|
|
Cinema Briefing
Movie reviews by
Ian Flanagan
Ian Flanagan
 2 ½ (out of 4)
This might be where I draw the line concerning my tolerance for dopey spin-offs that never should’ve never seen the green light of day. When X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Minions have more reason to exist than your apocalyptic prequel, it only goes to show that when movies branch from their franchises in the name of exploiting some pliable premise (or often exploring some specific character), the zoomed-in, scrutinized side-storying rarely amounts to anything worth the trouble to make apart from money. Even as a cash-in scheme they’re a gamble, there’s a reason X-Men Origins: Magneto became a full-on reboot, same goes for why there are only two Star Wars Story’s, and the one that killed them was Solo… just because the Conjuring series has made a ceaseless ruse out of this doesn’t mean everyone should PARAMOUNT! But anyway, I hate to admit, for being the lesser of three sci-fi horror-thrillers, A Quiet Place: Day One at least continues the tradition of great cut to credits parting moments. It exceeds at least the 2018 original in exploiting the modes of modern silent cinema with nods to magic and puppetry — but there’s no real challenge to communicate an alien invasion survival flick scaffolded by a joke plot. For spin-offs this was probably better than Birds of Prey but certainly similar, as Lupita N’yongo (doing her best as always) and her damn slice of pizza is just as annoying as Harley Quinn and her fucking breakfast sammich — at least it made sense why it was stupid in the Fantabulous whatever the fuck… but the Quiet Place series intently posits itself as artier mainstream horror, so NO don’t make your new wrinkle in the premise about some suicidal cancer patient trying to score some ‘za. Talk about diminishing your already diminished “installment.” It’s as if a professional production solely about the Twinkie subplot of Zombieland was worth planning out a whole trip to the movies. There are some neat, terse chase sequences, that first migrating scramble with thousands in the streets was taking a page from Spielberg’s War of the Worlds with little oners and plenty of dusty panoramic panic. But this non-story has nowhere to go, except past DAY ONE, EXCUSE ME there were at least two days witnessed here minimum, sorry whatcha gonna call the next one? This almost moves like a decent TV pilot no one picked up (wait for the Quiet Place streaming series, just guessing) — it’s almost respectable and utterly superfluous. For second time director Michael Sarnoski, there’s barely a hint of the same lovelorn despair translating from the quiet melancholy of Pig, ultimately there’s hardly a scrap of stylistic difference between this and Krasinski’s brief encounters of suspense and spectacle. Lupita is stupendous in spite of the shlock, but her support is just Sarnoski’s second collab with Alex Wolff, an under-present Djimon Hounsou (who recounts a way cooler, crazier ending to this movie in Part II, where 10 boats were massacred by our deadly disabled invaders) and some coward (Joseph Quinn) whose not even as self-sufficient as his little pussy — why are you nearly getting yourself killed to save a creature capable of making much, much less noise than you? If this is what passes for a blockbuster, let alone a horror-thriller monster movie (let me just forget this was once the date for the eighth Mission: Impossible) I may have to tune this shit out unless you give me a spin-off just about the cat.  2 ½ (out of 4)
Hey Pixar, any chance of a real renaissance or resurgence at this point? Calling anything they produce from here out “the best since Soul” wouldn’t mean much even if Inside Out 2 was an exceptional sequel — it isn’t though, just another entry of entertainment entropy they've regularly released since the decline, save an exception or two. At the end I hoped the credits-adjacent dinnertime zoom-ins ’n’ -outs of the parent’s own internal command modules would yield a great parting gag like the first Inside Out but nope, just more of “Wow isn’t anxiety annoying?” Is anxiety just a fistful of adderall and planning your day? In constructive life situations this new movie makes anxiousness look downright useful, though of course Inside Out 2’s thematic promise, like last time, is it takes the balance of ALL emotions (the good, the bad, the indifferent) to amount to a full person. This sequel feigns as new and different, aiming lower perhaps for the sake of keeping story potential alive for more sequels, but what’s the next step (OH God a Disney+ show??), what emotions could they add on top of the better additions like Ennui and especially Nostalgia as some closeted grandmotherly emotion for a rainy day, the best recurring bit. Pixar’s not going to get its hands dirty with sexual frustration and the temptations of substance abuse or some other deadly sin now are they, unless these flicks truly become message movies. Limiting children’s human emotion to five distinctly incomplete subsets was begging for an adolescent upgrade, so long as they retained enough heartwarming, psychologically healthy ideas and proper pathos — but Inside Out 2 doesn’t just talk down to teenagers, they’re shortchanging the kids as well. The original was so original it took seven suggested scripts for any production to began — this was already a concept too high for its own good whether it wanted to be or not, and if the idea of an Inside Out is the sum of riffing and pitching small concepts within the larger umbrella of insular insanity (probably how plenty of Pixar screenplays are pieced together) is this sequel honestly the best bundle of bits you got? For the sake of color let’s look at certain Pixar series — Toy Story is the flagship and, for me, without a weak one in the bunch, unless you count Lightyear and who does? Finding Dory was cash-grabby but has that sturdy center of sentiment and more than a few cute additions in character. Incredibles 2 was no doubt a flight of steps down from Pixar’s finest two hours but an intermittently awe-inducing follow-up. But Inside Out 2 is about as trivial as a Cars 2 (or 3, remember?) or a Monsters University, so inconsequential you don’t even need to see it, it may as well not even exist. And for puberty allegories I would honestly say both Turning Red (despite paling next to Encanto and Coco) and Brave were more agreeable, girls-will-be-girls one-of-a-kind affairs, the sequel isn’t even up to their most dismissed of COVID and post-COVID under-the-radar affairs like Luca or Elemental. Inside Out was the OG Pixar comeback, a renewing moment for their acclaimed invention and most literal emotional complexity — this has neither, just less enlightening gags and minuscule social insight. Of course I’m not upset that the more pointed growing pains episode of this now fresh series has you squirming, teeth on edge and collar pulled, but that’s also what you got last time when young Riley was formerly out of control of herself, manipulated like a marionette by her color-coated brain-bureaucracy. If this is a rebound outside of Disney finances, it’s a sad one — for me Soul is their closest and only scrape with cinema greatness in almost 15 years. Even 2015’s Inside Out isn’t quite as exceptionally clever as they say, like when Phyllis Smith’s Sadness has to explain every stage of abstract thought just so you understand one sequence of their mind-mission. Then there’s no Bill Hader as Fear (Tony Hale ain’t no bad trade) or even Mindy Kaling as Disgust from what I can tell (Liza Lapira instead), though Lewis Black, Smith and Amy Poehler exude earnest returning voice work. Maya Hawke has attempted to make a name for herself beyond identifiable nepo-baby status through 2023’s Asteroid City and Maestro but as the voice of Anxiety (and as far as redeemed villains go), it’s no character exactly destined to be anyone’s favorite. I just felt disheartened, as if, like the upcoming Moana 2 (formerly a show reworked into a theatrical sequel), this is a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency kind of project, where it’s about nothing more than the bottom line rather actual artistry. For Dreamworks’ parallel products, Trolls Band Together and Kung Fu Panda 4 demand less of you, deliver more dutiful distractions and are better for it — Pixar, meanwhile, is constantly betrayed by their pantheon-packed past, like having your darlings kill you. Somehow Orion and the Dark (and from the looks of it The Wild Robot) is finding Dreamworks accessing slip-on sincerity and silliness better than the GOAT. Albeit, from afar Pixar's next original project, Elio, appears too promising for me to neglect the studio’s still-lingering potential for a stunner. Especially following up Richard Kind’s heartbreaking bro for the ages Bing Bong, the second Inside Out doesn’t hit you right in the feels in any remotely comparable sense, and I rate my Pixar movies in no small part due to the tears they elicit. Regrettably, all the sentimental and psychological simplifications of Inside Out 2 may be messing with kids heads and hearts more than making sense of them, and Nostalgia will be the only reason this will ever be remembered.  3 ½ (out of 4)
I love Richard Linklater — boy oh boy, do I — and while I could lament his career getting caught in the Netflix vortex, that this and Apollo 10 1/2 will become just another morsel of everyone’s streaming choice paralysis, I’m just content that his content is primed to please just about everyone who lays eyes on it. Hit Man doesn’t exactly blow your socks or your head off, it doesn’t exactly break new ground for the king of casual kino, but it is absurdly easygoing and effortlessly engrossing from head to toe, just kinda classic Linklater emitting wide-eyed, blissed out decency into the universe. Humanism is a loaded term but I don’t think anyone else in modern film has quite so candidly tapped in the way things really are, fine-tuned the temperament of actual reality, all without making shit too boring, hammy or muting his mentality with mumblecore modesty. For someone whose screenwriting mantra is something along the lines of “hey maybe you can change your life for the better (or maybe it’s already alright)," Linklater makes all his contemporaries look like self-help cinema. It’s a state of mind Capra used to force his audience into, and Richard doesn’t even have to get all socialist on us to make us feel more whole and understood. In a sea of crap trying to redpill you or bluepill you (or blackpill you), he’s the one guy extending a whitepill, even if he has to divy up a movie with college philosophy lectures to help marry his rippling themes to simple diversions. Like his former Texan oddball profile, 2011’s Bernie, broke the rules for character studies, Hit Man finds Linklater’s trademark navel gazing most palatable and his storytelling most clear and considered. He's no stranger to crafting movies about the duplicity and multiplicity of the self, the idea of a person as unfixed, and his usual jolly ethos is most literally illustrated by a fairly fictionalized Gary Johnson, the NOPD rat that repeatedly impersonated an assassin in order to arrest some seedy local folk. Like Keanu Reeves’ Bob (or is it Fred?) in his unctuous adaptation of Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly, it’s good, mildly harrowing fun getting lost as to which of the police informant’s two identities dominates, regardless of any Orwellian backdrop. Glen Powell makes a multicolored display of his performative potential far exceeding his supporting charm which helped Cruise himself coast in Top Gun: Maverick — he proves beyond doubt, beyond another looming 80s legacy sequel Twisters, that he is a leading man, and a force for good outside of good looks. Linklater gave Powell some limelight already with a bit part in Fast Food Nation way back but noticeably in 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!! as the mustached, sage upperclassman to his own freshman baseball pitcher self-insert, plus there’s a brief appearance in Rick’s last Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood, a marvelous, mood-boosting return to former greatness particularly after how bad Where’d You Go, Bernadette? sucked. Meanwhile his co-star Adria Arjona turns heads as ably as she in turn makes herself a star, only a few stepping stones behind Powell — there’s a delirium to her irascible charms. Linklater has range, confidence and a natural sense of moviemaking given his near-constant hand in the script. Hit Man may go down like nourishing nectar but the average Netflix consoomer doesn't even know how good they have it, especially with Noah Baumbach making such peerless, exclusive features as well. While this compares to say, Adam McKay or David O. Russell, and their same slack-loose true-storying that comically, flippantly eschews actuality, in Linklater’s case Hit Man ain’t some hazy boomer history lesson, he just wanted to make sure his dramatic license didn’t accidentally have the masses believing Gary is a murderer. As a summer distraction so spry and feathery, it’s incredible how darn nerve-wracking the film becomes by its last act, pushing the undercover moonlighting and red-hot rendezvous’ to their breaking point. The film never gets too pleased with itself (even if the meet-cute pushes it) or too out of hand — Richard and Glen’s screenplay is exceedingly clever, populated by strong supporting characters and has a handy way of detailing the veracity of deceit. Hit Man neatly illustrates the subjective capacity to take advantage of how narrowly people see you (or don’t) and work the edges of perception, then bottles the idea via new parents and the way they communicate the story of their lives together to their gullible children, hammering home personal narrative’s and the natural naiveté of others. You think it’s fluff (you’re right) but goddamn it’s the most assertively old-fashioned, unashamedly sexy (not interrupted by credits or bickering like the Before sequels), mathematically funny and most unexpectedly suspenseful fluff in a long while. It’s uncomplicated and free to fictionalize a real guy without worrying about interrupting what could make a good rom-com thriller — the writing is pinpoint, the camerawork is sharp, the performances are just shy of perfection and the stranger-than-fiction headline-ripping is a mischievous springboard for a frothy cocktail of romance and duplicitous noir tropes (not to mention the history of fem-dom couples from hell like Gun Crazy, Natural Born Killers and possibly Intolerable Cruelty), all drenched in Linklater’s typical glaze of sensible sunniness and humming, positive vibes. Sadly his most marketable movie in ages is a Netflix prisoner foremost, but with a TIFF premiere and fresh star power in Powell, there’s enough prestige and eyeballs to make for Linklater’s most appreciably mainstream moment since, what School of Rock? All to say is there’s no mutual exclusion between “lighter” movies and art. Try-hard or “try harder,” serious or comedic, it will all wither in the wake of genuine intent, considered craft, particularly the kind of infectious spirit that makes you think of Woody Allen and Billy Wilder and some of most benevolent filmmaking souls ever to play the game. He hasn’t made something huge since Boyhood (hey, he’s busy with 20 more years of adapting Merrily We Roll Along!) but disregarding Bernadette, this, Apollo and Everybody Wants Some!! are a decade’s proof aplenty of Linklater’s enduring versatility and lust-for-life chutzpah. |
Forthcoming:
Thoughts on A House of Dynamite Tron: Ares One Battle After Another Caught Stealing Weapons The Naked Gun The Fantastic Four: First Steps Eddington Superman Jurassic World: Rebirth F1 / M3GAN 2.0 28 Years Later / Elio Ballerina Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Final Destination: Bloodlines Thunderbolts* Sinners Snow White Black Bag Mickey 17 Captain America: Brave New World Nosferatu A Complete Unknown Wicked / Gladiator II Emilia Pérez Megalopolis ... Follow me on Twitter @ newwavebiscuit To keep it brief...
Most recent review-less movie scores
Nobody 2 2 ½/4 Happy Gilmore 2 2 ½/4 The Life of Chuck 2/4 Drop 3/4 Presence 3/4 Mufasa: The Lion King 2/4 Conclave 2 ½/4 A Real Pain 3/4 Saturday Night 3/4 Sing Sing 3/4 Kinds of Kindness 2/4 The Watchers 1 ½/4 Months in movies
January 2025
Kino
|
RSS Feed