Reel Views, Review

The Life Of Chuck

After having success adapting Stephen King novels Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep to the big screen, writer and director Mike Flanagan goes to the King well once more with The Life Of Chuck. Besides departing from the horror genre, what sets his third King film in a row apart from the previous two is that the source material this time is a novella, a part of the 2020 compilation book If It Bleeds. But just because the story is shorter doesn’t mean it’s short on big ideas and weighty themes, all of which Flanagan wrings out from the 100 or so pages for his cinematic rendering. With a sprawling cast filled with faces that have popped up throughout Flanagan’s oeuvre, it’s an existential drama that will land as life-affirming and soul-stirring to some but predominantly hit me hollow, despite its best efforts and intentions.

Told in three acts that move in reverse order, The Life Of Chuck opens things on a dire note, introducing us to high school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) trying to hold the attention of his students as the world seems to be falling apart. Constant news of cataclysmic weather events and a worldwide internet outage has folks more divided and scared than ever, prompting Marty to reach out to his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) for comfort. As they join hands for what seems to be the end of the world, billboards and TV ads crop up everywhere, thanking a man dressed in accounting garb named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) for “39 great years”. We then flash back to pivotal moments in Chuck’s life, those marked by love, loss and lighting up the dance floor with some electric moves.

Structurally, The Life Of Chuck begs us to ask the questions who is Chuck and how does his story relate to the end of the known universe but Flanagan seems content to let us stew for a while. The film’s first act — well, technically the story’s final act — is both portentous and pretentious, introducing myriad characters who wander around waxing philosophical in staid tones appropriate for dreary mood. I admire Flanagan starting this tale out on such unapologetically apocalyptic terms, rivaling the terror he brewed up with his The Haunting series on Netflix, despite this not overtly being a horror movie. But the unnerving pall cast over this opening chapter is completely at odds with the obstinately chipper demeanor of the two sections that follow.

The middle act of The Life Of Chuck might be the shortest of the three but is no doubt the linchpin of the film’s marketing and showcase for the film’s implicit “dance like no one’s watching” thesis. It also finds Nick Offerman filling us in on character detail via voiceover, initially helpful given the tonal switch-up but gradually doing too much of the heavy lifting that Flanagan should be doing as a storyteller. It turns out Chuck only has 9 months to live due to a brain tumor and while he’s away on an accounting conference, he’s taken to dance in front of a drummer busking on the streets of Boston. Thanks to La La Land and The Eras Tour choreographer Mandy Moore, the moves that Hiddleston puts on are genuinely impressive and mostly help us shake off the seemingly overwhelming sadness present in the segment previous.

That leads us to Act One, subtitled “I Contain Multitudes”, with all the professed profundity that Walt Whitman reference may connote. We learn of Chuck’s tragic loss of his parents at age 7, causing him to live with his grandparents, played by Mark Hamill and Mia Sara. What follows is effectively a montage of opportunities taken and paths unexplored as we see Chuck transition from boyhood into young adulthood. There are indeed some touching moments but the sentimentality is at odds with a narrative that feels conspicuously thin. I assume Flanagan wants his audience to come away with questions like “what does it all mean?” as opposed to “what was the point of that?” Stephen King novella adaptations Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption proved that the prolific writer’s shorter stories can work on-screen but The Life Of Chuck can’t quite find its own rhythm.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
28 Years Later, starring Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is a post-apocalyptic horror film following a group of survivors from a zombie-like Rage virus as their carry out their lives on a small island until one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland.
Elio, starring Yonas Kibreab and Zoe Saldaña, is a science fiction adventure involving a young space fanatic with an active imagination who finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with alien lifeforms and navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions.
Bride Hard, starring Rebel Wilson and Anna Camp, is a female-led action comedy which finds a mercenary group taking a lavish wedding hostage but meeting their match with a maid of honor who is actually a secret agent ready to defend her best friend’s wedding at any cost.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Column, Midwest Film Journal

Career, Uninterrupted: Gone In 60 Seconds

Originally posted on Midwest Film Journal

By the year 2000, Jerry Bruckheimer Films was in the middle of a hot streak, following the box office successes of both Armageddon and Enemy Of The State two years prior. Teaming back up with Nicolas Cage, the star of their 1997 vehicle Con Air, the production company looked to strike lightning again with the heist remake Gone In 60 Seconds. In addition to Cage, the movie boasted a talented ensemble cast featuring fellow Oscar winners Robert Duvall and Angelina Jolie, the latter of whom received second billing on the project. But even with the components for a hot-rodded blockbuster under the hood, the film was a financial failure for Touchstone Pictures and ultimately written down as a $212 million loss for Disney. Critically, it was even more of a crash-and-burn affair and while it doesn’t exactly hold up 25 years later, it encapsulates the turn-of-the-millennium penchant that studios had to outdo each other in the “edginess” department.

Gone In 60 Seconds opens in the middle of a “boost” under cover of darkness at the hands of car thief Kip Raines (Giovanni Ribisi), who makes a noisy getaway with a Porsche 996. Ever the screw-up, Kip brings heat back to his crew’s warehouse, forcing them to ditch the cadre of confiscated cars they’ve spent weeks acquiring. This puts them way behind for the job they’re completing for ruthless gangster Raymond “The Carpenter” Calitri (Christopher Eccleston), who threatens to kill Kip if he can’t make things right. Doubtful that Kip can finish the job, Calitri’s right-hand man Atley (Will Patton) reaches out to Kip’s older brother Randall “Memphis” Raines (Cage), a notorious carjacker who went straight years ago. Up against a ludicrous 72-hour deadline to steal 50 luxury vehicles, Randall recruits — among many others — his mechanic ex-flame Sway (Jolie) and mute mortician Sphinx (Vinnie Jones) to pull off the high-octane heist.

Though Jolie is riding shotgun on the cast list and appears caddy corner with Cage on the one-sheet, she doesn’t appear in Gone In 60 Seconds as much as one may expect. After Randall surprises her by popping by work unannounced, Sway slides out on her creeper to reveal a suspiciously clean uniform and bleached blonde dreadlocks that kids today would deem “a choice”. Randall follows Sway to her second job bartending, her pouty lips and ice-blue eyes reluctantly refusing his recruitment opportunity but, of course, reconsidering the next day. She interrupts a meeting between Randall and Atley, pulling up on her motorcycle and insisting that she’s only taking the job for Kip. From here on, just about every subsequent line Jolie utters is paired with a raised eyebrow, a salacious smirk or both at the same time.

One would assume Jolie shot a good deal more footage for Gone In 60 Seconds that didn’t make the final cut and there are several plausible reasons her scenes hit the cutting room floor. The most obvious is that she doesn’t have much on-screen chemistry with Cage, despite the movie’s best effort to steam up windows with a stakeout-turned-makeout scene. As Sway shimmies over the gear shifter while Randall seduces her by reciting auto parts, they briefly lock lips before she puts the brakes on and insists they get back to work. Cage’s scenes with Jolie are peppered with the actor’s typical eccentric line reads and she tries to return the volleys but for some reason, their freak frequencies don’t quite line up. It doesn’t speak well of the film that Cage has better chemistry with the Shelby Mustang GT500 nicknamed “Eleanor”, overtly identified as “the one that got away”.

At the same time, it’s a wonder director Dominic Sena is even able to accommodate a potential romantic subplot when he has so many other storylines to address. Delroy Lindo and Timothy Olyphant collectively have more screen time than Jolie as detectives chasing down leads and shaking members of the crew down while trying to put the elusive Randall behind bars for good. Portraying the wise old mentor coming back for one last ride, Robert Duvall is relegated to crossing off the female code names for automobiles in canted-angle close-ups during the film’s climax. Elsewhere, rapper Master P plays Johnny B, a gang leader who pops up guns blazing in several scenes to settle a score with Randall left over from his past life. Michael Peña even turns up in an early film role as a thug appalled by the ease with which one of the crew members digs through dog feces to procure a set of laser-cut car keys.

In Gone In 60 Seconds, the cars should be the props and the actors should be the stars but in actuality, the opposite ends up being the case. Much of the movie’s second half is devoted to flashy montages set to big beat remixes on the soundtrack of vaunted vehicles being broken into and illegally revved up. Car nuts might drool at the sight of some of these exotic beasts in action but those watching, like me, who top out at “sensible sedan” will be bored watching what feels like all 50 of those on the checklist being picked off. When I first watched the movie with my friends, I think I was more in awe of the fact that the PlayStation 2 we used to watch it on could play DVDs; clearly, this was no 20th century video game console. Fittingly, Jolie had more success adapting the PlayStation title Tomb Raider just a year later, catapulting her onto the A-list after Gone In 60 Seconds didn’t quite turn the engine over.

Reel Views, Review

Dangerous Animals

Even though it’s statistically more likely for one to die by a falling coconut than by a shark, that hasn’t stopped filmmakers from framing the finned fish as killing machines hungry for human flesh since Jaws first terrorized audiences 50 years ago. While the new Shudder release Dangerous Animals continues this trend by depicting them as violent, it’s decidedly more nuanced than a standard creature feature. Instead, director Sean Byrne’s latest project exists in the middle of a horror-based Venn diagram, where the shark movie, survival film and slasher subgenres somehow swim together. Set in the deceptively idyllic location of the Gold Coast in Australia, this is a creepy and creative export glowing up from the land down under.

After a brutal cold open that perfectly ripples the waters, Dangerous Animals introduces us to Zephyr (Hassie Harrison), an attachment-averse surfer whose beat-up van doubles as her domicile. An ask for jumper cables from fellow surfer Moses (Josh Heuston) leads to a one night stand, where Zephyr skedaddles in the morning before he can treat her to a pancake breakfast. On her way to the next sunrise surf spot, she borrows a fin key from nearby bloke Tucker (Jai Courtney), just before he ambushes her with a bag over the head and drags her unconscious onto his boat. Under the guise of Tucker’s Experience Cage Diving & Adventure Tours, it turns out the captain has been moonlighting as a serial killer, using his victims as bait for hungry sharks miles off the coast. Pitted against a physically imposing murderer, Zephyr’s only hope is to outsmart her captor and make it safely back to shore.

The premise is a bit ridiculous and stretches credulity more than once but Dangerous Animals works as well as it does in large part due to the two central performances from Harrison and Courtney. Zephyr may seem like a free-spirited surfer girl at first glance but Harrison shades her with survivalist grit that has us fighting tooth-and-nail along with her. She also has a movie star quality to her that lights up the screen; I was reminded of Helen Hunt in the mid-90s around Twister‘s release. On the subject of Hollywood presence, Courtney’s maniacal role recalls fellow Aussie Russell Crowe’s menacing turn in 2020’s Unhinged. He’s an actor who hasn’t had much success as a leading man in blockbuster fare like Terminator Genisys and Insurgent but he seems to be a much better fit as a ruthless antagonist.

While Nick Lepard’s script doesn’t contribute much new on the page when it comes to serial killer tales, Sean Byrne adds loads of little flourishes in his direction that remind us Dangerous Animals is a shark of a different color. The way he uses Aussie singer Stevie Wright’s “Evie” diegetically to show off his killer’s not-so-killer dance moves recalls how “Goodbye Horses” was used in The Silence Of The Lambs to get us into the antagonist’s headspace. The set design inside Tucker’s quarters is full of easy-to-miss visual clues as to how this guy developed his MO and has gone undetected for as long as he has. Even in the digital age, he still has a fondness for video tape and a shot of his chillingly well-populated VHS closet portends a grisly fate for Zephyr.

On the sonic side of things, composer Michael Yezerski lends a tense and thrilling music backdrop that always hints at more danger right below the surface. The soundtrack counters the tension nicely in some of the earlier quiet scenes, set to ethereal cuts from Fleetwood Mac and Cigarettes After Sex, where Zephyr and Moses connect. There’s even a running joke about Zephyr being gobsmacked that Creedence Clearwater Revival’s take on “Ooby Dooby” is Moses’ all-time favorite tune. For those curious: the Arctic Monkeys song that shares its name with the movie does not pop up in the soundtrack. Though the title initially reads as a touch generic, Dangerous Animals reminds us that man remains the most dangerous animal, especially when compared to seemingly sinister sharks.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing only in theaters is How To Train Your Dragon, a live-action remake starring Mason Thames and Gerard Butler, retelling the story of a timid Viking who defies centuries of tradition when he befriends a feared but misunderstood dragon.
Also coming to theaters is Materialists, a romantic comedy starring Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans, following a young and ambitious New York City matchmaker as she finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex.
Premiering on Apple TV+ is Echo Valley, a family thriller starring Julianne Moore and Sydney Sweeney, involving a horse trainer whose world is turned upside down when her daughter arrives at her door covered in blood that is not hers.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Friendship

Now playing at Cinema Center, the new comedy Friendship isn’t technically an adaptation of the sketch show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson but it’s about as close an approximation as we’re likely to get. Across three seasons, the Netflix series has found a considerable audience since debuting in 2019, filled with bizarre and profane vignettes that creator and star Tim Robinson may have first dreamed up during his three-season writing stint at SNL. It’s a show that leans heavily into the awkward and absurd, often featuring characters who are unable to navigate social situations and whose trepidation typically triggers outlandish consequences. If you don’t like this brand of humor, this film will be an unpleasant experience. If you delight in “cringe comedy”, then this movie is likely to be your new best friend.

Robinson plays Craig Waterman, a marketing exec “living the dream” in suburbia with his wife Tami (Kate Mara) and their teenage son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). A piece of misdelivered mail leads Craig to meet Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), a meteorologist living down the street with whom Craig develops a strong bond upon meeting. Where Craig is more cloistered and spends most of his evenings sitting in his La-Z-Boy, Austin is comparatively more free-spirited and gigs out with a local rock band after his night shift as weatherman. The two hang out in a group of Austin’s friends but a handful of vibe-killing faux pas from Craig cause Austin to scale the relationship back considerably. Predictably, Craig doesn’t get the message and commits a series of increasingly poor decisions in an attempt to rekindle the spark with Austin.

Much like Adam Sandler comedies of the 1990s, the success of Friendship for viewers will depend on how heavily one buys into the schtick of the intentionally abrasive protagonist. Tim Robinson’s persona is effectively a deconstruction of the everyman type, someone who can converse appropriately with friends or co-workers up to a point until they hit an obstacle. Where more emotionally enlightened folks may try to delicately traverse or politely withdraw, this guy digs in with temerity and crashes through the metaphorical road block. It’s a comically exaggerated form of what we all do in our brains when we butt up against social conventions that elude us; we can’t do this in real life but it sure is fun watching someone else try. Naturally, the scenario of one friend “breaking up” with another is a perfect premise upon which to implement this character.

What makes Friendship work so well at feature length is how director and writer Andrew DeYoung keeps finding new avenues to send Craig down without betraying the central dilemma. Much like the hidden tunnel system that Craig and Austin tread through during one of their initial hangs, there are many places this story could go and still arrive at a fitting and earned conclusion. Whether it’s a misjudged pitch to the town’s mayor for a PR refresh or a psychedelic trip with hilariously banal results, DeYoung sees the comic potential for this put-upon putz within innumerable crannies in the storyline. There are also moments centered around male bonding that don’t have to do with Craig’s incompetence and are just funny on their own terms. Men don’t usually sing Ghost Town DJ’s tunes spontaneously a capella in the round but, come to think of it, maybe they should.

Robinson also has support from reliable players who aren’t typically known for comedy — this style of comedy, anyway — but plug into the narrative nicely. Paul Rudd starts off with the cocksure poise of his field reporter character from Anchorman before revealing shades of darkness and doubt. Kate Mara is similarly playing things straight off Robinson in what could be considered a thankless role but she keeps finding surprising ways to make it her own. I Think You Should Leave regular Conner O’Malley pops up for a brief but memorable scene; the way he chooses to finish up an impromptu toast at a party is the hardest I’ve laughed in a theater all year. Those who are already put off by Tim Robinson’s specific comedic styling will not be won over by Friendship but those who already beat the drum for him will find even more here to love.

Score – 4/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Ballerina, an action thriller starring Ana de Armas and Anjelica Huston, spinning off from the John Wick series to tell the story of a specific “Ballerina” assassin who sets out to seek revenge after her father’s death.
Also coming only to theaters is The Phoenician Scheme, a spy comedy starring Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton, following a wealthy businessman as he appoints his only daughter as sole heir to his estate before becoming the target of scheming tycoons.
Premiering on Hulu is Predator: Killer Of Killers, an animated sci-fi action film starring Lindsay LaVanchy and Louis Ozawa Changchien, involving three of the fiercest warriors in human history as they become prey to the extraterrestrial hunters known as Predators.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning

Concluding both the Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One chapter from 2023 and possibly the whole series, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning seems to at least be the final time we’ll see Tom Cruise in the superspy Ethan Hunt role he first portrayed almost 30 years ago. Naturally, it’s a bittersweet sendoff: necessary given how much unmatched physicality the now-62-year-old Cruise puts into these productions but unfortunate that it winds down one of the very best action franchises around. While this last adventure is both the most narratively simplistic and somberly apocalyptic in the series, it’s bolstered by a terrific ever-expanding cast and two extended setpieces that are unmatched in their guileless ambition and technical coordination.

We pick up the action two months after the events of Dead Reckoning, with the world in chaos due to the proliferation of The Entity’s reality-bending influence on the digital landscape, and with Ethan Hunt in possession of the key to stopping it. The locked chamber that holds The Entity’s source code is aboard a sunken submarine buried deep in the ocean, the coordinates of which are known only by Ethan’s enemy Gabriel (Esai Morales). Bent on triggering nuclear annihilation, The Entity has every world leader, including US President Erika Sloane (Angela Bassett), up against the wall watching control of the arsenals being seized by the evil AI. IMF team regulars Luther (Ving Rhames) and Benji (Simon Pegg), along with new members Grace (Hayley Atwell) and Paris (Pom Klementieff), are all in with Ethan to put an end to The Entity’s reign.

Combined with Dead Reckoning, The Final Reckoning caps off a storyline that runs over 5 and a half hours and now that we’ve seen this second portion, I would’ve preferred the series not end on a two-parter. The main reason is that Gabriel and The Entity are promising villains that would’ve worked better separately in their own films, as opposed to having them split time to face off against Ethan. Dead Reckoning teases exposition with Gabriel that The Final Reckoning doesn’t properly pay off, likely because there are too many other narrative threads that need to be tended to. As for non-human villains, The Entity has a couple moments of menace but in this final chapter, the articulation of its power is mainly relegated to people in power distressingly staring at screens. There are plenty of terrifying ways to depict a rogue artificial intelligence and this Reckoning arc doesn’t fully realize that potential.

But anyone who has watched the Mission: Impossible series knows that Ethan’s truest archnemesis is gravity and as such, The Final Reckoning has what may be their most exhilarating showdown to date. The climactic biplane sequence has been the focal point of the film’s marketing but no matter how many glimpses you’ve seen of it so far, it’s an entirely different experience watching it play out at-length in an ideally IMAX theater. The Burj Khalifa setpiece in Ghost Protocol remains my favorite scene in the series but this new plane chase is a very close second. It’s a peerless showcase of stunt work and if the Academy Award For Achievement In Stunt Design was being handed out for the first time next year instead of in 2028, I would be appalled if it didn’t go to this crew.

The Final Reckoning dedicates plenty of its extended runtime looking back on the series it’s summing up and likewise inspires us to reflect on what’s given the franchise its staying power. The most obvious answer would be Tom Cruise as the lead actor but I would argue Tom Cruise the producer is equally as important to what’s made each of these entries so consistently enjoyable. Though he’s technically never been credited with directing a film, Cruise clearly has an almost innate infatuation for storytelling and his influence in that regard has been particularly felt during the Christopher McQuarrie-directed Missions over the past ten years. It’s hard to argue there’s someone who believes in the magic of the movies more than Cruise and though he’ll likely be wearing a different hat the next time we see him on-screen, I can’t wait to see what he’ll pull out of it next.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Bring Her Back, a horror film starring Sally Hawkins and Billy Barratt, centered around a brother and sister who are introduced to their new sibling by their foster mother, only to learn that she has a terrifying secret.
Also playing only in theaters is Karate Kid: Legends, a martial arts sequel starring Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio, following a kung fu prodigy who embarks on a journey to enter the ultimate karate competition with the help of two seasoned veterans.
Premiering on Max is Mountainhead, a satirical dramedy starring Steve Carell and Jason Schwartzman, which finds four ultra-wealthy friends in the tech industry retreating to a snowy mountain mansion amidst an ongoing financial crisis.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Hurry Up Tomorrow

Last year saw the release of Trap and Smile 2, two thrillers about fictional pop stars in peril. Hurry Up Tomorrow, the latest ego stroke from real-life megastar The Weeknd, instead signals a perilous potential pivot in profession for the artist formerly known as Abel Tesfaye. Purportedly a companion film to his album of the same name released in January, it’s neither an anthology of segments inspired by songs from the record, nor is it a concert movie or extended music video. Reportedly inspired by an on-tour incident where Tesfaye/The Weeknd lost his voice while performing, the movie uses this inciting incident to spin a tired tale of obsessive fandom and self-destruction. It feels more of a piece with Tesfaye’s disastrous HBO series The Idol, in which he plays a seedy drifter attempting to hijack the career of a troubled pop singer. Just because his character isn’t quite as deplorable this time around doesn’t make the end result any less odious.

In Hurry Up Tomorrow, Tesfaye plays a fictionalized version of his The Weeknd alter ego, who we meet in the haze of a world tour under the guidance of his overzealous handler Lee (Barry Keoghan). Despite his success, The Weeknd remains unhappy, on the tail end of a romantic relationship that ended with vicious voicemails and emotional evisceration. The psychological stress leads to a muscle tension dysphonia diagnosis and a Halloween performance cut short due to the performer’s strained vocals, but not before he locks eyes with the alluring Anima (Jenna Ortega) in the crowd. She inexplicably barges her way backstage and finds The Weeknd, consoling him after the cancelled show and proposing they spend the night together instead. Despite their connection, the harsh light of day reveals that the pair have very different ideas about which direction each of them would like the relationship to go.

Generously, Hurry Up Tomorrow could be described as Tesfaye’s investigation into the The Weeknd façade he created after first releasing music anonymously back in 2009. He’s teased for months and years that he’d like to lay the moniker to rest and the film does connote the “burn it all down” posturing of someone eager to end an era. If it turns out this movie is the final project Tesfaye completes as The Weeknd, it’s a dissatisfying denouement to a music career filled with impeccably-produced pop songs. If it’s his audition reel for future film work, he needs to hurry up and put the brakes on that plan right now. Put bluntly: Tesfaye is not a believable actor in any capacity. When he’s not morosely mugging for the camera, he’s lashing out with the verisimilitude of a vexed chipmunk. I’m not sure I’ve seen a performer struggle this hard to play what’s ostensibly a version of themselves.

Unfortunately, Tesfaye has roped the otherwise reliable writer/director Trey Edward Shults into this shameless star vehicle, which indulges the talented young filmmaker’s worst impulses. Though the composition of shots from cinematographer Chayse Irvin are fleetingly striking, Shults simply has no idea what kind of story he wants to tell here. The threadbare script by Tesfaye, Shults and Reza Fahim only contributes sketches of characters and shadows of motivation when it’s not busy with platitude-laden dialogue. The direction is somehow even more meandering, stacking up pointless scenes of insipid impressionism for the first hour before settling on a horribly derivative storyline involving celebrity kidnapping. When Anima proceeds to fansplain the meaning of The Weeknd’s songs to the tied-up star, it’s as torturous for us in the audience as it is for the supposed protagonist.

Die hard fans of The Weeknd will no doubt be desperate to parse misunderstood meaning out of Hurry Up Tomorrow but its ostentatious pretensions couldn’t be more obvious. All the tired symbolism and vapid interactions point to an ego addict who wants us to feel bad for how rich and successful he is; “Save Your Tears” would’ve been good acting advice to take from one of his song’s titles. The climactic moment is both a stunningly shallow bit of self-aggrandizement and a tragic reminder of how misused Tesfaye’s talent is here. He has a powerful and compelling singing voice, even if he doesn’t quite know how to make the best use of it at this point in his career. If tomorrow holds more promising things for his artistry, it can’t come quickly enough.

Score – 1/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, an action sequel starring Tom Cruise and Hayley Atwell, extending the journey of IMF agent Ethan Hunt as he continues his mission to stop a master assassin from obtaining an AI program known as The Entity.
Also coming to theaters is Lilo & Stitch, a live-action animated remake starring Sydney Elizebeth Agudong and Billy Magnussen, which finds a lonely Hawaiian girl befriending a dog-like runaway alien, unaware that the visitor is genetically engineered to be a force of destruction.
Streaming on Netflix is Fear Street: Prom Queen, a slasher film starring India Fowler and Suzanna Son, centered around the popular girls of a high school in 1988 who begin to vanish one by one prior to their highly-anticipated prom night.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Fight Or Flight

Following up a pair of memorable turns in the drastically different Oppenheimer and Trap, Josh Hartnett continues to stretch his leading man range with the delightfully dopey action comedy Fight Or Flight. Sporting a bleached blonde do and a tight pink T-shirt, he plays Lucas Reyes, a gun-for-hire lying low in Bangkok until he gets a call from his former handler Katherine (Katee Sackhoff). She’s not thrilled to make the call and he’s even less excited about receiving it but with no viable options left, Katherine asks Reyes to board a flight that’s about to take off for San Francisco. On board is a rogue hacker known as The Ghost, in possession of an all-powerful supercomputer that can’t end up in the wrong hands. Reyes takes the mission with assurances from Katherine that completing it will expunge his checkered past but once he’s on the plane, it becomes obvious he’s not the only one after the target.

I was worried when Fight Or Flight began with one of those obnoxious cold opens that concludes with the dreaded “12 hours earlier…” card but once it hits cruising altitude, it becomes fun of the unfasten-your-brain’s-seatbelt variety. The film recalls numerous recent action extravaganzas, most specifically John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and Bullet Train, although the setting is more confined than the former and less try-hard in its humor than the latter. It’s effectively an ultra-violent live-action cartoon, with Josh Hartnett in a Daffy Duck role where he doggedly pursues his goal through an onslaught of physical punishment. At 6′ 3″, Hartnett certainly has the frame to register as a threat for the endless barrage of assassins that stand in the way between him and The Ghost, so much so that it’s a bit surprising he hasn’t starred in this kind of fight-frenzied actioner before.

Of course it makes no sense that a passenger airplane would stay airborne once fights between trained killers broke out, a plot wrinkle that Fight Or Flight barely tries to smooth over. Similarly, the jumbo jet in which the majority of the movie takes place is an impossibly large double-decker that would likely never make it off the ground in the first place. Fortunately for us aground in the audience, we get to observe close-quarters combat in first class, coach, cargo, a luxury restroom with a shower and basically every location that could exist on a plane. James Madigan, making his lead directing debut here after working second-unit on several action projects, also makes clever use of innocuous in-flight accoutrements as deadly props when wielded by assassins. Seatbelt strangulations and service cart stampedes are but a small sampling of the acts that willfully ignore the teachings of the pre-flight safety demonstration.

Fight Or Flight makes some bone-headed mistakes comedically — the aforementioned opener is set ironically to the immensely predictable “The Blue Danube” waltz — but finds its place in between the melee. The jokes are based more around minutia and mannerisms rather than manners mitigating machismo, as we tend to see in other action comedies where two people are duking it out and they have to pause in the presence of bystanders. It’s not that the humor is necessarily more sophisticated but it’s trying to riff on slightly more unique story beats as opposed to recycling tropes. The film is packed with all types of hitmen and hitwomen who bring their own color to the palette but wisely doesn’t try to make every one of them funny. Among the henchmen and henchwomen, Hartnett undeniably remains the star.

Not that it shares much in common with Nicolas Cage-starring airplane-set movies like Con Air or Left Behind but I did detect a bit of Cage’s influence on Hartnett’s performance here. He’s a good enough actor for you to buy him not only as a burnt-out mercenary but also as a wide-eyed patsy, comically overwhelmed by the odds against which he finds himself. There are cackles and guffaws he throws in sparingly that are calibrated right to Nic pitch, as is the “x” sound he holds onto at the end of the phrase “kill box” late in the film. Fight Or Flight concludes with an overly optimistic pitch for a sequel that doesn’t seem likely to get cleared for takeoff but as a chaotic one-way trip, it’s worth booking a ticket.

Score – 3/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Final Destination: Bloodlines, a supernatural horror sequel starring Kaitlyn Santa Juana and Teo Briones, following a college student plagued by a recurring violent nightmare who returns home to save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.
Also playing only in theaters is Hurry Up Tomorrow, a psychological thriller starring Abel Tesfaye and Jenna Ortega, wherein an insomniac musician encounters a mysterious stranger, leading to a journey that challenges everything he knows about himself.
Streaming on Apple TV+ is Deaf President Now!, a documentary which recounts the 1988 protests at the all-deaf Gallaudet University, after the school’s board of trustees appointed a hearing president over several qualified deaf candidates.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Thunderbolts*

If you’re exhausted by the relentless march of Marvel movies, it may help to know that you’re not alone, as some of the characters themselves share the sentiment. “Maybe I’m just bored,” a recalcitrant Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) surmises while jumping off a gigantic Kuala Lumpur tower at the opening of Thunderbolts*, the latest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. She’s going through the motions, both literally and figuratively, completing shady clean-up missions under the thumb of CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). Still mourning the loss of her sister and the distancing of her stepfather Alexei (David Harbour), Yelena doesn’t know what she wants but she knows it isn’t this. If the ethos of The Avengers was “success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm,” then Thunderbolts* would be summed up by “if you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Yelena tells Valentina she wants out and is sent on a final mission to an off-the-map facility to destroy evidence of illegal scientific operations being run under de Fontaine’s purview. After she breaks in, Yelena’s confronted by super soldier John Walker (Wyatt Russell), who says he’s been sent there to kill her. Not a moment later, another assassin Antonia (Olga Kurylenko) engages John and then yet another assassin Ava (Hannah John-Kamen) shows up to take out Antonia. The group takes a beat to recognize the presence of a bystander named Bob (Lewis Pullman) and collectively realize they’ve been sent there to kill one another. Narrowly escaping from de Fontaine’s trap, the group of “disposable delinquents” (as Ava dubs them) solicit the help of now-congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) to settle the score with their conniving employer.

It’s impressive how the Thunderbolts* incorporates so many well-worn tropes — in addition to being a “one last job” and “ragtag band of misfits” movie, the film’s climax finds city dwellers running from a scary thing in the sky — and still comes out on top. Perhaps it’s partially due to the low bar set by some of Marvel Studios’ more recent output but director Jake Schreier and his team seem to have their eye on behind-the-camera diligence in ways that have eluded recent products of the Marvel machine. The tone here is indeed more serious, delving into the darkness of the past lives that haunt the movie’s characters, but doesn’t get too mired by glumness that it can’t have a few laughs along the way. Most importantly, these are characters who start out as odds and ends left over from previous MCU chapters but over the course of the movie, we care about them individually and collectively.

Sadly, Thunderbolts* is subject to the concrete-mixer color grading that has plagued numerous entries in this franchise but the lighting and cinematography is a cut above what we typically get in green-screen affairs. Light and shadow is an important component thematically but visually, DP Andrew Droz Palermo also uses the contrast to signal an all-encompassing menace that’s challenging and creepy. Even things like blocking and editing feel a bit more back-to-basics in a good way, with scenes arranged engagingly and the repartee between these antiheroes managed deftly. Technically, most of these characters have superpowers but the combat scenes still tend to focus more on hand-to-hand as opposed to being reliant on CG effects. It’s nice to have a superhero movie that doesn’t hinge only on gargantuan action setpieces.

When Black Widow came out in 2021, Pugh’s Yelena had to play second banana to Scarlett Johansson’s titular Avenger but Marvel wisely trusts Pugh as the face of this new crew. She’s been remarkable in film after film and she brings her all to this role, balancing a world-weary malaise with hard-earned optimism and empathy. David Harbour is even more giddy here than he was in Black Widow as the goofy Red Guardian, who’s primarily just excited that Yelena is on a team again for the first time since being a part of her winless soccer squad in childhood. On the villain side of things, Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ corrupt politician gets to volley Veepesque snipes like “righteousness without power is just an opinion” at her assistant. After several projects that have signaled a decline in the brand, Thunderbolts* proves that the best way to course-correct is to focus on fundamental filmmaking. You can always count on Marvel to do the right thing, after they’ve exhausted all the other possibilities.

Score – 3.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is Shadow Force, an action thriller starring Kerry Washington and Omar Sy, following an estranged couple with a bounty on their heads, who must go on the run with their son to avoid their former employer, a unit of shadow ops, that has been sent to kill them.
Also playing in theaters is Clown In A Cornfield, a slasher movie starring Katie Douglas and Aaron Abrams, set in a fading midwestern town in which Frendo The Clown, a symbol of bygone success, reemerges as a terrifying scourge on the town’s teens.
Streaming on Netflix is Nonnas, a food dramedy starring Vince Vaughn and Lorraine Bracco, involving a man who risks everything to honor his recently-deceased mother by opening an Italian restaurant with actual grandmothers as the chefs.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Reel Views, Review

Sinners

Up to this point, director and writer Ryan Coogler has made a name for himself working within frameworks like the Rocky and Black Panther franchises but his latest, Sinners, takes things to — to borrow a phrase — a whole ‘nother level. It’s a staggeringly ambitious blockbuster, an epic Southern Gothic equally inspired by the feverishly sensuous artwork of Ernie Barnes and the devil-may-care, us-against-the-world actioners of John Carpenter. Understandably, it’s been marketed most prevalently as a vampire movie, which it assuredly embraces eventually but decidedly takes a bit of time to show its fangs. But genre-blending and influences aside, this is Coogler’s most lived-in film so far, with such an evocative sense of character and conflict that its slight sins of cinematic coherency can easily be forgiven.

Taking place over a 24-hour period in October 1932, Sinners introduces us to a pair of brothers known as the Smokestack Twins, comprised of Elijah “Smoke” and Elias “Stack” Moore (both played by Michael B. Jordan). After working for years in Chicago under Al Capone, they’ve decided to return to the Jim Crow South — the Mississippi Delta in particular — to open a barrelhouse called Club Juke. We watch the Twins recruit proficient blues players like Delta Slim (Delroy Lindo) and Sammie Moore (Miles Caton) for their opening night, hoping to start things off with a bang. Along the way, Smoke reunites with his estranged wife Annie (Wunmi Mosaku), while Stack crosses paths with his lascivious ex Mary (Hailee Steinfeld).

They all convene at the Club as the sun gets low, with singer Pearline (Jayme Lawson) belting out tunes and Cornbread (Omar Benson Miller) acting as bouncer at the entrance. The music and atmosphere attract many, including Irish immigrant Remmick (Jack O’Connell), a musician who is particularly taken with Sammie’s transcendental blues guitar chops. Despite offering money well over the cover price to gain entry, Remmick is turned away at the door but develops a following of his own outside the juke joint. After a patron is assaulted by Remmick and his crew after stepping outside for a moment, it becomes clear that the gang outside is composed of vampires bent on trying to gain access to the club to turn the partygoers into bloodsuckers. Using the limited resources they have available, the Smokestack twins and the Club Juke staff aim to defend their establishment by any means necessary.

Sinners is an interesting beast because those going in expecting a straight-ahead vampire tale could be put off by how long it takes for horror aspects to lock into place, but those going in without expectations could be put off by what’s effectively a period drama turning into a monster movie. Coogler is at his most “yes, and” here as a filmmaker, embracing both the high-minded films and schlocky cinema that contribute to his voice as a storyteller. It’s the kind of exquisite gumbo that you can only cook up with this kind of budget once you’ve already proven yourself on the big stage, which, these days, essentially means within the superhero milieu. My hope is that other studios like Warner Bros. continue to see the value in putting their money where their mouth is by backing visionary directors with stout budgets.

The money, as they say, is on the screen with Sinners. Shooting on 65mm film for a superlative IMAX presentation, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw delivers a sumptuous, supersized silver screen experience. Also reteaming with Coogler on the crew is composer Ludwig Göransson, who continues to push himself stylistically with a dobro-led score that’s completely different from the other film music he’s put out thus far. In addition to the original score, the movie is packed wall-to-wall with existing tunes from various cultural backgrounds that deepen the aural canvas. In a film with almost too many great music moments to count, a sequence set to “Pale, Pale Moon” is perhaps the most luminous. Missing out on Sinners while it’s in theaters would be a sin.

Score – 4/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is The Accountant 2, an action thriller starring Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal, reuniting the titular auditor/hitman with his equally lethal brother as the two track down a group of assassins responsible for a Treasury chief’s murder.
Also playing only in theaters is Until Dawn, a supernatural horror film starring Ella Rubin and Michael Cimino, following a group of friends trapped in a time loop, where mysterious foes are chasing and killing them in gruesome ways, must survive until dawn to escape it.
Premiering on Netflix ix Havoc, an action thriller starring Tom Hardy and Jessie Mei Li, about a detective must fight his way through the criminal underworld to rescue a politician’s estranged son, unraveling a deep web of corruption and conspiracy that ensnares his entire city.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

My thoughts on the movies