IN THEATRES: The Gentlemen

Drug lord Mickey Pearson (Matthew McConaughey) is keen to retire and sell off his empire. As word spreads of his decision, various forces arise to claim as much of it as they can, including an upcoming gangster (Henry Golding) and an unscrupulous journalist (Hugh Grant).

As the bodies pile up and unseen enemies attack his infrastructure, Mickey and his right-hand man Raymond (Charlie Hunnam) scramble to figure out what's going on.

After a decade of big-budget Hollywood efforts (including the Sherlock Holmes films and, uh, King Arthur - Legend of the Sword), Guy Ritchie returns to the world of the British criminal underworld of his debut Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (as well as Snatch and RocknRolla).

Weirdly, the film this most reminded me of was Jon Favreau's Chef, in that it represents the filmmaker returning to a smaller but familiar template to regain his mojo - with McConaughey's character as an avatar for the veteran filmmaker trying to maintain his business in a rapidly changing world (while trying to deal with American interests who attempt to betray him).

Now I have not seen any of the above films, so I cannot judge how far this movie diverges from or emulates his previous work.

As a film in its own right, The Gentlemen has an interesting conceit - the story is told as a series of flashbacks as a muckraking tabloid journalist (Hugh Grant) tries to blackmail a gangster (Charlie Hunnam) by revealing what he knows of his dealings with his boss (McConaughey).

Throughout the movie, something about it rubbed me the wrong way.

The focus of the film is on middle-aged gangsters, and the younger characters are presented as either villains or victims. There is a sense of helplessness to these characters that can only be resolved by our heroes' maintaining control.

While conflict between generations can make for interesting cinema, The Gentlemen is only interested in using that conflict to preserve the status quo. There is a subtext of generational rage and racism running through the movie that made the whole experience somewhat unpleasant.

The film is concerned with themes of ageing and the changing face of London. While the film has a diverse cast, the story is filled with caricatures who are all presented as various kinds of antagonists or obstacles for Mickey and Raymond.

This is most obvious in the character of Dry Eye (Henry Golding), one of the film's antagonists. He is presented as the most despicable character in the film, a psychopath with no respect for the rules the other characters live by. While it is interesting to see Golding take on a different role from the somewhat milquetoast characters he has played recently, the character of Dry Eye feels like check list for the worst bad guy cliches. His final act feels like the worst kind of lazy misogynistic writing, and when combined with the film's presentation of POC, it evokes Birth of a Nation.

There is also a clear disdain for anyone who is not white, male and well-off - our heroes run into gangs of hooligans on drugs, Youtube-obsessed rappers-boxers. The ultimate antagonist behind the scheme taps into such an old stereotype I was shocked that it made it to screen.

What is worse is that Ritchie plays the whole thing for laughs, but there is no satire here - the punchline is that all of these people fulfilled their stereotypes.

It is a bummer because in the middle of all this, Hugh Grant is really good as a seedy tabloid journalist (which feels like an in-joke on his relationship with British tabloids).

Other than that, The Gentlemen just feels angry and tired.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Intruder (Deon Taylor, 2019)

Young couple Scott (Michael Ealy) and Annie (Meagan Good) are looking for their dream home to raise a family. When they find a beautiful property for a steal, they think their dream is realised.

What they do not count on is former owner Charlie Peck (Dennis Quaid), who is determined to keep the property exactly as it was, at all costs...

Like 6 Underground, The Intruder is a throwback - in its case, the thrillers of the 80s and 90s. Movies like Fatal Attraction, The Hand That Rocks The Cradle and Unlawful Entry, in which a young couple find their lives turned upside down by an antagonist who invades their home (literally and metaphorically).

The biggest surprise of this movie is that it was a theatrical release in the US. These kinds of movies used to be big business, but the genre has largely gone the way of courtroom thrillers and gone to the small screen (the prime example is Netflix's You).

The Intruder comes from the pen of David Loughery, who previously wrote Lakeview Terrace and Obsessed, the film which inaugurated Screen Gem's line of thrillers aimed at black audiences. Where Obsessed was based around a murderous temp, The Perfect Guy featured a murderous boyfriend and When The Bough Breaks (my personal favorite) debuted the archetype of the killer surrogate*, The Intruder is a former home owner who is a little overprotective of his former home.

Of all of these films, The Intruder actually feels like something original. Sure, the bones are familiar, and the movie makes little sense, but there is something about this movie that made it more... unsettling.

While the film is PG13, there is a simmering nastiness to the film that feels far more visceral than the soft-pedaled scares of its predecessors - and a major reason for this is Dennis Quaid's performance as Charlie.

Often compared to Kevin Costner, Quaid has always been more willing to pick roles that play against his good looks. In The Intruder, there is a whiff of permanent agitation to Quiad's performance that energizes the movie.

While the filmmakers largely keep the viewer aligned with protagonists, there are moments peppered throughout the where the focus shifts to Charlie's POV: during a sequence when Charlie visits the house after the new owners have moved in, diegetic sound dies away and is replaced by an increasing whine as he sees what has happened to 'his' living room.

This shift in perspective is only employed in a few moments the movie - the only other major beat I noticed was a violent fantasy Charlie has involving Scott and Annie's friends. I liked these moments - they come out of nowhere, and the filmmakers do not return to them - I took it as a sign that they recognized that audiences can put together that the bad guy is the bad guy, and we can put together what he is thinking.

This brief detour inside Charlie's noggin does allow the filmmakers to hint at other ideas which are not necessary to see onscreen, such as his growing obsession with Annie. From the first scene, it is obvious that Charlie sees her love of the property - and her affinity for country life - as qualities he desires, and it is clearly her that he is transferring the property to, rather than the couple.

Charlie sees Annie as an addition to his home, and as the film progresses, Charlie's plotting is based around not only reclaiming his home, but destroying his rival Scott.

My big complaint with The Intruder is that it blows a potential source of tension as a final (and obvious) twist: at the climax it turns out that Charlie has a hidden room inside the house where he has been living ala Bad Ronald and whoever Gary Busey played in Hider in the House.

It is not as shocking as the film makes it out to be, and underlies the film's inability to lean into to the tension of losing control over your home. I have a feeling the movie could have had more suspense if the film revealed this early on (it might have also saved us from a couple of hack jump scares).

The one time in the movie where it felt like I really get a sense of our heroes' vulnerability is the one sequence where I appreciated the PG13 rating: While she is home alone, Annie has a shower - unaware that Charlie is outside in the hall. The camera stays on Quaid's face as he watches her. His face tenses and he removes his shirt. He is prevented from further action when he hears Scott's car outside. Even though nothing happens, the implications are disturbing, and solidifies just how much (potential) power Charlie has over the protagonists.

Aside from Quaid, the acting is pretty good. Ealy and Good are solid as the leads, and helped get over some of the script's contrivances, especially Annie's belief that Charlie is completely innocent. Good plays Annie as a bit of a pollyanna, which made it more credible.

In this respect, I would credit the script for adding a wrinkle of un-trustworthiness to Scott (his predilection to flirt with women) that makes Annie's willingness to accept Charlie's odd visits more believable. I wish the movie had focused more on this potential fissure, but as is it works to destabilize our heroes' equilibrium.

While the film does define the conflict between Scott and Charlie's different brands of masculinity - white-collar anti-gun hero and the macho gun lover - the subject of race is never overtly raised.

However, it feels more present than previous Screen Gems thrillers - there is something intentional about having the villain be an old white man trying to hold onto his property while falsifying his personal history and covering up his own inadequacies with deceit and violence. It does not feel subtle - Charlie even has a red baseball cap - but for a movie that wants to be a crowd-pleasing thriller, it is low-key enough that it could be overlooked.

The Intruder is not an underrated masterpiece. There are a couple of easy jump scares, and as already highlighted, the film's approach to suspense is too inconsistent for it to really sustain tension. However, Quaid's performance gives the movie a lot of juice, and the final action sequence - complete with a falling chandelier - is ridiculous but fun, with a surprisingly brutal button as the ending.

While it may not beat Obsessed's final brawl, and it is not as OTT as When The Bough Breaks, The Intruder is the closest this 'franchise' has gotten to the 90s thrillers these films are indebted to. 

*I think?

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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6 Underground (Michael Bay, 2019)

In an attempt to right the world's wrongs, a mysterious billionaire gathers a team of specialists to take down the threats no government will touch. Having faked their deaths, and boosted by their leader's financial resources, this oddball team turn their sights on a despotic dictator responsible for war crimes against his own people.

After a decade of Transformers, Michael Bay has returned to R-rated mayhem.

In many respects it feels like classic Bay: arbitrary angle and camera moves, rapid editing, magic hour, bizarre lashings of comedy, general tonal incoherence and a complete disdain for human characters.

Despite the presence of Reynolds and his writing collaborators Paul Wenick and Rhett Reese (Zombieland, Deadpool), there is little to differentiate this movie from Bay's previous work. I am not a fan of Bay, but there was something weirdly reassuring while watching this film.

Amid the shapeless dross of most Netflix product, 6 Underground looks and feels big - Bay's aesthetic has its critics, but with how flat and uninteresting most Netflix releases are, there is something pleasing about his overheated nonsense.

That being said, the film is far less nuanced when it comes to other aspects of its story and characters.

The plot is based around our hero - a billionaire tech bro - discovering his humanity after watching thousands of people lose theirs in a chemical attack orchestrated by a brutal central Asian dictator. After faking his death, he assembles a team of experts in various eclectic fields and turns them into a private version of the Dirty Dozen.

The parallels to Assad are as subtle as a bus to the face, and while the movie does reference how major powers play a part in installing these regimes, the answer the movie has to have our heroes' mission be focused on toppling the tyrant and replacing him with his benevolent brother.

While the premise is interesting, 6 Underground is best viewed as a collection of set pieces. The characters get some business to do - there is a romantic subplot between a former cartel gun man and an ex-CIA agent that takes up most of the non-action moments - but this is not a movie that delves too deeply into making its core group make sense.

The film is more interested in the idea of a group of outsiders finding family together than making that a major element of the text. Outside of Reynolds' One, we never really get a sense of what motivates our heroes.

And One's backstory does not make him that endearing - he just comes off as a bit of a prick. While his motive is understandable, there is something odious about a rich white guy learning empathy from watching the genocide of thousands of poor brown people.

It might be the affect of the filmmaking, but outside of the gassing sequence, the film never feels that concerned with humanising the people of the country - other than the Tyrant's brother, the group have no ties to the country. While it is arguable wether it is necessary to get too into the sociopolitical context of an imaginary country, it is hard to see what the group is fighting for. They do not even have allies among the locals.

While Bay's return to full-throttle action will be welcomed, at a certain point I began to think about how expensive this movie was, and the number of other filmmakers with similar pedigrees who could have used some of Netflix's largesse. 

If you are onboard for Bay, 6 Underground is worth a look. Otherwise, the John Wick movies are readily available.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

IN THEATRES: Cats

You know what this is.

I watched it last night. It has been two days and I am still trying to reconcile what I just watched.

I have not had an experience like this movie since I ran out halfway through Martyrs. I was laughing, I was crying, I was screaming for it to end.

But I could not look away.

The movie starts and already feels like an assault. A car stops in an alley, a massive human figure drops a bag among the garbage and drives away.

A group of cat-people cluster around the bag and tear it open to reveal Victoria (newcomer Francseca Hayward), a naive young cat who becomes our guide into the world of cats.

We are immediately launched into a song as multiple cats start singing about being 'Jellicle cats'. Before we even have a sense of the location OR the characters we are meeting, the camera starts swirling around and the editing goes into overdrive - but rather than capturing the energy of the song, it only disorients who is who and where everyone is in relation to each other.

It is a lot to take in, and it establishes the basic sensation of watching Cats.

Through out the movie, I was enraged and impressed by the film's unwillingness to give non-fans a break. And there is almost no downtime. We go from song to song to dance number to song with no let up.

There are a few beats of spoken dialogue, but there are no downbeats, and no silence. This is wall-to-wall sound and motion for 110 minutes.

The transition between these moments are so arbitrary - at no point did I feel settled. Often there are no signs ahead of time that a new song is about to happen.

Sometimes a song about a particular character will start and since half the words are made-up nonsense it is hard to tell if they are talking about a cat or a concept. And then said character will appear, and I have a new uncanny face to haunt my brain box.

Speaking of which...

The stories of the unfinished effects have already added to the tale (har har har) of this movie - I am pretty sure I saw the un-corrected version (one of the cats seemed to be wearing sneakers in the first alley scene).

The effects are all over the place - sometimes characters' faces seemed to float free of their heads; background characters are either poorly rendered or out-of-focus.

Bad effects are one thing but when they are used to pull off some of the ideas in this movie, it tips over into genuinely unnerving.

Yes, the cats are people. But the mice are also people (with CGI faces of children, as if it was not disturbing enough).

AND there is an army of dancing cockroaches who are also anthropomorphised - we get to watch the cat people eat them.

There is even a scene where a dog shows up, but sadly it is kept offscreen.

Onto the sex!

I heard from people online that the movie was 'horny' but it is merely one component of all the surreal sh*t going on in this movie.

There is something so off-putting about these half-digital characters, and then combined with the environments, and the way that Hooper shoots them, that constantly throws off your attention. There a few moments where the characters do not seem to be interacting with the settings they are in - they either float above the floor or stand in front of backdrops that lack depth (the person I went with muttered that it looked like a Tim and Eric skit).

One of the key weaknesses of the film is that there is a severe lack of unity between the camera work and the edit. All film is based on a unity of affect - how a shot is composed is just as important as how these shots are juxtaposed with each other.

With Cats, I often found it had to tell where people were in relation to each other, or who they were looking at. There are a couple of set pieces where characters are singing toward a point out of frame but the frame is so tight I have no idea where they are, and the shots go on so long I felt boxed in.

I felt like I was trapped in a box watching this movie - which is bizarre because there is quite a lot of choreography and movement. But the pacing is all wrong, and the editing of every scene drags every moment past the point of tedium.

Every element of this movie is designed - however inadvertently - to keep you on edge. It is an achievement.

I found myself concentrating so hard to understand what was going, how it was conceived, and why it was conceived in the way it was.

Who is this movie for? What is it about? Who is the main character? Why is Judi Dench breaking the fourth wall?

After it was over, I felt like I had been through some kind of ordeal. My head was sore, I wanted to throw up and I could not stop giggling. The reason it took this long to put out this review is because I was still trying to get over the hangover of it.

But now that the movie is out of my system, I find myself unwilling to condemn it.

This movie is a unique beast. You get big bad movies all the time, but most bad movies do not stick with you. And most of them feel like bad copies of other movies.

Cats is not an ordinary bad movie.

It has a singular vision, and every choice it makes is designed to nudge the viewer closer to the edge. But it is committed.

And while the acting is al over the map, every performance is 110% earnest. They are invested to the most embarrassing and sugary degree.

This movie made me physically ill - my head felt like it was being squeezed; I was giggling uncontrollably and crying out of one eye.

There is something glorious about the fact that this movie, backed by a major studio, with this crew and cast, managed to make it through the system without being noted either to death or to blandness. Because this movie could have been excruciatingly boring.

But it is so singular and focused on whatever the hell it thinks it is that it ends up being that rarest of beasts - a legitimately great terrible big movie.

This thing is going to be immortal. There will be cult screenings of this for years to come, with in-jokes and audience rituals that people will know and parody.

For while the filmmakers may have not had an idea of what the audience was for this movie, there is one. And they will give this movie legs long after Universal has pulled the plug on its theatrical run.

More personally, those freaky human faces on cat bodies are chiseled into my retinas till the end of time.

Ignore its title and subject - this movie is a unicorn in a forest of corporatised banality.

GO SEE CATS.

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019)

Inspired by the New York Times article about a group of strippers who drugged and robbed their ultra-rich clientele, Hustlers is a story about women operating in a men's world. Thematically, it comes across like a more upbeat take on Widows, with a group of women forced to take drastic actions to carve out lives in a system designed to subjugate and exploit them.

A prime combination of real-life crime drama, a familiar social context and women coming together to form a self-made family, Hustlers is one of the most enjoyable times I have had at the movies all year.

I used to be able to have a take on almost every movie I saw. Nowadays, I feel less inclined. Partially, it is a growing sense of which kinds of films I have enough of a foundation in (thematically, generically etc) to make an interesting argument; the other is inspiration.

And, frankly, there have not been many movies that have inspired me to write lately. Not that it has been all rubbish. There have been some great movies I have seen - but the muse just was not on-board.

The last couple of weeks, it feels like the dam was beginning to break - and Hustlers was a big reason for the breakthrough.

I do not know where it started, but I have always been a fan of movies centred around women coming together to solve a specific problem (Do not mistake this as a sign of some greater 'woke-ness' or sensitivity on my part - as noted in a previous review, I did not see The Craft till a week ago because of ingrained YA bias).

There is something inherently dramatic about women and female friendship, sans any romantic component. Past movies that fell into this category include last year's Widows, or Whip It, Sunshine Cleaning,  - even if the stakes are small, there is a real satisfaction from witnessing this kind of camaraderie. And that spirit of togetherness is a big part of why I enjoyed Hustlers so much. 

Right from the beginning, Hustlers sets out its thematic foundation: before we see any of the characters or the club they work at, we hear the opening lines to Janet Jackson's 'Control'.

'Control' and its parent album signaled Jackson's break from her father's control and the pre-fabed version of pop on her first two albums. An important meta-textual reference point, the song lays out the movie's underlying theme: women taking control of their lives from the men who think they are instruments of their own desires.

It never felt like the filmmakers were leaning into the exploitative potential of the story and the characters' profession - there is not much flesh on display and the only time we see a stage number is the introduction of Jennifer Lopez's Ramona - even then, it is not solely about her sex appeal. The scene is framed from Destiny's POV, the camera sharing her fascination and admiration for the star of the show.

Let's get to Ms Lopez first. I have not seen Jennifer Lopez this deep into a role in years. She's always been good, but it always felt like she was trawling in the shallow end, trying her hand at Sandra Bullock-style rom-coms and a few Ashley Judd-style thrillers. Nothing against either of those two actresses, but it felt like Lopez did not quite fit those roles.

One of the big selling points of this movie was Angelica Jade Bastien's review, which eulogized Lopez's performance, and she was not kidding:

From the moment she appears onscreen, Lopez comes across like a queen; throwing off her cloak to reveal flesh feels less like titillation and more like a power flex. While Ramona's power is partly carnal, it is only part of it - her power goes from knowledge and experience - she knows how to navigate and out-maneuver the men who have the power and the money. They are merely obstacles standing between her and what she needs.

This is the first time where she has a role and a movie that fits her like a glove - there is an inherent steel to Lopez that has rarely been utilized in her previous roles. In most of her romantic comedies, she seems to play characters are meant to be more ditzy and  less together, which never fit - she always feels far smarter than the roles she plays, and Ramona is a character that is all brain all the time. 

What I loved about Lopez's performance is what I loved about the movie as a whole - none of the characters are villains. There is no virgin-whore binary here. These women are human beings, and film never demonizes their profession.

As the lead and heart of the movie, Constance Wu is great as Dorothy/Destiny - someone who is smart enough to put on a front, but too empathetic to keep it on. Wu exhibited a real pathos and vulnerability in Crazy Rich Asians, and that quality is magnified here.

It is great to see Keke Palmer in this - she gets some great comedy beats, although the role does feel like it exists solely to be comic relief.

If you are coming to the movie for Cardi B and Lizzo, they are both effectively cameos - although Cardi does get an important scene teaching Destiny how to lap-dance.

Cardi B tells our heroine to 'drain the clock, not the cock' and it sums up the movie - this story is not about the men, who ostensibly hold all the money and power - this is about these women working to hack out their own piece of the American Dream, here a rancid fantasy that can only be taken by laser focus and ruthless ambition.

The soundtrack is a highlight - not only is hte movie bookmarked by two of Janet Jackson's best dance songs, there is a strong selection of bass-charged tracks by Britney Spears, Usher and - in one pivotal scene - Lorde's 'Royals'.

The movie has a wicked sense of humor - there is a masterful sequence involving the central cast as they transport an unconscious client past a cop car. A tense sequence broken up by two great comic beats, it is a great example of the movie's delicate control of tone and the moving parts of the story.

Back by a great soundtrack, Hustlers is one of the most enjoyable movies I have seen this year, while also offering considerably more than what the average punter (or the raincoat brigade) may expect.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

IN THEATRES: Terminator - Dark Fate

28 years after Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) prevented Judgement Day, a protector from the future has arrived to protect another young woman from a new breed of Terminator. The same nightmare? 

Not quite...

...but mostly the same, yes.

When I was growing up, the first two Terminator movies were mana from heaven. My dad had a habit of telling me about R-rated movies that I was not allowed to see. The Terminator was this weird mythical thing that I only vaguely understood. For some reason, my mum was more agreeable on these movies and rented them on a weekend when dad was out. I cannot really remember what happened or why she thought these movies were fine for a 10 and 8-year-old but ah well.

My brother and I watched them, loved them and ran around in the backyard pretending to be robots.

A few years later, I was given T2 on DVD - it was the two disc set with about 1000 special features, breaking down how they made the movie. Watching those special features, and seeing how these movies were put together got me interested in filmmaking in a serious way.

For a couple years, The Terminators were my favourite movies. And then the other sequels happened.

Terminator 3 was disappointingly fine - I don't think I've watched it more than once, but the only things I like about the movie are its fantastically bleak ending and a deleted scene which explains how the T-101 got its human face.

I have a soft spot for Terminator Salvation - it throws away the formula and tries to create a feature-length story set in the future war: sadly said story is so muddled it never amounts to anything dramatically. By the time Genysis I was less attached to the franchise, and did not bother to see it. I was not sure I would go see this movie but I heard some good things, and the return of James Cameron in a proper creative capacity lured me in.

And it was a pretty good time. Dark Fate is not on the level of the first two, but it is pretty good.

While I enjoyed this movie, there is a sense that this is the end of the road - and not just in terms of the diegesis. Ala Halloween 2018, Dark Fate cuts out the non-James Cameron entries, and re-centres the film around original lead character Sarah Connor.

While it has a more solid story than the last two entries, like the last Halloween, Dark Fate suffers from an overriding sense of familiarity - and not just because it replicates the same story structure as Cameron's movies.

The funny thing about Dark Fate is how much it feels like a reboot of elements and ideas from the last couple movies: Like Terminator 3, it features a villain who blends a metal endoskeleton with a liquid metal covering. It even borrows T3's method of dispatching the villain. Like Salvation, it features a human character who has been augmented with Terminator-style technology. Like Genisys, it is in focus.

Because of the echoes, I was not that intrigued by the new machines - the liquid metal gimmick has been done, but the series cannot seem to move past it. That being said, Gabriel Luna is great in the role - the quiet intensity he brings feels in the same range as the blank menace of Schwarzenegger in the original and Robert Patrick in T2.

I just wish the movie treated him with a little more weight.

While I enjoyed the movie, I was not in love with the aspects of the production - there was an incoherence to the editing of the action sequences, and the filmmakers are far too enamoured of the machines' abilities, deploying the same rubbery physics that are detriment to modern action films.

One of the key elements of Cameron's movies is how they lean into the nightmarish aspect of the premise - part of it is the nature of how action films were made, but one of the best aspects of those movies is how they ground us in Sarah and John's POV - they feel like ordinary people watching and interacting with these otherworldly beings.

In Cameron's hands, the Terminators are terrifying. In Dark Fate, the Rev-9 only feels threatening when it is just Luna walking through unknowing civilians.

While the execution is spotty, the story - while familiar - actually bothers to lean into genuine science fiction, as it comes up with a new look at how time travel has affected the future.

Even Arnold's appearance carries more weight than I expected - post-Salvation, it feels like an obligation to have Arnie show up, but this movie manages to use his appearance and age to its advantage to answer the question of what happens after a Terminator completes its mission.

What is great is that the filmmakers lean into the fact that this particular model is a different character from the previous ones: 'Carl' has remade himself as a banal family man, working an incredibly boring job selling drapes. Schwarzenegger is gifted with the lion share of the comedic beats but, unlike Terminator 3, these moments are peppered through the movie with enough tact that they do not detract from the drama.

The new cast are really good - Mackenzie Davis makes for a solid addition to the Cameron Action woman archetype and Natalia Reyes is good as the young woman she has to protect. They are so good, I almost wish there was a version of the movie without the old guard.

 My big takeaway from the movie is that I wish it did just a little more to stand out on its own. But do not take this review as a slam - this is a good movie, anchored by strong performances and builds on what has gone before in interesting ways. It is just after three previous entries, Dark Fate feels like a respectable finale rather than the beginning of something new.

Check it out.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

IN THEATRES: Joker

Fledgling clown Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is losing his job, his mom and his mind. Thanks to a collection of vaguely connected events, Arthur slowly turns into a painted killer known as 'Joker'.

Ugh...

I was not really interested in seeing this, and now I am actively disinterested in seeing/hearing about it ever again.

Joker is not terrible - but it is a singularly uninspired retread of other movies that has nothing original to say about either its title character or his origins.

This film is clearly referencing The King of Comedy and Taxi Driver, but Joker lacks their bite and their deftness with characterisation and world-building (among a thousand other things). Gotham is recast as the New York of the mid-70s: we get all the popular imagery associated with ‘Fear City’, but there is a disconnection between the story of its central figure and this backdrop. 

As though to hammer home the connections to Scorsese, Robert De Niro appears as a talkshow host that Arthur is obsessed with - in an inversion of his role in King of Comedy that only serves to highlight how silly this movie is by comparison. 

But all this is just window-dressing - under the grime, this is a desiccated plot summary cobbled together from anti-hero cliches. 

Rather than feeling like an inevitable descent into villainy, the film feels like a collection of maybe-catalysts that do not tie together. Combined with overt sign-posting (the yuppies Arthur kills mock him by singing 'Send In The Clowns') and the most ridiculous needle drops this year ('That's Life' by Frank Sinatra and 'Smile' by Jimmy Durante both get played TWICE), Joker is unique in its failure to both signal its intentions while failing to achieve them.

Phoenix brings a frailty and bubbling rage to Fleck, but his performance is undermined by the hamfisted script, which reduces his performance to a series of interesting choices in service of hackneyed, overlong sequences that derail any sense of tension or empathy toward Arthur.

It is difficult to really grasp what the filmmakers' intentions are with this film: is it about the downfall of a man? A critique of Reagan-era capitalism (and by implication, the crises of today)? 

The movie is so drawn out, and filled with bizarre choices (the score feels like a parody of 2010's dramatic scores), that I gave up caring about what it was hamfisted-ly trying to say. There is a romantic subplot setting up an obvious misdirect that went on so long that I actually began to believe it. 

What makes the movie feel even less interesting is the way the movie teases a darkness that it never earns, and neuters whenever it feels like it is about to get problematic: the movie opens with Arthur getting mugged by a group of teens of colour. Later, he is accosted on a train and fights back - the obvious reference points are the famous train-set shoot-out scene in Death Wish and Bernhard Goetz's racially-motivated shooting of four black teens in 1984. 

Based on the opening scene, I was expecting the movie to lean into these antecedents, and build up Arthur's rage on racial resentment. Considering how obvious this movie had been in its messaging and plot points, such a tack would be obvious. Instead, the filmmakers have Arthur kill a group of malignant Wall Street types, an inversion so perfect that it negates what feels like a vaguely logical trajectory for his character. 

There is a wrong-headedness to all these choices that I could not shake. To me, the Joker has always been defined by his lack of identity and clear motivation. Part of the greatness of Heath Ledger's Joker was his lack of backstory - there was a terrifying lack of purpose to his rampage.

By contrast, Arthur is a checklist of bad guy cliches - he suffers from childhood trauma, struggles with mental illness and has an unhealthy fixation on his neighbour (Zazie Beetz). The rooting of Joker's evil in mental illness and the pathology of incels feels wrong, and makes me wonder exactly what the filmmakers are trying to say in this movie based on a comic book property. 

There is the kernel of an idea here - take elements of a popular franchise and give it to a filmmaker to do their own take on it. Sadly, Joker feels more like a logical endpoint of the dark verisimilitude that comic books have been labouring under since the great revisionists (Alan Moore, Frank Miller et al) of the Eighties. 

As a reaction to the increasingly constrictive continuity of the Marvel approach, Warner Bros' decision to green-light one-off movies like this are welcome -  as somebody whose favourite Batman movie is Batman Returns, I will always boost risk-taking.

But as a movie in its own right, Joker is a confused and superficial mess.

I just hope that its massive success leads to other movies that take an off-road approach to familiar characters and scenarios, rather than a series of sequels.

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