2018 Film Review: Ready Player One (2018)

Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Zak Penn, Ernest Cline
Starring: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Ben Mendelsohn
IMDb Link

MechaGodzilla fights the Iron Giant and Gundam for the fate of the virtual world.

Ready Player One follows Wade Watts, also known as Parzival, as he and his friends traverse the wide virtual world of OASIS to find three keys that unlock an Easter Egg that allows a user to take control of OASIS (and I just realised that I watched a movie about a literal Easter Egg on Good Friday). It's a solid if cliche adventure story filled to the brim with weak character drama and fun but pointless pop culture references.

The concept of the OASIS is fantastically realised, and Spielberg takes great care to make the most of the extravaganza, emphasised by magnificent action sequences that take in everything with breathtaking sweeps, and an intriguing visual pastiche that's absorbed in the aesthetics of the culture it's born from and toes an appropriate line between real and fake. There's a smooth intensity to every second the film goes all out, and the best moments come from these scenes because the there's a chance to exercise some actual style. Regardless of anything else about the movie, it's a blast when it's virtual.

Unfortunately, not much else about the movie is as worthwhile as what can be looked at. The plot is silly, convoluted, inoffensive adventure yarn that keeps moving and is mostly sag-free, with little more to say than to consider the real and virtual worlds different and to not lose value in one by over-living in the other. The character drama is weak, with very little time spent actually developing the relationships between the characters and just short-handing everything for the sake of getting through everything as quickly as possible. Parzival, Art3mis, and Aech get a bit of personality and/or backstory, but Daito and Sho are just kind of there, and Mendelsohn's Sorrento is just a basic corporate stooge with no care for pop culture.

The movie really blew right through me; I was okay with everything that happened but found very little reason to care about any of it, and while a handful of the action scenes in OASIS were excellent I found no interest in the real world scenes as they were portrayed.

The Short Version: Ready Player One is an incredible visual spectacle; it's also a story that's little more than than a generic adventure covered by a wave of shallow, blink-and-you'll-miss-it pop culture references, and that's fine, because the film doesn't try to be more than that, but I feel like I'd get the same value out of going to Comic-Con, or spending a couple of hours in VRChat.

Rating: 6/10

Published March 30th, 2018

2018 Film Review - Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018)

Directed by: Steven S. DeKnight
Written by: Steven S. DeKnight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, T.S. Nowlin
Starring: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny
IMDb Link

Pacific Rim is my personal favourite movie of all time on style alone; the entire film feels drawn straight from my childhood imagination, with the perfect storm of mecha, kaiju, and neon, all with Guillermo del Toro's own Gothic twist. For all its faults the movie was perfect to me. With this in mind, my expectations of this film have been tempered since the day I learned del Toro was no longer directing. The style of Uprising isn't for me, but it's not bad at all.

The marketing wrote itself

The film follows Jake Pentecost (Boyega), formerly unknown son of Marshal Stacker Pentecost (still one of the best names in all of fiction) as he returns to the Jaeger Program he was once rejected from after breaking the law one too many times and being given one last chance by his adoptive sister Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi, sidelined for the sake of the new generation and to dump exposition when needed). Jake's arc is largely about overcoming the chip on his shoulder about his old man and his desire for personal freedom in the face of threats that affect others, and while mostly rushed Boyega has more than enough enthusiasm to carry the role.

The original Pacific Rim took a weighted approach to the style of the fights; the Jaegers and Kaiju moved with a heft that emphasised their sheer mass and the force of their hits, and the cinematography supported this, shooting usually from low, human-level angles and drawing brief attention to the small scale juxtaposed against the gargantuan creatures, all of which was affected by a flood of neon and dark contrast for maximum effect. Some parts of this style remains in Uprising, while other aspects have been removed completely. There's still the brief moments of humour wrought from the sheer size of monsters when scaled to everyday objects as a deliberate stylistic choice. The camera does often take low shots to emphasise size, especially when principle characters are on the ground, but it just as often swooshes about smoothly; the contrast between the two types of shots is jarring, and the choice to move overhead for high angle shots often robs the Jaegers and Kaiju of their intimidating size. This isn't helped by the choice to make all of the creatures move faster, jumping around like guys in rubber suits; it seems like a nice callback to the inspiration for Pacific Rim, but it also breaks immersion because the movements of the robots are often switching between smooth and rickety, while they flit about cityscapes without a hundred tons weighing them down. It draws attention to its own animation. As a stylistic choice, I like the idea I see behind it, but the execution is dodgy. On another note, the score is almost completely forgettable this time around, with only the tracks remixed from the first film standing out.

Boyega is easily the
best thing about the movie

For everything that isn't robots and monsters smashing in to each other, the movie by hastening through too many conceptually good ideas and seeming to bank it all on Boyega's line delivery. There's a lot of plot threads in this movie that seem forced, such as a love triangle between Jake, Eastwood's Lambert and Adria Arjona's Reyes, which gets referenced only a couple of times, contains only bad humour, and ends ambiguously. The idea that a woman would be attracted to two men because those men are similar enough to be drift compatible is intriguing, but like so much else the film does almost nothing with it until its time to wrap it up. This is the same for the recruit subplot involving the talented Amara (Spaeny, being a surprisingly not annoying young adult protagonist); she encounters conflict and has a handful of characters to bounce off, but it's only touched on a few times and only gets resolved because the movie needs them to work together in the final act without any real build-up. Once again, a potentially interesting idea that's not given the time it needs to be fleshed out effectively. The only exception is Jake's arc, which thanks to Boyega has emotion to it that far exceeded the other human aspects of the movie; he aches with the weight of his choices, and screams names and yells with a passion unparalleled in the film, and he gives a speech worthy of his father. Boyega is so good in the movie that I can almost ignore the fact that many of the character arcs in the film feel like forced repeats of arcs from the first movie.

The Short Version: Pacific Rim: Uprising is a lot of rushed good ideas, carried largely by Boyega's performance.

Rating: 5.5/10

Published March 22nd, 2018

2018: A Week of Movies - March 12th to March 18th

71. Batman and Harley Quinn (2017) - March 12th

When I saw a Batman animated movie with a lower rating than The Killing Joke, I got curious. I wish I hadn't.

The voice acting is bad, the dialogue is atrocious, the animation is sloppy, and the story is weak camp. It's not clear who this is trying to appeal to, with a tone that's all over the place from moment to moment. This seemed like it was trying to pay homage to the Adam West era of Batman mixed with more 'adult themes' in the form of senseless sexualisation and puerile humour; however, it would also needlessly try for humanising moments that clash with the rest of the movie. Harley will be farting for a joke in one scene and comforting a dying man in the next, before swinging right back around to camp as she uses her tears to get Poison Ivy to start crying as well. The film is just useless at handling these tonal changes, and does a bad job of expressing either tone in the first place. This was awful, and I really don't want to think about it any more. - 3/10

72. Annihilation (2018) - March 13th

This was excellent sci-fi that I highly recommend. My full review can be found here. - 8/10






















73. Tomb Raider (2018) - March 15th

I really didn't have much of a reaction to this. I thought the way they grounded the story was interesting and I liked Vikander a lot, but I just didn't find much to make of it. - 5/10

My full review can be found here. Additionally, I recommend reading this word on it by Matt Zoller Seitz; he had a much more significant reaction to the film than me, and probably knows more about film than I ever will, so if there was an alternative take to consider, it would be his.

74. Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (1974) - March 16th

The Godzilla movie I was supposed to watch this week was originally Godzilla's Revenge, but considering that Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla came out this day in 1974, and considering that due to being one day behind this will be my 74th new film for the year, and considering that Godzilla's Revenge is by-and-large considered the worst Godzilla film ever made, I think I can stomach putting it off in favour of one of the better Showa-era Godzilla films.

When I was first discovering Godzilla as a child through the power of the internet, MechaGodzilla quickly became iconic to me. I think that because Godzilla had always been characterised as indestructible, it made sense to me at the time that the only creature that could pose him any real threat is a copy of him that also has missiles and lasers (plus, what's cooler than a giant dinosaur that breathes fire and also shoots missiles and laser?). In retrospect, the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen a lot of 'the hero with more stuff'-type villains and as a result the concept has gotten stale. However, the appeal is still obvious; it allows filmmakers to show off a character's destructive capabilities without turning the hero villainous, it saves time by allowing designs to be derivative, it can work in the context of an origin story by allowing the villain to act as a mirror to the weaknesses of the hero or a representation of the journey they've gone on, or if you're feeling particularly cheesy it allows a fight between two equals to be decided by personal qualities and sell the idea that good triumphs over evil. In the context of Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla, it's a little bit of all of these things. The use of MechaGodzilla allows the filmmakers to call on Godzilla's destructive origins without turning him in to a bad guy again, and it acts as a meta-commentary for how far Godzilla has come as a character in the twenty years since he first roared his way on to the big screen.  Plus, it's a Showa-era Godzilla film; cheesy is par for the course. Whether or not any of this is intentional, it's what I took away from it, and it makes me appreciate this far more than I have most of the Showa-era Godzilla films I have seen so far, almost as much as something like Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.

As it is, however, the film is completely nuts. Godzilla attacks once more, only for it be revealed that it's actually a cyborg dubbed MechaGodzilla that's controlled by ape-like aliens of the Third Planet from the Black Hole. Possibly my favourite thing about the movie is that the characters figure out that MechaGodzilla is an alien super weapon purely on the basis that they had discovered some 'Space Titanium'. The film essentially states "that's not Godzilla, it's a cyborg, I guess you could call it a MechaGodzilla, it must be a super weapon made by aliens from outer space, that's why we found that Space Titanium" all in the space of a few sentences while watching Godzilla and MechaGodzilla exchange atomic breath and laser eyes. It's all so frank and inelegant: "Of course! That makes total sense! Why would it be anything other than a super weapon constructed by space aliens?" There's also this weird mix of mystical elements with the sci-fi that start out interesting but never go anywhere save for the last fifteen minutes when the characters remember to revive King Caesar to help fight MechaGodzilla. Perhaps Caesar getting his ass handed to him by MechaGodzilla could be a metaphor for the growing appeal of scientific understanding over mystical understanding, but even I think that's a stretch at best.

The effects are hilariously cheap, even for being low-budget Showa-era schlock, with lots of painfully obvious cuts for the application of effects that are so bad it simply adds to the charm of these sorts of films for me, and when combined with the ridiculous story and sets that would be right at home on old Doctor Who, I can't dislike it even as I roll my eyes at it.

The one thing that stands out to me as being of genuine quality in the film is the music (not the King Caesar song, that's just overlong and unpleasant). There's a certain goofy, jazzy funk to the film's score that seems so hilariously out of place next to the whirring sci-fi sound effects, but the actual composition of the pieces is competent enough that it baffles me why it's playing alongside the movie. It reinforces the campy nature of the film with its dissonance, with a genuine focus on silly fun, and more to the point the MechaGodzilla reveal theme is reminiscent of Sing, Sing, Sing. It's all so silly, and for all its flaws I kind of love it. - 5/10  

75. The Wind Rises (2013)

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli are some of the most consistent producers of great animation in history. Every Miyazaki film I've seen so far has been excellent; they have incredible animation with a consistently warm, flowing and imaginative art style, and tell stories centred on emotionally resonant stories that seek human truths. The Wind Rises is less fantastical than the other work I've seen so far, but it still incorporates it in its emphasis on the importance of being a dreamer, and especially the necessity of it despite the fact that even what we find to be most innocent and beautiful will inevitably be corrupted. It's kind, and melancholic, and believes in its honesty as it eschews facts for the sake of theme in ways that only great stories can; it's less a historical drama, and more a look at history through the eyes of a man that hates what happened and can't change it, but wants to think of it in the most honourable way despite this, so wish that the individual will always have the best of intentions and respect craft and art even when its use destroys its purpose. It's wonderful, and I'm glad that even though I didn't get all my movies in this week that I got to cap it off with this. - 8/10


Re-watches

14. Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) - March 14th

After months of reading criticisms and complaints, from the reasonable to the downright toxic, my opinion of The Last Jedi, despite much re-consideration, is ultimately still extremely positive. - 9/10

There's too many arguments going around for me to try and address all of them in a little journal entry. However, if at an individual level you understand, regardless of how you feel about the film, that your opinion is your own and not some impossibly objective truth, then you are welcome to it.

What I'd rather do is weigh in on a scene in the film that I haven't seen anyone discuss the meaning of, and that is the scene in which Rey enters the darkness on the island and tries to understand who she is. From a thematic standpoint, this is completely in-character for her, as her entire arc is about finding her place in the universe; the result makes sense thematically as well, because it tells her that in order to find her place in the universe she must find it within herself. That said, I thought that the scene was communicating something more than that, not just theme and emotion but also an actual plot point relevant to the lore of the Rey's lineage. I'm not usually one for fan theories, but as of the first time I saw the scene in question I thought that it was communicating to me visually that Rey is another embodiment of the force, in a similar fashion to Anakin Skywalker, not a reincarnation but a spiritual successor in both the thematic and literal senses of the word. This doesn't make her a 'chosen one' of some prophecy, but it facilitates the idea that the force ebbs and flows with the balance of the universe, only seeking to necessitate great light when there is great darkness. Considering that the image of the scene is Rey going on and on forever in both directions, it seems to suggest that she has no beginning and no end; when she asks the force to show her parents, it shows only herself. She is her own progenitor, made from the will of the force. This is supported by the way Snoke talks about her; Ren was the raw potential, the darkness that rose, and Rey is the light that meets him. As for the revelation that Rey's parents were junkie slaves from a backwater planet, it's no less an indictment of this idea than the fact that Anakin's mother was a slave from a backwater planet. We still don't really know the logistics of her lineage, what we have is scant detail. It might be a reach, but it's something that's been on my mind for a while and I never really wrote it down.

That said, part of me hopes I'm wrong; as much as that would be a nice throwback to the lore, part of what makes Rey a compelling character is that she represents the potential within any and every person to find power in the force, specifically if you are a fan of Star Wars. Her character is literally a fan of Star Wars that takes to the force like second nature because she's been hearing about actual events in her universe and appreciating them her whole life. As cool as it would be to have a tangible reason for her powers, there's never needed to be in Star Wars; stuff works the way that it does largely because of feelings. This has been true since A New Hope, from the first moment Luke trains with a lightsaber to his use of the force to blow up the Death Star. This was also true throughout all of the original trilogy and the current entries in the sequel trilogy, and most importantly it's the final message of The Last Jedi, this idea that Star Wars is a legend that will endure and that anyone can harness what the universe offers.

15. Godzilla: Final Wars (2004)

This was how I learned of Sum 41's popularity in Japan.

Godzilla: Final Wars is a celebration of Godzilla as a pop culture icon. There's no real substance here, no metaphor for atomic destruction or meditation on environment, remembering the dead or governmental bureaucracy; the film is just about monster-on-monster action, Godzilla with an updated look taking on re-imagined versions of almost every other monster he's fought. It's an extravaganza of extinction, as every creature from Rodan to Gigan to Anguirus to lesser-known creatures like Ebirah and even the 1998 American Godzilla 'Zilla' all wrecking the world before getting summarily destroyed by the Big G himself. It's far less serious than previous entries in the Millennium Series, owing more to the Showa era for its goofiness, but it's generally speaking a stylistic gumbo that takes a little from all that came before it and otherwise lives by the 'rule of cool'. It's a tonal and editing nightmare as it tries to keep up with everything Kaiju while also adding in the most action-heavy human story of the series, with mutant alien super soldiers fighting one another to stop an evil plot to control the Earth, with some humorous and shallow attempts at satirising Japanese pop culture and political climate with discussion of the aliens . It's fantastic and awful in all the right ways. - 6/10

Published March 18th, 2018

2018 Film Review: Tomb Raider (2018)

Directed by: Roar Uthaug (awesome name, by the way)
Written by: Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Alastair Siddons, Evan Daugherty
Starring: Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Walton Goggins
IMDb Link

Not that this is saying much, but Tomb Raider is one of the better video game movies ever made. Maybe in a few years we'll get a good one.

Lara Croft (Vikander), daughter of missing adventurer and business mogul Lord Richard Croft (West), is down on her luck and refuses to accept her father's inheritance on the basis that she still believes him to be alive. After one unfortunate event too many, she accepts her limits and agrees to receive her inheritance, only to receive a piece of information that leads her on an adventure across the world to find her father on an abandoned island said to house the body of an ancient 'queen of death'.

Vikander is compelling as Croft, easily the best part of the movie. She has an effective mix of strength, vulnerability and refusal to show that vulnerability to make a somewhat engaging character, at least at first, and she brings an incredible amount of palpable effort to the role. Despite the fact that there isn't much to the character in the film, she makes the most of it, and always makes the movie watchable.

The movie is played entirely straightforward and bare-bones in terms of plot, with a serious tone, while keeping the action grounded and realistic. There's an appeal to the way the film's approach intentionally tries to impact even the slightest of reveals; there's a greater-than-usual sense of realism attached to supernatural ideas in the film, and it somewhat works as one of the more interesting aspects of the film. Not much is done with this grounding outside of the action and some of the reveals, but it's at least distinctively deliberate design that competently serves its purpose in a few of the places that it matters.

However, aside from a few moments, the film's grounding is simply uninteresting. While Vikander's stunt work and physical performance hold is up as much as possible, there's very little to get out of the film. It's all so frank, with barely a shred of anything else in terms of tone or plot to take away from it, save from an overlong sequence during the first act. In a way it's refreshing, because the film doesn't bog itself down in too much detail, but at the same time it doesn't dwell on any of its characters or existing plot points to really make something of them. 

The Short Version: Tomb Raider is bland but energetic. Its low-key action sequences, iffy dialogue and poor CGI are held up by a strong physical performance from Vikander, and while it never does much with what it has and plays it all by the numbers, it's at least competent at that.

Rating: 5/10

Published March 16th, 2018

2018 Film Review: Annihilation (2018)

Directed by: Alex Garland
Written by: Alex Garland, based on the novel by Jeff VanderMeer
Starring: Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson
IMDb Link

Annihilation is all kinds of strange and unsettling, with well realised concepts and a backbone of internal human conflict, as well as a lot of the truly macabre. It's much of what good hard sci-fi needs to be, but with an enrapturing horror element.

The story concerns Lena (Portman), a biologist and former soldier whose life is rocked by the sudden return of her thought to be dead husband Kane (Oscar Isaac, deliberately much more muted than usual). As she comes to understand the nature of her husband's disappearance and return, Lena joins a team of scientists on an expedition in to 'The Shimmer', a phenomenon covering a large section of US coastline that many people have entered and only Kane has returned from. Inside Lena witnesses truly fascinating monstrosities and battles with the demons of her relationship with Kane, particularly the concept of self-destruction.

The film seemingly draws inspiration from Tarkovsky, most notably Solaris; little is as it seems, time passes by in a dreamlike state, and what we thought we could be sure of is significantly altered. It makes for a considerably thought-provoking experience, focusing heavily upon Lena as she grapples with the upended world, both literally and metaphorically. Portman is fantastic here, evoking strong emotion at all times that reflects her inner conflict as well as her military and scientific backgrounds, determination and curiosity tempered by doubt and awe. She's also given a strong supporting cast; none of the other characters get as deep a backstory and they come off as a little generic without that potential development, and the actors make it work. Particular praise goes to Tessa Thompson as physicist Josie, her meek and unsure attitude standing out from the rest of the group as wholly human and believable.

The meditative science fiction is interlaced with bewitching aberrations; the impetus of the film causes the group to run in to several kinds of creatures, beautiful, terrible and deeply troubling, each one more stomach-turning than the last, some subtle and some outright explosive. It's a really potent mix with the sci-fi that actually fits in to the narrative, and the resulting execution makes for some of the best moments in the film.

If there's one resounding flaw in the film, it's the constant flash-forwards. The film regularly jumps to a time after Lena's experience in the shimmer, which deflates much of the tension in the film, or stops the film in its tracks completely to re-iterate stuff we just saw happen on-screen. It's awfully placed hand-holding that doesn't need to be there, and only removes some of the mystery that makes the film so compelling.  

The Short Version: Annihilation is excellently made; ethereal, thoughtful sci-fi mixed with chilling body-horror, like Tarkovsky and Cronenberg made a movie together. The film is backed by strong performances and a dazzlingly uneasy colour palette that marks the dream-like nature of the story.

Rating: 8/10

Published March 14th, 2018

2018: A Week of Movies - March 5th to March 11th

64. Macbeth (2015) - March 5th

So I took a class on Shakespeare last semester. It was really good, I got to learn about a couple of critical frameworks and applied them to Shakespeare's work, which required a lot of comparisons between Shakespeare as we understand how it was in his time and how his works are interpreted by directors today. I had to write an essay discussing Cultural Materialism as it applies to Macbeth, and used this film as a discussion point several times. I am only sitting down to actually watch the film now.

It's a shame I waited, because the film is really good. It's a mostly faithful adaptation, so you can expect the writing to be solid, and the few significant changes the film does make to the overall story structure lend themselves to a film interpretation; time spent on the funeral of the Macbeth's child takes away a bit of the story's subjectivity, but it's an intriguing change that alters the characters slightly and is allowed for when changing between scenes is a cut as opposed to moving a set around. Likewise, time can be spent on the battlefield to emphasise how it affects Macbeth as a person; it's a change that makes Macbeth more understandable beyond simply being power hungry, without making him some hero in the story. It's all done with significant respect to the source material, but doesn't lose out on its own modern panache, striking a nice note somewhere towards the middle of the line between 1-to-1 reproduction and new interpretation (it's possible to argue with New Historicism or Cultural Materialism that any re-make can be it's own thing just by virtue of being produced by different people and in to a different world, but that's not the topic I want to cover here).

Aside form the writing, the whole film is very good in terms of acting and direction. Fassbender and Cotillard always give strong performances; here Fassbender maintains a sense of struggle integral to keeping Macbeth as interesting as he is disgusting, and Cotillard's descent in to madness is both chilling and saddening. They both speak Shakespeare's words with energy and gravitas sold by their considerable talent, and never falter in bringing their characters to life, with the style of the film reinforcing them and making it visually enthralling on top of that.

The film is all beautifully drab grey, brown and white vistas that turn bright red or orange as blood floods the sins of Macbeth. The way the film frames its characters with such varying colours looks really amazing while also usually helping to reinforce the emotions or purpose of the characters in some way. The final duel between Macbeth and Macduff that sees the sun scorch through dust that stains both fighters is a considerable master stroke, and for a few brief moments I forgot that Justin Kurzel directed Assassin's Creed. - 7.5/10

65. Red Sparrow (2018) - March 5th

This was decent, and I at least never disliked my time while watching the movie, save for a couple of lines of dialogue that were laughably bad. My full review can be found here. - 6/10

66. A Silent Voice (2016) - March 6th

A Silent Voice says a lot. Yes, that's the first thing that popped in to my head.

What the film gives us is a sweet and beautifully animated expression about bullying and depression, as well as the difficulties of living with disability. The film is a little all over the place, but it's largely because of its ambition; the film at once wants to take the time and care to properly redeem Shoya, but it also wants to make sure that Shouko is an actual character and not some deaf prop for Shoya to examine his life over. The pacing suffers a little as a result, with a lot of little rises and falls in tension that make the film feel like a serial, but the story and characters feel much richer for the trouble. - 7.5/10

67. The Illusionist (2006) - March 9th

It's a shame this came out around the same time as The Prestige; like Antz to A Bug's Life or Deep Impact to Armageddon, The Illusionist is the forgotten of two eerily similar movie concepts that are substantially different from one another upon closer inspection. It's good, with a couple of fundamental issues.

The movie is very cool in its style; when its just being flashy the film can be pretty captivating, with clever sleight of hand and smooth camera tricks to elicit a soft but definite effect from each of its illusions. However, the drama is far too self-serious and drawn out, clashing with an unaware sense of melodrama against the movie's otherwise knowing excess. This may be due to how undeveloped Edward Norton's character is over the course of the film; when he's just trying to entertain it's easy to be shallowly invested, but when the film tries to make more out of our attachment to his character it becomes clear that there's not much there. Much more interesting a character is Paul Giamatti's Inspector Uhl; he's conflicted, a good man made cynical, beset by carrot and stick to try and ruin a thing that mystifies his childhood self. It's part of what makes his interactions with Norton's Eisenheim so compelling. The best scenes are those first few where we see them together, their relationship only seeing the beginnings of its complications, small enough that they are immediately offset by the simple pleasures of entertainment and curiosity. It helps that the two are both such talented actors; when the two talk, the tension builds in the smoothest of ways, an ever-growing divide as cordial behaviour hiding veiled threats and the pain of conflict is shared between them. Uhl's respect for Eisenheim's work is ever palpable, and it permeates each and every one of their interactions to allow the film to keep grabbing attention when it loses it on the more dramatic scenes.  - 7/10

68. Destroy All Monsters (1968) - March 9th

The royal rumble of all Kaiju films, the scale of which hasn't been seen since. There's been at least one movie (Godzilla: Final Wars) that has more monsters total, but an eight-way Kaiju fight is still the most kaiju in one place in the Godzilla series history. Aside from that, Destroy All Monsters is still absurd camp, but more akin to Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and Invasion of the Astro-Monster than Ebirah, Horror of the Deep or Son of Godzilla; there's more energy in the insanity here, making sure to execute the silliness with a fervor that makes the human plot at least memorable if not particularly good. It also drags on way too long for a sub-90-minute film, losing the momentum of its insanity when it actually begins to try and solve the ridiculous problems set for itself in the most boring and straightforward way possible. However, once we're back to the monsters, it all comes together for the main event in the way Showa-era Godzilla knows best. - 5.5/10

69. Brick Mansions (2014) - March 10th

This was an almost 1-to-1 remake of District B13 with Paul Walker as the cop; it even David Belle playing Leito again (now Lino). It's not terrible, but it's not as good as the original and is so similar that its existence is almost pointless, it reminded me of the recent live-action remake of Beauty and the Beast.

The plot differences are minor at first, but become stupidly unnecessary by the end. Leito's sister becomes Lino's girlfriend, and the only thing that changes is who she kisses at the end of the movie. She even goes off with Leito/Lino in both versions, further highlighting that she's more of a prop than a character, with interchangeable nouns. They don't kill off the main bad guy half way through the movie because he's played by RZA, which means that rather than his death sparking the rise of the comparably compassionate K2, which in turn leads to an alliance with Damien and Leito, we instead get RZA's character turning heel at the last minute after 'going soft', and later revealing that Walker's Damien's motivation for killing him is false. It's a microcosm of the odd attempts to give this film heart, in the process removing the original's sense of satire and humour. Brick Mansions isn't devoid of humour, but it's mostly incidental, which is made worse by the fact that every way the film tries to up the ante doesn't appear to have a real sense of self-awareness. RZA's character is, by the end of the film, running for Mayor to clean up the streets, despite spending the film dealing drugs and kidnapping and threatening people. It's such a ridiculous image that there needs to be some indication of satire, but the film is at that point playing heartwarming music and focusing on Damien and Lino continuing to 'fight the good fight.'

That all said, the film at least manages to keep up the quality of the original's action, and while some of it overuses slow motion and a few shots are notably poor, the overall speed and rhythm and style of the action is well done. I appreciate the way Damien and Lino differ in approach, which allows for more of Belle's crazy parkour as Lino but also lets Walker apply some palpable brute force as well. This isn't enough to make the movie good, but it keeps the film afloat; every painful line of dialogue or bad character turn is made up for by what the filmmakers clearly cared about the most and had the most skill to apply. - 5/10

70. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) - March 11th

I'm not the most familiar with Wes Anderson's work, so with Isle of Dogs just around the corner I thought I'd brush up a bit on some of his earlier work. His signature style is all present, from the pastel colour palette to the square framing, to the quirky and unrealistic but assuredly entertaining characters. I'm not sure what to make of it all right now, but as a singular experience I appreciate Royal's character growth and the inoffensive comedy, the deliberate structure and the absurd nature of everything. It's been a tiring week, so that's about as much as I can say right now, but I liked the movie a lot. - 7.5/10

Published March 11th, 2018



 

2018 Film Review: Red Sparrow (2018)

Directed by: Francis Lawrence
Written by: Justin Haythe, based upon the book by Jason Matthews
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts
IMDb Link

Red Sparrow wants to be a taut, sexy political thriller, but its pacing leaves it a little loose and it seems ashamed of its own sexuality. That said, the twists and turns of its politics and the performances of its leads (save for a few questionable accents) keep the movie solid.

We follow Dominika Egorova (Lawrence), a broken ballerina forced to become a Sparrow, Russian espionage agents taught to use their sexuality to get what they want. Egorova is insubordinate but clever, so her unconventional methods are overlooked due to her usefulness. Her first assignment involves getting information from CIA Agent Nate Nash (Edgerton, and yes, that is the character's name) about a mole in the Russian government.

The film regularly twists and turns to keep the audience guessing, but while the story is intriguing the pacing often sags as the film occasionally deviates to unnecessary side plots or scenes that ultimately add very little and slow the whole affair down. It doesn't help that the movie doesn't have much energy for its story; the film feels a little bereft of style, unsure if it wants to be trashy or try to take itself a little seriously. It's a shame, too, because when the story is focused it's considerably effective, with much of the film's cynicism and political discussion being at least nuanced enough make the grey of it all work.

This inconsistency is present in the leads as well. The film has more to do when Lawrence and Edgerton are pretending to flirt with each other, showing them play each other and then show their intentions as they return to their respective agencies. Once the facade drops Red Sparrow becomes a lot less interesting and loses much of the enthusiasm it once applied (the same could be said at some point for Lawrence's accent). That said, both Lawrence and Edgerton give strong performances whenever they're doing their own thing, which is part of what makes the early scenes of the movie stronger.

There's also the variable employment of sex and violence. The film is unerringly brutal in the use of blood and broken bones, but for the softer weapon in a Sparrow's arsenal the film values Egorova's virtue. It's a strange mix to balance; the film understandably wants to convey that the system Egorova works in is wrong because it forces its Sparrows to essentially be whores for the good of the state, but then it pulls back from this idea somewhat when Egorova proves her value in other ways. It's an aspect of the film that reinforces the grey cynicism of it all, but is, both in and out of text, odd when the state is seemingly so adamant about it but then so flaky on enforcing it, and when the film otherwise so easily churns out gut-wrenching savagery.

The Short Version: Red Sparrow is a decent if rough political thriller with some good performances and an interesting plot held back by poor pacing and inconsistent restraint.

Rating: 6/10

Published March 6th, 2018

2018: A Week of Movies - February 26th to March 4th

57. Mute (2018) - February 26th

This was so bizarre I feel like I need to take another crack at it some time, but so terrible that I never want to. My full review can be found here. - 3.5/10

58. Battle Royale (2000) - February 28th

Any film that opens with something as extravagant as Verdi's Requiem, Dies Irae is starting on my good side. Battle Royale is violent and tragic and riddled with teen melodrama, skillfully mixing its confronting and saddening nature with contrasting and surprisingly appropriate humour.

The immediate comparison to The Hunger Games is drawn; short answer, this is better in every way, but I'm glad I saw The Hunger Games first, because my experience with it wasn't dulled by the fact that I was simply watching a worse Battle Royale.

The melodrama in this movie is pitch perfect in tone given the film's context. I love the way so many of the social circles that form on the island are based on the girls and boys characters like; it makes every scene so ripe with unstable emotional motivation, as every group teeters on the edge of chaos, ready to be pushed off by something as minute as an unspoken crush. It's all so silly, and the film knows it, with the classical music and dialogue mingling to heighten it all before cutting it down with a gunshot or two, killing characters off with the realisation that their immaturity is so stupid. At the same time, it all feels warranted; the characters are high school students thrown in to a horrifying survival situation that asks them to kill each other, the fact that their reactions and breakdowns are all emotionally motivated and melodramatic is what makes it so excellent in the end, because it leads to some hilariously fantastic scenes that intermingle with soul-deadening ideas.

My personal favourite of these is the scene in the lighthouse. The fact that the scene opens with 'we're all friends here' before devolving in to a shootout over mistakenly poisoning one of those 'friends' due to liking a boy that was killed by one of the main characters is just the sort of debacle you can expect when you put forty-odd teenagers on an island with deadly weapons. The humour that follows the freakout, screaming about how getting shot hurts, just sells the ridiculousness of it all so well. The film keeps it all in perspective by humanising the characters it chooses to focus on. Sometimes this is more melodrama being thrown in to contrast with their current situation, such as Shuya thoughts about Nobu straying to Nobu's confession that he likes Noriko; despite the fact that he's just seen Nobu's throat get blown out his first thought is his emotional betrayal to his friend for liking the same girl. A little silly perhaps, but the sort of humanity one doesn't want to lose in a situation like this.

That's another of the film's biggest strengths, really; it spends a lot of its time showing the variety of individual reactions. Some of it may seem cliche because it all has to be shorthand to accommodate every teen, but I appreciate the choice to make each group of people killed have a bit of personality or attitude that separates them from the rest. Even though the film requires them to be simple numbers to be called out after their untimely deaths, it's done so in a way that gives enough to these poor souls that the immediate reaction to hearing them simply called out as nothing more than a name and number is disgust. The film evokes dark humour, but does so with regular reminders of solemnity that the laughs it ekes are mixed with sighs of despair at the world the film depicts and the monstrosity of it all. - 8/10

59. Superman Returns (2006) - February 28th

With this, I've seen every live-action Superman movie. After Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, this was a relief. Its plot is coherent, its direction is competent, Spacey's performance is really good (less cartoonish than Hackman without losing the psychosis or megalomania), and it evokes a similar spirit to the first two. At the same time, it does have its problems.

The most surprising performance was Routh. He almost comes across like Reeve's Superman, but without the boisterous boy scout energy; the performance is too restrained. This seems to have been motivated by an attempt to update the characters, and with a character like Luthor this works fine, but this colour of character looks drab on Superman (in retrospect, this incarnation does feel like a true in-between of the Donner era and the Snyder era, still positive as a person but seemingly sobered by time). It's a shame too, because anyone who's seen Legends of Tomorrow knows that Routh can play that type of character; Ray Palmer is essentially Superman with a few less brain cells. That said, as far as attempting to humanise a heroic icon goes, I've seen worse.

The movie is also way too long; a lot of the early stuff seems superfluous and drags out the actual return of Superman unnecessarily. It kind of takes the wind out of the film's sails, so once it actually gets going it's hard to really get invested. - 6.5/10 

60. Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (1997) - March 2nd

This was made as an alternative, or companion piece, to the last two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

In its initial run the show ran out of money and as expected became limited creatively. The final two episodes of the show express this almost obnoxiously, with the scope of the final two episodes taking place in the main character Shinji's head as he battles with his own self-hatred, and it's presented only in voice-over of often half-finished stills. Despite this, the original was undeniably compelling, as it believably expresses the entire growth process of a teenager as he battles with what it means to exist, how much of other people should influence his identity, and ultimately that he need not hate himself. It's ethereal, and melodramatic, and leaves you hanging with indecision, and that all feels appropriate given the nature of the show's main character.

The ending was controversial; director Hideaki Anno even received death threats from dissatisfied fans. Despite defending their work, production eventually was launched on a follow-up, and so we got The End of Evangelion.

The film takes a more concrete approach to ending the story, explaining explicitly a lot of what was merely implied and showing a lot of what could only have been spoken about before, while also showing what was going on in the world around Shinji as he slowly slipped further in to the world he created in his mind to protect himself. The plans of human ascension becomes a roller coaster of backstabbing and action interlaced with brutal and macabre imagery. All of the themes and style of the show are still present and turned up to eleven, the emotions and conflicts all come to a head, and the ending is as weird and fitting as you would expect from the show.  With all that in mind, it's also unabashed in its reliance on the series, which is simply required reading to get the most out of this whole experience.

The End of Evangelion is disturbing, confusing, visceral and soul-stirring. The uncomfortable and often sickening imagery on display is incredible, and the way the film builds Asuka up only to cut her down in the first half is crushing. The second half is strange, all emotion and filled with concepts that you just sort of have to go with because they fit thematically. It's reminiscent of 2001, as it deals with the evolution of humanity in to its next form, although through consensus as opposed to space exploration. Once we jump back inside Shinji's head, it also becomes much like the series' ending, but with an animation budget that allows for the imagery and Shinji's thought process interlink more smoothly, and it gets more deeply in to some of the sexual nature of Shinji's internal conflict, something implied in the series but never considered like this before.

Admittedly, some stuff simply doesn't work in my context; showing an empty movie theatre doesn't have the same impact when I'm sitting in the comfort of my own home.

 It's one of the weirdest and most visually engaging animated films I've seen since I watched Akira, and I recommend it only to anyone who has stomached the series. - 8.5/10

61. A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) - March 3rd

The last thing I expected to see at the start of this movie was an Edgar Allen Poe quote.

As far as sequels go, this is a considerable improvement over Freddy's Revenge and a way more interesting concept that builds on the first. The idea of Nancy seeking out the others attacked by Freddy in order to help them work together in order to fight them is really cool, and it's coupled with some sickeningly dark revelations about Freddy's origin and some of the more disturbing kill scenes in the franchise so far. Freddy ripping flesh to turn Phil in to a human marionette is one of the more shocking kills in the series so far, not only gory and visceral but also drawn out with some light character irony. I also appreciated the films attempts to give the groups of characters a bit of actual character. It wasn't really successful at it beyond a couple of differentiating or cliche personality traits, but these were enough to feel life breathed in to the film, even though it's not enough to really attach yourself to the characters.

The gore and design of the horror stuff was all really intriguing and reminiscent of the best work in Freddy's Revenge, and the final reveal of Freddy absorbing the souls of his victims in to his body to make himself stronger is a particularly memorable and disturbing moment. Overall, this is better than just fine due to the consistent quality and inventiveness of these moments. - 6/10

62. Raising Arizona (1987) - March 3rd

This movie predicted Nic Cage as Ghost Rider twenty years before it happened. That, or it was the inspiration for Nic Cage to do Ghost Rider. Either way, I'm certain that I can retroactively insert this in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe on this shaky connection alone.

By this point I'm used to the standard screwball surrealism of Coen Brothers movies, and this was still a cartoon by comparison. The closest of their films I can compare it to in terms of pure silliness are Burn After Reading or Hail, Caesar!, and I liked Raising Arizona a little more than those, which is to say that for whatever flaws it has it's always fun, energetic, and technically skilled. The Coens have this certain flow in their films; a natural rhythm in the way their editing and the actors' dialogue and movement intermingle, it's very conversational and makes their scenes feel dynamic, even when they're employing just a simple shot/reverse shot. It means that when their storytelling isn't at its best, it all works well enough together. It's a given at this point that their comedy styling is hilarious and well-timed, even in their non-comedic films. Despite not enjoying Raising Arizona as much as, say, Barton Fink or O Brother, Where Art Thou? it was consistently making me laugh. It also helps that Holly Hunter and Nicolas Cage are really good actors, and Cage in particular suits this silly, Looney Tunes style of comedy in this film.

All that said, it's stretched as a concept; the film contains a few scenes that seem unnecessary and don't add much to the surreal nature of the film that hasn't already been expressed already, so while the moment-to-moment editing is fine, the overall structure of the film loses itself now and then. - 7.5/10

63. Son of Godzilla (1967) - March 4th

This is just adorably bad.

Son of Godzilla is entirely targeted at a kid audience, filled with cutesy moments that humanise Godzilla and his son, Minilla. Despite this, it also bizarrely includes a heavily convoluted human plot involving scientists trying to make a weather controlling machine, a reporter whose presence interferes with their work, and a native girl that meets the reporter and narrates scenes of Godzilla and Minilla.

The effects are bad, even for a Showa-era Godzilla movie. Godzilla's proportions are all out of place, and his eyes skew off in different directions. Minilla barely moves at all, and his design is incredibly ugly and cumbersome; he's so feeble it's silly, and it's strange that this character that's clearly designed for kids has nothing more to it that a gray ball of fat, and how that translates from Godzilla's own design is beyond me.

As terrible as they are, the way the monsters are framed isn't doing them any favours. Part of the reason that the first film worked so well was because they always shot Godzilla from low angles that emphasised his size; in an effort to make him more kid-friendly that idea is thrown away and replaced with simple shots that make him look more human, which destroys what little illusion there actually is. It's so strange that they'd try and make Godzilla targeted at kids in the first place; it's like trying to make Freddy Krueger or Jason Vorhees more friendly just to try and appeal to a wider audience (that said, I am not opposed to the idea of Freddy Krueger doing the ABCs on Sesame Street, just because of how absurd the idea sounds).

That said, the cuter moments in the film don't fall completely flat. As stupid as the idea of making Godzilla find his softer son by caring for a son is, the idea is taken to its completion. Godzilla starts out as rough and rude to Minilla, resigning only to carrying his son around on his tail, and threatening to hit Minilla if his son doesn't breathe atomic breath, he becomes noticeably softer on Minilla over the course of the film. It culminates in a surprisingly heart-warming scene of Godzilla finding his son in the gathering snow (the weather scientists decide to destroy their own project and throw Monster Island in to a nuclear winter) and cuddling him as they begin to hibernate. It's not enough to make the movie good, but it's a surprising amount of follow-through on such a dumb idea. - 4/10

Re-watches

13. I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

A film that was never particularly good to begin with and has in retrospect been ruined by Scary Movie. The film is mediocre at best, with a lot of average acting and passable storytelling that doesn't really stand out unless it gets bad enough to be funny. It's uninspired and uninteresting and occasionally funny, the perfect movie to watch when you need something in the background while you get stuck in to a kebab. - 5/10

Published March 4th, 2018