eFilmCritic! Movie Reviews - Australia's Essential Movie Review Source

Time 2021-05-28 21:13:06

Web Name: eFilmCritic! Movie Reviews - Australia's Essential Movie Review Source

WebSite: http://www.efilmcritic.com

ID:179795

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"Dead from the neck up." Rob Gonsalves says... "It’d be nice if Athena Perample got a career bump from Zack Snyder’s mediocrity at length "Army of the Dead."" (more) "Cruel Intentions" alejandroariera says... "“Cruella de Vil, Cruella de Vil, if she doesn’t scare you, nothing evil will.” Who would have thought that Mel Leven’s original song would prove to be so prophetic? For “Cruella,” Disney’s latest so-called reimagining of its vast library of characters and stories, defangs the “101 Dalmatians” villainess that was so perfectly voiced by Betty Lou Gerson in the original 1961 animated classic and snarkily brought to life by a fabulously campy Glenn Close in the 1996 live remake and its 2000 sequel, “102 Dalmatians.” Given Cruella’s penchant for skinning puppies and turning them into coats, the character lends itself perfectly for an almost gothic dark comedy. But as directed by Craig Gillespie (“I, Tonya”) and written by not one but FIVE writers —script by Tom McNamara and Dana Fox from a story by Aline Brosch McKenna, Kelly Marcel and Steve Zissis— “Cruella” is the kind of origin story that literally takes you to the very beginning: the future villainess’ actual birth. It quickly goes downhill from there." (more) "Something Wicked-ish This Way Comes" Peter Sobczynski says... "While watching “Cruella,” any number of questions popped into my mind but the one that seemed the most urgent was also the most seemingly basic—who is this movie supposed to be for in the first place? On the one hand, despite the Disney name, it is not even remotely a film that is suitable for families with younger children, who are quite likely to find themselves alternating between feelings of terror and boredom. (Yes, it is rated PG-13 but my guess is that a lot of people will end up ignoring or overlooking that fact.) On the other hand, it is nowhere near the kind of diabolical creation that it might have been if the filmmakers and the studio had decided to take collective leaves of their senses and produce a version aimed squarely at a more adult-leaning audience. What has resulted is a peculiar little mess (despite the Brobdingnagian size of the production) that has been made with some degree of ambition and energy—though not nearly enough—but which is hobbled by the fact that its entire existence has been predicated not by the burning need to tell a particular story but by the fact that the two “Maleficent” films made hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars around the world and Disney was hoping to get lighting to strike a third time." (more) "Be Vewy Vewy Quiet--Again. . ." Peter Sobczynski says... "When I reviewed “A Quiet Place” when it came out in 2018, I praised it for taking a potentially dubious premise for a horror film and spinning out in a well-made and surprisingly effective manner that contained a number of nicely staged suspense sequences and kept the dumb stuff to a relative minimum. At the end of that review, I also said that it was “also nice to see a pared-to-the-bone genre film that is not interested in creating elaborate backstories or setting up an endless string of sequels.” Well, I guess I spoke too soon—unexpectedly grossing nearly $350 million dollars worldwide on a $17 million dollar budget has a way of changing plans—because now, after being one of the first major films to get bumped off the schedule during the early days of the pandemic, “A Quiet Place Part II” has arrived to serve as the unofficial kickoff blockbuster of this year’s attempt at a summer movie season. As it turns out, its oddball position as the cinematic canary that will hopefully lure wary viewers back into the multiplexes is by far the most interesting aspect of this stylishly executed but ultimately empty work that has nothing else on its mind but giving viewers and Paramount accountants a repeat of the experience that they had and loved three years ago." (more) "Where Are The Raiders Kids When You Need Them?" Erik Childress says... "While distribution and profit may still elude artists, movies have never been easier to make. At this point “everyone’s a critic” is being gained on in numbers from the “anyone can be a filmmaker” demographic. Steven Soderbergh is shooting on iPhones. TikTok is quickly becoming a new form of short film. All you need is a camera, time and commitment and you too can create something that you can call a movie. Take Sean Kenealy and Eric Silvera. They are together in nearly every frame of their movie, In Action. There is not a whole lot of motion to this picture and if it is not on screen, the duo will find a way to explain what is happening. But just because it meets the minimal standards for what constitutes a feature-length running time does not mean it satisfies the basic ones for what passes as entertainment." (more) "Bring The Pain" Peter Sobczynski says... "When it was announced in 2019 that a new “Saw” movie was going to be coming, it may not have been that much of a surprise—familiar horror franchises have a tendency to get revived even after they appear to have run their course—but there were two aspects to the announcement that did raise a few eyebrows. The first was that the news was coming less than two years after “Jigsaw,” the 2017 attempt to revive the franchise that was cheap enough to be profitable but did not suggest any driving interest in continuing the saga with a ninth installment. The second, and by far odder, thing was that the film was going to be based on a story pitched by none other than Chris Rock, who would also star in it as well. The presence of Rock, along with co-star Samuel L. Jackson, will no doubt earn “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” more attention than one might normally expect from the ninth entry in a horror franchise that peaked with approximately ten minutes to go in the first installment and then plummeted sharply from that point on. However, whatever magic Rock was able to conjure up during his pitch clearly did not make it to the screen because while this may not necessarily be the worst of the “Saw” films, it may prove to be the most disappointing of the bunch thanks to its absolute inability to live up to its avowed ambitions to take the tired-and-true formula and do something new, interesting and provocative with it." (more) "Well That Was Worth The Wait. . ." Peter Sobczynski says... "With the exception of “The New Mutants,” I cannot recall another recent film that has had such a tangled and tormented path to its release than “The Woman in the Window,” the adaptation of the best-selling thriller by A.J. Finn. Shot in 2018, it was originally meant to be released in 2019 but suffered a delay of nearly three years brought on by unsuccessful test screenings that resulted in reshoots, Disney’s purchase of Fox, who had produced it, the COVID pandemic and other hiccups. With a history like that, one might rightfully expect the final product that is now premiering on Netflix to be some unholy mess. As it turns out, the only real mystery surrounding the film is how much of a nothing it is—how could something this flat and predictable possibly inspire so much behind-the-scenes agita?" (more) "Secondhand Smoke" Peter Sobczynski says... "If I had been forced to guess the type of project that Angelina Jolie would select for her first (not counting her turn in her directorial effort “By the Sea”) outing before the cameras in a non-family film enterprise in more than a decade, I am not certain exactly how I would have answered. That said, I am pretty sure that I would not have tagged her to sign on for a project that looks like the kind of thing that Howie Long might have turned down during his brief attempt at big screen stardom. And yet, that is exactly what she has chosen to do with the portentously-titled “Those Who Wish Me Dead,” a slab of unrelenting mediocrity that appears to have been taken from a recently unearthed pile of rejected action screenplays from the mid-90s and brought to something that never quite manages to approximate life." (more)"Please enjoy short reviews of American Traitor: The Trial of Axis Sally, Endangered Species and Port Authority. " (more)"Please enjoy short reviews of Army of the Dead, The Dry, The Perfect Candidate, Pink: All I Know So Far, The Retreat and Seance. " (more)"Please enjoy short reviews of The Djinn, Oxygen, Profile Timecrafters: The Treasure Of Pirate's Cove. " (more) 'A BEAUTIFUL GIRL IS ALL POWERFUL AND THAT IS AS GOOD AS LOVE GETS.' - Paul, Beautiful Girls

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