Kirstie Alley

Shoot to Kill (1988)

Shoot to Kill (1988)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, March 2020) While Shoot to Kill doesn’t really manage to get above its B-movie intentions, it does have a few things going for it. The most obvious one is the setting, as this criminal chase thriller takes us far from the urban skyline of San Francisco all the way up north to the Rockies, eventually crossing the border into Canada and finally ending in Vancouver. The Canadian content doesn’t stop there, as Shoot to Kill is an early effort from Ottawa-born director Roger Spottiswoode. The unusual nature of the film’s setting is bolstered by interesting casting, whether it’s a rare late-career role of Sidney Poitier, Kirstie Alley looking her best, or Bart the Bear doing his usual thing. The least one can say is that Spottiswoode manages to put all of the ingredients together competently: Shoot to Kill moves forward steadily, does well with its budget and comfortably executes the buddy-movie thriller template it’s given. It’s certainly watchable, even if it falls into the glass-half-full-or-half-empty neverland of middle-of-the-road films that are both better and worse than they could have been.

Village of the Damned (1995)

Village of the Damned (1995)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(On DVD, January 2020) If you’re a horror fan, the 1995 remake of Village of the Damned should be somewhere on your long list of things to see—if only to see how famed director John Carpenter would take on the task of modernizing the classic 1960 film. Predictably, the result is decent… while remaining quite a bit less than the original. Still, let’s recognize that Carpenter at least has the chops to make the film slightly more accessible than the sometimes-cold original, and that, from a distance of 25 years, the mid-1990s setting is fast becoming a period piece in its own right. The result can boast of an intriguing cast—Kirstie Alley is fine as a hard-driven scientist, and it’s fun to see both Christopher Reeves and Mark Hamill in roles away from the best-known characters. (As it happened, this was the last film that Reeves completed before the horse accident that left him paraplegic.) Carpenter fans will recognize this as middle-tier work from someone who had mastered horror directing at this point in his career—it’s suspenseful and atmospheric, but also slightly ridiculous and at times too gory (but not always). The rescue subplot at the very end is troublesome, considering that it messes with something that should not be messed with. Still, while it may not reach the heights of Carpenter’s best work, Village of the Damned is still a serviceable little chiller that can be watched easily—and it’s probably more interesting now than it was upon release.

Look Who’s Talking Now (1993)

Look Who’s Talking Now (1993)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On Cable TV, December 2019) There’s a point when series should just learn to call it quits before exhausting all audience goodwill, and Look Who’s Talking Now is clearly a second step too far for aa series that should have remained a first instalment. This time, the kids are grown-up and the dogs are talking. Kirstie Alley and John Travolta keep having problems, and the whole thing ends at Christmas. What else do you really need to know about the film? Maybe that its last half-hour drags on beyond belief, and that its lone spark of interest comes from a shared dream between the two leads. For fans of the lead actors, Travolta is suitably dashing and Alley looks great on top of some good comedy chops. Alas, the stunt casting of celebrity voices is completely lost in the French-language dub. Still, the use of kids and animals, and cheap seduction theatrics to tempt a character to adultery does smack of B-grade filmmaking—We’re so far down the copying of the original formula that it’s all feeling rote and familiar now. To be fair, Look Who’s Talking Now is about as good (or maybe even slightly better) than the second film—if you’ve toughed it out through the second movie, then you’re ready to tackle the third.

Look Who’s Talking Too (1990)

Look Who’s Talking Too (1990)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, August 2019) Sequels shouldn’t aim to deliver exactly the same as the previous film. You want something like it but different (and hopefully better, but let’s not ask too much), otherwise the feeling of déjà vu can overpower the built-in advantage of reprising characters. So it is that Look Who’s Talking Too is so much like the first film (down to the opening credit concept), that it doesn’t have anywhere to go. Romantic comedies should, as a rule, never have sequels and let the characters live happily ever after. Here, the birth of our lead couple’s second child is merely the first salvo in a deteriorating relationship, and there’s nothing funny in seeing them separate even if we know it’ll get better by the end of the film. The babies voiceover thing isn’t as cute as the first film, even if the addition of a second voice can vary things a bit. Overall, the film feels like it’s cruising without much effort: Kirstie Alley and John Travolta make for a fine lead couple, but the film makes a mistake by focusing on them when going after another set of character would have broadened things a bit. Even at barely 90 minutes, Look Who’s Talking Too causes restlessness more than anything, which is not the kind of thing you’re aiming for in a sequel.

Summer School (1987)

Summer School (1987)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(Second Viewing, In French, On TV, July 2019) I could have sworn that I had never seen Summer School before, but as the film unfolded the gory pranks played by two horror-loving characters seemed familiar. No matter; much of the rest of the film felt brand new, even as it showed a very familiar kind of comedy. The premise feels pure-1980s (even though a lot of it was reused in later movies such as 2018’s Night School) as a below-average gym teacher is asked to handle a remedial English summer program. The assorted characters found in his class are custom-designed to provide comic subplots, from the proud dyslexic black woman to the Italian exchange student to the teenage mom to the football guy to … and it goes on. Can they will all band together and outperform expectations? Yes! And that’s the movie for you. Highlights include a gory masterclass in makeup effects, Mark Harmon playing a Steve Gutenberg role, Kirstie Alley looking wonderful and … not much else. Formulaic and forgettable at once, likable yet empty, Summer School comfortably represents some kind of typical 1980s movies (surprisingly not too far away from Police Academy) but I really wouldn’t go as far as saying that it needs to be seen.

Look Who’s Talking (1989)

Look Who’s Talking (1989)

ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

(In French, On TV, June 2019) You know the shtick for Look Who’s Talking—everyone does: Standard romantic comedy, except with the baby character having a voice. It’s good for a few laughs (“Lunch!” is always good for a smirk or two), but there’s a limit to how long that gimmick can be sustained, after which the film has to rely on more standard elements. Fortunately, there’s John Travolta and Kirstie Alley looking great and being decently funny in their roles. Perhaps the biggest surprise of Look Who’s Talking is that the humour is considerably cruder than I expected, starting from a conception credit sequence that also introduces the gimmick. At times too cute but generally funny, there’s a bit more to this film than the talking-baby thing, including a rather complicated relationship between the two leads that goes a bit beyond the strict minimum expected. One sequence has a cute nod to Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, except that it’s more than a gag—it cleverly reinforces the father/son association between Travolta’s character and the baby in the viewers’ minds by making a call-back to the actor’s previous role. But that’s getting over-analytical on a movie that’s not built to sustain more than a casual viewing. Look Who’s Talking may be a bit too quirky to love entirely, but it has its charm.