Captain Marvel (2019)

Captain Marvel (2019)

Cast

• Brie Larson as Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel
• Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury
• Ben Mendelsohn as Talos
• Jude Law as Yon-Rogg
• Annette Bening as Supreme Intelligence
• Gemma Chan as Minn-Erva
• Lee Pace as Ronan
• Mckenna Grace as Young Carol Danvers
• Djimon Hounsou as Korath
• Clark Gregg as Agent Phil Coulson

Director

• Ryan Fleck
• Anna Boden

Writer (story by)

• Nicole Perlman
• Meg LeFauve
• Anna Boden
• Ryan Fleck
• Geneva Robertson-Dworet

Writer

• Anna Boden
• Ryan Fleck
• Geneva Robertson-Dworet

Cinematographer

• Ben Davis

Editor

• Elliot Graham
• Debbie Berman

Composer

• Pinar Toprak

Action, Adventure, Mystery, Science Fiction

Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and brief suggestive language.

128 minutes

It’s finally here: the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe with a female superhero at its center and a woman serving as a co-director and writer. These are unprecedented, exciting and long overdue achievements all around within a pop-culture powerhouse that’s long been dominated by male stories and storytellers.

So why does “Captain Marvel” feel like a bit of a disappointment? It’s fine and often quite funny. It fits securely within the MCU but also functions sufficiently as a stand-alone entity. But the character, and the tremendous actress playing her in Oscar-winner Brie Larson, deserved more than fine. They—and the girls and women everywhere looking to “Captain Marvel” with wide eyes and high hopes for seeing themselves on screen—deserved a game-changer along the lines of “Black Panther” or even “Guardians of the Galaxy” or “Doctor Strange.”

“Captain Marvel” mostly takes place in the mid-1990s, and feels like it was made then, too, in terms of its technical prowess and emotional depth. This is not a compliment. As for the former, perhaps that was intentional—yet another example of wallowing in period nostalgia alongside the grunge chic and girl-power anthems. The prolonged intro in space and the big action sequences have a cheesy, retro feel to them that can be amusing but also inscrutable.

But co-directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have made their names writing and directing indie dramas featuring richly drawn characters facing real stakes. “Half Nelson” (2006), about a drug-addicted middle school teacher, is the movie that put Ryan Gosling on the map and earned him his first Oscar nomination. “Sugar” (2008) is one of the most intimate and insightful movies ever made about baseball. You’d rightly expect that their depiction of the title character—real name Carol Danvers—would be complex, compelling and abidingly human, despite her otherworldly superpowers. But while Larson is tough, plucky and skilled with a well-timed quip, her chief character trait seems to be rebelliousness. That’s a little limiting. (Boden and Fleck co-wrote the script with Geneva Robertson-Dworet, and all three share story-by credit with Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve.) Additionally, she has forgotten who she really is, so her interior life is as much of a blank to her as it is to us.

Despite her fighting spirit, Carol often finds herself as a pawn trapped between various worlds where she feels as if she doesn’t belong. At the film’s start, she’s living and training as a warrior on the Kree planet of Hala. Her mentor, Jude Law’s Yon-Rogg, is constantly reminding her not to let her emotions get the best of her—a pointed commentary on the sexist notion that women are too emotional to handle tough jobs. And “Captain Marvel” is full of such less-than-subtle messaging. But after the shapeshifting enemy Skrulls, led by the swaggering Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), take her prisoner during a battle, she escapes and lands on a different planet: our own. Specifically, she finds herself a fish out of water within the urban sprawl of Los Angeles.

It’s here that “Captain Marvel” leans hard on the humorous kitsch of its decade-specific detail: Blockbuster Video! Two-way pagers! Dial-up Internet! We were so lame. It’s the cinema of empty recognition—a ‘90s version of the way “Ready Player One” relies heavily on ‘80s pop culture to provoke a warm, knowing response. “Hey, Captain Marvel ties her plaid flannel button-down around her waist the way I used to in college! Cool.” These moments and images are good for a chuckle and not much more.

But as Carol begins to piece together her history as an Air Force test pilot, “Captain Marvel” begins to feel like a female version of “Top Gun.” This actually is a compliment; the sections on Earth in which Carol grasps at her memories of the past and discovers her strength and bravery in the present (and in the cockpit) are the film’s highlights. The always formidable Annette Bening is a tantalizingly fleeting presence as a mysterious mentor figure in Carol’s previous life. And Lashana Lynch helps flesh out Carol’s personality as her best friend: a fellow pilot who similarly never got the shot she deserved because she was a woman and a young mother.

Carol’s most rewarding and consistently entertaining relationship, though, is with young S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury, played by a magically de-aged Samuel L. Jackson in a bit of visual effects wizardry. Truly, the result is seamless. You will forget that you are looking at a 70-year-old man. (Clark Gregg, reprising his revered role as Agent Coulson, isn’t quite so believable, but it’s always good to see him.) Larson and Jackson play off each other beautifully, trading snappy banter and affectionate zingers with ease. Their mission is to find a glowy space cube thingy—you know what it is and why it matters if you’ve been following these movies—and keep it out of the wrong hands, but that’s the least intriguing component of “Captain Marvel.”  

But her camaraderie with Jackson—and later with a quick-witted Mendelsohn and a fantastically scene-stealing orange kitty named Goose—ultimately serves as a reminder of just how little there is to Larson’s character. Not unlike Captain America’s role within the Avengers, Captain Marvel functions here as the straight woman, the steady anchor in a sea of big, swirling personalities. Sure, she eventually comes into her powers in full and is literally the kind of girl on fire that Alicia Keys sings about. But if we’re not invested in who she is at her core, how are we supposed to care about what she’s burning down?

Speaking of music, the folks behind “Captain Marvel” spared no expense on the film’s soundtrack, including songs from such female-driven '90s acts as TLC, Garbage, Elastica, Salt-n-Pepa and a painfully on-the-nose use of No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” during a particularly elaborate fight scene. The girl power (and grrl power) ring out loud and clear, if a bit hollow.

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Cold Pursuit (2019)

Cold Pursuit (2019)

Cast

• Liam Neeson as Nels Coxman
• Laura Dern as Grace Coxman
• Emmy Rossum as Kim Dash
• Tom Bateman as Trevor 'Viking' Calcote
• Micheal Richardson as Kyle Coxman
• Michael Eklund as Speedo
• Bradley Stryker as Limbo

Director

• Hans Petter Moland

Writer (based on the movie 'Kraftidioten' wtitten by)

• Kim Fupz Aakeson

Writer

• Frank Baldwin

Cinematographer

• Philip Øgaard

Editor

• Nicolaj Monberg

Composer

• George Fenton

Action, Drama, Thriller

Rated R

118 minutes

"Cold Pursuit" is the 2019 version of a recently minted tradition, the late winter Liam Neeson revenge flick. It's one of the strangest, least predictable movies he's made in years, which isn't the same thing as saying it's consistently good. Based on the Norwegian movie "In Order of Disappearance," and directed by the same filmmaker, Hans Petter Moland, it's a fragmented, meandering tale in which Neeson's character, a Kehoe, Colorado snowplow driver named Nels Coxman, gets a taste of vengeance and becomes a glutton. At times it plays less like a self-contained movie than a couple of episodes of a TV series that don't quite add up the way you wanted them to. It's a shame that it isn't better. At its best, it plays like a wry critique of this unexpectedly lucrative period of Neeson's career, and a borderline-spoof of the genre as a whole.

"Cold Pursuit" kicks off with Nels accepting an award as Kehoe Citizen of the Year, then jumps ahead to the murder of his only son Kyle (Michael Richardson, Neeson's real-life son with the late Natasha Richardson), an airport baggage handler kidnapped and killed by members of a local drug cartel over a mishandled cocaine shipment. The killers made Kyle's death look like a heroin overdose even though the young man didn't do drugs, a touch that adds insult to injury. Nels swiftly dispatches the men directly responsible for his boy's murder, wraps their corpses in chicken wire, and dumps them off a waterfall so that they'll settle on the bottom of the Colorado River and be stripped clean by fish, an evidence-disposal technique that he later says that he learned by reading crime fiction. Unsatisfied by the deaths that he metes out early on, Nels resolves to work his way up the underworld's ladder until he slays the boss of bosses, Trevor "Viking" Calcote (Tom Bateman).  

Complications ensue, and not necessarily the ones you'd expect from having watched other Liam Neeson revenge movies. Moland and his American screenwriter, Frank Baldwin, play around with Western movie motifs, photographing the snow-packed mountains, valleys and roads like panoramas in a John Ford cavalry picture, and envisioning a Cowboys-and-Indians-type rivalry between the white-run drug cartel that's responsible for Kyle's murder and a Southern Ute Indian gang that mistakenly gets blamed for Nels' retaliatory spree. There's also commentary on how outlaws lust after cliched signifiers of respectability. This is conveyed mostly through Viking, a divorced yuppie clotheshorse and preening psychopath who treats his own young son, Ryan (Nicholas Holmes), like a pet, or some kind of experiment in conditioning, micromanaging his diet and recommending "Lord of the Flies" as a self-help manual.

Like its source, this American remake is comparatively light on graphic violence (the beatings tend to be uglier than the shootings), and it has the confidence to handle quite a bit of that business offscreen, staging significant killings behind drawn curtains, or in the cut between one scene from the next. It also detours from the main story to spend quality time with Viking's drug gang, his henchmen (including Domenick Lombardozzi as the aforementioned fantasy football sentimentalist, who refers to Mozart as "Moe-zart"); Nels' ex-criminal brother Brock "Wingman" Coxman (William Forsyth), who got his nickname from "Top Gun"; a couple of Kehoe cops (Emily Rossum and John Doman) trying to make sense of the mayhem, and assorted mates and exes. Laura Dern has a few scenes as Nels' grieving wife Grace, who leaves Nels almost instantly, perhaps sensing that her presence would be wasted in a movie filled with sad, violent, self-involved men. 

"Cold Pursuit" is at least four-fifths a dark comedy, filled with eccentric, often introverted and sad American archetypes. Most would be mesmerizing and/or hilarious if they had been fully fleshed out as characters, and if the film surrounding them were more elegantly structured and paced. The project suffers from a certain flatness in the characterizations, as well as from an inability to introduce new faces, or arrange meetings between established characters, right when the plot needs them, as opposed to much later, when the audience is ready for the story to end and tends to view such moments as narrative speed bumps. But even at its most navel-gazing and disorganized, "Cold Pursuit" still showcases elements you haven't seen before, like the tight-lipped hero asking how many words he's required to speak at an awards dinner, the henchman who keeps losing at fantasy football because he's too loyal to his favorite childhood teams and players, and the Ute crime boss who's saddened by the appropriation of his people's clothes and jewelry by white designers, more so when he turns over a label and sees the words "Made in China."

The film might have been doomed to historical footnote status regardless, because it opened mere days after its star made one of the weirdest, most clueless unforced errors in the history of movie promotion. In an interview, Neeson tried to connect this film, and the futility of revenge in general, to an anecdote drawn from his twenties, when he responded to a white female friend's rape by a black assailant by wandering town around with a crowbar, hoping to get in a fight with another "black bastard" and kill him. Although Neeson didn't kill anyone back then, or even fight them, he flunked the present-day personal disclosure-as-advertising test by failing to realize that the racism part of his story—which he did not apologize for, or even note and explain—was as disturbing as the revenge part, which he condemned on the spot.

Ironically, it's precisely this kind of person who might've ended up as a supporting player in "Cold Pursuit," had the filmmakers been able to justify clearing space in an already-crowded ensemble. Throughout, revenge is treated not just as a disturbing and self-negating activity but sad and bleakly comical as well. The movie starts with a printed quote from Oscar Wilde ("Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go") that sounds like a condemnation of people you haven't met yet. Several of the main characters are obsessed with vengeance. Even more are casually, even murderously racist. It's clear not only that revenge can never satisfy them but that they are incapable of seeing their own flaws, and that their tribal myopia and obsessions with honor and vengeance are ways of distracting themselves from the bone-deep knowledge that they failed the same people whose bodies, or memories, they're hell-bent on defending.

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Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

Cast

• Rosa Salazar as Alita
• Christoph Waltz as Dr. Dyson Ido
• Ed Skrein as Zapan
• Mahershala Ali as Vector
• Jennifer Connelly as Chiren
• Keean Johnson as Hugo
• Michelle Rodriguez as Gelda
• Lana Condor as Koyomi
• Jackie Earle Haley as Grewishka
• Eiza González as Nyssiana
• Jorge Lendeborg Jr. as Tanji
• Marko Zaror as Ajakutty
• Casper Van Dien as Amok

Director

• Robert Rodriguez

Screenplay

• James Cameron
• Laeta Kalogridis

Comic Book

• Yukito Kishiro

Cinematography

• Bill Pope

Editor

• Ian Silverstein
• Stephen E. Rivkin

Music

• Junkie XL

Action, Romance, Science Fiction, Thriller

Rated PG-13

122 minutes

With his 1992 debut of “El Mariachi,” Robert Rodriguez announced himself a director with an eye for action. He prefers to keep his camera movement light and energetic, his edits quick and focused. His movies tend to carry an unmistakable playfulness, like in the all-out barroom brawl between humans and vampires in “From Dusk till Dawn” and the bizarre yet stylish “Spy Kids” franchise in which two siblings face off against some truly surreal-looking enemies.  

Rodriguez brings this fun-loving, action-fueled touch to the big-screen adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s popular manga, Battle Angel Alita, salvaging a project that had languished in development hell since the early aughts. James Cameron, who co-produced the refashioned “Alita: Battle Angel” and co-wrote the screenplay with Rodriguez and Laeta Kalogridis, originally picked up the project around 15 years ago before eventually handing the reins over to Rodriguez. The script is still somewhat unwieldy, chock full of explanations about how robotic bodies work and the history of the decaying setting known as Iron City. Yet, underneath multiple levels of plot and world-building, there’s a weirdo heart keeping the action moving along.

As far as movies about girl robots go, “Alita” isn’t so bad. The movie’s star is a promising Rosa Salazar as the namesake hero, a mysterious yet powerful teen girl bot with oversized anime-style eyes and a good and very powerful heart that could power a city. Alita is the last of her kind, a superior enemy who was somehow were defeated by the humans. After she was found in a scrap heap, Alita is brought back to life with the help of a fatherly doctor, Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz), a paternal relationship that gives “Alita” some of its more stranger moments. More straightforward is the relationship Alita has with a secret nemesis, Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), Dr. Ido’s former wife, and Vector (Mahershala Ali), a smooth-talking kingpin who promises almost anyone who will listen to him a ticket to Zalem, the city hovering in the sky holding society’s upper class over the heads of the poor below.

Even with so many different creative demands on the story, Rodriguez makes the movie his own. Many of his movies feature Latino actors, like Danny Trejo in the “Machete” movies and Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara in “Spy Kids,” and the trend continues with “Alita” as the Peruvian American Salazar gets the chance to lead a big-budget movie. He includes Spanish and English signs in Iron City, and some of the extras can be heard speaking Spanish in the background. It’s still rare to hear or see Spanish spoken in sci-fi movies about multilingual futures unless the films are from Latin America.

“Alita” draws inspiration from various sci-fi sources, like the physical divide between the rich and the poor in “Metropolis,” the mysterious femme being with incredible powers of “The Fifth Element," and the multilingual, neon-lit grimy future world of “Blade Runner,” to name a few. Iron City is a place similar to what we’ve seen in other movies, but it’s outfitted with enough differences to tell it apart, like making the society corrupt enough for serial killers and robbing cyborgs of their mechanical parts and giving the place its own gladiatorial-like roller derby that gives Iron City hopefuls their only shot at getting into Zalem. Somehow all of these storylines are interconnected, which adds to the clunkiness of the script but it never allows it to get boring. Some kind of action sequence is always just a few minutes away.

Although Alita is built with some feminist empowerment in mind, some of the messaging malfunctions against old world patriarchy. The odd paternalistic doctor is just the start. Because she looks like a teen girl, of course, she develops a heterosexual crush on a human teen boy, Hugo (Keean Johnson). Never mind that she’s actually 300 some years older and very much a cyborg. The two share some cute moments, but others, like when Hugo introduces her to chocolate or when Alita offers Hugo her one-of-a-kind ancient technology heart so he can go up to Zalem, feel so old school. Was this all because she’s an impulsive teen girl? In another scene, after a devastating battle with a big bad cyborg, Alita must trade out the delicate, girlish body the doctor had built for his daughter (not weird – at all!) for a warrior-grade bod that adheres to her, um, vision of herself. That vision includes a corset-sized tiny waist and an athletic set of breasts that defy gravity. It’s been 300 years after the fall and we’re still holding onto Barbie-size proportions.

Thankfully, Salazar smoothes over many of these cumbersome details with her earnest motion-captured performance. She physically leans into the awkwardness of walking around as a teen girl bot, unsure of her new body and discovering its potential and limits. She explores her new surroundings with literal wide-eyed wonder. When she upgrades her body, she stands tall and confident, having sped through puberty in the span of a surgery. Her character’s chutzpah is the reason why it vaguely makes sense to jump from a “hunter killer,” a bounty hunter in futuristic terms, to a Motorball prospect when she’s working her way to becoming a warrior.

With so much background and story to cover, maybe “Alita” would have benefitted from a “less is more” approach. But considering its estimated budget of $200 million, “Alita: Battle Angel” is an awe-inspiring jump for the man who first burst onto the film scene with a movie that cost around $7,000. The visual bonanza cooked up by Rodriguez, cinematographer Bill Pope and editors Stephen E. Rivkin and Ian Silverstein is enough to power through any narrative bumps with quickly paced action and bleak, yet colorful, imagery.

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Robin Hood (2018)

Robin Hood (2018)

Cast

• Taron Egerton as Robin Hood
• Jamie Foxx as Little John
• Jamie Dornan as Will Scarlet
• Eve Hewson as Maid Marian
• Ben Mendelsohn as Sheriff of Nottingham
• Tim Minchin as Friar Tuck

Producer

• Leonardo DiCaprio

Director

• Otto Bathurst

Director of Photography

• George Steel

Story

• David James Kelly

Screenplay

• Ben Chandler
• David James Kelly

Editor

• Christopher Barwell

Music

• Joseph Trapanese

Action, Adventure

Rated PG-13

104 minutes

 

 

You could build a suspension bridge over the gap between what "Robin Hood" could have been and what it is. Its hero is credible as a man who wants to rob from the rich and give to the poor, but the storytelling is so impoverished that the message can't stick. 

"Robin Hood" is a malleable tale, but the core is always the same: a cocky underdog fights the power on behalf of mistreated citizens. This new version from director Otto Bathurst ("Peaky Blinders") captures the heart of the legend, but frustratingly fails to translate it. Bluntly political and surprisingly coherent in its messaging, the movie is filled with deliberately modern details signaling that it's a folktale aimed at modern multiplex audiences, closer to a science fiction or fantasy epic than a "Barry Lyndon"-style "accurate" representation of life in another era. If the filmmaking and writing weren't so undistinguished, this could have been special. Instead, it's a flat and often grating experience, dotted by pockets of intelligence and surprise.

This incarnation of Robin of Locksley ("Kingsman: The Secret Service" star Taron Egerton) is a traitor to his class—a veteran of the Crusades who is literally to-the-manor born. He battles the cruel and corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham (Ben Mendelsohn) after returning home and realizing that the bad guy has taxed his community into oblivion to fund the war effort. Robin is joined by the Saracen Little John (Jamie Foxx), who becomes his friend and mentor after Robin risks treason charges to save John's son during the Crusades. 

Robin, John and their allies start stealing gold from the bad guys, Robin's face-concealing black hood becoming a revolutionary emblem on par with the Guy Fawkes mask. At the same time, Robin ingratiates himself into the Sheriff's inner circle, gathering intelligence for his growing rebellion, and uncovering a conspiracy to subjugate the people that's even more awful than what he'd imagined. The film's supporting heroes—including Robin's former fiancee Maid Marian (Eve Hewson) and the local clergyman Friar Tuck (Tim Minchin)—are quite jaded about the world. They require little prompting to join Robin's campaign to give gold and hope back to people who've been abused or taken for granted by the state.

Ben Chandler and David James Kelly's script takes a story that's several centuries old and marries it to modern-day concepts and language, and the filmmakers try to push that strategy to the next level. Like Guy Ritchie's recent attempt to update another ancient English hero in "King Arthur: Legend of the Sword"—and, for that matter, Kevin Reynold's 1991 hit "Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves," from which this film borrows freely—this is a loud, fast, choppy production, with a punkish yet earnest edge. It often apes the look and feel of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, trading energy for elegance, and enthusiastically owning its many, blatant anachronisms. Marian has circa 2016 smoky-eye makeup, the costuming showcases some of the yummiest custom-cut leather jackets in cinema history, and the combat sequences feature archers rapidly firing arrows at each other at close quarters, like gunfighters in a John Wick film. An opening action sequence set in Syria has stuttering handheld camerawork in the vein of "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down." 

The dialogue is likewise packed with modern aphorisms and political slogans that seem meant to lodge in the mind and incite passions. At one point, the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham, who's presented as a Trump-Bolsonaro-Le Pen-styled nationalist/racist despot, quotes George W. Bush's post-9/11 statement "They hate us for our freedom," in reference to the Muslim hordes that the Christian warriors are fighting overseas. He warns that they'll overrun England unless everyone pitches in with their treasure and blood. "They'll burn your houses!" the Sheriff bellows. "They'll burn your land!" Robin and John's friendship is treated as a bond between men who are smart enough to see through the forces that are trying to trick them into hating each other.

The film's genuine cynicism towards the powers that be is palpable, and it runs deeper than you expect. The Sheriff is in cahoots with a cruel and greedy Cardinal (F. Murray Abraham), who reveals that they're secretly funding both the Christians and the Muslims overseas to keep the war machine going and the gold pouring into the coffers of the local mine and foundry, which employs much of the local population and belches flame and toxic fumes. Marian's new husband Will Scarlet (Jamie Dornan), whom she married after Robin was reported dead in the war, is what 2018 political commentators would call a "centrist," expressing guarded sympathy for the motives of Robin and the other rebels while decrying their methods and worrying that they're going to upset a system that provides him with a stable and comfortable life. This is the kind of movie that turns boilerplate phrases into images, as when a newly radicalized character becomes a literal bomb-thrower.

In contrast to many other heroic narratives that are about nothing more than being opposed to bad people doing bad stuff, this "Robin Hood" is about institutional as well as personal corruption; it goes out of its way to show how one feeds and expands the other, and how perpetrators cloak themselves in political slogans and religious imagery while picking the pockets of working people and turning nations against each other. The movie is specifically an anti-organized religion statement as well as an anti-capitalist and anti-nationalist statement: a Noam Chomsky editorial with bows and arrows. 

The film's storytelling, however, is as conservative as its messaging is intriguingly radical. While modernizing other aspects of the legend, the script fails to find a new way into Robin's relationships with John (essentially another neutered Black mentor/father figure to a young, white man, his lopped-off hand preventing him from ever besting his student) and Marian (a damsel in distress, still, no matter how spunkily she resists the rape-minded Sheriff and his goons). 

The direction is paint-by-numbers, capturing every piece of relevant action but evoking nothing—which would be aesthetically offensive even if the costumers, set builders and decorators weren't in there filling every frame with colors and textures worth savoring. There's not a single witty or lyrical image anywhere in the movie, which wastes its dynamic, wide framing, and is shot in a glitzy, fast-cut style, characteristic of high-end TV pilots, complete with BOOM! sounds to inform us that something important just happened. A lot of the special effects are dodgy, particularly a wagon chase scene where Robin, Marian and John flee the Sherriff's guards and the assassin Guy of Gisborne (Paul Anderson) in the fiery mills. The actors are so clearly not inhabiting the same space as the spectacle, they might as well be standing on the deck of The Love Boat. But in the end "Robin Hood," succumbs to Marvel/DC syndrome, presumptuously setting up a sequel that it's hard to imagine anyone demanding. 

 

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Bumblebee (2018)

Bumblebee (2018)

Cast

• Hailee Steinfeld as Charlie Watson
• Dylan O'Brien as Bumblebee (voice)
• Jorge Lendeborg Jr. as Memo
• John Cena as Agent Burns
• Angela Bassett as Shatter (voice)
• Justin Theroux as Dropkick (voice)
• John Ortiz as Agent Powell
• Peter Cullen as Optimus Prime (voice)

Director

• Travis Knight

Writer

• Christina Hodson

Cinematographer

• Enrique Chediak

Editor

• Paul Rubell

Composer

• Dario Marianelli

Action, Adventure, Science Fiction

Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action violence.

114 minutes

"Bumblebee," the first live-action Transformers movie to be directed by somebody other than Michael Bay, a Bizarro World version of this year's "The Predator," though only in one very particular way: there's too much undercooked human drama and not enough 'splodey high-concept stuff (which is competent). Sure, "Bumblebee" may seem like a welcome change-up after six Bay-ified Transformers flicks. But, as somebody who quit the recently revived franchise after the fourth entry, I have to say: so what? "Bumblebee" is only comparatively modest: it's 113 minutes and feels longer, and plays like a lukewarm, John Hughes-ified clone of "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial." There's not only nothing new here, there's nothing convincing. And if I'm supposed to judge "Bumblebee" based on how well it succeeds at what it tries to do (rather than what came before it), it's still not very good.

"Bumblebee" begins with a lifeless homage/tip of the cap to the animated "Transformers: The Movie." War has come to Cybertron, the home of the Autobots—who have apparently already visited Earth, and therefore look like cars—and the Decepticons, who also look like cars and jets and things, despite ... not having been to Earth yet? You guessed it, dear reader: "Bumblebee" is a prequel, a bridge between the notoriously confusing "Transformers: The Movie" and Bay's tediously noisy "Transformers," so it makes sense that this new movie should be ... well, a bit like both the older Transformers film and the newer Transformer films, actually.

Yet while "Bumblebee" is a movie where sentient war machine robots go pew-pew at each other—and blow up trucks, and sometimes reduce human beings to translucent goo—this is also apparently a film about generically rebellious teenager Charlie Watson ("True Grit" star Hailee Steinfeld), a young woman who listens to The Smiths, resents her mom ("Better Things" star Pamela Adlon), and has a tentative romance with a wimpy boy-next-neighbor named Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.). Throw in the mute, nigh-magical, E.T.-like Bumblebee, and bam, you got yourself a thrice-nuked fish-out-of-water-tale.

The film's "formulaic" nature isn't necessarily a bad thing. Problems do, however, inevitably arise with "Bumblebee" since it often appears to be stuck on fast-forward, especially during big emotional moments. Several key scenes—ones that are supposed to establish the film's heartstring-tugging stakes—feel bewilderingly inconsequential, but only because screenwriter Christina Hodson's scenario (realized as it is by director Travis Knight and the gang), feels totally rushed. It's enough to leave viewers with burning questions, though the answers to those questions might seem obvious to anyone who's cursorily familiar with post-"E.T." fish out of water stories. 

Like: why did Bumblebee wait so long—in an early scene, before he loses his voice, and also one second before missiles decimate a bunch of gruff military guys—to command them to "Run?" Because the filmmakers don't have an extra couple seconds to earn genuine dramatic tension, not when they could just make their robot hero strike a cool pose and then get blown up. And why did Hodson and company have the film's villainous Decepticons kill Bumblebee’s Autobot friend on another planet before viewers are introduced to that character in a prior scene? Because wanton death is dramatic! 

As for the film's supporting characters, the one whose expectations Charlie rebels against: they're sadly not well-developed either. Which is a problem, since I can't root very hard for Charlie if my expectations are not overturned with hers. Stephen Schneider's amiably goony stepdad isn’t a convincing stick in the mud since his character's most heinous crimes against Charlie are practicing defensive driving and earnestly recommending one self-help book. And John Cena—playing cranky-pants, anti-robot military guy Agent Burns—isn’t a believable trigger-happy villain, despite the scary scar on his cheek. Finally, Lendeborg's Memo isn’t a credible nerd, despite the way he breathlessly explains why he wears disposable hair nets (sanitary reasons) when he’s confronted by a vaguely threatening valley girl bully.

Then again, what would you expect from a movie that asks viewers to fall in love with Bumblebee, a character who (in this film) appears to be a cuddly VW-shaped war machine? At the beginning of the movie, Bumblebee blows up a robot to rescue of his leader Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen). Later, after a bunch of sappy moments that don't quite land, he blows up a bunch of other stuff (mostly inanimate). Yes, Bumblebee ostensibly loves Charlie, his human owner/buddy. But the military? And the bad robots? According to the film’s aimlessly destructive (but convincing) logic, Bumblebee delivers the only fitting punishment for their (inefficient) kind of violent intolerance: total destruction.

Look, I’m not expecting the shooty-shoot robot movie to deliver a great anti-war, anti-consumerist epic (I used to love “Transformers: Beast Wars” when I was a pre-teen). I do, however, wish that somebody who was responsible for this film’s creation was a little more serious about the tropes that they mercilessly ripped off, I mean borrowed, from executive producer Steven Spielberg. There's nothing implicitly wrong with this movie's approach. You just have to do something with it.

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Escape Room (2019)

Escape Room (2019)

Cast

• Taylor Russell as Zoey
• Deborah Ann Woll as Amanda
• Tyler Labine as Mike
• Logan Miller as Ben
• Jay Ellis as Jason
• Adam Robitel as Gabe
• Nik Dodani as Danny
• Jessica Sutton as Allison

Director

• Adam Robitel

Writer (story by)

• Bragi Schut

Writer

• Bragi Schut
• Maria Melnik

Cinematographer

• Marc Spicer

Editor

• Steve Mirkovich

Composer

• John Carey
• Brian Tyler

Action, Horror, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for terror/perilous action, violence, some suggestive material and language.

100 minutes

 

 

“Escape Room,” a new PG-13-rated horror film, is a sometimes diverting, but overly familiar series of set pieces in search of a good melodrama. There’s not much of a plot: six disposable protagonists try to solve a series of inter-connected puzzles, and death is the penalty for failure.

There’s also not much reason to care if these protagonists live or die, a demerit that slightly (but notably) distinguishes “Escape Room” from what appears to be its creators’ biggest influence: the go-for-broke “Saw” movie franchise, a series of “torture porn” flicks that weirdly improved as its creators grew more desperate to keep diehard fans (and only diehard fans) interested. The “Saw” movies are probably best remembered for their instantly dated gore. But, speaking for myself: I love their over-the-top soap opera plotting, especially in later sequels like “Saw VI” and “Saw: The Final Chapter” (the latter of which is not, as horror fans know, the last “Saw” sequel). 

“Escape Room” has a handful of enjoyably bonkers moments, most of which involve nonsensical death traps. But “Escape Room” is also anemic compared to the “Saw” movies, as you might imagine based on the film’s comparatively weak PG-13 rating. That wouldn’t be a problem if there were other major differences between “Escape Room” and the “Saw” sequels. Sadly, “Escape Room” is only longer and more impersonal than what came before it. 

“Escape Room” also feels pretty schematic since very few plots twists serve to develop the film’s cipher-like characters. Six thrill-seekers pile into the waiting room of a non-descript Chicago office building. A woman’s voice tells them to wait to be seen. They follow her instructions and exchange introductory pleasantries. But then the suite’s door handle breaks, their disembodied host’s voice disappears (surprise: she was a recording!), and a powerful convection oven-style heater turns on. The film’s deadly games begin.

If you’re like me, you probably don’t watch movies like “Escape Room” and “Saw” for their characters or performances. Still, that might be something you do while watching “Escape Room” given how threadbare the rest of the film is. Unfortunately, Nik Dodani and Jason Ellis—who respectively play clueless puzzle nerd Danny and hothead know-it-all Jason—are often loud and annoying. And Tyler Labine, in the role of the likeably clueless trucker Mike, barely does anything. Heck, even the characteristically charming Deborah Ann Woll—as the tough, capable war vet Amanda—is barely able to steal a single scene (you’ll know it when you see it).

None of this would be so bad if the two least interesting performers and characters didn’t overshadow everyone else. Logan Miller—as the twitchy (but young!) alcoholic Ben—is maybe one of the least convincing Byronic teenage protagonists in a recent horror film. And Taylor Russell’s withdrawn college student Zoey is exclusively defined by her exasperating savant-like behavior. You probably already know what’s going to happen to Ben and Zoey, but that also wouldn’t be a problem if the rest of “Escape Room” wasn’t so uninspired. 

To be fair: the death trap set pieces are united by dumb-fun themes, like Tim Burton Room or Dirty Hospital Ward. But that’s about it. The oven-heated waiting room features dull clues, like an (apparently) unread copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and a barely full water-cooler, too. And an upside-down billiards room is only noteworthy because of its annoyingly malfunctioning jukebox (it plays only one song, loudly and frequently!) and rapidly collapsing ceiling, I mean floor. 

Sure, it's less fun than the "Saw" movies, but why doesn’t “Escape Room” work on its own terms? The characters all have dark secrets that ostensibly give meaning to their Sisyphean struggles. But their secrets aren’t dark enough, nor are their Rube-Goldbergian trials wild enough to be memorable. (The second-to-last puzzle room, which looks like a condemned hospital ward, is especially tedious). “Escape Room” may be a welcome oasis at the start of January’s seemingly vast pre-Oscars wasteland. But if you miss “Escape Room” while it’s in theatres, you can probably miss it altogether.

 

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Aquaman (2018) - Film Review

Aquaman (2018)

Cast

• Jason Momoa as Arthur Curry / Aquaman
• Amber Heard as Mera
• Willem Dafoe as Nuidis Vulko
• Patrick Wilson as Orm Marius / Ocean Master
• Dolph Lundgren as King Nereus
• Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as David Kane / Black Manta
• Nicole Kidman as Queen Atlanna
• Temuera Morrison as Thomas Curry
• Ludi Lin as Murk
• Graham McTavish as King Atlan
• Djimon Hounsou as The Fisherman King
• Natalia Safran as Fisherman Queen
• Michael Beach as Jesse Kane
• Randall Park as Dr. Stephen Shin

Writer

• Will Beall
• David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick
• Will Beall

Writer (Aquaman created by)

• Mort Weisinger
• Paul Norris

Writer (story by)

• Geoff Johns
• James Wan
• Will Beall

Cinematographer

• Don Burgess

Editor

• Kirk M. Morri

Composer

• Rupert Gregson-Williams

Action, Adventure, Fantasy, Romance, Science Fiction

Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language.

 

144 minutes

 

 

Whenever anybody asks me what “Aquaman” is like, I mention an early scene where opposing Atlantean forces square off and debate the kingdom’s future. One side rides armored seahorses that whinny. The other rides armored sharks that roar. "Aquaman" is as concerned with scientific accuracy as “SpongeBob Squarepants.” And that’s one of many reasons why I like it. 

It takes skill to be as ridiculous as this movie about a half-human, half-Atlantean prince who’s known on land as Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) without seeming to condescend to the material. Directed by James Wan (“Saw,” “The Conjuring”), it’s part of a thriving subcategory of superhero movies, also represented by “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” “Thor: Ragnarok,” “Venom” and both “Ant-Man” pictures—sweet, goofy, at times psychedelically weird films that mostly reject the sour gloom that gets mistaken for maturity. But that’s not to say that those movies aren’t serious in their own way. “Aquaman,” in particular, feels simultaneously like a spoof and an operatic melodrama. Any film that can combine those modes is a force to be reckoned with. 

Aquaman made his DC Expanded Universe debut in “Batman vs. Superman” and was part of the ensemble in “Justice League,” but this is the first movie that’s put him front-and-center. The results are enjoyable enough that you may wish Warner Bros. had done it sooner. While it’s not billed as such, this is an origin story, positioning Arthur as a reluctant hero. As concieved by screenwriters David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall, adapting Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris’ source, Arthur is a mixed-species character who feels alienated from both of the civilizations he embodies. He's the offspring of union between a lighthouse keeper named Tom Curry (Temura Morrison) and a stranded Atlantean named Atlanna (Nicole Kidman) whom Tom nursed back to health. Atlanna then returned to the sea and was put to death for the sin of birthing a half-human child. 

Arthur has long hair and tattoos, a knack for wisecracks and a fondness for beer, and just wants to be left alone. He rejects allegiance to land or sea, but eventually succumbs to prodding by the idealistic Atlantean Mera (Amber Heard) and becomes a uniter at a time when radical forces, led by Arthur’s treacherous half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson), want to destroy the land-dwellers as revenge for polluting and militarizing the ocean. Arthur is one of those Joseph Campbell-certified, Fated-for-Great-Things heroes, thus the mythically resonant first name. He even has the equivalent of the moment where the future King Arthur pulls the sword from the stone.

The movie is overlong and a bit repetitious (as big-budget superhero films tend to be), and its second half is more distinctive than its first because it lets its freak flag fly. But Wan and company mostly do a brilliant job of shaking the algae from cliches. Rather than get bogged down in plot particulars, they concentrate on characterization and performances, production design, costumes, and visual details. 

Every frame has marvelous details that you might not catch on first viewing. The Atlanteans use their mouths to speak, but there are no visible bubbles, only vocal distortion that suggests "bubbly-ness." When the characters aren’t swimming at dolphin speeds, they square off against each other as if they’re standing on a sidewalk on land, bobbing ever-so-slightly. The water dwellers have lighting that's supplied by luminous deep-sea creatures and high technology that’s inspired by aquatic animals and plants. Some of the battle armor features oversized crab and lobster claws. In one scene, Mera wears a dress with a collar made of glowing jellyfish and a multicolored seagrass skirt. In an arena sequence, we hear taiko drumming on the soundtrack, and the camera moves to reveal a lone percussionist: a giant octopus. 

The fight sequences use high-speed, 360-degree camerawork to create surprise and delight, rather than to add superfluous hype. We’re constantly surprised by where movements start and end, and there are multiple slapstick jokes woven into each encounter. "Aquaman" embraces the childlike absurdity of armored Atlantean troopers coming up onto the land and martial arts-fighting their enemies in broad daylight, presenting the mayhem as plainly as a kung fu showdown in a schlock fantasy like “Infra-man” or TV’s “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.” Rather than cross-cut between multiple lines of action, the camera sometimes swims or flies from one location to another and back again—most spectacularly in a chase-and-fight sequence set in a Sicilian seaside town, where combatants smash through the walls of cliffside homes and scramble across tiled rooftops. 

Momoa anchors the film, imbuing the big guy with surly charm, like one of those early Marlon Brando characters who was a jerk most of the time, but so magnetic and wounded that you couldn’t help but care about him. The rest of the cast is just as committed, notably Kidman as Atlanna, who carries on as if she’s playing the lead in an ancient Greek tragedy; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as David Kane, aka Black Manta, a pirate who swears revenge on the hero; and Willem Dafoe as Atlantis’ counselor Vulko, who advises caution and reason to no avail, and who’s like a second (aquatic) father to Arthur. 

The most remarkable aspect, though, is the way "Aquaman" pushes against the idea that every problem can be solved by violence. There are plenty of bruising fights on land and sea, plus laser shootouts and aquatic infantry clashes, but some of the most important showdowns are resolved peacefully, through conversation, negotiation, and forgiveness. Men as well as women cry in this movie, and the sight is treated not as a shameful loss of dignity, but as the normal byproduct of pain or joy. For all its wild spectacle and cartoon cleverness, this is a quietly subversive movie, and an evolutionary step forward for the genre. 

 

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Once Upon a Deadpool (2018) - Film Review

Once Upon a Deadpool (2018)

Cast

• Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson / Deadpool / Juggernaut (voice) / Himself
• Fred Savage as Fred Savage
• Josh Brolin as Nathan Summers / Cable
• Zazie Beetz as Neena Thurman / Domino
• Julian Dennison as Russell Collins / Firefist
• Morena Baccarin as Vanessa
• Stefan Kapičić as Colossus (voice)
• Brianna Hildebrand as Ellie Phimister / Negasonic Teenage Warhead
• Rob Delaney as Peter

Director

• David Leitch

Writer

• Rhett Reese
• Paul Wernick
• Ryan Reynolds

Action, Comedy

Rated PG-13

117 minutes

 

 

 

Once upon a time, the producers of a little film called “Saturday Night Fever” realized that even though it was making tons of money, its "R" rating meant that those poor unfortunate souls who lacked a fake ID, older sibling, permissive parent or a multiplex with lax security were unable to fork over their hard-earned money to see John Travolta strut his stuff. Unwilling to live in such a world, they gallantly recut a new version of the film that removed enough of the fouler language and dicier thematic elements. Although that version of the film is all but impossible to see today, it served its purpose for both younger viewers and studio accountants.


Now, more than four decades later, the makers of “Deadpool 2” have elected to do the same by taking their decidedly R-rated enterprise and recutting it enough to land a PG-13 rating for a brief theatrical reissue just in time for the holidays, now billed as “Once Upon a Deadpool.” This time around, the reasons behind such a seemingly baffling decision—isn’t the whole appeal of the “Deadpool” movies based on the fact that they are unapologetically violent and potty-mouthed?—are a little more complex. Ostensibly, it is being pushed as a charity thing with Fox donating $1 of every ticket sale to the F--- Cancer organization, which, in keeping with the gimmick, has been temporarily renamed Fudge Cancer. That said, there are crasser business concerns at hand as well. With the last-minute bumping of the sci-fi epic “Alita: Battle Angel” from its holiday berth to next February, Fox had a hole in its schedule that such an endeavor could quickly and cheaply fill. Additionally, with the impending purchase of Fox by Disney, such a project could be seen as a test-run for the potential viability of a more family-friendly version of Deadpool without risking too much on such a gamble. 


To give all involved a little credit, the result is not just a heavily redacted version of the film that will be playing around the clock on basic cable in a couple of years. A new framework has been added to the mix in the form of an extended homage to the wraparound for “The Princess Bride” in which Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) sits at the bedside of Fred Savage (Fred Savage) in order to read the story to him. (Okay, technically, Deadpool seems to have kidnapped Savage, but never mind.) After explaining the premise and then immediately trying to see just how far they can push the limits of the new rating (as they demonstrate, sometimes judicious bleeping can make a scene sound much filthier than it actually is), it then plunges into the film proper, albeit without the blood or the swearing, in some cases by using what appears to be alternate versions of scenes and in other cases by dropping scenes entirely. 


The results, perhaps not surprisingly, are somewhat mixed. On the one hand, the cutaways to Deadpool and Savage are pretty funny as the two riff on everything from the impending Disney-Fox merger, the way that the films sometimes using the snark factor to cover up lazy writing, and the fact that Savage no longer minds the kissing parts of stories that much anymore. On the other hand, the film itself—I assume no detailed description of it is required here—is still kind of dumb, though its freewheeling weirdness plays a little better than it did in the original. At the same time, if you are a parent who has not allowed your kids to see “Deadpool 2” yet in order to avoid exposing them to such crude and violent material, be advised that even this iteration is insanely inappropriate for the little ones (though I suspect that between DVD, cable and the Internet, kids with any interest in seeing it have probably already done so by now).


Is it worth the bother? I dunno. Those not on the Deadpool bandwagon already will probably not be converted by this version and those who are fans may find it to be a vaguely interesting curio they'll watch once. Yes, there is the charity aspect to consider, but instead of buying a ticket and having a dollar of it donated to Fudge Cancer, you could just as easily donate the full ticket price to the organization and skip the movie altogether. But if you do end up seeing “Once Upon a Deadpool,” be sure to stay through all of the end credits.

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Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D (2017) - Film Review

Terminator 2: Judgment Day 3D (2017)

Cast

Arnold Schwarzenegger as The Terminator
Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor
Edward Furlong as John Connor
Robert Patrick as T-1000
Earl Boen as Dr. Silberman
Joe Morton as Miles Dyson
S. Epatha Merkerson as Tarissa Dyson
Castulo Guerra as Enrique Salceda

Director

James Cameron

Writer

James Cameron
William Wisher

Cinematographer

Adam Greenberg

Editor

Conrad Buff
Dody Dorn
Mark Goldblatt
Richard A. Harris

Action, Science Fiction

Rated R for strong sci-fi action and violence, and for language.
137 minutes

While "The Terminator" was a great horror film, "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" is a great action film. While "The Terminator" was about the horror of an unstoppable harbinger of a technologically-advanced but soul-dead present, "Terminator 2" is, like so many action films before it, a paradoxically violent screed against violence. The film's reactionary politics are essentially dated, though there are several modern fanatics who embody the paranoiac impulses that compel self-styled freedom fighter Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) to fight against mental institutions, the police, and common sense to stop artificially-intelligent computer system Skynet from obliterating humanity in a nuclear war. 

But it's important to note that Sarah is not the heroine of "Terminator 2" as she was in "The Terminator," but rather a supporting character who helps raise both estranged son John (Edward Furlong) and cyborg bodyguard/surrogate dad T-101 (Arnold Schwarzenegger). The T-101 is the main character in "Terminator 2" since he, as he boasts, is a "learning machine," capable of progressive adaptation. This was the path to war in the era of George H.W. Bush bipartisanship: using one lethal system to combat a more threatening system. Robots don't kill people—people kill people. 

The T-101's burgeoning ersatz humanity makes Schwarzenegger a perfectly re-purposed tool. Director James Cameron had to convince the Austrian Oak to turn his humanoid baddie into a good guy, a jarring transition that was partly difficult for Schwarzenegger to stomach due to the prior failure of "Conan the Destroyer," another sequel that was relatively lighter than its predecessor. But the T-101's role change works as well as it does because viewers—both then and now—don't necessarily expect Schwarzenegger's deadpan killing machine to be capable of serving as anybody's Jiminy Cricket-like moral compass. Still, that's exactly what the T-101 does when he re-unites John with Sarah, and learns from both characters first-hand the value of preserving human life.

The T-101's change from a villain to a hero also reflects the ambivalent optimism at the heart of "Terminator 2." Some cogs in the system can be retrained, but not all systems are benign. The psychiatric institution, represented by vainglorious Dr. Silberman (Earl Boen), is tellingly dismissed since it keeps singular iconoclasts like Sarah down, and convinces them that they must genuinely want to re-assimilate rather than just mimic a desire to change (in "Terminator 2," bad machines are good mimics, but good people are bad mimics). The cops, represented by the confounded detectives who interrogate Sarah about her connection to the T-101 and the gas-mask-making SWAT team that tries to prevent the destruction of Skynet, are ineffectual, and hampered by a lack of emotional inspiration. 

But nuclear families, like the ones that surround well-meaning scientist Miles Dyson (Joe Morton) and good-natured survivalist Enrique Salceda (Castulo Guerra), are all positive since they represent a bright future that must be protected (hope must be preserved and defended instead of cultivated and maintained). So it makes sense that Sarah stops being a machine-like human, and starts acting like a human machine when she encounters Miles and Enrique, but is either suppressed, or threatened during her every encounter with security guards, orderlies, and cops.

These central tenets of "Terminator 2"'s fear-mongering worldview are also present in "The Terminator," but they are perhaps more compelling in the sequel since they are a product of Cameron's singularly fanatic creativity. I imagine he identified as the clean-burning machine, his vision hindered only by unyielding crew members, pressing budget restrictions, and the small-mindedness of anyone who doesn't agree that bigger is necessarily better. 

For proof, compare the way Cameron shoots violence in "The Terminator" with "Terminator 2." There's more gore and impact-intensive massacres in the former film while the latter is characterized by the relatively sleek killing style of the T-1000, or even the scalpel-like precision of the T-101, who self-disassembles his left fore-arm in "Terminator 2" much faster than he gouges his right fore-arm and his left eyeball "The Terminator." And while there aren't more collisions and car crashes in "Terminator 2" than there are in "The Terminator," there are bigger explosions. "Terminator 2" oozes barely-sublimated tension that hails from Cameron's highly personal vision, as we see during formative car chases, pyrotechnics, and body-morphing computer effects.

In fact, one major reason to revisit the "Terminator 2" is that the post-converted 3-D makes the film's textures that much richer, especially any surface covered in fire, sweat, or light. Special effects designer Stan Winston's cyborg puppets and computer effects are worth the extra couple of bucks for 3-D, especially his body-deforming designs for the T-1000, like the bifurcated "Pretzel Man," or the porous "Donut Head." 

Schwarzenegger and his mostly excellent cast-mates may not need a glossy technological reboot, but it is nice to be reminded on a big screen, through engrossing close-ups, tracking shots, and complex lighting set-ups, that Cameron knows how to use his human cogs to maximally service his hulking anti-authoritarian blockbuster. His maximalist style pays off big time, making "Terminator 2" that rare genre classic that is every bit as good as its reputation.

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Venom (2018) - FIlm Review

Venom (2018)

Cast

Tom Hardyas Eddie Brock / Venom
Michelle Williamsas Anne Weying
Riz Ahmedas Dr. Carlton Drake / Riot
Reid Scottas Patrick Mulligan
Michelle Leeas Donna Diego

Director

Ruben Fleischer

Screenplay

Scott Rosenberg
Jeff Pinkner
Kelly Marcel

Characters

David Michelinie
Todd McFarlane
Mike Zeck

Director of Photography

Matthew Libatique

Original Music Composer

Ludwig Göransson

Editor

Alan Baumgarten

Action, Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for language.

112 minutes

 

 

Tom Hardy is notorious for giving it his all—for digging in deep, physically and emotionally, for every role he inhabits. Whether it’s bulking up to play Bane in “The Dark Knight Rises,” being strapped to the front of a truck for “Mad Max: Fury Road,” spouting indecipherable dialogue as British gangster twins in “Legend” or spending the entirety of a shoot alone in a car for “Locke,” Hardy never half-asses it. It’s been said many times before, but it’s true: He’s our generation’s Brando.

So of course, Hardy applies that same intensity to the comic-book anti-hero origin story, “Venom.” And his fully committed performance is pretty much the only reason to see it.

This is an extremely minor entry in the Marvel universe (although it’s not technically a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for those of you who care about these things), a tonally wonky lark that’s actually stronger when it’s sillier. It’s a mess, but a fun mess—at least for a while.

Think of this as an intensely violent version of “All of Me,” the 1984 comedy in which Lily Tomlin’s soul ends up in Steve Martin’s body. As in that film, the best parts of director Ruben Fleischer’s uneven extravaganza occur when Hardy’s character, investigative reporter Eddie Brock, struggles to retain control of his body, even as an otherworldly life force in the form of a menacing black blob is gaining strength inside and bickering with him.

The most successful example of this comes when Eddie first realizes the extent of his newfound (and unwanted) abilities—the thing that turns him from a regular guy into a hulking mass. A group of heavily armed henchmen have invaded his shabby San Francisco apartment to take him down and retrieve the gooey alien specimen inhabiting him, which he accidentally acquired while snooping around a high-tech lab. Eddie unwittingly annihilates them one by one, his limbs instantly stretching and transforming into sharp, shiny and supremely deadly weapons. His body gets yanked hither and yon and his panic rises, even as the growling voice in his head (also Hardy) grows louder and lifeless bodies lie scattered in his frenzied wake. In moments like this, Hardy seems down for both the demanding physicality of the role as well as the dark humor, even though the two mixed together aren’t always the smoothest fit as the film goes on.

When he’s completely overtaken by the wide-eyed, sharp-toothed Venom, he literally bites people’s heads off, but he also wants you to toss your head back in laughter with his wacky quips. (Four writers get screenplay credit: Scott Rosenberg, Jeff Pinkner, Kelly Marcel and Will Beall). It’s a tough balance to strike, one the extremely R-rated “Deadpool” movies achieved by absolutely going for it in terms of both ridiculous violence and raunchy humor. “Venom” is right there on the edge of what you can get away with and still maintain a PG-13 rating, in that it features massive amounts of carnage, gunfire and destruction, but no bloodshed. But as the film’s action set pieces grow larger in scale—including one particularly exciting motorcycle chase through the streets of San Francisco—they increasingly fail to connect emotionally and visually.

Fleischer (“Zombieland,” “Gangster Squad”) had the benefit of working with a true artist in Matthew Libatique, Darren Aronofsky’s longtime cinematographer. (He also happens to have shot Bradley Cooper’s remake of “A Star Is Born,” which is opening this week, as well. It’s a must-see for a multitude of reasons, but Libatique’s glossy, dreamy images are among them.) But so much in “Venom” happens at night—and Venom himself essentially looks like an enormous dominatrix clad in head-to-toe black Latex—that it’s often difficult to discern what’s happening. This is especially true when Venom takes on a guy whose body has become the host for another angry blob: mad billionaire scientist Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), who’d hoped to tame these space specimens for the supposed good of mankind.

Their fight scenes are as inscrutable as anything you’d see in a “Transformers” movie: a sticky mass of sinew, screams and flailing limbs. Sometimes, it’s clear that there are people inside these creatures, as opposed to the other way around, which complicates the visuals even further. But once again, on a more intimate level, the playful connection between Eddie and Venom can be enjoyable. This is often true in his/their interactions with Michelle Williams, who’s imminently overqualified for the role of Eddie’s ex-fiancée, Anne Weying. Hardy also has some sprightly interplay with Jenny Slate as the whistleblower at Drake’s company; it’s one of several examples of the film’s inspired casting.

And eventually, as we know, Venom will have to become a villain in Spider-Man’s web. That’s why we care about him, theoretically. For now, in Hardy’s hands, it’s the ambiguity of the character—if not his surroundings—that makes him intriguing.

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