Alexandra Daddario

  • Die in a Gunfight (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, November 2021) Hey, random reader, can I be honest for a moment here? There’s a reason why I’m reviewing movies rather than making them, and (other than the whole “being able to finance millions of dollars” thing, quitting my job and taking years off my life to complete production, not having any experience in moviemaking and having no contact with the industry) it’s probably because, even with generous means and skilled specialists at my disposal, I would probably end up making something disappointing like Die in a Gunfight. Something based on a solid core (in this case, a modern-day retelling of Romeo and Juliet set against a metropolitan background), with plenty of showy visual flair and a sarcastic attitude, but which falls apart when everything is put together. Director Collin Schiffli starts on a promising note, with a whirlwind blend of quick cuts, animation, historical flashbacks, and biting narration. But Die in a Gunfight falls into a trap that’s common to those hipper-than-thou crime spectaculars: it’s so obsessed with bon mots, camera moves, atmosphere and attitude that it forgets about having some storytelling basics, such as likable characters or a story that sort of makes sense outside genre conventions. The longer Die in a Gunfight goes on (all the way to a shootout that takes half the remaining cast to the morgue), the more it feels hollow, and even slightly sociopathic. The energy of the execution has nowhere to go, and the hollowness of its fundamentals doesn’t endear itself to viewers. I still like a good chunk of it — Alexandra Daddario is interesting to watch no matter what, and some bits and pieces of the film are stylish enough to be interesting. But it could have been much better, and the film’s long and troubled production history has plenty of branching-off points with more interesting casts and directors. Trying to assemble all of its components into a satisfying whole is harder than it should be, perhaps a testimony to how hard it is to wrangle a complex beast like a film into something that’s more than the sum of its parts. Frankly, reviews are easier to manage.

  • Can you Keep a Secret? (2019)

    Can you Keep a Secret? (2019)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, May 2020) For an in-demand actress like Alexandra Daddario, it’s not a bad idea to star in a high-concept romantic comedy—especially if it’s the kind of romantic lead that allows her to show comic chops. But the film has to work in order to best showcase her, and Can you Keep a Secret? does wobble hard on its way to a conclusion. The high-concept here is that the lead character spills all sorts of embarrassing secrets to a stranger who is later revealed to be her new boss. Oops. But while that’s not a bad premise, the development doesn’t go anywhere interesting after that—the comedy becomes a humourless romance the longer it focuses on the two lead characters. For Daddario, it’s not much of a role—sure, she’s in nearly every scene, but it’s a generic “young professional woman” part that anyone her age could have played without much distinction. This is not unusual for romantic comedies, except that her friends (played by Kimiko Glenn and the wonderful Sunita Mani) run circles around her not only in terms of comedy (as is usually the case with rom-com friends) but also turn in far more distinctive performances. It doesn’t help that Can you Keep a Secret? has a bizarre mixture of dumb only-in-movies characters acting like idiots, with occasional moments of reality and curious compassion. The idiot-plotting gets tiresome, especially as the film occasionally wants to be taken seriously as a commentary on honesty in relationships. In the end, Can you Keep a Secret? may please romantic comedy fans and Daddario aficionados, but it’s certainly not good enough to be a breakout hit fit to make new converts.

  • Baywatch (2017)

    Baywatch (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Netflix Streaming, August 2018) There are times when, watching a movie, you get a glimpse at the confusion that must have gripped its production. So it is that Baywatch doesn’t quite know what to do with itself. It certainly understands that it’s an adaptation of a widely derided TV show with ironic elements. In fact, it has a character (played with increasing likability by Zac Efron) that seems dedicated to reminding us of all of the logical potholes that such a pedigree implies. Alas, the movie seems determined to become a hard-R comedy with copious grossness and overdone violence. How did we get here from there? The superior example of 22 Jump Street looms large over Baywatch, by showing how it’s possible to lampoon source material without bashing it or ending up with something completely unlike the source. What appears on screen feels like an incredible waste of talent. Dwayne Johnson does his best work at the PG-13 level: burdening him with swearwords and gross-out gags runs counter to his persona. Actresses such as Priyanka Chopra, Ilfenesh Hadera and Alexandra Daddario outdo Pamela Anderson in sheer sexiness but aren’t given anything to work with—even though Daddario does get a few self-deprecating jokes. Hannibal Buress is also wasted, although David Hasselhoff does get chuckles in yet another one of his self-aware extended cameos. The main problem is that the film just isn’t funny, and pushing the R-rated envelope actually makes it less comic and more pitiable. As far as I’m concerned, perhaps worst is that Baywatch‘s R-rating is used for gross jokes, swearwords and male nudity rather than maxing out the original series’ male gaze on curvy lifeguards. Seriously, what’s up with that?

  • San Andreas (2015)

    San Andreas (2015)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2016) The disaster movie will never die. Indeed, buoyed by advances in special-effects technology, it will rise again and again, more overblown and chaotic than ever before. If you thought that 2012’s earthquake sequences were as good that they were likely to get, prepare to be amazed by San Andreas’s wide-screen mayhem as Los Angeles and then San Francisco gets thoroughly trashed by a number of unimaginably powerful earthquakes. Dwayne Johnson anchors the film as its muscular protagonist, equally able to commandeer a helicopter for personal gain as he is to fly a small plane and provide first-aid. All of which turn out to be helpful when comes the time to go rescue his daughter from the elements. San Andreas is, to put it bluntly, a fairly dumb movie: The laws of physics are ignored, logic is downplayed, characters a mere plot puppets and nothing is as important as the CGI destruction shown on-screen. Even for a blunt disaster movie, it sometimes overplays its hand: Paul Giamatti does his best as the voice of exposition, while Alexandra Daddario is overexposed in centre-frame as a curvaceous object of desire. (I wouldn’t normally complain, except that in this case, there’s something extra-blatant in the way the movie shows her off and her character is supposed to be a teenager. Also, I’m getting old.) On the other hand, San Andreas is a cunning movie: Everything is engineered for the wow-factor, from some spectacular moments in which major California cities are torn apart to showcase sequences in which a character runs (in a single long shot) to escape to a building’s roof while skyscrapers are toppling all around downtown LA. It takes more than a little ingenuity to cram that much spectacle in a single film, and both the screenwriter Carlton Cuse and director Brad Peyton have to be congratulated (if that’s the right word) for delivering a film so committed to the base ideals of a disaster film. While the result may not be respectable, it springs to mind as a demo disc to show off any new home theatre improvement.