Renfield (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

After a century of providing human meals to his boss, Count Dracula, R.M. Renfield has lost the joy in his life. His status as Dracula's familiar grants him some benefits, such as gaining super strength and speed when he eats a bug, but this is usually only necessary when he's procuring a victim or killing people trying to stop him from doing so. After a close call with some vampire hunters, the two relocate to New Orleans for some reason to hide and recuperate; while Dracula heals, Renfield attends a support group for those in abusive relationships, learning to identify his boss as a narcissist and their dynamic as dangerously codependent.

Nicholas Hoult is a wonderful young actor, and he works hard here to make the character as written come to life. He's helped by wonderful costumes and makeup and hairstyling, to be sure, and his wide-eyed, nervous earnestness is the sort that made young Hugh Grant a star. But as such, and in this particular movie where he eats a bug and then kicks ass a la John Wick, he feels a little too precious. Perhaps Renfield wouldn't be so flaccid if not opposite a particularly butch Awkwafina as the only cop in New Orleans who isn't corrupt. Her character Rebecca is on a mission to avenge her late father, also a cop, in a white man's occupation, and while her performance is typically reliable, it just doesn't belong in this movie.

Or at least not this movie as it currently exists. Frankly, the screenplay by Ryan Ridley and Robert Kirkman deserved to be workshopped and edited a lot more, because there is either too much or too little in this film, depending on your preference. If they wanted to create an action thriller about Renfield and Rebecca kicking ass as anarchist justice-seekers in the French Quarter, that could have been fun. I'd have much preferred this film to not include any of the crime family subplot or corrupt cop drama, instead focusing on the brilliantly perverse relationship of Renfield and Dracula, which could have come to light as the former developed in relationship with Rebecca. How great would that have been, to have Rebecca and the support group help Renfield see the toxicity of his servitude, and then to have Rebecca slowly realize her new boyfriend is the serial killer she's hunting? That's a story that this movie's vision would have served exquisitely well, and it would have supported much more real development and cleverness in the screenplay without all the unnecessary and dull drama. Alas, it's not the one we got.

Notice I haven't even discussed the whole criminal element of this film, and that's because it's all inane. One of Renfield's victims -- he tries to only kill "bad men," but bad men do tend to associate with other bad men -- is a member of the Lobo crime family that apparently runs New Orleans. Though not quite wolvish, the name does suggest antagonism for our protagonist and his boss; they come looking for revenge and run afoul of Renfield and Rebecca, starting a petty war. Ben Schwartz is uniformly obnoxious as Teddy Lobo, the main enforcer of the crime family, but thankfully its matriarch Bellafrancesca is played by the glorious Shohreh Aghdashloo, dressed in stunningly beautiful white power suit, who really deserves to be in many more movies.

Everyone will be talking about Nicolas Cage's performance as the undead bloodsucker, so we may as well get into it. If you know me at all, you know Cage is just not to my liking, but at least this time he knows full well what kind of movie he's making, and that his role in it is certainly catered to his unique, ahem, talents. His Dracula is both maniacally disorienting and endlessly surprising, charming even as he uncannily disconnects from reality, though he does tangibly labor through the oversized teeth and excessive prosthetics for most of his screen time. Which, it should be noted, is thankfully not as much as one would expect. Basically, if you like his antics generally, you'll enjoy him here; if you don't, it's more of the same, though at least he's clearly having fun with the material, dressed as it is in delightfully Gothic trappings. It should also be noted this is his first film in over a decade produced by a major studio; despite his bizarre and prolific filmography, I'm glad this is the kind of project he saw fit to join.

The main premise and certain scenes are brilliant -- specifically anything with the support group, led by a hilarious Brandon Scott Jones -- and the concept of turning the Dracula/Renfield dynamic into a modern toxic relationship is pure gold. I wish the film leaned more intentionally into exploring that for all its comedic and, honestly, tragic worth. There's a great film here about sensitive and thoughtful exploration of servitude and sacrifice, keeping all the humor and horror that go with the characters, that could have been mobilized by a focused screenplay. And while the cartoonish violence and bloodshed is a lot of fun, most of it comes in frenetic action sequences basically interchangeable with ones in the Kingsman franchise. If I wanted to see vampires in an action movie, there are other options than Dracula (actually, there are others with Dracula, so why shoehorn this concept into the same mold?). Ultimately, this feels like it could have been simply a spin-off of What We Do in the Shadows in terms of deadpan humor that bridges vampire horror and modern sensibilities, fabulously dramatic mise en scène and lighting, and campy humanizing of literary figures. Its cleverness is undermined and sidetracked, however, by its bizarre compulsion for blood and action.

The Pope's Exorcist (2023)

Score: 4 / 5

Russell Crowe is a strange bird. Often lauded for his tough-guy persona and featured in films that require that role, he has typically been a solid if one-note performer; offscreen, his personal life is laced with real-life violence that for some reason hasn't been as controversial or denounced as other, less "macho" men. I've rarely found him to be compelling, but I do often enjoy films that star or feature him (for example, his woefully miscast turn in Les Miserables or his surprisingly insightful portrayal of the biblical Noah). So when we heard he would be leading a new exorcism movie, I was intrigued. The genre, trailblazed of course by William Friedkin and his brilliant casting of Max von Sydow, regularly features an older, respected character actor in the role of senior exorcist. Think Anthony Hopkins in The Rite or Tom Wilkinson in The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Russell Crowe has apparently now reached that status.

Armed as he is with an Italian accent and full priestly regalia, Crowe here plays a highly fictionalized interpretation of Father Gabriele Amorth, famously the Vatican's longest-serving modern exorcist, whose many autobiographical books serve as source material for this film. The real-life man was the subject of a documentary by Friedkin himself in 2017, and his cases number so high that this film seems eager to capitalize on the potential for a franchise (not unlike how The Conjuring franchise leaps off the Warrens' case files). But Crowe's performance as Amorth is what will draw audiences, and he knows it, so he plays it up to the max; he's thoughtful, hilarious, and daring in this role, taking the film both far more seriously than I expected and clearly having a lot of fun the whole time. He's truly electrifying to behold.

Amorth, as dramatized here, is a bit of a Western action hero dressed as a world-weary priest, complete with a whiskey flask he uses to wet his whistle regularly. There's really nothing he hasn't seen, but this time, he's in a bit over his head. He's called to an abbey in rural Spain, where an American family has taken ownership of the property and is working to renovate and sell it. Mother Julia (Alex Essoe), daughter Amy (Laurel Marsden), and son Henry (Peter DeSouza-Feighoney) are still reeling from the death of the husband/father: the mother's intense task-orientation, the daughter's burgeoning sexuality, and the son's muteness make them prime candidates for possession. It doesn't take long for Henry to go full Pazuzu-style dangerous, with lots of profanity and blasphemy, lesions and vomiting, levitation and contortion.

The opening sequence, it should be noted, is crucial to our understanding of this film, as it directly informs the aesthetic director Julius Avery (who also directed the wonderful Overlord in 2018) employs. In it, Amorth exorcises a demon from a young Italian boy and then slaughters the pig into which the demon was sent. When chastised by a tribunal, he declares it was no real exorcism, but rather a bit of theatre to psychologically help an ill or disordered patient. This recalls the sociological discussions of the rite in The Exorcism of Emily Rose, but rather than wading into further medical or legal waters here, Avery simply takes the notion of theatrics and makes that our viewing experience of this film. Like Friedkin did to some extent with poor Regan and her head-spinning pea soup, Avery is going to take us on a ride through hell to experience Grand Guignol possession horror. It's a shocking and brilliant choice, but it won't be for everyone.

Once Amorth gets to the abbey, the main story really gets going, and again, this is where The Pope's Exorcist aggressively toys with our expectations. Some people may dislike this movie because it isn't all that "scary." The possession-related material we've seen before, if not always as brightly colored and frenetically stylized as this. And rather than building characters (other than Amorth himself), the film is more concerned with jumping around to tell lots of plot strands: we keep jumping back to Rome to see the Pope (Franco Nero) reading about the abbey and learning the truth of what evil is hidden there. The "busy-ness" of the screenplay will doubtless be derided as impatient and unfocused, but I found it just disorienting enough to better serve the story. In fact, I'd consider this more of a horror-action flick, in which a Bible-slinging Western-wannabe John Wayne-type priest arrives in a town of demons and has to take them on headfirst with no backup but a helpless mother and daughter and an eager but innocent young partner (Father Esquibel, played by Daniel Zovatto of It Follows and Don't Breathe and Fear the Walking Dead, and ABC's Revenge, which I note with personal delight).

I enjoyed this movie probably far more than I should have, but this is my blog, so that's okay. Other than a surprisingly effective Crowe, it features beautiful cinematography (though the editing is unfortunate) and a fine mix of score and sound editing. I quite liked Essoe, despite her being hamstrung by the screenplay, though the children are both obnoxious, as is so often the case in this genre. The voice of the demon is the usually wonderful Ralph Ineson, though I labored through most of the movie thinking it was a bored Ray Winstone. Finally, I'll note that the main theme of the film, as I see it, is that your sins will invariably follow you. Most exorcism movies turn this into a character study of the priests and victims; this one refocuses the theme on the Church itself, which is a delicious touch. As such, it kind of embraces a Dan Brown-esque critique of the Inquisition specifically, basically saying the Devil has orchestrated the Church's evils for centuries, which is historically and ethically reprehensible, but makes for fun entertainment if you don't put much stock in it.

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

We're all pretty familiar now with films adapted from video games, but how do you adapt a role-playing game? As co-writers and co-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (and co-writer Michael Gilio) capably demonstrate in Dungeons & Dragons, it's not all that different. You choose a specific story to tell, first off, and if it's original, so much the better. Of course you target the already existing fan base, and sprinkle in healthy doses of fan service in terms of insider knowledge and Easter eggs. You also need to be appealing to potential new fans, which can be done through casting choices, narrative accessibility, and marketing that doesn't alienate those unfamiliar with the material. Honor Among Thieves, a title which suggests Paramount's hopes for a new franchise, does these things.

While this is a big-budget, big-screen fantasy adventure in every sense of those words, and as such should be seen on the silver screen, I confess myself occasionally lost while watching. Not lost in that I couldn't follow the story, but lost because I'm pretty unfamiliar with the IP, and so the endless fantasy jargon used tended to slide in one ear and out the other. Seeing it with subtitles would have been ideal, as I wasn't always sure about the titles used (bard, paladin, rogue, druid, barbarian) or proper nouns (names and places are not obvious or familiar). Even when I did catch these elements, their significance often escaped me. Some of this may have been the result of sound editing, which often reduced key dialogue to indiscernible garble. 

Without these, though, the film is still a delightful romp, one that intangibly conveys the sense that it is making itself up as we go along, much like the real game. The main character, a bard named Edgin (Chris Pine) whose wife was murdered, takes his daughter and they become thieves with a ragtag troupe including Holga (Michelle Rodriguez) and Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant), the latter of whom betrays them with his secret accomplice, a demonic Red Wizard named Sofina. After breaking out of prison, Edgin and Holga embark on a quest to build a new team, rescue Edgin's daughter, and save the land from Forge and Sofina, who want to rule with the power of a zombie army. It's a lot, and while the apparently unfocused narrative wasn't to my liking, I see how it pays homage to the wink-and-nod creativity of the game on which it is based.

To be honest, the whole experience made me feel a bit high. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but between a talking corpse answering questions not unlike the bridge-keeper in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a "fluffy" red dragon too big for its enclosure, and the generally frenetic CGI action sequences, I have a hard time now remembering what all happened in this bloated, overstuffed funhouse ride. For example, the undeniably beautiful Regé-Jean Page shows up, and I cannot recall who he played, why he was there, or what all he did. And I don't think that's entirely my fault. Even a bit of breathing room for the film, maybe via a narrator, to do some basic world-building would have helped me a lot. Then again, maybe I just need to see it with subtitles.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Score: 5 / 5

Delayed, no doubt, by the pandemic, John Wick has returned to us for my favorite film in the franchise. Four years after Parabellum, we jump back in shortly after the events of that film as our title character (Keanu Reeves) prepares, along with the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne), to get revenge on the High Table for their treachery and cruelty. After Wick kills the Elder, "the one who sits above the Table," the remaining members empower the Marquis de Gramont to use any means necessary to stop him. The Marquis, played by a delicious Bill Skarsgard, makes short work of getting started, destroying the Continental and executing Charon (the late Lance Reddick) and excommunicating Winston (Ian McShane). He then enlists a retired assassin (Donnie Yen), on threat of murdering his daughter, to find and kill Wick and end it all.

It's a lot very fast, and if you're not already on board with the series, you'll be overwhelmed quickly. Thankfully, this chapter was written more like the first than the previous two, trimming the world-building and mythology of this shadowy organization of ruthless killers and focusing much more on Wick himself and the cost this lifestyle has had on his body and mind. Sadly, many of the characters we've picked up along the way are absent here -- I missed Angelica Huston and Halle Berry, but with all the globe-spanning action, you can't include everybody -- but I liked the sharper dramatic focus and impossibly lengthy action sequences. Which is saying a lot for this film, as it is almost three hours long!

The final hour (or so, I completely lost track of time) of this film is one of the most electrifying action sequences I've ever seen. Period. Urgent and alarming, beautiful and brutal -- much like the series in general -- it makes a strong case for artistic and elegant violence. It's not wholly unlike some video games, which master action in ways few films do: there are clear stakes, the focus is on one (or at most two) characters, and there is little editing to distract from choreography and martial arts. But this is true of every action sequence in these films, not just this final hour (which takes place on a lengthy stone staircase below Sacré-Cœur; did I mention that this film mostly takes place in a gorgeously shot Paris?). There's one chase-and-fight scene around the Arc de Triomphe that had my eyes popping our of my skull, and another in a bizarrely trippy nightclub surrounded by dancers who generally seem uncaring about the violence. Apart from the skill with which these sequences were designed and executed, one wonders about the intention behind them, perhaps commenting on the ways regular passers-by don't seem to notice -- or care -- about bodies piling up within eyesight.

Most people come to these movies for Reeves, and he's at his best here, injecting his vengeful, violent protagonist with a weariness and emotional exhaustion that is pitch-perfect for (SPOILER ALERT) what may well be his final film in the franchise. Like Reeves or not, you have to admire his ability to know exactly what the film around him needs his character to do, and he fulfills it in every moment. I come to these movies more for Dan Laustsen's cinematography, which reaches impossibly brilliant heights this time around. I hope this isn't the end of the series, but if it is, it's a hell of a way to go out.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods (2023)

Score: 3.5 / 5

If you're a fan of the first Shazam movie, you'll probably like this one, because it's a whole lot more of the same. If you're not a fan of it -- or of the DC franchise in general -- you probably won't enjoy this one, because it's more of the same. These IPs and their associated fandoms are getting so fraught with anger and judgment that they're all pretty toxic now. I personally really like the DCEU movies so far, so I was very excited for this; the first Shazam was absolutely delightful in its wacky, fun underdog story and brazenly balls-out mythology. This sequel ups the ante in its scope, pacing, and spectacle for sure, and its plot is, for me, fabulously interesting and entertaining. It also skimps on some of the elements that mattered most to me in the first film, namely the dynamics of the beautiful foster family at its heart. 

Two years after the first movie, Billy Batson (Asher Angel) and his "Shazamily" -- called the Marvel Family in comics, but thankfully not here to confuse the DCEU with the MCU -- fully embrace their powers (secret from their foster parents) to help others. In the city of brotherly love, they save people from a collapsing bridge but are called out in the media for not saving the bridge itself. The kids don't work so well as a team, as they are growing apart and exploring other interests. Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) navigates being bullied at school but strikes up a budding romance with the new girl, Anne (Rachel Zegler), to whom he reveals his secret identity.

Meanwhile, two goddesses break into a museum and steal the Wizard's broken staff and take it to him (Djimon Hounsou) to repair it. They declare themselves the Daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu), intent on avenging their father and reclaiming the Wizard's power. Their mysterious third sister is soon revealed to be Anne, and the trio abduct Freddy and put an impassable dome over Philadelphia to force the Shazamily to relinquish their power. By about the halfway point of this film, the plot gets fairly muddied; there's a great deal about a Golden Apple and the Tree of Life and its potential to recreate the realm of the gods and/or destroy the earth. It's all a bit of a mess, but there's no shortage of visual flair or special effects, so there's no reason to fret.

Unfortunately, all the action and fantasy means not much time to love the characters, so sweet little Darla and sweet, closeted Pedro only really get surface-level treatment. We get a bit more of the adult/superhero versions of these characters, which is fun, especially with Freddy's alter ego (Adam Brody) and of course Billy's (the always charming Zachary Levi). Billy and Freddy, as both versions of themselves, could make Shazam a really interesting, coming-of-age hormonal buddy movie, and while this movie flirts with that possibility, it never really goes there. Billy's fantasies revolve around Wonder Woman, who in a shocking and delightful turn of events does indeed cameo here. 

Given the constantly changing reliability of DC and its many media facets, it's hard to know what will happen moving forward. We can certainly hope we'll get another Shazam movie, one that allows its central characters to breathe a bit. But if this is all we get, at least it's a lot of fun!

Boston Strangler (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Newspaper or investigative procedurals are a strange genre, one that often reaches award-winning heights. They tend to feature hot topics as well as A-list actors to portray the real people involved, and the most successful ones turn unlikely stories (due to the time or scope of the investigation or the dull background work involved) into riveting character studies or ideological manifestos. There are more examples than I could list here, but the new film about the Boston Strangler murders, which recently debuted on Hulu exclusively, belongs to an even stranger niche of this genre. Much like David Fincher's Zodiac, this picture tries to be a bit of a thriller and mystery while dramatizing the investigative journalism that made the case so infamous.

The only thing that writer/director Matt Ruskin really takes from Fincher's masterpiece (yeah, I went there) is his subdued color palette and brooding tone. Operating mostly without direct threat from the killer, the protagonists here function less as potential victims and more as journalistic heroes, which is lovely even as it removes most of the tension inherent in Ruskin's approach to the material. As a tribute to Loretta McLaughlin and Jean Cole, the Boston women who broke news of the serial killer in the 1960s, the film succeeds, giving names and actions to the real-life people more than the mysterious but more widely recognizable criminal or criminals.

McLaughlin is played, most notably, by Keira Knightley, whose accent work is great if a little distracting. She's a Lifestyle writer at the Boston Record American and a wife and mother at home. After learning about three older women (not necessarily the usual demographic) who were recently raped and murdered in similar fashion -- strangled with underwear decoratively knotted -- she and her colleague Cole (Carrie Coon, who performs admirably in a role that feels undercooked and/or butchered by edits) pursue the connection in order to warn other women in Boston. Their efforts are hampered, of course, by sexism in their workplace as well as domestically; other departments don't want to collaborate with these women who are in way over their heads -- not to mention that different precincts are botching their own investigations and are unwilling to share valuable details with each other, much less with reporters -- while Loretta's family life suffers (her husband is played by Morgan Spector, who really should have had more to do in the screenplay if this was meant to be a significant part of the film).

Perhaps the most interesting development in this film, for me, was the moments in which the killer is all but forgotten. It's not until after McLaughlin and Cole lambast the Boston police in the paper for negligence that they start getting creepy calls from threatening men. Loretta even sees a figure stalking her family. Is it the killer harassing them, or is it the "good men" they've pissed off? These women are apparently the only ones who really care about getting word out, and their place in a male-dominated world is increasingly hazardous. Thankfully, the film doesn't fully tilt into thriller territory, but rather (like Dark Waters) lets the potential for these threats dissipate as quickly as they materialized. It's far more important to Ruskin (as writer) that our heroes are resilient, determined, and thorough in their work, pursuing leads through multiple dead ends and roadblocks.

Ruskin's mishandled direction, though, doesn't stop with his piggybacked color palette or languid pace. He uses a somber score that feels shoehorned into the wrong film and lets it overwhelm sensitive moments. His visuals are repetitive and dolorous, uninspired and drab in ways serial police procedurals on television long ago overcame. Then there are the handful of actual murder scenes, which are filmed more like Dateline reenactments than like part of the actual movie in which they've been inserted. Similarly, and while the two leading women are directed well, virtually none of the men are: David Dastmalchian is as creepy as ever as a suspect, Chris Cooper is laughably cliché as the stubborn boss, and Bill Camp never gets much to chew on. Alessandro Nivola is arguably the most interesting character, as a weary cop who eventually helps the women in their investigation. If Ruskin could have committed to dramatizing the personal cost of McLaughlin and Cole's lengthy investigation, or even relaying the riveting case as a mystery/thriller that has never been satisfyingly resolved, that could have been a great movie. As it is, it's entertaining and interesting, if only for a modest diversion.