Dir - Gareth Evans
Overall: MEH
Primarily known for some renowned Indonesian action films, Garth Evans builds on his stellar "Safe Haven" segment in V/H/S/2 with Apostle by expanding the concept of a weird cult that does stuff. The result though is a mess of incoherence with poor character development and some overacting on the side. There is a slew of would-be interesting ideas here involving the mythology of Evans' bizarre, goddess-worshiping pilgrims or at least there would be if it was fleshed-out more. A whole lot of incredibly gruesome trouble befalls a number of these people and it is unclear as to what exactly is motivating them. Why are they blindly following who they are, then not blindly following who they are, why is their goddess held captive yet also seen wandering around, why are they still quoting the bible, why is one guy a cartoonishly over the top villain all of a sudden, wait now he is going to shoot someone, no wait now he is not, no wait now he is, no wait something or someone is going to save someone in the nick of time, and so on and so on. Even the main protagonist gets pushed to the side for more under-explored subplots. More questions are left floating than answers and it could be a simple, (or not so simple), case of Evans biting off more than he can chew. With all of the chaotic plot points as well as somewhat trendy horror quirks on the soundtrack and pushing a little too close into torture porn territory at times, Apostle does not really get it together.
Dir - Lars von Trier
Overall: GOOD
At this point in his endlessly polarizing career, it is a safe assumption that Lars von Trier is gleefully fucking with people. If one was a betting man, you could surmise that his latest nihilistic musing The House That Jack Built is a deliberate comedy, not least of all because it is revealed to be taking place in the same universe as Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy itself. It is actually surprising that it took von Trier this long to make a movie about a full-blown serial killer as venting about how meaningless human life is through such a perfectly narcissistic main character of the like seems to be the kind of movie von Trier should have always been making. Since the subject matter is so bleak and comically fitting for the director, he has fun annoying the audience with long passages of philosophizing as well as the typical, nasty acts of passionless violence. It is as much a parody of von Trier films as anything else. Since it is also comparatively less ridiculous than his last trilogy of miserableness and more in on its own joke than ever before, if you were to sample a von Trier movie in an attempt to understand the filmmaker's stubborn, obnoxious, and cold take on humanity, this would probably be the least uncomfortable offering.
Dir - Julius Avery
Overall: MEH
This is something that does not even sound that interesting on paper or at least that "original". Then again though, what is these days? Overlord is an action-horror film set right before D-Day where the Nazis are the bad guys of course, there is a tough female character, a no bullshit hard-ass, a wise-cracker to provide comic relief, a cartoonishly simple villain, and a wimpish hero who serves as the film's emotional compass. There is also obnoxiously loud, bangy, and moist sound design, some jumps and plot turns a blind person could see coming, awful cinematography that is pitch black more often than not, poor CGI, and jerky editing. So in other words, everything one would expect from a well-budgeted, J.J. Abrams produced action movie. As far as the good aspects go, Wyatt Russell does an amusing and accurate impression of his famous action hero dad, there are some OK practical effects, two impressive and well orchestrated single takes, and a Nazi gets tortured by 'Merica which is always nice. To say this is formulaic would be a moot point since who gives a shit really plus, explosions! It sure does tread awful safe waters though, but if you want something noisy and bloody that you can check your phone while watching and not miss a solitary, predictable beat, Overlord will adequately suffice.
No comments:
Post a Comment