BABY DRIVER review

Edgar Wright is my favorite working director. It’s not even a question. Wright just has an eye for the visual part of filmmaking that I feel isn’t appreciated as much as it should be. Movies are such a visual medium to tell a story yet now days too many films rely too much on dialogue to move the story along or give exposition. Or they hand off action sequences and travelling montages to the second unit and they feel more like filler than an actual part of the story. Edgar Wright makes sure every second of the film has purpose. His scripts are tight and he’s really in touch with that visual aspect of filmmaking more so than any director in the business today.

I won’t waste any time. BABY DRIVER is my favorite film this year. Edgar Wright has yet to make anything less than a great movie. This review is going to be me gushing about this film for several paragraphs about the various aspects of the film that filled me with pure joy.

Before I begin praising BABY DRIVER, I do have one complaint. The female characters are very few and underwritten. I wouldn’t say they’re poorly written. But they just aren’t given a whole lot to do. Baby’s main love interest, Debora, is a fun and fleshed out character. But she really seems more like she’s just here to give Baby something to work towards rather than anything else. Lily James does a fantastic job with the character. She’s funny and charismatic enough to root for her and Baby (played by Ansel Elgort). And there are a few moments in the film where she does help with the action. But overall I feel there isn’t a whole lot for her to do. The other main female character is Elza Gonzalez’s Darling. She’s part of the heist crew and Buddy’s (Jon Hamm) significant other. She’s pretty badass but not in the film enough to be fleshed out much. It’s a small complaint, but it is something I did notice while watching the film. Luckily, this is really the only knock I have.

OK, now that that’s out of the way. This movie is awesome! I almost don’t know where to begin. But I’ll start with the soundtrack. Wright has such a clever way to incorporate a soundtrack into BABY DRIVER. Most movies just pick cool songs to fit what’s going on with the film. Most of the time the music is chosen in post production. Wright writes the soundtrack into the script. Every song is part of the story and structure to the film. So much so that the action beats are in sync with the soundtrack. Cuts match beats of the song. Gunshots match snare drums.

There’s a great tracking shot in the beginning of the movie of Baby dancing down the street to a song and I noticed one of those fliers on a telephone pole with lyrics to the song. I thought it was cool, but then the shot and the song went on I noticed even more lyrics popping up in frame. It’s subtle enough where if you’re not looking for it you could completely miss it. But once I saw it, every time it came up it made me smile. There’s even a part where Baby tells the crew to wait to do their heist because he has to restart the song and has them start once he gets the music in sync with the action.

Speaking of action… Edgar Wright knows how to do action in film. I believe Wright actually works with the second unit rather than the second unit just taking over for the action sequences. Every bit of action fits the aesthetic of the film and has purpose behind every shot. Not tight close ups or quick edits to hide what’s going on. You see and feel everything… unless it was purposely put out of view for a storytelling reason. And when you bring on stunt coordinator and second unit director

Darrin Prescott, the man who did the same job for both John Wick movies, you really want to see the action!

What’s more is all the bits of action help develop both the story and the characters. It’s not action for action's sake. Everything reveals something about the characters involved or pushes the plot further. This really pulls you into the action for more than just spectacle, which the movie does not lack. And this isn’t Transformers where the action is grand and massive yet there doesn’t feel like there’s any real stakes since everyone seems indestructible aside from when the plot says so.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so nervous during an action set piece as I did in Baby Driver. I mean, yeah, I know everything is going to be OK. But in the moment, I actually felt nervous. I haven’t felt that in years. I watch so many movies every year. Basically two or three every weekend. As much as I love Mad Max and the Fast and Furious franchise, none of them actually made me feel as anxious as I did in BABY DRIVER. It’s a feeling I miss having.

That’s what matters most to me in a movie. How the film makes me feel. Does it make me feel at all? I was going through all different emotions during BABY DRIVER. Joy, anger, fear, anxiety, relief. Part of that anxiety came from how cleverly written the movie was. Many times it feels like it could easily fall into these action movie tropes but cleverly side steps them. I gave up guessing what was going to happen next because I couldn’t. And I was so happy with how Wright decided to end the film. It’s far from cliche and fits right into the natural progression of the story. It also gives a chance to make a lot of the tiny little decisions that the characters make through the film pay off in a gratifying way.

As I’m finishing up writing this, I’m getting ready to head out to see it again. Go watch this movie! Please! BABY DRIVER is incredibly original and so much fun. I want to see it do well in the box office so we can get more movies like this to be made. Go watch it now! Even with my one complaint, this is easily my favorite movie of the year. Quite possibly in my top 10 of the decade. GO SEE IT NOW!

10/10

THE MUMMY (2017) review

Every studio now is trying to copy Marvel’s formula of making a shared universe for their films in hopes of creating a franchise. Warner Brothers is trying to play catch up with their DCEU which has been really bad up until WONDER WOMAN. Warner Brothers is also going with Legendary for their kaiju universe starting with KONG: SKULL ISLAND -- technically, GODZILLA, but KONG was the one that really pushed the universe further. And now Universal is trying their second attempt at doing their Dark Universe for the supernatural beings. Think if VAN HELSING was a movie universe instead of just one movie. DRACULA UNTOLD was supposed to be the start, but that failed so they’re retying. For better and worse, Universal is stuck with THE MUMMY. Right at the beginning they’re showing off their shiny new Dark Universe logo to fully commit.

THE MUMMY I can’t really say is disappointing because I wasn’t really expecting much to begin with. Yet it managed to both exceed and fall short of expectations. The major problem with trying to push for a shared universe before you even get one film out is you’re immediately going to have to set up a lot of things. The perfect example of a movie being too preoccupied with setup rather than the movie at hand is IRON MAN 2. And THE MUMMY feels even worse than that.

It takes a while to actually get to Nick (Tom Cruise) and Vail (Jake Johnson) it starts to be fun. The two of them are funny and have nice chemistry. I would have really liked a movie with those two guys in their adventures. But I already knew it wasn’t this film and got kind of upset. I can see the movie with just those two being a lot of fun. And it was while it lasted. But then the mummy stuff starts to happen and that movie goes byebye. After that, it’s kind of a slog.

Nick was quick to jump on board with things being weird. Usually in these monster movies you spend half of the second act trying to convince the straight character that things are supernatural or out of the ordinary. But (not a spoiler, it happens in the trailer) dying in a plane crash then waking up will really put things into perspective. They even play it for laughs a bit. There’s a couple of legitimately good jokes out of this.  

This, however, highlights probably the biggest problem of the film. It has no idea what kind of tone it wants. First it’s a serious film. Then it’s a goofy action-adventure film with Nick and Vail. Then it’s serious. Then it’s a horror film. Then there’s comedy. Then back to serious. Then exposition dump. Then really dark. Then silly. Then serious again… Much like it trying to juggle the Dark Universe building and the story it can’t handle all these different tones. Not only does it play to the detriment of THE MUMMY but it doesn’t give much hope for future Dark Universe films.

Which sucks because I really liked Russell Crowe as Dr. Henry Jekyll. This isn’t really a spoiler as arrives before Tom Cruise does. Crowe plays the character(s) fantastically and it really got me excited to see his movie later on down the line. I kind of like how they just have him as part of the universe from the get-go. I think it’s better than to just reveal him at a later point and just expect us to just acknowledge he was here the whole time. But using him as an exposition dump isn’t the best way to do it. Spider-Man 2 did a much better job of setting up Dr. Connors and The Lizard. They didn’t build him up, they just had him be a supporting character that Peter runs into. They acknowledge him as part of the universe without drawing attention to him. Unfortunately that ultimately didn’t lead anywhere, but it’s a better way to do it.

One other thing I have to mention… Egyptians are getting screwed by Hollywood. Between EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, GODS OF EGYPT, and now THE MUMMY, Americans must think Egyptians were a bunch of white dudes. Think about that for a moment. Egyptians, white people in the desert before sunscreen was invented… Yeah, right.

Honestly, I find it hard to talk about this movie. There’s not much to say. It’s got a ton of problems and a few good things here and there. But worst of all is that it’s just plain boring. There’s a lot of spectacle but it’s hollow. Even with some genuinely funny, albeit jarring, jokes it’s not enough to recommend viewing this movie for anything other than Russell Crowe’s performance as Dr. Jekyll. But that’s definitely not worth the price of admission. Go watch WONDER WOMAN or CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS instead.

4.5/10

WONDER WOMAN review

The DC Extended Universe (DCEU) has been on the bad end of plenty of criticism and outright hate. A lot of it is justified with the movies thus far being varying degrees of bad. Some are on both sides of MAN OF STEEL while pretty much the majority of everyone really disliked SUICIDE SQUAD (one of the worst edited films I’ve ever seen) and BATMAN V. SUPERMAN. Needless to say, many weren’t really hopeful for WONDER WOMAN. I was cautiously optimistic. And while it doesn’t really do much as far as giving me hope for future DCEU films, it does a pretty good job at being a solid film on its own.

Right off the bat WONDER WOMAN has me worried. We’re starting off in a scene that takes place in Snyder’s universe. It’s more or less an expansion of a scene from BvS to set up WW’s story. It doesn’t really not work. But it also doesn’t really add much to the film. It pretty much just means that everything that’s about to happen is flashback.

Once we do start actually telling the story of Diana’s origin things pick up. There’s an explosion of bright colors which is quite appropriately almost completely separate from everything going on in the Snyderverse. It’s incredibly vibrant and got me excited. Even if young Diana’s actress is one of the worst child actors I’ve ever seen, I wasn’t too worried at this point. And she’s not really in the film much (thank god). Shots of the landscape of the island and the people are gorgeous and set up the world quite nicely. Fortunately the visual storytelling is on point because the dialogue is lackluster even with some nice performances. We truly get a sense of how badass the women on this island are and how Diana is growing up to even better than the rest of them.

Chris Pine enters the film to push us closer to the second act and into our first set piece. A lot of exceptionally creative acrobatic choreography and cinematography were put into this scene. With all the setup to how badass the Amazons are it was almost satisfying to see them live up to that build up. Unfortunately the over-editing becomes quite annoying as this beautiful sequence is blemished. It doesn’t make it a bad scene. But it could have been way better and more exciting. Luckily this is the worst of it as far as overdoing it goes… OK… I lied. But I’ll get to that later.

I know this is Diana’s movie -- it is called WONDER WOMAN after all-- but Gal Gadot can’t hold a candle to Chris Pine. Their chemistry is great and you believe their relationship throughout the film. Chris Pine really elevates this film to higher level. Pine’s character never overshadows Diana, but Pine does more for the movie in terms of relating to the audience and connecting us to this world. Gadot’s not the best actor, but I’d say her decent talents lend quite well to Diana’s naivety…

Oh yeah, once we leave the island this turns into somewhat of a fish-out-of-water story. I know it really shows off just how different Diana’s principles and morals are to us humans. But the whole fish-out-of-water thing is one of my least favorite tropes. But I will say it never becomes too annoying. Oh, it’s definitely annoying. But never unbearable. It does allow us to see Diana grow.

What does make this annoying trope work much better in WONDER WOMAN than most other movies is how Diana pushes back instead of just accepting everything she’s being surrounded by. This movie taking place in WWI and Diana obvious being a woman sets up quite a few great moments of breaking against the social norms in fantastic ways. Even calling out a lot of the silliness of gender roles without being too brazen about it. There’s even a great jab at Hollywood’s lack of diversity with not just sex but race.

Without giving too much away, there’s a fantastic moment where everything is holding her back and she just can’t be held back any longer. It’s not only a turning point in the film, but in the story of every single person in that moment of the film. It’s one of the most brilliant moments of the film with some of the most badass imagery I’ve seen all year. Remember how I said how bad the editing was in the first set piece? Yeah, they fixed that. At this point I was completely on board. I was getting excited and really enjoying myself. It made me look past most of the problems going on to this point.

It was also at this point I was kind of realizing how similar to CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER this second act was. I don’t really want to get into pointing fingers or making jokes but it does really seem like DC really took some notes (probably much more than just notes) from Marvel during this second act. Super hero with a shield. Check. World War setting. Check. Band of misfits. Check. Luckily this doesn’t last too long. Closer to the third act it does hit more of its own strides then completely does its own thing in the third act.

*inhales*

*exhales*

Oh boy…

I’ll just come out and say it, the third act is a mess. A complete mess. There’s some fantastic moments in here including an awesome close-quarters fight and great acting by Chris Pine. Diana’s character comes to a fantastic arc and there’s a moment where I almost, ALMOST, felt some emotional resonance. But holy hell did all the movie’s problems come on full display here.

You may have noticed by now I haven’t mentioned a few things such as villains or side characters. Other than the Amazons in the opening, no one other than Diana or Chris Pine’s Steve Trevor are really that memorable. I did like one of the members of the “band of misfits” gathered up. But I can’t even remember his name. One note I really wish WONDER WOMAN didn’t take from the MCU was bad villains. It’s not bad enough that these are mustache-twirling evil bad guys, but we get that inane “Oh, that wasn’t the real baddy, the real baddy is this guy right here who we didn’t really set up at all” trope. And I don’t feel bad for saying that because it’s almost impossible not to see coming.

I was more disappointed with how bad this third act is by how many great moments there are throughout the film. There’s some pretty bad things going on across the entire film but it’s mostly forgivable with not many of them standing out too much. Up to a point the good overshadows the shortcomings. I just wish it could have at least kept that up in the closing 20 minutes. It went from feeling like CAPTAIN AMERICA to feeling way too close to BATMAN V. SUPERMAN.

WONDER WOMAN could have been so much more. I’m not saying this in comparison to other comic book movies that are fantastic. There’s are flashes of brilliance that really show off that one of the three writers knew exactly what to do while the other two (one being Zack Snyder) didn’t quite get it. If that one person go to write the film on their own I’m sure that this could have been a glorious film. As is, however, I can’t say it’s anything more than just good. Disappointingly just good. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

7/10