Molayem ART Magazine International Art Magazine
The first animation from the entertainment giant to feature an openly gay teen, about an end-of-days environmental disaster, tries to shoehorn too much in
For his latest Disney animation, Moana director Don Hall has created a wonderfully surreal subterranean land that looks like something that might have been dreamed up by Jules Verne, all DayGlo-pink blobby bonkersness. It’s a strange world populated by weird creatures: shoals of fish flying through the air and an enormous critter that’s a cross between a dinosaur and a jellyfish. The human characters aren’t half bad either: a family of gung-ho explorers. Shame, then, about the environmentally themed plot, which is so tangled it would take the entire Royal Geographical Society a decade to map out.
Dennis Quaid voices paterfamilias Jaeger Clade, a legendary explorer with enormous hands (he’s like Sir Ranulph Fiennes beefed up for a Marvel role). Jaeger disappeared 25 years ago on an expedition, leaving his son Searcher (nicely played by Jake Gyllenhaal) dealing with daddy issues. Searcher, rebelling against his famous father who he feels never loved him, became a hippy farmer. Now he has a teenage son of his own, Ethan (Jaboukie Young-White), who in an early scene we watch flirting with another boy.
