Movie Review

  • Dirty Grandpa (2016)

    Dirty Grandpa (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, June 2016) Comedy is intensely subjective, and it’s hard to find a better example of this than Dirty Grandpa, which had me chuckling and smiling throughout despite earning atrocious reviews from just about any serious movie critic. How to explain it? I can’t. I can only report that Dirty Grandpa manages to create, fairly early on, an atmosphere in which nearly every scabrous or raunchy gag gets a reaction. Drugs at a funeral, and a sexually obsessed retiree? From that moment on, it just gets dumber and funnier. From afar, it’s easy to claim this vulgar and meaningless film as a nadir for Robert de Niro, but if you’re under the film’s charm, his performance as a perverted old man looking for the sexual experience he denied himself until his wife’s death is nothing short of a go-for-broke exercise in deliberate offensiveness. (More intriguingly, it plays with some deeply held social convictions of how a senior should act like, giving Dirty Grandpa at least a veneer of honest transgression.) Alongside such a ferocious committal to comedy, co-star Zak Efron merely has to stay put and react appropriately. Great supporting performances by Aubrey Plaza (playing a far more active kind of comedy than she usually does) as a grandpa-chaser and Jason Mantzoukas as an unrepentant drug dealer both add a lot to the film. I’m never going to seriously argue that Dirty Grandpa is a good movie—it’s by-the-number comedy, made more daring by pushing the boundaries of vulgarity and throwing old-person jokes in the mix for added offensiveness. There are some lengthy lulls, and the secret to appreciating de Niro’s performance is forgetting his Academy Awards entirely. But here’s the terrible truth: the film made me laugh, and it made me laugh a fair amount more than many of the most respected films of the past year or so. I half-suspect that I’ll see Dirty Grandpa again in the future and wonder what I was thinking when I wrote this review. In the meantime, though, I just have to think about de Niro’s gleefully crude character to get a quick smile.

  • Everest (2015)

    Everest (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2016) This may sound ungrateful, but I’d expect a disaster movie about climbing the Earth’s tallest mountain to be a bit more … impressive. It’s not as if Everest is entirely missing in thrills: After reading a lot about Himalayan mountain-climbing, it’s fascinating to see a big-budget production head over to Nepal (even if only for a small portion of the shoot) and show us how it’s done. The capable group of actors assembled for the film is impressive, starting with the ever-impressive Jason Clarke and Jake Gyllenhaal as duelling climbers/entrepreneurs. Part of the film’s middle-of-the-road impression may be due to its insistence on sticking to a true story, the disastrous 1996 Mount Everest disaster spectacularly chronicled in Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. Interestingly enough, Everest is not based on Into Thin Air, while Krakauer shows up as a non-heroic character. There’s a limit to the amount of drama (or, perhaps more accurately, audience-friendly dramatic structure) that can be generated from a film intent on sticking to facts, and Everest finds itself limited to the real story. Direction-wise, Baltasar Kormákur has fun with some set pieces, even though the story itself treads familiar ground. What’s often missing, though, is a sense of scale: For such a big mountain, Everest is too often glimpsed from too close and the film rarely delivers on the awe of the mountain-climbing experience. Regrettably, Everest’s strengths only highlight its limits: While it’s a decent travelogue, it should have been a more absorbing experience. I may, however, revisit this film in a few years to see if I’m being too picky.

  • Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

    Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2016) I’ve reached my limit on teenage dystopias a year ago, so it’s not a surprise if I find Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials to be both useless and dull. The moronic world building of the first film gallops further afar in nonsense here, with our teenage protagonists blindly flaying between murky opposing forces. They wander through the desert, the mountains and discover groups that seem to exist without any food or water sources but hey—as long as the chases-and-thrills structure is followed, nobody really cares. Despite the action sequences, though, The Scorch Trials is surprisingly dull: the thrills are derivative, most of the plot points mean nothing, the cast of characters is largely undistinguishable (and overwhelmingly male, especially in the first half of the film) and there’s a sense that the film is just wasting time before the third-movie conclusion. There is, to be fair, a few interesting post-apocalyptic visuals, especially when the group wanders in broken cities. It’s also sort-of-interesting to see a few Game of Thrones players pop up in minor roles, with Aidan Gillen nearly playing the same character in the same way. But not much of it amounts to any particular interest for The Scorch Trials. A quick Wikipedia check suggests that the plot of the book has been substantially altered, but given the inanity of the source material, it’s hard to count this as a failure of adaptation. Much like everyone else, I will reluctantly end up seeing the third movie when it comes out—but seeing the falling box-office results of the competing teenage dystopia series, it sure looks as if I’m not the only one who’s ready to put that subgenre out of its dreary misery.

  • Ghost (1990)

    Ghost (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2016) There’s no denying that Ghost has ascended to the film pantheon as a romantic fantasy film (cue the pottery sequence!) but a fresh viewing shows that the film is a bit more than that: Beyond the romance, it’s got strong comic moments, a decent amount of imaginative flair and quite a few thrills. Anchored by Patrick Swayze’s fair performance and bolstered by a surprisingly funny and good-looking Whoopi Goldberg, Ghost is more interesting when it deals with the mechanics and complications of a ghost trying to make contact with the living. Suspense elements are woven (not always seamlessly) with comic sequences, giving the film a multifaceted appeal that doesn’t quite degenerate into abrupt tonal shifts. Demi Moore is a bit generic and baby-faced Tony Goldwyn is more fascinating than anything else considering how well he has aged in Scandal. Still, the film holds up relatively well beyond the pottery sequence, hitting marks on a wide spectrum of targets. It’s enough to make anyone wonder if today’s blockbusters have grown a bit too selective in their intentions for fear of tonal incongruity. Ghost, at least, deftly goes from romance to comedy to horror to thrills, and the result still speaks for itself.

  • Thelma & Louise (1991)

    Thelma & Louise (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2016) Watching Thelma & Louise twenty-five years after its release, I expected the experience to be less … upsetting than it was. After all; Thelma & Louise is recognized as a feminist classic, I’m pro-feminism; it’s a quarter-century later, social attitudes have changed … why should this be anything but a safe period piece? But it’s not. Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis star as two women out for a weekend away from their spouses, but find themselves driven to a crime spree through a set of circumstances—and despicable men. Thelma & Louise remains an infuriating film even today largely due to the realization that it’s still an exceptional film. Films with two strong female leads are still rare, and film to be written from such an explicitly female perspective are even rarer—especially in Hollywood. Ridley Scott may have directed the film with his typical visual flair, but most of its impact squarely depends on a script written by Callie Khouri, channelling female frustrations and anxieties in reluctant wish fulfillment. Pretty much all the male characters are out to do harm to our leads: It’s not just Christopher McDonald’s unrepentant abusive husband or Brad Pitt’s captivating first turn as an opportunistic thief: It’s also Harvey Keitel as an investigator, sympathetic to our protagonist but tasked to enforce the dominant male narrative that has designated the protagonists as dangerous criminals. Thelma & Louise still pushes buttons a quarter-century later, and forces audiences to realize how little progress has been made along the way. Perhaps worse is the realization that the kind of film that is Thelma & Louise, muscular mid-budget standalone thrillers with some social relevance, have been almost evacuated from the Hollywood scene, replaced by fantasy narratives designed to sell latter instalments. I’m upset all right, and I can’t think of higher praise for the film.

  • London has Fallen (2016)

    London has Fallen (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, June 2016) Nobody asked for this sequel (Upon learning that it was coming, I thought, “they made a sequel to the wrong white-house-in-peril movie!”) but now that London has Fallen exists, what can we learn from the experience? Perhaps, surprisingly, that it actually improves upon the admittedly dismal first film in the series: Without Antoine Fuqua at the helm, London Has Fallen tones down the excessive violence, swearing and mean-spiritedness. The result still isn’t particularly inspiring (this is, after all, a film where—ethnic slurs aside—Americans are criticized for indiscriminate drone-bombing, to which they triumphantly respond with even more drone-bombing) but it’s potent in the way generic action thrillers can be enjoyable as long as you don’t ask too many questions about American hegemony. There isn’t a whole lot of plot to London has Fallen—just Gerard Butler killing terrorists with jingoistic bon mots, Aaron Eckhart looking presidential and stock footage of London with tons of smoke. The film occasionally shows signs of life—most notably during a G7 assassination festival earlier on, and a mock single-take assault on a building later on. Most of the time, though, it seems happy to go through the motions of an eighties action film with implausibly well-organized foes, a bulletproof hero and plenty of unanswered questions. As dumb and borderline unpalatable as it may be, though, London Has Fallen does manage to stay on this side of the unacceptability line, which is more than the first film did. I’m not at all convinced that a third entry in the series is needed, but at least it ends on a higher note than if the first film had been allowed to disappear without a follow-up.

  • Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

    Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, June 2016) Watching Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves twenty-five years after release (almost to the day) is a reminder about the evolution of the Hollywood blockbuster between the eighties and nineties. You can see in Robin Hood the elements that would make up the blockbuster tropes of the nineties, but you can also see the remnants of eighties-style filmmaking stiffness: The slightly-too-slow pacing, the quirks that don’t necessarily reinforce the film’s strengths, the unconscious irritation (such as the attempted-rape elements of the conclusion) the stiff studio staging, and so on. Director Kevin Reynolds doesn’t do a bad job with what he’s given, but it’s a film of its time. It’s good, but it’s not necessarily polished to a shine like latter blockbusters would be. It doesn’t help that Kevin Costner is off as Robin Hood: his stoic persona can’t accommodate the more light-hearted requirements of the role. On the other hand, Alan Rickman is fantastic as the all-out villainous antagonist, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio looks great at Maid Marian, and Morgan Freeman gets a pretty good role as an Islamic Moor stuck in the madness. Watching this film today, after the pop-culture clichés and most notably the 1993 full-length Mel Brooks parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights, is strangeness multiplied. But then again I was in high school when Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves came out—much of the pop culture of the time has stuck in my head to a degree that may not be as extreme for other viewers.

  • The Visit (2015)

    The Visit (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2016) It’s not a good sign when a movie loses all credibility in its first five minutes. In The Visit, we’re asked to believe that a mother would simply ship off her teenage kids to her long-estranged parents for a week, while she gallivants to a cruise holiday. Result: Disbelief snapped, never to return. After that, the annoying mockumentary gimmick seems inconsequential. The good news, I suppose, are that the film is a bit better than writer/director M. Night Shyamalan’s last few atrocities—but not by much, and most of the “better” should be read as “doesn’t repeatedly try to alienate its audience”. There are still plenty of reasons to dislike the film: the tone is all over the place and not in a “here’s comic relief” kind of way. The various events that happen during the film are the kind of stuff that occurs in movies rather than any attempt at real-life, clashing with the hand-held aesthetics of the film. The Visit, perhaps worst of all, is dull stuff, built upon a weak foundation and never achieved in the way it is presented on-screen. If I dig a bit into the film, I can see how the on-screen aesthetics of amateur filmmakers are meant to act as Shyamalan’s commentary on filmmaking, but I just don’t have the patience for that: As far as I’m concerned, Shyamalan is still in the doghouse … and he can stay there for a while.

  • She’s Funny That Way (2014)

    She’s Funny That Way (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2016) I hadn’t seen a screwball comedy in a long while, and veteran writer/director Peter Bogdanovich’s She’s Funny That Way is unapologetic about how it tries to re-create the confused romantic farces of earlier film eras. Here we have an adulterous theatre director, his wife (an actress), their friend (an actor), an escort changed by their meeting, the worst psychiatrist even, a private detective, a lonely judge … clashing together in weird and ridiculous ways. The film gradually builds it set pieces, goofs along its equally goofy characters, leaves the actors to do their best and lets the chaos take over. What’s unfortunate is that the film keeps its best set pieces (the restaurant clash) for the middle, leading to a curiously lacklustre ending. Still, the film is fun, and the surprising number of recognizable actors showing up in minor roles only adds to the film’s unpredictability. Owen Wilson is fine as the lead director, with Kathryn Hawn, Rhys Ifan and Imogen Poots holding up their end of the plot. Surprisingly enough, queen-of-blandness Jennifer Aniston also turns in a thoroughly despicable performance. She’s Funny That Way’s pacing is zippy, the misunderstandings are numerous, the dialogue relatively interesting and a stuffed squirrel even shows up as a plot point. I’m not sure I can ask for much more.

  • Son of a Gun (2014)

    Son of a Gun (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, June 2016) I wasn’t expecting much from Australian thriller Son of a Gun, but it does get steadily better as it goes on. Featuring Ewan MacGregor and Alicia Viklander, this film starts as a prison thriller, but gradually becomes more interesting as the characters get out of prison, execute their Big Heist and then have to live with the aftermath. Brenton Thwaites has the central role as a young man who is transformed by prison, becomes the confidante of a veteran criminal and tries to forge his own happy conclusion from between far more powerful villains. While the limits of the film’s budget are obvious, the script gets more interesting as it goes along, and the film’s west-Australia setting makes for an interesting change of pace. There isn’t much more to say about Son of a Gun—at best, it’s a quiet surprise for those who aren’t expecting much more.

  • Hail, Caesar! (2016)

    Hail, Caesar! (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, June 2016) I won’t actually claim to be a mature film critic, but there’s certainly been an evolution in my capacity to appreciate Coen Brothers movies even when they flat-out refuse any conventional appreciation. I didn’t set anything on fire at the end of A Serious Man, and while I think that No Country for Old Men is overrated (oops, there goes my credibility), I don’t deny that it has some fantastic moments. So it is with Hail Caesar!, which I expected to like a lot more based on its premise: After all, doesn’t the idea of a 1950s Hollywood studio fixer running around solving problems sound fantastic? Especially if that gives us the opportunity to re-create the kinds of movies (biblical epics, overwrought dramas, western comedies, musicals of both the sing-and-dance and aquatic variety) of the time? Seems like a target-rich foundation for a comedy, and Hail Caesar! does manage to hit a few targets along the way: Taken in five-minute scenes, there’s more than a few good moments in the film. Channing Tatum has a great dance number, George Clooney effortlessly plays a dim megastar, newcomer Alden Ehrenreich makes a great first impression (especially in doing lasso tricks). Unfortunately, those bits and pieces aren’t necessarily part of something bigger: The plot is haphazardly assembled, listlessly developed and more or less cast aside toward the end. Character moments don’t add up to dramatic arcs, and in-between too-short cameos and sudden/meaningless plot revelations, there’s a feeling that a lot of connective material has been left aside: This may have worked better as a miniseries than a film. In the meantime, we’re left with a few set pieces and a lot of wasted potential. As with most Coen movies, it’s worth looking at critical commentary piecing together the symbolic meaning of the film—there’s certainly a lot of material here revolving around systems of faith, including economic and spiritual ones. But at the most basic level, Hail Caesar! isn’t much of a success as a plot-driven film, and considering the amount of talent assembled for the occasion, we’re not wrong in expecting more.

  • Zootopia (2016)

    Zootopia (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Video on Demand, June 2016) Disney’s Animated Studios post-Bolt renaissance is further strengthened with this latest entry in their filmography. Zootopia fully takes advantage of the possibilities of today’s cutting-edge computer animation to revel in its anthropomorphic vision. The prospect of a mystery set in a city filled with talking mammals is so obvious that it’s a bit of a wonder why it hadn’t been attempted so far, but Zootopia goes beyond the obvious cute-animal gags to deliver a surprisingly relevant story revolving around prejudice and self-fulfillment. A few comic set-pieces work well, but Zootopia does have enough substance to please the parents while the kids have fun with the cartoons. (Beware, though, that some of the darkest sequences may be a bit too intense for younger audiences.) The world sketched here is expansive and compelling—there seems to be a lot of potential for sequels and spin-offs. Still, what we see here though the likable Judy Hopps is bursting with energy and invention, with surprisingly sophisticated moral commentary on the corrosive nature of populism and prejudice. I wasn’t expecting emerging-Nazism metaphors to creep into my Disney cartoons, but there we are and the result is fit to make adults just as enthusiastic about Zootopia as the little kids loving the cute animals. While I could have shortened some of the more obvious moments (Hopps’ impromptu media briefing seems like a notable misfire in an otherwise deftly handled film, although I’m not too crazy about the excruciating sloth sequence), Zootopia is a big hit with broad cross-appeal and it deserves all the good press it got.

  • Jumanji (1995)

    Jumanji (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, June 2016) I recall seeing Jumanji on TV in the mid-nineties, but another visit twenty years later only highlights the film’s issues. It’s not simply that the film’s special effects haven’t aged well (and they haven’t—the CGI material looks noticeably disconnected from the live action), it’s the film’s structure, its casual disregard for causality, its refusal to engage in the consequences of its more audacious ideas. Robin Williams is fine in the lead role (although one sense that he’s being restrained with the requirements of the special-effect production) and the script does show some intriguing ideas along the way, but they’re not explored in any details beyond the surface appeal of compelling visuals (monkeys jumping around the kitchen, wild beasts stampeding on the city square). Meanwhile, these are a few horrific ideas dealing with lengthy exiles, the game-as-monster and parallel timelines that are barely and lazily addressed. Of course, exploring those issues further would take Jumanji far away from the romp-for-children that it aims to be… Still, there are missed opportunities in making weighty themes stand too close to an adventure film for kids: I can imagine younger audiences cheering and clapping along while their parents stand there with a queasy grin informed by far too many reasonable fears. If you can let go of this weighty baggage of implications, the film itself works intermittently: Director Joe Johnston can certainly handle special effects set pieces (it’s not his fault if the technology wasn’t quite there yet at the time). For once, the announcement of an impending remake doesn’t bother me too much: Jumanji has a lot of potential, but a lot of it was mishandled by this version. Here’s hoping the 2017 remake does better.

  • Léon [The Professional] (1994)

    Léon [The Professional] (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, Second viewing, On Cable TV, June 2016) I know I’ve seen Léon at least once twenty-some years ago, but I didn’t remember much more than one or two images for it. Count that as a good thing, because it allowed me to rediscover Léon in most of its glory. It’s not a triumph of plotting, but of execution: writer/director Luc Besson’s a flawed filmmaker, but in Léon has managed to play to his strengths such as action, atmosphere and iconic characters, while minimizing most of his weaknesses like stupid dialogues and tiring anti-establishmentarianism. Well, most of his weaknesses, because if you go down the rabbit hole of the movie’s deleted scenes picturing a romantic relationship between the two lead characters and then match that to Besson’s own personal romantic history you will be screaming, “No, Luc Besson, no!” faster than you’d expect. But moving on: Léon distills a strong but uncomplicated story to a few action set pieces and clever character moments. It’s almost uncluttered (save from some oddities such as the shooting-the-president comic sequence), focuses on its better moments and showcases three great actors: Natalie Portman in her screen debut, Jean Reno in what’s perhaps still his best-known role (luckily, he dubs his own voice in the French version), and Gary Oldman in another great role in a long and varied filmography. The action beats are impeccable, and the atmosphere of a bustling but slightly rotten New York City is fantastic. Léon holds up all right, especially considering how often the teenage-assassin idea has been redone since then.

  • Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

    Mrs. Doubtfire (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, June 2016) I’m sure that the filmmakers wanted me to like Mrs. Doubtfire more than I did. Featuring Robin Williams as an immature dad cross-dressing as a way to stay in touch with his kids following a messy separation, Mrs. Doubtfire navigates a tricky line between Williams’ high-intensity comedy and the somewhat more sobering implications of a disintegrating marriage. There’s a layer of duplicity and impossible logistics to the film that makes it harder to enjoy the moment you look closer at it. (Do you know how much close-up face prosthetics cost and how long they take to apply?) For a while, it doesn’t matter very much, especially when Williams is on-screen making funny voices and working without a leash. But anyone expecting a tidy conclusion will have to contend with a romantic rival who’s not despicable, a conclusion that doesn’t patch everything together and an ending where things go on uncomfortably. I’d normally appreciate such a nuanced conclusion, but it merely reinforces a feeling that for a comedy, Mrs. Doubtfire is a sad film, with good people driven to lies and unhealthy behaviour. Much of the same can be said of the film itself: sometimes, we’re torn between opposite impulses, and they end up making a mess of good intentions. Here, the drama undermines the comedy and the comedy undermines the drama, leaving no-one truly happy.