BLOWING IT OUT OF THE WATER

 

MOVIE
Avatar: The Way of Water (3-D)
Director James Cameron
Review Ray Chan

It’s been so long since the first instalment that viewers could be forgiven for having trouble remembering anything about the parables on planetoid Pandora.
    So, a quick recap. In the year 2154, the celestial satellite – inhabited by blue-skinned, sapient humanoids that live in harmony with nature – is coveted by Earthlings whose own planet’s resources have been depleted.
    To explore Pandora’s box, genetically-matched human scientists use Na'vi-human hybrids called "avatars". Paraplegic marine Jake Scully (Sam Worthington) is one such recruit sent on a scouting mission but ends up driving his own race of invaders away, ultimately settling down and living happily as a Na’vi with his native wife and family. 
    A new threat duly arrives, as Pandora is threatened once again when the Earthmen return, with a much bigger army. Through Sully’s family (which includes an irritating human boy named Spider), we get a sense of the stakes and why the inhabitants revere a whale-like creature named the tulkan. 
    To keep out of harm’s way, they find shelter with the Metkayina reef people, whose physical features have adapted to their water wonderlands, and who are also leery of the “sky people”.
    Clocking in at three hours and 12 minutes in full, the story takes too long to get going, sure to cause impatient viewers to twitch in their seats. When it does, we realise it’s basically an extension of the first, with its overt themes of familial love and loss, along with impassioned indictments of military colonialism and climate destruction.
    But then we get the payoff. Where the movie really comes into its own is the ambitious animation used throughout, reaching almost preposterously realistic dimensions hitherto unseen. 
    The major part of the film takes place in the wet, with director Cameron using it as an excuse to show off the latest in visual effects wizardry as he satisfies his well-documented penchant for aquatic adventures.
    Of course, the 2009 movie had been one of the first in the industry to utilise 3-D effects. However, in the time since then, trends have changed so quickly that the technology now seems to have been regarded more ancient than avant-garde. 
    This sequel is shot in that same style, requiring the donning of visual-enhancing glasses that were once a requisite at theatres. And it’s so much worth it. Way of Water looks like a billion bucks. And certainly cost as much to produce.
    Right from the first dive into Pandora’s oceans, the lushly luminescent undersea settings and richly chromatic floras and faunas combine to sweep the audience away and immerse it in its vast and vivid, silky smooth water world, creating pure cinematic magic. 
    Cameron unleashes more than a decade of technological advancements on the viewer, resulting in possibly the most immersive film ever experienced, exploding with brilliant hues and fast-moving otherworldly images that rarely fail to dazzle the eyes for any lengthy stretch of this epic. 
    And the action, when it arrives, is thunderingly entertaining. On one side there is the Na’vi navy, astride majestic flying fish dragons, ululating and bristling with spears. On the other, the squad of Earth marines, plus a swaggering, dickish Australian seadog named Scoresby (Brendan Cowell, near-stealing the show with his salty jargon) and an armada of incredible military tech (scuttling crab-submarines, for example).
    What ensues is a sea battle for the ages, a blisteringly exciting meld of live-action elements and visuals, which boggles the brain in all their crystal-sharp, hyper-real resolution. 
    Many of the cast had been given special scuba training for the scenes, such as breath techniques. But given the calibre of the actors (including Sigourney Weaver, Kate Winslet and Michelle Yeoh), it is disappointing at how little opportunity is granted them to fully develop their respective characters. 
    There’s no doubt his production is ultimately more style than substance.
    Way of Water is a timely reminder of what cinema is capable of when it dares to dream big. And that means this is a sequel that truly deserves to be seen, not from the comfort of the couch, but on the biggest screen available. 
    If ever a movie were to be perfectly suited for virtual realities, this is it. Its success might even herald a comeback for those disposable 3-D specs. 

#avatarwayofwater

SANTA ON A SLAY RIDE

 

MOVIE
Violent Night
Director Tommy Wirkola
Review Ray Chan

If you know nothing about the movie, Violent Night sounds to be nothing more than just another lightweight comedy offering to cash in on the annual seasonal demand for yuletide yarns.
    But that really cannot be further from the truth. So far removed from a soppy Hallmark special, this gory, edgy, and sarcastic action flick deserves to be afforded instant cult classic status.
    The man in red is the central character, and we mean the real Father Christmas. Burnt out after having to deliver toys to kids every year, he prefers whisky instead of milk with his cookies, and finds that the magic is gone after so many years of the same old routine.
    Soured old Saint Nick eventually finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time when he visits a wealthy family’s compound on Christmas Eve, stuffing his face with cookies and milk while stumbling through like some thief in the night, only to be accidentally deserted by his herd of reindeer.
    Santa meets Trudy, a young girl in the wealthy Lightstone family, who fully believes in him and the spirit of Noel, even if the others in her family are spoiled and entitled. Her parents, Jason and Linda, are estranged and all Trudy wants is for them to be together again. Her grandmother Gertrude leads the clan with an iron fist, making her kids fight not only for her love but for a piece of their wealthy corporation.
    A gang of mercenaries duly breaks in and takes the Lightstones hostage. Armed with safecracking technology and an armoury of weapons, the bad guys plan to steal money stashed away in the family vaults.
    But there’s a Christmas cracker in the works. Well-planned as they are, the crooks don’t envisage coping with a cross Kriss Kringle in the house, who, with his sack of tricks and encouraged by Trudy, is ready to put up a fight to save the day. He’s got a naughty list full of bad guys and they’re all due for lumps of coal in their stockings.
    The screenplay, by Josh Miller and Patrick Casey, is a cheeky premise that works perfectly as a dark comedy, and director Tommy Wirkola successfully blends conventional festive movie clichés with straight-up action scenes.
    There are obvious homages to other holiday classics like Home Alone, which is executed perhaps even better than the original as Trudy gets the better of a couple of pursuers.
    While the supporting cast all have a natural talent for comedy, it truly is David Harbour who shines as bright as the Star of Bethlehem as he fully embraces the titular role.
    He’s what makes the movie such a pleasure to watch, as he delivers corny catchphrases in his dulcet drawl. And while he doesn’t look like the archetypal jolly fat man, he still exudes an avuncular aura in his bearish physique, albeit more of a grizzly than a teddy.
    The film earns its R-rating with plenty of bloody, creative kills that utilise everything from pointed decorations and tinsel to ice skates. And the film is replete with references to Christmas and puns aplenty (“Season’s beatings”). Even the names of the villains are on brand: the leader is named Scrooge, and some his minions are named Peppermint, Frosty, and Krampus.
    Slightly holding back the manic momentum is the Lightstone family’s squabbling. The members are so unlikeable that there’s no reason to care about them and the danger they’re in, even if it’s all meant to underline how pure of heart Trudy is compared to them.  Better are the moments when we learn more about Santa, his struggles with Mrs Claus, and Ragnarok-esque flashbacks to his past as a legendary Norse warrior.
    Violent Night is a hoot for the adults, but certainly not suited for the youngsters. It’s packed with wanton murder, naughty language, and grisly shenanigans that won’t appeal to everyone, and there is a questionable conclusion in which most of the loathsome victims appear to escape unpunished for their acts of dishonesty.
    This shouldn’t be the last we see of Harbour in this role. It’s a premise built for multiple sequels that could explore Santa’s dark past.
    Hopefully, they make these an annual tradition and give us all something fresh to look forward to amid the jaded seasonal offerings.

#violentnight #universal

A GAY OLD TIME

 

MOVIE

Bros

Director Nicholas Stoller, Bily Eichner
Review Ray Chan

Be prepared for a frantic start to this offering: the first 45 minutes or so of this rom-com are some of the funniest about same-sex shenanigans that this reviewer has seen. The one-liners, jokes and witty observations come so thick and fast that the audience barely has time to settle in with their popcorn and drinks before the guffaws begin.

    Set in New York City, the movie surrounds the aloof, neurotic and observant Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner), the popular host of a podcast revered by the LGBQT+ community. 

    He perceptively questions why straights keep playing homosexuals in movies, and films that portray gay life as tragic, somewhat realising it’s a mirror of his own: a successful career paired with a lack of romantic interest. Until he meets his polar opposite, that is, the Adonis-like Aaron, a probate attorney who is also as jaded with his lot, desiring instead to be a chocolatier. 

    There is discord and harmony as the two men’s divergent personalities and backgrounds merge, and their bumps on the road to a coupledom will ring true for all kinds of audiences of every sexual proclivity.  

    Director/co-writer Nicholas Stoller adds in some outlandish elements while Eichner, as co-writer, mixes in enough queer humour and insight to please fans and educate others. 

    The ensemble cast is impressive and includes, rightfully so, members of the gay persuasion: Miss Lawrence, Dot-Marie Jones (TV’s Glee), TS Madison and Jim Rash as the habitually disrespected bi-sexual man, with the affable and larger-than-life Guy Branum shining as Bobby’s best friend. 

    At just under two hours, this love shack sags a little in the middle after its knee-slapping first half, but pulls itself together satisfactorily in the end. The film is frequently funny and well-observed in the way it presents a culture that knows it’s different than others and finds ways to apply that specificity on a universal level.

    Eichner is a very perceptive lunatic, the sort that often helm late-night TV talk shows. This hysterical production could be his calling card.

#brosmovie

CLAP FOR THE WOLFMAN

MOVIE
Werewolf by Night
Director Michael Giacchino
Review Ray Chan

Streaming services currently offer a whole new world of entertainment, enjoyed in the comfort of the home, and certainly that seems to be the direction increasingly taken by many studios.
   One of the best employers of this technology is Disney, leveraging it to best advantage, showcasing many series that would be deemed too unconventional and ultimately box-office risks for the big screen.
   Examples include the delightful She-Hulk and Captain Marvel, the grim Moon Knight, the Star Wars offshoots and practically everything with Kevin Feige’s stamp on it.
   The latest offering, Werewolf By Night, isn’t exactly episodic though, but a standalone film that doesn’t really fit into the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe.
   Written by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron, and directed by composer Michael Giacchino — who also provides the music, naturally — Werewolf focuses solely on the world of this one character, in this one story: a self-contained adventure that deliberately riffs on the production values of a bygone era. 
   Shot in glorious retro black and white – with odd glimpses of colour to highlight various scenes – the movie reins in various characters from Marvel’s horror comics: Ulysses and Elsa Bloodstone, the Man-Thing, and the titular character, whose origin isn’t revealed. It’s a given assumption that the amusingly and fittingly named Jack Russell turns into a werewolf when the moon is up.
   Gael Garcia Bernal stars as the lycanthrope protagonist, a hunter of so-called monsters with more than 100 kills to his name. He is gathering with the crème de la crème of his peers to fight for the Bloodstone, an artifact that helps hunters in their quest to rid the world of the creatures. The irony of course is that Jack is one himself.
   He shows up in a dandy outfit with white paint on his face, a nod to his ancestors, he says to his cabal of hunters.
   Suave and stylish, he's not as obviously bloodthirsty as the others, who all have  a similar fashion nous, from a Kraven the Hunter facsimile with a Scottish accent to a Bowie-esque thin white duke. 
   But running for just 52 minutes, Werewolf doesn’t take the time to flesh out the assemblage, except for Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly), who, despite being the rightful heiress to the gem, must fight for it like everyone because she was estranged from her father, the legendary monster hunter Ulysses, at the time of his death.
   And you know she means business, because unlike the other foppish fighters, she just wears a designer leather jacket and boots, a literal long cool woman in a black dress.
   Everything about Werewolf is a deliberate homage to the early days of Hollywood, from the aforementioned monochromatic cinematography and technicolor flourishes, to the prevalence of practical effects, irises and old-fashioned visual trickery, such as flashing flickers for the gory scenes to Jack’s hirsute transformation depicted in shadow form.
   Even Elsa’s mother Verussa carries off a Bride of Frankenstein vibe with white streaks through her hair. One could be forgiven for expecting to see a Marty Feldman-esque manservant, reprising a role from another horror parody, Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein.
   The appearance of Man-Thing will certainly delight Marvel comic aficionados. Originally created as a large, slow-moving, empathic, humanoid swamp critter living in the Florida Everglades, it bears the Bloodstone everyone wants and so becomes the target of the hunters.
   It’s a credit to the movie makers that they chose not to veer away from how the mossy mammoth appeared in the comics, with its lumbering vegetation-encrusted form, and branches and trunks on the face.
   They even refer to it simply as Ted, a reference to Theodore Sallis, the name of the scientist who became the floral freak after ingesting a serum.
   Jack and Elsa end up working together and prove tremendously enjoyable in their respective roles. Bernal plays Jack with a weariness that suggests his dual nature isn’t eroding his humanity so much as it is eroding his faith in it. And Donnelly’s Elsa shows that while she is hardened, she is not invulnerable, convincingly portraying the state of her fragile relationship with her father.
   The Disney+ stream offers the perfect place for Marvel to experiment a little with films like this, giving filmmakers like Giacchino, at the start of his directorial career, space to play with fun characters in weird narrative corners that don’t have to support larger stories. 
   Werewolf By Night is a refreshing combination of the silly and the strange into the MCU. A follow-up would definitely raise the thumbs from this reviewer, and it would be just fittingly off-kilter if Howard the Duck – a resident of the Man-Thing’s other-dimension home – were to make a cameo.

#Disney+  #WerewolfbyNight

IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY

 

MOVIE
Nope
Director Jordan Peele
Review Ray Chan

Jordan Peele's most acclaimed productions have a common characteristic: copious amounts of symbolism that just about demand a second or third viewing to enable one to make out all the subtle metaphors and what they could possibly mean.
    His latest offering, labelled as “sci-fi horror”, seems a lot more straightforward than his other films, and begs the question of whether we finally have a Peele screenplay that doesn’t require ambiguous allegorical introspection and confusing conspiracy concepts.
    In Nope, a giant entity resembling a spacecraft but also transforms into tidal tufts of tissue, chooses to harass a small, remote American town. These incidents always occur in the US, of course.
    Peele hides the antagonist, using the age-old trick of concealment to heighten suspense. The aerial predator lurks behind a static cloud in the sky, so we only catch glimpses of it as it terrorises a horse ranch and a small western theme park.
    The farm is run by OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and his feisty sister Em (Keke Palmer), while the park is the brainchild of former child star Ricky 'Jupe' Park (Steven Yeun). When debris starts falling from the skies and people and animals mysteriously disappear, OJ, Em and Jupe spot the UFO, and plan to take commercial advantage of it.
    Em and OJ invest in camera equipment to capture the extraterrestrial on video, hoping to cash in on the footage, and are joined by UFO enthusiast Angel Torres and professional cinematographer Antlers Holst. Jupe has more insidious plans, planning to feed horses to the alien while incorporating it as part of his rodeo show.
    How they go about this and what transpires form the gist of the story.
    Both OJ and Jupe are shown to experience personal tragedies: the former watching his father being killed by junk raining down from the blue, and the latter traumatised by a killer chimp on the set of a TV series in which he was a child star.
    Indeed, the sub-plot involving Jupe is perhaps the most horrific of the movie, and the reason for its inclusion is unclear.
    There is an initial lack of connectivity between Jupe’s experience on the sitcom called Gordy’s Home and events around the alien. In flashbacks, Peele shows how the show’s central character, a chimpanzee named Gordy, was startled by a series of popping balloons on set and viciously attacked several of his human co-stars.
    Jupe was unharmed but frozen with fear as the panicked primate maimed and mauled other people in front of him. And just as Gordy calms down and gently approaches the terrified child, the simian is shot, splattering blood everywhere.
    It’s odd how Jupe never expands on this history, indicating there may be deleted scenes left on the director’s cutting room floor. But it’s clear that events on the show left an indelible mark on him.
    In quiet moments, he stares into space and replays that trauma in his mind, while telling everyone he’s fine. He plays the past off lightly, showing visitors his Gordy’s Home memorabilia and complimenting the Saturday Night Live sketch about the chimp attacks, but Peele gives the audience a glimpse of the echoing chaos in his head, and shows how little it matches his serene surface.
    And if one were to look hard enough, maybe that is the underlying theme of the movie: how people cope with trials and tribulations in the face of unseen and unknown threats.
    Trauma is largely an internal process that everyone handles differently. In Nope, the laconic OJ keeps his problems to himself, joining a dangerous quest to document the UFO without discussing how he feels about it. Antlers, in trying to film the alien, charges out alone to seek personal glory that he doesn’t want to share with anyone else.
    But Jupe turns his into a one-sided relationship with an alien creature that doesn’t care about him and sees him only as a source of food. He’s so defined by a past tragedy that he walks right into a bigger one, making himself the film’s greatest victim.
    So back to that second paragraph. A straightforward movie? It’s safe to say that’s hardly the case. Trauma, tragedy and triumph: it’s not Peele’s best effort, but it does make one ponder, in the process doing nothing to lessen his stature as one of Hollywood’s rising stars. 
    As a matter of interest, round shapes seem to abound throughout. Old vinyl records, discarded coins, clocks, ornaments, trophies, horses trotting around on a longe line, a well, masks of aliens that are spherical with round eyes, Stetson hats, slurpee machines with rotating paddles, not to mention the initial appearance of the object up above which also looks like a giant eye. Do they represent the circles of life? It will probably take another four viewings to decipher.

#NOPE #universal

THE MULTIVERSE OF THE MUNDANE

 

MOVIE

Everything Everywhere All At Once
Directors Daniels
Review Ray Chan

The concept of a multiverse – a hypothetical dimension consisting of a number of universes, of which our own is only one – has been expanded on in many movies of late, most notably in various Marvel cinematic offerings.
  But for each super-hero variation, there is a similar doppleganger for the everyday person. That’s where Everything Everywhere All at Once takes us to: a realm where everyone exists in a myriad of realities, each with their own experiences. 
    It’s the story of a married couple, the strong, peremptory Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) and milksoppish Waymond Wang (Ke Huy Quan), who were born and raised in China and came to the US as adults. Their laundromat is losing money even as they grow distant from each other, while putting on appearances before Evelyn’s father, who’s visiting from the homeland.  Their daughter Joy is a college graduate whose homosexuality is hidden from her grandfather by Evelyn, which fractures the mother-daughter relationship.
    The Wangs find themselves in tax trouble with the IRS, as aggressive auditor Deirdre (Jamie Lee Curtis) threatens to seize their business and personal assets, giving them one final chance to reorganise and re-submit their claims.
    But then, unexpectedly, Waymond transforms into someone like himself but who’s not exactly himself, and we soon realise it’s one of the husband’s other iterations from the multiverse.
    In intricate exposition, he explains his presence to Evelyn, and says she’s the most important version in the cosmos, and needs her help as she is the only one who can curb the butterfly effect that is causing all the other ones he’s known to have met violent deaths. She can do this by tapping into all the infinite Evelyns out there, using their talents and doing battle with a mysterious, cross-dimensional warlord.
    Armed with a set of instructions that will enable her to enter the parallel worlds, and share the alternate lives that she could have lived, Evelyn makes way to the portal: a janitor’s closet down the hall from Deirdre’s desk. The launch involves switching shoes to the wrong feet, special scans and earbuds, a murder in the closet, a punch in Deirdre’s nose, and a fight with security guards in which divergent Waymond uses his fanny pack as a lethal weapon. 
    Evelyn’s travels on her astral journey are a manic pastiche of her meeting her counterparts in a race against variant daughters with the help of variant husbands and grandfathers. Her adversaries generally take the form of Dierdre, plus her own daughter, whose body is claimed by an incarnation of Joy with vengeance on her mind.
    Indeed, the most enjoyable parts of the movie involve the different routes that other Evelyns have taken. The funniest alternate domain is one in which Evelyn and Deirdre are lovers, with fingers as hot dogs squirting mustard and ketchup. Deirdre plays the piano with her toes, while being caressed on the face with Evelyn’s own tootsies.
    There’s another reality in which no life existed and Evelyn and Joy are just rocks on a cliff; one in which they are piñatas dangling from a tree; one in which they are Disney characters; and another in which security guards get their kung-fu power from trophies stuck in their rear ends.
    The journey round the multiverse includes one poignant and ironic road: Evelyn, instead of leaving China with Waymond, stays home and becomes a movie star in martial-arts films, reflecting real life where Yeoh is well-known for her martial arts movies (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and recently, Shang Chi) as well as being a glamorous starlet. The scenes are interspersed with actual footage from Yeoh’s red carpet history. 
    The emotional resonance of the film is couched in the second-guessing Evelyn feels — mirror-image Waymond notes the reason she is the most special rendition is that she’s the first he’s met who’s failed at everything she ever started, making her a perfect sponge for absorbing the others’ abilities. Yeoh’s versatility shines in her portrayal of a woman who is tragic yet aspirational, silly while heartbroken, especially in the final scenes she shares with Joy. 
    The film is directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, who both grew up on Hong Kong cinema. And the influence of that heritage shines bright in the movie. The title itself is a very Westernised translation of a Chinese phrase, while typical Chinese movie tropes, clichés and visual gags abound, such as physically-challenging slow-motion pirouettes, action scenes with little sense or logic, pinky fingers with biceps (because they’re so powerful), and reviving unconscious people with the whiff of worn-out shoes. 
    However, it’s not just straight out slugfests and slapstick. Symbolically, there is a proliferation of spherical shapes: googly eyes, references to bagels, items on tax receipts circled in black marker. What do they mean? Because they have no beginning and no end, round structures have come to represent the eternal cycle of life, where in this case nobody is alone in the multiverse, which turns out to be a place where families can work on their issues. The circle, of course, is also zero in our system of numbering, and signifies the embryo for change, as in Evelyn’s life. Or maybe the Daniels simply meant them to indicate unity: when people want to come together and support one another, they form a circle. That way, everybody is visible to everybody else, meaning they can communicate openly and extend a sense of togetherness. 
    The kaleidoscopic madness lasts for two hours and 20 minutes, a length of time that will have viewers fidgeting in the seats if they can’t get into it. But if they persevere, they will be rewarded in the closing act, which proves to be a surprisingly touching salute to appreciating the life we have and the people who make it special.  
    The ambition behind the production can’t be denied, nor the fact it’s certainly one of the most wildly creative genre movies to hit cinemas in some years, so brimming with invention and ideas —where even vignettes that last less than a minute could be whole films — that it’s dazzling to behold.

#everythingeverywhereallatonce  #buzzmarketing #A24

IT WAS A DARK AND GLOOMY KNIGHT

 

MOVIE
The Batman
Director Matt Reeves
Review Ray Chan

How many reboots of Batman is it now? And yet, despite the many incarnations, every adventure of the dark knight since the campy 60s version seems to have been made with one aim: to out-dark and out-grim its predecessor.

    Always a bleaky, dirty Gotham City, shrouded in depressingly gothic architecture, amid miserable, rainy weather. Always a sullen and traumatised Bruce Wayne, torn between being a prince and a protector, and becoming more monosyllabic and guttural with each recasting. Always a grouchy Alfred and serious Commissioner Gordon with no sense of humour.

    It’s more of the same with the latest movie and its new iteration of the protagonist, but amped up to stratospheric levels. It’s directed by Matt Reeves  with whatever the opposite of a light touch is, and stars Robert Pattinson as the caped crusader by night, and millionaire recluse by day, not that it ever is day. 

    Interestingly, as with the recent Spider-Man franchise offerings, there is no origin story. Batman is just there, already renowned as Gotham’s guardian. But rightly so. Really, do we need another retelling of how he came to be?

    Peer beyond the shadows, though, and there is a semblance of a solid tale to tell. The principal evildoer of the piece is the Riddler (Paul Dano), who sets about killing all the city’s top corrupt officials while leaving plenty of collateral damage and cryptic clues for Batman to decipher. Along the way, we see revamped versions of some of the Bat’s criminal coterie: the Penguin (an unrecognisable Colin Farrell) and Catwoman (Zoë Kravitz).

    As you might expect from action productions these days, there are copious amounts of explosions, floods, car chases, hands-on violent combat and other set pieces, but ultimately, nothing innovative of note. It’s like watching firework displays in the sky: spectacular but oh so predictable.

    The general storyline comfortably comes to an end around the two-hour mark, but then – like Wonder Woman 84 and its ilk – a sub-plot is introduced which extends the whole shebang into a seat-fidgeting 180 minutes. It’s as if movie producers these days feel that a movie’s worth is determined by its length.

    But despite these irritations, its relatively linear storytelling form makes this instalment a lot easier to understand than the convoluted narratives of its predecessors, and therefore pushes up the enjoyment factor a small notch. 

    Here’s an interesting sidenote: in the aforementioned Adam West TV movie, our hero tackles four vacuous villains, Bat shark repellent and all. It’s a guilty pleasure to see the quartet all appear again in this latest film, but with malevolence and menace all duly upgraded to suit the times.

#universal #thebatman

OLD LEASE OF LIFE

 

MOVIE
Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Director Jason Reitman

Review Ray Chan

This sequel continues on from Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II (ignoring, of course, the 2016 all-female reboot) and is set three decades later.

    Original Ghostbuster Egon Spengler (the late Harold Ramis) has passed away, and his estranged and financially-strapped daughter Callie is forced to relocate to his derelict farmhouse, accompanied by her milksoppish son Trevor and headstrong daughter Phoebe (McKenna Grace).

    There they soon discover a secret that Egon hid from them, and with assistance from science teacher Chad Grooberson (Paul Rudd) and some plucky local kids, they embark on a dangerous mission to remove a malevolent supernatural presence.

    Therein lies the basic premise of the film, in which the familial theme runs strong: not only does Phoebe follow in her grandfather’s exorcism exercises, but the film is directed by Jason Reitman, the son of the man who produced the first two instalments.

    Sadly though, it seems he tries too hard. Perhaps aiming to recapture the essence of what came before, the story is packed with so much Ghostbusters mythology that it’s hard to see what could be gleaned from this experience that wouldn’t be improved upon by simply watching the 1984 original.

    This reviewer sits in the group of people who didn’t think those movies were side-splittingly funny anyway. So re-using a template of cringe-inducing dialogue and dated gags is not going to impress.

    This is none more so exemplified than by the unexplained appearance of the Stay Puft marshmallows – a mainstay of the franchise. We see sentient marshmallows roast each other on a barbecue, presumably to raise a chuckle from the parents in the audience who enjoyed the original chapters when they came out.

    Indeed, this scenario represents a problem that Hollywood finds itself experiencing time and time again; how do you mine past successes for content without merely regurgitating a series of familiar images in pursuit of box office returns? Even Rudd serves little purpose here … recruited no doubt for his popularity in Ant-Man, just to pull in audiences. His character does nothing of note in the battle against the demons.

    The original troup of Dan Ackroyd, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson reprise their roles, alongside a digital representation of Ramis, and it’s their inclusion that will delight many viewers old enough to remember what it was like when Ray Parker Jr first belted out the dynamic theme song.

    But that seems to be all this production is: a foray into nostalgia that will bring a smile to the emotionally-invested children of the 80s, but probably not the current crop of teenagers.

#ghostbustersafterlife  #sonypictures

 

A HIT .. AND RUNS

MOVIE
Licorice Pizza
Director Paul Thomas Anderson
Review Ray Chan


Graphic slang for a vinyl record, the term 'licorice pizza' is also the name of a long-gone chain of LA record shops founded by James Greenwood in 1969 … the era and place of Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest foray into teenage angst and navigation of first love.
    The running time of the movie is two hours and 13 minutes, and indeed it seems that running is what most of the cast do. Protagonist Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is seen racing toward a gas station, past a line of idling vehicles, against a backdrop of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars?”. For her part, the heroine, Alana Kane (Alana Haim), sprints to a police station, after Gary has been wrongly arrested. Later on, Gary spurts away from his pinball arcade in anger. And, at the climax, they both scamper again — Alana from one direction and Gary in the other, to meet in the middle.
    Is there a reason? Perhaps it’s to symbolise the pursuit of happiness, which is essentially what the film is about.
    It’s set in the San Fernando Valley, in the early 70s, when cars are queueing for gas because of a global oil emergency, and Richard Nixon is beseeching Americans to trim their fuel consumption.
    The pair first meet up at high school where 15-year-old Gary is attracted to Alana, who is 10 years older and works for a photographer taking head shots for the yearbook.
    Displaying a maturity beyond his years, Gary chats up Alana and seeks a date, his well-meaning confidence borne out of a short career as a child star. His penchant for showmanship and eye for money-making ventures soon lead him to opening up a water bed store, and later the pinball business, with Alana lending moral support.
    There isn’t much of a plot to this movie. It’s more like a Seinfeld episode, where things just happen but nothing really happens.
    We get weird one-off episodes such as Bradley Cooper portraying Jon Peters, Barbra Streisand’s paramour, who dresses in angelic white and behaves like a dirty devil. Then Sean Penn appears as Jack Holden, a former Hollywood idol who flirts with Alana, and is friends with an aging director played superbly by the wonderful Tom Waits.
    Most humorous of all is Harriet Sansom Harris, who steals the show as a patronising casting agent, most of it spent on the phone (“love to Tatum”) and framed in so extreme a close-up by Anderson’s trademark roving camera that even her dentist will be impressed.
    Cooper, the son of Philip Seymour Hoffman, who himself was so long a stalwart of Anderson’s work, is never less than endearing, and allows us to soak in Gary’s belief in himself. Shining equally bright is Haim, whose Alana demonstrates a spiky self-doubt and sense of arrested development that dovetails perfectly with Gary’s own accelerated adulthood and restless urge to reinvent. Not bad going for two actors making their professional debuts.
    Busy and thronging, rammed with cameos and comic turns, and sewn together with a soundtrack of the times, Licorice Pizza works best when it’s focused on the pair. The movie basically hangs on the rapport between Gary and Alana — more than a friendship, less than a love story, and sometimes a power struggle.
    An entire Golden Age of on-screen romance teased viewers with “Will they or won’t they”; here, that question is bracketed not just by Alana and Gary’s age difference but by entrepenurial ambitions that converge and diverge with hit-and-miss unpredictability.

#licoricepizza  #universal

THE SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

 

MOVIE
Spider-Man: No Way Home
Director  Jon Watts
Review Ray Chan

This blog has reviewed the first two movies in the Tom Holland Spider-Man franchise, so of course we have to wrap it up with a look at the conclusion of the story arc.
    And what a triumphant denouement it is. This discussion comes with a warning that some spoilers may lurk within, but then readers of such critiques will know that’s somewhat of an occupational hazard. In any case, many of the “surprises” had already been leaked on-line.
    There have been nine solo live action productions featuring the wondrous webslinger: three starring Tobey Maguire, two with Andrew Garfield, and then this current set of three. And an even 10 in total, if you include the TV series fronted by Nicholas Hammond.
    The magic of No Way Home is that it uses all of those previous episodes and experiences  ─ adversaries, allies, triumphs and tragedies ─ to its advantage, enriching the recipe and increasing its emotional depth and range. It even enhances the earlier chapters retroactively, adding new facets to characters we thought we'd seen the last of, and giving them the momentous send-offs they might not have had the last time around.
    It all starts with the unmasking of Spider-Man as nerdy teen Peter Parker, the cliffhanger thread that the last instalment teased viewers with.
    Faced with serious legal ramifications of the revelation, Peter,  sardonic girlfriend MJ and buddy Ned Leeds seek out “very good” lawyer Matt Murdock, played by Charlie Cox in a reprise of his TV Daredevil role, and raising the first squeals of delight from the Spidey-fans.
    Sadly, it is a blink of a cameo, and one can’t help but wonder how more interesting the movie would have been if the blind barrister had donned his red costume and teamed up with the main protagonist. But it’s just the first of many presents dropped in the audience’s laps and a harbinger of the stream of notable cameos to come.
    The criminal repercussions are given short shrift however, and before long, Peter is begging Marvel's resident wizard, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), to cast a spell that will erase his dual identity from the memories of everyone in the universe. But when Peter changes his mind at a crucial moment, the spell goes awry, and the Doctor accidentally summons various inhabitants of other universes instead.
    Anyone who has glimpsed the trailers or publicity interviews will know that those visitors include the crazed Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe), the haughty Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina), plus Electro (Jamie Foxx), all from the previous instalments.
    Strange immediately chooses to send the interlopers back to the alternate realities where they belong, but Peter finds out that in those timelines, the villains will be killed in fights with their versions of Spider-Man. Rather than sending them to their deaths in another dimension, he insists on attempting to reform them.
    Indeed, the youthful lens we first meet Peter through does not dissolve into darkness. Even when drowning in grief and worry, he finds the light, and this time, he selflessly shares that experience with the sordid characters who have suffered too long in the stifling shadows.
    And therein lies the premise on which No Way Home is based, and on which the original comics were defined: Peter’s noble naivete and the sacrifices, painful consequences and great responsibilities that come with great power. Holland embodies the best of this character even in his dimmest hour, and success here stems from his phenomenal portrayal of growing pains.
    The action sequences are fast and frenetic yet always fabulous, and the digital effects are spectacular. But the film's real superpowers are its endearing performances, not just by the principal cast, but also from the two previous Spideys pulled in by Strange’s conjurations.
    There’s Andrew Garfield in his super-suit with the witty dialogue and over-the-top movements that characterised his Spider-Man. Maguire, on the other hand, was always an exceptional Peter Parker, so he is portrayed as the kind and courageous man behind the mask.
    The standout emotional undertone of the union between the arachnid ensemble comes when MJ loses her footing and falls from the Statue of Liberty, provoking a powerful countenance of peril between Holland’s Peter and his girlfriend.
    The picture’s most significant parallel quickly follows as Garfield’s Spidey comes to the rescue. The power this moment of redemption holds for him in the wake of his girlfriend Gwen’s death in the first movie is defined by the tears welling in Garfield’s eyes as he lets us feel every inch of grief.
   Superhero sceptics probably won't be fully converted, nor presumably those who did not watch any of the previous chronicles. But for fans who have love for the genre, the constant shift between humour and pathos in No Way Home will not just put a joyful smile on their faces for two hours, but surely more than a few sobs and chokes in the throats as well. It is a perfect conclusion to the trilogy.

#nowayhome #spider-man #sonypictures

HIS NAME WAS BOND

 

MOVIE
No Time To Die
Director  Cary Joji Fukunaga
Review Ray Chan

The fifth and final instalment featuring Daniel Craig as James Bond wraps up a multi-film story arc that began with a young intern earning his elite status in Casino Royale, to the now-years-retired seasoned veteran who is drawn back into service.
    The movie picks up close to where the last chapter (Spectre) ended, with our hero still deeply in love with Madeleine (Léa Seydoux). But he soon discovers that he’s been betrayed, and he ends his time at MI6 unceremoniously.

    From there, the film jumps ahead five years, with Craig (and therefore Bond) looking suitably aged, still a fine specimen but a little shaken and a little stirred. He’s living in seclusion in Jamaica until an old friend from the CIA, Felix Leiter, comes to visit with a dodgy Pollyana of a peon to recruit Bond to do a little light espionage that they can’t do themselves.
    This is where the plot turns every which way, as the spy teams up with a dazzling young agent, Paloma, to kidnap a scientist who holds the key to finalising a germ warfare plan known only to a few, including Bond’s old boss M (Ralph Fiennes) and the film’s primary villain, the mysterious Lyutsifer Safin (Rami Malek), who has use for Madeleine and her access to MI6. Safin indeed utters one of the movie’s best lines when he tells Bond: “We both eradicate people to make the world a better place.”
    Cue the spectacularly choreographed scenes of parkoured action, pretty ladies, gadget demonstrations, and social drinking. But as this is the conclusion to a grand adventure, the proceedings certainly go further than just more of the same.
    Not unlike great film sagas of these days (Avengers, Star Wars, Justice League), many of the recurring characters and actors feel like old friends: apart from Fiennes, it’s nice to see Naomie Harris as Moneypenny, Ben Whishaw as Q (now confirmed gay), Rory Kinnear as M’s right-hand man Tanner and even Spectre’s villain Blofeld (Christoph Waltz).
    We are also introduced to the new 007, Nomi, who represents the next generation of double-0 agents. Yet despite her proficiency, one can’t help but wonder if bigger things are instead planned for the afore-mentioned Paloma.
    No Time To Die is to this Bond franchise what Logan was to the Wolverine mythos: ending things definitively for the titular character, highlighting Craig’s strengths in suffusing Bond with more personality than his predecessors, while reminding us why this collection of films is so different to the other versions.
    It’s less a traditional James Bond movie and more a victory lap, greatest hits package, and blaze of glory all in one. 
    Perhaps the only blip is the theme song, always a highlight of each Bond offering. Billie Elish's dreary tune may have won a Grammy but it's unmemorable and listless. Far more beautiful is the piece chosen for the end credits: Louis Armstrong's We Have All The Time in the World, reprised from 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which Aussie George Lazenby starred in the leading role.

 #notimetodie #universal