Reviews

  • Maverick (1994)

    Maverick (1994)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, on Cable TV, August 2017) Given the western genre’s continued tendency to reach for dour drama, it can be a relief, even decades later, to encounter a light-hearted western. It feels even more refreshing to see it use its western setting as a springboard for a gambling conman comedy. In Maverick, Mel Gibson is practically perfect as a wisecracking protagonist equally adept with cards and guns, bluffing and shooting his way to a high-stakes gambling tournament. It’s a fine performance in his best persona, but it’s equalled by Jodie Foster in an atypical western bombshell role—Foster’s long been known for playing mostly cerebral, often desexualized roles, so it’s a bit of a delight to see her play up blonde curls and tight dresses. Other name actors round up the cast, in-between James Coburn, Dan Hedeya, James Garner, Graham Greene and Alfred Molina … plus more cameo roles than you’ll be able to recognize. Director Richard Donner’s rapid pacing helps its entertainment value, but there is considerable charm in its setting and attitude—not many westerns have steamboats, and fewer include rapid-fire romantic repartee or wryly funny native characters. The script, by legendary William Goldman, is as good as you’d expect, with a pile-up of confidence games and triple-crossing characters in addition to the western backdrop. Maverick is not a great movie, but it remains a really good one. 

  • A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

    A Fish Called Wanda (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2017) Is A Fish Called Wanda overhyped, or was I just in the wrong mood for it? No matter the reason, I’m tempted to label this acknowledged classic as mildly amusing and leave it at that. The fault isn’t with the actors: John Cleese is in fine full persona as a stiff upper-lip barrister, seduced by a curiously sexualized Jamie Lee Curtis as part of a larger robbery plot. Various quirky characters populate the edges of the film, none more forcefully than Kevin Kline as a grossly caricatured American villain. The script is densely plotted for a comedy, and it deftly mixes physical comedy with fine repartee (the apology moment is a quote for the ages). The direction is sometimes more dynamic than expected, and that may be a clue to A Fish Called Wanda’s more humdrum reception today: What may have been striking back in 1988 is the norm today. I may have been partially inoculated to the film’s charm by having watched its “equal” Fierce Creatures a few months ago—the two films share the same sensibilities, and the first one seen may end up feeling like the better of the two. Still, it’s not as if I disliked A Fish Called Wanda: I merely found it good but underwhelming, and there are worse critical assessments out there.

  • 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)

    3000 Miles to Graceland (2001)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2017) I gave 3000 Miles to Graceland a pass when it first came out, discouraged by the terrible reviews and probably captivated by some other film (let me check … ah yes: Monkeybone came out that weekend, followed in the next few weeks by The Mexican, 15 Minutes, Enemy at the Gates and Memento, all of which I saw at the theatre). Sixteen years later, the film is not quite as bad as I thought it would be. Part of it, I think, can be explained by Tarantino fatigue dissipating—3000 Miles to Graceland is a very stylish, very violent road movie, and writer/director Demian Lichtenstein seems eager to work in more or less the same stylized criminal comedy subgenre that had movie reviewers burnt out by 2001. Here in 2017, the thought of an unseen Tarantino-esque film can be interesting because there are comparatively fewer of them being made. It’s no accident if 3000 Miles to Graceland is far more interesting in its first half-hour than the sometimes-grating hours and a half that follows: It’s also the most deliberately stylized act of the film, the one that most closely apes the exuberant crime comedies of the time. That casino shootout is bloody fun (helped along by a bouncy turn-of-the-century techno soundtrack) and the way some characters are abruptly dispatched gives a welcome initial sense of unpredictability to the film. Kurt Russell is instantly likable as the anti-hero, while Kevin Costner does push his persona outside his comfort zone by playing an irremediable villain. (Compare and contrast his performance in 2016’s Criminal.)  Courteney Cox is sexier than expected, while the unexpectedly good cast is rounded out by familiar faces such as Christian Slater, Kevin Pollak, David Arquette, Jon Lovitz, Thomas Haden Church and Ice-T. The best moments of the film have a good rhythm to them. But then the film goes on, and on, and on, becoming steadily more ordinary along the way. The promising Elvis-themed casino heist becomes a revenge road movie with awfully convenient plotting, with the stylishness and unpredictability flying away in the distance. There is, in the end, a lot of wasted potential—and even clinging to what works or almost works in 3000 Miles to Graceland can’t quite save it from mixed feelings.

  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

    Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, August 2017) It’s hard to see rubber-suited people playing ninja turtles without feeling as if the last exit for goofiness was about fifty miles behind, but sometimes that’s the entire point. The 1990 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles embraces its nuttiness and doesn’t really care if everyone thinks it’s silly. A comedy more than anything else, it doesn’t aspire to higher pretensions than entertaining the kids. Sure, it may look silly, but it’s well-executed silliness, with just enough conviction to sidestep the worst accusations of cookie-cutter filmmaking. The turtles themselves come from the Jim Henson Creature Shop, one of the best in the business at the time. As far as human characters are concerned, Judith Hoag is cute enough as reporter April O’Neil. Ironically, the two more modern adaptations of the franchise may only help to bolster the profile of the first film in the series—this one is goofy and it knows it, whereas the subsequent ones often lose their ways in trying to present an action spectacle. I was probably five years too old back in 1990 to get into the Turtles and I’m faaar too old now, so it’s not as if I have any sentimental attachment to the characters. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sometimes degenerates in a generic martial-art noise—the characters are too similar, the darkly lit sets are dull and the fights feel as if they could come from any similar film—but, periodically, it has just the right amount of humour to make itself interesting again. Considering the intentionally ludicrous source material, it’s about as good as anyone could have hoped for.

  • Addams Family Values (1993)

    Addams Family Values (1993)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, August 2017) Normally, I’m not too happy to report that a sequel is “more of the same,” but given my enthusiasm for 1990’s The Addams Family, I’m almost overjoyed to say that this sequel is, indeed, more of the same. The plot is just different enough to be interesting (as Fester is seduced by a gold-digging, husband-killing new character) but the atmosphere of the first film remains largely the same. Under the macabre humour lies genuine family love (although some early segments do push the limits of sibling rivalry), and the jokes are best when they’re unexpected. (I laughed far more than I ought to have at a simple “I respect that” or “Wait”) The strengths of the two Addams Family movies are the set pieces more than the plot, and this one does have one of the most honest depiction of Thanksgiving put on film, as well as a hilariously juvenile justification (with slides!) from the antagonist. Director Barry Sonnefeld has made one of his good movies here (the rest of his career … hit-and-miss), but much of the credit goes to the actors themselves. Raul Julia is fantastic as Gomez, Anjelica Huston is just as good as Morticia (while her impassible giving-birth scene is great, it took me far too long to notice the lighting effect on her eyes, but then it became hilarious to see it used in all circumstances), Christina Ricci shines as Wednesday and Joan Cusak holds up as Debbie. This sequel clicks in the same ways the original did, and yet still feels fresh enough to avoid accusations of re-threading. At this point, don’t bother seeing the first film if you don’t have Addams Family Values nearby, ready to be watched.

  • Escape from New York (1981)

    Escape from New York (1981)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2017) I may have made a mistake in watching Escape from L.A. a few weeks ago, before seeing the original Escape from New York. Both films do run against very similar lines, after all: juvenile bad guys sent under duress in a forbidden zone to get someone back, but so anti-authority that they end up rebelling at some point. Escape from L.A. apes the first film almost plot point per point, down to the lunacy of some sequences. But while you would think that watching the first one so soon after the second would lower my appreciation of the first one, the reverse ended up happening: it only made me dislike the second one even more. I recognize that you can’t really blame the first for the excesses of the second. But more to the point, the first one is simply better-executed in the constraints of its formula. Never mind that the premise of turning Manhattan Island in a prison is nonsensical: the point here is putting up a backdrop for dystopian action. Peak-era Adrienne Barbeau is always welcome, but Kurt Russell is most remarkable as Snake Plissken, first in a series of likable rogues that he’d get to play for the rest of his career. The entire film has an edge of writer/director John Carpenter’s inspired lunacy to it, from strange set pieces to audacious set design to unconventional characters to sometimes-shocking moments (such as the president going full-crazy near the climax). Escape from New York does have its annoyances, and those do mirror those of its sequel: the oh-so-cool protagonist with an attitude that mostly appeals to teenagers; the nihilistic conclusion; the moronic elements of its premise; the tiring nature of its post-apocalyptic chic. But seeing Escape from New York at a time when (say) The Walking Dead is practically mainstream TV must be very different from seeing Escape from New York in 1981. It may not be fresh by today’s standards, but it’s easy to respect its place as a film that influenced many others. I still won’t forgive the sequel, though.

  • John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

    John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, August 2017) The first John Wick was a small surprise: a lean and mean action film the likes of which hadn’t been seen in a while from big studios. It made Keanu Reeves cool again, showed why stunt-minded filmmakers could thrive in an age of CGI and made nearly everyone hungry for more. John Wick 2 arrives with self-awareness of what fans want to see, and the result is obvious from the opening action sequence bringing car stunts to the table. After that, the plot kicks in high gear by delving deeper in the comic-book-inspired mythology of the series, which features a shadowy underworld of professional assassins with hard-coded rules. The plot isn’t complex, but it works and its minimalism narrative leaves enough space for maximalist execution. Once again, the details and small action beats help sell the wild fantasy of the premise, such as pinning down an opponent while reloading, in the same movie where two assassins have a silenced gunfight in the middle of a subway station or a hallucinogenic hall-of-mirror sequence. Reeves is, once again, very good as the titular assassin, trying to get out of the hired-kill life but being drawn back even deeper. There are able supporting turns by Lawrence Fishburne and Ruby Rose. John Wick: Chapter 2 concludes on a note that is either an exhilarating set-up for a third volume, or a realistic acknowledgement that there is no end to violence and no happy ending for the character. Much of the original film’s surprise is gone, but it’s been supplanted with bigger-budget execution and much more of what made the first film so effective. There will be a third movie, and it’s eagerly awaited.

  • Miller’s Crossing (1990)

    Miller’s Crossing (1990)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, August 2017) I think that Miller’s Crossing is the last film in the Coen Brothers’ filmography that I hadn’t yet seen, and it’s quite a treat. A self-conscious take on Prohibition-era noir movies, it plays gleefully with the elements of the genre in a dense and complex feat of plotting. A young Gabriel Byrne stars as a criminal advisor who ends up trying to manipulate multiple factions when a mob war shakes the city and his own relationships. The characters rarely stop talking, and much of the rapid-fire dialogue is highly entertaining (although you may need subtitles given the pacing and accents—the closed captioning had trouble keeping up!)  Albert Finney is also remarkable as a crime boss, but perhaps the most striking performance comes from Marcia Gay Hayden, whose sexy femme fatale character here is completely at odds with her contemporary persona as a matronly shrew (e.g.; The Mist). Otherwise, it’s tommy guns, crooked cops, beatdowns, faked deaths and double-crossing fun galore in a warm bath of genre elements. I suspect that Miller’s Crossing is more fun the more you know and like noir films, but even casual fans of the genre will find a lot to like here. I have, over the past few months, had an unfortunate tendency to multitask while watching (some) movies, but Miller’s Crossing hooked me back in the moment I tried to take my attention elsewhere. Now that’s viewing pleasure.

  • The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

    The X Files: I Want to Believe (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2017) I’ve never been more than a very lukewarm X-Phile (I had planned to watch the series seriously once it ended, but the end was such a mess that I never went back), so it’s not as if I was asking the world out of The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Alas, this underwhelming sequel fails to meet even undemanding standards. Fatally conceived as a meaningless monster-of-the-week episode rather than something advancing the overarching mythology of the series, I Want to Believe sputters a long time on the basic charm and chemistry of David Duchovny (likably roguish with or without a beard) and Gillian Anderson (looking better than ever with longer hair), but reuniting with those two characters as they work out their relationship and what they want to do against the evil of the world isn’t quite enough to satisfy. The central plot is dull as dirt, and occasional visual flourishes from writer/director Chris Carter aren’t nearly enough to keep anyone interested. The ending is pat, leaving us again with our sympathy for Mulder and Scully to pick up the slack. I’ve waited nearly ten years before giving this one a try, but there really wasn’t any reason to hurry.

  • Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

    Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) The first Ouija movie came and went so fast that I never bothered to see it, not encouraged by the terrible reviews it got along the way. So when Ouija: Origin of Evil started getting decent reviews I was intrigued, and it became a must-see when I realized that writer/director Mike Flanagan was behind it: Flanagan’s movies aren’t perfect, but they’re consistently more interesting than the average horror film. This Ouija prequel is no exception: For a while, it’s The Conjuring-level good and while the sequel-dictated conclusion does it no favour, it does manage a few effective scares along the way. The start is very promising, what with its vintage sixties iconography (down to the old-school Universal logo and title card), but especially the introduction of a likable family of a woman and two girls doing what they can to get by despite a dead husband/father. Their spiritism sessions are hokum, but they truly want to help people get better. Elizabeth Reaser is striking at the matriarch, while Lulu Wilson and especially Annalise Basso make impressions as the daughters. Alas, the introduction of a Ouija board soon threatens their lives, as demonic possessions rival with the growing realization that they’re inhabiting a haunted house to take the pep out of their days. Plot-wise, those two elements do conflict, but on a scare-per-scare basis, Ouija: Origin of Evil manages to have good moments. My disappointment with the movie grew bigger as I realized that this wasn’t going to be a comforting horror story reinforcing the family unit, but a demolition derby in which any one of the sympathetic characters would be lucky to make it out alive and sane. (I suspect that much of this conclusion is preordained by the requirements to feed into the previous film.) As I grow older, I have less and less patience with horror movies that run out of characters to kill, and so I find myself unable to like this Ouija follow-up: It’s simply too mean to its characters after such a promising start, and that’s an issue that I share with Flanagan’s Oculus as well. A more optimistic conclusion would have allowed the film to be more accessible to non-horror audiences, but that’s not what we get here. Oh well; at least it’s a competent effort.

  • Life (2017)

    Life (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, July 2017) I really wanted to like Life more than I did. After all, while I’m not all that fond of yet another monster-in-space horror/SF movie, the idea of making such a film following the hyper-real example of Gravity (which Life really wants to emulate down to very similar opening tracking shots and South-Asian finale) is intriguing, and so is the cast, leading with the always-sympathetic Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal. I’m even open to downbeat finales, provided they make some kind of thematic and plotting sense. But from the first few moments, something is off with Life, and the problems just escalate from there. The issues start with a needlessly obscured “catch the satellite” sequence that barely makes physical sense, but then they get worse as a magical alien life form shows up with no other goal than to kill everyone in increasingly gruesome ways. The impossibly intelligent creature soon makes mincemeat out of the crew, helped along with an absurd succession of dumb character/screenwriting decisions that clearly show that the deck is stacked against a happy ending. The horror sequences are more stomach-churning than entertaining, and the downbeat conclusion depends on a flip of a coin. While it’s kind of daring to kill off your most charismatic character first, and to doom the entire human race by the end, it doesn’t really make for an entertaining movie. Life ends by leaving viewers with the impression of having brushed against something repulsive … which really doesn’t help repeat viewings. For all of the high-tech gloss that makes Life so intriguing, director Daniel Espinosa’s halfway competent execution doesn’t really mask the problems with the script. My tolerance for unhappy endings is growing smaller and smaller every year (and it was never really all that forgiving in the first place), so when an everybody-dies-horribly film like Life comes along, I find it ever easier to dismiss it almost completely.

  • The Outsiders (1983)

    The Outsiders (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2017) It’s no exaggeration to say that the best thing about this film is the cast list. Consider a Coppola film featuring Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez and Tom Cruise. No wonder it still regularly plays on TV even thirty-five years later. Alas, the actual film itself feels underwhelming. While a good character study of late-sixties teenagers, The Outsiders feels rote and dull compared to other movies tackling the same topics. Some of the plot points feel needlessly melodramatic, while the overall pacing of the film feels dull. The cast is very young, so seeing even famous names is more interesting than satisfying. (Many of them have very small roles too—if you’re hoping for a big Tom Cruise performance, for instance, you will have to make do with only a few moments.) While The Outsiders definitely has some historical curiosity, I found the film a chore to get through, even considering the cast list.

  • Logan (2017)

    Logan (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, July 2017) The X-Men series has been inconsistent lately, so it’s both a surprise and not a surprise to see Logan end up in the top tier of superhero movies. This third and far superior third volume in the incoherent Wolverine trilogy dares to provide an end for one of its iconic characters. It may be rebooted in a future film, but who cares: Logan is self-contained, definitive and exceptionally well-handled as a mournful future western with low and personal stakes rather than a save-the-world blockbuster. Hugh Jackman is, as usual, quite good as Wolverine—this installment asks him to do far more from an emotional standpoint as one of the last mutants on an Earth that is glad to see them gone, far less powerful than ever before as his healing capabilities are slow to regenerate after fights. For writer/director James Mangold, this is a bit of a quiet triumph, departing from the usual superhero clichés in order to dig deep into the human condition. The action sequences are perfunctory, the future barely sketched (although with some nice background detail, such as driverless trucks) and the film does rely quite a bit on previous material … but it’s well packaged and strikingly different at a time when even major superhero spectacles feel like rote repetition. Logan takes the superhero genre in a different and welcome direction—hopefully it won’t lead to a copycat trend. In the meantime, enjoy the putative end to Jackman’s Wolverine… I’m sure it won’t last.

  • Open Season (2006)

    Open Season (2006)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, July 2017) Classic structure, quick gags and fast action sequences make Open Season exactly like most other contemporary animated movies out there. That can be good or bad depending on your saturation with such movies at the moment. Alas, I’m currently into something of a burn-out phase for average animated movies—Even if they’re good (and most of them are good), I have trouble getting enthusiastic about yet another familiar spin on the same material. So here we have a neurotic pair of bear and a moose trying to survive hunting season in an attempt to get home. By the time the film concludes, it has worked itself up to a confrontation between the entire forest’s animals and human hunters. The jokes are there, the action moves quickly and the voice talents do their best to interest us, but this early Sony Animation production does fall prey to an unrelenting formula. The quality of the animation has lost its lustre since its release, of course, although it remains generally good. Open Season has led to three direct-to-video sequels so far, but if this first film is the best it can get, then there isn’t any compelling reason to seek out the follow-ups.

  • Midnight Run (1988)

    Midnight Run (1988)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2017) This is terrible. No, not Midnight Run itself, but the fact that Robert de Niro has made so many bad movies since 2000 that even a mildly enjoyable middle-of-the road effort like Midnight Run can feel like it features an entirely different actor. Coming from the late-eighties buddy-movie action road movie factory, Midnight Run often feels like a straightforward comic thriller. It hits all of the right plot beats more or less in order, sets up a decent ticking-clock mechanism, doesn’t make any risky moves, moves fairly briskly and doesn’t forget to have a little bit of heart along the way. In short, it just works, and it works in large part because we have a younger-looking de Niro taking up the lead role with some energy and determination. While not great art, Midnight Run is solid entertainment, and the look at 1988 America (no internet, limited ways to travel, to pay, etc.) is now just dated enough to be interesting. I had a decent time watching it, and few other qualifiers are necessary.