About (disambiguation)

=== "Marco & Talia's World Tour" Review: It's Not Even a World Tour. ===
===== The only things that have a purpose here are the kiddos. =====
By Marcel Pierre-Jean } July 1, 2024
What could be more disappointing than having to fill in the empty shoes the previous movie, Epilogue, had left two years ago? The fact that this new film's title is misleading.
You see, "Marco & Talia's World Tour" is not even a world tour. It is rather an 89-minute collection of silly vignettes stitched together with no real purpose or development, and the so-called "world tour" part appears in an anticlimactic but still enjoyable third act. 
Marco and his friends don't really go through any character arcs, as they seem to be the same friends we've encountered since the first movie, despite their current ages. Neither do the so-called "villains turned heroes" who actually stood there watching the Mega Kiddos spectacle (more on that later) instead of helping Marco (Bill Hader) and Talia (Anya Taylor-Joy) take down their new nemesis, a Frenchman who can harness the powers of various critters like cockroaches and centipedes who goes by Maxime Le Vil, voiced by Will Forte.
Despite not really having a compelling plot to guarantee a world tour or two, the film's summary reads like this: "After taking down Maxime Le Vil, reformed espionage mastermind Marco and his friends are forced to relocate to a picture-esque suburban town named Canterbury, since Maxime swears revenge on Marco and vows to turn them to mutant insects." Shenanigans ensue when Marco is invited by a k-pop themed baddie (Tara Strong) on a heist to retrieve her pet cat, while Talia takes two of Marco's girls to an adrenaline-fueled shopping spree, among other things.
=== The Good ===
As always, the animation is vibrant and colorful (although somehow having a bit of a downgrade compared to previous Marco entries for some reason) and the voice acting is solid, complete with yet another banger soundtrack from Heitor Pereira. The Mega Kiddos are easily the best part of the film, with each one having their moment to shine. There's Mega Joaquin, who can stretch his arms onto a runaway train like Spider-Man. There's also Mega Emiliano, a peach-colored PacMan with the ability to swallow bricks and anything as hard as metal. And there's even a Mega Kiddo who can shoot a laser through the whole distant solar system.
The Mega Kiddos and their wacky shenanigans provide the film's best laughs, with one in particular that was supposed to be unfunny, yet somehow I blurted out in laughter so hard that Dr. Pepper spilled all over my shirt. It was when one of the Mega Kiddos belched very, very loud.
If there's anything I would remember about this movie other than the Mega Kiddos, it would be the third act. Sure, it was somehow anticlimactic, but it also was pure fun. I loved seeing Marco ride a flying jet ski snowmobile - yes, a LITERAL flying jet ski snowmobile - and that reminded me of another movie where Jason Statham rode a jet ski with a spear towards a huge Megalodon shark.
Unlike previous entries, however, the film makes the smart choice of not including way too many characters to overshadow the story (save for the fourth film, which also did the same thing). This gives us more time to be invested in the new characters and Talia, who still remains the standout character in this movie that's not one of Marco's kiddos.
=== The Bad ===
About the animation: it's sloppy at times. Maxime's newly-constructed lair especially looks off when I saw it on 3D, looking mostly like an unfinished model that the animators had in mind, but couldn't finish due to time and budget restrictions (this movie took like two years of production right after Epilogue, which explains the lazy plot/script and unfinished animation). 
Maxime Le Vil is sadly, the worst thing about this film. Will Forte does a superb job on the voice acting, but his character falls flat on every other aspect except for his design. Maxime is probably the series' worst villain since AI from the previous film (and frankly the most despicable) with no redeeming qualities to make us care about this character. At one point, he even kidnaps Talia and I won't spoil it for the readers because it's something truly horrible I had to take a restroom break during that particular scene (and I rarely take restroom breaks during a film). And yet he had so much potential as a mutant-themed villain, but it all went to waste.
The biggest flaw with this movie is the whole idea of a "world tour." As someone who has seen all previous Marco films, it would actually be interesting to see Marco in action taking down bad guys around the world. But the movie spends way too much time on the town of Canterbury and you may get disappointed if you'd expect Marco and Talia to take a world tour. I mean, they do reach Vegas and Tokyo, but spoiler, all those other cities like Paris and London end up being absorbed into a portal Maxime has created in the sky.
=== Final Rating: ===
"Marco and Talia's World Tour" is rather nonsensical and relies solely on the humor aspect to carry the film. At a brisk 89 minutes, it is severely dragged down by its conceptually thin narrative and a lame villain. However, what really works here may be the kiddos and you might walk out of the theater wishing for a Mega Kiddos spinoff.
=== 5/10 - Mediocre ===