Luca Guadagnino’s most recent films have almost become a sub-genre unto themselves. At least since his adaptation of Call Me By Your Name (2017), he’s been looking at coming-of-age relationships through the lenses of newborn desire, cannibalism (Bones and All) and now, tennis.
Well, we say tennis but from the moment that the pounding intensity of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score kicks in during a challenger match at New Rochester – a pounding electronic beat that’s in discord with the country club surroundings – it’s very obvious that the visuals are at odds with what lies beneath. This very much sets the tone for the film that’s to come.
In Justin Kuritzkes’ screenplay, that match between fading tennis pro Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) and challenger Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) — all while former player Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) watches on — serves as a jumping-off point for a series of nonlinear flashbacks. From their days on the junior circuit, including an encounter in a hotel room, through relationships and affairs, a triptych of overlapping narratives emerges.
In this way, CHALLENGERS presents itself as both a mystery and an erotically charged tale of a ménage that runs for over a decade. Having said that, there isn’t a single sex scene in the film. That’s all left on the court, with individual tennis matches charged with more tension than the most adrenaline fuelled blockbusters of the day.
So, what we’re left with is an engaging film about the complexities of love. In this sense, it’s Guadagnino’s most mature outing to date. Just when you think you have one of the characters all figured out, Kuritzkes and Guadagnino throw us another piece of the puzzle and suddenly a different idea snaps into place.
A lot of this is thanks to the singular performances from the cast, including O’Connor revelling in Zweig’s unearned swagger. Similarly, Zendaya arguably turning in her most accomplished performance since Sam Levinson’s Malcolm & Marie, another film that lays the inner workings of a relationship bare for the audience to see.
It all culminates in what is perhaps the most intense forty minutes of cinema in recent memory. The challenger tennis match, one that has served as the glue for the interwoven narrative, all comes to a head in a series of strokes laden with additional meaning.
CHALLENGERS leaves us with a literal embrace after a furious volley at the net. It’s a sweet release for both the audience and the players, a kind of Flashdance bucket that drenches us all in cool relief after a long build-up. As Guadagnino leaves us at this point, we must ponder what comes next – or happily go straight back in for an instant replay.
It’s a pretty good time to be a Godzilla fan. The OG kaiju roared his way back into our lives last year with Takeshi Yamazaki’s magnificent Godzilla Minus One, becoming the first non-English-language film ever to win an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. So, like Godzilla themselves hearing the growls of a titan across the world, Hollywood has responded to the call with mountains of excess.
Chronologically following the events of Godzilla vs. Kong (2021), and the fifth film overall in the MonsterVerse franchise that began with Godzilla(2014), it begins with Godzilla happily chomping his way through rival titans on the surface while Kong continues to search for brethren in the subterranean realms of Hollow Earth. Yet when Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall) and her intuitive adoptive daughter Jia (Kaylee Hottle) detect strange signals from the underworld, a new threat looms large. The stage is set for a team-up, old foes becoming allies, families found and lots of monkey on lizard fighting.
In stark contrast to Minus One’s modest $15 million budget, GODZILLA X KONG: THE NEW EMPIRE comes in swinging with a reported $135 million price tag. Indeed, there’s no subtle obfuscation of monsters here: the audience is treated to a CG creature chase, a Godzilla/spider titan fight and a monkey with a toothache all in the first fifteen minutes.
Admittedly, there are times when it is difficult to tell what is going on. You might even get whiplash from the location changes. At other times, the arrival at a decision point is more plot convenience than logic driven. Indeed, the back half of the film presents a series of deus ex machina moments – from mechanical arms to creature cameos – that you simply have no choice but to roll with it.
What’s missing here is the human storyline. Yes, we get some returning characters and watch them progress incrementally over the course of 115 minutes. Yet the best monster films acknowledge the trauma and loss of devastation. As we watch iconic monuments topple across the world with nary a flinch, we remember that these films were a post-War reaction to very real destruction across Japan. Now a crushed pyramid, or the cultural collage of various First Nations peoples, is simply more grist for the mill.
Here the human elements are merely there to prop up the titanic clashes, and on this level director Adam Wingard’s film mostly succeeds. The arrival of additional Kong creatures gives us effects on par with the Planet of the Apes reboot franchise. Godzilla absorbing a nuclear reactor is an iconic moment. Still, while we all know the industry-wide problems with CG and workplace practice, there are elements of the climactic Rio de Janeiro sequence that are significantly less convincing than anything in Minus One.
Like Godzilla and Kong themselves, the Japanese and US franchises can happily exist in separate worlds for their respective audiences. GODZILLA X KONG wholesale scratches an itch for big budget brain candy, leaving the door wide open for more monster mayhem.
2024 | USA | DIRECTOR: Adam Wingard | WRITERS: Terry Rossio, Simon Barrett, Jeremy Slater | CAST: Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, Dan Stevens, Kaylee Hottle, Alex Ferns, Fala Chen | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. (Worldwide), Universal Pictures (Australia) | RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 28 March 2023 (Australia), 29 March 2023 (USA)
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)
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)
The road to the Barbie movie, at least for most punters, has taken us on a range of reactions as diverse as the titular doll’s career. What began as a curiosity, thanks largely to the presence of indie monarchs Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach, rapidly gave way to mega hype, followed by acknowledgement of the perfect casting, then some fatigue at the bombardment of marketing, and ultimately back to genuine curiosity again.
As BARBIE is finally launched on very suspecting audiences, there was still a sense that we didn’t know precisely what to expect in the way of a story. After all, even with the mammoth advertising budget, the trailers told us very little beyond it being a spin on The LEGO Movie’s basic premise — with a splash of the good old-fashioned fish-out-of-water motif.
Which is exactly where Gerwig’s film kicks off. When we meet the Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie), the Narrator (Helen Mirren) reliably tells us Barbieland is a place where all the women have come together to make life better for each other. People have their lots in life, and everything is awesome every day. Except Stereotypical Barbie can’t escape impending thoughts of mortality and (shock horror) cellulite.
So begins her journey to the Real World, to heal the rift by meeting the mother and daughter (America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt respectively) whose emotions may be impacting Barbie’s psyche. Ken (Ryan Gosling) hitches a ride in the back seat, learning about the patriarchy and horses in the process. Meanwhile, the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell) tries to contain the escape of their fictional dolls into the real world.
BARBIE the movie is like the doll of the same name. It takes a scattergun approach to its themes, trying them on like so many outfits. As an audience member, it’s almost like watching the storyboarding process in real time. As a visual feast, Gerwig’s film works best when it skewers the plastic world, emulating the effortless imagination of play, and replicating details right down to the decals in the fridges. Here it has broad appeal to younger viewers while allowing knowing audiences in on the joke.
Of course, we saw all that in the trailer, and it takes a while for the film to really get beyond that schtick. Indeed, there’s a whole section in the middle where it feels like it’s just people going back and forth between the Real World and Barbieland. Ferrell’s character feels most superfluous at this point, almost as if he’s only there because Mattel corporate wanted to flex control with a literal representation on screen.
When the film shifts gears late in the third act, centered on an electrifying speech from Ferrera about the impossible standards women are held to, we finally get to the heart of Gerwig and Baumbach’s pitch. It’s a lightning rod moment, and that it came from a major studio picture sponsored by a toy company makes it all the more powerful. Yet this too is almost immediately enveloped by the (admittedly impressive) dance sequences, warring Kens, and last wave of cameos. Like the Kens and Barbies, here is a film tonally at war with itself in its last minutes. This is, after all, still a branding exercise.
Robbie and Gosling are unquestionably perfectly cast as the visual representations of Stereotypical Barbie and Ken, but with the knowing sense of humour to make the self-referential material work. Everyone from Simu Liu to Kate McKinnon, Rob Brydon, Issa Rae, and even Rhea Perlman make for some fun Easter egg spotting. While Michael Cera might play to type as Ken’s buddy Allan, he gets some of the best one-liners as well.
Which cannot be emphasised enough: BARBIEis smart and funny. It’s a sharp take down of the binary paradigm, referencing everything from the Snyder Cut to men who make their partners watch The Godfather. It’s as though Gerwig and Baumbach have quietly absorbed all of the toxic internet behaviours and reflected them back to us. If it’s not clear enough, there’s literally a scene where Mattel executives try to put Barbie back in her box.
Still, it’s really hard to say exactly who the audience for BARBIE might be. If you’re looking for a brightly coloured version of the character coming to life in the real world, you’ll get that – for a time. If you want a timely exploration of toxic masculinity, that’s there too. Younger audiences will enjoy some of the humour, but may tune out for the speeches. Older audiences will wait through two acts of capering before they get to the meat of the piece.
The messaging might ultimately be a positive one, that anyone can be either anything they want, or nothing at all – and that it’s okay either way. Yet in trying to be everything to everyone, it’s a lesson the film itself might have failed to learn. Nevertheless, it’s very vivid acknowledgement that we’re all human, trying to get through this thing called life one day at a time.
2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Greta Gerwig | WRITERS: Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach | CAST: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Rhea Perlman, Will Ferrell | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Warner Bros. Pictures (US) | RUNNING TIME: 114 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 20 July 2023 (AUS), 21 July 2023 (US)
It’s been four years since the joyful Shazamhit cinemas, and in many ways it feels as though the world has moved on since then. With the DC Extended Universe all but abandoned by its parent company, David F. Sandberg’s sequel is very much the abandoned child of a neglected franchise. Hell, even some of the kids are old enough to play adult versions of themselves now.
So, SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS wastes little time in establishing its basic setup. Old world gods Hespera (Helen Mirren) and Kalypso (Lucy Liu) have returned to claim the magical staff that gave Billy (Zachary Levi/Asher Angel) and his adoptive family their powers in the first film. They don’t want to stop there, of course: some of these gods want to reclaim the world.
It couldn’t come at a worse time. Billy is feeling some serious imposter syndrome. Rejected by his city, and holding on too tight to a family he’s afraid of losing, even visions of the Wizard (Djimon Hounsou) are barely enough to hold it all together.
As the James Gunn-led DC Universe gets ready to relaunch the hero brand onto the world, SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS feels like an attempt to throw a little bit of everything against the wall and see what sticks. In fact, it quite literally covers the walls of sets with posters and iconography from other studio-owned franchises. After all, this is a sequel that comes saddled with not one but six (or more) heroes and very little time to explore them.
Even the set-ups feel like a mishmash of borrowed ideas from other films. The first set-piece action sequence is a collapsing bridge, the kind we’ve seen fall and down in [checks notes] literally every action film ever. There’s a pinch of Doctor Strange in Anthea’s (Rachel Zegler) powers. There’s a dragon. Terraforming. At one point, the film seems to empty out the archives of Ray Harryhausen’s workshop onto the streets of Philadelphia. Skittles joins E.T.’s Reece’s Pieces in the realm of promotional considerations as plot device. Hell, the back half of the film seems to be borrowed from Under the Dome (or The Simpsons Movie if you prefer).
You know what else it is? Fun. It’s nowhere near as unabashedly joyful as the first outing, and you can see the conscious machinations pedalling furiously behind every laden scene. Yet even if the setups are familiar, the goofy charm of these characters continues to shine through. Riffing on the (name-dropped) Fast and the Furious notion of family, you can’t help but root for these little guys in the face of adversity.
Zegler makes a terrific new addition to the cast, arriving off the back of several critically acclaimed roles. You’ll see all of her character turns coming, but she wears them well. Mirren and Liu feel like they’ve walked straight out of a Power Rangers tribute and into the DCU, but Mirren in particular lends the film some weight. Plus, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Liu ride a CG dragon over the City of Brotherly Love. On the downside, these new additions to an already stacked cast means that the some of the more interesting arcs (such as D. J. Cotrona’s) are given perfunctory resolution.
The film’s technical elements are solid too. While contemporaries have run into a mess of pre-visualised muddiness, SHAZAM’s final major sequence is a reliably old-school city smasher. Filling Philly with overgrown plants and creatures, it briefly gives each of those characters something to do – even if it’s only for 20 minutes or so. The soundtrack, swinging from Bonnie Tyler to remixes of Elvis Presley, is perhaps emblematic of the ‘let’s see what works’ storytelling.
While SHAZAM: FURY OF THE GODS ultimately lands as a mostly self-contained entity, and can be enjoyed whether you’ve seen any previous entries or not. Yet it wouldn’t be a modern event film without pointing other pathways to the future. At the time of writing, we couldn’t possibly comment on how and where they are going. Still, if they maintain the basic DNA of this series, that can’t be a bad thing.
2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: David F. Sandberg | WRITERS: Henry Gayden, Chris Morgan | CAST: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Jack Dylan Grazer, Rachel Zegler, Adam Brody, Ross Butler, Meagan Good, Lucy Liu, Djimon Hounsou, Helen Mirren | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Warner Bros. (US)| RUNNING TIME: 130 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 March 2023 (AUS), 17 March 2023 (USA)
For the last few years, we have been living in the future.
At the very least, we’ve now gone past the events of BLADE RUNNER in the real world. The 1982 cult film opens in Los Angeles of 2019, a gritty vision of future noir. Yet for a film where corporate power literally dominates the landscape, and raises questions about what we can see and remember, it’s increasingly becoming more science than fiction.
We now live in an time with exponentially powerful AI, where truth is labelled fake and the fraudulent is shared at memetic speed thanks to social technology. So, it’s no surprise that forty years after posting disappointing box office results, director Ridley Scott’s vision persists through spin-offs, sequels and restorations.
Electric sheepawaken
BLADE RUNNER as we know it today is a very different beast to where it started. The film we enjoy today, thanks to Scott taking multiple bites at the cherry, is literally a different cut to the one audiences saw in theatres when it opened on 25 June 1982.
Yet the original version of the tale was in Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), a novel that touches many of the same story beats that we see in the film. Set in a post-apocalyptic San Francisco, a bounty hunter named Deckard tracks down six escaped Nexus-6 model androids. In the book, a global nuclear war has left most animal species extinct, resulting in many people owning synthetic animals (hence the title). Owning a live animal is a luxury status symbol. (We still see hints of this in the film when Deckard talks to assassin Zhora about her synthetic snake).
Screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Peoples borrow much of Dick’s core story. Replicants are manufactured by the Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. When a group of six replicants led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer, escape and make their way to earth, world-weary cop Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) reluctantly agrees to track them down and ‘retire’ them.
When we celebrate the 40th anniversary of BLADE RUNNER, we’re marking the theatrical release. While opening strongly in the late June weekend, its proximity to a packed summer of sci-fi and fantasy hits — which included The Thing, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Tron and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial — ultimately impacted its box-office. Yet initial criticisms, which ranged from “Blade Crawler” (LA Times) to “sci-fi pornography” (Columbia Record), may have partially been the result of last-minute studio interference. What audiences saw in 1982 was a print that contained an ill-conceived voice-over, several cut scenes and worst of all, a happy ending shot in the sunlit wilderness.
While intended to leave audiences on an upbeat note, it’s a tonally jarring change of location that had the complete opposite effect. In fact, some of the footage was lifted from outtakes of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980), meaning it’s literally from another film entirely. “I did it because I thought it might actually affect the outcome of the movie,” said Scott in Dangerous Days: Making Blade Runner. He was right, of course, just not in the way the studio intended.
If you’ve watched the movie since 1992, you are now watching the superior Director’s Cut, which removes the voice-over, happy ending and restores several key scenes. It not only makes for a more cohesive picture, but also strengthens the implication that Deckard himself is a replicant. (This was partly undone by Blade Runner 2049, but that’s a whole other conversation). The Director’s Cut was replaced by the 25th anniversary Final Cut in 2007, the only version over which Scott retained full artistic control.
Things you people wouldn’t believe
Regardless of your preferred version, BLADE RUNNER remains salient due to its distinctive audiovisual style and it’s fundamental interrogation of the question ‘what does it mean to be human?’
This is explored in the dynamic between Deckard and Rachel (Sean Young), a replicant created by corporate overlord Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel) as something of an experiment. Rachel doesn’t know she’s a replicant, with all of her memories and photographs as manufactured as she is. It’s one of the signals to audiences to not quite trust anything we see or are told. In the Director’s Cut onwards, their relationship gives us pause to consider Deckard’s dreams, ones that have been interpreted to also be implants.
At the opposite end of the scale is Roy Batty, a replicant who knows exactly what he is and simply wants to live. In the conceit of the film, replicants have a failsafe of a four-year lifespan. Rutger Hauer, who had only made his Hollywood debut a year earlier in Nighthawks, was primarily known for his work with Paul Verhoeven (Turkish Delight, Soldier of Orange, Spetters) at the time. With Batty, he bursts onto the US scene as a character who is simultaneously charming as hell while being gleefully violent in the process. He is the definition of an anti-villain. Yet it’s in his dying moments that he shows Deckard exactly what it means to be human, uttering one of the most famous soliloquies in film history.
“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe… Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion… I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain… Time to die.”
Perhaps the most iconic thing about BLADE RUNNER remains its imitable vision of the future. From the moment BLADE RUNNER opens, it establishes a time and place. Not just the then-future LA of 2019, but in the very fabric of the film. As the digital green readout of The Ladd Company’s logo prints its way across the screen, we know this is the future as imagined by the 1980s.
While drawing on a tradition that stretches back as far as 1927’s Metropolis (as suggested by Mark Cousins in The Story of Film), its blend of neon lights and smoky shadows draw just as much influence from crime noir of the 1940s and 50s. So much so that Paul M. Sammon named his definitive book on the history of the film Future Noir.
With its sultry sax and synth combinations, the Vangelis score is practically another character. As the opening chords of the Main Titles kick in, we’re instantly transported into this recognisable but also alien future. From Edward Hopper’s painting Nighthawks to the Heavy Metal stylings of Moebius and his contemporaries, BLADE RUNNER‘s Los Angeles is filled with overlapping influences from Asian megacitiesand numerous bande dessinée. Perpetually shrouded in rain and smoke, it has been copied and reworked countless times, from Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation1814 to Lokiand South Park: Post Covid.
Future is now
“If you are ahead of your time, it’s as bad as being behind the times,” remarked Scott years later. While BLADE RUNNER is now considered to be a classic of the genre — complete with novels, comics, anime and ultimately a 2017 sequel — back in 1982 it was just another fine example of the form in a highly competitive summer.
As the franchise continues to explore a future that never came to be, not least of which is the anime Blade Runner Black Out 2022, one wonders how far we are from testing the limits of our own humanity. For every touchstone we see reflected back at us from the dark mirror of 1982, we’ve developed things they wouldn’t believe, from war, to pandemic and tiny computers we hold in the palms of our hands. Whether BLADE RUNNER anticipated this future or influenced it is yet to be seen.
If only they could see what we’ve seen through their eyes.
A vigilante steps out of the darkness with all the understated presence of a gunslinger on the old west frontier. You have to hand it to director Matt Reeves: after ten live-action screen appearances since Tim Burton’s 1989 film, and countless TV and animated outings, he’s found a new way of showcasing the caped crusader. Yet as the spotlight on the Dark Knight gets brighter, the edges of Gotham get even darker.
In fact, from its voyeuristic opening to the sudden appearance of a killer in the shadows, THE BATMAN has all the earmarks of a horror film. Pulling on elements from various comic book sources, including bits from the excellent Zero Year run of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, Reeves and Craig’s script cleverly sets us down two years into Batman’s adventures in Gotham. This means we don’t have to see poor Martha’s pearls hitting the pavement of Crime Alley once again, as well emphasising the moniker of The World’s Greatest Detective for the first time.
As a serial killer known as The Riddler terrorises Gotham’s elite, GCPD detective James Gordon (Jeffrey Wright) involves vigilante Batman (Robert Pattinson) in the investigation despite the objections of his fellow cops. Haunted by his own traumatic past, Bruce Wayne/Batman is torn as he uncovers family secrets and connections with the enigmatic cat burglar Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz), mob enforcer Oswald “Oz” Cobblepott (Colin Farrell) and crime lord Carmine Falcone (John Turturro).
With THE BATMAN, Reeves delivers one of the most stylish and gorgeously shot Batman films to date, casting Gotham in a timeless mix of neon, grimy streets and drug-filled nightclubs. Making full use of shadows and light, and providing plenty of places for the titular vigilante to emerge from, Reeves and production designer James Chinlund (War for the Planet of the Apes) give cinematographer Greig Fraser (Dune) plenty of visually literate images to linger on. At times, we’re smack dab in Times Square somewhere between the 1940s and 1970s, with overlapping neon signs that might have been captured by French photographer Andreas Feininger. At others, we’re in the corner diner of an Edward Hopper painting. The recurring motif of red bathes many scenes in a sinister red glow, and the use of Batman’s first-person point of view technology adds a peep show vibe to that ickiness.
Without the burden of an origin story, this Batmanwastes little time before cracking skulls and taking names. “Two years of nights have turned me into a nocturnal animal,” narrates Pattinson, as the obligatory Nirvana track kicks in to signify dissatisfaction. As we watch him break the bones of thugs, or indiscriminately fight his way through a nightclub, few objections will come from an audience of battle-hardened players of the Arkham video game series. These action sequences reach some magnificent heights, including the thundering introduction of the new Batmobile, backed by the dirge of a Michael Giacchino score that rattles the speakers and our back teeth in equal measure. The ensuing chase is doggedly determined to not keep any objects in the centre of frame for more than a half-beat, discombobulating us in a sea of darkly-lit angular shots. Yet the set-piece finale is quite a masterfully executed piece, albeit vaguely reminiscent of elements seen in The Dark Knight Rises.
The casting is genuinely inspired too. Pattinson steps confidently into a role already belonging to so many others, owning the new suit that’s equal parts Capullo and artist Lee Bermejo. Reeves keeps the presence of emo alter ego Bruce Wayne to a minimum, as that seems to be a less comfortable space for Pattinson. Similarly, Kravitz looks as though she may have stepped straight out of one of Darwyn Cooke’s illustrations, offering us a more complex version of the character than we’ve seen before. While we might have cringed our way through some of the Anonymous-influenced rants of Paul Dano’s Riddler, it’s the unrecognisable Farrell as Penguin that will have most talking, clearly having a ball under all those prosthetics.
Yet the film is often relentlessly bleak, and never quite gets out of those dark depths in a lengthy running time that makes you feel every inch. At times it treads a little too close to glorifying the violent models laid down by Watchmen’s Rorschach (complete with diarised narration) or the more recent Joker portrayals, but that’s par for the course with the film’s western motifs — and anything post-Frank Miller when it comes to the Bat. The torture techniques of the Riddler are especially disturbing, leaning into the sadism of certain horror flicks. If there are comparisons to be made with serial killer thrillers like Zodiac (and straight-up visual references to Se7en), one sometimes wonders who we are supposed to be rooting for. The Riddler himself points this out in a climax that effectively uses alt-right messageboards as a plot device, recognising the thin line between those who claim their ‘truths’ and the ones who act upon them in violent ways.
Which is the essential dilemma of the modern superhero film, or any depiction of the character since at least the 1980s. The Modern Age darkness of Batman began as a response to the militaristic nationalism of US discourse at the time, also reflected in The Dark Knight Returns, Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Marvel’s Punisher to name a few. In an attempt to update the themes, film also takes an each-way bet on police corruption, condemning the system that allowed it while also serving some soft ‘rotten apples’ messaging. Writing about another hero, one that also went through a dark 80s transformation, Lampert (2007) concludes that the perpetuation of this model offers few options. “Either crypto-fascist super-cop, or crypto-fascist criminal; either way, the political choice is clear.” Reeves’ Batman starts with one foot firmly in the latter camp, and if this is an origin story of sorts, then it is about his journey towards the former.
While ending on a moment of hope, and laying down a path for the future, some may still feel that Reeves has already done his job, without any need to return to this particular world. As DC and Warner showcase a mixture of DCEU and retro offerings on the horizon, it’s unclear where this – allegedly the first of a trilogy of films – will fit in their grand plans. Yet as the final scenes hint at where the series might go next, it’s already starting to feel like we’re in familiar territory. For now, it’s a curious standalone Elseworlds piece that works best as an experiment in styles and a mixture of screen influences, with some great casting and a sophisticated sense of comic and cinema aesthetics.
2022 | USA | DIRECTOR: Matt Reeves| WRITERS: Matt Reeves, Peter Craig | CAST: Robert Pattinson, Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan, Andy Serkis, Colin Farrell | DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. | RUNNING TIME: 176 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 2 March 2022 (AUS), 4 March 2022 (AUS)
In a year filled with nostalgic reboots, Lana Wachowski has quite literally set out to redefine that term. The latest film in the franchise harks right back to the original film in 1999, a year when Fight Club and The Phantom Menace polarised audiences for very different reasons. Now, eighteen years after The Matrix Revolutions, Wachowski presents something that is both a continuation and a reimagining of the original story.
Indeed, the opening scene of THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS is an almost shot-perfect replica of The Matrix’s cold open. As a representation of Trinity battles Agents, Bugs (Jessica Henwick) notices that old code is being used to send a message. It coincides with the appearance of a figure claiming to be Morpheus (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). Both share stories of having their eyes opened by a glimpse the long lost Neo (Keanu Reeves).
As the story slowly unfolds, it emerges that his alter ego Thomas Anderson is now working for a video game company, where he is the award-winning designer of a trilogy of Matrix games that mirror his past adventures. Retaining only dim memories of his former life, he is a suicide survivor who sees therapist (Neil Patrick Harris) to help him deal with an apparent mental illness. Yet when he meets Tiffany (Carrie Ann Moss), now married with children, an old connection reignites.
Lana Wachowski, working solo here due to Lilly Wachowski’s involvement with Showtime’s Work in Progress, appears to be stuck in a Matrix of her own. With co-writers David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) and Aleksandar Hemon, she attempts to examine what The Matrix has become in the last two decades. Multiple in-jokes about “our beloved parent company Warner Bros.” and the corporate nature of reboots at least acknowledges what they’ve got themselves into. It’s kind of like when Chuck Palahniuk revisited Fight Club and found himself incorporating fan and film canon into his metatextual graphic novel. After all, The Matrix been parodied in everything from Shrek to Space Jam 2, and recognising the role of the film in the pop cultural landscape is a clever move on Wachowski’s part.
So, it’s a shame that once this genuinely intriguing setup unfurls, THE MATRIX RESURRECTIONS immediately falls back on old constructs. Although it acknowledges the ambiguous ending of The Matrix Revolutions, and resolves the presence of characters who apparently died in that film, many of the set-pieces follow the same path as the original. Neo still knows kung fu, there’s another Smith (this time Jonathan Groff) on his tail, and even a rooftop helicopter escape. Cinematographers Daniele Massaccesi and John Toll frame these shots with deliberate tips of the hat to Bill Pope’s 1999 photography, often replicating them wholesale.
Which isn’t to say that these sequences can’t be cool, as there’s a certain pleasure in returning to this world. The canonical video games notwithstanding, the universe that the Wachowskis created has always been ripe for further exploration – especially in an era where the lines between reality and fiction have become mainstream political discourse. Yet if you now consider the simultaneously shot Reloaded and Revolutions as the middle chapters of the overall narrative – ones that hold up remarkably well in retrospect – then RESURRECTIONS is an ersatz coda to a story that already ended.
There’s a scene where a group of game designers sit around trying to pitch each other ideas for the in-universe sequel, caught as they are in a cynical cycle of commercialism. The moment is meant to be satire, but it’s something of a microcosm of the whole reboot. Here is a film that still feels like it is workshopping ideas as the end credits roll, unsure why it exists but also determined to give the people what they think they want. So, in a way we really do get to experience exactly what it’s like being jacked into the Matrix.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR: Lana Wachowski| WRITERS: Lana Wachowski, David Mitchell, Aleksandar Hemon | CAST: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jessica Henwick, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, Jada Pinkett Smith | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures/Warner Bros. (AUS) | RUNNING TIME: 148 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 25 December 2021 (AUS)
Frank Herbert’s stories have been on the sci-fi fantasy landscape long enough that everyone at has at least an idea of Dune. Whether it’s the endless swathes of sand or just really big worms, it has influenced countless productions and stories. After Alejandro Jodorowsky’s failed attempt, David Lynch’s problematic feature, and an under-budgeted mini-series, the book was largely thought to be unfilmable. At least until now.
Herbert’s work is sometimes difficult to follow let alone summarise, but here goes nothing. Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) moves to the desert planet of Arrakis when his family accepts control of it. The only source of the highly valuable resource known as spice, their arrival results in betrayal, assassination attempts, the prophecy of a religion known as the Bene Gesserit and an almost mystical force that drives Paul towards the native peoples known as the Fremen.
If Herbert’s novel was a kind of colonialist fantasy, crafting Paul as a white god-king to tribal peoples, then the opening to director Denis Villeneuve’s version aims to establish two things. Firstly, through the narrative voice of Chani (Zendaya) — who Paul sees in prophetic visions — this is a reclamation of the story from the perspective of its fictional native peoples. The other thing that’s apparent is that Villeneuve’s aesthetic vision is a staggeringly beautiful one.
Villenievue is no stranger to iconic sci-fi, having wowed audiences with Arrival and disappointed others with Blade Runner 2049. Yet from the moment DUNE opens, it’s clear there is something a bit different about this outing, carrying with it an almost mythical weight that filled this viewer with unexpected awe. It’s transportive, from the costume designs (that look more than a little Moebius inspired at times, keeping Jodorowsky’s dream alive) to the stunning vistas. Production designer Patrice Vermette achieved this through a combination of large scale sets and effects, crafting something truly immersive.
DUNE is still a deeply complicated outing, and it’s possible that if you haven’t got some familiarity with the source material you’ll find yourself a wee bit lost at times. The intricate balance between the machinations of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (an almost unrecognisable Stellan Skarsgård) and the will of the Bene Gesserit are hard enough to follow on page let alone in a 156 minute film. It’s still quite the chore here, especially given it only covers part of the book, but when it’s this pretty you’re paying attention the whole time.
Film Twitter favourite Chalamet brings an excellent balance of boyishness and almost otherworldly grace to his Paul Atreides. Similarly, Rebecca Ferguson is a standout as the Lady Jessica, Paul’s Bene Gesserit mother and consort to Duke Leto (a bearded Oscar Isaac). It’s hard to get a bead on Zendaya’s take on Chani, as the film wraps up before he more significant scenes take place. (One review refers to being ‘Zendaya baited’ given her more visible presence in the publicity). One suspects she’ll be a major player in the next chapter.
Being in Australia, where the non-festival release date isn’t until December, we already knew that a Part 2 had been greenlit. While one could argue that this is only ‘half a film,’ being armed with the knowledge that this isn’t trying to cram all of Herbert’s tome into a single picture allows us some breathing room. Indeed, it allows us to simply sit back and absorb this as the spectacle that it is.
2021 | USA | DIRECTOR:Denis Villeneuve | WRITER: Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve, Eric Roth | CAST: Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Zendaya, Chang Chen, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem | DISTRIBUTOR: Universal Pictures (AUS), Warner Bros. Pictures (US) | RUNNING TIME: 156 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 8 November 2021 (SFF), 2 December 2021 (AUS), 21 October 2021 (US)
