The first time I've gone this long without posting a journal. As I have over twenty films to discuss, I'll post my ratings for them straight up, and you can read my thoughts on any of them if they interest you. Fair warning, most of these will be surface-level at best. As always, remember to follow the IMDb links for basic plot synopsis, because I do this in my spare time and have too little of that as it is.
Hostel - 5/10
Take Shelter - 8/10
To Have and Have Not - 8/10
The Trial - 8.5/10
Gamera, the Giant Monster - 4/10
The Outlaw Josey Wales - 8.5/10
People Places Things - 7/10
Street Fighter - 4/10
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li - 1.5/10
Slither - 6.5/10
BlacKkKlansman - 8.5/10
Nazis at the Centre of the Earth - 2.5/10
The Meg - 5.5/10
Carrie Pilby - 5.5/10
Southland Tales - 5.5/10
The Game of Death - 5/10
The Man Who Knew Too Much - 8/10
Elevator to the Gallows - 8.5/10
Boar - 3/10
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans - 5/10
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot - 2/10
Re-watches
Drag Me to Hell - 8.5/10
Jurassic World - 5.5/10
Avengers: Infinity War - 7.5/10
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - 6/10
218. Hostel (2005) - August 6th
It's brutal, nihilistic, disgusting, and sometimes funny - it's Eli Roth. While the abusive nature of the movie makes this hard to watch, while I think this sort of sadism was better shown in Knock Knock, this obviously came first, so their's prototypical aspects of this that would carry in to his later work. The film goes for more physical than psychological repulsion, which for me at least is less effective; the film was only able to craft sympathy in a few moments, otherwise it's just brutality that feels so forced and dull that it's like being beat over the head with a phone book. It's not even ultimately pointless, either, as the film refuses to go full absurdist and seems to try to make a commentary of some sort - clumsily at best. This is ultimately okay for a gore-fest, its focus on being dark with the story instead of relying on the gore itself to be dark at least makes it appropriately chilling at points, especially if you see the unrated ending, as I did. - 5/10
219. Take Shelter (2011) - August 7th
Michael Shannon deserves more recognition for his work. The guy is an absolutely terrific actor, a perfect example of the human realism people look for nowadays in great performances, and his lead role here is easily one of his best. This Noah analog could come of in laughable ways, but its success rides entirely on the credibility the lead gives it, and Shannon displays such a complex range of emotions that really allow you to feel as he does and see, despite the clear moments where it otherwise seems completely insane, why he acts as he does, the pain in his eyes, the burden on his shoulders. The direction supports this magnificent performance, as good direction should, cleverly creating a stark contrast in people's reactions between looking from Shannon's perspective and looking back at Shannon, while also keeping dreams sequences intentionally realistic to give the whole thing palpable ambiguity. - 8/10
220. To Have and Have Not (1944) - August 9th
While parts of this feel like a more cynical re-hash of Casablanca, the chemistry and dialogue between the two leads is enough for me to find an identity in this film all its own. Harry and Slim are not Rick and Ilsa; they are new lovers, playful, and wounded in ways nuanced enough that the actors can sell it without needing to say it out loud. If nothing else, the iconic "put your lips together and blow" scene is enough to see why this movie is held in such high regard for its performances. - 8/10
221. The Trial (1962) - August 10th
Kafka, directed by Welles. In other words, unbelievably dark, uncomfortable, and frustrating, and as a result, funny too; just as the absurd should be.
I love the framing in this movie. It's so consistently and intentionally disarming, reinforcing how much the plot of this movie throws you off. A man has to stand trial and no-one will tell him why, and in the end it doesn't even matter because we all die. This isn't quite sadism, if only because it's expected; you never know why it's happening because it quite literally just is. It's eternally infuriating, often to the point of humour; this is a film so bleak and ridiculous that sometimes you can only laugh at the absurdity of it all. Essentially, the story did its job and the film did an excellent job reinforcing that story with off-putting visuals, Welles direction supports Kafka's writing incredibly well. - 8.5/10
222. Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965) - August 10th
A creature designed to rival Godzilla at the Japanese box office didn't exactly have the best of starts, and from what I can see that's largely because this film can't stop consciously trying to separate itself from the big guy. So much of this film is spent giving Gamera a kind of nuance to differentiate him from Godzilla, making him more child-friendly and environmental, which ultimately only highlight how much this started out as a cheap cash-grab. I'm aware Gamera cultivates his own identity eventually, but in his first venture, Gamera is no less a rip-off than Gorgo (ok, maybe a little less of a ripoff, since he's a turtle and not a dinosaur, but still). - 4/10
223. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) - August 11th
Clint Eastwood is synonymous with the Western genre. From his work with Leone to his own directorial work such as this, he's framed a considerable amount of thought about American culture in his approach to both acting and directing in the genre. Josey Wales isn't the first revisionist Western nor is it quite Eastwood's best (even with some time to mull it over, I still think Unforgiven beats it, but perhaps by no more than a hair), but it's still more than worthy of entry in to the sub-genre's esteemed canon as a stoic meditation on how we view certain parts of history. Eastwood is magnetic in his performance, even at his most self-destructive, and his direction supports the film's bleak mood and sombre tone. - 8.5/10
224. People Places Things (2015) - August 13th
Jemaine Clement needs to be in more stuff so that I can watch him in said stuff. This is messy, and melancholy, and at the best of times it makes an image of humanity out of these things. There's some examination of how life can get complicated and how we adapt, and how in those complexities we can find second chances at the things we care about the most; and through it all, Clement's performance is perfectly sarcastically attuned to the well-written role. The lines of choice: "Maybe happiness is not a sustainable condition" stands out as the idea that the film sets out the challenge, and "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just having a bad life. It'll be over eventually", which summarises his character's outlook at the start of the film, the quick, cynical perspective. This was nice; as far as introspective, emotional pieces go, it's not going to change my life, but I like the choice to make the most out of a bad situation. - 7/10
225. Street Fighter (1994) - August 13th
I genuinely enjoyed this; it's possibly the most hilarious thing I've ever seen, like Power Rangers and G.I. Joe combined, a true Saturday morning cartoon of a movie. They even do a freeze-frame action pose at the end with all the characters; this film is unabashedly campy. While some of the fights are actually pretty good, most of the this film is complete ironic joy, and easily the biggest part of that is Raul Julia as M. Bison, who is not only a better actor than anyone else in the movie, he's also the only actor who doesn't sound almost universally forced in their performance. This is a crapfest, but he gives it his all, and what we're left with is a real diamond in the rough, with every line and movement exaggerated in the most inappropriately appropriate way possible. A line that would otherwise sound cocky is instead sonorous, ridiculous speeches are nigh-captivating for their sheer energy, and of course there's this. Street Fighter is a great bad movie, so know that even though I'm giving it a low rating, I still recommend you see it, and I'm probably going to watch it again.
226. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li (2009) - August 13th
On the other side of the coin, we have brooding seriousness ruining any chance for this film to be entertaining. It's so dark and edgy and tries so hard to be taken seriously, and that's why it's so obnoxiously unwatchable. Even Neal McDonough, one of my favourite TV actors, can't save this dreck, forced to put on a silly accent and play every line straight despite it, while Kristen Kreuk seems to do absolutely nothing with her material. In this case, I'd say the blame falls mostly on the director; McDonough has done well enough in other works to show his chops and everything else about the movie is terrible too, so I wouldn't be surprised if he was told that he had to restrain every line while still maintaining a bad accent. I'd rather have watched the '94 version twice, all things considered. - 1.5/10
227. Slither (2006) - August 15th
The recent controversy with James Gunn had me curious about his earlier works. As far as horror-comedies go, Slither is a serviceable send-up of the invasion story. It's silly, gross, and formulaic, with enough self-awareness to play around within said formula and create somewhat unpalatable comedy. That's all, really; not more offensive than the average of its ilk, and mostly forgettable but definitely enjoyable. - 6.5/10
228. BlacKkKlansman - August 16th
This is one of the best movies of the year (best movies from last year that got released late in Australia not included; I'm going to hate creating a top 5 with this and Hereditary and Paddington 2 to consider, as well as respect to be paid to Lady Bird, Phantom Thread, etc.). You should see it. My full review can be found here. - 8.5/10
229. Nazis at the Centre of the Earth (2012) - August 17th
Yes, you read that title correctly; yes, it's as bad as it sounds. Still, for as low as your expectations can be set by this title, it wasn't even the worst thing I saw this week, and for such low-budget garbage this actually had pretty decent make-up effects (the CGI is also good for The Asylum; yes, that's saying almost nothing when we have such works as Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus to compare them to, but improvement is improvement). Between that and the hilariously bad plot that at least tries to be ridiculous and stone-faced actors being told to try to take this seriously while the film tells us that they will use fetal stem cells to revive Hitler because for some reason they needed to up the hate-factor of Nazis, this is comfortably in the 'so bad it's *almost* good' category. - 2.5/10
230. The Meg (2018) - August 18th
You don't need me to say it again. My full review can be found here. - 5.5/10
231. Carrie Pilby (2016) - August 19th
As far as self-examining coming of age movies go, this one is fine, but would have fared better had the situation itself not seemed so contrived. A depressed super genius introvert, an open wound for her long dead mother, a distance between her and her father because of it, her former professor and lover still holding her special copy of her favourite book, and in all this the advisement from her therapist to make a list of things to do that she usually doesn't in order to bring her out of her shell. Stacked together like this it's all a bit much, and the solution offered by the film seems tone-deaf. That said, it's not a total loss; Bel Powley as Carrie is sweet where others might have been obnoxious (most of the time; there's some material she couldn't save from sounding painful), and Nathan Lane as Dr. Petrov is a quiet and neatly realised peace that, as all good small roles do, suggest a character interesting enough to be worthy of their own movie without needing to show much. - 5.5/10
232. Southland Tales (2006) - August 20th
This is a really weird sequel to Welcome to the Jungle.
Seriously though, this is one of the strangest movies I've seen in quite some time (eleven days, to be exact). For every scene that I find to be absolutely engrossing, there's another so out of place that I wish it had been left on the cutting room floor. It's a scattered approach to social satire, like writer director Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) had a hundred ideas and was too angry and too unfocused to know what worked and what didn't, so he ended up using everything. I'm cool with a post-apocalyptic/1984 mashup as an attempt at prescience for the inevitable result of the War on Terror, but when you start bringing in terrorist attacks coming from a weapons cache disguised as an ice cream truck, which is floating in the air due to two versions of a man from different time strands shaking hands and collapsing the fourth dimension, the metaphors start to get mixed... with acid, at least. The film is a sprawling mess of conspiracy and intrigue, too messy to work and yet too ambitious to be dismissed entirely. I'm not saying I recommend this, but between the cast and the "WTF" factor, this is hard to ignore. - 5.5/10
233. The Game of Death (1978) - August 22nd
I really do not know what to make of this. On the one hand, it's Bruce Lee's final film, and it's worthwhile to see the last of what he could give us before his life was cut tragically short, no matter how poorly chopped together it all has to be for essentially being just the fight scenes of a movie and nothing else. On the other hand, the intentions here seem mixed at best, and dull a lot of the good will this film could have otherwise afforded from me; perhaps the filmmakers wanted this to be as best a tribute they could muster, but the choice to use actual footage of Lee's funeral as a substitute for his character's faked death has so many clashing tones attached to it I swear I could hear cymbals as I realised what I was being shown. Even then, the film is somehow campier than your average kung fu flick, and that combined with Lee's natural name power appealed to me enough during the fight scenes for this to not be a total waste of time. - 5/10
234. The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) - August 23rd
Quick wit, comeuppance, melodramatic style, this is by far the oldest Hitchcock film I've see and even this far back it still carries some of his best signifiers, if in a somewhat prototypical form. It's both excellently written and crafted while still feeling relatively disposable, the type of film you love for its entire run time and then forget about almost immediately afterward. - 8/10
235. Elevator to the Gallows (1958) - August 23rd
A proto-New Wave French Noir that oozes style and cigarette smoke, with an improvised jazz soundtrack by Miles Davis? Yeah, that combination of ideas is enough to make me sit down and watch a film I have no other background on. This was pretty fantastic from start to finish, reminding me of a slightly more somber version of early Hitchcock, where instead of clever set-ups ruining villains and saving heroes, nobody is a hero and everyone gets ruined by clever set-ups. Still, as much as I appreciated this film for its dramatic irony, it's that soundtrack, that absolutely magnificent soundtrack, that makes this film as good as it is for me. The pure talent on display is enough that it'd be worth simply listening to this movie rather than watching it, but importantly, as the best soundtracks do, this incredible music works specifically for the movie that it plays in, doing an incredible job establishing mood, with the improvisational nature of the jazz here creating fantastic accompaniments to momentary fluctuations in emotion while maintaining the general frame of mind of the characters at all times. It's truly astonishing stuff, as far as how the music and film intermingle. - 8.5/10
236. Boar (2017) - August 24th
Whereas most Australian horrors I've seen I've also found to be great examples of the genre (The Babadook, The Loved Ones, and most recently for me The Tunnel comes to mind), there's no shortage of these terrible, cliche junk fests either. This movie's so tired of its own ideas it's delirious, merely repeating the same handful of overdone tropes again and again, with no sign of style or reason in sight. The movie tries to follow horror structure to the letter, but it follows different horror structures at different times, causing them to overlap and make one another redundant, and it doesn't seem too interested in any of them. There's a standard cold open made frigid by its lifelessness, but it follows that scene structure twice more in the middle of the film as well, introducing characters with no previous information solely for the purpose of a gory death; it's bad because it's been done a million times before, it's bad because there's so little meat to it, and it's bad because the movie literally pulls the same trick three times in three different ways and doesn't manage to make a good thing out of any of them (although the boar tusk through the back of the head between the flick of the lights might've been more interesting had the literal giant boar not somehow been quiet as cat's feet). Beyond that, characters get introduced that feel tailor-made for death, either because you're familiar with horror story structure or because the film has no interest in showing us nuance and just makes a character a completely awful person, and when it seems like the film has deviated even minutely from its tired ideas, it throws itself right back in to them.
A pair of old hunters go out in to the bush? Oh, they must be going out there to die so that someone can know they're missing and go look for them. But wait! They've seen the giant boar attacking a camp site, maybe they go back to town instead and everyone thinks they're crazy? Nope, they both die within the next ten minutes as part of this literally thirty minute long slaughter sequence of six otherwise almost entirely pointless characters. Later, the film has a character be 'crazy' suggesting that the giant boar exists anyway, so the filmmakers somehow managed to double down on both tropes while making each one redundant in the process.
Oh, the dickhead boyfriend who has almost entirely been a dickhead this entire time wants to prove himself to his girlfriend's stepfather? Maybe he'll get a redemption, and we have an arc that tries to excuse this colossal waste of a character? Nope, instead he sacrifices the stepfather to save his own skin and runs away like a child. But wait! Maybe this will come back around on him in some way? Nope, he's killed by the boar within the next five minutes in the stupidest and least climactic way possible. After this point, his character is never mentioned again, despite being a significant part of what little story there is here up to this point. Are you seeing a pattern here?
That said, it's not the most useless movie ever. For a low budget flick that does a poor job shooting around its limitations (seriously, the number of time the boar just shows up from one side of the screen, with no noise or buildup, is incompetent and obnoxious), the practical effects for the boar completely outshine everything else. The monster is rough and scarred, with a real weight to it, and it's essentially the only redeeming factor of the movie (well, that and one joke that actually got a laugh out of me). Otherwise, this isn't worth the time. - 3/10
237. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) - August 25th
For how much I disliked the previous entry in the series, I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed this one. It's nothing amazing, still overly brooding and mostly nonsense, but there's a clear sense of theme here, and the principal actors seem to have a lot of fun overdoing everything. I didn't dislike this, which is more than I can say for its predecessor, so at most I was pleasantly surprised by this. - 5/10
238. Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) - August 26th
To cap off three weeks worth of movies I've never seen before, it looks as if I've found one of the worst things... ever. I mean, it's not, I still found Chun Li to be worse because I'm more annoyed by the over-serious than the over-saccharin, so this isn't even the worst film I've seen in the last three weeks, but it is still an astoundingly bad film deserving of no-one's attention and no more thought on my behalf. The film's premise and jokes are as obvious as the title, and if you don't find the title funny then you'll find ninety minutes of the title beaten over your head to be downright disturbing - 2/10
Re-watches
50. Drag Me To Hell (2009) - August 8th
Were it not for Spider-Man 2, I would comfortably call this Sam Raimi's best work. It's the funniest and grossest of his horror-comedy schlock, the work he did in the Evil Dead series fined down to a razor sharp point that's so precise in its execution that it evokes both the greatest of disgust and the laughs that always accompany it. It's a genuinely horrifying film, and one of my favourite things about it is how it contrasts cheap horror tricks with skillfully evoked chills: the best example of this is early on, when he casually throws a handkerchief so hard at a car windshield to cause a quick jump scare, but then creates the perfect counter-point to how horror can be used by slowly and silently revealing the actual point of the scare. The film is masterful in its examination of horror techniques like this, regularly showing you the weakest possible option before taking you to places that can actually scare you, while also tweaking such ideas on occasion to be as completely hilarious as they are sickening, the best of these being the incredibly painful and yet shameless guffaw-worthy funny. I really love this film, it's one that really sealed Raimi as a personal favourite. - 8.5/10
51. Jurassic World (2015) - August 9th
Everything I said about this the last time I re-watched it still applies here, although I will admit that seeing it alongside a pair of fresh eyes did help to elevate the action sequences a little, and I will say again that I will never tire of Rexy and Blue fighting the Indominus. My old thoughts can be found at the bottom of a journal entry from back in April here. - 5.5/10
52. Avengers: Infinity War (2018) - August 25th
This film is still as magnificent and messy as ever. I still genuinely enjoy the hero moments and how they feel personally tailored to the heroes involved rather than tacked on, I still appreciate Brolin's performance as Thanos, which gives the character the appearance of far more depth than is actually there, and I still love the scale and weight to everything that happens. I also still take issue with the film's pacing, which to some may be razor sharp but for me sags towards the end of the middle and takes just long enough on certain story threads to make others feel forgettable, I do not like any part of the film that effectively makes Guardians 2 and Thor: Ragnarok pointless, I find that some stories such as Thor's side quest are tacked on at the best of times, and I hate how cheap the ending has always felt to me. As for the other film's as necessity for any of this to make sense, I'm still undecided. On the one hand, I do think that film's should be able to stand on their own without needing explanation, but on the other this film has been designed specifically not to, as it's more the first part of a two-part finale to a television season. This sort of thinking requires a more comprehensive look at how we tell stories through film and television and whether the two are or indeed should be compatible, and if this means that the separate identities of both are losing meaning, a topic that's too complex to get in to at 1 AM on a Monday morning. If you want to read any more of my thought son Infinity War, you can probably find them in my original review here. - 7.5/10
53. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) - August 25th
I still genuinely enjoy this movie for its villains; Beckett and Jones are both so theatrically evil that they feel perfectly in line with how Barbossa was presented in the first. Much of the same can be said for the set-pieces in this, which are exciting and silly and just the right amount of swashbuckling. Unfortunately, there's so many of them that this whole affair gets exhausting often. As much as I enjoy the melodrama and the action and adventure and even how the mythology was extended (in this specific case a feeling I do not share with any of the sequels, but I'm sure I'll come back around to them later), this film has almost no restraint and attempts to maximise the screen time of every possible idea they could come up with. This movie feels as if it has a whole two-thirds of an extra movie stuffed in to it, and while I enjoy myself for much of the running time I also wish it would end so much quicker than it does, because the charming becomes tiring after a while, especially as the better elements of the film are over-emphasised regularly for as many laughs as possible. - 6/10
Published July 27th, 2018
Sunday, 26 August 2018
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
2018 Film Review: BlacKkKlansman (2018)
Directed by: Spike Lee
Written by: Spike Lee, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmot, based upon the book by Ron Stallworth
Starring: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier
IMDb Link
BlacKkKlansman straddles that line between entertaining and sobering, a fierce and direct film that will give you pause as much as it draws laughter. It's also surprisingly broad in appeal for Spike Lee, who seems more focused and restrained with his ire, at least in comparison to his other works (which isn't a negative perspective on those works; the guy is just the opposite of subtle, and your taste in that style may vary), which when combined with the film's meta commentary about representation in film shows a level of maturity that's quite remarkable. The issues brought up here as treated as solemnly as they can be while still being entertaining for how utterly ridiculous and yet real they are.
This film is based on the true story of Ron Stallworth (Washington), first African-American detective of the Colorado Springs Police Department, who, through the surrogacy of fellow detective Flip Zimmerman (Driver), infiltrates and investigates the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1970s, eventually becoming the head of the local branch. It's as true and unbelievable as it sounds.
The film is equal parts amusement and warning. There's a lot of fun to be made with the comedic irony of the situation, but each laugh pulled from David Duke unknowingly talking as he does to a black man can only be done with the awful recognition of their oppression. It's like a desperate glee, laughing through genuine pain as a small way of getting back at systemic oppression, before realising again that the problem with things being the way they are. Lee uses this constantly to draw parallels to today; discussions of the re-branding of racism as a political move and considerations of how racial identity is treated are blatant and working connections that the film relies upon to keep perspective as the film slowly gets more dramatic and comical. It's really fantastic, though applied with butcher knife rather than scalpel (which is still more nuanced than his usual choice of chainsaw). The waters do get muddied in how all this discussion relates back to the police force, especially by one scene late in the film, as the Lee tries to find where along the line Ron falls and ultimately falls in to wishful thinking territory. Maybe that expression of hopeful fantasy was the intention; the film is a dream, and by the end it snaps back to reality.
Ron is stoic and ambitious, taking every racial scrutiny on the chin as he crusades for what's right, and the conversations he has help to shape his perspective and those he converses with, challenged in his ideas . There's something to be gotten out of every interaction, but the change and growth of Flip as a character over the course of the film, particularly his realisations about why people care and find existential basis in their racial and cultural identities as it relates to Ron's experience is the most well fleshed out. That said, the contrast between the discussion Ron has with Flip and the discussions he has with black rights advocate Patrice Dumas (Harrier) is downright fascinating.
Of course, this works as much off of the actors' performances as is does Lee's enthralling directing. Washington's muted expression is strange at first, but fits excellently once the movie shows what it's getting at; I'm reminded of Laurence Fishburne in Deep Cover, that same blankness as an attempt to avoid scrutiny for reacting to racial hatred belying the fire within him. Driver keeps showing that he's one of the best actors working today, always nuanced in his emotional expression even when he isn't speaking, and a perfect complement to Washington. The strongest touch is when Flip is accosted for having Jewish heritage; Driver has to stare down such accusation and the hateful connotations of those who make them for the first time, and his response is a barely restrained version of the expression that now comes to Ron so easily, and it seems as if you could understand both characters so intimately for just a moment. Harrier likewise works so well in relation to Washington; the conversations between Ron and Patrice feel like real and challenging conversations between people, both appropriate for their time and echoing ideas from out own. Everyone brings great work here.
The Short Version: BlacKkKlansman is one of the best films of the year thus far, a stylish and savage piece that entertains and moves in equivalent measures. See it.
Rating: 8.5/10
Published August 22nd, 2018
Written by: Spike Lee, Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmot, based upon the book by Ron Stallworth
Starring: John David Washington, Adam Driver, Laura Harrier
IMDb Link
BlacKkKlansman straddles that line between entertaining and sobering, a fierce and direct film that will give you pause as much as it draws laughter. It's also surprisingly broad in appeal for Spike Lee, who seems more focused and restrained with his ire, at least in comparison to his other works (which isn't a negative perspective on those works; the guy is just the opposite of subtle, and your taste in that style may vary), which when combined with the film's meta commentary about representation in film shows a level of maturity that's quite remarkable. The issues brought up here as treated as solemnly as they can be while still being entertaining for how utterly ridiculous and yet real they are.
The film is equal parts amusement and warning. There's a lot of fun to be made with the comedic irony of the situation, but each laugh pulled from David Duke unknowingly talking as he does to a black man can only be done with the awful recognition of their oppression. It's like a desperate glee, laughing through genuine pain as a small way of getting back at systemic oppression, before realising again that the problem with things being the way they are. Lee uses this constantly to draw parallels to today; discussions of the re-branding of racism as a political move and considerations of how racial identity is treated are blatant and working connections that the film relies upon to keep perspective as the film slowly gets more dramatic and comical. It's really fantastic, though applied with butcher knife rather than scalpel (which is still more nuanced than his usual choice of chainsaw). The waters do get muddied in how all this discussion relates back to the police force, especially by one scene late in the film, as the Lee tries to find where along the line Ron falls and ultimately falls in to wishful thinking territory. Maybe that expression of hopeful fantasy was the intention; the film is a dream, and by the end it snaps back to reality.
Ron is stoic and ambitious, taking every racial scrutiny on the chin as he crusades for what's right, and the conversations he has help to shape his perspective and those he converses with, challenged in his ideas . There's something to be gotten out of every interaction, but the change and growth of Flip as a character over the course of the film, particularly his realisations about why people care and find existential basis in their racial and cultural identities as it relates to Ron's experience is the most well fleshed out. That said, the contrast between the discussion Ron has with Flip and the discussions he has with black rights advocate Patrice Dumas (Harrier) is downright fascinating.
Of course, this works as much off of the actors' performances as is does Lee's enthralling directing. Washington's muted expression is strange at first, but fits excellently once the movie shows what it's getting at; I'm reminded of Laurence Fishburne in Deep Cover, that same blankness as an attempt to avoid scrutiny for reacting to racial hatred belying the fire within him. Driver keeps showing that he's one of the best actors working today, always nuanced in his emotional expression even when he isn't speaking, and a perfect complement to Washington. The strongest touch is when Flip is accosted for having Jewish heritage; Driver has to stare down such accusation and the hateful connotations of those who make them for the first time, and his response is a barely restrained version of the expression that now comes to Ron so easily, and it seems as if you could understand both characters so intimately for just a moment. Harrier likewise works so well in relation to Washington; the conversations between Ron and Patrice feel like real and challenging conversations between people, both appropriate for their time and echoing ideas from out own. Everyone brings great work here.
The Short Version: BlacKkKlansman is one of the best films of the year thus far, a stylish and savage piece that entertains and moves in equivalent measures. See it.
Rating: 8.5/10
Published August 22nd, 2018
Saturday, 18 August 2018
2018 Film Review: The Meg (2018)
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
Written by: Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, based upon the book by Steve Alten
Starring: Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson
IMDb Link
I actually had a pretty decent time with this. It's soulless, entertaining schlock with only a smattering of themes and surprisingly good character work, and it has Jason Statham going toe to tooth with with gigantic shark; you don't need anything else to make a movie watchable.
Jason Statham fights a Megalodon. There's some other stuff about him being a rescue diver with PTSD and a romantic subplot with Li Bingbing, and some corporate nonsense that feels ripped straight out of Deep Blue Sea, and while all of that's bearable (and even adorable in the case of Statham's interactions with Li's daughter; the guy's soft side is great), none of it really matters, because this is a movie about Jason Statham fighting a giant monster shark. That shark is truly a monster too, by the way; no attempt is made here to even try to be realistic, the giant shark kills indiscriminately and constantly, like any good movie serial killer. That said, the movie's disappointingly toothless at points; it's difficult to find the balance between gratuitous and restrained in a movie that's so inherently excessive, but I was surprised that, by the time the bloodbath rolled around, it was only half as long and as violent as expected. That said, once again, Jason Statham fights a giant monster shark; that's basically this movie's one and only selling point, and they sell it over and over again. If that sounds like the sort of thing that interests you, by all means, see this. If not, there's really else here.
That said, I'm giving this movie credit for its sense of humour and its tension. The film is fairly bland for the most part, but it's at least aware of the silliness inherent in the story, so for all of its cheap and obvious emotional moments that the movie feels it has to have in order to not seem like a total joke, there was a (mostly) solid tonal consistency. There's also appropriately tense moments wrought out of the sheer power and intimidation of the shark; and in case I forgot to mention it, Jason Statham fights a giant monster shark, so the movie has that going for it too.
The Short Version: Jason Statham fights a giant monster shark. Enough said.
Rating: 5.5/10
Published August 19th, 2018
Written by: Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, based upon the book by Steve Alten
Starring: Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson
IMDb Link
I actually had a pretty decent time with this. It's soulless, entertaining schlock with only a smattering of themes and surprisingly good character work, and it has Jason Statham going toe to tooth with with gigantic shark; you don't need anything else to make a movie watchable.
That said, I'm giving this movie credit for its sense of humour and its tension. The film is fairly bland for the most part, but it's at least aware of the silliness inherent in the story, so for all of its cheap and obvious emotional moments that the movie feels it has to have in order to not seem like a total joke, there was a (mostly) solid tonal consistency. There's also appropriately tense moments wrought out of the sheer power and intimidation of the shark; and in case I forgot to mention it, Jason Statham fights a giant monster shark, so the movie has that going for it too.
The Short Version: Jason Statham fights a giant monster shark. Enough said.
Rating: 5.5/10
Published August 19th, 2018
Sunday, 5 August 2018
2018: A Week of Movies - July 30th to August 5th
211. Dead Snow 2: Red vs. Dead (2014) - July 30th
This was some joyfully silly exploitation; the whole film is built on the cruel irony of mistaken identity leading to the main character getting a Nazi zombie arm transplant. It's enough that this is a sequel to a film that's essentially Russian Night of the Living Dead with Nazi zombies, but this film appropriately ratchets everything up a few notches. The film throws a kid out a window and then guts him for a joke; it's the definition of hilariously bad taste, taking advantage of its ridiculous nature to work out a lot of shock value. I can't see this being worth repeat viewings, but for the way the film executes comedic irony over and over with its premise and uses it to build up to a truly insane finale makes it worth the one time around. - 6/10
212. Geostorm (2017) - July 31st
This is exactly as terrible as I expected it to be. I mean, a movie where the US Secretary of State hacks a super A.I. to control the weather and cause a global mega storm for the purpose of assassinating the U.S. President and the line of succession so that he can take over the world might just be the most FUBAR idea I've ever heard, but if the movie had gone all in on the cheesiness of it all the film might have worked. As it is, the overly self-serious tone takes all the energy out of the film. Geostorm tries to have environmental and political messages, which as an idea is fine, I've seen B-movies like this get away with being more than they appear before, but the complete lack of self-awareness makes everything that the film tries to say feel obnoxious; the film doesn't want to bring up an idea so that you think about it, it wants to beat you over your head with its ideas so hard I'm surprised that Ed Harris' character wasn't wearing a Make America Great Again hat. I'm all for environmental messages, but putting them forth poorly can be damaging; I'm okay with what the movie wanted to do, but to represent it with such a lofty, sci-fi scenario and then fail to understand why people might not take that completely seriously is the core reason why the film doesn't work. There are other things that the film fails at, the acting is bland despite some of the talent involved, the pacing is slow enough that the story would drag between action beats even if it wasn't trite, and the editing and direction fail to make the action in any way engaging, even as the completely insane combinations of extreme weathers unfold on the screen. To top it all off with making this a Gerard Butler vehicle involving saving the President and then not only not having him be the one to do that but to also have him waste away on a space station makes all of this an unpleasant bore. - 2/10
213. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) - August 3rd
It's about par with the last few installments, with some of the best action you'll see this year and a plot that actually tries to build upon the previous installments for once. My full review can be found here. - 7/10
214. Badlands (1973) - August 4th
Malick movies are the sort of things that make me want to abandon the daily journal entry approach altogether, because the work is dense enough that I feel like it requires several viewings and a few weeks of meditation before I can say anything coherent about it. I felt the same way about The Tree of Life, which is still one of the best and yet on of the hardest movies I've ever had to watch. Badlands isn't quite that dense, but its perspective on American youth culture or perhaps the romanticising of ideas and the maturation out of them juxtaposed with the dwelling within them is at once something that feels universal and something that requires me to read up on the culture of America in both 1973 and 1959. All of this packed alongside fantastic stylistic work from Malick, with cinematography and music so beautifully intertwined as to create a movie with its own visual rhyme scheme. I love the growth of Holly juxtaposed against the arrested development of Kit, I love how that growth comes through understanding the dangers of romanticising an ideal, that is in and of itself shallow, beyond reason, I love the obsession with attention as an expression of psychosis in Kit's character, and I love how all of this plays out with clever repeats of musical cues and visual callbacks that give this film a poetic touch. In short, I love this film. - 9/10
215. Edge of Darkness (2010) - August 4th
I suppose now is a good time to say that I agree with the idea of separating art from the artist.
This movie starts with a hard hit and never lets up, dark to a fault and carried by the genuine grit of Mel Gibson and the intrigue of Ray Winstone. The movie gets by on suggesting that there's more to it than what's shown; implying, if not quite succeeding at conveying, the idea that the characters here go beyond this story here. There's also the dark nature of the film, which sometimes treads in to unintentionally hilarious territory; force-feeding the bad guy radioactive milk is no doubt fitting given the context, but the imagery is just excessive enough to be funny. At least it gives the film points for being memorable. - 6/10
216. Night of the Living Dead (1968) - August 4th
Here I am, watching all of these horror franchises week in, week out, and I've not even seen one of the great classics of the genre. Film buff, indeed.
I love Horror; I love Classic Horror most of all, the progenitors of all the genre's greatest tropes, where the jump scares are more charming than annoying, and you can see the influences of a more patient style of filmmaking. Night of the Living Dead may have plenty of false scares backed by blaring music, as is a staple of the genre, but the stuff that makes this movie great (aside from, you know, literally spawning a sub-genre all to itself) is all of the quieter moments. That hard cut to a zombie walking through the graveyard after the the jesting spookiness from Johnny is a brilliant reminder of how much horror can be conveyed just with a single shot, no sound necessary. Beyond that, I love just how hokey this all is, the musical cues of chorus mimicking theremin and that slow drum beat are pretty much essential for a movie of this genre and era; this movie is a time capsule of culture and genre. Of course, part of what makes this a classic is its focus on the characters; it's not the zombies that matter, but the people who react to them, and for a horror to take the time to justify why we should care or indeed feel anything towards these people is enough to elevate this film above even most of today's horrors. Ben is a really good protagonist, pragmatic but not perfect, doing his best given the situation and the tools available to them, and in such an early movie the rest of the cast behave really appropriately for people with no cultural reference for what zombies are. I said that Badlands was the best movie I watched this week, but this is absolutely a contender. - 9/10
217. Detroit (2017) - August 5th
Nothing like the gut-wrenching grit of dramatised reality to finish the week. It's not just the grim subject matter, but the nature of its presentation; Detroit makes things appropriately all too real and it's all the harder to watch because of it. The technique is incredibly effective; the use of handheld cameras and tight focus on faces, with raw and dark natural colours that keeps the whole thing dirty yet enthralling. It helps that the film's writing is so good. The film is nuanced in its expression, at once aware of the systemic nature of the events at play as both trigger and escalation, and of the way it's expressed at the individual level by a combination of maliciously corrupt power and emotional rationality. The people in power here are unstable and tripping on their position, but at the same time they're people enabled by the system that gives them their power, never sure of the right decision and everyone making poor, irrational choices. There's these strange little moments, as tension rises and Veteran Greene is abused and accused with no precedent, but as is breaks there's split seconds of humanity, where the officers momentarily realise again and again the monstrosity of their actions and vainly try to save face or cover their hides, before doubling down on their horrible actions as they see nowhere else to go, and feel no repercussions for their actions. It's excellently presented, and it's only made to hit harder by the way the first act builds the character before bringing them all together. Ensemble pieces with multiple story threads are complex, difficult to handle, but here each one is given their due, and it makes everyone more complete as people before they tear down or are torn down by each other. Even the perpetrating officers don't come out of nowhere, the shifting of their perspectives and ineptitude made explicit. This film is dark, difficult, and tense. - 8/10
Re-watches
49. Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) - July 31st
This is my trash and I love it. No matter how many times I watch this movie, the incredible pointlessness and ineptitude juxtaposed against pure energy and style keeps me the whole way through. From the cheap retcons for the sake of conveniently ignoring bad ideas from previous movies to the plot developments of cliffhangers going nowhere to the cheap plot devices like amnesia to theinclusion of video game tie-ins for no discernible reason (other than the characters and monsters being from the video game, of course) to the to the almost exclusively terrible acting, this movie has so much terrible movie stuff, and yet I love it completely. The film even shares these traits with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, and I generally hated all of them in the case of that movie, but here I find them at least bearable (or, at least, I can stomach all of the crap in this movie for the sake of the things that I can't help but love about it, even the amnesia, which is by far my least favourite plot device in storytelling). Both Afterlife and The Final Chapter have these problems, but what makes Afterlife bearable to me is the distinct style, laden with enthusiasm, throughout the film. Anderson overuses the heck out of the slow-motion in this film, but between that and the 3-D, as well as the fight scene at the end, this whole thing is campy as hell and all the more entertaining for it, as opposed to its follower which trades hilariously overdone slow-mo for headache-inducing quick cuts. Speaking of the final fight scene, that alone is enough to get me through even the most boring part of the rest of the movie for how blatantly it is both an homage to the Resident Evil 5 game and a rip-off of the matrix, made all the better (or worse, it's the same thing with this movie) by Shawn Roberts' performance as Wesker. That moment during his back and forth with Alice when he lowers his glasses to reveal his glowing red snake eyes and utters "you should have brought more (friends)" before hurling his glasses at Chris and Claire behind him is probably the worst thing I've watched repeatedly. The film is just so sure of its own sense of style, so these moments are executed with such confidence that it's borderline experimental, and the flimsiest stuff comes right back around to being cool again. - 5/10
Published August 6th, 2018
This was some joyfully silly exploitation; the whole film is built on the cruel irony of mistaken identity leading to the main character getting a Nazi zombie arm transplant. It's enough that this is a sequel to a film that's essentially Russian Night of the Living Dead with Nazi zombies, but this film appropriately ratchets everything up a few notches. The film throws a kid out a window and then guts him for a joke; it's the definition of hilariously bad taste, taking advantage of its ridiculous nature to work out a lot of shock value. I can't see this being worth repeat viewings, but for the way the film executes comedic irony over and over with its premise and uses it to build up to a truly insane finale makes it worth the one time around. - 6/10
212. Geostorm (2017) - July 31st
This is exactly as terrible as I expected it to be. I mean, a movie where the US Secretary of State hacks a super A.I. to control the weather and cause a global mega storm for the purpose of assassinating the U.S. President and the line of succession so that he can take over the world might just be the most FUBAR idea I've ever heard, but if the movie had gone all in on the cheesiness of it all the film might have worked. As it is, the overly self-serious tone takes all the energy out of the film. Geostorm tries to have environmental and political messages, which as an idea is fine, I've seen B-movies like this get away with being more than they appear before, but the complete lack of self-awareness makes everything that the film tries to say feel obnoxious; the film doesn't want to bring up an idea so that you think about it, it wants to beat you over your head with its ideas so hard I'm surprised that Ed Harris' character wasn't wearing a Make America Great Again hat. I'm all for environmental messages, but putting them forth poorly can be damaging; I'm okay with what the movie wanted to do, but to represent it with such a lofty, sci-fi scenario and then fail to understand why people might not take that completely seriously is the core reason why the film doesn't work. There are other things that the film fails at, the acting is bland despite some of the talent involved, the pacing is slow enough that the story would drag between action beats even if it wasn't trite, and the editing and direction fail to make the action in any way engaging, even as the completely insane combinations of extreme weathers unfold on the screen. To top it all off with making this a Gerard Butler vehicle involving saving the President and then not only not having him be the one to do that but to also have him waste away on a space station makes all of this an unpleasant bore. - 2/10
213. Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018) - August 3rd
It's about par with the last few installments, with some of the best action you'll see this year and a plot that actually tries to build upon the previous installments for once. My full review can be found here. - 7/10
214. Badlands (1973) - August 4th
Malick movies are the sort of things that make me want to abandon the daily journal entry approach altogether, because the work is dense enough that I feel like it requires several viewings and a few weeks of meditation before I can say anything coherent about it. I felt the same way about The Tree of Life, which is still one of the best and yet on of the hardest movies I've ever had to watch. Badlands isn't quite that dense, but its perspective on American youth culture or perhaps the romanticising of ideas and the maturation out of them juxtaposed with the dwelling within them is at once something that feels universal and something that requires me to read up on the culture of America in both 1973 and 1959. All of this packed alongside fantastic stylistic work from Malick, with cinematography and music so beautifully intertwined as to create a movie with its own visual rhyme scheme. I love the growth of Holly juxtaposed against the arrested development of Kit, I love how that growth comes through understanding the dangers of romanticising an ideal, that is in and of itself shallow, beyond reason, I love the obsession with attention as an expression of psychosis in Kit's character, and I love how all of this plays out with clever repeats of musical cues and visual callbacks that give this film a poetic touch. In short, I love this film. - 9/10
215. Edge of Darkness (2010) - August 4th
I suppose now is a good time to say that I agree with the idea of separating art from the artist.
This movie starts with a hard hit and never lets up, dark to a fault and carried by the genuine grit of Mel Gibson and the intrigue of Ray Winstone. The movie gets by on suggesting that there's more to it than what's shown; implying, if not quite succeeding at conveying, the idea that the characters here go beyond this story here. There's also the dark nature of the film, which sometimes treads in to unintentionally hilarious territory; force-feeding the bad guy radioactive milk is no doubt fitting given the context, but the imagery is just excessive enough to be funny. At least it gives the film points for being memorable. - 6/10
216. Night of the Living Dead (1968) - August 4th
Here I am, watching all of these horror franchises week in, week out, and I've not even seen one of the great classics of the genre. Film buff, indeed.
I love Horror; I love Classic Horror most of all, the progenitors of all the genre's greatest tropes, where the jump scares are more charming than annoying, and you can see the influences of a more patient style of filmmaking. Night of the Living Dead may have plenty of false scares backed by blaring music, as is a staple of the genre, but the stuff that makes this movie great (aside from, you know, literally spawning a sub-genre all to itself) is all of the quieter moments. That hard cut to a zombie walking through the graveyard after the the jesting spookiness from Johnny is a brilliant reminder of how much horror can be conveyed just with a single shot, no sound necessary. Beyond that, I love just how hokey this all is, the musical cues of chorus mimicking theremin and that slow drum beat are pretty much essential for a movie of this genre and era; this movie is a time capsule of culture and genre. Of course, part of what makes this a classic is its focus on the characters; it's not the zombies that matter, but the people who react to them, and for a horror to take the time to justify why we should care or indeed feel anything towards these people is enough to elevate this film above even most of today's horrors. Ben is a really good protagonist, pragmatic but not perfect, doing his best given the situation and the tools available to them, and in such an early movie the rest of the cast behave really appropriately for people with no cultural reference for what zombies are. I said that Badlands was the best movie I watched this week, but this is absolutely a contender. - 9/10
217. Detroit (2017) - August 5th
Nothing like the gut-wrenching grit of dramatised reality to finish the week. It's not just the grim subject matter, but the nature of its presentation; Detroit makes things appropriately all too real and it's all the harder to watch because of it. The technique is incredibly effective; the use of handheld cameras and tight focus on faces, with raw and dark natural colours that keeps the whole thing dirty yet enthralling. It helps that the film's writing is so good. The film is nuanced in its expression, at once aware of the systemic nature of the events at play as both trigger and escalation, and of the way it's expressed at the individual level by a combination of maliciously corrupt power and emotional rationality. The people in power here are unstable and tripping on their position, but at the same time they're people enabled by the system that gives them their power, never sure of the right decision and everyone making poor, irrational choices. There's these strange little moments, as tension rises and Veteran Greene is abused and accused with no precedent, but as is breaks there's split seconds of humanity, where the officers momentarily realise again and again the monstrosity of their actions and vainly try to save face or cover their hides, before doubling down on their horrible actions as they see nowhere else to go, and feel no repercussions for their actions. It's excellently presented, and it's only made to hit harder by the way the first act builds the character before bringing them all together. Ensemble pieces with multiple story threads are complex, difficult to handle, but here each one is given their due, and it makes everyone more complete as people before they tear down or are torn down by each other. Even the perpetrating officers don't come out of nowhere, the shifting of their perspectives and ineptitude made explicit. This film is dark, difficult, and tense. - 8/10
Re-watches
49. Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) - July 31st
This is my trash and I love it. No matter how many times I watch this movie, the incredible pointlessness and ineptitude juxtaposed against pure energy and style keeps me the whole way through. From the cheap retcons for the sake of conveniently ignoring bad ideas from previous movies to the plot developments of cliffhangers going nowhere to the cheap plot devices like amnesia to theinclusion of video game tie-ins for no discernible reason (other than the characters and monsters being from the video game, of course) to the to the almost exclusively terrible acting, this movie has so much terrible movie stuff, and yet I love it completely. The film even shares these traits with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, and I generally hated all of them in the case of that movie, but here I find them at least bearable (or, at least, I can stomach all of the crap in this movie for the sake of the things that I can't help but love about it, even the amnesia, which is by far my least favourite plot device in storytelling). Both Afterlife and The Final Chapter have these problems, but what makes Afterlife bearable to me is the distinct style, laden with enthusiasm, throughout the film. Anderson overuses the heck out of the slow-motion in this film, but between that and the 3-D, as well as the fight scene at the end, this whole thing is campy as hell and all the more entertaining for it, as opposed to its follower which trades hilariously overdone slow-mo for headache-inducing quick cuts. Speaking of the final fight scene, that alone is enough to get me through even the most boring part of the rest of the movie for how blatantly it is both an homage to the Resident Evil 5 game and a rip-off of the matrix, made all the better (or worse, it's the same thing with this movie) by Shawn Roberts' performance as Wesker. That moment during his back and forth with Alice when he lowers his glasses to reveal his glowing red snake eyes and utters "you should have brought more (friends)" before hurling his glasses at Chris and Claire behind him is probably the worst thing I've watched repeatedly. The film is just so sure of its own sense of style, so these moments are executed with such confidence that it's borderline experimental, and the flimsiest stuff comes right back around to being cool again. - 5/10
Published August 6th, 2018
Friday, 3 August 2018
2018 Film Review: Mission: Impossible - Fallout (2018)
Directed by: Christopher McQuarrie
Written by: Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Henry Cavill, Ving Rhames
It's Mission: Impossible as you've always known it. Ethan Hunt (Cavill) and his crew are back to save the world one more time as terrorists try to set nukes on the world so that a new world order can be established out of the ashes, with all the twists, turns and thrills of the series on full display, the action taken to new heights, as well as (for some reason) an attempt to humanise the impossible man himself. It's a shame it's taken until the sixth entry in the series for a writer to treat the events of the previous films like they were culminating to something; a lot of the stuff in Fallout acknowledges the events of the previous film and tries to work them together to make it look like Ethan Hunt has had a character arc. It doesn't really succeed in this regard, but at least it's trying.
The film often delves in to moments where the motivations for Ethan's actions are discussed in order to give his choices a bit more weight than we're used to, but the emotions of these scenes usually fall flat as they slow down the action and feel tacked on when you consider that none of this has really mattered until now. I appreciate the effort this must've taken, especially to make Rhames and Simon Pegg's characters feel more than their roles in the movies and to give Hunt a real reaction to the return of Solomon Lane (main villain of Rogue Nation) but a lot of this feels as wasted as the rare previous attempts. I like these movies fine, but there hasn't ever been much to the meat of the stories themselves, and while I hope the attempt to bring more to the table provokes deeper meaning and more characterful installments in the future, here it all feels prototypical at best. The extends to things like Cavill's Agent Walker's dynamic with Hunt, which never feels completely realised beyond "brute force vs. not quite brute force", as if its unsure where to go, and falls by the wayside as the movie dashes its way to what everyone who sees these things really cares about.
With that in mind, the action here is absolutely fantastic. The series has always been good for this sort of ridiculous, nail-biting stuff, but here it often feels at its absolute best. It employs the same visceral style as the previous few, toeing the line between utter ridiculousness and surprising credibility so that even when things seem completely unbelievable the movie keeps you on the edge of your seat, all supported by the film's hard-hitting editing and breakneck pace. The film may drop its rhythm for story beats but when the action's on this whole thing moves with such incredible agility and force, as fight scenes break the room with its choreography (literally) and chase scenes throw themselves around with all the weight that seems to be missing from the story. It's big dumb and exquisitely made action with some edge wrought out of espionage and constant double-crosses and preposterous wheelings and dealings; it's a Mission: Impossible movie, through and through.
The Short Version: The action is heart-pounding, some of the series' best, but it's broken up by story beats that try and don't always succeed in matching that intensity with the usual twists and turns, and an attempt to make the events of the previous movies matter somewhat and pretend that Ethan Hunt is more than a static character. Thankfully, the visceral style and punchy editing keep things on pace and none of the parts that feel inconsequential are around for long.
Rating: 7/10
Published August 4th, 2018
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)