Venom (2018) Film Review

 

Venom (2018) tries to prove the Marvel villain can shine without needing to be dealing with Spider-Man. The effort is haphazard at best, due to a limited scope of a setting, character interaction, and haphazard tone of a PG-13 film with heads being bitten off as well as surreal amounts of humor.

The greatest enigma in this tone-clustered tale is the character of Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy). The apparently tenacious investigative journalist literally implodes his career, relationship, and life because… he thought it was smart to directly point out a shady businessman’s (played a tad too straight by Riz Ahmed) actions during an interview, using poorly attained information. Granted, it is hard to see an implied stability that has melted away when Hardy’s performance, even before being possessed by an alien symbiote (also voiced by Hardy), expresses a stammering mess of a man who ironically interacts better with the flesh-eating parasite than his jaded Ex (Michelle Williams) whom he had been engaged to. However, there is a very limited amount of characterization for anything else besides key emotions and decisions that move the plot, many times without showing exactly how much distance/time elapses within that world. A majority of the plot seems to occur within the course of a single night, with a rushed pace that makes it hard to find the intimate connection that enables monster and man to reconcile for the purpose of becoming more. Venom’s power also makes it hard to appreciate any conflict because Eddie’s scrambling and the alien’s power make all threats irrelevant. The Anti-Hero gets more of a thrill for killing than the actual villain, but a mid-credit scene hints that perhaps a far more ambitious opponent could be on the horizon of this potential franchise.

6 out 10 (Interesting interactions with Eddie and Venom barely reignite a spark to the plot that is padded with many character interactions that ultimately don’t add to the world or plot beyond moving it towards very rushed conclusion.)

A Simple Favor (2018) Movie Review

 

Humor mixes with the Noir in what might be one of best Dark Comedies. A simple Favor (2018), based on the novel by Darcy Bell, expresses a far darker story than dialogue and overall attitude would imply; this may be a Noir where there are more laughs than screams, in a good way. This is the story of Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick), control-obsessed peppy single mother whose motivation to do everything eventually causes her to become entwined in the life of Emily Nelson (Blake Lively), a far more chaotically open mother and wife. The two bond, their yin-yang effect becoming more blurred as the film progresses, where vulnerability and darker inclinations begin to crack through. Stephanie’s world tilts abruptly when Emily goes missing, compelling her to comfort the troubled husband (Henry Golding), looking after their kids, and work to understand her missing friend while struggling not to be consumed by the other’s life.

There is a level-headed comedy built on the idea that everyone shown is slightly more manic than the norm but not too cartoonish where the more serious emotions feel pushed aside. Morality becomes a fickle thing, with the film skipping beats in time to demonstrate horrible pasts as well as bizarre moments that elevate the films energy. However, the energy accumulated does feel to plateau at a certain point, it’s a high level of crazy that is maintained but there does feel like more could have been done to really drive the madness further. In a way, it makes sense it couldn’t go further since the mannerisms of Stephanie for the most part feel like a quirky comedy girl rapidly stumbling through a Dark Noir. Even with the tragedies and swimming in the moral grey, the film’s strength is that both actresses get to be emotionally complicated women with sharp dialogue and interactions that evolve with the film in ways most other films fall short when it comes to the relationship of two women.

9 out 10 (The performances between the two actresses feels like both at their best to the point that the story feels like there were greater opportunities to elevate what they brought to screen but what’s there is excellent, especially in the quiet moments where it’s simply them interacting and reacting to the other.)

Peppermint (2018) Movie Review

Having a main character killing ‘bad people’ does not a hero make. The framing in the trailer as well as in the promotional posters for Peppermint (2018) imply something that isn’t there. The character of Riley North (Jennifer Gardner) is not an avenging angel against injustice, she’s simply a violent vigilante looking to kill all the ‘bad people’ and anyone who is mean near her.

Five years ago, Riley’s family was killed by men working for a Cartel centered in Los Angeles. She survived, only to be dragged through a trial where everything from the judge, Defense, and even her own legal team prosecuting the criminals were all paid off. After escaping from the law, she dedicates the next five to exacting her own brand of justice. When the film returns to the present, a troubled cop (John Gallagher Jr.) and his chief (John Ortiz) observe the carnage as it progresses on the anniversary of when Riley’s family were murdered, while social media bounces about debating if her actions make the woman a hero or criminal. Unfortunately, there is little character besides skills with weaponry and conviction for violence to elevate Riley North to being more than person who wants to kill and hurt as many people as possible. Even her soft for children who remind her of the daughter she lost do little to illustrate a connection to the kind-hearted woman from the beginning of the film, outside of attacking one of the last jerks who made her life miserable that day, just cause. When it comes to the idea of characters struggling in the grey between right and wrong as they seek justice, there are better films that have achieved this while also allowing a characters humanity to remain and not hollowed out for violent action.

3 out 10 (Jennifer Gardner has a great deal of experience in the Action Genre and deserves a chance to shine a better film that allows her compassion and her tenacity to literally share the screen and not be split into a before-after-tragedy backstory.)

Searching (2018) Film Review

The way to avoid being a film about a gimmick is that the characters get more out of the idea than the audience. In case, making a Thriller expressed solely through web cams, exploring social media, news broadcasts, and phone calls without feeling like an advertisement for a specific device. The film Searching (2018) manages to make this possible by having the choice be the main characters to use the devices.

After a prologue highlighting a family’s life from raising their daughter, dealing with a mother’s (Sara Sohn) illness and eventual passing, and finally a father, David Kim (John Cho) with his daughter, Margot Kim (Michelle La) struggling to move forward. An implied emotional distance has occurred, where Father and Daughter no longer communicate too often, the core for all the troubles that follow.

One night, after Margot tries multiple times to call her Father, he wakes finding out she never came home, or to school, and went nowhere else…

With obvious answers off the table, David is forced to call the police, and report a Missing Person…

The film is told through a combination of first-person (the perspective of David looking searching online), calls to suspects, web-cam chats with his brother Peter (Joseph Lee) and Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing), with visuals more than dialogue expressing both the nature of the search and obsessive efforts to resolve it. David never explains why or how he knows which programs to use for what, a brief hint shown in a business meeting implies knowledge with computers and computer-access are skills he already has. Granted his knowledge is not omniscient, having to ask ‘What’s a Tumblr?’ when searching through Margot’s social media for clues. The film manages to channel the drama effectively enough so that the implausibility of everything being easily framed and caught on camera. Moments when the images are zoomed in on key details are meant to be David’s observing the elements himself, with well-timed pauses meant to express his anger, depression, and sudden shock when the camera isn’t showing his face. While being electronic, only briefly is the more toxic element of the internet shown, while a surprising amount of humanity is channeled. While the ‘real-time’ effect of actively searching with David and use of specific internet programs might be jarring for less social-media-inclined viewers, John Cho helps channel a strong performance of a man fighting to reconnect both literally and electronically with daughter no matter the odds… before it’s too late.

10 out of 10 (Phenomenally executed, channeling the character’s growing desperation without having the audience physically feel like in most Thrillers. While the idea of expressing a film solely through web-cams isn’t a new action, the film works to make the audience be involved in the search through how the visuals imply how the story expands, needing a structure most other Thrillers abandon for jump scares. This film keeps its structure, allowing the emotions to organically… or as organically as possibly considering how many ‘raw first takes’ it took to properly frame these interactions.)

Kin (2018) Movie Review

 

Family is a bond that shown in its better and worst light in Kin (2018). Based on the award-winning short film Bag Man (2014), the film focuses on a similar premise of a young boy acquiring a mysteriously advanced weapon. However, the greater Sci-Fi element is pushed aside to focus on a drama of a robbery gone horribly wrong and two brothers forced on the road to contend with only tenuous bond to keep them alive.

The character interactions are this film’s core focus, with interesting moments between young brother, Elijah Solinski (Myles Truitt) and stripper-with-a-heart-gold, Milly (Zoe Kravitz) who actually seems to be the better guide for morality than the older brother, Jimmy Solinski (Jack Reynor). The conflict expressed by Crime Lord Taylor Balik (James Franco) goes realistic to almost cartoonishly bizarre in terms of the level of power he’s mobilized, perhaps in an attempt to work towards justifying how gangly thugs are meant to be a challenge for a super gun with building-destroying force behind it. When the potential greater narrative at play surfaces near the end, it makes the main one in the film feel almost disjointedly pointless outside of an excuse to give Eli reasons to use his weapon. Hopefully, if this is to be continued to expand on the nature of this weapon and Eli’s future, greater emphasis on the stronger family bonds can be expressed, since the main theme is that family never needs to be blood-bound to be worth risking it all.

6.5 (Impressive ideas of future technology and a grim time ahead almost risk overshadowing what could have been a harrowing story of brotherhood with two narratives fighting to decide which better serves the characters, without deciding a specific winner.)

The Happy time Murders (2018) Movie Review

This film appears to be an attempt to show that puppeteering can handle more serious subjects. However, while the overall murder mystery and struggles of the characters functions more as a foul-mouthed Alien Nation than Who Framed Roger Rabbit,
The Happytime Murders (2018) has a hard time working past the motif of shocking people who grew up watching things like Sesame Street/The Muppets.

The film is told from noir-like narration of disgraced ex-puppet cop, Phil Philips (Bill Barretta), now working as a private investigator. His latest case, helping an attractive puppet, Sandra (Dorien Davies), dealing with a blackmailer, coincides with a sudden rampant surge of murders of puppets that appear to relate to an old show, The Happytime Gang. This forces him to work alongside his former partner, Detective Connie Edwards (Melissa McCarthy, who plays a more secondary role in the story), who has bitter feelings towards Philips due to a mishap during a shootout that cost him his badge and left her with an unfortunate condition she fails cope with through addiction. While the carnage is more fluff than blood, the way characters react implies that there are no artificial puppets, these are living beings treated as second-class citizens whose deaths are quite gruesome in the eyes of the characters. The cruel ways puppets are mistreated, pushed to the fringes of society and struggling to carry decent jobs while an unfortunate number succumb to sugar which doubles of an addictive substance for puppets, could make an interesting premise for a film. However, the film more faithfully channels crude-comedic crime drama with film noir elements from the mousey/capable assistant (Maya Rudolph), the ex-lover (Elizabeth Banks), and a Federal Agent driven to bring down what he believes is a dirty cop (Joel McHale). Masterful puppeteering is shown but almost wasted in a film whose biggest draw is the shock of puppets being shown in such ways but not pushing greater focus on elements of puppets being a persecuted species that could have helped make the film stand out more beyond its crude tone.

6 out of 10 (Impressive work with puppets will hopefully at least express the idea that the artform can be used in more mature stories but perhaps with less crude humor.)

 

Crazy Rich Asians (2018) Film Review

Love of family clashes with a more personal union in Crazy Rich Asians (2018). It expresses the cultural conflict of tradition, privilege, and struggling to be true to yourself. This is expressed using one of the largest Asian cast in Western film that is not in the Action Genre.

Based on the book series by Kevin Kwan, the story focuses on Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), an Economics Professor at NYU whose boyfriend, Nick Young (Henry Golding), is invited to be the best man to his best friend, Colin Khoo (Chris Pang) to Araminta Lee (Sonoya Mizuno). In the process of plane ride to Singapore, Rachel discovers that her boyfriend is son to a major family of Real-Estate owners who are one of the richest families in the world, especially Singapore. Even her dearest, rich, friend, Goh Peik Lin (Awkwafina)’s family express how even their excessive wealth pales to what Nick’s family has. Facing off against an eccentric cast of wealthy people, and the cold disapproval of Nick’s mother, Eleanor Sung-Young (Michelle Yeoh), Rachel and Nick struggle to keep their bond strong against a world’s worth of antagonism to divide them.

The film a solid mix of comedy, drama, and heart where the characters are key. While many are background characters and others are exaggerated examples of stupid-crazy-rich architypes shown in most films dealing with wealth, there is a strong sense of family, especially how they are influenced by loved ones. The film focuses on Rachel’s drive to adapt to ways of life different from her own, hinting at other struggles with Nick’s cousin, Astrid (Gemma Chan), and how Nick must confront the fact that a simple relationship may not be possible due to his status. Even with its melodrama, the film does have a great of humor and heart, as audiences cheer and wince at the various moments that occur in Rachel’s odyssey to hold onto love. With brilliant cinematography that takes advantage of Singapore’s impressive architecture and natural environment, as well as strong character interactions, the film is elevated beyond the typical Romantic-Comedy through its dedication to family and being a significant step in representing Asian actors/actresses in cinema.

9 out of 10 (A solid film with humor and drama, and while it doesn’t present a wider range of Singapore’s greater culture in terms of Natives to that land, this film may hopefully lead to greater opportunities other cultures and ethnicities to have fully-developed narratives and characters to play in the future.)

Mile 22 (Movie Review)

Action demands purpose and motivation, and more importantly there needs to be characters guiding these elements that we can root for. The film Mile 22 (2018) somehow manages to dislocate that essential connection.

Dealing with an elite tactical force of government ghosts, James Silva (Mark Wahlberg) leads this group called Overwatch that accomplishes intense violent action against threats to the free world within windows that allow them to vanish like smoke under the guidance of James Bishop (John Malkovich). His unit is composed of a small group of warriors including
Sam Snow (Ronda Rousey), Douglas (Carlo Alban), and second in command Alice Kerr (Lauren Cohen). Their latest mission involves escorting a high-risk asset, Li Noor (Iko Uwais) to a plane literally 22 miles away where he will exchange vital intel for asylum.

These details are reiterated and mentioned repeatedly throughout the film, among other details, in what should be a narrative but expressed through platitudes and bitterness to make it seem like no one is enjoying themselves. It does not help that there’s a great fixation for every character to be crass, obnoxious, and otherwise completely rude to each other to the point that no real endearing qualities are expressed for any of the main characters. Absently spouting stream-of-thought is not world building. Knowing that Wahlberg’s character does not get along with anyone won’t make him feel endearing when the most distinct thing about him is a rubber band. After encountering Alice Kerr’s fiancé who appears to simply be involved to be horrible to her character should make him reprehensible, except that he is revealed to be among many mean-spirited people who exposit toxic energy even in scenes where it’s not necessary.

The action is intense with bloody detail and brutal take downs, especially in the melee combat from Li Noor. However, like most of the film, the scenes film through a shaking chaotic lens then is obsessed with shoving the audience up close to every detail in the film. Pulling back would have allowed the intense choreography, action, and characters to breathe in their environment so every moment could feel distinct. The only things that are given any dedication are Wahlberg’s scenes where he gets to insult and undermine as many people as possible and express an anger that feels far too unstable for the ‘troubled-yet-experienced’ leader role he’s meant to play. With every scene expressed through a edged tone and a disjointed narration, the greater twist almost becomes hollow since the death and destruction that follows simply blends in with a very sour mold of violence without a stronger story worth the trouble of following along.

 

5 out of 10 (The implied first part of a greater narrative is hard to sell when most of the character interactions and the greater story are built to show that living a violent life can be cruel to those who serve but offers neither its characters or the audience a greater sense of satisfaction for the chaos endured).

The Meg (2018) Film Review

It’s rare for a B Action/Horror Movie to have a great deal of heart, but The Meg (2018) pulls it off. There is a great deal of people dealing with a range of emotions throughout the craziness.

The story deals with a group scientists who out of ambition to study uncharted spots of the ocean disturb an prehistoric shark, a Megalodon, which threatens the crew.

This forces Suyin Zhang (Li Bingbing), her father Dr. Minway Zhang (Winston Chao), and James ‘Mac’ Mackreides (Cliff Curtis) to call in an expert rescue diver, Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham, who plays cleanest, most athletic, tragically troubled man in self-imposed            5-year exile after a botched rescue that cost him two friends). Struggles with loss, fear of being overwhelmed, and solid character interactions help to strengthen the film beyond the shock of surviving a shark larger than 30 meters. Granted, the film drags early on with slightly unnecessary tension of people questioning Taylor’s conviction that ultimately doesn’t add to the story. A well-rounded cast including an anxious technician DJ (Page Kennedy), tenacious engineer Jaxx Herd (Ruby Rose), and a jokingly money-fixated Billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson) are all involved in the story. The small crew helps make the impact of the shark and struggle to hold on more impressive even if the sacrifices feel somewhat forced at moments. Some conflicts feel more attached than relevant only so there’s more obstacles than might be necessary. The shark is enough of a destructive force to carry more than enough drama and shock through sheer force of being a bus-sized behemoth with teeth as well as the speed of a torpedo. Through it all, the film makes sure to remind audiences of that deep-seated dread that comes from seeing a fin break the water surface that helps make them cinema’s more infamous cinematic villains.

9 out 10 (The film manages to bring out plenty hair-raising terrors but does drag at times with certain side-characters, and can’t seem to dare to push a little more for the charming romantic charge between Statham’s and Bingbing’s characters despite the possibility.)

Mission Impossible: Fallout (Film Review)

The scale is raised and the stunts even more chaotic in this sixth installment,

Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018).

A key concept that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) struggles with in this film more than the others is the idea of how badly things will go if and when he should finally fail. The opening paints a grim image that presents a curious struggle as the skilled spy fights through rogue elements, both mercenaries and internal interference, as Ethan seeks to prevent the worse future from finally arriving. Along for the ride are his skilled tech expert Benji (Simon Pegg), surveillance master and oldest comrade Luther (Ving Rhames), and the skilled yet complicated Ilsla Faust (Rebecca Ferguson). Working alongside a CIA assassin, August Walker (Henry Cavill, and the infamous mustache that demanded rigorous CGI manipulation for Cavill to show up in Justice League (2017)), Ethan and his crew must fix a error that put the world at risk while facing returned threats like Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) and new terrorist cell called The Apostles, formerly Lane’s Syndicate.

Action is key above all else, the greater focus on many of the stunts Cruise is willing and determined to perform himself. From Halo jumps, motorcycle racing against traffic is some of busiest streets in Paris, to hitching a helicopter ride the hardest way only to eventually fly said vehicle; the 56 year-old actor is determined to show himself and his character as versatile forces in the Action Genre. The films strongest drawback, while slight, feels more a fault of wishing to shake things up in the way Rogue Nation (2015) did with the franchise. There were a multitude of twists, betrayals, being forced to consider dark actions, and so rapid were these situations that as the film reached its final act, audiences might feel lost waiting for further complications that the film can’t seem to get enough of. When it takes time with expressing action or connecting the actions of the characters into impressively executed action scenes, the film excels while story fails to reach the same level of quality at moments but helps act as a vehicle towards the next fantastic moment, with plenty more in this franchise that is now 2 decades strong.

9.5 out of 10 (The action is distinct with many memorable stunts performed by dynamic characters with more curious elements, like the potential of the daughter of Max from the first film, are left stranded, replaced by the next action scene. A franchise becoming fixated on the newest impossible stunt than on intricate spy work).