Tag: Chukwudi Iwuji

2023 In Film: Day Eight (The Very Good)

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round upLeave a comment

Anatomy Of A Fall

Ups: Genuinely compelling.

Likeable characters

Flows beautifully.

Downs: Feels a bit too ITV at times.

Best Moment: The courtroom scenes themselves are sensationally tense.

Worst Moment(s): A moment that’s not there; the year between the event and the trial. I’d have liked to have seen more from that.

Best Performer: Sandra Huller

Opening: Sandra’s interview keeps getting interrupted by her husband playing a flamenco cover of a 50 Cent song. Rather damn tense, but doesn’t really set up the genre until later.

Closing: The court case is adjourned. It does seem to end rather quickly, with no idea of what happens next.

Best Line: Sometimes a couple is kind of a chaos and everybody is lost. Sometimes we fight together and sometimes we fight alone, and sometimes we fight against each other, that happens

Original Review here

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3

Ups: Genuinely emotional.

Funny.

An utterly detestable villain

Good cast chemistry

Downs: The music isn’t as good as the previous entries.

Some issues with the tone.

It really is time that the MCU started advancing its overall narrative.

Best Moment: The hallway fight scene. One of the best action set pieces in the MCU

Worst Moment: The post-credits scene is a waste of time, even by phase four MCU standards.

Best Performer: Chukwudi Iwuji

Opening: The group are attacked at their new headquarters. Standard Guardians opening, but not as good as has been done before.

Closing: Everyone goes their separate ways; still alive. Because Marvel isn’t going to kill any characters now.

Best Line: Someday I’m gonna make great machines that fly. And me and my friends are gonna go flying together, into the forever and beautiful sky.

Original Review here

Holy Spider

Ups: Shockingly violent.

The police officer going from “I’m a sensitive nice guy” to “Well what if I don’t want to leave? Slut” is painfully real to see play out. His wife blaming the women is also up there.

Ali Abbasi NEEDED to tell this story.

Downs: Some of the subtitles haven’t been translated properly.

The editing isn’t too great in some places.

Best Moment: The brief look of pride on his son’s face when he’s talking about strangling people

Worst Moment: When she runs for safety, it cuts too quickly to really be effective.

Best Performer: Mehdi Bajestani

Opening: “Every Man Shall Meet What He Wishes To Avoid”. Then a naked woman doing her hair, with her back covered in bruises. Few more random scenes, then footage of 9/11. It does everything it can to cause emotions.

Closing: He gets hanged. He thought he was going to get away with it but turns out his friends had sold him out. I like the fact that he died afraid, and the irony of him being killed by lack of oxygen is nice to see. That should have been how it ended, as it was, it carried on to her on a couch watching videos. Disappointing. Or so I thought. But then she watches videos of his son, and he’s talking about how he plans to continue his dad’s work; demonstrating how his dad killed them, like he was doing something great. Demonstrating on his sister. Thankfully just a soft recreation, not actually killing her. But it’s still horrific to watch in terms of what it implies about societal bullshit.

Best Line: “Prostitution is a societal problem. You don’t sell your body on the street unless you’re poor and desperate”. I think that line actually leads a bit of nuance to the guy’s belief and helps you realise that he has a genuine reason for wanting to end prostitution.

Original Review here

Joy Ride

Ups: Very funny

Utterly filthy.

Great performances.

Unapologetically Asian.

Downs: Some scenes go on a bit too long.

Some side characters feel wasted.

Best Moment: The video recording from her birth mother.

Worst Moment: The WAP scene, it drags ever so slightly towards the end of it.

Best Performer: Ashley Park

Opening: The two characters meet. A sweet and funny scene that showcases their relationship, and give the parents some depth two. One set are nervous and fed up of not being thought of as American, and the other set of parents just want a friend for their daughter. It also features a racist being injured and sworn at.

Closing: Simple “one year from now”. Nice, and doesn’t sequel hook.

Best Line: My vagina is the devil and she’s here to stay!

Original Review here

M3gan

Ups: Very funny

Has a superb Chekov’s Gun involving a giant robot.

Weirdly sweet at times.

Downs: There’s a few moments where the editing is a bit off. Most of the time it’s fine. But there’s a moment in the office where it’s a bit sudden and disorientating.

Best Moment: When M3gan is being disconnected. You know what’s going to happen, it’s obvious, but it’s still incredibly tense trying to figure out WHEN it will happen. It’s the cinematic equivalent of Buckaroo, only with slightly more death.

Worst Moment: The bits which aren’t in there. Like, what happened to certain people? And what impact does this have on the company?

Best Performer: Violet McGraw. Although I did think she was Ava Acres until about five minutes ago.

Opening: A very cutesy/disturbing advert for a fictional toy. Followed by a car crash which kills the parents of Cady. Her parents are actually shown as fully realised characters, so it doesn’t feel like it’s wasting time.

Closing: The not-Alexa turns itself on, implying M3gan is now in that. That’s how you do a sequel hook: there’s potential for it to continue, but it still feels like a complete story. It CAN have a sequel, but it doesn’t NEED one. Although I will be curious how they’ll have an excuse to keep the same design for M3gan if they do continue. Her look was a big part of her charm.

Best Line: Cady, you lost your parents. The worst thing that could’ve happened to you in this world happened. And it is so unfair, and there is nothing anyone can say to make sense of it. Not even M3gan. I am so sorry. I should’ve talked to you about what happened. I didn’t know what to say, so I did the only thing I knew how to do. But she’s not a solution. She’s just a distraction. I can’t promise you that these feelings you’re feeling are ever gonna go away. But I can promise you that you’ll get through it. We both will.

Original Review here

Quiz Lady

Ups: Funny.

It’s nice to have something just designed to make you feel warm and fuzzy.

Good subversions of the expected character types.

Downs: Predictable.

Could do more.

Doesn’t use the music available to it in the best way.

Best Moment: The quiz show itself.

Worst Moment: The Ben Franklin-themed hotel seems like an idea that was hilarious on paper but didn’t really add anything on screen.

Best Performer: Awkwafina.

Opening: Anne sits down to watch a quiz show in 1996 as an argument goes on around her. Her older sister is on the phone nearby and reaches for the remote. I assumed she was going to turn the volume down so she could talk on the phone, but she turned it up instead so her sister could hear it. It’s weirdly sweet. Helps that the child actress they got looks SOOOO much like Awkwafina.

Closing: Ends exactly how you think it would end. But then you get a “what happened to everybody” montage which is hilarious.

Best Line: “Linguini became a social media star, making $200k per post. This makes him richer than most families and proves capitalism has gone too far”

Original Review here

Rye Lane

Ups: Very believable relationship between the two leads.

Adorkable

Very creatively shot

Downs: The traditional third-act argument doesn’t feel real, and the grand gesture feels underwhelming.

Best Moment: The dinner with Dom’s ex.

Worst Moment: The argument.

Best Performer: David Jonsson

Opening: The meet-cute. Happens very early on and I’m all for it. Actually, that’s another point, this film is remarkably paced.

Closing: They end up together. Obviously.

Best Line: So apparently there are two types of people in this world. The ones who wave at boats, and the ones who hate joy.

Original Review here

The Creator

Ups: Looks incredible.

How was it done on this budget?

Gets you asking questions.

Downs: Missing THAT iconic needle drop.

Important plot points are glossed over too quickly.

Best Moment: The reveal that the disaster that wiped out humanity was human error, not AI. Changes everything.

Worst Moment: 3 seconds later when you realise that the reveal has changed nothing.

Best Performer: John David Washington

Opening: Newsposition. Goes from real news to fictional seamlessly and makes the world seem real.

Closing: The two main human characters die but the world is saved. Cliche but works.

Best Line: Go make love to yourself. Go make love to your mother.

Original Review here

The Marvels

Ups: Fun.

Iman Vellani is a delight.

Perfect chemistry.

Good visuals.

FINALLY starts to set up the next stage.

Downs: Villain is defeated too easily.

Wastes the swapping gimmick.

Best Moment: “Memories”. Just absurd.

Worst Moment: The singing planet. Mainly because it could have been sooooo much better.

Best Performer: Iman Vellani

Opening: Standard “villain finds weapon” opening.

Closing: Confirmation of X-Men/young avengers.

Best Line: Okay, no more touching shit. Especially glowing, mysterious shit.

Original Review here

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: The Guardians struggle when Adam Warlock gravely injures Rocket, and they have to band together to find a way to save his life or risk everything falling apart.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (or Gotgv3, pronounced Gotgivthree) is exactly what you expect this film to be; for better and worse. The MCU (pronounced Mackyew) has felt like it’s been spinning plates for a while; as if it doesn’t matter what order the films get released in because they don’t connect to each other in any way. I remember before I watched Doctor Strange I made sure to watch Wandavision and the Doctor Strange episode of What If? so that I wouldn’t be lost. I have yet to watch The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special which was released last year on Disney+, and I wasn’t lost. Looking at the wikipedia page for that TV special and the first sentence is “The Guardians of the Galaxy have purchased Knowhere from the Collector and taken in Cosmo the Spacedog as a new member.”. That’s pretty much the only important thing and both of those you can kind of piece together anyway just by paying attention. They do mention Mantis and Quill being related in Gotgv3, but your brain kind of assumes they are anyway, and it makes no difference to the narrative so it doesn’t matter. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again if it doesn’t change; the MCU needs to start advancing the overall narrative, or people will start to think “I’ll wait to see it” and not feel they’re missing out on a cultural zeitgeist.

The last film James Gunn directed was The Suicide Squad, but this feels more like the other Suicide Squad movie. By which I mean the needle drops are too frequent and badly placed. It’s a shame as the other two Guardians films had iconic soundtracks, and this does too, but the songs are just badly used. Some of the choices are a little too predictable too, it’s not quite “We need to show this film is happy, so play Walking On Sunshine” levels of obviousness, but there are moments where it’s close. Like a lot of films in the MCU, there’s also a problem with tone. Bleak depressing moments of horrificness (that’s my band name) are followed by glib jokes or fun rock songs. It’s a shame as there are plenty of truly emotional moments that will kind of break you at times, but it could hit you harder.

Now onto the good, this features one of the best action scenes in the MCU, a single-shot sequence that encapsulates every character taking out a group of enemies in increasingly elaborate ways as we make our way down a hallway. It’s so beautiful to watch it all unfold in front of you, the delicate interplay between the characters and the moments making it feel less like a fight scene, and more like a highly choreographed ballet. It’s the closest the MCU has ever got to Oldboy.

Gotgv3 also features one of the most detestable villains the franchise has ever witnessed. A lot of villains so far have been sympathetic and tragic, or have been so cartoon-ey that it’s hard to take them seriously. The High Evolutionary isn’t justified or given a sad background like an X-Factor contestant, instead, he’s just a complete prick who you want to see fail. Unlike Thanos or Killmonger, you’re not likely to see swathes of people supporting him and wearing his face on t-shirts. What you will see is a large sense of cathartic release when he suffers, which is how it should be. Amazingly, Chukwudi Iwuji manages to pull off this character without seeming one-dimensional. It is strange to see Superstore’s Nico Santos as such an evil character too, I was just sitting in the cinema thinking “Mateo, you dick”.

It’s a good thing the High Evolutionary is as impressive as he is, as the eagerly anticipated Adam Warlock feels slightly underused. If he is in future projects then this can be forgiven as a set-up, but only if he does develop as a character. If he stays as he is, it will feel like a missed opportunity.

This is likely to be the last film with this iteration of the Guardians together as a group, and this is a fitting send-off. All the characters are given a chance to shine, and their fantastic chemistry continues to be a delight.

The real highlight in terms of characters though, is Rocket Racoon. He’s given a lot more to do in this and provides a lot of the emotional high points. It’s truly harrowing seeing what he goes through, and it actually helps explain his characterisation from previous films. This is what flashbacks should do, they should not just tell a story, they should also help provide context to things that have already happened and help flesh out the character. From the moment he meets his friend group, you know how it’s going to end, but that doesn’t make it any less distressing when it does, and it means his violent response feels warranted (even when you see the true extent of the injuries he doled out).

So in summary, I would recommend this. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a modern MCU film, I wouldn’t bother staying for the second credits scene though.