While the opening day, 6PM screening of Shane Black's The Predator wasn't sold out at my local, there was nevertheless no room in the auditorium for my cautious cynicism, which stood relegated to the foyer, chastened for the duration. Reader, I cannot remember the last time I was this happy to be proved wrong.
From the opening frames, Black's movie goes straight for the money, knowing there's no sense in a gradual reveal at this stage in the game. We open in the depths of space as a frantic game of cat and mouse results in a scout-ship crash landing on Earth and its pilot crossing bloody paths with special-ops assassin, Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook). Having secreted some of the alien-tech away as 'evidence', Quinn finds himself shipped off by his governmental superiors to a special holiday camp for People Who Know Too Much, while his young son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) finds himself with a new box of toys to play with. And someone wants their toys back. The rest, as they say, is hysteria...
This production has a lot of love for the Predator series as a whole, and it shows. While there are nods in the script to the events of the first two movies specifically*1, Shane Black and Fred Dekker's screenplay also expands (or more fittingly, evolves) the ongoing mythology of the creatures visiting Earth for sport. Not that it's all heavy exposition by any means, the film gleefully earns its 15 certificate (ie the blood splatters but never pools) and hares along to its inevitable conclusion at a brisk rate. Interestingly, The Predator makes a point of beginning in a suburban environment following a ship-crash, moving through government/military labs and ending with a blazing woodland showdown. In other words, this is what Aliens vs Predator: Requiem could - and should - have been.
To its credit, The Predator never tries to be more than it is - a fun disposable sci-fi action callback to a purer, if slightly dumber, era. Which is what the property really needs to separate it from its morose stablemate, if we're being charitable. Henry Jackman's romping score is an homage to both the franchise itself and 80s action movies in general. All in, The Predator is funny, self-effacing and crowd-pleasingly explosive (a lot of loud laughter in the room I attended). It's not necessarily a smart piece, but since when has that been a requirement for the series? And it's almost brutally lean, too. Shane Black is not fucking about here, making almost precisely the movie he intended to, thankfully.
This could be the most fun we've had with a Yautja since Dead End.
But it's not all plain-sailing, of course. Although the storyline has a robust central (and more importantly, easily portable) macguffin, the screenplay has too many characters running around in its wake. The groups of which these people are a part (hero's family, band of mercs, various government agencies) are all well-established archetypes for a movie like this, but the sheer quantity vs run-time means that the audience has forgotten about some of the characters by the time they reappear for their inevitable farm-buying scene.
And speaking of the players, while Boyd Holbrook and Jacob Tremblay make the best of a script designed for ensemble delivery, there's the feeling that both actors have been cast for a 12A version of this movie, rather than the 15-rated one we got. Holbrook's basically fine but not quite suited to the 'rough diamond' role he's meant to be playing, being a little too screen-friendly. Similarly, having 11yr old Jacob as his genius son uncovering a box full of Predator tech feels a little 'Jurassic Park', and not in a good way. The safety-net of what you can and can't do with younger characters in harsher action movies means that things are never going to get too fraught, and although the claret (and the guacamole, to be fair) is on-tap here, everything's nerfed down to action-levels rather than ramped up to visceral.
On a presentation front, this is pretty much what the trailer was selling. The 'guy in the suit' Yautja in the first half looks and moves far better than the (necessarily) CGI version in the second. And a word of warning, the 3D is mostly pointless (a lot of this film takes place at night, so bear that in mind for your lenticular light-loss), although there are a handful of well executed moments in the first and third acts (mostly of people being well executed).
But above all else, The Predator remembers it's there to have fun as a love-letter to 1980s action cinema, and the value of that really can't be overstated.
How many other movies can you name which slip in blatant references to E.T, Blade RunnerandGhostbusters with a straight face..?
Difficult to say in Shane Black's case as he has a high bar already. The cast are all solid, but it's not the kind of screenplay where any of the characters can really shine.
Well that depends how wrong your opinion is.
Not that I heard. Plenty of opportunity, too. I mean plenty.
Level 2: Olivia Munn's in this, and she was in Iron Man 2 which was directed by (and starred) Jon 'Rio Durant' Favreau.
*1 The screenplay goes to the point of referencing the creature-visits of 1987 and 1997 (for obvious reasons the characters would have no knowledge either way of Predators which happened off-world), which means the Xeno-skull aboard the ship at the end of Predator 2 is still canon for this arm of the timeline. Which is like Shane Black going round to Ridley Scott’s house and putting a brick through the window with a picture of Michael Fassbender taped round it. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well credit where it's due, there aren't too many mainstream movies these days which depict disabilities in a way that isn't heavy handed or a 'look at me' feature. Mile 22 has a leading character in the shape of James Silva (played here by Mark 'Wahlberg' McMark), a US government black ops assassin who coincidentally has a genius level IQ, no social skills and a form of high-functioning autism meaning he finds it difficult to focus his thoughts in one particular direction. We see our hero constantly trying to keep control of his brain and his temper, and prevent them whizzing off in a dozen different directions at once. What's more, the film also appears to have been written, shot and edited by people with that same condition.
There's not a single cut in here longer than four seconds, and the vast majority aren't even half of that. Mile 22 is like having a 94-minute panic attack in Curry's TV display-area while being talked down by Roseanne Barr and Seth MacFarlane. Wahlberg spends half his screentime irately repeating other characters' dialogue back at them, and the other half muttering or yelling unintelligible rubbish, the latter being a technique shared by many members of the cast in reciting a script which doesn't seem to matter.
John Malkovich tries his hardest not to look embarrassed in the best/worst wig since Nic Cage in Ghost Rider. John's only reassuring thought is that in a cutaway 'control room' role, he could still maybe persuade his agent to have the performance removed in post-production for a get-out fee, or if it was conveniently discovered he'd Done A Spacey. You didn't pay (or harass) them enough mate, they left you in.
Some deft choreography (or what you can see of it anyway) and a couple of nice action sequences aside, this film has no idea what it wants to say or how it should be said. It's like a Sicario fan-fiction written by a 13yr old. Cinematic gibberish. Although frankly, I've seen worse; it's me that should know better.
In addition to the regular seven-question roundup, here's a pro/con breakdown of what to expect from Mile 22...
✔ It's fast-paced action-thriller featuring Lauren Cohan. ✖ Although its main star is the solid brass charisma-vacuum, Mark Wahlberg. ✔ It's got the magnificent Iko Uwais in it. ✖ Whose skills you won't see properly because of the editing. ✔ It's got MMA/UFC champion and Judo Olympic medalist Ronda Rousey in it. ✖ Who gets to display almost no hand-to-hand fighting. ✔ It's about the US secret service, so plenty of shootouts. ✖ Accompanied by plenty of po-faced flag-waving*1 and blinkered moralising. ✔ It's got an 18-rating because of All The Violence. ✖ Then again, so has the batshit-crazy American Assassin. ✔ At 96 minutes, it's short and punchy. ✖ So is cholera.
Still, that's next year's Academy Award for 'Laziest Father's Day DVD' in the bag...
I'll level with you, I was going to score this 3/7.
but reading back everything I've written, I really can't…
*1 Although to be fair, I don't think I saw a single actual stars-and-stripes in the whole movie (not that my eyes had that much time to take in the set-dressing), which for a Wahlberg/Berg collaboration is previously unheard of. Hey, maybe it wasn't the flags which were ruining those flicks after all! In fact, it's almost as if America™ exists on a purely metaphorical level here. Then again, with Chinese production company Huayi Brothers co-producing the movie, it's just as likely that The Suits want this political thriller to be as non-political as possible for the 2018 global marketplace.
Russia gets a mark against its name in the script, but even that jibe has a lame moral cop-out justification. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
It's odd how these things come around. Two movies produced separately, but with similar themes and uncanny timing. Armageddon and Deep Impact. Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. Skyline and Battle Los Angeles.
Cinematic synchronicity is nothing new of course, but we currently have two parables of pilfering from opposite sides of the pond, hitting the release schedules at the same time. One from the old school, one from the new; one arising from some opinionated sense of long-term revenge, one from existential dissatisfaction. Both involve the stealing of antiquities rather than cash, and both fail because the perpetrators' ultimate aim is to knock on those antiquities... for cash. One of these movies is a languorous study of obsession, guilt and regret.
The other most certainly is not, but we won't get into all that again. Yet.
There comes a point where you have to wonder whether real-life heists are worth making into movies. Because why else would filmmakers create so many fictional ones? Bart Layton's American Animals opens with the two part caption card "This is not based on a true story. This is a true story". And the truth hurts from the off. Beginning in 2003, it's coming to something when a period-piece only needs CRT monitors and Nokia 3310s to sell its era. I feel middle-aged enough as it is, thanks.
The title relates to a passage from one of the incredibly rare books held in the special collections area of Transylvania University*1 library, Kentucky. When drifting student Spencer Reinhard (Barry Keoghan) remarks on the artefacts to his directionless yet hyper-focussed friend Warren Lipka (Evan Peters), the pair begin an outlandish plot to liberate the volumes and sell them on the private market. To do this they'll need a bigger team than just the pair of them, which results in the recruitment of the less-enthusiastic Chas Allen (Blake Jenner) and Eric Borsuk (Jared Abrahamson). The players are one thing, the game itself is another. Practice makes perfect, but is there such a thing as the perfect robbery?
Playfully loose, the recounting of events surrounding the well documented 2004 theft is dependent on the recollections of those involved. And those involved - the actual thieves, having served prison time - are present on-screen, throughout. As the perpetrators freely admit here, emotional truth and historical fact can be wildly different sides of the same coin.
Revealing the real-life participants of a dramatisation isn't a new idea either of course, but here it happens early, frequently and becomes how the story is told. Documentary interview footage with the protagonists' parents, college lecturers and the boys themselves intersperses the runtime, threatening to upset the pacing at first, since this introspective dramatisation is not quite the feature which the trailer was selling. The finished product comes out at around 80% film, 20% retrospective, but the drama never lets you forget its source.
American Animals isn't necessarily bringing anything new to the genre, but that's because it's players are consciously imitating, not innovating. Layton's film is as much about art as it is about crime. The art of planning a robbery and the creative leaps a conscience will take afterward to justify it. At one point, the boys are shown watching crime movies to help them coordinate their own sting. This is the ultimate in self awareness from the writer/director, as they reap the rewards of such poor research, and in doing so create the perfect piece to not watch before planning a blag.
But the depiction of the robbery itself is tense and awkward in equal measure, a real masterclass is visual storytelling. While this a tale told from the robbers' perspective(s), they're not presented as heroes. The audience isn't willing them to succeed as much as they are to just stop. And in terms of character motivation, interaction and development American Animals is leagues ahead of that structurally similar British offering.
Evan Peters appears at first to be acting in a much slicker, more intense film. Although the more interview time we spend with the real Warren, the more we realise how accurate that probably is. Barry Keoghan is on cracking form as Spencer, with boredom and stress fighting for the centre-stage spot in his psyche. This is, it has to be said, primarily their show. Although Blake Jenner and Jared Abrahamson make up the other 50% of the crew, the focus on their characters is as hesitant as their characters' contribution to the heist.
What's interesting is that there's surprisingly little moralising other than the self-reflection*2. The gang didn't fail because Theft Is Bad, they failed because they didn't plan properly and didn't stick to the things they had covered. They fucked up, end of. Then again, one of the guys uses his mobile phone in a library, so they deserve everything coming to them, frankly.
Ponderous and at times more than a little self-indulgent, much of the first hour feels like a story waiting to begin. But when it does, there's no turning back. Ultimately, the movie is about Generation Y's discontent at being expected to carry on the suburban phase of the American Dream, which despite its socio-geographical specificity is something most younger viewers will click with.
American Animals may be a little too uneven to be at the top of its game, but it knows what it wants to say and it says that well.
And compared to King Of Thieves, it's like fucking Reservoir Dogs…
21.
If you can, rainy afternoon, sure.
It'll be a streamer at first, then buy when it comes down to a sensible price for a movie you're not going to be watching every week.
Difficult to say as it's so much of its own thing.
Nope.
Nope.
Level 2: Barry Keoghan is in this, and he was in that Dunkirk with Tom 'Stormtrooper from The Last Jedi who was cut out of the final edit but fuck it he's in the deleted scenes and the novelisation so it still counts and you know fine well if you or I had been in that suit we'd be telling everyone about it at every opportunity' Hardy.
*1 Yes, it's really called this; no, I don't understand either. Presumably just down the road from St Addams Comprehensive School and The Munsters Adult Education Centre, I don't know. Don't @ me. [ BACK ]
*2 Although seriously lads, you zip-tied a librarian and she wet herself. You didn't kill anyone, get over it. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I've got a spreadsheet where I list all the films I've watched*1, link to reviews, categorise them by score, BBFC rating, genre etc. One of those genres available in the dropdown is 'True Story'. Corin Hardy's The Nun opens with a caption-card reading "The following occurred in Romania, 1952". Now, The Nun wasn't categorised in my spreadsheet as 'True Story' before I sat down in screen 5, and it sure as fuck isn't afterward, either. If anything, an early sequence in which our eponymous villain glides slowly down a corridor sees a crucifix on the wall slowly turning upside down the closer to it she gets. As The Nun™ draws parallel to the now-inverted cross, it bursts into flames, and I realised these particular real events have apparently been screenwritten by a 17yr old Cradle Of Filth fan…
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Nun is the fifth movie in the Conjuring universe. It is the very definition of A Studio Horror, in which an ancient demon is summoned into the body of a middle-aged woman in an Eastern European convent, and is so furious at this that it then goes a bit mad and kills pretty much everyone at every opportunity. For obvious reasons the Vatican isn't too happy at the ruckus being caused, so they send Father Burke (Demián Bichir) to investigate with a collection of suitcases, accompanied for reasons which really aren't made clear by prospective good-nun Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga*2). Hell on.
It's the kind of film where a French-Canadian farmer living in Romania answers the door to a pair of strangers by speaking in English. The range of accents here is astounding.
The film's basically fine if that's what you're into. But as is so often the case, you'd have to be pretty new to the genre to be wrapped up in anything it has to say. At this point in the ongoing Conjuring saga, the storyline itself is almost completely linear. But wearing the continuity badge upfront like a press-pass, at least that's expected. If anything, I'd much rather have this movie be middling as part of a series than standing alone thinking it's better than it is. The Nun is well enough assembled, but in a way that suggests no-one involved believed they were making something unique, so just didn't try. The wardrobe and set-dressing are nothing less than meticulous, yet I still didn't believe for a single frame that this was taking place 66 years ago*3.
Oh, and when the power is pulled from a radio, the music will just cease, it doesn't drop in speed and pitch like a turntable. Not even in 1952. Although I'm also aware that nothing else in that particular sequence makes sense either.
The Conjuring series has been up and down like a rollercoaster, but this is an absolute ghost train of a movie. With dusty tombs, papal crisis meetings, an Act II backstory exposition reel and more jump-scares you can throw a crucifix at, it's more a tribute to the genre than a pastiche, but still made with a knowing glint in its eye. And with its motifs of guilt and possession in a Romanian setting, The Nun owes as much to Bram Stoker as it does William Friedkin.
Oh, and when farmer Terry is walking around the catacombs with the flaming torch in the film's crescendo? The audience can see where the inbuilt gas jets are, mate.
Still, the bits with the pentacles made me laugh. I mean out loud*4.
The Nun is much like the cave on Dagobah.
"What's in there?" "Only what you take with you."
*1 Not that regular readers will be surprised by this, obviously [ BACK ]
*2 And for the record, Taissa Farmiga is a very capable and competent central performer here (given the state of the screenplay), who is the younger sister of Conjuring 1 & 2 star Vera Farmiga, and who looks and acts very much like Vera Farmiga, and whose point in the story's timeline suggests that her character could just be a younger version of the character played by Vera Farmiga, and whose experiences in the film point towards a third-act reveal surprising approximately no-one that 'hey this is really Lorraine from the Conjuring films!', especially since Vera Farmiga appears in the film's bookend scenes, but then that doesn't happen and you have to wonder why the actual fuck Taissa would be cast if the family resemblance wasn't going to be a thing because otherwise it's just really distracting. [ BACK ]
*3 While watching The Nun, It crossed my mind (because it's the sort of film which allows the viewer's train of thought to wander well off the tracks) that I have no problem believing in Santa Claus when I'm watching a great Christmas movie. Just between the opening titles and closing credits, obviously, and just as a dramatic conceit to tell the story. So why am I so cynical when it comes to supernatural horror? Why can't I just switch off and be 'in the moment'? I suspect it's something to do with caption cards claiming some sort of documentary heritage, but I'm snarky at movies that don't have these, too. Answers on a postcard, please. [ BACK ]
*4 No real code-breaking in this, since I was sat in my local's massive screen 5 on my own for the entire movie. Which I didn't mind at all, as you can imagine. That said, the only worry I had was that I'd look round at one point and there'd be someone dressed as a nun sitting four about seats away. Anyway, that didn't happen. Although if I ran a cinema, I'd make sure one of my staff members was doing that with every screening. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Hatton Garden heist. True story. Dear lord. Shoddily constructed, poorly dialogued, badly acted, no direction, editing's all over the place and the soundtrack's like someone going through a pile of CDs they picked up at a car boot sale. Features more f-bombs than you can wave a BBFC examiner at, and five c-bombs (all of which are unnecessary in terms of context, emphasis and dramatic intention) yet still manages to cruise in with a 15 certificate like Guy Ritchie rebooting Last Of The Summer Wine. This crime caper is so intrinsically lazy I'm surprised they managed to finish making it. Although given the state of the final scene I think it's more that they just gave up.
Who is this film for? What's its message? If Michael Caine's criminal mastermind is the 'king of thieves', why does he feel like a secondary character in his own film? Nobody knows. Considering the budget percentage attributed to Nina Gold's address book here, it's really not good enough.
The audience I was with quite enjoyed it.
Well I haven't seen them myself, but I imagine this is fairly similar to the two other movies which already exist depicting the same heist, and the four-part TV series.
The actual robbery itself only happened in 2015, for fuck's sake. Come back this time next year and it'll have been turned into a jukebox musical to tour provincial theatres.
End of aisle. 'Gifts for Father's Day'. £3.
As above.
Well let's just say that the cast are firmly on minimum-effort autopilot, a situation director James Marsh has absolutely no intention of remedying.
Oh hell yeah.
There isn't.
Level 1: That X-Wing pilot from out of The Force Awakens is in this.
You know the one. You do. You know him.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
