The Woman King (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

We've never seen a movie like this. Gina Prince-Bythewood may not be the best director out there, but she works hard to center women of color in interesting stories. Her most recent, the Netflix original The Old Guard, is really weird but quite satisfying, and is soon to receive the honor of a sequel. But her latest and greatest by far, The Woman King is thankfully not resigned to streaming exclusivity. It deserves to be seen on the biggest screen accessible, and then again with all your friends. A love story about community, about Black women, and about Africa, this movie is one of the most joyous and inspiring that I've ever seen.

I worried, heading in, that this film would largely feel void of meaning; that its existence is to some extent a product of representation-allied identity politics in Hollywood. Even when things are genuinely part of the social justice branch of the industry, it can feel like the emphasis is on visibility and novelty rather than storytelling and authenticity. But films will occasionally surprise us, as when several Native Americans led the cast of Prey recently, and Hulu even released a fully Comanche-language version of it. While I don't think that will happen here, it's really lovely to see mainstream studios embracing stories not centered in Western cultures and English-related languages. Here, much of the pleasure of viewing comes with learning about the culture of Dahomey, the West African kingdom that comprises the setting, and specifically the Agojie warriors, an elite sorority of women warriors. And Prince-Bythewood allows us to engage our curiosity without exploiting the peoples she dramatizes.

Viola Davis, God bless her, plays General Nanisca, leader of the Agojie. World-weary but still brutally efficient, she's about to start training a new batch of recruits. One of the incoming class, Nawi (an astonishing Thuso Mbedu), struggles to control her own adolescent passions; she's offered to the King (John Boyega) due to her stubbornness in refusing to marry suitors her father chooses for her. One of the warriors, Izoige (an equally astonishing Lashana Lynch) sees her strength of will as a virtue, though her independent streak will need to be curbed to fit in with the sisterhood.

Interestingly, and I think most insightfully, the film does not shy away from the darkest element of the story. The Agojie are generally victorious, but the people they conquer are often slaughtered (rather, the men are) or captured (women and children), the latter of whom are often sold to the Oyo Empire, slave dealers to the Europeans in exchange for weapons of war and other supplies. Nanisca wants to break this cycle, and she petitions the King to such an end. She is not successful, despite the apparent personal toll the slave trade has had on herself. We'll learn the depths of her bereavement before the film's climax.

There are many other pleasures in this film, including the glorious cinematography that attempts to convey sensual meaning as well as narrative. The actors are uniformly excellent. The screenplay is brilliant and sensitive and daring, despite a few minor arcs that I suspect were forced on the film by the studio (namely Nawi's bizarre erotic relationship with a Portuguese hunk). The action -- choreographed to within an inch of its life and mostly performed with eye-popping precision -- is nothing short of exhilarating. It's the kind of movie that rouses your spirit, like Gladiator or The Patriot or Braveheart, and it's all the more powerful because it's not an underwhelming white man leading it. Go see it, and go see it again. Its beauty won't be contained.

Barbarian (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

For Zach Cregger's feature directorial debut, Barbarian is an absolute doozy. The most unpredictable, genre-hopping horror film I can readily think of, it is written brilliantly: completely coherent even as it aggressively tries to surprise us at every turn. It starts with one of the most effective and relatable (but no less horrifying) premises I've seen in recent years, and from there it launches into a roller coaster ride of terror. It's one of those films that makes you feel icky while and after watching, but it's so damned smart that I really want to watch it again sometime soon to appreciate its focused efforts to subvert our expectations and refract our perceptions.

Tess (Georgina Campbell) arrives at her Airbnb in the dead of night. It's pouring outside, and she can't see anything of the neighborhood in this forgotten neighborhood of Detroit in the present day. She's a documentary researcher and needs to rest and relax a bit before her big interview in the city tomorrow. But there's a light on in the Airbnb and another car there, and there's no key in the lockbox. Finally roused from slumber -- or so he suggests -- the current inhabitant opens the door. His name is Keith (a suitably creepy Bill Skarsgård) and he doesn't seem to want any guests. Who would, right? You get an Airbnb, and you expect to be left alone, like in a hotel. But between the late hour and the intense rain, he pities her and invites her inside, but only after they prove to each other that they indeed made reservations and were mysteriously, annoyingly double-booked.

Skarsgård plays against type here, leaning into the innately creepy situation and his performance history to be unnerving even as he charms the heck out of Tess and us. He's a bit verbose, but clearly means well: he knows this is awful and that the optics are not in his favor. He offers to sleep on the sofa so Tess can have the bedroom (with a door). He wants to split the wine but waits for her to open it so she knows he hasn't tampered with it. He wishes her well at her interview and sets up what is probably meant to be a celebratory date. Cregger and his cinematographer use the subtlest shifts of light and angles to make their scenes uncanny; that is, familiar but wrong somehow. It's our job (and Tess's) to find out exactly what's wrong and why and how to escape. Right?

Well, maybe not. Some secrets need to be explored first, as evidenced when Tess awakes later in the night to her door wide open and Keith having an apparent nightmare. One thing leads to another, and eventually by day, when Keith is gone, Tess wanders into the basement and gets stuck. Looking for a way out, she discovers a semi-hidden rope that pulls open a secret door in the cement. Anyone would tell you not to go in there, but naturally she does and discovers horrible things. Well, the things themselves aren't inherently horrid, but her suspicions of what they mean altogether are monstrous. And those things are paired with her already discomfited stay, her opinions of the rundown neighborhood and that aggressive, scary neighbor who chased her down, and the warnings of the area given by the woman who interviewed her.

This first act of the film -- don't worry, I will try not to give any spoilers this time -- ends shortly after this, when Tess ventures further down into the basement. It's a screaming climax that comes a bit too soon for most horror films. But then the film does an about-face (not unlike the shock twist of Psycho) and actor Justin Long shows up as "AJ". He's a fascinating and loathsome character, as we discover in an absolutely brilliant marriage of screenwriting and acting, and his tale comprises the second act of the film. I feared it would include a redemption arc for him, but, without spoiling anything, the film is too smart for that. Finally, there's the third act of the film, which is the out-and-out horror fest that left me absolutely breathless with anxiety and dread. It's the most rote of the acts, but by this point I needed something a little familiar to grasp or I was going to panic.

It's not a perfect movie. Many discussions -- all of which should be necessary and would be fascinating -- will revolve around the film's characterization of women, of men (which I think is the primary mode of horror here), of poverty, of greed and vanity. There is the cringey depiction of an impoverished Detroit, much like that used in Don't Breathe (which shares a surprising amount of DNA with this film), that we could all do without, despite its relevance and relative authenticity. There is the unbearable but constant series of idiotic actions taken by most characters; by the third act, I almost wanted more terrible things to happen to them to punish them for being so endlessly stupid. Thankfully, there is no actual depiction of sexual violence in this film, even though it's a major series of plot points and character arcs, so that's good, although we definitely still feel the impact cognitively. 

And then there's the title itself, a stroke of pure genius that creates a sort of maze for us as viewers to venture through, looking for its significance and meaning. Is it Keith? AJ? Tess? Someone else (we learn of a few other people connected to this house, none of whom are very nice)? Could it be the house itself, situated as it is on Barbary Street? I think the answer is "yes"! I'd argue it also refers to the cycle of misogyny in generations and cultures of toxic and evil men and the effect they have on the rest of us, especially on women. That entitlement led those men to build the world, and now we're all trapped in it. Can we escape?

Pinocchio (2022)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It really makes sense to have someone like Robert Zemeckis remake a Disney movie or two. His A Christmas Carol (2009) is one of my favorite versions, and it surprised me that Disney didn't continue to use his unique skills. And for a story like Pinocchio, which includes prominent human characters as well as several inhuman one -- and one, of course, somewhere in between the two -- his brand of visual effects and the marriage between them and reality seems perfectly suited. And in a lot of ways, it is! I enjoyed the film almost exclusively due to his directorial flair and attempt to update the story.

But it's still Pinocchio, and for me this was one time too many of experiencing its weirdness. To be fair, I've never much liked the 1940 animated film either; it's just too creepy. Marionettes and puppets are nightmare fuel as they are, but when you add talking crickets and giant carnivorous whales and boys turning into donkeys, it's just not a fun time. Even when you're not getting beaten over the head with its moralizing and lifestyle warnings, you're getting waylaid by the fox and the cat or abducted by a traveling Italian puppet-master. None of it is exceptionally fun, and most of it is explicitly not fun. And it's not due to the obvious visual fun Zemeckis and his team bring to the production.

It's also not due to the actors, all of whom seem to be delighting in this romp through fantasyland. Cynthia Erivo pops in for an early scene as the Blue Fairy, singing "When You Wish Upon a Star" with her angelic voice. Luke Evans looks like he might be intoxicated during his turn as the Coachman and operator of Pleasure Island, and he's given a bizarre but cute new song to sing. Benjamin Evan Ainsworth voices the title character shockingly well, though as with most precocious and naïve children, he's appropriately quite annoying to listen to. Tom Hanks is doing a lot of odd character work these days (fresh off his villainous turn in Elvis), and his performance here as Gepetto is no exception, although he also seems to be doing conscious nods to Walt Disney himself (helped along by the production design: did you notice his clocks are mostly references to other Disney animated classics?). It's all pretty hammy, but what else do we expect from a story like Pinocchio? I mean, Keegan-Michael Key voices "Honest" John with more excitement than I've ever felt from him, and it's actually kind of chilling how much danger he brings to the character.

But despite all these, and they are definitely worth watching -- just like the film itself -- there is something fundamentally void at the center of this film. Perhaps it's that the remake is almost exactly a live-action (mostly) reproduction of the original. Most of the other remakes add things to their respective stories, making them more relevant or fixing glaring problems that have become apparent during subsequent culture shifts. The Jungle Book championed Mowgli's autonomy and choice of identity; Pete's Dragon included lots of environmentalism and thankfully no Mickey Rooney. But The Lion King did almost nothing for me (though it is indeed very pretty), and this Pinocchio felt similarly, feeling less inspired than some regurgitated imagery in a liminal space. A few added songs that felt a bit forced and sassy one-liners shoved up against familiar quotes sometimes brought me pleasure, but mostly had me checking how much time had already passed. But Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a delightful Jiminy Cricket, and for the most part he helps carry us through the experience. It's a wonder to behold and might be thoroughly fun for some people, if you like the story. I don't.

Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

What a weird and wonderful film. George Miller, creator of the Mad Max and Happy Feet franchises, is kind of a weird dude. And thank goodness, because his movies are just so bloody interesting and fun! His latest -- while he is indeed working on Furiosa -- is a strange story that feels like a very old fairy tale. Visually beautiful, thematically ambitious, and somewhat bizarre, Three Thousand Years of Longing is a great time in the cinema, and it's probably best to see this one on a large screen, but if you find yourself even a little tired or distracted, I fear this movie will leave little more impact on audience minds than a feverish daydream.

Tilda Swinton stars -- thank heaven -- as Alithea Binnie, a British academic who specializes in what she calls narratology, the study of stories. She's seemingly content to be solo in the world, as she travels to Istanbul to lecture at a conference, even though she occasionally has hallucinations (or visions) of spiritual beings around her. One gives her such a fright that she faints at the podium, and quickly returns to her hotel room. Notably, she is told that her room is where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile, which reinforces that this story will indeed be about storytelling. We wonder if her love of trinkets and texts are in fact bulwarks against the creeping sense of loneliness she barely conceals under a certain level of performative propriety and sass. Swinton excels at this kind of complex character work, and here she is firing on all cylinders and apparently having a lot of fun doing it.

While recuperating, she tries to polish an ornamental bottle she purchased on the street before a genie -- djinn, really -- erupts into her suite. This is where Miller starts having fun as director, making the djinn comically large in the otherwise pristine, clinically white room. It helps, sure enough, that the djinn is played by Idris Elba, who is already somewhat larger than life and whose knowing smile and sparkling eyes always seem ready to laugh. He's not doing a Robin Williams impression here, rather grounding his djinn with the emotional weight of the title, which it seems is meant to apply to his character. Upon learning some English from the proper lady, he offers Alithea three wishes with the usual stipulations (no wishing for more wishes, etc.). What he didn't anticipate -- and one of the chief joys of this movie -- is that Alithea's narratology expertise won't let her wish her wishes away. She knows the stories, naturally, and she won't be hoodwinked. Wish-fulfillment tales rarely work well for the wisher, often due to the wisher's greed or stupidity, but also sometimes due to the wickedness and treachery of the wish-fulfiller. Alithea won't be had, not by this guy, and so she starts asking him questions to see if she can trust him.

The film continues from here in a series of three stories the djinn tells Alithea to answer her questions. I'd have to rewatch to remember all the specifics, but essentially he was the consort of the Queen of Sheba until Solomon showed up with his song. The production team goes all out with these stories, dressing actors in stunning costumes, placing them in elaborate and fanciful locations and sets, and filming it all with whirling kinetic energy and vibrant colors. I wondered at first if Miller would evoke the grandeur of DeMille's biblical-era epics, and he does a little bit, but mostly he takes us on a tour through CGI dreamland to fantastic effect. Which is to say, it sometimes feels a bit too fantasy-like, as if we're being dared to compare it to A Wrinkle in Time or other bright, child-oriented fare. Miller excels in practical effects (as we saw in Mad Max: Fury Road), but this time (like in Happy Feet and Babe) he also proves his mettle with predominantly digital effects, claiming his place as one of the most free and experimental of big-budget directors and as one who is willing to change his aesthetic to fit the needs of the story he is telling. How appropriate for this particular material.

As the djinn tells his stories, Alithea slowly softens to him, becoming more inquisitive of his identity and deeds even as she reflects on her own hidden self. She lacks love in the same way the djinn has been repeatedly bereft of love; the two could be said to share one fundamental truth, that of unrequited and incessant longing. It's not a profound idea, and it sounds kind of banal to say. But the film is anything but banal in style, and its choice to situate Alithea and the djinn over a tapestry of the history of the world makes this film feel cosmic in scope. Not unlike Darren Aronofsky's underappreciated cosmic love story The Fountain, actually. The stories are filled with violence and lust and eroticism, though it's all done quite tastefully (with a few graphic exceptions that earn it that "R" rating). Compared with the institutional design of Alithea and her suite, it's easy to see why she fantasizes about his stories even as we see them.

Yes, this is a love story, and without totally spoiling it, a large part of that love is Alithea learning to love herself or, more accurately, to accept the desires of her heart for herself. It's a wonder to behold, even if it's not really the most dynamic or novel story. I fear to some extent that accusations of orientalism will be lobbed at Miller and this film, and those are worthy considerations to consider, especially as a white audience member. But I also think that Miller is one of the few white filmmakers working now who can rise a bit above those debates because of the passion and compassion of his earnest efforts of storytelling. He works hard to make sure the ancient world of the djinn's stories are not whitewashed, and he also works to place the white Englishwoman protagonist firmly in her place as privileged and naïve and even self-deceived. Plus, there's the undeniable energy of this film, which doesn't look like the work of a 77-year old; not that that makes a difference in terms of representation or integrity, but it's a strong indicator of a lifetime of work that deserves to be seen. Much like Alithea, actually. Can you tell with which character I identified a little too intensely?

The Gray Man (2022)

Score: 1.5 / 5

It was just so boring, I couldn't stand it. The Russo brothers proved themselves immensely capable directors with several of the biggest entries in the MCU, but it seems several of their efforts since have struggled to do much at all. And maybe, due to its star power and big names, their latest will have a healthy viewership. But watchability and draw are very much not the same as enjoyability and artistic integrity, or even solid storytelling. It smacks all the more hollow because it's the first installment of what Netflix seems to hope will be a series.

Ryan Gosling plays Sierra Six, an assassin and spy working for the CIA. His handler is Billy Bob Thornton, and his new boss is Regé-Jean Page; they all have character names, but I didn't care enough to learn them. The story proper jumps right off from these brief introductions, as Gosling enacts his latest mission in Bangkok, taking out a target who is revealed to be a fellow agent. Much like in a Mission: Impossible scenario -- but not nearly as well-executed -- the target tells Gosling about his boss's criminality and provides evidence as he dies. Gosling immediately goes on the run as Page makes him a target in turn. But he's no Ethan Hunt or even John Wick, and frankly I just didn't care. Gosling is stoic and active, and the character is basically void of personality or motivation.

To stop Gosling, Page brings in an ex-CIA mercenary, Chris Evans, sporting a ridiculous mustache and a sociopathic streak. Page seems desperate, and Evans is certainly up to the task by any means necessary. Unleashed on Gosling, Evans is a wild card, resorting immediately to torture and kidnapping and murder. He's probably the most fleshed-out character in this film, but even he has only a handful of concrete character details. He's also not particularly interesting, just pretty to watch (except for that bizarre growth on his upper lip). I hoped when Ana de Armas showed up to help Gosling that she'd save us from these shallow men, but the film barely even recognizes her as a person and treats her like an even more shallow sidekick. The only other woman of much consequence in the film is Thornton's niece, the kidnapped girl, so our two prominent women are relegated to cringey tropes.

The film is occasionally beautiful to behold, but cinematographer Stephen F. Windon of Fast & Furious fame mostly makes the movie look dark, cold, and lifeless. You can't see half the action or most of the globe-spanning locations through the murky darkness. There is almost no sense of fun in the film, and maybe there doesn't need to be, but when it becomes a slog to continue, that's a problem. I actually stopped watching it the first time because I couldn't take it any more; I finished up the last half hour the next day, but frankly I wish I hadn't. What a waste of resources.