The Marvels

★★★1/2

Mild Spoilers

Directed by Nia DaCosta
Written by Megan McDonnell and Elissa Karasik

I’m not going to do a synopsis for this one, but instead I will just point out that there will be two “new” key characters that you wouldn’t know about if you haven’t seen Wandavision or Ms. Marvel on Disney+. Three, if you also haven’t seen Captain Marvel, which should obviously be mandatory viewing since this is kind of a direct sequel to that one. You don’t really have to watch the other two shows since it’s pretty common for superhero movies to introduce new superheroes anyway. But Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) is such a lovable, charming character even in this one that I’d recommend checking out Ms. Marvel as well.

Now, the movie. People are going to go to town on this one, because unfortunately it has issues. The whole movie felt choppy and rushed, like it had been edited to hell. It makes for a breezy, undemanding watch, but I thought it undermined some dramatic moments that could have been great scenes if given enough screen time to permeate. There are also some cosmic pseudo-science nonsenses that glossed over some plot resolutions. In comic books, this is par for the course, but with cynical audiences nowadays, prepare to hear a lot of b****ing and moaning about why it didn’t “make sense”. I was already hearing it from the bros sitting behind me after the movie had ended, who said that the answer was because “they were women.” I mean, bro, why are you here, watching it then? I pity the sole girl in their group who had to pretend-laugh at their mockings. I might as well also mentioned that these idiots were also talking through the first half hour of the movie, which was something I never thought I’d ever come across again after I started going to first-day screenings. Apparently, the morons have finally spilled into my safe space.

I digress. Despite the issues, I thought this was a fun watch. The three leads did a good job, but Vellani was effortlessly the scene stealer. I really enjoyed the cosmic-space stuff - it’s similar to the Guardians of the Galaxy flicks but having to explore new planets makes the MC-Universe feels big. There’s nothing really too serious about The Marvels, which is really about three different but special women bonding during a silly space adventure. Their power sets are also a joy to watch even if they don’t make a lick of sense. It is also a pretty funny movie, especially one major gag of a set piece that everyone is certainly going to talk about a lot and spoil it in no time. (They are two; let’s see if you can guess which one I was actually referring to.) I would recommend it, especially for ardent MCU fans, but also warn that this is truly fluff and not a Marvel entry with huge consequences in the grand scheme of things.

Well, except for the end credits scene, of course.

P.S. Just wanted to point out my surprise of seeing Mohan Kapoor here, who plays Ms Marvel’s father, because he was publicly accused of sexually harassing a minor last December, but I’ve not heard or am able to Google any development on that story. It’s possible that they’ve already finished filming The Marvels and were in post-production when that news broke. I can see how it was difficult to cut him out of the movie if they ever had the intention to, because he was an integral familial figure in Ms Marvel’s life and appears in every scene that featured her family. It’s really odd that things like this kept happening to Marvel of late.

The Conjuring

★★★★

Mild Spoilers

Directed by James Wan
Written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes

Loosely based on real-life experts on the occult Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), who assist in authenticating cases before calling in the Vatican-sanctioned exorcists. The movie is about one of their most difficult assignments back in 1971, concerning the Perron family who encountered strange occurrences in their new home. It’s the one that also inspired the making of the Amityville movies.

No matter how much I see myself as a proponent of science, horror movies still scares me. A lot. Specifically, the supernatural ones. Science horrors like The Thing, Alien, The Fly I can take. But when it comes to the metaphysical, I’m a scaredy cat. I think Ringu might be the most frightening one for me. Goes without saying that I have a large stack of horror movie Blurays that are still left unwatched.

Back to The Conjuring. I like how the movie plays like a procedural and actually opens with a B case, in which they will quickly resolve before the end of the opening sequence. There is no doubt that the supernatural exists in the movie’s universe, but even so the Warrens’ investigations were methodical, sensible and even compelling. They didn’t just aimlessly flick holy water everywhere and call it a day.

Performances are strong across the board. I was surprised to see familiar faces like Joey King, Mackenzie Foy and Lili Taylor. Ron Livingston was the weakest link here, whom I thought didn’t sell his desperation convincingly enough. The standout was Farmiga, who exudes gravitas in everything she does. Wilson is good as the supporting and reliable husband and ghost-busting partner.

I noticed some influences from Asian horror cinema, e.g., women in white nightgowns, spirits latching on the backs of people, etc., probably coming from Australian director James Wan’s roots. (He grew up in Malaysia.) There are also nods to the classics like Poltergeist and The Exorcist. The Conjuring is really an amalgamation of several genres: a detective mystery, a haunted house story, and a possession flick rolled into one. It makes it unique from the never-ending slew of generic horror films, and I can see why a lot of people loved it.

It’s a good one; I’d recommend it. Now I just need to muster up enough courage to watch Part II, which some are already telling me is scarier than the first! Hopefully, I’d be done watching it before Halloween 2024!

Cocaine Bear

★★

Directed by Elizabeth Banks

Written by Jimmy Warden

Cocaine Bear is very, VERY loosely based on an actual incident in 1985 when a drug dealer tried to dump his stash of cocaine from an airplane, only to end up dead from a parachute malfunction, and his loot gobbled up by a wild bear who subsequently overdosed and died from its exotic meal. In the movie, the bear fictitiously went about tearing people to shreds in search for more of the white powder scattered across a forestry to sate its addiction. With the boffo box office that it’s doing (relative to its production costs), don’t be surprised to see more cheap bearsploitation films being released within a week.

I felt guilty for not defending M3GAN when people were deriding it for being silly and dumb. At least M3GAN had something to say, and that “audition” scene with the board of directors was absolutely riveting. Cocaine Bear had none of those. Outside of the cheap thrills of seeing a wild animal gratuitously dismember human beings, the majority of the movie was really dreary, with barely anything of interest to keep you engaged until the next bear rampage, while a number of other things even annoyed and frustrated. And speaking of bear rampages, the best and biggest set piece actually occurs in the middle section of the movie, which leaves the ending with a disappointingly unremarkable finish.

I did enjoy Aaron Holliday’s performance, who played one of the three smalltime crooks, and I did want to know if the bear survived by the end. (But not the humans, though.) The bear VFX wasn’t too bad.

If you enjoy B-movie schlock, go for it. For me, this felt like a waste of time. I doubt I’d ever revisit this movie again.

Copshop

★★★★

A stranger in a stolen police car (played by Frank Grillo) deliberately gets himself arrested and locked up in a small town precinct. Unbeknownst to the police officers there, the man is being pursued by a ruthless assassin (Gerard Butler) who is determined to use any means necessary in order to get to his target. Standing in his way is Officer Valerie Young (Alexis Louder), who is trying to figure out what is going on as the body count piles.

If you’re looking for a decent and small little crime thriller set in a single location, you can’t go wrong with this one. Because there are no big explosions and set pieces, the film focuses more on the characters, and it’s very interesting to see how things play out among these assorted bunch of characters, and in ways you sometimes never expected. I like these kinds of crime stories where the right decisions aren’t always the best. It’s very much reminiscent of those crime films I often see from Hong Kong during its filmmaking heydays.

I was surprised to learn that Joe Carnahan was the director, the guy who did the perennial favourite The Grey and other fun ones like Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team remake. Grillo and Butler are fantastic in their roles - this isn’t one of those “slumming it for the paycheck” situations. Louder is the “new face” and held her own against these veterans, but she has actually been working for a while, with bit roles in Black Panther and the Watchmen series, and more recently alongside Chris Pratt in The Tomorrow War and The Terminal List. There’s a fun, showy, psychotic role by Toby Huss, whom I’ve never seen in anything else before, but he was the scenery chewer in this one.

My only complaint is that the budget of the film is really showing the seams at times. The precinct is obviously a set. Though very nicely decorated, but there’s something about the way it was lighted that gave it away a bit. Colour grading can be a bit of a cliche look nowadays, but this movie could have used a bit of that.

Nevertheless, it is still a very enjoyable gritty thriller with surprisingly good performances and a story that tries to be less predictable than a lot of other stuff out there.

Originally published on my Facebook page, here.