Things Heard and Seen (2021)

 Score: 3 / 5

The latest Gothic horror movie is a mixed and messy bag, but its complex delights often outweigh its tonal and thematic eccentricities. Things Heard and Seen, a title taken from Emanuel Swedenborg's eighteenth-century Latin book Heaven and its Wonders and Hell From Things Heard and Seen, manages to shallowly disturb during its early half before tilting into full dread as it reaches its climax. While the plot is never quite fresh, the way it's told is never less than interesting. The problem is that the film is so quiet, so moody and broody, and so filled with intangible ideas that it is utterly impossible to watch, understand, and appreciate with a phone in your hand. Or any other distractions, mind, which are sure to plague viewers watching this Netflix release in their living rooms.

When Catherine Clare, an art restorer in Manhattan, hears that her husband got a job teaching art history, you can start to see the cracks form in her otherwise ceramic face. Amanda Seyfried's wide eyes and stoic chin belie a psyche already on the verge of snapping, and our first experience of Catherine attempting to eat a single bite ends in her rushing to the toilet to purge. But her husband George, a handsome and sly James Norton, is eager to get started in what appears to be his dream job. Having toyed with creating art in his youth, he has now embraced his calling as a teacher, and so the couple and their daughter Franny move to a house further up the Hudson Valley.

The town is called Chosen and the school Saginaw, fictional in reality but filmed on location. The gray and tan color palette of the film make many scenes look like Hudson River school paintings and George Inness landscapes. Which is appropriate, as that is primarily what George teaches at the college. Or, rather, that's what he is purported to teach; we never see him successfully deliver a lecture. But we do see his conversations with his department chair Floyd DeBeers, and we hear from other faculty that George has developed a popular following amongst his students. George is different from the insular faculty, however, as revealed in his first dialogue with the chair: "I guess I'm a bit of a cliché, the New York cynic," says George to his department chair upon his arrival, "that how a painter as brilliant as Inness could fall for some 18th century mystic still baffles me." Floyd, played by an always delicious F. Murray Abraham, responds, "Well, Swedenborg wasn't just some mystic. He keenly understood that everything in the natural world has a counterpart in the spiritual realm. And Inness painted landscapes with this in mind." 

And suddenly, the horror creeps in. Not in any visceral sense, mind, but more like those meditative movies on the boundaries between life and death, memory and illusion (I thought more than once of The Little Stranger, A Ghost Story, and even The Others). "After all, we're in Headless Horseman country," says one of the locals, making me wish this film went a little more gonzo into the mysticism of the region. But Catherine experiences more than her fair share of bumps in the night. She follows ethereal lights around the house, smells fumes, hears creaks. She discovers strange relics like a family Bible that has damned deceased women, and a blood red ring. And, worst of all, she is sure a ghostly woman is trying to make contact.

A suddenly isolated Catherine is desperate to make her own community, rather than simply being grafted to George's new collegiate network, but runs into considerable hurdles. Ladies at the historical society whisper about her house, which is featured in a painting at the gallery. Two neighbors, the young Vayle brothers, swing by while Catherine is alone to offer their help, but it seems clear they have other intentions as well. And while Catherine's wide eyes and seeming determination to remain in the house might indicate a weak or masochistic woman, by the halfway point it is quite clear that she welcomes the haunting, hoping to bridge the divide and help the restless spirits if she can.

There is a bit of a hooking opening scene when George (we don't know he's George yet) drives up to a bleak farmhouse in 1980 and notices blood dripping from the garage ceiling; he hurries in to see his young daughter all alone. That's all we get, and there's no context before the film cuts back to the previous spring. Could the child be a murderer? Could the house be haunted? Could the mother be crazy? It's a cheap ploy at the beginning of any film, making us aware of impending doom without earning it, but here I'd say it doesn't hamstring us or infantilize us like in other movies. Because this picture takes quite a while to gain any semblance of momentum -- and because the flash-forward opening is a bit of a red herring -- I'd wager most viewers need some kind of hook so they know it's all going somewhere.

(Now entering spoiler territory!)
As is often the case in Gothic stories, the real horror of this film lies in its depiction of a nuclear family falling apart. George, for all his charm, is a narcissist and pathological liar, the archetypal man who makes his name through charisma and a keen ability to steal the accomplishments of others (The Wife, Big Eyes, and so many more). The reveal is painstakingly slow, but once you see his true nature -- first hinted when he flirts with a student -- it's hard to look away. His is the grand tradition of husbands who gaslight their wives in isolated, Romantic houses. His façade slowly breaks down, and by the climax of the film, he embarks on a terrifying (if contrived) spiral that leaves body after body strewn in his wake.

The joys of the film, apart from its somber pacing and deliberately evocative aesthetic, largely stem from Seyfried, who allows Catherine to slowly develop into a caring and sensitive woman who nevertheless cultivates her own furious righteousness. And while her conclusion is deeply frustrating to me (I felt similarly unsatisfied with the protagonist's end in Promising Young Woman), the aftermath of it here finally grants her the female security and community for which she has longed. It helps, too, that her burgeoning agency and volatility (Midsommar) makes her arc dynamic and her ending strong for people trying to poke holes in her flawed but admirable character. And then there's George's colleague Justine, an "adjunct weaving professor" played by Rhea Seehorn, who steals every scene and made me wish the movie featured her more. Then there's the end, which is about as consummate a work of art as you could ask for, though I would have preferred a film about the ties between art, life, and death to be a little more fleshed out before such a sudden and iconic finale.

Four Good Days (2021)

 Score: 4 / 5

In the tradition of parent-child trauma-dramas that has spiked in recent years, Four Good Days pits the unlikely duo of Glenn Close and Mila Kunis together in a battle of wits, heart, and drugs. It doesn't quite reach levels unseen in the sub-genre, and it hits pretty much all the predictable milestones until its climax. Even in that, it sacrifices plumbing the depths of dramatic insight in favor of a few didactic stingers and a frantic attempt at kinetic energy otherwise lacking from the film. But those are only really criticisms if you feel that these character dramas -- rather, vehicles for stars -- actually require a plot with momentum. The creators of Ben is Back certainly did.

And yet this movie is only typically like that picture, or the similar Beautiful Boy. The major difference is, obviously, that this movie centers on and almost exclusively considers two women in impossible circumstances. Molly (an almost unrecognizable Kunis) has been through rehab no fewer than fourteen times, and so when she shows up at her mother's doorstep, we can see the history of pain, mistrust, and evaporated love between the two. This is largely because Deb is played by Close, a master of single-look character studies, whose guarded stillness in contrast with the daughter's intoxicated mannerisms tell us chapters worth of backstory in moments. Deb gives Molly anything but a warm welcome, and the two clearly have an understood series of tough boundaries, no doubt due to prior problems with stealing and lying and endangerment.

Deb's heart, however, won't have it, and as Molly sleeps outside on the cold stones, her mother paces indoors and watches her. She wants to believe her daughter is serious about getting clean this time, just as Molly is desperate to get inside the house. In the morning, Deb gets her coffee and promptly takes her to a detox facility. They both know the routine a little too well, and it's all a bit cold. Deb certainly doesn't want to get her hopes up, but she senses something might be different this time. Is it only her weary, wishful thinking?

After three days in the facility, Deb picks up Molly and the doctor makes a shocking offer: an opioid antagonist. Essentially a monthly shot that will prevent Molly from getting high -- which begs the question from ignorant me, won't an addict still try and then overdose after not getting high? -- both Deb and Molly leap at the opportunity. Or at least, they dare to hope this might finally work. The doctor says that Molly must stay clean four more days; that will allow her body to prepare for the shot. Deb brings Molly home with her, and so begins the bulk of the film. It's a cat-and-mouse game of suspicious stares, tense conversations, and forced attempts at normalcy. Suitably hard to watch, the anxious energy the film taps into is firmly rooted in the maternal home, a strange domestic thriller without action but with a lot of heightened emotions and deadly consequences.

The screenplay by director Rodrigo Garcia and reporter Eli Saslow (who wrote the 2016 article that inspired this film), despite often engaging in brutal and honest discussions as well as situations, never quite manages to balance itself. Drifting from heavy-handed and sometimes groan-inducing symbols (an unfinished puzzle in the garage) to otherwise brilliant moments of unspoken tenderness (Deb is an esthetician and provides her services to her daughter in their most intimate scene), the movie only really works because of the dedication and remarkable skills of its cast. Close defies powerful urges to either hang her daughter out to dry or embrace her while knowing she'll pay for it. And Kunis really shows us her mettle as a serious actress, balancing desperation with manipulative ferocity and then shifting to psychological and bodily agony; her unexpected gentle moments hit with the same force as her feral scenes.

The powers of hope and love and perseverance are what make this movie so haunting, memorable, and important. And while that could be said of any of its ilk, at least this one gives us some Glenn Close to put in our eyes. For as long as your eyes aren't pooling with tears.

Profile (2021)

 Score: 2 / 5

Computer thrillers aren't for everyone, and yet the sub-sub-genre category keeps getting new entries. It makes sense that, in the age of digital connection, these movies would naturally grow out of the found footage tradition. And while we might have expected more of these during the recent pandemic (will we get more in the next half-year?), we were thankfully saved from the exacerbated horror of staring at Skype windows projected on large screens. And now we get Timur Bekmambetov's latest, a movie several years too late to be either timely or consequential, feeling like a half-baked idea turned into a half-baked movie. Its doughy makeup and comparative lack of thrills belie some really interesting and insightful ideas, and the final product left me feeling both unsatisfied and bloated.

An investigative journalist in London named Amy (Valerie Kane) creates a fake profile to attract ISIS recruiters. Her job is on the line -- one wonders exactly how she is supporting herself in her flat, with a dog, as her boss facetimes her at all hours -- and her relationship with Matt is equally rocky. Her boss and boyfriend seem to make demands on her she's not ready to fulfill, and for most of the movie the virtual temptations offered by her extremist liaison make sense to the viewer. He offers her money and stability, the promise of hot sex and a life of both passion and leisure, and of course the kind of fulfillment an awkward outsider like her craves. Well, at least, the version of her she's projecting through her profile. (Get it? Because that's the title of the movie!)

But her recruiter, Bilel (a seductive Shazad Latif), makes his own demands. In their earliest chats, he ensures she always wears a head scarf. He uses cats and kittens to lure Amy in, while decrying dogs as dirty and morally corrupt animals. He pressures her constantly to come to Syria with him and marry him, even to the extent of performing a marriage ceremony via Skype. His charm leaves little to the imagination, and over the course of their roughly month-long Skyping romance, we see Amy fall a little too quickly in love with him. She's not the hard-boiled, world-weary investigator we're used to seeing, which might be why she hasn't yet been hired as a full-time writer. Granted, he's also groomed and styled to be more alluring to Western eyes; perhaps the terrorist recruiters are in real life, but it's hard not to suspect the film of propagating stereotypes of brown people in the exotic Middle East.

She's uncannily incompetent, slipping up in just about every way we can see. It's a dangerous gambit for the filmmakers, placing the weight of the film on an unlikable and often stupid protagonist. She happily shares her screen with the invasive recruiter-slash-paramour. She repeats the truth about her actual real-life location. She shares names of people in her circle. When she gets flustered or shocked and doesn't know what to say, she simply ends the Skype call. "We got disconnected," she says, as if the past year hasn't taught us all not to believe that vague excuse. And yet, that Bilel still manages to hook her (and yes, she is emotionally insane enough to actually fall in love with a violent stranger online) says a lot about, well, everyone in this movie.

Despite the horrific representations of humans in the film, Bekmambetov's direction manages to do some interesting things, much as he has done in other films like Wanted and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. His ability to evoke panic and dread is on full display here; we can sense Amy's hesitation and even incompetence in her absence, when we're stuck on a screen with Bilel calling or in a video chat with him as her boss and/or boyfriend blow up her chat box. That said, I should also note something that may or may not have been intentional: while this is no horror film, anyone with anxiety or OCD should approach with caution. Amy has so many bloody windows up on her desktop at any given time that I constantly felt sick. Texts, Skype messages and calls, facetime windows, web browsers (with multiple tabs), and her own file explorer (with a ridiculous amount of downloads) all cover a desktop with absolutely no organization at all. It's an exercise in exactly how not to manage your own computer, especially for someone whose job is to investigate, report, and even go undercover. How she manages to pay her own rent is a feat worthy of accolades.

Moreover, there is little to no actual thrill element to the film, and it is here that it irredeemably falters. By the end, when (spoiler alert, in case you're incapable of seeing where this might be going) Amy backs out of flying to Bilel, she begins to rightfully fear for her life. But, as the plot finally gets to its most thrilling and potentially terrifying climax, it ends. There is no clear understanding that Amy's story was successful. There is no payoff with Amy and her boyfriend or boss. There isn't even a clear way to determine whether she survives.

Perhaps that's the point, and perhaps that's even the way the supposedly true-to-life story panned out, but it makes all the preceding action and ideas thematically irrelevant and all the plot inconsequential. This movie would have been terrifying if it had a better ending...and if it had been released three or more years ago.

Spiral (2021)

Score: 2.5 / 5

Right around the halfway point of this movie, I started feeling a little sick. Not because of the graphic violence, which of course makes anyone squeamish, nor because of the sadistic bent of movies in this franchise. But a gnawing, churning sensation gripped me somewhere below my heart but above my diaphragm. It bothered me to distraction, ringing in my ear like a cold, hard steel cage that wouldn't stop rattling. And right around the time the movie tipped inevitably to its second act, I recognized the feeling all too well: knobbly, gnarled disappointment.

Spiral looked like something new. Sure, it's a spin-off of one of the most recognizable franchises in the last two decades, but between its stars, late date, and effective marketing campaign, I was sure this would shed new lights on a long-dead franchise. Frankly, I hated all of the Saw series after the first three, and even the third teetered on the edge of my disdain; the first is a work of pure genius, while the second is a fun extension of its concepts. But Spiral, subtitled "From the Book of Saw" told me that, while it would concern a serial killer copycat, it would bear little direct resemblance to the earlier films. But this new installment features no novelty, no ingenuity, and most damningly, no relevance to 2021.

It begins with, yes, a deadly trap. After chasing a robber into the subway system, a cop is strung up by his tongue, forced to choose to rip it out or be splattered by the oncoming train. His demise brings detectives Zeke Banks (Chris Rock) and William Schenk (Max Minghella), newly assigned partners, to the scene, and they discover almost immediately that it's the work of a Jigsaw copycat. The killer is smart -- despite his robed and hooded pig costume that tempts me with the moniker "Pigsaw" -- and apparently seeks to torment Banks with his history of internal affairs problems at the precinct. The killer picks out corrupt cops one by one, pretending to teach them lessons by "playing a game" with them, as we know full well. Few survive, and all suffer.

As goes with this franchise, we are trained to suspect the unexpected (which is to say, expected) suspects. Could it be the captain (Marisol Nichols), whose badass role as the only female in command might have murderous underpinnings? Could it be the new partner, who clearly feels the tension with his new, unwilling partner? Could it be Banks's father Marcus (Samuel L. Jackson), who gets pulled into the fevered hunt? Or could it be Banks himself, who grows increasingly eccentric as the case spirals inward? Whoever it is, Banks needs to work quickly, especially after his partner is skinned alive and his father goes missing. The problem for me is that nothing about these characters is very compelling. They're all only so much meat, ultimately, and the film treats them as such before they get sucked into the inevitable meat grinder.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, even the film's signature traps -- torture devices intended to symbolically and literally reshape their victims -- aren't that interesting. Not that I really liked the gore-porn tendencies of this series (besides the first film), but at least some of the installments embraced the absurdity of horror its creators imagined. Here, we have fairly generic traps that, while effective in making viewers cringe, feel more nihilistic in their determination to kill rather than teach. Then again, in some ways, I felt more invested in this movie because the traps weren't, writ large, a Grand Guignol splatterfest; they were more grounded and realistic, so I wasn't consistently taken out of the moment.

Mostly, I am disappointed because of what the film could have been, based on the marketing and casting. The film flirts with raising really interesting questions about police corruption and brutality, about people of color in policing roles, about the brutality of social pressures on law enforcement and the cruel extremes to which cops can fall. But the movie never invests any time -- or even intelligent conversation -- to any of these ideas. Every time I wondered if the thematic stakes would drive home, we're jolted into another laughably strange flashback with Jackson and his team, cheated out of yet another hope for timeliness. Even Rock, who is talented at bridging the gap between humor and horror here, can't save his scenes, though he tries desperately to dig his heels in as a world-weary detective on the edge of propriety. It's worth a watch, but not much more than that.

Voyagers (2021)

 Score: 1.5 / 5

In the near future, as the sci-fi tropes go, Earth will become uninhabitable. Scientists discover, in the nick of time, another planet for humans to colonize, and sends a team to set up the initial community. Unfortunately, the trip to this new planet takes 86 years, and so the team of young adults will probably never see it. Rather, the mission is for them to maintain the ship, procreate, and die in space, with the goal that their grandchildren will be the first generation on the new Earth. Not necessarily a groundbreaking concept, it nevertheless opened a wide berth of storytelling opportunities, and in the first 20 minutes or so, I had no idea where this movie was going.

And it chooses one of the more interesting options available to it: Lord of the Flies in space, with attractive young people grappling with their sexual awakenings. The kiddos -- chief of whom are Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, and Fionn Whitehead -- begin to fear that some ghostly alien creature is stalking the ship after some mysterious noises rock the ship and a suspicious, violent death rocks their fragile equilibria. Then they learn that "the blue," a drink they are ordered to imbibe daily, is not just a vitamin supplement but a suppressant of hormonal extremes and negative emotional outbursts. As teens will do, they rebel, embracing their adolescence in all its messy manifestations. Breaking free of their routine duties on board, they abuse their food supply, destroy valuable equipment, sacrifice their health, and decide to ignore their mission.

Well, most of them, that is. Colin Farrell -- the only redeeming part of this movie for me -- is the only adult on board, a tender, father-figure who has crucially connected with these young people and who embarked on this voyage knowing full well he'd only live for about half of it. And, bless him, he doesn't make it far at all. His loss affects all the kid-astronauts, who split into factions of idealism and hedonism and, you guessed it, the hedonists are more numerous. The middle of this movie devolves into montages of horny, rageful kiddos embracing their natural sensations as if life itself is a hallucinatory drug; swirling cameras and expressionistic lighting make the trip, well, trippy, and it's easy to get annoyed with all the bad decisions they're all making.

Because everyone is making terrible choices here, even behind the scenes. If this movie had gone full Lord of the Flies, I could have loved it, especially with a nice twist or two like focusing on the intelligent and least-cringey character played by Miss Depp. Instead, there is a sharp dichotomy between the two men, one angry and brutish, the other level-headed and quite boring. Attempts at violence and horror become washed out in sensory overload, and there is a sharper focus on teenage angst and appeal than on anything resembling character development, thematic complexity, or even anything but a rote plot. There's no real horror, other than what kids are capable of doing, and the strong thrust of vindication for their actions from the filmmaker's perspective makes the whole affair dangerously immature.

Colin Farrell should have blasted those kids into space and set up a new world all on his own.

In the Earth (2021)

 Score: 3.5 / 5

Ben Wheatley is back, baby! After his disastrous attempt at mainstream fare in Rebecca on Netflix, Wheatley returns to the form he has perfected. That's not to say it's perfect, and generally speaking his aesthetic isn't my cuppa, but its peculiarities mark it as canon among the filmmaker's signature works like Kill List and High-Rise. Wheatley movies are seemingly made for my people: artsy-farsty weirdos who, in the middle of the week, like watching challenging and often unsatisfying films in small, intimate groups while the wine is flowing; discussion may follow, but probably won't bypass the "and what the heck was that moment about?" commentary. It's the midnight arthouse kind of earned pretentiousness that I find dazzling only when it's about something horrific. Like In the Earth. 

Despite a relative lack of scares, Wheatley's latest might be one of his more accessible genre films. It's certainly his timeliest. Dr. Martin Lowery (played by an effectively miserable Joel Fry) is on a mission in a world gone awry. As a deadly pandemic rages, forcing people to learn how to live with it, he journeys to a remote government outpost in a dense forest. Meeting up with park ranger Alma (Ellora Torchia), the two embark on a two-day trek to find Dr. Olivia Wendle (Hayley Squires), who has been missing for months after turning off her radio. Wendle has been working with fungi and plants to improve crop growth, and has theorized that the natural world is sentient and communicates through a psychic network of roots and spores.

Before you start counting, I'll start. The references here abound, and it's easy to get distracted. Apocalyptic plants? The Happening. A journey into rural crazyville? Heart of Darkness. A mysterious monolith that might be sentient? 2001: A Space Odyssey. Shocking brutality and anguish in a world devoid of rationality or morality? Take your pick, but The Texas Chain Saw Massacre isn't a far cry. Wheatley knows how to make an effective, low-budget movie that feels expensive, and gloomy forests that just might be the home of supernatural horrors is right up his alley. From these examples, you pretty much know what's going to happen, but that doesn't stop you from giving in to this movie's hypnotic seduction.

Apart from plenty of kaleidoscopic hallucinations -- which we are made to experience along with the characters -- there isn't too much chaos in this film. An otherwise linear story is layered thickly with references, themes, and ideas that individually would make interesting movies but altogether make a muddy sort of fever dream. Possibilities, in Wheatley flicks, tend to matter more than reality, and impressions matter more than expressions. Discussions range from the scientific use of death (fungus) to increase life (crops) to the effect of the Malleus Maleficarum on Western civilization, and if that doesn't prime your head for a wild trip, you're probably already on shrooms.

Of course the woodland trek goes badly, but then it gets worse. And worse again. And bad things keep happening. There's a hostage situation with a wackadoo hermit, there's a prolonged chase, and there's some particularly gory dismemberment. There's a hazmat suit and there's white ceremonial robes, there's a bow and arrow and an axe (and a very dangerous hook). There's pre-Christian folklore, lots of blood, and an obsession with rounded openings (eyes, wounds, holes). There's speakers and strobe lights in the middle of the woods, and there's a fog of spores that rings a clearing. What do we make of all this? I guess it doesn't much matter, because that's Wheatley's job. More than once I was reminded of the 1979 Soviet film Stalker, mostly because of the weird mixture of psychology and science fiction in the woods, but Wheatley seemed to want to do it with something like Leatherface as the titular stalker.

And when they do finally find Dr. Wendle, she's about as terrifying as anything you might expect, clearly unhinged but confined under respectable layers of purpose and education and civility. She delivers some intense exposition in terms of character -- regarding her past relationships with both Martin and the batshit crazy, violent hermit Zach (Reece Shearsmith) -- and in terms of theme and plot, as she reveals that her research has bent away from agriculture and toward an eldritch guardian of the woods. Science, after all, is just the modern verbiage for magic. And when you see the unholy but very interesting experiments Wendle is enacting, it's easy to feel, for even the briefest of moments, that she might be onto something real. After the last year of our lives, aren't we all a bit desperate to try anything if it helps us all reconnect? Remember the joy we felt last spring when we saw images and read data about nature healing itself as we all locked down? Shouldn't we still yearn for that?

There's a bit of a bloodbath climax, which is nice, but then the movie just sort of ends. Leave it to Wheatley to make us scramble for comprehension and meaning after throwing so much at us, but I confess to hoping for a bit more cohesion. If the various and varied elements of this movie fit together, it's largely without clear logic or connections; that's okay, but it does leave one feeling distinctly unsatisfied. Then again, why should we feel satisfied in a movie -- in a world -- so messed up that even looking for answers will leave you brutalized, bewildered, and ultimately lost in the woods?

Justice League (2021)

 Score: 5 / 5

It's the superhero movie event of our lives. Well, single event, as the final Avengers movies (as of this date) were split. It's the sort of gloriously indulgent, remarkably unsentimental, utterly transporting film that epics are made of. This is the new Ben-Hur or Ten Commandments, a continuous and almost unbearably lengthy drama that, while rooted in emotional and spiritual journeys, takes us to worlds we've never seen but now can clearly imagine. Four hours of graphic novel -- and characters of myth -- beautifully rendered in a sqaure (4:3-ish) aspect ratio that looks like panels of a comic book. Seen in IMAX, I can only imagine the transcendent sensation it provokes. And now all I want to do is see it in IMAX, preferably with an intermission.

There's a lot to be said about the road to this movie, and how it's been released, and why it exists at all, but there are far too many others talking about that. There's equally tons to be said about the implications of releasing auteurist visions like this, bucking studio trends, and even caving to mass fanbase pressure. Think of the collapse of the BBC's Sherlock, amongst others, and the revelation of Zack Snyder's newest film feels miraculous. But that's also a discussion for other people and places and times. But it bears noting that I certainly hope the supposed five-film arc Snyder had planned will come to pass with the success of this film. It leaves a lot to hope for, and I for one would be severely crushed if the majesty of this picture ended with itself.

But what of the movie itself? When compared to the 2017 theatrical version, clearly pumped out after Snyder's exit by a desperate studio and a particular director whose antics and style can be criticized elsewhere, this version is a wholly different film. I don't want to say "superior in every way," but it comes damn close to that dangerous descriptor. While I missed some of the awkward humor and forced action of the other Justice League, this one is consistently more organic even as it gives in to its superficial facade, perfecting the beautiful tableaus of battle and spectacle, and giving time and money to its computer-generated imagery. Its villains -- yes, now there are two! -- are gorgeous and tactile; its action sequences are the sort of balls-out insanity we expect from Snyder; its heroes are respected, even revered, rather than crudely used for cheap humor and cheers.

And while I liked the 2017 Justice League more than many others at the time of its release, this movie slapped me right in my opinions time and again upon my first viewing. Upon subsequent viewings (I've seen it now four times) I appreciate its marriage of subtlety and grandiosity more, its appreciation of delicate character development, its exquisite attention to detail and beauty, and its, well, Snyderisms. He's not a director I ever really valued much, and I probably still won't going forward, but I have to say his interpretation and vision for a DC movie universe will remain a favorite franchise of mine for a long time.

A consummate comic book movie, this Justice League is split into seven parts, each with titles and each feeling somewhat self-contained. Given the aspect ratio and digital artwork, and the rumors that this was meant to be a miniseries, I have to wonder if this was intentional, to evoke the serial editions of new comics. The action is easier to follow than in most similar genre movies, thankfully, and while some may still decry Snyder's comparative lack of humor, the deadpan quips and absurdism Snyder injects into this masterpiece makes the marathon sparkle with wit. Whereas many films of this ilk (MCU, I'm looking at you) exist to feed viewers exactly what they know they want, generating money without earning it and digging their studios deeper into fan loyalty hell, this movie is a unique vision by an unexpected auteur, who holds fast to his expression (feverishly radical as it is) despite clear and tempting opportunities not to.

All its characters are here, finally, given balanced screen time with strong individual arcs. Specifically, I needed more from Cyborg and this movie totally delivers. It also gives us Martian Manhunter, which heaven knows I pray we'll get to see in future films. And while the plot is essentially the same, now it feels earned and organic rather than forced and rushed. Moreover, plot is not what's driving this movie, something more superhero flicks would do well to emulate. It's worth noting, too, that both James Wan and Patty Jenkins have been quoted as basing their movies off Snyder's movie, not Whedon's. So what happens in this new movie is, really, the only thing that happens in this movie universe.

But I came, I stayed, and I will not stop preaching about the style here. Sure, the film is as fragmented as any superhero movie, and sure, it consistently skews left of expectations. It's so large and loud and busy that it makes even the wonderful and bloated Batman v Superman feel simple and sweet (and I loved the extended cut of that movie). It's a rush of pop art, with music and imagery and video games on its mind. It's fabulously excessive and gloriously escapist and troublingly incisive into the often unspoken psyche of superheroes. And it's the most -- well, it's the most. I love it. And now I think I'll go watch it again.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

Score: 3 / 5

Let's not split too many hairs about it, Godzilla vs. Kong is the sort of trashy mess that I usually try to avoid. It features lengthy sequences that, in any other franchise, I'd call utterly unwatchable. More often than not, it feels like a video game in ridiculously high definition. At least disaster movies usually focus on human characters, but this feels more like the smash-bang hoopla of a Transformers movie, which is to say, not particularly satisfying as anything but mindless summer action. Then again, it is the climactic part of the franchise that birthed it, and as such deserves some consideration in context of its buildup and its intended effect on future films. As the COVID box office leader, its financial successes will surely lead to more monster mayhem. We can certainly hope so, and that they will anchor it back into the aesthetic and themes that birthed it.

The fourth installment of Legendary's MonsterVerse begins with a distinctly troubling opening credits montage. Not troubling in terms of plot or theme, but troubling in terms of franchise: apparently five years have passed since the events of the magnificent Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and all the recorded Titans are eliminated. It's not totally clear if they have been, like Kong, isolated in secure facilities for observation and containment, or if they have been killed (by humans) or defeated (by Godzilla). The opening credits wind their way through a bracket, like sports teams, in which each loser is marked with a red X, until apparently the only two remaining are the giant ape and the giant lizard. After such beautiful and suggestive renderings of other Titans in the previous film, it's horrific to me, as a fan, that they'd so quickly kill everyone off simply so they can get to the "showdown" fight between the god and the king.

At least they could have given us a Monster Island movie first.

But without the inherent creepiness of some of the kaiju, Godzilla vs. Kong works best as an action film on the scope of a disaster movie. Its woefully thin story begins innocuously, with Kong held in a Monarch observation dome on Skull Island (and a strange aside suggesting that, for some reason, the encircling violent storm nearly destroyed the island before dissipating). Kong appears to have a nice enough life, and has developed a friendship with a little native Iwi girl who is deaf and uses sign language to communicate. Meanwhile, Godzilla attacks a facility in Pensacola, Florida, owned by Apex Cybernetics, apparently drawn there by mysterious experimentations and power surges.

A former Monarch scientist (Alexander Skarsgard, who has no business in a movie where he shows no skin) is approached by Apex to lead a term into the Hollow Earth to prove the theory of its existence as the homeland of the Titans and to search for other potential threats as well as alternative energy sources. He joins up with Rebecca Hall (I don't remember the character names, but they don't really matter anyway) and the Iwi girl and they transport Kong to Antarctica, where they plan to enter the Hollow Earth. Godzilla, drawn to Kong, attacks them en route and almost eliminates him. Round one goes to the lizard.

All this is fairly interesting plotting, and it works especially well as a development of the human organizations associated with the monsters. Monarch now fully represents the "good guys," the vindicated crypto scientists seeking to study and contain the Titans; Apex appears to be the new baddies, secretively experimenting and building something to combat the Titans. The human element poised to bring them down is led by a hilarious Brian Tyree Henry and Millie Bobby Brown, who infiltrate the Pensacola facility, get trapped in an underground high-speed train, and are shipped to another Apex facility in Hong Kong. It's all a little weird, but their discovery is one of the more exciting thrills of this movie, even if we see it coming hours in advance (I mean, Godzilla is the apex predator, so obviously the industrial machinists of Apex are doing something a little, well, mechanical to rival him).

If the first Godzilla was a Spielbergian encounter with a wondrous and dangerous Other, the first Kong was a Vietnam-era fever dream of violence and fun. Then, in King of the Monsters, we got a transcendent view of the apocalyptic possibilities these sacred kaiju could wreak on an abused and tortured Earth. The series worked hard to stress its theme of humans corrupting the world and nature fighting back, even as it repeatedly demonstrated that the monsters themselves are not intentionally killing humans for sport. The MonsterVerse fabulously manages to ground its movies in real, existential horror, allowing us glimpses of extinction-level events through the eyes of relatively inconsequential humans who nevertheless fail to understand that the only way forward is coexistence. The main characters are complex and conflicted, who grow even as they fail. When the army trucks roll up, it's often laughably silly, and we are well aware that most or all of the fighters will die.

But Godzilla vs. Kong, for all its energy and intensity, fumbles its characters. It doesn't know what to do with its own shadowy organizations, its complex human relationships, or even the parts of the plot it completely sacrifices on the altar of spectacle. I choked on my own incredulity during the impressively stupid journey Kong and his human handlers take to Hollow Earth; they fall through a black hole that becomes a weird, neon-blue jet, and it's all so fantastic, so utterly unbelievable, that I wasn't sure it belonged to the same movie, or even the franchise. Similarly, when Kong retrieves his weapon from Hollow Earth and activates the cosmic power source Apex is hunting -- that might actually allow him to defeat Godzilla -- Godzilla senses it and, in the most laughably absurd scene, blows his atomic breath straight down from downtown Hong Kong, through the crust, and into the Hollow Earth right where Kong is standing. What about the black hole and antigravity? Does anybody care?

And that's not to say Adam Wingard's (You're Next, The Guest, Blair Witch) installment in the franchise isn't without its pleasures. But, for me, they were a little too few and far between, laced thinly with excessively messy and dull action. The Hollow Earth scenes were a beautiful throwback to psychedelic fantasy standards of the '80s, and I wanted more of that. Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall, and Demian Bichir were fun to watch, even if they didn't get to do much, while everyone else was clearly squandered. Actually, part of me wonders if the film would have simply been better as a straight-up buddy monster mash, as Godzilla and Kong are here treated as anthropomorphized boxers in a ring. They get about three chances to knock each other out, and between their impressive physicality and cartoonish facial expressions, the movie seems determined to make them the primary characters in human terms. I don't love that at all, and can easily see this as a turning point for the franchise into self-parody.

Let's just hope the next torch-carrier chooses to respect the awe and horror of this franchise without settling for spectacle.

The Unholy (2021)

 Score: 3 / 5

Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the unfortunately named Gerry Fenn, a disaster of a journalist. The sort of world-weary, washed-up mess of a guy he plays so very well (Desierto, The Possession), Gerry is eking along as an outcast reporter, traveling long distances to "investigate" ridiculous and bizarre things. His most recent trip brought him to a rural Massachusetts town, where a farmer is a little too ignorant to know that the apparent mutilation of his cows are really just Metallica logos painted on by bored kids. Naturally, he's drinking a lot, and his grungy, grizzled manners are off-putting to just about everyone.

Well, almost everyone. Young Alice (Cricket Brown), niece of the local priest, is known to be deaf and mute, but after a supernatural encounter at a gnarled old tree next to the Catholic church, she miraculously can hear. She claims to have seen the Virgin Mary in the tree, and the oracle will use Alice as her mouthpiece. She speaks shockingly well, too, and determines that Gerry will be her exclusive outlet for delivering her messages to the masses. Because hers is not the only miracle: she performs healings and blessings in the name of her beloved Lady. Gerry sees her as his ticket back into business, but his gruff charm belies a heart quickly warming to the otherwise faithful and innocent girl.

Gerry's protective -- dare we say fatherly? -- relationship with Alice is one of the several things the film does not handle well. It's believable, and that's a definite plus, but it's interesting and unusual in the genre, and I wanted more insight and drama from it as a result. It's almost treated as a given that Alice needs an outlet, and that he is the natural choice. His desperation isn't made as clear, in the film, as his eye for opportunity. Moreover, the film clearly doesn't understand journalism, as there is no way he can afford motels and travel expenses on the bizarre stories he writes for, what, $150? And there are two or three early bits of dialogue that suggest he intentionally rewrites reality to skew the story for wider readership and sensationalism; the last thing we need now is more examples of fake news.

But, for whatever reason, the relationship works, and soon the masses descend on the town, convinced it is a new Lourdes or Fatima. The sick and downtrodden hope for miracles; the pious hope for proof it is either a hoax or the real deal. Alice's uncle summons a bishop (Cary Elwes with an ungodly Boston accent) and monsignor (hunky Diogo Morgado) to investigate, and suddenly global interest focuses on the creepy-ass dead tree where Mary appears to Alice. But Alice is in charge, or rather Mary is, and she controls the circus like a pro. "Doubt weakens faith," she declares, quelling any naysayers by harnessing the virtue and intervention of her faithful followers. She goes viral, and we're treated to online videos of girls feeling "seen" as they watch and react to videos of Alice's speeches and miracles. This fascinating montage deserved a lot more time and consideration in the film, as the tension slowly rises for our main characters: Is Mary really the Blessed Virgin? Is the Emperor actually wearing any clothes?

It's a fun release for Holy Week, and has some really cool ideas about the nature of religion -- especially popular religion in the age of information -- in a postmodern world. It has a lot of heart between the two leads, and it has a lot of suitably scary bits that mostly rely on jump-scares and a creeping sensation of dread. And despite some really clever, moody-broody cinematography, it's largely a standard exercise in diabolical horror. Its greatest source of tension, the question of Mary's true nature and intentions, are undermined from the very beginning, which makes the proceedings feel inevitable and morose rather than thrilling and disturbing. I'd watch this movie as a counterpart to The Exorcism of Emily Rose, by far by favorite in the subgenre, and I will continue to wish this movie took more leaves from that book. The most original ideas in The Unholy are mostly left unfertilized, so the hints of thematic and theological depth are as suggestive and engaging as they are ultimately disappointing.

The Courier (2021)

 Score: 3 / 5

British businessman Greville Wynne is surprised to be meeting two rather uptight people for an exclusive lunch. When he finds out one is with MI6 and the other is with the CIA, he seems both amused and bewildered. When they attempt to recruit him to help smuggle secrets out of Russia, he's completely dumbfounded. The year is 1960, and fears are growing about nuclear weapons in communist countries; Wynne is more interested in succeeding in his work to support his wife and son than in frequently flying to Moscow. But the agents are convinced that he, with no ties to the government and the theatricality inherent in salesmanship, is a perfect secret agent. They connect him with a secret Russian agent named Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidze), and the two embark on a dangerous mission to help President Kennedy as the Cuban Missile Crisis looms.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Wynne with somewhat atypical flair. Usually typecast as a introverted brainiac with unsavory social tendencies, here Cumberbatch seems to relish a more emotionally-driven character. The movie is, frankly, worth watching almost solely for the unexpected drama he proves himself adept at conveying. As he attempts to become the titular courier of intel, we never doubt that he's in pretty far over his head. His frequent conversations with his intelligence agent "handlers" -- Angus Wright and Rachel Brosnahan -- reveal his discomfort with lying to his wife and being constantly in danger of arrest. The Russians in the film are clearly ruthless, and fears of being thrown in a gulag are almost debilitating to the proper British gentleman. Well, "proper" when he's not schmoozing with potential clients; it's a joy to watch a loose Cumberbatch confirm for the Russians their worst suspicions about capitalist Westerners in raucous barrooms.

Remember Bridge of Spies, back in 2015? This movie reminded me of that, and of earlier movies in the genre, especially Hitchcock's. Based on true events that revolve around Cold War spies between Russia and the West, these films are most accessible as a character study, delving into the personal costs of espionage in service to your country (and, of course, the world generally). While I doubt The Courier will ever be considered an iconic or even particularly memorable entry in this genre, there's still a lot to be said for a smartly produced picture (Sean Bobbitt's engrossing cinematography feels as though it could have been made back in the 60s, while never feeling less than contemporary) with bankable stars who make a movie that comforts and interests and entertains us, even through and perhaps because of the clichés it relies upon.

Director Dominic Cooke and screenwriter Tom O’Connor work hard to strike a balance between spy-thriller action and character drama, and they mostly succeed. The movie's heart seems to be given to Wynne and Penkovsky, whose scenes together are often both fraught with tension and brimming with warm feelings. As the two men work together, they become entangled in each other's personal lives. Penkovsky even visits Wynne's family in England and becomes friendly with his wife and son. But Wynne's wife Sheila, played by Jessie Buckley, was the most interesting character to me. Patient and supportive and endlessly forgiving, she plays the dutiful wife even as she begins to suspect her husband is having an affair. He's exercising a lot, and trying new things in bed, and of course taking lots of long trips for work. When she finally learns what he's really been up to, she's utterly heartbreaking as she fights her own guilt for not trusting him and being unable to tell him, now that it's too late.

For it is indeed too late, when Wynne and Penkovsky are captured, imprisoned, and tortured by the KGB. The subsequent scenes are tired and morose, mostly taking place in dimly lit, grimy cells as they are deprived of food and sleep, beaten and abused, and isolated for two years. I found my mind drifting during these scenes simply due to their familiarity; the film renewed my interest for their final scene together, when Penkovsky's betrayal leads to his execution and Wynne is finally released after maintaining his innocence. Its sentimentality works as a result of the unpleasantness of the preceding 40 minutes or so, but I would have preferred more information about the spying and less about the incarceration, partly out of historical interest and partly because cutting out what is essentially stock footage of imprisonment would have made for a more engaging second half of the story.