"The Rise Of Marco" Leads Us To Decay

Since 2005, no other animated franchise has been topping *Marco* and his friends on any tier list. The most recent film, *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco,* might have gotten a couple of delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in modest box office returns for Sony, but nevertheless it's still well received by critics and the most exuberant of *Marco* fans everywhere. It tells the story of how Marco met Joaquin & Emiliano's inescapable buddies and how he became "the world's greatest spy" by saving the world from an organized mobster gang known as The Felonious 5. But, as the portentous title might suggest otherwise, the film is more of a solid excuse for *more* Joaquin & Emiliano gags and merchandise. It's also more like my typical checklist I use to cater during a weeklong trip to the Bahamas, while of course watching this movie. Sunglasses and 90s era fashion? Check! Awful puns and wordplay, including dated slang words? Check! Ken Jeong as the bumbling bank tycoon whose last name is actually... *Greed?* Check! A strange-looking time machine from the year 2093 that comes out of nowhere? Check! A group of Rugrats (oh well, these Minions) who exposed Count Dracula to sunlight, while singing their usual birthday song, and scared the toes out of Bigfoot? Check! Potentially blasphemous, violent nun jokes? Oh baby! You see this whole list? This is exactly how clever the film is when it comes to random play, amid the dark absurdist humor found within the film's context. If a seemingly beloved franchise -- with a total of four *Marco* movies, two spinoff films having to do with his cousins, nearly twenty Marco Toons, four animated TV series, 38 videogames so far, four special documentaries, a variety of unique CG characters, and six designated theme park rides -- expands itself with another movie coming soon next year, would that possibly determine "The Rise Of Marco"? I guess not. It's pretty much "The Fall Of Marco" when you think about how crazy things are in this movie with a messed up plot, chronologically speaking.

#### *Joaquin & Emiliano: The Rise Of Marco* isn't smart enough to be as stupid as it wants to be.

Okay, I get it. You're now asking me with your mind "why are you so skeptical of a *Marco* film?" The reason for this, unlike its Oscar nominated predecessors, is that *The Rise Of Marco* doesn't seem worthy enough to take home an Academy Award this year. It's pretty much like how Pixar movies usually get these awards instead of another studio like DreamWorks when it comes to *Marco* movies. Joaquin & Emiliano may be kids, but everyone (including us adults who have a soft spot for these guys) like them because of their wacky sense of humor and mad crazy antics. The murmuring polyglot gibberish and the baroque semi-incompetence of these kids and their friends promise a reprieve from a world of logic and order. This film made to defy the existing logic of this universe does ostensibly tell us the story of how a very young Marco (voiced by Marcus Newrith, seven and three quarters years old), presumably the world's greatest teen spy, became just that. The setup, scattered all over the place and too nonsensical to describe in much detail, involves Marco stealing a mysterious gem from the Felonious 5, the league of villains who rejected his spy membership with a heavy fee. "This gem is only for adults like us, not tacky little spunks who should be learning at school, taking recess, and sucking their feet on puddles!" So the Felonious 5, led by the sassy Lady Criminelle (Leslie Jones, for some reason) and featuring such evocatively named members as Squidman (TJ Miller? *Really?*), The Invisible Nun (Lucy Lawless), Stronghold (Dolph Lundgren), and their lovable dimwitted Babysitter (Conrad Vernon) comes after Marco. So does Elvis (voiced by Brad Pitt), Lady's former fiancé who is later revealed to be a superspy... and obviously an once vogue rock hero at heart. See how clever this film can get? He's inspired by Metro Man from *Megamind,* after all.

Alas, Joaquin & Emiliano have lost the gem along the way because one of their friends exchanged it for another kid. But before we get there, let's look back at how these kids got to 90s uptown Houston in the first place. Aside from shaming Bigfoot and making Count Dracula feel miserable, they plunged cavemen with T-Rexes to a nearby volcano, made King Tut a mummy for his pet alligators, shoot Napoleon with a cannonball, and oh my... the death count is surprisingly high, they even had to scare the European-born cousin Marco nonchalantly honors in the original film. Anyway, onto the 90s era, when Marco rewards Joaquin & Emiliano with Pohlino's ice cream (he sells a special type of *gelato* later in the film) and prepares them for some martial arts training from the Yang family, courtesy of Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh. These ramen lovers, awesome at breakdancing too, decide to keep the