The Lion King: A Roaring Success

In the current Hollywood jungle, Disney is the apex predator. Disney now owns 40% of the domestic box office marketshare, and they've had a colossal year. With hits like Avengers: Endgame, Captain Marvel and Toy Story 4, they've amassed global ticket sales in excess of $7.67 billion, the all-time record for a single studio, and The Lion King is a big slice of that pie, soon to be the latest offering to crest the billion dollar mark. The year's barely half over, with Frozen 2, Maleficent and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker still to come. Point being, these cats know what they're doing and they know how to satisfy an audience.

I was a little surprised when Jon Favreau was announced as director, as his 2016 literalization of The Jungle Book covered such similar territory. Maybe that was the appeal - to explore a similar conceit and make it feel unique. Whatever the case, Favreau does a tremendous job here. I've been surprised by the somewhat lackluster reviews The Lion King has received, as this feels exactly like the experience the trailer promised. There's great fealty to the source material, whose dialogue and songs have become downright iconic - yet depicting the characters in such a vivid photrealistic style feels fresh and engaging. You'd swear that Rafiki (John Kani) is a living, insightful primate.

Supremely smart move to have James Earl Jones return to voice Mufasa, sounding as strong and focused as ever. He's wonderful, as always. JD McCrary and Shahadi Wright Joseph feel just perfect as the younger incarnations of lion cubs Simba and Nala, with Donald Glover and Beyoncé (Knowles Carter) as the grown-up versions. Alfre Woodard and John Oliver are also outstanding as Sarabi and Zazu. But it's Chiwetel Ejiofor who truly rules here as vindictive uncle Scar. The character design of all the animals is excellent and astonishingly convincing, but the design of Scar is utterly amazing, and Ejiofor inhabits him with pitch-perfect conviction and malice. 

Billy Eichner and Seth Rogen play comic relief duo of Timon and Pumba, and if I have one issue with The Lion King, it's Eichner's Timon, who's a bit much, putting it mildly. He dials it up way past eleven, and threatens to give new life to sterotypes that likely do more harm than good. It's Timon channeling Paul Lynde. 

Favreau does a superb job weaving this all together. He's been the home run hero for Disney and I'm a little giddy to see what he's come up with overseeing The Mandalorian for Disney+. The Lion King feels like it was exhaustively storyboarded, as the shot composition has a fantastic, classicist style that makes this iconic, Shakespearean fable feel like it's been faithfully honored. The pace never lags, and it's a perfect summer outing for every demographic of the family to share together. It's fun, and like Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast before it, does a heartfelt job of keeping the story alive for new generations of young moviegoers, who are clearly enjoying the experience. 

A Midsommar Night’s Scream

Fans of Real-Deal horror films: take note. Not schlocky gore-porn (lower-case) horror, but the legit article. In a summer that's featured plenty of tepid franchise fatigue, director Ari Aster (Hereditary) has served up something unique that (for the most part) you haven't seen before. It's also (like his previous outing) easily one of the most disturbing pictures of the year.

A couple and their grad student friends travel to a remote, pastoral Swedish village for the town's historic mid-summer festival. Dani (Florence Pugh) is on unsteady ground with her boyfriend Christian (Jack Reynor), and recovering from traumatic tragedy. The beginning of Midsommar has a lot in common with Hereditary, particularly in the emphasis of grief. Midsommar also features a character in the throes of agonizing, keening grief, so painful and unflinching that it threatens to shatter the soul. Aster is particularly fond of scenes where the audience feels like they shouldn't be watching. Of lingering on shots where 99% of other directors would cut away. Often in horror and suspense, what's not seen can be more effective and unsettling than what is starkly depicted. Aster's unblinking eye doesn't exactly dare you to look away, but rather makes you feel complicit.

Beyond the setup, I'm not going into any further details as far as plot. The less you know the better - and the more unhinged the film is likely to leave you. While Midsommar is upsetting, it's also much funnier in places than I was prepared for. Aster and his cast do a great job of letting the characters reveal their lack of self-awareness as they interact with both a village of unfamiliar citizens, and each other. The dialogue is terrific. Having a cast consisting of virtually all unknowns makes it very easy to lose yourself in their circumstances with no pre-associations. Keep an eye on William Jackson Harper - that guy is going places, I'll guarantee.

Unlike most genre pictures, thanks to the Land of the Midnight Sun, much of Midsommar takes place in broad daylight, which is unnerving and surreal, and incredibly effective. There are few shadows to hide in. Production Designer Henrik Svensson has done world-class work building and decorating the village structures with a mind-blowing amount of historical, foreboding detail. Hereditary cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski lenses the serene bucolic village and its inhabitants in lush, immersive style, including the absolute best, most disorienting inverted camera I've ever experienced. There's a dreamlike quality to many of the images, and they'll likely be staying with you for longer than you might prefer. If the film sound intriguing, I'd strongly urge seeing it in the theater and not waiting for home video, as Aster and Pogozelski have crafted real cinema here that cries out to be appreciated on the big screen - if your brain can handle it.

Amidst the current marketplace, Midsommar feels powerfully original and vivid. Aster takes his time (2h 27min), letting things play out with natural, unforced eccentricity. It joins a small corner of the genre you might think of as folk horror, and owes a profound debt to Robin Hardy's 1973 The Wicker Man. It seems there's a new wave of adult horror cresting, with films like The Witch, and Jordan Peele's Get Out and Us - and Ari Aster is right at the front of the pack. A bright spot in the summer movie season that just may detach your retinas. For genre fans, highly recommended. 

Spider-Man: Far From Home, Far From Perfect

After the stellar success of Avengers: Endgame, any superhero outing is likely to pale in comparison. Though in many ways, Spider-Man: Far From Home serves as a post-banquet confection or coda to Endgame, as it's set in the days following the global annihilation/resurrection of The Snap (or "Blip" as it's called here), with an emerging hero - Tom Holland's Peter Parker - who like much of the world, is still picking up the pieces after the death of his beloved mentor, Tony Stark.

Did Tony intend for Peter and Spider-Man to take on the mantle as leader of The Avengers? Those are intimidatingly big shoes to fill, and a heavy burden to contemplate. Fortunately, Peter's school is headed to Europe for a class trip to Venice, and beyond.

The plot thickens when Peter's recruited by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and a new ally called Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), as a gaggle of inter-dimensional Elemental creatures (a water being, a molten thing, etc.) are threatening the tourists. All Peter really wants to do is find time to be closer to MJ (Zendaya), so he can express how he really feels to her. Turns out that's all the audience really wants, too.

Directed by Spider-Man: Homecoming helmer Jon Watts, the film is most successful when the focus is on these young innocents abroad, who have terrific chemistry together. Jacob Batalon and the other school pals are back from the first film, and when they're just left to interact and stumble giddily towards independence, there's genuine fun to be had. Holland and Zendaya are terrific together, especially when Holland's awkwardly trying to express himself. He carries the picture. I found when Parker's more angst-ridden and Stark-haunted, things were less engaging. I have to say I enjoyed Homecoming much more.

Part of that may be Gyllenhaal's character, who just wasn't as gripping or involving as I'd have liked him to be. It doesn't help that he's often surrounded by an avalanche of eyeball-numbing CG, swarms of lethal drones that caused this viewer to check out in Act 3. The story wasn't as compelling and the stakes didn't feel as personal. And as in Captain Marvel, they seem to be using Nick Fury more for laughs these days, and he's not nearly the bad-ass he used to be in The Winter Soldier. 

More Ant-Man than Avengers, Spider-Man: Far From Home is diverting enough, but it swings nowhere near the heights of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It's a fun summer escape, but by no means a Marvel classic. Now that Marvel Studios has concluded Phase 3, here's hoping Holland gets the true Spidey opus he deserves.