Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Director: John Hughes
Screenwriter: John Hughes
Starring: Steve Martin, John Candy

You’d be hard-pressed to name a more beloved Thanksgiving movie than the late John Hughes’ Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987). For many, the film has a virtual monopoly on the holiday’s cinematic canon (sorry, Charlie Brown) and endures as quintessential post-feast viewing. And, while Hughes’ other holiday flicks such as National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) and Home Alone (1990) would go on to become living room mainstays in their own right, the king of crowd-pleasers’ first foray into holiday fare remains his most timeless. 

The film stars Steve Martin and the late John Candy as an oddball pair of unlucky travelers determined to make it home for Thanksgiving—in spite of the gamut of transportation delays thrown their way. The two are total opposites: Martin plays Neal Page, a prickly, Scroogean advertising executive who wants nothing more than to be left alone, while Candy plays Del Griffith, a chatterbox shower-ring salesman who Neal can’t seem to shake. Needless to say, Neal and Del’s perceived incompatibility makes for some delightful screwball comedy as they continually find themselves stranded. 

Anyone even marginally familiar with Steve Martin or John Candy’s work can see how inspired their casting was for a film with such a premise. These guys are their characters, and their characters are them. Their chemistry is palpable even as Neal’s standoffishness increasingly and hilariously chafes up against Del’s inability to take a hint. Hence the litany of endlessly-quoted one liners—some scripted, some improvised—which have cemented themselves in the American pop-culture lexicon (“Those aren’t pillows!”). 

And yet such iconic moments were ultimately conjured by Hughes’ brisk and gratifying script, as well as his willingness to let the performers make it their own. As Kevin Bacon—who has a brief cameo at the beginning of the film as the guy Neal races to hail a cab during rush hour—once recalled, “He wasn’t precious about his own dialogue. He was precious about his characters.”

One might recall the motel scene—in which Neal ruthlessly explodes on Del, only for Del to soberly reaffirm his security with himself, with all his idiosyncrasies and eccentric tendencies—as one of many in the film that cracks you up while tugging at your heartstrings. This is where the film hits a sweet spot: one where farcical comedy is balanced seamlessly with sincere emotional drama. Martin and Candy elevate the latent sentimentality in Hughes’ script to surprisingly moving ends, and Hughes relishes in it. Perhaps more so than National Lampoon’s and Home Alone—both of which Hughes wrote, but did not direct—Planes, Trains and Automobiles’ direction seems to be in perfect harmony with its performers, mining Martin and Candy’s brilliance for all it’s worth.

Above it all, Neal and Del’s ultimate connection—one between two lonely men who, under different circumstances, would likely remain total strangers—is what maintains the film’s continued resonance. We care about these characters because, in a way, they are us. Perhaps even more so today than in 1987, the tedium of our routines so often alienates us from our neighbors. It would not be difficult to imagine a contemporaneous version of this film sending up the impersonality of ridesharing and the gig economy. (When was the last time you made meaningful conversation with your Uber driver? What if you were now stuck with them?) 

Underneath all the film’s warm-and-fuzziness is a sort of universal truth, an exercise in empathy that has maintained its potency. As Hughes once said about the film: “I like taking dissimilar people, putting them together, and finding what’s common to us all.” These themes are not new, but they are universal—and when delivered skillfully and sincerely, comedy can become quite affecting. Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is one of those films that feels like a rarity in big studios’ output today and yet timeless nonetheless, which is perhaps why it is remembered so fondly. This is a comedy that set a standard for the genre—even if, at the end of the day, it was all in the holiday spirit.

Score: 19/24

Written by Connell Oberman

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The Age of Innocence (1993)
Director: Martin Scorsese
Screenwriters: Jay Cook, Martin Scorsese
Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder

Martin Scorsese is a prolific filmmaker, known for making movies infused with violence and passion, filled with characters who live outside of the law and the rules of society. From classic gangster pictures like Goodfellas to movies about corruption like The Departed, to the violence of Taxi Driver and the unrestrained wealth, privilege and power in The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese has made a career out of exploring the extremes of human nature, the catharsis of explosion. In a lot of ways, The Age of Innocence, released in 1993, is an outlier in Scorsese’s filmography. It is not about acting with abandon, but about restraint, discretion and control. It is not about the mean, dirty streets of New York and the bowels of society, but instead about high society, about people trapped in very beautiful, gilded cages, desperate to scream, yet unable to. In other ways, The Age of Innocence is, in Scorsese’s own words, the most violent movie he has ever made.

Adapted from Edith Wharton’s classic novel of the same name, The Age of Innocence stars Daniel Day Lewis as Newland Archer, an affluent lawyer caught between his impending marriage to the respectable, mild-mannered May Welland (Winona Ryder) and his desire for her cousin, Countess Ellen Olenska (Michelle Pfeiffer). Set in the 1870s, during a time in the United States of great economic growth, industrialization, and a growing divide between the new world and the old often referred to as the Gilded Age, The Age of Innocence explores a world of rituals and class. The film was a great success for Scorsese, proof of his emotional intelligence and range as a filmmaker. It received numerous accolades, including the Oscar for Best Costume Design and the BAFTA for Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Miriam Margolyes. In Scorsese’s hands, The Age of Innocence is a masterclass in visual cinema, more than your typical costume drama, one of the best page-to-screen adaptations of all time.

Like the rose that blooms in the center of the screen in the beginning of the film, The Age of Innocence is beautiful – until it draws blood. Scorsese uses the color red throughout the movie as a kind of shorthand for romance, desire, and destruction. It’s bold and searing, much like Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes (1948). Red velvet drapes hang from the walls, signifying that a dinner party and a blood bath are essentially the same thing to these wealthy society folk. The color also plays a substantial role in the costuming as well. When Ellen makes her social comeback at a party hosted by the extremely wealthy Van der Luydens (Alexis Smith and Michael Gough), she does so in a form fitting red silk dress. Ellen is the embodiment of the desires Newland tries to ignore. She is unconventional, trying desperately to rebel against a rigid, unforgiving society. In contrast, May is typically dressed in white, highlighting her innocence and her unblemished reputation.

But there is something sinister lurking beneath May’s naïve, soft-spoken exterior. Winona Ryder’s performance is deeply layered and probably one of the most complex in the film, which no doubt contributed to her earning an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. There is something hidden behind May’s wide-eyed, girlish face, something knowing and intuitive. While Newland continuously describes May as being young and impressionable, Ryder is subtly steering us in a different direction. What she says is not what she means, and Ryder is able to capture that dissonance effortlessly – where her character ends up in the end is the most satisfying bate and switch. Day-Lewis and Pfeiffer are deliciously tragic in their mutual pining for one another. Their obvious romance, their painful longing, puts every modern onscreen pairing to shame. It would be easy to see May and Ellen as mere archetypes rather than real people, and they are to a certain extent, but Ryder and Pfeiffer imbue them with vibrant inner lives.

Though this love triangle is at the center of the drama of The Age of Innocence, Martin Scorsese often moves his camera away from them in favor of the things that surround them. Particular attention is paid to the food, the silverware, the artwork, the furniture – the utter wealth and decadence. Appearances are everything. Things are more important than people. It’s a striking contrast to the laidback, sneakers and hoodies depiction of the uber rich of today. A certain level of spectacle is to be expected in period dramas, but Scorsese uses this spectacle to say something, and that subtext is everything.

Gilded Age New York is a character in the film, and the way Scorsese makes it come alive speaks to his understanding of the novel. The Age of Innocence is an internal story, it is told through stolen glances and near touches and almost kisses. The voice of the narrator is important, and Scorsese opts to keep that narration, beautifully delivered by silver screen star Joanne Woodward. Whole chunks of text are taken right from the novel, and it is delightful because Edith Wharton’s writing is spectacular. It would be a crime to do away with the original text or change it in any substantial way, and Scorsese knows this; The Age of Innocence is quite literally the novel come to life.

Adaptations are tricky and it isn’t easy to figure out how to translate something to screen. Do you keep the story exactly as it is? Is there any fun in that? Or do you move the pieces around so much that you make something completely different and new? There doesn’t seem to be one correct answer, but in this instance, Scorsese and writer Jay Cocks opted to change virtually nothing and it works.

In a 1993 interview with Charlie Rose, director Scorsese described the violence of The Age of Innocence as refined emotional and psychological violence. It is just as powerful and deadly as a bullet from a gun, and because Scorsese understands that, the film is incredibly affecting and devastating. It is a romantic tragedy brought to life by one of the best filmmakers of all time and, thirty years after its initial release, deserves a spot among his most accomplished works.

Score: 24/24

Recommended for you: Where to Start with Martin Scorsese

Crazy Rich Asians (2018)
Director: Jon M. Chu
Screenwriters: Peter Chiarelli, Adele Lim
Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Lisa Lu, Awkwafina, Ken Jeong, Sonoya Mizuno, Chris Pang, Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng, Remy Hii, Nico Santos

Five years ago today, as the much-anticipated adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s New York Times bestseller Crazy Rich Asians packed cinemas everywhere, Karen K. Ho at Time Magazine announced that this film was ‘going to change Hollywood.’ Her proclamation may sound bold, but as the first American release featuring an all-Asian cast since The Joy Luck Club in 1993, Crazy Rich Asians appeared to signal a sea change brewing in Los Angeles.

In Donald Trump’s pre-pandemic America, divided attitudes toward immigration, race, and diversity dominated news cycles and contributed to the country’s growing political chasm. On one side of the fissure, people of all ethnic backgrounds demanded rights and representation that were long overdue, whilst many on the other side perpetuated the president’s lies that ‘outsiders’ would threaten their freedom and way of life.

In the world of entertainment, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s groundbreaking Broadway hit “Hamilton” professed that immigrants ‘get the job done’ and, also in 2018, Black Panther broke blockbuster records with Marvel’s first Black superhero. Throughout the 2010s, Kwan’s satirical novel became an international sensation, selling millions of copies worldwide within and outside of the pan-Asian community. It quickly became clear that there was an urgent need to tell more people’s stories and to tell them right.

Jon M. Chu’s glitzy, heartwarming rom-com tells one of those stories. Relatable protagonist Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), the immigrant Chinese-American daughter of a single mother, has it all living in New York City with her dream job as an economics professor and a handsome boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding). A down-to-earth fellow professor, Nick wants to finally introduce Rachel to his friends and family back home in Singapore, so she agrees to fly halfway around the world for his best friend’s wedding. Not until their 19-hour flight does she find out that the Young family is rich—crazy rich—and one of the wealthiest old-money families in the country.

Touching down in the bustling city-state, the couple connects with best friend Colin (Chris Pang) and his fiancée Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno). Their laid-back happy reunion comes to a grinding halt, however, when Rachel finally meets Nick’s sophisticated and intimidating mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), at an elegant soirée held at the family estate. With the help of Rachel’s uni friend, Peik Lin (Awkwafina), and Nick’s kind, selfless cousins Astrid (Gemma Chan) and Oliver (Nico Santos), the heroine must navigate the complicated social mores of Singapore’s ultra-elite, survive an extravagant, out-of-control bachelorette party, and determine whether her relationship with Nick can withstand the pressures of background, class, and family.

Right off the top, the film makes its intention clear with Napoleon Bonaparte’s quote, ‘Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.’ We are then taken back in time to a stormy night in 1995 London. Eleanor, her sister-in-law Felicity (Janice Koh), and their young children Nick and Astrid, seek refuge in the prestigious Calthorpe Hotel. Immediately, the bigoted lobby staff ask the family to leave and threaten to call the police. After Eleanor makes an angry call from a telephone box outside, they return to the Calthorpe and, much to the staff’s dismay, reveal that the Young family are now the proud owners of the posh hotel.

This cheeky scene inverts many of the cultural and racial prejudices previously set by Hollywood pictures. For as long as there have been films, they have consistently portrayed Asian people and cultures as paradoxically both weak and dangerous, as well as a mysterious and exotic ‘other’ on which the Eurocentric Western culture can contrast itself as superior. In this scene, and throughout the film, director Chu shows us that Asia is dignified, powerful, and a force to be reckoned with, yet also familiar and empathetic. By asking an audience of all ethnic backgrounds to align with Rachel, Nick, and Eleanor as the heroes of this story—as audiences have been asked to do with white protagonists for decades—the film humanizes people who have been routinely dehumanized by Hollywood in the past, and guides us in sharing their joys, obstacles, heartaches, and successes.

Importantly, Crazy Rich Asians also portrays the diverse experiences of Asian women across generations. The narrative follows Rachel’s Cinderella story from a single-parent household to Nick’s life of extreme wealth and privilege. Astrid, an Audrey Hepburn type with effortless class and a kind heart, undergoes meaningful growth into a stronger, more independent woman. And Eleanor, the main antagonist to Rachel and Nick’s relationship, is the most complex of all. Though she is old-fashioned and often hurtful in her biting criticisms and unkindness toward Rachel, we can sympathize with the matriarch’s genuine effort to protect her family and to ensure that her son’s life is easier than her own while balancing modern individualism with traditional collective duty.

These compelling characters are a far cry from the stereotypes of Asian women traditionally perpetuated by Hollywood cinema. Since the silent film era, the onscreen representation of East Asian women has been restricted to narrow archetypes. In Sonia Rao’s article for The Washington Post, scholar Celine Parreñas Shimizu describes them as ‘the lotus blossom being a submissive, compliant sex object. The dragon lady being an evil, threatening sex object.’ More recently, the media has also introduced the stereotype of the ‘model minority,’ which idealizes Asian immigrants as inherently smart and, problematically, as a loosely homogenous ethnic group that assimilates easily into American society. In Crazy Rich Asians, the heroines may be smart, beautiful, and powerful, but they are also funny, compassionate, imperfect, and complicated.

Beyond the humanistic themes at the film’s core, Chu paints an exciting, colourful story world that catches our attention and refuses to let go. From the moment Rachel and Nick set foot in Singapore, an endless parade of designer fashion, flashy sports cars, and private jets marches across the screen. The book’s author, Kevin Kwan, spent his early childhood in the Southeast Asian country and, like Nick Young, was born into one of the oldest, wealthiest families on the island. He told Nosheen Iqbal at The Guardian that ‘everything is inspired by things I’ve seen, or experiences I’ve been part of in a roundabout way.’ The extravagant lives of Singapore’s über-wealthy jump right off the pages of his book thanks to the stunning spectacle created by Chu, costume designer Mary Vogt, and production designer Nelson Coates.

The film makes some changes to the original text, most notably with Astrid’s subplot and parts of the ending, but these changes suit the conventions of the rom-com genre, as well as the two-hour time limit. However, one critical change from the book is the shift away from the layered complexities of Singapore’s class and ethnic hierarchies, as well as the country’s international relations and the pan-Asian diaspora within the continent and beyond. 

Instead, Rachel’s fish-out-of-water story becomes the narrative’s driving force.

In an impactful scene where Rachel finally confronts Eleanor over a game of mahjong, Rachel describes herself as ‘a poor, raised-by-a-single-mother, low-class, immigrant nobody.’ Following the overarching trends of the time set by other late-2010s artistic works like “Hamilton”, The Big Sick, and later Knives Out, this film asks us to sympathize with Rachel’s Asian American, immigrant experience. As the central focus of a major motion picture, this perspective can act as a point of reference for thousands of immigrants and children of immigrants who did not have significant representation onscreen before. Still, it is important to note that this shift means the film lacks a genuine portrayal of the nuances found in the region’s diverse society, which Kwan’s book depicts with tact and depth.

In addition to all the things the film does well, it has faced legitimate criticism for not only missing details, but for also contributing to the often problematic nature of the city-state’s class and ethnic hierarchies. According to Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Lily Kuo at The Guardian, some viewers in Singapore and across Asia have decried the film for perpetuating the stereotypes it claims to reverse, namely how the decadent excess of the story’s ultra-rich ensemble continues to exoticize Asian people in the media.

Ellis-Petersen and Kuo also reveal that many activists have taken issue with the marginalization of the country’s Malay and Indian population as either servants and guards, or as entirely invisible from the narrative. The glamorous, westernized characters at the centre of the story are largely of Chinese descent and feature relatively light skin tones (which warrants a larger conversation about colourism in cinema than this article can provide). For a film that aims to dismantle the racial hierarchies raging in the United States, it does so at the expense of other minorities abroad. In an interview with Debanjali Bose at Insider, Chu says he regrets casting South Asian actors in subservient roles and should have depicted them in a ‘more human’ light.

What many of these criticisms reveal is that, at its core, this film is a Hollywood film made for an American audience with a surface-level image of Asia that Western audiences could ‘comfortably’ recognize.

Keeping its international failings in mind, the film did positively impact members of the Asian diaspora in Western countries. Jiayang Fan at The New Yorker admits that whilst ‘a two-hour movie […] can’t be all things to all people,’ she revelled in the film’s ‘inversion of racial expectation,’ which led her to investigate her own Asian American identity. Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan also claims that he had once quit the industry due to the scarcity of film roles for Asian actors, but seeing this film’s sensitive portrayal of Asian characters brought him back to the profession.

Looking back, did Crazy Rich Asians indeed ‘change Hollywood’ as Karen K. Ho hoped? In 2021, Sakshi Venkatraman at NBC News reported that a recent study of the top-grossing films from the 2010s found that ‘Asians on screen often serve as the punchline or the butt of the joke.’ And, if Disney’s Mulan live-action remake’s spectacular failure in Asia serves as any indication, there is a lot more Hollywood needs to do to consider its global audience beyond its own national borders.

Despite these setbacks, since Crazy Rich Asians’ release in 2018, Asian actors have helmed popular projects like Always Be My Maybe, The Farewell, ‘Beef’, and the To All the Boys series. Members of the Indian diaspora have found the spotlight in Netflix television programmes like ‘Bridgerton’ season two and Mindy Kaling’s ‘Never Have I Ever’. In 2020, Parasite became the first non-English language and East Asian film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and more recently, the smash hit Everything Everywhere All at Once, starring a predominantly Asian cast including Crazy Rich Asians alum Michelle Yeoh, swept the Oscars with seven total wins.

Change is slow and there is still much more to be done to create a more equitable entertainment industry in Hollywood and abroad. But, five years later, it seems that this funny, extravagant, heartwarming, important rom-com was a giant leap in the right direction.

Score: 20/24

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Screenwriters: Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman
Starring: Bob Hoskins, Charles Fleischer, Alan Tilvern, Stubby Kaye, Kathleen Turner, Christopher Lloyd, Lou Hirsch

Jaded, scotch-swilling private eye Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is embroiled in a story of adultery and murder in this classic Touchstone Pictures film… for children. While it doesn’t sound like the best premise for a PG feature, Who Framed Roger Rabbit became an instant classic.

Valiant lives in a world where cartoon characters are as real as he is, mixing animation and live action like other childhood gems such as Pete’s Dragon (1977) and Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971). There is something magical and appealing about combining the real world with everyone’s favourite cartoon characters. It’s the Toy Story principle: ‘what if those pretend things I love come alive?’ And, because so few of these mixed-media films followed Who Framed Roger Rabbit, it remains the pinnacle of the genre.

Cartoon rabbit Roger (Charles Fleischer) is a beloved network star, so when he is framed for murder, his boss R.K. Maroon (Alan Tilvern) wants his name cleared. Valiant is called in to uncover the sordid truth, and it doesn’t take long for the equal parts infuriating and loveable bunny to get under his skin. Eddie’s journey from embittered soul to reluctant hero is as wholesome as any Disney jape.

Valiant’s deep distrust of the toons he shares a life with adds a palpable tension between the characters, and it is this tension that drives the story. Eddie’s averseness to being involved with the community he associates with his brother’s death makes it more satisfying when Roger wins him over. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is the ultimate buddy movie, something that director Robert Zemeckis explores frequently in his films – from Doc and Marty in Back to the Future to Chuck and Winston in Cast Away, Zemeckis is a dab hand at exploring non-traditional friendships with warmth and feeling.

Its eighties aura and forties setting do mean that quite a percentage of Who Framed Roger Rabbit might not quite stand up to modern-day scrutiny. Particularly its portrayal of women. Jessica Rabbit (played by the bizarrely uncredited Kathleen Turner), for instance. Based on forties bombshells, she makes Barbie dolls look like an attainable body type. Her flagrant sensuality is a lot to handle, especially when you consider that in this world of toons and people someone invented her purely for entertainment. But deep down she’s a golden-hearted broad who just loves a funny guy. She’s not bad, she was just drawn that way.

Modern parents might well wince at the humour and innuendo. As with all animated films, many jokes are intended for the adults, sailing over the heads of the younger audience members. Who Framed Roger Rabbit pushes that to its limit. Jibes about sexual proclivity, prostate problems, and alcoholism can all be found in abundance. “Bitch” and “bastard” make an appearance, as does cartoon violence that goes far beyond slapstick. But Incredibles 2 (2018) had a brainwashed mother attack her baby so kids can cope with a bit of darkness in their art.

The adult themes and classic film noir tropes knit seamlessly with those more expected of a family film. The presence of the cartoons literally brightens up the dank back-alley bars. Long reaching shadows, blackmail, damsels in distress, a 40s setting, innocent people accused of a crime. They’re all there. Allusion, rather than graphic depiction, is another trope often used in film noir that works in a children’s film. And flawed heroes with crosses to bear. Eddie Valiant is definitely an anti-hero, but in all the right ways. Much like Disney’s Robin Hood, a fox who does so many bad things but for all the right reasons.

While the hero of the film is nuanced and complicated. The villain is clear. Christopher Lloyd – who previously worked with director Robert Zemeckis on Back to the Future (1985)– is impeccable with his truly unhinged Judge Doom. He is perhaps one of the greatest movie villains of all time. Lloyd doesn’t blink once while on screen. His tightrope walk between comedy and horror, veering wildly between the two, is mesmerising.

Well received by critics and audiences alike, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was the second highest-grossing film of 1988, winning many of the awards it was nominated for – including (unsurprisingly) the BAFTA and Oscar for Best Visual Effects and the Academy’s Special Achievement Award. With its extended metaphor about how society treats those who are ‘other’, it remains relevant today. So, in some respects the film may seem dated with its leering male gaze (in itself arguably satire), but in others it remains a trailblazer, meaning the unforgettable pairing of Bob Hoskins and a cartoon rabbit is still very much worth a watch.

Score: 19/24

Jurassic Park (1993)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Michael Crichton, David Koepp
Starring: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Ariana Richards, Joseph Mazzello, Wayne Knight, Samuel L. Jackson

Jurassic Park stomped onto the big screen thirty years ago and became an instant classic, loved by adults and children alike. It was the highest-grossing film of all time until Titanic cruised into the top spot four years later. Jurassic Park’s setting, humour, John Williams score, all-star cast, and larger-than-life characters made it an unforgettable story. One that boasts the rare accolade of being better than the book it’s based on.

John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) has built a wildlife park with a difference. Its inhabitants are bona fide dinosaurs. After an incident with a park ‘attraction’, Hammond needs the safety of the park verified. So, before its grand public opening, he invites respected experts in the field, Dr Alan Grant (Sam Neill), Dr Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Dr Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to have a look around. Oh, and his grandchildren naturally. Immediately, things go wrong. It turns out you can control a T-rex about as well as you can a hurricane.

Casting the much-beloved Richard Attenborough as John Hammond was an inspired choice. Hammond is a man seemingly passionate about furthering science and it’s easy to believe that this is his only goal when you look into the kind, open face of the iconic actor. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Hammond is obsessed rather than passionate, to the degree that he would risk his own grandchildren’s lives. He is a man so full of ego and the idea of his own legacy that he is blind to his failings.

The three experts, Drs Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm, are the driving force of the plot. Their childlike wonder reflecting our same reactions. Grant’s interactions with the children (Ariana Richards and Joseph Mazzello) is where a lot of the humour comes from, and Malcolm’s complete incredulity at what is happening is the injection of scepticism that pushes Hammond and the scientists into making more ridiculous decisions. Ellie Sattler is an icon. Whip smart, defending feminism, rocking sensible hiking boots, and willing to go elbow deep in triceratops turd in the pursuit of answers. An icon.

Jurassic Park is not a film about dinosaurs, it’s about these characters and what they come to represent thematically. It is a film about human hubris, about our species’ need to conquer and control. Then it is a film about resolve and humility in the face of mistake and human error. It is a film where nature’s awesome power wins as all the humans can do is retreat hastily into the sunset.

While the T-rex is a formidable foe, and the iconic logo of the franchise, the velociraptors are also worthy adversaries for this ensemble of plucky human characters. A herd of clever girls, if you will. The intrigue lay so heavily with these animals that it is the raptors who play major parts in four of the five subsequent films. Director Steven Spielberg and author Michael Crichton weren’t so interested in an accurate depiction of a velociraptor – Jurassic Park’s popularity means that the cultural version of them seems so much more likely than the feathery death turkeys they most probably were.

Given how iconic such creatures remain after three decades, it remains noteworthy to acknowledge how dinosaurs are only seen on screen for fourteen minutes of Jurassic Park’s runtime. This is a suspense-building technique that director Steven Spielberg perfected in Jaws. The dinos are always waiting just off screen, which adds a delicious level of anticipation and one hell of a punch when they do take centre stage. Furthering this impact is how the animatronics and CGI have aged just as well as the core message. Those one-hundred and thirteen dinosaur-free minutes also help the film adhere to the PG rating that allowed it to become a family favourite.

While Jurassic Park birthed some pretty terrible films, the original remains a must-see. It left a generation of viewers certain that they could explain chaos theory with a drip of water and confident that if they stood perfectly still, they would never be eaten by a T-rex*. In today’s climate when human action is causing catastrophic ripples through the natural world, and billionaires play fast and loose with the planet’s resources, there are many themes in Jurassic Park that continue to resonate as clearly as a metal ladle clanging on the tiled floor of a velociraptor-strewn kitchen.

Jurassic Park’s descendants lack the magic of the original, which is a cliché-avoiding, character-driven, genre-defining rampage. It is iconic moment after iconic moment.

Score: 24/24

*Tyrannosaurs actually had impeccable eyesight so official advice for bumping into a T-rex is to run. Fast.

Frances Ha (2012)
Director: Noah Baumbach
Screenwriters: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach
Starring: Greta Gerwig, Mickey Sumner, Adam Driver, Michael Zegen, Michael Esper, Charlotte d’Amboise, Grace Gummer

Frances Ha will strike differently in different seasons of life. A teenager might find the titular Frances (Greta Gerwig) insufferable. She does, to be fair, lament about being “poor” as she rockets around the streets of Manhattan, and she has a way of turning any situation into a story in which she is the main character. But, if you’ve suffered through your twenties, Frances Ha is gratingly relatable. 

Directed by Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story, White Noise), Frances Ha follows a group of 27-year-olds who fight to make meaning of their dead-end jobs, toxic friendships, and meandering relationships. Frances is an aspiring dancer who struggles to rise through the ranks of her company. What she lacks in talent, she makes up for in spirit. Throughout the film, we see Frances bounce between elated romps through New York City to depression days burrowed on the coach, worried about rent. 

Though released several years earlier, Frances Ha functions as the prelude and epilogue to Greta Gerwig’s solo debut as director, Lady Bird (2017). In Lady Bird, a spunky high schooler named Christine (dubbed Lady Bird by herself), wishes for nothing more than to make it to the mythical East Coast––“where writers live”, she explains to her mother. In Frances Ha, we are on the East Coast following a struggling Frances. While the city never loses its whimsy, there is a distinct shift in how the character (whom, like Lady Bird, we have come to understand represents Gerwig) sees her sense of place.

Frances does feel a sense of freedom in the city. One of the best moments of the film comes when Frances sprints through the streets of Chinatown, twirling, dancing, and screaming with glee while “Modern Love” by David Bowie blasts in the background. It is the kind of loaded, complicated joy that comes with your twenties. It is balancing the small victories with the friendship dramas, money problems, career failures, and moving troubles. Unlike Lady Bird, Frances is unable to leave her problems in Sacramento in favor of the clean, gleaming, fresh-start city.

If Lady Bird is a movie about strained maternal relationships and coming to terms with your hometown, Frances Ha is about leaving and learning to live independently. We watch Frances cling to her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) who is “just like [her] with different hair” despite their many growing pains. Though the two clearly love each other and might be soulmates, their vastly different goals and ambitions complicate their relationship. They fight, make up, move out, scream, and leave voicemails all in the span of eighty-five tight minutes. Sophie is a tether to the adult world for Frances. She is grounded and reasonable, and the two can always share a laugh and a beer at the end of the night.

One of the best things about Greta Gerwig’s (and, in this case, Baumbach’s) writing is the willingness to delve into the complexities of female relationships. The film explores the undercurrents of competitiveness and jealousy in Sophie and Frances’ friendship without ever compromising on the idea that the two are loving friends trying their best. We don’t hate Sophie even when Frances does, and we can’t help but to love Frances even when she makes yet another social faux pas.

The film holds up to modern standards in every way sparing one major drawback: its complete lack of racial diversity. Though entirely set in New York City, the world of Frances Ha revolves around a cast of white characters. While it might be interesting to dissect this social dynamic, the film fails to even mention the fact that every speaking character is white. In a community upturned by gentrification and displacement of its mostly black and brown residents, it feels tone-deaf to completely omit this major detail. 

Frances Ha does an excellent job of understanding the inner workings of its central character. It uses stunning cinematography to capture Manhattan in all of its edges, creases, and curves. Though it falls short in painting the social dynamics at play in the city, it is a poignant watch for anyone undergoing major construction in their personal or professional life. 

Score: 20/24

Recommended for you: Greta Gerwig: The Essential Collection

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1937)
Directors: Michael Curtiz, WIlliam Keighley
Screenwriters: Norman Reilly Raine, Seton I. Miller, Rowland Leigh
Starring: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains, Una O’Connor, Patric Knowles, Eugene Pallette, Alan Hale Sr., Melville Cooper, Ian Hunter, Herbert Mundin, Montagu Love

Before Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott played it as a gritty class uprising blockbuster, and every other attempt became grey and indistinct, Robin Hood films used to be fun. Incredibly, now 85 years old, The Adventures of Robin Hood was a crown jewel in the 1930s and remains impressive even today.

Sir Robin of Locksley (Errol Flynn) chooses the life of an outlaw, fighting on behalf of his Saxon brethren against oppression at the hands of the Norman nobility led by Prince John (Claude Rains) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne (Basil Rathbone). When the King of England, Richard the Lionheart (Ian Hunter), is captured returning from the Holy Land Crusades, John and his sycophantic supporters use their king’s captivity as a tenuous excuse to increase taxation and plan to crown him in his brother’s stead. Only Robin Hood and his gang of rebels in Nottingham stand to liberate all of England from tyranny.

This is one of the finest, most dazzling examples of filming in then-revolutionary three-strip Technicolor, using every camera the company had available over the course of their film shoot. Compare it to Errol Flynn and Michael Curtiz’s previous collaboration, the swashbuckling pirate adventure Captain Blood (1935), which has just as much dynamism in its fight scenes and probably just as much attention to period detail but doesn’t pop in quite the same way in black-and-white. The set dressing and costumes here are so eye-catching and more than justify the move to the new medium of colour film. The sheer ambition of building an accurate medieval Nottingham Castle as a full-scale set is mind-boggling in an age of CG-extensions, but it does add an invaluable tactility to the historical action.

Errol Flynn was a born star and a genuine Golden Age action hero but also a loose cannon, and his relationship with director Curtiz was famously volatile. His boisterous personality and old-fashioned, theatrical physicality was perfect to embody this kind of straight arrow (pun intended), brave and bold defender of the people. Modern audiences might struggle to keep a straight face with all the camp hands-on-hips chuckling and thigh-slapping that had since been spoofed affectionately and otherwise in such movies as Robin Hood: Men in Tights and Shrek, but it fits the slightly heightened reality of the film perfectly.

There really isn’t a weak link in the cast, from Flynn and Olivia de Havilland bringing no-acting-required chemistry to Robin and Marian’s romance to scene-stealer Una O’Connor as Marian’s protective lady in waiting Bess. Standing in for the baddies that we love to boo and hiss you get the casual cruelty of Claude Rains’ Prince John, the more cool and calculated malice of Basil Rathbone’s Guy of Gisbourne, and entertaining displays of corruption and cowardice from Montagu Love’s Bishop and Melville Cooper’s Sheriff of Nottingham.

As impressively mounted as the battles are and as memorable as many of the film’s images are, it’s easy to be caught off guard by just how funny this version of Robin Hood can be. Blockbusters before they were blockbusters (which this was, making back almost double its $2 million budget) aimed to please crowds with a bit of everything – excitement, romance, spectacle and plenty of humour. Robin verbally sparring with the nobility in addition to drawing his sword or releasing an arrow at them (“You speak treason” / “Fluently”) is a strategy deployed throughout, and in a particularly fun moment while escaping from his beloved Marian’s tower after a late night tryst, Robin debates for a while which of the guards in the courtyard below will best cushion his fall, in the end settling for the group standing in a circle talking. Having jokes and asides doesn’t cheapen your material, it merely keeps it from getting too monotonous.

The most iconic scene other than the archery contest featuring Robin beating an unbeatable shot by splitting an arrow down the middle (a feat actually achieved in-camera, but not by Flynn) is the climactic sword duel between man in green and the crafty Guy of Gisbourne (accomplished fencer Rathbone definitely had to dial down his skill level in the sword fights to make Flynn look better). Pretty much every movie sword fight since from The Princess Bride to the Star Wars Prequels has been chasing the speed, dexterity and character interplay shown here, their clash throwing exciting expressionist shadows against the castle walls, with the good guy showing chivalry by giving his opponent his sword back after a fall and the bad guy cheating to win.

This film’s take on this iconic character, especially Flynn’s performance, is so memorable that Robin Hood was voted the 18th greatest hero in Hollywood film by the AFI. And yes, it is this movie’s fault that we have confusingly sexy foxes courtesy of Disney’s animated remake with anthropomorphic animals that came along 40 years later.

We’re likely never going to see a production like this again. This was back when the only way to do an epic battle scene between hundreds was to have hundreds of costumed stuntmen (record-breaking at the time) acting out a complicated melee on screen, and the easiest way to have your hero release volleys of arrows at the baddies was to pay your extras wearing extra padding a bonus for each time they were actually hit by the professional archer employed on the film.

The Adventures of Robin Hood is rightly regarded as the definitive version of this centuries-old English folklore story, and in addition to timeless themes of fighting inequality through redistribution of wealth you get some fine performances, lush production design, thrilling sword fights, and (with Robin losing his arrow and some poor stuntman bracing himself for impact) one of the greatest sound effects of all time.

Score: 22/24

The Birds (1963)
Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Screenwriter: Evan Hunter
Starring: Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy, Suzanne Pleshette, Veronica Cartwright, Ethel Griffies, Charles McGraw, Ruth McDevitt, Lonny Chapman 

Memorably, in Back to the Future Part II, after a holographic advert for “Jaws 19” jumps out of a billboard at Marty McFly, he wryly quips “shark still looks fake!”. One of the most recurrent questions since so-called natural horror or creature feature films started being a thing in the mid-20th century has always been… does this matter? 60 years ago, hot on the heels of his smash-hit success Psycho, the Master of Suspense unleashed another unexpected horror upon the world, but how well does The Birds hold up to modern scrutiny?

Melanie Daniels’ (Tippi Hedren) spontaneous trip to a peaceful coastal town to come out on the right side of a practical joke instigated by charming lawyer Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) takes a far more life-threatening turn when the local residents are mysteriously attacked by the entire local population of birds. Inspired in equal parts by the Daphne du Maurier short story of the same title and a strange real-life incident involving sudden unprovoked seabird attacks from a few years before the film’s release, The Birds wisely avoids the temptation to provide a definitive explanation for what is going on and lets its unforgettable imagery speak for itself. 

The no-nonsense opening titles with bird silhouettes flying past the camera accompanied by a cacophony of noise prepares you for the two main aspects of filmmaking that the film revolutionised: the sound and the special effects designs. The proto-electronic instrument, the Mixtur-Trautonium, brought an uncanny eeriness to the shrieks of birds and created an all-encompassing soundscape that made a traditional score surplus to requirements, often coming across as far scarier than anything we are actually shown. 

Harmless caged domestic birds are contrasted with the birds acting threateningly in the skies outside early in the film, emphasising the power of the natural world that we humans can only fleetingly keep in check.

The bird attack scenes in which hundreds of birds appear to be flying around and pecking panicking people were created by Disney’s Ub Iwerks using the same sodium vapor “yellowscreen” process extensively utilised for more magical purposes in Mary Poppins (1964). Two separately filmed elements are exposed using a beam-splitter and the narrow colour spectrum allows for both layers to appear untarnished and relatively convincing by standards of the time. This is admittedly less the case when we pull out for a wide shot of the chaos in broad daylight, and the illusion still had to be completed with a combination of real birds on set and a menagerie of models and puppets.

This being Tippi Hedren’s screen debut really shows. She wears the hell out of a mint green suit and has an entertaining passive-aggressive flirtation with Rod Taylor, but her range beyond acting scared was limited at this stage in her career. She would go on to do much more interesting work in her next collaboration with Hitchcock, in psychological thriller Marnie, but she also stands in for many of the director’s unforgivably mistreated blonde leading ladies.

Jessica Tandy easily acts everyone else off the screen, giving her widow steely resilience and a painful history. The characters are for the most part a bit of a let-down, only working in the broadest of strokes, and that’s after Hitch asked his screenwriter, novelist Evan Hunter, for rewrites. Everyone gets just one unique character trait and 11-year-old Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) is hilariously made to sound like a hippie student (“Aw mom, I know all that democracy jazz!”).

The more potentially interesting moments of characterisation are likely unintended and only show up when viewing the film through specific critical frameworks, like the fact that no matter what feelings she voices regarding Mitch there is a bit of a flirtatious lesbian atmosphere between Melanie and schoolteacher Annie (Suzanne Pleshette).

Sooner or later this kind of movie needs an expert to come in and explain it all and that role falls to local ornithologist Mrs Bundy (Ethel Griffies): “Birds have been on this planet since archaeopteryx, 140 million years ago. Doesn’t it seem odd that they’d wait all that time to start a war against humanity?”. Ultimately she’s not a lot of help to the group, but she has a valiant attempt at rationalising the chaos whilst gesturing with her cigarette for effect.

The Birds was made in an era when (at least in a film) everyone left their doors unlocked and a stranger could ask in a corner shop for someone’s exact address or a teacher for a child’s name and for some reason nobody would call the police. Having said this, Hitchcock famously dismissed any such logical criticisms of his plots or why his film’s characters don’t do things that most of us would, commenting “because it’s dull”.

There’s a long build with not a lot happening in this film before all feathery hell breaks loose at the halfway point. A series of tense set pieces with the survivors running from cover to cover and trying to fortify their positions against attacks may well have influenced the standard structure of the zombie movies that would become horror’s most popular sub-genre in the following decades. Like even the early Dead films, The Birds is fairly bloody and brutal for a film of the time, with the bird attacks and their aftermath resulting in pecked up and mutilated bodies and no small amount of trauma for the those lucky enough to come away with everything intact. Any hope of a happy ending is also left fairly ambiguous at Hitch’s request. 

The Birds has a lot going for it, with Hitchcock’s effortless mastery of maintaining suspense and pacing the story for maximum impact. The screenplay is serviceable enough, but the characters are paper-thin and your overall enjoyment might largely depend on your response to special effects that look more striking than 100% convincing, though never as terrible as shonky reimaginings like Birdemic might have you believe. 

Score: 17/24

Juno (2007)
Director: Jason Reitman
Screenwriter: Diablo Cody
Starring: Elliot Page, Michael Cera, J.K. Simmons, Allison Janney, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, Olivia Thirlby

As Juno reaches the ripe old age of fifteen, it seems a fitting time to review the coming-of-age teen dramady. With so many of the genre’s well-trodden tropes, this movie is an indie film fan’s winning bingo card. From the animated title sequence to the gawky teens who are impossibly smart and more put together than any of the adults they interact with, or the constant nodding to achingly cool bands, a year split into seasons, and dealing with serious themes using sarcasm and humour, it’s a full house!

The opener sees Juno (Elliot Page) chugging a bottle of Sunny D so big it has its own gravitational pull. With the line ‘so what’s the prognosis, Fertile Myrtle? Minus or plus?’ the scene is set. Juno’s pregnant, ‘forshizz up the spout’. And she makes it very clear that she will be dealing with this by herself… or so she thinks. Though her desperation is clearly shown as she makes a noose out of candy before stepping inside to her chaotic and loving home to tell her parents the big news.

From the synopsis and the poster, (and even the first paragraph of this review), you’d be forgiven for mistaking that Juno is a film about teen pregnancy, and while that is a pretty sizable Bretton-stripe-clad motif, it’s not where the real story is.

Obviously, the people in Juno’s life are shocked, but there isn’t actually much judgement thrown at her, not from those who matter anyway. This is not an issues movie. By removing any real external conflict surrounding the pregnancy, Cody’s screenplay allows Juno’s internal conflict to drive the story. So yes, there is a pregnancy, but this film is about growing up too fast, acceptance, and the realisation that grown ups haven’t got a clue what they’re doing either. But at its heart, Juno is a love story.

The platonic love is covered by Leah (Olivia Thirlby), the best friend everyone needs – a girl obsessed with her maths teacher and cheerleading but who holds Juno’s hand every step of the way. And romantic love? That’s served in bucketloads by Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), who is a gem. When he shyly asks ‘what should we do?’ after receiving Juno’s news, it’s clear that he cares about her and wants to share the responsibility for what’s happened. The two of them are perfect for each other. For some, no grand romantic gesture will beat the boom box in the air, the car flying off into the clouds, the library in the enchanted castle. But it’s hard to find a sweeter moment in any film than Paulie spooning a hormonal, weeping Juno as she processes everything that has happened, his trainers muddy from running to the hospital. All comfort, no expectation. Beautiful.

While J.K. Simmons gives a sterling comic performance as Juno’s dad, it’s really all about the moms. Juno herself, a mother in biological terms only, is the embodiment of the rage and worry and self-doubt that comes with parenthood (and being a teenager). Her stepmom Bren, played by the incredible Allison Janney, is funny and fierce and loves Juno for what she is – her takedown of the ultrasound technician is one of the film’s highlights. She is a breath of fresh air amongst the angst and hormones. Jennifer Garner’s Vanessa, ‘desperately seeking spawn’, is slightly one-dimensional in her obsessive pursuit of motherhood and perfection. She is a stark contrast to Jason Bateman, who is undeniably the villain of the piece as Mark Loring, Vanessa’s reluctant husband. Ironically, he is stuck in arrested development as he reminisces about his 90s band and his life in Chicago. He doesn’t want a woman who pushes him or expects anything from him. Juno idolises him because he is so unlike all the other adults in her life, and he is delighted by this adulation. Mark’s disregard of boundaries is a moment of jeopardy in an otherwise wholesome film.

Juno is funny, smart, and wholesome without being saccharine. The larger-than-life characters aren’t like real people, not really, they’re amplified versions of real people. And that’s what makes the film great, these bordering-on-unbelievable characters tackling a difficult situation and all emerging triumphant at the end – apart from Mark, but no one cares about him.

Well received by audiences and critics, Juno went down in the record books. It has aged well and remains funny. The hamburger phone, gold track shorts, and protruding stripy bump are iconic and feel as fresh as they did when they came out kicking and screaming in 2007.

Score: 22/24

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Written by Martha Lane

You can support Martha Lane on Twitter – @poor_and_clean

Aladdin (1992)
Directors: John Musker, Ron Clements
Screenwriters: John Musker, Ron Clements, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Starring: Scott Weinger, Robin Williams, Linda Larkin, Jonathan Freeman, Frank Welker, Gilbert Gottfried, Douglas Seale, Jim Cummings

After they successfully revitalised Disney’s animation department with The Little Mermaid in 1989, directing team John Musker and Ron Clements turned their attention to a new musical inspired by ‘One Thousand and One Nights’, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled over centuries and first printed in Arabic in the 18th century. Given the title Aladdin after a later story addition to what became known in English as ‘Arabian Nights’, and built largely around a showstopping vocal turn from Robin Williams, the film became a firm favourite among Disney’s 1990s “Renaissance” output and 30 years later still offers much to enjoy.

We follow the titular orphaned “street rat” (Scott Weinger) stealing to survive on the streets of Agrabah until the day he falls for the Princess Jasmine (Linda Larkin) who is running from her impending royal marriage obligations. After being jailed by the Sultan’s guards, Aladdin is offered his freedom and the chance to claim untold riches when the scheming royal vizier Jafar (Jonathan Freeman) recruits him to retrieve a magic lamp from the mysterious Cave of Wonders, freeing a wish-granting Genie (Robin Williams) in the process.

Much like the wizard Merlin from 1963’s The Sword in the Stone, because he’s a magical being the Genie is not tied to the time and place in which he currently finds himself. Because of this, Robin Williams could improv and anachronistically reference contemporary popular culture to his heart’s content and hope the Genie’s animators could keep up with at least some of it. This is one of the first examples where the animation was largely completed after, and to match, an actor’s vocal performance and body language; a much more common practice today with recognisable film and TV actors lending their voices to animated characters rather than making use of chameleonic career voice actors.

Rapid-fire impressions to be found among Williams’ relentless stream of consciousness include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro, Arsenio Hall and Peter Lorre, but as always with his stand-up routines you can still pick up a joke you missed on every re-watch.

Williams also had a decent set of singing pipes on him and so each of the musical numbers sung by the Genie (the two no holds barred extravaganzas “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali”) are far more memorable and purely enjoyable than all the rest. Incredibly it was “A Whole New World” that won Best Original Song at the 1993 Oscars and not “Friend Like Me” (both were nominated) despite the former immediately making you think of bad karaoke duets. Alan Menken and Howard Ashman were a dream musical team for Disney right up to Ashman’s death during production, his lyricist duties taken over by Tim Rice and sadly losing some sharp wit along the way.

The rest of the vocal talent are consistently good, together with their talented animators all adding colour and extra layers to their broad characters. Freeman as Jafar particularly delights in his despicable pantomime performance as one of Disney’s great love-to-hate villains who goes from a subtle schemer to a far more physical threat as the story progresses and Jafar’s powers as a sorcerer rapidly increase. He’s paired well with Gilbert Gottfried as his irritable parrot sidekick/foil Iago, their plotting and squabbling providing some of the film’s biggest laughs. You’ve got to tip your hat to the endlessly versatile Frank Welker too, who voiced Raja the tiger, Abu the monkey and Abu the monkey-as-an-elephant.

Aladdin himself makes for a likeable protagonist on the go-to journey of Disney heroes in the 1990s, discovering the value of being yourself. His tough life on the streets makes it understandable why he’d see the wealth and status of his new alter ego Prince Ali as the secret to happiness, but it’s disappointing that the writers didn’t give Jasmine more credit to see right through him given that she witnesses first-hand how at home he is on the streets during her jaunt outside the confines of the palace. While the Princess is not the most active driver of action here, at least her arc didn’t feel as forced as the over-corrective efforts made in the 2019 Aladdin remake. 

Like any Disney film made decades ago and set in another culture, any kind of deep analysis simply can’t ignore the at best lazy, at worst outright racist stereotypes on show. Williams voicing the fast-talking, shady peddler at the beginning is bad enough, but there’s plenty of orientalist othering and gross generalisations about Arab and Muslim cultures going on throughout the film as well, as beautifully as this world is admittedly realised in animation. 

Considering he’s so much a part of what makes the film a success, it also leaves a bad taste in the mouth that Williams had an integrity that Disney tried to exploit through merchandising, which he took rather personally. He therefore only voiced this iconic character twice in his many multimedia appearances, the other time being in the second direct-to-video sequel, King of Thieves.

For all its dazzling animation and fun knockabout tone, Aladdin is a film truly made by the earnest friendship at its heart. Genie and Al are thrown together by circumstance, and both have their own dreams and hurdles to overcome. At first, the Genie is a means to an end, a magic-my-life-better solution for Aladdin, but their relationship quickly grows into a bromance, the Genie taken pleasantly by surprise by when he is summoned not by another uncaring master but a decent guy who asks him what he really wants after millennia. You love and care for all these characters, plus there’s no shortage of animated movie magic to help you forgive the film’s shortcomings. 

Score: 17/24

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