Tag Archives: john goodman

Movie Review: Atomic Blonde

Posted on by

atomic_blonde_posterMix source material graphic novel The Coldest City with classic thrillers like The French Connection, add in some modern Hong Kong-inspired action sequences and killer-thrillers like John Wick, and set it to the soundtrack of a 1989 Berlin discotheque, and you have Atomic Blonde.

It’s a perfect cocktail of fun, sexy, cool, and brutal as MI-6 agent Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron) combs through Berlin on assignment to find a secret dossier that details all the identities and dirty laundry of secret agents around the world on all sides of the Cold War. It’s literally the weeks before the Berlin Wall is about to fall, making it even more dangerous as both sides are playing as though they have nothing left to lose.

Complicating matters is Britain’s station chief David Percival (James McAvoy) who has gone native, engaging in smuggling and information brokering beyond his normal job duties. Lorraine is also tasked with using the hunt for the list to uncover a mole within the agency who has been passing information to the Soviets. Further complicating things is French agent Delphine LaSalle (Sofia Boutella), with whom things get too close, and too personal, for Lorraine.

The film is absolutely gorgeous to look at. Scenes are framed like comic book panels, and the cold blue and grey color palate — punctuated by the occasional stark neon — help evoke  the specific time and place of the film’s setting.

What helps set this even more in late 80’s Cold War Berlin is the film’s soundtrack. A heavy industrial synth backbone of Depeche Mode, Ministry, and New Order are offset by the tenderness of Til Tuesday’s “Voices Carry,” which takes on an added emotional resonance as a sort of love theme in the film. Depeche Mode reminds us “Sweet little girl/I’d prefer/ you behind the wheel/ and me the passenger” which becomes a sort of feminist anthem as we recognize that songs is now about Lorraine and Percival– and also gets us amped for a cool action sequence. Flock of Seagulls’ “I Ran” is used perfectly in an eye-popping, jaw-dropping chase scene, and David Bowie makes not one, but two appearances on the soundtrack, giving the film its sort of ethos of “putting out fires with gasoline.”

As amazing and perfect as the soundtracks to Baby Driver and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 were, this is the soundtrack of the year.

One of the other most fun elements in the film is how it’s told– completely in flashback, with a beat-up, post-mission Lorraine being debriefed by her MI-6 handler (a perpetually uncomfortable-looking Toby Jones) and a senior official from the CIA (an incredibly annoyed John Goodman). The interplay between Theron, Jones, and Goodman is masterful and is the apotheosis of the beautiful character work that prevents this film from being simply a bloody spy thriller. We also see Lorraine holding back key details, letting us know she isn’t exactly the most reliable of narrators. This draws heavily from other great thrillers that use this device like The Usual Suspects, but also manages to be its own film.

One of the things that makes this so unique is its portrayal of a completely bisexual protagonist. And unlike James Bond who seems to hold little sentiment for his various romantic conquests who end up dead, Lorraine is motivated by her feelings for those she has fallen for. But, she’s still a kickass spy who puts her business first– we just also see a very human emotional toll this takes.

So much of the credit for this film need to go to director David Leitch. Best known as a stunt and second unit director who also cut his teeth on John Wick, Leitch is able to bring a dazzling and unique visual style sorely lacking in so many blockbusters. He also puts together a hell of a fight scene, one where we as the audience feel the weight of every blow and crunch of every bone and sinew. It helps that he’s drawing from The Coldest City graphic novel, whose authors get a script credit, to bring such a great story to life. But he does it with such great visual and auditory panache that this becomes one of the best movies of 2017, and a super cool way to chill out during the dog days of summer.

Go see this, then spend hours with your friends coming up with slash/fiction where Lorraine, John Wick, and the characters from Kingsman all meet up and fight each other.

4 out of 5 stars

Movie Review: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Posted on by

valerian french posterDon’t discount Luc Besson‘s newest film because it seems derivative: it’s based on classic French comics that inspired everyone from George Lucas to Besson himself. But, you should discount it because its characters are flimsy, script is weak and the film, while interesting to look at, is terminally boring.

Our story centers around Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne), federal agents from the space station Alpha, a giant city of millions of inhabitants from thousands of worlds. When sent on a mission to retrieve a valuable item from an inter-dimensional crime lord, they find themselves at the heart of a conspiracy to cover up something rotten at the heart of Alpha.

It’s gorgeous to look at. The inter-dimensional crime boss? He’s played by John Goodman, and literally is in an alternate dimension. Tourists show up to this barren wasteland and by putting on goggles and going through a special scanner, can see and interact with a giant open bazaar dozens of stories tall and miles across that exists in an alternate reality. It’s like Space Mall of America times 1000. It is the most amazing concept and pulled off brilliantly, as is a gag involving Valerian literally having one hand (and his gun) in one universe and the rest of him in ours.

And then there’s Alpha itself, which you can directly see as an inspiration on Besson’s vision of future New York in The Fifth Element as well as George Lucas’s visions of Coruscant as a giant city-planet in the Star Wars prequels. It’s breathtaking, and a chase through multiple levels is one of the best realized action sequences in the film.

But that’s where the good parts of the film end. If you turned the sound down and made up your own script, it might be more enjoyable. If Besson had spent anywhere near as much attention to writing good dialogue that illuminated his characters as he did to his visual design and effects, this would have been a stellar movie.

Instead, characters are left spouting drivel that sounds more like a middle schooler trying to ape pithy, pulpy verbal patter reminiscent of 1940s classics or noir. Unfortunately, Dane Dehaan is not Humphrey Bogart or Cary Grant. And Cara Delevingne is not Ingrid Bergman or either Hepburn.

Their characterizations are strained as well. The film starts with a proposal on a beach, but Dehane and Delevigne don’t act like longtime work partners or seem to have romantic interest in one another. They try to create a sort of Sam and Dianne bickering sexual tension, but it just never works. You don’t get that either of them actually cares for one another except that they’re expected to because. . .  movie trope.

There are other dubious character choices. Remember the inter-dimensional crime lord? Sounds like a cool character to have throughout the movie, right? Yeah, no. He’s inexplicably gone after the first act. Rihanna and Ethan Hawke show up as a shape-shifting alien named Bubble making her way as an exotic dancer(/hooker? it never gets that far) and her pimp, but they come and go far too soon. We’re also expected to feel for the death of a character who had only been introduced fifteen minutes earlier. Spoiler alert: we don’t.

However, the film ends with a nice rumination on colonialism and how we treat civilizations who we feel are inferior. It’s too bad this wasn’t a stronger theme throughout, or it might have made the wooden acting and hollow script more palatable.

No, this is not as good as The Fifth Element. Somehow just because Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich make it look effortless to make their way through their film, we think it is. But that script looks like Shakespeare compared to this. And missing is Gary Oldman and his Mangalore cohorts– this film has no discernible villain and the absence is noticeable. Both Fifth Element and the Star Wars prequels, despite their flaws, look so much more impressive when compared to this.

There’s certainly an audience for this film, but your tolerance for style over substance will have to be incredibly high. That said, it’s visually stunning and should be lauded for bringing the fantastic vision of the future from these classic comics.

2 out of 5 stars

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets Gets a Trailer

Posted on by

Rooted in the classic graphic novel series, Valerian and Laureline– visionary writer/director Luc Besson advances this iconic source material into a contemporary, unique and epic science fiction saga.

Valerian (Dane DeHaan) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne) are special operatives for the government of the human territories charged with maintaining order throughout the universe.

Under directive from their Commander (Clive Owen), Valerian and Laureline embark on a mission to the breathtaking intergalactic city of Alpha, an ever-expanding metropolis comprised of thousands of different species from all four corners of the universe. Alpha’s seventeen million inhabitants have converged over time- uniting their talents, technology and resources for the betterment of all. Unfortunately, not everyone on Alpha shares in these same objectives; in fact, unseen forces are at work, placing our race in great danger.

The film stars Dane DeHaan, Cara Delevingne, Clive Owen, Rihanna, Ethan Hawke, John Goodman, Herbie Hancock, Kris Wu and is in theaters July 2017.

The graphic novels are by writer Pierre Christin and artist Jean-Claude Mézières.

Movie Review – Kevin Smith’s Red State

Posted on by

Bookmark and Share

Red StateGoing into Red State I was convinced I was about to watch a horror movie revolving around religious fanatics who butchered people.  Gore porn focused on inbred God-fearing folks with a dash of humor.  Instead I walked out of the theater dazed (in a good way) by what I watched and convinced this is the best movie so far out of writer/director Kevin Smith.  Instead the movie is genre-less, part regular Smith horndog comedy, part horror, part thriller, lots of action and in the end one hell of a statement about sex, religion and politics.

Set in Middle America, a group of teens receive an online invitation for sex, though they soon encounter fundamentalists with a much more sinister agenda.

The description for the film is pretty open on sites like IMDB and that might be it’s biggest disservice, because this is absolutely Smith’s best film (and I’m fond of Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma).  The film begins as a sex romp with three teens trekking off for a sex romp by the headquarters of a cultish evangelical religious group.  All hell breaks loose and quickly it’s apparent this isn’t the normal Smith film.  I hate to give it away as the shifts in tone are some of the most fun things about the film, keeping you off balance with each shift and opening the film up to so many possibilities in direction.

The acting was really good, with fantastic turns by leads Michael Parks as the evangelical preacher Abin Cooper and John Goodman as conflicted ATF agent Joseph Kennan.  The direction is kicked up a notch as well, with some amazingly tense moments and action scenes that are unlike anything Smith has done before (there’s massive growth in the action scenes since Cop Out).

What’s amazing is the statement this movie makes.  Part allegory on first amendment rights, partly about fanaticism and totally about blind faith and the willingness to submit, the movie deftly mixes sex, religion and politics without being preachy.  The movie begins and ends as a “Smith” film with lots of humor, but the in between is unlike anything he’s done before.  Both in statement and execution.  Previously it was the words that drove his films, now it’s the actions.  A complete 180 in how his stories have been told.  And the story itself is pertinent today with it’s focus on fanaticism, whether it’s Al Qaeda, the Westboro Baptist Church, or other hate groups, all at the forefront of much that’s driving the world.

There’s little I’d change in the movie, only one thing isn’t explained and to bring it up would create a spoiler.  The biggest thing I’d focus on, and part of the point of the tour, is it’s marketing.  This isn’t a horror movie.  It’s horror and action and thriller all rolled into one.  To market it as such is a disservice to itself and likely to turn off those who would never see such movie.  And this is one to see.  The audience seemed to have the same feeling as the shared experience with fans resulted in a communal and in-sync viewing where we cheered at the same moments and clapped and applauded at the same time.  I have rarely seen an audience enjoy a film more and have so much fun.

As the second last film in Kevin Smith’s career (he has stated he’s done after Hit Somebody), it’s an absolute highlight.  Fantastic story, direction, acting, action and one hell of a statement.  This was an early viewing, but you better believe I’ll be there opening night when the film eventually hits theaters.

Read more