Annabelle Wallis

  • Malignant (2021)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2022) I wasn’t expecting much from Malignant, but in the footsteps of frequent collaborator Leigh Whannell, who delivered the terrific Upgrade out of nowhere, here is director James Wan going back to his horror roots after a detour in big-budget action territory. Despite a middling start, Malignant gets progressively faster, crazier and better the closer it gets to the finishing line. Taking a premise similar to Stephen King’s The Dark Half but pushing it to eleven, this slick horror film takes a while to build but unleashes its strengths in style. By the time that scene hits (intercutting some wham-bang exposition with a demented fight inside a prison cell), there’s no going back: Malignant gets bonkers and becomes better for it. There’s some clever playing with expectations throughout the film, as the question of whether this is all in the protagonist’s head is never too far away. (Spoiler alert: Yes, it is. But literally.)  While Wan is being showy with his direction (especially as he uses CGI to present a particularly warped version of “Is she imagining all of this?”), Annabelle Wallis does very well in the lead role with its misdirections and physical requirements. Now, I don’t think that Malignant is perfect—the two-hour running time leads to far too much padding in the first half, and extends the high-concept slightly too far. There’s some sense, especially in retrospect, that the film is spinning its wheels when it puts slightly too much stuff together—it would have been better to focus a bit, lop off thirty minutes and get to the craziness sooner. Still, I do like the result: it goes beyond the usual horror film and while most of it is empty calories without much thematic substance, it’s got just enough energy to bulldoze through valid narrative objections. I’ve seen the film described as a modern CGI-fuelled giallo and that may be half the fun. On the other hand, I’ve also seen the film referred to as a parody and I think that misses the point of high-concept horror, where pushing it beyond the limit is not meant to be funny as much as exhilarating. No matter why or how, Malignant is a strong genre entry by the time it gets to the point.

  • Tag (2018)

    Tag (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, January 2019) As far as contemporary comedies go, Tag holds its own as an enjoyable entry in the genre. Starting with an off-beat premise inspired by real events (a group of guys playing a lifelong game of tag), it stocks its ensemble cast with known comic personas, features a script that exploits the nooks and crannies of the premise and wraps it all up in sequences that have more cinematic depth than most other comedies. As a comedy/action hybrid (naturally, with the “tag” hook), it features enough CGI and gags stolen from other action movies (including the Sherlockian slow-motion voice-over options analysis) to act as a semi-satire. The film does a credible job at rationalizing its unlikely premise, from how the game was created to the various rules that make it a bit more complex. To support that intent, it also features a coterie of observers (including a journalist played by Annabelle Wallis in a thankless role that is reduced to being the audience’s surrogate) to highlight how crazy the main characters can become in playing the game. The cast was clearly chosen for their established personas, whether we’re talking about Jon Hamm’s propensity for comedy, Isla Fisher’s energetic enthusiasm, Ed Helms as the goofy straight man, and Jeremy Renner to make use of his action-movie credentials in a more serious character than the other. The result is funny enough, although the third-act turn into drama is suspect in the way movies written according to screenwriting rules feel obliged to hit specific emotional turns. Tag is an enjoyable comedy, with set-pieces more ambitious than is the norm for many flatter comedies. The dialogue shows signs of having been written rather than improvised, which usually improves the results.

  • The Mummy (2017)

    The Mummy (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, February 2018) There’s something … off about this newest edition of The Mummy that exemplifies the worst in modern blockbuster movies. It’s not even worth comparing to the already classic 1999 film that perfectly blended comedy with adventure and introduced us to Rachel Weisz. It’s clunky enough on its own terms. Part of the problem is pitching the film as the first in the “Dark Universe” (nice logo!), an acknowledged copycatting of the MCU that is up to its third attempt to launch a shared universe of movies: We get glimpses of intriguing things, but the film keeps its best shots in reserve in anticipation of something else. Part of the problem is Tom Cruise, increasingly too old and too proud to play the same roles in the same way. Part of the problem is a script that doesn’t quite know what to do with itself, and suffers from a dull premise that can’t manage to tie everything together. It’s shorter to list the things that aren’t a problem: Sofia Boutella is (as usual) fantastic and alluring in her role as the villain mummy Ahmanet—sufficiently so, in fact, that she practically becomes the sympathetic protagonist to cheer for. Russell Crowe is enjoyable as Dr. Jekyll—the film can’t figure out what to do with the character, but Crowe’s hulking bulk is used to good effect. The plane crash sequence (as a few other scenes here and there) is well executed. Bits and pieces of the shared universe are admittedly cool—having classic Universal monsters interact and a secret organization to keep track of them isn’t a bad idea, even though The Mummy isn’t the best showcase for such a crossover event. Alas, there is so much boring stuff in the film that it struggles to keep our interest whenever Ahmanet isn’t on-screen—Annabelle Wallis is dull as the nominal heroine, and the various shenanigans regarding Cruise’s character and his relationship to death are really far less interesting than they should have been. And then there’s the ugly side of the script (a plane crash next to THE church required for the next plot point! Sandstorm in London?) and a hero we don’t really care for. Still, this is a big-budget action fantasy film, and there’s enough stuff in here to be worth a forgiving watch. I wouldn’t necessarily mind another Dark Universe film—The Mummy, after all, is better than Dracula Untold and I, Frankenstein. But after three false starts, wouldn’t it be time to put the idea to rest?