Category Archives: Review
Gods of Egypt *|****
It’s hard to know where to begin with Gods of Egypt. I suppose it’s best to first ponder how a film this profoundly incompetent and mercilessly dull could ever merit a wide theatrical release in the first place. How a colossal failure like this could even get greenlit is beyond me. To watch this movie is to witness a production collapse at every conceivable level but Gods of Egypt is unique in one sense: it powers valiantly though its ridiculous story under the pretense of entertainment when most other bad movies would have the good sense to just throw in the towel early.
Set in a world that only vaguely resembles ancient Egypt, the plot begins with the coronation of the god Horus (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) as the new leader of the land. After the ceremony is broken up by Horus’ bitterly jealous brother Set (Gerard Butler), a fight scene ensues that makes a battle from a video game like Tekken look credible by comparison and Horus is left eyeless and forced into exile. With the help of his grandfather Ra (Geoffrey Rush) and the mortal underdog Bek (Brenton Thwaites), Horus seeks vengeance on his warmongering brother and hopes to restore peace and order to the land that he was meant to rule.
If I had to pin the movie’s problems down to one point, it would be this: not one element of it feels remotely authentic or believable. Not only do the computer generated effects consistently look stilted and out-dated but they pervade every inch of every frame and call attention to themselves in a relentlessly unpleasant fashion. Everything feels about as far divorced from the live action format as you could possible get, which leads me to wonder why the producers didn’t just commit to creating an entirely animated film at the outset instead of clumsily inserting its stars in front of endless green screens.
The actors hardly add any degree of plausibility in their performances anyway. The cacophony of irrelevant and distracting accents makes for a shaky foundation to begin with but the more troubling aspect is how little it feels like any of the performers are striving for anything resembling honest human behavior. There’s a noticeable lack of chemistry between the actors and they all seem to be embarrassingly out of sync with one another. No one is spared from a sub-par performance here but the most egregious among them is Gerard Butler, who I have all but given up on entirely at this point.
Director (“victim” may be more fitting) Alex Proyas hit creative gold in the 1990s with inventive tales like The Crow and Dark City but he’s clearly lost his way since then and maybe this will be enough to steer him away from big budget fare in the future. Perhaps another director could have brought out the campy elements of this silly premise to push it into “so bad it’s good” territory but Proyas’ leaden sense of self-seriousness weighs things down indefinitely. It’s enough to say that Gods of Egypt is epically inept and one of the most truly bewildering experiences I’ve had in a movie theater.
The Witch ***|****
Over the past few years, there has emerged a new class of intelligent horror films that favor pacing and setting over cheap jump scares and bombastic music cues. Films like The Babadook and Goodnight Mommy are able to create a kind of tense and unnerving mood by way of patient storytelling and I’m happy to say that first-time director Robert Eggers has added another memorable entry to the collection. Subtitled “A New England Folktale”, The Witch is a one-of-a-kind 17th century-set supernatural tale that uses authentically archaic dialogue and a stark color palette to create a chilly and disorienting atmosphere of slow-building dread.
We follow William (Ralph Ineson) and his deeply religious Puritan family as they are banished from a plantation and forced to relocate to a remote area seated right at the edge of a large forest. When his daughter Thomasin (Anya Taylor-Joy) is watching her infant brother one morning, he is swiftly and mysteriously abducted by a figure that the family concludes to be a witch from the woods. This news devastates their mother Katherine (Kate Dickie) in particular and after additional suspicious events occur, the seeds of mistrust are sown within the family and they begin to suspect one another of conspiring with the new forces of evil.
There’s a meticulous craft (dare I say witchcraft?) that went into the production of The Witch and much of that credit has to go to writer-director Robert Eggers, who allegedly committed years of research to uncovering what 17th century life was really like. The attention to detail in the costume design and the set design contributes heavily to the sense that we’re actually being transported back to this time. Even a majority of the film’s dialogue was sourced directly from period journals, diaries, and court records of the time, which almost makes it a scarier proposition than the “based on true events” claims of its genre peers.
This level of staid commitment is also carried out by the performers, who may be familiar to zealous fans of the HBO series Game of Thrones but will likely be new faces for the rest of the audience. Ineson plays the tortured patriarch William with humble conviction and Dickie is fearlessly compelling as the grieving mother with insurmountable misfortune cast her way. But the real revelation is the haunting, star-making turn by Anya Taylor-Joy as the oldest daughter Thomasin, who showcases a maturity well beyond her years and proves in only her second film role to date that she has a promising career ahead.
The final piece to this pernicious puzzle is the eerie, skin-crawling music scored by Mark Korven that makes use of dissonant string parts and haunted choir vocals to brilliantly demonic effect. It all adds up to a singular cinematic experience that may be too dour and self-serious in patches but still casts quite the spell during its lean running time. Few horror films have the certitude to look evil so nakedly in the eye but The Witch manages to weaves its unholy elements into something unshakable and unmissable.
Deadpool ***½|****
With underwhelming, status quo entries like last year’s Avengers: Age of Ultron and Ant-Man, superhero movies have been in need of a shake-up and it seems that Marvel found just the man for the job. Production history for Deadpool dates back to 2004 but after VFX footage “leaked” online 10 years later, the project took off quickly and generated a healthy amount of buzz among comic book fans online. Now we have the finished film, which succeeds as both a hilariously vulgar send-up of the genre it inhabits and an engaging action movie with a deft visual style that’s all its own.
Ryan Reynolds is perfect in the title role: a wise-cracking, foul-mouthed mercenary with a pension for breaking the fourth wall and a never-ending supply of self-referential in-jokes. He begins the story as Wade Wilson, whose terminal cancer diagnosis brings a prosperous, year-long relationship with his girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) to a screeching halt. Desperate for answers, Wilson agrees to enlist in a shadowy genetic research program under the supervision of a mutant named Ajax (Ed Skrein) with the hope of a cure. The experiment causes Wilson to be permanently disfigured and when Ajax leaves him for dead, he takes on the alias Deadpool and vows vengeance on his malicious captor.
That may seem like a downer of a setup but make no mistake: Deadpool is hands down the most comedically successful superhero film that I’ve seen so far and it will likely go down as one of the year’s best comedies. With the exception of his ill-conceived inclusion in the dreadful X-Men Origins: Wolverine (during which his mouth was inexplicably sewn shut), Deadpool was a character of which I had little foreknowledge when going into this movie. Together, Reynolds and first-time director Tim Miller have created what feels like a zero-compromise realization of everything that makes the comic book character special.
Beyond achieving an admirable level of cheekiness throughout the film, Miller also manages to tell a compelling superhero origin story and portray a convincing romance at the same time as well. In addition to the narrative elements, he also excels at shooting breakneck paced and yet visually comprehensible action scenes that benefit greatly from his previous work as a visual effects artist. He gets off to a great start with an opening credit sequence that not only has some hilarious, self-aware bits of humor but also works as a richly detailed, labyrinth style tableau that weaves effortlessly through a convoy car mid-crash.
Still, Reynolds deserves so much credit here for his commitment to this character and to the project as a whole, for which he also served as a co-producer. So much of this film rides on the personality that he provides and his winning combination of deadpan sarcasm and razor-sharp wit prove to be a formidable foundation upon which Marvel will likely look to build a new franchise. Its success may spawn inferior sequels that quickly wear out their welcome but for the time being, I’m comfortable saying that not since The Avengers has there been a more entertaining superhero movie than Deadpool.
Hail, Caesar! **½|****
Enter Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), whose title of “Head of Physical Production” at Capitol Pictures is basically a sophisticated way of saying that he’s the guy who runs in and out of movie sets all day trying to solve each problem that arises. Throughout his strenuous day, he deals with issues ranging from the pregnancy of unmarried actress DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson) to a Western movie star who is disastrously recast into a high-class period drama. However, his main task involves tracking down famed actor Baird Whitlock (George Clooney), who disappeared from the studio’s biggest production Hail, Caesar! and appears to have been kidnapped by a group who call themselves The Future.
This may be the first time that I’ve felt that the Coen Brothers have potentially bitten off more than they could chew. This film is jam packed with potentially memorable characters, a number of whom only appear in one or two scenes, and promising setpieces that ultimately lack any greater meaning or relevancy to the story at hand. The marketing for Hail, Caesar! promises the same kind of manic zaniness of their 2008 comedy Burn After Reading but it’s not nearly as well paced or structured as that film, which has only gotten better with repeated viewings.
Even though the day-in-the-life framework might suggest a tighter focus on Brolin’s character, the story instead seems to keep expanding further as it goes along. New characters continue to be introduced well past the one hour mark and sub-plots crop up like tangents in a conversation that was never terribly interesting to begin with. The political and religious allusions add a bemusing layer of subtext that may well reveal itself further upon deeper analysis but doesn’t add much to the story from a humor perspective.
Despite the aimless direction, there is no denying that there are specific sequences that work tremendously. A scene between characters played by Ralph Fiennes and Alden Ehrenreich, the latter of whom is struggling with a particularly boorish line reading, is one of the funniest dialogue exchanges in the Coen catalog. The large-scale production numbers involving synchronized swimming and sailor-costumed tap dancing are first-rate throwbacks to the genre films of the era. This love letter to old Hollywood could have benefited from a re-write (or two) and a great deal of more concentration from these masterful directors.
Anomalisa ****|****
Stop motion animation in film is a genre that has long been geared towards children, with a pervasive emphasis on fantastical creatures and otherworldly backdrops for surreal effect. Recent highlights like Coraline and ParaNorman utilize traditional horror elements and gothic imagery to tell creepy bedtime stories in a non-conventional way. What’s so bracingly original about Anomalisa, the latest work from writer/director Charlie Kaufman and co-director Duke Johnson, is how drastically it subverts the traditions of the medium and how authentically it strives to capture the human experience in a way that no other animated film has done before.
The movie follows Michael Stone (David Thewlis), a self-help author of “How May I Help You Help Them?”, as he travels to Cincinnati to give an inspirational speech at a customer service convention. We quickly learn that Stone is depressed and perceives everyone around him as different versions of the same man dressed in various disguises (all voiced by Tom Noonan). When he hears a new voice outside of his hotel room one night, he finds that a woman named Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh) is a beacon of uniqueness in a sea of familiar faces and the two form an instant connection.
Even if this story had been played out in a live-action format, the results would likely still be largely successful but the fact that it’s told not just in stop motion but incredibly fluid stop motion makes this a groundbreaking achievement. The set design and the lighting are impeccable, capturing all of the familiar nuances of a modern hotel and reimagining them for this new, miniature world. The attention to detail simply can’t be understated here; when you realize that the animators had a production goal of 48 frames per day (2 seconds of run time in the film), you begin to appreciate the level of craft that goes into the art form.
Of course, none of this patient effort would matter much if the narrative didn’t match the quality of the animation but luckily, Kaufman has penned his most stripped-down and intimate screenplay thus far. On the surface, it’s a mid-life crisis movie a la Lost In Translation but Kaufman tackles his typical themes of identity and isolation with a more light-hearted and empathetic touch this time around. There are threads of undeniable sadness throughout this film but there are also some unexpectedly playful notes too, perhaps my favorite involving a misleading series of speed dial icons for room service on a hotel room phone.
At the heart of everything is a beautifully rendered love story between Michael and Lisa, in which both characters attempt to push aside their own shortcomings to find a renewed purpose in one another. Like the visible seams in the faces of the puppet models that represent them, these characters have overt flaws that are bluntly put on display for us to examine and to potentially empathize with. In a bizarre way, I began to almost forget that I was watching stop motion at points in the story, which is an accomplishment in and of itself. Anomalisa may just be too peculiar an experience to find a mass audience but as a work of life-like animation, it’s a one-of-a-kind gem.
Brooklyn **½|****
I feel like a jerk for not liking this movie. Brooklyn is about as pleasant of a movie-going experience as you can expect to have all year; a willfully old-fashioned throwback to a time when dramatic stakes were comparatively trivial by today’s standards. To say that I was underwhelmed by the story might have more to do with some innate desire for conflict than with any particular failings of the film itself. There’s little doubt that it will appeal to many who seek it out but despite a rapturous lead performance by Saoirse Ronan and a handful of visual treats, I couldn’t find enough here to include myself among its ardent admirers.
Ronan plays Eilis Lacey, a young Irish shopgirl who grows weary of her mundane village and decides to immigrate to 1950s New York in search of new opportunities. There she meets Tony (Emory Cohen), an Italian-American plumber with an amiable disposition and an undying loyalty to his Brooklyn Dodgers. The two fall fast in love and hastily marry before Eilis is called back to her homeland for a family emergency. After only a few weeks, she finds herself becoming reattached to all that she left behind and must make a choice to return to her new husband in Brooklyn or stay in her native Ireland town.
Going into this film, I was not aware of the Colm Tóibín novel that inspired it and while screenwriter Nick Hornby does add some charming touches to the dialogue, the story didn’t have nearly enough dramatic thrust to maintain my interest. Even when I was intermittently wrapped up in the narrative, there was never a point when I had any doubt about how things would turn out. With the exception of Eilis, I was also disappointed with the lack of depth in the supporting characters, who tend to embody sanitized stereotypes rather than lend much needed personality to the story.
Despite this shallowness, Saoirse Ronan rises above and turns in yet another captivating performance filled with poise and confidence beyond her years. Her face has a sort of magnetic expressiveness to it that gives the impression that her character is constantly searching for new and deeper meaning with each interaction. Ultimately, Eilis’ physical and metaphorical journey is the most interesting part of this story and Ronan hits all of the notes of her transformation beautifully. Ever since her breakout role in 2007’s Atonement, she has proven herself to be one of the finest young actresses around and her work here is integral to the modest successes of the film.
Another recent release, Todd Haynes’ Carol, is also a novel-adapted melodrama set in a stylized version of 1950s New York that features a shopgirl as one of its main characters. While that film has more lurid subject material and is aiming to tell a different kind of romance story altogether, Brooklyn could have benefited from more adventurous storytelling and more fleshed out characters in the periphery. It may win the award for most innocuous movie of the year but it didn’t have enough of its own personality to move me past polite praise.
The Revenant ***½|****
The power of film is in its ability to create a totally immersive experience unique to any art form. We sit in a dark movie theater, aware that what we’re about to see costs millions of dollars and took hundreds of people to make, and the filmmaker’s chief task is to essentially make us forget all of that. Some may call it suspension of disbelief but it runs deeper than that: there’s an undeniable magic to those films that effortlessly transport us from time and place. Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu’s The Revenant follows this tradition with a rare kind of cinematic conviction and steadfast authenticity that will likely render it timeless.
Amongst the unsettled wilderness of the 1820s American northwest, a band of fur trappers and hunters stave off the harsh elements and Native American aggression to collect pelts for trade. After the party’s scout Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is viciously mauled by a grizzly bear, his severe injuries begin to hinder the group’s progress and their captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) orders three men, including hunter John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Glass’ son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck), to tend to his wounds. After a fatal dispute amongst the volunteers, Glass is left for dead and must fight through unbearable circumstances to return to his outpost.
Iñárritu has the poise and confidence of a master filmmaker right from the opening scene, an exhilarating and immensely well-choreographed ambush sequence that reminded me of the similarly stunning D-Day beach raid in Saving Private Ryan. Apart from providing a thrilling action scene to kick things off, he also clues us in early to the type of visceral brutality and natural realism that he goes on to employ throughout the film’s exhausting journey. The story that he tells here is not necessarily a complex one but it’s told with an emotional purity and ruthless honesty that makes the end result as rewarding as the narrative is challenging.
Indispensable to the film’s success is veteran cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who worked with Iñárritu previously for Birdman and received an Academy Award last year for his work. Not only is the film simply gorgeous to take in (Lubezki reportedly used only natural lighting while shooting), he tempers the overwhelming beauty of the natural landscape with an unflinching eye towards the dangers that spontaneously present themselves. Lubezki also showcases his signature style of close-up here as well, characterized by a low side angle that stays tight on the subject’s face and lends depths of intimacy that the performances may not have otherwise had.
And then we come to DiCaprio. Much has been said of his work here and even more has been said of his chances for winning his first Academy Award after having been nominated four times previously. While the notion that he has been under-appreciated by the Academy throughout his career is just, I fear that the “Overdue Oscar” talk may overshadow just how committed and tenacious a performance he gives in this film. In fact, the same could be said of Tom Hardy, who brings an unrelenting intensity to another memorable antagonistic role that serves as a career-best for him. The Revenant is bravura filmmaking from a director at the peak of his powers.
The Hateful Eight **|****
Quentin Tarantino’s eighth film, appropriately titled The Hateful Eight, is the director’s most self-indulgent project yet and he’s not a man known particularly for his modesty to begin with. Presented to select theaters in 70mm projection complete with a roadshow program and a 12 minute Ennio Morricone-scored overture at its start (with an intermission halfway through), this is his attempt to bring the high art prestige of a classy theater play back into modern movie theaters. It’s a noble effort, one that generated plenty of buzz, so it’s a shame that the film at the center of it all is simply not worthy of the spectacle.
Set during a harsh winter in post-Civil War Wyoming, we’re introduced to bounty hunter John “The Hangman” Ruth (Kurt Russell) and his outlaw prisoner Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh) as they travel in stagecoach bound for Red Rock. Along the way, they also pick up former Union Major Marquis Warren (Samuel L. Jackson) and former Confederate fighter Chris Mannix (Walton Goggins), who claims that he’s on his way to Red Rock to be sworn in as the town’s next sheriff. To stave off the impending blizzard, the four shack up at a secluded lodge but when they start to converse with the other four characters who reside there, suspicions about their motivations and identities begin to grow.
Due to its dedication to a single location and focus on solving a central mystery, the film has drawn comparisons to Tarantino’s debut Reservoir Dogs but that film benefited greatly from a tighter structure and comparatively brisk pace. The intentionally slumberous pacing in the first hour of The Hateful Eight is meant to build up excitement for when Ruth and his passengers finally arrive at the lodge but it comes across more as a storyteller spinning his wheels while we wait for the movie to start. While the dialogue between Mannix and Warren is likely the sharpest in the film, it doesn’t come close to matching the poetry and poignancy of passages from films like Inglorious Basterds and Pulp Fiction.
Unlike those movies, The Hateful Eight is severely lacking when it comes to compelling characters. Tarantino clearly went for the quantity over quality method here with eight loathsome characters who hardly possess any distinguishable traits beyond boorishness and sadistic self-interest. It’s possible to write an interesting story about eight “bad guys” sharing a room for the night but it’s an especially bad idea to paint their personalities in broad strokes and then ask us to care about anything that happens to them as individuals.
Most disappointing, however, is the depiction of violence in the film’s second half. This is an area that I’ve noticed Tarantino begin to slip since the conclusion of his last film Django Unchained. There used to be an artfulness and craft to his action sequences that now feels like it’s been superseded by laziness and sensationalism. A primary example is the extended flashback that comprises the film’s fifth chapter, which adds very little context to the main narrative and whose only purpose seems to be to raise the overall body count. Tarantino has always seemed steadfast on topping his previous effort but The Hateful Eight is a sign that it may be time for him to reign things in.
Spotlight ***|****
Set in the fall of 2001, Spotlight takes its name from the select sector of Boston Globe journalists who, through months of rigorous investigation, uncovered a pattern of sex abuse crimes kept under wraps within the Catholic Church. Along with Globe editors Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) and Ben Bradlee (John Slattery), the story focuses on the four members of the Spotlight team: Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James). Together, they doggedly piece through years of evidence and eventually publish the scathing exposé that would take the world by storm.
It’s likely that this is the most heartfelt love letter to newspaper journalism ever put on film. There are a multitude of small details, from set design choices to nuances in the actors’ performances, that clue us into how these investigative minds really work and what it’s like to live a journalist’s life. My personal favorite inclusion is the ever-present pocket-size note pads and frantically scribbling pens, which are seen so often that they practically become main characters in the story. Director Tom McCarthy is fascinated with how these professionals operate on a day-to-day basis and his admiration for their work shines brightly throughout Spotlight.
He also has a commendable dedication to telling this story ethically and with a great deal of integrity, which is not only critical for a movie based on true events but also for one whose central scandal is still in the process of unfolding. As is the case for these type of films, there are many opportunities to take artistic license in trying to spice up the content but the dramatic flourishes are few and far between. Playing it straight doesn’t always make for the most exciting or dramatically fulfilling cinema out there but when it comes to true story adaptation, I’ll take the honest, humble version over the gaudy, glamorized version any day of the week.
This ethic also carries over to the casting as well, as none of the actors (with the possible exception of Ruffalo) seem to be interested in putting on showy performances for award consideration. Instead, they wisely focus on the studious nature of these characters and the work that they carry out together as a team. The film is economical in its opportunities for us to glimpse into the personal lives of the journalists but perhaps even that is by design: we’re kept at a similar distance as the subjects that they interview. Despite the potential lack of depth with the lead characters, the crime victims are thankfully portrayed with the dignity and empathy that they deserve.
I’d be remiss not to mention the overwhelming Oscar buzz that is prematurely swarming this movie. While the nominations have yet to be announced (January 14th is the date for that) and I have yet to see all of the likely front-runners, it’s easy to see why Spotlight is leading in the Best Picture talk. It has the kind of qualities that the Academy frequently fawns over: based on true events, timely subject matter, a recognizable veteran cast. Something about its approach feels a bit too modest for me to throw overwhelming adoration its way but as a piece of workmanlike filmmaking, it’s a respective and responsible effort.
The Big Short **|****
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, a number of notable films have been released with the intent of showcasing the collapse from varying perspectives. J.C. Chandor’s Margin Call depicted the final days of an unnamed Wall Street bank through the eyes of its financial analysts, while Curtis Hanson’s Too Big To Fail showed the meltdown through the US government officials and bank executives who were forced to come together to save the economy. Based on Michael Lewis’ 2010 bestseller, The Big Short focuses on a different group entirely: a select band of Wall Street “outsiders” who saw the credit bubble develop before anyone else did.
It starts with hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale), who notices a massive spike in subprime mortgage loans and decides that it would be profitable to effectively bet against the housing market through credit default swaps. This catches the attention of hotshot investor Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) and after a misplaced phone call from his secretary, day trader Mark Baum (Steve Carell) runs with the idea as well. When Baum and his team dig deeper into how these overrated packaged loans were perpetrated, they uncover a staggering level of fraud that threatens to take down not only the US housing market but the entire world economy as well.
The primary reason that this film flounders comes down to one simple fact: director Adam McKay simply does not know how to handle this material. He has the unenviable task of having to explain macroeconomic theory and terminology while also attempting to get us invested in the motivations of a host of unlikable characters, all while adding a supposed layer of zany self-aware humor into the mix. McKay has proven in the past that he can make us laugh (Anchorman, Talladega Nights) but when he’s tasked to take a complex narrative like this and try to make it funny, he comes across as a woefully incompetent storyteller.
It doesn’t help matters that The Big Short has a surprisingly unpleasant look to it too. From scattershot editing to distracting camera zooms to baffling black-and-white freeze frames, there are off-putting visual choices in just about every scene. Other bizarre touches like the distracting, fake-looking hair on the main actors or the stock footage montages of pop cultural milestones (with the indulgent inclusion of McKay’s own short “The Landlord”) crop up without warning and don’t seem to do much but deter from the main story at hand.
For those interested in learning more about the factors that led to the 2008 financial crisis in a more straight-forward approach, I can’t recommend the 2010 documentary Inside Job highly enough. That film lays out many of the same concepts that are also explored here but does so in a way that values the intelligence of the viewer instead of relying on condescending cameos for clarification. The Big Short had a chance to put a humorous spin on sobering true events but the lack of vision behind it makes it a frustrating miscalculation.