Movie Review – Jojo Rabbit

A kooky comedy that pokes fun at the Third Reich, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit mixes silliness with sincerity to great effect.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Rhys Pascoe

With his blonde hair, blue eyes and bedroom walls plastered with swastikas, little Jojo (Roman Griffin Davis) is the poster boy for Nazi Germany. With his imaginary friend Adolf (Taika Waititi) by his side, Jojo aspires to do his country proud – despite the fact that, deep down, he’s actually a bit of a wuss.

One day, young Jojo learns that his mother (Scarlett Johansson) is harbouring Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a frail Jewish girl, in the walls of their family home. Jojo sees this as his opportunity to prove himself, by handing Elsa over to the authorities and earning some admiration amongst the older boys who taunt him. However, the two get to talking, and soon enough Jojo is learning everything he previously knew about Germany’s enemies was a lie.

With its picturesque European symmetry, twee cast and general irreverence, Jojo Rabbit is a Taika Waititi joint by way of Wes Anderson‘s distinct style. The collision of tone and imagery is a little jarring at first – an early scene sees Jojo skip merrily down the street, saluting everyone he passes and shouting ‘heil Hitler!’. Safe to say, Waititi’s satirical slant won’t be suited to all tastes, and the New Zealand director does wobble once or twice on the tonal tightrope.

Waititi – who plays Hitler in addition to serving as both writer and director – portrays the villainous dictator as a calamitous moron, who veers from sulky and silly to straight-up stupid. Sam Rockwell and Stephen Merchant also shine as drunken Captain Klenzendorf and Gestapo investigator Deertz respectively. But it’s Johansson who makes a compelling case for Best Supporting Actress, with a tender and wholesome performance buoyed by maternal warmth and whimsy.

The young child actors – Davis and Archie Yates, who looks like a miniature Nick Frost and plays Jojo’s world-weary best friend Yorki – are another highlight, with their often awkward line readings and verbose vocabularies adding to the film’s endearing goofiness.

However, Waititi is a filmmaker who understands that silliness can only get you so far. Underneath the slapstick, silly costumes and throwaway visual gags Jojo Rabbit is a sincere and serious film about the understated strength in putting aside our insecurities and being kind to one another.

The emotional wallop – you will know it when you feel it – sneaks up on you, with Waititi subtly adding to it in the background while you chuckle along at the surreal satire happening in the foreground. Not many filmmakers would take their Marvel clout and pour it into a satire of Nazi Germany, so Waititi’s ambition can be applauded as well.

Jojo Rabbit is available in Australian cinemas from 26 December 2019

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Movie Review – The Breaker Upperers

Kiwi comedy produces yet another kooky double act in The Breaker Upperers.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Rhys Pascoe

Were you wooed by the whimsy of Hunt for the Wilderpeople? Delighted by the daftness of What We Do In The Shadows? Although The Breaker Upperers isn’t directed or written by everyone’s favourite Kiwi Taika Waititi (he instead serves as executive producer), his fingerprints are all over this raunchy rom-com from writers/directors/lead actresses Madeleine Sami and Jackie van Beek.

Sami and van Beek play Mel and Jen respectively, two BFFs scorned by the same man who decide to use their heartbreak as motivation to start a business. The titular ‘break-up’ agency sees Mel and Jen hired by people who want their relationship to come to a swift and irreversible end, which often requires the two ladies to pose as a side chick, mistress or even a kidnapper. However, their job soon starts to get ugly, and a little something called conscience starts to creep in when things go awry.

Sami and van Beek’s film dapples in the same daffy naivety, absurd asides and clever callbacks that audiences have come to know and love from NZ comedy; plus, aren’t some jokes just funnier when told with a quirky Kiwi lilt? A standout highlight of the film is James Rolleston as Jordan, a dim-witted rugby hunk who is terrified of breaking up with girlfriend. Rolleston shares hilarious chemistry with Sami, and his wide-eyed innocence steals scene after scene.

While The Breaker Upperers is distinctly Kiwi in some ways, in others it wouldn’t feel amiss with a name like Paul Feig or Judd Apatow on the poster. The raunchiness recalls Bridesmaids or Girls Trip, while the film literally ends in a This Is The End-esque dance number where all is good with the world once more. It’s Wellington by way of Hollywood.

At a brisk 90 minutes, The Breaker Upperers, like its characters, aims to get in and get out without making much of a fuss. Sami and van Beek write and direct with boisterous panache, so even the jokes that don’t land are a long-forgotten memory after the next five or six. Three stars out of five.

The Breaker Upperers is available in Australian cinemas from July 26 

Image courtesy of Madman Entertainment 

Movie Review – Thor: Ragnarok

Thor: Ragnarok is by no means the finest Marvel movie, but it does a fine job of keeping up with the pack.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 
Zachary Cruz-Tan

If there is one thing true about the Marvel Cinematic Universe it’s that Thor is about as interesting a movie hero as the dried up skin flaking on my heel. It’s the failing of any mythological figure – they are bound by the limitations of their respective traits. Medusa cannot do anything other than turn infidels to stone. Ares knows only how to wage war. No matter how many family squabbles you throw at him, Thor can still only command lightning. So what do you do? Run with it and make it as much fun as possible, I guess.

Thor: Ragnarok is a delightful step up from the first two movies because it proves Marvel is capable of running self-diagnostics. Thor and Thor: The Dark World were horrendous. You don’t take a boring mythical juggernaut and dump him in New Mexico. That’s like trying to treat depression with Schindler’s List. As a result, Ragnarok is damage control. Its director, Taika Waititi, whose What We Do in the Shadows had me guffawing like a buffoon, is the emergency physician. His remedy is simple: Thor is a hulking lug without brains or a character to develop, so I shall construct around him a world that is infinitely more exciting. And it is.

This is the kind of movie that knows precisely what it is and what it isn’t, what it can and cannot do. For example, it can deliver amazing action set pieces and some truly beautiful imagery, but cannot be as deep or insightful as Batman Begins or Captain America: Civil War. Waititi’s approach is fundamentally helpful. He doesn’t try to beef up the lousy characters or outdo more successful superhero films but simply lets the chemistry of his cast flow with the outrageous dialogue.

Thor is once again played by Chris Hemsworth. This time, his home of Asgard is under threat of destruction by Hela (Cate Blanchett), another mythic figure bound to her eternal moniker of “goddess of death”, which is unfortunate because no matter how hard she may try, she cannot play anyone else but the villain. Thor, meanwhile, is stranded on a faraway garbage planet, ruled by the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum in Goldblum overdrive), who enjoys pitting superheroes against each other as some kind of intergalactic blood sport. So you can imagine Thor’s consternation and beastly grunting when the Grandmaster forbids him from saving his home.

Let’s face it, this isn’t a compelling plot, least of all because Asgard as a fantastical ethereal paradise looks more like the blown up internal mechanisms of a wristwatch. Hela’s dialogue is all exposition and snark and very little intelligence. The scenes on the garbage planet are colourful and alive, but after you’ve seen one fight-to-the-death arena presided over by a psychotic dictator, you’ve seen them all, especially if the movie’s trailers have already given away all the best bits.

So the plot is merely serviceable. We know the characters are thin soup. And yet I had a really good time with this. I appreciate an action movie that can make me laugh earnestly, that doesn’t betray the idiosyncrasies of its quirky director, that adopts an approach and sticks with it for better or worse. I can’t recall a single memorable quote (except perhaps “the devil’s anus”) but I remember laughing a lot, being impressed by the quality of the entire production, and thanking the Norse gods for finally giving Darcy the day off.

Thor: Ragnarok is available in Australian cinemas from October 26 

Image courtesy of Marvel Studios 2017

Interview: Julian Dennison – Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Rhys Graeme-Drury

Julian Dennison. You may not have heard that name before, but you should probably get used to hearing it from now on. The 13-year-old actor from Naenae on New Zealand’s North Island has been gently making waves across the Tasman for a few years now, first as the poster child in a viral anti-drug driving ad campaign and later as an award-winning actor in his first feature film, Shopping.

Fast-forward to 2016 and Dennison is now sharing the limelight with one of New Zealand’s most cherished exports – Sam Neill – in Hunt for the Wilderpeople, a film directed by up-and-coming Kiwi director Taika Waititi (Boy, What We Do In The Shadows).

With the film opening in cinemas across Australia this past week, I got the chance to chat with Dennison about his burgeoning career, his hopes for the future and what it was like ‘meeting’ John Legend at Sundance…

RGD: Could you tell us a little bit about how you first got into acting? Was it something you were interested in from a young age?

JD: Yeah, so I didn’t really get into acting – I sort of fell into it. When I was in primary school, probably in Year 5, this call went around for Pacific Islanders and Maoris to take part in a public audition they were holding at our school in the hall. I got a callback, I ended up getting the part and that was my first film Shopping. That’s it really, that’s how I got into acting!

RGD: Is it something you can see yourself doing in the future – what’s the game plan?

JD: I want to stay in the film industry when I’m older; I want to be a director. I’ll definitely keep working in the industry because it’s really interesting seeing what goes into a film and seeing all the hard work, not just a camera and director and those things.

RGD: Who inspires you? Is there anyone in the industry or your personal life that you look up to?

JD: I definitely look up to my grandmother. She’s a great lady. She was always passionate and very loving and caring for her family. I definitely look up to her to always stay humble and things like that.

I look up to Cliff Curtis also; he’s really awesome guy who has done so many different acting jobs. Any nationality that you want him to be, he can do it. He’s just a really awesome guy.

RGD: Your character in the movie, Ricky Baker, is a loveable troublemaker most of the time. Do you feel as though you share any qualities with Ricky in real-life?

JD: I feel like every person who goes and watches the film will have at least a bit of every character in them; anyone can relate to any of the characters, even just a little bit. I sort of see a bit of Ricky Baker in myself, but it’s not like I go around putting graffiti on everything!

RGD: You’d previously worked with the director, Taika Waititi, on a commercial about drug driving before filming Wilderpeople – could you tell us a little bit about how that relationship began and how it helped you land the role of Ricky Baker?

JD: Yeah, you’re right I did do that advert a few years ago, and that went really viral – I was known from then on as ‘lips kid’. That was the first time I met Taika. I didn’t have an audition for Wilderpeople because he’s been saying he’s wanted to work with me again, he just didn’t know at the time which project he wanted to work with me on. When this came up, he said that I was the perfect fit for the character.

RGD: Your co-star in Wilderpeople, Sam Neill, has been in a wide range of films across his career. How familiar were you with his work before worked on this film together?

JD: When mum and me were first talking about it, she actually said to me, “You’ll be working with Sam Neill!” and I was like “Who’s Sam Neill?”

Because he’s in older films than I am and he’s part of a different generation, I hadn’t seen many of his films – but I looked him up and I was like “Aw Mum, it’s the guy off Jurassic Park!” Once I saw his face I knew who he was.

RGD: Did Sam pass on any little nuggets of wisdom about acting whilst you were filming?

JD: Yeah, he definitely helped me develop my character. We did some workshopping for about a week before we started filming and he really helped me get into character and know my character a bit more.

RGD: I saw the film last week and really loved it! It’s very funny. Something that really impressed me about your performance in the film was your feel for comedic delivery and timing. Do you feel as though that’s something that comes naturally to you?

JD: Yeah, I definitely worked with Taika on that – he helped me get the timing right. Sometimes he would be just behind the camera so that I could see him in the corner of my eye; he would wave his hand to be like “and now!”

I feel like the timing sort of got natural over time during filming as I learnt more from Taika.

RGD: The film has already been a huge hit back home in New Zealand. What’s it like to be part of something that so many people have shared in and enjoyed?

JD: It’s really awesome to see! We’re now the highest-grossing New Zealand film, beating Boy, Taika’s other film. I feel like the film will go well in Australia because we have a similar sense of humour. I don’t know if it will go so well in America…

RGD: You were actually just in the US, at the Sundance Film Festival, to promote the movie – what was that like?

JD: It was amazing! It was very cold, but at the world premiere a lot of people were stopping us on the street to tell us about how much they loved the film. They said it was probably the best film they’d seen during the whole festival, but it was only the second day so that probably didn’t mean very much!

It was my first time in the States and seeing everyone’s reactions was really uplifting.

RGD: Did you get to meet any stars while you were at the festival?

JD: I did meet John Legend! He walked passed me, so that’s officially meeting him.

I’ll tell you a quick story though; we were doing a promotion – I think it was with the Hollywood Reporter – and we were going to take some photos, and Nick Jonas was having his photo taken just before us, and Sam went to go sit in this seat and Nick Jonas’ manager came over and was like, “Sorry, my client is sitting in that seat.”

When we got back into the car later, I asked Sam if he knew who Nick Jonas was and he said “No idea!”

RGD: The film was shot in some pretty remote areas of New Zealand during the winter months. How did you cope with the conditions whilst shooting on location?

JD: It was very, very cold. 90% of the film was shot on location. We shot the movie in five weeks, about 25 days. One of those weeks was just on the car chase!

Sometimes, we were only 5 or 10 meters into the bush in a park, so you’d get runners come past and they’d see us filming in the park, just me under this bush or something.

RGD: Taika’s next movie is Thor: Ragnorok. Have you asked him about the possibility of a sneaky cameo role? You could be the first Kiwi superhero!

JD: Yeah, I could! It’s amazing, I’m pretty excited for him that he’s getting to do this big studio film. It’s a big step up from an independent New Zealand film to a Marvel Studio film, but I feel like he’ll do a really job at it. He’ll put his quirky directing and the way he tells stories into Thor.

I’ll probably beg him to let me be in it – I could be a kid in the background just running away from some evil guy, but at least I would have done a Thor film!

Hunt for the Wilderpeople is available in Australian cinemas from May 26

Image courtesy of Madman Entertainment 

Movie Review – Hunt For The Wilderpeople

Put on your ‘bist’ Kiwi accent and strap in for one of the funniest comedies you’ll see all year with Taika Waititi’s Hunt for the Wilderpeople.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Rhys Graeme-Dury

Tossed from one crappy foster home to the next, 13-year-old Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is a bad egg; a typical tearaway teen if ever there was one. He’s sent to live on a remote New Zealand farm owned by tender foster mum Bella (Rima Te Wiata) and her cantankerous husband Hector (Sam Neill). Despite attempting to run away night after night (he barely makes it out of sight), Ricky soon finds his new home isn’t all that bad. However, one forest foray sees him and Uncle Hec stuck out in the bushland for weeks, triggering a national manhunt.

Kiwi director Taika Waititi has become something of national hero in his home country of late, with a series of delightful productions that, Lord of the Rings aside, have put New Zealand on the map. His work behind the camera on Boy and What We Do In The Shadows have earned him a cult following, and this latest harebrained comedy is destined to recruit more avid followers to his crusade.

Dennison is a comedic revelation as Ricky; a terrible troublemaker who has aspirations to be the Kiwi equivalent of 2pac. The timing on his line delivery is pretty much perfect and the youngster does more than just hold his own against seasoned actors like Neill. The two share an infectious chemistry, and Neill gives his funniest and most committed performance in years, clearly revelling at the chance to play such a fun and expressive character.

The film does dip into well-trodden tropes at times, but any narrative cul-de-sacs that Waititi encounters are niftily negotiated through his trademark energetic camerawork. Simply put, Hunt for the Wilderpeople is the kind of the film that will have you rolling in the aisles, spewing laughter so loud that you’ll be struggling to hear the next six or seven gags. It’s filled with such effervescence that it scoots past any criticism you can lobby at the fairly straight-forward plot.

Soulless sceptics might tune out as the narrative strays further from the realm of possibility, but a warm script and a firm understanding of where these characters
are going keeps the film anchored.

At the end of the day, Hunt for the Wilderpeople will stir your soul just as much as it will tickle your ribs, and in an era where 90% of comedies fail to embrace the former, that’s a quality in short supply.

Hunt For The Wilderpeople is available in Australian cinemas from May 26

Image courtesy of Madman Entertainment