CHERRY Review

In April of 2019, Joe and Anthony Russo had just come off of making the biggest movie of all time, but instead of taking the summer off to relax and enjoy the receipts (as well as the relief of somehow managing to meet and/or exceed all expectations with that MCU season finale) they decided to roll right into making another film. A completely different kind of film. Whether this had to do with needing a change of pace, tone, or a release from that much surveyed environment where every facet was picked apart by fans the one thing that seems abundantly evident is the fact the Russo's felt an urgency to bring the story of Nico Walker to the screen and address the opioid epidemic. While said tone and subject matter are vastly different when it comes to Avengers movies and something like Cherry it seems safe to assume no matter the material that the Russo's have now reached a level at which they operate that will be hard to come back from. That is to say that despite its humbler ambitions and price tag, Cherry still feels like an epic. This is one hundred percent an event film of sorts where, despite there being no Gods or heroes challenging mad titans for the survival of humanity, the characters are still addressed and treated with the same reverence of a Tony Stark; the shots just as elaborate, the scope larger than anticipated, and the score just as sweeping. It's almost as if the directing duo are keen to point out how these people and their problems are part of that humanity that is worth saving as well - or at least remind those that can empathize with Tom Holland's character that they are. In that, the Russo's have concocted a searing, but scattered takedown of the Iraq war through one man’s experience that essentially delivers him from one hell to another as set to Van the Man’s soulful yet oftentimes heartbreaking voice that moves beyond the words of Walker’s book of the same name on which this is based and into the raw emotions of his journey. 

At two hours and twenty minutes the Russo's, working from a screenplay by Jessica Goldberg and Angela Russo-Otstot, throw a lot at the wall much of which tends to work given the drastic tonal shifts of each act, but as a whole leaves the viewer in a state of both surprise and confusion. Surprise largely at how entertaining this mess remains despite those major changes in tone but confused simply by everything Walker’s story encompasses and what the focus of this story is by way of meaning. Not every movie necessarily needs a main idea or central theme and Cherry certainly has a thesis statement in that the memories of war are battles those in the armed forces have to fight long after they’ve left the actual battlefield, but what it says or means to say about these experiences feels as if it gets lost in the shuffle. That said, how it says what it wants to say is a different conversation entirely as the Russo's execution is never not grandiose or energetic. There is an indisputable amount of bold choices if not necessarily innovative ones that lend the project both an impressive sense of style and Holland’s protagonist a sense of self on top of all the work Holland is doing (and trust me, he's putting in some work). Every choice the directors make is seemingly in support of building the character that embodies Walker’s perspective here and not only his point of view but getting inside his head and taking us through his experiences in the most visceral ways possible. As is true of the novel, the sections covering Iraq feel the most honest and brash and are where the Russo's big swings work best. Choices that involve text flashing across the screen in unison with drill sergeants yelling them, brutally honest policy descriptions serving as bank names, or shot selections that literally put us inside Holland’s character show the fire in the Russo's bellies and an admirable determination to make this as raw and powerful a portrait as they can even if the movie itself ends up feeling like it's trying a bit too hard. 

CHAPPIE Review

Something rather odd occurred with Chappie as I attempted to take it in unphased by the haze of bad press it had swirling around it. For a good portion of the film, the parts before it essentially devolves into something of a mindless action film, I wasn't really gelling with what director Neill Blomkamp was going for. It's not that I didn't necessarily understand where he was coming from or what he was going for, but it just wasn't vibing with this particular audience member the way I feel he intended it to. As Chappie morphed into this one, big action sequence though I began to appreciate the way in which Blomkamp integrated all the elements he's been setting up even if some of those elements were rather frustrating. What I appreciated most though was the fact the film didn't go exactly where it could have and where I expected it to easily resort to, but in fact went a completely different direction and touched on a theme I didn't foresee the writer/director including in this script. As far as themes are concerned, Blomkamp is known for crafting large metaphors and for mirroring real-world issues with his science fiction stories, but as with Elysium my main problem here is that Blomkamp is touching on issues that are relevant now and not where those issues might push society in the future which is where Chappie is set and how science fiction typically works. Granted, it is only a few years, but after touching on South Africa's apartheid era in District 9 and the satire of Elysium commenting on the current state of separation between classes I somewhat expected Chappie to push things to a different level for Blomkamp and frequent writing partner Terri Tatchell. The issue with all of the elements Blomkamp introduces and that he and Tachell expertly integrate with one another is that instead of pushing things further, they just throw more plotlines with more themes at us to crowd our minds so that we might not focus on the fact the film doesn't have much to say about any single one of them, but more acknowledges that they exist and are rather interesting. In the end, what does this accomplish though? If no one line of thinking prevails, if no one idea is clarified, what is the point of the film? Herein lies the problem as I was entertained while watching Chappie, but took away my fair share of issues with it as well as not particularly liking large chunks of it.

First Trailer for Neill Blomkamp's CHAPPIE

While I was more of a fan of Elysium than it seemed like most people were, director Neill Blomkamp's claim to fame is still going to be his directorial debut, District 9. This is clear from the way in which his third film is being touted. It doesn't seem like nineteen months is long enough to turn around a film, especially one as technically involved as this seems to be, but Blomkamp has done it and to be honest this looks much better than I would have expected given the turn around time. It seems Blomkamp had done most of the time-consuming work beforehand on this one though as Chappie is seemingly a feature version of  his own 2004 short Tetra Vaal, with elements from his 2006 short Tempbot that features a similar-looking robot protagonist. Given all of that information I looked ahead to the trailer if not for it being another Blomkamp film, but for the fact it added an element of openly admitting it was a robot movie that inherently includes the fact artificial intelligence is built into the titular robot and not saving that as the big revelation. The look of the trailer is similar to both of Blomkamp's previous features in that it was shot in Johannesburg, South Africa but also in its grungy futuristic aesthetic. The visual f/x look flawless, the tone seems to be a mix of darkly cool and broadly funny while it will also be interesting to see Hugh Jackman play against type as the seeming villain of the piece. Chappie also stars Dev Patel, Ninja, Yo-Landi Visser, Jose Pablo Cantillo, Sharlto Copley, Sigourney Weaver and opens March 27, 2015.