BITE-SIZED REVIEW: Enola Holmes

 After her mother disappears, Enola (Millie Bobby Brown) is placed under the guardianship of her older brothers Mycroft (Sam Claflin) and Sherlock (Henry Cavill)

Most of the time, Netflix original movies are a cause for concern.

A vehicle for Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown, Enola Holmes is a fun little movie that promises a  new franchise and a young star on the rise. It is a cliche that I dislike, but this movie is feels like the beginning of something special.

As the title character, Brown is fantastic. Intelligent, witty and with strong sense of self, Enola is a winning heroine with a strong moral centre (refreshing in this age of grizzled anti-heroes). She even makes the device of speaking to camera feel totally natural, making the viewer feel like a co-conspirator in her schemes to escape her brothers and solve the mystery. It could have been annoying, but Brown is so earnest and charming, I never rolled my eyes. 

The mystery is not that complex, but that is not really important - this is a movie about Enola trying to make her way in a man's world. 

I enjoyed the recasting of the Holmes brothers as they re-enter Enola's life - Mycroft is a misogynistic prat who wants to stuff Enola away in a finishing school so he can carry on as before. From what I recall of Mycroft in the original stories, he is far brighter than Sherlock but infinitely more lazier, and makes a living working for the government. 

Sam Claflin is cursed to look like a leading man - he is a far better actor than he is given credit for, and he gives Mycroft a self-satisfaction that is extremely hate-able. 

Cavill is fine as a more sympathetic foil for Enola, but he never convinces as Sherlock. Juxtaposed with Claflin, he comes across as a well-meaning non-entity.

The movie is surprisingly dark, particularly in the way it manages to feed in some context of the age - Enola takes a nasty slap to the face, and the reveal of the final villain posits some incredibly disturbing family dynamics. 

I really enjoyed the fact that it never tries to build into a full-on action movie (ala the last Sherlock Holmes movies). The movie's budget is not huge, but that makes the world feel more intimate and lived in. It kind of reminded me of Birds of Prey in that respect - there is an economy of scale that I really enjoyed.

Thinking of this movie, BoF and Invisible Man, if female-led action movies have to operate on a smaller scale, it might be for the best. If filmmakers do not have all the money to throw at problems, it might lead to better constructed scripts, better character development, and unique innovations born of economic necessity. 

This is wild speculation on my part  but looking ahead to the post-COVID movie landscape, where theatre companies might have to close, and audience sizes might be limited, the strategy of big companies betting the farm on 200 million-plus blockbusters is probably over. Movies like Enola Holmes give me hope that mid-budget genre pictures might be on the way back.

If there is a flaw, I found there was some muddiness about the subplot involving Enola's mother - there is an implied connection between her disappearance and the central mystery, but it feels very tangential, and it did not feel like a satisfying resolution to Enola's story.

That aside, Enola Holmes is an enjoyable film boosted by Brown's terrific performance. I had no expectations going in, but this is one Netflix original that I wouldn't mind seeing get a sequel.

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GI Joe: Retaliation (John M. Chu, 2013)

After GI Joe is betrayed and branded a terrorist organisation, a group of surviving Joes led by Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson) go on the trail of their old enemy Cobra, and their ally the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce). 

G.I. Joe: Retaliation really should have been called G.I. Joe: Reaction. This is one of the most obvious examples of a half-reboot I have seen in recent years. The Bond franchise is famous for being reactionary, and this is somewhat similar - although that franchise has gone for 20-something instalments and this ran for 2.

Purge: Anarchy managed to bring that franchise to life, but even that instalment feels more consistent to the tone and style of its predecessor than this movie. Maybe this shift would be less obvious had there been a G.I. Joe 3, 4 and 5. These kinds of shifts are not uncommon (Rambo and Fast and Furious are obvious examples), but since there are only two movies, the change really stands out.

Straight off the bat, there are a few elements in this movie's favour - in contrast to the CG-heavy original, the filmmakers spend more time focusing on real stunts and explosions. There is a vague theme of back-to-basics action filmmaking.

There is also an attempt to give the core crew more personality - there is a silly little scene showing the bond between Duke (Tatum) and Roadblock (Johnson) that is far looser and more alive than any of the "character" beats in the previous movie. It is not great, but Tatum especially is far more at ease as one half of a double act with Johnson.

The other thing I vaguely liked about it was that, despite the change in production team, the story still tries to follow and pay off the plot threads from the original movie: Snakes Eyes learns the truth about Storm Shadow; and Zartan's (Arnold Vosloo) plot of impersonating the president (Jonathan Pryce) is pushed to the foreground. 

The key problem with this movie is that it is just kinda rote. Despite the aesthetic changes, this movie  feels a bit shallow, and visibly cheaper than the original. Even the inclusion of Bruce Willis is a wash - mainly because it is Bruce Willis circa-2010s rather than Willis circa-giving a crap.

Despite this movie's financial success - it grossed a good deal more than the first one - Paramount decided to scrap the franchise and start from scratch.

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GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Stephen Sommers, 2009)

Following an encounter with hi-tech terrorists, soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) are rescued by a secret organisation known as G.I. Joe.

Made up of recruits from around the world, G.I. Joe are dedicated to fighting global threats. Determined to get vengeance on the group that killed their comrades, Duke and Ripcord throw their lot in with the Joes to fight their unknown enemy.

Jesus Christ, I need someone else to pick my reviews. 

I have no attachment to G.I. Joe. I never had the toys, I never watched the show and I have only heard of the comic books. For some reason I watched this movie when it came out, and for some reason I did not hate it.

After ten years away, this movie is even worse. The filmmakers are WAY too enamoured of CGI, and while I credit Stephen Sommers for having comprehensible action sequences, I did not care about anyone in them.

This movie was one of the big casualties of the 2007-08 Writers Strike. They should have shut down and given the movie a re-write, because there are so many scenes in between the set pieces where it feels like the actors are trying to work with notes on post-its: the initial flirtation between Ripcord and Scarlett (Rachel Nichols) is a standout example, as she talks about how inconvenient emotions are. The dialogue is just subtext made text, and it is not helped by the actors' lack of chemistry. 

While I did not expect great character development, the big thing that the movie lacks is the spark from Sommers' previous movies. Sommers is not a great filmmaker - his characters are stereotypes, his plots ridiculous and there is too much bad comedy. But watching G.I. Joe,  I was yearning for all these things. When Kevin J O'Connor pops up as Dr Mindbender it was like finding an oasis in the desert. And I do not even like O'Connor that much.

The one breath of fresh air in the movie is Marlon Wayans as Ripcord. He has all the jokes, but he knows how to sell them. The character is a pile of garbage, but Wayans manages to bring something the rest of the movie needed more of: personality.

Even with all its failings, this movie could have at least be entertaining if it had more imagination and sheer weirdness. But the movie is so pre-programmed as a franchise-starter, and the look is so clean, it just comes off as a show reel.

Going back to the CGI, the movie is so weightless it drove home why I enjoyed Condorman and the old Bond movies so much. Technically they might be a bit ropey, but they were made with tangible elements. That is really Michael Crawford driving a truck that turns into a car; that is really 25 divers swimming clumsily toward each other in Thunderball.

GI Joe is completely weightless by comparison. Watching the underwater battle at the climax felt like I was sitting in on someone else playing a video game.

The only thing I remember really liking in the movie was the final twist, which should be obvious if you have watched the sequel, and will not mean anything if you have not: During the chaos of the finale, face-changing assassin Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) swaps places with the US president (Jonathan Pryce). 

It is not much, but it offers a promise of a far more entertaining movie. While it was made by a completely different creative team, I was excited to learn that the 2013 sequel Retaliation would pick up this plot line and run with it.

Check back in tomorrow to see if it led to a better movie...

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Condorman (Charles Jarrott, 1981)

Comic book creator Woody Wilkins (Michael Crawford) is most famous for creating Condorman, a character with a host of gadgets that aid his war against crime. 

When Woody is enlisted by his CIA friend Harry (James Hampton) to make a delivery to a beautiful Soviet agent (Barbara Carrera), he uses 'Condorman' as his codename. After the mission goes well, he is drawn back in when the Soviet agent wants Condorman to aid in her defection to the West.

Will Condorman rise from the printed page?     

This movie is incredible.

An artefact from a time before the Mouse's entertainment dominance, Condorman is one of the stranger offerings Disney produced under the stewardship of CEO Ron Miller. Alongside other more adult-skewing fare like 1979's The Black Hole and 1982's Tron, it is a strange amalgamation of different genres that is trying to bridge both Disney's familiar audience, with a more adult tone and subject matter.

In other words, it is the polar opposite of the corporation's product in the 2010s.

There is something distinctly contemporary about Woody's approach to his art - he will only include elements in his comics that he has tested out himself. In this respect, he is feels like a forerunner/unintentional parody of modern-day fans who are obsessed with making their particular pop culture obsession appear as mature and 'realistic' as possible. 

So much about this movie feels like kids trying to play adults - you can feel the filmmakers trying to find their way out of Disney's G-rated space, which results in some bizarre incongruities. The movie is even lit like a Disney comedy from the Seventies, which make scenes like the film's car chase come off more along the lines of the long-running Lovebug movies than even Moore-era Bond.

While the aesthetics are bright and bland, the political dimension is pretty dark, even for a Bond-esque movie - Oliver Reed's villain feels like something out of Le Carre, and his relationship with Barbara Carrera's double agent Natalia carries a sense of menace and danger that is way more adult than the movie perhaps intended. 

There is something very watchable about this confection - the movie is not short of ideas, and while the pacing sags at points, there is plenty of weirdness and flat-out bad notions (such as Woody's disguise as a Sheik) that keep the attention. Compared with the cookie-cutter aesthetics and dramatic conservatism of the Marvel films, Condorman is fascinating.  

There is something appealing about the movie's earnest investment in its lumpy premise, and the practical -if ridiculous - effects, that brought me some of the rush I used to get from reading Tintin or watching cartoons. There is a sugar-rush quality to the endless parade of gadgets, disguises and subterfuge catches some of the feeling of being a bored kid trying to imagine something more exciting than the mundanity of everyday life.

This is a movie of contradictions, and so are my feelings toward it. While I love everything about this movie, there is one element that I despise as much as I enjoy the rest of the movie. That thing is Michael Crawford's performance as Woody. In his defence, he is hamstrung by an appalling American accent, and a character defined solely by his Walter Mitty-esque fantasies. But Woody is the one element that required a naïveté and childlike optimism that Crawford struggles to find. I kept thinking of Gene Wilder whenever he was onscreen (based on Crawford's hairstyle, maybe the filmmakers were thinking the same thing?).

One of the reasons for the movie's success is that despite its disparate parts, the score by Henry Mancini plays a big role in holding it all together - the title theme reminded me of his epic title track from Lifeforce, except with added choir, and perfectly captures the OTT tone that the other elements of the movie do not always reach.

As of this writing, Condorman is currently unavailable on Disney+. A shame. 

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Johnny English Strikes Again (David Kerr, 2018)

Once again Johnny English (Mr Blackadder Bean) is retired and dragged back into blah blah blah...

I made a terrible mistake

I really dreaded watching Johnny English Reborn. The first Johnny English had some laughs but was pretty uninspired as a spy comedy, so I went into the sequel mindful of the rule of diminishing returns. I was shocked that Reborn was as respectable as it was, and while it did not have as many laughs as the original, it was not the disaster I expected.

I cannot say the same for its sequel.

While the second movie benefited from a comparatively big budget and a recognisable cast of talented actors, Strikes Again is a sorry come-down. Small in scale and with a more televisual, square aesthetic, it looks and feels like a bargain bin sequel.

Now, having a smaller budget does not a bad movie make. Pooling resources in service of a bad or non-existent idea does.

This movie is the sequel that Reborn should have been. In that it feels like a photocopy of the original, down to the return of Ben Miller's Bough, a sultry female agent for English to moon over and an arrogant, unlikeable central character.

It is like Reborn did not exist. English is back to being a know-it -all who gets out of trouble either through luck or the actions of his competent sidekicks. Across the three movies, they have never really found a way to make English likeable - he never has a moment of being humbled or experiencing self-reflection and still treats Bough the same way he did in the first movie.

What really grates is how uninspired the whole thing is. What is worse is how promising the first few minutes are: Emma Thompson is introduced as the beleaguered, hard-drinking Prime Minister, who is constantly trying to project strength but is overwhelmed by the crises overcoming the country. A vague riff on Theresa May? 

Maybe. Regardless, Thompson is great fun, cutting through everyone else's BS with a delightful bluntness.

We are also introduced to Charles Dance, Michael Gambon and Edward Fox (Day of the Jackal) as fellow ex-agents who have been brought in from the cold along with English. Could we be on the crest of UK's answer to RED?

NOPE. English engages in some buffoonery, takes these gentlemen out of action, and carries on the mission solo with no repercussions.

While Ben Miller's return is welcome, there is a corresponding regression in English's character. It feels like the filmmakers could not find a way to progress the pair's relationship, and decided to stick with the established dynamic. This would be okay if the jokes were good and plentiful, but they just are not there. And what jokes are there just feel like distaff versions of bits from previous entries. 

Following on from Rosamund Pike's appearance in the previous movie, Olga Kurylenko appears as Russian agent Ophelia Bhuletova, English's would-be love interest. She is fine, although rather like her Bond character, she has little to work with. There are a few other Bond connections in the film - Charles Dance and Edward Fox both appeared in Bond films (Dance in For Your Eyes Only and Fox as the new M in rogue Bond film Never Say Never Again).

Without a good story and few jokes, English's appeal as a lead character is almost nil. One of Atkinson's talents is playing pompous authority figures spouting nonsense, but that does not square for the lead of a movie. I am shocked that the filmmakers did not just steal the dynamic from Jeeves and Wooster, with Bough as the beleaguered sidekick who constantly has to clean up after English's messes. English cannot work as the main character - he is a cartoon, an archetype that demands ridicule not empathy.

Johnny English Strikes Again strikes out. And no, I have not been saving that line. I just thought of it. And I am angry that people will think it is a hack line, because this is a hack movie and - arrggggh.

Previous reviews

Johnny English

Johnny English Reborn 

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Steel Rain (Yang Woo-suk, 2017)

When forces inside the North Korean government attempt to assassinate Kim Jong-un during a visit to an industrial park on the border with the South, it falls to former Special Forces soldier Eom Chul-Woo (Jung Woo-Sung) to protect him. Escaping during the chaos, he manages to smuggle Kim into South Korea. While he tries to find medical aid, Eom has to contend with operatives from the North who are determined to finish the job.

Meanwhile, South Korean government official Kwak Chul-woo (Kwak Do-Won) is scrambling to figure out what is going on north of the border before his government (and the sabre-rattling United States) takes drastic action.

If you are a fan of action movies, follow Vyce Victus on Twitter. He is a critic and veteran who brings a unique POV to the action cinema of today, across the breadth of the genre, from Hollywood mainstream through the latest DTV offerings. He also has a strong focus on action cinema from around the world, including this barn-burner from writer-director Yang Woo-suk.

This movie is like a missing airport thriller from the 90s. The central concept has the flavour of a classic thriller along the lines of Day of the Jackal or The Hunt For Red October, specifically in its blend of real-life figures with a fictional scenario.

Overall I really enjoyed the movie's earnestness. While there are moments of humour, the filmmakers are not winking at the audience or trying to undermine the central conceit. They know it is OTT, but they play it completely straight.

The action is well-choreographed, and shot clean. There are wide shots, but they are broken up with more editing to ensure that the effect is frenetic without feeling like a showcase for the opponents' fighting styles. In a way it reminded me of the brutal functionality Martin Campbell brought to his Bond movies (the sound of the AKs firing felt very GoldenEye as well).

As the movie progresses, the filmmakers have a great handle on the suspense, cutting seamlessly from our heroes to anxious politicians at the Blue House, conspirators in the North, and the US forces marshalling at sea.

I really appreciated the perspective the movie had on Korean geopolitics, particularly in the way the US  military come across as an ever-present threat to the peninsula. 

 

The additional context of having this stand-off take place during the transition period between two presidential administrations provides another layer of suspense and potential danger, as the  president and his successor debate the way forward, and try to find leverage over the other. 

The movie is genuinely tense, and it pays off.

The performances are really good, and help to create that sense of earnestness I brought up earlier. Jung Woo-Sung is great as the battered soldier struggling to hold it together, while Kwak Do-Won brings a sense of weariness and humour to the veteran bureaucrat. Used to the behind-the-scenes manoeuvring of his job, there is a deceptive ease about Kwak Do-Won's performance, and an understated pragmatism that makes him a match for his Northern ally.

They are a great odd couple, and I was impressed with the way in which the script and their performances avoiding leaning too heavily on the familiar tropes of such relationships (particularly in action movies).

Steel Rain is melodrama done well, and one of the best action movies I have seen this year.   

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Johnny English Reborn (Oliver Parker, 2011)

Picking up years after the previous film, Johnny English (Rowan Atkinson) is in seclusion at a remote monastery following a botched mission. When a new threat arises, English is brought back into service with MI7.

A mysterious group of assassins known as Vortex are planning to assassinate the Chinese premier at an Anglo-Chinese summit. While Johnny goes on the hunt to uncover the identities of the conspirators, he also has to contend with the changes that have taken place in his absence - along with the ghosts of his past.

Hello darkness my old friend...

I feel like I have seen the first 15 minutes of Johnny English Reborn before. It is such a cliche to open a movie with our hero in solitude seeking spiritual healing, and it is specifically a cliche I associate with comedies. 

While Rambo 3 is the most famous example, watching Johnny English Reborn I kept recalling similar set ups from Hot Shots Part Deux, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls and other movies that I cannot remember.

The thing is, this is a cliche that has been done to death.

The funny thing is, in terms of its story, Johnny English Reborn is better constructed than its predecessor. And there is an attempt to spoof current trends in both the spy genre and the wider world. Which gives it a little more focus than JE1.

The reveal that MI7 is now sponsored by Toshiba, complete with a marketing campaign and brochure is a fun little touch that provides a sociopolitical context that was missing from its predecessor. I am not sure whether it is necessary, but it is a fun bit of world-building that works with the film's theme of time moving on.

In a weird way, this movie reminded me of Skyfall - a fallen agent goes into seclusion and returns to save the day. The similarities are not that strong, but it is kind of interesting that the makers of Bond and JE1 followed a similar approach in terms of addressing the characters' extended absence from screens.

There are a few more tilts toward the changes and familiar tropes in the other British spy franchise: The parkour chase feels like the ultimate send-up of Casino Royale (and all the other films which included the sport), with English finding even more mundane methods than Daniel Craig to follow his opponent.

The golf game resurrects the tired gambit of Bond tipping his hand to the villain that he is in on the scheme. It is a great basis for Atkinson's brand of over-confident inanity ("Shot! ...as was my friend Fisher, actually. In the back...') and it is one of my favourite sequences in the film.

What I appreciated about the script was how it re-contextualised English's arrogance, and made it a liability that affects his relationships with other characters, particularly his new partner, Colin (Daniel Kaluuya). Unlike Bough, who seems to be stuck in a vacuum, Colin's career and life are endangered by English's bungling, and English has to reckon with that.

I am not sure that English's redemption is as well-written as it should be, but there is at least the broad shape of a story here, compared with the original.

Kaluuya is really good, although he does not get an awful lot to do.That sums up the cast as a whole. It is a compliment to the movie that the movie was able to assemble this cast - Gillian Anderson is the new Pegasus, Dominic West is the new bad guy and Rosamund Pike, who is as over-qualified here as she was in Die Another Day, plays an ally of English's who holds the key to his redemption.

While the movie features several strong qualities, the focus on the story does mean there is less of the conveyer-belt of gags that the original featured. The jokes are sharper here, but there are fewer of them, and some of the physical gags fall flat.

It is a strange place to be where the story is stronger and the title character more defined, but the whole reason for watching - jokes - are in short supply. A strange beast this one.

Johnny English Reborn was a hit and a minor critical success, ensuring an eventual return for the bumbling agent. 

Previous reviews

Johnny English

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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