They Will Kill You Review

 

Zazie Beetz plays Asia Reaves, an ex-convict who is searching for her younger sister, which leads her to a mysterious New York apartment building filled with satanic residents that she must fight not only to save her sister but also to survive.

I was quite impressed with the action throughout the film; the fight was very frenetic and well choreographed, not to mention the filmmakers get very creative with all the different camera movements and styles. Like certain scenes are perfectly symmetrical and have this quirky aesthetic that it feels straight out of a Wes Anderson movie, but you’ll have masked bad guys getting chopped up, so it feels like The Grand Budapest Hotel meets The Raid, which doesn’t sound like it should work as well as it does, but the filmmakers managed to pull it off. So good for them.

Zazie Beetz does a very good job; her character is pretty straightforward and focused on her mission, but there are a few scenes that she’s able to give her a more comedic or dramatic performance. Not to mention she’s very impressive with all the action scenes; I could tell The Bride from Kill Bill was a big influence on this character.

There was a very interesting chase scene in some tunnels that was pretty creative, and the way it was shot almost felt like stop motion, like it felt like I was watching Fantastic Mr. Fox for a few seconds, but the way they were moving

Tom Felton and Heather Graham play satanic henchmen, and they both do a good job and get some good comic moments, although I wish their characters were a little more fleshed out and had more to do, but for what they were given, both actors are enjoyable. Again, props to them for all the fight choreography.

I really enjoyed this one fight scene in a ballroom that involved fire; the weight was shot, and the choreography mixed with cinematography was very impressive and cool, definitely a standout scene for me. 

Patricia Arquette plays the manager of the hotel and has quite an impressive Irish accent; she’s very good at seeming intimidating, but they also give her character an interesting moral complexity that I do wish had been explored a little bit more, but what we got was interesting at fleshing her character out.

This movie is much gorier than I was expecting, like it’s nothing too brutal or skeezy, but they were definitely scenes that I was not expecting to go as hard as they did and leave off practical effects, especially with one little creature that was pretty impressive and a little bit cute in one instance.

Myha'la plays the sister, and I found her relationship with her sister interesting. Some parts were a little cliché and heavy on drama, but some of the twists and turns with her character were actually pretty interesting and added to the tension of the story of how these two girls were going to get out of all this.

I do think the world of this hotel has been streamlined a little better; it’s not bad, but there were a lot of different ideas that were thrown at you when explaining it at once, and there are one or two times. I felt like I should’ve had a note so I could double-check to make sure I knew what was going on, but it’s not overly complicated enough that you don’t get it, but certain things will take you a second to connect certain dots together.

I was pleasantly surprised with Paterson Joseph's character of Ray (who is Patricia Arquette‘s husband in the movie); his character had some interesting moral complexity to him and turned out to be the heart of the film.

This movie is more heavy on action than it is plot or character moments, so be aware of that going in, but like I’ve said, the action is both very well executed and creative, not to mention ratchets up perfectly so audiences will still be pretty engrossed.

I did not expect the climax to go the way it did. I can see some people thinking it is a little over the top, but I thought it was pretty fun and kind of original.

I do find it a little odd that they released this movie one week after Ready or Not 2, another movie involving sisters with a strained relationship on the run from Satanists, like they were certain points. I’m like, "Were they writing these scripts next to each other at the same time, and did the writers copy off one another lol?" Like, each film has enough unique qualities to differentiate them from each other, but there were definitely certain parts. I’m like, “I just saw this last week"; definitely an odd coincidence.

They Will Kill You may not be the most original movie; you can see a ton of influences from Wes Anderson, The Raid, Kill Bill, Ready or Not, and a little Rosemary's Baby, but the filmmakers were able to take all these elements and blend them in a way that you get a fun, thrilling action story with likable characters and creative and unique story elements. I give the film three and a half stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫. 

Ready or Not 2: Here I Come Reviewed

Picking up right where the first one left off, we follow Grace after she escaped being hunted by her new husband‘s family on their wedding night… to now being hunted by five different families in order for them to gain some ultimate satanic power and rule the world. And to make matters worse, they kidnap Grace’s strained sister, Faith, forcing the sisters to work together to try and survive.

To me, the best thing about this movie is the cast; there are a lot of recognizable faces, and everyone gives a great performance, all balancing the tone of horror and comedy well.

Samar weaving takes the lead, and this is a great showcase for her talents. She gives a very realistic and scared performance (as anyone would be in this situation), but she also has a strong dry sense of humor, which she was able to infuse into the performance, and she gives really good facial reactions during the action parts.

Kathryn Newton was also great as the sister Faith; her more bubbly and naïve personality worked well off of Grace's more weary and panicking performance. Not to mention both actresses have really good chemistry and do feel like sisters with a lot of baggage to them.

I also liked the sisters' dynamic together; it felt very realistic and went in some surprising directions. Some of it did feel a little bit contrived and overdramatic, but it was never far-fetched and does fit given the characters' history together.

Sarah Michelle Gellar & Shawn Hatosy play the lead villains/twins; both are good at being intimidating and are a little more sympathetic than you would expect at the beginning, although Gellar's character towards the end does go in some directions that felt a little out of character, like it didn’t feel properly set up, but it wasn’t that distracting or took away from the film in any big way.

David Cronenberg also appears as the twins' father; it's always good to see him pop up in films, and he gives a very solid and foreboding performance.

A fun surprise was Maia Jae as one of the extended family members, who has an interesting tie to the first film. She and Weaving have a fun, almost Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck type rivalry, and they probably have my favorite sequence in the whole film, which was very creative and a good balance of action and comedy.

Another standout from a relative newcomer was Varun Saranga; his character was so ridiculous and in over his head, not to mention the actor gave some great facial reactions. I could see him getting some of the biggest laughs from audiences.

Elijah Wood, Nestor Carbonell, and Kevin Durand always give good solid performances, and this film is no different. I especially like how Wood was so calm yet creepy and funny at the same time.

Not really a complaint, but something I noticed is the way the game is set up. You have a lot of the comedic characters in one location and the more serious characters in another location, and your cut back-and-forth between something serious happening and then we get the reaction from the more comedic characters for the punchline, and I just wish they had incorporated the community elements between the two groups a little more, some other characters, and a couple of comedic moments, but that’s more nitpick than anything, and I don’t think we’ll bother most people in their enjoyment.

The special effects were quite well done in the film, and for such a gory and bloody movie, it never felt too over-the-top or took away from the funny elements of the film.

The film also has a good pacing, starting off strong and getting to the action quite fast, which I appreciate. Towards the third act, it does slow down a little bit, but it does lead to a nice twist, and the final part is a good payoff.

The color greeting was also very well done, and I liked some of the lighting choices.

The director‘s next film is the new Brendan Fraser movie. In certain parts you can definitely feel like they’re doing test footage with certain sets to train capture the right feel of a creepy mummy movie, but it never feels out of place in this film, and they did a good job at it, so it does make me a little more excited for the new Mummy film.

Also, big props to the fight choreographers; they had a lot of fun, and creative action ended with a good balance between harsh fight moves and almost Three Stooges antics.

Ready or Not 2 is a very solid sequel. Personally, I prefer the first because I liked the dynamic of the evil family, but I liked how they fleshed out Grace’s character with her relationship to Faith. A lot of the comedic characters got good laughs out of me; the action set pieces were very creative and exciting to watch, not to mention cool set design, and I’m always a sucker for seeing Sarah Michelle Geller kick ass in something funny and supernatural. I give the film a low four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️; it’s definitely a fun time at the movies.

Project Hail Mary Review

 

Ryan Gosling plays a molecular biologist who wakes up in space with amnesia and slowly discovers he is on a mission to save Earth from the dying sun… And on the way discovers an alien, who is on a similar mission.

So with a synopsis like that, one man has to stop people freezing and starving to death in 30 years, the stakes sound as high as a bovine playing blackjack, but almost right off the bat the film itself is actually pretty funny. Ryan Gosling’s character (Dr. Ryland Grace) is very quirky, nervous, and antisocial, almost a California beach bum at times. So you’re wondering, how is this guy going to save himself, let alone the whole world? But that’s kind of the heart of the film: watching Ryan Gosling go from this nebbish oddball to this risk-taking hero for the sake of humanity, and Gosling does a very convincing and fun job with that arc. I would say it’s the heart of the film.

And the humor itself is very crowd-pleasing; it’s very dry (which I personally always enjoy), but other parts, especially when he meets the alien, feel like something out of a Pixar movie, so I think people of all ages will find something to enjoy in the humor, not to mention Ryan Gosling has fantastic comedic chops, so his delivery is also hilarious.

The film was directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, and I was very impressed with their style. At first, they shoot everything in an almost claustrophobic, symmetrical, and boxed-in sort of way, which is a great way of putting you in the headspace of the main character, but it almost mimics the way the spaceship moves, so again, I liked how the filmmaking fit and almost mimicked the material.

Throughout the film, we get flashbacks to Grace on earth, and we lead up to him being in space and how they juxtaposed the flashbacks to what was going on on the spaceship throughout. I thought it was very well done and had nice bits of levity.

I also enjoyed the performances of Sandra Hüller and Lionel Boyce; both are very dry, like Hüller is as dry as a sand dune lol, but there’s an underlying heart to both characters, and they work well off Ryan Gosling.

I liked the design of the alien (who goes by Rocky); it’s very creative and unique. All the little details and mechanics of how it moves, communicates, and even sees are quite impressive, and his spaceship is very cool as well.

The movie did a good job at taking big and complicated science and streamlining it in a way that was very understandable and easy to digest.

I was surprised once Grace and Rocky got together how much the movie felt like a Pixar film, with the cute and silly creature not understanding our customs and the person trying to explain it to them and getting flustered; it’s like something you see with the Mandalorian and Grogu or Sully & Boo from Monsters Inc., but again, the humor and Ryan Gosling's delivery make it enjoyable.

Once they get into space, I like how they play with a scale and some of the cool space visuals we get, it’s very colorful and psychedelically, majestic points, this film probably looks gorgeous in IMAX.

I do think the film runs like 20 minutes too long; like, the film feels like it’s wrapping up and it has a big climax, but then there’s another climax on top of it, which is a bit much, and I wouldn’t say you’d have to cut much of anything, but trim scenes down because certain humorous parts go on for quite a longer time than they need to.

I was quite impressed how the movie balanced both humor and drama and how they were able to switch between them very seamlessly, and props to Ryan Gosling for all the heavy lifting, although for me, it does get a little unintentionally funny because almost every 20 or 30 minutes he has like a little crying scene, and it’s the same thing where he like has the whole bag of emotions and his eyes water and his mouth quivers. I was sitting there thinking, "Man, this dude cries a lot," lol.

There were some other astronaut characters who I wish got a little bit more development; without spoiling anything, these people are on a very serious and gloomy mission, and they’re about as relaxed and upbeat as you can be. They sort of explain it, but even more so they have stuff going on in their lives that I would appreciate one scene of acknowledging, but it is always nice to see Ken Leung and Milana Vayntrub pop up and do things, and they make good use of their screen time.

Another strong point of this film is the cinematography and soundtrack; the way they capture and show space is both very scary and beautiful. It's very reminiscent of things like Interstellar, The Martian, and some of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Project Hail Mary has to balance a lot of things: humor, stakes, science, heart, wacky aliens, shenanigans, and the entire cast and crew managed to take all these elements and optimize them, so I think audiences will have a very fun and enjoyable time with the film. It can be a bit much at times, like eating too much Thanksgiving dinner and being stuffed afterwards, but the creativity and Ryan Gosling‘s performance really carry the film and make it something special. I give the film four stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

The Bride! Review

 

Christian Bale plays Frankenstein’s monster (who goes by Frank) and enlists the help of a mad scientist (played by Annette Bening) to bring back a dead 1930s party girl (played by Jessie Buckley), and the two go on a Bonnie and Clyde-inspired romance/cross-country crime spree.

The big scene stealer in this movie is Jessie Buckley as The Bride; her performance is very manic and scenery-chewing, but she’s able to switch between many different emotions and characteristics almost on a dime and is very captivating to watch.

Christian Bale as Frank is definitely the heart of the movie. Bale brings a lot of sympathy and pathos to the character, not to mention does a great job at recreating all the Frankenstein hallmarks (being big, shambling, feeling separated and lonely from society).

The film was directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, and she ironically brought a fun, “electric” energy to the film with a lot of creative and out-of-the-box directing decisions that definitely made the movie feel unique.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays a Fred Astaire type movie star, and not only does Gyllenhaal nail the accent, acting style, and type of singing in 1930s musicals, but the other Gyllenhaal’s directing at re-creating those films in camera angles, blocking, and shooting the choreographed dance sequences feels very authentic.

This movie has several dance sequences, and Maggie Gyllenhaal definitely brought a quirky direction to them that felt very inspired and unique.

As previously stated, the film takes place in 1930, and not only did the set designers, costume department, and special effects team do a fantastic job at re-creating the time period.

I also really enjoyed Annette Bening as Dr. Euphronious; she wasn’t in the movie a whole lot, but she does have a fun screen presence, and her more logical, down-to-earth character was a good disposition to the more over-the-top feel of the film.

Peter Sarsgaard and Penelope Cruz play detectives tracking Frank and The Bride, and both actors do a solid job and have a fun dynamic, although they’re also involved in this mafia subplot that really isn’t shown or affected much outside of their conversations about it.

At the very beginning of the film, a story element is introduced that I liked the style of and the performance attached. But it is kind of confusing and never really addressed, not to mention it raises several continuity questions about this reality that are never really acknowledged.

This film also suffers from having several plot lines that sound important but really don’t go anywhere and don’t amount to much. Like, the movie makes a big deal about how the Bride is inspiring this revolution amongst women, but they never really do much with it outside of a mid-credit scene, like you could’ve cut that from the movie and it wouldn’t have affected the story much.

The pacing and storytelling, especially in the second half, get rather random, like there’s no real cohesive buildup; things just feel like they happen randomly one after another, not to mention one least favorite movie cliché where characters have to travel a long distance to achieve something, but the way the film is edited It feels like it took them like five minutes to get there, so it makes you think, "How fast were they driving?" not to mention other forces that would make it very difficult for them to get around, but our conveniently skipped over.

The film also tries to have this very deep social message, but it’s nothing new, and they hit you over the head with it like a frying pan, so even if you agree with it, it’s still too much and could of been more nuanced.

There are also hints that when Frank and the Bride are together, they somehow can affect reality around them, but again, it is never really acknowledged or delved into, and characters who were seeing this who should have some kind of reaction don’t do anything, which felt very confusing, like, "So is this happening, or is this in people‘s heads? Like, what’s going on?"

The writing was up and down; it was good for the most part, but certain parts towards the end felt like the characters had a longer monologue that got edited down, so their dialogue comes off more splintered and jarring.

Strangely, I caught at least three separate Young Frankenstein references in the film, which, hey, it’s a great movie, so I don’t mind, but it was certainly unexpected.

The Bride! takes a lot of big creative swings, and while most of the 1930s send-ups I enjoy, and I respect Maggie Gyllenhaal’s gumption and creativity in taking those swings, the final product feels like a random mess of ideas and storylines that were stitched together like Frank’s body lol. But the performances were solid throughout and kept me engaged. I give it a supportive two and a half stars ⭐️⭐️💫 it was a nice effort, but could’ve used a stronger cohesion.

Wuthering Heights review

 

In 18th-century England, we follow childhood friends turned obsessed lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff, as their passion for each other turns vicious and they manipulate the people around them.

My biggest compliment for the movie is the director’s (Emerald Fennell) visuals. She strikes that perfect balance of using real luscious landscape locations and very stylish sets that feel like a mix between a dollhouse and a Tim Burton movie, not to mention her use of strong colors like red, green, gray, and white. From start to finish, the entire film was visually striking and always held my interest in what striking image was going to come up next.

I quite enjoyed Margot Robbie’s performance; at first it’s a little more comedic, with her acting almost like a bratty child, which is juxtaposed well against the aristocratic melodrama of the story. It kind of feels like The Favourite (2018), but she also nailed the dramatic scenes, and she has a lot of nuance and layers to the character.

Jacob Elordi is good as Heathcliff; the actor brings a lot of pathos and charisma to the character, and like Robbie’s performance, the character is multifaceted, and audiences will have many emotions about him, and Elordi writes that line very well.

I was pleasantly surprised with Anthony Willis & Charli XCX’s score for the film; it was a nice mix of classic folk, ballads, and high-tempo, more modern music, and usually when modern music is played in films, that usually takes me out of the story and setting, but I never really found it with this film, which I always appreciate.

While a more subdued performance, I liked Shazad Latif's performance as Cathy’s other love interest, Edgar. While most of the other characters are very big and over the top, his acting is more down to earth and realistic, so the approach definitely added a nice variety to the acting.

The story takes place between two different houses in the Yorkshire moors, and I appreciated how Fennell differentiated the two houses. As previously stated, one is very bright and idyllic in a strong artificial way, and the other is very moody and damp and almost always messy; it was a good visual distinction between the two and helped fit the mood of the piece.

Hong Chau was a nice surprise as Cathy’s childhood friend Nelly. While the character doesn’t have as much importance to the story as she does in the book, Hong fits very well into the Victorian melodrama and has a lot of subtle and nuanced acting choices that give her character a lot of depth and, like most of the characters in this movie, make you feel very mixed emotions about their motives and actions.

Linus Sandgren did a great job with cinematography. I was especially impressed with his use of shadows in natural lighting; it really gave the film a striking and elegant look, and given the locations, it really helped the images pop.

Alison Oliver plays Isabella, Edgar’s naïve Ward. I have to give serious credit to Oliver because she was in the director’s last film as a more voracious and snarky party girl, which is the complete opposite of Isabel’s almost childlike, naïve persona, so I have to give the actress serious credit for her range and to the costume department because I did not recognize her until looking her up in the credits after the movie.

I will say at the end of the day this story is quite the melodrama, and all the characters do something dirty or mean-spirited to another character at some point, so by the end, it’s hard to root or care about any of these people since it feels like they all brought a lot of their problems on themselves, but on the other hand, I don’t need to necessarily root for a character to find the story engaging, and that may be true for some people, but for me personally, the characters' pettiness and inability to get over their own egos made it hard for me to connect with this film.

I will say, I think the most interesting performance was Martin Clunes as Mr. Earnshaw (Cathy’s father); the character seemingly starts out as a loving and sweet father but throughout the film gets more seedy and shady and has some of the ugliest teeth you've ever seen in a movie lol. The character still acts refined and dignified despite his harsher actions, so it gives an interesting dynamic to him and the characters around him.

The film also infuses the reoccurring theme and motif of BDSM and more "kinky sexual imagery and scenarios," which definitely wasn’t in the original story lol. But it wasn’t as effective as it could have been. I can see it working as a metaphor for the tension between Catherine and Heathcliff, plus it’s something the director has explored in her previous films, so it just might be a recurring motif she likes exploring, but it doesn’t really move the plot forward in any major way besides one bit towards the end to highlight Heathcliff’s cruelty and trying to get back at Catherine, but that part is more sad and emotionally upsetting for the characters, so it's not as sensational and intriguing as the filmmakers and the marketing trying to sell the movie.

Also, the very first scene has a very odd depiction (very light spoiler here)… of a hanging. I understand what the director was going for and how it affects the main character and her worldview and actions later on, but as an introductory scene and how to set the tone for the rest of the story, it felt unnecessary, and you’re not really sure what the filmmakers were trying to convey with it.

There was also a strange continuity moment I noticed; one scene takes place on Christmas Day, and then in the next scene two of the characters are out in the garden playing on a swing, and it feels like this scene should be taking place a few days after the last one. Except in the scene, the grass is green, the trees are full, and everything is sunny like it’s a June day, but the last scene clearly took place during Christmas, so well within the context of the story, it should feel like a few days later, but the visuals show like it’s six months later, so that was confusing for a second, but the set they were on was very lavish and stunning, so I kind of gave it as a creative choice since this film does have a dreamlike quality in the first place, so it wasn’t too distracting, but it was a head-turner when I first saw it.

The film also leaves out a good part of the original novel, and I don’t need every adaptation to be a one-to-one remake, and I don’t necessarily mind the changes since it does fit the story Fennell was trying to tell, but I do think the story would’ve been more nuanced and given the characters more of a payoff if they had included more of the book, but honestly, it didn’t affect the final product too much. That being said, I thought the ending was this kind of "eh." Like it reaches a climax, but it feels more like the story, cut off and a satisfying ending

While I enjoyed the visuals and tone of the film, the lack of a relatable character and strong melodrama made this film a little hard for me to connect to. The director said she wanted the film to feel like what it was like to read Wuthering Heights for the first time as a teenage girl, so I can say that the film might find an audience with those kinds of people, but for everyone else, I’d say it might be more than a mixed bag. I give the film a low three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️, and that’s mostly for the performances and the overall filmmaking.