Tag: movie

Dub’s Take: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1 out of 5

“Planet of the Apes 10” (or “X”), at almost two-and-a-half hours, is too damn long. I wanted a Charlton Heston-style pun with “YA BLEW IT UP”, but I couldn’t figure one out.

I’m no historian either, but wasn’t there a time when movie studios wanted shorter films in theatres to increase the number of showtimes in a day? But the era of butchering overlong “auteur” films has been over for a long time, hasn’t it? Last-century classics like “The Wild Bunch” and “Once Upon a Time in America” were championed once their unaltered versions were repatriated, but it seemed left-minded executives could come in whenever they wanted and cut scenes they thought were superficial. Today, it’s the studios producing these overlong movies, maybe in their post-COVID attempts to revitalize theatrical box-offices with tentpole “experiences”.

I grew up with the “Apes” films up to “Conquest” and I’m always down for a monkey movie. “Kingdom” starts nobly, not only by having lots of different kinds of monkeys in it, but by taking place “generations” after the other entries, serving as a soft-reboot of sorts for the resuscitated franchise. I liked the dialogue’s seasoning of existential despondency and the throwback soundtrack, both which recall the 1968 original. “The Witcher” ‘s Freya Allen successfully auditions for “Tomb Raider” with her role. And the special effects were pretty good, including some effective mo-cap, and a high-angle of some windy trees in the prologue that was eye-catching on a big screen.

But the film is purposeless other than as distraction. Its formulaic first act set-up of rescue & revenge segues to a meandering middle and a predictable end, with too many “what ifs” for a road picture and not enough actual adventuring. Extended passages like a campfire and a cameo from William H. Macy are too much texture for a monkey movie. The worst element is character actor & pasty White guy Kevin Durand’s main antagonist Proximus, for which Durand adopts a problematic Keith David impression. Producers should have just hired Keith David instead.

Nothing here couldn’t have been done in a hour-and-a-half – the median length for all four original Apes sequels. No wonder there’s a conscious audience shift to streaming: who wants to pay modern prices and leave their home to take an uncomfortable nap?

Poster sourced from impawards.com. Do you have any good Charlton Heston or Planet of the Apes puns or jokes? Leave yours in the comment box below!

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Dub’s Take: Open Range (2003)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

1.5 out of 5

Everything about Kevin Costner’s “Open Range” is calculated antithesis to his much-maligned 1997 feature “The Postman”, and that is where its failure lies: Costner seems more concerned here with atonement than doing anything new & exciting with the Western genre.

Coming off Postman & “Waterworld” probably humbled Kevin enough to dial the front-and-centre “Costner Factor” back for this, his third official directorial effort. Along with top billing, Costner has given up the density of background extras, dolly shots, and side-stories that distinguishes both Postman and his first feature “Dances With Wolves”. It’s clear this is a deliberate sanitization on Costner’s part: Open Range’s first-act visual metaphor of him digging a stuck wagon out of mud is apt.

But taken as its own entertainment as opposed to a feature-length critical response, Open Range lacks the Costner Factor’s chutzpah. It’s a “two people in a room” movie, but on a field. Nothing in screenwriters Lauran Paine’s & Craig Storper’s monologues come to any revelatory philosophical conclusions: it’s all dialogue you’ve probably heard already on Costner’s current revivification “Yellowstone”. Robert Duvall’s & Costner’s acting is fine, but Annette Bening seems to have taken her direction of “speaking with the eyes” (like DWW’s Mary McDonnell and Postman’s Olivia Williams) too literally, looking like a deer-in-the-headlights the whole time.

There was some nice texture. I liked the design of the town and its quick-and-dirty construction. I liked how the two men were pretty much able to take over the whole thing with just their combined gunslinger experience. Having animals in distress (especially the Good Bois here) is a dirty filmmaking trick, but Costner the director goes-for-broke, which I appreciate, because if you’re going to go there, go all the way. And the climactic showdown – for all its over-editing – is gleefully violent, with touches of Leone, Peckinpah, and even John Woo. But these details stand out independently of the overlong film, rather than elements of its whole. DWW justified its length with solemnity, and Postman with narrative scope. Open Range has neither.

Kevin should be commended for his attempts at diffidence here but, for those of us who care, time will tell whether his upcoming four-part theatrical serial “Horizon” is a return-to-form of the Costner Factor.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are you a fan of The Postman like I am? Were you equally-horrified when you showed it to your friends and they all laughed and said it was crap? Share your Postman Viewing Party stories in the comments below!

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Dub’s Take: Unsung Hero (2024)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

2.5 out of 5

“Unsung Hero” – the much-anticipated faith-based family drama inspired by the lives of, and produced by, the boys from “for KING + COUNTRY” – is a perfectly middle-of-the-road motion picture. There’s your one-sentence Kojima-style review right there.

Viewer mileage will largely depend on their opinion of FKAC: you’ve probably heard one-or-two of the Christian pop-duo’s crossover hits on Top-40 radio. My wife is a fan and we attended their 2023 Christmas concert, where half the intermission was taken up with promoting Unsung Hero. Their stamp is all over it: its namesake song off their 2022 album “What Are We Waiting For” is the film’s theme; Joel Smallbone steps into the shoes of his Job-like father; and the young actors playing Joel & Luke as children are in the background of scenes ten-times more than the other adolescents, even making sly jabs at their eventual rise to stardom, despite the film’s focus being the awakening of their older sister’s singing career (Rebecca St. James).

A perfect example of the movie’s internal struggle to balance corny cheese with heart-tugging worship can be found in its climax: Dad has one last chance to redeem his music management career, by presenting Rebecca to his rock-star neighbour Eddie Degarmo. While Kirrilee Berger’s singing as Rebecca is enduring, we keep cutting back to Degarmo’s reaction, and “General Hospital” ‘s Jonathan Jackson wears a stupid wig that cessates any sincerity the scene earns otherwise. I can’t think of any other way the filmmakers could have avoided this (Jackson’s acting is fine) other than not cutting to his reaction until the end.

Other bits of movie dissimulation include a trip to the playground that ends in a heavy-handed metaphor about moving on, and at least two of the seven siblings barely getting any screentime. But there’s at least one stand-out moment for Joel’s patriarch when he’s at his lowest, and I appreciated the script not skimping over the financial intervention of Lucas Black’s overly-generous co-congregant. The movie is presented professionally, but workmanlike. There isn’t anything stand-out about its plot or themes, nor anything so egregious it doesn’t deserve a recommendation if you’re into this sort of thing.

Unsung Hero’s faults are cancelled out by its positives & vice-versa, resulting in an average time at the movies. I can’t say I was disappointed, since it was exactly what it said it would be on its label.

Poster sourced from impawards.com.

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Dub’s Take: Jeanne du Barry (2023)

A spoiler-free mini movie review.

3.5 out of 5

Let us all admire for a second how far French actress/director Maïwenn has come, from Scream Queen in 2003’s “Haute Tension” to her filmmaking status in the 2010s. Her “Jeanne du Barry” may only stymie Western audiences for her casting of the French-speaking Johnny Depp as her film’s primary male lead: the King of France, no less. Allow me then to proudly declare that the two-hour-plus subtitled film was such a successful love story, that my pale-as-a-ghost wife – who will avoid foreign films – was in tears by its end.

In my screening’s post-film behind-the-scenes interview, Depp is as restrained as to his reasons behind the “challenge” of playing the character as his Louis XV is in the film itself, only really iterating that Maïwenn was able to convince him otherwise. Taking the last four years of Depp’s highly-publicized fall into account, it’s easy to dismiss his performance here as sleepwalking for a much-needed paycheque – personally, I think Maïwenn’s casting wants audiences to draw parallels between the eminent nature of her actor’s public & private lives with that of Louis XV’s, who also forwent the luxury of discretion based on his status and what was expected behaviour of royalty. As a man willing to forgo etiquette for love, Depp is great here, in a role he makes believable despite it leaving little room for his usual ostentatiousness.

Of course, the film’s real success isn’t just in its fortunate stunt casting: Maïwenn displays herself an equally-capable dramatic actress as she is director, allowing her Jeanne’s love for Louis to help her carry the silent burdens of her position. The production design is sumptuous (love those powdered wigs). While Jeanne’s poor upbringing made me want for more juxtaposition between her life in the palace and the one she left behind, I understand it was probably jettisoned to focus elsewhere (once you mention the Revolution, we want to see it). I also think the film could have ended at the perfect point about 10 minutes earlier than it did.

As a romance and not a biography, Jeanne du Barry is at its best. It’s when the viewer begins to look broader than the borders of its script that we realize the shortness of its plot: nothing much happens, other than the slow unfolding of life, which ends when it ends. I suppose you could say that about most lives.

Poster sourced from impawards.com. What do you think? Are you a big Johnny Depp fan? (I’m really not.) Are you excited to see him in a “normal” performance for once, even if it is the first post-trial role he was able to get? Do you think Amber Heard will ever have a similar comeback? Did you all know that Kevin Spacey is starting to work again, too? Do you believe in second chances, or are these all just a bunch of spoiled libertines? Leave a comment below!

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Dub’s Take: Killer’s Kiss (1955)

A spoiler-free movie review.

2 out of 5

It’s a mistake to confuse pity with love.

Stanley Kubrick’s second narrative feature “Killer’s Kiss” is a remarkable step-up in quality from his first film “Fear and Desire”, but it still ain’t no Georgia peach.

We’re talking about movies that are closer now to their centennial anniversaries than ever before, and unless you’re a Film Major in post-sec, or doing research, or you’re an old soul & actually enjoy watching older movies (the minority), or a senior (the majority), as we move further and further into the foreseeable future, it’s less likely that ensuing generations will seek out a black & white film from the 1950s, out of a largely-chauvinistic & misogynistic body of work, even if it IS a Kubrick film. Why watch this when you could watch “Full Metal Jacket” again, and possibly catch something you missed the first dozen times around? Is there even a reason to watch Killer’s Kiss in the 2020s other than what I mentioned, or possibly to farm content for a humble blog? Hmm? Read on to find out!

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