Death on the Nile

 Death on the Nile (2021)

Starring Kenneth Branagh, Tom Bateman, Annette Bening, Russell Brand, Ali Fazal, Dawn French, Gal Gadot, Armie Hammer, Rose Leslie, Emma Mackey, Sophie Okonedo, Jennifer Saunders, and Letitia Wright

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Written by Michael Green

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Sorry to Bother You

Sorry to Bother You (2018)

Starring Lakeith Stanfield, Tessa Thompson, Jermaine Fowler, Omari Hardwick, Terry Crews, Danny Glover, Steven Yeun, and Armie Hammer

And the Vocal Talents of David Cross, Lily James, and Patton Oswalt

Directed by Boots Reilly

Written by Boots Reilly

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Call Me by Your Name

Call Me by Your Name (2017)

Starring Armie Hammer, Timothée Chalamet, Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar, and Esther Garrel

Directed by Luca Guadagnino

Written by James Ivory

Summary (in 500 words or less):  In the summer of 1983, seventeen year-old Elio (Timothée Chalamet) living in Italy with his parents (Michael Stuhlbarg, Amira Casar) forms a friendship with a twentysomething graduate student (Armie Hammer) of his professor father who visits them for the summer.  The friendship begins to blossom into something more with Elio coming into his own in terms of his sexuality.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B-

Mine

Mine (2017)

Starring Armie Hammer, Annabelle Wallis, Tom Cullen, Clint Dyer, Geoff Bell, and Juliet Aubrey

Directed by Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro

Written by Fabio Guaglione and Fabio Resinaro

Summary (in 500 words or less):  A soldier (Armie Hammer) steps on a land mine while on a mission in Iraq and finds himself alone in a desert where personal demons begin to rear their ugly heads.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: C+

Free Fire

Free Fire (2017)

Starring Sharlto Copley, Armie Hammer, Brie Larson, Cillian Murphy, Jack Reynor, Babou Ceesay, Enzo Cilenti, Sam Riley, Michael Smiley, and Noah Taylor

Directed by Ben Wheatley

Written by Amy Jump and Ben Wheatley

***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  A group of criminals meets up with weapons salesmen at an empty warehouse when chaos erupts and bullets start flying everywhere.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Birth of a Nation

The Birth of a Nation (2016)

Starring Nate Parker, Armie Hammer, Penelope Ann Miller, Jackie Earle Haley, Mark Boone, Jr., Colman Domingo, Aunjanue Ellis, and Aja Naomi King

Directed by Nate Parker

***This film is currently streaming via HBO Now/Go***

The Birth of a Nation brought with it much controversy prior to its wide release last fall.  Overwhelmingly praised upon its debut at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2016 in part because of the horribly misguided #OscarsSoWhite debate of that year (and receiving the biggest monetary acquisition of any film ever at Sundance), director-writer-producer-star Nate Parker's film found itself under attack upon its wide release thanks to a news story about some possible criminal activities in Parker's past.  Putting all that outside noise aside, The Birth of a Nation certainly places the African American experience at the forefront.  Unfortunately, the movie simply isn't very good.  Shoddily and laughably directed at times, poorly acted in moments, and heavy-handed in its symbolism, The Birth of a Nation's initial praise is an example of a politically-minded provocative film being in the right place at the right time rather than actually being any good.

Based (apparently somewhat loosely) on the real life of slave Nat Turner (played by Parker), The Birth of a Nation takes place in the early 1800s in Southampton County, VA.  Able to read, Turner becomes a slave preacher who is taken from plantation to plantation by his owner Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer) to espouse religion to slaves.  Samuel is financially unstable and Nat's proselytizing is raking in the dough.  Nat, however, finds himself verbally contradicting his inner emotions as he's forced to preach to slaves obedience to their masters.  Although the relationship between Nat and Samuel has been a good one for decades - they played together as kids as a laughable prologue shows us - things take a turn for the worst following a party held at the Turner plantation which causes Nat to plan an uprising against his oppressors in the county.

The Birth of a Nation is difficult to watch in two ways.  Firstly, the film takes a violent turn in its final act and many will not be able to deal with the decapitations and various other horrific deaths depicted onscreen.  Secondly, Parker simply isn't a great director yet.  That aforementioned violent finale proves to be laughable sometimes in the way Parker films his violence.  Rather than be affecting, I found myself uncomfortably chuckling at times because of the way he depicts the horrific event.  (He need look no further than Quentin Tarantino to find a balance in how to showcase violence in uncomfortable situations.)  Unfortunately, this final act isn't the only time Parker's inexperience as a first-time writer and director behind the camera rears its ugly head.  Dream sequences featuring ethereal angels, a few awkward burgeoning romantic scenes with Nat and his soon-to-be-wife (Aja Naomi King), and some weirdly unnecessary location shots are just a few of the directorial and authorial choices that hurt the film rather than help it.  Additionally, Parker just doesn't get good performances from about half of his cast.  While Parker himself is adequate as the main protagonist (although I do wonder if the film would've been more affecting with a stronger actor as the lead), Armie Hammer and Penelope Ann Miller prove to be disappointingly awful at moments which is in part due to their performances, but also due to some of the poor dialog they're forced to spout at various times throughout the film.

Admittedly, the film got better as it progressed (only to regress again when it hits its final violent act).  I was initially prepared to lambast the film, but Parker does kick things slightly into gear in its middle act as the adult Nat is forced to preach in the midst of the painful reality of everyday life for those who are slaves.  Unfortunately, it's not enough to make The Birth of a Nation even remotely close to recommendable.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Movie Review - Nocturnal Animals

Nocturnal Animals (2016)

Starring Amy Adams, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Isla Fisher, Ellie Bamber, Armie Hammer, Andrea Riseborough, Michael Sheen, and Laura Linney

Directed by Tom Ford

There's a line in Nocturnal Animals in which a character mentions that a book was disappointing because she found her mind drifting elsewhere whilst reading it.  The same could be said for the movie Nocturnal Animals, a film that tells a story within a story with neither tale being quite compelling enough to stand on its own and neither tale meshing together in a way that proves to be an all-around satisfying whole.  In his second film, writer-director Tom Ford (a fashion designer in his other line of work) continues to prove that he's got an eye for the visuals, but that he still hasn't quite grasped the storytelling aspect of cinema.

We're first introduced to Susan Morrow (Amy Adams), an art gallery owner in Los Angeles, as she morosely mopes around her huge house dealing with an obviously unhappy marriage to her husband (Armie Hammer) who himself is facing some financial troubles.  Soon after, Susan receives a manuscript for a new novel from her ex-husband Edward Sheffield (Jake Gyllenhaal) and she escapes into the book which features a main character who seems an awful lot like her.  As Susan reads, the novel plays out onscreen -- Tony Hastings (Jake Gyllenhaal) is driving along a deserted Texas roadway with his wife Laura (Isla Fisher) and daughter India (Ellie Bamber).  A group of frightening men headed by the skeezy Ray Marcus (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) run the Hastings off the road and then kidnap the family.  Tony manages to escape but is unaware of where his wife and daughter are being kept so he finds a small-town cop (Michael Shannon) to set out and try to find his family and enact revenge those who committed this crime.

I'm sure that somewhere in the midst of the two tales there are solid connections -- either via visual similarities or storytelling allusions -- but things never came cohesively together for me.  Plus, the Amy Adams side of things is oddly uncompelling in any way.  It doesn't help that Adams shows nary an emotion throughout, presenting an ice queen persona that doesn't allow the viewer to feel sympathy for her despite her mundane life.  The "novel" storyline fares a little better with Gyllenhaal giving a nice performance as the beleaguered father.  Michael Sheen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson were nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe respectively for their roles here (and Taylor-Johnson even won), but their characters seemed a bit too one-note to garner any real attention for me.  Frankly, the same could be said for the film itself -- it doesn't really deserve to garner any real attention.  I continue to think that Tom Ford has the potential to be something great, but his two films thus far haven't landed him there.  Maybe sticking to lensing things as opposed to writing them is his road to a better directorial future.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

Starring Henry Cavill, Armie Hamer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Sylvester Groth, Luca Calvani, and Hugh Grant 

Directed by Guy Ritchie

More style over substance, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. unfortunately doesn't come together as a full motion picture despite rather charming and winning performances from its key quartet.  When your film's climax feels unimportant, you know you've got a bit of a problem and that's the case here.  By the time the last twenty minutes rolls around, you may be in danger of having checked out even though you were somewhat intrigued by everything that came before.

Based on the tv show of the same name, The Man from Uncle is a spy flick that's firmly planted in the 1960s.  With WWII over, tensions are still high thanks to nuclear fears and the US, led by thief turned CIA agent Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill), finds itself teaming up with Russia in the form of KGB operative Illya Kuryakin (Armie Hammer) to track down the villainous Alexander and Victoria Vinciguerra (Luca Calvani and Elizabeth Debicki).  The wealthy couple may have kidnapped the physicist father of auto mechanic Gaby Teller (Alicia Vikander) in order to help formulate a nuke that they can sell to the highest bidder and the US and Russia see Gaby as the way to get into the Vinciguerra compounds.

Director and co-screenwriter Guy Ritchie certainly creates a stylish, classy, and mod-looking film.  Visually, there are absolutely appealing aspects to The Man from Uncle.  Ritchie also does a really nice job of bringing elements of comedy to the mix, cleverly mixing witty wordplay with some rather ingenious visual set-ups.  Unfortunately, there's something about the espionage aspect of the script that never quite lands.  After a rather fun opening chase sequence, Ritchie can't quite craft his action sequences in ways that feel as if they're enhancing the plot and they bog things down rather than rile things up.

The cast is all around charming (albeit a little wooden in that James Bond "suave" sense -- not a bad thing) and fits perfectly in the 1960s era the film depicts with particular kudos to Elizabeth Debicki who snidely plays the dastardly villainess.  Ritchie just can't bring the varying genres of his film together to create a fully realized flick.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Starring Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, Helena Bonham Carter, Tom Wilkinson, Ruth Wilson, and William Fichtner

Directed by Gore Verbinski

The Lone Ranger isn't nearly as bad as its dismal box office numbers last summer would have you believe.  However, it's not very good either.  Director Gore Verbinski of Pirates of the Caribbean fame does know how to solidly lens an action scene and all of The Lone Ranger's souped-up special effects moments really excel, succeeding at not appearing the least bit computer-generated or post-produced.  For that, I give The Lone Ranger much credit.

Unfortunately, the film feels bloated and surprisingly empty on story considering its nearly 150-minute running time.  For a movie called The Lone Ranger, one would think that the title character would take top billing when it comes to story.  But seeing as how Johnny Depp is involved and isn't playing that title character, you know that scene-stealing has to take place on his part...and that's certainly the case here.  Depp is Tonto, the title character's trusty Native American sidekick who is quick with witty retorts and swami-like wisely sage advice.  No matter what he's saying, however, Depp decides to mumble his way through the words much like his Pirates of the Caribbean Captain Jack character only this time without the English accent and with less of a slurred/drunken vibe and more of a stilted/monotone one.

Unlike Depp, Armie Hammer actually has a presence that at least proves charming and watchable as John Reid (who later becomes The Lone Ranger).  His story about avenging some wrongs done to his family plays out in typical western fashion, but Hammer at least is somewhat captivating.  Unfortunately, the film pretends like it cares about him as a character, but really just wants us to place our attention on Tonto and that's just a premise I couldn't get behind.

Like I said above, Verbinski has lensed a nice looking film.  Unfortunately, the script does this one in.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror (2012)

Starring Lily Collins, Julia Roberts, Armie Hammer, and Nathan Lane

Directed by Tarsem Singh

No one was more surprised than me to discover that Mirror Mirror wasn't nearly as bad as its heinous trailer advertised it to be.  A case of lowered expectations certainly worked in this film's favor, so take this review with that in mind, but for what this movie is -- a slightly re-imagined, humorous take on the Snow White tale aimed at kids and their parents -- Tarsem Singh's visually gorgeous and sumptuous spin is inventive and unique enough to make you feel as if you're not watching the same tired fairytale over again.

Rather than anchor the film around Snow White, Mirror Mirror certainly places its emphasis on the Wicked Queen, played here in an over-the-top scenery chewing performance by Julia Roberts.  Obviously hamming it up and seemingly having a blast, Roberts appears to be relishing this opportunity to play evil.  Clothed in some of the most ambitious, colorful, and flamboyant costumes I've seen in years (courtesy of the late Eiko Ishioka), anytime the Queen wasn't onscreen, you longed for her to return.

And given that this film is, at its core, a story about Snow White, the lack of creating an interesting story for Snow herself is perhaps the film's biggest disappointment.  Lily Collins plays Snow White as innocent, yet with a modern-day spunk that is typically attributed to princesses in films today (think Rapunzel in Tangled) and she's quite good and absolutely engaging in the role.  In fact, she's almost about as perfect as one can get in terms of casting the "ultimate image" of Snow White.  However, despite having a bit more independent take on the character, the screenwriters couldn't give Snow nearly enough of an interesting storyline to compete with her wicked stepmother.

The rest of the cast of characters we've come to expect from Snow White tales are present as well.  Armie Hammer plays a suave yet smarmy Prince with much exuberance and the Seven Dwarves are given a bit of an interesting spin as they turn into thieves stealing from the rich.  There's also a nice sidekick role for Nathan Lane that provides a bit of humor (although he's certainly overshadowed by Roberts in their scenes together).

But the real star of the show (beyond Roberts' performance) is the previously mentioned costumes (which deserve an Oscar nomination...and likely an Oscar win) and rather ingenious production designs.  Director Tarsem Singh is known for his attention to detail when it comes to these areas and Mirror Mirror is no different.  For those reasons alone, Mirror Mirror is worth a watch.  It's not without its flaws and its humor does skew a bit young, but with the nice performance from Julia Roberts and the fantastic visuals, you likely won't be disappointed with a rental of this one.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - J. Edgar

J. Edgar (2011)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, and Judi Dench

Directed by Clint Eastwood

Oh, Clint Eastwood.  I'm gonna call you "Old Reliable" now seeing as how I can always count on your movies to be a total and utter bore.  J. Edgar lived up to that lofty (or lowly) expectation.  While it was perhaps slightly more interesting than Hereafter and Invictus thanks to its subject matter alone, Eastwood's flick just feels dark and heavy at every single turn from the acting to the brooding set design to the uninspired stuffy direction.  Somehow, though, despite the hefty feel of everything in the flick, there's an utter emptiness in terms of dramatic tension.

The saving grace of the film is that Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black jump back and forth through time to various stages of the FBI creator J. Edgar Hoover's career and there's at least a bit of fun trying to pinpoint where in the timeline we are based off of the make-up caked onto Leonardo DiCaprio.  (It should be noted that a couple reviews I read panned the make-up in this flick, but I thought it was fine and sometimes quite good.)  However, the remainder of the flick's story much of which is composed of a ridiculously written romance between Hoover (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his secret paramour Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer) plays out like a silly soap opera complete with a hotel room slapfest (that ends in a smooch on the lips) with the requisite throwing of a glass against a wall followed by shouted sayings like "How dare you! But don't leave me!  I love you!"  

Hoover was a helluva guy.  Overly ambitious it seems, but strongly believing that everything he did (whether it be wiretapping Martin Luther King, Jr.'s hotel room sexcapades or claiming to have scoop on Communist ties to Eleanor Roosevelt) was done in order to strengthen his position and the FBI's position in the government.  Sure, on one hand he was attempting to overthrow radicals in the country, but on the other hand he was becoming that dictatorial presence that he so despised.  Add the cross-dressing (which is only lightly touched upon and done so in a rather horrifying Norman Bates-ish Psycho manner) and the gay aspect of the guy and there's gotta be a good story there.  It's just not present in the movie.

Leonardo DiCaprio was fine (although oddly uncharismatic) and did a pretty darn good job at creating six decades of a character through changes in movement and speech.  Naomi Watts was adequate in what amounted to a very plain role as Hoover's longtime loyal secretary Helen Gandy.  Her character was in the film quite a bit, but wasn't given a whole lot else to do beyond saying, "Yes, sir," which just ends up wasting many minutes of the 140-minute runtime.  Still, DiCaprio and Watts were the two bright spots here.  Armie Hammer (whose role in The Social Network landed him in spot #5 on last year's Breakthrough Star RyMickey Awards) was overacting quite a bit, playing his role of Hoover's gay confidante Clyde Tolson with never a smidgeon of believability.  The screenplay does him no favors as it makes Clyde love fashion and dress impeccably (not that those are necessarily inherent characteristics of a gay man, but the way the movie plays them up it most certainly is intended to be that way).  And let's not even get started on Judi Dench who seemed to be sleepwalking through this thing as Hoover's overbearing mother -- another role in which the screenplay does no favors to the actor playing the part.

The personal life of J. Edgar Hoover admittedly isn't all that well-documented so who really knows if he was gay or a cross-dresser.  The problem is that J. Edgar skirts around these issues incredibly awkwardly and while it takes stands (to a degree) as to whether these rumors were true, it never attacks them head-on and it creates a lack of drama because of that.  

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Blackout

Blackout (2008)

Starring Amber Tamblyn, Aiden Gillen, and Armie Hammer

Directed by Rigoberto Castañeda

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

What can I say...at 2am in the morning, sometimes I just feel like watching a crappy thriller.  You got a problem with that?  One of these days I'm going to learn my lesson that it's just not worth the time, but until that day comes, you're saddled with reading about it (or not reading about it).  Nevertheless, Blackout has a perfectly solid premise that's actually executed directorially fine, but thanks to some unfortunate writing the thing just doesn't work in the end.

Simple premise:  Three people (tv actress Amber Tamblyn, Social Network-er Armie Hammer, and horrible Irish actor who can't cover up his accent and apparently was in The Wire Aiden Gillen) get stuck in an elevator in what is essentially an abandoned apartment complex.  All three have backstories that reveal how and why they happened to be stepping foot into the elevator at the moment that they did.  Said backstories will eventually reveal one of the three to be maniacal even though it's clearly apparent (and therein the film's downfall) from the opening minutes.  

Putting three people in an elevator and leaving them there could certainly make for a tense movie.  The "twist" that one of these people is not so nice is where the flick falters.  Made prior to the release of the similarly themed M. Night Shyamalan-produced Devil, Blackout doesn't contain the spiritual aspect that the other film espoused, but it certainly contains a person who is essentially an inhuman creature.  If only this wouldn't have been so blatant and obvious, this flick may have worked.  However, the "reveal" isn't the least bit revealing and the climactic moments just don't have the tension that they should.  [Although I will say that I was positively skeeved out by an odd sexual proclivity of one of the folks stuck in the elevator.]

Amber Tamblyn and Armie Hammer are actually decent here...nothing mind-blowing, but perfectly acceptable.  From his opening scene, however, Aiden Gillen was torturous to watch.  I don't know if it's because he was trying to cover up his Irish native tongue, but his line readings just completely took me out of the film.  Stilted and staccato, it was just not enjoyable in the slightest.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - The Social Network

The Social Network (2010)

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hamer, Max Minghella, Rashida Jones, Brenda Song, and Rooney Mara

Directed by David Fincher

I avoided the Facebook thing for as long as I could, but one day in an attempt to look at pictures of some girl who I thought I might want to date, I signed up and began the process of "friending" people.  It's all rather foolish (though not as foolish as Twitter), but there is something to be said for Facebook being the new form of communication.  The final scene of The Social Network hints at the argument that Facebook has distanced people from others rather than brought people closer together, but that's the only moment where I felt the film was trying to say anything deep and meaningful.  Don't get me wrong.  The Social Network is a good film -- well crafted, well acted, and very well written.  But it's not groundbreaking cinema.  Still, in this lukewarm year for film, it's one of the best flicks I've seen in 2010.

Jesse Eisenberg is Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard student who is dumped by his girlfriend Erica (Rooney Mara) while at a bar one evening.  The gal wasn't wrong to dump him -- he was a stuck-up bastard -- but Mark doesn't see it that way.  Instead, this computer-savvy nerd takes to his blog and begins a bitter tirade against Erica.  This then leads to a rather misogynistic website which he formulates and releases on the very same night he was dumped -- a "who's hotter" kind of thing where Mark pitted pictures of two college girls against each other and allowed the public to vote on who was better looking.  When this website crashes the Harvard internet system, Mark gets into a bit of trouble, but that's only the start of his creative brainstorming.

Mark meets the Winklevoss twin brothers (Armie Hammer) and their buddy Divya (Max Minghella) who have an idea to create a dating site for Harvard students only.  The brothers and their pal recognize Mark's computer skills (and recognize that he may need to "rehabilitate" his image)  and hire him to create the code for the site.  Mark agrees to help, but in the process formulates his own idea -- "the Facebook."  With the help of his business-oriented friend Eduardo (Andrew Garfield), Mark launches "the Facebook."  As is often the case with surprise successes, though, enemies can be made rather quickly, and Mark's life is no exception.

There's a kind of coldness on display in the flick -- director Fincher uses it to mirror the outwardly emotional coldness of Mark.  And there's not a whole lot of "brightness" onscreen either.  Fincher drapes the film in darkness for a fairly big chunk of the time whether it be in the scenes where Mark is creating the website or the litigation scenes where he's being sued for creating the very same website.  

Speaking of those litigation scenes (which Fincher does a rather brilliant job of balancing and cutting to throughout the whole film), screenwriter Aaron Sorkin amazingly makes them interesting.  It may seem like a simple task, but sometimes putting a lawyer into any scene makes the boredom factor spike greatly.  Not so, here.  In fact, as has been said in many reviews of the flick, Sorkin's screenplay is the true star of the picture.  There's a wit and genuine intelligence on display that isn't commonplace in mainstream films.  I was a big fan of Sorkin's television show Sports Night for the very same reason I'm a fan of his work in this film -- the quick patter of smart speak was welcome in that show and welcome here as well.

It certainly takes a talented actor to make Sorkin's fast-paced dialog work and Jesse Eisenberg steps up to the plate.  His Mark Zuckerberg is zeroed in on one thing -- creating "the Facebook" -- and pushes away everything and everyone else.  There was much talk before the film was released that Zuckerberg came off looking like a nasty guy.  I didn't see it that way at all and I think that's due to Eisenberg's performance.  To me, Zuckerberg was a loner who was not quite prepared for the nearly immediate success that his work would bring him.

While Justin Timberlake proves adequate (I wasn't bowled over by him, although he certainly didn't disappoint), my favorite actor was perhaps Andrew Garfield (who also starred in this year's Never Let Me Go) as Mark's friend and business partner Eduardo.  Eduardo actually has a bit more of an emotional arc (or at least a more obvious one) than Mark and Garfield makes his character the person we in the audience relate to most.

There's nothing really bad to say about The Social Network.  It's a well made smart film the likes of which we don't see onscreen often nowadays.  Across the board, everything is top notch.  That being said, it never really pulled me in emotionally and I think that's because of the "coldness" that I mentioned above.  Still, it's certainly a film I'd recommend and watch again.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+