Action

Godzilla x Kong, the New Empire: Animal Kingdumb

Jeremy BeckReviews
A scene from Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

The tagline for Roland Emmerich’s 1998 version of Godzilla proclaimed, “Size does matter.” Fair enough, but so do scale, weight, and clarity. The computer-generated beasts who rampage through Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire are undeniably large. But as creatures of action cinema, they are paper tigers—ephemeral and insubstantial, lacking in true force. They look like giants and punch like toddlers.

This is something of a problem, because the whole point of an enterprise like Godzilla x Kong is for its titular monsters to haul off and kick ass. Director Adam Wingard, who previously helmed Godzilla vs. Kong (the prior entry in Warner Bros.’ increasingly unwieldy cinematic universe), is no fool; he knows that the audiences flocking to this movie expect it to feature extensive footage of the King of the Monsters and the Eighth Wonder of the World laying waste to assorted animal competitors. He obliges immediately, as the opening scene finds a grey-bearded King Kong sprinting through the jungles and mountains of the Hollow Earth—the subterranean realm where he’s taken up a semi-peaceful existence, away from prying human eyes—as he’s chased by snarling predators that look like a cross between a jackal and an anteater. Kong’s predictable thrashing of these puny foes immediately emblematizes the picture’s failings. The issue isn’t so much that the creatures look fake—the special effects are impressively detailed in terms of color and design—but that the combat carries no tangible impact. It feels like an elaborate WWE routine—all posturing and preening, no real pain. Read More

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The Creator: Cries of the Machines

Jeremy BeckReviews
John David Washington in The Creator

Noisy, clunky, and conventional, Gareth Edwards’ The Creator is a disappointing folly. Yet it is also a worthy endeavor, attempting to wield boisterous blockbuster filmmaking in the service of an original, idea-driven story. It could have been great, if only it were good.

Originality is relative in mainstream cinema. It’s commendable that The Creator isn’t formally rooted in existing intellectual property; the screenplay, by Edwards and Chris Weitz, actually invents new characters and conceives its own quasi-apocalyptic future. It also exhibits minimal interest in jumpstarting a franchise, instead telling a complete and self-contained story. (Of course, Disney might have demanded otherwise had the film been commercially successful; in that regard, early box-office receipts indicate the studio has nothing to worry about.) At the same time, it borrows liberally (one might say shamelessly) from numerous science-fiction touchstones—most obviously Blade Runner and its sequel, 2049, but also the Terminator pictures, Star Wars, and plenty more. It’s a putatively original movie that nevertheless feels recycled, as though an algorithm spat out a vague approximation in response to the prompt, “new-age sci-fi entertainment.” Read More

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Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part One: Choose to Exceptional

Jeremy BeckReviews
Hayley Atwell and Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Part One

The Mission: Impossible franchise doesn’t change so much as grow. It’s a creature of controlled entropy; it keeps getting bigger—longer runtimes, more elaborate plotting, increasingly crazed stunts—but it always subjects its maniacal absurdity to meticulous quality control. Two movies ago, in the spectacular Rogue Nation, a bureaucrat memorably described Ethan Hunt—the indefatigable superspy played by Tom Cruise as a cross between James Bond and the Road Runner—as “the living manifestation of destiny.” This time around, in Dead Reckoning, Part One, a beleaguered company man (Shea Whigham) calls him “a mind-reading, shape-shifting incarnation of chaos.” You get the idea: This dude is committed, and he ain’t slowing down.

You might say the same thing about Cruise, though the one enemy that Hollywood’s most fanatical star seems unlikely to vanquish is Father Time. Yet one of the pleasures of Dead Reckoning is how it probes the tension between its 61-year-old lead’s eternal charm and the inexorable fact of his own mortality. I’m not suggesting that Cruise shows his age here; he remains extraordinarily fit and good-looking, and he performs feats of derring-do that would make actors of any generation blanch. But the man who leapt into multiplexes for Brian De Palma in the summer of 1996, hovering inches above the floor as a bead of sweat slid perilously across his brow, has gradually lost some of his invincibility. When this Ethan runs, you feel his muscles ache. Read More

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From the Vault: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 20 Years Later

Jeremy BeckReviews
Sean Connery in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In 2003, long before MovieManifesto.com existed, I spent my summer as a 20-year-old college kid writing as many movie reviews as I could. My goal was to compile them all into a website, possibly hosted by Tripod or Geocities, which would surely impress all of the women in my dorm. That never happened—neither the compiling nor the impressing—but the reviews still exist. So, now that I am a wildly successful critic actually have a website, I’ll be publishing those reviews on the respective date of each movie’s 20th anniversary. Against my better judgment, these pieces remain unedited from their original form. I apologize for the quality of the writing; I am less remorseful about the character of my 20-year-old opinions.]

Here is a movie that, when all’s said and done, fails to possess an identity. It is unsure whether it is an action blockbuster, a broad comedy, or a glib satire, and so it tries to be all of these at once and winds up being none of them. The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (or LXG, as it has taken to calling itself) is a rambling, self-destructive journey that ultimately has no purpose. To be sure, it has its moments of genuine imagination, but most of the time it feels woefully uninspired, especially when saddled with such an insipid plot. This is a forgettable mishmash that pretends to be sly and entertaining but is, in reality, just plain dull. Read More

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From the Vault: Pirates of the Caribbean, 20 Years Later

Jeremy BeckReviews
Keira Knightley and Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In 2003, long before MovieManifesto.com existed, I spent my summer as a 20-year-old college kid writing as many movie reviews as I could. My goal was to compile them all into a website, possibly hosted by Tripod or Geocities, which would surely impress all of the women in my dorm. That never happened—neither the compiling nor the impressing—but the reviews still exist. So, now that I am a wildly successful critic actually have a website, I’ll be publishing those reviews on the respective date of each movie’s 20th anniversary. Against my better judgment, these pieces remain unedited from their original form. I apologize for the quality of the writing; I am less remorseful about the character of my 20-year-old opinions.]

God damn this movie is fun. There exists in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl an unadulterated joy of filmmaking so rarely found in the sullen cynicism of modern cinema. The film is crafted with skill and dexterity, fusing classically grand storytelling with a light-footed comedic grace. It is superbly acted, but even more, it is unapologetically cheerful, so that a genuine delight permeates each frame. This is a bold, effervescent picture, and it is an absolute pleasure to behold. Read More

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