Okay, I know that I’ve been stanning Lin-Manuel Miranda pretty hard these last few weeks, but in my defence, his isn’t the only name attached to this that made me want to see this particular film. A Sony Pictures animation, in the same year that they crushed it with The Mitchells Vs. The Machines, co-written by Quiara Alegría Hudes who also did In The Heights, production blessing from Wreck-It Ralph director Rich Moore, even a consulting credit from Roger freaking Deakins; that’s gotta equal up to something worthwhile. And yeah, it’s pretty entertaining, but just about every good quality about it comes with a massive “But” after it.
The story follows the titular kinkajou, voiced by Miranda himself, as he travels from Cuba to the United States in order to fulfill his mentor’s last wish and deliver a song to singer Marta, played by Gloria Estefan. Along the way, he encounters the brattish ball of energy known as Gabi (Ynairaly Simo) who helps him with his quest. Like with In The Heights, there’s a lot of weight put on the music as part of the larger narrative, being the thing that ties a lot of the characters together. And in the way it contextualises what Vivo is doing, it certainly has some poignancy in how it treats the power of music.
But it spends far less time on the emotional side of things than it does on random road trip nonsense, involving crazily-devoted Girl Scout analogues, literal love birds, and a snake voiced by Michael Rooker who hates noise. It feels really aimless, as if Hudes and co-writer/director Kirk DeMicco couldn’t come up with enough plot-relevant material to fill up the run time. It doesn’t help that they went with the road of most resistance in the logistics behind Vivo himself, where he is able to speak fluently to other animals and (seemingly) the audience, but none of the humans. That might have worked as another barrier that can be surpassed with song, but the way that it’s realised here feels like a wonky way to do it, especially since it draws a giant question mark over the scenes where Vivo is performing for an in-universe audience.
The music helps a bit with that, though. Miranda’s writing chops are still on display, and the compositions continue to show off his skills with interweaving character themes and melodies. Given the Cuban backdrop the film opens with, it contains quite a bit of zest from that region’s music to bulk up the soundtrack. But all of it ends up unfortunately buried underneath the stale-as-fuck sound production. The generic Hollywood strings and trendy pop flourishes give every song this lotiony sheen that cuts into both the enjoyability and the memorability. The most memorable track here is Gabi’s signature song with My Own Drum, and that’s only because it’s so in-your-face obnoxious. I get that that’s the point, but when that ends up being the best song here, that’s not a good sign.
And then there’s the animation, which is pretty standard for the modern mainstream. Not to say that it’s bad, as the character designs are alright and Vivo himself is hecking adorable, but like with the music, nothing really stands out. Well, with one exception: The lighting effects. I get the feeling that this is what I get for drawing so much attention to such things when I looked at Encanto, as this is a pretty good example of how to do it less-than-adequately. For the most part, it’s okay, but every so often, the artificial lighting will get turned up way too high, making everything on the screen either too shiny or just too dang bright and hard to look at. Which is not a good thing for an animated film.
I’m willing to concede that some of my reaction to this is due to how strong its competition is, both as animation and as another example of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s talents, but this was still really underwhelming. It’s all so blasé blasé, and the few things that do stand out shouldn’t have been this noticeable in the first place. I mean, I can’t say I’m expecting anyone to flat-out hate it; it’s still a serviceable family film. It just could have been stronger in a lot of areas, and it kinda sucks how obvious the flaws are with this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment