Month: May 2023

The Witch: Part 2. The Other One

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★★½
“Which witch is which?”

This showed up as a bit of a surprise. Obviously, even the title suggested that the makers were looking for a sequel to The Witch: Part 1. The Subversion. However, I had no idea whether or not it had been successful enough to merit a follow-up. Clearly the answer is yes, though I would certainly recommend you either re-watch, or at the very least read up on, the preceding entry. Even at a rather bloated 137-minute running time, it does not provide any “Previously, on The Witch…” recap. You’re entirely on your own, and after a brief prologue, you will be dropped right into things, though any connection to the previous film only becomes apparent at the very end.

It begins with the escape of “Ark 1” (Shin) from the research facility where she has been undergoing experiments. Stumbling onto a road, she’s picked up by a car containing Kyung-hee (Park), a young woman who is in serious trouble with the gangsters also present in the car. Ark 1 handily defeats them after they get a bit too friendly, quickly earning Kyung-Hee’s gratitude. She takes Ark 1 back to live with her and her brother, Dae-gil (Sung), introducing Ark 1 to the delights of food. The gangsters are none too happy with getting their butts kicked, and regroup for another attempt. They’re not the only ones after Ark 1 either, as her former “owners” sent out an agent, Jo-hyeon (Seo), with talents of her own, to retrieve their property.

As the rather clunky sub-title implies, this is mostly about an entirely different character to the preceding movie. This feels like a bit of a cheat, as if you’d carefully studied for a pop quiz, only for it to be for another subject entirely. Instead, you get a plot which, even at the extended running time, feels rather too over-stuffed. The remarkable coincidence of Ark 1 stumbling into a car containing the very person who can help her, and that simultaneously needs her help, is just the first in quite a few moments where people happen to be in the right place at the right time. I suspect there’s also a plot thread or two more than is beneficial to overall coherence.

This is especially true at the end, where the various factions converge and have a massive battle in poorly-lit conditions. Going by what I saw earlier, this may have been the makers’ way of disguising the CGI. It’s an area with scope for improvement, especially when Ark 1 is demonstrating her remarkable super strength, by hurling people. cars, etc. around with enthusiasm. I suspect this is a victim of second movie syndrome, being the entry in a trilogy that has neither a start nor an ending. I do have to cut it some slack on that basis, and presuming the series is finished (and this was a top 10 film in Korea for 2022), I’ll still be tuning in for the finale. There’s just enough potential, even if my expectations are quire restrained.

Dir: Park Hoon-jung
Star: Shin Si-ah, Park Eun-bin, Seo Eun-soo, Sung Yoo-bin 

Black Site (2022)

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★★★
“Better Red(box) than Net(flix).”

This has a fair amount in common with the disaster which was Interceptor. Both films were produced for streaming companies, and are about a sole woman in a remote military location, that is attacked by a terrorist or groups of terrorists. She then has to survive, take on the threat, deal with treachery on the inside, and handle a ticking clock scenario. It is fairly basic storytelling, occasionally dumb, and there’s nothing of note in either, we haven’t seen a hundred times before, with male or female leads. However, this is significantly more watchable, perhaps because it doesn’t push the envelope. One problem with Interceptor was its #MeToo messaging. There’s no such soap-box concerns here, and Black Site is better for it.

The heroine is Abby Trent (Monaghan), a CIA analyst whose husband and daughter were blown up in a terrorist attack on an “Istanbul” hospital. I use quotes, because when the camera zooms out to a satellite view, Istanbul has apparently relocated, from Turkey to somewhere down the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia. It’s not the last time the film’s geography is shaky. Anyway, Abby devotes her life to tracking down “Hatchet”, the man responsible, and is currently working at a secret interrogation facility in the Jordanian desert. Two things about it made me go “Hmmm.” Firstly, it doubles as a data storage location: that’s a no from me in IT. Second, a Mossad (Israeli intelligence) agent is wandering about. Seems unlikely.

Anyway, #2. Hatchet (Clarke) is captured and sent to the facility, only to escape almost immediately. A lockdown is put in place, but comms get cut off, and the rules – at least in this movie – are that after an hour, they’ll be deemed compromised, and a drone strike will wipe everyone out. Abby has to figure out Hatchet’s agenda, deal with insubordination and flat-out double-agents on her side, and discover the truth about the hospital bombing before the clock runs out. Despite the various idiocies noted above, it is all kept moving forward at a decent pace. Once things kick off with Hatchet’s Houdini-like escape and particularly vicious stabbing of his first two victims, there’s little slack or down-time until things go boom.

I’d like to have seen Monaghan given more to do on the action front. There is a decent fight against the in-house traitor; otherwise, she is largely limited to creeping about corridors with a gun. There are subplots, such as the team member who thinks his active experience puts him above taking orders from Abby, which ends with him taking on Hatchet hand-to-hand in a decent battle, albeit with an entirely expected outcome. Indeed, the same can be said for the film as an entity. There are no surprises, yet the action is handled in a professional manner, and this helps paper over the obvious flaws. Director Banks does solid work, considering this was her first feature, so we’ll see where she goes from here.

Dir: Sophia Banks
Star: Michelle Monaghan, Jason Clarke, Jai Courtney, Pallavi Sharda

Death Hunt

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★½
“What a stupid hunt…”

Despite a striking poster (well played, PR team), for the first hour, you’ll probably be wondering why this is included here. Corporate lawyer Ray Harper (Tucci) is on the road, trying to convince reluctant local farmers to sell their land for development. He’s also taking advantage of the away time to hook up with his bit on the side, Brooke Hamilton (Malcolm). Both these enterprises are rudely interrupted when the couple are pulled over by corrupt cop, Williams (Johnston), and abducted at gunpoint. They are the next “guests” on an island run by TJ (McDonald), where he and his pals can get together to hunt… The Most Dangerous Game. Except, they can’t find any of that, so have to make do with a middle-aged executive and his other woman.

There have been a whole bunch of these in the past, with the results ranging widely in quality. Done correctly e.g. The Hunt, they can be thoroughly entertaining. Done badly, however… Oh, look: here we are. For this gets just about everything wrong. Let’s start with the genuinely terrible audio mix, in which the dialogue is frequently buried entirely. On the other hand, not hearing the dialogue is often for the best. The redneck hunters come off the worst in this department, being given lines which Larry the Cable Guy would reject as stereotypical and cliched. Just to show how evil they are, the director hangs a Confederate flag on the wall of the island cabin. That’s the level of subtlety we plunge into here.

It’s a good 40 minutes before any significant hunting gets going, and when it does, the entire rest of the film is characterized by rank stupidity on everyone’s part. The hunters mention this is the fifth year they’ve done this, and frankly it’s a miracle they haven’t shot each other in that time, such is the level of their incompetence. They can’t even hit a target which is standing still, in the open, in front of them. Fortunately for the trio, Ray is no more blessed in the woodcraft smarts department, and this brings us to the final 30 minutes, where Brooke suddenly turns into Rambolina. This is a surprise to everyone, since there’s absolutely no foreshadowing of this, such as her being ex-army, or even having a concealed carry permit.

It could have become a sly commentary on sexual politics, with “the little woman” ending up being the one best equipped to survive the situation, going from overlooked bimbo to overpowering. However, that’s a transition which would require actual writing skill, something apparently entirely absent in the creators here. Instead, she ends up more or less handed fully loaded automatic weapons, a radio, and all the equipment needed to survive and turn the tables. Do not get me started on the box full of dynamite conveniently stashed in the cabin. At least they do appear to blow things up physically, rather than relying on crappy CGI explosions. That’s a small mercy indeed.

Dir: Neil Mackay
Star: Marlene Malcolm, Terry McDonald, Omar Tucci, Greg Johnston

Bae Wolf

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★★
“LARPing for all.”

There is certainly room for reworking of the tale of Beowulf and Grendel, and making the heroines of this version female is what got me interested in it. However, the warning signs were out very quickly. Opening titles which said “Denmark… 500 AD… (-ish)” are a good sign of what to expect, for it’s clear that the makers were not happy to leave their changes at that. Indeed, they consciously embrace anachronism, especially in the dialogue, which is thoroughly modern, and could not be further from the epic poetry of the original if they tried. And I suspect they did try: congratulations on erasing one of the main reasons the story has survived down the millennia.

The basic story is, at least, largely unchanged. The land of Queen Walchtheo (Petsiavas) is under attack from the monstrous Grendel (Kern), and she sends her daughter, Princess Freawaru (Renew) out to find someone who can slay the beast. Freawaru finds a party of Danes led by Beowulf (Hill), who is disgruntled about the legends making her male: “As if you need balls to hold a sword.” They are commissioned for the job, which is where it gets murky, in a variety of ways. The Danes are a bit sketchy, in terms of delivering the contractually required slaughter; Grendel has mommy issues; and the princess falls for Beowulf, because this is 2022, and everyone has to be gay for no particular reason.

This was apparently shot at a Live-Action Role-Playing (LARP) camp, and to be honest, it shows. This is very much at the “running around in the woods” level of fantasy cinema, and at no point even remotely approaches selling its time and place. It leaves the film precariously perched between two stools, neither historically authentic nor modernizing the story. It drops contemporary characters, attitudes and dialogue into the 5th(-ish…) century, and the results don’t typically work, unless you’re playing for comedy. They can’t quite commit to that either, with a jokey tone, that simultaneously feels like it wants its opinions on gender and sexuality to be taken seriously. The net result at points feels like a political lecture delivered by someone wearing a pink pussyhat.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to dislike this as much as I might. Beowulf and Grendel are both given more complex characters than in some other adaptations, and are helped by decent performances from the leads. I will also admit, the final confrontation between Beowulf and the much-feared dragon is a great example of how you can genuinely yank the carpet from under your viewer. Let’s just say, very little in this world is as it seems, and the film works best when playing on this line between myth, legend and the facts, along with the way they mutate into each other. If they could have developed this aspect more, in lieu of the less successful elements, the obviously low budget and clunky writing would perhaps not have been so glaring.

Dir: David Axe
Star: Morgan Shaley Renew, Josh Kern, Jennifer Hill, Rachel Petsiavas

The Women of Mission: Impossible

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The Mission: Impossible franchise is one of the longest-running action franchises in existence, especially with the same man starring in all the entries. By the time the second part of Dead Reckoning comes out next summer, it will be more than twenty-eight years since Tom Cruise chose to accept his first self-destructing mission. Over the course of the six films so far, plus at least two more to come, it hasn’t been all about Ethan Hunt. There have been some memorable supporting actresses, with every entry having had something to offer in the action-heroine department. As we head towards the release of #7, it seems a good point at which to honour the Misses of Mission: Impossible.

Mission: Impossible (1996) – Emmanuelle Béart as Clare Phelps

The franchise got under way with a film which was more a traditional spy thriller, director Brian De Palma’s fondness for Albert Hitchcock being apparent. The main M:I lady was French actress Béart, in what was easily the most high-profile role of her career. She plays Claire, the wife of team leader Jim Phelps (Jon Voight), and apparently the only survivor besides Ethan Hunt when a mission goes horribly wrong. She then teams up with Hunt to uncover a mole in the organization, though Claire definitely feels under-used. It’s never quite clear what her talents are, beyond dropping a malicious substance into a CIA employee’s coffee, allowing Hunt to do the famous vault heist while dangling from a cable. While one of the prettiest of M:I women, I was somewhat creeped out by her being 25 years younger than Voight.

Mission: Impossible 2 (2000) – Thandie Newton as Nyah Nordoff-Hall

This starts brightly enough, with Hunt foiling cat burglar Nordoff-Hall as she tries to steal stuff, beginning a relationship which feels quite 007-ish in the banter, and the way they chase each other in their automobiles. However, things fall apart thereafter, with the character doing little more of note, except serving as a human container for the biowespon which is at the film’s core. Her skills are never put to significant use, even when Hunt is carrying out a robbery of his own, and it doesn’t help that Newton is terrible, fully deserving her Razzie nomination. She’d go on to be much better in Westworld, but the performance at this point in her career is grating and unpleasant. Unlike Phelps, she does at least survive the film; however, the fact there wasn’t even a mention of her in the third installment, should tell you how much of an impact she made here.

Mission: Impossible III (2006) – Maggie Q as Zhen Lei

Director J.J. Abrams had already crafted a well-known spy heroine in Alias, and for his first feature, included a trio of strong female characters. These begin with Lindsey Farris (Keri Russell), an IMF agent captured by the villain, whom Hunt has to rescue – she helps her own cause, though let’s just say, isn’t in the film for long. At the other end, Hunt’s nurse fiancee, Julia Meade (Michelle Monaghan), proves surprisingly adept after a quick lesson about firearms use from her other half, taking out a pair of bad guys in short order. She is also remarkably unfazed by being kidnapped out of her hospital job, taken to Shanghai, and then discovering her fiance has been living an entirely separate life, kept secret from her, as a globe-trotting agent. I would be considerably more miffed by all of that…

In between though, this marks Q’s first foray outside of Hong Kong action into Hollywood. We had already become a fan of hers, although a little like Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies, it’s clear the actress was here more to look good than to kick butt in the manner to which we had become accustomed. Still, Q acquits herself well as part of the team helping prevent the “Rabbit’s Foot” Macguffin from falling into the wrong hands. Amusing anecdote: while tasked with piloting an impressive $350,000 Lamborghini, Q had never learned to drive. This may have been a factor in her having a bit of a prang in it during filming. It certainly opened doors for Q, and it wasn’t long before she had another memorable role in another major Hollywood franchise, Live Free or Die Hard.  She was also invited back to not one, but two further installments to reprise the role. However, scheduling conflicts with her TV work – not least, Nikita – meant she was not able to accept the jobs.

Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) – Paula Patton as Jane Carter

This one likely counts as s two-for-one special, since we also get French actress Léa Seydoux in the role of assassin Sabine Moreau. She gets proceedings under way with the very cold-blooded killing of IMF agent Trevor Hanaway, and she swipes the Russian nuclear codes he was carrying. This makes things very personal for another IMF agent, Paula Patton, who was Hanaway’s handler, and this brings in a good helping of the movie’s (limited, to be honest) emotional content. Patton joins Hunt’s team as they attempt to obtain information from the Kremlin, but that operation goes very badly wrong, ending in a massive explosion for which IMF are blamed, causing the entire organization to be disavowed and go dark.

Off the books, Patton and Hunt go to the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, where Moreau is planning to sell the launch codes to terrorist Hendricks. In a particularly complex plan, even by the standards of the franchise, Patton pretends to be Moreau and meets Hendricks, while Hunt meets the real Moreau, and eventually captures her. This leads to an effective brawl between the two women in a hotel room high up the building. The suite’s window had earlier been removed, for the film’s signature sequence of Hunt scaling the building. You will not be surprised to learn that one of the two combatants takes an extremely long fall as a result. However, as with Maggie Q, previously agreed contracts meant that Patton was one-and-done for the series, even though the makers did want her to return.

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation (2015) – Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust

Even though Faust (above) is the best female character in the franchise to this point, this section will be relatively brief. That’s because I already wrote about Ferguson in detail at the time the movie came out, so I direct you to the previous piece for a full assessment. Here, I’ll just point out that she’s every bit an equal to Hunt – she is, more or less, the British equivalent thereof – and saves his Yankee ass on more than one occasion. Not least when he’s floating, limp as a pool noodle, in an underwater cooling system. Having rewatched this recently, what I said at the time still stands: “It’s a combination of old-school grace and new-school ruthless efficiency which helps make for a winning product.” There’s a reason Ilsa became the first woman to return for a meaningful role in a second installment.

Mission: Impossible – Fallout (2018) – Vanessa Kirby as Alanna Mitsopolis, the White Widow

There are quite a few candidates here. As well as the returning Ferguson and (in the later stages) Monaghan, there’s also a female head of the CIA, Erika Sloane, played by Angela Bassett, who is every bit the hard-ass you would expect. But I want to call out Kirby’s arms dealer, not least because that’s rarely a profession in which cinema ever shows a woman operating. Alanna is assisted by her brother, Zola, who provides the muscle. But it’s entirely clear who is the brains, and who is running the organization. It also appears to be a generational business. In a nice throwback touch, she’s the daughter of Max, played by Vanessa Redgrave, who was arrested by Ethan Hunt all the way back in the first movie. Kirby had just had her eighth birthday when that came out, which gives you some idea how long the franchise has been running!

Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) – Hayley Atwell as Grace

The seventh entry is split into two parts, with the first half out in July 2023, and the second… at some point after the writers and actors go back to work. There is no shortage of strong women in the opening installment, with a full quartet to choose from – though, let’s just say, there will be less competition in the next part. Ferguson and Kirby reprised their roles, but the main female role goes to Atwell, who should be familiar here due to her role as Agent Carter. While Simon Pegg’s description of  Atwell’s training as “Proper Matrix shit” appears. sadly, to have been hyperbole, her lady thief held her own. She fools Ethan Hunt more than once, and is a key part of the film’s two big set-pieces, a car chase through Rome and the finale involving a series of dangling train carriages.

But, wait! There’s more! For even more action-oriented is Paris (Pom Klementieff), the main sidekick of the film’s bad guy, Gabriel – okay, technically, the movie’s villain is an AI, but let’s not get into that. While a woman of few words, she looks great, and has some of the best facial expressions. In particular, when she’s pursuing Ethan and Grace through Rome, driving a giant Hummer, she seems to rejoice in the resulting carnage, if her mayhem-induced grin is anything to go by. After being spared by Hunt, and later paying back that debt, her fate at the end of the first movie is… uncertain. But word is that Klementieff was signed for both films, and I’d love to see more of her in the franchise finale.