COCO Review

At the heart of all Pixar films there is a journey. There’s the journey to get the thing or the person to the place in order to save the day. This is a template Disney and Pixar have used time and time again in order to ensure a structure and beats that the youngest of audience members can seemingly recognize and appreciate, but I didn’t consider this initially. As an adult viewer I was simply bummed to discover that the studio was once again leaning on this crutch in Coco in order to convey what seemed to be a unique narrative from a marginalized culture. Inside Out did the same thing when it took all of these original ideas and concepts it had and then used them in service of the heroes journey arc we've seen countless times before, and especially in films whose target audience is largely children. What Inside Out did to ultimately reverse this expectation by the end of the film was to of course use that template in service of those original ideas and concepts as a way to explore them as well as the ideas and themes the filmmakers were keen on conveying. It worked. I teared up. Coco more or less does the same thing in that this is a heroes journey of self-discovery for our protagonist, Miguel (voice of Anthony Gonzalez), and it is an entertaining one at that, but while these familiar beats are present to allow the younger audience members a sense of connection and understanding it is the emotional strands of family, legacy, and pride in that family history that are woven throughout this otherwise standard structure to be the connective tissue for what Coco is truly meant to represent. This dawned on me as the credits began to roll and I was feeling content with what I'd just experienced if not bowled over by the visual prowess that Pixar is now achieving, but as I looked down at my three year-old daughter sitting next to me and asked her if she enjoyed the movie it became obvious as to why there needs to be this accessible structure by which the character's and their story arcs relate to younger viewer's otherwise Pixar would strictly be making films for adults. Pixar does make films for adults wrapped in the facade of colorful children's fables, we've known this for years, but with Coco it became more evident why this approach has been so important in that, as my three year-old grows up and continues to watch Coco, she will only gain more from it on each viewing. In this way, Coco carries on the great tradition of Pixar while continuing to diversify and expand that special brand it has now seemingly perfected.

Official Trailer for Disney & Pixar's COCO

Disney and Pixar have released the second, official trailer for what what will be their second feature to be released this year. Not waiting for Cars 3 to hit theaters next week, the studio is getting a slight jump on their trilogy capper and while I'm not remotely excited to see a third Cars movie these Coco trailers continue to intrigue. Coco is the one to look forward to this year though, as it offers the first original story from the studio since the one-two punch of Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur in 2015. With this official trailer we are again treated to a clip of the film's protagonist, a young boy named Miguel (voice of  Anthony Gonzalez), who we are told is the first living person to ever visit the Land of the Dead. All of this is beautifully rendered in warm colors with tinges of infectious melodies due to Miguel's ancestry and their seeming affinity for music, but the weight of the film seems to still very much rest on what themes the narrative might actually be grappling with. Knowing only that Coco, like 2014's The Book of Life, would in one way or another incorporate Día de Muertos or the Mexican holiday known as the Day of the Dead it might be easy to assume what ideas around death and remembrance that Disney and Pixar might utilize, but I still wasn't sure what to expect. Hinting at ideas of legacy and influence and the amalgamation of what such words can lead to all conveyed through this specific cultural event that honors as much it seems Coco certainly has the potential to be one of those Pixar features that seems to be reaching for more and with the already impressive visuals highlighted here as well as the sense of humor the film will carry I can't wait to see the journey on which the film takes us. Coco also features the voice talents of Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Renée Victor, Sofía Espinosa, Luis Valdez, Lombardo Boyar, Edward James Olmos, Gabriel Iglesias, Cheech Marin, Blanca Araceli,and opens on November 22nd, 2017.

2 GUNS Review

Contraband was an exercise in complete complacency for me. Director Baltasar Kormakur crafted little more than the standard action flick with the assumed hook of it centering around smuggling on cargo ships. The film mixed a few "family first" morality tales in there and sported a strong enough cast to help the material rise above something that would have otherwise been nothing more than a barely acceptable TV movie. The same could be said about Kormakur's follow-up, 2 Guns, but I had a lot more fun with this one than I can even remember plot points from Contraband. While the film fits squarely into the genre of shoot-em up, buddy action flicks 2 Guns doesn't allow itself to be restrained by the conventions while at the same time playing to the strengths of those kinds of films. Neither of these characters are cops and neither of them really care to be friends (though Wahlberg's Stigman is certainly open to the idea), but while it is the odd couple chemistry that keeps this train moving I was also impressed with just how far the movie was willing to go to try and avoid the standard cliche's of its genre while still being more than willing to include a Mexican drug cartel and scenes with massive amounts of gunplay rather than intelligent or calculated conversation. Beyond this there is nothing especially insightful to be said about the film, but for what it's worth there should be a level of congratulation here for the simple fact that it isn't horrible. Truly though, with such hot commodities as Wahlberg and Washington in the leading roles that was never an option. Both guys have a strong following, much of which likely overlaps, and the sole fact they were teaming up was going to make for a good time at the movies even if the story offered nothing. That there is just the smallest amount of substance here that makes the experience all the more stimulating is a plus and reverts it from expectations that it might be one too many times Denzel has played a cop and there was no other fate for this than being dull. At the very least 2 Guns is entertaining and in reality that is what audiences go into this kind of movie for; that it offered this value in spades makes it nothing short of a success.

First Trailer for 2 GUNS

The first trailer for director Baltasar Kormákur's 2 Guns has premiered and it at least looks to be more entertaining and mind numbing than his previous collaboration with Mark Wahlberg, Contraband. I wasn't a huge fan of that film finding it to be extremely mediocre with no truly redeeming qualities. Still, Wahlberg is white hot right now (though I wonder why they didn't wait to premiere this before Pain & Gain later in April) and Denzel Washington is coming off a great year with the commercial successes of Safe House and Flight as well as his Oscar nomination for the latter. Teaming these two up seems like a no-brainer and a way for the studios to try and capture that Lethal Weapon magic in a bottle while cashing in on it late this summer. I will see this film, and am even somewhat looking forward to it but for no other reason than the fact it stars these two guys. If it were a cast of unknowns with an independent director looking for distribution there would be no reason to pick this up. I only hope the studio realizes that and plays up the relationship between Wahlberg and Washington both in the marketing and in the final film. There are some other reasons to be hopeful here despite the horrible poster. The tone implies they have a sense of self-awareness around what kind of movie this is and there are several hints at comedy as well which will likely be a relief as summer draws to a close. I'm not necessarily turned off by the trailer, but I'll be very surprised if the movie doesn't play out exactly how I think it will after seeing this. The film also stars Bill Paxton, Paula Patton, James Marsden, and Edward James Olmos. 2 Guns opens August 2nd. Hit the jump to watch the trailer.