Adventure Time: STRANGE WORLD

Strange World is Disney Animation once again returning to its least frequent mode: the cheery, red-blooded adventure film. We might get notes of that threaded through their usual animal antics or fairy tale musicals, but when they decide to go all out—the Atlantis: The Lost Empires, the Treasure Planets—the results can be quite entertaining. In the case of Strange World, we’re introduced to a family of explorers whose patriarch (Dennis Quaid) never returns from an attempt to cross the seemingly insurmountable mountain range that surrounds their expansive home valley. This leaves his son (Jake Gyllenhaal) to become a farmer instead. This is an imagined old world where electricity is grown on the vine, and thus allows an agrarian society to have sparkly sci-fi vehicles and gadgets run off of freshly harvested glowing orbs. Farming may not be as exciting as exploring, but it’s perhaps more important. Decades pass, and this farmer, who now has a son of his own (Jaboukie Young-White), is recruited to join an expedition. The crops are dying of a mysterious disease and a group is off in a hovering aircraft—that and the environmentalist bent make for a clear Miyazaki nod—to track down the source. And so off they go, reviving the old family tradition. The movie is told with a similar pluck, traipsing from one appealing cliffhanger to the next in true serial fashion, complete with a soaring heroic orchestra theme and a band of appealing characters.

There’s a Boy’s Adventure magazine aesthetic to the plot’s development, shot through with a refreshingly casual 21st-century diversity—there are men and women, with figures of every color and a couple orientations and it’s no big deal, which is, of course, the big deal. And the world the team discovers, deep in the roots of their prized crop, is a feast of vibrant colors and fluffy surfaces. They find towering Seussian trees and curling DayGlo cliffs, fields of koosh-ball tentacles and grasses, flocks of floating fish and herds of rolling blobs. There’s even a cute blue gummy glob that splats around with chipper personality and becomes the obvious critter sidekick. And guess who else has been trapped down there? In this swirling mystery world of topsy-turvy dangers, there is, of course, room for intergenerational caring and conflict as three generations of guys—a tough grandpa, a stubborn son, and a sensitive grandson—have to learn to work together and truly discover a new way to survive. (Having a great mom (Gabrielle Union) involved helps, too.) Writer-directors Don Hall and Qui Nguyen (Raya and the Last Dragon) weave this family story through the adventure quite naturally, in a charmingly busy picture of constant color and movement. By the end, it’s also brought into focus a parable of ecological collapse and a need to reform an economy around alternatives to destructive industries. All this and a breezy fantasy adventure with eye-pleasing visuals and the earnest ode to family togetherness? Why, that’s just about all you’d want from a satisfying family movie night.

Heart of the Ocean: MOANA

Disney’s latest animated spectacular is Moana, a princess musical and a rollicking fantasy adventure. This is a refreshing change of pace, for it finds the legendary animation studio back in its comfort zone, willing to reappropriate the modes which made it famous for new purposes. It’s a familiar comfort and exciting transformation in the same way The Little Mermaid gave their princesses Broadway brio, Mulan brought action-movie heroism attacking gender norms, and Frozen challenged the primacy of fairy tale romantic love with an ode to sisterly connection. (Their Zootopia from earlier this year brought similarly absorbing excitement to their other staple – the talking animal picture.) Moana delivers everything you’d want from a Disney movie – a host of terrific songs, memorable characters, sympathetic motivations, beautiful images – with the willingness to tweak the formula. It has a stirring “I want” number, and not a hint of romance. It has cute comic relief animal sidekicks, and energetic high-stakes allegorical action sequences without a standard villain. Most moving in this concoction is its tight fit with its undertow theme about respecting tradition by bravely making your own path.

Set on a lushly imagined Pacific island, the film finds a tight-knit tribe where everyone has his or her place. It’s an idyllic society, close and loving, self-sufficient, tranquil, tropical. The chief (Temuera Morrison) proudly looks back over the generations, keeping his people safe by insisting they never travel past the reef. That’s why he’s so troubled by his precocious daughter (Auli’i Cravalho) as she’s drawn to the ocean. Her wise grandmother (Rachel House) – the village crazy lady, the old woman happily admits – mischievously encourages the young girl’s curiosity and connection, especially since a magical moment found the toddler mysteriously able to commune with the waves’ spirit, bending it to her will, cooperating with the current. Alas, such magic has no place in her father’s plans, which see her more as a practical, down-to-earth successor ready to deal with the daily business of running the tribe. But even all these years later, there’s the open ocean calling to her, some essential part of her inner being that must be explored.

She’s driven to do so by encroaching ecological disaster. Centuries earlier the demigod Maui misguidedly stole the heart of the sea’s living essence, letting loose a slowly seeping poison killing off islands’ natural resources. This environmental disaster is approaching Moana’s village, and the elders would prefer to ignore the warning signs – fish vanishing, crops rotting on the vine. Motivated by her grandmother’s urging, and the discovery of her people’s forgotten tradition of exploration on sturdy long-distance sailing ships, it’s up to this teenager to act. She needs to keep her world safe by taking a risk, shaking off recent tradition to tap into an even older way of life. She finds her way to the exiled Maui on a distant island, but he’s not exactly interested in helping her. Voiced by Dwayne Johnson, he’s dripping in charming gruffness and ironic tough guy ego hiding core softness. As he joins the quest as a companion and foil for our hero, his jocular energy spun on a modern sensibility aligns him with The Genie and Mushu in the Disney Renaissance tradition of star-power-driven postmodern magic aide.

With a musical setup, Moana is off on an adventure, encountering a Harryhausen mix of creatures: a giant shiny crab who sings like Bowie, tiny wordless coconut-clad pirates on massive ships, and a towering lava monster. The action swoops around like a Kung Fu Panda, deftly weaving through clockwork clever choreography. But it’s not just manic visual noise. It’s always grounded in the emotional journey of its deeply sympathetic – and traditional wide-eyed, fresh-faced, Disney-looking – lead. There’s a good mix. She’s strong, confident, determined, stubborn, and charming, driven to help but prone to doubts. Her rascally trickster demigod helper is a fine snarky counterbalance, always wavering as to whether or not he’ll be more help than hindrance. (The dumb chicken clucking along at their feet is a nice silly grace note who never outstays her welcome.) There’s sparkling personality in the voice performances, a fine quipping banter cut with real sentiment. The earnest underpinnings are underlined with a Miyazaki-like respect for the majesty of the natural world, the movie’s supernatural sights and warm, unexpectedly quiet conclusions imbued with a genuine feeling of magic and nature, ecology and spells fluidly mingling the humane and divine.

This movie is what Disney does best: beautifully rendered crowd-pleasing all-ages entertainment. It moves quickly, dancing easily between light comedy, grand adventure, soaring music, and deeply-felt poignant turns. Songs by Hamilton’s Lin-Manuel Miranda flow with his witty rhymes and emotional clarity, their melodies forming the backbone of Mark Mancina’s score. The CG animation is as striking as the medium allows (a rare feat, when so many competitors churn out plastic-looking garbage). Sunlight dapples through waves, sand has grit, water has heft, hair drips and flows, abundant green jungles move with leafy ripples. Best of all, the characters come to life with a lively glow in their skin, lit from within by real presence, so smooth and tactile you could almost reach out and caress it. (That it’s all that, but somehow still vibrantly cartoony is the best feature. It’s unreal in a most pleasing way.) Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker (Mermaid, Hercules) with Don Hall and Chris Williams (Big Hero 6), it plays every expected beat in big-hearted Disney musical tradition, and breathes with welcome, respectful cultural specificity and fresh voices. A moving story of respecting the past while finding your own future, Moana practices what it preaches, introducing a lovable young hero in the process.

A Boy and His Robot: BIG HERO 6

Turns out there’s some creative life left in the superhero movie. It just took Disney Animation to step away from the endless synergy, in-jokes, crossovers, and five-year plans to find it. Their team of computer animation artists took Big Hero 6, a Marvel comic so obscure their corporate cousins didn’t want to hold onto it for their massive Cinematic Universe, and focused on telling a contained story and doing it well. The result has everything you’d expect from a superhero movie: a tragic inciting incident, tight suits, high-tech gadgets, a supervillain with a connection to the heroes, and a finale involving a massive energy beam and billions of dollars in property damage. So it’s nothing new. But by keeping it simple and energetic, Disney has made the brightest and most colorful superhero movie in quite some time. It reminded me why I ever liked these kinds of stories in the first place.

Directors Don Hall (Winnie the Pooh) and Chris Williams (Bolt) create a vivid near-future mashup metropolis called San Fransokyo, filled with a variety of architectures and influences from its portmanteau component inspirations. Fans, like me, of imaginary cities should get a kick out of it, even more so in 3D. But that’s the set dressing whizzing by in the backgrounds. The filmmakers take their time building the characters, confident enough to be bustling with worldbuilding spectacle firmly in the background, as sci-fi concepts drive the plot without taking over.

We meet Hiro Hamada (Ryan Potter), a 14-year-old robotics genius who graduated high school early and isn’t feeling up to college. Instead, he makes money gambling in illegal back alley robot fights. But his older brother (Daniel Henney) insists on introducing him to the high tech robotics lab on campus, tempting him with promise of resources and collaborators to help him achieve his fullest potential. It’s a strong brotherly bond we observe, which makes its quick severing all the more impactful. There’s a fire at a science fair and it claims the older boy’s life, leaving the younger depressed and lonely.

Hiro’s only companion is the prototype healthcare robot his brother built and left behind. The robot, named Baymax, is the film’s best creation. He’s built to be huggable. A large, inflated, soft plastic body makes him look something like a robo-Totoro. There’s a rubbery squeak to his every movement. He speaks (charmingly voiced by Scott Adsit) in loveably logical constructions and programmed intelligence that slowly accrues personality. When his battery is low, he sounds drunk. He’s a fantastic presence, bursting to life diagnosing Hiro. Observing the boy’s depression, the bot’s programming determines that cheering him up will be his mission, even if it means helping to track down the arsonist behind the fire. Hiro doesn’t waste any time building Baymax slick armor and programming him some kung fu knowledge.

As the boy and his robot build a relationship that helps bring the boy purpose in life, the film doesn’t have time to spend moping and brooding, launching quickly into the fun. It helps to have a bright palate filled with vibrant young characters. The older brother’s robotics classmates join Hiro and Baymax’s quest for justice, and are eager to form a makeshift superhero team to help do so. It’s a typical origin story, with mourning geniuses who have access to incredible high-tech gadgetry vowing to set things right. But the film gets a great deal of humor and excitement out of the characters’ repartee and diversity. There’s a goofy geek (T.J. Miller), a sunny egghead (Genesis Rodriguez), a serious gearhead (Jamie Chung), and a muscled nerd (Damon Wayons Jr.). Together with the cute robot and precocious teen, who help them turn their lab experiments into suits and weapons, they form a group that’s fun to be around, and the sense of camaraderie and individuality doesn’t disappear when the action starts.

That’s what ultimately sets Big Hero 6 apart from the competition. Even charming superhero teams like The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy get swallowed up by the spectacle. But these characters, by virtue of their animation, don’t disappear into CGI costumes and stunt doubles. Their movements and personalities are constant whether running from swarms of nanobots or sitting around a table. Their talents and gadgets are well developed for clever payoffs in clear, confident comic book framing turned fluid motion. Animation needs thought behind every motion, every gesture, every frame. They don’t waste time animating endless punching matches and collateral damage to be chopped to ribbons in an editing bay. Apparently the way to improve the culture-dominating live-action cartoons is to bring them closer to their roots.

Here rambunctious action is well timed and staged, used sparingly. There’s cleverness and coherence to the construction of these sequences, so the action doesn’t grow exhausting. It’s informed by character and, even better, manages to be exciting and energetic without imperiling thousands of innocent lives. It’s actually a buoyant superhero action movie about the value of life, and the futility of violence. You’d think movies ostensibly about characters who save people would figure that out a little more often. The more time we spend watching the interplay between the boy, his robot, and their new friends, enjoying the humor and feeling the sadness of their loss, the more impact the handful of action sequences have.

I cared about the relationships, as formulaic as they are. The voice work is appealing. The character designs are the usual rubbery realism of Disney CG animation. And their world is so colorful and full of energy. It’s a good reminder that formula storytelling gets to be that way because once upon a time the structures worked. In Big Hero 6, it works. On a plot level, there’s not a single surprise to be had, but I was swept up in its momentum and imagination. Running a trim 108 minutes, it’s the first superhero movie in a decade to leave me wanting more in a good way. What a difference having loveable characters, pleasing design, economical storytelling, coherent themes, and action that doesn’t outstay its welcome makes.

Stuffed with Fluff: WINNIE THE POOH

I don’t see how any lover of animation, and certainly any fan of Winnie the Pooh, could be disappointed in Winnie the Pooh, a lovingly hand-drawn animated feature that hews closely to the original tone and structure of the A.A. Milne picture books as filtered through the indelible visual design of the 1960’s Disney shorts based on them and compiled in the altogether wonderful 1977 feature The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. This new film collects the familiar characters in their familiar setting and allows them to behave in predictably mild and sweet ways. Perhaps the strangest and most notable thing about this feature, especially now in 2011, is how simple and unconcerned with posturing it is.

Directors Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall (along with their small army of writers and animators) are decidedly uninterested in straining for artificial hipness. There is ease and comfortability with which the production slips into the simple, charming rhythms of a life with Pooh bear in the Hundred Acre Wood. Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings) just wants his honey – his tummy, after all, is awfully grumbly – and the crux of the film is finding ways to thwart that desire, to create situations that will pull the character into choices between finding honey and helping others. Sometimes, he will fail, and succumb to the visions of honey pots dancing in his head like a Busby Berkeley number, but eventually Pooh learns to put others first. At least until his tummy starts grumbling again.

Between Pooh and his honey is a collection of familiar characters with various immediate goals. The depressive donkey named Eeyore (Bud Luckey) loses his tail. The bouncy, flouncy Tigger (Jim Cummings, again) thinks he just might need a sidekick. Owl (Craig Ferguson, an unexpected choice) is writing his memoirs. Rabbit (Tom Kenny) is tending his garden. Kanga  (Kristen Anderson-Lopez) is knitting a scarf for Roo (Wyatt Dean Hall). Piglet (Travis Oates) is – oh, d-d-d-dear! – so nervous. These are characters that are cheerfully stationary in their personalities, which have a kind of warmhearted purity of spirit in their sweet simplicity. It’s nice to see them again because we know they will fall into predictable patterns. The voice work, an eclectic mix to be sure, is comforting in its way of seeming to fit the memory of what they sounded like in the past. There are differences in some of the interpretations but by and large they fit. After all, the voices are a just as predictable part of the characters as their personalities

But that’s not to say the film itself is overly predictable. Simplicity is the key here, not a kind of watery sameness or dumb homogenized energy, but a simple reverence for childhood and a true respect for a very young target audience. Their surrogate, the imaginative little British boy Christopher Robin (Jack Boulter), serves as a bridge between the “real world” and the world of these ambulatory animated stuffed animals. He is never explicitly shown to be the creator of this gentle fantasy. He’s a participant and, when absent, a recipient of reverence and respect from these creatures. There’s a playful storybook atmosphere that harkens back to Disney’s earlier efforts of adaptation.

Narrator John Cleese will break into banter with the imaginary characters, sometimes even shaking the book or finding his patience tried when the drawings collide or otherwise interact with the text on the page. There’s a love of reading, of wordplay, present in the film that helps to create an atmosphere of sweet sophistication. It may seem all a bit simple and distant to a jaded adult audience, but for kids I would imagine that the film has a wonderful sense of being pitched at exactly the right level, with just enough to engage the very young precisely where they are and even occasionally thrillingly just enough beyond where they are. It’s a refreshingly small feature, topping out at just over an hour, padded to feature length with a delightful post-credits scene, a syrupy pre-feature short, and sweet songs sung by Zooey Deschanel. Its modest scale makes it entirely perfect for what it is, a grand first theatrical experience for a small child while also serving as a small dose of nostalgia for those who love and cherish the everlasting reliability that these characters will remain exactly who they are for now and forever.