There seems to be two distinct films in here; there’s a black ops espionage thriller pitting the talkers in suits versus the doers in camo, and another which weaves a slow burn tale of a hitman who is forced to decide between the mission or the moral high road.
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It doesn't sound fresh, and I don’t think it’s just because it's a sequel. If the most memorable part of Incredibles 2 is Jack-Jack's fight against a raccoon, there's something wrong. The first film asked really good real-world micro questions in the superhero genre: What if I don't want to be saved? What if my superhero husband is having an affair? It forced the extraordinary to be ordinary, which is the exact opposite of the basis of superhero origin stories.
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Let’s start with the good; Batman Ninja looks gorgeous. The smoother CGI and cel animation threw me for a loop because I’m still used to some of the herky-jerky action of the old hand-drawn ones, but the colours are vivid, the movements look cool and smooth and the transitions are creative. I watched it with its original Japanese audio and I had no qualms with the voice acting or the translated subtitles, but note there is a completely different set of subtitles to go with the English audio.
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The problem with a lot of crime films is that they often feel the need to explain multiple backstories to their viewers before going for the pay-off moment, rather than dropping them in to the middle of a crisis and saying, “here, figure it out.” There’s no big build-up here; you see things as Joe sees it, and a lot of it doesn’t make sense right away. Joe’s PTSD is as much a character of its own as Joe, and it’s often manifested through quick cuts to Joe suffocating himself with plastic bags or silently drowning in water
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How disappointing, then, to see Landis so casually rip up his rulebook to make a quick buck in league with Netflix, the hottest brand in entertainment. The result is Bright: a loud, incomprehensible and utterly tone-deaf action thriller with an admirably bonkers – though ludicrously heavy-handed - concept.
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How satisfying, then, to see the follow-up to The Force Awakens deliver on that promise. The Last Jedi proves that the franchise is a lot more flexible than some may have expected. Oddly enough, one of its most significant themes is failure: last-ditch plans go awry, searches for information end up fruitless, and characters give up their faith. Events don’t follow a familiar path. All of a sudden, one of the most straightforward (and lucrative) film franchises in history becomes challenging to interpret. And it’s one of the most exciting things the series has done in years.
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Del Toro isn’t taking the risk for shock value. He wants to stage an adult relationship, and explore what it really looks like for two outcasts, even ones from different (or fantastical) species, to fall in love. In an age when historically marginalized people are slowly finding it easier to express themselves and be comfortable in their own skins, The Shape of Water feels incredibly timely - even though it’s set decades in the past.
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There’s a final Mexican standoff in the finale of Wind River that has become instantly recognizable as director Taylor Sheridan’s work: tense and unflinchingly brutal. These gunfights are nerve-wracking and serve their purpose, such as in Sicario and Hell or High Water, but in the much slower and contemplative Wind River, it suddenly feels slightly out of place.
Set in Wyoming on the Wind River Indian Reservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) discovers the frozen corpse of Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Chow), and it’s quickly ruled a homicide by FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen). With the help of the local Tribal Police Chief, Ben (Graham Greene), the investigation leads them to the dark corners of the reservation, from broken homes to drug houses to remote oil rigs.
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Steven Soderbergh made a name for himself with clever storytelling and editing with both Ocean’s Eleven and Traffic, for which he won an Oscar for Best Director. He had a gift for snappy dialogue and even snappier editing, which are requisite characteristics for a film with an ensemble cast to be successful. Combined with the end of his self-imposed exile, there was considerable intrigue ahead of Logan Lucky’s release.
It’s a straight-forward and enjoyable film: Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), a former football star who is now poor, divorced and working blue-collar jobs, is having the worst day of his life. He is fired form his construction job due to liability issues after failing to disclose his injured knee when he was hired, and learns that his ex-wife and daughter are moving out of state with her wealthy new husband. Jimmy visits his brother, Clyde (Adam Driver), an Iraq War veteran with one hand who runs the local bar, and together they hatch a plan to rob the cash deposits from the vault of the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR event. They recruit their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), eccentric demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), and Bang’s two dimwitted brothers (Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid) to complete the job, which runs into all sorts of comical complications.
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If you spent any time in the pop culture world over the weekend, you probably heard that Homecoming has one huge thing going for it: a formidable, carefully chosen villain. And it’s important to point that out as soon as possible, not only because Marvel films tend to fall apart in this exact area, but because Adrian Toomes (a.k.a. The Vulture, played by Michael Keaton) is crucial to why the movie feels so cohesive. Toomes has a relatable objective, a code of honour, and his relationship with Spider-Man makes you forget at times that we’re watching yet another fragment of a perpetually sprawling, incomplete story.
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