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Encanto (2021)

Encanto (2021)


 

7/10


 

Starring the voices of

Stephanie Beatriz

María Cecilia Botero

John Leguizamo

Mauro Castillo

 

Directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard

 

 

I must be honest it has been a while that I watched a Disney animated musical and enjoyed the songs, in that area Lin-Manuel Miranda delivered. Encanto is Disney’s 60th animated production and it does not try to set itself apart from familiar fantasy stories we all seem to have grown to know. The way Frozen sets its own story a little bit different from the regular. Or the comedy masterpiece that Zootopia delivered. Encanto has an average production with an easy-going story which makes it easy to enjoy as Disney continue to deliver family fun.

The movie is set in South America, and it tells the story of the Madrigal family, which is led by Alma. She suffered a casualty during their refugee run when their town was attacked. Pedro, Alma’s husband died protecting her and their three children. His sacrifice opened a magical door which blessed Alma with a magical home and a magical candle. The candle then blessed the three children with magical powers and Alma’s grandchildren. Well, that hit a little snitch when it was Mirabel’s turn. She did not get any magical gift and in a way, you can sense where the movie is going from here.

From this point the movie fell into the regular formula we know, the one person not blessed will be the one tasked with saving everyone. What you will expect happens, even though the family loves her and the new society which they live adore her for being so cheerful, she was treated differently. She was excluded from a lot of things, and she had to deal with it, being left out of things because she was different. There was a certain fear in the air, since Mirabel never got powers, it was time for her nephew Antonio, so they were worries that he may not get too, but he did get his and Mirabel was cut out of the separation, it was then she saw it. The magic in the home was failing.

She is now tasked with figuring out why, (tasked by no one mind you). In her search she comes across her uncle who has been set aside from the family. He left them behind because his powers were to see the future and people did not like what his predictions brought.

With his help, she must now sort out the reason why the magic is failing and then stop it before the family loses their magic.

Encanto is good, a fun family movie with musical numbers that are easy to digest. It is not going to break any ground financially is why it is now available on Disney+ and didn’t dominate the box-office. The way it is set is also a little disappointing as the story could have been much more, but instead they settled for the conventional plot.

Disney may have delivered a musical wonder with a super easy story, but what breaks the bank in the box office is the unconventional. But you should see this and know why we do not talk about Bruno.

 

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)


 9/10


 Starring

Tom Holland

Zendaya

Benedict Cumberbatch

Jacob Batalon

 

Directed by Jon Watts

 

There were numerous leaks of different casts being part of this movie and numerous leaks on what the script is all about. Well, I have finally seen the movie and so as not to drop any spoilers, I will ask you to go see it yourself to discover if any of the leaks were true.

No Way Home is one of the best Marvel productions out there and a bright light is the dark tunnel of lack of truly solid blockbusters. This is the third Sony/Marvel Spider-Man production in the MCU and this is the 27th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

This movie thrives so much on the chemistry of its casts, the emotional weight it bares (which made me cry at a scene) and the fantastic writing.

The action and the way they blended all the different characters will make you weak in the knees. The movie does not waste any time trying to clog your brain with theories, we just have Doctor Strange and Spider-Man mess up big time. We see a multiverse come to play where characters from the different Spider-Man movies show up in this universe and we learn a lot.

 

Spoilers Ahead

Each of the iterations of Sony’s Spider-Man as we have known has a different back story and even that came to play here and their villains which broke into this Spider-Man’s world. What was cool to know is that the Avengers only exist in this Tom Holland Spider-Man.

The villains and characters that show up in this movie are, Dr. Octopus, Electro, Sandman, Green Goblin, Lizard, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) and Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield).

I guess they had a numbers thing, because Electro (Jamie Foxx) in this movie was just a waste. Even Lizard’s presence made more sense than his impact in the whole bottom line.

When these villains get into this universe, they can tell the difference and are willing to do anything they can to stay here and not go back to their universe. The reason is, they were all dragged into this universe moments before they die.

How did this great mess up happen, well remember in the end of Far From Home (2019), the world comes to know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. Peter (Tom Holland) life is a mess and it is affecting the lives of his friends and Aunt May. He visits Doctor Strange and ask him for help to make a spell where everyone forgets that he is Spider-Man. As you can guess, everything does not go as planned. Because the more caveat that Peter tried to put into the spell the more complex it was for Strange to control the spell which he had already began to cast, and everything collapses. The repercussion is that it sucked characters from the first two Spider-Man iterations (Tobey Maguire: Spider-Man Trilogy by Raimi and Andrew Garfield: The Amazing Spider-Man by Webb).

Strange gets Peter to go round up all the characters that he can find, because each one in this universe are looking for him, he gave him what to use to catch and Strange was to send them back to their universe.

The moment Peter learns of the fate of the men when they get back to their universe, he comes up with a plan with the help of Aunt May. This was one of those stupid do-gooder plans that everyone warned will not work, but he went through with it anyways. The repercussion of their plan changed Peter’s life forever in the MCU and has a huge effect on the MCU.

Sony and Marvel are already in the works to produce a follow-up movie, and I very much look forward to seeing it, but this movie end—scene shows that the repercussion of this movie bleeds into the upcoming MCU second Doctor Strange movie.