Underwater

 Underwater (2020)

Starring Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher, Jr., Mamoudou Athie, and T.J. Miller

Directed by William Eubank

Written by Brian Duffield and Adam Cozad

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Jason Bourne

***Movie #5 of BOURNE Week***

Jason Bourne (2016)

Starring Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Riz Ahmed, and Julia Stiles

Directed by Paul Greengrass

Director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon make their return to the action series that really made both of them famous with Jason Bourne which tosses Bourne Legacy star Jeremy Renner to the curb as we delve back into the story of the title character.  Unfortunately, in the first film in the series not to be co-written by Tony Gilroy, the flick flounders a bit, feeling more like a rehash rather than something original.

By now, we all get that the CIA is trying to shut down many of their special ops units -- they've been doing so for the past four movies -- so when former agent Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) finds and downloads a ton of info on the specialized programs, she quickly becomes a target of the CIA.  After Nicky enlists his help, Bourne discovers via the documents that his father helped to create the very same secret program that enlisted his son.  However, via flashbacks that begin to haunt Bourne, we discover that Bourne's father was killed in a violent terrorist attack in the Middle East.  Bourne soon begins to realize, however, that this father's death may not have been at the hands of a terrorist, but rather from his employers in the CIA, giving Bourne this film's vendetta to find the men responsible for his father's death.

Unfortunately, Bourne's vendetta is much too similar to everything we saw in the first three films of the series.  Rather than feel fresh, Jason Bourne ends up seeming like a repeat of everything we've seen.  The film certainly isn't awful -- Damon is good and the cast surrounding him works well together -- but it's too much of the same thing.  Tommy Lee Jones as the CIA head takes the place of David Strathairn and Chris Cooper's characters.  Alicia Vikander as the understanding, friendly CIA agent is Joan Allen's Pamela Landy.  Vincent Cassel as a hit man is like Clive Owen in the first film.  The script by Paul Greengrass and Christopher Rouse fails to do anything other than hit the notes that worked in the first three films.  Sure, the action sequences upped the ante -- including a decidedly un-Bourne-like Las Vegas chase scene that is so catastrophically damaging to the city that it feels like it was picked out from a Transformers movie -- but they're not enough to push the story to a fresh place.  You could certainly do worse when it comes to summer action flicks than Jason Bourne, but this final movie (thus far) in the Bourne series is unfortunately the worst.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Child 44

Child 44 (2015)

Starring Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Noomi Rapace, Joel Kinnaman, Paddy Considine, Fares Fares, Jason Clarke, and Vincent Cassel

Directed by Daniel Espinosa

"In 1933, at the height of Stalin's state-imposed famine against the Ukranian people, an estimated 25,000 died each day from starvation.  The systematic extermination by hunger known as the Holodomor left millions of children orphaned."  One of those children mentioned in Child 44's opening subtitles is Leo Demidov who as an adult (played by Tom Hardy) has become a Russian Ministry of State Security agent.  When a series of child murders is uncovered including the killing of his partner's son, Leo sets off on a mission to find the murderer...however, this doesn't sit well with his commanders because Russia at the time failed to acknowledge murder as they felt that was a crime brought about by capitalism.  Soon, Leo finds his wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) accused of being a traitor to the state and the only way Leo can save her is by moving far away and taking a job in a lowly militia.  Desperate to find the serial killer ending the lives of innocent children and also hoping to seek revenge on fellow agent Vasili Niktin (Joel Kinnaman) whom Leo believes set up his wife, the vengeful Leo finds himself battling a Russian mindset that is unwilling to face the truth.

Ultimately, the problem with Child 44 is that it tries too hard to be too many things.  In addition to the variety of story lines above -- murdered children, traitors, the Holodomor -- there are numerous other tales woven into the mix.  While the serial killer certainly takes precedence, it too often feels pushed to the side while a variety of other depressing aspects make appearances with very little emotional impact.  Tom Hardy and Noomi Rapace are fine, but there's certainly no aire of charisma between the two.  Quite frankly, I didn't even realized they were actually married until about halfway through.  Gary Oldman (as an officer who befriends Leo) has a tendency to overdo it in certain films, but here, his screen presence is a welcome breath of fresh air in the film's second act.  Granted, it's not enough to save the film from being a rather tiresome slog to sit through.  While there are aspects of the story that could very well stand on their own, the kitchen sink method of Child 44 just doesn't work in its favor.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Trance

Trance (2013)

Starring James McAvoy, Vincent Cassel, and Rosario Dawson

Directed by Danny Boyle

I've always been a fan of Danny Boyle and even if I find some of his films a bit overrated (I'm looking at you, Slumdog Millionaire), I still find them visually intriguing.  Trance is certainly eye-catching in the same vein as Boyle's other films -- and that's a good thing as the script seems surprisingly hollow considering the multitude of double crossings going on in this art heist-gone-bad flick.

Opening with an impressive sequence in which our main protagonist Simon (James McAvoy), an employee at a fancy British art auction house, tells the audience in voiceover how to prevent the theft of exquisite paintings only to have an exquisite painting stolen mere minutes later, I was intrigued with Trance right from the start.  In the midst of the theft, Simon is knocked unconscious by one of the thieves and wakes up in a hospital, unable to remember what occurred.  As it turns out, Simon himself was involved in the theft and integral in stealing the coveted art piece.  The only problem is that Simon was attempting to double cross his fellow criminals and kept the painting for himself...except that with his loss of memory, he has no clue where the painting actually is now.  When his "boss" Franck (Vincent Cassel) discovers that Simon was trying to manipulate him, he's none too happy, but is desperate to get the highly coveted and incredibly expensive painting back in his possession.  In order to do this, he sends Simon to a hypnotist (Rosario Dawson) whom he hopes will be able to get Simon's latent memories to rise to the surface.

There's nothing in that summary that I don't like.  Sure, it may not be the most original concept, but it sounds solid.  Unfortunately, things sputter a bit after the plot is laid out in the opening thirty minutes.  Hypnotic dream sequences come to the forefront and while they are nicely shot, they grow a bit monotonous and tiresome.  There's only so many times the screenwriter can "get me" before I grow wary of the circuitous "what is reality" conceit.

The acting is fine, but the best aspect of the film -- and what saves it from being a rather complete bore -- is Boyle's direction.  Unlike Baz Luhrmann whose films are essentially interchangeable in the way that he lenses and edits things, Boyle's films -- which some would say carry that same manic tone as Luhrmann's -- are aesthetically similar to each other in the way he shoots, frames, and cuts images, yet they each feel unique.  I'd never confuse a scene from Trance with a scene from Slumdog Millionaire or 127 Hours as an example, whereas I could easily mistake a scene from The Great Gatsby for one from Moulin Rouge.  For that, I give Boyle credit.  He's a director whom I look forward to seeing what he brings to the screen.  It's just a bit unfortunate that the screenplay here didn't carry its own weight.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - A Dangerous Method

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Starring Keira Knightley, Michael Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen, and Vincent Cassel

Directed by David Cronenberg

I'm sure there's an appeal out there for the psychological gibberish that's spouted by Karl Jung (Michael Fassbender) and Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen) in A Dangerous Method, but it's simply not my cup of tea.  I remember studying these two guys in college and writing papers about how laughable their theories were to my mind.  Still, for about half of this ninety minute flick, I was admittedly intrigued by hearing their various theories discussed and debated.  However, after a while, this very talky film just wears out its welcome and despite a good performance from Fassbender and an oftentimes riveting turn from Keira Knightley, David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method just doesn't quite have enough of a story around which to craft a film.

A Dangerous Method revolves around Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley), a Russian Jew who is brought to Karl Jung's mental facility acting out with strange and violent twitches.  Jung is taken by the case and finds himself using many of his colleague Freud's sexually charged theories to diagnose Sabina.  As time passes, Jung finds himself falling for Sabina despite his best efforts to keep his focus on his marriage, and he soon finds that his growing obsession with Sabina could ultimately create a divide not only with his wife, but with his esteemed colleague Freud as well.

The film starts out simply astonishingly with Keira Knightley giving the best performance of her career in the opening scenes.  Manic, crazed, and given the perfect opportunity to jut out her jaw (which, if you've seen any of her films, she's very prone to do), I found myself unable to take my eyes off of Knightley.  She has captured what I can only assume to be an incredibly accurate depiction of a psychologically damaged young woman.  Unfortunately for Knightley, once her character begins to turn towards the sane side, she becomes a bit tedious and boring to watch.  While the progression of her character is believable, the commitment and tour de force performance of Knightley in the first half of the film becomes rather bland in the second half.

And it's in that second half that things start to unravel.  I give credit to director David Cronenberg for his use of deep focus -- allowing all things near and far to both be in focus in a particular scene -- which adds an interesting visual tableau to the mundanely verbose proceedings throughout much of the film, but the lovely sights aren't enough to save the disappointing conclusion to the flick.  As Sabina gets mentally better, the film shifts a bit more of its focus onto the relationship between Jung and Freud and, quite bluntly, it couldn't keep my interest.  Michael Fassbender and Viggo Mortensen are fine as the two doctors (with Fassbender coming off a bit better probably only because his character is given an actual arc as opposed to Mortensen who seems to simply be playing a figurehead with little else to do other than spout Freud's famous dictums), but neither of the actors (or perhaps their characters) are charismatic enough to carry the second half of the movie.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Black Swan

Black Swan (2010)

Starring Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, and Barbara Hershey

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

I don't really know where to begin with Black Swan.  There are things like the direction and Natalie Portman's performance that I truly admired in Darren Aronofsky's character study of a tortured ballerina.  And then there's a script which, for the first two-thirds of the film, is riddled with clichés and painfully silly dialog that not even a talented director and actress can overcome.  While I do believe that Aronofsky is well aware of what I perceive as the script's problems (not that he would agree with that assessment) and attempts to play them to a full-tilt almost camp-like tone, the end product is flawed.

After struggling for a few years as part of a prestigious ballet troupe in New York City, Nina (Natalie Portman) finally seizes her chance to make a name for herself in her craft when the group's director, Thomas (Vincent Cassel) gives the young woman an opportunity to play the lead in his re-imagining of the classic ballet Swan Lake.  As the lead in the ballet, Nina must take on duel roles of both the white swan and black swan, with the former lending itself to the beautiful gracefulness that one typically associates with ballet and the latter adopting a more loose, aggressive, and powerful style.  Thomas is quite pleased with the softer side of Nina, but feels that her technique for the black swan is not nearly as gritty as he would like.  While he tries to prod Nina into exploring her inner self (which apparently only involves pleasuring oneself sexually), the young ballerina slowly begins to break down.  Feeling pressure from both her overbearing mother (Barbara Hershey) who treats Nina as if she were a little girl and Lilly, the sexy and talented newcomer to the group (Mila Kunis) whose wild, heavy-drinking ways are the complete opposite of the uptight and quiet Nina, Nina starts to go a little cuckoo (which is a completely different type of bird from a swan).

In and of itself, the story is fine.  The problem lies in both the dialog (which is so childish and stilted that there were moments I chuckled to myself) and the character of Nina who never really develops any characteristic other than "neurotic."  Even at the beginning of the film, Nina's timidity is too extreme to be normal and as the film progresses, she just gets increasingly more crazy.  Sure, the kookiness is a valid characteristic for the character, but there's nothing else there for Natalie Portman to latch onto as an actress despite the fact that multiple attempts are made to blatantly tell us that Nina is a fractured soul.  If she's so fractured, where are all these other elements besides "CRAZY" that make Nina who she is?

That said, Portman latches onto that craziness and gives the role her all.  Although, as evidenced by the previous paragraph, there's not nearly the depth that I thought was going to be present.  Portman is at her best in scenes where she's paired up with the lovely and sexy (and surprisingly talented) Mila Kunis and the frighteningly "Mommie Dearest-y" Barbara Hershey.  Both Kunis and Hershey are simply playing stereotypes to the hilt, but they embrace those clichés with gusto and make Portman's Nina an infinitely more interesting character.

As a director, Darren Aronofsky is certainly someone whom I admire.  Requiem for a Dream is one of the very few movies that I have given an 'A' to on this blog and it's a film that is probably in my Top 20 of All Time.  The Wrestler also was quite good and, similar to that film which was a tour de force character study for Mickey Rourke, Black Swan attempts to be a showcase for Portman.  Aronofsky certainly has talent -- there are scenes here that held me riveted...and then there was some insanely horrid dialog that ruined things.  But still, Aronsofsky has an eye for interesting visuals.  One scene that had me particularly entranced takes place in a night club and as the strobe lights begin to flash, Aronofsky simply pops up a completely different image with each flash of the strobes.  Portman...then Kunis...then the two together...et cetera.  That scene alone was sexier than any of the others in the film -- and this film certainly has a few sex scenes (although I'm sure a few will be very disappointed by the complete lack of nudity).

Anyway, I've rambled long enough and the more that I'm rambling, the more I'm actually disliking the film.  All that said, I do feel like this is a film I want to watch again without a doubt...and I honestly feel like the next time around, my thoughts could be completely different.  While I don't see this becoming the Best Film of 2010, I can see it rising up in the ratings.  Then again, I can also see it plummeting precipitously if I discover that it seems even emptier than I think it is now.  In the end, Black Swan is too many things and too few things at the same time.  It's a horror film, a psychological drama, and an intense character study...but it's also a character study with a complete lack of characteristics to be studying.  It's difficult to say that the film was one-note simply because I appreciate the direction of Aronofsky, but when you remove all the fluff around the edges of the story, there's really not nearly as much depth in the main character as the filmmakers would lead you to believe.  

The RyMickey Rating:  C+