Reviews

  • Hidden Figures (2016)

    Hidden Figures (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) While I’m convinced that revisionist works such as Hidden Figures are essential in making full sense of history (which doesn’t rely solely on the majority-status figureheads, but also the unnamed masses actually doing the work), I can’t get rid of a feeling of annoyance when the fiction proves to be more revolting than the reality. I am, of course, showing my white privilege when I point out that Hidden Figures manipulates historical facts to make life seem even more terrible for its black female protagonists. (The entire washroom subplot, as infuriating as it is, never happened in real life.)  Still, there is a lot to like in what Hidden Figures actually does. “Coloured computers” packs so much wrongness in two words that it’s almost a relief to see a movie sidestep the heroics of The Right Stuff to show who was behind much of the mathematical grunt work. It helps that Taraji P. Henson, Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monáe make great heroines, and that capable white actors such as Kevin Costner and Kirsten Dunst are (for once!) relegated to support roles. (Meanwhile, there’s Jim Parsons being Jim Parsons—for all of the acclaim that he’s gotten for Sheldon Cooper, the more I see him in other venues the more I’m seeing him in the same role.)  The historical recreation of NASA’s early days (dramatic inaccuracies aside) is also impressive, and Hidden Figures more than finds its way alongside The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 as essential movies for space program enthusiasts. Which makes the inaccuracies worse, in a way—I’d settled for a less dramatic film if it meant a more accurate one: it’s not as if the basic story wasn’t inspiring enough…

  • 48 Hrs. (1982)

    48 Hrs. (1982)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2017) Ah, the eighties … peak era for police brutality and casual racism being presented as comedy engines. Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy team up in 48 Hrs. for a gritty crime comedy that prefigures much of the buddy-cop films to follow. The script is unrepentant about its use of racist profanity and brutal violence—it’s meant to be funny, but modern audiences may disagree. This being said, the film does works relatively well at what it tries to be, however distasteful this may be. Murphy is responsible for most of the laughs, most notably in a sequence in which he intimidates an entire redneck bar. Anette O’Toole has a far-too-brief turn as a peripheral girlfriend that disappears from the action without much fanfare. Director Walter Hill keeps things hopping steadily, which helps in watching the film today. While interesting as a prototype of latter action movies, 48 Hrs. has a limited appeal from today’s perspective—it’s been imitated, remixed and redone so often that Murphy aside, it’s difficult to see much of it as being distinct today.

  • Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

    Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2017) Deftly taking up and amplifying the cartoonish anarchism of its predecessor, Gremlins 2: The New Batch continues in more or less the same vein, taking the mayhem even further. It’s not as good as the original: the effect of surprise isn’t there, and there’s a clear sense that Gremlins 2 is more dedicated at making fun of itself than delivering a story in the way the first film did. So it is full with cartoonish gags, affectionate pokes at its premise (“what if you’re on an airplane?”), anarchic fun and fourth-wall-breaking. The two leads from the first film are back, Gizmo gets tortured and the human antagonist is a blended parody of Donald Trump and Rupert Murdoch, but let’s not pretend that the stars of the story are anyone but the Gremlins themselves, especially when a conveniently placed genetics research facility makes them articulate, able to fly or capable of turning themselves into electricity. Under director John Landis’s prime-era imagination, the film is incredibly fun to watch. Various set-pieces stick in mind: While everyone will enjoy the sequence in which Hulk Hogan tells the Gremlins to put the movie back on, Canadians will be particularly pleased by a sequence set in a Canada-themed restaurant with plenty of freeze-frame details. Gremlins 2 isn’t the great movie that the first Gremlins was, but it’s a more than decent follow-up, almost perfectly calibrated to make fans of the first film giddy with happiness. 

  • King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

    King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, September 2017) The reviews for King Arthur: Legend of the Sword were harsh enough that I didn’t expect to enjoy the film, but it doesn’t turn out to be quite as bad as anticipated. As an attempt to take the Arthurian legend and fuse it with modern fantasy filmmaking, it’s actually rather good. It helps that director Guy Richie’s style is in full display here: while some sequences are almost incomprehensible (sometimes due to information being undisclosed until much later), other moments have almost genius-level editing blending cause and effect, narration and irony in one energetic package. There are a lot of special effects along the way, Jude Law effectively mugging for the camera as a villain (which he should do more often), and an honest attempt at revitalizing Arthurian myth. It’s certainly not all good. Charlie Hunnam remains a strikingly ineffective lead despite being better here than in many other movies. There are a few dull moments. The anachronisms are blatant despite taking place in an avowed fantasy film. And yet, and yet… King Arthur: Legend of the Sword does have its share of strong moments, and it’s almost regrettable that its commercial failure film means that none of its planned sequels will even be brought to screen. As an origin story, it would have promised much for later exploits of the Knights of the Round Table. As it is, though, it’s a better-than-average fantasy film, with almost-stirring echoes of British myth-making for us colonials. I very much prefer this maximalist approach to the Arthurian legend than 2004’s gritty yet completely dull King Arthur, which made the legend so realistic that it completely lost interest.

  • Midnight Express (1978)

    Midnight Express (1978)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2017) If being tortured sounds like your idea of a great time, then rush to see Midnight Express as soon as possible. If not, well … never mind. The somewhat-true story of an American being imprisoned in Turkey after being caught smuggling drugs, Midnight Express aims to be a comprehensively awful depiction of a young man imprisoned in inhumane conditions. It really pulls no punches, and seemingly delights in making both protagonist and audiences miserable for as long as possible. All the while asking us to sympathize with an avowed drug smuggler. Alan Parker directs an Oliver Stone script, and the two-hour result feels much longer than it has any right to be. If you suspect that I wasn’t particularly thrilled by the experience, you’d be right—After doing my best to stay within the film for a while, I ended up escaping it by working on something else while the rest of the movie played along, glancing up at the screen at periodic intervals but not really being willing to invest myself any further in the story. Whether this counts as a success for the film should be obvious. Given the dour tone of much of the movie, the somewhat happy ending is a bit of a surprise.

  • Cape Fear (1962)

    Cape Fear (1962)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2017) I caught this film mostly as a prelude to watching the 1991 remake, but I’m actually impressed at how well this Kennedy-era thriller has held up. Even (slightly) pulling its punches regarding violence and sexual assault, Cape Fear does manage to be gripping and nightmarish. Much of this effectiveness has to be credited to Robert Mitchum: Gregory Peck is fine as the stalwart hero of the story, but it’s Mitchum’s incredibly dangerous ex-convict character that makes the movie work so well even fifty-five years later. The houseboat assault sequence alone, a lengthy one-shot that begins with an egg being smashed on the film’s female lead, is still off-putting even today. It certainly helps that Cape Fear has a strong Hitchcock influence (he storyboarded it; J. Lee Thompson stepped in after Hitchcock quit the project but kept most of the style intact), and remains distinctive despite imitators and a lasting influence. I was favourably impressed by the film, and actually prefer it to its slick 1991 remake in many ways.

  • Big (1988)

    Big (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) Given its enduring popularity, it seems almost amazing that I’d never seen Big until now. But it’s never too late to see what the fuss is about, and so a first viewing shows that its reputation is well deserved. The story of a boy who wishes he was big and then seeing his wish being fulfilled, Big is, at times, a celebration of boyhood, a fish-out-of-water comedy, a wistful meditation on the responsibilities of adulthood and an unusual romance. It works as a heartwarming comedy, even though some of the implications of “age of consent” are too uncomfortable to contemplate for long. There have been many body-switching movies in which kids have to deal with adulthood, but Big remains a reference because it does try something interesting with the concept—allow the boy hero to actually grow up along the way, and seriously have to choose between staying an adult or returning to childhood. I suspect that I will best appreciate Big the second time around—even though it’s recognizably a comedy from its first few moments, it’s not too clear how bad the experience will be for our protagonist the first time, and the movie does get better once we realize that nothing terrible will happens to him. The film’s biggest asset, of course, is Tom Hanks: His wide-eyed performance as an early teen in a man’s body is filled with well-observed mannerisms, and his latter transformation into something closer to a responsible adult is one of the film’s biggest pleasures. Robert Loggia also has a good turn as an unusually sympathetic boss—the iconic floor-piano sequence still works remarkably well due to a sense of fun shared between those two actors. While Big does have a few unpleasant undertones, it does deal seriously enough with its themes to remain current. Plus, you get top-form Tom Hanks at the beginning of his stardom.

  • Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

    Where the Wild Things Are (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) There are movies for kids and then there are movies about kids, and Where the Wild Things Are is definitely in the second category, given that I suspect that most adults would loathe to admit that kids’ lives can be as glum and depressing as the one depicted here. Following the adventures of a young boy with plenty of problems and an active imagination, the film begins and ends in the real world, but largely takes place in a fantasy in which various creatures interact with the protagonist. Cast from the independent-movie mould, Where the Wild Things Are isn’t a joyride—it focuses on loneliness, sadness and even betrayal. As a result, it feels like a depressing slog—despite the remarkable creature effects used in depicting how our boy protagonist interacts with fantastic creatures, it’s purposefully designed to instill wistfulness and contemplation. The visual quality of the film is likely to be hit and miss—while the creatures are impressively depicted, they feel similar in a shaggy dirty kind of way. Coupled with the one-note emotional register of the script, it makes Where the Wild Things Are feel more like an imposed hardship than a film that you’d willingly watch. Others will surely disagree—at the very least, writer/director Spike Jonze should be commended for coming up with an unusual vision from legendarily cantankerous author Maurice Sendak and sticking to it. 

  • Romancing the Stone (1984)

    Romancing the Stone (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, September 2017) If ever you’re in the mood for an action comedy in which a romance author finds adventure and love in South America alongside a dashing rogue, then Romancing the Stone should be your first pick. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and does it relatively well thanks to the lead actors and director Robert Zemeckis’s knack (even at that early stage of his career) for executing complex projects. Here we go from New York City to Colombia, evading government forces, drug lords and criminals along the way. Michael Douglas is quite good as the dashing adventurer, reminding us of his younger leading-man days. Opposite him, Kathleen Turner is not bad as a writer thrust in a series of adventures, loosening up along the way. There is nothing particularly novel to what Romancing the Stone is trying to do, and it can occasionally be annoying in how it goes about it (most notably in presenting the bumbling criminals who are supposed to be one of the two main sets of antagonists) but it does manage to become the adventure film it wants to be, with a good helping of comedy and romance to go along with the thrills. It occasionally fells long, and some of the limitations of 1984 filmmaking do show up from time to time, but Romancing the Stone remains mildly enjoyable even today.

  • Capricorn One (1977)

    Capricorn One (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2017) I’m not that fond of anything bolstering moon landing hoax conspiracy theories, and Capricorn One (despite technically being about a faked Mars landing) is one of the codifiers of that particular delusion. But let’s not blame a glum seventies thriller for contemporary idiocy—and let’s recognize that the film, one of veteran writer/director Peter Hyams’s first popular successes, still has a modest kick to it. Much of Capricorn One’s first half is a procedural thriller explaining why and how a Mars landing would be faked, and the reasons why the astronauts would go along with it. Then, landing successfully faked, it switches gears to a more familiar conspiracy thriller, keeping a trio of desert chases for its third act. The conspiracy itself doesn’t make a lot of sense (although it is good for a few vertiginous moments, such as the lengthy shot that gradually pulls away from a helmet to encompass the studio in which everything has been broadcast) but the film does get better with its thrills as it goes along. Highlights include a first-person runaway speeding sequence through a city that feels viscerally dangerous, and an extended air chase sequence toward the end that rivals anything produced since then. Hyams is a canny filmmaker, and it shows through a film that occasionally feels as gripping as it must have been back then. There are also a few good actors: Hal Holbrook is remarkable as a man who ultimately has to fake everything in order to keep his dream alive, whereas Elliott Gould is in fine form as an unlikely action hero. (For more of Gould as a dashing lead, have a look at the rather good Canadian-made thriller The Silent Partner, also released the same year.)  O.J. Simpson and James Brolin also show up as astronauts, even though they’re severely underwritten. While Capricorn One could have been tightened up considerably, it’s decently enjoyable as it is. I’m not asking for a remake, though.

  • Risk (2016)

    Risk (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) Filmmaker Laura Poitras rose to prominence with Citizenfour, the Oscar-winning documentary that chronicled the tension-filled week during which Edward Snowden revealed the NSA’s secrets to the world. Now she’s back with Risk, an inside look at Julian Assange and Wikileaks that was actually begun before Citizenfour’s events. As with most independent profiles of Assange, it’s not exactly complimentary. He’s variously portrayed as cranky, sexist, arrogant and misguided. This portrait certainly matches other sources of information about Assange, and Poitras’ growing disenchantment with him does reflect the consensus opinion about him. By the end of the film, Poitras doesn’t even shy away from credible suggestions that Assange has now become an agent, willing or not, of the Russian government in interfering in US affairs (including the 2016 presidential election). Such is the way of history, in which heroes seemingly too good to be true end up revealing their human flaws and being captured by interests outside of their self-reflection. Take on the world, and the world will fight back. While Risk offers original footage that confirms what has been discussed at length on the Internet, it remains a frustrating film for a number of reasons: It lacks a clear focus, or at least a clean line from beginning to end—there’s a sense that we go from one thing to another, somehow ending without a conclusion. To be fair, there is a lot of material discussed here (Manning! Assange! Wikileaks! Tor! Ecuadorian Embassy! Rape allegations! American Elections!), heightening the need for a compelling narrative guide. As with Citizenfour, Poitras chooses to distance herself from the camera, which becomes a less and less appropriate choice as it becomes clear that she was involved as more than a journalist in Wikileaks’s affairs. As it is, Risk exists a bit too removed from her experience—on-screen text and occasional voiceovers don’t quite manage to capture her journey away from Wikileaks and Assange. There are a lot of good ideas in this film, but they’re not developed fully, and may be hampered by the necessity to stick close to the footage she has shot—I’m left wondering if a more direct in-your-face approach, with on-screen appearances might not have produced better results. But who knows? Risk was reportedly reworked for a year in-between its debut at the 2016 Cannes festival and its 2017 wide cable TV release, and real-world event such as the American election clearly influenced the final cut. Wait six months, and I suspect that Assange’s story will have another twist or two. [November 2017: … and there it is, not even three months later: revelations that Assange was in communication with the Trump campaign, offering secrets and asking for an ambassadorship.]

  • Assassin’s Creed (2016)

    Assassin’s Creed (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) Videogame movie adaptations have a terrible track record, and Assassin’s Creed won’t do much to counter the prevailing opinion. Some things that only make sense when you have a game controller in your hands don’t survive the transition to the big screen very well, which is demonstrated as Assassin’s Creed piles up a mythology that sounds ludicrous from the first time “genetic memory” is mentioned. Even after watching its conclusion, I remain unconvinced that the Assassins are the good guys we’re supposed to be cheering for (and the film does have an unexamined propensity for using violence as a tool that I find off-putting for all sorts of reasons, but again: look at the source material). It doesn’t help that the plot seems to be twisting itself in all sorts of needlessly pointless shapes, grandly referring to things that are of no interest to most viewers. (Deep and sombre contemplation of a “leap of faith” had me scurrying to the nearest explanatory web page, only to discover that it was an overblown game mechanic.)  Still, even as mired in its own lore as Assassin’s Creed can be, it does sport one or two interesting things. Michael Fassbender is vastly overqualified as the lead actor, but he does bring his own kind of interest to the proceedings, helped along by Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Irons. The quality of the images show just how well CGI can now be used to create historical environments and bathe the rest of the film in gauzy haze. The production values are very good, including some impressive costume and set design work in its historical segments. Sadly, little of this leads to a film that can be enjoyed. In between the lengthy moments in which nothing happens, the ludicrous mythology, the confused morals and the self-important nonsense that passes off as dialogue, Assassin’s Creed remains a disappointment and another piece of evidence that no one has yet mastered how to bring interactive entertainment to the movies.

  • Apollo 13 (1995)

    Apollo 13 (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On DVD, September 2017) I remember standing in line to watch this film on opening week, and being energized by the result. Decades later, Apollo 13 is still as good as it ever was—as a triumphant look at the American effort to land on the moon, it remains unequalled, and while the then-astonishing special effects have aged, they still hold up reasonably well—that launch sequence is still awe-inspiring. They may never be a movie about Apollo 11 because it went so well, but the Apollo 13 mission was a different story, and it’s through that fateful flight that we get a look at the astonishing achievement of the American space program. The historical details are immediately credible, and there’s much to be said about a film made in the nineties to reflect events that were then barely more than twenty years past—trying to recreate 1973 today would be more difficult and probably less authentic, without mentioning all the people who have since died and wouldn’t be there to provide their advice. Reportedly free of major inaccuracies, Apollo 13 can’t quite escape some artistic licensing issues, whether it’s leaden explanatory dialogue, scenes set up to discuss a thematic concern or the vastly overwrought climax played up for all it’s worth. Still, these are small concerns compared to the entire film—it remains one of director Ron Howard’s most successful films, and it features a cast of a half-dozen great actors, from Tom Hanks’ immediately sympathetic commander Jim Lovell to Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and one of Ed Harris’s career-best iconic performance as no-nonsense flight director Gene Kranz. Everything clicks together to make up that elusive movie magic, effective even when knowing exactly how everything will play out. It’s not meant to be subtle (the last-act passage in which NASA reflects that Apollo 13 will be remembered as one of their “finest moments” lays out what viewers are expected to take away from the film itself) but it’s remarkably effective. As a lapsed space buff, I can’t help but love Apollo 13, but I’m reasonably sure that it remains a great movie for everyone even today.

  • My Cousin Rachel (2017)

    My Cousin Rachel (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video on-Demand, September 2017) Everything old can be new again, and so it’s not a bad idea to dig up some of Daphne Du Maurier’s Gothic romances as inspiration for movies that set themselves apart from the usual cut-and-dried psycho-killer thriller swill that we see too often today. My Cousin Rachel is a thriller told in suspicions, the viewer going back and forth in believing that a character is out to murder our protagonist. Rachel Weisz is very good as the titular Rachel, keeping us unsettled throughout the film and being able to play menacing or charming at rapid intervals. She makes Sam Claflin look pedestrian in what is supposed to be the protagonist’s role. The production values are high, as we spend a lot of time on a credibly recreated 19th-century British estate. My Cousin Rachel is not a fast-paced film, but it does well in taking its time to present us with an unfolding subtle story. The ending hits harder than it should. It’s the perfect kind of film to watch on a cozy snowy evening.

  • The Paper (1994)

    The Paper (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, September 2017) I recall seeing The Paper on its opening week, happy (as a former high-school paper editor) to see a film where newspapermen were heroes. I kept a good memory of the result, but I was curious to see if it held up two decades later. Fortunately, The Paper remains almost a definitive statement on 1990s city journalism. Tightly compressed in not much more than 24 hours of action, The Paper follows a hectic day in the life of a newspaper editor juggling work, family and citywide tensions. Directed with a lot of nervous energy by Ron Howard, The Paper can boast of an astonishing cast. Other than a top-form Michael Keaton as a harried news editor, there’s Robert Duvall as a grizzled senior editor, Glenn Close as something of an antagonist, Marisa Tomei as a pregnant journalist desperate for a last bit of newsroom action, Randy Quaid as a rough-and-tough journalist … and so on, all the way to two of my favourite character actresses, Roma Maffia and Siobhan Fallon, in small roles. The dense and taut script by the Koepp brothers offers a fascinating glimpse at the inner working of a nineties NYC newspaper, bolstered by astonishing set design: That newsroom is a thing of beauty as the camera flies by and catches glimpses of dozens of other subplots running along the edges of the screen. You may even be reminded of how things used to work before the rise of the 24-hour Internet-fuelled news cycle. (Of all the things that the Internet has killed, “Stop the presses!” is an under-appreciated loss.)  The Paper is one of those solid, satisfying movies that don’t really revolutionize anything, but happen to execute their premise as well as they could, and ends up being a reference in time. I’m sad to report that by 2017, The Paper seems to have been largely forgotten—while I caught it on Cable TV, it rarely comes up in discussions, has a scant IMDB following, and is rarely mentioned while discussing the careers of the players involved. Too bad—with luck, it will endure as the kind of film you’re happy to discover by yourself.