Reviews

  • Sex Drive (2008)

    Sex Drive (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2017) Teenage sex comedies are a dime a dozen, but there’s something better than average in Sex Drive’s execution that makes it float above most of its genre. The idea to combine a road movie with a more typical sex comedy isn’t new, but it makes for a clever way to structure the film, culminating in a ridiculous ending in which a bunch of characters converge on a single location. Josh Zuckerman is the likable anchor of the film, but he’s not nearly as interesting as secondary or tertiary characters such as Clark Duke’s improbable teenage Casanova, Seth Green’s trolling Amish or James Marsden’s confused older brother. The gags hit or miss, but there’s a forward rhythm to the road movie as it gets its protagonist closer and closer to his stated goals. Parents should rest easy in knowing that like most other sex comedies, Sex Drive ends up promoting good old solid American values after all. Watchable without being exceptional, it’s nonetheless is better than much of its genre. Note: The “unrated” DVD contains an extended edition that features blatantly gratuitous nudity (green-screened in existing footage), alternate takes and bloopers inserted within the film. None of it is essential, and the filmmakers are quite right to feature a PSA before the movie telling newcomers to watch the “rated” version of the film first.

  • W. (2008)

    W. (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2017) I won’t go so far as to say that time can forgive anything—including a wholly unnecessary invasion of a foreign country that ended up killing tens of thousands of people and upsetting the geopolitical balance of an entire region—but barely a week into the Trump administration, I’m far more receptive to a sympathetic portrait of George W. Bush. It took noted agitator Oliver Stone to do it as well, and he didn’t even wait until the end of Bush’s second term to release it. Watching W. ten years later, it’s remarkable how Stone seemed to have been on target even then. For all of the revelations of the past ten years, the events chronicled in W. (hopping in-between a quick biography of Bush’ life, intercut with crucial moments in the ramp up to the 2003 American invasion of Iraq) still ring truthfully, with the personalities of the people involved being immediately recognizable. For those who overdosed on political commentary at the time (myself included), there’s a treat in reactivating those near-forgotten neural pathways and being able to recognize public figures merely from the actors playing them. (Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice—woo!) Their portrayal seem harsh but fair—and having Dick Cheney deliver an impromptu presentation on the harsh realities of strategic geopolitics is enough to make one wish for an evil genius rather than an incompetent salesman in the White House. (But I digress … or do I?) Suffice to say that W. may not exonerate Bush from what should weigh on his conscience, but it does humanize a president that was easy to caricature, even though some of the dad/son dynamics in-between Josh Brolin (a fine Bush Jr.) and James Cromwell (a very good Bush Sr.) seem overdone. All I know is that I ended up enjoying W. far more than I expected, and not all of it has to do with validating pointless hours obsessing over American politics.

  • Time Lapse (2014)

    Time Lapse (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, January 2017) I tend to become oddly protective of some low-budget films, and Time Lapse is the kind of small-scale SF movie that I want to tell people about. It’s certainly not a perfect film. The limits of the budget are clearly delineated by the few sets, limited cast of characters, indifferent acting and muddy cinematography. But at the same time, it does have quite a bit of charm in the way it tells an unusual time-travel story, based on a camera that can see 24 hours in the future. The intimate but tight script eventually deals with get-rich schemes, artistic inspiration, predestination, curious criminals and intimate betrayals. At the end, it feels like a classic Science Fiction short story that could have been published in the genre magazine at any time since the 1970s—a rather high compliment for a low-budget movie. Writer/director Bradley King cleverly makes the most out of what he has at his disposal, and the result is a pleasant surprise—especially compared to some movies of the same budget/genre. Danielle Panabaker isn’t bad as the secret protagonist of the story, while Matt O’Leary and George Finn are blander as the other main characters. Ingenious, surprising and more finely controlled than many other time-travel films, Time Lapse classifies as a hidden gem. Keep your expectations low and you may be pleasantly surprised.

  • Synchronicity (2015)

    Synchronicity (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, January 2017) As far as low-budget time-travel science fiction thrillers go, Synchronicity is pretty much an average example of the form. It maximizes its limited budget through a limited cast of characters, a few locations, screenwriting ingenuity and cinematography dark enough to hide plenty of details. Time travel is nearly always a good low-budget SF premise, as the magic of movies allows for big SF ideas on next to no extra investment. The flip side, unfortunately, is that most time-travel thrillers tend to repeat themselves. Weirdness accumulates until we realize that the main character has been meddling in his past and we nearly always have to run through the same scenes twice. Writer/director Jacob Gentry plays the game competently but can’t completely avoid the lowlights of the form. It doesn’t help that the characters are largely stock (the genius scientist hero, the wacky sidekicks, the femme fatale, the corrupt businessman) and that Synchronicity seems very fond of its noir backdrops without quite making the most out of it. At least Chad McKnight is suitably sympathetic as the lead character, with Brianne Davis bringing the heat as the woman who may or may not be an instrument of the antagonist. It’s comfortable, watchable and satisfying without quite going beyond the basics. There are a few better examples of the form out there (Prisoner X, ARQ, even Paradox) if Synchronicity isn’t quite enough.

  • ARQ (2016)

    ARQ (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, January 2017) As far as low-budget Science Fiction movies go, ARQ is quite a bit better than similar movies. The first SF movie to be released as a Netflix original (having acquired the rights to the film like any other studio), ARQ is cleverly written, professionally directed and features decent actors. The premise stems from familiar guideposts, as a man wakes up to criminals invading his house for money, dies and finds himself stuck in a time loop. But writer/director Tony Elliott then has fun playing with the premise, as someone else joins the protagonist in the time loop and bigger mysteries are revealed. The somewhat bleak ending is divisive (much of it falls into a big plot hole), but the film itself is intriguing, satisfying and slickly executed. Robbie Amell makes for a suitably sympathetic hero, while Rachael Taylor has a more complicated role than what initially appears to be his girlfriend. The result is perfectly watchable despite a small cast, limited locations and low-budget aesthetics. ARQ is even more interesting as a “Netflix Original”, suggesting that the streaming company may be able to inject some good genre original programming in its line-up.

  • Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom (2016)

    Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2017) A summary of Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom either reads like a validation of how geek culture is now mainstream, or a big practical joke. Consider this: An animated kid’s movie in which a young HP Lovecraft travels to another dimension, befriends Cthulhu to become his funny animal sidekick and saves a kingdom from nefarious plans to bring back the Old Ones. Yes, this movie actually exists. Whether your mind is broken or twisted by the revelation is immaterial: Here we are. There it is. It may or may not help to learn that the film is a low-budget Canadian production and that it’s in the lower tier of what’s happening these days in kids’ animated features. Much of the film is clearly dull. The blocky visual design and primitive animation doesn’t have the polish of what’s considered the current standard for computer animation. The story and dialogue are similarly bland, simply moving the action along the lines of a typical kids-fantasy plot with predictable plot points, sidekicks, allies and villains. The bizarre intention to make a children’s film using Lovecraft falls between two chairs: Few kids know Lovecraft enough to care, and the adult fans who enjoy Lovecraft’s antediluvian, loathsome, tenebrous prose won’t sit still for a bargain-basement kids fantasy. (But of course, a substantial number of Lovecraft fans never even tried to read one of his stories.) Howard Lovecraft and The Frozen Kingdom is a remarkable film for the bizarre nature of its premise, but it’s not a good one in terms of execution or moment-by-moment joy of watching. Knowing that it exists is enough.

  • Swiss Army Man (2016)

    Swiss Army Man (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2017) I’m the kind of viewer that should be open to weirdness in movies, but that’s not always true and Swiss Army Man clearly shows the limits of what I can tolerate. To be clear, the idea of a man using a farting corpse to escape from a desert island ranks as quirky and faintly cool. But it’s when Swiss Army Man gets deeper into “explaining life as if to a child or alien” that it steps from weird to twee and loses me along the way. By the time the ending of the film attempts to blur the lines between dream-logic and magical realism, imposes some kind of moral conclusion and crafts a magical soaring coda, I have checked out. The film, literally and figuratively spends too much time in the woods for me to care, and it’s not the frank language, candid looks at humanity or piled-upon weirdness that help the film along the way. To be fair, Paul Dano is almost perfectly cast as the protagonist, while Daniel Radcliffe has a terrific turn as a corpse gradually coming back to life while revealing prodigious capabilities. Sometimes, a film’s details don’t matter as much as the way it’s put together, and it’s that overall atmosphere that annoyed me so much about Swiss Army Man. Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood for twee, or perhaps I’m just far too much of a square to tolerate the kind of questions asked by the film. All I know is that I found the film far less interesting than its hype suggested.

  • The Shallows (2016)

    The Shallows (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2017) There is a welcome high-concept simplicity to The Shallows that sets it apart from so many other humdrum efforts. Here, a surfer is injured and stranded on a small island in an isolated bay, with an unusually tenacious shark circling her for food. It sounds like a thin premise even for a 90-minute movie, but the script does have enough in the tank to sustain the film to the end with a minimal amount of flashbacks outside the claustrophobic situation. Blake Lively stars in a film that features her (and only her) for most of its running time—a demanding physical role in which she’s battered, bled, driven to madness and showing a fairly wide range of emotion for a single-location film. Still, the most valued player here is director Jaume Collet-Serra, bringing his usual madness to a script that benefits from his kind of excessive showboating. On-screen text messages are familiar by now, but it’s when Lively is stuck on the rocks that Collet-Serra gets at his best, cleverly establishing a good sense of place before letting loose with a surprising variety of action sequences. The Shallows earns a special place as a minimalist premise maximally executed: It’s quite a bit of fun to watch, and there is seldom a dull moment. The shark makes for an implausible antagonist, but every great movie can use a great villain, so that’s the role it plays. Lively is quite good in a tough role (no wonder she’s emerging as one of the most capable actresses of her cohort—also see what she could manage in The Age of Adaline) and the film’s conclusion is suitably grandiose. The Shallows is a nice surprise find, especially for those who assumed this would be just another shark movie.

  • Open Range (2003)

    Open Range (2003)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, January 2017) I don’t normally have much patience for westerns that last two hours and a half, and there’s no denying that Open Range could have benefited from a more aggressive editing pace. Still, this is a Kevin Costner western, and after Dances with Wolves and The Postman, we all know what that means: Expansive vistas, rough-hewn charisma from its stoic hero, tepid pacing and melodramatic filmmaking. Open Range is in-line with his earlier work: good without being perfect, with enough old-fashioned charm that should appeal to an older audience. Costner gets to play his own archetype, but the film’s standout role has to be the “Boss” played by Robert Duvall: the saving grace of the film’s 139 minutes is having the chance to hear Duvall crunch down on folksy tough dialogue, the kind of which we easily could have used fifteen more minutes. Otherwise, there’s a refreshing realism to the way the story evolves, with casual violence when necessary, an unforgiving environment and tough guys trying to keep what’s theirs. There’s even a grown-up romance thrown in the mix, and it doesn’t feel too out-of-place. Open Range may not sound particularly exciting on paper (or in the middle of the two hours and a half), but some of its moments stand out, including a gritty gunfight where we can honestly fear for at least one character. Not a bad choice, not a bad western.

  • The Girl on the Train (2016)

    The Girl on the Train (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, January 2017) Anyone looking for a dark thriller should be pleased by The Girl on the Train, but I don’t think anyone will remember it six months later. The story of a damaged woman who is revealed to be embroiled in a complex web of obsession, abuse and guilt, this thriller has so much fun raising all sorts of false leads and dark portents that by the time the conclusion comes, it’s almost a linear let-down. Still, Emily Blunt brings a studied vulnerability to the lead character, and the film doesn’t settle for any easy hero/villain classification when even the protagonist suspects herself of being a murderer. Events get impressively twisted in the second half, with the gloomy cinematography not helping lift the sombre veil hovering over the film. Unfortunately, the pile-up of memory games and criss-crossed relationship eventually blurs into a gray fog—much like the blacked-out drunk heroine, it’s a challenge to explain the plot even a few days after seeing the film. For that reason, I expect that The Girl on the Train won’t have much of a long shelf life other than being an adequate watch-and-forget thriller. It could have been worse but, on the other hand, there’s no use trying to compare this with Gone Girl or other better thrillers of late.

  • White Noise (2005)

    White Noise (2005)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2017) For such an underwhelming horror movie, White Noise does have the distinction of an unnerving trailer—a trailer so good, in fact, that it managed to make me seek out the film even twelve years later. This being said, let’s be honest: Critics savaged this film upon release, and time hasn’t been kind to it since then. For all of the energy and sincerity that Michael Keaton can bring to a character fascinated by supernatural electromagnetic phenomena, White Noise has a far better premise than what it can limply show on-screen. Far too often settling into familiar horror clichés, this is a film with few surprises in store, starting with the tired “communicating with the dead brings back evil spirits”. The mythology of the film is muddled, and there’s a far too arbitrary nature to the script as it manipulates its protagonist toward a specific third act. From a promising beginning, White Noise gradually loses its effectiveness to the point when its tragic ending only elicits a shrug. Too bad—but the trailer (which doesn’t feature much footage from the movie) still has a kick to it.

  • Sex and the City (2008)

    Sex and the City (2008)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, January 2017) You could retitle Sex and the City as “Wish Fulfillment for Middle-Aged Women: The Movie” and I’m not sure it would be entirely dismissive. But I’m being too harsh: I’m not in the target audience for the series to which this is a follow-up, and even I have to admit that there is a contagious enthusiasm to the movie’s most entertaining moment. Shopping, trips, contentment and inner peace—what’s not to like, even though the details may differ? Watching this as someone with only the barest knowledge of the TV show (to the point of: “Wow, I did not expect that much sex/nudity in a movie called Sex in the City!”) is strange—while the film doesn’t forget to have a plot, it’s often bare-bones in the way it presents its characters or moves them through the motions of their dramatic arc. There are lengthy digressions simply to scratch the wish fulfillment of its audience. It boldly sets off to hyper-consumption for no other reason than it can do so. And yet, and yet … it works. It’s a good time. It’s the kind of movie that reassures you that there is good in the world, even though it may be more easily attainable with a credit card with a ludicrously high limit. Sarah Jessica Parker is very likable in the main role despite odd script-dictated behaviour, and Kim Cattrall remains the most interesting of the three other main cast members, while Chris Noth remains the ultimate Mr. Big. Sex and the City may be a wish fulfillment film, but then again so are most big-budget movies—and for some strange reasons, few movie critics ever mention how we should be dismissing action films as power fantasies of seeing average guys shooting terrorists in the head to save the world/wife/kids. From that perspective, Sex and the City is a welcome complement.

  • The Accountant (2016)

    The Accountant (2016)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Video On-Demand, January 2017) “Jason Bourne meets Rain Man” is just about the laziest way to describe The Accountant, but it sort-of-works at explaining the high concept at the heart of the movie—an autistic man officially working as a top-notch accountant who happens to be unusually skilled at assassination. Cue the complications. Ben Affleck is surprisingly effective as the titular character—it takes a lot of charisma to make an affectless character sympathetic, and it works for him. Anna Kendrick is cute enough in a generic role, but the film sort of loses interest in her character after a while, leaving her more or less out of the third act and never making her a love interest. There is a quirkiness to The Accountant that’s not to be dismissed—after all, how many movies manage to make forensics accounting seem thrilling? But as an action thriller, it’s more or less forgettable once we’re back to the action classics of guys shooting at each other. The distinctiveness of the film is found in their quieter moments, even though the treatment of autism is old-hat by now. There are a few plausibility problems in how a wandering assassin (ready to move away at a moment’s notice) could sustain a living in a profession such as accounting, but never mind—from the premise on, it’s obvious that The Accountant isn’t meant to take place in reality. It does offer a new (ish) kind of hero, though, and that’s already more than most other big-budget thrillers these days.

  • Ich seh ich seh [Goodnight Mommy] (2014)

    Ich seh ich seh [Goodnight Mommy] (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2017) I had reasonably high hopes for Austrian horror film Goodnight Mommy—positive word of mouth had this one pegged as a worthwhile import, to the point where I was looking forward to its appearance on the cable TV movie channel’s schedule. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t measure up—and it may not be a case of hype exceeding the content as much as the film itself being repellent and confused. Something is up from the first few moments of the movie, as two twin boys suspect that something is wrong with their mom as she comes back from surgery with her face bandaged. But, as it turns out, this is a misdirection of what’s really wrong here… For much of its first two thirds, Goodnight Mommy plays as effective and intriguing low-budget horror—three people isolated in a big modern house, slowly suspecting themselves of the worst. The film then veers off in a very different and repellent direction once it turns the tables and makes the twin boys as sadistic villains—it leads to a torture scene that almost unbearable to watch. (And, in a real-life darkly amusing twist, my non-horror-fan wife walking in on the scene with me being unable to defend the film’s rapid descent in bloody torture horror.) Then it’s a rapid sprint to a downbeat ending in which the film obliquely resolves itself, explaining [what] was [what] the whole time and leaving a few mysteries open that I don’t really care to explore. I’ll admit that the torture scene is effective—if only because it plays differently (and more viscerally) than in most horror films that relish goriness: by this time in the movie, the characters have been well established, and what happens between them carries some dramatic weight. On the other hand, too far may be too far, and there’s no law forcing me to like what happens at that time. I certainly can see the resemblance between this and The Babadook: the grief, the perspective-switching, the importance of the mother-and-son dynamic … but there’s no contest in my mind as to which is the vastly superior film … and it’s not Goodnight Mommy.

  • Monsters: Dark Continent (2014)

    Monsters: Dark Continent (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2017) What a disappointing follow-up to a quirky breakout movie. Monsters wasn’t perfect, but it had great scenery, an interesting take on the alien invasion theme and a low-budget charm. This sequel, which abandons the dynamics of a couple’s trek in favour of a desert-bound military thriller, is just … dull. It doesn’t look too bad, but it’s simply boring in ways that its premise suggests it shouldn’t. Domesticating the alien means that deadly threats are reduced to a beautiful light show, and the story doesn’t seem to go anywhere. The links to the original film story are tenuous (same creatures, different part of the world but the background information doesn’t seem to hang together) but whatever story is put forward in this follow-up doesn’t go beyond the usual Iraq war movie clichés. The aliens are barely part of the plot. It doesn’t amount to much either, barely pushing the first film’s mythology forward and even regressing in some ways on the “alien as infection” angle. The only actor of note here is Sofia Boutella, showing up briefly to save the film from an excess of testosterone and being distinguishable from a cast that largely looks the same. While it’s possible that Dark Continent may be after the same themes of futility and hopelessness engendered by the American experience in post-liberation Iraq, there’s very little depth and even less interest in the result. File this one under “DTV sequels to avoid”.