Tag: movie review

MOVIE REVIEW: The faulty metaphor that plagues the family-friendly film ‘IF’

There are several structural problems that is plaguing John Krasinski’s latest writing and directing effort, the family friendly ‘IF,’ which kind of makes the film feel like a major misfire from the filmmaker behind the brilliant ‘A Quiet Place.’ While the latter film was so cohesive in terms of its metaphor and the family dynamics, ‘IF’ suffers from a lack of any real backstory that can ground the characters to a plot line that can make you feel like the story is getting somewhere. It doesn’t help that the aforementioned IFs – an acronym for Imaginary Friend – plays out like a metaphor that isn’t representing anything really clear.

‘IF’ is about a young girl, Bea (Cailey Fleming), who goes to live with her grandmother (the brilliant Fiona Shaw) while her father (John Krasinski) prepares for an undefined operation. Bea has already lost her mom to what looks like cancer, so she is guarded, reserved; putting up a brave front. But while living in her grandmother’s apartment (where she grew up as a kid), she begins to see imaginary friends, animated beings who have been abandoned by their kids when they grew up. Her new neighbor, Cal (Ryan Reynolds) can also see them and together, they try to find new kids for the imaginary friends to bond to so that they don’t “disappear” or go away.

With a cast that includes such big names like Ryan Reynolds and John Krasinski, plus the voice acting of people like Steve Carrell, Emily Blunt, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Sam Rockwell, and so many others; while wrapped up in the tender genre of a built-for-children family drama with lots of CGI characters, you’d think that this would be a sure-fire hit that would be impossible to not get right.

But there are a lot of holes that doesn’t quite get answered by this film that stops it from finding its stride. So, if the imaginary friends are all cut out from their kids because they grew up, how come those who are children now don’t seem to have any of their own? While Bea goes to visit her father at the hospital, she meets Benjamin (Alan Kim), who is recovering from an accident. He doesn’t have his own imaginary friends and becomes a potential new child to bond with the older IFs. But how come the current children don’t seem to have any?

And then, despite moving back to New York City, Bea can enter and leave her grandmother’s house without any fanfare. I’ve never been to New York, but I find it so distant from reality that a young girl could walk around the city streets – sometimes at night – without any adult situation in these scary, and dangerous times. Much more, with a stranger she just met that week. Sure, it’s Ryan Reynolds, but he’s a grown man who can also see IFs.

We don’t know much about Bea and her dad and her mom, though we understand by the implications of flashbacks and quick montages that the loss of the mom had a profound effect on her. It’s why Bea seems so mature and old at the start of the movie. She echoes Ryan Reynold’s Cal in the way he seems so bothered or frustrated by this whole IF business but the moment she is introduced into their world, she suddenly makes a 180 degree turn and does a full-on dance number (to a Tina Turner song) that includes all the abandoned IFs and to annoy Cal even more. It’s tiny shifts like these that create an inconsistency of character and plot that pervades throughout the film that does not allow it to land any of its emotional moments.

In fact, there’s an overuse of a lovely score by Michael Giacchino that relentlessly plays over everything, trying to underscore what should be emotional moments but they don’t quite get there.

Other than the inconsistency, the biggest issue is that the Imaginary Friends are supposed to serve as a metaphor for never losing your inner child – something that can be related to Bea’s father’s inability to take anything seriously – and while that makes for a good premise of a movie; the imaginary friends and their goal for finding new kids to connect with doesn’t quite figure into the overall theme the movie is trying to push. When the theme finally does come through, the whole story pivots but it doesn’t really play out the rewards and consequences of this realisation in any significant manner. There’s a lot of happiness and congratulating happening – as one would expect as the film serves as a family-friendly affair – but we don’t know why, and we don’t know what for.

At a hundred and four minutes, close to two hours, this movie never managed to find its stride and never really managed to pin down their characters or the world-building to a place that allows you to enjoy what is happening. For a filmmaker who managed to score a home run in his first outing with ‘A Quiet Place,’ I feel the marketing may have been too generous with its hyperboles when they were selling this movie. This isn’t the charming little family comedy it’s dressed up to be.

My Rating:

IF is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 19, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: A cynical hero’s journey, ‘Monkey Man’ is an impressive debut by Dev Patel as a director

There was a peculiar realization to watching the trailer of ‘Monkey Man’ on the big screen that made me a little nervous about watching the film. When I first saw the film’s trailer on social media, I watched it in the little screen of my phone and found the visuals absolutely stunning. The gritty images compounded by the dark color schemes that are suddenly punctuated by bright flashes of light or color; the hard-hitting action scenes that is amplified by the fast-cuts and stirring use of music: I was spellbound by what I saw and couldn’t wait for the release. But the moment I saw the same trailer on the big screen, something was diminished. The shots were so close to their subject, everything was in extreme close-up, the power that was emanating from my cellphone screen was gone in the big screen.

When I finally saw ‘Monkey Man’ in the big screen, it has a similar effect, but it creates a tension in the film that somehow adds to its magic.

Directed and co-written by Oscar nominated actor Dev Patel, ‘Monkey Man’ is the story of a man who is hell bent in taking revenge for the destruction of his home and the murder of his mother. Patel (with co-writers Paul Angunawela and John Collee) follow a sort of mold of revenge films that creates context through its relentless violence. On the top of my head, I can think of films like ‘Kill Bill Part One’ (as I’ve not seen Part Two), the first ‘John Wick,’ and just recently ‘Boy Kills World’ that represents this genre of moviemaking. The story starts with the Monkey Man, who earns a living fighting in an underground fight club wearing a monkey mask (hence the name), already making his moves to take down the corrupt chief of police, Rana Singh (Sikandar Kher), who beat his mother and set her on fire while his men torched his village.

The film takes its time to show us Monkey Man’s motivations, showing us just flashes of imagery triggered by sights and sounds that he experiences on his path of vengeance. He discovers that Rana (and his boss) frequents a high-end brothel called Kings. He makes his way to find work there and get inside so he can get closer and closer to his target. Along the way, his mission allows him to witness the harsh class disparity between the rich and the poor in the city of Yatana, and how the elite class has corrupted the city with their greed, drugs, corruption, and prostitution. Through his journey, he will see the growing popularity of a populist leader disguising himself as a spiritual guru rallying the people to his side while the marginalized groups are harassed and abused much like the farmers of Monkey Man’s home and another set of outcasts: a transgender community living in a temple.

The extreme close ups I was complaining about runs rampant through this film and it gives a sense of claustrophobia and an absence of scale and size, for a film that has such large themes adjunct to its main story. And that’s when I realized, as the film goes on, and Monkey Man’s purpose seems resolute and single-minded in its fury, that the film’s framing of this world is so tiny because the protagonist’s on view is so small. He can only see his revenge.

Patel wanted to create an action thriller with a lot more to offer, including his own culture, and he does in droves. He opens his film with a story of Hanuman, a deity who appears in the shape of a monkey. The imagery and his stories are interspersed into the narrative and Monkey Man takes on this mantle, but he does not envision himself as the hero that a film in this genre may set him up to be. It’s all there, really. But, no, Patel infuses Monkey Man with such a ferocious, singular desire and that’s for revenge. It’s why I feel the camera does not open up. It’s why the social commentary this film makes about the corruption and brokenness of Indian society – in the reality created by the film – never feels addressed or judged. It’s there. It’s present. It causes such suffering, but the film only merely follows Monkey Man.

It’s such a confident, purposeful directorial vision for the first-time director. There’s such a wonderful texture that he creates on screen with the juxtaposition of the worlds of the rich and poor – the neon, luxurious excess of the brother Kings and how it compares to the alleys and side streets that Monkey Man escapes too when it all gets too much. At one moment, you’re listening to dance music from the club and the next moment, you are watching a hard-hitting fight scene to heavy metal music. I’m not an expert in South Asian films or the Bollywood aesthetic but from the little I know; the indulgence of style is heavy in this film and I’m all for it.

It’s visceral experience that revels in its blood and gore with no real intent for redemption or grace or reason. ‘Monkey Man,’ as a movie, is a sort of cynical and jaded hero’s journey with no real catharsis waiting for you at the end. It’s a hell of a ride if you’re up to it.

My Rating:

Monkey Man is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 18, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: This isn’t just monkey business: a review of ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’

The latest set of films under the ‘Planet of the Apes’ franchise – ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes,’ ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes,’ and ‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ – was actually a very satisfying, grand epic that had its own pulse, heart, and soul. Lead by the very charismatic Andy Serkis (even in a motion capture performance) as Caesar, the franchise has a solid foundation and history to build upon a larger world that continues from this first trilogy. This is how director Wes Ball, with screenwriter Josh Friedman, manages to skillfully bring the franchise forward, working on the legacy that Caesar has built while introducing new characters and a new facet of this world.

In ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,’ the story is set “generations later” after the death of Caesar and the world has changed. Humans have gone feral and lost the capacity of speech, and different clans of apes now roam the planet. One clan of apes, the Eagle Clan, live secluded from the rest of the world in a hidden valley. Here, they tend and bond with eagles and live relatively peaceful lives until another ape, Proximus, and his kingdom of apes have come to capture more to expand and strengthen his kingdom.

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

We follow the story of Noa, a young chimpanzee, and son of the master of the birds. He and his friends are looking for eagle’s nest to take an egg to bond with, so they have an eagle of their own as they mature. It’s a ritual that members of their clan must undertake. The first twenty minutes of the film establishes this new world and the daily lives of the Eagle Clan. It’s wonderful world building, as Ball and Friedman do a fantastic job of making us recognize these characters and finding what makes them relatable.

(L-R): Noa (played by Owen Teague) and Koro (played by Neil Sandilands) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Noa (played by Owen Teague) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

But everything is torn upside down when Proximus’ people attack and burn everything down and Noa is left for dead, after he witnesses the death of his father during the assault. He must now explore the world outside his valley and discover the truth about the world. He will meet humans and other apes and discover the legacy of Caesar and a surprising discovery about the history of this world.

Noa (played by Owen Teague) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ is an excellent science fiction movie as it uses the conventions of the genre to truly iron out real world issues and problems. Interestingly enough, the world is now populated by different clans and species of apes, the new dominant life form, but the troubles that plague them now are not so dissimilar to the issues we face today. Compound upon this fact is that while humans have gone feral, there are other aspects to them that keep them as an integral part of the equation. This tension is only just beginning.

(Center): Freya Allan as Nova in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Ball and Friedman do not take a full-on action/adventure route though much of the film’s structure follows the classic hero’s journey. The film is at its best when it ruminates and explores the complexities of society and civilization and the morality of how the apes treat the humans. Noa because a wonderful foil to project our own questions and difficulties. It is one thing to be lawful and to be just, but it is also another thing to be righteous. They do not necessarily mean the same thing and in the ways by which Noa and Proximus collide and engage, these themes come jumping out into the fore.

(L-R): Noa (played by Owen Teague) , Freya Allan as Nova and Raka (played by Peter Macon) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2024 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The CGI effects and motion capture work is excellent as it really creates the illusion that these apes have taken over the planet. They have all the physicality of their species, but they also share and exhibit human mannerisms and behaviour. The voice acting of the cast – Owen Teague (Noa), Kevin Durand (Proximus), and Peter Macon (Raka, an orangutan, who is aware of the true legacy of Caesar) – really helps sell the story and add the depths needed that keep ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’ an engaging film that we can all enjoy and also learn from.

Proximus Caesar (played by Kevin Durand) in 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

A scene still from 20th Century Studios’ KINGDOM OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios. © 2023 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

The film boasts of an epic scope and scale, large themes about civilization and society, great big action pieces, and some wonderful acting through its motion capture and CGI technologies creating a grand science fiction spectacle that is just suited for the cinematic experience. There’s talk that this is the first of a new trilogy in the franchise. If this is the direction they are going, then I’m excited and eager to see what comes next.

My Rating:

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 9, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Relentless with its jump scares, ‘Tarot’ is more exhausting than scary

‘Tarot’ is the kind of old-school horror that foregoes character development, or even plot, and is only interested in setting up the frightening parts and the jump scares. It’s the kind of film where the characters have no real lives outside of this movie. They have no past except for those that are needed for this particular event and, sometimes, it only comes up when it’s needed to keep the story moving. Because the film is all about the shock and surprise factor, it is ridiculously fast-paced and relentless in its suspense that watching the whole 92-minute run time can be exhausting.

The film, directed and written by Spencer Cohen and Anna Halberg is about a group of friends who rent out an old mansion in the Catskills, in the middle of nowhere, to celebrate a birthday. When they run out of beer, they decide to search the house to see if it has any liquor left. One member finds a door with a “Keep Out” sign and decides to break it open to reveal a staircase leading down to the basement where old antiques re kept. They find a box with hand painted tarot cards and decide to have one of their friends who knows how to use it give them all a reading.

Of course, the tarot reader, Haley, begins by saying “It is bad luck to use someone else’s cards” but they push her anyway. The readings are descriptive and connected with each character’s astrology sign. It’s a long segment that can be very derivative and pedantic and seems like a callout to the trend of the younger set very steeped into the esoteric. I’m into astrology and tarot myself, at some point in my life, but even I found it annoying.

From the get-go, I already didn’t like these people. Sure, their friendship was quickly established – and what’s great is that they really felt like friends with some dynamic that was easily established – but the way by which they searched the house for liquor and the fact that they were all okay with breaking a locked down of the rented mansion and touched antiques to quell their boredom already told me that I was going to side with the monster in this movie.

Of course, the tarot cards are cursed and Haley’s readings for each of her friends start to come true. The figures in the tarot come to life and start to kill them one by one. The film actually reminds me of the classic horror franchise ‘Final Destination.’ The deaths have already been laid out in the tarot reading segment in the first act and all we have to do is watch them unfold.

Outside of the curse coming to get them, there’s nothing else really in this film for us to latch on to. They say they are students, but we never see them study or go to school. We never see them really interact with anybody (except two detectives who question them after the first death) so there’s no feeling that this is an actual place or people that can help us endear these characters to us.

Sure, Haley and Grant, her former boyfriend who she just broke up with before the film starts, has some tension but with the film focusing so much on the killing of people one by one, it hardly takes any time to develop these feelings or the tension.

The imagery is so dark and editing is so quick and fast-paced, it’s really meant to disorient you and to raise up the dread level and then surprise you with a jump scare. The whole film feels like it’s 80% that and 20% of the characters interacting with each other. Sure, there’s a moment where they talk about the history of the tarot cards but it’s all just lip service.

The film tries to make a statement about how we can sometimes leave our fates into the hands of external forces – faith, destiny, chance, or whatever – and that it tries to embolden us to fight it and make our own way. But it really doesn’t handle that message well. What happened to them, after all, was their fault for touching things they should not have and so it’s a hard lesson to sell when there’s no sympathy coming from my side. If you’re a fan of brainless horror with relentless jump scares, then this is your kind of movie.

My Rating:

Tarot is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

May 6, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: It’s Not Just a Fantasy: a review of ‘The Idea of You’

I’m surprised at how utterly relatable ‘The Idea of You’ was for me, and all the screaming gays and women in the cinema I was in when watching the Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine romantic drama/comedy about an older divorced mother of a teenager and her relationship with a 24-year-old pop star. I may not have children, but I do love my idol groups and as someone who has reached middle age and feeling the brunt of adulting in a very difficult and tedious world, the fantasy of getting swept off of my feet by a younger, handsome pop star is a fantasy I didn’t realise was a very real thing that was stirring inside.

And the direction by Michael Showalter and the screenplay by Showalter and Jennifer Westfeldt (based on the book by Robinne Lee) really plays into the fantasy of it. Everything within the set-up of this narrative to the way the element of the story plays out is all so fictional and so convenient for this sort of story. Hathaway plays Solene Marchand, who runs an art gallery in Silver Lake. She has a teenage daughter, Izzy (Ella Rubin) and her ex-husband has, of course, cheated on her with a younger workmate. Her ex-husband pays for VIP passes and a meet and greet with Izzy’s favorite band when she was in seventh grade, August Moon, in Coachella and gets Solene to take them there. At Coachella, she accidentally meets Hayes Campbell, a member of August Moon and he is smitten by her. Their love story begins.

Of course, Hayes loves art. The trust issues both have – Solene from her failed marriage while Hayes stems from his stardom and the pitfalls of money and fame – allows them to find some sort of peace and safety with each other. The fact that Solene had a baby at such a young age (it was mentioned that it was unplanned) meant that she never got to really experience the wild and crazy time that we are expected to have in our 20s. Hayes becomes an avenue for her to find out who she truly is as a person outside the choices that she made in her lost her youth.

Everything about the first hour and a half of this film plays so well to the fantasy of this dramatic situation. It’s passionate. It helps that both actors are so ridiculously good-looking and that they do an amazing job of really selling the love story. There’s this youthful longing that Galitzine dips into and throws at Hathaway and there’s a way that Hathaway takes this unbelievable character and makes her so real. It’s as if she understands and makes her character understand that this situation is crazy, and she still runs with it. She has a way to make each facial expression – whether she’s hurt or in the throes of joy or in a state of disbelief – seem so real and natural. Showalter also doesn’t hold back in making their relationship sexual and despite its frequency, it never feels gratuitous or obscene. It’s really rooted in Hayes’ youth and Solene’s desire to reclaim hers.

It’s the last half hour when the film pushes away from the fantasy to try and delve into the real-world issues that comes with the territory. It highlights the double standards that the world has on women dating younger men, and the ways by which the world and society boxes them into certain roles. Of course, there’s no way a global pop star can keep a relationship secret and it shows off how ugly it can all be.

And while the film manages to convey the hurt this “scandal” does to Solene but the film never tries to put judgement on all the delusional people on the internet who makes these sort of judgments to people they do not know, whose business they have no right to comment on or pass judgement. I know it’s not the film’s job to moralize against this, but I felt that it was in the right space to make some sort of statement about the public’s delusion that they have a right to say whatever they want on the lives of people they do not know – even if it’s a pop star who works in the public sphere.

The film feels young without trying too hard. It’s chock full of songs both new (to showcase August Moon with Nicholas Galitzine credited for singing all his parts) and some really nice, older songs like St Vincent and Fiona Apple. ‘The Idea of You’ is a wonderful little fantasy that comes alive on screen. It never really pretends to be serious or realistic, jumping certain narrative beats because it can, and because it does, it’s this lovely little escape that pulls down your guard so that it can explore some really important core issues before coming back and finishing it off in the tone and mood that it began with.

My Rating:

The Idea of You is now streaming on Prime Video, watch it here!

May 2, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Equal parts comedy, action film, and romance, ‘The Fall Guy’ offers everything and a lot more

With merely just the incredible chemistry of Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt, ‘The Fall Guy’ is already an enjoyable movie to watch. The dynamic between these two Hollywood superstars is simply cinematic gold. But what elevates the film even further is that the movie offers a crazy, wild ride of a story that is never quite focused on being fully an action film, fully a comedy, or fully a romance. All three of its genres are playing off and grabbing screentime that it becomes so fun to watch. It’s never just one thing and never tries to be. The film (and the filmmakers) are having so much fun making this crazy love letter to stunt men and the art of movie stunts that it gets infectious and transfers to the audience.

‘The Fall Guy’ is not afraid to be silly. And that is exactly where Ryan Gosling excels in. He (and director David Leitch) are aware of how good-looking he is and how powerful his charisma is but they are not beholden to it. The fact that Gosling is unafraid to make fun of himself and of looking silly adds a layer to the film’s tone that allows it to go absolutely bonkers.

L to R: Ryan Gosling, David Leitch and Logan Holladay on the set of THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

It’s the love story between Gosling’s Colt Seavers, a stunt man, who is dating a camera operator, Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt) when a stunt goes wrong, and he finds himself out of the industry for quite some time. He finally gets a call to get back to work for Jody’s directorial debut. Instead, he discovers that the lead star, Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) is missing, and he decides to try and find him to save Jody’s film from getting canceled.

Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

L to R: Emily Blunt (as Judy Moreno) and Director David Leitch on the set of THE FALL GUY

But what he finds leads him to a dangerous world involving drugs and murder and he must use his stunt and fight training to get out of trouble and stop it from spreading around to everyone in the set, most especially Jody.

Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

The way by which the film escalates the violence, and the action sequences is really unrealistic but because the film had opened it up already with so much silliness, it gets away with it and you sit back and accept it all and have fun. Director David Leitch has said that this movie is his love letter to stunts and so the escalation allows him to go crazy with all the practical stunts that he does in this movie (including a huge scene that closed off the streets of Sydney for days and also, what I found on the internet, a report saying that they broke a Guinness World Record for the most cannon rolls performed in a car.). It’s explosive, it’s hard-hitting, fast-paced, and exciting.

L to R: Director David Leitch and Ryan Gosling (as Colt Seavers) on the set of THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

L to R: Ryan Gosling, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ben Jenkin, Logan Holladay, Justin Eaton, and David Leitch on the set of THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch.

But it’s also a barrel of laughs and quite romantic, at some point. There are short montages and flashbacks that pepper that film when Colt recalls his relationship with Jody that is just inaudible, set to music, and Blunt and Gosling are just being sweet and funny to each other, and it looks so real. It’s just these short moments with no bigger context except two people falling in love and it works. It’s the kind of old-school cinematic magic that happens when you have two ridiculously good-looking and charming actors who manage to deliver incredible chemistry on set.

L to R: Emily Blunt is Judy Moreno and Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

So, while it’s hard to take the film seriously, and not that you should, there’s just so much to enjoy in this movie. The stunts get bigger and bigger. Narratively, it doesn’t make any sense but cinematically, you’re just screaming and cheering in enjoyment because it’s what good, mainstream fun in the cinema was meant to feel like.

Ryan Gosling is Colt Seavers in THE FALL GUY, directed by David Leitch

It’s not a perfect movie but it’s the perfect kind of film to bring a date or to watch with your friends and with all its movie references, unafraid to get silly and meta, and how genuine it is in its love for stunts and stunt performers, it really is a movie to watch in the cinema.

My Rating:

The Fall Guy is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 30, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Bloody and extremely violent, ‘Boy Kills World’ is a great showcase of Bill Skarsgard’s range and physicality

Set in an unnamed city surrounded by forests and with no recognizable culture or ethnicity, ‘Boy Kills World’ is a violent, action-packed (yet comedic) revenge story that comes off more like a video game at times. There is a commentary here about how authoritarian regimes breed the sort of violence that is at the heart of this story, but it gets muddled in all the graphic displays of it. There is a tender space in this narrative, but it can get overshadowed by all the blood and gore.

This city is ruled by the iron-first of the Van Der Koy dynasty. It’s matriarch, Hilda Van Der Koy (Famke Janssen), has put an annual event, a culling, where revolutionaries and “enemies of the state” are executed in public. Our protagonist, a child called Boy (Bill Skarsgard) manages to survive one culling where he lost both his mother and sister (and was rendered deaf and mute as well). He was taken in by a mysterious man called the Shaman (Yayan Ruhian), who trains him to be a weapon with the sole purpose of assasinating Hilda Van Der Koy. His internal world is narrated by a voice (H. Jon Benjamin) from an old arcade fighting game he used to play with his sister (Quinn Copeland).

Boy eventually gets his chance to take his revenge and sometimes guided, sometimes hindered by the hallucination of Nina, he enters in the lion’s den where he goes up against HIlda Van Der Koy, her army, and her family, played by Michelle Dockery, Brett Gelman, Sharlto Copley, and Jessica Rothe.

The film can be pretty straightforward. Boy trains and becomes a deadly human weapon and then, as he is older, he makes a go out of killing Hilda Van Der Koy. On the way, he meets up with the members of the resistance (Andrew Koji and Isaiah Mustafa) and manages to interact with the Van Der Koy family and we see a sort of deconstruction of what it probably feels like to be a part of despotic family.

‘Boy Kills World’ plays off like a video game. Everything is hyper-real. The acting is overt and pronounced. It’s not a place for subtlety (except for Skarsgard, which I’ll get to later). Everything is big and explosive. Everything is fast-paced, relentless, and merciless. There’s some fantastic fight choreography that never lets up. It’s hard-hitting and brutal. In fact, it is sometimes shaky and cut so fast that we sometimes don’t understand the sense of place and time. What we do see is when the punches land, when the knives cut, when the blood spurts out, and the bones break. There’s a lot of emphasis here on the brutality. At first it feels fun and thrilling and exciting. After the first hour, though, it feels senseless and overdone.

The commentary on this kind of revenge seems very one-sided but interesting to delve into. We are living in a world of despots and authoritarian regimes. They lord over the people with such power that they can kill indiscriminately, and it fosters the kind of rebellion that will want to pay back blood with blood. Boy, in his killing spree, is positioned as someone with a justification for his homicidal rage. HIs family was killed, and he was trained and almost brain-washed to be nothing but a killer. But as the film unfolds and the way he wreaks havoc upon the Van Der Koy’s and their army (there’s a vicious fight scene involving a cheese grater that is going to be unforgettable) starts to put into question how much joy are we to take from all this violence?

What keeps the film grounded is Bill Skarsgard fantastic performance. His physicality and his ability to embody the role of a human weapon is terrific. I believe him. And without a single bit of dialogue (his character is mute), he is able to portray a vast number of feelings that is narrated in a hilarious manner by H. Jon Benjamin. Benjamin’s lines were written with a sort of naivete since he’s the voice of Boy’s inner monologue. He never had a childhood, and he never grew up in a normal world. In a way, he is still a little boy who knows nothing but to kill and this is represented by his monologue. Skarsgard then translates this perfectly with his facial reactions and it completely humanizes. It’s an amazing work that is enjoyable to watch throughout this film.

While the fight scenes get more and more intense, especially those that involve the Shaman and Rothe’s character, strangely a woman called June 27 (and this is never explained). These two people and Boy have the best fight scenes and are saved up for last. It’s almost like a ballet except it’s brutal and deadly.While the film manages to find a tender heart by the end, it’s a lot of bloody, gory violence to get through. It never pretends to be anything deeper than a revenge film, though it does a pretty good 180 degree turn by its end that somehow softens the films hard edges but other than Bill Skarsgard’s portrayal of Boy.

My Rating:

Boy Kills World is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 27, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Disguised as a rom-com, ‘Elevator’ is a lovely little love letter to the hopes and dreams of migrant workers

While dressed up as a romantic comedy, ‘Elevator’ is actually a far more interesting movie than what it pretends to be. It has all the conventions of the genre: it has its meet-cute, the enemies-turned-to-love interest plot line, its ridiculously good-looking cast, and so much more; but the film hits harder as a love letter to migrant workers with hopes and dreams for making it big.

https://youtu.be/lOXbhWmqh-s?si=AdpxsduTIsm8LdR2

Director and writer Philip King manages to situate the majority of his film into the tiny world of elevator operator Jared (played by Paulo Avelino), who breaks protocol by trying to do a literal elevator pitch to all the VIP clients of the upscale hotel casino he works in. Jared has been working different jobs in different parts of the world and he’s come up with an app that would help migrant workers connect with potential employers. He has group of friends all working in the hotel and all from different countries and they are working together to help Jared score an investor.

What’s refreshing about ‘Elevator’ is that it presents a different side of overseas foreign workers. This isn’t a story of exploitation or desperation, which are important narratives, but we already have films like ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye,’ ‘Sunday Beauty Queens,’ and ‘Imbisibol’ to tell those stories. On the flip side, there are Filipinos with skill sets and potential, and they have hopes and dreams of making it big. It’s an aspirational story that showcases the hard work and street smarts (or as we call it: diskarte) that our countrymen have to employ to achieve their dreams. These dreams are personal and singular, which is a refreshing change from the usual narratives. It continues the trend started by films like ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye’ and ‘Never Not Love You,’ which explore the idea of going abroad and making money for oneself. It’s nice to see a movie that realizes what this dream would look like.

When Jared actually makes a connection with a rich businessman, Byron (Adrian Pang), he ends up having to work closely with Byron’s executive assistant Bettina (Kylie Versoza), who is also Filipino and is not easily swayed by Jared’s charm and passion. What starts off as a prickly relationship turns into something more friendly, warmer as Jared wins Bettina over and the two start to understand each other more. But things are complicated – Bettina is not single, and Jared is still trying to get Byron and Bettina to invest in his company – and the challenge helps form the foundation of the rom-com.

What makes this movie work is that Philip King is serious about his app. The conversations about the development of the business plan sounds legit (even if I know nothing about business or apps) but it helps create a believable world for these two characters to come together and fall in love. And in the discussion of the app, we see Jared as a good person who is passionate about all this. Coupled together with Paulo Avelino’s charm and conviction, it makes sense that Kylie Versoza’s Bettina would be swayed. This is Paulo Avelino’s best work in a long time; not bogged down by his superstar persona. He conjures up an everyman quality and it softens him and makes his Jared instantly likable. I have not seen this quality in him in a long time and it’s great to see it again.

Image Source: Viva Films FB

This is my fist time to see Kylie Versoza on screen and she’s so magnetic. I like her instantly and she infuses Bettina with intelligence and maturity. I feel, though, that there are times when she comes off as too stoic or cold because her make up can be so strong and she’s dressed up too much like a girl boss that it is hard for Versoza to play for Bettina’s softer, vulnerable side. She’s so gorgeous, with such strong, hard features that, with the styling that was put upon her, it was difficult for her to show off Bettina’s soul. She’s excellent when she’s playing it tough and cool, but she is fighting against the look that her character must reveal the other facets of her. There are moments when it happens, and it’s wonderful, but it’s something that she has get through.

The rest of the cast is incredible, though. Chai Fonacier, as one of Jared’s friends at the hotel is always enjoyable to see and she gives the film and warm heart and a sense of home for the film as much as his other friends (Shrey Bhargava, Shaun Lim Shi Yang, Shahid Nasheer, Rishi Vadrevu) give that sense of camaraderie that keeps the film from getting too small. Everyone is such a natural talent that it makes the friendship feel real. Adrian Pang, as Byron, is also excellent as he creates the necessary tension for Jared and Bettina.

What’s enjoyable about this film is its representation of a different set of Filipinos and writer and director Philip King never treats his film like some travelogue for Singapore. At the beginning, most of the scenes are trapped within the confines of Jared’s elevator. As his relationship with Bettina opens up, we see them in various parts of the hotel or in the city, but it never feels like a tourist video. It treats Singapore as a matter of fact, without highlighting it or its tourist spots, it situates Jared and Bettina as people of the world. It makes them fit in. And what a wonderful sight that is to see Filipinos fitting in wherever they go. What a wonderful way to represent us – as people of the world.

King also does some very interesting things, directorially. Like when he first introduces us to Bettina, he takes a male gaze shot of her. Versoza, dressed in a revealing outfit with a plunging neckline, is our first look at the character. Later, as one of Jared’s friends is keeping tabs of her whereabouts in the gym, he is looking at her from toe to head, emphasizing how good her body is. I thought that this sexualization of her was going to be rampant in the film. Interestingly enough, the moment Jared realizes she’s not a bad person (and thankfully, it’s early in the film) the camera stops objectifying her and puts her face as the focus rather than her body. The male gaze was only there when the characters objectified and then it stopped when they realized it was wrong.

While I’m a little bothered by the verbosity of the narration and the neat little way that the film forms its conclusion, but I was enjoying every bit of this film. It was charming and it was pleasant, and it was surprising me at every turn. I kept thinking it was going to be another predictable rom-com and instead I got a smart movie about Filipinos (and other migrant workers) working hard and trying to make it outside of their homes. Surprisingly, the love story is not the central theme to the piece but the bigger world of what the two characters learn about themselves and about their own value is what makes this movie so special. This was a very pleasant surprise for me.

My Rating:

Elevator is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 26, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Unpredictable and explosive, ‘Challengers’ is an irreverent love story like no other

You don’t need to know anything about the game tennis to enjoy the crazy ride that is ‘Challengers.’ This is not so much as a sports movie as it is a movie about three very passionate athletes whose complicated, intertwined relationships comes crashing into each other in the midst of a very integral challenger tennis match. I know nothing about tennis, and I didn’t need to. It’s merely the backdrop, and in some cases the filmmaking inspiration, for this sordid love triangle. Director Luca Guadagnino (with screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes) serves up some crazy, sensual character dynamics that turns love and friendship into a competition of a different kind.

What Guadagnino manages to do, as well, is to take the fast-paced, hard-hitting energy of the sport and suffused it into his craft. The film is in constant back-and-forth. The characters are constantly pushing each other, testing each other, goading each other. The camera work and the editing take on this approach as well. The narrative is constantly jumping from present day to the past, the flashbacks serving up the context to make the present-day competition even more tension-filled and ready to explode.

‘Challengers’ is about two friends, Patrick and Art (played by Josh O’ Connor and Mike Faist, respectively), who are both tennis players and have fallen for Zendaya’s Tashi Duncan, an emerging tennis superstar. At a tournament in their youth the three get close and a relationship is formed but things get complicated. When Tashi suffers a career-ending injury, she ends up with one of the friends and becomes his coach while the other is waiting on the wings, waiting for his turn to get into the spotlight.

C_05746_R2 Mike Faist stars as Art and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS An Amazon MGM Studios film Photo credit: Niko Tavernise © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

What makes ‘Challengers’ so enjoyable is how the love story of all three characters – because the friendship of Patrick and Art can get just as deep and just as messy as Tashi’s relationship with both men – are handled without any reverence to the concept of romance. Tashi is a cold, hard woman who has a clear-cut definition of what she wants out of life and out of her partner. Both men are constantly trying to win her over but are no match for Tashi’s strength. Instead, they take it out on each other and despite all her strength, Tashi can’t seem to shake off both of them from her orbit.

The trio are sizzling with such chemistry that any of their interactions with each other are just explosive and Guadagnino knows how to capture it on film. He sees them as fully fleshed-out characters and is quick to capture all their little nuances and facial tics as each one is pushing against the other – taunting, teasing, pleading, flirting – but Guadagnino also understands that they are sexual beings as well. There’s a lot of skin here, bodies covered in sweat and glistening under the sun. Desire is the film’s fulcrum, but the characters are not the best at articulating what it is they really want or need and so there is friction and that’s the fuel that drives the movie to its highs and lows.

(L to R) Mike Faist as Art, Zendaya as Tashi and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in CHALLENGERS, directed by Luca Guadagnino, a Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures film. Credit: Metro Goldwyn Mayer Pictures © 2023 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

It’s a love story but Guadagnino doesn’t film it like a romance story. It’s set in the world of tennis but it’s not a sports movie either. It’s sexy but it’s never gratuitous or obscene. ‘Challengers’ is a crazy, high-octane study on the complex relationship of three athletes who seem to be conflating their careers, their love, and their own lost dreams and hopes into this one match. Propelled forward by the relentless soundtrack of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, ‘Challengers’ is fun, irreverent, and completely bonkers because it’s a love story where everything is at stake, and no one seems to know how to love properly.

C_00654_R Zendaya stars as Tashi and Josh O’Connor as Patrick in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS An Amazon MGM Studios film Photo credit: Niko Tavernise © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Zendaya, O’ Connor, and Faist are so charismatic and magnetic that you cannot help but get involved in the crazy antics of the three leads as struggle to make sense out of what it is they are feeling for each other and of their own selves. These are mature and intelligent performances that is so fun to watch because they are so committed to the craziness of this story.

C_05803_R Mike Faist stars as Art and Zendaya as Tashi in director Luca Guadagnino’s CHALLENGERS An Amazon MGM Studios film Photo credit: Niko Tavernise © 2024 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. All Rights Reserved.

‘Challengers’ is so refreshing and unpredictable. It’s not cookie-cutter in any way and I hope that this is the trend for commercial films moving forward. It’s hard-hitting, smart, and risqué. It never feels safe and it’s just so enjoyable watching a movie that makes you laugh out loud and catches you off guard.

My Rating:

Challengers is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 24, 2024
MOVIE REVIEW: Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ is bombastic, all style and nothing more

While the movie states that the story is based on true events – taken off from the pages of Winston Churchill’s now-declassified papers and turned into a book by Damien Lewis called ‘Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII’ – Guy Ritchie’s ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ must be a heavily fictionalized retelling of these people’s endeavours (a quick search on the Internet reveals that these characters really did exist). Project Postmaster actually did exist, and it involved the secret taskforce that then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent to the Spanish-controlled island of Fernando Po in South Africa to sink a tanker that supplied the Nazi U-Boats that kept the Americans from making it to Europe during World War II. Director and co-writer Guy Ritchie (alongside Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, and Arash Amel) keeps the story and characterizations thin, and leaves the film as merely the plot points of how the mission may have transpired and did some embellishments to really amplify the violence and action.

Ritchie has a definitive style-over-substance approach to filmmaking, preferring filmmaking techniques that amp up the energy of his films and ensures that things look cool. As stylistic and spectacle-driven his version of ‘Sherlock Holmes’ was or his ‘King Arthur: Legend of the Sword,’ I’ve always found his approach to story as very thin and lightweight. Even his films that I do like ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E.’ and ‘Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels,’ were cool and fun but there’s nothing about both films that I remember very much of and that sticks.

It’s on this level that ‘The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare’ operates it. It’s a film with a lot of action, a lot of blood and gore and violence. It’s got big explosions and a whole lot of gun fire. But the film just goes through the motions of the mission. The team, led by Gus March-Phillipps (played by Henry Cavill), must rescue one of their ranks (Geoffrey Appleyard played by Alex Pettyfer) before heading to Fernando Po to sink the Nazi tanker. While they are on their rescue mission, two double agents (played by Eiza Gonzales and Babs Olusanmokun) must ensure the intelligence they received in Fernando Po is legitimate.

There’s no inner motivation here except that many of the team have a score to settle with the Nazis. There are no real personal goals. It’s all plot, no character development. The film, then, takes us through the mission – the things that go right and the things that go wrong – and tries to wow us with all the brutal fight sequences that have no real consequence for the audience because we have no real invested to the characters.

Sure, Cavill, Pettyfer, Gonzales, and Olusanmokun and the rest of the team that includes Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding, and Hero Fiennes Tiffin are all gorgeous and charming but if their characters are archetypes without anything personal attached to them as characters, it’s hard to create any sort of attachment that makes us want to root for them (aside from the fact that they want to kill Nazis).

And that’s where I find the film a little difficult to jump along with. Sure, there’s a lot of action since it is an action film but it’s the joy the film gets in all the wanton killing of Nazis. Since the characters don’t have arcs, the film’s only theme is to fight evil with evil. Sure, I’m against battling all forms of fascism and racism and imperialism at every turn but the film sort of takes joy in the killing of the Nazis. It reduces the enemy into a cartoon and thus makes them unreal.

And we are living in a world now where fascism has risen again in some form or another. I’m worried that the film telegraphs that the best way to deal with these fascists is to destroy them in a similar manner as well. Historically, Project Postmaster turned the tides of World War II to the Allies side (that’s not a spoiler unless you know nothing of World History) but its timing in this day and age, without the benefit of nuance can create an unsettling message.

By the end of the film, the characters are who they were when the film began. Without a character arc to hold on to, the fight scenes are explosive but hold no suspense or tension or danger. It’s pretty to look at but it carries no surprises or says nothing new to what we already know.

My Rating:

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

April 22, 2024