Tag Archives: Michael Fassbender

The TIFF Report, Vol 5

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North Star

Director: Kristin Scott Thomas
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Freida Pinto, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, Kristin Scott Thomas, Sindhu Vee, Joshua McGuire
Synopsis: Three sisters return to their home for the third wedding of their twice-widowed mother. But the mother and daughters are forced to revisit the past and confront the future, with help from a colorful group of unexpected wedding guests.
Thoughts: Making her feature directorial debut, Kristin Scott Thomas has gone personal with North Star, also handling co-writing duties and playing the mother of three daughters (Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, & Emily Beecham) that come home for their mum’s third marriage lugging significant baggage. Based in part on her own life (Thomas’s navy pilot father was killed in action when she was six, and then her first stepfather was killed six years later), the movie wants to have all the flair of a quirky dramedy. Still, it can’t drum up much energy to convince us it cares much about anything. Not that it makes a lot of difference, but it’s regrettable for the film to be playing alongside His Three Daughters, a far more skilled look at the political dynamics between siblings. Thomas is barely in the movie (in one major goof, she’s missing from multiple group shots during a critical scene, only to magically appear out of thin air when she has a pivotal line), but when she is sharing time with Beecham, Miller, and Johansson, there is a distinct spark that is missing from the rest of the picture. Why more of these moments weren’t added to the film is anyone’s guess, but without that crackle, the film flatlines before the rehearsal dinner can get underway, let alone the wedding itself. Unpolished and, worse, uninteresting, there’s an aimlessness to it all (especially Johansson’s accent) that will have your eyelids swiftly drooping south. 

The Movie Emperor

Director: Ning Hao
Cast: Andy Lau, Pal Sinn, Rima Zeidan, Ning Hao, Eliz Lao, Chao Wai, Daniel Yu, Kelly Lin
Synopsis: Andy Lau is perfectly, cheekily cast as a movie star seeking relevance via a film festival–baiting art-house role in director Ning Hao’s sharp satire of movie industry pretension.
Thoughts:  Hong Kong actor Andy Lau is a verified superstar, a juggernaut at the box office in his home country, and the star of titles that have crossed over internationally. That fame created quite the buzz at TIFF23 for the world premiere of The Movie Emperor, a playful poke at the HK film industry, not to mention the fickleness of fandom and the overstuffed star ego. Lau plays an actor who takes a more serious role, hoping it will bring him the accolades (read: awards and respect) his peers have received. The joke of watching a movie featuring Lau’s character wanting to make art that finds success at a film festival not unlike a TIFF wasn’t lost on the packed crowd, which positively ate it up. Directed by Ning Hao (who also plays the director of the movie Lau is working on), this is an often hilariously deadpan takedown of an industry that both loves to be made fun of and reviles falling under the microscope. Hao has a way of introducing wild moments that catch you off guard, surprising bursts of frenetic energy that keep Lau and the viewer on guard and alert throughout. Unfortunately, it veers a bit off course during its last stretch when cancel culture and a porcine subplot come to the forefront to diminishing returns; however, Lau’s increasingly volatile run-ins with a motorist keep the movie mysterious and unpredictable until the end. One of the few films I almost didn’t get into because the demand for tickets was so great (Lau and Hao were both there, creating a major stir of fans clamoring to see them); I was glad I scored a ticket, and was granted a seat right as the house lights were dimming. 

The Movie Teller

Director: Lone Scherfig
Cast: Bérénice Bejo, Antonio de la Torre, Daniel Brühl, Sara Becker, Alondra Valenzuela
Synopsis: A young woman uses her storytelling gifts to share the magic of the pictures she has seen in the cinema with the poor inhabitants of a desert mining community.
Thoughts: I’m a true sucker for movies about movies, so I was likely pre-disposed to take a shine to Danish director Lone Scherfig’s Spanish-language adaptation of Hernán Rivera Letelier’s novel. Set in a small town in Chile’s Atacama Desert and tracking one family through the eyes of a young daughter and her coming of age, with The Movie Teller, Scherfig once again demonstrates her talent of creating an all-encompassing vision of time and place. Scherfig has insisted that period details are delicate but finely tuned as she did with An Education. If the threads of the story go a little awry and fall slack as the film nears its second hour, the performances from Sara Becker and Alondra Valenzuela as the older and younger versions of the protagonist keep the emotional beats in rhythm. In the third act of the picture, Becker is involved with the less exciting developments when her character begins an illicit affair with a much older man (Daniel Brühl) who was rumored to have had eyes for her mother.   Her mother is played by Bérénice Bejo (Final Cut), an actress I’m still waiting to get back on the Hollywood radar. She’s so good here (as usual) as a woman with unfulfilled expectations and desires who feels stuck in a dead-end town that you’re reminded why she snagged an Oscar nomination 11 years ago for The Artist. The character makes some questionable decisions, but Bejo consciously tries not to judge the woman she’s playing; instead, she interprets the role compassionately. The same can be said for Scherfig’s reflective approach to the Isabel Coixet and Walter Salles adaptation of the novel, which comes through as embracing the community’s people instead of simply rejecting the paths they choose toward happiness.

Sleep

Director: Jason Yu
Cast: Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun, Kim Gook-hee
Synopsis: Expectant parents navigate a nightmare scenario when a spouse develops a sleep disorder that may belie a disturbing split personality.
Thoughts: Arriving from South Korea, Sleep preys on our fear of when we are the most vulnerable…as we get our slumber. Filmmakers have been picking at this scratchy blister for decades (hello, Wes Craven!), but writer/director Jason Yu injects a refreshing dose of dread with this finely crafted creep-fest. It was rather appropriate to be screening Sleep at a midnight showing when I should have been in bed, and you better believe that after it was over, I had a hard time closing my eyes long enough to convince my mind there was nothing to be afraid of. Far from your traditional K-horror in that it eschews creating a central figure of terror to thwart, Yu instead builds upon a simple set-up involving historical lore that stretches across borders. When her actor-husband starts to display strange behavior while asleep, a pregnant wife fears for both her safety and the well-being of her unborn child. Enlisting any help she can after her spouse begins to harm himself physically and develops a taste for a midnight snack of raw meat, the wife even resorts to calling in her mom and an eccentric mystic to clear the apartment of any evil presence. Is the affliction something physical or truly supernatural? Does it have anything to do with the loud noises that have annoyed the couple and the downstairs neighbors? Or has something else snuck into their lives, something which arrived undetected and has hidden itself within the husband, waiting for the perfect time to strike? Presented in three chapters, Yu wastes no time raising the hairs on your neck and keeps audiences on red alert until the finale. Where Sleep goes is surprising and scary and indicates the arrival of another auteur with a vision conveyed with decisive precision.

Next Goal Wins

Director: Taika Waititi
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, Oscar Kightley, Uli Latukefu, Rachel House, Kaimana, David Fane, Beulah Koale, Chris Alosio, Taika Waititi, Will Arnett, Rhys Darby
Synopsis:  A comedy about the American Samoa soccer team’s attempt to make a World Cup — 12 years after their infamous 31-0 loss in a 2002 World Cup qualifying match.
Thoughts: There’s nothing that a packed theater loves more than getting behind a good underdog. An electric zing rushes over the crowd when our vested interest gets that much closer to success. So, I can understand why the early audiences for Next Goal Wins at the Toronto International Film Festival came out of their screenings buzzing. Much like 1993’s Cool Runnings (which is frequently similar in story and structure), the inspiring tale of American Samoa’s bid to pull itself up from last place in the World Cup rankings deserves its say on film, there’s no doubt about it. Unfortunately, Next Goal Wins is not the movie to do it. I’m pretty sure co-writer/director Taika Waititi’s latest is actively bad for much of its 105 minutes, this despite a last-ditch rally cry that only amounts to a modicum of audience rousing, likely to prepare them with enough energy to gather their belongings and go home. For a movie about community, it’s an isolating experience to sit through. That’s mainly because Waititi doesn’t know how to handle interpersonal drama as well as he does absurd humor. By the time I got around to seeing it on one of the festival’s final days, it was hard to drum up much enthusiasm for such mechanical entertainment.

Sly

Director: Thom Zimny
Cast: Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Stallone, Henry Winkler, Talia Shire, John Herzfeld, Wesley Morris, Quentin Tarantino
Synopsis: The nearly fifty-year prolific career of Sylvester Stallone, who has entertained millions, is seen in retrospective in an intimate look of the actor, writer, and director-producer, paralleling with his inspirational life story.
Thoughts: Ultimately, I find that the point of watching any documentary is to learn something about the subject, and too often, with a look behind the curtain of Hollywood life, it never feels like you’re finding out something authentic. That’s not the case in the new Netflix documentary Sly, which premiered in September at the Toronto International Film Festival. Director Thom Zimny uses a brief 95-minute run time to cover the expected titles of Sylvester Stallone’s career (yes, even Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!) but expends more of its energy in allowing the audience to listen to the man himself tell us about the life he has led until this point. Though I think this could have been longer (hey, Arnold Schwarzenegger, interviewed here waxing poetic about Stallone’s talent, just got a 3-part doc on Netflix!) and explored more of Stallone’s family life, the concise nature of Sly aligns with the man himself.

Dicks: The Musical

Director: Larry Charles
Cast: Aaron Jackson, Josh Sharp, Nathan Lane, Megan Mullally, Megan Thee Stallion, D’Arcy Carden, Nick Offerman, Tom Kenny, Bowen Yang
Synopsis: A pair of business rivals discover that they’re identical twins and decide to swap places in an attempt to trick their divorced parents into getting back together.
Thoughts: Throughout TIFF, all I’d heard about was the epic first screening of Dicks: The Musical. While the reviews of the movie itself were very mixed from the crowd, A24 had sent a live choir into the audience, throwing beach balls and other organ-shaped inflatables into the crowd. No screening could match that burst of energy, but being at the Midnight Madness People’s Choice Award screening, the last screening at TIFF23, was a blast. And you know what?   The movie from Borat director Larry Charles (The Dictator) is a rip-roaring riot. Yes, it’s offensive, explicit, raunchy, wrong, cheap-looking, and tacky. It’s also bright, sharp, self-aware, and committed, with songs that have no right to be as tuneful and comedically well-rounded as they are. There’s something to offend everyone in Dicks: The Musical, and if you don’t leave thinking about at least one joke stars/writers Josh Sharp and Aaron Jackson should have cut, I’m not sure if the movie has done its job. Like The Book of Mormon (which, like Dicks: The Musical, has surprisingly excellent music) or South Park, the point in offending everyone and not just one group is to illustrate that everyone can be a target, and there is equal opportunity to laugh at obvious jokes that are not meant to be taken seriously.

Previous Volumes
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4

Movie Review ~ Next Goal Wins

1
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The Facts:

Synopsis: The story of the infamously terrible American Samoa soccer team, known for a brutal 2001 FIFA match they lost 31-0.
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Elisabeth Moss, Oscar Kightley, Uli Latukefu, Rachel House, Kaimana, David Fane, Beulah Koale, Chris Alosio, Taika Waititi, Will Arnett, Rhys Darby
Director: Taika Waititi
Rated: PG-13
Running Length: 103 minutes
TMMM Score: (3/10)
Review: There’s nothing that a packed theater loves more than getting behind a good underdog.  An electric zing rushes over the crowd when our vested interest gets that much closer to success.  So, I can understand why the early audiences for Next Goal Wins at the Toronto International Film Festival came out of their screenings buzzing.  Much like 1993’s Cool Runnings (which is frequently similar in story and structure), the inspiring story of American Samoa’s bid to pull itself up from last place in the World Cup rankings deserves its say on film, there’s no doubt about it. 

Unfortunately, Next Goal Wins is not the movie to do it.  I’m pretty sure co-writer/director Taika Waititi’s latest is actively bad for much of its 105 minutes, this despite a last-ditch rally cry that only amounts to a modicum of audience rousing, likely to prepare them with enough energy to gather their belongings and go home.  For a movie about community, it’s an isolating experience to sit through.  That’s mainly because Waititi doesn’t know how to handle interpersonal drama as well as he does absurd humor. By the time I got around to seeing it, on one of the final days of the festival, it was hard to drum up much enthusiasm for such mechanical entertainment.

Opening with Waititi (Thor: Love and Thunder) himself in a ridiculous cameo as a mystic priest that introduces the characters and acts as an irritating semi-narrator, we meet Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender, The Killer), a Dutch soccer coach who has seen better days.  About to lose his footing in the world of Association football, he’s given a final reprieve: become the coach of the American Samoa team and stop their losing streak.  If they don’t turn things around, he’ll be out of a job, and the South Pacific territory will lose their right to have an officially recognized team.

Rongen accepts the job out of desperation and arrives on the island with a gigantic chip on his shoulder, made worse by the rural locale and the sorry state of his team.  Rongen doesn’t want to be there, and the players don’t believe in themselves enough because no one has lit a flame of inspiration for them.  As with all sports movies, it only takes time for the coach and players to learn from one another, but it’s an uphill climb.  With the season moving forward and different issues with players changing his outlook, Rongen will make professional gains with the team…but will it be enough to score a more significant victory for them all?

Fassbender looks bored and is badly miscast (and knows it) in Next Goal Wins, and you wish the far more appealing American Samoan cast were truly the stars.  This should be a story about the team first and foremost.  Instead, it’s a laboriously formulaic slog through an obnoxious knob’s redemptive arc that has nothing new to add to the sports/underdog genre.  Worst of all, and more people praising the movie need to note this, the way Waititi’s script handles a non-binary trans woman (played with grace by the mononymous Kaimana) is so backward-facing from a 2023 viewpoint that you’ll be looking for a DeLorean to help you find your way home.

Movie Review ~ The Killer (2023)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: After a fateful near miss, an assassin battles his employers and himself on an international manhunt he insists isn’t personal.
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Arliss Howard, Charles Parnell, Kerry O’Malley, Sala Baker, Sophie Charlotte, Tilda Swinton
Director: David Fincher
Rated: R
Running Length: 118 minutes
TMMM Score: (9/10)
Review: Until recently, I had come to terms with the bitter truth that the David Fincher I wanted as a director wasn’t coming back. The David Fincher I was looking for was the filmmaker who gave us meaty thrillers like The Game, Panic Room, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and his great unheralded classic, Zodiac. These were twisty mysteries that were cool to the touch but executed with the efficiency of a surgeon who could operate on the brain with their eyes closed. Fincher had the magic hand, and while we were briefly teased with that talent again in 2104 with Gone Girl and partially with the creation of Mindhunter for Netflix, it vanished into the ether as Fincher focused more on passion projects.

As an artist matures, it’s natural that they want to grow in their craft, and the more they are established, the more they want to work on projects that mean something to them. The problem with that, at least in the film world, is that when a director (or an actor) has attained a following and then veers off course or disappears altogether, it can be hard to keep up with the scent once it’s gone cold. Lauded, though he was over the years, it wasn’t until 2020’s more serious Mank that Fincher made it into Oscar’s golden glow…but it was also his most commercially aloof work yet. 

If you’d forgotten when David Fincher was cool (Fight Club cool), you’re about to have your memory jogged with the release of The Killer. Fincher’s newest film is an adaptation of a French graphic novel that began in 1998 and concluded in 2014, and it reteams him with Andrew Kevin Walker, his screenwriter for his breakthrough hit, 1995’s Seven. Razor sharp and ice cold (dress warm when you see it), like all of Fincher’s films, it’s a technically flawless achievement in entertainment that draws you in despite the best efforts of its central character to keep you at arm’s length. It’s a lean and mean machine of a film that puts Fincher right back on top.

A nameless assassin (Michael Fassbender, Prometheus) waits in an abandoned WeWork office space in Paris. The who, what, when, and why of his assignment aren’t known to us, so while the camera follows his daily routine, we hear his voiceover, dissecting the job and his life. Is this how he keeps himself (relatively) sane during these long periods of waiting for his mark? How many years has he rehearsed this speech and gone over it in his head? Walker’s script gives us the bare minimum of info about the assassin, just that he’s good at his job and is not above turning the tables if retribution is necessary.

You see, he’s made a costly error, and the client is demanding some recompense. That recompense is a cost the assassin isn’t willing to accept, and it sets him on a mission to make a handful of people very sorry they felt the need to make it personal. He’s not making it personal, mind you, but he will ensure that this type of response doesn’t happen again.

Cleverly finding ways to get close to his targets and extracting information by any means necessary before moving on, he leaves no debt unpaid and calculates each move as he was trained to do.   Running into characters identified as The Brute (Sala Baker, Bullet Train, who engages Fassbender in a bone-crunching face-off), The Expert (Tilda Swinton, Asteroid City, swinging by for a whiskey-swigging cameo), The Lawyer (Charles Parnell, Top Gun: Maverick) and The Client (Arliss Howard, Concussion) throughout the film that’s divided into distinct chapters by Walker gives the movie a bit of an episodic feel that can halt some momentum, but The Killer practically radiates BDE.

Initially announced in 2007 for Fincher with Brad Pitt’s production company, I don’t doubt Pitt was considering taking on the titular role, but Fassbender is unquestionably the better option. There’s a way Fassbender can play a blank that still retains a decent amount of emotion; his handling of an unyielding commitment to carry out violence could read psychotic, but there’s more life behind the eyes that keeps the character innately human. The lack of emotion works most of the time, but you wish that when someone arrives ready to play like Swinton always does, she sits across from a character at a different stage in his journey. Their scene is the only disappointment in the film, though it did make me wonder what it would have been like to have Swinton as the lead…

Clocking in just under two hours, there’s an unmistakable sense of glee attached to the otherwise dark goings-on in The Killer. I think that’s mostly Fincher stretching these thrilling thriller muscles again, even starting with a brief opening credit scene that, while not as extensive or detailed as he has done in the past, still takes time to set the titles apart from the specific action of the movie. Up until this point in 2023, we’ve had many exciting movies released from reputable directors, but coming into the last few months of the year, the big guns are coming out, and Fincher’s The Killer has taken aim and hit the bullseye. 

Movie Review ~ Dark Phoenix

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Jean Grey begins to develop incredible powers that corrupt and turn her into a Dark Phoenix. Now the X-Men will have to decide if the life of a team member is worth more than all the people living in the world.

Stars: Sophie Turner, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Alexandra Shipp, Tye Sheridan, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jessica Chastain, Evan Peters

Director: Simon Kinberg

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 113 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review: Having never been someone that has done a deep dive into the comic book realm, I can’t speak to fan reactions when a franchise plays fast and loose with characters and story arcs. There are some that can’t look past a studio wanting to continue their cash cows by making financially motivated choices to keep their films alive and there are others (like myself) who don’t mind sitting back and taking in the movie for what it is – entertainment. It’s not for lack of interest or ambivalence on my part, it’s stepping back and seeing the big picture. Of all the superhero tentpole films, it seems the X-Men movies take the biggest beating from critics and fans that revolt at the slightest stray from where they want to see the action go and I find that so strangely fascinating.

I’ve gone on record multiple times saying that by and large I’ve enjoyed most all of the X-Men films and their numerous spin-offs. True, some have been problematic and less winning than others but they’ve been more consistent than most long-running series and have evolved from the silly seriousness of the original film (you know it’s true!) to something bold and musclar like 2016’s brilliant Logan. A new era of the X-Men began in 2011 with X-Men: First Class and I was not moved either way by that semi-reboot until X-Men: Days of Future Past arrived in 2014. That film was a grand return to form and while The Wolverine didn’t connect with some I appreciated what it was doing in advancing Hugh Jackman’s character toward Logan. Knives were unfairly out for X-Men: Apocalypse in 2016, even though I found it a weirdly fun film.

Arriving amidst an ominous cloud of bad buzz is the next film in the X-Men series, Dark Phoenix, and I imagine it will take the same beating from former fans and critics eager for an easy target. Delayed several times by 20th Century Fox due to highly publicized reshoots not to mention its pending purchase by Disney studios which had its own Marvel superhero movie to attend to earlier this summer, I’m not sure this ever would have had a fair shot when it was released. Honestly? The film has some major flaws and often feels like it’s held together by packing tape that’s long since lost its ability to keep things in place but when it works it works like a charm. For all the negative things I’d heard about it going in, maybe the bar was set low enough that my opinion couldn’t be worse than what people were saying.

When we last left our world-saving mutants, Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) had unleashed the full force of her powers to destroy Apocalypse. After a brief prologue shows us the tragic beginnings of how Jean came to stay with Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, Glass) at his school for teens with extraordinary talents we are thrown right into action set in 1992. The team, comprised of Jean, Cyclops (Tye Sheridan, Mud), Raven (Jennifer Lawrence, mother!), Beast (Nicholas Hoult, Warm Bodies), Storm (Alexandra Shipp, Love, Simon), Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee, ParaNorman), and Quicksilver (Evan Peters, The Lazarus Effect), is dispatched to save the crew of a space shuttle in the path of a solar storm. This is no ordinary space mission, though, and Jean is exposed to an energy source at the center of the storm.

Now possessing remarkable power that begins to consume her, Jean goes rogue to seek out answers from her past to help her decide what to do with her new gifts. At the same time, she’s pursed not only by Professor X, the X-Men, and a revenge-seeking Magneto (Michael Fassbender, Prometheus), but by alien huntress Vuk (Jessica Chastain, Lawless) who has arrived on Earth with a large number of her own warriors aiming to harvest the lifeforce within Jean that has the power to create new worlds…and destroy Earth in the process. It leads to a showdown that begins with Jean’s allegiance and ends with the lives of many hanging in the balance.

It’s clear this movie has been through many an edit and it shows not only in the hastily reshot footage but in the tonal shifts throughout. Looking at the success of grittier fare like Deadpool and its sequel, you can see where writer/director Simon Kinberg (Murder on the Orient Express) wanted to push the boundaries a bit by making this one more intense but without being able to go all the way with the blood, language, or violence it comes off as too tentative and neutered. There’s also a strange reliance on scenes with characters gulping down booze whenever they can’t cope with pressure or wanting to tamp down their own emotions. Normally good actors paint with broader strokes here, perhaps knowing this was their final time at bat they are really swinging for high camp. Chastain, Hoult, and McAvoy in particular seem to be trying to outdo each other in who can be the most ostentatious…until Fassbender shows up and puts them all to shame.

Yet somehow the movie checked off enough of the right boxes on my score sheet to emerge a winner and that’s mostly due to a fantastic finale set aboard a train. Usually a reshot ending can be one big eye roll since it often is an afterthought that rarely gels with the rest of the film but this one felt like it came after the filmmakers had some distance from the work and came back refreshed. There are some crowd-pleasing moments to be had here and it provided the requisite thrills some other parts of the movie lacked. Also, it showed once again that Shipp’s Storm (and just the character of Storm in general) needs her own movie, like, yesterday.  I still long for the filmmakers to spend more time at the school so we can see more of the youngsters and their burgeoning abilities — anytime we’re in the school and we see hints at the comic-books fringe characters people recognize you can tell people want more.  Now that 20th Century Fox is owned by Disney, perhaps Disney will get a series together for their streaming Disney+ service that’s all about the school?  Might be a good idea.

I’m still grappling with these recent X-Men movies not totally lining up with the original three X-Men films that started off this whole series of films. Don’t think too hard that the first X-Men movie is set a mere eight years after this one is to take place…or wonder what happens to Fassbender and McAvoy in those eight years to turn them into Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart. Instead, take these movies as the prequels they were always meant to be and for what they are, casual entertainment. Perhaps if you go in with the lowered expectations like I did you’ll set yourself up to get something more out of this than others who went in prepared to hate it. Give it a chance.  I’m not totally sure where the series goes from here.  There’s absolutely room for more sequels but based on the struggle this one had to get to theaters and the boos and hisses already coming from the Twitter-verse, a reset might be in order to restore some faith in this franchise.  Clearly, I’m easier to please than most and found the fun in this Phoenix…but I’m also not a hardcore fan that had a great investment in it either.

31 Days to Scare ~ The Snowman

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose pink scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Ferguson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Jonas Karlsson, Toby Jones, Chloë Sevigny, Val Kilmer, James D’Arcy, J.K. Simmons

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Rated: R

Running Length: 119 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (1/10)

Review: Whoa…it’s been a long time since I’ve been to a movie this bad from the get-go. Yes, The Snowman is unquestionably as terrible as you’ve heard it is and it’s likely going to wind up the worst movie released theatrically in 2017. That the film is even getting a wide release is a bit of a miracle and one has to give major chutzpah props to Universal Studios for daring to send out this not even half-baked lame thriller. What’s especially depressing is that so many talented (and Oscar-winning!) people were involved with this both in front of and behind the camera. Collectively, someone should be made to give back one of their Oscars and I’ll leave it to the group to decide who is going to part with their little gold man. A movie this incompetently made demands a sacrifice.

Based on Jo Nesbø’s international bestseller but evidentially substantially changed by the three screenwriters attributed to the script, The Snowman starts on the wrong foot and never recovers. Not that it attempts to, jumping right into introducing boozy Detective Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave) in Oslo as he stumbles back to the police force after a drunken bender. There’s little in the way of character introduction of any kind, the movie just happens to find recognizable faces along the way and incorporates them into the story when convenient.

There’s Rebecca Ferguson (Life) as, I think, a visiting detective with a secret agenda that still takes on local cases, such as the one with the missing woman that unites her with Harry. This investigation leads them to a possible serial killer who, Ferguson hilariously concludes, is triggered “by the falling snow”. Possible suspects include a suspicious husband of the missing woman (James D’Arcy, Cloud Atlas), a creepy doctor (David Denick, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and wealthy land developer played by J.K. Simmons (Patriots Day). Simmons is just one of the cast sporting a disastrous British accent, though the entire action takes place in Norway. Are these all just a specific band of ex-pats with a killer in their midst? Nah, all the signs and newspapers are in English…even the police station features no Norwegian signage.

I’ve always said I couldn’t get enough of Chloë Sevigny (Lovelace) but she’s playing twins here and it turns out…one Sevigny is more than enough. Then there’s the mysterious case of the nearly unrecognizable Val Kilmer seen only in flashback as a detective in neighboring Bergen. Looking shockingly sickly (the actor recently survived a throat tumor) and clearly dubbed, his performance is off the rails and just another piece of a puzzle that is just not meant to fit together. I can’t even go there with Charlotte Gainsbourg (Samba) as Fassbender’s old girlfriend, especially after witnessing a clothed sex scene between the two that’s as awkwardly uncomfortable to watch as seeing a lab rat trying to mate with a St. Bernard.

Director Tomas Alfredson (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) has popped up in interviews saying that 15% of the script wound up not being filmed and that does not surprise me in the least. It at least explains how Oscar-winner and longtime Martin Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker (Cape Fear) managed to piece together a movie that makes almost entirely no sense. There are no scene transitions or establishing shots so it is impossible to determine where the characters are in relation to not only the plot but each other. There’s one sequence cut so poorly that you think two actors are in the same room but are in fact miles away from each other. Ferguson’s hair changes color several times, about as many times as Fassbender’s hair gets longer then shorter from one moment to the next. While Oscar-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe (Into the Woods) captures some of the gloomier Norwegian vistas with a bit of flair, the visuals are weighed down heavily by the sterile production design from Maria Djurkovic and Tatiana Macdonald (Oscar nominees themselves for The Imitation Game) that heavily favors latte colored IKEA furnishings.

A competent creative team has crafted a truly incompetent film here, even the finale is botched with the suggestion of a sequel so laughably inserted that your heart aches for the Universal Studios executive that must have pleaded for it to be incorporated just in case.  I’m usually not a fan of audiences talking during a movie but as the film progressed the chatter became louder and louder as everyone began to question what in the actual hell was going on. This is terrible filmmaking, an embarrassment for every single person above and below the line.  While it’s bound to be mentioned in the same breath as other Scandinavian-set thrillers, it not even fit to be included in the belch that follows that breath.

The Silver Bullet ~ The Snowman

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Synopsis: Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose pink scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman

Release Date:  October 20, 2017

Thoughts: With the popularity of Norwegian author Jo Nesbø’s series of novels following Detective Harry Hole (yikes, a most unfortunate name), it was merely a matter of time before the hardened investigator appeared onscreen.  I’m intrigued to see Michael Fassbender (Prometheus) signed on to what could be yet another lucrative franchise, lately he’s seemed to be making a lot of interesting indie choices.  What could have attracted him to such commercial fare?  Probably it’s the money but maybe there’s promise in this mystery which also stars Rebecca Ferguson (Life), J.K. Simmons (The Accountant), and Chloë Sevigny (Lovelace).  A big screen adaptation of Nesbø’s novel Headhunters made for fun fare a few years back and with these procedural serial killer flick on the decline, let’s hope The Snowman doesn’t melt at the box office.

Movie Review ~ Assassin’s Creed

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The Facts:

Synopsis: When Callum Lynch explores the memories of his ancestor Aguilar and gains the skills of a Master Assassin, he discovers he is a descendant of the secret Assassins society.

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Khalid Abdalla, Michael K. Williams, Charlotte Rampling, Ariane Labed

Director: Justin Kurzel

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 115 minutes

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review: Let’s get this out of the way at the outset.  I’ve never played Assassin’s Creed nor did I have the faintest clue what the big screen adaptation was about when I cozied myself up in a warm theater for the 10am screening.  Maybe it was the early showtime or maybe not having any pre-conceived notions helped because I quite enjoyed this futuristic historical adventure with a hard edge.

Used to be when an A-List actor took a role in a video game adaptation, it signaled a career that had run its course but Assassin’s Creed proves to be a rare unicorn.  Featuring a host of Oscar winners and nominees, I was worried the film would reek of actors slumming for a paycheck but turns out they all bring a much needed gravitas to the proceedings.  Basically, they classed up the joint.  Re-teaming with his Macbeth stars, director Justin Kurzel makes good use of Michael Fassbender’s (Prometheus) dark side and nicely exploits Marion Cotillard’s (Two Days, One Night) air of mystery to keep you off balance surrounding the motivations of the central characters.

Fassbender is a death-row convict whose execution is faked by Cotillard in order to bring him to her next-generation laboratory in Spain.  There’s some mumbo-jumbo about the Knights Templar and a fabled Apple of Eden that holds the key to the nature of evil but it’s all a way to get Fassbender into Cotillard’s machine that takes his DNA and pulls up the memories of his ancestors and allows him to relive the past.  As part of the memories of his Assassins society days, Fassbender is plunged into a conspiracy where his life hangs in the balance in both the past and the present while mankind’s future is up for grabs if he achieves his goal.

The ideas in Michael Leslie, Bill Cooper, and Adam Cooper’s screenplay are loftier than one might imagine considering the source material.  Jeremy Irons (Beautiful Creatures) and Charlotte Rampling (45 Years) are Templar elders anxiously awaiting Fassbender’s find and both have fun (but not too much) with some nicely droll line readings.  The cast is rounded out by reliable character actors and an international cast of foes and friends working to either help or hinder Fassbender’s efforts.  Aside from the seemingly never-ending supply of bad guys to kill (in appropriately PG-13 non-bloody fashion), this doesn’t have the typical video game look that has weighed down similar movies.  For that, I am most grateful.

Unfortunately bound to get lost in a holiday season with bigger fish to fry (why didn’t this get a late January or February release?), Assassin’s Creed is better than it should be and more entertaining that I felt it would be.  Kurzel has now shown in two movies that he can get real dark real fast and the finale of Assassin’s Creed is a bold stroke of confidence that I hope pays off.

The Silver Bullet ~ Alien: Covenant

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Synopsis: The crew of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think is an uncharted paradise, but it is actually a dark, dangerous world, whose sole inhabitant is the synthetic David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Release Date:  May 19, 2017

Thoughts: Anticipation was high back in 2012 when director Ridley Scott’s mysterious Prometheus arrived veiled in secrecy.  Was it a prequel to Alien or wasn’t it?  Early previews gave few clues and neither Scott nor 20th Century Fox did much to fill in the blanks.  Prometheus sharply divided audiences and critics, some appreciating that Scott reached further back than mere prequel territory while others loathed it with a vitriol usually reserved for a Transformers sequel.  Personally, I loved it and saw it several times on the big screen; it’s cliffhanger ending only made me more curious about what would happen next.  The answer comes next May with Alien: Covenant and this first look is a neat (if overly gory/spoiler-y) intro to a film that looks very different than its predecessor.  Perhaps Scott (The Martian) and screenwriter John Logan (Skyfall, Spectre, Hugo) are trying to please the fans and detractors of Prometheus at the same time.  Riding that fine line would be good, I just hope they don’t overcompensate and make a faded copy of the original entry.  Aside from Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) and Noomi Rapace (Dead Man Down) returning in their roles, star Katherine Waterston (Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them) certainly is going full-on Ellen Ripley and I’m interested (and a little nervous) to see how actors like Danny McBride (This Is the End) and the recently added James Franco (Sausage Party) figure into the mix. It’s worth noting that Alien: Covenant was originally intended for a release in October 2017.  It was then moved up to August before settling into a prime summer release date in May.  That’s a very good sign of a studio confident they have something big…let’s hope so.

Movie Review ~ X-Men: Apocalypse

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The Facts:

Synopsis: With the emergence of the world’s first mutant, Apocalypse, the X-Men must unite to defeat his extinction level plan.

Stars: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till, Evan Peters, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp, Josh Helman, Lana Condor, Ben Hardy

Director: Bryan Singer

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 143 minutes

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review: Dear readers, it’s OK if you are in the throes of Superhero Movie Fatigue. I’ve been suffering symptoms of SMF for over a year now and I’m sure it’s helpful to know that you’re not alone if you suddenly find yourself recoiling at the first whiff of a CGI created villain or needing to lie down from exhaustion when you try to tie all of the various multi-film storylines together. While I don’t see a cure for SMF in the near future (both the Marvel and DC universe are mapped out for the next several years), I think we’ll learn to adjust to an onslaught of comic book adaptations that will eventually start to compete only with films from their own franchises until a death rattle finishes them all off.

In the meantime, 2016 has brought forth the good (Deadpool, Captain America: Civil War) and the misunderstood (Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice) and judging from early reaction you might feel inclined to add X-Men Apocalypse to the miscalculated pile. I’d caution you to see for yourself though because this eighth X-Men movie is big (BIG!), rather exciting, and sets the stage for a new era with a careful hand and a gentle nod.

Admittedly, I’m not the biggest X-Men fan in the world. I was slow to warm to the series and never really had much of an interest or stake in the opinion of the overall quality or the consistency that true fans seemed to find the most fault with. The first movie was decent but half-baked, the second addressed the major concerns and righted a listing ship only to have the third one stank up the joint. Venturing into solo territory, Hugh Jackman (Les Miserables) tried to get a Wolverine series off the ground but fans weren’t interested. A prequel reignited the flame and led to another Wolverine film (which I enjoyed more than most) and the 2014 time-hopping head-scratcher X-Men: Days of Future Past.

I didn’t think the franchise could stuff more into its running length but X-Men: Apocalypse is the stone soup of the bunch…it’s got a little bit of everything. It’s going to divide many a fan/critic/movie-goer and maybe I was just in the right mood for it because I found myself highly engaged and, yeah, emotionally invested in the continued adventures of Professor X (James McAvoy, Trance), Magneto (Michael Fassbender, Prometheus), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence, Joy), and their mutant co-horts that go up against their most formidable enemy yet.

His presence was teased at the end of X-Men: Days of Future Past and an energetic prologue in Egypt shows how Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac, A Most Violent Year) came to be buried under a pyramid until he’s uncovered in the ’80s by a faction of his descendant followers. Luckily, Moira Mactaggert (Rose Byrne, Spy) is there to see it all take place and sound the alarm that something big is about to go down.

Meanwhile, Mystique is spending most of her time sans blue skin (you can just hear Lawrence negotiating ever y second she has to be in full Mystique-garb), watching out for mutants being mistreated the world over. Rescuing Nightcrawler (Kodi Smit-McPhee, ParaNorman) from a cage match with Angel (Ben Hardy), she brings him back to Professor X’s school where he falls in with Beast (Nicholas Hoult, Warm Bodies), Cyclops (Tye Sheridan, Mud), and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner). It isn’t long before the mutants find themselves under attack in their own home, culminating in a most impressive rescue sequence (it took the longest to film) led by Quicksilver (Evan Peters, The Lazarus Effect) who happened to be in the area looking for personal answers of his own.

With Apocalypse freed and intent on bringing the world back to square one by wiping the human population out, he gathers his four horsemen to assist him in his end of days plot. One will remain secret here but a young Storm (Alexandra Shipp) and Psylocke (Olivia Munn, Magic Mike) are part of the mix. Scenes of massive destruction and special effects threaten to overtake the picture but those that complain about director Bryan Singer (Jack the Giant Slayer) focusing more on computer generated mayhem instead of human heart must not realize they bought a ticket for a movie about superhero mutants fighting a doomsday villain.

On the disappointing side are McAvoy and Fassbender largely sleepwalk through the movie and Munn is totally miscast, mostly because she’s not that impressive to begin with. Isaac gets lost in his big blue bad guy but he does what he can in moon boots under all that make-up. It’s the younger generation that impresses here, with Hoult, Smit-McPhee, Sheridan, and Turner signaling that they have what’s needed to continue on with the franchise. This is reportedly Lawrence’s last spin and her absence will leave a big hole in the emotional core of the film. Even though she’s a top-tier A-List star now, Lawrence never looks down on her role or gives it anything less than her full attention.

For a PG-13 film, the movie has a questionable amount of bloody violence (especially in a sequence that involves a cameo that seems to be standard issue for any film bearing the X-Men moniker). Parents should likely see this one first before bringing young children, it’s not only heavy on viscera but at nearly 2 ½ hours it can start to feel long during its mid-section. It ramps up nicely to a whopper of a climax but even I struggled to stay alert as the film reached the two hour mark.

There’s a lot going on in X-Men: Apocalypse and for those living with SMF you could find yourself stretched thin by the time the credits roll…but if you can hang on it’s highly worth seeing on the largest screen you can get to.

Movie Review ~ Macbeth

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Macbeth, a Thane of Scotland, receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders his king and takes the throne for himself.

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Considine, David Thewlis, Jack Reynor, Sean Harris, Elizabeth Debicki

Director: Justin Kurzel

Rated: R

Running Length: 113 minutes

Trailer Review: Here

TMMM Score: (7.5/10)

Review: Everyone has their favorite Shakespeare play (or they should) and while I’ve always gravitated toward the comedies more than the tragedies, if I had to pick one of his darker works I’d go with Macbeth without much hesitation. There’s something so sinister about the plot, something so overtly wicked about it that it has kept me interested in whatever iteration is released.  I’ve seen it on film, and onstage as a play and an opera and it’s malicious deeds always give me the chills.

There have been several screen adaptation of Macbeth over the years (as well as some clever twists on it, see Scotland, PA for a fun one) and they’ve all made their own mark.  Justin Kurzel’s 2015 Macbeth is the shortest adaptation so far, truncating Shakespeare’s prose down to its barest core and taking some liberties with the action that may have purists sharpening their knives.

While watching the film, I was decadently disengaged.  I went in thinking I would instantly love it, especially considering the leads were cast with two of my favorite actors working today.  Yet throughout the two hours I wasn’t able to immerse myself in the proceedings like I expected to.  It usually takes me a few minutes to acclimate to Shakespeare’s dialogue but I struggled mightily, even knowing the play fairly well.  Artfully made and shrewdly performed, it didn’t grab me.

Then I had some time to think about the film and slowly but surely I realized just how effective the piece was.  It’s not your typical Macbeth adaptation and more’s the better for it.  Sure, it’s been slashed to smithereens but what Kurzel cuts he makes up for with imagery and imagination that fill in the gaps for us.

I’d always considered Macbeth more of a pawn to his wife’s ambition but Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) plays the Thane of Scotland as conflicted yet not contrite.  He may have needed the initial push from his significant other but once he gets going he finds that he can’t stop his mission to rise to power.  In typical Fassbender form, it’s an all-in approach that gives the character fearsome depth and calculated strength.

Equal to (and possible besting) her co-star, Marion Cotillard (Two Days, One Night) takes on the famous role of Lady Macbeth and chooses to add anxiety into her ambitious ways.  Her urging her husband to commit heinous acts comes from a survival instinct…but she realizes too late the machine she’s helped start will bring about their downfall instead of their ascension.  Cotillard has a thrilling monologue late in the film that’s simply shot but complex in its delivery.

The rest of the cast has to take whatever remnants screenwriters Jacob Koskoff, Michael Lesslie, and Todd Louiso have left of their roles, with Sean Harris (Prometheus, Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) getting the most out of his turn as Macduff.  Good cracks from Paddy Considine (The World’s End), Jack Reynor (Transformers: Age of Extinction), and a most minor appearance from Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby) round out the supporting players.

Not everyone will love this Macbeth…I sure didn’t when it was happening in front of me.  However, taking the time to ponder it in the hours/days after I found that my appreciation for the work only grew.  It wasn’t what I expected and that wound up working in its favor.