Toy Story 5

 

At the Orkney Community Centre there was quite a queue for the noon showing of Toy Story 5. Everyone was there wanting snacks, and Zoe (aged 10) was a bit worried the rest of the children were younger than her. I reassured her that modern animations had plenty in them for older children and adults, and in fact we sat behind a young couple who had no children, only a large Bullseye toy.

The premise of the film will in fact be lost on most young kids; that screens are bad and are preventing nice children from playing with each other. When Bonnie tries to get in with the cool kids she ends up glued to her device and is soon looking miserable and feeling dejected. "Cyber-bullying", Zoe whispered to me.

There is some good social commentary in the film, showing groups of young children meeting up and then just sitting beside each other on parallel devices, which always makes me feel a bit sad. At one point Bonnie's Dad asks her something and she says "Yeah OK" without listening or looking up from her screen, then can't remember what she has agreed to. "That's like me" said Alex. I certainly don't approve of the children having their own devices in their bedrooms. 

In the end a more nuanced view of Tech is reached. All in all, it's good entertainment. 

GOAT

 

This film had a good reputation among the kids at Alex's Cubs, so we thought we'd give it a go. The animation is from the same studio as Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse and has the same distinctive hand-drawn style.

The story is about Roarball, which is a more exciting version of basketball played by animal characters. The Goat is a small, who wants to compete with the bigs. A familiar story. In an attempt to appeal to the kids there is an annoying amount of talk of things going viral, and diss tracks. Other than that it was quite enjoyable.

The Housemaid

 

This is an old-fashioned thriller with a couple of twists thrown in. There are there main characters, and it's a guessing game who is evil/crazy/manipulating the others. It plays out in a satisfactory way, in particular the very final scene which I like, but on reflection I think some of the earlier scenes where the audience are misdirected don't make a lot of sense. Perhaps on a second viewing it would fit together.

The premise is a struggling Housemaid gets to live-in with a rich family, and get a sense of the dream-life that she can't afford. But of course, things are not what they seem...