Life: Directed by Daniel Espinosa, Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Ryan Reynolds, and Rebecca Ferguson3/27/2017 Putting extended thought into the film Life (besides being somewhat perfunctory) presents a type of repetition in thought. The words that keep coming up are, “This wouldn’t have worked if ______.” This can almost be applied to the whole movie. The reading of “Goodnight Moon” wouldn’t have worked if it wasn’t Jake Gyllenhaal, the film wouldn’t strike so true if the cast wasn’t so chock full of popular actors, that monster wouldn’t have worked if it wasn't alien enough to be feared but familiar enough to be feared even more. The best thing of all is that it entails that Life as a $58 million B-movie actually works for most of its running time. Life is about a group of astronauts (played by an abnormally great cast of Jake Gyllenhaal, Rebecca Ferguson, Ryan Reynolds, Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dihovichnaya, and Ariyon Bakare) up on the International Space Station who at the start of the film catch a satellite, that is traveling back to Earth, that holds the first evidence of sentient life outside of our planet. The creature, starting off as a single cell and then turning into something else (that’s all I’m going to say about that) soon becomes hostile and starts to attack the astronauts, each of them dying in more brutal and creative ways. This is a familiar setup but divorced from the unoriginality of the premise that it has, Life has a lot to offer. The cast is nuanced and diverse, the screenplay is fine if a bit quippy (we are dealing with the Deadpool scribes here) and director Daniel Espinosa and acclaimed cinematographer Seamus McGarvey seem to be snug and comfortable in their roles of playing gorehounds for a day as they throw these astronauts into just about as much trouble as they possibly can be in. The one thing that actually has any chance of being original, the kills are all handled creatively with all of them presenting something that feels either new in design or execution. Take these four words for example: DROWNING IN OPEN SPACE. Can’t say anything else, but if that intrigues you, then this movie is probably right up your alley. For all the artsy and wonderful films out there to see, sometimes just a simple premise pulled off well can be enough. Life is that type of movie. If you think you can sit back and watch a well-orchestrated horror space movie, then see this. If you need a bit more, I recommend you give this a shot. There’s so much stuff in theaters that is devoid of real creativity. Life has so life in it. Life gets an 8 out of 10. Written by Stephen Tronicek
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A good way to describe Beauty and the Beast is that it has a pitch perfect cast, it is based off of beloved material...and then somebody hired Bill Condon to direct it. Now, for a moment, I have a great amount of respect for Bill Condon: he’s a fine director , he’s made at least one GREAT movie (I haven’t seen Gods and Monsters), and he should absolutely make those movies. Beauty and the Beast, however, is defined by the fact it can never come alive like any of the other versions, including last year’s weirdly detached French version. Much of the problem comes down to simple direction, though I’m sure the poorly paced screenplay adding some useless padding didn’t help. This is a limply created movie, with almost no gravitas at all, trying to ape the aesthetic of the 1991 version of this same movie and the most recent Cinderella movie. It can’t though and much of it comes down to composition and framing. All the other versions of Beauty and the Beast built the odd romantic relationship out of the mysterious or wondrous camerawork that Jean Cocteau or the many talented animators that worked to craft the animated one were always the best at employing. This version just settles for cutting that is almost lifeless, despite the fact that the cast and material still hold up remarkably well. The best moments of the film come from the cast throwing all the energy they have up on screen: Emma Watson as Belle, the best choice of the movie. Dan Stevens, yeah, nobody could act through all that CGI beast (seriously, the 40s version of this movie has a better looking and more charismatic Beast), but damn it if Stevens doesn’t go all in on the whole thing. Same thing goes for the CGI characters, which do actually look REALLY expressive in motion but overall just uninteresting, with the only two becoming something of a presence being Ewan McGregor as Lumiere and Ian McKellen as Cogsworth. Luke Evans as Gaston does some great work, for the first hour, but then the character is fumbled. Josh Gad as Lefou...you know what maybe that was the best choice of the movie. This is a cast for the ages, with everyone acting and singing and dancing their butts off, but just like Les Miserables, where everyone was doing the same (including Russell Crowe, go away detractors), the overall direction has muted the entire thing. The first minutes aren’t so bad, but things start to become dreadfully depressing when “Be Our Guest” slowly gets worse as it goes along, trying to be something large and wonderful, but just feeling...well for lack of professionalism, “blah.” A lot of the big moments feel like that. The wolves chasing Belle in the woods, the opening number, the death of Gaston, and the headlining dance to the entire thing (sorry Emma Thompson that you had to follow up Angela Lansbury, nobody was ever going to top her) all feel cold and empty, rather than warm and epic. Even the one song that the movie comes alive during, “Gaston” is fumbled by cutting that never seems to be with the beat of the music and never lets us see all the choreography. That’s not nitpicking, that’s just calling attention to a systemic problem for the film in that all of the fun song and dance stuff here is marred by editing that doesn’t let it be fun. Beauty and the Beast is not an exciting movie. It’s a poorly paced, well designed, well acted but empty version of an exciting movie. If you absolutely have to see it, enjoy the cast, enjoy some of the visuals, and enjoy what you can while trying to think of the 1991 version. It’s not an all around horrible piece of work, but it sure is a step down for Disney’s live action projects. I give Beauty and the Beast a 5.5 out of 10. Now that’s a blockbuster! Hollywood these days doesn’t make enough good movies about hot women and giant monsters. Oh sure, they make them. The Transformers films are all parts of this but whereas they created dumb, loud, insufferable giant monsters, and even dumber hot women, Kong opts to just make all the right decisions. A mere perusal of the first sentences in many reviews for this film offer the word “dumb” up as the best descriptor, but it’s selling the movie short. The direction and acting here are far from dumb. In fact, both are smartly executed. This isn’t an ironically good movie, just a good one and after last March gave us Batman v Superman it’s a blast to get something as filmically proficient as Kong: Skull Island. On the legs of its director and actors, Kong is able to run oh so far. The plot is almost nonexistent but the actors are so great that the flimsy structure of the film almost makes the entire thing feel spontaneous. Everything exists to create a groovy, 70’s infused (and therefore actually quite sexy), action movie that just happens to have a bunch of monsters, and Tom Hiddleston swinging around a freaking samurai sword. This leaves the director and the actors to make the best movie with a bunch of monsters and Tom Hiddleston swinging around a freaking samurai sword that they could have and they didn’t waste the opportunity. This is rip-roaring, scary, and thoughtfully crafted action movie, that’s in the spirit of the mind-blowing third act of 10 Cloverfield Lane. Especially, that badass helicopter smash that happens near the beginning of the film. If I’m not writing in a professional way here it’s simply because I can’t believe how thrilling so much of this damn movie is. That is kind of the bottom line too. Kong transcends as a visual experience with perfectly placed archetypical characters, that has some of the best giant monster fights that we’ll ever see up on screen. The archetypes have life too. Brie Larson as a photographer creates so many moments of levity. Her quiet moments with the natives of the island make for a delightful confection in the middle of this blast of a movie. Everything down to the pitch perfect color grading seems to be at beautiful service to the spectacle and that spectacle is well directed so therefore this is a great movie. Besides the common fact that the second act of these types of movies tend to extend to the point that they just become the third act, what has been built here is airtight or at least so unbelievably badass that it almost doesn’t matter. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts is such a master over the whole 70’s era look and the action that comes with the monsters that...well, it’s almost exasperating. Kong: Skull Island is that rare beast (no pun intended) that is just so ungodly fun that I’m left dumbfounded and almost unable to explain the reason it is. The script is thin, but you never feel it because the world feels so real. It’s a film experience. An action movie experience. It’s not perfect, but it’s just intoxicating. Kong: Skull Island gets an 8 out of 10. This is a short film that me and my brother made and we will keep making them. Please subscribe! Kong Review Soon! James Mangold has the odd capacity to take films that are based in generic and comfortable genres and lifting them to a level where they almost mystically feel new. Walk the Line isn’t the most original, but Mangold and his actors squeezed an inspired and wonderfully romantic movie out of the skeleton of a typical script. The same thing is found in 3:10 to Yuma, a literal remake that felt like a shot in the arm for the Western genre and contains the second best performances of this century for both Christian Bale (his crowning American Psycho being the first) and Russell Crowe (The Nice Guys #1). Mangold even made something out of The Wolverine, which script wise is bad, but direction wise feels solid enough to hold together it’s rampant tonal shifts. Logan, Mangold’s second foray into the Wolverine character is the best movie out of all of those, a violent, exploitative adventure into the dark-side of the mutants, all spiced up with Mangold’s trademark style. The comparisons to The Last of Us and other Westerns in the the discussion of the film are sound, but as usual Mangold sure doesn’t let it get predictable or anything in between. Logan is a full blooded world of a movie. “Full blooded world” isn’t something that you typically hear to describe a film but it is the perfect description to use here. The one thing that has been missing from years of entertaining but not euphoric X-Men movies is a sense of reality other than the comic like one of the comics and, while that works well with adaptation, there wasn’t much moving the characters into something that resembled a world that we as an audience could believe. The same is with the Marvel movies. As spectacular as all these get, there’s a lack of unabashed reality. Those films are amazing fantasies. The DCEU are horrible fantasies. Logan is a fantastic reality. The obvious difference between Logan and it’s contemporaries would be the fact that comes brandishing an “R” rating, which actually makes a huge difference. Explicit content in a film, when used correctly can make the world of that film ever more tangible. The cutting of Wolverine’s action in the previous X-Men films made for a disconnect with the audience as we watched each director who took charge try and make the bloodless claws work. They did, for the most part due to creativity, but there was always a lacking sense to the character because he never truly was going to be fully realized, despite Jackman being always damn amazing as the titular character (he’s the best he ever was in Logan). In Logan, that is not the case. From minute one the atmosphere of the mutantless society that Logan, Professor X, Caliban, and a mysterious girl named Laura end up in is solidified in a blaze of bloody glory and as when the claws come out, so do the guts. Worldbuilding violence aside, this is a movie about Wolverine running with the Professor and Laura from some very powerful members of Logan’s past, and if you know what’s coming, the violence and action on the way shouldn’t surprise you. Logan has the best action of any recent superhero film. It makes easy work out of the action letting everything linger long enough to register as brutal and brazen but being fast enough to let you feel it. This is controlled chaos ever so ready to explode, and when it does (which is thankfully multiple times) Mangold seems to let everything let loose. There’s a second act battle with a particularly familiar and powerful figure that just kills it in the action department and then goes ahead and kills it (no pun intended) in the gore department too. Jackman, is always effortlessly this character, but here him having played it for 17 years does a lot for the character up on screen. Jackman is Logan, and it’s hard to believe anyone will find themselves topping his firm grasp of character. Patrick Stewart is put in much the same position. Stewart, a great stage actor, has for years brought his bravado to Charles Xavier, and Logan stretches him more than the other films ever did. It’s a difficult new performance but Stewart almost seems to strut in and show everyone how it’s done. The kindness of his character has persisted on for a long time and is present in Logan. Laura, played by Dafne Keen doesn’t speak for most of the movie and still creates a dynamic with the two older mutants. When she is finally able to speak, her actions compared to her voice and stature become an instantly funny, surprisingly fulfilling reveal. There’s more to Laura than meets the eye and she’s probably the most badass little kid put to screen. Yet, in all this effort seems somewhat misguided. James Mangold has taken a genre that we love (Fury Road and The Last of Us being evidence) and made something exceptional with it. He’s one of the greatest living action directors we have and one the greatest dramatists and Logan is his crown jewel so far. See it before you can’t. I give Logan a 9.5 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. |