In a way, that’s not the movie’s fault. Freed doesn’t veer astray from the core principles of the franchise, which has always been transactional in tone (there are contracts involved, after all). We’re the ones who have changed. It’s an inevitable side effect of the ongoing #MeToo conversations that — for a while at least – most cultural events and phenomena will be viewed through that prism. Big franchises with mass popular appeal are, to a certain extent, a reflection of our wider cultural context, or at the very least, they provide a glimpse into what Hollywood executives think that context is. And to be honest, that’s what worries me most. Freed has a veneer of wokeness that smacks of an industry used to shirking off responsibility for a toxic culture by referencing their wives and daughters