Reviews

  • Planet of the Apes (1968)

    Planet of the Apes (1968)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On Cable TV, October 2017) The original Planet of the Apes is often used as a punchline these days (if it’s not a reference to the classic twist ending, then it’s about The Simpson’s “Doctor Zaius” musical, the increasingly bad sequels or generally anything to do with a “man in ape suits” standard for bad SF movies) and it does deserve a lot of cackling. Much of the plot mechanics are silly, the overall premise makes zero sense (not to mention anything about the sequels), the thematic messages are heavy-handed and Charlton Heston does chew heroic amounts of scenery in his performance. Still, watching the film today does have a few unexpected things going for it. It’s clearly a big-budget production for its time, something that can be seen in a rather lavish opening sequence. Heston’s character is also surprisingly cranky for a heroic protagonist, and the script does have a few odd zingers here and there. Still, even the most forgiving viewer has to acknowledge that the film has aged poorly. The goofy script (by Twilight Zone legend Rod Serling) is ham-fisted, the production values show their age and much of the film feels dull given how often it goes over familiar terrain. In fact, one thing I did not expect from watching the original film is how much better it makes the 2001 remake look—especially given how I did not particularly like the remake. And this is not even mentioning the far superior 2011–2017 reboot trilogy.

  • Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) One of the peculiar pleasures of re-watching older movies is that you get to experience the same mystifying questions as previous generations of moviegoers. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that means watching the “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head” montage and smiling while wondering what such an atonal sequence is doing in a western movie. Reviewers have been asking that question for nearly fifty years, so I feel in good company. Not that this is the only question left unanswered by this film, which seems dead-set on not doing things the conventional way. While the buddy chemistry between Paul Newman and Robert Redford is next-level fantastic, everything else seems made to defy convention. Our charming but quixotic characters are out of time, too late for western heroics and too early for gangster drama. They flee rather than fight, but find themselves caught by fate several minutes later. There’s comedy overlaying a heavy drama (and one of the most famous tragic endings in movie history, overlaid with comic markers). But it works, largely because screenwriter William Goldman knows what he’s doing, and because of the great actors taking on the lines. The comic moments work—the “enough dynamite” sequence is still very funny. The result has survived the year reasonably well, largely because few studios would be willing to take that many chances with a big-name film these days.

  • The Frighteners (1996)

    The Frighteners (1996)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, In French, On Cable TV, October 2017) When I say I’ve been a Peter Jackson fan from way before The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I specifically refer to watching The Frighteners in the late nineties, loaned on VHS from a friend who had been very impressed by the result. Twenty years later, the film has aged a bit (the early-digital special effects look particularly dated, although they’re still used very effectively) but it remains a solid horror/comedy with a sometimes-daring mythology, effective character moments and a dynamic performance by writer/director Jackson. The film does take chances in its treatment of the afterlife, and especially in the way it goes for comedy in the middle of death. But the tonal blend works most of the time, and lead actor Michael J. Fox is well-suited to the protagonist’s role. (Meanwhile, Trini Alvarado is so likable that it’s a wonder that her filmography since then isn’t longer.)  Shot in New Zealand but made to look American, The Frighteners remains a bit of an under-appreciated gem today: not unknown, but not often mentioned. It’s worth a look for those who have never seen it, and a re-watch for those who haven’t seen it in years.

  • T2 Trainspotting (2017)

    T2 Trainspotting (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) I didn’t have very high expectations for T2 Trainspotting. While I liked the first movie, it’s not one of my favourites. The idea of revisiting the same characters twenty years later didn’t seem all that appealing, and I wasn’t too sure I wanted to go back to drug-addled Edinburgh for two hours. But, as the mantra goes, trust Danny Boyle. Boyle’s worst movies are more interesting than most directors’ best, and if he was interested in going back twenty years later, then why not? As it turns out, it doesn’t take a long time for T2 Trainspotting to announce its themes and grab our attention. Twenty years later, our characters have grown older but not necessarily better. They still struggle, albeit now with the added pressures of middle-age weighing on them. Some of them are miraculously still alive. All four main actors are back in their roles, although Ewan McGregor and Jonny Lee Miller get the most challenging assignments in taking on two characters with many issues to resolve. But the film’s best asset is indeed in going back twenty years later to the same places, knowing that it can’t recapture the magic of the original, knowing that life gets less forgiving the more you age, and contemplating youthful excess with something approaching burgeoning wisdom, or at least melancholy. T2 Trainspotting doesn’t forget to have a bit of fun through comic set-pieces, character reunions and action sequences, but it’s at its best when it’s looking around itself and wondering how its characters made it through twenty years. It’s self-aware in ways that most long-delayed sequels should be, acknowledging the passage of time and using it as a central thematic engine. It’s surprisingly enjoyable, but also surprisingly engaging.

  • Cujo (1983)

    Cujo (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, October 2017) While Cujo is not a bad movie in itself, it’s frustrating in that it misses being a much better movie by inches. The central conceit of the film is simple enough: a mom and her ailing son, trapped in a dilapidated car in the middle of nowhere by a rabid dog ready to tear them apart. It’s a powerful claustrophobic conceit, and recent movies such as Vehicle 19, Buried or Locke show that it’s possible to tell a full story under severe location restraints. But Cujo, coming from 1983, is too traditional to think about locking characters in a single location for 90 minutes: adapting Stephen King’s book as conventionally as possible, much of the film’s first half feels like one big prologue as we’re laboriously introduced to the characters, the setting, the situation and the dog. Anyone who knows anything about the film’s premise can be forgiven from feeling as if this is all a waste of time. It’s when all the elements are finally assembled and the action becomes constrained to the car (not air-conditioned, in heat-wave conditions) that the film finally clicks into higher gear. A good just-this-side-of-hysteria performance from Dee Wallace helps, even when the film does push things a bit too far during its overwrought climax. But much of it feels too little too late. While Cujo definitely remains watchable, it does feel half-hearted from today’s perspective.

  • My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

    My Little Pony: The Movie (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, In Theatres, October 2017) When my daughter picks the movie she wants to see, I’m usually fair game. In My Little Pony’s case, familiarity is key given how heavily the film plays with the established personalities of the five main ponies as they confront a kingdom-threatening peril. As I could name all five (and their dominant personality trait), I was in a reasonably good shape to appreciate the film. It works well enough at what it tries to be: an uplifting, reasonably entertaining film for kids (not so much a film for the entire family) featuring a decent moral message and enough adventures in new places to justify the ticket price. Here we get to go underwater and meet seahorses, which acts both as a thematically interesting addition and an effective merchandizing opportunity. It’s easy to become overly cynical about films that promote toys, but My Little Pony is, fortunately enough, better than expected in terms of life lessons for the pre-teen set. Friendship is cool, redemption is possible and all is darkest when alone given that strength is found in teamwork. Not a bad set of talking points for the drive home. Don’t be surprised to find all of it very cute.

  • To Die For (1995)

    To Die For (1995)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) Spoofing American society’s appetite for fame is self-obvious now that reality TV can launch mini-careers going all the way to the US presidency, but back in 1995, director Gus van Sant had to work harder with To Die For in order to present his mockumentary about an insanely ambitious woman working her way to the top of the local media ecosystem. Nicole Kidman headlines a solid cast made of competent character actors (Matt Dillon, Dan Hedaya, and the incomparable Illeana Douglas) as well as some up-and coming actors (Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck) who have since made a mark. Kidman proves surprisingly game to indulge in the film’s black comedy, preening herself up in a textbook-worthy depiction of psychological disorders. Everyone else stands in her shadow, mirroring how society tries to deal with such amoral dangers in its midst. The film runs a bit long (something that isn’t helped by the pseudo-documentary format) but is seldom dull thanks to the cast and the tone. While To Die For seems to have sunk back in relative obscurity these days, it’s still worth a look, if only as a precursor to the reality-TV era that would begin in earnest half a decade later.

  • Westworld, Season 1 (2016)

    Westworld, Season 1 (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) Early word on Westworld was not good. Hyped by HBO as their next big-budget SF&F show now that Game of Thrones is on its way out, the show suffered ominous-sounding production delays while scripts were re-tuned, which didn’t bode well in the wake of Vinyl’s failure. But while this first season definitely has its issues, the result occasionally reaches delirious peaks of peak TV goodness, playing with savvy audience expectations and delivering reality-altering perceptional shift. While the show begins and more or less ends where Michael Crichton’s original 1973 movie did, there’s a lot of complexity under the surface, and the attitudinal shifts in the show’s sympathies for artificial humans is notable. In-between Inception and Memento, show-runner Jonathan Nolan is known for mind-warping scripts and Westworld is occasionally no different: the first episode is a fantastically twisted introduction to a familiar concept, while the end-stretch of the series delivers solid revelations about the nature of some characters, narrative time-play and unexpectedly philosophical rambling. It’s hardly perfect: much of the stretch between episodes 2 and 6 could have been compressed in half the time, while the so-called deep thoughts of the conclusion feel both ponderous and nonsensical. But when Westworld works, it really works. Episodes 1, 7 and 10 alone are worth the long stretches in-between. Top-notch actors such as Ed Harris, Anthony Hopkins, Jeffrey Wright and Thandie Newton deliver good performances, the script cleverly plays to an audience that demands more from their TV miniseries and the visual polish of the result can be astonishing. Even the most pretentious aspects of the script can be seen as a plus given how high it aims. The sympathy of the series for its synthetic characters is a notable representation of the maturing of media Science Fiction—especially when humans act this rotten, can we really blame the robots for turning on their masters? I’m not sure where season 2 can take us, but as far as HBO is concerned, it’s mission accomplished for Westworld—expectations run high for the follow-up.

  • Hot Shots! (1991)

    Hot Shots! (1991)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second or third viewing, On DVD, October 2017) I first saw Hot Shots! as a teenager before seeing Top Gun, which may have coloured my perceptions of the so-called serious movie. But having recently seen Top Gun in its entirety makes a re-watch of Hot Shots! even funnier. This spoof, is the pure ZAZ lineage, relies a lot on deadpan jokes and actors playing ridiculous material as seriously as possible. Peak-era Charlie Sheen makes for a credible mixture of action-hero looks and comic timing, while Valeria Golino is both spectacular and hilarious as the obligatory (but not perfunctory) love interest—female roles in spoof comedies rarely get as good a character as she does here. While Hot Shots! is focused on Top Gun, it does have time to indulge in broader gags and isn’t content (as with many worse recent spoof movies) simply running through the original plot with extra slapstick and pop-culture references. As a result, Hot Shots! has aged well, even for those who haven’t watched Top Gun recently. In fact, it may even have appreciated slightly since its release given that the bottom has fallen out of the comedy subgenre. A competent spoof upon release, Hot Shots! now stands as a remarkably funny film today.

  • Empire of the Sun (1987)

    Empire of the Sun (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2017) “Christian Bale plays J.G. Ballard” is a really weird sentence to contemplate for anyone who knows a bit about twenty-first century blockbuster movies and new-wave sixties prose Science Fiction. It’s even half-true. Empire of the Sun certainly features Christian Bale in one of his first major roles, and adapts J.G. Ballard’s semi-autobiographical novel to the big screen. However, Ballard’s autobiographical experience mostly applies to the first part of the film, which depicts the lavish lifestyle of the British upper-class in early-WW2 Shanghai and their internment in civilian camps after the Japanese invasion. There are differences, though, as explained in a fascinating 2006 essay on the novel and the film by Ballard himself: Ballard spent the war in a camp with his parents, modified his character’s arc to differentiate it from himself and generally provided more closure than reality afforded. Still, as reported, Christian Bale did introduce himself to the author by saying “Hello, Mr Ballard. I’m you.” (The essay multiplies the strangeness—the film was partially filmed near Ballard’s home, leading some of his neighbours to feature in the film as extras.) The film itself is a study in the kind of old-school epic war drama that seems to have disappeared from the current movie landscape in favour of CGI-fuelled fantasy spectacles. There are a number of scenes with thousands of extras, a story that spans years, gorgeously fantastic sights captured in-camera without special effects (such as a stadium filled with objects taken by the Japanese) and an overall sweep to the story that feels prodigious. Bale is fine as the sometimes-unwitting protagonist of the story, but John Malkovich is delightfully amoral as a survivor trying his best to make it through the war, while various other notables such as Miranda Richardson, Joe Pantoliano and Ben Stiller (!) show up in smaller parts. The depiction of Shanghai is gripping, as is the way normalcy is disrupted in small and big ways after the Japanese invasion. The airplane motif is well done, and the film does earn its relatively happy conclusion. Dark humour and vertiginous sights (such as a faraway glimpse at nuclear explosions) enliven an already satisfying story. The result is still surprisingly engaging thirty years later—but then again, it’s a Steven Spielberg production.

  • The Crying Game (1992)

    The Crying Game (1992)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2017) I’m old enough to remember the hubbub surrounding the release of The Crying Game, and the numerous references/jokes/parodies to the film’s “big secret” that popped up in its wake. (In retrospect, much of it amounted to transphobia, and I would hope that today’s audiences would react in a more mature fashion.)  But viewing the film today, spoilers firmly applied, reveals a film that’s both better and worse than its critical reputation. The worst aspect of the film is its pacing. It takes forever for the premise to be cleared up, there are two first acts to the movie, and there are entire stretches where not much happens. On the other hand, The Crying Game does have quite a bit of dramatic power when it does get going. Knowing all about the film’s dramatic reveal does help in appreciating the subtle humour of the film (ending with “Stand by your Man” is cheeky, but beginning with “When a Man Loves a Woman” is even cheekier), but it also helps in appreciating Jaye Davidson’s unique performance. He’s the standout in a film that also features no less than Stephen Reas as an everyday-man terrorist, Forest Whittaker as a soldier in unique circumstances and Jim Broadbent as a bartender with an impressive head of black hair. The Crying Game has often been reduced to a punchline, but it’s far more heartfelt than its caricature would suggest. I would really be curious to see a remake in the next decade or so, largely in order to appreciate the progress on transgender issues since 1992. In the meantime, it’s an efficient drama, with a solid emotional core and far more entertaining than I assumed.

  • The Void (2016)

    The Void (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) Hype is a terrible thing but consider that even if The Void fails to measure up to the hype I heard about it, the hype did get me to watch it. For a low-budget Canadian horror film, that’s no insignificant achievement. As often happens with high-concept horror, The Void is better during its first mysterious half, then progressively more disappointing as it rushes to a conclusion without quite making sense of what came before. The basic nuts and bolts of the premise are not without interest: A policeman rushing to a hospital on the verge of closing down, a siege from crazed cultists, sombre horrors from the basement, mysterious characters acting in nonsensical ways… Add to that the strong Carpenter influences, the Lovecraftian tropes, the very gory practical effects and there’s enough there to please horror fans. This isn’t writers/Directors Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie first horror movie, and they are getting better at it. The Void slides from eerie thriller to full-blown creature horror more quickly than I expected, which presents its own challenges: it’s hard to keep up the pressure once everything goes crazy, and The Void increasingly stumbles in trying to tie everything back up in a single story. When all is said and done, there simply isn’t all that much to the final result, and even less that can be considered interesting. The ending feels like a mash-up of three or four very conventional movies, and isn’t necessarily well supported by everything that has come before. Still, I can’t help but go soft of a low-budget film that actually delivers a mildly entertaining experience even as it fails to reach its potential. The Void does measure up to the current standards of Canadian horror movies and that’s saying enough when there are almost always half a dozen worse choices available on specialized Canadian Cable TV channels.

  • Why Him? (2016)

    Why Him? (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) There’s a regular number of R-rated comedies these days, but it seems to me as if they’re coming off an assembly line. Take a comedian, take a serious actor, throw them in uncomfortable situations, be sure to feature a copious amount of profanity and make sure to wrap everything in feel-good themes about family, friendship and/or romance. No worries if they all end up feeling familiar since there will be another one six weeks later. Why Him? is PG-13 rated despite feeling like an R, but it certainly struggles with déjà vu: in-between seeing Bryan Cranston as a conventional family man visiting his daughter’s nouveau-riche boyfriend played by an unhinged James Franco, the film seems to have been assembled from familiar blocks in order to give audiences exactly what they would be expecting from the poster, the premise and/or the trailer. Jonah Hill can be spotted as producer and writer, which certainly explains a lot about the film’s well-worn comic elements. It’s not that Why Him? is bad (although some individual moments of the film are obnoxious) as much as it’s the same as half a dozen other recent movies. At nearly two hours, there’s a lot of fluff to the result (most notably a final act that just drags on and on), making the movie feel even more generic. While set at Christmas, I would be exceptionally surprised if Why Him? became anything like a holiday classic—heck, even the very similar The Night Before has a stronger shot at that title.

  • The China Syndrome (1979)

    The China Syndrome (1979)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, October 2017) Few movies ever reached topical relevancy as definitively as The China Syndrome, released barely twelve days before the Three Mile Island nuclear accident brought the film’s themes to the forefront of the public discourse. Nowadays, The China Syndrome still plays well, largely because it’s a solid thriller with a capable trio of lead actors. What viewers may not remember (or expect) from the film is how it acts as a great primer on newsgathering in the late seventies, with Jane Fonda playing an ambitious reporter, helped along by a cameraman/technician (a dashingly bearded Michael Douglas, who also produced the film), inadvertently records evidence of a dangerous incident at a nuclear power plant. Trade details aside, the film soon moves into solid conspiracy thriller territory as the characters do their best to go public before the incident reoccurs. The ending is dark, but not quite as bleak as I remembered it. Jack Lemmon anchors the conspiracy angle in reality. Convincing procedural details, either from the TV news angle or the operations of the nuclear reactor itself, keep the film grounded in the required realism. While the film’s surface sheen is clearly from the late seventies, The China Syndrome itself hasn’t aged all that much, and you could indeed imagine a remake that wouldn’t have to change much in order to remain relevant. Still, the 1979 version remains both compelling and reflective or its era. It is well worth a look.

  • The Lost Boys (1987)

    The Lost Boys (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, October 2017) Even at a time when we think we’ve seen it all with vampire movies, there’s a curious energy at play in The Lost Boys, which improbably blends comic tropes with a theme taken from Peter Pan in order to deliver a rather good horror-comedy. The idea of an idyllic Californian-coast town being home to a small group of vampires and becoming “the murder capital of the world” is amusing enough. But then there’s the protagonist falling in with bad influences, his brother getting acquainted with wannabe vampire killers who do end up being right, the mom hooking up with a suspiciously menacing shop owner … there are a lot of spinning plates here, and they all seem to belong to a slightly different genre. Surprisingly, it works—although there’s some freedom in clarifying that the film is not meant to be scrutinized too closely. Under Joel Schumacher’s direction, The Lost Boys is fast-paced, stylistically moody, generally enjoyable and, at times, an intriguing time capsule of mid-eighties conventions. The opening act is great, the middle act is good, but the third act does get a bit conventional, although still enjoyable in its own way. Jamie Gertz plays a convincing love interest, while Corey Haim and Jason Patric each have their own movie as brothers. Still, the highlight is a very young-looking Keifer Sutherland as the leader of the vampire pack. The themes are slight, but at least there’s something there that goes beyond the usual conventions of vampire movies until then. For the rest, The Lost Boys is a movie that has, through sheer daring and genre-blending, aged very well. It’s still worth a look, long after the vampire boom has come, gone and come back again.