Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire
Putting aside whatever grievances you'd have with Snyder in terms of his treatment of story and characters, you have to admit that the man has a strong sense for visuals.
★★★1/2
Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad and Shay Hatten
Eons past, in a distant star system, the Motherworld Empire, ruled by the evil Regent Balisarius (Francis Martin Fee) waged a destructive war against rebel forces. One of his military leaders, Admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein) arrives at the farming planet colony of Veldt with his army in tow, seeking to plunder its resources, only to discover that a wanted fugitive named Kora (Sofia Boutella) was hiding amongst its inhabitants. Determined to protect her newfound home, Kora embarks on a mission to recruit fighters to help her ward off the Admiral's impending attack on Veldt.
Let's get to the bad first. This is nowhere close to the best that Zack Snyder has ever done. I've not seen Army of the Dead or the Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole, but this is easily at the bottom-most of all his films I've seen. Putting aside whatever grievances you'd have with Snyder in terms of his treatment of story and characters, you have to admit that the man has a strong sense for visuals. However, I was surprised to find that quality lacking here, with a messy aesthetic that seems to randomly blend styles and genres without a clear direction. I understand that it wants to do a Western-samurai-World-War-II-medieval sci-fi hybrid like Star Wars, but the difference between the two is that Star Wars merged the best visual elements from those genres, whereas Rebel Moon felt like it was picking from the leftovers. I've already felt this when I saw glimpses of its teaser trailer, that unease you feel as an artist or designer when you can tell that it's an early draft being submitted as the final work. Also very uncharacteristic of Snyder was how drab the camera work and compositions were, as if he shot the film without any storyboards to refer to, in contrast to his past works where every shot felt precisely crafted. I was really surprised to see so many basic static medium shots of dialogue scenes. In a typical Snyder flick, a character's hair, cape or trench coat would be billowing through wind and rain while hyper-masculine lines are being spewed out of bristled jaws. I know some of you hate that crap, but I don't know why you'd want realism in everything - it's so overrated, sorry Nolan fans. I wonder if it was a very tight budget that gave it a TV movie-like feel. After all this was funded by Netflix, so Snyder may not have the same resources at his disposal like he did with the other major studios.
Anyway, despite all those complaints above, I still enjoyed it. It's just your regular sci-fi fantasy actioner, and I don't think it ever pretended it was anything more than that. There are space ships and strange planets and weird aliens and people getting killed with frickin' laser beams. The action is somewhat decent, and doesn't use shaky cam. The best thing about it are the actors, who are generally good. Snyder went the super-serious route with this one, so the actors were on full-on dramatic mode. Many critics have praised Boutella for handling both acting and action duties, and rightly so. Ed Skrein always does a highly despicable villain so effortlessly, and I like that they didn't make his character a buffoon. His Admiral Noble is terrifying. This movie has a better villain than a lot of the Marvel flicks if you ask me. Surprised to find out that Ray Fisher (Cyborg from the Justice League movies), Anthony Hopkins, Cary Elwes, Jena Malone and Corey Stoll were in this movie. Great to see acclaimed Korean actor Doona Bae in a badass role. Charlie Hunnam does another bad accent here - he was ok, didn't bother me. I like how the Imperium soldiers act like absolutely detestable Nazi-esque bad guys, so it was really satisfying when they finally get their comeuppances.
I also think there are some strong moments here. The one with the robot (Anthony Hopkins), Kora confronting the soldiers on Veldt, when Noble negotiates his terms with the village head (pretty intense), Tarak riding the giant bird, and the VFX for the spider-lady was surprisingly good. Anyway, these are just my own thoughts. Overall, it's a fun, one-time watch for me.
Wonka
This was such an earnest, old-fashioned, wholesome, funny, heartfelt little musical that by the time the end credits rolled, I was smitten.
★★★★1/2
Mild Spoilers
Directed by Paul King
Written by Paul King and Simon Farnaby
Based on the novel Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Wonka tells the origin story of the world famous chocolatier, Willy Wonka (Timothée Chalamet), who sets out to fulfill his dream with empty pockets but a suitcase full of ingenuity, only to be thwarted by a group of greedy businessmen. Along the way, he befriends orphan Noodle (Calah Lane) who joins Wonka on his confectionery adventures.
Four and a half out of five? For a prequel to a beloved classic (Wilder, not Depp) that seems like a blatant cash grab? Surely, Wei has lost his… way? But this was such an earnest, old-fashioned, wholesome, funny, heartfelt little musical that by the time the end credits rolled*, I was smitten. Was it the silly musical numbers, the colourful supporting characters, the deliciously over-the-top scenery-chewing villain (we haven’t had a good one for ages), the heartbreaking ending, the enigmatic performance by Chalamet that surprised the heck out of me (sorry for ever doubting you bro), the whimsical charm of the movie, or perhaps all of the above? That was rhetorical, but yes, all of it.
(Also stars Paterson Joseph, Hugh Grant, Olivia Coleman, and Keegan-Michael Key, plus two others I think were surprise cameos? I didn’t know they were in this one until they showed up.)
I don’t know if it will hit a billion at the box office or even earn back its budget, but honestly I don’t care. I’m a fan. Love it, might watch it again, will get the 4K Bluray for sure.
*You’ll probably want to stick around for the credits.
The Wolf Man
The werewolf effects, albeit dated, are still fairly creepy and unnerving. The wolf man has also become a very famous and iconic horror figure, and was recently homaged in Marvel’s special short feature Werewolf By Night.
★★★★1/2
Larry Talbot (Lon Chaney Jr.) returns to England to help his father Sir John Talbot (Claude Rains) run the family estate after learning about the death of his brother. There he woos Gwen Conliffe (Evelyn Ankers) by taking her to visit a travelling group of Gypsies one evening, and guess which mythical creature he would come across that very night?
Thus, poor Larry becomes the titular Wolf Man and goes on a killing rampage. Or, was that all just in his head? Curt Siodmak’s screenplay was originally written to be a psychological thriller that was ambiguous about whether the werewolf was actually real or just a figment of Larry’s imagination. Of course, the end product turned out quite differently and literally, but the elements of that original screenplay remained. There are deliberate inconsistencies like the unexplained difference between Talbot’s hybrid form and the wolf form of his predecessor. Because Talbot could not remember the events that transpired during his transformed state, he suspects that he is the werewolf that he killed all those people but could never be sure. I never expected these from what I thought would just be a cheesy, unsophisticated horror movie from the 1940s.
The performances were very good. Apart from Bela Lugosi (doing a cameo as one of the Gypsies) who rightly played his part a little more unhinged, everyone else took the subject matter seriously and gave a grounded, subtle performance. Even Maria Ouspenskaya’s Maleva didn’t take the expected wide-eyed eccentric ethnic character route. Of course it’s still all a little tame compared to how we would do it nowadays, but it was a different time then, with different sensibilities.
The werewolf effects, albeit dated, are still fairly creepy and unnerving. The wolf man has also become a very famous and iconic horror figure, and was recently homaged in Marvel’s special short feature Werewolf By Night. There were some goofy moments with Chaney Jr’s performance as the wolf man that were unintentionally funny. There was one instance where he let out a dog-like bark. But the violence, though not explicit, was surprising brutal, and helped maintained a serious tone throughout the movie.
Overall, I really enjoyed the movie for being more sophisticated than I expected it to be.
Interesting trivia:
A lot of the werewolf lore that we assumed were based on existing myths, like the transference of the curse through bites and the pentagrams being the mark of a werewolf were actually made up by Siodmak for this film, including the “even a man who is pure at heart” Gypsy quote.
Not sure if this is mere observation or directly from Siodmak himself, but the film is said to have parallels to Siodmak’s first-hand experiences of Nazi Germany, with the werewolf being a metaphor of Nazis attacking people who carry the mark of the pentagram.
Both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who played the original Universal Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster respectively, were considered for the role of Larry Talbot/ The Wolf Man.
This one’s from me, but I may be wrong: this might be the first and last time Lugosi ever played a werewolf.
Lon Chaney Jr’s father, Lon Chaney Sr played the Phantom of the Opera in the 1925 film. His onscreen father, Claude Rains also played the Phantom in the 1943 one.
Apparently, Lon Chaney Jr. was giving his co-star Evelyn Anker a hard time on-set because he was upset that his dressing room was given to Anker as punishment for vandalizing studio property while being drunk. He was calling her names and sneaking up on her with his full wolf man makeup on.