Kenneth Branagh – People Talking

Twofer Movie Review – ‘Belfast’ and ‘Ghostbusters: Afterlife’ – The Joys of Youth

A weird pair? Sure.

Do I care? No.

Let’s get to it.

Written and Directed by Kenneth Branagh
Cast: Jude Hill, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Judi Dench, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan, Lara McDonnell, Gerard Horan, Conor MacNeill, Turlough Convery, Gerard McCarthy, Lewis McAskie, Olive Tennant, Victor Alli, Josie Walker
Soundtrack: Van Morrison

With respect to a bunch of movies that had their releases delayed by the pandemic, I’m not sure I’ve been as excited for a new film in the past couple of years now as I’ve been for Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast.

Now, admittedly, I generally see British Isles accents as a feature and not a bug, so I felt totally comfortable diving into Belfast in a theater, rather than the comfort of home where I can turn on subtitles, but the movie is so much more than that.

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical tale of young life in Belfast at the start of “The Troubles” is, in terms of pure cinema, maybe the best thing he’s ever directed, which is something given his resume. The black and white palate (with color occasionally mixed in for effect) helps to put the story in its time, but the cinematography itself frequently evokes the perspective of a child, which is one of the major points of the whole piece.

If I have any criticism at all, it’s that, there is one, maybe two scenes that feel a bit out of place with the rest of the film, but the performances are all on point, it looks beautiful, it feels beautiful, and, while it does touch on some darker subject matter (such is life), it still manages to be a joyful film throughout. I doubt anyone will ever classify Belfast as a “Christmas Movie”, but it gets honorary status in my book.

It deserves every award bestowed.

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)

Directed by Jason Reitman
Written by Gil Kenan & Jason Reitman
Cast: Mckenna Grace, Finn Wolfhard, Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Logan Kim, Celeste O’Connor, Oliver Cooper, Bokeem Woodbine, Marlon Kazadi, Sydney Mae Diaz, Tracy Letts
Soundtrack: Rob Simonsen

Speaking of movies pushed back by the pandemic though, I was admittedly more cautious heading into Ghostbusters: Afterlife, being a huge fan of the first and even second movie in the series.

I’ve said this before in relation to Star Wars: I do my best to be concerned with the quality of the movies in beloved franchises first, before examining fan stuff like “canon” (Rogue One didn’t pass muster).

By that standard, Afterlife may be the best of the recent “nostalgia films”, in no small part because somebody not only bothered to write a solid screenplay first, but then had the directorial vision to follow through on it, rather than letting the cast take over the movie with incessant improvisation (not that I’m talking about any project in particular).

Is there “fan service” in Afterlife? Yes.

Is it at an unforgivable level? I’d say no.

Honestly, the most refreshing aspect of the movie to me is its simplicity, both in the overall story and in the “action” set pieces. There aren’t 500 CGI shots that come from an impossible camera angle that instantly take me out of the movie; it’s mostly down to earth stuff that conveys a real sense of risk and danger.

Now, does it “match the tone” of the 1984 film?

For the most part, I’d say yes.

The beauty of the original is that, while it is a comedy film that makes us laugh, the world of the movie is treated 100% real, which allows you to make a sequel film decades later that is a slightly different animal; but, on a binary, the dry humor is still there in Afterlife.

Kudos to Jason Reitman, who was resistant to the idea of making “Ghostbusters 3” for a long time, but ultimately may have been the perfect person to do it.

And, I have to say, as much as the marketing team may have been playing up the Stranger Things comparisons, I would not make that comparison at all. Believe it or not, you can have multiple properties with kids in them that are not the same.

Rating: ★★★★☆

Movie Review – ‘TENET’ – “Does your head hurt yet?”

Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, Fiona Dourif, Himesh Patel, Dimple Kapadia, Martin Donovan, Michael Caine
Soundtrack: Ludwig Göransson

Let me start with the elephant in the room.

No, not coronavirus. The sound mix.

No doubt, part of my experience may have been due to some venue-specific subwoofer issues, but I’ve seen other complaints about not being able to make out the dialogue, so this appears to be something of a baked-in problem. Even going in armed with this information, and prepared to listen well, it was still a major struggle. I’m guessing TENET didn’t get much audience testing, because, frankly, much of it is as bad or even worse than Bane’s original mix in The Dark Knight Rises. Perhaps it’s not as pronounced of an issue in a regular theater with an unenhanced speaker system (if I see the movie again, it’ll probably be in a smaller venue), but who knows? I wouldn’t mind some subtitles, to be honest.

Thankfully though, Christopher Nolan has enough silent film sensibility that, even without getting a large chunk of the dialogue, I still never felt utterly lost; though I can’t say I have a complete understanding of the film. However, I’d say I have a better handle on TENET after one viewing than I did on Dunkirk after the first time, though I don’t think it’s quite as good.

Before we even get there though, from the jump, people have been comparing TENET to James Bond, but having now seen the movie, I find this argument specious, if not downright lazy. For one thing, most Nolan movies are influenced by Bond, no matter the subject matter, but second, I think Nolan very specifically didn’t want this to be a Bond film (if anything, I’d say the action in this movie is far more Bourne-influenced, just, you know, not awful). In fact, there’s one specific film, that’s not even really a spy movie, that I would compare TENET to (“[title redacted] on steroids” you might say), but to name it outright would be too much of a spoiler (hint: a major player in that movie is related to a major player in TENET).

But enough criticism. Let’s get to the good stuff.

As we’ve some to expect, if nothing else, I appreciate Nolan’s effort to capturing things in the camera lens as much as humanly possible. Someone else could have made this movie, no doubt for a lot cheaper, and filled in scenes with CGI rather than real extras and practical effects, but it just would not have looked the same. We’ve become so accustomed to computer generated sets and people that simply seeing dozens of actual humans on screen, in a real location, is visually striking (not unlike Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood).

And speaking of humans, there are actually multiple performances worth mentioning here. For one, John David Washington. If he didn’t already win you over in BlacKKKlansman, he’s officially putting you on notice now that he is a S-T-A-R. I seriously could not get enough of him. Also, Robert Pattinson, as I’ve come to expect, turns in another compelling performance (and I’m guessing he got to have even more fun than usual, not having to deal with the extra layer of an American accent [not that he isn’t great at those]). And, finally, Kenneth Branagh gives the movie some real weight; I mean, I loved him for his five-or-so minutes in Dunkirk, but this is the best acting work I’ve seen from him in years.

Overall, I guess I have paradoxical thoughts on TENET, which is somewhat appropriate. On the one hand, it doesn’t feel like the most original Nolan movie, because it’s kind of a spiritual sequel to Inception the way The Fury is to Carrie for Brian De Palma; and yet, there are elements of it that still feel, if not groundbreaking, at least new for Nolan.

It’s a lot, it’ll overwhelm many, but, despite the runtime, I was never bored, and that pays off many debts.

Rating: ★★★★☆

In Defense of: ‘Wild Wild West’

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld
Written by Jim & John Thomas (story), S.S. Wilson & Brent Maddock and Jeffrey Price & Peter S. Seaman (screenplay)
Cast: Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek, M. Emmet Walsh, Ted Levine, Frederique Van Der Wal, Musetta Vander, Sofia Eng, Bai Ling, Garcelle Beauvais, Buck Taylor, Derek Mears
Soundtrack: Elmer Bernstein

(I mean, Steampunk is technically sci-fi, right?)

I’m not a Boomer, so I have no particular fealty to the Robert Conrad show of the 1960s, of which Wild Wild West is loosely inspired by (not unlike Mission: Impossible), but if the reason you don’t like this movie is because you feel it did the original show dirty, then there’s not much I can say to convince you otherwise (though I can definitely appreciate having passion for cherished properties).

On the contrary, I was a young lad at the time Wild Wild West was released, which I suppose put me at least on the outer edge of the target demographic (boy oh boy do I remember that song), although I did not see it theatrically (my mom’s a Robert Conrad fan, so she certainly had no impetus to take me). I’d catch bits and pieces here and there on cable, but I don’t think I fully sat down and watched it until a couple of years ago. Despite the film’s reputation as a bad movie, I have to say, I found it very entertaining, and seeing it on the big screen last year only affirmed my experience.

First of all, it’s directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black), shot by Michael Ballhaus (Scorsese’s primary cinematographer from After Hours to The Departed), and has music by Elmer Bernstein (he scored a little movie called Ghost Busters), so, right off the bat, things can’t be all bad.

Secondly, I like the steampunk angle of it. Yes, not everything still holds up visually from 1999, and some things perhaps get a bit too silly, but, by and large, there are some really fun concepts that are well-executed, both large and smaller Q-gadget scale.

Third, I enjoy the playing around with history (after all, I was a history major). Admittedly, there are some uncomfortable tonal shifts (some may call them inconsistencies) in this area, but part of that is undoubtedly Sonnenfeld’s twisted sense of humor, which I’m mostly okay with. And, frankly, much of the subject matter is a little more relevant than some people may care to admit (dare I suggest, did Wild Wild West crawl so HBO’s Watchmen could sprint?).

Lastly, I actually like the performances. Obviously, Will Smith is Will Smith, you can take him or leave him, but Kevin Kline turns in a solid comedic performance, and, most importantly, Kenneth Branagh appropriately devours the scenery as the mustache-twirling Dr. Loveless. Overall, I get the impression that everyone knew they weren’t making high art, and allowed themselves to have fun with it, while still taking it seriously enough to not make it a farce.

It may not be a “great” movie. At the end of the day it may simply be big budget schlock (which I’m okay with), but more than anything else, Wild Wild West is fun, and that’s all I need it to be. I definitely recommend giving it another chance if it’s been a while since you’ve last seen it.

Rating: ★★★½ (out of five)

Movie Review – ‘Dunkirk’ – “What a piece of work is man”

Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan

Cast: Fionn Whitehead, Damien Bonnard, Aneurin Barnard, James Bloor, Barry Keoghan, Mark Rylance, Tom Glynn-Carney, Tom Hardy, Jack Lowden, Billy Howle, Mikey Collins, Dean Ridge, Bobby Lockwood, Will Attenborough, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Nolan, James D’Arcy, Matthew Marsh, Cillian Murphy, Adam Long, Harry Styles, Miranda Nolan, Bradley Hall, Jack Cutmore-Scott, Brett Lorenzini, Michael Fox, Brian Vernel, Elliott Tittensor, Kevin Guthrie, Harry Richardson, Jochum ten Haaf, Johnny Gibbon, Richard Sanderson, Kim Hartman, Charley Palmer Rothwell, John Nolan, Bill Milner, Eric Richard, Michael Caine (voice)

Soundtrack: Hans Zimmer

This film has barely been out for a hot minute and there’s already very little I can say about it that hasn’t been said already.

Lord knows there are plenty of World War II movies out there (and they’ll probably keep making them until the end of time, since it seems to be the only armed conflict in history without any moral ambiguity), and there are plenty of EPIC war movies, so do we really need another epic World War II movie?

Well, yes.

Maybe someone somewhere out there has seen a movie like Dunkirk before, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t (and I’ve seen a myriad of World War II movies). Certainly no one has shot a movie like this on IMAX before, but I can’t recall another film that features warfare on the land, sea, and air while still keeping most of (if not all of) the visual spectacle in camera; not to this degree anyway.

Is Dunkirk perfect? I say no, but I don’t think it’s intended to be either.

The film is laid out in a non-linear fashion, featuring three different stories in three different time frames, eventually intersecting:

1. The Mole – One Week: This is the story of soldiers on the beach at Dunkirk, awaiting their fate, played out over a week’s time.

2. The Sea – One Day: This is [mostly?] the tale of a civilian boat crossing the Channel to rescue troops, played out over the course of a day.

3. The Air – One Hour: This is the story of a flight of Spitfires who do battle over the channel, played out over the course of an hour.

The various and overlapping timelines result in the audience seeing certain events from multiple perspectives at different times throughout the film I don’t think it’s all edited together in the most elegant fashion, but I’m not sure it’s meant to be. Perhaps Christopher Nolan was intending to portray war as more disjointed and chaotic than we often see, especially in classic Hollywood films.

I know for sure he wanted to go against the Hollywood grain in terms of casting, using actual young people, as opposed to late-20s/early-30s standing in for teenagers (not dissimilar to how Jon Watts approached Spider-Man: Homecoming). I’m not sure exactly how much this translates to the screen, I think the movie could have worked just fine with older actors, but, in comparison to other films, say, Starship Troopers, where 28-year-old Casper Van Dien is dancing at the senior prom (or whatever), this choice definitely stands out.

Honestly though, like every Christopher Nolan movie from 2008 onward, this movie is really about the visuals, and in that regard it excels wildly. The large film format allows for images of stunning breadth and clarity (the air-to-air sections in particular are truly spectacular), but I was surprised at how many intimate moments (e.g. close-ups) there were as well.

Frankly, this movie was a bit more arthouse than I was expecting, and I think a lot of people have been surprised by that as well. There’s certainly a lot less dialogue than we’ve been accustomed to in this type of film, which some have complained about, but it doesn’t bother me.

There’s one last large component I haven’t touched on yet, and that’s Hans Zimmer’s score. I’m a bit conflicted about it. I think oftentimes it’s a bit too modern (which, in comparison, makes Michael Giachinno’s score for Apes 3 all the more impressive), but I can’t deny that it’s effective. It’s really the uniting factor of all of the disparate elements of the film.

At the end of the day, the tagline of Dunkirk (“Survival is Victory”) is exactly what the message is, which is to say that sometimes just staying alive is enough. It’s truly a tale of the human spirit, for better or worse. It may not seem as “vital” as other contemporary combat pictures, but just because the story is old doesn’t mean it can’t speak to you today.

Quite simply, Dunkirk is a triumph of cinema, and should be seen by all.

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)

P.S.
I saw this on a 70mm IMAX print, which I do recommend if you can find one, especially since these don’t come around every day, but it’s fine if you see it on a slightly smaller format first, because the IMAX experience is truly overwhelming (especially for your ears).