Review: Hocus Pocus (30th Anniversary)

Hocus Pocus
Cert: PG / 96 mins / Dir. Kenny Ortega / Trailer

Taking as its starting point the classic Macbethian trio of witch sisters, Kenny Ortega's much underrated and overlooked seminal feminist 1993 horror treatise Hocus Pocus may seem like a playful romp, but is actually a tale crafted from a draft manuscript by none other than Howard Phillips Lovecraft, discovered in 1974 among the belongings of his deceased ex-wife Sonia Greene, snapped up by Buena Vista and duly transcribed to Disney's development-hell for almost two decades*¹.

All of the literary touchstones are duly homaged. The antiquated prologue is based around the New England witch trials (which which HPL was distractingly fascinated), and both it and its contemporary main-narrative occur on Samhain. Obsessed with the hidden knowledge of cats, the story is one of an ancient evil lying dormant until it's finally revived, so that the past can posses the present. This is orchestrated by a trio of brash if well-meaning innocents, unspeakably drawn to a forbidden sacred tome bound in human flesh. And just as the heroes believe they are making headway with magic for good purposes - unaware that they themselves have been drawn into a life of supernatural servitude - the three resurrected witches are unaware that the insanity of aeons has clouded their resolve, and they themselves are likewise slaves to greater forces - every bit at the mercy of the Elder Ones as the town they claim to haunt. Mass hysteria ensues while the dead rise from their graves, in a land where the sun never seems to rise and torment is eternal. Hocus Pocus is a tale of madness, witchcraft and helpless nihilism in the true Lovecraftian fashion.

And best of all, leading man Omri Katz looks like the reincarnated ancestor of Mr Spooner from Are You Being Served?. What's not to love?

*¹ You think I'm joking at this point, much like the write-up I did for The Spaceman and King Arthur, but have you stopped to ask yourself why Hocus Pocus has the same initials as Howard Phillips? Aahhh... ^{[ 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.

Review: The Creator

The Creator
Cert: 12A / 133 mins / Dir. Gareth Edwards / Trailer

As much as Gareth Edwards' new film is trumpeted as being from the director*¹ of Rogue One and tackling the bête du jour of AI, The Creator is at its heart a callback to the 1970s era of thought-provoking science fiction, which didn't get bogged down in being the start of A Universe™*².

Excellent lead performances from John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles and Gemma Chan blend seamlessly with strong supporting roles from Allison Janney and Ralph Ineson, as the film leans back from 'the robots are going to kill us' and asks instead what qualifies as Artificial when the Intelligence becomes truly self-aware. Much like Alex Garland's superb Ex Machina, the real enemy here isn't the behaviour of the machines but that of the humans they're reacting against. Director and co-writer Gilroy evokes sympathy without being mawkish, and showcases a beautifully gritty world and jaw-dropping effects work without getting lost in the detail. While the film has a serious point to make yet never lectures its audience, this open-ended approach to morality may seem non-committal to some, and there's certainly the feeling that The Creator is merely extremely impressive, rather than surprisingly profound.

But above all else, it's just great to see a fiction-movie in this day and age which is familiar without seeming derivative and interesting for its entire run-time. Bravo.

*¹ It's a topic for a different post admittedly, but Tony 'Andor' Gilroy deserves at least an equal amount of credit for the direction (and indeed the direction) of Rogue One. It's not that Gareth Edwards didn't put in a hell of a lot of vital work, but ultimately Gilroy is responsible for the movie we saw. But much like the Solo debacle, we'll likely never hear the full, true story behind all that. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² And let's be entirely fair, Star Wars caused that. ^{[ 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.

Review: A Haunting In Venice

A Haunting In Venice
Cert: 12A / 103 mins / Dir. Kenneth Branagh / Trailer

There are few images which evoke a perfect combination of civilisation and tranquility like the waterways of Venice, so it's not altogether inapt that we drop in on that city in a post-war setting as the celebrated detective Hercule Poirot is trying his best to adapt to a life of gentle retirement.

As for the haunting? Well, he's trying, that is, against the wishes of a subconscious still struggling to deal with psychoses from the world war before the recent one, followed by a civvy-street occupation that's involved being perpetually surrounded by All Of The Killing. It's no surprise that our hero's sense of reason is on the verge of collapsing. When Poirot attends a Halloween party in a palazzo reputed to be home to dozens of vengeful spirits, it makes for an uneasy evening. And when a visiting medium is murdered following an after-hours seance, well - that makes for a typical one...

STRING

And so to the third in this (frankly) troubled string of Kenneth Branagh's interpretations of Agatha Christie's Belgian sleuth. I won't waste space here listing their particular failings, only to say that I approached this film with slightly more dread than was probably intended by 20th Century Studios. I don't necessarily consider myself as a Christie Purist™, but I also don't enjoy watching demonstrably inferior versions of the stories I love.

So I was more surprised than anyone when I found myself rather enjoying A Haunting In Venice. The story is a (very) loose retooling of 1969's Hallowe'en Party, but uses this more as a broad inspiration rather than source-text. And because of that distance between the novel and the screenplay, this has far more of an identity than the previous entries. There are far fewer 'small' inconsistencies to get caught up in when you're watching events unfold essentially for the first time.

EVERYTHING

Hildur Guðnadóttir's score, Haris Zambarloukos' cinematography and overall production design are firmly on the film's side, all managing to make an isolated, decaying multi-storey mansion still feel atmospherically sumptuous. And speaking of atmos, the sound editing appears to have been taking lessons from the school of Blumhouse for its deathly silences and subsequent jump-scares. That said, in terms of actual chills this is still more effective than most of the straight-up horror flicks of recent times.

Performances of the comparatively (and thankfully) pared-down ensemble cast are solid all round, even if they feel a little televisual in their melodramatic angst. Although with the very best will in the world Branagh's central turn is the weakest aspect of the whole thing (it's like he's hoping the audience will just accept him as Poirot through repeated exposure, rather than any persuasive craft on his part). We're three movies in and the man still sounds like he's auditioning for 'Allo 'Allo.

And if that's not enough to raise a smirk, there are enough high ceilings and falling chandeliers here to suggest that the palazzo isn't actually haunted, it's just got the Trotter family running about in the attic...

ONCE

Ken's Poirot movies have always worked best for audiences who are able to 'un-remember' previous versions of the story that's being told. A Haunting In Venice is no exception, and wisely assists the viewer by largely being its own - very respectable - thing. If this series is to continue (and it will, whether we like it or not), the way forward will be writing wholly original stories using familiar characters. Absolutely no shame in that, and far more scope for creativity.

Apart from anything else, you really have to admire the chutzpah of budgeting for a Venice location shoot and basing your PR around that, then having 95% of the movie take place indoors, at night, while it's raining too hard to see the scenery in the occasional cutaway exteriors.

Ken got his holiday, I see...

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.

Review: Dumb Money

Dumb Money
Cert: 15 / 104 mins / Dir. Craig Gillespie / Trailer

Well, it's nice to see that the department at Sony in charge of greenlighting True-Story™, fast-cut, mumbled-dialogue, quirky, yellow-poster, current affairs, underdog dramatisations is largely weathering the storm currently affecting the rest of the movie industry.

This is one of those pieces that's usually dropped in January as quasi awards-bait (but that aforementioned storm means it's hitting screens now to make up for nothing else being ready), usually based on a New York Times article or a factual book (or a New York Times article which led to a factual book), in which mainstream entertainment actors get to play in the frowny grown-ups sandpit, and convince us all that they're worth the sensible plaudits by doing so. Dumb Money centres around the Gamestop stock-debacle of 2021, and is populated by players who are either perpetually furious, gormless or both at the same time. And because these characters are based to varying levels on Real People™, director Craig Gillespie gets carte blanche in portraying them as either too dull for dramatisation or too pantomime for documentary. So this is very much like real life in that we can't have nice things. Is it dumb? No. But is it an interesting cinematic distillation of a superficially complex subject, boiled down to its base elements to shine insight onto the fallibility of human behaviour which caused the furore and the plucky spirit of those who rode out the storm and stuck it to The Man? Also no.

Dumb Money is for people who didn't manage to take in what was on the news 18 months earlier, and use their escapist downtime to watch movies about it all instead*¹. If that's you, enjoy.

*¹ Seriously, there were 2 (two) separate ads for vitamin supplements before the trailers, so at least the distributors know that the only people watching this movie are firmly middle-aged... ^{[ 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.

Review: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3
Cert: 12A / 92 mins / Dir. Nia Vardalos / Trailer

There's a moment in Kevin Smith's second 'Evening With' video which addresses the fiscal reality of working in the entertainment industry. When asked if he - as a successful movie director, writer and actor - magically has cash lying around, Kevin replies "Sir, I have a family. I'm married and I have a kid. Honestly, I kind of live very hand-to-mouth where it's like I get paid, and then I go back to work, and I get paid and basically we just spend that money until there's no money left. And then I'm like '...well, what did Jay and Silent Bob do this week?'" Cue the mock-knowing laughter of a sycophantic audience acknowledging the artist's easy go-to of reliving former glories.

In unrelated news, successful movie director, writer and actor Nia Vardalos has a new My Big Fat Greek Wedding film out this week.

HOLIDAY

Reuniting the (surviving*¹) cast from previous excursions, Toula (Nia Vardalos) and Ian (John Corbett) finally book themselves a first-time holiday to Greece with assorted family members to visit her late father's childhood village and hold a party in his memory. Brother Nick (Louis Mandylor) accompanies them with a secret plan for the homecoming-dispersal of the ashes, with Aunts Voula (Andrea Martin) and Frieda (Maria Vacratsis) thrown in for tag-along comedy value.

They're joined by Toula and Ian's daughter Paris (Elena Kampouris) who's on the verge of failing college, and her sort-of-ex/half boyfriend Aristotle (Elias Kacavas) to add some teenage angst. Once back in the home-country, new characters arrive in the form of fearsome Alexandra (Anthi Andreopoulou), mysterious stranger Peter (Alexis Georgoulis), sparky town mayor Victory (Melina Kotselou), and Syrian refugee Qamar (Stephanie Nur) struggling to find acceptance in the traditional village. Old favourites Nikki (Gia Carides) and Angelo (Joe Fatone) arrive later in a further bid to reunite all of their father's childhood friends, and in the end the party is arranged for the same date as an impromptu wedding which is quickly pencilled in during the second act. It's all going on.

MUTINY

This is, with the very best will in the world, a complete shambles. Far too televisual in its scope*², far too many plot threads, few of which are properly developed (again), too many cast members, too many recurring-catchphrases in lieu of jokes, and a marked impatience in reaching its own natural conclusion.

Vardalos manages to under-write her own screenplay and then over-direct it, but the worst offender by far is the number of glaring 'laugh-gaps' - the leaden silences left in the script and sound-mix after a throwaway punchline is ham-fistedly delivered. The idea of these is that a theatre full of patrons will be so busy hooting with hilarity, some breathing-room should be left so that they don't miss the next crucial line in the script. This probably works well in a test-screening full of cast and crew, although in a provincial cinema with five other patrons (and worse still, in your own living room) the movie will play like it's been edited by someone suffering a blunt-force head trauma.

MARATHON

That said, the film's heart is in the right place on an emotional level. There are chuckles and smiles to be had, there are few sharp edges and there's a concerted effort to sneak in various social issues without lecturing the audience (even if those issues are treated so non-confrontationally that they amount to box-ticking). The scenery is gorgeous, the cast are bringing their best energy and other than the struggling mechanics of making a coherent movie there's little to find objectionable*³.

But ultimately, as the credits roll you're left with the feeling that Nia Vardalos has sat looking at a bank statement and wondered '...well, what did Toula and Ian do this week?'. And then she watched a couple of Mamma Mia flicks and realised the answer might involve HBO paying for a jolly over to Europe...

*¹ Look I know this feels like a low blow, but with the first movie landing in 2002, a follow-up fourteen years later and then waiting another seven for the threequel, Greek Wedding is a series so infrequent that its supporting cast are literally dying of old-age between instalments. And while that's certainly not shied-away from in this movie, Vardalos still didn't have the cojones to call it My Big Fat Greek Funeral. Maybe next time... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² The weirdest offset might be the combination of the film's full 2.35:1 aspect ratio, with opening titles that look like a mid-budget 1990s TV sitcom. Who signed this off? ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ I know it seems like I'm being overly harsh to a perfectly harmless little comfort-food movie which was never intended for me in the first place, but for what it's worth Mrs Blackout enjoyed this even less than I did, and I only went to see it because she wanted to... ^{[ 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.

Review: Jurassic Park (30th Anniversary)

Jurassic Park
Cert: 12A / 126 mins / Dir. Steven Spielberg / Trailer

There's something about the nonchalantly galling nostalgia of anniversary screenings for movies you saw in the first time around and technically weren't even a child then that nobody warns you about. The last time I watched Jurassic Park in a cinema (which I swear blind wasn't that long ago) it was old enough to buy a pint, yet now the fossilised mosquitos and interactive CD-ROMs weren't the only thing in that room feeling ancient...

And truth be told, there's not much to say all these years down the line about a movie that's still perfect. John Williams' score is still majestic, Bob Peck's focused intensity is still magnetic, the jokes still get audible laughs and Gary Rydstrom's sound-design for the Tyrannosaur is still one of the most hair-raising things I've ever heard. The digital and practical effects work is astounding of course, but above all else it's the human reactions to the dinosaurs that really sell this. And not just Ariana Richards' and Joseph Mazzello's terrified scrambling as Lex and Tim, but the sense of awe and jaw-dropped wonder from Laura Dern, Sam Neill*¹ and Jeff Goldblum. Meeting the Brachiosaur herds was magical in 1993 and it's magical now. I genuinely still wipe away a tear in that moment. Like I said, perfect.

It's also still horribly relevant. This romp of dinosaurs gone rogue (or more properly, dinosaurs behaving completely naturally) is in its essence a timeless cautionary tale, glossed over with unapologetically self-aware marketing. It's no accident that a parable about the dangers of unfettered capitalism has its own logo'd merchandise literally appearing within the film as part of the problem. The story is blunt in its message (classic Michael Crichton), but hugely accessible in its scope (classic Steven Spielberg). One of the most interesting aspects is how the director actually leaves the audience feeling slightly sorry for park-visionary John Hammond, the gently-spoken entrepreneur whose myopic hubris causes widespread destruction, mutilation and death, while at the same time we're invited laugh at the demise of lawyer Donald Gennaro as he cowers on a suddenly exposed toilet. Remember, he's one of the few professionals who hadn't been bribed or cajoled onto the island to sign-off the project, and was merely working to represent the interests of investors who had well-founded concerns about the park's demonstrably appalling safety procedures. In the first act of Jurassic Park, Gennaro is actually the good guy. This flips of course once he gets dollar-signs in his eyes and is subsequently punished by the narrative as a result. Like I said, blunt.

But perhaps most pleasingly, in the end there's no deus ex machina which gets our protagonists out of trouble. They just have to pick their battles, make it through the night and survive the ordeal*². Jurassic Park is about teamwork and tenacity in the face of adversity. About weathering the storm and about leaving no one behind. Yeah, even if they caused all this shit in the first place. Like I said, horribly relevant.

*¹ And for the record, Dr Alan Grant is never more than three lines of dialogue away from Sam Neill's native Kiki accent kicking back into gear, and I don't even mind. That's how much I love Jurassic Park. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² I do hope the poorly Triceratops was okay in the end. The plot-thread of the illness doesn't get resolved in the film (it's explained more in the novel but sill not 'fixed' iirc), and I'm not cool with the thought of her lying there incapacitated while the T-rex goes rampaging about the island willy-nilly... ^{[ 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.

Review: Back To The Future - The Musical

Back To The Future:
The Musical
London Adelphi Theatre / Saturday, 05 August 2023
Stage Manager Gaz Wall / Director John Rando / Musical Director Jim Henson (not that one)
140 mins (exc. interval) / Trailer

I am not, as regular readers will be more than aware, A Theatre Reviewer*¹, hence the immediate shift here from detached critical oversight to first-person blog. However, beloved cinematic connections endured with today's subject, combined with a day out in London*² and the 2023 ethos of forcing myself to write about Stuff*³, resulting in a showery afternoon Down The Strand*⁴ and a journey Back... To The Future.

When restless 80s suburban teenager Marty Mcfly (Ben Joyce) gets a call to assist his friend the eccentric professor Doc Brown (Gary Trainor) one night, he's astounded to find him in possession of a working time-machine. But Marty is even more alarmed when he finds himself thirty years in the past, and has endangered his own existence by disrupting the first meeting of his parents Lorraine (Amber Davies) and George (Cameron McAllister). With the time-machine out of power, how can our hero get back to 1985 and his girlfriend Jennifer (Sophie Naglik)? Will it be possible to not only restore the future, but to make it better? And how can town-bully Biff (Harry Jobson) and school principal Mr Strickland (Adam Margilewski) both be such a pain in two time-zones?

PACED

So here's the thing. Robert Zemeckis's 1985 film Back To The Future is 1h56m of perfectly paced storytelling. It's immaculately structured with not a frame to spare. Everything we see and hear is building - linearly or otherwise - into an exemplary whole that rewards first and repeated viewings alike. It is a masterpiece. John Rando's 2020 stage adaptation of Back To The Future is 2h20m of structurally the same story, which also has characters frequently bursting into a three-verse song to describe a moment's inner monologue (that's fine, it is a musical). The time spent in verse accounts for significantly more than the extra 24 minutes between the two versions. The upshot of this is that whenever a secondary character has their go in the literal limelight, that's happening at the expense of the quieter story beats - the ones which elevated the movie to more than a standard adventure flick. As a result, some of these smaller points are rushed, some are glossed over and some are jettisoned completely. And while this never derails the core narrative, it's unclear whether an audience watching BTTF for the first time on the stage would actually be able to clearly follow what's going on, amid the noise and cut-corners.

As you'd hope/expect, the film's diegetic songs The Power Of Love, Earth Angel, Johnny B. Goode and Back In Time are all present and correct*⁵, and all performed immaculately under Jim Henson's auspices in the understage orchestra pit. While the production features more than an admirable amount of Alan Silvestri's iconic original score, for the very most part that soundtrack is entirely separate from the new musical-numbers. With the exception of the key musical motif which sneaks its lyric-ed way into Only A Matter Of Time and its reprises (and a separate refrain from the same theme which sneaks in once), the new songs - musically - feel like they could have been written for any stage-show, and were crowbarred to fit this one by virtue of their lyrics. Although at the same time, it's the dialogue between which tackles the actual narrative (again, if a newcomer were to try and glean the plot from the cast recording, they'd come unstuck pretty quickly). The songs themselves are great, I hasten to add. Only A Matter Of Time counterpoints with Got No Future, while Teach Him A Lesson dovetails boldly back into Something About That Boy. But the newly-penned soundtrack overall doesn't have its own stylistic through-thread, which you'd be forgiven for considering quite an important part of A Stage Musical. Collectively, this is a mish-mash of rock'n'roll, synth pop and full-on show tunes. Silvestri's score doesn't quite manage to thread these together, but it does act as a musical anchor, the base point which can be returned to at plot-specific moments of critical importance.

And of course when you go to see a West End stage show, you expect to see performances worthy of A West End Stage Show™. That's certainly what Back To The Future delivers, with wide eyes, gleaming teeth and belting vocals that could shatter a flux capacitor. This works best in conjunction with the deliberately '50s-esque sequences, but often feels more Rydell High than Hill Valley. Never more than two steps from going full jazz-hands (and occasionally doing that anyway), the enthusiasm certainly can't be faulted, even if some members of the cast seem more to determined to segue between overly earnest middle-distance yodelling and intricately parodic impersonations of their big-screen counterparts. The end result always works well on the boards, but can remind the audience more of the screen-characters they're not watching treading them.

So the storytelling here is erratic, the musical style is haphazard and the performances border on distracting. Naturally, there's only one conclusion I can come to.
Back To The Future The Musical is nothing short of brilliant. Absolutely. Brilliant.

LARGED

Put simply, there has never been a more flawless collaboration of performance, musicianship, physical sets, digital projection, razor-sharp lighting, and surgically precise off-stage co-ordination*⁶. When all of these come together in Back To The Future The Musical the effect is jaw-dropping, way more than the sum of its parts. This is the kind of magic that only theatre can bring to life, because it's happening in real-time and real-space as the audience watches agog. When the DeLorean first appears, it gets a huge round of applause. And do bear in mind that almost everybody in the theatre is watching this for the first time, it's not Rocky Horror where their interactivity is cued up - this is just the energy that washes out into the audience. We applauded a prop. By the time of the final curtain, we were giving that prop a standing ovation.

The device at the core of the live presentation (other than the DeLorean) is the huge central section of the stage that rotates to reveal new props and scenery. Not only is this a quick and effective means of carrying out the many scene changes (with technicians backstage constantly cueing up the next location), it's used to maximum effect in conjunction with the dual projection in simulating the high-speed action scenes. You will believe you're watching a car approach 88mph on a theatre stage, and you will believe you're seeing that from switching camera angles. It is awe-inspiring and perfectly executed. But on a more subconscious level, this central area echoes the movement of a traditional clock-face, and its rotation is representative of Marty having a time-machine at his disposal while suddenly finding that the clock is against him. This is a decision that's been made for maximum thematic enjoyment, an indication that every aspect of the physical production has been meticulously plotted out for aesthetics as well as practicality. While some scene changes take place under cover of darkness, more occur in front of the audience's eyes. The show doesn't slow down for these and it's all part of the experience - a feature, not a bug. The continuous efficiency with which this happens is nothing short of amazing; Back To The Future The Musical uses three-dimensional space to its fullest extent*⁷.

Although I've griped above about some of the performances, they do come together perfectly, and credit is fully due to Ben Joyce as Marty McFly, who keeps Michael J. Fox's exasperated soul of the character intact while still managing to add his own idiosyncrasies as an actor, without the two sides ever clashing. And extra, extra points must be awarded to Gary Trainor as Doctor Emmet Brown, who immerses himself in the role so perfectly that whether he's delivering dialogue from the film script or the sections written for this adaptation, with each shrug and shriek you don't just feel Christopher Lloyd, but Actual Doc Actual Brown. Everything about Trainor's turn is beautifully on-point and makes for an electrifying experience. The pair proudly, and rightfully, take centre-stage here.

WISED

This is certainly not a cheap night out*⁸, and for the majority of readers London isn't readily accessible, but I seriously recommend anyone wanting to see the show to do so at the Adelphi Theatre. Commercial logic suggests there'll be a touring version at some point, but sheer practical viability dictates that a 'mobile' presentation will necessarily lose its greatest aspects. Back To The Future isn't just presented at The Adelphi, it inhabits the auditorium on a more fundamental level, surrounding the audience in the stalls and filling the field of vision for everyone else. The theatre is more than just a stage. This intricate physical and mechanical setup is the show in its fullest form, and can't be re-assembled in the local Theatre Royal for a three-night run.

Overall, there are structural hurdles to be cleared and while that's managed, those obstacles are still visible*⁹. It's not that Back To The Future The Musical shouldn't work, more that it was always going to be a monumentally tall order to do the film justice. John Rando's stage adaptation takes this tall order and surpasses it, with force of will and the infectious commitment of its cast and crew. Like any adventure, there are perils and there are pitfalls, but the greatest trick the show pulls is having its audience walk out onto the Strand with a spring in their step and the feeling that it all looked so easy.

As with any artistic endeavour, precision, dedication and belief all play their part, but sometimes even the sheer joy of the thing is enough...

*¹ Indeed, on the most recent occasion I attempted a theatrical deconstruction, the resulting piece spent almost more time complaining about the bricks-and-mortar venue than it did the actual production. Although the two were intertwined so I feel justified. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Apart from anything else, the only three entertainment properties to have tempted me back to the capital this year have been Star Wars, Indiana Jones and now Back To The Future; given that these are my all-time favourites, it feels appropriate that the stage production should be analysed here to some extent... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ And yet I'm very aware that it's been over three months since my check-in at the Minack Theatre for a concert by The Fisherman's Friends and no review has surfaced. But how to I collate words for a perfect combination of venue and performance which left me speechless? I still don't know. Hence. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Have one banana. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Mister Sandman seems notable by its absence, even if Marty's arrival in 1955 no longer features that same town square sequence of events when transferred to the stage. Although the song does make an appearance in the 'Radio Hill Valley' soundtrack which is played in the auditorium during the interval. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁶ When I say 'there's never been', I mean 'I have never seen one'. Like I said, I'm not 'theatre-people', but I did dally briefly with crew-work in my much-younger days, and I know how much precision and graft goes on backstage with even the most vanilla of productions. Back To The Future The Musical is next, next level. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁷ I also love that this telling of a story from 1985 about a kid travelling back to the '50s could not have been told on stage in this form until well in to the 21st century. The technology - practical as well as digital - didn't exist at this level of quality and accessibility to produce this show earlier; as if the past, and the past-past had been waiting for the future to catch up to timeless imagination. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁸ Tickets for Back To The Future The Musical are - to be blunt - prohibitively expensive, but the consolation is that you do see where that money is going, no doubt at all. And for the absolute avoidance of doubt, I'm not writing glowing words because I saw this with freebies or comps, I paid cold hard cash and will gladly do so again. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁹ It's not that I was sceptical about watching this adaptation, but I was certainly wary and the price-tag doesn't exactly encouraging a gamble. You can't take a single escalator on the tube without seeing posters for a dozen West End shows, half of which seem to be stage port-overs of well-received movies from the 80s and 90s (The Bodyguard, Dirty Dancing, Mrs Doubtfire). But Back To The Future isn't just an 80s movie, it's a cultural touchstone. I'd struggled with how the producers were going to bring the story to life in a way which would add more to something that was already perfect. And on August 05, I found out. ^{[ 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.

Review: The Equalizer 3

The Equalizer 3
Cert: 15 / 109 mins / Dir. Antoine Fuqua / Trailer

I can't believe they haven't called this The 3qualizer. Never thought I'd see the day when Lionsgate's Expendfourbles have got more cojones than Sony Columbia but here we are.

Anyway, Antoine Fuqua has teamed up once again with the only actor in his contacts list still picking up the phone for another hour and three quarters of dad-vigilantism*¹. Pathologically unable to keep his neb out of other folks' business, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington) has put his past killing Russian gansters and Turkish gangsters behind him, and has moved for a quiet life in... *checks notes* ...southern Italy. Well, quite. Also stars Dakota Fanning as a CIA operative literally phoning in a performance for half the runtime.

An absolute pantomime of a film with much of the exposition thankfully lost in mumbled dialogue, what Fuqua sees as a 'steady pace' is more like dragging out a tight 85 minute thriller. Things could be worse but this sags frequently, eventually limping to a muted finale probably intended as 'nuanced', but looking like the budget was about to run out. Cinematographer Robert Richardson really earns that "injury detail" warning on the BBFC card, in fact the only thing shown with more glee than the violence is a gang of seven Italian mobsters standing around a spotlit table plotting murder while literally eating spaghetti bolognese. On a similar note, Marcelo Zarvos's score nodding merrily to The Godfather feels every bit as cheap as one would expect.

Like many of the movies this Summer, Equalizer 3 wouldn't have been out of place 15 years ago but feels slightly too grubby in 2023. It's technically competent, but plies its trade without verve or self-awareness. There's evidently still a market for this sort of thing otherwise Sony's badge wouldn't be on the front, but everyone here is going through the motions while they can still get away with it*²

Still, it's not the most egregious Italian bloodbath I've seen this year, and at least this one was actually filmed there.

*¹ I know I call these movies dad-bait, but there was an advert for Lynx Africa before tonight's screening. I rest my case. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Why does it feel like I'll be typing this again for Expendfourbles? ^{[ 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.

Review: Cobweb

Cobweb
Cert: 15 / 88 mins / Dir. Samuel Bodin / Trailer

A by-the-numbers haunted house creeper which channels The Conjuring flicks by way of The People Under The Stairs, this Lionsgate feature borrows liberally from the genre while remaining largely (and thankfully) free of cheap jump-scares. The movie rattles along its short runtime building a reasonable amount of uneasy tension - even if that’s offset by being over-directed in every single scene. This last lends Cobweb an unintentional silliness (together with hazy plot details) that may be the film’s saving grace, preventing it from getting swept up in themes of dark family secrets and lies.

God alone knows why this is being released in early September. Its Hallow’een setting makes the film suitable for the last week in October, and even then only the once (unless you’re a fan of Lizzy Caplan going psycho, in which case knock yourself out).

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.

Review: Past Lives

Past Lives
(Spoilers)
Cert: 12A / 106 mins / Dir. Celine Song / Trailer

And so August finally threatens to bear some sensible cinematic fruit, as writer/director Celine Song's debut feature focuses on a young Korean woman who - having moved and settled in the USA - encounters a face from her past which stirs uneasy feelings of loss and regret. Greta Lee stars as aspiring playwright Na Young / Nora, with John Magaro as her American now-husband Arthur, and Teo Yoo as Jung Hae Sung, the childhood friend who threatens to upset the applecart.

Actually it's not entirely fair to blame Hae Sung. As pre-teens, he and Na Young are shown to have a competitive, belligerent relationship until their parents agree to escort them on one playdate after which Na Young moves with her parents to Canada (and chooses her Western-name of Nora). Twelve years later, after learning toxic-masculinity traits in the army, Hae Sung starts Facebook-stalking her. Rather than shutting this down, Nora strings out the long-distance nothing in an awkward, dangling way for months before ghosting him for another twelve years because she can't face the responsibility of her own personality. Shortly after this, Nora has married author Arthur (do you see what they did there) on the rebound purely to get a green-card while both share a cramped NYC apartment full of repressed guilt and existential ennui. When Hae Sung decides he's finally going to visit the USA and asks to meet Nora again naturally she agrees, because the best possible thing for everybody here is a gamophobic woman introducing her emotionally anaesthetised ex to her brittlely insecure husband so that they can all be the same level of unhappy.

TEST

All art is subjective of course and every film is its own Rorschach test. Despite clear moments of intended poignancy Past Lives compares well with Brian De Palma's Scarface, in that it's proof that you don't need to base your screenplay around likeable characters; engaging ones sliding into the morass of their own appalling decisions (and/or lack thereof) can be enough. The players in this game have their foibles and flaws shown, explained, highlighted and underlined at every single turn. It's not that Nora, Hae Sung or Arthur have no redeeming features, just that the film wallows in their repeated failure to learn from past mistakes. As lessons go it's pretty blunt and Celine Song proves herself to be the master of 'the awkward moment'. In fact this one lasts for an hour and three quarters.

On the plus-side, Shabier Kirchner's cinematography is gorgeous; colour palettes have rarely looked so expressive and the use of light and shadow is sublime. Keith Fraase's diting is delicate and the overall pacing is deliberately languid, reflective of the protagonists' reluctance to grow. We spend a massive amount of time watching the non-relationship between Na Young and Hae Sung, and then comparatively none with her actual husband Arthur, so that when the marriage begins to show serious cracks there's little at stake for the audience other than imagining Arthur as the This Is Fine dog.

SAVER

That said, the premise and performances here are strong enough that the Past Lives could easily have been 20 minutes shorter with no detrimental effect to the story. And fair play to Song, it could easily have been a more mawkish, uplifting and chocolate-box take, but she's chosen to show life at its needlessly complicated worst. Thanks, mate. The fact that I didn't particularly enjoy myself doesn't mean the film doesn't work, of course; it's supposed to be imperfect. Arguably, me disliking just about every speaking character onscreen means that it's doing precisely what it's supposed to. Well done, I guess*¹.

Oh, and repeatedly throwing in ancient folklore about the titular 'past lives' doesn't mean anything if your main character debunks that the very first time it's mentioned. Also by her. Then again Nora's wrong about literally everything else here, so...

*¹ For clarity, me disliking Past Lives was not a foregone conclusion. The trailer looks great and I was genuinely worried it was going to leave me sobbing in the auditorium. So perhaps the subsequent relief and surprise of me loving the performances and just despising the characters themselves was a good thing? Yeah, I don't think so either. ^{[ 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.

Review: Haunted Mansion

Haunted Mansion
Cert: 12A / 123 mins / Dir. Justin Simien / Trailer

And so to the House Of Mouse's second-stab at adapting their Haunted Mansion theme park attraction for the big screen. It's an ensemble tale of apparitions and adventure, of chills and chuckles, of ghoulish gags and of grief. The last of these is the cornerstone of Katie Dippold's screenplay, although it never really slows down enough to properly explore the emotions to which it refers (and for Disney that's a criminally-missed opportunity).

All of the central cast here are superbly likeable and perfectly matched to their roles, with particular standout performances from LaKeith Stanfield and Rosario Dawson. The antagonists they're up against, however, don't balance this out with any sense of credible threat. In fact we only really meet one - Jared Leto's 'Hatbox' - a supernatural villain who looks like Tim Burton has re-tooled The Grinch and sounds like a half-arsed impersonation of Darth Vader. Screen-time with this character is all but wasted, then again Leto has proved on more than one occasion that he can easily take an average movie and make it feel far worse. Although the playfully creepy visual effects are every bit as accomplished as you'd expect (given that this is catering to a family audience), the film never manages to evoke the eerie otherworldliness that even Pirates Of The Caribbean managed in its darker moments. Because of this we're never convinced that this is anything other than a ride.

The comedy is executed with more skill than the horror, even if there are plenty of chuckles but no real belly laughs. The scares aim for 'traditional' but still fall short at cliché much of the time. Justin Simien never quite matches the kookiness of Beetlejuice, the adrenaline of Goosebumps or the emotional rawness of Ghostbusters Afterlife. And that's a shame because Haunted Mansion feels like 80% of a great movie, but with its unfulfilled potential and capacity to be something more meaningful the end result is, sadly, forgettable...

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.

Review: Blue Beetle

Blue Beetle
Cert: 12A / 127 mins / Dir. Ángel Manuel Soto / Trailer

Next up in DC's pantheon of semi-discarded continuity is Ángel Manuel Soto's treatment of The Hero's Journey, Blue Beetle. Xolo Maridueña comfortably handles the title role as restless law-graduate Jamie Reyes, Bruna Marquezine looks blank a lot as The Girl One and Susan Sarandon is so wooden as the villain she was treated on-set as a fire hazard. The film's branding and colour palette are gorgeous, although that's definitely offset by the pervasive layer of Beige™ emanating from the storyline. Tropes, platitudes and galactic levels of exposition clump along in a solid if basic script - delivered by a spirited cast with almost enough enthusiasm to paper over the cracks. The setup is basically that Peter Parker becomes Robocop with a suit that looks and acts like a pound shop Iron Man. In fact, by the time you factor in the corporate baddie looking to manufacture similar suits for their own capitalist-megalomaniac ends, our hero needing to be morally worthy of his cosmic assistance and his humble suburban family of hidden warriors and socially unconventional tech genii, Blue Beetle soon feels like watching all of the Marvel Phase 1 films at the same time. It never goes so far as to be boring, but little happens of any real interest. On a sincere note, it's genuinely great to see Latino representation on this scale that doesn't get too bogged down in cliché, it's just a shame it's in a movie so utterly featureless. More disposable than anyone at DC originally intended, this will probably be fine for an undemanding audience, although good luck finding one of those over the age of 12 in this day and age...

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.

Review: Theater Camp

Theater Camp
Cert: 12A / 93 mins / Dir. Molly Gordon & Nick Lieberman / Trailer

Well, the trailer for this made me want to gouge my own brain out with pins, but I went to watch Theater Camp anyway because I'm a sucker for giving a film an even break (look, if I don't watch it then how can I tell anyone who'll listen how awful it is?). Theater Camp is awful. Proving that if there's one thing worse than needy actors it's needy actors playing needy actors, at some point this was pitched as an underdog comedy, then someone forget to write in likeable characters. Or comedy. Instead we get mawkish, cack-handed, overly earnest yet cripplingly insincere tosh like some early 80s Hallmark daytime-movie which has made its way onto BBC2 during the summer holidays when you were hoping for Fast Times At Ridgemont High but you asked your nan for the television especially and she's in the room so now you've got to watch it and pretend you're interested. As plot-devices go, "we've got to save the theatre by putting on a show!!" is so hackneyed that the literal Muppets were sending it up as a cliché over a decade ago. For reasons I can't fathom this is presented as a low-budget documentary (the kind that's constantly filmed on four separate cameras), even though it's filled with actors you clearly recognise from other films and TV shows. And hey that's okay, Spinal Tap was presented as a documentary too, except that leaned into the comedic ridiculousness of the docu-format whereas Theater Camp plays it entirely straight. Perhaps the weirdest surprise is that although the film is filled with kids, they are in no way the annoying factor(s) here, that honour is owned fully and shamelessly by the atrocious adult cast who are doing it all on purpose. Who is this for? Theatre people are going to see the movie as condescending or insulting, while non-theatre people are going to see it as the reason they don't go to the theatre. So who's winning here? Not the audience, that's for sure. I think the last time I took against a film as vehemently as this was Bodies Bodies Bodies, and at least with that there was the threat of imminent lethal violence. Here, I was just praying for that...

Best line, show-runner Amos (Ben Platt):
"I apologise... waiting for entertainment that's expected is painful."

Well, quite.

Correct: zero stars.

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.

Review: Strays

Strays
Cert: 15 / 89 mins / Dir. Josh Greenbaum / Trailer

So if 2023 has brought you to the place where you need The Incredible Journey meets The Secret Life Of Pets meets Ted, then director Josh Greenbaum has got you covered. This R-Rated pup comedy does exactly what it says on the tin, in a movie where the dogs saying fuck is the primary joke for an hour and half. It works well enough as a concept, and there are frequent chuckles from Dan Perrault's script but no real guffaws. If that's all you want for an hour and a half, knock yourself out.

In all fairness, the central quartet of characters voiced by Will Ferrell, Jamie Foxx, Isla Fisher and Randall Park is well balanced and reasonably fleshed out. The mix of live-action and CGI is nicely accomplished and the voice-cast is enthusiastic, but at its core the film is tired before it's properly begun. This is third studio-comedy in as many months which feels like a Judd Apatow script that's been found in a drawer after fifteen years and put into production because there was nothing else on the board.

Dick-jokes aside (so many dick-jokes), this movie is actually about the innocence of abandoned dogs, loss, companionship, trust and rising above abusive relationships, so it periodically tries to pull on the heart strings. But Greenbaum doesn't have the sincerity or courage of his convictions to do that properly*¹, and the only real enthusiasm here comes from the shrieking profanity on display in the trailer. Strays just isn't smart enough for the message it thinks it wants to convey and has little to emotionally justify its existence. But the dogs are (largely) real *² here, so it's already head and shoulders above The Meg.

Oh, but I'm taking points off for that accelerated greatest-hits montage of the most Outrageous™ gags just before the finale. If you need to tell your jokes twice to assure an audience they've enjoyed themselves, those weren't good enough the first time...

*¹ And rest assured, I am Dog-People™ and susceptible as fuck to all that. Strays just doesn't have it. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² The main dog is very cool, though. Not Will Ferrell who voices Reggie (obviously) but Sophie, the border terrier who plays him. ^{[ 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.

Review: The Meg 2 - The Trench

The Meg 2: The Trench
Cert: 12A / 111 mins / Dir. Ben Wheatley / Trailer

It may seem naïve to hope a prehistoric shark action-er might do something unexpected, so fair play to director Ben Wheatley and his team of three screenwriters*¹ ~ about half of The Meg 2: The Trench isn’t actually about the megalodon, and about half of it isn’t set anywhere near the trench. This is impressive, in its own way. Although it's the only thing that is.

The film is somehow not quite as excruciating as expected, but it is every bit as lazy, patronising and formulaic. Murky visuals and monosyllabic scripting bloat out a plot structure that resembles a trope-showreel assembled by AI. This is basically Jurassic Park, then it’s Jaws, The Abyss, Pacific Rim, a bit Predator, Piranha 3DD, back to Jurassic Park and then Godzilla vs. Kong*², threaded together by Jason Statham playing his Jason Statham Character™ while no one else is introduced properly because most of them will cark it 20 minutes after their first appearance anyway. The Meg 2 promises little and delivers less. You have never seen $129 million feel so cheap. Still, it's something to tide The Dads over until Expendfourbles comes out.

I haven’t seen a movie this dumb since Plane.
And do remember, I sat through Fast X...

*¹ I'll put my hands up and admit that it was only in assembling this review that I learned the movie is based on a novel. As in, an actual work of printed literature that you could probably find in a proper library near real books. And it's based on a novel because the previous movie was based on the previous novel. There's a commercial appetite for this shit but without the pictures? By extension, this means there's going to be at least one more of these. At least. God help us all... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² You see, I'm very aware I've accused this movie of lifting wholesale from at least seven others, some of which were produced after the 1999 novel upon which it's based. But given the historical nature of the disaster movie format and the additional number of inferior rip-offs which already exist, plus the fact that The Meg 2 was still made by a perfectly competent director in this form in 2023 with all of that shit pre-existing, the point still stands. Ben Wheatley, though. Actual Ben Actual Wheatley. Fucking hell. ^{[ 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.

Review: The Blackening

The Blackening
Cert: 15 / 97 mins / Dir. Tim Story / Trailer

In Tim Story's*¹ satirical horror/comedy mashup, eight black American friends arrange a Juneteenth party in a remote AirBnB in the rural backwoods, doubling as a ten-year reunion get-together. Their jollity is interrupted as they learn a killer is targeting the house and forcing them to play the most inappropriate game...

After the ads, trailers and BBFC card, an ominous fade-in red-on-black caption reads "The following is based on true events...", a preposition joined a few seconds later by the words "...that never happened". That's the level we're at, here. That's the film setting out its stall. That's how this opens.

So. The Blackening only has one real joke: that the token black character in a slasher movie always dies first*², so what happens when the slasher movie is filled with those? That joke, incidentally, is written out on the poster in a point-size larger than the fim's title, so you already know it before the lights go down. You can imagine how this drags out across 97 minutes. After a scene-setting pretitle sequence involving a couple of casualties, the friends arrive at the customary cabin in the woods and the plot thickens. To the point of stagnation. The key thing in slasher movies is that the players are picked of one-by-one, ebbing the protagonists' ability to fight back, narrowing the identity of the killer, raising the tension and giving the whole thing a pyramidal structure. Without going into too many spoilers, not here. So the whole thing drags its heels while nothing actually happens. Oh, except for a third-act reveal which may be one of the most repeatedly telegraphed progressions in cinematic history.

The core problem is that Story's movie isn't thoughtful enough to be a satire, gruesome enough to be a horror or funny enough for a comedy. So... well done, Tim? And it’s not that horror-comedy is difficult to do right, it’s just very easy to get wrong. This is a shining example of that which isn't trying to be so bad it's good, it's just an astoundingly painful waste of a neat idea and an otherwise solid cast. The Blackening feels like a reboot of the Scary movie franchise which foregoes the parody set-pieces and moves straight to shrieking, falling over and shit scripted gags.

Horrifying for all the wrong reasons.

*¹ Yes, that Tim Story. The one who directed the first two widely condemned Fantastic Four movies for 20th Century Fox, hopped over to Universal to make Ride Along and then after a period of sombre reflection still went on to make Ride Along 2.
^{[ BACK ]}

*² Note: While there are certainly other factors in play, they don't always die first. But why let statistics get in the way of a good generalising trope, especially if your movie is depending on 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.

Review: Barbie

Barbie
(Spoilers)
Cert: 12A / 114 mins / Dir. Greta Gerwig / Trailer

Life is pretty good in Barbieland. Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) enjoys an idyllic existence partying, relaxing and socialising with a wide swathe of other Barbies. Beach Ken (Ryan Gosling) joins in but pines from afar, wishing their non-committal relationship could move to the next level, while also enjoying an active social life with all the other Kens. But strange things are afoot, and Barbie notices the shine beginning to rub thin on her daily activities; food tastes bad, showers are cold and she can't shake growing feelings of existential dread.

Visiting Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) on the outskirts of town, our heroine learns that her problems stem from angst in The Real World, where the girl who owns the doll is suffering a series of emotional upheavals. This discord has caused a tear in the space-time continuum, and the only chance Barbie has of putting things right is by travelling into The Real World (with Ken in tow) and bringing a little sparkle to Los Angeles before Barbieland falls apart...

BROKEN

So it seems Mattel have finally broken into the live-action movie IP business by spending $140 million*¹ in remaking The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalpyse. I mean fair play, I did not have that on my 2023 bingo card, but at least they've got the action figures on the shelves already so this is a bonus (HASBRO TAKE NOTE).

After riffing on Kubrick's 2001 as per the teaser trailer, Barbie's opening act is everything you'd expect from A Barbie Movie naturally, and archly self-aware as it is, still feels like being kidnapped by a hen party and waterboarded with Lambrini. That said, the production design is a thing of surgically precise beauty, a wry homage to the brand rather than a parody. The players are entirely onboard and carry this in the same vein, and both Robbie and Gosling are perfectly chosen with excellent comic timing. Greta Gerwig's tight direction makes the most of her script with longtime collaborator Noah Baumbach.

There are plenty of laugh-out-loud gags throughout, both in Barbieland and The Real World. A huge supporting cast are having a blast as the various branded iterations of Barbie and Ken, and Michael Cera brings his trademark anxious demeanour as Allan. America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt are superb as Gloria and Sasha, the mother/daughter combo caught up in the strife which has opened a gateway between planes of existence. Will Ferrell plays the (appropriately unnamed) CEO of Mattel by playing Will Ferrell™, and Dame Helen Mirren continues to channel the late John Hurt by providing a voiceover that's so cloyingly tongue-in-cheek it actually cheapens both the film and her own IMDB catalogue.

The film wears its feminist credentials on its sleeve and does so very well, even if the message feels very much on the nose a lot of the time. But the fact that this ethos has made it out of a dozen boardrooms and onto mainstream cinema screens in such a prominent style is a feat to be applauded in itself. The version of what we see could not have been made without Mattel's endorsement, and while the impression remains that the paymasters are generally in on the joke, we're also left with the feeling Gerwig and Baumbach are filing off many of their sharper edges. What's more interesting is the boxes the film refuses to tick. Despite the ferocious branding and leaning heavily into the current, financially lucrative, version of its namesake, Barbie is not a children's movie. Children can certainly watch it (within the expected 12A parameters obviously), but it's made for adults - specifically, ones who remember Barbie but don't necessarily have a house full of them any more. And yet at the same time, this isn't an empty, cash-grab nostalgia exercise. It's promoting the product definitely, but it's more about selling the idea of Barbie. Or an idea, at any rate.

POISON

In terms of the actual mechanics of the storytelling, things are a little more... well, vague. The spoilers start here, by the way. Even in a tale of fantastical allegory, the internal logistics have to work for the audience to buy-in on an emotional level. So, if Barbieland™ includes every Mattel doll that's played with then the town would have a population of billions, whereas if there's a separate, self-contained Barbieland for every girl who plays with Barbies then each one would only be populated by the dolls that girl owns. The girl in question here (it's Gloria) only has the few dolls left over from her daughter's recent childhood, not the vast array of specifically vintage and also very up-to-the-minute Barbies on display in the film. There's no clarification over why this is. The Barbieland we get seems to include one of everyone, with no details as to how many other humans are involved at a higher level or how ownership has been assigned. But okay, we'll go with it.

We're told a portal has opened due to a Barbie-fan having a hard time in The Real World, yet in the real world boardroom scene we're told this has only happened once before. As if a lot of people in the real world who've got Barbies aren't having a hard time a lot of the time precisely because of how the real world works. There'd be portals everywhere. But okay, we'll go with it. Likewise, we're told that Weird Barbie has become eccentric because her owner/handler/God went a bit crazy and drew on her with pens, cut her hair with scissors and wedged her legs into permanent splits. Again, kids are gonna be kids and there'd be a lot of these Barbies around town. But okay, we'll go with it.

We don't see the actual, plot-critical portal itself, just a recurring vehicle-montage through Barbieland then the travellers being on Venice Beach, Los Angeles; and vice-versa to return. Barbie and Ken manage to take Gloria and Sasha back through with them, so we'll accept that regular humans can make the reverse trip with no ill effects. But Will Ferrell and the entire Mattel board of directors also manage to surreptitiously follow them, so we've got to assume that it's accessible to anyone on-foot from Venice Beach, yet nobody else has accidentally wandered into this portal that's been open for the duration of the entire storyline. How much more of this do we have to go with?

The Crocodile Dundee, fish-out-of-water routine with Barbie and Ken in LA is executed very well, but doesn't last for long as the pair are soon heading back, as noted above. Meanwhile, most people in the Real World seem remarkably calm about the human iterations of two actual dolls walking around, especially the ones who know exactly what's happened. You'd think this absolute upheaval of mundane reality and revelation of a parallel universe might be a bigger deal, somehow. Similarly, when Ferrell and the gang find themselves in Barbieland, the cultural offset is mined for almost zero reciprocal material. Indeed, the screenplay has no idea what to do with these characters so just forgets about them until the climactic Beach-Off where they have pretty much no constructive part to play (the board's overall plan to 'fix' the situation by putting Barbie back into a branded packaging-box is also weirdly indistinct). For a movie that's genuinely funny, it's staggering how much comedy-potential is wasted here.

Despite all my snarking though, Barbie is good. I don't think it's quite everything it wants to be, but it succeeds in being the film that it (and its audience) needs. It's certainly more than Kenough. It is entertaining and it does also carry a worthwhile message. The feminism, however, is not its subtext - that's very much The Text. Deeper meaning is perhaps more rudimentary than a fuchsia-fuelled crusade for girl-power...

RATT

The inhabitants of Barbieland seem vaguely aware that they're dolls and that The Real World exists, but they know next to nothing about it and show little desire to change this. It's not in the dolls' capacity or programming to realise the limitations of their surroundings or question anything outside of them, and so they're completely unable to deal with deeper philosophical problems about anything that can't be quantified in colourful plastic and simple, methodical activities. Even Margot Robbie's Barbie needs to be railroaded into knowledge by McKinnon's older, cynical sister. When peace and regularity is restored to Barbieland at the end of the third act, this is performed largely by reverting to the status quo prior to the first.

Barbie herself (the Margot Robbie one) finally rejects this of course, like a Tyrell Corp replicant now aware of its lifespan and wanting more. Having understood that revolution won't (or can't) work in her hometown, Barbie opts for evolution instead and journeys to live as a human in desaturated, complicated, messy meatspace. As we close, Barbie's future is an open road, albeit a markedly and necessarily less pleasant one in the process. But she's chosen hope and possibility. Gloria and Sasha's lives may be better as the credits roll but they're not that different, and we all know that Will Ferrell's character will still be Mattel's CEO on Monday morning and Gloria will still be working for him. Stereotypical Barbie was the only character in the movie to take a chance, to make a choice that bold, that permanent. And the choice is open to everyone on-screen of course, but the availability of that choice to everybody? That's the feminism, here. That's the equality. Because of course, the price of that freedom means having to accept that some people will decide they want things to not get better...

Back in Barbieland, the remaining collective of Barbies and Kens (okay, and Allan) also have wider knowledge of how things really work now, and they choose repair their society by setting all this to one side and carrying on as before. They're not ready to make the change, yet. Similar to Never Let Me Go, this might be the most profound point the film makes - that the Barbies' and Kens' perfect, repetitive, superficial lives are our lives, as we blankly rush through our ingrained routine to spend disposable income being distracted by a two hour dopamine-boost in a cinema. Or at a party. In a restaurant. At a shopping mall. In dream houses full of wonderful organised, covetable, accumulating stuff, always thinking about tomorrow and never appreciating the nuances of today, just as we recoil in horror whenever someone mentions the truth that we will not talk about: that fact one day soon, we will die.

We could live more, feel more, choose the genuine thrill of uncertainty. But it's easier to choose not to. Stereotypical Barbie has chosen to truly live, and in doing so has chosen death. And this is a final theme upon which Barbie does not dwell of course, because it doesn't do to be overtly reminded you're wasting your life by a toy advert...*²

*¹ Wikipedia lists the film's budget (production, not including marketing) at $128-$145m. And while that obviously is a lot of money, it has to be said that bringing in a Hollywood-grade film with a production-design this polished and featuring this cast for under 150 large ones is pretty damned impressive, especially looking at the box office returns it's making... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² There is a very strong chance I've over-thought all this of course, but please do bear in mind that I'm the one who interpreted the U-rated Boss Baby animated movie as being a study of infant-mortality induced PTSD... ^{[ BACK ]}

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