While his box office glory days may be fading, Bruce Willis’ steely persona continues to endure onscreen. Alongside a few assured dramatic performances (Glass and Looper), the Die Hardaction star continues to gun down foes on the big and small screen alike. His latest low-budget sci-fi/action hybrid Breach packs some self-aware charms, but this by-the-numbers Alien clone never elevates its disposable roots.
Breach follows a well-traveled mechanic (Bruce Willis) who maintains an interstellar ark fleeing the dying planet. Unfortunately, humans are not the only passengers on board. A shapeshifting alien creature takes residence, infesting the last vessels of humanity in the process. The crew must think quickly to stop this menace before it destroys mankind.
Some elements of Breach are well-tuned to the film’s makeshift B-movie frequency. Bruce Willis delivers one of his most affable performances of late, livening his grizzly bear presence with some deadpan comedic frames (his character spends most of the movie drinking moonshine while bad-mouthing his alien foes). There’s an endearing “I don’t care” energy that fits his jaded character like a glove. Few spew corny machismo lines with Willis’ sternly charismatic touch, often elevating the standard-issue material on the page. Thomas Jane also indulges in his character’s campy roots, having a blast as an over-eager military admiral.
Breach reaches agreeable competence for its inherently midnight-movie form, but there are few areas where the film truly excels. Director John Suits’ familiarity with genre machinations doesn’t serve his noticeably cheap production values well. The Xbox 360-level visual effects are clumsily drawn onscreen (the aliens are more humorous than scary), while Suits’ flat visceral eye fails to imbue any creative flourishes to overcome the cheapness. There’s some potential in Suit’s semi self-aware approach (the practical alien/zombie effects are cheekily crafted), though the wishy-washy tone never finds a consistent voice.
When the sturdy veterans aren’t onscreen, Breach struggles to stay afloat. Screenwriters Corey Large and Edward Drake underserve the cast with blandly-flavored stereotypes. Up-and-comer Cody Kearsley’s wet blanket protagonist rarely brings enough energy to leave an impression onscreen, while Rachel Nichols has little to do in her thanklessly truncated role. Similar to the uninteresting characters, Large and Drake don’t know how to re-spin the film’s formulaic conventions. You can sense a few earnest attempts to pay tribute to its genre forefathers, but they are done with little understanding of what made those predecessors so enthralling.
Breach does little to stretch above typical Sci-fi channel fare. I wasn’t entirely disinterested by this campy throwback, but its runtime flies by to mostly disposable results.
Katie Arneson (Kacey Rohl) is a dancer. She’s in a loving relationship with her girlfriend, Jennifer (Amber Anderson) and she uses social media regularly to raise money for cancer charities. Katie is also faking her cancer diagnosis and raising the money for herself, although in her mind she’s not doing anything wrong.
Then one day a discrepancy comes up in her medical records, so Katie sees no other option than to find somebody who can forge the correct documentation so that she can keep her life together.
However, things start to unravel for Katie when she goes to see her father, Doug (Martin Donavon) to get some money from him and he sees right through her façade. From that moment on, things go from bad to worse as Katie struggles to maintain her lie and ensure that she is still loved.
White Lie is a dramatic character study of a woman faking cancer written and directed by Yonah Lewis and Calvin Thomas. After researching many other cases where people have done he same thing, White Lie never aims to judge Katie for her actions, but merely presents her life and her lies leaving it up to the audience to decide what motivates her.
Rohl gives a great performance as a woman who clearly is in over her head and at times her determination to keep doing what she’s doing verges on sociopathy. However, Rohl manages to make Katie into a real person who at times even brings out sympathy in the audience, even when they know what she’s doing is wrong.
White Lie is bound to divide the audience when they view the film as without any clear motivation, the audience is allowed to imprint anything they like onto Katie.
Some may find her to be a ruthless opportunist driven by the attention she gets from social media, while others may see her actions as a cry for help. Either way, the movie is all the better for showing Katie’s life and not making her out to be a victim of her own mindset or a soulless money-hungry internet influencer.
Jessica Bentley (Cheryl Burniston) is newly engaged and has been invited to a school reunion, although her fiancé is unable to join her. She soon gets reacquainted with her friends from school such as Lauren Bryce, (Natasha Killip) a self-obsessed glamour model, Sara Ryan (Aoife Smyth) a woman who’s seen The Fast and The Furious a million times and Nathan Brown (Lee Latchford-Evans) who Lauren instantly takes a shine to besides not remembering him at all at school.
After a few drinks the reunion surprise is sprung on Jessica as a way to bring them all together – paintball. Some of them are eager and Jessica is really reluctant, but after some peer pressure they all go off to face the competition.
They’re met by their paintball Marshalls; Shelly (Katy Brand) and Eddie (Robert Portal) who show them how it should be done and make sure that they know the rules. However, after they really get into the match things get very quiet and when the red team investigate the blue team’s base, they realise that they’ve all been brutally murdered.
With a killer on the loose with a modified paint-gun and some traps especially laid out, this will be a reunion Jessica will never forget.
Paintball Massacre is a British horror comedy which takes on a simple premise and sets it in a very British way so that those who remember their school days or know what school reunions are like can laugh at the variety of characters in the movie. The issue is that although Paintball Massacre has a good idea behind it, the execution could use some work.
As the friends reunited start to theorise about who the killer could be, suspicions arise and as they are blaming each other, the killer is bumping them off one by one. This does lead to some speculation about the killer’s identity, particularly as it may be Jessica’s fiancé, but for people who know the format of these kinds of films then there’s nothing new or original to offer.
There’s also very little known about most of the characters and although that makes for good fodder as the audience watches them all get killed, it also doesn’t mean that they have anything to root for when it comes down to the final few survivors. Although tightly scripted with a good idea of what the audience wants, it’s already been done too often.
Hollywood tries to operate as an inclusive space, but the lingering racial and gender inequalities still exist throughout all working industries. Thankfully, more diverse voices are getting their opportunity to express intimate sentiments on screen, including acclaimed Killing Eve screenwriter Emerald Fennell. Her debut effort Promising Young Woman has endured a long journey since its Sundance debut (originally scheduled for an April release), but this lighting-rod effort will surely become a focal point of awards conversations. Simply put, this an exceptional film, one that critiques its relevant subject matter with weight and thoughtful craftsmanship.
Promising Young Woman follows Cassandra Thomas (Carey Mulligan), who spends her days working her ordinary coffee shop gig. Once night comes, Cassandra hits the town to exploit ill-advised men, catching them amidst their forceful behavior. After stumbling upon a forgotten foe, Cassandra seeks vengeance for the crimes that impacted her past.
Fennell’s big-screen debut lacks the frequent missteps of first-time filmmakers. She allures audiences in with her electric visual flourishes, utilizing luminous lighting and pop confectionary tracks to set the mood effectively. Right when we’re comfortable, Fennell grounds her narrative with a settled realism, with the two contrasting styles playing seamlessly into her thematic conceits. The vibrantly-stylized visual dynamics are a fitting critique of the male’s sexualized gaze towards innocuous women, while the grittier visual elements represent Cassandra’s lingering demons. Every shot is constructed with thought and flair, as Fennell marries the two sensibilities with effortless ease (she also imbues a sense of unease that permeates throughout the runtime).
Several films have zeroed their sights on male’s casual abuse and objectification, but few have hammered that conceit home with such gravitas. Whether it’s vapid-PC yuppies or overtly vulgar cave men, Fennell’s screenplay dispels any simplistic truths by running the full gamut of problematic behaviors. A loaded supporting cast of notable character actors helps portray this dynamic further (Bo Burnham, Max Greenfield, Adam Brody are among the group), with Fennell cleverly taking well-liked figures and showing the dark behaviors behind their personas. Fennell also does an adept job of displaying the multitude of ways women are pushed into subservient roles.
After entertaining audiences with a bevy of twists and turns, Fennell empathetically delivers her thesis with a stunning third act change-up on conventional formula. While it won’t win everyone over, I appreciate the writer/director’s favoring of realistic steaks while still balancing the dourness with some crowd-pleasing frames. It’s a joy to watch a film fearless in its pursuit, continually playing off the audience’s expectations with winning results.
The true heart of PromisingYoung Woman lies in Carey Mulligan’s awards-worthy performance. Mulligan has excelled throughout her career, but the role of Cassandra gives the actress new dimensionality to employ in her performance. When she’s going through town to punish cruel males, Mulligan adopts a chameleon-like persona as she balances her own persona with common female tropes. When the character is given an isolated space onscreen, Mulligan powerfully displays the emotional loss that drives her actions. Mulligan and Fennel extract thoughtful nuances from Cassandra’s continual struggle to move forward, reflecting the everlasting damage done by the cruel acts the film powerfully condemns.
Emerald Fennell’s astute balance between style and substance morphs Promising Young Woman into one of the year’s most accomplished features. I hope the writer/director and Mulligan receive the awards recognition they deserve.
Bale, Disney, MCU: Weekly Round Up – This week the movie news machine was dominated by Disney. The studio held their annual “investor call” which is sort of as dull as it sounds, but with the added excitement of the fact that Disney as a company own the likes of Pixar, Star Wars, Marvel, and a whole bunch of other stuff, meaning that along with all the boring financial crap came a whole shed load of announcements around what the studio are planning for their schedule in the next few years.
Most of what was announced centred around the Disney+ streaming appuch of what was announced , which isn’t that much of a surprise when you consider the current ongoing uncertainty around the pandemic. There were a lot of interesting things getting dropped there anyway, including a whole host of Marvel shows, a bunch of Star Wars shows, and some other things for, like… National Geographic, I guess? Because that’s a thing Disney own I think. Maybe. Probably. Jesus, they own fucking everything, let’s just get it over with and inject their content straight into our brains, shall we?
Anyway, aside from the streaming service announcements, we got a lot of details around other projects. First up we have Pixar, who were ready to share some details surrounding their upcoming projects post-Soul.
First out the gate will be Luca, an Italy-based animation that’s set to arrive in June of 2021, and will be followed by Turning Red in March of 2022, which will tell the story of a young girl who, er… turns into a red panda (I’ll be honest, it sounds rubbish, but it’s Pixar, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt given they’re the studio that made fish and abstract emotional concepts kid friendly fun for the whole family, so…).
Most interestingly from the Pixar line-up, though, was the announcement of their other 2022 project, Buzz Lightyear. The film is a sort of prequel to Toy Story, although not really. It’s complicated, but interesting at least. It will star Chris Evans as the voice of the “real” Buzz Lightyear, the person upon whom the Tim Allen-voiced Buzz from the Toy Story movies is supposed to have been based. Not much else is known about the project at this point, but it’s a pretty fascinating concept, so fingers crossed it’ll be alright.
Of course, you all want to know about the Star Wars stuff, so, okay, let’s get onto the Star Wars stuff.
There was the announcement that Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins will direct the next Star Wars movie, which is reportedly titled Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, and will be released in December of 2023. Jenkins, of course, is among the many filmmakers who recently learned their movies will be simultaneously dropping on HBO Max as well as in theatres, so her move to Disney adds an interesting layer to that particular cake (maybe Christopher Nolan will go direct movies for the House of Mouse too?).
Not much is known about Jenkins’ movie, but it’s safe bet to guess that it’ll tie in with the other Rogue Squadron Star Wars properties that were an especially big deal in the 90s. This will no doubt be seen by some as Disney’s attempt to gain favour with the fans who felt let down after the studio departed from the original Extended Universe way back when they first purchased the property, but whether it will actually pan out remains to be seen.
Taika Waititi’s Star Wars movie is reportedly still happening, with a scheduled release now of 2024 or potentially even later, but the most curious omission, in my view at least, was that of Rian Johnson. Johnson, who helmed The Last Jedi, was supposedly going to be working on a brand new Stars Wars trilogy, but the absence of news suggests that this may very well have been scrapped.
It’s always great to bow to angry fan boy pressure, hey folks!? So long as you can keep fucking up copyright law who gives a shit. At least your favourite comic book characters get to, like… talk to each other, or whatever.
Speaking of which, the most movie-centric announcements arguably came in the form of Marvel news. There was the confirmation that Christian Bale will indeed be co-starring in 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder, and that he will be playing the villain, Gorr the God Butcher. I have no idea who that is, and I’m not going to google it, but I fully suspect it’ll involve Bale going through another one of his incredibly transformations, although this time likely within a computer.
Iman Vellani, who has been cast as Ms. Marvel, and will be appearing in her very own Disney+ show, will also reportedly make her MCU feature film debut in Captain Marvel 2, which is slated for a release in 2022, which adds credence to the suggestions we’ve been hearing that the Marvel Disney+ slate will be very intwined with the cinematic outings (and that’s not all that great an idea, I don’t think, but let’s not let that get in the way).
My favourite bit of Marvel news, thought, was that the new Ant-Man and the Wash movie will be titled Ant-Man the Wasp: Quantumania, and will reportedly feature Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang, Ant-Man’s daughter, who in the comics is the superhero Stature. If they don’t go full on batshit with a title like that then I’ll be very disappointed.
It’s Spider-Man who got the most crazy announcements though. First up, the director of the three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, Jon Watts, will reportedly be at the helm of the much anticipated Fantastic Four reboot, a property Disney now have access too thanks to the Fox merger, but really the overshadowing property was the third Spider-Man outing itself which, er… sounds insane.
We already knew that Jaimie Foxx had be cast to reprise his role from the Andrew Garfield starring The Amazing Spider-Man 2 for the third MCU outing of old web-head, but this week we learned that joining him on the villain front will be Alfred Molina, who played Doctor Octopus in the Same Raimi-directed, Tobey McGuire-starring Spider-Man 2.
But even that is the most interesting aspect here, because the big news actually broke after Disney’s investor call. See, they’re not just bringing back some of the villains, they plan to bring back fucking everyone! EVERYONE! As in, both Tobey McGuire and Andrew Garfield will reportedly be reprising their roles as Spider-Man alongside Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey.
If you’re wondering how all these characters from different movie worlds can co-exist, it’s because it seems that this phase of the MCU is all about the multi-verse. We’ve known this since the announcement that the Doctor Strange sequel will be called In the Multi-verse of Madness. Of course, that film’s director is Sam Raimi, so it seems Marvel are keen to “keep it in the family” as it were. WandaVision, the Disney+ show, also seems to be dealing with this, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the aforementioned third Ant-Man and the Wasp doesn’t follow suit.
What this means entirely for the future of the MCU as a whole, I don’t know, but it’s a safe bet to say that Disney will be using this particular plot device to bring in the X-Men, Deadpool, and any other character that takes their fancy. I’m hoping they bring back Chris Evens as The Human Torch because… well, that would be fun, wouldn’t it.
