Why is Frankie & Tinie vs. The Universe So Good?

## I thought we were done with these guys (sigh) whatever.

BY MARCEL B. | UPDATED MAR 18, 2023

With the adventures of Marco's beloved hero Marcoman coming soon to a theater near you next month, there has been a fair amount of great movies to start this year (aside from the three anime films produced at the Marcanese animation industry), but it's no surprise that Guillermo Del Toro's *Pinocchio* and Anaya Imageworks' heist epic *Sting* won the Academy Awards this month. The year kicked off with *Puss in Boots: The Last Wish,* one of the best animated films of 2022, grossing a lot during this time lapse as well as the highly anticipated Mario movie projected to gross millions (or even billions) at the worldwide box office. But out of all these great movies coming in 2023 from both sides of the globe, none of them came as utterly unexpected for me as *Frankie & Tinie vs. The Universe.*

Yep, this is yet another Frankie & Tinie movie. A movie about two dumb slack figures who usually do things a la *Dumb and Dumber,* but with randomness and slapstick meddled in a pile of trash (usually.) But it's not like this anymore. There's just something about this film, unlike any other installments that came before it, that makes it truly something special.

Randomness is key here, and this movie acknowledges it well with an actual plot (think the first movie from 2001) and interesting characters with amazing backstories and personalities. I wish it were theatrically released, if only for its promised budget, but the idea of streaming this to Anaya+ makes it a complete mystery to me. The trailers weren't promising, but once I finally saw it on The Anaya Company's leading streaming service, it was a rollercoaster thrill ride from start to finish. Heck, even the title itself is promising. Were we expecting Frankie and Tinie, two of the most incompetent fools in town, to actually fight aliens who wanted to attack their clandestine paperful world? No. But did we witness something *way* better and less generic? Yes, totally.

Here, Frankie meets pirates -- ahem, *ghost* pirates -- and a girl who pretends to be one of them. Her name is Angelica, and she guides Frankie through a huge deadly maelstrom in space that turns out to be a refuge for the two of them. Heaven, of course, But when Frankie realizes that his brothers Tinie and William are trapped in hell under the curse of Hades, he joins Angelica on an epic quest to retrieve the fabled Wishing Star in order to save them. There's someone else who joins them, too. It's none other than Himbo -- you know, the overly stupid but lovable character who wears an antenna over his head in the franchise -- and he wants the star for both Frankie and Angelica. Along with them come the Flying Dutchman, the Flawless Four from the fourth movie, a power-mad and irredeemable magician named Jack Dastard (sorry, his actual last name is a curse word), a new snarky alien king who isn't Dwib, and of course, the terrifying Grim Reaper himself.

The Grim Reaper himself isn't a physical embodiment of a villain, it's rather his shrill voice, terrifying mannerisms, design, and perhaps the skeleton face he has that makes him such a compelling villain. The other characters are great as well, even the old ones coming back. Frankie has learned in the film how to be less cynical about life with his new companion and love interest Angelica with her enigmatic nature and the way she handles sword fights, which contrast well with Frankie's personality and those of Loraine and her b\*dass crew. Tinie keeps on being Tinie, the Flying Dutchman is such a menacing villain, Jack is the one guy who's both wicked funny and intimidating, and Hades keeps on being funny as hell (literally.) They all want the Wishing Star, thus piting Frankie and his crew against formidable foes old and new. This long journey to such a magical place hidden within a faraway planet culminates there, exactly.

But along the way, there's also plenty of references