Del Toro isn’t taking the risk for shock value. He wants to stage an adult relationship, and explore what it really looks like for two outcasts, even ones from different (or fantastical) species, to fall in love. In an age when historically marginalized people are slowly finding it easier to express themselves and be comfortable in their own skins, The Shape of Water feels incredibly timely - even though it’s set decades in the past.
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Set against the rage-inducing structure, annoying performances and embarrassing scripting of Batman v Superman, Justice League initially feels like a major step forward from its predecessor. At the very least, the new film has some internal logic and the ability to sustain a train of thought about a character or a plot point. But this is a limp improvement – being mostly functional doesn’t create a lot of thrills.
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Anyone who knows the previous movies by Ragnarok’s director, Taika Waititi, will recognize the style of humour here instantly. There’s a deadpan, bantering quality to the writing that I loved, seemingly born just a much via improvisation than by a writer’s room. Waititi also doubles down on the wacky possibilities of his outer-space setting, resulting in some space-time gags that wouldn’t be out of place in Doctor Who. One of my favourites involved a weird mashup of 2001: A Space Odyssey and the scary tunnel scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory – yes, you read that right. It’s awesome.
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Branagh himself directs and stars as Poirot, and from a production standpoint, the whole affair is visually rich and full of fine performances. But somehow, Branagh’s version still lacks a distinctive voice. The film experiments with camera angles and re-stages certain scenes, though they don’t illuminate the proceedings more than a traditional presentation would. The structure of the film also poses problems, moving the plot forward at a jerking pace that hints at some heavy re-editing after the initial test screenings. Murder on the Orient Express is never not watchable, but if Fox is hoping to spark a series of Poirot mysteries on the big screen, it may require a few more of Poirot’s “little grey cells”.
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In many ways, this serves the Duffers well. Season two of Stranger Things is marked by a willingness to diverge from some of the things that made the first season so addictive. The nostalgia for 80s pop culture is less pronounced. There’s very little (if any) Dungeons and Dragons. The dynamics of the core group of kids are in flux. But this doesn’t reduce our craving for more; in fact, the show keeps us clicking the “next episode” button by folding in character development and narrative experiments, all to test what Stranger Things can be.
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Sadly, the feature-length experience of the film offers none of that joy. Unlike its genre brethren (The Core, The Day After Tomorrow or 2012), Geostorm is a deadening facsimile of earlier apocalypses. The main characters are only once physically threatened by the storms they’re racing to stop. The filmmakers woefully underuse their core concept - a malfunctioning weather-controlling satellite network - wasting opportunities to see wild remixes of typical weather. The cardboard characters interact as if they’ve all wandered into the proceedings from other movies. And perhaps most disappointing, they spent so much godforsaken money on Geostorm that it can’t even aspire to the kind of grubby, homemade production value that might bring a smile to your face, in the vein of Birdemic or Troll 2.
Read More![[VIFF 2017] REVIEW: 'The Florida Project' is a slice of life, and it's quite wonderful](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1508806317205-A8BPHBGKPAFWJX5N242L/Florida+Project+3.jpg)
The Florida Project was one of the films I was looking forward to the most at VIFF, and it didn’t disappoint. The title is taken from EPCOT, which was a master-planned community envisioned by Walt Disney in the 1960s. Disney’s project was never fully completed, and the motels and attractions that surround it now serve as housing for those struggling to stay above the poverty line. Florida, by the way, has a higher than average poverty rate.
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By contrast, in his new film Downsizing, Payne expands his perspective to the entire planet, and in so doing loses some of the authenticity that he’s been known for. Downsizing doesn’t seem to trust the audience to pick up on its save-the-world thesis, and ends up feeling more like an over-eager university student giving a speech than a satisfying moviegoing experience. It’s not a bore, but it wastes too much energy wagging its finger while the story is lagging behind.
Read More![[TIFF 2017] REVIEW: ‘The Current War’ buzzes with ideas, but doesn’t connect](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5856d460197aea66c1dc96bf/1505365368745-FR9CFNTJKHV11L17TU2E/Current+War+1.jpg)
Gomez-Rejon throws a lot at the screen, especially some adventurous cinematography, but it doesn’t help clarify a thorny narrative that spreads out over many years and offers valid arguments on either side of the debate. No matter the subject matter, historical period pieces generally need to synthesize the many sources out there into something that educates and entertains inside of two hours. It’s kind of hard to do that when the director appears to be fussing over the umpteenth long take, off-kilter composition, or daring scene change.
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One of my favourite foundations for a movie is a young character with improbable confidence. Whether it’s Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) in True Grit or Max Fischer (Jason Schwartzman) in Rushmore, there’s something instantly charming and loaded with potential in a character who knows their own mind, and charges forward in a world of adults. They’re often the product of an unusual background, and they continually baffle those around them, but there’s a sense that once the wider world gets a few knocks in, their smarts will see them through.
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There’s a final Mexican standoff in the finale of Wind River that has become instantly recognizable as director Taylor Sheridan’s work: tense and unflinchingly brutal. These gunfights are nerve-wracking and serve their purpose, such as in Sicario and Hell or High Water, but in the much slower and contemplative Wind River, it suddenly feels slightly out of place.
Set in Wyoming on the Wind River Indian Reservation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) discovers the frozen corpse of Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Chow), and it’s quickly ruled a homicide by FBI agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen). With the help of the local Tribal Police Chief, Ben (Graham Greene), the investigation leads them to the dark corners of the reservation, from broken homes to drug houses to remote oil rigs.
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Steven Soderbergh made a name for himself with clever storytelling and editing with both Ocean’s Eleven and Traffic, for which he won an Oscar for Best Director. He had a gift for snappy dialogue and even snappier editing, which are requisite characteristics for a film with an ensemble cast to be successful. Combined with the end of his self-imposed exile, there was considerable intrigue ahead of Logan Lucky’s release.
It’s a straight-forward and enjoyable film: Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum), a former football star who is now poor, divorced and working blue-collar jobs, is having the worst day of his life. He is fired form his construction job due to liability issues after failing to disclose his injured knee when he was hired, and learns that his ex-wife and daughter are moving out of state with her wealthy new husband. Jimmy visits his brother, Clyde (Adam Driver), an Iraq War veteran with one hand who runs the local bar, and together they hatch a plan to rob the cash deposits from the vault of the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR event. They recruit their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), eccentric demolitions expert Joe Bang (Daniel Craig), and Bang’s two dimwitted brothers (Brian Gleeson, Jack Quaid) to complete the job, which runs into all sorts of comical complications.
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When Nikolaj Arcel’s film is at its best, it does harness this mixture of genres, suggesting that there’s a fascinating world for audiences to explore. The realm of Mid-World contains derelict versions of technology from our world, but with a society that seems more like a 19th-century American frontier settlement, only equipped with electricity and futuristic capabilities like teleportation. Frustratingly, just as viewers are getting interested, the film has its characters travel to Manhattan, where a series of rote story beats plays out: the hero is injured and fortuitously healed before the final fight; the hero has a falling-out with his companion, only to bond over a shared experience; the hero stops a world-destroying space laser with a few well-placed, slow-mo bullets.
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The raging debate now isn’t whether or not Dunkirk’s the best summer film to date -- because it undoubtedly is -- but whether or not this is Nolan’s finest work on a resume that has no major blemishes. I would argue this is definitely Nolan’s best film because this is a technical Nolan at his technical best, and his expertise shines through in every single aspect of the film, most notably in using the rule of thirds in both plot structure and developing tension between characters.
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A finely engineered watch figures prominently in the plot of Atomic Blonde. It’s loaded with some secret information that everyone in the movie wants to get their hands on. It’s tracked by operatives of MI6, the CIA, the KGB and the French DGSE. Whoever has the watch controls the fates of dozens, if not hundreds of spies in Cold War Europe. As the people of East and West Berlin take the final crucial steps towards reunification, a shadowy battle plays out over a single deadly timepiece.
Like the watch, the film is a collection of beautiful components. The craftsmanship behind every part is on full display: bold, fluorescent cinematography, calibrated performances, and a vicious one-take action scene for the ages. There’s an important flaw, though: Atomic Blonde puts all of this powerful material on display, but can’t seem to put it together correctly. It’s as though the pieces are grinding against each other, resetting the clock when the film should be ticking forward and building tension.
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