Tag: Universal

Review: How to Train Your Dragon (2025)

It’s a sign of the times that this is the second Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois animated film to get a live-action remake this year. Following Disney’s Lilo & Stitch redux, DreamWorks has begun its own journey down the reboot path with this reworking of their 2010 hit. Like Stitch, the original has grown into a small empire over the past decade, which perhaps explains why there are so few surprises here.

In fact, HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON (2025) is a shot-for-shot, beat-for-beat remake of the original. Once again, we find ourselves on the bitter isle of Berk, where dragons and humans have been locked in conflict for generations. Young Hiccup (Mason Thames) shows no aptitude for living up to the dragon-slaying expectations of his father, Stoick the Vast (Gerard Butler).

That is, until he accidentally wounds Toothless, an elusive and much-feared Night Fury dragon. As Hiccup slowly rehabilitates the creature and earns its trust, he discovers a gentler side to dragonkind. His newfound connection elevates his status among his peers, including love interest Astrid (Nico Parker), but also puts him at odds with a culture entrenched in fear and tradition.

Let’s address the elephant, or rather the gargantuan dragon, in the room. Outside of commercial motivations, this near-identical remake offers little in the way of artistic justification. And yet, it’s hard to deny how entertaining it remains, even in such close proximity to the original. From the opening moments, it’s clear this is a technically accomplished production, with top-tier effects recreating the dragons in stunning detail against the chilly beauty of the Northern Ireland landscapes. Toothless, in particular, is beautifully realised, and I’ll admit I still got choked up during that now-iconic bonding scene.

The casting is also top-notch. Once you adjust to not hearing Jay Baruchel’s voice, Thames (The Black Phone) confidently makes the role of Hiccup his own. Gerard Butler reprises his role as Stoick with appropriately gruff gravitas, and his pairing with the always-reliable Nick Frost provides a welcome comic double-act. Not all of the character designs translate perfectly to this semi-realistic world, but somehow it still works.

For me, animation holds a unique and irreplaceable magic, a singular blend of art and cinema. There are moments here, especially when Hiccup and Toothless first take flight, that can’t quite replicate the painterly beauty of the 2010 film. Still, the climactic dragon battle makes thrilling use of every inch of the IMAX screen, and if studios insist on remaking beloved animated films, this is at least how it should be done.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Dean DuBlois | WRITERS: Dean DeBlois | CAST: Mason Thames, Nico Parker, Gerard Butler, Nick Frost, Julian Dennison | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 125 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 12 June 2025 (Australia), 13 June 2025 (USA)

June 9, 2025
Review: The Alto Knights

Barry Levinson’s mobster saga boasts such deep genre pedigree that they’ve cast Robert De Niro twice. With a script by Goodfellas and Casino scribe Nicholas Pileggi and a story inspired by the real-life power struggle between crime bosses Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, this is, at its core, a throwback gangster flick—or at least an attempt at one.

Levinson opens with the botched assassination attempt on Costello (De Niro), adopting an almost documentary-style approach to unravel the rivalry behind the hit. As an aged Costello addresses the camera, archival-style slides and intercut vignettes chart how the ruthless Genovese (also De Niro) returned from Europe after the war, determined to reclaim the boss role he once handed to Costello. Surviving the attempt, Costello plans to retire—but Genovese isn’t convinced.

It’s a sweeping saga, jumping between hushed conversations, sudden bursts of violence, and congressional hearings. While Costello and Genovese wage their battle, Frank’s wife Bobbie (Debra Messing) and Vito’s on-again-off-again spouse Anna (Kathrine Narducci) largely remain bystanders to their machinations. The film’s whiplash-inducing scene changes can be disorienting, but they keep the momentum brisk.

The dual casting of De Niro in both primary roles doesn’t add much beyond some initial confusion. If you go in unaware, you might find yourself scrutinising Genovese’s heavy makeup just to confirm you’re not seeing double. At times, the film relies on precisely staged booth and table setups to sell the effect. Still, De Niro seems to be having fun getting to play the Joe Pesci character for a change.

Where the film does well is in evoking the era. The Kefauver Committee hearings serve as pivotal moments, though the broader societal implications of the investigation remain largely unexplored. That said, the film is steeped in period detail. Dante Spinotti’s camera captures the crisp neon glow of the streets, reflecting off polished ‘50s cars to create a mostly immersive world.

THE ALTO KNIGHTS is a serviceable mob film, albeit somewhat hampered by our familiarity with the form. As the finale escalates the rivals’ game of one-upmanship into a chaotic car chase, it feels like seasoned creatives tossing out the last of the pot—a well-worn but still flavorful serving of the genre’s staples.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Barry Levinson | WRITER: Nicholas Pileggi | CAST: Robert De Niro, Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci, Michael Rispoli | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (Australia), Warner Bros. (US) | RUNNING TIME: 123 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 March 2025 (Australia), 21 March 2025 (USA)

March 20, 2025
Review: Companion

SPOILER ALERT: While this review avoids revealing the myriad twists and turns that make the film a delight, it does touch on some basic plot elements that might be considered mild spoilers.

Who needs messy human interaction or even dating apps when you can fall for the algorithm itself? From Westworld and Blade Runner to Ex Machina and Black Mirror, the intersection of love, humanity, and technology has long been fertile ground for storytelling.

In Drew Hancock’s striking directorial debut, he flips the script on this familiar trope by exploring a world where artificial companions don’t complete us but amplify our worst instincts. While its shopfront premise might evoke Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll or Maria Schrader’s I’m Your Man, this darkly funny thriller proves to be something far more disarmingly clever.

Iris (Sophie Thatcher) is, to borrow a phrase from Olivia Newton-John, hopelessly devoted to Josh (Jack Quaid). She bends over backwards to please him, even agreeing to a vacation with Josh’s friends, including Kat (Megan Suri) and her sleazy Russian boyfriend Sergey (Rupert Friend).

Despite Kat’s barely veiled hostility, Iris starts to find her groove with the group, including lively couple Eli (Harvey Guillén) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). That is, until Sergey makes an unwanted advance, forcing Iris to kill him in self-defence. It’s at this shocking juncture that the film drops its first bombshell: Iris is not human but a companion robot, meticulously designed to fulfil Josh’s every whim.

From here, it would be criminal to reveal anything more. I went into this having avoided almost all pre-release buzz, and it made all the difference. Like one of those crime films where every plan spirals disastrously out of control, Hancock’s script doles out one curveball after another. What sets COMPANION apart, though, is how unexpectedly funny it is amidst the chaos.

Hancock uses sharp, well-timed humour to cut through the tension, elevating the film beyond Stepford Wives comparisons into something far more winking. By weaving in themes of #MeToo and toxic masculinity, the film transitions into an exploration of autonomy and control. Following in the thematic footsteps of Don’t Worry Darling and Don’t Blink, Hancock’s film truly comes alive when Iris confronts her lack of agency, transforming into a more compelling story.

This pivot gives Sophie Thatcher a platform to showcase her incredible range. Known for her role in Yellowjackets and her supporting turn in Heretic, Thatcher delivers a standout performance, effortlessly embodying Iris’ malleable personality, which literally shifts at the push of a button. Jack Quaid, meanwhile, easily sheds his voice-acting familiarity from Star Trek: Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds to convincingly portray the deadbeat boyfriend. And Rupert Friend? His eerie transformation into Sergey is so complete it feels almost unsettling.

As Hollywood—and society at large—grapples with the implications of artificial intelligence, COMPANION arrives as a timely reflection on the balance of power in all relationships, not just those between humans and technology. It may not change your perspective on AI, but it will undoubtedly leave you chuckling long after its final twist.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Drew Hancock | WRITERS: Drew Hancock | CAST: Sophie Thatcher, Jack Quaid, Lukas Gage, Megan Suri, Harvey Guillén, Rupert Friend | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (Australia), New Line Cinema (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 97 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 30 January 2025 (Australia), 31 January 2025 (USA)

January 24, 2025
Review: The Brutalist

Don’t bother searching for László Tóth. Like Lydia Tár before him, he’s a figure of considerable renown who exists solely within the bounds of an intense piece of fiction. Yet THE BRUTALIST, directed by Brady Corbet and co-written with Mona Fastvold, is firmly anchored in the concrete realities of a century’s worth of history, drawing inspiration from real-world architects and designers.

Corbet deliberately disorients the audience from the outset with an intense sequence of jarring shots, reminiscent of the climactic scene in The Childhood of a Leader (2015). These striking visuals introduce Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor László Tóth (Adrien Brody) as he arrives at Ellis Island, the Statue of Liberty looming above the immigrants.

Tóth’s version of the “American Dream” follows a familiar path. Labelled onscreen as ‘The Enigma of Arrival’, it sees architect Tóth move to Philadelphia to stay with his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), and help with his furniture business. Unable to bring his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), to America right away, Tóth faces mixed fortunes. Coupled by a descent into heroin addiction, he’s left in charity housing and working construction jobs. At least until he catches the attention of Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a wealthy and volatile industrialist.

Van Buren commissions Tóth to build a multi-function community centre near his estate. The second act of the film, “The Hard Core of Beauty” traces the construction project and the parallel unravelling of the architect. Following the arrival of his now wheelchair-bound wife and mute niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), Tóth increasingly feels the glares of his outsider status as a foreigner in a rich white world.

Like the building Tóth has designed, THE BRUTALIST is ambitious in both size and shape. At 215 minutes, Corbet’s film mirrors the titular design movement: like a massive concrete structure, it may initially appear daunting, indulgent, or even unapproachable. Yet by presenting its characters in their rawest forms, the film’s deliberate pacing invites the audience to invest time and uncover the understated elegance within. Make no mistake—THE BRUTALIST is beautiful and transfixing. Over three and a half hours in Tóth’s world pass in the blink of an eye.

By shooting on VistaVision film and using cameras from the format’s heyday—a process Paramount pioneered but abandoned after just seven years in the 1950s and 1960s—Corbet crafts his film with the very materials of the era it depicts. The result is a series of jaw-droppingly beautiful moments, captured in the characteristic fine-grain of the format. Even the 15-minute intermission is a deliberate nod to tradition, serving not just as a bladder break but as a pivotal thematic shift.

Likewise, the stellar cast—completely reassembled between the film’s 2020 announcement and final form—feel less like performers and more like documentary subjects. It’s a running joke that Brody has spent much of his career in the Second World War (The Thin Red Line, The Pianist), but here you would believe it. Brody carries the weight of his character’s trauma and grief in every contorted expression, a survivor in every sense of the word.

In Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote that legacy is planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. Tóth actively refutes this, literally constructing a monument to past traumas and claiming ownership of his own legacy. (In a playful nod, the credits roll to La Bionda’s 1970s disco hit “One for You, One for Me,” driving the point home). As the film’s closing moments remind us, “No matter what the others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey.” THE BRUTALIST is one hell of a destination.

2024 | USA, Hungary, UK | DIRECTOR: Brady Corbet | WRITERS: Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold | CAST: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (Australia), A24 (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 215 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 23 January 2025 (Australia), 20 December 2024 (USA)

January 17, 2025
Review: Wolf Man

If you think studio franchises and crossover sequels are a product of the 21st century, let me introduce you to the Universal Monster movies. During their heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, Universal released some two dozen films featuring iconic characters ranging from Dracula and Frankenstein to the comedic antics of Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

Leigh Whannell’s WOLF MAN, co-written with his wife Corbett Tuck, honours this storied legacy while carving out its own identity. It pays homage to George Waggner’s original The Wolf Man (1941), starring the legendary Lon Chaney Jr., but also draws on nearly a century of werewolf lore—from An American Werewolf in London and The Howling (both 1981) to Universal’s more recent, less successful reboots.

Whannell and Tuck distinguish their take by slowing the pace and grounding the story in psychological tension rather than pure body horror. Like Larry Talbot before him, Blake (Christopher Abbott) returns to his childhood home to settle his late father’s estate. Haunted by deep-seated trauma from his survivalist father’s harsh upbringing and struggling with a fractured marriage to Charlotte (Julia Garner), Blake pours his protective instincts into their daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth).

Soon after arriving, the family is involved in a car accident, and Blake is mauled by an unseen creature. They barely escape to the house as the beast relentlessly pursues them. But as the night stretches on, it becomes horrifyingly clear: Blake has been infected, and he is beginning to change.

There are few surprises in WOLF MAN. From the exploration of Blake’s paternal issues to his inevitable transformation, the film remains tethered to folkloric traditions. There’s only so many times you can watch a child nervously ask, “What’s happening to Daddy?” while he grows visibly more wolf-like before it starts edging into absurdity.

Yet Whannell and Tuck approach the material with sincerity. In interviews, Whannell has cited degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cancer as inspirations. The film depicts a family grappling with Blake’s mental and physical disintegration: he loses speech, momentarily forgets loved ones, and lashes out as his lupine fate takes hold. For Blake, the world itself seems to unravel, and the audience is frequently put in his shoes, where the distinction between reality and madness blurs.

However, the film falters in its supporting characters. Charlotte is underdeveloped, her emotional rift with Blake left unexplored. She muses vaguely about not knowing how to be a mother, but her arc feels like a cliché: the too-busy Big City Gal rediscovering her family in backwoods Oregon—it’s Hallmark with an added dose of body horror! For an actor of Julia Garner’s calibre, it’s a missed opportunity, leaving her role as little more than a bystander to Blake’s transformation.

On a technical level, WOLF MAN impresses. Whannell and cinematographer Stefan Duscio deliver stunning visuals, with Oregon’s landscapes providing a haunting backdrop. The ‘wolf vision’ sequences are particularly striking, blending cranked-up ASMR-like sound design with surreal imagery—think Total Eclipse of the Heart with the intensity dialed up to eleven. However, the film’s slow-burn approach means that those seeking quick thrills or Rick Baker-style effects may walk away disappointed.

Ultimately, it’s hard to pin down who WOLF MAN is for. It’s a deliberate and distinctive take on familiar material, but it doesn’t break the mould enough to stand out. Horror fans might find the pacing too restrained, while drama enthusiasts may be deterred by the genre trappings. What remains is a film about a family on the brink, held together by a strong lead performance and a commitment to mood. For some, that may just be enough.

2025 | USA | DIRECTOR: Leigh Whannell | WRITERS: Leigh Whannell and Corbett Tuck | CAST: Christopher Abbott, Julia Garner, Matilda Firth, Sam Jaeger | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 103 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 January 2025 (Australia), 17 January 2025 (USA)

January 16, 2025
Review: Nosferatu

When F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu premiered in 1922, Bram Stoker had only been dead for a decade, and Hollywood was still nearly ten years away from its own adaptation of Dracula. Each version honoured the horror of Stoker’s novel in distinct ways, spawning a century of imitators. Even single chapters, like the voyage of the Demeter, got their own film. Now, over 100 years later, Robert Eggers draws on this rich visual tradition to craft something uniquely his own, paying homage to the past while forging unique ground in the vampire mythos.

If you’ve encountered any version of this tale, the broad strokes will feel familiar. It’s Germany, 1838, and newlywed Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), ignoring the emphatic warnings of his wife Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), is sent by his firm to Transylvania to personally seal a deal with the mysterious Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård). Cue the nightmares.

As Hutter wrestles with both literal and figurative demons in his bid for freedom, Ellen is overcome by prophetic visions and bouts of somnambulism that link her to Orlok. Her friends Anna (Emma Corrin) and Friedrich Harding (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) reluctantly enlist the help of Professor Albin Eberhart Von Franz (Willem Dafoe), a scientist with a fixation on the occult. Meanwhile, their German town is ravaged by plague as Orlok and Ellen find themselves inescapably drawn together by the force of fate.

So, while the shopfront is the same–and it’s an almost aggressively traditional retelling of the tale at that–Eggers has unquestionably put his unique stylistic stamp all over this. From the moment Orlock’s gravelling, bass-infused voice comes booming through the bottom end of the sound system. This is Gothic with a capital G, with the aesthetics of the silent era filtered through a myriad of touchpoints from across the ages.

The German Expressionism of Murnau is present in the black and white tones that seamlessly give way to colour splashes. It’s there as Orlok’s shadow fingers stretch across a patchwork city and in the stairs and angles that mirror the 1922 designs of artist Albin Grau. Like that film and Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, occultism and satanic symbolism is present at every turn. Combined with the low, unsettling rumble of the sound design and Robin Carolan’s haunting score, Eggers conjures a visceral terror akin to what audiences must have felt a century ago.

If NOSFERATU stumbles, it’s in its treatment of its female characters. Ellen and Anna—or Mina and Lucy, for the traditionalists—are confined to roles that remain disappointingly defined by the original text. Decades of reinterpretations, from Herzog to Coppola, have largely followed the same patterns, and Eggers’ script does little to disrupt them. Whether they’re depicted as naked riders or sexualised bait, the women serve more as pawns in a male-dominated narrative than as agents of their own destinies.

That said, this doesn’t diminish Depp’s performance one iota. Even within the constraints of the role, she commands attention with a magnetic presence. Dafoe, by now a fixture in Eggers’ eccentric gallery of players, brings both gravitas and surprising levity, delivering even the most outlandish lines with an earnestness that makes them work. Taylor-Johnson, however, feels slightly out of place, as though a contemporary action hero has wandered into Eggers’ meticulously crafted Gothic past.

As the film races toward its dawn conclusion, the grotesqueries of raw vampiric shapes are thrust into the light of day, exposing their absurdity as much as their terror. This duality—both reactions seemingly intended—is a fitting finale. The ending doesn’t tease a Son of Nosferatu or hint at hands clawing out of graves in mid-credits. Instead, the story closes its loop, cementing Gothic horror firmly back at the top of the cinematic mantle where it belongs.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Robert Eggers | WRITERS: Robert Eggers (Based on Nosferatu by Henrik Galeen) | CAST: Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, Lily-Rose Depp, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Emma Corrin, Willem Dafoe | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (Australia), Focus Features (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 132 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 January 2025 (Australia), 25 December 2024 (USA)

December 19, 2024
Review: Wicked

For musical theatre fans, the original Broadway production of Wicked holds a special place in many hearts. Based on Gregory Maguire’s novel and riffing on L. Frank Baum’s Oz stories, the musical is one of the few to break the billion-dollar mark in Broadway revenue and has been performed worldwide in multiple languages.

This brings us to the biggest challenge for film adaptations of stage musicals: while countless live performances and cast variations ensure no two shows are ever exactly alike, a film locks us into a single interpretation. In adapting Wicked for the screen, director Jon M. Chu and screenwriters Winnie Holzman and Dana Fox have added an extra hurdle for audiences by dividing the story into two separate films, disrupting the natural flow of a two-act musical.

This first chapter of WICKED (or Wicked: Chapter 1, as it’s ornately titled on screen) quickly distinguishes itself from Stephen Schwartz and Holzman’s stage version, opening with a lavish display of CGI monkeys and sweeping digital landscapes. We see the Ozians celebrating the recent death of the Wicked Witch of the West, slain by a young girl from Kansas.

However, Galinda (Ariana Grande), who will later become Glinda the Good Witch of the North, tells a tale that might change the celebrants’ minds. She and the green-skinned Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo) first crossed paths while studying at Shiz University. Elphaba’s skin colour and uncontrolled powers initially set the two at odds, but they become friends against a backdrop of growing prejudice. As talking animals in Oz are mysteriously driven out of cities, the only person who might help is the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).

By expanding the characters and backstories—drawing partly from Maguire’s novel—it’s clear why the decision was made to split the story into two parts. There’s so much exposition that, while it works in the shorthand of the stage, doesn’t always translate to the more visually oriented medium of film. Even so, at 160 minutes, WICKED takes as long to tell one act of the story as the entire original stage production.

Director Chu and the creative team use that time to paint the screen with extravagant production numbers and ornate costumes. “The Wizard and I,” for example, starts with Elphaba running around Shiz grounds and ends atop a digital clifftop. Another number takes place amid a vast set of rotating cogs filled with books. Conversely, a scene set in a nightclub, featuring animal bands and surreal objects, teeters on the edge of Cats territory.

What anchors it all are the lead performances. Erivo’s Broadway background brings gravitas to Elphaba, with vocals powerful enough to reach the back of the theatre next door. Grande’s comic timing—recently showcased on SNL—and impressive high notes make her an ideal Galinda/Glinda. Supporting players Michelle Yeoh and Jeff Goldblum are a welcome addition, though the latter’s Rex Harrison-esque talk-singing is curtailed by shortened songs.

The climactic “Defying Gravity” ends WICKED on a literal high note, blending action sequences with one of musical theatre’s most iconic modern duets. Still, as we brace ourselves for a lengthy interval before Act 2, maintaining this momentum may prove challenging. At least this extended intermission offers ample time for a snack and a loo break.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: John M. Chu | WRITERS: Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox (Based on the musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman and the novel by Gregory Maguire) | CAST: Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, Marissa Bode, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Yeoh, Jeff Goldblum | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures | RUNNING TIME: 160 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 21 November 2024 (Australia), 22 November 2024 (USA)

November 20, 2024
Review: Dune – Part Two

Despite a long-held belief that Dune was unfilmable, Denis Villeneuve proved quite the opposite in 2021. It wasn’t just that previous filmmakers hadn’t understood the premise or had access to the right level of special effects, they perhaps didn’t have the capacity to give the material breathing space. With DUNE: PART TWO, Villeneuve defies the old adage to prove that very good things come in quite large packages.

Picking up shortly after the events of the first part, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) survives the Harkonnen attack, allying himself with the Fremen of Arrakis to bring down the invaders. Thanks to the machinations of his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), Freman leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem) believes Paul and Jessica have been sent to bring about a prophecy. However, warrior – and Paul’s love interest – Chani (Zendaya) sees the prophecy as another tool of oppression.

Glossu Rabban Harkonnen (Dave Bautista), nephew of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård), fails to control the spice production and destroy the last of the free. So, the Baron sends his other nephew Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen (Austin Butler) to finish the job. From afar, Princess Irulan Corrino (Florence Pugh), the Emperor’s (Christopher Walken) daughter, is convinced of Paul’s survival and prepares her own plans.

From the moment a voice booms “Power over spice is power over all”, Villeneuve immerses audiences completely in his version of this world. There’s no recaps or pandering to an audience with short memories: we’re straight into the desert, running skirmishes against Harkonnen and tripping out on the holy waters of worm juice. This is pure cinematic storytelling of the highest order.

Yet even with the long running time – at almost three hours, it comes in slightly longer than the first half – there are moments that feel artificially compressed. At one point, there’s a massive build-up to Paul’s trek across the desert, as though it will be his ultimate test. Then it’s kind of over, and he’s in a relationship with Chani. As with Zendaya’s moments in the first film, Pugh feels sandwiched in to establish something that’s not wholly explored here.

Which is not to diminish the film’s many accomplishments. The intricacies of building not just a narrative but an entire mythology are daunting for any storyteller. Bringing Herbert’s vision to screen has vexed many filmmakers before Villeneuve, and will no doubt do so again in the next wave of remakes and reimaginings. Still, the boldness of a film that challenges the very foundations of prophecy, religion and holy wars will not be lost on viewers in 2024.

On a purely audiovisual level, it’s still difficult to say where the practical ends and digital begins. Sure, a giant skull-shaped tank in the middle of a desert isn’t something that exists, but there are moments where it feels just as much art documentary as wholly created. As complex as the story remains, without quite the same level of world building needed, Villeneuve allows himself some visual indulgences. During an arena sequence at House Harkonnen, for example, almost all colour drops from the picture to give audiences a laser focus on the moment. At other times, the climactic moments of worms crashing on the scene are just cool.

It’s no secret that Villeneuve is planning Dune: Messiah to complete the cinematic trilogy, so we are ultimately left with a story just beginning. Indeed, taken by itself it’s still half a film and must be considered together with Dune at the very least. At the end of the day, DUNE (in its totality) has elevated the notion of what a modern blockbuster can be. If cinema as we know it is prophesied to die out, it’s now up to audiences to read the right signs and demand more like it lest we face an entertainment landscape as barren as Arrakis.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Denis Villeneuve | WRITER: Denis Villeneuve, Jon Spaihts | CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Florence Pugh, Dave Bautista, Christopher Walken, Léa Seydoux, Souheila Yacoub, Stellan Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, Javier Bardem | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Warner Bros. Pictures (US) | RUNNING TIME: 165 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 28 February 2024 (Australia)

March 10, 2024
Review: Argylle

Earlier this year, a novel by the name of Argylle innocuously dropped on unsuspecting readers. Ostensibly by Elly Conway, the in-universe hero of Matthew Vaughn’s film ARGYLLE, the Internet immediately set about speculating who actually wrote it. With names like Taylor Swift thrown into the mix, the debate became more interesting than anything in the book. Or, as it turns out, the movie.

Already established as a kinetic action director – with a series of Kick-Ass, Kingsman and X-Men films under his belt – Vaughn wastes little time throwing viewers into the fray. Aubrey Argylle (Henry Cavill) cavorts around in Greece with partner Wyatt (John Cena), but it turns out that they are just characters in Conway’s (Bryan Dallas Howard) bestselling books. Or are they?

When spy Aidan (Sam Rockwell) arrives and tells Elly that her books are a little too close to the truth, the shy author and her cat are whisked off on a global adventure. Pursued by an evil syndicate led by Ritter (Bryan Cranston), every new encounter gets her a little closer to reality.

ARGYLLE sets itself up as a fun action adventure filled with dancing, action and often dancing and action together. Yet beyond these opening scenes, and all known publicity, the film is a very different beast. Which, for a time at least, is a very good thing. A sequence set on a train – in which Rockwell fights off a horde of baddies – is a slick, albeit long-winded, affair.

Which might just be a good summary of the film. Swinging from one locale to the next, Jason Fuchs’ script is an often exhausting series of encounters. Borrowing liberally from prominent spy thrillers (think The Bourne Identity through to The Winter Soldier and pretty much every spy film in between), Fuchs and Vaughn aren’t interested in the bigger picture so much as the moment-to-moment gratification. It scarcely matters that it’s continually revealing things that force us to throw out everything we know so far, contradictorily dragging its feet and constantly moving through the back half of a bloated runtime.

This kitchen sink approach, reportedly backed by a $200 million budget, is aggressively reliant on CG even in otherwise unextraordinary location shots. There’s an especially egregious sequence on a rooftop in London, where a cringeworthy digital kitty is thrown from a rooftop. There’s no attempt to even hide the clear green screen work that follows. So, while much has been made over the last year about the poor conditions that digital artists are forced to work under – a plight highlighted by 2023 films The Flash and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania – it seems little of that big budget has gone to supporting them.

The film’s climax continues the descent down the digital rabbit hole. There’s a staggeringly bad series of moments, from ice skating on oil to more CG cat work. Yet the climactic action sequence bottoms out with a piece shrouded in colourful smoke bombs, ones that not only obfuscate and muddle the action but highlight how artificial it all looks. (Indeed, the aesthetic is more phone commercial than action film at this point).

Much was made in the lead-up to the film about keeping its secrets, but the film never gives us any worth remembering beyond a scene or two. (Indeed, a central ‘secret’ was revealed in the publicity over three years ago). Fuchs and Vaughn compound matters further with a confusing ending that appears to set up in-universe crossovers and follow-ups in a series of stingers that seem almost smugly proud of their own impenetrable illogic. So, as the first major studio release of 2024, ARGYLLE sets an incredibly low bar for entry.

2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Matthew Vaughn | WRITERS: Jason Fuchs | CAST: Henry Cavill, Bryce Dallas Howard, Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston, Catherine O’Hara, Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, John Cena, Samuel L. Jackson | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures, Apple Original Films | RUNNING TIME: 139 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1 February 2024 (Australia), 2 February 2024 (USA)

February 2, 2024
Review: Blue Beetle

Blue Beetle is one of those deep dive comic book characters that’s either really important to you or entirely inconsequential. It all depends on when you started reading comics. For some, he’s an integral part of comic history, and the inspiration for Watchmen’s Nite Owls. There’s even a period in the 80s when Beetle, along with regular partner Booster Gold, were part of a joke era of the Justice League International.

For the character’s live action film debut, DC has wisely chosen to focus on the more recent Jaime Reyes iteration. This immediately provides the film with a point of difference from the early-to-mid-century, whitebread origins of the majority of the canon. Here Jaime (Xolo Maridueña) returns home to Palmera City from Gotham Law University, the first of his family to earn a degree, but finds that his family faces eviction thanks to the Kord Industries developments.

That company’s ruthless CEO Victoria Kord (Susan Sarandon) has recently acquired a mystical scarab she hopes to harness for her One Man Army Corps (OMAC) project. Yet when rebellious niece Jenny Kord (Bruna Marquezine) steals the scarab to help protect her father’s legacy, the powers of the object are unlocked – and naturally latch onto Jaime.

Originally slated for release on Warner’s (HBO) Max streaming service, BLUE BEETLE occasionally betrays its lower budget origins. The neon future stylings of the fictional Palmera City, replacing the comic book setting of El Paso, look wholly artificial. Director Ángel Manuel Soto and cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski shoot most scenes in the most functional manner possible.

Yet when the film splashes out into some key action sequences, mostly involving fight sequences with henchman Carapax (Raoul Max Trujillo), we do see where some of the money went. Like the similarly colour-themed Green Lantern, this Blue Beetle’s powers can manifest anything he imagines. This not only leads to some fun and fancy fights, but injects a healthy sense of fun into the plotting.

A lot of that feeling also comes from the family focus. Unlike most hero stories, where the brooding lead tries to walk a secret solo path, here the tight-knit family that surrounds the very likeable Jaime is filled with genuine character. From Adriana Barraza as the wise Nana with a past to the over-the-top George Lopez as the anarchistic uncle Rudy, these are not just background filler characters but essential parts of the Blue Beetle story. As a result, BLUE BEETLE does more for representation in single scenes than entire cinematic universes have done in dozens of films. Or as one Latino character puts it, “This time we get our own hero.”

Yes, it all comes down to a familiar clash of CG dolls with identical powers, but damn if it isn’t a lot of fun getting there. Although the film is ultimately left stranded in the limbo between Multiverses, neither referencing the DCEU nor the future of the franchise, there are also Easter eggs galore for the comic book faithful. With the door left wide open for the future of the DCU, here’s hoping that this isn’t the last we see of Jaime Reyes.

2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Ángel Manuel Soto | WRITERS: Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer (Based on the DC Comics characters created by Keith Giffen, John Rogers and Cully Hamner) | CAST: Xolo Maridueña, Adriana Barraza, Damián Alcázar, Raoul Max Trujillo, Susan Sarandon, George Lopez | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Warner Bros. (USA) | RUNNING TIME: 128 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 14 September 2023 (AUS), 18 August 2023 (USA)

September 15, 2023