Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Entergalactic (2022)

I found this non-sci-fi's seemingly irrelevant title confusing, until I learned that it shares the name of the Kid Cudi album that provides the soundtrack. Clearly, this is not my usual scene. I chose to watch for the sake of something different.

New York graffiti artist Jabari (Cudi) is about to get a comic book line for his signature character, Mr. Rager (Keith David), tho his excitement is tempered by the publisher's desire to tone down the darkness. Taking more of his attention is his new partying apartment neighbor, Meadow (Jessica Williams). Neither acknowledges their level of mutual attraction until friends egg them on. Alas, Jabari's ex, Carmen (Laura Harrier), is discontent to be just a friend....

Not only is that far from sci-fi; you may well wonder why such a story is even animated. Well, for one thing, Jabari's imagination often reflects his artistic temperament. For another, the plot's so plain and simple it needs to be buoyed by distinctive visual engagement. If you saw a brief clip out of context, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for a Spider-Verse entry, tho choppy movement and racial minorities in the Big Apple are about where the similarity ends.

This eclipses Chico y Rita as the most adult animated feature I've ever seen. It certainly depicts the most uses of pot and the F word, along with several...demonstrations of the F word. We don't see any "real" private parts besides butts, but little is left to the imagination.

As a romance, it's kind of spicy but not innovative. I can believe basically everything that happens outside of dreams, daydreams, and hallucinations. Jabari and Meadow don't rush it as much as I feared, tho she may have been too quick to forgive him.

The comedy aspect is sparse enough that I had to check the genre labels on multiple sites. It's mostly from supporting characters, especially the main couple's quirky friends. On that note, I recognize a few voice actor names -- Timothée Chalamet, Vanessa Hudgens, Luis Guzmán, a surprising Macaulay Culkin -- but several are better known for rapping.

Entergalactic was an OK way for me to kill 92 minutes. I doubt there'll be a sequel or many more films like it.

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