Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Official Australian release date: 5/5/22.
Viewed: 5/5/22.
Director: Sam Raimi
Actors: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong, Rachel McAdams
Genre: Sci-Fi / Fantasy
Rating: M

 

‘Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness’ (Dr Strange 2) feels odd in a few ways, as it’s been six years since the first film, but we’ve seen so much of Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) recently, in the last two Avengers films and ‘Spider-Man No Way Home’, where he was almost the co-lead. This is also a bit different, as it dips slightly into horror territory, with demons, monsters and zombies – it is directed by Sam Raimi, from the original Spider-Man films, but also ‘Evil Dead’ fame.

The plot follows new character America (Gomez) and her teleporting power and what that has to do with Strange, Wong (Wong) and Wanda (Olsen). This film follows along the lines of what happened in ‘WandaVision’, ‘Loki’ and ‘No Way Home’, so it should be no surprise to viewers with all the interdimensional hopping, magic and psychedelic “other worlds” in this film. It’s good to see some of the alternate Strange’s and the other characters they chose to show us.

While not actually horrific or scary – even though there’s a few minor-shocks – it’s certainly quite dark and tragic, with the Scarlet Witch storyline being quite well-done, even if it leaves little room for humour or fun. It’s good to have McAdams back and she gets some screentime. Cumberbatch is good, but Olsen practically carries the film. The score is good, the CGI top-notch as always and the plot not too indecipherable. As always, there’s two end credit scenes.

Overall: Dark, brooding dive into the dark & mystic arts.
 
Gav’s Rating: 3.5 stars.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent

Official Australian release date: 21/4/22.
Viewed: 3/5/22.
Director: Tom Gormican
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Pedro Pascal, Sharon Horgan, Tiffany Haddish
Genre: Comedy / Action
Rating: M

‘The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent’ starts off like a biopic, but with Nic Cage playing “Nick Cage”, a slightly-nuanced version of himself and almost veers into dramatic territory when it involves his daughter, Addy (Sheen). But his ex-wife Olivia (Horgan), agent Fink (Patrick Harris), Vivian (Haddish) & Martin (Barinholtz), as well as Javier (Pascal) help keep it on track as a mostly-comedy.

Cage is forced to take a gig going to super-fan Javier’s party in Majorca, Spain, where it’s quite funny to see The Mandalorian in dick-togs and fawning over Cage! Then a bit of plot is introduced with Vivian & Martin being CIA agents who recruit Cage to spy on Javier & Lucas (Leon). When his family gets endangered, it becomes a full-on action film.

While maybe trying to be too meta for it’s own good, it’s certainly fun for almost the whole time and Cage certainly gets a few good moments to shine. He does well to both play up his action chops – and only a little of crazy-Cage is on show. The setting is lovely (although apparently Croatia, not Spain), soundtrack good, over quite quickly (~100min) and supporting cast excellent.

Overall: Fun twist on the action-comedy.
 
Gav’s Rating: 3.5 stars.

The Northman

Official Australian release date: 21/4/22.
Viewed: 21/4/22.
Director: Robert Eggers
Actors: Alexander Skarsgard, Claes Bang, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicole Kidman
Genre: Action / Drama
Rating: MA

‘The Northman’ is a viking film with a hint of Shakespeare thrown in. It follows the journey of Amleth (Skarsgard), his mother Gudrun (Kidman), his father King Aurvandil (Hawke) and uncle Fjolnir (Bang). Olga (Taylor-Joy) comes along later as the love interest. When the king is killed, Amleth vows to avenge him, setting up the plot. I wish there was more of Hawke & Dafoe, but they have fun with the screentime they get.

Skarsgard’s traps almost outshine some of his acting, with him being extremely buff for this role. The scenery of Iceland (and lots of Ireland standing in for other Nordic regions) looks amazing, but isn’t always used as much as it could be. The score’s OK – lots of guttural chanting and drumming. Trying to be somewhat faithful to the period, being set in ~900AD, there’s plenty of violence and gore, but it’s not incessant and there’s no large battles. Still, some is pretty graphic.

At it’s heart, it’s that age old tale of love or hate – you can only ever really choose one. This is an easy answer for Amleth for most of the film, being driven purely by revenge – until it’s not. I really liked the night scenes when Eggers make it a silver-ish black & white, but I just felt there was something missing to make this a great film.
 
Overall: Good viking revenge action film, if not quite perfect
 
Gav’s Rating: 3 stars.

Everything Everywhere All At Once

Official Australian release date: 14/4/22.
Viewed: 16/4/22.
Directors: Dan Kwan & Daniel Schinert
Actors: Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis
Genre: Action / Comedy
Rating: MA

‘Everything Everywhere All At Once’ is a simple story about a family’s search for meaning. It also happens to be a mind-bending, multiple-universe, kung-fu, sci-fi epic! Evelyn (Yeoh) and her husband Waymond (Quan – Short Round from ‘Temple of Doom’!) run a laundromat and have some issues with their marriage, their daughter Joy (Hsu) and Evelyn’s father, Gong Gong (Hong). What starts out as a family drama doesn’t take long to turn into a fight to save the multiverse when another Waymond shows up to enlist Evelyn’s help.

From the directors of ‘Swiss Army Man’, “the Daniels” sure know how to do surreal well, but make sure there’s plenty of laughs and idiosyncratic comedy. The alternate realities are explained quickly and simply – no time is wasted and the plot and action is always moving along. Yeoh, Hsu and Quan are all great, as is Jamie Lee Curtis in her role(s). Yeoh should get extra credit both for the stunts/fights at her age (it is 20 years since ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’!), as well as pulling off both a martial arts expert and boring housewife at once.

While there’s plenty of bonkers thing going on – Hsu’s costumes are excellent, some hilarious sex jokes, great/unexpected use of “Absolutely (Story of a Girl)”– the heart of the film is the relationship between Evelyn & Joy and Evelyn & Waymond. There’s some sad moments and some beautiful ones, especially the quiet desert scenes, but we’re left with a great underlying message of love and kindness giving the world meaning.
 
Overall: Poignant, unique, fun, interesting, heartfelt – a must-see!
 
Gav’s Rating: 4 stars.

The Batman

Official Australian release date: 3/3/22.
Viewed 2/3/22.
Director: Matt Reeves
Actors: Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz, Paul Dano, Jeffrey Wright
Genre: Action / Drama
Rating: M

 

‘The Batman’ gives us 6^th film-version of Bruce Wayne in Robert Pattinson and a lot of people are asking “do we need another Batman film?” After watching this, the answer is “yes”. From the director of the last two (great) ‘Planet of the Apes’ films, this is a brooding and dark, true-to-form Batman film, much closer to Tim Burton’s films than the Snyder & Schumacher films. It has some aspects in similar with the Nolan trilogy, but is different enough to stand alone.
 
This is a younger Batman/Bruce, and does well to not re-tell the story of his parents’ deaths. Essential to any good Batman film is a good Alfred and Serkis is great. The entire cast is really good – Selina (Kravitz), Lieutenant Gordon (Wright), the Riddler (Dano), Falcone (Turturro) and Oswald/Penguin (Farrell) – who is literally unrecognisable in his make-up. Dano brings a great energy to the Riddler and makes him seem realistic in the world we live in – definitely no trace of Jim Carey here! The scenes with Bruce & Selina work really well.

While this is very dark, both visually and thematically – including the repeated use of Nirvana’s ‘Something in the Way’ – it really suits the noir vibe of the mystery that has Bruce & Gordon trying to solve the Riddler’s puzzles/murders. They make Gotham very believable – always raining – and there’s a great car chase scene, as well as plenty of realistic hand-to-hand combat. While it’s long – almost 3 hours – it doesn’t drag and the pacing is good, with the non-action components being as exciting as the fight scenes. By the end, I was certainly convinced by the validity of Pattinson, the suit and this film.
 
Overall: Well-made, gritty, low-tech noir mystery/thriller.
 
Gav’s Rating: 4 stars.

Studio 666

Official Australian release date: 24/2/22.
Viewed 26/2/22.
Director: BJ McDonnell
Actors: Dave Ghohl, Pat Smear, Nate Mendel, Whitney Cummings
Genre: Horror / Comedy
Rating: R
 

‘Studio 666’ is a Foo Fighters pet project, poking fun at themselves, rockstar excess and horror all in a fun film. The plot is simple – Dave (singer/songwriter), Nate (bass), Chris (guitar), Pat (guitar), Taylor (drums) & Rami (keyboards) are wanting to do something different for their 10^th album, so end up recording in a haunted house. The rest is mostly an ‘Evil Dead’ rip-off!
 
Most of the fun comes from watching the band, who are clearly not actors, have fun with the absurdness/silliness. There are some good cameos from actual actors – Samantha (Cummings) the neighbour, Jeremy (Garlin) the manager and Darren (Forte) the delivery guy. And while it’s semi-funny, it’s definitely very gory and I think the death-count got to 9. Just not sure it needed to be 1 hour 45min – might’ve been a good 30min TV episode.
 
If you’re a Foo fan and appreciate the humour in their video clips, you should enjoy this. Lots of little inside jokes and they play against their nice-guy personas on purpose. Still, they’re definitely not actors! Only one actual Foo Fighters song from ‘Medicine At Midnight’ is used, during the credits – the song they play during the film is actually pretty good, even though it’s in “L” key.
 
Overall: Silly, gory, dumb rock’n’roll.
 
Gav’s Rating: 2.5 stars.

The Matrix Resurrections

Official Australian release date: 26/12/21. Viewed: 27/12/21.
Director: Lana Wachowski
Actors: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Ann Moss, Neil Patrick Harris, Jessica Henwick
Genre: Sci-Fi / Action
Rating: M

 

‘The Matrix Resurrections’ is a semi-reboot, coming 18 years after the trilogy was completed. We don’t start with Neo (Reeves), but rather Bugs (Henwick), a Trinity-like character and a refreshed-Morpheus (Abdul-Mateen), as they search for Neo in the Matrix. Turns out Neo & Trinity (Moss) are both alive inside the Matrix, but in new simulations, where they don’t know each other or their past lives and Mr Anderson just so happens to have created a video game called “The Matrix”. It gets a bit meta in parts.

The film takes quite a while to establish Neo’s new normal, with the therapist/Analyst (Patrick-Harris) and Smith (Groff) as his business partner, as well as the new real humans – Bugs and the others that don’t really get much screen time. Niobe (Pinkett Smith) is back as one of the survivors of Zion. Once Neo is rescued, it becomes an attempt to free Trinity too. Not really too much to the plot otherwise, for good or bad. Henwick, Groff and Patrick-Harris are good, while Moss feels like a secondary character.

One of the main issues is that the CGI on the original trilogy was so groundbreaking, that it now seems run-of-the-mill. There’s not much new here in terms of CGI or action scenes, especially after what happened in ‘Revolutions’ (probably worth a re-watch to those that write it off). Sticks to the core tenet of Neo & trinity’s love being able to disrupt the Matrix, but doesn’t add too much to the overall Matrix mythology. Definitely not a bad film, just not exceptional. I assume there will be more films...

Overall: Nice nostalgia trip, without being revolutionary.

Gav's Rating: 3.5 stars.