MovieReview

Darke Reviews | Ready or Not (2019)

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Hey everyone, it’s been a few weeks since there’s been a review. I’ve had a lot of real space issues recently, from the AC going out in my house in Arizona on the night I saw Hobbs and Shaw, to the death of a family member the night I saw Scary Stories to tell in the Dark. Short reviews on both of them right now. Hobbs and Shaw was ridiculous in concept, execution, acting and was everything the trailer said it would be. If you saw the trailer and went ‘thats my kinda movie’ then you should have seen it by now. For Scary Stories, it too delivered what it promised, a teenager (no younger) appropriate horror film directed by the man who did Autopsy of Jane Doe and produced by Guillermo Del Toro. Again if this wasn’t enough to get you there it may not be for you, but I enjoyed it for what it is. That of course brings us to Ready or Not.

 

NOTE: This is the R Rated trailer, its NSFW.

 

Ready or Not? Should you come?

This is a Fox Searchlight picture, which is 20th Century Foxes indy arm of production, but also the one that gave us most of their award winners such as The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Black Swan, 12 Years a Slave, and Birdman. This is not those movies. This is one where a director and writer with an idea went “can you fund us please?” and someone in this arm went “yeah ok sure”. Writers Ryan Murphy and Guy Busick (Urge  – not the Purge), put their past experiences together and delivered the story of a young woman marrying into a ultra rich family with strange rituals and a penchant for taking a game a bit too far. This is a movie that if it did not take inspiration from the great You’re Next I would be surprised, but easily will sit on the shelf next to it. Giving us an ultra rich family, psychopathic tendencies, and a final girl who is all too human. In the production notes for the movie I found this bit pleasing

Screenwriter R. Christopher Murphy muses that “with Grace we are turning on its head the horror genre trope of the ‘final girl;’ where in many horror films, you have a cast of innocents stalked by one psycho and one final girl remaining to challenge the killer. But in READY OR NOT Grace is the only intended victim, one whom several people are hunting.”

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Southbound, Devil’s Due) and Tyler Gillett (Southbound, Devil’s Due) despite being relatively new to the game show some good decision making behind the camera. They effectively take some very very horrible people and bring out the charm in them so that while yes, you want them to die its not because you just want them off camera. Many slasher films of the late 80s to today have forgotten that where yes, you look forward to horribly people dying, but usually its just to get them to shut up. Here the near buffoonery of the performances keeps the wretchedness of the people from being completely overwhelming to the point of distraction. The humor that punctuates the movie is entirely within character and keeps the tone light enough to breathe between some of the more intense scenes. The directors also brilliantly remember that unlike many horror and action movies injuries matter and simply putting a bandage on it does not stop the pain.

Granted they may give the direction, but the actors need to sell it. Samara Weaving (The Babysitter, Mayhem), niece to the incredible Hugo Weaving, is a heavy weight in the film and can deliver. Every reaction felt naturalistic and held its continuity to the story, the experience and her character Grace. You might be saying “Yeah that’s acting”. To that I point you at the last abomination they called a Die Hard movie and compare it to the original. What is expected of Weaving here is not exactly a small feat to pull off for 96 minutes but she does it.  Not only that she had a voice and made sure the directors were true to the character.

Co-director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin remarks, “Sam made it important to herself, and to all of us, that the movie not get repetitive and that there be an arc for Grace. We were so grateful for her attention to detail from moment to moment.”

Adam Brody (The OC, Shazam!), as the brother in law Daniel takes what otherwise what would be a one note character and gives it a few layers; mostly through alcohol and dry wit, that keeps you watching him when he’s on the screen. The rest of the cast, which is the rest of the family is absolutely fine. Every last one of them has a distinct personality; but is more than their personality trait – another lost lesson in film-making within the genre. I have to believe Melanie Scrofano (Wynonna Earp) made her character Emilie’s weapon of choice the pistol for pure humor value, or the directors did and she ran with it.

From a technical perspective, there’s some nice use of camera techniques that help tell you what is going on as much as whats within the frame; though some of the musical cues are a bit too on the nose for my tastes. This may be been a de-constructive attempt by filmmakers, but it didn’t quite stick as well as everything else did. There’s a lovely mix of practical and CG gore through the movie, but the practical as expected reigns supreme. With the previously mentioned 96 minute running time, including credits, the movie moves are a brisk but not a wasted pace that keeps advancing the plot without the need for anyone to have their IQ drop to do so.

TL;DR?

I enjoyed this movie. Like a lot. I am hard pressed to tell you its a horror movie, but I am jaded in that space. There’s gore, there’s the hunting of a person, but this is more like the cool aunt to the action movie genre. Slightly less action, but willing to go the extra on the violence, the language, but not sacrificing story to do so. I mean sure there’s other horror elements to the movie, but to me horror is something intended to scare – and this just doesn’t have it. It has a good plot, decent tension, great acting and solid directing.

I mentioned You’re Next earlier and it would fit well there, or perhaps with something like No One Lives or Even Lambs Have Teeth. Not quite scary enough for me to call Horror nor actiony enough to fit in that genre, its solidly between the two and it belongs there as the directors and writers knew what they wanted, released a trailer promising that thing, and finally delivered on it and even had a bit of restraint in doing so.

Should I see it though?

Like I said, I enjoyed this. My Dark Court enjoyed it and neither of them are into the genre – so that’s saying something. If the trailer looked remotely entertaining to you throw the dice and play the game

Would you see it again?

Yeah. You buying?

Uh…no, but will you buy it?

Oh totally. This will get played a few times a year when I am in the mood for a solid Final Girl type movie.

Parting thoughts on this one?

Go to a theatre with an alcohol license, while you don’t need it to have a good time – it somehow fits. Or maybe a nice glass of Chianti.

Was that a spoiler?

No; but if I hate myself enough I will watch Angel has Fallen later this week and write a review on that. Though if it’s as bad as London has Fallen it probably won’t be worth a review.

You didn’t write a review for London has Fallen because it was so dull.

You understand my point then.

For now, I leave you with the fact that THIS despite it’s midweek release in August is one of the more fun movies I’ve had this year and definitely one of the more entertaining in the genre, and a note from Costume Designer Avery Plewes

When making a genre movie, “Don’t send things to dry cleaners. It never goes over well; they will get freaked out, no matter how well you know them.”

 

 

 

Darke Reviews | The Lion King (2019)

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How precisely are we going to discuss the Lion King going forward? You can’t really call this the live action one. It’s not the hottest take I know I know. I could poke fun if you say the 94 one is the original and pull out the receipts about Kimba the White Lion. That wouldn’t be entirely fair, no one consciously ripped off of a thirty year old animated TV series when they made the Lion King, but it’s disingenuous to say that the animators, writers, or even actors weren’t taking some childhood inspiration from it. Writers today might incidentally crib from Stephen King, Clive Barker, John Carpenter, some random episode of Silverhawks, He-Man, or Thundercats. The things we watch as children carry on and inspire creatives today. I couldn’t escape some of the dialogue from The Last Unicorn if I tried and I wouldn’t want to. Wanna bet me that “That’s what heroes are for” is going to make it into one of my stories or more than one? All of that said we have a Lion King twenty five years later.

Should it have stayed in the shadows?

Let’s sit down and chat about the writing. We have of course the “characters” credit you may see. This is just giving credit to the original writers, Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. The story credit on 2019 goes to Brenda Chapman, who was one of 27 (!!!!) writers credited on the original, but ultimately she also gets the Story Supervisor thus making it hers for this one, while the three previous names were the “screenplay” credits. Wow that’s convoluted. There is however a new credit for Jeff Nathanson (Speed 2, Rush Hour 2, Pirates 4); who apparently is a script doctor that gets a lot of uncredited work on movies like Twister and the original Rush Hour. If this man is a script doctor please take away his license to practice. Mister Nathanson, you literally took the script from the original word for word and ….did nothing with it. Wait, you did. You changed the dialogue on a handful of scenes that are iconic and changed them for the…lesser. You did nothing. Nothing else.

Jon Favreau the director who brought us Iron Man and the Jungle Book, but also Cowboys & Aliens does not escape my ire. Much like Nathanson you did…nothing. You were a glorified parking lot attendant telling people to go to the place they already knew to go. Your storyboard was the original movie and you didn’t deviate from it. Except, when you did. In those decisions you took a tight 88 minute movie and made it 118 minutes with nothing new to show for it of any measure. Except I don’t think you got a say in it, hence the traffic attendant with some producer at Disney saying “Do this exactly as we tell you and we will fund your next movie”. As the director, you are responsible for the look of the shots and the performances of your actors, but add a musical and now you are responsible for how those songs play out. To borrow from a greater movie, when you are called before your maker and asked why you did something, “I Was told thusly” is not sufficient. Mr Favreau, Jon…Jon you ruined one of the great Disney villain songs. (Side note comment on the post here on FB if you want me top 10 disney villain list). How do you ruin one of the easiest songs? I mean Aladdin didn’t include theirs, but you actually…ruined yours. Then your ballad,…I want you to look at the lyrics, Now look at your shots. Look at the lyrics again. Write on the chalkboard 1,000 times why you were wrong.

Actors! On stage. Ok…you did fine. No, that’s it. You were fine. Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, 12 Years a Slave), you nailed Scar. While you lacked Iron’s ham, you had your own gravitas and made it work. Clearly the best in the lot. Mr Jones, good to have you back sir. Why did they auto tune you though? You still have it. Yes, you sound different, but you are still epic. Alfre Woodard (12 Years a Slave, Star Trek: First Contact) you exude class as Sarabi. Who else who else, oh yes, Florence Kasumba. You made the Hyena matriarch Shenzi flipping intimidating and even a bit scary at times. Well done. Like seriously well done. The rest of the performances are just average, yes including Beyonce. It’s just meh.

There is also a lot of critique on the expressionless animations going around since the trailers dropped. I have news for you, its intentional. I understand what the animators were going for. This is Disney showing off just how good they are at generating photo realistic animals and terrain. That is almost literally all this movie is. They went for a naturalistic animal expression, motions, and body language. Even animalistic ticks as they are even just standing around are present. Due to that the more human facial expressions we are used to from animation never make it across. 90% of the time the animations are amazing and beautiful, if emotionless, but its the other 10% that concern me. How, how in an entirely computer generated movie do you create shots that look like they are on green screen or against a matte painting? Follow up question – why would you?

TL;DR?

There are going to be a lot of people who like this movie. There were people in my showing who clapped for it. Myself and my Dark Court were not among them. With the Court it rated a meh at best, and to be fair that is all it is at best. I can forgive a bad movie that is a meh because it tried. I can forgive an original movie or even the odd remake that is a meh because they tried something original and appreciate it for what it does. Disney doesn’t get that slack.

Disney is a studio who has made $2.1 billion this year in the America alone. That’s with a B and only on 9 movies. The next closest studio is at $894 million with 23 movies released. Disney also has Maleficent 2, Frozen 2, and Star Wars coming this year. You don’t get a pass on Meh anymore, especially with tentpole productions. I actively dislike this movie.

Wow, ok should I see it?

No. Look just put the animated in. Share it with your kids and be happy.

Would you see it again?

No. I will see Aladdin again over this.

I am guessing…

I won’t buy it. You are correct.

Parting thoughts then?

I wasn’t hopeful for this movie to begin with. It met my expectations. I go back to what I said in the Aladdin review, Disney is at its best on these when it deviates from the original in new and inventive ways. The writing is bad enough I want to shake the writer and remind them of the Rule of three. I want to flog the editors for some of the weirdest pacing and cutting decisions that take away from many scenes which should have had emotional weight to them but just looked confused or rushed.

Also – how, how in Turings name did you make a stampede with no energy? A fight between lions and hyenas that just was…ok? That is unacceptable when you have no limitations on its capabilities.

I cannot recommend the Lion King to anyone – but alas I know it will make a few hundred million.

If nothing else we have a potentially good Mulan movie next spring?

 

Darke Reviews | Spider-man: Far from Home (2019)

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I really can’t write this review without some Endgame spoilers as everything is driven by the events of that movie. Granted the trailers alone give it away so I am not too worried, but be warned. This movie marks the official end of Marvel Phase 3, not Endgame. What does that even mean? Well Marvel has been approaching their own movies in phases, with Phase 1 culminating in avengers, Phase 2 oddly ended with Ant-Man rather than Ultron, which I suppose makes this being the end of 3 not the strangest thing. This is not so much a denouement to Phase 3 as it is an epilogue that bookends the series and answers a question everyone was sort of asking after Endgame; what next? What is the actual impact of The Snap and its return is? What does losing Iron Man and the Avengers look like? What does the impact on every day people look like after a galactic threat? A  good bookend would answer those questions.

Is Spider-Man Far from Home or the mark?

So the story does answer some of those questions really well and others not so much.  The opening is more or less an exposition dump from the school vlog/news given to us by Betty Brant; which explains to the audience “Previously on Spider-Man”. Is it a bit convenient that *all* of Peter’s closest friends, frenemies, and Aunt May were affected? Yes. Let me ask you another one though in response. Is it also very comic bookish? Also yes. The point of a good Spider-man story is not so much the epic show downs, but instead the relationships he has and strains with those around him as he tries to lead a double life. Made worse by being a minor instead of an adult as he technically has even less autonomy and the excuses are well…bad every time he needs to vanish. Far from Home has all of this in spades, perhaps too much though. The movie also relies on an inordinate amount of awkwardness and embarrassment type humor to drive the story. I absolutely detest that. Many will find it acceptable and part and parcel with a teenager based movie. As someone who was bullied through school I never find it humorous and just instead feel it uncomfortable and hard to watch again and again. Even a third act close for much of the movies humor around this topic just reinforces it.

I suppose with the writers from American Dad, Drawn Together, and Crank Yankers being given more reign this time than they were with Homecoming it makes sense. This isn’t to say the screenplay by Erik Sommers and Chris McKenna is a bad one. It’s actually a very solid story beyond those beats. Peter desperately trying to have a normal life is even for a summer and trying to find his place in the world after the death of his surrogate father Tony Stark. While the line from the trailer is important “he’s been to space” is used as a joke to move Peter forward, consider the pressure of that. Everything he has seen and done in such a short time and then to lose his touchstone and guidance immediately upon his own return from death. Can he find a brief, but fleeting sense of normalcy in all of this even with perhaps finding a bit of romance with MJ amidst the field trip to Europe.

The direction of Jon Watts is consistent with Homecoming and he understands how to hold on the more emotional moments of the film and let some of the conversations happen “naturally”. You always have a good sense of the geometry of the fight sequences which are both visually interesting and engaging. Granted Holland is still just knocking it out of the park with the complexity of Peter as a character, but unlike the scene from the trailer ,which has been cut from the movie, we don’t get the humor of Spider-Man himself. I could have used some of that instead of the other stuff mentioned before. The movie though didn’t really have a good place for it either, so while I miss it I can’t see a place to have put it in when fighting Elemental creatures. Zendaya is captivating as this universes MJ and brings more complexity and nuance to the character than we’ve ever seen before and the movie benefits from it.  The one worth talking about beyond our two is Jake Gyllenhaal as Quentin Beck/Mysterio. He nails it. This is a perfect way to do a classic character with a schtick that should only work in comics and animation and make him live. They even made it so that his smoke filled helmet works. He’s a clever character and done well.

TL;DR?

Far From Home isn’t far from the mark. It is a solid two hour romp that is a really good Spider-Man story. It’s a smaller one after a glut of world wide and galactic threats. It focuses on the characters and their interactions and Peter himself, having accepted he must be Spider-Man but not fully understanding what that means yet. The movie has some really solid emotional beats and follows the rise and fall really well and gives us a conclusion to both Spider-Man Far From Home and Phase 3 that we can live with.

Should you see it?

This might be one of the last good high budget movies of the summer. It’s worthy of the 4th of July slot and overall is a really solid movie that doesn’t verge into great for me, but is very good overall.

Would you see it again?

Odds are pretty good that I will. I have Dark Princesses and Dark Court members who want to see it and I am ok with it.

Buying it?

Absolutely.

Is this Marvel or Sony?

This is very much a Sony movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Any good easter eggs?

Well the trailer introduces the concept of the multi-verse and an in movie explanation with that aligns with comic canon that this is Earth 616; which is the main comics line. There’s a handful of others that are more and less subtle that made me smile.

Parting thoughts?

I could have done without the excessive humor around embarrassment and uncomfortableness. The romantic beats work, but more than that, this is a Spider-Man movie. This reminds me of the comics I read as a little girl and I am pleased with the final result.

Darke Reviews | Child’s Play (2019)

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I’ve never quite been what one would call a fan of the Child’s Play series. I’ve watched most of them at one point or another and while not a fan appreciate how bat-guano-crazy they get; even with the first movie. I mean come on, this is a movie about a doll possessed by the soul of a psychopath who begins to kill people. A doll. This isn’t like Annabelle or any of the modern haunted dolls, this is literally the DOLL killing people. The Puppetmaster series at least acknowledged its camp in its own unique Full Moon way. To be fair, as Child’s Play went on the series got weirder and weirder, and did acknowledge just how strange it is as a series in its own way. As with any remake of a franchise that has some serious fans there was doubt on a new movie being made.

Should Chucky go back in the box?

The first thing to address is, is this a sequel, a remake, or a reboot? Based on everything I have to work with this is absolutely a remake with no acknowledgement to the original movies in anyway shape or form. It has all of the hallmarks of a remake as well, with callbacks to the original but most of them being ham-fisted; right down to getting the name Chucky. The screenplay that drove this is from Tyler Burton Smith, who as near as I can tell is not related to one of the producers the often lamented Seth Grahame Smith. Seth is known for Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter; but also the writer for Tim Burtons abomination of a Dark Shadows movie. Knowing Seth is a producer and Tyler Burton Smith has video game writing credits before this gives me some insight to aspects of the movie; which is suffice to say emotionally flat. I acknowledge I might be in a bad mood, because I was offended by one of the trailers before it but the movie goes out of its way to make every human the worst possible versions of themselves.

Like I get it, as slasher movies (De-?)evolved we began to look forward to obnoxious people being killed and our killer being more of a protagonist than even our final girls. This took it to a new level that was just off-putting rather than perversely gleeful. Only two characters in the movie are remotely likable and they are tertiary characters at best. That is not good. Part of a horror movie is to feel tension that a character you like is going to be harmed. Here? Not only do you feel no tension, you are just waiting for them to die because they are just bleh; but thats not enough they have to upscale it before hand. It’s completely unnecessary and takes away from any impact the movie could have had as you know a horror movie. If the people are likable, then when the doll begins doing what it does…you worry. You wonder whats going to happen next and then have favourites you don’t want dead. Here…who cares? Not me. Certainly not the script.

I think the director tried to care, but I am not sure he was cut out for what he had to do here to make this work. Lars Klevberg’s only other work was the film Polaroid which was supposed to be released in 2017. Remember that one? Here you go:

I had completely forgotten about this movie until writing this review. I went to check did it come and go with a whimper, but found out it never even showed up. It was pushed back twice on the release schedule then never released here in the US. It *finally* got a German release in 2019, but thats about it. Looking at the two pictures I see a man who tries to go for cold barren landscapes, he wants to use his lighting to create mood using stark single colours to light a scene. He prefers relatively tight shots on his cast, but rarely a full close up. He tries to play with the camera, but forgets that the camera is a point of view itself and if you decide to track it as if it was first person you need to make the motion make sense. In other words he is trying, but needs to refine a bit before he gets there.

Aubrey Plaza gets to run solo in this one as the main star of the movie and the mother of the child who acquires the doll. She tries and having seen the full force of her personality in Legion, Safety Not Guaranteed, and a ton of clips from Parks and Rec, she’s entirely wasted here. Her delivery is flat and I can only blame the direction, she tries but doesn’t have the inertia to or will to overcome that which holds her back. Gabriel Bateman, who plays the new Andy is fine I guess. If anything his performance feels the most natural and sounds like a kid reacting to what he has to. There’s an odd choice by the movie to make him hearing impaired, but it adds absolutely nothing to the movie to do so. I have a feeling there’s a draft of the script where it comes into play more but someone said this looks too much like A Quiet Place and cut it from the movie but not the hearing aid entirely. Mark Hamill is fine as the voice of Chucky, but the script gives him nothing to work with compared Brad Dourifs take in 88. This isn’t a slight on Hamill, we know what he can do with voice acting, but the script gave him nothing. Nothing to do with it.

The only thing remotely interesting in the movie is how they use the fact the Buddi doll is like a generation nine Alexa and connect to your home, phone, tv, and even roomba. Again the idea is interesting, but they don’t take it nearly far enough. The movie is a very brisk 90 minutes – with credits, so time could have been spent to do something curious, something new with it, or something to add to the horror, but it doesn’t. Even the gore, which I am sure other reviews may talk about was more mild than it was intense. I won’t even go into some of the more interesting logistical issues.

TL:DR;

This is the kind of remake that people warn you about. It tries to be new, but tries to keep ties to the original. It tries to be edgy and reinvent the franchise, but misses the point. The script is not great, the direction mediocre, the acting mediocre, and generally comes across as a flat movie trying to find relevance. When 2013’s Curse of Chucky and then in 2017 had Cult of Chucky come out and was a strong entry in an almost 30 year old franchise, this feature comes across even more unnecessary and painfully derivative from Don Mancini’s work on the other seven films. This strikes even more of a vibe as Curse and Cult are reasonably scary for the franchise.

Should I see it then?

No. Just no.

Would you watch it again?

Only if I was stuck in the body of a possessed doll and had no method of locomotion….

So not buying it then eh?

Not even a little thought on that.

Is it that bad?

The doll looks bad. The movie is bad. I kept hoping Charles Lee Ray would end it for me. Just watch Curse and Cult of Chucky and hope for the best that Don Mancini gets to do something with the franchise again.

Darke Reviews | Men in Black: International (2019)

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I really had no interest in the Men in Black films after the second one, so I missed the third one (apparently a good thing?) and I even missed the animated series (yes it’s a thing). Will Smith lost his charm with me a very long time ago and so did the franchise. I was very dubious when I heard there was a new Men in Black movie coming out, but then I heard the cast; Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. I have a serious girl crush on Thompson and Hemsworth isn’t exactly what one calls something bad to add to a movie. Seven years since the last film put a nail in the series coffin and twenty two years since the original. The trailers showed some promise and gave us a heroine to get behind, so I went and watched it with the two members of my Dark Court.

Should we be neuralized to forget?

There are two writing credits on the movie, which is not across my writer threshold making it a good thing. Art Marcum and Matt Holloway who have screenplay credits on Iron Man, Punisher War Zone, and Transformers the Last Knight. Talk about hit or miss? It does, however, inform some of what I saw in the movie. A script that doesn’t do anything particularly original and follows the Men in Black formula pretty well. There are some clear bits of dialogue that represent expected plot points that got dropped as the production went on. The story is what was promised on the trailer, girl finds the MiB, gets recruited, gets sent to London office. Threat to the planet ensues.  They look good a long the way.

So not original? No. Formulaic? Yes. Is that a bad thing? No. Not always. I hear in critics circles and some regular movie goers saying “its sooo formulaic” as if its a bad thing. Every movie is a formula. Some are more recognizable than others. They get reused for a reason – they work. When you go to a bar do you complain that your drink is formulaic? You just paid the same amount you did for a movie ticket. All it means is that the pattern and structure follow something you’ve seen before, but with the content being adjusted for this particular narrative. The adjustments work here and I really didn’t have any major complaints. I don’t have much in the way of major praises either. It simply works at the baseline and in some cases, like this one, that really is not the worst thing in the world.

A good director helps though and fortunately F. Gary Gray is a good director. I like his work on Set It Off, The Italian Job, and the Negotiator. I hear that Straight Outta Compton was good. The framing of shots is good. The direction and required mystery components are handled well. He had two of the most charismatic modern actors in Thompson and Hemsworth. He used his Emma Thompson and Liam Neeson well, something frequently not done.  Side characters like Kumail Nanjiani (Stuber) and Rebecca Ferguson (Mission Impossible) work well and suit the narrative and even add to it, which makes a pleasant change from previous films.

If anything the biggest weakness on the movie is an over-reliance on CG. More than a few of the shots and creatures would have looked even more amazing in the practical with make up, puppets, and the like. That said, the vast majority of the CG creatures and world looked good. The studios involved clearly spent their money well here and created that same lived in world of MiB with always some little thing in the background, which is a very Mos Eisley Cantina trick and I appreciate it. While some looked good, there’s two or three effects that just look exceptional and are definitely worth seeing.

TL;DR

I love that the writers and director went with the female lead on this one and that she is confident and capable. Not to say that she doesn’t make mistakes, but the humor in this movie is elevated even over the first one. All the jokes land and really for once don’t depend upon the embarrassment of someone to be funny. I *hate* that kind of humor and the movie didn’t have it. Thompson is a more than capable lead character and the charisma between her and her co-star in Thor is more than enough to light up any screen.

The movie much to my surprise works. It isn’t great, it doesn’t redefine the genre, but if you want to start off a new franchise you could do a lot worse than this. Point in fact this is one of the first times in a long time I actively want a reboot of the franchise with these two characters at the helm. Not only are the actors magnificently charming, I *like* both the characters for what they bring to the table. Men in Black International surprised me a bit. I knew I enjoyed it and was able to unwind watching it, but as I write I am finding how much I enjoyed it.

Granted, maybe its just me comparing it to last weeks movie? Either way…

Should I see it?

Yeah if you were dubious I think you will be ok. Like I’ve said, it doesn’t tread any new ground plot wise, is pretty basic but makes that work in its favor. Matinee minimum, super sound systems optional.

Would you see it again?

The Dark Court and I agree – probably not in theatres. Not a bad thing, just it doesn’t require that screen to enjoy

So you’re buying it then?

Honestly, yeah. I liked it.

Anything else to add?

This movie didn’t help with my crush. It might have made it worse? 

In all seriousness, the humor in the movie works and doesn’t do it at the expense of anyone, beyond some decent physical comedy from Hemsworth. I would recommend he talk to Brendan Frasier before he plays that card too much.

Ok so Next week?

Toy Story 4 – Probably not. I never fell in love with that franchise. I honestly didn’t particularly like the first one, don’t even remember the second, and didn’t watch the third.

Childs Play – I am curious. Pretty likely. No members of the Dark Court with me though. Maybe a Dark Princess will brave it?

Anna – maybe, for some mindless action fare? Still undecided there.

 

 

 

Darke Reviews | Dark Phoenix (2019)

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Interesting that the title isn’t X-Men Dark Phoenix, it’s just Dark Phoenix. X-Men First Class (2011), X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), and X-Men Apocalypse(2016) and now Dark Phoenix in 2018. Whoops, thats right this was originally to have a release date on November 2, 2018, then pushed to Valentines day, now pushed to June. Pushing release dates is costly to the studio, mostly in PR and awareness of your audience as they remember the original and then…forget. We saw this with Alita, and people going “Didn’t this come out already?”.  Reshoots are even more costly to the studio, costing millions if not tens of million dollars. You have to bring actors back from whatever they are doing now, rebuild sets, hire crew, and also challenge some poor Visual Effects house with last minute work that they will be underpaid for. I suppose there’s only one question –

Is The Dark Phoenix worth the cost?

Sit down with me for a moment. I want you to remember the original “X” franchise of films. Now try to remember X-Men The Last Stand in 2006. This movie was the original franchise run and attempt to do the Dark Phoenix Saga. It is almost universally panned, sank the franchise so badly nothing was made for 5 years and it was a Retcon/Reboot,  and made people doubt the vitality of the comic book movie. Two years later Iron Man came out and we tried, actively, to forget how bad it was. We did for a time and life was better, even if the new franchise referenced it in both Wolverine, Logan, and Days of Future Past we were able to get by. I ask you to remember this with me because I need to tell you something important. I need you to answer something for me after I tell you.

The studio hired the same man who wrote X-Men the Last Stand as the writer and director for this movie. He has the sole credit on the movie for written by. He is also the one with screenplay credit on Fan4stic in 2015. I need to know what blackmail material that Simon Kinberg has on 20th century Fox. What could possibly posses a studio to give this man the job? He *is* a producer this is true, but why and how could he get funding after any picture he has had direct involvement in has not been commercially well received. Why would they think that giving him the same project he botched so thoroughly thirteen years ago would be a wise idea? Granted, here I feel like quoting Jurassic Park The Lost World.

Um no, not the same mistakes. You’re making all new ones.

Kinberg did not make many of the mistakes made in The Last Stand. He did in fact make plenty of new ones. He thought that close up shots of our Queen of the North and her amazing cheekbones breathing heavily, with a cracking fire effect in her skin makes for drama. They use that shot at least six times. X-Men First Class worked because of dialogue and chemistry between characters. Days of Future Past worked because of dialogue and the debates between Xavier and Magneto and Mystique. Apocalypse…didn’t work for many because it lacked those things. This one has precisely two scenes where there is that emotionally charged and heavy debate of morality and ethics and what is right or wrong.  They both exist in Act I. Shortly after I stopped caring.

I can look past the fact that for a movie set in 1992 Charles should be 54 and Magneto likely pushing 60 and they didn’t even bother with any form of aging make up. The earlier movies gave an excuse for Mystique not them.  But fine, we can say all Mutants age gracefully. I can almost, almost get past how awful Jennifer Lawrence’s make up is as Mystique. I get it she didn’t want to do the movies anymore and didn’t want to have to do full body make up again. We can put her in completely unflattering (and I don’t mean non sexy, I mean just not good looking on camera) outfits, the worst wig I have seen in awhile, and change the make up entirely. Nah, I can’t get past that. It’s lazy.

 

X-Men First Class – 1962 (Filmed 2011)

X-Men Days of Future Past- 1973 (Filmed 2014)

X-Men Apocalypse – 1983 (Filmed 2016)

 

 

Dark Phoenix – 1992 (Filmed 2018)

Look I get it she’s a shapeshifter, but how does it look worse and worse as the movies go?

This movie had a $200 million budget. $40 million more than First Class, roughly the same as Days of Future Past, and $22 million more than Apocalypse – which looked…bad. There are so many shots in this movie that just look …bad. Mystique is just the tip of the iceberg and when you have a budget like this I would expect some form of climactic ending that is satisfying. This had nothing of the sort. I get you had to reshoot the ending because it was too close to Captain Marvel (which you would have beaten by several months on the original release), but this ending had no weight to it. Faceless people dying facelessly. Yay? Sure there are some cool moments in the finale, but they are moments. They have no emotional weight to them as there is no emotional build up to them or breath to take after its done.

That is the ultimate problem with the movie. There is absolutely no emotional arc worth a damn. Kinberg says he loves the material, but he’s butchered it not once but twice now. From an opening sequence that looks to pay homage to the altar of Michael Bay and his jingoist tendencies to absolutely zero denouement. The story is so emotionally flat that the only thing you care about is getting to the next beat before you fall asleep from not caring.

I could try to talk about how McAvoy, Fassbender, Hoult try to turn it around, but they cannot overcome the inertia of this. I could talk about how Turner powers through and brings emotional weight to the arc and salvages it, but that would be a lie. Despite Jean Grey’s power, Turner is not more powerful than Kinbergs overwhelming mediocrity. Jessica Chastain must have lost a bet or thought she was signing on to play an even older Jean but instead they made her platinum blonde and emotionally drained. She is wasted. Alexandra Shipp had reason to be angry a few weeks ago as while Storm LOOKS cool (she really does) there’s maybe fifteen actual lines of dialogue for her. We get nothing even close to good Quicksilver scenes which elevated both prior movies.

You know what I am tired of talking about it. Its not worth it.

TL;DR

Magneto’s line from one of the early trailers works for my feelings on the movie “We’ve heard it all before, no one cares.” The actors may have cared, the crew may have cared, but the writer/director and producer did not.  This is the worst kind of laziness with a franchise that had found its legs and put out a better than average success rate. I thought my review might have been kinder than some of the others, but as I often find when I’m on the fence about a mediocre movie the more I write the more irritated I get with it.

Even the Dark Princess and Dark Council member who joined me tonight was bored with it. Admittedly she had not watched an X film since X-2, but she couldn’t fathom why she should care about Jean Grey. The movie gave no one a reason to care, the franchise gave no one a reason to care. 20 minutes of screen time in Apocalypse is not enough.

So should I see it?

No. No one should. If they didn’t put an emotional investment in it, the movie is not worth your monetary investment.

Would you see it again?

No.

Ok what about completing your collection when it comes out in digital or blu-ray?

It’s unlikely. Even though there are moments I like it doesn’t have enough of them.

OK so it’s bad, can we give it the MST3K treatment?

Sadly, still no. It’s high production value bad. Everyone involved CAN act so that isn’t a point to pick on it. Sure they can’t out do the bad directing and script, but that isn’t their fault.

I have nothing on this movie. I was going to say it’s on the tail end of mediocre just dabbling above bad, but no. This is a bad movie.

Better than Last Stand, but only because it is more comprehensible and at least reasonably true to the characters.

 

This was not worth the delays or reshoots. Let’s see what Disney does in five years with it.

Darke Reviews | Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

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So everyone and their mother complained about how there was too much human action going on in Godzilla (2014). How they only teased the main event through the movie or how you only got to see it through a TV report or partial shots. Oddly a few people complained about how chonky the new take on Godzilla was. I can firmly tell you these people are wrong. I am here for the absolute unit that is Godzilla in 2014 and again in 2019.  The trailers promised us a lot more monster on monster action and introducing Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah. They promised us cities getting laid to waste as these titans went about their business with humans stuck in the middle and looking pretty helpless.

Did they keep their promise?

We have three writers on the story here, so we invoke the Darke Three Writer rule for quality, or do we? Starting with Zach Shields, who worked on the beautifully twisted Krampus (2015), we then move to Max Borenstein who brought us Kong: Skull Island and the 2014 Godzilla, which marks him as the man behind the inter-connectivity. Finally we land with the man who has story, screenplay, and director credit Michael Doughtery. I’ve been a massive fan of Dougherty since 2009 with Trick R Treat and with his clear love of Mythos and myth I felt he was the perfect director when I heard he was attached. The three of them on story, with Daugherty and Shields on screenplay delivered on the promise of more monsters, but at the cost of any sense of logic or reality. The movie entirely embraces the ridiculous premise of the Kaiju and runs with it as far as you can run and still stay even remotely grounded. Is the science good? Not even close. Is the Technology believable? Hah.  Is the plot armor on despite the wanton destruction? Spoilers. Do I care? No.

We’re talking about a movie series in which there’s an ultra secret private company who has been studying these things for decades. Visited Skull Island in the 70s’, but no one heard anything about it. Then watched as Godzilla and the Muto’s broke Hawaii, Vegas, and San Francisco. Now we continue four years later with that same agency still being called to task by the government, who knew about them all along anyway. We find out more and more of them are waking up, some who will fight for us, others against. Who will stand as king?

The cast is of course serviceable. Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai, Inception) doesn’t get anything as good as Let them Fight, but it works. Kyle Chandler (Super 8, Zero Dark Thirty) is our leading man who is a member of Monarch trying to save his family. Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel, The Conjuring franchise) and Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) are said family. The three of them are the more or less emotional core of the movie that are to keep us grounded between the monster smack downs. It works and isn’t nearly as overwrought as it was in 2014 as in this case they are chasing the creatures rather than constantly happening to be in the wrong place and the wrong time. The rest of the cast is a whose who of character actors from Ziyi Zhang (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), Bradley Whitford (Get Out), Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water), and Charles friggin Dance (Game of Thrones). I have a distinct feeling in some of the cases, even those not mentioned here, someone went “do you want to be in a Godzilla movie?” and the only correct answer was given.

Visually the movie was gorgeous. So many of the shots were something you could freeze frame, get printed, then put on a wall and be happy. Dougherty and cinematographer Lawrence Sher knew how to frame the camera for maximum effect. The trailer does it’s job by only hinting at the many many shots that are just awe inspiring when you consider the scale of them and the events that are unfolding because of them. The kaiju of this movie live up to the name of Titan as each and everyone is made to feel massive and terrifying in scale and scope. The creature design is top notch on all of them and you are given ample opportunity to appreciate each one of the designs. The music does it’s job, but that’s hardly a surprise with Bear McCreary on that and fans of the original Toho will notice more than a few musical cues that hearken back to the originals.

TL;DR?

I enjoyed myself with this movie. The Dark Princess of the night and myself just enjoyed gushing about all the things done so well here. Every logical extreme was taken here for the audiences pleasure. They knew the movie they wanted to make, they listened to their audience, and they made it. We are all the better for it and in days of emotional weight in our action movies or movies with such dance like precision this is a breath of fresh air that says to hell with the rules; we’re going big and we’re not going home. It absolutely knows what it is and doesn’t try to be more. Some of the dialogue is cheesy and I didn’t care.

Godzilla: King of Monsters is the movie that was promised and I am looking forward to Godzilla vs Kong.

Ok so I guess we should watch it?

Buy a beer. Buy some popcorn or pretzels. Sit back. Make sure you have a great sound system in the theatre.

Are you buying it?

Yes. Yes I am. You should to.

Ok, but I liked the 2014 and didn’t want more monsters?

I like the 2014 Godzilla. I really do. I get what they went for and appreciate it with holding the monster back. That said, the cat is out of the bag. We’ve had the big reveal, so now we get the rest of the story as it were. Yes, this is more action driven than person driven but it’s not without the person.

Which one is better?

Not answering that. Depends what you want out of the movie. Thats up to the person. I enjoy they both and unlike Ken Watanabe’s character, I see no reason to let them fight.

 

I loved the look and feel of Godzilla King of the Monsters. It pays off on its promises and build up. I have no regrets here and I don’t think you will either.

Darke Reviews | Brightburn (2019)

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Apologies now, this review might be shorter than many. It’s late but I am committed to the members of the Vampire Princesses domain who enjoy her work. Now many folks didn’t know about this one, even horror movie fans so first let me give you a trailer.

 

So if the idea of tween Superman as a horror movie doesn’t intrigue you in the slightest, you can probably stop here. If it does there’s a review for you below. I’ve been curious about this one since that trailer above dropped and yes having James Gunn’s name attached as a producer on that added to it. We’re talking the guy who wrote the screenplay for the remake of Dawn of the Dead, Lollipop Chainsaw, The Belko Experiment, and Slither. Oh yeah some little movie called Guardians of the Galaxy. This has promise.

Did it keep its promise though?

The movie was written by Brian Gunn (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island) and Mark Gunn (Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), which makes sense with the brother /cousin respectively on the producer staff. The thing is though I bet there’s an uncredited writer for James on this too, but well since it’s uncredited I can’t say it’s there officially. The two men, however, don’t exactly have a pedigree to say they can do horror. Pedigree is apparently not a always a requirement. The final product delivers everything on the tin as it were and doesn’t shy away from any of the topics involved. It’s fairly tight, fairly well holds to it’s own logic and consistency and even elevates some of the traditional comic tropes and puts them firmly in the horror genre.  The most obvious trope played with is the alliterative name of our protagonist, Brandon Breyer; but its not the last one. Director David Yarovesky gets his first theatrical release and its a solid one. His choice of shots is engaging, his overall framing is excellent, and while yes he uses many horror tropes he does them to great effect. It works especially well when unlike many horror movies where you have a disappearing shape, this one has cause to be able to do that. I think what works best between the script and direction is that this is how I could see the events playing out if they had happened as shown. At no point did I really go…that was an odd choice. It felt natural.

Elizabeth Banks, yes that one, goes hard into this one. I know I was impressed with her in Power Rangers as the villain, but here she just nails it as the adoptive mother to Brandon. She is the emotional core of the movie and while I was kind of numb (mostly tired) leaving the movie as I think to write this she kept me invested. She kept my interest as we watch Brandon evolve through the film. David Denman plays the adoptive father (oddly also from Power Rangers, but also The Office) and has to deliver a different performance than Banks and it works. Jackson Dunn has the other weight in the film as Brandon. Unfortunately, his performance is a bit one note. I believe this is intentional and as directed, but there’s a detachment in the acting that seemed almost the easy choice to go with. No fault of Dunn there, but it’s one of the weaker elements of an otherwise strong film. Granted the performance does have the right amount of creepy and endearing which is a hard balance with lesser actors or directors.

From a technical perspective there are a few shots which just take the bloody cake. One of them is in the second trailer (not linked) and it’s everything as promised. There are some gore effects I don’tr ecall seeing before and am pleased to have seen them now. At 90 minutes it’s tightly edited and tightly paced so there’s no room for opportunity there.

TL;DR

I told you this one was going to be short. There is not a lot to discuss that wouldn’t cross into spoiler territory. Brightburn kept its promise. It is everything it said it would be, nothing more and nothing less. I want to use this movie as an example of how to be properly subversive to the superhero genre, how to put the twist on it that is needed. It treats everything in the movie, and the audience itself, with respect and intelligence not explaining more than is needed and using show don’t tell to the right levels.

Should I see it?

Honestly, we’ve needed some really solid horror. We got it. If thats your jam, so is this movie.

Would you see it again?

Yeah actually. I would.

So you are buying it?

Absolutely.

Was it that good?

No. It’s just good. Sometimes that is enough. It was tonight. I enjoyed it. It delivered on its promise and really that’s all we need in a lot of cases.

 

Darke Reviews | Aladdin (2019)

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One of the times where I need to put the year not just to cover when I released the review, but also to make sure it’s clear as to which version of the movie I am talking about – even within the same studio. To be fair 27 years is long enough between versions. Though as I write this it just struck me why we claim to be so tired of remakes, when remakes are as old as Hollywood itself. Access. We have more access than ever before to almost any movie ever made any time we want. This really began in my own childhood as VHS became widely accessible and cable began to sink its claws into the world giving us more channels airing more of our favourites. Then came (and went) laser disc, only to be eclipsed by DVD, then BluRay, now Digital. You love The 1992 Aladdin and likely have watched it more than a dozen times, and if you have kids shared it with them as well. It’s never faded from memory because we have it on demand by our own hands. Now to be fair, I am not demonizing the audience for liking what they like and wanting what they want. I am just being a bit introspective as to why we might be judging some of the studios as harshly as we do.

This isn’t to say they don’t also deserve it. They are part of the access issue and let’s face it with few exceptions Disney hasn’t exactly thrilled everyone with these live action remakes. I suppose with Lion King this year we should just call it a Digital Remake. The same might as well be said for this one too, though not to the same extent. For me Maleficent was one of the best of the live action remakes because they remixed the story and did something new with it rather than a shot for shot remake.

So should we just put Aladdin back in the lamp?

The script this time was penned by John August who is credited for work on about a solid third of Tim Burton’s work from Big Fish (yay) to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (special hell for you), to Dark Shadows (I will put you in that hell myself), and Frankenweenie’s 2012 remake. Guy Ritchie clearly did enough rewrites to get his name on the screenplay and of course he is in the directors chair. I am surprised after King Arthur: Legend of the Sword that Disney took a chance on him, but here we are and yes they did. More is the pity.

Let me be clear (I almost typed straight but I’ll never be that), I did enjoy parts of the movie and I don’t hate it. This will seem incongruous to the lambasting I am about to give it so I wanted to make sure you knew early. This film has no energy with one exception and that exception is not Will Smith. Somehow and I don’t know how precisely they took One Jump and Prince Ali and put on the display, put on the words, but it had no energy to it or passion to it. Even the opening Arabian Nights just doesn’t have the right sound to it as it desperately tries to emulate the original. Sure there are changes, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is they try to hit the rise and sound as large but they don’t. They fall just short of it every, single, time. Guy Ritchie made ONE JUMP BORING. HOW? How does a director known for such kineticism take a song born to be kinetic and make it flat. The musical numbers aren’t the only issue. Some scenes are truncated, but not to the movies benefit as it introduces new complexity that isn’t handled well. With one exception I will get to into in a moment the movie is simultaneously rushed and too long at the same time. More than a few of the changes made to story and events we all know aren’t just different, but are flat out weaker on their own and by comparison. It sort of is a mess in that regard.

What saves the movie is the actors. First things first, Will Smith is fine and reminded me of the Smith of old with his charisma and makes Genie his own. He doesn’t try to mimic Robin Williams, but they don’t stray far enough that you forget him. Mena Massoud is fine as Aladdin when the direction and script let him be. He was clearly hired for a smile that can light a room from across a country and that isn’t a bad thing. The boy does his best and starts to overcome everything against him, until they get him to sing. Then the flatness harms, but at least he and Naomi Scott (Power Rangers) have charisma together. He does all he can, but she just does it better. When it comes to the heavy lifting of the movie it’s all on Scott and she does it. She is the powerhouse, from song to performance to character arc.  Prior to this I had no idea she could sing and I am pretty impressed with what I got. Nasim Pedrad also adds some of the charm to the movie as Jasmine’s handmaiden and is definitely one of the brighter spots, in the film. I tried, I tried to buy Marwan Kenzari (Murder on the Orient Express, Ben-Hur) as Jafar, but he didn’t have the necessary venom. He was flat as many of the other performances and emotional depth of the movie beyond Scott. I don’t blame him, I blame Ritchie and August. Mostly Ritchie.

TL;DR?

The movie is fine. It’s passable. It’s just irritatingly mundane. As the Dark Princess who attended with me tonight said, they did everything safe. Everything. There is not a single choice made that wasn’t the safe one to make. Some of the changes and inserts made were ridiculously safe for 2019 and with but one exception did not add to the movie in any way. The CG ends up looking better than we got on the trailers, but that only harms the final product as there is a ridiculous amount of CG so the Genie ends up looking odd since he is coded to be more photo real.

Guy Ritchie was the wrong choice for this movie and while there were some more Bollywood style shots, costuming, lighting, and set design – next time give it to a director from Bollywood. It’s hard for me to forget the initial casting news from this one and it does colour my opinion of the final product. You may think that isn’t fair, but I have to ask would a different director have been able to get the right passion and made the right choices? I mean obviously a different director would have made different choices, but would a Bollywood director have given us the BETTER choices.

Aladdin 2019 will suffer by comparison to the original and that suffering is earned. It only improves one or two things, but again doesn’t stick the landing on those things.

Should I see it though?

Meh? I guess. Like I mentioned in the tomb diving part above, I am fairly displeased with so many of the decisions in the movie, BUT….I don’t hate it.  So take my review at face value and make your choice accordingly.

Would you see it again?

For some of the Naomi Scott scenes? Yes, but…

But you’ll buy it and not in the theatre

You got it.

Any parting thoughts on this one?

I am not hopeful for the Lion King?

 

Darke Reviews | John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)

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Si vis pacem, para bellum. I actually have this on a whiteboard at my job. The Latin phrase translates basically to “If you want peace, prepare for war”; thus the title being Prepare for War. John Wick is one of those movies that kinda snuck in the backdoor back in 2014 with no one giving it much attention at the initial release. It came in second to Ouija by over $5 million, alright? It barely did better than a Brad Pitt movie (Fury) in it’s second week and Gone Girl in its 4th week and that had already made over $100 at that point. So yeah it’s safe to say John Wick was not exactly a popular film on it’s release weekend. It did however double its $20 million budget, but was pretty much gone in four weeks. It found life however in the after market and people realized what they were missing (but you know if more people read my reviews they would know to go see it!).   Two and a half years later John Wick: Chapter 2 doubled the domestic gross of it’s predecessor with $92 million; but also doubled the budget. $15 million more was thrown at the third chapter.

Did they prepare for war though?

The story was written by the original writer, Derek Kolstad, who literally just makes assassin projects, with his next two being a TV series for The Continental and Hitman. The screenplay then gets three additional writers, thus violating the writing rule of Darke. Marc Abrams (The Bernie Mac Show), Chris Collins (Sons of Anarchy, The Wire), and Shay Hatten in their first major writing project. I have to admit confusion here as one of the driving forces of a John Wick movie have been relatively simplistic plots that rely on a minimum of dialogue. This one is not that different in that regard. Kolstad was the sole story/screenplay credit on the last two so I cannot fathom what the others brought to the work.

The story is as simple as what’s on the tin and picks up where the last left off more or less. John having killed someone within the Continental has been declared Excommunicado by the surprisingly large network of assassins and support staff. He loses all rights to services and is now himself the hunted. What will he do? Where will he go?

That’s it. Even as we get a deeper look at the world of killers beneath the surface of our own, which is a lovely conceit still, there is a simplicity to it all. They do of course add layers and some complexity as we visit new locations and meet new personalities, but all of that is handled well by Stunt Performer turned director Chad Stahelski. As with the first two films having someone with his kind of experience in knowing what it takes to make a good shot for the camera (and guns) lets us really enjoy the kineticism of the fight sequences. Again this is no different, except now we have added animals to the stunts using horses and dogs – which anyone can tell you adds even more risk. You don’t want the animal getting hurt, the animal has to be trained, and you have to be careful the animal doesn’t hurt any of the performers when it’s all in camera like this. I am pleased to say the addition of the animals definitely added to the action.

We can talk about performances, but we are dealing with Keanu Reeves in the role that revitalized his career and the action movie industry. He gets to spend most of the time just being tired, broken, and still the Baba Yaga we know and love.  Ian McShane (please narrate my life) and Lance Reddick return as Winston and Charon of the Continental, with Laurence Fishburne also coming back to work with his friends from the Matrix.  Two of the new stand outs are of course Angelica Houston as The Director and Halle Berry reminding us she exists and has action chops. Asia Kate Dillon (Orange is the New Black, Billions) gives us to my knowledge our first Non-binary actor (pronouns are They/Them) with a major role in a major Hollywood production. They do exude a helluva presence on screen and I am interested to see them in more projects. A special call out to Yayan Ruhian (The Raid, The Raid 2) and Cecep Arif Rahman (The Raid 2) for one of the more memorable fight sequences and showing just how scary Silat can be as a martial art. The show stealer, that isn’t four legged, is absolutely Mark Dacascos (The Chairman of Iron Chef America, Brotherhood of the Wolf), who just is a joy to watch and clearly was having the time of his life as our John Wick antithesis for the film.

TL;DR?

John Wick is back. They were prepared. 11/10 would go into battle with the dogs from this movie. The movie runs a bit long at 2 hours and 10 minutes and at times feels it, it still turns out a solid bit of entertainment. Yes, this is still a world turned to eleven and no you cannot possibly be expected to take it seriously. That isn’t the point here. The point is to enjoy 2 hours and 10 minutes of Keanu Reeves moving from action set piece to action set piece and wondering how they will continue to ratchet it up as the movie goes on. For that it succeeds dramatically. I am confused by the number of writers still, but I got what I wanted from the movie and could still see every action piece and every stunt.

My only glaring flaw is that the first one shone for the raw amount of practical. As the stunts ratchet, they did hit some of the CG and compositing a bit harder than I like and my eyes were easily able to pick out more than a few. Granted safety first, but if it’s going to have to be that digital, look for a different stunt.

Should I see it?

You’re invested already. So yes.

Would you see it again?

Officially the answer is yes, but the likelihood of it happening is low.

Will you buy it?

Absolutely. No regrets on that front.

Are the dogs adorable?

They are the bestest boys. Would pet. Would also likely lose a hand.

 

Wrapping up I had two new Dark Princesses tonight with me and I enjoyed the movie and it was very cathartic after a rough week. It’s that kind of movie and I am glad for it.

 

Next week: Brightburn and Aladdin. I am honestly not sure which I will see first.

 

WAIT! before you go – what’s a Dark Princess?

If you join me for the movies. You are a Dark Princess. Male or Female. Those are the rules. Those are the results of the vote on the AmusedintheDark Facebook page.

My original two Dark Princesses might get special titles, I haven’t decided yet.

 

Welcome to the Continental.