Marco 5: Epilogue (2022) Review

## I need to drink some frappe after this review... maybe.

I love Marco. I love his pure awkwardness and surprisingly infectious charm. I love the very cartoony movies in which Hugh Jackman's (formerly Bill Hader's) lovable teen genius espionage mastermind tracks down elusive criminals his age while also still caring for his beloved friends and family no matter what. However, when the time has come to say goodbye to these sympathetic kiddos who warmed up our hearts and took the world by storm since 2005, even going as far as dethroning *Toy Story* in favorable animated quality and *Despicable Me* in box office quantity, it was kind of not the good proper time doing so with too much rumors about a sixth *Marco* movie in the franchise that would never come into existence.

I'm saying this because... this *Marco* film is actually kind of mediocre. Maybe not the worst entry in this beloved franchise starring Marco and his friends, but perhaps the most unexpected one in the *Marco* series. The film's morbidly interesting premise seems cool enough for some 63% rating on the Tomatometer, since it revolves around Marco's retirement and later, his whole world being turned upside down thanks to an evil AI clone reminiscent of the Terminator he made himself. Before we get there, the film opens up with Marco (Adam Sandler, replacing Hugh Jackman) using some flashlight as his microphone, literally, and his usual shrugging with a smile. Cut to five seconds later, he plays freeze tag with his friends at Zube Park after holding hands with Pepe & Isabella, and later dancing slowly with Aileene to the tune of "Just The Two Of Us" at the nearby boulevard while *Singing In The Rain.* Then comes perhaps the most tragic scene in this entire 115-minute long film: when Aileene leaves Marco in favor of someone bigger and much cooler than him, I suppose. Anyway, going to the present days with Marco and his friends, they attend an Astros game that was eh... okay I guess, among other things like riding on twisted rivers at Schlitterbahn New Braunfels, attending Bom Bin's grand circus festival, and hopping onto some kiddie train through the wonderfully diverse Hermann Park. However, in spite of all this pure enjoyment and fresh hospitality vibes, Marco can't cope with the letdown he had with Aileene earlier. That's why he designed his algorithmic clone, generically named AI of course, who became so much like Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic 1984 cyborg assassin that he destroyed Marco's birthplace - that is Galveston, where Marco and his gang went for spring break after taking the nearby Kemah Boardwalk - and even went as far as kidnapping his friends and family into space cubes! What should our beloved former genius spy do this time? Marco, along with his siblings, wacky cousins Joaquin & Emiliano, Melissa (Selena Gomez, who gives a more even performance to this once hyper exuberant girl), mischievous young kid Juan Angel, and fatty cousin Miguel Angel are now the last kids on their utter dystopian Earth. Fortunately, the Silver Springs townsfolk take them via the Zbylot SUV back home and together they attempt to rescue everyone trapped inside AI-5000, some futuristic semi-utopia home to "The AI-5000 Games" and where AI does the most macabre experiments involving the smallest microchip ever made, to which he injects towards Edgar. The real threat comes when Marco's newly established Christian crew of loyal survivors get closed within AI's lair, plunging poor Marco back to his abysmal home planet, but then he encounters someone who likes him even more...

That someone is a very nice Mikayla girl who goes by Talia, who gives Marco the full capacity to become Marcoman thanks to her signature frappe that made Marco very happy again. Of course the latter falls in love with her - as much as he loves her caramel frappe - and the two attempt to make the most out of their dystopian setting with a complete tour around Silver Springs. Awwwww... how cute, but then Marco gets called back to action as he grabs Talia by his hand, hoping that one day the world would change back to normal. Still, things get even worse when AI threatens with his own tech uprising, which makes Marco willing to take his own stand against the evil algorithm with his new pretty girlfriend. Both launch the rocket towards AI's planet to stop him and his clumsily inept minion Madcap, a Sir Clay Moriarty hologram who holds up some cool weapon in his hands along with nice verbal expressions and lip-syncing movements, while also returning everyone else safely back to Earth. For those who hadn't seen the ending part, I won't spoil it easy for the sake of my readers (trust me, it's something so bittersweet you might want to grab enough Kleenex to calm yourselves down).

While the film has its clever moments, it doesn't fully live up to its predecessors but rather tries to twist the franchise into something totally different from espionage, and I like that despite its somewhat middling execution being similar to that of *Hotel Cloudylandia 3: Traversmania,* but with dystopian science fiction elements and a more poignant tone, with a talented voice cast led by Sandler... yes, Adam Sandler. And, speaking of the aforementioned film, this one might not be as bad as Anaya Animation's recent misfire but it completely rips off the whole thing, especially Marco's flanderization as The Great Magician and how this film completely steals the *Tex Avery*-inspired cartoon physics that distinguished the *Hotel Cloudylandia* movies as something unique. Again, I still like that but here it seems quite odd and bizarre to confuse the most skeptical of film critics, and those who liked the sheer essence of Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the previous *Marco* movies. At this point, several pop culture references from the previous films had been overused here along with shameless product placement: which okay, we know the latter has been a problem here ever since, but why too many pop culture references? Seriously, there's *so many* of them, and you surely know there's an obvious *Hunger Games* reference mentioned here... ahem, "The AI-5000 Games" anyone? Why are the action scenes so lame? Why is Marco fully dumbed down here as the guy who provokes the world's problems? Why does Marco turn at some point to weird Dracula and Miguel Angel gobbling up sand? Oh, did I also tell you that Marco at some point in this film gets all lame? He actually does, and it's rather uncanny to see his weirdness being put to the extreme like that of a modern day *SpongeBob SquarePants* cartoon or some *Rick and Morty* episode, with the latter being a good reference for adult audiences in this particular scene. However, despite the outlandish moments here and some rather mediocre attempts at comedy - including one scene where Marco gets kicked out of "the ladies room" - *Marco 5: Epilogue* delivers us brighter flashy colors used for its strikingly photorealistic animation, endearing new characters that show empathy, nice soundtrack from Mark Mothersbaugh complete with hits such as "Comfortably Numb" from Pink Floyd, this gem of whenever Talia begs for some espionage victim license, among other funny scenes, and most of all its sentimentality centered around Marco's lasting relationship with Talia. Still, the voice actors do splendid jobs as well as Adam Sandler's portrayal of Marco being his best one yet, as he brings our titular antihero his signature Slavic accent in contrast with Marco's usual voice. The story might be all over the place, yet the film manages to bring those marbles together for one amazing climax. *Marco 5: Epilogue* proves yet again that the franchise keeps on staying strong, despite this *Epilogue* being a rather forced conclusion, leaving us to wonder how Marco arrived back to Galveston after his proposal with Talia. It would be great to have another *Marco* film only for this lovely couple, but I'm getting tired of this franchise already.

*Streaming on Anaya+, Paramount+, and Amazon Prime Video this Friday, January 14, 2022.*