Wang! Bang! Pow!
What is the defining characteristic of humanity? What separates us from the rest? Is it compassion? Love? Pain? Fury? These are the questions many science fiction films have grappled with, from 2001 to last year’s Ex Machina. Morgan is the next in line.
Much of the tension in Morgan stems from Continue reading Morgan (2016) Movie Review
Game of Aces is a period piece that doesn’t suffer from that inescapable stench of the period piece. It isn’t stuffy with the air of a different time and place. Many times, a period piece drama, especially those centered around wartime, will have the distinct feel of a re-enactment: heavy-handed, taking itself too seriously, and yet still somehow superficial. Game of Aces, in spite of its clearly tight budget, gets by on its lighter tone.
The film begins anachronistic to this idea. “There is no pain,” a downed fighter pilot (Werner Daehn) whispers to himself as he Continue reading Game of Aces (2016) Movie Review
David Packouz (Miles Teller) is in his 20s and tired of getting pushed around: by retirement home owners who reject his fine linen get rich quick scheme and by naked massage clients that give him money in the meantime. Enter his junior high best friend Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill), a budding international arms dealer. Efraim plucks David from his mundane existence, and, as they work dirty arms dealing with governments, they quickly find themselves over their heads. And…movie.
War Dogs is a dark comedy from the director of The Hangover trilogy. It is, perhaps, a tale too dark for Continue reading War Dogs (2016) Movie Review
Don’t Breathe opens on an extreme long shot pushing in on a woman being dragged down the street by her hair in broad daylight. The woman is Rocky (Jane Levy), one third of a lowly thieving group. Some time before this inaugural shot, the trio decide to pull a seemingly simple heist on the house of a blind man (Stephen Lang) whose daughter was killed in a hit and run. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it appears.
The camera work in the film is appealing, almost surprisingly so. Long shots and agile movement contradict genre norms, at least through Continue reading Don’t Breathe (2016) Movie Review
Suicide Squad begins with a montage of exposition. More specifically, it begins with multiple montages of exposition. Deadshot (Will Smith) is exactly what he sounds like: a hitman who never misses. But he also has a chip on his shoulder because he was taken away from his daughter. Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) is an ex-doctor turned Joker (Jared Leto) sidekick. And then there are a couple other baddies thrown in for good measure.
The United States government’s goal is to use these villains to provide some checks and balances against superheroes who could turn against mankind. For whatever reason, they feel Continue reading Suicide Squad (2016) Movie Review
“Nerve” is a game of extreme sports and social media. The “players” film themselves doing a series of dares for money, and the more people watching them, the closer they are to being number one, a position that ironically guarantees nothing other than the empty stardom of fleeting viral attention.
Venus (Emma Roberts), a born watcher, throws caution to the wind for once in her life by becoming a player in the game. Nerve ropes her into Continue reading Nerve (2016) Movie Review
Batman: The Killing Joke begins with Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl (Tara Strong), stating in voiceover that she understands this isn’t the beginning you were expecting. This is because it’s not. The first frame of the iconic Alan Moore comic is of water thumping onto the pavement in the night, not a shot of the night’s sky. With this opening line, the film is keying the viewer into its extended opening, one that does not appear in the comic.
This opening has been cause for much controversy; why add to the tight story that is found in Moore’s version? The simple answer is that
Continue reading Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) Movie Review
Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) remembers. He remembers everything. He is also doing one of the things that he does most often: hiding. We see him as an underground fighter, ripped and captured in a lot of shots with lens flares.
Meanwhile, Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is hacking into the CIA to get documents on their covert operations; documents that include information on Bourne and his late father. When Parsons contacts Bourne, he has to Continue reading Jason Bourne (2016) Movie Review
In The Legend of Tarzan, Jane (Margot Robbie) and John Clayton (Alexander Skarsgard), aka Tarzan, return to the jungle years after Tarzan has acclimated to high class civilized life. The story of their relationship is told in flashbacks, where Tarzan is seen as a boy raised by apes and Jane as the daughter of an American teacher.
These flashbacks are shot with little care. Motion is blurred. Camera angles are distorted and displeasing to the eye. The color palette is drab and cold.
When slave traders led by Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz) steal Jane away, Tarzan ventures to save her. The narrative is simple, and thus not the crux of entertainment value to be found in this film. What the film is meant to provide instead is Continue reading The Legend of Tarzan (2016) Movie Review
On a Latin American beach, a young boy finds a helmet with a waterproof camera attached to it that depicts the brutal death of a surfer at the hands of a shark.
We then cut to an unnaturally high key-lit, lens flare-heavy jungle road in which Nancy (Blake Lively) is being driven to a beach, only to find that her surfing buddy has flaked on her. She decides to go out to sea on her own, though, given the sentimental value of the beach that she doesn’t know the name of.
This scene is shot like a dream sequence, but unintentionally. Lens flares and distortion caused by the angle of the camera on the car causes Continue reading The Shallows (2016) Movie Review
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