The Colony

Jeff Renfroe, 2013

IMDB

2/5

We are now reaching an age where the dystopian film genre is saturated - and there are a handful of just plain shitty ones. The special effects are no longer an issue. They can be created on the cheap. It's the execution of a dystopian narrative. It has to be fresh. The Colony is in no way refreshing. The Colony feels like a film very envious of it's better neighboring films. It even struggles with identity. It's almost as if Renfroe struggled throughout the film on whether or not the villainous forces were cannibals or zombies. Mortal vs. immortal confusion. But both concepts are a lost cause. If he were to somehow make it a zombie film where a virus was released in an apocalyptic Ice Age - we would be sitting here talking about how far fetched and campy the film is. If they are clear cut cannibals, we would probably be talking about how it's a weak premise that never succeeds in its attempt to sustain quality storytelling. But the struggle with what the villains actually are not the only problem with this film. There are many problems. The Colony is misguided, not really using good actors like Fishburne and the late Paxton well. Not so great script here, not such great direction. If you really want to watch a better ominous forces in the snow film, just watch 30 Days of Night. At least there you know you are dealing with vampires and there is no confusion as to WHAT they are.

The Jungle Book

Jon Favreau, 2016

IMDB

2/5

Before I ramble about all of the ways in which the Jungle Book failed to wow me, I need to point out something. I am not a non-believer in CGI-heavy film. Seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D was one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of my lifetime. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is my Star Wars in terms of it's immersive world-building and how I just want to live inside of it. I didn't even have that much of a problem with the copy-and-paste army in the Battle of Five Armies.

So going into The Jungle Book, a movie in an almost entirely CGI constructed world, I went in with an open mind and with open eyes. I am a supporter of Favreau, who has really contributed some solid films in his career. Elf, the first two Iron Man films, Chef are all well-made films. But now he is taking this direction in his career that almost feels Tim Burton like by "re-imagining" classic Disney favorites. After making this film - they are of course going to continue to wring out the proverbial sponge by having Favreau direct a Jungle Book sequel. But they are also employing him to direct a live action reboot of The Lion King. Nothing is untouched these days.

I wanted this movie to be great and impactful, especially being someone that grew up with the original animated version. I sat watching and kept waiting for it to hit me. Waiting and waiting. I realized by the mid-point that it likely wasn't going to happen. For whatever reason I wasn't ever able to make an emotional connection to anything on screen. Was it the abundance of CGI? I am not sure, because the animals all look amazing. But Life of Pi had one CGI Tiger and I was totally on board with the film emotionally.

It was a delight to see veteran actors like Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley and Christopher Walken provide the voices for Baloo, Bagheera and King Louie. But it didn't elevate the movie from more than just good grabs. Shere Kahn left more to be desired in a villain. He wasn't nearly as ruthless as he should have been. He didn't have that despicable nature to him as say, Scar in the Lion King. While Neel Sethi deserves some credit for working hard in front of a green screen, he wasn't exactly the next Jacob Tremblay (Room) with his performance as Mowgli. The best sequence in the film by far is the sequence in The Monkey City with King Louie. But the climax was just underwhelming and it just didn't feel like the stakes were high enough. Like the rest of the movie, it just seemed to run through the motions without ever being too significant.

Don't Breathe

Fede Alvarez, 2016

IMDB

2/5

Don't Breathe has the problems that so many of the horror thrillers have that are churned out these days. Starting off with an unrealistic grouping of people. You have beautiful girl Rocky (Jane Levy) who is supposed to be trailer trash but doesn't look like the product of any trailer park anyone's ever seen before. You have straight clean cut Alex (Dylan Minnette) who it just so happens that his father works at the alarm company so he has the master key to every customers house they rob. Then you have dirtbag kid Money (Daniel Zovatto) with the vulgar mouth who is the romantic interest of the trailer girl. The chemistry on screen matches the believability of the couple. Zovatto was really great in last year's It Follows, but is awfully miscast here. Certainly not his fault. The Money character is just downright annoying and one dimensional.

For a while they are burglarizing homes and staying under a $10K theshold - so that if they get caught they can't be charged with grand larceny. Then they hear about a house owned by a blind man that is rumored to have $300,000 in cash. This money was obtained through a settlement after his daughter was killed in a car accident. They look at this job as their big opportunity, the one that they have been waiting for. The last job. With this money Rocky and Money can go to California together. it's their ticket out of Detroit.

So they descend upon the house. But I had forgotten to mention that the blind man is a decorated army vet. But of course the trio doesn't care. It's not like being in the Army prepares you for any type of combat situation; oh WAIT that's exactly what it does. Oh yeah, and when you are blind all of your other senses are heightened. To the films credit, some of the moments inside the house are tense. Reminiscent of Hitchcock's work. The concept of burglarizing a blind man's home and him putting up a fight is actually quite original and intriguing. Alvarez should get some credit for good direction but some criticism for such a weak script. First off, you are supposed to believe that the only reason Alex is really helping them is because he has a crush on Rocky. Otherwise, there is no single reason he would get involved. He's a normal middle class kid who would have no reason to get mixed up with the other two. This makes Alex less greedy than them, and when things start to turn south he bails on the blind man's house. But he hears gunshots and comes back. How many times are we going to let the hero return to the house in horror movies? It's not much different than running up the stairs. Oh yeah, that happens here too. If you were in a blind man's house and you were trying to disorient him to escape, instead of running couldn't you just throw things all around and confuse him? What also needs to be mentioned is this house is located in a completely abandoned section of Detroit which conveniently creates a situation where there is no police presence. So this takes care of that constant gun shots being fired problem that might draw attention.

Don't Breathe is a disappointment. Last year's It Follows taught us that some creative horror films can come out of nowhere where new things can be done. After seeing all of the positive reviews related to this film I thought this could have been this years It Follows. Boy was I mistaken.



There is a reveal about 3/4 of the way through the film that I have to acknowledge. But this is borderline spoiler material so read on at your own risk.

The Invitation

Karyn Kusama, 2016

IMDB

2/5

Do you know that feeling when you go to a restaurant and you are totally hungry and eager for some food. You sit down and order your food, only to wait another 1 hour and 20 minutes to actually be served? Well, in a sense that's what this film is like. The table is set early, as a group of friends gather for a dinner party. They haven't seen each other in 2 years. You slowly are served little tiny pieces of backstory. There was a divorce between main character Will (Logan Marshall-Green) and Eden (Tammy Blanchard). You soon find out why, and its important to hold back details here because it's an easy film to spoil. But she has changed to say the least. Will doesn't like this change. Because she appears to be numb, to be drugged up somehow or in some kind of trance. So after the figurative table is set, you are now waiting to see why they are there at this party. And you wait, and then there is some more waiting, and then you wait some more. Finally there is a payoff in this film, but it just comes too late. There is clearly not enough story here to create an elaborate film. There's the Hitchcockian method of skillfully building tension and then releasing it masterfully. Then there's this more elementary method of relying too much on that very tension and then not offering up enough when it is released. When the big revelation comes toward the end, there's not a whole lot of shock. Then the film just becomes gratuitous. Frustrating. None of the characters other than Will are really believable characters. Nobody you would encounter in real life. In any real life situation everyone would have walked out and left after they were forced to watch the awkward cult video. Perhaps its the weak script. Perhaps its the inconsistent casting choices. Marshall Green and Michiel Huisman offer good performances but the rest of the cast is just kind of blah. I think the script and inferior direction is to blame here. But there is one redeeming factor in this film.  There is a detail in the end of the film that is quite clever. Clever enough that you could say that this is one of the rare Bad Movies with Good Endings. 

The Shallows

Jaume Collet-Serra, 2016

IMDB

2/5

The shark attack genre is a genre completely saturated with ridiculous premises and generous usage of CGI. Oddly enough at the top of the genre is Jaws, but it's the gold standard. There's a big drop off from there. Nothing has really come close to topping Spielberg's masterpiece that caused an entire generation of kids to be afraid of the ocean. While there is one great Jaws film and three forgettable sequels, there are 4 probably forgettable (wouldn't know, haven't seen them nor do I plan on seeing) Sharknado movies. And then we have Shark Night, Ghost Shark, Shark in Venice, and what feels like a thousand other B-Movies. What separates Jaws from the others is the craftiness of suspense-building, playing with multiple senses and not just throwing visual carnage at your face. Often these movies just take a shark and exaggerate all of the natural behaviors, ultimately making it a bloodthirsty beast that just so happens to look like a shark and live in the water.

The shark in The Shallows is no exception. The shark appears after Nancy (Blake Lively) approaches a dead whale while surfing nearby. This in turn causes the shark to become agitated and eager to defend it's feeding site. Your bullshit detectors should go off here, because one would assume that the shark would just be happy enough with the giant floating meal that is already right there for the taking rather than chase after a much smaller meal that would be more difficult to obtain.

Nancy is able to escape the attack and finds a short term refuge on top of a rock. The film then becomes a limited storytelling piece of Nancy trying to figure out how to get to shore with very little resources and one heck of a shark bite on her leg. She conveniently has a medical school past that helps her in dressing the wound. For what it is, it's not a completely horrible film that wastes 90 minutes of your life. Lively is totally serviceable with her Nancy character and does the best that can probably be done with the character. The cinematography is rather good, along with the editing. The Shallows is not breaking any new ground, but to cut it some slack, it's not really supposed to. Like a slice of decent pizza, it goes down easy enough.

The Last Days on Mars

Ruairi Robinson, 2013

IMDB

2/5

On paper, The Last Days on Mars is a movie that I probably should have liked more than I did. A group of space explorers, led by Vincent Campbell (Liev Schreiber), stumbles upon an organic microbe on Mars that infects the astronauts and basically turns them into space zombies. Just the idea of space zombies is great. Not done a lot, a variation from the saturated horror sub-genre.

But Last Days is a film that's just lacking. Definitely not from a production standpoint. It's always amazing how, even bad space movies, always seem to have really elaborate production design. The spaceship and it's surrounding areas looks and feels authentic. You never are thinking that it's just a group of actors in space-suits sweating their asses off in a desert in Jordan (where it was actually filmed). You discover that their clock has basically run out on their mission, leaving them with an experience but with nothing really tangible in terms of a monumental discovery. This displeases them, particularly Kim (Olivia Williams). She was clearly hoping to be one of the explorers to really find something to bring back to planet earth. Something that would give them immortal status in the science world. When Marko (Goran Kostic) discovers microscopic life in the lab, he secretly dips out to get more samples. At this point the film really has you locked in, eagerly awaiting to see what is in the petri dish.

But the film becomes a far cry from Alien. Weak script is really to blame. This is a group of scientists, and nothing that ever really comes out of their mouth feels very scientific. When Vincent is lowering himself into a sinkhole, he sees some stalagmites. You would think his assessment of the organic matter would solicit some intelligent response, but instead he says something along the lines of "whatever it is, it's alive". Oh wow. Even Avatar managed to provide significantly more sophisticated dialogue when you were in that alien world. The film never manages to carve out it's own niche. It just becomes another horror film of the scary thing picking everyone off without any twists and turns. The film does manage to weave together an interesting conclusion. This is definitely a film that could be added to a list called "Bad movies that could have good sequels".

The Walk

Robert Zemeckis, 2015

IMDB

2/5

Robert Zemeckis has had a long career of directing unique / interesting films that have a lasting impact. Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Death Becomes Her, Forrest Gump, Contact, Cast Away.. the list goes on. So much of his work is open for multiple viewings. So for me personally, he’s someone who I will see everything he does.

His latest work is a biopic of famed wire-walker Philippe Petit. Petit gained recognition for his daring stunt when he walked on wire between the two Twin Towers shortly after their construction in 1974. The stunt was the focus of the popular 2008 documentary Man on Wire. So going into the film you already know that it’s going to be a period piece / computer-generated simulation of the event, seeing as virtually everyone on Earth is aware that the Towers are no longer in existence. The casting of Joseph Gordon Levitt is welcomed, seeing as he is one of the more consistent modern working actors. 

But The Walk isn’t able to maintain that lasting impression that Zemeckis’ other films do. It’s a CGI-scape filled poor accents and not enough substance. First off, the Petit character comes off a purely arrogant, selfish man who doesn’t appreciate the people around him. One of which is girlfriend Annie (Charlotte Le Bon) who is nothing more than a extension of Petit’s huge ego. She, like the other partners, are barely allowed to show any identity. Petit is a person with tunnel vision. He cares about nothing more than walking the wire and making the front page. So you are forced to spend a great deal of time with someone who is really not all that like-able and challenging to become invested in. The only redeeming qualities of Petit’s character is really Levitt’s natural charm that sneaks through. 

It becomes obvious that the only real reward of the film is going to be his inevitable wire-walk in the end. At that point it’s just frankly hard to believe that Levitt is suspended above anything but a green screen. And his defiant back and forth across the wire while the police wait anxiously on both buildings actually feels dragged out and aggravating. Not to take away from the quality of the effects. It's quite amazing that buildings like the Twin Towers can be so beautifully reconstructed on film. It all looks real, no doubt about that. The cars below, the 1970's Manhattan skyline, the ant-sized cars slowly moving 100 stories below. Maybe it's the fact that the buildings themselves cause such an visceral reaction because of their historical importance, that it's difficult to the trick the mind into believing what you are seeing - specifically with those buildings. It’s understandable that Zemeckis would be interested in making the picture because it’s certainly an interesting story. But maybe it’s better preserved in the documentary category.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints

David Lowery, 2013

IMDB

2/5

On paper the idea of a southern rom-dram starring Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara is interesting. The two, both accomplished actors, have been part of some of the best films to come out within the past twenty years. Affleck himself has played the criminal on the run before, in the very much under-rated The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He's certainly playing a cousin of his Robert Ford character, an elusive untrustworthy soft-speaking figure that has hints of innocence behind obvious youthful naivete. But there is a vast difference between Ain't them Bodies and Jesse James. Bodies is basically a game of cat and mouse with a ticking clock. Bob Muldoon (Affleck), after many attempts of escaping prison, has finally managed to escape and very predictably is planning reuniting with his love Ruth (Mara). Their early moments spent together on screen were the two of them participating in a very Bonnie & Clyde-like excursion. One that left one of their partners in crime dead and an officer shot. Pregnant Ruth is spared prosecution while Bob takes the fall and gets the book thrown at him. The people around Ruth figure that having the child and being separated from Bob will be a good opportunity for her to have a normal life that doesn't involve criminal acts. Standing in between the pairs fateful reunion is father figure / neighbor Skerritt (Keith Carradine) and local cop Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster).

It's a story that doesn't feel all that gripping or even original for that matter. It feels like a dull whispery drama that could have been something better. The Bob character doesn't really feel like a character worth getting behind. Their love together never really feels like much more than a lot of young body rubbing that inadvertently created a little daughter. Mara, who probably provides the most compelling performance in the film, is not much more than a woman that is mired in indecision on whether or not to be the reformed mother or continue to like the bad boys. The dim lighting, the cold aluminum siding, the shadow-ridden barn that Bob hides in, are all failed attempts at creating any visual impressions. Bodies is a forgettable picture that doesn't hide it's admiration for Bonnie and Clyde but completely lacks the greatness of it.

Pressure

Ron Scalpello, 2015

IMDB

2/5

Scalpello's deep sea survival piece feels very much like a blend of All is Lost and Gravity in terms of concept. Basically the entire film is set in the tight pod that houses a crew of men who were sent 700 ft below the surface to repair a pipeline. After rough seas force them to abandon their duties and return to their ship, they learn that their base ship has perished in a storm above them. The limited oxygen in the ship creates a figurative life-clock that they constantly monitor. Their distress beacon can be dispatched but may not have a wide enough range to help them. Even the pressure levels at their depth can create big problems for them. The deep ocean elements basically create a situation that very much feels like being lost in space. They can't exit their vessel without enduring the harsh exterior elements. They have little to no connection with the outside world. Perhaps it's a bit more daunting than being stuck in space, because there are literally just a few hundred feet below the surface of the water right here on Earth.

To the film's credit, the struggle between the men is moderately compelling. The look of worry on their faces, and the challenges that are in front of them are enough to draw some sympathy. But there's something lacking in the film that pushes it lower in the ranks of the really good survival pictures. It's because of lack of story. You are forced to spend 90 minutes in panic with the group that you really don't know much about. You don't know anything about their lives above the surface. We aren't ever really given much backstory, other than in the form of abstract flashbacks that are more confusing than revealing. It's certainly a nice looking deep sea movie with impressive set design. But it just scratches the surface of a really good ocean movie, making it feel more Open Water than 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

You're Next

Adam Wingard, 2011

IMDB

2/5

In an age of mediocre horror films about the group of people stuck in the house with the attacker outside, You're Next fits right in without standing out a whole lot. It starts off by playing with the oh-so-common dysfunctional family dynamic and instead of doing something artful or unique with it, it just decides to keep it simple. It's guilty of relying on slasher conventions and ultimately comes off as an uninventive, wasteful affluenza story. It's dumbed down, it panders to the popcorn-gobbling horror audiences. It's a shame, because indie-lovers see mumblecore harbinger Swanberg on the screen and hope for something creative. But it's just an odd placement for Swanberg, where he is confined to playing the douchey brother consumed by bitter exchanges with his brother. To be fair, the camera work is actually quite good. The performances are just okay, acceptable and probably above-average for the genre. The story is the real destroyer. It even disappoints in the final moments of the film, where the credits could roll right after a phone pickup, and instead of doing that the story drags on for another ten minutes. Movies like this almost feel like a group of twenty-somethings found a bag of unique masks in a flea market somewhere and decided to make a horror movie. If this movie gives you anything to walk away with, it's a reoccurring song that will be stuck in your head for hours.

Slow West

John Maclean, 2015

IMDB

2/5

The best way to describe Slow West is to call it a simple love story set in the American West. Undoubtedly guilty of being too light on story, you spend a good portion of the film in a tracking shot as Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and Silas (Michael Fassbender) stroll across the western landscape (which is really amazingly beautiful New Zealand) on horseback. You are treated to flashbacks of McPhee and his love Rose (Caren Pistorius), who were separated in their native Scotland after a freak death forced them to flee the country to seek refuge in America.

Sometimes, quite often actually, the whole style over substance thing can work. But here it does feel like the film could have used a more colorful script. Especially with the level of acting involved. The story is too undeveloped for the actors. Fassbender, McPhee and Mendelsohn all have a lot more to offer and the empty script doesn't really provide them with the vessel to do so. Because of this, the film is more of a visual showcase. Good example of a film that you could follow with the volume completely down. And once again, sometimes that even says a lot for a film. But here it's more of a disappointing factor.

The flashbacks actually feel kind of forced. There are never any real moments where you look back and are fully invested in the love between Jay and Rose. When they are sitting next to each other, it feels like they were instructed to sit next to each other. Not a whole lot of chemistry. The most compelling part of the film is certainly the climax, with a very traditional Western-style gunfight. Not a lot of big moments leading up to that point. Slow West is a good movie if you are comfortable enough spending 90 minutes on horseback with Fassbender mumbling here and there, and McPhee spending a lot of time talking to the stars because his company isn't so conversational.

The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies

Peter Jackson, 2014

IMDB

2/5

Five Armies is the final chapter in Jackson's revisit to Middle Earth with his Hobbit trilogy. The film itself is similar to the last film The Return of the King in the Lord of the Rings in the sense that it's the previous two films set you up for an epic conclusion which includes a battle and the hopeful restoration of order. But while Return of the King is arguably the best in the trilogy, Five Armies immediately feels like the worst of the Hobbit trilogy. What is supposed to be a significant end to the story comes off as a jolting and depthless special effects showcase.

Armies starts off where the last film left off, where Smaug has now exited the Lonely Mountain with plans to attack Lake-town. The whole cliffhanger device is a weird one to use when Smaug is ultimately dealt with quite quickly and without much spectacle. After this Armies continues to be problematic for a variety of reasons. Very much like the Lord of the Rings, the stakes are high for all of the characters involved. They all have something significant to gain or lose, and there is a collective need to work together to obtain victory over the dark elements. In Rings Frodo Baggins is desperate to destroy the Ring that has caused so much turmoil in Middle Earth. In the Armies film, his father Bilbo is not the central character but more of a secondary support character. They have all pulled together to get to this point in the story. But instead of a Hobbit in the spotlight, this part of the story is heavily focused on Dwarf king Thorinn Oakenshield. There are many eyes on the mountain that he wants to reclaim for his people. But he has grown intoxicated by the newfound treasure that had been held captive by dragon Smaug. As the various races of Middle Earth zero in on the mountain, there should be a sense of tension brewing. There should be a certain pacing at work. The Elves, the humans, the Orcs. There should be some ebb and flow to their saga. But no, instead the story just throws itself into a battle quite coldly. And where is Thorinn? Oh, he's not fighting. Because he has become so obsessed with the treasure inside the mountain that he has become the coke-head who won't leave the bathroom. So instead of the Lonely Mountain becoming this backdrop for a mesmerizing battle scene, it becomes a canvas for a lot of copy and paste CGI. It is all action with no emotion. Something happened with this final chapter where all of the human elements are nowhere to be found. It's difficult to get invested in any of the characters. Jackson spent too much time in the editing room and not enough time in the writing room.

Europa Report

Sebastian Cordero, 2013

IMDB

2/5

A group of astronauts are deployed on a mission to Europa, one of Jupiter's moons where there is suspicion of alien life or at least the evidence of past life.

So many films in the found-footage genre use the less is more device when it comes to employing something freaky or creepy. There is an expected build-up of tension, suspense, anticipation. Sometimes, like the foundational found-footage genre-creator The Blair Witch Project (a personal favorite that gets a lot of praise on this blog), it's a device that's used very effectively. There you are getting a gradual increase in the amount of creepy stimuli. At first it's just a little pile of sticks in the woods. Then it's the chilling cries of a baby. And then of course the climax at the house. It's about pacing, accumulation and then release. Structure.

Here, you wait for delivery that just never comes. It starts off as a little flash on the screen that one of the astronauts sees from the ship. Then it's another flash. Then it's another flash with some camera distortion. Then some more camera distortion. You continue to get teased and teased for the duration of the film and by the end it's just not enough. The documentary-style interviewing recounting that events that occurred feels faulty and unnecessary. The set design is impressive in regards to the space craft and it's endless surroundings, but there are points in the film where you just want to get off the damn thing and explore. There are no rules set in stone in terms of a story like this, it can go anywhere. But it's supposed to be a Sci-Fi Thriller. Instead of any thrills it has the mildness of Contact without the quality. Its a film that feels too restricted, too minimal. Upon looking back to some of the much better space movies: Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Alien, Starship Troopers, Moon... Europa feels very scant and very forgettable. 

Bluebird

Lance Edmands, 2015

IMDB

2/5

Edmands directorial debut features a film where the the weather conditions is almost it’s own character. There are films like this that have been made, where there is a built-in sympathy for town’s residents. Fargo, The Shining, Alive, Let the Right One in, The Thing. A portion of all of those titles are literally people just trying to ENDURE the unforgiving weather elements outside, of course all in varying degrees. It’s not much different in the rural blue-collar Maine logging town. The town is filled with people that are trying to get through their day to day life and are also facing the challenge of just trying to stay warm when it is absolutely brutal outside. Edmands is a director who certainly wants to show us some artistic flare. At one point in the film when the Marla character (Louisa Krause) is singing in the bar, it invokes memories of Christina Ricci’s character singing in the bowling alley in Buffalo ‘66. It triggers memories of that hypnotic darkness. Edmands employs some good acting: Adam Driver, John Slattery, Amy Morton. Nothing really falls short in the technical realm and nothing in the performances. Instead, it’s the story itself.

The title of the film is Bluebird, and as we see it’s a recurring symbol at different points in the film. In a sense it feels weirdly used. In Native American cultures the Bluebird represents spring. In the Iroquois mythology it is the singing of the bluebird that drives off the demigod Tawiscaron who represents winter. The Hopi tribes treat the bluebird as a guardian. Ironically, the symbolism of the bluebird, at least in this perspective, is disconnected. At no point does it feel like there is going to be any directional shift. These poor people in the town are starving for some kind of relief. Whether this comes in the form of warmer weather, better employment, better health. Anything. But it never comes. That’s the biggest problem with this film. It NEEDS a charge. Some deviation from the chill. Instead, it is mired in it’s own depression. It’s a story that continues to kick itself while its down. If only it could have provided a positive charge somewhere. And in the end, when there is a final shift, it’s too little too late. Instead we are forced to spend 90 minutes in a frigid town that we don’t want to spend five minutes in. Edmands deserves another shot, and he will get one. It will be interesting to see what he does in the future with a better (and maybe a little bigger) story.

The Babadook

Jennifer Kent, 2014

IMDB

2/5

Australian-horror film / Sundance darling The Babadook got the marketing hype-treatment when it first landed in theaters on it's wide-release. Commercials aired showing audiences in night vision screaming, and holding their hands over their eyes. As time went on you would hear people saying things like "it's the scariest movie I've ever seen. Scarier than [insert popular scary movie here]". The problem is that scary is subjective. One element that may scare one person may seem completely silly to the next person.

The first act of The Babadook is mother Amelia (Essie Davis) attempting to control her erratic child Samuel (Noah Wiseman). He gets suspended from school for bringing in a home-made weapon, not the first time. He screams in the car at the top of his lungs. Amelia's sister even wants to keep her distance from the two of them because Samuel is so unpredictable. You actually start to really resent the Samuel character. And you feel total sympathy for Amelia, visibly exhausted from trying to get through her day to day life with the little boy. Oh yeah, and Samuel's father? He died tragically. So Amelia has had her fair share of bad luck.

When Amelia tries to calm Sam to bed one night with a pop-up book The Babadook, things go terribly wrong when the content of the book is basically just threats of a scary guy coming into your room and eating your insides. There are even little tabs that Amelia pulls where knives pop out and blood shoots from the little people's heads. Not exactly soothing bedtime material.

The first half hour to forty minutes of the Babadook are actually pretty scary. Kent skillfully builds things up. When the ghost or monster, or whatever you actually want to call him shows up, it's one of those edge-of-your-seat moments. But then the film really takes a turn. It ultimately morphs into a possession piece instead of a haunted house or haunted book piece that it started out on. This isn't all that bad, but it just gets a bit indulgent. The whole sleep deprivation, withdrawal from social circles mental breakdown period feels long.

To the films credit, it does cleverly shift your opinion of the characters from good to evil and vice versa. But it just doesn't live up to the hype. There is a lesson to be learned, probably already learned by most people who are hard to please when it comes to the horror genre. If there is a huge marketing campaign where you are hearing things like it's the scariest movie I've ever seen, most likely it won't be. The best parts of the movie are when the creators are doing less with more. The unfortunate thing is that's only in the first third of the film.

Predestination

Michael Spierig & Peter Spierig, 2014

IMDB

2/5

One of the redeeming qualities of Ethan Hawke is he will take on a wide variety of roles. He will jump into low-key indie performances as he has done with his with his many collaborations with the great Richard Linklater. But he will also venture into more unique roles, occasionally in the Sci-Fi genre, as he has done in vampire-themed Daybreakers or space-themed Gattaca.

Out of his 56 acting credits listed on IMDB, the variety is obvious as he has played everything from an LAPD cop to a plane-crash survivor to a leading Hamlet role in a 2000 adaptation. The thing with Hawke is he always brings a certain familiarity to his roles. He has a real distinctive energy in most of his work. But his barkeep character is for the most part a serious one. As a time traveling agent he attempts to save lives by preventing disasters. Frustrated by his inability to successfully catch up to a terrorist dead-set on racking up fatalities, he is seemingly in eternal pursuit through time.

The tone of the film changes when he are introduced to the “Unmarried Mother” character (Sarah Snook). It seems as if we are supposed to be fooled, but most viewers probably will not be. This doesn’t fully take away from the direction that the story goes. The Spierig Brothers go on to lay out a pretty engaging story that is complex and unique. But it grows complicated, becomes a bit convoluted. By the end of the movie it feels like they are attempting to cram in exposition and it feels rushed. At this point in 2015 we have seen so many time travel films. Some are good: Back to the Future, Looper, Groundhog Day, Donnie Darko, Primer, Timecrimes. Some are not-so-good: Black Knight, Terminator 3, Terminator Salvation, Click. When you think of the good ones, there’s always some memory that you carry with you that you can always come back to. With the bad ones, like most bad movies, don’t give you much to come back to mentally. That’s the big question here. Is there any memorable element in Predestination to come back to? Predestination certainly has some brains behind it but it just doesn't leave you with much to talk about afterwards. Sometimes movies need to be more than just smart. Sometimes audiences need something more impactful. It's probably in the imagery, and we just don't have enough of it here.

Blood Ties

Guillame Canet, 2014

IMDB

2/5

The first thing you notice with Blood Ties is the loaded cast. Clive Owen, Zoe Saldana, Mila Kunis, Noah Emmerich, Marion Cottilard, James Caan. It almost feels as if someone owed someone a favor. How could it go wrong? Probably because Guillame Canet is at the helm. He wants to make his version of a 1970’s Period Piece like American Hustle. He knows the music. He knows the attire. He knows the cars. But it just feels lacking. That and the film has some problems with it. First off, Clive Owen is one of the best actors working today. But he is miscast here. He just doesn't fit the role as the dirt-bag criminal brother. His character just feels unauthentic. The neck and arm tattoos feel painted on. The accent, while not British, is not exact. Owen was actually replacing Mark Wahlberg for the role, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. But Wahlberg probably wouldn't have been really good either. You really need someone in the role who has more street grit, someone more erratic. Someone with more deep-seated New York ties. Maybe someone like Michael Imperioli. Not an English actor pretending to be a New Yorker. Another miscast is Mila Kunis who really brings nothing to her role other than her good looks. She is the typical cliched girl who can't resist the bad boys. That being said, praise is due to the casting choice of Billy Crudup who really nails his Frank role. Crudup is one of the more underrated actors working today.

There are problems with the film. Instead of being in the presence of complex characters you sit in the presence of caricatures. A good example is James Caan’s father character who really feels one-dimensional. Comes off as sort of an aged Sonny Corleone if he had lived to his later years. But without the depth that Coppola was able to add to that character. This character is just a slow moving, bitter Italian who spends most of his time angry at his late wife that he had left decades ago. His purpose in the film is really to only to force continuous confrontations between Frank and Chris, reminding them of their (here it comes!) Blood Ties. There is some poor editing in the film. Chris and Frank get into physical altercation with each other in Frank’s apartment. Frank kicks him out and tells him he never wants to see him again. He goes into work the next day only to be told by his commanding officers that they can’t have him working if Chris is living there. You would assume the response would be: “funny you say that! he just moved out last night. He won’t be coming around again. You have my undivided attention when it comes to me doing my job as an officer of the law”. But no. Instead he comes off as insulted, offended. Storms out. Did he completely forget about the previous nights events?

Blood Ties could be considered a bad movie with a good ending. The last half hour or so of the film is actually quite decent. A great car chase scene filled with all of the period automobiles which feels like it took a lot of effort to choreograph. A call back to a childhood event that really lands. Good final scene. That’s great, except for the fact that you have to bear the unsubstantial first 2/3’s of the movie to get to the good parts.

Enemy

Denis Villeneuve, 2014

GoWatchIt

2/5

Adam discovers that he has an exact double of himself and is tortured by the discovery, unable to resist locating his twin.

Villeneuve sets the tone immediately in the film, setting up a dark and menacing piece. He doesn't hold anything back really, using a tense score similar to Jonathan Glazer's 2014 Under the Skin and going heavy with muted color palette, with golden glows similar to The Assassination of Jesse James but without the radiance. Perhaps a bit too over-stylized, as that very color palette gets a bit wearing after a while. Villeneuve's world that he puts Adam in isn't a very inviting one. In a sense it's like a version of the futuristic urban landscape shown in Her but with a heroin needle sticking out of the arm. Gyllenhaal's Adam character (kudos to Gyllenhaal for another quite good dark performance here) is one who immediately appears jaded from the monotony of his daily grind. He teaches at a local university, returns home to his small apartment with a small window of time to have sex with his apathetic girlfriend, wakes up and does it all over again. Discovering the clone-like version of himself in the indie movie doesn't invigorate him but disturbs him. He begins his pursuit of Anthony AKA Daniel St. Claire, but it's a confusing one.

As the scenes play out of him attempting to connect with Anthony, there was a lot of internal dialogue going on in my head saying things like wait, why wouldn't he say this or that or why is he acting like that. These actions and reactions only contribute to the confusing tone of the movie. The spider symbolism is forced upon you. The film works with themes like identity and one's perception of reality, but these themes are juggled with imagery that falls into disorientation. The premise is intriguing, but the psychological thriller elements would be better in the hands of someone like Hitchcock who can really get into a general audiences head, and not just a pocket of niche but forgiving cinephiles.

Villeneuve is certainly a creative auteur, there are nods to Salvador Dali's Les Elephants with the image of the spider walking over the city. Some of the dream sequences are reminiscent of David Lynch's work. But the fault is that he gets a little too ambitious with it and doesn't maintain organization. Ultimately things get lost in the abstraction. Villeneuve makes bold decisions with the material in José Saramago's novel The Double (which the film is adapted from), but he goes a bit too far into the abstract realm. The ending of the film isn't very satisfying as it's very eyebrow-raising. It would be okay if there was a bit more construction on getting there, but he confuses the audience with contradictions and vague illusions. Enemy feels like an incomplete product with an ending that is meant to wow without having to fully answer WHY.

American Sniper

Clint Eastwood, 2014

GoWatchIt

2/5

Adapted from the biography of the same name, This biopic tells the story of Chris Kyle, considered the deadliest sniper in American History with 160 confirmed kills out of 255 probable kills.

To call the opening portion of American Sniper excessively Patriotic would be an understatement. It is like a Budweiser commercial starring Kenny Chesney with two Bald Eagles sitting on his shoulders. Bradley Cooper delivers a restrained, subdued energy to his Chris Kyle character. He's a man that keeps his feelings bottled up, a tradition pased on by the now-overly-cliched 1950's style father. There are attempts to show the origins of Chris Kyle the person, but they are short. They show you the beginnings of his shooting skills with a quick opening hunting scene with his father. They show you his strong devotion to his country when he sees the 9/11 attacks on television, and he is basically on the next plane to Iraq. They are light touches. Instead of constructing a layered protagonist you are served a mumbling Cowboy. You never get a true sense of his sniping numbers piling up. The battle scenes themselves are largely one-sided and never really cut into the complexity of the Middle Eastern conflicts.

To be fair, it is still an important story without question worthy of a movie. If it continues the national dialogue about PTSD sufferers than it succeeds. People like Chris Kyle need to be commended and praised for their service to our country. If it weren't for him, soldiers like him, we would all be living a much different life. Heck, we'd probably be speaking German. But this movie fails to properly examine Chris Kyle the person. Instead it creates a hollow hero image but its a character thats lacking. And in terms of judging this as a Great War film, it isn't even in the conversation. It doesn't have the intensity or impact of a Hurt Locker or Zero Dark Thirty. Instead, it belongs in the same category as not-so-good also rans such as Jim Sheridan’s 2009 PTSD drama Brothers starring Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal. Eastwood is likely to blame. He’s certainly not Kathryn Bigelow. He’s an 84 year old filmmaker whose sensibilities have probably changed. He probably doesn’t have the energy to piss anyone off anymore. Even with the ending of the film, he takes the Werner Herzog approach. It feels like a cop-out. Chris Kyle was an American Hero, and his story would have probably been served better through the eyes of a different filmmaker.

Like Crazy

Drake Doremus, 2011

GoWatchIt

2/5

Complications involving a revoked student visa separates couple Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones), leaving Anna stuck in England and Jacob in Los Angeles.

Like Crazy works with some real romantic elements, largely due to Felicity Jones' layered performance. She is not only easy on the eyes she is loaded with on-screen charisma. You get a sense of her thought process, her intentions, her struggles. But there seems to be an overt miscast on the part of Yelchin with the Jacob character. His character largely falls flat and therefore affects the overall weight of their relationship dynamic. You can't help but wonder how the film would have played out if they had someone more able, like a Miles Teller or an Ansel Elgort in the role. Somehow these two women are pining over a guy who really doesn't bring a lot to the relationship other than carpentry skills and a love for Paul Simon records. When Anna spots him for the first time and shows interest in him, she shows vulnerability and honesty by showing him her writing. Not once does he go on any kind of tangent that brings you into his head. Instead he's the guy always looking at his phone, you know the guy that you have had in social situations who sits at one end of the table looking down all night while all of your friends are having a good time engaged in lively conversation. On the subject of the phone, there is a glaring lack of internet in the film that seems more convenient to the overall story than it does feel realistic. Anna is forced to return to her native UK because of the visa issue. But it seems like it only takes a short period of time before she is right back into the flow of everyday life without Jacob present. Yes, there is a time difference between Los Angeles and London. But it's 8 hours. So, you call in the morning on your way to work and she's on her way home. Or, you call at 11PM and it's 7AM on the other side. Or you use Facebook like everybody else is doing in 2011. This is getting nit-picky, but it just feels like they are two people that possess smartphones but have a total inability to communicate with each other without the one calling drunk late at night while the other person is in a deep sleep. To be fair, there are certainly some good shots in this movie. When they spend the summer together and there's the flash montage of them laying in bed together. The balcony on Catalina Island. There's just not enough meat on the bones of the love story, and the miscasting and poor editing outweigh the rather good cinematography and score.