ant_gurn

Look, we all expected it to be.. better? But it's not Moana 2 or Frozen 2, it's the Disney 100 movie. And it brought fresh animation styles, some interesting and bold new theme ideas, some great experimental mixed genre music, and it also managed to hit most of the classic Disney points we've come to expect. It's hard to be Disney AND fresh, part of being a bit Disney movie is the tropes. They're not tired, they're classic. I saw this with one of my daughters and I thought it was ... different.. and on reflection, good different, I'll watch it again as I watch Aladdin and all the other Disney classics.

I had high hopes for this drama, I guess I wanted an insight into the world of somone with autism. I think many of us wonder how far onto the spectrum we go, and if you're past a certain age, you wonder if you've masked so well as a kid that you've convinced yourself, or set up your life in such a way, that it's hard to tell. But the alien way in which the neuro typical seem to see the autistic main character is jarring. But the issues with the subject matter aren't really the problem with this.

I don't know if everyone watches tv shows on their phones on laptops these days, but the cinematic qualities of this feel more like 2010 than 2025. There are some gorgeously shot dramas these days, and thus just feels cheap. The acting is awful from some of the additional characters, and the main characters aren't much better. I don't feel immersed in their world at all, nothing grabs me about this series.

Are we supposed to like this just because it deals with autism? What about if a similar series was made about a trans man/woman, or an asylum seeker. The subject matter should be utterly irrelevant when it comes to judging the merits of a tv show.

As an adult and a parent I've not sat through this film even once, but it's been played by my kids over Christmasnat least 20 times, they can't get enough of it. It seems to have the magic of Christmas about it, and at least one of the songs is an ear-worm (not in a good way sadly). This is a kids Christmas film and you can feel the love it was made with, it's pure joy and fun; and parts I've seen are totally bonkers. I'm a way it reminds me of Santa's Apprentice, in that it's totally different from everything else that's out there. We need to be kinder to children's Christmas films, which I believe is on message for this movie.