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UNFRIENDED (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Posted on July 25, 2018 with No comments

Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)

Cast
Director
  • Stephen Susco
Writer
  • Stephen Susco
Cinematographer
  • Kevin Stewart
Editor
  • Andrew Wesman
Horror
Rated R for some disturbing violence, language and sexual references.
88 minutes


I'm torn: should I laugh or yell at the lousy anti-internet horror film "Unfriended: Dark Web?" 
Like its 2014 predecessor, "Unfriended: Dark Web" is a deeply misanthropic horror film that follows a group of hapless Millennials—through realistic-looking video footage of their computer screens—as they are cyber-terrorized by a mysterious group of internet trolls/killers. The biggest difference between the two films is that "Unfriended" is dynamic and cruel while "Unfriended: Dark Web" is unbelievably stupid and sadistic. Neither movie is especially smart or incisive about the Way We Live Now, but they don't really have to be. 

Still, "Unfriended" works because its creators capably lead viewers around by the nose. "Unfriended: Dark Web" doesn't because its makers have a bunch of ideas, but fail to synthesize them in any meaningful way. The result is an unbelievable social critique built on the back of a Rube Goldberg-esque series of unbelievable, cruel plot twists that will make even the most credulous moviegoer roll their eyes in disbelief. Maybe future viewers will get a kick out of this film's campy depiction of a vast internet-enabled conspiracy that's foisted onto Matias (Colin Woodell), his deaf girlfriend Amaya (Stephanie Nogueras), and their pals after Matias acquires a mysterious used laptop. But today—when most viewers probably don't know or care what the "dark web" is—"Unfriended: Dark Web" looks pretty desperate.

For starters: Matias's actions are so hatefully stupid that he made me appreciate the relatively advanced problem-solving skills of the sexually active protagonists from '80s slasher films. Unlike those kids, who were just horny in the wrong places, Matias seems to be allergic to logic. He impulsively opens more computer programs—which he has to decrypt, log in to, and repeatedly engage with—and interacts with more strangers than any thinking, feeling person ever could. 

Matias ignores several big, bold warning signs, like the portentous screen names of his stalkers (they all call themselves "Charon," which prompts a hilariously insipid Wikipedia search for information on the Greek underworld's ferryman). One anonymous interlocutor has an unsettling request: he wants Matias to "trephine" a girl (another Wiki-explanation: "trephining" is when you drill a hole into a human skull). Also, all of Matias' adversaries communicate using a shady private chat room called "The River" that looks like torch-lit sewer canal from the similarly crude and gory "Doom" computer games. What year is this, and how slow is the dial-up modem?
By now, you've probably figured out that Matias is the kind of dumb-dumb horror movie protagonist whose contrived behavior only makes sense as a means of pushing along his obnoxious story. Each new plot development is so slapdash and uninspired that it's impossible to suspend one's disbelief. I can't even tell if the baddies' use of a make-shift sound board and a well-timed van (yes, it's just a regular, gas-fueled van) are supposed to be funny, or are just unintentionally lame. I'm leaning towards the latter since it's impossible to take seriously a movie where a sassy but defenseless deaf girl is repeatedly imperiled by a faceless internet-enabled killer who uses a goofy-sounding hacking tool to send all-caps chat room threats to his victims (a distorted chiming noise can be heard every time the evil hacker contacts Matias; it sounds like the hacker's cell phone is ringing while he's accidentally flushing it down the toilet). 
The illogical nature of these generic plot twists would be forgivable if watching "Unfriended: Dark Web" wasn't such a punishing and unrewarding experience. Matias toggles between various windows and tabs, but is frequently interrupted by strange women, malicious computer dweebs, and pesky friends. His interactions are therefore mostly of the "What do you want me to do now" or "We can't do Y, or X will happen" variety. And every new conversation only further trips up Matias and his friends, none of whom exhibit enough technological know-how or emotional maturity to make them worth rooting for. 

And because "Unfriended: Dark Web" stinks on a basic storytelling level, it's impossible to take seriously as a low-brow cultural critique. In this film, our primary source of human contact is a group of cartoonishly naive Millennials. Is their blinkered naïveté supposed to reflect social media users' deep-rooted alienation? Sure, let's go with that. 

Honestly, it's hard to appreciate being chastised for willingly giving away so much personal information online—and for being so short-sighted about the "private" nature of our online interactions—when the film's protagonists are too dumb to fight back against big bad social media boogeymen who use Photoshop and word processing tools to entrap our heroes. The internet may be a nightmare, but it's a whole lot scarier than anything in "Unfriended: Dark Web."


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SKYSCRAPER (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Posted on July 25, 2018 with No comments

Skyscraper (2018)

Cast
Director
  • Rawson Thurber
Writer
  • Rawson Marshall Thurber
Cinematographer
  • Robert Elswit
Editor
  • Michael L. Sale
  • Julian Clarke
Composer
  • Steve Jablonsky
Action, Drama, Thriller
Rated PG-13 for sequences of gun violence and action, and for brief strong language.
 
109 minutes
 
 
The signature promotional image of “Skyscraper,” the latest Dwayne Johnson summer extravaganza, features the charismatic blockbuster star hanging from a soaring building by only his left hand. His wedding ring gleams prominently in the foreground, illuminated by the deadly blaze that’s raging all around him. 

The ring draws our attention as powerfully as the earnest intensity in his eyes, a reminder that—not unlike the “Fast & Furious” franchise in which Johnson figures so prominently—this story is all about #family. Mainly, though, it’s a mindless mash-up of “Die Hard” and “The Towering Inferno”: just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful? 

But writer/director Rawson Marshall Thurber has attempted the problematic combination of making you feel good about bravery and resilience while also making you feel nothing about the countless bodies that get blown to bits in a hail of automatic gunfire. Many, many people die needlessly in this PG-13 spectacle in the name of thrills, maybe? Character development? The international cadre of criminals who take over a Hong Kong high-rise – the tallest structure in the world, three times the size of the Empire State Building – are clearly, singularly bad. Having them burst into people’s offices and obliterate them entirely—while the camera steers away from the bloodshed, per MPAA guidelines—feels gratuitous. 

You’re not here to think, though. You’re here to have fun, and “Skyscraper” does indeed provide that in its many dizzying and death-defying action sequences. It’s the connective tissue between the daring stunts that’s flimsy.

But first: a flashback to 10 years ago. Johnson’s Will Sawyer is a highly trained Marine and FBI agent who’s in charge of a hostage negotiation that goes horribly wrong (another instance of placing characters in the midst of jarring, over-the-top violence). Having lost his left leg below the knee in that explosive incident, Will now serves as a security consultant. His latest job has taken him, his wife, Sarah (Neve Campbell), and their twins (McKenna Grace and Noah Cottrell) to Hong Kong, where he must analyze the safety of The Pearl before it opens. A shining, self-contained city, stretching 200-plus stories into the clouds, it’s the brainchild of billionaire Zhao Long Ji (Chin Han). Characters stand around and provide painfully clunky expository dialogue, all of which will matter at some point later, detailing the building’s many high-tech features.

Not for long, though. Thurber isn’t terribly interested in steadily building tension. “Skyscraper” kicks into gear pretty quickly and remains relentless. A team of villains, led by the menacing Kores Botha (Roland Moller), has broken in with highly flammable chemicals in order to steal the most McGuffiny of McGuffins. (They shouldn’t even have bothered explaining it, the item in question is so disproportionately insignificant compared to the mayhem it causes.) But when they torch the joint, they don’t realize that Will’s wife and kids are still inside one of the residential units. And as the flames rise higher and higher from what began as a thin, orange line on the 96th floor, the danger and the insanity climb with them.

Of course, because it’s Johnson playing this character, he’ll do whatever he must to save them, with each new obstacle that comes his way presenting a more ridiculous challenge than the last. But what’s novel about Johnson in this role is that he’s not completely indestructible. His character uses a prosthetic leg, and the film cleverly uses that as an asset, not an impediment. 
Individual moments certainly stand out, with the staggeringly overqualified Robert Elswit (Paul Thomas Anderson’s usual cinematographer) placing us in the midst of the fiery madness. Will’s climb to the top of a 100-story crane and his leap across the night sky to The Pearl through a broken window is thrillingly staged. So is his use of duct tape to A) patch up his wounds before B) placing it on his hands and feet to Spider-Man his way across the glass exterior. (If you suffer from vertigo or have even the slightest fear of heights, this may not be the breezy escape you’re looking for this summer.) One of the more enjoyable parts of “Skyscraper”—and this was also true of “Die Hard”—is the way it makes us feel as if we’re figuring out the plan minute by minute alongside the far more capable hero on the screen. (Although my kid turned to me about three-fourths of the way through the screening and said: “I have a hard time believing this all happened in one day.”)

"Skyscraper" also provides a surprisingly solid role for Campbell; Sarah is never a damsel in distress, but rather a combat-trained surgeon capable of kicking her own allotment of butt while also caring for her kids. (She also speaks several Asian languages, which comes in handy throughout the film.) Imagine if she were the one tasked with saving the day, and her family, and the entire building. Now that would truly be thrilling. 


 
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MAMMA MIA - HERE WE GO AGAIN (2018) - FILM REVIEW

Posted on July 23, 2018 with No comments

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) 

 

Cast
Director
  • Ol Parker
Writer
  • Ol Parker
Director of Photography
  • Robert D. Yeoman
Comedy, Music, Romance
Rated PG-13
120 minutes
 
 
If you loved the first “Mamma Mia!” movie back in 2008, well, “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again” offers even more—and even less.

The sequel (which is also a prequel) features a bigger cast, a longer running time, extra subplots and additional romantic entanglements. But it’s emptier than its predecessor and has even lower stakes. It’s less entertaining, and for all its frantic energy, it manages to go absolutely nowhere.
Once again inspired by the music of ABBA and set on a picturesque Greek island, the second “Mamma Mia!” is the lightest piece of Swedish pastry with the sweetest chunk of baklava on the side. And while that may sound delicious, it’s likely to give you a toothache (as well as a headache).

At one point, during a particularly clunky musical number, I wrote in my notes: “I am so uncomfortable right now.” But while the goofy imperfection of this song-and-dance extravaganza is partially the point—and theoretically, a source of its charm—it also grows repetitive and wearying pretty quickly.

No single moment reaches the infectious joy of Meryl Streep writhing around in a barn in overalls performing the title song in the original film, or the emotional depth of her singing “The Winner Takes It All” to Pierce Brosnan. Along those lines, if you’re looking forward to seeing Streep show off her playful, musical side again, you’re going to be disappointed. Despite her prominent presence in the movie’s marketing materials, she’s barely in it.

That’s because Streep’s free-spirited Donna has died, we learn at the film’s start, but her presence is felt everywhere in weepy ways. Her daughter, Sophie (Amanda Seyfried), is re-opening the inn her mom ran—now christened the Hotel Bella Donna—on the same idyllic (and fictional) Greek island of Kalokairi where the first film took place. Writer-director Ol Parker (whose relevant experience includes writing those “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” movies) jumps back and forth in time between Sophie nervously putting the finishing touches on the big party she’s planning and the story of how her mother originally ended up on this remote slab of land in the Aegean Sea—and became pregnant with Sophie in the late 1970s without being entirely sure of who the father was.


First, there’s the skittish Harry (Hugh Skinner), who tries to charm her with his halting French in Paris. Next comes the sexy Swede Bill (Josh Dylan), who woos her on the boat that carries her out to the island. Finally, there’s aspiring architect Sam (Jeremy Irvine), who’s already vacationing on Kalokairi when she arrives. They will grow up to be Colin Firth, Stellan Skarsgard and Brosnan, respectively, and they will be forced into singing ABBA songs that clearly make them miserable.
Ah yes, the ABBA songs. They provided the confectionery connective tissue for the smash-hit stage musical and the original movie. This time, the ‘70s Swedish supergroup’s tunes that are the most rapturous are also replays from the first go-round: a flotilla of fishermen singing and prancing to “Dancing Queen,” or the splashy finale uniting the whole cast for “Super Trouper.” Much of the soundtrack consists of lesser-known songs, and the uninspired way those numbers are staged and choreographed rarely allows them to soar.

Once again, though, these actors are such pros that they can’t help but make the most of their meager material. Baranski and Walters in particular have crackling chemistry again. The brief moments in which the supremely overqualified Firth, Skarsgard and Brosnan pal around with each other as Sophie’s three dads made me long to see them together in something else. Anything else. A documentary in which they have lunch on the porch under sunny Greek skies, even.
And then Cher shows up. Now, it would seem impossible for this superstar goddess ever to be restrained. But as Sophie’s frequently absent grandmother, Cher seems weirdly reined in. Again, it’s the awkwardness of the choreography: She just sort of stands there, singing “Fernando,” before stiffly walking down a flight of stairs to greet the person to whom she’s singing. (As the hotel’s caretaker, Andy Garcia conveniently plays a character named Fernando, which is an amusing bit.)

But if you’re down for watching A-list stars belt out insanely catchy, 40-year-old pop tunes in a shimmering setting, and you’re willing to throw yourself headlong into the idea of love’s transformative power, and you just need a mindless summer escape of your own, you might just thoroughly enjoy watching “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.” Don’t think, and pass the ouzo.


 

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THE WORLD CUP IS OVER - THE BREAK IS OVER - BACK TO MOVIES - THE EQUALIZER 2 - FILM REVIEW

Posted on July 22, 2018 with No comments

The Equalizer 2 (2018)

Cast
Director
  • Antoine Fuqua
Screenplay
  • Richard Wenk
Director of Photography
  • Oliver Wood
Action, Crime, Thriller
Rated R


Despite working in feature films for nearly 40 years, Denzel Washington has never until now appeared in a sequel to one of his films. Oh sure, he has done a number of films where one suspects that future installments might have been contemplated at some point but none have ever come to fruition. Now he has finally taken the sequel bait with “The Equalizer 2” and the only thing more baffling than the question of why none of his other movies got follow-ups is the question of why he would bring an end to that streak with something so completely useless.
Yes, the 2014 film, based on the mid-Eighties television show of the same name, was a box-office hit, but it was one of those hits that faded so quickly from the mind after it departed theaters that even those who professed to like it would be hard-pressed to actually remember anything about it. Luckily for them, that shouldn’t be a problem this time around because even the most easily satisfied fans of Washington will be unlikely to find much of anything in this sadistic, stupid and sloppy sequel.

The first film featured Washington as Robert McCall, a seemingly unassuming worker at a big box store who just happened to be an ex-CIA agent with a particular set of skills that he would deploy on anyone who crossed paths with himself or any of his vague acquaintances. At one point, I recall, the store was robbed and one of the thieves took a co-worker's cherished wedding ring. Luckily, thanks to his unique skill set (which I believe consisted of getting the license plate number of the getaway car), he figures out where the thief lives, visits him in the middle of the night with a hammer borrowed from the store stock and beats the guy with it before getting the ring back and returning it. His only true friends were Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo), a former agency colleague who is the only person who knows he is still alive, and her husband Brian (Bill Pullman). 

This time around, it seems that, like most people, McCall has been forced out of the retail industry and is now a Lyft driver. Happily, this still allows him to come across unsavory characters and brutally dispatch them as payment for their misdeeds. He even gets the occasional off-the-books freelance assignment from Susan—the opening sequence has him destroying a group of kidnappers on a train bound for Istanbul. For the most part, however, he seems to be in a bit of a lull as his current projects—trying to help an elderly Lyft customer (Orson Bean) recover a painting stolen from his family by the Nazis and mentoring a neighbor kid, Miles (Ashton Sanders) by encouraging him to paint a mural instead of dealing drugs—do not require much stabbing, shooting or neck-breaking. That all changes when Susan goes off to Belgium to look into the mysterious murder-suicide of a high-level agency contact and meets an ugly end. This makes things—Spoiler Alert!—personal, and McCall is soon on the case utilizing his extraordinary intuition and impeccable killing skills to track down Susan’s killers and wipe them out.

If the plot of “The Equalizer 2” sounds dull and perfunctory in the retelling, you cannot imagine how much more of a drag it is to watch it play out before your eyes. The screenplay by Richard Wenk is a joke, a lame collection of bland characters, nonsensical plotting and revenge-movie clichés that occasionally interrupt the carnage for the uninspired subplot involving McCall and the kid that appears to have been shoehorned into the proceedings in order to convince Washington that he was making something that wasn’t just another “Death Wish” clone. Neither Washington nor director Antoine Fuqua—whose previous collaborations have included the original “The Equalizer,” “Training Day” and the remake of “The Magnificent Seven”—seem willing to do much of anything more than simply go through the motions in exchange for their paychecks, it is the furthest thing from personal for them.

The only memorable aspect on hand in “The Equalizer 2” is also its least appetizing attribute—the relentless amount of sadistic violence on display. Yes, I am aware that a film along these lines pretty much requires a heaping helping of brutality throughout, but this one, like its predecessor, is so far beyond the pale that it comes closer to being nauseating than exciting. This is even more off-putting because if I remember the original TV show correctly, the character tended to get the best on criminals by using his intellect and would only switch to violence as a last resort. I can definitely see Washington playing a character like that successfully, but that aspect has been almost entirely dropped in order to squeeze in a few more neck-stabbings and face-spearings. The scene in which Melissa Leo’s character meets her demise is especially ugly, all the more so when you recall that in her previous film with Fuqua, “Olympus Has Fallen” (2013), she went through another extended scene in which she underwent a particularly brutal beating in what I sincerely hope is just a coincidence. Even if it is, Leo might want to consider not picking up the phone the next time he calls her.

“The Equalizer 2” is slickly made and largely appalling garbage but there is a good chance that it will do fairly well at the box office, thanks almost entirely to the enormous amount of goodwill that Washington has generated with moviegoers over the years. It is just too bad to see it squandered on something as nasty as this. There is no doubt, of course, that he can and will do better in the future with projects that make far better use of his talents. Of course, moviegoers can also do better in the future as well, especially if they avoid this one at all costs.


 
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