Cinematic Considerations

Year: 2023

  • John Wick: Chapter 4: Action at its absolute finest

    March 27, 2023 · Watch the official trailer

    There will not be a better action movie in 2023.

    That’s the defining characteristic of director Chad Stahelski’s fourth installment in the “John Wick” franchise, which sees a near 60-year-old Keanu Reeves battle a seemingly endless number of henchmen in the most dazzling, creative and largely brutal violent ways possible.

    Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, cinephiles are treated to a smorgasbord of unique, visually inventive action set pieces that will astound and cement the flag for practical effects in action filmmaking in a reminder to moviegoers and fellow filmmakers just how dynamic the simple act of placing a camera in front of real people on a live set can be.

    “John Wick: Chapter 4” features every possible scenario and type of martial arts, hand-to-hand combat, gunfighting, knife-fighting, one-on-one, three-on-one, massive group battles imaginative that all could easily feel formulaic but have a relentless and kinetic energy that never lets up on the gas pedal.

    The film’s 169-minute running time does linger, but rarely in the extensive action sequences. While the narrative structure, emotional core and character development far exceed the prior two installments, it’s clear from the outset that the plot is just a loose structure meant to tie together spectacular visual cinema that showcases the technical mastery Stahelski, his production team and especially his stunt department have over their craft.

    “Chapter 4” continues shortly after the events of the third installment as John remains on the run with an international cabal known as “The High Table” sending its network of assassins after him with a $20 million bounty on his head. John must fight his way across the globe in search of final revenge and his ultimate freedom while confronting demons from his past.

    Reeves excels at a blend of stoicism and emotional strength in the rare moments his John gets to breathe between assassination attempts. The most impressive thing about Reeves’ performance is the physical dexterity he has to contort his body in and around of sticky situations while effortlessly pulling off technical fight choreography.

    “Chapter 4” places Reeves at the center of the frame far less than before, mainly due to the emergence of new secondary characters with equally impressive emotional stakes to support their dynamic fighting styles.

    A veteran of Hong Kong cinema, Donnie Yen steals large parts of “Chapter 4” with his brilliant emotional, yet keenly artistic physicality as John’s longtime friend Caine, who goes blind prior to the events of the film and must rely on his other senses to keep him alive and eliminate his targets.

    It’s an even more impressive feat in fight choreography as Yen and Stahelski cultivate genuinely inventive ways to showcase Caine’s skill as a trained killer while not making his blindness seem like a gimmick, nor turn him into a superhero. The precision required to pull off the stunts Yen does while not being visually engaged with his fight partners is nothing short of masterful and has a similar artistic quality to that of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

    At its core, “Chapter 4” takes all the small details and improvements that Stahelski has made as a director and assembles them into one largely cohesive visual cavalcade of action brilliance.

    Paired with a career best effort from cinematographer Dan Lausten who also shot the Oscar-winning “Shape of Water,” Stahelski embraces the opportunity to make every moment an eye-catching display worthy of multiple big screen viewings with highlights including an apartment building fight shot completely from an overhead angle, a cross city chase through Paris reminisnent of the “Mission: Impossible” franchise and some of the most hair-raising single take extended fight sequences in cinema history.

    “John Wick: Chapter 4” is far too violent, much too much of a genre flick and arrives way too soon in the calendar year to be recognized by awards bodies, but there’s no doubt of its worthiness on a technical level. Stahelski’s film is an absolute masterclass in stuntwork and capturing action sequences on camera in ways that no moviegoer could deny its quality.

    While the run-time may weigh heavily on some audiences, there’s far too much in its favor for moviegoers not to make “John Wick: Chapter 4” a must see on the biggest screen possible.

  • Shazam! Fury of the Gods: Super bland

    March 20, 2023 · Watch the trailer

    Superhero movies have gone completely stagnant.

    Whether it’s a Marvel or DC Comics property, it seems as though any continuation or spinoff of existing cinematic universe has lost all creativity and originality.

    While Marvel sorts out problems of being too large for its own good, the DC properties owned by Warner Brothers are in equal trouble as they transition away from Zach Snyder’s creative control to James Gunn, who crossed IP lines after directing the forthcoming “Guardians of the Galaxy” sequel.

    Caught in the crossfire of old to new DC cinema are several completed titles that feel out of touch and/or pointless in the grand scheme of comic book movies.

    Dwayne Johnson’s “Black Adam” sputtered out of the gate despite landing an A-list actor to helm a new franchise while a finished “Batgirl” film will never be released publicly in any form. DC is spinning around in circles, sailing with no rudder.

    The surprise breakout of the last round of DC offerings, “Shazam!,” seemed like a way to connect with a younger preteen audience, but the second installment, “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” removes almost all the light-hearted comedy in service of convoluted villains and unnecessary universe building that will likely be scrapped going forward.

    Two years after the events of the original film, teenage orphan Billy Batson and his adopted siblings have all gained the superhero powers of “Shazam!” and come face to face with ancient Greek gods back to unlock the god realm and enslave humanity.

    Because there are now six superheroes instead of just one and three antagonists rather than the original one, “Fury of the Gods” is massively overstuffed for its two-hour running time with side-plots for each of the primary characters. The intent is to create an extended world that allows audiences to bond with each of the secondary heroes, but there’s little room for comedy as a result and the film feels like much more of a slog to get through.

    Zachary Levi is charming and dorky as the primary hero Shazam, but now fully vested in his powers, the newness of being a superhero has worn off the shine of the unintentional comedy and the awkwardness he displays as Shazam feels forced. And while Asher Angel was a central part of the original film as Billy, so much of “Fate of the Gods” requires him to be in Shazam form that the humanity of the character is almost completely lost.

    If there’s an acting bright spot, it comes from Jack Dylan Grazer as Billy’s best friend Freddie, who brings most of the humor and the heart to the second installment that was a signature of the first film. Grazer’s chemistry with Rachel Zegler – the standout of Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” reimagining – is totally lackluster, but both young performers do enough individually to make their narrative cohesive and somewhat engaging.

    The film’s primary villains are played by heavy-hitters Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu, but the screenplay is so woefully underdeveloped that their motivations are bland and sophomoric, a relatively common trait among the film as a whole.

    While the original “Shazam!” had a signature style and tone set by director David F. Sandberg, its sequel doesn’t have the same flair due to a need to make everything bigger and bolder than the first. And whether it’s Sandberg’s direction or DC Studios requiring such CGI-heavy action sequences, “Fury of the Gods” aims to be showy visually at every turn but falls into the same trap that so many comic book films have in recent years and the entire third act just comes across as lazy green screen work.

    The most frustrating part of “Fury of the Gods” is just how inconsequential this all will be as it’s unlikely there will be a third installment in the “Shazam!” franchise under DC’s new model and there’s not enough highlights for the film to stand on its own two feet without being required viewing for other DC movies.

    Ultimately, most moviegoers should opt to wait for the film’s inevitable streaming release on HBO Max to give “Shazam! Fury of the Gods” the casual watch it barely earns rather than waste time and money to see it theatrically.

  • A whole new multiverse: Academy celebrates creativity, unique artistry with Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once

    A whole new multiverse: Academy celebrates creativity, unique artistry with Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All At Once

    It was practically unfathomable a year ago that a quirky blend of science fiction, drama and martial arts would be remember by more than a few ardent fans elevating it to cult status.

    But 366 days after its debut at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival, Everything Everywhere All At Once moved beyond critical and cinephile acclaim by winning seven of its 11 Academy Award nominations Sunday evening including Best Picture.

    While its success certainly signals an ongoing shift in what the Academy considers worthy of its top prizes, All At Once practically sweeping is a striking endorsement in genre filmmaking and original storytelling that should boost the profiles of future projects and promote filmmakers taking risks for the sake of unique creativity.

    All At Once probably isn’t a film that reaches across the spectrum of moviegoers like Top Gun: Maverick or a Steven Spielberg movie might be, but those just stumbling onto this remarkable gem should make every effort to find a way to see it even if it’s too strange or outlandish for more conservative cinephiles.

    Long overdue Best Actress winner Michelle Yeoh stars as Evelyn, a down on her luck Chinese immigrant whose business is on the verge of collapse and her marriage on the brink of divorce. While heading to an IRS audit meeting, Evelyn is confronted by an alternate version of her husband, Waymond, who believes she is the only person capable of stopping the nefarious Jobu Tupaki from collapsing every possible universe.

    Although the film could probably have been successful simply based on the creativity of writing/directing duo Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, collectively known as Daniels, Yeoh brings All At Once to the next level with a nuanced performance that is often frantic, sometimes melancholic, and ever transformative. 

    She becomes a terrific stand-in for the audience as the film progresses with Yeoh’s initial confusion to the world Evelyn is forced into mirroring the bewilderment of viewers.

    If there’s only one reason to see All At Once, it’s for the heartfelt, magnetic performance from Best Supporting Actor winner Ke Huy Quan, who returned to acting for his first role in two decades and steals nearly every scene he’s in as Evelyn’s sheepish, yet adorable husband Waymond. No matter what version of Waymond is in the moment – and all versions are incredible – Quan gives his whole heart to Waymond in a way that just leaps off the screen.

    Another veteran performer – Jamie Lee Curtis – finally got her laurels with a Best Supporting Actress win with an almost unrecognizable turn as the IRS agent assigned to Evelyn’s audit.

    All At Once is even more spectacular in terms of its visual effects, which was developed by a team of only five to create over 500 different shots in the film. Daniels use both practical and computer-generated effects to showcase Evelyn’s bridge between the versions of herself, dubbed “verse jumping” in the movie, and the look of Yeoh rapidly falling backwards is a constant blur of motion and imagery that keeps viewers at the edge of their seats.

    The film also moves at an intensely rapid pace thanks to distinct and swift editing by Paul Rogers, who won for best editing, that makes the most of the dynamic action sequences that perfectly blend martial arts with the strange science fiction elements of the plot.

    The singular vision of All At Once is so outside the box – there’s literally worlds with hot dog hands and pinatas – that rewarding Daniels with both Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay is something that speaks to the film’s technical merits and craft of storytelling, but also to the deep emotional core that resonates from the opening moments through the final credits.

    The Academy’s shift in direction to celebrate the less conventional parts of cinema culminated in heralding in a new era of creative, vibrant and original storytelling.

    In 2022, there simply isn’t a better example of independent artistry and breaking the mold of what movies could be than Everything Everywhere All At Once, a more than worthy Best Picture winner and something that cinephiles would do well to watch (or re-watch) very soon.

  • Creed III: Both sides of the ring

    Creed III: Both sides of the ring

    Cinema has long had a fascination with the pugilistic poetry of boxing and the legacy of its fighters from On The Waterfront to Raging Bull to the Rocky franchise.

    While filmmakers have often used the sport to craft their own unique dramas, the genre of boxing movie laid relatively dormant until Ryan Coogler brought back the thrills and chills of cinematic sports with 2018’s Oscar nominated Creed.

    After taking over the mantle in the first two installments as the titular character, Michael B. Jordan seeks to further forge his own legacy by doubling as both star and director for Creed III, which opened to box office success this past weekend.

    With no mention of the “Italian Stallion,” the third installment in the story of Adonis Creed finds the boxer at the height of his stardom when a close friend from his past reemerges after a long prison sentence looking for his own piece of glory.

    Jordan is solid in his return to the ring as Adonis, though it seems as if his mind is split between the character work in front of him as Creed steps into the roles of father, husband and businessman against the creative vision he must bring behind the camera.

    His chemistry built with Tessa Thompson as Bianca helps carry the familial drama well as Thompson holds most of the emotional burden that Jordan isn’t required to do beyond facial emoting.

    But for all that Jordan brings to the role, it’s often felt like his Adonis is a secondary character in the overall world of the Rocky franchise and its spinoff series, which saw Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa mentor Adonis and overshadow his protégé.

    Creed III suffers from a similar problem, but it isn’t that Stallone isn’t in the film rather it’s a different supporting performance completely engulfing whatever character work Jordan is doing here.

    A newcomer to the franchise as antagonist “Diamond” Dame Anderson, Jonathan Majors is astonishing in every scene he’s in, even ones where his character motivations are flimsy and underwritten.

    Majors expertly maneuvers his way between being soft and reserved to a brash bravado to an almost psychotic menacing violent caricature. At times, his Dame is an emotionless Mike Tyson hell bent on revenge and destruction, but Majors layers that with a brittle, fragile wounded heart that perfectly balances outward rage with inner turmoil.

    The film is significantly less interesting when Majors isn’t on screen – although this isn’t to say that moments of Adonis’s family drama aren’t compelling or engaging – but rather that they matter less because of how much Majors elevates the overall narrative of Dame’s story.

    Part of the issue is Jordan’s inexperience in the director’s chair, not being able to balance out the film’s multiple storylines effectively and keep audiences engaged with all aspects of the film.

    For baffling reasons, the Adonis/Dame relationship is almost entirely set aside for a half-hour in the second act and cripples the promise and momentum that early scenes have.

    Jordan’s best work behind the camera comes in the opening moments of Creed III where a flashback to Dame and Adonis growing up on the streets of Los Angeles perfectly sets a tone for a new, more dynamic take on the boxing film. There’s a fluid, free flowing nature to the camerawork that often takes on the style of a boxer in constant motion that extends out of the opening sequence into the first fight that announces Jordan’s potential as a dynamic filmmaker.

    Unfortunately, the chances he takes don’t always land as flush as Jordan might like.

    After the opening moments, it seems that Jordan’s major interest as a director is to create unique and original takes on traditional boxing fight choreography and cinematography.

    As the first sports film to use IMAX cameras for its action set pieces, Creed III has some dynamic energy that puts viewers in the ring more intimately than in most films in the genre and the second major bout focusing on Dame is especially engaging from a storytelling perspective as audiences learn more about who Dame is as a person by the way he fights.

    Jordan takes a major risk in the film’s final act that will click with some audiences but leave more traditional boxing fans disappointed with the lack of sports pageantry. There’s a clear influence from Japanese anime in how personal and close-up the camera gets on the fighters and it’s a distinctive signature on the film that doesn’t quite land as much as Jordan might want.

    While it doesn’t quite rise to the level of the original spinoff, Creed III is significantly better than its immediate predecessor in large part due to Majors breathing new life into the franchise and something ardent cinephiles may want to see on the biggest screen possible during a slow start to moviegoing in 2023.

  • Sharper: Deception game

    Sharper: Deception game

    Blink and you’ll probably miss the best movie to have been released in the early doldrums of cinema in 2023.

    While most moviegoers are watching bears on drugs or old women pining for football stars or tiny superheroes, Apple snuck a surprisingly engaging, yet underhanded crime thriller past unsuspecting cinephiles and dropped it on their AppleTV+ streaming service to little fanfare.

    Helmed by Benjamin Caron – a longtime TV director making his feature film debut – Sharper is one of the more elaborate, stylish psychological thrillers to come out in several years, much more dynamic than last year’s Deep Water.

    At the outset, viewers are introduced to Tom, a lonely bookstore owner who falls for a mysterious woman who’s more than meets the eye. As the film expands into the larger world of New York City high society, Sharper does its best to show that nothing is truly as it seems.

    The film is wholistically an ensemble piece, segmented out in parts to focus on events from each of the major characters’ perspectives. The screenplay from writers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka has significant bite and layered character development that gives the talented cast plenty of juicy dialogue with which to play and create.

    Justice Smith delivers a career best turn as Tom, hiding his heart from the world until Sandra opens his mind to the possibilities life has to offer. There’s both naivety and emotional loss bubbling under the surface of Smith’s performance, and it creates a strong through line for audiences to stabilize themselves as the plot spins darker by the moment.

    Rising star Briana Middleton has a difficult task as Sandra, having to play demure, decisive and broken, sometimes all at once over the course of her journey. Middleton is especially composed in her first major role, more than holding her own against seasoned character actors.

    Oscar winner Julianne Moore feels somewhat out of place in the grander scheme of Sharper, at times feeling like she’s in a different movie than the rest of her co-stars, but her performance is so specific that it doesn’t particularly hurt the overall narrative.

    Meanwhile, Sebastian Stan is particularly adept at subverting both his own filmography and audience expectations with a wry, slightly underhanded grin and stoic charm that radiates his Max’s ability to always be in control of a situation no matter how outrageous things might become.

    For a first time feature director, Caron does show a heavy hand at times with cross-cutting edits that remind audiences that they are watching a young filmmaker, although the backing of an artistic studio like A24 and the deep pockets of Apple give Sharper a distinctive cinematic flair.

    Cinematographer Charlotte Bruus Christensen maximizes the wide frame to create visually engaging scenes that highlight terrific locations and production design while keeping the actors and dialogue at the forefront.

    If there’s anything that stands out as a fatal flaw in Sharper, it’s the film’s languishing pace that drags out individual scenes with unnecessary intros rather than getting into the heart of the moment. It’s clear that Caron is inspired by psychological thrillers of the past and wants to elongate the haunting musical score from composer Clint Mansell but trimming back Sharper by even 5-10 minutes could have truly elevated the overall narrative to a higher level.

    While it certainly won’t be among the year’s top films, Sharper has enough intrigue, terrific production value and a solid ensemble cast that makes it something worth checking out at home.

  • Ant-Man 3: Big bite, little sting

    Ant-Man 3: Big bite, little sting

    Kevin Feige has some major problems.

    The longtime head behind Marvel Studios and overseer of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has often felt untouchable, almost invincible in a way due to his cultivation and crafting of a seemingly endless stream of comic book franchises.

    But at this point, comic book fatigue combined with too much concern for spectacle and laziness in storytelling have left a once great collection of films with no real direction for the future.

    Marvel enters Phase V of its MCU with director Peyton Reed’s third installment in the Ant-Man series with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which seeks to showcase the next intergalactic threat to humanity by shrinking its heroes down to subatomic levels to wage war against a nefarious, mysterious villain.

    Quantumania for almost all its two-hour running time just feels like actors walking around in silly costumes in front of green screens, which really accentuates the ridiculous lengths the MCU must now go to try and craft a new story as it seems they’ve mined all their best material 30-plus films and several spinoff television shows later.

    Films in the MCU have long since not felt like self-contained stories, rather just another random episodic piece of a larger puzzle that audiences leave the theater scratching their heads at.

    From the outset, it’s clear that Quantumania is a small cog in a gigantic money-making machine and that the stakes of the film simply both matters too much and not at all in the grand scheme.

    Perhaps this is due to the studio’s heavy hand on the wheel or Reed’s lack of directorial vision to craft something meaningful, but Quantumania is incredibly bland even in terms of the comic book science fiction mashup that it strives to be.

    Gone almost completely after the first 15 minutes is the wry humor that set the original Ant-Man film apart and made a comedic director like Reed a solid choice at the helm. There’s just no heart to any character motivations and the film lacks the cinematic flair that the first two installments had.

    Ant-Man films, in a general sense, were created to be heist movies and Quantumania is not that at all. It’s a glob of rushed, ill-considered, computer graphic mess thrown onto a screen in order to hold viewers over until the next round of CGI mess.

    Paul Rudd returns as Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, and is largely stripped of the ability to use his earnest comedic charms aside from select moments at the beginning and conclusion of Quantumania and most of the heroes around him – especially Evangeline Lilly’s Hope Van Dyne and Michael Douglas’ Hank Pym – are underwritten story filler.

    Even Michelle Pfeiffer, whose Janet Van Dyne is the centerpiece of the narrative arc of the film, isn’t able to make what happens in the Quantum Realm exciting or even entertaining.

    The film’s saving grace and lone bright spot comes from Jonathan Majors, who has emerged as one of Hollywood’s most compelling young actors and takes what could easily be a silly, mustache-twirling villain character and transforms his Kang the Conqueror into a principled arbiter put at odds with the film’s heroes.

    Majors continues his strong work in the MCU, carrying over from the Loki miniseries on Disney+ that establishes him as the next primary antagonist for the larger Avengers franchise and is quite probably the only compelling reason for cinephiles to be excited about the MCU’s prospects moving forwards.

    Undoubtedly the weakest entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2013’s Thor: The Dark World – another miss of a sequel meant only to serve as a table setter for things to come – Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania doesn’t need to be seen on the big screen and could easily be skimmed over during an at home viewing on Disney+ for hardcore Marvel fans wanting to prep for the next Avengers film.

  • Your Place or Mine: Where is the love?

    Your Place or Mine: Where is the love?

    Valentine’s Day weekends have always been a landing spot for the charming romantic comedy.

    And while the genre has become all but eradicated from the big screen, streaming services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu have countless offerings of boy-meets-girl, hijinks ensue until they fall madly in love films.

    In a pre-pandemic world, there would simply be no reason that a rom-com led by Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher wouldn’t make at least $30 million opening weekend at the box office, but nowadays a movie like writer/director Aline Brosh McKenna’s Your Place or Mine has become consumed by the streaming machine, released this past weekend on Netflix with little fanfare.

    The film’s premise implies a sort of You’ve Got Mail crossed with The Holiday narrative.

    Best friends Peter and Debbie live on opposite coasts and talk every day, but their lives are changed when they swap homes for a week as she pursues a lifelong dream, and he volunteers to watch her awkward teenage son.

    Witherspoon, a queen of the rom-com genre, is solid here as an independent single mom looking to fulfill her dreams while figuring out who she is in middle age. Because viewers – especially women – will connect with Debbie from fond memories of Witherspoon’s filmography, it’s easy to find Debbie as charmingly quirky and relatable.

    Kutcher, more known for his lovable idiot characters, has a much more difficult task of portraying the constantly suave businessman that’s incredibly against type. His strongest moments, ironically, aren’t with Witherspoon at all, but with Wesley Kimmel as Debbie’s son Jack.

    It’s clear that Peter – and Kutcher by proxy – has a genuine affection for Jack, but absolutely no concept of how to relate to an introverted teen. This should equate to easy laughs, but mostly comes off as wholesome kindness in a begrudgingly sweet way.

    The film serves as McKenna’s directorial debut and how much she’s influenced by her favorite romantic comedies comes out on screen, but also McKenna’s inexperience in the director’s chair carries over in the uneven comedic tone and acting flaws.

    McKenna borrows liberally from Nancy Meyers films in terms of production designs and lavish sets, although it’s often clear when green screens are being used to fill in the background outside Peter’s apartment.

    Structurally, Your Place does a relatively good job of balancing between Debbie and Peter’s storylines though it often feels like two separate 45-minute television episodes mixed in with a crossover episode.

    It isn’t just that Kutcher and Witherspoon lack on screen chemistry.

    Your Place keeps them apart for so much of the film – holding things together with split screen phone calls – that it fundamentally doesn’t make sense how Debbie and Peter move from friendship to romance. It’s as if the two were on completely different movie shoots and only were paired in a half dozen scenes to connect disparate thoughts.

    Looking just beyond the camera line without a scene partner to bounce things off of, Witherspoon and especially Kutcher have no ability to create dynamic chemistry. As a result, most of the early punchlines fall flat which sets an overall tone of blandness that makes jokes later in the film less likely to land.

    Conceptually, Your Place or Mine has the strength to be an above-average romantic comedy, but it feels like McKenna is too overwhelmed behind the camera or too committed to her own screenplay to create a more relaxed, natural tone to her film.

    Ultimately though, a film with so much promise and two solid rom-com leads at the heart should be better than “Your Place or Mine” actually is and easy access on Netflix will leave it buried at the bottom of cinephiles’ queue for years to come.

  • 80 For Brady: With love for Touchdown Tom

    80 For Brady: With love for Touchdown Tom

    Six years ago this week, football crafted a story so unlikely that it felt scripted to the point of movie magic in real life.

    An column on cinematicconsiderations.com the evening of the game predicted what was to come:

    Everything about tonight’s incredible, dramatic Super Bowl that saw the New England Patriots rally back from 19 points down to win 34-28 in the first overtime championship game in NFL history begs to be turned into cinema.

    Rather than focusing entirely on the game itself as the column went on to pitch, a more eclectic story of friendship over mutual love and admiration for a star quarterback became the centerpiece to memorialize a historic NFL moment on the big screen while appealing to a much older audience.

    Produced by the titular signal caller Tom Brady and featuring the directorial debut of Kyle Marvin, 80 For Brady is inspired very loosely by the true story of four octogenarian women who have the adventure of their lifetimes making their way to Houston to see their hero play in Super Bowl LI.

    The light-hearted comedy – reminiscent of 2018’s Book Club – stars four of Hollywood’s most iconic leading ladies: Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field. The exceptional, natural chemistry between the group elevates an otherwise lacking screenplay from Emily Halpern and Sarah Haskins for a breezy 90-minutes’ worth of chuckles and the original outright laugh.

    Each of the four women has individual moments to shine with miniature character arcs, Tomlin as the recovering cancer survivor Lou, Fonda as the flirtatious fan-fiction author Trish, Moreno as the fun-loving widow Maura and Field as statistics nerd and former MIT professor Betty. Moreno clearly has the most fun on her own, dominating a scene where Maura holds her own at a high-stakes poker table while hallucinating that she’s celebrity chef Guy Fieri.

    But it’s in the scenes where the legends are in tandem that 80 For Brady really hits its limited stride, clearing out the narrative and allowing the four to banter naturally in the most charming of ways.

    Brady himself makes several cameo appearances in the film, both in the fictionalized narrative and in footage from the Super Bowl itself. While his acting may be a tad stiff at times, there is a solid connection between the football star and Tomlin’s Lou that works particularly well.

    With a first-time director at the helm, 80 For Brady has its significant flaws from a technical perspective. The editing is somewhat disjointed to the point that occasionally the punchlines don’t land with the umph that they otherwise might and once the Super Bowl kicks off in the film, Marvin struggles to balance the on-field and in the stands scenes.

    The work-around of having comedian Rob Corddry and Saturday Night Live alum Alex Moffat essentially narrate the story of the game itself as Patriots fans hosting a video podcast feels especially forced in order to cover the inexperience of a director who cannot blend the fictional narrative with real-life footage properly to maximize the tension and thrill of the Pats’ comeback story.

    But for as much as 80 For Brady presents itself as a sports comedy, at its core, this is a film about friendship and about pursuing dreams at any age. Older audiences will especially enjoy seeing four legendary actresses showing their comedic chops and should take the opportunity to seek this film out in theaters.

  • Shotgun Wedding: Romance moving online

    Shotgun Wedding: Romance moving online

    If there’s one type of movie that hasn’t roared back theatrically after the pandemic, it’s the romantic comedy.

    For every The Lost City that surprises at the box office, there seem to be a half-dozen or more rom-coms that only find success on streaming platforms like Marry Me, Ticket to Paradise or I Want You Back.

    In a continuation of this trend, Lionsgate sold off the rights to its Jennifer Lopez produced tropical getaway film, Shotgun Wedding, which released to little fanfare this weekend on Amazon Prime Video.

    Director Jason Moore – known for the original Pitch Perfect film and the much less successful Tina Fey-Amy Poehler comedy Sisters – takes the helm for a blend of action adventure and 2000s romantic comedy.

    Shotgun Wedding finds Darcy and Tom bringing their quirky families together for a destination wedding on a remote island in the Philippines only to have the bridal party taken hostage by pirates and leaving the bride and groom to rescue them and save the day.

    Without question, Lopez is the primary reason for audiences to give Shotgun Wedding a chance and her turn as Darcy accentuates all the charm and sass that Lopez is known for bringing to her rom-com characters. While the overall film is much more of an ensemble piece and other actors are given better lines in an uneven screenplay from writer Mark Hammer, Darcy is unquestionably the centerpiece of the film structurally and scenes without Lopez being the audience surrogate simply don’t work nearly as well.

    Part of the reason for the disconnect is that the other half of the film requires audiences to try and connect with Josh Duhamel’s largely bland, uninteresting Tom.

    The script asks Tom to be a “groom-zilla,” obsessed with putting on the perfect ceremony for Darcy and Duhamel simply doesn’t have the affability or comedic chops required to convincingly make an unlikeable character likeable.

    It’s somewhat softened, though, by the even more strange presence of Lenny Kravitz as Darcy’s ex-fiance Sean, attempting to pull off a free-spirited vibe reminiscent of Russell Brand in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but Kravitz is far stiffer with dialogue and comic timing.

    Strange casting for the two main male leads is especially confusing given how strong comedically the larger ensemble cast is from top to bottom.

    White Lotus and American Pie star Jennifer Coolidge is a constant scene stealer as Tom’s outrageous, overbearing mother Carol, while comic legend Cheech Marin handles more dry humor well as Darcy’s rich, distant father Robert and The Good Place alum D’Arcy Carden is richly annoying as Robert’s much younger girlfriend Harriet.

    Structurally, the film really drags in the opening act establishing characters and it isn’t until Tom and Darcy are on the run when Shotgun Wedding picks up any speed or positive momentum.

    The action set pieces aren’t quite on the level of the John Wick films, but Moore and his stunt team lean into the more comedic elements of combat while maintaining a decent amount of violence worthy of the film’s R-rating.

    With more explosions and mother-in-laws expertly handling automatic weapons than the typical romantic comedy, Shotgun Wedding certainly won’t make any cinephiles best of 2023 list, but could fit nicely into plans for a Valentine’s date at home.

  • Plane: Vintage action for the modern era

    Plane: Vintage action for the modern era

    It’s somehow comforting to know that even as cable channels are fading to obscurity with the rise of streaming services, movie studios are still making films whose future lies on basic cable even before the first ticket is sold.

    The marginally violent, action-adventure film is a unique sub-genre that typically centers around Jason Statham, Mel Gibson, Liam Neeson or, on occasion, Sylvester Stallone and it’s a film easily summed up in a quick elevator pitch that doesn’t require much plot, just excuses for action sequences.

    January is usually the best time of year to catch these middling at best movies and 2023’s first offering is exactly what one might expect from a lazily titled one word adventure film like Plane.

    But thanks to a new twist on a tired subgenre, some inventive action and surprisingly grounded performances, Plane isn’t terrible.

    The film’s premise definitely has to be overcome or at least shrugged off a bit for some viewers to take a chance on enjoying.

    Gerard Butler stars as Captain Brodie Torrance, piloting a last-minute redeye across the South China Sea when weather forces him to ground the titular plane on a remote island occupied by violent separatists. With an unlikely ally, Torrance must get everyone out alive.

    Butler isn’t wowing audiences with newfound range as Brodie, but there is an affable charm to his performance early in the film that helps endear him to the audience and make him the ideal candidate to lead everyone to safety. The veteran action star also does a great job in balancing Brodie’s wild emotions against complete inexperience in dangerous settings.

    Conversely, Mike Colter revels in the brooding, silent killer role with an overbearing physicality. His Louis Gaspare is woefully underwritten by screenwriters J.P. Davis and Charles Cumming and it’s clear that director Jean-François Richet only views Louis as a vehicle for violence and mayhem, but Colter maintains a stoic, yet purposeful demeanor that could be star-making in the right action role.

    Without a doubt, Plane is a fatally flawed action movie.

    The plot is convoluted even by genre standards and the dialogue doesn’t leave much to write home about. There isn’t enough depth for the film to stand on its own as a danger in the sky movie or as a hunted by warlords movie, but the two unlikely halves work fluidly on a flimsy premise.

    Where Plane excels as a January popcorn flick are in its numerous set pieces, which evoke better films yet are exceedingly entertaining and lift the overall watchability of Richet’s film exponentially.

    Aerial sequences are engaging because Richet maximizes the tension by always having the camera moving and tightly focused on the actors. There’s a heightened sense of uncertainty in a rather easy to predict film as a result of the in-flight scenes which carries over nicely to the film’s second half on the island.

    Richet steals generously from a wide array of films like Sully to Rambo to Thirteen Hours to No Escape in order to craft an amalgamation of disparate parts that casual audiences will remember after leaving the theater.

    Bullets fly with reckless abandon, but Richet does his best work showcasing the brutality of his action during hand-to-hand combat. This is especially true of an exchange between Butler’s Brodie and a random henchman who sneaks up on him, where Butler can showcase Brodie’s inexperience as a fighter but his determination to live for his daughter.

    While it’s certain to live on for much of 2023 as that film people might casually watch in the background at home doing chores, Plane has some decent enough set pieces and mindless entertainment that cinephiles looking for popcorn escapism might find worthwhile in a theatrical setting.