Director: James Gray Cast: Anne Hathaway, Jeremy Strong, Banks Repeta, Jaylin Webb, Anthony Hopkins Screenplay: James Gray 115 mins. Rated R.
I was a big fan of We Own the Night, an early James Gray (The Immigrant) film from about 15 years back, and I was rather disappointed by Ad Astra, his most recent film, so I didn’t know what to expect from Armageddon Time. It’s a even split when director’s make a semi-autobiographical film of their lives, some of them being subtle and nuanced and others being heavy-handed and overly-melodramatic, but the cast of Armageddon Time really brought me in.
Set in the heavily-divided America of the 1980s, Armageddon Time is the story of a young boy, Paul Graff (Banks Repeta, The Black Phone, Uncle Frank) as he tries to traverse a world that is changing before his very eyes. As the school year starts, Paul’s looking for companionship, and he strikes up a friendship with the troublesome Johnny (Jaylin Webb, Till), one of the only black students who has been pre-judged by his teacher to be incapable of teaching. Johnny’s a target, and Paul’s parents don’t want him to be hanging out with one of the black boys. His grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins, The Silence of the Lambs, Thor: Ragnarok) has a different perspective, having lived through many of the atrocities of the World Wars, seeing his Jewish heritage being seen as “other,” and he invites Paul to protect those that society has deemed unworthy. With the push-and-pull of this era at his backdrop, Paul struggles with his place in the world.
There are a lot of elements at play in Armageddon Time, but the one theme that jumped out at me is the idea of otherness that has pervaded many a time period, including the pivotal 1980s. They way that Gray juxtaposes the otherness of Black America with Paul’s family, who have seemingly cast aside the otherness of Jewish America that was still alive at the time (as well as in the past and, sadly, even today), is well-executed. Gray even uses the politics of the day well, showing an interview with Ronald Reagan discussing homosexuality as an apocalyptic problem, extending the range of otherness outside of race to showcase how many Americans were “others” at the time.
It would be easy to get lost in the shuffle with so many characters and a more subtle through-line in place for Armageddon Time, but the performances were what held together and elevated the material to an altogether captivating piece of cinema. I could call out practically any actor as a win here, but I want to focus on the opposing spectrum created by Jeremy Strong (The Big Short, The Trial of the Chicago 7) as Paul’s father Irving and Hopkins as Paul’s grandfather Aaron. While Irving is a stern father who cannot control his son no matter how many beatings he administers, Aaron takes a gentler, more focused parental role. There’s a central scene in the middle of the film (it’s the scene everyone seems to reference, but I’ll do so as well) in which Aaron is helping his grandson launch off a model rocket. Aaron’s soft but deft way of conversing with his grandson echoes the film’s central message of dealing with racists and those who build their lives around hatred: “Fuck ‘em.” It’s the duality of these competing messages that create the compelling back-and-forth for Paul, and it’s the eventuality of Paul’s struggle to do right by those he loves that ultimately make for a fulfilling drama.
Armageddon Time is a movie that weighs on the soul for some time after the final credits run. It’s one that only gains strength as its complex narrative web pulls at the audience. While the narrative occasionally stumbles in finding its footing, it’s one of Gray’s more accessible films, and one of his best.
3.5/5 -Kyle A. Goethe
For my review of James Gray’s Ad Astra, click here.
Director: Chinonye Chukwu Cast: Danielle Deadwyler, Jalyn Hill, Frankie Faison, Haley Bennett, Whoopi Goldberg Screenplay: Michael Reilly Keith Beauchamp, Chinonye Chukwu 130 mins. Rated PG-13 for thematic content involving racism, strong disturbing images and racial slurs.
The opening film of the Twin Cities Film Festival, Till is not the type of film you get excited to see. I knew going in that it would not be an easy watch. In fact, my wife, who accompanied me to the screening, wasn’t even sure she could sit through it, but we both came to the agreement that the film’s central theme is about seeing what happened to Emmett, and we felt it was appropriate to do so here.
In 1955, Mamie Till (Danielle Deadwyler, The Harder They Fall, Gifted) sends her son Emmett (Jalyn Hill, Space Jam: A New Legacy, The House with a Clock in its Walls) to visit family in the southern state of Mississippi, where life is even harder for Black Americans than it is in Chicago, where they live. Emmett has not been raised to fear White Americans in the way his cousins have down south. Emmett would never return home alive. Instead of letting her grief consume her, Mamie makes a radical decision: to display her dead son, untouched, for everyone to see what has happened to him in the name of racial hatred. This leads her to pursue conviction for the White men responsible.
Going into this film, it was well-known that Director Chinonye Chukwu (Clemency, alaskaLand) would not be showing the actual lynching on screen, and I heard some rumblings about whether or not showing it would be necessary to the narrative. I recall going back to the 2020 unrest here in Minneapolis due to the murder of a Black man at the hands of police officers, and a common thread I recall hearing involved the fact that Black Americans are always forced to see racial violence on television or in real life, on an almost daily basis. That swayed me into the idea that the film would not need to display the scene itself, but I still needed to see how Chukwu would handle the narrative around that, and she does an amazing job of surrounding the event itself with powerful and hard-to-watch moments, but her decision to focus on reactions to the events creates a larger emphasis on character which drives the narrative through most of the film.
With Chukwu focusing on characters and reactions, the film becomes an acting showcase for the incredible turn by Danielle Deadwyler. I’ve seen some of her work, but I wasn’t extremely aware of her talents until seeing her carry a lot of the emotional weight in the film. A movie like this, with so much inherent history, trauma, and emotional grief, might not have worked without a stellar lead, and it thankfully has one. Let me be clear by saying that film has a stacked cast, including Frankie Faison (The Silence of the Lambs, Do the Right Thing) as Mamie’s father, who travels with her to Mississippi to give testimony, and Whoopi Goldberg (The Lion King, Toy Story 3) as Mamie’s mother Alma, who views her daughter the same way Mamie views Emmett. If you can take your eyes off of Deadwyler’s devastating portrayal, you can see that Till is full of great performances, but she creates a gravitational pull with every moment.
Credit should be given to Jalyn Hill as Emmett. While he does not have a lot of screentime, it’s important to have his presence be felt throughout the entire film. Hill’s limited time in the film needs to remind us as viewers that the love for her son is more important to Mamie than the need for vengeance. I kept thinking how potentially traumatizing the role would be for a young actor to take on, and he provides joyful memories of Emmett’s life that drive Mamie forward.
The opening of the film is where the bulk of Hill’s performance is, and while Chukwu doesn’t come out and say it, the earlier portion of the film seems to indicate a dreamlike quality, with the heavier elements of the score coming into play and Deadwyler’s minute expressions indicate a surreal quality, as if she’s looking back at her time with her son. It’s never confirmed, but that’s how I interpreted this opening act.
The screenplay is based on 27 years of research conducted by co-screenwriter Keith Beauchamp, research that actually led to the reopening of the case back in 2004. I think their decision to shy away from a more complex story structure and just move chronologically from Point A to Point B works to their benefit. I’ll be real here and say that I don’t remember ever hearing about the story of Emmett Till in my school experience. I had read some articles online as an adult, and I remember the incredible short film My Nephew Emmett from a few years back that made me want to research the story even more, but I have to conclude that, unfortunately, not everyone knows this story. While the structure of the film feels simplistic, it increases the accessibility of this narrative to those that need to be educated on the life of Mamie and Emmett.
It all goes back to the story’s central theme of being seen. Mamie understood that Americans will never acknowledge the horrors and atrocities put upon the Black community unless they witness it for themselves. In that way, Till is a movie that craves to be seen, if only to put yourself into the shoes of those who knew and loved Emmett Till. I’ve referred to films like this as Shoes Movies because I’ll never fully understand what it is like to be Mamie, but for 130 minutes, I can walk in her shoes and understand a little bit more. I grew up watching movies about people who looked like me, but as I’ve gotten older, it’s become more fascinating to view the lives of people who don’t share my race, my gender, my sexual orientation, if only to further develop myself as a human. Till provided a little more insight in that journey.
Till is a movie that rests on incredible performances and the camera knows that focusing on reactions and strong physical acting, including extended takes that allow Deadwyler and the rest of the cast shine. It contains some of the year’s best performances and will be one of the more-talked-about movies this year.
Director: Derek Drymon, Jennifer Kuska Cast: Andy Samberg, Selena Gomez, Brian Hull, Kathryn Hahn, Jim Gaffigan, Steve Buscemi, Molly Shannon, David Spade, Keegan-Michael Key, Fran Drescher, Brad Abrell, Asher Blinkoff Screenplay: Amos Vernon, Nunzio Randazzo, Genndy Tartakovsky 98 mins. Rated PG for some action and rude humor including cartoon nudity.
I’ve spent the last week binging everything Hotel Transylvania. Prior to a week ago, I hadn’t seen a single film in the franchise, but when I learned that my first press screening of the year would be Transformania, I immediately began watching these films. I watched all three original films, all three short films, and a few episodes of the television series to get into the right realm to see this fourth, and reportedly final (for now) installment of the franchise. See, I do my research.
Dracula (Brian Hull, Pup Star Rescue Dogs) is preparing to retire and hand off the ownership of Hotel Transylvania to his daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez, Monte Carlo, TV’s Only Murders in the Building), but he fears that her husband Johnny (Andy Samberg, America: The Motion Picture, TV’s Saturday Night Live) will ruin his beloved hotel with his HUMAN alternatives, he inadvertently convinces Johnny to use a Monsterfication Ray to turn himself into a monster. The ray also turns Drac and his buddies into humans as well. Now, they have to fix the Monsterfication Ray and turn everyone back to normal before Johnny’s monster transformation becomes irreversible.
It’s nice to see all of these characters grow and interact with one another. One of the things that I loved while watching these films over the last week was seeing this steadily growing ensemble work with one another for the sake of hijinks. I think my favorite of the group is the third film, so seeing Drac’s relationship with Ericka (Kathryn Hahn, Afternoon Delight, TV’s WandaVision) continue beyond that film was really nice and seeing that she still has memories of her time as a monster slayer helped to bridge the films nicely to its roots. So often, we get characters that turn good in one film and then become perfect little angels like their past didn’t matter, and here, Ericka’s past definitely mattered, but she’s able to use her skills for a more noble purpose. It was also awesome to see Jim Gaffigan (Chappaquiddick, Luca) return as Van Helsing, a character I found to be captivating and funny from the previous film. Here, he’s living in seclusion and has a purpose in the narrative that, again, ties to his franchise roots (though why he never considered using the Monsterfication Ray to just turn monsters back into humans instead of killing them makes me ponder).
The only missing character that I notably missed is Drac’s father, voiced by Mel Brooks. Never a large role in the franchise, he’s always a welcome inclusion, and it would’ve been fun to see him, a former human-killing hateful vampire, turned into a human. I also noticed the lack of Adam Sandler in the role of Dracula (I didn’t miss Kevin James because Frankenstein just never had a lot to do in the series). While Brian Hull does a great Adam-Sandler-as-Dracula impression, I could tell he wasn’t the same Drac, and it was notable here.
Derek Drymon and Jennifer Kuska take over directing duties from Genndy Tartakovsky, who made the first three films (and contributed to the story and script for this installment). Their directing is much more frenetic. There’s a lot going on in the frame here, and some of it is unnecessary. I can call out the opening of the film set at the hotel party. There is so much plot jammed into this beginning, and then there’s a lot of unsuccessful visual gags here as well. It doesn’t completely derail the film, but moments of the film, specifically in the handling of Johnny, gets really annoying. There’s a chase scene at the party where Johnny yells out Mavis’s name perhaps a hundred times in a five-minute sequence, and it becomes really frustrating, and headache-producing, to listen to.
Part of that falls down to the screenplay as well, co-written by Tartakovsky along with Amos Vernon and Nunzio Randazzo. There’s an excellent idea at play here that goes back to the central themes of the first movie (whereas the sequels expanded on other elements of the characters). The concept and story work pretty well, but some of the dialogue is tell-don’t-show or characters saying aloud what’s obviously happening on screen. There’s some humor that’s mined from the central premise, but it’s more hit-and-miss than the other films.
Hotel Transylvania: Transformania has had five different release dates since Sony originally placed it in October 2021. The Delta variant launched this film all over the back half of last year before it rested as an Amazon Original in January, and the finished movie is probably the weakest installment of the franchise thus far, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth watching. If you’ve enjoyed the previous three films, then this one should be an enjoyable, though slightly less so, time in front of the television. If you didn’t like the Hotel Transylvania franchise to this point, then this one won’t sway you. I liked it but seeing it in such quick succession with the other films only highlights its flaws more.
Director: Matthew Vaughn Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Harris Dickinson, Djimon Hounsou, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander(3), Daniel Bruhl, Charles Dance Screenplay: Matthew Vaughn, Karl Gajdusek 131 mins. Rated R for sequences of strong/bloody violence, language, and some sexual material.
The Kingsman film franchise kind of came out of nowhere. I remember not being even remotely aware of the first film at all, including its release window, and then a number of reviewers and pundits that I tend to align with were praising The Secret Service’s blend of old and new spy tropes alongside director Matthew Vaughn’s (Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class) unique style and violent sensibilities. After seeing it, I really enjoyed how self-aware the over-the-topness of the world depicted in Vaughn’s adaptation completely contrasted with other action franchises at the time, though I was still surprised to hear of a follow-up in The Golden Circle. Though that sequel did not share the same praise of the original, I was of a rare sort that put it on the same level, embracing the slowly-expanding realm of oddities that slithered throughout the burgeoning franchise. Where would this series go next? Surely The King’s Man was even less expected than The Golden Circle. My excitement built with each viewing of that first trailer (and it played a lot, if you went to the theaters as often as I did), so how did the finished film go? Well, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, mostly positive, with great action and an inconsistent tone.
Set in the early 1900s, The King’s Man follows The Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes, The Grand Budapest Hotel, No Time to Die) and his son Conrad (Harris Dickinson, Beach Rats, The Souvenir: Part II) as they try to make a positive impact on WWI. The Duke, knowing of UK’s leadership failures and the willingness to send young soldiers to die for a war started by old men, builds an underground network of spies in order to stop a cabal from further toppling the governments of the East into chaos.
I’ve read a few other interpretations of The King’s Man remarking that the film is too focused on being a prequel that it doesn’t provide a stellar story, and I couldn’t disagree more. I actually found that the film spends too little time on the forming of the Kingsman that, at times, it feels like one of the later Hellraiser sequels that wasn’t a Hellraiser movie until someone attached 10 minutes of Pinhead in order to shoehorn it into the franchise. Now, the quality of The King’s Man is streets ahead of those later Hellraiser films, but I almost wondered if Vaughn had formed this idea for a WWI spy film before realizing he could make it a Kingsman prequel. Outside of the final 10-minute stinger at the end of the film and a few references to the shop and Statesman bourbon, the film does very little to link itself to the franchise at large, which is kind of the point of this film’s existence. Now, that isn’t to say that The King’s Man is a bad movie, it just felt like those first two Star Wars prequels, where everyone kept wondering when Anakin would turn to the dark side.
Where the film succeeds is in Vaughn’s understanding of action, and The King’s Man does feature perhaps the single most entertaining action set piece of 2021. The action hits and it hits hard. I don’t have a fault with the film’s action or its visuals or the characters. Vaughn has a knack for making this kind of spectacle filmmaking which really looks dazzling, especially on the big screen. His narrative tows the believability-line just enough to make it fit within his larger franchise narrative even if the story does not.
The King’s Man has a bevy of interesting characters to take away, most notably Rhys Ifans (The Amazing Spider-Man, Official Secrets) as Grigori Rasputin, a member of our secret villain’s collective. There’s a reason why Ifans is featured so heavily in the trailer despite not being as prominent in the finished film, and that’s because he owns the screen every single time he re-enters the narrative. He’s a disturbing and sick individual who chews the scenery with such glee and also capably performs (in that costume, no less) through some solid fight sequences.
I also really liked Fiennes’s take on Oxford, as he’s very much a father who recognizes the dangers of young men fighting the wars of old men, and he sees the indoctrination of his son Conrad. Knowing that the only way to keep his son out of war is to recruit him to the dangerous underground organization he’s been building seems to suggest an understanding of what is needed to do the right thing the right way. I like that he tows the line of being a father/mentor and an equal to his son, and it makes the back-and-forth of their relationship quite captivating.
The film’s biggest struggle throughout all of this is the wildly-inconsistent tone. While the first two Kingsman films seem to comfortably rest on the James Bond archetype of Roger Moore’s performance, with action and heart and comedy seemingly married in the right recipe. With this prequel, the film has moments where the inconsistencies of the tone almost seem to add to the twists and turns of the narrative, but that would be giving it too much credit. The problem, for me, is that I didn’t know from one minute to another if the scene I was watching was supposed to be aiming for comedy or serious, and the latter won out far too often. It just seems to miss out on what was so fun for the other films due to its reliance on overly-serious elements that occasionally lost me.
The King’s Man is a mildly-successful piece of entertainment that doesn’t get everything right and loses a bit of the fun of the previous entries, but a strong lead performance and an exciting selection of action set pieces keep the film enjoyable throughout its more mixed aspects. I still recommend this one to fans of the franchise but temper your expectations if it’s the comedy of the franchise that worked for you.
3/5 -Kyle A. Goethe
For my review of Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men: First Class, click here.
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton Cast: Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Meng’er Zhang, Fala Chen, Florian Munteanu, Benedict Wong, Michelle Yeoh, Tony Leung Screenplay: Dave Callaham, Destin Daniel Cretton, Andrew Lanham 132 mins. Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, and language.
There’s been a level of uncertainty surrounding the MCU following the finale of the Infinity Saga. As Avengers: Endgame came to rest, fans everywhere were overjoyed by this conclusion to the story, and a few of us were left wondering, “Where do we go from here?” It’s a fair question, of course. No cinematic universe has been more ambitious or successful as the MCU, but even so, how could they top that ending? As solid as Spider-Man: Far From Home was, it was seen as an epilogue to the story, instead of being a jump-start to the next film. Then, 2020 and COVID gave us the first year since 2009 without an MCU installment. Even 2021’s Black Widow was set during Phase 3 and acted more as a sendoff to a beloved character than a true starting point for what was next. We were fools, of course, not to trust Marvel, a studio that has consistently triumphed in spectacle and action and also seems to be consistently gaining speed in the general artistry of their epics. The newest installment, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, feels like a breath of fresh air and a reminder that this world is far from stale, and it’s indeed the best origin story the MCU has had in years.
Shaun (Simu Liu, Women Is Losers, TV’s Kim’s Convenience) and his friend Katy (Awkwafina, Ocean’s Eight, TV’s Awkwafina is Nora From Queens) are virtually inseparable. They both work together as valets during the day and spend their evenings hanging out, living in the moment, and trying to make ends meet, and it doesn’t seem like this cycle will break anytime soon. That is, until a group of trained killers board their bus, looking for Shaun and a necklace he’s wearing. After dispatching the foes with a blend of incredible martial artistry, Shaun is forced to reveal that his real name is Shang-Chi, and he’s a trained master of martial arts and son to a criminal mastermind, Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love, Europe Raiders), known as The Mandarin. Now, Shang-Chi and Katy are on a mission to reunite with his long-lost sister and foil his father’s dangerous plan. In doing so, Shang-Chi will be forced to confront a past he ran away from and a legacy he has tried to hide.
I’m very unfamiliar with Shang-Chi, the local bookstore where I would hunt down old comic books never had any back issues as far as I knew, but I knew just bits and pieces and hoped for the best here, and I was blown away by this film. It’s a classic action epic fantasy more so than any singular superhero tale, dealing with strange new environments, lots of mythology and mysticism, and spectacular creature design. If you removed the MCU connections, this movie could very much stand on its own and be just as entertaining, but know that Shang-Chi is stepping into a larger world only makes me more excited for where this character is headed, and all of that stems from an incredibly strong lead performance from Simu Liu. This is the first time I can recall seeing Liu perform, and I was enamored with his ability to flip between the serious emotional family drama on display and the playful Marvel tone so easily. He never stumbles, and none of the drama or comedy feels forced into the situation. When I’d heard that Marvel had cast the guy that tweeted them for the role, I was very uncertain, but Liu’s ability to hold his own against Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Boss Level) confirms to me that he has a long career ahead of him.
Another aspect of the film that concerned me on the outset was the decision to revamp the character of the Mandarin. I am a huge fan of Iron Man 3 and I actually loved how they pulled the rug out from under viewers, revealing that the Mandarin was really Trevor Slattery, a cheesy character actor playing up to the more stereotypical aspects of the villain, and he was used as a front for Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian. The Mandarin is a tricky character in the comics, a very stereotyped character that plays to the offensive fairly often, so I found the Slattery reveal to be a high point of the Shane Black sequel, and when I heard that this film would retcon the Mandarin, I was pretty frustrated, but the combination of Tony Leung’s performance and the way he is incorporated into the already laid-out mythology of the MCU’s Mandarin is so classy and interesting without a hint of disrespect to what came before. In fact, they honor the previously-established mythology so well that I giggled with glee throughout most of Leung’s scenes. I’m a big fan of Leung’s work already, and I already knew he was going to knock his performance out of the park, but Xu Wenwu will likely go down as one of the stronger MCU villains, showing that the studio is again willing to learn from its villain problem and create a nuanced character antagonist. Part of that stems from the collaboration between director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12, Just Mercy) and Leung in crafting the character, with Leung given more control than most to create the villain, and he’s a sympathetic, but never weak, villain that you can understand even if his actions cannot be condoned.
It also cannot be overstated how much Awkwafina adds to this movie. Almost more egregious than their villain problem is Marvel’s way of dealing with the romantic leads in their films, and though I wouldn’t state that Katy is a romantic lead even though there’s an obvious hint at something under the surface, she’s dealt with significantly better than Thor’s Natalie Portman or Doctor Strange’s Rachel McAdams, to name a few. For starters, Katy is given way more to do in the film, and there are several sequences, particularly in the film’s third act, where she is given the spotlight and it all works just as well. Her character arc still runs alongside Shang-Chi’s, but she consistently plays a part in the narrative and is never discarded or forgotten in the story, playing an integral role in the story, as well as a healthy dose of comedic relief and some of the best chemistry of all the MCU in her scenes with Liu.
I saw Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings after only catching the first trailer (one of the benefits of closed theaters for all of 2020 was not getting beaten over the head repeatedly with spoilery trailers), and I think it’s best to avoid ruining some of the many surprises in store for viewers, so I don’t want to give away too much, but I’ll say that the fight scenes are intense and beautifully shot, there are battle sequences that feel on par with other fantasy epics, and the creatures in the film vary from cute and cuddly to horrifying and monstrous, and I was never bored at all throughout the film. There’s always a worry when a filmmaker steps up to the blockbuster plate after being so successful at indies (while many are able to accomplish this feat, not all of them are able to), so I’m pleased that Cretton takes the independent film sensibilities he’s used all his career and applies it to a big budget studio tentpole, creating one of the most unique tones and experiences of the entire MCU. This one stands on its own two feet but leads to some interesting places for where the character and series can go from here.
I grew up watching a lot of movies that featured people that looked like me, and as I get older, I tend to find the more interesting stories tend to be the ones surrounding people who don’t look like me. Shang-Chi features a lot of amazing mythology that feels like a window into another world, and it’s also really important that the MCU, 25 films deep at this point, finally has an Asian Leading Superhero. Shang-Chi had many failed attempts to get to the screen stretching all the way back to the 1980s with an adaptation in the works that would’ve features Brandon Lee, and there was an attempt back in 2001 as well with numerous directors entering and exiting the project. It took a long time, but at least the film we’ve been waiting decades for is pretty much the best case scenario, a movie that expands on that classic Marvel storytelling formula but goes in some completely unexpected directions. I had loads of fun with this character and this world, and I’m so excited to go back to the theater when this opens to see it again. Much like DC’s The Suicide Squad, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings showcases a bright future for the MCU, and this film comes with my highest recommendation.
5/5 -Kyle A. Goethe
For my review of Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger, click here.
For my review of Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s Captain Marvel, click here.
For my review of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man, click here.
For my review of Jon Favreau’s Iron Man 2, click here.
For my review of Louis Leterrier’s The Incredible Hulk, click here.
For my review of Leythum’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer, click here.
For my review of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, click here.
For my review of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, click here.
For my review of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, click here.
For my review of Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, click here.
For my review of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Captain America: Civil War, click here.
For my review of Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther, click here.
For my review of Jon Watts’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, click here.
For my review of Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, click here.
For my review of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Infinity War, click here.
For my review of Joe and Anthony Russo’s Avengers: Endgame, click here.
For my review of Jon Watts’s Spider-Man: Far From Home, click here.
Director: James Gunn Cast: Margot Robbie, Idris Elba, John Cena, Joel Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Peter Capaldi, David Dastmalchian, Daniela Melchior, Michael Rooker, Alice Braga, Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion, Sean Gunn, Flula Borg, Mayling Ng, Sylvester Stallone, Viola Davis Screenplay: James Gunn 132 mins. Rated R for strong violence and gore, language throughout, some sexual references, drug use and brief graphic nudity.
A follow-up to 2016’s Suicide Squad has gone through a great many permutations since the original film opened to less-than-stellar reviews and reports of serious studio meddling on the part of Warner Bros. At various times, filmmakers like David Ayer, Mel Gibson, Gavin O’Connor, and Jaume Collet-Serra, were connected to the project before James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, Super) stepped on board as a writer and director. Gunn, fresh off the controversy with Disney that led to his firing, put a lot of himself into this new film, and it seems he was given carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. I was very excited to see this film, and I was able to catch a press screening of the film last week. I’m happy to say that The Suicide Squad might be the best installment of the DCEU yet.
Amanda Waller (Viola Davis, Fences, Widows) has reassembled Task Force X with some new and familiar faces in an effort to destroy Jötunheim, an experimental laboratory on Corto Maltese. As before, each of these thirteen inmates of Belle Reve have an explosive device in their skulls and, if they survive, they get time removed from their prison sentences. Under the leadership of Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman, RoboCop, Edge of Winter), Task Force X begins their mission in bloody fashion, but they’ll soon find that Jötunheim is a much more protected stronghold than they’ve faced before, and it contains some secrets that perhaps should not be found.
There are simply too many characters in this film to spend time on each of them, and don’t assume that, because I didn’t talk about someone, they die earlier or aren’t worth it. I’m going to focus on the particular characters that stood out most to me, and I’ll just say that I enjoyed every single character in this movie. Gunn found a way to give each of them a POP that made them memorable in the film. Perhaps the film’s greatest fault is more of a strength in that I enjoyed all of these characters so much that I didn’t want them to die, but knowing this is a Suicide Squad movie, some of them need to die. Gunn reminds us throughout his screenplay that the odds are heavily stacked against Task Force X, and that makes for a more exciting movie experience because of it.
I would argue that this film doesn’t ignore the original Suicide Squad (or Birds of Prey) as much as interviews and reports have led us to believe. It doesn’t out-and-out reference these previous films, but it certainly isn’t trying to hide them away either. In fact, Gunn does a great job at incorporating some of the legacy characters of Suicide Squad. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, The Wolf of Wall Street, I, Tonya) is perhaps the best she’s ever been in the DCEU, and part of that comes from a mutual understanding of the character for Gunn and Robbie. Her character arc in this film sensibly builds on what she did in her first two appearances, and there’s the idea of Quinn as a catalyst of chaos, much like her former beau, that works quite well because the film isn’t resting on her shoulders. Even Rick Flag and Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney, Terminator Genisys, Jolt) feel like natural progressions of their characters, while Amanda Waller is the same hard-ass from the previous film, but I like the added lack of emotion she feels here when members of the Squad suffer or die. She had that in the previous film, but it’s further expanded upon here.
Idris Elba (Beasts of No Nation, Concrete Cowboy) is quite spectacular here as Bloodsport, a new addition to the universe who has such a pessimism for the mission but is forced into by Waller. Having seen Elba as an action superstar in other movies, it’s nice to see him play around with the idea that he has no faith in the mission and a complete understanding of his odds. He also has great interplay with the others in the Task Force X team.
Other notable introductions here include David Dastmalchian (Prisoners, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) as Polka-Dot Man, a character with a memorable screen presence and an interesting ability and Sean Gunn (The Belko Experiment, Ordinary World) as Weasel, a kind-of anti-Rocket Racoon, a clumsy and disturbing humanoid creature without any truly special abilities, but if I’m being fair, it is John Cena (Bumblebee, F9: The Fast Saga) who steals the show as Peacemaker, a criminal who sees himself as a hero, a protector of peace, no matter who he has to kill to make it happen.
Therein lies James Gunn’s greatest strength as a director: his ability to pull the best performances from his actors. He made Dave Bautista a better actor through their collaboration, and here again he has found a way to further develop Cena’s talents to make Peacemaker the standout character of the entire film. I never thought I’d be saying that, but it’s impossible to deny.
Gunn has a remarkable directing style that stands out even in studio pictures, and The Suicide Squad feels like a James Gunn movie with a big-ass budget. He’s in his realm, making the kinds of movies he’s always made, but now he has the money to stand behind his vision. As a screenwriter, he’s always been able to embrace the insanity in a way many others have tried and failed. Here, he has a ragtag group of villains that we shouldn’t be rooting for as they do reprehensible things to survive an unsurvivable mission, facing off against some of the weirdest antagonists in the comic book realm, and yet, he accomplished just about everything he sets out to do here. Having seen the film already, I just cannot wait to see it again.
If I’m looking for a flaw, and there are so few, I would have to say the only frustrating part of the film is a nitpick. I really like how the film presents its title cards almost like chapter headings, but a few of them were tough to read in the style they chose. I know, it doesn’t seem like a big deal because it isn’t, but it’s truly the only problem I had with this movie. Perhaps a tightening up of a few minutes in that transition from Act II to Act III, but again, nothing that I feel is ultimately a large problem for this film.
I had loads of fun with The Suicide Squad, and while I’m not ready to call it the best film in the entire DCEU yet (I’m still torn between this one and Shazam!), I have nothing but praise for this movie and the terrific work of its cast and crew. It’s batshit crazy in all the right ways, producing one of the most unique cinema experiences I have had in a long time, especially for a film fitting within a larger cinematic framework. The Suicide Squad is the kind of movie that the DCEU, the superhero genre, and the theater needs right now, and it’s unlike anything the DCEU or the MCU have done yet. See this one as soon as you can (because there will be spoilers abound on release weekend), and if possible, go to the theater to see it, because the big screen experience matches the big bombastic movie that James Gunn has crafted here.
4.5/5 -Kyle A. Goethe
For my review of Patty Jenkins’s Wonder Woman, click here.
For my review of Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel, click here.
For my review of Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, click here.
For my review of David Ayer’s Suicide Squad, click here.
For my review of Zack Snyder’s Justice League (Theatrical Cut), click here.
For my review of David F. Sandberg’s Shazam!, click here.
For my review of Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), click here.
For my review of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy, click here.
For my review of James Gunn’s Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, click here.
Director: Tom McCarthy Cast: Matt Damon, Camille Cottin, Abigail Breslin Screenplay: Tom McCarthy, Marcus Hinchey, Thomas Bidegain, Noé Debré 140 mins. Rated R for language.
I’ve been waiting on a follow-up to Spotlight for some time now. Tom McCarthy (The Cobbler) exploded as a director with his film about the Boston Globe uncovering the Catholic Church’s history of child molestation cover-ups. I’ve heard mostly solid things from my colleagues on McCarthy’s newest film, Stillwater, but I had no real intel on the film, and I didn’t know much going into it save for Matt Damon (Good Will Hunting, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot) being oddly cast as an oil rig worker. Surprisingly, Damon is among the better performances in this film that mostly succeeds even with a more muddled climax.
Bill Baker (Damon) has been back and forth between his small town of Stillwater and Marseille to visit his incarcerated daughter Alison (Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine, Zombieland: Double Tap), who is in prison for murder. When new information surfaces but the lawyers refuse to look into it, Bill takes it upon himself to investigate the info, and he gets the help of Virginie (Camille Cottin, Allied, TVs Call My Agent!) to assist him with navigating the legal system and the language barriers that exist with the differing cultures.
It’s hard to play a character that doesn’t seem to talk throughout the entire run time of the film, and yet Matt Damon tackles the role of Bill Baker in a surprisingly honest way. He doesn’t speak long emotional monologues, but he speaks in every gesture, displaying the wide array of emotions through a quiet and more subdued performance of visual tics and believable character building, and while I don’t agree with his choices throughout parts of the narrative, I can understand his reasoning, however flawed it can be. I can’t deny that even as I watch Bill lie to his daughter in the opening moments of the film, anger fueling me at the sheer stupidity of his false hope, I can still totally see why he would act that way.
There’s significant chemistry between Bill and his newfound friendship with Virginie as they play two entirely opposite people that have little in common other than the common decency of select humans. I was unaware of actress Camille Cottin before seeing here in Stillwater, and I was quite impressed with her turn as the actress aspiring to make ends meet for her child. The child, Maya, played by Lilou Siauvaud, is another standout performance here, specifically her scenes with Damon as he discovers a change to be a better father figure to her than he was with Alison.
Something else that struck me as quite powerful in Stillwater was the examination of culture, specifically in how it married the Oklahoman Bill Baker, full of Americana, burger-eating, and country-music-listening, to Marseille and the world that exists beyond our shores. The ways that McCarthy’s film examines the similarities and contrasts of the two worlds was quite effective and made for an interesting experience in viewing Stillwater.
Where the film falters is in its run time and its ending. For starters, this film is far too long, and to be fair, there’s a lot of film packed in here, but there’s simply no need for this movie to run 140 minutes. There’s an important plot adjustment in Act II that puts the film in a meandering state, where I felt that the character journeys took center stage at the detriment of plot. The character arcs are all quite interesting, but I was left wondering when we were getting back to what this movie was about. In fact, I had almost started wondering if the story would return at all before it did in a grand way. Unfortunately, the film’s main climax left me with too many questions about how events unfolded, what happened to certain characters, and the overall reality of the plot progression. I wouldn’t say any of this ruined the finished film, but my level of confusion and questioning caused me to try and make plot points fit together on the ride home from the theater. I’m not sure if some of this connections were in the script but excised in the editing bay or if they were never written in the film to begin with, but they pulled me out of the film.
With shades of Sean Penn’s The Pledge, Stillwater is full of pain, reckoning, and the forced acceptance of mistakes, and thankfully McCarthy injects a tiny bit of comedy in places where he can, or the film would be a drag of depression throughout. I really liked Matt Damon’s performance, and the think his character arc and the story are challenging and captivating, even if the ending drops off a bit. Stillwater is an interesting story, one we’ve seen before, but the infusion of cultural parallelism and a flawed but intriguing lead character make for an engaging film that I recommend.
Director: Edgar Wright Cast: Ron Mael, Russell Mael 135 mins. Rated R.
When I first heard that Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver) had directed a documentary, I remember taking a moment to ponder the idea. How would an Edgar Wright documentary actually work? What topic would Wright choose to document? Where would his signature style best be utilized? After the moment ended, I said, “Well, it would have to be a music doc, right?” Yes, as a matter of fact, it was.
The Sparks Brothers is the story of…well, the Sparks Brothers, or perhaps, the band Sparks and the two brothers who have continued to make music for about 50 years, having created 25 albums, and basically being the most underground of musicians, loved by many but never discussed in the pantheon of great artists. As musician Beck eloquently puts it at the beginning, if you get a bunch of musicians together for a conversation, by the end of the night, they’ll end up talking about Sparks (he put it better than I did, but I don’t have the quote in front of me). But who exactly are Ron and Russell Mael? Are they really Americans? How have they persisted, decade after decade, as the culture has evolved? And why does no one talk about them the way they deserve? These are the questions Edgar Wright, fan of the band, puts forward, as we hear from former members of the band and fans like Patton Oswalt, Weird Al, and Mike Myers, as well as the titular brother themselves. The film is a narrative odyssey of a band I never knew.
As stated above, I was familiar with one Sparks song, and I’d only heard that one song one time, and I can’t even remember where, so don’t take this next statement lightly: in less than 2 1/2 hours, Edgar Wright turned me into a Sparks die-hard fanboy. I caught the film last night at an early screening, and all day today, I’ve been listening to their music nonstop. At lunch, I stopped by a record store to see if I could find any old albums. I’ve been humming the music even when it’s not playing. I’m obsessed, and there lies the brilliance of this Edgar Wright documentary. It’s not the style (though the style is great), it’s that he chose a topic that is so universally unrecognized, and he gave a crash course for viewers like me. In a way, this is a sister (or perhaps brother) doc to Searching for Sugar Man, another brilliant doc from several years back chronicling a musician that the public seems to have missed.
We spend a lot of time with the brothers, Ron and Russell, throughout the film, and their onstage charisma works just as well when they’re sitting on some stools being asked questions and walking us through their careers and lives. From the noble beginnings as Half Nelson to all their successes and failures (though I would only refer to these as commercial failures because the music throughout is never less than astonishingly funny, catchy, entertaining, and deeper than expected), we see a band led by two artists in a constant state of rebirth. Sparks is like a butterfly that gets out of the cocoon and then says, no, let me try that again, before jumping back in.
It was also interesting to see the wide berth of fans that the band has accumulated in their time. There are some interesting personalities I wouldn’t have guessed to appear here, like Neil Gaiman and Flea. Hearing how each of them fell in love with the band is just as much fun as hearing the songs themselves.
On that note, Wright makes the strong choice of dissecting the band from their very beginning, understanding that many of the people who watch this documentary will likely not have known much about them. I didn’t, and the doc is at its best when it recognizes this feat. Perhaps the only flaw (if there has to be one) is that the finished film is pretty long, but I’m not even sure what I would cut. I think it takes a bit before it really gets going. I wanted to hear the music of the band, so perhaps waiting on the backstory and childhoods of the brothers in order to anoint viewers with the band as adults might actually have helped, but again, I don’t think I’d cut anything. The film is working to its strengths as it guides us through, album by album, year by year, like a stylistic and frenetic VH1 Behind the Music episode.
I cannot recommend The Sparks Brothers highly enough. Seek this film out, and (dare I say) see it in a theater if you can. I know, you’re probably balking, “But it’s just a documentary!” To that, I would argue that this doc feels, at times, like a concert film and a comedy and a love letter to music, artistry, and pop culture. Edgar Wright’s masterful directing keeps the narrative flow at an accessible level, even for those of us who knew nothing about Sparks going in. It will make a fan out of you, one song at a time.
4.5/5 -Kyle A. Goethe
For my review of Edgar Wright’s The World’s End, click here. For my review of Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver, click here. For the Why I Love…Cinema episode on Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead, click here.
Director: Jon M. Chu Cast: Anthony Ramos, Corey Hawkins, Leslie Grace, Melissa Barrera, Olga Merediz, Daphne Rubin-Vega, Gregory Diaz IV, Jimmy Smits, Lin-Manuel Miranda Screenplay: Quiara Alegría Hudes 143 mins. Rated PG-13.
We are starting to return to a level of normalcy. Projects that I’ve been excited about for many months are actually coming out, and they are coming to theaters (and, in some cases, HBO Max at the same time). Last week was the first official time I’ve been in a theater since March 2020. I went to see Spiral (From the Book of Saw). A few days later, I attended my first Early Screening for another anticipated film, In the Heights, which we’ll be discussing today. In the Heights is an exciting movie for me in many ways. Following up on Crazy Rich Asians, I was very excited to see what director Jon M. Chu (Now You See Me 2) would direct next. I’ve also become a fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda (even though, I’ll say it, I haven’t seen Hamilton yet), and I’ve enjoyed the music and elements he has added to productions like The Force Awakens and Moana. I’ve also been following the trajectory of Corey Hawkins (BlacKkKLansman, Iron Man 3), who has consistently impressed me. The trailers also continued to raise my interest in the project (I love a stylish new musical), and thankfully, upon seeing the finished product, I have to consider it (mostly) successful.
Set on the streets of Washington Heights, New York, we follow several intersecting stories in the days leading up to a massive blackout in the hot summer. Usnavi (Anthony Ramos, A Star is Born, Hamilton) strives for identity as he searches for a way out of Washington Heights, all the while working up the courage to utter just a few words to Vanessa (Melissa Barrera, L for Leisure, Two Times You), a frequent customer in his bodega. Benny (Hawkins), a taxi dispatcher, finds his situation further complicated when his ex, Nina (Leslie Grace), returns home from Stanford unexpectedly. Nina’s father Kevin (Jimmy Smits, The Tax Collector, TV’s NYPD Blue) has been scraping and surviving to help pay her college, but in doing so, he is losing a portion of himself. As the days get hotter and we head toward that inevitable power outage, the residents of Washington Heights are all in search of their passions and worth in a society that seems so often to forget them.
A film adaptation for In the Heights has been in development since 2008, and several directors have stepped in to attempt to get the project off the ground, and off the success of Miranda’s Hamilton, the project finally saw some movement, and director Chu at the helm was the perfect choice to capably adapt the musical for theater audiences. There’s an understanding from Chu that adaptation is not perfect translation (a stage musical is very much not the same thing as a film), and he adds stylistic flair to the film, especially during the many musical numbers, that showcase that this is indeed a throwback to classic Hollywood musicals and their occasional excessive grandeur. Specifically, I really liked the added animation as our cast of characters head toward the pool, and I wish the film did this more often. Chu has a notable gloss to his visuals, sometimes to his detriment, but in a film like In the Heights (and his glamorous predecessor Crazy Rich Asians), it provides a joyful and entertaining bit of movie-making that’s just beautiful to look at. The cinematography, in conjunction with the impressive dance choreography, is stunningly on display here.
The musical numbers may not work for everyone who doesn’t like the speed of rapid-fire rap dialogue, but I rather enjoyed them, even if I admit to have missed a lot of information being relayed in each song. The film’s simultaneous release on HBO Max may actually work to its benefit (the experience is best in theaters, but I’m excited for a free second viewing on my HBO Max account on release day just to put subtitles on and re-experience the music this way). Most musicals require a second viewing for a full appreciation (or at least some repeat YouTube plays for some of the more memorable numbers) and In the Heights is no exception, but at least you have the option of that second viewing at home. I’m particularly looking forward to revisiting “96,000” (seriously, knowing nothing of the film, I wondered how a song with that title could be enjoyable, and I admit defeat in this arena).
It’s obvious that the director took inspiration from Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing in presenting Washington Heights in the hot summer sun. Whereas Lee’s film showed the heat heading to a boiling point, Chu’s less-stressful film instead allows the resiliency of his characters to be whittled away amid the heat. Keeping all the action on these streets and using the ticking time-bomb of the blackout, similarly to Tarantino’s countdown to the Manson murders of Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood, is very effective and consistently reminds the audience that we are heading to a collision, uncertain of what exactly will transpire when the lights go out on Washington Heights.
Let’s talk about the characters, starting with Usnavi. Screenwriter Quiara Alegría Hudes (who wrote the theatrical production as well) captures something very exciting about Usnavi, and her creation of the character alongside Anthony Ramos’s earnest portrayal gives a larger-than-life character that still feels so human and relatable. I foresee a solid future for Ramos, who stayed memorable with limited screen time in A Star is Born and truly shines here. The framing device works even if it is something we’ve seen before and know where it’s heading the whole time.
Corey Hawkins and Jimmy Smits both consistently turn in exemplary work, no matter the project, and here again is no exception. Hawkins takes the musical stylings he learned while working on Straight Outta Compton and turns Benny into a likable albeit flawed man who oversteps his bounds when his heart is checked, and I liked the back-and-forth with Smits’s Kevin Rosario, who mines the tension from their working relationship and the complication of his daughter Nina. Smits is never not putting forth the effort and elevating the work around him.
For me, the absolute surprise breakout of In the Heights has to be Melissa Barrera as Vanessa. I’m unfamiliar with anything she’s done previously, but I was unable to take my eyes off her throughout most of her screen time. Hers is an honest and passionate portrayal of someone who feels the unflinching hands of time working against her and life goals, and I felt for the confusion she is facing as multiple major life decisions come upon her. She never once feels overplayed or cliché, even in a film that has more than a few plot conveniences.
I can’t think of a single performance in In the Heights that was underwhelming, and the biggest flaw with the film is not the performances of the characters but perhaps a bit too much focus on too many secondary characters. In the Heights is overly long, and it feels lagging after the major blackout begins. The night of the blackout is full of interesting plot movement, but the days following the blackout up until when the electricity finally returns to Washington Heights feel unnecessary, seeking to service too many characters that don’t have the impact of our leads. I kept wondering why the film continued, and it wasn’t until the final time jump following the blackout that the film finally reeled me back in. In the Heights does not need to be over two hours, and while some of the secondary characters perhaps had more purpose in the theatrical production, I just didn’t need to see an ending for some of the secondary characters like Daniela (Daphne Rubin-Vega, Wild Things, Sex and the City), and it didn’t really grab me until we returned focus back to Usnavi, Benny, Nina, and Vanessa. I like the vignette-style of the film, but I didn’t feel the need to keep checking in on certain characters. Look at the Piragua Guy (played by Lin-Manuel Miranda). His character shows up a few times, gives some lightheartedness and musical delight, and then recedes. I needed nothing more from his character, and the film didn’t necessitate an arc for him. That same mentality could have been given to Daniela and the salon girls. They provided some great character beats early in the film, but the meandering post-blackout story for both them and other secondary characters gave me nothing of interest to grasp onto.
In the Heights was a breath of fresh air, and it seems like the perfect film for this time. Not only is the Midwest experiencing an epic heat wave (power, don’t fail me now), but as we continue our return to normal life and, for many of us, return to the cinema for the first time in months, In the Heights is a joyful welcome back, full of captivating characters, an accessible and relatable story, and a significant reflection on the immigrant experience in America. I don’t have to tell you that, as a straight white male in society, I am represented to an overwhelming extent within the entertainment industry, but I love seeing the full representation of other races that movies like In the Heights and Crazy Rich Asians brings to cinemas. Though the finished film drags a bit, In the Heights was the enjoyable experience I needed as life returns to some semblance of pre-COVID normalcy, and I think you’ll find something to love here too.
Director: Robin Wright Cast: Robin Wright, Demián Bichir Screenplay: Jesse Chatham, Erin Dignam 89 mins. Rated PG-13.
The story behind Robin Wright’s directing of Land, her feature directorial debut, came about by a mere scheduling conflict. Wright, who had previously helmed several episodes of House of Cards as well as the short film The Dark of Night, was asked to direct the film when all the pieces had come into play but there was no director, and the film had to be completed with production in 29 days. The entirety of Land was shot in those 29 days with Wright, who appears in every scene, behind the camera as well as in front.
Land is the story of Edee (Wright), a grieving woman who has purchased a plot of land deep in the Wyoming forest. She doesn’t seem particularly skilled at living off the grid, minus a phone and any technology, and when she nearly dies in a snowstorm, she is luckily rescued and brought back to health by Miguel (Demián Bichir, The Hateful Eight, Chaos Walking), who also lives in the wilderness nearby and has passed her house several times. Edee would much rather be alone, but she’s in no condition to push Miguel away. Miguel instead offers to teach her to successfully hunt, fish, and care for herself in the wild. Edee takes him up on his offer, and she begins to see all the ways that they are more similar than she expected.
Land is a solid debut for Robin Wright as a feature director, but it is not without its faults. The pacing of the narrative holds mostly well for 89 minutes, but this is a case where even 89 minutes feels a little too long. I don’t think the extended periods of Wright all alone on screen consistently maintained my interest. I held this criticism for the Robert Redford film All is Lost, another movie with even less dialogue than Land, but both struggled to keep my focus on the narrative with the lack of visual action onscreen. I never had flat-out signs of boredom, but I found myself checking the time more than once.
The film’s cinematography makes up a lot of ground, though, thanks to some truly striking imagery of the beauty in Wyoming (well, the film was shot in Canada, but we are meant to see Wyoming). The shot composition did a lot to position me in the world with Edee. I felt cold watching the snowy environment and I could almost smell the morning dew on the blades of grass. It’s a wholly arresting bit of scenery that evokes every sense.
I also found Wright’s performance to be quite strong as Edee. I would have liked to peel back the layers of her character earlier on in the narrative. We get a big emotional information dump at the end of the film that would have been more interesting had it shown up earlier than the final ten minutes. We get bits and pieces of her backstory as the film moves along, but we never really get the ability to reconcile with her past and her pain because the movie ends as soon as we get the story that Edee’s been struggling to bury at the very end and therefore the reckoning that we’ve been waiting on never really occurs, though we are meant to believe it has.
Wright plays off of Bichir very well. In fact, so often, Demián Bichir is the secret weapon of any film, as he can do so much with so little. He’s easily the best part of the underwhelming The Grudge from last year, and he even stand out among The Hateful Eight with limited dialogue and screen time. Bichir and Wright have such solid chemistry and they each come at their roles differently, Wright with stoic sadness and Bichir with a limited sense of hope and happiness. The scenes with the two of them onscreen are electrifying.
The only element of the film that flat-out doesn’t work is the invasive and, dare I say, annoying score that invades every scene like an unwelcome intruder. It grates on the ear drums and, though I can sense what it’s trying to do, it never seems to add anything to the film but irritation.
Land has more strengths than weaknesses, and the strong acting from Wright and Bichir as well as an arresting bit of visual delight save an otherwise more forgettable movie. There’s just a lot here that has been done before, and better, but I wouldn’t say that Wright’s feature directorial debut is a bust. It’s a solid little movie for an afternoon matinee, and I would still give it a slight recommendation, if you can handle the score.
GOAT Film Reviews 