Trap: Catch Me If You Stan

Jeremy BeckReviews
Josh Hartnett in Trap

M. Night Shyamalan fancies himself a philosopher as well as a showman. Sure, he makes genre movies designed to rattle your nerves, but he also wants to dig under your skin and force you to wrestle with his pet themes and ideas. The Sixth Sense, The Village, and Old are all spellbinding constructions, embroidered with aesthetic flair and clockwork precision, but they’re also treatises on the fragility of parenthood—the quixotic dream of just keeping your kids safe. With his prior feature, the well-intentioned but unsatisfying Knock at the Cabin, Shyamalan skewed the balance too far toward the intellectual, building a meditative puzzle about humanity and faith but neglecting to supply the requisite thrills. His follow-up, Trap, tilts decidedly in the opposite direction. It is not among his most thought-provoking works, but as a specimen of pure entertainment, it is what the kids call a banger.

One of those kids is Riley (Ariel Donoghue), an obsessive fan of beloved girl-pop star Lady Raven (Saleka Night Shyamalan, the director’s daughter). Riley is elated that her father, Cooper (a never-better Josh Hartnett), has rewarded her academic excellence by taking her to a Lady Raven matinee show in downtown Philadelphia. For his part, Cooper seems happy to be there, basking in his daughter’s ebullience, even as he can’t help but notice the arena’s curiously robust police presence… Read More

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Deadpool & Wolverine: Logan’s Pun

Jeremy BeckReviews
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in Deadpool & Wolverine

Superhero movies invariably deal with threats to the world, but what’s really in peril in Deadpool & Wolverine is the Marvel Cinematic Universe itself. “Welcome to the MCU, by the way. You’re joining at a bit of a low point,” Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) says to Logan (Hugh Jackman), implicitly bemoaning the underwhelming grosses of recent efforts like The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. As a costumed savior, Wade’s track record is spotty—his application was rejected by both the Avengers and the X-Men—but as a box-office analyst, his assessment is hard to argue with. That’s why his mission in his newest picture is less cosmic than commercial: He must salvage the MCU’s viability as an ongoing franchise, even as he constantly mocks its quality and lampoons its conventions.

And I do mean constantly. Scarcely a scene passes in Deadpool & Wolverine in which Wade, whether bobbing his head in his trademark red mask or turning to the camera with his heavily burned face, doesn’t deliver a knowing quip concerning behind-the-scenes shenanigans. Why, after having seemingly retired the character in Logan, is Jackman returning to play everyone’s favorite clawed mutant? “A big bag of Marvel cash.” Why did the X-Force bite the dust in Deadpool 2? “The police say gravity, but just between you and me, they didn’t test well in the focus group.” What is Wade’s conception of his own superheroic destiny? “I’m Marvel Jesus… suck it, Fox!” (After that last one, he literally headbutts the camera.) Forget the comic-book brand immortalized by Stan Lee; the MCU is now the Meta Cinematic Universe. Read More

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Twisters: Storm Follows Function

Jeremy BeckReviews
Daisy Edgar-Jones and Glen Powell in Twisters

No cows fly in Twisters, but there’s still plenty of bullshit. Directed by Lee Isaac Chung from a script by Mark L. Smith, this muscular movie skillfully  and predictably conjures devastating cyclones capable of demolishing entire towns, but the most powerful force on display is the manipulative currents of the screenplay. If you’re having trouble distinguishing between the heroes and the villains, just wait for the scene where an anxious storm chaser expresses concern for the people of a nearby hamlet, only for his companion to snarl in response, “I don’t care about the people!”

So no, Twisters, like its singular-titled 1996 predecessor (with which it shares a spiritual lineage but no narrative connection), is not a work of great subtlety. But it is nonetheless a competent blockbuster—generally diverting and sporadically delightful, with pleasant characters and robust spectacle. Even its emotional hackwork is often agreeable, thanks to the warmth and agility of its cast. Read More

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Fly Me to the Moon: Give Me a Fake

Jeremy BeckReviews
Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in Fly Me to the Moon

Remember movie stars? Those fabulously attractive celebrities who compelled audiences to flock to theaters in droves by sheer virtue of their names appearing on the marquee? They’re back in Fly Me to the Moon, a fizzy, fitful romantic comedy stocked with bright colors, lithe bodies, and a smattering of funny lines. It’s set in the ’60s and could have been made then too, even if its throwback vibes are often as clumsy as they are charming.

In the spirit of plucky wholesomeness that the movie tries to evoke, let’s start with the good stuff: Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum. And also Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum’s clothes. The costume designer, Mary Zophres (a regular collaborator with both Damien Chazelle and the Coen Brothers), develops the film’s characters with greater efficiency and style than Rose Gilroy’s clunky screenplay. Tatum, with his bull neck and broad shoulders, is outfitted in an array of tight-fitting sweaters that convey the swelling frustration of a robust leader whose vision is thwarted by external forces. Johansson, in contrast, is the picture of crisply tailored elegance, gliding through the picture in pastel dresses that accentuate her authority as well as her curves. Read More

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Longlegs: Into the Spider-Curse

Jeremy BeckReviews
Maika Monroe in Longlegs

It’s fashionable to judge horror movies based on how scary they are. It’s a fair albeit reductive question; if comedies are supposed to make you laugh and tearjerkers are designed to make you cry, then a good fright flick should presumably make you catch your breath and clutch your armrests. By this measure, Longlegs, the fourth feature from writer-director Osgood Perkins, is moderately successful; it’s a thoroughly unsettling experience, even if it’s unlikely to have you covering your eyes in abject terror. But in terms of cinematic construction—its building of mood, its manufacture of tension, its rattling spookiness—Longlegs is a small-scale triumph. This may not be the scariest modern horror movie ever made, but it is surely one of the creepiest.

Conceptually speaking, this is nothing new for Perkins, whose prior pictures—the re-titled Blackcoat’s Daughter (changed from February), the annoyingly titled I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, and the gender-flip-titled Gretel & Hansel—all cultivated an inescapable sense of doom. They felt weird and looked great (Gretel & Hansel made my Best Cinematography ballot in 2020), but they prioritized bone-chilling atmosphere over legible plotting. With Longlegs, Perkins has properly calibrated his nerve-jangling sensibility, locating the proper balance between apprehension and entertainment. He hasn’t curtailed his gift for upsetting his audience—a number of scenes here are deeply disturbing—so much as channeled it into a more propulsive story. He has his cake and taints it too. Read More

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