Tag: Movie Reviews

MOVIE REVIEW: As fun as it is, ‘The Marvels’ shows MCU’s inability to tell a compelling story of a powerful woman

I have a feeling that the Marvel Cinematic Universe does not know how to write a story for a powerful woman character like Captain Marvel. In her first movie, the box office hit ‘Captain Marvel,’ I felt that the film was too keen on showing off Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers (played by Brie Larson) power level and displaying her competence and strength that it did not give her much of a character arc to explore, which made me feel very detached from her story. She was powerful from the beginning and the film unfolded to reveal her hidden past and the lies that were told to her to keep her in check. There was no real internal struggle for her character to overcome. She finally just let her power go and was able to direct it at the right opponent. It’s wonderful to see a woman character so powerful but, cinematically, I do want to see a character’s growth. There was none needed for Captain Marvel. She was already there with very little to grow into a better version of herself.

In ‘The Marvels,’ they team her up with two other superpowered women: Monica Rambeau (played by Teyonah Parris), who was introduced to us through the Disney+ show ‘WandaVision’ and then Kamala Khan (played by Iman Vellani), who we first met in her own Disney+ series ‘Ms. Marvel.’ There’s hope that with this interaction of two other women, we could explore other facets of Captain Marvel’s personality, but they don’t do that. What we get instead is a pretty big movie that is filled with a lot of plot and hardly any real attention or focus on the emotional core of the film.

Iman Vellani as Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.

In ‘The Marvels,’ the three lead characters are suddenly linked by their powers when the new Kree leader, Dar-Benn (played by Zawe Ashton) links her bangle (the set that would complete the bangle worn by Kamala Khan when she’s Ms. Marvel) with her cosmic hammer. Every time any of the three women uses their powers, they switch locations in space. This forces the three to band together to investigate what is happening and to find out what Dar-Benn is planning.

(Center, L-R): Zawe Ashton as Dar-Benn and Daniel Ings as Ty-Rone in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.

There’s a lot of areas here for interesting character work to build a story. Carol Danvers and Monica Rambeau have a history together but, as the film’s first act shows us, there’s tension here. The two haven’t spoken despite the fact that Carol was best friends with Monica’s mother. At the same time, Kamala Khan practically hero worships Carol. She’s based her costume and her name on Captain Marvel. This sort of dynamic is rife for a really interesting character dynamics.

Teyonah Parris as Captain Monica Rambeau in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2023 MARVEL.

But they don’t capitalize on it. Sure, they let Kamala mine her idol-worship of Captain Marvel for all its comedy gold. Iman Vellani sells this perfectly and she really captures the fangirl experience with great precision. She ends up providing the movie with its charm and its heart and its warmth because as they discover Dar-Benn’s sinister plans, things get real and Kamala has to witness her idol make tough choices while she has to make tough choices as well, it’s a great space for Vellani to show off her range. It really helps push Kamala Khan into the spotlight.

But she’s a young girl, still trying to prove herself in the superhero industry. There’s still so much for her to grow. She’s powerful. She’s fully realised but there’s still room for growth.

On the other hand, Captain Marvel feels completely underdeveloped in her own movie. She talks about having been lonely and her own relationship with the Kree is held back until much later in the film that we don’t even realise that it was a driving force for her in such a grounded and essential way. The Kree hate her, they call her “The Annihilator” but we don’t know why until much later and when it does, it feels like such a wasted opportunity because it’s a place where we can build Captain Marvel’s character from somewhere dark to something better. But we don’t see it. Instead, we see her show off her powers, which is great. A powerful woman. And then there’s the friction between her and Monica, but that’s solved in two scenes via a dialogue. We never get to really explore those emotions, we never see the ramifications of that tension to the relationship in a concrete and tangible way.

Brie Larson as Captain Marvel/Carol Danvers in Marvel Studios’ THE MARVELS. Photo by Laura Radford. © 2023 MARVEL.

It’s not the story of ‘The Marvels.’

Instead, ‘The Marvels’ is more centered on the three heroines battle against Dar-Benn, as she tries to ravage other planets using the power of the bangle to revive her own dying planet. There’s a lot of fake science past around and a lot of explanation to what it is that Dar-Benn is actually planning (and this is important later on). So, the film gives more attention to the plot (where Dar-Benn is, what is she doing, how is she doing it) then it is in working out Captain Marvel’s own character arc.

What this structure gives us, though, is some pretty fun sequences. It has two great action sequences with the character switching when the powers are used. One where it is absolute chaos and a second one where the girls have figured it out. They figured out because they train with it and this a great scene as well. It’s when the film stays light and fun that it actually flies and finds it footing.

In fact, director and co-writer Nia DaCosta goes out on a limb and provides two more sequences in the film that is absolutely crazy, irreverent, and silly that it feels wrong that it’s in a movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yet I am so happy that these scenes are in the MCU. One scene involves the Flerken, and another scene involves the planet of Aladna, where the citizens of the planet can only communicate by singing. These two sequences are so out-of-the-box and unexpected that it really pushes ‘The Marvels’ to somewhere different and I wish the whole movie could have been this irreverent.

Instead, it is held back by its plot because, what you will discover by the end of the film, is that this movie is a set up for a larger piece of the MCU that’s coming. The MCU’s supposed fourth or fifth phase (I’m not even sure where we are at this point) has been floundering narratively over the larger scheme of things but ‘The Marvels’ seems like it was written to connect this to the larger MCU plan.

And this is what makes it disappointing. Due to the importance and significance of what Dar-Benn is doing for the MCU as a whole, a lot of the 105-minute running time was given to detail the plot instead of working at making Captain Marvel’s character deeper, richer, and more profound. Her strongest emotional moments – her connection with Monica Rambeau and her connection with the Kree – was left as a passing dialogue without any real ramification of who she is as person. We don’t get to see specific scenes that show this off and thus leaves her character feeling undeveloped. She still feels like the same character that we saw at the start of the movie.Why doesn’t the MCU know how to effectively showcase a powerful woman and give her more to do emotionally? The last time they did this was with Wanda but they turned her evil in the process. Lucky for us, Ms. Marvel was there. Vellani’s charm and warmth was able to ground the show and give us someone to follow emotionally through this story. You know something’s up when the audience was reacting mostly to her and the three cameos that showed up in the film and not with Captain Marvel. It’s her movie. I wish the film gave her the center stage.

My Rating:

The Marvels is now showing. Check screening times here.

November 10, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: More Comedy than Rom-com, ‘Love Reset’ is full of great laughs

It takes ‘Love Reset’ a full half-hour before it’s premise sinks in. Director and screenwriter Nam Dae-jung (with co-writing credit to Bang Gicheol) spend the first 30 minutes of the film to present us with a hilarious set-up. Kang Ha Neul and Jung So Min are in extremely fine form as they portray a couple who get married after some challenges and then find themselves completely hating each other after. Nam Dae-jung is relentless in delivering funny moments to really emphasize how the relationship of Na Jeong-yeol (Kang Ha Neul) and Hong Na-ra (Jung So Min) turned sour and how they cannot stand each other.

This is really a showcase of the pair’s fantastic comedic timing and their ability to sync into the film’s hyper-real dramatic situation. Na-ra is a problematic, spoiled rich girl. She’s confrontational, has a problem with holding her alcohol, and has some questionable hygiene issues. Jeong-yeol comes from a more modest background and has become annoyingly frugal, and it took him a while to pass the bar exam, so he was supported by his richer wife. There issues got into the relationship and the way by which they have turned homicidal against each other is the source of the comedy.

Kang Ha Neul and Jung So Min play it up so well that you can’t stop laughing at how they can’t stand each other and it’s part of the charm of the film. Then, as the title suggests, the couple lose their memory during the 30-day period before a divorce is made official. Both sets of parents, especially the mothers, don’t want them back together but it is to the couple’s benefit that they stay at home as this might help them recover their memories. So now, they have to live together, try to remember who they are, and not fall in love.

The second act of the film surprisingly is more directed towards the couple remembering their past and director Nam Dae-jung manages to use this to continue emphasizing all the horrible things that they’ve done to each other. The backgrounds of the couple are further explored and mined for their comedic potential. Na-ra and Jeong-yeol are shocked to discover the kinds of people that they were but also are seeing each other with a completely new set of eyes.

The romance part comes in just beneath the surface, just underneath the laughs, and propelled completely by Kang Ha Neul and Jung So Min’s performances. Never does Nam Dae-jung really worked hard towards absolving his character’s past mistakes. Instead, he’s here to have a good time and is not above alluding to the film as a film by his own characters. At the later part of the movie, even the characters are comparing the current situation as if it were a film.

As a rom-com, ‘Love Reset’ doesn’t quite get the romance part all the well. The film is more focused on the comedic aspects, which it captures excellently. I was laughing along with the rest of the theater for every little thing that they did. The lines, the situations, and even the slapstick parts. There are all kinds of comedy at work here and the whole cast is up to the task at making each joke work.

Interestingly enough, the film also shows how divorce is handled in South Korea and it seems so logical and sensible that it is a point of envy for us non-South Koreans watching the movie. The film makes no moral assessment of these proceedings. Sometimes, love dies. But also on the flipside, sometimes it takes amnesia to realise what is important after all. It’s a hilarious film led by two very strong comedic performances. If it was equal parts romance and comedy, then it would have been perfect. Otherwise, it’s just a great comedy.

My Rating:

Love Reset is now showing. Check screening times here.

October 24, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: Where Is the Love: a review of ‘Five Breakups and a Romance’

Director and writer Irene Emma Villamor takes an interesting approach to the romantic drama in her latest film ‘Five Breakups and a Romance.’ Villamor fills up her 102-minute movie with only certain key points during the tumultuous relationship of her two main characters, Lance and Justine. The chosen moments? The film chronicles their union and their breakups. It never shows us the relationship of the two. We always witness them at the point when they get together (or get back together) and the point when they break up. It is a theatrical structure that is interesting to use in a film, but it has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The film opens in Singapore in 2015, when Lance and Justine meet for the first time. He’s visiting with his friends to watch a concert and he meets Justine, who is a friend of a friend who has been living in Singapore for 3 years. It’s love at first sight as Lance can’t get let Justine leave without making his move. One thing leads to another and the two make a go for it. Lance extends his stay for an extra day and the two get to know each other more. When we get back to them again for scene number two, it is two years later, they are now a couple, but the cracks are already there. They are on the verge of splitting up.

The movie continues on in this manner. Each scene is either of them coming back together or breaking up (hence the title). The advantages of this is that Villamor can focus her narrative on just the highly emotional parts of her character’s world. She can situate her character and these emotions in particular locations for full use of any symbolic meaning whether it be the streets of Singapore at night, a mansion in Alabang during a barkada Christmas party, a beach-side celebration of Justine’s parent’s renewal of vows, or the claustrophobic hallways of a hospital during the height of the Covid pandemic. This is a space for nuanced and detailed filmmaking. It is an arena for capturing human behavior and passion and longing in confined spaces.

The disadvantage here is that the film favors telling over showing, a risky endeavor for any filmmaker. David Fincher does it well in his series ‘Mindhunter.’ Ridley Scott also manages this well in his film ‘The Counselor.’ There are great moments in both where the story is told rather than shown but it works because of the actors involved. This structure puts the whole burden of director and writer Irene Emma Villamor’s film on the shoulders of its leads, Alden Richards and Julia Montes. We never get to see the relationship in action so all of each other’s joyous moments together and the growing resentments are not for us to see. We need to see it when Richards and Montes go through these raw, emotional moments in the respective scenes.

And this is where the film doesn’t find its footing. There is a missing chemistry between the two that happens as early as the first scene and they never quite pick it up as the film progresses. At the beginning, Montes struggles with Justine’s cold and dismissive attitude towards the forward Lance. Montes doesn’t seem comfortable being mean or cruel and you can see this later on because when she has to play Justine as warm and loving, she does it so well. She seems more comfortable with Justine’s vulnerable side than she is with her strong moments. Montes gets better as the film unfolds. I can’t say the same for Richards.

Richards has never looked better than in this movie. He has the looks and the presence of a leading man. Unfortunately, he has a tendency to push out a rehearsed smile and that sparkle in his eye that I see in his commercials. I feel that he is afraid to get ugly for the scenes that requires it. The scenes Villamor wrote and directed requires a rawness of emotion that Richards doesn’t quite get. He is always poised, always pretty, I needed him to get real.

‘Five Breakups and a Romance’ does not have Irene Emma Villamor’s usual masterful navigation of the intricacies of the economic factors that affect a relationship. Here, Lance is supposed to be privileged and rich and it is supposed to inform on some of his choices (and mistakes) while Justine is from a simple, middle-class family from Batangas. But Justine’s first appearance is that of a professional in the cosmopolitan Singapore and that never actually leaves her. And Richards never seem to carry the posture or the air of the upper class, which he is supposed to be from. And as much as the film tries to bring these issues up as important ones to the story, there are no real implications of it to the characters and their relationship because we never get to see it at play.

Both actors needed to really live out their character’s whole lives in each other their scenes with their posture, line delivery, their physicality. The film doesn’t allow us to really get to know them, so they have to completely inhabit these characters in those five or six scenes that they are given. It’s a great demand for any actor and unfortunately, these two can’t seem to bridge it together.

The chemistry isn’t there. There are scenes where I truly wonder what it is that they see in each other, other than physical attraction. This is something both deliver well. When they kiss, there’s magic. But when they talk to each other, something is missing. Richards comes off as stiff in comparison to Montes’ outpouring of pain and affection. The love that is at the center of this film is missing and doesn’t allow the film to fully realise its risky cinematic structure.

My Rating:

Five Breakups and a Romance is now showing. Check screening times and buy tickets here.

October 20, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: Highlighting the real-world fears at the heart of South Korean suspense thriller ‘Target’

Terrifying and brutal, South Korean suspense/thriller ‘Target’ is at its most scary when it’s focused on how vulnerable we are once our private information is no longer private. There’s an ingenious way by which director Park Hee-kon manages to highlight how interconnected the whole world has become through the internet. It opens with SMS exchanges over shots of the city, showing the constant contact people have with strangers for a variety of things. In this movie, the highlight is on the buying and selling of second-hand goods.

Soo-hyun (Shin Hae-sun) is at a difficult time in her life. She’s being harassed by her boss and she’s balancing an architectural project while moving to a new place simultaneously. When a washing machine she buys second-hand through an online market ends up being defective, she takes her anger out on the seller and informs all his other potential customers to not buy anything from the scammer. A heated exchange on text with the said buyer sends Soo-hyun into a scary, crazy world of internet violence.

The scammer is no ordinary scammer, and he tracks down Soo-hyun’s information and begins to terrorize her. First, he sends food delivery to her doorstep repeatedly from various restaurants. Then from these frustrating and time-consuming pranks, it gets more sinister and insidious as time goes by. The helplessness of Soo-hyun is on full display here and the inability of the police to trace down and track this sort of criminals is also put into the spotlight.

‘Target’ is actual thin on story. A lot of what happens in the film is just to showcase the relentless barrage of the scammer on Soo-hyun’s world. He threatens her work, her sanity, and even her own physical safety. At the beginning, we see her strong and fighting back but as the terror increases in size, frequency, and scope, we even see her whittle down to a broken mess. This is where Shin Hae-sun shines. In Korean dramas like ‘Mr. Queen’ and ‘See You in my 19th Life,’ we’ve seen her tackle complex roles with ease. She has excellent comedic timing and can carry off improbably characterizations so well. To see her play a character working in primordial emotional states – fear and anger – is a different thing altogether. She is so committed to each scene and each moment that is enhances the fear factor of the dramatic situation.

Rounding out the narrative is that of the police detective (Kim Sung-kyung of ‘Moving’ and ‘Reply 1988’) who feels powerless in being unable to help Soo-hyun. The number of cases that are on his lap and lack of resources bears down on him. He wants to do things by the book but as he sees the growing danger that Soo-hyun is in, you can see how it affects him by the increase in violence he takes on suspects and the like.

Everything here is interconnected and by doing so, the film really highlights are interdependence on each other. It is filled with, “If only this character did this…” or “if that character did not do that…” and it escalates all because of it. The film reminds us about how much we live on our phones and on the internet and the full range of dangers that could happen if ever this information goes to the wrong hands.

On the onset, just knowing your name, phone number, and address can already present a lot of problems, but as the film shows, so much more is available for abuse with a person who is a little more skilled in the areas of cyber security. The situations that are present in the film are based on actual police cases and when all of these are placed within the confines of one movie, it can be a little over-the-top and unrealistic (but it does create a very enjoyable yet terrifying time in the cinema). It’s even brough into the extreme as murder is added along for the ride.

Unlike other South Korean crime and suspense/thriller films that I’ve seen, ‘Target’ takes a more Hollywood approach to the story. It manages to navigate the story breaking down all of Soo-hyun’s strength, bringing her to her most fragile, and then reclaiming that strength back to attempt to fight back. It’s a very commercial approach to the movie and marks the filmmaker’s own judgment on people such as the scammer in his film. By doing so, the film loses a bit of its own teeth but it’s frightening, nonetheless.

This will be a great date movie with friends or a partner. The tension would be a great bonding experience and there were even some emphatic screams and shouts in the cinema when I saw it. It’s a great conversation starter and will really make you think twice about your cyber security.

My Rating:

Target is now showing. Get your screening times and tickets here.

October 18, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: All that glitters is black gold: a review of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’

Epic in scale and scope, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is another sweeping story from legendary director Martin Scorsese that highlights the relationship of crime and American history. Much like his earlier masterworks like ‘Gangs of New York,’ ‘The Irishman,’ ‘Casino,’ ‘Goodfellas,’ ‘’The Irishman,’ and the like, ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ is a study of the inner worlds of the people who’ve turned crime into their lifeblood. Based on the nonfiction book of the same name by David Grann, Scorsese takes his time to build a world at the turn of the century in America when the Native American tribe of Osage found oil in their lands and made them extremely wealthy overnight. It changed the landscape of that part of America, but it also brought in the white people who did everything they could to take that money for themselves.

At 206 minutes, Scorsese takes his time to introduce us into a world that we never get to see on cinema – a world where Native Americans were rich and powerful, wearing expensive clothes and jewelry while being served by white people – by putting into film, he cements this actual occurrence in history into an image we can carry with us after seeing the movie. By taking this narrative and putting it on the big screen, he highlights how in the 1920s, the white people were envious at the richness and power of the Native Americans. He introduces us to Ernest Burkhart (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), a war veteran, who seems like he is never the smartest man in the room. He returns home to the ranch of his uncle, William King Hale (Robert De Niro), who takes him in and helps him get a job as a driver.

Within the first hour of the movie, Scorsese drills into us this universe. On one hand, the Osage people are wealthy but due to government policy, they need guardians to access their wealth and stigma and discrimination just hovers over the boundaries. William King Hale sells himself as a friend of the Osage people, but he likes to set up his men to marry the Osage women with the hopes of becoming a part of the will so that they can take the land if anything happens to their wives. It just so happens, Osage people are dying left and right and oftentimes, with no investigation.

And in the middle of all of this, Ernest falls in love with one of his regular clients, Mollie (Lily Gladstone). Mollie, with her sisters and aging mother, owns a huge property with a lot of oil and is one of Hale’s targets to acquire that land. He leverages Ernest’s and Mollie’s feelings to get his hands on the property and this is the crux of the film.

On one hand, this movie is exposing the lengths by which the white people have come to take what belongs to the Osage people and how it was protected by members of the government as it became a battle of the whites versus the Native Americans. On the other hand, it is also a cruel and brutal love story between a dumb, impressionable white man and his Native American wife, whom he doesn’t really realise he’s hurting in a huge, huge way.

Scorsese uses the film’s epic running time to really lay the groundwork to show the complex relationship between his three lead characters: DiCaprio, De Niro, and Gladstone. The push and pull of these characters against one another is what makes this movie so powerful because in the backdrop of it all is the metaphor of America’s history left bare for us to criticise and challenge.

This is immense work from DiCaprio and De Niro. They are in fine form and working the multiple layers of their characters with ease. Gladstone is also luminescent. Mollie is silent but strong and oftentimes her character is still, taking it all in, and in later scenes, feels very strongly as tragedy hits her again and again. She stands on her own with her two Oscar winning co-stars and will probably deservedly earn an Oscar nomination herself.

Unfortunately, Scorsese finds more interest in telling the story through the eyes of Ernest and leaves Mollie as the least developed character amongst the three. By choosing Ernest as the film’s point-of-view, he highlights the witless and unconscious act of destruction of the lives of the Osage people and makes this the point of the story. If it were Mollie’s movie, it would highlight the struggle against that destruction.

But I feel that Scorsese is out here to judge and criticize. He does not romanticize or glorify Hale or Burkhart’s actions. They are as reprehensible as they appear to be on the film. Scorsese doesn’t shy away from that. By doing so, he questions the idea of America’s greatness by amplifying the narrative of how this greatness was built on the robbing of the land and culture of the Native Americans.As a director, Scorsese has done a wide range of incredible films from ‘Age of Innocence,’ to his love letter to cinema in ‘Hugo,’ to his meditations on religion and faith in movies like ‘Silence’ and ‘The Passion of Christ.’ But it’s his films that delve into the dark soul of America like ‘Gangs of New York,’ ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ ‘The Irishman,’ ‘Casino,’ and even ‘The Departed’ that I feel is also an area of expertise on his part. The way by which he chronicles those lives and times and explores the factors that made America the way that it is. ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ joins that pantheon of films and will be one of his many, many accomplishments when one decides to look at his filmography.

My Rating:

Killers of the Flower Moon is now showing. Get your screening times and tickets here.

October 18, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: The Crazy World of Movie Making: a review of ‘Cobweb’

The crazy and quirky ‘Cobweb’ is a movie within a movie, a period black comedy about the movie of the same title as it is being reshot by its director Kim Yeol (played by Song Kang-ho of ‘Parasite’ and ‘Snowpiercer’ fame). Kim Yeol is a director known for his “trashy dramas” and who is driven to redo the ending of his film to turn it into a masterpiece. Known as an apprentice to great filmmaker, Director Shin, critics and other industry insiders feel that Director Shin wrote the screenplay of Kim Yeol’s debut feature, which is why it is so good, and this has plagued Kim Yeol’s career ever since. Even on his continued insistence that his debut film was written by him, his works after his debut has been less than stellar. Plagued by dreams, he has returned to the studio and called back his cast and crew to re-shoot a few scenes.

Except Kim Yeol’s producer doesn’t want him to reshoot the film. Set in South Korea in the 70s, they would need to submit the script to the censorship board for approval (to ensure there wasn’t any anti-government rhetoric in the story) while many of his actors are also busy with other projects, most notably the starlet Han Yu-rim (played with delicious fervor by Krystal Jung). But after the niece of the producer, Shin Mi-do (played by a surprisingly plucky Jeon Yeo-been of ‘Vincenzo’) reads the new script and takes it upon herself to push through with the reshoots, ‘Cobweb’ then takes a turn to the crazy world of filmmaking.

Alternating between the movie that is being shot – the multi-genre and almost campy black and white suspense drama ‘Cobweb’ – and the making of that movie, the film becomes a hilarious presentation of the crazy world of filmmaking. It’s a satire about the industry poking fun at the crazy antics on the set that includes everything from the intrigue between actors, the means of playing circles around the censors, the battle between producers and actors and producers and directors, and everything that Mi-do and Yeol must do to keep the cameras rolling. Everything including locking everyone in the studio.

While the movie being shot is very old school in tone and feel. It plays out like a campy old movie with exaggerated acting and overly dramatic music and set ups, it becomes an interesting counterpoint to the lives of the people within the studios and it becomes a showcase of the intricate web of personalities that intersect in the making of a movie.

The literal spider and cobwebs in the film come in much later in the movie and in the most unconventional and hilarious way. It comes completely left and center and becomes the final punchline to a very long and crazy joke about the world of making movies. What does come out is that no matter how crazy the world of it gets, the movie keeps going, they never stop. The passion of making movies, of making a name for yourself, of putting out a work is really highlighted in this film. It’s as if Kim Yeol is the spider making a cobweb and everybody else is just trapped in the weave, unable to get out.

Or maybe the spider is moviemaking and even Kim Yeol is stuck in the spider’s web as more truths about his past and his relationship with Director Shin is revealed in a fiery moment that is absolutely awe-inspiring (it shows off an incredible one-shot take involving fire). Director Kim Jae-woon first shows us how the scene is done and then shows us the finished shot within the film itself and ‘Cobwebs’ just lays out this incredible movie-making moment for us to marvel at.

With great performances across the board, most especially from Krystal Jung and Jeon Yeo-been, ‘Cobweb’ is a madcap comedy about the joys and craziness that it takes to making movies. It is definitely a love letter to the medium but also an exploration and rumination of what an artist fears the most – grappling with the ideas of their own capacities and talents. ‘Cobweb’ isn’t particularly deep or profound on the onset, but it is very, very enjoyable.

My Rating:

Cobweb is now showing. Get your screening times and tickets here.

October 5, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: Kathryn Bernardo delivers a true superstar turn in the cynical and campy ‘A Very Good Girl’

There is a very pivotal scene that happens very early in ‘A Very Good Girl’ that tells us we are in the presence of a superstar: Kathryn Bernardo, as her character Philo, has just insinuated herself into the world of the ultra-rich shopping mall matriarch Mother Molly (played by Dolly De Leon) and after days, maybe even weeks, of playing suck up and kiss ass, she finally comes home and begins to take out her makeup. Throughout the long intro that established the world and the campy tone of the film, both Barnardo and De Leon are bedecked in expensive clothes and heavy makeup and have spent last ten or so minutes showing off to each other, Bernardo as Philo starts to wipe her face clean, and we begin to see that this is a character with so many layers. The campiness is stripped away only to reveal a very real anger that drives the narrative of ‘A Very Good Girl’ hurtling forward. It’s an anger that Bernardo wears and hides beneath Philo’s sweet and endearing exterior. What makes it even more impressive is that Bernardo then brings this anger and takes it with her as she returns into the world of camp.

If ‘Hello, Love, Goodbye’ did not already prove Kathryn Bernardo has all the trappings of an excellent actress, then ‘A Very Good Girl’ will remove all question of it. If there’s anything director Petersen Vargas does well is to take the bonkers script of Marianne Dominque Mancol, Jonathan Albano, and Daniel Saniana and use it to showcase all of Kathyn Bernardo’s strengths. This is her movie through and through and it’s a great way to announce the full range of Bernardo’s abilities.

The movie, in of itself, is a demanding movie for all its campy craziness. It asks of us to care and invest in Philo, as she thrusts headfirst into the dangerous game of revenge. Vargas and the writers are not averse to taking their lead character into the dark corners of Philo’s psyche – a place that Bernardo handles very well – but by doing so, our protagonist starts to skirt the same lines that her target, the deliciously evil Mother Molly, also operates in. ‘A Very Good Girl’ works within that framework that if you fight fire with fire, you can burn everything down during the battle.

At the onset of the movie, it goes straight into the heat of it all. Without any introductions, Philo is already making her moves to get into Mother Molly’s good graces. The film takes no time to let us into that world. We hit the ground running. As Philo engages in psychological warfare against Mother Molly and everyone around her, we only then start to discover who she really is and why she’s on a warpath.

This is where the movie needs to reel it in. Early on, it enters a flashback that takes a little too long (it felt like ten or twelve minutes, and it could have been shorten to just the necessary story beats and left to a solid five minutes) and it is these flashbacks that kill the pacing of the film and tries to justify the mayhem that will ensue. At every turn, the film tries to differentiate Philo and Mother Molly (Mother Molly is evil while Philo is just driven to this) but the film also takes a lot of enjoyment when Philo begins to break Mother Molly’s world apart.

The first set up includes many scene-stealing moments from Chie Filomeno, who does a hilarious parody of every rich socialite, influencer and builds some really strong laugh out loud moments that can serve as the peak of the comic tone of the film. As the film progresses, it gets darker and darker. The laughs are fewer and far between each other as Vargas starts to twist things. He creates a moment of humanity for Mother Molly – these moments are when Dolly De Leon really shines, when she finds these soft, vulnerable moments for the evil character she is portraying – and then he plays into the conflicted state of Philo’s head. Is she pushing through with her revenge or has Mother Molly become a mother figure?

This is what I enjoyed most about ‘A Very Good Girl’ and it is by how it didn’t go to where I thought it would. From the beginning I was fighting everything about it because it wasn’t going the way I thought it should – it’s a Star Cinema movie and it has Kathryn Bernardo and it’s a revenge story, why isn’t it going this way? Why is it going this way? – and it was when I finally let go and let the movie be what it was that I started to really enjoy it.

The film settles itself in a strange place that is camp but also satire. It plays off of our exaggerated ideas about the rich (they were gowns and jewelry at home, the way by which they look down on people) while emphasizing how distorted and broken our justice system is that people with money always get away with everything (a hilarious scene involving a neck brace brought out one of loudest laughs in the movie) and all through-out, at the center of it, is a character who has had enough and is taking matters into her own hands and… by every turn, seems to be losing.

‘A Very Good Girl’ is a difficult film to take because it looks like a crazy, campy Star Cinema movie but it really is a jaded and cynical look at the very real and very crazy world we live in today. Surprisingly, the film manages to end with hope, an optimistic turn that isn’t implausible in a Filipino movie (it manages to find its Star Cinema-ness by the end) and it works but it also works if it fully embraced the darkness that had overtaken the film halfway through.

This movie was such a joy for me to watch because it was not what I was expecting (and I loved that), even if it ended the way I think a Star Cinema movie would end. The film was crazy and irreverent, and I thought it could have even pushed it more. But where it went is already a step forward. And at the very center of it all, ‘A Very Good Girl’ is so enjoyable because of Kathryn Bernardo’s commitment to the character and the genre. This is a superstar turn.

My Rating:

A Very Good Girl is now showing. Get your screening times and tickets here.

Homestream images from ABS-CBN Film Productions Inc. (Star Cinema)

October 2, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: Certified Legend: a review of the concert movie ‘IU Concert: The Golden Hour’

On her 14th anniversary since her debut, IU performed at the Seoul Olympic Stadium, and is the first South Korean female artist to headline the gigantic venue. In the 14 years since her debut, IU has built a career unlike any other and it is hard to find any artist – Asian and Western – that could rival her cultural and commercial impact in the same way that IU has in South Korea and the rest of the world. And this legacy can be seen in the concert movie ‘IU Concert: The Golden Hour.’

If you were unable to make it to the 2-day affair in September 2022 (like many of us fans) or are interested in finding out more about the the South Korean superstar’s music, the movie is a breathtaking presentation of her charisma, her range, her talent, her impact, and her power. The two-and-a-half concert is short compared to IU’s usual performances. She’s known for an extensive encore performance and even a post-encore performance and she can sometimes sing for 4 hours at every stop. But due to COVID-restrictions and the venue limitations, she jokingly and very candidly kept mentioning that she had to shorten her spiels and try to move things quickly along or else “they’d close the curtain on me,”

With over 40,000 people in attendance on each day, the movie makes sure to capture IU in angles that shows her tiny frame facing the massive audience before her. It presents the scale of these shows and when it switches to her face, not in any one moment do you see fear or trepidation. The concert marks not just her 14th year in the industry but also the year she turned 30 and she strides across that stage with all the confidence in the world. Just that image alone is such an amazing thing to see. And we all know that if it weren’t for COVID-restrictions, they could have filled that stadium to its full capacity (both shows were reportedly sold out within less than a day).

And what a show it was! The 25 songs she sang ran through a lot from her discography but is just barely scratching the surface, usually just choosing one song from a range of EPs and albums she’s released since she was 16. She opened the concert with ‘Eight,’ her 2020 hit song with Suga while suspended in the air on a crane. She sang the first verse in acapella before the band joined her and it was a flex like no other. That voice is maintained throughout the whole show, while rapping in ‘Palette,’ singing ‘Strawberry Moon’ while on a hot air balloon as it sails across the crowds on the second and third row, going all her pop glory in with the one-two punch of ‘Hold My Hand’ and ‘Blueming’ and even singing her biggest hit ‘Good Day’ at merely the half mark of her show.

The first two parts shows IU at full control of her pop star persona. She learned a few steps to dance along with in the second act’s closer ‘Lilac’ and she even adds a touch of the sentimental as she shares that she is “graduating’ two of her popular songs: ‘Palette’ and ‘Good Day.’ According to her, it would not work for her, moving forward, to sing those songs again in a live performance. Now that she’s 30, her approach to the world and to making shows have to change as well.

If the first two acts show her pop star persona, Act 3 and her first set of songs of her encore shows her as a vocal diva, singing ballad after ballad, complete with an orchestra. An hour and half into her show and singing the vocally demanding ‘Good Day’ just prior did not deter her from a salvo of songs that show off her vocal range and her much-lauded technique. Never once does her quiver and the audio mix is such that you can hear her every breath, letting us know she’s singing live all-throughout.

When she returns for her first encore, she’s dressed in a long gown, complete with crown and she even pushes further by singing ‘Love Poem’ and my favourite song from her whole discography ‘My Sea.’ By the end of this all, IU has completely shed the young woman who rose through South Korea’s entertainment industry and by the end of ‘My Sea,’ she is the mature legend in full control of her persona.

And if that wasn’t enough, after what was over two hours, she again returns and this time it’s at her most relaxed – a red flannel shirt and baggy jeans and she sings the bouncy, infectious ‘Ah Puh,’ and then the charming songs ‘Heart’ and ‘Drama’ before finishing with the aptly titled song ‘Epilogue.’

As concert films go, ‘IU Concert: The Golden Hour’ is a showcase of what has made IU such a fixture on K-pop – it’s the intersection of her charisma; her musicality that crosses over various musical genres; her authenticity as pop star; and her incredible vocal skills that allows her to sing these incredibly demanding songs without fail – and the movie captures all of this. Through its editing and how it arranges it shots, it manages to show the full scale of this concert and how IU, who is at the center of all it, is in full control of her audience, of her instrument, and her legacy.

As a fan, this is a concert movie I can watch over and over again. And if you are curious about her, this is the perfect way to get to know her.

My Rating:

October 2, 2023
REVIEW: ‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’ is as hard-hitting and engaging as the films it originates from

Set to expound on the world of the immensely popular film franchise ‘John Wick,’ ‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’ is a 3-part mini-series that details the origin story of Winston Scott (played by Ian McShane in the films) and Charon (played by Lance Reddick in the movies). Set in the 1970s, it’s a view of the complex underworld of New York torn and broken by the Vietnam war and punctuated by the wild excess of drugs and disco and the rising anger of the anti-establishment as punk finds its voice. Developed for streaming by Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, and Shawn Simmons, they present New York as if it was a retro dystopian hellhole. Saturated colors give it an old-school feel while every street corner is filled with trash, graffiti, and violence.

This is not the slick and glossy world as presented in the films. This is a dark look into the past and the cast of characters that inhabit here are haunted by their own demons that come crashing down together when the world of the high table is turned upside-down by one robbery in the hotel called The Continental.

The Continental Season 1

Winston Scott (played by Colin Woodell) is a charming, quick on his feet grifter, who finds himself taken by force while on a job in London and brought to New York where his brother, Frankie (Ben Robson) has stolen something of great worth from Cormac, the manager of The Continental. Played by Mel Gibson, Cormac is an arrogant, evil force. He’s manipulative and regards himself highly and while he had taken both Winston and Frankie when they were but orphans living in the street and raised them, he has also raised them to be criminals like he is.

THE CONTINENTAL: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK — “Night 1” — Pictured: Mel Gibson as Cormac — (Photo by: Katalin Vermes/Starz Entertainment)

Though he’s estranged from his brother, Winston must now find Frankie and try to protect him from the consequences of his actions because Cormac is out for blood. What he stole is not just important to Cormac, it is important to the mysterious High Table as well, the powers that be in the world of John Wick that run the machinations that makes the world move.

What I enjoyed about the three episode mini-series is that ‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’ is focused less on the inhabitants of the hotel – the assassins like John Wick – and instead on the people on the fringes of this underworld. Gun runners, cops, war veterans, street urchins, and all other kinds of people in the fringes who are trying to make do in this broken world that’s presented to us.

From martial arts trained brother and sister duo of Miles (Hubert Point-Du Jour) and Lou (Jessica Allain) to the investigator KD (Mishel Prada) and her detective lover (Jeremy Bobb), to Frankie’s dangerous Vietnamese soldier wife, Yen (Nhung Kate) – the world of this series is populated by people who are not as successful as the people of the High Table but just as dangerous.

Each story is of characters finding purpose when everything around them is falling apart and society is not out to make things any easier. They are forced into a life of crime and violence and danger while, in the hotel, there are assassins who are trading the comforts of home in gold coins. Amidst all of this, Winston is out to learn the truth about his family (as do a lot of the other characters in the show) and how everything points to breaking down the establishment that is causing all the trouble in the first place.

THE CONTINENTAL: FROM THE WORLD OF JOHN WICK — “Night 1” — Pictured: Ayomide Adegun as Charon — (Photo by: Katalin Vermes/Starz Entertainment)

‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’ is hard-hitting and relentless. Each episode is the length of a movie (anywhere from 88 minutes to 90+ minutes an episode) and it has its share of quiet, introspective moments from the characters as well as very elaborate fight sequences that is befitting of a show that is adapted from the world of the ‘John Wick’ movies. The fights involve guns and martial arts. There are huge explosions as there are graphic displays of violence involving swords and knives and pick axes. Some of these fight scenes last 20 minutes (reminiscent of the final movie in the ‘John Wick’ franchise) but what keeps it from being too self-indulgent is that these epic fight scenes are moving towards the culmination of a specific character arc. They emphasize the grit and determination of these characters to get exactly the revenge they are seeking against Cormac, The Continental, and the world that it represents.

The Continental Season 1

I’m familiar with Woodell from his work in ‘The Originals’ and it’s great to see him oozing with charm and gravitas. He’s a surprisingly strong and solid lead that is carrying this show forward. Holding their own, Prada, Allain, and Point-Du Jour are also quite arresting in their moments making the show quite easy to watch. The difficulty here is seeing Mel Gibson back in full force.

The Continental Season 1

There’s nothing particularly special or interesting in his portrayal of the evil, one-dimensional monster that is Cormac. The writers give him a medley of delicious lines and antics to play with – a religious man who is okay with praying for victory against his opponents as one example – and Gibson throws these lines out without any charm. It’s as if he’s expecting people to hate him and he is leanign into the image that his off-camera persona has become to fuel the role. There is no nuance to this character because it’s exactly what he has been painted in the media to be – aggressive and hostile, angry, misogynistic, and racist. If this portrayal was meant to capitalize on his off-screen persona, it feels manipulative and unsavory. They could have gotten anyone else, and it would have been better. Luckily for Gibson, he gets to perform beside Ayomide Adegun, who plays the younger Charon. Adegun is full of charm and manages to keep his character unpredictable and interesting that he practically steals every scene from Gibson.

The long running time per episode gives each episode a weight and an importance that helps push the show into prestige territory. It feels big even though the whole thing happens in only very few locations. The fight scenes are huge, but the stakes are very personal. The show manages to feel big and be impressive while not really being about anything huge or world changing, and this is a testament to how well done it is. It’s interesting to look at, it makes you wonder why it has made the aesthetic choices that it has – like why depict 70s New York as a world that’s worse than Christopher Nolan’s Gotham City – and keeps the interesting on-going and then it ends before it outstays its welcome.

Other than Gibson, my only real complaint is the excessive use of popular music of the era that creates a wall of noise that can sometimes overpower a scene. I suppose it is to help root the world in that timeline, but I feel that it was done excessively and served as a distraction rather than an amplification.

But other than that, ‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’ is a worthwhile watch if you’re looking for something violent and tough and just a little bit familiar.

My Rating:

‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’ is now streaming on Prime Video, watch it here!

September 22, 2023
MOVIE REVIEW: Dystopia, from the eyes of the Everyman: a review of ‘Concrete Utopia’

Headlined by Korean superstars Lee Byung-hun (‘Squid Game,’ ‘Mr. Sunshine’), Park Seo Jun (‘Itaewon Class,’ ‘Dream’), and Park Bo-Young (‘Strong Girl Bongsoon’), the dystopian science fiction film ‘Concrete Utopia’ is a hard-look at civilization at the cold-hard grip of a disaster. It is a 129-minute relentless character study of the human race on survival mode. It is unafraid to get scary, poignant, and surprisingly funny.

Without warning, a massive earthquake ravages the city of Seoul and, in the most fantastical way, only one apartment building has remained untouched after the devastation. This touch of magic elevates the film into the level of a dark fable or a cautionary tale. At the start, the residents of the apartment building has taken in outsiders looking for shelter but as thieving and violence begins to erupt, the residents decide to take control of the space and kick everyone else out. A governing body is then formed and a system is enacted to keep the peace and to ensure the resident’s survival.

We see this through three perspectives: Lee Byung-hun’s Yeong-tak, who becomes the defacto leader when he shows decisive decision-making skills when a fire erupts early on, Park Seo Jun’s Min-sung, a civil servant who feels overwhelmed by the current state of the world, and his wife Myeong-hwa, played by Park Bo-young, who is a nurse and who is desperately clinging on to her humanity as the world gets fiercer and meaner.

Lee Byung-hun is delivering a magnificent performance of an ordinary man who is thrust with so much power. We can literally see his character change as he starts to enjoy the power and adoration he gets from the leadership position he now holds. Lee shows off his magnificent range here and is able to convey his character’s darkest corners with physically transforming on screen when his character starts to get drunk with power.

On the flip-side, Park Bo Young serves as the moral compass of the film. She is witness to the discrimination and bullying that is happening within the system and as much as she wants to fight against it, she’s also feeling alone in a world that has become worse during survival mode.

But while Lee and Park are doing excellent portrayals of these typical characters in such events, it’s Park Seo Jun’s Min-sung that is the most textured and refreshing to see. We’ve seen Park Seo Jun from common and brusque as he was in ‘Midnight Runners’ and ‘Fight for My Way’ and we’ve also seen him in refined and elegant and powerful like in ‘What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim?’ and ‘She Was Beautiful.’ Min-sung is a whole new character for Park, who invokes a sense of the everyman in Min-sung. He is unambitious and unassuming. He wants to be just below the radar and while he is determined to protect his family – Myeong-Hwa – he also doesn’t want to rock the boat too much. It’s a layered performance that isn’t as flashy as Lee Byung-hun but it helps truly sell the film’s premise of a world succumbing to darkness and how people just give in to stay alive.

Boasting of fantastic special effects scenes of the destruction of Seoul, director Um Tae-hwa adeptly balances the larger, more spectacular aspects of his story with the more tender, most intimate moments of the narrative. He easily switches from comic – sometimes even campy – to the deadly serious as the story unfolds and it keeps the movie interesting. After the initial eviction of the non-residents, a scene that is immensely tension-filled and riveting, the film then cuts to a portion much like a corny, AVP that shows life in the apartment building. It’s funny but also scary, when you feel the contrast between the images and the tone of the moment. It’s aspects such a these that keeps the film from falling completely within Western mainstream Hollywood disaster films.

It’s also incredible to see Park Seo Jun, the superstar of so many top Kdramas and movies, play someone so passive, so easily corrupted. He is torn between the seductive pull of Yeong-tak’s credo of survival and the love of his kind-hearted wife Myeong-hwa. Min-sung then becomes the fulcrum by which the film has the most to say.

‘Concrete Utopia’ hits all the necessary narrative beats to stay enjoyable and riveting throughout its rather dark and disturbing look at humanity but it also manages to say what it has to say about our human capacity for caring for others. It’s not subtle at all but it’s well-executed that it’s worth every penny.

My Rating:

Concrete Utopia is now showing in sneak previews at your favorite cinemas on September 11 and 12, one week before the regular release on September 20. Get your tickets and screening times here.

September 12, 2023