REVIEW: Aquaman

As I write this Review, James Wan's Aquaman has just blown past the $1 billion mark at the international box office. Aquaman. Even as a longtime fan of the comics, I can't exactly say I saw this coming. The DCEU has been chugging by on a wing and a prayer for years now, and while Wonder Woman earned the franchise enough good will to hold onto a glimmer of hope that the worst had long since passed, 2017's utterly abysmal Justice League tanked both critically and financially. Rumors swirled about Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill dropping out of the franchise for good, the upcoming Scorsese-produced Joker movie seemed to indicate that WB was pursuing other options, and we all had to wonder if Aquaman was merely a formality at this point; the last gasps of a dead franchise, pumped into theaters for no reason beyond recouping losses. I was excited to see one of my favorite superheroes (yes, seriously) portrayed on the big screen, but even I was apprehensive of what awaited me. One mind-numbingly long screening later and I found myself feeling something I seldom feel about many movies. Aquaman is by no means what I would call a "good" movie, and yet I had an absolute blast with it. It's flawed, bloated, and verges on being totally braindead at times, but there are also elements of this movie that I feel exemplify exactly what WB should aim to accomplish with future entries in the DCEU.

Set after the events of Justice League (let's not pretend that really matters, since the characters certainly don't), we find that Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) has taken to superhero-ing like a fish to water, known throughout the seven seas (and his quiet hometown of Amnesty Bay) as the Aquaman. The son of a lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison) and the renegade Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman), Curry has been reluctant to confront the wetter side of his heritage, believing the xenophobic Atlanteans to be responsible for the death of his mother. This all changes, however, after he is confronted by Princess Mera (Amber Heard, rocking one of the worst wigs this side of Spirit Halloween), who informs Arthur that his half-brother, King Orm (Patrick Wilson) intends to unite the seven undersea kingdoms and march on the surface world, establishing Atlantis' dominion over the entire planet. With the help of his mentor, Vulko (Willem Dafoe), Arthur joins Mera to locate the lost trident of King Atlan, usurp his brother's throne, and take his rightful place as the one true king of Atlantis.

Right off the bat, the movie suffers from a screenplay that toes the line between harmlessly campy and comically bad (which feels like something of a motif for 2018). While I was eventually able to adjust to the movie's cheese-factor, it doesn't change the fact that some of these lines feel like they were meant to be placeholders. The cast all do their best with what they've been given, but no actor could make a gem like "Your fish-ship has been marinating in chum-butter, I'm not coming out smelling like swamp butt" sound good. It doesn't help that we're stuck with this level of dialog for, as I mentioned, well over two hours. The plot essentially condenses the first three volumes of Geoff Johns' New52 run into a single story (which makes sense, seeing as how he has a story credit alongside James Wan and screenwriter Will Beall), so things naturally get more than a little crowded. You get the impression that WB assumed this would be their only shot at making an Aquaman movie, so very little is saved for the sequel. They put all their chips on the table and it more than paid off, so while this definitely doesn't feel like a bland corporate product, it definitely gets rather clunky here and there (especially during the first act). We get Arthur meeting Mera, contesting Ocean Master for the throne, reclaiming the lost trident of Atlan, and fighting Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), all in one movie. As a result, despite a reasonably brisk pace, the entire thing suffers from a distinct feeling of bloat. While I didn't necessarily dislike any of these storylines, I definitely would have been fine with cutting one or more in favor of saving it for the sequel; the end result is very much a concentrated dose of Aquaman, but it may prove a little too dense for anyone who isn't already a fan of the comics.

Aside from that, we have our two main leads played by Jason Momoa and Amber Heard. In my Review of Justice League, I said that they were by far the weakest links in the main cast, and the same holds true here. Don't get me wrong, they're both extraordinarily good-looking people with charisma to spare, but their relationship lacks chemistry (especially compared to, say, Wonder Woman and Steve Trevor) and their emotional range left me wanting, to say the least. The villains definitely steal the show, with Wilson and Abdul-Mateen cranking it up to 11 as Ocean Master and Black Manta. The cornball script and bombastic presentation only does these two favors, as we're treated to two separate scenes where our antagonists look right at the camera and proclaim, "CALL ME... *insert supervillain name here*!"; if that doesn't sound like the kind of thing you could get into, then I'd recommend giving the whole affair a pass right here and now. These are two comic book villains who make up for their apparent lack of depth with sheer screen presence, exemplifying just what makes James Wan's approach to this material stick the landing, despite its many flaws. Whereas other films may hesitate to embrace the over-the-top nature of adapting a superhero story to the big screen, Aquaman pulls its absurd, pulpy roots into a crushing bear-hug, splashing hefty doses of color and melodrama across the screen to remarkably fun effect.

I've noticed that many big-screen comic book adaptations (especially those found in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) are often more than a little hesitant to fully commit to the levels of absurdity found within the pages of its source material, using self-aware humor as a buffer to help sell the audience on something so seemingly childish. That isn't to say that I need my superhero movies to be dour and moody, there are definitely good ways to blend humor and intimate character drama, but there are definitely bad ways to go about it as well. If the film is constantly winking to me about how goofy the movie I'm watching is, it's only going to hurt itself in the long run. If the characters in the film don't take the situation, threat, or villain seriously, how can I, as the viewer, be expected to? This is where Aquaman uses its cheesy tone to its advantage; while this is a supremely weird, goofy movie with lots of fantastical locales and impractical costumes, the universe of the film takes itself entirely seriously. This is something the DCEU has attempted in the past, to disastrous results. Fortunately, James Wan is a talented enough filmmaker to not confuse a film taking itself seriously with being a joyless, dour slog.

This is a film that is fiercely committed to playing its role as a superhero movie, and there is zero cynicism to be found in how it approaches such a task. The tone very heavily reminds me of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films; movies that were very intentionally made to be exaggerated, stylized, sometimes downright cartoonish action romps, yet never felt the need to justify that level of silliness to the audience by pretending it was "ironic" or "deconstructive". Aquaman wears its heart firmly on its sleeve, which I find somewhat refreshing in today's contemporary superhero scene. Its goal isn't to reinvent the wheel or get audiences to think Aquaman is a "realistic" portrayal of a superhero. The mission statement here is, without question, to entertain. And if I'm judging a film purely on how well it accomplishes the goals it has set for itself, I have no choice but to give Aquaman full marks. It's not very subtle or nuanced, there's a lot of terrible acting and dialog, and it's not at all conceptually ambitious in terms of displaying what a superhero movie can be in this modern age. But I was fiercely entertained, thanks very much in part to James Wan's talents as a director. 

There are countless other films that try to coast by on sheer spectacle and fail; Justice League is a prime example. For as messy and unrefined as aspects of Aquaman are, it at the very least feels like someone's vision, rather than a sanitized product that's been focus-tested and homogenized in an attempt to appeal to as many paying demographics as possible. And that's not to say that giving a director free reign to exercise their vision is a one-way ticket to success either; films like Batman V Superman and The Last Jedi prove that a filmmaker needs to understand and respect the subject they're working with in order to create something that, at the end of the day, isn't a frustrating chore to sit down and watch. This is something Aquaman definitely gets right, mixing goofball superhero aesthetics and melodrama with genuinely engaging direction and cinematography. It's not an exaggeration to say that the majority of this film takes place on a green screen, so when I'm praising the effects, you know it's something special. Atlantis feels like a fully realized world with countless depths worth exploring (in contrast to Black Panther's Wakanda, which felt like three soundstages and a grassy field) and there are loads of imaginative creature designs which give way to some truly spectacularly realized action setpieces (especially in the latter half of the film). There's a sequence later on in the second act involving the Trench, an ancient race of monstrous fish-people, that really exhibits Wan's talent as a horror filmmaker. Although clips from this scene made it into several of the trailers, they really don't do the sequence justice; it's clear from a quick visual gag in the beginning that he's a fan of H.P. Lovecraft, and this Trench sequence just makes me wonder how long I'm going to have to wait for an adaptation of The Shadow Over Innsmouth with James Wan in the director's chair.

While it's hardly what I'd call a groundbreaking success in the superhero genre, I simply can't hide the amount of fun I had with Aquaman. It's a movie with a myriad of problems holding it back from true greatness, yet it managed to keep me thoroughly entertained throughout its somewhat bloated runtime. There are glaring issues with the script, story, and performances, but there's such a distinct lack of cynicism here that I can't bring myself to hate it. This isn't a bad movie in the same way something like Batman V Superman or the Michael Bay Transformers films are, where the lack of quality comes off as insulting to the viewer. This is more akin to something like The Fate of the Furious, where you get the sense that everyone on set knew exactly what they were making; a bombastic, cartoonish spectacle that plays all of its candy-colored melodrama 100% straight. I caught myself groaning at the downright embarrassing dialog in the beginning, but then Black Manta shot Aquaman with an electric harpoon and said "I'm gonna gut you like the fish you are" and I realized this movie and I were, in a way, very much on the same page in regards to what an Aquaman film should be. The costumes are fantastic, the effects are impressive, and the last thirty minutes are pure visual opium. It's silly, it's stupid, and I had an absolute blast with it. If you're not a fan of superhero comics or prefer your cape stories to be a bit more on the low-key and serious side, there's little here that would be worth your time. But if you're a fan of the comics, nostalgic for a time when superheroes didn't have to be reimagined to make sense in the real world, Aquaman will definitely quench your thirst.

REVIEW: Venom

Now here's something I definitely didn't expect to see in theaters. When Sony Pictures, the "studio" behind such "movies" as Peter Rabbit and the Ghostbusters remake, announced a standalone film starring Spider-Man's longtime nemesis, Venom, I decided then and there that I'd abstain from paying money to see it as a form of protest. It was obvious to me that Sony was simply trying to extort more money from Marvel Studios, holding Spidey and friends ransom; if Kevin Feige wasn't gonna let Amy Pascal muck up his MCU clubhouse, then Sony would simply have to do everything they could to poison the Spider-Man brand in the meantime. They're hanging on by a thread as it is, might as well bet it all on black and hope for the best. The symbiote arc felt like a natural next step for the MCU's take on the wallcrawler (considering how Spider-Man Homecoming used Peter Parker's costume as a metaphor for him becoming his own hero, and Venom is literally a living Spider-Man suit looking to control its host, but I'm getting ahead of myself), and seeing Sony squander such a concept over petty company politics left a bad taste in my mouth. Venom was not a movie I needed to pay money to see, since any financial success it enjoyed would damage the MCU that I've come to love so well. But then Disney fired James Gunn, so screw it, go team Venom!

The plot, curiously enough, contains exactly no reference to Spider-Man whatsoever (despite Sony still clinging to the movie rights for the character and his entire supporting cast); a daunting prospect, seeing as how Venom is a supervillain spawned from one of Spider-Man's old costumes (actually an alien symbiote he picked up during the Secret Wars) bonding to a bitter journalist named Eddie Brock. This backstory is the entire reason Venom himself is a sort of dark reflection of Spider-Man; naturally, I was skeptical of Sony's ability to faithfully adapt the character to the big screen without once bringing the main hero into the mix. After all, we remember how well it turned out the last time a studio tried to spin-off a supervillain as an anti-hero in a standalone film that contained no trace of their comic book origins.

Surprisingly enough, the film more or less pulls off crafting a faithful depiction of Venom without once even alluding to the existence of Spider-Man (which is more than I can say for Topher Grace's take on the character in Spider-Man 3). The specific inspiration for this incarnation comes from Venom's Lethal Protector solo-series from the 90's, in which he took on the role of a wise-cracking anti-hero, rather than a tortured soul literally consumed by notions of vengeance. Make no mistake, this is not a serious film in any sense of the word. The Venom we get here is  much more "Strangers in the Night", as opposed to the "monster metaphor for addiction and abuse" we see in more modern stories. The result is a surprisingly silly buddy flick that ends up being the best superhero movie of 2006.

This is a movie that all but entirely ignores every bit of evolution the superhero genre has gone through in the past decade, to the point where I don't think I even need to talk about the plot (but will briefly anyway, because hey). Tom Hardy plays Eddie Brock, an investigative journalist who's down on his luck after attempting to expose the shady Life Foundation and its charismatic, Steve Jobs-ian CEO, Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed). While snooping around Drake's sinister science lab, Eddie becomes bonded to an alien symbiote named Venom (also voiced by Hardy). Together, the two form an unlikely bromance as they attempt to stop Drake's sinister schemes and win back Eddie's ex-fiance (Michelle Williams). There's some action, some comedy, finish things up with the most obvious sequel tease of all time, and roll credits. Despite a near two hour runtime, it doesn't feel nearly that long, so while the story definitely isn't what I'd call good, I can at least say that it doesn't bother wasting anyone's time.

If there's one thing I definitely liked about this movie, it would be Tom Hardy. You can tell he's really having a blast with the role, elevating the clunky dialog and bland plot, and that makes all the difference in the world when everything else here is thoroughly mediocre to outright bad. Apparently 40 minutes of footage was slashed from the final cut, the majority of which supposedly contained additional scenes of Eddie and Venom getting to know one another (scenes which Tom Hardy cited as his favorite parts of the movie). While it may have hurt the pacing, giving Hardy more screentime to talk to himself would have only improved the film for me. Eddie and the symbiote have an oddly endearing dynamic, definitely moreso than any of the other characters in the film (although Venom's odd fondness for Williams' character was pretty cute as well).

It all works in service of the surprisingly light tone, which feels much more in line with a screwball buddy comedy than a horror/action/sci-fi adventure. Like I said before, this isn't the tortured, nuanced, modern Venom we all know, so much as it is the wacky, nutty, 90's Venom of the past; part of me really wishes this was a period piece set in the early 90's, chock full of references to The Fresh Prince and Beanie Babies. At least then the film would have some sort of identity, and you could maybe write off the generic plot and story beats as "a charming throwback to a simpler kind of superhero movie". As is, this just feels like the executives at Sony dusted off the crib notes Avi Arad has had stashed in his desk drawer for the past 20 years and used them to throw a movie together while they desperately try to get the SUMC (Sony Universe of Marvel Characters, for the uninitiated) off the ground.

Outside of Tom Hardy's performance (and the so-embarrassing-it's-amazing Eminem song during the credits), literally everything else in this movie falls flat. Ahmed and Williams are fine as the megalomaniacal villain and flat love interest, the special effects are nothing special, and the action is sparse and serviceable (except for the climax, in which a black goo monster and a gray goo monster fight in an industrial area at night against a pitch-black sky, reaching Bayformers levels of incomprehensible visual noise). It's one of the most by-the-numbers comic book movies I've ever seen, and while adhering to a formula isn't an inherently bad thing, you'd usually want at least one unique or extraordinary element to elevate the entire thing above the formula it adheres to. The only feather in Venom's cap is a pretty fun Tom Hardy performance, and it's not even close to being his best work. You can tell he's just goofing around, it's like a vacation for him in-between real movies. Tom Hardy is the one element at play here that keeps Venom from being a purely negative experience, but it's not like you can compare Eddie Brock to Max Rockatansky or Charlie Bronson. There's no emotion, no underlying themes or metaphors, it's just a series of mildly amusing sequences interspersed alongside markedly less amusing sequences.

It's no secret that Venom was originally going to be released with an R rating before being mercilessly trimmed down to a PG-13 (thus ensuring a wider audience would be able to see it in theaters). Judging from its respectable show at the October box office, I'd say this gambit paid off, but only from a purely financial standpoint. Like I've said so far, the only really positive thing about this movie is that it's kinda fun, and I can definitively say without a doubt in my mind that it would have been exponentially more fun if we got some gore, swearing, and nudity in there as well. With how CGI-intensive the fight scenes are, it's painfully obvious that the original end result was meant to be far bloodier than what we ended up with. During one sequence, in which Venom faces off against a bunch of riot cops, he picks one up over his head, one arm on the officer's torso, the other on his legs. He appears primed to tear the poor schlub clean in half, but instead just sort of gently tosses him off to the side, making me wonder why they gave that moment so much focus. And that's not even counting all the heads that are eaten off-screen and obvious four-letter words that were ADR'd out of existence. Despite a brisk pace, the film looks like it was edited with a chainsaw; it constantly feels as though it's holding back whenever it tries to be dark or comedic, which are the only two tones this movie has to offer. Venom made bank at the box office, so we're definitely getting a sequel (take a fat guess at what the sequel is going to be... congratulations, you guessed correctly). My only hope is that Venom 2 is a hard R, with Tom Hardy not only starring, but executive producing as well. He's more than earned some creative control of the franchise moving forward, considering he's literally the only thing keeping this from being a totally braindead, joyless experience.

Venom is not even close to being a good movie, but I can't say I had a bad time watching it. If you're a fan of the character (specifically his campy, dated, 90's roots), you're going to get the satisfaction of seeing Venom done justice on the big screen and exactly nothing else. The plot is clichéd nonsense, the action is toothless, and there's literally nothing special or notable about it aside from Tom Hardy. With the right audience, it could be a fun enough time, but that's all it is. I can't say I recommend it, but it's also far from the worst thing Sony has put out in recent years. If they could find some way to implement this version of Venom into the MCU, I'd be all for it. But as far as the actual movie goes, the best part part of the entire thing was the two minutes of Into the Spider-Verse footage we got to see after the credits had finished rolling.

REVIEW: The Predator

There are a few notable trends that I keep noticing in modern movies that I'd like to talk about for just a bit. The first (and most irritating) is Hollywood's obnoxious over-reliance on 80's nostalgia. G.I. Joe, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, Robocop, Terminator, Thundercats, Ghostbusters; if it existed in the 1980's, you're probably gonna see its fetid corpse unearthed and propped up by a hack studio to make a quick buck. We've also witnessed the rise of the soft-reboot; a film that is, for all intents and purposes, a remake/reboot of a classic film franchise, except it's stated to take place in the main series continuity, making it a sequel, and thus okay. I feel like the most notable of these is The Force Awakens, but it's hardly a rarity nowadays, especially for big-budget franchises with a lot of brand recognition. We've also been seeing a lot of movies get utterly destroyed through reshoots. Normally, reshoots are a relatively innocuous practice, but it feels like as of late, more and more big-budget projects are suffering the slings of studio interference, producing an end result that turns out worse than anyone could have possibly predicted. The reason I choose to mention all of these phenomena is that Shane Black's The Predator manages to be a sterling example of all three with shockingly little effort.

The film opens as one would expect a Predator film to, with a spaceship hurtling towards Earth. After crash-landing in the South American jungle, everyone's favorite human-hunting space monster has a run-in with an Army Ranger by the name of Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook). Battered from the crash, the Predator (Brian A. Prince) is actually incapacitated by the hard-boiled sniper, who makes off with the creature's mask and wrist gauntlet. Sensing that he's seen something he wasn't meant to have seen, Quinn mails the alien tech back home before he's taken into custody by government agents. Naturally, the government has captured the Predator as well, who inevitably escapes and sets out in search of his stolen gear (which has since ended up in the hands of McKenna's autistic son, Rory, played by Jacob Tremblay). With the help of a renegade biologist (Olivia Munn) and a ragtag gang of disabled veterans, it's up to Quinn to keep his son out of the way of an interplanetary blood war, all while avoiding the shadowy government agents who want him disappeared. Despite how exciting that may sound, I assure you large chunks of this movie are dull as all get-out.

When this movie was first announced, I was understandably optimistic. Shane Black is a solid director (who also starred in/wrote parts of the original Predator), and a natural choice to helm the next entry in the franchise (redundant title notwithstanding). Predator is one of those rare films like Robocop that works both ironically and unironically well; it's the movie that made Arnold Schwarzenegger an action superstar, and it's chock-full of all the hilariously dated tropes and clichés one would expect from such a film. At the same time, it executes its deceptively simple premise startlingly well, balancing both action and suspense until things reach a head at the surprisingly small-scale climax. It's got all the excess that 80's action movies are lauded for to this day, but it also understands and appreciates the effect some quieter, more intimate moments can have when establishing atmosphere and tone. If they wanted to have a soft reboot of Predator that took itself seriously for the most part, they could certainly do so and have it work out nicely; 2010's Predators is living proof of this.

Alternatively, if Shane Black wanted to turn the whole thing into an utter farce, lampooning the various action tropes that the original Predator helped establish, I could see that working out as well; plenty of relatively serious films have successfully made the transition to more comedic fare as time's gone on (the most notable example that comes to mind being the Evil Dead trilogy). Black has a penchant for snappy dialog, and his role as Hawkins in the original film provided much of the early comedic relief. This appears to be the approach that The Predator is going for, but unfortunately the whole thing runs into a critical error; it's not particularly funny. There's a few one-liners that got a sensible chuckle out of me, and the gore has the tendency to reach Monty Python and the Holy Grail levels of cheap, slapstick-y excess, but I doubt anyone would describe The Predator as a rollicking good time (unless a character saying "get to da choppa" before escaping on a bunch of stolen motorcycles is your idea of clever writing). Really, the script here is so bad that it gives Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom a run for its money, with such winners as "Motherf-cker hacked our vehicles" and "F-ck me in the face with an aardvark".

In the film's defense, the first act is more or less exactly what I wanted it to be; it's by no means groundbreaking, but it's a reasonably fun monster movie with some solid action (in particular, the sequence in which the Predator escapes from a government lab). But everything goes downhill quickly soon after that scene, up until the point that our bigger, badder, entirely CGI rival Predator shows up. After this new monster is introduced, the entire film breaks and goes down the drain, devoid of any intellect or charm it may have possessed beforehand. Before that point, the lackluster performances, groan-worthy one-liners, and bland, forgettable characters were just sort of there, but it was around this time that it all compounded and started actively making the movie worse, dragging it down into the realm of pure trash. From what we've learned, apparently the entire third-act of the movie was rebuilt from the ground up at the behest of 20th Century Fox, so it seems as though this is another film that may have had the potential to actually be something not terrible before a bunch of studio suits decided to stick their slimy paws all over it. Honestly, I'd have happily accepted a Predator movie that was "just okay", but instead got something that appears to put active effort into being terrible. And that's not even touching the way The Predator attempts to tackle such weighty topics as mental illness and climate change.

There was a clear attempt at having some subtext, pitting a team of mentally-disturbed veterans and a young child with Asperger's up against an alien menace who has modified his own DNA to become a genetically-perfect being. Truth be told, giving the main group of heroes in an action/slasher flick a host of neuroses and disorders to deal with in addition to the impending extraterrestrial threat is a pretty fascinating idea that could really result in something spectacular if handled properly by a talented filmmaker (like, say, Shane Black). Instead what we get is a series of jokes where the punchline is "the guy with Tourette's said something profane" and a kid who can use the power of autism to operate alien technology as if he were R2-D2. The disorders in this movie are treated as either a punchline or a plot convenience; I'm not even going to harangue The Predator for how potentially offensive such a portrayal is, that's just lazy writing. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around how this even turned out so bad; this is a movie written by Shane Black and Fred Dekker. These are the guys who gave us The Monster Squad for crying out loud, what the hell happened? Was this a Producers-esque scam? Or did the studio seriously interfere that much? No amount of explanation is really going to save this trainwreck, but I'll admit that I'm the least bit curious.

I'll admit, for all of its problems, The Predator would actually make for a pretty good bad movie. I can easily see this working well in a room full of intoxicated friends, or with a rowdy audience at the local theater; but at the same time, it's important that everyone understand that statements such as these aren't exactly points in the film's favor. If the kindest thing you can say about a movie is "it's not offensively bad, it's just stupid and forgettable", there's clearly a problem, especially when talented people are involved. It could be fun with the right audience, but then again so is the first Predator. Predator didn't need to be "ironically good", it was just "good". Every idea we see here (Predator hounds, genetic modification, a crazed government alien-hunter, a ragtag gang of ex-military guys throwing out vulgar banter, etc.) was already done far better in other Predator movies (yes, even Predator 2). Is it the worst thing ever? No. But is there a solid reason to run out and watch it? Also no.

If you're at all curious about just how stupid the plot to The Predator can get, make sure to check out my fresh-out-of-the-theater plot rundown on YouTube!

REVIEW: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Let's talk about the current state of Hollywood, shall we? Not in the "surprise, everyone is a sex monster" kind of way, more in the "your profits are eventually going to reflect your lack of effort" kind of way. It's a situation, ironically enough, not dissimilar from the one presented in Jurassic Park; a big corporation bankrolls something stupid and indulgent, "spares no expense", tries to cash in on an entity they don't even begin to understand, and eventually has to suffer the consequences when the whole thing comes tumbling down. Ever since The Avengers proved that audiences were capable of following a shared-universe, multi-film narrative, every big studio under the sun has been trying to replicate that success without stopping for one moment to actually consider what made that success possible in the first place, forgetting that it took ten whole years and nearly 20 movies for the MCU to become what it is today. Modern studios seem to think that building a successful franchise is as simple as slapping a recognizable brand on literally whatever and calling it a day, when it's really far more complex than that. I'll tell you the problem with the cinematic power that they're using here; it didn't require any discipline to attain it. They saw what others had done, and they took the next step. They didn't earn the knowledge for themselves, so they don't take any responsibility for it. They stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as they could, and before they even knew what they had, they patented it and packaged it and shipped it off to theaters, and now they're selling it. They wanna sell it. 

Well... Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

Set 3 years after Jurassic World, the film follows the increasingly convoluted adventures of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) and Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard). After the dormant volcano that Jurassic Park was apparently built on top of begins to erupt, Claire is approached by a mysterious businessman (Rafe Spall), who represents John Hammond's old friend and business partner, Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell, as a character we've never heard of up until just now). He proposes that Claire and Owen join a slightly less-than-legal expedition back to Isla Nublar in order to save what dinosaurs they can before the entire thing goes up in smoke (literally this time). Although reluctant to go at first, Owen decides to tag along in order to rescue Blue the velociraptor from certain doom; their reunion is short-lived, however, as it's revealed that the supposed rescue mission was actually a front for far seedier activities. With the island destroyed, it's up to Owen, Claire, and a group of side-characters (who are somehow more bland than our already impressively-bland protagonists) to save the dinosaurs from Rafe Spall's immoral business dealings, all while avoiding the jaws of Henry Wu's (B.D. Wong) latest genetically-altered murdersaur, the Indoraptor.

The first and most strikingly bad thing about this movie, I think, is the script. Jurassic World was nothing revolutionary, but it did its job; it was cool finally seeing the park open and we got one of the most blissfully absurd climaxes I'd ever seen in a big-budget action movie. I left the theater more or less happy, if not exactly impressed. This, however, is just painfully bad. You get the impression that everything's been dumbed down even moreso, as though this movie has no pretense that it's just something meant to sell toys to children. The characters are one-note, the leaps in logic are downright olympian, and the story truly spares no expense in outright disregarding the recurrent themes and lessons presented in literally every previous Jurassic film. I'm not going to pretend that any of these movies were exactly head-scratchers, but they at least posed an interesting question about the potential ramifications of tampering with genetic power. One of the best scenes in the original film involves everyone simply eating dinner while debating whether or not a dinosaur theme park is an ethical idea in the first place. It's a multifaceted issue; for all of Ian Malcolm's moralizing, even he is stricken with a sense of childlike awe and excitement upon seeing a live dinosaur for the first time. And despite John Hammond's fatal shortsightedness, he's never portrayed as a "bad" guy; we completely understand why he would want to open Jurassic Park, even while understanding why it's a bad idea to do so. In Fallen Kingdom, the entire point of the movie basically boils down to "yeah yeah tampering in God's domain is immoral and junk, but wouldn't it be sad if da dinosauws died? :,(".

This is essentially Bryce Dallas Howard's entire arc in this movie; I guess the controversy her character stirred up last time around scared the studio execs bad enough that they'd rather she do basically nothing at all from this point on. In Jurassic World, her character progressed from a cold, profit-oriented businesswoman to someone who was prepared to take responsibility for the abomination she was complicit in creating. In Fallen Kingdom, she's essentially just an affluent white lady who wants to save the animals because it's sad when animals die; well-done, moral guardians, another victory for the rights of fictional women. We also have Chris Pratt at possibly his most boring. Owen, as a character (though I hesitate to even call it that), doesn't really have much of a personality, something Chris Pratt possesses a "deplorable excess" of. I know this is basically a carry-over from a few years ago, when Guardians of the Galaxy made more money than anyone could have possibly predicted and Chris Pratt was forcibly inserted into everything and anything, but taking a man who's been described as the human equivalent of a golden retriever and casting him as a straight-laced, rough and tumble, military manly man just doesn't work (and I can't imagine why anyone might think it would). His performance comes off like an audition tape for a store-brand version of Indiana Jones and it's honestly impressive how this movie manages to capture exactly none of Chris Pratt's natural charm or charisma. The only actor who's properly utilized throughout the whole thing is Jeff Goldblum, returning for a few minutes as Dr. Ian Malcolm to explain why the entire plot to the movie is a generally bad idea. Out of all the characters we're shown, his is the only one that makes a lick of sense. He's the true hero of this movie (which makes sense, seeing as how this is essentially a soft-reboot of The Lost World), even though he shows up, reads his lines, and leaves in less time than it takes for me to eat a Wawa sandwich.

Aside from the miserable script (which includes such gems as "It needs a mother!" and "What a nasty woman...") and the flat, incompetent characters, the film's pacing is also all over the place. It definitely falls into your traditional three-act structure, but still finds a way to divide its story directly down the middle. It's essentially two hour-long movies mashed together, making the entire thing feel even more like a pilot for a children's cartoon series. The situation isn't helped by the over-complicated mess of a plot; I excused some of the sillier bits in Jurassic World because I was just happy to see this franchise return from extinction, but the levels of outright stupidity Fallen Kingdom achieves feel like attempts to take advantage of my good nature. Jurassic Park is a premise that, like most metaphor-driven narratives, works best when there's as little fat to trim as possible. There's a theme park full of dinosaurs; the power gets shut off due to industrial espionage, nature runs amok, don't play God, life finds a way. Simple and clean. Then you have Fallen Kingdom, in which an evil businessman needs a team of mercenaries to save a velociraptor from an exploding island so that it can teach his weaponized super-dinosaur how to feel empathy, only for said super-dinosaur to run amok inside a Scooby-Doo mystery mansion, and also conservation is important or whatever. I get the impression that the people behind these movies have no idea why Jurassic Park is as good as it is beyond "WOAH COOL DINOSAURS".

To be perfectly fair, however, none of this is the fault of the director, J.A. Bayona. In fact, I'd say that the direction is one of the few things in this movie that I unironically liked; hell, I loved it. Bayona is, first and foremost, a horror director (having directed films like The Orphanage), so he's able to bring his own, unique style to the table (rather than just attempting to ape Spielberg like so many before him). The opening sequence in particular is unironically excellent, one of the best scenes in any Jurassic movie (if you can ignore them moving the mosasaur lagoon from the center of the island to the shoreline for plot reasons). There's a great amount of emphasis placed on the use of color and lighting, helping this corporate-designed product feel a little bit more like an actual film, rather than something meant to sell baby raptor toys to all the kids in the audience. For as schlocky as it is, the climax (in which the film essentially becomes a gothic monster movie) is actually a pretty fun time, thanks entirely to Bayona's fresh perspective. The action, while not exactly deep or emotionally engaging, is well-shot and exciting, which definitely kept me from outright hating this movie. I'm all but convinced by this point that Colin Trevorrow is responsible for everything wrong with Jurassic World, as he's relegated to script duty for this one and, as I've covered, that's where all of the film's problems occur. If there's one thing the executives at Universal should take away from this experience, it's the benefit that having a fresh face in the director's chair can bring to a project. With how well Fallen Kingdom is doing financially, a sequel is inevitable, and I truly hope that Bayona gets another shot at bat (hopefully to make something less inane than what we have here).

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is an easy lock for the stupidest thing I'm going to see in theaters in 2018. Normally, I'll be the first to champion the use of suspension of disbelief (especially in a summer blockbuster about genetically-altered dinosaurs), but even I have my limits. Much like with Disney's handling of Star Wars, the pendulum has swung way too far and now things are getting out of hand; the studios were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should. When it comes to these modern mega-blockbusters, the goal is no longer to make an enjoyable, accessible film, so much as it is to replicate the financial success of the first Jurassic World and break $1 billion at the box office.  In order to make a sustainable franchise, it's important that the product itself is more or less something of quality; this is why, after an entire decade of Marvel movies, everyone who saw Infinity War is excited and eager for what comes next. Meanwhile, you have Star Wars, which has had exclusively mediocre to outright bad movies since The Force Awakens and, surprise, now has to be completely reevaluated only three short years after they got the ball rolling. It'll happen to Jurassic World as well; they'll make their money now, but they're only postponing the inevitably embarrassing crash-and-burn that awaits all franchises tackled in this manner. Jurassic World made a ton of money, and Fallen Kingdom appears to be on the same track. But at the end of the day (and after adjusting for inflation), the original Jurassic Park is still the top dog of the franchise, both critically and financially. That kind of success is well within Universal's reach, they simply need expend the effort needed to seize it. And as we've learned time and time again, sloppy work in the name of maximizing profit only leads to catastrophic failure.

If you don't mind spoilers, be sure to check out my full plot-rundown on YouTube!

REVIEW: Pan's Labyrinth

Chalk this up as yet another film I've known about for ages, but have yet to seek out until just now. Much like with the Coen Brothers, I consider myself a huge fan of Guillermo Del Toro. Also much like the Coen Brothers, the amount of his filmography I've experienced firsthand is embarrassingly small. Crimson Peak just oozed style out of every pore, Pacific Rim was a ton of fun, and Hellboy 2 remains a personal favorite of mine, but I can't help but feel as though this is the film that really put the director on everyone's radar. Even before sitting down and watching it, the various creatures and images from Pan's Labyrinth were the first things that came to mind whenever I thought about Del Toro's work as a filmmaker. Having finally sat down and experienced it for myself, I feel confident in saying that, of all the Del Toro films I've seen, Pan's Labyrinth may just be the best of them all.

Set in Spain just after the end of the Spanish Civil War, the film follows a young girl by the name of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who is traveling with her pregnant mother (Ariadna Gil) to meet her new step-father, Captain Vidal (Sergi López). Vidal has been stationed in the woods, tasked with hunting down any remaining rebels, a job he approaches with both malice and enthusiasm. It's here that Ofelia discovers an ancient stone labyrinth, home to a mysterious faun (Doug Jones). The Faun informs Ofelia that she is actually a reincarnation of the long-lost princess of the underworld, and that she must complete a series of tasks before the next full moon in order to return to her kingdom and claim her birthright. 

I'll be honest and say that I was wholly surprised to see just how much of the plot focused on the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, compared to Ofelia's magical adventure. I was expecting something moreso along the lines of Alice in Wonderland or Labyrinth, where we spend all of a few minutes in the normal world before transitioning to a bizarre fantasy land for the remainder of the plot. Instead, the fantastical elements feel much more like an undercurrent than a primary focus; Ofelia is the only character who has any direct interactions with anything remotely not-of-this-world, so we're left wondering if what we're seeing is actually happening or if it's all simply the result of a young girl's imagination running wild while she struggles to cope with her less than ideal situation. Thankfully, the conflict between Vidal and the rebels is both interesting and compelling; this is one of the few times where, although my initial expectations were unmet, I'm not left feeling at all disappointed or wistful that we didn't get to see more of the fantasy world implied by the story. The brief glimpses we see only serve to make this fantastical realm feel all the more immeasurable. When we're given a look at what lies beyond, it doesn't feel like a soundstage, but rather a small part of a world that very much transcends the film's modest $19 million budget.

Truth be told, it feels as though Ofelia doesn't even receive that much screentime or focus from the primary plot; I was very much fascinated by Sergi López's portrayal of Captain Vidal, more than anything else. Rather than simply being an evil fascist military man, Vidal is given a rich and subtle backstory, conveyed entirely through visual indicators and context clues. He's a deeply insecure individual, obsessed with living up to the legend of his father (much like Ofelia, he's constantly preoccupied with believing in fairy tales of his own, creating a lovely contrast between protagonist and antagonist). There are brief moments where Vidal feels vulnerable and human, perhaps even relatable, but the film in no way presents these moments as an excuse for his monstrous and cowardly actions. He's a villain meant to help convey the storyteller's purpose and inner feelings, yet he never once feels at all stock, clichéd, or heavy-handed. López gives (arguably) the best performance in the entire film, and Vidal's story arc is honestly worth the price of admission alone.

Aside from the skillful way in which Del Toro tells his story, it's no surprise to anyone familiar with his work that the art direction is beyond stunning. Visually-speaking, this is a film you can completely and totally lose yourself in; the opening scenes showcasing the mountainous pine forests of Spain filled me with an urge to go hiking I haven't felt since I watched Pete's Dragon, and the cinematography of longtime Del Toro collaborator Guillermo Navarro leaves a striking impression. Everything is shot and lit superbly, in a way that feels totally natural, while also taking full advantage of film as a visual medium. It's difficult to explain, but picture something with all the visible style and flair of an early Tim Burton film, but captured within a completely naturalistic lens; a visual style that is, without a doubt, stylized, yet not in a way that's immediately noticeable or distracting.

In addition to the technical aspects of the film, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the top-knotch creature work of Doug Jones (another name that constantly appears in Del Toro's work). Jones pulls double-duty here as both the enigmatic Faun and the monstrously unpleasant Pale Man, seamlessly blending into the mountains of prosthetics and makeup he's been covered in (care of David Martí, Montse Ribé, and Xavi Bastida). When I said earlier that Sergi López arguably gives the best performance in the movie, I mean that the only other contender for that title is Jones himself. So much is conveyed through movement and body language alone, it's no wonder that Jones is considered one of the biggest names in modern creature performances. It's a true display of dedication to one's craft, making good use of the resources at hand and managing to still look impressive over the years since its release; despite being over a decade old and costing nearly half of what it took to make Snakes on a Plane (which came out that same year), the creature effects shown here still hold up (and then some), blending live actors, puppeteers, animatronics, and CGI touch-ups to create visuals that are fine-tuned to capture the imaginations of all who watch.

It's also worth noting that, while Pan's Labyrinth is most assuredly a feast for the eyes, there's also a great deal worth unpacking in terms of symbolism and metaphor. The film provides commentary on themes such as the nature of innocence and youth, sacrifice, personal independence, and the sins of past generations. Ofelia's personal story is more thematically in-tune with the Civil War plot unfolding around her than one might initially believe, and much of this can be difficult to see on a first-time viewing. The futility of war is juxtaposed alongside the often dark and cruel undertones found in many classical fairy tales and myths, merging these two seemingly divergent genres together in a way that works better than just about anyone could have predicted. It's definitely the kind of film that requires active participation on the audience's part in order to shine, I think. Many details are left open for interpretation, and to leave these threads unfollowed would be a disservice both to the film itself and the viewer.

That said, this is also a surprisingly digestible film, not overly-reliant on obtuse symbolism or deeper meaning. The story, visuals, and characters are easily engrossing enough to carry a viewing all on their own; the deeper elements are there, should you choose to seek them out (and by all rights you should choose to seek them out), but it's also perfectly reasonable to enjoy this film as just a story all on its own. I could see myself throwing this on in the afternoon, just to have something to watch, just as easily as I could see myself actively engaging in the elements that are at play just below the surface. It's my favorite kind of film, much like The Big Lebowski or Spirited Away; there are seemingly endless depths to plumb, should you feel the need to explore, but you can also involve yourself as much or as little as you'd like and still find something to enjoy. This is a dense, rich film, but by no means is it a chore to watch. That, I believe, is the mark of a truly skilled filmmaker.

What else needs to be said about Pan's Labyrinth? Incorporating classic fairy tale tropes (a wicked step-parent, a sleeping potion, etc.) with allusions to classic horror and fantasy films (The Shining, Alice in Wonderland, etc.), juxtaposed against a tale of war and rebellion, bursting at the seams with relevant (but not remotely overwrought) symbolism and metaphor, this is simply one of those films that acts as a true testament to the power of imagination. It will suck you in and place you under its spell, as it did me; I'm already eager to revisit it and see what's changed. I make no exaggeration when I say this is arguably Del Toro's finest work and you'd be remiss to wait even nearly as long as I did to give this one a watch. Definitely check it out, if you haven't already. If you already have, check it out again; there's indescribable value in revisiting films such as this, visible only to those who know where to look.

REVIEW: The Brothers Grimm

There's something to be said, I think, in defense of well-meaning schlock. Unlike your usual soulless cash-grab, an otherwise lackluster film can be elevated by some degree of creativity on the part of the filmmaker. This is something we saw last year with Kong: Skull Island; in terms of plot and character development, it was about as basic as they come. However, the cinematography, creature design, and overall atmosphere of the film illustrated just how much of a difference a little artistic effort can make. One could make a similar case, I feel, for today's subject, The Brothers Grimm. Before the mid-aughts tsunami of edgy fairy tale adaptations (Snow White and the Huntsman is likely the most infamous, but Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is easily the most ludicrous), Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam gave us his own spin on the mythos behind the classic folk tales (and the men who collected them). It's a movie I could see working well in a double-feature with Sleepy Hollow, but I admittedly enjoyed The Brothers Grimm a good deal more (despite its flaws).

A fictitious tale of the real-life Brothers Grimm, the film paints the siblings as a pair of con-men, travelling from town to town across French-occupied Germany, using smoke and mirrors to perform phony exorcisms. After being arrested by the French military, the siblings (played by Matt Damon and Heath Ledger) are instructed to investigate the disappearance of a number of young girls in the small village of Marbaden. Suspected to be the work of fellow con-artists, the brothers are offered amnesty for their various grifts if they can expose whatever scheme is being cooked up and rescue the missing girls. However, they soon discover that the curses and folklore surrounding the supposedly enchanted forest is far more real than what they're used to dealing with. Alongside Mercurio Cavaldi (an Italian torturer played by Peter Stormare) and a hunter named Angelika (Game of Thrones' Lena Headey), it's up to Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm to solve the mystery of the enchanted forest and save a host of kidnapped children from succumbing to a grisly fate.

The most immediately-striking thing about this entire film (and my favorite detail) is the absurd-yet-macabre atmosphere Gilliam is able to establish. Before being sanitized and mass-produced into a multi-million dollar franchise by the Disney Corporation, the original Grimms' Fairy Tales was chock-full of stories of death, murder, and other assorted horrors. Cinderella's step-sisters were mutilated and blinded for their sins and the evil Queen in Snow White was literally forced to dance herself to death while wearing red-hot shoes. The content and themes of these stories tended to be a tad heavier than the usual "wish upon a star and believe in your dreams" schtick we're used to today, and it's that sense of tone that Gilliam captures magnificently here. While it is an action movie, it's not especially violent or profane, no moreso than any given Pirates of the Caribbean movie. This is a perfectly acceptable film to let children watch (almost like a more adult Over the Garden Wall), that is if you're willing to deal with the series of morbid and surreal night-terrors The Brothers Grimm is sure to inspire. 

Yes, everyone still lives happily ever after in the end, and yes, the majority of these moments employ liberal use of dodgy mid-2000's CGI, but there were a few moments where even I, a grown-ass man, found myself getting a little unsettled by just how morbid some of these sequences were. Maybe it's because so many of these scenes (again, true to their 19th century inspirations) involve horrific things happening to children; then again, it's not much of a stretch to define a scene where a small girl is eaten alive by a horse full of spiders as pure, high-octane nightmare fuel. There's also a sequence later on in which a gingerbread man forms out of a pile of mud and proceeds to steal a child's face, leaving her to stumble around blindly, attempting to scream despite not having a mouth. While some people may find scenes like this offputting, I absolutely loved it; it's all presented without a hint of shame or irony, perfectly capturing that sense of foreboding and dark humor you see all the time in old-world folklore. The film knows what it's about and it has no intention of apologizing (as illustrated in the scene in which an adorable kitten is kicked into a rotor-blade). You get the sense Gilliam wanted to present the side of these classic stories you seldom see anymore in popular culture, and it ends up being arguably the biggest feather in the film's cap.

I also adored the way that Gilliam was able to tie all of the notable Grimm folklore together, without it coming off as trite or unnatural. The idea behind the film is that Jacob (the more studious brother, played by Heath Ledger) is constantly taking down notes in a leather-bound journal, the implication of course being that these notes will eventually serve as the inspiration for the characters and stories collected in Grimms' Fairy Tales. The wicked Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci), for example, is meant to serve as a sort of amalgam of the Evil Queen from Snow White and the titular princess from Rapunzel. The woodsman (Tomáš Hanák) is also the big, bad wolf. The film doesn't try for the overplayed "well here's what ACTUALLY HAPPENED" gimmick like so many other modern twists on classic stories, instead putting a unique spin on things that, overall, feels like a cohesive and believable backstory for each of these timeless fairy tales. Granted, I mean believable in a world with blood-moon enchantments and living gingerbread men, but the point I'm getting at is that, considering the world the film establishes, we're able to connect the dots between fiction and "reality". There are countless examples of the creative process working like this in real life (the Chain Chomps in Super Mario Bros were inspired by a neighborhood dog that would chase a young Shigeru Miyamoto around, Professor Snape was based off of J.K. Rowling's firm but fair chemistry teacher, etc.), so it's interesting to see a film work embrace its own fictional aspects and work backwards in such a way.

Attention to detail aside, I was most surprised at how taken I was with the relationship between the titular brothers; in the opening scene, we see a destitute family waiting for a doctor to help their sick little girl. Her brother returns home, only to reveal that he sold the family cow for "magic beans" that would supposedly cure his sister. As one might expect, the beans aren't magic at all and the little girl succumbs to her sickness and dies, much to the dismay of her brothers (who grow up to be Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm). It's a surprisingly dramatic origin for the two, illustrating just why they've taken up work as travelling con-artists, as well as providing context for their dynamic (both as brothers and as business partners). Wilhelm (Damon) is the more profit-minded of the two, typically taking charge; whenever anything sparks Jacob's imagination, Wilhelm is quick to drag him back down to Earth by mentioning the magic beans. And it's because of this inciting incident that, when the enchantments in the forest are proven to be real, Jacob is driven to get to the bottom of things while his brother would be content to collect what they can and skip town. If he can prove the existence of magic, then he can absolve himself of guilt for his sister's death; if magic exists, then she died because of a scam artist, rather than because of Jacob's ignorance and naïveté. It's an unexpectedly resonant aspect of an otherwise schlocky, offbeat action film, and one that I greatly appreciated in the end.

For all my praise, the film is far from perfect. The plot tends to meander about in search of something interesting to do, and scenes tend to just happen one after another. At just under two-hours, it definitely feels its length (despite some fun action setpieces scattered throughout). It doesn't exactly follow a traditional plot structure, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I have to say that this is one element where I wish Terry Gilliam had played it a tad more traditional. Your typical three-act structure is pretty hard to mess up, and while one can definitely divide the film up into a beginning, middle, and end, it's hardly three clean, even sections. The second act lasts essentially from when the brothers arrive at Marbaden all the way to the climax, and while this is where the majority of memorable scenes are found (such as the aforementioned nightmare horse and gingerbread man sequences), they're all spaced out between long spans of nothing. Our villains, while easy to root against, lack any and all subtlety or nuance and arguably the most interesting character (Angelika, a stoic hunter played by Game of Thrones' Lena Headey) is written out of the main conflict just before the final battle, relegated to nothing more than a typical damsel in distress who, oddly enough, ends up something of a romantic reward for both the brothers. At the same time, however, we also get Peter Stormare acting to the rafters as a morally-questionable Italian man. So at least there's that.

All in all, I enjoyed my time with The Brothers Grimm. It's heavily flawed, but it's also a ton of fun in a really offbeat, darkly humorous sort of way. You get the sense that there was some degree of a creative vision here, rather than just an attempt to make a cheap action movie out of some public domain fairy tales. The sets and costumes and lighting are all spectacular, as is the creature design and overall idea behind the plot. It's the kind of concept that would have crashed and burned in the hands of someone like Brett Ratner or Paul W.S. Anderson, but instead found something special with Terry Gilliam. Sure, it can technically be classified as a "guilty pleasure", but why over-complicate things? It's a fun, schlocky, imaginative bit of work that'll scare the pants off of any child you put in front of it. If you find yourself in the mood for that specific kind of fantasy film that seems to intentionally stray away from that Peter Jackson standard of "epic", you could certainly do a lot worse than this.