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Cinema Briefing
Movie reviews by
Ian Flanagan
Ian Flanagan
 2 ½ (out of 4)
Deadpool 2 began with a simple “FUCK WOLVERINE” and things aren’t too different now… if you’re coming into the latest Deadpool flick for the clawed curmudgeon you may as well stick to The Wolverine, hell the only Huge Act Man X-Men movie worse than Deadpool & Wolverine is obviously X-Men Origins: Wolverine (a deservedly scorned spin-off with admittedly decent choreography if awful VFX), no bar to exceed considering Wade and Logan play odd couple for about four minutes together onscreen. As technically the first X-Men movie in the MCU, you can’t be too mad at it when there’s a dozen Easter baskets worth of stupid comic-nerd nuggets — for that specific cameo that’ll make you chuckle (for me it was rescuing Channing Tatum’s Gambit movie from the empty sea of developed and unrealized movies) this flick is like an upended cereal box. Akin to Spider-Man: No Way Home’s playfully unconcerned Multiverse-mucking, D&W has just as little actual story and likewise feels like a pure product rather than a real movie. However, even when 40% of the jokes are falling flat, Ryan Reynolds’ steadfast creative commitment ignites the third Deadpool with at least some marginal sense of unequivocal uniqueness, which is more appetizing than James Gunn’s own irksome irreverence, although Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 may be the only good Marvel movie out of their last seven or so. Deadpool & Wolverine may be a whopper of pound for pound entertainment value — it’s still hard to genuinely say it’s good. Wolverine is almost more sidelined than Godzilla in that last Kong mash-up, here though I understand more since it’s Deadpool’s unlikely franchise at the end of the day. Because the first film has terrible non-linear narrative structure with a pretty unsatisfying outline of an origin and a quickly outdated sense of what meta means, I think the third is just too double-stuffed with fun not to be superior, even if both are too insanely specific products of their cultural place to age gracefully. Deadpool 2 is the actual movie in the franchise, the bona fide blockbuster, the most seamless mix of impressive action sequences (David Leitch in the driver’s seat helps), crisper self-aware commentary, more effectively base humor and pinch of actual characterization. This movie still has the sword-swinging slapstick in effective bouts between our titular foul-mouthed, virtually unkillable mental cases, and you can’t help but laugh at some of Reynolds’ ridiculous wisecracks (or Hugh giving what he’d give Shakespeare) — next to the way this Cinematic Universe has insisted on one-liners and tension-eviscerating asides, Ryan relatively feels like a comic savant since too much of Whedon, Gunn and the new Spidey shtick has rubbed me wrong. The real victory is this is an authentic Deadpool movie — despite the way Fantastic Four and of course the rest of the X-Men are starting to seep into the cracks of the GRAND TIMELINE or whatever, you don’t even blink at the first R-rated Disney/Marvel flick by a LONG SHOT (the closest was a weak F-Bomb in Guardians 3), or wait around for MCU cameos when they could bring back Pyro, Toad, Juggernaut, Laura/X23, Tatum to finally play Gambit for Christ’s sake and throw in Wesley Snipes and Jennifer Garner as Blade and Elektra for respective good measure, needless as they are, then of course there’s Chris Evans’ sneaky cameo as Johnny Storm rather than Steve Rodgers, a crappy recurring joke turned a solid one. But what matters is that this actor/character switcheroo ties in COMPLETELY to the Comic Con craziness occurring just as this movie easily has the biggest opening weekend of 2024 — if Chris Evans can be both Captain and the Torch in our universe, than Downey Jr. can be BOTH IRON MAN AND DR. DOOM! FUCK IT FEIGE! Yes let us all forget the Kang fiasco which would have been shit even if Jonathan Majors hadn’t become a problem child and everything went according to “plan.” Fantastic Four now has the subtitle First Steps (what like they’re Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2?) because if Phase Four or Five will be remembered, if at all, it’s whiffed one-offs and really paltry, poorly considered attempts to slam the reset button on the MCU’s stalled out, inevitable entropy. The movie mourns the death of Fox in that evil, manipulative arrangement of sentimental behind the scenes footage of better superhero movies Disney had no hand in — they’re flaunting and flexing their not so recently acquired IP harder than ever and this is just the start. I’m just so happy that by sheer financial calculus Feige has to bend over and take Reynold’s quips about Deadpool & Wolverine arriving at a “low point” in the series. That’s no joke though as the last one, The Marvels, in money or moviemaking, is just shit, worst ever for the brand, and even if this movie’s self-awareness about the drop-off since Endgame is a distraction of insincere “honesty,” it’s just delightful to witness onscreen. Fortunately Reynolds is just as inseparable from his character as Jackman form Logan or Downey from Tony… plus there’s that rando Peter (Rob Delaney), the elderly blind roommate (Leslie Uggams) and all the glib, giddy decisions making this a weirdly lovable trilogy contrary to the smarmy swill the first movie suggests on its own. D&W has reasonable respect for Logan (less for Logan, who is a different animal than we’ve seen before with the same grimaced redemption arc) and yet this second swan song, this meme-able encore (DID WE MENTION HE’S WEARING THE CLASSIC YELLOW SUIT OMG FINALLYYY) is just more gore and mockery and dumb needle drops — I almost don’t even need to bring up director (and first-time writer, alongside four others, after twenty-five years of mediocrity exclusively behind the camera) Shawn Levy, most famous for the stinky Night at the Museum trilogy, one-off unfunny Steve Martin vehicles like Cheaper by the Dozen and the 2006 Pink Panther plus crappy, crass but still sentimental comedies This Is Where I Leave You and The Internship. His latest era may be his best, as this is his third charming enough/“eh not bad” Reynolds collab in a row, rearing 2021’s late summer sleeper hit Free Guy and the sci-fi coming-of-age Netflick The Adam Project — which family friendly movie with a slavish religiosity toward Star Wars, 80s nostalgia and basically all forms of mainstream nerd culture would you prefer? Anyway, like Tim Miller directing 2016's Deadpool, there’s really no voice to make out here, and Levy is so tasteless you can’t even lament another director getting tangled up in the Disney turbines. With eight months after the embarrassment of The Marvels and eight months until Captain America: Brave New World (probably not the first on anybody’s anticipated list) this is a desert stretch for MCU disciples. Then we figure out what’s going on with that asterisk Thunderbolts*'s title before Fantastic Four seemingly directs us to two new Avengers only just subtitled Doomsday for obvious RDJ-related (but Majors mostly) reasons and the unchanged Secret Wars in 2026. As someone totally finished with actually expecting ANYTHING of significance to happen (2020s MCU really is the true TV-identical serialization of cinema) I’m glad Deadpool & Wolverine took the tiresome, messy malarkey of cinematic interconnectivity to more pleasingly flippant and freewheeling places than Doctor Strange in the Mulitverse of Madness or any other failed attempt to widen this Universe’s reach since 2019.  2 (out of 4)
Can you really claim a plural title (à la Aliens) when your dumber sequel features half the cyclones spinning in 1996? Jesus, I don’t think there’s a single way in which this soft remake (so soft it's barely holding together) isn’t paling in comparison to the already pretty corny disaster movie thrills of the original Twister — trading “From the director of Speed” for “From the director of Minari” doesn’t make your affair classier, it just makes it a marvel of boredom and wasted effort in search of actual escapism, probably like watching real storm chasers. With nothing in common to its IP besides natural phenomena and a reference to their Dorothy machine, it's amusing how much Twisters tries to correct certain things about the original but hey, let’s play that game: sure swapping Twister’s crumbier cold open for an even more obvious investment in backstory makes sense, but the plot is utterly lost on Minari man Lee Isaac Chung, the removed antithesis to director Jan de Bont’s restless insistence. The first movie is all about them trying to get their little science balls into the deadly suck zone, in fact the ENTIRE MOVIE is just race to see who can get this dizzying data — it’s frustrating but you’re invested after all the spills and when they accomplish their macho meteorological maneuver it’s so rewarding, exciting, pent up and released like a theme park ride as DISASTER MOVIES GENERALLY SHOULD BE. In 2024 we would apparently rather drown in melodrama, the ‘dead friends’ kind rather than the ‘love triangle between my separated storm chaser wife and the therapist fiancé' routine. Believe me I can barely stomach when Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton are screaming about Daddy issues with a ‘nado just down the road, but that goop is still preferential. It can’t go without saying the action is either unimpressive or nonexistent — only one of its four or so major sequences involves some technical interaction between the practical effects and digital enhancements, and regardless any of the film’s unfussy spectacle still kinda blows. Again it’s living up to no masterpiece, I can’t even say I even like Twister but when they have to drive a truck through a house they drive a truck through a fucking house. Twisters is so slick and phony, despite real locations and shooting on Kodak film — de Bont’s film had stunning aerial photography this movie can’t even come close to with today’s drone technology, ha maybe you should’ve handed this over to someone who knows their way around both shlock and new tech like Michael Bay. And although Twisters sidesteps any climate change rhetoric, the film still has to promulgate a message about evil lowballing profiteers pilfering storm-swept lands, something this shoddy script wants to play with morally but won’t commit to… Worse still, the reverence for nature is somehow diminished even when you account for how quiet Chung’s film is in contrast to 1996’s second biggest domestic feature (behind disaster maestro Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day). So what if Twisters features a scene at a rodeo, plays a couple country songs and refuses to let you forget we’re in the beautiful, scenic southern paradise of OOOOOOOOKlahoma where the cows go flying through the aaaiiiiiiirrrrrr. State pride aside Twisters has a smokescreen of authenticity, especially as it is carried by a crop of “rising stars.” Apart from professional third wheel Anthony Ramos from In the Heights (no mackin’ for you this time), we have Daisy Edger-Jones from Where the Crawdads Sing (her unreadable demeanor is forced to conceal some already communicated trauma and guilt), and Glen Powell (whom you rightfully and wrongly expect to save the day and the movie), of Top Gun: Maverick and Hit Man, as the thrill junkie YouTube personality with a degree AND a heart of gold, too charming and romantic to make into the simple clone of Cary Elwes' original antagonist — Lordy the way this movie tries to eliminate the ‘good chasers vs. bad chasers’ angle isn’t mature or realistic, the tiresome "modern moral grey" is just another of this movie’s forgettable, inferior alterations. Even the 2nd act respite with our lead character’s accommodating Mom is worse — in ’96 Lois Smith offered superb presence and made you care about her character’s survival in a medical rescue moment. In the background no figures here have shit on the former, stupendous supporting ensemble spearheaded by Philip Seymour Hoffman and including Todd Field, Anthony Rapp, Alan Ruck, Jeremy Davies, Patrick Fischler, Sean Whalen and Joey Slotnick, just a king's ransom of "ah, that guy!" I can’t believe Joseph Kosinski is responsible for the story (and just the story as he’s probably too busy directing F1), since Top Gun: Maverick is precisely the textbook Twisters doesn’t follow, namely an emphasis on cinematic realism, warm, genuine emotions, plus Powell as part of a greater whole rather than the only grace note, all in all the legacyquel with dignity. Chung is candid and clever as director, producer, cinematographer and editor of the Rwandan journey of liberation disguised as revenge saga Munyurangabo — regardless this felt like the Universal equivalent of an indie-to-Marvel one-step yes-man process, since hardly any of his sensitivities bleed through even the quieter passages. The disaster movie was my first love, yet it’s such a dilapidated, dogshit genre that, in hindsight, there are seldom few quality examples. Nostalgia carries The Day After Tomorrow far for me, War of the Worlds contains far too many other genres to include (but it’d be the GOAT far and away if you did), and similarly pandemic flicks (like Contagion or Outbreak) don’t quite qualify and maybe there’s more an argument to be made for harrowing historical features like Titanic or The Impossible or, ugh, The Perfect Storm, lame. As what one would call a desperate apologist for such saturated spectacle and waves of what-would-you-do-in-that-situation cinema, I’ll say the original Poseidon Adventure (and Wolfgang Petersen’s remake damn it!) represents what we crave, otherwise Deep Impact (gtfoh Armageddon) and Dante’s Peak (you can stay Volcano, whatever) are the only really strong excerpts from the genre of suffering as showmanship. Recent attempts to reclaim mainstream attention for popcorn apocalypses like Pompeii, San Andreas and Geostorm certainly don’t speak to a bright future. The fact that Twisters was maybe only a hair above the made-for-cheap found-footage-plus-tornado-twist Into the Storm is concerning. Frankly if I’m favoring The Core and 2012 above this new summer smash, something’s gone seriously wrong, and that includes critic’s giving this lousy, limp-wristed blockbuster masquerade a pass. You can find more awe-inducing tornadoes in The Wizard of Oz. It’s amazing how the mediocrity of 30 years ago can so easily outstrip the well-received slop of today. I thought this would be an overnight shoo-in for disaster movie all-timer rather than a dud you can barely call a distraction — if you’re going to replace sequences of man vs. nature with cheesy character development, just make sure such an exchange in entertainment value is actually worth it.  3 (out of 4)
“I don’t give a shit about the Bible” — Writer/Director Osgood Perkins Though it may nip from the same stupid horror-mystery-thriller serial-killer-police-procedural playbook, this ain’t The Snowman — Oz Perkins, son of Anthony Perkins, has been quietly cultivating some serious sensory skills as the ‘other’ indie arthouse horror guy just recently made mainstream, I guess apart from Mike Flanagan or Robert Eggers or Ari Aster or whoever comes to mind quickest. Longlegs could be called an ode to much greater movies of the same warm, eerie, investigative ilk, namely Michael Mann’s Manhunter, Jonathan Demme’s The Silence of the Lambs, David Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac, Bong Joon-Ho’s Memories of Murder, Denis Villeneuve’s Prisoners and most immediately Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s chilling 1997 masterpiece Cure, in which our killer seemingly bewitches his victims into performing horrible acts on our hands-free psycho’s behalf. Whatever pastiche Longlegs is liable for, ’tis a certain turnaround and more comfortable way to try out the spotlight than whatever idiotic imprint in pop consciousness was left by his last, 2019’s Gretel & Hansel, a feeble dark fantasy interminably stretched. Perkins fourth film is a technically exquisite horror flick, with arrangements so indelibly predisposed, guerrilla marketing so sharp, its cult flavor basically built-in before the divided audience reactions — within the inviting, autumnal palette, there’s a tasteful balance of extreme wides in an otherwise claustrophobic concoction of enigmatic summer counter-programming, not to mention a sparing, bewildering Nicolas Cage performance for more memorable color. Oz’s typically opaque, ethereal, grimly gorgeous affairs range from the narratively leisurely (or glacial in Gretel’s case), borderline translucent gothic ghost tales of Netflix’s I Am the Pretty Thing that Lives in the House to his drab debut The Blackcoat’s Daughter and it’s own teenage shade of devil-dabbling murder mania. Even the most primitive example of Perkins’ distanced, aurally spacious and psychologically obscured proclivities are recognizable as part of a brand of freaky, story-light, old-fashioned instinct and restraint. But Longlegs, with its more focused, fleshed out screenwriting and marvelous imagery, quickly dissolves from proper police work to an inscrutable cinematic “reality” built around the creepiest uncle you forgot about — but another ride on Ozzy’s crazy train actually leaves you APPROPRIATELY, INTENTIONALLY vexed this time! It might just be a mini-classic simply based on the painstaking composition of its meditative, nostalgic style and the help of an it-girl anchor like Maika Monroe front and center as the near-psychic, indeterminately autistic young detective/birthday girl. With The Guest, It Follows (plus it’s due sequel They Follow, soon, hopefully) and Watcher in her pocket, Ms. Monroe has already become a coveted RBF scream queen fit for the modern age, even more than Sophia Lillis (where’s she been?) seemed to become thanks to Gretel, rearing her work in 2017’s It. Apart from a mess of Cage meme-moments to rest along 20 others (in a rare villainous role, it’s pretty much Face/Off otherwise), there’s Alicia Witt as the naggy religious mom (with more skeletons in her closet than magic murder dolls), Blair Underwood as the cool, black, comic relief Police Chief for that true late 20th century feel, plus a bonus creepy Kiernan Shipka, who may as well be reprising her grown-up bad-seed role from Blackcoat’s Daughter. I wish Oz was tactile with more than sheer atmosphere, since the inevitable upfront aversion to this film’s story is because playing things straight here in our fucked up world is more acceptable than bringing Satan into the picture — for obsessives, apparently there are 15(!) appearances by “the man downstairs” himself hidden in some shadowy Easter egg form. But even with early psychic setups (as well as the impossibility of the murders) we're foolish for expecting an episodic, easy answer, like how it always pan out. “Ah, of course there’s no ghosts, no God, fucking idiot!” That’s all before Oz’s mystifying marionette misdirections but, for breaking the mold, the hand he plays is hard to be mad at. The preternatural element is an Achilles heel, but it doesn’t hold Longlegs back exactly — like Blackcoat’s Daughter, you’re not in trouble just for introducing extrasensory evil and there’s no film of his so far that doesn’t. At least it takes that impressively dumb twist from The Black Phone (what if the crazy psycho I’m tryna catch actually lived in the basement?) and almost makes it work. His curious, esoteric trimmings include corny, outdated orchestral flair to juxtapose its 70s rock backdrop of T Rex and Lou Reed (sorta like the other Cage insta-cult-classic Mandy, with loosely tied-in metal/rock ’n’ roll for tone, including lyrics as opening quotes and all), 8mm/16mm montages of nonsensical, abstract subconscious flashes and just myriad aesthetic artistry so thank the Lord (OF DARKNESS) that Longlegs’ script has just enough meat on its bones to resist accusing of style over substance. I can’t believe it roughly adds up in spite of supernatural shenanigans and its deflating parting — Oz makes you wish it were much longer by climaxing with no comedown, so if he hasn’t lost you with the actual satanic witchcraft, special effects right from Lynch’s latest, you may be taken aback by such a blueballed cut-to-credits for somehow this guy’s least frustrating feature yet. Regardless of an almost possessed need to weave the unreal into the mundane, Longlegs indeed delivers on the promise of Perkins’ so far predominantly unrealized gifts. Even at its toughest to swallow, it’s still one of the year’s best so far, if not exactly a new horror classic then a near-great one. Perkins may be too precious with having you feel like you’re watching a 30-year old movie, but his gauge on calming creepiness is exacting. The first half is as arresting as I’ve seen in some time, and in sum we’ll have to settle for one of the best dressed spookers of the last decade ’n' change, and just wait to see how its reputation waxes or wanes — for scary movies that radically redirect partway through, like Barbarian it might become a curiosity rather than a genre touchstone. No points can be given for originality considering its laundry list of influences, but for once Perkins didn’t need any short-film-premise padding, no instead this movie has distinct acts and a few shocking moments. I couldn’t care less about CG blood, oh no where are my gosh darn squibs! Sorry I don’t have THAT much devotion to the 90s . As someone with a birthday on the 14th, I was spooped. Longlegs is too engrossing to be upset by the stubbornly strange unveiled mystery — cult films this cryptic and calculated are as uncommon as a movie character quoting the Bible outside the horror genre (or mainstream Christian cinema, I’ll get you one day Angel Studios!), and Perkins' best yet is as singular as a Peter Strickland rabbit hole and as ideal a picture as someone like Ti West could ever make. Sure, it’s a little more Amityville Horror and less The Shining, though his outlandishness is operating on familiar levels of Stephen King crazy and, wouldn’t you know it, his speedy follow-up is a King adaptation The Monkey due in February, not to mention another horror project Keeper scheduled a few months later in Fall 2025. I'd prefer overly-influenced originality, but I'll be more than interested how his stone-faced senselessness bounces off a legacy lunatic — with Longlegs it's like he's already well on his way to cuckoo town. |
Forthcoming:
Thoughts on Father Mother Sister Brother Marty Supreme Avatar: Fire and Ash Hamnet Zootopia 2 Wake Up Dead Man Sentimental Value The Running Man Jay Kelly Frankenstein Die My Love Bugonia 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 Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning Final Destination: Bloodlines Sinners Snow White Black Bag Mickey 17 ... Follow me on Twitter @ newwavebiscuit To keep it brief...
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June 2025
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