Belfast

Belfast (2021)

Starring Jude Hill, Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, and Judi Dench

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Written by Kenneth Branagh

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar

 Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar (2021)

Starring Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo, Jamie Dornan, Damon Wayans, Jr., and Andy Garcia

Directed by Josh Greenbaum

Written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Wild Mountain Thyme

 Wild Mountain Thyme (2020)

Starring Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan, Jon Hamm, Dearbhla Molloy, and Christopher Walken

Directed by John Patrick Shanley

Written by John Patrick Shanley

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

A Private War

A Private War (2018)

Starring Rosamund Pike, Jamie Dornan, Tom Hollander, and Stanley Tucci

Directed by Matthew Heineman

Written by Arash Amel

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

Movie Review - The 9th Life of Louis Drax

The 9th Life of Louis Drax (2016)

Starring Jamie Dornan, Sarah Gadon, Aiden Longworth, Oliver Platt, Molly Parker, Barbara Hershey, and Aaron Paul

Directed by Alexandre Aja

An oddly captivating huge mess is how I'd describe The 9th Life of Louis Drax, a film that clearly doesn't know what it's trying to be in terms of tone and who it's trying to appeal to in terms of story.  When the film opens, nine year-old Louis Drax (Aiden Longworth) is detailing the eight times he's almost died in his short life -- electrocution, food poisoning, you name it and it's nearly caused Louis to bite the dust.  On his ninth birthday, Louis is taken by his mother Natalie (Sarah Gadon) and his father Peter (Aaron Paul) to a cliffside park where the young boy falls off the edge of a high cliff.  When he's recovered, Louis is in a coma and while at the hospital, Dr. Allan Pascal (Jamie Dornan) tries to do what he can to bring the young boy back to consciousness while also unraveling a mystery surrounding just how Louis fell off the cliff.  Did Peter push his son off the cliff as Natalie claims or is Natalie not as innocent as she seems?

That summary fails to include the sea creature that Louis communicates with while in his coma, the psychologist (Oliver Platt) whom Louis sees to try and make him "less weird" as he calls himself, the female cop (Molly Parker) investigating the possible crime who we know is tough because she's chewing gum in the morgue while her male partner tries to hold back from vomiting, the sex scene between Dr. Pascal and Natalie -- all of which add to an incongruous mashup of a movie that at any point feels like a live-action kids film from the 1980s, a poorly constructed murder mystery, or a horror-fantasy flick in the vein of Pan's Labyrinth.

Yet, somehow, I didn't stop watching.  Perhaps I kept hoping that Jamie Dornan and Sarah Gadon's acting would get better.  Perhaps I hoped that the sea monster would be real.  Perhaps I hoped that I wouldn't have guessed the mystery of how Louis fell off the cliff from the get-go.  None of those "perhaps's" became true, however, and instead The 9th Life of Louis Drax is a mess.  There is some interesting direction to be sure, but beyond that there's nothing else worth wasting your time with here.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Fifty Shades of Grey

Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Jennifer Ehle, Eloise Mumford, Victor Rasuk, Luke Grimes,  and Marcia Gay Harden

Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson

So here's the deal with Fifty Shades of Grey.

Let me just say right off the bat that it unfortunately never hits the level of "so bad, it's good."

It has some of the cheesiest dialog I've heard in a movie in a long time.

It has characters whose arcs I can't feasibly comprehend despite the movie trying to spell it out for me with that aforementioned cheesy dialog, and it has a story that...well, is there a story?

With the exception of one moderately hot scene involving an ice cube, it has some of the unsexiest sex scenes I've seen filmed in a long time including its final S&M-heavy escapade set to Gregorian-like chants.

And yet, somehow, despite this multitude of problems, Fifty Shades of Grey isn't one of the worst movies of 2014.  Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan as, respectively, virginal college student Anastasia and tormented billionaire Christian Grey are surprisingly watchable in the midst of what is quite a bit of dreck.  Their attempts at trying to make a connection with one another despite their seriously underwritten characters is a credit to the fresh-faced actors.

Despite my many qualms, the film looks slick.  Granted, Sam Taylor-Johnson can't make the sex scenes pop (or perhaps my lack of interest in sadomasochism is to blame), but the film looks sharp thanks in part to the rather lovely cinematography of Seamus McGarvey (who has proven his worth before in films like Anna Karenina and Atonement).  Additionally, kudos must be given to the filmmakers for compiling one of the best pop soundtracks for a movie in a long time.  Granted, I may not like some of the singles (that are still getting rampant airplay on the radio months later) outside of the context of the movie, but within the confines of the film, they're perfect matches for the visuals onscreen.  You'd be surprised what a kick-ass soundtrack can do to elevate a film and, quite frankly, I think it helped Fifty Shades of Grey immensely.

Still, please understand that Fifty Shades of Grey isn't good.  To its credit, though, it isn't nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

The RyMickey Rating:  C-