SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO Review

Denis Villeneuve Stefano Sollima is not, but that doesn't mean the Italian-born director can't make an entertaining if not necessarily worthy follow-up to Villeneuve's 2015 thriller. To be fair, my memories may serve a bias against any Sicario sequel not directed by Villeneuve or one that doesn't include Emily Blunt's Kate Macer as it was the first film I saw at my first ever Toronto International Film Festival. That said, I haven't re-visited that now first film since it was released on Blu-ray and so, while I remember being overcome by the tension of the piece and the fact its ideas were more prominent than its story it would seem my actual memory of the film as opposed to my fondness for the experience surrounding the film is something that shouldn't allow me to hold that film in as high regard as I did going into this sequel. Day of the Soldado or what should have simply been titled "Soldado" is what might be referred to as a "fine enough" follow-up in that it does the best it can with the tools it was handed in order to create such a follow-up. Where Sicario was an examination of the complexities of these people who were trapped in a world convoluted beyond their ability to be able to rectify it as everything around them only continued to spin in vicious circles this sequel struggles to find anything to add to this statement. With Soldado, Taylor Sheridan (Hell or High Water, Wind River) returned to pen the screenplay, but it seems he didn't have much more to say as Soldado more or less addresses the same themes and ideas as its predecessor while exploring them through the (much different) perspective of Benicio Del Toro's Alejandro who was an intentionally vague supporting character the first time around. Granted, Del Toro's performance as Alejandro was one of the most distinctive and memorable factors of that first film to the point the attention is not only warranted, but desired to a certain extent. And though Sheridan's script along with Sollima's direction and Dariusz Wolski's cinematography (though it's hard to beat Roger Deakins) all contribute to delivering an entertaining and tension-filled actioner the main issue is the shifting of perspectives as doing so makes these men who were once shrouded in mystery and their moral compasses all the more unclear less so and therefore nowhere near as interesting. It might also be that given the real-world environment Soldado has been released into that a movie with such content should be required to not be as careless with the complicated Mexico/U.S. relationship, but Soldado is ultimately too generic to leave any lasting scars.

47 METERS DOWN Review

The best kinds of thrillers and horror films don’t have to rely on the big bad antagonist that is chasing our heroes around for actual scares, but rather they build up the tension and expel the terror through the situations they create given the circumstances no doubt involve a big bad killer or evil spirit chasing our heroes. Over the past two years we’ve received two very different, but startlingly effective shark movies that utilize this technique really well and fortunately 47 Meters Down is one of those with last summer’s The Shallows being the other. To go one step further, I’d say 47 Meters Down is the better of the two. At a lean eighty-nine minutes writer/director Johannes Roberts (The Other Side of the Door) doesn’t waste time setting things up, getting into the action, and most importantly-he doesn’t muffle that action or story with supplemental material. Instead, he executes his and the characters primary objective as successfully as one could hope in this day and age and he does so by keeping things simple. Within five minutes of the film beginning we know why our two lead characters, sisters Lisa (Mandy Moore) and Kate (Claire Holt), are vacationing together, we understand the dynamic that has existed between them in the past, and we quickly come to note their motivations for seeking out the thrills that inevitably lead them to their unfortunate predicament deep within the ocean. There is no messing around, there is hardly even any submerging us in the environment that is the coast of Spain because this isn’t the environment Roberts wants us to get comfortable with-in fact, he doesn’t want us to get comfortable at all. This brings us back around to the opening sentence which comes up only to say that the sharks are actually the least of Lisa and Kate’s worries here. Both Roberts and co-writer Ernest Riera are well-versed in utilizing the natural horrors that come with being plunged nearly 155 feet into the ocean waters and it is in such a scenario that 47 Meters Down continues to build upon the number of hurdles our characters must face if there is any chance of survival; only reminding us of the sharks when we think we can’t handle another thing hurting those chances of survival. In short, it’s kind of brilliant.

JOBS Home Video Review

It was a well-known fact from the time we first heard mention of battling Steve Jobs biopics that the one starring Ashton Kutcher and a creative team of newbies wasn't going to be the one that broke any new ground or would even get anyone too excited. While Kutcher's turn as the founder of Apple Inc. and innovative mind that brought us the Macintosh, iPod and iPhone wasn't cause for much alarm it isn't for a lack of effort on the actors part. It is clear that Kutcher studied the mannerisms and vocal tones and inflections of Jobs with a considerable amount of obsession and in some ways the performance feels like a tribute as Kutcher is more a fan giving the most flattering of interpretations than a man attempting to bring another mans story to light in the truest form. That said, the script is not particularly kind to Jobs as it highlights his ego and his consistent inability to get along with others unless they are strictly abiding by his ideals, but Kutcher's performance has a consistent aura that he ultimately knows what's best floating around him. No matter if that is actually how Jobs was or not, that is how we'd like to think of him. He held the secrets of what we really wanted and was able to package them in ultra-portable containers so is there any other option than to believe he was onto something we weren't? The film likes to think this way and so for two plus hours we are treated to what adds up to little more than a cliff notes version of the rise, fall and unavoidable return to the spotlight of Steve Jobs that all biopics tend to follow. This wouldn't be so bad if the film did more than barely scratch the surface, but we are given little more than the facts that are already well known to anyone who was a fan of his or knew anything about his philosophy or his products. There is no real substance or justification as to why he strives so hard to diverge from the beaten path or prove others wrong. There is one line concerning his real parents abandoning him only to never be mentioned again to which he responds by doing the same exact thing to his child while nothing close to a parallel is drawn. Director Joshua Michael Stern and writer Matt Whiteley have taken what could have been an exceptional subject and a beyond incredible journey of a man not necessarily likable, but who demanded to be listened to and molded him to fit the outline of every redemption story. The world loves a comeback kid, this is true, but the accomplishments of Jobs the man deserve more than jOBS the movie, delivers.