Review: A timely message is stuck in the past with Spielberg’s The Post

MINOR SPOILERS

After watching The Post, I realised something about director Steven Spielberg’s recent dramatic work: its style feels dated and kind of out of touch. Now don’t get me wrong, I found Bridge of Spies, Lincoln and War Horse to be decent, well-crafted films, but they didn’t captivate me like his older stuff did.

Spielberg’s drama comes in two forms: the first is a darker, grittier and more realistic approach used in films like Munich, Schindler’s List and Empire of the Sun. The majority of his dramas use a second approach that’s more hokey and melodramatic. It’s no coincidence those films tend to also be patriotic in flavour: Lincoln, Amistad and Saving Private Ryan are good examples. I’ve never been a big fan of this sometimes irritatingly naïve style, which is abundantly used by latter-career Spielberg.

The Post, his latest endeavour, reunites him with Tom Hanks for the fifth time. It also stars another legendary Hollywood icon in Meryl Streep, who’s a Spielberg first timer. Set in 1971 and based on a true story, the film revolves around the Washington Post staff’s dilemma on whether or not to publish the Pentagon Papers, a top secret study of US involvement in Vietnam. The Pentagon Papers implicated several US administrations in lies and deception, rocking the American public’s trust in its government. Despite warnings of potential treason charges and jail, editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Hanks) and publisher Kay Graham (Streep) go to press anyway.

Stuck in the Past:

As a journalist myself, I was curious to see how Spielberg tackled this worthy subject matter. Two hours later, I can’t help but say I was disappointed. It’s a matter of taste, but I found Spielberg’s approach to be flat and disengaging. And yet, it is clearly addressing a timely pressing issue in a world where journalistic financial and editorial freedom is in peril.

But Spielberg does a much better job than director Tom McCarthy did in turgid 2015 Best Picture winner Spotlight, another film about a newspaper exposé. He tries all kinds of tricks to inject action and tension into a story that’s mostly just journalists talking. Some of those tricks, particularly those involving sound and music, are effective. Others involving characters throwing themselves in front of moving vehicles, or awaiting mystery phone calls that posit no real danger, are ham-fisted.

The Post’s narrative focus also seems off. Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys), the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers, is introduced in the film’s first few scenes in Vietnam’s jungles. The soldiers he’s embedded with note his longer hair before he asks for a helmet – an unsubtle nod to the non-soldiers of the world who fight a different kind of battle. Initially, it seems like Ellsberg’s going to play a prominent role but he fades into the background. Considering the real-life Ellsberg was charged with the Espionage Act (and later exonerated), I’d argue he would have made for a more compelling main character.

But The Post is meant as a star vehicle for Hanks and Streep, who largely go through the motions here. They don’t stray from what they’ve comfortably done over and over in their careers. The physically and emotionally gruelling past ventures of Hanks (Philadelphia, Cast Away) and Streep (Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice) offer reminders of how nice and cozy they are in The Post. In fact, nothing edgy or provocative comes from the film as a whole.  And whenever the characters say or do something that stands out, it reeks of older Hollywood propaganda. In 2018, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

A Publisher’s Dilemma:

Much of what’s good about The Post comes in the conflicts Graham must face. The tug and pull between Bradlee and Graham sheds light on the essence of how a newspaper, or any journalistic publication, operates. Bradlee is her conscience, adamant the Pentagon Papers see the light of day. But he is her employee, not responsible for the bottom line that guarantees the Post publishes anything at all.

Inheriting the newspaper after her husband’s suicide, Graham is a woman in a field dominated by men, and is treated as non-entity by the board she theoretically controls. The board members continually pressure her to shut Bradlee down and play it safe. She is also personal friends with Secretary of State Robert McNamara (an uncanny resemblance in Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood), a conflict of interest Bradlee questions when McNamara’s complicity in deception becomes evident in the Pentagon Papers.

These conflicts come to a head in the film’s final third and are set up in that straightforward Spielbergian way – how Graham handles these challenges determines what kind of person she is and how far she’s willing to go to fight for freedoms important for all of us.

But Where’s the Anger?

As solidly as it’s shot and framed, as lush and artful the sets and production, The Post’s passion is stilted, its message subdued by its old-fashioned smarm. A great example is a pivotal scene where Graham confronts McNamara about her intent to publish the Pentagon Papers. Here is a woman who finds out a close friend has secretly stated the US could never win in Vietnam, years before her son and sons of countless others risked their lives. Thousands more were killed and maimed. But where is her anger in that scene? Where is the film’s anger? Nowhere to be found.

Verdict: The Post is the latest solid, but unspectacular, entry in past-his-prime director Steven Spielberg’s filmography. If you can excuse a tepid first hour and a laboriously melodramatic style, The Post’s message about the importance of journalistic freedom and unsung heroes is timely and worth watching.

B-

Trailer:

 

Review: Blade Runner 2049 is a pretty but hollow copy of the original

SPOILERS

I wanted to like Blade Runner 2049. I really did. I always enjoyed the original Blade Runner’s blend of odd characters and unique world building. And I’m a big fan of director Denis Villeneuve and Ryan Gosling, when utilized within his acting limitations. But their sequel is nothing more than a hollow copy.

SOULLESS REINCARNATIONS

Set 30 years after Ridley Scott’s 1982 classic, this film follows another bioengineered human (aka replicant) hunter, Officer K (Gosling). While the first Blade Runner kept the human status of Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard ambiguous, K is identified as a replicant from the start. Older replicants were capable of going renegade; new ones like K are designed to obey without question. During a hunt for an older replicant, K uncovers evidence that a long-dead replicant gave birth to a child, an unheard of event that risks distorting the dividing line between humans and the disposable replicant workforce it depends on.

Enlisted by his superior Lt. Joshi (played by Robin Wright) with destroying evidence of this birth, including any possible child, K pursues a decades-old trail that may also reveal truths about his own past. But he’s not the only one searching, with Wallace (played by Jared Leto), the head of an artificial intelligence corporation, obsessed with figuring out how to make replicants reproduce to maximize expansion into off-world colonies.

The most frustrating aspect of sci-fi films like Blade Runner 2049 and the latest Star Trek and Star Wars entries is that while their sound and visuals are miles ahead of their forebears, the soul of their stories and characters is absent. My opinion has long been that Hollywood bigwigs want to ensure they don’t scare off audiences by veering too far from the brand names they’re always trying to milk, so they end up giving us largely the same content with updated effects and superficial differences. Blade Runner 2049 is a good example of the consequences of this approach. Under the pretext of paying homage, it fails to build on the original, merely borrowing heavily and redundantly recycling its themes on identity and reality. The same can’t be said of the soundtrack. Immersive and broodingly melancholic, Blade Runner 2049 is almost worth watching just for the music. Almost.

A WASTE OF A CAST

Ryan Gosling has a knack for playing the silent types whose inner turmoil is hidden until they reach a breaking point. Here, he is a replicant trying to feel something real, something human. He seeks it in his love for a holographic artificial intelligence called Joi (played by Ana de Armas), but the limitations of such a love are creatively highlighted time and time again. Ultimately, his mission to destroy a possible replicant child forces him to pick sides, to choose between his imposed function and his own desires. This dilemma is sometimes compelling but neutered by the machinations of the plot.

K mainly just plods from one setting to another as we impatiently wait for something of consequence to happen. It’s interesting that they went with a replicant protagonist this time around, but the scenes in the first half feel like obligatory checkpoints rather than organic progressions of the narrative. We get the older film’s slow coast through a futuristic city, a stop at the protagonist’s home, a visit to the villainous corporation, and the list goes on. I would be fine with this if it wasn’t for the problem that K’s investigation isn’t engaging. It’s really just something to tie scenes together, because we know it’s all leading up to an encounter with a decades older Deckard.

As for new additions, aside from Gosling, most of them are superficial and don’t resonate. Jared Leto’s performance is bizarre and doesn’t fit in with the rest of the film. It’s difficult to say why beyond the fact that I found that his distractingly abstract dialogue took me out of the experience.

Robin Wright’s lieutenant is an exposition tool used to remind the audience of the destructive consequences that would transpire if the reality that replicants can give birth is discovered. Wallace’s replicant henchwoman Luv is motivated by…wanting to be the best replicant possible? It’s unclear, because she is severely underdeveloped.

GREAT VISUALS, WEAK STORY

Denis Villeneuve does have a way with visuals though. Countless shots and special effects are stunningly beautiful. And the eye candy doesn’t get stale; we’re offered a variety of uniquely gorgeous settings. Some of these visual moments are memorable: fans of Spike Jonze’s Her will see echoes of its plot in K’s relationship with Joi, especially in a sex scene which brilliantly displays the blurred line between real and artificial.

It’s a shame the filmmakers’ dedication to the look and sound of their movie isn’t there with the story. Key plot holes can be spotted here and there, such as Luv’s inexplicable decision not to kill K after she abducts Deckard. This is especially confusing because her murderous ruthlessness is quickly established earlier on. A pointless cameo by Edward James Olmos’s origami-loving Gaff pads an already way too long movie. Because of these narrative weaknesses (and many others), the film’s ending doesn’t feel earned. Blade Runner 2049’s philosophy is that its characters each have the power to decide what’s real to them; no external authority can tell them if their memories and emotions are valid or not. But I didn’t feel satisfaction about the resolution of K and Deckard’s journeys. I just felt relieved I was at the finish line.

Verdict: Worth watching for the stunning visuals and a great soundtrack, but Blade Runner 2049 can’t rise above an uninspired storyline that doesn’t justify the nearly three hour runtime.

B-

Trailer:

Review: Marvel sells fantasy well with Spider-Man: Homecoming

SPOILERS

To say the least, the Andrew Garfield-starring Spider-Man films were duds. Making nearly $1.5 billion worldwide, Spidey fans came out more for the brand recognition than anything else. The Amazing Spider-Man series promised to tell the story the older Tobey Maguire trilogy never did – and then promptly failed to do so, leaving in its wake a cadre of forgettable villains, unresolved subplots and several cringeworthy moments (Spider-Man’s webbing forming into fingers to reach Gwen Stacey plummeting to her death – in slow motion –  still gives me chills).

Resurrecting Spider-Man with his own standalone movie only three years later might then seem like a risk, but the Marvel Cinematic Universe has the magic formula audiences can’t get enough of. Personally, I’ve always been lukewarm about the Marvel films, enjoying their escapism and humour, but tiring of their repetitive formula and predictable lack of edginess.

That being said, Spider-Man: Homecoming is a massive improvement over The Amazing Spider-Man. While much of Garfield’s time was spent in doom and gloom, Marvel injects life and a light-hearted tone into a character who shouldn’t be taken too seriously. Building on Spider-Man’s brief appearance in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, Homecoming is tailor-made for an audience of young boys. In the opening scenes, we see the Avengers, Tony Stark et al, from the point of view of Peter Parker, an excited teenager filming everything he can with his cellphone camera. Parker is established as an awe-struck fan who spends the rest of the film trying to join the Avengers – the dream Marvel knows many of its young viewers have.

ULTIMATE FANTASY

Tom Holland stars as a 15-year-old Peter Parker along with 52-year-old Marisa Tomei as his typically elderly Aunt May (a running joke online is that Parker and Aunt May will be in diapers within the next few reboots). Holland is an excellent casting choice, bringing goofball charm and comedic timing to the role, especially in his scenes with his guardian of sorts, Happy Hogan (played by Iron Man director Jon Favreau). Homecoming also noticeably injects more diversity to the cast: Parker’s best friend is Filipino, his love interest is African American and Flash, his go-to bully in films past, is now Hispanic.

This version of Parker is the perfect embodiment of the fantasy of being a kid dealing with the challenges of high school, pretty girls and secret superpowers. The film takes full advantage of this set-up with a good mix of awkward high-school comedy and action set pieces. Spider-Man is in detective mode here, investigating the source of dangerous weapons using alien technology left behind from the events of the 2012 Avengers film. Those weapons are wielded by criminals wreaking more and more havoc on the streets of New York City. Spider-Man is helped/monitored by Tony Stark, who pops in every now and then to offer his unique formula of wisdom and bravado. Parker is still early on in Stark’s journey, and must discover what Stark also had to: if you’re nothing without your suit, you don’t deserve the suit.

My only problem with Homecoming (and much of Marvel’s stuff) is that it plays things very safe. The story mainly revolves around the classic Peter Parker trope: he always seems to struggle with balancing between the needs of his civilian life and those of his costumed alter ego; the decision to focus on one side of his life always seems to come at the price of the other. This is both a strength of the character through the years, but it gets kind of old at a certain point.

Based on its title, the film obviously builds up to a Homecoming dance, where the two sides of Parker’s life collide. The villain subplot with Michael Keaton‘s Vulture is bland forgettable stuff, and the eye-rolling twist that he happens to be Parker’s love interest’s father is clichéd. But my enjoyment of a Marvel film doesn’t come from worrying about the plot and its limitations, but by simply enjoying a fun ride for what it is.

B-

Trailer:

 

Che Part Two: Guerrilla Review

This is the second installment of a two-part review of Che, a 2008 biopic about Ernesto “Che” Guevara. You can find the review for Che Part One here.

MAJOR SPOILERS

Now that we’ve (sort of) become acquainted with Guevara in Part One, Part Two: Guerrilla jumps a couple years ahead to 1966. True to his earlier promise, Castro allows Guevara to leave his high-powered Cuban government positions to return to the global “battlefield”. After meeting failure in the Congo, Part Two start with Guevara smuggling his way into Bolivia with plans to spark a popular uprising to overthrow that country’s US-backed dictator.

Structurally, Part Two is more linear and focused than the first half. While Part One is largely a spotlight on Guevara’s successes, Part Two is a darker descent into the full consequences of the path he’s uncompromisingly embarked on.

A WOULD-BE REVOLUTION

The film finally gets identifiable villains (one is a revenge-seeking Cuban exile), but their personal presence and impact are minimal. This is because Guevara’s enemy can’t be personified by one character or by an interchangeable puppet dictator. The enemy is the USA, or more abstractly, the system that allows the world’s elites to oppress the majority. And Part Two is a fascinating exploration of the various ways a revolution against that system can fail.

The differences between the Cuban and Bolivian guerilla campaigns are noticeable right away, even if Guevara’s drive hasn’t changed. He’s an outsider to both countries, but the majority of the revolutionaries the first go-around were Cuban locals. This time, the Cuban revolution veterans and foreign enlistees are uninvited guests begrudgingly accepted by the locals, the vast majority of them uneducated and desperately poor. The Bolivian Communist party also refuses to support Guevara. A faint glimmer of hope emerges in the form of a nearby mine revolt, but it’s violently suppressed. The Bolivian populace gets the message. Support the foreign upstarts and you will receive no mercy.

El COMANDANTE PERSONIFIED

Che is a fascinating biopic because it always seems to actively operate against the very notion of being a biopic. It captures the fact that change doesn’t pause to consider the fallen, but is rather an irrepressible motion of events transcending any one person, as iconic as that person might become.

Bu the best part of this movie still is Benicio Del Toro’s performance, which channels something of Guevara. It’s hard to pinpoint what that is, but Del Toro brings a magnetism to his often dour environs. We sense there’s a significance to this man’s actions. Other characters treat him with a subtle level of respect. His ceaseless commitment to his cause is apparent, even when he’s just seated in a jeep or trudging through rough terrain. His performance won him Best Actor at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival, even if it didn’t quite make waves in the US.

It follows then that we start to truly empathize with the man and his selfless struggle. The odds are stacked ever in favour of those working against him around the world, as his manpower and limited supplies dwindle. His men increasingly despair. The possibility of betrayal hangs over them with every encounter with the populace they are there to help. His hair and beard are now filthy, long and dishevelled. The film jumps through time, with a noose ever-looming around Guevara and co.’s necks.

After Guevara is cut off from his surviving men and captured in a ravine in 1967, he’s thrown in a nondescript dusty one-room building. The corpses of two of the men closest to him are dumped inside to keep him company. He observes them in silence. An encounter between him and his Bolivian guard is some of the best stuff of the entire film. Uniting them is an undeniably singular desire but dividing them is a wall of hate and anger, a wall put there, the film hints, by the system Guevara is fighting and that will take his life. In Guevara’s death scene, director Steven Soderbergh switches the camera to Guevara’s POV as he is shot by that very Bolivian guard, a rare moment of the personal in a film careful to avoid it.

SPARE THE MELODRAMA

Emotional scenes are few and far between in Che, but their impact resonate as a whole once you finish Part Two. A simple early scene with Guevara spending what might be his last night with his family, gently resting his head in his wife’s lap, magnifies once more the gravity of the sacrifice this man made. Towards the end of the film, we revisit a scene at the outset of Guevara’s ship voyage to Cuba. He looks off at the Castro brothers in the distance, and that separation is one of a different never-ending path he must follow. Guevara’s operative Tania Bunke (played by The Bourne Identity’s Franka Potente) is separated from his group.  As disease and starvation slow her down, the camera voyeuristically captures the despair of a woman slowly accepting her doom from the POV of a hiding Bolivian soldier tasked with killing her and her comrades. This weighs heavily on us because we also sense what’s soon coming. These little scenes speak volumes beyond what’s there on the surface. Appreciating Che lies in noticing those deceptively simple moments.

Verdict: Che is an unconventional and occasionally frustratingly detached biopic that doesn’t work as a history of the man himself. But as a series of incredibly authentic cinematic moments, it capture the essence of his cause and how he fought for it.

B

Che Full Movie Trailer:

 

A Ghost Story Review: Who knew it took so long to get at a note in the wall?

MAJOR SPOILERS:

I was kind of reluctant to go see A Ghost Story until I heard this little tidbit: it featured Casey Affleck under a sheet for practically the entire movie. After learning that, how could I resist? It could either be a disaster or pure genius. In the end, A Ghost Story is somewhere in the middle.

Starring Affleck and Rooney Mara as a young married couple, the film is decidedly of the experimental art house variety. Not much is explained to us, but we do pick up on a couple of things. Their marriage is troubled for reasons unclear, almost caught in a turgid sadness that permeates them and their basic environs. And then, as abruptly as these things tend to be, Affleck dies in a car accident right outside their house.

This is where things get interesting. Director David Lowery has a little bit of fun with the juvenile classic conception of ghosts, who are depicted here as entities under sheets with eyeholes.  Soon after Affleck first rises as a besheeted ghost in the hospital morgue, a luminescent white door magically emerges: a portal to the other side, whatever that might be. But he doesn’t walk (or is it float?) through it. Ghosts have unfinished business, after all. Affleck’s is to be with his wife, and he lingers as a non-interfering presence watching her grieve in their home, bar a moment of book-throwing anger when his wife brings another man home.

GRIEF AND LOSS, INESCAPABLE:

What the director does here so well is let the film breathe to fully and intimately explore the effects of grief. The camera lingers uncomfortably long on moments experienced when you lose a loved one: the motionless silence of a corpse with no life in it, the suffocating quiet of a now empty home. Mara sits in their kitchen one day and proceeds to consume almost an entire pie left by a well-wisher. That scene lasts for minutes, with Affleck’s ghost watching. In other scenes, the film breezes through the days, capturing Mara in a repetitive cycle of waking up and getting ready for work as life inevitably goes on.

Time eventually loses meaning or coherence from the ghost’s (and our) perspective. His wife finally moves away, leaving a note in a crack in the wall. The ghost’s mission becomes getting at that note, but time gets in the way. New people move in and come and go, and the ghost’s frustration becomes palpable. Looking out a window, he encounters a ghost in the home next door. That ghost can’t remember who he (or she) is waiting for anymore. We begin to wonder if Affleck’s ghost remembers what he’s trying to do either. Time continues to fly by, the home is bulldozed and replaced by a towering skyscraper. Soon, in one big mind-warp, we go back in time (or forwards enough that we end up in the past). History repeats itself, and soon a second ghost is watching the first ghost, both caught in a seemingly infinite loop. Moments we see earlier on in the film before Affleck’s death return with new meaning, but not a satisfying explanation.  A new doomed emptiness fills those moments, a tragic resignation to fate’s will, maybe.

SO WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?

The film’s ending definitely falls in the beguiling category. The ghost finds the note and whatever was under the sheet vanishes. The unfinished business is complete, we presume. What’s in the note? It doesn’t matter. What’s significant was that the pursuit of reading it was what was keeping the ghost in our world. What I liked about this movie is it doesn’t want to spoonfeed you the answers. And somehow, I doubt there are answers. We can find a commentary on the empty rat race nature of our existence, which is hinted at by a character’s monologue in a party in Affleck’s house long after Mara’s departure. It could also be a reflection of how grief and loss are really just about the living, not the dead, whose very deadness means they have nothing to hold onto. Instead, we assign meanings, myths and lore to the dead, campfire stories as children, and horror movies of the unexplained. But we project our fears and longings on those ghosts. Their unfinished business is ours. The notes in the wall are for our benefit, not theirs.

Truth be told though, while it was thought-provoking, the film didn’t linger too long with me. With a movie as sparse as this, what you want to see is what you’ll get. Aside from a few memorable shots of Affleck’s ghost wandering a sparse landscape with an eerily ethereal purpose, the film’s visual look is very simple. The small cast is solid, and as far as you could comment on someone’s performance under a sheet, Affleck does well.

Verdict: Low on narrative and explanations, A Ghost Story comes with a time-bending narrative exploring love, grief, purpose and the meaning of life. Not a feel-good movie, but one that leaves you thinking about loss and your own place in the universe.

B-

Trailer:

Baby Driver Review: Edgar Wright Does It Again

Ever since I was blown away by the zombie rom-com Shaun of the Dead back in 2004, I’ve been an Edgar Wright fan.

Starring frequent Wright collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, Shaun of the Dead was funny, thrilling and oddly touching all at the same time. One of the most talented directors out there, Wright just has a way with visuals and dialogue: they’re snappy, vibrant and creative. He always comes up with interesting and unique methods to shoot a scene, develop characters and introduce action. And he loves a challenge. After taking on the zombie genre with Shaun of the Dead, he spoofed buddy cop films with Hot Fuzz and fully brought a graphic novel to life in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. And when his vision for Ant-Man was largely rejected by Marvel, he decided to take on a challenge he’d been working on for almost 20 years: Baby Driver, a car chase/heist movie.

Tools of the Trade:

Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a free-spirited demon behind the wheel who’s stuck in a bad situation. Indebted to Atlanta crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey), Baby pays him off by serving as the best getaway driver in the business. This job has him in frequent contact with a range of murderous potential psychopaths, the most dangerous of them being Jamie Foxx’s Bats and Jon Hamm’s Buddy. Almost fully paid up and relishing a life of simple freedom with a waitress at a nearby diner (Lily James), Baby’s been able to keep his hands clean up to this point. He stays in the getaway car and avoids witnessing the carnage and death he’s complicit in. But as his criminal cohorts frequently remind him, he won’t be able to stay innocent forever. And as the pressure mounts, Baby is pushed to the edge when unresolved childhood traumas resurface.

Baby Driver has Wright’s full toolset on display. He’s always had fun setting up moments that foreshadow later ones and giving us jokes with payoffs you won’t get until much later in the runtime. Baby Driver is no different; it has Easter eggs galore. And major events in the movie are hinted at in an early scene where Baby flicks through a couple movies on TV, with each bit of dialogue we hear factoring in later on somehow.

Wright also just has a knack at introducing characters with all their quirks and motivations in a way that propels a film’s momentum, rather than stall it. Wright envisages a protagonist in Baby who operates virtually his entire life listening to tunes that accompany his actions. We learn everything we need to know about what makes him tick in the pulsating opening car chase scene. Preparing a song on one of his several iPods (he has different ones for different days and moods), he moves to the music while seated in a car, patiently awaiting the crew robbing a bank across the street. And when the time comes for action, Baby fully comes to life.

Action, Pure and Simple:

One could accuse Baby Driver of being slight theme and narrative-wise, but we get just the right amount of both to make this film work. This isn’t a venture like Michael Mann’s heist biopic Heat, which dealt with the full spectrum of consequences of a life of crime and the price the cops who fight that crime must pay. Baby Driver isn’t offering social commentary and it’s not a parody like some of Wright’s earlier work. It’s a film from a director who likes to have fun and wants to create the kinetic energy a pure and simple car chase movie has to offer. And on that front, he’s completely successful.

No one action set piece is exactly the same. Wright mixes in new settings, elements and stakes throughout. And he steadily builds an underlying tension between Baby’s desires and those of his crew until it all explodes in a pivotal moment from which there’s no turning back. This sets up a pulsating final third that keeps raising the ante until the bittersweet ending.

Music, Baby:

This review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning one of the best parts of this film in greater detail: the music. Wright uses Baby’s music addict trait (and the tragic reason behind it) to great effect, providing a soundtrack that is as essential to his characters and plot as it is to our viewing experience. Action is timed to the beats of one song while gun shots ring out in sync with the time signature of another. It’s a uniquely dynamic approach I can’t recall seeing in any other action film. This approach allows us to be fully immersed in Baby’s moods and feelings; we feel the highs of his love and exuberance along with the lows of his fears and dilemmas.

And the last thing to mention is a great ensemble cast. I’m not a huge fan of Elgort’s (or anyone else’s) work in the Divergent series, but he’s great here. He brings the right amount of innocence and boyish charm to Baby, and the supporting cast of Kevin Spacey (who’s a little bit underused), Hamm, Foxx and Jon Bernthal (in a brief cameo) are clearly fully game for what Wright is doing here.  Chalk it up as another success for Wright, as Baby Driver is now the highest grossing film of his career. I’m excited to see what he does next!

Verdict: Edgar Wright successfully takes on the car chase movie in Baby Driver, introducing memorable characters in Ansel Elgort’s Baby and Jon Hamm’s Buddy. This is one of the best summer films of the past couple years: exciting, engaging and fun without shortchanging its characters, which is more easily said than done.

B+

Trailer:

Belated King Arthur review

MINOR SPOILERS:

It’s no secret nowadays that name recognition and any kind of brand awareness trumps originality or diversity when we talk about Hollywood films in the $100 million-plus budget range. In the past few years alone we’ve been given potential franchises featuring Dracula, Godzilla, King Kong (and two awful attempts at Hercules in 2014) amongst others. So by that same logic, why not King Arthur?

The 2004 Clive Owen version came with a slightly more modest budget than this 2017 effort ($120 million versus $175 million), and yet still flopped in North America. But time changes everything. If we can have a third Spider-Man actor in the span of ten years, anything is clearly possible for risk-averse Hollywood. And unlike the 2004 film (helmed by Training Day director Antoine Fuqua) this new iteration comes with a director possessing a proven successful track record in the big budget realm: Guy Ritchie, whose Robert Downey, Jr.-starring Sherlock Holmes films were both big hits. For King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, Ritchie brings along his Watson from those films, Jude Law, as his villain. This movie in general is a largely English affair. Sons of Anarchy’s Charlie Hunnam stars as Arthur, reportedly beating out heavyweight commodities like Henry Cavill and Michael Fassbender for the role. And the film’s approach is, well, it’s exactly what you’d think a Guy Ritchie swords and shields fantasy epic would look like.

The Guy Ritchie Touch:

Its pace is frenetic, with scenes and big action set pieces transitioning into each other rapidly (and generally seamlessly) together. Ritchie utilizes all the tools he’s employed over and over in his unique, if one-note, career: the classic slo-mo switch-up in the middle of a fast-paced scene, the pulsating soundtrack setting the tone for a man, preferably shirtless, in physical duress, the creative editing and camera angle choices displaying the conflict between several nickname-wielding wisecracking hard men engaged in mischief…etc. Just imagine it all with men dressed as peasants or knights and you get the picture. This approach doesn’t necessarily work every time, but what it does do is give this film a visceral energy and odd appeal that help it stand out from the bland company it keeps.

Most people are unfamiliar with the stories of Arthur and Camelot beyond basic details like the Round Table, the Holy Grail, and of course, that Sword in the Stone. But you don’t really need to know anything beforehand to enjoy this film. Arthur is presented to us as an orphaned street hustler raised by prostitutes whose lineage, unbeknownst to him, is connected to the sword and the crown of Camelot.  That crown has been usurped by his twisted power-hungry uncle Vortigern (Law), who makes a bargain with witches to gain his dominions – at a heavy cost. This all transpires under the shadow of a disturbance of the balance between the humans of Camelot and the magic-wielding mages beyond its reach. And when Vortigern’s attempts to maximize his power and control over both Camelot and mage alike reach their zenith, fate thrusts a reluctant Arthur into action.

METHOD TO THE MADNESS:

Now that we’ve got all that out of the way, this movie was surprisingly not that bad. It’s light on surface plot and there isn’t much substance to be found beyond the core struggle between Arthur and his uncle. It’s a classic battle between light and dark, but that substance is more than you’re usually going to get in a film like this.

Ritchie’s interview on comedian/UFC commentator Joe Rogan’s podcast shortly before the movie’s release gives some interesting insight on this. At 24:44, he addresses the key to any narrative: a character overcomes his fears and crutches to take control of his own life. In essence, that’s what Arthur is all about.

Hunnam’s work isn’t that spectacular, but it doesn’t really have to be. Arthur is a reluctant hero with incredible power within – and in complete denial about it. He’s a man on the run ever since the fateful day his parents were stolen from him – a hazy memory he relives in recurring nightmares throughout the film, nightmares he avoids addressing during his waking hours. Guiding him through his journey is an otherworldly mage dispatched by the never seen Merlin (which was a nice touch), played eccentrically well by French-Spanish actress Astrid Bergès-Frisbey. And refreshingly, she isn’t a love interest. At least not yet, if any sequels are in the offing (the film’s paltry $120 million international gross to date makes that prospect unlikely, if not impossible).

And as always, Ritchie is incredibly assured stylistically and his vision is clear. Impressive visual touches and choices can be found here, from the kinetic moment when Arthur first wields the sword (distracting cameos from celebrity soccer players aside), to a surreal encounter with the Lady of the Lake, to the unsettling depiction of Vortigern’s tentacled witches. Ritchie also definitely goes overkill with the sometimes substandard CGI, but that only occasionally detracts from what’s overall a pretty thrilling ride.

Verdict: Although elements of director Guy Ritchie’s go-to cinematic formula aren’t successfully applied here, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is an energetic and genuinely entertaining classic tale of good vs. evil – with a bit of uniquely weird fantasy to boot.

B-

Trailer: