Sequels, remakes . . . oh look, an original film too!

Toy Story 4

Now that MoviePass is cancelled (again) I finally have time to catch up on reviews for all the movies I've seen lately. First up, Pixar's latest blockbuster. Look, we didn’t need a fourth Toy Story movie. Toy Story 3 was a perfect end to the franchise and making another sequel is obvious money-grabbing, even by Disney standards. Having said all that, Toy Story 4 is about as good as an unnecessary sequel can be. The humour and charm is still there, and the return of Bo Peep (after sitting out the last one) is most welcome. Even the late Don Rickles gets to return to voice Mr. Potato Head, thanks to some archive recordings. The new cast includes amusing roles for Keanu Reeves, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, but mostly the joy is in the familiar fun found in the previous movies. Nothing ground-breaking, then, but it doesn’t tarnish the franchise the way some may have feared.

Child’s Play

The last couple of Chucky movies have actually been pretty good, despite going straight to DVD/streaming. So I was generally opposed to this remake. But it turned out okay. Turning Chucky into a smart doll gone wrong instead of a serial killer resurrected in a doll makes the story more contemporary, but less creepy. Mark Hamill does a decent job replacing Brad Dourif’s voice and nails the obsessive friend quality of the jealous doll. The rest of the cast act like they’re in a comedy more than a horror film, and maybe they’re right. The ending, which somehow involves Chucky controlling drones, leaves behind any attempt at horror and turns full sci-fi comedy. Also, cat owners beware. You will not like what Chucky does to the family kitty.

Midsommar

Hereditary, while well-made and acted, was one of the more unpleasant horror movies of recent years, so it’s no surprise that director Ari Aster’s follow up is equally disturbing. Clearly inspired by The Wicker Man and other movies featuring sinister communes, Midsommar slowly builds the unease as the American main characters visit a strange Swedish community before exploding into an orgy of ritualized suicide, weird sex and murder. Florence Pugh gives a very good performance in what is essentially the story of a woman with a shitty boyfriend, wrapped in horror movie tropes.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

I have mixed feelings about the MCU version of Spider-Man. Tom Holland is great in the role, finally capturing the smartasss kid with a heart of gold quality to Spidey that was mostly missing from the previous live action versions of the character. And the villains they’ve chosen so far have been great. But the films are also so integrated into the cinematic universe around them that we have yet to see Peter Parker drive the plot in his own solo movie. Homecoming basically had Iron Man as co-lead, and Far From Home carries on that tradition by having Spidey play second fiddle for much of the running time to Nick Fury and Happy Hogan.

With that provision, there is much the filmmakers get right with Far From Home. The European setting gives it a refreshingly different feel, and Jake Gyllenhaal is fantastic as Mysterio, the fish-bowl headed superhero who, spoiler alert, turns out to be a supervillain. His mastery of illusion leads to some wonderfully trippy sequences. The ending hints at (hopefully) a more scaled-down sequel where Spidey doesn’t have to rely on any of his superfriends. Two end credit sequences reveal, respectively, the return of an old nemesis played by a beloved actor from the Sam Raimi movies and a huge fakeout involving those pesky Skrulls.

So, to sum up, this movie is a lot of fun but Into the Spiderverse remains the best big screen Spidey.