Spirited - Review Thread

This movie is everything you'd expect it to be: a shove-your-face-into-some-Christmas-pie holiday movie that leaves your face dripping in its excess as it hyperactively goes around singing and indulging the comedic talents of its two main stars. And if you're up for that, then you're in luck, cause this movie delivers on exactly what it sets out to be. It's the peppermint-scented concoction that's the result of brewing Scrooged, Elf and The Greatest Showman together, and in my humble opinion, succeeds in its aspirations. The movie itself is keenly aware of just how many times A Christmas Carol has been adapted and re-adapted over the years ("Yes, yes, like the Dickens book and the Bill Murray movie and every other adaptation nobody asked for," agrees the ghost of Jacob Marley after his own small musical number is snidely interrupted by Ryan Reynolds' character), and yet, a large part of Spirited's charm lies in how it offers its own take on the well-trod story: with equal parts sarcasm, silliness and showstoppers. Seeing Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds play off each other in this movie proves as entertaining as you'd hope -- provided you're still onboard for each performer's brand of humor -- and the movie wisely knows how much to let them off the leash so that their antics don't overshadow or interfere with everything else. It finds just the right mixture for of the sarcasm of something like Scrooged with the endearing quality of a lot of other holly jolly holiday classics without it ever coming across as fake. On the contrary, this movie is burstin' with that Christmas Morning Feelin'.  Heck, it even sells a Will Ferrell/Octavia Spencer romance A LOT better than I thought any movie could.

The film can be funny, but unexpectedly touching just a bit on more than one occasion. And I think that's because it has a firm understanding on just how to update this tale for the current era without coming across as too schmaltzy. It's able to earn its sentimentality and more heartfelt moments by virtue of being simultaneously wry and genuine -- a combination that's tricky to pull off, but one that Spirited does admirably. Enough to even forgive a lot of the shockingly-obvious green-screening going on at a number of points here, but I digress. The point is, Spirited manages to be both sardonic and sentimental, while offering its own twist on the underlying message of A Christmas Carol that actually does feel honest and relevant.

And it goes without saying that it has a banger soundtrack. Pretty much every song here is a catchy toe-tapper of an earworm worthy of repeat listens, and the fact that this was a straight-to-streaming release for AppleTV+ is something of a crime. Because this is the kind of soundtrack that would have caught on a lot more easily had the film been given wide theatrical distribution. Another thing I'll say about the musical numbers is how much I like the fact that they embrace a real Broadway quality in terms of their staging, particularly the climactic Do A Little Good. This is a movie that feels like it's being made by people who love the musical genre, and that's for the movie's benefit.