Vengeance (2022) - Review

 

Deep in the heart of the south, direct in the center of the great state of Texas, BJ Novak’s (“The Office,” “The Newsroom”) directorial debut “Vengeance”, which he also writes and stars in, takes a yuppie New York wannabe-true-crime-podcaster and puts him smack in the middle of conspiracy and paranoia as well as deep fried twinkies and rodeos.

After an abrupt phone call from her brother Ty, played perfectly by Boyd Holbrook (“Logan,” “Narcos”), Novak’s Ben Manalowitz flies from New York to West Texas for the funeral of a one-time fling from New York, Abilene Shaw, played via video footage by Lio Tipton (“Warm Bodies,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love”). However, after Ty tells Ben he believes she was murdered and wants his help to solve the mystery, Ben begins recording the search in the hopes of turning it into a true-crime podcast.

Rounding out the cast is Dove Cameron (“Descendants,” “”Dumplin’”) as Kansas City, Ty’s younger sister, Issa Rae (“Insecure,” “The Lovebirds”) as Eloise, Ben’s friend and producer, Ashton Kutcher (“That 70s Show,” “jobs”) as Quinten Sellers, a music producer based out of Texas, Isabella Amara (“Wilson,” “euphoria”) as Ty’s other younger sister Paris, J. Smith-Cameron (“Succession,” “Rectify”) as Sharon, the matriarch of the Shaw family, Louanne Stephens (“Friday Night Lights,” “Longmire”) as Granny Carol of the Shaws, and Eli Bickel as the youngest of the Shaws, referred to as El Stupido.

Even as the writing sometimes fails to do the characters justice, every member of the cast does a great job of bringing their characters to life with their performances. Sure, Kansas City might be a bit one note and Eloise spends a lot of time just talking to Ben on the phone, but even within that Cameron and Rae are doing their damndest to do right by these characters.

Novak has written plenty of smart things before, be they children’s books or television episodes, but “Vengeance” is clearly his most ambitious work yet for numerous reasons. Likely the biggest is the simple fact that he’s trying to turn the fish-out-of-water, us-versus-them American revenge story on its head. There’s clearly so much effort put into the characterizations of the “Texan yokels” to help set them apart from the more one-note stereotypes that have existed for years.

It's a kind film in that way. Novak clearly wants to give these people the time and respect they deserve. It leads to some odd bits of humor though when the jokes seem derived from how stupid they are, but things smooth out as the film’s real target for humor and for the message becomes clear.

Even as the mystery aspect of the film fails to rise to the heights Novak might have wanted, it all works so well because of the characterizations. Holbrook endears you to his character so early and so earnestly that it helps to open you to the rest of these Texans. He’s the heart and soul of the film and its so easy to love him and by extension love the film through him.

If there’s one thing that does suffer, it’s the film’s ending. While the overall themes and ideas work and are still in line with the rest of the film, there’s a particular moment in the film’s final ten minutes that feels extremely out of place and character.

Besides that, though, for a debut, the film looks nice enough, shooting the massive Texas open plains with an appropriately plain point of view that does end up working well. Oddly, the musical score from musician Finneas O'Connell might be the biggest standout aspect of the film, injecting a healthy amount of electronic vibes and heavy synths to this dusty trail mystery.

For a feature directorial debut, there are plenty of places that “Vengeance” could have gone wrong. And while it doesn’t avoid all of the pitfalls of both the “smart Yuppie” story or the first-time feature, Novak does construct an interesting mystery packed with fun and lovable characters that’s consistently interesting and amusing if not as profound as it expects it to be. Oddly enough, for a film about a podcaster, the biggest lesson that could’ve helped this film is “show, don’t tell.” 4/5

DC League of Super-Pets - Review

 

It’s hard to watch any animated, semi-self-referential, family friendly, based-on-a-DC-property comedy without immediately thinking of “The LEGO Batman Movie.” It might seem unfair to do so, and maybe it is. But as the only other theatrically released animated DC film, and one that was animated by the same studio as “League of Super-Pets”, its hard not to. But even without that comparison, “Super-Pets” flaws would be plain to see, if not particularly egregious or damning.

Following Krypto the Super-Dog, voiced by Dwayne Johnson (“Jungle Cruise,” “Moana”), the film follows his attempts to rescue Superman, voiced by John Krasinski (“The Office,” “A Quiet Place”), and the rest of the Justice League after their capture by the maniacal guinea pig Lulu, voiced by Kate McKinnon (“The Spy Who Dumped Me,” “Saturday Night Live”). He teams up with a group of shelter pets who find themselves with newly acquired superpowers; Ace the dog, voiced by Kevin Hart (“Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” “The Secret Life of Pets”), PB the pig, voiced by Vanessa Bayer (“Saturday Night Live,” “Trainwreck”), Merton the turtle, voiced by Natasha Lyonne (“But I’m A Cheerleader,” “Russian Doll”), and Chip the squirrel, voiced by Diego Luna (“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” “Narcos: Mexico”).

It's hard to call any of the vocal performances good, but they certainly aren’t bad either. Johnson is clearly enthusiastic in his super role, McKinnon might not be doing a lot of acting besides an “evil” accent but she’s clearly having fun, and even Hart puts a bit of gruffness into his normal speaking voice for the role. Nobody is bad, but the best performances in the film are the blink and you’ll miss it ones. Krasinski’s Superman feels like the best version of the character since the 90s animated series purely because of how joyful he is, and Keanu Reeves’s (“The Matrix,” “John Wick”) borderline cameo as Batman is one of the film’s most inspired choices.

The lack of truly memorable voice talent hints at a much larger issue for the film as a whole. It is nice to hear a group of mostly comedians, those who have experience contorting their voices, play most of the characters, but no one stands out. It’s easy to place blame at the actors, but a large part should also be placed on the film’s overall lackluster script. Honestly, it’s fine if the plotting of a script is predictable (and this one absolutely feels like its been duct taped together from ten different animated films from the last decade) but if the humor starts to become grating, then that’s an entirely different issue.

Written by Jared Stern (“The Watch,” “The LEGO Batman Movie”) and John Whittington (“The LEGO Batman Movie,” “Sonic the Hedgehog 2”), with Stern also directing, the script feels like the first draft of a joke book based around superheroes. It’s not just that the jokes are groan worthy most of the time, its that most of them were old hat ten years ago. Lines like “I have superpowers and I don’t even have a dead uncle” or “Why couldn’t I have gotten a magic hammer or something?” are cheap at best, but they’re at least far preferable to ones like the classic “how did that embarrassing photo get in there?” bit. But there are also some truly bizarre moments like how Merton the turtle will openly curse and be censored throughout the film. Not like a joke curse or censored by someone talking over her, like an actual television bleep noise curse. It’s really weird.

Animation wise, things aren’t much better. Despite being animated by Animal Logic, the studio behind “Legend of the Guardians,” the “LEGO” film series, and the “Happy Feet” series. Every film obviously requires a different look to sell it, and there are things admirable about the art direction in “Super-Pets.” But it also just feels so simplistic. The backgrounds and buildings might have a cool, pseudo art deco look to them as if referring back to the 90s Superman animated series. But Krypto and his friends look bland, smooth, and overly simplistic, as if they’re ready made to be dropped into an HBO Max original series with a significantly lower budget. That being said, like the art deco look, the lighting is quite strong across the film, especially in the third act where the look becomes much stronger.

Despite all of these criticisms, there’s one thing that “Super-Pets” has in spades and that makes it all worthwhile. It’s a relatively sincere film, though still not afraid to undercut an emotional moment with a poor joke. But when it is legitimately being sincere, it sneaks into your heart in ways that only a movie about pets and their owners can. The third act is also remarkably engaging once the action starts, making sure the film absolutely ends on its highest note.

While it would be nice if Stern and Whittington’s script was more confident in its sincerest moments and had far stronger jokes, the overall experience of “DC League of Super-Pets” (the official title, annoyingly) is a relatively painless one. The voice acting is perfectly fine, even pretty good at times, and the moments where the action picks up and the sincerity actually lands are engaging and fun. It’s a shame that this couldn’t have been the entire film, but in a world of increasingly mediocre family films, you could do a lot worse. 3/5

Nope - Review

 

There is arguably no one in modern cinema who’s name alone can get butts in seats other than Jordan Peele (“Get Out,” “Us”). It might seem like an exaggeration, but people rarely show up for Marvel movies for the directors, and even sure things like Spielberg, James Gunn, or Ridley Scott all had acclaimed movies underperform in the last year. The secrecy surrounding his latest film also likely helps a great deal as, even compared to “Get Out” and “Us”, many who’ve seen the film’s marketing are seeing it simply to answer the question: “What the hell is going on?”

Daniel Kaluuya (“Get Out,” “Judas and the Black Messiah”) and Keke Palmer (“Hustlers,” “Akeelah and the Bee”) bother star as siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood. They run a horse training ranch for Hollywood productions in the Agua Dulce gulch in California and one night, while out with one of the horses, OJ swears he sees something flying around in the sky.

That’s all the plot details that’ll be recapped here, and even that might be slightly too much info to give. Unlike Shyamalan movies or the likes of “Avengers: Endgame”, this isn’t about spoiling a twist or a big reveal. Peele’s proven himself as a master of suspense, of the slow, earned reveal. His films feel like tricks; its no mistake that when the first trailer for “Nope” was released, most seemed suspicious of how much it showed and how much Peele might be messing with audiences.

Regardless of its content, “Nope” is Peele’s most gorgeously shot film yet. Working with cinematographer Hoye van Hoytema (“Dunkirk,” “Tenet”), these wide expanses and inky blue nighttime sequences are shot with such clarity and openness that it almost feels like an expansive documentary. Not only are these shots gorgeous, but they also provide the perfect canvas for the film’s big spectacles to play. It’s a gorgeous display of naturalistic beauty juxtaposed against otherworldly horrors. Some of these sequences are the stuff of nightmares, but not coherent ones, instead recalling the nightmares that are the scariest because they’re made of shapeshifting dream imagery and the horror comes from not being able to decipher what you’re looking at quickly enough.

Michael Abels (“Get Out,” “Us”) returns to score Peele’s latest, and his music is as infectious as always. Building constantly with calming strings to crescendos filled with choral chants and horns, it’s a score that pays just as much tribute to the alien movies of Spielberg as the film itself does. More so than ever before though, Peele and his crew have nailed the sound design and mixing here. Effects and music blend together in such effective, haunting ways, and it mixes the entire film together to be a true spectacle in every sense of the word.

Kaluuya turns in a performance here just as good as his prior films, although much more understated. It’s likely no accident that his character trains horses for a living, as much of the emotional weight he pulls into the film feels like that of a John Wayne-era cowboy: calm, collected, plotting, with a steely-eyed gaze only strengthened by his legendarily beautiful eyes. Palmer, meanwhile, is the film’s absolute standout. What begins as a character with a clearly comedic edge instead becomes one of intense emotional resolve. She’s a delight the entire time, finally getting a role deserving of her long career in the industry.

Steven Yeun (“Minari,” “Okja”) also stars and turns in a performance made of far more hubris and pain than one might initially expect. His character is clearly a huge piece of the puzzle of what Peele is trying to say, and Yeun fits in perfectly. Brandon Perea (“The OA,” “Doom Patrol”) is another standout as Angel, an electronic store technician who helps OJ and Emerald out. He, like Palmer, beings more comedically, but grows over the course of the film to easily hold his own against out sibling protagonists. Michael Wincott (“The Crow,” “Strange Days”) rounds out the cast as a grizzled Hollywood cinematographer and his deep voice and bravado provide the perfect antithesis to these young bucks trying to get the money shot.

Wincott’s role is one that provides the perfect segue to one of the film’s best and most selective elements. Peele has written a film that is a clear love letter to the people working behind the scenes in the world of filmmaking. Animal trainers, electricians, cinematographers, the people who don’t get the time in the spotlight: the crew. That also ties into the themes of the film and, without giving too much away, let’s just say that every time Peele has referred to this as a “spectacle” in interview, he’s chosen his words very carefully.

Despite the clear and obvious amount of talent on screen, its clear that “Nope” is a very different film compared to Peele’s previous works and that will likely lead to a more varied reaction from audiences. Some of the particular shots and moments are deeply upsetting in an almost shocking way, and there’s a subplot that will likely confuse and disturb most general audience members. These aren’t criticisms so much, as these elements are still excellently put together, but it does mean that this will likely be Peele’s most divisive movie yet.

For this critic, at least, “Nope” represents Peele continuing to barrel through Hollywood and continuing to prove he’s one of the best directors and writers working today. After nailing micro and mid-budget films, he’s returned in the height of summer to prove that he can nail a big, thrilling, scary blockbuster spectacle like the best of them, without sacrificing an inch of emotion, allegory, fantastic performances and music, and gorgeous cinematography. To state something many others have likely already said, say yes to “Nope”. 5/5

Thor: Love & Thunder - Review

 

After the massive acclaim and success of “Thor: Ragnarok” in 2017, it appears that Marvel Studios have decided, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and left Taika Waititi (“What We Do In The Shadows,” “Jojo Rabbit”) to work his weird magic with yet another Thor film. Bringing back not only Korg, Valkyrie, and Jane Foster, this new adventure seems just as brightly colored and audacious as Waititi’s last trip with the space viking. However, things simply don’t come together as seamlessly as they did in the 2017 film.

Picking up after the events of “Avengers Endgame,” which saw Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth (“Bad Times at the El Royale,” “12 Strong”) leaving for space with the Guardians of the Galaxy and Valkyrie, played by Tessa Thompson (“Creed,” “Men in Black: International”) taking up the mantel of King of New Asgard on Earth, “Love & Thunder” has Thor tracking down Gorr the God Butcher, played by Christian Bale (“American Psycho,” “The Dark Knight”) who seeks to kill all gods as vengeance. Along the way, not only does Thor reteam with Korg, played again by Waititi, and Valkyrie, but also his ex-girlfriend, Dr. Jane Foster, Natalie Portman (“V for Vendetta,” “Black Swan”) reprising her role, now with the power of Thor’s old hammer Mjolnir.

The cast are all clearly committed to the raucous tone that Waititi is going for, and there’s a clear sense of full, silly commitment across the board, from the likes of Hemsworth to minor parts like Russell Crowe (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Gladiator”) as Zeus. It ends up resulting in something closer to the likes of a children’s story in tone, like something told before bed. It has plenty of jokes, sometimes too many, and bright colors, but also darkness, visual and tonally. But it doesn’t feel overpowering, rather it’s the kind of darkness that regularly filled out animated Disney films in the 90s like “The Black Cauldron,” with creatures hiding in the shadows and monsters in closets.

Despite the difference in that darkness and the otherwise light tone, it all works because of how un-seriously Waititi and crew treat it. They aren’t disrespectful to the audience or the characters. Rather, they keep things just serious enough for the plot and arcs to work without taking things so intensely seriously to risk becoming pompous or making the darkness too, well, dark.

However, the film’s emotional arcs do represent a massive double-edged sword in the form of its main two leads: Thor and Jane. On the one hand, Jane’s arc is done remarkably well, lending the character a new sense of freshness and agency that simply wasn’t a possibility before. She’s a delight and the highlight of the film both because of her arc and Portman’s performance. Meanwhile, Thor seems stuck. While that works when played for laughs, when the film gets into the emotional side of his character, it becomes apparent that this is the same sort of story we’ve seen told with him before, in “Endgame,” and “Ragnarok,” and the first “Thor” movie. It makes his emotional arc of the film simply drag far more than it should, with Hemsworth saving it from becoming too much of a slog.

Bale, meanwhile, is an absolute delight. He plays Gorr with the kind of glee of a twisted carnival barker. Almost like if you took Willy Wonka and created a direct inverse of him. The makeup and costuming are of course fantastic, but he just gets so much glee from being so freaky and evil, without taking away from the concreteness of his arc later in the film.

Visually, the film is… well, it’s a lot. On the one hand there’s a clear style that Waititi and crew are going for here, with the same garish bright colors and neon scenery that were on display in “Rangarok.” It works for the most part, but it’s at no point convincing. Sure, no one should walk into a film like this and expect the same gritty, realistic effects of something like “The Winter Soldier,” but style only gets you so far as an excuse for some of the film’s visual messiness.

But even beyond the film’s tone, visuals, and acting, the sense of humor here is oddly enough one of the film’s weakest aspects. It works when its being tongue in cheek and at least halfway subtle. But the longer the film goes on, the weirder it all gets, and it starts to become less and less effective. Sure, if you’re pitching jokes and gags as fast as this, one out of two hitting isn’t bad. But it leads to a feeling of almost whiplash for the audience as jokes never really stop flying by. When it does work though, Waititi and co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (“Unpregnant,” “Someone Great”) deliver some of the best visual gags in all of the MCU. You’ll never look at Stormbreaker or Mjolnir the same way again.

There are also a handful of elements that are really fun as their introduced but are then dropped and never seen again. The creatures Thor and the Guardians fight in the film’s opening are insanely cool looking, and then nothing else even remotely as cool is seen again. New Asgard seems to have a new mass-market commercialize look to it. To what end? Who knows? Even the Guardians are simply dropped after the film’s first fifteen minutes, making one wonder why even include them at all. For a film that’s made headlines for being a Marvel project under two hours, there’s a remarkable amount of fat in the first act that could easily be cut, while other elements are underutilized.

“Love & Thunder” might sound like a mixed bag, but it gets it right where it counts. The cast is as great as they’ve ever been, and Waititi’s sense of humor hits more than it misses. The children’s story tone of it all really works wonderfully well, and Jane’s arc is also a delight. It’s not nearly as flawlessly executed as something like “Ragnarok” and it won’t be to everyone’s liking, but there’s still plenty to enjoy in the latest adventure of the space viking. 3.5/5

Minions: The Rise of Gru - Review

 

In just twelve years, Despicable Me has spawned two sequels with one more in development, a spinoff film, a sequel to the spinoff film, a theme park ride, a television holiday special, and possibly quite literally mountains of merchandise for those little yellow indestructible minions.

Reviewing one of the films seems to be almost an exercise in futility. They’re all guaranteed to make money, and even the critical reactions from film to film hardly change. At their best, the films are pleasant time wasters. At their worst, they’re slightly annoying but still relatively harmless. They don’t even have the common decency to be wholly bad, instead settling into that accursed place that’s worse than any film fan could possibly imagine: mediocrity.

“Minions: The Rise of Gru” follows the same three main Minions from the previous film, Kevin, Stuart, and Bob, all voiced by Pierre Coffin (“Despicable Me,” “Minions”), as they try to track down their “mini boss”, a pint-sized young Gru, voiced again by Steve Carell (“The 40 Year Old Virgin,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love”), after he’s kidnapped for stealing the precious Zodiac Stone. This is hardly the only plot thread going, as we also see Gru befriending his captor, his favorite villain Wild Knuckles, voiced by Alan Arkin (“Glengarry Glen Ross,” “The Kominsky Method”), the villain group Vicious Six trying to track down Gru and the Stone, and Otto, one of the Minions, trying to find the Stone for Gru. Oh, and don’t forget when the Minions learn Kung-Fu.

It's truly a grab bag of random plots, with nothing ever fitting together in a cohesive way. It’s as if the writers simply made a dart board of things they hadn’t yet done with the characters and then tossed some darts and wrote the movie. Each voice actor, practically a cameo role at this point, is wasted, apart from possible Taraji P. Henson (“Hidden Figures,” “Think Like A Man”) as Belle Bottom, the leader of the Vicious Six. She at least seems to be having a good time, chewing up every line as if her life depends on it.

But given the film’s cast of action stars and celebrities, it’s almost impressive how they’re squandered. Michelle Yeoh (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Everything Everywhere All At Once”) voices an acupuncturist and Kung-Fu master who teaches the Minions Kung-Fu. Not only is her delivery flat, the sequence itself feels like a short film that was retrofitted into this movie because it needed to be longer. The cast list also claims that the rest of the Vicious Six are voiced by Jean-Claude Van Damme (“Universal Soldier,” “Jean-Claude Van Johnson”), Lucy Lawless (“Xena: Warrior Princess,” “Ash vs. Evil Dead”), Dolph Lundgren (“Rocky IV,” “Masters of the Universe”), and Danny Trejo (“Spy Kids,” “Machete”), but it wouldn’t be hard to convince a viewer that they were voiced by anyone given that they probably say about ten words between them all in the entire runtime.

It's the sort of film that exists in such a bland, mediocre space that it almost becomes fascinating. How could this many supposedly creative people all work together to create a work this lifeless? At least the previous “Minions” film had an almost Three Stooges angle to its plot and some cleverness with the underground villain organization. There’s nothing here worth writing home about. Nothing at all. And this is supposedly the studio that’s making the first ever animated Mario film in 2023?

Have no fear though, because Illumination’s practice of using the same remarkably bland animation is here in spades. Like their previous films, nothing here looks bad, but nothing looks good either. It’s all so smooth and shiny, like someone focus tested an art style. It might have been passable at first, but it just looks worse and worse as the years go on. In an age where studios seem to be finally experimenting with their animation styles, with works like “Into the Spider-Verse,” “Turning Red,” and even the upcoming “Puss in Boots: The Last Wish”, it makes this cheap animation look even worse than it already did.

To go even further into criticisms would be an exercise in futility. If such action-packed events took place when Gru was a child, why was this never mentioned in the other films? Why do we need to see the younger versions of these background characters from the first film as if they’re holy figures from fiction? What are the biological implications of the Minion baby chick? Its maddening to think about any of this for more than a moment, but anyone who goes into “Minions: The Rise of Gru” above the age of 7 will likely think of one of those questions at some point during viewing.

But there’s no better question that sums up the film and its issues than this: if the point of the first film was that Gru wasn’t in it and it focused on the Minions, then why is this not just “Despicable Me 4” or “Despicable Me Jr.”? Why even call it a Minions movie if it has only slightly more Minion than the regular “Despicable Me” films? Questions like that will likely be wondered about until the end of time. In other news, film reviewer found dead during credits of latest “Minions” movie. The cause of death: lethal amounts of mediocre filmmaking. 2/5