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: Joy Ride

Joy Ride
Cert: 15 / 95 mins / Dir. Adele Lim / Trailer

Having been raised in America by adoptive white parents, Chinese-born Audrey (Ashley Park) is due to make a business-trip to her spiritual motherland where her best friend Lolo (Sherry Cola) tags along for moral support and suggests that Audrey should use the opportunity to track down her birth-mother. Along the way they're joined by Lolo's awkward friend Deadeye (Sabrina Wu), and once in China Audrey is reunited with her college-bestie Kat (Stephanie Hsu), who is now an actress on the brink of stardom.

When Audrey realises that connecting with her birth-mother could actually help her close the deal as well as bringing her personal fulfilment, the four undertake a fish-out-of-water transformational road trip to find her, find themselves and each other...

TEEN

So, the comedic sub-genre which gave us teen jaunts at the end of the last millennium and ratcheted up to pre-midlife-crises less than a decade later, has now taken the next step by transplanting the central plank of four American white men with four Asian-American women*¹. And while that kind of over-simplification does not help sell Joy Ride's many high-points and all they have to offer audiences on a broader cultural scale, it's no less true for that. The screenplay here is banking on its audience being familiar with the journey in advance, because it knows that the average punter can only handle so much being 'different'.

From the off, internal friction comes from Audrey being the successful lawyer archetype who fears she's out of her depth, Lolo is the loudmouthed but well-meaning slacker, Kat is the preening actress with devastating insecurities and Deadeye is the socially-crippled wildcard. All four of these are treated well by the film, but almost everyone else is a sketched-in placeholder. Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (of Superbad fame) are named in the producer's-list and it shows. True to genre-form, Teresa Hsiao and Cherry Chevapravatdumrong's script isn't afraid to use profanity in lieu of crafted punchlines, as well as lazy but well-meaning gags about racism and sex organs in the same vein.

WERE

For all the extremity of the jokes, director Adele Lim does display genuine heart and sincerity when it comes to characters finding the line between discovering their past as a means of belonging to something, but not letting the weight of that heritage hold them back from forging their own futures. Ashley Park's scene with Daniel Dae Kim and Michelle Choi-Lee late in the movie is utterly delightful. If anything it's a shame that this emotion acts as a coda to the third act, rather than its backbone.

But for all this reviewer's cynicism, the bottom line is that Joy Ride works as a perfectly serviceable Saturday night comedy. It's a sledgehammer rather than a scalpel, but there's no denying that most of the jokes do land firmly as a result. The final product may not be especially unique, but the film does what the film does perfectly within its own remit.

HEINZ

And yet much like No Hard Feelings currently doing the rounds, this smacks of a screenplay that's been floating across various desks for the last twenty years. There are clear demographic reasons why this version of the movie wouldn't have been greenlit back in the early 00s*², and it's debatable if the 2023-iteration is pushing boldly forward or just playing catchup.

Joy Ride is, though, indecently decent. And I'm adding points for the deserved use of Maroon 5 and Mumford & Sons as a deadpan punchline. But I'm taking points off for the big emotional monologue in the restaurant-finale that drops in 'greatest-hits' clips of the movie we've all just sat through, and taking more points off for having the diners burst into applause at the end of it.

There are some places we just don't need to go back to...

*¹ Don't write in. I'm very aware as I write that line that Sabrina Wu is non-binary, as is their character in the film, Deadeye. And I love and respect the fuck out of that (especially the fact that it's addressed in the script but doesn't turn into A Thing), but I assure you that on a marketing, demographic and "being The Hangover but the opposite of that" level, this ticks all the boxes of A Film About Four Women. Less is more, and in the context of Joy Ride it's probably the only thing in the movie which is underplayed. This is also way more queer-friendly than any version of the movie with four blokes would be, and is better for it... ^{[ BACK ]}

*² For what it's worth Joy Ride was part of Cineworld's Secret Screening programme, where viewers didn't know what they'll be watching until the BBFC card after the ads and trailers. Always a gamble. And given the very non-Caucasian angle of the movie, fair play to the one couple who at least waited through a full twenty minutes of dick-jokes before deciding this wasn't for them and leaving early. Because I had immediate visions of this being The Hate U Give all over again, where just under 30 punters walked out in the first ten minutes, presumably because they all remembered they'd left the iron on or something. That must have been it, yes... ^{[ 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: Brightburn

Brightburn
Cert: 15 / 90 mins / Dir. David Yarovesky / Trailer



Marvel Studios are doing well, of that there should be no doubt. One of the reasons for their continued success is that various chapters in their continuing cinematic saga can be ascribed to different genres of film. Which is a polite way of saying that "superhero" is not a genre (just as "animation" also isn't). While all of the 22 MCU chapters so far are linked by the common thread of superheroes, The First Avenger is a wartime adventure movie, The Winter Soldier is a modern espionage flick, Ant-Man plays as a heist and Ragnarok a flat-out comedy. Thus lies their success. However, due to the house-style being a self-imposed 12A certification limit, Marvel are unable to properly tackle horror. And any aficionado will tell you that comics have been about the macabre for as long as they've featured caped vigilantes.

Warner/DC have tried of course, but their efforts to produce more serious, thought-provoking tales often have the opposite effect, with Dawn Of Justice being particularly troubled in its 'darker' sections. Ultimately, the answer turns out to come from neither of the major comic studios, but it's on DC's side of the fence we stay (kind of) for David Yarovesky's Brightburn. It's a gleefully sardonic look at the Superman mythos, but one where the young hero took a different path once adulthood came knocking, turning into humanity's nemesis rather than its saviour*¹.

REMAINS

Written for the screen by Brian and Mark Gunn, the location of a Kansas farm remains but in a present-day setting, as Tori (Elizabeth Banks) and Kyle (David Denman) Breyer spend years trying for children only to be gifted one by a falling meteor. Raising the human-looking youngster as their own for a dozen years, the pair wilfully overlook some of Brandon's (Jackson A. Dunn) quirks, knowing fine well that he's not 'normal'. But a secret hidden in the barn draws Brandon through sleepwalking, and soon the usual puberty-petulance and childhood revenge fantasies are being matched with superhuman powers, a tonne of questions and no one to supply answers. Things are about to go south.

On the whole, Brightburn is an interesting ride and works well. Always at the accessible-end of the horror genre rather than being a hardcore gorefest (although there are a smattering of delightfully gruesome moments), it's still far more interesting than the reams of supernatural studio-horror which usually clog up the schedules. Yarovesky and The Gunns never quite give in to darker urges (even if their subject does), and there's a pleasant lack of clockwork jump-scare moments - instead often revealing the antagonist at the back of a room to slowly raise the tension, rather than have him suddenly leap out of the darkness.

CANDELABRA

All of the central performers do well, playing their roles as straight as a semi-parody will allow. While the supporting cast could have been drafted in from any small-town horror, that's the way they're written and is totally in-keeping with the screenplay. At 90 minutes this is a tight affair, and it's perhaps surprising how long things take to really escalate, given the cracks we see appearing the first act. That said, the film never quite gets over the 'what if?' hump, and because it's overtly based on the legend most of its audience have seen in at least one form, direct comparisons are always at the front of the audience's mind. Because of this, it becomes difficult to enjoy Brightburn on its own merits.

And ultimately it's this question that the script fails to truly capitalise upon. The key theme of Brightburn should surely be one of nature vs nurture? How are Clark Kent and Brandon Breyer different? Breyer's adoptive parents are much younger than the Kents - did they fail in instilling the same values because of generational divides? Was Clark Kent's mixure of power and humility a product of its time, which simply couldn't happen again?

MILK WOOD

We see Brandon eventually interacting with the malignant force in the barn, but is this an echo from the past? A pan-galactic communication from the present? A misinterpreted message due to Brandon not properly understanding the alien tongue? Watching the film from his parents' point-of-view, it makes some sense that the audience would never learn the true origin of their son. But if we're meant to be with Brandon for the whole journey, it feels slightly unsatisfying that we don't really learn from his side either: 'the kid isn't human and he just turns evil because he was always going to be evil'.

And if that's the case, it might as well be a manky old nun in a haunted painting. Because if the answer to your 'what if?' is just "yeah, a lot of things get broken mate", then was it a question which was properly asked in the first place?

THE HILLS AND FAR AWAY

Brightburn is beautifully crafted in places, but in its current form will be no more than a novelty, an oddity, a spin on a classic rather than being great in its own right. A thought which is underlined by some truly appalling sequel-baiting in the final minute which I dearly hope was dropped into the edit as a pastiche of superhero cinema rather than a genuine punt at expansion.

But the fact that this tale of heroes-gone-bad is in cinemas at the same time as X-Men: Dark Phoenix tickles me greatly, if only because Simon Kinberg seems to wish that he'd made something even a quarter as interesting...

Chronicle, with shades of A Quiet Place.



If you're already on-side before going in, sure.



Re-play value on this may be limited, but Brightburn will be good to have on the shelf.



Let's not go mad.



Disagree, unlikely. Discuss at some length, yes.



There isn't.



Level 2: David Denman's in this, and he was in that Logan Lucky alongside Adam 'Kylo Ren' Driver and Daniel 'TFA Stormtrooper' Craig.





*¹ Although as one wag recently tweeted, "If I wanna watch an 'alternate' take on Superman in which he goes all kill crazy, I'll just watch Man of Steel.". And as much as I loved that film, I have to admit it's difficult to disagree at face-value... ^{[ 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: Power Rangers

Power Rangers
Cert: 12A / 124 mins / Dir. Dean Israelite / Trailer



Full disclosure, this film wasn't really made for me and I'm absolutely fine with that. By the time Power Rangers started airing on UK television in the mid-90s, I was already going to work down the pit for sixteen hours a day (and more importantly, getting back into obsessing over Star Wars), so other than a bare-bones knowledge of its existence, I was bringing little in the way of baggage to this particular gathering. However, I like to think I know enough about movies to spot the difference between world-building and box-ticking. Most cinematic reboots don't become really heavy-handed fan service until their second or third instalments. Power Rangers waits around forty-five minutes. More amazingly though, it sort of works.

So. Something-something group of disparate teenagers; Something-something asteroid crash site; Something-something evil forces awakening; Something-something super-powers awarded to worthy heroes. Think the Sword in the Stone meets Guardians of the Galaxy. Classic hero's journey stuff, no problem there. A gently-paced opening act introduces the five teenagers who will go on to be trusted with tools of unbelievable destruction, before its successor arrives bearing over-generous amounts of exposition and training montages. The by-the-book origins story is solid enough, the super-powered Breakfast Club bonding feels more laboured. The young central cast themselves are good form, but any performer older than twenty or so comes off as patronising at best. Scoring the most highly in that round are Mr Bryan Cranston and Ms Elizabeth Banks*¹, both of whom blithely continue to devalue their own showreels.

As well as satisfying all the checklist items required of a throwback movie, the thematic nostalgia is furthered by referencing visual beats from The Lost Boys, Ghostbusters and perhaps more notably, the first Avengers flick. But as the film goes on, it shifts in tone from moody-teen pouting to the brightly coloured, super-camp finale which is at least fitting for its televisual roots.

As hero origin-stories go, Power Rangers is surprisingly reasonable, if somewhat unremarkable (considering it's a shameless series-opener and two hour action-figure advert). And as much as it pains me to admit it, the film has more focus and unabashed self-awareness than DC seem to have managed recently. Still, we live in hope. Obviously, this film will be sequelled to death, inevitably diluting the fun and feasibility with each new entry (for those interested, there's a mid-credits teaser scene, but nothing at the end).

But fair play to Lionsgate for putting out a 12A certificate film when the core target demographic is aged around 7. And Power Rangers is definitely at the lighter-end of 12A, but the rating still stands. Approach with caution.


And this is a thing as well, mind…



…I mean that's got to be deliberate, right?



File alongside TMNT, even though this is a head-on collision between Chronicle and Monster Trucks.



Not necessarily, unless you want the multi-coloured carnage to be bigger.



Y'know what?
It does.



With the best will in the world, I should hope not.



Nope.



There is.



Level 1: The voice of Alpha 5 is performed by the voice of BB-8, Bill Hader.



^^ And a 4 seems harsher than it's intended to be, it's just not strong to be a 5 round these parts. The film was relatively enjoyable for its duration, but by this time tomorrow I'll be struggling to remember most of what happened in it, apart from admirable work with the Blue and the Yellow Rangers, and Elizabeth Banks letting herself down again. I'm not the target audience, and it had pretty much no impact on me either way.



*¹ I know that the Power Rangers' nemesis hasn't been newly named for this movie, but an antagonist named Rita further strengthens my theory (following on from last week's Elaine and Maureen) that prominent female roles in 2017's movies are being screen-written by my Grandma's friends. ^{[ 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.