Review: ‘The BFG’

The BFG movie poster“The BFG” is an adaptation of a 1982 Roald Dahl book of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, and the last time these two made a movie together was back in 1982 with “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” so the pedigree of this particular movie is most certainly of a high quality, and as such some bigger expectations are involved because how can they not be? This story of a 10-year old orphan girl and her new friend, a 24-foot giant who collects dreams at the top of a mountain and blows them into children’s bedrooms at night, is very imaginative and goes to some surprising places if you are not familiar with the story going into it, and there was definitely potential there for a new children’s classic.

But “The BFG” does not live up to those kind of ridiculous expectations. While not an “insta-classic,” which is an admittedly absurd thing to expect ahead of time no matter the people involved, it is a perfectly fine film, overall very nice and bittersweet. There is also some darkness and danger, a staple of those great 1980’s Amblin movies we all know and love, but the prevailing feeling for the movie as a whole definitely leans towards saccharine, as both the tone of the movie and the story seem designed to elicit awe and delight, two things that Mr. Spielberg loves to represent on film.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Swiss Army Man’

SwissArmyMan_MoviePosterIn “Swiss Army Man,” a young man, stranded on a deserted island, finds possible salvation in the form of a corpse, washed up on the shore in front of him, a lifeless body which may be imbued with specific abilities that seem hard to believe and yet can enable this young man to find a way to survive.

The absurdity of this movie is made apparent within the opening minutes, but so is the ambitious and particular vision on display, coupled with just the right amount of odd beauty, all coming together to make one of those movies – either you are along for the ride or you are not. And people who choose this ride may find themselves oddly affected by this strangely touching story of a lonely man and his multi-purpose dead body.

Hank (Paul Dano) drags around the corpse (Daniel Radcliffe), somehow finding out his name is Manny, and together they get off that deserted island and make their way through the woods, trying to find civilization before Hank dies. Along the way, Hank starts talking to Manny, and at some point Manny starts talking back to him.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Neon Demon’

The Neon Demon poster“The Neon Demon” is the latest fetishistic ode from Nicholas Winding Refn to the violent and off kilter exploitation films of the 1970’s. His movies like “Only God Forgives” and “Drive” and “Valhalla Rising” center on a violent, malevolent entity roaming through life and dispatching others in increasingly intense and terrible ways, and this violent entity has morphed into something altogether different, into a terrible malaise and overriding sense of danger, definitively draped over the entirety of “The Neon Demon,” as we enter a surreal world of modeling that takes more from Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” than it does any Victoria Secret catalog or runway fashion show. What if David Cronenberg and David Lynch teamed up to make “Zoolander?” That’s the direction we’re going with in “The Neon Demon,” equal parts gorgeous and grotesque, a nightmarish descent into the seedy underbelly of models and haute fashion.

And while being beautiful and striking to look at and definitely unique when compared to the rest of the movies out there for consumption right now, I do wish that “The Neon Demon” was better because while I liked it, I did not love it like I wanted to, and that’s because while it is beautiful it is also pretty vapid. Now, is that itself a remark on the fashion industry? Is this a snide critique of models and their chosen profession? More than likely it is a coincidence that a movie involving fashion is almost entirely artifice but it fits the subject matter nonetheless. And a movie does not have to be profound or “deep” to be good or entertaining, but if it is going to be shallow, than it better move briskly and efficiently, and unfortunately “The Neon Demon” does take a little while to get to the real craziness and once that’s done, the movie has about three different places it could have ended but decides to do one more scene. And then one more. And then one more. The overall film could have been tightened in editing, that’s for sure. Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Shallows’

TheShallows_MoviePoster“The Shallows” is a surprisingly good killer shark thriller, a straightforward story of survival against all odds, a classic mankind versus nature tale, well shot and well acted by the one actor tasked with carrying a huge chunk of this movie on her own. It gets tense and exciting and even a little scary here and there and at just under 90 minutes long, this is the kind of movie that gets started quick, hits the gas pedal the whole way and slams headlong into a pretty spectacular ending.

Outside of “Jaws,” the killer shark movie bar has been set VERY low and “The Shallows” does a good job of elevating this bar much higher, eschewing the goofiness and campiness of the much more baffingly popular killer shark movies out there and going for more of a naturalistic approach, allowing the intensity of the situation and the bleakness of our main character’s odds to be the prevailing characteristics of this story.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’

IndependenceDayResurgence_MoviePoster“Independence Day: Resurgence” is a sequel to the biggest hit of 1996, and Roland Emmerich and (most of the) crew from that original aliens versus humans blockbuster went with the good old mantra of “bigger means better,” which means everything is bigger in this movie. The ships, the aliens, the threat, all of it, which makes sense because Emmerich spent the intervening two decades destroying the planet in bigger (though not necessarily better) ways over and over, and here he takes all of those huge and ludicrous scenes and ideas that defy nature and physics and he pushes the throttle forward and adds those aliens and boom, yet another nostalgia fueled blast to the past, another return to a beloved 1990’s movie, another couple of hours with both familiar icons from another movie and some fresh young faces of today, all encompassed by more CGI than you could shake a selfie-stick at.

But was it worth it?

Nope.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Central Intelligence’

CentralIntelligence_MoviePoster“Central Intelligence” is an action comedy that gets by on the great chemistry between leading actors and hopefully new comedy duo Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart. The movie itself is kind of rote, as most of the action is very generic and not presented particularly well, and the plot used to justify this comedy team up seems very much like an afterthought, as there is a bunch of nonsense about “satellite codes” and some not-so-secret secret auction and some shadowy figure called “the Black Badger” that everyone chases and it really it just feels exactly like the kind of generic spy plot used in these type of action comedies (see: “Spy” and “The Brothers Grimsby” and so on). So as the story has nothing to offer and the action is mostly “meh,” then what does “Central Intelligence” have to offer?

Well first and foremost, Dwayne Johnson is definitely working his ass off in this movie as Bob Stone, a possibly disgraced CIA Agent (super agent really) who is insanely competent in terms of being a spy and is painfully socially stunted thanks to a childhood that consisted mostly of being bullied and an adulthood that consisted mostly of lifting weights and learning how to kill people for the government. When he meets up with the only person in high school who was ever nice to him, his wide eyed enthusiasm and overly sincere accolades are both funny and a little off putting because it is obvious this guy has a screw or two loose, apparently jarred loose by a traumatic childhood that he has never gotten over. This coupled with his abilities as a spy make him a very unpredictable person, and hence, an interesting and fun character to follow. He has real emotional hang ups to get over, all the while trying to do this silly thing with the satellite codes and whatever other hooey they made up to get this plot in motion.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Finding Dory’

FindingDory_PosterAfter an initial viewing, it doesn’t appear that there is anything “wrong” with the newest movie from Pixar and Disney, “Finding Dory,” the sequel to the smash hit “Finding Nemo” that no one was really asking for, and yet here it is, and you know what? It is pretty damn good, which of course we should be expecting from these fine artists, who have now spent decades crafting finely made and expertly tuned feature length movies, many of which seemed ridiculous at the outset, only to end up being deeply moving and effective pieces of art. If this were coming from another studio, it would feel like a cash grab, but since this is from Pixar, it is more of a chance to revisit some beloved characters and introduce new ones and tell a solid story with some familiar pieces and some new pieces.

There are a couple of similarities between “Finding Dory” and its predecessor. In the first movie, Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), the blue tang fish with short term memory loss, helps the clown fish Marlon (Albert Brooks) find his missing son Nemo. This time around, Marlon and Nemo agree to help Dory find her parents, whom she got separated from at a young age and naturally forget them over time. But she remembers them suddenly and wants to go find them, and it is important to note that this movie isn’t called “Finding Dory’s Parents” because really the story is all about Dory finding out who she is and really gaining a sense of self worth as she uncovers her past, and they manage to get quite an emotional journey out of this set up.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Warcraft’

Warcraft_poster“Warcraft,” an adaptation of the hugely popular “World of Warcraft” video game series, is a big budget high fantasy movie that doesn’t have too much separating itself from other tales of men versus monsters with some magic thrown in for good measure. You can go through the fantasy movie template and check off the appropriate boxes – a battle versus good and evil, a giant winged beast, a world destroying MacGuffin, two armies charging at each other in an open field, it is all here, done up in a serviceable enough way to be entertaining but not bringing enough to the table to be compelling. Existing in that middle ground where ambivalence resides, the movie is packed with too much in two hours to be boring, but isn’t different or interesting enough to be truly interesting, “Warcraft” is a decent if inconsequential couple of hours.

Worth noting, for some reason this title has been shortened for its release here in the U.S., because in most markets around the world this film is called “Warcraft: The Beginning” and that is much more telling of what to expect from this movie. Because this is 100% a set up for more movies, itself a movie without a real ending, instead just setting up most characters and foreshadowing their futures, to be explored in possible sequels. And in this regard, this particular film is surely successful, as they did present an open ended story which they hope people will be wanting to revisit.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows’

TMNTOutOfTheShadows_poster“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” is here to proclaim very loudly and garishly that the insane phenomenon that started out life as a satirical comic series for teens and adults and has become a decades long franchise of multiple television shows, feature length movies and action figures is still here and intends to stick around for another few decades. And considering that the folks who watched the original animated TV show in the late 1980’s now have young kids of their own which they are bringing to this movie, it is conceivable that these mutated turtle teenage brothers proficient in ninjitsu will be around as long as there is money to be made in kids’ entertainment.

And surely this stuff has to be entertaining enough for the kids, and rest assured that most people who make movies and television shows for children has little respect for them and their still evolving tastes (and to be fair, children do indeed have terrible cultural taste), so they let the dumb jokes fly and stuff as much loud action and antics into a movie with a barely there plot and there is your recipe for a blockbuster aimed to 10 year olds.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Lobster’

TheLobster_Poster“The Lobster” is a dark satire and a bleak romantic comedy, a movie designed to both make you laugh at the absurdities of life and also bemoan the depths of despair possible within basic human existence. Alternating between funny and sad in such a way that the two become nearly indistinguishable, this is an interesting and unique movie that will delight some and repel others, depending on whether or not you are on board with what this movie has to say.

In the world of “The Lobster,” marriage is compulsory and single people are given 45 days to find their soulmate or else they get turned into the animal of their choice and let loose in the wild. We start the movie with David (Colin Farrell), freshly single when his wife leaves him for someone else, and he is immediately sent to The Hotel, where the single folk start their Find Your Soulmate challenge. At this Hotel he meets other single people, and the first half of the movie is about them all adjusting to the weird rules of The Hotel and trying to match up with some of the other unfortunate loners checked in with them. There is also a band of loners who escaped The Hotel and live in the woods, militantly preparing for something kind of vague, and David gets wrapped up with them as well.Continue Reading …