Poor Things review

Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Cast: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Christopher Abbott, Kathryn Hunter, Jerrod Carmichael, Hanna Schygulla
Genre: Fantasy/Comedy
Run Time: 141 min
Opens: 20 January 2024 (Limited screenings only at The Projector)
Rating: R21

It’s awards season again, and director Yorgos Lanthimos of Killing of a Sacred Deer, The Lobster and The Favourite fame can always be counted on to make an awards contender movie that’s a bit of an odd duck. This might be his oddest duck yet – or a duck’s head sewn onto a dog’s body, if you will.

Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) is a woman who leapt off a bridge and was brought back to life by surgeon Godwin Baxter (Willem Dafoe). Godwin raises Bella as his ward. Bella has a child-like demeanour but learns and evolves quickly. Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), whom Godwin takes on as his assistant, begins to fall for Bella. As Bella’s intelligence and curiousity develops, she yearns to experience the outside world. She runs away with the caddish lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), embarking on a journey of self-discovery and experiencing a sexual awakening. Bella’s journey takes her from London to Lisbon, then on a cruise to Alexandria, on to Marseilles and Paris. Bella begins to form her identity and learn more about the human condition, as her former life before she was found and resurrected by Godwin catches up with her.

Poor Things is adapted from the novel by Alasdair Gray. The surreal Victorian fantasy setting of Poor Things is immediately captivating. Production designers James Price and Shona Heath and costume designer Hannah Waddington contribute to an entirely fabricated reality. Inspired by the painted skies and miniature used to create the Himalayas in Powell and Pressburger’s Black Narcissus, and the soundstage-bound look of Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Poor Things is a carefully constructed bauble, a movie that lives in a snow globe. Director of Photography Robbie Ryan shoots the movie partially on Kodak’s 35mm Ektachrome colour reversal motion picture film stock, giving the movie a tactility despite its artificiality. The atmosphere of the movie is heightened, and Tony McNamara’s screenplay is often brazenly funny, but there is a subtlety beneath the surface and the movie’s mannered exterior belies its many complexities.

As can sometimes happen with movies like this, there is a barrier that can form between the movie and the audiences because Poor Things is so mannered and so deliberately constructed as to sometimes feel impenetrable. While we are drawn into Bella’s journey, the movie’s 142-minute-long runtime feels excessive, especially because the structure of the movie includes what can best be described as a surprise fourth act where one might think the movie would end. Poor Things is a very different movie from Barbie, but just like Barbie, Poor Things’ version of feminism will be subject to scrutiny, as it should be. Both movies are about women learning to exist in the outside world, and discovering their autonomy after an existence of being defined by others. Some have taken issue with how the movie presents exploitation as something that women should just accept and attempt to repurpose, and not everyone will agree with its depiction of bodily autonomy, given the spectrum on which opinions on that topic exist.

This is very much Emma Stone’s movie to carry, something she does with confidence and magnetism. Usually, if a performance is described as “fearless” or “brave”, it still denotes a certain degree of preciousness and connotes a blatant bid for awards. Stone’s turn as Bella is fearless and brave in a way befitting of a Lanthimos movie. Having worked with Lanthimos on The Favourite, Stone feels completely comfortable in a challenging role, unfazed by the sheer amount of nudity and fully embracing Bella’s evolution from blank slate to someone with an identity and agency. One of the most interesting aspects of the character is how she speaks: Bella starts off speaking in simplistic repeated phrases, but her vocabulary builds over time. During the middle stretch of the film, she speaks like she’s reading from a thesaurus, listing off synonyms, and we see how her increasingly complicated thought processes are reflected in her speech. This is a role that Stone commits fully too, but also one that she’s having a great deal of fun with.

Mark Ruffalo is hilarious as the lawyer who finds himself utterly obsessed with Bella, someone whom he initially thought he could take advantage of. Ruffalo’s delivery and comic timing, enhanced by a mid-Atlantic accent, are hilarious even when the character becomes increasingly unlikeable, and both Bella and the audience begin to chafe at him.

Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as the Victor Frankenstein-esque Baxter Godwin. He is paternal towards Bella but is something of a mad scientist himself. The movie’s black comedy manifests itself in moments like when Baxter recounts experiments his own father did on him. Baxter is very much a sympathetic monster, one who is driven to create other sympathetic monsters. His work, including chimerical animals like the aforementioned duck-dog hybrid, is ethically dubious, but it’s easy to feel affectionate towards him.

Ramy Youssef’s Max McCandles is the most decent person in the story, someone whose affection towards Bella keeps getting shunted aside as she goes on her adventures. Of all the men in the story, Max is arguably the one who views Bella the least as an object, but he still sees her as fulfilling a societal role.

The rest of the supporting cast is wonderful, including Kathryn Hunter as a wily madame and Christopher Abbott showing up late in the movie as a cruel and self-absorbed aristocratic general.

Summary: Poor Things is a deliberately weird, sometimes-unsettling and alienating but often funny movie about self-discovery. Director Yorgos Lanthimos embraces the movie’s surrealistic setting and its deliberately artificial design elements are captivating. Emma Stone’s performance as a Frankenstein’s Monster-like character experiencing a sexual awakening and gradually gaining agency and forming her identity is one that’s irresistible and richly layered. Mark Ruffalo is hilarious as an untrustworthy cad, while Willem Dafoe is perfectly cast as the Victor Frankenstein-like father figure. Every awards season has the oddball kid, and Poor Things has firmly established itself as that this year.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars                        

Jedd Jong

Wonka review

Director: Paul King
Cast: Timothée Chalamet, Calah Lane, Keegan-Michael Key, Paterson Joseph, Matt Lucas, Matthew Baynton, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson, Jim Carter, Tom Davis, Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, Rakhee Thakrar
Genre: Musical/Fantasy
Run Time: 116 min
Opens: 6 December 2023
Rating: PG13

In late 2023, audiences learned how an idealistic young man eventually became a powerful figure with a penchant for child endangerment – but enough about The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Wonka tells the origin of the enigmatic and mercurial chocolatier from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Young Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) arrives in the big city, with dreams of setting up shop in the famed Gallery Gourmet. The inventive chocolatier faces immediate resistance from the Chocolate Cartel, comprising Slugworth (Paterson Joseph), Prodnose (Matt Lucas) and Ficklegruber (Matthew Baynton). While looking for a place to stay, Wonka is tricked by innkeepers Mrs Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) and Bleacher (Tom Davis). Wonka befriends the others who are indebted to Mrs Scrubbit, including young orphan Noodle (Calah Lane). Wonka devises a plan to pay his debt and start selling his chocolates, but a small, mysterious, orange-skinned, green-haired man (Hugh Grant) keeps stealing his stash.

Wonka is one of those projects that seemed to elicit a collective eyeroll when it was announced. After all, it’s hard to think of a more cynical IP extension cash grab than an origin story about Willy Wonka. It’s a good thing then that this is in the hands of director and co-writer Paul King, the man who brought us Paddington and Paddington 2. Together with co-writer Simon Farnaby, King infuses the same earnestness, sweetness, silliness, and kinetic filmmaking from the Paddington movies into Wonka, delivering something that is wholly captivating and enchanting.  

There is an old-fashioned charm to the movie’s visuals, which feel sufficiently tactile even when they’re enhanced by digital visual effects work. Costume designer Lindy Hemming and production designer Nathan Crowley, who both worked on Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, are among the crew members who make Wonka look incredible. Cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon, an oft-collaborator of Park Chan-Wook, gives the movie an inviting richness and warmth that makes it feel real and alive despite its deliberately artificial, constructed elements. Wonka avoids specifying exactly when or where it’s set, combining texture and detail with a heightened sensibility.

Wonka is a musical through and through, featuring original songs by Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy. “A World of Your Own” is a stirring anthem that bravely tries to live up to “Pure Imagination”, the theme from the 1971 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film, that also gets featured here. Weirdly enough, Wonka seems very influenced by Sweeney Todd – the opening number is reminiscent of “No Place Like London”, there’s a Mrs Lovett-esque “Mrs Scrubbit”, and there’s even a scene that takes place in a barbershop (but fear not, for nobody gets baked into any pies). There are shades of Oliver! and Annie and there’s a palpable love for musicals that runs through Wonka.

There are times when Wonka runs into the “prequel problem” where it’s trying to explain certain bits of lore or planting (chocolate) easter eggs and references. It’s certainly nowhere near as clumsy as we’ve seen before, but it does sometimes feel like it interrupts the flow of the story. This is most evident in the Oompa-Loompa subplot featuring a digitally shrunken Hugh Grant, who says a line made famous by Gene Wilder’s iteration of Wonka in the 1971 movie. This movie’s iteration of the Oompa-Loompas also runs into the Uncanny Valley problem – it is unsettling seeing a green digital facsimile of Hugh Grant’s face.

Timothée Chalamet has been carving an interesting movie star career for himself, consciously avoiding comic book blockbusters. His foray into a big-budget franchise was Dune, indicating that he’s going for slightly more prestigious stuff. Wonka allows Chalamet to be in a family-friendly holiday blockbuster while further shoring up his reputation as a Serious Actor. Interestingly, he kind of has the wrong energy for this – Chalamet is weirdly intense rather than goofy and whimsical, but it also works because the character is an obsessive genius. This is not an effortless performance, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It looks like Chalamet has stayed up all night learning the choreography, and something is endearing about that.

Just like in King’s Paddington movies, the supporting cast is wonderful. Calah Lane is a safe distance from treacly as Noodle, making her feel like a fully realised character instead of a stock sidekick. Sally Hawkins has a small but impactful role as Wonka’s mother in a flashback sequence while the afore-mentioned Hugh Grant is an amusingly stuffy and self-serious presence. Paterson Joseph has a great time hamming it up as a moustache-twirling villain, while Keegan-Michael Key is weirdly compelling as a corrupt police chief easily bribed with chocolate. Rowan Atkinson pops up as a priest. It feels like everyone fits in the world King has crafted, except Chalamet, and yet, that’s what makes it interesting.

Summary: Wonka is far better than it has any right to be. A prequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory telling the origin story of Willy Wonka sounds like exactly the kind of studio IP extension project that people roll their eyes at, and yet, director Paul King turns it into something magical. An earnest, whimsical musical tale bursting with life and detail, Wonka is an exuberant, warm, silly and emotional experience. Timothée Chalamet brings both intensity and charm to the title role and he’s surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. Wonka sometimes runs into the problem a lot of prequels do of feeling the need to explain and set up little things, but it’s much less pronounced an issue here than in other movies like it. Wonka takes what could have been a cynical cash grab and processes and refines it into something genuinely enchanting.

RATING: 4 out of 5 Stars                      

Jedd Jong

Next Goal Wins review

Director: Taika Waititi
Cast: Michael Fassbender, Oscar Kightley, Kaimana, David Fane, Rachel House, Beulah Koale, Will Arnett, Elisabeth Moss, Uli Latukefu, Rhys Darby, Angus Sampson, Luke Hemsworth, Taika Waititi
Genre: Comedy/Sports
Run Time: 104 min
Opens: 7 December 2023
Rating: NC16

Everyone loves a good underdog story, and it’s hard to out-underdog the American Samoan national men’s football team. Consistently coming in at the bottom of the world rankings and suffering a humiliating defeat on the world stage, Next Goal Wins is based on the 2014 documentary of the same name, telling the true story of the attempt to turn things around.

Thomas Rongen (Michael Fassbender) is a Dutch-American Major League Soccer coach who receives a nightmare assignment: he must coach the American Samoan team, or he will be fired. Thomas reluctantly relocates to American Samoa, where he is enthusiastically welcomed by Tavita (Oscar Kightley), the president of the Football Federation American Samoa, whose son Daru (Beaulah Koale) is on the team. Thomas initially clashes with Jaiyah (Kaimana), a faʻafafine (third gender or non-binary in Polynesian culture) player and is frustrated with the overall state of the team. Thomas must also convince Nicky Salapu (Uli Latukefu), who was the goalkeeper during the team’s disastrous 0-31 loss to Australia in a 2001 World Cup qualifier, to return to the team. Thomas must get the team ready for the qualifiers ahead of the 2014 World Cup, facing off against Tonga.

Next Goal Wins is far from Taikia Waititi’s most challenging work – this is no Jojo Rabbit – but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a full-on silly, charming comedy that is consistently funny and amiable and is filled with likeable characters. Michael Fassbender is completely out of his comfort zone, but then again, so is Thomas Rongen. This is Fassbender’s first all-out comedy, and the famously intense actor has an energy that doesn’t really match the rest of the movie, but that also makes him interesting to watch – and it’s especially funny if you put this on as a double bill with David Fincher’s The Killer. Unfortunately, even with Fassbender giving it all he can, the character still feels like an ornery caricature, and is apparently worlds away from the real-life Thomas.

The supporting cast is a delight, with Oscar Kightley putting in a winning performance as the hapless president of the local football association. Kightley’s comic timing is impeccable, and he serves as a wonderful foil to the angsty Fassbender. David Fane, who plays the team’s former coach Ace, is goofy in a human cartoon sort of way.

Kaimana’s turn as Jaiyah Saelua, the first transgender player ever to compete in a World Cup game, is the movie’s emotional linchpin. There are times when it feels like Jaiyah should be the focus of the story, and not Thomas, and the movie attempts to provide enough background about the role of faʻafafine people in American Samoan culture. Kaimana is a charismatic performer, but ultimately doesn’t do Jaiyah justice by positioning her as an accessory to Thomas’ character development. For example, the movie invents a scene in which Thomas deadnames Jaiyah, and they get into an altercation, after which it is Jaiyah who apologises to Thomas first. This didn’t happen and was invented to add drama to the proceedings.

Next Goal Wins fully leans into every inspirational sports drama trope and dresses it up with broad comedy and slapstick. It is largely enjoyable, but there are times when it feels like the real story is being trivialised and watered down. It also succumbs to the pitfall of making a story about a group of people about the outsider, under the assumption that is easier for audiences to relate to said outsider, even as it consciously avoids a ‘white saviour’ narrative. It leans on racial stereotypes even as it is trying to highlight the American Samoan culture, often rendering them as an overall silly people for the sake of comedy. The goofy tone also threatens to smother the genuine emotional moments that the movie is trying for. The movie also comes at a time when it seems like, deserved or not, the tide of public opinion has turned against Waititi, especially in the wake of the director’s Thor: Love and Thunder and his recent admission that he made the Thor movie solely for the money. Waititi’s sensibilities, including a seeming refusal to take things even a little seriously, do hurt the movie at times. He shows up in a cameo as a priest that some might consider annoying, but it is brief.

Recommended? Yes.

Summary: Next Goal Wins is very much a standard inspirational sports drama, just loaded with broad comedy. Director Taika Waititi imparts plenty of silliness to the proceedings and the movie is often charming and enjoyable. Michael Fassbender seems out of his depth, and that’s part of the fun of it. He’s surrounded by wonderful supporting actors including Oscar Kightey, who showcases impeccable comic timing as the hapless president of the local football association. Unfortunately, Next Goal Wins doesn’t do justice to Jaiyah Saelua, the real-life faʻafafine footballer, but Kaimana is a charismatic presence in the role. Next Goal Wins might not be the best version of this story, but as a crowd-pleaser, it works more often than it doesn’t.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Haunted Mansion (2023) review

Director: Justin Simien
Cast: LaKeith Stanfield, Rosario Dawson, Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish, Danny DeVito, Jamie Lee Curtis, Chase W. Dillon, Jared Leto
Genre: Comedy/Horror
Run Time: 123 min
Opens: 9 August 2023
Rating: PG13

In 1969, the doors to the Haunted Mansion opened for the first time, welcoming foolish mortals visiting Disneyland in Anaheim, California. Versions of the attraction opened in Orlando, Tokyo, Paris and Hong Kong parks, and in 2003, the Haunted Mansion made its way to the big screen. Now, the Haunted Mansion beckons moviegoing foolish mortals again.

Gabbie (Rosario Dawson), a doctor, and her son Travis (Chase W. Dillon) move into a historical mansion in New Orleans. After experiencing paranormal activity, they try to leave but find themselves forced to return. Gabbie calls on a group of experts, comprising astrophysicist-turned-tour-guide Ben (LaKeith Stanfield), priest Father Kent (Owen Wilson), medium Harriet (Tiffany Hadish) and history professor Bruce (Danny DeVito). The group uncovers the dark history of the mansion, meeting the various ghosts that call it home. They must defeat the diabolical Hatbox Ghost (Jared Leto), calling on Madam Leota (Jamie Lee Curtis), a medium trapped in her own crystal ball, for help. As the mansion itself messes with our heroes’ perception of reality, they must find a way to escape, lest they join the ghosts who are already trapped there.

The Haunted Mansion is one of Disneyland’s most popular and enduring rides, and arguably the one with the most lore attached. The history of the development of the ride is fascinating, and the ride is a wonderful example of atmospheric, experiential storytelling. Like Pirates of the Caribbean, as the ride vehicle passes a vignette, the riders immediately get a sense of what they’re looking at, even without a complicated back-story. As such, there is a lot to mine for a feature film. This movie does use many elements of the ride, including the Hatbox Ghost, itself legendary among theme park history enthusiasts. The production design by Darren Gilford and costume design by Jeffrey Kurland do evoke the ride, and a few set-pieces are genuinely thrilling. This reviewer’s favourite sequence is the stretching portraits scene, based on one the memorable opening to the ride. There are moments in the story that are almost moving, and the concept of having characters who are negotiating grief and loss step into the Haunted Mansion is a good place to start.

The tone of the ride, equal parts spooky, intriguing and light-hearted, is something that is difficult to nail down. The movie wants to have its scares and its laughs but is only fitfully successful. It doesn’t feel like it follows through with the emotional arcs that it sets up, and critically for a movie based on a theme park ride, there’s little momentum and urgency. It all feels unfocused and a little lethargic. The screenplay by Katie Dippold is at its most interesting when it digs into the history of the ghosts, but it spends too much time on our group of human characters bickering with each other. At one point, Guillermo del Toro was attached to the film, and it is a little sad to wistfully imagine what his version of this movie would have been like.

Director Justin Simien does a fine job of wrangling a very talented, eclectic cast. LaKeith Stanfield plays a bored, cynical character, who is that way because of a personal loss. There are moments when he is genuinely affecting and he’s giving a much better performance than this movie deserves. Owen Wilson, Tiffany Haddish and Danny DeVito do basically what you’d expect them to do, but it works well enough. Young actor Chase W. Dillon is a revelation, showcasing excellent comic timing and holding his own against established comedic actors. Rosario Dawson is the straight woman, playing a level-headed, calm character stuck in an absurd and frightening situation. It’s not a bad group of actors by any means, they just feel pretty stranded in a movie that’s often lethargic when it should be vibrant and dynamic.

The Hatbox Ghost is a great choice of primary antagonist, especially given the real-life mystique surrounding the figure and his presence in the ride, and indeed was going to be the focus of del Toro’s version of the movie. However, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to cast Jared Leto as the Hatbox Ghost, since he is mostly providing an electronically-altered voice (and in scenes when he physically appears, it could be Leto in makeup or a double).

Summary: Haunted Mansion contains many elements from the beloved Disney theme park attraction and has a star-studded cast, but it can’t muster up enough momentum to deliver the all the scares and laughs it sets out to. There is an attempt to give the story emotional depth by having characters reckoning with grief come face-to-face with ghosts, but the story is too scattered and unfocused to do much with it. There is enough charm from the actors and from the association with the ride for the movie to coast by in parts, but during others, it feels undead.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

No Hard Feelings (2023) review

Director: Gene Stupnitsky
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Andrew Barth Feldman, Laura Benanti, Matthew Broderick, Natalie Morales, Scott MacArthur, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Hasan Minhaj, Kyle Mooney, Zahn McClarnon
Genre: Comedy
Run Time: 103 min
Opens: 27 July 2023
Rating: M18

The concept of a movie star has become a nebulous thing. You’ve probably read think-pieces aplenty about how franchises and intellectual property are the movie stars now. Jennifer Lawrence maybe have been in lower key fare for the past few years, but she’s still got movie star clout. After winning an Oscar and headlining sci-fi franchises, she’s doing the next logical thing: a sex comedy.

Montauk resident Maddie Barker (Jennifer Lawrence) is having a rough go of it. She’s an Uber driver who has just gotten a car towed and she is in danger of losing the house her mother left her. Desperate, she answers a strange ad on Craigslist. Wealthy couple Laird (Matthew Broderick) and Allison (Laura Benanti) Becker are looking for a young woman to help their 19-year-old son Percy (Andrew Barth Feldman) come out of his shell. Intelligent and talented but socially awkward and very sheltered, Laird and Allison are hoping someone will help, uh, “date” Percy in exchange for a Buick Regal. However, Percy cannot know that his parents made this arrangement. And so, Maddie attempts to get Percy to fall for her and to lose his virginity before he heads off to college, but complications ensue, as they must, and Maddie finds herself in over her head.

No Hard Feelings is the kind of movie you don’t see a lot of in theatres now: an R-rated (M18 in Singapore) comedy being released during the summer (it opened in June in the US). One would argue that there is a place for movies like this amidst the big tentpole franchise movies, and that the more types of movies get made, the better. Director Gene Stupnitsky also made the 2019 movie Good Boys, an R-rated comedy starring kids. Naturally, the premise of No Hard Feelings is dubious and might make many uncomfortable, because it carries the connotations of an older person grooming a younger one, even though at 19, Percy is an adult. No Hard Feelings makes it clear that the arrangement at its centre is a bad idea, but it has great empathy for its characters even as they are put in sometimes-humiliating circumstances. Perhaps surprisingly for a sex comedy, No Hard Feelings is sweet.

The movie’s warmth is often at odds with its raunchiness, and there are times when it feels like it is a sex comedy against its will. The big moment that more than earns it its R-rating, involving nudity from Lawrence in a comedic context, is funny and over-the-top but also feels a bit incongruent with the rest of the movie. It feels like No Hard Feelings is very restrained and trying very hard to play things safe, while also doing enough such that it can be categorised as a sex comedy. Some had hoped that this would hark back to the post-American Pie boom of teen sex comedies, and this is very much not that kind of movie. The promotional materials describe No Hard Feelings as “edgy”, and it isn’t, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The writing in the movie is often funny and everything moves along as a pleasant clip, but it’s its pair of stars that really make No Hard Feelings work. Jennifer Lawrence produces as well as starring, and she commits to a role that is silly, but that she’s able to bring dimensionality to. She never once acts like this is beneath her and invites the audience to laugh along with her and not at her. She proves herself an adept physical comedian and plays the kind of role that Cameron Diaz might have been cast in with a good deal of heart too.

Andrew Barth Feldman is a musical theatre actor who played the title role in Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway. We’ve seen this character type before: painfully shy and socially inept but ultimately loveable. Feldman is absolutely endearing throughout the movie, and the chemistry he shares with Lawrence, which must be somewhat romantic but also playful and friendly, is compulsively watchable. Plus, he gets to sing, performing an unexpectedly moving rendition of a certain Hall and Oates classic. Laura Benanti and Matthew Broderick are also welcome presences as Percy’s overprotective parents.

Summary: No Hard Feelings is a surprisingly sweet movie that is being sold as a raunchy sex comedy. While the movie does have nudity and sexuality, it seems almost reluctant to just be a sex comedy and has an amiable warmth to it. Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman are very well matched as co-stars: she’s game for the physical comedy while he’s endearing and easy to root for. It’s not the American Pie-style comeback for the sex comedy genre some might have hoped for and is really a lot timider than the marketing suggests, but it’s rare that anything like this still opens in theatres, and it’s worthwhile for that.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Barbie review

Director: Greta Gerwig
Cast: Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Ariana Greenblatt, Kate McKinnon, Issa Rae, Hari Nef, Alexandra Shipp, Emma Mackey, Kingsley Ben-Adir, Simu Liu, Ncuti Gatwa, Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, Rhea Perlman
Genre: Comedy/Fantasy
Run Time: 114 min
Opens: 20 July 2023
Rating: PG13

In 1959, Ruth Handler invented the Barbie doll, creating a cultural phenomenon and changing the world of toys forever. Kids and hardcore collectors alike have coveted Barbie dolls for decades. The multimedia Barbie franchise includes multiple animated retellings of fairy tales and the Life in the Dreamhouse series that parodies reality TV. The toys have been the subject of various controversies and there are all kinds of Barbies that are tied into other pop culture properties and based on real people. Now, Barbie is set to paint cineplexes hot pink, stepping out of the toybox and onto the big screen in this highly anticipated film. 

Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) lives in the magical Barbie Land alongside various other incarnations of Barbie, including President Barbie (Issa Rae), Doctor Barbie (Hari Nef), Physicist Barbie (Emma Mackey), Writer Barbie (Alexandra Shipp) and Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon). Ken (Ryan Gosling) pines after Barbie, but she rebuffs his advances. One day, things start going awry for Stereotypical Barbie: the shower is cold, she doesn’t float down from the roof but falls instead, and her arched feet become flat. She is told to seek Weird Barbie’s counsel. Weird Barbie tells Stereotypical Barbie that she must go to the real world because the real-life person who is playing with the doll version of her has unresolved emotional issues that are affecting Stereotypical Barbie. Ken tags along, and in the real world, Barbie and Ken meet Mattel employee Gloria (America Ferrera) and her daughter Sasha (Ariana Greenblatt), where the real world is much more of a mess than Barbie thought. When the things that Ken learns in the real world put Barbie Land in jeopardy, Gloria, Sasha and Barbie must save the other Barbies, with the CEO of Mattel (Will Ferrell) hot on their tail.

There are many variations of what a Barbie movie could have been. In many ways, this feels like the best possible version. There is a palpable affection for the toy line and a knowledge of its minutiae evident here, with a mix of world-weary cynicism, tongue-in-cheek satire and very real, earnest emotion blended together in just the right proportions.

Production designer Sarah Greenwood and set decorator Katie Spencer bring Barbie Land to vivid, plastic life, with everything feeling uncannily toylike in the best way. Director Greta Gerwig, who co-wrote the film with Noah Baumbach, draws from a range of influences, including The Truman Show and Technicolor musicals like The Red Shoes and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. One gets the sense that Gerwig is playfully taking aim at so-called “film bros” – sometimes-obnoxious men who are preoccupied with certain kinds of movies and espousing their virtues in a condescending way. There are multiple Kubrick references (the prologue, that was also the movie’s teaser trailer, is a send-up of the opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, there’s a reference to The Shining, and the Mattel board room is based on the war room in Dr. Strangelove), a bit about the Snyder Cut of Justice League and another about The Godfather.

The central performances are key to the movie working and Margot Robbie, who also co-produces the film, does a lot of comedic and dramatic heavy lifting. Stereotypical Barbie is a bit of a naïf who has a rude awakening in the real world, and there are several colours Robbie must play, all of which she does beautifully while rocking impeccable costumes by Jacqueline Durran.

Ryan Gosling does steal the show on multiple occasions, and the relationship between Ken and Barbie, specifically the angst Ken feels from being in Barbie’s shadow and being denied his autonomy, is a driving force of the plot. The actors all seem very dialled in to what Gerwig demands of them and look to be having a great time while they’re at it.

Barbie is a political film and there are going to be people who will be very, very upset about that. This is a movie that will inspire no shortage of angry video essays. The filmmakers are entitled to their perspective, and some statements the movie makes will be very resonant. Things are obviously simplified and painted with a broad brush for the sake of comedy but prepare to see this movie burrow deep under some people’s skin. Barbie is often a lot of fun, but there are times when the movie does get caught up in the philosophy, because it is about its main character having an existential crisis. Younger kids will probably enjoy the “toy-comes-to-life” aspect of the movie but there might be a lot to explain afterwards.  

Barbie is an extended toy commercial, but it’s also very self-aware that that’s its main function. The movie is unafraid to make the Mattel company look bad, with its CEO portrayed as a blustering buffoon surrounded by obsequious lackeys. Movies and toys haven’t had the smoothest relationship, with Joel Schumacher citing the corporate mandate that Batman and Robin be made more “toyetic”, that is containing elements that could be turned into toys, as one of the reasons why it turned out the way it did. Barbie acknowledges the long history of the brand and wears its controversies as inside jokes [Earring Magic Ken makes an appearance, as does Midge (Emerald Fennell)]. There is also a touching homage to Barbie’s creator Handler. This is a movie that does sometimes seem to have an existential crisis itself (I’m a movie that’s meant to sell toys, but can I also have something to say? If I say anything, is it only in service of the brand?), but in a way that seems intentional and is interesting.

Summary: Barbie is everything it’s being hyped up to be: a clever, sly, entertaining metafictional movie. It’s a Trojan Horse painted hot pink, with a walk-in wardrobe inside: it has a silly exterior but there’s a lot going on. Not everyone’s going to be happy about this – brace yourself for all the angry video essays from people who aren’t on board with this movie’s brand of feminism – but while it does paint with a very broad brush, it is also resonant and emotional. Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling understand the assignment perfectly, with Greta Gerwig crafting a movie that’s self-aware and cynical but still has enough genuine earnestness around them. Barbie exists primarily as a toy commercial but is so much more than that.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Hidden Strike review

Director: Scott Waugh
Cast: Jackie Chan, John Cena, Pilou Asbæk, Chunrui Ma, Amadeus Serafini, Li Ma, Minghao Hou
Genre: Action/Comedy
Run Time: 103 min
Opens: 29 June 2023
Rating: PG13

There are several movies that were completed or close to completion but were never officially released. From The Day the Clown Cried to Empires of the Deep to Batgirl, these movies have become objects of fascination. Hidden Strike almost joined this group but has been liberated from movie purgatory and is finally getting released.

Luo Feng (Jackie Chan) leads a team of Chinese Special Forces soldiers who are tasked with evacuating workers at a Chinese-owned oil refinery in Baghdad that has recently been targeted. Luo Feng’s team must transport the employees in buses across the treacherous Highway of Death. Luo Feng’s estranged daughter Mei (Chunrui Ma) is one of the engineers at the plant. Mercenary Chris Van Horne (John Cena) is recruited by his brother Henry (Amadeus Serafini) to attack the convoy to facilitate a heist of the oil in the refinery. Chris realises he has been tricked into accepting the mission. Luo Feng and Chris eventually meet, and are none too fond of each other, but eventually team up when they realise they have a common enemy in the form of the treacherous Owen (Pilou Asbæk), the mastermind of the heist. The unlikely partners must prevent the theft of the oil as havoc ensues.

Jackie Chan’s recent output has been shaky, and it’s of course unrealistic to expect him to perform the same calibre of jaw-dropping stunts he did in his earlier films, but there are glimmers of the old Jackie in Hidden Strike. Several fight scenes nod towards the physical comedy he is so adept at, and a delightfully absurd action sequence involving bungee cords and foam in an oil refinery control room does hark back to old-school Jackie.

While John Cena’s initial forays into action movie stardom, including The Marine and 12 Rounds, tried to cast him as a strait-laced, grimacing hero, he’s since found his niche as a big ol’ goofball who, unlike some other wrestler-turned-movie stars, seems to have little ego about him. Hidden Strike’s best moments are when Cena gets to be silly, and he and Jackie Chan play off each other well enough. They’re not as good a team as Jackie and Chris Tucker, but better than Jackie and Johnny Knoxville.

Director Scott Waugh, who also helmed Act of Valor, Need of Speed and the upcoming The Expendables 4, and who was a stunt performer, wants to take the action seriously. However, Hidden Strike comes off disjointed and its action sequences aren’t enough to salvage it. All the emotional beats, including the strained relationship between Luo Feng and Mei (complete with a torn family photo), fall flat.

The movie also has a weird synthetic feel to it – for a movie set entirely in the desert, it feels too crisp, clean, and shiny. The extensive computer-generated effects fall short of convincing, and the big vehicular set-pieces are clearly aiming for Mad Max: Fury Road but wind up being Mildly Annoyed Road at best. The movie is at its best when Jackie and Cena play off each other, and it is being sold as a buddy movie starring the two, but they only actually meet around 30 minutes in. A good amount of the runtime is dedicated to a Die Hard-style subplot in the refinery that Jackie and Cena only participate in during the last act. This is the type of action movie that would normally emphasise vehicular stunts and gunfights, which are there, but the requisite hand-to-hand combat that you need, because Jackie and Cena are stars, feel a little shoehorned in.

It’s been a long and winding road for Hidden Strike. The movie was known at different points as Ex-Baghdad, Project X-Traction, Project X and S.N.A.F.U., and was at one point set to star Sylvester Stallone, who opted to make Creed II instead. “Didn’t Creed II come out in 2018?” you ask. Yes, yes it did. Cena replaced Stallone and the film was shot in China in 2018. As such, Hidden Strike feels like a bit of a relic, a holdover from the pre-COVID era where movies would awkwardly try to appeal to both American and Chinese audiences, and often feel like they were pandering. The COVID-19 pandemic and strained trade relations between the United States and China (and some say the controversy involving Cena referring to Taiwan as a country and thus alienating Chinese viewers) contributed to the movie almost never getting released.

Summary: Hidden Strike is a largely generic action film, but it is also a curio as a holdover from a bygone era. The movie was shot in 2018 and was almost never released and is a bit of a time capsule of that era when tenuous Chinese-American co-productions awkwardly attempted to appeal to audiences from both markets. The movie is at its best when stars Jackie Chan and John Cena play off each other, which doesn’t happen often enough. The movie plays to Cena’s strengths and offers glimmers of Jackie’s classic screen action prowess, but that is eclipsed by extensive and unconvincing computer-generated effects, resulting in a movie that feels oddly synthetic.

RATING: 2.5 out of 5 Stars                   

Jedd Jong

Elemental review

Director: Peter Sohn
Cast: Leah Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Ronnie del Carmen, Shila Ommi, Mason Wetherimer, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Catherine O’Hara, Ronobir Lahiri, Joe Pera, Matt Yang King
Genre: Animation/Romance/Comedy
Run Time: 109 min
Opens: 15 June 2023
Rating: PG13

Pixar has bestowed sentience onto an assortment of objects and concepts, from toys and cars to emotions and robots. Now, the elements get the Pixar treatment.

In Element City, the Water, Earth, Air and Fire people live together. Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis) is a young woman who is the child of immigrants Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi), who emigrated to Elemental City from Fire Land. Bernie runs The Fireplace, a shop and café that Ember is set to inherit. The other elements tend to be suspicious of Fire. Ember’s world is turned upside-down when the pipes under the store burst and she meets Wade Ripple (Mamoudou Athie), a mild-mannered Water person who works as a city inspector. As Ember and Wade begin to fall for each other, they must overcome deep-rooted prejudices – not to mention physics and chemistry – that conspire to keep them apart. Along the way, they come to question their respective purposes in life and what lies in store for them if they want to get together.

Elemental has its charming moments and the technical proficiency that Pixar has become known for is on full display. The rendering of various atmospheric effects is eye-catching even if the character design seems perfunctory, and there is an effort to build the world out. This is also Pixar’s first full-on romantic movie since WALL-E and perhaps the first 10 minutes of Up – other Pixar movies have included romantic, uh, elements, but this is a cross-cultural romantic comedy with shades of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, My Big Fat Greek Wedding and The Big Sick. The romance between our star-crossed lovers is often quite engaging, even if it progresses predictably. Both Leah Lewis and Mamoudou Athie are lively presences in the recording booth, creating likeable characters even though they might not have a lot of dimensions to them.

Unfortunately, Elemental feels like Pixar running out of ideas for things to anthropomorphise and personify. There’s one big idea here: what if elements were people and lived together? As much as the movie does play with the idea and attempts to explore the comedic and storytelling potential inherent in it, Elemental feels woefully underdeveloped and formulaic. While the premise is fantastical, most of the movie seems mundane, with city infrastructure and maintenance figuring heavily into the plot. Much of the movie feels too literal – there needs to be a balance between the outlandish and the relatable, and Elemental feels too nailed to the floor. The premise seems restricting rather than liberating.

Also, the rules of the world can feel ill-defined – For example, Fire people set things on fire when they touch them, but they don’t set wooden floors on fire when they walk on them. There are a bunch of things here that are vaguely reminiscent of the Car Pope in Cars 2. That means Car Catholicism exists, and therefore, there must have been a Car Jesus. The question of what separates Water people from the water in the aqueducts that they use for transportation is one of many that might be nagging at viewers, preventing them from getting into the story. Of course, one should just go along with it, but when a movie raises questions like this, it’s reasonable to expect at least some people (people like this reviewer) to get hung up on it.

Elemental is an immigrant’s story, and there is a lot of heart and sincerity here. Director Peter Sohn is the son of Korean immigrants to America, to whom he dedicates the film. Sohn has spoken about the pressure within the family to only marry other people of Korean descent – something Sohn himself did not do. The challenges of a cross-cultural relationship are captured in broad, allegorical terms, but Elemental runs into the same problem that Zootopia did before it. As human beings, we’re all much more alike than we’re different, and that is what stories that espouse inclusion are trying to convey. However, fire is very different than water, and there are good reasons why they shouldn’t mix. The movie touches on segregation, depicting a scene in which a security guard points to a “no Fire people” sign – doing that with any race of human people would be objectionable, but stopping Fire people from accidentally setting Earth people alight seems like a reasonable precaution to take. Again, one could trot out the “don’t think too much about it, it’s just a movie” mantra, but high concept, “what if?” movies like this are designed to encourage questions about the world from the audience.

Summary: Elemental has its charming, romantic moments and inventive visual gags and design flourishes, but it feels trapped by its fantastical premise rather than liberated by it. The movie begs questions about its internal logic and the rules by which the world operates. While there is a sincerity to its allegorical story about immigrant families and cross-cultural relationships, the essentialism that is a part of the characterisation seems at odds with the real-world message the movie is trying to send. Elemental falls well short of Pixar’s most transcendent work, even though there still are parts of it to admire and enjoy.

RATING: 3 out of 5 Stars                     

Jedd Jong

Renfield review

Director: Chris McKay
Cast : Nicholas Hoult, Nicolas Cage, Awkwafina, Ben Schwartz, Adrian Martinez, Shohreh Aghdashloo
Genre: Horror/Comedy/Action
Run Time : 93 min
Opens : 13 April
Rating : M18

Cinema is littered with horrible bosses, including the horrible bosses featured in the eponymous movie and its sequel. It stands to reason that Dracula would be a pretty bad boss, and Renfield tackles that idea head-on.

Robert Montague Renfield (Nicholas Hoult) is the familiar of Dracula (Nicolas Cage). Over almost a hundred years, Renfield has been forced to do Dracula’s bidding, including acquiring innocent victims to feed upon. Renfield derives superhuman powers from consuming bugs. In the present day, Renfield attends a support group for people caught in dependent relationships. Renfield unwittingly finds himself amid a conflict between the New Orleans police and a local drug gang headed by Teddy Lobo (Ben Schwartz) and his mother Ella (Shohreh Aghdashloo). Renfield befriends Rebecca Quincy (Awkwafina), a traffic cop whose father was killed by Lobo’s gang. Teddy discovers that Dracula is real and becomes intent on gaining Dracula’s power for himself, while Renfield musters up the strength to finally break free from his abusive boss.

Renfield is frequently funny and entertaining and at 93 minutes, doesn’t overstay its welcome. The movie is being sold primarily as a comedy but is legitimately gory and is as much an action-horror movie as it is a comedy. Director Chris McKay, who helmed The LEGO Batman Movie and the sci-fi actioner The Tomorrow War, demonstrates a healthy affection for the classic Universal horror movies. McKay intends for Renfield to be a direct sequel to the 1931 Dracula movie starring Bela Lugosi and directed by Tod Browning. We get a sense of what we’re in for with a concise prologue, featuring Hoult and Cage re-enacting scenes from that movie, in black-and-white and in the appropriate aspect ratio.

Hoult is a sympathetic presence, playing “out of his depth” well. He also acquits himself well during the action sequences and plays off both Cage (who was his onscreen father in The Weather Man) and Awkwafina with considerable charm.

The movie more than earns its M18 rating with bloody dismemberments and assorted carnage. Renfield might be goofy, but it has the creature feature bona fides where it counts, with a crew including genre veterans like makeup artists Christian Tinsley and Brian Sipe and concept artists Crash McCreery and Aaron Sims. Renfield’s action sequences are kinetic and more elaborate than one might find in the average horror comedy. Stunt coordinator Chris Brewster worked on the Daredevil series and was Charlie Cox’s stunt double, so some of the action here is quite impressive.

Renfield is very much stuck in the shadow of, um, What We Do in the Shadows. The feature film and subsequent TV series have become the definitive comedic depictions of vampires and are obvious influences. In the series, the relationship between a vampire and his long-suffering familiar played out in entertaining fashion via the characters Nandor and Guillermo. Renfield delivers a lot of stuff that’s like that, just not quite as good. Some of the humour feels dated, including an extended bit about ska music. The movie wants to have high stakes, but those don’t necessarily gel with the overall silly tone, so it becomes difficult to care about the mob boss subplot that winds up feeling out of place, despite charismatic turns from Ben Schwartz and Shohreh Agdashloo as the secondary antagonists.

The movie’s big selling point is Nicolas Cage as Dracula. Vampire’s Kiss was just the warm-up. Whatever you’re picturing when you hear the words “Nicolas Cage as Dracula”, Renfield delivers pretty much that. Cage is clearly having a lot of fun with the role, delivering the hell out of lines like “I’m the reeeal victim heeeere!” and getting to be as over-the-top as he wants. Cage has a well-documented love of German expressionism, which was a key influence on the 1931 Dracula movie. Unfortunately, we were hoping for a bit more of a surprise, and there isn’t that. It’s still quality Cage but given the various directions Cage could have gone in, this seems like the most predictable one.

Summary: Renfield is funny, fast-paced and entertaining, featuring Nicholas Hoult and Nicolas Cage playing off each other and having a great time doing so. While it’s primarily being sold as a goofy comedy, it is also a thoroughly gory action horror movie featuring some well-crafted set pieces. Unfortunately, its central premise was executed better in the What We Do in the Shadows series, which also featured a comically-rendered relationship between a despotic vampire and a long-suffering familiar. As much fun as it is watching Nicolas Cage play Dracula, he does nothing surprising with the role. Still, director Chris McKay keeps the energy up and this is a blood-drenched good time.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Cocaine Bear review

Director: Elizabeth Banks
Cast : Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Aaron Holliday, Margo Martindale, Matthew Rhys, Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra
Genre: Comedy/Thriller
Run Time : 96 min
Opens : 23 February 2023
Rating : M18

“Seeing a bear in the wild is a special treat for any visitor to a national park,” so begins the article “Staying Safe Around Bears” on the US National Parks website. “While it is an exciting moment, it is important to remember that bears in national parks are wild and can be dangerous. Their behaviour is sometimes unpredictable. Although rare, attacks on humans have occurred, inflicting serious injuries and death.”

And this is assuming they aren’t on cocaine.

The bear in Cocaine Bear, based very loosely on a true story, was.

It is 1985. Drug smuggler Andrew C. Thornton II (Matthew Rhys) dumps duffel bags full of cocaine out of an overloaded plane over Chattahoochee County, Georgia. A female black bear ingests cocaine from one of the duffel bags and chaos ensues. Sari (Keri Russell), a nurse and single mother, discovers her daughter Dee Dee (Brooklynn Prince) has skipped school together with her friend Henry (Christian Convery) to find a hidden waterfall in the forest. The kids chance across a brick of cocaine, unaware that the bear has also discovered the drugs. Thornton’s associate Syd (Ray Liotta) sends his son Eddie (Alden Ehrenreich) and his employee Daveed (O’Seha Jackson Jr.) to attempt to recover the cocaine, lest he draw the ire of Colombian drug kingpins. Other characters including police officers Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr.) and Reba (Ayoola Smart), Norwegian hikers Olaf (Kristofer Hivju) and Elsa (Hannah Hoekstra) and park ranger Liz (Margo Martindale) get drawn into the fray.

Cocaine Bear was made to go viral online, for people to breathlessly share the trailer exclaiming “can you believe they made this?!” On that level, it works. The movie is often outrageous and entertaining, a gory, silly black comedy designed to elicit shrieks and laughter from the audience, which it probably will. The movie’s ensemble cast is game and likeable, with cannily chosen pairings including child actors Brooklynn Prince and Christian Convery, and the duo of O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Alden Ehrenreich, playing off each other well. The late Ray Liotta, who died weeks after making this film, is a hoot as always as a cruel drug lord. Director Elizabeth Banks keeps things energetic and wacky, and the result is a cross between the Coen Brothers and the Farrelly Brothers. Other filmmakers might have played up the edginess, but Banks manages to find the 80s family adventure component amidst the dismemberments and copious drug use.

The movie runs a lean 96 minutes, which is the right length for something like this. Unfortunately, it is loaded with too many characters and parallel interweaving threads, such that we don’t quite spend enough time with each of the characters. While some might gravitate to the tone, others might be put off by it. The over-the-top humour can sometimes undercut the stakes, and while the movie’s tongue is very clearly in its cheek, it is still sometimes uncomfortable to see children put in the perilous situations depicted here. One can argue that the movie’s marketing, emphasising its basis in truth, is misleading. There was a black bear that ingested cocaine, but it did not go on a murderous rampage, and all the characters in the movie apart from Andrew C. Thornton II are fictional. That said, the filmmakers are well within their rights to use that morsel of fact as a jumping-off point for a wild, bloody story.

Key to the film working is the believability of the bear. The bear, nicknamed “Cokey” by the crew, was created by New Zealand-based visual effects studio Wētā FX and portrayed on-set by stunt performer Allan Henry, who trained under Andy Serkis. There are moments when the bear is frighteningly realistic, but many others – including an early moment when it’s scratching its back against a tree – when it looks kind of cartoony. The effects work more often than they don’t, and the moments when the bear is less than convincing can be excused by the overall ridiculous tone of the piece.

Summary: Cocaine Bear lives up to its promise of depicting a giant black bear on a coke-fuelled rampage. Often darkly funny and boasting an impressive ensemble cast, this is a movie that is constantly entertaining. Its combination of gross-out shock humour might not work for everyone, and the CGI bear that is its star is sometimes a little cartoony, but director Elizabeth Banks keeps things chugging right along. The “based on a true story” element of the story is more than a little oversold – a bear did ingest cocaine that was dumped out of a plane by a drug smuggler, but nothing after that really happened – but it serves as a great jumping-off point for a zany, gory adventure.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong