The Suicide Squad (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

There will be much said of this movie in comparison with David Ayer's Suicide Squad, which I quite enjoy and which has become cool to hate. There will be much said of this movie as an adult version of James Gunn's family-friendly outings with Guardians of the Galaxy and its sequel. But I think this movie shares the most thematic and aesthetic qualities with Deadpool and especially Deadpool 2. Some will find that more entertaining, some more exhausting; I find it both, and while not necessarily fresh, it's certainly an interesting addition to the growing DC Universe. Gleefully violent, unapologetically irreverent, and absurdly grotesque, The Suicide Squad squirms into your consciousness and doesn't say "please love me, fans" so much as "I'm having fun; are you?"

In stark contrast to the opening of the prior film -- and yes, Gunn's movie is a sequel rather than a remake, although it has strong reboot tendencies -- The Suicide Squad spends almost no time introducing its characters before dropping them into action. The team, including Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), and Boomerang (Jai Courtney) from the first one, is rounded up by Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) for another mission. In the briefest of montages, Waller reminds the team that "Task Force X" comprises metahuman criminals with explosive chips in their skulls; if they desert the team, disobey orders, or fail, she has the power to kill them. And, given what they are often up against, their chances for survival are slim anyway. Success may allow them a chance at a decreased sentence. Unfortunately, Davis is given even less screen time in this movie, which infuriated me to no end, but at least she's still in the franchise.

Their mission: infiltrate Jotunheim, a fortress on the South American island called Corto Maltese, and destroy all traces of the mysterious "Project Starfish." The government of Corto Maltese was recently overthrown, and the anti-American regime wants whatever is in the former Nazi prison. Once the Suicide Squad lands on the beach, however, they are instantly slaughtered except for Flag and Quinn, who barely escape alive. Immediately, we learn that Waller had intended one team as a sacrifice; the other team makes landfall on another beach without incident. Waller might be a bad bitch, but so is Gunn, and this is the kind of structural playfulness that allows for subversive and morbid humor as well as narrative intrigue. We're all tired of superhero movies, generally, so we need these kinds of storytelling devices to mix things up.

Gunn has proven himself adept at handling large ensembles as both writer and director, and this is no exception. The "new" team consists of Bloodsport (Idris Elba), Peacemaker (John Cena), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), and my personal favorite, King Shark (Sylvester Stallone), and each gets fair treatment from what could have been a bloated, unwieldy screenplay. It's a mismatched group (one that opens the doorway to similar theming that Guardians espouses), filled with undesirables and underdogs who could be heroes if given the chance. Well, maybe. Or they might just want to die. Once Flag and Quinn join with them, this movie really gets rollicking, and Gunn seems most comfortable in the chaos of conflict, redirecting focus between characters, allowing lots of vibrant, profanity-laced dialogue to bounce off the big stars and their characters' big personalities. They split up briefly, to simultaneously infiltrate Jotunheim and the new regime leader's private quarters, but playful on-screen and in-world text guides us through the setting.

While the blood-soaked action and hilarious vulgarity indicate Gunn's enthusiasm at fulfilling his hard-R ticket to ride -- and indeed, it is a wonder to behold -- this viewer found it increasingly tiresome. I felt similarly about Deadpool, where eventually pushing buttons for the sake of pushing buttons detracts from my enjoyment of boundary-pushing. Unlike in Birds of Prey, which it seems people keep forgetting about, this movie has very little emotional depth; the closest we get to it is Ratcatcher 2 fondly remembering the lessons from her father (Taika Waititi in a bizarre cameo) about their precious rats. By the climax of the film, when we learn "Project Starfish" is a Lovecraftian alien monster named Starro that uses mini-me facehuggers to turn civilians into drones (I know, it's really weird, guys), I was annoyed that everything was big CGI as buildings collapsed and scores of people died and the team came together in a big fight. On one hand, what else is a superhero movie going to do? On the other, can't a superhero movie do anything else?

Reminiscence (2021)

 Score: 2.5 / 5

A man whose job is to sift through other people's memories gets embroiled in a mystery, searching an urban wasteland for a troublesome woman while descending the echelons of criminality. Put it any way, and there's nothing groundbreaking about the rote plot, which is largely ripped from any number of classic noir movies. And that's okay, generally, if it's specific and detailed enough to still hold one's interest and curiosity. Noir movies largely exist today because of their embrace of science fiction, and Reminiscence seems determined to fit within that niche. But this is no Blade Runner or Minority Report, and this one can't quite make its mark without relying heavily on its conscious references to those earlier works.

Hugh Jackman plays Nick, a haunted man whose gravelly, world-weary voice narrates the movie like a Bogart impersonator. He lives in a sunken world, a stretch of Miami coast mostly underwater after climate change flooded the land and made daytime impossibly hot. His demimonde consists of a Venice-like shadowy world in which his routine involves boating to work in a cavernous warehouse to help sad clients relive their pasts. Using a memory recalling device that looks like a giant spider web of clear cables, he plops his clients into a tube of fluid and verbally guides them into their past. Sometimes it's simply to help someone find lost keys or remember a date; more often, it seems, it's to let someone indulge their masochistic melancholia by torturously reliving a happy memory, perhaps of a loved one since passed away. The latter cases he tends to warn, saying that "the past can haunt a man" and encouraging them not to live through these memories and forget to move on.

Nick and Watts, his ex-military business partner (played by a typically reliable Thandiwe Newton), are close friends, despite her addiction to alcohol and his addiction to, I guess, moodiness. It's a little creepy that they can see the memories of their clients, but the clients don't seem to care. Until one day, when the femme fatale, Mae, appears in a revealing crimson dress to push his buttons; she asks Nick to stay after hours to help her find her keys. He's clearly taken instantly -- who wouldn't, especially by the stunning Rebecca Ferguson all gussied up and doing her best Lauren Bacall or Barbara Stanwyck style of sultry seduction. The distinctly tragic jazz singer even sings his favorite sad song in a jazzy alto voice, and he's off to the races in a steamy romance that never manages to feel believable beyond its eroticism. And then, suddenly, she disappears with nothing but a few clues and depressing memories.

Where did she go? And why does she feature in the memories of a comatose suspect being prosecuted as a mule for drug kingpin Saint Joe? After seeing this, Nick learns that Mae was a narcotic addict, and he's off again, this time to hunt down the criminals. Unfortunately, as is so often the case in the genre, the crime extends far beyond a single man, and Nick struggles -- as do we -- in a turbulent quagmire of corrupt cops and lawyers, drug fiends, and politicians and businessmen desperate to stay dry in a wet world. As unrest grows in the lower classes, Nick inadvertently reveals damning truths about the "barons" in power, and by the end I cared more about the peripheral uprising than about Nick chasing a scar-faced killer.

Apart from its derivative science fiction elements -- which are pretty bare-bones anyway, relegated to the limited "money shots" of CGI -- even the noir aspects of Reminiscence aren't novel. I found myself spacing out of the movie, more interested in ticking off its repeated visual references to Vertigo and other Hitchcock films, to say nothing of Chinatown, The Maltese Falcon, and of course the obvious inspiration Total Recall. The ludicrously complex plot here -- not helped by constant references to characters we haven't met yet and won't be properly introduced to us -- is far more distracting than any of the visual successes the movie displays. I'll never remember the plot of this flick (except a creepy man hunting for his boss's bastard child, which I'm not even certain was really happening) and that's probably a good thing.

I might remember some of its platitudes about time and the dangers of nostalgia, but its sentimental platitudes delivered in voiceover have thankfully vacated my own memory. I will remember, however, the splendor of a drowned city, a memory recall device in fiber optic cables, and a gag-inducing few remarks that tried to thematically link this story to the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Oh, and a very sad Hugh Jackman who just needed a hug.

The Night House (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

Beth is in misery. Her husband Owen recently went out on a boat from their gorgeous house on a lake and shot himself in the head. She says he exhibited no depression, and she didn't even know he had a gun; his suicide note indicates that nothing is after her and that "You're safe now." Her grief is paired with anger and bewilderment -- she says she was the one who had once struggled with depression, not Owen -- and she struggles to continue her work as a teacher. Spending her nights drinking and tearfully going through his belongings, she starts noticing odd happenings like disembodied footsteps upstairs and the stereo turning on in the dead of night. Could it be the restless spirit of her beloved, or does she just want him back?

In Owen's boxes, she uncovers books about the occult with his handwritten notes. She sees blueprints for their lake house in reverse. Across the dark water, she starts to see lights of a house that looks disturbingly like her own. And on his computer, she finds photos of another woman a little too similar to Beth. What was her husband doing? What was he into? And why does she keep seeing ghostly women wandering around her property and in her dreams, all of whom look a lot like herself? It's a delicious mystery, one that unfolds in a dementedly languid pace even as I wished things would slow down so I could more carefully catalog the intense emotional weight of each new revelation.

Rebecca Hall takes this role in her stride, using it as a vehicle to hijack the whole movie. She steals every scene, chewing away even as she spends most of her time wiping away tears beneath terrified, wide-eyed stares. It's the kind of powerhouse leading woman we saw Nicole Kidman ace in The Others or Jennifer Lawrence in mother!, women whose strength is in their (culturally determined) weakness and whose terror is desperately emotional and rooted in her experience as women. She deftly combines her sorrow with anger and suspicion and confusion, and gives us just the right injections of morbid humor to be startlingly funny. Her character is as much a survivor as she is an investigator, and as she unfolds the mysteries of her life, she realizes the horrors hemming her in and braces herself for the coming fight.

I don't want to spoil too much (but I'm about to, so stop reading if that's your kink), but know that this movie requires a lot of interpretation on our part to make sense. This is because, in my viewing of it, The Night House is primarily an allegory of depression and suicide. Beth, who is herself a survivor of a deadly experience, seems hounded by death, which she refers to as "nothing." That nothingness is what she experienced when declared dead for four full minutes, and she now carries that nihilism within her consciousness. She worries that her experiences are infectious, and indeed if it is ultimately her fault that her husband killed himself. She may be more right than she knows, and as she learns about the "nothing" that hunts her, she hears that it had spent years whispering in Owen's ears. But one could also easily read this movie as a straightforward movie with a particularly iconic evil spirit (the production designer and cinematographer do stunning work shaping negative spaces into the "nothing" demon), and it's the rare film that fully works in both interpretations separately, and even better together.

In this way, the movie reminded me distinctly of Relic, which could be a simple house-haunting and could be a complex allegory to dementia and aging. Together, it's an irresistible, haunting exploration of both as they inform each other.

Further, this movie leaves us its share of mysteries, even once the credits begin to roll. While there is surely a deeper significance to various symbols -- the misogynistic sculpture, the red moon, the not-quite labyrinthine maze -- none are explicitly clear. At least not on the first viewing. It seems the caerdroia maze is meant to confuse or weaken dark spirits, which more or less leads into the reflected house and body doubling tactics employed by Owen. A blood moon, biblically, signifies the beginning of the end times. The sculpture, dubiously referred to as a Voodoo doll, seems to signify sacrifice and mystically binds whoever holds it to the dark spirit, or marks them as an intended sacrifice for it. These are briefly hinted at in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot at a book Beth skims, and would probably make more sense upon subsequent viewings. But they are as vague as elements of Prisoners or The Little Stranger, and those haunting stories are so chilling because they don't spell out each dark mystery.

Actually, this movie reminds me a lot of classic, old ghost movies like The Innocents and The Haunting, and their source materials, because of its rich, foreboding mood and its dense psychological realism. Director David Bruckner (if you haven't seen The Ritual yet, it's on Netflix) fluidly ingratiates us into Beth's uncomfortable existence until neither she nor we can tell what is real, what is imagined, and what is threatening. Ghosts run amok, but are they caused by a somnambulist's fever dream, her hopes and fears as her husband's identity is revealed, or perhaps manifestations of a malicious spirit hunting her? The most amazing thing about this particular story, written by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski as an original screenplay, is that the answer seems to be YES. It's all almost more interesting because the various possibilities only heighten the tension of the others. Isn't it scarier to know that your delusional fear and exhaustion might make you more susceptible to a demon's influence, or that learning the truth about your life can make you start to lose your own sanity?

Its impressionistic imagery -- thickly captured by cinematographer Elisha Christian -- and amazing sound design make this movie an immersive Gothic experience where the memory of horrors is often as dangerous as the unseen ones around us. I cannot speak highly enough of this movie, nor of the exhilaration of seeing it in a darkened theater on a huge screen with surround sound. This is the kind of quiet, contemplative horror movie that would have worked perfectly without its jump-scares, but whose jump-scares are so effective that I wanted more even as I white-knuckled the armrests. 

The Old Guard (2020)

 Score: 4 / 5

A rare superhero movie that feels more like a drama, The Old Guard hit Netflix last year without much pomp or circumstance. It's been on my watch list for a while now, and I finally got to it this week. I had absolutely no idea where it was going or what it was doing, and it took me by surprise more than once. This is partly, simply, because of its surprising central conceit: there is a small band of trained fighters and mercenaries who are immortal. If not for that little detail, this could just as easily be a spinoff of any number of spy thrillers or international crime-action flicks. But because of this conceit, and remarkably intelligent direction by Gina Prince-Bythewood, The Old Guard ends up being a really cool viewing experience. Even if it's not particularly groundbreaking.

Charlize Theron leads as Andy, the oldest member of the team from ancient Scythia, and she relies on her relatively unique standing as both an amazing actress and physical performer to carry the movie. The director seems as fascinated by her moments of quiet introspection as she does by her kicking ass; often, the camera sits tight on her face as she remembers a loss. After so many years of fighting, one can only imagine what's going on in her mind. But the camera is equally interested in her violent prowess, much as she gave us in Mad Max: Fury Road and Atomic Blonde; it's not the frenetic nonsense typical of the genre, but a polished and elegant approach that is increasingly, shockingly violent. The mercenaries get cut and shot ad nauseam, sometimes falling unconscious before coming to, spitting out bullets or watching a slit throat stitch itself back together.

The rest of the cast is almost as loved by the camera; it's certainly as well loved by Greg Rucka's screenplay. They might be exclusive by design, but their casting is remarkably inclusive without feeling forced. The team consists of Napoleonic Frenchman Matthias Schoenaerts, Luca Marinelli as an Italian knight from the Crusades, Marwan Kenzari as an Arab Muslim who fought the Crusaders, and a new recruit, a U.S. Marine played by KiKi Layne. There are flashback memories to Andy's first immortal friend, played by Van Veronica Ngo, whose dark fate is thrown into doubt late in the film. And beyond the racial and cultural makeup of the team, Kenzari and Marinelli play gay lovers in a surprisingly sensitive series of sequences. At one point, as the two are being interrogated/tortured by the villains (led by a big pharma exec played wonderfully by Harry Melling) they take implied homophobia in their stride, triumphantly declaring their love in a weirdly grandiose way that pays off magnificently due to the earnest need for this kind of representation in the genre. Until the Avengers films do something like this, Disney can shove their "inclusivity" up its assets.

The Old Guard arguably focuses more on drama than direct action, but that's what I really liked about it. Its plot isn't what makes this movie special; you can see almost each development coming well before it hits, and there aren't any real surprises thematically either. This is standard fare, even if it does mash up superhero tropes with typical crime/action fun. But the profound humanity with which it treats its superhuman characters is what matters most; even its mortal characters, such as the dubious employer of the merc team (played by a deliciously conflicted Chiwetel Ejiofor) are revealed slowly to us, in gradations through lengthy dialogue and quiet, private moments of reflection. We are made to care about these people through the skill of a stellar cast and its mindful, emotionally intelligent director.

And now we know we're getting a sequel!

Don't Breathe 2 (2021)

 Score: 1 / 5

It's a sequel, which we wanted, but not the sequel we wanted or deserved. The first Don't Breathe was a taut home invasion thriller that eventually spilled over the razor's edge into screaming horror, an astoundingly daring venture into the darkest recesses of suburban decay and domestic trauma. Stephen Lang gave us one of the scariest villains of the decade -- certainly of the genre -- and Fede Alvarez's direction deftly braided tropes and references to similar films into a strong cable of novelty. And Pedro Luque's (Antebellum, The Girl in the Spider's Web) utterly gorgeous cinematography should have made him the hottest new talent of the last few years. The movie made you care about all the characters, made you feel like one of them; it exploited our collective hunger for violence before turning the tables and making us wish for more. And it had a lot of fun doing it.

By the end, it left us wondering what might happen to Rocky and her younger sister, as they finally leave Detroit for sunny Los Angeles by train. From the news report, we knew Norman Nordstrom (Lang) had survived and was recovering in hospital, but there was no mention of what he had done in his basement. Might he lean into his apparent disability to heal and then seek revenge under the radar? Might he even journey beyond his own home to hunt down the girl who escaped his grasp? It's a tantalizing setup, one that might put the fascinating, demented character at an unusual disadvantage. 

But, right from the start, Don't Breathe 2 chooses all the wrong things. With no Jane Levy or Dylan Minnette to anchor the film, or anyone else of comparable star value, we are meant to focus solely on Nordstrom himself. While Lang muscles his way through the starring role with his usual panache, he is given very little to do dramatically, even less than in the first movie. In fact, if anything, he's made pretty pathetic by the writers, who desperately try to ignore the horrors he inflicted previously and make him a sympathetic hero. Now he finally has a daughter (Madelyn Grace) who he's training to be a survivalist like himself, and he seems to be remarkably well-adjusted. When gangsters invade his house once more and abduct the girl, Nordstrom is forced to go out into the wide world to get her back and butcher everyone along the way. It's like Taken and Don't Breathe had a really ugly baby.

Never as clever, terrifying, or horrific as the first, this sequel tries to be ballsier and just ends up weirder. I'm going to spoil it for you, so if you're excited to see this flick, stop reading now. Although, really, it's not worth it.

Even with a child abduction, Nordstrom can never claim our sympathies because of what he did in the previous film. As we learn his history with his daughter, things get weird. He found her apparently orphaned and alone in the middle of the street after a house fire; taking her home, he names her Phoenix. In case that doesn't hit you over the head enough, know that his bloodthirsty dog that follows her around is named Shadow. We eventually learn that her parents are in fact still alive and part of a burgeoning organ trafficking ring; they are behind her kidnapping and want to use her heart to save her mother. The forced idea of her biological parents being worse than her serial rapist and murderer of a foster father is hard enough to swallow, even as this movie hammers home his love for dogs.

It's just not redemptive enough for this viewer, and in fact I kept waiting for Nordstrom to show his true colors. He doesn't, and in the climax he even delivers a self-flagellating few lines as if to atone for what he did. It's laughably stupid, and I almost walked out of the theater. Making a monster likable isn't necessarily hard, but trying to redeem someone this evil and remorseless is the most unforgivable thing these artists could have done in a sequel. Hear none, see none, and speak none, and let's hope Don't Breathe 2 suffocates itself right out of our memory.

The Green Knight (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

As dense and ambiguous as its source material, The Green Knight is a cinematic masterpiece. Writer/editor/producer/director David Lowery, whose work has never been less than visionary, this time turns his unique aesthetic on medieval legend to stunning effect. Lowery tends toward the folksy, shifting ghost stories (A Ghost Story) and fantasies about dragons (Pete's Dragon) into gritty, tangible dramas tinged with mythic tropes, set in vibrant, rural landscapes. His abilities are only heighted in this new film, as his focus on the Arthurian story smartly disregards the romanticism so often bound to the genre in art. Rather, he leans into the Romantic (specifically Dark Romantic) inclinations of the story, which feels much more historically accurate and believable than your typical Camelot fare.

An intimate epic -- the rarest kind -- of life, death, and the mess of what comes in-between, The Green Knight focuses tightly on its main character, whose name was interestingly excised from the title. Of course, the story is based on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the famously indecipherable 14th-century poem that bridged the gap between British storytelling and French chivalry. Perhaps reproduced most famously (and lastingly) by J.R.R. Tolkien, the tale notoriously eschews simple interpretation. Its characters, specific enough to be grounded and relatable, are surely meant to mean something, but the poem denies any easy allusion or allegory; it gives almost no hints to thematic insight or symbolic analogy. Taking his lead from this enigma that has been frustratingly studied for most of a millennium, Lowery seems to take lots of ideas from scholarly and artistic sources and simply says a resounding "YES" to all.

As such, the movie could have been a sort of "yes, and" improvisatorial mess. Instead, it's a "yes, and" of equally well-baked if somewhat inaccessible ideas, handled by a master storyteller at the top of his game.

And what a story it is. Sir Gawain, a young knight (played to devastating perfection by Dev Patel, who buffed up quite a bit, thank you very much), awakens in a brothel with his lover Essel (voluptuous and brilliant Alicia Vikander) before hurrying to court. It is Christmas Day, and King Arthur (Sean Harris) is celebrating in his darkened throne room with Queen Guinevere (Kate Dickie). He invites Gawain, his nephew to sit at his side; we get the impression Gawain is a relatively new knight and eager to please his uncle-king. Arthur seeks to know more about his nephew, and asks him for a story of the brave Sir Gawain; Gawain has none to give, for he has not yet proved his mettle at the Round Table. Thus begins a classic bildungsroman, the coming-of-age adventure that will make Gawain a man and, more important, a proper knight. Right?

With much of the movie, the answer is debatable. For indeed Gawain embarks on his trial shortly thereafter. Into the festive atmosphere walks the titular green knight, a terrifying figure with Ralph Ineson's demoniac voice, seeking a knight to play a game. Whatever harm a man causes the knight, he will repay "one year hence." Jumping up at the challenge, Gawain takes the knight's axe in hand and lops the knight's head clean off. Sure that this will earn him his manhood and honor, he nearly shits himself when the knight calmly picks up his head, which reminds the room of the deal, before riding off into the wilds. Is he a man yet, or will he be in a year? Is he a dead man walking, for surely he cannot survive a similar attack? What will his code of honor allow him to do in the next year? If superhero movies have taught us anything in the last two decades, it is that the choices we make in the interim make us noble, rather than any acts of valor in battle. What will Gawain do?

And without a breath of ado, Lowery skips the full year and we're back with Gawain as he prepares to go find the "Green Chapel" and face the Green Knight's doom. We aren't given any reason to think he has changed at all during the year, and so in his final days alive, we're treated to his journey. He won't learn many lessons -- at least not in the traditional, moral sense -- and he won't really meet many people. His slice of life, we might say, is far darker than your typical pilgrim's progress or odyssey. As he wanders through the British countryside, the world is shown to be far stranger and more complex than he (or we) are prepared to handle. Weird things, violent things happen and there is often no rhyme nor reason; at each step Gawain is tested, but are the tests of his knighthood, manhood, humanity, or simple existence? In one scene he might be assisting a ghost reclaim her head, and in another he's casually watching giants walk off into the fog. Each feels profound and significant, but they operate on entirely different thematic levels.

I could talk (and have, elsewhere) for hours about each scene, character, and special effect (of which there are remarkably few). We could discuss the thematic conceit of three, and how Lowery has added two original new mini-stories to lead up to the central story of the source material, the exchange of winnings in the Lord's house (featuring Joel Edgerton). We could talk about the talking fox, the cruel and unhinged scavenger (Barry Keoghan), deforestation and climate change, politics and the exchange between have and have-nots, ghosts and giants and women. We could talk about the gorgeous cinematography by Andrew Droz Palermo, the stunning costumes (I want that yellowish cloak!) by Malgosia Turzanska, and especially the haunting, screeching, churning music by Lowery's longtime composer Daniel Hart. We could talk about Sarita Choudhury's mesmerizing and much too-brief performance as Gawain's mother, Morgan le Fay, and the deconstructed vision of women in power a la Shakespearean tragedy. We could talk about the Lady's speech (also Alicia Vikander, in a genius choice of cast doubling) of what exactly the color green represents, which takes place during what could be the sexiest scene but which ends up being the most didactically illuminating and spiritually grounding interaction in the film. And we could gush for ages about the amazing, wordless 15-ish-minute climax, as Gawain's life-to-be flashes before his eyes.

But it would take books to fill it all. This is the kind of movie that will, certainly, engender some of the best scholarly film writing this year. But it's also the kind that will, by design, resist that very impetus. It's made to be talked about afterward, in our own private Round Tables, where everyone's insight, interpretation, and impressions matter. Lowery knows exactly what he's doing here, which is to say that he's comfortable making a consummate work of art through storytelling; it grows faster and -- dare I say -- greener as it takes root in the mind, grows into outside ideas informed by the experience, and eventually rots into a potent memory of colors, sounds, and images. Equally important, I think, are the ideas the film's structure and formal elements suggest but will likely never be articulated in most discussion circles, such as the passage of time revealing an innate judgment by nature on the failing human condition. (I note this based on one of the many shots in the film I simply cannot shake nor understand, when a bound and gagged Gawain lies on the forest floor as a spinning camera shows him decayed and dead before reversing and returning him to living flesh.)

So no, this isn't the most purely entertaining movie of the year, if you're entertained by simplicity or action. But it might be the smartest movie yet this year, in that it only makes any sense if you dedicate yourself to a subjective reflection on it. Does it turn its female characters into sex- or power-crazed witches, or are they proto-feminists exerting their will in a male-dominated world? Is Gawain so determined to be honorable that he's willing to die for it, or is it a performance of policed masculinity he pursues for his own satisfaction? Does the film's setting on Christmas suggest the adventure is a salvific allegory about hope and integrity, or is this a darkly pagan story about man's doomed place in nature? Can we see chivalry as a righteous code for civilization, or are we pushed to question its efficacy against the evils inherent in man? Again, we can really only say "yes, and" to these ideas as presented by Lowery and team. Because as Gawain learns, and we by proxy, the only value or meaning in the world is that which we ascribe to it.

Jungle Cruise (2021)

 Score: 4 / 5

What an absolute delight. Jungle Cruise, Disney's latest live-action adaptation of one of its famed park attractions, will surely be compared to The Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean, and it owes a healthy amount of its silly nature and good-humored style to those previous pictures. One wonders about a future date when the already revamped Pirates ride and soon-to-be revamped Cruise -- already situated next to each other in the Magic Kingdom -- become a single thrilling tropical adventure for wide-eyed children hoping to explore a swashbuckling world of action and magic. But this new film owes as much, if not more, to the blockbuster franchises of Indiana Jones and The Mummy in content and tone.

Its slap-dash opening sequence, covering conquistadors searching the Amazon for a mythical Tree of Life, is the kind of stuff we expect to see here; thankfully, we're immediately aware that Edgar Ramirez will be playing the Big Bad, cursed for eternity to wander the shores of the river. Then we sharply cut to London just after the turn of the century, where botanist Dr. Lily Houghton (Emily Blunt) is desperate to convince the male-dominated scientific community that her research on this "tree of life" is valid and should jumpstart a full-scale expedition. Using her snooty brother MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) to speak for her, she sneaks away to steal an artifact she is sure will lead them to the tree and its healing flowers, known as the Tears of the Moon. It's hard not to hear Johnny Depp delivering some of these lines ("So, it's a key?" "Much more better -- this is a drawing of a key!", if you, like me, quote the magnificent Pirates movies daily). But Blunt's performative dexterity is again put to the test in a sort of Milo Thatch-meets-Jane Porter mashup of eccentric wit and adventurous fervor.

Her gumption, if not quite her wit, is matched by their guide. Upon arriving in South America, they hire their "Skipper," Frank Wolff (Dwayne Johnson) to propel them upriver. It is Johnson's inclusion that pushes the movie into farcical territory, but it is eminently worth it; his introduction is the film's only major reference to the theme park ride, as his job consists of taking tourists around the exotic sights of the river. Making cheesy jokes the whole time, and often staging the exciting events he narrates, he's the epitome of a well-meaning geriatric (we've come to expect this dry gruffness from Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis) in a younger, frighteningly buff body. His energy pairs well with Blunt's, even though the two never quite kindle the latent romantic energy we might expect; they're having too much fun to weigh it down with sentiment!

While the explosive action and frenetic propulsion of the movie are not indicative at all of the ride, this is the sort of delightful, escapist romp we've all craved since March 2020. There's a lot of shoehorned lore packed in here, and it's not as thoroughly developed as in Verbinski's swashbuckler, but it's a hell of a lot of fun to see it all come to life. And the casual racism of the ride is gone, too, perhaps nowhere more clearly than when the "headhunters" the heroes encounter turn out to be part of Skipper's shtick. It's hard, alas, to not let some of the more absurd elements go. Once during the screening, as the boat encountered roaring rapids before almost plunging over a waterfall, I had to choke down my indignation that the whole premise of the plot consisted of them traveling upriver. But since when has realism stopped a Disney movie from forging ahead into the thicket of wildest fantasy? From its eye-popping visuals (and beautiful CGI renderings) to its infectious joy; I lamented more than once that the film did not allow its optical grandeur to breathe and sink in. A little patience and intelligence go a long way, as we saw with Pirates, but this movie is up to a very different project.

There are a few other delightful inclusions, including the notably underused Paul Giamatti as a caricatured Italian harbor master demanding money from Skipper at every turn. Jesse Plemons pops in for a few scenes as an equally cartoonish German villain in a torpedo-laden submarine. Both are very funny, and do the movie a lot of credit. Even with that, the design of the cursed conquistadors is the stuff that fueled my childhood nightmares (and Ramirez will be much better remembered as the real villain here). With so much going on, Johnson, Blunt, and Whitehall (playing the first unequivocally gay character in a Disney feature) are obviously having the time of their careers hamming it up with each other and lead the film with great panache. Director Jaume Collet-Serra (The Shallows, and several fun if rote Liam Neeson action vehicles) smartly keeps things moving, reminding us that depth doesn't matter if the ride is fun enough. And this one certainly is.

Old (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

A nuclear family is en route to their exclusive beachside vacation. Rolling into the high-class resort is about as perfect as you can imagine it, even with two young children Maddox and Trent. Specialty cocktails are presented to parents Guy and Prisca (Gael Garcia Bernal and Vicky Krieps), based apparently on their previously established food and nutrient preferences. The clientele are remarkably diverse, but all are living their best life between lounging at the spa and dining in full view of the tropical ocean bay. The resort manager -- who we briefly see acting hostile to a little brown boy -- tells the main family of a secluded beach, impossible to stumble across, they might especially like to explore. The drive there is chauffeured by M. Night Shyamalan, the mildly creepy director almost winking at us with an "I'm baaack" kind of delivery, literally reminding us that he's in control of assembling everything we're about to see.

That's just about the only metafictional element in Old, Shyamalan's latest directorial project, but it's effective for those of us who are generally willing to let him take us for a weird ride. The title is odd, and I wondered briefly if this would be some uncomfortable ageist horror, akin to what he gave us in The Visit in 2015. Although even that was more aesthetically and intellectually satisfying that some of his recent forays into more standard science fiction, but let's hope he's back on track now. His oeuvre certainly seems to be back here, namely in his thematic concern for the people he leaves on the secret beach, if not so much in plot or development.

Other people come to the beach, too, and I was initially worried about having to remember all the names. Once I realized the names don't matter, my anxiety waned: there's a doctor (Rufus Sewell) and his wife (Abbey Lee), his mother (Kathleen Chalfant) and young daughter. There's a third couple without children (Ken Leung and Nikki Amuka-Bird), and a quiet man with a bleeding nose already on the beach (Aaron Pierre). An ensemble cast is not unfamiliar territory for Shyamalan, but for arguably the first time in his career, he balances all of them well, often allowing his cinematographer and editor to isolate the characters in extreme close-ups with a blurry handheld camera, forcing us into one character's experience at a time. This is important to allow us access to the characters, but also to establish the rules of the film: everyone is on their own on this beach, despite the appearance that they're all in it together.

In what? In hell, perhaps. The relatively calm water grows more foamy and wavy as the day progresses, the sun climbs higher in a clear sky to bake the sand, and the cliff walls surrounding the secret beach seem to grow taller. The only way out is a cave-like crevice in the cliff face, but each time someone tries to pass through, they pass out and reawaken on the beach. As their flirtation with madness becomes concerning, a more pressing issue manifests: time is fleeting, and with each passing hour, they age roughly two years. By what we imagine is lunchtime, the young children have become young adults (played wonderfully by Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, and Eliza Scanlen) and the older ones begin to exhibit their own problems, from cancerous tumors to hearing and vision loss and even dementia. By the time a day will pass, half their lives will be gone; this means, too, that half of them will die by old age, if not by anything more insidious.

The screenplay, ambitious as it is with a truly terrifying conceit, never quite manages to do more than act like a kid in a sandbox, pushing people around to interact with each other for forced dramatic purpose. Most of the dialogue is heavily expository, filled with "what do we do now" and "this can't be happening" and even "remember when" stories about each other's medical or developmental history. Of course, it might be easy to read this all as thick or even lazy writing, but I think Shyamalan is dangerously close to realism here. After all, most of these folks are strangers, and it's not like they have a lot of time to discover, learn, test, fail, attempt again, and finally escape the accursed beach; they need to communicate bluntly and with lots of information, much as a group trying to solve an escape room. And with time relentlessly ticking, the consequences will be fatal.

Old is at its most chilling when exploring these consequences. It's not so much about solving the mystery of the beach -- which is why the final sequence (so often Shyamalan's most-debated scenes) is a bit of a letdown -- as it is about dealing with the reality of the beach's mystery. For this reason, the existential horror of the film should have been taken as its aesthetic. We get plenty of gruesome scares, from dead bodies washing up on the beach and young women falling from cliff faces to aging bones splintering and a madman slashing away at survivors with a knife. But for each moment of earned, unadulterated horror, the film slickly looks away, cutting out just as the violence occurs; some audiences will like this, as it focuses our attention on what we don't see and on the inner lives of the characters. I would argue that this technique undermines the thrilling and troubling elements of the story, minimizing our experience of the pain and agony that these characters are suffering. I want to see this same movie again, but with the potential body horror fully realized by a director willing to go all the way.

Shyamalan has certainly managed to make a career out of being unexpected, and often suggesting surrealism in otherwise realistic settings. But this movie is the first time I wanted so much more from him in execution: the evocative beach and dramatically fecund observations on aging would have paired well with full-on body horror as the characters broke down psychologically as well as physiologically. The closest we get to it, apart from the explicitly violent moments, are the terrifying moments when the camera hovers around one of the children's heads, hands, or feet. We see the reactions of people beholding the child that has suddenly aged, but we're kept in eerie suspense as we await the new makeup -- or new actor -- that will signify the child's new age. Effective as these moments are at highlighting the devastation of age, they feel unfulfilled as the film struggles to catch up with all the characters going through their own reckonings.

It's a wonderful reminder of the brilliance of this director, and I think Old will be remembered fondly alongside some of his earlier movies like The Village and Lady in the Water. As with those, its devotion to specifics is its downfall. When Shyamalan embraces ambiguity, his movies shine. With this one, he seems to know this, and taps into the meat of things just enough to keep the whole affair entertaining, provocative, and emotional. But then he pulls out, leaving those of us attuned to the genre feeling that a little bit more would have gone a long damn way. Then again, he always leaves us wanting more, and that's not a bad thing either.