people are these days.

This would work if the point of the movie was to explore a bunch of rich white women being awful, but then this movie expects us to sympathize with those same awful characters. You can’t have it both ways, which suggests Amy Poehler doesn’t understand just how unlikable she made these characters. I really don’t care that Ana Gasteyer’s Catherine feels constantly left out by her friends; she’s a drug-obsessed workaholic who’s rude to service workers. It’s not like this film is filled with these negative scenes, but the lack of much positive means those are the moments that stick out.

Wine Country is a typical Netflix release, with no sense of artistry and a halfhearted attempt at an already familiar script. What’s disappointing here is that it involves people who are typically better than this. I think someone needs to give Poehler a big ‘oof’ for this one.

2 Stars Out of 5

Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) finds himself unemployed after the media site he works for is bought out. A friend drags him to a party to cope, where he happens to run into Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron), his childhood babysitter who has moved on to a career in politics, currently working as the US Secretary of State. She is getting ready to kick off a presidential campaign and decides to take on Fred as a speechwriter – this, of course, leading to a risky love affair.

Long Shot is a film that does some things very well while simply putting no effort anywhere else, a work carried by a very comedic script and strong performances. Yet even on a writing level, I have pause – while the jokes are funny, the framing structure is rather flimsy.

For whatever reason, my attention kept being drawn to the relative silence of the film. There isn’t much of a score at all, with only a few scenes featuring an admittedly strong selection of licensed songs. I’ve certainly seen tons of movies with little to no non-diegetic sound, which means there must be something else at play – I blame the editing, leaving too big of a lull between jokes and doing nothing to fill the time between.

Long Shot is similarly lacking with cinematography, even more than the average ‘modern Hollywood’ style I find myself complaining about – there are so many close-ups of people simply speaking. On a surface level, this is such a bland film both aurally and visually, an absolutely lazy form of presentation.

Luckily for everyone involved with the project, a strong cast of comedic talents carry the film. Beyond Seth Rogen falling into a familiar role as a disheveled, opinionated mess and Charlize Theron perfectly capturing a comically bizarre take on a serious woman in power, many of the minor roles manage to steal their scenes. Bob Odenkirk plays the president, a former actor more concerned with making the leap from television to film once he’s done than his current role as the most powerful man in the world. Odenkirk is perfect at capturing that sort of self-serving narcissism. Andy Serkis plays an unrecognizable old man named Parker Wembley, the media tycoon that bought out Fred’s former company that is now setting his eyes on controlling Charlotte’s political stances. He’s as slimy as he needs to be, ugly enough that I felt bad for whoever the actor was before realizing it was Serkis caked in makeup.

The cycle of strong minor performances really highlights the overall feeling from this film – it’s a series of individually strong moments that don’t add up to much. Strangely, I could buy the central romance, but the politics are so glazed over, too much of it falling conveniently into place. I get that the filmmakers don’t want to ruffle any specific feathers – one obnoxious scene brings up the whole ‘you can be friends with someone across the aisle’ angle (largely obnoxious because I can’t believe a man such as Fred, who has built a career out of his charged political beliefs, wouldn’t have discussed these things with his friends) – but it ends up not saying much of anything at all.

But, oh boy, I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t fun. I can forgive much of these complaints and say this is a movie well worth checking out if you simply want to be entertained for a few hours. If you like the kind of crude comedy Seth Rogen tends to star in, this should be exactly up your alley. It doesn’t aim for anything higher, but did anyone expect more?

3 Stars Out of 5

It in many ways feels like a futile effort to review a film such as Avengers: Endgame, a movie so culturally monolithic that everyone who is going to see it probably made up their mind about a year ago. Making this task even more difficult is how focused this work is on resolutions – to talk about any narrative detail feels like a spoiler. I’m more driven to do an analysis, something only for people who have already taken in the film and want to discuss the intricate details – alas, my New Year’s Resolution this year was to write two relevant reviews a week, so I must at least try.

I could break down the more technical elements, but at this point, I think we all know where this franchise’s attention lies. All of their energy is focused on what appears on screen, not really how those objects are shot. This is a series that gets Visual Effect nominations every other film while being entirely standard fare in regards to editing and cinematography. At its best, as in Black Panther, it also backs the visual effects with equally stellar set and costume design – Endgame doesn’t quite reach those heights, but it does an effective job capturing the conflicting designs of these intermingling franchises.

Continuing that comparison to Black Panther, to essentially summarize my thoughts on this film I don’t feel I can discuss as much I would like – Avengers: Endgame is likely my third favorite MCU film and also the third I’d score higher than 3.5 stars, beaten out by just Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy. Where Black Panther is MCU at its visual best and Guardians of the Galaxy perfected the franchise’s signature half-comedic atmosphere, Endgame is the first to fully land the concept of the crossover film – the concept the entire MCU was initially sold on.

On reflection, I feel like the key element holding Infinity War back is that it reduced a lot of characters to action sequences – they were detached from their own element. There is something about Endgame that manages to draw from the style of their films more. The MCU consists of many films that carry a similar feel with slight differences – a space story here, political intrigue there. Endgame goes through a variety of these moods with ease.

Similarly, Endgame simply makes better use of its characters. Infinity War is a string of people reacting – Thanos guided the actions. The problem with that is most characters acted the same – something very serious was happening and they all fought back however they could given where they were. Endgame succeeds by allowing the characters to play in their own element. Again, there’s a sense of variety here, as each character really takes their own unique path. The lead characters all carry their own guiding force – it’s a team film, but a team consisting of strong-minded individuals.

Avengers: Endgame is going to be far from the best movie of this year – again, this franchise pays too little attention to the technical language of cinema to achieve anything truly masterful – but it may just be the most satisfying. Where Infinity War was marked by a sense of impermanence, Endgame is a successful follow-through on so many stories that came before.

I guess my fear going in was, how was this film going to pull off its claim of being the conclusion to much of the MCU up to this point, all while the franchise would clearly chug along until perhaps the total collapse of cinema? But they handle it well, largely by honing in on the individual paths each character has found themselves on during their own films. They’re not merely props for a larger story – Endgame is each of their stories crossing into each other.

With how inescapable these films are now, it’s hard to remember how daring it was for the Marvel Cinematic Universe to be a thing in the first place. It’s the great Hollywood experiment of the modern era, to make a truly massive yet interconnected series of blockbusters. Endgame really sells this franchise as a cohesive unit, reaching beyond the simple fanservice of seeing your favorite characters fight together every few years by using the crossover to contrast these familiar faces.

4 Stars Out of 5

Part of The Conjuring Universe, allegedly (there’s a Conjuring Universe!?), The Curse of La Llorona is just a mess. I usually start these off with either a short overview of who worked on the film or even a description of the story, but none of that matters here. This is a cash grab based around an old Mexican legend, but none of the specifics matter here. This is a film processed through a simplifying narrative machine, any measure of uniqueness stemming from the legend quickly syphoned out for a cheap series of basic jump scares.

First of all, La Llorona is a weeping woman; just hearing her wailing should be a dangerous factor. Yet her bitter tears are quickly forgotten; here, she is instead the endlessly screaming woman (La Gritona?) – a screaming woman who also grabs people by the arm. Really, she does little beyond that – screams, grabs an arm, runs away to do it again. She drowns some kids, but that’s off screen. Her on-screen presence is so commonly reduced to this simple cycle. The whole movie is the same scene with slight variations; people are scared La Llorona is near, they eventually stumble across her, she screams, grabs them (again, usually by the arm), then disappears. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

It’s not like we get much before that, either. Linda Cardellini plays a social worker who separates two children from their seemingly insane mother, only for the boys to be drowned by La Llorona a bit later. She goes to where the boys were found, her own children dragged along to a murder scene for some stupid reason, where her son soon encounters La Llorona. There’s no build-up of anything, we almost immediately fall into a family being terrorized, but, like, only once every three minutes or so.

There’s nothing shocking here, never any truly scary set-ups. It’s a film that runs purely off the idea of being startling – which, while being startled starts off as a fear reaction, it almost immediately turns to one of annoyance. To be startled usually means realizing whatever scared you isn’t actually a threat – each jump scare reduces the tension leading into the next. There’s no weight to anything here, no atmosphere being built.

This is a hard movie to talk about in detail because it really is that shallow. The more technical elements aren’t as lackluster as the story, but they’re not exactly good either. The one positive thing I took out of the whole experience is Raymond Cruz as a shaman who assists the family in fighting La Llorona, who fits a few fun one liners in. He is a pleasant relief amid a sea of tediousness.

The Curse of La Llorona is a film that completely misunderstands the appeal of horror. It’s sad that The Conjuring Universe seems convinced it has a room full of haunted knick-knacks that could each have their own sinister origin story. It really doesn’t mean much if it’s going to treat them all as entirely interchangeable. And if you’re going to fall back on an obvious formula, at least come up with a good one first.

1 Star Out of 5

The debut feature film of director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, The Mustang is the tale of a violent prisoner named Roman (played by Matthis Schoenaearts) who begins working in a horse training program soon after his release from solitary. He ends up forging a bond with a mustang that refuses to be tamed and soon finds himself assigned as its main trainer.

This film carries a certain obvious symbolic quality; two beings confined by a system they will never fit into. Roman recognizes Marcus’s fear and frustrations, the horse constantly kicking the walls of his cage and approaching any presence with hostility. Part of this feels too on-the-nose, though it can also be effective in its simplicity.

I would categorize this in the same way as a film like Fighting With My Family – it’s a familiar sort of story presented in a technically streamlined manner. There works let everything take a backseat to the story and performances. The Mustang feels constrained by its lack of cinematic vision, letting the success of scenes fall largely on the shoulders of Schoenaearts.

This film tries to tackle elements of the contemporary western and prison drama genres, and it doesn’t quite succeed at juggling the two. Compare this to McQueen’s Hunger, another debut film that, while carrying greater stakes, is a similarly small production. McQueen would find a resonant image and linger on it – de Clermont-Tonnerre seems to simply present the necessities and glide along. The most important difference is how McQueen reinforces his actors; that seventeen minute scene highlights Fassbender’s capabilities as an actor. Here, Schoenaearts’ performance is merely captured.

The Mustang rarely seems to consider the power of the camera – there are beautiful shots for sure, but they’re in the most obvious places. We open on a scene of wild horses, and the view is stunning as they laze about and then run in a panic as a helicopter herds them into a fenced pasture. There is this great shot of Roman riding Marcus, the camera at an almost head-on, steady angle. That moment really underlines Roman’s sense of cautious wonder, and it’s a shame so many other scenes have such rudimentary presentation.

Any time we cut back to the prison drama, a lot of the artistry seems to fade. In the first scene, Roman remarks that he doesn’t mix well with people, and the same seems true of the narrative. The tension of these segments don’t add much – there’s an awful cellmate, an estranged daughter, racial tension. Everything here is so familiar. I guess a man and his horse is also a bit familiar, which really proves the idea that how you tell a story is more important than what story you happen to be telling. The Mustang is a much better contemporary western than it is a prison drama.

I feel like I’m being a bit harsh on this film – when a film narrowly misses out on greatness, it’s easy to fixate on what went wrong. This movie is still loaded with stellar sequences – I particularly liked an early scene where Roman gives up on his attempts of training Marcus as the horse simply turns his back. Roman sits down, and the horse casually walks over and rubs his face against the man. It’s this gentle, somewhat funny moment, and I wish the film fell more into these rather quiet observations.

Honestly, the best part here is the chemistry between Roman and his horse. If a film is going to fall back entirely on a single actor, they did a good job picking the right man. This is the type of film I could imagine picking up a few stray Best Actor nominations and absolutely nothing else. While I wish de Clermont-Tonnerre did more to reinforce his performance, Schoenaearts really captures a man who relies on silence, not because he has nothing to say but because social engagement risks frustration that leads to violence – this is a man who lives in terror of his own reactions. His quiet growth as he bonds with this horse really shines through.

There is a lot about The Mustang I find worthy of praise – I just wish certain elements didn’t fall so hard into the familiar. Thankfully, it ties everything up in an unpredictable manner, though it again fumbles with a very obvious closing shot. Either way, it’s strong enough to suggest Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre could become a great director with a bit more consideration for the craft.

3.5 Stars Out of 5

Missing Link is the fifth film out of Studio Laika, that relatively new stop motion company that broke through with 2009’s Coraline. The release of Missing Link seemed to be approached with a certain amount of hesitation, as if the studio was losing its edge after a string of masterpieces – I suspect many have simply forgotten about The Boxtrolls at this point.

What I gather from this hesitation is more a concern over a change in style – their two great works, Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings, carry an effectively heavy edge. They belong to a dark group of animation we haven’t seen that often out of American studios; Disney, Pixar, and Dreamworks tend to play it safe with the bright and cheery, and any studio that did stray into bleaker subject matters seemed to have died off decades ago. To see Laika put out a film that looks more akin to those major studio productions suggests we could be losing a unique voice.

In the end, however, Missing Link feels distinctly within their style. It may shed the surface darkness, but that’s because it’s simply replacing the gothic horror or spirit-based quest with a more classically European style of adventure – the stakes are as high as the others, the setting has simply changed.

Missing Link generally handles its themes well – Sir Lionel Frost hopelessly seeks the approval of a group of powerful men by attempting to find proof of mythical creatures. This leads him to meet Mr. Link, a Sasquatch that wants to seek out others like him. Lionel agrees to the trip largely for his own image; these two singularly unique individuals are both on a desperate quest for validation.

While the style is fine, what Missing Link really lacks is a proper screenplay. There’s nothing that particularly stood out as wrong, but it leaves little impact. The jokes are fun in their moment but quickly pass. In reflection, I don’t feel like Coraline or Kubo had that strong of writing either, but their unique style granted an extra sense of gravitas to every sequence. Missing Link holds back on the fantastical to its detriment, as it reveals itself to be a bit too straightforward.

Despite this lightness, the individual moments do shine through. This film is consistently fun from the opening at Loch Ness to the climactic moments in the Himalayas. The characters are all charming, suited with a unique sense of motion and visual communication. Certain moments are surprisingly tense – the entire closing sequence had me on the edge of my seat, while also being pointedly hilarious. Missing Link digs its claws into colonialism and elitism throughout, and it really builds into a fantastic ending. There’s something to be said about a movie that manages to keep building interest even within a simple structure.

As expected with Laika, Missing Link is a wonderful film to look at. While its style isn’t their best, the smoothness of the animation is breathtaking. Where the character design is a bit basic, the set design is wonderful – each sequence has a unique location, which really helps build the sense of this being an epic adventure despite its short running time.

Missing Link offers little beyond its pleasantness, but it does so without hitting any notable sour notes. While I’d love to have another Kubo, I’m still happy with what we got. I walked out happy with the experience, fleeting as it will likely be.

3.5 Stars Out of 5