The Boy and the Heron Review: Another Miyazaki Great.

It is undeniable that Hayao Miyazaki is the most celebrated anime director of all time.
Over the decades, he has delivered beloved film after beloved film, most notably Spirited Away.
My personal favourites of his are Princess Mononoke and The Wind Rises.
So, when I got the chance to see a Miyazaki film in theaters for the first time, I took it.
The Boy and the Heron is set in World War Two Japan and follows Mahito Maki, a young boy who loses his mother in a fire.
His father later remarries Natsuko, the sister of Mahito’s mother, and the two travel to her estate.
It is there that Mahito encounters a sinister talking Heron, who eventually convinces him to travel into a supernatural world where his mother supposedly awaits him.
And so begins another fantastical Miyazaki journey.

Much like *Spirited Away, The Boy and the Heron* sees our main character transported into a supernatural realm.

The film looks excellent, with the hand-drawn style of Studio Ghibli being very striking on the big screen.
Along with this, the voice acting is solid, at least for the English dub version.
Yes, I saw the dub over the sub, though this was mostly because all of the sub showings were late at night.
That being said, the English voice actors all did a good job, with Luca Padovan, Karen Fukuhara, Mark Hamill, Gemma Chan, Willem Dafoe, Florence Pugh, and Dave Bautista all giving life to their characters.
This is especially true for Robert Pattinson who voices the heron.
I was genuinely shocked when I heard he played the character because I did not recognize his voice at all.

The Heron starts the movie quite creepy and untrustworthy.

Along with the animation and voice acting, the music also does a great job of bringing you into the world, with all of this being tied together by the story.
Mahito’s personal journey throughout the film is quite relatable, doubly so because we can see how Miyazaki put much of himself into the character.
One of the central themes of the movie is legacy, which shines a light on how Miyazaki is thinking of his own legacy, especially since this is supposedly his final film.
If it is then he chose a good one to send himself off on.

The film takes on an entirely new meaning when you look at it in the context of Miyazaki’s career.

The Boy and the Heron is another Miyazaki great, with expectedly stellar animation, music, and voice acting, along with a story that has relatable themes.
I would rank this film highly among Miyazaki’s catalogue, maybe even in my top five favorites of his.
And, if this is truly the last Hayao Miyazaki film we ever get, then I am glad that I saw it in theaters.

The Northman Review: If You Seek Revenge, Dig a Hundred Graves.

Robert Eggers is a director who has been highly praised for his previous films, The Witch and The Lighthouse.
Given this, and how much I was impressed by the trailers for his latest film, The Northman, along with the movie’s positive reception, I went to see it last weekend.
After watching it, I can definitely say that I agree with the reception the film has been getting.
The Northman is a brutal, viking revenge story that is thrilling from beginning to end, even in its slower moments.
Our main character is Amleth (Alexander Skarsgård), a viking prince, whose father (Ethan Hawke) is murdered and mother (Nicole Kidman) kidnapped by his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang).
Amleth barely escapes the assassination and coup where Fjölnir steals the kingdom, growing up to become a savage warrior; one with three promises keeping him going over the years: “I will avenge you, father. I will save you, mother. I will kill you, Fjölnir.”

Upon recieving a form of prophecy, Amleth embarks on his quest of vengance.

The direction of The Northman is stellar, along with the cinematography by Jarin Blaschke, and the score by Robin Carolan and Sebastian Gainsborough.
These features help propel the writing forward, as the film manages to be quite entertaining, despite its often slow pace, with some excellent action sequences and compelling twists and turns to the narrative.
The actors also all bring their A game.
Alexander Skarsgård feels like a literal beast at times as Amleth, yet still manages to show vulnerabilities in a performance that would not surprise me if it earned him a Best Actor Nomination at the very least.

Skarsgård makes Amleth both brutal and sympathetic as he is eventually faced with the choice of love for his kin or hate for his enemies.

The other actors all bring the same quality to their performances, even those with minor roles like Willem Dafoe and Björk.
The only character I have an issue with in this movie is Olga, played by Anya Taylor Joy.
However, this is not because of Joy’s performance.
In fact, I think she does an excellent job, like everyone else.
No, my issue has to do with the way she is written.
I just find the kind of relationship she forms with Almeth to be sort of unrealistic, considering how the two of them meet.
It made me think there was going to be some kind of twist surrounding Olga but there wasn’t.

Not to say that I did not like Olga’s character and, again, Joy’s performance is excellent, but I think some more explanation for her bond with Amleth would have been nice.

This was not a huge issue, however, and, other than this, I absolutely loved The Northman.
It is a gripping revenge story that has a lot to say about the consequences of vengeance, the brutality of people, and even the effect love can have on a person.
The Northman is easily one of the best film’s of the year.

Spider-Man: No Way Home Review: A Nostalgia Film Done Right.

I quite enjoyed the first two MCU Spider-Man films.
Homecoming was a great example of a more grounded MCU film, with a fantastic antagonist, and while I did not like Far From Home as much as the first, I still thought it did a great job continuing the story of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker.
Well, after seeing the third film, No Way Home, I can say that this one is easily the best movie of the three.

I thought it would be hard to top *Homecoming* but *No Way Home* did it in spectacular fashion.

Directed again by Jon Watts, No Way Home follows the events of Far From Home where Peter’s identity as Spider-Man was revealed to the world in a final act of vengeance by Mysterio.
With a conspiracy theory based witch hunt now invading every part of his life, spearheaded by J. Jonah Jameson (J.K Simmons), Peters goes to Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) to request that he erase everyone’s memories of him being Spider-Man.
However, when Peter begins to add conditions to the spell, wanting M.J (Zendaya), Ned (Jacob Batalon), and his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) to remember, it causes the spell to go haywire and draw in any villain who knows Spider-Man’s secret identity from other universes.
Peter quickly finds himself under attack from these villains, most notably Norman Osborn’s Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) and Otto Octavius’ Dr Octopus (Alfred Molina).

There are many old Spider-Man villains in *No Way Home* but Dr Octopus and the Green Goblin are by far the standouts with great performances from the returning actors.

And so Peter and Dr Strange must capture these numerous villains and send them back to their own universes before they cause too much chaos in their own, only for conflict between the two heroes to quickly follow.
With so many villains from previous Spider-Man films being in this movie, it would have been extremely easy for this film to just devolve into mindless nostalgia with no intelligence.
However, I think that No Way Home is a perfect example of a nostalgia film done right.
There are numerous quotes from the earlier films, including memes created from them, and these somehow work entirely.
What works even better is Tom Holland’s fantastic performance as Peter.
I have liked him in the role in the previous MCU movies but his performance in No Way Home is definitley his best so far.

Peter goes through a lot and grows a lot in this movie.

This film is essentially the end of the Spider-Man origin we did not know this trilogy was.
I would even call it one of the best MCU films, with it definitely being in my top ten, if not my top five.
No Way Home is the perfect example of how to do a film with nostalgia as a major focus.
December was a great release date for it because the movie’s numerous great callbacks and easter eggs make it feel like a Christmas present for Spider-Man fans.
Speaking of which, be sure to have a Merry Christmas.