Rampage | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

MONSTERS! + The Rock + Jeffrey Dean Morgan + ecological awareness = entertainment with a purpose.

The arcade game Rampage stomped onto the scene in the mid-eighties. The player, assuming the identity of one of three gigantic creatures, attempted to pound the crap out of a city. It was dumbed-down, straightforward fun. One could say the same of director Brad Peyton’s latest blockbuster film loosely based on the game.

True… Rampage is yet another movie with massive creatures tearing apart prominent human developments – in this case, it’s the City of Chicago. However, this film offers the much-loved Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) in the leading role and the ever-smirking Jeffrey Dean Morgan as support, plus a well-timed warning about environmental exploitation.

Primatologist Davis Okoye (Johnson) has a strong relationship with San Diego wildlife preserve resident George, the last remaining albino silverback. They even joke around and use lewd gestures with their sign language. Then George gets sprayed with an experimental chemical that rapidly enhances his size and strength. Soon, he escapes and gives a new meaning to the term “apeshit”. Okoye and disgraced geneticist Dr Kate Caldwell (Naomie Harris) set out to stop George without harming him.

Adding to the film’s entertainment quotient is Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Harvey Russell, an OGA (Other Governmental Agency) agent with Texas swagger. Russell wears a big ol’ belt buckle and a pearl-handled revolver and quips, “Like my grandpappy always said: us assholes gotta stick together.” Morgan, his slim frame leaning this way and that, retains some of the feistiness of Negan, the bad boy antagonist he plays in The Walking Dead.

The film’s biggest shortcomings include a few clichés – the coincidental relevant newscast drives me nuts – and underdeveloped antagonists. Wyden siblings Claire (Malin Akerman) and Brett (Jake Lacy), the mastermind and the nervous Nellie, control genetic engineering firm Energyne, based in Chicago’s famed Willis Tower. But it’s so easy to forgive these flaws when one sees a massive gorilla pick up a tank as if it were a chair and hurl it at a helicopter.

Despite its boyish impetus (i.e. destroy stuff), Rampage earns a star for sticking up for conservation: it speaks to our children by placing a revered action hero in the role of anti-poacher/defender of animals. And it’s got MONSTERS! – Douglas J. Ogurek *****

A Quiet Place | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Silence means survival in ultra-tense film that resounds thunderously within horror canon

Three minutes into A Quiet Place, I was about to grab some popcorn, when my wife seized my hand and shook her head. The theatre was so quiet, its occupants so immersed in the Abbott family’s attempts to keep quiet, that my hand reaching into that bag would have sounded like a jet taking off. That tension and absorption in the characters’ plight dominated the remainder of the film, written and directed by lead actor John Krasinski.

An antagonist is close. The protagonist struggles not to make a peep. It’s a tension-building method used in thousands of horror and suspense stories… but not to this extent. Krasinski skyrockets the tension by introducing an antagonist with super-sensitive hearing. The creatures don’t need to be in the same room to hear their prey – they need to be in the same town!

The film opens 89 days into the invasion, with the Abbotts scavenging a vacated convenience store. It’s what you’d see in The Walking Dead, but you get the impression that the adversaries are something much more threatening than zombies. And they are.

Krasinski doesn’t waste time with expository dialogue about the creatures – he can’t really, since most of the film’s clipped dialogue is subtitled sign language. Instead, the camera lingers on Lee Abbott’s markerboard, which bullet points the creatures’ characteristics and asks the question on which the Abbotts’ survival hinges: “What are their WEAKNESSES?”

The film also introduces relationship complexities that go beyond the hunter/prey surface story. Particularly engaging is Lee Abbott’s strained relationship with deaf teenage daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds). She wants more independence and involvement; he wants to keep his family alive, even if that means somewhat stifling his daughter.

Initially, I was disappointed when the film’s preview offered glimpses of the creatures. I was mistaken – this is not a film about withholding the adversary; it’s a film about avoiding detection by the adversary.

A Quiet Place, confident in its new but not-so-new concept, detours from the contrived scares and plot hoops of the typical horror film. During the brief hour-and-a-half playtime, expect to wince, cringe, sympathize, and maybe even choke up. And be sure to skip the snacks – they’re too noisy. – Douglas J. Ogurek *****

Annihilation | review by Rafe McGregor

From New Weird novel to small-screen-feel alien movie.

The term ‘New Weird’ became popular in the first few years of this century, but has not been universally accepted. Nor is it clear whether New Weird denotes a new genre, related to but distinct from the (Old) Weird, or simply the way in which new authors have breathed fresh life into the old genre. S.T. Joshi, the critical authority on the Weird, has little time for the term and refers to the ‘modern weird tale’ instead (publishing a book with that title in 2001). Joshi defines the Weird as a retrospective category of speculative fiction, published from 1880 to 1940, that is essentially philosophical in virtue of representing a fully-fledged and fleshed-out world view. He regards H.P. Lovecraft as the exemplar of the genre, which includes Arthur Machen, Edward Plunkett (Lord Dunsany), Algernon Blackwood, Ambrose Bierce and M.R. James. He also sees the tradition as having been continued through to the present by the likes of Robert Aickman, Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, T.E.D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti and Caitlín R. Kiernan. The New Weird was initially associated with China Miéville in the UK and subsequently Jeff VanderMeer in the US. Miéville’s first novel was King Rat, in 1998, and he began his Bas-Lag series with Perdido Street Station in 2000. VanderMeer was best known for his short stories and as an editor and anthologist, editing two definitive collections – The New Weird and Steampunk – with his wife Ann in 2008. He joined Miéville as the co-exemplar of the New Weird in 2014, when all three parts of the Southern Reach Trilogy were published: Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance.

Miéville has his own characterisation of the Weird, set out in his essay ‘M.R. James and the Quantum Vampire’ (published in Collapse IV in 2008), that it is distinguished from the horror fiction derived from myth, legend, and folktales on the basis of the cephalopod natures of its monsters, which broke from previous tradition. As such, he includes H.G. Wells and William Hope Hodgson in the genre dominated by Lovecraft. There are several interesting elements to this approach, although it appears to ignore or at least regard as irrelevant the fact that the legendary kraken has been cast in a cephalopod image since at least the eighteenth century. VanderMeer acknowledges the importance of the tentacle and what it represents, but foregrounds the Weird’s pursuit of an abstruse and possibly even unattainable understanding of the supra-natural and the un-rational, i.e. as the expression of our dissatisfaction with and uncertainty about reality. For VanderMeer, weird tales also engage with the particular problems of peculiarly modern life and with the extremes of that life, a trend which increased as the century progressed. Miéville rejected ‘New Weird’ when it was applied to Perdido Street Station and it is difficult to reconcile his repeated emphasis on the urban – in works such as King Rat, Perdido Street Station, Iron Council, Un Lun Dun, The City & the City, and The Last Days of New Paris – with VanderMeer’s biophilia (from E.O. Wilson’s biophilia hypothesis), as suggested by reviewers’ descriptions of the Southern Reach trilogy as ‘Weird Ecology’ (Los Angeles Review of Books) and ‘Weird Thoreau’ (The New Yorker).

VanderMeer defines the New Weird (or at least Miéville’s New Weird) as urban speculative fiction that is based on complex real-world models, employs elements of the surreal or transgressive, and is acutely aware of the politics of the modern world. His own New Weird is an ecological, environmental, or uncivilized (in Dark Mountain Project terminology) variant of the genre he describes. If there is a feature of the two authors’ oeuvres that connects Miéville’s city to VanderMeeer’s wilderness to the extent that it establishes a new type of Weird, then it is the self-conscious subversion of one of the central themes of Lovecraft’s fiction. Lovecraft had an aversion to the reproductive process, irrational fears about genetic inheritance, and a horror of miscegenation – the last either disclosed by the explicit racism of some of his stories or the implicit racism of his obsession with inter-species crossbreeding. Miéville and VanderMeer both explore the theme of crossbreeding without the racist overtones and with the implication that the contamination of humanity might be a source of empowerment or evolution and is thus neither necessarily terrifying nor necessarily dreadful. This new take on the Weird is an important part of what makes the Southern Reach trilogy original in its contribution to literature, relevant to life in the Anthropocene, and perhaps even visionary. Notwithstanding, I was a little underwhelmed when I read Annihilation, as the narrative failed to reach the potential promised by the premise of the novel. Part of my disappointment with the film is not so much that it has been dumbed-down or popularised, but that the adaptation process has opened a greater gap between narrative and premise, involving a dual failure to resist first the urge to explain and second, the urge to prioritise the human over the hybrid.

Alex Garland’s adaptation is as classic a story as can be, a literal instantiation of John Yorke’s wonderful guide to storytelling, Into The Woods: the hero leaves home to go into the woods and comes back both changed and having changed something in the woods. Our hero, who is an unnamed biologist in the book but has become an ex-soldier-turned-academic named Lena (played by Natalie Portman) in the film, leaves the safety of the Southern Reach to go into Area X. Area X, AKA the Shimmer from the electromagnetic field that forms its boundary, is a remote part of the south coast of America where unexplained ecological changes have occurred following the impact of a meteor (providing an explanation that is deliberately withheld in the novel). The Southern Reach is the government agency that has been established to contain and explain the Shimmer, but the various expeditions sent into it have all resulted in disaster. The same is true of Lena’s journey into the swamp: the narrative structure is a-chronological and we quickly learn that she is the sole survivor of her team. Lena’s call to action – to use Yorke’s terminology – is the return of her husband, Kane (played by Oscar Isaac), a Special Forces soldier, from the previous expedition into the Shimmer. He arrives home nearly a year after entering Area X and many months after being declared missing-presumed-dead, walking into their house with an almost complete loss of memory and massive organ failure. Lena is recruited by Dr Ventress (played by Jennifer Jason Leigh), a senior official in the Southern Reach, and her readiness to volunteer for what appears to be a suicide mission is explained by her guilt at having had an affair with a colleague while Kane was missing-in-action. Lena joins Ventress and three other women, all of whom have suffered serious psychological trauma of some sort, on an expedition to reach the lighthouse on the coast of Area X.

As soon as Lena and her companions cross the Shimmer, there are indications that either time functions in a different way in Area X or that the environmental anomaly has a disturbing effect on human beings’ perceptions of time and memory retention. This phenomenological disruption is followed by evidence of hyper-hybridity as unexplained mutations of first flora and then fauna are discovered. As the expedition travels deeper into Area X they find further evidence of both animal and plant life crossbreeding with human beings to produce more or less successful hybrids. We are, of course, in the land of Lovecraft’s worst nightmare, although there is a suggestion (albeit weaker in the film, which remains for the most part anthropocentric) that this is not as horrific as it seems – or, more accurately, not as horrific as our innate speciesism has conditioned us to believe. Aside from the small cast, which I expected, and watching it at home on television (Annihilation was distributed by Netflix in the UK), for which I compensated, there was something about the cinematography that gave the film a small-screen-feel. This impression was confirmed at the conclusion when, in the climactic scene, poor visual special effects were exacerbated by a strange choice of soundtrack, the combination of which transformed what was intended to be a tense sequence into something approaching farce and made what followed bizarre at best. This is not to say that the film is not worth seeing. Natalie Portman and Tessa Thompson (playing Josie Radek, a physicist) both present strong performances and there are several subtle touches in the storytelling by Garland, particularly with respect to the respective fates of Lena’s team. Most of the initial reviews I’ve seen have been overwhelmingly positive and I’m one of only two people I know who doesn’t concur. Perhaps, like so many movie adaptations, it’s better if you haven’t read the book first.***

Annihilation | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Fantasy/eco-horror film revels in uncertainty.

When Annihilation ended, the fellow next to me said, “I’m gonna need the CliffsNotes on this one.” I, too, was a bit confused by the film (directed by Alex Garland) and its message. However, further contemplation revealed that being comfortable with a lack of answers may just be the mindset the film advocates.

Lena’s (Natalie Portman) husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) shows up confused a year after his covert Army mission to “The Shimmer”. Biology professor Lena then tags along with four other women – they all have a secret – who enter the no-man’s land within The Shimmer’s iridescent borders. She wants to find out what happened to her husband; her cohorts want to know why none of the previous explorers, excepting Kane, have returned. There are two theories regarding what happened to the men: they were killed by something within The Shimmer, or they killed each other.

The film flashes backward and forward to scenes in Lena’s life as the group journeys through the lush tropical environment. Their goal (and the presumed source of the phenomenon) is a lighthouse.

Annihilation examines the human tendency to mentally or physically “self-destruct”. It also takes to the extreme some of the new wave sentiments that posit man’s physical connection with the natural environment.

One statement that comes up frequently in this film is, “I don’t know.” Thus, if you prefer a movie with a clear-cut explanation, then this is not the one for you. However, if you prefer films that challenge you to probe deeper into meaning and theme, Annihilation is a must-see.

Another way to experience the film is to simply resign oneself to not knowing and indulge in its floral and faunal delights: kaleidoscopic fungal displays, crystal-like trees, deer with flowering wooden antlers, and more. Also watch for the prismatic light that occasionally pierces the mist-shrouded area. This light may reflect the discerning viewer’s experience of the film.

If someone asks me if I like Annihilation, my response is likely to be, “I don’t know.” Maybe that’s a bad thing, or maybe it’s the sign of a brilliant film. – Douglas J. Ogurek ****

Black Panther | review by Rafe McGregor

Coogler’s third strike is as complex and compelling as his first two.

I was worried about watching this film – almost as much as Blade Runner 2049 (reviewed for TQF here) albeit for entirely different reasons.  I wanted to like Black Panther, but the odds seemed stacked against me. I wanted to like it because I admire Ryan Coogler for his artistic genius and for the way in which he has extended both black consciousness and consciousness of anti-black racism in his previous two films, Fruitvale Station (2013) and Creed (2015).  Merely releasing a film with the title Black Panther, which recalls the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense of the 1960s and 1970s, in the era of Black Lives Matter, heightened racial tensions in the US, and Trump’s New Nationalism constitutes a political statement in itself.  The Alt-Right countered with attempts to sabotage the success of the film via social media, but their efforts proved spectacularly unsuccessful when Black Panther broke several opening weekend box office records.  I felt this took a little of the pressure off me because regardless of what I write now the film is already a commercial and critical achievement by Coogler.  Why did I think the odds were stacked against me?  Despite many attempts, I just can't get to grips with superheroes as protagonists, with superhero narratives, or with the superhero aesthetic in general. I can’t even manage a second viewing of The Dark Knight Trilogy, which is by one of my favourite directors. Black Panther is a Marvel Comics character, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1966 (coincidentally, the same year in which the  Black Panther Party was founded), and Black Panther is the eighteenth film set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The film is also the second of three in which Black Panther appears, after Captain America: Civil War (2016), and before Avengers: Infinity War, due later this year.

I solved my ethical-aesthetic dilemma by approaching the work from the perspective of the Afrofuturist rather than the superhero genre.  Alondra Nelson, a sociology professor at Columbia, characterises Afrofuturism as a movement that uses technical and creative innovation to make statements about black life and history with the aim of representing the Afrodiasporic experience in new ways.  Popular examples include Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred (1979), Nnedi Okorafor’s Who Fears Death (2010), and N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season (2015, the first book in her The Broken Earth series).  Taking these three books as a guide, the following features of the genre are apparent: strong female leads, a deeply-embedded environmental ethic, the assertion of shared humanity through black experience, a seamless blend of tradition and modernity, and the reconciliation of the destructive and beneficial aspects of technology.  With the exception of the first, these are all present in Black Panther. There are several strong female characters – most notably Nakia (played by Lupita Nyong’o) and Okoye (played by Danai Gurira) – but the lead roles are all male: Chadwick Boseman reprises his role as T’Challa, the Black Panther, from Captain America: Civil War, and fights first Ulysses Klaue (played by Andy Serkis) and then N’Jadaka (AKA Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens, played by Michael B. Jordan).

The plot is very straightforward: T’Challa’s succession to the throne of Wakanda is usurped by N’Jadaka, his estranged cousin. In keeping with his previous films, however, Coogler exploits this simplicity as a means to the end of exploring extremely complicated themes.  The first of these concerns the ethics of isolationism. Wakanda is a hyper-prosperous country in central Africa that makes use of its superior scientific development to hide its technology from the rest of the world, including its neighbours, many of whom are beset by political, criminal, and social turmoil. T’Challa’s father, T’Chaka, was opposed to any engagement with the rest of the world, but others – such as N’Jadaka and Nakia – believe that Wakanda should end its sequestration. For N’Jadaka, Wakanda’s duty is to lead a global African uprising that will turn the tables on the legacy of European colonialism and create a new world order where Africans (led by Wakanda of course) are masters and Europeans slaves. Nakia has a more benevolent goal, in which Wakanda takes a leading role in the UN and exports its science and technology to the world. T’Challa is torn between T’Chaka’s isolationism and Nakia’s internationalism, between tradition and modernity, respect for his father and admiration for his lover. The second theme is the appropriate response to colonialism and postcolonialism. T’Challa is opposed to reinforcing the oppressive hierarchy by simply inverting the power relation between white (Europe) and black (Africa) and aims to subvert the whole structure, to take the lead by example not force and to influence the rest of the world through existing international organisations. Coogler has already been criticised for the conservatism of his vision of black empowerment, but given the political context in which the film has been released (mentioned above) and the complexity and significance of the issue at stake, I think the critique fails to recognise the sophistication and nuance of his response. Part of the subtlety of Creed, for example, was the way in which Coogler was able to tell Adonis Creed’s story such that it showed what was missing in the representations of Rocky Balboa in the 1970s without undermining the importance of Balboa’s own story.

The richness of Coogler’s exploration of these themes and their relevance to the real world make it an outstanding example of Afrofuturist cinema and my guess – based on the box office results – is that it’s a pretty good superhero movie as well. Notwithstanding, there are a couple of flaws, which is why I haven’t awarded a fifth star. I noted above that the lead roles are all male and Black Panther is, furthermore, a traditional story about men, by men, and for men – not only must T’Challa fight Ulysses Klaue and N’Jadaka, but his kingship must be secured by ritual combat and there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledgement that the toughest guy in the kingdom might not make the best monarch. Second, given that Jordan has played the lead in both of Coogler’s previous films, I was hoping for a lot more screen time for him and for more of his character’s backstory to be revealed. I don’t know how much of either of these criticisms can be put down to what I imagine are major artistic limitations imposed by Marvel Comics and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but I do know that this film is worth watching – even if you care as little about whether superheroes live or die as I do.****

Douglas J. Ogurek’s top five mass market science fiction/fantasy/horror films of 2017

Once again, sci-fi/fantasy/horror (SF/F/H) films dominated the U.S. box office. Star Wars and superheroes reigned as the top grossing films in 2017. The latest Star Wars installment (The Last Jedi) came in at number one ($583 million at the time of this writing), while five superhero films ranked within the top ten. Others included a fantasy/musical (Beauty and the Beast), an animated action/adventure (Despicable Me 3), a fantasy/action/adventure (Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) and, thanks to an enchantingly creepy clown, a horror (It).

All ten were either remakes or part of a series. This shows how much the filmgoing public leans toward the familiar and the predictable.

Nevertheless, following are my selections for the best mass market SF/F/H films in 2017. Though numbers three through five rank within the top ten grossing movies, the top two spots do not. What sets these two apart is their concept originality, depth of character, and the complex themes that they explore. They give the viewer something to think about, and they don’t rely too heavily on special effects.

#5: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
Four very different high school students get pulled into a video game world that leads them to challenge their beliefs about themselves and each other. The viewer escapes into a consistently funny, sometimes touching story highlighted by the Dwayne Johnson/Kevin Hart duo’s boyish charm and Jack Black’s portrayal of a self-centered teen female stuck in a middle-aged male’s body. The tropical setting (filmed in Hawaii) and underdeveloped, goon-like secondary characters add to the film’s lighthearted mood. Full review.

#4: Wonder Woman
Marvel gracefully inducts a full-fledged female champion into the pantheon of big budget contemporary superhero films. Gal Gadot’s Diana/Wonder Woman quickly wins over the viewer – she leaves her idyllic, women-only island and arrives in World War I London with a mix of wonder (“A baby!”) and shock at that society’s misogynistic and sometimes callous tendencies. And from an action perspective? Wonder Woman lives up to her name with the lethal combination of agility and power that she displays during fight scenes. Some action sequences – watch for the one in which Wonder Woman rallies the Allies – are breathtaking, even if you know what the filmmakers are doing is way over the top. Full review.

#3: Thor: Ragnarok
The only thing that’s heavy about the god of thunder’s latest adventure is his hammer Mjölnir… and that’s what makes this film such a pleasure to watch. Director Taika Waititi takes the viewer on a mind-blowing interplanetary romp rich in humor, otherworldly settings, and characters that range from temperamental to odd. Thor has his work cut out for him – he faces off against a gigantic beast, a presumed ally, an eccentric dictator, and a powerful sister/goddess intent on revenge. This is dumbed down entertainment at its best. Full review.

#2: Get Out
Fortified by humour and suspense, Get Out gives the cliché-saturated horror genre a much-needed shot in the heart. It tells the story of budding photographer Chris Washington, an African American who visits his white girlfriend’s wealthy parents’ estate. Something is off with the African American hired help – they behave strangely. Oddity builds upon oddity until Chris discovers the shocking secret behind this world of white privilege. Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, with its novel ideas and implications about race, deserves the critical acclaim that it received. Full review.

#1: Split
Explosions, weapons, superheroes, and special effects dominate the contemporary moviegoing experience. Thus, the SF/F/H film that manages to entertain while, for the most part, avoiding these elements achieves something special. Most of M. Night Shyamalan’s films accomplish this feat. He takes the road less traveled by exploring original ideas that stem from a simple question – what if?

Split examines victimization and questions the extent to which a man who suffers from dissociative identity disorder (DID) can, through his shattered mind, alter his body’s chemistry. Like other Shyamalan films, Split serves up a potent mix of subtext, technique, and atmosphere, plus it leaves the viewer with something to ponder. The protagonists have no superhuman abilities; rather, they are three teenage girls trapped in their captor’s lair. Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a strong performance as Casey, a quiet girl who is wise beyond her years (common in Shyamalan films). The snippets from Casey’s past that are gradually unveiled add to the film’s foreboding ambiance and support a climax that is much more than a physical confrontation.

The film’s greatest strength is James McAvoy’s gripping portrayal of Kevin Wendell, who suffers from DID. The personalities that emerge from this consummate performance range from that of a little boy to a British matriarch. Not since Heath Ledger’s the Joker have I seen an SF/F/H character who evokes so much curiosity about what he will say or do next. Full review.

See Douglas’s top five SF/F/H picks from 2016 and 2015.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

The Breakfast Club meets Indiana Jones in absorbing comedy-adventure with a message.

The Breakfast Club (1985) made an impact that still resonates today. Its strategy involved forcing together dissimilar teens and having them discover things about each other and themselves. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, directed by Jake Kasdan, uses this same technique in a tropical adventure that is consistently funny, endearing, and, at times, moving. The film takes four of The Breakfast Club’s character tropes (the nerd, the socially awkward girl, the star athlete, and the self-absorbed pretty girl) and places them in detention (another carryover from the ’80s masterpiece). However, the action quickly strays from the reality-based path of The Breakfast Club when the newer film’s characters get sucked into the world of ’90s video game Jumanji (unlike the original Jumanji [1995], where the board game world comes to them).

Each player occupies an avatar who is, in many ways, his or her physical opposite. Nerdy Spencer becomes archeologist/explorer Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson). Bravestone, endowed with muscles, brains, and a “smoldering intensity”, has no weaknesses (according to his character profile). Fridge, star football player and estranged best friend of Spencer, downsizes to zoologist Franklin “Mouse” Finbar (Kevin Hart). Spencer’s budding love interest Martha inherits “killer of men” Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan), a martial arts expert whose repertoire includes “dance fighting”. In the biggest physical reversal, egotistical beauty Bethany becomes Dr. Sheldon (Shelly) Oberon (Jack Black), a middle-aged male cartographer.

The film goes on to offer a lot of what one would expect in an Indiana Jones movie: a concrete goal (i.e. return the “Jaguar’s Eye” jewel to the tall jaguar stone statue deep within the jungle), a one-dimensional villain (Bobby Cannavale), and lots of action. However, unlike Jones, the characters in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle make more significant personal journeys and discoveries.

The video game setting feels authentic. For instance, each character gets three lives, and peripheral characters often repeat themselves in their attempts to guide players’ decisions. In one action sequence, Spencer/Bravestone calls out his moves and makes contact noises in the vein of the late-’60s Batman series as he plows through bad guys.

Teaming up for the second time—the first was Central Intelligence (2016)—Johnson and Hart prove an effective comic duo. What works so well for Johnson is that while we’re used to seeing him in heroic roles, many of his actions in this film are decidedly unheroic: he runs from trouble, kisses awkwardly, and makes high-pitched declarations of surprise. Hart delivers his typical high-energy, highly physical performance. Black shows he is at ease playing any role—it truly feels as if he is a female teen trapped in a middle-aged man’s body. One of the most engagingly awkward developments is Bethany/Oberon falling for one of Jumanji’s male inhabitants.

Most, though not all, of this film is predictable, and that is okay. The humour and original concept carry it through. Its teenage characters, who live in a world that values appearance and physical feats, get an opportunity to do some much-needed introspection—those lacking confidence get more physically advanced avatars, while those who thrive on appearance and physicality get taken down a notch physically… and they all learn something. – Douglas J. Ogurek *****

The Last Jedi | review by Rafe McGregor

Johnson can’t shake the shadow of the striking Empire.

The Force Awakens (Star Wars Episode VII, released in 2015 and directed by J.J. Abrams) set up the Sequel Trilogy very much in the image of the Original Trilogy, drawing a fine line between revisiting and rebooting.  Despite the upbeat end of the latter, with the Empire defeated and Luke Skywalker a fully-fledged Jedi, the beginning of Episode VII found the galaxy far, far away in much the same state as those of us who saw Episode IV in the seventies found it.  Luke had disappeared and taken the Jedi with him; a much-aged Han Solo was scouring the galaxy for his son, Kylo Ren, with the ageless Chewy back at his side in the Millennium Falcon; and the Empire had reformed as the First Order, its rise checked by the Resistance.  Some of this came as a non sequitur: the Jedi won the Galactic Civil War and should have been re-established; junior Jedi Ren seemed to have destroyed the Jedi academy with relative ease (recalling Anakin Skywalker’s rampage in Episode III); the First Order was clearly not the first anything and the Resistance wasn’t the resistance – just the New Republican Armed Forces – if anything, the First/New Order were the resistance, challenging the New Republic’s victory.

The reproduction of the setting of the Original Trilogy was matched by Episode VII’s characters, who closely paralleled those of the first: Luke became Rey, R2D2 became BB8, Han became Finn (both renegades turned good guy), Darth Vader became Kylo, Yoda became Luke, the Emperor Palpatine became Supreme Leader Snoke, and Chewy was still, well, Chewy.  In addition, the plots of Episodes VII and IV were almost identical, involving a mission to destroy the Death Star in the latter and a mission to destroy the Death Planet in the former.  These similarities raised the question of whether Episode VIII would follow Episode V – one of the most popular of all the various trilogies and series (the Anthology Films were launched in 2016, with Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) – or take the Sequel Trilogy in a different direction from the Original.

The signature opening crawl that begins Episode VIII reveals that events have moved along rather rapidly since the end of the last episode and that the skirmishes with the First Order were in fact more than they appeared, putting the New Republic first on the back foot and then on both feet on the run.  The story starts with the New Republican battle fleet fleeing from the First Order and Rey attempting to persuade a reluctant Luke to join the fray.  The New Republican forces – which are now indeed the Resistance – are led by Leia Organa and the central narrative is focused on the fleet, with various efforts being made to evade an extended pursuit that ends with a handful of survivors on the planet Crait.  The reproduction of Episode IV in Episode VII is itself reproduced as the various locations of Episode V are revisited in Episode VIII: Hoth has become Crait, with the AT-ATs lumbering on salt rather than snow; Dagobah has become Ahch-To, host to a disgusting species or two of its own; and Bespin has become Cantonica, playground where the greedy rich spend their ill-gotten gains. 

The combination of similar characters, similar places, and a similar plot sets the Sequel Trilogy firmly under the shadow of the Original, a shadow from which it unfortunately fails to escape in Episode VIII.  This is not to say that Rian Johnson doesn’t introduce original and unexpected subplots and character complexities, just that they are insufficient to set Episode VIII on a par with its predecessor.  Johnson also explores new themes, including a strong environmental ethic that sees Chewy turn vegetarian and Finn rescue a Fathier herd from captivity, but somewhere between Episodes V and VIII some of the magic was lost.  The fault is with the Sequel Trilogy in general rather than Episode VIII in particular.  Two thirds of the way through, I wonder if the main problem isn’t the absence of the affective structure that the sometimes overlapping but more often conflicting motives, desires, and goals of Luke, Leia, and Han brought to the original.  The Prequel Trilogy tried to reproduce the dramatic tension with Anakin and Padmé and failed.  The Sequel Trilogy is attempting the same with Ren and Rey and hasn’t quite succeeded yet.  Perhaps two just isn’t enough and three isn’t always a crowd?***               

Justice League | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Does the latest grandiose tribute to solidarity hold its own? Ye-ah!

One-dimensional bad guy threatens to take over or destroy the world. Good guys overcome their differences and unite to take on the bad guy. It’s a scenario that plays out in the most recent batch of superhero films. Justice League, the latest entry in this category, does not offer anything glaringly new. But damn, it was fun to watch! One can’t help but succumb to the spell that its action sequences cast – Wonder Woman spinning and deflecting bullets, Aquaman shooting through the sea, and many others.

This time, the bad guy is Steppenwolf, a huge brute who beams down to Earth from the planet of Apokolips (he must be from the City of Overly Dramatic Speeches). Steppenwolf wants to find three Mother Boxes, the joining of which will allow him to take over Earth. Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) sets out to assemble a group of heroes to stop the horned tyrant and his horde of flying Parademons. Wayne’s list includes the ever-entertaining Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot); the gruff Aquaman (Jason Momoa); the Flash (Ezra Miller), who views the world of superheroes with boyish admiration; and the ultra-serious Cyborg (Ray Fisher), robotized by his father after an accident. Moreover, there is a volatile potential sixth member, whom the team confronts in the film’s best scene.

Though not as funny as Marvel’s most recent blockbuster Thor: Ragnarok, Justice League does have its moments. Especially enjoyable is Aquaman, who blends a rock star’s attitude with a 13-year-old boy’s vocabulary. His quotes are legendarily simplistic: “My man!,” “I dig it!,” and most profound of all, “Ye-ah!” In one scene, Aquaman, who has clearly established himself as a badass with the introspection of a sea cucumber, is duped into sharing his feelings.

Slo-mo scenes that show action from the Flash’s perspective are entertaining, though not as well done nor as humorous as those depicting Quicksilver in recent X-Men films. The funniest Justice League slo-mo scene has the Flash registering shock when another character sees him approaching at super speed.

The film also executes a brilliant marketing scheme – yes, the heroes come together as a team, but each has his or her own logo. Who’s your favorite? Though Batman has neither the strength nor the speed of his cohorts, he may be the most powerful hero. After all, he’s the one who unites the heroes. When Barry Allen/the Flash asks him what his special power is, Bruce Wayne responds, “I’m rich.” And for an instant, reality takes hold. – Douglas J. Ogurek *****

Thor: Ragnarok | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Slugfests, humour, otherworldly settings, eccentric characters. What more could you ask for?

Recent Star Wars and Transformers films are way too dramatic and way too serious. Think about it – a grand declaration to “fulfill … your … destiny” from a creature whose face looks like a pool of vomit? Conversely, films in the Avengers universe continue to have fun with their own ridiculousness. The visually spectacular comic action/adventure Thor: Ragnarok, directed by Taika Waititi, stays true to this strategy.

The demon Surtur – think of a gigantic flaming Satan – plans to initiate Ragnarok, which is basically the apocalypse-like annihilation of Thor (Chris Hemsworth), brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston), and father Odin (Anthony Hopkins), along with the rest of Asgard’s inhabitants. But there’s a more immediate threat: Odin’s eldest child Hela (aka the Goddess of Death) wants to take over Asgard. Meanwhile, Thor is stuck with the untrustworthy Loki and the short-fused Hulk on Sakaar, a planet that is part garbage dump, part toy store. He needs to find a way to get back to Asgard and stop Hela.

In this film, the third in the Thor series, humor is as abundant as the God of Thunder’s muscles. For instance, a hero makes a heroic comment, then attempts a heroic action that results in a decidedly unheroic accident. An imposing stone warrior talks in a matter-of-fact, high-pitched voice. Thor and his brother Loki resort to an underhanded fighting strategy that they call “get help”.

The film’s fight scenes adhere to Marvel’s high standards. Thor takes on the Hulk in a gladiator-style showdown, plus there are several exhilarating battles in which heroes and villains mow down opposing armies. Particularly entertaining are Thor’s massacres accompanied by Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” (which references Norse mythology).

Antagonists are equally enjoyable. Cate Blanchett’s Hela is a smooth, ultra-confident supervillain. Her perfect diction and poise contrast with Jeff Goldblum’s characteristically Goldblumian Grandmaster, captor of Thor. The chatty, golden-robed leader of Sakaar incorrectly labels Thor “Lord of Thunder”, pits him against the Hulk, kills captives with a “melt stick”, and breaks away from a conversation to play synthesizer in a jazzy jam session. “Hey, Sparkles,” he says to Thor, “here’s the deal: you want to get back to ass-place, ass-berg, wherever you came from…?” “ASGARD!” retorts Thor.

A building-size projection of Goldblum gesticulating and speaking in his stilted style jars with our notion of what a villain should be – severe, eloquent. Goldblum, like many elements of this film, does not fit in a presumably sombre world of Norse gods. Perhaps that is why Thor: Ragnarok is so effective. – Douglas J. Ogurek *****

Geostorm | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Cliché-ridden? Yes. Stupid? Perhaps. Enjoyable? Undoubtedly.

Gerard Butler’s presence in a film may be, for some, a red flag. For me, it’s a draw – typically, Butler plays an aggressive type who doesn’t take crap from anyone. In Geostorm, he sticks to his calling card as tough guy American scientist Jake Lawson.

Jake invents and oversees Dutch Boy, a space-based system that controls weather and prevents natural catastrophes. Then Jake’s younger brother Max, a politician with close ties to the US President, fires Jake from his job as director of his own invention. Three years later, when Dutch Boy starts to malfunction and kill people, Max convinces Jake to head back up to the space station and solve the problem.

The remainder of the film is a race against time to determine what went wrong and who is responsible. Amid the tempest that is Geostorm are political intrigues, familial conflict, ticking time clocks, close calls in outer space, and, the reason why most come to see this film: mass destruction.

The poster for this film leads one to believe that Butler will be earthbound… running around with his daughter to avoid destruction in the vein of 2012 (2009) or The Day After Tomorrow (2004). Rather, Geostorm differentiates itself by not only adding the mystery element, but also by sending its protagonist to a space satellite for most of the film.

Critical rails against this film range from tepid catastrophes to a lack of sophistication. In the case of the former, perhaps they missed the firestorms and refrigerator-sized hailstones. They also miss the mockery, intended or not, embedded in the film. Geostorm pokes fun at a market flooded by large-scale destruction wreaked by aliens, weather, superheroes, and robots. It’s as if the directors consulted with schoolboys to take it to the next level. The acting follows suit – some of it is so bad that it appears to be read off a script. Then there’s the tough guy mentality that permeates the film. President Andrew Palma (Andy Garcia) acts like a mob boss, his right-hand man Leonard Dekkom (Ed Harris) has a hardass demeanor, and when Butler’s gruff Jake Lawson isn’t leading an international team of scientists, he’s drinking brewskis and fixing muscle car engines.

I read somewhere that the traditional hero (e.g. a Gerard Butler character) is no longer believable. That may be true, but when the shitstorm hits, that traditional hero sure can be entertaining. Next time your brain is fried on a Friday night, crack open a beer, grab some chips, and pop on Geostorm. – Douglas J. Ogurek ****

Rogue One: a Star Wars Story, by Chris Weitz and Tony Gilroy (Disney) | review by Stephen Theaker

The empire has ruled the galaxy since the events of Revenge of the Sith, but the Rebellion has been growing in strength, necessitating the construction of the Death Star, a weapon of planet-busting capabilities. Jyn Erso is in the Empire’s custody, but she is sprung by rebels who hope her family connections can get them the information they need to destroy the Death Star (presumably so called because Death Sphere or Death Moon didn’t sound quite as cool). She ends up going with a ragtag band of rebels on what may be a suicide mission. She’s hoping to rescue her father (played by Mads Mikkelsen), while others in the squad have orders to kill him. Overall, this reminded me very much of the Dark Horse Star Wars comics. Respectful and serious in intent, lots of nods to the canon, well-made, but rather missing the mad invention of the six George Lucas films, which never stopped throwing new stuff at the screen even when the films weren’t all that good. One real sticking point in the film is the appearance of a character from the original Star Wars, rendered with a mix of computer animation and a body double. If this were a CGI film, he would look fantastic, but standing in a room of human actors he sticks out like a sore thumb, and one wishes they had simply recast the character. It’s not as jarring as the young Jeff Bridges in Tron: Legacy or the big brawl Keanu Reeves in The Matrix Reloaded, but at least in those films you could put the problems down to glitches in their electronic environments. Another problem it has is that the two lead characters are not quite as colourful as their fellow rebels. I wish I hadn’t heard that Tatiana Maslany of Orphan Black was up for the role of Jyn Erso, since she would have been so perfect for it, but Felicity Jones does everything she’s asked to do. At the last it over-reaches once again, trying for a special effect and just falling short, but if the film had ended thirty seconds earlier, one would have said it ended very well. ***

The Lego Batman Movie, by Seth Grahame-Smith, Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers et al. (Warner Bros) | review by Stephen Theaker

Lego Batman was one of the funniest things about The Lego Movie, against strong competition, and the three Lego Batman games were all terrifically successful (and great fun to play), so it’s no surprise to see him back in a film of his own. It doesn’t refer back to his adventures in the previous film, but Batman is still a master builder who knows that he is made of Lego and can rebuild and reshape the world around him at high speed. This is in addition to his usual Bat-powers: money, gadgets, fighting skills, acrobatics, and (in these films at least) the ability to shred on the electric guitar. For all his success, though, he’s very lonely, and this really comes to a head when Commissioner Gordon announces his retirement. Barbara Gordon (Rosario Dawson) is going to take over, having cleaned up Bludhaven (this is a film made by people who have paid attention to the comics), and she’s not so keen on vigilantes. Batman also upsets the Joker, by denying the two-way nature of their relationship, and that inspires the Joker to team up with some of the greatest villains of all time, some of them (not giving away any spoilers, because the identity of these villains was a wonderful surprise for those of us who didn’t know in advance) British. A daughter of mine described this as one of the best films she has ever seen at the cinema, and it’s hard to deny that it’s a great deal of fun. Batman himself gets a little less funny as the film goes on and, as so often happens with comedies, the plot kicks in, but his brand new Robin Dick Grayson more than makes up for that, and that the two of them are played by Will Arnett and Michael Cera (a.k.a. Job and his nephew George Michael from Arrested Development), only adds to the enjoyment, as do many references to Bat-stories of old, including the Adam West film. The animation is gob-smackingly detailed, with dozens if not hundreds of characters on the screen at the same time, the cast excellent, and the script very funny, not at all the mess you would expect from a film with five credited writers. So much about this film made me happy, and a lot of it I wouldn’t want to give away, but part of it is that Billy Dee Williams, who played Harvey Dent in Tim Burton’s Batman and Batman Returns, finally played Two-Face. It’s not the best Batman film there’s ever been, but it might be the best one not directed by Christopher Nolan. ****

Blade Runner 2049 | review by Rafe McGregor

Villeneuve’s sequel replicates, reverses, and reproduces Scott’s original(s).

I qualified my review of The Voyage of the Moonstone in TQF 55 with the admission that my emotional and financial investment in the late Joe Dever’s gamebook series precluded any objectivity in my review. I must make a similar disclaimer here, although it’s more of an emotional and intellectual investment. Watching Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner at the drive-in – probably in late 1982, the year of its release – is one of my first memories of the big screen. At the time, my main interest on the small screen was cop shows rather than sci-fi, more Miami Vice than Star Trek, and my parents had told me that Blade Runner was a cop film set in the future in order to pique my interest. Strictly speaking, they were right – blade runners are police officers – and part of the film’s continuing appeal is the way it merges elements from the crime, romance, and speculative genres. Another reason for its first cult and then mainstream popularity is the number of versions that have been screened from 1982 to 2007. If we exclude those edited for television and minor alterations in the Swedish release, the IMDb lists six. Excluding the two shown as previews in 1982 leaves: the International Cut (1982), the Domestic Cut (1982), the Director’s Cut (1992), and the Final Cut (2007). The Domestic Cut is the International Cut edited for graphic violence and the Final Cut is billed as the definitive Director’s Cut, so we can concentrate on two distinct cuts, International (which was very likely the one I saw in 1982) and Final (Blade Runner: The Final Cut [5-Disc Ultimate Collectors’ Edition] has pride of place in my DVD collection).

What is particularly remarkable about these two cuts is that although they are the same length (113 minutes) and have only minor alterations, the story they tell is almost completely different. The changes are: the removal of Deckard’s voiceover narration, the change of a single word in Batty’s dialogue, the insertion of a short dream sequence, and the removal of the happy ending. The removal of the voiceover and the insertion of the dream about a unicorn combine to represent blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) as a replicant (androids that are almost identical to human beings) rather than a human being. Significantly, he does not know that he is a replicant until the final few seconds of the film, before he escapes with Rachael (Sean Young), who is also a replicant who thinks she is a human being. The narrative of the Final Cut puts the film firmly in the speculative rather than crime genre and given my early exposure to and enjoyment of the International Cut, I was deeply disappointed when I first saw the Director’s Cut at the movies in 1992. I could see how the change improved the story in some ways, but was adamant that the original combination of detective character and science fiction setting was superior in all those that mattered. Nearly twenty years later, I attended a symposium on Film, Philosophy, and Death at the University of York where a professor from St Andrews was speaking on the themes of empathy and mortality in Blade Runner. One lecture and a brief conversation later, I was convinced I’d been wrong and eventually wrote a short essay on the merits of the Final Cut for the journal Aesthetic Investigations.

Having finally (no pun intended) wrestled the problem of the better Blade Runner into submission, I was disconcerted to hear that Ford had a role in the sequel – to the Final Cut, we presume – Blade Runner 2049. Because of their potential threat to human beings replicants are constructed with a built-in failsafe, a lifespan that is limited to four years from inception. If one watches the Final Cut after the International Cut, as many viewers will have, one may carry the suggestion from the earlier film that the latest version of replicant has been allotted a longer lifespan, but one thing that replicants do not do is age. Short or long, they are automatons rather than organisms and, as the famous scene in which Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) expires shows, they simply short-circuit and become inanimate. So, if Deckard is indeed a replicant, which was the whole point of the change from International Cut to Final Cut, then whether or not he is still alive in 2049, one thing he should not be is thirty years older. Ford was forty in 1982 and is now seventy-five, reflecting the apparent aging of Deckard thirty years after all the versions of the first film, which is set in 2019. If Deckard has aged, then Blade Runner 2049 appeared to be a retcon (short for retroactive continuity) rather than a sequel or reboot. My concerns were amplified by Alien: Covenant (reviewed in TQF 60), where Scott (credited as executive producer of Blade Runner 2049) almost completely disregarded the narrative arc set up by Prometheus in the alleged sequel to the Alien prequel. As the opening date of the Blade Runner sequel drew nearer, further alarm bells were sounded with the release of Nexus: 2036, a six minute short that explained what had happened in the thirty years between the two films. I studiously avoided watching or reading about this, all the while wondering why, if there was no retcon, any explanation was required. When Digital Spy chipped in with ‘Rutger Hauer doesn’t understand why a Blade Runner sequel even exists’ (20 September 2017), I feared all was lost, and settled on the tagline: Ridley ruins reviewer’s childhood...

A more appropriate tagline might be Ridley obsessed by original as much as reviewer. Blade Runner 2049 is both a replication (pun intended) and reversal of the Final Cut, a classic dismantling and rebuilding of a narrative that raised more questions than it answered. The protagonist of the sequel is K (Ryan Gosling) and in 2049 Los Angeles all blade runners are replicants known by serial numbers rather than names. Although there is less philosophical concern with identity in this film, there is commentary on what philosopher Kelly Oliver calls the grown-made binary opposition, where priority (humanity in this case) is always accorded to the organic over the automated. The discovery that replicants – or at least Deckard and Rachael – can reproduce is the inciting incident of the film. While hunting a rogue replicant, K discovers a buried box of bones. An autopsy identifies the cause of death as childbirth. The science of replicant reproduction is never explained – indeed, unlike HBO’s Westworld for example, there was very little scientific explanation or under-the-skin revelation in The Final Cut – so it seems we must rely on a kind of Jurassic Park-style “life will find a way” to suspend disbelief. In an even closer combination of replication and reversal, Deckard’s discovery that he is really a replicant courtesy of an origami unicorn is mirrored here courtesy of a toy horse (relatively early in the film).

Blade Runner 2049 constantly refers back to the Final Cut, to such an extent that my concerns about it merely being part of a franchise are entirely unfounded. If anything, the only potentially significant fault in the film is that it is too obviously, faithfully, and closely a sequel. In consequence, I find it hard to imagine a viewer who hasn’t seen (or doesn’t remember) either the Final or International Cuts being able to appreciate (and perhaps even understand) Blade Runner 2049. This is not merely the case for the represented sequence of events, but for the shots, scenes, settings, music, mood, and characters. Dennis Villeneuve has been particularly ingenious with respect to character, performing a complex and satisfying deconstruction of the roles in the prequel such that, for example, K is not only a replication of (or equivalent to) Deckard, but a hybrid of Deckard and Batty. Similarly, Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) – personal-assistant-cum-chief-of-staff to Niander Wallace (the new Tyrell, played by Jared Leto) – combines Rachael’s vulnerability with Pris’s (Daryl Hannah) deadliness in combat (although there is also a Pris look-alike who appears to share her predecessor’s function as a “pleasure model”). The revisiting and inversion twists and turns in on itself so that where Deckard was supposed to hunt Rachael but helped her, Luv is supposed to help K but hunts him. In yet another success, the story engages as both science and detective fiction, with the mystery of the replicant child becoming more complicated as the narrative progresses. Like the various Blade Runners, the film is deeply philosophical, exploring less the question of what it means to be human and more the question of how to be human: how memory, perspective, and psychological reality construct and sustain individuality.

There is a hint of retcon when Wallace confronts Deckard, but this is merely a tantalising suggestion rather than a second undoing of the plot of the International Cut and Blade Runner 2049 is ultimately a paradigmatic sequel, a model to which future directors and authors should aspire. The work provides an almost continuous and near perfect play of similarity and difference that is both similar enough to capture all that audiences enjoyed about the originals and different enough to delight, intrigue, and compel. Blade Runner 2049 is so essentially a sequel, however, that it is likely to leave most if not all new viewers nonplussed, as I noted above. The only fault from my personal point of view is that the appearance of the septuagenarian Ford is neither explained nor even commented upon. Perhaps those replicants who can reproduce must also suffer the indignities of old age and even the despair of death? Life has, it seems, found a way with one hand and taken away with the other.*****        

Assassin’s Creed, by Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper and Bill Collage (Ubisoft et al.) | review by Jacob Edwards

if you like eagles* flying

if you like lots of fighting

if you like people liable to jump from

the tops of high places

their options like eyelids, unbatted

surviving, unflappable, by means of –

[cut away]

why, i’d say this just might be for you



if you like falcons* flying

and jeremy irons

if you value high orders of god corporate

cluelessness, science divine

in its improbability

plots lines that spew from computer screens

proving the existence of game theory

really, this could be for you



if you like your hawks* flying

if you like your films stylish

if you like your macguffins quite rounded

your heroes brought low

but still bearded, gruff, cut from a mould

if you like all the conflicts to stay unresolved

’til the sequel that’s stealing the plot

well, what ho! this’ll do



if turkeys* are flying, if you stand to decry

but you find yourself writing reviews

with a semblance of rhyme

in the hope your denial won’t show

and that no one will find out you didn’t despise it

console yourself knowing the trailer with matt damon

blank-faced and fighting off dragons in china

probably gave you perspective (false positive)

rose-tinting all you’d expect to find dire



* despite prolonged opportunity, this viewer failed properly to distinguish

It | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Cinematic take on King classic needs more Pennywise, less Kumbaya.

Viewer responses to the 1990 miniseries It typically evoke some variation of “not great”. So it was with much fanfare that the film version of Stephen King’s chunky 1986 novel surfaced. According to both critics and the general audiences, the film has lived up to the hype.

It does offer a brilliant portrayal of the infamous Pennywise the Dancing Clown and captures the spirit of growing up in the late eighties. However, the structural glue that holds the film together is a bit weak, and in more than one scene, the film dips into a sentimentality incompatible with modern horror masterpieces.

A year after his brother Georgie disappears, child protagonist Bill Denbrough and his outcast friends attempt to find the missing boy. As the group navigates King’s fictitious Derry, Maine, it discovers the evil responsible for the horrific incidents that assail the town every twenty-seven years.

The opening scene, in which Pennywise/It (Bill Skarsgård) lures Georgie into the sewer, is cinematic magic. Skarsgård’s nuanced delivery puts the drooling, unstable Pennywise in the same league as Heath Ledger’s Joker. With his fluctuating vocals and eye colors, Pennywise is hard to pin down. Is he a friendly clown or a diabolical fiend? One thing is certain – he is not human. Alas, this scene is arguably the best in a film that sacrifices such intimate dialogue for demented attacks. The filmmakers should have let Skarsgård talk more.

Nevertheless, most of Pennywise’s attempts to terrify the children are engaging. In one scene, he crashes a meeting in Bill’s garage using means both subtle and blatant. In another, he transforms into a headless reanimated corpse that stumblingly yet quickly chases a boy through a library.

It is also a coming-of-age story about a group of friends and the problems they face, such as parental abuse and peer bullying. The film explores the growing attraction between the stuttering Bill and Beverly Marsh, the group’s only female. The film’s most entertaining character is Richie Tozier, a potty-mouthed smart aleck whose Coke-bottle glasses exaggerate his bold and often humorous comments. Often though, the acting among the children takes a turn for the worse. The dramatic speeches don’t register and expressed grief or concern is sometimes laughable. Additionally, group hugs and holding hands in a circle seem more fitting for a kids’ movie than a horror film. And yet, these characters are kids, and nerdy kids at that.

Still, It is worth seeing for Skarsgård’s performance. Perhaps in the sequel, he’ll get more dialogue. – Douglas J. Ogurek ****

Annabelle: Creation | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Well-choreographed scares without the long wait.

Watching Annabelle: Creation, the latest installment in The Conjuring (2013) universe, is kind of like going to an amusement park with thrill rides. While you’re waiting in line, not much is happening. These are typically the scenes in which characters are talking. But then, there are the times when you experience the exhilaration of the ride. In this film, directed by David F. Sandberg, it’s when you’re looking into a dark space, focusing on an inanimate figure, or hiding with a character as something approaches. At both the park and the theater, the overall experience depends on how long the lines are. Fortunately, unlike its immediate predecessor Annabelle (2014) and more like The Conjuring, the pre-prequel Annabelle: Creation doesn’t make one wait long to get on the rides . . . and there are quite a few.

The film takes place in the mid-1950s. Twelve years after their daughter Bee dies, doll maker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his bedridden wife Esther (Miranda Otto) allow a group of orphaned girls and Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) to take up residence in their rural home. The girls find Bee’s creepy-looking doll Annabelle, which was crafted by Samuel. The majority of Annabelle: Creation consists of the girls, especially the physically disabled Janice and her friend Linda, wandering the home and getting freaked out.

Most of the film’s attempts at character-driven drama and relationship exploration end up rather dull and clichéd. For instance, Sister Charlotte takes Janice’s confession, or Janice and Linda engage in overly mature dialogue about how they’re looking out for each other. One exception is LaPaglia’s Samuel Mullins, the tight-lipped bereaved father. In one scene, his attempt to bond with Janice shows how insensitive and volatile he is. In another, he stops outside the girls’ bedroom and, hammer in hand, stares at them for a bit too long.

But all this is no more than a means to pass from one scare scene to the next. That the entire story takes place at one homestead testifies to the filmmakers’ skills—they know how to tweak lighting, prop placement, and sound (or absence of it) to keep the viewer on edge. Though this film does not instill the lasting terror of some of the last couple decades’ scariest pictures, its abundance of jump scares may evoke more screams.

In one strong scene, Linda shoots a ball connected to a string into a dark room, then reels back the ball. Later, the camera focuses on a scarecrow with a burlap sack head while the lights slowly turn off and on. And there are plenty of lingering shots of Annabelle. She is wide-eyed, pigtailed, and rosy-cheeked. She is also wicked disturbing. – Douglas J. Ogurek ****

Read Douglas’s review of The Conjuring or The Boy (2016), another recommended film in the creepy doll subgenre.

Spectral, by George Nolfi (Netflix) | review by Stephen Theaker

James Badge Dale (24, The Pacific) here plays Clyne, a character quite similar to the chap he played in the underwatched spy show Rubicon. There he was an extremely intelligent analyst who grew concerned about the patterns he was beginning to see, and he stayed for the most part in his office. Here, on the other hand, he is an extremely intelligent engineer who gets pulled away from his usual work at a DARPA lab to address a problem in the field. There is a civil war in Moldova, at some point in what appears to be the near future, and American peacekeepers on the ground have been seeing things through the special goggles he created: spectral things. And now the things have started to kill, leaving victims flash frozen. Once there, he meets CIA analyst Emily Mortimer and chap in charge Bruce Greenwood, and applies himself to the job. He confirms that whatever they are, they aren’t glitches in his goggles, just in time for a massive surge in their numbers. As the city falls to their attack, Clyne must work with the surviving troops to track the spectrals to their source. This is a really good little film, with an excellent cast, sort of what you might expect the Syfy channel to produce if they weren’t pumping out deliberate rubbish (enjoyable as that can sometimes be). It’s directed very nicely by Nic Mathieu, and could easily have justified itself as a cinema release, although you know that if it had been, bigger stars would probably have been cast, their pay packets requiring the movie to be more of a traditional blockbuster, and it wouldn’t have been the same. It never feels cheap (it feels not unlike a big budget Asian film), the spectrals have a interesting origin, and James Badge Dale makes a very likeable lead. It’s great that the economics of Netflix made a film like this possible, and I hope there’s more of the kind to come. ***

The Mummy | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Just leave your brain at the door and enjoy it. 

When Tom Cruise takes on a role, no matter what it is, he’s going to put his all into it—his characters are believable. In less capable hands, The Mummy, directed by Alex Kurtzman, could have been lifeless. Instead, we get a likable protagonist who smiles and sprints his way through (as Cruise so often does) a solid action film wrapped in all the creepy-crawlies, monsters, grand displays of destruction, and narrow escapes for which the most entertaining entries in the Mummy canon are known.

Adventure-seeking American soldier Nick Morton (Cruise) has a weakness for treasure hunting. He has zero interest in the cultural/historical value of the “antiquities” he seeks. So when he and fellow soldier Chris Vail (Jake Johnson) unwittingly discover the crypt of mummified Egyptian princess/murderess Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella) in northern Iraq, they’re only interested in the valuables that surround it. But bossy archeologist Dr Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis), a sexual conquest of Morton’s, understands the momentousness of the find. Alas, the crypt isn’t so much a burial site as it is a prison for Ahmanet, who made a pact with Egyptian god of disorder and violence Set, then killed her entire family so that she would gain power. Nice lady. The trio sets out to move the mummy to London. Mistake. Ahmanet chooses Morton to be the vessel for the return of Set, with whom she will take over the world.

Morton and Halsey, in their quest to stop Ahmanet—Morton refers to her as “the chick in the box”—confront a series of challenges ranging from an underwater chase featuring the reanimated corpses of Crusaders to a massive sandstorm in the middle of modern-day London. Morton also deals with an internal struggle—is he a completely self-absorbed a-hole or is he willing to make sacrifices for Halsey and others?

Russell Crowe’s professorial Dr Jekyll brings an amusingly unnecessary element to the film. Not only does Jekyll inject himself with a giant hypodermic to keep his monster at bay, but he also makes certain to show everyone in the room. The critics scoff, but the aficionados of grandiosity rejoice. And though this Jekyll has vowed to protect the world by eliminating evil, we all know he has a dark side. This is the type of film that demands it comes out.

To those who were disappointed in the film, one must ask—what did you expect? An Oscar-worthy drama? A groundbreaking fantasy film? What I expected was action, silliness, and the Cruise charisma. And that’s what I got. – Douglas J. Ogurek ****

It Comes at Night | review by Douglas J. Ogurek

Uncertainty and mistrust take the lead in post-apocalyptic realism at its best.

A sickness is on the loose. It kills quickly. Paul, Sarah, son Travis and dog Stanley hide out in an austere home within the woods. Though they’ve seen the toll the disease can take, they have no idea of the extent to which it has affected the world. And it seems like something else could be lurking out there. Then another desperate family (Will, Kim and young son Andrew) enters the home. Everyone hopes for a mutually beneficial relationship. Alas, this is a horror movie.

It Comes at Night, written and directed by Trey Edward Shults, is a believable portrayal of what happens when two families, both intent on survival and burdened by mistrust, come together in the midst of an indeterminate threat. The film combines the stripped-down, post-apocalyptic feel of The Road (2009), the backwoods locale and defensive paranoia of The Walking Dead (2010–present), the intimacy of Signs (2002), and the tension and desperation of Breaking Bad (2008–2013).

It Comes at Night relies heavily on the unknown to build tension. For instance, the film reveals very little character backstory – it doesn’t even divulge their last names – because in this world of uncertainty and immediacy, the past carries little value. More than once, the camera focuses on a frightened Travis as he looks into the forest. What is he seeing? Travis’s foreboding dreams and the many instances of light moving through darkness enhance the effect. Additionally, Shults keeps tossing in wrinkles to keep Paul (and the viewer) unsure of his guests’ true motivations.

Worth highlighting is Kelvin Harrison Jr’s portrayal of an awkward teen struggling in extraordinary circumstances. Travis eavesdrops on the home’s occupants, tries to please a severe, though caring father, and deals with a crush on Kim (a subtlety that a less thoughtful film would skip).

Shults, perhaps taking a page from the brilliant horror film It Follows (2014), was wise to insert the word “It” in the title of his film. The pronoun underscores the film’s ambiguity. What, exactly, is “It?”

Don’t expect to see a lot of “the enemy” in this film, but do remember: some of the most frightening horror films in the last couple decades have employed that very strategy. So if you, like me, delight in films like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or Paranormal Activity (2007), then you’re going to enjoy this one. – Douglas J. Ogurek *****