MOVIE REVIEW: SAW X

 

Hoping for a miraculous cure, John Kramer travels to Mexico for a risky and experimental medical procedure, only to discover the entire operation is a scam to defraud the most vulnerable. Armed with a newfound purpose, the infamous serial killer uses deranged and ingenious traps to turn the tables on the con artists.

Director: Kevin Greutert

Cast:  Tobin Bell, Shawnee Smith, Synnøve Macody Lund, Steven Brand, Michael Beach, Renata Vaca

Release Date: September 29, 2023

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Rated R for sequences of grisly bloody violence and torture, language and some drug use.

Runtime: 1h 58m

Saw X really has very little reason to exist with pretty much every permutation of the gory franchise seemingly exhausted including a semi reboot since the primary character is dead.  Smartly, the script moves the action back in time by placing it shortly after the original entry.  Doing so strips away all the mythology and entanglements of the future installments resulting in a leaner, more focused story that highlights Tobin Bell's John Kramer.  The opening act allows the audience to spend time with Kramer and his search for salvation from his terminal cancer.  Its surprisingly restrained character study also gives Tobin Bell plenty of time to show off some of his acting chops before the story moves into its gruesome menagerie of bodily harm.  This set up gives us enough insight into Kramer's mentality to make him engaging on a human level.  Bell can still deliver sinister game instructions with sinister zeal but here the man is far more interesting.  Shawnee Smith returns as Kramer's aspiring apprentice, Amanda, which gives the character another layer that hadn't been explored enough in previous entries.  Smith, sporting a Vulcan wig, and Bell have solid chemistry together onscreen which makes their mentorship relationship far more interesting and engaging.  The plot allows this to blossom naturally by keeping everything very linear by having the entire group of victims on stage at once.  Those victims are played with varying levels of effectiveness with Synnøve Macody Lund, a doctor by way of Swedish Bikini team, and Octavio Hinojosa bringing the most energy to their performances even if they serve as little more than meat for the grinder.  There are still plenty of plot holes, logical leaps and telegraphed surprises, something that's plagued the series, Saw X still manages to be one of the best entries in the long running series.  

B

MOVIE REVIEW: THE CREATOR

 

As a future war between the human race and artificial intelligence rages on, ex-special forces agent Joshua is recruited to hunt down and kill the Creator, the elusive architect of advanced AI. The Creator has developed a mysterious weapon that has the power to end the war and all of mankind. As Joshua and his team of elite operatives venture into enemy-occupied territory, they soon discover the world-ending weapon is actually an AI in the form of a young child.

Director: Gareth Edwards

Cast: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Ken Watanabe, Sturgill Simpson, Allison Janney

Release Date: September 29, 2023

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for violence, some bloody images and strong language

Runtime: 2h 15m

Gareth Edwards The Creator is a sprawling sci-fi epic that's got a distinctive visual style that echoes its massive scope.  Edwards mines a variety of sources such as Blade Runner, District 9, Children of Men, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and a small dash of Kubrick's 2001 in the final shot.  The result is a cornucopia of fully realized settings that feel lived in and real that keeps the film from feeling too artificial.  Story wise it's equally expansive and grounded even as it traverses some well worn story threads, particularly the child messiah idea from The Terminator but opting to flip the script.  It’s a dense story that throws a hefty amount of thematic ideas that makes the film work both as something literal and as a more allegorical tale which the best kind of sci-fi tends to do.  Needless to say, it’s the kind of hard sci-fi that we rarely see these days especially on the scope and scale that Edwards delivers.  Its deadly serious from start to finish with performances that are equally committed to their roles.  John David Washington leads the film with a heartfelt, driven performance which gives him ample time to shine.  He serves as the anchor of the film, keeping everything tethered to the emotional core of the story.  Newcomer Madeleine Yuna Voyles, who plays Alphie the child AI, is impressive throughout with her and Washington sharing strong chemistry together even as the script starts to thug on heartstrings a tad too much in the final act.  The supporting cast is solid even if they do take a backseat to the central relationship with Ken Watanabe and Allison Janney leaving the biggest impression.  Watanabe gets his moments, but the film would have been smart to take better advantage of his talented presence.  Janney does get more screen time which she uses to deliver an icy, stone cold killer turn that could have come off as cartoonish in lesser hands.  She makes for a compelling villain, but the script doesn't give the character a ton of depth outside of a few passing lines of dialogue early on.  Its one of the minor issues that peppers the film in addition to pacing issues here and there that make the film feel longer than its actual runtime and some fairly noticeable logical leaps the story ask you make at various points in the plot.  Still, The Creator is an achievement on multiple levels from its stark visuals to its ability to take well worn tropes feel fresh again.

B+

MOVIE REVIEW: DUMB MONEY

 

Everyday people flip the script on Wall Street and get rich by turning GameStop into one of the world's hottest companies. In the middle of everything is Keith Gill, a regular guy who starts it all by sinking his life savings into the stock. When his social media posts start blowing up, so does his life and the lives of everyone following him. As a stock tip becomes a movement, everyone gets wealthy -- until the billionaires fight back and both sides find their worlds turned upside down.

Director: Craig Gillespie

Cast: Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Vincent D'Onofrio, America Ferrera, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, Seth Rogen

Release Date: September 15, 2023 

Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama

Rated R for pervasive language, sexual material, and drug use

Runtime: 1h 44m

Craig Gillespie's Dumb Money takes the 2021 GameStop stock madness and breaks it down into an easily digestible and enjoyable annotated version of the true story.  He gives his film a chaotic energy which fits the subject matter perfectly even though the film describes the investing strategies at play.  The early exposition dump does a solid job of explaining the concepts in such a manner that any layman, myself included, can follow the ideas with general ease.  The story follows multiple angles of the story with the central focus being on Dano's Keith Gill who kick starts the events.  Additionally, we get moments with the hedge fund managers and retail investors as the stock situation explodes on the scene.  The ensemble does a solid job of making these moments engaging even if they don't offer the sort of depth that the main storyline is afforded.  Seth Rogen, Nick Offerman, Vincent D'Onofrio and Sebastian Stan make up the money side of the story with Rogen getting the most screen time and subsequently leaves the biggest impression. Offerman, D'Onofrio and Stan aren't asked to do much outside of looking smug or annoyed for a variety of reasons.   The rest of the ensemble played by familiar faces like America Ferrera and Anthony Ramos makes up the everyday retail investors who rally behind Gill's market play.  The characters themselves are composites of real people with the film content to use them to represent types of people as opposed to something a bit more nuanced and three dimensional.  Dano gets much more to work with his character getting more depth and texture throughout the film.  In turn he delivers a likeable, sincere performance that makes his character easy to root for from start to finish.  The film does gloss over some of the murkier details on the Reddit boards, other stocks that were part of situation and overall lasting effect of everything that went down.  There are plenty of documentaries that get into more the nitty gritty of what happened, but Dumb Money makes for a fascinating, well crafted cinematic retelling that captures the spirit of the moment.  

B+

MOVIE REVIEW: EXPEND4BLES

Armed with every weapon they can get their hands on, the Expendables are the world's last line of defense and the team that gets called when all other options are off the table.

Director: Scott Waugh

Cast: Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, Dolph Lundgren, Randy Couture, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Megan Fox, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Jacob Scipio, Levy Tran, Andy García

Release Date: September 22, 2023 

Genre: Action, Adventure, Thriller, War

Rated R for strong/bloody violence throughout, language and sexual material.

Runtime: 1h 43m

The Expendables franchise has always leaned on 80's action nostalgia with its rotating collection of aging stars.  It seemed inevitable that it wouldn't be able to last forever as the big names slowly dropped off, killing off it's primary draw.  This fourth entry lacks the original hook leaving Jason Statham, Megan Fox and Randy Couture front and center, Stallone appears in what amounts to a glorified cameo.  Statham is generally good fun in supporting role or lead roles especially if he's got strong material.  Sadly the script, production and story overall is terribly lazy and undercooked leaving him to rely on his natural charisma which can only take the film so far.  Megan Fox is distractingly bad throughout, with the film asking us to believe she's a stone cold mercenary even while she's outfitted in clubwear with enough flawless make up caked on to make you think they shot her using an Instagram filter.  It's one of the many things that make the whole thing feel like a bottom shelf rental from the early 80s.  The new cast of characters are all fairly nondescript with 50 Cent acting like 50 Cent and Jacob Scipio giving a fairly terrible Antonio Banderas impersonation as his son.  Iko Uwais serves as the primary villain but he's saddled with pencil thin characterization with the only memorable moment coming in the final act with a well choregraphed fight with Statham which gives the film the slightest bit of a pulse.  The series, as a whole, has never been a bastion of high art but they were fun as mindless mayhem something this entry seems to have forgotten.  Expend4bles is sorely lacking in that department since there's nothing terribly fun about it which leaves it dead on arrival.

D-

MOVIE REVIEW: EL CONDE

 

Augusto Pinochet is a vampire ready to die, but the vultures around him won't let him go without one last bite.

Director: Pablo Larraín

Cast: Jaime Vadell, Gloria Münchmeyer, Alfredo Castro, Paula Luchsinger, Catalina Guerra, Marcial Tagle, Amparo Noguera, Diego Muñoz, Antonia Zegers, Stella Gonet, Clemente Rodriguez

Release Date: September 8, 2023

Genre: Comedy, Fantasy, History, Horror

Rated R for strong violence and gore, some graphic nudity, rape, language and sexual content.

Runtime: 1h 50m

Pablo Larraín surreal satire, El Conde, is a fascinating and darkly funny deconstruction of the Chilean dictator as a decrepit, isolated vampire.  Larraín approach is rather interesting as he turns a real life monster into a self loathing creature who's primarily concerned with his historical legacy while having very little power to change it.  The dialogue’s heavy script provides plenty of laughs thanks in part to a heavy dose of gallows humor and the character's general oblivious, aloofness.  Larraín makes a concerted effort to display the general disconnect from reality and humanity throughout and horrific moments are played as mundane minutiae of a monstrous existence.  Jaime Vadell plays Pinochet as a pathetic, exhausted creature who would like nothing more than to end his existence in spite of his parasitic family's wishes.  His children and wife being little more than single minded hangers on who are unwilling to let him die until they've collected all the money, they believe they are owed.  Alfredo Castro, who plays his loyal servant Fyodor, leaves the biggest impression with his performance which carries the veneer of loyalty before something duplicitous is revealed.  Paula Luchsinger delivers an equally impressive turn as the nun tasked with dispatching Pinochet after she's taken a full accounting of his misdeeds and stolen wealth for the benefit of the church.  Luchsinger mile a minute delivery makes for some of the film's best interchanges especially when she interviews the children as they reveal their superficial motivations.  Her character is more than a bit scattered as her emotional state and motivation take some interesting turns especially in the final act.  Some of the characters’ actions don't make total sense but she's given an moment that delivers the sense of an ethereal awaking in a wonderfully composed shot which is a solid culmination of the film's wonderful cinematography.  The visuals alone will leave a lasting impression even as the film moves into even stranger territory as it barrels into its finale where some of the subtext is more blunt in its messaging.  El Conde is the type of film that will delight a certain group of film lovers while others might loath it at the same time, either way it will elicit a reaction.  

B+

MOVIE REVIEW: BOTTOMS

 

Unpopular best friends PJ and Josie start a high school fight club to meet girls and lose their virginity. They soon find themselves in over their heads when the most popular students start beating each other up in the name of self-defense.

Director: Emma Seligman

Cast: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Miles Fowler, Dagmara Domińczyk, Marshawn Lynch

Release Date: August 25, 2023

Genre: Comedy

Rated R for crude sexual content, pervasive language and some violence.

Runtime: 1h 32m

Emma Seligman’s Bottoms is a quick-witted high school teen comedy that takes the general tropes of the genre to an extreme level that pushes it closer to satire than anything else.  Seligman and Rachel Sennott, who stars as PJ, cowrote the film’s script which fires off a series of jokes at a rapid pace.  There’s a noticeable level of self-assured confidence in the way Seligman shoots the film which pairs perfectly with some top-notch comedic performances from Sennott and Ayo Edebiri.  The pair have great chemistry together as they bounce off each other with impressive ease which makes their relationship ring true even as things get more outrageous.  Sennott and Edebiri carry the majority of the film with their energy spilling over to the supporting cast.  Ruby Cruz, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine and Miles Fowler are all given plenty of time to shine throughout the film rather brisk runtime.  They added a level of depth to the film by populating the school landscape with hilarious caricatures of familiar high school types.   Those looking for a truer to life high school comedy might be disappointed since this film plays on a more exaggerated level of reality when compared to something like Booksmart or Lady Bird.   Bottoms isn’t that kind of teen comedy, instead it happily stakes out its own gonzo section of the genre to great effect.  

A-

MOVIE REVIEW: A HAUNTING IN VENICE

 

Belgian sleuth Hercule Poirot investigates a murder while attending a Halloween seance at a haunted palazzo in Venice, Italy.

Director: Kenneth Branagh

Cast: Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Michelle Yeoh

Release Date: September 13, 2023

Genre: Crime, Drama, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, disturbing images and thematic elements

Runtime: 1h 40m

Kenneth Branagh's third Agatha Christie adaptation is just as lavishly directed and performed as his first two films, but the added dash of horror spices up the formula to the murder mystery template.  Branagh gives this entry a decidedly different feel from the start as he makes great use of Venice on Halloween to set up an unsettling, spooky feel to the film.  Once the film settles into its primary setting of the haunted palazzo Branagh throws in plenty of visual flourishes which makes wonderful use of off kilter angles and framing which make the film far more effective and engaging than if he'd played it more straightforward.  The cast is again made up of a wonderful assortment of impressive international actors.  Branagh leads the way with a slightly more weathered and cynical take on Hercule Poirot in this entry which gives this iteration of the character some much needed texture and depth outside of his sleuthing skills.  Tina Fey joins the fray as Ariadne Oliver, an Agatha Christie proxy in the novels, with mixed results which leaves you feeling she's miscast in the role. Fey does her best but you get the sense somebody like Rachel Brosnahan would have been a better fit for this role.  On the other end of the spectrum, Michelle Yeoh leaves a strong impression on the film even with her limited screen time.  Kelly Reilly and Jamie Dornan do just enough to make their characters interesting but sadly both roles are fairly one dimensional.  Jude Hill follows up his impressive performance in Branagh's award winning Belfast with another strong turn here.  Hill possess such a natural ease on screen as he delivers lines with seasoned actors that you can't help but be impressed with the level of talent this 11 year old brings to the production.  His interaction with Branagh early on is a surprising high point in the film which sets up a nice payoff in the end once the film concludes its twisty murder mystery.  A Haunting in Venice shows there's still life in this film series, something Branagh's character reiterates onscreen as his legendary detective finds renewed purpose.

B+

MOVIE REVIEW: THE NUN II

 

In 1956 France, a priest is violently murdered, and Sister Irene begins to investigate. She once again comes face-to-face with a powerful evil.

Director: Michael Chaves

Cast: Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons, Storm Reid, Anna Popplewell

Release Date: September 8, 2023

Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller

Rated R for violent content and some terror.

Runtime: 1h 50m

The first Nun was a rather flat collection of religious horror clichés that didn't really justify The Conjuring spinoff.  The sequel still leans heavily on been there, done that horror set ups and scares but its story is more engaging and focused with a final act that takes you through a gonzo cornucopia funhouse that's undeniably fun.  Michael Chaves's third film in the overall universe is the most visually appealing of the bunch.  He uses long hallways and streets to solid effect even though there are too many rinse and repeat moments where character's wander around some dimly light environment before the monster inevitably reveals itself in a jump scare.  Still, there's a level of care in the set ups that makes for a visually appealing film that gives it a distinctive look exemplified by an impressive set up at a magazine rack midway through the film.  Taissa Farmiga and Jonas Bloquet return from the original film with both being given converging story threads.  Farmiga doesn't look as young as she did in the original which helps for the role but she still struggles to find the right level of authenticity to make her role more engaging than it is.  Pairing her with the talented Storm Reid should work better than it does but she's saddled with very little to do with the most generic motivation and background.  Jonas Bloquet is given more screen time this go around which works since he's has a likable screen presence even though his subplot is rather blasé.  Regardless of the script's shortcoming The Nun II is surprisingly watchable thrill ride for the better part of its runtime even though there's nary a bit of tension built up since you know where the film is going. 

B-

MOVIE REVIEW: EQUALIZER 3

 

Since giving up his life as a government assassin, Robert McCall finds solace in serving justice on behalf of the oppressed. Now living in Southern Italy, he soon discovers his new friends are under the control of local crime bosses. As events turn deadly, McCall becomes their protector by taking on the mafia.

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Cast: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, David Denman, Sonia Ammar, Remo Girone

Release Date: September 1, 2023

Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller

Rated R for strong bloody violence and some language.

Runtime: 1h 49m

The third and possibly final installment of the Equalizer franchise is a leaner, more focused entry which makes it the most effective of the three.  Antoine Fuqua's film is still as violent as ever, but he gives his main character a bit more time to breathe outside of his avenging angel persona.  There's a bit more nuance at play throughout which helps flesh out the character especially if you've followed his journey from the start.  Fuqua still delivers plenty of hero shots for his leading man with those visuals boarding between triumphant and menacing.  The action sequences are just as visceral and bloody as the past entries, but they are far less frequent than the first two entries leaning more on Washington's acting chops.  Denzel Washington has always been this series secret weapon as he pulls so much more out of the character than what's written on the page.  In this entry, he is given more room to explore moments of happiness and contentment before external forces bring him back to unleash his talents on a slew of faceless villains.  Washington does give the character a slightly different feel here, older more weathered and almost brutish in certain moments.  It makes those moments where his character unleashes his brand of justice interesting in that it could easily be flipped into a horror movie with little effort. Sadly, the supporting character are paper thin across the board, something that's been an issue with the three films.  Adding former Man on Fire costar, Dakota Fanning, should work better than it ultimately does with her character feeling more perfunctory than necessary.  Still the series as a whole is a testament to Washington's impressive talent and ability to make these films far more watchable than they would be in lesser hands.

B