MONKEY MAN Review

Anger may not quiet the soul and an eye for an eye might eventually make the whole world blind, but corruption must be reckoned with in some fashion and Dev Patel makes it satisfying as hell in his directorial debut, Monkey Man. While the story of revenge is the most common kind of story, especially in the action/thriller genre, Patel elevates the material by making that aforementioned anger more deeply felt and the context hyper-personal as well as lathering the execution in every influence the writer/director/star has clearly made note of since directing became an ambition. 

Patel, the director, has a real penchant for framing his shots around an unexpected primary focal point that communicates plot elements visually while simultaneously building the world - not an easy task when considering you're doing so from the ground up. He does this in a somewhat brash fashion backed by either a heavy soundtrack or Jed Kurzel's Harold Faltermeyer-esque score that culminates in a style desperately trying to carve itself out of those influences. Whether it was my experience as a first time viewer or Patel actually realizing his intention through experimentation, by the end of the film the extreme from-the-hip angles coupled with the extreme close-ups of particularly gritty moments in hand-to-hand combat make for a very ecstatic and unrestrained tone that can't help but to be felt if not necessarily viewed as singular. But also, as a director, if you don’t have women cheer for you when you take off your shirt onscreen what are you even doing?

FREE FIRE Review

"Everyone's from somewhere," says gun runner Vernon shortly after his introduction in director Ben Wheatley's (Kill List, High-Rise) Free Fire. Vernon, as played by South African native Sharlto Copley, is observing the plethora of people who have ascended upon an abandoned warehouse in Boston in 1978 to buy some of his guns. These people come from all over; some from Ireland, others from America, and further there are those of different ethnicities to be considered. This melting pot of participants bring history, prejudice, and a laundry list of assumptions about one another to the table. These preconceptions inform the tone of where each individual might register in the likelihood of who they're going to snap at and could potentially inform us of how this particular scenario was going to play out even before it did, but instead such quirks are only relied on for humor. Each of these men, these proud, overcompensating men tell us the clichés of their ancestry and fire insults back and forth with one another that same heritage being the punchline of most of them. Given the odd amount of time devoted to jokes and jabs about it, we assume there might be a point to it all in that they come to see past the error of such ways and that despite what someone might have heard or been told about a culture that it doesn't necessarily apply to all or that, at the very least, the stereotype might be something of an embellished truth. But no, Wheatley along with co-writer and frequent collaborator Amy Jump have no time for depth, leaving such ideas on the table and only using those clichés and stereotypes for the aforementioned comedic purposes. That isn't to say that a film can't have fun and be good while having no substance whatsoever, but it is saying that if this is the route your movie chooses to go it better be damn good at accomplishing what it sets out to accomplish and Free Fire just isn't. The idea is there, that is clear. The ambition is admirable, no doubt. Still, Free Fire never seems able to reach the heights of what Wheatley or Jump likely had in their heads when they were writing and storyboarding the project. Having only seen High-Rise prior to this and not being a fan of that film there might be an inherent hesitance toward the director's work, but there seems an obvious disconnect between the idea that spawned such a movie and the execution that has delivered the disappointing final product we see play out on screen.

THE HOLLARS Review

John is Jim and Jim is John and in his new movie, The Hollars, John is simply John. We're talking about John Krasinksi of course who parlayed his likable everyman gig on The Office for nine seasons into a brand all its own with which he will now try to both break (13 Hours) and embrace (The Hollars). In Krasinski's second directorial effort what we have is your standard tale of a white man who's been given little if nothing to overcome in this society other than his own emotions and how he deals with such emotional conflicts when his mother falls ill in the small town he ran away from long ago. It is in returning to this not only small town, but the man's hometown that we know our protagonist will learn lessons that might help him deal with his mental constipation. Naturally, there is a cast of quirky family members who are designed to be specific in certain ways, but just broad enough in others so that we may all find someone to relate them to in our own families. In venturing back to his homestead John with the titular last name rather than Krasinski comes to learn things about his parents and his other family members that he'd never been privy to before; intimate and mostly ugly details he doesn't necessarily want to know or see, but as something of the family savior he finds it his responsibility to try and put them back together. It is in this idea, this story arc that The Hollars attempts to differentiate itself from this genre of defeated middle aged men returning to their roots to remember who they really are by reminding themselves of where they came from. It is in this idea that the one who fled to search for more is the one who fled not wholly out of ambition, but also from the pressures imbued upon them by their clan. In The Hollars, John is the only character whose life is fairly average-he really has little to complain about aside from the fact he may not be where he imagined himself professionally at this point, but otherwise he lives in New York City and has a rich/hip girlfriend in Rebecca (Anna Kendrick) who is expecting their first child. The guy more or less has his stuff together sans a few emotional shortcomings, but it is in these emotional shortcomings that the crisis drives him to some interesting and introspective places that are hinted at through his re-connections with his hometown, but that Krasinski brushes over too broadly for them to really resonate instead resorting to genre cliché's to round out his movie.

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.

MALEFICENT Review

Who exactly was this movie intended for? I couldn't help but to keep asking myself this as Maleficent played out, unsure of what it wanted to be, completely torn between two drastically different tones. There was naturally something interesting about this different approach to the current trend of re-telling classic fairy tales in live action form and casting Angelina Jolie as the titular villain guaranteed nothing short of a fair amount of interest but the final result we've been delivered is nothing but a badgering of the original Disney animated film that proves trying something different is truly hard to accept if it isn't done right. While it is easy to give credit to the machine that is Disney for at least attempting to think outside the box rather than simply bringing the same story to the screen with real-live people (though it looks like 90% of the film is CG anyway) Maleficent is actually less innovative than Tarsem Singh's 2012 take on the Snow White tale. At least that movie had a different rhythm to get in tune with while here we get exactly what we expect and even a little less depending what age group you belong to. So, it was a strong idea with factors that lent themselves towards what could have been an interesting execution yet what we have as the final product is anything but substantial and a film trying to be so many different things it ends up failing on all levels. This brings us back around to the question of who might this movie actually be targeted at? There were certainly a lot of children at the screening I attended, mainly young girls, and throughout you could hear them giggling at the intended bits of comic relief and gasping as Jolie re-created the famous scene in which Maleficent casts her spell on the young princess. To those reactions I began to wonder what I might have thought of this had I seen it as a child. Would it have been one of those my parents might have bought when it came out on VHS and I re-watched over and over? The only equivalent I came up with was Stephen Sommers 1994 adaptation of The Jungle Book that also came from Disney. It was very much a children's film while playing on the darker tones of the Rudyard Kipling story and that is what first-time director Robert Stromberg (yes, they entrusted this summer tentpole to a first-time director) seems intent on doing here as well, but his over-reliance on special effects and muddled screenplay do nothing but disservice what vision he might have had.

OLDBOY Review

Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy will go down as one of the bigger disappointments of 2013, that is, if it is remembered at all. This is unfortunate though as it feels to me that this is one of those films that was locked out and given up on before it even had a chance. Initial reaction to that previous statement goes to the fact this was originally planned as a wide release, but was quickly cut back to a limited roll-out which typically accompanies smaller films where the studios expect positive buzz and strong word of mouth to build anticipation for it once they expand to more cities. This obviously didn't happen in the case of Oldboy as it was pretty much dead in the water from the time the earlier decision was made to push it back a month from October 25th to November 27th. Back to the initial reaction statement though, while it may go to the aforementioned unfortunate scenario it seems the truth is that this project was probably dead from the moment it was greenlit by whatever studio head thought it a good idea to remake the 2003 Korean film that has amassed an extremely loyal following and is considered a masterpiece by many. Though I always thought the purpose of re-making something was to bring it to the attention of those who might not otherwise discover the original there are those more cynical who believe the sole purpose of piggy-backing off the name of a successful foreign film and Americanizing it is purely for profit while hopefully guaranteeing a win financially; they are probably right. Still, that clearly all but backfired here as no one thought through how you might market a film where much of its story and the suspense that goes along with it are dealt in the twists and surprises the film holds close to its chest. No one seems to have thought through that this brutally dark picture isn't what most moviegoers are looking for at Thanksgiving and that it would have likely been better facing off against Bad Grandpa than Frozen. This piece is not meant to question why the film failed financially or in its marketing though, but instead if the film itself was even necessary. I haven't seen the original Chan-wook Park film and so I was no less than intrigued by the trailers and anxious to see what a director like Lee might do with this perplexing material.

Teaser Trailer for Disney's MALEFICENT

The first trailer for next summers live action adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty story told from the perspective of its antagonist has premiered and it truly is nothing more than a teaser. Starring Angelina Jolie in the titular role of Maleficent, a young woman who grows from the pure-hearted creature she once was to the evil witch we perceive her to be in the story of Aurora. Speaking of Aurora, we get more of a look at her in the form of Elle Fanning here than we do at Jolie in Maleficant garb, but that is all well and good as I can appreciate a promotional campaign that knows how to restrain itself. Given that the film doesn't open until next year I assume this teaser has been timed to coincide with the release of Frozen around Thanksgiving. It is a bit of an odd pair as this certainly seems to be a bit of a darker tale than Oz the Great and Powerful but much more in line with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Robert Stromberg is directing the film and actually served as production designer on both of the aforementioned films so expect this to all look very familiar. I'm interested to see this turns out though because I'm optimistic there is an interesting story to tell here and actors at the caliber of Jolie, Sharlto Copley, and Imedla Staunton wouldn't sign up for something that was an almost guaranteed blockbuster if they didn't see something worth investing in. Otherwise, the trailer itself actually looks fairly interesting and will at least get peoples attention with the promise of bringing one of Disney's most popular tales to extravagant real-life and Disney is really hoping this pays off as they already have live-action versions of both Cinderella and Cruella (why?) in the pipeline. Maleficent also stars Sam Riley, Juno Temple, Leslie Manville, Brenton Thwaites, Miranda Richardson and opens on May 30, 2014.

ELYSIUM Review

Elysium is as much a disappointment as it is a success. While director Neill Blomkamp's first feature came out of nowhere with no sense of expectation and no precedent, it is because not only of the success of that film, but the quality that the bar was pretty high for his sophomore effort. I was especially intrigued by Blomkamp's second effort due to the way he was able to integrate such a strict science fiction plot into a documentary-like style in District 9. The worlds were blended so seamlessly to the point the audience was able to accept that this was not only an allegory for apartheid, but was a finely crafted, and emotionally poignant piece of filmmaking. While much of that could also be applied to Elysium the difference unfortunately comes in the latter part of that description where, while there is ample amounts of allegorical messages and high-tech science fiction, there isn't that element of the film that hits an emotional connection with the audience that makes the film as memorable as the way the directors previous film. What makes the movie just as much a success though is the fact that despite all of this, it still represents some of the better things about large scale filmmaking in today's world. Blomkamp made District 9 for a reported $30 million, but Sony gave the director a reported $115 million for his follow-up and to this great advantage the director created a fully encompassing world that gives the film real scope, real consequences, and a platform big enough to tell a story that parallels the issues of immigration and health care in today's world. While the more money you have the more extravagant the film can be, but what seems to have been lost in the process is the personal touch that was such a crucial element in his debut feature. All of this is to say that while I thoroughly enjoyed myself in terms of pure entertainment value (there are a few great fight scenes, interesting characters, and a bevy of baddies), but I was hoping for more of a compelling story, something that might move me, affect me, or leave me thinking about the film days later. Instead, what we have is an average action flick more in the vein of White House Down and 2 Guns than a film that has aspirations bigger than delivering thrills in the form of explosions.

First Red Band Trailer for Spike Lee's OLDBOY

I’ve heard a lot about the re-make of Chan-wook Park’s Oldboy from director Spike Lee, but I’ve never seen the original and wasn’t sure what the big deal concerning the film was. I just caught Park’s first English-language film Stoker and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Today, the first trailer (and a red band, no less) for Lee’s re-make has debuted and it is easy to see the intrigue surrounding the plot and why there has been such reaction to the brutal violence that is on full display here. Josh Brolin stars as a man who is kidnapped and locked away for twenty years before being released with little to no explanation why he was there in the first place or for what reasons he’s been set free. This looks like a nice vehicle for Brolin to display the kind of stone-faced, rough persona character he plays so well while being part of a bigger story that serves that type of attitude correctly. Hopefully, this will lift the actor out of the funk he’s been feeling lately from flops like Jonah Hex and Gangster Squad. The tone for the film seems pretty grimacing and Brolin is doing his best to match it. The only problem with the trailer is the fact that the story is supposed to be cloaked in mystery yet the trailer feels as if it gives too much away. I came away from it, not having seen the original may I remind you, and felt as if I knew the beats of the story and how all of this was probably going to play out. Still, I have hopes for the film as I’ve always enjoyed the work I’ve seen of Lee’s and there is a great supporting cast at work here that includes Samuel L. Jackson, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Lance Reddick, Michael Imperioli, and James Ransone. Oldboy opens on October 25th. Hit the jump to check out the trailer and let me know what you think.

First Trailer for ELYSIUM

If you've ever read any of my reviews or follow this site at all you might know I am a huge sci-fi nerd and love a good sci-fi flick thus being the reason Elysium made my top 10 most anticipated films of 2013. And if you are any kind of sci-fi fan at all you probably fell in love with director Neill Blomkamp's 2009 directorial debut, District 9. I surely did and was amazed that such a film was made on such a tight budget. District 9 proved to be more touching, more introspective than any other sci-fi film in recent memory and the fact Blomkamp would be getting a good amount more money and big name actors to produce his second feature was almost too exciting to handle. Today, we finally get our first glimpse at his follow-up to District 9 and it looks pretty damn impressive. Matt Damon continues to prove his range as an actor (watch the Behind the Candelabra trailer that premiered yesterday and then this one again) while Jodie Foster also shows up to play what looks like a devilishly delicious, scenery-chewing role. Only the basics of the plot are known in that the earth has been divided into two classes in the year 2154 where the wealthy live on a space station which the film is named after while the poor still take residence on an overpopulated and ruined Earth. Damon's character wants to go to Elysium and thus he enlists the help of a few friends, a cool suit and the adventure begins. Undoubtedly there is much more to the plot than that, but this set-up is what we're served in the trailer along with a great sense of environment that is more gritty and grounded than the slick, clean feel of other sci-fi flicks we've seen recently. I'm more than intrigued by the trailer and can't wait to see the final product, what are your thoughts? Elysium also stars Sharlto Copley, William Fichtner and Diego Luna and opens on August 9th, 2013. Hit the jump to check out the trailer.