Pokemon: The Arceus Chronicles Review

"Pokemon: The Arceus Chronicles" debuts on Netflix as a film, but it doesn't take a Pokemon trainer to realize that it is just a few episodes of the popular anime spliced into a single event. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but it's impossible not to feel mislead.

The plot is gobbledygook, but here goes nothing: while at a sorta bygone era celebration in Sinnoh, Ash, Dawn and Goh, voiced by Sarah Natochenny, Emily Jenness and Zeno Robinson respectively, acquire a few Pokemon from Cynthia (also voiced by Emily). 

There is an aura of innocence to these brief segments, but in no time does disaster strike when the evil Team Galactic, bent on restoring their missing leader Cyrus, cause Pokemon Heatron on a flaming raging up Mount Coronet. Could it explode and destroy the region? Can our heroes save the day? Will legendary 'mon Arceus help? Did I get all the names right? Gosh I hope so.

Anyway, my cursory knowledge of the franchise helped me piece together what was going on despite there being very little explanation; the meager sixty three minute runtime hardly allows any narrative meat on this slim skeleton of a motion picture; consisting instead of a lot of explosions and action. It's all surprisingly engaging, considering I had very little idea what was happening most of the time and quickly learned to shut my brain off 

Part of what kept me watching here is its animation. Anime is what it is called, and it is fascinating how little actually goes on in any given frame- these rather detailed images sit static onscreen as the camera pans slowly about. It is such a contrast to the usual Disney fare, and they work perfectly in the quieter scenes where its just kids having fun. Those are the parts I liked most.

Why bother with anything serious? This is a candy-coated hour and change where bright colors flash across the screen until they stop and the credits roll. Actually that's a lie- even the credits are bright and colorful.

Ultimately though, "Pokemon: The Arceus Chronicles" feels like an extended Saturday morning cartoon because that's exactly what it is, but fans will no doubt enjoy every silly moment, and at the movies, isn't that all what matters?

Lou Review

"Lou," Netflix's latest would-be afternoon-waster is a five dollar script with a million dollar cast, the alluring offer of turning Allison Janney into an action star ala Liam Neeson too good to pass up. But it leaves nothing to the imagination, every plot-point overexplained so that all you have are gorgeous visuals, solid performances and a hollow core.

Janney stars as the titular Lou, introduced to us holding a rifle in her mouth, clearly a model citizen. But a knock at her door during a storm by her renter Hannah (Jurnee Smollett), panicked as her daughter Vee  (Ridley Bateman) is kidnapped by her supposedly deceased dad Phillip (Logan Marshall-Green). Turns out, he faked his death because plot, and snatches his kin because, also, plot. The narrative gets bogged down in needless government intrigue involving blackmail, the CIA, war, all the stuff that should serve as a mere backdrop for the action. But there is hardly any action here, though the little we do get is exciting and well-staged, so you might be thinking this is a more adventure, suspense sorta deal? Sorry folks, the moments when someone isn't talking, nothing is happening.

It's not like the story is exactly anything special either, a tale so old it has arthritis. Lou and Hannah set out to find little Vee, but outside of a broken bridge and some irregular terrain, the wilderness is hardly wild. There's nary a moment where the cards feel stacked against them, outside of you know, trying to find the girl, so we watch many moments of our small cast just walking and exchanging dialogue that probably sounds good in commercials. There's a missed opportunity here, because mother nature can be a dangerous beast, but according to the film here, only bad people are any threat.

Admittedly, the rain-soaked scenery of the Washington woods are beautiful and create a sense of foreboding unknown, but everything is just too dark to really get a sense of scale. Whether because of budgetary reasons or a cinematic decision, so much of the runtime takes place in the shadows, my poor old flat screen TV struggling to show anything outside of muddled blackness.

The absence of sun ends up as something of a logical issue as well, with night becoming day only to become night again, and since this is a movie, the characters seldom need to sleep with consistency. Thus we never can fully realize what time of day anything is going on in, robbing us from knowing exactly how long the trek is and exactly how tired everyone is, or rather should be. Look I get it, these are extraordinary people in an extraordinary situation, but if you're going to pretend to show the characters as "real" by having them get hurt, then you also need to show them rest outside of when the script feels the need to spoon-feed the audience some arbitrary twist.

End of the Road Review

If you're going to use racism as a backdrop for a low-budget movie, you had better find a point for its inclusion. Otherwise, it comes off as cheap and exploitative, used to give "oomph" to a film otherwise devoid of greater cinematic purpose. Netflix's "End of the Road" is a tidy little thriller to which bigoted white people terrorize Brenda (Queen Latifah), her brother Reggie (Ludacris) and her two kids (Mychala Lee and Shaun Dixon) in a subplot wholly unrelated to the story.

It's a shame, really, because this is otherwise a tightly-woven yet somehow breezy way to spend a lazy afternoon gripping the arm of your couch in light suspense.

After losing her husband and her house, Brenda takes her family from California to Texas to live with her mother. She's understandably low on funds, but after a murder in the motel room next door, her brother spots drug money and takes it. The man was shot by another looking for the dough, either by the notorious "Mr. Cross" or one of his goons, and, that's it, that's the plot. It plays out like a network crime show (such as an episode of Latifa's The Equalizer TV revival perhaps?), but simplicity is not inherently problematic. What soured me were the numerous scenes where Brenda is bullied by local racists, later even kidnapped by some, moments which felt like its from an entirely different movie. 

The cops are never portrayed as such either, which is a missed opportunity given all the controversy with the police.

I won't spoil much else of the plot, but there is never any reason given why her family is the target of the prejudiced outside to paint parts of the US as, well, prejudiced. Segregationists are everywhere here lamentably, and every time our heroes met hidebound locals, it left behind an ugly, slimy stain on the rest of the picture. There's no explanation as to why the heinous denizens are so hostile, or any exploration into how it is hurting the family- bad things just happen, and only because "they" are white and she, her brother and her kids aren't.

But the stunt casting of two famous musicians intrigued me no doubt, and to my great surprise, both Queen Latifah and Ludacris are excellent. Neither ham up their roles, grounding both characters so that they seem like real people in real situations, even though we know it's just a direct-to-streaming flick. She brings a sense of grief and desperation that's told all through her face, be it an intense stare or a crack in her voice, and he balances humor and immaturity with the realization that he has royally screwed up.

And despite clearly working with a limited budget (anytime a chase scene is filmed at night, primarily with close ups of the actors, I can smell the finance department's involvement), director Millicent Shelton handles the minor action with a professional touch, giving everything a heavy layer of polish and slickness. I'm not sure how much "End of the Road" cost to make, but it looks probably a few million more expensive than it actually did.

It's just a shame that the basic narrative core is surrounded just sleaze. "End of the Road" isn't interested in the psychological cause or result of discrimination, but maybe showing how baseless and ubiquitous it is was the point, and I somehow missed it?