Tag: 2020

Becky

  By

★★★½
“Dear diary: my teen angst bullshit has a body count.”

Becky (Wilson) is the quintessential troubled teenager. Since her mother died, she has become increasingly estranged from her father, Jeff (McHale, replacing the original choice, Simon Pegg, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts), not least because of his new girlfriend, Kayla. Dad arranges a weekend away for everyone at the family cabin to try and repair things. However, relationship problems rapidly become the least of everyone’s concerns. For a quartet of escaped Aryan Brotherhood convicts, led by Dominick (James, going completely and effectively against type), have turned up, seeking a key they had hid on the property. Not too happy to find an inter-racial family, they capture everyone except Becky, who had stormed off in one of her huffs.

But hell hath no fury like a pissed-off teenage girl. Especially once Dominick starts torturing her father, the one person about whom Becky truly cares. Naturally, you do need to be able to accept that a 13-year-old – even one as unquestionably highly-motivated and vindictive as Becky – can take out hardened criminals, especially largely without the equalizer of a firearm. Yet the script does a fairly good job of overcoming this, setting up scenarios that allow her to use the tools at hand to her advantage. It helps some of her adversaries aren’t exactly the sharpest tools in the box, stupidity being a significant factor in their deaths by impalement and outboard motor.

The script also does a good job with villains Dominick and the 7-foot tall Apex (former WWE wrestler Maillet), who are respectively smarter and given greater depth than the bad guys usually receive in this kind of film. The latter, in particular, gets more of a character arc than anyone else bar Becky, becoming a surprisingly sympathetic character for a neo-Nazi. This development definitely helps the movie, when Becky is not extracting her furious, bloody vengeance [For instance, we could have done without the flashbacks to Becky playing the ukulele for her terminally ill mother. No, really]. Though it’s Dominick who provides the film’s most insanely hardcore moment, involving a scissors and an eyeball.

However, there is a fatal mis-step by having the movie’s climax take place after dark. This leaves the audience peering into the gloom, trying to figure out what’s going on. I’m still not sure what was being pulled behind the ATV on which Becky rides into her final battle. Going by its effect, I’m guessing at some kind of industrial strength earth-tilling equipment… This shadowy coyness is at odds with the in-your-face energy the film had shown up to that point, and which had it contending for a spot in Top 10, of any genre, for 2020. In the end, it probably falls just short, yet is still an enjoyable slice of brutal, hormonal savagery. As the end credits rolled, my mind drifted off to visions of a Hanna vs. Becky crossover story. Hey, we can all dream, can’t we?

Dir: Jonathan Milott, Cary Murnion
Star: Lulu Wilson, Kevin James, Joel McHale, Robert Maillet

The New Mutants

  By

★★★½
“The end of an era”

We live in a strange world in which Wonder Woman ’84 gets delayed again while The New Mutants is suddenly getting its release. Over the years, the story surrounding this movie has become more interesting than the one it tells. Originally, the film was scheduled for 2018 but didn’t find much luck. Director Josh Boone (The Fate in Our Stars) had the interesting idea of doing a Breakfast Club-type movie set in the Horror genre. After initial enthusiasm from the studio, execs pulled back, wanting to make the film more accessible, less horrific. Than the studio head at 20th Century Fox left, which led to changes at the script.

Originally, the film was supposed to play in the 80s (after X-Men: Apocalypse) and would have included Professor X and Storm. The script at hand seemed to depict the caretakers of the New Mutants in a very negative way. This is apparent when you see the character of Dr. Reyes (Alice Braga), the replacement for Storm. As the original X-men characters were always the heroes of the franchise, their appearances were skipped. But the success of the first part of Stephen King adaptation It (2017), led to a rethink, that the film should not abandon its scarier elements. The next thing to happen was the acquisition of 20th Century Fox studio by Disney (is there anything the House of Mouse doesn’t already own?) which meant that Dark Phoenix as well as The New Mutants were now Disney’s to deal with.

And obviously Disney didn’t care too much for Fox’s leftovers. Dark Phoenix went into cinemas last year with little fanfare, remaking a storyline that had already been told (and according to many, much better) in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). The remake was a box-office failure – and this time the often overly negative criticism of fans, which I usually explain as Marvel fans who can’t stand that there is any competition for their beloved Disney films, might have been justified. I don’t know, because even I didn’t bother to watch the movie – and the X-Men movies were my entry into the Marvel universe. Why pay again to watch a story I saw 13 years ago, and own on DVD?

It seems to me that cinemagoers are tired of always seeing movies following the same old formula they have been watching, repeated again and again. That you can be successful by being different is proven by movies like Deadpool or Venom. The New Mutants tries to do something similar, but unfortunately, the caravan has moved on. After It and Netflix’s Stranger Things, the concept of the movie is nowhere near as original as it might have been a few years ago.

Based on Chris Claremont’s comic series from the 80s – at that time Marvel’s successful attempt to create a successful competing series to DC’s Teen Titans – New Mutants is about five misfits with the usual unusual abilities you know from the X-Men universe. Dani Moonstar (Blu Hunt) survives a catastrophe that killed her entire tribe, and wakes up in a hospital (which actually looks more like a nunnery!).

There, Dr. Reyes is trying therapy on four other mutants: Rahne Sinclair (Maisie Williams) who can turn into a were-wolf; Illyana Rasputin (Anya Taylor-Joy), Colossus’s little sister, who is able to jump in and out of the alternate dimension Limbo and can manifest a soulsword; Sam Guthrie (Charlie Heaton), who can move extremely quickly in the air and creating so extreme energy while being invulnerable in this situation; and Roberto da Costa (Henry Zaga), who can create when being excited solar energy, so he becomes actually burning hot. In the comics these characters are also known with their usual other names which are Wolfsbane, Magik, Cannonball and Sunspot but the movie never mentions these names.

Dr. Reyes intentions are to teach these young disturbed teens how to deal with their abilities and not hurt other people. It’s suggested by Reyes, they might then go to a school for gifted youngsters (hint, hint). Unfortunately, not all is as it seems and very soon the teenagers have to face their own anxieties and traumas. The evil power that killed off Dani’s people arrives at the facility and they are forced to work together to save Dani as well as defend their own lives and freedom.

Basically, this movie tries to go for a smaller scale, after a succession of X-Men movies that seemed to increase constantly in size. It’s a nice idea, and one I respect. This was even seen as the potential start of a new trilogy – although, which film nowadays isn’t? And I have to give the filmmakers this: at least they tried to do something different. That’s worth a lot in my book, considering we live in a time when Disney’s Marvel movies seem to be written and directed almost on autopilot (exception: The Avengers). Once a film series gets too big, the next logical step is to scale down. It can be a successful move: look at the James Bond movies, which seem to do so at regular intervals. However, it needs an audience that still cares. Unfortunately, I think that boat has sailed long ago for the X-Men. For most people, Logan (2017), Hugh Jackman’s final appearance in the role of Wolverine, was the last hurrah and end of the series.

There are a lot of good elements here. A darker, more sombre and psychological variation on the X-Men theme, it feels like Chris Carter’s TV series Millennium compared to his warmer, more sympathetic X-Files. This comparison is particularly appropriate, since The New Mutants was filmed in Vancouver, Canada, where the first few seasons of The X-Files were produced and here, too, the composer is Mark Snow.

The first half of the (fortunately not-too-long) movie – I really, really hate the lengthy running time of blockbuster movies today – focuses on the five misfits, their pasts and their relationship building. The second is when the action and the CGI comes into play, though is more restrained than you may be used to in these movies. The New Mutants really feels like the intimate stage-play of X-Men films. The main inspirations, apart from those already mentioned, seem to be the psychological drama Girl, Interrupted (1999) with Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie, as well as Buffy the Vampire Slayer – the latter is watched by the mutants a couple of times, and seems to correspond with things we see later. But, while I said that the new movie is more psychological, don’t think it’s deep, beyond “Well, I’ve got these superpowers, didn’t know how to control them, killed some people and now I’m kind of a wreck.”

But still… I kind of liked that this went a different route than the usual overblown extravaganzas. Anya Taylor-Joy as Illyana Rasputin, a.k.a. “Magik”, leaves a particular impression. Though I have to wonder why those in power found it necessary to change the backstories: Rahne (Williams) and Dani seem to be moving towards a lesbian relationship while the film subtly indicates that Illyana might have created the “limbus” (her magical world) due to sexual abuse as a child. Neither of this has any basis in the comics, it’s just Josh Boone overwriting existing lore, perhaps to make the characters more “realistic”. I don’t know why people do that. Is being kidnapped by a devil-like demon and being transported in some kind of hellish dimension not terrifying enough anymore? On the other side, the story of “Magik” has hardly been touched, so the possibility of a solo film that could dive deeper into the lore of the character still exists. Though I guess, we’ll never see this at all.

I stayed until the end titles were over. For, while the movie was not the best of the series (though far from the worst), I felt a little sad realizing this was finally, officially and really the end of 20th Century Fox’s X-Men films. The first X-Men, in 2000, ushered in a new era of comic book movies and introduced me to Marvel superheroes. And while we have seen all sorts of similar films since, I always had a liking for this franchise. They tried out new things, and wanted to be different from that what Disney/Marvel did. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed – sometimes they succeeded and the result was still not that great. It’s always easy to do the safe, secure thing and laugh all the way to the bank. It’s less easy to constantly try to reinvent oneself.

Regardless of what their respective qualities or flaws were, I guess I’ll miss them.

Dir:  Josh Boone
Star: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga

By Night’s End

  By

★★★
“Bad decisions = poor consequences.”

There are lessons to be learned here. In particular: should you gun down a home invader in the middle of the night… just call the cops. Even if they have offered you ten thousand dollars to let them walk away, immediately before their untimely demise… just call the cops. Of course, Heather (Rose) and Kurt (Yue) have issues, which make their decision to do otherwise understandable, if not wise. They’re teetering on the edge of financial carnage, and figure that if the intruder was willing to pay them that much, whatever he was after in their house has got to be worth a lot more. Therefore, they postpone alerting the authorities for a bit, choosing to look for the target of the search.

Have these people never seen Shallow Grave? Do they not know that when valuable property falls into your lap in shady circumstances, its real owner inevitably comes looking for it. And that’s exactly what happens here. Polite, hat-wearing villain Moody (Milligan) soon shows up to establish his property rights, and when the couple finally get round to calling the police, the poor officer who turns up simply doubles the quantity of corpses with which Heather and Kurt have to deal. There’s only one way to get through the night, and that path goes through Moody. Fortunately, there is some good news: it turns out Heather used to be in the military, and still has the skills. Bad news: she’s on shaky emotional turf, due to her PTSD, among other things.

This is on most solid turf when it’s in motion. Rose is a stunt-woman, and gets a number of opportunities to put those skills into good use. There’s one particularly good brawl through the house, where she leaves a literal dent in the wall when her body crashes into it, and it’ll make a similarly lasting impression on the viewer. The film is less successful when it’s digging for emotional depth. For example, knowing they recently lost a young child is probably enough. We don’t really need to see the husband wife and staring at one of their drawings, or clutching a toy, respectively: it’s way too obvious. Similarly, the details of precisely why Heather has PTSD are superfluous, and add little or nothing.

Indeed, they may be counter-productive, as they slow the film down, at just the point when it probably needs to be accelerating towards a final confrontation. It does get there, and proves adequately satisfying; it just feels like some opportunities were left on the table to do more. The movie does a decent job of reversing the obvious roles in the marriage, and also of making its single location work for it, rather than seeming a limitation. The film even takes place at Christmas, which could even be considered a small-scale homage to Die Hard, especially when Rose is roaming the house, trying to stay out of the reach of Moody and his men. It’s nowhere near as good, of course. Then again, very few movies are – so no blame should be attached for that!

Dir: Walker Whited
Star: Michelle Rose, Kurt Yue, Michael Aaron Milligan, Carlos Aviles

Matchless Mulan

  By

★★★
“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

I suppose this could be claimed to be a “mockbuster”, not so different from the sound-alike films released by The Asylum, e.g. Snakes on a Train. There’s no doubt this was made to ride the coat-tails of its far larger and better advertised big sister. And it’s not alone, with at least two other Chinese films apparently in production, one animated and the other live-action. But it’s a Chinese telling of a Chinese story, and as such, could also be considered as cultural reappropriation. We can’t really complain about them taking their legends back from the House of Mouse.

Even in comparison to the tone of Disney’s live-action version, this plays as rather dark. There are throat-slittings, impalements and considerable quantities of arterial spray, certainly more brutal than the PG-13 violence in Mulan. However, Mulan (Xu) starts off as a bit of a pacifist. Her first encounter with the invading Rouran forces, comes when they’re out on patrol and suddenly stumble across the site of a massacre – it’s not unlike the similar scene in the animated version. When they come under attack by barbarian soldiers, she snaps off the head of her spear, so as to be able to engage them in non-lethal combat. Mulan later explains, “I came here to replace my father, not to take the lives of others. I don’t harm others and others don’t harm me.” Needless to say, this doesn’t quite sustain, and by the end, she’s impaling with the best of them.

Another difference is that two of her fellow villagers are assigned to the same post as Mulan – they know her secret, but respect it. This helps address one of the weaknesses in the live-action version, the lack of any real relationships for the heroine, because she’s forced to keep people at arm’s length. Instead, we get a real sense of her becoming part of a cohesive unit, such as her genuine distress when one of her brothers-in-arms is captured by the Rouran. That’s a contrast to the individual-first approach of Mulan, and there’s no magic to be found either, except for the wire fu used in the battle

Which actually brings me to my main complaint, the lack of interest the film has in these action sequences. While this is in line with the original story, which didn’t go into any great detail about her military exploits, it’s something we have come to expect. On occasion, things just kinda… drift off and fade to black, while the second half, which should build to a rousing finale, contains rather too much sitting about on the battlements of a lightly besieged fort, awaiting reinforcements. On the other hand, credit for not bothering to pussyfoot around the quagmire of politics. “The film is dedicated to the People’s Liberation Army of China”, boldly states the first end credit, clearly not giving a damn for Western (or Hong Kong) sensitivities on such topics. And that’s exactly how it should be.

Dir: Yi Lin
Star: Hu Xue Er, Wei Wei, Wu Jian Fei, Shang Tie Long

Mulan (2020)

  By

★★★
“The most expensive straight-to-video release ever.”

Okay, that’s perhaps a little unfair. When this began filming, back in August 2018, who could have predicted that the summer this year would be all but wiped out [seriously: the second quarter in North America, the total box-office was $4.8 million. Last year, the same period brought in $3.3 billion] As films scrambled to re-establish themselves, finding new slots for hopeful release, post-pandemic, there were inevitable casualties, as some were left without seats when the music stopped. Probably the biggest loser was the latest of Disney’s live-action adaptations, based on the beloved animated feature of 1998.

Despite a budget estimated at $200 million, it had the misfortune to be originally scheduled just before everything went to hell. Indeed, it even had its world premiere on March 9th, but the broader release was bumped, first to July, then August, before it was cancelled as a theatrical release in the United States, instead being used as a pay-per-view title on Disney’s streaming service, Disney+. Matters were likely not helped by online comments made by the film’s star against the anti-Chinese protests in Hong Kong, which triggered calls for a boycott of the film. It was notable, even before the film was commercially available, that the Google ratings of the film were largely 1/5 or 5/5, as competing armies of review bombers sought to skew the results to their desired outcome.

As with most things which provoke extreme reactions, the reality sits somewhere in the middle. This isn’t the first live-action adaptation of the legend I’ve seen. There was previously a 2009 adaptation from Hong Kong, starring Wei Zhao as Hua Mulan. Our review of it concluded, “There’s a nice balance between the action and emotional aspects… Heavy is the head that wears the general’s helmet is the moral here, and it’s driven home effectively enough, thanks mostly to Zhao’s solid performance.” It merited 3½ stars, a little above this, though that may simply be due to the newest version being more directly compared to the animated version. That’s inevitable, especially when Disney have sampled songs from it into the new soundtrack.

And make no mistake: I love the animated version: to me, it’s the best of the “new wave” of Disney features which began with Beauty and the Beast. It has a huge emotional range, perhaps more than any other Disney film outside Pixar, and can switch on a dime, going from cheerful song to grim destruction without jarring. I will also say, this is the first I’ve seen in Disney’s live-action adaptations of their animated catalog. All the others seemed entirely redundant, but this one seemed to offer scope for a different take on the subject. It does deliver on this expectation, but I can’t help feeling that, overall, more was lost here than gained.

The live-action version certainly doesn’t manage the same breadth of emotion. For example, there are moments here which feel like they should be comic – except they’re just not funny. It’s a Very Serious tale [capitals used advisedly], almost to the point of solemn, with this Mulan at times feeling like a duty-driven automaton. It’s a thoroughly different portrayal, considering the story is almost identical. When the Chinese empire is threatened by Mongolians, under Böri Khan (Lee), the Emperor requires each family to provide one man to the army. Rather than succumb to an arranged marriage, Mulan (Liu) takes the place of her father in the draft. Though her ruse is eventually discovered, Mulan proves key to the defeat of the invaders.

This edition, however, has no musical numbers, no comic relief sidekick dragon and no romantic interest for Mulan in the shape of her commander [this was apparently excised for #MeToo reasons, but doing so ended up angering some in the GLBTQ community. Yes, apparently, Mulan/Li Shang gay ‘shipping is a thing. Who knew?] Instead, it adds Xianniang (Li), a sorceress who assists Khan, but who sees in Mulan a younger version of herself – someone forced to repress their abilities and true nature, in compliance with social norms. Their scenes have some potential in terms of dramatic conflict, but there just isn’t enough screen time for their relationship to have much impact.

It’s something the film needs, to overcome what it otherwise a distinct lack of emotion. Crouching Tiger showed a martial arts film can still connect to the viewer’s heart, and this never comes particularly close to doing so. The heroine here largely operates in a vacuum, as far as relationships go, even after her true identity is revealed. This may have been an issue recognized by the makers of the animated version. The presence of Eddie Murphy’s Mushu there now makes a great deal of sense, providing that necessary outlet, and acting as a foil for the heroine throughout her journey.

Yet, boy (or rather, girl), does it look nice. Outside of a couple of moments of slightly flaky CGI early on, such as the young Mulan jumping from a roof, this is a beautiful spectacle, clearly influenced by the likes of Hero in its use of colour. The action is well-choreographed; having Yen as leader of the Imperial army doesn’t exactly hurt, even if you wonder why he can’t defeat the invaders single-handed. After all, I’ve seen Ip Man… [Also in supporting roles, Jet Li plays the Emperor, and the matchmaker is Cheng Pei Pei, of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, but more relevantly here, was one of the first Hong Kong action heroines, in 1966’s Come Drink with Me] I’m definitely sorry we were robbed of the chance to see this on a big screen, as that’s the scale it deserves.

Most of the above was written within 24 hours of watching it, but now, with less than 72 hours having passed, I am seriously struggling to recall many particularly memorable moments. Overall, I can’t say I felt like the two hours were wasted, and it’s perfectly adequate as a big-budget, epic bit of wire-fu. Although, “perfectly adequate” feels like a disappointment, considering what I was hoping for, and this is not going to replace the 1998 film among my favorites, songs or no songs. 

Dir: Niki Caro
Star: Yifei Liu, Li Gong, Jason Scott Lee, Donnie Yen

Enola Holmes

  By

★★
“Puts the ‘no’ in Enola.”

Complete ranking of Enolas

  1. Enola Gay
  2. Enola Holmes
  3. That’s it.

I’m probably not the only one who spent much of the film humming OMD’s classic Enola Gay to themselves – released 40 years ago this month, coincidentally. And, sadly, it remains my favourite Enola, by quite some distance. This was more annoying than anything else, though I’ve never been on the Millie Bobby Brown hype-train. I didn’t think much of Stranger Things, and her performance in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, interfered with what I want to see i.e. monsters fighting. Here, I found her more irritating than engaging, though in her defense, she wasn’t helped by some poor directorial choices.

This get off on the wrong foot at the very start, Enola (Brown), Sherlock Holmes’ sixteen-year-old sister, breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience, something she does frequently. Director Bradbeer used this technique in TV series Fleabag, but I’m not a fan: it takes me out of proceedings, reminding me I’m watching a film. What follows is less a convincing evocation of 1900 England, than contemporary America playing girl power dress-up, with “nasty women” blowing things up as they seek to defeat the evil patriarchy. One of these is Enola’s mother (Bonham-Carter), whose vanishing without warning starts things off, causing Enola to begin searching for her, based on coded clues left behind. It escapes me quite why the missing parent couldn’t simply write, “Dear Enola, Gone off to be a suffragette. Love, Mum.”

Not that it matters, because Enola rapidly abandons this quest entirely, in favour of a case involving the young, attractive and entirely personality-free aristocrat, Viscount Tewkesbury (Partridge), whose vote is crucial to get a reform bull passed, expanding the ability to vote [in reality, no such change took place until almost twenty years later – but hey, why let facts stop you from twisting history for your political points?]. On his trail is a mysterious and ill-intentioned man (Gorman), with whom Enola crosses paths. She also has to fend off attempts by her other brother, Mycroft, to have her consigned to a very Handmaid’s Tale-looking boarding school. This is intended to have Enola brainwashed into being the quiet and submissive woman society expects.

The politics on view here are cringeworthy, particularly from Mrs. Holmes, who speaks almost entirely in feminist fortune-cookies, such as “Don’t be thrown off course by other people. Especially men.” It’s one of those cases where merely leading by example isn’t enough: you have to virtue-signal your morality by announcing it, explicitly and repeatedly, which I find immensely off-putting. Hence, we get gobbets of political sermonizing, such as Sherlock (Cavill) being told, by a black, female martial-arts teacher – something I’m fairly sure wasn’t common enough  in the Victorian era to pass without comment: “You don’t know what it is to be without power. Politics doesn’t interest you… because you have no interest in changing a world that suits you so well.” You go, sister!

Speaking of which, the portrayal of the great detective is no more accurate than the other element. “Sherlock Holmes always works alone!” proclaims Inspector Lestrade. Uh, I guess the creators never heard of Dr. Watson, an intrinsic character, from the very first Conan Doyle story? You just never get any sense of keen intellect from Cavill’s performance. Guess they didn’t want to overshadow Enola and her Big Brain. Yet, under all these flaws, is a decent movie, trying to get out. The look of things is lovely, and some of the action sequences are well-handled, even if a slip of a girl like Enola hardly seems equipped to trade blows with grown men.

Maybe they could have made more use of her archery skills (above), which are set-up, then entirely forgotten. Like so much else, that gets lost in the rush to cram an “uplifting” message into the movie, rather than letting one flow organically from it.

Dir: Harry Bradbeer
Star: Millie Bobby Brown, Louis Partridge, Henry Cavill, Burn Gorman

 

Tribal: Get Out Alive

  By

★★★½
“You had me at homeless cannibals.”

The IMDb omits the colon from the title, making rather less sense. Though it’s not inappropriate, because sense is likely not this film’s strongest suit. Indeed, I’d be hard-pushed to call it a “good” film. It is, however, consistently entertaining, and a fine piece of B-movie making. Ex-soldiers Caitlin (Phythian) and Brad (O’Hennessy) are bailiffs… Wait, is that a thing outside the UK? Just in case it’s not, let me quickly explain: they are not quite cops, but are still legal officials who can, for example, impose evictions or collect debts.

In this case, they and their team are sent to clear a farm which was used as a camp by homeless people, with the permission of the former owner. He has now died, and his son, Richard Kenning (Dodd), wants them chucked off the land. Except, turns out dear old dead Dad was more than a bit of a mad scientist, and was using the tenants for his experiments to create a serum that would enhance human strength and speed – though reducing them to little more than animals. Caitlin, Brad and their colleagues are about to discover that, since his death, the subjects have escaped and have formed a brutal community in the tunnels below the farm. And they have no intention of leaving peaceably – or letting the bailiffs leave at all.

It’s great to see Phythian get the lead in a feature; we’ve been a fan ever since Kung Fu Darling, back in 2016. If the material here is a little basic, it does eventually give her the ability to show what she can do, albeit after a bit too much creeping around dimly-lit tunnels in the first half. Still, there’s a certain British sensibility on view here, which comes over in characters behaving more intelligently than is typical for the horror genre, and also in an unexpectedly pleasant volume of sarcasm. O’Hennessy, whom you may recognize from Game of Thrones, provides solid support, and overall, the film feels like a decent copy of Dog Soldiers. There’s the same plot core of a force finding themselves trapped and out of their depth, though Routledge isn’t able to manipulate the tension as expertly as Neil Marshall did there.

Britain also seems to be putting out some decent martial arts movies of late; perhaps the lack of guns there makes such things more plausible. Scott Adkins, probably the best screen fighter you’ve never heard of, is leading the way, but on the evidence here, Phythian and her trademark cheek-bones may become Britain’s answer to Zoe Bell. The tone is set early, after she and her partner stumble across a drug deal, and the second half has plenty of good action, building up to her confrontation with a serum-enhanced Kenning. There is a plot thread about her suffering from PTSD, though this can safely be ignored as irrelevant. Just crack open an alcoholic beverage or six, ready the popcorn, and sit back to watch Phythian kick arse.

Dir: Matt Routledge
Star: Zara Phythian, Ross O’Hennessy, Rachel Warren, Thomas Dodd

Ava

  By

★★★
“Haywire. With baggage”

It has been a rough year for action heroines at the cinema. Actually, it has been a rough year for everyone everywhere, thanks to COVID-19. But for the purposes of this site, we have been sadly lacking the kind of tentpole releases which we usually write about over the summer. Wonder Woman 1984, for example, was to have come out in June. But with all venues bar the few remaining drive-ins closed, that was moved first to August, then October [and I don’t know about you, but I’m still not comfortable with the concept of cinema going]. Disney’s live-action version of Mulan opted to bypass theatres all together, and will instead be released on their streaming service.

Poor Ava is suffering a similar fate, going straight to video-on-demand in most places – except, bizarrely, in Hungary, according to Wikipedia. Certainly, given its rather high-powered cast, you would have expected better for this, in a normal world. It still, however, probably ranks as the biggest-profile action heroine movie of the year – at least for a few days until Mulan shows up. To be honest, though, it doesn’t do enough to justify that position. While Chastain is very good in the central role, it’s burdened down by too much drama to be effective, and comes over mostly like a soap-opera adaptation of Haywire.

Ava (Chastain) has overcome a troubled past to become an assassin for a murky intelligence agency, working for Duke (Malkovich). But she is increasingly questioning her work – indeed, literally doing so, having an unnerving habit of asking her targets why someone wants them killed. After a supposedly stealth operation in Saudi Arabia becomes not-so-stealthy, Duke’s protege, Simon (Farrell), takes matters into his own hands, bypassing Duke to put out a kill order on Ava. She’s none too pleased by this, obviously, and seeks to turn the tables on him.

The above paragraph is lean, mean and would have made for a perfectly decent movie. However, the script apparently decides it’s not enough – perhaps Chastain wanted something into which she could sink her dramatic teeth. For we get a whole slew of subplots and conflicts thrown on top. These include, but are not limited, to the following. Ava is a recovering alcoholic. Ava is estranged from her sister (Weixler). Ava had a previous relationship with her sister’s boyfriend, and there are still feelings there. He has a gambling problem. Ava caught her father having an affair, which led to her leaving home. It also caused Ava to break ties with her mother, played by Geena Davis.

It’s all too much, dragging down the plot. Say what you like about Haywire, you never cared that Mallory Kane didn’t have a compelling history, for the film was too busy moving forward to look back. This one spends too much time creating, and then having to tidy up, all these loose ends from Ava’s past. I just wasn’t interested. Though those scenes did give me time to imagine ways this could have worked better.  It would have been way cool if, at the end, Davis had thrown off her motherly trappings, revealed she also used to be a government assassin [perhaps actually being Samantha Caine, Geena’s character from The Long Kiss Goodnight], and teamed up with Ava to take down Simon.

This movie writing thing is a piece of cake.

Anyway, no such luck. The stuff between the drama is not bad, though I have some… questions about seeing the 66-year-old Malkovich going toe-to-toe with Farrell [ditto the 59-year-old Joan Chen and Chastain, actually] Or Farrell’s choice of facial hair and black turtleneck, which give him an unfortunate resemblance to 1930’s fascist, Sir Oswald Mosley. Or Simon’s decisions, including calling up Ava, apparently purely for taunting purposes, then going after her by himself, rather than first sending an escalating series of minions. If the movie hadn’t spent so much time dwelling on all of Ava’s drama, maybe we would have had time for such things.

Despite the relentless slagging delivered over the previous few paragraphs, this wasn’t actually too bad. The lead actress is the main reason why. If the film feels like a cinematic opposite of Anna, where the heroine was little more than a gun-carrying clothes-horse, Chastain is able to carry the weight of all those subplots, and deliver a complex character. She has played her share of action roles previously, perhaps most notably as far as we are concerned, in The Huntsman: Winter’s War, where we said she “kicks surprising amounts of butt.” Here, this aspect is front and centre, and she acquits herself well, even if her hand-to-hand combat against considerably larger opponents could have used a force equalizer or two more, for the sake of credibility.

Two scenes likely stand out. The first (and only!) attempt on her life by Simon’s minion, in a Paris park. And the final battle against him in her hotel bedroom [again, echoes of the similarly-located fight in Haywire between Gina Carano and Michael Fassbender]. Equal credit for those probably has to go to the ever-reliable Amy Johnston, star of Lady Bloodfight, who was Chastain’s stunt double for this. I should also mention Simon’s daughter, Camille, played by Diana Silvers. The ending, though somewhat conclusive, sets up a potential future Camille vs. Ava scenario, which I must confess, I would not mind seeing at all.

Overall, it is worth a look, though its insistence on trying to insert dramatic conflicts into a vehicle that doesn’t need them, becomes increasingly annoying as the movie progresses. When it’s not doing so, however, it is a slick, Bourne-like entity, providing a decent vehicle for Chastain to show off her action credentials. as well as her already-known acting skills. On that basis, it’s a shame I suspect it’s going to end up not being seen by too many people – thanks, Coronavirus! I hope that won’t put her off further exploration of our genre, as it can always use some more high-powered leads.

Dir: Tate Taylor
Star:  Jessica Chastain, John Malkovich, Colin Farrell, Jess Weixler 

Warrior Nun

  By

★★
“Nun-descript.”

There’s probably a decent movie in here. An interesting premise, occupying the nexus where religion and science cross, and some very effective hand-to-hand action sequences, would potentially have made for a decent 90 minutes of fun. The problem is, this actually runs for 10 x forty-minute episodes, and the result is stuffed so full of padding, that it could be used as a sofa. The nuns of the title are members of the Order of the Cruciform Sword, a group which has been fighting demonic entities for centuries. Chief among them is the bearer of the Halo, a divine relic which bestows its owner with great powers, including rapid healing and the ability to phase through solid objects.

When the current bearer of the Halo is killed in battle, it is embedded into another host. This is the corpse of Ava (Silva), a quadriplegic orphan who just happens to be in the wrong (or right, depending on your point of view) place at the wrong (or right, again) time. The Halo resurrects Ava and fixes her up, physically; but she’s certainly not mentally or spiritually prepared initially to become a nun and join the sisters of the OCS. However, her wants and needs are secondary to those of the Catholic Church, and there’s also high-tech company ARQ-Tech. Its CEO, Jillian Salvius. has built a trans-dimensional portal, using “divinium”, a mystical substance that can also be used to create weapons and armour for use by the OCS.

The above isn’t the problem. The issue is all the other stuff which gets added to it. For example, after her resurrection, Ava ends up becoming part of some kind of upper-class squatters’ movement, who jet-set around Europe, staying in unoccupied houses. I have no clue what the purpose of this was supposed to be. And, worse, neither does the show. The young, homeless hipsters basically vanish without trace in the second half, as if the writers realized it was a bad idea to begin with. Similarly, there’s an entire episode in which Ava and OCS colleague Shotgun Mary faff around the Spanish countryside for the duration. Really, after episode 1, you could skip the next five, while we go through the whole “reluctant heroine” thing we’ve seen all too often before.

We could have done with much less of all that, and more… Oh, I dunno: fighting demons, maybe? The action aspects generally seem underplayed, until a final mission where Ava and a small team break into the vaults beneath the Vatican, seeking a relic that… Well, let’s just say, doesn’t turn out to be quite what they expected. But until this gets under way, you might as well have it on in the background, and only pay attention when you hear the sound of fighting [here’s an example of the impressive quality I mean there]. And do not expect anything like a tidy ending either, the show instead delivering the most brutally abrupt of cliffhangers. But it probably says a lot that my reaction to it was mostly apathy.

Creator: Simon Barry
Star:  Alba Baptista, Toya Turner, Thekla Reuten, Lorena Andrea

The Rhythm Section

  By

★★★
“Not really worth the wait”

The action-heroine genre has seen its share of high-profile flops in the past. But this long-delayed entry, originally due out in February 2019, is among the worst, setting a record for the lowest ever opening at the North American box-office for a wide release. It took in only $2.8 million from 3,049 theaters when it opened in January, and ended with a worldwide gross below $6 million, against a budget of $50 million. While smaller in scale, that’s a Cutthroat Island level of failure. Did it deserve such a fate? Well, it’s not that bad. It ain’t great. But it seems almost defiantly unlikable, going against cinematic norms in a way that’s brave – and, I suspect, ultimately foolish. The result is something whose commercial demise is unsurprising, beginning with a title that makes only tangential sense, even after you’ve seen the film.

It’s the story of Stephanie Patrick (Lively), whose family died in a plane accident, causing her to go into a downward spiral. Three years later, she’s a crack whore, when contacted by journalist Keith Proctor (Jaffrey). He tells her the crash was actually a terrorist attack, basing this claim on information received from a source with intelligence connections known only as “B”. After Proctor is murdered, Stephanie finds B (Law) and convinces him to help her acquire the necessary skills to become an assassin. Stephanie then goes after all those involved in the attack, including the shadowy figure known only as U-17. To do so, she takes on the identity of Petra Reuter, an assassin killed by B, and uses the resources of ex-CIA officer Marc Serra (Brown), now working as an intelligence broker.

I think viewer expectations may have played a part here. Reading the above, and with the film coming from the producers of the 007 franchise, you are likely imagining a slick, Bond-esque slice of escapism. It’s not that. First off, Stephanie is… Well, let’s be honest, a bit shit as an assassin. When she asks B how long it’ll take for her to become good, he replies, “Your menopause will be a distant memory.” They don’t have that much time, and the results are consequently rough around the edges, not least because she almost completely lacks the necessary killer instinct. She has the motive, just not the method.

Frankly, she’s very, very lucky to survive the first couple of missions, and that’s only one of the aspects which strains credibility. The makers get a demerit for using Ireland to fake the North of Scotland, and it appears remarkably easy to track down international terrorists. Perhaps the book on which this was based did a better job? Given the gritty nature of proceedings, I was expecting a greater level of intrigue and deception. For example, despite being officially “unattached”, I was predicting B or Marc to still be working on behalf of their former employers, manipulating Stephanie towards their ends. Maybe I’ve just watched too many episodes of Homeland.

There are some impressive elements. Probably the most outstanding is a car chase, filmed to look like one take, shot entirely from inside Stephanie’s vehicle as she flees the scene. It’s almost as good as the one from Children of Men, the gold standard for such things. I also did like Lively’s performance: she has rather more to do here than she had in The Shallows, and acquits herself well, both dramatically and in the action scenes (she smashed her hand up badly while filming a fight scene with Law). However, on reaching the end, I found myself unmoved, and given the general lack of spectacle present, this isn’t one I’ve much interest in revisiting.

Dir: Reed Morano
Star:  Blake Lively, Jude Law, Sterling K. Brown, Raza Jaffrey