Directed by: Niels Arden Oplev
Written by: Ben Ripley, Peter Filardi
Starring: Ellen Page, Diego Luna, Nina Dobrev
IMDb Link
I didn't actually know that Flatliners was a remake of a 1990 movie of the same name until yesterday, so before going to see this movie I watched the original to consider and compare the two. For the record, Flatliners (1990) is a mediocre movie that I recommend if you like the 90s idea of edgy and, like me, are a sucker for anything with Kiefer Sutherland. It's the sort of movie that should be remade if you're going to remake a movie in my opinion; something that was flawed but based on an interesting idea, and old enough and obscure enough for it to not be immediately within the collective consciousness of society. With the context of the original fresh in my mind, the new Flatliners is a strange experience, because it manages to do some things better than its namesake, but a not insignificant amount of it doesn't have any real effect.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
The film has a handful of medical students stop each others' hearts momentarily in order to experience the afterlife. This gives them readings of the brain after death, somehow makes those that go under much smarter, and adds the unwanted side effect of drudging up guilt to cause them to have visions of what haunts them. It's high-concept but without a lot of time spent on details to bog it down, trying instead to focus on the characters and their reactions to the 'flatlining' experience, remaining at least somewhat compelling by way of the insanity of its premise alone. The requirement to have each character go through the experience one at a time makes for a slow and repetitive first half, but one thing that this film has over its predecessor is a slightly cleaner set of characters, which allows for the movie to conveniently fit everybody's stories together without having to detour in to sequences that are necessary for the plot but don't fit the rest of the movie. That said, Flatliners (2017) still manages to step in to unnecessary territory with the character of Sofia (Kiersey Clemons). A background with an overbearing mother gives her motivation to flatline in order to get its cognitive super powers and free herself from the stress of medical school, but after she gets it, the completion of her arc is only related tangentially. It's as if they needed to work outwards from the middle, and came to different conclusion about how the beginning and end should go. It isn't bad, but it's the main arc that doesn't quite fit with the rest; and while the whole thing is a good enough idea on its own to be the focus of its own movie, a sort of "Limitless"-lite, juggling it alongside the other three subplots leaves it underdeveloped. With that in mind, the implementation of the brain boost as part of the effects of flatlining is haphazard; the characters are suddenly smarter and generally better at what they do, but this doesn't ultimately mean anything past a few scenes that let the characters be smug.
Beyond the plot, the style isn't anything noteworthy until the movie grows some fangs and starts working the horror/thriller angle. This is one aspect that I must directly compare to the 1990 version. The original went for an edgy, creepy, thriller vibe; it didn't spend a lot of time trying to create fear, and often got straight to messing with its characters. It was much more direct, and was always at least so committed to its style that the sheer insanity of what it was doing was enough for it to be satisfying. The image of Kiefer Sutherland getting beaten and bloodied by a nine year old child is just crazy enough to stick with me. What's more, the film spends less time flatlining before reaching its crazy moments; while both versions of the film hint it early on, it pays of far quicker and in generally more satisfying ways in the original, in part I think due to the fact that it gave some of its characters genuinely negative traits. However, while it takes an unnecessary time to reach its fever pitch, Flatliners (2017) does so with great impact. The stakes are raised, the film finds a few genuinely spine-tingling moments, and the second half ends up greatly making up for the first. What's more, the film finds an efficient way to push the plot forward while also addressing the first film's issue of unnecessary characters in its finale. The film really is a step up in some regards during its second half.
Unfortunately, not in all regards. There was one moment in Flatliners that took me completely out of the movie experience for a moment, and it was a case of truly bad editing; not that movie theatres use them much anymore, but it was almost as if there was a reel missing from the movie. The character Jamie (James Norton) has a harrowing experience with his guilt demon, one that reaches its peak when he's thrown from his boat in to the water and has to swim to the docks, only to have his hand stabbed by his own knife as he attempts to climb up. Just as the tension of the scene has reached its peak, for seemingly no reason, the film hard cuts to some time later, to the group as a whole, but does so without first addressing that Jamie is in fact with them. We never get to see the resolution of Jamie's horror, and are hastily thrown to a different place and time where Jamie also is. It's such a one-off, but such a jarring moment of editing that I felt the need to bring it to attention.
There's other stuff that can be spoken about here, such as the fact that this version all but drops the religious and existential discussion of the 1990 version, but this gives the basics for what I liked and didn't like in the movie.
The Verdict: Flatliners is a mildly boring take on an interesting concept that meanders through its first half but manages to add a little impact to its story before film's end. Its style is a little lackluster and toothless at first, but when the movie finally finds its fangs it's at least worth a modicum of interest and respect. Short answer, see the original.
Rating: 4/10
Published September 28th, 2017
*Edit: I dropped my rating a whole point. This isn't particularly rare for me; I write my reviews for films I see in the cinema as soon as I can, so that my reaction is fresh and genuine, and sometimes aspects of the films I watch get better or worse in retrospect, and sometimes those aspects are worse enough upon reconsidering that they sway my score. That said, in this particular case the drop is mostly due to two things: the 1990 version and the dialogue. The dialogue is especially horrendous the more I recall it; the characters talk like the concept of death and "flatlining" are two different things. However, when compared to the 90s version this film is not just weak, it's disappointing, which is difficult when the original isn't even particularly good to begin with. This most recent version gets away with streamlining the main arcs a little, but its lack of style, especially in its early scenes, when compared to the hilariously over the top edge of the original, really hampers the film. The new version didn't need to copy that style, just create its own that was worthwhile, and it failed to do that for about the film.
Thursday, 28 September 2017
Thursday, 21 September 2017
2017 Film Review: Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017)
Directed by: Matthew Vaughn
Written by: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman
Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
IMDb Link
Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of 2014's surprisingly good movies. A respectful lampoon of James Bond-esque spy fair, it was a lot of cool and silly action sequences with a grounding in main character Eggsy's journey to become a Kingsman. The Golden Circle matches with great action sequences, but fails on the other end.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
Eggsy (Egerton) is back, now a full fledged Kingsman and dating the princess he boinked in the butt at the end of the first film. After the Kingsman base is destroyed, he and Merlin (Strong) have to head to the US to join up with the Statesman, Kingsman's American equivalent. Behind the attack is Poppy (Julianne Moore), the biggest drug lord in the world.
If Kingsman is a lampoon of British Spy movies, then The Golden Circle feels like a lampoon of Kingsman. The film enthusiastically tries to re-create what everyone loved about Kingsman, and for a lot of things, it succeeds. The action sequences in the film are as high-octane and well choreographed as the first film, featuring ridiculous violence mixed with hit-or-miss funny inanities. It never reaches the heights of bloodlust expressed in the now infamous "church scene" from the first film, but it's clearly trying to outdo itself, at least succeeding above all else in being entertaining. Likewise, all of the Statesman equivalents are so entertaining that they could carry their own movie; Pedro Pascal in particular as Statesman Agent Whiskey (their agents are named after alcoholic beverages rather than Arthurian characters), who is the second-most entertaining new character, getting the best action scenes and carrying himself with a hell of a lot of swagger.
Most entertaining, though, is Julianne Moore's turn as Poppy. It was hard to top Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine, but Moore is absolutely great in the most cartoonish way possible. She's the sweetest psychopath you've ever seen, at once charmingly adorable as a nostalgic idealist and disgustingly infuriating as she feeds people to other people as a power move. She's an unrealistic, over the top character played as unbelievably and over the top as possible, and Moore pulls it off so well. Like Jackson's Valentine, she also has an interesting ideology, twisted by psychopathy, that's at least worth seeing the movie to understand, especially with the resultant reaction from this film's parody of the US government.
That said though, this movie lacks anything that will make an audience care about what they're seeing. Eggsy's relationship with the princess is undeveloped and mostly exists to put a hilarious spin on a classic James Bond setup; it doesn't feel real and only adds to this film's overlong running time. The Statesman characters are fun, but don't get enough screen time to do anything beyond be cool and look good in the action scenes. Unnecessary plot development that defeats key emotional moments from the first film and add little to this film until the end, and key emotional moments from this film don't work as well as I expected them to. The Golden Circle's lack of weight ironically weighs down the experience of the film.
The Verdict: It's bigger, it's louder, it's not as good. While The Golden Circle turns the fun and silly dials to eleven, what little there is to try and ground you in to the movie and make you care falls mostly flat. It's enjoyable, but also forgettable. See it if you like the first one and don't mind it going even further over the top.
Rating: 6/10
Published September 21st, 2017
Written by: Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman
Starring: Taron Egerton, Colin Firth, Mark Strong
IMDb Link
Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of 2014's surprisingly good movies. A respectful lampoon of James Bond-esque spy fair, it was a lot of cool and silly action sequences with a grounding in main character Eggsy's journey to become a Kingsman. The Golden Circle matches with great action sequences, but fails on the other end.
*Warning: Potential Spoilers Ahead*
Eggsy (Egerton) is back, now a full fledged Kingsman and dating the princess he boinked in the butt at the end of the first film. After the Kingsman base is destroyed, he and Merlin (Strong) have to head to the US to join up with the Statesman, Kingsman's American equivalent. Behind the attack is Poppy (Julianne Moore), the biggest drug lord in the world.
If Kingsman is a lampoon of British Spy movies, then The Golden Circle feels like a lampoon of Kingsman. The film enthusiastically tries to re-create what everyone loved about Kingsman, and for a lot of things, it succeeds. The action sequences in the film are as high-octane and well choreographed as the first film, featuring ridiculous violence mixed with hit-or-miss funny inanities. It never reaches the heights of bloodlust expressed in the now infamous "church scene" from the first film, but it's clearly trying to outdo itself, at least succeeding above all else in being entertaining. Likewise, all of the Statesman equivalents are so entertaining that they could carry their own movie; Pedro Pascal in particular as Statesman Agent Whiskey (their agents are named after alcoholic beverages rather than Arthurian characters), who is the second-most entertaining new character, getting the best action scenes and carrying himself with a hell of a lot of swagger.
Most entertaining, though, is Julianne Moore's turn as Poppy. It was hard to top Samuel L. Jackson as Valentine, but Moore is absolutely great in the most cartoonish way possible. She's the sweetest psychopath you've ever seen, at once charmingly adorable as a nostalgic idealist and disgustingly infuriating as she feeds people to other people as a power move. She's an unrealistic, over the top character played as unbelievably and over the top as possible, and Moore pulls it off so well. Like Jackson's Valentine, she also has an interesting ideology, twisted by psychopathy, that's at least worth seeing the movie to understand, especially with the resultant reaction from this film's parody of the US government.
That said though, this movie lacks anything that will make an audience care about what they're seeing. Eggsy's relationship with the princess is undeveloped and mostly exists to put a hilarious spin on a classic James Bond setup; it doesn't feel real and only adds to this film's overlong running time. The Statesman characters are fun, but don't get enough screen time to do anything beyond be cool and look good in the action scenes. Unnecessary plot development that defeats key emotional moments from the first film and add little to this film until the end, and key emotional moments from this film don't work as well as I expected them to. The Golden Circle's lack of weight ironically weighs down the experience of the film.
The Verdict: It's bigger, it's louder, it's not as good. While The Golden Circle turns the fun and silly dials to eleven, what little there is to try and ground you in to the movie and make you care falls mostly flat. It's enjoyable, but also forgettable. See it if you like the first one and don't mind it going even further over the top.
Rating: 6/10
Published September 21st, 2017
Thursday, 14 September 2017
2017 Film Review: The Emoji Movie (2017)
Directed by: Tony Leondis
Written by: Tony Leondis, Eric Siegel, Mike White
Starring: T.J Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris
IMDb Link
I watched a movie earlier today that contained a scene involving a crowd of people eating the flesh of a newborn baby, and The Emoji Movie is still the most sickening thing I've experienced today.
The Emoji Movie is a poorly constructed piece of advertising masquerading as a movie. The whole film is built around trying to sell its audience on the companies that paid money to have their apps featured in what can't even be considered a plot. There's some shallow messages about being yourself and valuing close friends, but they're so hackneyed and forced face-first into more advertising disguised as dialogue that not even a shadow of a theme is in any way engaging or interesting, or hasn't been done better many tines over in such films as Wreck-It Ralph or The LEGO Movie. The rest of the movie is filled with constant praise of digital consumerism, just a barrage of reminders that phones and apps are necessary for existence. This is truly not just a terrible movie, but a terrible movie to show kids as well.
Beyond the complete lack of engagement it offers, there's nothing that The Emoji Movie even tries to succeed at. Nothing makes any sort of sense from a story perspective, the film lacks any kind of internal consistency and offers blandly flashy animation while bored voice actors give the bare minimum for their paychecks. Nothing about this movie offers anything of value to humanity, and the whole thing ends up being an obscene affront to storytelling in a way few films have been able to attain.
Consider this review also part of my "A Look at the Worst" series, because this is sincerely the worst movie I have seen in cinemas this year.
The Verdict: The Emoji Movie is completely terrible in every imaginable way. It's not a movie, it's an 86-minute advertisement that's bad for anyone young enough to be influenced by the film, and insulting to everyone else. Don't see it. Just don't.
Rating: 1/10
Published September 14th, 2017
*Edit: I was asked by a friend how bad it was, and I elaborated a little more on some of the things I particularly disliked about it, so I thought I'd put my response here:
t was one of the worst cinematic experiences of my life. It's a disgustingly in-your-face advertisement for Candy Crush, Just Dance, Spotify and Drop Box that offers consumerist messages about the necessity of phones and apps and how great they and indeed emojis are, while lazily hamfisting half-arsed attempts at shallow understanding of issues like "it's ok to be yourself" and "value close friends" so that it can pretend to be a kid's movie. The main character's arc is literally to learn to be himself, but his issues are almost entirely unique to him and stem from being only able to express one emotion in the first place. It's so lazily put together that it seems like an afterthought; "don't worry about whether or not Gene is growing or changing as a person, you'll see that through the incredible fun he has playing that Just Dance app". Nothing is internally consistent or comes with any explicit or thematic explanation, changing rules it created less than five minutes before so that it can move the conflict forward when it needs to. At one point a bad guy can't access an app because an upgrade it received was malware and "dropbox is secure" (yes, they shamelessly advertise and consider the product before the plot), but then it breaks through later anyway without any explanation as to how or why it could do that. Funnily enough the scenes outside the phone make out these apps to be pretty terrible and malfunctional, which I'm pretty sure is not the message the advertisers wanted to send: "hey, our apps are so easily jailbroken that they'll potentially fuck up your social life, aren't they great?" There's also a side story about Gene's parents breaking up and getting back together that ultimately means nothing and is only so protracted as to pad out the runtime. It could've potentially been mediocre, the idea that the mother blames herself for supporting her son despite his "multi-emotional malfunction" but the cause actually coming from the dad could've been interesting if they'd actually done anything with it beyond using it as the excuse to bring the parents back together, but as it is it's just filler that reminds you how lazily this story was put together. Apart from that, the film is nothing but ripoffs of other, far better movies and some cheap, forcibly inserted feminism. Short answer: I hate this movie.
Written by: Tony Leondis, Eric Siegel, Mike White
Starring: T.J Miller, James Corden, Anna Faris
IMDb Link
I watched a movie earlier today that contained a scene involving a crowd of people eating the flesh of a newborn baby, and The Emoji Movie is still the most sickening thing I've experienced today.
The Emoji Movie is a poorly constructed piece of advertising masquerading as a movie. The whole film is built around trying to sell its audience on the companies that paid money to have their apps featured in what can't even be considered a plot. There's some shallow messages about being yourself and valuing close friends, but they're so hackneyed and forced face-first into more advertising disguised as dialogue that not even a shadow of a theme is in any way engaging or interesting, or hasn't been done better many tines over in such films as Wreck-It Ralph or The LEGO Movie. The rest of the movie is filled with constant praise of digital consumerism, just a barrage of reminders that phones and apps are necessary for existence. This is truly not just a terrible movie, but a terrible movie to show kids as well.
Beyond the complete lack of engagement it offers, there's nothing that The Emoji Movie even tries to succeed at. Nothing makes any sort of sense from a story perspective, the film lacks any kind of internal consistency and offers blandly flashy animation while bored voice actors give the bare minimum for their paychecks. Nothing about this movie offers anything of value to humanity, and the whole thing ends up being an obscene affront to storytelling in a way few films have been able to attain.
Consider this review also part of my "A Look at the Worst" series, because this is sincerely the worst movie I have seen in cinemas this year.
The Verdict: The Emoji Movie is completely terrible in every imaginable way. It's not a movie, it's an 86-minute advertisement that's bad for anyone young enough to be influenced by the film, and insulting to everyone else. Don't see it. Just don't.
Rating: 1/10
Published September 14th, 2017
*Edit: I was asked by a friend how bad it was, and I elaborated a little more on some of the things I particularly disliked about it, so I thought I'd put my response here:
t was one of the worst cinematic experiences of my life. It's a disgustingly in-your-face advertisement for Candy Crush, Just Dance, Spotify and Drop Box that offers consumerist messages about the necessity of phones and apps and how great they and indeed emojis are, while lazily hamfisting half-arsed attempts at shallow understanding of issues like "it's ok to be yourself" and "value close friends" so that it can pretend to be a kid's movie. The main character's arc is literally to learn to be himself, but his issues are almost entirely unique to him and stem from being only able to express one emotion in the first place. It's so lazily put together that it seems like an afterthought; "don't worry about whether or not Gene is growing or changing as a person, you'll see that through the incredible fun he has playing that Just Dance app". Nothing is internally consistent or comes with any explicit or thematic explanation, changing rules it created less than five minutes before so that it can move the conflict forward when it needs to. At one point a bad guy can't access an app because an upgrade it received was malware and "dropbox is secure" (yes, they shamelessly advertise and consider the product before the plot), but then it breaks through later anyway without any explanation as to how or why it could do that. Funnily enough the scenes outside the phone make out these apps to be pretty terrible and malfunctional, which I'm pretty sure is not the message the advertisers wanted to send: "hey, our apps are so easily jailbroken that they'll potentially fuck up your social life, aren't they great?" There's also a side story about Gene's parents breaking up and getting back together that ultimately means nothing and is only so protracted as to pad out the runtime. It could've potentially been mediocre, the idea that the mother blames herself for supporting her son despite his "multi-emotional malfunction" but the cause actually coming from the dad could've been interesting if they'd actually done anything with it beyond using it as the excuse to bring the parents back together, but as it is it's just filler that reminds you how lazily this story was put together. Apart from that, the film is nothing but ripoffs of other, far better movies and some cheap, forcibly inserted feminism. Short answer: I hate this movie.
2017 Film Review: Mother! (2017)
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Written by: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem
IMDb Link
Mother! is not a film that will appeal to a wide audience. For all that it contains and the impression it ultimately left on me, I can't see this being a film many people will want to see. That said, if you do get around to seeing it, you're in for an experience that I have gotten used to calling 'freaky-deaky'.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
We don't have a traditional story here. The characters aren't given names and the plot is essentially metaphorical, people behave in intentionally infuriating ways and the film is essentially divided in to two considerably different halves, all experienced from or around the perspective of Jennifer Lawrence's character, credited only as 'Mother'. To film entirely around Jennifer Lawrence, with every single shot being either from her point of view or looking directly at her is an effective technical choice, creating a tight sense of claustrophobia, trapping us along with her in the house that is the setting of the film. There are only a handful of shots that even view from the outside of the house, which only seek to demonstrate her isolation in the pure insanity that takes place inside her house.
No-one behaves like a human being around Mother; her questions and requests are all ignored or gone against completely, while one intense event after another all happen around her, with no-one seeming to notice her presence save for a few moments designed entirely to take her out of her comfort zone. The experience is incredibly frustrating and difficult to watch, but intentionally so; the film seems to be designed to get you to hate the capacities of humanity, an end to which the film definitely succeeds. It's extremely unpleasant, but also obvious that it's obvious what the film is going for, which shows that the film is adept in achieving its goals, but seems to hate people so much it wants the people who see it to hate people too.
Thankfully the film does all that it does with at least seeming meaning and depth. After the film makes an agonisingly slow burn through its first half, it crescendos in to chaos that makes the insanity of its first half seem positively peaceful, and reveals a lot of the metaphor(s) that the film appears to be going for. Obviously my first impression reading will be limited, but the religious overtones and a 'death of the author' analogy where 'the author' is God seems to be the gist of what I understood that the movie was getting at, with the experience of Mother reflecting an interpretation of that of Mary, in a striking attempt to glean a deeply personal story from one that is given to all, which is effectively what happens both literally and figuratively in the film. It's strange and strangely profound meat in a sickeningly grim stew.
Credit must be given to Lawrence for her stellar performance. Being the focal point of the entire movie means that she has to carry a part of every scene, and go through several emotions as she is excluded from her own life and loses control over everything she tries to create. It's an extremely strange process to watch through, and I can't imagine it was easy to make convincing, but Lawrence walks the slowly worn line between soft politeness and sheer anger and exasperation.
The Verdict: Mother! is not for everyone. The film's early slow burn and misanthropic tendencies will leave many people frustrated and unsatisfied, and some may find it difficult to engage with a film that's intentionally frustrating. However, if you can stomach the style, the film's crescendo and layered metaphor are a strong enough combination to more than make up for the questions it initially leaves unanswered. This one is hard to recommend, as it's very clearly arthouse and not entertainment, but if you think you'll enjoy it, see it twice; there's a lot going on here that requires more than a first impression
Rating: 7.5/10
Published September 14th, 2017
Written by: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem
IMDb Link
Mother! is not a film that will appeal to a wide audience. For all that it contains and the impression it ultimately left on me, I can't see this being a film many people will want to see. That said, if you do get around to seeing it, you're in for an experience that I have gotten used to calling 'freaky-deaky'.
*Warning: Spoilers Ahead*
We don't have a traditional story here. The characters aren't given names and the plot is essentially metaphorical, people behave in intentionally infuriating ways and the film is essentially divided in to two considerably different halves, all experienced from or around the perspective of Jennifer Lawrence's character, credited only as 'Mother'. To film entirely around Jennifer Lawrence, with every single shot being either from her point of view or looking directly at her is an effective technical choice, creating a tight sense of claustrophobia, trapping us along with her in the house that is the setting of the film. There are only a handful of shots that even view from the outside of the house, which only seek to demonstrate her isolation in the pure insanity that takes place inside her house.
No-one behaves like a human being around Mother; her questions and requests are all ignored or gone against completely, while one intense event after another all happen around her, with no-one seeming to notice her presence save for a few moments designed entirely to take her out of her comfort zone. The experience is incredibly frustrating and difficult to watch, but intentionally so; the film seems to be designed to get you to hate the capacities of humanity, an end to which the film definitely succeeds. It's extremely unpleasant, but also obvious that it's obvious what the film is going for, which shows that the film is adept in achieving its goals, but seems to hate people so much it wants the people who see it to hate people too.
Thankfully the film does all that it does with at least seeming meaning and depth. After the film makes an agonisingly slow burn through its first half, it crescendos in to chaos that makes the insanity of its first half seem positively peaceful, and reveals a lot of the metaphor(s) that the film appears to be going for. Obviously my first impression reading will be limited, but the religious overtones and a 'death of the author' analogy where 'the author' is God seems to be the gist of what I understood that the movie was getting at, with the experience of Mother reflecting an interpretation of that of Mary, in a striking attempt to glean a deeply personal story from one that is given to all, which is effectively what happens both literally and figuratively in the film. It's strange and strangely profound meat in a sickeningly grim stew.
Credit must be given to Lawrence for her stellar performance. Being the focal point of the entire movie means that she has to carry a part of every scene, and go through several emotions as she is excluded from her own life and loses control over everything she tries to create. It's an extremely strange process to watch through, and I can't imagine it was easy to make convincing, but Lawrence walks the slowly worn line between soft politeness and sheer anger and exasperation.
The Verdict: Mother! is not for everyone. The film's early slow burn and misanthropic tendencies will leave many people frustrated and unsatisfied, and some may find it difficult to engage with a film that's intentionally frustrating. However, if you can stomach the style, the film's crescendo and layered metaphor are a strong enough combination to more than make up for the questions it initially leaves unanswered. This one is hard to recommend, as it's very clearly arthouse and not entertainment, but if you think you'll enjoy it, see it twice; there's a lot going on here that requires more than a first impression
Rating: 7.5/10
Published September 14th, 2017
Tuesday, 12 September 2017
IT (2017) SPOILER Film Review
I wrote a quick review for IT last week, the link to which can be found here. It's short, of little substance, and can basically be boiled down to "it's all kinds of great, go see it". The reason I did this is because it's both an excellent movie and a very experiential one; spoilers mean different things for different movies, but for a film like this it would literally peel pack the curtain on the monster before it's had a chance to scare you. That said, there's also a more to talk about with this movie, and I thought I'd use this space to do so. If you haven't seen the movie, read no further.
*Obligatory Spoiler Warning*
IT was a surprisingly excellent movie. After the sheer disappointment that was The Dark Tower, I was skeptical about what this film could amount to. Stephen King writes a lot; the IT book runs to 1138 pages, just shy of the entire The Lord of the Rings, which took three movies with extended editions all running a total of just over twelve hours to get anywhere close to containing the information of the book(s) and they still left much out. If the story of IT was going to be adapted in to a two hour film, more than a little was going to be left on the cutting room floor. That's why I loved the decision to leave essentially half the book out. For those who don't know, IT tells two stories: one of the kids dealing with Pennywise as kids, and another of them dealing with the full being of IT as adults. Rather than try and deal with the complicated macro story of multi-versal, inter-dimensional beings and far less interesting adult characters, the film chucks all of that out to focus solely on the main characters as kids and their experiences with Pennywise; there's hints of the later stuff still in the film for fans of the book, but the core of the story is much smaller scale, dealing with fewer themes but more focused themes. Essentially, the filmmakers knew that they were making a film and knew the limitations of a film, and looked at a small number of things in great detail, rather than trying to give passing fancies of dozens of great ideas while racing to complete its plot in far too short a time (The Dark Tower once again).
With that in mind, IT is about a bunch of misfit kids who are tormented by an evil, supernatural clown called Pennywise that feeds on fear. It's simple, to the point, and allows for a lot of horror and exploration of the issues the kids face. All the greater detail which, while great in book form, weighs down a film's pace, is stripped away, and instead we get a handful of key ideas about fear and the various aspects of relationships kids have with each other and with their parents, all wrapped up in a literal embodiment of those things. The plot is as economical as it can be, which leaves as much room as possible for the scares and for the characters attached to those scares, a decision that I think ultimately works in the film's favour.
By building up the characters, taking the time to make them likable human beings with enough personality to carry a scene and enough sympathy to make us care, IT succeeds in making the scary moments scarier and the non-scary moments enjoyable to watch. Bill is a kid with a stutter who's lost his brother, Beverly is a social outcast accused of being a slut while living with a sexually abusive father, Mike is a black kid dealing with racism while also living with the loss of his parents, the list of issues that these kids deal with goes on, and their key to the effect that this movie has on people. The sheer power of the fear in the movie's scariest scenes are due to the fact that the movie takes the time to make us care about the kids, so when they're scared, we're not just scared by what we see, we're scared for the characters too. Without them, all their fear, all their actions are empty to the audience, so by choosing to make them a key focal point of the movie, it allows IT to be more than just a horror film while still doing an excellent job at that.
The horror hits hard from the word go and it never failed to leave an audience reaction when I saw it. The tension may have been heightened by the care felt for the characters, but director Muschietti goes out of his way to make each one as visceral and hard to watch as possible. No attempt to brag on my part, but I've watched a lot of horror movies, so it was a real thrill and a genuine joy to be scared in a way that I haven't by a horror in a long time. A big part of this the choice to adjust how straightforward Pennywise is with each kid, building a sense of paranoia from its very first scene. The opening scene with Georgie looking in to the sewer was considerably longer than I had initially expected based upon my experience with the TV-movie, but the tension I felt towards the scene slowly turned to paranoia as he just kept going and going, and while Georgie was lulled in to a false sense of security, I could feel that attempt from Pennywise as a viewer, even though I didn't fall for it, knowing what a monster Pennywise is. By contrast, Pennywise's first encounter with Mike happens very quickly, with little in the way of warning. As an audience member, I had very little time to get used to the idea that a horror scene was happening before it happened. Every scene with Pennywise is like that, tension turning in to paranoia turning in to fear, with variable time spent on each in order to force the audience to stay out of their comfort zone, and its absolutely brilliant. This seemed to be reflected in the audience around me: we always knew that an attack could happen, but we didn't know when, and we didn't know how, and we didn't know how long we'll be waiting, so the whole cinema was on edge the entire time.
With that in mind, I have to re-iterate my praise for Skarsgard as Pennywise. He commits to the character entirely, and while a lot of the praise goes to the make-up and lighting people as well as the director for giving him the right look and moves to be as terrifying as possible, a big part of what makes his character work so well is that ability to contrast between the insidious and the straight-up monstrous, the "thinly veiled evil" and the "quite obviously going to kill you in three seconds evil", all with a change of body language, speech, or facial expression.
I also loved the use and resolution of Pennywise's plot, both as an answer to the most important theme of fear being a component of growing up, and as a perhaps unintentional commentary on contemporary supernatural horror villains. The kids literally beating Pennywise by not fearing it anymore is something that could come off as incredibly cheap and cheesy if not done right, but the film has reinforced the sens of fear that Pennywise evokes from its very first scene, and by making fear an actual part of how it works is a brilliantly simple yet difficult puzzle to solve. You can beat it simply by not fearing it, but it's a seemingly all-powerful clown who exposes you to your worst fears. This makes every trial that the characters grow through meaningful, as it allows them to come to terms with their fears by finding strength and comfort in each other, which in turn makes the choice to focus on characterisation even better. Beyond the scope of how effective this ultimately was in the film, the thing that I loved most about Pennywise as a villain was the simple fact that creating fear was a part of his mechanics. One of the biggest issues that I have with modern supernatural horror films is that the ghost/demon/heffalump's motivations and powers are often unclear, and when the motivation is revealed to be "I want to kill people" or "I want to possess this person", it usually raises a lot more questions, usually at least "why?". The mirror in Oculus plays with people only to kill them, the demons in the Paranormal Activity movies just seem to knock vases and pictures over until they eventually possess someone, the demons from The Conjuring series seem to want people dead but do little in the way of actually trying to until it's time for the plot to end. There's suggestion danger, but the characters rarely feel like they're actually at the threat of death or possession, and even when they do, there's no real reason given, even something as simple as "they feed on fear". IT almost encounters this problem itself after a kid escapes death for the umpteenth time, but by clearly defining the nature of Pennywise as creating fear first and killing kids second, it deftly sidesteps that problem. Anytime Pennywise fails to kill a kid despite his immense power, the plot has an in-built excuse that he simply feeds on fear, and there's more dear to be gained from a living kid than a dead one. He can still kill the kids at any time, but he doesn't need to kill the kids every time.
Lastly, I want to talk about a couple of minor things that I found to be slight issues with the movie. The first is the inclusion of the love triangle between Bill, Beverly and Ben. While not terrible, and obviously an allusion to the train the boys run on Beverly in the book in order to become men, it's probably the least well developed of all the important character aspects. The film does a great job taking huge aspects of the book, discerning the important details, and only using what's needed, but in the case of love triangle there may have needed to be more, being one of the few times a change when moving from book to film could've been done better. It's there, it hits the beats it needs to, and it resolves, but it does this all without ever needing to be a love triangle; all of the parts of it that have some effect on the rest of the characterisation occur with just Ben and Beverly's involvement with it. The only other aspect of the film that was a little strange was allusion to the deeper aspects of IT's lore that also connects to King's multiverse. If you've read the book, you understand, but I couldn't help but imagine some of that coming out of left field for anyone just sitting down to watch the film for the first time with no prior knowledge of what it's about. Thankfully, it's kept to a minimum.
Rating: 8/10, this is still a great horror film, my opinion hasn't changed in the five days since I've seen it.
Published September 12th, 2017
*Obligatory Spoiler Warning*
IT was a surprisingly excellent movie. After the sheer disappointment that was The Dark Tower, I was skeptical about what this film could amount to. Stephen King writes a lot; the IT book runs to 1138 pages, just shy of the entire The Lord of the Rings, which took three movies with extended editions all running a total of just over twelve hours to get anywhere close to containing the information of the book(s) and they still left much out. If the story of IT was going to be adapted in to a two hour film, more than a little was going to be left on the cutting room floor. That's why I loved the decision to leave essentially half the book out. For those who don't know, IT tells two stories: one of the kids dealing with Pennywise as kids, and another of them dealing with the full being of IT as adults. Rather than try and deal with the complicated macro story of multi-versal, inter-dimensional beings and far less interesting adult characters, the film chucks all of that out to focus solely on the main characters as kids and their experiences with Pennywise; there's hints of the later stuff still in the film for fans of the book, but the core of the story is much smaller scale, dealing with fewer themes but more focused themes. Essentially, the filmmakers knew that they were making a film and knew the limitations of a film, and looked at a small number of things in great detail, rather than trying to give passing fancies of dozens of great ideas while racing to complete its plot in far too short a time (The Dark Tower once again).
With that in mind, IT is about a bunch of misfit kids who are tormented by an evil, supernatural clown called Pennywise that feeds on fear. It's simple, to the point, and allows for a lot of horror and exploration of the issues the kids face. All the greater detail which, while great in book form, weighs down a film's pace, is stripped away, and instead we get a handful of key ideas about fear and the various aspects of relationships kids have with each other and with their parents, all wrapped up in a literal embodiment of those things. The plot is as economical as it can be, which leaves as much room as possible for the scares and for the characters attached to those scares, a decision that I think ultimately works in the film's favour.
By building up the characters, taking the time to make them likable human beings with enough personality to carry a scene and enough sympathy to make us care, IT succeeds in making the scary moments scarier and the non-scary moments enjoyable to watch. Bill is a kid with a stutter who's lost his brother, Beverly is a social outcast accused of being a slut while living with a sexually abusive father, Mike is a black kid dealing with racism while also living with the loss of his parents, the list of issues that these kids deal with goes on, and their key to the effect that this movie has on people. The sheer power of the fear in the movie's scariest scenes are due to the fact that the movie takes the time to make us care about the kids, so when they're scared, we're not just scared by what we see, we're scared for the characters too. Without them, all their fear, all their actions are empty to the audience, so by choosing to make them a key focal point of the movie, it allows IT to be more than just a horror film while still doing an excellent job at that.
The horror hits hard from the word go and it never failed to leave an audience reaction when I saw it. The tension may have been heightened by the care felt for the characters, but director Muschietti goes out of his way to make each one as visceral and hard to watch as possible. No attempt to brag on my part, but I've watched a lot of horror movies, so it was a real thrill and a genuine joy to be scared in a way that I haven't by a horror in a long time. A big part of this the choice to adjust how straightforward Pennywise is with each kid, building a sense of paranoia from its very first scene. The opening scene with Georgie looking in to the sewer was considerably longer than I had initially expected based upon my experience with the TV-movie, but the tension I felt towards the scene slowly turned to paranoia as he just kept going and going, and while Georgie was lulled in to a false sense of security, I could feel that attempt from Pennywise as a viewer, even though I didn't fall for it, knowing what a monster Pennywise is. By contrast, Pennywise's first encounter with Mike happens very quickly, with little in the way of warning. As an audience member, I had very little time to get used to the idea that a horror scene was happening before it happened. Every scene with Pennywise is like that, tension turning in to paranoia turning in to fear, with variable time spent on each in order to force the audience to stay out of their comfort zone, and its absolutely brilliant. This seemed to be reflected in the audience around me: we always knew that an attack could happen, but we didn't know when, and we didn't know how, and we didn't know how long we'll be waiting, so the whole cinema was on edge the entire time.
With that in mind, I have to re-iterate my praise for Skarsgard as Pennywise. He commits to the character entirely, and while a lot of the praise goes to the make-up and lighting people as well as the director for giving him the right look and moves to be as terrifying as possible, a big part of what makes his character work so well is that ability to contrast between the insidious and the straight-up monstrous, the "thinly veiled evil" and the "quite obviously going to kill you in three seconds evil", all with a change of body language, speech, or facial expression.
I also loved the use and resolution of Pennywise's plot, both as an answer to the most important theme of fear being a component of growing up, and as a perhaps unintentional commentary on contemporary supernatural horror villains. The kids literally beating Pennywise by not fearing it anymore is something that could come off as incredibly cheap and cheesy if not done right, but the film has reinforced the sens of fear that Pennywise evokes from its very first scene, and by making fear an actual part of how it works is a brilliantly simple yet difficult puzzle to solve. You can beat it simply by not fearing it, but it's a seemingly all-powerful clown who exposes you to your worst fears. This makes every trial that the characters grow through meaningful, as it allows them to come to terms with their fears by finding strength and comfort in each other, which in turn makes the choice to focus on characterisation even better. Beyond the scope of how effective this ultimately was in the film, the thing that I loved most about Pennywise as a villain was the simple fact that creating fear was a part of his mechanics. One of the biggest issues that I have with modern supernatural horror films is that the ghost/demon/heffalump's motivations and powers are often unclear, and when the motivation is revealed to be "I want to kill people" or "I want to possess this person", it usually raises a lot more questions, usually at least "why?". The mirror in Oculus plays with people only to kill them, the demons in the Paranormal Activity movies just seem to knock vases and pictures over until they eventually possess someone, the demons from The Conjuring series seem to want people dead but do little in the way of actually trying to until it's time for the plot to end. There's suggestion danger, but the characters rarely feel like they're actually at the threat of death or possession, and even when they do, there's no real reason given, even something as simple as "they feed on fear". IT almost encounters this problem itself after a kid escapes death for the umpteenth time, but by clearly defining the nature of Pennywise as creating fear first and killing kids second, it deftly sidesteps that problem. Anytime Pennywise fails to kill a kid despite his immense power, the plot has an in-built excuse that he simply feeds on fear, and there's more dear to be gained from a living kid than a dead one. He can still kill the kids at any time, but he doesn't need to kill the kids every time.
Lastly, I want to talk about a couple of minor things that I found to be slight issues with the movie. The first is the inclusion of the love triangle between Bill, Beverly and Ben. While not terrible, and obviously an allusion to the train the boys run on Beverly in the book in order to become men, it's probably the least well developed of all the important character aspects. The film does a great job taking huge aspects of the book, discerning the important details, and only using what's needed, but in the case of love triangle there may have needed to be more, being one of the few times a change when moving from book to film could've been done better. It's there, it hits the beats it needs to, and it resolves, but it does this all without ever needing to be a love triangle; all of the parts of it that have some effect on the rest of the characterisation occur with just Ben and Beverly's involvement with it. The only other aspect of the film that was a little strange was allusion to the deeper aspects of IT's lore that also connects to King's multiverse. If you've read the book, you understand, but I couldn't help but imagine some of that coming out of left field for anyone just sitting down to watch the film for the first time with no prior knowledge of what it's about. Thankfully, it's kept to a minimum.
Rating: 8/10, this is still a great horror film, my opinion hasn't changed in the five days since I've seen it.
Published September 12th, 2017
Thursday, 7 September 2017
2017 Film Review: It (2017)
Directed by: Andy Muschietti
Written by: Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, Gary Dauberman
Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis
IMDb Link
It was my Year 9 English teacher who first said to me that the most important part of a movie is its opening scene; if you can grab your audience from the get-go, it's hard to lose them. Watching It reminded me of this sentiment so clearly, because it features one of the best openers to a film I've seen all year.
*This movie is really good, so even though it's based on a book and there's a 1990 TV-movie version, I'll refrain from spoilers, which will make this shorter than usual*
It manages to do everything that a horror needs to do, and does them so right. Fake scares aren't jump scares, credible threat is built as quickly as possible to establish a mood of fear so you genuinely don't know whether or not characters will survive, music sets the mood perfectly, and most importantly of all, the monster is completely terrifying. Pennywise is the most satisfyingly scary monsters put to film, so unnerving he'll leave you with a stutter, so creepy but completely able to become terrifying at a moment's notice. He's absolutely awesome to watch on screen, played perfectly by Skarsgard and backed by excellent set up for every one of his scenes.
Beyond some of the best horror of recent years, It tells a very good coming-of-age story, dealing with real themes of child abuse and parental control, all bonded by the friendship the group of kids share. They grow and change over the course of the movie as a group, and it works realistically without coming off as too forced by time constraints. This is made so effective by a combination of the natural dialogue, and exceedingly good performances from the young actors, who share strong chemistry; people throw snide jokes at each other and fill empty air in an attempt to entertain themselves, talking like real groups of friends do.
That's about as much as I can say without spoiling it, please go see this movie if you like horror.
The Verdict: It is an excellent horror movie and an excellent coming-of-age movie. Pennywise is one of the most engaging and terrifying horror villains, and Skarsgard plays him with ghoulish glee. Outside of the genuine horror, It offers well told and natural character progression for its kids, all backed up by surprisingly good performances from the young actors. This is one of my personal favourites for the year, I absolutely recommend it if you enjoy horror.
Rating: 8/10
Published September 7th, 2017
Written by: Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, Gary Dauberman
Starring: Bill Skarsgard, Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis
IMDb Link
It was my Year 9 English teacher who first said to me that the most important part of a movie is its opening scene; if you can grab your audience from the get-go, it's hard to lose them. Watching It reminded me of this sentiment so clearly, because it features one of the best openers to a film I've seen all year.
*This movie is really good, so even though it's based on a book and there's a 1990 TV-movie version, I'll refrain from spoilers, which will make this shorter than usual*
It manages to do everything that a horror needs to do, and does them so right. Fake scares aren't jump scares, credible threat is built as quickly as possible to establish a mood of fear so you genuinely don't know whether or not characters will survive, music sets the mood perfectly, and most importantly of all, the monster is completely terrifying. Pennywise is the most satisfyingly scary monsters put to film, so unnerving he'll leave you with a stutter, so creepy but completely able to become terrifying at a moment's notice. He's absolutely awesome to watch on screen, played perfectly by Skarsgard and backed by excellent set up for every one of his scenes.
Beyond some of the best horror of recent years, It tells a very good coming-of-age story, dealing with real themes of child abuse and parental control, all bonded by the friendship the group of kids share. They grow and change over the course of the movie as a group, and it works realistically without coming off as too forced by time constraints. This is made so effective by a combination of the natural dialogue, and exceedingly good performances from the young actors, who share strong chemistry; people throw snide jokes at each other and fill empty air in an attempt to entertain themselves, talking like real groups of friends do.
That's about as much as I can say without spoiling it, please go see this movie if you like horror.
The Verdict: It is an excellent horror movie and an excellent coming-of-age movie. Pennywise is one of the most engaging and terrifying horror villains, and Skarsgard plays him with ghoulish glee. Outside of the genuine horror, It offers well told and natural character progression for its kids, all backed up by surprisingly good performances from the young actors. This is one of my personal favourites for the year, I absolutely recommend it if you enjoy horror.
Rating: 8/10
Published September 7th, 2017
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