Here is proof you can take something quite familiar and make it sing in ways that feel fresh, funny, warm and exhilarating.
The animated feature film “Entergalactic” on Netflix has a storyline straight out of the Rom-Com Playbook — I mean, our hero falls in love with a girl who literally lives next door. But the story is told with some of the most strikingly beautiful and memorably trippy visuals I’ve seen in a long time, augmented by a steady diet of infectious music by the film’s co-creator and star, Kid Cudi, with a finger directly on the pulse of millennial and Gen Z culture as experienced by young Black professionals.
This is a blazingly original piece of work, created by Scott “Kid Cudi” Mescudi and Kenya Barris, directed with great style by Fletcher Moules and essentially serving as a long-form video for Kid Cudi’s upcoming album, also titled “Entergalactic.” The fusion of music and narrative works wonderfully as we follow a group of well-drawn (in more ways than one), hilarious, likable and empathetic characters.
‘Entergalactic’
Set in a New York brimming with neon-rich shades of purple, maroon, yellow and orange (the style is reminiscent of “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse”), “Entergalactic” stars Kid Cudi as Jabari, a street artist who has recently landed a major deal to turn his graffiti creation “Mr. Rager” into a series of comic books. Shortly after moving into his new, spacious, loft apartment in Manhattan, Jabari runs into his ex-girlfriend Carmen. (In one of the film’s many clever visual touches, the logo on a FedEx truck morphs into a graphic telling us Carmen is the “Ex.”)
