Secret Invasion

★★1/2

Mild Spoilers

Directed by Ali Selim
Written by Kyle Bradstreet, Beto Dantas, Jonathan Hirschbein, Matt McRee, Haleema Mirza, Jennifer Muro, Jovan Robinson, Brian Tucker, Michael Bhim, Brant Englestein, and Roxanne Paredes

S.H.I.E.L.D. (or is it S.W.O.R.D. now?) head honcho Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) returns from space to handle a sleeper Skrull agent named Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) who has gone rogue and started his own terrorist organisation. He reteams with former associate Agent Hill (Colbie Smulders) and Skrull ally Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) to stop Gravik, with some help from Talos’ daughter G’iah (Emilia Clarke) who has allied herself with Gravik’s cause. If you didn’t know, Skrulls are a shape-shifting alien race who can physically impersonate anyone, not unlike Mystique from the X-Men films.

Secret Invasion is a spy thriller (more Bourne than Bond) that looks like one, even feels like one, but isn’t in any way as clever as it wants you to think it is. There is a huge potential here to create a very gripping espionage tale where literally anyone could be a Skrull in disguise, but because of budgetary reasons and one hand-waiving excuse, a Skrull needs to remain in one identity for long durations, which is pretty baffling since some Skrull characters here are literally walking about with their most identifiable facade for any covert operatives to easily spot and pick them up or take them out. With that kind of ability, I’d be changing into multiple identities at all times and be virtually impossible to find. I know it makes Skrulls a little overpowered, but I’m sure there are clever solutions that can be concocted to level the playing field, e.g. a Skrull detector of some sort, or just Fury using his wits to sniff out imposters. Instead, what we have here is a weak spy series with a lot of logical problems that they didn’t even bother to hide with great production values, which it also didn’t have. The script was also pretty dire - some of the most cringey dialogues I’ve ever listened to. The series also felt like it had forgotten to edit its footages, with some weird reactions and movements from actors that should have been trimmed away. Like there’s one moment where the President of the United States (Dermot Mulroney) made an odd, out-of-place grunt, or when Fury was pointing his gun at someone and his other arm just briefly flailed about for no reason at all. I suspected that they were forced to artificially extend the series to six episodes and didn’t have enough coverage for it. There is also another big issue that I had with the series that I will rant about in the spoiler section below.

The only saving grace is the cast. Jackson is the reason to watch this, and Olivia Coleman stole every scene she was in as a British clandestine operative Sonya Falsworth. Ben-Adir also happens to be in the Barbie movie that is currently in theatres, and it’s interesting that we get to see an actor doing two very different roles in the same span of time. I enjoyed Mendelsohn, Clarke and Smulders, but their roles are criminally limited.

I would only recommend this for die-hard MCU followers. This one is easily the weakest of the Marvel streaming entries to date.

I HAVE ONE SPOILER-Y GRIPE

Here’s my gripe: Fridge-ing Maria Hill and also Talos. But it’s not really just the idea of it, but the execution, no pun intended. These are pretty important figures in Fury’s world for decades and you’d expect a lot more care in the way their deaths had been handled, and provide a more satisfying dramatic impetus for Fury to stem out Gravik and his operations. But there’s just no impact being felt from their deaths, with a pretty nonchalant Fury who seemed strangely ambivalent towards the abrupt departures of his most trusted allies. Just a few shots of Fury getting, er, furious or upset would have been enough, but all we got were a bit of frowning and grimacing. It’s either an odd creative choice, or (I really hate to say this but) just plain ineptitude.

Barbie

★★★★1/2

Mild Spoilers

Directed by Greta Gerwig
Written by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

Barbie is the first film adaptation of the popular doll of the same name from toy maker Mattel. The film is basically a comedy not unlike a live-action The Lego Movie, having similar themes and humour, and there are sequences where the inhabitants of the Barbie “world” crosses into the real world, and hijinks ensue. Barbie: The Movie is clearly an endeavour with the primary goal of selling more Barbie toys and accessories. But because renown indie filmmaker Greta Gerwig was assigned the role of the film’s director, the attention of the film community including film fans were piqued, and with the alignment of the film’s premiere date with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, the “Barbenheimer” phenomenon emerged, and the rest is history.

I thought Gerwig was going to be yet another unwitting indie director about to be disillusioned by Hollywood fortune and glory and come out of Barbie feeling betrayed and creatively curtailed, but she handled the material here with such aplomb, delivering an effective traditional entertainment while still managing to get away with some cleverness and meaningful themes. Incredibly, Mattel okayed her script that was primarily about the deconstruction (and reinvention) of Barbie, long perceived to be a regressive female role model despite numerous attempts to remedy the issues of inclusivity and body image. I disagree with many male critics who felt that the feminist messages were unsubtle; the movie worked really well per se as a fish-out-of-water comedy. Its plot isn’t about feminism per se; it just finds things to laugh (and sometimes cry) about that relates to the female experience. I actually felt that it could have gone a lot further, but it stayed within the confines of its genre. There is no leftfield, mould-breaking filmmaking or screenwriting here.

At the same time, it is also a surprisingly loving ode to all things Barbie, with many references to toy editions, popular accessories and even some funny jabs at controversial figurines that were swiftly discontinued but apparently have not yet been forgotten. Although not an expert in Barbie merch, but I get the feeling that the costume and production designs must be exceptionally accurate to the source materials. They made Barbie World such a visual delight, and despite many stuff coloured in pink here, it never felt like sensory overload. Just the sights alone are worth the price of admission.

Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling are excellent as Barbie and Ken, and these might become the defining roles of their careers. There are two other roles played by America Ferrera and Ariana Greenblatt who make up the other half of the four core characters in the film. They each have their own grandstanding monologues that are highlights of the movie. I decked half a star because I think it was a mistake that their characters got a little sidelined in the final act. This is also a movie filled with many minor supporting roles occupied by familiar faces, notably Simu Liu, Kate McKinnon, Will Ferrell, and Michael Cera. I cackled when I realised one of Robbie’s famous doppelgangers was in the movie, and it was also hilarious to see Nick Fury’s nemesis from Secret Invasion being so deadly serious in that one, but acting silly here. The new Doctor Who, Ncuti Gatwa also has a small role here, but it’s likely you’d remember him better as Eric from Netflix’s Sex Education. Also, try to guess who voiced the Narrator if you haven’t checked the cast list; it’s an easy one.

Entertaining, visually arresting, great comedic and dramatic performances, with some meaningful lessons for all and not just the ladies, plus I came out of it with my manhood intact and remained un-gay, so don’t worry you macho, macho religious men out there. I have personally tested the goods, you’ll be fine. Alternatively, you can watch Barbie and then immediately hop over to Oppenheimer next door and ogle at some bewbs to “balance it out”, and you’d have completed the Barbenheimer challenge.

Oppenheimer

★★★1/2

Mild Spoilers

Directed by Christopher Nolan
Written by Christopher Nolan, Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin

Oppenheimer is the biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the “father of the atomic bomb”. He didn’t exactly invent the atom bomb, but he definitely spearheaded its development with a bunch of very smart scientists, and as a theoretical physicist, he was also no slouch himself. The efforts of Oppenheimer and his team ultimately let to the detonation of the only two atomic bombs in history on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, causing catastrophic military and civilian casualties in the name of saving more lives, events which have also changed the world forever.

Oppenheimer is an ok film, good even. Commendable performances, incredible cast (including Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey, Jr., Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh, and a lot of very familiar faces), and “arguably” an interesting story to tell – it is about the atomic bomb, for which the danger and implications of its mere existence still lingers in our consciousness today. Yet, why am I still feeling a little disappointed?

Firstly, the IMAX thing. In my opinion, there is nothing in the film that justified an IMAX presentation. Sure, the film looks prettier and all, but I refused to believe that you went in thinking only that, and not that you’re about to see the craziest, mind-blowingly accurate depiction of an atomic bomb explosion ever put on celluloid. I’m sorry to report that the “money” shot that everyone was waiting for was nothing more than a few seconds of a normal looking flaming mushroom shot against a completely black sky with no foreground or background elements used to emphasize its scale. It just… came and went.

Second: There are way too many characters, especially when they start throwing around multiple names in later scenes that I mixed up who they were really talking about. It’s made worse when some secondary characters were referred to by both their first and last names. The key characters were really Oppenheimer, Lewis Strauss (Downey, Jr.), General Groves (Damon) and Kitty Oppenheimer (Blunt). I get that Florence Pugh’s Jean Tatlock had some significance in Oppenheimer’s story, but I don’t know if it was really necessary to allocate so much screen time for this character other than to show off some superfluously sexy scenes that I felt was a bit derogatory and exploitative also, because Tatlock was after all a real person.

Fourth: I’ve not seen a single trailer and I still felt like the marketing was being a little misleading. This is not some taut and tense thriller of any sort, but really a courtroom drama I kid you not. Downey, Jr.’s Strauss is the only straight up antagonist in the film, heading a campaign to discredit Oppenheimer with a vendetta.

Third: See what I did there? I put the fourth point first before the third… just because, and this movie is like that, but worse. The film jumps across at least three or four time periods for no discernible reason. I think even they started to realize it was too confusing and employed black and white shots to differentiate between the time periods. Even that didn’t help, because normally a black-and-white scene would denote an earlier time period, but they used it for a period ahead of the main timeline, which later also reverted to colour without giving any cue. Or was that just Strauss’ scenes? I don’t know, I’m confused!

Last (or is it First?): Imagine Michael Bay or Tony Scott directing courtroom scenes, or even the dramatic ones – that’s what Nolan did with some of the talky bits. Hard cuts to close-ups and loud sound cues and bombastic music ad nauseam to emphasize the AGONY Oppenheimer is FEELING about the ACCUSATIONS and INSINUATIONS being thrown at him, because ARE YOU FEELING LOUDLY THE IMPORTANCE OF IT NOW? I found this a little odd coming from a confident and assured filmmaker like Nolan, who was never shy about letting his dialogues just play out as they were.

Maybe I’m just nitpicking too much. Maybe upon second viewing it will finally reveal itself as the masterpiece that it truly is. Or maybe it’s just an above-average, streaming-budget-looking courtroom drama that they tried to pass off as a cinematic event for the ages, and I’m just simply miffed that I actually paid IMAX prices to watch it.