I have eggnog all over my Film Critic pants. I need to wipe them off for another week of film releases!
Four new movies are featured in this week's capsule (short) movie reviews for Friday, December 13, 2024. (For exclusive video versions of these weekly reviews, become a paid subscriber on Patreon!)
1) THE END
Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer's first feature narrative is a strikingly original post-apocalyptic musical that isn't really post-apocalyptic and is definitely not a musical. It exists in its own insane universe that certainly doesn't conform to any easy genre.
So, 25 years into the future, environmental collapse has left the Earth uninhabitable. A wealthy family (who definitely contributed to the collapse) is confined to their palatial bunker, where they struggle to maintain hope and a sense of normalcy by clinging to the rituals of daily life.
The arrival of a stranger upends their happy routine. The son, a naïve twenty-something who has never seen the outside world, is fascinated by the newcomer, and suddenly, the delicate bonds of blind optimism that have held this wealthy clan together begin to fall apart.
A solid cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Lennie James, and Tim McInnerny do a brave and excellent job juggling the weird tone shifts and navigating through the odd structure to create some genuine emotion in the madness.
The political allegory is not very subtle, and the acting style is overtly exaggerated in a fully realized underground world that is stunning in its design and look. The film has an otherworldly feel, not just in the production design and cinematography (one of the most beautifully shot films of the year) but also in the storytelling and performance style.
Then there are the singularly curious musical numbers featuring unwieldy songs by Joshua Schmidt (music) and Oppenheimer (lyrics) that seem explicitly written to confound any human, expecting little things like verses, choruses, or even melody.
It's all the more challenging because most of the cast can't really sing, and they have been directed to emote in the most odd and least lyrical way possible.
The results are bizarre, to say the least. Still, the musical numbers are undeniably compelling and fascinating, just like the rest of this crazy, original, and brazen work that I really dug. I expect most of the movie-going public will hate this thing, and I understand why.
It's also two and a half hours long, so strap in, folks. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
2) MARIA
The latest from the uniquely talented and wholly original director Pablo Larrain is a massive disappointment following his two previous outstanding Tragic Female Biopics: "Jackie" with Natalie Portman and "Spencer" with Kristen Stewart.
The third in Larrain's trilogy about important 20th-century women follows legendary opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) around Paris during her final years in the 1970s.
Structured around an interview that Callas may or may not be doing with a reporter/writer (Kodi Smit-McPhee), the movie covers her attempts at singing again, reviving her career, and her interactions with business associates are also explored.
While her romance with Aristotle Onassis is examined, her close relationship with the two servants in her lonely house (Pierfrancesco Favino and Alba Rohrwacher) is truly the emotional core of the story.
The stylish and intimate compassion, lovely detail, and quiet dignity Larrain brought to every frame of "Jackie" and "Spencer" are nowhere to be found here. This is a forced, stiff exercise in ego-stroking that exists only to get Jolie an Oscar nomination for Best Actress, just like Portman and Stewart did before her.
Every scene is specifically and crassly designed to only showcase Jolie in some way, even at the expense of the story, the mood, and, most annoyingly, her co-stars. Any emotion the audience could feel is tied to Jolie's heavy dialogue delivery, forced facial movements, or teary close-ups. She is very, very, very sad. Get it??? Now, give her an Oscar.
The cinematography, set design, and costumes are outstanding, as is the use of locations. The music is magnificent, and hearing Callas's actual voice throughout the film is the real highlight of this movie.
Otherwise, this is just a dull, manipulative, empty film in which a great director's talent is stripped away in favor of an actress's desperate need for recognition and praise. As a huge fan of Larrain's other work, I was depressed when I walked out of the theater. - ⭐️1/2
This fully animated prequel to J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy is produced by Peter Jackson and his company and directed by Japanese artist and animator Kenji Kamiyama. This film is in the sorry position of inevitably being compared to Jackson's masterwork, and it doesn't even come close.
Set about 180 years before the events of Jackson's trilogy, "The War of the Rohirrim" tells the story of Helm Hammerhand (voiced by Brian Cox), a legendary king of Rohan, and his family as they defend their kingdom against the Dunlendings and their army.
The main focus is on the character of Hera (Gaia Wise), the tomboy daughter of Helm who will eventually step up to command the forces against the enemy, the supernatural surroundings, and the challenging terrain, all while juggling relationships and romance.
It's all been done before and better. While the Japanese-inspired animation is lovely and evocative, and several action sequences are nicely engineered, the film never really comes together.
With a 137-minute running time, the film is much too long. It takes forever to get going, especially since the story is so cliched and familiar. Once the action kicks in, the film does pick up and moves nicely, only to add needless complications in the second half that slow things down again.
It's not a bad film. It's reasonably entertaining and has some fun callbacks and allusions to Tolkien's books and characters. The real problem is that this thing has no business being a theatrical release and taking up space in movie auditoriums across the country.
Like so many recent trips to Middle Earth, this project has straight-to-streaming written all over it. This animated lark should be programmed to be shown right after an episode, "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power," and not on the big screen. - ⭐️⭐️
So, I have to preface this review by reminding everyone that when it comes to the majority of superhero or comic book movies, or MCU films, or DC things, or SonyVerse projects, or any of that other shit, I usually have no idea what the hell is going on while I watch them, and I couldn't care less.
Now, having gotten that out of the way, the new film "Kraven the Hunter" is a standalone origin story about one of Spider-Man's greatest villains, which was something I had to be told after I sat through the thing.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson plays the title role. Depending on the project, he is either one of the worst or one of the best actors on the planet. Unfortunately, he is the former in this nonsense.
The film tells the tale of Sergei Kravinoff (Taylor-Johnson) and his complex relationship with his ruthless Russian gangster father Nikolai (played HILARIOUSLY by Russell Crowe) and his younger brother Dmitri (the very creepy and very funny Fred Hechinger).
It begins with a prison break sequence that makes absolutely no sense and then goes back in time 16 years to show how, after being attacked, mauled by a lion, and left for dead, a young Sergei is brought back to life thanks to some voodoo potion poured on his wounds by a mysterious young woman named Calypso.
Back in the present, Kraven, now armed with super-hunting powers, massive strength, speed, and agility, tries to keep his brother safe by battling a bunch of villains, including a guy who can turn into a rhino (Alessandro Nivola) and another guy called "The Foreigner" (Christopher Abbott), whose superpower seems to be that he can count to three in order to distract people.
Kraven also teams up with a voodoo priestess/lawyer (a wildly miscast Ariana DeBose), fights his father, makes unfunny wisecracks, and hunts down the baddies with the help of wild animals.
OK, this movie is terrible, really, really terrible. It was supposed to be released over a year ago and is probably the last of the dreaded Marvel/Sony products.
The script, which was rewritten several times, is unbelievably bad and is loaded with nothing—and I mean nothing—but exposition—even in the final scene!
The characters are vague, one-dimensional, and really poorly written, but they are truly hilariously entertaining to watch, as performed by a group of great actors who have no business being in this movie.
In fact, this whole stupid-ass movie is remarkably entertaining, despite being one of the dumbest, most poorly conceived and giant misfires of 2024.
I really did have a blast watching this crap, and it is crap, very well-directed crap (with some very cool, exciting, and sharply put-together action sequences in it), but it is crap nonetheless.
Taylor-Johnson is vacuity personified, as he saunters around with his arms sticking out to show off his buffness and barely seems to understand English. The lovely and talented DeBose just appears to be incredibly uncomfortable throughout the entire movie. She is also saddled with some of the worst wigs and costumes I've seen in a major movie all year.
But, wow, the rest of the cast, who clearly read this shitty script and decided to have a blast, are unbelievably entertaining to watch. Crowe is a riot as the evil father with a terrible accent. Abbott, who looks like he just stepped out of a John Hughes movie, is hysterical as he counts to three and tilts his head for most scenes.
Nivola is also uproariously funny as the villain who walks around for the entire running time wearing a small, trendy backpack that prevents him from turning into a rhino. So, for most of the film, his real superpower appears to be douchiness and lousy taste in fashion.
Hechinger's performance is the most interesting of the lot. He makes some of the weirdest choices both vocally (his character can perfectly mimic anyone) and physically to create one of the most inappropriately shady dudes of the film year. His weirdo performance somehow builds up to him performing "Changes" by Black Sabbath in what is easily the best moment in the entire film.
Look, I don't know anything about the movie's connection to the Spider-Man movies or the comics, and I don't care. The movie is inept twaddle, but it's undeniably entertaining and a perfect way to bring the SonyVerse films to an end, which was inevitable.
To quote my friend Scott OKen: "You can't keep making fucking Spider-Man movies without fucking Spider-Man!"
Again, this movie is crap, but because I had a good time watching this nonsense, I'm giving it - ⭐️⭐️⭐️
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