Movie Review – Aladdin

An Impressive non-white cast doesn’t save Disney’s latest live-action remake from sinking beneath the dunes.

⭐ ⭐
Zachary Cruz-Tan

This new Aladdin is an awkward and perplexing exercise in Disney recycling. A remake that leaks brief moments of wonder and then spends the rest of its life tied to a post. For every breath-taking musical number there’s a dreary interlude of crummy dialogue, failed jokes and ham-fisted politics. It’s not as bad as the recent Dumbo remake, but then again that’s not saying much. It’s also proof that humans don’t look good in CGI blue.

The story, we all know. Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is a crafty street urchin in the mythical land of Agrabah who only wants people to see that he’s really just a good guy. Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott), meanwhile, is locked away in the palace tower, destined to marry whatever douchebag prince her father deems fit. Throw in a flying carpet, a genie and a villain, and you’ve got yourself an adventure.

Alas, this reimagined adventure, directed by Guy Ritchie, is not so much a whole new world as it is half of a reused one. From the very first shot of a CGI ship swaying on a CGI sea, there is a whiff of the unnatural about the whole thing (Will Smith dressed as an Arabian fisherman is particularly jarring). Sometimes I was in awe of the brilliance of the imagery and the sets, other times I was aware I was gazing upon a bunch of actors wearing costumes, posing in a green screen studio. It is an odd mixture of history and hyper-fantasy.

The oddest mixture of all, however, has to be the unholy magic that created the Genie out of Will Smith. When disguised as a human he resembles a mascot, then his face is digitally mapped and replaced, his body augmented and his skin tinted blue when he reverts to his true form. The result is entirely bizarre. Observe him closely. As the Genie, he doesn’t appear to occupy the same space as everyone else, as if Smith shot all his scenes in an empty room and was pasted into the movie, which isn’t far from the truth. I’ve seen the same process applied to apes, robots and cosmic beings, and Disney, I can tell you your Genie doesn’t look right.

There is also an issue with the villain, Jafar, who, you may recall from the original, was the serpentine vizier who wanted to undermine the sultan and claim Jasmine as his own. This time he’s played by Marwan Kenzari, who I’m sure is a fine actor but seems more like a wimpy kid forced by his mum to wear Jafar’s smelly robes. He spends most of the time sulking and throwing tantrums, which, however you spin it, is totally unbecoming of a villain.

Then again, characters are not part of Aladdin’s arsenal. The movie just barely makes it because it’s richly designed and the musical numbers bristle with enthusiasm. The choreography is well timed, though sometimes it lapses into bhangra despite having nothing to do with India. But hey, all Asian dances are the same, right?

Aladdin is available in Australian cinemas from May 23 2019 

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Halloween (2018)

David Gordon Green’s powerful sequel to the beloved Halloween shakes things up and effectively erases decades of tainted mythology.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Zachary Cruz-Tan

There have been so many Halloween movies as to lose count. Sequels upon sequels. Spin-offs upon remakes. I have not seen them all, thank god, so I was relieved to discover this new Halloween movie doesn’t require me to. It’s a direct follow-up to the great 1978 original, which means we can forget about all the nonsense that has polluted the past 40 years. Rightfully so – this sequel is a whole lot of fun, right down to the scene of a little boy clipping his toenails.

Of course it’s not fun in any conventional sense. This is a movie where a gas station attendant gets his jaw smashed on a counter and a housewife is battered with a hammer. But the key to these Halloween movies is the way their characters draw attention away from the violence. Most slasher pictures glorify the bloodshed. They’re not so much about who is getting killed as about how much brain is being splattered. Halloween goes to great lengths to make its heroes and villains interesting, so that on some basic level, they are worth caring about.

I, for one, care a great deal for the killer Michael Myers (played in unison by Nick Castle, James Jude Courtney and Tony Moran) and the frantic heroine Laurie Strode (Jaime Lee Curtis). Myers is a monolithic creature of murder, yes, but why? He kills in cold blood, but one gets the feeling there’s a labyrinth of dread and intelligence beneath that pale mask. Perhaps the mystery of his mind is why he’s always accompanied by a psychiatrist who wrongly believes he is exempt from Michael’s blade.

Curtis, who originated the role in 1978 and returned in many of the forgettable sequels, is now a weathered grandma determined to see her tormentor perish. Her daughter and granddaughter are estranged, broken by years of paranoid delusions that Myers will return to finish them off. Her daughter Karen (Judy Greer), the poor girl, spent her childhood rigging booby traps and abusing mannequins as target practice. It’s a wonder she didn’t grow up to become G.I. Jane.

Naturally, Michael escapes, on Halloween night no less, and at first I thought it was all going to happen again. Michael kills. Laurie and the cops try in vain to stop him. Michael flees. Roll the credits. But then the movie shifts by turning the plot from violence to intimacy. It becomes a showdown. A showdown between two well-acquainted predators. It’s very intense and very well-made, utterly thrilling, clever, at times funny, and totally worthy of John Carpenter’s great masterpiece. Seldom is a sequel this fulfilling.

Halloween is available in Australian cinemas from October 25 

Image © Universal Pictures 2018

Movie Review – Goosebumps 2 : Haunted Halloween

Not as smart or entertaining as the first, but Goosebumps 2 isn’t a total loss.

⭐ ⭐
Zachary Cruz-Tan

Against my better judgement, I actually enjoyed the first Goosebumps movie. It was well made, moderately clever with a lightness in its step. Now comes the inevitable sequel – helpfully titled Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween – and whatever innovation and ingenuity that once existed is gone, replaced instead with a blanket of computer graphics and a plot so transparent it can be used to trace over itself. This is not a movie but a product assembled to keep kids distracted.

The plot, such as it is, follows Sarah (Madison Iseman), Sonny (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Sam (Caleel Harris) in the town of Wardenclyffe, NY, three kids who discover the magical ventriloquist dummy Slappy from the first movie and accidentally bring him back to life. Slappy, voiced effectively by Mick Wingert (even though he sounds an awful lot like Jack Black), desires a family, so he hatches a cockamamie scheme that involves Halloween lawn ornaments bursting to life and running amok down the streets.

Of course, this happens so the movie’s visual effects artists can earn their paycheques. Many of the visuals are indeed impressive, but they would’ve been more thrilling if they had serviced a smarter plot and done more terrifying things. I think kids want to be frightened, just enough to make them jump but not too much that they can’t sleep. Goosebumps 2 plays more like a parody of scary images. It lacks the conviction to be truly intense.

The screenplay, penned by Rob Lieber, is not particularly well structured but contains several genuinely amusing exchanges I wouldn’t have expected from a fluffy movie like this – “So put on your shoes and let’s go!” “But my shoes are already on!”. It’s the kind of broad humour that’s just narrow enough to be funny. Or maybe it’s not, and I was simply trying to empathise with the mind of a five-year-old.

Naturally, there were a lot of five-year-olds at the screening I attended, accompanied by parents who I’m sure would’ve rather observed a dying cockroach. I think maybe it might be fitting then to evaluate Goosebumps 2 based on how raucous the children were, since I’m clearly not its intended audience. I thought it was foolish but entertaining. The kids, on the other hand, were very quiet. Could it be they were too frightened, or too bored?

Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween  is available in Australian cinemas from October 25 

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures

Movie Review – Beautiful Boy

Beautiful Boy is a brutally honest portrayal of drug addiction and the affect it has on the families of the addicted.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Elle Cahill 

Beautiful Boy is based on the true story of Nic Sheff, a young man who succumbs to drug and alcohol addictions, and his family’s experience as they attempt to help him overcome them, even after repeated relapses. Told mainly from the point of view of Nic (Timothée Chalamet) and his father David (Steve Carell), the film seamlessly covers many years in a seeming blur of time as Nic continually battles his inner demons.

Beautiful Boy is a heavy family drama that tackles one of the biggest issues affecting young people today. From the escapism and sheer terror felt by Nic, the desperation and grief David experiences as he desperately searches the streets for his son time and time again, the frustration of Nic’s stepmom, to his mother’s complete helplessness, it’s a difficult film to watch. For anyone who has experienced drug addiction amongst their loved ones, the tropes utilised in Beautiful Boy are all too familiar and equally painful to see played out on the big screen.

The film is led by an extremely talented cast. I’m a huge fan of Carell’s, of both his comedic and dramatic work, and he doesn’t disappoint in this role. He brings a different presence to the father role from other similar roles, choosing instead to take on a quiet desperation in David’s characterisation rather than the aggressive, shouting father figures that are all too common. This approach grounds the performance and has you empathising with David’s character a lot more. Chalamet is equally brilliant, and it’s his neurotic take on Nic that further alienates him from society. Chalamet’s ability to flick between his raging mood swings and playing the victim to try and get money from his family is both impressive and horrifically sad to watch.

Director Felix van Groeningen brings a hallucinogenic feel to the film and the timeline it operates within, causing confusion as to how much time has passed and where we are in the story, but just as quickly, it centres itself again and the story continues. Groeningen also manages to tell an intricate but honest story about the impact drugs have on the whole family. Maura Tierney does a great job at playing Nic’s stepmom, capturing the pain and detachment of someone who isn’t directly related to Nic but is emotionally attached to David. Her love for Nic is evident but the need to protect her own children from the realities of the world is also a driving factor that sees her take a much stronger stance against Nic.

The film is great, from the eclectic soundtrack all the way through to the brilliant casting and beautifully written script. The film is intense and feels longer than its two hours, but not in a bad way. It’s a well-balanced story that allows room for character growth and story development, without skipping over any characters or leaving questions unanswered. There are times when it’s hard to keep track of how much time has passed as the characters don’t seem to get older, but it’s a film that keeps you thinking long after you’ve seen it. That, for me, is the mark of a great film.

Beautiful Boy  is available in Australian cinemas from October 25 

Also screening as part of  the RoofTop Movies Program 1 on Dec 05.

Image courtesy of Transmission Films

Movie Review- Mary Shelley

The tale of the mastermind behind Frankenstein is ironically much like the monster itself – pieced together with unusual and unexpected things and given life through shock and lunacy.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Corey J. Hogan

Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (Elle Fanning), a teenage girl bored with her familial duties under her philosopher father (Stephen Dillane) in 18^th century London, escapes reality by burying herself in books and conjuring ghost stories for her own amusement. Seeing her need for a more meaningful lifestyle, her father sends her off to live as a ward in a Scottish residence, where she meets the handsome and talented young poet Percy Shelley (Douglas Booth). Their chemistry is instant, and so begins to burn the fires of an incredibly unconventional and bohemian love affair, one filled with both passion and tragedy and that would eventually inspire Mary’s gothic magnum opus, Frankenstein.

Haifaa al-Mansour (director of the game-changing Saudi Arabian gem Wadjda) and writer Emma Jensen’s bibliographical Mary Shelley is a very curious interpretation of the life and loves of history’s great horror author. Veering off-course from the typical tune of a period piece or biopic, it brings to mind last year’s A Quiet Passion, which also told the life of a famous female wordsmith of centuries past. However, in many ways this feels like that film’s antithesis; where Passion had marrow but was placid and loaded with antipathy, Shelley sacrifices historical accuracy for entertainment value but becomes over-the-top and melodramatic in the process, leaving us with a puzzling portrayal of the brilliant author.

Like a soap opera, we ride a rollercoaster of overplayed emotional moments that sporadically form Shelley’s coming-of-age, which, strangely, draws much of its drama from sudden shock events or characters having a change of heart at the drop of a hat. It’s frankly bonkers, making less and less sense at it goes on; almost every character seems to suffer from bipolar disorder as a means of causing grief for Mary when convenient.

The worst offender is of course Percy (a portrayal that has already been criticised as ridiculous by many), who is smug, careless and frustratingly inconsistent. He lives a bourgeoisie life that stops and starts depending on a mysterious trust fund from his parents, and seems to go in and out of loving Mary as he makes poor judgement calls that lead to the death of their child and selfishly takes credit for Mary’s writings while passing her off as a piece of meat for his similarly absurd friend Lord Byron (Tom Sturridge). Whether or not we are meant to love or loathe this man as Mary does is never clear, and Booth’s mugging through it never helps.

Thank goodness then, for Fanning, who brings some kind of balance to the madness running rampant. She confidently carries the doom magnet that is Shelley through her tumultuous journey; bringing her trademark dainty assurance, tenacity and sexual energy to make her depiction the most believable thing in an otherwise farcical memoir.

So like Frankenstein’s monster, this is a real patchwork and stroke of insanity that requires a great deal of imagination to accept. And yet, as a truly bizarre take on a remarkable woman’s life, Mary Shelley is worth a look for the amusingly abstract tale that will cause a reaction one way or another – even if it is wide-eyed bewilderment.

Mary Shelley is available in Australian cinemas from 6th July

Image courtesy of Transmission films

Revelations Film Festival: You Were Never Really Here

Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here takes the foundations of an action thriller and uses them to build something altogether stranger.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Rhys Pascoe

An army veteran, a former FBI operative and a survivor of childhood abuses, Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is a man for whom violence is akin to a second language. While others speak with words, Joe is a staggering, hooded goliath who communicates with his bunched fists and a ball peen hammer.

Living with his mother in their shabby New York home and working as an unlicensed private investigator with a penchant for rescue and retrieval of missing girls who have been sold into sex slavery, Joe is recruited by Senator Votto (Alex Mannette), whose daughter Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) has disappeared. However, once he starts to pull at that thread, Joe uncovers a conspiracy that runs much deeper.

 At first glance, Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here sounds like umpteen other action thrillers that star a gruff macho man and a frail waif in need of rescue. That it reveals itself to be something vastly different is a testament to both Ramsay’s punchiness behind the camera and Phoenix’s mesmerizing performance. The latter lurches through each scene, veering from uncaring ferocity – that is rarely seen, with the camera lingering more on the crumpled bodies left in Joe’s wake – and crushing despair, with Joe’s work interspersed by vivid flashbacks of battlefield atrocities and dark formative years underscored by domestic violence.

Punchy editing hammers home this intensity, with each flash into the past crashing across the screen with blaring noise and arresting imagery. Phoenix, who is fighting with his own inner demons as much as he is the goons in his way, is a burning furnace of anger and sorrow. And while Ramsay’s film peels back the curtain to peer into the grim nature of Joe’s work, exposing the perpetrators is never the screenplay’s intention. There is no grand conspiracy to unearth.

Instead, this is a slow, inward character study that recounts the cyclical and inescapable nature of violence; that shows how moments of pain can echo throughout our lives. This pain the characters feel is relayed onto the audience; even in its final moments, You Were Never Really Here is a bruising, punishing film that is hard to understand and even harder to watch. At the same time, it’s one of the most intense and meticulous films of the year. Every aspect of this taut and meditative thriller has been expertly crafted to hit hard and resonate long after the credits have finished rolling.

 What it lacks in narrative coherence it more than makes up for in sheer artistry. This is an action thriller that has been removed of its rigid genre constraints, and now moves in stranger, eerier territory and is punctuated by moments of bone-shattering horror. Phoenix is unrecognizable while Ramsay’s cruel, poetic take on a vigilante noir lacks catharsis and defies convention. This is more Taxi Driver than Taken, and it operates on an unspoken ‘less is more’ modus operandi. Strap in for a feverish, dizzying experience.

You Were Never Really Here has one more screening on Sunday 15th July at Luna, Leederville. 8:50pm

To book your tickets go to http://www.revelationfilmfest.org/

Images courtesy of Revelation Perth International Film Festival 2018

 

Movie Review – Ideal Home

A gay couple on the brink of a public meltdown are swept up with the responsibility of a child that’s not theirs… should be fun to watch, right?

 
⭐ ⭐ ½
Josip Knezevic 

What could have been a quirky, upbeat comedy quickly turns into an average classic romcom in Andrew Fleming’s Ideal Home. While it puts a contemporary twist on the traditional dysfunctional family with its lead, same-sex couple Paul (Paul Rudd) and Erasmus (Steve Coogan), its jokes are anything but new.

Most of the comedy comes from being gay and a lack of knowledge on how to raise a child, but this novelty is relied on far too much, to the point where the movie’s charm wears off and soon becomes downright irritating.

When 10 year-old Bill (Jack Gore), enters the lives of Paul and Erasmus, claiming to be the former’s grandson, he throws a spanner into the works of an already strained relationship. His character is easily the most annoying part of the film, with his constant complaints that he’ll only eat something from Taco Bell.

Thankfully, Steve Coogan somewhat saves the day. Even though he’s fed poorly written lines, he holds a commanding demeanor that fits his overtly gay character, and I would love to see him explore a similar character in a higher quality film.

Ideal Home does have some touching moments, but for the most part, it’s awkward, irritating and not that funny. It’s really only suitable for fans of Coogan, and for everyone else, well… I wouldn’t go jumping at the chance to see it anytime soon.

Ideal Home is available in Australian cinemas from June 21 

Image courtesy of Icon Film Distribution 

Movie Review – The Leisure Seeker

Love is dead and growing old sucks – what else is new?

⭐ ½
Rhys Pascoe

Paolo Virzì’s The Leisure Seeker centres on an old married couple – Ella (Helen Mirren) and John (Donald Sutherland) – as they grapple with various old age ailments. Despite Ella’s growing frailty and John’s worsening dementia, the couple decide to take their beloved Winnebago – dubbed The Leisure Seeker – on one last road trip from their home in Boston to visit the Florida Keys home of John’s idol, Ernest Hemingway.

Virzi’s film, which clocks in at a lengthy 113 minutes and trundles along about as fast as the titular camper, seems to have nothing to say other than “growing old sucks” and “you will find yourself here one day, just like everybody else”. It has sporadic bursts of profound emotion, but eventually they’re all different angles on the same scrape; John forgets himself or where he is while Ella frets and fears for his health. After the first act, each scene covers the same ground. It’s crushingly sad and just hammers the same message over and over and over. When Sutherland’s character eventually pines to be put of his misery, I found myself feeling the exact same way – please, let it end. As soon as possible, preferably.

This could all be forgiven if the script delivered on its promise of octogenarian hijinks on the road, but it falls short. The occasional chuckle is suffocated by the thick fog of sadness and hopelessness that lingers in the air. Mirren and Sutherland, to their credit, deliver admirable performances, however, that’s more or less where the commendable aspects end. The film, like its frail characters, just shuffles around, biding its time and waiting for the sweet embrace of the end. Hard pass.

The Leisure Seeker is available in Australian cinemas from June 14 

Image courtesy of eOne Films

Movie Review – Disobedience

Sebastian Lelio’s lastest feature looks at what happens when your sexuality and religious beliefs don’t align.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Elle Cahill

When Ronit (Rachel Weisz) receives word that her father has passed, she returns to the Orthodox Jewish community from which she was shunned as a child. While paying respects to her father, a revered rabbi of the community, Ronit comes to learn that her former childhood friend and lover Esti (Rachel McAdams) has married her cousin Dovid (Alessandro Nivola). Ronit and Esti soon rekindle their old romance, leaving Esti and Ronit both questioning their faith and the paths their individual lives have taken.
Once again, director Sebastián Lelio explores people living on the outskirts of their community and struggling with their identity in the world. Similar to Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman (2017), which explored a transgender woman coming to grips with the death of her boyfriend, Disobedience is a close inspection of sexuality that is deemed to have no place in organised religious communities.

Lelio has managed to capture the bitterness that exists between old lovers, the suffocating presence of family and religion, and the testing of faith in a way that doesn’t prescribe right or wrong, but instead asks why things have to be this way. It explores the sense of duty that people have, and the depths that some feel this duty to the point that they can’t be themselves without fear of disappointment and banishment.

Bringing this story to life is a cast of outstanding calibre. Weisz plays the disenchanted Ronit with excellence as the character deals with the loss of her father and the unforgiveable nature of the Orthodox community. Nivola too is brilliant as Dovid, a man who has been shown the kinder side of the Orthodox community and struggles to understand Ronit and Esti’s defiance of “what is right.” Nivola has the ability to be silent, but speak volumes all at the same time, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else playing this role as perfectly as he does.

Finally, McAdams as Esti is the stand out for me. Her haunting portrayal of a woman who has to make a choice between her faith and her sexuality is a memorable and gripping performance. Frequently underused as an actress, McAdams has been given the opportunity here to really act, and for me, she doesn’t disappoint. Her portrayal of Esti is unexpected, but at the same time, what you’d expect from the character. She is quiet as the dutiful wife, and rarely speaks out of line, but there’s a quiet determination in her eyes that fuels her actions throughout the film.

For the most part, the film is intimate and poignant, however, there are a couple of moments that could have been executed better. For one, the sex scene between Esti and Ronit is overdone and put together in a way that doesn’t fit with the tone of the rest of the film. It fails to express the release of sexual tension between Esti and Ronit, which has been steadily building since Ronit’s arrival. Instead, it comes across like a cheap lesbian porno.

I’d still recommend the film, however. While the themes of love and religion aren’t anything new, Lelio uniquely tells a familiar story in an unfamiliar setting. It’s a film that will stay with you long after you’ve seen it.

Disobedience is available in Australian cinemas from June 14

Image courtesy of Roadshow Films

Movie Review – Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story is great fun, but one must ask the question: why was it ever made?

⭐ ⭐ ½
Zachary Cruz-Tan

Han Solo, the hero of Solo: A Star Wars Story, has been a mythic figure since 1977. He’s a charming, roguish hunk who plays by his own rules, scoffs at authority and occasionally obeys the commands of his heart. He’s also a character many students of Star Wars love dearly. But I suspect, after watching this new Star Wars adventure, many of those students will want to protest.

This is first and foremost a movie designed for fans of the beloved franchise. It doesn’t have the parts to satisfy the indifferent, except of course in scenes where spaceships swoop around maelstroms and blasters are fired left, right and centre. It’s a story that’s rooted in the history of the galaxy far, far away, and so every little detail matters. Or at least it should.

Solo tells the story of Han (Alden Ehrenreich), from his tortured existence on a tyrannical planet and blossoming courtship with fellow slave Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke), to his early success as a professional smuggler and ace pilot of the Millennium Falcon. It also answers such questions as the birth of his name, how he founded his eternal bromance with Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), and how he completed the famed ‘Kessel Run’ in 12 parsecs. I don’t recall ever asking these questions, or indeed wanting them shown to me in such unimaginative plainness, but there you have it. The myth has been stripped away from the man.

Doesn’t matter. Solo: A Star Wars Story is decent, honest fun. It doesn’t seem to have a care in the world, which is what any successful Star Wars movie should strive for. The plot is more basic than a vanilla sponge cake. The characters are scribbled in from bits and pieces of characters past. Its humour is nothing but second-hand gags. There is not a moment when you fear for anyone’s safety. There are weird planets, obligatory lounge acts and endless battles. It’s a movie programmed to keep you smiling from start to finish.

The battles, of course, are very well filmed and seem to occupy much of the movie’s runtime. Han, desperate to pilot a ship that will allow him to rescue his beloved from the clutches of bondage, teams up with a thief called Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), who himself is working for criminal mastermind Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany).

Their quest leads them to Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover), an expert smuggler whose co-pilot is L3-37 (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), a radical droid that walks and talks with the sass for change. She crusades for droid equality, an idea that makes sense today but otherwise rubbed me the wrong way completely. No-one goes to a Star Wars movie for lessons in social politics. At least I don’t.

But perhaps I’m speaking too much like a Star Wars fanatic and not giving enough weight to the positives? Possibly. However, I see no other way to discuss a Star Wars movie, since I’ve spent most of my life with them. They feed into each other and can no longer be judged independently.

This one doesn’t measure up to its predecessors in terms of stakes and depth – and it might upset diehard Han Solo followers who feel they’ve been duped by midichlorians again – but in the hands of Ron Howard it just scrapes through. Am I itching to see it again? I’m afraid not. Not even a little.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is available in Australian cinemas from May 24

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures