Review – L&D Report

Operatic Pulp

I don’t doubt that Jason Statham can dramatically act but it’s unlikely we will ever find out. He can however do action and in Wrath of Man he does it well. There are several things I like about this picture starting with the language. It’s a sort of flowery almost screwball comedy prose. A cross between Shakespearean iambic pentameter and a dirty limerick you’ve heard a thousand times. Similarly, we have all seen this movie plot many times before. I know D however missed the usual Ritchie humor. Though maybe Guy Ritchie felt like there was nothing to laugh about when he directed this film, based on another film, Le Convoyeur (2004). Yes, Wrath of Man is a remake.

Once again, the action is done well. There are enough characters and drama to keep you going. And even though there are various plot flaws, inconsistencies and minor characters that are crowbarred into the narrative, I still commend Director Guy Ritchie for at least trying to prop up action with some character development and dimension. It’s easy enough to suspend disbelief when you need to.

Unlike in a movie like Drive, which promises action but just lays the beauty shots on you. Wrath does deliver the action — and with some feeling. Downtown LA plays a major role in the film. Of course it’s darker than a Raymond Chandler fever dream but, again, without the relief of Chandleresque zingers. Can a place running amok in YSL knockoff handbags really be that bad?

The white text on a black screen chapter titles may be the most intriguing part of the movie. Along with a score that includes Wagner and Johnny Cash.

Ultimately if you’d like to watch a good heist or action film on the big screen, this one will work for you. On the other hand, this film will be streaming for a reasonable price, if not become a free offering on Amazon Prime, soon enough.

Ghost in the Shell

I came into Ghost in the Shell with high expectations and left a little disappointed. The movie itself is visually stunning and Scarlett Johansson is a bona fide action hero, but the story was meh and to me that was the difference between it being good and great.

I have two main gripes.

The first gripe is that I knew too much about what was going on – the trailers gave away enough of the plot so that when the turn came it lost its impact. Johansson’s cyborg with a human brain character is the logical conclusion of Jason Bourne arc (or at least the penultimate stage of that arc), and the trailer plot giveaways let us know that there is some deep dark secret in the character’s past, a la the Bourne universe. The upshot for me is that I kind of knew where we were headed, and when we got there I wasn’t sure who to root for or whether it really mattered one way or the other (indeed, this particular brand of ambiguity was probably the deal-breaker for me; the moral dilemmas presented didn’t have me torn so much as they had me yawn, have I seen this film before?). It wasn’t all the trailer, though, within the first five minutes of the movie I leaned over to L and said, “oooh, the bad guy,” so that plotline was about as surprising as bad breath on a lost dog.

The second problem, ironically, is that I didn’t know enough about what was going on to find it interesting. Some of the more positive reviews I’ve seen seem very conversant from the source material, including this one from the A.V. Club. I haven’t seen Mamoru Oshii’s sci-fi animated feature, played a video game influenced by it, or have any clue about Masamune Shirow’s manga series or any of the later animated adaptions coming from that, so I’m sure there are all sorts of bon bons in the plot and the cinescape that fans enjoyed and I didn’t. Sometimes when I watch superhero movies with comic book nerds they will be pointing me to some interesting or even delicious asides that add to their enjoyment, but such hat tips to the source material should enhance the enjoyment for the true devotees, not be decisive in terms of the overall enjoyment of the film. Certainly not in a hyped up, would-be blockbuster such as this.

But the movie was not without its charms and I mostly enjoyed watching it, despite the absence of real intrigue. Whatever Japanese city that was was really super cool, and the holograms and flying saucers and buildings and riverfront shots and all that were really spectacular, like Blade Runner with 21^st-century special effects. Equally spectacular were the hairdos of many of the main characters, particularly the Pilou Asbæk and Beat Tikano (Dudes, great hair!!!!)…. leaving one to wonder why Johansson didn’t ask for some hair work herself, as her synthetic wig thing was about the only non-jaw dropping thing about her. I guess as long as I’m nit-picking the star, I’d say she was saddled with this lumbering gait, like she was wearing wet shoes, that was never explained, but it didn’t seem to affect her when she was kicking ass and taking names, which she did a lot of.

Way over the $5 bar, sure, and I’m sure I’ll catch it again when it’s on the tube, but I was expecting better.

Life

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Once again, like Collide, the sum of its parts does not make a movie whole. This film suffered with the casting of Ryan Reynolds, not because he didn’t steal the movie, which he did, but because again, you would rather be watching the Deadpool sequel (which is not out yet). This film tried to be Alien but the little bad guy, Calvin the Martian, was simply not all that. The alien in Alien had more horror packed in its pinky than all of Calvin’s ever shape shifting body. Actually Calvin had a lot of similarities to the heptapod aliens, Abbot and Costello, in Arrival, with his spongy physique and springy arms. Which leaves me to ask, what’s with all the cephalopod aliens all of a sudden? The visual effects designers must find them easy to create and animate. Though it is kind of a cool throwback to the legends of giant squids attacking old schooners out on the wild high seas.

I actually thought the acting was solid. Except for Jake Gyllenhaal who must think we won’t notice he just did Donnie Darko in space. The set design was well done, but nothing we have never seen before. Perhaps the Passengers set surpasses it. Seamus McGarvey, a genius Cinematographer who has done everything from High Fidelity to The Accountant is outstanding as usual. For me this movie meets our $5 threshold just for that. But in general, nothing here is anything that you haven’t seen before or you can’t see coming a mile away. And I mean a mile away. It seemed to take forever to unravel. ACT III really should have been preceded by a pop-corn / hooch break.

I would say it was a totally forgettable film. Except that it wasn’t. There were some good acting moments that did elicit existential angst. The film was able to sustain tension well. D in fact, did jump a few times. We should quantify those reactions and start charting the “D Scale”. Also, I was creeped out enough to start seeing Calvin in all sorts of places. Even the nose blowing emoji in my text message app. So that should count for something.

Logan

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If you want to see what Stranger Things would look like on a cocktail of meth and BGH then Logan is for you. Also, if you don’t mind or even relish, if that is possible, watching a giant forked hand go through about 10 skulls like a serving fork through and overly ripe cantaloupe — then again, this film was literally made just for you. As for the rest of us, Logan was really was a downward spiral but did have some redeeming qualities. The film did show some heart, some actual human emotion, at least more than the more recent films I have seen like Collide or John Wick 2. I think Marvel takes a lot of pride in their output and you can see that they tried in terms of production value. One big mistake here was tacking a Deadpool coming attraction to the beginning of the film. For the first 30 minutes you are left wondering how long until Deadpool comes out. And ultimately, I think Patrick Stewart is wasted in this roll, though again they try to give him screen time and something important to say. Apparently it will be his last time playing Professor Charles Xavier. I just never got used to his character. However, that may have to do more with me, since Superhero/Comic Book films are not my forte. I spend half of these films trying to get comfortable in “the universe” (I have learned to use this term since beginning to write about this genre) and wondering about the references I seem to be only half getting or totally missing.

It’s interesting how comic books, or in the case of John Wick, a video game, can become a movie. Or did the movie create the comic book or video game? And does it matter anymore? I remember a cheap paperback of a Dirty Harry movie. The book was written after the movie was a hit, as a way to cash in on it. You could tell after the first few pages. I was watching Linklater’s Waking Life on Netflix last night. It is a live action film, tweeked to have a comic book look. It really does have a unique feel. I don’t have any problem with all of this style and genre and format mashing but each work should take advantage of the unique values its particular medium. If I want to play a video game, I will do that. If I want to read a comic book, the same. All to say, once again, that Deadpool for example, got it right. There is a line to walk here and it should be respected. Notwithstanding, if you go in for the comic book genre, Logan is a must see.

Collide

There are many, many things colliding in the new Hollywood mashup Collide, coming soon to video near you.

The movie is set in Germany of all places, following the trajectory of Casey Stein, a reasonably good-looking American ex-pat with really big blue eyes (Nicholas Hoult). Casey is involved in some illicit activities, acting as the pickup boy for the the underworld boss, Gerun (played by Ben Kingsley). At first glance, Kingsley seems to be reprising his role as the bumptious bald guy from Sexy Beast, only with a different accent and a gaudier wardrobe, something along the lines of “Evil Bono” (ht: L). In this case, however, Kingsley is less worried about recruiting henchmen than he is about getting a fair cut from his boss, the trucking magnate Englishman thugmeister, Anthony Hopkins (played by Anthony Hopkins). The uneasy tension sets the stage for a mutinous collision, of course.

Meanwhile, Casey has his eye on the good-looking American ex-pat bartender, Juliette (Felicity Jones), who doesn’t approve of his profession. So, head-over-heels in love, Casey goes straight and starts working as a salt-of-the-earth guy in one of the many jobs available to Americans in European metal scrapyards, while the couple do the efficient German thing and fall in love over the course of a couple minute montage. But, alas, their booze-fueled affair hits an icy patch, and the couple find themselves in the need of a very quick cash infusion, setting Romeo back to the underworld for that one last big chivalrous score. The cliches come Fast & Furious, and what ensues is the aforementioned gangster-heist-car chase-action hero mashup, with cars traveling at blistering speeds down the autobahn and things crashing and blowing up here and thar, leading to the climatic collision between the principals. I’m guessing you can guess what happens from here.

One change from this standard formula is that Hopkins’ henchmen all have dark hair and steely blue eyes, sport monochromatic clothing, and excitedly shout things out in German during some heated moments, adding (probably inadvertent) comic effect to the extended manhunt. (It is possible these henchmen are all played by the same actor, with a beard tacked on at times to mix things up; the credits for actors was much shorter than the list of stuntmen).

Some of the sequences are done really well and, coupled with Hopkins in a fabulous light-blue suit and Kingsley parading around in high-end pajamas, hopped up on gop, it makes for a rather enjoyable, at times laugh-out-loud funny, 90 minutes or so.

I can think of worse ways to spend my $5, but I’m not so sure I’d spend too much more than that on this film.

Gold

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Gold is the third straight movie we’ve seen that focuses exclusively on a single character obsessed with conquering his world (see also *Live by Night* and *The Founder*). In this case the character is our main man, Matthew McConaughey, as a mineral prospector whose Nevada ‘plays’ have come to an end by the late 1980s, so he sets his sights to his dreams about the vast untapped wealth of rural Indonesia. From that point, the movie splits its time between the lushness of the jungle in one part of the world, to the arid semi-mountainous climes of Nevada in another, to the concrete jungle that is Wall Street that bankrolls the whole affair.

Actually, that is not quite right. There are two candidates for main character, which the viewer has to sort out on their own. The first candidate, of course, is McConnaughey as Kenny — a rambling guy with a protruding gut, a spectacularly receding hairline, and a tooth issue that I can’t quite put my finger on, who is often seen sporting tighty whities that are neither tight nor white. There are very few if any scenes where Kenny isn’t the focal point, and he is mostly fun to watch. Big props to him for looking pretty much like a fat guy on a bender from wire to wire in this one. The other main character is Edgar Ramirez as the gold whisperer, Michael Acosta, who gets to play the sharp-dressed man here, and is beautiful doing so. I still can’t decide if he nailed it with his performance or if he kind of sucked. I’m leaning toward nailed it, with the suckiness coming more from some unevenness of the plot and pacing and incidentals.

Continue reading “Gold”

REVIEW: Live By Night

The L&D Report made its first trip of the year Thursday to see Ben Affleck’s new vanity project, *Live By Night*. Affleck plays the Boston Irish war hero cum petty thug cum Prohibition-era gangster hellbent on revenge (but with a heart of gold!). With a run time of just under four and a half hours, this sprawling epic is all over the map more than anything we’ve seen since Ibn Battuta. The plot itself is neither interesting nor surprising (though admittedly I was surprised it didn’t end sooner) and hardly worth recounting.

There were a few aspects where the movie excelled. There were some great long shots of Florida drives, some reasonably cool costumes (that generally made Ben Affleck look super good), and a really extraordinary car chase that had me seriously amped. There were also several supporting actor roles that were well played, including Brendan Gleeson as the police chief dad in mourning, Chris Messina as Affleck’s colorful Florida sidekick, and Titus Welliver as the grape-brained racist killer dude with this lip deformity thing.

Even so, most of the characters were caricatures or worse. The usually reliable Chris Cooper at one point breaks down crying, and it isn’t clear if it’s part of the story line or whether he can’t believe he’s stuck in that role. It doesn’t get any better for Cooper and he ends the movie in a completely debased and degraded state, which is I’m guessing how most audiences will feel walking out of the theater.

Let’s just say that this movie definitely didn’t hit the $5 value bar, and L&D Reporters will not be catching this when it is rerun on TNT, which will probably be coming sooner than you might think.