Reviews

  • Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

    Resident Evil: The Final Chapter (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) The Resident Evil series has been a mixed bag of inconsistent results, so it’s perhaps no surprise to find out that what is billed as a final instalment would be so uneven. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter starts on a sour note, as the big-scale Washington, DC, battle promised by the previous instalment is completely avoided, with an inferior opening action sequence setting low expectations. Much of the first and second acts are a moving post-apocalyptic mixture of road rage and zombie action, seldom reaching the lunacy that marked the series’ best moments. Iain Glen does bring a bit of gravitas to the instalment, just in time for the film’s most interesting third act, which sees the action go back to The Hive where the series began. The fan-favourite laser corridor makes a return appearance (although it’s absurdly easy to defeat when the panels are smashed) and it all leads to a competent set-piece between super-powered characters before a conclusion of sort is offered, finalizing series lead Alice’s role in the entire shenanigans. (Milla Jovovich gives it all she can, but the most interesting thing here is how visibly she has aged in the fifteen years between the first and last movies of the series.)  As an announced conclusion, it does carry a not-entirely-unearned weight—unfortunately, it can’t meet those expectations. While there are a few good moments here and there, The Final Chapter remains a disappointment for not following up on the previous volume, for not fully giving satisfying endings to the series’ recurring characters and for settling for a fairly obvious conclusion. Even on a strictly visual level, director Paul W.S. Anderson turns in a routine film, without any of the visual flair he’s proven able to accomplish, even in the previous volume of the series. Much more would have been possible. With this lukewarm conclusion, it almost goes without saying that you’d better be a fan of the series before watching The Final Chapter—there’s little here, either in plotting or execution, to make it interesting if you’re not already invested in knowing how it will turn out.

  • The Last House on the Left (2009)

    The Last House on the Left (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) I have no fondness whatsoever for the home-invasion subgenre, in which randomly self-proclaimed psychopaths invade a house of innocent people and proceed to at least try to slaughter nearly everyone. The family often fights back, but there’s no telling how complete the body count will go. The Last House on the Left is one of those low-imagination, high-gore horror movies that really don’t bring anything new to the table … even considering that this is a remake. Seemingly trying everything possible in order to be repellent to viewers, it also hinges on an extended rape sequence, irremediable villains and a last shot that ramps up the gore to ludicrous levels just in order to be able to please the gorehounds in the audience. In-between, there’s not a lot to say: If there’s an intellectual subtext to, say, seeing good people answer violence by violence, then it’s nearly undetectable underneath the lavish attention spent on the horrors of the surface. It’s almost interesting to see actors with mild-mannered personas such as Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter turn homicidal as threatened parents, but really the movie itself isn’t special. The Last House on the Left certainly doesn’t manage to break out of its genre strictures to appeal to audiences who don’t like the essential premise of that sub-genre.

  • Quills (2000)

    Quills (2000)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) I suppose it was only a matter of time before the Marquis de Sade became a romantic figure for our so-called enlightened age, portrayed as fighting the true monsters of social righteousness. Yeah … have they even tried reading de Sade’s stuff? Of course, having Geoffrey Rush in the lead role helps a lot in making de Sade’s sympathetic … and measuring him to even-worse antagonists is just stacking the deck unfairly. At its best, Quills is a meditation on freedom of speech, and how obscenity (from a writer) isn’t quite as bad as outright demonstrated sadism (from his jailers). It’s generally OK at portraying this point, although I really was not pleased with the death of a character during the film’s third act—it seemed cruel even in a film built around cruelty. Executed with some competence, it does celebrate the written word no matter its medium or intent and as such gets some mild built-in interest. Still, it’s Rush’s performance that’s most interesting here, and director Philip Kaufman’s handling of difficult material that becomes efficient to the point of invisibility. Quills is really not supposed to be historically accurate, so any criticism in this direction becomes relatively moot. Fans of Jasper Fforde’s fantasy novels will be happy to see his name in the end credits—before becoming a best-selling author, Fforde was a film crewmember and he worked on movies such as Quills.

  • Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

    Smokey and the Bandit (1977)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second Viewing, On DVD, September 2017) I distinctly remember seeing Smokey and the Bandit when I was a boy, but other than a few curious moments of recognition or anticipation on this second viewing, I had forgotten nearly every detail of the film. Much of it isn’t too complicated, dealing with a cross-state beer run enlivened by a vengeful sheriff tracking down the woman who left his son at the altar. The transport truck moving the beer west isn’t nearly as interesting as the black Trans-Am (driven by Burt Reynolds, no less) running interference by attracting as much attraction as speedily as possible. Elements of the premise, these days, can benefit from historical annotations: That Coors wasn’t sold east of Oklahoma; that it spoiled within days due to lack of preservatives; and the various intricacies of police jurisdiction. But little of the technicalities matter when the point of Smokey and the Bandit is to stage stunt sequences, riff of Reynolds’s charm (less potent today—see the need for annotations—but still effective), feature Sally Field in a rather comic role and generally have fun sticking it to The Man. It’s really not subtle—Jerry Reed’s insanely catchy song “East bound and down” essentially acts as a Greek Chorus explaining the main points of the movie. Otherwise, Jackie Gleason’s antagonist is a pure caricature that starts grating early and never becomes more sympathetic. There’s some sweet comedy in the way the “legend” of the Bandit seems universal in the film’s universe, reaching minor characters via CB radio (a technology essential to the film’s atmosphere) and making them react in extraordinary ways to facilitate their progress. The stunts are fine as could be expected from stuntman-turned-director Hal Needham, the banter between Reynolds and Field is occasionally great, but it’s Smokey and the Bandit’s general atmosphere that remains compelling today, even if often on an anthropological level. 

  • Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

    Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, September 2017) Every so often, Tom Cruise’s superstar stature and kooky personal peculiarities can make everyone forget that he can act. Fortunately, there are plenty of counterexamples throughout his career, few as hard-hitting as his performance in Born on the Fourth of July, as he goes from naïve high-schooler to disillusioned Vietnam veteran. Ably written and directed by Oliver Stone, this is a film that, in many ways, stands as a definitive statement on the experience of many Vietnam veterans—lured into service by idealism, wounded in combat, ostracized by American society. It’s not an easy film to watch, but Cruise is really good in the lead role and the movie acts as a witness to an inglorious period in American history that shouldn’t be forgotten. It’s a long movie, but then again it spans more than a decade in a young man’s life, and part of Cruise’s challenge is to portray both a naïve high-schooler and a grizzled veteran. Willem Dafoe also shows up in a pivotal role. Born on the Fourth of July acts as a spiritual sequel of sorts to Platoon, and definitely ranks in the upper third of Stone movies.

  • Moonlight (2016)

    Moonlight (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, September 2017) Somewhere in my notional Critic’s Lexicon, there’s an entry for “spotlight rot,” or the tendency for genre work to curdle in appreciation when brought to a wider audience. This phenomenon is most visible during award season, as larger and more generalist viewers take a look at nominated works. What was, up to then, a critical darling of a small group of nominators can wither when considered from audiences who may not be initially sympathetic to the work’s goals and shared assumptions. So it is that Moonlight is, without a doubt, a rather good intimate drama depicting the journey of a young black man as he confronts his homosexuality in an environment that isn’t welcoming to his nature. It’s a film shot with skill by writer/director Barry Jenkins, structured unusually enough to beg attention and blessed with impressive performances by Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris and Janelle Monáe (who’s good and lucky enough to be in two Oscar-nominated movies this year). But taken out of that context, lauded as one of the year’s best picture and seen from another perspective, however … it does feel rather dull. Matter-of-fact. Imperfect. The rigid three-act structure elides a lot of details and forces the rest in a small window. (Confining Mahershala Ali’s performance to the first act seems like a wasted opportunity.)  The small budget of the film quickly shows its limits. And the point here isn’t that Moonlight is a lesser film—after all, it memorably won the Best Picture Oscar in one of the institution’s most unbelievable presentation screw-up. But the spotlight that the film gets as !!BEST PICTURE OF THE YEAR!! almost diminishes what it manages to accomplish with very little at its disposal. Time will tell if the film ages well … but it’s very possible that future film critics will wonder why it outclassed La-La Land and other contenders … and then we’ll have to explain #oscarssowhite … and maybe the current president. Sometimes, even small movies get swept up in big movements.

  • The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)

    The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theatres, September 2017) In some ways, The Lego Ninjago Movie is the movie we feared when we heard about The Lego Movie or The Lego Batman Movie: nothing more than an advertisement for the toy brand, competently executed but somewhat hollow. The Lego Movie turned out otherwise, by being superlatively funny and by using Lego bricks to poke at some philosophical truths. The Lego Batman Movie also turned otherwise, by deconstructing the Batman character in a surprisingly wholesome fashion. The Lego Ninjago Movie, alas, is far more restrained in its ambitions: It’s a straight-up adventure film featuring high schoolers defending a city against a relentless supervillain that happens to be the father of one of them. The film’s standout sequence is a vertiginous depiction of an attack on Ninjago City—pushing computer animation to the limits of what virtual Lego bricks can do, it’s the kind of action highlight that plays like the best play fantasies of eight-year-old boys everywhere. From a visual perspective, there’s also an interesting blend of Lego models blended with attempts at recreating the real world via CGI, as if a kid was playing in his backyard with brick-built models. Otherwise, The Lego Ninjago Movie is far more ordinary—while it’s charming enough to create smiles and a moderate engagement toward the characters, its emotional arc is very familiar, and it seems to hold back on much of the wild comedy that made such a hit out of its predecessors. As an Adult Fan of Lego, I have to admit that the Lego sets sold by the movie are quite nice—I wouldn’t mind building Ninjago City itself. I’m still glad I saw The Lego Ninjago Movie, I’m still happy it exists, but given that I’d like a long series of excellent Lego movies, I fear that this first misstep may scale back the ambition of future instalments. 

  • Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

    Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, September 2017) At some point, someone will need to sit down with Mel Gibson and ask if he’s all right, because most of his movies as a director include unnecessary gore to a level that approaches ridiculousness. Hacksaw Ridge is no exception, but it feels even more ridiculous given how dissonant the film gets once it heads to war. The first half of the film is easily the most interesting, as a young man (Andrew Garfield, effortlessly likable) enlists but refuses to take up arms due to religious beliefs. The army doesn’t take his conscientious objection very well, and the action soon moves to the courtroom as our protagonist defends his right not to bear arms in the service of the nation. There’s a conventional romance, but the angle through which Gibson explores national service is interesting. Then we head over to the front and Hacksaw Ridge becomes an entirely different animal. As combat rages on, soldiers are killed in increasingly gruesome ways only made possible by CGI and our protagonist must continue to operate in this hellish environment. If viewers had been worried they wouldn’t get war sequences after a pacific start, those worries are soon put to rest by a Grand Guignol carnival of exploding heads and severed limbs. Some viewers may want to tune out, not just because of the gore, but mostly because the film pretty much loses any dramatic interest from that point on. There will be bullets. There will be heroic sacrifices. There will be redemption for a protagonist regarded as unreliable by his fellow soldiers. It plays out almost exactly as anticipated, although the visuals are indeed nightmarish enough. Uneven in its approaches, Hacksaw Ridge undeniably has some interest, but it is needlessly graphic in its portrayal of violence. 

  • Rumble Fish (1983)

    Rumble Fish (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) I’m glad I saw Rumble Fish shortly after The Outsiders. Those two movies will forever remain a curio pairing of teenage dramas made back-to-back by writer/director Francis Ford Coppola, with much of the same cast and crew. But while they share themes and settings, they couldn’t be more different in execution, as The Outsiders plays everything straight, while Rumble Fish allows itself fanciful impressionistic segments that truly set it apart from the genre to which it belongs. From splashes of colour in an otherwise black-and-white film, to literate references, a very stylized fight, an out-of-body experience, unnatural skies and a noir aesthetics borrowed from German expressionism. The plot is almost inconsequential to the various moviemaking flourishes, but there’s still a heartfelt brother-to-brother relationship at the heart of it all. All of this being said, I still can’t quite commit to liking the film. On the other hand, I found it far more interesting than The Outsiders, and I’m far more likely to revisit Rumble Fish in a few years than most of the more ordinary films of its period. 

  • Love and Death (1975)

    Love and Death (1975)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2017) The good thing about rediscovering Woody Allen’s movies by going back in time is that they get funnier along the way. So it is that Love and Death is classic comic Allen, taking his usual nebbish character and placing him in the middle of an epic Russian war story. Much of the pleasures of the film are about seeing Allen’s character try to rebel against the conventions of the form, and cheerfully throwing contemporary anachronisms in a story that could (and has) been executed with such a straight face in other movies. The period detail is often very credible, and the jokes are funny enough to earn real laughs. Literate philosophical dialogue is a treat (especially as it forms the basis or further jokes), even though I suspect that I’m not catching even half the references to Russian literature or classic cinema. For a film that quite predictably ends with the death of its main character, Love and Death is remarkably upbeat even in its tragedies. Allen is near the top of his classic comic persona, while Diane Keaton is very good as his sparring partner and Olga Georges-Picot unlocks the hidden sultriness of the subgenre that the film parodies. I’m not sure what I expected from Love and Death (again; going back in time on Allen’s filmography sets very strange expectations) but I feel as if I got considerably more than I even hoped for.

  • Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

    Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On TV, September 2017) As a Canadian, it amuses me to point out that John Rambo, a character that has come to embody the worst excesses of American jingoism, was twice created by Canadians—novelist David Morrell for the novel that gave rise to the PTSD-ridden Rambo of First Blood, then screenwriter James Cameron who developed Rambo-the-war-machine of First Blood Part II. The real story is a bit messier than the sound bite (starting with the influence of all-American Sylvester Stallone in re-writing and playing the character), but it’s a reminder that the character has a far more nuanced origin story than simply seeing Stallone re-win the Vietnam war by himself. It’s practically impossible to re-watch Rambo II today from a simple-minded entertainment perspective: the film itself cries out for socio-critical commentary, either as a gold-plated representation of the Regan-era mindset, as a repudiation of post-Vietnam humility, as wish fulfillment writ national, or as a dispiriting proof that audiences will be gleefully cruel as long as you appeal to their base instinct. Because, not to put it too bluntly, Rambo II is in many ways a terrible film. The set-up makes no sense; the dialogue is blunt to the point of being ridiculous, the plot threads are barely disguised and the overall plot couldn’t be more obvious. Appealing to unsophisticated plot elements, the film gleefully multiplies Rambo’s enemies because, well, why not? It’s not enough to fight Vietnamese soldiers holding American hostages—let’s throw in even-more-evil Russians and duplicitous American weasels who clearly can’t measure up to John Rambo, Esq. as a true-blooded depiction of what it means to be American (mostly by killing everyone else). Sarcasm isn’t just easy in commenting Rambo II: it’s almost mandatory. But here’s the thing: it seems to work in a low-level cunning way. I’d draw the parallels with the rise of reactionary elements in American politics circa 2017, but you’re probably ahead of me in this regard—maybe it’s better to sign off while acknowledging than even in reaching for the lowest common denominator, Rambo II does find one and exploits it for all it’s worth.

  • Rambo III (1988)

    Rambo III (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second viewing, On TV, September 2017) The four-movie Rambo series may be all about an American icon, but it’s fascinating to see, peering closer, that all four movies have their own particular aesthetics. The first film is a gritty post-Vietnam drama about PTSD. The second in an all-out revenge fantasy. The fourth is a reprehensible pile of gory grittiness without much of a point. The third … is just plain dull. Heading to Afghanistan to help the soon-to-be Taliban in fighting the Soviet Empire, Rambo III goes through the motions of an eighties action movie without doing much more than the required minimum. The first half of the film has a mildly compelling arc in bringing back Rambo to the battlefield (so much so that it would form the backbone of the Hot Shots Part Deux parody), but the film’s second half loses itself in well-worn action movie tropes, although the ending sequence finally has some energy in it. It doesn’t make for a very good third entry in the series. While Rambo III’s troubled production may account for some of the lack of focus, the lack of excitement does doom the film to mediocrity—if Sylvester Stallone and the Rambo series weren’t linked to this film, it would be essentially forgotten today. 

  • Half Nelson (2006)

    Half Nelson (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, September 2017) Had I seen Half Nelson back in 2006, I may have snapped out of my unfortunate “Ryan Gosling has a punchable face” phase (largely driven by Murder by Numbers) well before 2007’s Fracture. While I’m no big fan of Half Nelson’s gritty naturalistic drama, Gosling is quite good as a competent history teacher by day who turns into a crackhead by night. Half Nelson does grapple with a number of issues about class, race and power relationships, but its biggest asset is Gosling’s ability to be charming or pathetic at will. Shareeka Epps is also quite good as a student who discovers her teacher’s biggest failings, while Anthony Mackie has an early turn as a neighborhood drug dealer. Half Nelson is as far removed from glossy entertainment as you can imagine, and while this obviously has some appeal, it can make the viewing experience draining, especially as it drags on and there is only the barest hint of a redemption at the end, following a demoralizing rock bottom. The film does get better once you compare it to the heroic-teacher subgenre in which white people teach lessons to black students from the ghetto—the clichés are completely upended here, and the film delights in refusing a redemptive arc. Most notably, a subplot with Monique Gabriela Curnen is positively infuriating in refusing an upbeat closure. If Half Nelson doesn’t feel like your cup of tea, that’s OK—it’s not meant for everyone, but it certainly remains a must-see for anyone digging into Gosling’s filmography.

  • The Right Stuff (1983)

    The Right Stuff (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Second or third viewing, On DVD, September 2017) I’ve been on a semi-streak of American space program movies lately and revisiting The Right Stuff was practically mandatory as a bookend to Apollo 13. Adapting Tom Wolfe’s superlative docufiction book, writer/director Philip Kaufman’s film is epic in length (nearly three hours) and clearly in myth-making mode as it draws a line leading from cowboys to astronauts by way of test pilots. It’s a long sit, but it’s filled with great moments, enlivened by a surprising amount of humour and a joy to watch from beginning to end. It helps that it can depend on great performances, whether it’s Ed Harris as a clean-cut John Glenn to Fred Ward as Gus Grissom, among many other known actors in small roles. It’s an astonishing ensemble cast for a wide-spectrum film, though, and it manages to compress quite a bit of material in even its unusually long running time. As a homage to the space program, it remains a point of reference—even the special effects are still credible. Despite a generous amount of dramatic licence (including the infamous Liberty Bell 7 incident, now thoroughly debunked thanks to the 1999 recovery of the capsule), the film seems generally well regarded when it comes to historical accuracy. From our perspective, it credibly humanizes yet mythologizes the test pilots who were crazy enough to go atop rockets when they were known to explode shortly after launch. It’s a stirring bit of filmmaking for viewers with a fascination for technological topics and the history of spaceflight, and it has aged rather gracefully. I loved the movie when I first saw it (in French, on regular TV interspaced between ads) and I still love it now. As suggested above, The Right Stuff is an essential double feature with Apollo 13, and both movies even feature Ed Harris in pivotal roles.

  • Coming to America (1988)

    Coming to America (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, September 2017) There’s an arc to Eddie Murphy’s career, which started in edgy adult comedy in the early eighties and now seems to be mired in cheap comedy for kids. In that arc, Coming to America seems to be in the sweet spot: accessible to the entire family, but still generally clever and controlled. You can see the seeds of latter bad-Murphy (such as playing two separate characters, or the accents, or the straightforward plotting) but everything seems under control most of the time. It helps that the supporting cast (Arsenio Hall, but also James Earl Jones) is on their game, and that the film doesn’t lose sight of its main goal. It adds up to a competent comedy, and one that hasn’t aged all that much since its release. The love story is standard, but the fish-out-of-water details of two royalty members choosing to look for love in lower-class Queens are amusing. Samuel L. Jackson makes an early appearance as a would-be robber.