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Created Nov 09, 2019 07:42PM PST • Edited Nov 09, 2023 05:01PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Really Great 4.5

   The Hitler Youth get a satirical stake through the heart in the wonderfully wacky Jojo Rabbit. Taika Waititi – he of Thor: Ragnarok – wrote the screenplay, directs the movie and even stars as a wacky Hitler, well a Hitler as the imaginary friend to a little boy stuck in the Hitler Youth during the brutal end-days of WWII.

   Now that’s a high concept we can all get behind! Not since Hogan’s Heroes has Nazi insanity been so deftly skewered, only Jojo Rabbit is much funnier, interspersed with being profoundly sad. Such juxtapositions are less jarring than grounding, allowing us to reconnect with our humanity through both laughs and tears.

   Indeed, the use of Hitler as a comic relief character proves inspired, especially as played by Waititi. Der Fuhrer’s self-serving nature comes through, as does his sociopathic insanity. And you can laugh at him!

   Jojo Rabbit is a singular cinematic accomplishment for triple-threat Taika Waititi. It cements the brilliant funnyman from New Zealand’s position as one of the very best and funniest moviemakers working today.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Great Cast!

   • Roman Griffin Davis is by turns sweet, heartbreaking and preternaturally strong as young Jojo, a boy trying to make sense of his Hitler Youth camp lifestyle.
   • Thomasin McKenzie demonstrates a quicksilver intellect perfect for her role as a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis.
   • Taika Waititi’s Adolf Hitler stands with Charlie Chaplin’s in The Great Dictator: in the pantheon.
   • Rebel Wilson is terrific as a brutish Hitler Youth camp instructor.
   • Sam Rockwell, one of the big names in the cast, plays dramatic-comedy well, as a Nazi captain reduced to running a Hitler Youth camp.
   • Scarlett Johansson, the other big name, imbues a single mother who is secretly anti-Nazi with an innate intelligence.
   • Archie Yates, just a boy, endears himself to us as much as to his best friend Jojo. Yates goes down with Jacob Babylon as the boyhood buddies of the moment. Babylon plays Peter Parker’s buddy in Spider-Man: Far from Home and its predecessor.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Really Great 4.5

    Taika Waititi cooked up Jojo Rabbit in 2012, he tells Jimmy Kimmel in the nearby video, but finally got studio backing only after the monumental success of Thor: Ragnarok. The guy is solid gold.

    Kveller claims him as an MOT, with a recent headline that reads Taika Waititi – a Polynesian Jew will play Hitler in his new satirical.

11. Direction Really Great 4.5

12. Play Really Great 4.5

13. Music Great 4.0

14. Visuals Perfect 5.0
15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.7

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Savage 3.8

19. Rudeness Salty 2.5

21. Reality

    Glib 2.0

    Maximum circo-surrealism gives the movie an old-school surrealism, given the nearly normal physio and bio realities.

    Most notable about the reality depicted in Jojo Rabbit is Nazi insanity, using the canvas of Der Hitler-Jugend. “Jugend” looks almost like “Juden”, German for Jews. Anyway, the Hitler Youth have been a punchline for generations of post-war wits, most notably in Animal House. Jojo Rabbit shows us why.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Glib 1.7

24. Physical Glib 1.3