Reviews

  • The Changeling (1980)

    The Changeling (1980)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) Some horror movies age strangely, few of them like The Changeling. A Canadian production (explaining why it still plays frequently on Canadian cable TV stations eager to fulfill their CanCon requirements), The Changeling is successively dumb, boring, intriguing then ridiculous. A terrible opening sequence features one of the least convincing familial trauma sequences ever shot, as a snow plow slams into a car, killing the protagonist’s entire family. This is followed by an interminable first act in which our protagonist (a refreshingly older man decently played by George C. Scott) experiences the same kind of spooky stuff than in nearly all haunted house movies made since then. This, however, is followed by a genuinely intriguing third quarter in which the protagonist’s investigation reveals a mystery closer to The Ring’s vengeful ghost than anything else—the film’s standout sequence has to be the one in which a well is discovered under a house, revealing something crucial. Then, well, the film kind of loses it: the wheelchair sequence is almost too dumb for words (which doesn’t stop it from looking even dumber on-screen) and the film goes back to autopilot right in time for a run-of-the-mill finale. While it doesn’t amount to a film that demands a look even today, The Changeling does have enough quirky (some good, some bad) moments to make it an interesting watch. Horror historians will probably find more to see in this film, especially how it compares to other haunted-house movies of the era.

  • Terms of Endearment (1983)

    Terms of Endearment (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2017) Get your hankies out, because Terms of Endearment is here to make you sob as hard as you can. The story of a relationship between a mother and her daughter spanning decades, this is the kind of slice-of-life movie where mundane details add up to epochal drama. The weight of the passing years heighten the sweep of the drama, but it’s not all wall-to-wall dourness as the film does reach for comedy under writer/director James L. Brooks. Some of the film’s most memorable moments are very funny, although they do take on a more sombre quality knowing how the film ends. Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger both turn in best-of-career performances as the mother/daughter duo, with Jack Nicholson, Jeff Daniels, Danny Devito and John Lightgow all delivering good supporting roles along the way. It’s a kind of A-list picture that big studios don’t make anymore (although you’ll find similar material in independent films) and while it still works today, it’s a kind of movie made for a specific audience—I didn’t respond all that deeply to it, but I suspect that’s because I fall outside its target demographic.

  • Wyatt Earp (1994)

    Wyatt Earp (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2017) It’s either a good or a bad thing that I got to see Tombstone a week before Wyatt Earp. A good thing, in that Tombstone suggests a better way to develop the same material as the dour, overlong and self-important Wyatt Earp. Although, to be fair, seeing Kevin Costner at the top of the cast would suggest something as dour, overlong and self-important as nearly all of his other movies. Rather than focusing on a specific slice of time in Earp’s life, this movie chooses a far more inclusive approach, beginning with childhood experiences and going all the way to an Alaskan cruise epilogue. In doing so, it may present a more faceted portrait of the character, but it can’t be bothered to provide excitement or even enough entertainment over the course of a rather long three hours and change. Costner himself is stoic, impassible, heroic without being engaging. (On the other hand, Dennis Quaid is compelling as Doc Holliday) The film plays without being interesting, and even the Tombstone-set segment suffers in comparison to Tombstone’s more dramatic approach. There’s no scenery chomping here, and that’s too bad, because even as Wyatt Earp does touch upon the nature of myth-making late in the film, there’s a sense that it, itself, has not pushed that aspect more. Years later, Tombstone has decisively won the comparison with its near-contemporary: it’s remembered more frequently and fondly. Even if the only thing people remember from Tombstone is Kurt Russell’s over-the-top “Hell is coming with me!”, then that’s one more thing than people will remember from Wyatt Earp.

  • Little Fockers (2010)

    Little Fockers (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) Given that Little Fockers (such wit in the titling!) is the fourth film in the Meet the Parents series, anyone who doesn’t like it despite having seen the previous movies only has themselves to blame. An easy grab-bag of humiliation comedy, repeated routines, gross gags and repetitive character interaction, Little Fockers is pretty much what you can expect from it. Oh, let’s see the protagonist spar with his father-in-law, get into humiliating situations and save the day at the end—how novel. How lazy. This is not a film for subtlety or surprises: jokes can be seen well in advance, their point seems to be as much embarrassment as possible and who cares if they’re rehashing conflicts from the previous three movies? Still, it’s surprising that the project was able to attract and retain so many name actors, including a reportedly reluctant Dustin Hoffman who barely shows up in a few disconnected scenes. Charitably, it’s hard not to mention that after four movies spanning ten years, Little Fockers feels like an episode in a long-running sitcom: What are those unchanging characters up to? Fortunately, it now looks as if the series will stop there. A good thing too, given that every time a new one is released, you can hear Ben Stiller and Robert de Niro’s reputation sink to new lows.

  • Gold (2016)

    Gold (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-Demand, May 2017) The good news are that while Gold is based on a true story, it’s certainly not beholden to it, and so the Canadian Bre-X scandal becomes an American one and the hero is allowed to walk away with what amounts to a happy ending of sorts. The film is at its best when it offers a look behind the scenes of a mining company, from exploring prospective mining sites to meeting investors on Wall Street. Matthew McConaughey de-glams himself in the lead role, taking on a balding haircut, unflattering teeth and an overweight physique to give us a character unlike any in his filmography. It’s not a great performance on the order of what he’s been regularly presenting in the past half-decade, but it’s decent enough and he surrounds himself with capable character actors such as Édgar Ramírez, Bryce Dallas Howard and Corey Stoll. The film itself is rather duller than you’d expect from the high-flying subject matter—writer/director Stephen Gaghan has done much better in the past, and Gold can’t quite get out of a safe comfort zone. On the other hand, it’s a relatively entertaining watch, and it ends with a somewhat happier note than you’d expect. Gold may not be much more than a standard evening’s entertainment, but the inner look at mining operations can be enough to tip the scale for some viewers.

  • The Karate Kid (2010)

    The Karate Kid (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2017) The 1984 version of The Karate Kid is such a cultural fixture that any attempt to remake it was doomed to irrelevancy. This being said, this 2010 remake does try its best, most notably but relocating the action in China where our hero involuntarily immigrates when his mom gets a new job. The change of scenery does much to renew a movie that largely recycles the original film’s structure: The look inside modern China can be interesting at times, as well as highlighting the fish-out-of-water nature of the protagonist. Unfortunately, that same basic decision does have its drawbacks: it removes the quasi-universal nature of the backdrop for American audiences (although, and this is significant, it does open it up to Chinese audiences), making it much harder to empathize with the high-school trials of the (significantly younger) protagonist. It also weakens the impact of Mister Miyagi’s teachings and makes a mush out of the protagonist’s attempts to fit in. Essentially, it transforms the universality of the first film into a very specific situation, and sabotages itself along the way. It doesn’t help that at eleven or twelve, lead actor Jaden Smith looks far too young for an archetypically teenage role. While it’s nice to see Jackie Chan in a decent American movie role, he doesn’t have much to do—far more judicious is seeing Taraji P. Henson in the “mom” role, greatly expanding the original character. To be fair, this Karate Kid remake is decently executed: anyone who hasn’t seen the 1984 film is likely to be moderately satisfied by the result. But for those pesky viewers with fresh memories of the original, this remake has too many small issues to enjoy.

  • Year One (2009)

    Year One (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Crackle Streaming, May 2017) If Hollywood history has proven anything, it’s that nothing is safe from its vulgar lowbrow comic premises. Here, Year One uses prehistory as an excuse to let Jack Black and Michael Cera go wild with their usual comic persona, from cavemen to old-testament riffs. The anachronisms are the point of much of the humour, but the juvenile nature of most jokes doesn’t allow Year One to fly high. Still, what’s maybe most impressive about the film are the number of known actors willing to ham it up for such a vapid film: Whether you’re talking seasoned comedians like Paul Rudd, David Cross, Oliver Platt and Hank Azaria, or it-girls such as Olivia Wilde and Juno Temple, Year One is heavy in small cameo roles. This may give the impression that the film is better than it is, though, which isn’t the case. Depending on your reaction to Cera and Black’s screen persona, Year One either feels like a chore or a slog. (Black’s shtick is more overly offensive than Cera’s, but an entire film built on Cera tics would be unbearably dull.) Year One probably works best as one of those films you let play on background while doing other things. It’s not as if you’re going to miss anything crucial if you don’t happen to pay attention at every time, and it’s not as if you’re going to feel guilty about missing a few moments of the film if you have to leave the room for a while.

  • Glory (1989)

    Glory (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) Blending a war movie with judicious social progressivism seems almost de rigueur these days, but I gather that it wasn’t as obvious in 1989, when Glory came out with a relatively groundbreaking depiction of an African-American battalion during the Civil War. As you’d expect from this kind of hybridization, Glory spends its time either indulging in the usual plot mechanics of a military training story, in-between describing the plight of its heroes on social issues. Nearly thirty years later, it’s not quite so innovative, but it’s made well enough to remain mildly interesting. (I suspect that, like all movies specifically dedicated to American social history, it’s going to be more relevant to American viewers.) Matthew Broderick stars as the military commander of the group, but the film’s most interesting performance goes to Denzel Washington, as a surly but ultimately honourable black soldier; Morgan Freeman and Andre Braugher are also featured prominently. The familiarity of the film can lull viewers in a comfortable daze, but the finale of the film does much to elevate it—spent in sand rather than the usual open field battlegrounds of Civil War movies, it’s also unusually bleak in how it adheres to historical fact. Glory may not be fun or fresh especially today, but it’s solid and respectable.

  • Fifty Shades Darker (2017)

    Fifty Shades Darker (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-Demand, May 2017) The Fifty Shades trilogy keeps going with this second instalment and the results as just as dull as viewers of the first film can imagine. While the BDSM content has been toned down in favour of a far more conventional romance, Fifty Shades Darker still plays like a direct-to-video romantic thriller enlivened by more explicit than usual sex scenes. It’s remarkably boring, especially as the plot is so threadbare. Stalkers, ex-lovers, etc.: how ordinary. Dakota Johnson is, to her credit, still the best thing about the movie: her acting runs circles over the impassible Jamie Dornan, and she will probably have a career after this series wraps up. Kim Basinger also has a decent small role, but otherwise there isn’t much to say. There’s quite a bit of wish fulfillment in the way the film lingers in high-priced sets and gadgets. There’s even a bit of sunshine when the two characters take a sailboat out for a day. Roughly half a dozen sex scenes interrupt the dull story for even duller moments—the recurring “panties removal” motif is interesting, but not much else. Otherwise, the film does spend quite a bit of time short-looping its dramatic developments (the boss is lecherous? Wait two scenes and he’ll be gone. Christian Gray disappears after a helicopter accident? Wait two scenes and he’ll be back) while spending its last fifteen minutes setting up its third instalment. We know it’s coming. There’s nothing we can do about it.

  • Brothers (2009)

    Brothers (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, May 2017) Let me tell you what a bad trailer is: A bad trailer spoils the movie so thoroughly that you can anticipate how it ends even eight years later. Now, I can’t account for the quirkiness of my brain given that it forgets when I’ve put my car keys while remembering a decade-old trailer for a mostly-forgotten movie, but the point is: I sat down to watch Brothers and kept waiting for that police confrontation scene … which comes at the end. It doesn’t help that the film is frankly dull, dealing with two brothers and what happens when one of them comforts the wife of the other while he’s missing and presumed dead in Afghanistan. You’d think that the question of whether the brother sleeps with the wife would be an interesting one, but Brothers is so limp and tedious that it’s a let-down when he doesn’t. From a narrative standpoint, there isn’t much to Brothers, making it feel even longer as the same plotlines are laboriously developed. It does fare batter as an acting showcase, given how it features Tobey Maguire in one of his most animated performances, the always-reliable Jake Gylenhaal as the problematic brother, and Nathalie Portman in a down-to-earth performance. Fans of straight-up drama will appreciate, although others may start eyeing their watches not long into the movie.

  • Tombstone (1993)

    Tombstone (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, May 2017) In an ideal world, I would be writing my impressions about Tombstone in a perfect vacuum, untainted by any later film or experience. In this world, however, I waited two weeks before jotting down this capsule review … after seeing the similar Wyatt Earp. I’m unlikely to be the only one to draw comparisons between the two, as both movies came out in 1993–1994 and have been linked ever since. While Wyatt Earp tries to give a whole-life portrait of Earp, Tombstone focuses on the events immediately preceding and following the shootout at O.K. Corral. But more crucially, Wyatt Earp is dour and interminable, whereas Tombstone does have Kurt Russell with a glorious moustache shouting “You tell ’em I’m coming … and hell’s coming with me, you hear? Hell’s coming with me!” That’s everything you need to know about both movies. Game over. Go home, Kevin Costner, you’re playing a drunk. More seriously, though: While Tombstone is the better of both Earp movies, it’s hardly a perfect film. While Russell, Val Kilmer (as Doc Holliday) and Sam Elliott (among many others) make a good impression, the film does take a while to find its footing: it’s only after some tedious throat-clearing and mismatched scenes that Tombstone realizes that it can have fun with its story and truly gets going. At times, it seems as if the film (wrongly) assumes that its viewers are familiar with the O.K. Corral shootout: there seems to be some connecting narrative tissue missing, some subplots disappear into nothingness and there’s an argument to be made that the shootout is the climax—anything that follows becomes less and less interesting and isn’t shot with the same amount of intensity. Looking at the comparison between Tombstone and Wyatt Earp once more highlights that Tombstone is better because it’s more fun—so maybe had it been even more fun it would have been even better? A shorter, even more focused, even less historically accurate version may have been a stronger movie. I suspect that had Tombstone been made a few years after Wyatt Earp, it would have been quite different.

  • Star Wars (1977)

    Star Wars (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Seventh or eighth viewing, On Blu-ray, May 2017) Well, well, well… Star Wars. The original. A fixture of my childhood, to the point where I long thought of the movie as review-proof: what would I possibly say about a film I watched every time it played on TV when I was a boy? I last saw it in theatres when it was re-released in 1997, and before then in the mid-nineties in a campus theatre with a bunch of animation students enthusiastic about the 1993 Definitive collection laserdisc, and before that nearly every broadcast on Radio Canada… But as I sat down to celebrate the 40th anniversary “May the Fourth” to watch the latest 2011 Blu-ray release of the 1977 film, I realized that there is, actually, quite a bit to say about Star Wars from a critical perspective. I’m not seven anymore, and the flaws of the film are more glaring than I expected. The story is simplistic. George Lucas’s dialogue, other than some oft-quoted lines, is frankly terrible. Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford have charm, but they were not gifted actors at the time (they got better, or more accurately grew more comfortable with their chosen screen persona). The universe is bare-bones and at time nonsensical. The special effects are all over the place, a flaw actually magnified by the hodgepodge of changes made to the film through the years, most notably in inserting now-dated CGI in the 1997 version of the film. The results clash, all the way to the overwhelming grain of 1977 film stock being blurred with 1997 digital makeup. The Blu-ray transfer of the film may be too good—much of the low-budget origins of the film clearly show, and harming the look of the film isn’t a good thing given that its substance is so lacking as well. Now, I still do like Star Wars—but I’ve become less and less of an uncritical fan over the years, and refreshing my memory of the first instalment does nothing to reverse the tendency. What may remain from Star Wars eventually is not much more than the launchpad of a much bigger and deeper shared universe. I’ll be watching the original trilogy in the next few months to officially log my reviews along the way (I saw them all last before I started keeping track of reviews), but I’m not going to be surprised if I end up re-evaluating the prequel trilogy based on my adjusted impressions of the three original films.

  • JFK (1991)

    JFK (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2017) As someone who’s almost viciously opposed to conspiracy theories, I’m about as far as you can imagine from being someone predisposed to like JFK. As a self-conscious “counter-myth” to the official conclusion that Lee Harvey Oswald killed Kennedy, JFK multiplies outlandish claims and plot in order to present a messy version of history in which powerful interests conspired to kill a sitting president. From a substance perspective, JFK often feels like a big ball of nonsense, spitting in all directions and actively introducing bad ideas in the discourse. But the big surprise is that despite all of this, I really liked the movie. It is, in many ways, a triumph of execution. Much of it has to do with its hyperactive style of editing, which feels very modern even twenty-five years later. It’s even more remarkable in that contrarily to much of the rapid-fire digital editing since then, JFK’s editing makes sense both from a content and container perspective: it’s often used to fake documentary proof, distinguish between periods, introduce flashbacks (sometimes even flashbacks within flashbacks) and peer into the characters’ minds … and it almost always makes sense. Acting credentials as solid, with a solid Kevin Costner in the lead, and various supporting roles played by such surprising names as Kevin Bacon, Tommy Lee Jones (in a very atypical role), Donald Sutherland, Gary Oldman and many others who are not always instantly recognizable in their roles. It all culminates in a barnstormer of a speech that will leave even conspiracy-skeptics cheering for truth and untainted democracy. For a three-hour film, JFK flies by and impresses even as a propaganda piece. It’s kind of amazing, actually, that such a piece of firebrand cinema would be so closely associated with major studio Warner Brothers. The years have been kind to JFK, even though its theory seems increasingly dubious (twenty-five years later, and no deathbed confessions…), its craft seems just as solid now as ever … and perhaps a bit less disorienting as it must have been then.

  • Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016)

    Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2017) I really liked the first Bridget Jones’s Diary, but as someone who believes that romantic comedies should never have sequels, Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason didn’t impress as much, and I’m even less enthusiastic about Bridget Jones’s Baby. This third film of the series has additional issues in that it takes place much, much later—so late, in fact, that what was adorably goofball behaviour by Bridget Jones in her twenties now seems a bit sad and unbecoming to someone in her forties. The youthful charm of the character has worn extremely thin and reviving a romantic triangle (involving uncertain paternity, no less) in that context seems more desperate than amusing. Those objections duly noted (and acknowledging that Zellweger, in growing older, seems to have become far more generic an actress), Bridget Jones’s Baby remains a mildly enjoyable piece of romantic comedy. The plot cheats are egregious, the humiliation comedy gets old, the ultimate issue is rarely in doubt. But parts of it are fun, the script is intermittently self-aware, Colin Firth is dependably good, Ed Sheeran shows up in a cute cameo and Zellweger can still pull at masculine protective heartstrings. On the other hand, let’s not pretend that this third entry in the series does anything but coast on the merits of its predecessors, and is likely destined to “third movie in the series bundle” status within a few years, never to be sold as anything but part of the DVD set. I’d ask the series to stop now before Bridget Jones’s Toddler, but I’m really not confident that anyone will listen.

  • The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

    The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, April 2017) Perhaps the biggest surprise of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is how neatly it follows-up on the first film. Despite a few new characters and situations, subplots are carried through, the tone is consistent and nearly every character gets a role to play in the sequel. The film picks up not too long after the first, which means that you can see the two film back-to-back and it will feel like a whole. The portrait of India is pleasantly complicated as the story goes a bit beyond the surface impressions of the first film. Judy Dench once again takes on a substantial role, but the ensemble cast does give substantial characters to Maggie Smith (continuing a solid character arc), Bill Nighy (charming in a role that could have been irritating), Dev Patel and, newly introduced in the series, Richard Gere. While The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is slightly more formulaic than the already schematic original (all the way to climaxing at a wedding), it’s a decent-enough follow-up to the first film—those who were charmed by the first Exotic Marigold Hotel are likely to feel just as pleased with this one.