Tag: Sony

Review: Venom: The Last Dance

Venom, born from the gloriously over-the-top comic book boom of ’80s and ’90s, has always felt like a wild throwback to that era on screen—with more irreverence and attitude than today’s sleek, formula-driven Marvel output. But as superhero movies start to groan under their own weight, VENOM: THE LAST DANCE leans into the chaos, letting the cracks in the series become its defining feature.

Picking up right after the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with a nod to Spider-Man: No Way Home, Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) and his alien symbiote, Venom, are now on the run after being falsely accused of a crime. Meanwhile, in a distant realm, Knull—the creator of the symbiotes—unleashes giant insect-like creatures to hunt them down. It turns out Eddie and Venom hold the key to Knull’s return to power, setting the film’s MacGuffin in motion.

Despite an early declaration that they’re done with “Multiverse shit,” writer/director Kelly Marcel leans heavily on the Marvel Cinematic Universe formula—but not the good parts. The film’s fatal flaw lies in trying to cram too many elements onto the flimsy buddy movie framework, leaving this third and supposedly final outing feeling overstuffed.

Chief among these issues is Knull being framed as a Thanos-like figure. Allegedly played by Andy Serkis, though only ever seen in half-shadow, the King in Black’s threat feels more existential than real. To compensate, we get soldier Rex Strickland (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as the on-the-ground antagonist, determined to hunt down and destroy Venom, despite the objections of the partially paralysed scientist Dr. Teddy Payne (Juno Temple).

Swinging wildly between tones and styles—including a random dance sequence in Las Vegas with the returning Mrs. Chen (Peggy Lu)—the film’s climax devolves into a mess of CG blobs tearing each other apart, reforming, and repeating until it’s mercifully over. Fan-favourite comic book characters pop in for seconds, just long enough to elicit a cheer, before vanishing without contributing anything meaningful. The mid-film introduction of alien-obsessed Martin (Rhys Ifan) and his hippie family feels equally random, existing solely to add some semblance of human stakes to the explosive finale.

VENOM: THE LAST DANCE, meant to close the chapter on Eddie and Venom, ultimately stumbles to a lacklustre non-ending, leaving little satisfaction to be had. While a mid-credits tease hints at a future for Sony’s Spider-Man Universe, it’s a setup that only the most dedicated comic book readers might find intriguing, but by then, everyone else has already punched their dance cards and left the floor.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Kelly Marcel | WRITERS: Kelly Marcel | CAST: Tom Hardy, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Juno Temple, Rhys Ifans, Peggy Lu, Alanna Ubach, Stephen Graham, Andy Serkis | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 110 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 24 October 2024 (Australia), 25 October 2024 (USA)

October 24, 2024
Review: Saturday Night

Saturday Night Live has had a chequered history with the big screen. At SNL’s 25th anniversary bash, host Chris Rock quipped, “Some of the worst films ever made were made by people in this room. Thank God we’re all going to do what we do best: television.”

Now, as the show celebrates its 50th season, director Jason Reitman goes back to the beginning to make a film about the making of a TV show. Like the show it depicts, it’s chaos on wheels—full of manic energy, with as many misses as hits. Still, it’s hard not to smile at the antics.

In the film’s reality, it’s 11 October 1975, and Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) is stressed. His talent is openly rebelling, network boss David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) is breathing down his neck, and the jaded crew don’t believe in what he’s doing. Scripts are unfinished, threats are flying, and there’s already been at least one fire. They go live in 90 minutes.

The film moves at a breakneck pace, unfolding almost in real time as the countdown to the live show ticks away. Reitman and co-writer Gil Kenan scramble to cover all angles, capturing the frenzied energy of those final moments. Like an actual episode of SNL, some of it hits, and some of it misses, but that’s part of the charm. The controlled chaos is woven into the narrative, reflecting the unpredictable nature of live television.

There’s a fair bit of mythologising here. For every self-effacing quip, we’re reminded that this is misunderstood genius waiting to be discovered. Did Milton Berle (J.K. Simmons) really pull out his dick to humiliate Chevy Chase (Cory Michael Smith)? It hardly matters because it works for the scene and feels true. Speaking of dicks, Chase is depicted as a relentless one, a smug egotist only interested in his own career. Another reminder that it’s all based on a true story.

It’s also clear that Reitman and Kenan wanted to squeeze in countless stories, but there’s simply not enough time. There are nods to sketches yet to come (like Dan Aykroyd’s bloody Julia Child routine) and hints at tensions that will later erupt into actual fistfights.

Other threads feel like they deserve their own series but are barely explored. Jane Curtin (Kim Matula), Gilda Radner (Ella Hunt), and especially Garrett Morris (Lamorne Morris) seem undervalued here, with Kenan and Reitman unintentionally sidelining them. The film has been criticised for its lack of focus on the female performers—but perhaps that’s reflective of the era.

Still, the cast make it work. Dylan O’Brien, Matt Wood, and Smith are uncanny as Aykroyd, John Belushi, and Chase. Nicholas Braun pulls double duty as Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson, and Rachel Sennott shines as unsung comedy hero Rosie Shuster.

Whether you’re a devotee of the show or just enjoy watching the craft of comedy come together, Saturday Night is a grounded love letter from Reitman to the performers he grew up with. And live from New York—it’s Saturday Night!

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Jason Reitman | WRITERS: Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman | CAST: Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 27 September 2024 (USA), 31 October 2024 (Australia)

October 19, 2024
Review: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

If it feels like the strip-mining of your nostalgia is only intensifying, you’re not imagining things. There have been more Ghostbusters films in the last eight years than there were in the previous 30. So, on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of the original Ghostbusters the filmmakers want to let us know they are fully aware of that, quite literally unleashing the ghosts of franchise past on the city, county and state of New York.

Picking up some time after the events of 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the Spengler family (Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard and Paul Rudd) are now actively Ghostbusting and living out of the old firehouse. Yet when a mysterious object turns up threatening to unleash all manner of evil, the new Ghostbusters team up with remnants of the old guard (Ernie Hudson, Dan Aykroyd, Annie Potts and Bill Murray).

There is a lot going on in GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE. In many ways, it feels just as much like the reboot/sequel that its predecessor was. If Afterlife was to be praised for giving over so much time to establishing the new characters, then the same must be said for this film. Director Gil Kenan and co-writer Jason Reitman are interested in the ‘Spenglers’ as a family unit, and the new dynamic of father figure Rudd thrown into the mix. (In some ways, this isn’t so far removed from his absentee father role in the Ant-Man franchise).

Yet the original characters of Stantz, Melnitz, Zeddemore, Venkman and even Slimer are also given significantly more screen time, creating a film that’s often at war with itself. There’s the introduction of ghost character Melody (Emily Alyn Lind). A sidebar quests to see the librarian (Patton Oswalt). They establish a well-funded ghost lab run by Q-like Lars Pinfield (James Acaster). The comedy character Nadeem Razmaadi (Kumail Nanjiani) is a kind of analogue for Rick Moranis in the original (or Peter MacNicol in Ghostbusters II). Kenan and Reitman provide enough material for a whole series here. In fact, this does very much feel like a TV pilot at times, throwing the audience enough legacy bones to keep us coming back for the next episode.

Reitman, who picked up his dad’s work in Afterlife, doesn’t return to the director’s chair for this outing. Swapping roles with co-writer Gil Kenan, who returns to directing duties for the first time since A Boy Called Christmas (2021), it’s still safe to say that Reitman’s fingerprints are present on this film. Visually impressive and filled with all the right special effects, neither creative is able to fully harness all these competing threads, leading to a mildly satisfying but ultimately convoluted finale.

So, where does this all leave the Ghost Corps franchise? For the time being at least, the future is full of possibilities for the Ghostbusters. More than that, it has all the ingredients it needs to survive beyond the original characters, carving out new audiences in the process. However, until the films can conclusively break away from running on nostalgia, the ghosts of the 80s will haunt any of their successes — and keep their empire forever frozen in time.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Gil Kenan | WRITER: Gil Kenan, Jason Reitman | CAST: Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Kumail Nanjiani, Emily Alyn Lind, Celeste O’Connor, Logan Kim, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, Patton Oswalt | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 21 March 2023 (Australia)

March 21, 2024
Review: Napoleon

One of the things we continue to admire about Ridley Scott is the diminishing number of fucks he has left to give. If you’ve ever read an interview with the filmmaker, there’s ample evidence he’s down to his last one. So, his unapologetic attitude and broad range of genre choices probably makes him the perfect choice to tackle Napoleon Bonaparte on screen.

In fact, Scott and writer David Scarpa (All the Money in the World) take a journey through several of those genres in NAPOLEON, a sprawling and often littered visual summary of the Frenchman’s Wikipedia entry. Kicking off during the 1789 Revolution, a brutal decapitation of Marie Antoinette sets the tone for everything that follows.

From the Reign of Terror to Napoleon’s (Joaquin Phoenix) rise and fall as Emperor, and his multiple exiles and battles along the way, Scott and Scarpa paint in broad brushstrokes. At the core is Napoleon’s tumultuous relationship with Joséphine de Beauharnais (Vanessa Kirby), shown as a microcosm of Napoleon’s obsessions. His empire building is often a backdrop to this dynamic. Which is why you might also get whiplash from the tonal changes in a film that leaps through Napoleon’s greatest hits as satirical farce (see also: House of Gucci), a romance, a political thriller and an action film.

It’s the latter that plays to Scott’s strengths, harnessing the grandeur of Gladiator or Kingdom of Heaven in the process. Each iconic battle is shot in such bloodletting detail that they demand to be seen on the biggest screen possible. They make tangible the scale of the hundreds of thousands Napoleon marched off to their deaths in his vain quest for power. Nevertheless, Scott is still somewhat preoccupied with human (and horse) viscera at every battle, even if he and regular photographer Dariusz Wolski somehow make blood under sheets of ice look gorgeous.

Scott is not concerned necessarily with accuracy or detail as much as he is in the mood. For example, there’s a lavish montage in which Napoleon marches back into France from his first exile only to learn of Joséphine’s fate (sorry, spoilers for history). Yet in reality he is said to have heard of her passing via a French journal while still in exile on Elba, and stayed locked in his room for two days, refusing to see anyone.

Phoenix might be perfectly cast as this figure, doing that stone-faced thing he does so well. At one point, Napoleon says of the British “You only think you’re so great because you have boats,” and it’s possible that only Phoenix could deliver a line – one of many that’s both deliberately and accidentally absurd – with such conviction.

Yet it is Kirby who gives us absolutely everything she has as Joséphine. While she is physically kept on the sidelines through the machinations of the empire, she is at the centre of everything that this version of Napoleon does. If there’s any justice in the world, she will win all the things and have a whole new edit dedicated to her character.

Like the historical figure it depicts, NAPOLEON is a wildly ambitious enterprise with some deep flaws. We know that Scott has a director’s cut in excess of four hours that does indeed explore more of Empress Joséphine’s story. I would welcome this expansion of Scott’s vision, as you are forever conscious of something missing in the connective tissue. Until then, you can sum up the contents of this theatrical cut with Napoleon’s dying words: “France…Army…Joséphine.”

2023 | USA, UK | DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott | WRITERS: David Scarpa | CAST: Joaquin Phoenix, Vanessa Kirby, Tahar Rahim | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing, Apple TV+ | RUNNING TIME: 157 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 22 November 2023

November 24, 2023
Review: The Equalizer 3

In anticipation of this film, the second sequel that Denzel Washington has ever done, I went back and read my reviews for the first two films. I still genuinely can’t remember much about what happened in either of them. Of course, that scarcely matters in the blood-soaked opening sequence of THE EQUALIZER 3, the fifth collaboration between Washington and director Antoine Fuqua.

Originally based on the TV series of the same name, a house full of bodies left in the wake of former U.S. Marine and DIA officer Robert McCall’s (Washington) actions certainly separates it from the source material. After getting shot while on the job, McCall recovers in a small southern Italian town thanks to the kindness of strangers.

As he gets stronger, and believes he has found a new home, he tips off federal agent Emma Collins (Dakota Fanning) about a major drug shipment. It is soon evident that there is a Camorra presence in town, led by a pair of ruthless brothers. It doesn’t take long before the two things converge and things get violent again.

While escalating the bloodletting to astronomical levels at times, THE EQUALIZER 3 feels like a throwback Eurothriller in every other way. Veteran Italian actor Remo Girone adds some gravitas, but the rest of the cast feels like grist for the mill. Here is a film that barely needs an excuse to go from zero to slaughter, perhaps recognising that its audience sits somewhere between the John Wick series and whatever Liam Neeson is up to this month.

It’s refreshing actually, especially given the multiple storylines and threads that never really paid off in The Equalizer 2. Sure, there’s flashbacks and callbacks to previous entries, but this is very much a self-contained actioner. In between idyllic shots of the Italian coastline – and they are beautiful – Fuqua continues to demonstrate a mastery of the short and fast action sequence. At one point, you could almost blink and miss McCall taking out a small gang of baddies in an alley. At the very least, Washington seems to be enjoying the Italian holiday.

The climactic final moments are not so much a fated showdown as a slaughter, but one suspects that’s exactly how the filmmakers and audiences like it. So, while this may seem like an ending for McCall’s current arc, one suspects this won’t be the last we’ve seen of his antics.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Antoine Fuqua | WRITERS: Richard Wenk (Based on the television series created by Michael Sloan and Richard Lindheim) | CAST: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, David Denman | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 109 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 31 August 2023 (AUS), 1 September 2023 (USA)

September 2, 2023
Review: Gran Turismo

Video game films have been, to put it mildly, a hit or miss affair. So, there’s a worrying moment at the start of Neill Blomkamp’s GRAN TURISMO, partly based on the video game series of the same name, when Orlando Bloom’s marketing executive gives us a TED Talk on how great the titular product is. For a second it feels like pop has devoured itself whole and regurgitated out the by-products.

Then something strange happens: it grabs our attention and manages to hold us there for well over two hours. Jason Hall and Zach Baylin’s screenplay isn’t just based on the game, but the true story of gamer turned professional racing champion Jann Mardenborough (played here by Archie Madekwe).

Blomkamp’s film plays fast and loose with the facts, but that partly because the most unbelievable element – that Nissan and PlayStation took gamers, ran them through the GT Academy, and offered them a chance to race professionally – actually happened between 2008 and 2016.

The film version has all the elements that you might expect from an underdog sports movie. Jack Salter (David Harbour), Jann’s trainer, takes a chance on the young driver due to his own past regrets. There’s Jann’s father Steve (Djimon Hounsou), a former football champion who doesn’t understand his son’s passions. Literal golden boy Nicholas Capa (Josha Stradowski) serves as Jann’s chief rival.

Yet for a film that sometimes feels as rapidly assembled as a lightning fast pitstop visit, it’s remarkably compelling and slickly shot. Blomkamp takes his time getting us to the major races, allowing us plenty of time to get to know and enjoy this young Rocky Balboa’s company. The romantic interest (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) may be a perfunctory inclusion, but only because the father/son dynamics between Jann and Jack – not to mention Jann and his actual father Steve – have so much more emotional impact.

The races are also shot with real punch, taking us all over the world with the ease of selecting a map on a screen. You can feel the danger every time one of them steps onto a track, and there’s a rare use of speed that doesn’t rely on slowing everything else down. There’s a major turning point during the second act that’s a genuine heartstopper too.

This is arguably only hampered by the aesthetic debt to the original games. Jann frequently sees dotted lines on the track signifying his trajectory. At other times, there will be a little HUD or a number on screen showing the driver’s overall position. It’s a minor quibble, but it often momentarily takes us out of the film’s reality at crucial times.

The film version of GRAN TURISMO may bend the truth, ignoring drivers like Lucas Ordoñez who managed to unlock some of the depicted achievements a few years earlier, but it remains a solid racing drama. It does the rare thing of transcending the source game, even if it ultimately stays quite literally on a well driven track.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Neill Blomkamp | WRITERS: Jason Hall, Zach Baylin, Alex Tse | CAST: Archie Madekwe, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner, Djimon Hounsou | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 10 August 2023 (AUS), 25 August 2023 (US)

August 7, 2023
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: Bullet Train

Japan has long been used in Hollywood as both aesthetic inspiration and a bottomless bit of remake fodder. BULLET TRAIN, based on the 2010 novel by Isaka Kōtarō, draws a little bit from each well. While it follows the basic plotting of Isaka’s book, it turns the titular shinkansen into a theme park ride that makes up in speed what it sometimes lacks in substance.

Hired assassin Ladybug (Brad Pitt) reluctantly takes on one last job, despite his newfound eastern philosophy and desire to get out of the business. The gig is a simple one: nab a briefcase and get off at the next stop. However, Ladybug is cursed with bad luck and things go wrong almost immediately.

It doesn’t help that there is a den of assassins all actively working against each other on the train. There’s Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and his ‘twin’ brother Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry), a pair of British assassins responsible for keeping the briefcase safe and returning the son of White Death (Michael Shannon), the enigmatic big boss. There’s also agent of chaos Prince (Joey King), another assassin posing as a schoolgirl. Throw in a random assortment of bonus baddies, from Zazie Beetz to Bad Bunny, and you got yourself a hyperkinetic action flick.

The original novel is a self-aware thriller that could happily sit on a spinner rack in the 80s as well as it did on bestseller shelves a decade ago. Overlapping characters and chaotic threads means that Isaka landed on a bit of an inconsistent tone, something that director David Leitch (John Wick, Hobbs and Shaw) and screenwriter Zak Olkewicz (Fear Street: 1978) carry over to this adaptation. Yet gone is any of the mystery of the source material: in Leitch’s hands, it’s an action caper where characters are literally dangling off the side of the train.

From the moment we see the overlapping neon lights of the Tokyo night turned up to 11, or character title cards splashed across screen with accompanying kanji, it’s clear that Isaka’s deep cuts from Japanese pop culture will only be given a surface level nod. In between Japanese covers of 70s disco songs like ‘Stayin’ Alive,’ there’s even a Japanese automated toilet gag — the kind we stopped making for good reason at least two decades ago. (Of course, given that it is central to the character of Lemon, and crucial to a third act twist, they retain a full a robust series of Thomas the Tank Engine references).

Like the vehicle itself, BULLET TRAIN looks best when it’s at full speed. In the capable hands of Pitt, the audience is led through the cabins of the train — conveniently empty for hitherto unrevealed reasons — via a raft of brutal, violent and often hilariously fun action set-pieces. Highlights include a fight in which a knife-wielding Bad Bunny goes toe-to-toe with Pitt’s briefcase. Later, similar scenes play out against Beetz and Tyalor-Johnson respectively.

Yet it’s a film that’s almost tripping over itself to showcase a particular style, wrapping the plotting inside a parade of cameos, cutaways and endless flashbacks. So. Many. Flashbacks. It gets so convoluted at one point, even a snake and a bottle of water get their own side-stories. As the film goes on, the surface sheen shows a few more cracks. The genuinely white-knuckle of a climax culminates in everyone landing in a city that looks artificial and computer generated.

Of course, in a film like this, the sheer weight of the cast manages to propel the film forward. When Hiroyuki Sanada arrives to add some gravitas to the film, professional crazy guy Michael Shannon matches him with a scenery devouring turn. We would have happily welcomed more screen time for both of them.

BULLET TRAIN may not break any new ground, but it is precisely the film that it sets out to be. Fast and frenetic, it takes all the content of Isaka’s book and runs them through the last decade’s worth of action movie boot camps. Doesn’t that sound like the perfect thing to watch on your next train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto?

2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: David Leitch | WRITERS: Zak Olkewicz (based on a story by Isaka Kōtarō) | CAST: Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Michael Shannon, Benito A Martínez Ocasio, Sandra Bullock | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 126 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 4 August 2022 (AUS), 5 August 2022 (US)

August 4, 2022
Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

The story behind WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING is even more fascinating than the book itself. As of 2022, author Delia Owens and her husband Mark Owens are still wanted for questioning in relation to the killing of a poacher in Zambia. The story keeps resurfacing thanks to the thematic similarities with her debut novel, even more so that First Match director Olivia Newman has turned it into a film.

The book itself is written for a very particular audience. Following the death of rich kid Chase (Harris Dickinson), social outcast Catherine “Kya” Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is accused of his murder. Having raised herself in the North Carolina wetlands, she is known to the locals as the ‘Marsh Girl.’

When kindly lawyer Tom Milton (David Strathairn) takes on the case, her past is unfurled via a series of flashbacks. Torn between her love of Chase, the Carolina marshes and the academic Tate (Taylor John Smith), the events leading up to the fateful death are revealed. What isn’t revealed is why the two loves of her life look almost identical. Indeed, if you aren’t paying attention you might just think it’s the one guy having an identity crisis.

Like the book, the film works best when there’s a central mystery told in a non-linear fashion, with some naturalist observations along the way. At the urging of Tate, she begins to develop a series of art books based on her marshland sketches. As they earn wider acclaim across the country, Kya is still unable to bring herself to leave her moist home.

Some may enjoy the back half, where it becomes more of a courtroom thriller, although it started to lose this viewer a bit there. As the film awkwardly cuts back to the trial between liaisons, key bits of evidence are overlooked for the sake of more lingering shots of Kya on the waterfront. Yet really, if you were cool with a pseudo-magical forest, and a pair of Black characters only written to advance the story of the young lead (something the original book was equally criticised for), narrative nuance isn’t going to worry you much.

The two samey male leads notwithstanding, it’s the cast that makes this mostly watchable in the end. Daisy Edgar-Jones brings a convincing lead performance as Kya. In a complete contrast with her character in Mimi Cave’s Fresh, Edgar-Jones lifts the character off the page and makes her tangible.

More Nicholas Sparks than Karen Blixen, WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING never breaks free of the flaws in the source material. Adhering to the book’s structure, complete with a constant voice-over, it will only really appeal to lovers of romances where the stakes are low and the landscape shots are bountiful. Even if there’s nary a crawdad to be seen anywhere.

2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Olivia Newman | WRITERS: Lucy Alibar (based on a story by Delia Owens) | CAST: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer Jr., David Strathairn | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 126 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 21 July 2022 (AUS)

July 21, 2022
Review: Uncharted

After being stuck in development hell for well over a decade, UNCHARTED splashes onto the screen with a kind of visual fidelity one would expect from the newly minted PlayStation Productions. Like the games it is based on, we meet Nathan Drake (Tom Holland) as he hangs from several crates tumbling out of a plane. Before you can say button mashing, we’re immersed in a high-concept, continent spanning adventure.

Fifteen years earlier in Boston, Drake’s brother Sam runs away from their orphanage home instead of facing the authorities for their latest crime. Back in the present day, Drake is now a bartender in New York, having never forgotten his brother’s stories of the lost treasure of the Magellan expedition. He’s approached by Victor Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg), who is not only searching for the gold but claims to have knowledge of Sam’s whereabouts.

They reluctantly team-up with fellow hunter Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), all the while being pursued by Santiago Moncada (Antonia Banderas) and mercenary Jo Braddock (Tati Gabrielle). It’s all fun and games, at least until the double-crossing begins.

While the games themselves owe a debt to everything from the Tomb Raider series to Indiana Jones, the film version is just as much crafted in the National Treasure mould of historical treasure hunting. Which initially keeps the film on rails, with the script following an episodic series of clues that simply appear rather than reward the viewer. It does all lead to a spectacular set-piece — one that I’m told is partly inspired by Uncharted 4 — involving pirate ships, mid-air collisions and all the climbing and hanging onto stuff that series players know too well. (There are actually three major set-pieces, but two of them are the same one!)

Despite the story limitations, it mostly works thanks to the presence of Holland in the lead. Any initial hesitation around his casting quickly gives way as he comfortably settles into another hero role. Similarly, Wahlberg plays as much of a comic foil as he does partner in crime, and it kind of woks. There’s one scene where he’s just yelling instructions through a grate, and that feels like the most faithful scene from the games somehow. Less successful is Ali as the canonically Australian Frazer, although her accent is even more slippy than most of Drake’s handholds. The badass Gabrielle remains the the MVP though, often dominating scenes without saying a word.

From the mid-credits sequences, and the planned adaptations of Ghost of Tsushima and The Last of Us, Sony and PlayStation are clearly hoping to build a multimedia empire from decades worth of content. While UNCHARTED may not change the way you think about video game adaptations, it’s still a fun romp that distracts you from the real world in these uncertain times.

2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Ruben Fleischer | WRITERS: Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway | CAST: Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, Antonio Banderas | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 116 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 17 February 2022 (AUS), 18 February 2022 (US)

February 17, 2022