Review: Hope

Image courtesy of Neon.

There's a lull for about 20 minutes a little over an hour into Na Hong-jin's absolutely bonkers monster movie "Hope," but everything that comes before and after is otherwise nonstop, relentless motion, giving the film the feel of an unholy mixture between Bong Joon Ho's "The Host" and "Mad Max: Fury Road." Alas, the picture doesn't quite stick the landing with an ending that is likely to elicit a few huhs, but this is a mostly enjoyable and wild sci-fi-horror-action hybrid.

The picture jumps right into it as a group of small town South Koreans notice mutilated cattle along the roadside. They don't think a bear could have been responsible and a few characters briefly ponder whether it was a tiger - which seems unlikely. From this point on, we follow police chief Bum-seok (Hwang Jun-min) as he goes in search of an answer.

The picture flits about with various characters - Bum-seok, his badass fellow cop Sung-ae (Jung Ho-yeon), and Sung-gi (Zo In-sung), Bum-seok's cousin - as they track what turns out to be a large monster as it wreaks havoc in the town. The first hour miraculously involves numerous chases involving the monster, but we don't actually see what it looks like until shortly after the 60-minute mark. The film has a few flaws, one of which is that its creatures look a little on the CGI side.

But the look of the creatures matters little when the film is such an incredibly shot series of set pieces - which include a chase through the town on foot, a wild car ride, several chases through a forest, and then the craziest car ride this side of the "Mad Max" movies toward the film's end. This is one of those rare films in which I didn't mind overlooking some of the plot holes and lack of context and just sat back and enjoyed its incredible action sequences.

Although there comes a point when the nonstop action can wear the viewer down a bit, Hong-jin displays ingenuity in its final high-speed chase in which a monster pursues a car and a person on horseback on a highway. The film's weakest element, unfortunately, is its ending, which on the one hand could possibly provide fodder for a sequel, or instead merely intends to show that what took place in the film is merely a small piece of a larger puzzle. Either way, it's a bit jarring and not exactly successful.

Regardless, this is a film that I have no problem recommending to those who enjoy action movies, horror films, creature features, or Korean movies with an oddball sense of humor. This is a movie that you watch for the sum of its parts - and those parts often play like gangbusters.

Review: Onslaught

Image courtesy of A24.

 Adam Wingard has spent the past five years making Kaiju movies - two entries in the never-ending Godzilla saga - so it's nice to see him returning to the low-budget type of B-movies on which he cut this teeth. It's just a shame that his new film, "Onslaught" comes up a little short.

The picture shares some DNA with "The Guest," a far superior thriller about a super soldier who terrorizes a small town, in its story about men turned into killing machines. It feels like a mixture of "The Terminator," "Halloween," and various other low-budget, violent sci-fi thrillers from the 1980s.

The setup is simple - almost too simple: A weirdo German scientist (Dan Stevens) who appears to be into BDSM with his wife (Rebecca Hall) is developing three super soldiers at a base in the middle of the desert. The place is top secret, so when the three soldiers go berserk and kill everyone at the base, it is in the government's best interest to cover it up.

Rather than try to put down the soldiers, Hall's character tells the government spook assigned to the case, a foppish character named Cyrus (Drew Starkey), who is introduced for no apparent reason at a BDSM-themed strip club (this film goes all in, albeit briefly, on the kink), that it would be interesting to see what happens when the soldiers are released on a civilian population.

That population is a small trailer park community down the road, where a former soldier named Celeste (Adria Arjona), who has a lot of flashbacks and a small daughter (Blake Kennedy) in tow for the weekend after her ex shows up unexpectedly, fights through the night to survive. She is joined by another older veteran (Reginald VelJohnson) and a seemingly useless cop (Eric Wareheim) to fight off the marauders.

The film is short and since it takes a while for the two worlds to collide - the super soldiers and the trailer park - it feels somewhat inconsequential when they finally do and the situation is resolved pretty quickly. Arjona is good enough as Celeste, but she and all of the other characters in the movie are merely sketches. There's an incident from her past that is divulged to her daughter that then resurfaces in the present in a not particularly believable way. This flashback involves what has to be the lowest-stakes fist fight I've ever seen.

The picture combines over-the-top violence and outright weirdness - the German scientist and the Cyrus character - that make the film colorful enough, but feel like whiplash in terms of tone. Some of Wingard's previous genre exercises - especially "The Guest" - were tense and engaging, but this one feels like a paint-by-numbers genre exercise that utilizes the styles, concepts, and vibes of better movies. Wingard is a talented director of genre movies, but this one felt a little flat.

Review: By Any Means

Image courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Elegance Bratton's "By Any Means" makes up for what it lacks as an historical race-related drama with some intense and enjoyable wish fulfillment sequences - something you might expect out of Quentin Tarantino in recent years - that get the job done. It's somewhat of an exploitation picture that just happens to - allegedly - be based on a true story.

The murder of three men who went down to Mississippi to register Black voters during the Freedom Summer of 1961 is, unfortunately, true. So is the killing of Vernon Dahmer (portrayed here by Giancarlo Esposito), an NAACP chapter president in the region, by the Ku Klux Klan for similar reasons in 1966.

"By Any Means" follows the story of a Black FBI agent named Wayne Strider (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who is fictional, who puts himself forward to investigate the murders, but is stifled at first by his superiors (David Strathairn and Josh Lucas). He is eventually partnered with Gregory Scarpa (Mark Wahlberg), a man nicknamed the Grim Reaper who serves as a hired killer for the Colombo Crime Family in New York.

The entire story behind "By Any Means" is that Scarpa was an FBI informant whom they used in Mississippi to obtain information by violent means to help solve the cases of the murdered men. The idea is that Scarpa would strong-arm people to get information, whereas a typical FBI agent would probably play by the book and, as a result, get nowhere.

The FBI has denied that it used Scarpa - and it very well might have - so much of the action in this film is all speculation. The possibility that Scarpa worked with a Black FBI agent is nothing more than a rumor, so the film is mostly a piece of fiction.

However, the atmosphere in the Deep South at that time is far from fiction. So, there's some pleasure to be had watching Scarpa bust some Klan heads to get information. Although Strider is much more by-the-book, he becomes increasingly less inclined to do so. He sure is shocked, however, when Scarpa kills a racist police officer and tells Strider that they should leave the body in the middle of the road and just proceed with their business.

Some might see comparisons to "Green Book," an Academy Award-winning movie that also involved a tough Italian-American - in that case, a bouncer - and a Black man traveling through the South during the 1960s. That picture received some blowback because of the white character introducing the Black character to fried chicken and some similar scenes. 

The closest that "By Any Means" comes to this is Scarpa trying to instill in Strider that following the rules when it comes to investigating bad men isn't always all that it's cracked up to be. Plus, Wahlberg's hamming it up - and I don't mean that as a critique as his portrayal of Scarpa is often amusing - adds a certain levity to the proceedings.

The film isn't one of the great movies to explore civil rights during the 1960s in the United States, but it's often an engaging enough crime procedural with an odd couple at its center. And similar to the joys of pulpy movies in which the Allies crack Nazi heads, there are some pleasures to be had seeing Klan members receive the same treatment. 

Review: The Dog Stars

Image courtesy of 20th Century Studios.

Reviews of his latest film, “The Dog Stars,” have noted that director Ridley Scott’s recent output has not been his strongest.

While I’d agree that “Gladiator II” was one of his lesser efforts – sharks in the Colosseum, really? – I found “The Last Duel” to be pretty gripping and thought “Napoleon” was decent as well.

“The Dog Stars” is, admittedly, not one of his strongest films, but it’s a little better than some of the reviews you’ve read likely suggest. The film is yet another story about survivors in a postapocalyptic setting – this time, it’s only nine years in the future after a disease has ravaged the world.

Hig (Jacob Elordi) is a soft-spoken man who flies a small plane with his dog on reconnaissance, looking for resources and keeping an eye out for potential dangers, while Bangley (Josh Brolin) is a tough former military guy who sits with a gun in the guard tower watching over the large property that the two share.

There’s little information as to how these two men paired up, but we learn that Hig’s wife died from the disease. Hig likes to explore and occasionally, much to Bangley’s chagrin, drops off food and other supplies to a Mennonite community located in an isolated spot in the mountains. Bangley, on the other hand, seems fine being disconnected from the world, other than the marauders who occasionally attempt to enter the property and are promptly gunned down.

An attack from a group of marauders one day leads Hig to try his luck elsewhere and he sets out in his plane, which stalls and drops him off near a farm where a surly farmer, Pops (Guy Pearce), and his daughter, Cima (Margaret Qualley), live. At first, Pops doesn’t trust Hig, but Cima quickly takes to him and helps him to restore his plane.

Without giving away too much more about the plot, suffice it to say that these new friends accompany Hig on his travels, while Bangley attempts to fend off a massive number of marauders that are part of a roving gang. The film has action sequences, but often plays more as a somber story about loneliness at the end of the world.

Some of it works pretty well. There’s a nice camaraderie between Hig and Bangley, and the scenes between Elordi, Pearce, and Qualley are some of the picture’s best. It’s a film with some nice touches – for example, when Pops uses a story involving blueberry pancakes to gain the trust of a new group of people.

Then again, there are also some misses – namely, an extended sequence during which Hig, Pops, and Cima find themselves in Grand Junction, Colorado, where a utopian-seeming society has been set up and is led by Allison Janney feels almost cartoonish compared to the rest of the film’s solemn vibe.

All in all, this is not one of Scott’s best films, but it has its moments and throughout I was curious to see where the character’s journeys would take them. It has a solid cast and some beautiful cinematography. Even if it doesn’t all completely come together, it’s better than some reviews of the film might lead you to believe.

Review: Teenage Sex And Death At Camp Miasma

Image courtesy of MUBI.

Jane Schoenbrun is one of the most unique among the crop of new directors to watch. Their surrealist horror dramas often relate to personal experiences - this can be gleaned from watching the films, but also from Schoenbrun's interviews about them - from being a trans filmmaker.

While I can't remember if this applies to "We're All Going to the World's Fair," Schoenbrun's second and still best film to date, "I Saw the TV Glow," had to do with the process of coming out as trans and both the acceptance one seeks from oneself and others during that process.

The director's third picture, "Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma," covers both topics in its title - but mainly the former. The film's murderous villain's name is Little Death, which clearly references the French phrase "le petite morte," which translates to the same thing and refers to an orgasm.

Much like "I Saw the TV Glow," Schoenbrun's latest takes a roundabout - and intriguing - method of examining something (in this case, sex) from the trans experience. One of its two central characters, Kris (Hannah Einbinder), is a filmmaker who has always kept sex at a remove and has trouble with intimacy. It's not until she imagines herself as someone else - literally placing herself mentally in another body - that she is able to fully experience what she seeks.

In this case, the other body is one of the many victims of the murder sprees at Camp Miasma, a fictional camp where counselors are murdered across a series of films by Little Death, a character who was humiliated for exploring both their masculine and feminine sides and then drowned in the camp's lake.

The picture takes obvious cues from "Sleepaway Camp," which also featured a serial killer with a female-masculine complex and there's a shot in Schoenbrun's movie that clearly mimics the frightful face being made by that killer at the film's end. 

But even more so, the film is an homage to the "Friday the 13th" series in that its central villain was teased and then drowned in a lake. There's an installment in the fictional franchise that is set in Manhattan, and there's even a scene in which a man (Patrick Fischler, of "Mulholland Drive") tells the campers in the first entry in the series that they are all doomed. There's also an installment titled "A New Beginning." 

The film's plot centers around Kris' attempt to reboot the franchise and, in the process, visiting the snowy lake where the films were shot and where the original final girl from the series, Billy Presley (a delightfully vampy Gillian Anderson), is now living a secluded life. During the course of the visit, Kris is able to examine her problems with sex and how the film series plays a role in this.

Along the way, the picture involves some nutty needle drops - Donna Lewis, Sade, and the usage of a Counting Crows song that is unlikely to be forgotten. Long clips of the fictional film are interspersed with the main action, so that in many ways the film within the film becomes a bit more interesting than what's going on outside of it. And considering that this is a horror movie, of sorts, there is a lot of bloodshed in that film within the film.

The picture ultimately takes a surreal turn in its final third that approaches the material in a much more meta method. Although I could appreciate why Schoenbrun chose to do so - considering what it represents - and how it speaks to the overall narrative, I found these scenes to be a bit too literal, while also being surreal if that makes sense, to be effective. 

That being said, this is, much like their previous films, a truly original work from a distinctive cinematic voice. "I Saw the TV Glow" remains, for me, Schoenbrun's finest hour so far, but "Camp Miasma" is a mostly effective and often quite entertaining film that combines genre with some very personal elements. It's probably unlike anything else you'll see this summer.

Review: The End Of Oak Street

Image courtesy of Warner Bros. 

David Robert Mitchell's "The End of Oak Street" is a lean and mean sci-fi thriller in the mold of a "Jaws"-era Steven Spielberg film that is likely to be one of the summer's genuine surprises for unsuspecting audiences. The film is Mitchell's first in eight years after "Under the Silver Lake" was mostly met with derision (somewhat unfairly), whereas his sophomore film, the great "It Follows," was a critical darling.

His newest film shares some similarities with "It Follows" - both films are set in the suburbs, a place that people have created to make themselves feel safe, but in Mitchell's films have been infiltrated by evil or violence. Both pictures also use the nerve-wracking tactic of showing something dangerous lurking and slowly approaching as unwitting characters go about their business.

Aside from those similarities, the film feels like a fast paced, but shorter and more gruesome, version of "Jurassic Park" in the suburbs. But Mitchell has managed to make the drama involving the picture's central family as compelling as the tense and fast-paced set pieces.

In the film, Greg (Ewan McGregor) and Denise (Anne Hathaway, who's having quite a summer) are lying to each other. He is taking part-time jobs - such as delivering pizza - to cover for the fact that he has lost his job. She is secretly sneaking away to the basement to write a novel about a woman who is thinking about bailing on her family. Their teenage son (Christian Convery) and daughter (Maisy Stella) are aware that something is wrong.

One night, the family's suburb witnesses a strange light and some rumblings. The next day, the power and water are out. To their horror, the family notices that dinosaurs of varying sizes and appetites are roaming the streets, picking off the neighbors.

I'm not going to delve too deeply into how this phenomenon occurred, but the concept of wormholes and Carl Sagan's work is later cited and explained well enough - that is, if the science behind this whole enterprise really matters much to your viewing experience. It probably shouldn't.

Much of the rest of the film is a tense game of cat-and-mouse as the family - and several other characters in their orbit - attempt to survive and find their way to the wormhole, in the hopes that they can jump back into the present. Between chases through backyards involving T-Rexes and a gigantic snake-like creature slithering into a house during one of the film's best set pieces, "The End of Oak Street" mostly plays like an exciting - albeit expensive looking - B movie.

On the whole, it's pretty fun - and there are a few genuine shocks during its brisk running time. It also has an ending that might be viewed as happy, but perhaps not so much when you stop to think about it. The cast is solid across the board, with Hathaway as the MVP, once again starring in a movie this summer in which her home invaded by unwanted guests.

"It Follows" remains one of my favorite horror movies of the 21st century, and it proved Mitchell to be a master of tone and mood. Much like that film, "The End of Oak Street" depicts the suburbs as a place of  superficial safety and deeply-buried angst. While Mitchell's 2015 horror movie is a bit deeper thematically, "The End of Oak Street" provides enough to chew on to compliment its thrill-ride moments. 

It's been a good summer for big budget, blockbuster filmmaking - including the latest from Spielberg and Christopher Nolan and, now, Mitchell. For a movie that's theoretically a bit bleak, "The End of Oak Street" is pretty enjoyable.

Review: Sheep In A Box

Image courtesy of Neon.

Hirokazu Koreeda is one of Japan's greatest filmmakers and has been considered the heir apparent to the great Yasujiro Ozu. Both filmmakers are known for their measured paces and quiet observances of the human condition.

Koreeda's latest, "Sheep in the Box," finds the filmmaker venturing a little further from his typical subject matter, despite it still being a family drama, by confronting the topic of AI and telling a story that could best be described as science fiction.

In the picture, Kensuke (Daigo Yamamoto) and his wife, Otone (Haruka Ayase), live a quiet but seemingly normal life, considering that their young son, Kakeru, died two years before in an incident that only becomes more mysterious as it is further discussed.

Otone learns about a company that provides artificially intelligent (AI) family members to those who have lost love ones - and despite Kensuke's reluctance, the couple agrees to welcome a new Kakeru, who looks like their son but is obviously a robot, into their home.

No, the film doesn't turn into a horror movie, but instead focuses on how the couple tries to reconcile that their son is lost forever and that the being who looks like him - and seemingly has recovered some of the boy's memories - isn't actually him.

There are some interesting scenes to be mined from this story and, for about two-thirds of the film's running time, it remains intriguing. Koreeda makes an odd storytelling choice in its final third that involves Kakeru being mentored by a teenager who might also be AI and who leads a group of robots who have been abandoned. The film portrays this crew as a lost boys (of the Peter Pan variety, not vampires) type of group and ends on a utopian note that I can't help but view as a misstep.

Koreeda has made some great films - notably, his Palm d'Or-winning "Shoplifters" as well as "After Life," "Maborosi," and "Broker" - and his latest film adopts the gentle style and character-driven storytelling techniques with which one has become accustomed, but it doesn't completely come together. 

"Sheep in the Box" is far from a bad movie - in fact, it's a pretty decent one before the misstep late in the film - so it ends up just being a minor movie from a typically reliable director.