2016

Colonia/The Colony Review

July 30, 2016 by JD Hansel

Note how my title for this article accounts for two alternate titles for the film. When I watched this movie through the library not too long ago, it had yet to be released in theaters in the United Kingdom. It was being promoted as The Colony in the UK, but on IMDb, its title was listed only as Colonia, without any reference to the title being promoted across the pond – not even in the page’s “Also Known As” section. At first I wasn’t entirely positive that they were the same movie since IMDb didn’t say they were, which is obviously undesirable for the film’s marketers and distributors. After the film’s UK release, at the time I’m writing this, the page has been updated to show The Colony as the official title at the very top of the page, and Colonia as the “original title” in smaller letters underneath The Colony. Now the “AKA” page is confused, with Colonia listed as the international title, even though that’s not the official title at the top of the main IMDb page. I mention all this nonsense to highlight the fact that this film matters so little to people that nobody has bothered to agree on what the official title is, because nobody cares about it in the slightest – hence why it only made about 60 bucks at the UK box office during opening weekend.

That is just a darn shame.

Rotten Tomatoes shows a score of 23% for this film, but critics ought to know by now how to approach a film of this kind in such a way that they can appreciate its stronger elements. The first obvious thing that everyone should be able to figure out from the trailer (and the poster) is that it’s pseudo-Oscar-bait. It’s got a lot of the elements of an Oscar winner – focus on an unrecognized oppressed people, historical drama, etc. – but is ultimately not thoughtful, artistic, or impressive enough for such an award. It’s a popcorn flick in disguise as something more meaningful. The second thing to recognize right off the bat is that most of it will not be creative or artistic in stylistic approach, instead aiming for a realism that will, in theory, emphasize the sense that these are real, historical events on screen. Third, and perhaps most important of all, is the fact that this is in no way striving for historical accuracy, and hardly even strives to honor those involved in the real events upon which it is based – again, it’s a popcorn flick that’s hiding behind a toupee and a monocle.

Once this is understood, now the film can be enjoyed for what it is. While I have very little patience for the kind of realistic style the film employs, I will say that I think the story is really good. For this reason, I propose that this movie is highly underrated – which is honestly the only reason why I felt the need to review it. The story has a number of elements throughout that are painfully predictable, but that’s partially because it’s hitting all of the notes it needs to in order to have the dramatic irony it seeks. Furthermore, the most important part of the story from an emotional standpoint – that being the fate of our two main characters – is not at all predictable.

I was on the edge of my seat, intensely concerned for what would happen to the protagonists, not only until the climax, but until the credits rolled. Yeah. That had to happen before I was sure of whether or not they’d make it, and that’s because it’s easy to make the case that either ending is adequately set up. While I’m not sure that it’s a positive sign that the ending was arbitrary from the standpoint of the story’s structure and what it necessitated, the effect was ultimately a good one – I got a thrill, and few movies can give me the kind of thrill that this one did. Consequently, I say the movie gives all it promises, and perhaps even a little more, so I say it passes.

Now You See Me 2 Review

July 15, 2016 by JD Hansel

Oh, shut up.

Why is it that everyone (encompassing the world’s audiences, the world’s critics, and the world’s John Olivers) is acting as though this movie is worthless? Well, I think there’s a certain psychological effect – I’ll call it “Sequel Blindness” – at work here. I remember being stunned by the reviews that Muppets Most Wanted received, because the movie was getting hammered for problems that were worse in its universally acclaimed predecessor: the overuse of fourth-wall jokes, the cliché plot, and the “kiddie” vibes. Somehow, the critics were willing to overlook these flaws in the first film because that was the Muppets’ comeback to cinema after a twelve-year hiatus, but once they were used to Muppets being in movies again, they could suddenly see all of the problems that they missed before, but they only saw them when they came to the franchise for a second time. This is the effect of Sequel Blindness: when a sequel makes critics rethink the franchise by bringing them back to it after time to reflect on the predecessor, allowing flaws in the franchise to become more noticeable, prompting them to erroneously attribute the flaws to the sequel. While the original Now You See Me got very mixed reviews, I still think this is what happened with Now You See Me 2.

Don’t get me wrong – the movie has its flaws and its fair share of scenes that make no sense, so I wouldn’t call it an excellent film. It is, however, a good film, that feels like it’s allowed to make no sense since the first one didn’t make sense. In the original Now You See Me, the “girl Horseman” walks into a bubble and starts floating around in it, which is followed by flashlights changing the numbers on pieces of paper in perfect synchronicity with the magicians’ act. This impossibility is presented because the filmmakers wanted to do a movie that showcased the tricks that might become possible to pull off at some point in the future, but when the sequel contains equally implausible feats, critics complain that there’s no point in asking how the tricks were done (even though that was never the point of the franchise).

I do wish the reviews would focus more on the ways in which this movie improves on its predecessor. It has more emotion and heart, and in a way that I actually think was done acceptably. It has better comedy – particularly in one of Daniel Radcliffe’s scenes that made me laugh hysterically. It has a better “girl Horseman” by far, and I’d happily watch Lizzy Caplan’s character in her own spin-off. So stop complaining about the movie. It’s stupid in many ways, I must admit, but it’s a fun kind of stupid, so just enjoy it.

Captain America: Civil War Review

June 30, 2016 by JD Hansel

What can I say that hasn’t already been said? Well, okay, here’s one thing that no one else has said: I didn’t go into this movie taking a side. I did declare myself as Team Cap or Team Iron Man at any time, because I tend to be on Team Shut Up and Talk Like Civilized People, but I suppose that wouldn’t make for as interesting of a movie. It’s challenging for a movie like this to make the audience very understanding of both sides, and then turn around and make us want to see everyone we love in this franchise beating the snot out of each other. Remarkably, the movie not only accomplishes this daring feat, but also puts the characters on the wrong sides (without making the audience bat an eye at it). Allow me to briefly explain what I mean.

Please, consider the following: Captain America is the one who would ordinarily want to work with the government, especially since his roots are with the U. S. military, and Stark is the type of person who would never want to give control over himself to anyone else, since it would hurt his ego to be the U. N.’s puppet; and let’s not forget that Romanoff has weirdly decided to fight against Cap’s team, at least for the most part. In the end though, I think the most impressive thing about this is that, in the midst of all this drama, the movie is a heck of a lot of fun. It may be rather awkward at some points and tedious at others, but between the creative action sequences, the perfect cast, the smart dialogue, the surprising twists, the bizarre inclusion of Ant Man, and the spectacular Spider-Man, Civil War hits all the right spots. It’s one of Marvel’s finest films – quite possibly its best to date.

The Jungle Book (2016) Review

June 20, 2016 by JD Hansel

This is it – I’m stumped. I can understand how ambiguity and open ends are used in films to trick critics into thinking they’re deep. I can understand how commentary on important social issues like racism or sexism are used in films to trick critics into thinking their message justifies their storytelling. I can understand how many “oppositional” techniques designed purely to do what Hollywood normally wouldn’t do are used in films to trick critics into thinking they’re immensely creative, groundbreaking, and historic. What I cannot fathom is how a few needless remakes that do not offer the creative spins and twists on their stories required to justify their existence are making the critics out to be as gullible as a four-year-old.

The beauty of retelling an already established story lies within the creative approach one brings to the story that no one else would have seen in it. Ever After tells the story of “Cinderella” without using a conventional fairy godmother, instead relying on a brilliant historic figure to supply science as a substitute for magic. Muppet Christmas Carol integrates the prose of the book that most other film adaptations up to that point (if not all of them) omitted, which is already enough to set it apart from its predecessors, and that’s without mentioning that Bob Cratchit is played by a puppet frog. While the 1970s Carrie film by Brian de Palma seems to emphasize the fantasy in the story (from what I can gather from its surrealistic trailers), the remake (or arguably “additional adaptation of the novel”) is clearly very grounded in reality. The examples can go on endlessly.

Then we have Cinderella. I hope I never see Cinderella. From every clip I’ve seen from it thus far, and everything I’ve heard about its story, I can tell that it’s as needless as can be. This is followed by Jungle Book, and I could tell from the trailer that it had little to offer, and that I would never appreciate this movie as much as the original animated film. Furthermore, I also knew that this was Disney’s fifth movie based on this story, including the original animated film and its sequel, which makes it seem especially redundant. This is a level of stupidity I can’t handle. However, since I was advised by friends I trusted that the movie was worth seeing, I went to see it.

Having seen the original animated film, I had no good reason to see this rehash, and to those friends of mine who encouraged me to pay money to see it, I must respond with Fozzie’s great immortal line: “Shaaaaaame on you!” This movie isn’t terrible, but its best elements are mostly just the things Disney had already gotten right back in the 1960s. The visuals that I heard were so stunning offered me nothing, and they make me hesitate to call it a “live-action remake” instead of “the CGI version.” The fact that there are only two musical numbers in the film, the first of which doesn’t begin until about 50 minutes in, creates a jarring effect because they don’t feel like they fit in with the rest of the movie. To make matters worse, the best number on the soundtrack is Scarlett Johansson’s recording of “Trust in Me,” and I was beside myself with disappointment when I found it had been cut from the film. Again, this movie isn’t terrible, and I might have even said it was good had I not known its best elements were borrowed, not organic. Knowing what I know, however, it strikes me as a film that’s extremely and distinctly “fine, I guess” – it’s so-so soup. I am left shrugging and squinting, trying to figure out how in the world everyone has been tricked into thinking Disney is justified in charging admission for this.

Let me make this perfectly clear: Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a better remake than 2016’s Jungle Book, not because it’s a great movie, but because it looked at the tens upon dozens upon scores of adaptations of the story that had been done, and it left them behind to find an entirely new way of looking at the source material.

Now bring me some psychologists, some marketing strategists, and the Amazing Randi, because it shouldn’t be possible for critics and audiences to be duped on this scale.

Allegiant Review

April 23, 2016 by JD Hansel

Um . . . okay.

There’s a part of me that wants to say Veronica Roth painted herself into a corner with Insurgent by pushing the story outside of the place that made it almost unique, so I want to go easy on the movie. However, she really opened the door to speculation and imagination, because just about anything could have been beyond the wall, which makes me wonder why this part of the story wasn’t more intriguing and satisfying. I have so little to say about the movie because it made me feel so little. I think I’m experiencing from this movie what most “professional” critics experienced while watching the first two films in the series – a painful lack of inspired substance.

I do think there is enough cleverness and creativity in the world-building at play in this story for it to be a sufficient spectacle, and I also think that it did a good job at making me curious about what was to come. I suppose when this is added to the simple pleasure of spending more time with already familiar characters, it really can be a pleasant film to watch, which is why I did not have a bad time seeing it. In the future, however, I should hope that a movie with this large of a budget will do the work it takes to “wow” me.

Deadpool Review

April 9, 2016 by JD Hansel

This is, first and foremost, a comic book movie. I would not consider this to be a farcical comedy film that simply borrows elements from superhero stories, or that parodies comic books in the way that Holy Musical B@man does. This is a comic book movie that borrows from the farcical comedy. When looked at this way, it is a unique and very admirable film, which may even be ahead of its time.

I will address the issue that so many have had with this picture, which is its offensive nature. It is deliberately as inappropriate for children as possible, and many consider it terribly “dirty” or immoral. With as much as I may have been disgusted at times by some of the bloody and/or horrific images used, I do wish to respond to the complaints that it went too far with two main thoughts to consider. The first of these points looks at it as comedy. I very much appreciate Groucho Marx’s criticism of dirty comedy, but I do think that even the filthiest comedy can very good comedy – perhaps even intellectual comedy – if it is cleverly and creatively crafted (and I think even Groucho got a little risque on occasion). In this movie, clearly the writers did put thought and care into the dirty comedy, and most importantly, they used it to ruin, taint, or disgrace the comic book movie, which is exactly the kind of thing that comedy should do. My second point is that the reason why the film had to be this way is to make Deadpool a unique character. He seems to me to be completely separate from both the usual kind of Marvel hero, and the kind of hero that appears in comedy projects based on more official heroes.

Not every little bit of the film is perfect, and far better critics than I have already done a fine job at expressing why/how this is, so I will not waste my time with it. What I will say is that I am pleased that this year has introduced something new and original to cinema, which I think has the potential to make the movies a lot more fun.