'JOJO RABBIT'........ZING-TIME FOR HITLER......

Jojo Rabbit (2019)    Normally, we loathe and despise with a passion Oscar Suck-Ups.........movies made for the sole purpose of begging for Academy Awards like puppies at chow time........

              Mostly, they're unwatchable, unfit for human consumption.......since their one and only reason for existence is to impress Academy voters with their meticulous dedication to craft and a devotion to 'the human condition' that so often pops up in winners acceptance speeches.

               Pardon us while we barf........

               'JoJo Rabbit' is an oddity in this malignant genre.  Because no matter how hard we want to try (and we really do).....we can't bring ourselves to hate it. 

                 Why?  Because if you peel away all the Oscar Suck-up crap, the preening and posturing by the film's flavor-of-the-month director Taika Waititi,  the overly strenuous efforts to make the film appear cutting edge, daring and outrageous, all of Waititi's  LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! garbage.......

                 ..........strip it all down to the bone and you've got a simple, sweet lesson in love, tolerance and what it is to be human, to find your moral compass when all around you lost theirs.......

                   Fundamentally, the film's primal vital message is no different than those taught on 'Sesame Street', 'Mister Rogers' Neighborhood'  and the old 1970's ABC Afterschool Specials........(we're not including churches in this group, since they've by and large abandoned the teachings of Jesus Christ to worship at the golf shoes of the Fat Golden Calf of Donald Trump.....)

                   And that's what finally saves 'JoJo Rabbit' from being just another long forgotten Oscar Suck-Up that moviegoers approached like a plate of string beans their mothers forced them to eat.....

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                   True, the aggressive Monty Python-esque lampoon of Hitler and Nazis wreaks of pretentious culture-vulture pandering........but all would be dictators and authoritarians deserve thorough ridicule.......it's the fastest way to get under their skin and unhinge them....(witness the rages of our Prez Baby Orange). 

                    So we're willing to forgive 'JoJo Rabbit' its worst excesses. Whenever it's not busy with its oh so precious 'artistry', it calmly settles down to present its story of a tyke enthralled to Hitler who discovers his anti-Nazi mother is hiding a young Jewish girl in the house.  When Waitiki stops groveling for Oscars (especially with his goofball imaginary Adolf character) he lets the story breathe and become a real movie. 

                     Therefore we're astounded to award 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2) to the kind of movie we usually take apart with flamethrower.  By all means, give it a shot.