The Manga eyes didn’t bother me, it was the mouth, the split-second between changes in facial expression you pick up from a human performer (Rosa Salazar) motion-capturing an almost-human. It’s completely different from creating a believable ape or orc or Gollum. Lead character aside, not a whole lot in ALITA is memorable. Now I’m not saying every character in a Manga or Anime adaptation needs to be Japanese, but at least some of them should be. It looks expensive, the action is flashy and the world is detailed, but you never feel like you’re really in it. Christoph Waltz has to laboriously explain in his admittedly honeyed voice every new concept and conflict, who is what class and why, but too much is left to be continued in writer-producer James Cameron’s arrogant presumption of guaranteed sequels. What we’re left with is a pretty, empty and unfinished story. SSP
Review in Brief: Alita: Battle Angel (2019)
Review in Brief: Dumbo (2019)
To its credit, this Disney remake has some good gags (a circus strongman making a valiant effort to double as their accountant) and a level of visual sumptuousness impressive even by Tim Burton’s usual standards (the costumes, the reimagining of the pink elephants scene). Vexingly, half the cast seem in disagreement over what kind of movie they’re in and the tone is all over the place. After a reasonable and recognisably DUMBO first half, the big-eyed-big-eared elephant’s journey seems to start all over again without the whole route being mapped out properly. Dumbo himself tugs at the heartstrings, but the humans all struggle to make a connection with generally bland performances across the board. I’d never call Michael Keaton’s turn as a villain bland, but I’d struggle to describe it in human terms either, changing accents, energy and poise from one shot to the next. SSP
The Art of the Social Media Thriller; Narcissism, Paranoia and Tools for Good or Ill
Review: The Lion King (2019)
Nothing to see here, just a bird and a lion being a bird and a lion: Disney
I watched the original LION KING the night before I saw this new version to have a point of comparison. I now realise that was a mistake. The 1994 film is so efficient in its storytelling, so full of animation subtleties and beautiful characterisation in aid of emotional connection. The new CGI version re-tells the same story with characters who can’t emote at all, never mind provide nuanced performances or make you care. At least the music is mostly unspoiled. Mostly.
Simba (JD McCrary) is ready to one day take over his father Mufasa’s (James Earl Jones) kingdom and take his place in the great circle of life, until his jealous uncle Scar (Chiwetel Ejiofor) instigates a coup and banishes the young lion.
I’m so glad people are realising how ridiculous it is to call this a live-action remake. There isn’t a frame of the real here, just a good-looking and stunningly detailed reality simulation. It’s an impressive technical exercise but should have probably stayed at the proof-of-concept stage, which is what the opening shot-for-shot recreation of “Circle of Life” feels like.
This first scene made it very clear very fast that this wasn’t going to work as an enterprise. The shots might match but there’s a key element missing. In Lion King ’94, Zazu flies ahead of the procession of pride land citizens coming to pay tribute to the new prince, he lands and bows before a regal and stoic lion surveying his kingdom, before Mufasa’s face breaks into a warm beam of recognition at his old friend. In the remake a bird flies above a load of other animals, lands in front of a lion, the lion looks at the bird and the bird looks back.
As the film went on it started to annoy me how little they were prepared to deviate from the original story. Almost beat-for-beat, it’s the same. Even when they do do something new it’s to make what came before less interesting. “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” is the only musical number with any choreography, or any real movement, to be honest. They turn “Be Prepared” into a badly written politician’s speech with a strange cadence. Gone too is the exaggerated scenery and the moody lighting all in the name of realism. The stampede is a boring scene now. How is that possible?
In terms of voice talent, it’s a mixed bag. The highlight is probably John Oliver as a prim and particular Zazu prone to telling comic anecdotes that nobody listens to. Billy Eichner brings nervous energy and decent pipes to Timon, Seth Rogan is funny as always as Pumbaa but should never have a go at singing again. Ejiofor has an interesting new take on Scar but his delivery is too subtle for the medium. James Earl Jones provides the continuity but sounds on autopilot, the lower vocal register he’s reached with age resulting in the odd veer into Vader.
Going for a tone as grandiose and serious as the stoney-faced lions we’re being asked to empathise with might have elicited some kind of response if it was consistent, but then Jon Favreau and co decided to wink at their completely captive audience. The fact that the adult Simba (Donald Glover) has an unexpectedly good singing voice and Rogan aa Pumbaa most definitely does not gets an acknowledgement, and there’s even a spoof of another Disney movie (one to also receive the remake treatment, no less) used as a plot point later on. It all just comes across as a bit try-hard.
While most of the songs you know and love survive intact, you might want to either close your eyes or cover your ears to get any real enjoyment of the new Lion King. The audio-visual dissidence of photo-real animals belting out Broadway musical numbers without Broadway-style expressive performances completely takes you out of the story. Photo-real lions can’t smile or cry. If there’s one thing Disney don’t want their remakes to leave their audience feeling, it’s cold. If there’s one thing they don’t want to leave their audience thinking, it’s “I wish I was watching the original”. SSP
Review in Brief: Robin Hood (2018)
If I hear one more new take on a property tell me to forget what I know, I’ll stab myself with a fork. We’re also supposed to “forget history” with the latest take on ROBIN HOOD. Just as well really, because the costumes are less Little John and more Jean-Paul Gaultier. I get the whole robbing by night in order to soak up the adulation of a charitable noble by day, but I’m sure at one point Robin (Taron Egerton) steals from the church only to give back to the church. That’s not redistribution of wealth, that’s borrowing and interest. The action is mostly slickly executed but not enough to distract from the mess that is the rest of the film. The sci-fi costumes, wipe-clean castle sets and the fact that nobody who made this seems to care how fire works shouldn’t bother me this much but the rest is so dull and derivative you have to notice. SSP
Review: Midsommar (2019)
The poster-girl for hayfever sufferers: B-Reel Films/Square Peg
MIDSOMMAR is a trip, and no mistake. Two features in and Ari Aster is already an aesthetically and thematically distinctive auteur, but is still capable of shocking us all.
In an effort to overcome her grief after a family tragedy, Dani (Florence Pugh) travels with her boyfriend and his postgraduate friends to the remote Midsommar solstice festival in Sweden. Despite a warm welcome and a pleasing sense of tradition, something darker is at work behind the festivities.
WICKER MAN comparisons are inevitable, and there is shared DNA, but the Robin Hardy classic looks rather tame by comparison. I was most reminded of Darren Aronofsky’s more out-there films in the way that perception of reality is constantly played with. If you took the bad batch nightmare trip from the finale of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, spliced it with metaphoric murkiness of MOTHER! and adorned the resulting hybrid with garlands of garish flowers, that’s Midsommar.
This is the antithesis in presentation to Aster’s previous effort HEREDITARY (bright, colourful and in the open vs dark, oppressive and claustrophobic) but it’s also a lot more disturbing. I said at the time that Hereditary impressed me as a film but that I didn’t feel it was effective as a horror, but Midsommar works on both accounts. It’s the classic dark fable setup; naive young people being beguiled by a welcoming culture in a seemingly idyllic environment only for a much more sinister truth to be gradually revealed by which point it’s far too late to escape.
Midsommar is a full sensory-enveloping experience. They should really give you a handful of grass to fondle and some suspicious tea to sip at every screening to complete the effect. You’re dazzled and mesmerised by the visuals, from the vivid colours, the intricately detailed production design and the grotesque individual images burned directly onto your brain. The wall of sound encompassing scored music, foley artistry and the actors’ chilling vocalisations of their distress envelops you, traps you.
Florence Pugh is simply sensational. Aster is unforgiving with the film’s shot construction, more often than not holding tight on her face and putting her through the emotional wringer in a long take. I’d say that Pugh takes Dani to some interesting places, but I’m not entirely convinced she was always in the driver’s seat, that the character and the process didn’t take over in some primal fashion. Dani’s fellow solstice tourists (Jack Raynor and Will Poulter stand out) are various shades of unlikeable and may well face symbolically appropriate fates in the end. Dani and Christian’s relationship is an interesting and contradictory one, though Dani edges it in the audience sympathy stakes by virtue of not being a manipulative bastard.
From the start you’re trying to work out what the town’s big deal is, what they have in store for their unsuspecting visitors. Even as everyone’s role in the grand plan becomes clear (and Aster isn’t subtle in much that he shows you) you can’t predict how far things will go.
It seems odd to have such a dark (thematically) and full-on horror released at the height of summer, but when else would it make sense to see a solstice shocker? The brightness of the sun and the prettiness of the surroundings can be deceptive; you didn’t expect abject terror in such plain sight.
When the film really goes to extremes it might put some off, especially after enduring such a gruelling run-time. Heads splatter, clothes are discarded and trespassers dealt with cruelly. This is in no way a horror that leaves it to your imagination.
Like Hereditary you could look at the film as purely metaphorical, but for me I think we weave in and out of reality based on characters’ emotional unrest and ingestion of psychoactive substances. Dani’s emotional journey, her recovery from grief, is her reality. She has to keep looking inward and look after her own well-being even as paradise is festering around her and people are dying. However you read it, Midsommar is a fascinating and unusual horror that draws you in and doesn’t let go. Maybe Florence Pugh will get some acknowledgement come awards season just as Toni Collette was unjustly snubbed. SSP
Review in Brief: The Kid Who Would Be King (2019)
I didn’t entirely get the shower of praise that greeted Joe Cornish’s directorial debut, tower block invasion ATTACK THE BLOCK, but he’s clearly a distinct talent. It’s surprising how little of Arthurian legend he needed to change to make this modern retelling work. A lot of the famous plot points have to be more tongue-in-cheek when your story takes place in carparks rather than castles it’s true, but other than that it’s the same timeless tale of becoming a better person. The tone inevitably skews younger, but this fits the bedtime story feel they’re going for. The young cast are real finds, but unfortunately the adult actors range from generic (Rebecca Ferguson) to completely extraneous (Patrick Stewart). Why would you draw attention away from the perfectly good Merlin you already have (Angus Imrie), a character whose whole deal has always been ageing backwards! Not everything works, but this is a lot of fun and demonstrates a lot of imagination. SSP
Review in Brief: Last Breath (2019)
There’s some really good non-fiction on Netflix. I had to watch LAST BREATH in three sittings to avoid bringing on an anxiety attack, it’s that intense. As told by the survivors, this documentary with reconstructed elements follows a 2012 deep sea dive that goes horribly wrong when one of the three man team becomes trapped underwater and the support ship their diving bell is tethered to drifts off course in a violent storm. Do yourself a favour and don’t look up the ending, then you’re guaranteed to be on the edge of your seat and appropriately short of air. Get terrified by the numbers, be amazed at the kind of outlook you’d have to have on life to do this as a career and swept up in the remarkable story of Chris Lemons, Dave Yuasa and Duncan Alcock compellingly recounted by the men themselves. SSP
Review: Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)
Friends or foes?: Pascal Pictures/Columbia Pictures/Marvel
I always feel a bit sorry for the Marvel movies that directly follow an AVENGERS because of the expectation that they’ll be the same scale. They never can or will be, so they have to be different. Unlike last time where being a sort-of Avengers film hamstrung the Spider-fun, FAR FROM HOME neatly ties up any loose ends from ENDGAME in the first ten minutes then just gets on with telling the story at hand.
Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) school trip to Europe and plans to make his feelings for MJ (Zendaya) clear hit a snag as mysterious elemental creatures begin to attack major cities. Enter Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) a powerful potential ally for Spider-Man.
This is arguably most subversive Marvel film since IRON MAN 3. The first half of well-mounted superheroics and awkward teenage relationship stuff gives way to a second half that is an extended deconstruction of the superhero movie factory and its priorities in general. It’s never smug about it though; it’s clever and witty and I appreciated it. That’s not to say the film is stingy on what we’ve all turned up for, far from it in fact as there’s plenty of supersized fun to be found throughout.
The new Spider-Man movies are doing the right thing with regards to their villains (or antagonists if you feel like so far they’ve actually had a point!). Just pick one we haven’t seen yet and do something really interesting with them. Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio is superb, and a take on the character that only an actor with his range and unpredictability could make work: he’s charm itself when he needs to be and…not when he doesn’t. If you’ve got even a passing knowledge of his main “deal” in the comics you’ll likely know the direction they’re going with him, but perhaps not to what extent. His character’s unique powers also allow for some vivid visual flourishes that makes me think the psychedelic madness of DOCTOR STRANGE 2, when it comes, will need to up its game.
Tom Holland is still a great Peter Parker, wrestling not just with great power and great responsibility but with girl troubles and the expectations of being Iron Man’s heir apparent. His party of friends on the most lethal of school trips are all great value for money especially in their reactions to the city-destroying dangers happening around them. Even as Peter is trying to steer them away from disaster hotspots, a recently de-snapped and unusually information-light Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) counter-steers them right back to get Spider-Man where he’s needed with the least amount of fuss. Jake Batalon, Angourie Rice and Zendaya in particular stand out among Peter’s class, the latter reaffirming that she was perfect casting for MJ with heart, attitude and self-awareness.
As entertaining as they both are, they could have probably dialled back on the comic relief teachers (Martin Starr and JB Smoove) a little. I would also hope nobody working in the education sector (not even in a comic book movie) is that trusting of really dodgy-looking bearded men in tactical gear.
The mid-credits scene sets up a giddily exciting next film, throwing Spidey’s world wide open and and putting him in a position we’ve never seen him in before. It also made me ludicrously happy in another regard with one simple act. You’ll know it when you see it.
Spider-Man: Far From Home has all the best aspects of Homecoming (charm, humour, great performances) and none of the drawbacks (extraneous plot, cameos from Avengers). It fits into the Marvel Cinematic Universe nicely but is allowed to be its own thing and tell a good standalone story built around character. The propulsive action and next-level reality-blurring visuals are just the webbing on the cake. This Peter Parker is here to stay, and despite being snapped out of existence and back again, his greatest challenges still lie ahead… SSP
SSP Thinks Film 