Tag: Jason Bateman

[EXPRESSO] Zootopia 2 (2025) | We Will Survive

I’ve been skipping most of Disney output of lately, Wish did reinforce this habit, but since i did like the first Zootopia and thought it was one of the best modern Disney films, i was planning on watching the sequel. So i did.

After a brief recap of the final twist and ending of the first movie (which is roughly “one child old” by now), Zootopia 2 follows up Nick and Judy’s unit, which is jeopardized due to them fumbling an operation and causing destruction in the wake of the city centennial, for which a book pivotal for the very foundation of Zootopia itself will be shown to the public.

But despite this, Judy finds proof of a reptile entire the city, which hasn’t happened in a centhury, and she investigates, her and Nick find themselves involved in another conspiracy, get framed and have to escape and get to the bottom of this mistery.

While it’s yet another conspiracy plot, we do get some solid worldbuilding, new characters and a solid villain, and we get to see more of this animal world and how it works beyond the big metropolis, as the sequel builds on the themes of racism, prejudice and discrimination with gentrification and (more) classism now, here done with the “reptile problem” and a political scheme about expanding biomes made for specific types of animals at the expense of others.

It does some of the typical Disney quirks plotwise, but it’s more the benign ones, these are not as bad as they could be, the new characters are fun, there is some sensibile development of the unusual cop buddy duo of Judy and Nick, there are some fun, quick references/nods for the older crowds, and overall it’s honestly a great sequel and a pretty good animated children film,

[EXPRESSO] Air (2023) | L’homme d’argent

While i missed in theathers, it happens it was made available on Amazon Prime Video (pretty much immediatly after its theathrical run here), so… we’re reviewing this one too!

While it’s not the first time the story surrounding the cultural impact of the Air Jordan line of sneakers, i didn’t see the One Man And His Shoes documentary (which came out in 2020 and i guess was an antepasta of sorts), so sod it, let’s talk about something that definitely will feel weird to younger generations, as it’s pretty much a film about a line of shoes your uncle had.

Exciting it sounds not if you didn’t grow up in the 1990s (or earlier), i do understand that much.

Despite the name, it’s not the biopic about classic french electronic musical groups, but about the deal between a then unknown Michael Jordan and the newborne basketball division of shoe manufacturer giant Nike, which would develop into the “Air Jordan” line of sneakers, and their cultural impact for sport and footwear,

Directed by Ben Affleck, Air it’s not quite the 2 hours long sneaker commercial you’d expect it to be, but an old fashioned yet compelling biopic underdog story, where Michael Jordan’s almost total absence make sense, as this is ironically not so much about him, but the process and the people that brought upon the phenomenon itself via the mundane realities of conferences, phone calls and so on.

It also has a great period sountrack, which is nice but it’s almost overbearing (and sometimes odd in the way some songs are used), like Affleck’s choice to oversell the fact it’s 1984 by throwing way too many visual references for nostalgia more than establishment, but it’s still a solid, decent film. About your granpa’ (or uncle’) shoes and corporate glorification. 😦