Jason Momoa

  • Debug (2014)

    Debug (2014)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On TV, February 2021) When it comes to Canadian Science Fiction films, a few things almost always hold true: the low-budget production values, the limited casts, the unadventurous premises and the Telefilm Canada logo. To be fair, the increased affordability of visual effects has done a lot to improve the scope and execution of Canadian SF movies in the past decade — but I still have to grade on a curve, forgiving a few too many things and focusing on the most interesting elements. When it comes to Debug, the premise is not without interest: As a group of six convicted hackers boards a spaceship to debug its computer systems, the ship’s AI starts fighting against them, and it fights dirty. So far so good — and while the film’s special effects are sometimes subpar, they do get the point across. Having hacker convicts as characters means that there are flaws and past traumas to exploit by the antagonist, and having that evil AI played in over-the-top fashion by Jason Momoa is really not a bad starting point. The script and direction occasionally show flashes of quirky interest, whether it’s a medical AI turning on a character and dismissing him as “junkie scum,” or using effective blocking to minimize the expense of a gory death scene. Three out of the four main female characters end up in their underwear (not complaining, just appreciating), and the set design is frequently quite good within the limits of the budget. There is a dollop of naughtiness to the film that could also have been used more effectively. The male leads are a bit bland (except for Adrian Holmes, doing his best but saddled with a badly-written character), so I won’t apologize for spending more time noticing the work of Jeananne Goossen, Sidney Leeder and Jadyn Wong. Alas… I think I’ve reached the end of this film’s strengths and promises. As with many low-budget efforts, Debug doesn’t have what it takes to stick to a science fiction approach, and lazily resorts to horror devices in order to make it to the end. The reason why there are six characters is providing enough fodder for death scenes until the end of the film, and the film quickly goes from 2001: Space Odyssey aspirations to slasher-movie execution. Momoa is badly underused as a villainous character without compelling motivations. Much of the dialogue is unacceptably clunky, some of the plot points are just stupid (such as when a character is rescued from a terrible situation only to be immediately killed) and the intellectual ambitions of the film quickly melt away in a flash of horror tropes. It’s possible to make better science fiction movies, and the newest crop of recent Canadian SF does get there from time to time. But Debug is just lazy and disappointing in how it really can’t think of anything better than a killer ship AI as a main plot driver: there are dozens of tangents that the film could have taken but chose not to. Too bad — I still think that the film is borderline watchable (which is a compliment considering the alternatives), but more often as an example lesson on what not to do than in demonstrating actual qualities.

  • Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017)

    Once Upon a Time in Venice (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On TV, June 2020) It pains me to be critical of Once Upon a Time in Venice—I still believe that Bruce Willis has at least one more great performance left in him, and he seems like a reasonable match for a crime comedy set against the eccentric characters of Venice, Los Angeles, during which our protagonist gets embroiled in escalating criminal enterprises as he seeks to get his dog back. There’s some promise here, in-between the sunny scenery (even when the film sticks to the lower-class of the neighbourhood) and the casting of both John Goodman and Jason Momoa. But there’s something about Once Upon a Time in Venice that feels off, a series of small mistakes and awkwardness that accumulate and keep making it worse. Willis looks significantly older than usual here, but he still can’t be bothered to do more than sleepwalk through his role like too many of his twenty-first century performances. Then there is the tone of the film, which reaches too self-consciously for wacky elements that fall flat because we’ve seen them far too many times in similar films (and maybe novels as well—if I was in a better mood, I would compare Once Upon a Time in Venice to Hiaasen or Westlake comic novels where dognapping is a common plot element, but this film doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as those novels). The very small stakes don’t help either, and the result just feels like a combination of lazy and dull that doesn’t even manage a convincing sense of place. Even with low expectations, the film doesn’t quite satisfy—and we’re left waiting for Willis’ return to form.

  • Aquaman (2018)

    Aquaman (2018)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, August 2019) Thankfully, DC is finally getting the hang out of that superhero movie thing after half a dozen attempts to boot up a DCU worth enjoying. Alas, by the time you’re done with Aquaman, there’s so much stuff in that film that you’re likely to feel punch-drunk. Seriously—by the time the film mentions seven realms, some audience members will groan at the thought of having to visit all seven. The immensely colourful atmosphere and cinematography are undeniable boons, but they do contribute to the cognitive overload skirted by the film’s last act. If Aquaman has two secret weapons, they’re actor Jason Momoa, and director James Wan. Momoa has been flirting with superstardom ever since his impressive turn in the first season of Game of Thrones, but he attains his potential here with the kind of performance that his royal character warrants. Meanwhile, Wan uses his experience directing special-effects heavy horror films and one Fast and the Furious instalment to good effect, fluently using CGI and colourful cinematography to make the film’s wild imagined world credible enough to enjoy. Typical to form for superheroes tentpole films, a few name actors can be found in supporting roles, with various degrees of effectiveness. (Amber Heard: No.  Willem Dafoe: Yes!)  It’s all remarkably good considering that previous DC films couldn’t make sense of similar material, but it’s not quite a home run: At 2 hours and 23 minutes, Aquaman would have been better cutting twenty minutes and a few million dollars’ worth from its budget in order to deliver a more focused story and a more visually intelligible cinematography. In a common failure state of films with near-unlimited budgets, there’s so much stuff on screen at any given moment that it eventually gets tiresome. When nothing is held back for the climax, the climax itself feels like more of the same thing. Still, I had a much better time than expected from previous DCU films: Aquaman has more humour, more colour, more likable characters and a globetrotting plot that has far more to show than an expected underwater film would have had. (There’s even a desert sequence.)  Momoa walks away from the film as an authentic megastar with a long future in the DCU, but time will tell if he’ll be able to play an equally regal character in the future. In the meantime, there’s flickers of hope for the DCU in between this and Wonder Woman. Imperfect and uncontrolled in both cases, but a great step up from the dour early films in the series.

  • Justice League (2017)

    Justice League (2017)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2018) Let me put it this way: If this was 2010 and we’d never seen The Avengers—let alone every single MCU film since then—then Justice League would be exceptional. But it’s not 2010 and we’ve seen nearly everything that it has to offer already. I’m not necessarily saying that the film is terrible—just mediocre. I actually like quite a lot of it: I think the actors are generally good, with special mention of Ben Affleck as a grizzled Batman, Gal Gadot in a third outing as Wonder Woman, Jason Momoa as an imposing Aquaman and quite a few known names in supporting roles. I’m particularly happy that directing duties on Justice League were transferred midway through from Zach Snyder to Joss Whedon—while the reasons for the transfer were tragic, the result is a film that moves away from the dour atmosphere of the DCU-so-far and closer to the Marvel-brand of lighter, more entertaining fare. As a result, the film does have more rewatachability value than previous film. Still, let’s not overstate the “lighter and funnier” angle: Justice League is still too heavy for its own material. It’s also flawed by the nature of its story and Superman’s godlike status: much of the film is spent waiting for Jesus/Aslan/Supes to show up and resolve the problem through sheer brute force because that’s the kind of superhero power fantasy that it is, and the supporting characters may be colourful but they don’t get to save the day. It’s only one of the many things that do limit Justice League’s appeal eight years after The Avengers: It’s boldly catching up to what’s been done well already, and the déjà vu is significant.

  • Bullet to the Head (2012)

    Bullet to the Head (2012)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2014) The problem with making a movie that consciously call back to a sub-genre fallen in disfavor is that, well, there’s usually a reason why the sub-genre has gone away. With Bullet to the Head, veteran director Walter Hill clearly tries to model his movie after the countless buddy-cop action thrillers of the eighties, a fraction of which he himself directed. And to a certain extent, there’s an interesting clash-of-the-eras in pitting Sylvester Stallone against action upstart Jason Momoa. But the final result doesn’t do much more than string along a passable action thriller: Bullet to the Head is generic to a degree that would be almost laughable if it wasn’t for the suspicion that it’s actually trying to be as generic as it can be. While the dynamic between good-cop Sung Kang and secretly-nice-assassin Stallone can be fitfully amusing, there really isn’t anything new here. Stallone looks tired in yet another self-satisfied mumbling performance, and the dialogue that the script gives him really isn’t anything worth remembering. The plot is familiar, and while the various incidents along the way often try to make Stallone’s assassin character look far cooler than he is, he simply isn’t as interesting as the script believes him to be. There’s some value to the film, one supposes, in filling late-night slots, much like its 1980s predecessors once did. But if this is old-school, then it must be remedial class.

  • Conan the Barbarian (2011)

    Conan the Barbarian (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, April 2012) The problem with boring movies is that they make everything seem worse.  Lame jokes in an otherwise solid film are minor blemishes, but they become almost offensive in dull movies.  Gore is, at best, a necessarily evil in good films; in bad ones, it feels immature and forced. This remake of Conan the Barbarian is, in a few words, useless and charisma-free.  The problem start early on, with a gory prologue leading to a lengthy young-Conan sequence that leads, years later, to a third introduction to the Conan character now fully-grown.  But even with three starts, this film seems to sputter out of energy early on: A return to the kind of dull epic fantasy film we thought we’d left behind with The Scorpion King, Conan the Barbarian struggles in keeping the audience’s attention throughout its entire duration.  It doesn’t succeed, to the point that the film seems to erase itself from memory as soon as the credits roll.  Jason Momoa isn’t too bad as the title character; sadly, it’s the rest of the production that seems to fall around him.  As far a sword-and-sorcery fantasy films go, this is routine stuff, made a bit more repellent with the gratuitous meanness and gore.  Some sequences are a bit better than others (including a fight over a wooden wheel), but the initial disappointment of the film never goes away, and the end result just isn’t all that impressive.  Fantasy fans will at least get the impression that the budget was spent on-screen: There are a few good images here and there.  For everyone else, through, this remake compares unfavourably to the original Conan the Barbarian.  Good or bad doesn’t matter when the film is just this dull.