Film Review - We're No Angels (1955)

Three convicts escape from prison, on Devil’s Island in French Guiana; they are Joseph (Humphrey Bogart), Albert (Aldo Rey), and Jules (Peter Ustinov). They arrive at a nearby town and while there, they seek shelter within a department store and promise its owner, Felix Ducotel (Leo G. Carroll) to perform chores for him, like fixing his leaky roof in exchange for a place to stay. While situated up on the spacious roof, they look down onto the Ducotel family, through several skylights, like three angels, and they listen to every word spoken. They spy on Felix, on his wife Amelie (Joan Bennett), and on his daughter Isabelle (Gloria Talbott) and they learn that the store runs mainly on credit.

In hope of helping out the Ducotels properly, the three convicts decide to take on larger roles, using their individual, unique tricks of the trade. Joseph, a con artist who used to cook books for several nonexistent factories, acts as a salesman who sells people on ideas rather than products, earning the store a small profit right of the bat; Albert doesn’t really have a trade, seeing that he’s committed murder over the lack of an inheritance, so he just fawns over Isabelle from time to time; and Jules is a safe cracker who opens locked drawers and safes on occasion.

The film takes place during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and as things progress positively for the Ducotels and the three convicts, a fifth and sixth wheel enter the picture in the form of Andre Trochard, played to the utmost douche by the great Basil Rathbone, and his nephew, Paul (John Baer). Andre is the owner of the store and he and Paul arrive so that they can take over the store due its plummeting sales; they immediately rub the three convicts the wrong way, treating them like servants who are far, far beneath them.

…and then starts the melodrama! Amelie is in love with Paul, whom she doesn’t yet know is actually betrothed to another woman and who also doesn’t much fancy Isabelle, and the three convicts try to solidify the kids’ romantic relationship. This is all happing while Joseph falsifies records in the store’s financial books, and Albert and Jules act as house servants, making fun of the Trochards underneath their breaths.

I won’t spoil the second half of the film, because it goes in fascinating directions, and the only things left to talk about are:

The Director: Michael Curtiz

Born Manó Kaminer, in Hungary in 1886, Curtiz had made a name for himself in the European film circuit during the early 20th century and was invited to come work in Hollywood in 1926. He is most famously known for directing one of the greatest American films, and simply one of the greatest films in general, Casablanca (1942), and other notable films (some that are also classics) that he’d directed prior to Casablanca are Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Black Legion (1937), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1937), Angels with Dirty Faces (1938), Dodge City (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940), Santa Fe Trail (1940), The Sea Wolf (1941), and Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Suffice it to say, he wasn’t just a go-to guy in terms of natural talent, Curtiz was also a very lucrative investment.

He’d also worked with great actors by the likes of Edward G. Robinson, Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Paul Muni, Boris Karloff, Frederick March, Olivia de Havilland, Ida Lupino, John Garfield, James Cagney, and of course, the inimitable Humphrey Bogart, on several occasions. And just to name a few more excellent films that Curtiz had directed after Casablanca, there’s also Passage to Marseille (1944), Mildred Pierce (1945), and The Breaking Point (1950). One could try for a Michael Curtiz marathon, but it would take a week or two to get through it, and that would just be based on the great films that he’d directed, seeing that he has 107 credits to his name.

Curtiz was nominated for 5 Academy Awards, winning only one for Best Director, for Casablanca.

The Cinematography

Shot on both VistaVision and Technicolor, D.P. (Director of Photography) Loyal Griggs brings tremendous, hyper realized colours to this wonderful film. We’re No Angels is based on not one but two stage plays (more on that in a bit) so it looks stagey at times, but that’s never a detriment to the entertainment value of the film. All of the actors play their roles naturally enough to the point where they generally don’t tend to sound like stage performers, and the actor blocking and cinematography are standard, traditional, old-school Hollywood, which I like. Because the film is colourful, a la An American in Paris (1951), the lighting is relatively evenly distributed and everything is clear and easy to see and understand; basically, it’s all done with deep focus compositions and it looks very pretty. It does come off as stagey early on but as the film progresses and the audience acclimates to the characters and their varying situations, the staginess dissipates and the audience is fully invested in these wonderful characters’ lives.

Adaptations

We’re No Angels had originated in France in 1952 as a stage play titled “La Cuisine Des Anges“, which literally translates to “The Angel’s Kitchen”. Make of that what you will. It was successful enough to be brought over to the U.S. the following year and Jose Ferrer himself was its director. It played for roughly 10 months and focused on the interplay between the three convicts and a family of French Colonists, which obviously wasn’t the point of the Curtiz film. There are no politics to be found in this film and quite frankly, here it would be out of place. This film focuses on telling a simple yet clever and funny story of three men who were convicted of differing crimes and who helped save the lives and business of a well-meaning family in return for a hospitable, safe stay. The Ducotels are actually the ones in need of saving and as penance for their crimes, the Joseph, Albert, and Jules become their saviours and allusions to angel-like figures appear from time to time. When they first meet Andre, Joseph makes a quip about them being the “Three Wise Men”; as they stare down onto the Ducotels from the skylights, learning about them and their plights, they appear almost as angelic figures, dressed in white clothes with a bright blue sky situated behind them; and as the film ends, each of the three men (and Adolph the snake – watch the movie to learn more about him!) receive a halo hovering above their crowns. They are not literal angels, but the film has fun disguising them as figurative ones, and watching them willingly help others while atoning for their crimes is a pleasant experience.

There is also an Italian film from 1975 that goes by the same name, but it has absolutely no resemblance to either of these stage-play-based films.

In Summation

I had a lot of fun with this film and I am going to watch and review Neil Jordan’s remake next. I am, however a tad trepidatious about it because from the trailer alone, it looks to be visually drab and dreary. However, knowing that its screenplay was written by the great David Mamet (and inspired by this film), my expectations aren’t really that low. It is billed as a comedy, and perhaps a dark one, but something tells me that there might still be a small misunderstanding in the translation, and perhaps only visually. You and I shall have to wait and see!

Until the next time!

Film Review - The Mauritanian (2021)

Every once in while I like to play a game of my own devising: I choose a movie and I ask myself, “what is this movie actually about?” The idea is to strip away the plot contrivances, clichés, and action beats and focus on two important aspects: character motivations and what the movie is actually all about, overall, in a nutshell. When I look at The Mauritanian (2021), I realize that the third act of the film is what the movie is almost entirely about and I ask myself, “why didn't the entire film focus on this story rather than it being a third act revelation?” I will get back to that in a bit.

The film begins two weeks after the attack on the Twin Towers where Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahar Rahim) is taken from his home on suspicion of being “the man who organized 9/11”. He isn’t heard from in 3 years until one day, he pops up on radar as an inmate in the infamous Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. He is issued an attorney, Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster), and her task is to defend him from the charges that are brought up against him. And that’s just it: he wasn’t charged with anything.

The Mauritanian follows three central characters: Slahi, Nancy, and Stewart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch), who lost a dear friend and army comrade on one of the planes that struck the buildings on that awful day. Stewart shows contempt and prejudice toward Slahi right off the bat and he accepts the prosecution position with glee, which, in reality, is a conflict of interest that the film never acknowledges. Nancy, on the other hand, treats Slahi like any other person she defends, but she is baffled by the fact that he wasn’t actually charged with any crimes. Nancy also has an assistant named Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley) who’s hardly important to the story, so I won’t bring her up again. Woodley accepted a nice paycheque and that’s all there is to that.

As the story progresses, both Nancy and Stewart are met with giant hurdles featuring, but not limited to hundreds of thousands of files that had been entirely redacted, information that doesn’t contain any dates or corroborating facts, and a long confession from Slahi that appears to be inadmissible because it was collected during a time of extreme mental and physical duress.

We are all familiar with what had happened inside that “Detention Camp”, we saw the photos and read all about it for months on end. Regardless of the inmates’ crimes, many, if not most of them had been met with weeks (or months) of physical and mental torture, humiliation, and other forms of abuse and degradation. Slahi appears to have been on the receiving end of many of those inhumane atrocities, as we are shown through flashbacks that are shot in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio for no discernible reason, and the film’s “purpose” eventually comes to light. The film beats around the bush for almost 2 hours until it finally decides to admit that what happened inside the “Detention Camp” was wrong on every possible level. This “revelation” would have been far more impactful had it not already been something that we were very familiar with for many years. There is a long build up to a fizzle, and that is where the film mostly fails.

The cinematography in The Mauritanian is generally ok, sometimes it resembles any of the thousands of cop/criminalistics shows that play on TV, and the flashback sequences utilize a completely different aspect ratio, color grading, and “film grain” to accentuate a different point in time. It’s done purely for stylistic purposes and honestly, it’s distracting because the majority of the film is shot in very standards, almost milquetoast fashion.

Director Kevin Macdonald had previously shown his prowess as a fearsome storyteller and filmmaker with a kinetic directing and editing style in The Last King of Scotland (2006), but The Mauritanian could easily be confused for a straight-to-video courtroom drama with a “special segment directed by” credit. It gets by with its excellent cast and the fact that this film is inspired by a true story, but just because it is based on real people and real situations doesn’t automatically make it good film.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi was an actual detainee in the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, and it took him 14 years to achieve freedom. What this movie is “about” is corruption on high governmental and military levels, in which they found a scapegoat to pin the 9/11 attacks on. Throughout his 14 years of incarceration, Slahi was never charged with a single crime. Again, this is all revealed during the third act and the message slaps the audience in the face, except that the audience is already aware of the atrocities that took place inside and surrounding the Detention Camp, so it’s not much of a revelation. The film tries to juggle both Slahi’s 14 terrible years and the lies, secrets, and illegal activities that that had surrounded the manhunt for the terrorists. It’s a juggling act that features five chainsaws and a one armed juggler, it simply doesn’t work. The juggler also manages to, mysteriously shoot himself in the foot too, somehow.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi deserves a better film than this, and this story deserved a better, more politically minded screenwriter. It really is a shame because as good as Foster and Cumberbatch are in this film, Rahim is the standout. I first noticed his acting chops in the utterly excellent, gripping, and disturbing masterpiece Un Prophet (2009), and here he proves that he’s still an excellent actor even when performing in English. As Slahi, he brings realism and humanity to the film through a grounded performance, and we feel everything that he feels through his expressive face. He is an actor capable of conveying several emotions, and almost all at once. Rahim is the star of the film for several reasons, and he is the reason that I almost recommend this film. Almost.

The Mauritanian is not currently available for streaming, but it is available in theatres in select cities and countries.

Film Review - Thunderbolt (1995)

Jackie Chan stars as a sports mechanic who takes on illegal street racers on the streets of Hong Kong. As a car enthusiast, I am astounded that I hadn’t heard of this film prior to this week. And yes, it is as strange and as fun as it sounds. Here, Jackie plays Chan Foh To (dubbed Alfred Tung in the U.S. version) who, with a team of professional mechanics, helps the police to monitor and capture illegal street racers from time to time. An early scene shows the police pulling over more than 20 “souped up” (professionally modified) cars; each car is inspected by Chan, his father (and the boss of the company), and his co-workers and tagged with having illegal modifications. Then, all out of nowhere, a black GTR (Nissan Skyline) comes zooming down the road at incredible speed. Chan chases the GTR and captures its driver, one Warner “Cougar” Kaugman (Thorsten Nickel).

Alongside being a professional racer who breaks world records on land, and also entices cops to chase after him at night without (almost) ever being caught, Cougar is a professional killer. And this is when the plot of the film first kicks into gear: Cougar is arrested but very soon after is sprung from jail by his cohorts, in what is a surprisingly bloody and violent prison break. Cougar makes his way to Chan’s house and demolishes it in its entirety, kidnaps both of Chan’s sisters, and then he has the gall to invite Chan to meet him in Japan for a car race. Yes, it’s that type of masculine, adrenaline infused actioner akin to Point Break (1991) and Bad Boys (1995) but with a Hong Kong flair.

Chan, the hero of the film isn’t pure of heart, not by a long shot, but he is a generally good person who always keeps to himself. However, he is quick to anger, he refuses to be interviewed by reporters on every occasion, and he keeps his past a secret from everyone around him. We never actually find out what had happened to him in the past that’s caused him to keep his feelings bottled up inside, but I suppose that it’s not really important; either that or the screenwriters simply forgot to tie up loose ends. With 5 screenwriters, I vote for the former.

On the flipside, Cougar, the villain is a murderous psychopath who only thinks about car racing and is handsome, tall, and charismatic. He and Chan are polar opposites in every regard except for one: car racing. Car racing is the one thing that Chan and Cougar have in common and race with one another they shall.

I know that this doesn’t sound like the typical Jackie Chan film, but it definitely showcases several Jackie Chan-isms: there are a few martial arts fights that contain fantastically clever fight choreography; Jackie performs *most of his own stunts, which are insane and oft death defying, or at the very least crippling; and Jackie drives several Mitsubishi vehicles. I’m certain that he has a contractual obligation to Mitsubishi and to prove my point, before leaving for Japan, Chan and his team unbox and reconstruct a Mitsubishi RalliArt, a heavily modified, professional sports car.
The film’s action directors are Jackie Chan and his life-long buddy and fellow actor/director Sammo Hung, but the film’s overall director is Gordon Chan, who’d previously worked with Stephen Chow and Jet Li on several occasions. Unfortunately, here Gordon Chan commits the cardinal sin of shooting the fight sequences in anything but a combination of wide shots and “cowboy” shots (Google “Cowboy Shot Photography”). Most of the fight sequences are shot using a telephoto lens that is zoomed in, compressing the foreground and background together, making everything look flat and zoomed in, and adding a feel of claustrophobia. In typical HK Kung Fu film fashion, fight sequences are shot in a manner that compliments the fight choreography, which is why they are typically shot using many wide shots, and the choreography is visually presented utilizing deep focus compositions and dynamic camera movements, but here, Jackie and his opponents are squeezed into each frame and, in combination with rapid-fire edits this comes off as more of a Hollywood production. The fights themselves are spectacular as Jackie and Sammo prove their worth time and time again, but one can’t help but feel a bit let down by the presentation.
There is a solid level of authenticity to the racing scenes and world depicted herein, and even when the racing scenes are flashy, utilizing either under-cranked camera work (under-cranking is when you shoot film at a speed that is lower than 24 frames per second and then play it back at 24, making the footage look slightly sped up) or slow motion. The cars are real and the driving techniques are legit, but what transpires on the track durin the big, final race is utter insanity and chaos. And you read that correctly, the big race takes place on a professional race track, with many other contenders, all of whom have sponsors covering their cars from front to rear. I’m not quite sure how Cougar had managed to leave Hong Kong after massacring a few police officers, but there you have it. What’s done is done, and the story must move on. This is not an Andrei Tarkovsky or a Christopher Nolan film, it’s not about philosophy or minutia; it’s a mindless, well-made Jackie Chan film and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I’d watched most of Jackie Chan’s films throughout my life and I always admire when he goes out of his way to entertain the masses, even during his many brushes with death. In Thunderbolt, while practicing a speed lap on a race track in Japan, Chan’s car is struck by another race car and flips over onto its roof, igniting into flames. Several pit crew members rush to his rescue spraying the flaming car with fire extinguishers until, surprisingly, Chan emerges from the burning vehicle, engulfed in flames himself, grabs a fire extinguisher from one of the pit crew members, and helps them put out the fire. It was difficult for me to accept the fact that Chan himself had helped the crew put out the fire rather than initially run for his life. He acted entirely selflessly, and that is more Jackie Chan than it is Chan Foh To.
Such is the testament of Jackie’s love for his craft and for his audience, and this is what we go to the movies for (or watch them on TV/On Demand). We want to be entertained, and no one knows how to entertain the masses better than superstar Jackie Chan, who had reached an elite status at least two decades ago, and precisely for this reason. It is always a pleasure to discover gems like Thunderbolt and I am happy to write this piece on it. I feel the same joy talking about it than I did watching it.

*Thunderbolt was filmed just after Jackie shot Rumble in the Bronx and because Jackie had injured himself while filming “Rumble”, he was forced to use a stunt double for some of the wide shots in this film.

Film Review - Jiu Jitsu (2020)

If you were to combine John McTiernan’s Predator (1987) with Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Kombat (1995), add a sprinkling of Nicolas Cage, Frank Grillo, and Tony Jaa, and suck the life and fun out of the end product then Jiu Jitsu is what you would get. It’s not innovative like Predator, it’s not campy like Mortal Kombat, and it’s not as well shot, energetic, or interesting as either aforementioned film.

We are told twice throughout the film (and also in the film’s trailer) that every 6 years, a comet passes by the Earth, directly above Burma, and as it does a portal opens up inside a temple. Out of the temple pops an alien (who resembles a human wearing a rubber suit) and this alien must fight 9 “chosen” fighters. We are told that if said selected fighters won’t fight the alien, then it will “kill everyone and destroy everything”, and if the fighters win then the alien will leave the Earth, but it will still come back in another 6 years and do the same thing all over again. This story is never told through the point of view of the alien, so the audience has no idea why it does what it does; we don’t know why it likes to fight so much and why it is hell bent on killing everyone on the planet if the 9 chosen fighters don’t appease his homicidal tendencies. Regardless, films like these aren’t meant to be philosophically ponderous; they’re low budget martial arts extravaganzas, mind-numbing exercises in killing time with barely any mental stimulation. I write this with a heavy heart because not only did I grow up watching tons of martial arts films, I’d also practiced karate for many years throughout my youth. I love martial arts films, I don’t love this film.

Watching Jiu Jitsu is like watching someone else play a fighting video game for nearly 2 hours, using the same two or three characters, and never getting to play the game yourself.
Aside from the basic story outline that I wrote at the start of this review, the film’s plot centers around Jake (Alain Moussi) – a muscular man who is chased by an unseen assailant. He leaps off of a cliff into Pacific waters and bangs his head on a coral, providing himself with pointless amnesia. In this film, the amnesia serves no purpose except to have many random characters come and go and fight with Jake, and amongst themselves. By removing the amnesia, the film would remain the same except that we wouldn’t have Moussi play a deer caught in the headlights for over an hour and claim for the umpteenth time that he doesn’t remember anything, and that he doesn’t know who he or anyone else is.
Frank Grillo (The Purge: Anarchy/Election Year) is also in the film, and he delivers biting, satirical dialogue that is mostly comprised of “Do you really not remember what’s going on, Jake?”, “How could you forget who we are?”, and “Do you remember what the plan is, Jake?” He doesn’t do much, he doesn’t say anything that is essential to the plot, and he’s expendable, much like most other characters in the film.
Tony Jaa is also wasted here. He’d showcased phenomenal stunt work and tremendous, unmatched athleticism in films like Ong-Bak (2003) and Tom Yum Goong (aka The Protector, 2005), but here he gets to kick and punch a bunch of soldiers (who’d all forgotten that they have guns lying around somewhere), and he also throws a few elbows and knees from time to time. His character’s purpose is to find Jake, bring him to his “friends” and then disappear until he’s needed again, which is almost never. There is also a small supporting cast that is comprised of unknown actors, but they are terrifically talented martial artists nevertheless.

…all except for Nicolas Cage. I must admit, it was fun to look for signs of when his stunt double was used, even though I know that Cage can’t perform those fancy flips and kicks. But the jarring transitions from well lit close-up shots of Cage’s famous mug to extreme wide-angle, master shots that depict terrific stunt work did make me smirk from time to time.
The film is directed and co-written by Dimitri Logothetis, whose producing and directing credits date back to the mid-1980s. More recently he’d focused on martial arts films that contain a healthy mixture of kickboxing and MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), two of which co-star the legendary Jean-Claude van Damme. Jiu Jitsu contains (notice that I didn’t write the word co-stars) Nicolas Cage, who tries really hard to downplay his usual zaniness throughout the combined 30 minutes that he’s in the film. His character isn’t crazy, so he doesn’t play him as crazy, and his character has an important reason for being in the film, aside from being an exposition machine. However, the film doesn’t actually care about the importance of his character, so he ends up being entirely undeveloped, and that’s pretty much the level of thought that went into writing this film’s screenplay.
Now, the main reason that this film is a bust is its own style - it’s excessive and annoying. While transitioning between scenes, the film adopts comic book panel aesthetics, and for absolutely no good reason. The film doesn’t look or feel like it was adapted from comic books, so everytime that there is a cartoony transition, the audience is taken out of the groove. And the fight choreography, while good on paper and during rehearsals, is shot in a miscalculated manner, utilizing long takes in all the wrong ways. Punches and kicks almost never actually connect in movies, and it’s up to the fight choreographer and DP (Director of Photography) to shoot the fight sequences in a manner that makes the hits look like they are actually connecting. That seldom happens throughout this film, and it’s also rather distracting.

There are almost no redeeming factors in this film, aside form the cast who is undoubtedly increadibly talented; the fight sequences gave me a headache, the scene transitions are plain wrong, there’s barely a story, and the film is too long, clocking in at 102 minutes.

If you love Nicholas Cage and will watch him in absolutely anything, even when he has a tiny role like he does here, then you needn’t have bothered to read this review. If you love martial arts films no matter what, same deal. But if you ask me, I’d recommend saving these few dollars on watching anything else that Tony Jaa, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, and Scott Adkins act in. That’s a good time no questions asked.

Jiu Jitsu will be available for streaming rentals and purchasing on November 20 ,2020.

Film Review - Jeepers Creepers 3 (2017)

The third instalment in a film series usually tends to have some resemblance to, or even a remembrance, of its predecessors. Or so you’d think. Roughly 30 minutes into Victor Salva’s Jeepers Creepers 3, all semblance of what made the original film interesting (and unique) is wiped away and replaced by everything that you don’t want in a monster movie: a villain turned goofy (both stylistically and aesthetically), too many scenes that take place during daytime, too much character exposition (in which all of it is superfluous), and a very, very silly and goofy final 30 minutes.

Oh, and there’s no point to the film, whatsoever, as a whole.

Jeepers Creepers 3 takes place in a small Louisiana town, in which all of its inhabitants are familiar with the tall tales and legends of the Creeper; a winged, possibly centuries old creature that hunts humans, skins them, eats them, and can even smell our fear. And apparently, it does so every 23 years. In the original film, it takes a long time before what the Creeper looks like is revealed to the audience, and when it’s revealed, it’s done under minimal lighting (to ramp up the creep factor, and for budgetary reasons). Even the fact that it can fly is a third act revelation. A couple of years later, a sequel was made, and for the life of me I can’t recall even a single event that had transpired in it. But I remember watching it in the theatres and I remember hating it. Now comes Jeepers Creepers 3…

…and it’s also very, very bad. For starters, every cop in town wants to hunt the creature down; there’s an old woman whose son had encountered the Creeper 23 years ago, found and buried its severed hand (I’m still not sure how that happened), died at the hands of the Creeper, and now haunts his elderly mother and periodically warns her about the Creeper’s imminent arrival and its intent; that elderly mother’s granddaughter who dislikes a local bad-boy (who really doesn’t have a reason to be in the film), and a local farm boy who feels bad for the girl and her situation… how they all fit together is immaterial because it’s all misdirection. It’s misdirection that leads to nothing.

There’s also the discovery that if the Creeper’s severed hand is touched, the person touching it is magically lifted into the air, put into a trance, and is shown the Creeper’s entire backstory and origin. Not one but two of the film’s major characters go through this ritual, and not once is any of this is shared with the audience. These characters make a point of staring at the camera, claiming that they now know everything about the Creeper, and not sharing any of that useless information with the audience.

And when I write “useless”, I seriously mean useless. I'd love to spoil the last 5 minutes of the film, how utterly goofy and silly they are, and how they feel like 2 or 3 different directors had worked on this project, and all at the same time… but alas, I can’t. As much as I’d love to, the Code of the Critic forbids me from doing so, unfortunately.

Honestly, I was somewhat looking forward to this film. It’s been 14 years coming, and knowing that it was still made after 14 years and released straight to VOD (Video On Demand) should have been an ample warning. And here’s the good news: most of the film is, honestly, shot and lit very, very well. Victor Silva is no slouch. He does the best that he can with such tiny budgetary constraints and a gross lack of resources (and mostly Gods awful CG), but he has a very good eye for shot compositions, camera movements and fluidity, and lighting. The rest is utter trash. There’s no actually story in the film, not even a plot; most of the character are overwritten without being important, and they usually deliver clumsy and superfluous exposition; the dialogue is atrocious and entirely unrealistic; and, as aforementioned, the CG is Gods awful.

So, it’s well shot and lit and some of the performances are needlessly decent, but what makes up the rest of the film is horrendous. It’s not a complete waste of time, seeing that anyone can watch it in the comfort of their own home, and probably for cheap (or even free), but it’s not even close to being a decent film. I’d say… skip it. Yup. Even if it’s on Netflix, skip it. Just rewatch the original film from 2001 and ignore this one. You’ll dig the original film. It’s short, unique, thoroughly creepy, and gets straight to the point.

Victor Silva… no more Creeper films. Please. You’ve ruined it, twice.

Film Review - Deadpool (2016)

Humour is subjective, which is why it’s always difficult to review a comedy. And make no mistake, Deadpool is a comedy. Is it a good comedy? You’ll find out soon.

Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) was a mercenary who upon being dishonourably discharged from the military began working “for the little people”, usually in the form of roughing up jerks. One day, he meets with a prostitute named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) and they fall in love with each other. Together they have a relationship that’s mostly hinted at being sexually explicit, but this is not the type of film that takes chances. More on that in a bit.

A few months go by and Wade learns that he has contracted an incurable form of cancer. Vanessa wants to help Wade through his upcoming tough time, but Wade decides to leave her because he wants Vanessa to remember him as he used to be and not to have to suffer alongside him.

In his search for a potential cure, Wade is met with a man who sells him on the idea that a cure does indeed exist, and Wade decides to take it. And here enters the film’s villain Francis (Ed Skrein). Francis, a mutant who can’t physically or emotionally feel anything, informs Wade that he too will be turned into a mutant and possibly even a superhero. However, the process requires days, if not weeks of physical torture and Francis takes pleasure in torturing Wade. However, the moment that Francis informs Wade of his true intentions behind creating mutants (which is too silly to mention here), Wade escapes the facility. Later on, Wade will decide to hunt Francis down and kill him.

Here’s my first big problem with the film: Wade’s motivation throughout the entirety of the film makes no sense. The mutation treatment does actually cause Wade’s cancer to subside, but it also disfigures his entire body to the point of resembling Freddy Krueger’s. Just not as badly. Wade then dubs himself Deadpool, dons himself a costume, and tracks down Francis with the full intention of having Francis turn him back to normal.
…and all for the sake of getting back with Vanessa. However, now that he “looks like an avocado that had sex with another, older avocado”, he believes that Vanessa won’t even give him the time of day.

Really? I know that this is an adaptation of the popular early ‘90s comic book series but the script borrows from the “book of indie film relationships” and it tries its damndest to have relatable, human characters (ish) who look and speak like real human beings. Yet, in a rational, realistic world, Vanessa wouldn’t care less what Wade looks like if she truly loved him. They were going to marry at some point, but Wade pulled away from her because he loved her enough to not want her to suffer alongside him. So what made him think that his ugliness would push her away?

There is another comic book series from the early ‘90s that has a similar premise, and that’s “Spawn. Its protagonist, Al Simmons, dies of an explosion but is eventually resurrected by The Devil himself. It‘s a raw deal, however, because Al then looks exactly like he did when he died: a charred, horrifically disfigured corpse. His motivation for not approaching his wife and revealing his face to her is sound, but he continues to protect her from afar regardless, because he loves her.
Wade, in this film, doesn’t look nearly as bad as Al does, but he doesn’t even stick to Vanessa like a guardian angel. He just casually stalks her like in a romantic indie film, waiting for the perfect moment to reveal his new face to her. Not trusting Vanessa to love him solely for who he is took me out of the film from early on and the film didn’t captivate or interest me in any way, as a result.

And here’s another big problem that I have with this film: in the comics, pre-cancer Wade is a mercenary nicknamed “The Merc with a Mouth” because he’s always cracking jokes and has somewhat of a low attention span, kinda like Spider-Man (but not Peter Parker). But Wade cracks jokes even outside of battle. He’s annoying to those around him, but he’s still likable. In this film, pre-cancer Wade is annoying and is an unlikable (pardon the French) asshole. He narrates the film from time to time and constantly reminds the audience that he’s not a superhero, or even a hero or a good person. I find that removing what little there was to like about Wade from early on was a huge mistake because after Wade is turned into Deadpool, Deadpool develops a split personality. In the comics, Deadpool has two different colour speech bubbles, signifying when Wade is talking and when Deadpool is talking. Wade is still The Merc with a Mouth, but Deadpool is constantly breaking the fourth wall, and is even aware that he’s a comic book character. He says random things all the time, and he loves chimichangas and boobies. He’s infantile, but is also mostly cleverly written. In this film, he’s almost the same before and after his mutation. There’s little change, and as a result I was annoyed, bordering on boredom. Add his (personally) pathetic, unrealistic motivation for revenge and the film is a dud. It’s a slog, even at 100 minutes, there are very few action sequences throughout it, and the humour almost always fall flat.

In my opening sentence I’d mentioned that humour is very subjective; subjectivity is the deciding factor of whether humans, as individual people, enjoy certain comedic films or not. I didn’t find most of the humour in this film funny or even interesting because it was mostly improvised. I’m not a fan of improvisational comedy in general, and I wasn’t a fan of it in this film. I find that it generally takes away from actually clever, humorous writings and that it confines situational comedy into one-liners that don’t propel the story forward. Such is the case with the humour in this film, and as a comedy I find that it majorly fails. Deadpool’s story is driven by jokes, and jokes don’t power stories. And the plot is already weak and unrealistic (even for a comic book adaptation), and I’m starting to repeat myself.

There are also very few action sequences in the film, as aforementioned briefly two paragraphs above, but let’s talk about clichés, instead. Besides being improvisational, the film’s style of comedic writing thrives on being self-aware. Not only is Deadpool aware that he’s a character in a film, but he addresses the audience on several occasions and comments on popular clichés and action/superhero film tropes before and after they appear. To me that’s always been a double edged sword because that affords the writers a one-time ticket to cram their script full of clichés. You can really only get away with it once. That’s why movies like Cabin in the Woods won’t have successful sequels. And at the end of the day, Deadpool has generic action set-pieces (only two, actually), and a final climactic battle that takes place outside of a warehouse/shipping yard/construction site (take your pick). And when the film’s production looks cheap, Deadpool simply jokes about the fact that they can’t afford something better, and poof! The audience laughs because the film is self-aware. Well, guess what? The film still looks cheap. Commenting on it won’t fix it, it’s simply a form of misdirection, and I find it to be dishonest. Some of the special effects also looked very cheap, most notably Colossus.

Deadpool is slightly different than Disney’s MCU films in a good way. But it’s still not much more than a different kind of cartoon. It’s definitely sillier, but it revels in being silly. DC films can learn a thing or two. And the marketing spews an R rating onto the audience, but it’s a very soft R. It’s barely violent, you see a strip club for 5 seconds, and every character in the film speaks like a teenager who’d just watched a Judd Apatow film for the first time. It’s infantile and it’s silly.

Did I like this film? Not really. Was it funny? Hardly ever. Was it entertaining? Not really. But I wasn’t bored, and that goes a long way. I really wanted to like this film because it’s nice to see murderous anti-heroes like Deadpool receive R rated film adaptations, but this film lacks what makes for a good action film, a good comedy, and a good comic book film adaptation. Better luck next time.

New on DVD and Blu-ray - July 15, 2014

A Night in Old Mexico (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray

Armored Attack (aka The North Star, 1943) - Olive Films DVD and Blu-ray

Arch of Triumph (1948) - Olive Films DVD and Blu-ray

Black Dynamite: Season 1 - DVD and Blu-ray - Grade B-

Hell on Wheels: Season 3 - DVD and Blu-ray

Kill la Kill Vol. 1 - DVD and Blu-ray

Marty (1955) - Kino Video DVD and Blu-ray - Grade A

Open Grave (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray

Orphan Black: Season 2 - DVD and Blu-ray

Pickpocket (1959) - Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray - Grade A+

Rio 2 (2014) - DVD and Blu-ray

Road to Paloma (2014) - DVD and Blu-ray

Scanners (1981) - Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray - Grade A

Under the Skin (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray - Grade B+

New on DVD and Blu-ray - July 08, 2014

Bad Words (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray - Grade B+

Born Yesterday (1950) - Blu-ray

Brannigan (1975) - Screen Archives Entertainment Blu-ray

Caught (1949) - Blu-ray

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray - Grade A

The Lost Moment (1947) - Blu-ray

Nymphomaniac: Volumes I and II (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray

Point Blank (1967) - Blu-ray - Grade A

Radio Days (1987) - Screen Archives Entertainment Blu-ray - Grade A

The Raid 2: Berandal (2014) - DVD and Blu-ray - Grade C+

Rigor Mortis (2013) - DVD and Blu-ray

Southern Comfort (1981) - Blu-ray

The Time Machine (1960) - Blu-ray - Grade A-

The Vanquished (1953) - RaroVideo U.S. DVD and Blu-ray

Violent Saturday (1955) - Screen Archives Entertainment Blu-ray - Grade B+