Kraven the Hunter (2024)

Score: 4 / 5

Everyone has their favorites when it comes to superheroes and their counterparts, and mine were always part of the X-Men or Spider-Man comics. Certainly one of the top contenders was Kraven, a beastly predator of a man whose prowess at hunting and tracking was aided by certain mystical elements that granted him superhuman strength and the convenient ability to commune with and influence animals. The image of Spider-Man clawing his way out of his own premature burial at Kraven's hand will haunt me forever, as will the frank sex appeal of the character himself. And now, joining the ranks of Sony's Spiderverse films, Kraven lives in live-action, and it's easily my favorite of the franchise.

Don't get me wrong: the story is a mess. For whatever reason, and despite clear love of the characters, this series has never quite mastered the art of intelligent storytelling, often choosing to advance via strange plot twists and extended action sequences rather than believable character or thematic developments. They hop around the globe for spectacle, not for purpose, and they increasingly rely on digital animation in order to tell their stories, not as boons for having told a good story on its own and desiring embellishment. This is all true here, perhaps to some extent more so as a result of the many animals necessary to establish Kraven's identity, and the film will not win many new fans. Indeed, this franchise has become so popular to hate that I've already seen more folks than I care to count lambasting it on social media.

Yet you'll notice that precious few say much of substance, preferring instead to level evaluative charges of it being "bad" or "stupid" without attempting to understand or appreciate it. And while I'm admittedly blinded by my ecstasy that a personal favorite character is finally the title character of a film, I'm also aware that any earnest critical engagement with art will increase appreciation if not enjoyment. One must simply deny the base pleasure of sounding off an opinion and approach a challenging or troubling work with curiosity. It's wild, I know, especially in a genre of such grounded, believable stakes and realistic integrity as superheroes.

But seriously, for fun, this movie slaps. We begin with Sergei Kravinoff, called "the Hunter," assassinating an arms trafficker in a Russian prison before escaping to London for his younger brother's birthday. It doesn't take long for star Aaron Taylor-Johnson's shirt to come off, and while it's silly in context, at least someone making the film knows what we paid to see. Taylor-Johnson has never looked better -- which is saying a lot -- and while we see less skin of him that I was expecting, it does make the few select shots much more satisfying. More importantly, his acting is more subdued than in several of his recent roles (The Fall Guy, just this year) while still carrying that larger-than-life charisma. He knows he can handle whatever comes his way, exuding effortless confidence in every shot, specifically in his movement work, which incorporates some lovely animalistic flair I'd have liked him to lean into further.

Unfortunately, the writers wanted to include much more, meaning that many other characters are brought in without much room to develop. Dmitri, Sergei's half-brother, is a welcome addition, brought to life by Fred Hechinger, a casting choice I dislike despite his capable performance as the nascent Chameleon; sadly, he's only brought in when Kraven needs to urgently do something. Similarly, Kraven's two opponents in this story are Alessandro Nivola as the Rhino and Christopher Abbott as the Foreigner, two excellent choices who are undermined by ludicrous effects and a marked lack of interiority. Kraven's father (a miserably uninteresting Russell Crowe) and once and future girlfriend Calypso (Ariana DeBose looking great with nothing to do) pop in and out, but really are mostly there to monologue about what they care about and what they intend to do. You might say it's much ado about, well, not much at all.

But who cares? Probably most folks, so let me rephrase: I certainly didn't care, because I had a blast in the auditorium. Aided by a double shot of Jack Daniels in my frozen Coke, I laughed at half-baked jokes and gasped at contrived action and had the most purely entertained time at the movies in ages. Perhaps I'm a presold nerdy fanboy, but I'll own that. The mindless fun of Morbius or the Venom series or even Madame Web have had me all along, but if this is the true end of the franchise (as it is rumored to be), I'm thrilled that we at least got this action-packed sexy fantasy romp through previously unexplored geekdom. Even if my main takeaway was the final shot, that alone is worth far more than the price of admission. Selah.

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.

The Red Sea Diving Resort (2019)

Score: 1 / 5

What a disaster. I can forgive a fictionalized account of real events. I can forgive a simplified, action-heavy story if it's important. I can forgive non-representative casting. But put it all together into a boring mess of wasted talent, forgettable plot, confusing filmmaking, and irresponsible storytelling, and The Red Sea Diving Resort marks a miserably low viewing experience during this quarantine season.

The story concerns a group of Mossad agents who purchase and operate the titular coastal resort in order to smuggle Ethiopian Jews out of the country and to safety in Israel. I feel embarrassed to admit I know nothing of the plight of this population of Jewish refugees in real life, however this film does less than nothing to educate me. In fact, I feel more bewildered after having watched it. There seems to be a vague Muslim threat -- the  but this bleeds into what appears to be less-than-casual racism in which a bunch of white actors portray the Israelis and black actors play either the victims or the villains. Accusations of racism are nothing new for writer/director Gideon Raff (who is a fascinating person but has yet to make anything worth watching, at least anything accessible to Americans).

The opening sequence makes my case for me. With no explanation or context whatsoever, a bunch of Ethiopian villagers are fleeing gun-toting Ethiopian (or perhaps Sudanese?) soldiers. As they pile into waiting trucks, a mother cries out for her missing child, who is obliviously playing in a nearby field. Help her, Chris Evans, you're her only hope. Enter the hero himself, who grabs the boy and makes it to safety in the nick of time, as gunfire rips the air apart in his wake. Leave it to the white savior to save the little brown baby and get this movie off to a jump-start.

After some bizarre scenes of Chris Evans -- a Mossad agent who has returned to Israel to debrief with Ben Kingsley -- sleeplessly angst-ing about his friend and the other Ethiopian Jews who need his help, he is directed to assemble a team of avengers. Oh, no, I'm sorry, that's wrong. He gathers a group of other (possibly former?) Mossad colleagues and they go to the titular resort on the coast of Sudan, purchased for them by Israel. They plan to use the resort as a front for their operation: housing refugees and shipping them to an Israeli ship off in the Red Sea. It's all very Underground Railroad of them until tourists show up actually wanting to use the resort for... resort-y things.

Scenes like this that could be funny or tense are squandered by a truly confoundingly stupid screenplay. Characters describe each other and their situations, motivations, and explanations in point-blank terms, proving that the writer didn't think real people could emote or an editor could make sense of the action. What could be compelling characters become dullards, played blankly by actors who are otherwise beautiful to look at (Michiel Huisman and Alessandro Nivola can get it, to say nothing of Haley Bennett). Chris Evans proves again that he's a waste of an actor (excepting his turn in Knives Out), if a brilliant action movie star.

And then there's Chris Chalk, who is actually quite chilling as the movie's villain, because of course there has to be one in an action movie. A historical drama this most certainly is not. He plays a Sudanese soldier who torments the Ethiopian Jews waiting to flee his grasp with a menacing presence, but even he is undermined by Raff's bizarre storytelling. The film's midpoint is a lighthearted sequence of the Mossad agents revitalizing the dusty resort to better disguise their covert operations. It's inspired by a mostly naked Chris Evans waking up on a sunny morning and seeing the resort tenants doing tai chi on the sand before chatting nonchalantly with a speedo-sporting Michiel Huisman. It's funny and cute and sweet, feeling like it belongs in a very different movie altogether, spliced together in a retro montage underscored by Duran Duran's "Hungry Like the Wolf" (did I mention this movie takes place in the '80s? Because it constantly reminds you of that). It cuts abruptly -- and unearnedly -- to a scene of Chris Chalk murdering Jews while he interrogates them, a tasteless and offensive turn that pulls you so far out of the movie it is impossible to get back in.

The story might be wonderful, but I need to look up the historical record. This movie taught me nothing about what really happened. It turns real-life heroes into caricatures, and then attempts to make them into action movie heroes. It's not memorable, educational, inspiring, or even entertaining. Well, except the beautiful white heroes in their beach-wear.

Disobedience (2018)

Score: 5 / 5

An opening scene depicts an aged rabbi orating to his Orthodox Jewish temple on free will before falling down dead amidst a congregation that obviously loves him. It's a haunting scene, made all the more powerful by the story that follows after. We immediately redirect our focus to a young woman, Ronit Krushka (played to perfection by Rachel Weisz), a photographer in New York who receives a phone call and flies to London. Ronit is the rabbi's estranged daughter, and the film chronicles her journey back home to the community that has many mixed feelings about her presence.

Her best childhood friends, Dovid and Esti (Alessandro Nivola and Rachel McAdams, respectively), invite her to stay in their home. Ronit is surprised to learn the two are now married, though it takes us some time to learn why. We do, however, clearly see that Ronit does not fit in with the Orthodox community honoring her late father. Indeed, we hear that it has been many years since Ronit has visited, and we surmise that some bridges, once burned, can never be repaired.

Alone with her two friends, we begin to understand the love triangle that begins to burn anew: Ronit and Esti were young lovers together, which seems to be the root of her estrangement from the community. Esti, left behind, decided to marry Dovid, perhaps as some sort of consolation. Esti's desire is awakened and she and Ronit embark on an affair. Dovid, meanwhile, attempts to step into the rabbi's shoes, and in his stressed state, turns a blind eye to the discord he has sown into his own home, which he tells the elders he keeps in perfect order.

Disobedience is a fabulously melancholy chamber piece, reaching operatic heights in its depiction of the intersection of religion, history, and sexuality. In fact, this is the queer movie we should be raving about this year (I'm looking at you, Love, Simon). Rarely have we ever seen a film that explores this fully the essence of the religious queer person; equally rarely do we see this sympathetic a portrait of modern Orthodox Jewish life. It's a lovely premise and and even lovelier slice of culture.

More important still is the craft built into the film. This is top-shelf work from the actors (and, really, why haven't the two Rachels been in movies before? Or lovers before?), all of whom should be in more movies, period. We have soft, subdued lighting with gloriously muted hues and shapes, tightly controlled camera that humanizes its subjects, and some amazing music that underscores themes of subversion and romance. The score teams up nicely with the editing in creating a realistic yet somewhat disorienting sense of cultural shock and psychological dissonance.

These characters at once belong and do not, love and cannot, believe and should not. The film's insistence on delving into these complexities and shunning clear-cut answers, characterizations, or solutions makes this film a gripping exercise in humanity. For a powerhouse story about the virtues of doubt and bravery, extolling defiance and uncertainty as virtues, you could do a lot worse than Disobedience.

IMDb: Disobedience

You Were Never Really Here (2018)

Score: 4.5 / 5

An action thriller shot like a horror movie, You Were Never Really Here is a tightly wound knot of violence that had my skin crawling for its entire 90-minute run time.

Joaquin Phoenix delivers a typically arresting performance as mercenary Joe who rescues abducted girls and wipes out traffickers. Joe suffers as a result of childhood trauma and his past in the military and FBI, and we see his flashbacks as he does, without introduction or even much rhyme or reason. They assault us as they assault him, often at inopportune moments, forcing us to question reality. Unfortunately, Joe has become world-weary and seems to be in constant agony. Whenever he's not caring for his elderly mother (Judith Roberts), he's obsessed with violence and death, often locating his anxiety around his own person. His suicidal fantasies blur together with actual suicide attempts in increasingly vivid scenarios.

It's an amazing performance, seconded only by the filmmaking. Writer and director Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) exerts her considerable control in full force here, proving her understanding not only of Joe's character but of cinematic craft. The story is a web of strands that don't always make sense; she controls our attention not on those secondary plotlines but on the psychological maze Joe travels. She gives us only the tiniest bits of information amidst impressionistic (or maybe expressionistic? I'm really not sure if this film distinguishes between the two) images and sounds, not allowing audiences to be lazy in the slightest.

The hallucinations and fantasies and flashbacks cloud the narrative enough to keep us engaged, but the close-up, clear-cut cinematography and razor-sharp editing keep us on the edge of our seat. Sure, when the blood spurts you might flinch, but I found the most violent moments to be the simplest, when Joe's agonizing existence rips through his cold exterior and he breaks down alone in his car or at the foot of his bed. When he remembers his mother counting as they hide from his abusive father. When, after shooting the man who murders his mother, he lies down next to him and holds his hand as they sing along to a song on the radio.

And, for all the violence, what impressed me most about this film is that, for a story about a hitman, the emphasis here is on the man. It's a dense character study with a few brutal punches to throw on screen, but a far more insidious agenda for your mind.

IMDb: You Were Never Really Here