OVP: Mirai (2018)

Film: Mirai (2018)
Stars: Jaden Waldman, Victoria Grace, John Cho, Rebecca Hall, Daniel Dae Kim
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Animated Feature Film)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

We continue on with our final push through the 2018 Oscar-nominated films with Mirai, the first anime film to be nominated for Best Animated Feature without being from Studio Ghibli.  The animated feature race of 2018 (we're going to be profiling the last three films that were nominated here that we haven't reviewed yet for the remainder of the week-we've done Ralph and Incredibles 2 already if you want to keep up) is a bit odd, filled with comic book films and lesser sequels, but Mirai might be the oddest because it doesn't come with the cache of a master filmmaker like Hayao Miyazaki, and in a lot of ways I think it's an odd fit for Oscar's tastes not just because they haven't shined to anime unless it's from Ghibli, but because it's boring, and to be frank, a little condescending in how little it has to say.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is about Kun (Waldman), a young boy who finds out that he's going to be the big brother to Mirai (Grace).  At first he's excited about the prospect, but once she actually becomes reality, he doesn't like the lack-of-attention from his mother (Hall) and father (Cho).  He starts to act out, and frustrate his parents with his behavior toward Mirai, and in the process starts to be visited by other figures, first a mysterious man (who turns out to be their dog in human form) and a teenage Mirai, trying to get him to like Mirai and be her advocate/protector.  The movie eventually takes more fanciful turns, having him have an extended conversation with his great-grandfather (Dae Kim) as a young man and then taking a long trip through the Tokyo train stations, where he struggles to identify the names of his family until finally remembering that Mirai is his sister, and therefore his family, and in the process he learns to acknowledge her as part of his family, and stops acting out.

There are beautiful animation sequences in the film, I'll be the first to admit.  The scenes in the garden, as well as the entire sequence in the Tokyo subways, are lovely, and there's something to be said for the fanciful way that we start to meet other characters in Kun's life, particularly the first trick with the dog.  It's easy to see through who these people are, but I don't know that that's supposed to be a twist or a reveal-it's natural that adults would figure this out before the child, bartering with himself (or possibly truly spiritual creatures-this is an anime film, after all, reality must be suspended) because he knows deep down he should support his sister.  If this was just pleasant from start-to-finish, I could at least understand why this got such critical plaudits.

But the film is dull.  It gets super repetitive, with the same idea being Kun will act out, suddenly meet a creature, and then learn from his tantrum...only to have it happen again in the very next scene.  The movie has a shortage of ideas, and Kun as a character is annoying.  I hate when people say this sort of thing in a review, proclaiming a character so unlikable that it's hard to get past it (mostly because I rarely find lead characters particularly annoying since you should learn enough about them that you understand the nuance behind their character), but he is a brat and it's hard to root for such a character to have epiphanies.  I've had this issue before in anime films, where children are frequently loud and a bit bombastic, but other than Ponyo (which had lots of other issues I've discussed at length on this blog in previous posts), I don't think it's ever ruined the movie for me.  This did-I couldn't get invested in a character who didn't seem to have any redeemable qualities, and while if he were a real little boy there'd be some patience here since he doesn't know any better, here he's a character in a story and I just wasn't having it.  The film is repetitive, overlong, misuses its players, and the occasionally lovely sequence doesn't make it worth it.