Review and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the same name)
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
What Happens: A movie adapted from a children’s book by Emma Yarlett, this animated story features Orion (voice of Jacob Tremblay), an 11-year-old boy with many fears: (an incomplete list, in no particular order) bullies, bees, dogs, the ocean, cell phone radiation, homicidal gutter clowns, falling off tall buildings, rejection, humiliation, talking to his secret-crush Sally (Shino Nakamichi), clogging up a toilet, field trips, infections from mosquito bites, and on and on. Yet, despite love and encouragement from his parents (Carla Gugino, Matt Dellapina) to face up to those fears, his biggest horror comes with the darkness at the end of each day, causing him to illuminate his bedroom with several nightlights. One night, though, that tactic doesn’t work because he’s visited by a manifestation of the Dark (Paul Walter Hauser) who keeps a list of all the children (maybe adults too) who are afraid of his existence, with Orion’s fear so intense it’s become insulting. Dark, in his intimidating size, convinces Orion to go on a journey with him to see all of the wonderful things that happen at night beginning with an introduction to his nighttime-associates: Sleep (Natasia Demetriou), Insomnia (Nat Faxon), Quiet (Aparna Nancheria), Unexplained Noises (Golda Rosheuvel), and Sweet Dreams (Angela Bassett). They’re angry that Dark has brought this frightened kid into their realm, but we see they’ve also got some weakness, especially Sleep who’s not above using a knockout-hammer or other weapons to force a restless-someone into her realm.
At first Orion messes up some of what these nighttime entities are doing, eventually comes to understand them better, even as he’s getting more comfortable with Dark. Dark becomes depressed, though, when Orion admits he prefers Light (Ike Barinholtz), who brings on the day, sweeping Dark away (I wonder if screenwriter Charlie Kaufman was also thinking of the relevant Greek deities—Nyx, the night and Eos/Aurora, the dawn making way for Helios commanding the chariot of the sun). In his “darkness,” Dark, instead of his normal flowing away as Light approaches allows Light to seemingly destroy him leaving humanity in a situation of perpetual daylight, which become oppressive (must be like living at the North Pole or South Pole during their respective summers). ⇒At this point we realize this story’s being told by adult Orion (Colin Hanks) to his little daughter, Hypatia (Mia Akemi Brown), who wants a different ending (Has Orion grown up in an existence of perpetual daylight? Or was his whole story about adventures with Dark just a fantasy she wants to change?) so she time travels into young Orion’s world of constant daytime, gets help from the nighttime entities where Sweet Dreams allows avatars of Orion and Hypatia into his subconscious as Dark is summoned; however, as the trio rejoices, a door opens sucking Dark and Orion into a void. Quiet awakens the sleeping boy Orion which allows Dark to re-manifest, restoring the natural order, except Hypatia is now stuck in the past until a boy, Tycho (Nick Kishiyama), comes in a time machine to rescue her. (How? I guess you’ll have to ask Mr. Kaufman, but this branch of the family does seem to have access to various methods of navigating the time-space-continuum.) Our overall story jumps again to Hypatia as an adult (Shannon Chan-Kent) telling it all to her son, Tycho, then she goes out onto the porch to say goodnight to her Mom and Dad, Sally (Ren Hanami) and Orion, with the last scene being these parents as young kids enjoying a Planetarium field trip.⇐
So What? Still generally staying away from theaters in my COVID-cautious-mode, I noted that a few recent theatrical releases have now come to streaming—Wonka (Paul King, 2023), Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (James Wan, 2023), and Ferrari (Michael Mann, 2023), but I really don’t have much interest in any of them, especially given that all of them come with a $19,99 rental fee—so a local glowing review got me intrigued about the new option of Orion …, especially because the screenplay adaptation is by the always-wonderfully-enigmatic-Charlie Kaufman (creator of so many marvelous scripts, especially Being John Malkovich [Spike Jonze, 1999; Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay], Adaptation [Jonze, 2002; Oscar nom for Best Adapted Screenplay], Endless Sunshine of the Spotless Mind [Michel Gondry, 2004; Oscar winner for Best Original Screenplay], and I’m Thinking of Ending Things [Kaufman, 2020; 4½ stars review in our September 10, 2020 posting]). However, in retrospect, with my initial-non-familiarity with the book I had no idea what Kaufman may have added to the events/ideas on the previous pages, but I did solve that by going to this site* where I get the whole book in a mere 8:23 allowing me to see Kaufman adds the other night entities, the dangerous adventures, and the time-travelling, greatly expanding the original, concise premise (with, for me, the funniest Kaufman-esque element being Sleep’s nefarious tactics).
*This is a site where Ryan Lagod and Craig Tovey read children’s books for a very young audience, with their intentionally-silly-interruptions, allowing us to also see all the pages of their featured books.
Even with that in mind, though, I’ll just have to say that what I saw was pleasantly amusing, full of useful advice for young kids (and the rest of us) to face our fears in the process of overcoming them, yet I can’t acknowledge it really did all that much except remind me of elements of A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843 [frequently adapted to cinema interpretations, including a cherished version by Brian Desmond Hurst, starring Alastair Sim, 1951]), Disney’s Peter Pan (Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson; 1953), Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. (Pete Doctor, 2001), and Inside Out (Doctor, 2015), but, as a Netflix subscriber, at least this specific viewing didn’t cost anything extra, unlike frequent offerings on other streaming platforms, plus by choosing it I finally get into the realm of reviewing a movie released in 2024. However, as you’ll see farther below from how I diverge from the CCAL responses, I just didn’t get that invested in Orion …; maybe I’ve become an old fart who’s lost connection to what’s set up to be a relatable, amusing “family friendly” experience, but, as I’ve noted just above, there are too many similarities to other kid-oriented-narratives already well-established over the decades to get very enthralled by this one, so I’ll just quickly be moving along.
Bottom Line Final Comments: As this movie’s a direct-debut on Netflix, there are no box-office results to report; if you want to see it you’ll need to be a streaming subscriber (you can do so for $6.99 for a 1-month-minimum with ads or bump up to $15.49 for no ads, both of which give you access to their enormous library of titles which you could binge away on during the continuation of no-outside-for-me-thank-you-winter [unless you’re marvelously-warm in the Equator zone or the Southern Hemisphere]), with the CCAL encouraging you to watch (or sign up) as the Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews are a quite-healthy 89%, while the Metacritic average score is a supportive (for them) 72% (means “generally favorable”) with David Fear at Rolling Stone representative of those who offer generous support: “Orion only had to be a decent enough take on a boy overcoming his status as a first-rate scaredy cat and realizing that the world isn’t all worst-case scenarios. The fact that it adds an ode to intergenerational storytelling, a parody of time-travel narratives, some oddball left-turns, and a near-transcendent coda that feels very much in line with Kaufman’s body of work — all while still giving the kids what they want — makes this more than a cut above your average rainy-afternoon distraction. It’s really a low-key blast.” Still, there are some other grumps like me in the critical community who aren’t so impressed such as the AP’s Mark Kennedy who says: “ ’Orion and the Dark’ is about fear and overcoming it but this movie directed by Sean Charmatz has too much junk clogging up the vision. It’s based on Emma Yarlett’s children’s book but, like its main human character, lacks confidence, ending with time travel and dimension jumping. You could say the filmmakers are scared of their own movie. […] The filmmakers don’t know how to end ‘Orion and the Dark’ and so we end up with shooting lasers, a time machine and Dark long gone, a million miles from where we started. There’s actually one thing that Orion should have feared even more than the dark — starring in a poor film.” Well, maybe it’s not that bad, so possibly take a chance, see for yourself, especially if you have housemates that are still in the pre-teen stage (the best I could do are my cats, who are 7 and 2, but they showed virtually no interest).
I really have nothing further to offer (Shocking, I know!), so let’s wrap up with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor which, this time, may seem like an odd-fit, but let me rationalize Them’s “Here Comes the Night” (a 1965 hit for the band when it was fronted by a singer who became a famous Irishman; you can find it on his 1990 album, The Best of Van Morrison) at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=QpKpAierYus, even though the song’s about an adult situation of a guy lamenting the loss of his love to another man; yet, lyrics such as “Wonder what is wrong with me […] Here comes the night / Lonely, lonely, lonely night […] I will be alone” could easily be interpreted (remember, this is a metaphor) as speaking both to Orion’s fears and Dark’s depression at being so terrifying to so many children (or maybe I just see things in the oddball way Charlie Kaufman so often does). But, ultimately the night (in any form of darkness) can be as useful to us as the day (with its more-embraced light) if we'll allow ourselves to see it that way, as Orion finally learns to do.
SHORT TAKES
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
Some options for your investigative consideration: (1) What's new on Netflix in February 2024; (2) What's new on Amazon Prime Video in February 2024; (3) What's new on Hulu in February 2024; (4) What's new on Disney+ in February 2024; (5) What's new on Max in February 2024; and (6) After Argylle bombs can Apple keep spending $200 million on big-screen gambles?.
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