The Shallows (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Just when you think it's safe to go back in the water. Or to another shark movie.

Confession: I don't always care for nature-gone-wild horror, because most direct-to-video releases in the genre are usually trash. They have to meet fairly specific criteria for me to like them. I'd recommend a few, though, especially The Birds (1963) and Rogue (2007), though others are certainly prominently displayed on my shelves! This one exceeds my needs. Don't get me wrong: It's not a perfect shark movie, though it's arguably more perfect than any other I've seen. It's not the best summer blockbusting thriller ever, even probably this year. You'd have to look to Jaws for that kind of thong. ...Er, thing.

What is it about The Shallows? Is it Blake Lively spending most of her time looking sharp in a bikini? That's a hard point to disparage. Is it the fresh, new way of showing danger under the surface in a shark movie? Ain't nothing fresh or new about it, except in the magnificent visual effects and confident cinematography and editing. Is it the excessively violent, bloody thrill brought on by razor teeth and dozens of collateral deaths? Actually this one's pretty damn tame in terms of gore, with one notable exception when Lively stitches herself together with a hook and necklace.

The only problem I had with this movie (besides director Jaume Collet-Serra's lingering gaze on Lively's nether skin) is its rating. It should have gone hard R. No nudity, no language, none of that. I'm talking about just a little more biting, thrashing, visceral terror. This goes safe PG-13, and it subsequently suffers. I don't want gore porn here, but a tad more sizzle would have brought fire to this damp escapade.

And I'm not saying it's not scary. I shrieked a little bit, and I thought twice about getting in the lake afterward. But, frankly, given that it's 2016, I was hoping to see more shark attack and less Lively's fearful face as we hear the shark chomping off camera. Perhaps if we were looking at a better actress convey the horrors of the lagoon, the artsy approach would have paid off. But we're talking about Blake Lively. She surprised me with the role in that, while her emotion is inconsistent, her athleticism is astonishing.

Speaking of artsy, the director's approach to everything except Lively's body is just wonderful. At first, he lures us in with the pretense that the film is another mindless summer escapist thriller aimed at teens, as the second scene looks more like a cell phone advertisement than a movie. Then he wows us with impossibly gorgeous slow-motion shots of surfing in pristine waters. Even late in the film, his awe for the ocean's beauty is so opaque it leads to distraction. And as the final credits begin, the color-warped images of waves and froth remind us more of psychedelic stylizations than a horror film about shark attacks. Similarly, Marco Beltrami definitely overscored the film, but I wouldn't say it's ever abrasive or unwelcome.

For solid summer entertainment, you could do little better. It's fabulously intelligent (not in dialogue, but in pacing, editing, and action). It's got a badass woman hero (though I confess to have rooted for the shark now and again). It doesn't take much thought, it absorbs you with its beauty, and its endlessly entertaining premise proves itself worthy in delivery.

Go on, take a dip.

IMDb: The Shallows

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

There's nothing like doing something so familiar so well.

The real magic here is that James Wan knows his audience so intimately. Few other directors can so precisely hook their audience in the opening shot and keep them dangling until about a minute into the final credit crawl. Especially in horror. Especially in a sequel. Especially when the film is almost two-and-a-half hours long.

When I told people how excited I was that The Conjuring 2 was happening, most of them rolled their eyes. While that didn't deter me in the slightest, I was intrigued when the usual explanation hinted that there was nothing new or fresh about haunted house / possession films, and that lack of novelty informed the disdain.

It's true that the tropes of these subgenres of horror are so familiar as to induce more humor than fear. There are only so many times you can see a cross invert itself, a girl's head spin around, or a demon lunge from the shadows before you know what to expect and lose your frisson. And yet, though I've seen countless such movies (as have many fellow audience members), I still jumped and shrieked at appropriate places, as did the few other couples with me in a matinee showing, and I still had trouble relaxing that evening.

A big part of that is delivery, and whether or not the audience would admit it, the technical aspect of horror filmmaking does impact their appreciation. I saw the first Conjuring with several friends, many of whom don't ordinarily get "scared" in movies, all of whom really enjoyed it and described it as one of the best scary movies in recent memory. Now, I don't know about you, but in retrospect, there's really nothing very novel about that movie at all. It's a totally rote exercise in basic supernatural horror, a hodgepodge of Amityville and Exorcist given over to a director who takes his time building the suspense and dread. The beauty and lasting resonance of that film comes in with that same director, who both reintroduces us to the Horror 101 of solid filmmaking and storytelling in horror pictures, and turns classic tropes on their side to show us that even in familiar narratives, style can be heightened and exaggerated to provoke the appropriate response. Does that make sense? Think of the simplistic genius of the hide-and-clap game; the multiple scenes of this game require no special effects, no gore, no tricks of lighting, and only an old-fashioned master of dread to properly use cameras, mix sounds, and elicit raw fear from his actors.

While this sequel features nothing on par with hide-and-clap, it does do several other things right, which we'll get to presently. I won't deny, though, that it is, first and foremost, a sequel, and reminds us repeatedly of that fact. It's big and noisy, exaggerated and excessive, fast and furious, and not quite "better" than the first. Examples: Here we don't just have one supernatural entity (the witch in #1), we have two (one of which, like Annabelle, will be getting its own spin-off film). Here we don't have one family fighting evil, we have two. Here we don't have one crucifix on a wall turning upside-down, we have about a hundred inexplicably tacked to a bedroom wall that exhibit synchronized spinning. Overkill? Hell yeah.

In fact, I'd compare this film to Insidious: Chapter 2. You know how that one lost a lot of the bleak, monochromatic look of the first film and replaced it with loud, mostly heavily saturated colors and fast-moving images that raced across the screen? In many ways, Conjuring 2 is its soul-sister, revving up the action and the jump-scares with even more striking visuals and shrieking musical crescendos (provided once again by the brilliant Joseph Bishara). Wan's cinematographer, Don Burgess (Enchanted, Spider-Man, and almost all of Robert Zemeckis's films), proves himself wonderfully fitted to the genre and the heavy stylizations of his director, panning slowly across space and time in wonderfully detailed sets to paint a perfect picture of terror.

One of my favorite things about Wan's movies (especially this one, because it's the one I'm thinking of) is his ability to focus our dread and fear into places that are both painfully obvious and chillingly not. His oxymoronic approach to the uncanny, Freud's unheimlich, is masterful, both in his incarnations of evil (his monsters, so to speak) and in his vision of daily life. Consider the demon in Insidious, the mother in Insidious: Chapter 2, even the Jigsaw mask/doll in Saw: almost campy in gaudy colors and thick makeup, but terrifying in obviousness. Consider, too, the vehicular images of fear: an average exorcism where the possessed is covered in a sheet, for example, where what otherwise is ordinary carries the weight of something new, mysterious, and therefore fearsome. Think of the commonplace wardrobe, the closet, or in this movie the tent at the end of the hall. These are in every home, yet here we see them in their chilling glory.

What does all this have to do with Conjuring 2? Everything. This film features similar Wan trademarks, upping the ante on spectacle along with content. The emotional arc of this film is much stronger (Vera Farmiga's Lorraine Warren envisions her husband's untimely death and battles with her faith and doubt), to match the frenzied antics of supernatural entities. The central ghost of this movie, an old man previously inhabiting the house, is repeatedly seen in the chair where he died. During one particularly brilliant scene, as Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) questions the family's possessed daughter, he has her sit in that chair to more effectively invite and channel the spirit. As the spirit demands, Ed and Lorraine must not look at the girl while she speaks in his voice. Ed turns from her, and the camera focuses sharply on his face in the foreground; in the background, however, we see her blurred figure, and as she begins to speak as the old man, we slowly see her transform into him. It's a painfully slow shot, milking us every second to question what we're seeing and straining our eyes to perceive the hidden horror, and one that perfectly demonstrates Wan's luxurious mastery of his craft.

I'm not saying it's a perfect movie. Some of it was too extravagant for me, some felt forced and artificial. But when a scary movie consistently keeps me on edge for over two hours, along with keeping me engaged and interested, it joins my list of favorites.

IMDb: The Conjuring 2

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Score: 4 / 5

The first X-Men film that actually feels like it's one of the comics. It's excellent.

Jam-packed in its lengthy running time are dynamic action shots, extravagant destruction, vibrant colors, wit and charm, high stakes and higher concepts, and almost nostalgic melodrama. All the makings of blockbuster summer entertainment. Sure, it's not as intelligently written as Days of Future Past, and it doesn't have the heart that film bared, but a game-changing movie like that can only come once in a series. This is a big, blustery, loud and proud follow-up, as it should be, and it owns its own preposterousness. The villain is cliched, the apocalyptic images are all too familiar these days, the plights of our heroes are typical.

And yet, as you can even see from the poster below, it may be the most visually arresting film in its franchise. At every moment, the bland and empty shots of catastrophe and destruction are parried with bright and stylized shots of the outlandish characters in colorful costumes straight out of the comics striking poses and leaping frame to frame as if it were drawn on page. Are you getting my message here? I liked the damn movie.

There's not much more to say. I need to watch it again to get everything -- I confess, at two and a half hours of explosive energy and dizzying effects, my mind began to wander. This film knocks its Quicksilver scene out of the park (again), effectively balances itself between all the players in its vast cast, and beautifully reintroduces several beloveds (notably Storm and Jean).

It's not the most original superhero movie. But it does its thing, and it does it well. Bryan Singer's still got it.

IMDb: X-Men: Apocalypse

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Score: 5 / 5

Just when I thought Marvel Studios had little left up its sleeve.

It didn't take much screen time for this movie to show me that it would be my favorite MCU film yet. The Russos had done such fabulous work on Winter Soldier that I hardly expected any better, especially from a film that promised so much and threatened so little. I mean, look at the other big-time mash-ups of whole teams of heroes. The third Spider-Man, the third X-Men, the disaster that was Joss Whedon's Age of Ultron. Too much, too fast, too spectacular, and no real script, style, or substance.

But Civil War blows it all away. There's little criticism I can aim at the film, so this isn't going to last long. The camerawork is consistently engaging and thrilling, and edited at an effective and appropriately frenzied pace. The effects are dazzling. The script couldn't be better. The film has a perfect balance of not only both sides of the conflict, but of each individual character in violent action and not. I'm not saying it's a fair fight (let's be honest, here: Rogers is being a whiny and stubborn fool, while Stark is actually doing the right thing for everyone). But I am saying that the film is so perfectly balanced that, apart from the film's title, there's no reason to think it's not a third Avengers movie.

It's got a lot of heart. I cried a li'l bit in Stark's climax. I cried over Peggy Carter. I cried for sweet, sexy Black Panther (who, by the way, I suddenly love. Not really a big fan of him in the comics). It's hilarious, too. Spider-man is finally handled perfectly, and Tom Holland delivers a pitch-perfect introduction as our webslinger and promises boons in his standalone film. Which is saying a lot, considering that half his scenes in this picture include Robert Downey, Jr.'s quick wit and sharp tongue, parried expertly by Holland at every turn.

I have nothing else. That's it. A brilliantly crafted film. Fun, fast, furious, entertaining, and intellectual. It's as close to high art as a superhero movie will ever get.

Captain America: Civil War