(no subject)
Titles Covered: Xmen: Apocalypse, The Witch, Crimson Peak, Now You See Me, The Peanuts Movie, Captain America Civil War, Anamolisa, Beverly Hills Cop.
Xmen: Apocalypse (** and a half)
Nope, it's not one of the better Xmen movies. Yeah, I kinda saw this one coming...
I've commented a few times that the Xmen franchise hasn't had a clear story or thematic direction in about a decade. Since the original trilogy, we've had a random hodgepodge of stories that have tried different ideas to keep the franchise relevant. It's an admirable effort, and some of the movies have been pretty good, especially Days of Future Past. Actually, Days of Future Past would have been a good place to end the series, in which the beloved original cast came back to take their bows and give us a happy ending. Instead, the series trotted out the First Class cast again for a battle against a purple guy.
The titular “Apocalypse” does have kind of an interesting backstory, as an ancient mutant with the ability to transfer to new bodies and pick up new powers along the way. A prelude scene in which the Egyptians rebel against the false god kicks things off in a good way. Indeed, a lot of the early scenes are very strong, and set the pieces effectively. The problem is that none of this really pays off in the end. Apocalypse is a boring character. He's a generic world-destroying supervillain in a silly Power Rangers outfit. Three of his four “horseman of the Apocalypse” are also poorly-written characters, with no motivations or personality. They're glorified minions.
I'm also kind of torn on Michael Fassbender's Magneto. On one hand, Fassbender's acting is very good, and the early scenes of him in hiding under an alias are very powerful. The problem is that the film series doesn't seem to know what to do with this character. In the original Xmen trilogy, McKellen Magneto was clearly a villain. Yes, he was complex, and yes, he briefly teamed up with some of the Xmen in X2, but there was no doubt that he was a bad guy who could not be trusted. Fassbender Magneto got a solid villain origin story in First Class, followed by two movies in which neither the heroes nor the filmmakers seem to understand that they're dealing with a mass-murdering monster. In Apocalypse, Magneto destroys entire cities with earthquakes (Didn't we learn from Man of Steel that disaster movies and superheroes don't mix?), and afterwards, he and Professor X act like they just had a polite disagreement about what color to paint the Danger Room.
On the plus side, the film is well-produced and most of the actors are fun to watch. The film-making is very strong and the action scenes are quite good, with the exception of a completely pointless Wolverine cameo. Quicksilver returns to do his comedic shtick from Days of Future Past, and it's as delightfully silly and over-the-top as you'd except. The film brings in new young versions of Cyclops, Nightcrawler, and Jean Grey, all of whom are fairly impressive and memorable. One thing, though... Could we please get Rebecca Romijin back as Mystique? Jennifer Lawrence was miscast from the start, and doesn't even seem to want this role anymore.
Xmen Apocalypse starts off strong. For the first half-hour or so, I had no idea why it got such bad reviews. But slowly the movie lost me. It's a watchable but unnecessary entry into a series that should have wrapped up by now.
The Witch (****)
OK, I have a lot to say about this one...
Many of you may know that I do theater in my off-time, and once directed The Crucible, a popular work by Arthur Miller. The Crucible was never intended to be historical, which was one of the reasons I opted for 1950's costumes instead of the traditional colonial dress. Indeed, Arthur Miller's play uses a very modern lens, seeing the witch trials as a political tool used by various parties as a power grab. This makes for great drama and allegory, but dubious history. People really did believe that there were evil witches who had sold their souls to Satan in exchange for the power to destroy everything around them. As C.S. Lewis argues in Mere Christianity, the witch trials weren't a failure of Christian morality, but a necessary response if you were to believe that witches are present, as the early settlers really did.
I bring this up because writer-director Robert Eggers has chosen to take the Puritans at their word. He rejects the modern interpretation, and the movie The Witch imagines what it would be like if the Puritans were 100% correct in their beliefs. So you won't see any falsely accused witches, misunderstood witches, good witches, Harry Potter witches, hipsters with a trendy nature religion, or even the evil potion-brewing witches of Disney movies and Oz books. Nope, these are the old school tools of Satan, and they are way more scary.
The plot concerns a family living in the early 1600's in the largely unsettled American northwest. The father had some dispute with the colonial church prior to the movie's start, and opts to leave his colony to start a homestead in the middle of nowhere. The area is completely empty; there are no neighboring homesteads within a day's walk, no native Americans, and few animals except for some creepy demonic rabbits. This is truly cursed ground. The crew paid strict attention to historical accuracy, so the buildings are crude and the costumes are dirty. When it gets dark, the only light is by candle. What follows from there is a series of completely messed up events as the family is tormented by an evil witch, a force of motiveless malice who is rarely seen by us, and never seen by the family. Soon enough, the family turns on each other, effectively re-enacting the witch trials among a cast of 2 adults, 2 teenagers, and 2 younger children. It's pretty terrifying to watch, and all of the actors are very convincing.
However, the movie might get mixed responses from horror fans, because it doesn't go for the usual frights. The movie plays heavily on atmosphere and creepy ideas rather than jump scares or fear of jump scares. It's not a movie designed to make you scream, but it might haunt you for days afterwards.
For the most part, the movie is extremely effective, but it has a few notable flaws. The actors are hard to understand, such that I had to turn on the subtitles. I understand that they wanted to be true to the original language and accents, but there needed to be more concessions towards comprehensibility. Also the ending is a bit odd. It's certainly very scary, but involves sudden character changes that all happen in the last 10 minutes of the movie. I've gotten very tired of open-ended tragic character arcs, especially as they seem particularly common in many indie movies.
I also feel that I have to warn that this movie goes into some very dark, uncomfortable places, and is very unsettling in terms of its implications on spiritual warfare. It's worth noting that a Satanic temple (eye-roll...) has endorsed the movie. This surprised me at first, since the movie is clearly written from the Puritan point of view. I guess if you see yourself within that worldview but on the other team, a Puritan horror movie takes on a different point of view. I will note that the movie is not a morally uplifting one.
Artistically, The Witch is a great movie. Spiritually and morally, it's a bit more tricky, though perhaps The Witch belongs in the same category as mainstream horror movies such as Rosemary's Baby or The Omen. Cautiously recommended, since everyone will take something different from it.
(Also, since The Witch was a success, now might be a good time for me to push my idea for an alternate-history horror movie, called Roanoke.)
Crimson Peak (*** and a half)
At this point, Guermo del Toro holds enough interest for me that I'll see whatever he puts out. Granted, he's only made one really good movie (Pan's Labyrinth), but even his lesser movies are worthwhile for their visuals and cool monsters. Crimson Peak is a rather odd beast. It's sort of a period drama, sort of a Gothic romance, sort of a ghost story, and sort of a slasher film. It's also a meta version of all of those, since the main character is a writer fusing different genres in a desperate attempt to appease her editors and fulfill what people expect from a female writer. People want romance? Um... OK, but it won't be the main focus. Ghosts are too silly? OK... they'll be used as a metaphor.
The story concerns a young female novelist who has a fascination with ghosts and spirits. She is charmed by an aristocratic Englishman, and moves to his dilapidated mansion in Northern England. The mansion sits on top of clay deposits, and thus has the name “Crimson Peak”. The mansion is also haunted, and full of dark secrets. Thus, the movie is like watching a period romance (think Brooklyn or Jane Eyre) in which the romance is suddenly interrupted by a poltergeist and a psycho killer.
To be totally honest, I had trouble getting into this movie because it doesn't really fulfill any of its individual genres. The romance doesn't work because we know that the relationship is toxic. The slasher murder mystery doesn't work because there's only two possible suspects. The horror elements don't quite work because the ghosts are seen too clearly. Yet... by the time the third act started, I was completely sold. Somehow the weird fusion of genres had worked to create its own thing.
I also must congratulate the cast on their strong performances. It would have really easy to turn this movie into cheesy melodrama, but the actors find just the right balance between sincerity, affected line readings, and playful self-awareness. Mia Wasakoswka continues to be one of the industry's most under-rated actresses, Tom Hiddleston is appropriately enigmatic as her conflicted lover, and Jessica Chastain is scary in ways that I never thought she could be.
It's a bit hard to explain the appeal of this movie, but if you like things that are weird, dark, and slightly off-kilter, give Crimson Peak a chance. If nothing else, you can marvel at the amazing cinematography and scenery, which dropped my jaw a couple of times.
Now You See Me (** and a half)
Here's an example of a very well-done movie that completely falls apart the moment you think about it. The premise is fun, the production is flashy, and the actors are all enjoyable to watch. It's a great movie until you actually try to follow the plot.
The premise is that a team of magicians use their deception and theatrics to rob banks and redistribute the money Robin-Hood style. This is a creative idea, and it's used in some cool ways. Their first act is an interesting idea: they make it appear that the robbery involved real magic. Thus, the authorities look foolish if they arrest the magicians on charges of magically teleporting money across the globe. Another fight scene has Dave Franco using sleight of hand, misdirection, fireballs, and thrown cards to gain a combat advantage. Most of these characters are a lot of fun to watch, especially Woody Harrelson's mentalist (who's like Darren Brown) and Jesse Eisenberg as a close-up magician who opens with a trick that plays to the movie audience. That's an interesting use of the film medium.
The problems start when the movie has to start explaining the magic tricks. There are a lot of holes in the explanations. I'm not talking about the sort of plot holes that one thinks up later, or reads about on a message board. I'm talking about stuff that's so blindingly obvious that it's immediately apparent while watching the movie. Also, as much fun as Woody Harrelson is, it seemed like a cheat to give him powers of hypnosis that work like a Jedi Mind-Trick. Actually, all of the characters are over-powered, pulling off stunts near the end that require so much risk and precision as to be implausible. Normally, this sort of nit-picking wouldn't be a big deal, but it becomes very problematic when half the appeal of the movie is explaining how the magic works.
Despite that, the movie mostly holds together until the end, when it unveils it's final hand. I guess I won't spoil it, but the last reveal really takes away from the achievements of the protagonists, and redirects the interesting Robin-Hood adventures into a dead-end subplot (“The Eye”) that I couldn't care less about.
In conclusion, the idea is great, the characters are a lot of fun, but the plot is bullshit. Overall, Now You See Me isn't too bad, but it needed a lot more thought put into it.
The Peanuts Movie (****)
As a child, I had a love-hate relationship with Peanuts. I always wanted to watch the cartoons, and always loved Snoopy, but occasionally got really upset with the show. Peanuts was actually kind of a cold view of childhood, in which the good kid didn't win and his peers would be downright cruel. Rewatching some specials as an adult, I was surprised to find how subversively sophisticated the cartoons were. Take for example, Shroeder's brutal speech on Valentine's day (“Is kindness and thoughtfulness something you can make retroactive?”), or when Linus is asked the true meaning of Christmas.
Comparatively, the 2015 Peanuts movie may feel a little watered-down. It's a softer, safer, and nicer take on the adventures of Charlie Brown. Yet still, it takes some big chances, mostly in what it doesn't do. It doesn't have any modern pop-culture references, nor are the kids voiced by celebrities (there is one minor celebrity cameo... for a female dog who doesn't talk). It doesn't try to make Charlie Brown modern and trendy, nor does it mock the source material for being dated. And it doesn't try to spin the Peanuts into a sprawling epic story. The story is just about a little boy trying to find success so he can impress the new girl. This is actually a good thing!
The movie is indeed very faithful to the original Peanuts. The animation is 3D, but with a unique style that keeps the 2D poses that you'd see in the comic strip. This works way better than it has any right to. Every Peanuts gag I could remember was included: the kite-eating tree, the Red Baron, the football, Lucy's psychiatrist station, the looped dancing animations, “Dog germs!”, the off-screen adults talking in trombone voices, the oddly-precocious discussions, and even that one story when Charlie Brown had to do a book report on War and Peace.
But faithfulness is not the same thing as quality, and there may be a generation that doesn't know or care about the source material. So it's fortunate that The Peanuts Movie is absolutely delightful. The jokes are funny, the slapstick is appropriately wild, and the characters have a subtle depth to them. A few of the kids are rather simple (Lucy, now that I think about it) but characters like Linus, Sally, and Peppermint Patty are simultaneously instantly recognizable yet surprisingly hard to narrow down to a simple archetype. And amid all the silly cartoon slapstick and Snoopy's high-flying fantasy sequences, there is some real heart to these characters. Even though I saw it coming, Charlie Brown's big redemption hit me hard.
The Peanuts Movie is great. It works both as a solid throwback to the old cartoons, and a sweet and funny modern movie.
Captain America: Civil War (*** and a half)
The Marvel Universe is something of a... well, a marvel, I guess. They've created a bullet-proof brand that seems to transcend the quality of the actual movies, and can get away with assuming that their audience has seen all the previous Marvel movies. That's probably a safe bet, given the current popularity of all things Marvel. In any case, “Civil War” is a sequel to both Captain America and Avengers: Age of Ultron, and might as well be the next “Avengers” movie. By my count, there are about a dozen superheroes at hand. And yes... it's pretty awesome.
That's not to say that the movie is terribly substantial, but it is a fun summer blockbuster with well-directed action scenes and enjoyable characters. Even when you toss out the throw-away cameos (more on that in a bit...), the film juggles an impressive number of significant characters with varying motivations, and keeps everything very sensible and easy to follow. What I liked about the “civil war” aspect is that the conflict has several inter-connected levels. There's the ideological concerns about government oversight versus the potential for political corruption, the personal concerns of Tony Stark projecting his own guilt onto others, plus the fights that break out because of misunderstandings or “heat of the moment” bad decisions. This results in an especially cool but silly battle royale between a whole bunch of heroes, and a simpler but more emotional battle at the end.
However, there's one big problem I saw coming in the trailer: Bucky Barnes. The character has been met with widespread indifference, but has been central to Captain America's motivation for three movies. In that aspect, the civil war strays far the more interesting conflicts and becomes an obsession with this one kinda-lame character. Also, the movie is too long, and some of the characters feel completely shoe-horned in. Neither Hawkeye, Spiderman, nor Antman have anything to do with the story, but get thrown in so that there's more fighters in the big brawl. Does Antman even know these people?
On that note, let's talk about Spiderman. For the record, I loved Tobey Maguire's quiet, understated Spiderman, and hated Andrew Garfield's over-acted version. Tom Holland in Civil War is good, and very distinct from previous versions. He's a much more youthful, childish Spiderman who's just thrilled that he gets to play with the other superheroes. I'm sure he'll be great in his solo Spiderman movie. The problem is that since Spiderman wasn't in the previous movies, Civil War has to go out of the way to introduce him, which all seems like misdirection since Spiderman doesn't do anything except participate in the one fight scene. It's an uncomfortable middle ground between a cameo and an actual player in the story. Black Panther, also a new character, is handled much better, since he's actually relevant to the plot and his story has a beginning, middle, and end (Spiderman's story is more 2nd-act twist + climax). I understand that this is due to the fact that Marvel just got the rights to the character, but the end result is what it is.
Civil War is another fun, bubble-gum Marvel film filled with great action and entertaining characters. I didn't like it quite as much as the previous two Captain America movies (both of which had a bit more substance), but I don't think it will disappoint the fans. If you've enjoyed past Marvel movies, check it out.
Anomalisa (**)
Despite my love of stop-motion animation, I was very skeptical of this movie, because I've never been on board with writer-director Charlie Kaufmann. I find his work unbelievably pretensious and reminiscent of the sort of thing I might have written in my first year of college... if no one ever had the courage to tell me that some my “brilliant” ideas are actually kind of lame.
The first curiosity of Anomalisa is the choice of medium. Why is a mundane film about normal people presented as stop animation in the first place? Usually stop-animation is used to create fantastical or macabre settings. Well, I'll spoil it for you: the only real point of the medium is to make it so that all the characters have the same face and same voice. It's supposed to represent the depressed nature of the main character, who feels very distant from everyone and sees an endless parade of blank faces. I get what the film is going for... but it doesn't really work.
First of all, the puppets don't actually look the same. They all have different hair and bodies, so the same-face thing easily slips by unnoticed when dealing with plastic countenances. This might be an attempt at subtlety (since it would have been WAY more obvious in live-action), except that nothing else about the film is remotely subtle, so it just feels more nonsensical than anything else. The bottom line is that the artistic choices don't feel natural and organic. It feels like Charlie Kaufmann is trying too hard to show off.
Despite my grumbling over such stylistic choices, I was actually intrigued by the early scenes, showing the mundane life of the main character. Anamolisa has an impressive eye for small details, constantly filling the scenes with awkward small talk, and little things that would generally be skipped over in a film. In screen-writing there's generally a goal of eliminating superfluous elements and letting the audience mentally fill in the blank spaces, but Anamolisa goes the opposite direction to such an extreme that it is actually kind of interesting to watch.
Then... the story hits the moment when the main character starts to break out of his malaise, and the movie pretty much falls apart. I would barely be exaggerating if I said that the entire plot of this movie is “horrible, narcissistic man has an affair with a random insecure fangirl.” Apparently, the girl is super special because she has a different voice than everyone else. Yes, it's actually kind of cool symbolism that the girl is the only one with a unique voice, but it doesn't make any sense for this to bring her into contact with the protagonist. You might as well have her stand under a big neon sign reading “LOVE INTEREST.”
But... OK, fine, so the film practically has to break the fourth wall to get the plot moving. Is that so bad? Maybe it wouldn't be, except that the girl isn't really an interesting or consequential character. There isn't a good reason why the main character should be enraptured with her, nor do we understand what personal issues her presence is addressing. The two characters don't have time to develop a relationship and she doesn't help the main guy with anything. She just shares a few drinks with him and then he brazenly asks her to have sex with him. This wouldn't bother me that much, except that the whole movie tries to make the tryst oh-so-deep and oh-so-profound.
There are a few scenes that show some brilliance. There's an interesting dream sequence that sneaks up in a clever way, and proves to be the only part of the movie where the same-face gimmick makes sense. I also liked an early scene in which the main character meets up with an old girlfriend, who gets some of the best dialogue in the film. And as much as I was unimpressed with Jennifer Leigh's character, her rendition of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” is kind of cute.
Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on this one. It is innovative, and if nobody ever tried anything new, we'd never progress. On the other hand, I had to stop the movie half-way through and take a break, because Charlie Kaufman's pretentious nonsense was driving me nuts.
Beverly Hills Cop (****)
You know those movies that are so famous that you feel like you've seen them, even if you haven't? That's Beverly Hills Cop for me. So here I am, catching up on a 30-year-old blockbuster.
The plot goes that Eddie Murphy is a reckless cop from the mean streets of Detroit. When his friend is murdered by hitmen, he follows a lead that takes him to the lavish neighborhood of Beverly Hills, in which even the cops work out of palatial estates. There's some comedy based around contrasts, specifically that between the poor neighborhoods and the rich neighborhoods. But mostly the comedy is about Eddie Murphy. This is truly a star vehicle, letting the famous comedian play a funny character solving a murder mystery. The movie works because Eddie Murphy is excellent in it; everything else is just window dressing. His character is likable, funny, and believable. He also switches up his comedy, alternating between social commentary, outrageous tirades, absurdism, slapstick, and awkward moments.
Here's another thing I liked about Eddie Murphy's character: he raises issues of race and class but he isn't an asshole about it. Yes, he yells and gets worked up because that's what comedy characters do, but there's always a sense that he'll shake hands at the end of the day and say “Hey, we're cool, man.” Through him, even the “bad” cops are allowed to see the error of their ways and become heroes. This is very refreshing in our current times, in which South Park's “politically correct bullies” seem ripped straight from the headlines.
Overall, there's not much else to say about this one. The plot is pretty generic (and somewhat similar to Lethal Weapon 2), but it's great fun to just laugh at Eddie Murphy for two hours.
Short reviews:
All the King's Men (***)
Interesting political thriller about a populist candidate whose grab for power goes horribly off the rails. The movie can get dull, but the political insights are still very relevant. I kind of saw the main character as an evil version of Bernie Sanders.
The Aviator (**)
Meh. This is a totally forgettable generic biopic. Yes, it's well-done, but so uninteresting that I don't feel obligated to give it a passing grade. In particular, I couldn't stand Kate Blanchett, who gives that special kind of Oscar-bait performance that shows off a silly gimmick instead of actually building a character. The movie did inspire me to track down Hell's Angels.
Hell's Angels (***)
Great, great, great dogfighting scenes! The cinematography is actually way better than the CGI recreations you see in The Aviator, because it's all real. The rest of the movie isn't that great, but I loved the two action scenes, as well as the interesting ending. Still, it's hard to top Wings when it comes to WWI movies.
K19: The Widowmaker (***)
Decent submarine thriller by Katherine Bigelow. I really liked the tension between Liam Neeson's practical risk-averse commander, and Harrison Ford's hard-nosed captain. I wish they'd worked on their Russian accents a bit more, since it was distracting every time they slipping back into their recognizable voices. Also, the movie is too long.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (*** and a half)
Huh. This movie is a lot more innovative than I would have expected. I thought the movie was a period drama, but it's like a artsy slasher movie from the point of view of the killer. It's hard to put the audience on the side of a psychopath, but the script does a good job of such.