Midsommar

Midsommar (2019)

Starring Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor, William Jackson Harper, Vilhelm Blomgren, and Will Poulter 

Directed by Ari Aster

Written by Ari Aster

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating: B

The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger (2018)

Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Ruth Wilson, Will Poulter, and Charlotte Rampling

Directed by Lenny Abrahamson

Written by Lucinda Coxon

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Detroit

Detroit (2017)

Starring John Boyega, Will Poulter, Algee Smith, Jacob Latimore, Anthony Mackie, Jason Mitchell, Hannah Murray, Kaitlyn Dever, Jack Reynor, Ben O'Toole, Nathan Davis, Jr.,  and John Krasinski

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Written by Mark Boal

***This film is currently streaming via Hulu***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Riots in 1960s inner city Detroit create great tension between the police and the African American residents in the community.  One evening, three Detroit police officers invade the Algiers Motel after a supposed sniper attack and create a brutal night from hell for a group of innocent young men and women.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

War Machine

War Machine (2017)

Starring Brad Pitt, Emory Cohen, RJ Cyler, Topher Grace, Anthony Michael Hall, Anthony Hayes, John Magaro, Scoot McNairy, Will Poulter, Lakeith Stanfield, Josh Stewart, Meg Tilly, Tilda Swinton, and Ben Kingsley

Directed by David Michôd

Written by David Michôd

***This film is currently streaming via Netflix***

Summary (in 500 words or less):  Four-star General Glen McMahon (Brad Pitt) heads to Afghanistan to figure out how to bring an end to the war in this subversive piece.

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - Glassland

Glassland (2016)

Starring Toni Collette, Jack Reynor, and Will Poulter

Directed by Gerard Barrett

Two great performances...one boring movie.  That about sums of Glassland -- so much potential and yet disappointingly disengaging.  Writer-director Gerard Barrett has crafted a fantastically emotionally fraught thirty minutes...and then not much else after that.  However, what's good is really good and shows that Barrett has an eye for grippingly emotional heartache.

Jack Reynor is John, a Dublin taxi driver, whose mother Jean (Toni Collette) is drinking herself to her demise.  Living with his mother is a job in and of itself with John having to attempt to watch after her whenever he's not out in his cab.  Finally, after one particularly rough night when he finds his mother unconscious with vomit strewn across her bed, he decides that he has to try and help her kick her addiction, forcing her into a rehab facility.

Reynor is a newcomer to me and shows strength as the beleaguered Jack, creating emotional heft in his grim desperation.  His love for his mother shines amidst his dreary surroundings, but it doesn't come without heartbreak.  As good as Reynor is, Toni Collette is even better, embodying the harrowing downfall of an alcoholic with such painful earnestness that it was sometimes uncomfortable to see her unravel in front of our eyes.

The duo's interactions with one another made me wish that Glassland was a better film, but unfortunately there's not much story here.  Side plots about Jack's friend Shane (Will Poulter) attempting to reconnect with his young son and a human trafficking ring into which Jack is pulled are throwaway stories used only to pad the film's runtime which is already a short ninety minutes.  In the end, Glassland is a bit of a misfire, albeit one with some wonderful and humanistic portrayals.

The RyMickey Rating:  C

Movie Review - The Revenant

The Revenant (2015)

Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tom Hardy, Domhnall Gleeson, Will Poulter, and Forrest Goodluck

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

This is a frustrating review to write.  There are so many scenes in The Revenant that I found myself loving.  So many beautifully crafted shots both visually appealing and cinematically difficult.  Such good performances that couldn't help but make me feel as if I was placed squarely in the 1820s America fur trade.  So why is director/co-screenwriter Alejandro González Iñárritu's film such a chore to sit through?  Why did I find myself checking my watch twenty minutes in...and then forty minutes in...and then an hour in...and then I had to stop myself from checking every ten minutes.  Something doesn't quite gel and while I understand the director's methodical approach in terms of helping to understand our main character's horrific plight, the film can't help but feel tedious and almost a tiny bit episodic as we simply move from one torture porn-esque scene to the next.

Inspired by a true story, The Revenant is the tale of frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is left for dead by his fellow trappers after being mauled by a bear.  While the party's Captain, Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson), wants the incapacitated Hugh (who has been invaluable to the trappers) to be watched over until he passes, most men in the party (which has already been depleted due to a vicious ambush by the Arikara Indians) feel hauling Glass to safety is harming them all.  With the promise of money from the Captain, rough and hard-nosed John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) agrees to wait with Hugh until he dies.  The young Bridger (Will Poulter) and Hugh's half-Indian son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) stay around with John, but they soon discover that John may be motivated more by the promise of money than keeping Hugh alive and what John does next sets a still-debilitated Hugh to seek revenge on Tom who has truly done him terribly wrong.

For the film's first forty and last twenty minutes, there's a palpable sense of excitement and tension with some of the most brutally realistic and intense fight and battle sequences since Saving Private Ryan.  Grabbing me right away, I found myself questioning the critiques I'd heard that The Revenant is a slow burner.  And then Glass is left for dead and the film just became less and less interesting story wise as Iñárritu seemingly mimics the hazy, dreamlike sequences of Terrence Malick and leaves actual plot behind.  Perhaps I'm being a little too harsh there as we're certainly given "a story" -- it's just that the episodic torturous events that Glass finds himself getting into on his trek to seek revenge on Fitzgerald begin to feel repetitive particularly seeing as how they're interspersed by endless images of babbling brooks or leafless trees or memories of his Pawnee Indian lover.

Leonardo DiCaprio is very good here and his inevitable Oscar win is at least being awarded for a quality role.  While not his most layered performance or his best (that certainly goes to the tour de force turn in The Wolf of Wall Street which I still say is one of the finest film roles I've seen in ages), he conveys everything necessary with his physicality (or lack thereof at times) which is extremely important seeing as how Hugh Glass barely talks for nearly two-thirds of the film.  Tom Hardy continues the trend of creating a difficult-to-comprehend voice for his grizzled character, but Hardy is also strong here in what may be the best role I've seen him undertake thus far.  His motivations, though certainly lacking in morals, are surprisingly understandable given the circumstances of the time and while he's absolutely in the wrong, Hardy makes his character perfectly believable.

Unfortunately, despite many good things -- the film will likely pop up in certain RyMickey Award categories -- The Revenant is simply too long and lacks excitement and momentum.  Much like last year's lauded Birdman (which I overrated with a C+), The Revenant has been incorrectly lauded by many of the Hollywood Elite.  It's got good parts, but it doesn't quite add up to a good whole which is a shame because the positives here are so darn excellent.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Movie Review - The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner (2014)

Starring Dylan O'Brien, Aml Ameen, Ki Hong Lee, Blake Cooper, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Will Poulter, Kaya Scodelario, and Patricia Clarson

Directed by Wes Ball

At a certain point, all of these teen-centered dystopian fantasies start to blend together what with The Hunger Games, Divergent, and now The Maze Runner all of which take place in a future where teens are placed in perilous situations the likes of which seem too outrageous to really be believed thanks to some overriding governmental entity.  Here, Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) wakes up to find himself in the middle of a giant maze inhabited by a group of teen guys -- none of whom know how they got there or have any memory of who they were prior to being placed into the maze.  Every night, the maze shifts and while many have tried to find a way out, most who attempt wind up dead thanks to spider-like bio-mechanical creatures known as Grievers that inhabit the labyrinth.  Someone put these kids here for some reason and Thomas and his fellow runners of the maze will stop at nothing to find out who is behind their captivity.

Although the film finds itself getting a bit repetitive as it progresses, the overall concept of this dark tale is quite intriguing -- perhaps the most interesting of all the aforementioned similarly themed teen flicks.  With a game cast of actors (most of whom I'd never seen before) who all do a solid job of making us believe their plight, The Maze Runner has the makings of something promising as it continues on its way in future films.  Once again, though, similar to the Divergent series, I have serious doubts as to whether it can maintain its "reason for existence" past Movie #1.  All of these teen series feel drawn out as they progress and I worry that The Maze Runner will fall into the same trap.  For now, however, it's unique enough to warrant a look.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - We're the Millers

We're the Millers (2013)

Starring Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Emma Roberts, Will Poulter, Ed Helms, Nick Offerman, and Kathryn Hahn 

Directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber

Jennifer.  Aniston.  Striptease.

I could simply leave this review at that, but I guess I'll continue by saying in addition to that sultry dance performed by one of my celebrity crushes, We're the Millers provides enough laughs that even if a nearly naked, seductively gyrating Jennifer Aniston doesn't float your boat, you'll still probably have a good time.  Thanks to a game cast who milk the comedy bits for all they're worth, We're the Millers successfully brings the raunch while also giving us characters and a story that hold our attention.

Jason Sudeikis is David Clark, a pot dealer who ends up losing his stash of weed and a significant amount of dough when an attempt to save a homeless girl being attacked by a bunch of street thugs goes awry.  This doesn't sit well with David's boss (Ed Helms) who forces David to head to Mexico and smuggle into the states a significant amount of marijuana without getting caught at the border.  With seemingly no feasible way to smuggle in the pot on his own, David concocts a plan to rent an RV and make up a fake family, acting as if they're taking a trip to Mexico for recreational purposes hoping that the border agents won't possibly think anything is out of the ordinary when they try and get back into the States.  To achieve this task, he enlists his down-on-her-luck stripper neighbor Rose (Jennifer Aniston) to play his wife, the aforementioned homeless girl Casey (Emma Roberts) to play his daughter, and his virginal downstairs neighbor Kenny (Will Poulter) to be his son.  Along the way, this fake family (known as the Millers) runs into drug kingpins and crazy RV enthusiasts (the latter played by Nick Offerman and Kathryn Hahn) in their attempt to bring an humongous stash of pot over the US border.

While certainly raunchy, We're the Millers does have a bit of heart although it never goes too far over that sentimental edge which works in its favor.  As mentioned above, the entire cast works quite well together with nary a bad apple in the bunch which was a welcome surprise.  Watching a film like this in the comfort of your own home alone can oftentimes ruin its ability to succeed because you don't have the rapturous laughter of an audience around you, but We're the Millers made me laugh out loud enough to deem it a success.

The RyMickey Rating:  B