Tag: 2019 Reviews

Review: Godzilla: King of the Monsters

The sequel to 2014’s Godzilla has been a long time coming, but Legendary Pictures has been very slowly building a universe in the interim. Together with Kong: Skull Island and the forthcoming Godzilla vs. Kong, the MonsterVerse shows us just how crowded it can be in this first direct sequel.

After suffering a family tragedy during the 2014 stompfest, paleobiologist Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) and animal behaviuoralist Mark Russell are estranged. When Emma andher daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) are kidnapped by environmental extremists for device capable of calming down the “titans,” the embittered Mark joins forces with Monarch scientists and soldiers to help track them down.

If Godzilla was frequently accused of not showing us enough of the monster, then GODZILLA: KING OF THE MONSTERS goes in the other direction. In an attempt to squeeze in as many of Toho’s famous kaiju as possible, the film’s MacGuffin (the aforementioned device known as the “Orca”) is used to revive and attract the heavy-hitters of the historic franchise: Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah.

To the film’s credit, it at least attempts to expand on the canon and give us a point of difference from the 34 films that preceded it. From alien influences to ancient civilisations and numerous references to Skull Island, here’s a franchise peddling as hard as it can to build an empire. Yet it does so at the expense of the human moments or the slow-building tension of its predecessor.

When it concentrates on several key characters, not least of which are the handful of beautiful climactic moments with Ken Watanabe’s Dr. Ishirō Serizawa, writers Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields show us what a human-centred monster flick could look like. Beloved characters are dispatched without ceremony, while others are barely developed beyond their introductory scene.

The film is naturally in its element during the massive monster clashes. Clearly previsualised and planned out to the Nth degree, some of these give us the film’s most visually stunning moments. There’s one moment where a beastie is visualised against a ruby red sky atop a kind of Bald Mountain. You can almost hear the Mussorgsky. In isolation, these digital backdrops are gorgeous.

Yet they also speak to one of the key issues with the film. Krampus director Dougherty is so intent on matching up as many monsters as possible that it all just becomes a messy and static series of storyboards brought to life. The post-credits show the way towards the future, but we’re not sure there’s anything left standing in Gojira’s wake.

2019 | US | DIR: Michael Dougherty | WRITER: Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields | CAST: Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown, Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds, O’Shea Jackson Jr., David Strathairn, Ken Watanabe, Zhang Ziyi | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 30 May 2019 (AUS)

June 2, 2019
Review: Rocketman

While music biopics are a dime a dozen, including ones that don’t even have the rights to the original music, some lives feel like they are written for the big screen. Coinciding with his retirement from live touring, the history of Elton John’s life and career is just as over-the-top as his stagecraft.

Complete with a flamboyant entrance in a sparkly devil costume, Lee Hall’s screenplay uses a rehab session as a framing device. The recovering Elton (Taron Egerton) reflects on his earliest memories with music, his relationship with his mother (Bryce Dallas Howard), his songwriting partnership with Bernie Taupin (Jamie Bell), his affair with John Reid (Richard Madden), and all the hits, sex, and drugs along the way.

ROCKETMAN isn’t concerned with historical fidelity as it is with catching the spirit of its subject’s music. Which isn’t to say that it’s inaccurate, it’s just written and performed as high fantasy. Within moments of opening, we are transported to a post-War London via a straight-up musical theatre rendition of “The Bitch Is Back.”

The film carries on in this fashion, leaping through the years by using the songs as narrative shortcuts. It’s the same method that worked in the stage production of Jersey Boys, but with all the flair of a modern music video. “Your Song” serves as a revelatory moment to showcase the partnership of Taupin and John, while both the performer and crowd literally float off the ground as his performance of “Crocodile Rock” at LA’s Troubadour lifts him out of obscurity.

While it serves nobody to directly compare biopics, it’s impossible to not reference Bohemian Rhapsody. After all, Fletcher was the director who stepped in to replace Bryan Singer and at least some of that film’s success belongs to him. Both films feature famously gay performers who were closeted at the peaks of their career, and like Freddie Mercury, a character of a gay manager/hanger-on is used as a mephistopheles figure that enables a life of excess. Yet the crucial difference is that John now fully owns his past debauchery, and his homosexuality is never portrayed as a moral failing (as it was with Mercury).

Aiding this greatly is the revelatory Egerton in the lead role. If Kingsman: The Secret Service was his breakthrough role, then ROCKETMAN is surely his star-making performance. Along with providing some pretty faithful vocals while giving us his own take on the hits, slowly physically transforming into a Vegas-worthy lookalike.

ROCKETMAN manages to transcend the pitfalls of the jukebox musical by weaving in the highs and lows of John’s life with meticulously crafted versions of his most famous hits. As it ends with a recreation of Russell Mulcahy’s “I’m Still Standing” video, the seamless blend of original and recreation becomes all the more impressive.

2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Dexter Fletcher | WRITERS: Lee Hall | CAST: Taron Egerton, Jamie Bell, Richard Madden, Bryce Dallas Howard | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 30 May 2018 (AUS)

June 2, 2019
Review: Aladdin

Disney’s 1992 animated Aladdin was part of the studio’s renaissance, a revival that began in 1989 with The Little Mermaid. What followed was a decade of hits that includes Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, and Mulan. While Disney now seem intent on converting them all into live action adaptations, director Guy Ritchie’s new version of ALADDIN takes the opportunity to update the politics of the piece as well.

Ritchie and John August’s screenplay follows the same basic structure that Ron Clements, John Musker, Ted Elliot, and Terry Rossio laid out seventeen years ago. Street rat Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is trying to make ends meet in Agrabah when he encounters Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). After falling madly in love with each other, Aladdin’s fate is sealed when the Sultan’s Grand Vizier Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) forces him into the Cave of Wonders to retrieve a lamp. Aladdin soon lets loose the Genie (Will Smith), along with all manner of hilarious hell.

Ritchie’s film is almost forty minutes longer than its predecessor, and the difference is immediately noticeable. Ritchie and August spend far more time establishing the scene via a framing device of a boatman (also Smith) singing a modified version of “Arabian Nights,” smoothing out some of the formerly questionable lyrics. Cue some acrobatic parkour and a rendition of “One Jump Ahead” and we’re back on more familiar ground.

Given the chance to flesh out the comparatively brief original, Ritchie and August focus some of their time on Jafar. With his parrot sidekick Iago (voiced by Alan “Steve the Pirate” Tudyk) now more naturally animalistic, Jafar’s backstory gives his power madness a more desperate hunger. Far darker than his cartoon counterpart, his origin mirrors Aladdin’s own and provides an interesting moral counterpoint. He is what the script glibly refers to as “that guy.”

An even more significant change comes for Jasmine, who is no longer simply an object left crying into a fountain. With more than a little modern Disney flavour to this adaptation, her life of being trapped in the palace mirrors that of Elsa/Anna from Frozen. Her quest is not to be married, but to achieve agency and equality. She wants to be nothing less than the first female Sultan in Agrabah. New song “Speechless” – scored by Alan Menken and lyricists Pasek & Paul (La La Land) – is her “Defying Gravity” (or “Let It Go” if you prefer). In many ways, Jasmine has more of a hero’s journey than the titular thief.

Jasmine is also joined by a second female character (yes, two!) with handmaiden Dalia (Nasim Pedrad). In addition to providing Jasmine someone other than the tiger to talk with, she is the centre of a new subplot in which the Genie has a romantic interest of his own. Which, of course, brings us to Will Smith.

The crucial role of the Genie was always going to be a make or break for ALADDIN. The iconic Robin Williams performance has been imitated but never bettered. So, Smith doesn’t even attempt to replicate it, bringing his own persona to the role. It’s like the Fresh Prince busts out of the lamp (with the help of some amazing CG) and slowly turns into contemporary Smith. The big introduction of “Friend Like Me” kind of takes the Rex Harrison approach, talking/rapping his way through the signature tune. Like the rest of the movie, it’s different but it has its own joyful energy.

Similarly, Ritchie follows some of the original styling of the Clements/Musker film but mixes in a decent amount of Bollywood with his imitable motifs as well. The “Prince Ali” sequence is a full-blown event, using every inch of the screen as it bursts with colour and song. There is a smaller scale Bollywood style sequence that follows, a flashy courtship between Aladdin and Jasmine that is impressive in its own right.

Naturally, the film is at its strongest when it makes a hero out of the core songs from the original. Ritchie doesn’t mess with the karaoke classic “A Whole New World,” as Jasmine and Aladdin soar on a magic carpet duet across the known world. Massoud and Scott give new life to the song, although undoubtedly there will be more commercial interest in ZAYN and Zahvia Ward cover version found in the credits and on the soundtrack album.

A dazzling mixture of song and visuals, ALADDIN surprises with frequent political statements about staying silent in the face of false leaders betraying the values of the kingdom. It doesn’t take a Grand Vizier to get the reference. Nevertheless, as the film wraps up with a dance sequence and a reprise of “Friend Like Me,” you may find yourself just as dazzled by this new fantastic point of view.

2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Guy Ritchie | WRITERS: John August, Guy Ritchie | CAST: Will Smith, Mena Massoud, Naomi Scott, Marwan Kenzari, Navid Negahban, Nasim Pedrad, Billy Magnussen | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 23 May 2018 (AUS)

May 22, 2019
Review: The Hustle

To hustle someone usually involves pretending to be something or someone that you are not in order to gain advantage. THE HUSTLE has set itself up as a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), itself a reworking of the 1964 film Bedtime Story. Yet some old tricks get tired in the retelling, and like the best cons, a hustle is only as strong as its weakest player.

Con artist Josephine Chesterfield (Anne Hathaway) has been living a life of luxury in Beaumont-sur-Mer on the proceeds of her ill-gotten gains. When wannabe hustler Penny Rust (Rebel Wilson) comes stumbling into her town, Josephine sees an opportunity to coach a protégé. However, they soon become bitter rivals, challenging each other to take down a mark in order to win territorial rights.

A straight update of Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, and Dale Launer’s 1988 script, Jac Schaeffer (Captain Marvel) never strays too far from the source material. Indeed, there’s several moments where the dialogue is virtually verbatim. Director Chris Addison, best known for the sophisticated comedy of The Thick of It and Veep, relies instead on the two lead personalities.

This also means that Wilson’s broad comedic stylings dominate much of film. As the embodiment of an obnoxious Australian tourist, she totally nails the role. The rest of the time is spend playing up her physicality as a comic, literally barrelling through scenery in the absence of witty dialogue. In one chaotically bad sequence, Wilson fakes being blind for what feels like the entire second act. That said, if you do like her particular brand of comedy, and there’s definitely a solid fanbase out there, you’ll probably love THE HUSTLE.

Hathaway, now adept at playing high class thieves, manages to rise above the meet food the script feeds her. The rest of the supporting cast – who include Doctor Who‘s Ingrid Oliver and relative newcomer Alex Sharp – is uninspiring, disappearing into the background behind montages of physical awkwardness.

People familiar with any of the previous versions of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, or even the stage musical of the same name, will find few surprises in THE HUSTLE‘s final act. Director Addison’s sharp comedy resume evaporates in a pratfall, as any emotion the script find is immediately undercut by slapstick. Which is why it is difficult to be too hard on the film: it’s a less accomplished copy, but if you enjoyed the original then this is much of the same.

2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Chris Addison | WRITERS: Stanley Shapiro, Paul Henning, Dale Launer, Jac Schaeffer | CAST: Anne Hathaway, Rebel Wilson, Alex Sharp, Dean Norris | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 94 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 9 May 2018 (AUS)

May 9, 2019
Review: Pokémon: Detective Pikachu

For over twenty years, the merchandising dream of Pokémon has been a part of the pop culture landscape. Since their debut in 1996, Satoshi Tajiri and Ken Sugimori’s simple collectable concept has gone on to spawn dozens of games, animated series, movies, plush toys, and countless imitators. POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU is the first live action adaptation of the characters.

Mixing western motifs with the Japanese originals, along with specific elements of the 2016 videogame of the same name, the film introduces us to Tim Goodman (Justice Smith). Learning that his estranged father has been killed in an accident, Tim travels to Rhyme City, a place where Pokémon and humans coexist. There he meets Detective Pikachu (voiced by Ryan Reynolds), a super smart Pokémon that only Tim can understand. Together they try and solve the mystery around the accident.

In the tradition of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and more recently The Happytime Murders, there is a certain appeal to this motif. Seeing beautifully rendered CG versions of Pokémon seamlessly interacting with humans in a high tech city is an immersive experience at first. Rhyme City is like a not-too-distant-future Tokyo filled with plush mascots on every corner. So, Tokyo.

Where POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU comes undone is in its on-rails plotting. It boggles the mind that the four credited screenwriters – Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, director Rob Letterman, and Derek Connolly – could only come up with a narrative that plays out like a lesser version Zootopia. ‘A’ logically follows ‘B’ as a MacGuffin leads them to an obvious solution, dumbed down enough to play to a perceived lowest common denominator. It’s like a long cut-scene where you keep hitting the start button to skip the cut scenes, but they won’t let you play.

It is gorgeous to look at though, and as a technical achievement there is much to admire about Letterman’s film. The vast forests look otherworldly yet familiar. Huge turtles of enormous girth carry mountains on their backs. A Pokémon parade, in which the film seems to honour itself, looks real enough to have been shot in New York around Thanksgiving.

Justice “Paper Towns” Smith is a charismatic lead, although Kathryn Newton is so over the top as to be a caricature. (Although in terms of being an anime translation, she’s approximating that quite well). Having voiced one CG creation across multiple films, Reynolds is effectively a fuzzy Deadpool – but it kind of works in this context. Ken Watanabe is horribly underused while Bill Nighy does that thing he does and does it well.

Much of your enjoyment of POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU will depend on a familiarity with the world. There are countless Easter eggs in there for fans, but initiates will just see a mass of unrecognisable CG background noise. Relying heavily on formula and name-brand recognition, this might be a step in the right direction for building additional story elements around the franchise, but adult viewers may be at constant war with their inner (or actual) children.

2019 | US, Japan | DIRECTOR: Rob Letterman | WRITERS: Dan Hernandez, Benji Samit, Rob Letterman, Derek Connolly | CAST: Ryan Reynolds, Justice Smith, Kathryn Newton, Suki Waterhouse, Omar Chaparro, Chris Geere, Ken Watanabe, Bill Nighy | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films | RUNNING TIME: 104 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 9 May 2018 (AUS)

May 6, 2019
Review: Avengers: Endgame

It’s hard to be neutral about something as huge as AVENGERS: ENDGAME. After 22 films, multiple television series, and countless mixed-media tie-ins, either you’re invested in at least some of these characters or wilfully avoiding them. Either way, producer Kevin Feige and directors Joe and Anthony Russo bring home this saga in a way that fans and casual viewers alike will be unable to forget.

Picking up on a sombre note, several weeks after the dramatic cliffhanger to Avengers: Infinity War, the galaxy ponders how they will move on after the loss of half their people to Thanos. When the remaining Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy are reunited with some old friends and new, they hatch a plan to undo their losses and restore hope.

How does one even begin to write about something like this? Aimed squarely at the people who have been following the story since 2008, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely’s screenplay leaves no stone unturned in pulling together a unique combination of a sci-fi, heist, thriller, melodrama, and epic battle film.

In doing so, every character is given their due. It’s difficult to discuss many of them without revealing some spoilers. Indeed, anything that’s not in the trailer is probably a spoiler. (#DontSpoiltheEndgame) Yet the original six Avengers all get conclusively suitable arc closures, whether it is through a natural progression of their stories or via some clever narrative looping. Some other odd pairings, like Nebula and Rocket, nod to the success of the unlikely breakout hits on the way to this climax.

Is the back half of the film shameless fan service? You’re damn right it is. Do large chunks of the film feel like a greatest hits package? Of course they are. Yet after almost two dozen films worth of world-building, Feige and the Russo brothers can be forgiven for feeling that the kitchen sink is not nearly enough. As Natasha says earlier in the film, “I get emails from a raccoon. Nothing seems crazy anymore.“

Taking that as a cue, the Russo brothers turn everything up to a scale hitherto unseen. It’s not up to 11. It’s beyond 11. It’s at least one more. While it’s hard to know exactly how much of the reported $316–400 million budget (shared with Infinity War) went into this finale, we can probably guess that a large part of it was on the battle that takes place in the heart of the third act. It’s like Lord of the Rings made love to a Jim Starlin comic and the child of that union grew up to be AVENGERS: ENDGAME.

For all the sturm und drang, it’s a film full of characteristic humour as well. Some of this is quite broad – including anything involving a physically altered Thor – while other moments are sly winks to knowing audiences. Which isn’t to say that tears won’t be shed before bedtime. Filled with emotional departures, reunions, and other huge moments, there are points where I wasn’t sure if I was going to laugh, cry, cheer, or emit a strange combination of all three. AVENGERS: ENDGAME has its cake and devours it whole. It deserves every damn crumb.

Even with the Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer playing in front of most screenings here, where the MCU goes next is something we can only guess at. The door is left open for alternate tales from elsewhere in the universe, even if it is the end of the road for some characters. Yet it scarcely seems to matter. AVENGERS: ENDGAME lives up to its title by letting a monumental story come to a close, bringing together a group of of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, and to fight the battles that we never could.

2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Joe Russo and Anthony Russo | WRITERS: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely | CAST: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Brie Larson, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney | RUNNING TIME: 181 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 24 April 2018 (AUS)

April 24, 2019
Review: Hellboy

The boisterous readaptation of Mike Mignola’s HELLBOY opens with the eponymous hero fighting a luchador vampire in Tijuana, impaling him on the ring’s barrier to strains of “Rock You Like a Hurricane” in Spanish. It only gets (delightfully) weirder from there.

While not a continuation of Guillermo del Toro’s 2004 and 2008 films, Andrew Cosby’s screenplay picks up in media res. After a brief prelude in which King Arthur dismembers Nimue the Blood Queen (Milla Jovovich) and scatters her remains around Britain, we flash forward to the present day where Hellboy (David Harbour) has been working for the B.P.R.D. in America for some time. His adoptive father, Trevor Bruttenholm (Ian McShane) sends him the UK to liaise with Osiris Club. Hellboy is betrayed and on the run briefly, at least until he teams up with psychic medium Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane) and scarred soldier Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim) to fight the rise of the Blood Queen.

Summarising HELLBOY’s plot in a lone paragraph proved to be a Herculean task, primarily because it rarely sticks to a singular narrative for long. Perhaps sensing that this would be the only shot at a hard R-rated adaptation of the character, Cosby and Neil Marshall have taken the kitchen sink approach. It’s not so much a straight path as a train of thought: it’s a film that flashes back to 517AD, the Second World War, and 1992 for three completely different plot threads.

The genuinely crazy thing is that while it doesn’t feel cohesive, it maintains the same anarchic sense of fun. It is, for want of a better phrase, consistently inconsistent. In one moment Hellboy is fighting giants, and it feels like only two moves before he’s pashing Baba Yaga in her chicken leg house. That several characters have also been introduced in this time, including a BPRD soldier with a past and a large talking hog, is par for the course. Marshall is having a ball rolling around in references, and we have little choice but to just go with it.

Ron Perlman may have defined the character for many audiences, but Harbour does a good job of making the role his own. Under the heavy makeup, Harbour’s deep drawl often sounds like he is chewing gravel, but he’s handy in a firefight. The apparently ageless and immortal Jovovich isn’t given nearly enough screen time, and if the Resident Evil franchise has taught us anything, it’s that she alone can keep a CG nightmare afloat. Sasha Lane, who impressed in American Honey and The Miseducation of Cameron Post, seems adrift and miscast in an underdeveloped role. McShane just does McShane, and that’s okay with me if it is with you.

Unlike Del Toro’s high stylised predecessors, Marshall’s signature brand (developed through Dog Soldiers, The Descent, and multiple TV credits) is much more visceral. No opportunity is missed for an evisceration, degloving, or decapitation as limbs fly as freely as plot points. (It comes as no surprise it received an R18+ in Australia, an increasingly rare classification these days). Much of this is achieved via the inconsistent CG, which alternates between gorgeous shots of monsters dominating London to a bizarre vision of McShane’s head floating on top of a decaying spirit. (It’s seriously weird). That said, Hellboy with a flaming crown and sword will never stop being cool.

As HELLBOY reaches its climactic conclusion, and trades flashbacks for flashforwards, it rather optimistically gives us pre, mid, and post-credits stings of future things to come in the franchise. These Easter eggs might not eventuate in any sequels if the box office fails to light up, but they at least contextualise this version of Hellboy within a larger universe with spin-off potential. So, if there’s any justice, we’ll be seeing more of Lobster Johnson in the future.

2019 | US | DIRECTOR: Neil Marshall | WRITER: Andrew Crosby (based on the Dark Horse Comics by Mike Mignola) | CAST: David Harbour, Milla Jovovich, Ian McShane, Sasha Lane, Daniel Dae Kim, Thomas Haden Church | RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 11 April 2019 (AUS)

April 15, 2019
Review: Shazam

When they aren’t dominating the cultural landscape with interconnecting narratives, comic book movies struggle to find the right tone. Some choose to mock their own premise (Deadpool) while others go for down the grimdark path for the gritty reboot (any Batman film since 2005). Director David F. Sandberg’s SHAZAM! distinguishes itself by treating its hero with respect but having the wisdom of Solomon to not take itself too seriously.

Inspired partly by the Geoff Johns and Gary Frank origin story that ran in Justice League between 2012 and 2013, we meet a young Thaddeus Sivana, who finds a path away from his downtrodden life when a wizard whisks him away to the Rock of Eternity and offers him untold power. Finding him unworthy, the adult Sivana (Mark Strong) becomes obsessed with claiming the dark power. Fearing he has no time left, the wizard reaches out to troubled orphan Billy Batson (Asher Angel). When he says the magic word, he becomes the wizard’s champion (Zachary Levi).

Aside from a few visual references, and a lot of merchandise on shelves, SHAZAM! is a complete tonal departure from the DC Extended Universe. James Wan’s Aqauman notwithstanding, the DCEU has been aggressively humourless. Yet the core of Henry Gayden’s script mashes up the wide-eyed wonder of Big with a hearty dose of goofy, 80s, high-concept joy. The film seamless transitions in a handful of scenes from a scientist disintegrating like so many Raiders Nazis to the comical vision of Billy chuckling over the wizard declaring “Lay your hands on my staff.”

By the same token, Gayden and Sandberg aren’t afraid to go to some more serious places. Billy’s search for his mother drives the B-plot, but it is not the feel-good subnarrative of the summer. While stopping just short of pathos, Strong’s Sivana is driven by a childhood of being overlooked and shunned by his rich father. In true superhero origin style, the parallels between hero and villain run deep: both are looking for something they feel would make them complete, but neither has matured enough to know that it never will.

Levi is some inspired casting, and it is hard to imagine anybody other than the cheerily self-effacing star as a big kid literally wearing a padded suit. Levi has the difficult task of playing a very hyper-masculine physique off against the kid who is driving it. Helping him achieve this is the earnest performance of Jack Dylan Grazer as fellow orphan Freddy, an enthusiastic comic book geek who stands in for large parts of the audience. In one of the film’s more joyful moments, the duo test out the limits of Billy’s newfound abilities in a montage set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”

If the DCEU is dead, then this is the start of a genuinely exciting new direction. Culminating in a rousing showstopper of a finale, one that celebrates unconventional families as much as the first Guardians of the Galaxy, Gayden and Sandberg pave the way forward while enjoying being in the moment. May the reign of Captain Sparklepants be long and fruitful.

2019 | US | DIR: David F. Sandberg | WRITER: Henry Gayden (based on the DC Comics) | CAST: Zachary Levi, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Djimon Hounsou | RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 4 April 2019 (AUS)

April 4, 2019
Review: Pet Sematary

Adaptations of Stephen King novels are a bit like the plot of PET SEMATARY. There are some that the horror master would probably rather remain dead and buried, while others have been cropping up like hordes of the undead. Yet it’s a golden age for Constant Readers right now, from It to TV’s Castle Rock. As Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer set out to prove, sometimes retread is better.

On paper the original text of Pet Sematary is unquestionably a horror story, and arguably one of King’s most unnerving. Indeed, in the introduction to the book the author regards it as “the most frightening book I’ve ever written” and initially ponders whether or not he had gone “too far.” Inspired partly by the death of his daughter’s cat, and “thinking the unthinkable” after a near-death miss with his youngest son, it is possibly one of the rawest pieces of fiction King had constructed at that prolific point in his career.

In screenwriter Jeff Buhler’s readaptation we are in familiar territory, at least on the surface. As doctor Louis Creed (Jason Clarke) moves his wife Rachel (Amy Seimetz) and children from Florida to the remote home in Ludlow, Maine. When tragedy strikes, the new neighbour Jud Crandall (Jon Lithgow) introduces Louis to the titular burial ground and leads them all down a dark path.

Buhler, Kölsch, and Widmyer take their own journey from here, reversing several key plot elements and somewhat playing on expectations founded in the book or the more faithful 1989 adaption from director Mary Lambert. There were always textual shadows of The Shining, for example, that are hard to…overlook (Sorry. I’m so sorry). Here, it’s almost as if the filmmakers wanted to make something akin to The Shining with a few of the Children of the Corn thrown in for good measure.

Which is the biggest departure: Buhler’s script leans into the Micmac/Native American elements King introduced in the novel. With the absence of Jud’s wife Norma, the avuncular charcter’s talk of wendigos and the unexplained children in animal masks are much more dominant in this version. They also inform a large chunk of cinematographer Laurie Rose’s impressively dark photography, not to mention the twisted brambles that loom large in the production design. Even in with these often dramatic departures, there’s still much to admire about the approach. This PET SEMATARY wants to do its own thing – and that’s just fine.

Clarke is an effective Louis, driven by his grief and something sinister under the surface. It is also a joy to see Seimetz given a version of Rachel that has a greater level of agency than the one in any previous version. Instead of being shafted off to Boston when it is narratively convenient, she is present throughout much of the dark exposition, changing the dynamic between the couple and allowing her to share in the grieving process.

This, more than anything, is what the new PET SEMATARY is all about. It’s a meditation on grief. It’s about a family dynamic shattered by something sinister. It’s about how that fear also infects everyday life. The cyclical nature of the narrative speaks to how non-linear this process is as well. There are jump scares, the undead, bloodletting, and creepy ass kids. There’s also the realisation that this life we live isn’t to be taken lightly, and that sometimes dead is better.

2019 | US | DIR: Kevin Kölsch and Dennis Widmyer | WRITER: Jeff Buhler (based on the novel by Stephen King) | CAST: Jason Clarke, Amy Seimetz, John Lithgow, Jeté Laurence, Hugo Lavoie, Lucas Lavoie, Obssa Ahmed | RUNNING TIME: 100 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount Pictures (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 4 April 2019 (AUS)

March 31, 2019
Review: Dumbo

A gritty reboot of Dumbo isn’t necessarily something the world has been crying out for. While the live action remakes continue to roll out like so many pink elephants on parade, the tale of the elephant who could fly is the perhaps the most unlikely. With Tim Burton at the helm, it’s a darker childhood fantasy that never quite decides who its audience is.

The original Dumbo, released by Walt Disney in 1941, clocked in at a little over an hour. Expanded from being a short film at the development stage, it remains an exemplar of mid-length animated storytelling about elephants who can fly. Made with utter simplicity to recoup the financial losses of Fantasia, its classic songs “Baby Mine” and “When I See an Elephant Fly” continue to appear in Disney media to this day. Of course, modern Disney doesn’t quite have the same money problems as a studio during wartime, and Burton’s DUMBO is a much larger affair.

Almost doubling the length of the original, writer Ehren Kruger (Transformers: Age of Extinction, Ghost in the Shell) shifts the focus away from the baby elephant and his rodent companion and instead focuses on the humans. Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returns from war with a missing arm, surprising his children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins). With his wife dead of influenza, Holt struggles to find his place at the Medici Bros. Circus (run by Danny DeVito as a kind of analogue for Timothy Q. Mouse). At least until he is put in charge of a newborn baby elephant with remarkable abilities.

The dramatic shift for the new DUMBO comes in the second half of the film, picking up (more or less) where the original narrative left off. Dumbo’s success catches the attention of V. A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton), an entrepreneurial figure who runs a destination carnival called Dreamland, kind of a cross between Disneyland and Coney Island on crack. As a result, the central tension of the film doesn’t come necessarily from whether Dumbo can fly but rather whether the little guy can take down the giant corporation buying out smaller companies. (It’s an odd release in a month when Disney just devoured Fox for over $70 billion).

At its core DUMBO is still a film about self-belief, yet by shifting the focus away from the anthropomorphic animals and to Holt’s family it becomes a redemption story for the freaks and geeks on the fringes. This is Burton’s most comfortable territory, from Parker as the wide-eyed goth girl to a reunion of Batman Returns rivals Keaton and DeVito on screen.

In fact, much of the film’s climax takes place in the kind of exaggerated CG landscape that wouldn’t be out of place in Burton’s Gotham. While he eschews most of the songs – save for a few hummed bars and two separate versions of “Baby Mine” – Burton can’t resist marching a series of pink elephants across the screen, albeit as lovingly rendered bubble art. There are modern pop culture references too, including a cameo from WWE’s Vince McMahon declaring “Let’s get ready to Dumboooo” (twice).

In some ways, the original Dumbo has become one of Disney’s more uncomfortable narratives, from the tragedy of animals in captivity to the debates on the depiction of race. With remakes of Aladdin and The Lion King both on their way this year, and a litany of others in the coming years, it’s at least encouraging that Disney is willing to take their classics into places they previously wouldn’t dare. Or like the best of circus tricks, it could be all smoke and mirrors.

2019 | US | DIR: Tim Burton | WRITER: Ehren Kruger (based on Disney’s Dumbo) | CAST: Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, Nico Parker, Finley Hobbins, Alan Arkin | RUNNING TIME: 112 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Disney (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 28 March 2019 (AUS)

March 27, 2019