Tag: Beast

2022 In Film: Day Six (The Quite Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Beast

Ups: Good length

The CGI animals have a real presence

Wonderfully directed.

Downs: Not essential

Dialogue is a bit simple.

Quite cliche at times.

Best Moment: When the characters walk through the village and discover all the dead bodies. Haunting, like something out of a horror film.

Worst Moment: Lion in the house, only because it didn’t feel as natural as the other parts.

Best Performer: Elba, obviously.

Opening: The characters arrive at the reserve. Good way to showcase the scenery.

Closing: Surviving members of the family recreate an earlier family photo. Cliche, but kind of sweet.

Best Line: Death came calling to my wife and daughters and i wasn’t there to say no you can’t have them

Original Review here

Elvis

Ups: Is great at telling you who he was, not in a “facts and important dates” way, but in a “understanding who he is” way.

Austin Butler. He is phenomenal.

Will make you cry at times.

Downs: Weirdly edited.

Tom Hanks is a strange choice.

Terribly paced. Tries to do too much. There are at least three stories worth telling, and they’re not given enough time.

Best Moment: The Christmas special. Punk as anything.

Worst Moment: The assassination of MLK, trying to tie that into Elvis feels a bit cheap.

Best Performer: Austin Butler, obviously.

Opening: Tom Parker is on his deathbed. He then talks about how he met Elvis. Kind of a lazy framing device.

Closing: Elvis, fat and depressed, sings at Las Vegas. Truly emotional.

Best Line: His entire speech on stage to Tom Parker. Blistering fury.

Original Review here

Looking For Venera

Ups: The central relationship between the two.

The sociopolitical subtext to everything

Some really interesting shots.

Downs: Not very engaging at times.

Best Moment: The family dancing around a room to music being played on a tinny radio. The enthusiasm the characters have for the activity and for each other is heartwarming to see. And completely stopped by a man coming home and telling them to go to bed, all that happiness and joy, gone in an instant. Really demonstrates the power that the patriarchal system has over them.

Worst Moment: There’s a scene just after that at the breakfast table. It’s really well acted and has some shocking moments, but the characters are out of focus. Very picky I know but it’s too basic a mistake to make in a professional film.

Best Performer: Kosovare Krasniqi 

Opening: A sex scene in the woods between two fully clothed people. Strange choice as you don’t know who they are. Filmed from behind some trees so you do get a wonderfully voyeuristic feel to it. It’s later talked about by the characters, so we didn’t really need to see it.

Closing: A young boy drinking water at a table at a family dinner. At first, I thought “that’s a weird way to end it”, then it hit me. He’s observing. He’s watching the family interactions, he’s seeing how men treat women, and that’s what he’ll grow up to be too. A simple shot implies that everything will repeat. Kind of genius.

Best Line: “I’m not a coward like her”, that line shows her growth so much, but also her immaturity, as saying that to an abusive dick just means they’re going to take it out on the other person.

Original review here

She Will

Ups: Very claustrophobic.

Great sound work, both in terms of music and general sound design.

Downs: The fire incident doesn’t have a narrative follow-up.

Needs to set up some of the background characters better so we know how they’re regarded in-universe.

Feels like it should be better.

Best Moment: When she enters the lodge. You really feel the claustrophobic nature of it.

Worst Moment: A close up of a slug. Really specific but it cuts to it, and then cuts back, way too quickly to the point where it seems like a mistake.

Best Performer: Alice Krige.

Opening: Closeup on a womans eyes looking up at lights. Eye close ups are always good in horror movies as they can be so expressive. We see surgery being performed on her, intercut with her putting on makeup. A nice contrast, and intriguing enough to make you wonder what’s going on, especially when she talks about her mask being one of “preservation”

Closing: A scene of chaos and female reckoning.

Best Line: “The mud here is thought to have healing properties because of all the ashes from women who were burnt as witches” *blank-eyed stare* holy fuck.

Original review here

Sonic The Hedgehog 2

Ups: Better than the first one.

Funny.

Actually has a plot.

Downs: Still inconsistent with the speed.

Quite forgettable.

Tries too hard with the comedy sometimes.

The lead character is kind of obnoxious.

Best Moment: The fact that the villain is basically defeated by a punch in the balls, much like Hitler was.

Worst Moment: The bar dance.

Best Performer: Idris Elba, he is hilarious.

Opening: Sonic is attempting to be a hero. Fun start, and demonstrates both his speed, his morality, and his naive nature.

Closing: They play baseball. Quite funny actually.

Best Line: “It’s so nice when diabolical evil lives up to the hype!”

Original Review here

The Adam Project

Ups: Perfectly cast.

Always good to see new ideas given a big budget.

Downs: Some characters are sidelined unnecessarily

The dialogue could be better.

Bad CGI at times.

Best Moment: The goodbyes. Incredibly emotional. There are two fight scenes I nearly chose, which looked good. But this section is incredible.

Worst Moment: The villain’s death. Mainly because the CGI looks atrocious.

Best Performer: Walker Scobel.

Opening: Ryan Reynolds has stolen a jet and uses it to escape through a wormhole. Sets up the central theme almost immediately.

Closing: Back in the future. Adam meets his wife again. Sweet, but not sure it was the right choice. We don’t see that much of them together.

Best Line: “Hey. You have her to take care of you. She has no one. You understand? Do you understand? She wakes up every morning with a broken heart and a, and a closet full of his clothes and gets nothing from you but a fistful of crap, and not even, like, ten seconds of genuine empathy. You know, thity years, you still get sick to your stomach every time you remember how you treated her now.” More moments like that please.

Original Review here

The Princess

Ups: Bloodier than I expected.

Some good fight scenes.

Downs: Really bad CGI at times.

Feels too much like a video game at times.

The whiff of pandering never really goes away.

Best Moment: The opening because it sets it up as being something different

Worst Moment: When she sets someone on fire. Only because the CGI is REALLY bad

Best Performer: Dominic Cooper

Opening: The Princess (hey, that’s the title of the movie) wakes up in a tower and finds herself chained to a bed. Flashbacks to her being kidnapped. She breaks her own thumb to escape. Surprising but effective.

Closing: She slits a guys throat. There’s a lot of blood and his head comes off (which was a bit weird as she didn’t initially seem to cut that deep). The king announces that now women can rule the kingdom. Yay, finally equality for all rich people of that one family. Her friend didn’t actuallly die, then a guy who’s been searching for her the whole film recognises her. Kind of expected. Then there’s a completely neutered cover of White Wedding

Best Line: “You’ll learn to sleep with one eye open. To never turn your back. I’ll be in heaven, just thinking day and night of ways to kill you. And you’ll be in hell, wondering when it’s coming. And you know that it will be coming. Because you know that I’ll never rest, never idle, never stop, until i am standing above your corpse, holding – in my delicate, manicured hands – your still beating heart!”

Original Review here

Zero Fucks Given

Ups: Has the best drunk acting. They don’t make sense and they talk mostly shit.

Adèle Exarchopoulos, she’s quite good isn’t she?

Downs: There are a few plot points which don’t really go anywhere. Some more interesting plots are suggested but not followed up on.

Best Moment: Montage where everyone is recording safety videos and have to end it by standing still and smiling for 30 seconds in silence. Very awkward and weirdly funny.

Worst Moment: The moments when she’s not on a plane.

Best Performer: Adèle Exarchopoulos, obviously.

Opening: Pre-shift meeting of airline crew. Being told to focus more on individual sales. Then some beautiful shots of flying through clouds. That meeting doesn’t really lead to anything.

Closing: Her in Dubai (wearing a face mask incorrectly btw, it’s not covering her nose) watching a fountain show. Impressive but does seem a bit too much like someone’s holiday video rather than something in a film. It was all supposed to be from her phone, hence the very final shot of her turning the camera towards herself and pulling her mask down. Slightly underwhelming.

Best Line: I prefer to be the irresistible one than the good girl. There is no past, there is no future it’s just you as a cabin manager in this precise moment and her in front of you. Nobody cares about your personal life or your personal issues or what you did yesterday or what you’re going to do tomorrow.

Original Review here

Beast (2022)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Idris Elba fights a lion whilst mourning for his dead wife in this intense survival thriller by Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur

“Man Vs. Animal” movies are tricky, for two reasons: 1) Man has a gun, so he already has a distinct advantage, you can’t shoot anybody with bear arms. 2) It’s going to be compared to Jaws. Especially when the best way to get rid of most giant animals is to blow them up. Jaws did everything so perfectly that being compared to it automatically knocks you down a few points.

Of course, I haven’t seen Jaws (yet, watching it next month), but I’ve read the book, and I’ve seen it referenced enough times in popular media that I can pick up references to it. Maybe that works in my favour as it means I’m not that familiar with the tropes and conventions, because it’s a genre I haven’t explored much I’m not watching this film thinking of the cliches. I’m guessing that’s why the reviews have been mixed, because a lot of people see it and all they can see is the cliches. I liked it though. It’s not the best film I’ve ever seen but it’s a snappy and entertaining piece of cinema. It’s not going to change your life, but you can sit there, forget your troubles, and be entertained for 90 minutes.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the dialogue could be better. A lot of the dialogue actually, there’s far too much clunky exposition. And there are times when the film veers into a slightly dreamlike territory which doesn’t really suit it. It’s at its best when it’s just Idris Elba panicking but hiding his panic for the sake of his family. It’s a simple story that’s easy to understand, easy to relate to, and already provides an emotional baseline for the film to work with. Most of the film is him, Leah Jeffries, and Iyana Halley. Iyana and Leah are relatively new, but do pretty well. Not “I’m going to watch their next film” good, but “I expect they’re going to do something REALLY good in the next few years” good. It’s a difficult film for them, as they have to act alongside Idris Elba, who (in my mind), is one of the greatest actors around at the moment. If their performance drops, it will be made much more noticeable by who they’re alongside. Thankfully, they work. Even when they deliver lines which could make them seem horrible, they deliver them in such a way that it works and you still sympathise with them.

Now onto the best thing about this film. The thing that means you can ignore the clunky dialogue, the somewhat predictable story, and some of the characters weird decisions: the directing. The only film by Kormákur that I’ve seen before is Adrift. This far surpasses that in technical brilliance. CGI lions are hard to do convincingly (as anybody who watched the live-action version of The Lion King can attest), you need to have them have expressive enough body language, while also looking real. You could, you know, just use real animals, but only if you don’t like your actors that much. I was watching this wondering how they did it, I assumed they had some incredibly tame animals, but nope, was CGI. That’s simply incredible, you never feel you’re watching fake animals here, everything looks real. They all have a physical presence on screen so if someone did tell you they were really there on set, you wouldn’t be that surprised.

Kormákur could have made it easier for himself by having them in darkness, and cutting away to reaction shots a lot, or having quite quick shots so your eyes don’t focus properly which would make it easier to hide CGI flaws. Whilst a lot of film is in darkness, that feels more like a storytelling method than a technical workaround, in terms of darkness it’s more Alien than Cheap Student Horror. A fair amount of the film takes place in the light, so you can see all the animals clearly, if there were any imperfections, you’d notice. And then there are the shots, they are long. When Kormákur has a choice between cutting away, and following the characters/action, he always goes with the second (and the most difficult) option. There are long action sequences, and I can only imagine how difficult that was for the effects team to work with, but the fact it all looks as good as it does is a testament to the skill of everybody involved.

So in summary, yeah you should watch this. Some films make you laugh, some make you cry, and some scare you, but this is one of the best examples of something that is both popcorn cinema and technical brilliance. I didn’t see Jurassic Park at the cinema (I watched it the way Spielberg intended, on a dodgy video from a market stall), but if I had watched it on the big screen, I imagine my feelings coming out of it would have been similar to this (albeit, that had better music), a feeling of amazement and wonder at what I had just seen.