DC League of Super-Pets review

For F*** Magazine

Director: Jared Stern
Cast : Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Vanessa Bayer, Natasha Lyonne, Diego Luna, Keanu Reeves, Marc Maron, Olivia Wilde, Ben Schwartz, Thomas Middleditch, Jameela Jamil, Jemaine Clement, John Early, Daveed Diggs, Dascha Polanco, Keith David, Alfred Molina, Lena Headey
Genre: Animation/Comedy
Run Time : 106 min
Opens : 1 September 2022
Rating : PG13

It is apt that the acronym of “Warner Animation Group” is WAG, the thing dogs do with their tails, given that DC League of Super-Pets is fronted by two dogs. These and the other animals of the DC Universe take the spotlight in this animated comedy.

Krypto the Super-dog (Dwayne Johnson) is the lifelong companion of Kal-el/Clark Kent/Superman (John Krasinski), having accompanied the superhero from the planet Krypton to earth when they were both young. Krypto and Clark are inseparable, but Krypto begins to grow jealous of Clark’s girlfriend Lois Lane (Olivia Wilde), to whom he is planning to propose. Meanwhile, the denizens of an animal shelter, including Boxer dog Ace (Kevin Hart), hairless guinea pig Lulu (Kate McKinnon), potbellied pig PB (Vanessa Bayer), red-eared terrapin Merton (Natasha Lyonne) and red squirrel Chip (Diego Luna) are exposed to an otherworldly material, gaining superpowers. Lulu was formerly a test subject of the supervillain Lex Luthor (Marc Maron), and has her sights set on world domination. Ace, PB, Merton and Chip meet Krypto, eventually forming an alliance when Lulu’s machinations endanger the Justice League.

DC League of Super-Pets is clearly made by people with an affection for the comic book source material. It’s frequently funny, surprisingly warm and emotional, and filled with easter eggs and references that are a lot of fun to identify. Feature animation must strike a balance between appealing kids but not making adults feel like they’re being subjecting to torture, and this movie mostly finds that balance. The “jokes for the adults” are a little more sophisticated than one might expect, including a reference to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and a line about how billionaires tend to be fixated on rockets. Director and co-writer Jared Stern and co-writer John Whittington previously worked on The LEGO Batman Movie, and there are some similarities in the tone and sense of humour here. The movie is fun to look at, with the design of Metropolis drawing inspiration from the art deco illustrations of J.C. Leyendecker. The character designs also nod to the storied history of DC animation, from the Superfriends cartoon to the DC Animated Universe of the 90s and 2000s.

Unfortunately, the movie is sometimes prone to the smugness associated with the height of the Dreamworks Animation era, even if it never gets quite annoying as the worst moments in those movies. There are the requisite bodily function jokes, though not quite as many as the trailers indicate. There is also a bit of a struggle between the comedy and action modes, such that the superhero set pieces are not especially memorable. The movie’s ensemble cast of both animal and human characters means the focus is sometimes spread a little too thin. The movie is also often somewhat derivative of the two Secret Life of Pets movies, in which Kevin Hart had a voice role, and it is likely that DC League of Super-Pets wouldn’t have been greenlit without the success of those movies.

This is a movie that is co-produced by and starring Dwayne Johnson, so there is the valid fear that it might be a vanity project. However, Johnson’s voice suits the heroic Krypto well, and Kevin Hart is a good foil as Ace, coming off as less annoying than he does in many of his live-action roles.

A number of talented comedians fill out the voice cast, with Vanessa Bayer’s fangirl PB and Natasha Lyonne’s doddering Merton being especially likeable. Keith David, a familiar voice to animation fans, makes a vocal cameo as Dog-El, Krypton’s father. Apart from PB and Lulu, all the main animal characters are based on existing DC Comics characters.

The casting of the Justice League members is mostly inspired, with Keanu Reeves’ Batman being especially amusing. It doesn’t sound like anyone is slumming it, as can sometimes happen with big-name actors cast in animated movies.  

Summary: For those understandably worried about the future of DC movies, DC League of Super-Pets is an endearing and well-made distraction from those thoughts. Sure, there are plenty of cute animal antics, but also lots of jokes aimed at accompanying adults and DC fans. Dwayne Johnson leads a lively, smartly selected voice cast. Stick around for one mid-credits scene and one post-credits scene.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Three Thousand Years of Longing review

For F*** Magazine

Director: George Miller
Cast : Tilda Swinton, Idris Elba, Aamito Lagum, Burcu Gölgedar, Matteo Bocelli, Kaan Guldur, Jack Braddy, Erdi Yasaroglu
Genre: Fantasy/Romance
Run Time : 108 min
Opens : 1 September 2022
Rating : M18

George Miller has one of the most eclectic filmographies of any director currently working: between the four Mad Max movies, Babe 2: Pig in the City and the two Happy Feet movies, there’s a level of unpredictability to his choices. With Three Thousand Years of Longing, Miller’s first film since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road, he adds to that filmography a tale of an unlikely meeting between an academic and a mythical being.

Dr Alithea Binnie (Tilda Swinton) is a narratologist. She has dedicated her life to studying stories and the history of storytelling and travels the world attending academic conferences. The latest such conference brings her to Istanbul, Turkiye, where she is hosted by Prof. Günhan (Erdil Yasaroglu). While at the Grand Bazaar with Günhan, Alithea chances upon a peculiar blue and white bottle. Back in the hotel room, Alithea cleans the bottle and unleashes a Djinn (Idris Elba), trapped inside. He offers her three wishes, but Alithea is much more interested in learning about him. The Djinn regales Alithea with stories of his past and the circumstances that led to his incarceration. These include run-ins with such figures as the Queen of Sheba (Aamito Lagum) and Ottoman rulers Murad IV (Kaan Guldur) and Ibrahim (Jack Braddy). Alithea must make her three wishes to grant the Djinn his freedom, but as she becomes increasingly fascinated with him and his stories, what she might wish for is thrown into question.

Three Thousand Years of Longing is adapted from the short story The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye by A.S. Byatt. This is an imaginative, vibrant and earnest movie, at once strikingly original and comfortingly familiar. The movie is a family affair for director Miller, who co-wrote the screenplay with his daughter Augusta Gore, and whose wife Margaret Sixel is the editor. Cinematographer John Seale came out of retirement for Mad Max: Fury Road, and he un-retires once more for this movie. The segments set in the past are exquisitely composed and bursting with colour and texture. There is a warmth and beauty to the story and Miller both delights in the details and has a light enough touch. It’s a story about stories, and how stories are a big part of what make us human.

The movie is reliant on vignettes, meaning the characters and stories are necessarily straightforward and archetypical. Unfortunately, this can make it difficult to connect to any of the supporting characters. The movie’s last act becomes disappointingly simplistic, with the story centred firmly on romantic attraction when the set-up hinted at a wide range of human emotions and relationships. After the bulk of the storytelling is over, everything from then on until the end of the movie feels like a let-down.

The movie rests on the interplay between Swinton and Elba, who make for an unexpected but fascinating pairing. The movie is at its most interesting in the earlier stages, when neither fully trusts the other and Alithea is wary of the Djinn because of her familiarity with stories about trickster figures who come bearing wishes.

Elba’s Djinn is at once powerful and vulnerable, susceptible to feelings of attachment and often undone by them despite his otherworldly abilities. Just the contrast between Elba’s and Swinton’s physiques and the way the actors hold themselves makes the frames that they share immediately interesting to look at.

Summary: Three Thousand Years of Longing is a whimsical, imaginative, lavish and heartfelt fairy-tale for grown-ups. It might not go quite far enough with its themes of the role human desires play in interpersonal relationships and in history, and its ending might be a bit too mundane and pat for some, but it is quite unlike most things in the cinema now. Director George Miller infuses the story with warmth and displays fine attention to detail. While the movie’s reach seems to exceed its grasp, especially as it moves into its final act, it is still wondrous to behold.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Nope review

For F*** Magazine

Director: Jordan Peele
Cast : Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Wrenn Schmidt, Keith David, Terry Notary
Genre: Horror
Run Time : 130 min
Opens : 18 August 2022
Rating : M18

Jordan Peele has quickly established himself as a modern-day master of horror filmmaking, having won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for Get Out, and following it up with Us. All eyes were on Peele to see where he would go next, and with Nope, Peele has our eyes pointed skywards.

Otis Jr. “OJ” Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald “Em” Haywood (Keke Palmer) are the children of Otis Haywood Sr. (Keith David). The family business is Haywood’s Hollywood Horses, based in Agua Dulce, California and supplying horses for film and TV productions. The family is descended from the jockey featured in one of the very first motion pictures, depicting a galloping horse. The business has fallen on hard times, and after Otis Sr. dies in a freak accident, OJ sells several of the horses to Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), the proprietor of the Western-themed Jupiter’s Claim theme park.

As mysterious activity takes place in the skies, OJ and Em decide they want to document the unidentified phenomena, producing irrefutable evidence of extra-terrestrial beings that will then make them rich and famous. Angel (Brandon Perea), a salesman at Fry’s Electronics, and Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), a legendary cinematographer, get roped in to OJ and Em’s scheme. Meanwhile, Jupe plans an ambitious new show for his carnival called the Star Lasso Experience, one with the potential to go horribly awry. As the true nature of what is hiding behind the clouds is revealed, our heroes get more than they bargained for.

Given the increasingly corporate nature of big-budget filmmaking, it is rare to see directors get to make original movies on a grand scale. Peele’s prior successes have granted him “blank check” status, and it’s clear that he’s always motivated by a desire to explore certain ideas, instead of just making movies because that’s what’s expected of him. Peele’s knowledge of film history and love for the medium informs his work, leading to a textured, affectionately made result. This is Peele declaring how much he loves movies, while also laying out some of his frustrations with the current state of the industry. The actors are all charming, especially Keke Palmer, whose Em is neither damsel in distress nor gun-toting Ripley-esque heroine, feeling remarkably like a real person in a genre where characters are often very archetypical.

There are genuinely unsettling moments in Nope and some set-pieces that overflow with tension and dread, but for this reviewer, the best parts of the movie have nothing to do with the main UFO plot – or least, seem to have nothing to do with it at first. Much of the conversation about the movie surrounds a horrific flashback sequence detailing a supporting character’s tragic backstory. The movie works best if one knows as little about this as possible and has grim but insightful things to say about the monetisation of trauma.

Part of what made both Get Out and Us spine-tinglingly effective were the elaborate conspiracies Peele had constructed that provided the backdrop for both movies. By contrast, when we are given the explanation as to what is really going on with the strange object hiding in the cloud, it doesn’t feel quite as satisfying. It makes sense within the framework of the movie and given the prior set-up, but there isn’t that feeling of everything clicking into place, of horrifying realisation, that some viewers might be hoping for from Nope. There is a lot of set-up, and several scenes of OJ and Em hanging out with Angel might seem a little pointless. Peele’s movies are at the centre of the ongoing debate about “elevated horror” and if attempts at making highbrow genre movies are worthy or pretentious. For audiences who have already dismissed Peele as high-falutin’, Nope is unlikely to change their minds.

Nope is Peele’s commentary on spectacle, on the role of spectacle in movies and audiences’ relationship to it. Inspired in part by Spielberg movies like Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Nope attempts to interrogate our love affair with big, glossy crowd-pleasers, while trying to be one of those movies itself. The movie’s cinematographer is Hoyte Van Hoytema, who has collaborated with Christopher Nolan on Interstellar, Dunkirk, Tenet and the upcoming Oppenheimer. Nope lays claim to being the first horror movie filmed in IMAX. There are some truly impressive shots in the movie, and it is unlike the production line spectacle moviegoers have become accustomed to. Given the news of overworked visual effects artists driven to their breaking point making the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, the nature of cinematic spectacle is something worth thinking over. Nope also has things to say about the ethics of the use of animals in entertainment, the cycle of exploitation in the name of profit, and how that relates to mankind’s presumed supremacy over nature and other forces.

Summary: Jordan Peele’s latest movie is positioned as an enigma, like with Get Out and Us. While it might not be as viscerally satisfying as those two movies, and especially Get Out, there’s a lot in Nope to unpack and explore. Peele’s love for movies and his knowledge of the history of filmmaking inform a movie that is about our relationship to spectacle. The movie’s most terrifying sequences seem mostly disconnected from the main plot, Nope is frequently frustrating, but also genuinely unsettling and beautifully shot.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Bullet Train review

For F*** Magazine

Director: David Leitch
Cast : Brad Pitt, Joey King, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Andrew Koji, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benito A. Martínez Ocasio, Sandra Bullock, Michael Shannon, Logan Lerman, Zazie Beetz, Karen Fukuhara, Masi Oka
Genre: Action/Comedy
Run Time : 127 min
Opens : 4 August 2022
Rating : M18

Brad Pitt recently sparked rumours of his retirement, telling GQ, “I consider myself on my last leg.” Pitt subsequently allayed these fears, walking back his statement at the premiere of Bullet Train and saying he needs to “work on [his] phrasing”. If this movie is anything go by, Pitt still possesses plenty of movie star charm and action chops, even if the rest of it can be all a bit too much.

Ladybug (Brad Pitt) is an assassin called in as a last-minute substitute when a cohort goes on sick leave. Ladybug’s handler Maria Beetle (Sandra Bullock) assigns him what seems like a simple snatch-and-grab job: get on a bullet train bound for Kyoto, retrieve a silver briefcase, and get off at the next stop. Ladybug’s task is complicated by the presence of competing assassins, including the Prince (Joey King), the duo of Lemon (Brian Tyree Henry) and Tangerine (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), Yuichi (Andrew Koji), the Wolf (Benito A. Martínez Ocasio) and the Hornet (Zazie Beetz). The mission becomes a free-for-all and the carnage mounts.

Bullet Train is adapted from Kōtarō Isaka’s novel Maria Beetle and is directed by David Leitch, who knows his way around an action sequence. The director was a former stunt coordinator and stunt double, having been Brad Pitt’s double in movies like Fight Club, Ocean’s Eleven, The Mexican and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. He later co-directed John Wick and directed Deadpool 2 and Hobbs & Shaw. Bullet Train is stuffed with bloody action sequences and sometimes, is entertaining and light on its feet. Some of the jokes land and there is an undeniable kinetic quality to the proceedings. There is an effort to build the world out and breathe life into the heightened milieu. There is also an assuredness to the tone and the movie never takes itself too seriously, even if it might go overboard with the winking and nodding.

Given that Bullet Train is set on, well, the titular mode of transportation, one would expect a tight, self-contained movie. Unfortunately, Bullet Train gets more and more bloated as it continues. There are multiple protracted flashbacks to provide the backstories of all our players, and sometimes it feels like the movie is fighting against its setting, eager to break out of the train cabin. All the diversions stem from a desire to create a textured world and to flesh the characters out, but they ultimately largely remain cartoon characters. There are running gags, including one character’s preoccupation with Thomas the Tank Engine, that eventually get grating. The director also seems to have imported a sense of smugness from Deadpool 2, which can make it difficult to connect to the story.

Other critics have called the movie reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, but what it most feels like is a serviceable but occasionally awkward live-action adaptation of an anime. The movie ends with a spectacular sequence – “spectacular” in the sense of prioritising spectacle. The movie already has a sense of deliberate artifice to it, but this set-piece sends things completely into the realm of the synthetic.

Pitt is a lot of fun in a role that ultimately isn’t very interesting. Ladybug’s main character trait is that he is in therapy and trying to leave his life of violence behind, so he spouts platitudes about positivity and optimism. Pitt sells all the action sequences and is likeable, but partially because he is wrestling for screen time with so many other actors, it never really feels like a vehicle for him in the way that his fans might expect it to be.

Joey King’s outwardly innocent character who is secretly a deadly killer is already an overplayed archetype, even though she gives a confident performance.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Brian Tyree Henry are an amusing double act. Their dynamic mostly consists of them bickering with each other, and it gets old after a while, but they do play off each other nicely.

Hiroyuki Sanada pops up to lend the movie some gravitas. He is playing essentially the same character he usually plays in a Hollywood movie, but his earnestness is a welcome counterpoint to the film’s overall flippant attitude.

Several actors seem to be completely wasted, including Karen Fukuhara, who basically makes a cameo as a train crew member. Fukuhara has played Kimiko Miyashiro/The Female in The Boys and Katana in Suicide Squad, so it is frustrating that she could have easily portrayed one of the assassins instead.

Summary: Bullet Train packs in plenty of action and has its entertaining moments courtesy of a stacked cast, led by a breezily watchable Brad Pitt. Unfortunately, it wears the viewer down and strains under the burden of all its characters and subplots. Where it would work better as a lean, self-contained action caper, Bullet Train is instead overstuffed. It gets by on the cast’s charm, and many competently staged action sequences, even if the large roster means several actors get short shrift.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong