3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Bullet Train Explosion

2025,  Shinji Higuchi (Shin Ultraman) -- Netflix

This is considered a direct sequel to the 1975 Japanese disaster movie The Bullet Train. 

Now, is it just me who calls these movies "disaster movies" even when the disastrous events are rather localized? I have always likened movies the The Towering Inferno, and The Poseidon Adventure as "classics" in the (disaster movie) genre and this would fit into the mould -- some background, lots of innocent people gathered together, something goes horribly wrong, people have to be rescued or saved. But there have been runaway train movies where I wouldn't claim them to be "disaster" movies. What about the structure of these makes them more "disaster" and less generic "thriller" ? I mean, purely, a "disaster movie" should be a big thing, a natural or man-made event, wherein there is mass death & destruction. Or maybe just the ... threat of such? 

Quit rabbit-holing. And no, this is probably not a disaster movie, as nobody actually dies.

Train 5060B is scheduled from the Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan to arrive in Tokyo, some 700 kilometers away, in likely less than 4 hours, at its normal rate of speed. That is, until a bomb threat is called in. The bomber wants ¥100 billion (just under a billion $ CAD) which they believe can easily be collected from everyone in Japan, or they will blow the train up in a populated area. Also, if the train slows to less than 100 KMh, it will explode. Yes, the premise for Speed, the bus movie with Keanu. To demonstrate their intent, they explode a cargo train sitting in a yard, and that forces the authorities to take it all seriously.

Like Shin Godzilla much of the movie focuses on the bureaucracy of response. The company that runs the train feels an obligation to save all the passengers and the reputation of their company, and the men leading these efforts are burdened by the immense weight of the responsibility. Yes, the fiction of a benevolent corporation that cares. They also have to deal with the conniving government representative who doesn't want the money to be collected because of the whole "don't negotiate with terrorists" ideal. Meanwhile onboard the train, the drama is led by conductor Kazuya Takaichi (Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, Seiten wo Tsuke), who in great Japanese tradition, takes his job Very Seriously and wants to defend each and every passenger from harm. He has so many conflicting and contradictory responsibilities as the passengers themselves are the typical mix of sympathetic and entirely dislikeable people, some who calmly follow the instructions given to them by Takaichi, and others just cause chaos.

I loved the little detail, when focus would shift to the actual train driver (Non, Amachan), who has to disengage all the automated procedures and lower the train speeds, but just enough to delay arrival in Tokyo, but not enough for them to go boom. She is very precise in all her actions, double and triple checking each action with little visual flairs and shouts of confirmation. She doesn't care what is going on out there, she has a job to do.

The corporation arranges a rescue of most of the passengers in a tense, exciting, intricately planned derailing of some of the train cars (which have bombs, so go boom) while having another train match speeds and collect terrified passengers. The ingenuity of the Japanese people is on display as even the handing-off of required equipment to facilitate the rescue operations is done in a very detailed, precise manner, and in very short time. Dispatch Manager Yuichi Kasagi (Takumi Saitoh, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl) arranges all these things unbelievably quickly, as dozens of co-workers, police and government officials stare him down. 

In the end, the actual bomber and her plan matters very little. The usual disaster movie / thriller details mattered very little. The fun was watching the background folks accomplish the nie impossible in short order, allowing destruction (that must amount to billions of yen) to ensue, as long as the passengers are saved. And they are, all of them, including the terrible people and the bomber herself.

We have a "train" tag?!?!

KWIF: Bullet Train (+6)

Kent's Week in Film is this: each week (or so) I 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... just to speed things along. I usually write this on a Sunday.  Today is Wednesday. This entry covers the past two and a half weeks minus some rewatches.

Bullet Train (2022, d. David Leitch - AmazonPrime)
The Visitor (1979, d. Giulio Paradisi - tubi)
Galaxy of Terror (1980, d. Bruce D. Clark - tubi)
Two Little Boys (aka Deano and Nige's Best Last Day Ever) (2012, d. Robert Sarkies - tubi)
Hercules (1983, d. Luigi Cozzi - tubi)
The Dungeonmaster (1984, d. [x6] - tubi)
The Young Master (1980, d. Jackie Chan - Crave) 

---

Sitting pretty evenly between the stylish cool of John Wick (and his world largely populated by assassins) and the overwhelmingly frenetic comedic tone of Deadpool 2 (both in which director Leitch had a hand), Bullet Train is both highly entertaining and allcaps A LOT.

A necessary bio-break meant pausing the movie, and with half the players seemingly dead or out of the picture, I thought "surely we're about to hit the endgame". But the time elapsed showing on screen read 1 hour 10 minutes with another 50+ left to go. That seemed like too much movie. And it was!

Though I was never bored in this latter half of the film, it did lose a lot of its mojo when the boss level shows up, mainly because, at this point, it started to incorrectly think we cared about the larger story it'd been attempting to weave. The problem is Brad Pitt's Ladybug is our central POV character and he's utterly circumstantial to the whole affair of this underlying story, so while the film is trying to invest us in its story from an insider's perspective, we're actually tracking it as an outsider. And given Ladybug's sort of laissez-faire attitude, the film shouldn't care as much about the story as it does. I certainly didn't.

The film does a better job at getting us to care about many of its characters, largely a lot of ruthless killers (Ladybug being the "no guns", trying-to-find-zen exception). Lemon and Tangerine are "The Twins", played by Brian Tyree Henry and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Henry and Taylor-Johnson are both immensely charismatic in this, which sort of neuters their intimidation factor. They're supposed to be a couple of psychos, the dialogue keeps reminding us of this, but the performances and characterization don't really show it.

As said, a very entertaining movie, but also one that constantly thinks were too dumb to keep up with it (given the shape of the world, there may be a point there). It's continually doing visual cutaways or brief flashbacks to moments or objects or people from earlier in the film, because it thinks we've forgotten or aren't paying attention? It also takes a lot of side trips into the various characters histories, but in a very inconsistent manner (some players get extensive history sequences, others don't get any). This imbalance would be more bothersome if the film had any room to breathe, but it's pretty go-go-go from the get go.

There is a lot to drive an astute film goer nuts within Bullet Train, and I can see how the vast amount of real-world improbabilities and impossibilities, on top of the overbearing cinematic devices used in telling its story would be frustrating, annoying or maddening, if you let it be. There's a better, cleaner film within what's presented, sure, but that's not really what its striving for. Taking it just as surface level entertainment, it delivers pretty highly.

[Toasty's take (we agree)]

---

Something I enjoy doing all too much is browsing the ghastly Fox-owned streaming service Tubi. It is absolutely overloaded with content with zero discretion as to quality or subject matter. It is currently the best source for 70's/80's also-ran/B-grade genre schlock, the kind that used to lure you in at the video store with a lurid tape-box/sleeve cover image (often a painting of some kind) that falsely presented intoned a film with scale and quality far beyond its means. 

The Visitor jumped out at me primarily because of cast: a young, already leathery-looking Lance Henriksen, Glenn Ford, John Huston, Shelley Winters....  Names like these in schlock is never a demarcation of quality, but it is a lure, as was its description that promised demonitc, telepathic children and an "intergalactic tug-of-war". My mind, as it so often did with the text on the back of the VHS box (paired with the front-of-box painting), reeled with with potential.

The film opens with that potential revealing itself via a stark, desert-like wasteland with an ever-so-alien sky, shot with all manner of low-budge effects tricks. It's very striking. An impressive soundtrack of tones and whistles and scratching strings accompanies a sudden snowfall as a haggard, cloaked old man faces off against an unknown cloaked silhouette.  It's 4 minutes of ominous, menacing, wordless visuals which falls apart the moment a talking head starts to try and fill in the eye-roling mythos for this tale, as a christ-like figure explains its good-vs-evil concept to a group of bald, white robed children in an indoor arboretum.  The film crashes and burns the moment the overwhelmingly 70's funk horns start blaring as we're transitioned to a 5 minute sequence of a basketball game (culminating in a ball exploding, no questions asked) during which any sense of the fantasy of what came before is completely lost.

The film doesn't know what direction its going it, its not at all confident in its plot. I heard tell (via a later listening to the Video Archives podcast) that this was originally scripted as a proposed sequel to a sort of demon-seed pregnancy movie then re-formed into a sci-fi horror.  The kind of confused conception is evident, and the storytelling never settles into its more fantastical plot.  It could have been the original The Orphan had it not reached too high.  It's too boring to be bonkers, ironic viewing, and it's too bonkers to even approach being good. 

BUT IS IT HORROR?
It's more genre thriller or suspense than horror, at least it's trying to be.

---

Galaxy of Terror, from Roger Corman's New World Pictures, does a good job at feeling like a film ahead of its time, and by that I mean you could easily mistake it for a cheesy rip-off of sci-fi horror films from 1987 as opposed to 1980.  What works in the film's favour is its incredible set designs, it's moderately competent special effects, and some costuming that isn't outright embarrassing.  The acting is fine but the script is garbage nonsense that doesn't matter.  It's almost like it was written to employ sets, creatures, models and costumes that Corman already had sitting around, and less like they were constructed solely for the purpose of this picture.  I'm sure it's a mix of the two.

A rag-tag team on a rescue mission arrive on a strange planet and encounter the same dangers the prior crew clearly died from.  It's a film built entirely around set-pieces, gross-out gags and tentacle rape.  Sid Haig, Robert Englund, Erin Moran, Ray Walston and others sleepwalk through the meaningless dialogue and tolerate the humiliating horror gags they're forced to suffer through to collect their paycheck.

It's said that James Cameron was working effects on this, when he requested to do second unit filming of the sets to give them more coverage, which got him noticed for his first directorial gig, Piranha 2.  The trivia on this film is kind of more interesting than the film itself.

BUT IS IT HORROR?
sure, barely. It's surely horrible.

---

So many of the Kiwi comedy films I've seen seem to center around naive simpletons or awkward oddballs (or both), and I've generally been quite receptive to that sort of thing. There's a subtle, sly tone and balance these films have to sustain, seeing the humour in the oddities of the characters, but also retaining some sense of empathy and affection for them. We want them to succeed, or at least find some growth in their journey (although it seems a particular NZ trait for these characters to kind of learn nothing or refuse to change). 

Two Little Boys (or it's original name, Nige and Deano's Best Last Day Ever) centers its story around two nitwits who are trying to cover up the accidental killing of a Norwegian backpacker in the opening moments of the film, which makes it particularly tough to invest in these characters. I don't know that we want them to get away with it, or if we're even supposed to (Nige's guilt being what it is).

Nige and Deano are estranged best friends reunited by the accident, but very quickly the toxic nature of their relationship returns, and it's clear why Nige wanted to end the friendship in the first place. 

So, if the film doesn't really want us to want the boys to get away with manslaughter, and if it doesn't want us to hope for reconciliation than what outcome exactly are we supposed to want here?

It's not a poorly done movie. There's some interesting editing choices, some fine needledrops, and even some fun vfx and camera trickery. McKenzie, Blake and Pohatu are all really quite good, inhabiting their roles well, making me quickly forget their more prominent personas in Flight of the Conchords, Lego Masters and Wellington Paranormal where I know them each well, but it's just fundamentally flawed story with a thoroughly unsatisfying conclusion (and an even more unsatisfying coda).

---

I've watched a couple of Hercules movies in the past year, and they are, when in the hands of Italian filmmakers, passable escapist entertainment.  This one, though, is a spectacularly ill-conceived peplum that tries to smush together all of Hercules' 12 labors into one 90 minute story in an awkward mish-mash of fantasy, sci-fi and mythology that dares to rip-off Superman, Star Wars and Clash of the Titans at once but with a quarter of their budget.

The effects are pretty daring but done on a frugal budget, so they can be either read as really charming or really bad (or perhaps both?).  The costuming, though, is superb, and super sexy.  This is the best Hercules look, methinks, and the ladies are totally va-va-voom without being lurid about it. I was surprised to find the lip sync was totally on point, like, amazingly so. There are also some fairly amazing sets, which the Italians have been great at for some time, but there's also some that really feel the budget limitations.

This was under the Canon film group logo, so there's a sense that this was trying to capitalize upon the success of Masters of the Universe, by mixing sci-fi with fantasy and superheroes, but they would have to take another crack at it a few years later.

So, that final sequence...Hercules is warned that if he removes the sword from the stone, it will result in the awakening of the pheonix.  He needs the sword to fight the big bad guys, and so he does unsheath it.  The phoenix is awakened and the whole bloody island begins to collapse, killing thousands in the process? This is the big heroic ending??

---

The Dungeonmaster basically auto-played on Tubi after Hercules. I didn't select it, and I didn't intend to watch it. It opens with a sequence that plays out like an 80's glam metal music video, of a toe-headed man in glasses following in slow motion a woman in a flowing red dress through some weird local architecture that could is weird enough to be vaguely construed as "fantastical" without any set redressing.  She strips, lays on a bed, and beacons him near, only for demonic creatures to break through the wall and capture her, leaving the man, confused. Title sequence and credits. Man wakes up from dream.  The film starts with a cold open. It's rather inane.

We later see the "real life" scenario of this couple, their existence. He's a too-handsome nerd who has made a primitive 80's computer AI assistant that makes his aerobic instructor girlfriend jealous because of how much time he spends with it. Then they seem to get sucked into another dimension, she's chained up, he's in a weird costume, and a tall, deep-voiced, sallow-looking figure tells him they're going to play a game. 

What follows is a series of vignettes, each from a different director, each in a different genre, including a Mad Max-style chase and fighting a Harryhousen-esque stop-motion animate statue. None of it is particularly well-executed, and our "hero" is armed with his AI in a wrist gauntlet that serves as a total deus ex machina in every scenario.

It is supremely goofy 80's genre trash, and yet it's not unwatchable, thanks mostly to a charming Jeffrey Byron. Like most anthologies, it's not very unified, nor is this all that satisfying in whole or in part. But it also doesn't take itself too seriously, which doesn't exactly save it, but does help elevate it somewhat above some of the other more unwatchable low-low-budg fantasy trash of the era.

---

I'm not as well versed in Jackie Chan's filmography as I would like to be.  Having recently watched the Police Story trilogy (I know there are more than three, but I've only seen the first three at this point), I have to say I much prefer the fight-coordination-focused Jackie Chan pictures to the stunt-set-piece-focused Jackie Chan. I mean, yes the stunts are cool but...are they maybe only cool because of the end-credits revelations showing the behind-the-scenes attempts?  As opposed to films like Drunken Master or, here, Young Master, where the film is instead built with a simple story meant to weave through a series of fighting set pieces that showcase the performers' physical prowess, Chan's inventiveness, and humour? It's not like the Police Story films take themselves overly-serious, but they're not really comedies, and the fights definitely take second fiddle to the stunts in those films.

I like Chan's sensibilities, and the sheer cleverness and comedic timing that is built into the very balletic martial arts fights needs not just the movement skills, but comedic acting chops as well to sell it all.  In Young Master, Chan and his various scene partners can run up to 10 minutes through a mesmerizing coordinated routine that is as much dance and pantomime as it is kung-fu. It is ridiculously entertaining, and not a single fight seems redundant or repetitive, somehow Chan and crew constantly keep it fresh.  The opening Dragon dance sequence is a stunner, the coordination difficulty level cranked up to 10, as two two-man teams must react to each other team, themselves within the team, and their surroundings, as they traverse the edges of water barrels and climbing to a 10-foot-high narrow platform.  It's at once joyous and intense. 

Chan's direction with Young Master is so much clearer than his Police Story 1 & 2 work, likely because they are somewhat more involved in their shooting (being shot on city streets and active locations).  He knows exactly what needs to be focused on in any given sequence, and even at this early stage in his career, seems to have a crew of people he trusts to carry out the plan, and follow the action.  Again, I don't have a deep knowledge of his repertoire, but this is a completely clean, crisp effort that doesn't attempt anything flashy behind the camera because it has absolutely no need to. The performances are all the flash needed.  An absolute gem of a movie, that I watched twice in the same week.

I Saw This!! Cleaning House

I Saw This (double exclamation point) is our feature wherein Kent or Toasty attempt to write about a bunch of stuff they watched some time ago and meant to write about but just never got around to doing so. But we can't not write cuz that would be bad, very bad.  Which is weird, considering I need to clean house, so I can have a brief hiatus, so I can just watch, and not with the intent, I have to write about it.

Also, I have Cleaned the Slate, and Cleaned out the Cupboards, but have I ever Cleaned House?

The other weird thing is that I gathered these all into a I Saw This!! post as it is usually used to write short bits about a bunch of stuff I am forgetting. But I wrote enough for each, to warrant their each own original post. Why? Who knows. But as you know, this blog, for me, is as much writing about writing the blog as it is about the movies, TV and other pop culture sources we watch to feed the blog. Just not after midnight.

See How They Run, 2022, Tom George (This Country) -- Disney+

Loved the trailers, chuckled out loud at a few quips and pratfallish jokes, was expecting a movie full of fun, whit, those kind of movies that I am waxing nostalgic on these days, the kind rented from Video Stores on Friday night for the entire family to watch. I guess I got much of that, but not a whole lot of the humour hit home for me. More puns were needed, I guess.

The elevator pitch for this movie must have been fun. It's a WhoDunnit based around one of the most famouse (wow, Freudian 'e') WhoDunnits, "The Mouse Trap". For those who don't know, this famous play has been running in London's west end, from 1952 until The Pause ... paused it. The movie has a murder take place during the celebrations of its 100th performance. That brings in Inspector Stoppard (I assume he's a Tom; Sam Rockwell, Moon) and the incredibly eager fledgling Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan, Hanna; ten bonus points for spelling her first name correctly the first time!). The humour comes from the interactions between the two police folk, and a few of suspects, especially once every one starts comparing the act of investigating a murder against the tropes and trappings of the WhoDunnit they are all so intimate with.

Unfortunately, "not cheeky enough" is also my determination, to quote Kent's post. I just wished that every joke fell as charmingly and disarmingly as Stalker's observation, "It's all downhill from there," after describing the victim being hit in the face with a ski. You see, the character cannot help herself from jumping to conclusions (the running gag which mostly loses steam) but also quipping about every thing. To be honest, more quips! That said, the underlying stories (Stalker trying to break through the glass ceiling, Stoppard's familial woes) are interesting, but just not interesting... enough.

Troll, 2022, Roar Uthaug (The Wave) -- Netflix

OMG I loved this, but more for the campy, tongue firmly in cheek manner in which he chose to direct the movie, than the actual plot. You see, its a rather intentional by-the-numbers plot but its the Michael Bay Norway Method he chose to execute the movie that makes it so much fun. Oh, and the fact that we get to see a troll kaiju stomping through Oslo.

That said, I cannot help but compare it to the earlier flick with pretty much the same premise, Troll Hunter, in that real life & giant trolls make themselves known to the world. In much the way most kaiju movies begin, circumstances awaken a troll, in shadowy and unclear visuals, which forces The Government (of Norway) to reach out to a panel of experts, including paleontologist Nora Tidemann, whose father is a disgraced scientist who was convinced trolls were real. Not sure why a paleontologist is of use to this investigation, but of course, she's the only one to notice the big arm in the blurry protestor footage (they were digging a tunnel through protected mountains) so they bring her along when they follow the path of destruction and big ol footprints. 

Its on its way to Oslo! Call in military! Find a way to defeat it! Smashy smashy helicopters who get closer than they should! All the familiar kaiju fight maneuvers and failures are dragged out, as the big thing galumphs his way towards the city, which they, of course, are able to miraculously empty out before the big guy stomps his way through. There is a back story as to why he is on his way to Oslo, and a redemptive arc for her father, who was right all along. And some tragedy. And lots of Baysplosions. 

Uthaug has a LOT of fun.

Bullet Train, 2022, David Leitch (Dead Pool 2) -- download/Amazon

Speaking of having a lot of fun, Brad Pitt (Fury) tries his hand at being John Wick, but without all  the angst and dead puppies, but with all the violent, colourful characters and massive body count.

Pitt is Ladybug, another aging, angsty hitman attempting to hang his guns up. His handler tasks him with retrieving a mcguffin from a bullet train leaving Tokyo, which ends up full of other colourfully named assassins, and yakuza thugs, in a plot/conspiracy all tied together in a confusing, often frustrating knot. This is Leith wanting to do what Tarantino has done in the past, albeit with even more glitz and confetti, but more often just leaves us as confused as Ladybug spends most the movie.

To be honest, despite the morass of badly convoluted plot points, which leave me not even attempting to recap, the movie is a whole lot of fun. Well, fun scene by scene. Veteran Pitt is able to carry the movie along, ever convincing as a reluctant killer on a streak of incredibly bad luck, and even worse luck which he transfers to others around him, which... well, strangely benefits him. But yeah, all colour and action and reserved quipping. But it does not succeed in what it is attempting to be, which is to become a new cultural phenom generating sequels, which considering the Japanese novel source material, is readily available. 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Fight or Flight

2024, James Madigan (a couple of TV episodes) -- download

What an odd, exuberant, violent little movie. With a conscience?

In our continued series of violent movies for violent minds is what I thought was going to be a rote actioner in the vein of Bullet Train but instead of a train full of killers, we get a plane, and in some ways it is that, but I wasn't expecting a painfully indie/low-budget elevator pitch, but... with heart?

I am struggling to understand what I saw. No, not the plot. That is typical, but I guess this is the world we live in now, where films can get green lit, from the black list, with minimal Purple Suit intervention, which is both for the better, and for the worse? There is a mashup of terrible budget related issues, like lighting (even when the cabin lights are dimmed, everything is brightly, flatly lit) and ADR (Hartnett at times sounds terribly high pitched, like no one understood sound levels) and the "twist" the plot is a bug-eyed, "what if we ...." silly (and yet, somehow still appropriate) idea. But the fight choreography is top notch and creative, and Hartnett & cast really truly play their little hearts out. And its not z-grade Scott Adkins level actioner, to be relegated to the bottom row of "if you liked X, watch Y" list on Amazon -- but no doubts, it will end up on Amazon. But it is most definitely not an A or B level Hollywood flick, which is frankly what I was expecting.

Yeah we see the struggle.

So, it opens with some sort of espionage agency op gone wrong. To chase down escaped criminal "The Ghost", agency head Brunt (Katee Sackhoff, Longmire) activates her ex-BF Lucas Reyes (Josh Hartnett, Trap) in a bar in Bangkok. He will follow said Ghost to a flight out of the country. If he does this one job for her, despite their history, she will wipe his slate clean. He reluctantly agrees.

The Ghost, some sort of terrorist hacker super villain that nobody knows what they look like, has boarded a plane bound for San Francisco, but someone has leaked a bounty on The Ghost, which has filled the plane up with assassins. You know where this is leading.

But almost from the get-go, things go... weird. The strange, colourful Spanish pop singer in First Class (what do we call that these days?) turns out to be one of the "plane full of hitmen" and also happens to have Reyes information. After Reyes dispatches the guy, he unsuccessfully hides the body from the cabin crew, and then has to engage them in what is going on. Huh, was not expecting that. Instead of turning the plane around, Reyes allies with the cabin crew to capture The Ghost. But yeah, expectedly, shit hits fans pretty quickly with killers coming out of the wood work pretty quickly, and ... well, the movie's first "twist" happens -- one of the cabin crew is The Ghost (Charithra Chandran, Bridgerton). Yes, international flight attendant and hacker/terrorist. Somehow she makes that work.

Things get silly almost immediately, but that is the vibe of the movie. And bloody and very very violent. The indie nature of the movie (i.e. not everything is well thought through) has scenes flipping from "their are passengers who are collateral damage!" to "so, the cabin is empty but for Reyes and Bad Guys?" but we forgive it.

Oh, and the conscience I mentioned is because Reyes is on the outs with the Secret Service because he assaulted the diplomat he was supposed to protect, someone who liked to beat on underage prostitutes. And The Ghost is a Good Guy, not a terrorist at all. Sure, she blows shit up, but to do Noble Things like free enslaved children from greedy corporate sweat shops. While Reyes does want his life back, he also feels beholden to her agenda.

And the end of movie twist? The ridiculous thing that ... maybe kind of sorta works? The shadowy "espionage agency" led by Brunt turns out to be Facebook. Not literally but the idea of a big blue-coloured corporation that has more power than it should.

Its a fun movie, if a little unintentionally sloppy and truly the only thing annoying about it was how it wore its influence on its sleeve (insert reference to John Wick) instead of leaning all the way into the wacky nature. Sure, we get a chainsaw scene (who has a chainsaw on a plane ?!?!?) and Reyes is played like a sort of drunken master, but I would have upped the mayhem into almost farce levels.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

2024, Adam Wingard (The Guest) -- cinema

So, the last movie was Godzilla v(s) Kong and this one is Godzilla x Kong, does that mean there is a unpublished Godzilla w Kong which is more a buddy movie, having them go from city to city, drinking tanker ships of IPA, napping in landmarks? Then finally they get sick of each other, and Kong heads underground?

We hopes. Come on Purple Suits, do me a solid !!

Anywayz.

I blame it on my mood of late, but I wasn't as into this as much as I was the last (during; cuz you sure were looking forward to it before hand, especially as a K n T Outing). Something about it just didn't hook me as much as the last one did. Sure, its still Big Dumb Fun and not as irritatingly taking itself serious as the second movie does, but something about it was just not clicking. During this morning's shower thoughts, I think I may have touched on something, but I am still working through it -- that the monsters had become too much people, and less than the monsters I love them being.

Much of this movie is a Kong movie, Big G just sort of making guest appearances before the big battle. Its not like that is out of character for the Godzilla movies, but Kong gets TONS of screen time and the bulk of the story. You see, there are still more apes down below, albeit hiding out, or trapped, in another even deeper layer of the Hollow Earth (someone disappointed that the "its another dimension" commentary from the TV show Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was not in play here) in a volcano under the thrall of a disgraced ape Skar King (seriously, what's with the K ? Do you want us to call him Skar Sking Skong?).

Meanwhile, Jia (Kaylee Hottle, Magnum PI) is having bad daydreams and Monarch is once again getting signals that they don't know what to do with. Sooooo, everyone and Bernie goes into Hollow Earth to find the source of the signal, cuz... well, cuz. Everyone is Jia, Jia's mom Dr. Andrews (Rebecca Hall, The Night House), Bernie the Podcaster (Brian Tyree Henry, Bullet Train), Trapper the Vet (Dan Stevens, Downtown Abbey) and a seriously overweight Monarch Henchmen -- sorry, not to fat shame, but gun toting mooks who need to protect people from giant monsters should be in shape -- lots of running is in in the job description. That said, he does make a tasty snack to a .... tree?

At the source of the signal they find the real home of the Tuti, I mean the Iwi tribe that Jia is  no longer the last of. I guess when Kong & Family crawled out of the hole from Hollow Earth, they followed? Anywayz, these Iwi live under the watchful eye of Mothra... or another moth, or... how is she alive again? Didn't she turn into pixie dust in the last movie in order to provide Big G a power-up? Either way, she is here. The Iwi know the real story behind the Other Monkeys, and how they rebelled against their chosen purpose to protect People, and were banished to firey caves below the below. You see, Skar King is essentially the titan embodiment of the eco-terrorist Jonah from the second movie, as in they both want to wipe humanity from the surface of the Earth. But yeah, Big G won't be having any of that, nor are the Iwi, nor is Kong the Original.

On the surface, Big G is wandering around eating rambunctious titans (crab-spider-elder-horror-ick + chinese dragon named Tiamat) in order to get a new power up. Little did he know Mothra was back to help him out, but really, these movies have had enough blue lazer-y Big G power, they need some Barbie-era pink energy, and some synth-wave music score to go with it!

Eventually everyone and their monkey's uncle ends up on the surface, to have the big end of movie brawl. Skar King and his pet Bewilderbeat (fr How to Train Your Dragon) arrive to freeze Rio, Kong has his new PowerGlove and Pink G. Waitasec, I think it starts in Egypt where they smashy smash the pyramids and then... go to Rio?

It is at this point, I admit, despite the fun being had in the recap above, I was actually nodding off. Again, its more related to Other Things Going On than the movie itself, but yeah, I have lost track.

So, yeah the big dust up frees the Bewilderbeast, who becomes an ally, doesn't dust Mothra but turns Skar King into a big pile of icey monkey which will leave a hell of a stink in Rio when he thaws out. Kong returns to the Hollow Earth to free the other titantic apes and begin a whole new family, while Pink G goes back to Rome to his fav nap spot.

The End.

But we cannot finish talking about the movie without mentioning a few things.

Why is there a Titan Vet? What the fuck work would Trapper have to do other than playing dentist to Kong that one time? And why does he automatically have equipment made to help in said dentistry? 

After the number of titan battles that happen in this movie, the untold thousands who would have died in each of the surprised cities, I think I am on the side of the people who just want all of the titans dead. Maybe this remains part of "the balance" they are there to bring back to the planet (no comment on the massive amount of regrowth that is caused by titan remains, mentioned in the second movie) but still, massive massive casualty numbers. 

After all that has happened in these movies, why is Monarch still seen as a sketchy company that world governments don't trust? Its not like you can sweep these guys under the carpet. Also, shouldn't they be self-funding, using the energy source found in the Hollow Earth as a way to do away with most fossil fuels? I mean Apex was able to power up Mech Zilla with just a blueprint of these blue crystals. Seems worth some coin.

Did we really need Bernie in this movie?

Kent's post !!

The Dark Year: Deadpool 2

Because we never have enough projects in this Blog, I am creating one of my own, wherein I indulge my desire to rewatch a movie (because sometimes a rewatch is easier than absorbing a new movie) but also fill in a blank left by the Great Hiatus of 2018. It will be more interesting to me to see what I will be willing to rewatch, than see what I missed writing about.

Technically, this was a rewatch of  "Deadpool 2: Super Duper Cut".

2018, David Leitch (Bullet Train) -- download

To (pseudo) quote Kent, and NTW, "You're exhausting."

Not sure if it was a good idea to watch the extended version as a reminder of the movie and to build a post for what was lost. This one is just a smidgen too much of an untethered Ryan Reynolds, and yes, kind of exhausting. Of the fifteen extra minutes of footage, about 4 minutes are worth the maximum effort put in to produce a "director's cut". And the alternate music chosen is... painful.

Anywayz, still loved it as a whole and for some very specific points, but again, not as much as the first movie. I think the first is pretty much a perfect movie for me.

The movie begins with Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, Bolt Neck) post Deadpool doing his best, fucked up version of being a superhero -- killing all kinds of bad guys from around the world. This opening is where a lot of the extended footage goes, so Mr. Pool can kill and kill and kill and chop and quip his way through tons of Bad Guys. Someone on the team must have really liked that iconic "smashing through the glass" scene in Ghost in the Shell (both anime movie, and IRL movie) as they pretty much recreate it. And a weird twist is that because the scene is extended, they have to replace the Dolly song with a longer one. Doesn't work.

Anywayz, one of the Bad Guys that Deadie misses killing (still not sure why he runs away from them; he shouldn't have any problem with a bunch of thugs) comes back and, well... the cheese spreader misses, the bullet kills Vanessa (Morena Baccarin, Greenland). Cut to James Bond-ian opening credits featuring Celine Dionne doing her song "Ashes" while the credits react to Vanessa being killed in the same snarky manner as the first movie's credits. Its really, truly effective, but I have to say I still prefer the Jordan Smith version of "Ashes" as it carries more pathos and less diva. I believe that appeared in the yet-another different version of this movie, the Once Upon a Deadpool PG version.

Enter Deadpool trying to kill himself montage (some extra stuff), ending with his apartment filled with barrels of something fiery and KABOOM.

Didn't the explosion kill a lot of people in his apartment building or is the disrepaired state we saw the place, in "Deadpool" implying its an abandoned building he is squatting in? That might be me trying to forgive the fact that he really is truly a sociopath who wouldn't care if he killed dozens in collateral damage.

Enter Colossus (Stefan Kapicic, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare) stuffing his body pieces into a bag and dragging him back to the X-Mansion. This is the aspect of the plot I don't really care about, and yet, is essential to the story that Ryan Reynolds is trying to tell, probably something to do with contrast -- Colossus really wants to redeem Deadpool, have him become a proper "hero". Deadpool resists but eventually, seemingly, submits to the will of Colossus and is allowed on a mission as a "X-Man in Training". He gets a training tshirt.

Don't forget your favourite relationship in the whole franchise -- "Hi Wade!! Hi Yukio!"

Said first mission -- The Home for Wayward Mutants *ahem* "Essex House for Mutant Rehabilitation", basically a place for mutant children to be dumped, and abused by a sociopathic headmaster & staff. Deadpool makes some rough attempts at calming Russell (Julian Dennison, Godzilla vs Kong), the angry fireball-using kid, down but eventually he figgers out what is happening to the kid(s) and kills one of the staff. I think he also gathers that the (run) DMC ("Dept of Mutant Corrections") that showed up have mutation-suppressing technology and that could work on him, allowing him to die. So, bang, one dead pedophile, one disappointed Colossus and the two of them are off to the IceBox.

So, Russell is condemned to a maximum security prison for... lighting a few fires? There's no legal activities, no court, no sentencing, just .... clink, you're in jail ? And he's a minor !!

Also, the IceBox is supposed to be in the North West Territories, so would that make the city this movie takes place in actually Vancouver? Nah, as it appears to be in driving distance of said city, likely the IceBox is in the Rockies and the city is some west-coast California fictional city.

Prison. Deadpool with no powers, and many kinds of cancer just reappearing in his body. You would think they would grow back slowly in his healed body, but whatever, plot. We get lots of usual prison antics, and Russell seems to have taken Deadpool seriously in the opening bit, because he thinks they are friends. Deadie makes sure he knows otherwise, so Russell befriends the monster at the end of the hall -- Juggernaut. They don't say Juggernaut but we all know its Juggernaut. 

Then Cable (Josh Brolin, Old Boy) appears to blow shit up with his electro-splosive gun that Goes to 11. Shit does blow up and the two of them are knocked outside, where Deadpool... almost dies? Anywayz, one loverly vision of Vanessa telling him its not his time yet, and he has to save Russell.

Why doesn't Cable just dust himself off and climb back into the prison to finish the job of killing Russell? Cuz plot.

So, now we get the fun-tage act of the movie where Deadpool decides the best and only way to save Russell is to build a team. Over an undetermined amount of time, but it must have been long, he recruits, interviews and assembles his new team X-Force. He also hires/buys a helicopter and crew? This whole act, including the giant action set-piece that follows, is the most fun the movie has. There are injokes, Marvel references, horrible deaths, micro-cameos and the best character in the entire movie -- Domino (Zazie Beetz, Joker), who's power is luck -- and apparently a substantial lack of empathy cuz the collateral damage she "causes" is scary. But she is the perfect antidote for Deadpool's quippiness with her own droll brand. The action set-piece involving a fight between Cable, Deadpool, with some of Domino's help is this movie's (s)equal to the opening sequence from the first movie, i.e. lots of slowmo and weird/fun angles. It ends with Deadpool literally torn in half by The Juggernaut (Ryan Reynolds, 6 Underground), after he fanboys / breaks 4th wall, out. Domino collects up the pieces.

Or at least one half. What does happen to the "pieces" of Deadpool after he begins healing? Do they quickly decay and melt away or are there parts of him rotting all over the city. Also, and its referenced briefly in-movie, does his head grow a new body or do they just jam the pieces together and watch them reattach? Probably not or we wouldn't get our whole shirt-cocking baby-legs joke segment, but that makes me (him) wonder why everyone still collects up pieces when all they need is a head and whatever is attached.

So, in the last act, Russell has escaped with the help of The Juggernaut. Everyone knows he will go kill the headmaster who abused him. Cable shows up because he wants help. He also monologues the reasons why, and Deadpool convinces him to at least give Russell a chance -- if he Deadpool stops him from killing the headmaster, he stops him from becoming a kill-addicted psychopath in the future that murders Cable's family. Cable is not fully convinced, but....

Its just an OK act, focused equally on the "CGI fist fest" between Colossus and Juggernaut, and Cable & Deadpool killing a bunch of basically unarmed medical attendants -- sure some have shotguns, and they are all labelled "pedophiles" and are guilty by association, but reminder (!!!) sociopath !! Domino is also in the background realizing her whole reason for being in the movie was to end up here, as she was raised in the orphanage. So, she gets to murder some staff as well, while saving kids. 

I am kind of meh about this whole fight, but it is fun to see Colossus just let loose. It all ends with Deadpool finally, truly dying, sacrificing himself for Russell. It does affect him, it DOES stop him from becoming a murder-y fire-fist in the future, and Cable is impressed. So much so that he uses his last bit of time-juice to go back and slightly alter the scene -- Russell is still saved, still doesn't become murder-y, but Deadpool lives.

Happy ever after.

Closing montage of more referential material of Deadpool with a now-fixed timey-wimey device "setting things right" including killing his alternate version from that Wolverine movie, and killing Ryan Reynolds before he plays Green Lantern. Light chuckles. Again, like Kent, by now I am just exhausted. Also, the whole "kill Hitler" scene doesn't make sense especially since the whole point of the movie is that you shouldn't kill people as kids just because they are evil as adults.

Its a fun movie, a LOT of fun. I really do prefer the edited-down version, despite having a historical fondness for "director's cuts". 

Oh, we can't wait for your post about the uber-mega-super-long "Rebel Moon" movies !!! Squeee....

KWIF: The Fall Guy (+5)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week (uh huh) Kent has a spotlight movie in which Kent writes a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else Kent watched that week (or maybe a month ago and forgot about) Kent does a quick little summary of my thoughts. Just not in third person.

This Week:
The Fall Guy (2024, d.  David Leitch - in theatre)
Millennium Actress (2001, d. Satoshi Kon - the shelf)
Witness (1985, d. Peter Wier - the binder)
Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre (2023, d. Guy Ritchie - AmazonPrime)
Clear and Present Danger (1994, d. Phillip Noyce - the binder)
Blackhat (2015, d. Michael Mann - the binder)

---

I don't know if I can really write a longer, thinker piece about The Fall Guy because it doesn't seem like much thought was put into the film itself. 

I'm being rude. 

The Fall Guy was a film I actually had a good time with, largely based on the explosive and almost effortless chemistry between Emily Blunt (Gnomeo and Juliet) and Ryan Gosling (Young Hercules) -- two extremely attractive people that look even more attractive together. Do Eva Mendes and John Krasinski need to be worried? Or at least extremely jealous?

This film is director, and former stuntman, David Leitch's love letter to stuntmen and stunt crews, wrapped in an action rom-com. Leitch over the years has proven his action-directing chops with Atomic Blonde, Deadpool 2, Hobbs & Shaw, and Bullet Train. Each of those films may not have the greatest of stories, but the action tends to be really fun. 

And the action is fun here. There's a great "tripping balls" fight in a nightclub, and a swing arm garbage truck chase/fight sequence through the streets of Sydney that strive to stand out. I think the problem with post-John Wick action-heavy films is the action is too heavy and so nothing really stands out, and the same goes here.

What's more, I found the fact that we were watching a lot of stunts from the perspective of a film crew, seeing all the cameras and cables and tracks required, which was necessary as part of the film's narrative, but it ruins the illusion and lessens the impact of the stunts (most stunts, really, should inspire at least a bit of awe, but we've seen and know too much now, and they've become a little commonplace, undervalued).  I do appreciate that Leitch lets everyone in on the action, with the welcomed, if under-utilized Stephanie Hsu and Winston Duke each getting a sequence of their own, and Blunt reminding us she's more than capable of throwing fists when needed.

As a crime/mystery story, the more it reveals itself, the dumber it gets. It's a real nonsense plot which requires an acceptable amount of suspension of disbelief to start with (the star is missing, Colt is asked to discreetly track him down only to find a dead body and have things go even more wrong for him from there. But there's no real world logic to how wrong it gets, and the more you pick at it, the more it bleeds. There's only so much belief I could suspend and this stretched it to its breaking point.

What eventually made my suspension of disbeleif snap, though, was the film-within-a-film. A sci-fi epic called "Metalstorm" that looked, at best, like a sequel to Battlefield Earth. It looked like a mid-budget remake of the Barry Bostwick 80's b-movie Megaforce. This film would have you believe it was the next Dune or Star Wars, and it just looks like trash. The Fall Guy is a pretty good looking film. It really needed "Metalstorm" to look incredible, or play into it being B-movie action trash, not say it was an A-tier movie, but look like B-tier trash.

As a romcom, this is aces. I was in for every sleepy and/or doe-eyed stare that Colt and Judy give each other. Their dialogue was charming, funny and seemingly effortless in its delivery, and that split-screen sequence was terribly cute. Gosling and Blunt, all day, every day.

---

Watching Perfect Blue last week felt like a revelation, like there was a piece of cinematic language missing from my vocabulary all these years which I now understood. Millennium Actress couldn't compete with that type of lifting of the veil.

It also didn't help that I just wanted to sleep the entire time it was on. 

I didn't fall asleep, though, which is a testament to how engaged I was with it (I did fall asleep while writing this post).

Once again director Kon proves his mastery at the transition and edit. Where Perfect Blue was a Giallo-tinged suspense thriller, Millennium Actress is a romantic drama that, all at once, tells us a character's life story and steps us through seventy years of Japan's cinematic history through which we get a staggering sense of Japanese history.  Let me tell you that as a viewer having a very limited amount of knowledge of Japanese history -cinematic or otherwise- it does this film a disservice.

The story is of a studio executive and a young cameraman visiting a famous, but long-retired, reclusive actress to interview her after the demolition of the studio of which she was a big part of building. The exec, who you would expect to be forceful and entitled, is instead a gushing fanboy with nothing but the utmost respect and reverence for the actress.  He presents her with a key which the actress thought lost years ago, and the totem unlocks a lifetime of memories.

The actress recounts her birth, how she was discovered by a producer, her first film, but also her encounter as a teen in the 1930s with a young artistic rebel whom she helps escape by shielding from the law. She is instantly smitten by him, a soulful artist, and the key was a gift from him which she was made to promise to return to him, what became her life's mission.

Her real life blurs into her acting roles as she describes them. Like Perfect Blue the transitions between real life and her acting are seamless and, at times, difficult to discern.  Her roles, or at least the ones that matter to her in retelling her life, are the ones of a young romantic longing for an unseen man who she desperately wants to find. The roles step through the eras and genres of film, from samurai to geisha to Kaiju to sci-fi.  All the while as she recounts her blurred story of life and work, the producer and cameraman are present in the story, the producer injecting himself into roles in the films he clearly knows so well. It turns out, he was a young production assistant during her later films at the studio and was, once or twice, a part of her story.

It's a surprising film in how down to earth it is. It is a film that deceptively seems like it should have been live action, but to have the actress span the ages she does is almost impossible for a single performer, and to have the scale of adventurous productions in her repertoire would make for an expensive film.  Plus, I don't know that any live action director alive has a handle on seamless transitions like Kon.

---

For four years I had an art teacher in high school who loved Peter Weir films, and would play them in class while we were toiling away on our sketches. I've seen Dead Poets Society, Green Card, and Fearless numerous times. Of the three, only the latter did I actually like.  If you look at the release dates of those films, you can tell which years I went to high school (accounting for the delay between theatrical and home video release). I don't know why, if he was such a fan, we never saw The Cars that Ate Paris, Gallipoli, Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Mosquito Coast, or Witness.

I have just assumed all this time that I'm not a Peter Weir fan. And I'm not. But I've spent some time thinking I'm opposed to Peter Weir, and, after watching Witness for the first time, it turns out I'm not. 

Witness is a surprisingly patient movie from an era of filmmaking where its action movies were increasingly bombastic and its thrillers were full of sex, violence and cliches. This lacks almost any bombastic action, and there's no sex, an anti-violence message, and its cliches are tossed out the side of the horse-drawn buggy. 

It's got plenty of Amish. And I thought this story of a police man protecting a young Amish boy (Lucas Haas, Mars Attacks) who witnessed a murder would be full of crude, reductive stereotyping of the community instead places Harrison Ford (Working Girl) as Captain John Book within the community where he is largely respectful of its traditions, keen to help out, and even finds a bit of peace while he's there. 

He also starts falling for Rachael (Kelly McGillis, Stake Land) the boy's mother, but also keeps his hands to himself, respectfully remembering they are people of two very different worlds.  There is an intense attraction between the two of them that just builds until, following the climactic conflict between Book and the bad guys, deflates like a balloon. The scene of Rachael looking out her window to see Book chatting up his police pals by their cop cars, smoking a cigarette, it is just an incredible moment that reinforces the gulf that separates the two of them. The thread of attraction that seemed to grow inot a bridge made out of stone turns out to just be a wispy thin thread.

Along with the film's climax -- where Weir, instead of delivering that oh-so-American release of catharsis and shooting up the bad guy instead ends with an appeal to his humanity -- proves the director isn't interested in the most satisfying ending for the audience, but the one that feels most real.

This is a pretty great movie, held down by a drone of a score that might as well not have been there at all, and one of the most awkward impassioned kissing scenes I've seen.

---

One of the dumbest titles in recent cinematic history, Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre finds Guy Ritchie delivering a script with plenty of charming flourishes, and leading a cast where everyone seems game (even Jason Statham (The Beekeeper), well, at least for the first 20 minutes where he flirts with the idea of adopting a character before he falls back into default Statham mode). 

Josh Hartnett (Halloween H20) does that "proof I can be funny" supporting role mid-life crisis thing that modern actors have done since Tom Cruise appeared in Tropic Thunder. He's good, and handsome, and, yes, funny playing a pompous, pampered superstar actor (if we're comparing, he does a better job than Aaron Taylor Johnson in the same role in The Fall Guy).  Aubrey Plaza (Ingrid Goes West) sometimes feels like she's in the wrong movie, but I would watch that movie. Cary Elwes (Robin Hood: Men In Tights) gets some good cracks, and Hugh Grant (Wonka) genuinely seems to be enjoying himself. 

There is that odd take in the elevator with Hartnett where Grant breaks after barely delivering his line... which speaks to one of the larger problems of this film: it feels unrefined. There's a lack of care, and certainly a lack of flair to the overall production. It doesn't look great, it looks barely a cut above, say, Burn Notice or some other action TV series. This obviously wasn't a cheap movie, so why then does Ritchie's work on Netflix's The Gentlemen TV series look so much better? The editing here proves serviceable but we've been so locked into the idea that Ritchie movies are highly stylized, that this largely doesn't feel like a Ritchie movie. 

Ritchie already did his take on Bond with Man from U.N.C.L.E., while this feels like his riff on Mission Impossible if it were done by Asylum. It's certainly inessential to his repertoire.  I think the director just likes to work, he's found a mid-range groove and he's maybe going to coast there for the rest of his career.

---

The third entry in the Jack Ryan "series" (and the second with Harrison Ford [Cowboys & Aliens] in the role) finds Ryan becoming embroiled in the "War on Drugs". The PotUS's friend is found murdered alongside his whole family, the culprits being the Cali Cartel. The President wants swift retribution, under the guise of the War on Drugs, and discreetly has his national security advisor run an off-the-books operation to take out the head of the cartel.

When Ryan's friend and mentor Admiral Greer (James Earle Jones, Conan The Barbarian) falls ill, Ryan takes his place as Deputy Director of Operations in the CIA. He is dispensed to Columbia to try and find other means to cutting off the supply chains to the US.  He petitions Congress for more funds, and Congress agrees so long as no military engagement is enacted. Little does he know he is set up to be the fall guy for it.  

The film is a pretty taut political thriller that falls apart only with a jingoistic third act that finds Ryan single handedly going to Columbia to bring back the soldiers left behind by the NSA.  It turns into a ridiculously out-of-place rescue-the-POWs action sequence that neuters the political intrigue that had been the film's raison d'etre up til that point. 

The finale of the film finds Ford's Ryan dressing down the President ("How dare you, sir!") by holding the most powerful position in the land to a standards of decency and responsibility that have absolutely been abandoned in the past decade. It's perhaps the most upsetting (and unintentional) note of the film.

---

In the past dozen years of massive disastrous box office performances, Blackhat still stands out as one of the biggest bombs, recouping under 20 million of its 70 million dollar budget.  

It's not just that the film tanked at the box office, but it was both critically and socially derided at the time. That beautiful brick wall of a man, Chris Hemsworth, Thor himself, playing a nerdy master computer hacker. It was laughable in its very conception.

But a funny thing happened in the years since, the Michael Mann fans have managed to drown out the knee-jerk reactionaries and get the film into a "reclaimed" status. Certainly the podcasts and socials I feed into have been saying as such for a couple years now.

Having seen the film (then forgetting to log it) I have to say, bluntly, not bad. In fact, good. Not great, certainly flawed, but good.

My biggest gripe with the film is how Mann shot it.  It's a film that puts Mann in Steven Soderbergh mode, using a lot of different types of digital cameras and lenses and I found jumping between them quite distracting.

The film begins with a nuclear power station melting down. It was hacked and the cyberwarfare arm of the People's Liberation Army want to find the culprit. Captain Chen (Leehom Wang) of the division aligns with the FBI in the US, needing genius-level hacker (and his college roommate) Nick Hathaway freed from prison in order to sniff out whomever was capable of such an attack.  A subsequent attack on the stock market only exacerbates the need to find the culprit.  

It's a pretty taut globetrotting cyber-thriller all told. It takes some tense and scary turns as it leans into just how reliant we are upon technology, and just how vulnerable that technology is to malicious interference.

I can ignore the sketchy accent, and I can even buy into Hemsworth as a hacker, but how did Hathaway get so adept at knife fighting and shooting guns? There was a lot of nonsense in the film, questions raised and never answer, but I still just rolled with it and enjoyed the ride.

I had just watched Decision to Leave the night before watching this, so I was pumped for more Tang Wei and this did not disappoint in that regard. Loved the cast which also features Holt McCallany and Viola Davis.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Princess

2022, Le-Van Kiet (The Ancestral) -- download

Download? This was a Hulu/Disney+ movie!! But where is it? WTF Disney, why are you cleaning house of the movies I never got around to watching yet? It was only there a year !!

I was in the mood for a "fantasy movie", i.e. something with swords and pseudo-medieval worlds, not necessarily with magic or monsters but something in the D&D vein. This one about a faerie tale princess who turns the tables on her captors fit the bill quite well.

And I liked this movie. It perfectly scratched the itch I had. It also had a rather expeditious nature to it that fit the Wuxia inspired action rather well. There isn't a lot of world building here; we are just dropped in a situation. Princess (no name given) (Joey King, Bullet Train) awakens, groggy, in manacles, locked in The Tower. Two leather clad henchmen were sent to check on her, and are probably about to grope her, when she attacks. She's no meek princess and makes quick work of them, while still recovering from whatever overcame her. She kicks ass.

Think reverse-The Raid as The Princess makes her way down the tower defeating enemies and hiding as the circumstances require. As she makes her way, we are given her recollections of the events that got her put there, as well as the requisite background. Good King (no name given) (Ed Stoppard, Knightfall) was about to marry his eldest daughter off to smug nobleman no na....er... Julius (Dominic Cooper, Preacher). He does not have a male heir and feels he has no other options. But The Princess is not traditional in the least, and abandons her betrothed mid-ceremony. In response, Julius takes the castle. And her.

She does not react well to that. Julius does not react well to her daring to rebuff him. But he still feels he has to marry her in order to win the people's hearts. He could just be a plain old usurper, but tradition rules this land. But The Princess has made her choice and all who stand in her way will feel her wrath. And she's a skilled warrior, so even Julius's best and biggest barbarian cannot defeat her.

Its a silly movie, with lots that doesn't make sense outside the faerie tale sub-genre, but it was a lot of fun and Joey King has you rooting for her almost immediately. Oh, it could have used a bit more polish and finesse, but it more than satisfied the desire I had for a "movie with swords".

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): 28 Years Later

2025, Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) -- download

And even before I get my first paragraph into the stub post, the trailer for the follow-up movie, a sort of Pt 2 to this one, has arrived. I did not know they were going to do that. At least it lifts us from expectations of '28 Decades Later'.

My rewatch at the beginning of the year, and Kent's post about this movie.

I'm feeling a recappy coming on...

When last we left our spreading red map of an infographic, the Rage Virus, having jumped the Chunnel to the mainland, was taking over the world and.... record scritch... nope, the rest of the world beat it back. Like the Americans in the last movie, the rest of the world has survived, and unlike the Americans in the last movie, nobody came to the assistance of the UK, after the failed attempt at resettlement. They just quarantined the whole goddamn nation and let them die, infected and survivors alike.

A whole generation has past.

On the island of Lindisfarne, in northern England, near the Scottish border, on the east coast, a settlement of survivors ekes out a meagre life. The island is connected to the mainland by a tidal causeway providing protection against the mindless infected. Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bullet Train) is taking Spike (Alfie Williams, A New Breed of Criminal), his 12 year old son to the mainland for his manhood ritual. Spike is younger than normal for this event, but Jamie is a bit of a overinflated ego on the whole matter. The idea is that if you go to the mainland, and don't come back in the alloted time, nobody is allowed to go find you. You died or got infected; that's it, end of story. Isla (Jodie Comer, The End We Start From), Spike's mother, spends her day in bed, suffering an unknown malady, likely neurological in nature, as she has lucid moments followed by ranting outbursts. Spike loves his mum; Jamie seems... burdened.

This is a hunting trip, but not for food. Spike is learning how to kill infected, and learn a bit about the past. They pass through the deforested land where the island cuts its wood, they see massively repopulated herds of deer, and they see the evolution of the infected. Unlike the second movie, where all died off, a new ecosystem seems to have formed, likely built on a slow depopulation cycle of survivors, infected and non-infected alike. They run into the obesely fat "slow-lows" who belly-crawl across the forest floor eating every living thing they come across: bugs, worms, etc. Their constant eating has made them... something else. Elsewhere in some sort of pack mentality, an "alpha" has risen, a massively muscled, bigger & less vulnerable to damage example. But Jamie and Spike are not there to investigate, but to ... run. Once they get an Alpha on their tail, the only thing to do is hide or flee. And flee back to the island they do, finally killing the Alpha on the causeway. Spike has survived his first trip, barely, and with the guilt of being utterly terrified almost every moment of it.

But Spike did learn one thing from his father while over there -- that there is a doctor, a man who survived all these years, a man with mainland medical knowledge. Spike, whose awareness of doctors and medicine is entirely mythical, thinks the man can help his mother, and so formulates a plan. He escapes with her and some meagre supplies, back to the mainland, to find this doctor and save his mother from whatever ails her. Jamie is not allowed to chase after.

What Spike finds first is the lone survivor of a capsized Swedish patrol boat. They were beset by an Alpha and despite superior weaponry & training all but one died horribly. This Alpha likes to pull people's heads off, along with a bit of spinal column -- his trophies. From this cocky mainlander Spike hears, but learns little, of a world of cell phones, and jobs, and videos, and parties and take-out food. The rest of the world has continued after the rage plague, carrying naught for the plight of the UK. 

They do find Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes, The Menu), but not before losing the Swede, and gaining... a baby, from an infected mother, but one who bore an apparently uninfected child. Dr. Kelson has lived on solitude, on his own little island, one decorated with effigies to the dead -- massive towers of boiled, beach skulls & bones. In his own more than a little mad way he remembers the old world and all those who lost their lives. His quick examination of Isla tells him she has cancer, and doesn't likely have long left to live. To him, memories of the lost are as important as the living themselves, but really, that's all he has. 

Kelson leads Isla to an early and painless death. A new life has replaced her soon to end one. Spike climbs one of Kelson's towers to lovingly place his mother's skull upon the altar of memory. Instead of peace, they are attacked by the Alpha who has been dogging their trail. Spike does fight him off, saving Kelson, and leaves with the new baby. He leaves her, now named Isla for his mother, at the gate, with a note to his father, before returning to the mainland. Spike's journey is not over; he has yet to find meaning in his fruitless quest to save his mother, in continued existence, despite bringing new life to his island.

The movie comes to a close with Spike fleeing a pack of infected, only to be saved by a very very odd bunch of survivors. Dressed in track suits, bouncing about and cackling like baboons, these are the Jimmy's, surviving youth who follow a now grown young boy from the movie's preamble (no, I did not recap that). They invite Spike to join.

What the what? This almost-coda, doesn't give us any closure to this movie without much resolution. Like Spike, we are left wondering what was the point of it all, why introduce all this post-apocalypse world, why give us hints of memories of the past, but... leave it all hanging. The first two movies, more the first, successfully had endings, survivors getting away. Spike did get away, but the movie not being all about survival hinted that there should be more.

Oh, there was. In another movie.

This is an odd little/big movie. Its the most po-ap of the trilogy, the most packed with (new) world building, which always catches my eye. It is about survival, but its not. It has hints of beauty, but is mostly horror. The design of the movie, shot all with unsophisticated cameras, like iPhones and GoPro's and drones, is fascinating, but not sure it lent a whole lot to the experience. I liked what I got, but until I got that surprising exposure to the next movie I was not sure of the why of it all. Now, I am more than a little intrigued.

Rewatch: Atomic Blonde

2017, David Leitch (Bullet Train) -- Netflix

Weird, I didn't write about this one. And even though I generally "rewatch" things so I don't have to write about it (i know i know, self imposed baggage & rules about writing something that is supposed to be fun, and not to be avoided) I feel I have to. One, because it was inspired by another rewatch -- Extraction, because the entirely expected sequel comes out this week, and it has an absolutely spectacular chase-fight scene shot to look like a single take but built with from transitions, all handled by the director himself (Sam Hargrave) with a camera strapped to his chest. In watching a little YouTube about these/this scene(s), I learned he also did it once before in Atomic Blonde which I did remember, despite not writing about it, being a spectacular fight. And Two, because I felt the need to include it in the tag "women with guns" after writing about The Mother. 

Of note, I have been gravitating to the extreme end of violence in my rewatches of late. As long as there are guns blazing, I am calmed, as my mind off-screen has been anything but.

Atomic Blonde is a spy thriller set at the end of the Cold War in Berlin, mostly East. British agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron, The Old Guard) is relating to a pair of superiors (Toby Jones, The Detectorists), one an American (John Goodman, Treme), about an op gone wrong in Berlin. She bears the barely healed marks of the failure literally on her face. An agent she knew, but denies, was killed before he could get the classic "operative list" MacGuffin out of East Berlin. She is sent there to connect with the station chief David Percival (James McAvoy, Wanted), who has gone mostly native, buried deep in the black market. From the moment she arrives, she is under siege, having to navigate the twists and turns and double-backs between Russia and the Allies, as Berlin builds to a powder keg, which we in the 21st century know ends with the fall of the Wall.

The movie shifts from convoluted spy games, to sexy 80s-music-pumped intrigue to bone crunching violence. Percival is obviously playing his own game, but she still has to work with him, as he is the connection to the defector (Eddie Marsan, Wrath of Man) who supposedly has the MacGuffin list memorized. Lorraine is playing her own game, the way she wants to play it, but weighed down by the exhausting fights & betrayals. 

I want to like this movie more than I do. I probably didn't write about it the first time because I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. Still not really sure. But it is beautifully designed & shot, Theron is phenomenal and in the long run, I am there for the Hargrave fight scenes. The scene in question is up and down stairs, through doors and walls, using guns, knives and the environment as a weapon; Broughton is tall but lighter than the men she is fighting and they allow that to play through. And you can see why she immerses herself in baths full of ice cubes, barely hiding the bruises and cuts under makeup.

ReWatch Snippets: Indulged

Literally, the same paragraph from the original snippets post applies:

"In a desire to embrace the mental state which leads me from NOT watching a movie proper, but after flicking through the "channels" for a bit, end up rewatching a movie I have seen before, and not always enjoyed that much. So, why? What drew me back? Let's see if I can put a bit of it to words."

I am not sure I will always tell the why but maybe the words I use will tell me why. 

The Accountant, 2016 Gavin O'Connor (Producer Mare of Easttown) -- Netflix

The sequel is coming out, so I thought I would remind myself of the movie. What I recalled. Christian Wolff is a hitman that works a side-gig as a forensic accountant, and he meets Dana Cummings for a bit role. He has lots of guns and kills lots of people, and yet the movie is somewhat quiet and thoughtful. What I didn't remember. Wolff is autistic, and he's not really an assassin. But he does have a massive armoury outfitted like he was an assassin. He does work for criminals, doing the accounting they need, and does the forensic accounting on the side to explain away his money. Anna Kendrick's role is kind of the love interest but not really, though there is attraction there; in the end, he gives her a painting she likes, worth millions. JK Simmons also plays a bit part, as a Treasury Agent who is fed enough information (by an anonymous source) to make him a good cop, but also keep him off Wolff's real trail. Also, Christian Wolff is not his real name, just that of a famous mathematician. Jon Bernthal comes in as Christian's brother, also violent, but a good brother in the end -- he forgives his brother for killing all the men in his employ.

Oblivion, 2013 Joseph Kosinski (Spiderhead) -- Amazon

Jack and Vic are an effective team. In a future where the world was destroyed by aliens, leaving not much but gritty ruins, the pair monitors the integrity of ocean sucking machinery which is supposed to be making fuel for the space colony that the remaining humans have escaped to. But Jack is more attached to The Earth that Was than he should be, or is allowed to be. Until he learns the truth, that he is not fighting the remaining alien invaders, but the remaining human survivors. And he's a clone, one of many protecting the ocean sucking machinery which makes fuel for the Evil AI in the Sky, from the remaining humans.

Its such a beautiful movie of greys and grit and clean white plastic, and for me is an enduring scifi movie full of things to be constantly rediscovered. Still don't like the ending which implies Jack Clone Two is going to hookup with Jack Clone One's wife, who I guess consummated their "marriage" (its complicated clone stuff) before he left to blow up the Evil AI in the Sky. I mean, yes they are very similar, but are "people" that replaceable? I don't think I would like the answer.

The Girl with All the Gifts, 2016 Colm McCarthy (Bagman) -- Amazon

Also rewatched The Last of Us TV series (still not writing about TV), based on the video game that came out around the same time as the short story from which this movie derives. Its hard to know if one spun off the other, as both deal with an apocalyptic plague after the cordyceps fugus jumps to humans turning the infected into ravening zombies, and both stories have a young girl who could be the hope for a turnaround, as long as you are OK with them being murdered ... for science. If I want to get pedantic about zombie sub-genres, and I usually do, its more "infected" than "zombie" as in both instances they are still living creatures that can die from too much traumatic force.

The first two acts of the movie really do it for me; an eerie introduction to the hungry kids who were found as newborns after eating their way out of their infected mothers, and the subsequent road story as the main characters escape from the collapse of their "safe" zone. The third act, which is properly apocalyptic, just bugs me for some reason... too nihilistic even for me? From the loss of the friendly soldier Kieran to the gnashy teeth of adolescents, to the true End of the World, I just felt depressed.

The Fall Guy, 2024 David Leitch (Bullet Train) -- Amazon

I just needed some light fare, and the movie warranted a rewatch purely for all the little fun bits and the charming cast members. I confirmed that though the movie's central plot is toss away, it is more than made up for by the wink-wink-nod-nod nature of the entire movie's construction. That the movie is based on a hammy 80s TV show and the plot is as much. That pretty much every big scene in the movie is a stunt within a stunt. That the first time I did not even know Teresa Palmer was in the movie, and this time I still did not recognize her as such. Hannah Waddingham is great, Stephanie Hsu is great, Winston Duke is great. Its a great Hollywood Hollywood movie and deserved more attention.

Casino Royale, 2006 Martin Campbell (Dirty Angels) -- Amazon
Quantum of Solace, 2008 Marc Forster (World War Z) -- Amazon
Skyfall, 2012 Sam Mendes (1917) -- Amazon
Spectre, 2015 Sam Mendes (Jarhead) -- Amazon
No Time to Die, 2021 Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation) -- Amazon

Is it OK to say I watched this run of James Bond movies for Daniel Craig's brutally violent and ruggedly macho version of Bond? And yet, at the same time, I am turned off by his callous probably way over the misogynist line treatment of women. I mean, in the first two movies he gets two women killed, and there is no fine line on that he is purely using them to reach his goals. He seems to have a wink of regret but that is about as far as it goes. This doesn't even change much when he unabashedly loves a woman. James definitely has some clinical issues with women. Its good that there are at least a few that don't fall to his wiles, my favourite being Paloma, of course. Swoon.

I liked that he died in the last one, in that it gives this Era of Bond its own continuity, even if they shared an M with earlier movies. Despite recent murmurs of an attempt to break the mould (of who could play the next Bond), I don't think the current climate would stomach it, and my favourite suggestion (Idris Elba) might age out of the possibility before we could embrace it again. 

Slither, 2006 James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy) -- Amazon

"Leaving soon," the tag line on Amazon said. "Why not," I asked. Still love this gross, goofy, irreverent horror-comedy. I remember having a pang of sympathy for Grant ... Grant (yes, his name is Grant Grant) a few rewatches ago, but this time I just see a sad, controlling man who gets what's coming to him. 

Paddington, 2014 Paul King (Space Force) -- download
Paddington 2, 2017 Paul King (The Mighty Boosh) -- download

We were about to watch the new one, so we again thought, "Why not." Also, the political climate of late has added a solid lump of anxiety pain in the pit of our stomach and these movies are so full of moments to brightly smile at.

Repeatedly so. Non-stop. During the first one I just smiled and smiled and smiled. Not at the comedy meant for kids, like him cleaning out his ears with their toothbrushes, but the sweet nice stuff like the painting on the stairwell, or ... holey freholey, I never wrote about these movies when I first saw them!! So, stopping here, as these two deserve their own, must more written about post.