Candyman

The updated Candyman was more a supernatural slasher-thriller rather than a straight up horror movie, or even a slasher flick. This was a direct sequel to the original 1992 film although foreknowledge was not required to enjoy it. Nia DeCosta, and her co-writers, smartly recapped the first film without bogging the narrative in exposition. In addition, the technique used - shadow-puppetry - was an effective device that linked to central theme of storytelling, urban legends and folklore. 

At a taut 91 minutes long, DeCosta's film was entertaining enough and delivered some tense moments and a few scares, with some well-staged kill scenes. Jordan Peele was a credited producer and co-writer and his DNA was evident throughout. Candyman - like most of Peele's projects - used the genre as a satirical mouthpiece. An of-the-moment film that mediated on Black history and racial justice, but in this case with a dose of Black folklore and generational trauma. 

DeCosta et al obviously also had too many ideas, but sadly not the canvas to adequately explore them. The film hinted at gender roles, gender inequality, familial trauma, etc, but most were only briefly hinted at or gleaned over without further resolution. Which then begged the question whether they should have even been mentioned at all or not, especially since on top of it all they had to tie this film in with the original 1992 for it all to really make sense.

Kudos to the two leads, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris who were both fascinating to watch. The former as he explored his past and his identity, and the latter for not being a victim but a proactive agent of choice and change. Pity though that Parris could only really come into her own towards the end of the film.

Colman Domingo also stood out in a small but pivotal role.

Candyman was an entertaining film that felt like a pre-dessert rather than the main dessert. It lacked the depth of Peele's other films but at the same time it never took itself too seriously. Although, having now seen DeCosta's work, it will be interesting to watch her next team-up with Parris in the MCU's The Marvels.

Dune [IMAX]

First of all, Dune was a highly impressive film and the craftmanship was all-round outstanding. It should definitely be watched on a big screen and in IMAX if possible because the production value was astounding. It was gorgeously shot by Greig Fraser, the score by Hans Zimmer was peak-Zimmer, production design by Patrice Vermette was superb and the team of Costume Design and Hair & Make-up will definitely be in the running for Oscars too. 

However, and this is a big however, the story itself - screenplay credited to Jon Spaihts, Eric Roth and Denis Villeneuve - was an utter disaster. Messy, hollow, shallow and unnecessarily convoluted with none of the nuance and finesse of Frank Herbet's novel. Villeneuve's vision was a spectacle but Herbet's dense source material deserved a treatment similar to Lord of the Rings or even Game of Thrones. The story needs space to breath and the characters deserved to be humanised and fleshed out and given depth, instead of ending up as the one-dimensional archetypes/stereotypes that they were reduced in this film. 

Be warned, this film was Part One of a possible two-part epic, but Part Two has not even been filmed yet and writing as only just begun. It may not even be filmed if Dune crashes. That being said, this film should not be judged on what it could be - maybe great - but what it is - decidedly not good.

What Dune deserved was a commitment like LOTR for a set number of films to translate its story to the big screen. For all its fault, even the less successful The Hobbit gave its characters the time to develop and, like in LOTR, allowed Peter Jackson to really dive into the complexity of Tolkien's world. The politicking, the backstory, the world history and, most importantly, why it all mattered.

That was really what was wrong with Dune. Why did anything matter? What was the purpose? There was no tangible reason to root for anything or anyone. There was no heart and no soul in this gorgeously sumptuous space opera. Things happened, people moved, but no motives were illuminated. 

Herbet's Dune predated George Lucas' Star Wars but the similarities were clear. However, Villeneuve's vision only served to modernise the production which allowed for an expansion of scope but without replicating any of the emotional complexities that made Star Wars such a beloved franchise/story. 

All of Villeneuve's prior projects seemed to have led to this film. There were echoes of all his p[revious English-language films littered throughout the film from the desert landscape and twilight shots of Sicario to the sci-fi realms of Blade Runner 2049  and Arrival, and the slow-burn drama and mystery box of Prisoners and Enemy. However, a common thread was the slow disintegration of human drama and emotions in his films through the years in exchange for large, visual spectacle. Somehow, he has lost the intimacy of Prisoners and Sicario (and even Arrival) with Blade Runner 2049 and now, Dune.

The only actor/character that rose above all that was surprisingly Rebecca Ferguson's Lady Jessica. Now, that was one character who was interesting. What were her motivations? What was her backstory? Why is she like this? Ferguson's portrayal easily conveyed all that nuances. Too bad, she was not the focus.

Other characters/actors that came close were acting stalwarts Charlotte Rampling as the terrifying Gaius Helen Mohiam and Stellan Skarsgard as the scheming Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (who thankfully had an appropriate modern update and ditched the homophobic backstory). Unfortunately, both of whom were given limited screen time, although they absolutely crushed it.

Everybody else seemed overwhelmed and dwarfed by the world-class, world-building that Villeneuve had done. Their characters seemingly swallowed by the self-grandeur of the story. Timothée Chalamet's Paul Atreides reduced to a Christ-saviour role with puppy dog looks of longing - but longing for what? Chalamet was definitely no Tony Leung. 

Zendaya's Chani was an over glorified cipher and personification of a vision quest, and when she finally entered the narrative proper, you wonder how she managed a Best Actress Emmy win.

Oscar Isaac tried his best, but he was not given the time or the luxury to delve into what was possibly an intriguing backstory. 

Both Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa were reduced to eye-rolling caricatures of the gruff mentor with ?possibly a good heart and the bro-ly subordinate who takes the role of the BFF but will always still be the loyal subject. 

Oh, also, this film was surprisingly racist and non-inclusive. True, granted that Herbet's novel was about imperialism and colonialism, but it would not have hurt for Villeneuve and co to do some updating. Instead, we were left with a white-saviour narrative, white ruling classes lording over indigenous POC who were portrayed as lower class, and of course a mis-used Chang Chen as Dr Yueh the healer of the mystic arts that just so happened to be Asian (three steps forwards and two steps back after Shang-Chi).

Fraser will surely get another Oscar nomination for his outstanding cinematography here. It really worked very well on an IMAX screen. That was a highlight - for me - of the whole film. The visuals were just gorgeous.

Zimmer will also get his perennial nomination. He has gotten this whole space operatic, epic scoring down pat. It worked really well and was exciting at all the right moments. However, it was kind of expected from Zimmer without any surprises.

I really do hope Part Two gets made. And maybe then franchise can be saved. That being said, this film, on its own and by its own merit, was only mildly entertaining. Gorgeous, beautiful and impressive, but shallow, hollow and uninvolving.

Drive My Car ドライブ・マイ・カー

Who would have thought that a three-hour Japanese movie, based off a Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) short story, intertwined with copious amount of Anton Chekhov's Uncle Vanya, that meditated on love, life, grief, guilt and letting go would so easily be one of the best films of the year so far. It was no wonder that Drive My Car won the Best Screenplay award at this year's Cannes Film Festival. This was an absolutely arresting, thoroughly engaging film that was well worth the three hours screen time. Admittedly, it did sag a bit in the Second Act, but the pay off in the end was worth it. 

Ryusuke Hamaguchi's (濱口 竜介) follow-up to the equally enigmatic Wife of a Spy, again employed a deceptively simple style of matter-of-fact storytelling but underlaid it with actors, characters, dialogue, mood, tone and atmosphere that was utterly rich in emotions with none of the histrionics. There were no big set pieces or moments of sparring emotions. Instead, Hamaguchi served us a subtle, elegant exploration of human emotion and human connection. It was minimalistically Japan-esque. 

Murakasami's words and themes were beautifully brought out and evolved from his much simpler short story of the same title. The addition of Chekhov to the script not only added a new layer of elegance but also served to smartly allow Hamaguchi to inform the audience and guide their experience without being overtly intrusive (a little tad heavy handed at the end, but the execution softened the blow).

However, this three-hour film would not have been tolerable if not for its cast, especially lead actor Hidetoshi Nishijima (西島 秀俊), Nishijima was practically there from the start to the end and in almost every scene (maybe even all the scenes). He has an enigmatic presence with a face that was sincere yet consistently hard to read. He and his character were equally guarded and unfathomable, but every time we get a new morsel of insight it was a whole new revelation. The quintessential Murakami protagonist.

But, like all good Murakami stories, the central male figure will need equally enigmatic and magnetic females. And, lucky us, we get three shining examples here. Reika Kirishima (霧島れいか), as Nishijima's character's metaphorically mysterious wife who dominated the First Act and was an ever present specter throughout; Toko Miura (三浦透子) as the wise beyond her years eponymous driver of the car with a backstory the slowly unfurled and magically, like in all Murakami stories, tied in with Nishijima's story; and Park Yoo-rim (박유림) as a mute-Korean actress in the play-within-the-movie who as Chekhov's Sonya personified the heart and emotional core of the film.

A little shout out to Masaki Okada (岡田 将生) who was the sort-of antagonist but in the end delivered a beautiful monologue that was piercing in its honesty and truth, and kind of redeemed him as a character.

And also to Eiko Ishibashi (石橋英子) for a lovely score to accompany the narrative.

Oscar season has now started! I hope this will be Japan's entry for the Best International Film Oscar.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings [IMAX]

Shang-Chi was a well-paced, highly entertaining and exhilarating film to watch that was well punctuated with great comedic moments (mostly courtesy of Awkwafina - finally in a role that daftly balanced her comedic and dramatic chops) and viscerally exciting, mostly-kung fu, fight scenes. But, most importantly, it gave us perhaps the MCU's best villain since Tom Hiddleston's Loki with the infinitely charismatic Tony Leung's updated Mandarin - now known as Xu Wenwu. Leung owned the screen and essentially the whole movie with his presence, his acting and those ever-emoting eyes. 

Also, kudos to the rest of the great supporting cast, especially the equally charismatic Michelle Yeoh, an enigmatic Zhang Meng'er, surprise comedic relief Benedict Wong in what was essentially an extended cameo and scene stealers Sir Ben Kingsley and Morris.

With such an arresting supporting cast, Liu Simu, ostensibly the lead actor in his own superhero origin story, was unfortunately relegated to a seemingly peripheral role. He had great chemistry with Awkwafina and the early scenes with them both were immensely fun. However, once Liu met up with Leung in the Second Act, the gulf between the two actors was obvious and the latter effortlessly dominated the screen and the narrative. Even when Leung was off-screen, Liu's dramatic efforts of emoting loss and regret only served to highlight the disparity between a screen legend like Leung and a relative newbie like Liu. 

Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, an Asian-American, we finally got an Asian superhero movie that broke down Asian stereotypes. Cretton and fellow co-writers, David Callaham and Andrew Lanham, subtly inserted racial politics into the screenplay and also not-so subtly broke down Orientalism with its normalisation of Asian martial arts, and religious and cultural beliefs. Some of it may have gone over the head of most Western audience, but to an Asian audience, the nods to Qing Ming festival, ancestral worship, Asian-millennial/Gen X angst, etc were well appreciated.

It was also refreshing to watch an MCU/big Hollywood film that started in Mandarin and with at least 20% of the on-screen dialogue also in Mandarin. Although it was rather annoying that there seemed to be no consistency in when the characters spoke English and when they spoke Mandarin - except for Awkwafina's character which was clearly - and authentically - an American who barely spoke her mother tongue. 

The action sequences were a major highlight up till the final climatic battle. Most of the early fight scenes were kung-fu based and the action choreography was strong. The fights were visceral but also graceful in their violence. Although it was a wasted opportunity not to have Leung and Yeoh have a spar-and-talk scene together. That would have been awesome! Instead, Leung's big fight was inevitably with Liu, and thankfully Leung was capable of acting solely with his eyes to imbue the fight with the significance and emotion that it deserved.

Unfortunately, in the end, the film succumbed to the MCU-mandatory CGI final battle that verged on messiness. It only got by because the larger and brighter IMAX screen allowed the action to be more easily discerned and distinguished. Not sure how it would look like on a smaller screen. 

Bill Pope was the cinematographer and music was by Joel P. West. Both of which were distinctive but also not entirely standouts. The IMAX experience really benefitted the film, especially with regards to the final battle. 

As usual, stay on for the standard MCU mid-credits and end-credits stingers which nicely set up future movies and/or Disney+ series. 

The Medium ร่างทรง

 

A Thai-Korean horror film whose central conceit was its mockumentary/found-footage style of filming. Both the Thais and Koreans are known for producing great horror flicks although their heydays are a couple of years back. Nonetheless, a collaboration between them did come with a certain level of anticipation, and it is safe to say that The Medium did meet them - sort of.

The Medium was a slow burn horror thriller that took its time to establish the supernatural elements of its story, primarily because it dealt with a culture and beliefs - Northern Isan Thai - that were not so commonly known. 

At over 2-hours long, the film had three distinct acts. 

The first act, as aforementioned was establishing the conceit and background of the film and its characters. In this regard, director Banjong Pisanthanakun did very well. The mockumentary style gave us a clear sense of perspective and identity into its lead characters, and clues and hints were dropped early that foreshadowed things to come. Atmospherically, there was a pervasive sense of dread mixed with a certain mystery and unknowing-ness of how the story will develop.

In the second act, we finally get a clearer picture of what kind of subgenre of horror The Medium belonged to - no spoilers here - but the fun was then in trying to figure out the why and how. Why is it happening and how will they (the characters and the film makers) sort it out. And at this point, the typical creepiness commonly seen in first acts of horror films started to creep - ha! - in. As did the usual plot twists and ah-hah moments one would expect from the genre. 

Then we come to the third act, where The Medium just went all out. Think Ring meets The Exorcist meets Rec meets Dawn of the Dead. But at the same time, it was also not terrifying scary. A lot more gory, creepy, gross, morbid, icky than straight up frightening and scary. Thankfully also, Pisanthanakun kept the jump scares to the minimum. But boy, what an ending. A few zags when you thought it was going to zig, and a few zigging when they have just zagged. The final pay off was worth it which is really what one wished for with any decent horror films.

Let's be honest. The Medium was no Ring or Shutter but it did linger on after it ended and it will surely generate post-film conversation. Furthermore, the story and concept did leave the door open for possible sequels or anthology-like series. Therefore, do expect some possible afterlife incarnation.

The Suicide Squad

Let's just put it upfront now: Beebo still rules! iykyk

And secondly, making something better than its precursor (or previous incarnation...or prequel...or whatever you may want to call it) does not automatically make it good. 

Undeniably, James Gunn's version of Task Force X aka the eponymous Suicide Squad was a lot more fun than David Ayer's 2016 embarrassment. For starters, at least it did not take itself too seriously and embraced the violence and psychosis that comes with having villains as leads. However, Gunn - for all his stylistic choice and Guardians of the Galaxy-esque needle drops - still bordered on being too safe and generic (read: commercially) friendly. 

The film's irreverence was mostly irrelevant; it never pushed any boundary and only flirted with being biting or dark or edgy.  The humour was juvenile at best with most jokes barely landing and setups seen miles away. As for the violence it was not as gratuitous as its much-publicised R/M18 rating would suggest. In actual fact, other than moments of excessive violence played mainly for laughs, the film was rather tame. 

Then we come to the plot itself. At 132 minutes long it could have jolly well lost approximately 15 to 20 minutes (all that wasted Peter Capaldi as The Thinker subplot) if we were being generous.  Gunn's screenplay meandered too much in its first two acts, busying itself with setups that never really paid off other then so that he could include one or two "cool" scenes. Yes, granted the scenes were cool and obviously Margot Robbie is a big - and effortlessly charismatic - star, but constant repetition with nothing new gets old and this is already Robbie's third outing as Harley Quinn. 

Further, just like the gags, a lot of the plot was predictable with only one genuine plot twist that happened in the first act. Thereafter, the story just felt rote and familiar all the way to the big, climatic showdown which scored points for a surprisingly emotional heel turn that was well earned and paid off earlier dues. The end also some good laughs and sight gags, and an interesting, albeit not too surprising - again - final takedown.

Honestly, if you have seen television's D.C. Legends of Tomorrow, seeing Starro the Conqueror is no big deal. Starro is nothing compared to Beebo!

Lastly, we got to talk about the cast. This was a definition of a mixed bag. Individually, most of the squad members worked. The biggest sore thumb was John Cena (ask Peacemaker) who still cannot act and we cannot just blame it on Gunn's direction. While the biggest surprises were David Dastmalchian (Polka-Dot Man) and Daniela Melchior (Ratcatcher 2). The latter held the emotional heart and core of the film, and really should have been the audience surrogate; and the former gave the best comedic performance - wry and dry and ultimately Tragic. 

However as a team, they lacked cohesion and chemistry. Their group scenes lacked sizzle and pizzazz with the bantering falling flat and clunky. But in certain pairings they found their grooves: Joel Kinnaman and Robbie, Dastmalchian and Melchior, and Idris Elba and Viola Davis. 

Wow! That last pairing was absolutely the best scene of the film. That was a masterclass in acting. Raw, emotional and terrifying without any superpowers displayed. Again, pity it happened within the first 30 minutes. But, seriously, get Elba and Davis in a room together again! How about the new James Bond and M?

Oh, also, long live King Shark! Nom nom nom...

Music was by John Murphy and cinematography Henry Braham, and neither aspects will likely be getting much accolades come awards season. As for the constant needle-dropping throughout, Gunn's taste here seemed a lot more eclectic with less pop-friendly choices but did its job to spice up the action sequences.

The Suicide Squad was no John Wick, and to be honest, if you were expecting a Deadpool-esque, GOTG/Avengers mashup, then you would be sorely disappointed. However, taking it for what it is, it was a fairly enjoyable romp but ultimately may be just as forgettable as its predecessor.

Old

After all these years, M. Night Shyamalan still remained almost divisive as ever. However, the one constant throughout his career is that his films/projects all have an interesting - sometimes fascinating - concept. It is usually the execution and delivery that makes or breaks a Shyamalan film. 

And in Old, which was based on a Swiss graphic novel, the central conceit was tantalising and Shyamalan's direction, and camerawork with Mike Gioulakis were highly effective in capturing the tension, foreboding and dread. However, it absolutely failed in the writing (screenplay credited to Shyamalan) and the acting. 

Firstly, the direction here was really good. Shyamalan managed to capture my interest with a mystery box thriller and the narrative clipped along at a good pace. At only 108 minutes long, this was efficient storytelling. The mystery box was slowly revealed but, like all good J.J. Abrams shows, never fully explained which was acceptable if you have already conceded to the genre. Genre-fans just want a plausible ending the befitted the story's internal logic, and in this sense, Old succeeded. Further, Shyamalan ratchet up the thrill factor with innovative camerawork, camera choices and editing, and not just relying on shock and scare tactics. 

However, for all the good the directorial work did, the dialogue brought it all back crashing down. The screenplay was atrociously clunky and heavy-handed, with characters laden with exposition rather than reflection. 

And then we have the acting which bordered on amateurish and caricature-like especially when the usually talented actors were asked to deliver clunkers. We know Gael Garcia Bernal and Rufus Sewell to be better actors than this. Perhaps, only Thomasin McKenzie and Alex Wolff came out unscathed from this (and maybe Eliza Scanlen too). Shyamalan should have focused more of the film on the children.

It might have been truly better - and perhaps even more innovative - if Shyamalan had directed this a la A Quiet Place, Bird Box or even Sound of Metal. The psychological dread, so masterfully triggered by the directing, could have been amplified to the n-th degree with the absence of one of the senses. A few of the best scenes in Old were just like that. Although, if maintained for a whole film, Shyamalan might be accused of being unoriginal. 

Old had a very interesting concept and I can see this being a very successful television series (mini or otherwise). There is a very strong Lost vibe to it and with better writing - and a great cast - this could have been another M. Night Shyamalan success story. But for now, it will likely languish with the likes of The Village and Glass. At least it was not as bad as The Happening or After Earth.