Studios put a lot of thought into release dates for big movies. Sometimes it’s to avoid competition with a similar release which may split the audience and negatively affect the box office, sometimes because it wants to be in people’s minds when they nominate films for awards, and sometimes it is to make use of certain demographics (releasing kids films during the summer holidays etc). With that in mind, it is truly baffling why Red One, a Christmas movie, was released in the first week of November, which despite what the adverts on television may be telling you, is not Christmas. I can’t imagine there’s much crossover between the intended audience of Red One, and the intended audience for Night Bitch or the new Lord Of The Rings. There are only two ways I can justify it;
They need it to fail so they can recoup the losses in some form of Hollywood accounting BS
It’s going to be released on streaming services just before Christmas.
There is, of course, the possibility that they want this to be a slow-burn success, that audiences will be so impressed by what they see that they will tell their friends, who will then tell their friends and sooner or later everyone will go see it.
If they wanted that, they should have made a better movie. It’s not terrible, it’s just deeply deeply flawed. The main issue is one of tone. It’s not sure whether it wants to be a family-friendly Christmas adventure or an action movie. At times, it seems like it’s aimed at children, with infantile references and simple narratives, but then there are sexual references and mid-level swears which you’d expect in a mild 15.
I wasn’t a fan of Chris Evans in this. He’s usually very good, and he can do comedy. But for some reason, his style didn’t work in this. It’s hard to buy him as a regular human, even when he is standing next to The Rock. I should point out, that there’s a moment where Nick Kroll gets possessed, and the vocal performance is bad to the point of embarrassment. Other than that, most of the performances are fine, and it’s always nice to see Bonnie Hunt.
There are also pacing issues. It takes FAR too long to get to the point. The opening also repeats itself or says things that could have been saved for later. Personally, I think we should have stayed with Chris Evans character before moving to the mystical part, then our experiences would have been similar to his, with our eyes and minds slowly being shown the magic.
The magic is the best part. Red One incorporates so many worldwide Christmas myths and legends that it’s almost an educational experience. I really enjoy the way they incorporate Gryla. I kind of wish they put more in, but I suppose the hope was to save them for sequels.
In summary; disposable fun, that really should have been released either straight to streaming or closer to Christmas. At the moment, it feels like it’s been sent out to die, and it doesn’t deserve that.
Quick Synopsis: When a killer injects her with a paralytic agent, a woman must run, fight and hide before her body completely shuts down.
Did Netflix gaslight us into thinking their original films used to be good? I thought they were, but looking at the list, there’s a lot of shit there. Well, maybe “shit” is a bit harsh, but for every Glass Onion, there are about 40 Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga‘s, films which are so forgettable that they barely register as being watched. Maybe Don’t Move will be different?
It starts promising, it sets the tone very quickly, and it’s really interesting. The opening kidnapping is shocking, not just because of how sudden it is, but also how cold and calculating it is. You can really see how the killer lures his victims. He picks up character information so quickly, incredibly observant. He’s essentially a detective who uses his powers for evil.
I like how minimalist DM is. There are a few other characters, but it is mostly just Finn Witrock and Kelsey Asbille. Finn Wittrock is good, but he never really feels like an individual, instead coming off as a mix between Bill “Pennywise” Skarsgard, Casey “Not Ben” Affleck and Leonardo “No Don’t Turn 26, you’re so pretty” DiCaprio. Asbille does A LOT considering she’s paralyzed for the majority of the runtime. She has tremendous eye-acting, which is essential because that’s the only way she portrays emotion for most of it. The small cast allows the talents of the two leads to really shine. It also helps Asbille’s character seem more isolated. This could have been TERRIBLE if it cut to her previous life too often (as was done in The Mercy) in an attempt to examine her life. Because we only see her in the context of a kidnapping victim, we feel scared and isolated alongside her; all we know in this world is her and her kidnapper.
I do have some issues with the script though. Not that it’s bad, but I feel it wastes potential. Whilst DM is good, it could (née, should) have been great. Her losing her body autonomy (we call that “Being An American Woman”) should have taken place in real-time, it lasts 10 minutes onscreen instead of the (I think) 20 it was said to have taken. Adding the extra 10 would have made it so much more interesting. That’s the case for the whole film actually. It’s crying out for a gimmick. Maybe that’s real-time, so we get LONG shots of her being driven to the cabin the kidnapper hopes to keep her in, the longer the drive, the more we become aware of just how hopeless her situation is. Maybe it could have done the always impressive long take, making it seem like it was all filmed in one take (as in Boiling Point and 1917) with scenes of forestry masking cuts and time jumps. Maybe if it was all from her POV, so we are truly in her shoes, feeling her fear and helplessness. Any one of those would have made it a genuinely impressive feature and would have helped it stand out. As it is, it’s just pretty good.
It’s a shame to watch a film and get distracted by what it is instead of what it could be. But this isn’t quite refined enough to distract you, so you can’t really help but let your mind wander. It’s a great concept, but there’s not quite enough in the narrative it to justify stretching it out to feature length instead of just having it as a short. It’s not, but it does have big “based on a short story” energy. This is where a gimmick would have helped it, it would have hidden the narrative swamp of boredom.
Quick Synopsis: Eddie Brock and Venom must make a devastating decision as they’re pursued by a mysterious military man and alien monsters from Venom’s home world
The Venom movies are without a doubt, the best of the not-Spider-Man Spider-Man movies. Let’s face it, that’s not a difficult hurdle to clear. Whilst the likes of Madame Web and Morbius have been absolute shit, Venom has, at worst, been incredibly frustrating. They are the epitome of wasted potential. There are moments throughout the franchise which I love. In The Last Dance (V: TLD, pronounced Vee-Told) there’s a fantastic moment where Eddie Brock/Venom is travelling with a family and the dad starts a singalong of Space Oddity. It’s hard to explain why, but it’s incredibly sweet and powerful. Usually, when you hear that song in popular culture, it’s because of an astronaut, and the message is “Look, he’s in space”. The use here is more “he’s completely alone”. It starts off funny, but the sense of isolation and despair quickly sinks in, and it’s incredibly powerful, to the point where it actually has genuine emotion.
It’s not just in the Bowie-oke where you see what V: TLD could be. The closing carnage of the multiple symbiotes is a cavalcade of chaos and fun, but it also only lasts around 15 minutes. That’s such a shame, as there’s enough for a whole movie there; the idea of different versions running around causing mayhem is exciting, especially since they all seem to have their own powers and identities.
Instead of those potential fun times, V: TLD decides it wants to spend its time with Knull, the creator of the symbiotes, who spends the film attempting to retrieve a codex from inside of Eddie/Venom so that he can be freed from prison. So the main villain in this, which has been advertised as the closing film of this trilogy (although we all know that it’s not), is locked in a prison for the entire runtime and never interacts with the characters. It is possible to have a villain like that, but they need to have that little something extra which means that even when they’re not onscreen, their presence hangs over everything. That never happens, the creatures he sends out are scary, but he has no presence. In fact, it could be argued that using the Xenophage lessens his impact because they’re so deadly and hard to kill, it means that THEY are the narrative beast to defeat, not the Big Boss. Ironically, this means the impact that Knull has? Nul.
It feels like V: TLD is building towards something, which feels misguided for the closer of a trilogy. Despite it being marketed as such, it never FEELS like the finale of a series. There’s no sense of completion, no sense of book-ending, no feeling that we’ve gone on a journey. It’s a shame, as the series has potential, and has found talented performers (the franchise would be A LOT worse without Hardy, and seeing Stephen Graham on the big screen is always welcomed), but it has never figured out what to do with either of those things. It has never felt like a coherent story across all three, especially in terms of tone. At times it’s felt more like a horror movie (the allusions to Alien are far too common to be accidental), at times they feel like a road movie, and at times they’re zany action movies. It really needed to focus on one genre and try to excel at that. Instead, it feels like they’ve tried to throw every idea they have, whether it suits the tone or not. Nobody stopped to ask “But this derails the themes” etc. They also never stopped to say “but this doesn’t make sense” at any point. The perfect example can be found in V: TLD. There’s a subplot of a family travelling to Area 51 due to it being closed down. They’re the only ones who try this. Are you saying that if the US government announced they were closing down Area 51 at a certain date, there would only be ONE family making that trip? There would be thousands of camper vans making that trip and I can’t think why the film would make us not think that would be the case. It would be more realistic, plus it would mean that the final chaotic action scenes would have a lot of near-deaths. The only reasons I can think they wouldn’t do this would be because the writers don’t want the characters in this universe to be aware of Venom (which is a shame, as having Venom die knowing that society accepts him is perfect, plus he’s been in enough crowd scenes that he’s definitely not a secret), or for budgetary reasons. Either way, it feels like a disappointing waste. Back in my review of the first Venom, I said “it wasn’t the worst film ever, but nowhere near as good as it could have been”, and my review of Let There Be Carnage mentioned how moments could be an entire movie are relegated to brief distractions. So whilst trilogies like Creed changed how I want fight scenes to be shown, Planet Of The Apes changed my expectations for motion capture, all I get from the Venom trilogy is to prepare to be disappointed. , I’m English, that’s my default state.
Quick Synopsis: Lee Harper is a clairvoyant who is assigned an unsolved murder case involving satanic sacrifices, possession, and Nicholas Cage
I will say this to start: there have been three films this year with lead characters named Lee, none of them male. Longlegs, Civil War, and the one where Kate Winslet played Lee—I can’t remember what that one was called though. Of the trilogy or trilog-lee, as some people (nobody) calls it, Longlegs is probably the one I enjoyed least.
I get the feeling it’s not supposed to be enjoyed though. It’s dark, gritty, and disturbing. That works in its favour as it means every moment is full of tension, so you never get a chance to relax. Osgood Perkins has made it so that even when the characters are in no danger, it somehow still feels uncomfortable. This is partly due to the way it is shot; the colour scheme and use of focus make everything feel like a mix of memory and a dream, where the rules of reality are still there, but you have a sneaking suspicion those rules could be torn up at any point. The narrative also helps; the sudden death of a character plants in your head the idea that all bets are off and nobody is safe.
On the downside; it is sometimes too bleak to care about, and the lighting makes it an uncomfortable watch for all the wrong reasons at times, making it resemble the visual equivalent of Tenat’s dialogue, you know stuff is there, and you know it’s important, but you can’t make it out at all.
The performances also help the tone. Cage, in particular, is disturbing. It is slightly disappointing how horror movies keep falling back on the “androgynous people who were assigned male sex at birth are creepy and likely to be serial killers” cliche that has real-world implications for trans people, but arguing for horror movies to stop doing that would be like asking Will Smith to stop saying “aw hell no” in his films, it’s not going to happen so you might as well just accept it.
Maika Monroe continues to be excellent. She has a habit of picking really good horror movies to start in, first It Follows, and now this. Nobody else is really given that much time to shine, but whoever decided to cast Alicia Witt as Monroe’s mother deserves a raise as that is spot on. Kiernan Shipka continues to impress whenever I see her, but her appearance in this is basically an extended cameo, and features some truly bad dialogue.
The dialogue is definitely the worst part of Longlegs, especially towards the end where it treats the audience like a nervous mother treats a child at traffic lights and holds their hand so tightly that you can sense it doesn’t trust you to know what’s happening. It then dumps so much information on you at once that it’s kind of annoying. Especially since it’s a detective horror, it would have been so easy for the script to simply reveal the killer M.O gradually throughout the runtime instead of “and here’s EVERYTHING”. The lead up to that with a character killing themselves by headbutting a table is pretty damn gnarly though.
So in summary, disturbing, kind of wonderful, but completely falls apart in the third act.
Quick Synopsis: In the 1950’s Appalachian mountains, Hellboy and his rookie teammate hunt down a local legend.
I mentioned to someone that I had watched this. The response to that is normally a quick “is it worth watching?”, “How is it?” etc, the usual questions. The one I got for this? “What new Hellboy movie?”.
The first Hellboy movie had box office takings of nearly $100million, so A LOT of people saw it. Even the 2019 one (which I reviewed here) made $55million on a budget of $50million (you wouldn’t think it would be that expensive to put a massive pile of dog shit in front of a camera and then film it). Those numbers prove one thing; a lot of casual moviegoers are aware of this character. So it’s baffling that the studio not only released this straight-to-VOD but also had a marketing campaign that consisted of “just post a video on YouTube, people will find it”. Really, Hellboy: The Crooked Man (H: TCM, pronounced Ha-took-em) SHOULD be a cult classic. It should have a reputation as a folk horror comic book movie, a low-budget but high-effort hidden gem.
It won’t have that reputation though, because it’s a bad film. Maybe I’d be more favourable towards this if it wasn’t for how good the first two are. Then again, maybe I’d be less favourable if I didn’t have to suffer through the last one. Actually, that does a disservice, as even without the comparisons, H: TCM would still seem cheap. At times it looks like a video game, and at other times it looks like a porn parody where the actors forgot to have sex. I knew it would have a lower budget, so visually it wouldn’t be able to match the previous entries, but it still tries to, and it fails in that trying. The things we see in films aren’t real, but I appreciate some effort in concealing that. I’m well aware that Wallace and Gromit are claymations, but if the next film has a moment where we see the animators’ fingers moving them around, I’m gonna be pissed. This makes no effort to hide the metaphorical strings behind the visuals, so it’s hard to lose yourself in what you’re seeing as the visuals constantly pull you out.
There are some good moments. It is suitably violent and doesn’t waste time getting to the violence. The witch coming back to life scene was pretty damn good. Very creepy. There are a few other moments where you can see what it is aiming to be. It’s in those moments where you see the influences, the most obvious one being The Evil Dead. Considering how heavily indebted it is to The Evil Dead series, it’s surprising they didn’t just get Bruce Campbell to play the lead. It certainly would have been a better option than Jack Kesy. Nothing against Kesy, but he doesn’t have that special otherworldly factor to lead a film like this. There’s no presence, no sense of authority, he doesn’t feel like he OWNS the scenes, he never feels any more than just an actor playing his part. He lacks the physicality too. There’s a moment where I can’t tell if it’s supposed to be in slow motion, or if he just can’t run fast in the prosthetics.
Another positive is that, unlike similar movies, they do explain the myth behind the villain etc. So it’s very easy to understand motivations and character. The trouble is, it’s delivered in such a dull way that it’s hard to pay attention. Yes, the 2019 Hellboy was terrible, but it was never as boring as this.
Quick Synopsis: In response to government welfare cuts, a group of people attempt to steal a black book of blackmail material from the Houses of Parliament.
I was wary of this. It looked interesting, but so did A Kind Of Kidnapping, which was kind of a letdown (especially since I’m a fan of the director). I knew nobody who worked on The Whip, and even from the trailer it looked low-budget. After watching it, I can confirm its low-budget nature. I don’t know if it’s a green screen or was filmed on location and lit badly, but there are far too many moments where there’s a disconnect between the characters and the background. In a student film, that’s okay, but in a wide-release feature, you can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
The directing is definitely the weakest link in The Whips’ chain. Not just in terms of visuals, but the physical geography is lacking. One scene featuring a walk and talk on a bridge is particularly clunky regarding how it’s set out concerning character placement. What was even weirder about that is that the next scene is a static shot on a nearby bench which would have been much easier to play out, it would have had the advantage of hiding the Houses Of Parliament out of shot so that the “so what’s the target?” shot reveal would have felt more natural, rather than “stop and look behind us at the thing that’s been in the shot all this time and that we’re actually walking away from right now”. I also have issues with some of the performances. None of them are bad, but there are definitely some inconsistencies that should have been taken care of in rehearsals, or as Cath Clarke put it in the Guardian “more wooden than the panelling in the chief whip’s office”. Also, there are a few bad edits where the match-cutting could be a lot better.
Now onto the good; A LOT of effort has been put into this, and it shows. The opening credits are unique, with the names being written down in a notepad before appearing on screen. I love it when films put the extra effort in and tell a story or tone by the way they display the credits. Haven’t seen it done as well since Sometimes I Think About Dying. The closing credits are creative too, the traditional “photo alongside name” but done as newspaper headlines, and having other headlines providing a “what happens next” coda. I really appreciate that level of creativity.
So how about the actual film? Imagine there’s a line between “funny because it’s relatable” and “not funny because it’s too relatable”, this film dances down that line and then snorts it. The opening scene with the assessment is uncomfortably realistic; a government worker who’s not listening and spends more time looking at the computer than actually paying attention to the person she’s interviewing. Everybody who has had to speak to someone at the DWP can recognise that. The “can you tell me about her condition?” attitude of asking the carer when the actual person is RIGHT THERE is so prevalent that it’s actually taught as an example of what not to do because of how dehumanising it is. It’s frustrating the amount of effort disabled people have to put in to convince people that they haven’t magically healed, and just because they can manage their condition whilst at home and under certain conditions, doesn’t mean they can work full time. It’s difficult to watch scenes like that and not be fucking furious at our government (including the new ones who are basically the old ones just in a different jacket). On that note, Meg Fozzard is superb.
That frustration is shared by the characters, alongside their helplessness. They point out that marching isn’t enough, people marched against the invasion of the Middle East and it still happened. Being on the right side of history doesn’t mean dick if it kills you and nothing changes. As someone says “There’s being right, then there’s doing something about it”.
You’d think that all of this would make this a deeply cynical watch, and at times it is. But it is also weirdly idealistic. Hard to explain but I’ll try. I guess the message of it is; everything fucking sucks UNLESS we do something now! It has moments which are clearly made to inspire you, whether it’s the scene in the back of a car where a politician tells someone “Young people don’t tend to vote for us, so we encourage them not to vote”, it’s made to encourage you to engage in politics (although that scene does take too long to get to the point). It’s also nice how it shows an older politician who is just as disgusted with his party’s actions. Makes you wonder if a better world is possible if we just remove the person at the top (and as someone who is currently reading a book about the history of Rome, the answer as to whether that is true is……unclear). He’s clearly not comfortable with repeating his party’s message, especially as he knows it’s barbaric and badly explained. As he says:
“Of course they didn’t get it, they’re not supposed to get it, if they got it they’d be furious”
The lack of internet security in government buildings is depressingly accurate. It is FAR too believable that our government’s wi-fi has zero encryption, probably because the people who need to use it are computer illiterate to the point where they DEFINITELY keep their passwords on a post-it attached to the computer screen. Just as believable is that they’d purchase a safe which opens if you tap the top of it. Just as believable. It’s that reality that really helps this film work. It doesn’t quite feel like a documentary, but it does feel so believable that there’s a small part of you that wonders “Could we do this?”. It provides hope, and that’s sorely needed right now.
Quick Synopsis: A look at the inciting incident in the hatred between Optimus Prime and Megatron
I was mildly looking forward to this. The trailer caught my attention, and I thought, “That looks like a lot of silly fun.” A bit like the second coming of The Lego Batman Movie, which I still think is dumb brilliance. It’s not dumb brilliance, it’s just brilliant. Yes, it has some silly jokes, but nowhere near as much as it could. Before it fully settled into the tone I spotted numerous opportunities for some silly jokes, and I assumed it was the scriptwriters missing opportunities. That’s my bad, this is not attempting to be silly, just entertaining, and yes, Virginia, there is a difference. Everything makes sense within the logic created. Also, EVERYTHING is played straight, to a horrific extent at some points.
This isn’t a “fun and joy for kids” movie. It deals with colonialism, disability rights, hierarchal power structures, appeals to authority fallacies etc. It doesn’t shy away from darkness, characters are decapitated, torn apart, mutilated at birth, and stabbed repeatedly. You don’t expect kids’ films to feature a scene of a main character being horrifically tortured, and you certainly don’t expect it to be shown and not just implied or cut away from.
This is only the second film that Josh Cooley has directed, and he does brilliantly. It will be a weird thing to say as a response to an animated kid’s film, but I feel he would make a fantastic horror film. He knows about scale, he knows about tension, and he knows how to maximise character pain so that the audience can feel it, I shouldn’t wince in pain when an animated robot gets hurt, but this manages it. He’s helped by the animation style; it is almost stop-motion in how physically real the world looks.
It’s very well cast. There are NAMES in this, Johannson, Hemsworth, Fishbourne, Hamm etc. And all of them nail it, they actually act, and they’re not just doing their normal voices. The real MVP is Brian Tyree Henry. There’s one moment in particular where his performance is one of the best I’ve heard all year, not just in kids films, in general. His conviction and passion is breathtaking, and it’s genuinely chilling to hear him deliver it, particularly the line “No, I want to kill him” which would easily be seen as cheesy if delivered by a lesser performer.
I know I’ve seen the first Michael Bay Transformers movie, and I think I’ve seen the second one too. But I can’t remember much from them, they were fine as I was watching them, but nothing stands out, it was just metal smashing metal like some Robot Fuck Club (great band name). This? I will remember this. At the risk of sounding crude, it’s f*cking fantastic. It has everything I want in a movie; laughs, good characters, references to Key And Peele sketches, looks fantastic, heart, and some mild terror. Some people may argue that the start of darkness is too obvious. Those people are wrong, it’s not “predictable”, it’s foreshadowing/storytelling, and damn fine storytelling at that.
Quick Synopsis: Arthur Fleck is in prison after the events of the first film, whilst there he meets a romantic interest.
Initial reaction to this has been, well it’s not been positive has it? Normally, I don’t care about internet reviews, because they’re usually just “This movie has a black person in. Woke! This has Winona Ryder dating someone who’s not me. That’s bullshit, she’s my Winona! One star”. This was especially puzzling when you remember the positive reaction of the first one. People loved that. When the initial Blu-rays were released people referred to it as “The shipped gold standard“, due to how glad they were that they could finally have it. I mean, yeah, Joker: Folie A Deux (Or J: FAD, which is pronounced the only way you could pronounce that acronym really), is a musical, and the Angry Incel Dickhead “No Mercy! Coffee’s For Closers! Sweep The Leg!” faux alpha’s tend to hate them because those movies consist of people showing emotion. Logically, they should love this movie though, because it also has zero emotion, unless you count unrelenting bleakness as an emotion. It’s just a series of shit things happening in a shit world. You don’t feel like you enjoy it, it feels like you’re on permanent jet lag.
I’m not opposed to musicals, I’m opposed to THIS being a musical, especially the way they did it. Joaquin Phoenix can sing, he showed this with his performance in Walk The Line. But he can’t show that in this. His voice as Arthur Fleck (and how annoying is it that his character isn’t in the DCEU Batman movies, so we never got an A.Fleck/Affleck movie) is pathetic and downbeat, and he carries that through to the singing. If I wanted an incel icon singing songs of love, I’d listen to Bright Eyes (sorry Conor Oberst). Also, he’s acting alongside renowned waitress/actress/musician/singer Lady Gaga, who is a MUCH better singer than he is. Of course, he’s a better actor, so it kind of balances out, but is deeply unfair to both performers. Also, how can you have a musical called Joker and not have “Send In The Clowns”? I will admit, the use of “That’s Life” is damn perfect.
Serious musicals can work, just look at Annette, but that worked because it leaned into the weirdness, and because all the songs were written by Sparks there was a coherent vision throughout the soundtrack. They had a vision, and they carried that through over 27 songs (63 is over 27, right?). That same coherent song choice isn’t present in J: FAD, instead it feels like an old man choosing songs at the jukebox.
There’s a consistency in style though, it’s not as though you get pop punk, underrated “I Think We’re Alone Now” 80’s popstar Tiffany, blues, and then thrash metal. It is pretty much just all the same style, but no sense of flow between them, and not many choices which completely redefine how you feel about that song.
The script is nothing to write home about, either. The “romance” between Harley and Joker never really feels real. We’re not given a reason to believe she would be into him. There’s no seduction or moment of attraction. He sees her singing, starts talking, and seduces her by basically saying, “I’ve got troubled thoughts and a self-esteem to match.” What a catch! Somehow, this works, and they become America’s suite-hearts. Well, they don’t. Nobody notices them as a couple. The hero worship for Joker doesn’t extend to the woman doing everything possible to get him out of prison. You’d think she would have a fan club or something. It feels like the film wanted the pint-sized peroxide princess Harley Quinn but had no idea how to fit her in, so all the scenes of her character feel badly written. The newspapers don’t recognise her as who she actually is, and don’t give me the “she paid the press to stop them reporting”, because they still report on her attempted prison breakout/Joker romance, which you’d think would be far more damaging to her family. It’s not helped by how much of the runtime consists of “imagine spots, ” not very interesting ones either.
None of my negativity for this is down to the performers. They’re great. Phoenix continues to play Joker as some kind of West Coast smoker uncomfortable with his new-found fame, and Gaga is a fantastic performance. I’d like to see them together in something else, even another musical, but one a bit more fun. There’s no sense of playfulness to this. It doesn’t feel like a musical, it feels like a film where the characters sometimes sing in their mind, yes, there is a difference. Also, the way it handles fame and the weirdness of people who spend their days worshipping sociopaths (That reminds me; Americans, don’t forget to vote) is interesting, and those are things that people need to talk about. But they could talk about them a lot better than this. No matter how important it is, a message doesn’t mean shit if it’s delivered in a shit way. It’s why my method of writing “Recycle!” on a shovel and twatting people didn’t do much to convince people to change their rubbish disposal methods. This isn’t a movie, it’s a thesis and a poorly written one at that. It’s not even interesting, there’s one FASCINATING, well not even a sub-plot, just a “thing that has happened”. In this universe, someone created a drama based on the events of the first film. It’s referred to in passing a few times, but there’s no indication of what it’s like in terms of style. I WANT to see stuff about that. I feel it would give a better indication of how the world is truly reacting to what happened (especially since the majority of J: FAD takes place in the prison or in a courtroom, so it does feel quite claustrophobic). Plus it would also make a point about how the media sensationalises violence whilst also decrying it, in some kind of self-feeding cycle of shit. Plus, it would give it a sense of playfulness which is otherwise lacking (except for the animated opening).
You may have noticed, but during this review, I slipped in the song titles (and in two cases, the lyrics) for every song (except track 1) from the Fall Out Boy album which shares a title with this flick. I did this mainly because I was so bored during J: FAD that my mind wandered, and went automatically to the Fall Out Boy album. Yes, it was weird and distracting, making this review a lot more stressful than it would be otherwise. But it also means I put more effort into this than the writers did into the movie. Sadly, there’s absolutely no way for me to put “Disloyal Order Of The Water Buffalo” in.
Quick Synopsis: Sarah and Tom have one final dinner party before selling their home. The suicide of an unwanted guest ruins the party (and the chances of a successful sale)
I fucking love a good dinner party scene. There’s something about them that’s so tense to watch unfold. I think it’s because they have societal expectations in ways that other parties don’t. There’s an expectation that everyone will behave politely and behave well. There’s also the fact that they tend to be very conversation-based, so it’s VERY easy to get information over via dialogue. “so how’s the new job going?” is a perfectly normal thing to ask at a dinner party, so it’s very useful for exposition. I mention that because the one in here has some of the most tense five seconds I’ve ever seen. A tenseness which is then made worse by the revelation that the character was joking. There’s a definite shift in dynamics there. Ordinarily, it would be “This rudeness puts everyone on the defensive”, but here it actually does the opposite, it puts everyone on the offensive, against her, so your feelings are conflicted when she commits suicide soon after.
On that subject; I wasn’t a fan of the post-suicide moment. She commits suicide, they try to cut her down and save her but are unsuccessful, and she falls onto the floor dead. Title card. That, that I’m fine with. But then there are establishing shots of the house and food before we go to the characters reacting. Those shots are only roughly 5 seconds long but completely kill any momentum. It’s just a weird narrative decision.
That’s The Trouble With Jessica’s (TTWJ, pronounced That-weej) biggest flaw; it has a good story but no idea what to do with it. The main farcical driver is that the characters want to move her body to her own house because they think having a dead body in their house will affect their house price. Very funny, very middle class. But they get to that decision far too quickly.
Part of the problem is that the satire never hits as sharply as it could. Primarily because tonally, it feels like the target of its ire and its target for a viewing audience are one and the same, so it’s very scared of annoying the people who are viewing it.
It REALLY feels like a weirdly dark episode of Coupling without Jeff, in which Jane kills herself. Seriously, watch this movie with the core 4 from that sitcom in mind, if I told you “Which Coupling character would this person be?” I GUARANTEE you’d get the exact same. That’s a criticism of the script, by the way, nothing against the performances. Shirely Henderson gets the plaudits, but it’s fascinating how well Alan Tudyk plays a middle-aged Brit.
The familiarity and lack of bite aren’t the only issues with the script. There are completely unnecessary flashbacks to scenes we saw earlier, it would have worked better if we saw just the flashbacks, not the originals. It also has trouble ending. It doesn’t so much drive to the home stretch, as stutter.
It has some fun moments though. The intertitles are interesting, but when they get to “The trouble with driving a dead body across London in the middle of the night”, they suddenly become brilliant. Some of the dialogue is hilarious, and the characters are very believable.
In summary, I’m glad I saw this, but that’s mostly because it’s available on Netflix and I watched it there, if I watched it at the cinema I’d be much harsher towards it.
Quick synopsis: Remember Beetlejuice? He’s back, in fog form.
I think I left it too late to watch the original Beetlejuice. I didn’t see it until I was in my late 20’s, by which time I was already over-familiar with the iconography and character, and it was too late for me to be obsessed with it. Also, I was never the biggest Tim Burton fan. His stuff has always seemed to be a case of style over substance, like a Zack Snyder who hasn’t yet discovered porn.
Maybe Beetlejuice Beetlejuice will change that? While I wasn’t a huge fan of the original, I liked it and consider it among his strongest works. So if anything could get me to buy a ticket to ride the Burton Bus it would be this piece of unfresh meat (if he ever gets accused of sexual improprieties then that sentence is going to seem so bad).
Spoilers, it doesn’t. I have the same issue with Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (BB, pronounced Bébé) that I have with much of Burton’s work; the script. There are five different plotlines, most of them run episodically rather than alongside each other. There are moments which aren’t really storybeats, just stuff happening one after the other. It seems like it’s setting up a plotline or villain, and then it is resolved within 10 minutes.
None of this is the fault of the actors though; all of them are on top form. Winona Ryder continues to be the best, Jenna Ortega slots into this universe perfectly, Keaton is exactly what you expect, and Catherine O’Hara is a damn delight. Jeffrey Jones is missing from BB, but his character isn’t, appearing in animated form in a plane crash, and in live-action form walking around the afterlife without a head. The reason for this is that Jeffrey Jones is a gross paedophile, so having him in this would be a huge PR problem. I do have an issue with his character being in it though, especially being so revered and a major part of one of the characters’ plotlines. Dunno, it just feels a little weird. I know it’s not him, but it is slightly uncomfortable to see that much love shown to a character played by him. It would be like if you dressed up as Jimmy Savile and attended a kids’ birthday party; the adults would know that it’s not actually him, but they would still be a little bit grossed out.
There are moments where BB is better than the original, some of the visuals have a lot more creativity to them, the characters are better defined, and the world feels more real. The “involuntary karaoke” scene is definitely worse though, and that’s mainly down to song choice. The song is still good, but it’s not as well known, not as likely to be sung by drunk people at music festivals, and just not as bombastic and hilarious considering the scene. To the point where it feels like it only exists in this movie BECAUSE it was in the first one.
It’s a shame, this could have been great. It is pretty good, but it doesn’t make you think that Burton has developed much as a filmmaker since he made the original. If there was only a five-year wait for this to be released, that would be okay, but 36 years and THIS is the best he can do? It’s a little disheartening, and definitely not good enough for me not to sing the title of it to the tune of Lollipop Lollipop.
Troubled Productions 