Mars Needs a Better Screenplay

Let me start off this movie review, (of Mars Needs Moms if you couldn't tell) by saying how much I adore kid's films. Not just Disney--Dreamworks, Pixar, Fox, Studio Ghibli, all sorts. Even when I perform a feminist dissection on them, I still enjoy them immensely. Like the movie Tangled for instance, which my good friend Regan recently reviewed on her blog. Regan and I had a great discussion about it, in which we both brought problematic themes in the movie, things we liked (Regan especially loved Mother Gothel, who I thought was wickedly wonderful as well, albeit suspiciously similar to Frollo from Hunchback of Notre Dame) but we both came to the conclusion that we really enjoyed watching it. This is the case for most of kids' films--I notice and file away issues but in general like it.

But after watching Mars Needs Moms, I was legitimately ANGRY. This movie is extremely insulting to women, families, dads, and especially moms, which is ironic, since the supposed theme is about appreciating your mother.

First off, Mars Needs Moms was the first movie released after Disney made an announcement that they weren't going to create fairy tale movies anymore (i.e Tangled, Princess and the Frog) because they wanted to cater to their 'little boy' audience. This rather infuriated me, because in the movie industry, the only thing females have a large presence in are princess movies. Princess movies may have their faults, but at least they have an unapologetically female protagonist.

So basically, Mars Needs Moms already had my irritation towards it. Still, I was willing to give it a chance. I thought Megamind was going to be a stupid movie, and was very pleasantly surprised at how wrong I was.

So much for being an optimist.

Ok, so the movie starts out with these aliens looking at earth. We see our clear villain, an Evil Alien Queen-like character called The Supervisor. The Supervisor sees a mom she likes and says something to another alien character in a sinister voice.

We cut to Earth. We meet Milo, a bratty little kid that whines and complains about everything. His dad is on a business trip and won't be able to make...I don't remember. I didn't take notes cuz it was too inconsequential. Soccer game? School play? School festival? Something to that effect.

By the way, Milo's mom doesn't get a name. She's just Milo's mom. Macguffins don't get names.

Anyway, Milo and his mom fight and Milo shouts that his life would be a whole lot better without his mom. His mom (played by Joan Cusack) gives him a really hurt look and quietly walks away. I seethe silently because I've been 200 miles away from MY mommy and I can tell you it is NOT FUN AT ALL.

Milo's mom gets abducted by aliens. Milo is determined to save her, so he stows away in the rocket.

I'd like to point out how insulting it is that Disney reinforces gender stereotypes by assuming this caters to boys. Because apparently girls only like princess movies. Girls don't like aliens or robots. Someone needs to have a word with Ursula K. Le Guin and Andre Norton, they must've missed that memo.

Anyway, it's been fifteen minutes and I'm already getting bored. Milo searches desperately for his mom and meets these strange critters, which turn out to be the poor, down-trodden MALE aliens, who are forced to live in a junkyard. Milo tries to explain what moms do--apparently they're glorified servants--and Milo meets Gribble, who I call the Obnoxious Fat Guy. Because that's who he is.

Obnoxious Fat Guy is apparently some kind of hacker. He's been hiding out in the alien junkyard for an undisclosed amount of time and spends his time playing video games and playing voyeur to the aliens.

Obnoxious Fat Guy then explains that Mars needs moms, because their society is an entirely female dominated empire, and because the female aliens are busy working and running the world, they don't have time to raise the baby aliens (which pop out of the ground. LIKE DAISIES! They also separate the girl aliens and the boy aliens, raising the girl aliens to run everything and dropping the boy aliens in the junkyard to fend for themselves.) so they need earthling 'mom-ness' to program their nanny-bots.

Because as we all know, it is entirely impossible for a woman to work AND be a mom. It must be one or the other. There can be no balance. This is what happens when women work, GOD. Never should've given the double X chromosomed bitches the vote.

Okay, so Obnoxious Fat Guy agrees to help Milo rescue his mom, but things go awry pretty quickly. He meets a rebellious female alien named Ki (played by Elisabeth Harnois...who I actually like and am baffled as to why she agreed to do this movie...she was so lovely in Ten Inch Hero!) who has been graffiti-ing flowers on the neat and tidy alien walls. They make friends, yadda yadda yadda.

Obnoxious Fat Guy gets captured and nearly dies by firing squad. Milo interrupts the shooting (damn it) and Ki gets a machine laser gun thing. The Supervisor orders her to shoot Milo and Obnoxious Fat Guy.

Me: Shoot the Supervisor.

Ki looks distraught and torn.

Me: Shoot the Supervisor.

She looks between her world and her two new friends, wondering what she should do.

Me: SHOOT THE SUPERVISOR, YOU STUPID BINT.

She unloads the laser gun and flings it away. Because that laser machine gun wouldn't be USEFUL or anything.

Ki, Milo, and Obnoxious Fat Guy dash off in a mad chase sequence. We learn that Obnoxious Fat Guy came here the same way Milo did, trying to rescue his mom years ago. He failed, and apparently a side affect of the extraction process in collecting 'mom-ness' is exploding, so sucks for his mom.

Ki finds an ancient alien cave painting which clearly shows an alien mommy, an alien daddy, and a little alien baby. Ki is shocked, because The Supervisor has been telling them that nanny-bots have been raising their young forever. It's not supposed to be this way! It's supposed to be a mom and a dad and a dog and 2.5 kids! Heteronormativity for the win.

So Obnoxious Fat Guy or Ki or someone (I was only half-paying attention at this point, playing solitaire on my iPod seemed vastly more interesting) rallies the the poor, oppressed menfolk in an uprising against those cruel heartless harpies.

Milo finds his mom and wakes her up. Milo's mom freaks out and starts screaming. You know, for such a great mom, she's kind of useless. If it was MY mom, she probably would've blinked, looked at me, and been all, "Okay, we're on Mars. Let's get out of here." She would've stolen a laser bazooka, shot anyone who tried to get at me, and then baked butterscotch brownies when we got home.

Okay, so Milo and his mom are running toward the rocket that Ki has somehow commandeered and arranged to fly back to earth. But something happens and Milo's space helmet breaks and we get a really close to touching scene where Milo's mom removes her space helmet to save him and then begins to suffocate herself. This actually makes me sniffle a little, but that's probably because I'm 200 miles away from my mommy and I miss her. This is also the only scene I actually liked.

But it's all okay, because Obnoxious Fat Guy saves Milo's mom with a random deus ex machina space helmet. Yay.

The Supervisor tries to kill them again and Ki stops everyone, showing her fellow aliens the picture of the alien cave painting she took with her iPhone. No, seriously. It looks like an iPhone. I'm not even joking. The fellow aliens are furious at The Supervisor for lying to them and drags her off. Milo and his mom go home and live happily ever after.

Before I start with my issues, let me shelve my feminist-ness for a second and look at it from a kid's point of view. This movie was simply not fun to watch. The characters are flat and boring, it starts off to quickly so we have no time to become emotionally invested in the characters, the visuals are cluttered and drab, the background often detracts from what's happening, and it just isn't enjoyable. Compare it to Wall-E, which had a similar production and setting, but those visuals were a lot more remarkable and colorful. I'll grant that one of the subplots was that Ki was obsessed with color and that the alien world was supposed to be drab. But in Wall-E, with the polluted and colorless earth, it still LOOKED interesting. Not so with this movie.

All right, issues time. First are the obvious issues, that women who work are the devil and anyone not raised in a traditional two-parent household isn't being raised properly. It's like the creator decided to combine all the stereotypes of feminism into one character (the Supervisor) and one world (Mars). Feminists hate children and hate raising children. Feminists hate men. Feminists would prefer a female-dominated world. This is really insulting. I'm not saying a female-dominated alien world isn't an interesting setting, but it's so obviously a caricature of feminism it's derogatory rather than intriguing. Not to mention how it seems to deny the possibility that working women can be mothers too...this really angered me because my mom IS a working woman. The entire reason she DOES work at the job she's at is FOR her kids.

It also makes me angry that the nuclear family structure is what's SUPPOSED to raise children. Single dads are in the wrong, so are single moms. So are grandparents who raise their grandkids. The idea that families could come in all shapes and sizes is simply not present.

Then there's the whole 'mom' issue. Hey, I love moms. I love my mommy. But why is it assumed that moms are the caretakers and dads bring home the bacon? Every family is different, but this movie seemed to be presenting the idea of what each parent is 'supposed' to do. The movie actually uses the term 'mom-ness'. What does that imply? Milo goes from saying it's servitude, to spoiling him, to kissing him good night and loving him. Don't dads do chores? Don't dad take you sledding, shooting, to the movies? Don't dads kiss you good night and love you as well? How is this movie distinguishing 'mom-ness' and 'dad-ness'?

But then, dads don't really get a mention, aside from Ki declaring that alien babies should be raised by parents, not robot nannies. She's kind of vague on the dad's role.

I guess my point is that I really don't like how the movie gives parenting mostly to moms and gives dads a free pass. That's insulting to dads, and quite frankly, not true.

In essence, this is not a movie I'll be buying, or even watching again. Flat characters, irritating dialogue, troubling themes, and cluttered visuals do not a good movie make. Clearly I'm not the only one who thinks so, since this movie completely bombed at the box office. Here's hoping Disney learns a lesson.

My Foray Into the Labyrinth

After my last two rather upsetting posts, I decided to do a movie review to make me feel better. Something I'd never seen before, but enjoyed immensely.

I am speaking of course, of Labyrinth.

WHAT?! You're probably screaming. You haven't seen Labyrinth?! The essential 80s fantasy film for every blossoming nerdette as a child?! You poor deprived baby! WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

Now hang on. It's not that my mother is unnecessarily cruel. In fact, "The Neverending Story" is one of her favorite movies. It's just...when I was little, I liked princess movies. Really girly ones, with frilly dresses, fairy tale routes, and handsome princes. Mostly animated.

Stop looking at me like that.

So, rather than requesting puppet-filled masterpieces like I should've, I asked my mom for princess animations, which she supplied to me. Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid, Pocahontas, Mulan, Anastasia, Swan Princess, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty--these are the movies I grew up with and watched several million times a day.

Ahem. Anyway. Labyrinth.

For years people have begged me to watch it and I've replied, "Meh." I just wasn't that interested. Clearly, I am an idiot, because I have been fangirling over this movie for the past two days.

So the movie starts out with this girl Sarah in a really pretty dress, pretending to have epic adventures. She comes home late, yells at her stepmother for asking why she was late, screamed at her dad, and then wished for the Goblin King do take her baby brother away.

Which was a mistake because the goblins kidnap her brother and the Goblin King HOLYCRAPDAVIDBOWIE'SPANTS.

I...

Ah...

Huminahuminahumina...

I'm sorry, what were we talking about?

Oh, right. Labyrinth. Yeah. Ahem.

So the Goblin King is played by the incomparable David Bowie (who is interestingly enough the best actor...Jennifer Connelly's acting has a long way to go. Seems like she's managed it nowadays though.) who tells her that she has thirteen hours to get her baby brother back or he'll turn him into a goblin. So then she...

....

I'm sorry, I have to bring it up. I have never in my life ever lusted after David Bowie before. Until now. Apparently glittery-eyeshadowe'd-pale-white-mulleted-sparkly-sequined-jacket-high-heeled-boots-and-DAMN-THOSE-BEAUTIFULLY-TIGHT-PANTS reeeeally do it for me. I wish I were joking.

Huminahuminahumina...

AHEM. The review. Right.

So Sarah goes on this great adventure through David Bowie's labyrinth and meets all sorts of great Jim Henson critters that help her along the way. Like Hoggle, who we charmingly meet whilst he's urinating.

He grows on you, I promise. I think he rather develops a thing for Sarah, which is rather sweet...(*millions of Jareth/Sarah fangirls send me death glares*) er, I mean, I'm sure Hoggle's feelings for her are purely platonic.

Then we meet Ludo, who is an adorably fluffy beast, and yes, the band Ludo was named for this darling.

D'awwwww. I want one.

And, closely followed by Jareth's pants, my favorite character, Sir Didymus!

Sir Didymus is an interesting mixture of C.S Lewis' Reepicheep and Don Quixote. I'm pretty sure Reepicheep and Didymus would be buds. I love him, he's darling and I love his fluffy tail.

So this ragtag group navigates the labyrinth to get to Bowie's castle so they can retrieve Sarah's baby brother. In the process, Jareth Bowie sends homicidal robots, (yes, there is a giant robot.) metal death contraptions, goblins, and Hoggle betrays Sarah twice for him. Jareth even drugs a peach which Sarah consumes and gives us a really trippy dance sequence between Jareth and Sarah which is both really hot and makes me really uncomfortable, because Jennifer Connelly was 16 when this was filmed and David Bowie was...you know what? I'm not going to wikipedia how old he was, it's just going to make me more uncomfortable.

But it's still kind of hot.

Well, Sarah manages to wake herself up. They make it to the castle. At this point, I'm pretty sure Jareth Bowie has fallen in love with Sarah, or is at least weirdly infatuated by her. At the end, there's this intense sequence...and I'm not just talking about Bowie's pants.

Sarah, at this point too, is also infatuated, or at the very least mesmerized by Bowie's pants, I mean, presence.

Then Jareth (who I've pretty much at this point added to my imaginary harem of movie characters) says, "I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, and do as I say and I will be your slave. Just let me rule you, and you can have everything you want."

Huminahuminahumina...okay...whatever you say, Jareth Bowie...you can rule me any day of the week...

Apparently, Sarah is a better film protagonist than me, because she realizes that Jareth has no power over her and she says it to him--"YOU HAVE NO POWER OVER ME!" And poof! She wins, she comes home, her little baby brother is safe, and she has a dance party in her bedroom with Hoggle and co.

Bowie was not invited.

I would've invited him. Just saying.

And I shall end this review with this letter to my dear little brother.

Dear Little Brother,

I just wanted you to know that if I ever accidentally wished that the goblins would take you away and you were suddenly kidnapped by Jareth Bowie to be doomed to live in his Labyrinth and I had to save you...

Your ass would be screwed, cuz I totally would've opted for Jareth Bowie to be my personal sex slave. Sorry.

Love, Phoenix

Thirty Days of Harry Potter: Day 2

Day 2: Your favorite movie.

Please see my previous blog, "Why I Hate Book to Film Transitions" for my thoughts on the Harry Potter movies. I hate them all. If you had to make me choose, I suppose the third because I liked the song at the beginning. I still hate it with a passion.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader: A Comprehensive Review

First of all, you should know that I've been looking forward to the release of Dawn Treader for about two years now. I've been stalking the crew via the web as they sailed around New Zealand, filming. I've kept tabs on who they cast as the new characters. If I lived in New Zealand, I'd probably be the creeper hiding in the tree, staring hungrily at the cast. Now why would I act in such a manner? Is it just because I'm a loyal Narnian?

Well, yes. That and Voyage of the Dawn Treader is my favorite book in the Chronicles of Narnia.

Oh snap. Shit just got real.

When they're making a film adaptation of your favorite, you tend to become a super fangirl. And so I did. I have just returned from seeing it today, and I have to say...

Well, let me first say that I was seriously concerned about this movie. I wasn't concerned about it till about two days ago, when I read this article. It about gave me and all my other fellow Inklings a legitimate heart attack. The article warned about huge plot changes, things taken from the next book, The Silver Chair, and commented that the Lewis Estate was unhappy with the changes. To a die-hard Narnia and forever fan of C.S Lewis like me, this gave me feelings of great terror. They were going to ruin my favorite book.

Then I saw it today. Terror averted.

Honestly, I think the article was just trying to scare Narnia fans. Dawn Treader did have some major deviations--mostly I think because in the book, there is no real 'bad guy'. Think about it. LWW had the White Witch, PC had Miraz, SC will have Lady of the Green Kirtle, and LB will have the Ape, the Calormene, and Tash, but DT has no dastardly villain. I don't necessarily believe film always has to have a dastardly villain, but doing a fantasy film without one made the producers nervous so they had to add crap in. Most of the time, the movie kept a great deal with the spirit of the book and mostly the major deviations were expanded upon details C.S Lewis already had.

Although I will admit confusion towards the seven-swords-at-Aslan's-table-to-defeat-the-scary-green-mist thing. What? I guess the green mist was maybe foreshadowing the Lady of the Green Kirtle? But I got nothing for the seven swords bit, I guess the writers were feeling super creative. Well, it generally worked for the film.

First off, let me say that the actor for Eustace Clarence Scrubb, Will Poulter, was absolutely MARVELOUS. They could not have chosen a better Eustace if they tried. Will Poulter had the right amount of humor, whininess, practicality, and humanity that Eustace did and during his dragon scene, I couldn't help but clap. I also adored how they interpreted Reepicheep and Eustace's relationship and made it a mentor/mentee kind of deal, which was also canon to the books.

I also liked how the expanded on Lucy's insecurity of not being beautiful like her sister. Well, Georgie, I think you're adorable, just so you know. In the book, this insecurity and temptation to change her physical appearance was glossed over, in a scene where Lucy very quickly learns her lesson. In the film she does too, but it takes her longer.

The expansion on Dark Island, how they made Dark Island essentially the nemesis (aside from the GREEN MIST OF EVIL) (I should stop making fun of the green mist, my friend Alex pointed out how it could represent a physical manifestation of temptation, which was a recurring theme in the movie) was kind of neat move. The Dark Island scene was very scary in the book, and although it didn't last long and certainly wasn't the main conflict, it left a great impression on you. Lewis almost didn't keep it in the final draft of the story because he was concerned it was too frightening for young readers. So I think their expansion on it was a good thing.

I also liked how they gave Ramandu's Daughter a name, cuz I love you Mr. Lewis, but she should've had a name.

I like how the White Witch still haunts Edmund cuz I don't think you'd ever really get over being under her thumb.

I like Caspian in wet clothes. Smaaaaughdrooolmmmmmm....

I literally had a fangirl squeal at the end when Aunt Alberta called, "Jill Pole is here to see you!" Because it's JILL!!! Only...why is she here to see Eustace? Cuz at the beginning of SC, she sort of hates Eustace...

Those are all the things I liked, so I'll be nitpicky and list the things I didn't really care for too.

1. Where the hell did Caspian's accent go? He had a Spanish one in the previous film, and now he has a British one. Consistency, people. Did Ben Barnes get tired of feigning it? Did they think that his newly added man scruff plus the accent was too much for fangirls?

2. I didn't like how Caspian was added in the final scene where they meet Aslan before the tidal wave thing blocking view of his country. Caspian very much wanted to go to Aslan's country, and Reepicheep and Lucy told him in no uncertain terms that he had a duty here and he could not simply abandon it. Caspian snapped at them and then was pretty much bitched out by Aslan in his cabin. We had none of this scene, which I thought was pretty portent to Caspian's character.

3. I miss Eddie Izzard as Reepicheep. The new guy sounded vaguely like him, but Eddie Izzard made a fabulous Reepicheep. Plus this guy had a different interpretation of Reep, which took a little getting used to.

4. I'm still not sure how I feel about the whole angle of Rhince being a resident of the Lone Islands and trying to find his wife and his daughter stowing away...what? Alex, once again, pointed out how the daughter seemed to be more of a growing point for LUCY than an actual plot point, but I still am not sure how I feel about it.

5. I didn't like that Lord Bern was a prisoner instead of...a rich lord and resident. I understand that it flowed better for the film this way, but my anal must-keep-accurate-to-the-book personality didn't like it.

6. Eustace's undragonification sequence I thought was a tad hurried, seeing as it took place during a battle. That's one of the highlights of the novel. I wish they'd given it more time.

7. I really wish they'd kept the scene where when Lucy makes the invisible visible, Aslan is made visible. Because Lucy says something along the lines of, "Oh Aslan! As if anything I could say would make you visible!" And he says back to her, "Don't you think I obey my own rules?" Aslan is big on obeying his own rules. So I was greatly disappointed that it wasn't there.

Well, that's the whole of Voyage of the Dawn Treader. It was a lovely movie and I think they did it extremely well. Honestly, I was legitimately shocked that they kept a direct line from Aslan at the end--the line where Aslan tells Lucy that he has another name in her world and that she was brought to Narnia so that she may know him better there. I expected that, for politically correct reasons, to be dropped. But it was there. They kept it. I was shocked and delighted.

Of course, now I understand Liam Neeson's lines about his portrayal of Aslan a little bit better now...

Whatever. The movie was great. Go see it!!!