Opened 30 Years Ago: KING OF NEW YORK (9/28/1990)

 

KING OF NEW YORK
(Italy - 1990)
Directed by Abel Ferrara

On Blu-ray/DVD: RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL (2019) and CORPORATE ANIMALS (2019)

RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL
(US - 2019)

Another month, another instantly forgotten Nicolas Cage movie. He's rather subdued here, which is not why anyone bothers watching VOD-era Nic Cage, and on top of that, it's more of a TRAFFIC-style ensemble exercise that keeps him sidelined for long periods, and despite his top billing, he's playing a generally secondary character. Atypical of present-day Cage, this one also offers a lot more in the way of real actors, but the blatantly NARCOS-inspired storyline feels like it's trying to cram two seasons worth of a binge-worthy TV cartel drama into 100 interminable minutes that seem more like three hours. Written and directed by Jason Cabell, a former Navy SEAL who apparently worked with the DEA in Colombia prior to breaking into movies, RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL deals with the aftermath of the fentanyl and heroin overdose deaths of two suburban Seattle parents, with their young daughter getting on the school bus and telling the driver "I can't wake them up." This case is personal for The Agent in Charge (Leslie Bibb), who's also the little girl's aunt. It seems there's been a rash of fatal overdoses in and around Seattle, all traced back to a bad shipment that recently landed in the area. The Vancouver-based The Boss (Barry Pepper) assigns his top Seattle area distributor, a pizzeria owner known as The Cook (Cage) to get to the bottom of why shipments in his region have been light and overcut, and he assigns his top enforcer The Executioner (Cole Hauser) to accompany him to the base of operation in Colombia and follow the next shipment back to see where it's happening and who's responsible.

As you can see, everyone gets a title in lieu of a character name, an annoying quirk that seems more at home in a '90s post-Tarantino crime flick than it does in an ostensibly serious movie. There's also The Man (Laurence Fishburne), a sleazy, drug-addled, sex-addicted middleman who spends most of his time getting high with hookers (Fishburne gets possibly the least-dignified intro of his career, The Man first seen maniacally jerking off in a porn parlor peep show booth); The Snitch (Adam Goldberg), who gets busted snorting coke outside a hospital where he's about to dump off two dead hookers who OD'd on The Man's merchandise, and ends up an informant after being tortured by The Agent in Charge; Number One (Peter Facinelli), a DEA associate of The Agent; and The Farmer (Clifton Collins Jr), who's seen periodically in some Colombia-set scenes but his exact purpose in the narrative isn't really explained. It's Fishburne who gets the most screen time, giving RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL more than he can possibly get from it in return, rendering his efforts all for naught. I would understand it if this was like Cage's recent A SCORE TO SETTLE, which gave him Benjamin Bratt among the cast of relative nobodies (along with an amazing "BEEF?!" meltdown), but here we have another Cage clunker that's somehow packed with established actors of various standing for no reason at all. Cage stopped caring a long time ago and seems to be content lucking into a JOE or a MANDY every couple of years (or Richard Stanley's upcoming and much-anticipated THE COLOR OUT OF SPACE). By now, we expect Cage to be in something like this, but why the overqualified supporting cast? Never mind being unworthy of Laurence Fishburne. RUNNING WITH THE DEVIL isn't even worth Cole Hauser's time. (R, 100 mins)



CORPORATE ANIMALS
(US - 2019)

It's hard to believe anyone thought a mash-up of OFFICE SPACE and ALIVE (or SURVIVE! if you're a more old-school exploitation fan) would be a good idea for anything other than an SNL skit that mercifully got cut for time. And rest assured, the barely-released satirical workplace cannibal comedy CORPORATE ANIMALS is every bit as abysmal as it sounds. There's a few admittedly witty one-liners that land ("You fucked my lunch?!"), but CORPORATE ANIMALS, directed by Patrick Brice and written by Sam Bain, both part of the Duplass Brothers inner circle, offers little beyond the obvious metaphorical implications of ambitious employees going to extreme measures to survive, whether it's in the office or being trapped in a cave-in while on an ill-advised spelunking excursion as a team building exercise. The trip was organized by Incredible Edible Cutlery's scheming, bitch-on-wheels CEO Lucy Vanderton (Demi Moore), but an impromptu change in plans where she badgers guide Brandon (co-producer Ed Helms, showing up long enough to remind you of THE OFFICE) into taking her staff on the "experienced" route, which soon proves disastrous when an earthquake causes a cave-in that crushes Brandon to death (exit Ed Helms at the 17-minute mark). With little water and nothing to eat other than a sample package of Incredible Edible Cutlery, tensions flare after a few days when the starving survivors--among them marketing head and Lucy's "Beyonce of Business" Jess (former DAILY SHOW correspondent Jessica Williams) and her chief rival and Lucy's former intern/boytoy Freddie the Fucktoy (DEADPOOL's Karan Soni)--decide to eat Brandon in order to survive (and discover that Lucy already helped herself to his arm while everyone else was asleep). Other than some scattered shots of flesh-munching, the film is skittish about venturing too far into the grossout realm, with most of the time spent with the characters arguing about office and personal grievances in almost total darkness, with the end result so tedious that it's hard to believe it's only been 80 minutes when the closing credits finally start rolling.

The cast is filled with funny and talented people--SNL vet Nasim Pedrad, Dan Bakkedahl cast radically against type as "Dan Bakkedahl," and the great Isiah Whitlock, Jr--but they aren't well utilized. Moore's inspired casting results in her getting some of the better lines ("Nut up and put that pussy into it!" she tells a terrified Pedrad as she descends into the cave, and later yelling "Your panic attack is not authorized!") and Freddie's weird obsession with Gary Sinise--even having a picture of him in his wallet--is a running gag that belongs in a better movie, but CORPORATE ANIMALS doesn't have anything beyond the cannibalism motif, and it doesn't even spend much time on it, instead exploring other avenues for "shock" comedy, like Harvey Weinstein jokes, full-frontal Bakkedahl, or Moore talking about rimjobs. You know your comedy is a lost cause when Isiah Whitlock Jr is in it and you don't even have him drop his signature line. Also with voice cameos by Britney Spears and members of the B-52s, for some reason. (R, 86 mins)

In Theaters: JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM (2019)

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM
(US - 2019)

Directed by Chad Stahelski. Written by Derek Kolstad, Shay Hatten, Chris Collins and Mark Abrams. Cast: Keanu Reeves, Halle Barry, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, Anjelica Huston, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick, Tobias Segal, Said Taghmaoui, Jerome Flynn, Jason Mantzoukas, Cecep Arif Rahman, Yayan Ruhian, Margaret Daly, Randall Duk Kim, Robin Lord Taylor, Boban Marjinovic, Susan Blommaert, Unity Phelan, Roger Yuan. (R, 131 mins)

An unexpected sleeper hit in theaters in 2014 after being given an 11th hour reprieve from VOD excommunicado, JOHN WICK provided Keanu Reeves with another iconic character that's single-handedly carried him through an otherwise rough career patch: a retired hit man who walked away from his old life to be with the woman he loved, unleashed as vengeance personified after the son of his former employer steals his car and kills his puppy Daisy, the final gift given to him by his wife before she succumbed to cancer. 2017's JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 was even better--a gonzo, comic-book-inspired actiongasm that cranked up the stakes, the inventive world-building, and ended with its hero embarking on a run for his life with seemingly the entire world in pursuit. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 3 - PARABELLUM (that title's a bit of a mouthful) opens just seconds after the ending of CHAPTER 2 as Wick, branded "excommunicado" by the High Table of the organization after killing double-crossing Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) on the consecrated grounds of the NYC branch of the hotel-for-assassins The Continental, is given a one-hour head start by Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane) before a $14 million mark is opened on Wick and offered to every professional assassin in the world.

Unable to get out of the city and dodging bullets, knives, and various other lethal weapons everywhere he goes, Wick calls in a favor and seeks safe passage from The Director (Anjelica Huston), a Russian ballet instructor and enigmatic figure from his past. Meanwhile, the High Table sends The Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon), an ice-cold problem-solver whose job is to enforce appropriate punishment to any of those who aided Wick in his escape, including Winston and The Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), both of whom are given seven days to get their affairs in order before they're relieved of their duties. The Director gets Wick on a boat to Morocco, where he visits the Casablanca branch of the Continental, run by former colleague Sofia (Halle Berry). This leads to a meeting in the desert with a High Table elder (Said Taghmaoui), who offers Wick his freedom if he goes back to NYC and eliminates Winston, who's been deemed unreliable after failing to properly handle the D'Antonio debacle. Waiting in NYC is Zero (Mark Dacascos sighting!), a sushi chef and ambitious assassin ordered by The Adjudicator to kill Wick.

With Reeves and director Chad Stahelski returning, there's certainly a nice, lived-in feeling of comfort with the increasingly complex world of JOHN WICK. But like almost all franchises on its third go-around, CHAPTER 3 does start feeling like it's spinning its wheels at times. Derek Kolstad, the screenwriter of the first two films, is also back, but there's three additional credited writers, a telling indicator of how cluttered and structurally chaotic this often seems. After an electrifying opening half hour, the repetition starts creeping in, and there's only so many ways Wick can blast a bad guy in the head at point blank range before it starts to become a blur (Stahelski seems particularly indebted to Gareth Evans' THE RAID 2, right down to the presence of Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian as two of Zero's chief flunkies). But just because it isn't as fresh and inspired as its predecessors doesn't mean there isn't a lot to enjoy: the knife fight is terrific; a long gun battle with Wick, Sofia and her two loyal, ass-kicking, crotch-biting dogs vs. the army of Casablanca crime boss Berrada (Jerome Flynn) could almost be its own stand-alone short film; an amusing shout-out to Andrei Tarkovsky; an eye-piercing that's right up there with Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE; Lance Reddick as the NYC Continental's unflappable concierge getting to blast shotguns as he helps Wick take on some of Zero's guys; and Dacascos has a lot of fun as Zero, who's assigned to kill Wick but can't stop being a gushing fanboy whenever he's in his presence (and he gets not one, but two opportunities to remind Wick "You see? We're the same!"). But after a pair of creative, inventive action sagas, CHAPTER 3 is still enjoyable but the fatigue is there. The stylish elements and the colorful look just feel recycled from CHAPTER 2, the whole Casablanca detour doesn't serve much of a narrative purpose other than bloating the running time (and Berry's role is little more than an extended cameo), and the increasingly epic nature of the action sequences necessitate using more noticeable and less convincing CGI as a crutch as the JOHN WICK franchise starts resorting to FAST & FURIOUS-esque silliness. The door is left open for an inevitable CHAPTER 4, so I'm predicting here and now that John Wick will be in space or at the very least battling a cyborg by CHAPTER 6.

In Theaters: THE MULE (2018)

THE MULE
(US/Canada - 2018)

Directed by Clint Eastwood. Written by Nick Schenk. Cast: Clint Eastwood, Bradley Cooper, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Pena, Dianne Wiest, Andy Garcia, Ignacio Serricchio, Taissa Farmiga, Alison Eastwood, Richard Herd, Clifton Collins Jr., Loren Dean, Eugene Cordero, Victor Rasuk, Noel G, Robert LaSardo, Lobo Sebastian, Manny Montana. (R, 116 mins)

Since his post-UNFORGIVEN resurgence in the early 1990s, there's been an air of awards prestige around most new films by Clint Eastwood. There was certainly that feeling surrounding THE MULE when the grim and downbeat trailer turned up a couple of months ago, but the film itself is much more light and loose than you'd expect, and frequently quite funny. Inspired by the true story of Leo Sharp, a 90-year-old Michigan retiree who became an unlikely courier for the Sinaloa cartel, THE MULE stars Eastwood, in his first time in front of the camera since 2012's TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, as 90-year-old Earl Stone, a Korean War vet and award-winning rural Illinois horticulturist who's big on the day-lily circuit but never seemed to have the time for his family. In a 2005 prologue, he skips the wedding of his daughter Iris (Clint's daughter Alison Eastwood) to accept an award at a horticulture convention at an area Holiday Inn. Cut to 2017, and Earl's home and business have been foreclosed, a casualty of internet convenience, and he's got nowhere to go. Iris hasn't spoken to him in 12 years, and his ex-wife Mary (Dianne Wiest) reads him the riot act for showing up at a party for their engaged granddaughter Ginny (Taissa Farmiga), the only member of the family who wants anything to do with him. After being ripped to shreds in front of everyone  is approached by a friend (Victor Rasuk) of a bridesmaid about a potential job "just driving." Desperate for income and wanting to contribute financially to Ginny's wedding, affable and naive Earl ends up driving to El Paso in his beat-up truck to pick up a package, drive it back to Peoria, leave his truck at a motel, come back in an hour, and find an envelope full of cash in the glove compartment waiting for him, no questions asked.

Ignorance is bliss, and Earl nods, smiles, and keeps quiet, but the more runs he makes, the more packed the envelopes are. He buys a new truck, pays for the remodeling of a fire-damaged local VFW post, and picks up the open bar tab at Ginny's wedding, much to the disapproval of Mary and Iris. Curiosity gets the better of him on one run and he looks inside a bag in his truck bed, finally realizing that he's running drugs for the cartel operation of Mexican drug kingpin Laton (Andy Garcia). The money's too good for him to stop, even as he's invited down to Laton's palace in Mexico, where the cartel boss seems unaware of a mutiny in his ranks, led by an ambitious underling (Clifton Collins Jr.). Meanwhile, in Chicago, DEA agents Bates (Bradley Cooper) and Trevino (Michael Pena) are told to tighten the screws on the drug trade by their boss (Laurence Fishburne), who's being directed by his boss to get busts at any cost. Bates objects to nabbing little fish at the expense of possibly losing the bigger ones, but a desperate informant (Eugene Cordero) facing two life sentences tells him of a major new "mule" in Laton's cartel known as "Tata," one who's been delivering major drug shipments to Illinois in a shiny new black truck.

Despite its potentially heavy, downer subject matter, THE MULE, written by GRAN TORINO scribe Nick Schenk, makes for a surprising crowd-pleaser, or at least as much of a crowd-pleaser as the story of a geriatric drug trafficker can be. It coasts almost entirely on the screen presence of its living legend star in a career now in its seventh decade, but even as a director, Eastwood seems little more engaged than he has on his too-often sloppy work of late, particularly in his unofficial "American Heroes" trilogy of AMERICAN SNIPER, SULLY, and this year's earlier, awful THE 15:17 TO PARIS. Eastwood the director has always had a "just get it done" philosophy, but as he's gotten older, that efficiency has often devolved into abject carelessness, reaching its nadir with the half-assed PARIS, but save for its rushed finale (including an offscreen beating that we probably should've seen), it's the return of a relatively more disciplined Eastwood (he still blowtorched through the production, which began shooting in June 2018 and is here in theaters just six months later). It's got plenty of laughs, but it's serious enough that it doesn't lapse into geezer comedy vulgarity. This is despite the fact that the 88-year-old Eastwood has cast himself in a film where his character partakes in not one, but two threesomes with women young enough to be his granddaughters. THE MULE probably could've been something more socially or politically conscious and "meaningful" (the internet's impact on Earl's day-lily empire is about as close as it gets to making a statement about the economy's shifting landscape), but it's an Eastwood vehicle first and foremost, and there's some poignancy in his attempts at stepping up when his estranged family needs him, and reconciling with his ex-wife (Wiest is terrific) and daughter, which has the added resonance of being a real-life father and daughter on screen.

Much is made of Earl feeling like "somebody" in the horticulture world when he was a "nobody" at home, which was his excuse for always being away. That's more or less the reasoning that pulls him deeper into the world of Laton's operation. Laton is so pleased with his work as a driver that Earl can't help but bask in the adulation. He's somebody here, even if it's as a drug courier, and getting caught never seems to enter his mind. The initial trailer made absolutely no attempt at selling how funny THE MULE can be, but it's mostly from recognizing the absurdity of a 90-year-old drug mule without actually condoning what he's doing. When a pair of cartel flunkies bug Earl's truck and follow him close behind on a run, they listen in disbelief as he spends the whole trip singing along to oldies on the radio. We soon see Earl behind the wheel belting out "Ain't That a Kick in the Head," with the cartel guys in their car, singing along. And it gets a huge laugh from the audience.

Earl also has a knack for developing a folksy rapport with everyone, even as he drops unfiltered and at times casually racist asides that aren't meant to be hurtful, as the elderly are wont to do. He gets chummy with his El Paso and Peoria cartel contacts (among them the inevitable Noel G and Robert LaSardo), who are soon affectionately calling him "Big Papa" as they BS while loading his truck ("How's your nephew doing?" Earl asks one). Before his business is closed, he refers to one Mexican employee's car as a "taco truck" and jokes with him about getting deported. Or when he treats a pair of cartel guys to pulled pork sandwiches at a roadside rib joint down south, where they're eyeballed by the red-state clientele and harassed by a local cop. "Everyone's staring at us," one says, as Earl replies "Because you're two beaners in a bowl of crackers!" Or stopping on the highway to help a stranded black family change a flat tire and not realizing "negro" is no longer the preferred nomenclature. Is THE MULE essential Eastwood? Not in the big picture, but it's his most satisfying work as a filmmaker since GRAN TORINO a decade ago, also the last film in which he directed himself (his producing partner Robert Lorenz helmed TROUBLE WITH THE CURVE, though in a very Eastwood-like fashion). Eastwood's effortless charisma and his no-bullshit persona haven't diminished a bit with the years, and it's always cause for celebration when we're given an increasingly rare chance to see him onscreen.

On Blu-ray/DVD: LAST FLAG FLYING (2017) and THE SQUARE (2017)

LAST FLAG FLYING
(US - 2017)

LAST FLAG FLYING, the latest film from director Richard Linklater, is a "spiritual sequel" to Hal Ashby's 1973 classic THE LAST DETAIL, the common denominator between both films being novelist and screenwriter Darryl Ponicsan (whose other credits include CINDERELLA LIBERTY, TAPS, and VISION QUEST). Ponicsan adapted his own 1970 novel The Last Detail for Ashby, and in 2005, published a sequel with Last Flag Flying, showing the same characters 30-plus years later. In adapting Flying for the screen, Ponicsan (his first screenwriting credit since 1999's RANDOM HEARTS) and Linklater changed the names of the characters and switched them from ex-Navy to ex-Marines. As a result, the non-sequel sequel LAST FLAG FLYING functions as a standalone film but anyone who knows the backstory and is a fan of THE LAST DETAIL will clearly recognize the three protagonists as the same guys several decades on. Set in 2003 in an America where the wounds of 9/11 are still open and raw, mild-mannered Larry "Doc" Shepherd (Steve Carell, formerly Randy Quaid as Lawrence "Larry" Meadows) is a recent widower who's just been informed his son was killed in action in Iraq and will be buried in Arlington. A despondent Doc then seeks out two old Vietnam buddies--crass, crude bar owner Sal Nealon (Bryan Cranston, formerly Jack Nicholson as Billy "Badass" Buddusky) and recovering wildman alcoholic and now-devoutly religious pastor Richard "Mauler" Mueller (Laurence Fishburne, formerly Otis Young as Richard "Mule" Mulhall)--to accompany him to receive his son's body.

Along the way, they argue, bond, reminisce, bust each others' chops, and confront long-suppressed demons from Vietnam that have quietly haunted them. It starts fine but more or less plateaus once they learn that Doc's son's death didn't go down like the Marines claim and they decide to transport his body back home themselves. This results in an uneven mix of gut-wrenching drama and goofy comedy that's equal parts somber character study, GRUMPY OLD MEN, and PLANES, TRAINS & AUTOMOBILES. Carell does some of his best dramatic work yet and really looks like a guy who's endured just about all he can handle after losing his wife to cancer and his son to war in quick succession, but Linklater really needed to rein in Cranston a little. A little of Cranston goes a long way here, and he's trying way too hard to emulate Jack Nicholson, not by doing a hacky Nicholson impression but by playing most of the film so broadly that his late shift from smartass to serious never rings true. Fishburne provides a nice balance to compensate for Cranston's playing to the cheap seats with his obnoxious behavior and routine invocations of "Hey, I got your (noun) danglin' right here!" bit. Cranston is a national treasure, but his work here is both broken and bad as he turns Badass Buddusky into Dumbass Sal. 93-year-old Cicely Tyson has a nice cameo as the mother of one of their other buddies who was killed in Vietnam, and LAST FLAG FLYING does display some genuine heart on occasion and shows a bit of a cynical streak in terms of the way the government and the military aren't above manufacturing fiction when it comes to telling families that a loved one has paid the ultimate price for their country, but it's kind of all over the place. Carell, Cranston, and Fishburne are great actors, but it doesn't seem like Linklater has them on the same page, and the entire film feels like it's arrived a decade too late, assuming THE LAST DETAIL needed a "spiritual sequel" in the first place. Amazon and Lionsgate gave this a big promotional push in the early fall as an awards season contender but ultimately backed off, canceling its expanded rollout and stalling it on just 110 screens at its widest release, for a gross of $965,000. Obviously they weren't feeling it either. (R, 125 mins)




THE SQUARE
(Sweden/Germany/France/US/Denmark - 2017)

"The Square" is an exhibit at a renowned Swedish art museum where a plaque declares it "a sanctuary of trust and caring," and adds "Within its boundaries, we all share equal rights and obligations." THE SQUARE is writer/director Ruben Ostlund's follow-up to his wildly overpraised FORCE MAJEURE. It was awarded the Palme d'Or at last year's Cannes Film Festival and is currently an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, even though a good chunk of it is in English. There's often a sense of groupthink when it comes to critical praise and it's a problem that's only gotten worse in the era of Rotten Tomatoes. In short, I can't recall the last time I've felt this disconnected from what critics are saying about a film and my reaction to it as it unfolds. The most insufferable Palme d'Or winner since UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES, THE SQUARE focuses on museum curator Christian (Claes Bang, whose name is the best thing about this) and a series of distractions that begin with him being conned in the street and having his phone, wallet and cuff links lifted off of him and ends with an ill-advised marketing scheme that shows a little girl being blown up by a bomb while standing at The Square. Christian also has a one-night stand with an American TV news reporter (Elisabeth Moss) that results in a potentially messy tug-of-war with a used condom, and a black-tie museum gala flies off the rails when human exhibit Oleg Rogozjin (Terry Notary) mimics an ape, rampaging through the dining area, attacking an artist (Dominic West) and nearly sexually assaulting a woman while everyone idly watches the "art" unfold.

What does it all mean? Who knows? Who cares? Seen too late to be included on my Worst of 2017 list, THE SQUARE is the kind of movie mainstream subtitle-phobes think of when they hear someone say "It's a subtitled art film." Like the equally overrated and oppressively long TONI ERDMANN, just because something's mostly subtitled and has a couple of mildly transgressive scenes doesn't make it an instant classic. It's allegedly a comedy, though I don't recall laughing once, even at various cringeworthy situations. The much-ballyhooed tug-of-war with the condom was described by hyperventilating critics as nothing short of a brilliant, tour-de-force comedic set piece. Was it a Blake Edwards-esque display of game-changing genius that forever altered our perception of comedy? No, it was over after a couple of tugs in about ten seconds.  After watching, I looked at some reviews to try and understand what it was that I was missing, and a reviewer for Vox wrote "One moment, in which a chef hollers for a stampede of museum donors to stop moving so he can meekly tell them the buffet's offerings, is one of the funniest things I've seen in a movie." Really? Surely, you can't be serious? THE SQUARE lazily takes aim at fish-in-a-barrel targets: pretentious art exhibits (including one that's a room filled with piles of debris and a neon light flashing "You Have Nothing," and a creaking stack of chairs that seems ready to collapse at any moment), vacuous benefactors, unqualified people in charge, the Ice Bucket Challenge, the Comic Sans font, people with Tourette's, and cynical marketing strategies just to name a few. Christian is ultimately in a no-win situation after the public outcry over the terrorism-inspired marketing ploy goes viral, but he's then pilloried by purists for caving to censorship. Also, Moss' character has a large chimpanzee roommate with a moderate level of artistic talent. which is just something we're supposed to roll with because apparently it's clever and not at all stupid when there's subtitles. I'm assuming the joke here is that even a monkey can create the kind of art that's met with enthusiastic accolades by those in the scene--so wait, is Ostlund actually proving that with THE SQUARE?  Maybe the possibility exists that this whole thing is a total stunt but it speaks to Ostlund's stunning lack of focus with this aimless, tedious film that after it screened at Cannes at 142 minutes, he decided to tweak and tighten it and it ended up running nine minutes longer when he was finished. The general message is that while The Square promotes the idea of altruism and empathy among society, everyone around it is a self-absorbed hypocrite. Pretty insightful stuff. Maybe for Ostlund's next film, he can explore and deconstruct the satirical implications of poseur Von Triers and bargain-basement Bunuels and the pitfalls of believing your own hype. (R, 151 mins)

In Theaters: JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 (2017)

JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2
(US/China - 2017)

Directed by Chad Stahelski. Written by Derek Kolstad. Cast: Keanu Reeves, Common, Laurence Fishburne, Ian McShane, John Leguizamo, Franco Nero, Riccardo Scamarcio, Ruby Rose, Lance Reddick, Bridget Moynahan, Peter Stormare, Claudia Gerini, Peter Serafinowicz, Thomas Sadoski, Tobias Segal, Wass Stevens, Luca Mosca, Chukwudi Iwuji, Simone Spinazze. (R, 122 mins)

A sleeper hit in 2014, JOHN WICK was held in such ambivalent regard by Lionsgate subsidiary Summit that it almost went straight to VOD until someone decided to arrange some test screenings and the audience response was through the roof. An electrifying, non-stop action thriller about a retired assassin--an unstoppable killing machine known to those in his profession as "The Boogeyman" and "Baba Yaga"-- on a mission of vengeance when the son of a Russian crime boss steals his car and kills his dog, JOHN WICK was filled with memorable shootouts, quotable dialogue ("Oh..."), a sly sense of humor, and an almost graphic novel-like sense of imaginative world building. In this world, the assassins have accoutrements like their own gold coin currency and they stay at the Continental, a safe sanctuary where business is conducted and violence forbidden. Friends become foes and back again, and it's understood that it's "just business." But things turned personal for John Wick (Keanu Reeves): on the day after the funeral of his cancer-stricken wife (Bridget Moynahan), his car is stolen and his dog killed by Iosef Tarasov (Alfie Allen), the sniveling brat son of Wick's former boss, Russian crime lord Viggo Tarasov (Michael Nyqvist). Wick declares war on Tarasov and single-handedly wipes out his entire organization over the course of the film, all while dodging an endless parade of fellow assassins after the bounty placed on his head by Viggo. JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 picks up shortly after where the first film left off, with Viggo's vengeful brother Abram (Peter Stormare) waiting in his secured office as his men try--and fail--to stop Wick, who's arrived at the Tarasov warehouse to reclaim his stolen car. Wick confronts Abram and spares his life, offering him a drink as a mutually agreed peace offering.

Wick's return to retirement is short-lived however, as Italian mobster Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio) presents a marker--a blood oath among assassins--demanding Wick pay a debt. D'Antonio helped Wick with the final task for Viggo Tarasov that got him his freedom, and it was under the condition that he stay retired. Since he emerged from civilian life to wipe out Viggo's organization, D'Antonio declares the marker reactivated. His demand is that Wick whack his Rome-based sister Gianna (Claudia Gerini), who represents the Camorra on the international council of assassins, a seat D'Antonio believes he should've inherited from his late father. Wick refuses to acknowledge the marker, prompting D'Antonio to blow up his house. Under advice from Continental manager Winston (Ian McShane), Wick concedes he has no choice but to fulfill the marker if he wants any chance of returning to retirement. He travels to Italy, where he's greeted by Julius (Franco Nero), the manager of the Continental's Rome branch. Once Gianna is eliminated, Wick is double-crossed by D'Antonio, who puts out a $7 million contract on his life to create the appearance that he must avenge his sister's murder (really, Wick should've seen that coming). Once he's back in NYC, the chase is on as Wick spends the entire second half of the movie evading every covert assassin in the city--which is everyone from homeless guys to food truck vendors to street musicians--looking to grab $7 million to take out their most lethal colleague on the planet.

With a body count somewhere between "astronomical" and "fucking ridiculous," JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 exists in a patently unreal world where no cops of any kind are visible. Returning director Chad Stahelski (going solo this time, without the original's uncredited co-director David Leitch, his name left off the film by a DGA snafu) and screenwriter Derek Kolstad go for the same approach as THE RAID 2: it's the same story, just on a significantly larger and much more grandiosely ambitious scale. The set pieces are done with even more intricate, ballet-like precision, whether it's a high-tech hall of mirrors or Gianna's top security detail Cassian (Common) and Wick having a silencer shootout in the middle of a crowded subway station where no one even hears the guns going off around them. Stahelski goes for a much more stylized look this time out, with some tracking shots that serve as some of the best Kubrick homages this side of Nicolas Winding Refn's ONLY GOD FORGIVES. And some garish neon color schemes coupled with the staging of the action end up concocting an unholy visual fusion of Dario Argento, Brian De Palma, and John Woo. There's amusingly bizarre touches like the call center where assassins order contracts being filled with typewriters and analog equipment and looking a lot like a 1940s switchboard exchange straight out of HIS GIRL FRIDAY. This is absolutely exhilarating and gloriously bonkers filmmaking that rewards fans of the first film with numerous callbacks (there's another ominous "Oh..." from someone and we finally get to see Wick kill multiple guys with a pencil, a story that everyone who hears the name "John Wick" seems to reference), but takes everything to a higher level of inspiration and execution. Almost everyone in the cast gets a moment to shine, whether it's Nero's Julius breaking up a THEY LIVE-level brawl between Wick and Cassian, an unusually gregarious Laurence Fishburne (MATRIX reunion!) as the Bowery King, solid turns by returning JOHN WICK vets McShane and Lance Reddick as the Continental concierge, and a silent, scene-stealing performance by Ruby Rose as Ares, a mute, androgynous D'Antonio assassin who gives an almost Oscar-caliber flutter of an eye-wink to reassure her boss that she can handle Wick (spoiler: she can't). An improvement upon an already exemplary predecessor, JOHN WICK: CHAPTER 2 takes its place beside the elite likes of THE RAID 2 and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD among the decade's greatest achievements in action cinema. It's that good.

In Theaters: PASSENGERS (2016)

PASSENGERS
(US/China - 2016)

Directed by Morten Tyldum. Written by Jon Spaihts. Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pratt, Michael Sheen, Laurence Fishburne, Andy Garcia. (PG-13, 116 mins)

The sci-fi epic PASSENGERS is a triumph of production design weighed down by a script that feels like its second half was hastily rewritten after focus groups said more shit needed to blow up. Its intriguing opening act does a commendable job of replicating that unique Kubrickian chilliness and isolation, with a 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY vessel seemingly revamped by an interior decorator whose favorite movie was THE SHINING. Even the pattern on a wall matches the carpeting where Danny is playing with his cars outside Room 237. Set in a future where people are looking to move beyond an overcrowded Earth, PASSENGERS opens aboard the Starship Avalon, with 5000 passengers and a crew of 238 in hibernation on a 120-year voyage to a planet colony called Homestead II. 30 years into the voyage, a minor collision with an asteroid causes a brief disruption in the computer system that results in engineer Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) being awakened from his hibernation pod. It takes him a while to realize he's up 90 years too early, but going back into hibernation is impossible, a message sent to Homestead headquarters back on Earth will take 19 years to arrive, and his only company for what's looking like the rest of his life is affable robot bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen), who in no way reminds one of Lloyd in the Gold Ballroom of the Overlook Hotel.

An increasingly disheveled and depressed Jim spends the next 15 months alone, growing increasingly despondent by the day. He's contemplating suicide by shooting himself through an airlock and out into space, but notices hibernating Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence) in her pod. Checking the passenger manifest and watching her video file, a desperate Jim falls in love with her and with the idea of having a companion. He agonizes over the decision for months, spending his days sitting by her pod and talking to her and when he's reached his breaking point, he reworks the pod mechanism so she's awakened. Letting Aurora think her pod malfunctioned just like his, Jim gives her time to accept the circumstances but after a while, they inevitably go from friends to lovers, with Jim still leaving her in the dark about what he did. Of course, she'll eventually find out, but that becomes a secondary issue after slowly-developing malfunctions and glitches, all snowballing since the initial asteroid collision that caused Jim's pod to open, start to jeopardize not just their solitary--and now hostile--living situation but also the lives of the crew and passengers, who still have 88 years before they reach their destination.


The next paragraph contains SPOILERS.

The early scenes of PASSENGERS are the strongest, with Jim realizing the seriousness of his situation while wandering around the most visually stunning spaceship we've seen in quite some time, accompanied by a frequently John Carpenter-meets-Vangelis-sounding score by Thomas Newman that works like a charm. It stumbles a bit during Jim's disheveled phase, where Pratt is required to wear an awful wig and what might be cinema's least-convincing fake beard, which looks like someone glued a stunt bush from a community theater production of BOOGIE NIGHTS to his face. Once Aurora is awake, there's considerable tension as Jim is wracked with guilt over his decision to mislead her, but screenwriter Jon Spaihts (PROMETHEUS) and Norwegian filmmaker Morten Tyldum (HEADHUNTERS, THE IMITATION GAME) quickly lose interest in exploring this ethical dilemma. After a period of not speaking, they more or less agree to set aside their differences when they're joined by Gus Mancuso (Laurence Fishburne), a Chief Deck Officer whose hibernation pod has also malfunctioned. It's here that PASSENGERS shows that it doesn't have the courage of its convictions, abandoning a serious moral quandary in order to restage key elements of GRAVITY and THE MARTIAN out of an apparent need to make Pratt the hero. Some reviews have responded harshly to Jim's actions, likening him to a creep, a stalker, and a psycho, and taking offense over the perceived notion that Aurora is more or less Stockholm Syndromed into falling for him. These sound like the imaginary concerns of people looking for something to outrage them. Jim does what he does out of loneliness, desperation, and slowly encroaching insanity. He doesn't approach it lightly, but he can't fathom the idea of spending the rest of his life. It's wrong and more or less indefensible and he shortens Aurora's life, but it's an extreme situation. And, it's worth mentioning, even if it's ultimately a plot convenience that lets Jim off the hook, they all would've died anyway since Jim ultimately can't save the ship and the other 5000+ people without Aurora's help. It's doubtful the same criticisms would be leveled at PASSENGERS had it been Aurora who woke early and decided to open Jim's pod 89 years early, or if Jim was played by say, Michael Shannon or Steve Buscemi or Clark Duke and it would be easier to grasp Jim's actions because he's being played by an oddball character actor or a dweeby-looking comedian and not Chris Pratt. Focusing on Jim's decision certainly would've made a more interesting film on a psychological thriller level--and it could've given Pratt a chance to show some range--but this is a $100 million holiday movie with two of the most attractive and popular celebrities on the planet.

I'm not asking for Tarkovsky's SOLARIS here, but PASSENGERS could've tried a little harder. The second half wants to be a big, epic, special effects crowd-pleaser and the abrupt tone shift leaves Lawrence and Pratt stranded, which is shame because in the more character-driven sections, their performances are quite good. As far as the rest of the cast goes, Sheen is amusing, Fishburne is fine with his limited screen time, and Andy Garcia has been almost completely cut from the film since his entire role as the ship's captain consists of him walking through a sliding door and looking up, giving him about five seconds of screen time with no dialogue for what must be the most frivolous big-name, prominently-billed cameo since Albert Finney's eight-second appearance in a YouTube video in 2012's THE BOURNE LEGACY.  He had to have a larger role initially. You don't hire Oscar-nominated Andy Garcia, a respected actor for the last 30 years, to walk through a door and look confused, unless he's also wondering what he's doing in this movie. In the end, PASSENGERS is always fascinating to look at, but it abandons its thought-provoking aspects and is riddled with rampant lapses in logic. For instance, why is Arthur online and tending bar for no one?  Why is the liquor opened when no one would be drinking it for 120 years? And if the crew is scheduled to be awakened a month before the passengers, who's been maintaining the pool for the first 30 years of the voyage? Wouldn't switching on Arthur and opening the booze and filling the pool and chlorinating it be something the crew did in the month before the passengers were revived?  How fresh is the sushi that Aurora is eating? Is that the smartest thing to have on the menu?

On DVD/Blu-ray: THE LADY IN THE CAR WITH GLASSES AND A GUN (2015); STANDOFF (2016); and FLIGHT 7500 (2016)

THE LADY IN THE CAR WITH GLASSES AND A GUN
(France/Belgium - 2015)

Mystery novelist and screenwriter Sebastien Japrisot (1931-2003) was considered "the French Graham Greene" and is still held in high regard by fans in his home country. Though the 2004 film A VERY LONG ENGAGEMENT is probably the best known adaptation of his work to modern arthouse audiences, the late '60s/early '70s saw a string of French films that were either based on Japrisot's work or were original screenplays penned by the author himself, including two of Charles Bronson's biggest hits from his star-making European sojourn: 1968's FAREWELL, FRIEND aka HONOR AMONG THIEVES and 1970's RIDER ON THE RAIN. One such film was 1970's THE LADY IN THE CAR WITH GLASSES AND A GUN, the final work by veteran journeyman Anatole Litvak, scripted by Japrisot and based on his novel. LADY was remade in 1992 as the Estonian/Russian THE LADY IN THE CAR, which doesn't appear to have ever been released west of the Baltic Sea, and 2015 saw this remake that didn't really generate much interest in France or elsewhere. Director Joann Sfar sticks close to the novel and doesn't really do much to differentiate this version from Litvak's other than adding some more explicit sex and violence. In fact, he even makes a concerted effort to keep the story set in an early '70s setting and trots out some De Palma split-screen and other stylish and colorful tricks. The whole point of the project seems to be to emulate 1970 as much as possible while deliberately avoiding the self-conscious retro fetishism.

There isn't much reason for this remake to exist, but it's an enjoyable thriller with an appealing performance by Freya Mavor (Samantha Eggar in the 1970 version) as Dany Doremus, a frumpy wallflower in gaudy, oversized specs (of course, she's drop dead gorgeous when she takes them off). Dany is a secretary for wealthy Paris businessman Michel, played by Benjamin Biolay (Oliver Reed in the original). Michel has an important report Dany needs to type, so he has her come to his house and stay the night, since he and his wife Anita (NYMPHOMANIAC's Stacy Martin; Stephane Audran in the original) and their daughter are going out of town for a few days. Michel has Dany drive them to the airport in a vintage Thunderbird with instructions to take it back to their house and take a few days off work with an extra bonus for all of her trouble. Instead of taking the car back to Paris, she impulsively heads to the south of France because she always wanted to see the sea. On a road she's never taken to a place she's never been in a car she's never driven, everywhere she goes on the way, people insist they've seen her the previous day and she's even already signed in to a hotel where she tries to book a room. She's also attacked and has a wrist broken in a gas station restroom and can't trust a seemingly concerned mystery man (Elio Germano; John McEnery in the original) she meets in the hotel lobby. Things get even more bizarre when a body turns up in the trunk of the T-Bird. Is she suffering from amnesia or is there a conspiracy to drive her insane? The ludicrously contrived final explanation is so simple, quaintly old-fashioned, and beholden to coincidence and convenience that it's no wonder this didn't really get much play with today's twist-accustomed moviegoers. But right down to the score with some very Morricone-style 1970s cues, the 2015 version of THE LADY IN THE CAR WITH GLASSES AND A GUN is a slight but fun and entertaining throwback that wears its love of early '70s French thrillers on its sleeve and tries hard to please its audience. It's just too bad that its audience is still back in the 1970s. (Unrated, 95 mins)


STANDOFF
(Canada/US - 2016)

There's a lot of dumb things you need to overlook, but STANDOFF is the kind of compact B thriller that would've played the bottom half of a double bill back in the old days, and that's meant in a nice way. Visiting the graves of her parents who were killed in a car accident, 12-year-old Isabelle, nicknamed Bird (Ella Ballentine) witnesses several service attendees on the other side of the cemetery get gunned down by cold-blooded hit man Sade (Laurence Fishburne). Realizing he has a witness--and she was taking photos--he chases her to a ramshackle farmhouse where PTSD-plagued Iraq War vet Carter Greene (Thomas Jane) is drinking himself into a stupor with the intention of building up the courage to blow his brains out. Sade shoots Carter in the ankle, and a shotgun-toting Carter grazes Sade's side. Carter's got one shell left and heads to the top of the stairs with Bird, shatters some light bulbs and scatters them on the steps in case Sade decides to sneak up on them. Sade, meanwhile, waits in the living room for the perfect time to take them both out. Hence, STANDOFF.

Written and directed by Adam Alleca, who hasn't done anything since scripting the 2009 remake of THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, STANDOFF has a simple set-up that can't fail: stick the characters in a powderkeg of a situation in an enclosed space and just let it boil. Alleca's script sometimes falls victim to some overbaked tough-guy posturing and pissing contests as Sade and Carter repeatedly shout at each other and Sade constantly invokes how they're both soldiers following orders. Fishburne, whose dialogue and his delivery of it seem to suggest that Alleca wrote the part for Samuel L. Jackson but Fishburne was probably more economically priced, has a blast playing a thoroughly despicable shitbag, while Jane does a nice job as a shattered man whose life has completely fallen apart after his combat experiences and his procrastinating about picking up a tire in the high grass, inadvertently leading to his young son's death when he tripped over it and cracked his head open on a rock. Sure, it's a hackneyed plot device that Carter, whose wife left him after their son died, sees saving Bird as his last shot at redemption, just like it's hopelessly maudlin to have the son's death symbolized by his red balloon floating away (also, why isn't anyone looking for the missing sheriff's deputy that Sade kills?), but STANDOFF overcomes its missteps by excelling where it matters, with the actors (young Ballentine is very impressive) and the intensity of the situation. Alleca also shows his horror influences with several striking shot compositions throughout, and some interesting and unexpected stylistic touches and some occasionally Argento-inspired colorgasms. These positives allow you to overlook things like Sade hectoring Carter with philosophical nuggets like "You don't look the devil in the face without takin' a ride to the bottom floor," which is probably the best bit of Satanically-based life coaching this side of mercenary-of-the-future Jack Palance incomprehensibly bellowing "If you're gonna dine with the devil, you're gonna need a looooong spoon!" in 1993's CYBORG 2. Fishburne and Jane were among the small army of producers, which also includes actor Hayden Christensen and, of all people, Rich Iott, a former Republican congressional candidate from Ohio and occasional Nazi fashion enthusiast. (R, 86 mins)


FLIGHT 7500
(US/Japan - 2016)

When a passenger has a violent seizure, vomits blood, and dies shortly into a Los Angeles-to-Tokyo flight, a supernatural presence makes itself known in this dismal and long-shelved English-language horror film from J-Horror auteur Takashi Shimizu, best known for 2002's JU-ON and its 2004 American remake THE GRUDGE. Filmed in 2011 with a trailer arriving online and in theaters early the next year for its planned August 2012 release under its original title 7500, FLIGHT 7500 was yanked from the release schedule by CBS Films and simply vanished until its premiere overseas in 2014. Lionsgate ended up acquiring the film for the US and sat on it for another two years before quietly dumping it as a DTV title with no publicity at all. The end result looks a lot like what might happen if M. Night Shyamalan remade one of the later, dumber AIRPORT sequels, filled with characters for the most part so loathsome that you hope the plane crashes five minutes after takeoff. With a running time of just 79 minutes, FLIGHT 7500 plays like something that's been truncated and mangled in the editing room, obviously the kind of film that was simply abandoned by everyone involved. The Shyamalanian plot twist at the end is a hoary cliche that negates everything that happened before, like the death of the seizing passenger or the douchey dudebro who tries to steal his Rolex. There's some talk of that passenger carrying a "death doll" that has something to do with Japanese folklore, but that's forgotten as soon as it's mentioned. Then a couple of dead passengers turn into zombies and the survivors are chased by what looks like the output of an '80s metal band's malfunctioning fog machine, but nothing comes of it and nothing is ever fully realized or even remotely explored for that matter, at least in this version.

In the midst of all the paranormal inactivity, Shimizu and screenwriter Craig Rosenberg (THE QUIET ONES) start focusing on the uninteresting characters' melodramatic, daytime soap-ready backstories--flight attendant Leslie Bibb coming to the realization that pilot Johnathon Schaech is never leaving his wife and kids for her; flight attendant Jamie Chung and her prolonged engagement; paramedic Ryan Kwantan and wife Amy Smart trying to get over their second miscarriage; ENTOURAGE's Jerry Ferrara and his germphobic bitch of a Bridezilla wife Nicky Whelan (who continued her unintentional "airline disaster-as-metaphor-for-her-career" motif by later co-starring in the Nic Cage remake of LEFT BEHIND) on their honeymoon; and sullen, tattooed goth chick Scout Taylor-Compton serving as this film's Basil Exposition when it comes to the spirit world and the whatever else thing this is trying to say. A film so bad that the post-production clusterfuckery has to be more interesting than anything in the finished product, FLIGHT 7500 might've had some good ideas at some point, but what's here is an incoherent disaster that's been chopped down as much as it can while still barely qualifying as feature-length. On top of that, after Capt. Schaech orders lights out for the duration of the flight, most of the film takes place in such murky darkness that you can hardly see half of what's going on. Some good films just have bad luck and get lost in the shuffle when it comes to finding a place on the release schedule--this is not one of them. Still, I can't help but think that having George Kennedy turn up as a ghostbusting Joe Patroni would've salvaged the whole thing. (PG-13, 79 mins)

In Theaters: BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (2016)

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: 
DAWN OF JUSTICE
(US - 2016)

Directed by Zack Snyder. Written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer. Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Tao Okamoto, Callan Mulvey, Harry Lennix, Christina Wren, Kevin Costner, Michael Shannon, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Ralph Lister, Jason Momoa, Ezra Miller, Ray Fisher, Michael Cassidy, voice of Patrick Wilson. (PG-13, 151 mins)

There's no getting around the fact that the awkwardly-titled BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE is a disjointed, bloated mess that still feels incomplete even at two and a half hours (a three-hour, R-rated version will be released on Blu-ray in July, though I can't imagine that being much help). The reviews have been devastating and the toxic response from critics would lead some to believe that the film is some kind of cinematic Ebola. I'm not especially keen to engage in a round of "reviewing the reviewers," and some of the vicious reviews make their points in a professional, even-handed manner but it's obvious that a lot of the critics had their reviews pretty much written before they even saw the film. As if workshopping jokes for a Comedy Central roast of director Zack Snyder, many no doubt jotted down their snarky comments and nit-picky complaints and pithy zingers and constructed their reviews around them to fit the narrative that was constructed the moment the project was announced.

This is a recurring issue with the films of the much-maligned Snyder, a guy nobody had a problem with when his surprisingly solid 2004 remake of DAWN OF THE DEAD got good reviews and 2007's influential--for better or worse--300 became a surprise blockbuster. Then around the time he directed 2009's WATCHMEN, critics and internet fanboys decided it was time for him to pay because that was a treasured property that frankly, nobody could've done in a way that would've satisfied its most obsessive fans. 2011's SUCKER PUNCH, one of the strangest and most original major-studio, big-budget movies of the last decade, got eviscerated and Superman fans took it as a personal attack that he was chosen to helm 2013's MAN OF STEEL. The response to BVS is indicative of a recurring problem in today's film criticism: the pile-on. A Hitfix article listing 20 "baffling questions" that BVS "refused to answer" gets several of the details completely wrong. Did the author of that article watch the movie or were they watching how the Rotten Tomatoes percentage was dropping? Does the author know that an unanswered question isn't necessarily a "plot hole"? Is BVS a good movie?  Eh, it has its moments, but it's OK at best. There's plenty of legitimate beefs with a lot of what's here. But is it as offensively godawful as you've been led to believe? Not even close. Nevertheless, the pile-on is the most intense since Ridley Scott's THE COUNSELOR, a film so unjustifiably lambasted ("Meet the worst movie ever made," crowed one particularly smug review) that its reputation improved and a cult following had formed before it even left theaters. So here's BVS, and like the villagers storming Castle Frankenstein, here's critics, fanboys, and message board mouth-breathers victoriously celebrating an imagined defeat--this had a $166 million opening, so it's not as if a movie like this depends on good reviews--with the tone being set by the "Sad Ben Affleck" viral sensation over the weekend.

Essentially a feature-length prologue to Warner Bros' DC Extended Universe franchise, BVS also functions as a reboot of the Christopher Nolan DARK KNIGHT trilogy and as a sequel to MAN OF STEEL (Nolan gets an exec producer credit here). It bites off more than it can chew taking on too many responsibilities, and it shows in the choppiness (Jena Malone was completely cut from this version of the film) and the frequently confusing developments. Opening with yet another replay of young Bruce Wayne witnessing the murder of his parents (Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan), the action cuts to MAN OF STEEL's climactic battle between Superman (Henry Cavill) and Zod (Michael Shannon) and the destruction of Metropolis (played by Detroit, MI) witnessed on the street by Bruce Wayne (Affleck), who sees a Wayne Enterprise building collapse in yet more of the standard-issue 9/11 imagery. Blaming Superman for the mayhem, Wayne vows to bring down the Man of Steel with help from his faithful butler Alfred (Jeremy Irons). There's a lot of plot, usually involving a globe-trotting Lois Lane (Amy Adams) constantly getting into trouble and Superman bailing her out, and the evil plot of Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, more on that shortly) to, well, get some Kryptonite from the bottom of the Indian Ocean and do something to revive Zod and take on Superman. It's never really clear why Luthor hates Superman, but he actually gets the edge on the Man of Steel when he kidnaps and threatens to kill Martha Kent (Diane Lane) if he doesn't kill Batman, which leads to the brief title showdown, followed by about 17 endings.

There's also Gal Gadot as Diana Prince, and it's hardly a spoiler at this point to mention she's Wonder Woman. First seen looking sleek and mysterious and crossing paths with Wayne at a Luthor fundraiser, Diana doesn't figure much into the story until Bruce figures out her long-buried secret and she ends up helping Batman and Superman take on a late-arriving, Luthor-generated villain in the climax. Gadot's first appearance as Wonder Woman doesn't take place until after the two-hour mark, but it's a highlight of the movie and she gets what's by far the biggest response from the audience, but the way she's shoehorned in is clunky. Speaking of clunky, Gadot is also integral to one of the film's clumsiest scenes, where she opens an e-mail with video files of future JUSTICE LEAGUE franchise players Aquaman (Jason Momoa), The Flash (Ezra Miller), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher) in a five-minute sequence that stops the movie cold and cumbersomely plays like Gal Gadot watching movie trailers on her laptop. Cavill looks the part and doesn't really do anything wrong as Superman, Adams is too smart an actress to play someone so perpetually helpless, and Affleck is an ineffectual Bruce Wayne/Batman, speaking in a dour monotone and mumbling a good chunk of the time. He's trying to go for that Christian Bale intensity but he honestly just looks bored. Others appear throughout: Irons as the most cynical and tech-savvy incarnation of Alfred yet to be seen (he functions more like Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox from the Nolan trilogy), Laurence Fishburne as a blustering Perry White, and Holly Hunter as the head of a Senate panel investigating Superman (another underdeveloped subplot that doesn't make much sense) as well as standing in the way of Luthor's master plan, but they don't really get to make an impression. Oh, and for some reason, Jimmy Olsen (Michael Cassidy) is now a covert CIA agent posing as a Daily Planet photographer. He's killed off early when he's made by terrorists, the first tip-off probably being that he was still using a camera with film in the year 2016.

For all its flaws--the messy structure, the inconsistent performances, the frequently ugly and smudgy look of the whole thing (closeups look really bad)--BVS is never dull and there are some spectacular action sequences and somewhat better CGI than the destruction porn that dominated the botched second half of MAN OF STEEL. The film's biggest obstacle, and one thing about which critics have been completely right, is the truly mind-bogglingly awful performance by Eisenberg, who plays Lex Luthor as an obnoxious, insufferable trust-fund brat. Eisenberg's whole approach to Luthor seems to have been to study Heath Ledger's Joker and filter it through his Mark Zuckerberg repertoire. He flails his arms, twitches, smirks, preens, poses, and breaks up and punctuates his sentences with "hmm"s like Deltoid in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. It's a grating, appalling, Razzie-ready spaz attack of a performance, one of the most off-putting and abrasively unpleasant in recent memory. Eisenberg is never convincing and never threatening, never coming off like a feared megalomaniacal villain but rather, an attention-seeking, spoiled little shit in dire need of a time-out.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE, has been universally panned but everybody's still going to see it. The sizable crowd with whom I saw it didn't seem to hate it. They loved Wonder Woman. They laughed at the very few intentionally funny lines. There's the oft-mentioned disconnect between critics and audiences, and while it's got a surplus of flaws and dubious decision-making, it never succeeded in pissing me off at any point, and I can't say the same about MAN OF STEEL and its second-half implosion. Let's face it, whether it was the casting of Affleck or the decision to bring back Snyder or the various ways it deviates from the comic books (I've never been into comic books, so these filmmakers can do whatever they want with the material, I don't care), the trolls and the haters were never going to give this a chance. Going back to Tim Burton's BATMAN in 1989, has there ever been an initially positive response to any announcement of who's playing Batman? Do comic book fans ever not have a hissy fit and react to these kinds of things in a way that makes THE SIMPSONS' Comic Book Guy the most accurate. Representation. Ever?  Critics don't need to sink to that level. The trolls and the haters will always be there because what else do they have? But they shouldn't be the ones making a living as objective reviewers resorting to clickbait tactics in a dying field whose continued relevance is constantly being questioned. Maybe it's lowered expectations, but this movie isn't that fucking bad, and if film criticism is going to continue to be a thing, everyone--from career reviewers to hobbyist bloggers--needs to step up their game. Leave the irrational pile-on to the IMDb message board denizens. 

Cult Classics Revisited: MIRACLE MILE (1989) and CHERRY 2000 (1988)

MIRACLE MILE
(US - 1989)

Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt. Cast: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock, Mykel T. Williamson, Denise Crosby, Kelly Minter, Kurt Fuller, O-Lan Jones, Robert DoQui, Earl Boen, Danny De La Paz, Claude Earl Jones, Alan Rosenberg, Diane Delano, Alan Berger, Brian Thompson, Jenette Goldstein, Edward Bunker, Howard Swain, voice of Raphael Sbarge. (R, 88 mins)

Despite rave reviews from critics, MIRACLE MILE wasted no time vacating theaters as quickly as possible. Opening on May 19, 1989, the last weekend before that year's big summer kickoff (back when Memorial Day weekend signified the beginning of the summer movie season) and the same day as the immortal ROAD HOUSE, the Richard Pryor-Gene Wilder comedy SEE NO EVIL, HEAR NO EVIL, the inferior horror sequel FRIGHT NIGHT PART II, and the teen comedy HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE, it landed with a thud in 15th place. A box-office bomb, MIRACLE MILE has gone on to become one of the essential cult films of the 1980s and has just been released on an extras-packed Blu-ray by Kino Lorber. An apocalyptic AFTER HOURS or DR. STRANGELOVE remade as a meet-cute date movie that also prefigures Don McKellar's 1998 film LAST NIGHT, MIRACLE MILE has lovestruck trombone player Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards, also the star of HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE) charming waitress Julie Peters (Mare Winningham) after spotting her at the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits. As Julie goes to her night shift at a coffee shop, Harry tells her he'll meet her outside when she's off at midnight, but a power outage causes him to oversleep and he doesn't get there until nearly 4:00 am. Julie's long gone and after leaving a desperate message for her, a romantic comedy enters the TWILIGHT ZONE as he picks up a ringing pay phone. On the other end of the line is Chip (voice of Raphael Sbarge), who's calling from a missile solo, frantically explaining that the nukes have been launched and they've got an hour before they hit. Chip thinks he's talking to his father, but dialed the wrong area code. Chip's ranting goes silent when Harry hears gunshots, followed by a voice warning "Forget everything you've heard and go back to sleep."

Still not sure if it's an elaborate prank, Harry describes the phone call to Julie's co-workers and overnight regulars at the diner. Disbelief escalates when a well-dressed coffee shop regular (Denise Crosby) makes some calls and finds out that many of America's politicians are mysteriously away in South America. Panic immediately ensues, with cook Fred (Robert DoQui) herding everyone into his food truck and heading to the airport, where the well-dressed woman has chartered several flights out of L.A. Fred refuses to go the opposite direction so Harry can pick up Julie, so Harry jumps out of the back of the truck and begins an hour-long odyssey into the night to get Julie--the woman he's waited his entire life to find--and get out of L.A., which is rapidly descending into a state of lawless chaos as the word of the world's end has quickly spread, making Harry wonder if he's needlessly incited a Chicken Little panic.

Steve De Jarnatt at a recent MIRACLE MILE screening

Written and directed by Steve De Jarnatt, MIRACLE MILE took nearly a decade to get made the way its creator intended. A hot property coming out of film school with his acclaimed 1978 short film TARZANA (with cult actors Timothy Carey and Eddie Constantine), De Jarnatt started shopping his MIRACLE MILE script shortly after, generating plenty of buzz but always getting the same reaction: the ending had to be changed. To De Jarnatt, the bleak ending was key to what made the film work, and the near-decade-long ordeal in making the MIRACLE MILE he wanted to make likely had a major hand in him shifting gears and abandoning feature films to focus on TV series work. While MIRACLE MILE languished in perpetual turnaround throughout the 1980s, De Jarnatt sought out journeyman gigs--he scored a co-writing credit on the 1983 SCTV cult comedy STRANGE BREW and directed the "Man from the South" episode of the rebooted ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS on NBC. He was offered films like THE PURSUIT OF D.B. COOPER (1981) and PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE (1985) and he was in talks to direct DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN (1985) before he left the project and was replaced by Susan Seidelman. De Jarnatt ultimately bought back the MIRACLE MILE script to ensure it would be made his way or not at all (on the MIRACLE MILE Blu-ray commentary with film critic Walter Chaw, De Jarnatt says "I was perceived as being arrogant, but I wasn't being arrogant...I just wanted to make my movie"). Still lacking the pull to get MIRACLE MILE made, De Jarnatt stashed it away and went to work on the post-apocalyptic action/romance hybrid CHERRY 2000 for Orion, who shelved it for three years before sending it straight to video in late 1988. By the time CHERRY 2000's belated and unceremonious release came about, De Jarnatt already had MIRACLE MILE in the can.

Support came from Hemdale Film Corporation, the indie that had just hit the respectable big time by backing Oliver Stone's Oscar-winning PLATOON (1986). Not only did Hemdale chief John Daly love De Jarnatt's script, he insisted that the downbeat ending remain intact. Figuring he'd have to make some concessions, De Jarnatt shot a somewhat less bleak--but still bleak--ending and Daly disapproved. "No," the supportive producer advised. "Let's rip their hearts out." Hemdale's credits included favorites like THE TERMINATOR (1984) and RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985), but they were hitting their artistic and commercial pinnacle around the time they gave the green light to MIRACLE MILE. Over 1986-87, the company produced the feel-good sleeper hit HOOSIERS, Oliver Stone's SALVADOR and PLATOON, Tim Hunter's grim RIVER'S EDGE, and Bernardo Bertolucci's epic THE LAST EMPEROR. Their fortunes would quickly wane over 1988-89 with box-office under-performers like CRIMINAL LAW, SHAG, and STAYING TOGETHER, and outright bombs like HOTEL COLONIAL, BUSTER, THE BOOST, COHEN AND TATE, THE TIME GUARDIAN, and the Nicolas Cage-eats-a-cockroach classic VAMPIRE'S KISS. They never had a moneymaker after THE LAST EMPEROR, and by the time MIRACLE MILE came out in 1989, nearly two years after it was shot, Hemdale was starting to run on fumes before sputtering to a quiet end in 1994 with the animated film THE PRINCESS AND THE GOBLIN.

"It seems every year, more people find it," De Jarnatt explains on the commentary. Like most Hemdale releases in 1989, MIRACLE MILE played to empty theaters, but it's managed to find a place in the consciousness of the cult movie collective. Along with the NYC-set AFTER HOURS and John Landis' L.A.-set INTO THE NIGHT (1985), it's one of the great "night" movies of the 1980s, the kind of film that brilliantly captures the look and feel of a city in the wee hours of the morning and that distinct L.A. flavor with its desolate streets ("New York is the city that never sleeps," De Jarnatt says, "but L.A. goes to bed at ten o'clock"), oddball characters, absurdist humor ("Fuck Joyce Brothers!"), and its extremely effective score by Tangerine Dream (De Jarnatt only worked at night while writing the script, and did so while listening to the duo's soundtrack to William Friedkin's SORCERER). It's a distinct product of its era--with pay phones, TV stations that sign off after 2:00 am, and the all-consuming fear of nuclear war--but it's aged very well. Sure, some of the visual effects reveal just how little money with which De Jarnatt had to work, and the fashions unquestionably date the film in the late '80s, but the best things about it stand the test of time, particularly the vivid performances of the cast. Everyone from Edwards and Winningham down to the character player with the smallest bit all get their moments--from the ensemble at the diner (most of the surviving supporting actors all reunite for a group interview on the bonus features) to '50s western and sci-fi hero John Agar, who's just terrific as Julie's grandfather, setting aside his 15-year argument with his estranged wife (Lou Hancock) as the two reconcile on what Harry knows will be the last night of their lives. MIRACLE MILE is a film that has stuck with the few people who saw it in 1989, and it's obviously an important one to everyone involved (Edwards and Winningham also have an intervew on the Blu-ray), all of whom look back on it with nothing but fond memories and are clearly happy that its reputation has grown.

CHERRY 2000
(US - 1988)

Directed by Steve De Jarnatt. Written by Michael Almereyda. Cast: Melanie Griffith, David Andrews, Ben Johnson, Tim Thomerson, Pamela Gidley, Harry Carey Jr., Brion James, Michael C. Gwynne, Larry Fishburne, Marshall Bell, Jennifer Mayo, Cameron Milzer, Robert Z'Dar, Jack Thibeau, Howard Swain. (PG-13, 99 mins)

Prior to MIRACLE MILE, De Jarnatt made his feature directing debut with CHERRY 2000, a dystopian action sci-fi romance that at times seems to be going for some ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI-style eccentricity. Orion Pictures had no idea what to do with CHERRY 2000, which completed filming in 1985 and saw its release date shuffled multiple times throughout 1986 and 1987 before it was shelved indefinitely. Orion ultimately released it directly to video in November 1988, seven months before the already-completed MIRACLE MILE hit screens and just a month before star Melanie Griffith's breakout, Oscar-nominated performance in Mike Nichols' WORKING GIRL.

In the year 2017 with most of America a desert wasteland and unemployment at 40%, Sam Treadwell (David Andrews), a successful white-collar exec at a recycling business, is heartbroken when his cherished robot lover Cherry (Pamela Gidley) short-circuits and fries during a bout of vigorous lovemaking on a floor flooded by an overflowing dishwasher. Cherry was one of the last of the priceless 2000 line, and when Sam manages to salvage her data chip, he becomes obsessed with doing whatever it takes, whatever the cost, to find a pristine Cherry 2000 to replace his beloved unit. To do this requires the toughest tracker in the area to get him to Zone 7, the location of the last remaining Cherry warehouse, and he finds her in the desolate helltown of Glory Hole: renowned bounty hunter E. Johnson (Griffith). On their way to Zone, located in what was once Las Vegas, they bicker back and forth, with E. Johnson chiding Sam for loving a robot and Sam developing feelings for E. Johnson but unable to let go of his cherished Cherry. They eventually get some help from wily old tracker Six-Fingered Jake (Ben Johnson) and cross paths with treacherous Snappy Tom (Harry Carey Jr), the owner of the Last Chance Brothel & Gas before the introduction of chief villain Lester (Tim Thomerson), who rules what's left of a sand-covered Vegas.

Thomerson!

Written not by De Jarnatt but Michael Almereyda (best known for his modern update of HAMLET with Ethan Hawke) from a story by Lloyd Fonvielle (THE LORDS OF DISCIPLINE), CHERRY 2000 is a little silly at times, but it gets a lot of mileage out of a very likable performance by Griffith as the tough and charming E. Johnson, and it really picks up with the arrival of Thomerson, then fresh off TRANCERS, as the ruthless but hapless Lester. It's also enjoyable to see old-school western stalwarts like Johnson and Carey dropped into the middle of such a goofy setting, but CHERRY 2000 has a hard time getting by the black hole in the center that is human charisma vacuum David Andrews. Had the studio's original choice for Sam--a then-little-known Kevin Costner, who backed out after doing FANDANGO, SILVERADO, and AMERICAN FLYERS in quick succession--made himself available, the film likely would've had a more magnetic hero and more box office potential once THE UNTOUCHABLES and NO WAY OUT became big hits in 1987. Andrews has had a busy career in supporting roles and guest spots on TV--with his major series lead coming on NBC's short-lived MANN AND MACHINE in 1992--but there's a reason he never became a star. He plays Sam as whiny, needy, and even a little bit creepy, and while it still would've been silly, Costner would've at least been able to more convincingly sell Sam's devotion to Cherry without coming off in such an unappealing way. Still, CHERRY 2000 plays a bit better now than it did in 1988. It works it fits and starts, but it's a generally enjoyable and appealingly odd fusion of love story, western, and post-apocalypse, and shows what could've been a recurrent De Jarnatt theme of romance blossoming under the unlikeliest of circumstances. When the filmmaker seemingly removed himself from the game after the box-office failure of MIRACLE MILE, making ends meet with TV assignments on shows like THE X-FILES, ER, and LIZZIE MCGUIRE, cult cinema's had a potentially unique voice largely silenced for 25 years. With the Blu-ray releases of De Jarnatt's two forgotten late '80s gems, perhaps it's time for that voice to be heard again.