Review: Annabelle: Creation

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

For those seeking a horror movie that will genuinely scare them and keep them on the edges of their seats for the duration of its running time, "Annabelle: Creation" mostly gets the job done. It's significantly better than the first "Annabelle" movie and there are a few sequences that are pretty terrifying. However, the film is still a fairly generic haunted house movie that pulls out all the usual horror tropes and relies more than a few times on jump scares - of which I'm not particularly fond.

"The Conjuring" was a well made and frightening horror movie that has led to one direct sequel, the first "Annabelle" picture and, now, this one - all in the past four years. In other words, this cinematic world is being milked for all it is worth. "Creation" is mostly unnecessary, but director David Sandberg has put a certain amount of craft and care into this prequel that make it slightly better than you might expect.

As the film opens, a young girl - you'll never guess her name - plays a game with her loving father (Anthony LaPaglia) and mother (Miranda Otto) in their creaky old home in the middle of nowhere. The date is never given, but I'd expect this intro is set at some point in the 1940s. But a tragedy befalls the family and - more than a decade later - the couple lives alone in the old house, which is now being used as an orphanage, where a young nun and a group of pre- and teenage girls will come to live. You'll never guess what happens next.

LaPaglia's character was once a doll maker and, naturally, one of his creations was the creepy glass eyed titular character, which has seemingly been possessed by a demon of some sort. This demon taunts the house's new denizens and eventually takes possession of one of them. Much time is spent by all creeping around in the dark - turn on the lights, for heaven's sake! - and walking into rooms where something spooky is obviously taking place. As I'd mentioned before - horror tropes.

There are a few set pieces that are particularly jarring, especially one involving a young girl atop a bunk bed who believes that something is lurking in her room. Sandberg shoots the sequence from a variety of angles, especially an effective overhead shot that reveals only a little at a time. There's another scene in a barn involving a scarecrow that is also creepy, but also - let's be honest - pretty silly.

There's a lot of screaming to be heard in "Annabelle: Creation" and some of it is likely coming from the audience. Things pop out not when you expect them to, but a few seconds later. The filmmakers toy with expectations and while it occasionally pays off, the same set-up becomes a little tiresome after a while. But I'll give credit where it's due - Sandberg's picture creeps along at its own pace and the suspense builds fairly well. Although I can't wholeheartedly give this picture my full endorsement, it's significantly better than its predecessor - "Annabelle" - and not half-bad for a standard horror movie prequel.

Review: Good Time

Image courtesy of A24.

So, here's the thing - Benny and Joshua Safdie's Cannes Film Festival favorite "Good Time" is a tense, well shot and acted and stylish throwback that gives off the vibe of Sidney Lumet making a remake of "After Hours." And while that may sound all and good - and "Good Time" is indeed a pretty decent movie - it's not without its problems.

The Safdie brothers are previously responsible for "Daddy Longlegs," which is unseen by me, and "Heaven Knows What," a similarly tense and grimy movie about down-on-their-luck types that also had an unnerving synth score, grainy photography and unsettling performances. But also similar to that previous picture, "Good Time" is among those category of films that I admire - at least, from the standpoint of stylish filmmaking and solid acting - more than I love.

As the picture opens, Nick - a low-level thug who also has some form of mental handicap - is pulled out of a therapy session by his excitable brother Connie (Robert Pattinson) and the two proceed to pull off a heist at a bank. During the robbery, the two men wear rubber masks that give them the appearance of black men, although it's plain for anyone to see that their faces are covered in rubber. This is one of the first instances in which the film inadvertently deals with the matter of race - but more on that later.

After the bag full of money turns out to have an exploding dye pack that leaves the brothers with red faces, Nick gets pinched by the cops and thrown into Rikers Island, leaving Connie to undertake a wild night of attempting to raise $10,000 to spring his brother from jail. Along the way, Connie attempts to convince his girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to give him the loot - and when that fails, he smuggles a man whom he believes to be his brother, who has been attacked in jail in hospitalized, out of the hospital. As it turns out, he's freed another low-life criminal, who ends up getting involved in Connie's scheme to raise the money.

There's a particularly unsettling sequence (more on that later) involving Connie and an elderly black woman and her granddaughter after he swindles his way into their living room to hide out from the police. And the picture's finale is set at an amusement park in Queens, where Connie and his pal from the hospital - a particularly dim bulb named Ray (Buddy Duress) - attempt to find some cash that Ray, a drug dealer, had stashed earlier in the day.

As I've mentioned before, "Good Time" is visually stylish and propulsive. The pulsating score by Oneohtrix Point Never gives each sequence during which Connie is barreling forward through the streets of Queens during the course of the night a certain urgency. And Pattinson is on fire as Connie, who is neither a particularly sympathetic or intelligent character, but manages to remain compelling.

And yet, while "Good Time" appears to tackle some serious issues, it only does so as an aside. For starters, most of the victims of Connie, his brother and Ray are people of color - from the bank teller whom they harass to a cabbie who gives Ray a ride, but also the 16-year-old black teenager living in the house where Connie hides out and an immigrant security guard whom Connie and Ray beat nearly into oblivion. There's a shot during which one of the film's thuggish white characters is taking a drug and a part of it drips on a newspaper clipping featuring Pepe the Frog - you know, the symbol of white power that the alt-right has adopted. But that controversial image's appearance seems to have no purpose.

And during the film's most unsettling moment, Connie distracts the aforementioned teenage girl when his face pops up on the news by putting the moves on her. He nearly has sex with her, but is interrupted during a sequence in which I was unsure whether the filmmakers were playing it serious or for laughs. It would appear that the filmmakers have something to say about the picture's mostly heinous lead characters - who are white - and their treatment of minorities, but it never does much other than present the fact that they are all cretins. Plus, it would also appear that the filmmakers are asking us to root for Connie and Nick - which is a mistake. And finally, the Safdies mostly shoot the mentally handicapped Nick in close-ups, pushing in constantly on his face - but again, for what purpose?

If there's any sort of statement to be made here - and I certainly do not require one in any movie, although if one tackles weighty subject matter, a filmmaker should be prepared to follow through - it's during the end of the picture after Connie - spoiler alert - has been arrested and it's mentioned by Nick's psychiatrist that "he's where he ought to be." So, while "Good Time" is a movie that impresses by the Safdies' filmmaking prowess, it's far from perfect. I'd recommend it as a well made piece of work, although its flaws must also be considered.

Review: The Dark Tower

Image courtesy of Columbia Pictures.

I've read a great many of Stephen King's books, but I'll admit that I have yet to crack open a copy of any of the entries into his beloved "Dark Tower" series. Perhaps, one day I will. My hope is that the books - which have garnered their share of praise and fandom over the years - will be better than this long-awaited film, which ranks as one of the worst adaptations of King's work - and that's saying something.

Apparently stuffing material together from several of the "Dark Tower" volumes, Nikolaj Arcel's picture bounces several genres around at once - and all clunkily. As the film opens, a young boy named Jake (Tom Taylor) has been experiencing odd dreams that might have something to do with the unexplained earthquakes that rock his hometown of New York and other parts of the world. His mother (Katheryn Winnick) thinks that her son might be cuckoo when he tries to explain the connection between the quakes and the vivid nightmares he experiences.

Meanwhile, somewhere else - hey, that's the best I can do in this instance - a figure known as the Man in Black (Matthew McConaughey, engaging in some series hamming it up) wants to destroy the titular structure, which protects the universe or something to that effect. On his trail is Roland (Idris Elba), a gunslinger armed with two pistols that seemingly never run out of ammo and some mantra that scolds people for forgetting the faces of their fathers.

Upon the threat of being sent upstate to a camp for wayward children, Jake flees his home and manages to end up in Roland's world, where the cryptic gunslinger obligingly allows him to tag along. Meanwhile, the Man in Black is seeking out children who "shine" - a word to which King apparently took one back in the day - and can, therefore, do whatever it is that they do when McConaughey's villain hooks them up to a machine that seemingly causes a large amount of light to shoot out of their heads.

"The Dark Tower" is loaded with problems. It's not particularly suspenseful, although there is a shootout sequence late in the picture that is well staged. King is a good writer and he's often an ace at capturing how ordinary people talk, so it's disappointing that this film's mostly expository dialogue is like nails on a chalkboard. Also, the few instances in which otherworldly creatures - several in a forest and a house that appears to come alive - are, to say the least, confusing.

This could be a case of a novel that is seemingly unadaptable. There are such things. For the sake of reference, look up "Breakfast of Champions" and "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Next month, we'll get the long-awaited film adaptation of "It," which is much more cinematically inclined. The verdict is obviously still out on that one, but "The Dark Tower" is an unequivocal bust.

Review: Detroit

Image courtesy of Annapurna Distribution.

Equally powerful and punishing, Kathryn Bigelow's "Detroit" is a film that can - at the same time - draw admiration for its dynamic filmmaking and be a difficult viewing experience. I don't mean to say that the film doesn't engage - boy, does it ever - or that I didn't think it was a great piece of cinematic art - I do - but it is relentlessly disturbing, angry, shocking and despairing. In other words, it's a movie to which people should submit themselves, white America especially.

There have been some arguments that Bigelow, who is white, is not the person who should have told this story and Hollywood's history of white people telling black stories (for example, "Ghosts of Mississippi" and other movies that focus on race relations) has often been one of sanitization. That is not the case here. In fact, if anything, "Detroit" is unflinching to the point of making one uncomfortable - as it should - and occasionally unbearable to watch.

The picture is, of course, set amid the massive 1967 riot in the titular city that began as civil disobedience after police conducted a raid at an unlicensed, after hours bar known as the Blind Pig and were unnecessarily rough with the black patrons whom they arrested. This then turned into a full-scale riot that is considered among the most destructive of its type in U.S. history.

And amid all the confusion and melee taking place on the streets of Detroit, a horrific incident at the Algiers Motel - which takes up a majority of Bigelow's film - is one of the most prominent and terrifying examples of police brutality on people of color. It is also one that - and I'm pretty sure that this won't ruin the moviegoing experience for anyone as it should probably come as no surprise, given our nation's recent history - resulted in abusive white officers mostly going unpunished.

There are multiple plot threads in Bigelow's film and there has been some criticism - and some of it not completely off the mark - that the numerous characters in the movie only get minimal development. In other words, most of them are archetypes, however, for the purpose of the film it didn't take much away from my personal experience of the picture.

Gathered at the Algiers are a member of The Dramatics - yes, the great 1970s soul-funk outfit responsible for "What You See Is What You Get" - named Larry (Algee Smith) and his pal Fred (Jacob Latimore), another group of black men who are having a party upstairs at the hotel, two young white women who are in town from Ohio and a military veteran named Greene (Anthony Mackie). When one of the men from the party sets off a starter pistol, local police and National Guardsmen mistake the shots for a sniper and descend on the hotel.

There are various sets of law enforcement officials - Detroit cops, Michigan troopers, Guardsmen - who wind up at the motel, but the most significant are the heinous, racist Krauss (Will Poulter) - who is seen earlier in the film shooting a young shoplifter in the back as he flees - as well as two of his cohorts and a security guard known as Dismukes (John Boyega, who is the film's MVP), who also happens to be the only black person wearing a badge and carrying a gun in the movie. Dismukes wanders onto the scene in the hopes of keeping the peace amid the riot, but finds himself bearing witness to the atrocities that take place.

The first quarter of the film lays the groundwork, depicting war-zone-like sequences in which rioters and looters duck and cover as police pursue them. Also, Larry and Fred prepare as The Dramatics are set to take the stage to perform on Detroit's "Swingin' Time" program, where they will follow Martha and the Vandellas, who are singing "Nowhere to Run." But the riots interrupt the program and the group never gets the chance to take the stage.

At least half of the movie is set in the Algiers Motel, where Bigelow stages a harrowing sequence during which Krauss and his officers raid and then terrorize the black men on the premises as well as the two white women, whose presence appears to anger the officers even more. It's amazing that more than half of the entire movie involves characters facing a wall while police officers search the premises and engage in all manner of psychological and physical abuse. It's one of the most terrifying set pieces I've ever experienced - but what makes it even more powerful is that it is preluded by a speech from one of the hotel's denizens, who describes such experiences as everyday occurrences in the lives of black men in America.

In the wake of the motel incident, which leaves three dead - all shot in cold blood by police officers - the picture follows the ensuing trial, which is, arguably, a bit too straightforward stylistically, considering all that has gone on before. There's even a scene in which someone has an outburst in the courtroom. In any other movie, it would have been an example of eye-roll-inducing melodrama, but here it's more than earned.

"Detroit" may not quite reach the heights of Bigelow's previous film - the remarkable "Zero Dark Thirty" - but it's pretty stunning nevertheless. It's been said numerous times about numerous other recent movies and it'll be said again, but this picture is not only a powerful recounting of a horrific moment in U.S. history, but also a window into where we are now.

Incidents such as the one at the Algiers are seemingly never-ending in our culture. It would take more than two hands to count all of the incidents that have made the news in recent years during which a young, unarmed black man was gunned down by police. Bigelow's film shines a light on one such particular incident - and the experience is overwhelming and gut wrenching. Art has many purposes - and one of them is to put viewers into the shoes of others to enable one to understand the experiences of others. "Detroit" does such a thing and the result is devastating.

Review: Atomic Blonde

Image courtesy of Focus Features

The combination of her work as Furiosa in "Mad Max: Fury Road" and spy Lorraine Broughton in David Leitch's uber-violent "Atomic Blonde" leads me to believe that Charlize Theron is the best game in town for an action movie heroine. Broughton is a character whose motives may always be questionable, but Theron - when not pummeling wicked men into submission - brings insight and depth to the character with as little as a flick of the eye or a smile.

In the picture, Broughton has been sent - in 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall - to Germany to - well, I'll try to explain this - play a role in the transporting of a Russian mole from East Berlin to West Berlin. The mole is named Spyglass (Eddie Marsan) and he apparently has a list that is frequently referenced, but as vague and mysterious as the suitcase in "Pulp Fiction."

Broughton's guide in Berlin is a shifty character named Percival (James McAvoy), but she is surrounded by numerous characters with suspicious motives - a French spy named Delphine (Sofia Boutella), a CIA spook (John Goodman), a British intelligence officer (Toby Jones) and numerous Russians, most of whom want to kill Lorraine.

"Atomic Blonde" is bathed in neon and much of the action is set to the tune of such 1980s hitmakers as 'Til Tuesday, Nena, New Order, David Bowie, After the Fire and Public Enemy. In terms of style, "Atomic Blonde" comes up aces. As for story, well, the picture remains entertaining throughout - for the most part - although its labyrinthine plot leaves those attempting to figure out who's double crossing whom in the dust.

But the picture's focal point - which should come as no surprise as it has been directed by Leitch, who is a former stuntman - is a series of incredible fight scenes, each one more brutal and beautifully choreographed than the next. The most intense one involves Theron and several men on a staircase that, for the life of me, baffles as to how it was accomplished without any of the actors killing or seriously wounding themselves. There's also a stylish shootout in the film's finale and a whole number of broken bones, gouged cheeks (ouch!) and car chases in between.

"Atomic Blonde" might leave you scratching your head if you're attempting to follow its numerous twists and turns and it doesn't tell you much about the fall of the Berlin Wall other than, well, it made a lot of people happy.

But the film has some nice touches - especially a lesbian sex scene that comes off as liberating rather than tackily added for the sake of titillation and a sequence during which Broughton fights a group of men in a theater screening Andrei Tarkovsky's legendary "Stalker" - and it's a mostly thrilling, brutal, high energy and well made action picture that proves that Theron is a bona fide action star. In "Atomic Blonde," she's a force of nature.

Review: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Image courtesy of STX Entertainment. 

Filled to the brim with eye popping visuals and sequences that act as proof that director Luc Besson has a vivid imagination, "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets," nevertheless, falls short as the picture unloads a whole bunch of exposition and virtually non-stop frenetically energetic action sequences on a story that is not that captivating and, frankly, feels like the leftover plot for a long-lost "Star Wars" movie. There's much to see in "Valerian," but it's a picture that is overstuffed in several departments, while leaving viewers malnourished in others.

For starters, Besson is a director whose visual style can often make for a compelling and exciting piece of action cinema. But when he lets his worst impulses get the better of him, his pictures feel crammed with an overabundance of style and wild pageantry at the expense of story and character.
For every "La Femme Nikita," "The Fifth Element" or, most recently, "Lucy," there's an "Angel-A," "The Family" or the much beleaguered Joan of Arc tale "The Messenger." And "Valerian" is, unfortunately, more in line with the latter three than the former.

This is not to say that the film is an outright bust. As I've mentioned, there's a whole lot going on in this film visually - and a decent portion of it is stimulating to the eye. As the film opens, we are privy to an oceanic world filled with creatures who appear to have been stolen away from the "Avatar" effects department and have small lizards for pets whose bowel movements release crystals that fuel their planet. Or, there's a later sequence during which the titular character (Dane DeHaan) is chasing after a group of individuals and he travels through walls and what would appear to be other dimensions in his pursuit. It's a dazzling sequence.

As the film opens, the caddish Valerian - a top military operative - has proposed to his partner, Laureline (Cara Delevingne), and she doesn't appear to exactly jump at the offer. However, a series of nearly inexplicable plot threads later, the duo are pursuing some of the aforementioned "Avatar"-looking creatures, who have kidnapped a possibly nefarious general (Clive Owen) and are in search of a crystal that can restore their planet, which we see destroyed at the beginning of the movie.

In the meantime, special effects abound. Laureline is kidnapped herself by a group of gigantic, ogre-like beings who attempt to feed her to their king. And Valerian finds himself attempting to free a shape shifting slave (Rihanna) from her pimp-like captor (Ethan Hawke), but not before a long, drawn-out sequence during which the slave dances for Valerian. Around nearly every corner is a new digitally created creature waiting to be discovered and most of them are examples of impressive visual effects. However, many of these creatures are voiced by individuals who are spastically overacting.

So, while "Valerian" is undoubtedly a triumph in the visuals department, its story - which is a fairly routine galaxy-hopping adventure in which a planet's fate hangs in the balance that feels assembled out of the parts of better films, such as "The Fifth Element," "Star Wars," "Avatar" or even one of the "Guardians of the Galaxy" movies. It's not a bad movie by any means, but it's slightly overlong and entirely too busy at all times - but yet not conveying anything in terms of story, theme or character that matches its imaginative visuals.

Review: Dunkirk

Image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Christopher Nolan's lean and impressionistic "Dunkirk" is at once an propulsive and intense imagining of the titular battle and a free floating war film that also recalls the work of Terrence Malick, especially "The Thin Red Line."

There's little in the way of characterization and you might not even catch any names as the picture's British and French soldiers scurry around the beach or attempt to survive the waters of Dunkirk as the Germans close in and their planes unload artillery.

In the early summer of 1940, British soldiers were evacuated from the small city in northern France, but became trapped in the harbor as the Germans had nearly pushed Allied forces out to sea. As the picture opens, a young soldier played by Fionn Whitehead flees as the Germans open fire on him and several of his fellow soldiers on the streets of Dunkirk. He makes it to the beach, where the evacuation is set to begin, and the film quickly kicks into motion.

During the course of the picture, we follow several characters - Kenneth Branagh's valiant Commander Bolton, a courageous fighter pilot played by Tom Hardy, a shell shocked soldier (Cillian Murphy) and a civilian (Mark Rylance) with a teenage son who pilots a small boat to Dunkirk in an attempt to save as many men as he can. None of these characters could be considered the lead character and there are long stretches when they hardly speak, but rather react to the situations taking place around them.

Those with phobias might not be able to handle "Dunkirk" as confined spaces, drowning, fire, heights and all other manner of horrific scenario play out as the film's numerous characters scramble across Nolan's vast canvasses. The picture looks incredible, from the dizzying fighter pilot sequences to the long shots of thousands of men lined up on the beach awaiting rescue boats.

Rather than platitudinous speeches or bombast (well, the score can occasionally be described as such), "Dunkirk" celebrates the communal heroism of that day, but also the fear and horror. For every scene in which Rylance and the two young boys on his boat make their way into the heart of a battle for which they are not prepared, there's another in which a group of young British soldiers hiding out in a boat turn on one another and threaten to kick a Frenchman out, a move that would certainly lead to his doom. In other words, Nolan's film provides a variety of scenarios displaying a range of human reactions to a tumultuous event.

Nolan is among the most revered of Hollywood's big budget filmmakers. His pictures often combine crowd pleasing action or science fiction stories with big names and he manages to make them - for lack of a better phrase - thinking man's pictures that address a mainstream audience. But while I've enjoyed his "Batman" movies, "Interstellar" and "Inception," "Dunkirk" is - in my opinion - his best work since 2001's "Memento," which still stands as the director's finest hour.

"Dunkirk" is ambitious, occasionally terrifying, visually awe inspiring, rousing and incredibly choreographed. It's among this year's best films so far.