Wicked (2024)

No one is more annoyed than me that Wicked is a good movie. This retelling, reimagining and retconning of the Wizard of Oz story is a prequel involving the two would-be witches at the center of it. Elphaba is a bastard child with a penchant for magic who is ostracized her whole life for being green. She meets Galinda, a spoiled prissy brat, while at university, and immediately form a rivalry and unlikely alliance. The songs are well integrated, but I found myself underwhelmed by a lot of it, even as I was enthralled by the set design and moments of raw emotion and quiet reflection. Unfortunately, it turns out that this is only Part I and it's all set-up for what I assume will be a much better film releasing in another year. It's just hard to get excited about half a story.

3½ Grimmeries out of 5

THE PEANUTS MOVIE [2015]

35 years after their last original film, Charles M. Schutlz's beloved Charlie Brown comic strip characters are all back in The Peanuts Movie.
The Little Red-Haired Girl has just moved into town and Chuck is very smitten, however his constant blunders and insecurities holds him back from doing anything about it.
With the comic strip being around for 65 years, director Steve Martino and Shultz's son & grandson have a long history of great material to pull from and they manage to comfortably fit in all of the Peanuts' most memorable scenarios.  Bringing the gang into the world of CGI animation had me worried at first but the animators did a wonderful job at giving it refined detail where needed (even if Charlie Brown's single hair looks like a giant pube) and simplicity where it demanded it.  In a time of rapid fire gags and constant attacks of loud noises in animation, Peanuts might be too innocently slow for the kids and a bit too simple for adults but it will most certainly find a spot in the hearts of long-time fans wanting to return to some old friends who never got old.

3 funny looking kids with big noses out of 5

STRANGE MAGIC [2015]

Sound designer Gary Rydstrom makes his feature length directorial debut with George Lucas' CGI animated Strange Magic.
It's the story of a fairy princess who finds herself in the middle of a forest battle of goblings, elves, imps and various other strange creatures over a very powerful love potion.  It's basically A Midsummer Night's Dream given the Glee/American Idol make-over with it's attack of poorly reconstructed pop songs from all over the musical map.  The character designs are sloppily uninspired, the story is an uneven mess of boredom and the whole affair is just really really annoying.
It's perfectly acceptable to feel sorry for oneself should they find themselves having to sit through it from beginning to end.

1 petal out of 5