Thor: Ragnarok
Dir. Taika Waititi
Thor was never the most interesting Avengers character. Over two solo movies and two Avengers flicks, Chris Hemsworth had depicted the God of Thunder as more or less a pompous all-powerful god who can't be killed - which doesn't exactly lend itself to audience relatability. However, this third film, helmed by New Zealand comedy director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople - my #8 of 2016), spins the character into completely new territory. Perhaps his time with Tony Stark has rubbed off on him, because now Thor is a snarky wiseass who literally laughs in the face of danger. Straying away from the decidedly staid "Shakespearian" tone of Thor and The Dark World, Ragnarok is a colorful, vibrant, funny comedy in the vein of Guardians of the Galaxy that finally embraces the inherent campiness of this world of Norse gods-in-space.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of this movie is that Taika Waititi is still playing with the same Marvel formula, leading up to a fight with a series of mindless, faceless "drones" (see The Avengers 1 and 2). Despite Hela having an interesting backstory that reveals Odin's hypocrisy in creating a peaceful world through warmongering, every time the movie cuts back to Asgard from the fun gladiator stuff on Sakaar, the movie loses steam. Blanchett chews the scenery for sure, with a gothic death glare and a sinister sashay, but her character still feels like your stock "Saturday Morning Cartoon" fare. The movie comes to life on Sakaar with the quirky Goldblum and his casually ruthless power over his gladiatorial fights - I wish the entire movie could have taken place there, with Thor and Co. taking down the Grandmaster in a kind of "side story" to the Marvel Universe, but unfortunately Ragnarok needs to plant X number of plot threads for future movies.
What Waititi lacks in plot innovation, however, he makes up for with his humor and characters. Right from the opening scene we know we're in new territory: a captured Thor is talking to a fiery demon while hanging suspended upside down by thick chains, causing him to slowly spin around. When he faces the opposite direction - he politely asks the demon to pause his evil monologue until he spins back into place. This kind of snarky, playful visual humor is used throughout the film to great effect. I also loved the bickering between the characters. Thor and Hulk passive aggressively try to determine which one is stronger than the other, Thor and Loki have a charming sibling rivalry (which is played more for laughs here than tragedy), and then there's the reluctant hero Valkyrie, who's sort of the bitter "Han Solo" of the group. Between Guardians, Ant-Man, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and now Ragnarok, Marvel movies are becoming almost as much comedies as action movies.
Thor: Ragnarok is, in my opinion, the first legitimately good Thor movie. It may not be revolutionary in story or tone, but it's a fun ride that focuses equally on characters and spectacle. Although it's somewhat depressing how the only movies that seem to make money nowadays are superhero films, there's a reason: they continue to be popcorn-munchingly entertaining.
Rating: B
Jigsaw
Dir. Michael & Peter Spierig
There's an episode of the new Amazon series Lore that describes how in 1800s New England, when people died of consumption they were buried with a bell outside their grave. Creepily, just in case they weren't really dead, they could ring the bell and be dug up. I feel like that story can be used as a metaphor for Jigsaw. We were all told that after seven movies, Saw 3D would be the end of it - that that "final chapter" would put the franchise to rest for good. We buried the series and walked away for 7 years. But lo and behold, the bell is ringing and it appears Saw was dug up by the producers of Lionsgate to live again. Having little reason to exist beyond a studio's desperate attempt at keeping a Halloween cash-cow alive, Jigsaw loses sight of everything that made this franchise a success in the first place - the twisted philosophy of Jigsaw, the queasy traps, the interesting connections to previous films - and nonsensically goes about repeating what came before completely devoid of life, like a reanimated corpse.
The story follows a group of law enforcement officials as they try to piece together a series of murders that bear a striking resemblance to the Jigsaw murders years before. Dead for over a decade, John "Jigsaw" Kramer (Tobin Bell) couldn't possibly have committed these murders... right? Or could it be a new killer? Or an as-yet-undiscovered protege? Like all Saw movies, there's a "twist" revealing the answer, but unlike most others, this one makes no sense in context of the whole series. If you actually remember and care about the other films - this movie, like it did with me, will probably just piss you off.
Being a horror-obsessed teenager at the height of the Saw films' success, I loved those movies when they came out. They were more clever than anyone wanted to give them credit for and were unfairly categorized as "torture porn." Each trap - while graphic - made the characters confront their own lives and value systems in interesting ways, like in Saw VI, where Jigsaw forces a life insurance executive to choose between saving his older secretary with a family or his younger co-worker who's single (literally forcing him to confront his job's "god complex"). But in Jigsaw the traps were depersonalized, and the "ethical" dilemmas within the characters were either unclear or non-existent. A new low for the franchise, Jigsaw is a totally hollow experience.
Rating: D
Suburbicon
Dir. George Clooney
Although released in 2017, the indomitable Coen Brothers wrote the script for Suburbicon way back in 1986, shortly after their neo-noir debut Blood Simple. However, they never pursued the project as a feature film and shelved it, only for George Clooney to blow the dust off its pages and bring it to life all these years later. However, apparently Clooney wasn't satisfied enough with the script, and along with his writing partner Grant Heslov added all kinds of sub-plots to a relatively simple story. The result is a Frankenstein mess of a movie with moments of intrigue.
The main story plays out almost like Fargo-meets-Double Indemnity; in an "All-American" 1950s community called Suburbicon, the Lodges appear to be the typical nuclear Leave It to Beaver household. The father, Gardner (Matt Damon), mother, Rose (Julianne Moore), and son, Nicky (Noah Jupe) could at any given moment pose for a Norman Rockwell painting. However, we soon find out that Gardner is actually a scumbag - he's in deep debt for the mob, and he even stages a break-in, which results in the murder of his wife so he can get not only her insurance money, but also bizarrely run off with her twin sister, Margaret - all the while traumatizing and gaslighting his son into not identifying the killers.
Under the deft hands of the Coens, this offbeat concept might have worked, but Clooney is unable to make a single character in this film endearing or relatable. He also shoehorns in a side-plot involving the town getting literally up in arms over an African American family, the Meyers, that moves into the neighborhood. There's some kind of point trying to be made about how this white family, the Lodges, gets away with murder, while this sweet, peaceful black family is ostracized - but most of the action focuses on the white stars while the Meyers are relegated to the sidelines. The movie handles its lofty ideas incredibly clumsily, ineffective as both the crime caper and civil rights drama it sets out to be.
While I like the idea that there's a seedy underbelly to the "American dream" - a tried-and-true theme found in everything from Goodfellas to Good Time - the problem with Suburbicon is that nearly every character is completely detestable and unrelatable. An awkward mish-mash of failed humor and political/social commentary, this movie is like a smoothie made with unripe fruit that doesn't do together.
Rating: C-
The Killing of a Sacred Deer
Dir. Yorgos Lanthimos
Continuing his streak of disturbing movies that follow cold, detached characters with repressed violent and sexual tendencies, Yorgos Lanthimos' latest film is The Killing of a Sacred Deer, which won "Best Screenplay" at the Cannes film festival. This eerie, Kubrick-ian psychological thriller follows a renowned cardiovascular surgeon, Dr. Steven Murphy (Colin Ferrell), who lives with his wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman) and two kids. However, the doctor's "idyllic" life is invaded by a fatherless young man named Martin (Barry Keoghan). At first Dr. Murphy acts as a father figure to the boy, but soon the intent behind their relationship is revealed, and the movie goes on a very disturbing, twisted journey as Dr. Murphy confronts some of his past mistakes in ways that will in all likelihood destroy his family.
In this and other Lanthimos films, the characters speak in flat and precise language unnatural to normal human speech. For Dr. Murphy, he talks in the cold, removed manner a doctor talks to his patients to everyone in his life - making the majority of this film, however disturbing it eventually gets, either intentionally or unintentionally funny. Lanthimos is an expert at creating uncomfortable situations, and this movie is filled with "WTF," insane psychosexual, incestuous undertones. For example, there's a scene where Martin, a teen likely going through puberty, asks his doctor if he can see the hair on his chest and armpits to confirm whether or not he's three times as hairy. Instead of raising an eyebrow, Dr. Murphy obliges, unbuttoning his shirt for this weird kid. Around every corner is a new, strange perversion that resembles the daydreams of a crazy person.
I'm sure there's a ton of religious/mythological symbols and metaphors I'm just not getting as I'm not a Bible scholar, but as a layperson, often this movie came across as so overly cryptic and strange that it felt "weird for the sake of being weird." Unlike the likewise divisive and abstract mother! from Darren Aronofsky, where he used religious allegory to make a bold and loud statement about how humans are destroying the Earth - Lanthimos's intentions here are much more abstract, leaving the viewer with a series of uncomfortable, almost distasteful encounters. It could just be me though; maybe I didn't "get it," as I highly enjoyed both Dogtooth and The Lobster, which satirized clearer, larger targets (authority and marriage, respectively).
The Killing of a Sacred Deer is absolutely worth seeing for fans of weird, strange, or challenging cinema, but casual moviegoers will definitely be left feeling confused and probably nauseous. Its "high concept" isn't even revealed until halfway through the film. I'm still not sure what ultimate point Lanthimos was trying to get across with this movie, but its disquieting tone and fantastic compositions and camerawork make it an intriguing work regardless.
Rating: B-
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