Movie Review

  • Break of Hearts (1935)

    Break of Hearts (1935)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) Being a fan means tracking down even the more obscure films, which is why I’m now one of the relatively select audience of people having seen the somewhat forgotten 1935 drama Break of Hearts. (How forgotten? Well, even TCM played it in the wee hours of the morning, without subtitles, and it barely gets a few hundred votes on IMDB.)  I was obviously there for Katharine Hepburn; In full mid-1930s form, she headlines this somewhat dull romantic drama of the film. Here, an unknown composer (Hepburn) begins a relationship with a famous, troubled, handsome (etc.) conductor (Charles Boyer). There’s a whirlwind romance, some heartbreak, and so on. Hepburn is far better than the material (which often undermines the headstrong persona that she was trying to establish at the time), and she does get to wear a few good outfits out of the whole experience. At the very least, it’s a short film: this plays both to its disadvantage (as we compress through a deteriorating relationship not that far removed from A Star in Born) and to ours, as it’s over relatively quickly. Worth watching for Hepburn fans. Everyone else? Not so sure.

  • Brainstorm (1983)

    Brainstorm (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Third Viewing, On Cable TV, July 2019) I recall seeing Brainstorm at least twice during my childhood and teenage years, leaving a lasting impression each time. (But apparently not enough in terms of narrative, because even though I remembered many of the film’s visual high points—ah, those optical tapes! —, much of the finer details and subplots were like brand new this time around). 1983 was a remarkable year for technology-oriented thrillers, and even if Brainstorm earned its way on that year’s roster by uncontrollable means (most of the film was shot in 1981, but production issues following star Natalie Wood’s death delayed its completion and release by two years), it certainly earns a place alongside Wargames, Videodrome, Blue Thunder and even Superman III in musing about the trouble that technology was about to get us into. An analog Virtual Reality thriller, Brainstorm offers a deeply convincing portrait of how revolutionary technology is developed in the lab, only to escape its creators’ control once the technology is perverted by others (either in the vulgar or the ideological sense). Christopher Walken headlines the film as a scientist who develops a way to record and play back subjective experiences, with Natalie Wood as his estranged wife and Louise Fletcher in a great performance as a driven scientist. The retro-technological feel of the film is wonderful, what with its bulky early-eighties laboratory and industrial environments—it’s pure charm for techno-geeks such as myself. But the way Brainstorm develops its ideas is what holds attention, examining in turn all the possibilities offered by the new technology and how it could be used. It ends with a third act that focuses on an extended remote hacking episode, our protagonist moving through physical space in order to stay in virtual space. (The ending reduces everything cosmic to an isolated pay phone, which is the final touch to crown an intensely clever script.)  Director Douglas Trumbull clearly shows his understanding and mastery of special effects, with sequences that still play extremely well today, and a willingness to play with the codes of cinema in order to make story points … most notably by switching between aspect ratios to show people affected by sensory recreation. I liked Brainstorm quite a bit when I was younger, but I think I like I even more today. It’s a great science-fiction film, perhaps a bit forgotten today but still very much fascinating to watch.

  • Monster Trucks (2016)

    Monster Trucks (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) In Hollywood, not every plan goes as expected, and so it is that Monster Trucks was initially conceived as a family blockbuster film with franchise potential—complete with familiar-but-not-superstar actors, a generous special effects budget, and expansive location shooting. Much of the excitement about the property seemed to come from its straightforward premise: Monster trucks, or rather (if you insist on more details), monsters in trucks. You can hear the Hollywood executive thinking from here: there’s nothing that boys like better than monsters and trucks, so a film combining the two couldn’t be anything but a box-office success. Alas, things didn’t go as planned: Paramount knew something wasn’t quite right as animation veteran director Chris Wedge’s film advanced through production, because the release date of the film gradually went from May 2015 to January 2017. Things got worse after release: Budgeted at $125M, Monster Trucks eked out a worldwide gross of $64M as everyone finally saw what Paramount realized early on: it just wasn’t very good. Reviews were terrible and the film sank from franchise launcher to family cable-TV filler—you’ll be lucky today to find anyone who has seen it. Alternately, it has become an entrant in a very special club—the big-budget bombs club, where viewers can feast on high production values in service of … not much. Like a superpowered engine installed in a jalopy (to use the film’s plot points against itself), Monster Trucks has great production values in the service of a middle-of-the-road story undermined by dumb moments. It may be a movie made for younger audiences, but that’s no excuse for the handful of overdone moments that make older audiences cringe—the film would be significantly better if it had excised those. Still, it’s easy to be overly critical of those big-budget bombs when their sheer scale ensures that there’s something interesting to watch at some point. Those moments usually coincide with special effects: There is a chase sequence midway through the film that holds up decently well; a garage sequence that will appeal to any inner twelve-year-old boy; and an extended climactic chase that gets the job done. The creature design finds a tricky balance between cute and disgusting. Familiar faces such as Barry Pepper, Rob Lowe, Danny Glover and especially Thomas Lennon turn in serviceable performances to support headliner Lucas Till. There is something halfway intriguing in reusing small-town fracking country as the basis for much of the premise, and to its credit Monster Trucks does end with a conclusion rather than a blatant setup for a later instalment. In short, it’s just a bit better than its (admittedly faint) reputation would suggest—my inner teenage boy was impressed enough by the big truck carnage.

  • Little Women (1933)

    Little Women (1933)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) There’s been quite a few film adaptations of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women over the decades, with the 1994 version being most familiar to modern audiences and two more versions released in 2018 and 2019. Still, one of the most enduring versions remains the George Cukor 1933 Little Women, featuring no less than Katharine Hepburn in one of her earliest featured roles. The story is episodic—it’s about the coming-of-age adventures of four Massachusetts sisters during and after the Civil War, as they try to keep the household together in their father’s absence. Romantic and dramatic vignettes follow. This being a 1933 film, barely six years out of the silent movie age, there’s quite a bit of period melodrama in what is presented on-screen. Still, it was a big-budget, good-natured blockbuster movie at a time when the movie industry was under fire for pushing vulgar sensibilities … and it became a hit. The can-do spirit of the film found resonance in the then-current Depression, and the absence of an outright villain was (and remains) a nice change of pace. It can still be watched with some amount of interest, although frankly you can be there just to watch Hepburn and Edna May Oliver. (This being said: I’m a big fan of 1930s Katharine Hepburn, but she gets some serious competition here from Jean Parker.)  It’s a film of its time, but it was close to being the best of what was produced in early-1930s Hollywood. As an actor’s showcase from past generations, Little Women is still worth a look.

  • White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

    White Men Can’t Jump (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2019) Hustling and basketball—it doesn’t take much than that to get a strong premise for a sports comedy. But what sets White Men Can’t Jump above similar movies is the addition of capable actors such as Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, both at the top of their physical condition, as well as Rosie Perez in one of her best roles. Venice Beach as seen from the bottom rung is interesting, but not as much as the characters trying to hustle their way out of there. Writer-director Ron Shelton has an uncanny grasp of dialogue, athletic ego and not-so-friendly competition—White Men Can’t Jump is never as good as when it’s following our two protagonists on the basketball court, inventively trash-talking their way through their own hustles. The basketball sequences are thankfully convincing. Rosie Perez is also a joy as a motor-mouthed bookworm whose wildest dreams come true through sheer determination. I’m not so happy about the ending of the film (in which a serious conversation could have prevented its bittersweet conclusion) but much of White Men Can’t Jump is still quite a bit of fun to watch.

  • Kiss Me Kate (1953)

    Kiss Me Kate (1953)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The early 1950s were some of the best years for MGM musicals, and Kiss Me Kate is a pretty good example of the form. It’s not next-level terrific like some of its contemporaries (I’m specifically thinking of thematically-similar The Band Wagon, also released in 1953), but it’s pretty good as a straightforward musical with no compulsions about what it is. While Kathryn Grayson and Howard Keel both star as a divorced couple rediscovering each other over the course of a theatrical premiere, I frankly watched the film for my own favourite Ann Miller, who has a secondary but substantial role as a dim-witted but skilled dancer/actress. Much of the plot revolves around a staging of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, around which revolves a romantic reconnection plot and a pair of not-so-threatening gangsters holding the production hostage. I probably would have enjoyed the film more if I was more knowledgeable with Shakespeare’s comedies, but the final result is somewhat fun even for uncultured viewers. The song and dance numbers, after all, are the thing. “Too Darn Hot” doesn’t have much to do with the rest of the story, but it gets the film off to a roaring start with Miller vamping her way through a naughty song. “Wunderbar” gets the romantic subplot going, while “…any Tom, Dick or Harry…” gets Miller another chance to shine. “I Hate Men” is a cute number, and “Always True to You in My Fashion” has a few laughs—as does “Brush Up Your Shakespeare.”  The gender roles are 1950s-ish to the point of being uncomfortable today, but keep in mind that the plot of the original Broadway show reflects a late-1940s attitude toward a Shakespearian text: not exactly a hotbed of progressivism. It’s all in good fun, mind you, and the public spanking of the heroine (yes, really) has its mitigating factors. But you don’t watch MGM musicals for their liberalism—you watch them for the songs, the dances and the carefree fun. On those qualities, Kiss Me Kate certainly delivers.

  • Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

    Nymphomaniac: Vol. II (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) The second half of Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac is not a standalone story—it requires having seen the first film and does not stand on its own even as it concludes the story. It does start with a few revelations, though, as the nature and motivations of both the narrator and interlocutor become clearer in the first few minutes. Less digressive and surprisingly more plot-heavy than its predecessor, this Part II takes us through more eventful episodes of the narrator’s life. The sex gets quite a bit more unusual (all the way through to the clinical services of a sadist with a waiting room of women waiting for his harsh whips) while remaining just as graphic as the first film. If frontal erect nudity is your thing, then Nymphomania should satisfy. In keeping with the this-is-not-porn aesthetics, however, none of the nudity is meant to be arousing. Still, we get more of the first part’s strange mixture of the comic and the dramatic, except significantly less comic and far more dramatic as this second part eventually build a plot to go along with the philosophical musings. It ends on a cheap and depressing note, although one notes that the worst of it happens after the traditional “fade to black.”  Still, Charlotte Gainbourg and Stellan Skarsgård do equally well—Gainbourg has a bit more to do here than in the first part. Willem Defoe shows up in a small role, although Jamie Bell gets a more substantial part as the professionally sadistic K. Does Nymphomaniac amount to much? Well, I suppose that everyone will have their say. While I did see the “censored” four-hour version, I feel absolutely no desire whatsoever to see the full five-hour-plus original Director’s Cut: I can’t see what it would add to the story or the point of the film. In fact, as I write this after making it through the finishing line of Part II, I feel no desire whatsoever to re-watch ever again—I may have to follow up this viewing with a dumb comedy. And yet (and this is a becoming a familiar refrain with this director’s work), I didn’t dislike Nymphomaniac as much as I thought it would—there are some laughs, insight and cinematic success in the middle of the self-pretentious lengths and pointless digressions and cheap graphic sequences. While I’m done with Nymphomaniac, I may eventually watch another von Trier film at some point.

  • Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)

    Nymphomaniac: Vol. I (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) Maybe, one day, they will make a movie in which some poor battered soul will tell a non-cinephile about his or her lifelong quest to appreciate Lars von Trier. Maybe they will call it Cinephiliac, and split it in two parts. I put off viewing Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac for about five years, only succumbing to the temptation when the two parts of the film played in rapid succession on cable TV. That delay was probably for the best—I have at best mildly appreciated von Trier’s work before (such as Melancholia). He comes to movies from an entirely different approach, and we’re clearly not interested in the same things. But even in his most irritating production (Probably Breaking the Waves so far) has something intriguing to it—a style, an idea, an approach not quite any other film. That streak goes unbroken with Nymphomaniac, a four-hour two-part exploration of a broken woman’s life, as told by her bruised self to a good Samaritan happening upon her after a violent attack. As she recuperates in his small apartment, she goes through the episodes of her life, through trauma and heartbreak and tragicomic incidents. The portrayal of the sexual episodes couldn’t be more graphic, but this is not meant as pornography—for one thing, there is not attempt here to arouse; and for another, the sex is a symptom of a deeper condition that the film keeps exploring. References to philosophy, religions and classical music (with graphical inserts) keep viewers on their toes, while the extreme portrayal of behaviour well outside norms (as the protagonist says, juggling two handfuls of men per day) is executed with some deftness. Charlotte Gainsbourg is quite good in a movie that rests upon her shoulders, while Stellan Skarsgård makes for a sympathetic audience surrogate. Shia Labeouf and Uma Thurman are featured in showy secondary roles. This is not a film built for mainstream audiences—the subject matter alone would send most casual audiences screaming from the theatre, while the extreme length of the result (and there’s no use pretending that Part I is a complete story) will sap the good will of most others—especially when it becomes obvious that the digressions are the point of the film. Now let’s see what Part II has in store.

  • Encino Man (1992)

    Encino Man (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, June 2019) Prehistoric fish-out-of-water meets high-school humour with a side of stoner antics in Encino Man, a dumb but good-natured teen comedy that just happens to feature Brendan Fraser in one of his most prominent early roles. It’s not much of a clever script—no matter where the fish comes from, the out-of-water part is similar from one film to another, and this one seems dictated by the wishes of two teenagers looking for high-school celebrity and romance. Much of Encino Man’s fun is in the antics of the characters, especially the prehistoric man thrust in early-nineties California living—including a visit to the local convenience store for a horrifying lesson in nutrition. It’s easy to see why Brendan Fraser would turn out to be a major comedy star in the nineties. Pauly Shore and Sean Astin also star and keep things running while Fraser does his thing. It’s not much, but it’s pleasant enough.

  • Coneheads (1993)

    Coneheads (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2019) There is a very specific type of humour at play in Coneheads, and you may not have such a good time with the film if you’re not tuned in. Reheating the tired old “alien makes funny observations about humans” trope, Coneheads still manages to score a few points without even trying. Much of the humour stems from the same source, what with aliens candidly describing ordinary human habits, using big words when short ones would suffice. The alternate joke is to talk about human things in alien terms. That, by itself wouldn’t be enough to sustain an entire comedy film, but the script does go for a few better jokes: perhaps the best being the ease with which the alien protagonists can fulfill the more complex rituals of society (finding and holding a job, buying and maintaining a house, founding and sustaining a family) while being perplexed at some of the more superficial stuff. There is also some biting social critique in the way the government is portrayed dealing with immigrants (I suspect that much of the current American administration’s immigration policy may have been lifted from the film). But here’s the thing: considering Conehead’s overall (low) wit and its episodic nature, I suspect that those interesting moments are accidental artifacts of a much more simple-minded development process led by director Steve Barron. We need the aliens to make jokes about jobs and households, so we will give them those things in short order; we need an antagonist, so we’ll crank up the government’s anti-immigration agenda to the maximum. And so on. It does bring extra flavour to a bland film, but it would have been better if it had been put there intentionally. Otherwise, Coneheads does feel like an SNL sketch stretched far too thin. Even the conclusion, which plays with some presumptions as to the nature of a climactic finale, probably ended up there through scripting laziness. I didn’t completely hate Coneheads, but I have a feeling that the result owes more to chance than design. Still, it’s not a dull watch—and there’s an astonishing number of cameos from mid-nineties comedians along the way.

  • The Ruins (2008)

    The Ruins (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2019) I read the horror novel on which The Ruins is based so long ago that I only remembered the premise and the extremely dark ending. But as it turns out, that was enough to make for an interesting viewing: the filmmakers changed the ending to something less depressing, and that was enough to keep me on my toes toward the end of the film. The premise, at least, remains the same: a few young Americans are tempted into visiting an ancient pyramid that doesn’t figure on any map. But it turns out that there’s a reason why it’s not on any map: before long, natives surround the pyramid and prevent them from leaving. But the real threat is inside, as the vines covering the pyramid have a mind of their own, and claim more of the group as victims. Killer plants, possibly from outer space, doesn’t sound that scary, but the bag of tricks used here includes invasive vines, whispering flowers and human protagonists being driven insane by the situation. Handled by Carter Smith, The Ruins remains a fairly ordinary horror movie, but one that remains a bit more interesting than most by dint of an unusual premise and atmosphere. The ending helps a bit, as it does include something more than the nihilistic everybody-dies nonsense. This being said, let’s not pretend that the characters are all that compelling—one of them dies in such a spectacularly dumb fashion that audiences are like to just throw up their hands at how he had it coming.

  • The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

    The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) In keeping with the times, it’s been a great decade for food-themed movies from 2007–2016 (ish). Suddenly, from No Reservations to Chef and Burnt, we had at least a dozen movies about professional chefs, restaurants and everything else peeking behind the scenes of the foodie scene. With only five years’ worth of perspective, The Hundred-Foot Journey certainly fit in the subgenre. Here we travel to rural France, as a family of Indian immigrants settles in a small town to open their own restaurant … right in front of a Michelin-star haute-cuisine establishment. Definitely approaching food as a sensual, romantic endeavour (the slow motion starts as soon as someone picks up a utensil and a bowl), director Lasse Hallström blends a feel-good mix of cultural acceptance, character growth, power-of-food homilies and straight-up romance. Helen Mirren headlines the cast, but the film rests on Manish Dayal’s likable performance, with some assistance from Charlotte Le Bon as the love interest, and Om Puri as the patriarch. There aren’t really any surprises here—the ending is almost exactly what you can imagine. But it’s a fun trip, even though the film may be a touch too long and almost certainly a bit too ponderous for what it could have been in more impatient hands. There’s a specific audience for food movies, and The Hundred-Foot Journey will deliver what they expect.

  • Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

    Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2019) At a time when both superhero films and animated movies feel a bit stale, here comes Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse to remind us that there is always another way to do things. This newest take on Spider-Man doesn’t stray far from the usual formula—in fact, it revels in it, starting with the familiar origin story to divert from what we think we know about the character, and then using parallel-universe plot devices to bring in no less than seven other versions of Spider-Man from the silly to the sublime. But that’s only the plot part of the film, and as fun as it can be, it pales in comparison to the innovative never-seen-before visual style of the film. Taking cues from badly printed comic books of decades past, Into the Spider-Verse offers a consciously different style of computer-aided animation, going for a far more expressionistic presentation of the material than the vast majority of CGI animated features these days. Nearly every frame could come from the pages of a comic book, and if I’m not that fond of some techniques (the moiré, the step-printing, the out-of-focus backgrounds looking as we’re watching a 3D film without glasses), the overall result is so fresh and vivid that even those things don’t matter much. There’s simply too much to like here, from the appealingly diverse cast to the hard-driving score to the repeated paeans to past takes on the character. (If you’re not in love with the film by the time Spider-Ham shows up… I’m not sure what to tell you.)  Tons of freeze-frame gags will ensure that the film has a long life for fans, while the good control over the pacing of the film ensures overall re-watchability. This is a really clever take on the character, and the reconstruction of Spider-Man is up to writer/producer Phil Lord’s previous work in other genre properties. (The new take on Doc Ock is sexy and terrific, while Spider-Man Noir and Spider-Gwen are particularly well executed.) Between this and the MCU-linked renewal of the live-action character with Tom Holland, it’s been quite a sharp ascent for Spider-Man from the depths of the useless Garfield movies. The past few years have led to something far more fascinating than the ridiculous “Spiderman Universe” movie plans once in the making. Into the Spider-Verse deservedly walked away with an Oscar, not just because it respectfully found a way to play with a familiar character, but it most notably shredded the envelope of animated movies in a way that, hopefully, will lead to more innovative approaches in the future.

    (Second Viewing, On Blu-ray, July 2021) It’s week one of Daddy Day Camp at la Casa Sauvé, and the theme is “Comic Books” – what better excuse to have another look at Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse with the young one? Truth be told, I didn’t need much of an excuse to revisit the film – a witty, densely detailed adventure that was as funny as it was playful in working with multiple incarnations of the character. I remembered right: the density of the film meant that I had forgotten plenty of small details in the intervening two years, and the witty screenplay keeps things going at a good pace even when the overall material is familiar. But the animation alone would be reason enough to watch the film again – attempting a style quite unlike anything else in animated movies, it plays with dithering, bold colours, step-motion and comic-book conventions used on-screen. It’s still eye-popping at the highest resolution you can manage. I’m also impressed by how the film feels modern (in visuals, in music, in attitude), without falling into condescension or overly hip material. As for the little one, well, she only had two questions for the first act of the film: “What’s happening?” (A reasonable question given the fast pacing – it gets better later on) and “Is there a Spider-Girl?” moments before Spider-Gwen swung on-screen. Well done.

  • The Lawnmower Man (1992)

    The Lawnmower Man (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On Cable TV, June 2019) Growing up geek in the early 1990s, The Lawnmower Man ended up becoming a reference to my group of mid-nineties Computer Science student friends even despite being the farthest thing from a good movie. Watching it again today, I can offer no defence of the result: The plot is pure unprocessed cliché, while its main claim to fame—the digital special effects—have aged terribly and are only impressive as a snapshot of what was then state-of-the-art. The premise borrows liberally from Frankenstein, Flowers to Algernon and Tron, what with a cognitive scientist boosting the intelligence of a dim-witted manual labourer, and said super-intelligent antagonist turning irremediably evil. A murder spree predictably ensues. The only twist here is that this is all taking place thanks to virtual reality, with early-era CGI portraying now-grotesque chunks of the plot. (I’m such an early-nineties geek that I still remembered that some of the CGI sequences were repeated from the video compilation The Mind’s Eye.) The obsession about Virtual Reality is also pure early-1990s stuff, ridiculous except for the fact that I lived through it at the time. My nostalgic feeling should not be confused for any kind of appreciation for the result, which is alternately dull or actively irritating depending on how often that exact same cheap take on technology has been repeated before or since. Behind the camera, I have to acknowledge the work of writer-director Brett Leonard, grafting minimal elements from a Stephen King story onto a statement about VR as it was perceived then—not only would he also write and direct the slightly-better VR thriller Virtuosity three years later, but he would remain active at the cutting edge of movies and technology until now. Those who like actors rather than technology will be amused to see Pierce Brosnan is the leading role as an obsessive scientist and a few scenes with Dean Norris as a menacing figure. Still, much of the appeal of The Lawnmower Man today is as a snapshot of the wild expectations and easy plot possibilities of virtual reality at the earliest possible moment when it became possible to think of it. It’s irremediably dated, and that’s part of the point.

  • The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (2015)

    The Man with the Iron Fists 2 (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2019) I ended up watching The Man with the Iron Fists 2 because I had enjoyed the first one, although my expectations were kept firmly in check by it being a direct-to-video release without most of the first film’s biggest stars (sorry, no Lucy Liu or Russel Crowe this time around). But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the film was directed by Roel Reiné, one of the most dependable direct-to-video filmmakers out there. Reiné is a visually ambitious action director with a gift for wringing the most value out of his limited budgets, and so The Man with the Iron Fists 2 does look like a far more expensive production—foreign location shooting has its advantages, and Reiné has directed so many action movies by now that he can routinely stage decent action sequences. But filmmaking virtuosity can’t fully patch a herky-jerky script that doesn’t quite manage to bring its pieces together in a coherent fashion. The premise of the film holds promise, and even throws in a half-decent twist leading up to the final battle, but the scene-to-scene narrative is a jumbled mess that takes far too long to become interesting. The low budget also prevents the film from going all-out on its supernatural ambitions, limiting its appeal. The visual polish of the film does help it move along, but it’s a harder journey than strictly necessary. Freed from the shackles of directing but still writing much of the film, RZA is back as the titular wandering knight, er, blacksmith helping foreigners figure their stuff out—a half-inversion of the usual white saviour narrative. Carl Ng is suitably good as a villain, with Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa turning it a pretty good performance. Still, there isn’t much in The Man with the Iron Fists 2 for anyone who’s not already a martial arts movie fan.