Don't get me wrong- if I see a movie I feel strong enough about to do a more comprehensive review, I might do it now & again, but you all seem to prefer my longer write-ups on older movies, not the long ones on newer movies, at least on the whole. Not that I'm in it just for the clicks, mind you, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I went off on a new movie tangent for a while there, and it was hard not to notice that readership dropped off by a fairly significant amount, so I'm going to stick with what works, while still making allowances for the fact that I'll still be watching more current movies, too. By doing a post like this, that allows me to play catch-up with what I've been watching lately, obviously.
So, no Monster Monday this week, but it'll be back next week, so hang in there, Creature Feature fans! Until then, here's what I've been watching on the side, when I'm not watching crazy cult movies- though this next one may qualify for that sort of thing on down the line...
Mortal Engines landed with a great big thud last December at the box office, and holds the dubious honor of being the biggest bomb of the year, grossing a mere $83 million worldwide on an estimated $100 million budget- though many put the losses at closer to $175 overall. But can you really judge a movie by its box office?
After all, some of my all-time favorite movies didn't exactly light up the box office in their initial releases, such as Blade Runner, The Thing, Labyrinth, Heathers, Dazed & Confused, Donnie Darko- hell, even The Wizard of Oz was considered a failure. Might Mortal Engines be a similar diamond in the rough? I decided to find out, against my better judgment, given the inherent silliness of the premise.
If you know it at all, it's as the "cities on wheels" flick, which is a concept many had trouble wrapping their heads around when it was initially released. After all, how likely is it that such a thing could really happen? Well, that's why they call 'em movies, folks- it ain't real life, even if it's trying to retell a real event.
Having now seen the film, I can say that it is definitely flawed, and I think one of the things that really hurt it was the lack of a marquee name star, with respect where it's due to the first-rate character actors Hugo Weaving (The Matrix trilogy) and Stephen Lang (Avatar). Had the film had that going for it, more filmgoers might have thrown caution to the wind about the premise and gone to see it anyway.
After all, it does have the mighty creative force that is Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh onboard as producers and co-writers of the screenplay, along with Philippa Boyens, the three of which made up the team behind the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, which are almost universally beloved. Or, okay, at least the LOTR movies are. I think everyone agrees that stretching out one book, The Hobbit, into three movies was a bit much.
Granted, Jackson didn't direct this one- newcomer Christian Rivers did, a former visual effects and storyboard artist, who worked on most of Jackson's films. But still, many of the creatives involved in Jackson's biggest hits are present and accounted for, including the indispensable WETA workshop, and the gorgeous New Zealand locales to boot, where LOTR and The Hobbit were also filmed.
Unfortunately, Mortal Engines is as clunky as the insane amount of moving parts holding those traveling cities together by a thread. The attention to detail is staggering- frankly, I enjoyed the behind the scenes docs more than the film itself- as befits a film that took a good decade to come together.
But yeah, the film lacks a center. Like Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets before it, it has creativity to burn, but doesn't have a gripping story to back it up. While I certainly sympathized with the plight of Hester (an intense Hera Hilmar, of Da Vinci's Demons), and the reason for her quest, when you get down to it, it's just a straight-up revenge tale buried in so much sound and fury, and Kill Bill this is not.
I've got no problem with grandiose or over-the-top, but the film is all surface and little heart, just like the lumbering revived corpse that Lang plays, himself in search of revenge. Only co-star Robert Sheenan (Doom Patrol) provides any sort of sense of fun and adventure, and he seems as hapless and drug along on Hester's quest whether he likes it or not as the viewer, honestly. The film is worth seeing once for the sheer spectacle of it all, but I don't know if it has what it takes to qualify as a future cult classic. Better luck next time, gang.
This would-be Oscar contender had a lot going for it, not the least of which were two first-rate actresses in the lead, both of them Oscar nominees themselves: erstwhile Harley Quinn Margot Robbie (for I, Tonya) and multiple nominee Saoirse Ronan (Atonement, Brooklyn, Lady Bird), she of the sexy accent and the tricky-to-pronounce name.
Even better, it was the rare historical drama centered around women, and grounded in actual events, being based on the Northern Rebellion of 1569. Unfortunately, it had the misfortune to be released the same year as critical darling The Favorite, which ended up stealing a lot of its thunder- down to both even having an embarrassment-inducing oral sex scene guaranteed to turn any kid's face red that had the misfortune to see this with their parents, thinking it would be a typical stuffy costume drama. (Yes, I speak from experience- on both, sad to say.)
The truth is, while Mary Queen of Scots is certainly well-acted and well-intentioned on the whole, The Favorite is just plain more fun. Hell, even John Waters put it on his list of favorite movies of 2018. While this one has plenty of palace intrigue, and lots of back-stabbing on both ends, be it Mary (Ronan, in a quietly fierce performance) or Elizabeth (Robbie, throwing vanity to the wind, as some actresses gunning for Oscar are wont to do), the truth is, it's just this side of stodgy, especially in comparison to The Favorite.
Basically, it's like a more feminist, slightly more sexed-up episode of Masterpiece Theatre. I don't necessarily mean that as a dis: anyone out there see The Miniaturist? It had some fairly steamy stuff happening. But like I said, The Favorite just plain stole its thunder, and most people made that their costume drama of the year of choice- and for a lot of us, that's one too many as it is.
That left this one to this year for me, and while I didn't hate it- anything Ronan, easily one of my favorite actresses of her generation, does is worth seeing in my book- it was a little long, and yes, a bit boring at times. I certainly appreciated the filmmakers' attempts to put forth a more "woke" look at that era, and the story was fascinating enough, but overall, it was just a bit too stuffy for its own good, even if you aren't comparing it to The Favorite.
As such, I can only recommend it in good faith to Robbie and/or Ronan completists, or those fascinated by royal machinations of the era. But fair warning, Game of Thrones this is not. And at over two hours, it may try some viewers' patience. So, my advice is, if you have to watch one costume drama this year and you haven't seen The Favorite, go with that- it's funnier, wittier and far more wicked than anything in this film.
If my tolerance for costume dramas is low, then my threshold for traditional musicals (as opposed to rock music-driven ones, a la Across the Universe or Bohemian Rhapsody) is even lower- it might well be my least favorite genre ever. There's just something about people walking and talking one minute and launching into singing the next that just sets me off- it even makes me a little mad, quite frankly, like that guy in the Monty Python film that stops his son every time he tries to sing.
That said, I did grow up on Disney, like most people, so my tolerance for their particular brand of musical is slightly higher. For one thing, it helps to have animated characters delivering the goods. Or for the songs to, you know, not suck. Few Disney tunesmiths had the run of the much-celebrated Sherman Brothers, who did the honors on everything from The Jungle Book and The Aristocats to "It's a Small World" and, yes, the original Mary Poppins.
Robert is sadly no longer with us, but Richard is, and was present and accounted for in this soft "reboot" of the original film, which is to the classic 1964 movie what The Force Awakens was to the original Star Wars- which is to say, basically a modern-day variation of the original, with souped-up special effects and the like.
Emily Blunt is perfectly cast- I'm not sure who else could have even come close to filling the considerable shoes of OG MP Julie Andrews- and there are indeed some awe-inducing set-pieces here, notably an underwater adventure in the tub- definitely more magical than the one she had in A Quiet Place, that's for sure- and a reprise of Mary's performance with the penguins, complete with quaint 2-D animation, which I didn't realize I missed as much as I did until I saw it.
There's also the incredibly talented Lin-Manuel Miranda on board, who does a slightly less offensive Cockney accent than OG chimney sweep Dick Van Dyke, who also makes an impressive and show-stopping cameo towards the end. Miranda does a fantastic, even more show-stopping song-and-dance number ("Trip a Little Light Fantastic") around the halfway mark that is easily the highlight of the film, complete with his fellow chimney-sweeps doing BMX bike tricks on the side (!).
Be all that as it may, and as typically impressive as the production values are here, the film, which clocks in two hours and ten minutes- which is actually almost ten minutes shorter than the original, but feels WAY longer- is a bit of a slog, and there is just way too much singing for my tastes. The original is a classic, with some of the best Disney songs ever. but not even an assist from a Sherman brother can save this one, with nary a modern-day classic in the bunch to speak of, though "Fantastic" comes closest to living up to its name.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I hated it, but it was definitely a bit of a chore, and if you don't believe me, ask yourself this: why weren't more people talking about it at the time it was released? Sure, it got the full-court press tour and a prime-time special, but you didn't hear a lot of critical praise coming its way, or, even more telling, any substantial audience praise.
The worldwide box office was just fine- around $349 million on a $130 million budget, not too shabby- but I didn't see it on anyone's best of lists, so there you go. If you're a die-hard fan of the original, it's worth seeing once, but will you find yourself revisiting it from time to time like the original? Not bloody likely. Maybe P.T. Travers had the right idea.
Easily the best newer movie I saw over the last month or so, The Hate U Give would have been a shoe-in for my best of 2018 list, had I seen it sooner. It just goes to show, no matter how long you postpone these things, worthy movies are going to fall through the cracks. Oh well. Better late than never, I suppose.
The Hate U Give is one of those ripped-from-the-headlines movies that seems like it could be based on true events, but isn't. Nonetheless, if you think innocent people aren't gunned down on a regular basis in America, you aren't paying much attention. Now, before you stop reading and take a hard pass on the film, know this: it may be a downer of a subject, but the way it's handled here makes it the heir apparent to something like Boyz n the Hood, not one of those preachy movies that's constantly bashing you over the head with some sort of message.
In a star-making performance, Amandla Stenberg (Rue in the first Hunger Games film) plays, appropriately enough, Starr, a teenage black girl that lives in the hood, more or less, but goes to school in a more suburban area, where she has to downplay who she is to fit in better, i.e. "code-switching," which, if you don't know what that is, the Blu-Ray/DVD offers up a bonus featurette to help explain.
One night, after a party, Starr gets a ride home from a boy she used to be friends with, before the whole school switch thing. Rumor has it, the boy, Khalil (Algee Smith), runs with a gang, which is another reason the two don't typically hang out any more. Regardless, the two are pulled over by a cop, who, thinking Khalil is going for a gun when he unwisely reaches into the car for a hairbrush, shoots him dead, right in front of a horrified Starr.
Starr naturally feels compelled to testify on Khalil's behalf in front of a grand jury, but she also fears repercussions for her actions, both from her largely white friends- including Riverdale star K.J. Apa (aka Archie) as her boyfriend and singer Sabrina Carpenter as her bestie, who might be harboring more racist tendencies than she lets on- and from her own neighborhood, where gang leader King (Anthony Mackie, effectively cast against type) warns her not to point fingers in his direction, and better yet, not to testify in the first place.
Things go from there, getting ever more complicated, eventually leading to an explosion- literally, in some cases- of emotions that leads to protests, riots, and even gunfire. This may not be news to those living in black communities, but I urge everyone else who may not be aware of how dire things are in certain areas to check this one out- you might learn a lot in the process, and like I said, the film is well-made enough to entertain as it educates, so you won't feel like you're being preached at for two hours. And that's saying something, with Common involved, lol. (He actually plays a cop, for the record, so he's arguably on the other side of things here- though he does make a solid case for the boys in blue... but only to a certain degree.)
This one absolutely would have made my Best Of list of 2019, and probably the Top 10 at that. Maybe even the Top 5. It's that good, and the performances are across-the-board great, including a solid dramatic turn from typically comedic actress Regina Hall, of the Scary Movie franchise and the uproarious Girls Trip.
Factor in a great soundtrack, which includes Kendrick Lamar and 2Pac, from whom the title is derived- check those first letters and add "Life" and you're halfway there- but did you know what it really means?- and you've got a modern-day classic that does the late John Singleton proud. I can't recommend this one enough.
Well, that about does it for now. Thanks for reading, and join me Wednesday for my latest old-school review! 😎
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