Nobody 2

A formulaic but decently entertaining action film.

Nobody 2 is a polished and well-choreographed action film. That’s fine, but I found it to be the same movie as the first Nobody, which I already couldn’t love because it seemed to borrow so heavily from John Wick and Taken. The only difference is that the protagonist is on vacation this time, and his family is thrown into the primary conflict.

The star, Bob Odenkirk, looked tired and bored to me. I was surprised that some critics felt that he carried the film. I thought he looked like he was collecting a paycheck, or getting over a hangover.

The fight sequences are fun and wildly inventive enough to distinguish this from straight-to-streaming action movies. The climax is rife with death and carnage that seemed carefully and deftly mapped out. It’s impressive that the filmmakers took so much time to film the story’s carnage with such precision and creativity, but I wish they took that same effort to make a refreshing narrative.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen this movie before, in spite of some good action. The plot of a seemingly ordinary guy living a double life as an assassin just felt tired to me. And I’d seen it done better in the John Wick movies.

Still, there are worse ways to spend two hours on a Saturday afternoon.

5/10

The Boy and the Heron

The Boy and the Heron is billed as Miyazaki’s final film. If it truly is it’s a great way to go out.

The film is equal parts autobiography and fantasy. A Japanese boy loses his mother during World War 2 in Japan, and moves with his father to a more rural part of the country, to live with his aunt, who is now pregnant with his soon-to-be half-sister (I hope I got that right).

A talking heron torments the boy and the aunt goes missing (did the heron take her away?). The boy wanders to a mysterious abandoned tower and into another world that seems to be a blend of living and dead souls. Is it the afterlife? Another dimension? The heron claims his mother is alive, and she resides within this world.

Some incredible sequences and visually arresting animation ensue, and the fate of several worlds is at stake.

Miyazaki is obviously a master storyteller and in my opinion, this is his best film since Spirited Away. It’s a film about life, loss, and ultimately a meditation on death. Plenty of Hollywood stars voice the characters, including Christian Bale as the boy’s father.

Narratively the final act felt like an exercise in surrealism, and I was okay with that because I was so engrossed in what I was watching.

I’ll never look at a parakeet the same way again after this movie.

9/10