Just in the opening ten minutes of Jojo Rabbit, you learn exactly what the film wants to tell you: the mind of a child is something that should never be thought to brainwash, considering it is so effortless to do so and it can further shatter their prudence especially as they grow older. In a promising introduction to a concrete topic, one may presume that the rest of the affair would offer an expansion on this flock of pivotal ideas.
Nahhhhhhhhhhhh. Let’s just do this instead: repeat memo. Laugh. Mourn. Repeat memo. Laugh. Mourn. Repeat memo. Laugh. Mourn. Let’s take it from the top seven more times…
Hold up; but wait! The presentation’s childishly edgy dark comedy and tremendously overworked climax, however, do offer another (totally original and not plagiarized) message: war is B-A-D. Dandy…
Look, Taika Waititi is a damn creative individual, I have no doubt about it. I have sincerely dug the living daylights out of his past three films What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and Thor Ragnarok. His inventiveness in Jojo Rabbit’s premise is so bloody apparent (both figuratively and literally), that it’d be utterly ignorant to not acknowledge it. Having the opportunity to see through the lenses of a young, corrupted, lad during World War II who strives to become the Walter Sobchak of Nazis was adorably disturbing. But, lurking in the mightily meta piece’s screenplay is a so painfully pedestrian, inflated, and, frankly, mawkish plot that dares to walk only on a surface-level podium.
I appreciated the performances since virtually everybody had to commit aggressively to Waititi’s overly eccentric and far-fetched characters. Newcomer to the acting world Roman Griffin Davis delivers an unexpectedly above-average child staging. Scarlett Johansson, Thomasin McKenzie, and Sam Rockwell (playing a racist for the 236th time), furthermore, provided some fearfully extrovert performances. And, Taika Waititi as an inaccurately ethnic Adolf Hitler was sinfully gratifying to absorb.
Jojo Rabbit is absurdly funny and its emotional beats do hit home nobly at times, but consecutively as a foremost, Hitler-parodying sum of a movie, it falls too flat due to its repetitive nature. Oh, wiener-schnitzel!
And Taika, if you somehow come across this, I just want to let you know that I still love you. I didn’t want this review to appear this harsh, but I do want to be truthful for my readers. Forgive me.
Verdict: C+
“Jojo Rabbit” will be released in select theaters on October 18, 2019, and wide-release theaters on October 25, 2019.
Burning the Celluloid 
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