My Grand Unified Theory Of 'Wicked,' 'Gladiator II' and 'Moana 2'
#299: "Wicked" (again!), "Gladiator 2," "Moana 2"
Edition 299:
Hey movie lovers!
This week: A sort of existential rant about the state of the movies, with three movies doing big numbers at the box office. Then we’ll talk Gladiator II and Moana 2 more specifically. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” what would you do if you got stranded…at the bottom of the ocean.
Wicked
Coming off the highest-grossing domestic box office Thanksgiving weekend of all time, with three simultaneous hits in Moana 2, Wicked and Gladiator II all competing for cultural relevance, it’s quite easy to convince oneself that “movies are so back!”
That should make me — the biggest movie fan you know — jump for joy. Yet I’ve been stopped in my tracks by how people have responded to Wicked (and to a lesser extent Gladiator). Not that they are the first movies I think are varying degrees of bad to become popular or even loved (ehem, Marvel) but, upon expressing my cynicism toward Wicked as a garden variety corporate cash-grab two weeks ago in this newsletter, I heard from so many people who were shocked, even offended by that take. How could that be if they cried their eyes out, loved it, can’t wait to see it again?!
So did I just miss the point? Am I just a pretentious grouch?
I’ve been doing a bit of soul-searching on the topic, and I think this particular pop culture moment really clarifies the complete disconnect that now exists in the movie landscape.
One newsletter reader summarized it well in an email to me in a passionate defense of Wicked:
“I think movies exist for different reasons. As much as I agree with you on the ridiculous spectacle that is the Marvel universe, I also have to give these movies [like Wicked] credit because they are doing exactly what they set out to: cater to fans and have fun. I think that’s ok. Not every movie has to make us think and leave feeling some deep sense of purpose/emotion.”
Well said! And I agree, not every movie needs to be challenging or profound, nor are those qualities automatically a signal of quality (my No. 1 movies for the past three years are Conclave, Across The Spider-Verse and Everything Everywhere All At Once, all broad appeal popcorn flicks…though I’d argue all three had some depth).
Still, I fundamentally disagree with the idea of changing or lowering one’s standards for what makes a good movie simply because a movie is, by this logic’s own admission, not primarily trying to be good.
Of course, “good” is subjective. For those people who go to the movies only to be affirmed (echoing and amplifying the things they believe) and/or serviced (giving them exactly what their fandom desires), it may seem ridiculous to discount an experience as wholly joyous as Wicked. Female friendship, girl power, believing in oneself, ignoring the haters, standing up to prejudice, and three or four absolute show-stopping songs (one for our OG queens Idina and Kristin, go off!) is more than enough to walk out of the theater satisfied.
However, anyone who watches enough movies to understand the breadth of a given year’s offerings can instantly identify the difference between a quote-unquote “real” movie and these two-hour (plus!) movie-shaped objects.
To that point…Wicked was created as a 2hr45min stage musical and is now being stretched into five hours of movie-shaped….thing. Moana 2 was conceived and written as a limited series for Disney+ and then shaved down to a 1hr40min movie-shaped….thing.
For many, content is content is content in 2024, whether it’s a six-second video TikTok, a 22-minute video on broadcast TV, a 46-minute video on Netflix, or a two-hour video in a theater. On YouTube, the most-watched content platform in the world, people watch videos ranging from six seconds to two hours every single day.
There’s nothing wrong. with that. But the contention of this newsletter is that if people were to be exposed to the “artform” (and I’m sorry that has to sound so pretentious) of “cinema,” or put another way, to “good movies,” that they can and will see the difference for themselves.
That’s why I’m advocating for a clean break between the two content types. On one side…movies. On the other…what I’ll from now on be calling Branded Content Experiences (I think the corporate-speak is perfect for what they represent).
It’s important to me that you realize this differentiation has nothing to do with quality. There can be very good BCEs and very bad movies. The criteria for evaluating BCEs are simply 1) Does it make a lot of people happy…and on the flipside not offend anyone, and 2) Does it increase the value of the underlying property, such that brand extensions are more in-demand afterward. The latent goal in both cases, of course, is to make money.
(Quick scorecard: Wicked – check and check…have you seen how many people are streaming that music? Gladiator II – check and miss, though the door has been left open for a trilogy. Moana 2 – check and check…marginally)
BCEs and movies just two entirely different things, and unfortunately, there’s no real objective way to one from the other. You just know it when you see it (yes, SCOTUS once said this about porn…the point stands).
Sometimes it’s obvious. Kung Fu Panda 4 = BCE. Anora = movie. Duh. But sequels can still be movies, regardless of whether they’re good (A Quiet Place: Day One) or bad (Joker: Folie A Deux). And non-sequels can definitely be BCEs — there’s dozens this time of year with all the Hallmark-style holiday rom-coms (Lindsay Lohan’s latest is No. 1 on the Netflix Top 10 right now).
Other movies walk a very fine line. Barbie, I’d argue, is (miraculously) a movie that got Trojan-horsed into a super commercial thing. Top Gun: Maverick is a BCE that was better than all but two movies in my 2022 rankings.
This really is an important distinction to make because of the degree to which BCEs dominate the mainstream conversation. The industry is currently contracting, and every studio is terrified, so they’re retreating to what’s familiar and guaranteed even more than they have in the past.
As much as I like to get on Disney’s case for re-making their old animated classics beat-for-beat as “live action” (a.k.a. just newer-tech animation), every studio is doing their version of the same thing. Universal brought back Twisters and adapted Wicked, Warners revived Beetlejuice, Paramount is plucking Top Gun, Mean Girls, Gladiator and anything else with a pulse from its IP library. Disney picked the carcass of Fox to give us new Alien, Planet of the Apes and quite literally brought Wolverine back from the dead.
If you’re someone who only goes to the movies a couple of times per year, it’s quite likely that you’re never exposed to anything other than BCEs. This isn’t some corporate conspiracy…BCEs are what put butts in seats! They are what make hundreds of millions of dollars! So…duh that’s what you want to make more of.
That’s scary! Because at best, these experiences are what, like 75% as fulfilling as the original? In their heart of hearts, I think Wicked fans would agree. In the case of Gladiator II and Moana 2, I’d argue it’s even less. Are we going to just keep making copies of copies of copies until all the quality is gone?
I’m going to keep advocating for movies, even though I know it’s a losing fight. That’s what this newsletter is for. I think if you come with me on this journey, you’re going to discover a whole new world. Click your heels three times and let’s go?!
Now, with that framework in place, I think we can more specifically address the two big releases we haven’t gotten to yet in this newsletter.
Gladiator II
Ridley Scott’s credentials as an all-time filmmaker cannot be questioned (Bladerunner, Alien, Gladiator, The Martian), but even in his heydey he was never known for having a particularly tight grip on the reigns. That’s why there’s been like 20 different versions of Bladerunner, why Kingdom of Heaven can only be appreciated in its 3+ hour director’s cut, and even the original Gladiator was being rejiggered and cobbled together on set and in the edit room.
Now at age 87, that looseness just feels unwieldy. Strapping young Paul Mescal, who could not be taking his job as angry slave-turned Roman savior any more seriously, is in a wildly different movie tonally from gray-bearded Denzel Washington, whose own revenge arc revolves around leading a populist power grab in between wise-cracking bacchanalia. Denzel’s plotline is more interesting, because, well, he’s Denzel, and here he’s calibrating his performance on a scale of 1 to 10 to roughly 763.
Caught in the middle of the two is Pedro Pascal, who I hope got a nice fat check for an incredibly thankless role as a Roman general who must’ve had more to do before his screen time got cut down to about 40% of a villain arc.
This movie nets out as fine by some combination of awesome and awful moments. The reliance on CGI (bad CGI, at that) is the only thing that’s legitimately offensive and unnecessary, but the rest of the story is basically just a retread of similar themes, motivations and even plot points from the original movie.
Measuring up to the 2000 original is an impossible standard, which is what prompted my thought of the 75% thing above. For fans of the original, this 2hr28min scratches the itch in the most basic, obvious ways — combat in the Colosseum, hands slowly picking up sand, a bratty emperor (here, there’s 2! both doing Joaquin impressions), and dreams of a better Roman republic.
Denzel’s performance is going to get some awards recognition it seems, which will do a lot to legitimize Gladiator II as a movie, but make no mistake, this has BCE written all over it.
Moana 2
Imagine for a second the pressure in creating a sequel to a phenomenon as big as Moana, which you know will not only be seen but also have massive influence over quite literally millions of young girls around the world. Seriously. Imagine writing a song you know will be played on repeat in thousands of car rides and kitchens every single day.
Moana 2 takes that responsibility more seriously than anything, it seems. The movie is so stuffed full of affirmations and atta-boys (err, girls) that there’s no room even for a villain, since I guess the mere act of personifying an evil god might offend somebody. No instead our fearless Moana and her demigod Maui “The Rock” Johnson fight…a storm.
If you go into the movie knowing that it was once planned to be a multi-part television series, it’s very hard not to spot the seams in the storytelling. But all of that is buried under so much emotional manipulation and “cry now!” triggers you’d be forgiven for not noticing.
In this case, I’m choosing to be lenient. This movie is not for me, at all. It’s for the young kids who were crawling all over the theater seats and jumping up and down staring at the screen all around me. Anecdotally, and from the massive amount of money this movie is making ($423M worldwide already!), I have to assume it’s a resounding success with that demographic.
Still, I think we can objectively say that the music is not nearly as catchy without the writing of Lin Manuel-Miranda. Since strong music is what drives a lot of streaming rewatchability, I wonder if in time this movie will actually weaken the unimpeachable brand of the first movie. But for fans of the first, don’t worry! They’re literally remaking it live action with The Rock due out in theaters next year! Like I said, have one good idea and pound it into the ground as many times as possible. Ugh.
Trailer Watch: Last Breath
There’s just always going to be a place for survival thrillers like this one, especially when you can get Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole on board (literally) for this adventure story about a deep sea diving expedition gone wrong. For anyone that saw Ron Howard’s very good Thirteen Lives, this has similar vibes. Unfortunately, to my earlier point, doesn’t this just feel like such a streaming movie?
On a tangent, after you watch this trailer…put yourself in this guy’s shoes for a second. Can you think of anything scarier than being stranded on the bottom of the ocean?