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A modern spin on the age old tale of Cinderella takes to the big and small screen this weekend featuring Camila Cabello as Cinderella, Idina Menzel as the Stepmother, Billy Porter as the Fabulous Godmother, and Nicholas Galitzine a Prince Robert. This go round the story takes a musical bent with mashups, remakes, and originals of varying degrees of artistic mastery, sure to speak to Gen. X parents walking a pretty safe line of crowd pleasers and familiarity. The film also serves as an interesting COVID production having completed about one third of the principal photography before stopping down at the outset of the pandemic, restarting to complete with clever socially distant blocking and staging; which, if not mentioned would probably go un-noticed, to that end, kudos to Writer/Director Kay Cannon. With regards to the film’s artistic direction, choreography, and overall appeal, it’s fine, splashes of humor, and, slight plot twisting keep the story just modern enough; however, while the production certainly has a polish on it, the overall feel still rests outside the bounds of what might be considered “Disney” quality, this is a solid attempt none the less. Perhaps a weekend watch on Amazon for the younger family members in your life. Cinderella is rated PG.

Having fled his father’s hand and moved to America as a teenager, Shang-Chi (Simu Liu), is drawn back to China when a mysterious warning comes his way. But, facing the wrath and power of his father (Tony Chiu-Wai Leung) could have devastating consequences to earth if Shang-Chi isn’t able to repair is relationship with his sister, Xialing (Meng’er Zhang), and, finish his training in unarmed Kung Fu.Written By Dave Callaham, Destin Daniel Cretton, and Andrew Lanham and Directed by Cretton this film represents the first breakout of an Asian superhero from Marvel and manages to check all of the requisite Marvel boxes along the way, which is to say, the film does exactly what it needs to do, gives the viewer an understanding and origin of the character within the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, offers up some thrills, chills, and spills with increasingly impressive fight choreography, and, lays out some impressive CGI whilst clearly setting up the viewer for more action to come in future installments; check, check, check and check. Oh and, there’s a splash of humor along the way with Awkwafina being…well…Awkwafina. So, does the film challenge us in any particular way? No, it’s standard faire, but that doesn’t make it bad either, if anything, it’s consistent, and it’s fun….And, a little too long at two hours and twelve minutes of runtime. None the less, this one’s cut out for the big screen if you can make it happen. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings is rated PG-13.

Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), AKA Black Widow, is forced to confront her past as a network of super killers with ties to her own origin is exposed. Now, it will take more than her own wit and strength to take down the mastermind behind the plan, Dreykov (Ray Winstone), it’ll take family, meaning, Red Guardian (David Harbour), Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz). Directed by Cate Shortland and Written by Eric Pearson, Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson this clashing mix of Red Scare vs. Red White and Blue makes for an imbalanced mix of comedy and Marvel badassery, unclear in tonality and underserving as an origin story for one of the more interesting and enigmatic characters in the Marvel Universe. While action set pieces roll out as expected, which is notable, the plot driving dialogue on the other hand rolls out flat with sophomoric attempts at humor and poor Russian accent to boot, seriously, where were the dialect coaches on this one? Bottom line at two hours and 14 minutes of runtime, one would have really hoped for a significantly more substantial amount of detail as to Natasha’s beguiling and wily ways, she, Black Widow, deserves better, which ironically can also be said for the release and pay scheme Disney has put into effect for the Star and Executive producer behind the project itself, tsk tsk. Black Widow is rated PG-13.