The Jungle Book
Dir. Jon Favreau
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Continuing Disney's string of live action remakes of its beloved animated features, The Jungle Book definitely seemed worthy of an update after Life of Pi proved that CGI tigers can be A) Believable and B) Badass. Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Chef) has stated that this iteration of The Jungle Book is the most technologically advanced film ever made; everything, save for the main human character, Mowgli (Neel Sethi), was created in a computer and through a motion capture process similar to James Cameron's Avatar. It's a stunningly beautiful film from a pure "woah, that tree looks real!" standpoint. However, the film, for me anyway, felt like nothing more than a darker retread of familiar themes, with a bit of an identity crisis as it tries to be its own thing while sticking to Disney "fan moments" that seemed out of place in this more realistic world. Plus, it features a central performance by a child actor that was more annoying to listen to than the chatty kids in my theater bitching to their parents (I literally heard one say: "No, YOU shush!"). The Jungle Book '16 is a pleasant enough movie to watch, it moves at a nice pace, it's pretty to look at, the action looks great - but it just lacks that X-factor, that Favreau-ian sense of fun and originality that I got out of Iron Man and Chef.
The plot follows Mowgli, the "man cub" raised by wolves, who doesn't quite fit in with the other animals in the jungle. He walks on two legs, he uses weird tools - it takes a little more effort on his part to be part of the pack. However, he's forced to leave his home and family upon the arrival of Shere Khan (Idris Elba), the tiger, who threatens the jungle community to get rid of Mowgli. This bad kitty knows how "man" can turn out to be destructive, using the "red flower" (aka fire), to disrupt the food chain, showing off his scars to all the creatures at the neutral zone called the "rock of peace" to prove how cruel man can be. So Mowgli, in an effort to keep the peace, leaves his "mother" and "father" to head to the man-village, guided by his no-nonsense panther friend Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) and his free-spirited oafish bear buddy Baloo (Bill Murray), meeting all kinds of other colorful jungle animals along the way.
Despite my overall lack of enthusiasm for the film, the voice actors were perfectly cast. Ben Kingsley as Bagheera the panther lends a sense of gravitas, Idris Elba is appropriately intimidating as Shere Khan, and Christopher Walken channels Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now for King Louie. But the stand-out is Baloo, the one character with a sense of humor, and his penchant for laziness and dry wit perfectly fits with the spirit of Bill Murray. Sometimes the characters stray into "uncanny valley" territory, and their eyes lack a certain kind of "aliveness," making them seem more like taxidermized animals than living, breathing creatures - but for the most part they look incredible, especially Bagheera.
My main complaint with this film is its issues dealing with the 1967 Disney film. The photorealistic design of the animals and the darker, more violent world that Favreau creates (I appreciate that Mowgli actually gets scrapes and bruises throughout the film) definitely clash with the songs. There are two music numbers from the original animated film ("Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You"), and both feel out of place and, perhaps even worse, not sung very well. "Bare Necessities" was sung in a cringe-worthy off-key sequence by the kid and Murray and "I Wanna Be Like You" feels inappropriately shoehorned in. Our introduction to the giant ape King Louie is sinister and shrouded in shadow, with Louie threatening Mowgli's life if he doesn't show him how to make fire, and chasing him in a terrifying sequence...and then he breaks out into a swing tune? The reason the song works in the animated film is because Walt Disney purposely took out all the dark themes present in Rudyard Kipling's book and turned it into a colorful musical - but the songs in Favreau's Jungle Book feel like nothing more than pure fan service, which I could forgive perhaps if they weren't sung so poorly (relatively speaking).
Overall, I enjoyed the film - it's beautiful, Favreau directs the hell out of it, and the cast is likable enough, but I ultimately found it to be a little hollow. There's nothing much fresh or original going on, and the ultimate question I have to ask myself is: why? Why did Favreau choose to direct this? I'm not sure why this movie exists other than for Disney to show off its state-of-the-art animal CGI technology (which, by the nature of things, will probably look totally fake in 5 to 10 years). I would've been just as well off if I'd never seen this movie, but if you are a fan of The Jungle Book or just want to escape in a luscious jungle world for a couple hours, I recommend it.
Rating: B-
Hardcore Henry
Dir. Ilya Naishuller
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The world we're living in is a strange one: our video games are looking more and more like movies, and our movies are looking more and more like video games. I believe this idea has reached its apex with Hardcore Henry, a movie entirely shot like a first-person shooter video game using head-mounted go-pro cameras. For better or worse, it captures the gaming experience: the nameless, silent main character you "play" as, the dumb, insane plot, the "final boss" battle - it pretty much functions like watching someone play a video game. Unfortunately, though its ambition of creating a live action video game complete with parkour practical stunts gets an "A for effort," Hardcore Henry is a headache-inducing, confusing, plain old not-fun action exercise.
The film's plot pretty much apes that of Robocop - a man wakes up in a laboratory to learn that he was brought back to life as a half-human, half-robot, all-badass killing machine. He has no memory of his former life, but he learns that the woman working there was his wife. Soon, an army of armed thugs, led by a white-haired man with telekinetic powers, storm inside and kidnap her. The film is basically one extended action scene after another of Henry shooting, killing, stabbing, etc, his way to save his wife.
The way the film was shot gives everything a claustrophobic feel, with a fish-eye lens that curves the edges of the screen. There are tons of "hidden cuts" throughout the film as well, through whip pans and such, as well as pure jump cuts from one shot to another, which just makes this thing feel like a chaotic mess. It had to have taken a huge amount of effort to do most of the stunts in this film, but the constant cutting and camera movements make it hard to appreciate (as opposed to say, The Revenant's opening action shot, where the camera's deliberate movement allows the events sink in). The humor wasn't all there either - you can tell the filmmakers were really aiming for a Crank and Crank 2-level of insanity, but it doesn't reach those heights. Hardcore Henry in concept is interesting, but it doesn't lend itself to a feature-length format. With a better story, this could have been amazing, but I'd rather "play" this movie than watch it.
Rating: C
The Tribe
Dir. Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy
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It's been a couple weeks after seeing The Tribe, and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. The film hit the festival circuit last year and got a ton of positive buzz - it's essentially a movie about a young man who arrives at a boarding school and is drawn into an institutionalized system of robbery and prostitution. And, oh yeah... the entire thing is told in Ukrainian Sign Language, with no subtitles.
Even with a relatively simple story, I literally didn't understand what was going on; watching The Tribe is basically like watching a foreign film without subtitles, or better yet, a dialogue-filled movie entirely on mute. Some might find this a fascinating, challenging, ballsy, artistic choice... I just found it pretentious and confusing. The director (whose name I won't even try to pronounce out loud) dares you to fill in the blanks yourself, and draws every scene out painfully slowly in long takes, so you can soak in all the scenes that make no sense. The acting is also relatively wooden, which, together with the inability to understand their language (I never got around to studying Ukrainian sign language in my undergrad years), makes this film even more remote and hard to connect with.
There are numerous disturbing scenes of sex and violence throughout. It's almost as if these deaf kids are enacting a silent film version of A Clockwork Orange, only their rage possibly comes from a place of being outsiders to society from their handicap (A Clockwork Orange being another much-loved film I'm not a particular fan of). The boarding school is basically a front for all manner of criminal activity. The school's practically run by a group of bullies (who are pretty much gangsters), who spend their nights mugging pedestrians and prostituting a couple of female students at a nearby truck stop.
There's certainly an utterly unique ambience to this film, but ultimately it left me cold. There's no real audience surrogate here to connect with, the pace is glacial, and for me it falls into the category of "I admire its originality, but I'll never watch it again" (is that a Netflix category?).
Rating: C+
The Lobster
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
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The Lobster takes the cake for "Weirdest Movie I've Seen So Far in 2016." Set in the near-future, the film describes a world where single people are sent to a Hotel and given 45 days to find a romantic partner, or else they'll be turned into an animal. If they fail, they're given the chance to chose what animal they want to turn into, and are subsequently returned to the forrest. David (Colin Farrell) arrives at the hotel with his brother (who is now a dog), and meets other single folks at the hotel like a man with a lisp (John C. Reilly), another with a limp (Ben Wishaw), and a girl who gets frequent nosebleeds (Jessica Barden) among others...so yeah, nothing is quite "normal" in this world.
Although I truly didn't understand whatever supposed "meanings" are behind everything, Yorgos Lanthimos, who created a similarly disturbing, weird, alienated world with Dogtooth, gives the film a strange, absurdist comedy bent that kept me interested the entire time. Maybe because I connect with characters who have difficulty connecting (like in Anomalisa), I found this dystopian future where relationships are mandatory, but nobody is romantic, to be a fascinating comment on modern society. I think a lot of people feel like there's a weird tension to find "the one," that if you're not in a relationship nor seeking one that there's something wrong with you (god forbid you choose to be single!) and The Lobster toys with those ideas in pretty bizarre, messed up ways. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you connect with its offbeat wavelength The Lobster is definitely worth checking out.
Rating: B+
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