Spirited

Grade: C+

Spirited, the new Apple Original Film, is a bloated, busy, bombastic musical extravaganza. The movie gets one thing right – it reprises the only good song (the opening number) at the end. I wanted to hear it again, and I’m glad I got to. They employ the same technique as the “Build Me Up Buttercup” singalong at the end of There’s Something About Mary, where it cuts to various people singing it during all the scenes throughout the movie. Choreographer Chloe Arnold killed it. I’ve never seen background dancers work so hard in a movie musical. They have enough energy to power the world for a couple days, but unfortunately, not enough to power the movie.

In fact, I wouldn’t have had any songs. They don’t add anything of value, and most of them sound like the kind of thing I would start to write, but abandon because I didn’t think it was up to snuff. They don’t pass my “is this anything” test. Our stars are Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. I like these guys, and Spirited’s best sequences are the ones that feature just the two of them, doing their thing, working off each other. This is a unique take on A Christmas Carol. We get a peek behind the scenes of the spirits, who pick a different person every year to redeem. They spend the whole year researching their next subject – finding out what went wrong, and what they would need to see to crack through their hard heart.

Ferrell is the Ghost of Christmas Present. He was formerly one of the people they redeemed, and now he’s been dead and serving as a trusty ghost for the last 200 years. He has chosen Reynolds as this year’s project – a challenging one, as he is on the very short “Unredeemable” list. There’s a poignant message here about facing old painful unresolved fears or bad experiences, and it becomes interesting when Reynolds turns the tables on Ferrell.

Broadway veteran Patrick Page is marvelous as Jacob Marley. I saw him as Scar in The Lion King’s national tour that played Atlanta in 2003. He is billed 4th on IMDb’s cast list, right after Ferrell, Reynolds, and Octavia Spencer. Spencer seems like the least experienced singer here, but presents her numbers well, and they are in a good range for her. For multiple reasons, she is an inspired casting choice. The through-line with “good afternoon” is amusing, and you will never think of that phrase in the same way again.

There’s a plot loophole where a spirit is able to make themselves visible to the real-life humans, if and whenever they want. It only served to bring some forced, too-convenient happiness to the ending. Spirited is big on production values, songs, and its sprawling 2 hour 7 minute running time, but surprisingly small on laughs.

Grade: C+