BEFORE: OK, I'm deep into kiddie movie territory now - this one's been out on the Netflix since last Christmas, but of course, for me that's the WORST time for a movie to come out, because by then my whole Movie Year is over, and it's too late to work anything in. My wife watched this on Netflix months ago, but it took me THIS long to get to it. I'd seen all the movies on my list with Matthew McConaughey and Scarlett Johansson in them, so honestly I had a better chance of linking to this one through Peter Serafinowicz or Nick Offerman - or I could have come there through Bono from some documentary, but that wouldn't feel right.
Well, better late than never. Bobby Cannavale carries over from "Tom & Jerry".
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Sing" (Movie #2,679)
THE PLOT: Buster Moon and his friends must persuade reclusive rock star Clay Calloway to join them for the opening of a new show.
AFTER: Well, damn, there are moments of greatness here, the film overall seems really well put together, but that could be a lingering effect of watching it after "Tom & Jerry", which was terrible. "Sing 2" may just look great by comparison, I'm not sure. I think I like the original "Sing" film better, but through a weird quirk, I may end up scoring THIS sequel better than the original. That's because I wasn't sure about "Sing" the first time I watched it, and it got better with a second viewing, also watching it with my wife the second time helped, because she really took to it. So I don't know, maybe I need to watch "Sing 2" a second time with her before I really can judge it well.
Hey, at least this takes place in a world where there are no humans, that would just be really weird, if all the animals were cartoon characters and all the humans were real, flesh and blood live-action. Like, WHY? And also, HOW? What the HELL were the makers of "Tom & Jerry" even thinking? The "Sing" world is like the "Zootopia" world, it's filled with animals of all different species dressing and acting like humans, and by comparison, that's not weird at all! Just kidding, it's totally freakin' weird if you overthink it, like I tend to do.
But what was really great about the original "Sing" movie was that many of the characters had real singing ability, but they also had personal problems that they had to overcome, like stage fright, or being in your father's gorilla gang, or having to babysit a bunch of piglets and still get to the audition on time. And if you notice, these animals all tend to date their own species, I'm sure there was a writer's meeting about this over at Illumination, because the pig is married to a pig, the porcupine dated a porcupine in the last film, and here in the sequel an elephant falls in love with an elephant, and a lion mourns his late wife, who's a lioness. There's not a lot of inter-species romance here, it seems kind of forbidden, and it kind of makes parts of the film look a bit like a metaphorical Noah's Ark, it's all two-by-two if you overthink it, like I tend to do. (There's not any LGBTQ representation either, but that probably merits a separate meeting. One might argue there's not much LGBTQ representation in the real-life animal world, unless you count those gay zoo penguins and that goose that lived in a committed three-way for a couple decades. You know, I really wish I were joking about this.)
But let's put that aside - if Disney can have gay characters in "Cruella" and "Thor: Love & Thunder", then maybe Illumination will follow suit in "Sing 3", and yeah, there's probably going to be a "Sing 3", bigger and better and with more animal species represented. Some characters from the first film didn't make it to the second film, the voices of Seth McFarlane as the Sinatra-like mouse and John C. Reilly as the slacker sheep are M.I.A., and so is Jennifer Hudson as the young Nana, but she appeared only in flashbacks, so it makes sense. I don't know if these actors just weren't available or if the story outgrew them, it's tough to say. But as Buster Moon and his band of no-longer-amateur singers tries to get an audition in Redstone City with Mr. Crystal, it feels like once again, Buster keeps reaching for the stars and his optimism keeps winning out over his self-doubt.
But since these singers are no longer amateurs, the film had to throw a bunch of new roadblocks in their way, like Rosita suddenly develops a fear of heights, which would only be a problem if she had to do rope-work in the new musical, so guess what. And Johnny the gorilla suddenly has to dance as well as sing, and he just doesn't have the moves. And Meena the elephant has to do a love scene on stage, but has never been kissed or felt love before - although there is suddenly an elephant ice-cream vendor she has her eye on, so the solution to this problem seems to be RIGHT THERE, doesn't it? But these all feel like manufactured problems that are just there because we're going to feel SO GOOD when they work themselves out - Johnny finds a street cat with real dance moves to teach him, but since he's a gorilla and she's a cat, well, they can only be friends, right? Don't date outside your species...
And the way that this aging recluse rock star gets dropped into the audition conversation seems very clunky, like was this really the BEST way to introduce this plot point, all awkward-like? But of course they somehow manage to find this star's secret address, and convince him to come perform again, even though he's been crippled with grief for 15 years. This actually turned out to be the best moment in the film, all of the other U2 songs they used didn't really work, like is "Where the Streets Have No Name" really about outer space? I don't think so... But using "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" works well on so many different levels - a personal one for Clay Calloway, and also the other characters in the space musical are searching for him on various planets. They borrowed quite a bit from the version of the song that appears on "Rattle & Hum", the version with the gospel choir and the audience sing-along. But I absolutely love that version, so I'm going to allow it.
(I had a very vivid dream, about a year ago, that I was watching "The Masked Singer", and there was a polar bear character who sang "She Blinded Me With Science" and was really Bono in disguise. The show's coming back on in a week, so I just wanted to get that in print once again - if this happens in real life on the show then it would be very freaky, but also it would prove I have the power of prophecy.)
But some stuff here is also very corny - Bobby Cannavale's producer character, Mr. Crystal, is a wolf, both in character and in temperament, but isn't it time to dispel the stereotype of producers being evil and ruthless? Just me? Also the "we have to cast the producer's daughter, who has no acting ability, or we'll lose our financial backing" bit, hasn't that been done to death?
I may not have known all of the songs here, like the Shawn Mendes song (who is he?) but at least I knew "Can't Feel My Face" and "Girl on Fire" and even "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish. I should get some points for being over 50 and still knowing those songs, right? And since I now watch movies with subtitles whenever possible, because I have a hearing aid, I got to see the lyrics to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" in print for the first time, and they really don't make a lot of sense. Look, I get that we don't want the elevator to bring us down, that's fine, but what's all this about a purple banana? "Let's look for the purple banana before they put us in the truck"? WTF does that even mean? I guess it's too late to ask Prince now...
Also starring Matthew McConaughey (last seen in "Robert Klein Still Can't Stop His Leg"), Reese Witherspoon (last seen in "Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde"), Scarlett Johansson (last seen in "Black Widow"), Taron Egerton (last seen in "Rocketman"), Tori Kelly (last heard in "Sing"), Nick Kroll (last seen in "How It Ends"), Pharrell Williams (last heard in "The Grinch"), Halsey (last heard in "Teen Titans GO! to the Movies"), Chelsea Peretti (last seen in "Game Night"), Letitia Wright (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Eric André (last seen in "The Amazing Johnathan Documentary"), Adam Buxton (last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Garth Jennings (last heard in "The Secret Life of Pets 2"), Peter Serafinowicz (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 2"), Jennifer Saunders (last seen in "Isn't It Romantic"), Nick Offerman (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Bono (last seen in "New Wave: Dare to Be Different"), Julia Davis (last seen in "Phantom Thread"), Spike Jonze (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), Asher Blinkoff (last heard in "Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation"), George Griffiths, with cameos from Wes Anderson, Chris Renaud (last heard in "The Secret Life of Pets 2"), Tara Strong (ditto), Elizabeth Daily (last seen in "Streets of Fire"), Jason Schwartzman (also last seen in "The Sparks Brothers"), Edgar Wright (ditto), Fisher Stevens (last seen in "The French Dispatch"), Debra Wilson (last heard in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker")
RATING: 7 out of 10 paintballs
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