Movie Review

  • Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

    Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on Demand, October 2013) Marvel Studios sure has been on a roll lately; exception made of the dull Thor movies, their last few films haven’t merely played the superhero-blockbuster movie theme as well as it could, but they’ve started playing around with the formula in ways that could be considered risky.  So it is that Captain America 2 goes well beyond its predecessor, taking on the style of a contemporary techno-thriller, destroying some of the foundations of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far and piling up revelations about the entire Marvel series.  It’s standard superhero stuff, but it’s so exceptionally well-made, and takes such unnecessary chances that a less confident studio would have avoided, that it can’t help but earn a lot of sympathy.  Making fullest use of Chris Evans’ enduring charm, Captain America 2 also gives bigger roles to Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanov and Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury: both prove equal to the greater scrutiny.  (And that’s without mentioning the plum role given to Robert Redford, in a nod to his place in 1970s political thrillers, or Anthony Mackie once again making full use of his limited time in a supporting role.)  (Oh, and George St-Pierre bring a welcome –if incongruous- French-Canadian accent to the film.) The title character adapts well to the current era, but the dilemmas of the contemporary surveillance/intelligence state aren’t a good match for someone forged in 1940s idealism, and it’s those themes, even cursorily tackled, that give interesting depths to Captain America 2 as more than just an action film.  Still, even on a moment-to-moment basis, directors Anthony and Joe Russo show a really good eye for what makes great action sequences: fluid camera work, movement with weight, solid sound design and clever moments all contribute to making Captain America 2 one of the best-directed action movie in recent memory: the extended car chase is particularly good, as is the elevator fight sequence. (In-between the other Phase 2 films, let’s give credit to Marvel Studio for its choices as it picks lesser-known directors for major movies.) Other fascinating bits and pieces pepper the film, from a deliciously mainframe-punk Artificial Intelligence reprising a character from the first film, to the big and small details tying this film to the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe.  It’s an impressive piece of work, whether it’s considered on a moment-by-moment basis or as part of a series that now sports seven other entries.  At a time where DC can’t manage to complete even one fully satisfying superhero movie, it’s a bit amazing to see Marvel so successfully achieve the insanely ambitious plan they forged years ago, at a time when even planning a trilogy was a bit crazy.

  • Antisocial (2013)

    Antisocial (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2013) “Yet another zombie movie” would normally have me roll my eyes as, well, yet another zombie movie at a time where we’ve gone well beyond saturation point on those, but Antisocial has a few things going for it.  The first being an attempt at melding horror with social criticism of (as it were) social networks.  In this case, a New Year’s Eve celebration turns horrific as the world is ravaged by an epidemic whose source turns out to be internet-driven.  While not staggeringly new (hello, The Signal, Pulse, Cell), that’s a high concept in itself (as the apocalypse plays out as status updates and videos from beyond the closed quarters of the setting), but writer/director Cody Calahan has an eye for horror at a basic level, and so Antisocial manages a few effective sequences along the way, whether we’re talking about Christmas-light flickering death or rusty basement self-lobotomy.  There’s a bit of self-aware humor among the low-budget limitations of the film, and while the acting isn’t particularly noteworthy, lead Michelle Mylett doesn’t do too badly and develops her screen presence as the film goes on.  The rest of the film could have been better (as in; more interesting characters, tighter pacing, more artful exposition), but Antisocial gets a few credits as a cheap and effective horror film with a few bigger-than-average ideas.  The sequel is reportedly in production, which may help in developing said bigger-than-average ideas into something more substantial.

  • Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

    Berberian Sound Studio (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2014)  The only thing worse than a film that goes nowhere is a film that initially seems to go somewhere, and then doesn’t.  To its credit (or, if you’d rather, as a sole reason why you may want to see the movie despite it not going anywhere), Berberian Sound Studio begins with an intriguing half-hour.  During the 1970s, a British sound engineer ends up at an Italian recording studio where he is surprised to find out that he’s been hired to work on a horror movie.  Strange and off-putting events then occur.  And that’s pretty much it as a plot summary, because there is no resolution, no climax, and no point to it all.  Beyond the intriguing re-creation of a sound recording process (complete with seventies-era fetishism for knobs, sliders, buttons and magnetic tape), Berberian Sound Studio is all weirdness and no pay-off.  Too bad for Toby Jones: his usual nebbish persona fits perfectly as a lonely middle-aged sound engineer thrust completely out of his element.  But writer/director Peter Strickland seems to have forgotten to include the last third of the script, and the result is more frustrating than is deserved.  What’s infuriating is that there are neat tricks here and there: we never see a frame of the movie they’re working on beyond its credits sequence; there’s nary a violent act to be seen (only heard, often through violent disassembly of vegetables), a few sequences definitely feel off-putting.  But the film gets less and less interesting as it goes on, only to end abruptly at the point where most other films would start delivering answers or scares.  Cinephiles (especially those with knowledge and fondness for giallo) will like Berberian Sound Studio a lot more than general audiences.

  • Her (2013)

    Her (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2014) Ask me about the ideal qualities of a Science Fiction movie and I’m now more likely to focus on such qualities as ideas, verisimilitude and the impact of progress on people rather than the special effects, action sequences and big bold visions of the future that initially drew me to the genre.  Her is practically a case study of those qualities: It’s a low-key but satisfying exploration of a basic SF idea: What if someone fell in love with an artificial intelligence?  Writer/Director Spike Jones couches his romantic drama in grounded terms: “Artificial intelligence” is eschewed in favour of “Operating System”, his character inhabit a world not terribly different from ours (although the way his future Los Angeles is clean, built up with a fantastic public transit system may be more science-fictional than a fully-functional AI) and the technology is an invisible part of the background rather than a showy set-piece.  Joaquin Phoenix is terrific as the mopey loner protagonist, while Scarlett Johanssen brings a strong presence to an audio-only role. (From the moment her voice cracks, we’re onboard with her OS being a real character.) But the real richness of the film is in the ideas it tackles, and those that it alludes to: While the film focuses on a thorny disembodied love story, it’s also set (through a few efficient dialog fragments) against a background of an AI-led singularity event, one that ultimately has deep consequences for the world as much as the protagonist.  This is a lovely use of SF Big Ideas, and Her‘s focus ultimately serves it well, both at populating the richness of the central story, but also at hinting at something much bigger going on elsewhere.  There are unique scenes and sequences in this film that have never been seen elsewhere so far (including a pair of love scenes that feel genuinely new), in support of a film that’s as interesting a take on social commentary as any “issues” film.  It’s easy to be enthusiastic about the film: trying to pick apart the themes alone is enough to keep anyone occupied for a while.  (All the way to the hoary “what is love, but a reflection of ourselves?”) Her may be best appreciated in retrospect: the film itself is deceptively simple on a scene-to-scene basis, but it becomes more interesting once you’ve had the chance to think about it for a while.  At last, a film that is unapologetically science-fictional, and should please both audiences that don’t like SF as well as jaded SF fans.  For once, I’m frustrated by my one-paragraph “capsule” movie review style, because I feel there’s a lot more to be said about the Her than can fit comfortably here in the margins.

  • The Babymakers (2012)

    The Babymakers (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2014) Complaining about a Jay Chandrasekhar comedy being crass is a bit redundant, but here goes anyway: The Babymakers goes quickly from an amiable comedy to a vulgar one, then hops back and forth between the two stances in ways that seem more accidental than deliberate.  It’s supposed to be about a couple trying to conceive (itself a subject that shouldn’t be treated lightly), but it quickly aims for the lowest common denominator in setting up a sperm bank heist.  With a subject like that, you can imagine the gross-outs that inevitably follow.  It’s not that the film is lacking in laughs, or that it’s entirely without charm: Paul Schneider is a fairly good leading man, while Olivia Munn isn’t too bad in a still-rare feature film leading role. (Alas, their married-couple banter feels more like a frat-boy’s idea of a perfect marriage, but that’s roughly equal to the rest of the film.) The rest of the supporting cast is there for laughs, and Chandrasekhar himself gets a few chuckles as a seedy fixer.  Still, there are often lulls, ill-advised subplots (such as the unnecessarily-mean gay couple segment), a weak conclusion and scenes that don’t reach either for credibility or zany humor.  As a result, The Babymakers may not be terrible, but it’s not any good either, and it doesn’t have the spark of charm that’s required for transforming a mediocre comedy into a likable one. 

  • Identity Thief (2013)

    Identity Thief (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2014) What happens when Hollywood’s insistence in showcasing an irritating comic persona runs into a complete lack of sympathy?  I’ll be the first to admit that Melissa McCarthy’s supporting turn in Bridesmaids was one of the best things about it.  But based on The Heat and now Identity Thief, it looks as if that kind of humor doesn’t work as a leading performance.  Once again, McCarthy finds herself playing an abrasive, brash and thoroughly unlikable character: an identity thief, living large on other people’s accounts while incidentally ruining their lives.  Well, I’m not laughing.  Of course, thing being a bog-standard mainstream Hollywood comedy, we know what’s next: rehabilitation of her character through even worse antagonists, pitiable childhood trauma, deep-seated sweetness and out-of-character heartfelt actions.  Well guess what, Hollywood: I’m still not playing along.  That character remains unlikable throughout, and much of the film follows along with it.  It doesn’t help that Identity Thief remains by-the-numbers as a road movie featuring opposites: the plot beats are always obvious, and nothing makes the material rise above mediocrity.  Too bad; I really like Jason Bateman as the straight man, there are plenty of interesting actors buried in secondary roles (from Genesis Rodriguez to Robert Patrick to John Cho) and the film is directed cleanly by Seth Gordon, with even a spectacular car chase midway through to keep things interesting.  (But then again, mid-movie car chases have becomes something of a fixture in recent mainstream buddy comedies, and I’m not sure why.)  Identity Thief earns its audience’s antipathy early on and never lets go –by the time it’s over, we’re just glad it’s over.

  • Dead Man Down (2013)

    Dead Man Down (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2014) For some reason, I expected a bit more oomph from this thriller.  Colin Farrell isn’t the big star he used to be, so it’s not as big a surprise to find him in a quasi-direct-to-video thriller.  Still, much of Dead Man Down has the unfortunate tendency to combine a dreary-dull atmosphere with far-fetched plot beats: New York in the rain, disfigured heroine, brooding protagonist on one side; intricate revenge plan, grandiose crime bosses, rat torture, pickup crashing into a house on the other.  Director Niels Arden Oplev is best-known for the Swedish The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo film, but there’s a mild-mannered lack of edge to his style that make the film a bit boring to watch despite its outlandish elements.  Everything’s gray and grimy… except for Noomi Rapace, looking good despite being supposedly disfigured to a point where kids shout “Monster!” at her.  Dead Man Down surely won’t make waves or history despite finding a few interesting shooting locations near New York City: it’s a bit too sedate for the wild story it’s trying to tell, and not quite deep enough to masquerade as a character drama beyond the shootouts.  At best, it’s a competent time-waster, the kind of thriller you find late at night and can’t find any better choice.

  • The Details (2011)

    The Details (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2014) As far as “suburbia is hell” dark comedies are concerned, The Details runs close to the clichés: Despair over a perfect yard, home renovations, adultery, family-building and keeping good relations with the neighbors all loom large over the stranded subplots of the film.  It’s messy, chaotic, not particularly believable nor even likable, but The Details does score one or two laughs along the way, and is seldom uninteresting largely due to its one-thing-after-another approach to plotting.  For a film that practically went unseen before making its cable-TV debut, writer/director Jacob Aaron Estes’ dark comedy does boast of a pretty good cast: Seldom has anyone used Tobey Maguire’s innate blandness to better effect, while Ray Liotta, Kerry Washington, Dennis Haybert and Elizabeth Banks all turn in perfectly respectable performances.  (Still, Laura Linney earns most of the attention here with a performance that is alternately kooky, frumpy, sexy, scary and pitiable.)  As befits a film that multiplies its subplots, The Details gets a bit sprawled along the way to its dark and cynical conclusion (rather than act as a guide-post, the opening monologues tells a little bit too much), but the ride is interesting.  Don’t let the fact that you’ve never heard of the film dissuade you from taking a chance on it: It’s a sign of the current hyper-saturation of the movie industry that decent films such as this one can disappear in the system for more than three years after a limited theatrical run before resurfacing on cable TV. 

  • The Conjuring (2013)

    The Conjuring (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2014) There’s something to be said for a well-executed horror film even when it doesn’t try to reinvent the genre or leave the viewers with permanent trauma.  So it is that The Conjuring harkens back to simpler times, when ordinary people were imperilled by supernatural horrors and extraordinary people could come to help them out.  Here, the Perron family (two adults, five daughters) finds itself threatened by demonic forces shortly after moving into a dilapidated farmhouse in 1971.  Financially desperate and concerned by increasing signs of evil, they call upon paranormal investigators to investigate and hopefully solve the case with minimal loss of life.  It’s as basic a premise for a horror film as can be, but there’s a lot to be said for director James Wan’s approach to the material and the quality of the script: from the first few moments, The Conjuring is carefully controlled, beguiling in the way it sets up its characters, creepy in showing us the setting and well-accomplished in its visuals.  We’re never comfortable, especially when the characters are so sympathetic. (Lili Taylor has a substantial role as the matriarch while Ron Livingstone plays dutiful husband, but it’s Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga who are most compelling as the Warrens, carefully inhabiting roles halfway between credible people and unflappable demon-hunters.)  Like an un-ironic old-school classic, The Conjuring carefully ramps up its creepiness into chills into scares into full-blown horror… and remarkably enough without showing much gore, nudity or profanity.  There’s nothing really new here (nor is there much in terms of thematic depth), but in horror even more than in other genres, execution is key and this film nails down the fundamentals.  It works even better as an antidote for routine horror movies that fail to even provide the basic scares.  Even the comforting finale is exactly what the film (and the characters) needed.  Throw The Conjuring in with films such as Sinister and its prototype Insidious, and you’ve got a good argument for an ongoing revival of good American mainstream horror.

  • Extracted aka Extraction (2012)

    Extracted aka Extraction (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2014) Most low-budget SF movies to be found on cable movie channels are irremediable garbage, and knowing this only raises one question: why do I keep watching them?  The answer is found in Primer and Cube, two movies that show that a low budget can be coupled with a high imagination to deliver perfectly good SF on a budget.  Now that Cube and Primer are a decade old and aging fast, here comes Extracted to suggest (even if not as solidly) that the quest still isn’t fruitless.  Reportedly shot on a $100,000 budget, Extracted eventually manages to create an engaging SF story out of little more than a few conversations.  The scattershot beginning eventually clears up to reveal a scientist stuck in a criminal’s memories, victim of an unforeseen problem in trying to find out if the criminal has truly committed murder.  Eventually managing to make contact with his host’s mind, our protagonist tries to find a way out of his coma and find out the truth about the murder.  While the film doesn’t start out all that promisingly, it eventually develops a nice narrative velocity as it explains the rules of its universe and moves on to ever-more-complicated situations made possible by the film’s central idea.  While the ending is a bit messy, writer/director Nir Paniry is able to deliver a satisfying SF experience without fancy special effects.  I’m not convinced that the entire script holds up together, but the film does acknowledge the frailty of memories in making its final point, which is already not too bad.  Extracted is a film to be admired more than to be liked, but it works pretty well, and should satisfy jaded science-fiction fans even more than casual viewers.

  • Sand Sharks (2012)

    Sand Sharks (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2013)  With a title like that, what more is there to know?  Yup: sand sharks.  No, it’s not a monster movie that takes itself seriously, even though it’s curiously light on laughs despite everything else.  The limited budget even allows a welcome respite from gore… that is, until a sympathetic character gets an undignified death that plays badly in the middle of what could have been a light-hearted romp.  It’s a basic miscalculation that does much to undo what was until then a low-budget, low-quality but generally enjoyable production. (Heck, until then Sand Sharks was far more enjoyable than Piranha 3D.)  It’s assets like Brooke Hogan’s beach-bunny-playing-a-scientist that occasionally make Sand Sharks more interesting than it has any right to be: her atrocious acting is only matched by the quality of the material she’s given, but it somehow works in an odd way.  Still, don’t expect much more than a routine monster film: Sand Sharks may occasionally show a bit of wit (such as when the protagonists almost hold their breath for a monologuing character to be eaten… which happens a beat later), but it’s sabotaged by a routine script, threadbare production values and not-particularly-charismatic actors.  It’s duller than it should have been, even as a self-aware cheapo creature feature.

  • The Purge (2013)

    The Purge (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2013) I hate it when an intriguing premise ends up leading to a strictly routine result.  While The Purge‘s premise is nonsensical (“Let’s allow all crime for the next 12 hours!  That’ll be sure to solve some problems rather than create more!”), it’s different enough to demand attention.  Unfortunately, the premise merely leads to a standard home-invasion thriller, as forced as it is dull.  I suppose I should be impressed by the way the big premise leads to a single-location low-budget movie with a small cast, but the lack of connection between the vast ambitions and narrative possibilities of The Purge‘s imagined future and the ordinary thriller that it expresses.  Big ideas about animalistic urges, fascist states, retribution and repercussions are hardly glanced in a script that doesn’t quite know what to do with what it has at its disposal.  Execution-wise, Ethan Hawke is once again wasted in a role that could have suited a multitude of other actors, while writer/director James DeMonaco doesn’t do much better as a director than as a screenwriter: The Purge is filled with sequences that could have been quite a bit better, had there been a bigger budget or a better imagination at hand.  Maybe someone will re-make it in a decade or two, and we’ll see a better take on the premise.

  • Epic (2013)

    Epic (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2013) I wish I had anything beyond a shrug to offer as a lasting reaction to this animated fantasy film.  It’s obvious that a lot of people worked a long time in order to create Epic.  Still, it falls flat: it hits its mark, provides what’s expected yet doesn’t manage to achieve a lasting impression.  Visually, some of the animation looks clumsy and the aesthetics of the film seem subtly unpleasant even when they don’t mean to.  The narrative threads aren’t hidden at all (even for a kid’s movie), and it does feel surprisingly long despite a short running time.  Blue Sky Studio’s filmography is filled with animated features that go on to make a lot of money despite routine results, and in this light Epic isn’t much of an aberration.  Struggling with having anything to add to this, I’ll simply note that the title is far too grandiose for such an average story, that some of the voice casting feel forced for show (Beyonce? Steven Tyler? Pitbull?) and that despite everything, it doesn’t quite feel like a waste of time.  I suppose there are worse choices for kids, although I’ll note that the fast-moving visuals and darker scenes mark it for the 8+ set.

  • Stranded (2013)

    Stranded (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2014)  Oy…  Repeat after me: low-budget Canadian science-fiction movies are rarely good.  Having been burned a few times already, I really should know better by now.  Still, there’s a lower threshold of quality that one expects, and it’s fascinating to see Stranded struggle to even meet that basic level.  The first five minutes are almost promising, as a small crew on a lunar mining base is threatened by a catastrophic meteoroid impact.  Is this a survival story?  Alas, no: Within moments, the lone female character discovers something alien, is impregnated, gives birth to a shape-shifting monster that decides to look like another character and then go on to kill enthusiastically.  Dull stuff, rapidly crashing at the bottom of the list of Alien rip-offs.  Stranded is so bad that I’m actually offended at the impregnation subplot, which throws a charged plot development in the middle of a movie that doesn’t earn or deserve such emotional heavy-lifting.  Beyond the dull characters and repetitive scripting, much of the rest of the movie is just too dull to care about: badly-lit, limply propelled forward, saddled with an Earth-bound epilogue that weakens the result rather than strengthen it, Stranded is just yet another Canadian SF film filmed in a dim warehouse (in no less a film powerhouse than Regina, Saskatchewan) featuring a handful of characters and a monster.  With this, director Roger Christian has actually made a film worse than his own Battlefield Earth, which is praise of an impressive sort.  Poor Christian Slater looks a bit confused here: sure, he’s getting paid, but is it all worth it?  I was sort-of-impressed to see obvious models being used for moon-base shots rather than CGI: Nowadays, it’s the kind of artistic decision that shows a commitment to lack of quality, and speaks for the rest of the film.

  • The Legend of Sarila (2013)

    The Legend of Sarila (2013)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2014)  Even considered as a movie aimed at kids, The Legend of Sarila has its rough spots: the computer animation is primitive compared to what we’re used to see from bigger studios, the direction is sometimes off, the script is hobbled by obvious dialogue and the story doesn’t have any surprises.  Still, this is one of those films that make even jaded reviewers wary of too much negativity: Taking place in the Canadian North and featuring Inuit characters, The Legend of Sarila has a considerable amount of home-grown charm.  The focus on Inuit culture, mythology and traditional ways of living (even simplified for purposes of a film) is unusual enough; the fact that it was almost entirely put together using Canadian talent is inspiring.  So it is that it’s hard to be overly harsh on The Legend of Sarila: it’s the kind of film that exemplifies why we have cultural financing in this country.  I’m even glad that it was partially financed using public dollars.  Just don’t ask me to pretend that it’s up to par with other computer-animated films that cost ten times as much.