Let Him Go

 Let Him Go (2020)

Starring Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, and Lesley Manville

Directed by Thomas Bezucha

Written by Thomas Bezucha

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B+

Serenity

Serenity (2019)

Starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Jeremy Strong, and Djimon Hounsou

Directed by Steven Knight

Written by Steven Knight

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Justice League

Justice League (2017)

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Gal Gadot, Ezra Miller, Jason Momoa, Ray Fisher, Jeremy Irons, Diane Lane, J.K. Simmons, and Ciarán Hinds

Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by Chris Terrio and Joss Whedon

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Indulge me for a moment, as I copy the first paragraph of the Wikipedia summary for Justice League -- 

"Thousands of years ago, Steppenwolf and his legions of Parademons attempt to take over Earth with the combined energies of three Mother Boxes.  They are foiled by a unified army that includes the Olympian Gods, Amazons, Atlanteans, mankind, and the Green Lantern Corps.  After repelling Steppenwolf's army, the Mother Boxes are separated and hidden in locations on the planet.  In the present, mankind is in mourning over Superman, whose death triggers the Mother Boxes to reactivate and Steppenwolf's return to Earth an effort to regain favor with his master, Darkseid.  Steppenwolf aims to gather the artifacts to form "The Unity," which will destroy Earth's ecology and terraform it in the image of Steppenwolf's homeworld."

• Granted, there's a whole lot more to Justice League than that summary above, but just reading that gives you an idea of how ludicrous the overarching story of how this movie is.  Justice League is supposed to be DC Comics' equivalent of Marvel's Avengers, bringing together the best of DC's superheroes, and yet director Zach Snyder and his two screenwriters squander the appeal of bringing together Batman (Ben Affleck), Superman (Henry Cavill), Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), the Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg (Ray Fisher).
• It's obvious that screenwriter Joss Whedon was brought on to add lightness and humor to the decidedly heavy aesthetic that always permeates the DC Universe films.  While some jokes land, most just feel like they were added on in reshoots.
• Ben Affleck has talked about leaving the franchise and I think that's best.  Granted, it isn't all his fault as Zack Snyder's choice of direction cause the character to lose any modicum of charisma, but Affleck just never seems like he's having fun with this iconic figure in the slightest.
• The Flash is certainly the standout here to me with Ezra Miller getting the bulk of Whedon's jokes and thereby showing the most charisma.  Perhaps his standalone film will be the first DC flick to actually win me over completely because thus far, they've been incredibly disappointing.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Starring Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Holly Hunter, Gal Gadot, Scoot McNairy, Callan Mulvey, and Tao Okamoto

Directed by Zack Snyder

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

Questions I had while watching Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice:

• Why does the voice of Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) when in the Batsuit sound like he's speaking through some voice box that amplifies his voice, making it echoey and deeper than normal?  This amplification makes it utterly obvious that all the vocals were completed in post. (I guess technically there is amplification device in his mask, but considering that the lower half of his face isn't covered by the mask, it just makes Affleck's performance laughable...even moreso than his depressing melancholy already was...)
• Why do all of the fight scenes look as if they were created by a video game manufacturer instead of looking like creative visual effects?  Zack Snyder isn't exactly known for realism, but it's utterly ridiculous-looking.
• Why is this movie so long?  And considering how long the title already is, why not add the 's' after the 'v' in the abbreviation of the word 'versus?'
• Why is Zack Snyder allowed to continue to reign his ugly directorial aesthetic over any films anymore?  His dark, dreary, heavy-handed nature creates an utterly depressing feel throughout, carrying nary a modicum of charm, hopefulness, or pleasantness that even the worst Marvel films contain even if just for a moment or two.
• Amy Adams' red hair adds at least some color to the muted grays and blacks that permeate the screen.
• Despite the criticism of Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor, at least he's hamming it up in a amusingly crazy way as opposed to the dreary hamming of Affleck.
• When one of your main characters -- Bruce Wayne, in this case -- gets his motivations because of scary dreams he has, that's just cheap storytelling.  
• In my Man of Steel review from a few years ago, I mentioned that Henry Cavill carried some charm.  That's not present here at all as he's just an angry superhero the whole time.
• I admittedly appreciated that they at least tried to explain away the ludicrousness of Man of Steel's destructive finale in which much of Metropolis was destroyed. 
• And at least the finale of this one was a little less ludicrous.  The post-script of the plot after the final battle was actually oddly resonant and upped my grade below by a spot.
• I should have stopped watching this at the fifty-minute mark when I first contemplated the idea.  
• Why will I inevitably subject myself to Suicide Squad and Wonder Woman after this atrocity?  I should know better...

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Every Secret Thing

Every Secret Thing (2015)

Starring Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, Dakota Fanning, Danielle Macdonald, Nate Parker, and Common

Directed by Amy Berg

As soon as the opening credits began to roll for Every Secret Thing and the screenwriter popped up as Nicole Holofcener, I found myself getting excited.  Holofcener wrote and directed the fantastic Enough Said, and while Every Secret Thing was certainly a dramatic shift away from that romantic comedy, I still held out hope that I was in for something worthwhile.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.

As young girls, Alice Manning and Ronnie Fuller were convicted of stealing and killing a baby and sent to a juvenile detention center for seven years.  Now eighteen and released, another toddler has gone missing and Alice and Ronnie (Danielle Macdonald and Dakota Fanning) are suspected of the crime being investigated by Detective Nancy Porter (Elizabeth Banks).  With Alice claiming that she was innocent of the first crime, she and her mother Helen (Diane Lane) try to cooperate with the police, but feel that they're being targeted simply because of Alice's past.  However, Ronnie claims Alice manipulated her seven years ago and was the true mastermind behind the earlier kidnapping and murder.  Is either girl responsible for the newest crime, are they both playing one another, or are they in cahoots again?

Every Secret Thing takes us back and forth in time, revealing little bits of the story not in a way that is inherently integral to the story, but in a way to manipulate the viewer which proves to be enervating rather than enlightening.  With stilted dialog and blatant direction of actors that makes their "secrets" seem obvious from the film's outset, first-time director Amy Berg and screenwriter Holofcener don't succeed at creating a story that feels anything other than contrived.  Elizabeth Banks is solid as the detective desperate to find the missing child, but Diane Lane and relative newcomer Daniele Macdonald inhabit characters so poorly designed that it probably wouldn't have been possible to come out of this looking good.

The RyMickey Rating: D+

Movie Review - Trumbo

Trumbo (2015)

Starring Bryan Cranston, Diane Lane, Helen Mirren, Louis C.K., Elle Fanning, Michael Stuhlbarg, Alan Tudyk, and John Goodman

Directed by Jay Roach

Dalton Trumbo (played here by Bryan Cranston) was one of Hollywood's most sought after screenwriters in the early 1940s, but his Communist political leanings led him and many other Hollywood artists to be questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).  After refusing to testify in front of Congress, Trumbo went to jail for a year in 1950 and, upon his release, found himself blacklisted in Hollywood with no one willing to hire him because of his politics.  Trumbo details the title character's story and his fight to get back into the profession he loved.

Director Jay Roach is known for his wacky comedies -- Austin Powers series, Meet the Parents -- and in his first theatrical foray into drama, he unfortunately doesn't quite succeed.  Trumbo feels like a film inhabited by caricatures rather than a film inhabited by actual people.  Because of this, we lose the emotional connection needed in order to really feel for Trumbo and his plight which is admittedly a blight on both our government and the Hollywood machine of the 1940s/50s.

While Bryan Cranston plays things straight for the most part -- although certainly embodying the witty, literate side of the screenwriter -- many of the other major players in the film are told to chew up as much scenery as possible.  Helen Mirren exudes snarky evilness in every line reading and movement as Hedda Hopper -- gossip columnist and strong anti-Communist activist.  While the HUAC was certainly an ill-advised group, portraying Hopper as a vigilante gung ho on bringing down Trumbo proves to be laughable as opposed to realistic.  (The problem here is that Hopper may very well have been the way she's portrayed, but the film makes her out to be so comically and vehemently vile that she loses any sense of reality.)  John Goodman as a bellowing low-budget film producer who hires Trumbo after his incarceration is also simply playing a stereotypical brash bigwig.  Other than Cranston's Trumbo and Diane Lane's portrayal of his wife Cleo, everyone depicted here feels fake.

Trumbo is reminiscent of a film made in the 1940s and 1950s where actors would be playing broad versions of undeveloped characters as opposed to a film made in the 2000s that looks back on that era over a half century ago and really delves into the issues.  Light-heartedness certainly works in a comedy depicting the 1950s and it works in portions of Trumbo as well except that this film -- and Dalton Trumbo himself -- deserved a film that also gave this man's struggles (and those of his peers) the gravitas they deserved.  All this being said, I appreciate the light that Trumbo shines on this pretty disgusting time in Hollywood history, but I wish the film itself was a better representation of the era.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Inside Out

Inside Out (2015)

Featuring the vocal talents of Amy Poehler, Phyllis Smith, Richard Kind, Bill Hader, Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, Kaitlyn Dias, Diane Lane, and Kyle MacLachlan

Directed by Pete Docter and Ronaldo Del Carmen

When young Riley (voiced by Kaitlyn Dias) and her parents (Diane Lane, Kyle MacLachlan) have to move cross country to San Francisco, the middle schooler finds her life turned a bit upside down (or perhaps inside out is a more appropriate phrase).  Being a pre-teen, her emotions are always on edge and constantly changing and, as this latest entry into the Pixar pantheon informs us, this leads to a rather tricky job for the folks inside Riley's brain who have to control the tween's mood swings.  It certainly doesn't help that the effervescent Joy (Amy Poehler) is finding herself having to match wits with her counterparts Anger, Disgust, and Fear (Lewis Black, Mindy Kaling, and Bill Hader) while at the same time dealing with the fact that Sadness (Phyllis Smith) is taking a much more prominent place in Riley's life thanks to the move to the West Coast.

Inside Out is at its best when it aims for the funny bone.  There is much humor to be had inside the mind of a tween and the script is at its best when it mines for the comedy aspects.  Unfortunately -- and this is the film's one fault -- the flick falls a bit flat when it comes to the more dramatic side of things.  There were two obvious heart-tugging key moments in the film and neither felt as fleshed out as they needed to be in order to really make an impact.  It's certainly a bit disappointing and it keeps the film from garnering the effusive praise I'd like to laud upon it since nearly every single other element is close to perfection.

Perhaps most stunning about Inside Out is the collaboration between voice actors and animators to create two of the most well-thought-out characters I've seen in an animated movie in a long time in Joy and Sadness.  Amy Poehler is captivating as Joy, exuding a charm and ebullience that comes through in her voice from the moment we first hear her speak.  Coupled with the star-like quality of the way Joy looks -- she has no "fine lines" outlining her, but rather this sensation of "fuzzy light" creating a yellowish aura around her -- and you've got a tremendously memorable character.  Not only is Joy incredibly successful, but Sadness is just as marvelous.  Shaped almost like a teardrop, Phyllis Smith is vocally spot-on as the depressed, down-on-her-luck emotion.  And the repartee between these two characters is hilarious and elevates the film far beyond what I thought possible.

Pixar films never disappoint in the visuals department and that's the case here as well.  I've already discussed the lovely character design for Joy and Sadness, but rest assured that the same care and detail went into the development of the rest of the film's cast as well which while all caricatures of what we think emotions may look like or how they may act still succeeds tremendously.  Story-wise the film doesn't quite hit all the notes is aspires to (and that's due in part to a bit too lengthy middle act that never wears thin, but comes awfully close to overstaying its welcome), but overall Inside Out is a winner and one that I look forward to watching again in the near future.

The RyMickey Rating:  B+

Movie Review - Man of Steel

Man of Steel (2013)

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Laurence Fishburne, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, and Kevin Costner

Directed by Zach Snyder

To me, "Superman" has to come with a little bit of fun attached.  Maybe it's the fact that I grew up with the somewhat tongue in cheek Christopher Reeve version or the very tongue in cheek Lois and Clark tv series (a must-watch every Sunday night for me growing up), but Zach Snyder's Man of Steel was so über-serious that it sucked all the joy out of a fun character.  Granted, we never get to see the journalist "Clark Kent with Glasses" in this movie -- I assume that's being saved for the sequel if the film's final minutes are to be the fodder for what is to come -- and we're forced to endure yet again another origin story which are two factors leading to the lack of frivolity.  Seriously, do filmmakers not realize that these iconic characters don't need their early life stories told over and over again (I'm looking at you Spider-Man)?

After we're told how Superman makes it to Earth from his home planet of Krypton (therein setting up the villain's plotline as well -- which I'll discuss in a bit), we jump ahead in time about two decades and find that the US government is investigating some strange scientific readings in the Arctic.  Intrepid news reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is on the scene and does a little digging on her own one night, coming upon a Kryptonian space ship wherein she meets Superman (Henry Cavill) who was doing a little digging of his own trying to find his origin.  While on the ship thanks to some weird outer space science, Superman is able to "meet" the holographic image of his father (Russell Crowe) who tells him that Krypton's military commander General Zod (Michael Shannon) is hellbent on finding a way to Earth in order to take it over since Krypton was destroyed decades ago.  Although Superman flies away, Lois is intent on finding out who this man is and discovers that he grew up as Clark Kent in Smallville, Kansas, with a mother and father (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner) who raised him as their own after they discovered his spaceship in their barn.  Eventually, General Zod arrives on Earth and the ultimate showdown begins.

Although I'm certainly no expert on this, Man of Steel certainly feels like it must hold the record for most deaths in a movie.  Granted, we don't see many of these deaths, but during the nearly hour long battle between Superman and General Zod, huge swaths of cities are destroyed and one has to think that the casualties were astronomical.  During this lengthy tête-a-tête, boredom ultimately set in for this viewer.  I was along for the ride for a bit, but then director Snyder just seems to try and want to top himself over and over again with ludicrous one-upmanship.  It begins to wear thin particularly thanks to the drab color palette he conjures up for the piece.

With the exception of the over-zealous (and over-acting) Michael Shannon and his evil minions who chew up the scenery whenever they make an appearance, the acting helps Man of Steel achieve a naturalness that we admittedly don't see in Superman pieces.  Henry Cavill (with whom I'm really not at all familiar) has the down-to-earth All-American Clark Kent-ian vibe to him, but also carries the gravity of the strength of "Superman" quite well.  Although this film didn't really give him the opportunity, I also think he's got the sly comedic chops in him that are needed for the adult Clark Kent journalist role so that's certainly a plus.  Amy Adams brings an intelligence to Lois Lane that I hadn't seen before (sorry Teri Hatcher) and it is somewhat refreshing.  She's still much too intrepid of a character for her own good, but Adams doesn't play her as a damsel in distress (although she is often just that throughout the film).  Nice turns from Diane Lane and Kevin Costner round out the cast.

Man of Steel is decent, but much too dark and serious for its own good.  The Marvel universe has at least latched onto the fact that a little bit of humor has to be instilled into their films in order to poke fun at the ridiculous nature of some of the goings-on.  Man of Steel is just itching for that same dry humor and instead it languishes in a world that's devoid of any joy.  I'd look forward to a sequel out of Zach Snyder's hands, but he unfortunately appears to be back at the helm which doesn't bode well for things to come.

The RyMickey Rating:  C