Tag Archives: 20th Century Studios

Movie Review ~ The Boogeyman (2023)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: When a desperate patient unexpectedly shows up at the home of a widowed therapist and his two daughters seeking help, he leaves behind a terrifying supernatural entity that preys on families and feeds on the suffering of its victims.
Stars: Sophie Thatcher, Chris Messina, Vivian Lyra Blair, Marin Ireland, Madison Hu, LisaGay Hamilton, David Dastmalchian
Director: Rob Savage
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 98 minutes
TMMM Score: (1/10)
Review: Originally published in 1973 as a short story in an innocuous magazine, Stephen King’s ‘The Boogeyman’ is more prominently known to readers as a selection in King’s 1978 short story collection, ‘Night Shift’. That first amassing of King’s tiny terrors holds some mighty famous doozies which would go on to inspire film adaptations that ranged from the spooky (‘Jerusalem’s Lot’ became the 1978 TV movie Salem’s Lot, a remake is finished and waiting on a release date) to the silly (King himself would adapt ‘Trucks’ into infamous turkey Maximum Overdrive in 1986) to the freaky (1984’s Children of the Corn) to the icky (1990’s Graveyard Shift…those rats!). A solid story produced the one genuinely good movie; strangely, it is often the least mentioned, 1991’s Sometimes They Come Back. 

It would have been great to report that The Boogeyman is as scary as the preview makes it out to be, a balm for King fans that have suffered countless inequities with lame adaptations of the author’s work. I was encouraged by early reports that test screenings had gone so well that 20th Century Studios and Hulu scrapped plans for a direct-to-streaming debut and opted for an exclusive theatrical release. Sadly, with its patchwork script and frequent lapses in common sense, The Boogeyman leaves audiences aimlessly wandering in the darkness as much as it does its characters. Meeting its quota for jump scares and only just, it’s a cash-gobbling theater filler for a studio and filmmakers that can do much better.

In fairness, calling King’s original story flimsy is putting it mildly. Written during a time when King favored ugly words spat out by backward people, it’s the kind of tale you read now and wonder when the author will get to the inevitable point. How it took three respectable screenwriters, Scott Beck (A Quiet Place), Bryan Woods (Haunt), and Mark Heyman (The Skeleton Twins), to come up with such a pithy story to wrap around King’s initial treatment is mystifying. There’s so little happening (or explained) in the final project that it’s…frightening.

The Harper family has suffered a terrible loss and is struggling to put the pieces of their life back together. Dad Will (Chris Messina, I Care a Lot) is a therapist seeing patients out of his home, doing work for them that he ignores for himself. Teenager Sadie (Sophie Thatcher, Yellowjackets) is finally ready to return to school and face her (incredibly b***hy) classmates, another hurdle in a long healing journey. At the same time, her younger sister Sawyer (Vivien Lyra Blair) prefers to sleep with an array of lights on in her bedroom. Little hints are sprinkled initially, but it honestly takes a solid twenty minutes for the script to reveal their mother was killed in an accident (I’m guessing car, but the way Messina drives with his back facing oncoming traffic, he’s clearly not attentive to the rules of the road) and even then, the mother barely functions as a character. However, she factors heavily into the emotional beats of the plot.

As if this grief wasn’t enough, in walks Lester Billings (David Dastmalchian, The Suicide Squad) to see Will for an emergency session. (This entire sequence makes up the source short story.)  During their time, Lester tells Will of an evil that infiltrated his family, with a horrible fate that took his children. Disturbed by Lester’s behavior, Will leaves to “use the bathroom” (code for call the cops) and, in doing so, lets the man wander freely around the house. Will doesn’t know that Sophie has returned early from school after a disastrous first day and will face Lester, setting off a wicked chain of events that unleashes a similar lurking danger in the Harper house. At first targeting Sawyer before turning its attention to Sophie, the sisters must work together to beat back a creature that feeds on grief too raw to shake entirely.

I’m not dismissing that there’s a nugget of good story here. Evil that feeds on unbridled emotion (especially in children who often cannot control it) is a frequent theme in King’s work. With a more sophisticated production, The Boogeyman could have been something special. In the hands of its adaptors, it’s a confusing blob of scenes that don’t align with what came before. It’s as if each of the three writers took an assigned number of sequences and just mashed them all in a lump without cross-checking with one another what’s happening. That’s why you’ll have three people in one house being attacked by a creature, but no one hearing their family member is in trouble or coming to their aid. Multiple times throughout the film, Sophie or Sawyer screams a high-pitched wail, and Will is nowhere to be found. Where has Will vanished to? Often the scariest thing in the film is realizing the girls are left alone so often during an increasingly violent period. It’s obvious there’s been late-stage editing done to tone down parts of the movie to get it to its assigned PG-13 rating. So not only is it rarely scary, but there’s also little bang for your buck in the way of a typical horror payoff.

Director Rob Savage was responsible for one of the best pandemic projects, the terrifying Zoom marvel Host (as well as the creepy 2021 Dashcam), so it’s surprising his name is on such nonsense. His talent for well-timed jump scares and its jittery aftershock is evident, but it’s the time between those ingenious moments when the film is just the absolute pits. It doesn’t help matters the actors look as confused as the script…when we can see them, of course. For a movie about a creature that hunts in the darkness, it becomes enormously funny that characters who know the rules will willingly walk by light switches and lamps without flipping them on or, at the very least, using their cell phone. 

Ending with an Elvis Presley music cue that is the most foolishly on-the-nose needle drop I’ve ever heard is simply the sour cherry on top of this sloppy sundae of a film. The Boogeyman is one of the worst Stephen King adaptations audiences have been treated to, a mostly scare-less drag that’s been smartly marketed as a terror-filled nailbiter. Save your money and gnaw your nails at one of the classic King novels that have received the big screen treatment.

Movie Review ~ White Men Can’t Jump (2023)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Juggling tenuous relationships, financial pressures, and serious internal struggles, two ballers–opposites who are seemingly miles apart–find they might have more in common than they imagined possible.
Stars: Sinqua Walls, Jack Harlow, Teyana Taylor, Laura Harrier, Vince Staples, Myles Bullock, Lance Reddick
Director: Calmatic
Rated: R
Running Length: 101 minutes
TMMM Score: (6.5/10)
Review: It can’t be stated enough what a huge impact 1992’s White Men Can’t Jump had on the careers of stars Wesley Snipes, Woody Harrelson, and Rosie Perez. Without the success of that film, who can tell what the rest of the ’90s would have looked like for the trio. Would Snipes have drawn such huge crowds with Passenger 57 later that year, the first of a dozen routine action thrillers he would elevate thanks to his blend of easy-going machismo and take no guff beatdowns? It’s hard to call if Perez’s Oscar nomination the following year for Fearless after many thought she’d get one for her breakout role here, would have been a sure bet. Then there’s Harrelson, jumping from a dopey sidekick role on Cheers to costarring with Snipes and sharing top billing a year later with Demi Moore and Robert Redford in the much-discussed Indecent Proposal. For all three, the film was a gateway to their future success.

And you know what? They deserved it. Revisiting the original film (like this remake, available on Hulu) shows that it holds up remarkably well three decades later, aside from the hysterically dated attire (those with an aversion to neon, spandex, and puffy shirts have been warned). It’s as fast and funny as ever, with the undeniable chemistry between Snipes and Harrelson being the de facto lynchpin in making writer/director Ron Shelton’s basketball buddy film a slam dunk. If that weren’t enough, you have Perez stealing the movie from under her male costars as Harrelson’s Jeopardy! obsessed girlfriend that loves her man but doesn’t love his terrible ways of being hustled for money. Perez is the rock-solid core of the film, while the men provide the flash around her. 

My first thought when I heard they were remaking White Men Can’t Jump for a modern audience was: how will they ever replicate what Rosie Perez brought to the original? Finding two leads that could dribble a ball and strike up believably chemistry isn’t that hard, but to bottle up that lightning for a second time would be rare. Screenwriters Doug Hall and Kenya Barris have sidestepped that challenge altogether for better or for worse and not even attempted to find another Perez, centering their script around the two leads (Sinqua Walls and rapper Jack Harlow) and short-shifting the women. The result is a remake in name only that may have longtime fans crying foul initially but does get easier to warm up to the longer you keep your head in the game.

Although once a promising high-school basketball star on the road to playing professionally, a brush with the law ended the dreams of Kamal Allen (Walls, Nanny) before they could even begin. Playing pick-up games with his friends and working to pay off mounting expenses to help his wife Imani (Teyana Taylor, A Thousand and One) launch her hair salon, he carries guilt for disappointing his dad (the late Lance Reddick, John Wick: Chapter 4) struck down by ALS and isn’t up for being challenged on his home turf. That’s just what entrepreneur Jeremy (Harlow) does, though.

Always working some angle, Jeremy is currently pushing his detox drink while trying to train other rising talent players. Hampered by an injury that has kept him from reaching his potential, he isn’t above taking a hot-headed player like Kamal for a few bills when the player tries to get under his skin. Kamal recognizes talent when he sees it, and while Jeremy’s girlfriend Tatiana (Laura Harrier, The Starling) wants him to give up playing and devote all attention to starting a life with her, he can’t resist taking Kamal up on his offer to play in a series of tournaments for major money. Of course, the two must get used to their different styles and get over personal hang-ups to position themselves to win. 

It takes a solid twenty minutes for a viewer familiar with the original White Men Can’t Jump to acclimate to this new environment and understand that the remake isn’t working with the same set of rules as its predecessor. I’m not even sure why it retained the title, it’s established early on that the notion of white players not being able to sink a basket is old-fashioned, and that’s about all the reference we get. Why Hall and Barris wanted to remake the property is puzzling; the story they’ve outlined is so different, but that’s not to say it doesn’t have its compelling narrative at the same time. Walls and Harlow aren’t ever trying to copy what Snipes and Harrelson put on film, creating new characters and being given some slack by director Calmatic (of the terrible 2023 House Party remake) to do so. This is Harlow’s first foray into acting, and while he acquits himself nicely, you get the feeling Walls is holding back a bit not to act quite so many circles around him. 

In Shelton’s original film, there was more equality between the two players. While there is an attempt to find balance, the new White Men Can’t Jump always feels like it’s more in Kamal’s court than Jeremy’s. Walls has a more well-rounded storyline (and supporting cast), so that’s fine, but I wonder what it would have been like had the film been filled with a more robust roster. This is a minor nitpick, but there is consistent talk about Jeremy not having much money and he’s wearing clothes meant to look raggy, but you can tell they are carefully chosen works that cost a pretty penny. A quilted name-brand hoodie? And he has trouble paying for hourly parking? I don’t think so.

I wish the women in White Men Can’t Jump were treated as well as the men. Taylor’s role is indeed more significant than Tyra Ferrell’s was in the 1992 film, but I don’t know what is going on with the creation of Harrier’s part. Jeremy’s girlfriend is such an unlikable bore; when he professes such devotion to her after she’s spent much of the moving putting him down, you wonder if he’s perhaps taken a few too many basketballs to the head. It’s not helped that Harrier is far from a compelling actress, but then again, she is standing in the shadow of Perez, which no one wants to be in. At least we have another chance to see Taylor in a strong supporting role a month after wowing us in A Thousand and One.

Skipping theaters and debuting on Hulu, the remake of White Men Can’t Jump may not have the same lasting strength on the cinematic court as its source inspiration. Still, it also doesn’t significantly damage the name either. Walls and Harlow make for a friendly pair. If they were to team up again (hey, it worked for Snipes and Harrelson on several unrelated films, I’m looking at you, Money Train – where they were also often eclipsed by a supporting female…newcomer Jennifer Lopez), it could capitalize on the building blocks they’ve put in place here. 

Movie Review ~ Boston Strangler

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Loretta McLaughlin was the reporter who first connected the murders and broke the story of the Boston Strangler. She and Jean Cole challenged the sexism of the early 1960s to report on the city’s most notorious serial killer.
Stars: Keira Knightley, Carrie Coon, Alessandro Nivola, David Dastmalchian, Morgan Spector, Bill Camp, Chris Cooper
Director: Matt Ruskin
Rated: R
Running Length: 112 minutes
TMMM Score: (7.5/10)
Review:  It will always be a mystery why 2007’s Zodiac didn’t get more recognition the year it came out. Directed by David Fincher, it was a frightening look at the killing spree between 1968 and 1985 in San Francisco from the perspective of civilian reporters and police. Epic in design and solid performance, it received no significant awards but has gone on to be a blueprint for many procedural detective shows. Its aesthetic look was copied for numerous true crime dramas.

I mention Zodiac so thoroughly in my review of 20th Century Studios Boston Strangler (premiering exclusively on Hulu), not just because it skillfully focuses on reporters/police tracking a well-known serial killer throughout the ’60s but because it’s impossible not to compare the two films. It’s not disparaging writer/director Matt Ruskin’s new endeavor, produced by Ridley Scott, to say that one could imagine this being part of the “Zodiac Universe” because both movies are a systematic, even-keeled approach to the subject. And both present the violence of the crimes from an emotionally removed place. This is what happened; it was ugly, and a human committed it; you can look away if you want, but it won’t change the fact that it happened.

After two women are murdered in short succession, reporter Loretta McLaughlin (Keira Knightley, Silent Night) asks her boss (Chris Cooper, Little Women) to be assigned to look into the deaths and see if there is a connection. Unhappy with her job writing fluff pieces and wanting more serious work, Loretta considers this an opportunity to level up and prove her worth. It takes some convincing, but she can finally dig around to see what she can find. Eventually, paired with the more experienced (but still often just as undermined) Jean Cole (Carrie Coon, Gone Girl), Loretta pieces together the pattern of a serial killer that won’t be stopped.

Facing opposition from the police and politicians who don’t want to be seen as foolish, Loretta and Jean are often forced to go the extra mile, putting their lives and reputations at risk, to prove their theory is correct before the Boston Strangler strikes again. Facing pressure from the public, who grow increasingly terrified as bodies of innocent women are routinely found viciously murdered, the reporters follow their leads and instincts to go beyond the headlines and newsprint to help take down a deadly predator.

I deliberately didn’t do my homework before watching Boston Strangler, purposely not reading up on the case’s history and passing on the chance to watch director Richard Fleischer’s 1968 film version of The Boston Strangler starring Tony Curtis. I wanted to let Ruskin’s film tell the story to me, and for the most part, it was an informative retelling of the events with the apparent glossing over of the finer particulars to bring the movie in under two hours. That gives the film a swift pace and little time to linger anywhere for very long, which is where we get the trade-off.

When you have a movie like Boston Strangler with enough details to keep you thinking and a nice gait to ensure you stay engaged, you only realize later that you didn’t learn much about the people milling about the movie. We know Loretta and Jean as crackerjack reporters. Still, their personal lives are paper thin, aside from Loretta’s husband (Nanny‘s Morgan Spector, who, ironically, plays Coon’s husband on HBO’s The Gilded Age) going from supporting his wife to a “You’re never home to make dinner!” kinda guy pretty quickly.

Nevertheless, this is a slick film made with evident skill and care. I can understand why it is better suited for a streaming debut than making a go of it in theaters; it just plays better on a smaller screen for at-home digestion. That allows for the frightening details of the case to creep their way into your brain as well. Boston Strangler is crafted nicely for a weekend watch or stormy night viewing. Don’t be shocked if you leave a light on at bedtime…and please, always check the peephole before opening the door!

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Movie Review ~ Rosaline

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A comedic retelling of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” told from the point of view of Romeo’s jilted ex, Rosaline, the woman Romeo first claims to love before he falls for Juliet.
Stars: Kaitlyn Dever, Sean Teale, Isabela Merced, Kyle Allen, Bradley Whitford, Minnie Driver, Christopher McDonald, Nicholas Rowe, Spencer Stevenson, Nico Hiraga
Director: Karen Maine
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 96 minutes
TMMM Score: (5/10)
Review:  When Shakespeare in Love won the Best Picture Oscar in 1998 over Saving Private Ryan, it represented not just a victory of the smaller, more art-house film over a thundering military blockbuster from a major studio. It demonstrated that other writers (Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard) had cracked the code that had perplexed many up until that point and still does to this day. How do you shift the focus from Shakespeare’s most famous characters (or the man himself) to secondary players and make them as enjoyable as the show stars? Some would disagree, but I say Stoppard himself hadn’t even cracked it with his famous play Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, concerning the minor players in Hamlet. Stage musicals have maybe fared best with examples like the riotous Something Rotten! and the upcoming & Juliet using music cues to work their way into Shakespeare’s famous storylines to success.  

I’m interested in looking at what might tie in closest to 20th Century Studios’ and Hulu’s Rosaline, 1999’s 10 Things I Hate About You. An update of Taming of the Shrew, the hit film made stars out of Julia Stiles and newcomer Heath Ledger. More than just a reworking of the play, it brought other side characters from its updated high school setting to give the entire effort creative energy that similar attempted updates were missing. It’s interesting to note that Rosaline is based on Rebecca Serle’s 2012 YA novel ‘When You Were Mine’, also set in a modern-day West Coast high school. Taking its inspiration from the Romeo and Juliet story, it is told from the point of view of Rosaline, the girl Romeo is in love with and hopes to see again at the ball where he winds up meeting Juliet.

That’s an excellent place to jump into our film, finding Rosaline (Dever, Dear Evan Hansen) anxiously awaiting her Romeo, played by Kyle Allen (West Side Story), boasting shoulder-length hair, making him look a lot like Ledger. Ascending her balcony and delivering lines now known worldwide, they come off as a little flowery to her. She likes Romeo but does she “like” like him? It’s tough to tell. While she asks her best pal Paris (Spencer Stevenson) for his advice, he’s more interested in trying on her newly arrived hats than listening to her boy trouble. Her Nurse (Minnie Driver, Cinderella) isn’t a big help either, resigned to her place as a highly educated woman at a time when only men were regarded for their knowledge. 

With her father (Bradley Whitford, Saving Mr. Banks) declaring it’s time for her to marry (in a sequence that gave me déjà vu to last week’s Catherine Called Birdy), Rosaline narrowly avoids a boring suitor. She does, however, wind up stuck on an afternoon outing with a handsome candidate (Sean Teale) and missing an important ball. Romeo won’t return her letters when she makes it back, and her just-arrived Cousin Juliet (Isabella Merced, Sicario: Day of the Soldado) is gushing about a new boy she met at the soirée. Adding up the equation, Rosaline realizes what’s occurred and sets out (with the occasional help of her would-be hunky swain) to break up the star-crossed couple before they kill themselves and really mess things up for her.

Surprisingly, like most of the cast, Dever struggles to find her footing in the role. I’m not sure if playing this kind of character is in her wheelhouse. Rosaline is never intentionally cruel. Instead, she’s a goal-oriented person with no game plan. She loves Romeo only because she can’t have him, even when the new man standing in front of her offers her the type of adventurous life she seeks. When Dever gets there, the role (and movie) gets more fun, primarily thanks to Teale’s pleasant personality and leading man charisma. It seems to be de rigueur to make the more well-known characters either icy cold or drips, and the pair of famous lovers seem to be a mixture of both. Or perhaps it’s just that Merced and Allen don’t generate much heat (or are given much screen time together by director Karen Maine) to make it believable. The nice surprises are, funnily enough, the supporting players. Nico Hiraga (Moxie) as a blissed-out messenger, is a scream, Stevenson is extra fun as Rosaline’s friend and gossipmonger, and Driver is on a winning streak playing wry sounding boards that make tough love their best medicine.

It was odd to find out that the adaptation by Scott Neustadter (The Fault in Our Stars) and Michael H. Weber (The Spectacular Now) had moved the setting from modern-day California back to the plays original Verona timeline. Now Serle’s entire concept, retelling the R+J story through a modern lens from a different perspective, was lost, and the film becomes a fluff piece that’s enjoyable to sit through but largely unimportant. You can feel the actors straining to make more of what’s there, but alas, there’s not a lot to do with a play working from a pre-destined beginning and ending, so audiences familiar with the play can sit back and wait for each beat to hit along the way. While it has a few surprises so as not to be as big of a bummer as the Bard wanted it to be, I’m not sure if Rosaline’s writers have fixed anything in their slight tweaking of a few plot points.

Not forgettable enough to be labeled mediocre but not so memorable that you’d want to make a special point of catching this because it looked interesting; I would say Rosaline is more for the YA crowd that doesn’t hold the book (and definitely not the play) on a precious pedestal. The screenwriters have altered so much that it’s unusually unrecognizable, and the cast never seems as confident in the material as they should be. That uneasiness shows and brings the film down to a disappointingly flat level.

Movie Review ~ Barbarian

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A woman staying at an Airbnb discovers that the house she has rented is not what it seems.
Stars: Georgina Campbell, Bill Skarsgård, Justin Long, Matthew Patrick Davis, Richard Brake, Jaymes Butler, Kurt Braunohler
Director: Zach Cregger
Rated: R
Running Length: 102 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review: There’s a clever bit of marketing surrounding the release of the new horror film Barbarian. Along with the traditional trailer that blessedly gives away precious little, 20th Century Studios is also running a robust digital campaign. Ads showing preview audiences watching the film and reacting are nothing new regarding reeling in interested viewers, but this pushes hard on the shock and awe that await. It’s a bold strategy because if the movie doesn’t deliver, then there’s lost trust between the studio and ticket-holders that Hollywood can’t buy back in the future. Lucky for Barbarian’s filmmakers and even more fortunate for us, writer/director Zach Cregger has gifted brave viewers an Energizer Bunny of nail-gnashing scares. Just when you think its best hand has been played, the real terror begins.

Creeger’s film could easily start with a title card reading, “It was a dark and stormy night,” because that’s the first thing we see as a car pulls up in the rain in front of an innocuous house. Tess (Georgina Campbell, All My Friends Hate Me) ignores calls from someone named Marcus as she goes over the details of accessing her Airbnb. There’s trouble, though. When she tries to get her key from the lockbox, it’s missing. Noticing a light inside, she knocks until Keith (Bill Skarsgård, Eternals) opens the door. It appears they’ve both booked the rental home through different services, and after awkward interplay that graduates into friendly introductions, it’s decided Tess will sleep in the bedroom while Keith will take the couch. They’ll figure things out the next day.

Oh, but I wish I could tell you more than that! I would like to expand on why Tess is in town and analyze why she doesn’t heed many warning signs to find new lodging the next day. I want to get into what the neighborhood looks like in the bright sunlight after the rain stops and what Tess finds when she hunts for more toilet paper in the basement. I’d really like to get into Justin Long’s character and how he fits into the story, not to mention discuss why he’s visiting the city and the same pristine house Tess and Keith got double booked into. Mostly, I’m intrigued to find out your thoughts about a flashback that explains a lot while saying little. I won’t say anything, though, because to spoil absolutely any of Creeger’s ingenious surprises and stunners would shortchange you of an extremely scary (and satisfying) freak out.

Do me a favor, and trust me when I say that knowing too much about Barbarian going in will dim its bright light just a little bit. Having seen it, I confidently feel it has substantial replay value and look forward to watching it again. There’s no getting back that first watch, and you’ll be grateful to let things play out on their own without waiting for the expected to happen. The marketing team involved with Barbarian has kindly kept a solid lid on the proceedings, and while the trailer may have hinted at what’s going on, it’s withheld more than it’s shown. 

Still an actor as he begins to dip his toe into directing, Creeger has enlisted a strong cast as well as friends and family (like wife Sara Paxton) to fill out voice-over roles. Campbell, Skarsgård, and especially Long (Lady of the Manor) are all incredibly game to play along with Creeger’s twisted turns, and the film works as well as it does because this trio takes it so seriously. The cast could have played elements of the third act toward one extreme, but thankfully the actors handle it with the right amount of intensity, so it doesn’t go over the top. Between this and the upcoming House of Darkness, Long is on a roll, playing a particular kind of doggedly caddish character you start to root for even when you know you shouldn’t. As in 2021’s Wildcat, Campbell knows how to work with unflappable female characters, breaking through any coldness around their edges and finding their warmth. 

It’s not a spoiler to say that Barbarian is front-loaded with enough material where you could see options open for further films should the movie become a hit. Beginning, ending, tangential side-to-side, Creeger has wisely written his movie to be a bit amorphous so that it can stand on its own but could easily be pulled into another direction should the studio want more. If they’re as briskly paced and razor-sharp as this film, I’ll gladly book another stay at this horror home.

Movie Review ~ Prey

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A skilled female warrior on the Great Plans fights to protect her tribe against one of the first highly-evolved Predators to land on Earth.
Stars: Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, Stormee Kipp, Michelle Thrush, Julian Black Antelope, Dane DiLiegro
Director: Dan Trachtenberg
Rated: R
Running Length: 99 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review:  The release of the first Predator in 1987 came at the first surge in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career as one of the number one action stars of the 20th century. Already established as The Terminator, he’d built a following as a dependable force at the box office who chose projects that capitalized on his brawn first and an indefatigable charisma second. While no tremendous thespian, it was always clear that Schwarzenegger took his job seriously, and that kept audiences coming back to see what new adventure he’d take them on. Teaming with soon-to-be hitmaker director John McTiernan on the jungle sci-fi thriller, Predator became a summer blockbuster and remained a stone-cold classic.

Efforts to replicate that success have yielded mixed results in the years following. A just-fine 1990 sequel took the deadly alien hunter out of the tropics and into the wilds of Los Angeles but didn’t have Schwarzenegger for balance. Interesting ideas were introduced in 2010’s Predators and, to a lesser (and maybe more disappointing) extent, in 2018’s The Predator, which brought back original screenwriter Shane Black to the director’s chair. Still, nothing could get back that initial success. Even pairing the franchise with Alien for two disheartening attempts didn’t catch on.

Continuing a recent trend of renewing a popular franchise by uncovering a “lost” early chapter in its history, 20th Century Studios and Hulu are releasing Prey, and it turns out that Arnie wasn’t the first to go one-on-one with an alien beast. Most of the subsequent entries have abided by the law of sequels that demand bigger (read: more) Predators for your buck, and while that can work for some franchises (Aliens being a great example), it didn’t work as well for this. By restoring the premise to its roots and casting a single enemy as the creature featured, writers Patrick Aison and Dan Trachtenberg (who also directed) allow for a collective unity onscreen and off. They’ve made the best and by far the most exciting sequel to the original, making it an essential part of the Predator universe.

Set on the Great Plains in 1719 among the Comanche people, the film opens with familiarity. Naru, a young woman, struggling to prove her worth in a tribe of elders and male dominance, wants to impress upon those within her family that she is ready for more responsibility. While her brother Taabe hunts and provides for the tribe, she is looked down upon even as she demonstrates more than once that she has learned over time and exceeded expectations at every turn. Accompanied by her dog, much time is spent in the neighboring woods, perfecting her skill with weapons and tracking.

While in the woods, she catches sight of something in the sky that is unexpected and unable to be explained. Though she doesn’t have words for it, we know it’s an alien ship that has landed close by with a passenger who begins to stir up trouble for the wildlife and, soon, Naru’s people. As the Predator (Dane DiLiegro) uses his advanced technical weaponry against the primitive tools of the Comanche people, they appear to be defenseless. That is until a warrior unwilling to let the beast decimate her community decides to take a stand against it.

Having directed the sparse and tense 10 Cloverfield Lane, Trachtenberg knows how to create a lot from a little. The expanse of the location setting (the film was shot in Alberta, Canada) gives the director and crew a broader space to play. Prey nevertheless feels breathless and immediate for much of its 99 minutes. Mostly, it’s due to a script that doesn’t waste much time in getting to the action, spending enough time on early essential character development to orient us with the area and people. Like the original Predator, we learn more about the characters as the movie progresses, when their strengths and weaknesses are truly revealed.

While she’s not making her debut onscreen, it might as well be our introduction of Amber Midthunder as Naru because the actress makes such a smashing showing as the heroine and all-around badass of the picture. Onscreen for most of the film, she’s quite a commanding presence throughout. While I would argue that most of the cast has a uniquely Hollywood look (flawless hair, flawless teeth, flawless skin), that’s not to downplay the overall importance of the representation on display here. Though it wasn’t available on my screener, I would have welcomed the opportunity to view Prey in Comanche, an available option for streaming customers. As it is, the movie nicely indicates the transition from the indigenous language of the Comanche people to the English dialogue spoken for most of the film.

Produced primarily in secret until a studio executive spilled the beans in advance, I think it would have been grand to see Prey arrive without any advance knowledge. We no longer exist in that age where surprises can still happen. We live in a time when a movie experience can be a real revelation, and Prey indeed is just that. The violence is severe and brutal, sure to please gore fans craving creative kills, and it’s coupled with action sequences that are intelligently staged so that you aren’t five steps ahead of the actors. File those nails down because you’ll bite them a few times.   If all franchise renewals can be this innovative and inspired, I’m all for it.

Movie Review ~ No Exit (2022)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: During a blizzard and stranded at an isolated highway rest stop in the mountains, a college student discovers a kidnapped child hidden in a car belonging to one of the people inside.
Stars: Havana Rose Liu, Dale Dickey, Danny Ramirez, David Rysdahl, Mila Harris, Dennis Haysbert
Director: Damien Power
Rated: R
Running Length: 95 minutes
TMMM Score: (7/10)
Review:  A few short weeks ago, Oscar-nominated director Kenneth Branagh (Belfast) took us on his second Agatha Christie excursion with the decently received remake of Death on the Nile. I’d read the book and seen previous adaptations, so the developments didn’t shock me much, but it did make me crave for another film that offered up a game of “guess the psycho” where I could participate. It turns out I didn’t have to wait long for my turn because 20th Century Studios and Hulu are releasing No Exit, an adaptation of Taylor Adams’s popular 2018 novel. I’d gotten about halfway through the trailer for this snowbound film but had to turn it off, so I didn’t have anything spoiled too much, but what I did see promised a tight thriller.

Thankfully, this is a case of getting what you expected because No Exit is one of those films you remember from back in the day. The kind you’d see with friends on a Friday night at your local theater, enjoy, but almost totally forget all the details of by the time Monday rolled around. That’s not a knock against director Damien Power’s well-directed suspense yarn, and it’s high praise from me because these are the kinds of films I’m downright starving for right about now. Studios and streaming services seem opposed to making this popcorn entertainment, but it’s how the best kind of loyal audiences was fed and nurtured twenty years ago. They kept the box office going during the doldrum months between peak movie season, which is when many of these genre films were often dumped into theaters and quickly turned into hits the production companies desperately needed. The rise of at-home entertainment and focus on franchise meant these mid-budget thrillers got sent packing, but lately I’m seeing a nice resurgence of these, along with audience support.  

I’m going to walk back slightly what I just said in that earlier paragraph about No Exit coming off like a film you’d expect because I didn’t want to imply it’s predictable in the least. Sure, there are moments in the story of Darby, a troubled young woman at an isolated, locked-down recovery center that feel like you know what will happen next. More often than not, however, there’s a hairpin turn in the adaptation from Ant-Man and the Wasp screenwriters Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari you didn’t see coming because you were already distracted by another dangerous twist on your other side. When Darby (Havana Rose Liu, The Sky Is Everywhere) receives a phone call that her mother has suffered a trauma and might not survive, she breaks out of the facility, steals a car, and hits the road hoping to make it to the hospital before it’s too late. She wasn’t counting on a winter storm to consume her route, though.

Re-directed by a highway patrol officer to a rest stop in the woods off the highway, Darby is the fifth person arriving to wait out the storm until the roads are cleared. Traveling married couple Sandi (Dale Dickey, Palm Springs) and Ed (Dennis Haysbert, Far From Heaven) have some parental instinct to make sure she’s ok but mostly keep to themselves while the strange Lars (David Rysdahl, Nine Days) busies himself with a deck of playing cards. Ash (Danny Ramirez, Valley Girl) is asleep on the bench, and there is no Wi-Fi connection inside the building that is undergoing renovations. When Darby steps out in the bitter cold to try and snag a signal, she finds a kidnapping victim in one of the vehicles…but doesn’t know who owns which car. 

The Christie vibe existing in No Exit kicks in right about here as Darby now has four suspects to size up, three of which could be allies and one of whom is a kidnapper biding their time so they can be on their way. Don’t be discouraged if it’s revealed earlier than you might expect who owns the van because it’s the tip of an iceberg that goes deeper than you’ll know. It’s compact fun watching the events unfold, almost as if in real-time and nearly all through the eyes of the ever-present and always captivating Liu. Rarely off-screen for long, Liu has a lot of the movie to carry on her own without much dialogue. Still, she powers through it with a ferocity that’s intriguing to develop over 90 minutes. I also always enjoy seeing Dickey show up anywhere because her choice of roles tends toward the unexpected, and Haysbert continues to be a dependable force onscreen. As the two young men holed up in the visitor’s center, Ramirez and Rysdahl might be the perfect red herrings, or maybe they’re demented killers, but neither actor shows their cards, even during a breathless get-to-know-you card game.

One thing that did take me off guard, and at times out of No Exit completely, was the high amount of shocking violence. It’s far more viscerally gory and cruel than I was expecting, and Power doesn’t hold back with a handful of scenes that get hard to watch because of their brutality. I pegged this one to be a bit more of the sleepover-friendly variety, but it’s been pitched for adult-oriented members of the genre fandom. Think of it as a lark that the new breed of Scream community activists might enjoy. Thankfully, while it isn’t an outright excuse, the violence does have a point and nicely ties into the final act’s arc. Not every movie in this type of niche can say the same.

Movie Review ~ Death on the Nile (2022)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot’s Egyptian vacation aboard a glamorous river steamer turns into a terrifying search for a murderer when a picture-perfect couple’s idyllic honeymoon is tragically cut short.
Stars: Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, Letitia Wright
Director: Kenneth Branagh
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 127 minutes
Trailer Review: Here
TMMM Score: (6/10)
Review:  It’s probably a good idea to let you in on a little secret now, lest I be caught in a dramatic reveal later. In many ways, the original 1978 Death on the Nile, a sequel to the 1974 Oscar-winning Murder on the Orient Express, exceeds its predecessor. It’s got stunning visuals, a tight script with multiple zingers flying around when murder isn’t taking center stage, and delightful Oscar-winning costumes. If the cast doesn’t match the original as equally for all-out star wattage, they are absolutely enough heavy hitters to cover any shortage of incandescence. Of all the outings Peter Ustinov took on Agatha Christie’s famous Inspector Hercule Poirot (1982’s Evil Under the Sun, 1988’s Appointment with Death, and several made for television films), this is by far the most deluxe.

That’s why for as much as I enjoyed Kenneth Branagh’s first excursion as Poirot in his 2017 remake of Murder on the Orient Express, I felt my heart flutter at the end when it was strongly implied the authorities needed Poirot in Egypt next. While it made no sense in terms of the plot of Death of the Nile, for fans hoping the Belgian detective could have a new mainstream life, this was a promising sign of confidence. Mere weeks after Murder on the Orient Express arrived in theaters around the globe, 20th Century Fox let it slip that indeed they were already planning to remake Death on the Nile and they hoped to release it by Christmas of 2019. 

With Branagh (Belfast)  back on board and another starry cast assembled, the film went through some rough waters during production and wasn’t even complete until the final days of 2019, eventually moved to an October 2020 release date. First the team had to battle back lousy press brought on by one of its leading men (Armie Hammer, Call Me by Your Name) and the eyebrow-raising allegations against him. Then with the pandemic remaining in full force, 20th Century Studios (now owned by Disney, so the Fox was dropped) had no choice but to continue to delay the release until early 2022. Death on the Nile is now dropping anchor in theaters a full two years after principal photography had completed and over a year since its original release date – and it sounds like moviegoers still aren’t sure if they want. It’s hard to wrap your mind around a movie filled with so many stars that began production with such promise could wind up arriving with such indecision.

All of this information we’ve gone over in the past three paragraphs would be sad news to report if Branagh’s sequel were a strong showing for him and his cast. Yet there’s an oddity to much of Death of the Nile which hangs over it like a gaseous cloud, often paralyzing the critical external parts of the story in favor of more internal moments that don’t work as well Branagh thinks that they do. I know that Branagh’s Poirot shouldn’t be expected to perform just like Ustinov, Albert Finney, or the incomparable David Suchet. He still should be consistent from scene to scene, though. While a prologue giving clues to Poirot’s origins (at least his mustache) is appreciated from a filmmaking standpoint, it perhaps tells us too much about a man that is in large part designed to be the aloof observer.

Always in the right place at the right time, Poirot is in a club to hear famous blues guitarist Salome Otterbourne (Sophie Okonedo, Hellboy) sing and catches the moment Linnet Ridgeway (Gal Gadot, Red Notice) first meets Simon Doyle (Hammer) and they fall in love. Of course, Simon’s been introduced to Linnet by her friend and his girlfriend Jacqueline de Bellefort (Emma Mackey), and Jackie doesn’t take the rejection very well, eventually showing up at Linnet and Simon’s wedding celebration in Egypt, where Poirot happens to be vacationing. Attempting to get away from Jackie showing up when they least expect it, Linnet and Simon charter a steamer boat for their wedding party to spend a few days on. Of course, Hercule is invited…and of course, Jackie finds her way aboard the ship eventually as well.

Up until this point, screenwriter Michael Green (Blade Runner 2049) has gone ahead and given Christie’s 1937 novel a nice knuckle twist, removing characters or changing their professions to better fit into the narrative that chooses to focus on the romance of the situation more than the mystery. Pairing people off is usually the kiss of death in these thrillers because they could be going away with a murderer. Still, Branagh appears content to get people alone with one another, only to express their innermost thoughts. The vulnerability he begins to show as Poirot to Okonedo’s character gets off-putting; you don’t want to see Poirot this thrown off his game. Adding in Annette Bening (Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool) as the side-eye glancing mother of Tom Bateman’s (Snatched) returning character Bouc is a coup of casting, but because the characters weren’t in the original novel, it’s no wonder the lauded actress can often feel like an afterthought.

However, someone has to get killed for a case to get opened at a certain point. While I won’t reveal who that is (and, good for those editors, the trailers have done a great job concealing the person(s?) that don’t make it back to shore with their blood still circulating), at least when the mystery does take over Green doesn’t change the precision in which Christie plotted out the crime. I don’t think Branagh has a tight grasp on this one as he did Orient Express. However, the film is still an entertaining watch because of performances like Gadot (proving she can play something other than Wonder Woman) and especially Okonedo, who steals each scene she’s in. Okonedo understands the assignment and while I missed the character being a tipsy romance novelist, recasting her as a Sister Rosetta Tharpe-style performer is a good touch.

The bad news is that the filmmakers still had to deal with Hammer, and no amount of new camera angles or clever editing can fix that. You don’t see Hammer’s face full-on for a good ten minutes…and that’s weird when everyone else has had an establishing shot. I also feel there were other scenes he was in that were trimmed or cut out because he vanishes for significant stretches. The most unenviable task falls on comedy duo Jennifer Saunders (Isn’t It Romantic) and Dawn French playing a socialite and her nurse/companion, Bette Davis and Maggie Smith’s exact roles in the original. Davis and Smith were so riotously funny that anyone who follows could never match up, even with a storyline smoothed out to be less vague in one particular aspect.

As with most Christie yarns, even when the mystery is solved, it doesn’t mean that the suffering is over, and Branagh chooses to learn into that notion hard during Death on the Nile. That leaves the viewer in a cold spot as the film reaches the end of its voyage, in a place with far less hope than where we began or where we left off at the end of Orient Express. I’m not so sure we’ll see Branagh’s Poirot again. I hope we do because I want to see what he could handle next. I wish they’d resist the urge to change Poirot to fit a modern ideal, though. This Belgian operates in a specific time and place. 

Movie Review ~ The King’s Man

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The Facts:  

Synopsis: As a collection of history’s worst tyrants and criminal masterminds gather to plot a war to wipe out millions, one man must race against time to stop them. 

Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Gemma Arterton, Rhys Ifans, Matthew Goode, Tom Hollander, Harris Dickinson, Daniel Brühl, Djimon Hounsou, Charles Dance, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Stanley Tucci, Valerie Pachner 

Director: Matthew Vaughn 

Rated: R 

Running Length: 131 minutes

Trailer Review: Here 

TMMM Score: (7.5/10) 

Review:  Back in 2014, Kingsman: The Secret Service was one of the real delights of the year.  An out-of-left field adaptation of a comic book by Mark Millar, director Matthew Vaughn turned it into a high-octane thrill ride and firmly introduced Taron Egerton to audiences in the process.  The 2017 sequel, subtitled The Golden Circle, promised way more than it delivered (i.e. we got far less of the American sector of the spy ring, including Channing Tatum than we were originally thought) and even I was surprised a third entry, a prequel, was greenlit by the studio.  Then the 20th Century Fox merger with Disney happened and, once complete, the pandemic lockdown hit…so it’s been a whole five years since our audiences last travelled to the Saville row shop which acts as home base for this ring of crime fighters.

With all these delays and having to introduce series fans to an entirely new cast of players, how surprising, then, to find that after two raucous films, The King’s Man is often more of a historic war drama in a similar vein to 1917 with a revisionist edge. Chock-a-block with cameos and not above a major rug pull impossible to predict, an already intriguing universe expands…and quite nicely.  If the previous films were more party than hearty, this one prefers to take its time and arrive fashionably late to the festivities.  It may be later than series fans want, but I found the wait to be worth it.

After an opening prologue in turn of the century South Africa that sets up some of the lasting relationship issues between aristocrat Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes, No Time to Die) and his son Conrad (played as an adult by Harris Dickinson, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil), we jump ahead to the early days of World War I.  Due to his status, Conrad wouldn’t have to sign up to fight but it’s what he desperately wants.  Orlando, on the other hand, isn’t willing to let his son be served up for sacrifice because of a war started (as we are led to believe thanks to Vaughn and Karl Gajdusek’s loose screenplay) by a three-way tantrum between royal cousins manipulated by an unseen enemy pulling the strings from a mountaintop lair. It falls to the men to stop the ring of spys preventing the U.S. from entering the war with Europe if there is to be any hope of the U.K. surviving.

Aside from dealings with King George, Kaiser Wilhelm, and Tsar Nicholas (all played by Tom Hollander, Bohemian Rhapsody), Mata Hari (Valerie Pachner, A Hidden Life), Woodrow Wilson, Lenin, and another historical figure revealed so close to the end that I’d classify it as a spoiler, the films somewhat centerpiece revolves around a meeting with the infamous Rasputin.  Played with typical over-the-top delight by Rhys Ifans (Spider-Man: No Way Home), the character is marvelous in its design to be crass and creepy while still working within the context of the movie.  Your eyes will definitely bug out at one point during his meeting with the Oxford men – especially in one particular moment of craziness that’s become typical of any Vaughn film.

Overall, The King’s Man is playful, if violently wild with its tonal tidal shifts. Throw out whatever adherence to history you may come in with because the movie isn’t interested in accuracy in the least and its breezy way of tearing up the textbook approach becomes more fun if you just go with the flow. Best to report is the positioning of Fiennes as a quite appealing hero, proving again he’s always game for subversive fun. Same goes for Djimon Hounsou (A Quiet Place II), an eternally underrated supporting player. I’d re-up for another adventure with these two, but you can leave Gemma Arterton (Quantum of Solace) off the roster.  While I always appreciate having a female perspective in the boy’s club, there wasn’t much happening with this character or Arterton’s performance that made much of an impression. Capping off the threequel is a dandy song sung by FKAtwigs that would have been perfect had it been accompanied by a creative end credit sequence. If you liked the first two entries in the Kingsman franchise and are prepared for measured change, this one should suit you nicely

Movie Review ~ The Last Duel

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The Facts:

Synopsis: In 1386, Marguerite de Carrouges claims to have been raped by her husband’s best friend and squire Jacques Le Gris. Her husband, knight Jean de Carrouges, challenges him to trial by combat, the last legally sanctioned duel in France’s history.

Stars: Jodie Comer, Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Ben Affleck, Marton Csokas, Harriet Walter, Clare Dunne, Zeljko Ivanek, Nathaniel Parker, Michael McElhatton, Alex Lawther

Director: Ridley Scott

Rated: R

Running Length: 152 minutes

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review:  With the big summer effects bonanzas being on hold for an entire year and the prestigious costume dramas pushed out for better positioning at award chances to later in 2021 or even 2022, audiences have been lacking in the area of the grand epic for going on two years.  Sure, we’ve had the occasional Marvel film here and there to satiate some sense of wonder but I’m talking about those films that make you feel like you’re back in Hollywood’s heyday when everything was made on a studio lot and extras numbered in the thousands.  As recently as a decade ago we were still getting these movies, but they’ve taken a backseat to films that are easier to produce with limited involvement from humans that are added in post-production.  The sets aren’t real, and the overall ambiance feels phony…making the stakes not feel quite as high for historical epics involving swords, sandals, arrows, chainmail, etc.

One director out there hasn’t shied away from continuing on the legacy of the epic and that’s Ridley Scott, a filmmaker often taken a bit for granted in the business for his tendency to lean into fare of the sheer entertainment variety.  Though primarily an action director, he was also behind Thelma & Louise, Matchstick Men, and A Good Year so he is known to stretch when the mood suits him.  That lighter touch helps a bit in Scott’s newest film, The Last Duel, based on Eric Jager’s 2004 non-fiction novel “The Last Duel: A True Story of Crime, Scandal, and Trial by Combat” which details the final legally recognized duel that was fought in France.  One man is accused by another of the most heinous act of violation against his wife, a charge that leads them to the highest court in the country where they leave it in God’s hands to decide who is telling the truth.  If the defendant dies during the duel, it will prove the woman was telling the truth.  If the accused comes out of the duel alive and kills his accuser, well then, he is telling the truth and the man’s wife will be burned alive for her lie.  Not the soundest execution of justice and back in 2019 when the film was first announced, not the most promising of a plot description for a town just settling into the first wave of post #MeToo productions.

Adapted by stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (yes, they did win an Oscar for Good Will Hunting), the two were wise to ask Nicole Holofcener (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) to join them in their journey in bringing Jager’s novel to the screen.  This not only brought some needed balance to the screenplay and gave a stronger voice overall to the script but allowed for the central female character to not be written from just one point of view.  The result is a surprisingly swift feature broken into three chapters that tell the same story, just from the perspectives of different characters.  Employing a Rashomon-style technique in storytelling isn’t anything revelatory but in the hands of pros like Scott and his cast, the small similarities and even smaller subtle differences unique to each version of events keeps this one in a gripping space where the edge of your seat moments extend far beyond what happens during the titular duel.

Audiences are wise to buckle up and pay attention for the first thirty minutes which sets the stage for the friendship and eventual rivalry between knight Jean de Carrouges (Damon, The Martian) and squire Jacques Le Gris (Annette).  Though Carrouges has the more noble name and throws himself into harm’s way for the honor of his king, he’s unliked by most that know and fight alongside him because of his selfishness and constant need for recognition.  That’s the opposite of Le Gris who, at least at first, is content to just be welcomed in by people in a higher status and be a trusted confidant.  Over time, this skill with ingratiating himself to nobility pushes Le Gris ahead of Carrouges, a sleight that causes a rift in the friendship that cannot be mended.

While the men are sorting out their business, widower Carrouges meets and marries his second wife, Marguerite (Jodie Comer, Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker) and moves her in with his cruel mother (wickedly nasty Harriet Walter, Herself) who picks away at her while he is away in battle.  Unable to conceive a child during their years together, the two are at odds when he takes a trip to the city the same day his mother decides to leave Marguerite alone for the day.  Of course this is the same day Le Gris, who has been obsessed with Marguerite ever since meeting her when Carrouges decided to bury the hatchet, pays a visit. 

Some version of these events plays out three times until this point and it mostly is the same story with tiny tweaks to attitudes depending on who is telling the tale.  In Carrouges version, Marguerite is much more docile, to hear Le Gris tell it, Marguerite was flirting with him and encouraged his visit, but in Marguerite’s retelling, or ‘The Truth’ as the words linger longer on the screen insinuate, neither man read the signs correctly. Watching different iterations also means audiences have to witness a brutal rape twice so here’s your warning this unpleasant encounter is on display and though absent of nudity or gore, is more gruesome than anything that plays out later in the vicious battle royale between Carrouges and Le Gris.  Can a scene like this be shot with any kind of sensitivity?  I doubt it, but Comer bravely gives it her all and Scott allows her room to breathe.

Speaking of Comer, with the amount of male energy flying around and the dueling taking up such a major piece of the action, it’s saying something the actress is far and away the winner of the evening when the credits roll.  Making a splash on television even before her award-winning run in the acclaimed spy series Killing Eve, Comer graduates to the A-list with a star making (and surely Oscar nominated) turn as a woman unwilling to back down or be intimidated from anyone or anything, even a horrific threat of death.  Already victimized once, she refuses to go through it again via her husband or even the highest court in the land…and believe me, the court sure tries. 

Backing Comer up in the acting department are Damon and Driver who dial back their oft-tendency to grandstand with Driver in particular making a strong case for himself as capable of even more than his most loyal fans have thought.  True, he’s playing a pretty despicable guy but for a while he’s almost endearing and definitely more tolerable than Damon’s character.  I mean, the hair alone on Carrouges is enough to drive you crazy.  In past films, Damon tends to gnaw at the scenery when he gets worked up but anytime Affleck (Live by Night) is onscreen in The Last Duel there’s nothing left to consume because he’s swallowed up the entire caravan of costumes by Janty Yates (Prometheus) and the sumptuous set decorations courtesy of Judy Farr (Rocketman).  Of all the people that were bound to overact, I wasn’t expecting it to be Affleck but with his blond hair and a blond goatee that looks like a tennis ball was just cut in half and stuck on his pointy chin, it’s a performance that treks into high camp.  And he doesn’t even go all the way with it.  There are several scenes where his lothario character is meant to be scampering around chasing after women and they’re all naked and he’s fully clothed – we all know this character would be naked as a jaybird without a care in the world.  It’s a small detail but became a major one in my mind considering what the movie puts the Comer character through.

I initially thought I’d find long jags of the film slow but with Scott at the helm it moves like a locomotive, peppered here and there with his trademark flair for a well-staged battle scene.  With the R-rating firmly in place he’s able to make these incredibly violent and in your face, leading up to and including the final duel between the two men.  It all makes for an experience that has a solid impact with parallels to victim-blaming that resonate even today.  The Last Duel might be about the final official battle over honor in France, but it leaves audiences with the recognition that the war was just beginning.