MOVIE REVIEW Kids: Turning Red Parents: The Adam Project

Too Big & Too Red

BY BONNIE L. HARRIS

NEVER THOUGHT I’D WANT to pass on a Pixar movie, but there’s a first time for everything. With Disney behind them, Pixar’s creative forces should’ve made better narrative decisions with their new feature, Turning Red, but novice director Domee Shi’s work is unappealing, stereotyped, and just not very much fun. The story about young girls reaching puberty will surely turn boys off, and parents need to be especially careful about this movie because they’ll be answering plenty of follow-up questions about “the birds & the bees.” In the film, those questions have been avoided for thirteen years by Mei Lee’s overprotective mother, a disturbing caricature of the pushy helicopter mom, but Mei is unexpectedly tossed into coping with these teenage physical changes when she literally turns into a giant red panda after an emotional outburst. Mei and her clique of BFF’s make matters worse by conniving to go to a forbidden concert and marketing the Red Panda on social media to earn ticket money. Eventually, Mei must face the consequences of lying to her mother, betraying her friends, and almost getting arrested at a boy-girl birthday bash. The one and only sweet moment in the story happens when Mei’s father finally voices his opinion about his daughter’s suppressed personality. Wish there was more of that, but it’s squashed under the weight of a bizarre family ritual to contain the red panda essence. It’s an interesting metaphor, but this story twist lacked the usual Pixar finesse that would have made it memorable. Instead, the film continues off the deep end with a weirdly destructive conclusion at the boy-band concert and a final scene to clean up the mess after the red panda rampage. Let’s hope there’s not a sequel and that Pixar gets back to creating movies with heart, humor, and great music. ✦

TURNING RED Pixar Studios, Rated: PG Streaming on Disney Plus

FOR the PARENTS

Plenty of Time

THE ADAM PROJECT Skydance Media, Rated: PG-13 Streaming on Netflix

BLEND THE TERMINATOR with Star Wars and toss in a big dose of bullet-fast Deadpool humor, toned down of course for a PG-13 audience, and you’ve got the rollicking new sci-fi feature from Netflix called The Adam Project. Super-sonic paced and super fun, with a fantastic soundtrack and wonderful performances from Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, and pint-sized newcomer, Walker

Scobell. This film does justice to the space-time continuum without taking itself too seriously and giving its audience a high-tech roller coaster ride into the past. Which is really our present, give or take a couple years! Young Adam Reed, bullied in school & missing his recently deceased father, meets up with his time-traveling 30-yearold self in a quest to destroy the algorithm that started time travel.

Unfortunately, the technology was invented by their father and older

Adam is being hunted by the evil Sorian, a militant, self-proclaimed ruler of Earth. Both Adams must time jump again to 2018, in a malfunctioning space craft, to find their father and figure out how to break into Sorian’s compound. Amid the mayhem, we also get a heartwarming story about growing up, healing relationships, and finding your true path. Pass the popcorn and let’s watch this one again!

The Adams race against time.