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claystripemovieblog · 6 years

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Punching Up: The Last Jedi

Let me make one thing clear right off the bat: The Last Jedi is a great Star Wars movie. Folks are certainly permitted their own opinions on that, but anyone saying it’s a bad movie on the level of the prequels or “the worst Star Wars movie ever” is really quite silly.

However.

Part of the reason I love TLJ so much is that Rian Johnson really swings for the fences. He had big ambitions about what he wanted from a Star Wars movie, and he bloody well went for them, seemingly without much in the way of review by committee, at least not on the scale we’re accustomed to seeing from big studio blockbusters. This was great in terms of allowing the film to make bold decisions, but I believer it also contributed to how uneven the script turned out to be.

See, I love The Last Jedi because I can observe its ambitions (daring character choices, themes of failure and humility, feminist and anti-capitalist politics) and embrace its triumphs (beautiful cinematography, brilliant performances, meaningful stakes, a truly compelling A-plot with Rey, Luke, and Kylo). The pros outweigh the cons, and there are more pros in TLJ than in any Star Wars project since The Clone Wars and any Star Wars film since the last with “Jedi” in the title. That said, the sheer size of the movie’s reach (and runtime) left room for more obvious faults than any so far in the Disney era.

The movie’s pacing is all off. The plot meanders. Conflicts and relationships are muddled and sometimes confusing. The tone shifts around from fun romp to deathly serious, sometimes in the middle of scenes. The script needed at least one more pass. It needed a punch up.

So, in what might be the only installment of this series I do, I’ll be taking a look at the movie we got and, with the benefit of hindsight and fresh eyes, relate three major script notes that I would’ve passed along to Rian before shooting began had I been asked for some reason. To the best of my ability, these suggestions for changes do not lengthen the runtime or raise costs. Most importantly, they keep all of Rian’s ideas for settings, characters, and themes intact. They are:

1. Reduce, relocate, and reframe the Canto Bight sequence.

2. Make explicit Holdo’s suspicion of a spy on the Raddus.

3. Thematically connect the A and B plots by connecting Rose to the Force.

A lot of these feel pretty obvious and have probably been suggested by others before me, but I’m just gonna just assume that something I thought of is kinda original and would have worked out. Besides, the movie is just fine as it is, and Rian and everyone involved probably have perfectly good reasons why they didn’t go about things this way. But I really think I stumbled onto some really good Star Wars-y ideas building off these three points, and I had a ton of fun fleshing out how they’d work. Join me, will you?

1. Canto Bight

If one were to only look at reviews released in the days before The Last Jedi was released and its discourse got bogged down by dudes nitpicking minor details to justify misplaced nostalgia or obvious bigotry, one would get the sense that there was only one major issue with Episode XIII: Canto Bight. And make no mistake: the casino planet’s placement in the film is one of its most glaring flaws, though not an unforgivable one. The introduction of a fetch quest that leaves no major impact on the plot would be hard enough to justify as anything other than padding in a two hour movie; in a two and a half hour film, it’s presence just becomes puzzling.

There is an argument to be made for cutting Canto Bight from the film entirely. I’m sure the studio would have been more than happy to save a couple million dollars on makeup and visual effects. But there’s also an argument to be made that employing talented people to make cool creature and costume designs is the best reason to make these movies. And there’s also my argument: that there’s a much better place to put Canto Bight than the middle of the movie.

The Claystripe Cut of The Last Jedi would open on the casino world, with Poe, BB-8, and a recently revived Finn on the planet looking for DJ, whose role as a neutral slicer whose only loyalty can be bought is retooled slightly so that he is already being paid a great deal by the Resistance to work as an informant. Poe fills in Rose’s role of pointing out the evil at the heart of the beautiful city. The best parts of the original Canto Bight sequence; the funny BB-8 gags, the escape with the fathiers, and, most importantly, the set-up for the beautifully resonant ending with Broom Kid. As they escape on his stolen ship, DJ reveals his information: the First Order is going to attack the Resistance base!

Keeping Canto Bight preserves all Johnson’s commentary on decadent capitalism, environmentalism, and war profiteering, but placing it at the beginning and cutting it down to a ten-minute action prologue solves a whole host of problems.

First, and most pressing, it saves the second act of the film. The Last Jedi grinds to a halt when Finn and Rose fly off across the galaxy in the middle of a heated chase in the middle of deep space. The fact that this kind of mobility is apparently still available to our beleaguered protagonists saps the tension from the sequence at the heart of the movie by circumventing its central conceit- that our heroes are trapped and running out of time- and opening up too many questions and narrative demands. Viewers are kind of just left to answer for themselves why there was only one craft with hyperspace capabilities on the Resistances’s flagship, how the protagonists got a hold of it, and why they ought to care if the Raddus is destroyed if all the characters we’re invested in could have just flown off safely at any time and come back and forth as they pleased. Keeping the B-plot set in and around the Raddus and the Supremacy keeps things simple, the stakes high, and the plot moving.

Second, having Canto Bight at the start of the film introduces DJ in a much more natural and easy way. Instead of treating him like a MacGuffin and spending twenty minutes in the middle of the film to get a hold of him, DJ can just be a character in the movie. His role and screentime wouldn’t have to actually be expanded much at all, but his involvement in helping to save the Resistance and his presence in the film from the start would make his eventual subversion of the Han Solo “Greedy Jerk With a Heart of Gold” betrayal sting just a little more.

Third, this sequence would partially fix a problem that the end of the last movie forced Johnson into: namely, that it had to pick up right after The Force Awakens left off, meaning that the main characters of this new trilogy barely know each other. The lengthy gaps between the previous Episodes left room for audiences to buy that the protagonists became close friends and had plenty of other adventures with each other besides the ones we’ve seen. In Empire, this is important for driving home the stakes when the heroes are separated after they’ve apparently been together for months, if not years. When the heroes in The Last Jedi are separated, you don’t feel that, not only because no time has passed since we last saw them, but because they were barely together to start with.

Rey and Finn apparently have feelings for each other that are expressed in a single hug and a few tender looks at the very end, but they only knew each other for a few days in The Force Awakens and have only been apart for the same amount of time. The problem is worse with Finn and Poe, who, despite having great chemistry (one of my discarded notes was “MAKE IT CANON”, but, again, trying not to majorly change the movie here) have only interacted with each other for a few hours. They barely double that time in this movie, because Finn spends most of it with Rose. While the timeline in regards to Rey would be a little screwy if you stopped to think about it for too long, depicting Finn and Poe interacting on an adventure and being established friends would do a great deal to build audience connection.

Finally, placing Canto Bight at the middle starts the movie off with characters in a strange and interesting world instead of starting with Poe making “Your Mama” jokes at Hux- a fairly humorous that would be much easier to swallow if they were not the center of the first scene of the movie.

2. Holdo and Poe

This is probably the easiest of these fixes to make, practically speaking, requiring only two or three additional lines of dialogue to fix a problem that a lot of people have with The Last Jedi.

First, I’ll get it out of the way: this change is not to remove Holdo or her conflict with Poe from the movie. Laura Dern is a goddess. If I could fight for her to have been in the movies more, I absolutely would have. And the point of her subplot with Poe was pretty clear: Poe’s got a real disrespect for authority and opinions of others, particularly, it seems, from this very feminine admiral, and he needs to learn humility and self-sacrifice to become an effective leader.

Now, that said, there are problems with how this story is told. Though I’ve read many hot-takes online saying that people who didn’t like this plot are misogynist doofuses that don’t listen to women, pretty much every man and woman I know felt like her role in the story was limited to just creating extra conflict until her awesome act of self-sacrifice. The only reasoning she provides for not trusting Poe is that she doesn’t like him, and while that is all the rationale one needs in reality to obey their CO, for the purpose of storytelling it feels lacking. How do we make the point of the conflict more clear from the very beginning? And can we add anything to it to make her decision to not trust him make more sense?

A lot of people have already argued that Holdo doesn’t reveal her plan to slip away to Crait because she is worried about a spy on-board responsible for the First Order’s hyperspace tracking, but that’s left as subtext at best. Why not make it explicit text? As is, the movie has the characters figure out how lightspeed tracking works seemingly out of some educated guesses; explicitly considering other options (and even leaving ambiguous what method the First Order used) would have been a compelling direction to take the story. Holdo telling Poe to his face that she won’t tell him anything because she doesn’t trust him to keep the information private would clarify the reasoning for her decision while maintaining the subplot’s purpose of developing Poe out of his toxic masculinity; even if it was a fair point, he would still certainly resent her for questioning his loyalty. It would make even more sense if we stick with the ramifications of the first alteration and have a shady DJ lurking around the Raddus the whole time. This minor addition to the dynamic also would make Poe’s leap to calling Holdo a traitor and his decision to mutiny make more sense now that the possibility had been introduced and discussed.

A slight tweak to the dialogue alone simultaneously makes both characters more sympathetic and closes up some potential plot holes. And it costs zero dollars for additional visual effects.

3. Rose

In the first two notes, you’ll notice that the only practical alterations these changes would make to the shooting schedule would be having to get Benicio del Toro into a few scenes on the Raddus and replacing Kelly Marie Tran with Oscar Isaac in an abbreviated version of her biggest sequence. Obviously, Rose has gotten the short end of the stick thus far, and I want to rectify that with the third note by giving her a new role that fits her character better into the film’s themes. It’s tempting to not add any scenes to the movie because of its existing length, but I honestly believe that the problems with Last Jedi lie more in its pacing than content. I ultimately think adding just two or three scenes focused on Rose would not just make up for removing her from Canto Bight, but give her a bigger role in the Star Wars mythos.

I like Rose. She’s a fun audience surrogate, and Tran gives an earnest performance that I’m sure a lot of kids are going to really admire. But Rose also lies at the heart of the one part of The Last Jedi that I think is truly bad- not a nitpick (“Why doesn’t every commander just ram empty ships at lightspeed!?”), a nostalgic complaint (“Luke would never just give up!”), a minor quibble (“We don’t know Snoke’s backstory!”), or a personal grievance (”My Rey theory was so much better!”), but a genuine inconsistency with the plot, characterization, and themes that don’t make a lick of sense.

I am, of course, referring to Rose stopping Finn from sacrificing himself at the end, whispering that they won’t win the war by destroying things they hate, but saving what they love. A nice sentiment, and one that fits well with Star Wars, but one that does not mesh at all with what she did: buy Finn a few moments of extra life at the cost of allowing the First Order to kill both of them and all of the Resistance. Frankly, it doesn’t mesh at all with the Rose who was honoring the sacrifice of her sister by keeping cowards from fleeing the Raddus, and it’s just an amoral and stupid thing to do unless she somehow knew that a young Jedi-in-training the ghost of Luke Skywalker was going to show up and give them a way to escape.

Which is why, in this change, she does know. Or at least, she’s got a good feeling.

My idea really requires the addition of only one scene: Rose saying a tearful and emotional goodbye to her sister before she goes to attack the Dreadnought, seemingly knowing that she’s not going to return based off of a deep feeling (some might say “a bad feeling about this”). Because this sequence has been pushed back towards the end of the first act by Canto Bight’s re-positioning, this scene could be positioned in close proximity to Luke’s speech to Rey about the nature of the Force and how it belongs to everybody, making clear that this gut feeling is rooted in some sensitivity to the Force in regards to the lives of people Rose cares about. One extra optional scene on the Supremacy where Rose’s gut feeling kicks in right as they get caught, and we have enough set-up to justify Rose realizing as Finn rushes toward the battering ram cannon that she is not afraid of them being destroyed, trusting her instincts, and saving Finn from a needless sacrifice.

Beyond preserving the message and justifying her choice, this change fixes one other structural problem in The Last Jedi. While the theme of “learning from failure” is omnipresent, there’s relatively little else directly connecting Luke and Rey’s story to that of Rey’s friends or the rest of the universe. Everything the main characters learn and decide about having to restart the Jedi Order with a recognition that the Force actually belongs to everyone would have greater impact if the film actually showed someone who is aware of the Force without having the strength of a Skywalker still using that connection for good. Someone with a scrappy working class background who made all the difference for one of our main heroes. In hindsight, it’s kinda amazing that Rose written as the character she is and not used for that role.

So, what do you think? Am I crazy? Should I be hired as Rian’s creative consultant for the new trilogy? Should I make this a running series (ooooh, I’ve got stuff to say about Three Billboards, let me tell you...) Could you read through this wall of text? Let me know!

#star wars #the last jedi #movies #rian johnson

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claystripemovieblog · 6 years

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Oscar Predictions 2018

With the Oscar nominations now out there for the world to see, it’s time to revive this dead blog blindly speculate over who the winners will be and soapbox over who really should win. There were so many incredible movies this year that there really is no general frontrunner for Best Picture, which is super exciting. Plus, there was a whole sea of “firsts” among these nominations, from female cinematographers to superhero screenplays, that make the 90th Oscars one to watch closely. Will we have new firsts in the winner’s circle by the end of March’s show?

Please note: I have seen nothing from the short form and foreign categories and only two of the documentaries, so I’ll just be skipping over those and leaving them to the folks who actually know what they’re talking about.

With that said, let’s get into it!

Visual Effects

What Will Win: Blade Runner 2049

What Should Win: Blade Runner 2049

While I would be happy to see any of the genre films in this category take home Oscar gold (save for maybe Kong: Skull Island, which I still haven’t seen), it’s hard to picture the Academy giving statues to Star Wars or Guardians of the Galaxy. While it is certainly possible for the sadly overlooked War for the Planet of the Apes to win an award recognizing the performance capture accomplishments of the trilogy as a whole, Blade Runner is the only nominee that approaches the “prestige” territory that the Academy is probably looking for. Plus, it frankly deserves it: the sets and the models make Denis Villeneuve’s breathtaking vision of the future feel wholly real and tangible in a way few other science-fiction productions have ever managed.

Costume Design

What Will Win: The Phantom Thread

What Should Win: The Shape of Water

The Phantom Thread is a movie about a fashion designer, and that’s going to be enough for a lot of voters in this category. And, yes, clothes rarely look (and even sound) as beautiful as they do in Thread. I hope I’m wrong, however, because I find the other mid-century-set film among the nominees to be more deserving. Beyond the flawless and mostly practical creature design, the clothing in The Shape of Water does so much more to inform the audience about the characters than the heavy fabric of Anderson’s cold, detached vision.

It’s honestly a pretty tight category across the board, and it’s entirely possible that neither of these films will take home a statue. Darkest Hour fully immerses the viewer in Churchill’s world in every respect, suits included; the costumes in Beauty and the Beast are lush, colorful, and probably the best part of an otherwise lackluster movie; and Victoria and Abdul... well, I didn’t see it, but I’m guessing the British period drama has pretty good threads on display.

Makeup and Hair

What Will Win: Darkest Hour

What Should Win: Darkest Hour

This is Kazuhiro Tsuji’s category to lose. Oldman looks nothing like Churchill, but Tsuji’s incredible work makes him disappear into the Great Briton. Wonder might get the populist support, but this one’s a no-brainer. Sorry, Victoria and Abdul.

Original Song

What Will Win: "Remember Me”, Coco

What Should Win: "Remember Me”, Coco

It’s entirely possible that I’m wrong here. The Greatest Showman has had an unexpectedly huge wave of popular support, and “This Is Me” has a proven Oscar pedigree from the songwriters of La La Land (perhaps the reason I hope it won’t win is just lingering resentment over them robbing Lin Manuel Miranda of his EGOT last year). Sufjan Stevens is also a great artist, and his songs are used perfectly in the serene tone poem that is Call Me By Your Name. And Common and Mary J. Blige are big names that voters know and respect.

But “Remember Me” has too much going for it. It also has pedigree (the Lopezes wrote “Let It Go”, remember). It’s tied intrinsically into Coco’s plot. It’s reprised over and over again until it’s melody won’t leave your head. It’s a heartstring-tugging tear-jerker. And- most importantly- it’s a really good song.

Original Score

What Will Win: Dunkirk

What Should Win: The Phantom Thread

The Last Jedi has the best Star Wars soundtrack we’ve heard in over a decade. Desplat did great work with Shape of Water. I’ve caught myself humming the themes from Three Billboards a surprising number of times. That said, I don’t see how this one goes to anyone but Hans Zimmer, especially considering the paramount importance of sound in Dunkirk. But if anything’s going to challenge it, it’s first-time nominee Jonny Greenwood’s lush piano accompaniment to Phantom Thread, which becomes a character in itself (and, arguably, a more interesting one than any other in the film).

Production Design

What Will Win: Dunkirk

What Should Win: Blade Runner 2049

Blade Runner and The Shape of Water’s genre trappings may unfairly bar them from winning a statue in favor of the epic sprawl of Dunkirk. That’s a serious shame; they’re both fully realized worlds, something more difficult to do in many respects than recreating existing reality. Heck, even the painstakingly accurate sets of The Darkest Hour and the gorgeous backdrops of Beauty and the Beast were deserving this year. But Nolan and his team brought the beach, the sky, and the sea around Dunkirk to life, and they certainly deserve credit for their achievements.

Sound Editing/Mixing

What Will Win: Dunkirk

What Should Win: Dunkirk

Both of these categories are Dunkirk’s to lose, particularly mixing; Nolan’s team made perfect use of percussive noise and even more deafening silence.

I see only two potential challengers. The Last Jedi featured typically excellent work from the Star Wars team, and deserves particular credit for the mixing on Holdo’s lightspeed assault. Baby Driver is the biggest rival to Dunkirk for sound editing, with its stellar use of in-universe music tied directly into the images on the screen.

Additionally, it’s worth nothing that this is the one region I hope Blade Runner doesn’t win in. That movie’s sound was the sole aspect of an otherwise superb film that didn’t always have me sold. (I’m thinking the fight with hologram Elvis. You know the one.)

Film Editing

What Will Win: Dunkirk

What Should Win: Baby Driver

Edgar Wright’s usual emphasis on stylistic editing might be enough to win his first international commercial hit Oscar gold, but my bet’s still on the time-screwy yet always engaging work on Dunkirk. If we’re giving points for style, I wouldn’t rule out I, Tonya, either.

Cinematography

What Will Win: Blade Runner 2049

What Should Win: Blade Runner 2049

Roger Deakins is a legend. He is arguably not just the greatest cinematographer working today, but the greatest cinematographer ever. He is responsible for some of the most iconic and breathtaking frames ever put to film. He has been nominated for this award fourteen times over the last two decades. He has never won.

And he still might not this year.

I’m hoping on Blade Runner 2049 coming through, both as a reward for some of Deakins’ best work and as a career-recognition vote. But gosh, the competition is stiff. Darkest Hour doesn’t pose much of a threat (should have been Call Me By Your Name in that spot), but The Shape of Water’s beautiful depiction of the titular element and Dunkirk’s sprawling beach shots (particularly the final plane landing) would make for easy wins in slightly weaker years. And that’s not even mentioning the accomplishments of Rachel Morrison, the first woman ever nominated for the category who made the soil of the rural South into a character itself in Mudbound. Whoof. Come on, Roger. You got this.

Original Screenplay

What Will Win: Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

What Should Win: Get Out (or anything else)

I’ll admit, Three Billboards is a cynical pick, and my least favorite of the nominees. Martin McDonagh gave his characters undeniably sharp and darkly hilarious dialogue, but his script largely meanders from that solid foundation without any strong throughline. That might have been enough to deserve a win in a weaker year, but not in 2017. I really hope I’m wrong and that the Academy aren’t tricked by the great ensemble into thinking that the screenplay was what worked in Billboards.

It’s hard to argue that there was a more culturally significant movie this year than Get Out, and it deserves to win in every category it was nominated in. Jordan Peele’s script is a masterwork, perfectly balancing suspense, horror, humor, and intelligent social satire; he is the Rod Serling 21st century America needs.

And there’s more from there. The Big Sick, Get Out can go toe-to-toe with Billboards when it comes to dialogue and far exceeds it in emotional intelligence, warmth, and comedy, an all too rare trait at the Academy Awards. The only film that could match Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon’s heart this year was Lady Bird, whose script was so immaculately detailed and true-to-life that I feel like I now know the titular character and, by extension, screenwriter/director Greta Gerwig; no small feat for a screenplay. And Shape of Water made you believe that a woman could fall in love with a fish man in a perfectly-told fairy tale for all people who feel silenced by social norms.

Come on, Academy. I’m rooting for you to mess up my pool.

Adapted Screenplay

What Will Win: Call Me By Your Name

What Should Win: Logan

This was a weaker category than most, not because any of these films were bad, but because I found most of their scripts to be the weakest elements of otherwise great movies. Mudbound’s examination of the enduring use of economic racial oppression in the rural South was brilliant, but it struggled somewhat to trim the bulky novel’s half-dozen subplots into a single united narrative and was often outshone by the gritty yet gorgeous cinematography. Molly’s Game had Aaron Sorkin’s typically scintillating dialogue, but also lacked narrative drive. The Disaster Artist, though quite funny and at times emotionally resonant, largely felt self-congratulatory and was more of an actor’s showcase. Call Me By Your Name was beautifully shot and acted and probably deserves the screenplay win off of Michael Stuhlbarg’s final monologue alone, but I still think the script veered away from honestly looking at the power dynamics of the central relationship in a way that still puts me off.

Thus, by process of elimination (and certainly not by my own personal bias), I’m rooting for Logan, the first superhero film ever nominated for its screenplay (suck it, Dark Knight). I’ve long said that superhero movies are the 21st century Western, with all the potential for serious storytelling within an escapist genre that title implies. Thus, it’s hardly surprising that one of the only superhero films to receive wide critical praise would be Logan, which draws so heavily and confidently from Western iconography and themes while also blazing its own path. It’s a movie about our future, about racial prejudice, about failure, about growing old, about family, and about Hugh Jackman stabbing some dudes to death with his knife hands. It has zero chance of winning, but it deserves it.

Animated Feature

What Will Win: Coco

What Should Win: Coco

This one’s easy. Coco is beautiful, fun, and emotionally mature. The Breadwinner and Loving Vincent are both great movies that tell good stories in a visually impressive way, but they are very niche; Boss Baby and Ferdinand are throwaways to the mainstream to get a few more families to watch the telecast. Captain Underpants and Lego Batman frankly got snubbed. Pixar’s got this one in the bag.

Director

Who Will Win: Guillermo del Toro, The Shape of Water

Who Should Win: Jordan Peele, Get Out

This is a really tight race. Guillermo is my frontrunner to win, if only because of name recognition and his recognizable auteur style giving him the slight edge. But the same can now be said of Jordan Peele, thought I still think he’s too new and too black outside the Academy norms to secure a win (but I was wrong with Moonlight, so who knows, maybe things are changing). Greta Gerwig’s voice and talent with actors are the main reasons Lady Bird works so well; that film’s my second choice, but her movie feels a little too small scale for the Academy. Christopher Nolan, who somehow has never been nominated before, is also right up in that race. And P.T. Anderson... well, you’ve made some great movies in the past, and I know some people really like your movie about Daniel Day-Lewis being a boring dickhead, so maybe you’ll luck out!

Supporting Actress

Who Will Win: Alison Janey, I, Tonya

Who Should Win: Laurie Metcalf, Lady Bird

This was a strong list of nominees, but the frontrunner seems pretty clear. Alison Janey got a great, juicy, “big” role in I, Tonya, one that has sadly overshadowed the more understated work of Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird, Mary J. Blige in Mudbound, and Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread. The latter nom is pleasantly surprising enough to make me consider the possibility that the Academy will reward the often ignored work of these other actresses, so I would not be totally surprised if Metcalf’s nuanced portrayal of a realistic mother snatched victory (and an Oscar statue) from Janey’s titanic caricature.

Supporting Actor

Who Will Win: Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Who Should Win: Willem Defoe, The Florida Project

Let’s be clear: Michael Stuhlbarg not being nominated for his work in Call Me By Your Name is the biggest snub of the year; that final monologue, regardless of my reservations about the movie, might be one of the best cinematic moments ever, and he should have traded spots with either his Shape of Water co-star Richard Jenkins or with Woody Harrelson. (And, while we’re at it, fit Armie Hammer in there somewhere, too.)

With that out of the way- even if Stuhlbarg was on the list, I’d probably still give the statue to Sam Rockwell. Your personal feelings about Three Billboard’s politics and storytelling aside, Rockwell effortlessly disappears into the role of a dumb racist cop struggling to do the right thing despite himself, and he is just such a superb character actor that it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t deserve at least one Oscar on his bookshelf. His only real competition is Willem Defoe, who did some truly beautiful acting work in the criminally under-seen and under-rewarded Florida Project; a win there would direct a few more eyes to Sean Baker’s film and partially make up for its snubs in all other categories. Also, while I don’t expect Christopher Plummer to win for All the Money in the World (I haven’t seen it), the pain that would inflict on Kevin Spacey would make it worth ruining my pool.

Lead Actress

Who Will Win: Francis McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Who Should Win: Francis McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Like with Supporting Actor, Three Billboards basically has this category on lock. Francis McDormand’s seething depiction of women’s rage is too relevant to the moment’s discourse, and her performance is superb on its own. Her scene with the deer would have been in my Top 5 of the year if not for the awkward CGI.

That’s not to say that the other nominees aren’t all excellent. Sally Hawkins has been sadly overlooked by most awards for her stellar performance in Shape of Water; her spelling out her specific feelings towards Michael Shannon’s villain in sign language is one of the year’s best moments. Saoirse Ronan practically disappears into the character of Lady Bird, capturing her teenage fragility with effortless grace. Margot Robbie’s performance of Tonya Harding may be the most “Oscar-hungry” performance of the year, but that doesn’t detract much from its quality; her time will come. And Meryl... well, she’s Meryl.

Lead Actor

Who Will Win: Gary Oldman, Darkest Hour

Who Should Win: Timothee Chalamet, Call Me By Your Name

This one’s another that seems to be on-lock; unless the murmurs of Oldman’s past political comments and abuse allegations are amplified over the next month, he seems well on his way to finally getting that Oscar, recognizing a pitch-perfect and deeply human performance in a career full of them. His only real competition is Timothee Chalamet’s breakout turn in Call Me By Your Name, which would upset no one save maybe Oldman himself; even if Timmy’s only scene was the one that played over the credits, he’d still deserve a statue.

The rest are all good performances, but not real threats. I highly doubt that Daniel Day-Lewis will extend his record to a fourth Oscar, though his showing in Phantom Thread is, as expected, pretty darn captivating. Daniel Kaluuya’s nom for Get Out surprised me a bit, but it’s well deserved; he sells the real reactions a man caught in his situation would have, pulling you into the movie’s world, and pulls off some incredible faces of horror, anger, and betrayal along the way. And Denzel... look, I don’t think anyone saw Roman J. Israel, Esq., but you’re great, you really should have won last year.

Best Picture

What Will Win: The Shape of Water

What Should Win: Get Out

This is a really tough race. The Post, The Phantom Thread, and even Darkest Hour can be pretty easily knocked off (which makes Florida Project’s snub hurt even more), but that still leaves six films that are pretty much neck-in-neck. I’m betting on Shape of Water being the safest pick. Even though Three Billboards has had the most success so far, I feel like the conversation around it has started to turn enough to unseat it. But who’s to say? You can’t count out Dunkirk, either, due to the scope of its ambition. Even Call Me By Your Name is borderline; maybe people disappointed with its relative absence in other categories will turn out for it here?

That leaves the two movies that I most want to bring home the gold, Lady Bird and Get Out. I don’t think the former is “big” enough to secure the statue, but the latter? A satirical horror movie about race in modern America- released in February, of all things!- should not even be in the running. But Jordan Peele tapped into something with Get Out, and Moonlight proved last year that changing Academy demographics and the new voting system can let challenging movies that everyone at least appreciates really rise to the top above tamer material (even if “tame” in this case is an allegorical 1960s fairy tale about a fish man- look, it was a good year for movies).

Well, what do you think? Am I dead wrong? Is my taste in movies terrible? Let me know!

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claystripemovieblog · 7 years

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Box Office Report Card (10/2/17)

After a busy box office last week, this weekend dialed back in total numbers while remaining hyper-competitive, with the top three films all grossing within a million dollars of each other. It continues to show incredible endurance, Kingsman: The Golden Circle appears to be under-performing, American Made saw a respectable but hardly stunning American opening, and Flatliners *insert tired pun here*. For more in-depth analysis, predictions for next week, and a ranking of each studio’s general success, keep reading below!

Studio Profit Ranking

1. Universal: +$2,816,012,081

1. Despicable Me 3: +863,043,645, 1,023,043,645-160,000,000 2. Fate of the Furious: +738,764,765, 1,238,764,765-500,000,000 3. Fifty Shades Darker: +268,827,494, 378,827,494-110,000,000

...

-3. The Book of Henry: -10,711,896, 4,288,104-15,000,000 -2. Zookeeper's Wife: -11,412,769, 18,587,231-30,000,000 -1. American Made: -18,388,327, 81,611,673-100,000,000

The folks at Universal distributed this week’s largest-grossing release, Tom Cruise and Doug Liman’s historical crime thriller American Made, which debuted at #3. Ironically (and perhaps appropriately given the film’s subject matter), the patriotically-titled picture reached the USA relatively late, having been progressively rolled out in most other international territories since mid-August. With two more major territories in Russia and Japan to go, it seems likely that Cruise and Liman will continue in the tradition of Edge of Tomorrow (+14M, 370M-356M); that is, they made another original, audience-pleasing, well-made movie with a budget perhaps higher than its high-concept entails that seems likely to just make its money back in the international market.

Universal was otherwise fairly quiet this week, though the expansion of Victoria and Abdul (+5M, 20M-15M) by Comcast’s Focus Features appears to have been a successful move.

2. Disney: +$1,779,697,436

1. Beauty and the Beast: +943,411,472, 1,263,411,472-320,000,000 2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2: +463,554,682, 863,554,682-400,000,000 3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: +334,611,287, 794,611,287-460,000,000 4. Born in China: +19,918,96224,918,962-5,000,000 5. Cars 3: +18,201,033, 368,201,033-350,000,000

Disney remains quiet, with only small gains this week from a few international markets.

3. Warner Bros: +$1,550,858,319

1. Wonder Woman: +522,765,643, 820,765,643-298,000,000 2. It: +485,575,232, 555,575,232-70,000,000 3. Annabelle: Creation: +267,278,510, 297,278,510-30,000,000

...

-3. The House: -45,815,496, 34,184,504-80,000,000 -2. The LEGO Ninjago Movie: -81,899,698, 58,100,302-140,000,000 -1. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: -201,324,934, 148,675,066-350,000,000

The big story of WB continues to be the incredible performance of It, which passed a number of milestones this week. The Stephen King adaptation passed the half billion dollar mark internationally and became America’s highest grossing horror flick (unadjusted for inflation). The film’s per-theater average was also higher than the number one release, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, meaning It would have outgrossed it easily before it started to get pulled. Just months ago, very few predicted how wildly successful this mid-budget horror film would be. Here’s hoping we get many, many more.

It was not the only tale to tell of Warner this week, however. Unfortunately for them, The LEGO Ninjago Movie continues to underperform. Its take did not fall as drastically as some hastily predicted last week (children’s films do tend to have greater endurance than others), but that still leaves it far behind the gross of its predecessors. If Lego Movie 2 fails to measure up to its predecessor, that might spell the end for a once-promising franchise. Perhaps the year and a half between now and its scheduled release date in February 2019 will be enough to lower the saturation I believe hurt Ninjago so badly. We’ll have to see.

4. Sony: +$

1. Spider-Man: Homecoming: +525,110,742, 875,110,742-350,000,000 2. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter: +232,242,626, 312,242,626-80,000,000 3. Baby Driver: +156,732,835, 224,732,835-68,000,000

...

-3. Mark Felt: The Man Who Took Down the White House: -9,965,783, 34,217-10,000,000 -2. Life: -15,458,194, 100,541,806-116,000,000 -1. Flatliners: -28,325,674, 9,674,326-38,000,000

No skirting around this one: Sony released a dud this week. Flatliners, a remake of a Joel Schumacher psychological thriller from 1990 (+9M, 61M-52M) that is probably most notable for having a pretty great cast of young actors who all grew up to do better things and... pretty much nothing else. Poor critical reviews coupled with this lack of audience interest basically made this the anti-It.

Sony Classics also gave a very limited release to Mark Felt: The Man Who Took Down the White House, a (perhaps very topical) biopic of the Watergate leaker “Deep Throat” starring Liam Neeson and Diane Lane. No idea if this will get any expansion. We’ll see.

5. Fox: +$842,392,163

1. Logan: +422,792,957, 616,792,957-194,000,000 2. The Boss Baby: +248,921,330, 498,921,330-250,000,000 3. War for the Planet of the Apes: +181,581,801, 481,581,801-300,000,000

...

-3. Kingsman: The Golden Circle: -15,031,984, 192,968,016-208,000,000 -2. Snatched: -23,154,289, 60,845,711-84,000,000 -1. The Cure for Wellness: -53,440,443, 26,559,557-80,000,000

Despite just holding on to the #1 spot, Fox’s Kingsman sequel is so far failing to capitalize on the good-will generated by its predecessor (+252M, 414M-162M). Golden Circle is currently tracking behind Secret Service at the same point in its lifespan despite having a larger initial opening. That difference probably won’t be severe enough to prevent Golden Circle from being a generally successful venture for Fox and might be enough to ensure the series’ survival, but either Matthew Vaughn will have to really go back to the drawing board for Kingsman 3 or the studio might have to find a new director.

In other news, Fox Searchlight expanded Battle of the Sexes into over a thousand theaters. Despite claiming to its name two beloved and acclaimed stars, a superb ensemble cast, an on-paper swell crowd-pleasing story, and a host of mainly-positive reviews, the sports biopic is so far underperforming most industry expectations. I plan on getting more in-depth into that when I write a review of it this week, but suffice to say that I think Battle of the Sexes will suffer both from poor marketing and questionable creative decisions as it expands into wider release. Had the movie chosen to focus on Billie Jean King- and better capitalized on Emma Stone’s Oscar win in the process- I think Fox would have won a bigger gross- and we would have received a much better movie.

6. Paramount: +$162,206,601

1. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage: +176,147,658, 346,147,658-170,000,000 2. Transformers 5: The Last Knight: +171,425,157, 605,425,157-434,000,000 3. Baywatch: +39,856,751, 177,856,751-138,000,000

...

-3. mother!: -25,189,776, 34,810,224-60,000,000 -2. Ghost in the Shell: -50,198,079, 169,801,921-220,000,000 -1. Monster Trucks: -185,506,085, 64,493,915-250,000,000

Paramount also remains almost totally quiet. Mother! continues to peter off. No releases from them for a few weeks.

7. Lionsgate: +$109,181,681

1. The Hitman's Bodyguard: +102,098,639, 162,098,639-60,000,000 2. John Wick: Chapter Two: +91,539,887, 171,539,887-80,000,000 3. The Shack: +56,672,242, 96,672,242-40,000,000

...

-3. All Eyez On Me: -35,123,145, 54,876,855-90,000,000 -2. Power Rangers: -57,662,571, 142,337,429-200,000,000 -1. Rock Dog: -99,169,454, 20,830,546-120,000,000

Lionsgate also had no major releases this week. The biggest story from them is The Hitman’s Bodyguard, which is still doing quite well and, at least on paper, appears to have taken the mantle of the studio’s most profitable film of 2017 from John Wick: Chapter Two.

Predictions:

Next week’s going to be, in technical terms, a complete crapshoot. Between Lionsgate releasing a My Little Pony 2D-animated movie three years too late with practically no mass-appeal marketing and Fox pushing an Idris Elba/Kate Winslet survival romance movie that seems like a script that should have been made two decades ago, there’s a lot of uncertainty. But nothing is more of a mystery than Blade Runner.

I want Blade Runner 2049 to be the biggest movie in the world almost as much as I want it to be the best movie in the world, and it might have the IP recognition and critical support to enable such a turnout. But the film is being reported and reviewed as a artistic and naval-gazing science-fiction film like its predecessor, which famously was a major box office flop for 1982 (-23M, 33M-56M). If the production budget really was $185 million, as The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline have claimed, I honestly don’t see how it will make that money back, which is a bummer, because I desperately want studios to burn money making huge, ambitious movies like this. Still, the financials for this movie specifically are pretty much beside the point. If it’s a success, it’s just vindication for the original. If it’s not, it’s fitting for the franchise and will prevent them from making more in the future and besmirching the original’s name. It’s a miracle this movie got made at all, and we should all be happy for it.

Whatever the answers are, we’ll know them soon enough. And that’s good enough for me.

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claystripemovieblog · 7 years

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American Made Review

American Made, a historical crime thriller about drug-runner/CIA informer Barry Seal and America’s Cold War-era involvement in Latin American revolutions and drug trade, is a pretty hard movie to write a review for. It’s an entertaining and engaging film that’s unlikely to leave that great of an impact after leaving the theater. If that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, I guess it’s not, generally speaking. But if you’re looking for an escape from the world for a few hours at the movies, I can think of no movie out right now I’d recommend more (I mean, besides It, obviously).

This is star Tom Cruise and director Doug Liman’s second collaboration, following up on the excellent Edge of Tomorrow/Live Die Repeat. American Made does not quite measure up to the ambitious creativity of that film, nor does it have Emily Blunt (always a negative), but it mostly ticks off all the rest of the boxes. Cruise remains an eternally young and endlessly charismatic lead despite himself, and while he may not lose himself into the role of the much less attractive/charming Seal, he does a typically-compelling job at merging the most interesting aspects of the character with his own persona (in any case, this really isn’t a film particularly concerned with the facts). The performances from all of the cast are all solid. Domhnall Gleeson, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite young working actors, shines as a douchey and unstable CIA operative whose illogical upward career trajectory despite his constantly terrible decision making mirrors both Barry’s career and late-twentieth century American foreign policy in general. Sarah Wright also turns in a great performance as Barry’s wife Lucy, one that I would honestly expect to give her a Margot Robbie-style career boost if this movie was on track to perform at anywhere near the level of Wolf of Wall Street.

Scorcese is far from the only influence American Made draws from. Beyond the obvious comparisons to Narcos, The Infiltrator, and countless other popular media about the cartel released in recent years, American Made even takes some inspiration from The Big Short’s fictionalized infotainment documentary style. Sometimes, this works well, as Cruise delivers witty monologues that succinctly sums up the politics of the era. In other cases, from a jarringly out-of-place framing device to a few random shifts to handheld cinematography, it sticks out. This lack of anything truly original is probably the film’s greatest flaw, but it at least chooses some excellent material for inspiration that makes the rides still worth taking.

American Made could have been Oscar-worthy material in other hands, but, to be perfectly honest, I would have liked it a lot less. Filming this history like an action film helps to absolve it of some of its worse sins of misrepresentation without completely removing the messages it does convey about the folly of American interventionism and Western capitalism. Perhaps more importantly, it’s just really good, clean fun to see Tom Cruise zipping around the sky chucking cocaine out of his plane. A solid recommendation from me, particularly for those who want to ensure that the studio system keeps making these mid-budget crowd-pleasers in addition to huge franchise pictures.

#american made #tom cruise #doug liman #movie #movie review

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claystripemovieblog · 7 years

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Box Office Report Card- 9/25/2017

Welcome to what I hope will be a running series for this blog: the Box Office Report Card (or BORC; someone please higher me a title writer). Many publications do a weekly box office report- this is one of them!

In all seriousness, this series will look at the global performance of films distributed by the seven major American film studios- Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Fox, Sony, and Lionsgate- and see how each of them are doing in terms of overall profitability. For most cases, we’ll simply be using the formula of multiplying the most widely accepted production budget numbers by two to account for marketing and distribution costs and weighing them against the purported worldwide earnings provided by Box Office Mojo. Because of the complications and deliberate obscurity of Hollywood accounting practices, even more vague sponsorship finances, and the ever-changing size of both marketing/distribution costs and streaming/syndication/home sales, most of these numbers will actually mean next to nothing beyond giving a vague idea of how a film is doing. Isn’t that fun? Let’s get into it.

This week, two major releases helped to push this September towards being one of the most financially successful in recent box office history. But did either of these openings measure up to the studios expectations? And how is It doing?Let’s find out!

1. Universal: +$2,824,627,168 (Estimated Net Profit)

Top/Bottom Three Movies Ranked by Estimated Profit (Profit, Gross- Estimated Cost)

1. Despicable Me 3: +860,063,384, 1,020,063,384-160,000,000

2. Fate of the Furious: +738,764,765, 1,238,764,765-500,000,000

3. Fifty Shades Darker: +268,827,494, 378,827,494-110,000,000

...

-3. Raw: -3,963,684, 1,036,316-5,000,000

-2. The Book of Henry: -10,711,896, 4,288,104-15,000,000

-1. The Zookeeper’s Wife: -11,412,769, 18,587,231-30,000,000

A quiet week for the quiet titan of this year’s movie business. The only release here in the states was the British period piece Victoria and Abdul (-2,492,557, 12,507,443-15,000,000) in four NYC/LA theaters through Comcast’s Focus Features label and won the week’s best per screen average. That’s not making a butt-ton of money in the long run, but it doesn’t matter- Universal/Comcast has released seven films that have seen estimated profits over $100,000,000 and no major flops.

2. Disney: +1,762,422,220

1. Beauty and the Beast: +942,937,952, 1,262,937,952-320,000,000

2. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: +463,416,141, 863,416,141-400,000,000

3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales: +334,191,988, 794,191,988-460,000,000

4. Cars 3: +12,000,557, 362,000,557-350,000,000

5. Born in China: +9,875,582, 24,875,582-15,000,000

Disney likewise had a quiet week, as their policy of sticking to their major IP films has led to a pretty extensive drought for their movie releases in the states since July that won’t be broken until Thor: Ragnarok arrives in November. Cars 3 has been doing fairly well in China since its release there a few weeks ago, helping to mitigate the fact that it remains the second lowest grossing Pixar film ever behind only The Good Dinosaur (-17,792,329, 332,207,671-350,000,000). Beyond that, Disney’s got three mega-hits and no significant disappointments, more than enough to keep it in its #2 spot until Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars can set it up to reclaim the #1 over the holidays.

3. Warner Bros: +$1,467,324,014

1. Wonder Woman: +522,390,490

2. It: +408,096,375

3. Annabelle: Creation: +295,204,430

...

-3. The House: -45,815,496

-2. LEGO Ninjago: -109,516,929

-1. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword: -201,324,934

Despite claiming the #2 and #3 spots on this weekend’s Top 10, WB had a pretty mixed week. First, the positives: they made It (+408,096,375, 478,096,375-70,000,000). The Stephen King adaptation has become the most financially successful horror film in years, even if its numbers are being seriously propped up by inflation.* The mid-budgeted film’s longevity is remarkable and seems likely to continue throughout the Halloween season so long as other horror flicks don’t emerge to take a bite out of its space. Who’d have thunk that making a good, funny, well-acted film with great characters, a known IP, and some seasonally appropriate scares would result in box office dividends?

WB also released this week’s second-highest earning debut, the children’s animated film LEGO Ninjago (-109,516,929, 30,483,071-140,000,000). This marks the third theatrical Lego movie and the second to be released this year. This decision to release Ninjago so close to LEGO Batman (+151,950,384, 311,950,384-160,000,000) baffled me at the time of its announcement, and it baffles me even more now, as the new film earned less than half of its predecessor on its opening weekend. Oversaturation, mixed with a lack of a known IP beyond the LEGO brand and a generally busy box office weekend combined for a seriously lackluster opening and, in all likelihood, an overall disappointment and even maybe a serious flop. This film purports a $70,000,000 budget, meaning that it will have to gross ~$140,000,000 to even break even. Ninjago still is rolling out into a few markets over the next month and has the advantage of being the only major kids movie out for the next few weeks, but without a Chinese release on the table and with pretty mixed reviews overall, the prospects of a 6x multiplier seem pretty far out of reach.

Other than that, Wonder Woman, Dunkirk (+216,092,020, 516,092,020-300,000,000) and Annabelle: Creation (+260,811,680, 290,811,680-30,000,000) raked in a few million this week, only adding to their incredibly successful runs.

4. Sony/Columbia: +$1,145,204,978

1. Spider-Man: Homecoming: +524,357,374, 874,357,374-350,000,000

2. Resident Evil: The Final Chapter: +232,242,626, 312,242,626-80,000,000

3. Baby Driver: +156,546,585, 224,546,585-68,000,000

...

-3. 13 Minutes: -9,563,482, 436,518-10,000,000

-2. The Dark Tower: -9,703,496, 110,296,504-120,000,000

-1. Life: -15,458,194, 100,541,806-116,000,000

Sony/Columbia continues to do pretty well, largely thanks to the exceptional Chinese performance of both Baby Driver and Spider-Man: Homecoming, which has been sufficient to launch the film to the position of highest grossing superhero film of the year despite being beat by both Wonder Woman and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 here in the states.

5. Fox: +$728,109,584

1. Logan: +422,802,633, 616,802,633-194,000,000

2. The Boss Baby: +248,905,866, 498,905,866-250,000,000

3. War for the Planet of the Apes: +170,872,672, 470,872,672-300,000,000

...

-3. Snatched: -23,154,289, 60,845,711-84,000,000

-2. The Cure for Wellness: -53,440,443, 26,559,557-80,000,000

-1. Kingsman: The Golden Circle: -110,242,458, 97,757,542-208,000,000

Fox had a very busy week, but also not necessarily a great one. The big story is their release of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, which saw a release that was more or less the same as the original when accounting for inflation. That implies that the original Kingsman: The Secret Service (+252,351,546, 414,351,546-162,000,000) did not collect as many loyal franchise fans as Fox might have hoped, but that would be fine if this new one did not also cost about $20,000,000 more for production alone. Further bad news comes from the fact that the first film benefited from a proto-Deadpool style February opening with relatively little competition, allowing it to naturally grow from word-of-mouth. This film lacks the original’s critical reception and, well, originality (and I certainly had thoughts about it), and I don’t think it will see the same kind of multiplier (domestically, at least). It should still turn a profit, but here’s hoping it’s enough to get them to shake this franchise up in the future and maybe take more time on the next one.

The other story from Fox is the limited release of Battle of the Sexes (-9,484,550, 515,450-10,000,000), the Emma Stone/Steve Carell historical Oscar-vehicle-for-the-wide-audience, which is set to go wide over the next few weeks. That’ll be one to look out for.

6. Paramount: +$153,295,019

1. xXx: The Return of Xander Cage: +176,147,658, 346,147,658-170,000,000

2. Transformers 5: The Last Knight: +171,425,157, 605,425,157-434,000,000

3. Baywatch: +39,856,751, 177,856,751-138,000,000

...

-3. mother!: -34,040,202, 25,959,798-60,000,000

-2. Ghost in the Shell: -50,198,079, 169,801,921-220,000,000

-1. Monster Trucks: -185,506,085, 64,493,915-250,000,000

Not much to report from the saddest film studio in Hollywood beyond that they lost JJ Abrams again to Episode IX, meaning that he’ll go for nearly a decade since the last time he made the studio a blockbuster they so desperately need (that’d be Star Trek Into Darkness (+87,381,469, 467,381,469-380,000,000)). Mother! continues to underperform (or, rather, perform exceptionally well for a movie of its type with an illogically high budget).

7. Lionsgate: $+85,414,287

1. John Wick: Chapter Two: +91,539,887, 171,539,887-80,000,000

2. The Hitman's Bodyguard: +84,764,016144,764,016-60,000,000

3. The Shack: 56,595,233, 96,595,233-40,000,000

...

-3. All Eyez On Me-35,123,14554,876,855-90,000,000

-2. Power Rangers-57,662,571142,337,429-200,000,000

-1. Rock Dog-99,169,45420,830,546-120,000,000

It was a fairly subdued week for Lionsgate, but that’s not really a bad thing for the big daddy of “independent” studios. The Hitman’s Bodyguard and American Assassin (-27,592,584, 38,407,416-66,000,000) had respectable holdovers.

The Week Ahead

Next week is should be a little more subdued. The main releases are Universal’s Tom Cruise vehicle American Made and Sony’s horror remake Flatliners. American could go either way. On the one hand, Cruise remains one of the few bankable Hollywood stars, critics have been very favorable, and the concept of Wolf of Wall Street with Tom Cruise flying planes is great. On the other, Cruise’s record as a draw has been rather spotty of late, and I feel like this movie hasn’t been marketed all that well. Flatliners, on the other hand, is almost assured to be a dud, as it’s a Sony remake no one asked for that looks like its so bad that it isn’t even getting critic screenings.

* For reference, It’s current gross among horror movies has only been surpassed by The Sixth Sense (+592,806,292, 672,806,292-80,000,000) in 1999. Adjusting those numbers with consideration for modern buying power diminishes these results somewhat, as Shyamalan’s masterpiece would have grossed a full billion in today’s dollars, and neither comes close to the over two billion that would have been grossed by The Exorcist (+417,306,145, 441,306,145-24,000,000) and Jaws (+456,653,000, 470,653,000-14,000,000) had they been released forty years after they defined the horror genre for decades to come.

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claystripemovieblog · 7 years

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Kingsman: The Golden Circle Review, a.k.a. The Ones You Love Hurt You the Worst

Kingsman: The Secret Service remains one of my favorite films of the last decade. That’s neither hyperbole nor an astericked claim with an assurance in the footnotes that I merely meant “favorite genre flick”, “most fun movie”, or “personal guilty pleasure.” Matthew Vaughn’s 2015 action comedy was, to me, a Tarantino film without delusions of high art. That intellectual honesty actually allowed the first Kingsman to deliver biting commentary on class and masculinity without ever getting preachy, all while telling a fun romp about super-spies in well-tailored suits. Add to it some pitch-perfect performances from Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Samuel L. Jackson, and new leading man Taron Egerton (who, two years later, still has yet to get the roles he really deserves), and you’ve got a movie I saw six times in the theater and countless times since.

You also got a movie that I never really wanted to see a sequel to. Not only did the original tell a completely self-contained story (and its ending would make continuing that story a convoluted undertaking at best), I knew deep down that I didn’t want this world and these characters to be ruined for me. In the modern age of cinematic universes, Star Wars prequels, and JK Rowling’s Twitter, I’ve learned too well that returning to the well inevitably taints the waters. Still, the stellar ensemble cast, the return of Vaughn at the helm, and the idea of wacky American cowboy spies mostly assuaged my fears.

Sad to report that I should have stuck to my initial misgivings.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle is not a bad movie. There are still impressively filmed sequences, a few clever ideas, and the actors are all as good as ever. But I have not been this annoyed, upset, and bored in a theater since Avengers: Age of Ultron two years ago, for much the same reasons as that film. Golden Circle squanders a great cast, world, and style on a story that is utterly divorced from any of the characters’ arcs and that clearly lacked an editor with the confidence to make cuts in service to the film. It is a slog to get through, as you find yourself willing the story to get to the next creative setpiece as much as you try to will yourself feel for characters that you loved in the last movie and to laugh at jokes that never quite seem to land.

If you wish to read more of my descent into despair as I try to dissect this picture and understand why it didn’t work for me, with spoilers aplenty, I’ve included my complete thoughts past the ‘Read More’. But here’s the best way I can sum up just how disappointed I was by Kingsman 2: It has a scene where Elton John dresses like a peacock and flying kicks a man in the face while winking at the camera, and I couldn’t even muster a chuckle. That might be the most depressing sentence I’ve ever written.

The Themes

Normally, I would try to avoid judging this movie against its predecessor and try to assess it on its own merits, but since Golden Circle so shamelessly copies from the story and iconography of Secret Service, I feel like I must explain why that film worked so well for me while this one decidedly did not. It’s simple, really, so much so that I’m baffled that no one involved in the production, which was nearly identical for both films, understood it. The second movie tells a story with good characters, while the first tells the story of good characters.

The conflict of Secret Service was, on paper, stopping crazy Richmond Valentine from murdering all but the “best” people on Earth. But the heart of the story was young hero Eggsy becoming a “gentleman”, not by completely reshaping his identity to fit in with a bunch of upper-class pricks, but by becoming his best self and dedicating his life to saving others. His arc is central to the plot and themes of the film; his struggle to assert his worth as a Kingsman in spite of his origins makes his fight against the elitist Valentine personal and relatable. When Eggsy defeats Valentine without the help of his mentor and defeats those who thought themselves to be above the rest of humanity by merit of their wealth and power, it is emotionally satisfying, not just because the bad guy’s been stopped, but because it shows that Eggsy has become a great man on his own terms.

The conflict of Golden Circle is not, as the marketing might suggest, the culture clash between the US and UK (which would have been fun and mildly interesting). Instead, it’s the War on Drugs. That’s not done through metaphor or anything- Julianne Moore’s 50s housewife/cartel leader Poppy explicitly seeks to end the War on Drugs and become a legitimate businesswoman by holding millions of drug users hostage, while evil President Bruce Greenwood plans to kill all drug users and unburden society. While the original film benefited from keeping its themes general and personal, this choice for the conflict exposes the movie to a much more complicated world of politics than it seems ready to tackle. The problem does not lie merely in moral ambiguity- the first film made good use of the fact that Valentine was essentially right in diagnosing the Earth as overpopulated and doomed to environmental destruction. That added pathos to his character and made Eggsy and Merlin’s violent defeat of the one-percent hypocrites who were just as guilty of exploiting Earth’s resources all the more satisfying. However, while Vaughn and Jane Goldman’s first Kingsman script had a basic message- “class doesn’t matter”- this script has nothing to say.

Vaughn seems unwilling (or perhaps unable, given the film’s funding by 20th Century Fox and its extensive use of Fox News personalities for plot exposition) to actually acknowledge the causes and effects of the War on Drugs. Nobody in the film is seen doing any hard substances that might be harmful to themselves or others. We never see anyone overdose or be addicted to any of Poppy’s wares, implying that the only thing wrong with her exploitative business is her personal megalomania and sociopathy and that drug users are more-or-less guiltless of any wrongdoing. More troubling, the film fails to acknowledge that the main thing setting apart the film’s visuals of a military police force caging up dying drug addicts from the reality of the American prison system is how many of the prisoners are white. The president’s juvenile jubilation over “winning” the War on Drugs by killing all the “slackers” flies in the face of how drug laws are actually enforced in this country and how they actually do disenfranchise and ruin people as much or more than drugs themselves, particularly and disproportionately the poor and people of color. Perhaps honestly confronting a major social issue is beyond the reach of a mainstream American blockbuster, but then why feature it in your movie if you have nothing meaningful to say?

The biggest problem with Golden Circle’s themes is not its politics, however, but how they’re not tied to the main characters’ goals in any significant way. That’s not to say they don’t try to show how drug use affects Eggsy’s life. The film gives us no less than four morality pets whose lives are threatened by Poppy’s virus. But, again, they’ve only been threatened by this fantastical plot, not the affects of actual drug addiction. They need help, but they might as well be trapped in a burning building for all it adds to the story. It’s important that Eggsy saves their lives and the millions of others threatened by the disease, but that could not have anything less to do with the arc (or arcs) they try to give him (we’ll get to that later). Their peril is only a motivation to get the protagonists from setpiece to setpiece. Speaking of which...

The Plot

The movie begins with an action scene, showing clearly from the get-go where the film’s priorities are. No set-up, no reintroduction to the characters, no analysis of how the destruction of the one percent from the last movie did or did not change the world (which is all I wanted from a sequel to a movie where all the world leaders’ heads exploded). Just a thrilling brawl through the streets of London. It’s great stuff, but all it accomplishes amusing the audience for five minutes and setting up how the villain can later eliminate the other Kingsman. Contrast that with the opening to the first film, which succinctly establishes Harry’s character, motivation, and connection to Eggsy without excessive bombast, and you quickly see where this movie is going to fall short.

We get to catch up with Eggsy before everything goes down the shitter, and it’s the best part of the movie. He’s still hanging out with his friends in London, keeping him refreshingly grounded. He’s even dating Princess Tilde from the last movie, in a pretty refreshing turn. While the controversy over how Secret Service ended with Eggsy having anal sex with the princess of Sweden as a “reward” for saving the world honestly never bothered me too much (I saw it as a joke directed at the egregious male gaze of the original Bond movies and further knew that young people have sex for lesser reasons all the time), this film’s decision to give Tilde more of a presence beyond a sex object and to make Eggsy into an anti-Bond (a decent human being who actually tries to build a relationship and be a loving partner) is a good one, and one of the few parts of the film that seems really creative. I mean, it shouldn’t- just having your male escapist protagonists not be douchebags should be the norm, I’d think- but it’s still worth appreciating. That said, Tilde never gets to do anything beyond being Eggsy’s supportive girlfriend who wants to get married someday, which ends up making her subplot one of ten in this movie that could have been cut and barely changed anything.

This new relationship is not the only one neglected by the film. The early death of Roxy, a character who played a small but integral role in the first movie, removes the only active female protagonist from Golden Circle way too early, turning her into just another motivating factor for Eggsy’s actions. The destruction of Harry’s old house and the death of JB is sad, but feels unearned because the villain has no actual connection to the Kingsman. The subsequent scenes of mourning with Merlin are great, but then the fallen Kingsman are almost completely forgotten so the plot can get to introducing the Statesman.

The Statesman were central to the marketing of Golden Circle and offered a great opportunity for the film to distinguish itself from the original, but they’re barely in the movie. Channing Tatum has effectively one scene where he tussles with the protagonists before he is put into a coma, and he could easily been removed from the film. Jeff Bridges and Halle Berry are good in their roles but likewise contribute nothing to the progression of the story. Only Agent Whiskey ends up getting much screentime, but even he gets the shaft from a development standpoint, making the whole trip through America feel like a waste of time beyond providing an overly elaborate way to bring back Harry (who's role in the story we’ll get to later when we look at the characters).

A lot of this movie feels like a waste. You feel that 141 minute runtime. There’s another water room sequence, another “shoot the dog”, as if someone at Fox is requesting they “play the hits” even when they don’t impact the narrative at all. They recreate the iconic bar fight from the first movie for a third time. There’s at least three Fox News exposition montages. There’s two separate scenes of Poppy inducting a new member into her gang whose only contribution is being killed after doing drugs with Elton John. Oh, yeah, Elton John’s in this movie, playing himself. And not just in one cameo scene. He’s in the movie longer than Channing Tatum, seemingly just for the hilarious joke of him being Elton John in a Kingsman movie. Add all that to Harry... When you look at a film and know that you, a Joe Schmoe off the street, could cut out twenty minutes of it without changing anything, you know the director just had nobody who could tell him “No”.

Yet despite all of this padding, the movie also somehow manages to have a lot of scenes and arcs that come out of and go nowhere. The evil president is not introduced until late in Act 2, robbing his villainous turn of any impact. Agent Whiskey’s motivation comes straight out of his ass at the end of Act 3. Merlin’s death is especially jarring, as he dies saving Eggsy from a landmine he stepped on for no reason beyond uncharacteristic carelessness. It’s just lazy writing, diabolous ex machina. Merlin’s also given a random love for John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Road” totally absent from the first movie without any real explanation for how that love informs his character in any way, seemingly just to make his death a little more memorable. His death really struck me as a disservice to a great character.

Poppy’s plan is much more ludicrous and obviously preventable than Valentine’s (beyond the fact that she has nothing after the delivery of the antidote to ensure an army wouldn’t come looking for her, surely her consumer numbers would plummet when non-addicts realize their producer willingly gave them a horrific, deadly illness for business reasons). But I can forgive it, if only because Moore sells the crazy Bond villain thing very well. The final fight in her Cambodian temple/50s kitsch mashup base is one of the more enjoyable part of the film, but it’s also a victim of its own excess. The sight gags are funny, the camera tricks are fairly impressive, and I can even acknowledge the obvious CGI as serving a cartoonish style. But it only hits the same beats as the church scene and final battle of the first film without doing any of them quite as well, making the whole affair seem rather redundant and pointless.

The movie ends with a whimper. Harry’s Galahad again, Channing Tatum becomes a Kingsman and gets a dumb hat after spending the whole movie in a coma, the president is impeached by someone who definitely doesn’t look like Hilary Clinton (GET IT?!?), and Eggsy steps down and gets married to Tilde. Wait, where did this come from? How old are they supposed to be? What year is this? Does Eggsy have any angst that three of his close friends are dead now that he’s got Harry back? Is this the only scene Eggsy’s mom and sister are in? Who cares, film’s over folks.

Oh, also, there’s a scene in there somewhere where Eggsy fingers a girl to put a tracker in her vagina. It’s deeply unnecessary, and I don’t want to talk about it beyond saying "gross”.

The Characters

That summary of the plot problems of this bloated film actually left out quite a lot of the story. Didn’t notice? That’s because I mostly ignored the role of a single character that shouldn’t have been in the movie in the first place. We’ve got to talk about Harry- specifically, why his presence in the film not only makes it worse, but makes the last movie worse, too. (Sorry, Colin Firth, you’re still great.)

Harry’s return was revealed with the announcement of the movie itself and was the first sign to me that things were in trouble. The loss of the mentor is important for every hero’s journey, because as long as they’re around, the hero’s accomplishments seem more achievable and less important. Imagine if Obi-Wan came back and helped Luke beat Darth Vader. Harry was a badass, yes, but he served the function of starting Eggsy on a path and then emphasizing how formidable Valentine was as an adversary with his death. We didn’t need to learn more about who he was before being a Kingsman, and that subplot doesn’t even go anywhere. The flashback scene early on with him teaching Eggsy dining etiquette was great, but only because it emphasized how meaningful their relationship was. There’s nowhere for the plot to put Harry when he returns, which means that much of the second act has to be wasted on a side-conflict to try to restore his memories in order to give him something to do. When Harry’s memory is restored, he’s then relegated to tagging along to help out Eggsy for no reason other than Eggsy wanting him to, with the plot swapping back and forth between hindering him to further extend the runtime or making him such a badass that he overshadows the story’s hero. I spent much of the film wondering how they were going to tie it all in, what lesson Eggsy would learn by getting his mentor/father figure back, whether the actual conflict of the drug war was going to tie into it in any way like the conflict of the first movie. It doesn’t go anywhere. Both characters are in the same place they were in the last movie, besides, you know, Harry not being dead.

Even though Eggsy functionally doesn’t grow at all, Egerton remains fantastic, and there’s some scenes where he emotes so much with those puppy dog eyes that he elevates the material. If only the movie had him smoke some of Poppy’s weed while hanging out with his friends, enhancing his personal connection to the plot by putting his own life in danger from the government’s neglect and making him less of an invincible superhero? And then maybe if the film had his mother (who, again, only has a brief background cameo) still struggling to overcome a crack or heroin addiction that also puts her life in danger, emphasizing that other drugs should never be sold and that those who sell them actually do put people’s lives at risk? So then, you know, you care about Eggsy’s role in this story? Just a thought.

The cast really is the saving grace of the movie, and they’re doing the best they can with a bad script. Julianne Moore is amazing as always, and she’s delightfully weird and threatening as Poppy, making it all the more frustrating that the film keeps her in her base the entire movie with barely any interaction with the other characters. Edward Holcroft can still play a great smarmy jerkass, and I was glad to see him come back with a cool robot arm. Pedro Pascal is super fun as a cowboy and gets some great fight scenes, but Whiskey doesn’t get any real chance to sink his teeth into being a morally ambiguous traitor, again because his motives are revealed only a minute before his death and because the script seems afraid to use the Statesmen for anything interesting. It’s all such a waste.

Conclusion

Again, this movie was not the worst flick I’ve ever seen by any stretch. There’s not much you can write about a truly awful, uninspired movie. It’s films like this- like The Lost World or Age of Ultron, films with endless potential that still end up being below average- that hurt the worst. And this movie hurt me, man, and not just because I spent nearly forty bucks to see it in a VIP theater on premiere night. There’s great performers here, creative visuals, a superb soundtrack. It’s a shame they ultimately were put to no good use.

There’s so many obvious ways to fix this movie. Tie the characters closer to each other and to the movie’s central themes. Allow the old characters to continue to grow. Give space for new characters and ideas. Make the movie about something more than fights and quips. Keep Harry dead. I know the people working on this movie know how to do this, because they did it two and a half years ago.

So, yeah. If you couldn’t tell, this movie really got under my skin, so much so that I decided to not just write a several page review and analysis, but that I finally got around to making a dedicated film Tumblr. I doubt anyone’s gonna read this full thing, but, hey, thanks if you made it this far.

#kingsman #kingsman the golden circle #taron egerton #colin firth #julianne moore #channing tatum #pedro pascal #jeff bridges #movies #movie review #spoilers

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