Underwater (2020)

 Score: 4 / 5

I hadn't seen many trailers for Kristen Stewart's latest outing amidst the flurry of the holidays and pre-awards season, but it's been a long summer and I finally got around to viewing it. Having forgot almost everything in the trailers, I only knew the plot revolved around her getting stuck in a research station at the bottom of the ocean. I didn't know that the disaster would happen in the very first scene. I didn't know that Stewart has turned into a very physical actress. I didn't know that this movie would be so technically accomplished. And I certainly didn't know I was going to really enjoy it.

Underwater takes place entirely under water; at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, in fact, so under a lot of water. Before we know anything about anything, Kristen Stewart's tooth-brushing is suddenly interrupted by an earthquake. The submerged station -- which seems to be a research facility as well as a drill -- is nearly destroyed, and the few survivors race against time to gather near the escape pods. But they're all gone. Knowing they will die in the facility, they don deep-sea suits and drop to the ocean floor (not without casualty), with the insane goal of walking a mile to another station. As if it weren't already a thrilling update to a disaster movie, we soon learn that they are being hunted in the pitch-black water.

*Spoiler alert*

In the impossibly dark atmosphere (or lack of), the movie often looks and feels like a space movie. In fact, substitute just a couple of visuals, and we have what amounts to Ridley Scott's Alien. People are forced to travel between relatively safe spots where they can recharge and clean their suits; the pressure is exhausting and claustrophobic; we suspect they will all die. And then there's the humanoid monsters hunting them. I was a bit bewildered by this because I simply didn't expect it, and while the scares are mostly effective and well-designed, the horror of this movie felt increasingly gimmicky. It's just that we've seen it all before, you know? Throw the Xenomorph into James Cameron's The Abyss, and that's this movie, right?

Wrong. Because in Underwater's climax, Stewart and the last survivors have to navigate a hallway that serves as a nesting ground for these creatures. Hanging like bats, they seem to be dormant for the present, until of course one is awakened by the clumsy intruders (to be fair, they are wearing those unwieldy suits). Once Stewart extricates herself from being swallowed by a particularly hangry monster, she fires a flare gun into open water for a distraction and for, you know, a little enlightenment. And suddenly we see with her that a titan has emerged from the depths. No, this isn't The Meg. 

It's Cthulhu.

I know, I know, it's weird. But honestly the shock of that single shot was enough to bowl me over, and I still haven't quite recovered. It's the money shot of the year. We could talk about whether the movie deserves to be in Lovecraftian canon all we want, but that revelatory shot is the single coolest, most effectively horrifying shot in any movie inspired by the Lovecraft mythos. There are a couple passing hints earlier in the film that something strange was going on behind the scenes with the drilling company, including a pentagram drawn on a blueprint of the first drill site. There really isn't anything like xenophobia, paranoia, racism, madness, or cult worship, which may be why the reveal is so damn shocking.

Sure, it's probably even a cheap ploy by the filmmakers. But before that point, it was already an effective movie in its own right, derivative though it is. It's lean, it's mean; it drops us literally as the action explodes, and it never relents its horror until the credits start rolling. It has no pretense, no unnecessary fluff; it gives exactly what it wants and takes exactly what it wants. It's perfectly self-contained, mercifully brief in length, and doesn't even give you enough time to consider disliking what you're watching. It boasts some real technical artistry, too, especially in sound design and cinematography from the criminally underrated Bojan Bazelli (Hairspray, Burlesque, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Ring, Pete's Dragon, A Cure for Wellness, and Spectral, among others). And then to have that big bastard come clomping out, Underwater totally won me over. I can't exactly articulate why, but I just really had a blast with this flick. What a ridiculous delight.

Deadpool 2 (2018)

Score: 4 / 5

This sequel was, for me, far more enjoyable than the original Deadpool. It doesn't waste time on exposition. It caters hand and foot to its audience. It doesn't even try to play things safe like the first one (thematically, structurally). Ryan Reynolds is even more creepy and sassy as Wade Wilson. And it never really sinks to the sentimentality that lurked under the surface before.

Our foul-mouthed (and, really, just plain nasty) mercenary starts his new adventure with a few bangs and sudden tragedy, when his lover Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is murdered. Vengeful and suicidal, Wade is taken in by the X-Men. When one mission goes wrong, he and a troubled young mutant are arrested. As this develops, a secondary plotline is born involving Cable (Josh Brolin), who comes from the future looking to kill the kid Wade has taken under his wing.

Heavily plotted, the film has almost no breathing space between breakneck action and whiplash comedy. Which is good if you care about such things, and if the filmmakers are trying to cover up the absurdity of the proceedings. Fortunately, because this is Deadpool, absurdity is the name of the game, and the film brings lots of attention to itself. Its meta sensibilities aggressively take over in the film's final act, and while it's certainly fresh, interesting, and entertaining, it's also more than a little overkill. Overkill, you say? Just wait for those mid-credits scenes of Deadpool leaping through time to kill Ryan Reynolds in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Green Lantern.

And while aggressively crude and/or topical comedy isn't always my cuppa, Deadpool 2 provides other fabulous things for me to sink my teeth into. We finally have Juggernaut! We finally have Cable! And my favorite sequence in the film -- by far -- is the formation and ill-fated first outing of X-Force. It's hilarious and subversive and really just an amazing scene.

Speaking of subversion, whereas the first Deadpool was, I'd argue, anything but game-changing, this film definitely tries harder to fulfill that promise. We do have more explicit queerness between characters, though the representation leaves plenty to be desired. We have strong, independent women, though we also have the main woman used as a plot device and little else. And we have a diverse ethnic cast of characters who are nevertheless riddled with stereotypes. All in all, this film is a perfect example of the problematic issue of representation: Are we satisfied with problematic representation simply because any visibility is good? Or do we need representation of a certain quality to truly progress as a culture?

I don't think Deadpool cares, which is fine. I don't think many of his fans care, which is far more troubling.

IMDb: Deadpool 2

Ready Player One (2018)

Score: 3 / 5

In 2045, the world is apparently so wretched that people live for escapism. Columbus, Ohio, is such a highly populated and poorly regulated city that trash is piled almost as high as "the Stacks", a neighborhood of trailer homes on metal scaffolds that reach as high as skyscrapers. This is where Wade Watts lives (played by Tye Sheridan), a young orphan who obsessively lives in the OASIS, a virtual reality where pretty much everyone spends their time. Wade, however, is looking for the ultimate goal: the maker of the OASIS (a typically magnificent Mark Rylance) has included an Easter Egg; its finder will win control over the game.

Thus begins a science fiction adventure not unlike those that made Steven Spielberg famous. Wade gathers a group of oddball friends (including Olivia Cooke), pits himself against industry big-wig and power-mad poser Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn), and leads a rebellion against big business seeking monopoly.

Ready Player One is in many ways a game within itself. It's so packed with movie, video game, and tv show references that I don't think there's a single person alive who knows them all. Apart from major set pieces and crucial plot points -- including King Kong and the T-Rex from Jurassic Park, Mechagodzilla and the Iron Giant, and a particularly fabulous scene inside The Shining -- almost every scene in the film includes figures such as Marvin the Martian and Freddy Krueger, who appear so quickly and so insignificantly that you could easily miss them. And that's assuming you even know all the references! I certainly didn't know half the things onscreen. At one point during the climax, a kid sitting behind me got excited because a squadron of Halo soldiers ran across the screen. I'm not even sure what Halo is.

These visuals present themselves in a mostly computer-generated world. It's awesome to behold, of course, much like things in The Hobbit or Avatar. Unlike those films, however, I found this movie to be particularly draining to view, because it moves so quickly and includes so much to watch for and pay attention to. There's only so much spectacle I can take before it all turns to mush in my brain, and with two hours and twenty minutes of running time, I was exhausted well before the halfway point.

Spielberg's gifts for amazing filmmaking aside, I did find myself disappointed with the story. It's really not a fresh tale, and it's not told in any original way. Visually, the movie rocks. Narratively, it falls flat, concerns flat characters, and can't outmaneuver sizable plot holes. Often I found myself wondering logistical things about the world of the film rather than giving myself over to the nostalgic pleasure; that detracts from what was obviously intended to be absorbing spectacle.

Then again, maybe that's just because I've never been a pop culture guru. I haven't read the book, but its author is credited as one of the screenwriters, so it's probably a close adaptation; I wonder if the novel suffers the same flaws in construction. But the movie surely speaks mostly to avid players of video games and creative fanatics who love to immerse themselves in fantasies of any media. And for that audience, its final message of taking a break and learning to engage with reality should be particularly poignant.

I don't know. I feel sort of "meh" about the whole thing. I could take it or leave it. It's diverting and fun (especially its soundtrack), but there's not much to chew on. Come for the spectacle, stay for Mark Rylance, and you'll walk out happy.

IMDb: Ready Player One

Deadpool (2016)

Score: 3 / 5

Subversive. Daring. Antihero. Naughty. If you've heard anything about this movie, these are some of the words you've heard slung around. And while Deadpool is anything but your typical Marvel fare, I'm not sure that even half of its hyped-up, commercialized descriptors are accurate. It's rude, crude, fast, and furious, to be sure, but its fevered hilarity is about the only thing that makes the film work.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), diagnosed with cancer, seeks a cure from a shady figure that leaves him scarred and imbued with superpower; he spends the rest of the movie seeking revenge and to reclaim his love interest (Morena Baccarin). That's it. That's the plot. Nothing subversive. Nothing novel or intriguing. But then, the skeletal plot is surely necessary for its tone to shine through, carried with madcap grace by its star. Screenwriters Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick have done a rather remarkable thing in crafting the film's rakish, jokey tone. Maybe I'm just not used to this kind of comedy, but the rapid-fire dialogue, outrageous one-liners, campy fourth-wall breaking, and meta references are far more engaging and entertaining than any of the action sequences.

Of course, the movie sells its tone far more successfully than any of its particular jokes. Sure, there are several gems delivered by a pitch-perfect Ryan Reynolds. But the vast majority of quips and jabs fall like rain on a flood; I mean, there are really only so many times you can hear queerbaiting dick jokes in a movie before it gets annoying. In fact, director Tom Miller and his team seem to be desperate to make us like the movie, firing so many consecutive "money shots" (as Deadpool would say) at us that sometimes I found myself laughing at the sheer audacity of Marvel rather than any particular feature on screen. My favorite scene to this end was the one in which Deadpool attacks Colossus (made of metal) and ends up shattering his limbs in the process. It's that kind of self-aware, violent charisma that is so intoxicating, I found myself crying from laughter for minutes afterward.

For all its tonal naughtiness, though, there is little else noteworthy here. And maybe there doesn't need to be. The Deadpool we see is anything but an antihero, and there's nothing particularly subversive or profound going on. Where we all might have hoped for a turning of tables, a film in which the superhero genre was cast aside and mayhem ensued, what we get is a straightforward origin story with a heteronormative (albeit sexually confident and adventurous) hero who, though he is a fan of violence and murder, is justified in terms of the film and earns the sympathies of the audience.

Maybe a sequel will do those things. Maybe this one just had to stretch the mold before it makes a life of its own. Maybe I should just be happy that this movie succeeds where all too many other superhero movies fail. Maybe I should just be happy that this one doesn't take itself too seriously. Maybe this is the superhero movie we deserve, but not the one we needed right now. Maybe I got that backwards.

IMDb: Deadpool