BEFORE: John Leguizamo carries over from "Gamer", and this is a big shift, I realize, from an action-based movie over to animation. But I've been falling behind in this category, and there's a chance for me to catch up with the chain I've devised. I can start with this film, which just won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature of 2021, and next week I can work in two more of the nominees. If I stick to the plan, by the end of May I will have watched four out of the five (one's a real bitch to link to, so it's out) and I've got a couple non-nominated animated films to work into the mix as well. Here's to catching up.
Like, I doubt even John Leguizamo himself would watch "Gamer", then follow it up with "Encanto", that's how different they are. Then again, maybe he would, I don't know. Hispanic Heritage Month doesn't start until September, apparently, but here at the Movie Year, it's going to be Hispanic-American Appreciation week - well, OK, half-week. But it'll definitely be a half-week with some Latin flair, leading up to Easter. Today, April 14, is Pan-American Day, which commemorates the founding of the International Conference of American States, so there's that.
THE PLOT: A Colombian teenage girl has to face the frustration of being the only member of her family without magical powers.
AFTER: OK, I'll admit I was skeptical about this one, before it won the Oscar, anyway - like, how great could it be? And we already had "The Book of Life" and "Coco", so do we really need another Latino-based animated film for kids? Well, of course I don't want to sound racist, so I have to fall back on thinking that if the market is there for another one, then, sure, by all means. Maybe there's more to Hispanic culture than just the Day of the Dead, after all, since both previous Latin-o-mation films centered on that same idea. So of course I'm going to try to give this one a fair shot, it's earned at least that.
AND, it turns out that it's very, very entertaining. There are all kinds of thrilling, magical things that take place, there's a wider look at the culture of South America beyond the food (though, there is food-stuff here, too) - there simply must be more to a culture than rice and beans, after all. I've been to Colombia - Cartagena, while on a cruise in 2013. I can't say that we really got a wide look at the culture, I think we visited an old Spanish fort and a large church, saw a bunch of street art and then passed by a Biblioteca, which just called to mind all those Spanish classes in junior high that I didn't take. Meanwhile, the only Spanish my wife knows, besides the word for "shoestore" is this sentence: "My fishing gear is in the kitchen." You probably won't be surprised to learn that the need for this phrase rarely comes around - so far, once.
But there's a lot to like about "Encanto", it's so charming, yet also insightful into the very complex dynamics of an extended family, like how the grandmother (abuela) runs everything, and is respected by all but also could be seen as strict and overbearing by the younger ones. And there's an impetus for everybody to be just so, the pretty one is made to feel like she can't be anything but perfect, and that's just too much pressure to put on anyone. The strong one, Luisa, also feels the pressure to keep working hard for the benefit of the family and the community, and that's also too much pressure, it turns out. Then there's Bruno, who's conspicuously absent, but everybody keeps talking about how they don't talk about him, which is something of a contradiction.
Of course, it's a giant, (mostly-)happy blended and multi-culti family, which Disney Corp will tell you is a very forward and inclusive way to make a film, and the fact that the more races you put in a film only increases its market potential is just a giant coincidence. Yes, it would take a very cynical person indeed to look at this film and just see how a mix of Latino characters, plus a few Caucasians, plus a few people of African descent, would be able to make money in so many different market sectors and foreign countries. Jeez, I would hate to be THAT guy.
Oh, I almost forgot, nearly the whole family has super-powers. Sorry, "gifts", magical "gifts". Any resemblance to a team of superheroes is also quite coincidental, only it isn't. Disney/Pixar has pulled this trick before, when they copied most of the Fantastic Four's powers (gifts) and re-assigned them to The Incredibles, only gender-switching some of them so you might not notice. Strength, invisibility, super-stretchiness, and...well, the super-speed was a twist. But if it were one-for-one then everybody would notice, not just me. So when Jack-Jack got multiple powers, but one of them was for sure the ability to control fire, well, I wasn't really surprised at all, the Human Torch's powers were the only ones missing. I need to double-check the timeline, but I'm still convinced that Disney bought Marvel Comics just to squash a potential lawsuit.
And, they're at it again - so many of the super-powers (sorry, GIFTS) displayed by the Madrigal family felt so familiar, that I couldn't help but think of the X-Men. Again, it's not one-for-one, like nobody has Wolverine's claws or Cyclops' eye-beams, but there are a LOT of X-Men out there. Luisa has super-strength, like Colossus, Pepa's moods affect the weather, like Storm, Camilo can shape-shift, just like Mystique, and that uncle that they don't talk about has precognition powers, notably seen in Destiny (an X-villain) and others. I get it, there are only so many different super-powers out there, and repeats are inevitable at some point. And to be fair, one Madrigal has super-hearing, and I don't know any X-Men with that power, and another can talk to animals, there's probably an X-Man out there who can do this, but nobody's coming to mind.
But they live in a magical house, (and it's a bit unclear if the house gives them the gifts, or vice versa) which of course reminds me of the X-Mansion, aka the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Students. The Madrigal house is basically alive, always growing and changing, which seems like a combination of the Danger Room from the old X-Mansion, and the mutant island of Krakoa, which is where they currently reside. The island is alive, can do just about anything, and was the featured villain way back in Giant-Size X-Men #1, but they've since learned that the island is itself a mutant, and makes a great place to live outside of the human civilization.
So yeah, a lot of this feels familiar to me because I've spent so much time reading the X-Men comics, and coming to terms with life at the X-Mansion. But the central character here is Maribel, who never received a special gift from the house, and doesn't feel like she fits in with the rest of the family. There are several possibilities for WHY she has no gift, it could be that normal humans (muggles?) marrying into the family is diluting the genetic code, making the gifts impossible for some. It may be that the tension between Maribel and her grandmother has a lot to do with it, again we don't know for sure if the gifts are coming from the house or the grandmother. And it's possible that Bruno's disappearance from the family has something to do with this little mystery, but that's all for Maribel to find out on her personal journey.
The songs from Lin-Manuel Miranda also go a long way toward making this film more than just an X-Men rip-off. They're so good that they played TWO of them during the recent Oscar show, and one of those wasn't even nominated for Best Song! In a year, no less, where they were trying to cut down on the show's time! (Umm, yeah, my tip would be, only stick to the five nominated songs...). I've been "Hamilton"-adjacent on every car trip for several years now, and my wife and I did get to see the show just a couple months before lockdown began in 2020. He's been on quite a roll since then, and in fact he's all over the next few films. Sorry if you were expecting "West Side Story" during Hispanic Appreciation Half-week, it's nearly all Miranda-based. So I'll have more to say about LMM this week, including how I got in the same room as him a couple months back. He's not in "Encanto" as a voiced character, but I've still got my linking covered for the next few days.
Also starring the voices of Stephanie Beatriz (last heard in "The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part"), Maria Cecilia Botero, Mauro Castillo, Jessica Darrow, Angie Cepeda, Carolina Gaitan, Diane Guerrero, Wilmer Valderrama (last heard in "Onward"), Rhenzy Feliz, Ravi Cabot-Conyers (last seen in "Ode to Joy"), Adassa, Maluma, Rose Portillo, Noemi Josefina Flores, Juan Castano (last seen in "The Wilde Wedding"), Sarah-Nicole Robles, Hector Elias (last seen in "Envy"), Alan Tudyk (last seen in "Death at a Funeral" (2007)), Olga Merediz (last seen in "One for the Money"), Jorge E. Ruiz Cano, Alyssa Bella Candiani, Paisley Herrera, Brooklyn Skylar Rodriguez, Ezra Rudulph,
RATING: 7 out of 10 dancing donkeys
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