Category: Fantasy

Water, Water Everywhere

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever – 2022 – PG13

As a kid growing up in the 1960s, comic books were a huge part of my summer reading pleasure, but I was a total DC fan, Superman my hero, Aquaman runner-up. Marvel did not figure in the mix which explains why I missed the genesis of Wakanda in July 1966’s Fantastic Four. Black Panther was a complete unknown to me until the film was released in 2018 and lit up the Academy Awards, nominated for seven, winning three, and the first superhero movie ever to receive Best Picture nomination. So when the sequel, Wakanda Forever was released, it was a must-see on my list. 

What worked: The opening tribute to Chadwick Boseman was creative and touching. Boseman won international accolades for playing the Black Panther, tragically dying in 2020 after battling colon cancer since 2016, unbeknownst to the Marvel universe.  A film featuring the strength and courage of women is a timely balance to the concurrently released Harvey Weinstein exposé She Said and the narcissistic #MeToo saga TÁR. Angela Bassett (Queen Ramonda), Letitia Wright (Princess Shuri), Lupita Nyong’o (T’Challa’s lover and spy Nakia),  Danai Gurira (General Okoye) and Dominique Thorne (MIT student Riri Williams) create a formidable female team as they take on a new undersea enemy. And therein lies what didn’t work.

This new enemy is the Vibranium rich underwater kingdom of Talokan led by King Namor, a feathered serpent god. Vibranium, formed from a meteorite collision with Earth, is the strongest metal in the world, rare and extremely expensive, an asset Wakanda, thinking it only theirs, hid for years. King Namor talks Princess Shuri into a tour of Talokan and meeting the blue-skinned water-breathing superhumans which he has protected from discovery for centuries. Carrying a grudge towards  “the surface world” for enslaving the Maya, Namor proposes an alliance with Wakanda to torch this surface world but  threatens to first annihilate Wakanda if they refuse. Call me pollyanna but harboring bitterness for five centuries seems excessive. Why not wreck havoc and revenge after maybe 100 years rather than 500? Why wait? And Namor threatening to destroy Wakanda, a civilization with which Talokan shares similar roots, treasures and challenges, feels arbitrary and contrived. Two powerful, intelligent nations with common interests, common identities and no historic or contemporary conflicts between each other, now wage an absurd war that consumes the (very, very long) movie. So much water. So much mayhem.

Queen Ramonda faces some United Nations type interrogation about hoarding vibranium.  And then the CIA and Navy Seals use a vibranium-detecting machine to locate a deposit in the Atlantic. And then Namor intercepts and wipes them out. And then Namor  demands that Shuri, who kidnaps Riri for her own protection, to return Riri, who made the machine for a school project, to Talokan for execution. Whew! Oh, and then there is the heart-shaped herb pressed into magical action. Oh, and so is the Midnight Angel armor. And then, and then, and then…..too long, too convoluted, too nonsensical. Film editing apparently is out. Snooze. Sigh. Oh, and then my final comment: don’t leave before the credits roll or you will miss the groundwork for Wakanda the sequel. Sigh.

Birds of a Feather Fight Together

Birds of Prey – 2020 – R

The last time I was motivated by a movie to go total badass was in 1969. True confession, right after seeing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, I started shooting up the parking lot with my imaginary six-guns while scanning the shopping center for a bank to rob. Forgive me, I was young and impressionable. Five decades later, leaving the theater after watching Birds of Prey, I started practicing spins, kicks and jabs walking to my car. Good thing there was no one near the theater to head butt or leg sweep or Karate Kid Crane Kick! Forgive me, I’m old and impressionable.

Females dominate Birds of Prey. It is written, directed, and produced by women; features a ridiculously brilliant soundtrack that includes 15 exclusive new tracks, all from female artists; and stars five diverse women who clearly relish their roles. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) exudes the confidence and sheer brassiness of a reigning D.C. moll except she’s on her own. Jilted by Joker, her madman oasis of security is now a mirage and maniacal Gotham City revenge-seekers are gleefully closing in for the kill. Most of the film is Harley thrashing these foes with cartwheeling, catapulting, take-no-prisoner maneuvers until she’s sadly sold out by her one and only friend, Doc, the elderly owner of a Chinese restaurant who delivers Harley into the hands of psychopathic crime boss, Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). Her life literally hanging in the balance, Harley is one knife slice away from losing face before she cuts a deal to recover a prized diamond that landed in the possession of teenage pickpocket extraordinaire Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco). Cassie lives in the same tenement as Harley, mostly exiled to the stairwell escaping abusive foster care. Harley offers Cassie a semblance of sisterhood, the first revealing peek at Harley’s liberated joker-less heart.

Cue three other colorful female characters that, with Harley and Cassie, dominate the last part of the film, a female quintet of empowerment and redemption. Helena Bertinelli, aka Huntress “The Crossbow Killer” (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is out to even the score with Gotham mafia men who executed her family when she was a child. Dinah Lance, soulful lounge singer, aka Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) is about to find her voice after turning away silent one too many times as her bar boss, Black Mask, sexually assaults female patrons. Gotham City detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez), done losing hard-earned recognition to a police force ruled by misogyny, crosses over to embrace her feminist wild side. Uniting these five as Birds of Prey is the common purpose of reaping righteous havoc on the villains of Gotham, bringing a testosterone track record of destruction, perversion and exploitation to a deliciously satisfying, rip-roaring, raucous end.

The most compelling moments of this comic-book-come-to-life movie were two occasions when self-interest prevailed over friendship. First Harley confronts Doc and then Cassandra confronts Harley about trading their lives to Black Mask for personal gain. Doc listens, shrugs, pockets his bounty and drives off. Harley tries to blow Cassie off with a ho hum, “I’m just a horrible person” but clearly is affected at a level that will ultimately be revealed late in the film. Definitely worth the wait.

Don’t shy away from this movie or misjudge it as gaudy graphic novel schlock because you will miss an entertaining cinematic bonanza. The music is a blast. The action is crazy fun! The bad guys lose, the good gals win. The fight sequences outrageous, outlandish and awesome. The female cast, after months of training and practice, performed most of the fight scenes themselves, no stunt doubles need apply. Definitely time to enroll in a martial arts class! Who’s with me?! 

Ducks, Dubs & Duds

Dolittle – 2020 – PG

When my granddaughter was four years old we went to see How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and about five minutes in she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Nana, I think this is a boy movie.” Well, ditto to Dolittle. It’s definitely a children’s film and has everything a small fry audience, especially packed with boys, enjoys: farts, poop, burps, spit, vomit and gorilla mooning. How about this for a crowd pleaser, “Something smells wrong, and that’s coming from a guy who loves the smell of butts,” blurts Dolittle’s scruffy dog. But brace yourself for this spoiler: Dolittle diagnoses a female dragon with constipation, so to unclog her system he reaches up her rear and pulls a bunch of eclectic junk out, from human bones to a giant leek to bagpipes. Anal animation. Sigh. Can you imagine a Dr. Dolittle-themed birthday party? It puts a new spin on that childhood rite of passage “playing doctor.”

Then there’s Robert Downey Junior who stayed in character by simply playing himself. His irascible, unkempt, unappealing self. By the end of the film he’s graduated from unkempt to merely disheveled. A little of RDJ goes a long way and Dolittle is a lot! And please no Scottish brogue ever again. Fingernails across a chalkboard preferable. Stick with Ironman.

The film was shelved in 2019 and then pushed back into production, infused with millions more until it maxed out at a bloated, obscene $175 million budget. Universal execs said no más and a hot mess is what we get. Besides banal toilet humor and RDJ’s Scottish For Dummies delivery, we get dialogue so poorly dubbed that it doesn’t match the menagerie‘s mouths, bad technical post-production lip-sync, bird beak speak that looks like an amateur hour tape delay…$175 million…how does that even happen?

Dolittle lived up to it’s title, doing little for my entertainment value but then I’m old and female. For me it was like watching a 100 minute Aflac commercial. In the space of two months we inherit Cats and Dolittle as the new Hollywood standard, the metric to measure flops, fiascos and failures. The stuff of memories. Go see Dolittle just so someday we can all look back and say, “By god, we were there.”

The End of an Epic

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – 2019 – PG13

All good things must come to an end. It’s been 42 years since Han, Leia and Luke, Chewbacca, C-3PO and R2-D2 launched a cultural phenomenon that to this day sees closet shelves and dresser drawers across America stuffed with lightsabers, stormtroopers and droids. Collectibles! Some day, we all hope, they will be worth a fortune and augment our retirement. My son, born in 1977, grew up paralleling the Star Wars universe. Remember Boba Fett?  The most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy once went missing in our household. To restore order to our universe we immediately went shopping. Being the pre-Amazon Prime era, it required firing the car up and ransacking Wards, Sears, Mervyn’s and Toys “R” Us until we finally lucked out at a K-Mart 20 miles away! The force was with us.

Star Wars ultimate finale, The Rise of Skywalker, concludes the epic triple trilogy that started a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Jedi Rey and First Order Commander Kylo Ren (Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver) Resistance fighter pilot Poe and Stormtrooper drop-out Finn (Oscar Isaac, John Boyega) wage a winner-take-all intergalactic scavenger hunt, the prize, a free universe. Rey and Ren dominate the film, blasting and battling each other (to the point of tedium) across the galaxy. Ren was not as maniacal as in the Force Awakens. I spotted a soft spot early on but had to wait until the finale of the finale to see if my hunch would bear fruit, last man standing, Ben or Ren? Redemption or revenge? No spoiler here but you won’t be disappointed. Rey matches Ren’s zealotry, lightsabership and scowls from dunes to oceans, islands to planets. Their ocean battle alone incredible. Death Stars rise and fall but worth the wait is when the most famous X-Wing in Star Wars lore makes a majestic reappearance. Just wow! Bringing a roar from my theater crowd is the scene following Poe’s reassurance, “We’ve got friends out there. They’ll come if they know there’s hope.” Look up! The Resistance meets the Empire, once and for all. For me, the absolute best moment of the movie. 

There are lots of loose ends left for Star Wars aficionados to debate for years. The Rise of Skywalker couldn’t possibly get it all figured out or the movie would play more as exhausting eulogy than culminating trilogy. To love this four decade saga is to live comfortably with ambiguity. A blockbuster’s impact on pop culture is measured by the millions of water cooler arguments, opinions and observations that fill social media and social gatherings for common consideration and consumption. That’s the fun of it. Let’s test it out. I wasn’t thrilled with the ending, but then I’m a biology matters kind of person. Luke (Skywalker himself) disagrees, “Some things are stronger than blood.” What do you think? Let it rip. Above all else, yesterday, tomorrow and four decades hence, let’s lay claim to what’s most important, “The Force brought us together.” Thanks for that reminder Finn. And may the force be with you all!

Trading Places

Jumanji: The Next Level – 2019 – PG13

Let’s get right to it. The best parts of this movie are the marauding,snarling baboons and stampeding attack ostriches. The scenery, from desert to mountains, is gorgeous. I came right home and starting researching affordable forest homes. Danny DeVito (Eddie) and Danny Glover (Milo) are the next best thing since Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon and that’s saying something since it’s been 51 years since the Odd Couple. The whole trading around avatars was disconcerting. DeVito’s voice coming through a young woman’s body was creepy. Glover as a black horse with retractable wings and speaking horse language was far-fetched even for a fantasy. At least it was a cut above Mr. Ed because Mouse (Kevin Hart), bilingual in English/Equine, capably translated. A horse is a horse of course of course. Not always. It might be Danny Glover.

It would have helped if I’d queued up and reviewed the second film, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) so I could have oriented myself faster to the video game parallel universe. I felt exactly like clueless geezers Milo and Eddie trying to make sense of being sucked into a broken game console and dropped as avatars into Jumanji, “Huh?” Well, since I’m spouting off about 1968’s Odd Couple and 1961’s Mr. Ed, I guess I am a geezer. “Huh?” Reality check. Sigh. The film mixes and matches genders, races, and ages. Instant Fountain of Youth for some and surprise, surprise, overnight Golden Years for others. All together now, trade! I always dreamed of being a flying horse.

If you’re a Jumanji fan, definitely see it. If you’re not versed in supernatural board games, but still want a dose of fantasy you might want to see Frozen 2 instead. Or, maybe just stay home and play a video game.

Disney Defrost

Frozen 2 – 2019 – PG

First let me say that if I am ever given the chance to come back in a future life I want to be Idina Menzel— as long as John Travolta never introduces me. If you are blanking on what I’m talking about, cue up Travolta at the 2014 Academy Awards introducing Menzel’s performance of Frozen’s Let It Go (which took home the Oscar for Best Song). Her voice is divine, a Heavenly treat, ear candy….add your superlatives. I did enjoy a few songs from Frozen 2 but most left me wishing I’d subscribed to the new Disney Plus service on my Apple TV so I could stream Frozen the original and just keep replaying Let It Go. Tip: be sure and stay through the credits so you can hear Kacey Musgraves sing All is Found. It’s already #1 on my iPhone Frozen 2 song list. Plus there is a funny Olaf and friends bonus clip at the very, very end, yes, after the “Caffeinated Team” listing. What is that? Starbucks runners? 

The musical show stopper was a mother/daughter duet, Show Yourself, featuring Idina Menzel (Elsa) and Evan Rachel Wood (Queen Iduna) at a carpe diem turning point for Elsa. Tracking a mysterious lilting voice, Elsa travels beyond the kingdom of Arendelle in order to discover the source of her magical powers and to learn the truth about her family’s past. Show Yourself musically accompanies Elsa on her dangerous journey, peaking as she plunges into the raging Dark Sea. There she encounters and tames the Nøkk, a water spirit that shapeshifts into a magnificent white stallion and brings her safely to Ahtohallan. Show Yourself is #2 on my song list. That’s it. A short hummable set. Perfect.

Ultimately Elsa, Anna, Sven, Olaf and Kristoff together will be called upon to set things right as it relates to the neighboring tribe of Northuldra and, in doing so, save Arendelle. Elsa’s quest for self-discovery, Anna’s sisterly protection of Elsa, Kristoff’s romantic pursuit of Anna and the unfortunate melt-down of Olaf all factor into a fairly complicated Frozen mythology of kings, queens and kingdoms; enchanted forests, trolls and spirits; and, personification of elements—Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. There are so many new characters and creatures introduced in this sequel that if (when) there is a Frozen 3, CliffsNotes will be sold as a popular concession item right beside popcorn and Skittles. 

The Frozen 2 animation and cinematography was exquisite and dazzling at times—the Earth Giants, the Nøkk, and Elsa’s frozen magical moves are prime examples. At other times, the technology was not so splendid. Olaf reminds me of a craft kit of cotton balls and toothpicks designed to be an easily manufactured stuffed animal. Bruni, a sweet, tiny salamander is super cute but so simple it would go well as a black line master in a Frozen 2 toddler’s coloring book. The ice sculpture images are reminiscent of a Macy’s Christmas Window themed around Department 56 Snowbabies. The last fifteen minutes of the film salvaged a tedious first half snooze fest. IMHO Disney can do better. 

Horrible Horror

Dr. Sleep – 2019 – R

Let me just say that 40 years is a long time to wait for a sequel! To amp up for Stephen King’s Dr. Sleep, I dropped $3.99 and rented Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation of The Shining. In memory of my money forever lost to Amazon Prime coffers, I’m coining a new film category, “Horrible Horror.” The Shining was flat ridiculous. Silly. Absurdly laughable. Who gets terrified by a  little red-headed tyke wandering around hoarsely repeating red rum, red rum? He sounds like he has the croup. I pulled up list after list of “Scariest Movies Ever” and I’ll be damned, The Shining tops every list. Go figure. Anyway, unimpressed by Shining #1, I skeptically reported to Shining #2, Dr. Sleep. 

The movie is admittedly a bloody cut above it’s predecessor. How much a “cut above” you ask? Not much. Creepier than the screen action was being completely alone in the theater for the 2 1/2 hour runtime, a solitary first. With just me and all those empty seats, the sound had a definite reverb. I kept nervously glancing around, hearing disembodied creaking and rustling echoing from every direction. I couldn’t stop myself. Embarrassing. 

All grown up Red Rum Danny boy, Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has regrettably turned to alcohol, cocaine and naked lady romps to blot out that one unfortunate childhood winter at the Overlook Hotel. Understandably, being chased around a haunted hotel by your axe-wielding, deranged dad (Jack Nicholson) tends to have a lasting PTSD effect. After one too many bar fights and alcohol induced blackouts, Dan moves to a small New Hampshire town where he is immediately befriended by benevolent and intuitive, Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), joins AA, sobers up and lands a hospice job attending to the dying. He’s assisted by lap cat, feline fatale Azzie who apparently channels Dan’s clairvoyance, taking a shine to the next person to die, Azzie plops on their bed for a cat nap. If you hear purring, start praying. Azzie the psychic cat helps Dan earn the moniker Dr. Sleep.  

After eight uneventful New England years, Dan is jolted back to his paranormal shadow side when middle schooler, Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), psychically surfaces and makes a metaphysical connection. Teenage Abra is a super duper shiner, far more perceptive and powerful than middle aged Dan, but she urgently needs a co-shiner and Dan will do. Through Abra’s inter-dimensional, x-ray vision, she’s discovered a roaming cult of vampire-like, RV traveling hippies, The True Knot. This morbid gang of quasi-immortals kidnap, torture, kill and consume the dying breaths of psychically gifted children—just like her. They must be stopped. On two occasions we watch the ghoulish gang lure children of the shine to their deaths, a prolonged ritual of grisly mutilation and unspeakable torture led by psychopathic cult leader Rose The Hat (Rebecca Ferguson).  Rose explains to her young victims how it works: the greater the terror and more intense the pain, the more nutritious and satisfying the ghoul’s sadistic feast. Through a rite of hellacious suffering, the child’s dying life force is released as visible “steam” sending the barbaric freaks into a macabre cannibalistic orgy. The graphic, nightmarish torture of a 9-year old little leaguer was a disturbing, degenerate scene, beyond monstrous, that took the film to a place it didn’t need to go. I can’t think of many—make that any—friends of mine who would sit through it.

When the action retreads to the snowy Colorado Rockies and the long abandoned Overlook Hotel, I perked up at the possible inventive intersections between Shine, the original and Sleep, the sequel. I even dreamed up my own fabulous ending that offered creative redemption to the denouement. Nope, this film powered down and, dare I say, ran out of steam. I was recently asked if I’d ever been to a movie that afterwards I wished I could unsee. I couldn’t think of any. New answer: Dr. Sleep. Horrible Horror. 

Beauty and Terror

Jojo Rabbit – 2019

Satire and hellacious historical events don’t easily mix for me. From seeing the trailer of Jojo Rabbit over and over in previews, I adversely sized it up as an ill-conceived parody on Adolph Hitler and a young boy’s induction into the Nazi party’s Hitler Youth organization. I instantly disliked it, in fact when I sat down in the theater with friends, I threw down the gauntlet, “I am prepared to hate this film.”  By the time the movie ended, my mind was changed. Much to my surprise, JoJo Rabbit won me over. 

Played by gifted, quirky New Zealand director Taika Waititi, the role of Hitler is depicted as a flim-flam, sputtering imaginary friend to ten-year old neighborhood misfit Jojo Betzler, brilliantly played by 11-year old British actor Roman Griffin Davis. The Hitler/Jojo absurdity runs continuously throughout the film, however in an effective storyline strategy, the film’s satiric overtones decrease as the Third Reich realities of 1945 Berlin increase. In doing so, we witness the maturation of Jojo, evolving from Hitler flattery to mockery, Nazi indoctrination to renunciation. As a brazen exclamation point, Jojo, former Führer fanatic, stands up to the caricature of evil and with a furious drop kick boots the buffoon through Jojo’s second story bedroom window. We cheer! We’ve been rooting for Jojo since he refused to kill the sacrificial rabbit on the first day of Hitler Youth Camp. Victory!

Two relationships influence Jojo’s transformation, his mother Rosie (Scarlett Johansson) and the admiration and love he has for her; and a teenage Jewish girl, Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie) who Rosie is secretly hiding in a hidden nook of the apartment. Jojo discovers this dangerous secret, but keeps silent to protect his family’s safety. Also unknown to Jojo, Rosie is supporting the resistance, her underground work frequently taking her away from home. While his mom is out, Jojo cautiously engages with Elsa, creating a stick figure illustrated manual on the “nature of Jewishness” that he is certain will contribute to the war effort. However, along the way, Jojo’s preadolescent curiosity grows, replacing propaganda prejudices with sincere concern and authentic affection for Elsa. His beliefs are challenged by friendship, truths inspired by relationship. The inhumane horror show of the Nazi regime receives no humorous treatment. Jojo weathers an unspeakable family atrocity, yet the film doesn’t focus on the murderous terror, choosing to focus instead on the irony of how the gruesome can backfire, softening rather than hardening a young boy’s bias.

With Jojo Rabbit it is best to suspend judgment and trust the film’s deployment of zany, crazy hyperbole and irreverent black humor to see the world through Jojo’s eyes. For it is through his eyes that we are given occasional glimpses into promising possibilities rather than fatalistic eventualities —forgiveness over vengeance, understanding and empathy over hostility and indifference, love and compassion over hatred and callousness. And where there is even so much as a peek, a glimmer of hope, we can raise our flag over the universe and claim the smallest seeds of victory.  The epigraph for this film—lines from Rainier Maria Rilke’s poem, “Go to the Limits of Your Longing,” leaves us pondering the heart and soul of life and our personal obligation to scatter those seeds. Take a chance on Jojo Rabbit.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don’t let yourself lose me.

Cut to Black

The Lighthouse – 2019

I’m a romantic about lighthouses.  I love their symbolism, beacons of light in the darkness, sources of strength, guidance, and hope. I carry around a Lighthouse Passport and collect stamps for every one visited. Friends shower me with gifts with a lighthouse motif. I’m a proud card-carrying member of the U.S. Lighthouse Society looking forward to the time when I can join their lighthouse travel tours. Then comes this movie. Well, where to begin? The Lighthouse was shot in black and white and used filming techniques that mimic the silent movie boxy look. The effect was like watching 110 screen minutes squinting through a square storm cloud. The nostalgic benefit of a silent movie is lively organ music bubbling up from the orchestra pit. The sound effect of this movie was the unrelenting deafening and deadening moan of a fog horn. At first it jarred me. Eventually it sedated me and for a short while I oozed along in morbid rhythm with the drab and drizzle.  Disrupting my fog horn catatonia were crashing waves of fights, farts, mud, blood, and vomit bracketed by grotesque scenes of repulsive cistern contamination, mermaid masturbation and seagull penis-pecking. Set at the end of the 19th century on a remote, bleak island off the New England coast, two men, Keeper Thomas Wake (Willem Defoe) and flunkie Ephraim Winslow (Robert Pattinson), find themselves tending the lighthouse together for a one month watch. Dipping into Herman Melville manuscripts to salt the dialogue of madness and drawing from maritime superstitions and seafaring tales of mermaids, seabirds, sailors, and tentacled monsters, we are held captive in this noxious cinematic hallucination just like Thomas and Ephraim are held captives on their claustrophobic, wave-pounded, misery-making, isolated island of horror. No way off. For them. No way out. For me. Somewhere after the drunken ax attack but before the psychotic Fresnel lens lunacy, I considered packing up and walking out. Instead I sat, stubbornly believing that a lighthouse movie would eventually flicker with a tiny ray of redemptive illumination. Well, it didn’t. There is an inside joke in my household about “cut to black” movies. Sensing unrequited plot resolution, the inevitable fate of many indie art house films, one of us will lean over and whisper “cut to black.” Predictably, the screen will simply go dark and the credits roll, a feeble, faux-creative strategy pressed into action when (1) the director runs out of ideas about how to end the movie, or (2) the producer runs out of money. So there you have it. The Lighthouse. Cut to black. 

Game of Moans

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil

Five years ago I saw Maleficent 1 and I think I liked it. Pretty sure but I don’t really remember. Now I’ve seen Maleficent 2 or Mistress of Evil. In five years I’ll remember this: I did not like it. There were a lot of strange creatures, the tiny mushrooms were, well, creepy. The “don’t raise your roots to me,” lurching tree people were, well, weird.  And then there were the fairies, so many strange little fairies. Ironic that during the same week NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch marked the historic first ever all-female spacewalk, Disney delivered three female leads that led nowhere. We get pitiful, weepy Princess Aurora (Elle Fanning); conniving, evil, Queen Ingrith (Michelle Pfeiffer), and the great horned antihero Maleficent (Angelina Jolie). Character development was DOA. Relationships lacked chemistry, unless you count iron, Kryptonite to the Moorsfolk and I don’t. The storyline periodically collapsed, like the writers knocked off and took a contractual hiatus. Maybe they flipped on Game of Thrones and caught some episodes because there were several times in Maleficent when I felt I was watching a GoT rip-off. (Apologies in advance to those of you who won’t recognize these HBO series references). As the church in the human kingdom was barricaded and the poor, unwitting woodland creatures and harmless fairies, guests of the royal wedding, desperately struggled to escape a ruthless poison massacre, I’m thinking, damn, Red Wedding. When Maleficent inevitably erupts into a cosmic rage, she totally turns into Mad Queen Daenerys and annihilates Ulstead, homeland of vapid, dull-as-dirt Prince Phillip (Harris Dickinson). “You must stop! This is not war, it’s slaughter!” Sound familiar? Hear The Bells? I scanned critic reviews after the movie and several times the word “genocide” was used.  Yes, genocide. Disney? Good god. The Mistress of Evil is a Trojan Horse that drops R-rated mayhem full of treasonous pixies, hateful humans, and winged denizens of darkness into unsuspecting PG audiences. Seriously, who would knowingly take little kids to this movie? I’m sorry I took myself.