I haven't seen the film, but honestly also surprised and puzzled by the CinemaScore apparently being the lowest for any Disney animated film... ever. The critics' reviews don't suggest that should be the case, nor does anything anyone has said on here. Are people really showing up and getting annoyed about the inclusion of same sex attraction in the film (as the RottenTomatoes comments/reviews suggest), or is there some reason this film really isn't connecting with people?
Well, there is also an interracial relationship that is a
lot more hands-on both figuratively and literally.
I'm sure if you were to make a Venn diagram of people unhappy about those two things, instead of two overlapping circles, it would look a lot like a single circle.
There is a weird moment where the teen kid, in talking to his grandfather, talks about his grandfather's idea of how to impress a love interest as "kind of toxic" which felt heavy-handed in the world of zoomer buzzwords to toss in there. He's not wrong in the sentiment but it's odd that they chose
that word to use in this movie that is otherwise pretty free of politically charged slang. I winced a little when he said it because my thought was "is he about to call gramps a boomer now?" but that's as far as it went.
Regarding him, there is the weird thing that of the three main characters representing three different generations, it is only the teen that apparently doesn't need to deal with personal growth or maturity, even though his rash actions more than once, are what creates half the drama - stowing away on the ship to begin with, going off on his own, having no idea what he's doing to "rescue" his dad, ending up in need of rescue himself as a result and then storming off on his own when mad at his dad at one point into a "strange world" where everything seems out to kill everyone - all really dumb moves and they never suggest at any point that he learns anything about his own behavior from any of this.
Both dad and grandad learn stuff and grow from their experience and they learn something from the teenager about being better humans but somehow, the teen appears to learn nothing - just gains confidence in who he already is which... felt a little one-sided but I say that as a guy around the age of the dad so maybe that's just sour grapes on my part.
I know it sounds like that was a major issue for me but it really wasn't. I just point it out because it was the one thing that stood out for me, personally.
Don't get me wrong - I didn't not find this to be a remarkable movie. Some people appear (in my opinion) to be gushing in praise for it in a way that I don't feel the finished product quite deserves but it seems like people with personal reasons for wanting it to succeed yelling back at the crowd eager to see it fail for their own personally reasons and I get it.
The funny (but not ha-ha funny) is this movie could have had so many cool toys.
They would have been much cooler than the big-headed mini-figures currently in happy meal boxes, for sure.
