Movie Review

  • Encanto (2021)

    Encanto (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, December 2021) I really shouldn’t care all that much about what happens to a film from a gigantic multi-billion entertainment behemoth, but as of this writing, the cultural impact of the sixtieth mainline film by Disney Animation Studio is slight — Encanto, like many other films of the 2020s-so-far, has suffered from the COVID pandemic scrambling the usual marketing and release institutions of Hollywood. While new Disney movies are usually a Big Deal, this one briefly popped up in theatres (at a time of contagion-wary audiences) before finding a home on the Disney+ streaming service. As a result, it’s not clear whether it has had any cultural impact yet — quantifiable popular interest is down compared to other Disney films, and there’s a sense that it may be too closely associated with Raya and Coco to develop a distinct identity. It’s early, though — and I suspect that in time, the true winners of these strange plague times will become clearer. [December 2022: I worried needlessly: Encanto, a year later, has found its public and then some!]  It may or may not help that Encanto is, in the end, roughly of similar quality than other Disney films — the Mouse knows how to make movies, and this one is just as satisfying as most of their New Renaissance era. Not necessarily a classic, but a solid well-crafted hit with just enough to set it apart once you watch it. Heading to Columbia for inspiration, Encanto is about a family with magical powers… and the lone offspring that does not. Exceptionally cute in look and behaviour, Mirabel (ironically the name of an infamous Montréal-area airport) struggles to understand why she’s not gifted as the rest of her family, but ends up being the ideal one to investigate why their powers are slowly weakening. Clearly taking after the South American tradition of magical realism, but pushing it into, well, magical fantasy, Encanto also benefits from the musical talent of Lin-Manuel Miranda as he contributes eight songs to the film and several of its highlights. The fantastic opening “The Family Madrigal” is clearly in Miranda’s style in cadence and delivery, while the theme of “What Else Can I Do?” brings to mind Frozen’s power ballad “Let it Go.”  “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” has the film delivering some well-paced editing, rounding up the best songs of the film. As for characters, it’s tough to ignore the magical Casita taking care of the domestic needs. While I found the ending perhaps a bit too subtle in fixing the character’s thematic issues (the film clearly wasn’t going to go for “what happens after the magic fades away?”, but it could have been clearer in exposing the pre-renewal hidden conflicts.), it ages well upon reflection. I expect that Encanto will, similarly, do well in future and repeat viewings — the Disney formula is a formula, but it’s a good one that succeeds and builds trust that the next films from the studio will also be worth a look. As the sixtieth full-length Disney Animation Studio films, Encanto joins a large and illustrious group but doesn’t look out of place.

  • Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

    Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2021) I’ve seen so many Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde films by now that it takes a lot to register something distinct — Most of the remakes are alternate takes on specific aspects of the story, whether transforming the story into psychological thriller (with no physical transformation) or viewing the story from another perspective. But Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde goes for something that still feels, fifty years later, stranger and more perverse — making the murderous alter ego to the meek Doctor Jekyll as a seductive woman passing herself off as his sister. There’s a clear exploitation angle to the result — notably through some not-so-gratuitous nudity — but the subtext made overt by this change is often far more interesting than conventional takes on the same material: the female being deadlier than the male, the frisson of instant transsexuality and all that. Now, is it feminist? I have no idea, and I’m the wrong person to ask — but there’s something just a little bit needling in having Stephenson’s story reuse the femme fatale trope. Bond Girl Martine Beswick is remarkably good here, and her resemblance to Jekyll-playing Ralph Bates is used to good effect. While the first half-hour is ordinary (albeit enlivened by the story’s explicit integration of the Jack the Ripper myth, as well as the infamous Burke and Hare), the film kicks in high gear once Hyde makes her appearance. I’m not sure Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde ends on that high a note, but there’s a lot of gender-bending, expectation-subverting fun along the way for those who are familiar with the Jekyll/Hyde story.

  • From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler aka The Hideaways (1973)

    From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler aka The Hideaways (1973)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) The first hour of The Hideaways is borderline exasperating, as the film takes up the twee story of a boy and a girl escaping from their small town to hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s the kind of precocious claptrap that, for some reason, rubs me the wrong way — and since some of the worst examples of the subgenre date from the 1970s, the film seemed built to annoy from the get-go. Things pick up slightly once the two kid protagonists discover a statue in the stockrooms of the museum that may be worth a small fortune. The two kids become obsessed with proving the value of the statue, which eventually brings them to the house of an elderly woman, and viewers to the far more interesting third act of the film. The Hideaways significantly improves the moment Ingrid Bergman walks into the picture, bringing not only her usual charm, beauty and class, but the film’s most interesting character in the form of an older woman with a secret. Her character eventually lays down the film’s most interesting philosophical point about knowing a secret and eventually revealing it. That comes too late in The Hideaways to save it from an overall bad impression, but it does rescue it from complete worthlessness.

  • Bacheha-Ye aseman [Children of Heaven] (1997)

    Bacheha-Ye aseman [Children of Heaven] (1997)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, December 2021) Ugh. By now, films like Children of Heaven form their own subgenre: World-wide tales of childhood misery with incredibly low stakes highlighting exactly how much misery is involved. From Bicycle Thieves to Capharnäum, they’re a feature of nearly every oh-so-serious list of top movies of World Cinema, and that’s when or why I had to see the film in order to check that mark. It doesn’t mean I had to like it, though. While I can see all of the elements used by writer-director Majid Majidi to make the film’s young protagonists likable, and while I can’t help but appreciate the film’s success in taking us to a poor neighbourhood in late-1990s Iran (as a pair of shoes becomes what the protagonists are fighting for), this is not the kind of film I sit through happily. Its inclusion on the IMDB Top-250 is the sole reason why I saw it — that checkmark having been checked, I’m not going to spend more time thinking about it.

  • Santa Claus (1959)

    Santa Claus (1959)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) There are a lot of Santa Claus movies, but the 1959 version is… special. I understood that fanfic is a natural human impulse when I saw my daughter play with her dolls and invent stories without a care for intellectual property or storytelling coherence, and this film feels a lot like that — Why not have Santa and Merlin fight against The Devil for the goodness of the Earth’s children? Trust me — it gets weirder, such as an incredibly stereotypical succession of kids celebrating Christmas from around the world. Falling into the “you’ve got to see it to believe it,” this Santa Claus is not a good movie — produced in Mexico with a terrible budget by writer-director René Cardona, ugly visuals and very strange ideas about pacing, directing or screenwriting, it’s a curio made even more remarkable by its age — While smashing together characters from various sources for fun is not unusual these days (The French-Canadian horror channel FrissonTV even had a 2021 Christmas special where the antagonist is no less than Jesus himself,) it feels considerably weirder coming from the 1950s. It’s infamous for being featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000, but you don’t need wisecracking robots to see the film’s considerable shortcomings. I’m not sure I’m recommending it… but Santa Claus is something all right.

  • Winter A-Go-Go (1965)

    Winter A-Go-Go (1965)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Cinematic history is littered with low-end movies aping better movies—or at least more commercially successful ones. None of those movies are essential… but they can be worth a curious look in the right mood. Winter A-Go-Go is one of those mid-1960s films aping the success of the “Beach Party” teenage comedies — twentysomething actors playing younger characters, plenty of girls, some singing and dancing, and not much in terms of plot. The original Beach Party films are not very good, and this copy is even worse: Heading over to Lake Tahoe for some unconvincing snow scenery, much of the action focuses on a mountain lodge being refurbished into a teenage hangout. Except that the characters are dull, the stereotypes are rampant, the comedy doesn’t work and the musical acts are hardly worth remembering. Director Richard Benedict’s work can work as a mildly entertaining anthropological experience to what filmmakers thought was important to mid-1960s teenagers as well as an ordinary time capsule of what was cool back then. The straightforward “men lust after women, women know what’s up” dynamics can feel refreshingly uncomplicated but that’s true to the point of mindlessness — you can watch the film in vain waiting for something more. While unmemorable, the musical numbers can be evocative of a bygone era, so at least there’s that. Still — you’d be better served watching those Beach Party movies you haven’t yet seen yet — Winter a-Go-Go is practically obscure these days for a reason.

  • Eskiya [The Bandit] (1996)

    Eskiya [The Bandit] (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, December 2021) Patriotic vote manipulation being very much a thing, I was skeptical of The Bandit’s ranking on the IMDB Top-250 — it wouldn’t be the first film to earn a spot on the list through a concerted effort. But while I don’t think it’s worth a place in the Top-250, I can see why the film was acclaimed in Turkey back in 1996, and why it still works nowadays. There’s an admirable use of genre elements in service of a weighty story here, as a man is freed from prison after a 35-year stay, and immediately sets out to avenge himself. As a simply countryside bandit heading to Istanbul to track down the man who ratted on him, he’s out of his element… and yet old enough to act as a mentor to a younger man. Things get complicated once he becomes aware of organized crime in the capital, and realizes that his lifelong enemy has become one of Turkey’s richest men. There’s a quasi-Scorsese-esque intent to writer-director Yavuz Turgul’s film, as it mixes a crime story with a distinctive protagonist, a very serious dramatic intent, some interesting camera work (including a nightclub one-shot sequence that screams for acknowledgement) and a conclusion that reaches for some cosmic tragedy. The Bandit’s pacing is deathly slow in its first half-hour, but things progressively pick up throughout the entire film until the fireworks of the conclusion. I’m not at all convinced that it’s one of the best 250 movies ever made, but it’s a good one, and my favourite Turkish film so far.

  • Spirit Untamed (2021)

    Spirit Untamed (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Paradoxically, the reason Spirit Untamed interested me is also why it left me wanting. My daughter being the right age for it, I ended up seeing the majority of the Spirit Riding Free TV show — a rather pleasant and fun computer-animated series about three girls growing up in a small Western town, with plenty of horses to ride along the way. It was better than most family shows I have seen over the past few years. So, the news of a new Spirit movie based on the series was the kind of thing to become mandatory viewing in my household. Except that… well, Spirit Untamed essentially retells the beginning of the series with similar (but different) characters, except with a bigger budget, some “name” voice talent and a better understanding of where the story could go. It’s not badly made — the computer animation quality is significantly higher, even if not up to the standards set by most theatrically released computer-animated films. It’s likable enough: the lead character is a plucky young woman, she’s surrounded by other good supporting characters and the film runs through the motions of a series-pilot adventure well enough. But why should we bother? The six seasons of the series are still there, and the visual style of the film isn’t that different from the series — so why does it exist? It’s neither a sequel nor a complete reboot, and I’m not even measuring it against the original 2002 film. “It’s okay, I guess” is a stupefyingly low bar to clear for a film these days, and Spirit Untamed barely justifies its own existence.

  • Saturn 3 (1980)

    Saturn 3 (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (TubiTV Streaming, December 2021) I barely recall Saturn 3 from my childhood, but considering the racy violent content, it’s probably less for remembering the story than because it was a science-fiction film at a time when I was really interested in those. Ironically, the film’s plot is the kind of thing better suited to undemanding young audiences than anyone with the slightest appetite for complexity or subtlety. The most amazing thing about it for a middle-aged cinephile is probably the cast and (some) of the crew — featuring no less than Kirk Douglas and Farah Fawcett as a “don’t ask questions about their 31-year age difference” couple of scientists whose existence is disrupted by a dangerous man (Harvey Keitel!) and his homicidal robot. Saturn 3 is also directed by musical legend Stanley Donen, from a script by acclaimed novelist Martin Amis and Academy-Awards-winning Star Wars production designer John Barry. That’s one spectacular pedigree, but the difficult making of the film was reportedly an adventure that barely explains the mess on-screen. The story feels remarkably cheap and redundant, once reduced to the most basic gibberish of a killer robot attacking a young woman. The production design is terrible, with robots not even passing the indulgent muster of early-1980s special effects. Some of the early world-building is intriguing, but the script feels like a race to the known value of a killer-robot conclusion. Douglas, Keitel and Fawcett look embarrassed (something confirmed by Keitel’s later comments about the film) and by the time the film ends, the audiences won’t feel any prouder. So much talent for so little result — Saturn 3 is the kind of naïve Science Fiction film that makes the good one look so much better in comparison.

  • Red Notice (2021)

    Red Notice (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, December 2021) Clearly, Netflix now has the money to buy not only a constellation of low-end independent movies, but the kind of audience-friendly high-budget releases that used to be the bastion of Hollywood studios. Sporting multiple shooting locations around the world, a very audience-friendly quippy script, copious special effects and (more importantly) three authentic stars with clear screen personas, Red Notice couldn’t be better titled — a notice to Hollywood that the big red N is out to eat their lunch. Acquired after a bidding war, Red Notice is also a further reminder that the universe of serious buyers for expensive film projects now includes not only the major studios, but a bevy of tech giants primarily looking for a stream of content rather than any affinity for cinema, let alone artistic ambitions. As a project, Red Notice is a good sell — the kind of standalone action/adventure skirting the edges of comedy, driven by characters that lean into the screen persona of likable stars. Dwayne Johnson plays a taciturn muscleman, Ryan Reynolds quips his way through the film and Gal Gadot looks gorgeous — you can’t really ask for much more in terms of audience appeal. Put these three into a broadly accessible plot about con artists, thieves, precious relics and action sequences and Red Notice looks a lot like the platonic ideal of a tentpole summer release, before shared universes and superhero films took over everything. Despite the formula, it’s easy to like — competently written and directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, a three-time Johnson collaborator whose projects keep getting better and better, Red Notice hits just the right spot for Netflix, for audiences and for its stars as well. Compared to previous Thurber/Johnson collaboration Skyscraper, it’s considerably funnier, smoother, and more compelling. Some great cinematography helps accelerate the pacing, and the special effects help in creating expansive action sequences. The plot certainly doesn’t hold up to scrutiny with its cumulative betrayals, but this is about as close as we’ve gotten to a National Treasure 3, so there’s that to consider. Let’s not bet against sequels — aren’t they the logical next move from Netflix?

  • Cruella (2021)

    Cruella (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Disney Streaming, December 2021) I’m not at all happy about the recent trend of Disney remaking its animated films, or the subgenre of giving extensive relatable backstories to their biggest villains. In other words — I was not looking forward to Cruella, and not surprised to realize that I enjoyed the film most when it went as far as it could from its source material. Emma Stone stars as the young Cruella de Vil (birth name Estrella), going against Emma Thompson as the even-worse Baroness. (Meanwhile, Mark Strong gets a small but significant supporting role, and Kirby Howell-Baptiste gets an eye-catching role leading to the sequel.)  Director Craig Gillespie benefits from a budget large enough to accommodate a lavish recreation of the London fashion world of the 1970s, along with enough CGI to enable a dynamic, pop-song heavy style. Which may be the film’s biggest strength, actually — Cruella is never as good as when it zips through period detail, fashion shows and CGI tricks best showcased in impossible clothing. But the film falters whenever it tries to tie itself to the 101 Dalmatians legacy — the bumbling criminals, the convoluted web of secrets and lies behind the protagonist’s origins and the winks and nods, reminding us that there’s a corporate intent behind the film’s unarguable strengths. Stone is not bad, but again she’s far better when she’s off doing her own thing rather than ape the previous instances of the Cruella character. Wishing that the film should have been a completely standalone title is useless, of course: it would not have been greenlighted, and even less at that budget. Hence the truth about large-scale films at the beginning of the 2020s — it has to be tied to an established property, or else not be allowed to exist.

  • The Suicide Squad (2021)

    The Suicide Squad (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, December 2021) Considering that the house brand of both the Suicide Squad as a concept and writer-director James Gunn as a filmmaker is being provocative, it makes no sense to complain that The Suicide Squad is alternately gross, gory, profane and vulgar. That’s all true. But unlike a number of similarly down-and-dirty movies lately, this one is actually funny, entertaining and a sharp improvement over the 2016 David Ayers Suicide Squad. Going into the film completely cold, I was pleasantly surprised by an opening sequence that really messes with audience expectations, then goes on to introduce the real characters. Consciously aiming for the bottom of the barrel of DC universe villains, Gunn does feature more than the usual fare. At the exception of fan favourite Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Viola Davis and Joel Kinnaman, the only elements judged salvageable from the previous film, the film focuses on new characters and sends them into a Central America situation somewhat reminiscent of 1980s action movies. But Gunn clearly intends to surprise audiences because nothing (from the opening sequence onward) ever goes to plan. Perhaps the film’s highlight is Harley Quinn’s reaction to being attracted to another bad boy — a perfect relationship that she nonetheless recognizes as being terrible for her. Margot Robbie once again steals the show, but she has a lot of competition — not necessarily from Idris Elba’s rock-solid performance as a professional killer, but John Cena once again grabbing the spotlight. The change of scenery to a fictional Central American capital brings a lot of colour and flavour to the film, and allows a city-smashing climax to feel different from North American metropolises. As usual whenever R-rated Gunn movies are concerned, I have a number of issues with some specific aspects of the execution — the gore, the coarseness, the quasi-nihilism. But The Suicide Squad works well in spite of them, even though I would be wary of recommending the result to anyone but a jaded viewer. I was expecting much worse anyway from a soft reboot of a film few people even liked.

  • A Rich Christmas (2021)

    A Rich Christmas (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, December 2021) As far as Christmas films go, the BET-original A Rich Christmas is both conventional and slightly off formula. It helps that much of the story could take place perfectly well at any other time for the year, as a spoiled heiress is forced to help a local shelter after some legal shenanigans. That’s where, obviously, she’ll learn some basic human values, discover what she’s good at, and put on a fabulous fashion show as a way to save the orphanage shelter. It’s a movie that understands its audience — see the rich girl pay her dues, see the spoiled brat learn better, and have everyone look really good while doing it. Tyler Abron is beautiful but is almost unbearable early on as the spoiled bratty protagonist — fortunately, she gets better with time. Brandee Evans is substantially better in an easier role, while Vanessa Williams walks right on cue as exactly the character that we expected her to play. (The film doesn’t show her face during her first scene, but from the credit sequence it’s easy to guess who she is.)  You do have to evaluate this film by BET+ standards, and Christmas BET+ movies at that — the low budget clearly shows, the script does what it can to convey the essentials without having what’s needed for credibility, and the roughshod script barely papers over its biggest incongruities. The bit where our heiress decides that her best course of action is having her rapper boyfriend help in stealing from her father is… special, to say the least. And so is the very sanitized portrait of life in a shelter. And so, for that matter, is how the film lands on a high-class fashion show (organized within days, no less) as the centrepiece of its climactic sequence. But again — grading on a curve, A Rich Christmas lands in the honest average for BET+ movies. Nothing special, nothing too bad either. And it will probably play just as well in July — the title kind of shoots the film in the foot considering how little of it has to do with Christmas itself.

  • Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

    Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, December 2021) There’s a subgenre of Christmas movies that I call the Santa Procedural — a film where a good chunk of the running time is spent discussing how Santa came to be, how he manages to deliver those presents, and/or try to fit him in the real world. The Santa Clause, Klaus and Arthur Christmas all have various elements of those, and I suppose that it’s my fault for somehow not seeing the 1985 Santa Claus: The Movie as a predecessor to all of those. Starting in historical times, this is a film showing us how the various elements of the Santa Claus mythology came together, then moves to the 1980s to show the Claus legacy threatened by a renegade elf and an amoral businessman intent on replacing Claus by the toy industry. (What young readers don’t know is that this is a documentary… wait, am I kidding?)  While Santa Claus: The Movie does have a few noteworthy names in the cast (notably Dudley Moore as an elf and John Lithgow as the businessman), the result remains more interesting than good. The use of dull fantasy elements and kids’ movie contrivances such as the “Super-Duper Looper” weakens the result, while the pacing is inconsistent. Santa Claus: The Movie, limited by a common-denominator script, inconsistent set design and the state of mid-1980s special effects technology, doesn’t quite convince and doesn’t quite create a nostalgic sentiment either. Still, it can be worth a look for the more engineering-minded viewers, especially when you measure it against later and better works in the same procedural subgenre.

  • No Time to Die (2021)

    No Time to Die (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, December 2021) As a James Bond fan, I’m not entirely satisfied with No Time to Die — but hasn’t that been the case for much of the Daniel Craig era? A strong introduction in Casino Royale led to the lows of Quantum of Solace, then a once-in-a-generation high in Skyfall, immediately followed by a frustrating return to the norm in Spectre. But just as No Time to Die makes it obvious that the Craig era is a self-contained story, it also marks a very definitive end for Craig-as-Bond. Oh yes; this review will contain spoilers because spoilers are where the film is most interesting. Building on the frustrating legacy of the previous film, this follow-up sees the Bond character developed well beyond the norm, all the way to being retired, becoming a father and, eventually, concluding his legacy as a man of action. It’s not what we expected of Bond despite the film’s frequent action sequences, island lair and megalomaniac villain — but then again, the Craig cycle has been an awkward attempt to impose a dramatic arc to a character who, until now, barely had one. The attempt is audacious, but the result in No Time to Die often disappoints: despite the slickness of the execution, the script seems undercooked with a dull villain who does not earn the distinction of what happens to Bond late in the film. The doubling-down on the least satisfying elements of the previous films (including the bland and featureless Léa Seydoux as the Bond Girl who manages what other Bond Girls never did) shows how an episodic structure can sabotage later entries. There are highlights, mind you: a great one-shot staircase fight scene; a forest car chase sequence with a mean finish; a terrific motorcycle jump; Ana de Armas as a not-so-junior “secret” agent; the liquidation of two Craig regulars; and Naomie Harris, Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes all further developing their stock characters. But, perhaps best of all, Lashana Lynch as a new 007 who goes toe-to-toe with Craig’s character and doesn’t blink — now that we’re looking for a new Bond, maybe we don’t have to look all that far. While we’re free to admire all the ways No Time to Die attempts to break the formula and wrap things up, the result falls short of satisfying everyone. Like a few other long-running franchises (Game of Thrones, Star Wars, The Matrix, etc.), the intention to do something new often overpowers the skill in which this change is executed, leaving formula skeptics to hail things that formula fans will find botched. So it is with No Time to Die, which solicits dramatic heft without quite making the case that it’s warranted. Hopefully, the Bond producers, having now completed this experiment, we can look forward to a new Bond and a return to the formula.