A couple more movies until next time

As we all know, among the non-essential businesses shut down by the coronavirus pandemic are entertainment venues including movie theaters.  Right before the curtains came down I managed to squeeze in two movies since my last posts, so I'll make it short until we meet again.  Stay safe, everyone, and watch lots of movies at home.

 

Universal Bloodshot

 

Vin Diesel's latest movie not part of the 'Fast & Furious' franchise is 'Bloodshot,' based on a rather obscure comic book character from Valiant Comics about a US Marine KIA'ed on a mission only to be brought back involuntarily, zombie-style, as a super-assassin to do the dirty work for Uncle Sam.  50 percent 'Universal Soldier' and 25 percent equal parts 'Groundhog Day' and 'A Long Kiss Goodnight,' 'Bloodshot' is a decent and entertaining enough sci-fi action thriller even if it's predictable and ultimately forgettable.

 

Grade: B

 

Blue Hunting Red

 

Some of you may remember Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse as two of the key producers/writers of the  popular sci-fi mystery suspense TV series 'Lost' started by J.J. Abrams.  Lindelof and Cuse's son Nick are the brains behind 'The Hunt,' a darkly humorous satire about a group of unwitting and hapless southern conservatives kidnapped and drugged by rich and self-righteous Silicon Valley liberals to be hunted and killed as game.  Movies about people hunting other people are nothing new, of course, but 'The Hunt' is surprisingly fun, up-ending our expectations (especially which people die first) and giving us a heroine in Crystal (Betty Gilpin) nearly as compelling and badass as "The Bride" played by Uma Thurman in 'Kill Bill' volumes 1 and 2.

 

Grade: B+
 

Elf Quest

Pixar’s latest original (as in non-sequel) animated feature is ‘Onward,’ the whimsical and wonderful tale of two unlikely blue-skinned Elf siblings who embark upon a magical quest to bring back their father in a contemporary fantasy world that would please the young and old alike.  Reaching #1 at the box office and making $48 million domestic ($76 million worldwide) in its opening weekend is no mean feat considering that moviegoers have been staying away from theatres thanks to the coronavirus.

 

In the make-believe world of New Mushroomton, Elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot (the former voiced by Spiderman Tom Holland, the latter by Star-Lord Chris Pratt) defies our classical Tolkien-esque concept of an elf because Ian is skinny and has a decidedly large and un-Elfish “Karl Malden” nose while Barley is portly (so is their mom voiced by Julia Louis-Dreyfus) and oafish rather than lithe and graceful.   When the socially awkward Ian got a magical wizard’s staff from his mother on his sixteenth birthday and accidentally conjured up half the father he never met, who died before he was born, he and his D&D-playing older brother decided to jump into the latter’s unicorn-muraled van and go on a road-trip to “get the other half.”  While on their quest, they are pursued by their mother Laurel with the help of a manticore (Octavia Spencer) and her (their mother’s) new boyfriend, centaur Colt Bronco (Mel Rodriguez).

 

Light-hearted, filled with warmth and wildly imaginative, ‘Onward’ is brimming with geek-chic and 1980’s-style nostalgia.  It’s also ultimately about brotherly love and family, told through likeable and relatable animated characters inhabiting a colorful and wondrously immersive CG-rendered fantasy world.  Like the Harry Potter movies, I find this film hard to resist.

 

Grade: A

 

Disposable Labor

Perhaps it is only inevitable (and some might even say appropriate) that, in our current climate of irreconcilable contentiousness on the deeply divided issue of immigration, a movie like ‘Beneath Us’ would emerge as political statement thinly disguised as entertainment.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  In fact, you could say it’s even “trendy” nowadays considering the critical and commercial success of recent South Korean Oscar winner ‘Parasite,’ which brought the contrast of the “Haves” and “Have Nots” into sharp relief.

 

The premise of ‘Beneath Us’ is brutally simple and should be all-too-familiar to those of us who have ever made hardware runs at a Home Depot.  Outside of these hardware stores are gaggles of Latino “Day Laborers,” who would offer to do the heavy-lifting for a pittance compared to what normal by-the-book handymen would charge.  Supposedly entire homes have been built on the backs of these (oftentimes) illegal immigrants.  ‘Beneath Us’ is the nightmarish (as in horror movie) tale of how one such group of immigrants including two brothers were exploited by an evil white house-flipping couple (played by Lynn Collins and James Tupper) and, after their services were rendered, disposed of as nothing more than trash.

 

‘Beneath Us’ could be classified as “torture porn/revenge thriller,” the former due to the sadism of the white couple and the latter because they ultimately got their expected comeuppance.  It’s a run-of-the-mill thriller that offered little new outside of its trappings and not nearly as riveting as the similarly themed 2015 Jonas Cuaron survival thriller, ‘Desierto.’ Nonetheless, it is a serviceable horror thriller in our times.

 

Grade: B-
 

The Hollow Man

Like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Mummy, H.G. Wells’ “The Invisible Man” is a vintage classic Hollywood monster that has spawned numerous film adaptations, whether they’re more-or-less straight remakes or new twists on the concept.  Since the original B&W 1933 film featuring the bandage-and-dark glasses wearing character, Hollywood has been continuously fascinated with “the man who can’t be seen” over the years, mostly as a perfect killer who can get away with murder.

 

Genre veteran Leigh Whannell’s latest iteration of ‘The Invisible Man’ is seemingly no different, at least on the surface.  However, he was savvy enough to center his story not on the invisible man himself but on Cecilia (“Handmaid” Elizabeth Moss), his terrorized and abused wife who thought she had escaped him for good after he reportedly committed suicide.  Except he faked his own death (no spoiler here since it was suggested in the movie’s trailer) and used his newfound freedom and invisibility to gaslight and terrorize her further in a sadistic attempt to drive her cuckoo for cocoa puffs and frame her for murder.

 

Amazingly enough, while the new ‘The Invisible Man’ is derivative and offered little in the way of plot surprises and twists, it possesses enough freshness, scares and suspense for an enjoyable and entertaining viewing experience.  Much of this had to do with the underrated but talented Moss who, as the film progressed, exuded a feminine vulnerability, fearful desperation, wild-eyed manic intensity and “I’ve got nothing left to lose” determination in her role as the film’s compelling protagonist.

 

Grade: A 

 

Lodge Fever

Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala’s indie psychological chiller, ‘The Lodge,’ is one of those slow-burning, or rather I should say slow-freezing character-driven thrillers that makes great water cooler conversation the morning after.  Low budget indie films like this usually don’t get to see the light of day beyond direct-to-DVD and streaming services but I’m glad that, after a year since it debuted at Sundance in 2019, I finally got a chance to see it at my local 20-screen megaplex.

 

‘The Lodge’ is the tale of two siblings, a boy and a girl who, like so many other American children, suffered through the tragedy of parental divorce.  To compound this tragedy, the mother (played by “Clueless” Alicia Silverstone – where have she been?) didn’t handle it well (understatement of the century) and ate a bullet, which understandably if not justifiably caused the children to direct their resentment towards the perceived cause, the “other woman,” in this case a cult survivor named Grace played by Riley Keough, aka the grand-daughter of Elvis.  So when the kids were forced to spend a Xmas holiday at a cozy but remote lodge on the frozen tundra of Massachusetts to “get to know their new mom” better and the dad was unexpectedly called away by work, just what possibly could go wrong?

 

Riveting, engrossing and deeply suspenseful, ‘The Lodge’ relies on atmosphere and a creeping sense of unease to build towards its inevitable climax.  A throwback and homage to Dario Argento and the Italian "Giallo" genre of the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, ‘The Lodge’ will no doubt “lodge” (pun intended) itself uncomfortably in the dark recesses of your mind and under your skin long after the final credits have rolled.

 

Grade: A

 

Short Takes

A dramedy and a couple more horror flicks.  Yawn.

 

The Boy is Back

Despite largely negative reviews from the critics and lukewarm feedback from moviegoers, 2016’s boy-playing-with-doll horror flick ‘The Boy’ recouped its meager $10 million budget nearly seven-fold and earned a sequel (big surprise).  ‘Brahms: The Boy II’ picks up the story as an unwitting new family looking for some peace and quiet in the countryside after a traumatic event stumbled upon the creepy pale vintage porcelain doll, since repaired after it was “destroyed” in the original.  Alas, ‘Brahms’ is but the latest low-rent horror flick that failed to scare or interest us during these dog days of February.

Grade: D

 

Dark Fantasy Island 

While I probably watched more episodes of this soapy '80's TV show starring Ricardo Montalbán and (the plane, the plane!) Hervé Villechaize than I care to admit, Blumhouse Production’s horror spin on ‘Fantasy Island’ is an ill-conceived bloody mess of a movie.  The story follows five mostly good-looking young fantasy-seekers (Maggie Q being the oldest among them) as they live out their fantasies to the inevitable end, for better or worse, as Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña, who’s no Ricardo Montalbán) warns them upon their arrival.  All is well and good until things go horribly awry and the fantasies devolve into nightmares, culminating with a head-scratching twist at the end involving Lucy Hale's character that makes us want to pull our hair out and scream in helpless frustration.

 
Grade: D

Going ‘Downhill’

Love (or rather, marriage) is on the rocks (going downhill) in this quirky dramedy starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a middle-aged American couple on a ski trip in the Alps with their two kids, only to find their relationship sorely tested by an act of supreme cowardice on the part of Ferrell.  A remake of the 2014 Swedish film ‘Force Majeure’ (which I haven’t seen), ‘Downhill’ is a darkly funny yet somewhat uncomfortable viewing experience as we witness the gradual unraveling of a happy marriage amidst increasing doubt and awkwardness between Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus (and Ferrell and his two kids), casting a dark cloud on the family’s  future.  I’m more generous here than most critics probably because, not having seen the Swedish original, I have no frame of reference for comparison.

Grade: B

A Fantabulous Valentine Movie

Margot Robbie’s crazy yet charismatic scene-stealing turn as psychologist-turned-Joker’s sidekick Harley Quinn was just about the only thing that elevated and made 2016’s 'Suicide Squad' even remotely watchable, so when a 'Suicide Squad' sequel-spinoff centering on its best character was announced I was intrigued to say the least.  The spinoff, colorfully titled ‘Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’ (since rebranded simply as 'Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey') is nothing less than the playful anthem to kick-ass girl power we’ve all been waiting for.

‘Harley Quinn,' directed by first-time helmer Cathy Yan, follows our loveably kooky villain after she broke up with (okay, got unceremoniously dumped by) the Joker. Without the protection of the crown prince of madness, she’s now fair game for anyone who has grievances with her, which she lists extensively each time when faced with one of them, including the fact that she “voted for Bernie.”  Chief among them is Gotham crime lord Roman Sionis aka “Black Mask” (Ewan McGregor) and his sadistic right-hand man Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina), who’s after a diamond containing the bank accounts of the Bertinelli crime family (whom Sionis killed in a power grab) Harley gotten possession of from a wayward teen pick-pocket.  In order to survive, our pony-tailed protagonist must call on more than her wits, charm and nimble acrobatics alone, enlisting the aid of the "Birds of Prey," an ad-hoc group of female kick-assery including Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Black Canary (Jurnee-Smolett Bell) and disgraced GCPD detective Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez, I kid you not).

'Harley Quinn' is sassy and fun, largely thanks to yet another scene-stealing performance from the talented Aussie actress.  Robbie’s Harley Quinn is an eminently likeable caricature, a looney cartoonish odd-ball blend of Betty Boop, Jessica Rabbit and Marilyn Monroe.  Even in mortal peril, her Harley exudes playful innocence and a girl-just-wanna-have-fun insouciance that’s nigh irresistible.  Too bad the movie underperformed at the box office, because it really is both fantastic and fabulous.  Get it?

Grade: A

"Will you be my valentine?"