Moviefone Editorial

Tag: phil johnston

  • Movie Review: ‘The Twits’

    (L to R): Margo Martindale as Mrs. Twit, Johnny Vegas as Mr. Twit, in 'The Twits.' Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
    (L to R): Margo Martindale as Mrs. Twit, Johnny Vegas as Mr. Twit, in ‘The Twits.’
    Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.

    On Netflix on October 17 is ‘The Twits,’ the latest project based on Roald Dahl’s 1980 children’s novel about a loathsome couple of troublemakers.

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    Directed by Phil Johnston (‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’), the movie features the voices of Johnny Vegas (‘Bleak House’), Margo Martindale (‘August: Osage County’), Emilia Clarke (‘Game of Thrones’), Alan Tudyk (‘Superman’), Natalie Portman (‘Black Swan’) and Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (‘Freakier Friday’).

    Related Article: Next on Netflix Animation Preview Announces Upcoming Movies and TV Shows

    Initial Thoughts

    (L to R): Ryan Lopez as Bubsy, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Beesha, in 'The Twits.' Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
    (L to R): Ryan Lopez as Bubsy, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Beesha, in ‘The Twits.’ Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.

    Roald Dahl is one of those authors whose controversial views nevertheless don’t stop companies looking to adapt his work. We’ve already had two cinematic versions of ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ and Wes Anderson had brought several books and short stories to screens.

    ‘The Twits’ could perhaps be considered second-tier Dahl compared to the likes of Willy Wonka and co., but it nevertheless has enough of the writer’s trademark oddness blended with moral lessons that animation feels like the best medium for it.

    Script and Direction

    (L to R): Margo Martindale as Mrs. Twit, Johnny Vegas as Mr. Twit, in 'The Twits.'
    (L to R): Margo Martindale as Mrs. Twit, Johnny Vegas as Mr. Twit, in ‘The Twits.’

    Writing with Meg Favreau (‘Barbie: It Takes Two’), main director Phil Johnston clearly seems to be enjoying freedom from the restraints of working on bigger-budget Disney releases. Here, he truly lets his freak flag fly, building a decent if rarely needed narration and making enough changes to have the story work at feature length without sacrificing what fans of the books might expect.

    The inclusion of orphan heroes, however, does feel somewhat off-the-peg for this sort of movie, even in the characters are engaging enough.

    As director, Johnston (working alongside co-directors Todd Kunjan Demong (‘The Addams Family’) and Katie Shanahan (‘Wild Kratts’) and their animation team, brings the characters to life in fresh fashion, the various personalities looking like a blend of stop-motion and CG, and giving the madness of the story its own visual flare.

    Cast and Performances

    (L to R): Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Beesha, Timothy Simons as Marty Muggle-Wump, in 'The Twits.' Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
    (L to R): Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Beesha, Timothy Simons as Marty Muggle-Wump, in ‘The Twits.’ Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.

    Johnny Vegas and Margo Martindale are the standouts, voicing the main characters, but there are also good performances from the likes of Maitreyi Ramakrishnan (who voices one of the orphans) and Jason Mantzoukas (as local official Mayor Wayne John John-John).

    Final Thoughts

    Emilia Clarke as Pippa, in 'The Twits.' Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
    Emilia Clarke as Pippa, in ‘The Twits.’ Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.

    Dahl books are tricky to get right, and especially to translate to US audiences given their very British sensibilities.

    ‘The Twits’ is mostly successful, even if it doesn’t ever really reach much further than that.

    ‘The Twits’ receives 70 out of 100.

    Ryan Lopez as Bubsy, in 'The Twits.' Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
    Ryan Lopez as Bubsy, in ‘The Twits.’ Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.

    What’s the story of ‘The Twits’?

    The Twits tells the story of Mr. and Mrs. Twit, the meanest, smelliest, nastiest people on the face of the earth, and their epic battle against a family of magical Muggle-Wumps and two brave children who refuse to let the Twits’ cruelty win.

    Who is in the cast of ‘The Twits’?

    • Margo Martindale as Mrs. Credenza S. Twit
    • Johnny Vegas as Mr. James T. Twit
    • Natalie Portman as Mary Muggle-Wump
    • Emilia Clarke as Pippa
    • Maitreyi Ramakrishnan as Beesha
    • Jason Mantzoukas as Mayor Wayne John John-John
    • Timothy Simons as Marty Muggle-Wump
    • Alan Tudyk as Sweet Toed Toad
    Phil Johnston as Mr. Napkin, in 'The Twits.' Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.
    Phil Johnston as Mr. Napkin, in ‘The Twits.’ Photo: Courtesy of Netflix © 2025.

    Other Movies Adapted from Roald Dahl Stories:

    Buy Roald Dahl Movies and TV on Amazon

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  • ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Directors Phil Johnston on Rich Moore About How the Film Once Opened with a Funeral

    ‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Directors Phil Johnston on Rich Moore About How the Film Once Opened with a Funeral

    Disney

    “Ralph Breaks the Internet” was one of the most delightful surprises of last year. The follow-up to 2014’s “Wreck-It Ralph” saw Ralph (John C. Reilly) and Vanellope (Sarah Silverman) transported to the Internet, where their friendship was tested and they met a bunch of Disney Princesses. It’s a hoot. We were able to sit down with directors Phil Johnston and Rich Moore and producer Clark Spencer about the movie’s deeper themes, the upcoming “Zootopia” land, and how at one point the movie (an Academy Award nominee for Best Animated Feature) once began on a very, very different note. 

    So at one point the movie used to open like the classic Disney storybook, right?

    Johnston: Yeah.

    Moore: For about 30 seconds.

    Johnston: It could have worked, actually.

    Moore: Ralph had written his own book about their friendship. It was his book about Ralph and Vanellope. It was kind of a recap of what happened in the first movie but through Ralph’s point of view. It was a little skewed.

    Johnston: Yeah, it was arrogant. It’s as if he were the white night. I was so convinced that was going to work. I think it could have. I’m trying to remember why we took it out.

    Moore: Well, it skewed the story. He kind of looked like a jerk. It was so full of himself in that version. And it was a little confusing to people who hadn’t seen the first movie. Because it wasn’t the right story. So they would say, “Is that what happened in the first one?” No!

    It also started with a funeral at one point, right?

    Moore: Yeah. Tapper was unplugged and they were having a memorial. And Ralph and Vanellope were making the eulogy all about themselves. Then Gene got mad and started booing the eulogy.

    Johnston: That also worked!

    Disney

    Also, in the Oh My Disney scene with the princesses, there was a moment when Vanellope jumped on Dumbo’s back and got into a dogfight with some TIE fighters right?

    Johnston: She had a clickbait pop-up sign and was flying on Dumbo and bopping people on the head to force them to click on it.

    Moore: It was a little too long.

    Johnston: It made the scene too big.

    Moore: It turned more into her getting clicks. It was too much story.

    Spencer: And it was an issue of – how do we enjoy the website before she meets the princesses? But the princesses are really the scene. So we would always be balancing that. Like people wanting to see more of the website before the princesses and then we’d spend more time in it and make a big scene. And then they’d say, “Well what is this scene about?”

    Disney

    There’s a lot of great, brave subtext in “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” just like there was in “Zootopia.” This time it’s about toxic masculinity and online bullying. How important is that stuff to why you made the movie?

    Johnston: The first idea was always going to be about their friendship and that they would go to the Internet and the Internet would test their friendship in some way. Once we landed on the story of it being Vanellope falling in love with this pace on the Internet and wanting to stay there for the rest of her life, that idea of Ralph’s insecurity becoming a force of antagonism sort of fed naturally into toxic masculinity. Because so many of the traits he shows on the negative side of his personality are textbook. In the same way we didn’t want “Zootopia” to be a message movie, this is a feminist story about Vanellope finding her voice as a woman and relying on other strong women to help her along the way. Without ever going, “We must make this message movie about toxic masculinity and feminism,” that’s definitely baked into the subtext.

    Moore: While we loved the relationship and feel like this is a relationship worth fighting for, we wanted to portray it as it was broken. They had fallen into a codependent friendship that they weren’t even aware of. It was going to the Internet that exposed how weak their friendship was at that point and that they were both feeding into negative aspects of it. But it was going to the Internet that sped up bow broken this was and that if not cared to was just going to fall apart.

    Clark was this ever anything you had to fight for?

    Spencer: Well I think the great thing is that these guys push hard on their ideas and stories and how they can go further. That’s what’s nice about having a story trust that pushes on us. So there’s always a discussion of, “Have we gone as far as we can go?” And “What else can we dive into?” But I think, to their point, we felt that if we were going to go into The Internet, we have a responsibility to show the good and the bad side of it and delve into these tougher topics. I think “Zootopia” is a great example of a film that was willing to tackle racism. So I think it gave us the belief that we could do that also.

    Disney

    Speaking of “Zootopia,” Tiny Lister has been out there talking about subsequent sequels.

    Moore: I’m not sure where Tiny is getting this information from.

    Johnston: I’m going to announce right now: there is a “Zootopia 5” in the works. Not “2,” “3,” or “4.” Just jump to “5.” Kind of like “Big Hero 6.” It’s going to be huge.

    Moore: Finnick is the star. Tiny plays all the characters. It’s going to have a $3 trillion budget.

    Johnston: It’s like “My Dinner with Andre.”

    Moore: I like how Tiny Lester was throwing out numbers and everything. Where is this coming from Tiny?

    Well something that is slightly more concrete – literally — is the “Zootopia”-themed land coming to Shanghai. How excited are you for people to enter the world of “Zootopia?”

    Moore: I’m excited for me to enter the world of “Zootopia.”

    Spencer: The cool thing is that we make these movies and if we create characters the audience falls in love with, then hopefully they live on in the parks. Sometimes that’s walk-around characters, sometimes that might be an attraction.

    Moore: Or a special funnel cake!

    Spencer: But this is a land, which is amazing. I think they’ve outlined what they want to do with the land and it’ll be up to these guys to help with the characters and everything else.

    “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is out now on digital HD Blu-ray!   

  • ‘Ralph Breaks The Internet’ Review: Disney’s Much-Anticipated Sequel Is a Wild, Unpredictable Ride

    ‘Ralph Breaks The Internet’ Review: Disney’s Much-Anticipated Sequel Is a Wild, Unpredictable Ride

    Disney

    The long-awaited sequel to “Wreck-It Ralph” is titled “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” but it’s probably more accurate to say that the internet breaks him.

    After years of gameplay in the 8-bit world of “Fix-It Felix Jr.,” the character’s first foray into the weird, wild world of the Web is as cacophonous and overwhelming as you might expect. But of the many goods and services provided at the click of a button, the most dangerous for Ralph — and the most needed — is a mirror for his own behavior. John C. Reilly and Sarah Silverman return as the anchors of this delightful digital journey, but for such a vivid and energetic look inside the internet, directors Rich Moore and Phil Johnston offer a shrewd and surprisingly unsentimental look at the dangers of focusing on just one thing in a world full of endless opportunities to connect.

    Six years after the events of the first film, Ralph (Reilly) and Vanellope (Silverman) have settled into a familiar routine — “working” in their games by day, boozing it up at Tapper’s at night. But when the Sugar Rush game breaks in the real world, Mr. Litwak (Ed O’Neill) shuts it down, forcing Vanellope and her fellow drivers to seek shelter elsewhere in the arcade. Ralph, determined to help his best friend, infiltrates Litwak’s newly acquired internet connection and the two venture into its new and overwhelming landscape in search of replacement parts. What they soon learn, however, is that even digital characters need money, and after inadvertently driving up the price of the part, they need lots of it.

    Crossing paths with J.P. Spamly (Bill Hader), who promises opportunities to score quick cash playing video games, Ralph and Vanellope start doing what they do best in other worlds — including Slaughter Race, a brutal Mad Max-like racing game where Vanellope meets her match, and possible new BFF, in Shank (Gal Gadot), its head driver. But when Ralph becomes threatened by Vanellope’s burgeoning curiosity about a world outside not just their respective games but the friendship he holds most dear, he begins to discover just how fickle the internet can be. Soon, he is forced to consider whether his insulated life of routine is protecting him from the rest of the world, or keeping him from exploring it.

    If you’ve seen a single pixel of footage from the movie in advertisements, then you know that the Disney princesses make an appearance — a sly and hilarious display of corporate synergy that sends up not only the internet’s bottomless reservoir of time-wasting crossovers, but also many of the bygone conventions applied to the studio’s animated heroines. Moore and Johnston don’t quite always fall on the right side of when to include a “real world” company like Google or Ebay and when to make one up, but the movie is most successful when it’s skewering not just the companies and properties that comprise our great electronic unifier but the method and rhythms of our interactions with it. Ralph’s efforts to generate “hearts” in exchange for cash is hysterical and sort of wonderfully depressing in its pandering desperation — he will literally do anything, no matter how shameless — but it connects the movie to some real and unflattering truths about the web, and via the title character, some of the folks who spend the most time on it.

    Specifically, Ralph has built himself a comfortable existence as Vanellope’s best friend, and just as he feels complete satisfaction from that dynamic, he expects her to feel the same way — and when she doesn’t is when the whole internet comes crashing down. The movie explicitly articulates some simple, important truths — “never read the comments” — but the more oblique ones are probably the most essential to heed, especially as Ralph’s determination to “protect” and “help” Vanellope manifests itself in increasingly unhealthy ways. Such lessons are of course relevant in electronic space where cruelty and kindness can be dished out carelessly and be dismissed (especially by the perpetrator) as intangible. They feel particularly necessary, however, and astute, in a real world where “finding one’s tribe” can lead easily to a sense of isolation — and marginalization.

    That this culminates in a literal 800-foot Ralph, constructed from a swirling mass of smaller Ralphs, chasing Vanellope unfortunately threatens to overshadow such messages. Few animated movies in recent memory, much less from the likes of Disney, seem to wholeheartedly embrace the outlandish and fully bizarre visual opportunities that premises like this one introduce, but indulging them also makes for a wild and unpredictable ride. But then again, that’s sort of the point of the whole film, certainly for Vanellope — if you knew what you were getting into, or you’d already gotten into it, why take the ride again? And of course, per Ralph, there’s also something to be said about the security, and the reassuring familiarity, of experiencing something that’s at least somewhat like something you’ve done before.

    But ultimately, that’s why as discordant and unconventional as it sometimes is, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” resonates powerfully — because in addition to having a healthy perspective about both the pluses and minuses of the web, it takes some significant virtual epiphanies and applies them to characters who feel truly human.

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