directed by Bryan Singer
written by Anthony McCarten and Peter Morgan
The long-gestating Freddie Mercury biopic finally comes to the big screen, with American actor Rami Malek delivering a stunning performance as one of the most iconic rock stars of all time.
Bohemian Rhapsody, which tells, very loosely, the story of the rock band Queen from its inception to its legendary performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium, actually plays pretty much by the numbers. It starts with their humble beginnings; Freddie Mercury, aka Farokkh Bulsara (Malek) the humble immigrant from Zanzibar (now Tanzania) works at Heathrow airport unpacking luggage from airplanes, but already dreams of being a performer. His dream gets a boost when he joins the college campus band Smile consisting of Brian May (Gwilym Lee) and Roger Taylor (Ben Hardy), whose vocalist has just abandoned them. They are joined by bassist John Deacon (Joe Mazzello), and the band Queen is born. Also joining Freddie in his meteoric rise to the top is Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) a saleslady with whom Freddie strikes up a romance, and who later proves to be the single most important person in his life. As the band goes from strength to strength and rockets to superstardom with their iconoclastic approach to making music, fame and all its trappings start to get to them, and to Freddie in particular as he struggles with his sexuality, and threaten to tear them all apart.
Much has been written about how this film handled its controversial subject matter, Freddie Mercury, with kid gloves and to be fair, one does get the sense that the narrative has been sanitized a bit. I can't say I'm too surprised given how closely the surviving band members supervised production. One scene in particular, in which the three other band members leave Freddie's party with their wives when things start to get a bit wild, had me rolling my eyes a little bit, not because I don't think it ever happened, but because the suggestion that Mercury was the only wild child of the bunch seemed patently absurd. Still, this movie was about Freddie first and foremost, and I can't imagine anyone getting in line to see a movie about Roger Taylor's marital travails. Ultimately, though, this kind of storytelling choice contributes to the impression that the film went a bit easy on the band.
What I find grossly unfair, though, is how some critics seem sorely disappointed that the film declined to portray Mercury's sexual misadventures explicitly and chose, instead to leave most of the debauchery to the imagination. It's even resulted in shock-value comedian Sacha Baron Cohen getting undeserved airtime for the assertion that his portrayal would have been "outrageous" in terms of Mercury's homosexuality, which tells me that his enthusiasm for the project was less about honoring Mercury's music and more about finding yet another excuse to show off his pale ass again, and quite frankly, thanks to Borat I've seen enough of naked Sacha Baron Cohen to last me ten lifetimes.
The thing is, the movie is aptly called "Bohemian Rhapsody" rather than "Freddie" or even "Queen" because it's less about Freddie or the band and their quirks and is more about how their music, more than the diva tantrums or the drugs or the orgies, was what defined them. We got to glimpse the painstaking gestation of not only "Bohemian Rhapsody" but also Queen's other celebrated anthem, "We Will Rock You" and even the off-beat "Another One Bites the Dust" which was apparently born during an argument between the band members. Sure, we basically saw what the remainder of the band wanted us to see, but when the climax of the movie is a gorgeously-recreated version of the 1985 Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium, it's hard to begrudge them their vision, even if it doesn't feel like an entirely honest one.
It's also hard to dislike a film with a lead performance as mesmerizing as that of Rami Malek, who, as even the most curmudgeonly of critics has acknowledged, carries the entire movie. I don't pretend to have known Freddie Mercury in any capacity, but there was something utterly captivating about seeing Malek doing his level best to recapture Mercury's boundless energy as he ad-lib-pranced across the stage, and thus creating an energy of his own. Baron Cohen would not have pulled this off, not in his wildest dreams. While I'll admit that Malek's main job was basically to pantomime Mercury belting out his greatest hits, it simply wouldn't have worked if he hadn't exuded charisma in virtually every moment that the camera is on him, even through those massive prosthetic teeth, and even in Freddie's darkest moments of self-doubt and self-loathing. One thing that did seem off to me, though, was that Malek looked a bit skinnier than Freddie but that was a minor quibble.
It helps that capable actors are cast as the rest of the band, though really, they barely make an impression with the way they're written. It was weirdly entertaining, though to see the kid from Jurassic Park play Queen's bassist John Deacon. Everyone else is in the cast is just okay, though Allen Leech as the villainous manager Paul Prenter played the character a bit too broad; I half-expected him to twirl his mustache at one point. One cameo that particularly stood out, though, was Mike Myers as Ray Foster, the small-minded (and fictional) record executive at EMI who refused to release Bohemian Rhapsody as the band's carrier single. As anyone over forty knows, Myers revitalized the song in America when he featured it in the opening scene of his popular film Wayne's World back in 1992. Having him assert that no kids would ever play that song in their cars and bang their heads to it was a pretty gratifying payoff.
it's a shame Bryan Singer couldn't keep it together to finish this movie, because as the Wembley Studio sequence he shot shows, he's still got the touch that mades his X-Men movies eminently watchable.
So yes, the movie has its fair share of problems, most of them with the writing, but a magnetic performance by its lead and those infectious songs are enough to pretty much carry the day, just as they were in The Greatest Showman.
7/10
Saturday, November 3, 2018
Sunday, October 7, 2018
A Buddy-Comedy/Superhero/Horror Hybrid: A Review of Venom
directed by Ruben Fleischer
written by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel
Sony Pictures unleashes the first of its "Spider-Man-related-characters Cinematic Universe" which, conspicuously, is Spider-Man free, featuring the character of Venom, which, originally conceived as a Spidey villain, is now forced to be its own thing. Fortunately, the finished product is nowhere near the disaster that so many film critics are making it out to be.
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is an investigative journalist who specializes in fighting for the oppressed and bringing down corrupt bad guys. He's got it all: his own show on a news network, and a beautiful, upwardly mobile lawyer fiancee Anne (Michelle Williams). When Eddie's boss asks him to do a "puff piece" interview with industrialist Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), head of the Life Foundation, whom Eddie strongly believes to be involved in dirty dealings, he grudgingly agrees. After stumbling onto a confidential e-mail on Anne's laptop, implicating Drake in some truly horrific acts, Eddie takes matters into his own hands during the interview, with disastrous results. Both Eddie and Anne lose their jobs, Eddie loses Anne, and meanwhile, Drake's nefarious experiments, which involve bonding alien organisms with human hosts, continue, even as one such body-snatching alien which crashed in Malaysia on one of Drake's ill-fated expeditions makes its way to the Life Foundation, possessing and discarding human hosts as it goes.
Months later, Eddie is approached by one of Drake's scientists (Jenny Slate) whose conscience can no longer bear the things she's witnessed, and she tells him about the experiments. She then sneaks him into the Life Foundation, where Eddie, in an attempt to rescue a homeless woman he's befriended, finds himself hosting one of the aliens himself. On the run from Drake and his goons, Eddie finds himself with superhuman abilities, but at the same time saddled with an ornery, perpetually hungry alien organism named Venom. Will Venom enable Eddie to take down the corrupt, murderous Drake, or will he be the death of him?
Unlike many of the Marvel Comics characters whose film adaptations I have diligently followed over the years, I have no emotional investment in the character of Venom. I read his first few appearances thirty years ago in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, back when Todd McFarlane was still drawing the book, but when McFarlane left, so did I, and as a result, I wasn't around for Venom's mutation from a straight-up villain into an antihero, or the "Lethal Protector" that made him such a cult favorite. In short, I didn't really expect a whole lot from this movie when I learned that it wouldn't have anything to do with Spider-Man, though with each casting announcement (it's got two Oscar nominees, for a start) I found myself more and more intrigued.
When I wrote my review for Avengers: Infinity War, one aspect of the film I critiqued was the tonal shifting throughout the film, which, to date, is the darkest of all the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I basically said that, in the hands of lesser filmmakers, such shifts wouldn't work. Well, as unlikely as this may seem to fans of the entertaining Zombieland, Ruben Fleischer is that lesser filmmaker, unfortunately, as are his team of writers, which include Scott Rosenberg, whose finest written work remains to be his scathing "everybody knew" confession regarding Harvey Weinstein.
Fleischer structures his film as a sort of superhero/horror hybrid. Unlike his comics counterpart, Eddie Brock is introduced as a sympathetic character, a crusader for the oppressed and Drake is set up as the villain. As a superhero film, it's barely even mediocre, with cringe-inducing dialogue and both a poorly-realized protagonist and antagonist. For a seasoned investigative journalist, Eddie comes across as amateurish at best, and thoroughly incompetent at worst and his fall from grace feels more like a plot contrivance than anything else as do a lot of other conveniently overlooked details like how easy it is to sneak into Drake's supposedly state-of-the-art facility.
When Eddie finds himself joined to the symbiote, however, the movie changes quite radically in tone...and, to my mind, in quality. Almost all pretense of being a "serious" superhero saga is dropped, and the movie, led by Hardy, who not only plays Eddie but lends his filtered voice to the symbiote as well, embraces its own goofiness to spectacular effect. It's an almost straight-up action comedy at this point, just under halfway through the movie, and the film is immensely the better for it. Hardy is so effective in selling this aspect of the movie that even when the obligatory generic CGI action kicks in, the film still chugs along to its reasonably satisfying conclusion and even its tease for the (now inevitable) sequel. I read somewhere that Fleischer pushed for the film to be serious, while Hardy advocated the comedic approach, and the conflict kind of shows. While I appreciate that Hardy seems to have won out in the end, I wish the film had not taken quite so long to get where it needed to be.
Some people have given Sony grief for not making this an "R" rated film, but to my mind, this was actually a good call; constraining the writers by depriving them of "f" bombs and the kind of toilet humor that the Deadpool movies gleefully plundered actually enabled them to instill the movie with its own distinct humorous sensibility rather than churn out a Deadpool knockoff. Some of the older writers have compared this movie to Carl Reiner's body-sharing 1984 comedy All of Me, in which Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin share the former's body, and having seen that movie on TV many times, I have to say the comparison is spot on, with Hardy doing a commendable job channeling Martin's energy. He does a very good job carrying this film, which would have been dreadful without him.
Michelle Williams, to be fair, also deserves kudos for breathing life into an otherwise generic "significant other" role, including some of the film's humorous moments. When her new doctor-boyfriend (Reid Scott, also okay in his role), professes to be a fan of Eddie's, marveling at the people he's taken down, Anne says, without missing a beat, "I was one of them," and the humor of that scene, at a time when the film hadn't quite kicked into its humorous mode, worked for me.
Unfortunately, beyond Hardy, Williams, and to a lesser extent, Scott, the rest of the cast just doesn't really measure up. To be fair to Riz Ahmed, who can add Elon Musk to the venture capitalists he's parodied (he did a bit of Mark Zuckerberg in Jason Bourne some years ago) he does his level best try to sell Drake as a truly detestable bad guy, but the script just doesn't meet him halfway. Also, the less said of Jenny Slate, a comedienne stuck in a comedy with literally nothing funny to say or do, the better.
The CGI and action sequences were pretty much par for the course for one of these films. They weren't terrible, but they weren't great either. I had a laugh-out-loud moment during one intense fight scene between Venom and a bunch of armed men when one of his victims let out the infamous "Wilhelm" scream, but other than that felt distinctly unmoved.
Of course, as with any Marvel-based movie, even one not made by Marvel itself, there will be post-credit goodies, and fans of both Venom and Fleischer's previous work are in for a treat with the mid-credits sequence, which also serves as a teaser for the sequel. The real reward, however, is the glorious three (or so) minute clip of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that plays after the end credits are done. That was definitely worth sitting through the entire credits to see.
6/10
written by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel
Sony Pictures unleashes the first of its "Spider-Man-related-characters Cinematic Universe" which, conspicuously, is Spider-Man free, featuring the character of Venom, which, originally conceived as a Spidey villain, is now forced to be its own thing. Fortunately, the finished product is nowhere near the disaster that so many film critics are making it out to be.
Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is an investigative journalist who specializes in fighting for the oppressed and bringing down corrupt bad guys. He's got it all: his own show on a news network, and a beautiful, upwardly mobile lawyer fiancee Anne (Michelle Williams). When Eddie's boss asks him to do a "puff piece" interview with industrialist Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), head of the Life Foundation, whom Eddie strongly believes to be involved in dirty dealings, he grudgingly agrees. After stumbling onto a confidential e-mail on Anne's laptop, implicating Drake in some truly horrific acts, Eddie takes matters into his own hands during the interview, with disastrous results. Both Eddie and Anne lose their jobs, Eddie loses Anne, and meanwhile, Drake's nefarious experiments, which involve bonding alien organisms with human hosts, continue, even as one such body-snatching alien which crashed in Malaysia on one of Drake's ill-fated expeditions makes its way to the Life Foundation, possessing and discarding human hosts as it goes.
Months later, Eddie is approached by one of Drake's scientists (Jenny Slate) whose conscience can no longer bear the things she's witnessed, and she tells him about the experiments. She then sneaks him into the Life Foundation, where Eddie, in an attempt to rescue a homeless woman he's befriended, finds himself hosting one of the aliens himself. On the run from Drake and his goons, Eddie finds himself with superhuman abilities, but at the same time saddled with an ornery, perpetually hungry alien organism named Venom. Will Venom enable Eddie to take down the corrupt, murderous Drake, or will he be the death of him?
Unlike many of the Marvel Comics characters whose film adaptations I have diligently followed over the years, I have no emotional investment in the character of Venom. I read his first few appearances thirty years ago in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man, back when Todd McFarlane was still drawing the book, but when McFarlane left, so did I, and as a result, I wasn't around for Venom's mutation from a straight-up villain into an antihero, or the "Lethal Protector" that made him such a cult favorite. In short, I didn't really expect a whole lot from this movie when I learned that it wouldn't have anything to do with Spider-Man, though with each casting announcement (it's got two Oscar nominees, for a start) I found myself more and more intrigued.
When I wrote my review for Avengers: Infinity War, one aspect of the film I critiqued was the tonal shifting throughout the film, which, to date, is the darkest of all the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I basically said that, in the hands of lesser filmmakers, such shifts wouldn't work. Well, as unlikely as this may seem to fans of the entertaining Zombieland, Ruben Fleischer is that lesser filmmaker, unfortunately, as are his team of writers, which include Scott Rosenberg, whose finest written work remains to be his scathing "everybody knew" confession regarding Harvey Weinstein.
Fleischer structures his film as a sort of superhero/horror hybrid. Unlike his comics counterpart, Eddie Brock is introduced as a sympathetic character, a crusader for the oppressed and Drake is set up as the villain. As a superhero film, it's barely even mediocre, with cringe-inducing dialogue and both a poorly-realized protagonist and antagonist. For a seasoned investigative journalist, Eddie comes across as amateurish at best, and thoroughly incompetent at worst and his fall from grace feels more like a plot contrivance than anything else as do a lot of other conveniently overlooked details like how easy it is to sneak into Drake's supposedly state-of-the-art facility.
When Eddie finds himself joined to the symbiote, however, the movie changes quite radically in tone...and, to my mind, in quality. Almost all pretense of being a "serious" superhero saga is dropped, and the movie, led by Hardy, who not only plays Eddie but lends his filtered voice to the symbiote as well, embraces its own goofiness to spectacular effect. It's an almost straight-up action comedy at this point, just under halfway through the movie, and the film is immensely the better for it. Hardy is so effective in selling this aspect of the movie that even when the obligatory generic CGI action kicks in, the film still chugs along to its reasonably satisfying conclusion and even its tease for the (now inevitable) sequel. I read somewhere that Fleischer pushed for the film to be serious, while Hardy advocated the comedic approach, and the conflict kind of shows. While I appreciate that Hardy seems to have won out in the end, I wish the film had not taken quite so long to get where it needed to be.
Some people have given Sony grief for not making this an "R" rated film, but to my mind, this was actually a good call; constraining the writers by depriving them of "f" bombs and the kind of toilet humor that the Deadpool movies gleefully plundered actually enabled them to instill the movie with its own distinct humorous sensibility rather than churn out a Deadpool knockoff. Some of the older writers have compared this movie to Carl Reiner's body-sharing 1984 comedy All of Me, in which Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin share the former's body, and having seen that movie on TV many times, I have to say the comparison is spot on, with Hardy doing a commendable job channeling Martin's energy. He does a very good job carrying this film, which would have been dreadful without him.
Michelle Williams, to be fair, also deserves kudos for breathing life into an otherwise generic "significant other" role, including some of the film's humorous moments. When her new doctor-boyfriend (Reid Scott, also okay in his role), professes to be a fan of Eddie's, marveling at the people he's taken down, Anne says, without missing a beat, "I was one of them," and the humor of that scene, at a time when the film hadn't quite kicked into its humorous mode, worked for me.
Unfortunately, beyond Hardy, Williams, and to a lesser extent, Scott, the rest of the cast just doesn't really measure up. To be fair to Riz Ahmed, who can add Elon Musk to the venture capitalists he's parodied (he did a bit of Mark Zuckerberg in Jason Bourne some years ago) he does his level best try to sell Drake as a truly detestable bad guy, but the script just doesn't meet him halfway. Also, the less said of Jenny Slate, a comedienne stuck in a comedy with literally nothing funny to say or do, the better.
The CGI and action sequences were pretty much par for the course for one of these films. They weren't terrible, but they weren't great either. I had a laugh-out-loud moment during one intense fight scene between Venom and a bunch of armed men when one of his victims let out the infamous "Wilhelm" scream, but other than that felt distinctly unmoved.
Of course, as with any Marvel-based movie, even one not made by Marvel itself, there will be post-credit goodies, and fans of both Venom and Fleischer's previous work are in for a treat with the mid-credits sequence, which also serves as a teaser for the sequel. The real reward, however, is the glorious three (or so) minute clip of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse that plays after the end credits are done. That was definitely worth sitting through the entire credits to see.
6/10
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Following Up A Phenomenon: A Review of "Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral" (Um...Spoiler Alert?)
directed by Jerrold Tarog
written by Rody Vera and Jerrold Tarog
When Jerrold Tarog unleashed the historical wartime epic Heneral Luna on unsuspecting Filipino audiences three years ago, people were caught completely by surprise. So much so, in fact, that the film, which indulged in few, if any of the narrative tropes that have become embedded in not only Filipino movies but movies in general, was actually a box-office failure at first. It only managed to gain commercial momentum thanks to the determined efforts of its makers and its fans, who launched a formidable word-of-mouth campaign fueled primarily by social media, who not only helped the movie make back the money spent on it but gave Jerrold Tarog and crew enough money to make the envisioned sequel, a film about Gregorio del Pilar.
Three years later, that sequel, Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, has hit the big screen, and while it wasn't quite the narrative force of nature that Heneral Luna was, it shows that Tarog has lost none of the flair and verve that made him one of the country's most talked-about filmmakers three years ago.
Goyo is a direct sequel to Luna (in much the way that The Two Towers was a direct sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring) and Tarog drops the viewer directly into the events following that film without bothering to explain that the nascent Philippine Republic under President Emilio Aguinaldo (Mon Confiado) is in the middle of resisting a colonization campaign by American forces. Antonio Luna has just been murdered under Aguinaldo's orders, and it has cast a pall over some of those fighting for the resistance, such as General Jose Alejandrino (Alvin Anson) who is actually threatened by a lower ranking soldier early in the film because of a passing resemblance he bore to the late General Luna. Aguinalo's forces are in steady retreat to the north of Luzon as the Americans advance, and leading them is the impetuous 23-year-old general Gregorio del Pilar (Paulo Avelino), who is perpetually flanked by his loyal friend, Col. Vicente Enriquez (Carlo Aquino) and his older brother Julian (Rafael Siguion-Reyna). As del Pilar settles his forces in Dagupan, Pangasinan, where the local townsfolk fete him and fawn on him, he preoccupies himself mainly with charming the local beauty, Remedios Nable Jose (Gwen Zamora), who constantly resists his advances, suspecting him to be a playboy. Meanwhile, Alejandrino sues for peace on Aguinaldo's orders, traveling to Manila with American prisoners in the hopes of ending the conflict through diplomacy. Elsewhere in the country, former cabinet member Apolinario Mabini (Epy Quizon) ruminates on the direction Aguinaldo's revolutionary government is taking, and is not optimistic for what the future holds. What none of them realizes is that the American forces remain on the move, and when they strike, President Aguinaldo will have to flee to the farthest reaches of Northern Luzon, and General Gregorio del Pilar will have to make some life-defining choices about what truly matters to him.
Having been gobsmacked by Heneral Luna, I was not nearly as taken with this production, even though Tarog's ferocious talent and incredible attention to detail are, yet again, on full display. Truth be told, this felt like a harder sell because apart from his heroic last stand at Tirad Pass, there really wasn't that much that defined del Pilar as a soldier, let alone as a character to carry a two-and-a-half-hour film. Luna had the advantage of a fierce conflict between the title character and the President he vehemently disagreed with, Emilio Aguinaldo. Here, the title character Gregorio del Pilar is, by contrast, unflinchingly loyal to Aguinaldo, to the extent that he is willing to carry out even the most despicable orders, such as the torture and summary execution of Luna's confederates. Unable to rely on the tension that essentially drove his previous film, Tarog instead focuses on making Goyo's journey one of redemption, which is not the easiest task in the film, considering how unlikable and utterly narcissistic he is. Of course, we get glimpses of his inner conflict and insecurities, but his character doesn't feel nearly as compelling as Luna's did, and while Avelino does his level best to give this historical figure dimension beyond the events that led to his death, his performance is nowhere near the tour de force that John Arcilla's was. Also, by choosing to tell the story over two and a half hours, Tarog makes it hard to keep things moving without a driving tension between his lead actors.
The thing is, though, as far as messages go, this one hits a lot harder than Heneral Luna did, and I say that as someone who gave that older movie a perfect "10" for a score.
In tackling head-on the absurdity of the concept of hero worship, in which ordinary men are placed on pedestals, beyond human reproach, virtually to the extent of being deified, Tarog holds up a mirror to the Filipino audience, or at least the percentage of the audience responsible for electing arguably the worst government the Philippines has had to endure in decades and asks them if their undying adulation over one person is more important than loving their country.
In a way, it feels a little like Tarog is apologizing (regardless of whether or not he actually is) for the way people interpreted his last film, which seemed to project Luna as the would-be savior of the Philippines, the best leader our country never had, especially when one considers that the current president is, like Luna, foul-mouthed and apparently down-to-earth. Did people think they were voting Luna reincarnate into office? It's unlikely, but one cannot entirely dismiss the notion. Tarog's previous critique was a broadside at bad attitudes of Filipinos all over the country, but this time around he is very specific in his messaging, and I, for one, hope it gets across to the people who need to hear it.
Also, Tarog deserves considerable credit for telling this story, which, despite its gruesome ending similar to that of Luna, actually manages to end on a positive note as the lead character actually manages to complete his hero's journey.
Everything about this film just shines, from the sets, to the costumes, to the cinematography, to the staging of the film's centerpiece, its climactic battle sequence. I even enjoyed the score composed by the director himself, though it was a little too eclectic for my taste, going from electric guitar to choir and back again. Of course, the casting was magnificent as well, and I was glad for the fact that Tarog managed to succeed in the one area in which many Filipino productions, even high-brow ones falter: the casting of Americans. Here, the American forces were played by an international hodgepodge of actors who ranged from Filipino-American meztizos, American actors, and even British actors, and while some were certainly better actors than others, overall, they managed to preserve the overall authenticity that Tarog and his Filipino actors clearly strove for all throughout the production. Speaking of the Filipino actors, while all of them certainly acquitted themselves well, in the absence of a John Arcilla, the highlight of the film for me was Epy Quizon's soft-spoken portrayal of Mabini. There was something almost lyrical about the way he recited his lines, and as a narrator he was much, more more effective than the fictional Joven Hernando (Arron Villaflor) who, like Mabini was featured in Luna, primarily as an exposition device.
At the end of it all, just as he had teased the production of this film at with a mid-credits "stinger" after Heneral Luna, Tarog drops another "stinger" to show that he hopes to make a film about Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth.
I, for one, really hope he gets the chance to do just that.
8.5/10
written by Rody Vera and Jerrold Tarog
When Jerrold Tarog unleashed the historical wartime epic Heneral Luna on unsuspecting Filipino audiences three years ago, people were caught completely by surprise. So much so, in fact, that the film, which indulged in few, if any of the narrative tropes that have become embedded in not only Filipino movies but movies in general, was actually a box-office failure at first. It only managed to gain commercial momentum thanks to the determined efforts of its makers and its fans, who launched a formidable word-of-mouth campaign fueled primarily by social media, who not only helped the movie make back the money spent on it but gave Jerrold Tarog and crew enough money to make the envisioned sequel, a film about Gregorio del Pilar.
Three years later, that sequel, Goyo: Ang Batang Heneral, has hit the big screen, and while it wasn't quite the narrative force of nature that Heneral Luna was, it shows that Tarog has lost none of the flair and verve that made him one of the country's most talked-about filmmakers three years ago.
Goyo is a direct sequel to Luna (in much the way that The Two Towers was a direct sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring) and Tarog drops the viewer directly into the events following that film without bothering to explain that the nascent Philippine Republic under President Emilio Aguinaldo (Mon Confiado) is in the middle of resisting a colonization campaign by American forces. Antonio Luna has just been murdered under Aguinaldo's orders, and it has cast a pall over some of those fighting for the resistance, such as General Jose Alejandrino (Alvin Anson) who is actually threatened by a lower ranking soldier early in the film because of a passing resemblance he bore to the late General Luna. Aguinalo's forces are in steady retreat to the north of Luzon as the Americans advance, and leading them is the impetuous 23-year-old general Gregorio del Pilar (Paulo Avelino), who is perpetually flanked by his loyal friend, Col. Vicente Enriquez (Carlo Aquino) and his older brother Julian (Rafael Siguion-Reyna). As del Pilar settles his forces in Dagupan, Pangasinan, where the local townsfolk fete him and fawn on him, he preoccupies himself mainly with charming the local beauty, Remedios Nable Jose (Gwen Zamora), who constantly resists his advances, suspecting him to be a playboy. Meanwhile, Alejandrino sues for peace on Aguinaldo's orders, traveling to Manila with American prisoners in the hopes of ending the conflict through diplomacy. Elsewhere in the country, former cabinet member Apolinario Mabini (Epy Quizon) ruminates on the direction Aguinaldo's revolutionary government is taking, and is not optimistic for what the future holds. What none of them realizes is that the American forces remain on the move, and when they strike, President Aguinaldo will have to flee to the farthest reaches of Northern Luzon, and General Gregorio del Pilar will have to make some life-defining choices about what truly matters to him.
Having been gobsmacked by Heneral Luna, I was not nearly as taken with this production, even though Tarog's ferocious talent and incredible attention to detail are, yet again, on full display. Truth be told, this felt like a harder sell because apart from his heroic last stand at Tirad Pass, there really wasn't that much that defined del Pilar as a soldier, let alone as a character to carry a two-and-a-half-hour film. Luna had the advantage of a fierce conflict between the title character and the President he vehemently disagreed with, Emilio Aguinaldo. Here, the title character Gregorio del Pilar is, by contrast, unflinchingly loyal to Aguinaldo, to the extent that he is willing to carry out even the most despicable orders, such as the torture and summary execution of Luna's confederates. Unable to rely on the tension that essentially drove his previous film, Tarog instead focuses on making Goyo's journey one of redemption, which is not the easiest task in the film, considering how unlikable and utterly narcissistic he is. Of course, we get glimpses of his inner conflict and insecurities, but his character doesn't feel nearly as compelling as Luna's did, and while Avelino does his level best to give this historical figure dimension beyond the events that led to his death, his performance is nowhere near the tour de force that John Arcilla's was. Also, by choosing to tell the story over two and a half hours, Tarog makes it hard to keep things moving without a driving tension between his lead actors.
The thing is, though, as far as messages go, this one hits a lot harder than Heneral Luna did, and I say that as someone who gave that older movie a perfect "10" for a score.
In tackling head-on the absurdity of the concept of hero worship, in which ordinary men are placed on pedestals, beyond human reproach, virtually to the extent of being deified, Tarog holds up a mirror to the Filipino audience, or at least the percentage of the audience responsible for electing arguably the worst government the Philippines has had to endure in decades and asks them if their undying adulation over one person is more important than loving their country.
In a way, it feels a little like Tarog is apologizing (regardless of whether or not he actually is) for the way people interpreted his last film, which seemed to project Luna as the would-be savior of the Philippines, the best leader our country never had, especially when one considers that the current president is, like Luna, foul-mouthed and apparently down-to-earth. Did people think they were voting Luna reincarnate into office? It's unlikely, but one cannot entirely dismiss the notion. Tarog's previous critique was a broadside at bad attitudes of Filipinos all over the country, but this time around he is very specific in his messaging, and I, for one, hope it gets across to the people who need to hear it.
Also, Tarog deserves considerable credit for telling this story, which, despite its gruesome ending similar to that of Luna, actually manages to end on a positive note as the lead character actually manages to complete his hero's journey.
Everything about this film just shines, from the sets, to the costumes, to the cinematography, to the staging of the film's centerpiece, its climactic battle sequence. I even enjoyed the score composed by the director himself, though it was a little too eclectic for my taste, going from electric guitar to choir and back again. Of course, the casting was magnificent as well, and I was glad for the fact that Tarog managed to succeed in the one area in which many Filipino productions, even high-brow ones falter: the casting of Americans. Here, the American forces were played by an international hodgepodge of actors who ranged from Filipino-American meztizos, American actors, and even British actors, and while some were certainly better actors than others, overall, they managed to preserve the overall authenticity that Tarog and his Filipino actors clearly strove for all throughout the production. Speaking of the Filipino actors, while all of them certainly acquitted themselves well, in the absence of a John Arcilla, the highlight of the film for me was Epy Quizon's soft-spoken portrayal of Mabini. There was something almost lyrical about the way he recited his lines, and as a narrator he was much, more more effective than the fictional Joven Hernando (Arron Villaflor) who, like Mabini was featured in Luna, primarily as an exposition device.
At the end of it all, just as he had teased the production of this film at with a mid-credits "stinger" after Heneral Luna, Tarog drops another "stinger" to show that he hopes to make a film about Manuel Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth.
I, for one, really hope he gets the chance to do just that.
8.5/10
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Gothic Chills and Kid-Friendly Thrills: A Review of The House with a Clock in Its Walls
directed by Eli Roth
written by Eric Kripke
I'll be honest, I've never really been a "Potterhead." I was in my mid-20s when I read the first book in the Harry Potter series, and couldn't make it any further than the fifth book before I just decided to finish the saga through the movies instead.
That's not to say, however, that I grew up without my own preferred line of young adult books. Rather than the Hardy Boys books that kids my age favored, I preferred the gothic horror stories written by the late John Bellairs. There was something about them that resonated with me; of Bellairs' protagonists, I only read the adventures of Johnny Dixon and Anthony Monday, as opposed to those of Lewis Barnavelt, the protagonist of this film, but I appreciated the books just the same.
As I got older and found myself gravitating towards movies, I looked back with fondness on my Bellairs books and realized they'd be somewhat difficult to adapt given how the villains tended to stay in the shadows until the last minute and much of the conflict was internal to the lead character.
As a result, I was genuinely, and pleasantly surprised earlier this year to learn that not only was one of Bellairs' more popular books slated for adaptation, but that it would happen under the banner of a newly-reconstituted Amblin Films, or Steven Spielberg's company. I may not have read The House with the Clock in Its Walls, but the Bellairs factor was more than enough to get me to check it out, with my whole family in tow.
Following the tragic death of his parents, Lewis Barnavelt moves to New Zebedee, Michigan to live with his eccentric uncle Jonathan (Jack Black), who lives in a strange, magical house. Lewis meets Mrs. Florence Zimmerman (a sublime Cate Blancett), Jonathan's neighbor and longtime friend with whom his favorite pastime is playing cards and trading verbal barbs, and starts the awkward process of settling in at his new school, where he fortunately manages to befriend the popular kid Tarby (Sunny Suljic). Nervous at first because of strange things he sees at night in the house, Lewis discovers that his uncle and Florence are, in fact a warlock and a witch, and that the entire house itself is magical. Jonathan tells Lewis of a dark secret within the house: a mysterious clock placed by the previous owner, a wicked warlock named Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan). What he doesn't mention, however, is the clock's terrifying purpose. Even as Jonathan and Florence teach Lewis how to wield magic, they spend the late hours trying to address an urgent, terrible threat. What they don't know is that as he sleeps, Lewis dreams of his mother (Lorenza Izzo) who constantly goads him into doing things he shouldn't do, including using magic to raise the dead. Lewis, wanting to keep his friendship with Tarby, does the unthinkable, and all hell breaks loose.
Now, even though I had never read this book, I recognized a lot of Bellairs' signature narrative devices: an orphan (Barnavelt was an orphan, while Johnny's Dixon's mother had died while his father was Missing in Action in Korea), a slightly off-kilter surrogate parent (Lewis lives with his Uncle Jonathan, while Johnny lived with his grandmother), and an older, somewhat batty friend (Lewis has Mrs. Zimmerman, while Johnny has Professor Roderick Childermass). Of course, none of this would have meant anything if the assembled cast and crew, shepherded by director Eli Roth (best known for his gorefests Hostel and The Green Inferno) and screenwriter Eric Kripke (creator of Supernatural) couldn't deliver a decent film. Fortunately for all of us Bellairs fans, it turns out that they could, and did.
Kripke compensates for the absence of a villain throughout most of the story by dropping clues throughout the narrative and slowly amplifying the menace lingering over the character, like the eerie calm before a storm. There's plenty of foreshadowing; I mean, when you have, as one of the major set pieces, a room full of creepy-looking automatons standing around, there's only one thing that can happen, right? Still, I imagine it was difficult adapting a Bellairs novel for the screen and it kind of shows; the dialogue is distinctly awkward at some points and I imagine more than a few liberties were taken because several of the characters don't quite speak with Bellairs' "voice."
Roth may have been a seemingly unorthodox choice for this kind of movie going in, but he successfully delivers scares without gore and manages to make a movie with heart (as opposed to all of the other exposed human organs from his other films). Notably, this movie was made on a very frugal budget (which would probably explain the constantly darkened set pieces, which are often a way of masking some visual effects cheats) and many of the effects were practical, which made the creepiness they evoked all the more impressive to see.
The main draw for me, though, apart from the Bellairs factor, was the cast. Jack Black was the sole reason I enjoyed the similarly-themed Goosebumps from three years ago, and the notion that he was revisiting this genre, especially since he seemed to bring more of his signature zaniness to this role, piqued my interest. When I saw Cate Blanchett in the trailer, however, I was absolutely sold. The two of them absolutely carry this movie, not just with their individual performances but with, dare I say it, a wonderful chemistry that isn't something as prosaic as romance, but rather something we don't often see in movies like this: two world-weary, middle-aged adult friends just glad for one another's company. Their every interaction plays into this dynamic from the good-natured bickering to the more serious moments in the film, particularly near the climax. I didn't much care for Owen Vaccaro's performance as Lewis Barnavelt; I've seen better child actors. Fortunately, though, I've also seen worse, so for the most part, I was able to live with him. At least he wasn't a Logan Lerman clone like the last lead in a kids' horror movie featuring Jack Black.
What I really had a hard time living with, though, was the consistently dark lighting throughout the film. I understand it served several purposes, like set the mood and obscure seams in the visual effects, but it did not make for a pleasant viewing experience. One can tell that the filmmakers made the best they could with the available budget, but it really is a bit rough around the edges.
All told, though, it was a pleasant enough surprise for me that this movie was even made at all, let alone at this standard of quality, rather than the shoddy, TV-movie level quality of the annoying Goosebumps adaptation, and given that this book (and the other Bellairs books) spawned several sequels over four (!) decades, I wouldn't be entirely dismissive of the notion of a "John Bellairs Cinematic Universe" that one writer floated. I'd even support it, if the quality of the films was like this, or better.
7/10
written by Eric Kripke
I'll be honest, I've never really been a "Potterhead." I was in my mid-20s when I read the first book in the Harry Potter series, and couldn't make it any further than the fifth book before I just decided to finish the saga through the movies instead.
That's not to say, however, that I grew up without my own preferred line of young adult books. Rather than the Hardy Boys books that kids my age favored, I preferred the gothic horror stories written by the late John Bellairs. There was something about them that resonated with me; of Bellairs' protagonists, I only read the adventures of Johnny Dixon and Anthony Monday, as opposed to those of Lewis Barnavelt, the protagonist of this film, but I appreciated the books just the same.
As I got older and found myself gravitating towards movies, I looked back with fondness on my Bellairs books and realized they'd be somewhat difficult to adapt given how the villains tended to stay in the shadows until the last minute and much of the conflict was internal to the lead character.
As a result, I was genuinely, and pleasantly surprised earlier this year to learn that not only was one of Bellairs' more popular books slated for adaptation, but that it would happen under the banner of a newly-reconstituted Amblin Films, or Steven Spielberg's company. I may not have read The House with the Clock in Its Walls, but the Bellairs factor was more than enough to get me to check it out, with my whole family in tow.
Following the tragic death of his parents, Lewis Barnavelt moves to New Zebedee, Michigan to live with his eccentric uncle Jonathan (Jack Black), who lives in a strange, magical house. Lewis meets Mrs. Florence Zimmerman (a sublime Cate Blancett), Jonathan's neighbor and longtime friend with whom his favorite pastime is playing cards and trading verbal barbs, and starts the awkward process of settling in at his new school, where he fortunately manages to befriend the popular kid Tarby (Sunny Suljic). Nervous at first because of strange things he sees at night in the house, Lewis discovers that his uncle and Florence are, in fact a warlock and a witch, and that the entire house itself is magical. Jonathan tells Lewis of a dark secret within the house: a mysterious clock placed by the previous owner, a wicked warlock named Isaac Izard (Kyle MacLachlan). What he doesn't mention, however, is the clock's terrifying purpose. Even as Jonathan and Florence teach Lewis how to wield magic, they spend the late hours trying to address an urgent, terrible threat. What they don't know is that as he sleeps, Lewis dreams of his mother (Lorenza Izzo) who constantly goads him into doing things he shouldn't do, including using magic to raise the dead. Lewis, wanting to keep his friendship with Tarby, does the unthinkable, and all hell breaks loose.
Now, even though I had never read this book, I recognized a lot of Bellairs' signature narrative devices: an orphan (Barnavelt was an orphan, while Johnny's Dixon's mother had died while his father was Missing in Action in Korea), a slightly off-kilter surrogate parent (Lewis lives with his Uncle Jonathan, while Johnny lived with his grandmother), and an older, somewhat batty friend (Lewis has Mrs. Zimmerman, while Johnny has Professor Roderick Childermass). Of course, none of this would have meant anything if the assembled cast and crew, shepherded by director Eli Roth (best known for his gorefests Hostel and The Green Inferno) and screenwriter Eric Kripke (creator of Supernatural) couldn't deliver a decent film. Fortunately for all of us Bellairs fans, it turns out that they could, and did.
Kripke compensates for the absence of a villain throughout most of the story by dropping clues throughout the narrative and slowly amplifying the menace lingering over the character, like the eerie calm before a storm. There's plenty of foreshadowing; I mean, when you have, as one of the major set pieces, a room full of creepy-looking automatons standing around, there's only one thing that can happen, right? Still, I imagine it was difficult adapting a Bellairs novel for the screen and it kind of shows; the dialogue is distinctly awkward at some points and I imagine more than a few liberties were taken because several of the characters don't quite speak with Bellairs' "voice."
Roth may have been a seemingly unorthodox choice for this kind of movie going in, but he successfully delivers scares without gore and manages to make a movie with heart (as opposed to all of the other exposed human organs from his other films). Notably, this movie was made on a very frugal budget (which would probably explain the constantly darkened set pieces, which are often a way of masking some visual effects cheats) and many of the effects were practical, which made the creepiness they evoked all the more impressive to see.
The main draw for me, though, apart from the Bellairs factor, was the cast. Jack Black was the sole reason I enjoyed the similarly-themed Goosebumps from three years ago, and the notion that he was revisiting this genre, especially since he seemed to bring more of his signature zaniness to this role, piqued my interest. When I saw Cate Blanchett in the trailer, however, I was absolutely sold. The two of them absolutely carry this movie, not just with their individual performances but with, dare I say it, a wonderful chemistry that isn't something as prosaic as romance, but rather something we don't often see in movies like this: two world-weary, middle-aged adult friends just glad for one another's company. Their every interaction plays into this dynamic from the good-natured bickering to the more serious moments in the film, particularly near the climax. I didn't much care for Owen Vaccaro's performance as Lewis Barnavelt; I've seen better child actors. Fortunately, though, I've also seen worse, so for the most part, I was able to live with him. At least he wasn't a Logan Lerman clone like the last lead in a kids' horror movie featuring Jack Black.
What I really had a hard time living with, though, was the consistently dark lighting throughout the film. I understand it served several purposes, like set the mood and obscure seams in the visual effects, but it did not make for a pleasant viewing experience. One can tell that the filmmakers made the best they could with the available budget, but it really is a bit rough around the edges.
All told, though, it was a pleasant enough surprise for me that this movie was even made at all, let alone at this standard of quality, rather than the shoddy, TV-movie level quality of the annoying Goosebumps adaptation, and given that this book (and the other Bellairs books) spawned several sequels over four (!) decades, I wouldn't be entirely dismissive of the notion of a "John Bellairs Cinematic Universe" that one writer floated. I'd even support it, if the quality of the films was like this, or better.
7/10
Monday, September 10, 2018
Denzel's First Sequel: A Review The Equalizer 2 (Mild Spoilers)
directed by Antoine Fuqua
written by Richard Wenk
Four years ago I walked into Antoine Fuqua's adaptation of the popular 80s television series The Equalizer with what I like to think were moderate expectations. I walked in a fan of the film's star, Denzel Washington, and while that certainly did not change over the course of the next two hours, I was definitely disappointed by the final product. The film, marketed as a straight-up action thriller, featured very little onscreen action, and even less by way of thrills.
When a splashier trailer for the sequel debuted a few months ago, I got the distinct impression that Fuqua and screenwriter Richard Wenk had taken the criticism leveled at the film to heart, rolled up their sleeves, and had earnestly set out to make a better film. Not necessarily a bigger one, but one which basically addressed most, if not necessarily all of the first film's key shortcomings, and to my mind, they've succeeded quite admirably.
As this film opens we find ex-CIA operative Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) traveling undercover in Turkey, of all places, where he sets out to rescue a young girl from her abductors as only he can. One brutally efficient fight scene later, we find McCall back stateside, working as a Lyft driver and going about his somewhat lonely daily routine, which is brightened by a visit from his only friend, his former CIA handler Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) on the occasion of his late wife's birthday. McCall also takes interest in Miles, a promising young artist (Ashton Sanders) who lives nearby, and in particular wants to see him fulfill his potential rather than fall in with the wrong kind of crowd. Meanwhile, in Brussels, a mysterious group of Americans murder an unassuming gentleman who has arrived home for a quiet dinner with his wife. The Belgian, as it turns out, was a deep undercover CIA asset, which prompts Plummer to go and investigate, with results catastrophic enough to bring McCall out of his mostly quiet life and back on the hunt. Helping him out this time is his one-time CIA partner Dave (Pedro Pascal), but even that might not be enough to take down his quarry, who are truly deadly individuals.
DVD-jacket synopsis aside, I genuinely enjoyed this movie, even if it was distinctly predictable, so much so that I fear that one of the actors playing a supporting character seems to run the risk of being typecast. Sure, it still had a by-the-numbers feel to it, even as a sequel, but I could tell there was quite a bit more attention to detail this time around, in both the scripting and directing, so I think a much better score this time around is warranted.
This film, in contrast to its predecessor, actually seems to be about something other than an unassuming store worker turning out to be the consummate human weapon. By highlighting the fact that McCall, following the death of his wife and his own forced "retirement" from the CIA, following a deadly explosion, no longer has any real human connections, it makes a statement about that very concept. Susan out-and-out describes herself as his only friend, and this catalyzes much of the narrative. While it's hardly a profound treatise on human relationships, the film is still very grounded in the idea, which helps give some weight to the action sequences. Incidentally, the action is noticeably ramped-up here as well, and not at all limited to what's in the trailers.
There's something cathartic about seeing McCall open a can of whoop-ass on evil people who, in real life, are often untouchable, such as the Russian mobsters in the first film. Here, he puts a severe beatdown on some Turkish goons kidnapping a child, and later, to much more satisfying effect, on a bunch of privileged, mostly-white investment-banker types who have just severely abused a young woman. In both cases, quite notably, Fuqua stages the action much more effectively than he did in the first film, letting us see much more clearly what McCall is doing rather than bombarding us with a flurry of quick cuts. Even the finale was a noticeable upgrade from the previous film. Instead of the cheap trick of staging it at night, in a darkened warehouse store that severely dampened the climax of the first film, Fuqua has the action play out during a storm in the daytime. I'll admit that I was a little disappointed that the elite team of antagonists that McCall faced off against weren't all THAT tough, but it was still a step up from the climax of the last film, and I was glad that there was an honest-to-goodness, down-and-dirty hand-to-hand fight with the final "boss" which was something that did not feature at all in the first film. I have no idea if the amazing fight choreography and staging of the John Wick films influenced the action here in any way, but in any case, this film is definitely a step up from its predecessor.
It's still a far cry from a great action movie; the writing still feels distinctly plot-driven rather than character-driven, and the promise of a globe-trotting adventure in Europe was a rather annoying tease that never paid off, but overall, it's definitely an improvement over the first film.
Not only has this movie made enough money to justify a third installment, but the story, in my opinion at least, distinctly calls for one. There are enough loose threads in McCall's story that could justify at least one more movie, and given that Fuqua and Wenk made it a point to expand on McCall quite a bit from the last film, it's possible we may yet see that territory explored.
6.5/10
written by Richard Wenk
Four years ago I walked into Antoine Fuqua's adaptation of the popular 80s television series The Equalizer with what I like to think were moderate expectations. I walked in a fan of the film's star, Denzel Washington, and while that certainly did not change over the course of the next two hours, I was definitely disappointed by the final product. The film, marketed as a straight-up action thriller, featured very little onscreen action, and even less by way of thrills.
When a splashier trailer for the sequel debuted a few months ago, I got the distinct impression that Fuqua and screenwriter Richard Wenk had taken the criticism leveled at the film to heart, rolled up their sleeves, and had earnestly set out to make a better film. Not necessarily a bigger one, but one which basically addressed most, if not necessarily all of the first film's key shortcomings, and to my mind, they've succeeded quite admirably.
As this film opens we find ex-CIA operative Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) traveling undercover in Turkey, of all places, where he sets out to rescue a young girl from her abductors as only he can. One brutally efficient fight scene later, we find McCall back stateside, working as a Lyft driver and going about his somewhat lonely daily routine, which is brightened by a visit from his only friend, his former CIA handler Susan Plummer (Melissa Leo) on the occasion of his late wife's birthday. McCall also takes interest in Miles, a promising young artist (Ashton Sanders) who lives nearby, and in particular wants to see him fulfill his potential rather than fall in with the wrong kind of crowd. Meanwhile, in Brussels, a mysterious group of Americans murder an unassuming gentleman who has arrived home for a quiet dinner with his wife. The Belgian, as it turns out, was a deep undercover CIA asset, which prompts Plummer to go and investigate, with results catastrophic enough to bring McCall out of his mostly quiet life and back on the hunt. Helping him out this time is his one-time CIA partner Dave (Pedro Pascal), but even that might not be enough to take down his quarry, who are truly deadly individuals.
DVD-jacket synopsis aside, I genuinely enjoyed this movie, even if it was distinctly predictable, so much so that I fear that one of the actors playing a supporting character seems to run the risk of being typecast. Sure, it still had a by-the-numbers feel to it, even as a sequel, but I could tell there was quite a bit more attention to detail this time around, in both the scripting and directing, so I think a much better score this time around is warranted.
This film, in contrast to its predecessor, actually seems to be about something other than an unassuming store worker turning out to be the consummate human weapon. By highlighting the fact that McCall, following the death of his wife and his own forced "retirement" from the CIA, following a deadly explosion, no longer has any real human connections, it makes a statement about that very concept. Susan out-and-out describes herself as his only friend, and this catalyzes much of the narrative. While it's hardly a profound treatise on human relationships, the film is still very grounded in the idea, which helps give some weight to the action sequences. Incidentally, the action is noticeably ramped-up here as well, and not at all limited to what's in the trailers.
There's something cathartic about seeing McCall open a can of whoop-ass on evil people who, in real life, are often untouchable, such as the Russian mobsters in the first film. Here, he puts a severe beatdown on some Turkish goons kidnapping a child, and later, to much more satisfying effect, on a bunch of privileged, mostly-white investment-banker types who have just severely abused a young woman. In both cases, quite notably, Fuqua stages the action much more effectively than he did in the first film, letting us see much more clearly what McCall is doing rather than bombarding us with a flurry of quick cuts. Even the finale was a noticeable upgrade from the previous film. Instead of the cheap trick of staging it at night, in a darkened warehouse store that severely dampened the climax of the first film, Fuqua has the action play out during a storm in the daytime. I'll admit that I was a little disappointed that the elite team of antagonists that McCall faced off against weren't all THAT tough, but it was still a step up from the climax of the last film, and I was glad that there was an honest-to-goodness, down-and-dirty hand-to-hand fight with the final "boss" which was something that did not feature at all in the first film. I have no idea if the amazing fight choreography and staging of the John Wick films influenced the action here in any way, but in any case, this film is definitely a step up from its predecessor.
It's still a far cry from a great action movie; the writing still feels distinctly plot-driven rather than character-driven, and the promise of a globe-trotting adventure in Europe was a rather annoying tease that never paid off, but overall, it's definitely an improvement over the first film.
Not only has this movie made enough money to justify a third installment, but the story, in my opinion at least, distinctly calls for one. There are enough loose threads in McCall's story that could justify at least one more movie, and given that Fuqua and Wenk made it a point to expand on McCall quite a bit from the last film, it's possible we may yet see that territory explored.
6.5/10
Monday, August 13, 2018
The Jackie Chan of the West Strikes Again: A Review of Mission Impossible: Fallout
written and directed by Christopher McQuarrie
For various reasons, I was unable to watch Mission: Impossible: Fallout until last night, and an unfortunate by-product of having to wait so long to see it, even as I did my best to insulate myself from the film's increasingly glowing reception among audiences and critics, was that my expectations were, perhaps unfairly, all but sky-high by the time my wife and I caught a late-night screening.
Following the Impossible Mission Forces' capture of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) at the end of the Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, IMF top agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) learns that Lane's cabal, once known as the Syndicate, have rebranded themselves as "the Apostles" and remain bent on establishing a new world order by completely destroying the old one. Even more frighteningly, they hope to collaborate with a like-minded terrorist named John Lark, to whom they plan to sell three stolen plutonium cores. When Hunt and his IMF crew Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benjie Dunn (Simon Pegg) are unable to acquire the cores from the Apostles in an attempt to buy them, they find themselves on a mission to retrieve them before they end up in the hands of Lark. However, because Hunt put saving Luther over securing the cores, Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who took over from Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) who now heads the IMF, no longer trusts Hunt's judgment and grafts August Walker (Henry Cavill) a "special actions" operative to his hip. The path to the plutonium promises to be a treacherous one and Hunt and his team will have to deal with a shady power broker (Vanessa Kirby) who can get the plutonium for them, at terrible cost, and even the resurfacing of their own ally Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) whose agenda is unclear and who, therefore, could be dangerous to them.
I have consistently enjoyed these Mission: Impossible movies since the third film, just before they started replacing the numbers with subtitles. For me, the highlight of the series remains Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol or the fourth installment. This movie continues that standard of quality that has been the norm since J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company started producing these films. Returning director Christopher McQuarrie, who also wrote the script, improves on the already commendable work he did in the last movie. As with all of these movies, and just about any self-respecting spy flick, the film is a globe-spanning adventure that starts off in Ireland, trots through France and ends up in the mountains of Kashmir. The plot is reasonably coherent, if notably hackneyed, while the action set pieces are spectacular.
And then, of course, there is the utter commitment that the film's (and franchise's) star, Tom Cruise, puts on full display here for his loyal viewers. Whether it's learning how to HALO jump, fly a helicopter, or run around with a broken ankle, there is apparently no challenge too great for Tom to take on, and the film is that much better for his total dedication. So much so that more than a few of the film critics who have given this film rave reviews have gone so far as to call this movie the greatest action movie of all time.
That is where I feel I have to respectfully disagree.
Now, the movie starts out very strong, with both the much-ballyhooed (and truly awesome) HALO jump and the absolutely heart-stopping men's room fistfight happening within rapid succession of one another, and to be fair it does not scrimp on the action even after these scenes are done. Now, my problem with the claim that this is "the best action movie ever" is that most, if not all of the action set pieces that follow those two sequences feature something that's been done before, sometimes within the Mission: Impossible franchise itself, and while taking inspiration from other films isn't always a bad thing, there's only so many times one can lift action sequences from elsewhere before it starts to take a bit of luster off the product.
The car chase scene through Paris is something we've seen before, in films like Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity and John Frankenheimer's criminally-underappreciated Ronin, and some of the sequence even evokes one of the granddaddies of the car chase: The French Connection. The motorbike scene is certainly impressive, with Tom Cruise driving against traffic, but it's a bit evocative of The Dark Knight, and even of the more recent Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation. The climactic sequence of Ethan Hunt running around in search of someone important while Benjie barks in his ear was done in Mission: Impossible III, albeit with a different location. Also, the rooftop chasing portion of that sequence was far more effectively done in The Bourne Ultimatum, but more on that later. Also, if the climactic scene involving a coordinated attempt to defuse two bombs, or one big bomb from two (or more) locations, felt distinctly familiar, it's because it's a rehash of the same storytelling device that was employed in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
Make no mistake; they're all still extremely well-staged, and it really helped that Cruise went full-on Jackie Chan for all of these sequences, but the extent to which many critics have been willing to forgive the flimsy script (which they often describe as its weak point, right off the bat) in the name of the stunts borders on the irrational. Honestly, I could get why Mad Max: Fury Road was so well-received three years ago; it was just so off-the-wall crazy that it could not be ignored and to be honest, really offered something we had never seen before, even though there had been three other Mad Max films. M:I:Fallout doesn't even come close.
Also, if we're talking about all-time greats for action movies, I respectfully submit that M:I:Fallout falls short of Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, in which stunning action set pieces are deftly married to a solid script and intense performances for a really powerful finale to the original trilogy of Bourne films (which, as in the case of so many beloved cinematic trilogies, are the only films in the series that really matter). Yes, I know Greengrass is frequently criticized for his "shaky cam" and quick cuts, but unlike the droves of clones that his approach to action movies spawned (I'm looking at you, Taken films), he used these devices to serve the greater narrative and not just to make his action star look "cool." Also, if we're going to talk about authentically bone-crunching fight sequences, M:I:Fallout faces somewhat stiff competition in the form of the John Wick movies. In short, "greatest action movie ever" feels distinctly like hyperbole, perhaps coming from film critics who are weary of comic-book-based blockbusters dominating the action movie landscape. If that's the case, then there's something slightly hypocritical about their overflowing adulation, as this film is a superhero movie just as surely as anything bearing "Marvel" or "DC" branding is. After all, a guy who can survive smashing his helicopter into another and then falling onto a freaking mountain is a superhero by any reasonable standard, even if he isn't wearing a gaudy costume.
I realize this review feels slightly unkind, but in truth I genuinely enjoyed this movie, even more than I did the last one. I just honestly find myself a bit bewildered by the growing consensus that it's some kind of high watermark in action filmmaking, which I find kind of unfair to all of the films from which it borrowed somewhat liberally. It's a really, really good movie, but I'm not about to get carried away.
7.9/10
For various reasons, I was unable to watch Mission: Impossible: Fallout until last night, and an unfortunate by-product of having to wait so long to see it, even as I did my best to insulate myself from the film's increasingly glowing reception among audiences and critics, was that my expectations were, perhaps unfairly, all but sky-high by the time my wife and I caught a late-night screening.
Following the Impossible Mission Forces' capture of Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) at the end of the Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation, IMF top agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) learns that Lane's cabal, once known as the Syndicate, have rebranded themselves as "the Apostles" and remain bent on establishing a new world order by completely destroying the old one. Even more frighteningly, they hope to collaborate with a like-minded terrorist named John Lark, to whom they plan to sell three stolen plutonium cores. When Hunt and his IMF crew Luther Stickell (Ving Rhames) and Benjie Dunn (Simon Pegg) are unable to acquire the cores from the Apostles in an attempt to buy them, they find themselves on a mission to retrieve them before they end up in the hands of Lark. However, because Hunt put saving Luther over securing the cores, Erica Sloane (Angela Bassett) the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who took over from Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) who now heads the IMF, no longer trusts Hunt's judgment and grafts August Walker (Henry Cavill) a "special actions" operative to his hip. The path to the plutonium promises to be a treacherous one and Hunt and his team will have to deal with a shady power broker (Vanessa Kirby) who can get the plutonium for them, at terrible cost, and even the resurfacing of their own ally Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) whose agenda is unclear and who, therefore, could be dangerous to them.
I have consistently enjoyed these Mission: Impossible movies since the third film, just before they started replacing the numbers with subtitles. For me, the highlight of the series remains Brad Bird's Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol or the fourth installment. This movie continues that standard of quality that has been the norm since J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production company started producing these films. Returning director Christopher McQuarrie, who also wrote the script, improves on the already commendable work he did in the last movie. As with all of these movies, and just about any self-respecting spy flick, the film is a globe-spanning adventure that starts off in Ireland, trots through France and ends up in the mountains of Kashmir. The plot is reasonably coherent, if notably hackneyed, while the action set pieces are spectacular.
And then, of course, there is the utter commitment that the film's (and franchise's) star, Tom Cruise, puts on full display here for his loyal viewers. Whether it's learning how to HALO jump, fly a helicopter, or run around with a broken ankle, there is apparently no challenge too great for Tom to take on, and the film is that much better for his total dedication. So much so that more than a few of the film critics who have given this film rave reviews have gone so far as to call this movie the greatest action movie of all time.
That is where I feel I have to respectfully disagree.
Now, the movie starts out very strong, with both the much-ballyhooed (and truly awesome) HALO jump and the absolutely heart-stopping men's room fistfight happening within rapid succession of one another, and to be fair it does not scrimp on the action even after these scenes are done. Now, my problem with the claim that this is "the best action movie ever" is that most, if not all of the action set pieces that follow those two sequences feature something that's been done before, sometimes within the Mission: Impossible franchise itself, and while taking inspiration from other films isn't always a bad thing, there's only so many times one can lift action sequences from elsewhere before it starts to take a bit of luster off the product.
The car chase scene through Paris is something we've seen before, in films like Doug Liman's The Bourne Identity and John Frankenheimer's criminally-underappreciated Ronin, and some of the sequence even evokes one of the granddaddies of the car chase: The French Connection. The motorbike scene is certainly impressive, with Tom Cruise driving against traffic, but it's a bit evocative of The Dark Knight, and even of the more recent Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation. The climactic sequence of Ethan Hunt running around in search of someone important while Benjie barks in his ear was done in Mission: Impossible III, albeit with a different location. Also, the rooftop chasing portion of that sequence was far more effectively done in The Bourne Ultimatum, but more on that later. Also, if the climactic scene involving a coordinated attempt to defuse two bombs, or one big bomb from two (or more) locations, felt distinctly familiar, it's because it's a rehash of the same storytelling device that was employed in Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
Make no mistake; they're all still extremely well-staged, and it really helped that Cruise went full-on Jackie Chan for all of these sequences, but the extent to which many critics have been willing to forgive the flimsy script (which they often describe as its weak point, right off the bat) in the name of the stunts borders on the irrational. Honestly, I could get why Mad Max: Fury Road was so well-received three years ago; it was just so off-the-wall crazy that it could not be ignored and to be honest, really offered something we had never seen before, even though there had been three other Mad Max films. M:I:Fallout doesn't even come close.
Also, if we're talking about all-time greats for action movies, I respectfully submit that M:I:Fallout falls short of Paul Greengrass' The Bourne Ultimatum, in which stunning action set pieces are deftly married to a solid script and intense performances for a really powerful finale to the original trilogy of Bourne films (which, as in the case of so many beloved cinematic trilogies, are the only films in the series that really matter). Yes, I know Greengrass is frequently criticized for his "shaky cam" and quick cuts, but unlike the droves of clones that his approach to action movies spawned (I'm looking at you, Taken films), he used these devices to serve the greater narrative and not just to make his action star look "cool." Also, if we're going to talk about authentically bone-crunching fight sequences, M:I:Fallout faces somewhat stiff competition in the form of the John Wick movies. In short, "greatest action movie ever" feels distinctly like hyperbole, perhaps coming from film critics who are weary of comic-book-based blockbusters dominating the action movie landscape. If that's the case, then there's something slightly hypocritical about their overflowing adulation, as this film is a superhero movie just as surely as anything bearing "Marvel" or "DC" branding is. After all, a guy who can survive smashing his helicopter into another and then falling onto a freaking mountain is a superhero by any reasonable standard, even if he isn't wearing a gaudy costume.
I realize this review feels slightly unkind, but in truth I genuinely enjoyed this movie, even more than I did the last one. I just honestly find myself a bit bewildered by the growing consensus that it's some kind of high watermark in action filmmaking, which I find kind of unfair to all of the films from which it borrowed somewhat liberally. It's a really, really good movie, but I'm not about to get carried away.
7.9/10
Thursday, August 9, 2018
Silly Old Bear: A Review of Christopher Robin
directed by Marc Forster
written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, and Allison Schroeder (screenplay), Greg Booker and Mark Steven Johnson (screen story)
As live-action adaptations of beloved Disney animated features goes, this one flew pretty low under my radar, so low, in fact, that until I saw a trailer for it scarcely two months ago, I didn't even know this movie existed. That said, I'm pretty glad I saw it, especially with the family.
As a child, Christopher Robin (Orton O'Brien) is a regular visitor to the Hundred Acre Wood, where he often has whimsical adventures with this friends Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings), Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Tigger (also Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Owl (Toby Jones), Rabbit (Peter Capaldi), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo) and Roo (Sara Sheen). With them, his favorite pastime is doing a whole lot of nothing. These adventures end when he is shipped off to boarding school and, in the years that follow, spends a whole lot of time doing a whole bunch of "somethings" like getting married, fighting in a war, and landing a job.
Years later, adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor), who now works as the efficiency manager at the Winslow luggage company, faces a serious problem: if he is unable to cut company costs by at least 20%, a lot of people in the company stand to lose their jobs. Working on this means that, yet again, he won't be able to take time off with his family, namely his wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and his daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). Stressed out from the monumental work ahead of him, on top of the work he's already done, Christopher knocks over a jar of honey on his kitchen table, when then spills onto one of his childhood drawings of Winnie the Pooh. He magically ends up summoning Pooh, who (also magically) makes the trip from the Hundred Acre Wood to London and recruits Christopher Robin on a quest to find his missing friends. The real quest, however, is for Christopher Robin to find what's been missing from his life for far too long.
I honestly wouldn't have pegged Winnie the Pooh as a prime candidate for a live-action adaptation, but then, neither would I have done the same for the even less well-known Pete's Dragon, the 1970s animation/live-action hybrid which Disney successfully remade two years ago, but by telling the remake using the old "child-grown-up-into-midlife-crisis" setup that Steven Spielberg employed with the Peter Pan update Hook way back in 1991, the filmmakers found a way to make the story work, if only just.
The writing is extremely uneven; the scriptwriters apparently don't really know how to deal with the concept of a grown Christopher Robin interacting with stuffed animals, so they just play it for laughs, and to be fair it works a few times, but the gimmick does wear thin. Also, the movie quite regrettably fails to cash in on its "period piece" charm thanks to some dialogue that not only feels clunky but also distinctly anachronistic. Also, transplanting these beloved characters into CGI versions for a live action film may have been done with technical proficiency, but to my mind the cartoon's heart didn't quite make the transition.
The saving grace, however, is the live-action performances by McGregor, Atwell, and Carmichael, who, even as they grapple with the aforementioned strange dialogue, still manage to convey the impression of a family in crisis, even as the plot clearly spells it out. McGregor in particular brings a nice middle-aged charm to the role, succeeding where even the late, great Robin Williams failed when he played a middle-aged, burned out Peter Pan. I had worried that McGregor's Hollywood ship had sailed and that he would forever be consigned to little-seen movies or supporting roles in big movies like Beauty and the Beast, but apparently Hollywood's not done with him yet.
Also, with more live-action adaptations of animated classics in the pipelines, like The Lion King and Aladdin, it's clear Disney isn't done riding this particular gravy train.
I found this movie an acceptable distraction, but really, considering rising ticket prices, I do hope Disney tries a bit harder with their future adaptations.
6.5/10
written by Alex Ross Perry, Tom McCarthy, and Allison Schroeder (screenplay), Greg Booker and Mark Steven Johnson (screen story)
As live-action adaptations of beloved Disney animated features goes, this one flew pretty low under my radar, so low, in fact, that until I saw a trailer for it scarcely two months ago, I didn't even know this movie existed. That said, I'm pretty glad I saw it, especially with the family.
As a child, Christopher Robin (Orton O'Brien) is a regular visitor to the Hundred Acre Wood, where he often has whimsical adventures with this friends Winnie the Pooh (Jim Cummings), Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Tigger (also Cummings), Eeyore (Brad Garrett), Owl (Toby Jones), Rabbit (Peter Capaldi), Kanga (Sophie Okonedo) and Roo (Sara Sheen). With them, his favorite pastime is doing a whole lot of nothing. These adventures end when he is shipped off to boarding school and, in the years that follow, spends a whole lot of time doing a whole bunch of "somethings" like getting married, fighting in a war, and landing a job.
Years later, adult Christopher Robin (Ewan McGregor), who now works as the efficiency manager at the Winslow luggage company, faces a serious problem: if he is unable to cut company costs by at least 20%, a lot of people in the company stand to lose their jobs. Working on this means that, yet again, he won't be able to take time off with his family, namely his wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell) and his daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael). Stressed out from the monumental work ahead of him, on top of the work he's already done, Christopher knocks over a jar of honey on his kitchen table, when then spills onto one of his childhood drawings of Winnie the Pooh. He magically ends up summoning Pooh, who (also magically) makes the trip from the Hundred Acre Wood to London and recruits Christopher Robin on a quest to find his missing friends. The real quest, however, is for Christopher Robin to find what's been missing from his life for far too long.
I honestly wouldn't have pegged Winnie the Pooh as a prime candidate for a live-action adaptation, but then, neither would I have done the same for the even less well-known Pete's Dragon, the 1970s animation/live-action hybrid which Disney successfully remade two years ago, but by telling the remake using the old "child-grown-up-into-midlife-crisis" setup that Steven Spielberg employed with the Peter Pan update Hook way back in 1991, the filmmakers found a way to make the story work, if only just.
The writing is extremely uneven; the scriptwriters apparently don't really know how to deal with the concept of a grown Christopher Robin interacting with stuffed animals, so they just play it for laughs, and to be fair it works a few times, but the gimmick does wear thin. Also, the movie quite regrettably fails to cash in on its "period piece" charm thanks to some dialogue that not only feels clunky but also distinctly anachronistic. Also, transplanting these beloved characters into CGI versions for a live action film may have been done with technical proficiency, but to my mind the cartoon's heart didn't quite make the transition.
The saving grace, however, is the live-action performances by McGregor, Atwell, and Carmichael, who, even as they grapple with the aforementioned strange dialogue, still manage to convey the impression of a family in crisis, even as the plot clearly spells it out. McGregor in particular brings a nice middle-aged charm to the role, succeeding where even the late, great Robin Williams failed when he played a middle-aged, burned out Peter Pan. I had worried that McGregor's Hollywood ship had sailed and that he would forever be consigned to little-seen movies or supporting roles in big movies like Beauty and the Beast, but apparently Hollywood's not done with him yet.
Also, with more live-action adaptations of animated classics in the pipelines, like The Lion King and Aladdin, it's clear Disney isn't done riding this particular gravy train.
I found this movie an acceptable distraction, but really, considering rising ticket prices, I do hope Disney tries a bit harder with their future adaptations.
6.5/10
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