SPIRITED (2022)

SPIRITED (2022)

Tagline: This time, the combat is real.

(Comedy, Musical, Pointing) [PG-13]

He's like the perfect combination of Mussolini and Seacrest.

In this one, we are treated to a musical homage to Charles Dicken's “A Christmas Carol”. The ghost of Christmas present has a new case he is working on. A new soul to redeem so to speak and he isn’t feeling it this time around. He really wants to take on a tough case named Clint Briggs. Briggs is in the business of creating conflict on purpose to sell whatever product he’s been hired to help sell. He genuinely doesn’t care whose life he has to ruin to get his way. If the ghosts of Past, Present, and Future can pull this off, it may redeem more lives than they expected in a ripple effect for the ages. 

This might sound weird, but my favorite musical in a long time was LEMONADE MOUTH. Since then, it isn’t very often that we get a movie that strings together more than a few decent songs even if the story is great. This movie falls in the category of having 2 decent songs but doesn’t manage to give us a 3rd. Octavia Spencer plays Kimberly and is actually given the best song in this “The View from Here”. It’s so good apparently even to the producers it gets presented in two parts in two different scenes. It should be noted that the quality wasn’t the problem. Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell actually do decent jobs in the signing department for two guys not really known for musicals. 

This movie is pretty funny overall but you can tell when Will Ferrell (ANCHORMAN THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY) who plays “Present” is freewheeling. When he is, it’s non-stop hilarity. When he’s not this flick feels pretty canned and not really all the special. I really like Ryan Reynolds (FREE GUY) who plays Clint Briggs, but the chemistry between Reynolds and Ferrell feels slightly off, as does the chemistry in at least one scene between Ferrell and Octavia Spencer (THUNDER FORCE). I am not going to say what happens, but she just looks like she doesn’t want to be there. 

Where this movie misses the boat most is in a few sex jokes that are kind of thrown in with two unexpected characters (hint, one is dead and one is not). It’s almost eerie if you really start thinking about it too much so maybe it’s best if you don’t. There is also another misplaced joke where a character refers to having a tramp stamp on the front and the back? Nothing is shown, but it kind of highlights that either Sean Anders or John Morris really just wanted to cram something sex-related into this movie that has nothing to do with sex. The other problem is that this movie feels very long. That is likely due to the fact that it is actually about 37 minutes too long. For comparison, SCROOGED felt long and it was only 101 minutes long. This thing is 127 minutes long and it feels that. While some of the musical numbers are tedious that wasn’t my major issue. It was the 90 twists and turns this thing took. 

What went right in this movie was the humor for the most part and the casting. If you put Sunita Mani (who plays Past) in a movie and give her more than 20 lines in a decent script, she is going to crush it. For me Sunita Mani’s best role was in SAVE YOURSELVES!, but she is capable of fixing your movie all by herself if you give her enough on-screen time. Tracy Morgan was great for the voice of “Yet-to-Come” and Patrick Page is incredible as Marley. I also don’t think you ever go wrong when you case Octavia Spencer. We do get a few fun and funny songs and the sets are all pretty cool even if you can tell a few corners might have been cut in the production. 

I don’t know if for me this is going to become a Christmas staple, it isn’t as majestic as THE NATIVITY STORY, as timeless as A CHRISTMAS STORY, or as funny as CHRISTMAS VACATION, but it is an awful lot of fun for the vast majority of its run time and who doesn’t love a musical even if the songs are just so -so?

This one gets a 5 out of 7. It might grow on me over time and I am going to give it a chance. I am likely to buy this at some point because, in a crowd of terrible Christmas movies, this is one of the better recent ones. A few wonky scenes were what knocked the score down a bit. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF MAXIMUM EFFORT AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

Please check out the link below by clicking on the picture. Purchases made at Indy Planet for any issue of DARK 30 will go towards funding the next issue.