Reviews

  • Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

    Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2019) The latter half of the 1980s was an interesting time for American Vietnam movies. If you accept that most of the 1970s were wasted denying that there was even a war, that the early 1980s were a time for anger (as per Rambo and Chuck Norris’ Missing in Action), then the late 1980s were a grab-bag of depression (Full Metal Jacket) and acceptance (Platoon, Casualties of War), then Good Morning, Vietnam looks a lot like bargaining: “Sure, we’ll set a movie in Vietnam and acknowledge our losses, but we’ll turn it in a wacky radio jock comedy!” OK, so that’s being a bit unfair—while Good Morning, Vietnam is among the quintessential Robin Williams movies solely for the characteristic riffs he performs early on (you can feel the script stop and the improv begin), it also sets the stage for a more sober look at the conflict in the film’s last third, as our observer protagonist finally feels involved in the events. The result is still a provocative blend of comedy to ease viewers into a somewhat even-handed depiction of the war, deftly using Williams’ natural gift to make a film that would have been impossible with another actor. While the focus is often on the comedy, director Barry Levinson doesn’t skimp on the portrayal of the war itself—there’s a twenty-second tracking shot of helicopters at the end of the “It’s a Wonderful World” sequence that would fit in any other Vietnam movie, comedy or not. There is a formulaic nature to Good Morning, Vietnam, sure, but it’s more than offset by a successful execution. The result is still a gripping, funny, very enjoyable film even decades later.

  • Missing in Action (1984)

    Missing in Action (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Let’s not mince words: Missing in Action is not a good movie. It’s not subtle. It’s created to cash in on a very specific sub-strain of American pathology, which is the desire to win all the wars they’ve ever been involved in, even if they have to rewrite history to do it. And yet, despite the low-budget and even lower imagination, Missing in Action may very well be a movie of historical importance. As the story goes, James Cameron’s treatment for what would later become Rambo: First Blood Part II was floating around Hollywood, and one of the production companies interested, the low-rent Cannon group, decided to create a new script out of the idea. But The Cannon Group was not interested in what can be laughingly called the sophistication of the second Rambo film: Here, there are no double-crosses from Americans: Everything is a straightforward jingoistic power fantasy in which American firepower defeat the Vietnamese at last and erase the national embarrassment. It’s straightforward to the point where it becomes iconic, and the film is worth seeing for no other reason than the classic unironic shot in which Chuck Norris inexplicably emerges from a river, big gun blazing. Understandably, Missing in Action became a rich source of inspiration for the second Hot Shots! parody. Amazingly enough, it just may be Norris’s best film—certainly the one where the budget is high enough, the distance between persona and character is slimmest, and the one where self-awareness is kept to a minimum. It was an integral part of the Reaganesque might-make-right action/war movies of the decade, and seemingly runs on pure distilled American pride. Again: I’m not saying that Missing in Action is a good movie … but anyone interested in 1980s Hollywood has to see this.

  • The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

    The Barefoot Contessa (1954)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) If I had to boil down a review of The Barefoot Contessa to two words, they would be Bogart/Gardner, with Mankiewicz as the third word. Not much else is needed considering that the point of the film is to see Humphrey Bogart as a movie director witnessing the rise and fall of a Spanish dancer (Ava Gardner) groomed to become a movie star. Written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, the film is a Hollywood tragedy with strong ties to the European aristocracy, and much of the film’s second-half drama comes from entanglements with an Italian count. Savvily taking viewers from Hollywood familiarity to the escapist melodrama of the old-world, The Barefoot Contessa was part of the “Hollywood on the Tiber” movement which saw studio movies shot in Rome. The Technicolor production values are impressive, and they all serve to reinforce the film’s old-school glamour: in some ways, you can see the film as being very near the apex of the studio system and the style in which old-school Hollywood built itself. It is melancholic, however: the ending is a downer (in keeping with a film that flashes back from a funeral) and Bogart’s character has far less to do than you’d think from his top billing: he is a witness to events outside his control, a chronicler of someone else’s story. (There’s an interesting double-bill to be made here with In a Lonely Place as a glum Bogart-as-filmmaker mini-festival.) Off-kilter touches like that are why I keep going back to Mankiewicz movies—they clearly understood the way that Hollywood worked and used that to create an element of surprise or freshness. But let’s not fool ourselves: The Barefoot Contessa is Ava Gardner’s movie. The title of the film has become closely associated with her (she herself liked to go barefoot), and it still ranks high as a showcase for her specific brand of glamour.

  • Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929)

    Frau im Mond [Woman in the Moon] (1929)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) If you’re watching Woman in the Moon for straight narrative qualities, you’re not going to have a good time—true to form for silent movies, it’s stultifying long, narratively rough, filled with what we now recognize as clichés, and scientifically ludicrous by today’s standards. On the other hand, this is a mandatory watch for anyone interested in the (pre)history of science-fiction movies. Directed by Fritz Lang, it’s very much a companion piece to Metropolis. Written by his then-wife Thea von Harbou (who was, one notes, an authentic SF writer adapting her own work), it’s one of the very few authentic Science Fiction movies of the first half of the 20th century. It clearly intends to seriously explore what space travel could look like from the best theories of the time, and this seriousness carries in a treatment of characters that is typically overdone by modern standards, but more ambitious than many of the cut-rate horror masquerading as SF until the genre became self-aware in the 1950s. Space buffs will clearly recognize the film’s prescient use of engineering refinements that would be used in the real space race: multi-stage rockets, countdown to launch, water used as launch heat dampeners and zero-G adaptations. The science gets wonky the moment they land on the moon (which here has a breathable atmosphere), but that too could be defended by some of the wilder scientific extrapolations of the time. I wouldn’t call Woman in the Moon a particularly entertaining film, but it’s fascinating from a historical perspective.

  • Guys and Dolls (1955)

    Guys and Dolls (1955)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) I remain amazed at how some movies can produce some consistent reactions for decades. If you look at contemporary accounts of Guys and Dolls prior to its release, the themes are similar: “What? Joseph L. Mankiewicz directs a musical featuring Jean Simmons and Marlon Brando? What craziness is this?!”  Considering that neither Mankiewicz, Simmons nor Brando ever went back to musicals after this one-off, you can get the exact same reaction well into the twenty-first century. Of course, we now have fairly entertaining stories of rivalry on the set between Brando and co-star Frank Sinatra, the latter of which was not impressed by Brando’s mumbling or singing deficiencies. (I’ll agree with Sinatra on this one.)  Guys and Dolls, seen from today’s perspective, is not entirely as slick as other musicals of the era—and Brando has the double disadvantages of not being in his element either as a singer or a comedian, his mumbling quickly becoming annoying. Sinatra is far more comfortable in going from song to jokes. The cabaret numbers are fun: I enjoyed the “Pet me Papa” cat-girl number a bit too much. Mankiewicz does relatively well in helming the production: The introduction is great, the conclusion makes good use of its impressive Times Square stage and the dice gambling scene is not bad either. The result is a bit too long at 150 minutes, but Guys and Dolls did scratch my itch for a lavish musical … and I look forward to future generations of cinephiles also asking themselves what Brando was doing in a musical.

  • Casualties of War (1989)

    Casualties of War (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, August 2019) You can certainly argue that Casualties of War seldom gets as much love as other similar movies. You can even offer a few perfectly reasonable explanations for it: Coming as it did right after Platoon (1986) and Full Metal Jacket (1987), perhaps it couldn’t measure up to those films. Perhaps having Michael J. Fox and Sean Penn in the lead roles made it more about the actors (especially Fox, then and now better known for comedic roles) than the substance. Perhaps Brian de Palma was seen as working too far outside his element. Perhaps the subject matter of war crimes as committed by American troops was harder to take than even an unflinching description of combat hell. No matter the reason, Casualties of War isn’t as likely to be mentioned as a great Vietnam movie. (Although it is receiving a growing critical reassessment.) Now, I’m not going to be a Tarantinoesque contrarian and claim that it’s a hidden gem, but it’s probably worth a look. De Palma keeps thing humming along, Penn makes for a fierce antagonist, Fox doesn’t do too badly as a baby-faced innocent confronted with war atrocities, and the subject matter is indeed more daring than many other takes on Vietnam. It may not be the most entertaining, most evocative, most credible Vietnam film, but it comes in at a sufficiently different angle to be worth a look as a complement, not necessarily as an inferior imitation.

  • Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

    Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In Theatres, August 2019) The origin story of Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw sounds like a case study for an ambitious Hollywood studio executive: what if the two biggest stars of your biggest moneymaking franchise start squabbling badly enough that it makes headlines? The obvious answer is to spin off another series to specifically showcase one of the squabbling stars and hope that the box-office keeps churning in. So it is that there’s nary a Vin Diesel to be found in Hobbs & Shaw, as the film feels free to jettison much of the increasingly burdensome “Family” of the main series in favour of focusing on the antagonistic relationship between Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and reformed terrorist Shaw (Jason Statham). This spinoff clearly takes bold leap into science fiction as the antagonist is a cyber-enhanced “Black Superman” as played by the always-incredible Idris Elba. But that’s not the least credible aspect of a film that has its protagonists escape a falling smokestack, pull a flying helicopter by their arm muscles or run down the side of a skyscraper. No, believability and physics aren’t the strong suit of Hobbs & Shaw—in keeping with the original series, this is more about quick quips, demented action sequences, celebrity cameos (including a very funny Ryan Reynolds and an amused Helen Mirren) alongside an exaggerated sense of fun. It generally works—while elements of the third act feel like a step back from the calculated insanity of the previous action sequences, the film as a whole can depend on great lead action icons and a rather cute Vanessa Kirby building on the good reviews she received in Mission Impossible: Fallout. It’s not as good or as involving as much of the mainline series, but Hobbs & Shaw does the trick in between other instalments.

    (Second viewing, Streaming, December 2025) A second look at Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw doesn’t surprisemuch. It’s still expendable in the context of the series, still more comic than thrilling, still a fine showcase for Johnson, Statham and Kirby, still a decently entertaining watch. But it leaves even less of an impression the second time around. No every bit works together (I’m still more puzzled than convinced by the Ryan Reynolds two-scenes cameo) and there’s a sense that there’s too much comedy and too much wild techno-thrills — not to mention CGI action that’s far less grounded than the practical-effects-heavy mainline series. It works, but in keeping with the post-Furious 7 era, there’s a sense that it’s never going to be as good as the series’ finest films.

  • Free Willy (1993)

    Free Willy (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2019) I can guarantee you that anyone who was alive and watching TV back in 1993 can tell you all about Free Willy’s climax: Reprinted in posters, every single trailer and most TV reviews of the film is the Big Shot of the film: An Orca jumping over a barrier on its way to freedom. That’s … pretty much the entire film. Marketing strategies for family films do not rely on surprise: they inform parents precisely of what they’re likely to get at the end of the film’s duration, so it’s not as bad as you’d think to reassure everyone, young or not so young, that the Willy will be freed at the end. (Which reminds me of the other reason why the film is still remembered: an endless decades-long snickering over the film’s title.)  For anyone with higher critical standards, director Simon Wincer’s Free Willy is not all that pleasant to watch: clearly aimed at the younger set, it sports a stock teenage protagonist, a cute animal sidekick, cartoonish villains and almost exactly the plot that can be deduced from the poster. It’s executed decently enough for its target audience, but does not hold any surprises or interest to anyone outside of it. Made of that what you will—Free Willy remains a movie made for a very specific audience.

  • They Live (1988)

    They Live (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2019) It’s a shame that writer-director John Carpenter never got to carry his extraordinary peak of creativity beyond the mid-1990s—At a time when genre cinema became wilder and more prevalent, it seems a waste that he never truly enjoyed the infinite capabilities of digital filmmaking or the far more genre-literate audience. Still, he can be proud of having produced something like eight genre masterpieces in the twenty-year period between 1975 and 1995, and They Live is clearly one of his best. Even today, there’s a biting ferociousness to the film’s social criticism, recasting a rigged economic system in a metaphor of alien invasion and exploitation. The metaphor of reading secret alien messages (“Consume!”) with the right viewing equipment is so simple and yet still incredibly effective. Of course, there’s more than just a consumerism critique here: the film works because it features an everyday man (a great casting choice in ex-wrestler Roddy Piper) fighting back against the oppressors. The film probably peaks during the lengthy fight between Piper and Keith David—the third act seems overly familiar, and actually quite conventional when compared to some of the incendiary material that preceded it—I mean, the bank shootout sequence can be incredibly disturbing if it wasn’t for greedy aliens being involved. Great one-liners and a straightforward delivery of satirical material still work well today. They Live is still a classic, and its critique of neoliberal Reaganomics hasn’t been invalidated in the slightest by thirty plus years of perspective. Carpenter could retire on a mere handful of his movies, and They Live makes quite a claim at being among his essentials.

  • Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)

    Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2019) There are some odd corners in Francis Ford Coppola’s filmography, and I think that Tucker: The Man and His Dream just may be one of my favourites. Starring Jeff Bridges, this is the story (adapted from real events) of Preston Tucker, who tried launching his automobile company in the late 1940s. The real story is not particularly inspiring on the surface: Tucker manufactured 51 automobiles, got sued for fraud, and died a few years later without having achieved more than an initial success. But in this movie, Hollywood goes to work with its movie magic: Tucker is portrayed as taking on the Big Three automobile manufacturers, his board of directors, skeptics, governments and yellow journalism. He’s portrayed as a crusader for automobile safety, for innovation, even for the very notion of a better future. It ends with a triumphant parade of sorts, as fifty Tuckers are brought in Chicago to demonstrate what he was able to achieve. Even knowing the real story isn’t enough to wipe the smile off our faces while watching this unusually cheerful feature. Tucker: The Man and His Dream was a passion project for Coppola, whose father invested in the company and who spent decades developing the project. His enthusiasm is infectious, as the film easily charms viewers into accepting its premise without question. It helps that the cinematography is a variation of bright colourful vintage nostalgia, everything appearing just a bit shinier and better than usual. It’s enough to make anyone wonder why Coppola didn’t make more feel-good movies.

  • From the Earth to the Moon (1958)

    From the Earth to the Moon (1958)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Oh, what a terrible, terrible disappointment. I should probably come clean right away and admit that Jules Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune is one of my favourite novels. I must have re-read it three or four times at a decade’s interval (which reminds me that I’m overdue for another reread)—a childhood favourite that still works in adulthood due to its mixture of clipped humour and engineering details. In the right hands, it would make a fantastic movie. But From the Earth to the Moon director Byron Haskin did not have the right hands, or if he did, he wasn’t given what was necessary to do the novel justice. My disappointment is so acute that I’m not going to get into the details, but this 1958 version of the story is a dismal shadow of its true potential. It removes the fun and the spectacle of the original novel and replaces it with clichés and bad ideas. Getting rid of Michel Ardan is inexplicable given the theatricality of the character. Inventing “Power X” and cheaply demonstrating it in a boring quarry is a terrible idea. Adding an antagonist is useless. Screwing up the novel’s third act is a travesty. And so on. I’m usually tolerant when it comes to film adaptations and older movies but this is not acceptable. What a waste and what a disappointment. Too bad for George Sanders and Joseph Cotton, who usually do much better. From the Earth to the Moon is not even enjoyable on its own terms, let alone as an adaptation.

  • Mortal Engines (2018)

    Mortal Engines (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) I’m not sure how future movie critics will regard the 2010s, but if I can give hints as an early commentator, I’d suggest poking at the commoditization of wonder. Never have there been as many fantasy movies, and never have they been so unremarkable. We see, on a monthly basis, sights and stories that would have amazed earlier generations of moviegoers limited by a lack of genre awareness and primitive special effects technology. And yet, high-imagination effects-filled movies such as Mortal Engines can come and go without making any significant cultural impact, digested almost instantly by an industry that drives viewers in seats week after week. As someone who read a lot of written Science Fiction, it’s almost incomprehensible how Mortal Engines can be reduced as a mere SFX-heavy movie of the week and be forgotten so soon after. This is, after all, a movie featuring moving cities, running on gigantic threads in a post-apocalyptic landscape and capturing/absorbing/digesting smaller cities along the way. This is a big-scale fantasy adventure, meant to inaugurate a trilogy of movies and wow the socks off its audience. And yet … we’ve been conditioned to watch and move on, looking for the next big thrill. To be fair, let’s not pretend that Mortal Engines is particularly well-packaged. Limited by its literary origins of a script adapted by a book series from Philip Reeve, the film overstuffs its wonders, zig-zags some peculiar paths and doesn’t always make sense once it gets to its cartoonishly evil antagonists. It’s also very YA-flavoured, meaning that it has a hard time distinguishing itself from the YA-dystopia subgenre that crashed so miserably in the mid-2010s (See above for “commodification of wonder”). As a result, Mortal Engines had miserable box-office returns that made it a high-profile failure and cemented that we will never ever get the screen adaptations of the three other books in the series. (Which may be for the better, as a plot summary of those books gets weird in the way that many YA series eventually get.)  Still, if I may be allowed a bit of a contrarian opinion, I really liked maybe half of Mortal Engines. The half that has London-the-city rampaging over the European countryside led by Christian Rivers’s direction. The half with the steampunk inventions coming straight out of the books, the derring-do of the characters, the wall-to-wall special effects, the engaging actors. I suspect that the other half, story-wise, is still too close to the eccentric books to truly flourish as a movie. And that’s really too bad, because generations of filmmakers would have killed to get the means that Mortal Engine squanders to little impact. If the 2020s should head in one direction, it’s calming down with the malleable digital reality of movies and figuring out interesting stories to tell.

  • The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)

    The House with a Clock in Its Walls (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Jack Black has been experiencing a weird career renaissance lately—from being a critical darling in the 1990s to an overexposed laughingstock in the 2000s–2010s (with the notable exception of School of Rock), he’s now bouncing back in the niche of kids-friendly comedies such as the Goosebumps, Jumanji, Kung-Fu Panda series and now The House with a Clock in its Walls. Older, more restrained, goateed whenever necessary, he’s now able to project some useful menace, nuance and wisdom. While aimed at kids, The House with a Clock in Its Walls is layered enough to be interesting to the entire family, as a young orphan comes to live with an eccentric uncle in a house with many, many secrets. Blending old-school tropes with a modern environment, this is a family comedy that works effectively (in 105 minutes) at creating an intriguing atmosphere. The menace is palpable, but it ultimately results into a family-united dynamic. Cate Blanchett has a minor but satisfying role as a witch, Renée Elise Goldsberry makes an impression as another witch, while director Eli Roth takes a much-needed break from gory horror in order to deliver PG-rated entertainment with some genre savvy. The House with a Clock in Its Walls is not a great movie, but it’s likable enough, spectacular enough and uses Jack Black to great effect. It would be churlish to ask for more.

  • Le samouraï [The Samurai] (1967)

    Le samouraï [The Samurai] (1967)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Some films age more poorly than others because they have been, in a sense, too successful: Whatever set them apart has been so often copied, referenced, improved or badly remade that they are now unremarkable. I feel a lot like this about Le Samouraï, which follows a hired killer with a Spartan lifestyle. Executed with stylish detachment, Le Samouraï offers a blend between making its protagonist as cool as possible (almost effortless when he’s played by Alain Delon) and presenting a deconstruction of that same cool-killer archetype by highlighting how mentally unwell he is. There’s not a whole lot of action to the film, most of the running time being dedicated to navigating a difficult situation between organized crime, the police and the victims. Many of the plot twists, all the way to the conclusion, can be anticipated well in advance: after all, there have been many similar movies in the decades since then, especially in the neo-noir 1990s. Some of my favourite (The Killer) and not-so-favourite (Ghost Dog) films of the period are clearly derived from Le samouraï, the point being that I’ve watched a lot of them and have developed an immune response to attempts at portraying stone-cold killers as cool guys. This being said, I can still recognize a clear artistic intention behind writer-director Jean-Pierre Melville’s intention in presenting the film, even though many will focus on the “cool assassin” tropes rather than the “barely functioning human” ones. Alain Delon, to repeat the obvious, is cooler-than-cool, while Cathy Rosier has a striking presence as a singer and intended victim. Le Samouraï now probably feels far more conceptually basic than it must have been at the time, but it does still score points on where it matters most … the execution.

  • Experiment in Terror (1962)

    Experiment in Terror (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) If you’re looking for a missing link in the evolution of the classic film noir period into modern thrillers, then Experiment in Terror is a revealing example. Visually and tonally it’s definitely a late-period self-aware film noir: harsh black-and-white cinematography, downbeat atmosphere, and a plot that plays with a mixture of civilian victims, mastermind criminal and law-abiding policeman. And yet, at times, it does show the way in which the thriller genre would evolve only a few years later—whether it’s a gratuitously weird and creepy sequence in a mannequin-filled room, or the deliberate codifying of the heroine as vulnerable rather than the more common femme fatale of noir. The result isn’t completely successful—in particular, the film is at least half an hour too long and so dilutes a lot of its early tension created when a bank teller is targeted by a particularly meticulous villain. There are a few too many tangents, and the shifting of the tone from paranoid noir into a more straightforward police action climax is a bit odd. For modern viewers, Experiment in Terror (terrific title, albeit more suggestive of a horror film) is a reminder that director Blake Edwards, while far better known for his slapstick big-budget comedy, also made a number of far more serious thrillers. Despite its flaws, the film does remain a successful suspense film, perhaps more in its first hour than its second … but I’ll take it all.