Month: August 2019

  • Aquaman (2018)

    Aquaman (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Thankfully, DC is finally getting the hang out of that superhero movie thing after half a dozen attempts to boot up a DCU worth enjoying. Alas, by the time you’re done with Aquaman, there’s so much stuff in that film that you’re likely to feel punch-drunk. Seriously—by the time the film mentions seven realms, some audience members will groan at the thought of having to visit all seven. The immensely colourful atmosphere and cinematography are undeniable boons, but they do contribute to the cognitive overload skirted by the film’s last act. If Aquaman has two secret weapons, they’re actor Jason Momoa, and director James Wan. Momoa has been flirting with superstardom ever since his impressive turn in the first season of Game of Thrones, but he attains his potential here with the kind of performance that his royal character warrants. Meanwhile, Wan uses his experience directing special-effects heavy horror films and one Fast and the Furious instalment to good effect, fluently using CGI and colourful cinematography to make the film’s wild imagined world credible enough to enjoy. Typical to form for superheroes tentpole films, a few name actors can be found in supporting roles, with various degrees of effectiveness. (Amber Heard: No.  Willem Dafoe: Yes!)  It’s all remarkably good considering that previous DC films couldn’t make sense of similar material, but it’s not quite a home run: At 2 hours and 23 minutes, Aquaman would have been better cutting twenty minutes and a few million dollars’ worth from its budget in order to deliver a more focused story and a more visually intelligible cinematography. In a common failure state of films with near-unlimited budgets, there’s so much stuff on screen at any given moment that it eventually gets tiresome. When nothing is held back for the climax, the climax itself feels like more of the same thing. Still, I had a much better time than expected from previous DCU films: Aquaman has more humour, more colour, more likable characters and a globetrotting plot that has far more to show than an expected underwater film would have had. (There’s even a desert sequence.)  Momoa walks away from the film as an authentic megastar with a long future in the DCU, but time will tell if he’ll be able to play an equally regal character in the future. In the meantime, there’s flickers of hope for the DCU in between this and Wonder Woman. Imperfect and uncontrolled in both cases, but a great step up from the dour early films in the series.

  • Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

    Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Netflix Streaming, August 2019) One of the joys of being a free-range film critic (Wild! Carefree! Untamed!) is bouncing between all eras of film history, unbeholden to any specific genre, commercial imperative, venue specialization or upcoming deadline. One of the better consequences of such an all-inclusive perspective is thinking perhaps a bit too much about how contemporary releases are going to age. What, of the thousands of movies released in 2018, will still be watched in 10, 25, 50, 100 years from now? What distinguishes an enduring film from one that fades away? It’s largely an academic discussion—studios make movies for their weekly box-office results and quarterly reports, not posterity (although an enduring film does mean financial returns for a longer period). Still, there are circumstances where posterity becomes an interesting question, and you can point at the Disney Animation Studio films as one case where it matters most. There are, after all, Disney fans, specialists and historians with an encyclopedic knowledge of the fifty-plus movies produced by that studio. By being part of that lineage, they endure even as comparable films have sunk back obscurity. Then there’s the ultra-timely nature of Ralph Breaks the Internet to deal with—explicitly trying itself to technological innovations (and a current-day expression) in its very title, the film courts such discussions. That it’s a rare theatrical sequel to a previous title in the Disney pantheon also raises its own questions. Ultimately, we don’t know and won’t know how well it will endure—maybe Facebook will go bankrupt tomorrow, maybe computing will change radically over the next few years, maybe a global EMP event will reduce the Internet to inert electronics for a few decades. And trying to assess a film independently of its context requires a detachment of steel. (I mean—the Disney Princesses scene is fun and all, but how will it sound in a decade?)  What can be evaluated, roughly, is how solid the film is—and on that aspect, the film is dramatically sound: the character relationships take centre stage, with the Internet providing a backdrop through which to explore timely yet enduring issues of how people interact. It’s also easy to forget that enduring films don’t always depend on timeless universality—sometimes, a perceptive period piece can be just as interesting to watch, and that’s probably how Ralph Breaks the Internet has the best chances of being fondly remembered. This being said—maybe there’s a lesson in how Ralph Breaks the Internet was widely expected to win the Best Animated Feature Film Academy Awards (all the way to some stores pre-printing celebratory material) … and lost to Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Which one of these two will be best remembered?

  • Mermaids (1990)

    Mermaids (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) As a historical coming-of-age dramedy, Mermaids defies easy assessment. Yes, it’s cute (and reportedly cuter than its original darker vision was) and occasionally off-putting (what with a consummated relationship between a 15-year-old girl and a 26-year-old man) and often contrived in ways that are only possible in movies—yet reaching for a complex depiction of women of two generations figuring out what they want to do in their lives. The casting is probably the most spectacular aspect of the film, what with Cher as the family matriarch (the word being a bit too strong here, considering her loose and friendly parenting style) over a rebellious teenager played by Winona Ryder and a younger daughter played by Christina Ricci in her screen debut. Bob Hoskins also stars as someone who could be part of the solution to their issues. But the focus here is on the mother/daughter relationship, and the chosen tone is somewhere between comedy with serious moments. It’s a good film, but not a great one—and viewers will be free to further gauge the result based on their own biases and idiosyncrasies. I’m not sure anyone will put Mermaids on their list of essential films from 1990, but it does leave a favourable impression, wraps things up satisfyingly and gets a few good performances from known performers. You don’t have to pin it down exactly to appreciate it.

  • Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

    Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2019) The latter half of the 1980s was an interesting time for American Vietnam movies. If you accept that most of the 1970s were wasted denying that there was even a war, that the early 1980s were a time for anger (as per Rambo and Chuck Norris’ Missing in Action), then the late 1980s were a grab-bag of depression (Full Metal Jacket) and acceptance (Platoon, Casualties of War), then Good Morning, Vietnam looks a lot like bargaining: “Sure, we’ll set a movie in Vietnam and acknowledge our losses, but we’ll turn it in a wacky radio jock comedy!” OK, so that’s being a bit unfair—while Good Morning, Vietnam is among the quintessential Robin Williams movies solely for the characteristic riffs he performs early on (you can feel the script stop and the improv begin), it also sets the stage for a more sober look at the conflict in the film’s last third, as our observer protagonist finally feels involved in the events. The result is still a provocative blend of comedy to ease viewers into a somewhat even-handed depiction of the war, deftly using Williams’ natural gift to make a film that would have been impossible with another actor. While the focus is often on the comedy, director Barry Levinson doesn’t skimp on the portrayal of the war itself—there’s a twenty-second tracking shot of helicopters at the end of the “It’s a Wonderful World” sequence that would fit in any other Vietnam movie, comedy or not. There is a formulaic nature to Good Morning, Vietnam, sure, but it’s more than offset by a successful execution. The result is still a gripping, funny, very enjoyable film even decades later.

  • Missing in Action (1984)

    Missing in Action (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Let’s not mince words: Missing in Action is not a good movie. It’s not subtle. It’s created to cash in on a very specific sub-strain of American pathology, which is the desire to win all the wars they’ve ever been involved in, even if they have to rewrite history to do it. And yet, despite the low-budget and even lower imagination, Missing in Action may very well be a movie of historical importance. As the story goes, James Cameron’s treatment for what would later become Rambo: First Blood Part II was floating around Hollywood, and one of the production companies interested, the low-rent Cannon group, decided to create a new script out of the idea. But The Cannon Group was not interested in what can be laughingly called the sophistication of the second Rambo film: Here, there are no double-crosses from Americans: Everything is a straightforward jingoistic power fantasy in which American firepower defeat the Vietnamese at last and erase the national embarrassment. It’s straightforward to the point where it becomes iconic, and the film is worth seeing for no other reason than the classic unironic shot in which Chuck Norris inexplicably emerges from a river, big gun blazing. Understandably, Missing in Action became a rich source of inspiration for the second Hot Shots! parody. Amazingly enough, it just may be Norris’s best film—certainly the one where the budget is high enough, the distance between persona and character is slimmest, and the one where self-awareness is kept to a minimum. It was an integral part of the Reaganesque might-make-right action/war movies of the decade, and seemingly runs on pure distilled American pride. Again: I’m not saying that Missing in Action is a good movie … but anyone interested in 1980s Hollywood has to see this.

  • The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

    The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) If I had to boil down a review of The Barefoot Contessa to two words, they would be Bogart/Gardner, with Mankiewicz as the third word. Not much else is needed considering that the point of the film is to see Humphrey Bogart as a movie director witnessing the rise and fall of a Spanish dancer (Ava Gardner) groomed to become a movie star. Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the film is a Hollywood tragedy with strong ties to the European aristocracy, and much of the film’s second-half drama comes from entanglements with an Italian count. Savvily taking viewers from Hollywood familiarity to the escapist melodrama of the old-world, The Barefoot Contessa was part of the “Hollywood on the Tiber” movement which saw studio movies shot in Rome. The Technicolor production values are impressive, and they all serve to reinforce the film’s old-school glamour: in some ways, you can see the film as being very near the apex of the studio system and the style in which old-school Hollywood built itself. It is melancholic, however: the ending is a downer (in keeping with a film that flashes back from a funeral) and Bogart’s character has far less to do than you’d think from his top billing: he is a witness to events outside his control, a chronicler of someone else’s story. (There’s an interesting double-bill to be made here with In a Lonely Place as a glum Bogart-as-filmmaker mini-festival.) Off-kilter touches like that are why I keep going back to Mankiewicz movies—they clearly understood the way that Hollywood worked and used that to create an element of surprise or freshness. But let’s not fool ourselves: The Barefoot Contessa is Ava Gardner’s movie. The title of the film has become closely associated with her (she herself liked to go barefoot), and it still ranks high as a showcase for her specific brand of glamour.

  • Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929)

    Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) If you’re watching Woman in the Moon for straight narrative qualities, you’re not going to have a good time—true to form for silent movies, it’s stultifying long, narratively rough, filled with what we now recognize as clichés, and scientifically ludicrous by today’s standards. On the other hand, this is a mandatory watch for anyone interested in the (pre)history of science-fiction movies. Directed by Fritz Lang, it’s very much a companion piece to Metropolis. Written by his then-wife Thea von Harbou (who was, one notes, an authentic SF writer adapting her own work), it’s one of the very few authentic Science Fiction movies of the first half of the 20th century. It clearly intends to seriously explore what space travel could look like from the best theories of the time, and this seriousness carries in a treatment of characters that is typically overdone by modern standards, but more ambitious than many of the cut-rate horror masquerading as SF until the genre became self-aware in the 1950s. Space buffs will clearly recognize the film’s prescient use of engineering refinements that would be used in the real space race: multi-stage rockets, countdown to launch, water used as launch heat dampeners and zero-G adaptations. The science gets wonky the moment they land on the moon (which here has a breathable atmosphere), but that too could be defended by some of the wilder scientific extrapolations of the time. I wouldn’t call Woman in the Moon a particularly entertaining film, but it’s fascinating from a historical perspective.

  • Guys and Dolls (1955)

    Guys and Dolls (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) I remain amazed at how some movies can produce some consistent reactions for decades. If you look at contemporary accounts of Guys and Dolls prior to its release, the themes are similar: “What? Joseph L. Mankiewicz directs a musical featuring Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando? What craziness is this?!”  Considering that neither Mankiewicz, Simmons nor Brando ever went back to musicals after this one-off, you can get the exact same reaction well into the twenty-first century. Of course, we now have fairly entertaining stories of rivalry on the set between Brando and co-star Frank Sinatra, the latter of which was not impressed by Brando’s mumbling or singing deficiencies. (I’ll agree with Sinatra on this one.)  Guys and Dolls, seen from today’s perspective, is not entirely as slick as other musicals of the era—and Brando has the double disadvantages of not being in his element either as a singer or a comedian, his mumbling quickly becoming annoying. Sinatra is far more comfortable in going from song to jokes. The cabaret numbers are fun: I enjoyed the “Pet me Papa” cat-girl number a bit too much. Mankiewicz does relatively well in helming the production: The introduction is great, the conclusion makes good use of its impressive Times Square stage and the dice gambling scene is not bad either. The result is a bit too long at 150 minutes, but Guys and Dolls did scratch my itch for a lavish musical … and I look forward to future generations of cinephiles also asking themselves what Brando was doing in a musical.

  • Casualties of War (1989)

    Casualties of War (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) You can certainly argue that Casualties of War seldom gets as much love as other similar movies. You can even offer a few perfectly reasonable explanations for it: Coming as it did right after Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987), perhaps it couldn’t measure up to those films. Perhaps having Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn in the lead roles made it more about the actors (especially Fox, then and now better known for comedic roles) than the substance. Perhaps Brian de Palma was seen as working too far outside his element. Perhaps the subject matter of war crimes as committed by American troops was harder to take than even an unflinching description of combat hell. No matter the reason, Casualties of War isn’t as likely to be mentioned as a great Vietnam movie. (Although it is receiving a growing critical reassessment.) Now, I’m not going to be a Tarantinoesque contrarian and claim that it’s a hidden gem, but it’s probably worth a look. De Palma keeps thing humming along, Penn makes for a fierce antagonist, Fox doesn’t do too badly as a baby-faced innocent confronted with war atrocities, and the subject matter is indeed more daring than many other takes on Vietnam. It may not be the most entertaining, most evocative, most credible Vietnam film, but it comes in at a sufficiently different angle to be worth a look as a complement, not necessarily as an inferior imitation.

  • Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

    Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In Theatres, August 2019) The origin story of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw sounds like a case study for an ambitious Hollywood studio executive: what if the two biggest stars of your biggest moneymaking franchise start squabbling badly enough that it makes headlines? The obvious answer is to spin off another series to specifically showcase one of the squabbling stars and hope that the box-office keeps churning in. So it is that there’s nary a Vin Diesel to be found in Hobbs & Shaw, as the film feels free to jettison much of the increasingly burdensome “Family” of the main series in favour of focusing on the antagonistic relationship between Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and reformed terrorist Shaw (Jason Statham). This spinoff clearly takes bold leap into science fiction as the antagonist is a cyber-enhanced “Black Superman” as played by the always-incredible Idris Elba. But that’s not the least credible aspect of a film that has its protagonists escape a falling smokestack, pull a flying helicopter by their arm muscles or run down the side of a skyscraper. No, believability and physics aren’t the strong suit of Hobbs & Shaw—in keeping with the original series, this is more about quick quips, demented action sequences, celebrity cameos (including a very funny Ryan Reynolds and an amused Helen Mirren) alongside an exaggerated sense of fun. It generally works—while elements of the third act feel like a step back from the calculated insanity of the previous action sequences, the film as a whole can depend on great lead action icons and a rather cute Vanessa Kirby building on the good reviews she received in Mission Impossible: Fallout. It’s not as good or as involving as much of the mainline series, but Hobbs & Shaw does the trick in between other instalments.

    (Second viewing, Streaming, December 2025) A second look at Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw doesn’t surprisemuch. It’s still expendable in the context of the series, still more comic than thrilling, still a fine showcase for Johnson, Statham and Kirby, still a decently entertaining watch. But it leaves even less of an impression the second time around. No every bit works together (I’m still more puzzled than convinced by the Ryan Reynolds two-scenes cameo) and there’s a sense that there’s too much comedy and too much wild techno-thrills — not to mention CGI action that’s far less grounded than the practical-effects-heavy mainline series. It works, but in keeping with the post-Furious 7 era, there’s a sense that it’s never going to be as good as the series’ finest films.

  • Free Willy (1993)

    Free Willy (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2019) I can guarantee you that anyone who was alive and watching TV back in 1993 can tell you all about Free Willy’s climax: Reprinted in posters, every single trailer and most TV reviews of the film is the Big Shot of the film: An Orca jumping over a barrier on its way to freedom. That’s … pretty much the entire film. Marketing strategies for family films do not rely on surprise: they inform parents precisely of what they’re likely to get at the end of the film’s duration, so it’s not as bad as you’d think to reassure everyone, young or not so young, that the Willy will be freed at the end. (Which reminds me of the other reason why the film is still remembered: an endless decades-long snickering over the film’s title.)  For anyone with higher critical standards, director Simon Wincer’s Free Willy is not all that pleasant to watch: clearly aimed at the younger set, it sports a stock teenage protagonist, a cute animal sidekick, cartoonish villains and almost exactly the plot that can be deduced from the poster. It’s executed decently enough for its target audience, but does not hold any surprises or interest to anyone outside of it. Made of that what you will—Free Willy remains a movie made for a very specific audience.

  • They Live (1988)

    They Live (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2019) It’s a shame that writer-director John Carpenter never got to carry his extraordinary peak of creativity beyond the mid-1990s—At a time when genre cinema became wilder and more prevalent, it seems a waste that he never truly enjoyed the infinite capabilities of digital filmmaking or the far more genre-literate audience. Still, he can be proud of having produced something like eight genre masterpieces in the twenty-year period between 1975 and 1995, and They Live is clearly one of his best. Even today, there’s a biting ferociousness to the film’s social criticism, recasting a rigged economic system in a metaphor of alien invasion and exploitation. The metaphor of reading secret alien messages (“Consume!”) with the right viewing equipment is so simple and yet still incredibly effective. Of course, there’s more than just a consumerism critique here: the film works because it features an everyday man (a great casting choice in ex-wrestler Roddy Piper) fighting back against the oppressors. The film probably peaks during the lengthy fight between Piper and Keith David—the third act seems overly familiar, and actually quite conventional when compared to some of the incendiary material that preceded it—I mean, the bank shootout sequence can be incredibly disturbing if it wasn’t for greedy aliens being involved. Great one-liners and a straightforward delivery of satirical material still work well today. They Live is still a classic, and its critique of neoliberal Reaganomics hasn’t been invalidated in the slightest by thirty plus years of perspective. Carpenter could retire on a mere handful of his movies, and They Live makes quite a claim at being among his essentials.

  • Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)

    Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2019) There are some odd corners in Francis Ford Coppola’s filmography, and I think that Tucker: The Man and His Dream just may be one of my favourites. Starring Jeff Bridges, this is the story (adapted from real events) of Preston Tucker, who tried launching his automobile company in the late 1940s. The real story is not particularly inspiring on the surface: Tucker manufactured 51 automobiles, got sued for fraud, and died a few years later without having achieved more than an initial success. But in this movie, Hollywood goes to work with its movie magic: Tucker is portrayed as taking on the Big Three automobile manufacturers, his board of directors, skeptics, governments and yellow journalism. He’s portrayed as a crusader for automobile safety, for innovation, even for the very notion of a better future. It ends with a triumphant parade of sorts, as fifty Tuckers are brought in Chicago to demonstrate what he was able to achieve. Even knowing the real story isn’t enough to wipe the smile off our faces while watching this unusually cheerful feature. Tucker: The Man and His Dream was a passion project for Coppola, whose father invested in the company and who spent decades developing the project. His enthusiasm is infectious, as the film easily charms viewers into accepting its premise without question. It helps that the cinematography is a variation of bright colourful vintage nostalgia, everything appearing just a bit shinier and better than usual. It’s enough to make anyone wonder why Coppola didn’t make more feel-good movies.

  • From the Earth to the Moon (1958)

    From the Earth to the Moon (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Oh, what a terrible, terrible disappointment. I should probably come clean right away and admit that Jules Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune is one of my favourite novels. I must have re-read it three or four times at a decade’s interval (which reminds me that I’m overdue for another reread)—a childhood favourite that still works in adulthood due to its mixture of clipped humour and engineering details. In the right hands, it would make a fantastic movie. But From the Earth to the Moon director Byron Haskin did not have the right hands, or if he did, he wasn’t given what was necessary to do the novel justice. My disappointment is so acute that I’m not going to get into the details, but this 1958 version of the story is a dismal shadow of its true potential. It removes the fun and the spectacle of the original novel and replaces it with clichés and bad ideas. Getting rid of Michel Ardan is inexplicable given the theatricality of the character. Inventing “Power X” and cheaply demonstrating it in a boring quarry is a terrible idea. Adding an antagonist is useless. Screwing up the novel’s third act is a travesty. And so on. I’m usually tolerant when it comes to film adaptations and older movies but this is not acceptable. What a waste and what a disappointment. Too bad for George Sanders and Joseph Cotton, who usually do much better. From the Earth to the Moon is not even enjoyable on its own terms, let alone as an adaptation.

  • Mortal Engines (2018)

    Mortal Engines (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) I’m not sure how future movie critics will regard the 2010s, but if I can give hints as an early commentator, I’d suggest poking at the commoditization of wonder. Never have there been as many fantasy movies, and never have they been so unremarkable. We see, on a monthly basis, sights and stories that would have amazed earlier generations of moviegoers limited by a lack of genre awareness and primitive special effects technology. And yet, high-imagination effects-filled movies such as Mortal Engines can come and go without making any significant cultural impact, digested almost instantly by an industry that drives viewers in seats week after week. As someone who read a lot of written Science Fiction, it’s almost incomprehensible how Mortal Engines can be reduced as a mere SFX-heavy movie of the week and be forgotten so soon after. This is, after all, a movie featuring moving cities, running on gigantic threads in a post-apocalyptic landscape and capturing/absorbing/digesting smaller cities along the way. This is a big-scale fantasy adventure, meant to inaugurate a trilogy of movies and wow the socks off its audience. And yet … we’ve been conditioned to watch and move on, looking for the next big thrill. To be fair, let’s not pretend that Mortal Engines is particularly well-packaged. Limited by its literary origins of a script adapted by a book series from Philip Reeve, the film overstuffs its wonders, zig-zags some peculiar paths and doesn’t always make sense once it gets to its cartoonishly evil antagonists. It’s also very YA-flavoured, meaning that it has a hard time distinguishing itself from the YA-dystopia subgenre that crashed so miserably in the mid-2010s (See above for “commodification of wonder”). As a result, Mortal Engines had miserable box-office returns that made it a high-profile failure and cemented that we will never ever get the screen adaptations of the three other books in the series. (Which may be for the better, as a plot summary of those books gets weird in the way that many YA series eventually get.)  Still, if I may be allowed a bit of a contrarian opinion, I really liked maybe half of Mortal Engines. The half that has London-the-city rampaging over the European countryside led by Christian Rivers’s direction. The half with the steampunk inventions coming straight out of the books, the derring-do of the characters, the wall-to-wall special effects, the engaging actors. I suspect that the other half, story-wise, is still too close to the eccentric books to truly flourish as a movie. And that’s really too bad, because generations of filmmakers would have killed to get the means that Mortal Engine squanders to little impact. If the 2020s should head in one direction, it’s calming down with the malleable digital reality of movies and figuring out interesting stories to tell.