MOVIE REVIEW: MULAN

To save her ailing father from serving in the Imperial Army, a fearless young woman disguises herself as a man to battle northern invaders in China.

Director: Niki Caro

Cast: Liu Yifei, Donnie Yen, Tzi Ma, Jason Scott Lee, Yoson An, Ron Yuan, Gong Li, Jet Li

Release Date: September 4, 2019

Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence

Runtime: 1 h 55 min

Review:

The live action remake of Mulan is visually impressive in spots but ultimately it suffers from the same issue that has plagued the other Disney remakes, it feels perfunctory and soulless.  Niki Caro does fare better with this film than some of the other directors tasked with these cash grabs.  Caro has a clear eye for sweeping visual and she takes full advantage of their filming locations.  I’d assume that’s where the majority of the film’s massive budget was spent.  The strange thing is that sequences vary from realistically epic to overly artificial with an over reliance on CGI, so much so that some scenes are jarringly choppy.  Caro can’t seem to decide if she wants to keep the film grounded or go full on fantasy, so she straddles the line between both leaving the film with an uneven tone.  The script doesn’t help matters since it keeps everything overly self serious with no tangible sense of fun.  The cast is consistently wooden and emotionally detached from their characters with only Gong Liz and Tzi Ma leaving any sort of impact.  Liu Yifei does what she can in the lead role but she’s never engaging enough to make the audience care about the character’s journey.  This might be a bit easier to forgive if you just ignore the fact that there is a superior version of the same story available.  Only a few moments really land the way they were intended, which is a shame because you get the feeling that there was a better version of this film in there somewhere. 

C

Cindy Prascik's Review of Arrival

Dearest Blog: Yesterday it was off to Marquee cinemas for sci-fi awards contender Arrival. 

 

Spoiler level here will be mild, nothing you wouldn't know from the trailers. 

 

When extra-terrestrial crafts land at a dozen spots across the globe, a linguist (Amy Adams) and a scientist (Jeremy Renner) head one of the teams responsible for deciphering the aliens' language and determining the reason for their appearance. 

 

Dear reader(s), you may recall my saying, on many occasions, that I do not read reviews before I write my own. This remains true, though it could not escape my notice that Arrival is carrying outstanding scores on many websites and has already received perfect ratings from two of my movie-reviewing pals. 

 

But...hey...I guess if you wanted someone else's opinion you wouldn't be here, right? Arrival has a good deal going for it. From a purely visual standpoint, it is lovely, with bleak landscapes that underline the movie's tense tone and a glorious depiction of the aliens' written language. 

 

Interactions between the visitors from space and our intrepid interpreters are absolutely stunning. Both Adams and Renner are terrific, and their wonder and earnestness are contagious; you'll be holding your breath, hoping these are ET-aliens and not Alien-aliens. 

 

Johann Johannsson has provided a stunning, intense score that commands your attention, yet never upstages the action onscreen. Arrival has many positive messages about cooperation and not assuming the worst and beginnings and endings and, really, life in general. 

 

That being said: Arrival is about the best insomnia cure you could get for seven dollars and fifty-cents. The movie plods along like an overlong Doctor Who episode and often seems utterly lost in itself.

 

I made it about 20 minutes before the struggle to stay awake began in earnest, and it was a mighty struggle indeed for the remainder of the picture's not-excessive runtime. Unlike last year's trundling would-be masterpiece, The Revenant, this one can't be saved by its physical beauty. 

 

Arrival clocks in at a very reasonable 116 minutes and is rated PG13 for "brief strong language." Arrival will almost certainly make most best picture shortlists this Awards Season. 

 

It'll probably take home some of those trophies, and maybe it'll even deserve to, but I'd take a one-way trip to outer-space before I'd watch it again. 

 

Of a possible nine Weasleys, Arrival gets five. Until next time... 

 

MOVIE REVIEW: ARRIVAL

Linguistics professor Louise Banks (Amy Adams) leads an elite team of investigators when gigantic spaceships touch down in 12 locations around the world. As nations teeter on the verge of global war, Banks and her crew must race against time to find a way to communicate with the extraterrestrial visitors. Hoping to unravel the mystery, she takes a chance that could threaten her life and quite possibly all of mankind.

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg, Tzi Ma

Release Date: Nov 11, 2016    

Rated PG-13 for brief Strong Language    

Runtime: 1 hr. 56 min.    

Genres: Drama, Suspense/Thriller

Review:

Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival is a shining example of how to do heady science fiction with strong emotional depth. It recalls classics like Close Encounters with the Third Kind, 2001 and Contact.  Villeneuve’s film is a measured affair that demands your attention from start to finish with an impressive payoff that rewards you.  Amy Adams has never been better or more subdued.  Her performance carries the entire film and gives the film its bitter sweet heart.  Jeremy Renner provides a nice counterbalance to Adams.  Forest Whitaker is a tab wasted in a thankless role.  Arrival is a sure to join the upper echelon of science fictions films and marks another excellent film from Denis Villeneuve.

A-