Tag: Drew Goddard

New and Old Twofer – ‘Bad Times at the El Royale’ and Larry Cohen’s ‘Special Effects’ – A Bundle of Meh

Bad Times at the El Royale

Written and Directed by Drew Goddard
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth, Manny Jacinto, Jim O’Heir, Alvina August, Nick Offerman, Mark O’Brien, Xavier Dolan
Soundtrack: Michael Giacchino

Bad Times at the El Royale is not the worst movie ever, nor would I even say, “It sucks.”  However, it’s not nearly as clever as it thinks it is (or as most people seem to think it is).

The biggest and most glaring issue is that for a film that’s nearly two-and-a-half hours long, the amount of information you receive is borderline shockingly low, which I could abide if it was super-stylized (a la Mandy, or something more Tarantino-esque like Inglourious Basterds), but it’s really not.  It’s more plot-driven than character-driven, and dare I say neither the characters nor the performances are all that special.

It’s a shame because I like Drew Goddard for his work on The Cabin in the Woods and The Martian, but something just didn’t quite jell here.  Maybe trimming some of the fat to reduce the runtime and quicken the pace would have been an improvement unto itself, but I’m really just spit-balling here; who knows what would have worked?

Again, I didn’t hate it, and if you’re still really curious it might be worth a Redbox rental down the line, but that’s about as much of a recommendation as I can give it.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)

 

Special Effects

Original Release Date: November 16, 1984
Written and Directed by Larry Cohen
Cast: Zoë Lund, Eric Bogosian, Brad Rijn, Kevin O’Connor, Bill Oland, H. Richard Greene, Steven Pudenz
Soundtrack: Michael Minard

In our [hopefully continuing] little series on the life and works of Larry Cohen, Special Effects has decidedly been the biggest disappointment.

Much like Bad Times at the El Royale, I didn’t hate it.  It at least has the trademark Larry Cohen (and vintage New York City) energy to keep you going, but it suffers from a lack of a strong lead performance (or supporting performance for that matter), and a lack of just plain old verisimilitude.  As talented a screenwriter as he is, and as much as I appreciate the influences from, say, Vertigo, there’s an uncanny valley effect to the story here that not even Cohen can overcome, and it’s difficult to not realize how insane and unrealistic it all is.

Again, it’s a shame, because obviously I like Larry Cohen, and I don’t think Zoë Lund and Eric Bogosian are untalented, but the film is a misfire, plain and simple.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)

Movie Review – ‘The Martian’ – Red Storm Rising

 

The_Martian_film_poster

Directed by Ridley Scott
Written by Drew Goddard, based on the novel by Andy Weir
Cast: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong, Enzo Cilenti
Soundtrack: Harry Gregson-Williams

I know I’ll probably take some flack for this, but I’ve actually seen more of Tony Scott’s films than Ridley’s; and, yes, that does include some major tentpoles.

Regardless, and in spite of Ridley Scott riding in on kind of a bumpy streak, my expectations going into ‘The Martian’ were sky high (like 4.5 out of 5 stars minimum high).

Did it deliver?  Should you believe the hype?

Well, mostly.

Let me start with the negatives, because, frankly, this movie left me with a funny aftertaste in my mouth.  95% of the film is “fictional ‘Apollo 13’ 2.0”, which is great, but then the remaining 5% is “MOAR ‘Gravity'”, which I was not expecting and which I found to be quite off-putting.  Also, I question whether ‘The Martian’ needed to be two and a half hours long, and the length of acts should have been more balanced (first act a little longer, second act much shorter, third act much longer).  Furthermore, everyone not named Matt Damon seemed pretty interchangeable in their roles; I mean, I don’t know this for sure because I didn’t work on the movie, but it didn’t seem like any role was written with a particular actor in mind, and they just cast whomever they wanted for whatever reason.  Lastly, there’s a running gag of bad 1970s music which I didn’t find all that funny, and I thought it felt somewhat out of place in a movie such as this.

So, anyway, what’s good about this film?

Well, for one thing, Matt Damon.  I’m not going to say it was the role he was born to play or anything like that, but the script puts a tremendous amount of responsibility on his shoulders and he carries all of it with aplomb.  As an actor, he gets to demonstrate almost the full spectrum of emotion, and he is always believable; total heart and soul of the movie.

Another main strong point of ‘The Martian’, as you might expect, are the visuals.  Now, it’s not on the same cinematic level as, say, ‘Interstellar’, or even ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, but for an outer space movie it looks as it should.  There was obviously a lot of thought and effort put into the mission itself, like how all the vehicles and habitats and equipment would look, and it definitely comes through in the finished product.

Really though, what makes ‘The Martian’ as good as it is is the story, and this is no doubt thanks in large part to the fact that it’s based on a highly acclaimed novel.  Movies don’t have to be entirely new ideas to capture our imagination (not that any idea is really new anymore).  Sometimes they can take things we’re already familiar with and expand on them in a creative and exciting way, and that’s how I think of ‘The Martian’.  And really, when is someone facing impossible odds not, at the very least, interesting?  Not only that, but I appreciated seeing the ethical dilemmas of both the various teams on Earth and the remaining crew still in space.

It may not be the next “greatest movie of all time”, but ‘The Martian’ is certainly worth a theatrical viewing.  Even if you don’t want to run out and see it again, you definitely won’t regret seeing it once as it was meant to be seen; and it’s probably much more fun than you’re expecting.

Rating: ★★★★☆