This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.
It can be difficult to balance tone when setting a comedy inside a warzone.
That difficulty only increases when setting that comedy in the aftermath of the United States invasion of Afghanistan. America’s military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan remains a defining moment in twenty-first century history; although the Obama administration might have worked hard to reduce commitment to the region, the conflicts remain divisive and controversial. As such, setting a comedy drama against the backdrop of the Afghan conflict is a dicey proposition.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot struggles to pitch itself at the right tone, unsure whether it is an absurdist comedy about the excesses of modern war or a character study of what it must be like to live in such an environment or whether it is a more mature reflection on life during wartime. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot tries to have the best of all possible world, which leaves the film bouncing between extremes. There are moments of irreverent irony followed by earnest sincerity. The movie alternates between bitter cynicism and saccharine optimism.
The result is a movie that feels uneven and unfocused, tonally lost and wildly variable. And not in a way that reflects the conflict unfolding in the background.
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, non-review review, review, whiskey tango foxtrot | 2 Comments »
the m0vie blog 
Non-Review Review: Zootropolis (aka Zootopia)
This film was seen as part of the Audi Dublin International Film Festival 2016.
Zootropolis is a solidly entertaining family film that strains under the weight of its core premise.
There is a great idea in here, a detective film set in an anthropomorphised world featuring a rabbit and fox who must team up to solve a number of mysterious disappearances. Along the way, writers Jared Bush and Phil Johnston fashion the story into an allegory rich with social commentary about race and class issues in American cities. It helps that the script is light on its feet and packed with enough fast gags that it breezes along without ever getting stuck in the same place for too long.
However, this becomes a problem in and of itself. There is a sense that Zootropolis struggles to do too much in the space afforded to it. The plot covers quite a lot of ground as our plucky heroes embark on their investigation, including extended (and overt) riffs on pop culture standards like The Godfather and Breaking Bad. There are points at which it feels like Zootropolis might be a much stronger film if it slowed down a bit, instead of hopping from one set-up to the next in the style of its rabbit protagonist.
Zootropolis largely works, but it never comes together in the way that the best Disney outings do. There are points at which Zootropolis feels more like a turducken than a chimera.
Continue reading →
Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: adiff, adiff 16, allegory, animated, anthropomorphic, commentary, disney, non-review review, racism, review, zootopia, zootropolis | 4 Comments »