Tag Archives: #antihero

Month in Review: May ’19

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Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit’s that time again! Another month of cinematic magic to look back on, or . . . since it’s early in the year, perhaps lament the lack thereof. From yet more pointless biopics (Tolkien, if you take a look at the numbers, apparently only has $4 million worth of fandom, but that paltry figure surely betrays the popularity of his works and indeed of the man himself, whose fantastical realm created a global fraternity of deeply loyal, line-memorizing fans), to Dennis Quaid looking totally annoying and embarrassingly in need of a paycheck intruding your local cineplexes in this hackneyed home-invasion “thriller”, or even a lack of good animated films (Ugly Dolls — no thanks, no thanks), I’ve felt like Keanu Reeves wandering the arid Sahara in search of answers, or at least decent entertainment this month. (Oh but John Wick 3 delivered. Or, it delivered what we have come to expect from it by now and not a shred of texture beyond that.)

May did hold some intrigue, however, what with the Godzilla sequel (yes, I know you hated the first but I didn’t) and the Elton John biopic (admittedly bordering on gratuitous profiting too) both coming out on the same weekend. There have also been several interesting things popping up on streaming platforms that uh, yeah, I haven’t gotten around to yet — remember when I said I would do a whole month of streaming-based reviews? Thank goodness this is a blog and not an actual job. I’d be fired twice by now for not delivering. Maybe I should fire myself. I suppose it’s not too late to do such a thing (stream an entire month’s worth of movies that is, not fire myself). But I’m not setting any hard deadlines.

Before we dive into it, there’s just one other thing I’d like to mention. Note the new feature on the side, Beer With Me! This is something I’ll be maintaining casually as I stumble upon new beers that I like (and can confidently recommend) and maybe figure out some ways to incorporate my love of IPAs with my love of movies. Like, for example, I might feature a Beer of the Month in these recap posts — something that might actually justify this otherwise middling and superfluous feature I created. Give it a look, feel free to share comments/suggestions about what I should try next in the comments section here or, of course, on any of my posts.

Without any further verbal spewage, here’s what has gone down on the world’s most active movie-related blog in the month of May.

New Posts

Theatrical Releases: Pokémon: Detective Pikachu; John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum

Other: The Man Who Killed Hitler and then the Bigfoot (Redbox)

Alternative Content: 30 for 30: Seau

Bite Sized Reviews

High Flying Bird · February 8, 2019 · Directed by Steven Soderbergh · Calling all NBA fans! This is your movie. His second consecutive “portable” production, once again shot entirely on an iPhone, Steven Soderbergh’s High Flying Bird tells of the creative maneuvers an ambitious, hard-working talent agent (André Holland) seeks to pull off in a bold attempt to put an end to the 2014 work stoppage that prefaced that season. Melvin Gregg plays Holland’s (fictitious) rookie client, Erick Scott, a gifted player both lusting after the glam and the glory of being a pro baller while being scarily unprepared for the realities of being a professional athlete. Deadpool 2‘s very own Zazie Beetz plays a crucial supporting role in both his personal and professional development. The script by Moonlight scribe and accomplished playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney draws undeniable parallels between old-fashioned slavery and NBA ownership (and if that seems sensationalist, consider the awful spectacle that befell the Los Angeles Clippers — incidentally that very same year, when then-owner Donald Sterling was forced to sell the team after audio recordings of him making some odious remarks about his own players were leaked to the public). Brief interviews with current players (Karl Anthony Towns, Donovan Mitchell and Reggie Jackson) tie seamlessly into the narrative and give perspective on the pressures faced by rookies to perform in the modern game and age of Twitter. So, in case it isn’t obvious, High Flying Bird is a film of specifics — it’s inarguably the Ocean’s 11 director’s most esoteric project yet, with sport and business jargon abounding. High Flying Bird is also a notable step up in terms of picture quality, thanks almost entirely to the gleaming urban setting. Unlike the drab, murky interior shots that dominated (and plagued) his previous effort Unsane, here buckets of sunshine wash over the silver edifice of New York City, adding a sense of style and elegance to a narrative that isn’t afraid of tackling the ugly underbelly of the National Basketball Association. Insightful for fans, likely isolating and boring for everyone else. ***/*****

Venom · October 5, 2018 · Directed by Ruben Fleischer · Oh boy, where do I even start with this. I guess let’s start with I hated it, pretty much beginning to finish. The first standalone, live-action movie focused upon the (only bad) people-eating exploits of the anti-hero Venom, an alien symbiote who inhabits the body of disgraced journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy), finding it a match made in alien heaven, is one I only wish I could un-see. The first half of the film obligingly fulfills some human drama quota, trudging through the consequences of Brock’s overreaching during a tense interview with self-anointed global savior Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed, victim #1 of some truly terrible dialogue and bland, wanton villainy), his probing questions over what’s really going on behind the scenes at the mysterious Life Foundation causing his fiancee (Michelle Williams) to lose her job there and thus end their relationship, leaving Brock vulnerable to forcible alien penetration. When his superpowered alter-ego begins taking over in earnest, Venom swings like a bipolar teen from dull and no fun to sensationally goofy and downright dumb, the voice of Venom coming across as a misunderstood rascal rather than an extraterrestrial being of dubious morality. The movie hits a low with Williams shoving her tongue down the throat of said alien, the act managing to be both creepy and an utterly unconvincing change of heart in one fell swoop. Hits a high when the end credits roll. Okay, that’s not entirely fair — Tom Hardy at least deserves a nod for being a good sport, though neither he nor the rest of the talented ensemble (including Jenny “Marcel the Shell” Slate as a scientist with a conscience) are enough to elevate this clunker out of the lower echelons of superhero adaptations. **/*****

What’s been your favorite movie this month?

That Ryan Reynolds Movie Everyone is Talking About

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Release: Friday, May 18, 2018

👀 Theater

Written by: Rhett Reese; Paul Wernick; Ryan Reynolds

Directed by: David Leitch

Starring: Ryan Reynolds; Josh Brolin; Morena Baccarin; Julian Dennison; Zazie Beetz; T.J. Miller; Eddie Marsan

Distributor: 20th Century Fox

 

***/*****

In Deadpool Deuce, Wade Wilson’s greatest enemy isn’t some psychotic surgeon, a mutant-hating criminal or even those gosh-darn regenerative powers of his, but rather the writers who are trying to keep things interesting. The highly-anticipated sequel takes all the R-rated, fourth-wall-breaking elements that made its predecessor a smash-hit and amplifies them. The formula certainly still works, even if all those steroids still can’t mask a fundamentally weak story. And besides, nothing is quite like a first encounter.

Digging deeper into its X-Men roots, the gleefully profane and gory sequel continues the murderous crime-thwarting exploits of cancer-riddled Wade Wilson, a.k.a. Deadpool, as he assembles the X-Force in order to protect an unstable young mutant named Russell Collins, a.k.a. Firefist (Julian Dennison), from the time-traveling cyborg Cable, played by Josh Brolin in his second role as a Marvel villain in as many months. Considerably less devastation follows in his wake this time, though. Meanwhile, a more important subplot finds this reviewer finally reunited with the Maltesers he was looking for — but would they last him the length of the film?*

Spoiler alert: no, no they would not. (In my defense trailers these days are 5 hours long.)

David Leitch, the director of John Wick — less charitably referred to here as the guy who killed John Wick’s dog — takes over the reigns from Tim Miller. Whereas Miller was tasked with giving a fairly obscure Marvel character the right entrance, Leitch’s film aspires to add — dare I even say it? — emotional depth. Both are unenviable positions to be in and ultimately are equally thankless when you consider how their influence pales in comparison to that of their star actor. I mean, it’s undeniable now — Ryan Reynolds is the most influential super-personality since Robert Downey Jr. became Tony Stark. He is this franchise.

On the evening of their anniversary, Wade and his fiancée Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) start talking about the possibility of having a little family of Deadpools. But when work follows him home that night with tragic results, it leaves Wade utterly distraught . . . and global audiences watching him attempt to end his life in a rather buzz-killing montage of self-destruction. It’s all for naught, though, since he can’t die and his dear friend Colossus (Stefan Kapičić) comes to pick up the pieces of Humpty Dumpty, taking him back to the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters to recuperate and where Colossus hopes to recruit him into the X-Men. The problem is, Deadpool typically operates one way and the X-Men quite another. Add to that the fact that Wade isn’t exactly in a merciful mood at this point in time, and welp. You get the Escape Plan-esque Ice Box scene.

As was made abundantly clear in the first installment, the titular character is a Marvel (anti-)hero forged from immense physical suffering that has rendered him Johnny Knoxville in Bad Grandpa skin. That suffering continues here, except now that the threshold of physical pain has been reached the only thing Wade has left that can be broken is his spirit. To that, Deadpool 2 isn’t a sequel that “goes bigger,” but one that tries to cut deeper. It offers an emotional trial that goes for profound but instead comes across shallow and hard to trust in the face of all that unbridled cynicism. What kind of a father would Wade actually make? Will he ever not be a disappointment to his friend Colossus, who sees more in the mercenary? Does any of this really matter, given what one of the post-credits sequences suggests?

‘Emotional trial’ becomes this catch-all term for what pretty much everyone is going through in this movie. Suffering is true not only of our human-condom-looking hero, but as well the villains and the would-be villains. Firefist, the mutant to which the most significant action accrues, has suffered a terrible childhood at the hands of staff at the Mutant Reeducation Center, a dilapidated facility run by the mutant-hating, Bible-thumping Headmaster Daniel (Eddie Marsan). Marsan is a reliable actor, yet he is only allowed to carve out a very stock villain here, despite his fascinating and brutal backstory of mutant molestation and experimentation and such. Then there is Brolin’s cyborg dude, who has traveled back in time to pull a Minority Report on Firefist, who will in the future perpetrate a terrible act against Cable’s family.

Deadpool 2 fuses these journeys together in a way that, par the genre, defies logic in service of thematic convenience and always finds the most important people in the right location in time for the big showdown — “the big CGI fight,” as it were. The entire film is predictable, and it damn well knows it too — the screenplay even has a part installed where Reynolds points this out to us — but self-deprecation isn’t a great substitute for a truly compelling narrative. At least one with real consequences. This is a second chapter, but the stakes are actually lower than ever now because we have become accustomed to the blasé attitude. The movie may as well open with a title card declaring everything will be okay at the end. It is that shameless — and I love it for that — but holy burned teddy bears is it predictable.

Despite all of that there are some developments that are actually surprising. Like the one stowaway Malteser I found at my crotch when I shifted in my seat for the 80th time late in the film. Surprise candy stashes notwithstanding, new additions like Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Peter (Rob Delaney — famous overnight) help refresh the atmosphere, while stalwart vets like Blind Al (Leslie Uggams) and Dopinder (Karan Soni) enthusiastically await their turn to make another impression. These characters together succeed in forming a spirited, if insane camaraderie. They make a crazy but lovable family, and since a sense of family is usually enough to give emotional depth to a second installment, I can let slide a lot of what this sequel doesn’t do very well, or isn’t interested in doing, and laugh on anyway.

* For anyone out of the loop on this, I refer you back to this monthly round-up post

Moral of the Story: The Merc with a Mouth returns in fine form, contractually obligated to be even mouthier than he was in the first, delivering rapid-fire insults as casually as he delivers death to those standing in his way. Fans expecting more of the same intensity from Ryan Reynolds as he fends off against new opposition and audience expectation aren’t leaving this one disappointed. Then again, the acting has never been Deadpool’s weakness. He’s got great support from a lively cast but the story could really use some more oomph. 

Rated: the rating that is one tier above PG-13

Running Time: 7,199 secs. 

Quoted: “Dubstep’s for p****es!” 

“You’re so dark. Are you sure you’re not from the DC Universe?”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Suicide Squad

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'Suicide Squad' movie poster

Release: Friday, August 5, 2016

[Theater]

Written by: David Ayer

Directed by: David Ayer

Sigh.

Suicide Squad is neither a disaster nor a revelation. It’s just really, really uneventful and in that way, crushingly disappointing.

Let me grab a calculator and get back to you, because the math really doesn’t add up. I don’t quite know how you commit the cardinal sin of moviemaking with this cast, these characters, and this competent a director. When considering the myriad ways in which this utterly routine action adventure manages to bore and underwhelm, the difference between what we might have imagined and what we ultimately get kind of becomes this scintillating mystery. What the hell happened here? What could this have actually been? (In fairness, it could have been worse.) Would Suicide Squad have been better off with a less restrictive MPAA rating?

It’s been some time since so much potential has been squandered this efficiently. This callously. Not since this 2013 debacle have I left a theater feeling so utterly deflated and unmotivated to stand in line for another event picture anytime soon. The main culprit is an exceptionally shoddy story, one seemingly cobbled together by crayon-wielding first graders. It’s shocking Ayer turns out to be that first grader. He kicks things off with brief introductions to the cadre of miscreants before randomly launching into a perfunctory doomsday plot involving Midway City and some bullshit concerning Cara Delevingne-shaped meta-humans drenched in bad CGI. From the word ‘go’ the production reeks of unpreparedness, disorganization, even chaos.

Hashtag awkward. Hashtag clumsy. Hashtag done-with-this-summer-of-movies.

In the beginning everyone’s hanging out at the famed Belle Reve Penitentiary, doing hard time for various crimes. The first two we immediately recognize to be our ringleaders: Will Smith‘s Floyd Lawton, a.k.a. Deadshot, is seen getting his punching bag on (in preparation for that big action scene later!) and Margot Robbie‘s gleefully unhinged Harley Quinn, formerly known as psychiatrist Harleen Quinzel, inhabits her super-secure steel cage like a PG-13-friendly Hannibal Lecter. We meet the others as well but for insultingly brief periods, time enough I guess to prove the film’s disinterest in the ‘Squad’ part of its title. There’s the pyrokinetic ex-gangster Chato Santano, a.k.a. El Diablo  (Jay Hernandez); a boomerang-wielding guy named . . . Boomerang (Jai Courtney); a surly man with a scaly skin condition who dwells in city sewers, appropriately called Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). They’re joined also by a mercenary named Slipknot (Adam Beach) and Japanese warrior Katana (Karen Fukuhara).

Our little ruffians are kept under the thumb of intelligence operative Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), an antihero of a different breed with her considerable lack of compassion and morally-dubious methods of wielding governmental power. She’s a high-ranking official who will do whatever it takes to prevent World War Three from breaking out. Or something like that. Anyway, she’s a pretty bad egg whose motives become increasingly suspect, a trend that neatly paralleled my own suspicions. Waller enlists the help of Colonel Rick Flagg (Joel Kinneman) to keep all her disposable, criminal pee-ons in line. When Flagg reads them the riot act that’s our cue to get ready for action. Hooray — it’s the Suicide Squad and now shit is going down!

Only, nothing does. With writing that lacks inspiration or a strong reference point — or any point, period — getting excited becomes an unreasonable challenge. The bleakness of the world in which this non-drama occurs bleeds over into the experience itself, but bleakness is less of an issue. I say let this thing be dour — this isn’t Marvel. But along with that bleakness comes the joylessness. With joylessness, a sense of aimlessness. Few of the members of Suicide Squad are stoked about undertaking a mission that will very likely get them killed, and if random gunfire doesn’t do it a frustrated Waller will if they so happen to fail or step out of line. That psychology may ring true to the comics but the cast wear their broken hearts on their sleeves a bit too much while, ironically, no one outside of Robbie’s freewheeling Harley and Jared Leto’s not-half-bad Joker seem to have that same muscle invested in any of this.

As the movie shuffles begrudgingly onward, alarming amounts of material fail to materialize, leaving Ayer’s efforts to introduce this infamously savage group to the world-at-large to disintegrate like used toilet paper. Unconvincing sob stories are stapled on to a few characters who lurk in the background behind Deadshot and Harley Quinn, but this isn’t enough to justify an excess of shots designed to show why this idea should work. (Here’s a radical 21st Century concept: show, don’t tell.) All those precious moments going to waste watching the film’s most interesting character (by far) out-act her colleagues might have been better spent doing something else. Something other than trying to convince us that the movie knows what it is doing with such damaged cargo.

With all of that in mind, damages really come down to a (granted, rather large) misjudgment of plot substance, and a lack of personality to give us a reason to get over that issue. The DCEU’s Guardians of the Galaxy this is not. Even still, there are some really great performances to take away, namely those of the volatile core of Robbie, Smith, Davis and Leto. The former seem to be heating up since their days working on Focus, while the latter have some fun tossing a shitload of ham around. Davis overshoots her goal of becoming the film’s Surprisingly Evil Element while Leto lets out his inner psycho in a turn that recalls vintage Jack Nicholson while wisely skimping on Heath Ledger inflections.

The Suicide Squad Joker is actually really good. He’s a nasty son of a bitch and his twisted romantic subplot with Harley Quinn is the most compelling. Too bad Leto’s commitment is virtually all for naught. As has been widely reported, many of his scenes were cut. Leto’s response to a question concerning his lack of screen time late in the film is especially damning. Even he wants to know what the Joker was doing for so long without visual confirmation of his scheming ways. His absence is microcosmic of a larger problem. I’m not sure anyone, not even the studio, rumored to have played a hand in production delays and re-shoots, knew what kind of gem they were holding in their hands.

Suicide Squad is not a bad film but it is frustratingly mediocre and that’s enough to drive me crazy.

Jared Leto as the new Joker in 'Suicide Squad'

Recommendation: Suicide Squad suffers from a lack of plot mechanization. What is the purpose? Why are we here? Why can’t the story be about something more interesting? For the longest time, the story never seems to be going anywhere. The pacing is choppier than damn it and not much of David Ayer’s directorial touch can be found here (ya know, other than the hordes of heavily armed, well-built people parading around a war-zone). I don’t really know what to say, other than this film basically sums up the year we have had so far when it comes to big event pictures. Mostly disappointment. 

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 123 mins.

Quoted: “Love your perfume! What is that, Stench of Death?”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.variety.com