Locked (2025)

Score: 1.5 / 5

The fourth cinematic version of this story, Locked manages to be a kinetic and zippy ride that kept me guessing as to the direction it was headed. It was also repetitive to a fault and quite boring for me. This crime thriller may be some folks' cuppa, but it was not mine.

Bill Skarsgard brings his formidable skills to the fore as Eddie, a petty criminal who just wants to be free of his sins and live a safe and secure, if not comfortable, life with his young daughter Sarah. Here, he's an anxious, panicky weasel of a man whose desperation lands him in a "Dolus" (I don't speak car; is this a real thing? I don't care), a luxury SUV pimped the fuck out with all the bells and whistles you can (and can't) imagine. It's sitting conspicuously in the middle of an urban lot, unlocked, and so he naturally gets in to see what he might nab. When the car locks him in, he can't escape, attempting suddenly urgent violence and cutting his arm in the process, but to no avail. Then the digital screen begins to ring.

There's a long tradition of single-location movies with a cast of one or two actors, the best of which hinge on claustrophobia and psychological distress. Yet director David Yarovesky and his cinematographer and editors don't do much to highlight those aspects, despite almost the entire screenplay taking place in close, limited perspective on Eddie. We're taken in highly energized visual flights around the vehicle, especially in moments when it gets piloted remotely, and we soar high above, before, and behind it as it careens through city sprawl and mountainous curves alike. It's a small frustration, perhaps, but seems ill-chosen in a film meant to force us into a certain headspace.

Speaking of our remote pilot, Anthony Hopkins plays the film's antagonist, William, whose car Eddie has woefully entered. His trap is highly moralistic, sparked by a twofer personal tragedy that apparently caused sociopathic madness, and he preaches about it at length. Mostly invisible during the film, Hopkins uses his iconic voice to devastating effect, more lucid and vicious than we've seen (or, rather, heard) from him in quite a while. I should have been overjoyed by the time he graces our eyeballs by the film's climax, but by then I was so annoyed by what the screenplay created him to be that I just wanted the movie to end. Unfortunately, the climax is far too lengthy and redundant for any such simple finale.

Probably my most significant gripe with the film is its insistence on thematic -- read, moral -- ambiguity. Eddie doesn't even break into the car initially; I'd have liked a film that made him a real bad guy and then asked us to endure and consider his suffering. And suffer he does: William's bells and whistles include several torture devices and practices, which he unleashes with chilling glee. But, for all the screenplay's pontificating about ethics and legality and morality, and for all William's cleverness and vigilantism, he's very clearly labeled insane and sadistic, not unlike the lesson-teaching evils in Saw movies. So we have a bona fide monster -- personal tragedy notwithstanding -- literally torturing a highly sympathetic opportunist for 90 minutes. There's almost nothing of interest, to me, in that premise. Or in its execution here.

Perhaps most egregiously, to that point, is an extended sequence of pure horror as William directs the vehicle to slaughter other criminals on the street and then to terrorize and nearly kill Eddie's young daughter. It's this kind of tasteless trash that really boils my blood, especially as, while these scenes are occurring, William continues his endless monologue. The takeaway from the film, ultimately, is that wealthy people -- the literally crazy rich -- are a blight on society. That the "haves" can and do torture the "have-nots" and that that's unjust. No shit, Sherlock! And, for all its ado, it fails to elicit audience investment because it's never so dour that we don't think for a single minute that the quietly righteous Eddie will die. Of course he -- and we, by extension -- will escape this trap and live peacefully and more thankfully with our loved ones and eschew further crime. So the nonstop torture was really just for...fun? I think not.

Brightburn (2019)

Score: 2.5 / 5

What would happen if the child sent to save us all decided, instead, to kill us all? That's what Brightburn proposes, presenting us with a balls-out assault on the flood of superhero movies in the last decade. It just doesn't deliver on its promises, which makes it burn out quickly, less bright than slight.

Little more than a demented twist of the Superman origin story, Brightburn begins with Tori and Kyle Breyer working on having a child before a spacecraft carrying one crashes onto their farm. They adopt little Brandon and hide the ship that brought him. He seems a normal child until he approaches puberty, and he exhibits superhuman strength among other unusual behaviors. We're never quite sure if his downward spiral toward violence is innate or learned, if it's a product of his alien genes or the trials of becoming a young man. But we also don't really care.

The film doesn't invite us to care about Brandon much at all. From the ominously glowing red and black spaceship to the way Brandon creepily appears and vanishes, the film drips with tongue-in-cheek dark humor. It's by not meant to be surprising; it's meant to be a pleasantly icky walk down a "what if" scenario for folks getting tired of the superhero shtick. And as a concept, it's brilliant. I especially found its bleak ending enjoyable, along with the mid-credits scene that slyly suggests a minor franchise in the works, turning several other heroes into villains (including, I suspect, Aquaman and Wonder Woman knockoffs).

Alas that what sounds brilliant can so easily fall short of itself in execution. For me, the trouble is that the film often feels more like an Omen re-imagining than a Man of Steel ripoff. Brandon hears alien whispers in his head -- are they controlling him, seducing him, annoying him? Who knows? -- and seems to struggle initially with the revelation of his powers. As he begins to do bad things, he appears conflicted, and severe close-ups on his face indicate mortal internal warfare. But then, almost instantly, he starts to enjoy being wicked. With this comes a flair for the dramatic, most clearly indicated by his grotesque mask and cape, especially when in this regalia he floats outside a window or door waiting to pounce.

The horror is mostly effective and surprisingly gruesome. In fact, other than Elizabeth Banks's performance, it's only worth watching for a couple of the "action" scenes. My favorite (or, I don't know, anti-favorite?) scene takes place in a diner, when Brandon takes revenge on his wannabe girlfriend's mother. Stalking her and terrorizing her, he suddenly causes a light fixture to bust over her head; a shard of glass embeds itself deep into her eyeball. We see it in extreme close-up, and continue to watch as she pulls it out. It's an ungodly moment that had me squirming and sweating, and I still shudder to remember it.

There's not a moment when you don't know Brandon is evil, and though the heart of the film lies in his mother's efforts to change him or love him regardless, his purely devilish characterization turns her not into a saint but a martyr. The climax of the film consists of Brandon killing his family, ending with his mother; in his rage, he flies through the house, shattering it and terrorizing his mother as she attempts to find a way to stop him. It's mostly all shock-value thrills, which is fine until it begins to feel like a postmodern haunted house with a wrecking ball smashing its way through everything (actually, that would be awesome in real life, a sort of meta-attraction in which the haunted house is destroyed around you).

But when a pubescent Superman is your villain, surely jump scares and body horror aren't the only tactics you can use to make your audience scream.