Marco 5: Epilogue (2022) Review

## The fifth and final *Marco* film is nothing short of awesome, but on the other side of Marco's coin, it was also post-apocalyptic horror for some of his fans.

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 snarky 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 to do 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 kind of terrible. Yes, it wasn't really a great start for 2022 animated fare and it somehow lacks the charm and wit of the previous five films if we don't count *Marco 2* since that one was truly by far the worst film in the franchise... or could the absolute worst be this one? I'm not really sure, but the fact that Marco's world has been changed to some futuristic dystopia seems cool enough for the film to earn a middling 60% rating on the Tomatometer. The film's opening scene involves Marco playing freeze tag with his friends at Zube Park, seconds later showing the most emotionally tragic scene in this film: when Aileene breaks up with Marco in favor of someone bigger and cooler than him, and that is where the film takes shape. 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, there is still one problem Marco has to face despite all this pure enjoyment: he can't cope with the letdown he had with Aileene. To put an end to this misery, Marco designs some *Terminator-*like AI creation that at first had no treacherous ambitions like Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic cyborg assassin; but later on in the film, after Marco and his buddies take their last road trip to Galveston during spring break, Marco's AI clone - a high tech algorithm generically named AI, of course - turns to his malicious alter ego after some misguided code sent from his creator, destroying Marco's world to absolute ruins and even going as far as abducting his family and friends into space cubes. The last people on Earth are Marco and his siblings; whom accompany Joaquin & Emiliano, Melissa, some mischievous kid named Juan Angel, and their fatty cousin Miguel Angel. Soon, they aren't the lonely ones anymore as they meet the Silver Springs residents once again via the Zbylot SUV and together they attempt to rescue everyone trapped inside AI-5000, a semi-utopia home to "The AI-5000 Games" and where AI does the most macabre experiments involving the smallest microchip ever made. The real threat comes when Marco's newly established Christian crew of faithful 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 Mikayla girl who goes by Talia, who gives Marco the capacity to become Marcoman thanks to her signature frappe that made Marco very happy again. Of course the latter falls in love with her, and the two attempt to make the most out of their dystopian setting with a complete tour around Silver Springs. Awww... 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 girlfriend. Both launch the rocket towards AI's planet to stop him and his maniacally 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.

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 awful execution being similar to that of *Hotel Cloudylandia 3: Traversmania* but with dystopian elements and a more serious dark tone. 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 has *way too* fast paced animation compared to other *Marco* films; again, I still like that but here it seems quite odd and bizarre to confuse the most skeptical of film critics. Have you ever seen *The Mitchells vs. The Machines*? That was a really good movie with a similar premise, but here it seems more like if the technology took over and made Marco's world into a utter dystopia where no one would ever want to live. 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. 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 film's outlandish moments and some rather mediocre attempts at comedy; *Marco 5* brings us brighter flashy colors used for its animation, endearing new characters, and most of all its sentimentality centered around Marco's lasting relationship with Talia.