KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week (or so) I have usually have a spotlight movie which I write a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else I watched that week I do a quick little summary of my thoughts.
This Week:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023, d. Joaquim dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers - in theatre)
Shazam!: Fury of the Gods (2023, d. David F. Sandberg - in theatre)
Your Sister's Sister (2011, d. Lynn Shelton - Crave)
Blackberry (2023, d. Matt Johnson - in theatre)
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I worried that Into the Spider-Verse was an anomaly, that its unique and pliable animation would be a one-shot thing, that any repeated effort to replicate it, either by a sequel or another studio emulating it, would be met with failure. Likewise, I worried that the animation, should attempts be made to replicate it, would make it less special.
There haven't been any other films to attempt what Into the Spider-Verse did with animation in the 4 1/2 years since. The truth is, I don't think that anyone else could. The sheer intricacy of the animation, the sheer variety within the animation, the sheer density of information on screen, you can only do that with a massive budget, and it needs to be attached to a property, like Spider-Man, that will all but guarantee making its money back. As such, stepping into Across the Spider-Verse, I wasn't quite prepared for my return to the Spider-Verse, and the opening sequence, in which Gwen Stacey talks of her friend Miles Morales, his origin story, and how it ties to her own origin story, all while she's playing the drums with increasing intensity... it's pure audio-visual stimulation. The kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The kind that make you sit up straighter and try to pay even closer attention. The kind that you try to take in not just with your eyes and ears, but through all your senses. You want to just absorb it. But, eventually with this film, you need to stop trying so hard to absorb it, and instead, let it absorb you.
There's no easy way to describe the animation of Across the Spider-Verse, except to say that, if you saw Into the Spider-Verse, it's like that, but more. If you have sensory input issues, like if a lot of visual information is hard for you to digest, these would be difficult movies for you. There's a lot of distinct visual cues going on, such as Gwen's earth being accentuated by a muted neon watercolour backdrop that kind of moves and bleeds and changes tones and crispness with the emotion of the scene. It's replicating the art of Robbie Rodriguez from the initial Spider-Gwen comic books, but you don't really need to know that reference to feel the impact of its beauty and intensity. We spend a lot time with Gwen (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) up front, taking a great supporting character from the first movie and fleshing her out as the co-star of this film.
Gwen's deal is her police captain father doesn't know she's Spider-Woman, and he thinks Spider-Woman killed their earth's Peter Parker, who was Gwen's best friend. The death of Peter hit Gwen so hard that she kind of pushes everyone away lest she experience that kind of pain again. But, even in the year since the end of the story of the last film, she still thinks of Miles Morales all the time. The connection between Gwen and Miles isn't just happenstance. We learn in this movie that all Spider-persons are connected through shared "Canon events", incidents of loss and triumph, trauma and success that connect them all despite the sometimes drastic variations of their realities (one spider-variation is a sentient dune buggy, named "Peter Parkedcar"). But Gwen and Miles seem to have an additional connection, an attraction, but maybe even something deeper, and they both seem to recognize it.
After a parchment Vulture from a da Vinci-esque reality makes it into Gwen's, she's aided by Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac) and Jess Drew (Issa Rae), a futuristic vampire Spider-man and a motorcycle-riding mom-to-be, respectively. Since the events of Into the Spider-Verse (as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home, it's mentioned off-handedly) the multi-verse is in turmoil and Miguel heads a vast web of spider-agents who help try to repair chaotic fluctuations. Gwen is reluctantly recruited and given a "watch-thingie" that helps keep her stable when traveling to other dimensions.
Miles (Shameik Moore, absolutely outstanding voice work here), meanwhile, has become more comfortable as Spider-Man, but still yet to hit his groove. Balancing school, his family and his Spider-manning hasn't been easy, and despite having initially made some multiversal friends who showed him the ropes, he's since been learning on his own. He encounters a being named The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), who can open up portals from one nearby point to another. Miles sees him as a nuisance, but The Spot attempts to convey how closely tied the two of them are. The Spot, see, was created as a result of the collider incident from the prior film, and blames Spider-Man for it. Miles dismisses The Spot as a nothing villain-of-the-week, which only fuels The Spot into a deeper anger, driving him to level up his powers, leading to dimension-crossing and dimension-threatening abilities. Gwen, now working for Miguel's agency comes to visit Miles' earth, as much to see Miles again as to do her job of keeping track of The Spot, who is about to become a real problem.
This leads to a trip to the world of Pavitr Prabhakar (from the Spider-Man: India comic, and voiced delightfully by Kiran Soni), in which Miles disrupts a "Canon event" and is brought back to Miguel's headquarters for, basically, a dressing down, and, ultimately, an eye-popping, mind-blowing, sensory-overloaded chase sequence as Miles attempts to escape back to his home to stop something bad from happening there.
I won't get into the grit of what happens in this film, as it's such an incredible world of discovery and inventiveness, but as much as it is an appeal-to-the-senses film, its greatest strength, and what makes it even superior to the first movie, is its connection with the characters. Miles' mom and dad, nurse Rio (Luna Lauren Velez) and cop Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry), who were present in the first film, are vital characters here, as is Gwen's dad, cop George (Shea Wingham). The connection between parents and their children is a major theme of the movie. There's something to be said with how much parents trust their children by how much the teenagers in this film trust their parents. They keep their identities secret from their parents, knowing that, for as complicated as things are, it could only be more so if they knew who they really were. It's not just exclusive to being a Spider-person, it kind of goes for all parents and children. To Miles and Gwen, being Spider-Man and Spider-Woman is a part of their identity, and there's a fear there that in revealing that, their parents will try to control, constrain or even quash that identity. As parents, Rio, Jefferson and George all have to face their own limitations of how they understand their children as individuals, that the dependency their kids had on them since birth diminished. Just as the teens need to learn that being independent doesn't have to mean severing ties with their parents, their parents need to learn that giving their children independence doesn't mean letting them go.
Inside of all of this are the desires the teens have, to flourish and grow as a person, to find their own way, but also to find guidance. Other Spider-people who have had more experience are easy targets for this desire, but mentoring means nothing if there's not also respect, and trust. The idea of trust is another theme throughout the movie, and it's as much the adversary of the film as The Spot is. Knowing who to trust with secrets, knowing how to trust your own instincts, trusting others with your emotions, (even Rio trusting Gwen with her son's affections), they come in and out of play, but they're very important to both Gwen and Miles' journey.
The connection between Gwen and Miles leads to a very tender and gorgeously rendered Spider-persons version of a "walk-and-talk" romantic interlude. It's possibly my favourite scene in a movie that is pretty much wall-to-wall with amazing scenes. Even Pavitr comments on the romantic tension within minutes of meeting them, and the film does an amazing job with conventional romantic storytelling beats.
It's got some of the most eye-popping, incredible action sequences, as well as this amazing love story, this absolutely radiant story of family, and still it manages to be wildly funny. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller wrote the script with David Callaham and it's such a well-balanced picture. It has the patented Lord and Miller humour, the awareness of genre tropes which also doubles as self-awareness in characters. That type of humour can get utterly grating (see Family Guy) but Lord and Miller have always had a knack for using that meta/self-awareness in both a disarming and natural fashion that much more often than not feels smart, or clever but with no self-satisfaction beneath it. There is a density of rapid-fire quippage happening during every action scene that basically demands rewatching because it's impossible to catch it all the first (or even the second) time around. There's also an impressive amount of spectacular Spider-Man references to films, comics, and other media of the past, none of which should hamper the enjoyment of this film if you don't get them.
This is the second film in three weeks that is the first of a planned two-parter. Where Fast X really seemed to just be playing around mindlessly with its toys with no real stakes or direction, Across the Spider-Verse just keeps escalating, using everything it's been building to lead to a genuinely thrilling "To be continued". I cheered when it came to its conclusion. I could feel it coming and I was ready for it, even as I was just as ready to continue on with the story. That's what makes it such a good "To be continued" is it feels like the creatives know exactly where it's going and where its leading to, and, going back to trust, they've earned the trust that this massive journey has a destination in mind.
It's like getting a delicious foot long submarine sandwich and eating half and feeling completely satiated. You know the other half is there to enjoy later, but you're feeling good right now.
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As entertainment, Fury of the Gods is fine. It's a fairly good looking movie with some decent set-pieces, and charming little moments, and has a generally amiable cast that seem game for everything asked of them. I mean, Helen Mirren is really giving it a go, bless her. This looks to be an expensive film, more so than the prior Shazam! by anywhere from 30-50% depending on the numbers you find. But from the moment this film was announced, with Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Ziegler as the antagonists (the daughters of Atlas seeking to steak the powers of the Greek gods back from the Shazam family) the fan response what, in a nutshell, "what?" Like, were we really cramming for Shazam vs a dragon. This is so 2017 "let's Game of Thrones this $#!&".
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| This is a weird poster |
I respect the intention behind the Shazam family and Sandberg, more than anything, uses this film to lean into the concept. But Captain Marvel/Shazam has existed for 80 years, and the "Shazam Family" as seen ehre has only been around for a about a decade and not really explored all that much. Sandberg's doing as much heavy lifting with them in these two films as the comics have since their origin, and I wonder if the Shazam Family basically handcuffed what he could do in these films.
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The late Lynn Shelton, director of Your Sister's Sister, is one of the bigger names in the mumblecore genre, Mark Duplass, who co-stars here, is another. It's sort of a super-team-up of mumblecore royalty. God, just typing that makes me want to hit myself in the nuts.
The film here finds adrift 30-something Jack (Duplass) set to meet up with his best friend (and recently deceased brother's girlfriend), adrift 30-something Iris (Emily Blunt) at her family cottage. He arrives a night early only to happen upon Iris' older sister, Hannah (Rosemary Dewitt), a lesbian who just separated from her partner. Jack and Hannah get to know each other, and get drunk, when Hannah agrees to Jack's hypothetical propositioning of her. They have awkward sex, and things get even more awkward when Iris shows up the next day and they try to keep the secret of their rendez-vous from her. Then Iris confesses to Hannah about being in love with Jack (inexplicably), and you just know eventually it's all going to come out, including the part about Hannah poking holes in the condom to steal Jack's sperm.
I struggle with how I feel about this film. I was both intrigued enough to watch it twice, and yet kind of annoyed by the whole thing. If it were a 60's production it would be a farce, but it's a mumblecore which carries with it as a genre its own nuisance baggage. I think what bothers me most is Duplass, who I've enjoyed in many things, but his general vibe is low-key asshole. So for him to be, supposedly, a woman's best friend, and yet get a few drinks in him and he's propositioning his best friend's lesbian sister...I mean, that's what I expect out of a Duplass character, but that's not who this character needs to be for us to feel like he's worthy of a romantic interest for Emily Blunt (maybe Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada, but not sweet, meek Irish here. Jack has a speech late in the film which conveys some sense of self awareness of not being worthy of Emily Blunt, or of being a potential dad+uncle to a baby...but it doesn't change the fact that I feel like Duplass was the wrong choice for this role.
I thought the ending was pretty shrewd on Shelton's part, though. Despite the mumblecore model, there's always a sense of control to Shelton's work here, a sense that she's getting what she wants out of every scene, even when it's heavily improvised. What surprised me most is how well Shelton dispersed awkwardness. What could have easily turned into cringe comedy or uneasy drama is tampered by largely emotionally aware characters, and a handling of scenes with warmth and intimacy.
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Don't ask what it was that was stimulating me so much about it... I tend to find the pseudo-bio genre almost a deterrent rather than a draw, more often than not. I like Jay Baruchel generally, but he isn't a "gotta see it" kind of screen persona. Same with Glenn Howerton. But this is a distinctly Canadian film, and there's a distinctly Canadian punchline in the trailers that, no matter how proud (or jaded) you are about our country, it lands pretty good. The saga of the Blackberry phone's rise and fall (alongside hockey-obsessed Jim Balsillie's vying for an NHL team) are not quite children's stories here, but if you're over the age of 40, you definitely have an awareness of some of the story.
What writer/director/co-star Mat Johnson (Nirvana the Band the Show) delivers is -- if I'm going to do that thing that Toasty hates -- the punched-up, purple-prosed melodrama of The Social Network by way of the over-the-shoulder, in-the-room hand-cam comedic awkwardness of The Office, with more than a little of the peppery biting satire of Glengarry Glen Ross. It of course goes beyond that to become what the various parties bring to the production with Johnson clearly having an overall sensibility in mind for this and accomplishing an incredibly well-balanced delicate tone that is more comedy than drama, but is always taking its characters seriously. Baruchel's premiere shtick for two decades now has been "confidently anxious", and he manages to transition his interpretation of Mike Laziridis from overly anxious beta nerd to overly confident beta nerd over the course of the movie, as if he learns the wrong things from Balsillie's hubris.
As great as all the players are, it is Howerton's Balsillie that steals the show. Egotistical, brash, conniving, convincing and shrewd, only he could do what Research In Motion needed to get them where they got to. Everything that RIM did couldn't have been done without him. But at a certain point, the status and the success blinded both Balsillie and Laziridis from what made them successful, which was doing something different in the field of mobile technology. The iPhone was seemingly lightyears beyond Blackberry, and they, as a company, refused to adjust, too confident in what was already a problematic product.
Blackberry is a gloriously entertaining, decidedly Canadian, rise-and-fall story that is sometimes ridiculous but almost always riveting, with a killer soundtrack that felt like a mix tape I made in the late 90's. Quite loved it.
Bon Cop Bad Cop? Is that more recent than the other one?
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