"Thunderbolts*" - Review

Years after the death of her sister, Russian spy and trained assassin Yelena (Florence Pugh) is now working in wetworks for CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Juia Louis-Dreyfus) across the world, clearing her dirty laundry. Unsatisfied with her work, and longing for something to break her free of this anhedonia, she takes one last job for the troubled director (in hot water over her various operations) to eliminate a thief at one of her facilities. There, she bumps into anti-social misfit woman able to phase through objects Ava (Hannah John-Kamen); grouchy asshole and government backed, scandal-ridden Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell); old friend and fellow assassin "Taskmaster" (Olga Kurylenko) and a lost young man named Bob (Lewis Pullman). Forced to work together when it becomes clear they are being disposed of, the group go on the lam and seek revenge on Fontaine, drawing them into the orbit of washed up Russian supersoldier Alexei "Red Guardian" Shostakov (David Harbour), bionic "dying inside" Congressman and former assassin/supersoldier Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Fontaine's various schemes, a rather dangerous individual, and Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan, forever the best thing about any movie)...

Marvel, the juggernaut studio, have been having a bloody rough time as of late. Underperforming films, a lack of direction, and a death spiral of cannibalising other people's art with this "Multiverse" horseshit (soon to come to an ugly head with the hideous, creatively bankrupt and not-starring Dan Stevens as Dr Doom "Doomsday"), coupled with a recent uncoupling from their wife-beating major arc villain have come together in a brew so noxious that one forgets they were atop the world and are still being imitated and mimicked for their style of fun blockbuster universes.
"Thunderbolts*", against the odds, comes charging out of the gate to remind us why their moves appeal and are fun, and is among their best efforts in years. They've fucking needed it.
Playing to the strengths (a fun ragtag, hodge-podge group of misfits thrust together and forced to work together) and forgoing many of its weaknesses (an over reliance on quips, weak final acts, sloppy finales, and a lack of focus) to forge something which would fit right at home with their earlier and middle efforts. It's rather refreshing just having the movie be "here's a bunch of people, attempting to accomplish a task, and bonding along the way" rather than hopping between timelines and choking to death on bloated references and groundwork for a movie about Grimmo the Taxi Driver or whatever they have going on. On paper it's an ensemble piece, but in practice focuses on Yelena's arc (there's a neat little opening involving a guinea pig in a maze, and some very "West Side Story"-esque overhead shadow shots) and, later, Bob, both of which are excellent. The movie is a fun romp, with excellent details and character bits (I appreciated Walker punching out a character late in the film, very telling and humanizing...) and Harbour's Red Guardian threatens to steal the show as the embarassing dad figure keen on them being a team so he can relive his glory days; but even the underdeveloped characters such as Ava and John get enough to feel real and grounded and have fun with the team. Refreshingly the film takes genuine swings and reaches for themes and ideas, and the final third act is entirely about mental illness and trauma, and (somewhat excellently) has the message of "one cannot cure mental illness, or deny it and despise it, it is a part of one's identity, and you deal with it through love, acceptance and understanding from those who support you and appreciate you." It was good to see.
The more I thought on it the more I liked it, even when it does the usual "fight the big explodey man", it draws back, remembers it is about characters, and rolls with the themes and punches. I appreciated this film and had a good time with it.

"Dune: Part 2" - Review

On the run from the Harkonnen family after they murdered his father and burned his house to the ground, Paul Atreides (Timothy Chalomet) is living among the Fremen on the planet Arrakis. Alongside his mother (Rebecca Ferguson), he learns the ways of these people, and dreams of the day he shall enact vengeance upon the Harkonnens. But as he falls for local girl Chani (Zendaya), he finds himself the subject of worship from Fremen leader Stilgar (Javier Bardem), who believes him to be a prophesised saviour who shall lead The Fremen to Paradise, Paul must also contend with nightmares up and down his walls about killing millions as a result of this prophecy - yet if he wishes to succeed in his goals, maybe this prophecy must come true...

Spellbinding

"A Good Person" - Review

Allison (Florence Pugh) has a perfect life, but when all that crashes around her, and she finds herself seemingly at her lowest point, she forms an unlikely relationship with retired ex-cop Daniel (Morgan Freeman) and others...

I'm not sure that I can ever accept anybody's assertions that Marvel movies are jarring in their tone, whiplash and constant quips. At least, not whilst this hipster bullshit exists. Zacharus Braffacus has created not a film, but an amalgamation of the worst impulses of shoe-gazing, indie-adjacent sanitised nonsense; bloated and RUTHLESS with its running time, whilst simultaneously having nothing of importance to say or offer to the world. Like a Jake Bugg album made manifest: its emptiness is matched only by its pretentious swings at things of importance, and the delusions that it is "important" or even noteworthy, he thinks he's the next Jim Jarmusch with a political bent, but in actual fact is more like Vincent Gallo with a budget.
We follow the wrong character, Florence Pugh's drug addicted, survivor's guilt ridden Pharmaceutical Sales Rep (we get it, Zack, you were in "Scrubs", how cute a gag) not as a character or a harrowing portrait of addiction, but a fetishistic view of a hip cool, indie girl he REALLY wants to fuck (she wears Nick Cave t-shirts and has fun quippy facts to spout off whilst being self-deprecating. I'm pretty sure he thinks that "Juno" is a documentary), and who is broken but able to be fixed if the right thing comes along! It's like misery-porn, but he pussies out and can't even do that right: his attempts at swinging at the very real opioid epidemic in America are weak, limp and run out of steam halfway through, he lacks the stomach, clarity and basic fucking knowledge to pull it off. In something like, say, "Animals" (a fantastic effort by David Dastmalchian) we see the suffering, horror, grimness, grime, and yet genuine humanity through it all. Braff resorts to hysterical flushings of pills and weak, pathetic insults from a crack smoking school acquaintance played by Alex Wolff, who is admittedly welcome.
Where those he tries to emulate (Jim Jarmusch, Joe Swanberg, Amy Seimetz, Kelly Reichardt, David Gordon Green) will happily make an engaging film of vignettes and "days in the life" of characters told through little moments or odd encounters and make it enthralling and be in the service of an arc or plot; Zachariah Braffariah has missed the memo, and resorts to mumbling, shoegazing and a BLOATED middle act. His worst impulses and tendencies come out in the dialogue, which schizophrenically flickers between excerpts from "Juno", quippy one liners, faux-philosophical fortune-cookie poetry, and attempts to get the scene moving. The beginning (wherein our heroine plays piano and sings at her own engagement party) has particularly cringe-worthy exposition and clunky first-draft film student poetry; but is preceded by a 30 second Morgan Freeman narration about how model trains are different to real life in that you can control it all; and is then followed by vaguely sketched, bareley registered sitcom-level dialogue in the car. It continues this whiplash all the way through, and despite a dedicated (I wouldn't say good) performance from Pugh, the script is atrocious. Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman: you hire him, you get him, but again, we follow the wrong character in these proceedings, and there was a moment when I thought: "If they make him a magical old black man who changes her, I'm walking", and to be fair I almost walked out after the train monologue at the start.
And if you think his dialogue is bad, his plotting and editing are worse. My particular favourite was her in the bar, speaking with the junkies, getting high, feeling bad, and the camera cutting to a pinball machine reading: "I Am Invincible".
Transcendental, next level shit from Zachigan Braffigan. The Truffaut of our time.
As a positive, Celeste O'Connor is in this, and I like them as an actor.
Cannot recommend, unless you have a party and need the guests to leave, in which case put this on and they will IMMEDIATELY evacuate the building.

"Don't Worry Darling" - Review

In a picturesque 1950s American town in the desert, Alice (Florence Pugh) lives an idyllic life with her husband Jack (Harry Styles) who, along with the other men in town, goes to work on "Project Victory" deep in the desert. They refuse to talk about what they work on, so in the interim she makes do with life as a housewife, alongside other residents in the town. But something nags at the back of her mind, and she wants to know what "Project Victory" is all about.
So Alice begins to go down the rabbit hole...

From one of the writers of the brilliant "Booksmart", the pieces of Wilde's directorial sophomore effort seem familiar on the surface, and you're waiting for how they come together, how they click, what they do with them. There are hints of "Stepford Wives", "Get Out", "The Truman Show", "Antebellum" and more (spoilers maybe...) all bubbling under the surface as we try and figure out how the inevitable twist will come into play.
So in the interim we have to focus on the performance of Pugh, which is good, and the supporting characters around her, who are also good (Nick Kroll is in this for some reason.). Harry Styles is an odd choice of casting (especially with the extended, "Annette"-style cunnilingus scenes) and is stilted and off, but later on when he puts on a different accent that is not his own he's actually a better actor. So it has to be intentional, and it works for the part. There's a scene in a car where he's pretty good.
Others float in and out of the movie, though it's mostly Pugh's performance, notably a criminally underused Gemma Chan (dressed as a school teacher and wielding a stick if that's your thing) as Shelley, the real queen bee and power behind the throne due to her husband, and Olivia Wilde herself as the alcoholic neighbour and mother of two, something of a climber and gossip in the social circle.
Chris Pine plays Frank (married to Shelley and in charge of this town... subtlties are not required) and threatens to steal the show despite his limited screen time. He channels his natural charm and charisma, and plays Frank as a cult leader. More specifically, he is uncannily like Jordan Peterson, which is fucking hilarious. Once you hear it, you won't be able to "unhear" it. Apparently Peterson is unhappy with being portrayed as a shallow, vindictive, pseudo-intellectual, spiteful mysoginist who holds cult-like devotion from men unhappy with their lives and believing he has all the answers.

Pine's bloody excellent here, as good as Pugh. He truly shines, as does the film, at a dinner party scene, where it becomes two actors trying to outsmart each other in a social circle, and power dynamics and control and gaslighting lead the way.
But whilst the performances are good, the rest of it becomes a little wobbly.
The first scene transition/edit is jarring and messy, but thankfully not quite "Suicide Squad" or "House of Gucci" levels, and though the movie feels over-tightened in later parts, it's never terribly done after that. There's some good imagery of eyes and spirals (I'm pretty sure that I want this cinematographer to just remake "Uzumaki" and they'd crush it, as it's the same guy, Matthew Libatique, who did "The Fountain" and "Requiem for a Dream", and fucking "Venom" apparently!) and a pastel colour palette which I rather enjoy. It's a contrast to the horror around them.
But some of the directorial choices are a little off, the tension is never quite there. A few excellent sound design choices (the meat early on being fried) and visuals (a finger tracing patterns over the town's roads and a slow overhead zoom from the middle of the model of the town) save it from being too "off", and make this more a diamond in the rough which never quite soars. I think that it would have benefitted from a more sparse, ponderous, intimate style like Scandanavian noir or a kitchen sink drama or "45 Years".
I like it, with all it juggles and its central message/twist, and want to see Olivia Wilde direct more things and work on her craft. It would be fun to see what she makes next.
But watch "Booksmart", for the love of Christ.