FilM

Power out

Oh, come on, DC! You did it so right with Wonder Woman, and this was your chance to really bring things home with your superhero universe! You blew it!

Justice League is a full-blown, expensive mess where some of our favorite superheroes battle an apocalyptic force while two seriously different directors, Zack Snyder and Joss Whedon, battle with their filmmaking styles.

It’s no big secret that Zack Snyder (who created two execrable duds with Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice) had to leave late in production due to family reasons. Joss Whedon (The Avengers) stepped in for post-production and major reshoots. The resultant catastrophe is like a swig of boxed wine that has been left out in the sun for three weeks, chased with a big chug of Sunny Delight. Neither is a taste sensation you want in your face.

The action picks up after the death of Superman (Henry Cavill), with Batman (Ben Affleck) still brooding while observing Gotham being invaded by bug-like alien creatures. It turns out they’re the envoys of Steppenwolf, the very worst special effects/CGI bad guy you will see ever in a big budget blockbuster.

Steppenwolf is shoddy CGI that looks like the late singer of Alice and Chains had sex with a California Raisin, and then their offspring had sex with a Meat Loaf album cover. Finally, the Meat Loaf album cover baby had sex with an Atari video game console from the early ’80s that had an E.T. game still stuck in it. That ugly-as-shit offspring went for a walk in Hollywood and crossed paths with Zack Snyder, who—for some ungodly reason—put a dopey helmet on it and screamed, “Behold, my next film’s villain!”

Anyway, Steppenwolf comes to Earth looking for the Mother Boxes, the DC Universe’s version of the Marvel Universe’s Infinity Stones. They combine to rule all worlds, or some bullshit. Batman thinks this is bad, so he gathers the planet’s superheroes, including Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and Cyborg, a.k.a. The Worst Superhero Ever (Ray Fisher).

A big piece of the blockbuster puzzle is missing with Superman six feet under, so Batman decides to bring his corpse back to that ship where Lex Luthor made Doomsday out of Michael Shannon. It made no sense in Batman v Superman, and it makes no sense now but, yes, Superman comes back, Jesus-style, in this movie, and the only thing that looks worse than Steppenwolf in this flick is Henry Cavill’s freaky face.

Cavill had a beard during reshoots, so they had to digitally remove that for much of his footage. To say that his face looks altered would be an understatement. This is a very handsome man we are talking about, but he looks wonky for much of his screen time, like his face is a high definition video trying to upload with a 3G network on an older cellular phone. He looks all smudgy and garbled. It’s not a good look for him—major combination skin problem.

OK, back to the stupid movie. The Justice League gets together and predictably battles Steppenwolf in a sequence that offers no surprises and features more terrible special effects and editing. It isn’t only Steppenwolf and Henry Cavill who look like shit in this movie. The humans don’t blend at all with the CGI melee and always look stuck into an unwieldy gigabyte maelstrom. It’s hard on the eyes.

Gadot still rocks as Wonder Woman in her every moment on screen, and Miller makes for a fun Flash. Affleck seems a bit tired of the Batman role. Momoa is just a wisecracker Aquaman, and Fisher is dreary as Cyborg. The Superman parts could’ve been so cool, but damn it if his uneven face doesn’t distract. It really brings out his teeth in a bad way; they are frighteningly pointy. He looks like a scary Superman vampire.

Whedon was handed a morose mess by Snyder, and he didn’t have enough time and post-production talent to save the enterprise. The few moments where the film brings a smile have everything to do with Whedon, and nothing to do with Snyder, who seriously needs to move onto other projects. Ω

“Now, where did i park my invisible plane?”

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4Blade Runner 2049 Ridley Scott’s original sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner came out in 1982—35 years ago. Scott has tooled with the cut of that movie numerous times, resulting in a final cut that was released about 10 years ago. While there was a lot of monkeying—in a good way—with the original, it didn’t seem there was much thought, or chance, for an actual sequel. The original was a box-office bomb and didn’t start gaining its classic status until a decade after its release. In fact, critics beat up on it a bit. Here in 2017, we actually do get a sequel, this time directed by Denis Villeneuve, the visionary behind Enemy and Arrival. (Scott remains involved as a producer.) Harrison Ford, who has classically moaned about the original movie, has, nonetheless, returned to play blade runner Rick Deckard. A terrific Ryan Gosling steps into the starring role of K, a new blade runner tasked with “retiring” older model replicants, the synthetic humans originated by the likes of Rutger Hauer and Daryl Hannah in the original. Other than the presence of Ford in the final act of the movie, and the vision of Pan Am and Atari logos still present in the Los Angeles skyline, there’s little to make this one feel like a standard sequel.

1Jigsaw This film pulls the Jigsaw Killer (Tobin Bell) out of the mothballs and finds a way for the permanently scowling, droning party pooper to commence elaborate killings again. Hey, LionsGate needs a hit, and nobody over there is concerned about quality or making a lick of sense when it comes to this franchise. This mess is living proof of that. Things start in that oh-so-familiar, Saw way, with a bunch of people trapped in a room and chained to contraptions that threaten to disembowel them. They are all bad people who must confess their crimes or face the wrath of Jigsaw and a rather stellar makeup department. This movie is idiotic, but the gore masters do some pretty decent yucky stuff. There’s a half-sawed-off head moment that was quite good. Yeah, Jigsaw died in one of the past movies. I don’t remember which, and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back and watch them again to figure it out. I just know he died somewhere in the prior six films and lived on in flashbacks. The writers have come up with yet another way to return the crotchety psycho codger to the big screen because somebody at LionsGate needs one of those saltwater swimming pools and a new bike. Seven movies in, and I’ve yet to meet a Saw movie that I like. Jigsaw is more of the same, more of the lame.

4Novitiate Great actresses do great things in this stunner from writer-director Margaret Betts. Cathleen (Margaret Qualley) joins a convent in the 1960s, right in time for the major policy changes affecting nuns in the Catholic Church to be made via Vatican II. She’s devoted, seeking to be married to God for eternity, but also seeking to escape a dreary childhood and her troubled mother (Julianne Nicholson). On her way to becoming a nun, Cathleen and her fellow sisters must contend with the fierce Reverend Mother (a scary Melissa Leo, playing one of the year’s best villains). Reverend Mother has a few problems with Vatican II, refusing to adopt some of its more lenient policies, and continuing to practice something more akin to fraternity hazing. Leo is a coiled snake in this movie, and her outbursts are frightening. The film is a testament to a nun’s faith, because a lot of the girls stick around even though the lady in charge is totally insane. While Betts does focus upon the hypocrisy of organized religion, she doesn’t shy away from the potential beauties of religion, either. It’s an interesting balancing act she pulls off. Leo is probably in the running for awards consideration, but Qualley, and especially Nicholson as the confused mom, are equally powerful.

3Only the Brave After a slow start, Only the Brave becomes a solid tribute to the Granite Mountain Hotshots, who lost 19 men battling the massive Yarnell Hill Fire in 2013. The Hotshots were an elite Prescott, Arizona, crew led by veteran firefighter Eric Marsh, played here by Josh Brolin. Brolin’s performance ranks among his best, showing us a man presiding over his crew like a father to his sons. Marsh takes a risk on Brendan McDonough (Miles Teller), a former drug user seeking redemption and a decent living to help provide for his newborn daughter. The always reliable Teller matches Brolin’s acting triumph every step of the way, making both Marsh and McDonough fully fleshed, complicated and ultimately likeable characters. The two seem right at home with each other on screen. Director Joseph Kosinski (Oblivion, Tron: Legacy) takes a solid step beyond his prior sci-fi missteps to provide a movie that is technically sound, emotionally powerful, and just a little hokey and overlong in spots. By the time Kosinski shows the real-life firefighters alongside their Hollywood counterparts, the film has driven home a major message about and homage to these guys.

3Stranger Things 2 The gang is all back, just one year later, for another round of ’80s horror and sci-fi nostalgia, and maybe they should’ve taken a little more time to let things settle in. The new, intermittently enjoyable season feels a little stretched out and undercooked at times, with a lot of silly subplots mucking up the works. Will (Noah Schnapp) still sees visions of the Upside Down universe, the place he spent a good part of season one languishing in while his pals searched for him. It turns out Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), after her huge season one sacrifice going into the Upside Down, came back to our universe almost directly after, and is hiding out with Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) in a storyline that makes little sense. Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo), in a shameless nod to E.T., has captured a creature in his garbage can, and feeds it Three Musketeers bars instead of Reese’s Pieces. Winona Ryder overacts while Paul Reiser basically replaces Matthew Modine as the scientist guy. Season two manages to maintain the charm that made the first season so watchable, so fans won’t be disappointed. (Streaming on Netflix.)

4Thor: Ragnarok Somebody was smoking some laced wild shit and licking frogs when they put together Thor: Ragnarok, a film so nutty it easily surpasses the Guardians of the Galaxy films as the screwiest offering in the Marvel universe. When you hand the keys to the Thor franchise over to a director like Taika Waititi, you know you are going to get something bizarre, and Waititi doesn’t disappoint. Waititi is the New Zealand comic actor/director responsible for the hilarious vampire faux documentary What We Do in the Shadows and the funny family drama Hunt for the Wilderpeople. There’s really nothing on his resume that screams, “Hey, let’s have this guy direct an action-packed, highly expensive Thor film!” But he got the gig, so there you go. Borrowing from a host of Marvel comics, including the famed “Planet Hulk” storyline, the hallucinogenic plot drops Thor (Chris Hemsworth) on a crazy garbage planet bent on round-the-clock, violent entertainment and led by Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, finally getting a high-profile role worthy of him outside of a Wes Anderson film). The Grandmaster cuts Thor’s hair, dresses him in gladiator gear, and throws him into the ring for a weaponized bout with his prized competitor. That prized competitor is the Hulk, held captive on the planet for the past couple of years. He’s been nothing but the Hulk the whole time, with Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) trapped inside him. Thor and Hulk have a battle royale for the ages, followed by some great scenes where the Hulk actually speaks. There’s a whole other apocalyptic subplot going on, where Thor’s long-lost sister Hela (a striking and devilish Cate Blanchett decked out in black) is causing major havoc on his home planet of Asgard. Blanchett immediately sets herself high in the ranking of Marvel movie villains. She’s played a baddie before, but never this entertainingly.