I didn't see everything but I saw most of it.
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You know, the thing that pisses me off about Gore Verbinski is that he’s one of our best directors, but has recently been only servicing stuff that kind of sucks. His last good movie might have been Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (because yes it is that good, and Rango has some serious structural problems). And that line about “best directors” isn’t really kidding. Watch the first two Pirates movies, The Ring, and the last 20 minutes of The Lone Ranger and this is obvious. This is a man who knows how to keep the camera rolling on the spectacle (which he does do in Cure) but can’t seem to catch a break on his scripts. This is all inevitably leading to the fact that no, A Cure For Wellness is not that great, but not because of Verbinski. The direction is as good as ever. It’s just servicing something that kind of sucks. For all the posturing as to how this movie is so weird and horrifying that you either can sit through it or run away, the real question should be how long can you put up with the movie continuously getting more and more preposterous and cryptic to the point of making any audience member get up and walk out if the direction and performance weren’t so alluring. The story of a Mr. Lockhart ( a still effective if a little empty Dane DeHaan) traveling to a wellness center in the Swiss Alps, that soon turns into a hydro-infused nightmare, is actually pretty cool, and if it didn’t complicate itself with so much unexplained motivation and convolution and just played like a straight horror story, it might have become a horror classic. Visually it does that, but narratively much like Justin Haythe’s previous script for Verbinski it gets all bogged down in doing an impression of the movie it’s trying to be and forgetting to make sense out of all of it. The first hour or so when the pieces of the mystery going on are up in the air and we’re still guessing is a suspenseful hour of film, pushed by the sumptuous production design and scenes playing out like something a young Tim Burton would present us with, and then the actual goings-on, well, go on and the movie devolves into nonsense. Honestly, a serialistic trip through the various horrors of the wellness center, like at the start, without any real explanation other than Verbinski promptly commanding his audience, “Look at all this beautiful and terrifying stuff,” would probably have left a better taste in our mouths. This film’s ending is akin to something like Crimson Peak and the whole final act of the movie plays out like Verbinski and Haythe trying to ape Tim Burton and Guillermo Del Toro and not getting either right. But all that said, yeah it is kind of hard to hate the ambition that Verbinski brings to the direction of this film as well as the fact that everything else in the movie other than the script is REALLY excellent. The effects are gloriously brutal, with Verbinski never cutting away when he gets the chance to show the audience something that they’ll never forget. Of course, this being a big studio movie, the film never gets REALLY grotesque (the high watermark of recent can be afforded to NWR’s excellent The Neon Demon), but when it gets the chance there are some pretty spine tingling moments. These moments, though, shouldn’t be the ones you appreciate. Verbinski has always had a knack for displaying beautiful canvases and here there are some breathtaking spectacle shots that seem to excite the movie more than when some brutal touch is burning its way into your brain. There are some especially eye-popping stylistic flourishes that do feel a bit empty when seen but are still impressive. The music is also excellent, with Benjamin Wallfisch nightmare inducing score (especially the main theme) framing the events of the movie in an almost odd childish nightmare/fable type way, that does the film a lot of favors as it starts to trip over its own narrative ambition. A Cure For Wellness will probably play better to you if you care little for its plot and more for its look, and for the record, it is miles better than most other horror films that have come out in the past few months. If you have an interest, go see it, just don’t expect it to iron together in such a satisfying way. John Wick Chapter 2 is essentially the “Empire Strikes Back” of unstoppable badass movies. It’s a film that grows on the world of the first film, that over time will probably be regarded as a better overall work, but at the moment having come out in a time when the first one hit as big and worked as well as it did can’t help but feeling a little bit disappointing. It’s a great action movie, crazy from beginning to end in ways that you can’t even imagine, especially now that the ever expanding world is about to become just that, a world, but there’s a missing sense of freshness to the material. This is understandable. John Wick (three years ago apparently) hit so hard and so fast that it’d be hard to follow up that amount of propulsive action. They have, but there are still moments when the action becomes a bit much and the exposition starts to weigh on the sides of the film. John Wick Chapter 2 starts with John “making peace” with the final member of the Russian gang that he destroyed in the first movie. After this, he is confronted about a blood pact that he must uphold by Italian mob leader, Santino D'Antonio leading into another bloody, bullet-riddled ride. This time around we’ve got Rome, New York City “Most Dangerous Game,” and the making of an assassin’s mythic tragedy. All of that is well and good, in fact, most of it is great, but the extra narrative heft is a little bit sloppy, if not underutilized. The character actors here returning all slip comfortably back into the roles that put them back on people’s radars (Ian Mcshane is one heck of an actor, Laurence Fishburne contributes the best new part of John Wick’s world and Ruby Rose, well she’s just cool), but they’re serviced with more exposition heavy dialogue. This is where the movie starts to feel less effortless. If anything, the flaw of John Wick 2 is that it doesn't feel as effortless, and therefore the actual flow of the movie is unable to match the actual method and view of the character in battle. The film slows down for a long stretch where John must first refuse the blood pact and then complete it. These moments are all beautifully executed and designed and it pays off in a crazy death scene that all but gives into the fact that these movies know they’re schlock, but there’s some yearning for the pieces to fit together as well as the fight scenes do. John is a bit less capable now too, which does help equal out the way the flow of the movie is a little weaker. Effectively, Keanu (If you don’t know who I’m talking about then...why are you reading this) seems be having a lot more difficult time beating up the guys, which makes the action just as awesome, but also a bit strained. The added on weakness does make the fights more suspenseful, but it also makes them exhausting. Having seen John Wick, we’ve seen what John can do, and the added exhaustion does add to the aesthetic but is also tiresome. This does mean that three-fourths into the movie, though, one can be a bit burnt out on the action no matter the quality. All of it is pretty damn great, though, with the new elements of the world leading into a tragic and devastating ending that makes for something like a mythic storyline filled with fear, and revelation. John Wick is “The Boogeyman,” a literal myth, so the only way to dress him down and kick him out is to truly break him, and John Wick 2 feels like a dry run for just that. I won’t spoil the inner mechanics of the story, but to say the least, as the credits started to roll, there was a wave a sadness and fear running over me. If you’re a fan of the original, don’t expect John Wick Chapter 2 to feel quite as good as that one did when it first came out, but take it for what it is. A marvelously choreographed, gory action film, that deserves to be held up with Keanu Reeves best. This one, I hope will age like the aforementioned “Empire Strikes Back” where over time, it becomes the darker more complex middle sister to a trilogy of unstoppable badass movies. Here’s to John Wick Chapter 3. I give John Wick Chapter 2 an 8 out of 10. |
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorHello welcome to FilmAnalyst. My name is Stephen Tronicek, and I really like movies. This is a way to get my opinions out to people. Thank you for visiting. |