Swiss Army Man (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

It's one of those pictures that defies most description. That might be the very reason I liked it so much; genre classifications can so easily limit film, as well as the audience's reaction to it. Consider, if you will, Crimson Peak, which, while thoroughly a horror film, is hardly "scary". Fellow moviegoers in the theater where I saw that Gothic romance muttered as they exited their disappointment in lackluster scares. But that film wasn't made to frighten. Disturb and enchant, sure, but not terrify.

Similarly, this one can hardly be described as more than a comedy, or at most an exercise in absurdist humor. It's a sort of macabre coming-of-age myth -- more conceptual than concrete in details -- wherein our protagonist Hank finds himself alone and suicidal on a small deserted island. A corpse washes up on the shore and our hero begins a surreal friendship with it. Before long, the corpse manifests its supernatural abilities, including propelling flatulence, karate choppers, a penile compass, and an oral water fount. With the makeshift Swiss Army knife's aid, Hank finds his way both literally and metaphorically, and, at the culmination of their adventures, the corpse departs.

If that sounds weird enough, you don't know the half of it. Between bear attacks and crossdressing, fake porn and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and a whole lot of not-so-mildly queer romance, this film is packed with indie, highbrow arthouse tragedy tropes as well as slapstick, lowbrow body humor gags. In many ways, this is pop art as high art (or maybe vice versa), and having Daniel Radcliffe as the corpse is just brilliant. His performance blew me out of the water, and the filmmakers' use of him is little short of genius; paired with an exaggeratedly eccentric performance from Paul Dano, the film works wonders. The two square off in a dazzling display of expert comedic timing parried instantly with profound loss and fear.

Most of all, this film is about wonder and curiosity. Just as Radcliffe's corpse (named Manny, of course) seeks enlightenment and reclamation, we the audience feel a need to help our friends in the film connect and rejoin civilization. Their make-believe role-playing is at once sumptuous and creative, but pitiful and broken. It doesn't take long for us to realize that the key Manny seeks -- real human interaction -- is what brought him to life in the first place, and what is sustaining him through Hank's friendship. We begin to wonder if poor dead Manny is doing the same for his friend.

It's a screwy oddball comedy, one that defies accurate description. So just do yourself a favor and go watch. If nothing else, it's a bizarre and silly adventure to distract from a hot summer day, and by the time it ends all us misfits and weirdos can sit back and consider our own journeys, with or without explosive flatulence.

IMDb: Swiss Army Man

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Score: 2 / 5

Everything that could have gone well didn't.

It's pretty clear from the start that this movie has a lot on its mind. And well it should, as merely its title conjures ideas of colonialism, environmentalism, sexism, and racism. Its turgid script and attempted epic proportion, however, fail to match with the film's obvious emphasis on action and CGI sequences. It's hard to care much about the injustice done upon native peoples or the environment when you're dazzled by Alexander Skarsgard cuddling with lions.

That's not to say it's not an entertaining picture. Skarsgard is mostly naked most of the time, which is fine, and his Byronic take on the character is unexpectedly engaging. Director David Yates carries his mastery of atmosphere over from his Harry Potter films, dousing each shot with saturated light and mist in a colorful palette of hues. We get to see lovely moments like a hippo attack and the villain's demise by crocodile, which is obviously worthwhile. And, if you don't mind anachronistic weirdness, Samuel L. Jackson plays Samuel L. Jackson doing tiresome comic relief.

I'd go ahead and describe the plot for you, but there isn't much of one, and it's a pretty tedious amalgamation of other, better action/adventures.Consider the climactic wildebeest stampede: it was more emotional in The Lion King and more clever and awesome in Australia. I'd go ahead and praise the actors, but they don't do much: I don't know how the producers managed to get such a fine cast and then waste literally all of their talents. Christoph Waltz's villain is almost as dull as in Spectre. Actually, no, here it's worse. Margot Robbie is just pathetic as a lackluster American damsel in distress who fits the period about as well as Jackson. Jim Broadbent and Djimon Hounsou show up for a few speedy scenes, but then we forget they were there because it just doesn't matter.

It's just mindless fun. "Fun", I should say, if you let the eye candy distract you from the fact that it's astonishingly silly stuff, and from remembering that the 1999 Disney cartoon is an infinitely better way to spend your time.

IMDb: The Legend of Tarzan

The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Marketing this movie must have been the best job ever. James DeMonaco, struck by brilliant inspiration, has crafted a relentless and timely critique of our social climate. Brutal and truly, deeply disturbing, the film surpasses its two predecessors in relevance and in tapping into very real cultural horrors. There are no shortages of fearsome images (like the ones in the poster below), and paired with the film's distinct title, the filmmakers and marketers were able to scare me well before I even knew the release date. Look at that creepy Lady Liberty costume. Look at the gaudy stars and stripes and neon lights surrounded by smoke and blood. I mean, come on, just look at the trailer's repeated phrase, "Keep America Great."

Whether you're more concerned with vigilantism, guns, racism, poverty, church corruption, legal corruption, self-defense, sexism, it's all here. Or if you just want a solid thriller, it's here, arguably for the first time in the franchise. Smart, quickly paced, and packed with engaging action sequences, this picture finally fully realizes what the first one promised, and this time with much less sentimentality, less arbitrarity, and less Ethan Hawke. Its politics leave a little to be desired, and I suppose at times it can get a bit preachy. But if that's the worst you can say about a horror movie, it must be damn good.

And this one is. Even in its pulpy brutality and almost campy delivery, Election Year manages to get into your head in a way Anarchy couldn't quite. Frank Grillo is back as former police sergeant Leo Barnes, who now leads the security of anti-Purge Senator Charlie Roan. Grillo's grizzled badassery again steals the movie, though this time his grounded performance isn't quite as compelling. The Senator, on the other hand, controls the little bit of sentiment in the picture, and the opening sequence (concerning her history with the Purge) is the only sequence the film really doesn't need. Beyond that, she is a wonder to watch: Her idealism and uncompromising position would be unbelievable in the Purge-world if she were not portrayed by the firebrand that is Elizabeth Mitchell (Lost, Once Upon a Time, and the Santa Clause sequels).

I'm curious as to the future of the franchise. Because each of the three films has gotten exceptionally better, I hope to see more here. After Election Year's smash-bang of a climax, DeMonaco sows a delicious little seed of hope that could easily spawn a direct sequel (as opposed to a pseudo-anthologized sequel). Senator Roan wins the presidency in a landslide vote, and her top priority is declared as stopping the annual Purge. A news report suggests that Purge supporters have begun to riot in the streets. Now, you tell me: Do you see another installment coming?

I feel about as dreadful and expectant about the next film as I do about our own election this November. DeMonaco could have a lot of fodder to gorge and regurgitate on the big screen.

IMDb: The Purge: Election Year

Free State of Jones (2016)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It just tried too hard. This summer's wannabe blockbuster-slash-pre-Oscar-season-"Big Important Film" fell a bit flat, and for several reasons. It wants to be a vehicle for Matthew McConaughey's dramatic leading man spree, but his solid performance is hindered by splintered writing and an unfocused script. It wants to be a triumph of social justice rhetoric and historical reclamation, but wallows in its period and atmosphere. It wants to teach a history lesson about one of the most intriguing and least known stories of our Civil War, but can't decide between history and relevance, drama and action, or even if it wants to be a biopic about Newton Knight.

It's a fine picture. Really. Nice costumes, some really fabulous atmosphere (set design, cinematography), and a few strong action scenes. McConaughey is obviously working hard for the part, and the supporting cast is all in. The problems here are script and direction. Neither is as focused or specific as it should have been for clarity's sake, much less for dramatic competency. The script is confused and poorly paced, spanning a vast amount of time and space to cover the full story without ever diving into the ideological meat of the matter. Sure, visuals of slaves and freed men, runaway Confederates, lynchings, and the KKK all convey powerful shorthand, but that's all shorthand we've seen dozens of times before. In historical dramas, we have to see novelty, or we compartmentalize it into the nameless mass of wartime films we saw in high school history class.

I'm talking about the almost perfect sequence in which the women of the hidden camp march into town to supposedly bury their dead, under watchful guard by Confederate soldiers. As they level with the enemy, they reveal weapons under their mourning gowns and ope fire at point-blank range. That's something special, and it was the most memorable scene in the film for me.

It could have been epic. It could have been romantic. It could have been swashbuckling and intense. It could have been pedagogical and enlightening. It could have been relevant and brutal. And when it could have been everything but ended up as little more than a historical anecdote, it not only didn't do justice to its inspiration, but it didn't do justice to itself or its audience.

IMDb: Free State of Jones

The Neon Demon (2016)

Score: 4.5 / 5

If you haven't seen or appreciated Nicolas Winding Refn's other films (Drive, Only God Forgives, Valhalla Rising), don't even go near this one. It's typical of his work, and also a more visceral experience; I've said often before that Refn's films are examples of film as an experience. As we expect from him, The Neon Demon has little real plot, ill-defined characters, and a lack of anything you would want from a summer blockbuster.

What we have instead is a film with little dialogue (which is often pulpy and thin, if not a little forced) but so much style it almost hurts to watch. We are absorbed into the chaotic melodrama of Jesse, a young aspiring model who yearns for success and fame, and her world of superficial camaraderie and cutthroat competition. In many ways, this is an even more surrealist Black Swan, substituting the dancers of the latter with models and photographers. As Jesse (Elle Fanning) climbs the ladder, she sidesteps and flatters her superiors until, eventually, she overcomes them and turns into a goddess of her own world. Her success, of course, provokes attack from the natural world, her community, and even her colleagues.

And as the film turns to its inevitable conclusion, Refn does something very sly: Whereas the beginning of the film featured more abstract images and dynamic visual spectacle, the climax (traditionally shown through more kinetic cinematography) is where Refn stills his eye, allowing the audience to ground ourselves in very real, graphic immediacy. Of course, the actual images he's filming are still surreal, which makes our experience of the end that much more bewildering and infuriating. In a good way.

It's a seductive story of hunger. We might ordinarily call it a "coming of age" plotline, but here we follow a young girl who is more vain than she pretends and who deludes herself into thinking she has more control of her destiny than she really does. She absorbs praise, and we see her blossom from a weak little flower to a champion and predator. Her little compromises build up into bridges she subsequently burns. By the end of her dark and distinctly unromantic narrative, rather than Jesse achieving her dreams, we see those dreams literally come to consume her. We see her colleagues, cougars and wolves, no less voracious in their own right, ever circling and longing to partake of her success and her flesh. As the dream sequences meld with the action sequences, we are held captive in a nightmarish netherworld of strobe lights and vibrant colors that sometimes look like a Kubrick or Lynch film and sometimes look like Tron. But there is nothing silly about the film, and its final scene packs a powerful punch.

IMDb: The Neon Demon

Finding Dory (2016)

Score: 4 / 5

Not as fresh as Nemo, but still better than most sequels and certainly better than any other animated movie in theaters, Finding Dory accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. It's a wondrous, mesmerizing adventure into animation and the big blue, where each new scene provides little visual miracles. While we've seen it all before, this film focuses less on the awe of novelty and more on the emotional resonance its images provoke, especially when combined with the heartfelt story.

Speaking of which, I cried. A lot. Mostly because baby Dory (who we see several times, through flashbacks and memories) is the cutest thing I've ever seen on the big screen. Also, it's a heartfelt, gutsy tale of a hero with a distinct disability who learns to navigate the seas on her own terms. If that weren't enough to win your heart, our hero interacts with others who have a no less amazing capacity for humor, patience, and generosity in the face of frustrating setbacks and a friend that forces them to communicate in different ways. I was reminded of the supporting characters of The Theory of Everything, who are written to provide an astounding measure of kindness and love in helping their disabled protagonist. There are plenty of lessons for us all to learn, whether we relate more to Dory or her varied acquaintances.

Her friends, too, are many-splendored. Hosting as wide a selection of ocean crew as the first, though only a handful of new characters, this film balances its attentions between a cranky octopus with only seven tentacles, a nearsighted whale shark, a self-doubting beluga with a possible concussion, and a pair of territorial sea lions (Do you see the pattern? Everybody else has a "problem" too, and the way they work together is just charming). We also see the endless patience of Dory's family, her two parents voiced by Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton, who work with their troubled youngling through games and routines to always keep her occupied, joyful, and able to return home.

The plot is not a great secret nor a great surprise, but I won't say more on that front. Its message of affirmation is achieved through experiencing the film. I will say that its climax is a colossal miscalculation, and a vague insult to the logic and joy of fans; it's an unnecessarily complicated set piece that lasts too long, features too many unlikely effects, and is so comparatively absurd that I almost forgot this was a Disney movie. But it ended just as I tired of it, and returned to the real movie with grace, so I can't complain too much.

The main joy of this film is in its ability to capture an essence of homesickness, of caring and love for family and familiarity that one has lost, and then to not dwell on that loss but to enthusiastically seek after it. It's about hope for renewal and remembrance. Amazing that an animated flick about fish can be so profoundly human at heart.

IMDb: Finding Dory

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