IonicBreezeMachine

Set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Marvin Gable (Ke Huy Quan) is seemingly a successful realtor who will help you find your dream home. However, following an encounter with an assassin known as the Raven (Mustafa Shakir), Marvin finds his new life under threat from his old one as the re-emergence of his last kill, Rose (Ariana DeBose), whom he didn't actually kill puts him on a collision course with his estranged gangster brother Alvin "Knuckles" Gable (Daniel Wu).

Love Hurts is the latest genre film from 87North Productions, better known for their production of the John Wick series of films that helped redefine modern action cinema. The film marks Ke Huy Quan's first lead role following his Oscar winning comeback in Everything Everywhere All at Once and while I think Quan is perfectly capable of headlining a film like this, I just wish it were a more interesting one.

While Quan doesn't have the richest role as Marvin, I will say that there is sort of a meek charm at watching this small unassuming realtor unleash martial arts fury upon hoards of would be assassins. If Jackie Chan (at his peak anyway) could be described as Buster Keaton with martial arts, Quan's style is more akin to Harold Lloyd where there's a bit more of an edge to the disaster prone hi-jinks. Honestly during the opening 20 minutes I didn't really understand why the movie had been so panned by critics as some of the physical comedy seemed on point and the fight scenes had the typical 87North quality....but then the movie started to lose me. Running at only 87 minutes long the movie isn't unaware of what it is and gets right to the point, but that's kind of part of the problem as there isn't a lot of time spent developing character or setting up the circumstances.

When you compare Love Hurts to 87North's other comedic action film Nobody which had a solid and efficient first act establishing the mid-life stagnation of Bob Odenkirk's character that set up effective contrast to the more outlandish elements later on, Love Hurts dives in way too fast and we don't really get a chance to know the characters beyond the surface level. The movie encounters further issues with Ariana DeBose' Rose and the actions taken by her character which the movie tries to frame as being for Marvin's benefit but because we never took time to establish Marvin's life we don't know that and it seems like she's nuking his new life because "why not?". The movie per its title also tries to paint itself as a romantic unconventional Valentine's Day film clunkily establishing a romance between Marvin and Rose along with Marshawn Lynch's King and Andre Erisken's Otis discussing marital problems or Marvin secretary Ashley played by Lio Tipton falling for poetic assassin Raven played by Mustafa Shakir and while occasionally there's a sequence that works, most of it just feels limp especially in comparison to 87North's The Fall Guy which mixed action and romantic comedy much more effectively. Even the usually reliable fight work loses integrity in the final act as there's a disappointing number of cuts and close-up shots that make the final fight so underwhelming.

Love Hurts isn't without some charms (most of them courtesy of Quan), but the film never fully comes together in alive in a way the marketing promises and it feels like a half-hearted remix of prior 87North productions that did similar things much more successfully. Quan's more than capable of headlining a film like this, I just wish the film itself were better.

In 1862, widowed English schoolteacher Anna Leonowens (Miranda Richardson)and her son Louis (Adam Wylie) move to Siam where Anna has accepted a position with King Mongkut (Martin Vidnovic) to educate his children. Anna maintains a steadfast composure always bluntly delivering the truth as Mongkut despite voicing his intentions to modernize Siam on the world stage adheres to the notion that he as King be absolute in his authority and position. Meanwhile, Kralahome (Ian Richardson), the King's Prime Minister and his diminutive assistant Master Little (Darrell Hammond) conspire to use Anna's arrival to paint the King as a barbarian and entice the British government to remove him from power turning Siam into a protectorate with Kralahome as the new king. As this is happening Prince Chulalongkorn (Allen D. Hong) falls in love with Tuptim (Armi Arabe), a servant girl gifted from Burma despite such love being forbidden.

The King and I is a 1999 animated musical loosely adapted from the Rodgers and Hammerstein 1951 stage musical of the same name, which itself had been previously adapted to critical and commercial success in 1956. Following a successful revival of the musical on Broadway fronted by Lou Diamond Phillips, this led Arthur Rankin to approach Warner Bros. About adapting the story to animation. As Warner Bros. Was busy with their own projects Morgan Creek ended up taking on the project and hired Nest Entertainment and director Richard Rich to do the animation as the two had been behind the theatrically unsuccessful but home video hit The Swan Princess. Quest for Camelot writers David Seidler and Jacqueline Feather were hired to write the film and make changes for accessibility and "family viewing" with the Rodgers and Hammerstein estate signing off on the changes believing that despite the risk it could potentially introduce a new generation of children to the show who otherwise might not be interested. Upon release the film was panned by critics who negatively compared it to the 1956 original and felt the new additions shaped after trends in modern animated films served as a hindrance rather than an asset. The film was also a financial failure earning $12 million against a $25 million budget. There's certainly room for discussion on whether an animated adaptation of The King and I would've worked, but regardless of your thoughts on either the Broadway show or 1956 film the 1999 version is a mess (albeit one with fleeting moments of craft).

From the opening sequence that features Louis on the side of a clumsily 3D rendered boat trying to rescue his pet monkey sidekick in a storm (as you do) it becomes rather painfully clear that something has gone horribly wrong in the translation process to animation. Featuring a ridiculous sequence where Kralahome (who's now a crude mixture of Scar and Jaffar) summons an illusion of a dragon that prompts the entire crew into "I Whistle a Happy Tune" to chase the illusion away, it very much feels like the staff were given a directive to take as many Disney Renaissance tropes as they could find and clumsily shoehorn them into place regardless of whether or not they actually fit. Often times, it feels like the new additions overshadow the original material with an inordinate amount of focus given to Louis' pet monkey, the king's Pet panther Rama, Tuptim's baby elephant, or Kralahome's obnoxious (and borderline racist) sidekick master little who has a bizarre running gag of his teeth falling out. The movie does a poorer job of establishing its characters this time around as they often feel pushed to the background because the movie wants to focus more on its obnoxious side characters. The movie also massively downplays elements of the original story like Mongkut being a polygamist and the number of children he has seems to have been reduced for that point as well and it just feels like a lot of work to downplay something for no logical reason. As fanciful as Anastasia got with its story at least it didn't shy away from the details (albeit with some fast/loose additions like the Rasputin thing) and had an internal logic to its story. I will at least say the animation can sometimes be reasonably impressive, strange coloring and poorly integrating 3D assets notwithstanding and it's just a shame it's in service of such a stupid story.

If you didn't like the original King and I this will do nothing for you as it adds in a whole host of ill adivsed additions and reductions that are just baffling. If you however did like The King and I you may get a cheap laugh at seeing how butchered and nonsensical it's been rendered by going through the dumbest machine of executives and marketing hacks in the industry who thought "how can we make this appeal to today's youth?" rather than "how can we make this good?".

Set in the time of westward expansion in the United States during the 19th Century, a mustang horse known as Spirit (Matt Damon) is born to a wild herd that travels the American plains and later grows to lead and protect the herd. Investigating a strange light one evening at the edge of his homeland, Spirit comes across horses like himself wearing unfamiliar trappings and soon learns of two legged creatures known as man. While Spirit briefly outwits them, in the process of leading them away from his herd Spirit is captured by wranglers and sold to a fort of the U. S. Cavalry led by a stern colonel (James Cromwell) who is a firm believer in "taming the West" and Manifest Destiny. Attempts by the soldiers at "breaking" Spirit into an obedient cavalry horse are repeatedly met with failure as Spirit maintains his resolve and the arrival of a captured Lakota native named Little Creek (Daniel Studi) leads to the formation of a friendship between the two.

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is the third traditionally animated production from Dreamworks Animation following on from the successful The Prince of Egypt and the cult favorite but critically mixed and financial failure The Road to El Dorado. The impetus for Spirit supposedly came from an idea by Spielberg himself with the one sentence idea being "an epic story of the American West told from the point of view of a horse". Screenwriter John Fusco was hired to develop the script over the course of four years due to his experience writing films such as Thunderheart and the Young Guns films giving him familiarity with the Western genre. Critical reception skewed towards positive (though slightly mixed with some critics lamenting the film for being "predictable" or "politically correct") but unfortunately the film made $120 million against an $80 million budget making it a minor commercial disappointment, though it would gain more appreciation over the years including spawning a media franchise (albeit now in CG animation). Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron has very simple aspirations with its story, but just because they're simple doesn't mean they're lazy.

The animation remains top notch for Dreamworks this time around as the studio goes in a more naturalistic direction using a mixture of CG and traditional animation to create sweeping landscapes and majestic movements of mustangs across the American plains. Every other frame is beautifully realized and captures the beauty of the American West with a grace and beauty that's comparable with a painting. In terms of its story, the movie is very much in the tradition of something like The Black Stallion by way of one of Jack London's works like White Fang. In a break from convention for an animal-centric animated film, the animals presented do not speak and character is conveyed more through facial expression, body language, and animal noises with the only animal speech being reflective narration by Matt Damon as Spirit. This is really a case where the animation is primarily responsible for creating character as despite Spirit being mute, he's effectively established as being a brave, determined stallion with a bit of a foolhardy and mischievous streak from time to time. There's a strong emotional core at play as Spirit just wants to return home and the movie does a nice job of establishing an engaging conflict between Spirit and The Colonel who is ably voiced by James Cromwell and is nicely positioned as an opposing force in the film. As has been the case with many revisionist westerns like Little Big Man, A Man Called Horse, or Dances with Wolves, Spirit is very much critical of Manifest Destiny and the notion of "winning" the West. The relationship between Lakota native Little Creek and Spirit is well done with Daniel Studi giving a good vocal performances and there's an effective contrast portrayed between the Lakota's relationship with horses versus the cavalry's. While the film does carry the contemporary notions of Westerns in being a more nuanced take as opposed to the John Wayne and Randolph Scott portrayals, there's a good message at play that the relationship between man and nature should be one of respect rather than one of conquest as seen in the climax at a railroad town where the natural beauty portrayed is encroached by desolation of grey, black, and brown. I will say that sometimes the soundtrack can call attention to itself in a way I'm not convinced is a good thing. I have no issues with Bryan Adams' music, but it did question whether it fit here (though it wasn't as distracting as the Phil Collins songs in Tarzan).

Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron is a familiar and simple story that is well told thanks beautiful animation and strong performances and themes. It's an absolutely beautiful movie and a wonderful work from the gone too soon traditional animation unit of Dreamworks before they fully embraced CG animation.