Category: REVIEWS

Here is where you would find our film reviews on BRWC. We look at on trailers, shorts, indies and mainstream. We love movies!

Mulan: Live-Action Remake – Disney+ Talk

Mulan: Live-Action Remake – Disney+ Talk

The Disney business plan of remaking their classic animated films continue with ‘Mulan’. Last week, I reviewed the original animated classic and, while it has some issues, I enjoyed it.

Despite not liking a lot of the live-action remakes, ‘Mulan’ was one that I was excited for, especially since Disney were aiming to tell the original story, instead of doing a direct remake of the 1998 classic. And, after seeing ‘Mulan’, I can express my opinions.

‘Mulan’, once again, tells the story of the titular character who takes her father’s place in the Imperial Army, disguising herself as a male soldier and ultimately becoming a heroine.

The live-action remake of ‘Mulan’ was, ultimately, fine. The film could be split into two parts, in terms of quality: the first 30 minutes, and the last 90 minutes. The first 30 minutes of the film explores Mulan’s childhood up until she runs away from home to join the army. This first act was filled with blatant exposition dialogue, wooden acting and uneven pacing. However, once Mulan joins the Imperial Army, the film feels like it was directed by a different person, as the pacing, acting and action is tighter and more evenly paced. The last 90 minutes were definitely more exciting and enjoyable.

The main cast all do a good job as the characters that they play. Yifei Liu, who plays the titular character, fits comfortably into the role and carries the film well. Her interaction with the rest of the main cast also works as she grows into a confident woman. The general look of the film, i.e.: locations and costumes, are gorgeous and are my favourite aspect of the film. It’s mostly a colourful and vibrant film, until the Army goes to war, where bright colours are swapped with the murky greys and browns, symbolising the grisly nature of war.

There are a few references to the original animated film. For example, some lyrics from ‘A Girl Worth Fighting For’ is used as dialogue from one soldier, as he explains his perfect woman (‘I don’t care what she looks like/I just care what she cooks like’), and the score uses the song ‘Reflection’ when Mulan succeeds in training. None of these references felt forced and it was a joy to hear them being used naturally in the film.

However, this film does have its problems too. When Disney first announced this remake, they said that Mushu the Dragon would not appear in the film, a decision that I agreed with. However, it’s been replaced by a Phoenix who supposedly watches over, and protects, Mulan. I say supposedly because it only appears once in the film, making it a pointless character. I understand the symbolism of the character being a protective guardian but, if that’s the case, then its appearances should be more regular. The main enemy has also been replaced. Instead of the war being against The Huns, it’s against the Rorian Army and a Witch. This was a huge disappointment to see as, like previously mentioned, Disney were supposedly aiming to tell the original story of Mulan. However, this is not necessarily the case and that is a shame to see.

Another issue was the cinematography. For the most part, it’s fantastic and cinematic, making each scene stand out. However, the film does have a lot of slow-motion shots, which don’t work and make the pacing uneven. They will also appear at random moments usually without reason. If these were taken out, they would make no difference to the film whatsoever. As well as this, some shots during the opening battle scenes are strange. The camera will, at times, follow the perspective of the one being attacked, meaning the shot will flip round, appear upside down or sideways. It’s an interesting technique, but it isn’t consistent, making those scenes a horrible experience. If you want to see a film that does this camera technique perfectly, I recommend seeing 2018’s ‘Upgrade’.

Overall, ‘Mulan’ is fine. The last 90 minutes is better than the first 30 minutes, however it could’ve done with another edit and script rewrite. If you’ve never seen the original animated film, you’d probably enjoy this more than someone who has seen the original. While it’s not a bad film, Disney should’ve stuck to their word and done a telling of the original story, which this was not.

Mulan: Live-Action Remake – Disney+ Talk

9th September 2020
Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet – AppleTV+ Review

Ian (pronounced I-an) Grimm (Rob McElhenney) is the creator of the world’s most popular MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game), Mythic Quest. On his team is Poppy (Charlotte Nicdao) Mythic Quest’s lead programmer, story writer C.W. Longbottom (F. Murray Abraham), executive producer, David (David Hornsby) and financial expert Brad (Danny Pudi). Together they keep the game running and hope that the can appease their biggest critic, 14-year-old game streamer, Pootie Shoe (Elisha Henig). David also hires Jo (Jessie Ennis) as his assistant and if she’s not reined in, she may actually kill someone.

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is the new sitcom from the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. With Rob McElhenney writing and starring and Charlie Day and Megan Ganz on board as co-creators, the audience from Sunny may know what to expect.

However, after an announcement at 2019’s E3 gaming event, Rob McElhenney put the audience at ease that it wasn’t just going to cash in on its audience and laugh at their expense (looking at you, Big Bang Theory). Instead, McElhenney et al teamed up with Ubisoft for advice and an insight into the gaming industry.

Also cast is Ashly Burch, a name that gamers will know for her voice work on games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Life is Strange and the Borderlands games. With Burch being one of the staff writers, this further shows that the show is in good hands.

Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is not only a relatable office-based comedy, but a show that really knows its audience, knows all the in-jokes of the gaming industry and isn’t afraid to do something different to expand on its repertoire.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMaPCYRPhY0

Halfway through its 10-episode run, Mythic Quest does a stand-alone episode that many will not expect, but many will enjoy as it follows a couple from their initial meeting, to their professional and personal relationship and does it over the space of 10 years. Something that other shows wouldn’t dare to do so early on, but it stands out as one of the best and only confirms that Mythic Quest is made by the right people.

Although some audience may feel that the workplace sitcom may have run its course and the show does seem to run out of references to the gaming industry, it’s the connection between the characters that makes all the difference. Besides the typical characters that one may find in a quirky sitcom (the evil one, the egotistic one, the overworked one), the laughs keep coming and the main story even gives the audience a few surprises.

9th September 2020
Bill And Ted Face The Music: The BRWC Review

Few lovable losers have endured the test of time like Bill S. Preston Esq. and Theodore Logan. Those are the distinguished titles of the distinctly dopey Bill and Ted, a duo that has transformed into cult figures through their simpleminded SoCal charms. Featuring dedicated performance work from Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves, alongside a plethora of off-kilter gags, both Excellent Adventure and its sequel Bogus Journey have remained beloved comedic staples long past their initial releases. After nearly 30 years of waiting, Bill and Ted are finally back on the big (and small) screen with Bill and Ted Face the Music, a warmly nostalgic revival that captures the property’s earnest charms.

Bill and Ted Face the Music follows its titular protagonists, who are now middle-aged parents still trying to create their world-saving song. With the planet hours away from ending, Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) travel to the future in order to obtain the hit song from themselves, coming face to face with a future that isn’t quite as excellent as they hoped for. While they face their personal demons, their daughters Thea (Samara Weaving) and Billie (Brigette Lundy-Paine) travel back in time to help their dads assemble a historic band.

Shaking off any potential rust, Face the Music seamlessly conveys the alluring charms of its predecessors. Both Winters and Reeves have diverged down different career paths since Bogus Journey (Winters is a documentarian while Reeves is a marque action star), yet the duo slip back into their old-school personas with comfortable ease. The new-aged look has only made their slacker delivery more palatable, with the characters befuddling logic and good-hearted nature still generating the same uproarious laughs as before. Considering most modern comedies delineate towards a raunchy tonality, it’s refreshing to watch Bill and Ted’s comedic voice continue to embrace an innocent juvenility.

As a good sequel should Face the Music brings some welcomed additions to the table. The inclusion of Bill and Ted’s chill daughters Billie and Tea add a fresh perspective for this third entry, with Samara Weaving and Brigette Lundy-Paine recreating Bill and Ted’s distinct mannerisms seamlessly while infusing their own voice into the roles. They are joined by a plethora of colorful new characters that add to the film’s zany comedic energy, including a murderous robot with deeply-seeded insecurities (Barry’s Anthony Carrigan continues to be a scene-stealer in comedic roles) and Kid Cudi who inexplicably explains the complexity of time travel. Screenwriters Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon deserve praise for their ability to capture the tonality and low-key charms of the originals while seamlessly incorporating fresh ideas to screen.

While the script does reinvigorate its predecessors’ comedic energy, it’s noticeably lacking from a narrative perspective. In an effort to combine Excellent Adventure and Bogus Journey’s premises, the story suffers from a lingering sense of familiarity, lacking the creative spark or oddball plot beats that made the first two beloved staples. Director Dean Parisot’s sterile and flat direction suffers from a similar sense of timidness, with the film ultimately being content to simply play towards diehard fans nostalgia. The lack of ingenuity may limit the film, but it doesn’t mask the laughs and amiable energy that’s on display throughout.

Bill and Ted Face the Music is a most excellent tribute to the offbeat and infectious energy of its predecessors. If this is the character’s swan song, it’s great to see them walk off on a positive note.

8th September 2020
I’m Thinking Of Ending Things: The BRWC Review

The internal machinations of our minds sometimes betray us. Fantasies spiral out of control, thoughts embarrass us by slipping through their Freudian holes, and in the midst of puzzling equations, they have the unfortunate knack of forgetting to carry the one. Charlie Kaufman’s “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” is one such puzzling equation set in a spiralling fantasy world filled to the brim with haunting mental slips twisted as cultural references coming to life. Following a young woman (Jessie Buckley) and her boyfriend Jake (Jesse Plemons), Kaufman’s latest is a confronting, often chilling look at life unfulfilled and the ways in which we compensate for that inside.

“It is beautiful out here. In a bleak, heartbroken kind of way.” so thinks the young woman, who for convenience I will call Lucy, the first of her many ever-changing names. Lucy thinks this while gazing out from Jakes car on the way to meet his parents for the first time. The whitewashed landscape outside is rapidly worsening in the snowfall, and despite the frequent chatter with her boyfriend, she cannot escape one perpetual thought, “I’m thinking of ending things”. What she’s thinking of ending precisely is challenging to dissect, but on the surface level, Jake is on the chopping block.

Most of the film takes place like this, isolated in the ever-plodding car and, as if driving some mythically foreboding road, the further they go, the more unsettling things become. Its subtle interactions the couple have that force this sensation. Moments where Jack interrupts Lucy’s thoughts, as if reading her mind, or the few times Lucy’s ever-seeking eyes find the camera and she stares straight through us. Yet these instances are only harbingers of what’s to come, which is a meeting of parents that makes Ben Stiller’s efforts look like a perfectly comfortable and effortless occasion.

Jack’s parents are freaky figures, simply named mother and father (Toni Collette and David Thewlis). They flow through time together while we are with them, aging rapidly both forwards and backwards through time, but they aren’t all that changes. Lucy’s name changes as well, as does her occupation, the way they met, her hobbies and interests. Suddenly it becomes clear that this is not reality as you and I know it. What we are seeing is a blank canvass upon which someone is painting their desires, and as they paint, they are changing their minds about what is ideal to them. Everything becomes infinitely more uncomfortable from this point as we realise how perverted it is that we are being made privy to this individual’s innermost desires. Almost every moment inside Jack’s childhood home only makes this more evocative. When we enter his room, the voluminous mise-en-scene reveals the sources of many of the references, and it’s clear whoever’s fantasy this is it’s made up entirely from the media they have consumed.

We do know whose fantasy Lucy exists in; he isn’t kept secret from us. In fact, throughout the film, we cut to him living his lonely life. Credited only as “Janitor” (Guy Boyd), our de-facto storyteller works in a local high school where he struggles with both his image in the eyes of the students and his empathy for those who are bullied. And through him, I’m Thinking of Ending Things becomes a melancholy tale of unrequited love within oneself. Even in his own fantasy, the Janitor faces rejection, and I can’t think of many things sadder than that.

Sad as it may be, everything does come across masterfully. Kaufman is sincere enough in his writing to simply let his mystery be clear-cut once it is resolved. However, the film’s issues lie in the presence of the conundrum itself. In both direction and content, this is an inaccessible film nearly impossible to fully comprehend in a single viewing, which can make its vast 134-minute runtime drag. It is so easy to get caught up in analysing every passing line as if the next one could be the Rosetta Stone for the entire piece, and doing this won’t uncover much of anything in this movie. The film’s twist lies in the big picture, and the references and the mind-bending are only the manifestations of the Janitor; they are what he is. In saying this, a firmer hand would likely have seen the film crumble before our eyes as a nuance-less mess, so whilst it all gets dangerously close to being pretentious, it remains respectable.

I would be remiss to end this review without mentioning two of the hottest actors in the world right now in Buckley and Plemons. The calibre of work they produce while almost exclusively seated in a car is phenomenal. They are becoming the kind of actors whose names on a cast sheet are all the convincing you will need to watch, and their efforts in digesting and reciting Kaufman’s abstract dialogue is some of the finest work of the year. Thewlis and Collette are also predictably irresistible in their quirky roles, and together they each make for a perfect ensemble.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things is unashamedly not for all tastes to worthwhile results. With this said, deciphering what it all means is justifiably difficult and will doubtless see many seek other avenues to spend their time.

8th September 2020
Mulan: The BRWC Review

One is unable to discuss Disney’s new live-action remake of Mulan without at least briefly mentioning the divisive decision to drop the film straight to Disney+ in favor of simply delaying a theatrical release. However many of us might feel about the controversial media conglomerate, it is undeniably true that today’s cinemas rely greatly on the studio’s output to survive (their films took a market share of almost 40% in 2019). Given the current circumstances, delaying it would’ve been the right thing to do.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment is the fact that the film was so clearly designed for the big screen, drenched in spectacle and just begging to be experienced in a crowd. Unlike the majority of Disney’s lackluster remakes, Mulan is prepared to step away from simply copying the 1998 original and actually try something new. In fact, this version is essentially a wuxia film (it’ll remind viewers more of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon than of the Disney classic); more of a modern interpretation of the Chinese legend than ‘just another remake’, and the spectacle of that vision feels completely wasted on a television screen.

Gone are all the elements that we know and love; there are no songs, love stories or talking animals, all of which are pushed aside as the story instead leans into themes of family, honor and trust.

It’s almost admirable that the film strays so far from the original text on which it’s based in favor of new ideas, and it certainly shouldn’t rub people up the wrong way quite like previous remakes have done, as it doesn’t fall into the same traps. In fact, Mulan has all the elements to become something brilliant… so why doesn’t it?

The answer to that is simple: it’s Disney. The studio’s model thrives on creating movies for mass appeal; ones that can rarely be called ‘bad’, since there almost always competently made and well-acted, but that are hardly ever bold enough to become something great. With very few exceptions, they’re usually what one might call ‘pretty good’ or even ‘just fine’, and that’s because that’s precisely what they’re designed to be; movies that neither offend nor blow anyone away.

The reason Mulan never becomes more than ‘fine’ is because it’s unwilling to fully embrace the ideas at the heart of it. A fully Chinese wuxia movie that focused more on the mental strain of Mulan’s actions and on her interactions with those around her would’ve been far more interesting than what we got: essentially, a Marvel movie. It follows the same basic structure and is every bit as formulaic as any MCU release.

In fact, Hua Mulan herself is now a superhero. This new interpretation of the character has the power of chi, and once again, that could’ve been interesting had it been handled creatively, but Mulan is introduced as the perfect fighter from the very beginning. She attempts to conceal her skills from fellow soldiers, but never from the audience, so it’s pretty difficult for the combat sequences (however pretty they might be) to have any real tension.

In the end, while Mulan isn’t as problematic as many other Disney remakes, the principle remains the same: thinking these films will be equal in quality is ignorant of what made the classics so special in the first place… the animation itself. Much like most others, Mulan worked better as an animated film because it was purposefully created that way; it’s how the story was supposed to be told, and although this remake has a more respectful approach than most, it’s still devoid of any of the charm that made the original so beloved.

It’s visually stunning, the action sequences are terrific and Liu Yifei is fantastic in the lead role, but it lacks the magic, heart, character or life of its animated counterpart. In short, it’s ‘just fine’, and you’ll likely feel just as you did after Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast or The Lion King: wishing you were watching the original.

8th September 2020