Directed by: Matt Reeves
Written by: Matt Reeves, Mark Bomback
Starring: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn
IMDb Link
A disclaimer before I start: The movie is great, easily one of the best blockbusters this year, but its advertising rings pretty false. War for the Planet of the Apes hits closer to Apocalypse Now via The Great Escape with talking apes. While this still ultimately makes for an excellent movie, it's barely a shadow of the 'war' that it's been touted as, which does feature loud and proud by film's end, but doesn't permeate the whole experience.. This isn't a knock on the movie itself but its advertising, which doesn't affect the film's overall quality, but I still feel needs to be addressed. Alright, on to the review.
This is the culmination of Caesar's journey. War begins its story two years after the events of Dawn, looking at the effect Koba's aggressive actions had on the apes and the military retaliation that ensued. The filmmakers also did the smart thing and put the focus of the film squarely on Caesar; the series has lived on the back of his awesome, Moses-esque character arc, so they smartly shifted all of the attention towards him, and how the events of the previous films continue to affect him. Even the human military conflict gets immediately rolled in to an event that challenges Caesar's very being to his very core, and sparks a change his view tainted by both his actions towards Koba in Dawn and the actions of Woody Harrelson's Colonel. That's a complicated way of putting it, but it's the best I can do without giving the exact details away. If you don't want to hear any plot details, skip straight to The Verdict.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
The Colonel kills Caesar's wife and son, setting him off on a revenge quest with the help of Maurice, Rocket and Luca, three apes you should recognise from the previous films. In doing so, he leaves his people to head in the direction of an area Rocket scouted. What follows is a well thought out examination of Caesar's character and his creed, most importantly showing that his actions have consequences, which ultimately leads to Caesar and his clan's imprisonment and escape. This film does a great job in its foreshadowing, every event simultaneously setting up another event later on. It's really strong storytelling, with a lot of "this happens because that happened because that happened", and a meaningful if a little trite use of tragic irony. At the best of times it's poetic, such as the death of The Colonel coming by what he fears most, delivered in the hands of a child's toy that, had he known the origins of, he would've burned immediately. My other favourite example is the capture or Caesar's clan, which only happens because he abandoned them to get vengeance for his family. In losing his focus on finding safety for his clan, he ultimately puts them in harm's way. At the worst times it's just events being glossed over for the sake of time, or feels a little forced (Apocalypse Now references are less than subtle, calling the apes 'Kong' like 'Viet Cong', or graffiti in a sewer saying 'Ape-Apocalypse Now' aren't the film's best moments when the whole journey in to hell is already noted). The little girl Nova goes from looking over the body of her father, killed by the apes she stands before, to riding with those same apes, in one cut to another. Admittedly, her cognitive degeneration could account for this, but the films spends absolutely no time on it. It should also be noted that a noticeable number of events in the film can only occur due to the incompetence of the military in the film, which isn't a bad idea given the state of humanity in this world, but it becomes awfully convenient to the point of ridiculousness. A little girl walks straight in to a military base and comforts Caesar, without being spotted, despite spotlights shining over her multiple times. The way the music swells combined with the way the sequence is shot tells me that she could be an allegory for something, maybe an angel (the latter half of the film is laden with Christian imagery, so it's not too much of a reach), but it's a strange sequence even with that in mind. Overall, the writing's highs more than make up for the rare lows, as every time the script shifts back to the incredible badass that is Caesar, now desperate and stripped of what he loves most, we get to see growth as he becomes more like Koba, which teaches him sympathy to Koba's circumstance, which leads to him realising his actions' likeness to Koba's, which leads to him confronting with his hatred head on and learning from it to re-affirm his previously deconsructed ideology. That's not just good writing, it's so much more than what most blockbusters offer nowadays. I really appreciated this story, and the trek Caesar takes to set his character to what he believed to be its most right.
I've spent so much time on the story I don't have room for much else, so I'll finish with the film's visual effects. The apes already looked incredible in Dawn, but they stepped up their game in War. the apes look even more realistic than before, a fact I think is most helped by their focus on the hair covering the apes, with seems a lot more wispy and varied, with individual strands here and there to give each ape a very 'real' look to them. Along with Serkis at his best with Caesar, the two factors combine to make it incredibly easy to attach yourself to CGI apes. This one will probably get the Oscar next year, although Dunkirk may give it a run for its money.
The Verdict: War for the Planet of the Apes is an exceptional ending to an excellent series. Caesar's story is one filled with believable growth and change, and the film's choice to focus on him as the lynch pin for just about every event in the film allows a lot of room for him to display his strong characterisation while Serkis portrays him wonderfully. Do see this film, especially if you've seen the previous ones.
Rating: 8/10
Published Thursday, 27th of July, 2017
Thursday, 27 July 2017
Monday, 24 July 2017
2017 Film Review: Dunkirk (2017)
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Written by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard
IMDb Link
Dunkirk is an entirely sense-oriented film. It isn't designed to attach you to a particular character in the throng of battle, or share some new epiphany about war; the film is pure devotion to simulating the exact nature of the battle by dropping you in to it.
In case you hadn't guessed, Dunkirk is about Dunkirk, more specifically the mass evacuation of Allied soldiers. The entirety of the film's focus is on three, sometimes four perspectives: soldiers on the ground trying to evacuate, members of a civilian ship, one of many sent to help with the evacuation, a couple of pilots watching the skies, and the Commander in charge of the evacuation. While the story is told non-linearly, and technically takes place over the course of a week, the film's scope and scale is brought right down to the smallest possible, focusing on a select few. These people aren't really characters, however; the film uses them more as grounding in the movie, allowing us as the audience to orient ourselves during the chaos of the fighting and gain multiple perspectives on singular events. It could be argued that these soldiers being used as glorified props is a detriment to the movie, but personally I found it unnecessary to know the people involved in order to understand the pure pandemonium of the events, because it's clear Nolan put his all in to making the experience a particularly visceral one. The roar of plane engines, the pounding of bomb after bomb after bomb, the sheer chaos of it all is a spectacle that alone makes the film worth the price of admission to IMAX. Nolan's usual weaknesses such as over-reliance on expositional dialogue and dragging pacing are non-existent here; the talk is drowned out by the absolute noise, and the story moves tightly despite its erratic time jumps and ever-escalating tension.
There isn't much else to say about the film outside of technical aspects. The sound is mostly fantastic, with Hans Zimmer's using of a ticking clock as a motif permeating the film's whole experience, flowing perfectly with the diagetic engine rumbles and bullet shrieks. The exception is the sound mixing when it comes to dialogue; Nolan seems insistent on equalising dialogue and noise levels, which seems to be in order to make the experience more immersive, but is ultimately frustrating because understanding what a character says becomes a coin flip. In the case of Dunkirk, it makes more sense because he's trying to put us right there in the fight, but when it's the same case for the film's few quieter moments, it's still an annoyance. The visuals are breathtaking, offering incredible views of the landscape of the battle and the surroundings, especially some of the final shots of Tom Hardy's pilot flying overhead, offering us a bird's eye view of everything.
The film really is all that, commitment to the craft of the experience, offering us an understanding of the nature of battle by trying to re-create it. The film works almost solely to this end, and as such it really is fantastic from a purely experiential perspective.
The Verdict: It's hardly a revelatory statement at this point, but Dunkirk is Nolan's best film. It's a true event for the senses that throws you right in to the thick of each perspective it shares, while the ever-ticking clock keeps your heart pounding until the last moments. I highly recommend this film if you're looking for something that offers the brutal, unfeeling nature of war in a way that leaves its impact. Just see it in IMAX, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't.
Rating: 9/10
Published July 24th, 2017
Written by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard
IMDb Link
Dunkirk is an entirely sense-oriented film. It isn't designed to attach you to a particular character in the throng of battle, or share some new epiphany about war; the film is pure devotion to simulating the exact nature of the battle by dropping you in to it.
In case you hadn't guessed, Dunkirk is about Dunkirk, more specifically the mass evacuation of Allied soldiers. The entirety of the film's focus is on three, sometimes four perspectives: soldiers on the ground trying to evacuate, members of a civilian ship, one of many sent to help with the evacuation, a couple of pilots watching the skies, and the Commander in charge of the evacuation. While the story is told non-linearly, and technically takes place over the course of a week, the film's scope and scale is brought right down to the smallest possible, focusing on a select few. These people aren't really characters, however; the film uses them more as grounding in the movie, allowing us as the audience to orient ourselves during the chaos of the fighting and gain multiple perspectives on singular events. It could be argued that these soldiers being used as glorified props is a detriment to the movie, but personally I found it unnecessary to know the people involved in order to understand the pure pandemonium of the events, because it's clear Nolan put his all in to making the experience a particularly visceral one. The roar of plane engines, the pounding of bomb after bomb after bomb, the sheer chaos of it all is a spectacle that alone makes the film worth the price of admission to IMAX. Nolan's usual weaknesses such as over-reliance on expositional dialogue and dragging pacing are non-existent here; the talk is drowned out by the absolute noise, and the story moves tightly despite its erratic time jumps and ever-escalating tension.
There isn't much else to say about the film outside of technical aspects. The sound is mostly fantastic, with Hans Zimmer's using of a ticking clock as a motif permeating the film's whole experience, flowing perfectly with the diagetic engine rumbles and bullet shrieks. The exception is the sound mixing when it comes to dialogue; Nolan seems insistent on equalising dialogue and noise levels, which seems to be in order to make the experience more immersive, but is ultimately frustrating because understanding what a character says becomes a coin flip. In the case of Dunkirk, it makes more sense because he's trying to put us right there in the fight, but when it's the same case for the film's few quieter moments, it's still an annoyance. The visuals are breathtaking, offering incredible views of the landscape of the battle and the surroundings, especially some of the final shots of Tom Hardy's pilot flying overhead, offering us a bird's eye view of everything.
The film really is all that, commitment to the craft of the experience, offering us an understanding of the nature of battle by trying to re-create it. The film works almost solely to this end, and as such it really is fantastic from a purely experiential perspective.
The Verdict: It's hardly a revelatory statement at this point, but Dunkirk is Nolan's best film. It's a true event for the senses that throws you right in to the thick of each perspective it shares, while the ever-ticking clock keeps your heart pounding until the last moments. I highly recommend this film if you're looking for something that offers the brutal, unfeeling nature of war in a way that leaves its impact. Just see it in IMAX, you're doing yourself a disservice if you don't.
Rating: 9/10
Published July 24th, 2017
Thursday, 13 July 2017
2017 Film Review: Baby Driver (2017)
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Written by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James
IMDb Link
Funnily enough, the best description of Baby Driver comes from another one of Wright's movies.
Baby Driver is director Edgar Wright's fifth film, and after the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, he has a lot of expectation to live up to. For better or worse, while amplifying his uniquely excessive and beat-driven style, Wright has eschewed his comedic tone for a much more intense one akin to older crime thrillers like Bullitt and The French Connection.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
The story follows Baby (Elgort), a young guy with tinnitus who shuts out the noise using music, which also allows him to be the best getaway driver around. He works for Doc (Spacey) as a way of paying Doc back for a car he once stole. After squaring his debt with Doc, Baby tries to move on with his life and spend his time with a diner waitress he meets named Debora, but a few threats force him to keep working. The adrenaline-fueled chase scenes are played back-to-back with the calm of Baby trying to live a normal life and the stress and conflict of seeing Baby dragged back in to crime. The whole thing plays out excellently: the action is tightly edited and easy to follow while still creating a definite heart-pounding effect, and we're given just enough of Baby and Debora being cute to contrast with the action to care for their success.
As just about everyone who sees this movie will tell you, the whole film is essentially set to music. The film moves to the beat of the song that plays, the camera cutting on the beats or characters performing actions in time to the songs, diagetic and non-diagetic sounds mixing with one another to create an effect that encapsulates you in the film's movement. This is quite common in Wright's work; see The World's End's Alabama Song scene or just about any scene from Scott Pilgrim for examples. However, in the case of Baby Driver it is used for thrills rather than comedy, enhancing the film's excitement and action pacing and giving the film some extra oomph where it counts.
Not that the action is in dire need of 'oomph'. Baby Driver's action is fantastic, the cuts on the beats evoking both the hectic pace that Baby works at and the inherent control he has in any driving situation. The beats and the cuts come quickly, but you're aware of when they're coming, just as Baby is aware of each move he needs to make on the road. Even as Baby pulls off crazier and crazier stunts and the blood pumps faster and faster, there's a strange sense of calm over the tension of the situation, the idea that we know that Baby knows what to do. This really also reinforces the level of control and effort that went in to the direction and editing of this film, the way everything syncs up (Wright's regular use of the match cut included) is almost perfect.
Wright's excellent direction extends to the film's few slower scenes, and in the film's little moments where music disappears. The time spent on the romantic subplot isn't revolutionary and intentionally old-fashioned, but so plainly pure in intention that you care for it at the most basic level. Baby is a good guy in a bad spot who wants to get out and get his girl, that's all there is to it, but that's also all there really needs to be in this movie for us to hope for a happy resolution. Likewise, the scenes without music are few and far between, but every moment that doesn't have it is deliberate, a sharp wake-up call that evokes a little anxiety as it helps sympathise with Baby's character, especially when the film includes his tinnitus in what we an hear. The film's action is a tense enough with the music, take that away and it becomes almost stressful, like the music acts as a safety net to remind us that everything is going to be ok in the end, and removing it tells us that for the moment, it might not be. It hammers home just how well Wright uses sound in this film.
The Verdict: Baby Driver is an intense and focused thrill ride that never lets you leave the edge of your seat. Wright's timing and style is as finely tuned as ever, keeping your blood pumping and your foot tapping through the musically synchronized chase scenes and shootouts. I highly recommend you see this film, though I caution fans of Wright's previous work to not expect a comedy.
Rating: 8.5/10
Published Thursday, July 13th, 2017
Written by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James
IMDb Link
Funnily enough, the best description of Baby Driver comes from another one of Wright's movies.
Baby Driver is director Edgar Wright's fifth film, and after the Cornetto Trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End) and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, he has a lot of expectation to live up to. For better or worse, while amplifying his uniquely excessive and beat-driven style, Wright has eschewed his comedic tone for a much more intense one akin to older crime thrillers like Bullitt and The French Connection.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
The story follows Baby (Elgort), a young guy with tinnitus who shuts out the noise using music, which also allows him to be the best getaway driver around. He works for Doc (Spacey) as a way of paying Doc back for a car he once stole. After squaring his debt with Doc, Baby tries to move on with his life and spend his time with a diner waitress he meets named Debora, but a few threats force him to keep working. The adrenaline-fueled chase scenes are played back-to-back with the calm of Baby trying to live a normal life and the stress and conflict of seeing Baby dragged back in to crime. The whole thing plays out excellently: the action is tightly edited and easy to follow while still creating a definite heart-pounding effect, and we're given just enough of Baby and Debora being cute to contrast with the action to care for their success.
As just about everyone who sees this movie will tell you, the whole film is essentially set to music. The film moves to the beat of the song that plays, the camera cutting on the beats or characters performing actions in time to the songs, diagetic and non-diagetic sounds mixing with one another to create an effect that encapsulates you in the film's movement. This is quite common in Wright's work; see The World's End's Alabama Song scene or just about any scene from Scott Pilgrim for examples. However, in the case of Baby Driver it is used for thrills rather than comedy, enhancing the film's excitement and action pacing and giving the film some extra oomph where it counts.
Not that the action is in dire need of 'oomph'. Baby Driver's action is fantastic, the cuts on the beats evoking both the hectic pace that Baby works at and the inherent control he has in any driving situation. The beats and the cuts come quickly, but you're aware of when they're coming, just as Baby is aware of each move he needs to make on the road. Even as Baby pulls off crazier and crazier stunts and the blood pumps faster and faster, there's a strange sense of calm over the tension of the situation, the idea that we know that Baby knows what to do. This really also reinforces the level of control and effort that went in to the direction and editing of this film, the way everything syncs up (Wright's regular use of the match cut included) is almost perfect.
Wright's excellent direction extends to the film's few slower scenes, and in the film's little moments where music disappears. The time spent on the romantic subplot isn't revolutionary and intentionally old-fashioned, but so plainly pure in intention that you care for it at the most basic level. Baby is a good guy in a bad spot who wants to get out and get his girl, that's all there is to it, but that's also all there really needs to be in this movie for us to hope for a happy resolution. Likewise, the scenes without music are few and far between, but every moment that doesn't have it is deliberate, a sharp wake-up call that evokes a little anxiety as it helps sympathise with Baby's character, especially when the film includes his tinnitus in what we an hear. The film's action is a tense enough with the music, take that away and it becomes almost stressful, like the music acts as a safety net to remind us that everything is going to be ok in the end, and removing it tells us that for the moment, it might not be. It hammers home just how well Wright uses sound in this film.
The Verdict: Baby Driver is an intense and focused thrill ride that never lets you leave the edge of your seat. Wright's timing and style is as finely tuned as ever, keeping your blood pumping and your foot tapping through the musically synchronized chase scenes and shootouts. I highly recommend you see this film, though I caution fans of Wright's previous work to not expect a comedy.
Rating: 8.5/10
Published Thursday, July 13th, 2017
Tuesday, 11 July 2017
Some More Thoughts on Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door (2001)
I reviewed this movie earlier this year, but I also started another run through of Cowboy Bebop basically as soon as I finished the last one, so coming back around to this film was inevitable, and watching the series and film for the umpteenth time put a few thoughts in my head, one of which I hope to develop a little here.
The thought on my mind about this movie is the fact that it has the inherent problem of having to tell a story in which the main characters aren't allowed to change, but also that a story about Cowboy Bebop is one of the few series where that doesn't have to be a detriment to the film's individual story, as the film relies on the series' themes and structure to circumvent it. Due to how Bebop ends, the only way for another story to be told is through it taking place sometime before its finale. For any other series, this could potentially incur two problems: one, it needs to fit in to the series' narrative, and two, it can't create or result in any drastic changes to the main characters, everyone who matters to the finale has to be relatively the same by story's end. Cowboy Bebop is one of the few series that doesn't have to change anything about itself for neither of these things to have an impact on how the story is told. Bebop is a serial that tells stories connected by theme rather than narrative. While there are parts of the story that have to occur at definite times, every tale is designed to be mostly self-contained, working through the events of each episode without those events having any effect on the series' narrative later, instead focusing on the themes presented by the narrative, of the dreamlike state in which Spike approaches life, or the repeated use of characters running from the past to act as a reflections of the series' leads, while also leaving an impact that goes unspoken. Knockin' on Heaven's Door behaves much the same way, utilising a lot of themes and issues fans of the series are familiar with while telling a story that we know will stay with the main characters without them ever having to talk about it. The second problem is avoided by Bebop's altervative approach to subjectivity in stroytelling. Rather than focus on its main characters, Bebop more often than not uses its leads as the lens through which the audience views other characters, and those characters are the subjects of the episodes. A villain of the episode is examined by the leads and is ultimately the one who changes in the episode, rather than the leads, and each time this happens it serves to reinforce the effect that these sorts of experience will have on the main characters during the episodes where they are the subject. Once again, Knockin' on Heaven's Door takes the same approach. The villain of the story, Vincent Volaju, is who we learn about during this movie, seeing his experiences and how they've changed him as a person leading up to who he is in the film, and it is he who is ultimately changed by the movie's events, while Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed are all back to where they started. It's understandable if some people find this sort of storytelling frustrating; the characters we spend the most time with are the ones we end up knowing the least about for a good portion of the series, and these experiences seem to mean so little until we actually get a chance to see them reflect on themselves for a moment; additionally, true to life though it may be, some don't enjoy seeing characters go round in circles avoiding their pasts only to confront them in ways that will inevitably destroy them, but these are the exact reasons that Cowboy Bebop has stuck with me for as long as it has, and why I unashamedly and unironically refer to it as the best TV series I've ever seen. But I digress. By nature of Cowboy Bebop's structure, it circumvents some of the biggest writing blocks for stories that occur in the middle of a series that's already concluded. I might come back to this at some point, as Bebop something I love dissecting and discussing, and this is only really surface-level stuff, come to me on a whim, but at one in the morning it starts to get difficult to process.
Published: July 12th, 2017
The thought on my mind about this movie is the fact that it has the inherent problem of having to tell a story in which the main characters aren't allowed to change, but also that a story about Cowboy Bebop is one of the few series where that doesn't have to be a detriment to the film's individual story, as the film relies on the series' themes and structure to circumvent it. Due to how Bebop ends, the only way for another story to be told is through it taking place sometime before its finale. For any other series, this could potentially incur two problems: one, it needs to fit in to the series' narrative, and two, it can't create or result in any drastic changes to the main characters, everyone who matters to the finale has to be relatively the same by story's end. Cowboy Bebop is one of the few series that doesn't have to change anything about itself for neither of these things to have an impact on how the story is told. Bebop is a serial that tells stories connected by theme rather than narrative. While there are parts of the story that have to occur at definite times, every tale is designed to be mostly self-contained, working through the events of each episode without those events having any effect on the series' narrative later, instead focusing on the themes presented by the narrative, of the dreamlike state in which Spike approaches life, or the repeated use of characters running from the past to act as a reflections of the series' leads, while also leaving an impact that goes unspoken. Knockin' on Heaven's Door behaves much the same way, utilising a lot of themes and issues fans of the series are familiar with while telling a story that we know will stay with the main characters without them ever having to talk about it. The second problem is avoided by Bebop's altervative approach to subjectivity in stroytelling. Rather than focus on its main characters, Bebop more often than not uses its leads as the lens through which the audience views other characters, and those characters are the subjects of the episodes. A villain of the episode is examined by the leads and is ultimately the one who changes in the episode, rather than the leads, and each time this happens it serves to reinforce the effect that these sorts of experience will have on the main characters during the episodes where they are the subject. Once again, Knockin' on Heaven's Door takes the same approach. The villain of the story, Vincent Volaju, is who we learn about during this movie, seeing his experiences and how they've changed him as a person leading up to who he is in the film, and it is he who is ultimately changed by the movie's events, while Spike, Jet, Faye and Ed are all back to where they started. It's understandable if some people find this sort of storytelling frustrating; the characters we spend the most time with are the ones we end up knowing the least about for a good portion of the series, and these experiences seem to mean so little until we actually get a chance to see them reflect on themselves for a moment; additionally, true to life though it may be, some don't enjoy seeing characters go round in circles avoiding their pasts only to confront them in ways that will inevitably destroy them, but these are the exact reasons that Cowboy Bebop has stuck with me for as long as it has, and why I unashamedly and unironically refer to it as the best TV series I've ever seen. But I digress. By nature of Cowboy Bebop's structure, it circumvents some of the biggest writing blocks for stories that occur in the middle of a series that's already concluded. I might come back to this at some point, as Bebop something I love dissecting and discussing, and this is only really surface-level stuff, come to me on a whim, but at one in the morning it starts to get difficult to process.
Published: July 12th, 2017
Sunday, 9 July 2017
2017 Film Review: It Comes at Night (2017)
Directed by: Trey Edward Shults
Written by: Trey Edward Shults
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo
IMDb Link
I love when I can go in to a film with no idea about what the film is beforehand. I didn't see any trailers for this nor look it up on any sites, and just let the film have its time.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
It Comes at Night is set in a post-apocalyptic world. People are dying out due to an unknown disease, and a man Paul (Edgerton), his Sarah wife (Ejogo), son Travis (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), and their dog Stanley have put together a life with what remains, hiding out far from humanity to avoid infection in a boarded-up home, taking every precaution they can to avoid infection. The film opens with them having to kill the wife's infected father, which immediately showcases the film's grim tone. The death comes with a little emotion and regret about how they went about it, but it's very muted, a showing of the characters' acceptance of the necessity of the situation. We're not watching people break so much as we're watching broken people try to put some semblance of humanity back together. Their behaviour is regimented, in total focus of survival, and fueled by paranoia and mistrust of the outside world. It's a strong opening for the story; the characters barely have to utter a word, and yet we understand the nature of their lives and its horrors with their actions, as the grim tone created by the opening sets in.
The film also takes the time to examine Travis' dreams, watching his psyche shift in the wake of his grandfather's death. At first, these dream sequences are a good way to consider what Travis is going through, but as the film goes on the repeated use becomes much less effective, especially as they become more obviously dreamlike while the film still tries to create tension with them. It's hard to feel any sort of fear when you know what you're watching is just a reflection of a person's mind and not actually happening.
Things change when another man Will (Abbott) breaks in to their home and is captured. Claiming to have a wife and son, he's tentatively released and takes Paul to retrieve them and supplies. Bringing Will, his wife Kim (Riley Reough) and son Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner) in to their home, the six of them work together, in a tenuous relationship that's at first relaxed, but builds in tension over time as everyone tries to be rational, but becomes inevitably suspicious of one another.
The attempt at a grey approach to the situation is what I liked most about the film. The perceptions of the characters are limited and designed to create doubt, while the audience is given enough pieces to draw their own conclusions, but also given a reason to believe each side. While the film's bias is unavoidably slanted in the direction of the first family we meet, the characters behave rationally enough with the information they have at their disposal that even when things gets crazy, it's not hard to see why. A misspoken word, an unknown quantity, bit by bit the reasons for each side of the family to question the other are not unreasonable. We see things primarily from the perspective of the first family, so we understand their suspicions and their actions. However, we're given just enough from the other side to not be quite as suspicious as the characters. It's a difficult thing to work with, trying to convey the tension and paranoia of the characters, while giving the audience some but not all of that same feeling, and the film pulls off this effort to keep the world grey very well. Every person's actions are believable, and you can see why they would seem justified from their perspective. That said, the film's constant ambiguity becomes frustrating towards the film's end; as the story resolves, I can understand not giving the characters real closure, but something for the audience to chew on after would've left me with more of an impact.
The Verdict: It Comes at Night is a good exercise in tension and paranoia, with an effective grim tone and interesting grey morality. It's an occasionally gut-wrenching slow burn, but its use of dream sequences and general ambiguity gets repetitive after a while.
Rating: 7/10
Published Monday, July 10th, 2017
Written by: Trey Edward Shults
Starring: Joel Edgerton, Christopher Abbott, Carmen Ejogo
IMDb Link
I love when I can go in to a film with no idea about what the film is beforehand. I didn't see any trailers for this nor look it up on any sites, and just let the film have its time.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
It Comes at Night is set in a post-apocalyptic world. People are dying out due to an unknown disease, and a man Paul (Edgerton), his Sarah wife (Ejogo), son Travis (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.), and their dog Stanley have put together a life with what remains, hiding out far from humanity to avoid infection in a boarded-up home, taking every precaution they can to avoid infection. The film opens with them having to kill the wife's infected father, which immediately showcases the film's grim tone. The death comes with a little emotion and regret about how they went about it, but it's very muted, a showing of the characters' acceptance of the necessity of the situation. We're not watching people break so much as we're watching broken people try to put some semblance of humanity back together. Their behaviour is regimented, in total focus of survival, and fueled by paranoia and mistrust of the outside world. It's a strong opening for the story; the characters barely have to utter a word, and yet we understand the nature of their lives and its horrors with their actions, as the grim tone created by the opening sets in.
The film also takes the time to examine Travis' dreams, watching his psyche shift in the wake of his grandfather's death. At first, these dream sequences are a good way to consider what Travis is going through, but as the film goes on the repeated use becomes much less effective, especially as they become more obviously dreamlike while the film still tries to create tension with them. It's hard to feel any sort of fear when you know what you're watching is just a reflection of a person's mind and not actually happening.
Things change when another man Will (Abbott) breaks in to their home and is captured. Claiming to have a wife and son, he's tentatively released and takes Paul to retrieve them and supplies. Bringing Will, his wife Kim (Riley Reough) and son Andrew (Griffin Robert Faulkner) in to their home, the six of them work together, in a tenuous relationship that's at first relaxed, but builds in tension over time as everyone tries to be rational, but becomes inevitably suspicious of one another.
The attempt at a grey approach to the situation is what I liked most about the film. The perceptions of the characters are limited and designed to create doubt, while the audience is given enough pieces to draw their own conclusions, but also given a reason to believe each side. While the film's bias is unavoidably slanted in the direction of the first family we meet, the characters behave rationally enough with the information they have at their disposal that even when things gets crazy, it's not hard to see why. A misspoken word, an unknown quantity, bit by bit the reasons for each side of the family to question the other are not unreasonable. We see things primarily from the perspective of the first family, so we understand their suspicions and their actions. However, we're given just enough from the other side to not be quite as suspicious as the characters. It's a difficult thing to work with, trying to convey the tension and paranoia of the characters, while giving the audience some but not all of that same feeling, and the film pulls off this effort to keep the world grey very well. Every person's actions are believable, and you can see why they would seem justified from their perspective. That said, the film's constant ambiguity becomes frustrating towards the film's end; as the story resolves, I can understand not giving the characters real closure, but something for the audience to chew on after would've left me with more of an impact.
The Verdict: It Comes at Night is a good exercise in tension and paranoia, with an effective grim tone and interesting grey morality. It's an occasionally gut-wrenching slow burn, but its use of dream sequences and general ambiguity gets repetitive after a while.
Rating: 7/10
Published Monday, July 10th, 2017
Thursday, 6 July 2017
2017 Film Review: Spider-Man: Homecoming
Directed by: Jon Watts
Written by: Jon Watts, Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers
Starring: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr.
IMDb Link
Spider-Man: Homecoming would be a better film in a vacuum. Being the third try at a Spider-Man series in recent years makes it hard for the film to do anything new, so even when it does something very well, it isn't refreshing, especially in the current superhero-saturated state of film. At the same time, everyone being fundamentally aware of who Spider-Man is and how he works gives the film the chance to circumvent the origin story entirely and just let Peter be Spider-Man.
Spidey is home from his brief appearance in Captain America: Civil War (2016), back to poorly juggling his newfound crime-fighting calling with his personal life and responsibilities. The film does a great job of contrasting the impatience and constant yearning Peter feels in normal life with the rush of being a hero, while also pressing on his immaturity in hoping to get to deal with much bigger and badder problems than the ones in his neighbourhood, to act as the catalyst for his coming-of-age arc in this film (if the John Hughes cues weren't obvious enough throughout the film, they draw you a diagram by filming a scene similarly to Ferris Bueller and then showing that exact clip from Ferris). Tom Holland plays this part exceptionally well; in a film that contains Michael Keaton and Robert Downey Jr., Holland gives the best performance, with such enthusiasm for what he does and a perfect amount of teenage "awkward but trying to be cool" behaviour that he sells himself completely as both Spider-Man and Peter Parker without it coming off as too cheesy for the tone of the film.
Opposite Holland is Keaton as the villain, Vulture, a construction worker turned black market alien arms dealer. I love Keaton as an actor, but he isn't given much to work with at first; his early scenes are fairly bland, not offering anything in particular that makes him stand out as a villain, as his "I'll do anything for my family" and "the rich don't care about the poor" justifications for his actions aren't pressed on early on. However, it pays of excellently later on, so while he doesn't start on the best foot, he has his moment to shine.
The film does a lot very well, but most of it has been seen in the previous Spider-Man films. This does for both superficial stuff as well as general character arcs. Spider-Man saving his girlfriend with the web catch as she falls has been done to death (literally, in Gwen Stacy's case); it may be a callback, and within the realm of what Spidey can do, but it's also hard to ignore that I've seen it plenty of times before, and recently. The arc Peter goes through is a lot like a compressed version of his arc from Spider-Man 2, squished in to the second and third acts as part of his coming-of-age, losing his suit and identity as Spider-Man so that he can learn to appreciate who he is and the lower scale on which he works. Again, it's good, but it's eerily similar to what we've seen before and devoid of a lot of originality because of it, which I know is unavoidable with the other Spider-Man movies being so recent, but perhaps indicative of the fact that these movies are being made too often. There are however some updates that come with this remake, mainly attached to Downey Jr's Stark and his ability to use technology to solve and survey everything. This creates an interesting change of pace, with Spidey having some sort of living father-figure to look up to, be punished by and learn from, which makes Stark a sort of mediator of Peter's direction. Peter temporarily losing his suit and identity are up to Stark, which takes away a little of Peter's agency as a character, even though he earns it later. It's hard to make a call at this point whether this change is truly a good thing or a bad thing. Finally, the usual problems with Marvel movies persist, as always so prevalent that they're artistic choice as much as weakness: stakes that don't really matter because you never believe anyone is in real danger and even a way to make a villain not bad enough to receive death as punishment, etc.
One final piece of praise goes to Tony Revolori as Flash, Peter's high school bully. Rather than the tough and brutish dumb sports guy we've seen in previous incarnations, Flash is a rich kid's son who's on anything that'll get him attention. His constant dickishness towards Peter is completely needless and seemingly without base, and he takes it to such comedic extremes that I couldn't help but love him for every line he spoke. He was a silly and pointless character, but my word was he entertaining.
The Verdict: While Homecoming is held back by the fact that its story and character arcs have been seen in other Spider-Man movies, the film is still very enjoyable to watch, in large part due to Holland's fantastically energetic turn as our friendly neighbourhood superhero.
Rating: 7/10
Published July 6th, 2017
Written by: Jon Watts, Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers
Starring: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr.
IMDb Link
Spider-Man: Homecoming would be a better film in a vacuum. Being the third try at a Spider-Man series in recent years makes it hard for the film to do anything new, so even when it does something very well, it isn't refreshing, especially in the current superhero-saturated state of film. At the same time, everyone being fundamentally aware of who Spider-Man is and how he works gives the film the chance to circumvent the origin story entirely and just let Peter be Spider-Man.
Spidey is home from his brief appearance in Captain America: Civil War (2016), back to poorly juggling his newfound crime-fighting calling with his personal life and responsibilities. The film does a great job of contrasting the impatience and constant yearning Peter feels in normal life with the rush of being a hero, while also pressing on his immaturity in hoping to get to deal with much bigger and badder problems than the ones in his neighbourhood, to act as the catalyst for his coming-of-age arc in this film (if the John Hughes cues weren't obvious enough throughout the film, they draw you a diagram by filming a scene similarly to Ferris Bueller and then showing that exact clip from Ferris). Tom Holland plays this part exceptionally well; in a film that contains Michael Keaton and Robert Downey Jr., Holland gives the best performance, with such enthusiasm for what he does and a perfect amount of teenage "awkward but trying to be cool" behaviour that he sells himself completely as both Spider-Man and Peter Parker without it coming off as too cheesy for the tone of the film.
Opposite Holland is Keaton as the villain, Vulture, a construction worker turned black market alien arms dealer. I love Keaton as an actor, but he isn't given much to work with at first; his early scenes are fairly bland, not offering anything in particular that makes him stand out as a villain, as his "I'll do anything for my family" and "the rich don't care about the poor" justifications for his actions aren't pressed on early on. However, it pays of excellently later on, so while he doesn't start on the best foot, he has his moment to shine.
The film does a lot very well, but most of it has been seen in the previous Spider-Man films. This does for both superficial stuff as well as general character arcs. Spider-Man saving his girlfriend with the web catch as she falls has been done to death (literally, in Gwen Stacy's case); it may be a callback, and within the realm of what Spidey can do, but it's also hard to ignore that I've seen it plenty of times before, and recently. The arc Peter goes through is a lot like a compressed version of his arc from Spider-Man 2, squished in to the second and third acts as part of his coming-of-age, losing his suit and identity as Spider-Man so that he can learn to appreciate who he is and the lower scale on which he works. Again, it's good, but it's eerily similar to what we've seen before and devoid of a lot of originality because of it, which I know is unavoidable with the other Spider-Man movies being so recent, but perhaps indicative of the fact that these movies are being made too often. There are however some updates that come with this remake, mainly attached to Downey Jr's Stark and his ability to use technology to solve and survey everything. This creates an interesting change of pace, with Spidey having some sort of living father-figure to look up to, be punished by and learn from, which makes Stark a sort of mediator of Peter's direction. Peter temporarily losing his suit and identity are up to Stark, which takes away a little of Peter's agency as a character, even though he earns it later. It's hard to make a call at this point whether this change is truly a good thing or a bad thing. Finally, the usual problems with Marvel movies persist, as always so prevalent that they're artistic choice as much as weakness: stakes that don't really matter because you never believe anyone is in real danger and even a way to make a villain not bad enough to receive death as punishment, etc.
One final piece of praise goes to Tony Revolori as Flash, Peter's high school bully. Rather than the tough and brutish dumb sports guy we've seen in previous incarnations, Flash is a rich kid's son who's on anything that'll get him attention. His constant dickishness towards Peter is completely needless and seemingly without base, and he takes it to such comedic extremes that I couldn't help but love him for every line he spoke. He was a silly and pointless character, but my word was he entertaining.
The Verdict: While Homecoming is held back by the fact that its story and character arcs have been seen in other Spider-Man movies, the film is still very enjoyable to watch, in large part due to Holland's fantastically energetic turn as our friendly neighbourhood superhero.
Rating: 7/10
Published July 6th, 2017
Saturday, 1 July 2017
2017 Film Review: Okja (2017)
Directed by: Bong Joon-ho
Written by: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ahn Seo-Hyun, Paul Dano
IMDb Link
At the start of this year I made a resolution to review every movie I saw at the cinema. At the time I didn't account for a few things, including Netflix stepping up their film production. Okja is a Netflix original/exclusive, so you'll have to go there to watch it.
With that out of the way, I loved Okja as much as Joon-ho's other works (The Host, Snowpiercer); Okja has the same style, the mixture of genuine but messy social commentary, the excellent tonal control and clever use of colour, the plot ideas that have clear derivation but manage to be original in how they're told. It's a movie that, like Joon-ho's others, is weird enough for people to notice, but heartfelt enough in its intentions that it's difficult to not find it appealing, even when it stumbles.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
Like his earlier works, Joon-ho's Okja is as much a social commentary as it is a movie. Where something like The Host tackled issues that were distinctly Korean and Snowpiercer dealt with, in a word, class, Okja concerns itself with issues of mass meat production and animal exploitation, as well as a little bit on GMOs. The story is focused on Okja, a genetically-modified Super-Pig, publicly touted as naturally bred, and sent to Korea as part of a promotional stunt by the Mirando Corporation, which is trying to build its outward image by pushing how "eco-friendly" and "non-GMO" it is. Okja spends ten years in the remote countryside of South Korea with a girl, Mija (Seo-Hyun), and Mija's grandfather. As the final part of the Mirando Corporation's propaganda, Okja is taken to be prepared for display in New York as the culmination of Mirando's work. From here, we get a perspective on the issues surrounding the topics of animal exploitation and GMOs while Mija does everything she can to get back to Okja and get her home.
As seems to be consistently the way with Joon-ho's films, Okja is a film that shows his skill with tone. The movie is consistently inconsistent, as the film can switch gears at the drop of a hat and only holds on to an emotion if the scene demands it. In another director's hands this could be frustrating or even infuriating, but Joon-ho tells stories with this style in a way that feels natural. Watching a film like Okja, you can go from laughing to biting your nails to sobbing in the space of a few minutes without it being forced, which seems to be because of a combination of colour palette and little character choices. You could be worried for Okja and Mija's safety as they run from Mirando but momentarily giggling because a bystander, witnessing this incredible spectacle, takes a moment to run alongside the two and take a quick video selfie. It's a believably stupid moment in the film that's gone almost as soon as it arrives, and acts as an example of how the movie can shift in tone from moment to moment without missing a beat. The colour in the film helps keep tempo by reinforcing the overall emotion behind the scene as the tone shifts. Early scenes in the seclusion of the Korean countryside use natural colours, especially a lot of soft greens, to create a sense of serenity when mixed with the mist that covers the mountains, so even as a scene here gets tense or threatening the place is given a sense of home. Likewise, a pastel colour palette is used during the big Mirando Corporation presentation to help push the idea that the whole thing is fake and unnatural, so when mixed with the joy the Mirando Corporation is trying to build it creates a disgust in the audience. The film showcases Joon-ho's ability to juggle tone without losing emotional impact.
What is sometimes lost, however, is the message behind the film's heartfelt work. While the film is often confronting, and effective when it is, there are times where social commentary is rolled in to the dialogue of the characters rather than their actions, and it seems to suggest that Joon-ho wanted to hit every possible nail regarding the issues at hand without needing them to all be hit on the head. Points such as GMO public image being overblown are thrown in to dialogue in between more natural-sounding lines and then promptly forgotten about, as if the topic wanted to be discussed but they didn't have enough time to flesh it out. It's not common, but those moments do trip up the film's natural flow a bit, while so often the film simply shows you the cruel nature of what the Mirando Corporation is doing, which is more than effective enough to challenge people about the topics of mass meat production and animal exploitation, while the discussion of GMOs seems to be a byproduct of this discussion that doesn't get nearly as much of a look, despite it being such a big part of Mirando's reasoning for their schemes.
The Verdict: Okja is excellent. Joon-ho is as effective as ever at handling shifts in tone without missing a beat while telling a story with real-life implications, which means that you could be laughing in one moment and on the edge of your seat in the next, while the social commentary varies between fruitful and worthy of rolling your eyes at. The film has true heart; even if you're not concerned with issues of animal exploitation, mass food production or GMOs, the film still offers a beautiful story that manages to get you to care about a CGI Super-Pig. Watch it the next time you're on Netflix.
Rating: 8/10
Published July 2nd, 2017
Written by: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson
Starring: Tilda Swinton, Ahn Seo-Hyun, Paul Dano
IMDb Link
At the start of this year I made a resolution to review every movie I saw at the cinema. At the time I didn't account for a few things, including Netflix stepping up their film production. Okja is a Netflix original/exclusive, so you'll have to go there to watch it.
With that out of the way, I loved Okja as much as Joon-ho's other works (The Host, Snowpiercer); Okja has the same style, the mixture of genuine but messy social commentary, the excellent tonal control and clever use of colour, the plot ideas that have clear derivation but manage to be original in how they're told. It's a movie that, like Joon-ho's others, is weird enough for people to notice, but heartfelt enough in its intentions that it's difficult to not find it appealing, even when it stumbles.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
Like his earlier works, Joon-ho's Okja is as much a social commentary as it is a movie. Where something like The Host tackled issues that were distinctly Korean and Snowpiercer dealt with, in a word, class, Okja concerns itself with issues of mass meat production and animal exploitation, as well as a little bit on GMOs. The story is focused on Okja, a genetically-modified Super-Pig, publicly touted as naturally bred, and sent to Korea as part of a promotional stunt by the Mirando Corporation, which is trying to build its outward image by pushing how "eco-friendly" and "non-GMO" it is. Okja spends ten years in the remote countryside of South Korea with a girl, Mija (Seo-Hyun), and Mija's grandfather. As the final part of the Mirando Corporation's propaganda, Okja is taken to be prepared for display in New York as the culmination of Mirando's work. From here, we get a perspective on the issues surrounding the topics of animal exploitation and GMOs while Mija does everything she can to get back to Okja and get her home.
As seems to be consistently the way with Joon-ho's films, Okja is a film that shows his skill with tone. The movie is consistently inconsistent, as the film can switch gears at the drop of a hat and only holds on to an emotion if the scene demands it. In another director's hands this could be frustrating or even infuriating, but Joon-ho tells stories with this style in a way that feels natural. Watching a film like Okja, you can go from laughing to biting your nails to sobbing in the space of a few minutes without it being forced, which seems to be because of a combination of colour palette and little character choices. You could be worried for Okja and Mija's safety as they run from Mirando but momentarily giggling because a bystander, witnessing this incredible spectacle, takes a moment to run alongside the two and take a quick video selfie. It's a believably stupid moment in the film that's gone almost as soon as it arrives, and acts as an example of how the movie can shift in tone from moment to moment without missing a beat. The colour in the film helps keep tempo by reinforcing the overall emotion behind the scene as the tone shifts. Early scenes in the seclusion of the Korean countryside use natural colours, especially a lot of soft greens, to create a sense of serenity when mixed with the mist that covers the mountains, so even as a scene here gets tense or threatening the place is given a sense of home. Likewise, a pastel colour palette is used during the big Mirando Corporation presentation to help push the idea that the whole thing is fake and unnatural, so when mixed with the joy the Mirando Corporation is trying to build it creates a disgust in the audience. The film showcases Joon-ho's ability to juggle tone without losing emotional impact.
What is sometimes lost, however, is the message behind the film's heartfelt work. While the film is often confronting, and effective when it is, there are times where social commentary is rolled in to the dialogue of the characters rather than their actions, and it seems to suggest that Joon-ho wanted to hit every possible nail regarding the issues at hand without needing them to all be hit on the head. Points such as GMO public image being overblown are thrown in to dialogue in between more natural-sounding lines and then promptly forgotten about, as if the topic wanted to be discussed but they didn't have enough time to flesh it out. It's not common, but those moments do trip up the film's natural flow a bit, while so often the film simply shows you the cruel nature of what the Mirando Corporation is doing, which is more than effective enough to challenge people about the topics of mass meat production and animal exploitation, while the discussion of GMOs seems to be a byproduct of this discussion that doesn't get nearly as much of a look, despite it being such a big part of Mirando's reasoning for their schemes.
The Verdict: Okja is excellent. Joon-ho is as effective as ever at handling shifts in tone without missing a beat while telling a story with real-life implications, which means that you could be laughing in one moment and on the edge of your seat in the next, while the social commentary varies between fruitful and worthy of rolling your eyes at. The film has true heart; even if you're not concerned with issues of animal exploitation, mass food production or GMOs, the film still offers a beautiful story that manages to get you to care about a CGI Super-Pig. Watch it the next time you're on Netflix.
Rating: 8/10
Published July 2nd, 2017
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