Kong: Skull Island (PG-13)
"Ape-ocalypse Now"
1973: A mysterious organization wishes to explore an unknown island in the South Pacific, a recently discharged US Vietnam Helicopter strike team is enlisted to escort them there, and upon arrival are met with more than they bargained for in the re-imagined relaunch of the King Kong legacy, Kong: Skull Island.
Firstly, lets get it on the table that the casting is great; John Goodman, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hiddleston, and Brie Larson all populate the movie well. But for every Shea Whigham as a quirky grizzled veteran there is someone like Hiddleston who is left without much to do or act except to be pretty for the camera, or like most of the cast just be unnamed expendable Kong fodder (and boy are they expendable!). The only exception is venerable character actor John C. Reilly (Boogie Nights) as a WW2 flyboy marooned on the island. He steals almost every scene, which isn't to say everything John does is solid improv gold, but it IS to say that the majority of the movie's scenes are stiff bores without him, and since he featured so prominently in marketing for the film the producers probably agreed. The star left to mention is Kong, and he is definitively the strongest version of himself since the golden age. Well rendered and animated without a hint cartooniness, Kong comes off well but he also doesn't have much to do. Stripped of his classically unPC romance with the human female to motivate him, with no urban landscape to show off his gigantism and prowess, he is present just to growl, shout and pound the diminutive jungle around him.
Plot holes are as big as the cracks in Kong's CG nose. Is this an action-comedy or a Monster movie? Can this be called a remake if major plot points of 1933 Kong are ignored? Gone is any romance or sense of adventure. From the get go it's a "let's just see who gets eaten next," instead of a dark mystery. And every character's motivation to go into a potentially deadly unknown situation without proper training or preparation is the movie's biggest weakness, not only by civilians but followed blindly by a squadron of battle hardened Helicopter-jockeys and gunmen just off the front line in 'Nam. It just reeks of the sandbox "because it is cool" reason for film making without a hint of the real politics, ramifications, or artistry of the Vietnam 70s era.
The director Jordan Vogt-Roberts seems to be juggling things that aren't his forte. What was sold by WB marketing as Apocalypse Now with giant apes seems to not even understand what makes a good Vietnam movie, let alone a good Kaiju one. And while the CG monsters and production design hold up well and look great on screen (much improved over Jackson's 2005 remake), there are many scenes of the humans with overly obvious green screening or framed just for the 3d effect and it is jarring. Add to that Zack Snyder's slow-motion heavy DP handling the lens, and you have a slog through digital jungles and pointless fake giant things smacking each other dramatically. Sometimes it looks pretty, but most often than not it looks created. As does the 1970s setting, never once does it ring true. It feels like everyone, both behind and in front of the camera, are making their best bet what the decade was and ending up with a pale imitation.
Now imagine the existential dread of Coppolla's Apocalypse Now, but instead of Kurtz at the end of the river there is a 60 foot tall Ape-like creature fighting skull monsters, with PTSD'ed men refusing to follow orders or civilians turning out to be the true evil or something along those lines, and it could have been epic (and a unique spin on a classic). Instead it ends up "we found giant monsters, they eat us, lets escape or kill them", the end. Sure there are hints that the next movies are going to be crazy; Rodan, Mothra, even King Ghidora is mentioned in the credits and the inevitable Kong vs. Godzilla is just a stones throw away, but what about the movie now, the one you just watched? Comparatively Skull Island falls well short of the experience of the 1933 classic, maybe even of the 1976 version. It turns out to be just as many empty calories as the tub of popcorn you bought, and about as much forethought and love went into it's making.
4.5 Chest Rockwells Saying "WeeWee" out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Showing posts with label SilverScreen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SilverScreen. Show all posts
Logan (2017)
Logan (R)
"Bezereker Barrag... wait let me get my cane"
In the not so distant future the last remaining mutants struggle to survive in their old age, but when a new conspiracy falls in their laps with a new threat uncovered, a sickly Wolverine and a mentally unstable Professor X must travel across America's future landscape with a mutant-cloned daughter in tow to rescue their own race's perpetuation in Director James Mangold (Cop Land), stylized Logan.
Hailed as Hugh Jackman's final turn as the adamantium infused anti-hero Wolverine, Logan is a strange farewell to the star that helped reignite the current comic book movie craze. He anchored the now-loopy X-Men (2000) film and franchise that has seen many a high and low since, but it was his portrayal of the iconic Wolverine that was it's centerpiece attraction; a cage fighting, cigar chomping loner without a past and a serious attitude problem. As a character his story has gone through several convolutions, some Good (X2), Bad (X3) and Ugly (Xmen Origins), but now the most surprising wrinkle is how it all ends. Or, put less obliquely, how Fox has allowed it to end.
Directed and written by Mangold, Logan doesn't say much about the reluctant X-Man that we already didn't know; he's grumpy and sick of being alive (except he's also now a pill popping alcoholic). These themes are well worn by Jackman and Mangold, their previous collaboration (2013's The Wolverine) somewhat explored this side of the character to somewhat clunky results. And now instead of a Japanese motif the American West is the dusty fuel in this film's veins. Logan not only dips his hairy toes into the Western but the actual movie plays as a huge homage to one of the genre's most famous entries, Shane (1953). It's a strange idea for a mash-up, and it isn't the film's only weird foray. Touched upon are the institutional death of the small town American farmer as brought about by the meddling GMO corporations that are villainously tampering with our genetic code through corn syrup. Yes, corn syrup is another odd backbone in this film's rather strange story skeleton. Also a dying Wolverine isn't the funnest Wolverine, his staggering fight choreography and limping action sequences are not the limelight, and yet the pain inflicted and wrought in a lifetime of snikts also aren't called back upon. It comes through as a one-off story, completely divorced from any other X-movie, like a trip to the depression dimension with ol' Bluehair. These kinds of things are the norm in the books, but at the cinema it's new territory and is a ballsy choice for Fox.
So is the scary prospect of Professor Xavier with a diseased brain, out of control and off his meds. It becomes the most interesting plot point, he's a ticking time bomb in a wheelchair. Played again by Patrick Stewart, he is also bringing his presence in the Xmovies to a close and almost steals the whole show. Not only are his wide ranging super powered seizures frightening, but his hollow eyed grief and grandfatherly stubbornness give his co-star Jackman a true emotional motivation. Comedy writer Stephen Merchant's role as the albino tracker Caliban came as a great surprise as well. Then follows other great strong dystopian Sci-Fi touches to the franchise, like a conglomerate creating it's own test subjects in third world countries and using nefariously violent means to control them with it's bio-mechanically enhanced mercenaries called Reavers lead by Donald Pierce (played with delightful gold-toothed malice Boyd Holbrook). Just the "slightly in the future" design of the vehicles in Logan is also a nice touch. The X-Men have never strayed so close reality, to true gritty Science Fiction as they do here and it is much to it's benefit. Also included are several new mutants, all young children escaping the Reavers which include Wolverine's clone-daughter Laura X-23. They are treated with surprising care and with nary a cliche (go electrical fat kid!), but in reality they are just a Mcguffin to kick off Logan's last ride into the sunset, a script-writing-by-the-numbers: add a character's "child" to generate new motivation and emotions for an audience to react to.
Logan is also being much ballyhooed due to it's harder "R" rating. Deadpool broke that barrier (and Box office records) with aplomb a year earlier (and it must be mentioned that the majority of the film's belly laughs come from old Skull-Poop-L's teaser preceding the Logan film), but here the R is much more of a gimmick. The proliferation of FBombs dropped by Wolvy and Chuck are excessive and out of character, and the violence (while indeed more extreme) never truly reaches the high level of gore made possible by 6 impossibly razor sharp claws. True, the adult themes of death and dying lay heavy on Logan, but does a quick flash of tits justify Logan's stronger rating or just prove they did it because Deadpool made so much money doing it first? Box office receipts will tell all.
In the comics Logan is the best at what he does. In the movies, not so much. They have muddled his motivations and mannerisms to a point where the two characters are now distinctly different beasts. There is Jackman's version and the book's, and though they are closely related and we will always have the source books to flip through, it will be Jackman in the leather suit that will pop into the audience's mind and measure up to the next likely actor(s) taking up the mantle (how many years did it take before it was safe to replace Christopher Reeve?). Luckily this film only shows how Hugh's Wolverine ends, not the character itself. And much like the books, as writers and artists come and go, changing plot points and history and overwriting nuances, Jackman's legacy too will be slowly buried. Considering how the X-titles have been treated on screen lately, perhaps it was the best time to bow out, and what a surprisingly brutal way to choose to go.
7 SNIKTS, But Where's My Stan Lee Cameo? out of 10 (GOOD)
"Bezereker Barrag... wait let me get my cane"
In the not so distant future the last remaining mutants struggle to survive in their old age, but when a new conspiracy falls in their laps with a new threat uncovered, a sickly Wolverine and a mentally unstable Professor X must travel across America's future landscape with a mutant-cloned daughter in tow to rescue their own race's perpetuation in Director James Mangold (Cop Land), stylized Logan.
Hailed as Hugh Jackman's final turn as the adamantium infused anti-hero Wolverine, Logan is a strange farewell to the star that helped reignite the current comic book movie craze. He anchored the now-loopy X-Men (2000) film and franchise that has seen many a high and low since, but it was his portrayal of the iconic Wolverine that was it's centerpiece attraction; a cage fighting, cigar chomping loner without a past and a serious attitude problem. As a character his story has gone through several convolutions, some Good (X2), Bad (X3) and Ugly (Xmen Origins), but now the most surprising wrinkle is how it all ends. Or, put less obliquely, how Fox has allowed it to end.
Directed and written by Mangold, Logan doesn't say much about the reluctant X-Man that we already didn't know; he's grumpy and sick of being alive (except he's also now a pill popping alcoholic). These themes are well worn by Jackman and Mangold, their previous collaboration (2013's The Wolverine) somewhat explored this side of the character to somewhat clunky results. And now instead of a Japanese motif the American West is the dusty fuel in this film's veins. Logan not only dips his hairy toes into the Western but the actual movie plays as a huge homage to one of the genre's most famous entries, Shane (1953). It's a strange idea for a mash-up, and it isn't the film's only weird foray. Touched upon are the institutional death of the small town American farmer as brought about by the meddling GMO corporations that are villainously tampering with our genetic code through corn syrup. Yes, corn syrup is another odd backbone in this film's rather strange story skeleton. Also a dying Wolverine isn't the funnest Wolverine, his staggering fight choreography and limping action sequences are not the limelight, and yet the pain inflicted and wrought in a lifetime of snikts also aren't called back upon. It comes through as a one-off story, completely divorced from any other X-movie, like a trip to the depression dimension with ol' Bluehair. These kinds of things are the norm in the books, but at the cinema it's new territory and is a ballsy choice for Fox.
So is the scary prospect of Professor Xavier with a diseased brain, out of control and off his meds. It becomes the most interesting plot point, he's a ticking time bomb in a wheelchair. Played again by Patrick Stewart, he is also bringing his presence in the Xmovies to a close and almost steals the whole show. Not only are his wide ranging super powered seizures frightening, but his hollow eyed grief and grandfatherly stubbornness give his co-star Jackman a true emotional motivation. Comedy writer Stephen Merchant's role as the albino tracker Caliban came as a great surprise as well. Then follows other great strong dystopian Sci-Fi touches to the franchise, like a conglomerate creating it's own test subjects in third world countries and using nefariously violent means to control them with it's bio-mechanically enhanced mercenaries called Reavers lead by Donald Pierce (played with delightful gold-toothed malice Boyd Holbrook). Just the "slightly in the future" design of the vehicles in Logan is also a nice touch. The X-Men have never strayed so close reality, to true gritty Science Fiction as they do here and it is much to it's benefit. Also included are several new mutants, all young children escaping the Reavers which include Wolverine's clone-daughter Laura X-23. They are treated with surprising care and with nary a cliche (go electrical fat kid!), but in reality they are just a Mcguffin to kick off Logan's last ride into the sunset, a script-writing-by-the-numbers: add a character's "child" to generate new motivation and emotions for an audience to react to.
Logan is also being much ballyhooed due to it's harder "R" rating. Deadpool broke that barrier (and Box office records) with aplomb a year earlier (and it must be mentioned that the majority of the film's belly laughs come from old Skull-Poop-L's teaser preceding the Logan film), but here the R is much more of a gimmick. The proliferation of FBombs dropped by Wolvy and Chuck are excessive and out of character, and the violence (while indeed more extreme) never truly reaches the high level of gore made possible by 6 impossibly razor sharp claws. True, the adult themes of death and dying lay heavy on Logan, but does a quick flash of tits justify Logan's stronger rating or just prove they did it because Deadpool made so much money doing it first? Box office receipts will tell all.
In the comics Logan is the best at what he does. In the movies, not so much. They have muddled his motivations and mannerisms to a point where the two characters are now distinctly different beasts. There is Jackman's version and the book's, and though they are closely related and we will always have the source books to flip through, it will be Jackman in the leather suit that will pop into the audience's mind and measure up to the next likely actor(s) taking up the mantle (how many years did it take before it was safe to replace Christopher Reeve?). Luckily this film only shows how Hugh's Wolverine ends, not the character itself. And much like the books, as writers and artists come and go, changing plot points and history and overwriting nuances, Jackman's legacy too will be slowly buried. Considering how the X-titles have been treated on screen lately, perhaps it was the best time to bow out, and what a surprisingly brutal way to choose to go.
7 SNIKTS, But Where's My Stan Lee Cameo? out of 10 (GOOD)
Sausage Party (2016)
Sausage Party (R)
A frankfurter and his bun-to-be are thrown into an spiritual (and cuss laden) adventure in the aisles of their grocery store and beyond in the first CGI R-rated animated farce Sausage Party.
Sausage Party, brought to us by Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill, is a stoner movie, and that doesn't just mean the characters hit a bong (which they do, thanks for reminding us you love weed, again, Rogan), no it means it was written and starring people who are literally stoned, and the plot reflects it.
"Let's make Toy Story, except about FOOD!"
"And have a musical number like a Disney movie, about God n shit cuz they are stupid like us!"
"Yeah, and they think we are the Gods, but really we are disgusting monsters who EAT them!"
"God is religion which is bad, so have a Bagel and a whatever-the-fuck Muslims eat hate each other!"
"And the bad guy is a literal Douche, like a Douche from the feminine aisle or some shit!"
"And people that take bath salts, like, lets us dudes see the Food for reals!"
"And at the end they all get to bone! They find freedom and like have a huge food on food orgy!"
The anti-religion, pro-atheism, sex and drugs are freedom message is obvious and too strong, Seth is not awakening us with his comedic wiener movie. The film is also filled with questionable racial stereotypes done by a handful of un-ethnic comedic friends of Rogan and Company. There are only two female characters (both characterized as meat receiving vessels,) although one is Selma Hayek playing a lesbian Taco so there is that. There is some wit, some funny ideas, some laugh out loud moments, some funny cartoon gore but most of it's is just cursing.
Hint. When you make a movie, if the very first line is a curse, if you drop FBombs and Cbombs literally every other word it loses it's impact. Steve Martin's famous FBombing in Planes, Trains works because they speak like normal people up until that moment (i.e., talk normal, curse when necessary, repeat). And then suddenly it earns its R with the huge blue tirade of rage. Sausage Party isn't blue, it's purple in the face from shouting all the bad words constantly and it isn't funny. If it was handled right, a Pixar film that suddenly turned raucous (which on paper is what it intends to be), it would indeed be much funnier. But by the skin of it's sheath Sausage Party stays just enough ahead of its dumb ideas to deliver entertainment, but was it worth the terrible working conditions for it's animators Mr. Rogan?
5.5 Deadpool's Favorite Movie out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
A frankfurter and his bun-to-be are thrown into an spiritual (and cuss laden) adventure in the aisles of their grocery store and beyond in the first CGI R-rated animated farce Sausage Party.
Sausage Party, brought to us by Seth Rogan and Jonah Hill, is a stoner movie, and that doesn't just mean the characters hit a bong (which they do, thanks for reminding us you love weed, again, Rogan), no it means it was written and starring people who are literally stoned, and the plot reflects it.
"Let's make Toy Story, except about FOOD!"
"And have a musical number like a Disney movie, about God n shit cuz they are stupid like us!"
"Yeah, and they think we are the Gods, but really we are disgusting monsters who EAT them!"
"God is religion which is bad, so have a Bagel and a whatever-the-fuck Muslims eat hate each other!"
"And the bad guy is a literal Douche, like a Douche from the feminine aisle or some shit!"
"And people that take bath salts, like, lets us dudes see the Food for reals!"
"And at the end they all get to bone! They find freedom and like have a huge food on food orgy!"
The anti-religion, pro-atheism, sex and drugs are freedom message is obvious and too strong, Seth is not awakening us with his comedic wiener movie. The film is also filled with questionable racial stereotypes done by a handful of un-ethnic comedic friends of Rogan and Company. There are only two female characters (both characterized as meat receiving vessels,) although one is Selma Hayek playing a lesbian Taco so there is that. There is some wit, some funny ideas, some laugh out loud moments, some funny cartoon gore but most of it's is just cursing.
Hint. When you make a movie, if the very first line is a curse, if you drop FBombs and Cbombs literally every other word it loses it's impact. Steve Martin's famous FBombing in Planes, Trains works because they speak like normal people up until that moment (i.e., talk normal, curse when necessary, repeat). And then suddenly it earns its R with the huge blue tirade of rage. Sausage Party isn't blue, it's purple in the face from shouting all the bad words constantly and it isn't funny. If it was handled right, a Pixar film that suddenly turned raucous (which on paper is what it intends to be), it would indeed be much funnier. But by the skin of it's sheath Sausage Party stays just enough ahead of its dumb ideas to deliver entertainment, but was it worth the terrible working conditions for it's animators Mr. Rogan?
5.5 Deadpool's Favorite Movie out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016)
Kubo and the Two Strings (PG)
Often there are complaints that nothing original is being made in Hollywood. That animation is only used to cater to children in America and not adults, and that the craft and artistry must now be rendered in a computer to be relevant.
Kubo and the Two Strings proves all this wrong, and yet it's looming financial failure may prove them right.
Produced by stop-motion animation film studio Laika (Paranorman, The Box Trolls, Coraline) and first time director Travis Knight, Kubo tells a Japanese-like folk story of a young man who is being hunted by his own grandfather, and how only the spirits of his parents are able to protect him. Filled with stunning stop motion photography, top tier character studies (their faces alone achieve a humanity and expression range rarely seen in animation), fluid motion and action scenes to compare with most of Hollywood. This is not kids fare, in fact this show is aimed squarely at their parents, and some of the themes (death, memories of the departed, family in-fighting) might be a bit much for younger viewers. One could compare it favorably to Studio Ghibli breakout Princess Mononoke, at least in audacity and not talking down to it's audience. And yet unlike Mononoke, Kubo has to fit in that PG box (unlike it's brethren raunchy tube meet competition, Sausage Party (R) just a few weeks earlier) because that is what is assumed.
A talking monkey, a stag beetle samurai, a boat made out of leaves, a Giant skeleton with swords for hair, these are but a few of the inventive and wonderful adventures leading up to Kubo's confrontation with his grandfather. Not since Lord of the Rings was adapted has magic been depicted as real and not just some science trick of the silver screen. In Kubo the magic is story telling, folding ordinary paper into living origami, wearing your fathers armor and solving a puzzle. It is a burst of something new among the same old reboots and retellings, and on top of that it is about something that has been missing in our lives, about memories of loved ones and courage and music and art. It is pure fantasy without the science fiction.
However, there is a bit of a reservation surrounding the whole project. If it wasn't drawn by the hand of Hokusai, it is an imitation Hokusai, no matter how good it looks. Laika's last outing, The Boxtrolls, tried to be as British as possible for an American studio. The same goes here, what with George Takei lending a "OH MY" and various other Japanese voices. This appears to be a trend with them, and is a bit of a knock. Instead of adapting an existing Japanese folk tale, they have written their own and crammed as much Nippon-ish as their writers knew how, and therefore comes across as a little fake. Matthew McConaughey is great as the beetle warrior, his southern drawl has been repressed and represents alot of humor to the film. However he is an American actor, likewise Charlize Theron who plays the mother is a great dramatic credit to the film but is also not Japanese, even as she plays one. Perhaps an alternate fantasy setting would have been more appropriate, there are no cries about cultural appropriation from the elves.
These social shivers aside, just as entertainment Kubo is fantastic, filled to the brim with ideas, art, music and craftsmanship steeped in action fantasy, and deserves far greater than it will receive (a nomination at least!). However, for Kubo and for us, the memories may prove stronger than it ills. One hopes it will reach an ever larger audience in it's life, as those of us who seek out the hidden treasures of the world discover and share it.
9 Bowls of Whale Soup out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
Often there are complaints that nothing original is being made in Hollywood. That animation is only used to cater to children in America and not adults, and that the craft and artistry must now be rendered in a computer to be relevant.
Kubo and the Two Strings proves all this wrong, and yet it's looming financial failure may prove them right.
Produced by stop-motion animation film studio Laika (Paranorman, The Box Trolls, Coraline) and first time director Travis Knight, Kubo tells a Japanese-like folk story of a young man who is being hunted by his own grandfather, and how only the spirits of his parents are able to protect him. Filled with stunning stop motion photography, top tier character studies (their faces alone achieve a humanity and expression range rarely seen in animation), fluid motion and action scenes to compare with most of Hollywood. This is not kids fare, in fact this show is aimed squarely at their parents, and some of the themes (death, memories of the departed, family in-fighting) might be a bit much for younger viewers. One could compare it favorably to Studio Ghibli breakout Princess Mononoke, at least in audacity and not talking down to it's audience. And yet unlike Mononoke, Kubo has to fit in that PG box (unlike it's brethren raunchy tube meet competition, Sausage Party (R) just a few weeks earlier) because that is what is assumed.
A talking monkey, a stag beetle samurai, a boat made out of leaves, a Giant skeleton with swords for hair, these are but a few of the inventive and wonderful adventures leading up to Kubo's confrontation with his grandfather. Not since Lord of the Rings was adapted has magic been depicted as real and not just some science trick of the silver screen. In Kubo the magic is story telling, folding ordinary paper into living origami, wearing your fathers armor and solving a puzzle. It is a burst of something new among the same old reboots and retellings, and on top of that it is about something that has been missing in our lives, about memories of loved ones and courage and music and art. It is pure fantasy without the science fiction.
However, there is a bit of a reservation surrounding the whole project. If it wasn't drawn by the hand of Hokusai, it is an imitation Hokusai, no matter how good it looks. Laika's last outing, The Boxtrolls, tried to be as British as possible for an American studio. The same goes here, what with George Takei lending a "OH MY" and various other Japanese voices. This appears to be a trend with them, and is a bit of a knock. Instead of adapting an existing Japanese folk tale, they have written their own and crammed as much Nippon-ish as their writers knew how, and therefore comes across as a little fake. Matthew McConaughey is great as the beetle warrior, his southern drawl has been repressed and represents alot of humor to the film. However he is an American actor, likewise Charlize Theron who plays the mother is a great dramatic credit to the film but is also not Japanese, even as she plays one. Perhaps an alternate fantasy setting would have been more appropriate, there are no cries about cultural appropriation from the elves.
These social shivers aside, just as entertainment Kubo is fantastic, filled to the brim with ideas, art, music and craftsmanship steeped in action fantasy, and deserves far greater than it will receive (a nomination at least!). However, for Kubo and for us, the memories may prove stronger than it ills. One hopes it will reach an ever larger audience in it's life, as those of us who seek out the hidden treasures of the world discover and share it.
9 Bowls of Whale Soup out of 10 (OUTSTANDING)
Finding Dory (2016)
Finding Dory (PG)
"One Fish Two Fish Red Fish, who fish?"
A short while after finding Nemo, Dory sets out on another oceanic voyage to find her long lost parents in Pixar's follow up, Finding Dory.
Pixar, once the Art House 3D powerhouse, has apparently succumbed to it's masters and begun churning out sequel after sequel. And while Monster's University was a small success but did have something new and interesting to say about it's Universe and characters, Finding Dory is a huge hit with almost nothing new to say. The absent minded Dory (Ellen Degeneres) has been upgraded to main character but her winning sidekick charm has been downgraded in the process. Saddled with grief and dementia, Dory is a panic stricken nervous case without time to crack as many jokes. Her quest for her family is of course fraught with peril and fun new friends, and Nemo and Marlin tag along for the ride because, hey a sequel can't stray to far from it's roots right?! The Pacific Coast setting is accurately rendered and yet so far removed from the delightful candy like reef that it is as much of a downer as remembering Dory's lost childhood is. Things spice up once they reach an aquarium/habitat, but still strange plot questions weigh down what should easily float (like why on earth would a clutch of California sea lions have English accents?).
The great Ed O'Neil (Wayne's World) has the best and newest character as Hank, a curmodgeony octopus trying his best to escape yet slowly but surely falling under Dory's chaotic spell. Hank's story is obviously influenced (and probably sparked the creation of the sequel) by the nationwide headlines a real life escaping octopus made in the news awhile back, and in 3D form provides the best action, fun and lines in the entire picture. The only other stand out is Becky, the speechless empty headed loon that helps the fish, which is in of itself telling of the mediocrity of the main story.
The other characters (a near sighted whale, a Beluga with a confidence problem, etc) are mostly just there to move Dory along and fill in her backstory from the first film. It's a case of better left unsaid, Dory is at her best being surprising and funny in difficult situations, but this Finding has to tell you WHY she had so many surprises and why she is so sad. It's not an emotion easily stapled to our memories of Dory from the first film, and all of it comes across as not much of a reason to make a second. Finding Dory is a safe money maker, it takes no chances with it's beloved franchise, and is the artistic equivalent of a luke warm salt water bath.
6 At Least the Humans look less Freakish out of 10 (GOOD)
"One Fish Two Fish Red Fish, who fish?"
A short while after finding Nemo, Dory sets out on another oceanic voyage to find her long lost parents in Pixar's follow up, Finding Dory.
Pixar, once the Art House 3D powerhouse, has apparently succumbed to it's masters and begun churning out sequel after sequel. And while Monster's University was a small success but did have something new and interesting to say about it's Universe and characters, Finding Dory is a huge hit with almost nothing new to say. The absent minded Dory (Ellen Degeneres) has been upgraded to main character but her winning sidekick charm has been downgraded in the process. Saddled with grief and dementia, Dory is a panic stricken nervous case without time to crack as many jokes. Her quest for her family is of course fraught with peril and fun new friends, and Nemo and Marlin tag along for the ride because, hey a sequel can't stray to far from it's roots right?! The Pacific Coast setting is accurately rendered and yet so far removed from the delightful candy like reef that it is as much of a downer as remembering Dory's lost childhood is. Things spice up once they reach an aquarium/habitat, but still strange plot questions weigh down what should easily float (like why on earth would a clutch of California sea lions have English accents?).
The great Ed O'Neil (Wayne's World) has the best and newest character as Hank, a curmodgeony octopus trying his best to escape yet slowly but surely falling under Dory's chaotic spell. Hank's story is obviously influenced (and probably sparked the creation of the sequel) by the nationwide headlines a real life escaping octopus made in the news awhile back, and in 3D form provides the best action, fun and lines in the entire picture. The only other stand out is Becky, the speechless empty headed loon that helps the fish, which is in of itself telling of the mediocrity of the main story.
The other characters (a near sighted whale, a Beluga with a confidence problem, etc) are mostly just there to move Dory along and fill in her backstory from the first film. It's a case of better left unsaid, Dory is at her best being surprising and funny in difficult situations, but this Finding has to tell you WHY she had so many surprises and why she is so sad. It's not an emotion easily stapled to our memories of Dory from the first film, and all of it comes across as not much of a reason to make a second. Finding Dory is a safe money maker, it takes no chances with it's beloved franchise, and is the artistic equivalent of a luke warm salt water bath.
6 At Least the Humans look less Freakish out of 10 (GOOD)
The Nice Guys (2016)
The Nice Guys (R)
"Nice Guys don't always finish last"
A Private detective who is an alcoholic single father gets hired by a muscle-for-hire goon, the same one who broke his arm the night before, to help find a mysterious woman and the mysterious LA underworld circumstances under which she vanished in Shane Black's entertaining NeoNoir flick, The Nice Guys.
Shane has long been the good manly man movie writer working in Hollywood, what with Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Iron Man 3 under his belt. His current high water mark was the similarly themed (and funny) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This Nice Guys dips back into his well as once again a detective buddy picture about two disparate men with gore and sex and all that good stuff we liked in manly movies from the 80s, which clearly bucks the trends of socially friendlier adult fare on the big screen.
This time it stars Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator) as at-odds partners stepping from trail to trail to find even greater mysteries to solve. The key to the film is that these two have great chemistry, have lots of funny lines to spout and lots of guns to shoot. The rest of the cast are mere filler (though Black's trend of having a kid sidekick can be a little grating to the audience and the plot). The underlying mystery, traveling from the porn friendly Los Angeles hills to the streets of urban life, lays out an exaggerated 1970s retro lifestyle that matches the decor and costumes and music. The story is often slumming through post-counter culture sex and mores, and the ambiguous mix of testosterone in Gosling and Crowe go great with it. But not everything is cool like a 7&7 here.
While the underlying message of the struggle of fatherhood can be seen in most of Black's work, here it has a creepy underpinning of underage sexual proclivities, rubbing up as it does with the 70s porn scene. This may not sit right with some modern viewers, even though its cringe-impact is obviously intentional. Also, the gun fights and action aren't as well paced or blocked as other director's have done with his scripts. Shane has a proven track record of outstanding punchy dialog but his direction of action scenes is stodgy to say the least, as is some of the digital compositing. Sadly, Kim Basinger is in the cast to relive her LA Confidential comeback but she appears completely uncomfortable as a shady LA DA and doesn't add much credence to the sometimes murky plot. However if you can kick your feet up and go with the flow it all shouldn't stress you out too too much.
In action/comedy however he excels, and he and his leads nail it to the wall with an original, witty, decadent twist on a genre forgotten by most Studios, to which which we ask for more.
"More? Me too, mine's as big as a house!"
8 ...and Stuff out of 10 (GREAT)
"Nice Guys don't always finish last"
A Private detective who is an alcoholic single father gets hired by a muscle-for-hire goon, the same one who broke his arm the night before, to help find a mysterious woman and the mysterious LA underworld circumstances under which she vanished in Shane Black's entertaining NeoNoir flick, The Nice Guys.
Shane has long been the good manly man movie writer working in Hollywood, what with Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Last Boy Scout, and Iron Man 3 under his belt. His current high water mark was the similarly themed (and funny) Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. This Nice Guys dips back into his well as once again a detective buddy picture about two disparate men with gore and sex and all that good stuff we liked in manly movies from the 80s, which clearly bucks the trends of socially friendlier adult fare on the big screen.
This time it stars Ryan Gosling (Drive) and Russel Crowe (Gladiator) as at-odds partners stepping from trail to trail to find even greater mysteries to solve. The key to the film is that these two have great chemistry, have lots of funny lines to spout and lots of guns to shoot. The rest of the cast are mere filler (though Black's trend of having a kid sidekick can be a little grating to the audience and the plot). The underlying mystery, traveling from the porn friendly Los Angeles hills to the streets of urban life, lays out an exaggerated 1970s retro lifestyle that matches the decor and costumes and music. The story is often slumming through post-counter culture sex and mores, and the ambiguous mix of testosterone in Gosling and Crowe go great with it. But not everything is cool like a 7&7 here.
While the underlying message of the struggle of fatherhood can be seen in most of Black's work, here it has a creepy underpinning of underage sexual proclivities, rubbing up as it does with the 70s porn scene. This may not sit right with some modern viewers, even though its cringe-impact is obviously intentional. Also, the gun fights and action aren't as well paced or blocked as other director's have done with his scripts. Shane has a proven track record of outstanding punchy dialog but his direction of action scenes is stodgy to say the least, as is some of the digital compositing. Sadly, Kim Basinger is in the cast to relive her LA Confidential comeback but she appears completely uncomfortable as a shady LA DA and doesn't add much credence to the sometimes murky plot. However if you can kick your feet up and go with the flow it all shouldn't stress you out too too much.
In action/comedy however he excels, and he and his leads nail it to the wall with an original, witty, decadent twist on a genre forgotten by most Studios, to which which we ask for more.
"More? Me too, mine's as big as a house!"
8 ...and Stuff out of 10 (GREAT)
Captain America: Civil War (2016)
Captain America: Civil War (PG-13)
"A House of M divided against itself cannot stand"
After surviving the Age of Ultron, Captain America must now find and keep his friend from being hunted down and killed as the rest of the world's bureaucracies are cracking down on unfettered Superheros (aided by the one and only Iron Man) in the Russo brother's newest follow up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Russo brothers proved themselves with CA:Winter Soldier. That film had pure, clean action and lots of it, all seen through it's hero and his friends against a worldwide conspiracy that threatened the democracy and freedom they love. Seeing these two movies back to back is a whiplash of culture shock. Civil war instead has high instances of shaky cameras, action scenes that for all the world look unplanned and formed instead in the edit room, grandiose cameos from other parts of the MCU just to sell future films, and just an overall inability to focus on the narrative and draw the necessary lines in the dirt to justify it's own title. These are the ying and yang of Captain America films.
First off the aesthetic and production design is fantastic, the fleetingness of the world hopping almost feels Bond-ish (though perhaps unneeded, almost like they were chasing tax credits and filming wherever was most glamorously least expensive). New addition to the MCU Black Panther is not only wonderfully realized and portrayed, he looks cool and is a harbinger of good things to come from the FilmHouse of M. The special effects are solid and features the Russo's return to the franchise after their strongest MCU film to date, so what could go wrong?
Mostly it's wrong in calling it a Captain America film, it's primarily an Ironman film, and slightly an Avengers film. The return of Robert Downey Jr., his recruitment of the new Spider-man, his turn towards becoming a tool of the state are all allowed to overshadow Chris Evan's Captain's single-minded and strictly illegal devotion to a comrade come hell or high water. It's the Ironman show, he gets the best lines, the most gravitas, he's the bigger star (which isn't shocking when you consider RDJr's Ironman first launched the MCU). The movie feels motivated towards easy profits instead of cutting edge story. But the movie is called Captain America, and features this figure running around Europe breaking all manner of international laws which must be said would be somewhat against his character. There is a prevailing sense of Marvel not being willing to paint either hero in a bad light, especially RDJr, and it is a sign of the MCU's possible slow descent into suit-funded mediocrity (or at least the slump they've had going, especially with large cast blockbusters). It all leaves the center encounter, Cap vs Ironman, oddly empty and devoid of the passions needed to pull it off a Civil War.
Speaking of villain, the ones here are not only again wholly expendable, they are depressingly unmotivated and with master plan plot holes the size of Tony's ego. And if this movie stops and makes you ask "why would he?" and "why doesn't he...?," then the whole house of cards about the purpose of this movie falls hard. It becomes what some critics have described, an unmemorable cookie cutter "betcha can't wait to watch the next movies we make" money factory instead of the rock-solid best action movie that you could take your kid brother to go see, as American as apple pie and the stars and stripes.
6.5 Gi-Ant Man out of 10 (GOOD)
"A House of M divided against itself cannot stand"
After surviving the Age of Ultron, Captain America must now find and keep his friend from being hunted down and killed as the rest of the world's bureaucracies are cracking down on unfettered Superheros (aided by the one and only Iron Man) in the Russo brother's newest follow up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
The Russo brothers proved themselves with CA:Winter Soldier. That film had pure, clean action and lots of it, all seen through it's hero and his friends against a worldwide conspiracy that threatened the democracy and freedom they love. Seeing these two movies back to back is a whiplash of culture shock. Civil war instead has high instances of shaky cameras, action scenes that for all the world look unplanned and formed instead in the edit room, grandiose cameos from other parts of the MCU just to sell future films, and just an overall inability to focus on the narrative and draw the necessary lines in the dirt to justify it's own title. These are the ying and yang of Captain America films.
First off the aesthetic and production design is fantastic, the fleetingness of the world hopping almost feels Bond-ish (though perhaps unneeded, almost like they were chasing tax credits and filming wherever was most glamorously least expensive). New addition to the MCU Black Panther is not only wonderfully realized and portrayed, he looks cool and is a harbinger of good things to come from the FilmHouse of M. The special effects are solid and features the Russo's return to the franchise after their strongest MCU film to date, so what could go wrong?
Mostly it's wrong in calling it a Captain America film, it's primarily an Ironman film, and slightly an Avengers film. The return of Robert Downey Jr., his recruitment of the new Spider-man, his turn towards becoming a tool of the state are all allowed to overshadow Chris Evan's Captain's single-minded and strictly illegal devotion to a comrade come hell or high water. It's the Ironman show, he gets the best lines, the most gravitas, he's the bigger star (which isn't shocking when you consider RDJr's Ironman first launched the MCU). The movie feels motivated towards easy profits instead of cutting edge story. But the movie is called Captain America, and features this figure running around Europe breaking all manner of international laws which must be said would be somewhat against his character. There is a prevailing sense of Marvel not being willing to paint either hero in a bad light, especially RDJr, and it is a sign of the MCU's possible slow descent into suit-funded mediocrity (or at least the slump they've had going, especially with large cast blockbusters). It all leaves the center encounter, Cap vs Ironman, oddly empty and devoid of the passions needed to pull it off a Civil War.
Speaking of villain, the ones here are not only again wholly expendable, they are depressingly unmotivated and with master plan plot holes the size of Tony's ego. And if this movie stops and makes you ask "why would he?" and "why doesn't he...?," then the whole house of cards about the purpose of this movie falls hard. It becomes what some critics have described, an unmemorable cookie cutter "betcha can't wait to watch the next movies we make" money factory instead of the rock-solid best action movie that you could take your kid brother to go see, as American as apple pie and the stars and stripes.
6.5 Gi-Ant Man out of 10 (GOOD)
Everybody Wants Some (2016)
Everybody Wants Some!! (R)
"Some, why not all?"
A group of freshman college baseball players settle into their new life of stiff competition, stiff drinking, loose girls and acting all grown up in Texas in Richard Linklater's comedy Everybody Wants Some!!.
Sold as the spiritual sequel to Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), EWS follows a group of freshman baseball players trying to fit into their new lives, trying to out perform the older players, and trying to stay as stoned and laid as possible. It's now the 1980s, and boy was it a different time. As a study of how America has changed in just a few short decades (which Linklater's films often revel in) Everybody Wants Some succeeds, but as a pure form of visual entertainment it sadly falls on it's own cleats.
Maybe it's the lack of "loss of innocence" plot line or pungent stench of post-pubescent ambition, but Everybody Wants Some!! leaves you wanting a bit more and less. There's no issues with the comedy which is humorous, the acting which is naturalistic, the directing which is approachable. However all together these testosterone fueled Jocks in a Frat house will only appeal to a certain audience, if it was your Father or favorite Uncle telling these tall tales of chopping baseballs with axes or the night they got kicked out of the disco after meeting your mother inbetween gulps of Shiner Bock then you'd have a sincere reason to listen. Told to a modern audience it falls flat, a rude boy story/brag bereft of the nostalgia and hope that shone from Dazed and Confused. Instead it concentrates on the potential for success (or failure) for these near-men, friends, odd balls and sexual dynamos that only a small group of modern individuals could really relate too, or more importantly, really laugh at.
6.5 Still Not as Boring as Boyhood, But Not High Art Either out of 10 (GOOD)
"Some, why not all?"
A group of freshman college baseball players settle into their new life of stiff competition, stiff drinking, loose girls and acting all grown up in Texas in Richard Linklater's comedy Everybody Wants Some!!.
Sold as the spiritual sequel to Linklater's Dazed and Confused (1993), EWS follows a group of freshman baseball players trying to fit into their new lives, trying to out perform the older players, and trying to stay as stoned and laid as possible. It's now the 1980s, and boy was it a different time. As a study of how America has changed in just a few short decades (which Linklater's films often revel in) Everybody Wants Some succeeds, but as a pure form of visual entertainment it sadly falls on it's own cleats.
Maybe it's the lack of "loss of innocence" plot line or pungent stench of post-pubescent ambition, but Everybody Wants Some!! leaves you wanting a bit more and less. There's no issues with the comedy which is humorous, the acting which is naturalistic, the directing which is approachable. However all together these testosterone fueled Jocks in a Frat house will only appeal to a certain audience, if it was your Father or favorite Uncle telling these tall tales of chopping baseballs with axes or the night they got kicked out of the disco after meeting your mother inbetween gulps of Shiner Bock then you'd have a sincere reason to listen. Told to a modern audience it falls flat, a rude boy story/brag bereft of the nostalgia and hope that shone from Dazed and Confused. Instead it concentrates on the potential for success (or failure) for these near-men, friends, odd balls and sexual dynamos that only a small group of modern individuals could really relate too, or more importantly, really laugh at.
6.5 Still Not as Boring as Boyhood, But Not High Art Either out of 10 (GOOD)
Hardcore Henry (2016)
Hardcore Henry - R
An augmented man with no memory chases after his wife who is kidnapped out of the Russian lab he was created in, rushing through the buildings, streets and rails in a nonstop barrage of violence and first person camera work in the very video-game like Hardcore Henry.
Hardcore Henry is basically the longest (and worst acted) GoPro camera commercial in existence. Yet the footage doesn't have the visual definition usually seen on the big screen for a big release, it can be an unpleasant blurry mess (especially in low light). The acting is atrocious, the main villain has followed the "bad movie actor playbook" as close as possible, shouting lines and gritting teeth and flipping his hair while avoiding actually killing the protagonist at all times. The other extras and leads limp along in his wake.
Hardcore Henry is original in being the first movie to pull this genre off, and yet is wholly unoriginal by not only aping most First Person video games but also not matching them. With high end PCs and PS4s now most games look better than Henry's scummy sunlit scenes. The film's finale is the worst kind of final video game level, with terrible video graphics, long time coming plot twist, easily disposed cannon fodder and hammy acting from your cackling final Boss. But considering how low budget H. Henry must be, how much seat of the pants filmmaking it must have used, you can't help but gain a grudging respect for the project (and quite a bit of fun).
For instance, Sharlto Copley's role as a scientist who has invented Henry's technology is a breath of fresh air from all the mind numbing punching and jumping. Despite a severely underwhelming lead role in Eleysium and being a possible albatross on this production, here his comedic antics make him the only visible actor who has a grasp of how to behave on camera. And he takes it to extremes (much to the filmmakers credit) by playing a plethora of characters ala Peter Sellers, each with their own costumes and funny accents. It is the only part of Henry that took any balls to put to screen, after all the action stunt work and parkour sequences are what we would expect. Add that to a seldom seen peek into the suburban sprawl of life in Russia and it's satellite states, some outstanding action and death defying stunts makes Hardcore Henry not a bad movie, it's just not as violent as the title promised, not as original as it's poster promised, and not as revolutionary as it is entertaining.
5.5 Steel Knuckles out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
An augmented man with no memory chases after his wife who is kidnapped out of the Russian lab he was created in, rushing through the buildings, streets and rails in a nonstop barrage of violence and first person camera work in the very video-game like Hardcore Henry.
Hardcore Henry is basically the longest (and worst acted) GoPro camera commercial in existence. Yet the footage doesn't have the visual definition usually seen on the big screen for a big release, it can be an unpleasant blurry mess (especially in low light). The acting is atrocious, the main villain has followed the "bad movie actor playbook" as close as possible, shouting lines and gritting teeth and flipping his hair while avoiding actually killing the protagonist at all times. The other extras and leads limp along in his wake.
Hardcore Henry is original in being the first movie to pull this genre off, and yet is wholly unoriginal by not only aping most First Person video games but also not matching them. With high end PCs and PS4s now most games look better than Henry's scummy sunlit scenes. The film's finale is the worst kind of final video game level, with terrible video graphics, long time coming plot twist, easily disposed cannon fodder and hammy acting from your cackling final Boss. But considering how low budget H. Henry must be, how much seat of the pants filmmaking it must have used, you can't help but gain a grudging respect for the project (and quite a bit of fun).
For instance, Sharlto Copley's role as a scientist who has invented Henry's technology is a breath of fresh air from all the mind numbing punching and jumping. Despite a severely underwhelming lead role in Eleysium and being a possible albatross on this production, here his comedic antics make him the only visible actor who has a grasp of how to behave on camera. And he takes it to extremes (much to the filmmakers credit) by playing a plethora of characters ala Peter Sellers, each with their own costumes and funny accents. It is the only part of Henry that took any balls to put to screen, after all the action stunt work and parkour sequences are what we would expect. Add that to a seldom seen peek into the suburban sprawl of life in Russia and it's satellite states, some outstanding action and death defying stunts makes Hardcore Henry not a bad movie, it's just not as violent as the title promised, not as original as it's poster promised, and not as revolutionary as it is entertaining.
5.5 Steel Knuckles out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Deadpool (2016)
Deadpool (R)
"Skull Poop L"
An ex-special forces commando with a heart (and mouth) of gold finds love, yadda yadda, actually the point of a Deadpool movie should be to abandon the need for a movie with these kinds of standard comic book adaptation-driven synopsis', and sometimes it does- making Deadpool a riot in Fox's newest X-Men film franchise entry.
From the opening frame of a wonderfully off-kilter and sarcastic opening-title sequence, Deadpool promises and delivers R rated thrills that the budget doesn't quite live up to. Half the movie feels like a standard origin story with more than average funny quips, while almost all the action is separated by long (yet humorous) exposition in the other half (rumored last minute budget cuts from Fox have been fingered). Where a character like Deadpool could be skewering the cash-grabs and grotesque sameness inherent in "The Comic Book Movie" formula, instead just does them in a uniquely and still appreciated fun way. Meta-humor is used sparingly, like making fun of it's own villain by calling him a cliche with a British accent in the aforementioned opening sequence? That loses it's sting when the joke of a boring old Limey super-villain actually comes true. It's the greatest 4th wall of all, the one this film is never really able to break through; the same old training montages and goop-that-gives-you-powers are all present even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek (could be worse places!).
Luckily the Merc-with-a-pottymouth's sense of humor (gallows or otherwise) are left dashingly intact. Ryan Reynolds, who last played the same character in Fox's abysmal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, gets a chance to nail what the fans have been slavering for (and it isn't your momma). There are a lot of laughs, both raunchy and silly, but the overall charm of the film is from Reynolds' Pool, and it's surprising release on Valentine's day a welcome violent surprise for boys and girls, a healthy fun alternative to the chick-flick bait of yester-weekends. Here we have a pooting red-booted killing machine who lives with a old blind lady in a basement apartment, looks like a walking tumor under the spandex and who takes cabs to his mass-shooting sprees instead of B-52 Blackbirds, big shiny friends from the other X-franchises to chide him or make him feel old (New Mutants uniform FTW). It is at least unusual, at most very funny and a lastly a fresh breath of gunpowder-laden air. Next time just leave the flashbacks for other franchises with episodes on the CW, ok sport?
7.5 Testicles with Teeth out of 10 (GOOD)
"Skull Poop L"
An ex-special forces commando with a heart (and mouth) of gold finds love, yadda yadda, actually the point of a Deadpool movie should be to abandon the need for a movie with these kinds of standard comic book adaptation-driven synopsis', and sometimes it does- making Deadpool a riot in Fox's newest X-Men film franchise entry.
From the opening frame of a wonderfully off-kilter and sarcastic opening-title sequence, Deadpool promises and delivers R rated thrills that the budget doesn't quite live up to. Half the movie feels like a standard origin story with more than average funny quips, while almost all the action is separated by long (yet humorous) exposition in the other half (rumored last minute budget cuts from Fox have been fingered). Where a character like Deadpool could be skewering the cash-grabs and grotesque sameness inherent in "The Comic Book Movie" formula, instead just does them in a uniquely and still appreciated fun way. Meta-humor is used sparingly, like making fun of it's own villain by calling him a cliche with a British accent in the aforementioned opening sequence? That loses it's sting when the joke of a boring old Limey super-villain actually comes true. It's the greatest 4th wall of all, the one this film is never really able to break through; the same old training montages and goop-that-gives-you-powers are all present even if tongue is planted firmly in cheek (could be worse places!).
Luckily the Merc-with-a-pottymouth's sense of humor (gallows or otherwise) are left dashingly intact. Ryan Reynolds, who last played the same character in Fox's abysmal X-Men Origins: Wolverine, gets a chance to nail what the fans have been slavering for (and it isn't your momma). There are a lot of laughs, both raunchy and silly, but the overall charm of the film is from Reynolds' Pool, and it's surprising release on Valentine's day a welcome violent surprise for boys and girls, a healthy fun alternative to the chick-flick bait of yester-weekends. Here we have a pooting red-booted killing machine who lives with a old blind lady in a basement apartment, looks like a walking tumor under the spandex and who takes cabs to his mass-shooting sprees instead of B-52 Blackbirds, big shiny friends from the other X-franchises to chide him or make him feel old (New Mutants uniform FTW). It is at least unusual, at most very funny and a lastly a fresh breath of gunpowder-laden air. Next time just leave the flashbacks for other franchises with episodes on the CW, ok sport?
7.5 Testicles with Teeth out of 10 (GOOD)
The Revenant (2015)
The Revenant (R)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
A man on a trapping expedition, mauled by a bear and wronged by his companions, crawls his way back to civilization and survival by sheer will and the lust for revenge in director Alejandro Inarratu's followup to 2014's Best Picture "Birdman (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)".
Based very loosely on the widely told tale of professional trail scout Hugh Glass (played with baby face and big bearded Leonardo DiCaprio (Wolf of Wall Street)), a man so wronged even his own exposed ribs nor 200 miles full of blood thirsty natives will keep him from his vengeance. Leo plays him as the quiet type, surrounded by the vast blanketed mountains or picking his way through the tree studded fields he doesn't say much (having one's throat shredded by a momma grizzly may have helped). When asked why he fled civilized parts of the world, Leo's Glass mutters something about "Liking it where it's quiet". These are his best moments, but DiCaprio cannot so easily shed his Mega-star image and face beneath a bearhide and buckskins, and too often (despite his truly best efforts and solid acting ability), we are forced to admit that no, Leo does not resemble a wild Mountain-man of the frontier age, a man so hardy and full of spirit that he could survive the cold and wounds and misfortune. He looks, much as he did in The Aviator, like Leo DiCaprio.
Tom Hardy (Bronson), on the other hand, once again completely transforms himself for a role. As Glass' trapping partner Fitzgerald he is bitter, racist, self-serving and sports a plotting, devious mind. His country Texas twang feels great, every time the film gives him something to do he is riveting and completely steals the show from DiCaprio, there is a self confidence present that stands it's ground as an authentic Western ideology. Perhaps he wasn't as electric as Mad Max since he could not truly make the role singularly his own, but in Revenant he fits into Fitzgerald perfectly and is fantastic antagonist.
It is only too bad the film strays from what makes it good so often. The cinema, the wide open wild places look terrific while at the same time the CGI wild animals populating it detract. The long takes, now famous from these filmmakers, feel more constructed and sewn together with twine when done in nature than the smooth seamless backstage views. The compositing is distracting, mostly during the action sequences, there is a reliance on technology way out there in wilds of nature that simply clashes with the aesthetic being sold to us. As is some of the audio design, for instance the Natives all are dubbed strangely and out of sync, the words literally put into their mouths in post. More power to Inarratu for braving the forces of nature to capture this stuff with natural light and freezing actors and crew, but if Dances with Wolves had just had a herd of CGI buffalo that too would have stuck out like a sore thumb too. However there are shots here of such sublime beauty as to be in a Terrance Mallick film (in fact much can be seen as homage to T.M.), but unfortunately many do not help along the blood thirsty narrative. A man done so wrong would not sleep so placidly or have such a spiritual dream journey. And, like the many Hollywood epics before it, the script of the Revenant takes an amazing true life story of determination and grit and gussies it up with more drama for modern audiences, rehashing a classic trend that itself should be mauled and buried. A man did do this, crawled that great long way, survive a bear attack and had maggots eat his gangrenous flesh, there is no need to gussy it up and "humanize" it more. Revenge does not only come from blood, motivation not just from love and close ups of eye's leaking, the real story of Glass was already about how strong and hardy a human being could be, and diluting it with modern cinematic tricks really wounds it to the quick.
Much like its protagonist Glass, Revenant is ritualistically real. The snow, dirt and blood and environments is under his feet and nails and stains his clothes (costume). And yet mixed in equal parts is fabrication, with an empty spirituality, preachy modern morality and technological shortcuts. Where it gets it right, the opening Bear horror, the closing showdown with the fantastic Hardy, the rest is a barren cold wasteland of misspent ideals. All in a film just as lengthy as Hateful Eight yet without the constant, cartoonishly fired from the hip Western-fried delights. Greatness lurks beneath a thick ground fog of modern necessity, and instead of a tall tale we get a long one.
By the end, worn out by tiresome long camera takes, you stumble out of the theater on benumbed legs like a snow blind trapper with nothing to show for your journey except a deep yearning for hearth and home.
7 Historical Showdowns that never actually happened out of 10 (GOOD)
The Hateful Eight (2015)
The Hateful Eight (R)
"Reservoir CowDogs"
A pair of bounty hunters cross paths on the way to a snowed in Wyoming outpost, only to meet a slew of strangers holed up in a blizzard. One is hauling a live prisoner worth a $10,000 reward, and suspects everyone else of collusion, theft or chicanery. Some may live or die, but none will escape unbloodied in Quentin Tarantino's 8th film, the red-soaked return to form The Hateful 8.
First, it must be said that Hateful Eight is less of a genre-ape than his previous few films, if anything TH8 is in the genre of his own first film Reservior Dogs (stick with your own genres QT), but by moving the narrative to the post-Civil War era has allowed him to toy with the idea that sometimes in our past even the good guys were pretty bad. It turns into a slight whos-gonna-doit/who-dunnit but since every one is a racist/misogynistic pig of varying likeability the answer could be anyone and we'd be happy. The cast who plays these 8 are as much a who's who of past QT films as it's own plot points, and the story is framed like a stage-play, built from acts, using many of QT's previous trademarks that have come and gone through the years (the chapter marks from Kill Bill, the blood and crime drama of Res Dogs, the western-as-a-setting-to-provides-discussion-of-modern-race-relations of Django, the time distortion from most his films, the sudden out of place narrator and hidden-just-beyond-sight danger of Inglorious Basterds, and of course the director's cameo (though admittedly one of his least obtrusive)). All of these make H8 more of a classic QT film (unlike Django Unchained, which we may have been too-hard on but we hold QT to a higher level and expect something beyond just a genre-rehash for modern wish fulfillment). Hateful Eight is bolder than anything he's done in awhile, with a full commitment to his play-like setting with a large cast of regulars to mix it up in his bloody evil sandbox.
And those Hateful Eight are Kurt Russell (Death Proof) as John "Hangman" Ruth, brutally leading his prisoner Daisy Domergue (an almost unrecognizable Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the noose, the irreplaceable Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) as his fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren who must justify his own existence constantly due to the color of his skin, Walton Goggins and Bruce Dern (both from Django) as Southern Rebels still nursing their loss in the War of Oppression, and Tim Roth and Michael Madsen (both from Resevoir Dogs) dressed up as two dangerous dandies out of place on the Western frontier. There are other new faces and old, but they are all wrapped singularly into the fate of Daisy and her appointment with the hangman and those who would stand in the way. Madsen's bizarre toughguy routine is blunted by his equally bizarre Will Rogers wardrobe (sticking out like a saddle sore thumb). Yet Jennifer's deliciously evil spitting crone has some viewers screaming "anti-woman" for the violence she is subjected to and lack of white-knighting onscreen. However, what QT is going for, and has successfully captured, is the harsh world of crime and punishment on the outlying segments of civilized society, a place where a gun and a fist are daily occurrences, where death is just outside your door if you aren't huddled by a fire and keep your horses fed, a world with a deadly lack of information and shifting trusts, of self reliance and uneasy pacts, the non-idealized old west where lynching and Injun wars and getting shot in the back were the realities, and women really were second class citizens trying to make a life amongst these brutes. You can hate the player a bit, but you should really be hating the game more, and QT is shining the light on our forefathers.
Now it ain't all comin' up roses. The movie is lengthy, and although it pays off in spades for it's long run it is also very wordy (luckily no "in the middle of everything Superman speeches" here however). In that weighty runtime there aren't enough amazing moments to quite sustain; no Jew Hunter at the table, no ear severance dance, no showdown at House of Blue Leaves, no Bags on Heads, no high octane car crash leg ejection. There is however enough tension and blood to maintain entertainment. And with a delightfully bombastic score by Spaghetti Western master-composer Ennio Morricone (with some leftover bits from his score from Carpenter's The Thing), it marks the first film Tarantino has used an original score and it comes off perfectly (he still sneaks in some choice cuts from modern sources). The cast at large does a terrific job (love ya Bob!), with Roth and Leigh and Russell and Goggins in particular enjoying their dialogue time on screen as much as we enjoy witnessing it.
So what is the point of all this, the 70mm wide angles, the straight foray into the American west of an admitted genre-muckraker, the encapsulating music, the buckets and buckets of gore, the fur coats and facial hair, the disparity of North vs South, Black vs White, Man vs Woman, Everyone vs Mexican? Why Channing Tatum, why a Roadshow release, why yet another good excuse for QT to use the N-Word? For the best reasons of all. To tell a story that you can feel and see and hear and think about, and that is why Quentin wrote it and the actors enjoyed playing it and why it can be watched by us. All 8+ characters are to be reviled and cheered as they suffer loudly, it is shades of grey for who justly lives and dies and ultimately who is the least hateful and who triumphs despite being hateful themselves. It is almost a polar opposite of this year's other big (biggest ever) release, Disney's Star Wars The Force Awakens. TH8 is Non-PC, non-regurgitated, non-self referencing, non-market tested consumer approved popart, and it was all made on non-digital cellulose film for and by cinephiles. This is cinema as high-art succumbing to it's basest desires, the spoken word from the typed page, the cold puffs of breath from a boiling actor lost in their role, the mountain vistas splashed with golden sunlight and the grungy floorboards soaked in crimson lifeblood.
See y'all down the trail.
8 Well-Loved Lincoln Letters and Pots of Coffee out of 10 (GREAT)
"Reservoir CowDogs"
A pair of bounty hunters cross paths on the way to a snowed in Wyoming outpost, only to meet a slew of strangers holed up in a blizzard. One is hauling a live prisoner worth a $10,000 reward, and suspects everyone else of collusion, theft or chicanery. Some may live or die, but none will escape unbloodied in Quentin Tarantino's 8th film, the red-soaked return to form The Hateful 8.
First, it must be said that Hateful Eight is less of a genre-ape than his previous few films, if anything TH8 is in the genre of his own first film Reservior Dogs (stick with your own genres QT), but by moving the narrative to the post-Civil War era has allowed him to toy with the idea that sometimes in our past even the good guys were pretty bad. It turns into a slight whos-gonna-doit/who-dunnit but since every one is a racist/misogynistic pig of varying likeability the answer could be anyone and we'd be happy. The cast who plays these 8 are as much a who's who of past QT films as it's own plot points, and the story is framed like a stage-play, built from acts, using many of QT's previous trademarks that have come and gone through the years (the chapter marks from Kill Bill, the blood and crime drama of Res Dogs, the western-as-a-setting-to-provides-discussion-of-modern-race-relations of Django, the time distortion from most his films, the sudden out of place narrator and hidden-just-beyond-sight danger of Inglorious Basterds, and of course the director's cameo (though admittedly one of his least obtrusive)). All of these make H8 more of a classic QT film (unlike Django Unchained, which we may have been too-hard on but we hold QT to a higher level and expect something beyond just a genre-rehash for modern wish fulfillment). Hateful Eight is bolder than anything he's done in awhile, with a full commitment to his play-like setting with a large cast of regulars to mix it up in his bloody evil sandbox.
And those Hateful Eight are Kurt Russell (Death Proof) as John "Hangman" Ruth, brutally leading his prisoner Daisy Domergue (an almost unrecognizable Jennifer Jason Leigh) to the noose, the irreplaceable Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction) as his fellow bounty hunter Major Marquis Warren who must justify his own existence constantly due to the color of his skin, Walton Goggins and Bruce Dern (both from Django) as Southern Rebels still nursing their loss in the War of Oppression, and Tim Roth and Michael Madsen (both from Resevoir Dogs) dressed up as two dangerous dandies out of place on the Western frontier. There are other new faces and old, but they are all wrapped singularly into the fate of Daisy and her appointment with the hangman and those who would stand in the way. Madsen's bizarre toughguy routine is blunted by his equally bizarre Will Rogers wardrobe (sticking out like a saddle sore thumb). Yet Jennifer's deliciously evil spitting crone has some viewers screaming "anti-woman" for the violence she is subjected to and lack of white-knighting onscreen. However, what QT is going for, and has successfully captured, is the harsh world of crime and punishment on the outlying segments of civilized society, a place where a gun and a fist are daily occurrences, where death is just outside your door if you aren't huddled by a fire and keep your horses fed, a world with a deadly lack of information and shifting trusts, of self reliance and uneasy pacts, the non-idealized old west where lynching and Injun wars and getting shot in the back were the realities, and women really were second class citizens trying to make a life amongst these brutes. You can hate the player a bit, but you should really be hating the game more, and QT is shining the light on our forefathers.
Now it ain't all comin' up roses. The movie is lengthy, and although it pays off in spades for it's long run it is also very wordy (luckily no "in the middle of everything Superman speeches" here however). In that weighty runtime there aren't enough amazing moments to quite sustain; no Jew Hunter at the table, no ear severance dance, no showdown at House of Blue Leaves, no Bags on Heads, no high octane car crash leg ejection. There is however enough tension and blood to maintain entertainment. And with a delightfully bombastic score by Spaghetti Western master-composer Ennio Morricone (with some leftover bits from his score from Carpenter's The Thing), it marks the first film Tarantino has used an original score and it comes off perfectly (he still sneaks in some choice cuts from modern sources). The cast at large does a terrific job (love ya Bob!), with Roth and Leigh and Russell and Goggins in particular enjoying their dialogue time on screen as much as we enjoy witnessing it.
So what is the point of all this, the 70mm wide angles, the straight foray into the American west of an admitted genre-muckraker, the encapsulating music, the buckets and buckets of gore, the fur coats and facial hair, the disparity of North vs South, Black vs White, Man vs Woman, Everyone vs Mexican? Why Channing Tatum, why a Roadshow release, why yet another good excuse for QT to use the N-Word? For the best reasons of all. To tell a story that you can feel and see and hear and think about, and that is why Quentin wrote it and the actors enjoyed playing it and why it can be watched by us. All 8+ characters are to be reviled and cheered as they suffer loudly, it is shades of grey for who justly lives and dies and ultimately who is the least hateful and who triumphs despite being hateful themselves. It is almost a polar opposite of this year's other big (biggest ever) release, Disney's Star Wars The Force Awakens. TH8 is Non-PC, non-regurgitated, non-self referencing, non-market tested consumer approved popart, and it was all made on non-digital cellulose film for and by cinephiles. This is cinema as high-art succumbing to it's basest desires, the spoken word from the typed page, the cold puffs of breath from a boiling actor lost in their role, the mountain vistas splashed with golden sunlight and the grungy floorboards soaked in crimson lifeblood.
See y'all down the trail.
8 Well-Loved Lincoln Letters and Pots of Coffee out of 10 (GREAT)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (PG-13)
"I've got a bad feeling about this." - Every Han Solo
"The Force! Man, that's your answer to everything." - Clerks
"Millennium Falcon? More like Millennium Pandering." - Me.
Sitting in a darkened theater with a dawning internal awareness that you might be the only one twisting in your seat, uncomfortable with the low-risk plot, the awkward references and dismal acting. The popcorn is gone, the soda dull, and in your head rings the awful words "It's just an another modern remake, they spent all that time and effort just to remake it, and its a bad counterfeit Picasso, a copy, a fake" while everyone else claps and thanks god for George Lucas' non-involvement. The trailers were a bill of goods, sold by the aggressively pandering suits at Disney Corp., pap made by a director who's made a career of swerving from expectations, and it's as well made as it is creatively bankrupt, a soulless zombie in an expensive knock-off Armani shambling forever towards higher returns. At least those terrible prequels TRIED to do something new and failed spectacularly. Awakens just regurgitates what worked before with a wet, money hungry plop.
Meanwhile Awakens looks like it was wholly constructed in the edit suite, scenes come and go at a breakneck pace just so they happen and not in anyway conductive to the pacing. A scene will end abruptly, cross wipe to a completely different part of the universe, then back to the first without rhyme or reason except for story reasons the 2nd had to be put somewhere. It doesn't feel thought out or meticulously planned unlike real SWs, it feels cobbled together good enough, and considering the plot is just "girls and guys with force and cute droids and xwings and star destroyers and deathstars again" there very little excuse for it. And there are soooo many conveniences of illogic, the new crew just stumbling upon the abandoned Falcon being the most egregious and unnecessary, apparently the Force can and will do that kind of thing now.
So it's a remake, let's treat it as such. The scope and feel, the "Lawrence of Arabia in Space" tone of Star Wars is completely missing from Awakens. There are few calm, slow moments of world building here; even the obligatory scene-wipes seem somehow forced and overly fast; you don't inhabit this world only glimpse it. The only exposition we get is from the fanfictiony text crawl and one very stilted and strangely unemotional conversation between a craggled Han Solo and a stone faced General Leia Organa (who looks for all the world like they tightened her girdle so much she can't move let alone act). Between her strange head tilting and his half hearted swagger it more resembles the cringey "I love you" scene from CrystalSkull than the one from Empire Strikes Back, instead of a stroke of genius its an actual figurative cinematic stroke. It's all punctuated by that "it's mysterious because we are keeping you out of the loop" thing that is the oldest of JJ Abrams' tricks, and we need more answers than action. Why would the Republic be in this ramshackle state, never mind the mention in the opening or the reams of comics Disney has put out, the underdog yet again? This is a movie, explain it! And John Williams, where are you? The only time the music is noticed is when it was once again rehashing the themes from the first trilogy, there is no new piece that stands out and marches around the theater announcing it's greatness. Then there is all the fan service, the god damned fan service. Capt. Phasma is a marketing dream and fanboy joke. The "No look shot" is as bad as Greedo shooting first, and you want your new bad-ass Jedi girl, who can do all these things without training cuz you say so, to inherit the beloved fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy? Then earn it guys, because otherwise its just another lame fan wish-fulfillment without the politically incorrect metal bikini. Awakens suffers from the worst case of big budget sequelitis ever seen, literally Jump22's ethos of "People want you to do the same thing, Again. Just a bit bigger. Same lines, same jokes, same action, everything."
It's not all rehash. JJ does some new things with the camera (but why god, why keep does he keep using the lens flares, it must be an injoke?). There are some fun ideas, new uses of the Force that seem a bit questionable, but the reformed Stormtrooper story idea is the best of the bunch (but who's character is involved in countless bumbly spoken word comic relief just enough to ruin it). He doesn't say "Yeah that's what I'm talking about!" once, but they probably did do a take and it's laying on the cutting room floor after checking TVTropes for relevancy and deciding against running it. Yet some of the attempts of new stuff are as bad as any prequel, Solo's side business is simply just busy work, eating up screen time and adding nothing to the affair but bad jokes and a lot of CG monsters. There is just enough practical effects thrown in to kill the "curse of the prequels" stink list for the fans, but the rest is all remake-orama, and none of it improves on the original. The fighter pilots all look wrong, and besides main ace Poe (well played by Oscar Issac, star of Inside Llewyn Davis), the Resistance seems to be staffed by fanboys-and-girls pulled from the ranks of Deviantart who don't yet have drivers licenses let alone a pilot's one. The bad guy is no Vader, he is a twink with a temper tantrum, the Emperor has been replaced with a pale CGI creature who looks like should be spitting out "GOLLUM GOLLUM". The Nazi Youth has taken over the Empire from the elder British statesmen because... box office? Old Men no longer start Star Wars it seems. The Rebels don't meticulously plan how to blow up the DeathStar 3.0, or send a crack team of top commandos and their entire fleet and barely scrape out a victory. No, they stand around a readout of the plans point at a spot and say "we blow this up, right?" and then Han Solo winks and says "I got this, you don't wanna know how" because his plan is stupidly self sacrificing; instead of bringing the Army he just flies over to infiltrate the planet with 3 people (2 he just met) and of course saves the day, obviously! There is no sense of urgency, the big kill-weapon has to charge up for like a day, but the Rebellion is so confident in Han getting the shields down (AGAIN!) that they don't even bother EVACUATING the planet that will eventually be blown up, maybe, "waiting to be killed, waiting to be killed".
In the end big things get exploded good, people hug, and yet it still doesn't end. The final oddity, the mapquest montage, the overdone out of place LOTR spinning helicopter shot with a stupid nospeak Skywalker cliffhanger, cementing that SWTFA seems more inclined to be the New Harry Potter YA film franchise than a true new Star Wars film in a finite universe.
Star Wars, we meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.
4 Chubby C3P0's Unexplained Self-Referential Red Arms out of 10 (BAD)
PS - Kids will never understand the sweet tension build and release of the 20th Century Fox fanfare, LucasFilm Logo, and sudden burst of StarField and music on the silver screen. Sad.
PPS - Alternative Title: SW - An Old Hype
"I've got a bad feeling about this." - Every Han Solo
"The Force! Man, that's your answer to everything." - Clerks
"Millennium Falcon? More like Millennium Pandering." - Me.
Sitting in a darkened theater with a dawning internal awareness that you might be the only one twisting in your seat, uncomfortable with the low-risk plot, the awkward references and dismal acting. The popcorn is gone, the soda dull, and in your head rings the awful words "It's just an another modern remake, they spent all that time and effort just to remake it, and its a bad counterfeit Picasso, a copy, a fake" while everyone else claps and thanks god for George Lucas' non-involvement. The trailers were a bill of goods, sold by the aggressively pandering suits at Disney Corp., pap made by a director who's made a career of swerving from expectations, and it's as well made as it is creatively bankrupt, a soulless zombie in an expensive knock-off Armani shambling forever towards higher returns. At least those terrible prequels TRIED to do something new and failed spectacularly. Awakens just regurgitates what worked before with a wet, money hungry plop.
Meanwhile Awakens looks like it was wholly constructed in the edit suite, scenes come and go at a breakneck pace just so they happen and not in anyway conductive to the pacing. A scene will end abruptly, cross wipe to a completely different part of the universe, then back to the first without rhyme or reason except for story reasons the 2nd had to be put somewhere. It doesn't feel thought out or meticulously planned unlike real SWs, it feels cobbled together good enough, and considering the plot is just "girls and guys with force and cute droids and xwings and star destroyers and deathstars again" there very little excuse for it. And there are soooo many conveniences of illogic, the new crew just stumbling upon the abandoned Falcon being the most egregious and unnecessary, apparently the Force can and will do that kind of thing now.
So it's a remake, let's treat it as such. The scope and feel, the "Lawrence of Arabia in Space" tone of Star Wars is completely missing from Awakens. There are few calm, slow moments of world building here; even the obligatory scene-wipes seem somehow forced and overly fast; you don't inhabit this world only glimpse it. The only exposition we get is from the fanfictiony text crawl and one very stilted and strangely unemotional conversation between a craggled Han Solo and a stone faced General Leia Organa (who looks for all the world like they tightened her girdle so much she can't move let alone act). Between her strange head tilting and his half hearted swagger it more resembles the cringey "I love you" scene from CrystalSkull than the one from Empire Strikes Back, instead of a stroke of genius its an actual figurative cinematic stroke. It's all punctuated by that "it's mysterious because we are keeping you out of the loop" thing that is the oldest of JJ Abrams' tricks, and we need more answers than action. Why would the Republic be in this ramshackle state, never mind the mention in the opening or the reams of comics Disney has put out, the underdog yet again? This is a movie, explain it! And John Williams, where are you? The only time the music is noticed is when it was once again rehashing the themes from the first trilogy, there is no new piece that stands out and marches around the theater announcing it's greatness. Then there is all the fan service, the god damned fan service. Capt. Phasma is a marketing dream and fanboy joke. The "No look shot" is as bad as Greedo shooting first, and you want your new bad-ass Jedi girl, who can do all these things without training cuz you say so, to inherit the beloved fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy? Then earn it guys, because otherwise its just another lame fan wish-fulfillment without the politically incorrect metal bikini. Awakens suffers from the worst case of big budget sequelitis ever seen, literally Jump22's ethos of "People want you to do the same thing, Again. Just a bit bigger. Same lines, same jokes, same action, everything."
It's not all rehash. JJ does some new things with the camera (but why god, why keep does he keep using the lens flares, it must be an injoke?). There are some fun ideas, new uses of the Force that seem a bit questionable, but the reformed Stormtrooper story idea is the best of the bunch (but who's character is involved in countless bumbly spoken word comic relief just enough to ruin it). He doesn't say "Yeah that's what I'm talking about!" once, but they probably did do a take and it's laying on the cutting room floor after checking TVTropes for relevancy and deciding against running it. Yet some of the attempts of new stuff are as bad as any prequel, Solo's side business is simply just busy work, eating up screen time and adding nothing to the affair but bad jokes and a lot of CG monsters. There is just enough practical effects thrown in to kill the "curse of the prequels" stink list for the fans, but the rest is all remake-orama, and none of it improves on the original. The fighter pilots all look wrong, and besides main ace Poe (well played by Oscar Issac, star of Inside Llewyn Davis), the Resistance seems to be staffed by fanboys-and-girls pulled from the ranks of Deviantart who don't yet have drivers licenses let alone a pilot's one. The bad guy is no Vader, he is a twink with a temper tantrum, the Emperor has been replaced with a pale CGI creature who looks like should be spitting out "GOLLUM GOLLUM". The Nazi Youth has taken over the Empire from the elder British statesmen because... box office? Old Men no longer start Star Wars it seems. The Rebels don't meticulously plan how to blow up the DeathStar 3.0, or send a crack team of top commandos and their entire fleet and barely scrape out a victory. No, they stand around a readout of the plans point at a spot and say "we blow this up, right?" and then Han Solo winks and says "I got this, you don't wanna know how" because his plan is stupidly self sacrificing; instead of bringing the Army he just flies over to infiltrate the planet with 3 people (2 he just met) and of course saves the day, obviously! There is no sense of urgency, the big kill-weapon has to charge up for like a day, but the Rebellion is so confident in Han getting the shields down (AGAIN!) that they don't even bother EVACUATING the planet that will eventually be blown up, maybe, "waiting to be killed, waiting to be killed".
In the end big things get exploded good, people hug, and yet it still doesn't end. The final oddity, the mapquest montage, the overdone out of place LOTR spinning helicopter shot with a stupid nospeak Skywalker cliffhanger, cementing that SWTFA seems more inclined to be the New Harry Potter YA film franchise than a true new Star Wars film in a finite universe.
Star Wars, we meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master.
4 Chubby C3P0's Unexplained Self-Referential Red Arms out of 10 (BAD)
PS - Kids will never understand the sweet tension build and release of the 20th Century Fox fanfare, LucasFilm Logo, and sudden burst of StarField and music on the silver screen. Sad.
PPS - Alternative Title: SW - An Old Hype
Sicario (2015)
Sicario (R)
"Traffic Jam"
FBI Agent Kate (Emily Blunt) makes a grisly discovery during a raid on an Arizona suburban home believed to be holding hostages. The deadly results lead her into the path of working with CIA officer Graver (Josh Brolin) and his adviser Alejandro (Benicio del Torro, as grim as ever) in drug pushing Mexico to find the real bad guys responsible. What they find south of the border and the Vietnam-ish mess of cause and effect in the Norther hemisphere results in a brooding yet overstated hot button issue that is the literal militarization of the Police-state that is Sicario's core message, brought to us by Director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners).
Sicario is a dark film, about the dark circumstances and business/political practices surrounding the U.S.'s southern border. The lens is once again artfully wielded by Cinematographer superstar Roger Deakins (who also worked on Prisoners), but unfortunately in Sicario there are very few moments of clarity or calamity to bask in the beauty. And where Prisoners got away with some of it's more convenient leaps in logic and plot due to it's very high tension and the rush of Hugh Jackman's parental instincts, Blunt's Kate is often left confused yet capable. Emily does an admirable job, but the character as written barely accomplishes anything, merely allowing herself to be swept along into the further escalation like Hamlet in Afghanistan. Sure the script gives her the option of backing out, but her character for some unspoken reason must heroically go through with it despite all the implied torture/rape/murder that could (and already almost did) befall her. The film makers want a "bad ass female lead" but give her nothing to do but pout and be a damsel in distress most of the movie being led around by the nose by Brolen's CIA jerk (he plays a good jerk FYI). Benicio's silent but deadly hit man plays to his strengths but gives him nothing new or challenging, except not enough screen time. Meanwhile Kate is front and center with nothing but a confused gape as she is told and shown things without context or exposition (we know how you feel Kate). At least with Savages or Traffic or (god forbid The Counselor) there wasn't a feeling of "welp, thats the way it is gringos" *shrug*.
Sicario knows what it wants to say (guns guns guns and drugs) and who it wants to say it about (love and fear thy southern/northern neighbor), it just does it in a disingenuous "how bleak is the future huh?" fashion tinged with backhanded misogyny that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Stick with the Taco Bell instead, it's better for you (just not as much atmosphere).
4.5 Never Trust the Latino Advisor in a White Suit out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Traffic Jam"
FBI Agent Kate (Emily Blunt) makes a grisly discovery during a raid on an Arizona suburban home believed to be holding hostages. The deadly results lead her into the path of working with CIA officer Graver (Josh Brolin) and his adviser Alejandro (Benicio del Torro, as grim as ever) in drug pushing Mexico to find the real bad guys responsible. What they find south of the border and the Vietnam-ish mess of cause and effect in the Norther hemisphere results in a brooding yet overstated hot button issue that is the literal militarization of the Police-state that is Sicario's core message, brought to us by Director Denis Villenueve (Prisoners).
Sicario is a dark film, about the dark circumstances and business/political practices surrounding the U.S.'s southern border. The lens is once again artfully wielded by Cinematographer superstar Roger Deakins (who also worked on Prisoners), but unfortunately in Sicario there are very few moments of clarity or calamity to bask in the beauty. And where Prisoners got away with some of it's more convenient leaps in logic and plot due to it's very high tension and the rush of Hugh Jackman's parental instincts, Blunt's Kate is often left confused yet capable. Emily does an admirable job, but the character as written barely accomplishes anything, merely allowing herself to be swept along into the further escalation like Hamlet in Afghanistan. Sure the script gives her the option of backing out, but her character for some unspoken reason must heroically go through with it despite all the implied torture/rape/murder that could (and already almost did) befall her. The film makers want a "bad ass female lead" but give her nothing to do but pout and be a damsel in distress most of the movie being led around by the nose by Brolen's CIA jerk (he plays a good jerk FYI). Benicio's silent but deadly hit man plays to his strengths but gives him nothing new or challenging, except not enough screen time. Meanwhile Kate is front and center with nothing but a confused gape as she is told and shown things without context or exposition (we know how you feel Kate). At least with Savages or Traffic or (god forbid The Counselor) there wasn't a feeling of "welp, thats the way it is gringos" *shrug*.
Sicario knows what it wants to say (guns guns guns and drugs) and who it wants to say it about (love and fear thy southern/northern neighbor), it just does it in a disingenuous "how bleak is the future huh?" fashion tinged with backhanded misogyny that it leaves a bad aftertaste. Stick with the Taco Bell instead, it's better for you (just not as much atmosphere).
4.5 Never Trust the Latino Advisor in a White Suit out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
Ant-Man (2015)
Ant-Man (PG-13)
"Talk Loudly and carry a miniaturized stick"
Sneaking into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of it's smallest and underwhelming heroes as Ant-Man makes his unlikely screen debut. Doubly so when it ran into production trouble as long-time project gestator Simon Wright (director/screenwriter of Shaun of the Dead, who gets writing credit here) left Marvel over creative differences. However director Payton Reed (Bring it On) and the Marvel suits have made an entertaining sausage yet again, even if the ghost of "What If?" lingers off screen.
Paul Rudd (Fantana in Anchorman) pals around with Micheal Douglas as Ant-Man old and new. He's an ex-con thief who is trying to go the straight and narrow for his 3yo daughters sake. However he soon becomes embroiled in corporate espionage which somehow involves Douglas' Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) and his daughter Hope aka Love Interest To Be Woman, aka Evangeline Lilly. It's kind of Ironman light with more diverse comedy, the crew is out to stop Pym's old intern from selling Yellowjacket to the government, which would then use it to drone-strike everyone on the planet or something BigBusiness and Government are bad or whatever the kids on the internet are saying at this moment, hey they are our demographic right guys? The interesting tidbit of Ant-Man being the first comic book movie to deal with a second iteration of a character, a comic book staple of a mentor training his protege to don and take over a super hero identity, isn't really focused on because hey, Rudd is pretty charming and the whole movie is kind of filler for the next MCU super blockbuster that he can then appear in, right?
The missed opportunities and nuance be damned, because Marvel once again just makes a fun movie to sit back and watch. And hoooh boy, is this that type of movie. Training montages? Origin stories? Nostalgic looks back and the Soviet Cold war? Vaguely threatening slippery slope government types? This movie encapsulates everything that worked in those other MCU movies and boils it down to it's audience-friendly most. However it is the non-standard flairs that actually stand out and make Ant-Man fun. When the plot goes away from all the white people problems and gets a little colorful the humor enters into it's own. A fight early on with the Falcon is a diverse breath of fresh air (or is it? Captain America would have been a stronger cameo but no where near as fun either) but Lang's crew of wacky ethnic sidekicks give the film a funny kick in the shorts that Rudd plays off of wonderfully. When its Douglas' show all you can wonder is if the old Wolf of Wallstreet is just hoping his Pym stock price doesn't fall. But the movie's humor shines when Luis gives Stan Lee his best cameo yet. Added to that an exciting finale that takes too long to come (but since it involves a fight inside a crowded briefcase and on a Thomas the Train toy train set it's forgiven), and Ant-Man provides enough laughs and action to prevent 2 hours from crawling by.
The questions aren't all answered unfortunately. Wright's version, would it have been more humor driven, more Scott Pilgrim-like and idiosyncratic than Scott Lang pathos and melodramatic? What if Pym had invented Ultron instead of Stark like the comics foretold, it was just a couple months ago after all, would have a cameo in Avengers 2 been that hard (it would have at least provided more backstory and interest to both films, and Ant-Man was a founding Avenger after all)? And why merrily skip by the science without even attempting to explain the gobbedygoop, its fraught with unspoken SciFi mcguffins? How did this movie achieve the feat of making creepy crawly bugs cute sidekicks that aren't grossing every woman man and child out? Why earn the PG13 with a lot of out of place cursing? How long can MCU go without making a terrible film? And how did one of the biggest inside jokes in comic-dom, the infamously unfamous Ant-Man, get his own blockbuster comic book film that kids and adults adore? Let's see DC pull that off with The Atom.
7.5 Tales to Astonish out of 10 (GOOD)
"Talk Loudly and carry a miniaturized stick"
Sneaking into the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of it's smallest and underwhelming heroes as Ant-Man makes his unlikely screen debut. Doubly so when it ran into production trouble as long-time project gestator Simon Wright (director/screenwriter of Shaun of the Dead, who gets writing credit here) left Marvel over creative differences. However director Payton Reed (Bring it On) and the Marvel suits have made an entertaining sausage yet again, even if the ghost of "What If?" lingers off screen.
Paul Rudd (Fantana in Anchorman) pals around with Micheal Douglas as Ant-Man old and new. He's an ex-con thief who is trying to go the straight and narrow for his 3yo daughters sake. However he soon becomes embroiled in corporate espionage which somehow involves Douglas' Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) and his daughter Hope aka Love Interest To Be Woman, aka Evangeline Lilly. It's kind of Ironman light with more diverse comedy, the crew is out to stop Pym's old intern from selling Yellowjacket to the government, which would then use it to drone-strike everyone on the planet or something BigBusiness and Government are bad or whatever the kids on the internet are saying at this moment, hey they are our demographic right guys? The interesting tidbit of Ant-Man being the first comic book movie to deal with a second iteration of a character, a comic book staple of a mentor training his protege to don and take over a super hero identity, isn't really focused on because hey, Rudd is pretty charming and the whole movie is kind of filler for the next MCU super blockbuster that he can then appear in, right?
The missed opportunities and nuance be damned, because Marvel once again just makes a fun movie to sit back and watch. And hoooh boy, is this that type of movie. Training montages? Origin stories? Nostalgic looks back and the Soviet Cold war? Vaguely threatening slippery slope government types? This movie encapsulates everything that worked in those other MCU movies and boils it down to it's audience-friendly most. However it is the non-standard flairs that actually stand out and make Ant-Man fun. When the plot goes away from all the white people problems and gets a little colorful the humor enters into it's own. A fight early on with the Falcon is a diverse breath of fresh air (or is it? Captain America would have been a stronger cameo but no where near as fun either) but Lang's crew of wacky ethnic sidekicks give the film a funny kick in the shorts that Rudd plays off of wonderfully. When its Douglas' show all you can wonder is if the old Wolf of Wallstreet is just hoping his Pym stock price doesn't fall. But the movie's humor shines when Luis gives Stan Lee his best cameo yet. Added to that an exciting finale that takes too long to come (but since it involves a fight inside a crowded briefcase and on a Thomas the Train toy train set it's forgiven), and Ant-Man provides enough laughs and action to prevent 2 hours from crawling by.
The questions aren't all answered unfortunately. Wright's version, would it have been more humor driven, more Scott Pilgrim-like and idiosyncratic than Scott Lang pathos and melodramatic? What if Pym had invented Ultron instead of Stark like the comics foretold, it was just a couple months ago after all, would have a cameo in Avengers 2 been that hard (it would have at least provided more backstory and interest to both films, and Ant-Man was a founding Avenger after all)? And why merrily skip by the science without even attempting to explain the gobbedygoop, its fraught with unspoken SciFi mcguffins? How did this movie achieve the feat of making creepy crawly bugs cute sidekicks that aren't grossing every woman man and child out? Why earn the PG13 with a lot of out of place cursing? How long can MCU go without making a terrible film? And how did one of the biggest inside jokes in comic-dom, the infamously unfamous Ant-Man, get his own blockbuster comic book film that kids and adults adore? Let's see DC pull that off with The Atom.
7.5 Tales to Astonish out of 10 (GOOD)
Dope (2015)
Dope (R)
"Slippery Slope N(word)"
From the slums of Englewood comes the story of Malcolm, a geeky straight A student trying to get into Harvard. At times joyfully refreshingly new, others painfully derivative, Dope is at the least an interesting new voice supplied by a new actor in a landscape of bland dull remakes of whitewashed Hollywood entertainment.
Dope begins with a 90s HipHop nostalgia, a groovy kind of energy that introduces us to Malcolm's world of the hood, a place where you can get shot for no reason but also most people don't. It's not a gloomy, trash ridden cess pit, it's a place where real people live and eat food and kids form punk bands and dream of escaping. Where not every household is broken (though quite a few are), and not every car is a low rider (just some), not every black man is a thug (but watch your backpack). Malcolm is not your average black kid either. Played with geeky-awkward-perfection by new comer Shameik Moore, Malcolm like many of his peers, must at some point give up his Yo MTV Raps childhood and make some tough life decisions. This is of course the point of the film, but is also where it loses much of it's fun.
Imagine if SuperBad stopped goofing and laughing about halfway though because it was time for "the point," and you have the toughest selling point of Dope. Now, there is no contention that a kid in Malcolm's hood, his age with his situation wouldn't run afoul of some hard choices. However the way it is handled is a bit nonsensical and confusing, and is quite a shock going from a happy-go-lucky "myfriendsarecoolbutIwantagirlfriend&nevermetmydad" to drug dealing bitcoin memes stand ins. The motivations to do so are unclear, and the tacked on romantic angle is exactly that, tacked on because every film has that. On the other hand, there really isn't another film like this, with this strong of an African-American voice and music and fashion, that is respectful and realistic and un exaggerated. And yet it also dips into amateurish tropes (the cliche white guy hacker/stoner, the dropped subplots loss of focus, the aformentioned romantic subplot, the sometimes dippy dialogue of the other characters) muddles the message and also sometimes fumbles the humor. However the acid washed sunsets and dayglo sneaker design of the production and a solid cinematographic base lend much to it's Indy cred. Like Do The Right Thing the preachiness that, yes, preaches the ending must be allowed since a young man like Malcolm so infrequently allowed a soapbox to kick it from.
7 Gotta Say it was a Good Day out of 10 (GOOD)
"Slippery Slope N(word)"
From the slums of Englewood comes the story of Malcolm, a geeky straight A student trying to get into Harvard. At times joyfully refreshingly new, others painfully derivative, Dope is at the least an interesting new voice supplied by a new actor in a landscape of bland dull remakes of whitewashed Hollywood entertainment.
Dope begins with a 90s HipHop nostalgia, a groovy kind of energy that introduces us to Malcolm's world of the hood, a place where you can get shot for no reason but also most people don't. It's not a gloomy, trash ridden cess pit, it's a place where real people live and eat food and kids form punk bands and dream of escaping. Where not every household is broken (though quite a few are), and not every car is a low rider (just some), not every black man is a thug (but watch your backpack). Malcolm is not your average black kid either. Played with geeky-awkward-perfection by new comer Shameik Moore, Malcolm like many of his peers, must at some point give up his Yo MTV Raps childhood and make some tough life decisions. This is of course the point of the film, but is also where it loses much of it's fun.
Imagine if SuperBad stopped goofing and laughing about halfway though because it was time for "the point," and you have the toughest selling point of Dope. Now, there is no contention that a kid in Malcolm's hood, his age with his situation wouldn't run afoul of some hard choices. However the way it is handled is a bit nonsensical and confusing, and is quite a shock going from a happy-go-lucky "myfriendsarecoolbutIwantagirlfriend&nevermetmydad" to drug dealing bitcoin memes stand ins. The motivations to do so are unclear, and the tacked on romantic angle is exactly that, tacked on because every film has that. On the other hand, there really isn't another film like this, with this strong of an African-American voice and music and fashion, that is respectful and realistic and un exaggerated. And yet it also dips into amateurish tropes (the cliche white guy hacker/stoner, the dropped subplots loss of focus, the aformentioned romantic subplot, the sometimes dippy dialogue of the other characters) muddles the message and also sometimes fumbles the humor. However the acid washed sunsets and dayglo sneaker design of the production and a solid cinematographic base lend much to it's Indy cred. Like Do The Right Thing the preachiness that, yes, preaches the ending must be allowed since a young man like Malcolm so infrequently allowed a soapbox to kick it from.
7 Gotta Say it was a Good Day out of 10 (GOOD)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Avengers: Age of Ultron (PG-13)
"Got no strings, so whats holding it down?"
The heroically rag-tag team from past Marvel films are once again united against a single enemy, this time one accidentally created by their resident tech genius Tony Stark in Joss Whedon's middling follow-up to 2012's Avengers.
Beyond the changes to the convoluted characters from page to screen, the biggest grievances to be leveled at AAOU is the absolutely hackneyed writing. Nearly every action moment comes with a quip of some kind, or a re-quip, or a quip about an earlier quip. It really gets tedious and clunky, Whedon's flippant attitude towards tension really strains the credibility of whether or not anything is in peril. Meanwhile, like most huge sequels, the CGI has become more prevalent and overloaded, while the color palette has been oddly drained. Whole moments of action are obviously stitched together in the computer, but somehow still remain unclear, confused and jumpy. Much is simply unsatisfying to watch.
This is in "stark" (haha) contrast to the original Avengers, where Whedon's writing and structure issues were eventually uplifted by an epic sized brawl in New York where every character had moments of heroicism and bravery, they gelled as a team against a living breathing maniac hell-bent on enslaving humanity. In Age, Ultron is a smart-ass mega-robot voiced by James Spader (with a rather un-robot like attitude), who's evil motivations behind his evil plot are pretty much a shrug "cuz we said so" kind of thing. Spader does lend something to the sinister yet somehow ambiguously malign character (perhaps too much), but his robot army are a rather lame foe and his CGI presence just feels weak. At no time does Ultron seem a threat, and yet the new additions to the team do feel outmatched. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are introduced on Ultron's side (being X-Foe's Magneto's children and perpetual fence-sitters makes this an alright choice, even if Marvel can't utilize this part of the lore due to Fox's owning the X-Men licence), and yet are somehow easily able to defeat 90% of the team double-handed! Then they are offered up as lame-duck sacrifices by movie's end, for the feels that just don't manifest. Meanwhile Black Widow is irritating fan-boys to even more extremes. Now her femininity and allure can calm down the Hulk because, shipping!!!, and she is now the Avengers den mother, ugh. Now her ultimate spy-stealthiness includes a glowing outfit and matching glowsticks she does kung fu with (!?!?!) because... action figures sell?
Okay, so does anything save this film? Unfortunately this movie is just a baby step for other MCU movies, and is more obvious about it than previous releases. It is less satisfying within the Universe and on it's own than its predecessors, and we can hope that those films it (again) hints at as coming will actually deliver. Despite being excited by mentions of Wakanda or the Vision's wasted potential, we already have been teased to death about the Infinity War and now we need Thor taking his shirt off and jumping in a lake to preview his next film (Ragnarock)? The film is already overlong and underwhelmed with truly great moments, with an anemic amount of amusement and severe lack of immersion, the long runtime for these kind of inclusions could have really been reeled back. As much as I enjoyed the Hulk's rampage or how insufferable Stark is becoming, those kind of moments are few and far between.
The invisible strings from the Disney Exec's indeed seem long. The cult figure of Whedon and his fandom aren't immune to them, pulling this way and demanding that, ending up a puppet for mass-market appeal and humdrum committee decisions. In a world where comic-book movies are now common place and people in capes are socially accepted the MCU has finally shown a chink in it's bright blue armor.
4.5 "The Internet?" "The Internet." out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
"Got no strings, so whats holding it down?"
The heroically rag-tag team from past Marvel films are once again united against a single enemy, this time one accidentally created by their resident tech genius Tony Stark in Joss Whedon's middling follow-up to 2012's Avengers.
Beyond the changes to the convoluted characters from page to screen, the biggest grievances to be leveled at AAOU is the absolutely hackneyed writing. Nearly every action moment comes with a quip of some kind, or a re-quip, or a quip about an earlier quip. It really gets tedious and clunky, Whedon's flippant attitude towards tension really strains the credibility of whether or not anything is in peril. Meanwhile, like most huge sequels, the CGI has become more prevalent and overloaded, while the color palette has been oddly drained. Whole moments of action are obviously stitched together in the computer, but somehow still remain unclear, confused and jumpy. Much is simply unsatisfying to watch.
This is in "stark" (haha) contrast to the original Avengers, where Whedon's writing and structure issues were eventually uplifted by an epic sized brawl in New York where every character had moments of heroicism and bravery, they gelled as a team against a living breathing maniac hell-bent on enslaving humanity. In Age, Ultron is a smart-ass mega-robot voiced by James Spader (with a rather un-robot like attitude), who's evil motivations behind his evil plot are pretty much a shrug "cuz we said so" kind of thing. Spader does lend something to the sinister yet somehow ambiguously malign character (perhaps too much), but his robot army are a rather lame foe and his CGI presence just feels weak. At no time does Ultron seem a threat, and yet the new additions to the team do feel outmatched. Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch are introduced on Ultron's side (being X-Foe's Magneto's children and perpetual fence-sitters makes this an alright choice, even if Marvel can't utilize this part of the lore due to Fox's owning the X-Men licence), and yet are somehow easily able to defeat 90% of the team double-handed! Then they are offered up as lame-duck sacrifices by movie's end, for the feels that just don't manifest. Meanwhile Black Widow is irritating fan-boys to even more extremes. Now her femininity and allure can calm down the Hulk because, shipping!!!, and she is now the Avengers den mother, ugh. Now her ultimate spy-stealthiness includes a glowing outfit and matching glowsticks she does kung fu with (!?!?!) because... action figures sell?
Okay, so does anything save this film? Unfortunately this movie is just a baby step for other MCU movies, and is more obvious about it than previous releases. It is less satisfying within the Universe and on it's own than its predecessors, and we can hope that those films it (again) hints at as coming will actually deliver. Despite being excited by mentions of Wakanda or the Vision's wasted potential, we already have been teased to death about the Infinity War and now we need Thor taking his shirt off and jumping in a lake to preview his next film (Ragnarock)? The film is already overlong and underwhelmed with truly great moments, with an anemic amount of amusement and severe lack of immersion, the long runtime for these kind of inclusions could have really been reeled back. As much as I enjoyed the Hulk's rampage or how insufferable Stark is becoming, those kind of moments are few and far between.
The invisible strings from the Disney Exec's indeed seem long. The cult figure of Whedon and his fandom aren't immune to them, pulling this way and demanding that, ending up a puppet for mass-market appeal and humdrum committee decisions. In a world where comic-book movies are now common place and people in capes are socially accepted the MCU has finally shown a chink in it's bright blue armor.
4.5 "The Internet?" "The Internet." out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)
What We Do In The Shadows (2015)
What We Do In The Shadows (R)
"BAT FIGHT!"
Four Vampire roommates in New Zealand allow a camera crew into their den, a flat in Wellington that is soaked in blood and laughter in the new mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows.
Ridiculous and raucous, the flatmates interpersonal relationships drive the film as we discover the weird and zany lives of bloodsuckers. Co-written, starring and co-directed by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement (of HBOs Flight of the Conchords), the film offers a peek into the underbelly world of the undead as they deal with finding victims, taunting (s)werewolves and doing the (literally) bloody dishes. Flatmates include Viago as a vampiric neat freak with a hole in his dead heart, Vladislav the Prodder has serious issues with his Ex leading to a lack of self confidence, Deacon is the brash newcomer at only 183 years old, and their terrifying master 8000 year old vampire Petyr sleeps in a sarcophagus in a basement covered with gore and bones. When Petyr converts a new kid named Nick to his brood, tensions arise in the house as rules are broken and fashion is stolen, leading to brushes with vampire hunters and irritable lycanthropes, culminating at the annual Undead masquerade ball where a human friend and the camera crew itself is in mortal danger from the attendees.
The film is often hilarious, the premise of mixing vampire jokes with bad roommate jokes is fantastic and rife with humor. The NZ cast is funny, the mockumentary angle, while trite, is effective, and it hits all the right veins of humor and horror. The camera work and editing can be a bit rough at times, but the special effects work in its favor and the characters will win over your black heart as they charm your neck out of hemoglobin and laughter. Perhaps a bit of a trifle, and it's low budget nature does rear it's shaggy head now and again, but in general you will be too distracted by the humor and good intentions of the filmmakers to mind being hypnotized into liking this silly goof-off
8 Vampires Vacuuming Vehemently out of 10 (GREAT)
"BAT FIGHT!"
Four Vampire roommates in New Zealand allow a camera crew into their den, a flat in Wellington that is soaked in blood and laughter in the new mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows.
Ridiculous and raucous, the flatmates interpersonal relationships drive the film as we discover the weird and zany lives of bloodsuckers. Co-written, starring and co-directed by Taika Waititi and Jermaine Clement (of HBOs Flight of the Conchords), the film offers a peek into the underbelly world of the undead as they deal with finding victims, taunting (s)werewolves and doing the (literally) bloody dishes. Flatmates include Viago as a vampiric neat freak with a hole in his dead heart, Vladislav the Prodder has serious issues with his Ex leading to a lack of self confidence, Deacon is the brash newcomer at only 183 years old, and their terrifying master 8000 year old vampire Petyr sleeps in a sarcophagus in a basement covered with gore and bones. When Petyr converts a new kid named Nick to his brood, tensions arise in the house as rules are broken and fashion is stolen, leading to brushes with vampire hunters and irritable lycanthropes, culminating at the annual Undead masquerade ball where a human friend and the camera crew itself is in mortal danger from the attendees.
The film is often hilarious, the premise of mixing vampire jokes with bad roommate jokes is fantastic and rife with humor. The NZ cast is funny, the mockumentary angle, while trite, is effective, and it hits all the right veins of humor and horror. The camera work and editing can be a bit rough at times, but the special effects work in its favor and the characters will win over your black heart as they charm your neck out of hemoglobin and laughter. Perhaps a bit of a trifle, and it's low budget nature does rear it's shaggy head now and again, but in general you will be too distracted by the humor and good intentions of the filmmakers to mind being hypnotized into liking this silly goof-off
8 Vampires Vacuuming Vehemently out of 10 (GREAT)
Inherent Vice (2015)
Inherent Vice (R) - Noir Review
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
"Smoke 'em if you got 'em"
Gordita Beach, LA County, SoCal, 1970. A stoned PI is approached by his beach bunny ex-girlfriend about a case that ends up involving surf bands, white yachts, billionaire Real estate developers being kidnapped, Indonesian Tar Heroin syndicates, Commie Black Lists, anti-subversive units of the LAPD, Dentists, kinky sex, overdose of drugs and not enough rock n roll in director P.T. Anderson's (The Master) adaptation of the infamous Tom Pynchon's famous novel, Inherent Vice.
Firstly, the acting is stupendous. The cast is led by Joaquin Phoenix as "Doc," the bleary eyed mumbling flat foot with a spliff and a straw sunhat instead of a Marlboro and fedora. His counter balance is with LAPD Detective "Bigfoot" Bjornsen, whose big shoes are filled with straight laced-rage and equal paranoia by Josh Brolin, bringing a much needed humor to his buttoned up meat head who likes to munch on frozen chocolate bananas. Other associates infiltrate the screen; Owen Wilson, Maya Rudolph, Martin Short (!) and Benicio Del Toro take turns at the absurd. But it's the femmes-(non)fatales that really shine with the leads, newishcomers Katherine Waterson sizzles with her own sensual light as Shasta the tricky ex and Joanna Newsome does a sunny double duty as a psychic friend and hippy dippy voice over narrator that really adds volumes to the post-60s ambiance.
Cinematographer Robert Elswit (BoogieNights and others) again gives PTA some knockout frames, and like Doc you may feel like someone slipped you a PCP spiked-joint filled with beautiful smoky colors that will put you on your ass, out cold. We, however, cannot avoid the bummers, and they are not hallucinations, we think? The manic energy of Anderson's earlier films is again missing when it is most sorely missed. This movie is a somber downer, but that itself isn't a criticism, the story is supposed to be a fuzzy headed hangover of a meandering Noir plot, memories of the night before terribly hard to dredge up through the haze of marijuana killed brain cells. However the red-veined eyes rarely ever impacts the lens, things are SAID and not VISUALIZED, which is a shocking misunderstanding of the book for a master visualist like PTA and company. This film has reverent regard for the source material, and to be sure this is one of the most faithful adaptations of a book, but instead of showing plot points the movie often only druggedly slurs them. This may make the plot over-complicated for some, extremely frustrating for others, where in the novel the clarity of the printed page helped somewhat.
The book? As a very faithful adaptation of the words, the film often sadly misses the novel's purpose. PTA's Inherent Vice is best when it riffs on the source material instead of sex-slavishly regurgitates it. The more exaggerated Cop vs Private Eye relationship is great stuff, the additional slap stick and notebook gags (which sadly stop about half way through) bring needed comic relief. The wish would be that PTA made more of those decisions instead of being 90% the page, which it is. For instead of being able to concentrate on the film, it brings up what was necessarily removed to achieve it's almost too long run time. The character of the places is almost gone, the surfer lifestyle mixed with the death of the 60s, the hectic surf music on the Dodge's radio dial, the post-Manson paranoia, the foggy beaches and scruffy surfers driving around in woodies and eating whole pies at delicatessens at midnight, this whole liver of the piece has been removed, and so the audience is left with the skeleton of the story with much of it's corpulent flesh shaved away, a junkie on a diet. Since music and moving pictures is what Anderson does best, it is a double downer that the soundtrack isn't affecting or period blaring rocknroll. Meanwhile everything else being so tied to the exact wording has hamstrung the film from the jazz-like improvisation that energized his early work or the darkly simpatico rhythms that fueled the madness of There Will Be Blood or The Master. Vice could really have used some of those offbeat vibes, and loudly.
And yet for every bad acid trip there is a good, and every scene Waterson's Shasta appears in outshines every other, even the Doc/Bigfoot bromances (which are subtly fantastic). The way the camera captures her, the way she embodies the poisonous image of "the ex," is obviously the focal point of Anderson's emotional reasons for making this film and wonderfully transports us to the mindset of a man hungup on a dame no matter how hard he tries. Her couch scene is worth the price of admission alone, for the reasons of her brazen acting courage, beautiful camera work, naturalness of environment, raw emotion and savage desires. Doc's feelings for Shasta aren't stated, they are shown, a tortuously toxic turn-on that he hides beneath layers of denial. It is a fascinating relationship, and a wonderfully realized hippy version of the black widow from noir-past as originally envisioned by Pynchon. It's an outstanding scene in a good film, and not the only one. They all have great acting and direction and cinematic panache, the entire film does. And yet the movie isn't great on its own, at least not yet. Perhaps with more viewings, as with the Master and yet so unlike his other films, that scenes that were great will overwhelm the rest and force it's entirety to greatness. *Sad Sax Solo* But unlike the movies whose company it wants to join, the neo-noir classics like Polanski's Chinatown or Altman's The Long Goodbye, Inherent Vice in the end fizzles like a wet zigzag joint (surprising for a writer so dedicated to fantastic endings and last words, even the book's ending has more punch). Perhaps, with time and a little TLC, Inherent Vice will blaze brightly, heavily potent and without it's (and our) former hangups to get in the way of letting us fade into the hazy spicy smoke of a complicated good time.
7 Painted Lady Neck Ties out of 10 (GOOD)
Boyhood (2014)
Boyhood (R) - Review
"Years pass like seconds, minutes like hours"
A boy and his family grow up, through thick and thin, through 12 years of life in Texas in Director Richard Linklater's newest experimental film in long-distance filmmaking, the first real time coming of age picture
Actually spanning these years, watching an actor grow from childhood to adulthood onscreen in accelerated real-time as his family also grows and morphs, is a fascinating exercise in spatial filmmaking; joining up year after year (the music and styles and car-fads are the only clue what year the characters are living in at the moment, which zoom forward without provocation). It's a video diary of a generation, the post 9-11 children and their families, ups and downs, divorces and new found loves zipping by as the hairstyles go from mullets/Biebers/Emo/to Hipsters.
However, the necessarily amateur acting detracts from the believability, having child actors that grow into adult actors that can never quite act hurts the suspension of crucial disbelief. The start of the film has some tense moments with a drunk stepdad or family fights, but about half-way through the film all the characters settle down into this tepid groove of suburban life that, while may be real, is not very absorbing. The boy of the title, Mason, is the kind of sullen eyed aimless kid who won't tear himself away from a game screen for half a second to say hello, the kind of child we've all met and felt a little slighted by. His sister is a charming goof, his dad (Ethan Hawk) is a tousled hair loser, his mom a caring overstressed hen (Patricia Arquette). The family dynamic itself is interesting, yet they all surround a kid who is very unrelateable and, dare we say, almost unlikable? And at nearly 3 hours, Boyhood may invoke a feeling of family just at it's sheer length of exposure you are inflicted to, like a distant relative whose opinion is ignored off hand: "No Mason, why would you gauge your ears, do you know what you'd look like when you're 80?" He shrugs, digs out cereal bowl.
Boyhood (which is a bit of a misnomer considering the other characters get almost as much screen time as Mason, or at least are more interesting) feels like some of the other nostalgia pieces of Linklater's, whether it's the Austin Weirdness of Slacker or the High School weed-glow in Dazed and Confused. Some of it seems rewrtitten from these other movies, the underage drinking and drug use are such low hanging fruit that they feel out of place here, not every generation is doomed to repeat the previous' fun and mayhem, and not every kid will take a nip from a flask if asked to. The only difference here is that Richard isn't that personally nostalgic about the Iraq War, or Honda MiniVans or Game Boy Advances, and it shows. Stapling these emotions from his 70s boyhood has a false feeling of disjointedness to the millennial events, and while literally watching a kid grow up from 6 to 18 is a fascinating experience, the film itself, the entertainment value, is the same as watching a strangers home movies without anyone to answer your questions, "Aren't these kids cute but where are they living now, that must be his uncle I guess, when did she start dating him, seriously there is a whole other hour left on the tape???" There are whole 15 minute scenes that seem superfluous, and when your movie is a nearly 3 hour long family drama one could think it's runtime very excessive.
Narrative-wise, fun-wise, script-wise, acting-wise, it's not Linklater's best by a long shot (and he has done great before). Concept wise, it being a literal time-lapse photograph of a human being, like a stretched out youtube vid of the picture a month variety (turned into a scene a year in Boyhood), is fantastic and it's execution remarkable (that Linklater had to leave provisions for the film to be finished in the event of his untimely death speaks volumes about the commitment and energy of all involved). Unfortunately the mundane plot, length per entertainment value and overall distance of emotion left us with a dissenting opinion that unlike our own sunbeam dreanched childhood, this is something we won't be reminiscing about anytime soon.
6 Watching Human Grass Grow out of 10 (GOOD)
"Years pass like seconds, minutes like hours"
A boy and his family grow up, through thick and thin, through 12 years of life in Texas in Director Richard Linklater's newest experimental film in long-distance filmmaking, the first real time coming of age picture
Actually spanning these years, watching an actor grow from childhood to adulthood onscreen in accelerated real-time as his family also grows and morphs, is a fascinating exercise in spatial filmmaking; joining up year after year (the music and styles and car-fads are the only clue what year the characters are living in at the moment, which zoom forward without provocation). It's a video diary of a generation, the post 9-11 children and their families, ups and downs, divorces and new found loves zipping by as the hairstyles go from mullets/Biebers/Emo/to Hipsters.
However, the necessarily amateur acting detracts from the believability, having child actors that grow into adult actors that can never quite act hurts the suspension of crucial disbelief. The start of the film has some tense moments with a drunk stepdad or family fights, but about half-way through the film all the characters settle down into this tepid groove of suburban life that, while may be real, is not very absorbing. The boy of the title, Mason, is the kind of sullen eyed aimless kid who won't tear himself away from a game screen for half a second to say hello, the kind of child we've all met and felt a little slighted by. His sister is a charming goof, his dad (Ethan Hawk) is a tousled hair loser, his mom a caring overstressed hen (Patricia Arquette). The family dynamic itself is interesting, yet they all surround a kid who is very unrelateable and, dare we say, almost unlikable? And at nearly 3 hours, Boyhood may invoke a feeling of family just at it's sheer length of exposure you are inflicted to, like a distant relative whose opinion is ignored off hand: "No Mason, why would you gauge your ears, do you know what you'd look like when you're 80?" He shrugs, digs out cereal bowl.
Boyhood (which is a bit of a misnomer considering the other characters get almost as much screen time as Mason, or at least are more interesting) feels like some of the other nostalgia pieces of Linklater's, whether it's the Austin Weirdness of Slacker or the High School weed-glow in Dazed and Confused. Some of it seems rewrtitten from these other movies, the underage drinking and drug use are such low hanging fruit that they feel out of place here, not every generation is doomed to repeat the previous' fun and mayhem, and not every kid will take a nip from a flask if asked to. The only difference here is that Richard isn't that personally nostalgic about the Iraq War, or Honda MiniVans or Game Boy Advances, and it shows. Stapling these emotions from his 70s boyhood has a false feeling of disjointedness to the millennial events, and while literally watching a kid grow up from 6 to 18 is a fascinating experience, the film itself, the entertainment value, is the same as watching a strangers home movies without anyone to answer your questions, "Aren't these kids cute but where are they living now, that must be his uncle I guess, when did she start dating him, seriously there is a whole other hour left on the tape???" There are whole 15 minute scenes that seem superfluous, and when your movie is a nearly 3 hour long family drama one could think it's runtime very excessive.
Narrative-wise, fun-wise, script-wise, acting-wise, it's not Linklater's best by a long shot (and he has done great before). Concept wise, it being a literal time-lapse photograph of a human being, like a stretched out youtube vid of the picture a month variety (turned into a scene a year in Boyhood), is fantastic and it's execution remarkable (that Linklater had to leave provisions for the film to be finished in the event of his untimely death speaks volumes about the commitment and energy of all involved). Unfortunately the mundane plot, length per entertainment value and overall distance of emotion left us with a dissenting opinion that unlike our own sunbeam dreanched childhood, this is something we won't be reminiscing about anytime soon.
6 Watching Human Grass Grow out of 10 (GOOD)
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About Me
- Kevin Gasaway via HardDrawn
- Turlock, California, United States
- Media and Reviews by Kevin Gasaway