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I'm not stating anything surprising, this movie is called The Legend of Ochi, though by itself that doesn't promise a fairytale. And this movie is a fairytale. It Has the looks of a fairytale, but at the same time it works hard to make us feel like this could be real. The choice of Helena Zengel is at least partly because she doesn't look like a Hollywood star. Nobody looks like a star here, and it's a deliberate choice, which I love.

As a rule It's a story about a girl who's forced to live without her mother, making sure this fate is spared from a wounded baby animal, and how making this happen becomes the most important thing she can think of. It relies heavily on superb performance by Helena Zengel and with the very able support of Willem Defoe and Emily Watson who gets a tiny share of screen time but manages to work wonders with it. The two females deliver a very understated performance, that suits their roles perfectly. Maybe countering the larger than life character played by Willem Defoe. It does have some plot holes in it, but it's beautifully shot and altogether it works and for me, that's the only important thing.

I've heard one online commentator comparing this movie to GoG vol.3, it's almost an obvious comparison. Both movies taking place in the MCU and both of them present the same wonderful mix of humor action and heart. There's very little I can say about the action - it's a superhero movie the action simply has to make sense inside the borderlines of the world created in the movie (and the entire MCU) it does, but most of the good comics do - I wouldn't be rating this one 9 if I didn't think it was good. The special bits are the humor and the soul of which this movie has aplenty. Regarding the humor I'll simply say what I already said more than once - without humor comics simply becomes an overwhelming mixture of pathos and melodrama. Without it, the soul wouldn't touch us, because pathos and melodrama make it all unrelatable and if its unrelatable one simply doesn't care.

Here comes the real heart of the matter - this movie has so much heart/soul one has to care. In order to get all that soul, there are two things required: Good character must be written in. Well, they did wonders in this aspect, just like they did in GoG which I already mentioned. The other thing is proper acting performance, and as far as acting goes I can't remember such a collection of superb actors.

Topping the list in my personal book is Florence Pugh. I've seen her in 5 or 6 movies in the last 4 years. She's never short of amazing. Same could be said about David Harbour. He's such an actor that one often doesn't notice unless his role is really standing out, but simply think how he combines funny, silly and heartfelt wisdom. A real discovery for me were Lewis Pullman and Wyatt Russell, both of them show more than simple professional brilliance. And I could go on without finding fault at any of the others. This collection of superlative performances together with top notch writing and directing makes this movie a real gem showing that there's still more to find in this genre if you're willing to put in the effort.

Chris Pine and his collaborator, Ian Gotler, wrote a very tongue in chick script, about a guy who believes he lives in a movie, or maybe movies. Main problem, there are no real characters in this movie, only cartoons. Even the protagonist himself is no more than elaborate cartoon forcing Chris Pine to ham his way through the entire thing. Some of the jokes work, the story itself makes very little sense, but then - it's a movie, and we're supposed to always remember this is a movie, so not making sense is part of the aim they're going for. Here is the real problem. If you don't have any real character to relate to, and no real story to carry you through, what's left is not good enough. Just a waste of some real good actors that could deliver so much more.