Disney+: Between past and future. Superheroics are popular today, which means that such projects are launched more easily than ever before. Just think, because once a movie about Spider-Man still could not come out, constantly changing directors, and today he is one of the most popular characters who for 20 years appeared in 10 feature films, not to mention cartoons, parodies and so on. The genre took root, blossomed and continues to evolve, it can not but rejoice. However, this often leads to secondary projects of medium and even low quality. It would seem that it has always been so, whether it is fiction, horror or action movie. One way or another, even this arrangement is much better, because in times when such films were much rarer phenomenon, had to be content with what is, and the disappointment from really unsuccessful projects was much stronger. But now fans of the genre have a choice and sometimes have to carefully study the next novelty, so as not to waste time.
'Flora and Ulysses' (in polyphony from AMS 'Flora and Odyssey' like the book) is an atypical film with the prefix ' super' based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo. Atypical because it's not like it's a superhero. This is a typical children’s/family film, old-fashioned in some ways, which is very lacking today, but at the same time, it is firmly mixed with the popular theme today. At first glance, this is the case when the super-something there is in a completely inappropriate place, as if the filmmakers exploit a popular genre and theme, without understanding anything about it. But that's clearly not the case: first, we have a basic source here; second, the fact that there's no way to remove the superelement from history, it's an important part of it. Thirdly, the film mentions and shows classic comics, i.e. the authors are rummaging about the topic, which means the question is removed. Strange mixture. Absolutely. It remains to decide for yourself whether to give such a project a chance. Supersquirrel is quite a funny animal, but when the heroine tries to attribute her heroism, here the film begins to embarrass me. A squirrel has superpowers, but most of the time it doesn’t do anything heroic, and the mere fact of having powers doesn’t make it a superhero, after all, there are supers among the villains. As a result, everything seems to align, but the film affects the viewer not only with the ending, the whole process is important. And this applies precisely to the theme of heroism, if we talk about adventures, then in the middle and further they are more sensible than in the end. Funny moments enough, but the film is still a bit tedious. I blame this on the fact that I have not been the CA of such projects for a long time, and yet some of them are interesting to me. It's a bit of a surprise that Disney's movie makes fun of a blind kid. Friendly, casual, and yet. Familiar actors from long-loved comedy films and series (sometimes very brave and not childish) feel great in family cinema. The main character is pleasant and overconvincing, not just a cute child - such things always please me very much.
For Disney+'Flora & Ulysses' is hardly a big and important project, but it is not surprising when there are projects of the Marvel and Star Wars universes almost at the level of the films themselves, and the main family projects are left, as a rule, for theaters. But I must say that their service is a great thing at least in the sense that there the studio can release something that would not dare to let in the movies and would not be on TV. You can argue for a long time whether they are interesting or not. Obviously, everyone has their own answer, but the beauty is that this is where they can make movies, both for someone who lacked projects like the ones they grew up on and for someone who likes more modern films. 'Flora and Ulysses' like the recent 'Ivan...', closer to the former. It looks more like an old-fashioned movie than a TV movie. You want something like that? There it is. The main thing is not to expect something incredible.
6 out of 10