The Official Review Thread of 2022

[anonymous1980]

MORBIUS
Cast: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Al Madrigal, Michael Keaton.
Dir: Daniel Espinosa.

The latest in the Spider-Man-adjacent Sony Sinister Six Spider-verse which focuses on Morbius, a man afflicted with a debilitating blood disease. He finds the cure which gives him super powers but also a thirst for human blood. Yes, this is pretty awful. It's badly paced, plotted and I must say utterly joyless. Jared Leto is outright boring in the lead. There are some good moments provided by Matt Smith who seems to be having a good time. I have to say his performance just emphasizes how bland Jared Leto is in comparison. It fails as a horror movie and is barely passable as a superhero movie. This one is strictly for indiscriminate superhero fans.

Oscar Prospects: Makeup, I guess.

Grade: D.

[anonymous1980]

DEEP WATER
Cast: Ben Affleck, Ana de Armas, Tracy Letts, Finn Wittrock, Dash Mihok, Lil Rel Howery, Jacob Elordi, Kristen Connolly, Grace Jenkins.
Dir: Adrian Lyne.

A married couple in a seemingly loveless (but certainly not sexless) marriage avoid a costly divorce by allowing the woman to take on lovers but things are not always what they seem. This is the first film in twenty years (!!!) from Adrian Lyne, who is best known for his erotic thrillers of the 1980's and 1990's, a genre that has since gone away. This is his return to the genre and I have to say: I kind of like it. Yes, it's pure pulpy soapy trash but it's entertaining pulpy soapy trash. Both Affleck and de Armas give good performances and they seem to know the assignment. It's far from a great film and it's from even a great example of this specific sub-genre but I have to say, I missed these types of films. We should make more of them, perhaps we can make another great one.

Oscar Prospects: None.

Grade: B-

[anonymous1980]

AMBULANCE
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza Gonzalez, Garret Dillahunt, Keir O'Donnell, Moses Ingram, Jackson White, A Martinez.
Dir: Michael Bay.

Two bank robbers hijack an ambulance carrying a seriously injured police officer which leads to a high-speed chase around the city. Well, first the good news: This is actually Michael Bay's best film since The Rock. I am dead serious. Although if you think about it, it's really damning it with faint praise because that is not a bar that's too high. But, yeah, Bay is actually fairly restrained here. He doesn't go too over-the-top with the action scenes but it still has his signature slick glossy shots and fast cuts (although he seems to LOOOVE drone shots this time around). He also allows his actors to give pretty decent performances: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul Mateen II and Eiza Gonzalez all manage to be believable. His jingoism and homophobia are minimal. But still, this film is way too fucking long and possibly needed a rewrite or another editing pass to make it tighter. But still, it's not a film that's gonna hurt your soul like his other films.

Oscar Prospects: Sound.

Grade: B-

[taki15]

TURNING RED
Cast: Rosalie Chang, Sandra Oh, Orion Lee, Ava Morse, Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Wai Ching Ho, Tristan Allerick Chen, James Hong (voices).
Dir: Domee Shi.

A 13 year old Chinese-Canadian girl transforms into giant red panda every time she gets excited or experience a strong emotion, an ability to the female members of the family by an ancient spirit. Unlike most of you guys in North America, I was able to see this on the big screen due to the fact that for some reason my country still doesn't have Disney+ (at least not legally). What can I say? It's a PIXAR film and it's an utter and complete delight. It is very funny, entertaining, sweet and moving like other PIXAR films. But it also surprises and goes to places that other PIXAR films haven't gone. It features some great voice-acting and I love the anime-inspired style of animation. Truth be told, if I was ranking this with other PIXAR movies, it would be upper-midtier at best, admittedly but that's just PIXAR putting out largely good films. Best film of 2022 so far.

Oscar Prospects: Should easily get a Best Animated Feature nomination. Billie Eilish & Finneas O'Connell are strong contenders to get a second consecutive Original Song nomination.

Grade: A-

Unfortunately, it's been some years now that animation films are released here in Greece only in dubbed versions. So I will have to wait a couple of months before seeing it.

[Sonic Youth]

SIDE NOTE: I feel a little bad for Domee Shi. After winning the Oscar for that incredibly charming short film Bao she becomes PIXAR's first woman to solo-direct a feature and she's had to deal with her film getting dumped on Disney+ because of the COVID variant (like that stopped people going to see The Batman) when I'll be anything that internal numbers were just too low. Maybe it's because the film was too girly or too Asian.

Too girly, definitely. Cultutral differences never seem to be a factor in repelling audiences. To kids, it doesn't matter if a story takes place in Africa or Mexico or the Middle East. They're all imaginary fairy-lands to them anyway. But Turning Red is a girly movie not about young princesses or princess-warriors, but about actual girls. And it's main target is girls aged 10-14. That somehow makes it seem less like a family film. And while boys might tolerate traditional princess movies, there ain't no way they'll put up with movie about 12-13 year old girls drooling over boy bands. Because, you know, that's a GIRL FILM. Gross. So yeah, Disney punted. It's possible it could have been a surprise 'sleeper' hit in normal times. Who knows? Maybe Disney is reading the reviews and regretting their decision now. But the fact is, for the next several years studios are going to be more risk-averse than usual, unfortunately.

I can't give Turning Red a proper review because I only watched the first 45 minutes of it. Then I had to make the breakfast. (Daughter woke up early Saturday morning to put it on. Getting her out of bed for school was never this easy.) I loved the sheer energy of what I saw, as well as the energy and enthusiasm of the lead character. Girls at this age (around 9-12 years, although the main character is 13) are a wonder, so full of life and confidence and purpose. By the time they hit 14 or 15, most of it just seems to disappear, replaced with anger and insecurities. (Yes, I'm generalizing.) I love Pixar's films, but one of their biggest shortcomings is their portrayal of kids, who are usually bland and vanilla. Turning Red has the most engaging youth characters since that fearless baby in Monsters Inc. At least, for the first 45 minutes....

And that's all I have to say about that. I'll let you know if my opinion changes.

[anonymous1980]

TURNING RED
Cast: Rosalie Chang, Sandra Oh, Orion Lee, Ava Morse, Hyein Park, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, Wai Ching Ho, Tristan Allerick Chen, James Hong (voices).
Dir: Domee Shi.

A 13 year old Chinese-Canadian girl transforms into giant red panda every time she gets excited or experience a strong emotion, an ability to the female members of the family by an ancient spirit. Unlike most of you guys in North America, I was able to see this on the big screen due to the fact that for some reason my country still doesn't have Disney+ (at least not legally). What can I say? It's a PIXAR film and it's an utter and complete delight. It is very funny, entertaining, sweet and moving like other PIXAR films. But it also surprises and goes to places that other PIXAR films haven't gone. It features some great voice-acting and I love the anime-inspired style of animation. Truth be told, if I was ranking this with other PIXAR movies, it would be upper-midtier at best, admittedly but that's just PIXAR putting out largely good films. Best film of 2022 so far.

Oscar Prospects: Should easily get a Best Animated Feature nomination. Billie Eilish & Finneas O'Connell are strong contenders to get a second consecutive Original Song nomination.

Grade: A-

[Sabin]

Turning Red is cute. It has some problems, chief among them that it's skimpy on the narrative end and the storytellers really lose track of the metaphor at a certain point, but it's a charming coming-of-age story that reveals itself really to be the story of a daughter and her mother. It's like a reverse Brave, although funnily enough both films have a little bit of difficulty coming up with a story beyond their twist. At times, it feels like they have a terrific first act and a very moving emotional climax. For those who have seen the trailer: Mei Mei is a doin' it her way tween who one day becomes a giant fluffy Red Panda, which is clearly a metaphor for puberty. However, what the trailer doesn't reveal is that Mei Mei actually isn't a doin' it her way tween. She's trapped between two worlds: her boy band obsessed friend group at school and the Asian heritage of her life at home. It's clear that she can't stay between two worlds forever, especially considering that the boy band is coming to town and she wants to see it with her friends. It doesn't juggle these two ideas cleanly. It's really more like a typical coming of age film that just happens to be animated and contain magical elements. But it's got a lot of visual energy, an authentic sense of warmth, an infectious boy band tempo (can't believe I'm saying that), lots of visual ingenuity in the sight of a Hulk-sized fluffy Red Panda, and mines a fair amount of emotional ground in the relationship between Mei Mei and her mother. That's more than enough for a recommend.

At first glance, Turning Red doesn't quite feel like a traditional PIXAR film, in the sense that when I think of a PIXAR film I think of big journeys through fantastical worlds. But it does feel of a piece with Luca (both are former shorts directors) in that Turning Red centers more around a more personal journey through a smaller scaled world. It's a bit of a shift but I'm not really opposed to it because Disney is basically doing what PIXAR used to (and is starting to eclipse them a smidge) so the variety is a bit nice. What isn’t nice is my fear that PIXAR is going to more and more steadily be used for direct to steaming services.

SIDE NOTE: I feel a little bad for Domee Shi. After winning the Oscar for that incredibly charming short film Bao she becomes PIXAR's first woman to solo-direct a feature and she's had to deal with her film getting dumped on Disney+ because of the COVID variant (like that stopped people going to see The Batman) when I'll be anything that internal numbers were just too low. Maybe it's because the film was too girly or too Asian. Then her film comes out the same week that Disney refuses to condemn the "Don't Say Gay" bill. And she gets the most unprofessional review in ages ("This movie isn't for me."). This should be a far more fun week for her than it is.

Quick addendum on Turning Red:
If I had to rank it against other PIXAR films, it would probably be just outside the top ten. I've yet to see Coco, The Good Dinosaur, Cars 2 and 3, and Onward (I'll be remedying that soon). Once that's done, it's probably hovering in the 13-15 range, so pretty much in the middle of the PIXAR pack. Ranking these films, it occurs to me that any top ten list of the PIXAR films would likely include most of their first ten features (Toy Story through Up), swapping out one or two (probably A Bug's Life, which I have quite a bit of nostalgic attachment to) for Toy Story 3, Inside Out, Coco, and Soul depending on one's mileage with them. I wonder if this opinion is shared with younger viewers who didn't experience the joy of having each one of their excellent films landing one after another, most of which I wrote about on this board. Or if they think they're (y'know)... old.

[Sabin]

I'm not going to write a lot about The Batman reboot because I've written about Batman reboots probably two times now on this board. Unfortunately, I find it pretty much impossible to engage with it as one story but rather a series of competing elements that I have different responses to:

*Every shot is confidently told. I wish half that energy went into the story. Matt Reeves never really brings a story together. There’s far too many story elements, none of which comes to the foreground emotionally. They’re all individually interesting but none are developed. It’s quite convoluted.
*First two hours are strong enough. Some terrific set-pieces. Final hour is monotony set to sound cues. I think some of this blame falls on Paul Dano. He is supposed to snap the film to a new life, and despite a very interesting scene with Batman, he gives the most fingernails on the chalkboard performance you've seen since (oh!) the last DC thing.
*Robert Pattinson is a journey as Batman/BW. At first, I thought his moody goth take really wasn't working at all but the moment you first see him as Bruce Wayne you get the take more. He's somewhere between fine and promising depending on the scene.
*It's interesting how much Batman films gain when Batman/BW is largely in the orbit of another freak. When he's not, he tends to drift. Even more so than Batman Begins, this is about Batman/BW. In theory, the case he's on is his enemy, but it's a lousy case so it doesn't work.
*The Rogues Gallery: people use the word transformation when discussing makeup from time to time but Colin Farrell as The Penguin is a transformation on "new human being" levels; Zoe Kravitz is totally fine as Catwoman but there's less sexual danger than previous incarnations which I missed (is this because she's the first out bi Catwoman?); already talked about Paul Dano?; John Turturro is weirdly affecting as Falcone; and yep, we get a cameo of what is to come... and I'm not excited for it.
*This film is politically all over the place but I think it's generally a film targeting a youth audience about themes of Young Guard vs. Old Guard. I found it pretentious but at this point I'm old, so...
*At the end of the film, we're told we've seen a film about Batman overcoming vengeance to become something more. That's a great idea. I wish I saw that movie.


The things I liked about The Batman (the craft, especially) I liked about as much as I thought I would if not a little more. The things that didn't work really disappointed me. It probably ranks in the lower half of these films for me.

[anonymous1980]

THE BATMAN
Cast: Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Colin Farrell, Jeffrey Wright, Andy Serkis, John Turturro, Peter Sarsgaard, Barry Keoghan.
Dir: Matt Reeves.

This is yet another reboot/reimagining of Batman. This time, he is chasing after a creepy serial killer known as the Riddler who is targeting certain members of Gotham City's elite. Do we really need another Batman? Not really. But Batman is, in fact, my favorite superhero so I'm always eager to see whatever iteration a filmmaker can come up with. This one is particularly fantastic. This film is actually more a serial killer neo-noir crime thriller than a superhero movie. Sure, it has a man dressed as a bat with cool gadgets and such but it has indeed more in common with stuff like Se7en than it does a typical Marvel (or a DCEU) movie. No, it's not my favorite Batman movie (maybe my third). But it is a very good one nonetheless. Robert Pattinson is an excellent Batman/Bruce Wayne and Zoe Kravitz is a great Catwoman. Paul Dano is terrifying as the Zodiac-Killer inspired version of the Riddler. Extra points for Michael Giacchino's outstanding score. Overall, a solid blockbuster.

Oscar Prospects: I think it's a strong contender for Score, Sound and Visual Effects. Maybe Cinematography and Production Design. I doubt this will get in Best Picture but stranger things have happened.

Grade: B+

[anonymous1980]

TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE
Cast: Sarah Yarkin, Elsie Fisher, Mark Burnham, Olwen Fouéré, Jacob Latimore, Moe Dunford, Jessica Allain, Nell Hudson, Alice Krige.
Dir: David Blue Garcia.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise gets the "requel" treatment a la Halloween in which this acts as a direct sequel to the original while ignoring all the other films in the series. This one has a bunch of Gen-Z'ers wandering into a deserted town to revitalize and gentrify it only to run into...who else? Leatherface who after suffering a loss goes on a killing spree. I went into this film with low expectations (I mean, it's on Netflix, so why not?) but I just found merely mediocre. The original film is one of my favorite horror films of all time and it's such a friggin' masterpiece. So trying to even estimate it is a tall task. Having a bigger budget and more explicit and graphic gore most likely isn't the way to do it. But the two leads, Sarah Yarkin and Elsie Fisher, both give good performances and there are a few decent scares and gnarly kills to satisfy people just looking for that. But, yeah, this is disposable entertainment.

Oscar Prospects: None.

Grade: C.

[anonymous1980]

KIMI
Cast: Zoe Kravitz, Rita Wilson, Derek DelGuadio, Devin Ratray, Byron Bowers, Robin Givens, Jacob Vargas, voice of Betsy Brantley.
Dir: Steven Soderbergh.

A young, agoraphobic woman working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic as a software monitor for a smart speaker called Kimi, hears something that could be a crime being committed and then digs deeper. This latest from director Steven Soderbergh mixes elements from The Conversation and Rear Window into a modern day techno thriller and does it mostly effectively. Sure, the script is kind of by-the-numbers and you kind of know what will eventually happen but Soderbergh's stylish direction as well as Zoe Kravitz's performance keep it entertaining and engaging (extra points for Cliff Martinez's excellent score and the creative use of sound). It's not groundbreaking cinema but a fine streaming pick for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

Oscar Prospects: I think the Sound and the Score of this is actually quite exemplary and deserves consideration.

Grade: B.

[anonymous1980]

DEATH ON THE NILE
Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright.
Dir: Kenneth Branagh.

Kenneth Branagh adapts another Agatha Christie whodunit and this time detective Hercule Poirot investigates a murder aboard a cruise down the Nile River involving a wealthy heiress. Once again there is a star-studded ensemble cast (with several "cancelled personalities). I have not read the novel but I have seen the 1970's adaptation so I pretty much know what happens and who the killer is (although my memory is a bit hazy) but this still manages to be pretty engaging and entertaining. It is certainly slickly made but I thought this was a little better than the previous Kenneth Branagh-directed Agatha Christie adaptation. The cast, I have to admit, is hit-and-miss: Tom Bateman and Sophie Okonedo are great; Armie Hammer and Gal Gadot were mediocre. All in all, it's not bad.

Oscar Prospects: Outside shot of getting Costume Design and Production Design.

Grade: B.

[anonymous1980]

SCREAM
Cast: Neve Campbell, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Melissa Barrera, Jenna Ortega, Jack Quaid, Mikey Madison, Mason Gooding, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Dylan Minnette, Marley Shelton, Kyle Gallner, Sonia Ammar, Skeet Ulrich.
Dirs: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett.

The fifth installment of the Scream franchise should get tired eye rolls from me. There's been four! Enough, already! This is becoming like one of those endless horror sequels that the films have been satirizing. But this one, wow. It manages to present something new and something fresh to the franchise while honoring everything that came before. It is a clever parody and satire of "requels" as well as the toxic fan culture surrounding franchises. Even though members of the original cast mostly take a backseat to the new crop of young actors making up the ensemble, it still feels very much like a Scream film. It is scary and suspenseful as well as very funny and clever. High art? Nope. But it is a great, great ride. I had a freakin' blast.

Oscar Prospects: None.

Grade: B+