Change Your Image
ucgordon
Reviews
Nochnye strazhi (2016)
Usual Story Done Very Well
A very well done "Hero In Spite Of Himself" trope (OK, yes, it is hard to do any movie without a trope, or even several) dark comedy where a young loser package courier gets dragged into the Moscow underworld where mythical creatures live among humans and a government agency tries to keep them in line. Meanwhile a few try to bring on an apocalypse where they would end up ruling the Earth. During all this action he discovers (as usual) his until then unknown powers.
It has an appealing ensemble cast, great villains which are, for me, absolutely necessary (some cleverly resembling movie versions of Russian gangsters). It has a strong message about believing in yourself as well as the usual hokey "love will win out."
This is a fun move, even dubbed into English as I saw it.
I viaggiatori (2022)
You Can't Go Back Again
After his brother and his boss disappear, three teenagers are accidentally thrust back to Mussolini's 1939. They are the usual crew: the over emotional one, the clueless nerd, and the young woman who serves as the center and strength. And they meet another young woman who is a very tough anti-fascist.
Their adventures are the usual tropes done in a interesting way as the world in which they land seems dark and almost dystopian (at one point they end up looking like "Mad Max" escapees).
The cast is superb and appealing, with a couple of great villains (my most important criterion), and there are strong messages about family, love (including same sex), and fighting fascism.
The only negative is the irritating use of music at a couple of places.
Silent Night (2023)
Not Enough and Too Much John Woo
"Silent Night" is an attempt by John Woo to be poetic rather than his usual artistic action, and it fails.
A man whose son was killed by a stray bullet during a gang car chase battle runs after them and is shot in the neck, losing his voice, and setting up the conceit: there is no dialogue in the entire movie (OK, yes, a couple very low words spoken by his wife). He falls apart then is galvanized into revenge, the usual plot.
There is some artistic Woo action, and way too much flashback pushing his agony in your face.
I grant you that it is dark and grim, with a message about society letting things happen that should be tamped down, so the only way to solve it is to "Kill Them All." But that doesn't make a good movie.
It does have great villains, though, which is one of my key criteria.
The Killer (2023)
Extreme Corporate Flunky
A noir with narration by the main character, an assassin who appears to be tight and organized and unemotional.
He is full of trite inspirational sayings (and I will never be able to get an Amazon package or go into an Ace hardware store again without flashing back to this movie, as well as a nice dig to the dead WeWork).
He screws up a job and becomes a target of cleanup efforts, revealing that he has a lover at "home" who gets badly roughed up. The rest of the movie is him getting rid of those who did it as well as those who might still have him on their "naughty" list.
Tense, dark, sad, gripping, and a wonderful dig at the corporate world.
The Pale Blue Eye (2022)
Too Pale
Edgar Allen Poe, while a West Point cadet, assists a broken ex-constable (howling cliché should be your first clue) in solving several bizarre murders of cadets. An interesting idea (alternate history) with what should be a fascinating main character, so I was intrigued, which is a case study of letting the trailer grab you.
Sadly the result is overblown, overdone, ponderous, and too long, a good cast is wasted. This is a case study in not letting a director do the script. About the only thing that seemed real was the cold and winter snow, which the director (set director?) managed to get down pat.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022)
Not Sharp Enough
"Glass Onion" is another homage to Christie ("A Murder Is Announced"); Daniel Craig (maybe at the behest of the director?) overdoes his "Colombo" routine at the beginning, but otherwise does a terrific job; the rest of the cast are outstanding (Monáe is wonderful as two different people) - a lot of cameos from an incredible group (Natasha Lyonne, Angie Dickinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hugh Grant, Ethan Hawke, Stephen Sondheim, Serena Williams, Yo-Yo Ma - who is a natural), the set decoration and cinematography are first rate; the mystery is twisty and complicated and very well done; the ending is a bit overdone; the director has gone out of his way to make women look unattractive (Hudson's stomach, Hahn's face, Henwick's bulges at the armpit, etc.); nice cynicism about "spiritual" billionaires who can manipulate people and society through their whims.
Operation Napoleon (2023)
Overcoming Cliches
This is a solid thriller with a very appealing cast (including 3 very good villains, which for me means high marks); it needs subtitles because at least some of the dialogue is in Icelandic). The scenery in Iceland is terrific with excellent cinematography. The action moves along nicely.
The only problem, which requires the usual willing suspension of disbelief, is that it revolves around some of the hoariest thriller clichés, almost as if the director had some kind of checklist and he needed to mark them all off (and tells me that perhaps I have seen too many movies), although the ending makes me wonder if all of that was a deliberate homage to thrillers.
In any case, it is executed nicely, and is certainly worth watching.
The Flash (2023)
Failed In Every Universe
He goes back in time to try and save his mother and, of course, screws up space/time. The movie veers between farce and pathos so badly that it makes you seasick. It tries handwavium to "explain" the metaverse and space/time (this is even worse than Spider-Man and the metaverse). It has the usual painfully awkward Main Character (implies he is on the spectrum); somehow the movie industry thinks the world is full of over-aged teenagers with serious angst. It shoves music in your face (pitiful attempt to attract some age young age group). The only interesting characters are Keaton as retired Batman and Calle as Supergirl.
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
Too Much and Too Little
"John Wick Chapter 4: Baba Yaga" is pretentious, plodding, padded (at least an hour too long); the director seems to have thought that "even more" was "even better" after Chapter 3; I admit it is dark, cynical, stylish, grim, and sad - Wick causes death and destruction wherever he goes (robotically and almost unkillable, like a Terminator), even to allies and friends. It has solid performances that manage to rise above the sludge: Skarsgård is superb as the villain, Yen as the tired assassin, Anderson as the intense tracker, Sanada and Sawayama as the father and daughter caught up in Wick's fight.
Ghosted (2023)
Hits All The High Spots
A charming sort of action rom com of the variety "Innocent Gets Entangled With A Spy/Criminal/Assassin," a trope which Anna Kendrick seems to have a corner on - see "Mr. Right" which was more of a strange dark comedy, and "The Accountant" which was a considerably darker version and no comedy. It is also a very high powered vanity project, as the two big stars -- Ana de Armas and Chris Evans -- also are producers. Anyway, de Armas is superb as the spy/assassin kickass woman, Pine does a good job as the bewildered innocent, Adrien Brody makes a great villain (and there are some good sub-villains, including a guy who is in only one scene but steals it unmercifully), and a few of their Hollywood pals have tiny cameos, including Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, and Ryan Reynolds (his bit should have been cut). There is a wonderful series of hit men getting hit by other hit men and an inserted running joke that is worth the price of admission.
Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)
Too Much And Too Little
In "Jojo Rabbit" Taika Waititi (who wrote the screenplay and directed) takes an epic real horror story (WWII and the Holocaust) and narrows it down into a dark comedy about a boy and a girl leavened by episodes of fantasy farce (Hitler and Jojo) which are generally tightly controlled.
In "Thor: Love and Thunder" Taika Waititi (who did the story, co-wrote the screenplay, and directed) takes an epic fantasy story (Thor's quest for meaning and love in his efforts to save the universe), which he attempts to portray as a pure farce Viking saga (note the references to "Thor Odinsson" and the oral history narration done by Waititi) not tightly controlled and often not funny, leavened by episodes of pure darkness which are generally tightly controlled but often overdone and overlong (too much screaming and fighting), and mostly shot in real darkness (and part even in black and white) except for the first one in stark sunlight (pushing in our face how the darkness was created).
In the farce he throws in cameos by big stars (Russell Crowe, Chris Pratt, Matt Damon, Melissa McCarthy, and others even more briefly) as if saying "Hey, look, this is a real Hollywood trivia inside joke."
The primary actors (Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tessa Thompson, and Christian Bale) do solid jobs; Bale is superb as the believer driven by the death of his daughter and finding the uncaring nature of those he worshipped to kill all the gods, Hemsworth, Portman, and Thompson gleefully overact and "wink, wink, nod, nod," while Hemsworth and Portman do a great job of switching to darkness and sadness when required.
There are strong messages about friendship, love, and the meaning of life. But the result is unsatisfying because Waititi had too much control but didn't exercise it enough, unlike "Jojo Rabbit," where he had total control and managed it effectively.