Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

 

Score: C

Directed by Peyton Reed

Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton

Running time: 124 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  The most diminutive Marvel hero continues his adventures in Quantumania, alongside partner Hope, aka the Wasp, and company.  Ant-Man movies are usually the "detours" from the main Marvel narrative, but this one is intended as a major plot centerpiece, unfortunately.  The sci-fi blockbuster style here is 180 degrees from what we've seen before, and hope for.  There's still some fun to be had here, but by Marvel standards it's a significant failure.

Having helped the Avengers save Earth from destruction, Scott Lang (Rudd), aka Ant-Man, is taking full advantage of his celebrity, from writing a best-selling memoir to happily greeting a grateful public.  Not everyone in his family is as satisfied, however, particularly his daughter, Cassie (Newton).  The Quantum Realm - where Janet van Dyne (Pfeiffer) was once lost but where the Avengers also found the key to defeating Thanos - still holds many secrets, and Cassie has been determined to explore them.  Soon the entire family finds itself back in that strange dimension, though, and Janet's past returns to menace them.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the third Ant-Man film, is entertaining but among Marvel's weakest films, due to its trading the series' signature charm for a more generic blockbuster feel.  Ant-Man 1 and 2 focused on ex-con Scott's exploits in trying to rebuild his life, both helped and hindered by friends and family, as the superhero life interferes on (an appropriately) small scale.  The third film, however, fully dives into the sci-fi-heavy Quantum Realm that exists only on the periphery of the other films, showing a world that is at once overstuffed with creatures and cities but also disappointingly familiar.  The QR, and its "society", is essentially a mash up of Star Wars and Marvel's own Guardians of the Galaxy, complete with goofy-looking aliens and a rebellion.  Therefore, aside from a few minutes on Earth at the beginning, the style of the first Ant-Man movies is entirely replaced by that of those bigger, better-known sci-fi entities - and Quantumania is significantly worse off for it.  In addition to losing Ant-Man's con-artist, not-so-heroic zest and replacing it with broad, overly familiar sci-fi setting and plot, the script is also quite a bit weaker than Marvel's standards and not nearly as funny as it should be (at least, not for adults).

Perhaps the biggest factor in the success of the first Ant-Man movies was Scott's relationships, both old and new, but, while there are some character highlights here, they, too, suffer from blockbuster bloat.  The dynamics among them, each interesting as individuals, are dulled to stereotype thanks to overreliance on plot. Cassie, Scott's daughter, has been in the previous films in very small but very cute and effective roles.  There was so much potential here, now that she is a young adult, to show how a variety of influences - both good and bad - have shaped her.  But she is mostly a generic, strong, but still learning heir to the superheroes; I certainly welcome more strong female roles, I just wish the filmmakers gave her a unique and creative personality.  Scott and Janet get the other main roles; each gets enticing themes - for Scott, what his purpose is now that he's saved the world, for Janet, how she balances protecting yet being open with her family - but too much of their screentime is pulled into action and/or plot mechanics.  There are also two surprising cameos - one old face, entirely unnecessary and increasing the sci-fi ridiculousness, the other one new and much more welcome and hilarious.  Kang - introduced in the Loki streaming series, which it helps to have seen but not essential - is pretty interesting in his first scenes with Janet, but then turns into yet another generic villain, a surprisingly ineffective one at that.

There is plenty of action, which at least keeps the pace moving well (and at just over two hours, mercifully shorter than the gargantuan running times of other recent films).  But, once again, it suffers from the shift to sci-fi blockbuster.  There are a few neat ant-themed parts, especially a semi-psychedelic one in which an army of Ant-Man clones works together like an ant colony.  For the most part, though, the clever, subtle, sneaking action of the first Ant-Man movies is replaced by overdone big sci-fi laser battles.  There is, of course, a huge climactic battle.  But it almost pulls it off at the very end, when Ant-Man and Kang finally get a more visceral face-off, and we almost get a shocking conclusion that could have had intriguing carry-over into future Marvel films.  Instead, we get the clean, disappointing ending.  Sigh.

***

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is a little distressing to me as a big Marvel movie fan.  It's certainly disappointing that, by itself, it's just not nearly as good as its predecessors, especially because it completely abandoned their charming style.  But there is also the direction of the Marvel "universe" overall.  The multiverse theme has developed in a fairly meandering way until now.  Now that we seem to have a major new villain, essentially the new Thanos, the results are so far underwhelming.  I'd also like Marvel to stop the creep of Guardians of the Galaxy style into more and more of its films.  With, of course, a new Guardians movie coming later this year along with The Marvels, I'm very interested, though with unusual trepidation, to see where Marvel goes from here.  With two C-grade movies to start the year, I look forward to anything good, no matter the genre!

* By http://www.impawards.com/2023/antman_and_the_wasp_quantumania_ver4.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72090715

Knock at the Cabin

 

Score:  C-

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Starring Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge

Running time: 100 minutes

Rated R

Long Story Short:  Resurgent director M. Night Shyamalan's latest horror outing offers a twist on the old home invasion plot.  It features some nice roles, including an oddly but well-cast Dave Bautista, and the premise is quite intriguing.  But it goes exactly the wrong direction with the plot, for both creative and real-world considerations, and the film curdles with it.  Skip it.

A young family, dads Andrew (Aldridge) and Eric (Groff) and adopted daughter, Wen (Cui), take a vacation to a remote cabin in the woods, merrily singing and catching grasshoppers.  Literally out of the blue, however, an enormous but seemingly peaceful man named Leonard (Bautista) introduces himself to Wen while she plays near the cabin.  Growing more frightened, Wen runs back to alert Andrew and Eric, but soon the family is taken hostage by a group of four strangers.  The strangers insist that they don't want to hurt the family - but that they must force the family to make a decision, one that will decide the fate of the planet.

**Warning: major plot spoilers ahead! (this is an M. Night Shyamalan film)**

Knock at the Cabin is a decently well-made psychological horror film, thanks to quality acting and some nice suspense, but it is ultimately ruined by taking the wrong path with its main plot and not exploiting the potential of its intriguing premise.  I don't usually watch horror films, and while I enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, I haven't seen any other movies by him in a long time.  But I was drawn to the possibility of a horror of ideas rather than the blood and guts I avoid.  The cast does a good job here, creating a believable setup early on and holding it together as well as possible as the plot becomes strained to breaking.  Bautista, not the world's most talented actor IMO, brings a jarring, almost disturbing, gentility to his character.  His team - including Ron from Harry Potter - are bit players but interesting, and Aldridge and Groff as the dads help create some emotional connection to their plight.  The dialogue is decent, the pacing pretty good, and the tone stays pretty consistent and tense (at least until the very end).

The undoing of the movie comes in its creative choices.  The family is asked to sacrifice one of their own in order to avert a global apocalypse, so the main question is: is this just a sick game that the strangers are playing to terrorize the family, or do these seeming-wackos actually know something that could help prevent catastrophe?  From both a creative perspective and one relating to the real world we live in, the answer should have been: they're just wackos (even if sincere ones).  The apocalypse soon begins to unfold, one step at a time, and as it does, it gets more and more ridiculous rather than horrifying (giant tsunami? - OK; people filming planes falling out of the sky everywhere? unintentionally silly).  By going the other way, the film would give the family's resistance more meaning, and Shyamalan could have played with more tricks to make it seem like an apocalypse might occur.  Even more importantly, the apocalypse story line is exactly the wrong plot for our time.  Society often feels overrun with lunatic conspiracy theories - from vaccines killing people (or at least "tracking" them) to secret pedophile elites to rigged or stolen elections.  Knock at the Cabin could have sent a strong message by saying: the wackos may be sincere and scary, but they are WRONG.  Instead, we get just another series of inexplicable (the film doesn't even try to explain) disasters, as if asking the audience to shrug its shoulders and say "what a pity."

***

Well, my decision to go off my usual movie path, via Knock at the Cabin, was a failure.  I probably won't be going to see any more horror movies for a long time (by the way, what the heck is it that makes people want to see them - particularly the slashers?).  I do want to encourage Hollywood to try more intriguing ideas like this one starts out with - just make sure you've got filmmakers who can handle material that's outside the norm.  Hopefully there will be another Oscar contender or two coming to theaters before the ceremony arrives, but at the very least, fun action movies are right around the corner (starting with Ant-Man 3 next week!).  For now, skip this one and stay in for something better on streaming.

* By http://www.impawards.com/2023/knock_at_the_cabin_ver3.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72371404

The Fabelmans

 

Score:  B+

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Starring Gabriel LaBelle, Michelle Williams, Paul Dano

Running time: 151 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Steven Spielberg puts a version of his upbringing on the big screen in The Fabelmans, an Oscar-contending drama.  Audiences get a vivid and intriguing portrait of a young Steven (here known as Sam) and his family, with strong performances from parents Michelle Williams and Paul Dano.  But I feel that it puts too much emphasis on this fairly typical (if well-produced) family drama and not enough on the young lead's prodigious artistic talent.  It is certainly worth a night at the theater, however, and your own consideration as it vies for Best Picture.

In the early 1950s, Burt (Dano) and Mitzi (Williams) Fabelman take their young son, Sam, to his first movie in the theater.  He is transfixed by a train crash and becomes obsessed with recreating it.  Before long, Sam fills his childhood days with film projects.  As the family moves from state to state, due to Burt's rising star career in computer science, cracks begin to form in their tight-knit relationships.  Artistic talent runs in the family on Mitzi's side - herself a gifted pianist - but Burt, while kind and patient, sees little use in such unpragmatic endeavors.  Like so many young people, Sam is forced to choose between his passions and expectations.

The Fabelmans is a very well-made movie as expected from legendary director Steven Spielberg, but it's much different than his usual work and suffers - in my opinion - from misplaced focus.  When I think of Spielberg, I first think about movies like Jurassic Park, Jaws, E.T., and Indiana Jones.  While he's made plenty of more serious movies, too, from Schindler's List to The Post, The Fabelmans is much closer to a more standard Oscar bait-y prestige drama than anything I've seen from him.  Digging deeper, most of his movies are story-focused, whether it's on fantastic or historic themes, with well-shaped characters to give them strong humanity.  This movie is the opposite, focusing on its characters and treating story as an add-on.  To Spielberg's credit, and his co-writer Tony Kushner and the performers, those characters are well done.  I especially liked the family relationships and dynamics, ranging from Sam's filming with his sisters and friends, to realistic parenting, to standout work from Michelle Williams as Sam's mom and a small but scene-stealing role for Judd Hirsch as his great-uncle.

The main problem of the film, to me, is one of misplaced focus with the story - what is usually Spielberg's greatest strength.  Perhaps this is because The Fabelmans is semi-autobiographical; he may have been understandably drawn to the more influential parts of his own life.  But as interesting as he makes his parents' broken relationship, it gradually takes over the movie, pushing Sam's/Steven's filmmaking development to the side.  There are some intriguing ways that Spielberg combine the two, during a fateful camping trip, and the performers - even a surprising Seth Rogen - do a great job with it.  However, I would have much preferred seeing Sam, who is kind of underdeveloped despite this being a two-and-a-half hour movie, kept in the center and going deeper into the neat, DIY movie world that's tantalizingly introduced.  There are several side elements - tension with Burt's career path, and connection with Mitzi's artistry - that definitely work well, so the opportunities to keep family life involved but secondary were there.  Sam's experience in a new school in the last third of the film is the worst and most awkward part of the biography, a failed attempt to give him more to do.  Between it and the divorce plot, the movie is just too sad - another departure from typical Spielberg.  If only it had been more consistently like the movie's final scene, one of its best.  Sam gets to meet his filmmaking idol, and the encounter is funny, creative, and positive, if a little tense at first.  That's what I expect from Spielberg.

***

Now that Oscar nominations have been made, The Fabelmans is the first of the contenders I've gotten to see in the run up to the ceremony (though I also saw a few others last year).  The Fabelmans is the latest in a trend of directors putting their own childhoods on the big screen; the immediate comparison to me is Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, though I'm pretty sure there are others.  If anyone has earned the right to a little personal artistic indulgence, it's Steven Spielberg.  I don't think this type of film is quite his wheelhouse yet he has still made a strong film; I just wish it was configured a bit differently.  Hopefully there will be some more awards contenders coming soon - mixed with some midwinter surprises.  Until next time!

* By Internet Movie Database, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71702334

The Pale Blue Eye

 

Score:  B

Directed by Scott Cooper

Starring Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Lucy Boynton, Toby Jones

Running time: 128 minutes

Rated R

Long Story Short:  Christian Bale stars as the detective in this gloomy period mystery that, for most people, is a Netflix-only streamer.  Bale's co-star, Melling, gets the famous role of Edgar Allen Poe, and not only are both of them great, but the acting all round is impressive.  Unfortunately, the pacing of the film is not great and some of the movie's potential - in story and character development - is lost as a result.  Still, it's worth taking a shot on it at home, as long as you're not looking for fast-paced or action-packed.

In 1830, the hanging of a cadet at West Point brings detective Augustus Landor (Bale) out of retirement to find the culprit.  He soon finds the crime is even more unusual than first observed, and the military academy is soon on edge.  Another cadet, by the name of Edgar A. Poe, takes interest in the case and offers his help to Landor.  While Poe is very bright and has essential institutional and personal experience, Landor becomes increasingly frustrated as he finds much silence and deceit, and little evidence.  After another murder, however, the urgency of the case grows as well as the danger to both Landor and Poe.

The Pale Blue Eye is a solid, suspenseful period mystery, highlighted by its actors, but it's held back from the top tier by a plodding pace and character and story development issues.  One of the film's strengths is its atmosphere, provided by nice cinematography that has a (literally and metaphorically) chilly feel and a tone that provides a sense of foreboding yet not outright horror (though a warning, there are a few gruesome shots).  Unfortunately, the movie starts out quite slowly; it really could have used a nice opening hook to pull the audience in more quickly.  The intrigue does build steadily, though, especially once all the main characters are introduced, but in the final third of the movie, the pace actually gets a little too quick in a few important spots.  Even as the quality of the central mystery ebbs and flows, though, the acting is a pleasure throughout.  Christian Bale, the lead as the detective, is great, of course, in a fairly spare yet still entertaining way.  Harry Melling (nasty cousin Dudley from Harry Potter) is the surprise standout as the famous Poe, just a lowly cadet in this film.  His accent, style of speech, and subtle body language are all great and he strikes the right balance of being utterly confident in his intelligence yet at times reluctant or passive due to his low social standing.  There are plenty of fun supporting roles, too, from an at-the-breaking-point matriarch (Anderson) and her sought-after but independent daughter (Boynton) to the head officers at West Point (McBurney and Spall).

A good mystery reveals information - evidence, characters' relationships, etc. - at just the right times, to build suspense and keep the audience as highly engaged as possible.  Unfortunately, The Pale Blue Eye fumbles this a bit.  For example, there is a major twist at the end of the film and while surprising (to me), it both makes sense and has the potential for an emotionally impactful ending.  The problem is that we are given only the tiniest clues about this twist earlier in the film and, more importantly, insufficient personal development to prepare the audience and "earn" that final twist.  And while the Landor-Poe relationship is developed well, certain side characters - some of whom become crucial to the mystery - are introduced too late and their development is taken as a given when it really isn't, leading to that "did I miss something?" feeling.  The running time of just over two hours is in theory ideal, yet it seems both drawn out and rushed at times thanks to the pacing issues.

***

For the first (and probably last) time ever, I got to see a movie that was playing "only in select theaters" - thanks to the fact that part of it was filmed in my neck of the woods (including on the college campus where I work!).  So I must admit that I was a little distracted while watching it, since I was on the look out for scenes in places personally familiar to me.  When the movie ended, I felt rather disappointed but my opinion of it has improved as I've thought about it more.  Ultimately, I'd say it's worth watching, primarily for the really good acting, but a Netflix viewing is probably sufficient (even though I still am very much in favor of going to a theater to see a movie rather than at home...).  After this, I'm hopeful that Oscar movie season will finally get in full swing - and in fact, a major awards contender is coming to my theater next week!  So stay tuned, and check this one out if you get the chance.

* By Netflix - Netflix., Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72253321

Spirited

 

Score:  A

Directed by Sean Anders

Starring Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer

Running time: 127 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Funny guys Ferrell and Reynolds team up in one of the starriest Christmas movies in years, a new Christmas Carol adaptation.  It's a shame this was not produced as a wide theatrical release (I got lucky it was in my local theater), as it's a great cinematic experience.  The stars are on their game and, with a wildly creative script behind them, everything falls into place.  Highly recommended, even if (*sigh*) you have to stream it.

Not content with their work on Mr. Scrooge, Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet-To-Come are still at work in the world, helping one "perp" at a time.  Christmas Present (Ferrell), who has worked well past retirement age, finds one last perp, named Clint (Reynolds), he wants to turn around, despite Marley's objections.  Clint soon turns out to be one of the most challenging cases yet, though, and the annual pattern of redemption soon falls apart.  The spirit world and the living world begin to intertwine, and more is changed than just one rotten soul.

Spirited is an excellent new holiday movie, its acting, humor, creativity, and themes coming together for one of the more truly magical experiences to come along in years.  The story is, of course, a variation on A Christmas Carol - but only the broadest elements (the Ghosts, tale of redemption) remain alongside a fresh, modernized plot.  Some adaptations/reboots just make a mess of things when they try to do that, but the creativity of Spirited's world and the quality of its development are top-notch.  Much of the film's considerable humor comes from its stars' talent, but a good part of it comes from winking at or poking fun of itself ("not another song!!").  While the songs and the dancing are not quite as spectacular as some other recent musicals, they are still very impressive, with both Ferrell and Reynolds performing well alongside plenty of professional background players.  Spirited also, in my view, makes better use of its musical scenes to further the narrative - and I found it much easier to understand what they were singing, too!

Along with the showy musical numbers, there is some neat effects work, particularly as the characters quickly move through time periods and locations.  However, it's the characters and acting that hold the most interest, as the best movies do.  Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds are perfectly cast, to start, and have great chemistry.  It's been some time now since Ferrell's heyday, and this is a great transition role in his career.  He still gets the lead (he's 1A, Reynolds is 1B) which means he plays a bit more of the straightforward role, yet he's still got plenty of quirks, allowing his comedic sensibility to flourish; a little Elf here, a little Anchorman there.  But he also shows impressive dramatic range too, as he has in Stranger Than Fiction and others.  Reynolds, the star here who's in his prime, provides the wattage needed for his role - a big, confident, um, asshole.  Yes, Reynolds is an unusual star who can convincingly play an anti-hero but still be sympathetic.  Octavia Spencer gets the top supporting role, and good for the filmmakers to finally move her away from her typical characters; she's much more balanced here, though not a major presence.  And the rest of the cast is stuffed with good performances, especially Patrick Page's Marley, Sunita Mani's Christmas Past, and a few hilarious surprises (don't spoil them for yourself!).  The movie is well-paced, with plenty of "action" (simply meaning, "things happening") and great dialogue.  And while the themes and messages are similar to what you've seen before, of course, they are very well focused and developed, leading to a conclusion that earns its emotional pay off.

***

I'm glad that I got to see Spirited in theaters at all, since I thought that this would only be streaming.  Hopefully you'll have a chance to see it that way, too, as it's definitely worth the trip!  Rotten Tomatoes gave this, along with fellow holiday movie standout Violent Night, positive but underwhelming scores: don't listen to the critics!  These are very different approaches to the genre, of course, but both are very worthy additions to the Christmas canon (Spirited will have a broader audience thanks to its lack of bloody violence).  Well, this may be it for me for the holiday season at the movie theater, a much different one than usual.  First, I saw not one but two holiday genre movies (which is rare), but I also may not see any blockbuster movies (also rare; the one that is available this year is the Avatar sequel, but I thought the original was way overrated and I don't want to contribute my money to James Cameron's ego).  Hopefully movies with Oscar buzz will soon make their way to theaters as we get closer to awards season.

* By Apple TV+ - http://www.impawards.com/2022/posters/spirited_ver5_xxlg.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71831081

Violent Night

 

Score:  A-

Directed by Tommy Wirkola

Starring David Harbour, John Leguizamo, Leah Brady

Running time: 112 minutes

Rated R

Long Story Short:  Violent Night brings out the Yippee-Ki-Yay in Santa Claus in a holiday film you never expected.  Combining bloody action and non-stop humor with - somehow - Christmas cheer, the director, writers, actors, and all involved somehow make it work brilliantly.  This Santa's favorite beverage is definitely not milk, but it goes down just as smooth.  Possibly a new Christmas classic - highly recommended (if you can stomach it).

Santa (Harbour) is getting tired of his job.  Despite the milk, cookies, and booze he consumes at each household, he is depressed by some childrens' increasing demands, usually for cash or the newest video game.  However, one Christmas Eve, he flies down a chimney to find himself in the middle of a hostage situation.  A wealthy matriarch has brought her adult children and grandchildren home, and their domestic tensions are exacerbated by a carefully planned, violent heist.  Even with his advanced age and apathy, Santa still has a little magic left, though - and he's ready to give both the nice kids and the naughty kids on his list what they deserve.

Somehow, Violent Night is both exciting, hilarious - and, yes, full of holiday spirit - and just maybe a new Christmas classic.  As a friend described to me, it's essentially a mash up of Die Hard, Home Alone, and John Wick (the first two are Christmas movies, at least!).  There are so many ways that this concept could have gone wrong, ranging from plain dumb to grossly offensive.  However, the direction, writing, and performances are all very good and in sync, leading to an experience that's more than the sum of its parts.  With that said, I still have to warn that this is not for everyone due to several scenes of gore and brutal violence (although, if you're on the fence, I recommend trying it on streaming - and fast forward when needed).  Yes, this movie somehow seamlessly combines the very different tones of Home Alone, a silly heart-warmer, and John Wick, a hardcore actioner with some sadistic humor.  It avoids the pitfalls of either of those two tracks: it's neither nihilistic or celebratory in the bloodshed nor overly sappy or sentimental in the family scenes.  And coming in at a little under two hours, the pacing is very good with an effective intermixing of its nice and naughty elements.

David Harbour, of Stranger Things, was a great choice as the grizzled Santa, and he seems to thoroughly enjoy himself.  To start with, he simply is physically convincing in the role, but he also achieves a nice, delicate balance between the cynical side and his love for children and the job built over (???) years.  The supporting cast is also great, with good guys, bad guys, and some in between.  A black-white couple and their daughter are the core trio, with dad still trying to overcome his toxic upbringing and the young girl providing an adorable and crucial dose of innocence.  The in-laws have fun hamming it up, nastily greedy and selfish; their fates vary, with some surprises.  And the bad guys are good, too, led by veteran evil-doer John Leguizamo.  The action is very well conceived and choreographed, particularly Santa's first two fights in which he is essentially a regular fat guy in a ridiculous costume.  The main battle royale is over-the-top, yet clever and doesn't drag on too long.  And a Home Alone tribute scene is just brilliant, with significantly more blood than its predecessor but just as many laughs.  Humor is consistent throughout the film, the laugh rate and variety very impressive.  The script is much better than most of Hollywood's recent comedic efforts, rock-solid even in the slower parts and sprinkling in some great recurring signature lines.  Finally, there are also some great needle drops, although I feel they missed an opportunity when, with Santa chasing the bad guys on snowmobiles, they failed to play Here Comes Santa Claus!

***

Violent Night definitely came as a surprise for me; in fact, I saw it with friends on the spur of the moment. I hadn't seen a new Christmas movie in theaters for years, as most of them are usually rom-coms or otherwise dull-looking or pandering.  I'm glad I gave this one a try, though, as it most certainly breaks out of the usual holiday film mold.  Yet it is far from content to simply subvert expectations; it does a damn good job in the details, execution, and perhaps most importantly, tone.  I will be following this up with yet another Christmas movie, in fact, since, to my pleasant surprise, Apple's newest streamer Spirited is coming to my local theater.  Once again, Violent Night is not for everyone - but if you can handle it, you'll find that it's one of Hollywood's most fun gifts this year.

* By Universal Pictures - https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12003946/mediaviewer/rm1186005505/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71761396

Devotion

 

Score:  C

Directed by J.D. Dillard

Starring Jonathan Majors and Glenn Powell

Running time: 138 minutes

Rated PG-13

Long Story Short:  Based on a true story, Devotion focuses on a rare set of wingmen in Jesse (Majors) and Tom (Powell), sent to battle during the Korean War.  The set up, combining fascinating historical events in desegregation of the military and the ("forgotten") Korean War, are sidelined in this extremely generic, predictable, and artless war movie.  The script writers and many of the actors here are clearly Hollywood's "B" team, at best.  Skip this.

In 1950, shortly after the desegregation of the United States armed forces, Navy aviator Lieutenant Tom Hudner (Powell) joins a new squadron that includes a single Black man, Jesse Brown (Majors).  The two struggle for the same objectives - the respect of their team and a chance to serve their country - in different ways, and soon get the chance to do so when the squadron is deployed at the dawn of the Cold War.  Despite coming from much different backgrounds, the men develop a bond, one that is both tested and cemented in the cauldron of war.

Devotion is a flop of a war movie, due to poor filmmaking and a lack of artistic creativity and vision.  It's particularly unfortunate, too, because the movie's premise is quite intriguing:  a focus on a Black and white friendship just as the armed forces desegregated (but still several years before the Brown decision) and dealing with an extremely neglected event in the Korean War.  Now, there are some worthy elements in the movie.  The fighter plane action and aerial stunts are engaging (though put to shame by the Top Gun sequel) and much of the production (costumes, sets) feel authentic and believable.  The best scene in the movie is one of the few that's both artistic and moving:  Jesse, preparing himself for a crucial test flight, looks directly in a mirror, and you see only his face, morphing from rage, to despair, to determination in a clever illustration of his background and experiences.

Unfortunately, even with this great premise and a talented actor in Jonathan Majors, the movie feels slapdash, extremely straightforward and lacking in artistry, resulting in an unusually dull experience.  I see war movies, oddly, similar to sports movies: both have an inherent "action" element to them that can be very tense and riveting but can also easily go either overboard (see - rather, don't see: Hacksaw Ridge) or numb the audience to it.  They are also quite vulnerable to predictability: there have been so many of each, with well-worn structures, that you really need strong, specific elements or to overturn convention in some way.  Devotion, its war scenes taking place mostly in the (bloodless) sky, falls more towards numbness, made much worse by an extremely predictable story - not just in what happens, but in the way the movie presents it.  It's maddeningly by-the-book, hitting all the familiar beats.  Digging deeper, the script and acting don't do it any favors, either.  Majors is pretty good, though he's limited by the writing, and there are some downright painful performances, particularly the squadron's commander (distractingly played by Life in Pieces' Matt) and a ridiculous Liz Taylor "cameo".  There are a few interesting side elements introduced here and there - such as Jesse's concerns about a new plane design - but they are either resolved or disappear before you know it.  That brings us full circle, in that Devotion also pays shockingly little attention to the two major historical events previously mentioned (desegregation and Korean War).  Those who don't much about them before seeing the movie will know very little more, and in fact might be even more confused.

***

I went to Devotion hoping to see a movie that combined elements of both an exciting blockbuster with the high quality of an Oscar contender - and got neither.  Bewilderingly, it has an 82% on Rotten Tomatoes; I think the critics saw a different movie than I did.  Sometimes I realize my disagreement is a matter of taste, but this is an objectively poor movie.  It's also somewhat interesting to compare it to Top Gun: Maverick from earlier this year.  I don't know Devotion's background, but based on the way it turned out, I can imagine that the studios just wanted to cash in on Top Gun's success with another fighter plane-based movie.  Well, even if you've already seen Top Gun a few times, I'd recommend watching it again instead of seeing this one.  Hopefully there will be much better things coming to theaters soon.

* By http://www.impawards.com/2022/posters/devotion_xxlg.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=71442144