“Entergalactic,” Kid Cudi’s eighth studio album, is a pretty solid piece of work. Released late last September, accompanied by a Netflix-released adult animated movie by the same name, “Entergalactic” may just be Cudi’s last full-length album — a solid final note to go out on for this avenue of Cudi’s creative work.

The album itself does its job when experienced as a standalone piece — when interpreted as such, it’s a bit out of left field compared to his other works. The themes feel much more uplifting and altogether cohesive than in previous projects. Even then, “Entergalactic” is absolutely still a Cudi project, sonically reminiscent of his “Man On The Moon” trilogy. This new album is just much more thematically and narratively focused, primarily due to Cudi taking on the persona of Jabari, the movie’s protagonist, rather than himself. While rarely the most profound lyricist, “Entergalactic” proves to be Cudi’s strongest and overall most enjoyable work in some time, especially when experienced as part of the movie.

However, while it may be his thematically strongest album in some time, many of the tracks on their fall short. Cudi’s usual shortcomings are present, albeit to a lesser extent thanks to the tighter focus. Lyrics that often sound a bit too sure of their profundity litter the album, the disco/club anthem tracks are even lackluster when compared to his 2009 song ‘Enter Galactic,’ a sonically similar entry from the first “Man On The Moon” album.

The features, meanwhile, are entirely hit or miss. “Can’t Believe It'', for instance, has perhaps the weakest feature on the album with 2 Chainz’s feature feeling disconnected from the track. Many others, however, fit more strongly, with the likes of Ty Dolla $ign, longtime collaborator Dot Da Genius, Don Toliver, and others, having more cohesive, album-enhancing contributions, whether assisting in production or lending a few lines to their respective tracks.

My favorite song off the album was “Maybe So,” which has one of the most enjoyable overall sounds of the album. Another highlight was “Entergalactic Theme,” which perfectly encapsulates the downright ethereal vibes the album otherwise only suggests it sounds like, vibes that are best depicted in the movie.

Enough cynicism! Time to get to my favorite part of this project the movie! Movie? Special? Tied-together limited series? It’s a bit tricky to call “Entergalactic” one specific thing!

“Entergalactic” was originally pitched as a limited series but was cut down to a ninety-something single film with title cards sprinkled throughout to separate the narrative into chunks. These almost episodic narratives may have been conceived as full episodes at some point. Whatever you wanna call it, it makes for a fantastic viewing experience. The album’s songs enhancing its themes and scenes, rather than the movie being a vehicle to present the album like a musical.

Jabari, played by Cudi, is a newly hired comic artist who has just moved to an apartment in New York City, which I assume costs about as much as my family home’s mortgage! He soon meets the secondary protagonist and love interest, Meadow, played by Jessica Williams. Well, he “meets” her a couple of times; once in the elevator, obstructed by Jabari’s massive Kaws statue, once while Meadow nearly slams a door in his face, and finally, for real, when she wakes him up with her blaring music from across the hall. The rest of the film is your narratively typical though stylistically gorgeous will-they-won’t-they style rom-com, with supporting characters played by everyone from Cudi’s past collaborators like Ty Dolla $ign, instantly recognizable indie regulars, such as Timothée Chalamet, Vanessa Hudgens, and Macaulay Culkin, not to mention a bevy of others.

The style and look of “Entergalactic” are just gorgeous, even as it’s intentionally and proudly derivative of “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.” The movie paints over an otherwise cookie-cutter narrative with all the hyper-saturated lighting, stop-motion inspired character animation, and hyper-fantastical imagery it could fit into its runtime. The style is prevented from being made too tired by the occasional prologue or nightmare sequence in which the animation changes entirely, from Ky’s unfortunate experience with having a relationship with his neighbor, to Jabari’s dream sequence about his graffiti character turned comic book protagonist, Mr. Rager, coming to life and rampaging around the city. If you haven’t noticed between Rager and Entergalactic, this movie really likes to name-drop Cudi’s previous projects.

Tangent aside, these brief displays of aesthetic changes don’t help the shortcomings of the movie’s animation, however. As derivative of all the hot new animation trends as it is, the style fails to capture the substance of the visual language Spider-Verse had established. It’s not that it’s unsuccessful but rather underwhelming and underutilized. The comic book-inspired intentionally low framerate feels like an afterthought as if many character animations were finished before the decision to make the style choppier was even pitched. Mouth movements don’t accentuate the right sounds and syllables, random frames in character animation are chosen in favor of punchier keyframes and other aspects such as the camera movement, title cards and non-human elements are rendered smoothly, further throwing off the attempted style.

It shares similar animation quirks as many network animated television series have, where only characters and interactable or moving objects are fully rendered and visually realized, but background elements and the like are practically two-dimensional in their rendering. This choice could’ve been due to budgeting constraints, but it was a limitation that was executed at a loss for the overall look of the movie. Characters don’t feel like they’re genuinely in the environment outside of those previously discussed stylistically different scenes, bar a few scenes which got a particular amount of attention put into them.

Ultimately, both parts of Cudi’s “Entergalactic” project fall short, though the album is more so underwhelming than the movie. It’s certainly new coming from Cudi if nothing else.

Unfortunately, the album feels like a sonic rehash of his old works with a thematically new albeit similarly surface-level subject matter, while the movie fails to either be a substantively fulfilling rom-com or aesthetic successor to its clear inspiration, though the movie, at least, is worth coming back to for a rewatch. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself on my third rewatch while writing this review.

Rating-wise, “Entergalactic” (the album) would sit around a six, while I’d say the movie feels closer to an eight. I’ve binged both versions far too many times by now to have any interest in coming back to either, as neither project is especially deep enough to warrant many revisits.

Entergalactic - Cosmically Underwhelming