Rated PG-13 for violent content, some disturbing/bloody images, some strong language, thematic elements and suggestive material.
Now playing wherever theaters are open. Since October 2017, we’ve been anticipating the release of what was once the next standalone installment in 20th Century Fox’s X-Men universe, The New Mutants. The first trailer came out that month, and with it came the reveal of the horror elements the film would be playing with. It seemed like a logical next step in the superhero genre; and it was cool to see the format continue to experiment with other styles. But after the first trailer garnered a great deal of attention, the studio decided to pull the film from release in order to make it more terrifying. Specific details on this were, and have remained, sketchy, but it seemed like the studio was planning to completely redo the entire film. This led to a series of lengthy delays that prevented the film from coming out for the better part of two whole years. Now, the film has finally hit theaters, during the slow reopening from the pandemic and without any of the planned new material they talked about, That’s right, the movie is exactly what it was originally intended to be, which means everything we see was shot back in 2017. Now that we’ve seen what they created, their plans to add more horror into the film actually make sense. Because the film never truly feels like the horror film they promised. For much of the runtime, it feels like a strange mash-up of horror and superhero clichés without ever settling on one. Our main cast of mutants feel like the writers picked from a box of teen tropes and a box of horror tropes and formed their backstories off of those two traits. But even if the final product isn’t as genre subverting as it could have been, The New Mutants isn’t nearly as bad as the reviews make it out to be. In the end, the film is a competently made, perfectly watchable one-off entry in the now concluded X-Men franchise. It is easy to see where sequels to this film would have gone, since it was originally planned as the first in a new trilogy. Thankfully, this doesn’t hurt the film as much as it did for last year’s Dark Phoenix. This film, however, does have various flaws. The biggest ones pertain to the story, which takes way too long to really get going. The first half of the film is standard superhero exposition with loads of high school clichés. It becomes hard to enjoy what the filmmakers have made when they spend the whole first act trying to figure out what they want the film to be, and never really come to a final decision by the time to real stakes come into play. However, once the film finally makes it past all of this, it becomes rather entertaining. It was nice to have a superhero movie that focuses on smaller stakes. It relies more on characters rather than world-ending stakes, and that makes us care for the leads more. Even if they are mostly just cardboard cutouts in terms of personalities, the story’s focus on them means we know about what they want and why they want to survive, which means we can root for them. The cast all do their best with their respective roles. While Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton do give decent performances, the others, namely Maisie Williams, are not as compelling. The best performance of the film is Alice Braga as Dr. Cecilia Reyes. Her performance bubbles with menace that makes her a really watchable villain. Even though everything else about the movie is mostly mediocre, Braga is truly exceptional. Surprisingly, the two year wait acts as both the film’s biggest advantage and weakness. Obviously, two years of delays with no reshoots means that the film won’t live up to people’s expectations. But because of the delays, the film we have was shot before what I call the 2017 Cultural Shift. Many things that happen or are said would never show up in a film made today, and as a result, it feels like a breath of fresh air. The New Mutants is far from the most original horror, superhero, of teen film ever made. It struggles to maintain a consistent tone and never really figures out what it really wants to be. However, as a film made back in 2017, it feels positively refreshing compared to the films made in today’s climate. So what if it isn’t the subversive genre-bender we thought it could be. That doesn’t stop from being a perfectly entertaining time at the movies (if you want to go to the movies right now).
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Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence.
Now Streaming on Disney+ for $30 Premium Access Mulan is a movie I went in wanting to like while simultaneously being unsure of what I’d get. We all know at this point how Disney’s live action remakes usually turn out. And while they can be admirable from a visual standpoint, they never rise above mediocre status in the end. Mostly because, aside from a few useless story changes, they are basically shot-for-shot remakes of their respective animated classic. And now it seems no Disney classic is safe from remake fever which brings us to Mulan. From the trailers, it appeared the studio was trying to do something different from the 1998 original. It looked more grounded in realism, and the PG-13 rating certainly instilled some hope that things might turn out different. Sadly, what we get is basically what we’ve come to expect. It seems futile to give a summary of the plot since, aside from a few story and character additions, everything plays out as expected. It follows the same beats as the original film without shaking things up to a major degree. There are some new elements in terms of the villains and the plot, but none of this really adds anything substantial to the overall movie. And this means yet another lackluster viewing from Disney’s ever increasing library of dull, live action retreads. Mulan's problems range from plot holes to bad dialogue to tonal and character inconsistencies. There appears to be very little effort put into the script. It all begins at the very start which gives us a look into the life of Mulan as a kid that wasn’t present in the original. It establishes her as an already skilled warrior; able to pull off impractical stuffs like they’re nothing. This immediately creates a problem since the film never shows us how she learned to do any of those wonderful stunts. They try to establish that she was born with this, but what she does is so insane that it seems lazy not to have some scenes that illustrate this further. This then leads into several other problems; like having Mulan already be super skilled creates inconsistencies when she finally reaches her training for the army. We are treated to the same montage of Mulan struggling to meet the expectations of the generals. Again, the movie tries playing the “she’s hiding it from the others” card, but the way the story treats this just feels like lazy writing. Much of the script hinges on scenes that appear out of nowhere with no real explanation. It feels like the filmmakers struggled to balance following the original while trying to add new wrinkles to the story. The result feels like there are pieces still missing from the overall film; nothing new ever gets fully developed while basic story elements don’t gel together well either. Mulan’s skills and aspirations also create major problems in terms of the film’s messages. In the original, Mulan didn’t want to get married, but she was willing to go along with it if it brought her family honor. She only decided to go to war to protect her father. This played to the core themes of the original; the idea of what family, duty, and honor truly mean. This makes her journey into the war more noble and makes her a fully realized character. In this new version, Mulan is very adamant about her desire NOT to get married. She actually dreams of going off to fight, so by taking her father’s place, she’s essentially getting what she wants. By the end, she doesn’t really learn a worthwhile lesson. She just gets what she desired from the beginning, and that makes her a more selfish and two-dimensional character than her actually two-dimensional 1998 counterpart. Much of this is due to Yifei Liu’s portrayal of Mulan, which I couldn’t help but compare to Mena Massoud’s performance from last year’s live action Aladdin remake. Sure, ethnicity wise, she’s perfectly cast in the role. But as a performance, she’s completely flat; never imbuing any kind of genuine emotion into the character. She just wasn't convincing as Mulan. There’s also major issues with the tone; boiling down to what they chose to keep from the original vs. what they chose to omit. Much of the humor from the original has been done away with in order to focus on a more grounded story. The problem is that they also include moments of cartoonish humor and more fantasy elements than even the original has. It really feels like they didn’t know what kind of tone they wanted to create. And, as with so many major blockbusters these days, the script relies heavily on exposition. Right from the start, characters completely spell out their plans and motivations, others explain the situation they find themselves in like they’re giving a history lesson, and we’re constantly reminded of things that literally just happened. It’s really annoying that Disney seems to think that the audiences, whether kids or adults, are no smarter than a 5th grader and have five second attention spans. Now, despite all of this, not everything about this movie is bad. What’s good mostly deals with the technical departments; specifically the cinematography, production and costume design. The world they have created is a visual marvel, and I commend the team for attempting to use more practical effects over the other CGI-heavy remakes. In terms of the visual, this film is a wonder to behold. But no amount of visual splendor can make up for what is yet another misstep for the once great Disney. It honestly feels insulting that the company makes movies knowing that their target audience, kids, has no real discerning taste in films. As a result, they don’t care that anyone older than them may want to watch their film. They put so much effort into making their animated films fun for the whole family that it’s shocking they don’t try to put the same effort into their live action ones. And with that, it’s pretty clear that I can’t recommend this new rendition of Mulan. Even if you love these kinds of films, there are so many others that are more entertaining than this one. It’s certainly not worth the premium access price. It will be available for free to all Disney+ subscribers on December 4, but with the original film available on the service as well, you and your family will have so much more fun watching the classic version over the one that will probably be forgotten a couple years down the road. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, some suggestive references and brief strong language.
Now playing internationally. Opens in America September 3 wherever theaters are open. Right off the bat, let me issue a warning to anyone looking to see this movie. This is not a film that you are going to understand after one viewing. Like many of Christopher Nolan’s films, his stories are based around complex scientific theories and reality-bending threats. For some, this may hinder their overall opinion of this movie. For others, and especially Nolan’s millions of fans, this will just make them even more eager to see it. And what you are going to get is one wild ride through Nolan’s wondrous imagination. He has always dealt with the concept of time in films like Memento, Inception, and Interstellar and how it molds our perception of reality. Now with Tenet, he’s playing with time directly as he sends us head first into the world of international espionage with a world-crumbling plot that spans across multiple time periods. We are placed in the perspective of our lead, only ever referred to as the Protagonist (John David Washington). He is a CIA agent who witnesses something odd while attempting to stop a terrorist attack. This leads him to a secret organization that studies the idea of “time inversion,” which has been used to create weapons that can move backwards in time. These inverted weapons can cause far more destruction than normal weapons and have the capability of ripping apart reality as we know it. Now he’s on a mission to discover the source of the inverted weapons and put an end to a plot that could bring about the end of all existence. With the help of a man named Neil (Robert Pattinson) and a woman named Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), the Protagonist finds himself in a world beyond his comprehension as his journey leads him both forward and backward through the veil of time itself. Tenet is, without a doubt, Nolan’s most visually impressive film to date. With his use of inverted time, he constructs some unbelievable action set pieces that will truly blow your mind. The Protagonist often fights with elements that are moving in both temporal directions. This creates some stunning image and adds a fresh new layer to what would have been standard action scenes. And as always, the visuals are one of the best parts of the movie. Nolan’s films always have the highest quality visual effects of any Hollywood blockbuster. What’s so commendable about his movies, and especially here in Tenet, is his extensive use of practical effects and the way he seamlessly blends CGI into them. The effect of things moving backwards in time looks almost too real, and helps make the action scenes all the more compelling, as inverted obstacles look like tangible threats. The Protagonist is also a very compelling lead, in no small part due to John David Washington’s portrayal of him. We never get a sense of who he was before the events of the film but Washington delivers a steely, world-weary performance that shows that, even though we don’t know much about him, he has seen enough to be fully competent of the situation. This is a man who knows his job and is ready for whatever time can throw at him. Pattinson and Debicki also give solid performances as the allies to the Protagonist. Like Washington, they too portray their characters as if they know more than we do. Pattinson, in particular, always looks like he knows more about the weapons and time inversion than he lets on. He has come a long way from his Twilight days and truly is one of the better actors working today. His performance here should give fans faith that he will nail the role of Batman next year. But one of the film’s biggest strengths is its ability to feel both traditional and fresh. The story beats and characters are all traditional tropes that make up a typical spy film. However, with the inclusion of the time inversion element, it makes the film feel like a modern update to the classic genre. Without this science fiction element, it would have been just another “run of the mill” spy effort. Overall, Tenet is the perfect definition of a Christopher Nolan film. It’s a complex, mathematical story that really requires audiences to pay attention. But in a world of mindless blockbusters that require little to no thought, having a film like this is just what 2020 needs. Not all theaters are currently open, but if one near you is playing this film, see it. You will not get the same experience seeing it on your computer or phone as you will seeing it on a massive screen. |