But in the pursuit of setting up a new world, as well as planting the seeds for future sequels, the filmmakers fail to construct a self-contained story worthy of an audience’s attentions let alone their emotional investment. It’s a robotic descent into Hollywood financed, corporate-driven stupidity, diluting a once powerful franchise to a place it had yet to travel to until now: irrelevance.

The film falls off a gigantic cliff during its final act, melodramatically and clumsily throwing down an obnoxious and unnecessary flashback that undercuts all of the beautiful work Winslet, Schoenaerts and Rickman had delivered up to that point.

The Australian import The Little Death is a suburban sex comedy that’s too tame to make much of an impact yet also just icky enough at times to border on repugnance…[It’s] prone to introducing a clever gag only to beat it into the ground until it’s no longer of value, oftentimes forgetting less is more especially as it pertains to eliciting laughter from the audience.

What’s interesting is that, as crazy as that destination might be, as thought-provoking as elements might become, it’s the stuff that happens long before the denouement that gives this Sundance and Seattle International Film Festival favorite its memorable staying power.

It’s too fractured, too skit-oriented, too amused with itself to worry about telling a cohesive story where three-dimensional characters are developed and genuine emotions are crafted. It takes almost a full half an hour before the actual main plot kicks in, even longer for it to reach the preordained conclusion, in-between a frenetic hodgepodge of attempts at coal-black satirical comedy filled with my more misses than hits.

Relative newcomer Moore is outstanding. He’s the one that keeps the movie on track, never allowing it to drift too far into absurdity or sentimentality, anchoring the proceedings with a complex, potently effective portrait of youth in revolt.

Over four generations (and counting) of kids have been raised on “Sesame Street.” All of them know Big Bird. All of them know Oscar the Grouch. Few of them know the puppeteer and actor who has portrayed them both since the beginning. His name is Caroll Spinney, and when all is said and down he’ll go down as a legendary, iconic talent likely to have no comparable equal at any point in the foreseeable future.

What’s fascinating is just how many levels this ingenious bit of storytelling virtuosity works on. The youngest of minds will be mesmerized by the dazzling colors and the enchanting characters, while more seasoned viewers will be just as deeply engrossed by the complexity of the themes being examined.

I’m honestly not entirely sure what to make of The Stranger. It’s well made, writer/director Guillermo Amoedo (Aftershock), cinematographer Chechu Graf and editor Diego Macho (Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus) assembling a series of haunting and unsettling images that are as captivating as they are horrific. But the movie itself never gels, never coalesces, each of the narrative’s pieces coming together in a rather rudimentary fashion keeping emotional investment on my part to an oddly detached minimum.