Did the world need another Toy Story? No. Did Pixar’s original trilogy not feel perfect? Yes. But only because it was perfect. The perfect beginning, muddle and definitive end. Definitive. What’s more, surely the only thing rarer than a trilogy without a misstep is a quartet that never once drops the ball. Curiously, Toy Story 4 doesn’t drop the ball but still doesn’t succeed in self-justification. At least, not entirely Gloriously animated, richly constructed and brilliantly witty, there’s no denying the film is a charmer and cross-generational hit. It’s a tricky one though. For all the successes here, questions of necessity loom large over all, perhaps leading to a singular conclusion.
Such is the dominance of superhero cinema in twenty-first century Hollywood – over a decade on from Iron Man and we’re clearly beyond phase territory – the genre has begun to spawn. Now, alongside bravura three act, computer generated blockbusters, we have black and white westerns, space operas and coming of age school flicks all under the bruce banner. Joining these offshoot quasi-comic book features, Brightburn subverts expectations with influence from the dark bite of horror. A smart move, given that genres parallel mainstream resurgence in recent years. In execution, Brightburn never quite achieves the potential of this promised fusion but does enough to just about equal the sum of its parts.
The pervading suspicion surrounding X-Men: Dark Phoenix, twelfth in the X-franchise and last under an independent Fox, is that all involved have essentially given up. A fractured narrative is held together by the film’s dourly immersive tone but, while scattered set pieces amaze, a lack of cast conviction belies a disinterest behind the lens. As potentially the last time Fassbender and McAvoy and co. will carry their roles, this isn’t what you would call going out with a bang.
The Film Blog 