Home Video Picks & Passes 07.19.20
Good vs. evil is the subject of a ‘pick.’
Megamind (2010) — PICK
Wolf (1994) — PICK
Along with the first Despicable Me, DreamWorks Animation’s Megamind, starring Will Ferrell, Brad Pitt and Tina Fey, is a pretty good exemplar of the “villaincentricity” trend in Hollywood family films a few years back. (Skip the Hotel Transylvania, Minions and Maleficent movies.)
Riffing on the Superman mythos, Megamind opens with two rocket ships bearing two infants from dying planets to Earth.
One becomes the heroic Metro Man; the other becomes the villainous Megamind. Are they destined to battle each other forever?
Perhaps not — but if he isn’t battling Metro Man, what is Megamind’s purpose in life? The cartoon recognizes that evil exists only in relation to goodness and that goodness must rise up to oppose evil.
There has never been a very good werewolf film, but Mike Nichols’ horror-comedy Wolf (new on Blu-Ray), starring Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer, is a pretty good one.
Nicholson plays a weary New York editor who doesn’t just turn into a wolf after being bitten one night — he finds his personality affected and his humanity ebbing away.
It’s as much about office politics and marital troubles as it is curses and transformations, and it doesn’t all work, but Nicholson’s complex performance makes it worth watching.
CAVEAT SPECTATOR: Megamind: Animated action violence; a few rude phrases. Kids and up. Wolf: Brief intense violence; implied nonmarital affairs; some harsh language. Adults.
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