Glass Onion

A few years ago, it seemed like Daniel Craig was certain to be remembered as a guy who played James Bond. Maybe that still holds, but a couple more of these films—we're at three as of this writing—and it may no longer be a sure thing. His Benoit Blanc is arguably a more memorable character, and you can’t deny that it is a persona that is truly Craig’s own, rather than a borrowed or inherited legacy. It helps, too, that these Knives Out movies are good, entertaining, fun and funny, and blessed with a lot of current (at least) cultural currency. In this edition, the story works well, and the cast and setting have plenty of interesting facets (though here the collected characters border on caricature). The fly in this ointment lies in the focus on—and critique of—the ultra rich and their natures. The view has merit and the parody pulls few punches, but it means spending a lot of time with some really unpleasant characters, even if just representations thereof. That aspect of the story does get a bit distracting, one might say…though one can argue the critique is not so much a distraction as the point of the presentation in the first place. I guess it depends on how much you care about the mystery aspect of a mystery, versus character, setting and mood. Me, I’m not so much on the whodunnit angle, so my viewing mind tends to shift towards the other story elements. It works here, though I’m not sure it would in every story. As it is, you can just focus on Craig and let him be your guide to a decent way to kill a couple of hours. I guess this movie doesn’t exactly shatter any expectations, but the fact that it works overall is crystal clear. 

Dune: Part Two

So there’s fanatical space Arabs out there. Well, that’s just great. Hopefully any excesses will be confined to moviedom. It is the overriding impression one gets watching this movie, just how much the tale is filled with Middle Eastern vibes. That’s not something you usually get in your sci-fi epics, but it does lead one to contemplate how tableaux about empires and power and war are really about death, destruction and misery. And in this outing, you don’t even get to the end of the conflict—all this is just a prelude to the third entry, which presumably will present us with one hell of a climax. As it is, there’s plenty of action and intrigue to go around in this installment, more than enough dazzle to keep you entertained—visually, at least, if not in terms of the story—throughout the movie’s rather long (two and a half hour) running time. Oh, and don’t worry so much about how long it’s been since you saw the first one; even if you never laid eyes on the first flick, you can follow along with what’s going on easily enough. In sum, it’s great to look at, tells a good story—at least the middle part of it—and features a slew of familiar faces doing good work all around. Not much more you can ask from a better than average space opera.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

You can hardly go wrong telling a story with great characters. The strength of this series has always been its stable of astonishingly vibrant and memorable characters, from the original core set to the additions to the team in the second and now third installments--they have all been outsized, wildly entertaining and profoundly likable. That even applies to the computer generated personages, who really shine in this sequel. Rocket and his enhanced animal friends, in flashbacks to the past, bring such emotional depth and honesty to the story’s key points that their example opens up whole new vistas of consideration about how movie audiences can connect to characters, ideas and other facets of the movie-watching experience. Maybe even the dreaded AIs have something to offer the medium, something that those who grew up strictly on human-centric cinema would never have expected to be possible. Then again, maybe it’s all just a standard comic-book movie hoot and a half, with laughs and fun stuff and “did that look cool” sprinkled throughout a well-formed big-screen joy ride. You can just take it as the latter and leave all the deep thought stuff to others, if you like. This outing certainly serves up plenty of laugh-out-loud moments and a host of trademark flourishes that the franchise fans will expect to see. Yes, there is a certain amount of absurdity to the main storyline; if you think about it (not recommended), the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense. But such concerns have quibbling written all over them. This is just plain movie fun, and if you don't get regular helpings of that, you're doing it wrong.

Dune (2021)

An interesting viewing experience. You can’t help but look at this movie as something fake, not because it’s science fiction--and thus wholly unreal--but because it bears a resemblance to so many other epic type productions that it feels like it’s a ripoff of something else. However, there is enough here that’s unique enough to credit this work in and of itself. (And Frank Herbert's source novel is old enough that, perhaps, it’s the other works that rip off this one). The film also has going for it a singular vision of how it looks, and its component elements--particularly the space and aircraft designs-- also feel fresh, even in the face of that derivative vibe. That same effect is assisted by a raft of familiar faces looking unfamiliar in their roles, though still doing good work, as well as the not-quite familiar Timothée Chalamet holding his own in the movie's linchpin role (something I wouldn’t have necessarily bet on going in). All in all, the proceedings hold the interest throughout the movie's long running time, with a story that promises to move in interesting directions in its upcoming continuation.

Hotel Artemis

I have a bad feeling about this. ‘This’ in this instance meaning the future as depicted in movies. It’s never all that good; in fact, most of the time, it’s depicted as downright wretched. So it is here. That in and of itself is not a reason to pan a movie, but it had better not the only thing in the presentation—there’d better be something else on display to make the audience feel like they should care about what’s going on in that still-to-come dystopia. This outing, for instance, nearly gets there with some likable characters, including Jodie Foster doing her game best to provide some major depth to a story that, all in all, is lacking in the dimension department. A lot of what goes on here seems oddly detached. It probably doesn’t help that everyone on the screen/scene is, at best, morally ambiguous. Pay attention you storytellers out there: goodness still matters. It’s hard to root for criminals from the jump, and even when they display some redeeming qualities, that doesn’t automatically get a spectator cheering. At least this film has brevity going for it; it clocks in at a tidy hour and a half, and that helps raise some goodwill where the rest of the proceedings fall short. You can check in here, if you like; just don’t expect five-star accommodations.

Blade Runner 2049

The dystopian future is approaching at breakneck speed, and apparently--paradoxically--it will be very languid. I don't especially mind a movie with a measured pace, particularly if the film is filled with interesting details, visuals, and information. I'm not sure that description applies here. There seems to be some biological/biomechanical dilemmas posed by this outing that don't really jibe with what has gone before it (both in the original Blade Runner and in android/replicant rules as understood in the Alien movies). Plus, on top of all that, if you view the universe from a common aboriginal point of view--that all things in nature, even rocks and trees and whatnot, have souls--then a lot of the philosophical undercurrents of these films kind of goes down the drain, or at least gets muted somewhat. I can't say I ever really got bored with it, but I just suspect this movie could have been a lot better.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

Most of the time, the heavy use of nostalgic music--in this case 1970s and '80s stuff--is just a marketing tool used to rope in a specific, ticket-buying cohort. Not so here; the music actually plays a pivotal role in the story. It's a thread that ties things together in an interesting way, more so than the tunes in the first installment. Expanding out from that, this film wears its Eighties heritage more flamboyantly than any other flick movie of recent vintage (as does its predecessor); it's no wonder then that folks like myself are eating this stuff up. All that wry, ironic, and even a little bit cruel humor goes a long way to creating the likeability, even if a lot of this story is obvious both in terms of plot and visually. There are a lot of ways of earning an audience's good graces, and these folks pull out all those stops, enough to make an enjoyable sequel. Enough for a third go round? We probably don't have a choice, but, sure, I'll go along.