Sisterly Secrets
April 21, 2016
The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016).
D: Cedric Nicolas-Troyan. DP: Phedon Papamichael. W: Evan Spiliotopoulos and Craig Mazin. Starring: Charlize Theron/Chris Hemsworth/Emily Blunt/Jessica Chastain/Nick Frost/Rob Brydon/Sheridan Smith/Alexandra Roach/Sam Claflin/Sope Disiru.
Spring may be a time of renewal, a chance for the resurrection of the beauty of spring. Yet it can also be a time to clean out lives or ideas and see what else can still work together. In an effort to continue to capitalize on the fairy tale explosion of this decade, Universal brings us the new film The Huntsman: Winter’s War. It is as boring as its title suggests and should have been more amply titled: The Queens’ War.
Director Cedric Nicolas-Troyan hails from a visual effects background and was the second unit director on both Snow White and The Huntsman and Maleficent. An in house Universal project from start to finish, the film was (despite reports) clearly commissioned to work around the exclusion of Snow White, played by Kristen Stewart in the previous film. The Huntsman: Winter’s War is thus both a prequel and a sequel. It is constructed to introduce Freya (Emily Blunt) as Ravenna’s (Charlize Theron) sister before the first film’s events. Out of grief from the loss of her child Freya then creates her Huntsman army that includes Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and his lady huntsman equivalent Sarah (Jessica Chastain). The film then jumps seven years later to a point after Ravenna’s defeat at the hands of Snow White and Eric.
The central drama of the film surely lies with Ravenna and Freya. Blunt does well to make Freya fragile yet hard hearted. It is a testament to Blunt’s likability that I excuse her blind trustfulness of her sister, the story is far too simple anyway. Hemsworth physical presence still pounds through the screen, but he is not convincing as an emotional romantic lead. Chastain’s Scottish brogue is decent, but the pair don’t have memorable chemistry. They are all a bit too Hansel & Gretal: Witch Hunters for me. The film’s production values are probably more interesting that its actors; the visual effects get you through a flimsy script.
Oscar laden costume designer Colleen Atwood continues to do stunning work. In fact the most exquisite part of the production is her work. Ravenna’s gold dipped feather coat or Freya’s crystal heavy gown are simply breathtaking. Both women wear finger length rings that tap against the ice and stone fortresses they build. The concept of Freya’s icy power unfortunately seems a bit Elsa from Frozen, but Ravenna’s birth from the gold mirror and black tar oozing violence is fit for the dominating presence of Theron.
The Huntsman: Winter’s War has come under scrutiny for attempting to be a kind of feminist vehicle toting developed female characters but failing. Sadly each character is defined by a lack of love of a man or a child. Ravenna speaks of being destined for something else, but not without recognizing her initial desire for motherhood. Her quest for power comes from vanity she sees reflected in her beloved mirror. Her vanity pushes her to build an empire, nothing more. The film ultimately becomes a love drenched cheese fest that falls short of the more beguiling Maleficent.
Women on the Verge
April 20, 2016
The first trailer from Universal Pictures has dropped for the film adaptation of Paula Hawkins’ novel The Girl on the Train. Directed by Tate Taylor (The Help, Get on Up) and re-located to New York City (the novel was set in London), the film stars Emily Blunt as alcoholic Rachel Watson whose intrigue into the lives of others unravels her messy life. The film releases on October 7th and the trailer gets the full Gone Girl wash complete with a Kanye West song. The novel is not up to Gillian Flynn’s book, but perhaps it might make a good film. We shall see!
The Girl on the Train
Not Another Hitman
October 17, 2015
Sicario (2015).
D: Denis Villeneuve. DP: Roger Deakins. W: Taylor Sheridan. Starring: Emily Blunt/Josh Brolin/Benicio Del Toro/Victor Garber/Jon Bernthal/Daniel Kaluuya/Jeffrey Donovan/Maximiliano Hernández.
As London Film Festival comes to a close this weekend there is still plenty to see out in theaters. Sicario is the next installment in movies about the Mexican/American border cartel crisis, but it’s not what it seems. Rather it follows FBI kidnapping crisis leader Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) as she’s roped into a border crossing mission that has her out of the loop and into the line of fire.
Veteran cinematographer Roger Deakins whose responsible for so many favorites (Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, A Beautiful Mind, Skyfall) is in full command here. Aerial shots and thermal cameras work with long shots to create an aura of surveillance and threat. Yet the character connections are not lost on camera either. Deakins pulls us into Kate’s world, but never relies on extreme close ups to deliver the punch.
Working for the second time together, Deakins and Canadian director Denis Villeneuve are slated to work on the Blade Runner reboot. Villeneuve’s mind cringing film Enemy might make you say WHAT? when it’s over, but it’s better handled than his child snatching who-dun-it Prisoners. Clear in both of these film, as well as Sicario, is good acting. No one in Sicario plays anything over the top, rather disgust and confusion help build suspense. Suspense that is fantastically illuminated by Jóhann Jóhhannsson’s score. He won a Golden Globe last year for scoring The Theory of Everything, but this time the score reverberates through the seats building the most beautiful dread.
Blunt straps on Kate’s glock quite well, she is believable as an FBI buster but with less guts than her role in Edge of Tomorrow. Blunt’s relate-ability doesn’t come across as ordinariness rather she is everyone and herself at the same time. In other words, she is able to encourage the audience to root for her and identify with her, but never loses her singularity. Benicio Del Toro’s sexy-weird-creepy-silent Alejandro grounds the film’s nebulousness giving the violence a grim reaper sheen to it. Daniel Kaluuya is nice as her partner and Jon Bernthal’s small role is well crafted.
Sicario feels fresh because it’s a hitman movie not about the hitman. There are small flaws in the scripts, a few cheats and tricks that you can see coming. In line with the feminism in Hollywood hot topic debate of late it is nice to see a female led action film that brings depth, Blunt continues to make good choices. Overall it’s a solid film built around character rather than action, we shall see what this duo can do with Blade Runner.
Singing Sondheim with Success
January 11, 2015
Into the Woods (2014).
D: Rob Marshall. W: James Lapine. DP: Dion Beebe. Starring: Meryl Streep/Emily Blunt/James Corden/Johnny Depp/Anna Kendrick/Chris Pine/Lilla Crawford/Tracey Ullman/Daniel Huttlestone/Christine Baranski/Billy Magnussen/Mackenzie Mauzy/Lucy Punch/Tammy Blanchard. (Based on Stephen Sondheim’s 1987 musical of the same name)
The musical genre has been struggling for a comeback for the last decade. Since 2002’s Oscar winning Chicago, filmmakers and studios have been chasing that same success. Yes 2008’s Mamma Mia made the big bucks, but 2012’s Les Miserables dragged us through three hours of labor and drama. Into the Woods joins a difficult cannon, but I am happy to say it does its Broadway mother justice.
Director Rob Marshall, responsible for both 2009’s Nine and Chicago, is clearly in his element here. Cinematographer Dion Beebe (Edge of Tomorrow) is at his aid again, they worked on both previous musicals together. The pair give space to their actors and thankfully, do not let the camera linger on reaction shots. The entire film has a fantastic sense of space and gives magic to its story without abandoning all realism.
There is definitely a bit of Disney gloss happening here. With a PG rating it is implied that the darker elements of the musical would be toned down, especially with the implications of the Wolf’s song, ‘Hello Little Girl.’ However, Johnny Depp is delicious as The Wolf and the Rat Pack vibe the song is given is simply pure fun. The deaths are also moved off screen and certain story lines are nipped and tucked to clearly fit this ratings margin. By no means is Into the Woods a disappointment for it, but it does change the overall palette of the project, especially the humor. Mostly this is aggravating as regardless, the film to me, is still for adults.
There is also some merging of characters, omissions of songs, and the on stage narrator now is serviced through the Baker’s (James Corden) voiceover. Luckily this voiceover does not inhibit the pacing of the film, though one or two times it feels repetitive. Despite all that Into the Woods pulls stellar performances out of the entire ensemble. The standouts are of course Meryl Streep’s Witch whose costumes (supremely done by Colleen Atwood) and make up merely enhance a fun, dynamic delivery. Chris Pine as Cinderella’s Prince oozes glorious giggle inducing charm with his duet with Rapuzel’s Prince (Billy Magnussen) a highlight, as it is in the show. I am very sad the reprise was cut. The youngsters Lilla Crawford and Daniel Huttlestone are excellent and hold their own with big solos. Emily Blunt’s Baker’s wife is great opposite Corden and Anna Kendrick does well as Cinderella, singing in a very difficult key. Lucy Punch steals a huge laugh as one of Cinderella’s step sisters, still waiting for someone to give her a bigger shot.
Into the Woods is overall an enjoyable addition to the musical genre. The first half is definitely stronger than the second, as it is in the show, but James Lapine adapts his work well. Stephen Sondheim’s music and lyrics actually works well on screen as his walk and sings balance the big numbers with character development. And what happens after ‘ever after’ is so on trend right now its ridiculous. But as a musical lover I couldn’t stop smiling and that is a beautiful thing.
Yesterday’s Story
July 13, 2014
Edge of Tomorrow (2014).
D: Doug Liman. DP: Dion Beebe. W: Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth (based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka’s novel All You Need Is Kill.) Starring: Tom Cruise/Emily Blunt/Brendan Gleeson/Bill Paxton/Jonas Armstrong/Tony Way/Kick Gurry/Charlotte Riley/Noah Taylor/Franz Drameh/Dragomir Mrsic/Masayoshi Haneda.
The new edition in the Tom Cruise canon of movies has arrived. Edge of Tomorrow is a slick, large scale sci-fi flick that steals as much as it repeats old ideas. It certainly is thin competition to this year’s heavy summer lineup.
This time we find Tom Cruise as Cage, a wide grinned all American looking boy selling the army and all its bells whistles. Finding himself coerced into combat he makes it to his first mission and wakes up to repeat it all again. Soon Cruise discovers that Emily Blunt’s Rita, the poster gal of this new war on aliens, is the key to Cruise’s mission. Every time he dies he is sent back to the same day only to have to find her again and try to stop the massive attack or navigate their way through it.
Blunt is terse and believable here. Her no-nonsense practicality helps them coordinate their attack and offers a good counter to Cruise’s Cage. At least she is spared a romantic sub plot we’d have to grin and bear. One can’t help but wonder how much better of a film it would be if she was the true lead.
My problem with any Tom Cruise film of the last decade or so is his brand sort of acting. You walk into the theater knowing and/or expecting a certain and same performance from him. This performance is rarely creative, layered or of any great depth. His films of note for me are good regardless of his performance. However, this sort of generic delivery works well in an international market and is clearly a bankable product. But that is exactly what it feels like, a product. In Edge of Tomorrow his sparkly grin and physical approach to acting, like stunts come to life, actually works. Also, his Peter Pan esq or never changing looks help trap Cage visually in his perpetual time warp.
Edge of Tomorrow suffers as its core because the premise is so overdone in cinema. From 1993’s Groundhog Day to 2011’s Source Code there are too many films about the repetition of a day or alternating time lines that are more original (case in point 2000’s Memento). As a science fiction film its also a bit of a snooze, but with great bells and whistles. A gorgeous shot of London’s Trafalgar Square empty begins the film and there are beautiful sequences of action. But in the end the charm and wit of the first act is not sustained and the plot is eaten alive by the very aliens that are central to the story.
Mind the Gap
October 3, 2012
Looper (2012)
D/W: Rian Johnson. DP: Steve Yedlin. Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Bruce Willis/Emily Blunt/Paul Dano/Noah Segan/Piper Perabo/Jeff Daniels/ Pierce Gagnon/Tracie Thomas/Frank Brennan/Garret Dillahunt.
The young Bruce Willis has arrived! Well, wait, it’s the uber talented Joseph Gordon-Levitt playing a young Bruce Willis. Or should Willis be playing an older Gordon-Levitt? Gordon-Levitt’s character is the protagonist right? Damn it, well, I guess the fake nose clears things up. Or does it?
Director and screenwriter, Rain Johnson, once again collaborates with actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt for Johnson’s third feature, Looper. The pair first worked together on Johnson’s debut film, 2005’s Brick. Although not overwhelmingly impressed with Brick, Johnson’s clear command of his story elements and visual world are even stronger in Looper. The film never slows down and this pace forces the script to tie up every loose end (even how injuries work on future selves). And it is this succinctness and successful balancing of action, suspense, intrigue, drama and science-fiction that is not only catapulting the film through the box office, but into critical notice.
Looper is set in the future when time travel has not yet been invented, but everyone knows it will be and everything’s goes to the dogs anyway. In future of this future (haha) time travel has apparently been invented. However, certain people in the future future cannot dispel of their own dirty dead body laundry. So with the use of their fancy illegal hidden machine, future future crime lords send their sentenced bodies back in time to be shot, bagged, and disposed of by our future. These are the loopers. Given that name because, well let’s face it, any job that revolves around killing and dispensing has an expiration date. Eventually the loopers will have to “close the loop” and kill their own future selves. If this premise alone doesn’t get you to the movie, shame on you.
Of course this set up comes with a few hiccups. Current looper Joe (Gordon-Levitt) dabbles in expensive satiated boredom, hoards his money, and seemingly prepares for his future happy days outside of no-where America. However, when his friend Seth (Paul Dano) is unable to close his loop and suffers for it, Gordon-Levitt semi-awakes from his stupor. Gordon-Levitt is great here, he’s charismatic without being predictable. His Joe is the right amount of conflicted, unsatisfied and smug to, you got it, eventually be his older self played by Bruce Willis. The only jarring thing is Gordon-Levitt’s prosthetic that attempts to match his profile to Willis’. How annoying this will be will depend entirely on the movie-goer, for me, frankly, after the first half hour I let it go as I was so engrossed. I do not think the prosthetic was necessary as there was so much suspension of belief anyway and audiences have spent decades believing people were related or older/younger versions when consciously they new they were not. Thankfully, it doesn’t taint Looper, nor does it help it though.
Willis is excellent here too and helps to ground the action through his seasoned bravado. His scenes with Gordon-Levitt are not hockey and only give the audience a few gimmicks to get a laugh between so much action and drama. Emily Blunt helps to support the two men in her latter half role as a farm working mother with a Southern twang. However, it is Pierce Gagnon who plays her son Sid that easily steals the film. Nothing can be revealed about his purpose, but truth me told the second half of Looper is all his.
My only grievance is that parts of the voice-over get a bit repetitious and yank you out of the rich world of the film. With its excellent pacing, great camera-work and some memorable uses of slow-motion, Looper didn’t need the crutch of that voice-over. Yet, regardless, it’s a wild ride and one that gives you as many answers as it can so you will leave satisfied, and yes, pumped up for more.