What a haunting and ambiguous experience this was!
A mysterious woman drives throughout Scotland seemingly for the sole reason to abduct men.
If there's one thing you should know, I will happily watch anything if Scarlett Johansson is in it, and I will probably be biased towards it too (see Iron Man 2) but despite this it took me a while getting around to watching independent movie Under the Skin.
If I told you the title itself is all the exposition this film gives you, then you get a pretty accurate presentation of how ambiguous this film really is. If you aren't interested by a story that doesn't provide any exposition (or even much dialogue in this case too!) and leaves a lot up to your own interpretation... you must avoid this film.
Under the Skin is a quiet and unsettling affair. Johansson's unnamed woman is shown driving her van in silence, looking for men who are alone so she can abduct them. Her character barely speaks, using the men's own urges to convince them to go with her. These stalkings are shot guerilla-style with cameras mounted in the dashboard or within the van, and some of her encounters are actually improvised with the Scottish public.
But what happens to these men that she lures away? Those encounters are abstract with sound and light and are highly sexualised.
Some might say this is the most objectified Johansson has ever been; the actress usually avoiding total reliance on her appearance, and certainly Under the Skin gives little else when looked at, shall I say, skin deep? But in the most underplayed and subtle way the film evolves without speaking a word, her character's predatory needs begin to appear functional and not natural as she appears to lack any sense of self preservation when in danger.
I cannot say more without spoiling it. The film is unsettling but extremely subtle. It has unpleasant and harrowing scenes but they are all shot with such lack of empathy, mirroring the woman's own inhumanity. Did I enjoy it, you ask? I did! It was evocative and I like stories that leave the audience something to think about; ambiguity is a good thing. That and seeing Johansson driving about Glasgow city was great! But it isn't for those with a shorter attention span or those who need anything or everything explained.
Much like its predecessor, The Raid 2 is a perpetual stunt demo of incredible choreography that puts all other action movies to shame. And like its predecessor, if you are looking for plot you aren't going to find much here.
Being the soul survivor of the drug raid on a tyrant's tower block, police officer Rama is recruited by a small internal affairs police unit hoping to hunt down crooked cops. But upon going undercover for one of the local mobs he finds himself caught in the middle of a massive turf war.
2012's The Raid was a simple but effective affair, boasting some of the best fight choreography to date but being light on any real character outside of this. The sequel boasts a plethora of characters (who are mostly given significance by whichever weapon they happen to use: baseball bat, hammers, blades) which makes the proceedings more memorable but more importantly it has a Godfather-esque power struggle between mob syndicates. This is a very different movie in tone and theme.
The action is primarily hand-to-hand combat with a host of unique fight sequences to fill a runtime one hour longer than the original! No, it certainly doesn't get tedious! If you enjoyed The Raid you will enjoy the hell out of this too, and if you haven't seen The Raid I insist that you do and discover whether you should see its sequel too.
But for what it does with plotlines becomes quite simple and predictable, and some of the more traditional fight sequences are also cliched. For example, one of the film's main battles is a highway car chase (don't misunderstand, it beats The Matrix Reloaded car chase into the dirt) but I felt there were a lot of action cliches being thrown liberally around, like how villains with guns cannot shoot or hit the hero when it matters most. For a films with such incredible choreography, errors like that stood out all the more.
The film amazed and captivated me with the sheer lunacy and intensity of the fighting, but little more than that. All action films should take note of how these movies are shot. A sequence of testosterone and adrenaline fuelled battles one after another.
Nightcrawler is one of those films that does so much with so little; a meticulous escalation of one character's desires coupled with a rich subtext of media's rotten underbelly.
Louis Bloom is a nobody. He has no friends, no close family and zero empathy for others. His shallow attempts to give his life meaning begin by stealing and selling to a buyer only to simultaneously ask for a job.
But upon seeing a near-fatal car accident one night, he sees the potential as a freelance cameraman; his lack of compassion fitting the need to get in close on grisly accident and crime scenes. But when his lawless approach to reporting gets the attention of a sensationalist News network boss, his cravings escalate to dangerous levels.
I am late in seeing this movie, and as many reviewers have already made clear: Jake Gyllenhaal dominates this movie, taking centre stage and making it work seamlessly, his anti-hero persona as Bloom is captivating. He is lost within this character he has created: little personal ticks, how haunted yet enlivened he appears. Bloom is a psychotic with no passion beyond that of a textbook; his conversations with others rattle with business cliches and management hyperbole to the point were one sniggers, yet Gyllenhaal delivers it all with suitable conviction making it all the more real. We are told next to nothing about Bloom's past, we can only take him on his word.
The film is a murky and often quiet experience, relying heavily on Gyllenhaal's performance to carry much of the film's storytelling. This is a character piece, the film isn't a jumble of subplots and exposition, no flashbacks or flashforwards. We see Bloom begin with absolutely nothing, and watch him connive and sneak his way to success by filming the aftermaths of ghastly accidents and crimes.
Sounds a little like DiCaprio's Belfort in Wolf of Wall Street, though unlike that film Nightcrawler is beautifully paced and edited without repetition. Coupled that film's ability to make the audience sympathise and even empathise with such a crazed anti-hero with the style of Drive, I honestly have a hard time thinking of anything inherently wrong with Nightcrawler...
The characters are all generally unlikeable people, deliberately so. Gyllenhaal is the poster boy of snide and calculating, but Rene Russo's Nina, his employer, is equally as deprived by fuelling this man's unhealthy and unjust methods. Bill Paxton is a fellow "nightcrawler" and provides Bloom's competition. The only heart that is still beating is in Bloom's "assistant" Rick (Riz Ahmed) a man so desperate for work that he cannot turn Bloom's insane ideas down.
Some people have issue with films that lack the more traditional, conventional themes and characters, and Nightcrawler is an unconventional look at sensationalist News coverage in the worst light possible. I cannot imagine everyone "enjoying" it, but I would hope audiences can at least appreciate how effective it is at delivering its subtext.
As unconventional as it is, it is excellently made and wonderfully well paced, and this reviewer can find little wrong with it!
Interstellar's beauty is skin deep: at its best it is inspiring and gorgeous to look at; at its worst it can be cliched and paradoxically lacking in explanation.
Planet Earth is dying. The land is turning into a dustbowl and little to no life or vegetation can survive the dust storms that ravage the surface. Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) lives as a farmer but once flew experimental aircraft due to growing demands of produce. His aspirations (and his ideal for Humanity) is to travel to other worlds, and when his daughter mysteriously finds the location of a secret government project of interstellar travel, he finds his destiny to be woven with that of Humanity's survival.
To say Interstellar is heavy material would be an understatement. Running at a weighty two hours and fifty you will feel exhausted by the end of it all, yet for all its perpetual severity and borderline preaching, it has great pacing and as a film it feels complete. Throw in some of its dry humour (something director/co-writer/producer Christopher Nolan is getting better and better at!) it does tide you through it all once you register its ponderous pace.
The actors are great, including the child actors, and the casting itself is splendidly tactful. The star of the show though is the visuals, which is why I came to see it to be fair. There are whopping big parallels with Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and also Danny Boyle's massively underrated Sunshine, but made more mainstream than either of those by reducing jargon and "science" to a minimum. In fact, Nolan has notoriety for having scripts that over-analyse every solitary concept presented and one would imagine Interstellar, with its sci-fi near-future setting and pre-requisite for theoretical physics and space travel, it will start sounding like a thesaurus rendition. But Nolan's script is surprisingly light! Maybe a little... too light.
So it feels wrong to criticise Nolan for scrimping on details, but perhaps it was needed. Interstellar somehow feels too short for the awesome weight of time and information to be shown. While this is near-future, we are still dealing with massive distances and incredible time distortions. Yes we have robots, yes we have cryo-stasis, but when your characters flippantly say things like: "I'll have a couple of years to study it", only to wrap this concept up with a simple cut, the audience will be perplexed. Compound this further when things go wrong and a couple of years becomes decades!
Going into a film like this, having seen 2001 and Sunshine, I wasn't that surprised at any particular point. I was amazed, in awe, at the high definition spectacle. Planets with frozen clouds or colossal tidal waves, these things capture my imagination! But as a story things get very flaky in the third act, and actually jeopardise the entire venture.
You see the problem is, with all three films, is when Humanity (or at least your entire cast, who are by extension representing Humanity) is unified to one goal, the goal to survive, it is very hard to write in a believable antagonist or threat. Interstellar might have been a sci-fi docu-drama about the Solar system and I'd have been perfectly happy! But no... this is cinema, it needs a third act twist, and unfortunately I saw it coming a mile off. After this the screenplay wants to have its cake and eat it too, which felt a trifle forced. Honestly, I preferred Boyle's Sunshine.
But Interstellar is a good movie and deserving a watch (on IMAX it would look gorgeous!) It stumbles as it carries its own incredible weight, but it inspires all the right feelings. Acting is good, visuals are gorgeous, the spikes of humour brings out laughs, the first and (especially) the second act are the best and most credible.
