Tag: Jennifer Lawrence

Review: No Hard Feelings

Raunchy teen comedies were a dime a dozen in the 1980s and 90s. Their decline has been in favour of more dramatic teen romances, with Superbad (2007), Easy A (2010), and Good Boys (2019) being the exceptions that prove the rule. NO HARD FEELINGS, director Gene Stupnitsky’s follow-up to Good Boys, aims to change that.

When we meet Maddie (Jennifer Lawrence), she is down on her luck. The 30-something has lived in the seaside town of Montauk, New York all of her life, growing resentful of summer tourists transforming her home. Facing bankruptcy and the loss of her family home, her source of income evaporates when her car is repossessed.

When her couple friends (Natalie Morales and Scott MacArthur) spot a CraigsList ad, Maddie might have found her lifeline. Rich helicopter parents (Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti) are asking for someone to “date” their 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) in exchange for a car. Maddie aims for getting the deed done quickly, but Percy’s shy nature and sweet outlook slows her down.

When the trailer for NO HARD FEELINGS dropped, it caused quite the stir. Yet the final product feels more like an expansion of that trailer rather than the other way around. You know most of how it is going to play out from the get-go, although for all of the ‘edgy’ shopfront it probably has more in common with a romantic comedy than it does a teen sex comedy.

There are a few standout scenes. When Maddie initiates her pursuit of Percy, comic misunderstanding leads her to apparently abduct him in a windowless van. (If you’ve seen any of the promo material, you know how it ends). At two different points in the film, either Percy or Maddie is hanging from the windshield of a speeding vehicle, and it’s minor gold. Of course, the scene that will have most folks talking features a fully nude Lawrence going totally Eastern Promises on some beach teens.

It’s just that everything in between is largely throwaway material. It isn’t of a poor quality per se, so much as playing strictly by the numbers. One also can’t help but feeling that key sequences had been cut out. There’s one scene where Percy buys Maddie a gift that seems to refer to something that we were meant to have seen earlier. (So, look out for that inevitable unrated cut coming to a home release near you).

Indeed, in the hands of a lesser cast it may not have worked at all. Lawrence completely owns her presence as Maddie, a sex-positive character who makes few apologies (and nor does she ever need to). Her comic timing is impeccable, as anybody who has seen her on late night talk shows can attest, and reminds us of praise for the same in Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.

Feldman almost goes too far in the opposite direction, as it is hard to imagine how his character functions from day to day. Indeed, Stupnitsky and co-writer John Phillips are pretty rough on Percy’s whole generation, using a teen party to make some paper thin commentary about ‘overly sensitive’ influencers on phones — or something.

Yet there’s a sweeter core to NO HARD FEELINGS that even a last minute joke about a dick caught in a paper finger trap can’t erase. If this mid-budget comedy reminds you of a bygone era of studio releases, then hopefully any successes it garners will mean a more value placed on character-driven comedies for smaller audiences.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Gene Stupnitsky | WRITERS: Gene Stupnitsky, John Phillips | CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Natalie Morales, Matthew Broderick | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 June 2023 (AUS), 23 June 2023 (US)

June 22, 2023
Review: Dark Phoenix

All credit where it’s due: long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe imprisoned Tony Stark in a cave, Lauren Shuler Donner and Fox were building their own world based on Marvel Comics. Even more than that, when X-Men dropped in 2000 it also began the era of the modern superhero film. So after 19 years, DARK PHOENIX ends the saga not so much with a bang but a shrug.

Following the events of X-Men: Apocalypse, the X-Men have achieved some modicum of fame and public trust. Professor X (James McAvoy) even has a bat phone to the President. On a mission in space, the team barely escapes with their lives before Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) is imbued with a cosmic force that unlocks her psychic abilities. Powerful and afraid, it’s a race between a mysterious alien (Jessica Chastain) and her friends to stop Jean before she does more harm than good.

Set in 1992, long time fans will undoubtedly connect the film and its lineup with the X-Men animated series that started that year. Yet where that series was an almost slavish adaptation of the source material – which included a version of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s comic arc – writer/director Simon Kinberg (in his directorial debut) crafts his finale around a disintegrating family.

This is where it is strongest. In her handful of scenes, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) questions the ethics of Xavier’s mission and is violently proven correct. As Magneto (Michael Fassbender) has moved on with a hippie mutant commune, it seems that the future they were fighting for has arrived.

Yet Kinberg, who also wrote the last attempt to bring this story to life in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), isn’t batting his A-game. The entire arc featuring Chastain plays out like a sub-plot, adding an extra villain for some reason – because apparently a limitless cosmic power wasn’t threat enough for the X-Men. It all culminates in a fight sequence that feel less like a finale than it does a second act dust-up.

Very few of the “First Class” are left at this stage in the game, and those that are left are wasted. Turner, having just come of the final season of Game of Thrones, is sometimes a commanding figure but is consistently portrayed as a victim by Kinberg’s script. Tye Sheridan is a presence so beige that you may forget he’s in the movie, even when he’s on screen. Even the dude with mutant dreadlocks gets more memorable moments than Quicksilver (Evan Peters), who is promptly forgotten after a brief intro.

Mired by endless delays, rewrites, and reshoots, the lacklustre finale was plagued by production woes. So, it’s no surprise that much of DARK PHOENIX feels like several films stitched together. With the franchise now in the hands of Disney and the MCU, the future remains unclear. Yet regardless of the less than impressive outing, it’s still worth remembering that the X-Men were responsible for some of the best superhero cinema, and will be again.

2019 | US | DIR: Simon Kinberg | WRITER: Simon Kinberg | CAST: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Jessica Chastain, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp | DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 5 June 2019 (AUS)

June 5, 2019
Review: Red Sparrow

In an ideal world, the Cold War would have never ended. In fact, some would argue that it never really did. That’s where the best spy fiction came from after all. In director Francis Lawrence’s adaptation of RED SPARROW, loosely inspired by the 2013 Jason Matthews novel, there’s a timeless quality to the intercontinental posturing. It’s just a shame that some gender attitudes haven’t shifted much since the 1960s.

After a crushing injury during a performance, ballet dancer Dominika Egorova (Jennifer Lawrence) is recruited into the Russian spy service by her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts). She is taught to be a ‘Sparrow,’ a training program in which the graduates are adept at seducing their targets. The State focuses her on Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton), a CIA operative who is the handler for a double agent known only as MARBLE. In order to protect her mother, Dominika finds herself willing to go down paths she didn’t previously consider palatable.

There’s initially an austere charm to RED SPARROW that partially speaks to Francis Lawrence’s maturity as a filmmaker. Evolving through three Hunger Games films, here we see a restrained aesthetic that emphasises the practicalities of ‘wet work.’ The streamlined version of Matthews’ narrative, which removes the book’s motif of giving Dominika synesthesia, isn’t as interested in the sexy times as it is the global chess game being played out. Sure, there’s the highly publicised nudity of the lead, but often it feels like a soft-core flick that really wanted to skip to the people standing around in offices talking.

There’s an ugly side to this approach as well. RED SPARROW‘s difficult relationship with sexuality wants us to believe that it’s about positive empowerment, a revenge fantasy in which the heroine is given agency through her emerging self-awareness. From the moment Dominika is raped while witnessing a political assassination, she is repeatedly subjected to brutal torture and manipulation.

The film tries to soften this somewhat by giving us Charlotte Rampling as Dominika’s stern trainer, and later another female agent acts as her torturer. Nevertheless, it is still Francis Lawrence and writer Justin Haythe standing behind the camera making it all happen. Peripheral female characters are perfunctorily brutalised to death, albeit mercifully off camera. Another is humiliated for refusing to perform oral sex on a fellow trainee.

This inherent misogyny, in combination with the low-key approach to thrills, has the net effect of sapping one’s engagement levels. There are some beautifully executed scenes, of course, including a few classic sequences that are throwbacks to old-school spy films. It’s just that they are presented as a series of fragments with no connective tissue, as double agents are revealed without a sense of their meaning to the larger world. Speaking of failing to connect, there’s zero chemistry between would-be lovers Edgerton and Lawrence, despite repeated attempts to convince us the former is “handsome.”

In the final moments of the film, Haythe’s script takes a sharp turn away from the source material, giving Dominika something akin to a payoff for the degradation she’s endured. Yet the journey getting us there commits the ultimate crime of being nothing more than mediocre, and dull at its worst. This is no mean feat when you have Jeremy Irons, Ciaran Hinds, and a drunken Mary-Louise Parker in your supporting cast. It’s one of the few time when you hope the Cold War would heat up again, if for no other reason than for the spy thrillers to be about something more than savage beatings and exchanging outdated floppy disks.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2018 | US | DIRECTORS: Francis Lawrence | WRITERS: Justin Haythe | CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton, Matthias Schoenaerts, Charlotte Rampling, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeremy Irons | DISTRIBUTOR: Fox | RUNNING TIME: 140 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 March 2018 (AUS) [/stextbox]

February 28, 2018
Review: Mother!

What Darren Aronofsky has done so well in MOTHER! is get to the heart of creation in all of its subjective and emotional shades. It’s frustrating, at times maddening, beautiful, and baffling. So naturally it’s also about unconditional love.

As such, it begins in flames. Out of the ashes a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) awakens to the remote country house she and her poet husband (Javier Bardem) have just moved into. The only thing stranger than the arrival of a couple (Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer) is their unwillingness to leave, and the scores of people who soon join them. That said, this bare-bones description seems barely adequate to cover the totality of Aronsfky’s fable.

There’s something reminiscent of Roman Polanski’s psychological thrillers inherent in MOTHER! For a long period of time, we observe what is happening onscreen as the potential byproduct of a fractured mind, one clue being Lawrence’s repeated consumption of a mysterious yellow liquid. Just like Repulsion, the building itself appears to mirror Lawrence’s diminishing control over her situation.

As the allegorical tale progresses, a kind of nightmare logic takes over, where the people Lawrence cares for the most become violent strangers to her. Pfeiffer throws some magnificent shade at Lawrence when the latter suggests some kind of ownership of the house or Bardem. As an audience member, we might want to join Lawrence’s character in screaming frustrated bloody fury at flood of people taking over her space.

That’s because one can’t control the things you love, no more than a creation can be controlled once it has been birthed into the world. As the notion of time become increasingly elastic, diving deeper into the dream fabric Aronofsky is using to weave his tale, the story is about giving everything to someone who is never truly satisfied with it. “Nothing is ever enough,” says Bardem. “I couldn’t create if it was.”

Whether Aronofsky is speaking of himself, to a higher power, or to mothers everywhere remains open to interpretation. If Noah is about the flood narrative of Genesis, then MOTHER! is akin to the creation story. We witness creators delivering their souls to hungry masses, only to watch them destroy it and devour it. Which makes this an incredibly brutal film as well, and will completely divide audiences as to whether Aronfsky has gone too far in pushing his own creations. Whatever the case, it’s unmissable, impossible to look away from, and one of the truly original films of the 21st century.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2017 | US | DIR: Darren Aronofsky | WRITER: Darren Aronofsky | CAST: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer | RUNNING TIME: 121 minutes | DISTRIBUTOR: Paramount (AUS) | RELEASE DATE: 14 September 2017 (AUS)[/stextbox]

September 15, 2017
Beautiful James Jean artwork graces new ‘mother!’ poster

The unique artwork of James Jean gave rise to the much talked-about first poster for MOTHER!, the upcoming film from Darren Aronofsky. Now Paramount Pictures has sent us the gorgeous companion piece featuring Javier Bardem.

The Eisner Award winning cover artist of comics such as Fables and The Umbrella Academy, Jean’s work has been seen in multiple commercials and on album cover art, such as the 2006 My Chemical Romance album, The Black Parade. Just last month, we selected Jean’s one-sheet for The Shape of Water as one of the best posters of July.

If the first poster was about Jennifer Lawrence really putting her heart into it, then this new one is ablaze with possibilities. We live to pun.

MOTHER! is in cinemas from 14 September 2017 in Australia. A trailer teaser can also be seen below, with the highly anticipated full trailer dropping on 8 August.

August 2, 2017
Review: Passengers

The first thing you notice about PASSENGERS, as the elegantly designed starship Avalon glides through deep space, is just how pretty it is. Which is where director Morten Tydlum (The Imitation Game) is most at ease in this big-budget two-hander, rarely stepping outside the comfort of sci-fi aesthetics. Yet he and writer Jon Spaihts guide the ship safely into formula, it’s hard to completely dislike a film that enjoys its own visuals (both the human and set design kind) as much as this does.

The aforementioned ship is transporting 5000 hibernating passengers on a 120 year journey to the planet Homestead II. However, when a malfunction occurs, lone mechanical engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) is woken up 90 years early. Unable to return to sleep, he spends a year with only the robotic bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen) for company. Wrestling with his conscience, he awakens writer Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) to join him, knowing full well that she will share his fate of dying before they reach their destination.

PASSENGERS is a troubled film. If you put aside for one moment the creepy levels of manipulative control central to Pratt’s character – something that the film’s heavy-handed romanticism and sexy shopfront make it easy to do for a while – we’re still left with a tone that lurches about as erratically as the malfunctioning vessel. The presence of Sheen’s Arthur is a visual nod to The Shining, a comparison that’s hard to avoid when you have a writer isolated in a strange hotel. Yet where that classic film chose murderous rage as a musing on masculinity and sexism, Tydlum and Spaihts fully embrace the marketability of both to a young adult audience.

All of which is a shame given how likeable Pratt is as a lead, with the first act vaguely reminiscent of something out of Duncan Jones’ Moon. The camera loves Lawrence, perhaps a little too much, as the character spends much of her time in bathing suits or running pants until action is required of her. Rodrigo Prieto’s (Silence) impeccable photography, mixed with pristine CG environments, festishises the people, places and things. At its best, such as a tense underwater anti-gravity sequence, the film is a feast for the eyes. Even so, the “accidental happiness” and chemistry the characters find only briefly gives way to interpersonal tension, a genuine missed opportunity to make this something more intently sinister and play against both of the lead’s types.

The cogs of drama and a deus ex machina force the star-crossed lovers together again, while the plot falls back on running, manual overrides and instant gratification. It’s here that you can most feel some kind of creative crisis, surely the result of a panicked change of heart about the direction of the allegedly much darker ending. There is a fine film at the heart of PASSENGERS, several of them in fact, and it only needed a little nudge in one of several directions to find its sweet spot. So even with these misgivings, and multiple dips into the pop cultural well (think Gravity meets 2001), there’s something there to enjoy if you don’t think about it too hard.

[stextbox id=”grey” bgcolor=”F2F2F2″ mleft=”5″ mright=”5″ image=”null”]2016 | US | DIR: Morten Tydlum | WRITER: Jon Spaihts | CAST: Chris Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence, Michael Sheen | DISTRIBUTOR: Roadshow Films (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 January 2017 (AUS), 21 December 2016 (US) [/stextbox]

January 5, 2017
Review: X-Men: Apocalypse

On sheer scale and ambition alone, it’s one of the best entries in the series, and what we’ve been waiting for in an X-Men film.

As ninth film in the X-Men film franchise, if you include the Wolverine films and Deadpool, X-MEN: APOCALYPSE carries with it the same burden of established fandom as Marvel’s Cinematic Universe. With this latest film, director Bryan Singer delivers his most ambitious entries to date, and on sheer scale alone, it’s one of the most source-accurate and best films in the series to date. Set in 1983, a decade after the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Professor Charles Xavier’s (James McAvoy) school is in full swing with a group of new recruits, while Magneto (Michael Fassbender), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) and several others have scattered to various corners of the globe. Following a series of tragedies, the group is drawn back together with the rise of an ancient and powerful mutant, En Sabah Nur/Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac), who threatens to wipe out life on the planet.

With the presence of En Sabah Nur, the stakes are immediately higher, and this sheer scope is reflected in every aspect of the film. Simon Kinberg’s script throws multiple kitchen sinks and characters at the narrative, trusting not only in Singer’s grasp of ensemble casts, but that the epic nature of the X-Men mythology can handle it. Which is the real strength of X-MEN: APOCALYPSE, in recognizing that there is a rich world of high-concept characters and stories to draw upon, and in delving deep into that comic territory with scant regard for the consequences. The film breezes through the rapid-fire introductions of boldly recast characters Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Storm (Alexandra Shipp) because it can, summarily introducing misguided “villains” Psylocke (Olivia Munn) and Angel (Ben Hardy) without need for a backstory. Their iconic costumes, page-perfect in the case of Munn and the little-seen Jubilee (Lana Condor), are all the explanation that these characters need for existing. Singer has embraced the compressed nature of the source’s storytelling, making these shorthand visual statements to fans, so that when unexpected cameos appear in fully fledged versions of their comic counterparts, reactions will be equal parts knowing and excited.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE is aware that it is being made for a specific audience, and makes no bones about the fact that it is pulling from deep inside the long-boxes of fandom. As such, uninitiated audiences would be rightfully baffled by some character developments and narrative leaps, but the faithful are rewarded with some magnificent set-pieces and spectacular nods to the history of these characters. Singer stages a one-upmanship on his own Quicksilver (Evan Peters) scene from X-Men: Days of Future Past, allowing himself and the movie some much needed levity from all the Sturm und Drang of city-toppling events. These sequences, like everything else in the film, are larger than life, rendering some of the newer cast members (especially Psylocke) a little perfunctory in the swirling weight of this film. Yet they all ultimately have their part to play in the staggering finale, and what distinguishes X-MEN: APOCALYPSE from the rest of the pack is an unrelenting commitment to exploring every corner of this expanding franchise at every turn.

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE is released in Australia on 19 May 2016 from Fox.

2016 | US | Dir: Bryan Singer | Writers: Simon Kinberg | Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till | Distributor: Fox | Running time: 144 minutes | Rating:★★★★½ (9/10).

May 16, 2016
Meet the fantastic Nightcrawler in new ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ clip

It’s only a few weeks away, so we’re in the thick of the clip season now. Fox has sent us a new clip for X-MEN: APOCALYPSE, arriving in Australian cinemas on 19 May 2016, which not only showcases the 1980s stylings of showing the effects and fighting skills of Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) as she rocks the nightlife, but a first real look at the bamfing of Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as he goes up against another familiar X-Men hero.

Following the smash hit X-Men: Days of Future Past, director Bryan Singer returns with X-MEN: APOCALYPSE. Since the dawn of civilization, he was worshipped as a god. Apocalypse, the first and most powerful mutant from Marvel’s X-Men universe, amassed the powers of many other mutants, becoming immortal and invincible. Upon awakening after thousands of years, he is disillusioned with the world as he finds it and recruits a team of powerful mutants, including a disheartened Magneto (Michael Fassbender), to cleanse mankind and create a new world order, over which he will reign. As the fate of the Earth hangs in the balance, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence) with the help of Professor X (James McAvoy) must lead a team of young X-Men to stop their greatest nemesis and save mankind from complete destruction.

May 6, 2016
Rapid Review: The Hunger Games – Catching Fire

Thrown into the jungle of post-summer blockbusters, one film must fight for survival in a hotbed of young adult entertainment. This is its story.

The first cinematic instalment of The Hunger Games saga, based on the young adult novels by Suzanne Collins, was a bit of a surprise. While it was easy to point to its forebears such as Battle Royale and notice the similarities, The Hunger Games momentarily elevated tween fiction out of the doldrums of self-loathing teenagers crushing on dirty old vampires. The second film takes things up a notch, following the hero Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence), who cleverly avoided her final fate in the 74th Hunger Games death match, saving her fellow 12th District competitor Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) in the process. Her act of rebellion has brought civil unrest in the strictly regimented districts, with President Snow (Donald Sutherland) threatening her family if she doesn’t play along for the cameras. He takes the opportunity of the 75th anniversary Quarter Quell to take the wind out of her sails, pitching past winners against each other and throwing her back into the games.

Where the first film trod cautiously around the implied commentary about the dangers of big government and the integration of semi-religious ceremony into policy, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire shoots straight for the centre of the target. Lawrence continues to shine in the lead, although is given a run for her money by new cast members Jena Malone, Jeffrey Wright, Amanda Plummer and in particular, the scheming Philip Seymour Hoffman as gameskeeper Plutarch Heavensbee. Screenwriters Simon Beaufoy and Michael Arndt take more time in the first act, allowing us a glimpse into what makes this world tick. It also gives Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks), a peacock in the first film, the opportunity to squeeze out a few emotional scenes between costume changes. The whole look of the film shifts too, under cinematographer Jo Willems and director Francis Lawrence (Water For Elephants), getting away from the wobble-cam of the previous entry and focusing on big special effects production numbers that mark this as a blockbuster entertainment package. Although the film becomes the difficult middle child of the series (even if the final chapter has been split in half), with a downer of a cliffhanger, it leaves the viewer (all puns intended) hungry for more.

Rating: ★★★½

November 25, 2013
First trailer for ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’ arrives online

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks for all things in comic book film land, with the debut of the Captain America: The Winter Soldier trailer along with the international release of Thor: The Dark World. Now Fox has released the first look at mega-sequel X-Men: Days of Future Past into the wild, combining all of the X-Men films under one Bryan Singer-shaped banner. Are we moist yet?

The ultimate X-Men ensemble fights a war for the survival of the species across two time periods in X-Men: Days of Future Past. The characters from the original X-Men film trilogy join forces with their younger selves from X-Men: First Class, in an epic battle that must change the past – to save our future.

Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is sent to the past in his own body, where he encounters a different Charles Xavier (James McAvoy), President Nixon, a secret door in the Oval Office and an encounter with Bishop (played by Omar Sy). The X-Men interquel will also star Ellen Page, Shawn Ashmore, Anna Paquin, Halle Berry, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Shawn Ashmore, Evan Peters, Nicholas Hoult and Peter Dinklage.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is set for released on 23 May 2014 from Fox.

October 30, 2013