Mufasa   7/10

   “Mufasa” takes a deep dive into Mufasa’s childhood, showing the difficult situations the young lion endured. Lin Manuel Miranda, who wrote the movie’s music, invested a remarkable amount of emotion into the songs and put his awe-inspiring talent on display. The songs perfectly portrayed the feeling of every scene and were overall very enjoyable to listen to. This film is perfect for families as it keeps older viewer’s attention with emotional scenes, while also keeping it lighthearted for young audiences. Despite its musical quality and content, what weakened this film was the acting. There were many times when monologues felt forced and awkward despite the cast being exceptionally musically talented. In short, “Mufasa” is an enjoyable film for all ages, and although it does have its downfalls, it is overall a great movie.

   Wicked  10/10

   Many movie adaptations of musicals have a bad rap of being cheesy; however,  this film was beautifully done and kept the charm the franchise has maintained throughout the years. The cast is full of talented performers who put their all into each musical number, many of them with backgrounds in theatre. The music and vocals are breathtaking and further demonstrate how much effort was put into the film. “Wicked” gracefully portrayed parallels to society without being overly blunt and is overall a powerful movie that brings a ray of light to the dark cave of cheesy adaptations.

   Moana 2  2/10

   “Moana 2” is an appalling sequel with no thought or passion behind it. The original movie had a powerful story of an independent young girl overcoming the obstacle of saving her village while mourning her grandmother; meanwhile, the second has primarily the same conflict but instead has a new group of two-dimensional characters. They only take away from Moana’s known independence which makes the movie feel synthetic and overly formulated. Not only that, but the songs are now simplistic and lack any sort of depth or emotion. “Moana 2’s” only redeeming quality is some mildly funny one-liners. This film was clearly a cash grab and a difficult watch.

  Trap 9/10

   “Trap” was one of the best movies to be released in 2024, crafted by talented writing and amazing acting.  “Trap” focuses on Cooper and his daughter, Riley, at a concert. While Cooper seems like a stereotypical father, he is, in reality, a methodical serial killer fugitive.  As it turns out, the building is stuffed full of police and Cooper must plan his escape. “Trap” had the most twists and turns of any movie I have ever seen — each scene is riveting and builds up to an amazing and unpredictable ending. I simply cannot recommend this film enough.