Guy Ritchie has been on fire in recent years. Releasing “The Gentlemen” in 2019 just as the pandemic was hitting, the movie could have sunk without a trace but instead became a cult classic. It was successful enough to warrant a TV show spin off (Which came out earlier this year). Last year Guy Ritchie released two movies that between them showcased both the serious and the fun sides of his repertoire. Those were the outrageously fun “Operation Fortune” and the intensely serious “The Covenant”. I highly recommend both films. This year Guy Ritchie is aiming firmly at the middle ground with his take on the WW2 covert mission “Operation Postmaster”.
Before we start, one quick moan. Guy Ritchie is an English director and the movie stars Henry Cavill, another Englishman. It is a thoroughly British story about British heroes told by a director that couldn’t be more British in his style if he tried. Yet, everyone in America got the opportunity to see this in the cinema before me. Over here it didn’t even get a cinematic release! This happened with last years releases too and is down to a deal with Amazon. For me that is a real let down. We have a great legacy of movie making in the UK and we should be showcasing our finest talents in our cinemas. Anyway, let’s look at the film shall we?
Churchill’s Secret Warriors
The movie is based on the novel “Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII”. Fortunately Ritchie found an easier to digest title for his film which takes one key section of that book and expands it to feature length, ramping up the action and adding in his own brand of humour. There is also somewhat of a switch on the lead character. The book’s protagonist was Danish war hero Anders Lassen, played here by Alan Ritchson (Star of the TV show “Reacher”). However the movie is very much an ensemble piece and positions Gus March-Phillipps, a founder of the Small Scale Raiding Force, a precursor to the SBS (Special Boat Squadron) as the primary lead. Gus is played by Henry Cavill. The switch makes sense for this story and Lassen actually gets the best action scenes, so no harm done.
There are some historical inaccuracies with some of these characters and of course liberties in how events transpire but nothing out of the ordinary or that gets in the way of the entertainment. I recommend looking up the historical events and characters for yourself after as they are all fascinating. The movie tells the story of the events of “Operation Postmaster”, a covert mission during WW2 to turn the tables on the Nazi U-Boat fleet by robbing them of their supplies. The problem was this involved taking military action in neutral Spanish territory and so had to be done covertly and off the books. This requires an elite team of unconventional thinkers, assembled for the task by career rogue Gus March-Phillipps. Along the way they will need to rescue one of their own from the Gestapo.
The High Stakes of War
This is a fun movie, but not without a flaws. My main issue here is something of a trend in modern action films of never really feeling like the heroes are in genuine danger. Sometimes this is easy to shrug off, such as with The Equalizer III or The Beekeeper. However, I feel a war movie really does need to feel like death is not just a possibility but a likely outcome. It’s worth noting that the novel follows Lassen right up to his heroic death in “Operation Roast”. That would have made for a very different movie and one with more of an emotional impact. Perhaps though, it would have been less fun. Still, I can’t help but feel this should have felt more than a stroll in the park for the heroes.
The movie repeats a few of it’s beats, notably the opening is scene is somewhat replicated towards the end (But no spoilers on how). The primary antagonist of the film, indeed all the antagonists are pretty ineffective. The film tells us they are evil scary people, but we don’t really see much of this on screen. This is not so much of an issue if you go in expecting a heist movie, because that is what it really is. That is firmly in Guy Ritchies wheelhouse. So this is the director doing what he does best, it just has the background of being during WW2. The important thing is that the movie is entertaining.
Heroes
The action is fast paced and exciting. The heroic characters are colourful and each one gets their own moment. Alan Ritchson in particular has some of the most intense action scenes, which confused me a little until I found out his character is the lead of the novel. Indeed he was a true real life bad-ass. Lasson died heroically at the age of 24 after serving his country for six years and is the only Non-Commonwealth recipient of the Victoria Cross during WW2. Cavill still gets to be a cool action hero however. Cool being the key as his calmness under pressure is his defining characteristic. Gus March-Phillipps, is known to be one of Ian Fleming’s inspirations for James Bond (Though not as the film suggests, the main one).
The rest of the cast perform their parts nicely and no one feels superfluous. They all bring charisma to their roles and the heroic historic characters are compelling. It is perhaps a little lacking in Guy Ritchie banter we tend to expect from his movies and the villains are a bit too one dimensional, but overall it is solid fun. This is a fast paced action film and you’ll barely notice the 2 hour run time. Well worth your time. 6.5/10
Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, is the fifth movie in Legendary’s “Monsterverse” film series (Which also includes the “Monarch” TV series on Apple). Adam Wingard who helmed the previous “Godzilla Vs Kong” movie returns to the directors chair. Terry Rossio returns to write the film and is joined by Simon Barrett. This movie also sees the return of a few of the human characters (And their actors) from last entry. Specifically Rebecca Hall as Ilene Andrews, Kaylee Hottle as Jia and Brian Tyree Henry as Bernie Hayes.
The Fun End Of The Spectrum
This is quite a change from the last Godzilla movie to hit our screens, the phenomenal “Godzilla Minus One”, but that doesn’t mean it will be bad. This series provides a (Somewhat) heroic Godzilla who stands as the Earth’s guardian against other monster threats (Though still destroys the occasional building). Kong meanwhile now lives in the “Hollow Earth”, where the Monsters come from. This is an arrangement that seems to suit both titans. At least until a new threat emerges. This is very much on the popcorn/fun end of the monster movie spectrum.
That threat is discovered by Kong as he travels the Hollow Earth and comes across beings much like himself, including a child. Things take a twist though when they attack him. What he discovers is that these beings are ruled over by a malevolent ape who has harnessed the powers of a mighty titan to destroy his enemies and make his people cower before him in fear. His intention appears to be to come to the surface and bring forth a new ice age. But it will take more than just Kong to stop, perhaps more than Kong and Godzilla.
Learning From The Past
The big mistake of the previous Godzilla Vs Kong movie was in including two separate groups of humans, one for each titan. More often than not, the humans just get in the way of these kinds of stories, so it’s best not to overuse them. The exception being Godzilla Minus One, but that was an exceptional movie. In Godzilla Vs Kong, “Team Zilla” really felt like they didn’t need to be there and the film dragged when they were on screen. Here they reduce the team down to one Kong focused team and that helps with both pacing and consistency. Though that’s not to say they were a highlight, but they don’t get in the way. I’ll speak about them a bit later.
The real star of the movie though is King Kong. Godzilla is still the king of the Monsters and there is no real disputing that in the movie, but Kong is a far more versatile character capable of expressing emotion (To some degree) and able to provide a greater variety of action scenes. Focusing more on Kong is beneficial to both Monsters as Godzilla needs to maintain some mystery while Kong benefits from being a little humanized. The makers of the movie clearly understood this and bringing in other Ape beings (Especially the child Ape) gave Kong an emotional journey. There is also a welcome return of another heroic titan (No spoiler, but you can probably guess).
The Trouble With Humans
Pet peeve time! One thing I detest in movies is when a macho character tells everyone to be careful of the dangers and is instantly killed. This has been so overused that it is a cliché now and really needs to stop. It’s my second biggest pet peeve after the “Exposition Guy” (A character whose only purpose in a film is to give exposition). Anyway, we have a very minor character that seems to have just been there for that one scene. It’s seconds of the film and not a deal breaker, but because it doesn’t impact anything that makes the inclusion even worse. Stop doing this Hollywood!
My only other complaint with the movie would be that outside the main Mother/Daughter characters the remaining pair of humans are goofy and one dimensional. They are basically along for the ride and don’t have much in the way of agency. Honestly for a film like this though it’s not a big problem. Trying to give them more depth would have meant a longer run time or taking attention away from Kong and those would be larger mistakes. Bernie though has been in two of these movies now and felt pointless in both. Brian Tyree Henry is capable of more (See “Bullet Train” for example), but only if he is given something to work with.
Conclusion
Godzilla X Kong: A New Empire, provides a good pace (I didn’t really notice the run time) and solid action with a bit of humour along the way. It’s nothing ground breaking and it won’t bring you to tears. It’s simple, somewhat shallow but definitely entertaining. It is a rare case of a franchise learning from previous missteps and simply giving the audience what they want (In this case giant monsters beating each other up). I’ve got to give this a strong 6/10 (Almost a 6.5) and recommend it as a fun popcorn flick.
This months review roundup is a little on the late side (Narrowly making April) but hopefully worth the wait because I have three solid recommendations for you this time around. Not even a hint of a clangers. To be fair some of these are higher profile films than I usually cover in the round up. That’s no guarantee of quality though, especially these days. So this month I am reviewing the Shudder surprise hit “Late Night with the Devil”, Dev Patel’s ambition action/revenge movie “Monkey Man” and the heartwarming man-and-a-dog film “Arthur The King”. Since these are all recommendations I’ve avoided spoilers, so read on and enjoy!
Late Night With The Devil
For our first movie I’m looking at the the hot new movie from Shudder, “Late Night With the Devil”. Colin and Cameron Cairnes share duties on both writing and directing this one. The duo have a handful of films to their name, the best received probably being 2012’s horror comedy “100 Bloody Acres”. David Dastmalchian stars as struggling late night talk show host Jack Delroy. Laura Gordon, Iam Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Ingrid Torelli and Rhys Auteri provide support. The movie is presented as a lost recording of a notorious Halloween special on the late night talk show “Night Owl” from 1977. Unseen” background footage supplements this along with a documentary like intro explaining Jack Delroy’s backstory. During the show we are introduced to various guests including a medium, a profession skeptic/magician and a young girl suffering an apparent demonic possession.
Right from the start you know this is going to be a fun and somewhat unique movie. It reminded me somewhat of “WNUF Halloween Special” from 2013. That movie pushed the comedy a bit more, while this is a little more serious and a lot more polished. Fake “Recovered footage” movies are quite rare. A lot of what makes them work (Or not) is how well they convince you they could be genuine. Obviously no one is going to think this was real, but you want it to at least provide a decent illusion of reality. They achieved this and more. Now to be fair, I was only four years old by the time 1980 rolled around. However, I have seen enough TV from the 1970’s to know what it should look like. In my view they nailed it. The cast is solid with everyone putting in quality performances. Dastmalchian is especially worthy of note though and it is his performance that ties the whole story together.
Abracadabra
The plot here is fairly straight forward but extremely well put together. The movie seamlessly sets up a number of story beats that all get paid off in meaningful ways, which is quite refreshing for a modern movie. The story builds organically throughout the (In movie) evening, with hell breaking loose in the last few moments. The movie wouldn’t have required a large budget because it is mostly talk, with well spaced out events that help build to the inevitable crescendo. It is really masterfully done. This is a movie partially about the originality, but mostly about the execution. The plot itself is sort of silly on the surface and could easily have been the bases of a truly terrible B-Movie, but instead we have a true cult classic on our hands.
It’s not hard to see why this has become somewhat of an overnight hit. I wasn’t even aware this movie was coming at the start of the year. Of course I did say when I wrote my article of upcoming movies that the best films of the year may well come out of nowhere, so here is the first example. This is a strong 7/10 and a definite cult classic. If you are into horror you will like it. If you are into imaginative horror comedy you will love it.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 7 out of 10.
Monkey Man
Monkey Man is an melee based action and revenge thriller hybrid and the directorial debut of Dev Patel. Originally he intended his friend and past collaborator Neill Blomkamp to direct. Blomkamp declined but encouraged Patel to try his own hand at directing and this is the result. The movie is set in India and see’s Patel play “Kid” a somewhat mysterious character who is on a one man mission of revenge. His targets are a despotic cult leader and a corrupt and murderous chief of police. Kid works as a masked fighter in fixed fights at an underground boxing club, giving him some fighting skills and some cash to put towards his revenge plans. When the time is right he gets himself into a position to be hired as kitchen staff at a luxury brothel where his targets reside. Things do not quite go to plan however.
The movie is a hybrid between a neo-noir revenge thriller and outright action. In regards to the latter, these action scenes are quite spaced out in the movie with the vast majority in the second half. The momentum certainly builds up and once the hero passes the “Death and Rebirth” point of the heroes’ journey the movie provides solid edge of the seat action all the way to the finish. Speaking of the “Heroes’ Journey” it is clear that Patel has studied Joseph Campbell’s work on the subject. This is mostly a positive, though the movie wears the journey on it’s sleeve to the extent that becomes somewhat predictable. It also really makes it feel like somewhat of a superhero movie as well. The grittiness of the thriller side is mostly presented through the environment and the heroes flashbacks.
Future Promise
Patel puts in a solid performance as the lead and shows promise as an action star. His support does well too, but the characters themselves did not really interest me. Indeed the only character that was interesting was Patel’s “own.”Kid”. The setting itself is interesting and there is a definite feel of India to the movie, but not much is done to build up any of the characters outside of the lead. The villains especially come across as feeling somewhat generic. The protagonists backstory and the cause of his vengeance begins as a mystery and is slowly revealed through flashbacks. This can work in some movies, but here it also shrouds the antagonists in that same mystery making them seem distant and vague.
Monkey Man is somewhat of a mixed bag. It certainly has flaws and perhaps most of them stem from the movies ambition. The action, comedy and neo-noir elements tend to operate in a disjointed way, usually working against each other. It’s like a superhero origin story randomly merged with a Japanese style revenge movie. A lot of the time the movie doesn’t seem entirely sure what it wants to be. I suspect that Patel really wanted to create something unique, but unique is not always good. That’s not to say the film isn’t without merit. Overall I liked it, I just feel that it had a lot of room for improvement. Patel clearly has potential as a writer/director and is one to watch in the future. For now though, we have a solid 6/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 6 out of 10.
Arthur The King
The final movie of this month’s review roundup is a heartwarming true story about an adventure racer, his team and a special dog. You can’t go too far wrong with that kind of story, in some ways perhaps it is a bit too easy, but easy doesn’t mean bad. The movie stars Mark Wahlberg who is supported by Ali Suliman, Nathalie Emmanuel and Simu Liu. It is directed by Simon Cellan Jones, written by Michael Brandt and based on the true story/novel “Arthur: The dog who crossed the jungle to find a home” by Mikael Lindnord.
Arthur the King tells the story of Michael Light, a professional adventure racer that has struggled to win gold all his career and is determined for one last shot. To get there he assembles a team of individuals with their own goals and points to prove and they head to the Dominican Republic for a grueling multi-day race across all kinds of dangerous terrain that will test their abilities to the peak. Along the way though they make an unexpected friend in a local stray dog that bonds with them and becomes their fifth member. Their journey captures the imagination of the races audience, but the team must risk everything to come home with what they truly desire.
Crossing The Jungle To Find A Home
Looking into the true story it seems the adaptation takes some creative liberties in regards to the protagonist (Now American and not Swedish), the makeup of the team (Adding in backstory drama and diversity), the location (Moving it from Ecuador to the Dominican Republic… Much to the chagrin of Ecuadorians) and a few minor details. The important part of the story though, the relationship between the team and this determined dog remains and seems pretty close to the real life events. The changes to the protagonist and his team allow them to build in a lot more general drama to the story, but not so much as to distract from the core story. It is enough that every member has a reason to be there.
The key character though is of course the dog “Arthur”, a very beaten down but determined dog that after a simple act of kindness pretty much decides to adopt the team and look out for them. It will definitely pull at the heart strings of every dog owner out there and I think everyone else will be moved as well. Outside of the emotional stuff, the film actually provides some solid action on top. Not really a shock given this is about adventure racing. Lives are at risk here several times throughout the journey. The risks are diminished somewhat though in that the film never really has the tone to make you think any of the team are doing to die, but it’s still a good spectacle. This is another film that proves the value of a simple story done well. This is a 6.5/10.
This month I’m looking at three lesser known movies from 2024 and giving you a double dose of science fiction (sort of) and a horror comedy to chew over. Heads up though, none of these movies did much for me though I appreciate certain elements of all three and the best of the bunch is probably not going to be a lot of peoples cup of tea. I will cover positives and negatives though so you can decide for yourself if you want to give them a chance. The movies in question this month are “I.S.S.”, “Spaceman” and “Lisa Frankenstein”. Let’s dig in.
I.S.S.
I.S.S. is directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite (Black Fish) and penned by Nick Shafir (In his debut script). The name refers to the International Space Station, the permanent manned orbital platform that has become a central hub of scientific study and international cooperation in space. One of the most notable things about this station is that it is usually manned by a mixture of Russian and US astronauts along with a few from other nations. In this story however it is basically 50/50 between the two main countries and for a good reason since the story asks the question: What would happen on the I.S.S. should Russia and the US have a nuclear war?
The lead character in this story is Dr. Kira Foster (Played by Ariana DeBose), a new arrival to the station. She is joined by five others making up a full cast of just six. Adding a layer of complexity to the situation two characters, American Gordon Barrett and Russian Weronika Vetrov are in a relationship. Things begin friendly but when they witness explosions on Earth both groups get a directive from Earth “Take control of the I.S.S. by any means”. Each crew member must decide where their loyalties lie and what their duty truly is.
Concept Vs Execution
The first thing to say about this movie is I love the concept. What really would happen at the international space station if nuclear war broke out on Earth, that’s an interesting question. The problem is the execution is just sort of uninspiring. It is the kind of premise that in the hands of the right director and cinematographer could win Oscars, but in the hands of anyone else it basically becomes a glorified TV movie and that is pretty much where we land with this one. This is more of a case of missed opportunities than doing anything disastrously wrong. The first act is fine, but nothing special.
The second act is easily the strongest and showed a bit of the potential this concept could have had and then the third act just fails to deliver on any kind of level. It’s the second act that you get the paranoia on both sides, the moralizing over what the right thing to do is and the mystery of what has happened on Earth. But the final act really fails to do anything interesting with that. Still, it could easily have been worse. There’s not really much else to say on this. The movie is the very definition of “Adequate”. 5/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 10.
Spaceman
Spaceman is based on the novel “Spaceman of Bohemia” by Jaroslav Kalfař and is the feature debut of director Johan Renck. Adam Sandler stars (Continuing to prove himself as a capable serious actor) as Czech astronaut Jakub Prochazka. Prochazka has been sent on a one man mission to Jupiter to investigate a strange dust cloud called “Chopra”. This is a bit of a space race between Czech and South Korea, but Prochazka’s shuttle is a few days ahead and as such he has become a bit of a celebrity back at home. Jakub’s mental state though is strained by the journey and by his difficult relationship with his wife back on Earth.
Things take a turn for the unusual when he is greeted by a giant talking spider. After deciding this wasn’t a figment of his imagination he begins to talk to it. It turns out the creature is somewhat of a kindred spirit, another explorer far from home that had become curious about humanity. Over time they develop a bond and Prochazka is forced to examine his own life and what is important to him.
Looking Outward To Look Within.
This is a weird movie for sure. The vast majority of it is Adam Sandler having a philosophical conversation with a giant spider. Chances are just reading that you have already decided to skip this or watch this and in my view whichever way you are leaning is almost certainly right for you. The movie has a lot of flaws and opening up with faster than light communication via quantum entanglement (Which is not possible), despite the movie clearly being set in the near future was an odd choice. With the movies themes of isolation and loneliness and with a lot of the communication being done by recorded message anyway, it just seemed unnecessary.
That aside, this is not so much a science film as it is a philosophical one and it did pull on my heart strings at times. By the end I found I did care about this giant talking spider and so job done there. The movie removed a lot of the thriller based elements from the novel, lightening the tone a bit and giving it a heavy focus on the philosophical aspects. The problem here is it can be quite boring in places. Still, this is a strong 5.5/10, just a little short of a 6/10. If you like surreal philosophical movies you will probably enjoy it, otherwise chances are it’ll bore you.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5.5 out of 10.
Lisa Frankenstein
Lisa Frankenstein is the feature length directorial debut of Zelda Williams. The movie is written by Diablo Cody and stars up and coming youngster Kathryn Newton (Star of the surprisingly good “Freaky” from 2020). In what is designed as a subverted take on Frankenstein the movie tells the story of orphan Lisa Swallows, whose mother was murdered in a home invasion while she hid in the cupboard. Her father remarried. Lisa has a strained relationship with her stepmother but a fairly supportive step sister who tries to get her open up and be more social.
Lisa though prefers to hang out in the graveyard and fantasize about one of it’s residents who she has become infatuated with. After declaring that she wishes she could be with him one night a bolt of lightning strikes the grave and resurrects an apparently lovesick corpse. One thing leads to another and uh.. yeah people die and she starts sewing bits them onto the corpse. I guess you aren’t meant to think too much about this one.
A Frankensteinian Abomination.
This is the weakest of the movies I’m reviewing this month but it’s not totally devoid of positives. I liked the aesthetics, which have a very Tim Burton quality to them. The visual style is quaint and I especially liked the animated intro. Unfortunately those are all the positives I can give you. The movie is effectively a cross between “Heathers” (1988) and “May” (2002), with a little bit of “Corpse Bride” (2005). The problem is it absolutely fails to deliver the charm of any of those movies. The characters are, excuse the pun, lifeless and the script is disjointed and bland. You can see what they are trying to do, but none of it works.
At no point did I find myself rooting for or having sympathy for the protagonist and the events surrounding her lack any kind of consistency. Effectively most of the characters have no personality, but occasionally do things because the plot needs it or they need to vaguely justify killing them later. Random over the top humour is inserted haphazardly and is doesn’t fit with the rest of the movie. None of it is funny. It simply doesn’t work. This is a 4/10 at best. If you want a subverted take on Frankenstein do yourself a favour and watch “May” instead, it is a far better movie.
It’s time to review the new Ghostbusters movie. You may remember that I gave Ghostbusters: Afterlife a positive review, though I noted a number of negatives. My hope was the sequel would learn from the good and bad of Afterlife and truly move the franchise forward. Moving the action back to New York (And the famous firehouse) was certainly a positive. The remaining original Ghostbusters were set to return once more, this time not just turning up for the finale. It all sounded good and the trailer was solid. But would it really be up to scratch?
The Ghostbusters Come Home.
Gil Kenan takes the directors chair for this one. The script is by him and the director of the previous movie Jason Reitman. It’s unknown how much involvement Jason had on this one. It’s worth noting that his father and original Ghostbusters director Ivan passed away in 2022 so was notably uninvolved. Returning from the original two movies are Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts and William Atherton. Afterlife’s Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Celeste O’Connor and Logan Kim joins them. The already bulky cast adds in Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, James Acaster and Emily Alyn Lind.
The story picks up in New York where the Spengler family have taken over the firehouse and the day to day business of busting ghost. After causing citywide destruction the mayor of the town (Walter Peck from the first two films) decrees that Phoebe as a 15 year old should not be working as a Ghostbuster. Annoyed by this she heads to central park to sulk and play chess but ends up befriending a ghost called Melody (Lind). Meanwhile Nadeem Razmaadi (Nanjiani) attempts to sell off his grandmothers collection of oddities to Ray Stantz (Ackroyd) who finds particular interest on one unique item inscribed with ancient glyph. It turns out this item contains an ancient evil spirit that if released could threaten the world. Naturally, it does get released and it is down to the Ghostbusters and Razmaadi to fix things.
Busting Makes Me Feel Bored.
Frozen Empire is not a terrible film or even the worst Ghostbusters film. It is however very average and ultimately a disappointment. The unfortunate thing is almost every problem could have been predicted going in, leaving little excuse for it. One thing I didn’t predict was that the film would be boring! Sadly for most of it, that was exactly what it was. Most of the fun stuff is literally in the trailer. Frozen Empire, much like Afterlife is a bit too long. Both movies were only about 15-20 minutes longer than the original, but with a lot less going on you really notice the run time. The movie especially drags through the first two acts where after the ghost chase scene from the trailer, very little actually happens.
It’s not just the pacing that is the issue, but also the focus on Phoebe (Grace). This worked in the previous film somewhat, with that story being largely constructed around her relationship with the ghost of Egon Spengler. But the problem is she just isn’t that interesting. There is a reason Egon wasn’t the main character in the original movies. Egon was at least funny though (Harold Ramis was a very funny man and co-writer of the original). Pheobe is no Egon and really doesn’t work as the franchise lead. It doesn’t help that once again they’ve focused her arc on her relationship with a ghost (This time stealing ideas from “Casper The Friendly Ghost”). It’s also notable that strapping a nuclear accelerator to a 15 year old girl and expecting her to fight ghosts regularly does raise a number of questions. The movie examines these, but not terribly well.
Ghost To Buster Ratio.
The remaining original Ghostbusters do get more to do than in the previous film (Where they literally just showed up for the ending) and this was very welcome. Even Venkman gets a scene before the ending. The roles aren’t large, but didn’t need to be. The big problem though is between that and the focus on Phoebe the other characters get almost no time or character development. When I reviewed Afterlife I said that Trevor (Wolfhard) was largely wasted and needed to get actual character development in any sequel. Well, he has even less of a role in this. This is true of all the other characters introduced in Afterlife, none more so than Lucky (O’Connor) and Podcast (Kim) who feel like they have been grandfathered in and do almost nothing. On top of this there are several new characters thrown in the mix too.
But it’s not just the screen time and character development. Many of these characters are just badly written. None of Afterlife characters display the charm they had in the previous film and many of them are just plain stupid now. Speaking of stupid, this is a movie where the problems that must be solved are entirely created by the good guys in the first place. That is almost always a bad idea, but the fact is had the Ghostbusters not returned to New York, none of the events of the film would have happened. This has the embarrassing side effect of meaning that Walter Peck (Now Mayor of New York for some reason) is actually 100% correct this time around. It could be argued Peck is the good guy and the Ghostbusters are actually now the villains!
Nostalgia Bait.
In Ghostbusters Afterlife I praised how they used the references to the original movie. While re-using Gozer seemed a little lazy, all the nostalgia was directly a part of the plot. They didn’t just drop things in for “‘Member Berries” (Thank you South Park for that term) and they didn’t stop things every few minutes to drop an Easter Egg like they did in the 2016 movie. Sadly though Frozen Empire is back to dropping references in just for the sake of it. They don’t waste too much time with it, but I’m not a fan of that kind of fan service. But it’s not just references to the original, they also brought back the mini-marshmallow men from Afterlife. To be fair, the kids in the cinema will love that but they didn’t add much for me.
The villain of the story is pure CGI and largely forgettable. He ties into the new character of Nadeem Razmaadi (played by Kumail Nanjiani), who is the “Firemaster”. This is a rather obvious reference to Rick Moarranis’ Louis Tully character in the original that was the “Keymaster”. Nanjani is no Moarranis and Razmaadi is no Tully. Ultimately it is an annoying character that adds to the movies character bloat. The big showdown is between the one villain and ELEVEN good guys. They are assisted by not one but two ghosts. To be fair, one of those ghosts is sort of unintentionally helping, with the returning favourite provides the most predictable moment in the entire movie. For reference Afterlife’s showdown was 7 people and one ghost on the heroes side and the original was just the four Ghostbusters. Afterlife managed to give each character a little moment in that finale, not so here.
Conclusion
Ultimately this was a disappointment. Not terrible and certainly better than the 2016 movie but it was boring, cluttered and not nearly as a funny as it should have been. This was a step back from Afterlife and many of my concerns I had with that movie as far as the future direction went seem justified. At this point I’m not sure they can fix it with movies. What they do have though is something that could work as a TV series, where they can actually flesh out these characters and introduce new ones without feeling cluttered. It’s worth noting I suggested the same thing after the previous movie. Sadly, this is a 5.5/10. Just short of a recommendation. I will say though, the children in the cinema seemed to be enjoying it. This may be a kids franchise now.
Three years after the release of David Villeneuve’s take on Dune, we finally have the second part. Both films together cover Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel “Dune”. Interestingly, they originally split the novel into two halves and published them in “Analogue Science Fiction And Fact” magazine. So they could have named the first part “Dune World” and this year’s sequel “Prophet of Dune” (as they were called in the magazine) instead of the rather bland “Part One” and “Part Two,” but that’s nitpicking really. Denis Villeneuve directs Dune part two and co-writes it with Jon Spaihts (but this time, without Eric Roth).
The movie sees Timothée Chalamet return to the role of Paul Atreides along with many of the very strong cast of the first movie. Christopher Walken and Florence Pugh join the cast as the previously unseen Emperor and his daughter along with Austin Butler as “Feyd-Rautha”, the character played by Sting in the David Lynch version of the story. Once again, the ensemble cast is incredibly strong. All the pieces are in place, strong cast, strong source material, solid budget and a film maker known for his visuals. This should easily be fantastic… but is it? I’m skipping the synopsis for this one, since this follows on directly from part two, it is hard to cover it without dropping spoilers. The Rest of this review has minor spoilers, but nothing that will impact your enjoyment. Skip to the conclusion of this is an issue for you.
Visuals
So first thing to cover is the look and in that regard this is excellent. The sand worms have never seemed more immense or dangerous. The landscape is imposing and the action scenes frankly put most other science fiction movies of the modern day to shame. The sound design is great too, however I don’t remember any of the music at all after leaving the theater. I remember from the first movie how much of the soundtrack was just noises and ambiance, which is a bit of a trend for modern soundtracks so I won’t hold it too much against this particular one.
With such a strong cast we were always unlikely to have any problems with the acting and it is very strong throughout. The main burden though falls on Chalamet as Atreides and he did a fantastic job. Despite his relatively small stature he managed to come across as powerful when needed and was able to convey both his conflicted conscience and he determination to get revenge for the destruction of his house. Despite the actors performances though, the script doesn’t given them a great deal to work with. With lesser actors that would have seen the film fall flat, but they just about get away with it here. It certainly helps when you have the likes of Rebecca Ferguson and Stellan Skarsgård in support.
Emotional Impact (Or lack thereof).
Now for the negatives. First of all, the emotional payoffs for this movie are built on setups from the previous one, almost entirely. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t re-watch that film before viewing its sequel so after a three year gap I didn’t feel even one of those emotional pay offs. That left the ending somewhat anti-climactic for me. That may be further impacted by the fact that I know the story, so there are no surprises for me. That said, I don’t think a recent re-watch would have helped feel the pay off in regards to the Emperor or Feyd, since neither are in the first film. The Emperor was behind the fall of House Atreides, but it doesn’t feel personal and so it is hard to really care. This was my biggest problem for Dune: Part Two. I really didn’t feel much in the way of an emotional connection to anything going on. Villeneuve’s directing style is very dry, and it reminds me of a lot of my issues with his Blade Runner sequel.
I always felt the biggest thing lacking from Blade Runner 2049 was heart. It was in some ways like a very good AI attempting to replicate the look and soundtrack of the first film, but without the ability to truly understand it. At the time I thought it was just a failure with that film but having seen both parts of Dune I have to conclude that it’s an issue with Villenueve’s approach in general. I think he perhaps focuses too much on the technical aspect of how things look and as a result sometimes forgets that a film is more than just visuals. Maybe it’s just me, but despite the source material and the high quality cast this is a movie that often felt as dry as the endless desert of Arrakis.
Pacing and Characters
My second issue is pacing (And this impacts my emotional reaction too). Some scenes really drag out. Not good in a movie with a running time towards three hours. Despite that, I couldn’t help but feel that some characters and story elements could have benefited from a bit more time spent on them. In what I gather is a change to the novel, the Fremen are split into northern and southern factions. The north is anti-religious and the south are effectively zealots. Another scene really drags out how the rebels got their hands on the Atreides nuclear arsenal. None of these elements are bad in themselves, they just felt unnecessary to the story.
As good as the actors were, the filmmakers wasted every single one of the antagonists. Florence Pugh’s “Princess Irulan” barely has more screen time than Virginia Madsen had in the 1984 movie. Neither her nor the Emperor (Played by Walken) felt like real characters to me. Feyd gets a pretty bad ass introduction, but has no real connection with Paul. When they finally fight it had the emotional impact of two people concluding a minor business deal. Meanwhile, the roles of both Dave Bautista’s “Beast Rabban” and Stellan Skarsgård’s “Baron Harkonnen” feel diminished. Gone is their powerful, intimidating presence from the previous movie, and as a result, their eventual defeat feels somewhat empty. These are good characters with good actors playing them, they shouldn’t feel like they are just there.
Conclusion
Ultimately the positives do outweigh the negatives. When paired with the first film it is both good entertainment and quality art. However it is not a masterpiece and this isn’t the new Lord of the Rings by a long way. Honestly I’m not sure the Dune novels are particularly well suited to movies. However it really does look superb and Chalamet probably does deserve an Oscar nomination. I’m somewhat torn, but I’m going to have to settle on a very strong 6.5/10. The movie would have scored higher had I actually felt something at it’s conclusion, but it is what it is.
For this month’s review roundup, I’m looking at a couple of Oscar-nominated movies and one that, in my view, should have been nominated but was snubbed. All technically from 2023. Specifically “The Holdovers”, “American Fiction” and “The Iron Claw”. I will be back to more recent movies next month.
The Holdovers (2023)
The Holdovers tells the story of three people forced to spend Christmas together at a 1970’s boarding school. One student, one teacher and the cook. Initially more students have to stay behind but after one of their rich parents offers to take them all to a skiing resort all but one student departs. The unfortunate “Angus Tully” (Dominic Sessa) remains as the lone holdover, as his parents were unable to be reached. Classics teacher “Paul Hunham” (Paul Giamatti) and “Mary Lamb” (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the school’s cafeteria manager, join him. Lamb has recently suffered a tragedy due to the death of her son, a former student at the school, in Vietnam. Paul and Angus meanwhile each have their own issues and a major clash of personalities between them.
This is about flawed characters dealing with past trauma and finding ways to grow past them. Standard Oscar bait, but done with a well paced story that develops naturally. Tully and Hunham are the main focus of the story, while Mary Lambs journey of a grieving mother is somewhat removed from that. The three of them together provide a theme of moving on from past traumas. This is something Tully and Hunham have in common with Lamb. From the second act onwards the cast effectively shrinks down to just those three. Fortunately they all nail their roles with good performances all round. This isn’t a ground breaking movie and it’s the kind of story you have undoubtedly seen before but it is very well done and a great example of how plot and characters are both important in character driven stories. This is a 7/10
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 7 out of 10.
The Iron Claw (2023)
This film was snubbed for the Oscars. In the case of Best Picture, it doesn’t meet the new diversity standards introduced this year. To qualify you have to satisfy two criteria, one for for story/characters, the other for the crew. Of the cast of 45, four are women and two are non-white so it doesn’t meet any of standard A. I’m not bringing this up to be political, it is simply a fact. Now, why it was snubbed from Best Actor is a question beyond the scope of this review. It is however the kind of film that would normally get nominations. The movie follows the real life story of the Von Erich family, a famous family of Wrestling brothers. It follows their rise and then the many tragedies that struck the family and how the brothers tried to cope with it all.
The truth behind the story is more tragic than is depicted on screen. The director felt there was only so much misery he could inflict on the audience and that was probably wise. What we do see on screen is tragic enough. As a wrestling fan I knew the story from a distance, but seeing these tragedies on screen is an emotional experience. This is a story about family, the ambitions of a father for his sons and the bonds of brotherhood. It is also about Wrestling, but you don’t need to be a fan to understand or enjoy it. Honestly it could have been any sport and the story would work the same. The best thing about the movie though is the performance of Zack Efron in the lead role and the incredible total body transformation required to play the role of a bulked up professional wrestler. This is a 7.5/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
American Fiction (2023)
The film tells the story Dr. Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an author and lecturer on literature. Monk wants to be able to tell stories without having to make them about being black. He’s published several books in the past but has struggled in recent years and has grown frustrated with the success of other authors pandering to white guilt liberals that want the stories to be “More black”. Eventually he decides that as an F you to the publishers he’d write something deliberately over the top, trashy, cliched and stereotype laden as possible, just to prove his point. Of course what ends up happening is it becomes wildly successful. In between all this he must deal with family tragedy, an out of control brother and a romantic interest.
American Fiction is a fascinating film, largely thanks to its very original approach to dealing with race issues. My guess is both the left and the right will claim the film as some sort of victory for their side and yet the truth (as is often the case) lies somewhere in the middle. What the film effectively is, is a critique of racial pandering in fiction. That’s one hot topic, but the thing here is it looks at it from a black perspective and while doing this, it manages to tell a story that itself on occasion appears to be pandering, but the whole time is in truth making a point. It’s one of the smartest films out there and I particularly like what they did with the ending. No spoilers though on that one. This is an 8/10.
Doctor Who is like a nice car, originally advanced and ahead of its time, then it became a cool and desirable classic, more fun than useful, but now its a rusting pile of unserviceable junk just waiting to be scrapped because its owners didn’t look after it.
This is a sad situation for perhaps the most iconic British show of all time. Something drastic must be done and it’s clear small changes such as a new Doctor or show runner will not be enough. Currently each new era of Who is worse than the last. More is lost from what made the show so beloved and more of the audience has departed.
1. Start From The Beginning
Let’s face it, “Nu Who” is a mess. Introducing “The Timeless Children” was akin to unleashing a bull in the china shop of Who canon. Doubling down on that under RTD’s second run means they can’t even side step the issue. The thing is though, even before the gender swap, there were a lot of creative decisions made for short term gain that did long term damaged and drove the series into a number of creative traps (Many of which I’ll touch on here). Right from the start, escalating the Daleks to near god-like monsters and eliminating the whole of Gallifrey severely limited storytelling options. Having The Doctor get romantically involved with his very first reboot companion was a cheap way to generate interest that never really fit with the character as we knew him from the original series.
Now you could simply do what many movie franchises have done and side step the entire reboot era. If you do that there’s no reason to even acknowledge the Doctor Who movie, you just pick up from the 8th incarnation. However, it can’t be denied that Nu Who does have a lot of fans (Most of which have also walked away now) and it’s not like the continuity was perfect before that. The best solution then is to abandon all that continuity and reboot from the 1st Doctor. Then the existing fans can decide what parts of the previous versions they want to consider canon and what they want to ignore. For me, it’ll just be classic Who, but if people want to consider all of it canon that’s fine. But Who will be restart from scratch.
What’s in a name?
It’s a common trend for people to make the argument that mystery is better than explanation. I disagree. In the context of a movie, yes that can work extremely well, but with a TV series that may run for decades pushing a mystery and never answering it is basically just going all in with the JJ Abrams mystery box style of storytelling. Eventually you can no longer provide any answer that will satisfy and yet if you provide none the story feels empty. For such a show, it’s a bad idea to get too carried away with unrevealed mysteries. With Doctor Who people make a big thing about the name of the show, yet the original show didn’t force the mystery and by the era of the third Doctor, we were presented with a fair amount of information about the characters childhood without any issue.
In my view, it was often suggest that Time Lords would take their own name and there are many examples of title-like names among Galifreyans. I had always assumed it was just a cultural thing and there didn’t need to be a big fuss over the mystery. Humans meeting him often remark “Doctor Who?”, but that doesn’t necessarily imply a big mystery as to his original name, instead for me the mystery was why he chose “The Doctor”. There is no reason the show can’t reveal elements of the characters childhood, but it doesn’t need to reveal his birth name, indeed that should be unimportant. It’s fine however to imply that there was a reason he took the name “The Doctor”. The obvious reason would be that he wanted to heal something. Mysteries about the Doctors past should be generated and solved at a relatively steady pace without letting anything dwell too long or stagnate.
Character Progression.
By the end of our first story we should have a Doctor very much like William Hartnell on Earth in the 60’s with his granddaughter. In the original story it was said The Doctor and Susan couldn’t return to Gallifrey but wanted to one day, there is no reason not to look into this a bit more. It’s also worth noting The Doctor has lived a fairly long life before he starts adventuring, that life doesn’t have to all be on Gallifrey. This isn’t the original series anymore and providing something new out of the door would certainly be refreshing, so why not look into some of this? In my view the reason the Doctor left gallifrey, the reason he took the name “The Doctor” and the reason he has his grandaughter with him should be linked and could be a very compelling story.
The full journey of the first doctor should be one where he eventually embraces the role of the name he chose. To begin with he wants nothing to do with the rest of the universe, but after travelling with Susan, Barbara and Ian for a while he learns the burden of power and responsibility. One element I did like introduced by the reboot series is the idea that a regeneration is somewhat guided by need, almost like a form of evolution. So the second Doctor would regenerate into this role and from then on each Doctors journey can help define the personality of the next regeneration and in turn bring on new things for him to learn. That should keep things interesting, fresh and consistent. Oh and only twelve regenerations!
2. Return to 4-8 Part Stories.
I understand why the Who reboot opted for single part stories initially. The TV landscape had changed and getting a new generation to invest in a weekly 25 minute episode to tell a 4-8 part story was going to be a big ask. Most shows of the time were based on 45 minute episodes, mostly self contained but with some overall linking story between all episodes in a season. This was effectively applied directly to Doctor Who. The linking storylines were somewhat weak, but the set up worked to bring in new fans.
But things have changed since then. Now streaming is king and with it the binge model. Most streaming shows have short seasons of no more than about 10 episodes, many substantially less. This is a set up almost perfectly designed for the classic Doctor Who. With the binge model you could drop a 4 or 6 episode story and let people binge it. Do that 2-3 times a year as a “Season” and you have the perfect set up for modern audiences.
Time And The Binge Model.
This is the trouble with the current show makers, they refuse to change the format. They don’t mind changing the Doctor, messing with the lore and the entire tone of the show but they don’t even consider that it may be time to revert to the old format. Times have changed more dramatically for TV shows between the launch of the reboot series and now then they did between the classic shows debut and the reboot series. Many modern viewers prefer the binge model and streaming services have been experimenting with formats that allow an amount of binge while also allowing for water cooler discussions. It couldn’t be better set up for a classic Who format.
Six part stories at 30 minutes each or four parts at 45 minutes each would fit the current market perfectly. With 3 hour stories (Less actually, once credits and recaps are removed), they could provide 3-4 of these every year. Pretty comparable to a classic season, but with the difference that you drop an entire story at once which will satisfy those fans used to seeing a complete story in one sitting and people that just like to binge watch. Returning to these longer stories also means they no longer need those vague season long arks that have frankly always been quite disappointing.
3. Bring Back The Science Fiction
There is a lot of misunderstanding with Doctor Who. People that don’t regularly go back and watch the old black and white episodes (Most likely have never watched them) tend to just believe it started out as a children’s show. This isn’t true. Conceptually it started out as an educational show for children. This isn’t the same as just a children’s show, since the whole point of an educational show is to provide education! That means accurate history and science. That leaned the show into genuine science fiction. It’s also obviously untrue to suggest that only Children were the audience for the show, even in those early days. That was not the case. Children did watch it, but it appealed to adults too and it especially appealed to adult science fiction fans.
However it may have been initially conceived, the show quickly left those tracks. Initially “The Daleks”, the shows second serial, was considered not appropriate for the show. Despite being solid science fiction, it wasn’t suitable for an educational children’s show. However after Verity Lambert went to bat for Terry Nation’s story and it became a huge success the entire shape of the show changed. Obviously there was a drive for “More of that” and that meant more science fiction. It was built into the shows initial success and formed a key element for the whole of the black and white era.
Science Fiction In Decline.
When the Second Doctor came along an element of comedy was introduced, but the sci-fi remained firmly front and center. When the show moved into colour with the Third Doctor injected a bit more action to the franchise with a bit of a James Bond influence, however many episodes also took on a Quatermass sort of vibe, again firmly science fiction with a touch of horror to boot. The Fourth Doctor stepped away from the action and brought back a bit of the comedy but didn’t lack for Science Fiction. This is the era where Douglas Adams was writing the occasional episode a man that blended comedy and solid science fiction concepts together with unmatched brilliance and it’s no surprise that Tom Baker’s era hit that sweet spot of “This is what Doctor Who should be”.
Things remained fairly consistent until the notable drop in budget and quality during the Seventh Doctor’s run. But even here, while things did get a too campy for my tastes, there was still a decent amount of science fiction. By the time we got to the reboot era however, this key element of the show had become heavily diminished. Russel T Davis is not a science fiction writer and that was clear from pretty early on (Indeed, it seems he only liked the campier stuff). Steven Moffat at least was capable and did introduce some of those elements whenever he was writing (He was a much better writer than show runner). Overall though the show took a huge step away from science fiction and towards fantasy, drama, campy theatrics and soap opera.
Too Much Feeling, Too Little Thinking.
The first thing the reboot era did was start pushing a romance between the Doctor and his companion. This was the most obvious, cheapest route the show could take and it was the first place Davis wanted to go with it. All too often the stakes were artificially inflated, and the Doctor would just pull out a Deus Ex Machina to solve it quickly at the end. Part of that was down to the length of the stories and the increased focus in the relationship between the Doctor and the Companion. The stories themselves became notably secondary to the characters. Their concepts became shallower and more about what would look cool than what was an interesting thing to think about.
All storytelling should make you feel something, but Science Fiction is meant to make you think as well. Nu Who however, was only interested in those feelings. If it found space between The Doctor and companions emotional journey to fit in something conceptually interesting, that was a bonus, but all to often this was totally lacking. But these days it’s not just Doctor Who that is like this. Even Star Trek has largely turned it’s back on Science Fiction, which to me is bizarre. Blade Runner watered it down for it’s disappointing sequel and Star Wars, which was always closer to fantasy somehow found a way to step even further from Sci-Fi concepts and more towards…. well, “Shipping” apparently. Don’t even get me started on that one.
The Importance of Nuance and Complexity.
These days it is more important than ever to encourage people to think on complex topics. Topics like the nature of humanity, finding balance in a world of differing perspectives and cultures, what our place is in the universe in the long term and the nature of life itself. We need to examine these and we need to do it with nuance and depth. People should be encouraged to think more deeply and not be controlled by knee jerk emotional reactions. In short, we really need proper science fiction back and yet all the science fiction franchises seem to have moved far away from these elements. With the current incarnation of Doctor Who, Davis has outright announced that the show is moving from science fiction to fantasy. He’s also clearly more interested in telling people what to think instead of letting them think for themselves.
There is clearly a big gap in the market for solid science fiction at the moment. The show should move towards it, instead of away and towards soap opera, fantasy and pantomime. That would not only bring back old school fans but also bring in the refugees from all those other franchises AND by encouraging people to think about and discuss these topics in a balanced, nuanced way with all views represented it could actually do some good for society. Maybe it could even bring people together instead of constantly dividing us with one sided lecturing like the current show does. Even those that agree with the narratives being pushed in the modern show must realize, you can reach more people through writing quality science fiction than you can with a lecture in the middle of a pantomime.
4. Stop Sensationalizing The Companions!
While we don’t truly know how a 1000 year old alien would feel about 20-ish year old girls of an entirely different species, it seems unlikely that he’d start falling in love with them. He certainly wouldn’t be talking to them like a school girl about how hot some random dude was. None of that seems right for such a character. It also doesn’t add anything really to the show except for cliches and complications. The Doctor should be aloof from all that. Now obviously there is a suggestion that the character has had a relationship in the past, seeing as he appeared to have a granddaughter, but that was before his first regeneration, before we even meet the character.
Had they just done the romance with Rose and left it at that, perhaps it would have been fine. But they didn’t leave it there. With the next major story arc, they gave him an actual wife, who ended up being the daughter of a companion that also had the hots for him, despite first meeting him as a child herself. The entire thing was a little creepy. Clara seemed out of the same mold and certainly they pushed the idea again with Yazz. Companions constantly falling for the doctor is boring, limits the storytelling and gets in the way of the individual stories.
The Importance of Variety.
Even when not having the companion drooling over the Doctor there has been a trend with the reboot series of making every companion super special and the center of season long story arcs. Donna became “The Doctor Donner”, Clara became a character out of time that had apparently been The Doctors guardian angel throughout his life (At least up until they added a extra regenerations). Amy Pond became the mother of his wife as well as someone that met him as a child and waited for him. These are all cheap mysteries and cheap replacements for telling actual stories. I mean how many “The girl who” titles do they need? The universe doesn’t need to always revolve around the companion. I think it’s for this reason why Martha was my favourite companion of the reboot show, Martha was good because of her personality not because she had superpowers.
But it’s not just about sensationalizing the companions. It’s about time the Doctor went back to having multiple companions, each with their own stories, identities and desires. These characters can have complex relationships with each other, instead of always making it about The Doctor. They can also have their own unique strengths and actually have flaws (Often missing from Nu-Who companions). Of course the reboot show did move back to a group briefly with Whitaker’s Doctor, but the men in that group were treated as unimportant, while Yazz ended up being shipped with The Doctor and as soon as the Doctor became male again he immediately went back to one female companion. Predictable. On top of that these were all companions from modern day Earth. Remember when the Doctor used to travel with aliens, Highlanders and people from the future? That is real diversity.
5. Keep The Doctor Male
This will be my most controversial rule. The fact is there are many differences between men and women (As I said, controversial). Some are physical, some are in how we think and feel and some are in how we are perceived by society. These differences mean that changing the gender of a character radically alters how the viewers will relate to that character. None of this appears to have been considered when they decided they wanted a female Doctor. It never really made any sense and yet it was clearly something they had planned since at least the arrival of Steven Moffat as show runner. Before then, there had not even been a hint that this was possible in the shows lore. But the moment we started seeing other Timelords change genders, we all knew why. This was done entirely for reasons external to the shows storytelling.
That in itself is an issue. You shouldn’t be taking a wrecking ball to your show canon, just because you want to somehow empower women by saying they too can be this fictional character that has been male for 50 years. The motivation for doing something in story should never be virtue signalling. It should never be justified by “Why not?” or “It’s about time”. It should only ever be about telling a good story. But outside of that there are many other reasons to keep the Doctor male. For example, you need to keep a character relatively consistent to make sure they can always be recognised by the casual audience. That keeps a franchise in the public’s conscious and ties the past to the future. As soon as it becomes unrecognizable, the link between the past and present is severed and brand confusion reigns supreme.
Role Models and Personality
But an even more important reason to keep the Doctor male is his personality. See the Doctor is a little forgetful and scatterbrained at times. For a male character that is sort of charming, but for a female character it is a negative female stereotype, the ditsy blonde. More importantly the Doctor solves problems with empathy and intelligence instead of aggression and violence. For a male character this is fairly unique and it makes the Doctor a great male role model. It tells young boys they can solve problems with empathy and intelligence instead of brute force. It was a lesson that I learned from the show and I think many others did too. Boys need that kind of role model. Girls do not. Indeed part of that way of solving problems can sometimes involve manipulation. Having a female character that empathetic is basically just a generic female character, but having one that is manipulative? Well again we’re onto negative female stereotypes.
In short, it simply doesn’t work. But since even complaining about it gets you labelled as a sexist misogynist, it actively drives people away from the show and divides the fandom into two equally angry factions. Last but not least it is absolutely unnecessary to gender switch the character. Doctor Who was always filled with interesting female characters that were ripe for a spin off, several of which are Timeladies or have similar capabilities: A Romana spin off has been an obvious thing to do since the 70’s; The Rani running a redemption ark could have been an interesting/unique spin off story and; The Doctor’s Granddaughter Susan who hasn’t been seen on screen since the 60’s could easily have her own adventures. Even limited to reboot era characters there are many options: The cloned “Daughter” of the Doctor, who presumably can regenerate; Clara and Ashildr, who have their own Tardis; Even Bill Potts and her puddle girlfriend are out there somewhere.
When you think about it, the Whoniverse is pretty much a universe of many strong female characters and very few strong male ones, so maybe those should stay male?
A Quick Note On Race.
Before I move on, I should touch on race swapping the Doctor. This isn’t an issue for personality or lore. However, it does impact that surface level character consistency, so to do a race change you need to make sure you have an actor that screams “Doctor Who” at your, either in their performance or just in themselves. Richard Ayoade has been a fan favourite choice for a while for that very reason. Not giving him a shot will likely always go down as a missed opportunity, though to be fair some have questioned if he is actually a good enough actor. In my experience comedians often surprise you, so I would have considered it worth a shot. The last thing you want to do however, is race switch and then also make them look and act radically different to past incarnations. Then it no longer seems like Doctor Who at all.
Of course that is literally what they just did. It’s almost like they deliberately wanted to make him more difficult to accept. Why? Well again it seems another decision done for reasons outside of the show itself. That does nothing to help the franchise. But in theory switching races isn’t a problem if the right actor is chosen. I would say though that given this is an iconic British show, the demographic should reflect the countries demographics. We are majority white, but our largest non-white demographic is Asian (Mostly South Asian). Black people represent just 4% of our population, while Asians represent 9.3%. That is more than double and yet the BBC treat this like it is the other way around. For me this exposes a larger issue: They seem more interested in pushing popular mainstream perceptions/politics than providing genuine representation.
6. Stop With The Power Creep
The last thing is a problem for a lot of franchises that are fantasy or science fiction based these days. In Doctor Who the best example of this going wrong is The Daleks. They have gone from radiation eating armored mutants that can only travel within their own city, to virtually indestructible flying, time travelling demi-gods that threaten all of time and reality, multiverses and the Timelords themselves and who are basically impossible to defeat… except with a magical bullshit machine performing a Deus Ex Machina. These power levels and stakes ultimately render the entire story meaningless. It’s silly and it needs to stop.
Somewhere along the line it was decided that threatening The Earth wasn’t enough. That enemies with weaknesses wasn’t interesting enough and that The Doctor himself effectively needs to be a god to be in the same playground as the other giants. It all became just a tad too ridiculous. Right now through a combination of this and the Doctors new infinite lives cheat code the show has literally no stakes (That anyone will ever believe anyway). Obviously with a full reboot you get a hard reset on that, but you must be ever vigilant to ensure bad writers don’t take these kinds of short cuts again. Every now and then it’s okay to threaten the universe or reality itself, but you have to pull things right back to a more personal level after so it doesn’t get out of control and you need to chose the right villains for those threats. The Black Guardian is right for that level, not The Daleks. Not that I’m saying the Daleks should go back to being killed by being pushed over a coat. But maybe they could be less god-like.
Final Words
I recognise there is a need to compromise with Who, because like any show that has run for so long and changed throughout, there are fans of each era and they want different things. So I’m not saying to drop everything the reboot series offered, just that these elements that were better in the original show should return. Even before the new show went into an era I can only describe as “Zombie Who” it was stagnating because of the lack of variety. Sadly RTD’s ideas to add variety are to reduce the show to pantomime and to virtue signal, neither of which will attract viewers. But combining what worked prior to that in the reboot with what worked in the original show could create something that keeps both sets of fans happy and brings in new ones.
This is how I would fix Doctor Who. But it is all theoretical. Sadly with the BBC where it is now and with Disney and Bad Wolf/Sony as their partners, there is almost no hope of course correction. To fix Who those corporations needs to either change internally or be removed from any control of the franchise and that won’t happen any time soon. So to create a situation where the show actually can be fixed, the most immediate thing that needs to be done is, well… to cancel it. Yes, the most important step right now is to stop inflicting further damage to this franchise and let it rest for around five years. Then it can be rebooted more sensibly and by that time hopefully the people in charge of it will be more interested in quality and less in what often seems a vindictive campaign against those that have spent their life loving the show.
For my first major movie review of 2024 I give you David Ayer’s “The Beekeeper”, staring perennial action hero Jason Statham and with notable support from Jeremy Irons, Emmy Raver-Lampman and Josh Hutcherson. This is the only major release in January, but that isn’t entirely unusual since January is a notoriously bad month for the box office, so studios avoid it where possible. Ayer is a solid director with several good movies to his name, but with a patchier track record of late. Penning the movie is writer/director Kurt Wimmer who has a mostly bad track record but did give us “Equilibrium” back in 2002, which was a very good movie.
The movie follows the story of “Adam Clay” (Statham), a Beekeeper in the literal sense but also as it turns out a retired member of the most secret of secret agencies, “The Beekeepers”. When the nice old lady that rents him land for him to work his bees is scammed out of all her savings and takes her own life, he reactivates himself to bring down those responsible. As he follows the money he finds this corruption goes far deeper than anyone would have expected, but Clay takes his profession seriously and will deal with anything that threatens the health of the “Hive”, no matter how far up the corruption goes.
Maximum Statham!
First and foremost this is a fun movie. The movie is effectively split into five chapters with the odd, brief interlude. The first introducing us to the lead and setting up the story, the next four all revolving around large action scenes. One interlude is also an action scene so that is five solid action scenes spread over one hour and 45 minutes. This keeps the pace fast throughout and the time flies by. The most important thing for a movie like this is that those actions scenes are entertaining. This is not on the John Wick level of graceful action choreography, but it is solid, fast paced and clear (That least one is often overlooked in modern action films). Some suspension of disbelief is required of course because Statham’s Beekeeper character is basically an unstoppable ass kicking machine.
Statham has made a career of playing old school action heros and here this is ramped up to eleven. While he doesn’t have the superhero level indestructibility of John Wick, in some ways it is even more far fetched as he simply avoids getting injured for most of the movie and even when he does it is barely an inconvenience. A lot of the time this would be a big negative for me, but Statham is one of the few actors that can still pull off that kind of over powered character (Which is probably why he gets so much work). Clay has a Batman level of determination and morality, in many ways making the character a bit too simple but once again Statham is so comfortable in the role you just roll with it.
The Hornets Nest.
The plot itself is a pretty standard action affair built on the theme of kicking the hornets nest. When the scammers steal the money off the old lady that has befriended Clay they had no idea what they had unleashed, but when Clay sets out for revenge he has no idea just how far up the chain his hunt for vengeance and justice would take him. As a result the story constantly escalates, but it is all pretty predictable. Fortunately the movie doesn’t really rely on each revelation being a major twist. Instead the escalation is more like going up levels in a video game, each new level requiring Clay to be more resourceful and up his game.
One of the things I found most interesting (And this is a minor spoiler) is that the main villain seems to be based on Hunter Biden, which is certainly a bold choice but it actually works pretty well. In some ways this is a refreshing choice for the villain, but it’s actually just a variation on a pretty common trope. For example we basically saw a version of this with the original John Wick movie where the loose cannon son is the catalyst for Wick to go to war with his underworld boss father. Unfortunately most of the villains here are just one dimensional dirt bags, the most notable exception being Jeremy Irons who is both the smartest and most reluctant of Clay’s opponents.
Conclusion.
Overall the movie is a bit by the numbers but presents a fun, fast paced ride that will keep you on the edge of your seat. The ending for me though was a bit anticlimactic and it would be nice to feel Clay was in actually in genuine danger at some point. Ultimately though I had a lot of fun and really isn’t that the main thing we want from our action movies? This is a narrow, possibly generous 6.5/10. It’s not a cinematic masterpiece, but I think most people will get a kick out of it. This has done okay in the cinema so I expect to see a sequel at some point.
Welcome to a new series on Screen Wolf. With “Hidden Gems & Unsung Heroes” my intention is to give some long overdue attention to some movies and movie professionals that I don’t feel get the credit they deserve. To start, I’m looking at a trio of movies and an interesting phenomenon in cinema.
Over the years occasionally two conceptually similar movies come out at the same time. For example Armageddon and Deep Impact or Dante’s Peak and Volcano. Often this leads to a debate over which is better. Usually the movie deemed inferior or at least less popular ends up buried in the collective memory of our pop culture. On occasion the buried movie is actually really good, but came head to head with a true behemoth of cinema. I want to bring three such movies to your attention. Great movies that are easily overlooked due to an accident of timing.
The Forgotten Three.
The three movies I’m talking about today are: Witness To Murder (1954), Fail Safe (1964) and The Thirteenth Floor (1999). The first of these, Witness to Murder is a film about someone witnessing a murder in an apartment across the road from from their bedroom window. Sound familiar? That movie was released in April 1954, the legendary Hitchcock movie “Rear Window” was released in November 1954. Unfortunate timing.
Fail Safe was released in October 1964, this is a movie about how a series of tactical errors was going to lead to the accidental nuking of Moscow and the potential retaliation of the USSR to such an accident. Released the same year was Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece “Doctor Strangelove or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb”. Strangelove actually came out first, but there is a reason for that. Because of the similarity between Fail Safe and the Strangelove source material (Red Alert by Peter George), there was a law suit that resulted in both films being owned by the same distributor, Columbia Pictures and on Kubrick’s insistence Strangelove was released first.
No Prize For Second Place.
The final movie is “The Thirteenth Floor” released in may of 1999. This is a movie about people living in an exact replication of our world, but inside a computer simulation…. If you haven’t figured out what movie buried this one in 1999, you probably are on the wrong website. The Matrix came out two months before the Matrix, leaving no space for another film about a virtual reality that isn’t the real world. The movie never stood a chance.
In all three of these cases the movie that buried it was legitimately the better movie, but these are three of the most well known, well respected movies that have ever been made. Coming in second to those is not the worst thing in the world, but all three are good movies, so to be so completely buried is terribly unfair on them and the people behind them. That’s why I want to give them all a quick review and explain what I like about them. Hopefully some of you will check out at least one of them down the road sometime.
Witness To Murder (1954)
Witness To Murder stars Film Noir legend Barbara Stanwyck as “Cherly Drapper” and George Sanders as “Albert Richter”, a former Nazi and megalomaniac who has everyone convinced that Cheryl is deranged and making things up. Gary Merill plays Lawrence Matthews, a police detective that is torn between believing Cheryl and the lack of evidence to back up her claims. The movie is directed by Roy Rowland from a screenplay by Chester Erskine.
The most notable difference between Witness and Rear Window comes from the different gender of the protagonist. This changes the entire shape of the story and is in many ways only a story that could work so well in the 1950’s. Cheryl is doubted, accused of making things up and gaslighted into believing she dreamed the murder and was writing notes harassing Richter. At one point Richter even manages to get her committed.
The Edge Of Sanity.
The movie however puts no doubt into the audience’s mind about the murder. Ricther is shown to the audience quite clearly murdering a lady in the opening scene and is shown to be a thoroughly evil main throughout. So the movie is about a regular woman desperately trying to hold on to what she knows she witnessed despite everyone around her telling her she is crazy. While it doesn’t have the advantage of Hitchcock directing it does present some memorable visuals along the way, such as the scene above.
It is a solid Film Noir and as always Stanwyck’s performance was excellent. However, it wasn’t quite up to the combo of James Stewart and Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece and as a result is largely forgotten. However, it’s different enough to Rear Window to be worth checking out and you can never go too far wrong with a Stanwyck Film Noir. I’d rate it a solid 6.5/10 (Which is a good rating from me).
Fail Safe (1964)
Fail safe was directed by Sidney Lummet and was based on the 1962 novel by the same name (Not as the law suit claimed the 1958 novel “Red Alert”). The main difference between this movie and Strangelove is this is not satire, it is deadly serious the whole way through and very hard hitting. Ultimately though both films make a very similar social commentary, just where Kubrick does it with absurdity, Lummet does it with bitter chilling reality. I can see why Kubrick, as great a director as he was, wanted to make sure his movie came out first.
The story of fail safe is shockingly plausible. The US have a special bomber patrol that is scrambled should a potential Russian bomber be detected heading into US air space. Should they receive a particular signal they will head straight to Moscow and nuke it, the assumption being that an enemy bomber has unleashed nuclear devastation somewhere in the US. Should this signal accidentally be sent there is a counter signal that will have them stand down providing they receive it within a certain window of time.
The Greatest Burden.
After a civilian Russian plane strays into US airspace the bombers are launched and due to a glitch receive the signal to head to Moscow. Unfortunately the Russians suspecting the Americans are up to something have jammed communication with the bombers, meaning their fail safe signal cannot get through. This leaves a desperate scramble by the US and eventually the Russians to come up with some solution that doesn’t lead to World War Three.
The last resort they come up with is that the US will nuke New York themselves should they not be able to stop the bombers reaching Moscow. The pilot in charge of that flight is left with the terrible duty of having to murder millions of his own countrymen to save the entire world. It is a very powerful, shocking drama and yet faced with an in form Stanley Kubrick and Peter Sellers it was buried. This is a very worthwhile film. deserving a solid 7/10. Regardless of how you feel about Kubrick’s masterpiece, this is worth checking out.
The Thirteenth Floor (1990)
Objectively this is probably the weakest of the films I’m showcasing today. It’s still good though and the ideas behind the movie are interesting. It’s a real piece of science fiction. The virtual world here is not the creation of nefarious machines, but humans. This movie came out years before The Sims game, but there were always life sim type games around. It always seemed a likely scenario that one day there would be a computer generated representation of our world that could be physically visited.
Cyberpunk novels such as Snow Crash and Neuromancer had their own virtual worlds, but these were always part of cyberspace, not attempts to recreate our world. The Matrix and Thirteenth Floor both took this to the next level. While the Matrix frankly opted for style over hard science fiction, the Thirteenth floor has very little style but has an arguably deeper look into the impact of our world being fake.
What If I Told You….
The artificial world in Thirteenth Floor is a bit of a gimmick in itself in that it is based on 1937 and the story actually starts with a murder in the real world. There is definitely an element on Film Noir hard boiled detective story here, which would explain the choice to go with 1937. But despite the gimmick the film looks at what happens when the people realize they are in a simulation and asks the question, what if WE are in a simulation. Is there any reason why a simulation couldn’t itself create a simulation? Unlike in the matrix, these simulated people do not have real life bodies. They can’t just exit their fake world…. or can they?
The movie is a fun mixture of detective fiction and science fiction. We get a puzzle with twists and turns and we get the big questions about the nature of reality thrown in on top. It’s worth noting the budget for this movie was $16m compared to the Matrix almost $70m budget. It was always going to be trounced in the box office. While the Matrix wasn’t a rip off of this movie, the source novel “Simulacron-3” by Daniel Galouye was almost certainly a major influence on the Washowskis. The Thirteenth Floor isn’t the ground breaking action and special effects masterpiece that The Matrix is, but it does give you more to think about after. It is a high 6/10. Not earth shattering, especially given the competition, but still a recommendation.
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