Movie Review: Aquaman

Aquaman *** / *****

Directed by: James Wan.

Written by: David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall and Geoff Johns and James Wan based on a character created by Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris.

Starring: Jason Momoa (Arthur Curry / Aquaman), Amber Heard (Mera), Nicole Kidman (Queen Atlanna), Dolph Lundgren (King Nereus), Patrick Wilson (Orm / Ocean Master), Willem Dafoe (Nuidis Vulko), Randall Park (Dr. Stephen Shin), Temuera Morrison (Thomas Curry), Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (David Kane / Black Manta), Michael Beach (Jesse Kane).

 

It’s no secret that DC has stumbled out of the gate in their attempt to build a huge cinematic universe like Marvel has done. A big part of that is that they tried to move so quickly – making the Justice League movie before any characters other than Superman and Wonder Woman really had standalone movies. But a much bigger part is that they have insisted on making the movies so dark and serious. They looked at what Christopher Nolan did with the Dark Knight movies, and took exactly the wrong lessons from him – feeling that they had to suck all the humor (and color) out of the movies and make them “gritty”. The result has been overstuffed films that are lacking in any real sense of wonder and joy. Last year’s Wonder Woman acted as a corrective – and showed a way forward, because the film takes itself seriously, it was also a hell of a lot of fun. And now comes Aquaman, which is hardly a great film, but is certainly a lot more fun than the other DC films (save for Wonder Woman) and thankfully doesn’t try and give us a dark and gritty Aquaman. The film is still undeniably bloated, and there is too much CGI in the film – it all starts to blend together into some kind of visually incoherent soup at times – but it’s a lot better of a film than it probably has any right to be.

 

We already met Aquaman in last year’s Justice League (where, as played by Jason Momoa, he was pretty much a one note bro-joke), so to go back now and get his origin story is a little strange. Still, here it is – the son of the Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman) and a human lighthouse keeper (Temuera Morrison), Arthur Curry grew up as a human, but received lessons from his Atlantian side, after they dragged his mother away, never to be seen again. His younger, half-brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) now wants to start a war the surface dwellers (to be fair, we deserve it – we have polluted their water). So Mera (Amber Heard) reaches out to Arthur to try and get to come back and take his rightful place on the throne.

 

Of course, it is a lot (and I mean A LOT) more complicated than that. This is a film that runs nearly two and a half hours, and spends much of that time explaining Atlantis politics – and the different undersea kingdoms that need to be united, and complex rules of challenging for the throne, etc. It didn’t need to be this complicated – and would have been a lot better had it not been so complex, because in reality much of that exposition is full. It doesn’t help that Patrick Wilson doesn’t leave much of an impression as Orm. Wilson is an actor who excels when you need him to play bland characters – pretty boys without a personality (Angels in America, Little Children) – but something like a comic book villain just isn’t in his wheelhouse. The same could be said for Amber Heard as Mera – whose motivations are never really clear, except that she’s supposed to be the pretty one. Luckily though, Jason Momoa is actually a delight as Aquaman. Yes, the role and the character are ridiculous – but Momoa completely embraces its inherent goofiness, and makes the role his own. It’s a reminder that you don’t always have to be the best actor to be right for the part – and Momoa is undeniably right for the part.

 

The biggest asset the film has though may just be James Wan as director. Wan has proven himself to be one of the best directors of horror working today (The Conjuring, Insidious, Saw) – and with a Fast & Furious movie under his belt, he added blockbusters to his list as well. Here, he handles the massive amounts of CGI about as good as can be expected. Occasionally, it doesn’t always work – but for the most part, he does bring his own sensibility to the project. No, it’s not the best work of his career – and I really wish he’d go back to making horror films, which he does better than practically anyone around today – but he brings a level of director personality to Aquaman that has been missing from the DCU so far.

 

So no, Aquaman isn’t a great movie – but it’s a step in the right direction for DC. Yes, the film is still too long, too bloated, with too much CGI. But it’s also fun and doesn’t take itself so seriously that it sucks the joy out of watching it. For DC, that’s about as good as it gets.

Movie Review: The Conjuring 2

The Conjuring 2

Directed by: James Wan.

Written by: Carey Hayes & Chad Hayes & James Wan and David Leslie Johnson.

Starring: Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren), Madison Wolfe (Janet Hodgson), Frances O'Connor (Peggy Hodgson), Lauren Esposito (Margaret Hodgson), Benjamin Haigh (Billy Hodgson), Patrick McAuley (Johnny Hodgson), Simon McBurney (Maurice Grosse), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Peggy Nottingham), Simon Delaney (Vic Nottingham), Franka Potente (Anita Gregory), Bob Adrian (Bill Wilkins).

 

There is not a finer director of mainstream horror films today than James Wan. As a horror filmmaker, Wan has been smart – he knows the traditional horror beats better than anyone, and is more than capable of delivering them – but he’s just as skilled as misdirection, setting something up with one hand, and then delivering something unexpected with the other. And, I think most important of all, he isn’t afraid of quiet moments where nothing much happens – where there’s no thudding or panting or moaning on the soundtrack, nothing popping out of the shadows every few seconds. Watching a Wan horror film is to constantly be on edge, as he so gradually ratchets things up, you barely notice just how tense you’ve become.

 

All of that is true even in a movie like The Conjuring 2 – the sequel to the 2013 smash hit, which was also the best mainstream American haunted house movie in a generation. A sequel was, of course, inevitable – and even though Wan has moved to franchise filmmaker with last year’s Furious 7 and the upcoming Aquaman – I’m glad he came back to direct the sequel. In many ways, The Conjuring 2 is a mere exercise in style – one that moves with efficiency, utilizing some of the same tricks that worked so amazingly well the first time out, to inevitably lesser results in the sequel. This is not a mere repeat of the first film though – the setting is different – a low income area in London instead of a dilapidated Rhode Island farmhouse, the demon is a different beast altogether, and what happens, in specific, is not merely a repeat of the first film. But Wan’s tricks are largely the same, and even if they remain creepily effective this time around, there is never a sequence as terrifying as the “handclap” sequence in the original, and the finale is a little too standard horror movie fare for me to be scared by it. The scariest moments in The Conjuring are not when the demon shows its face – although, to be fair, it is a truly creepy demon face (and continues Wan’s talent for devising faces that will haunt your dreams for years, like Saw’s creepy puppet and the face of the demon in Insidious), but in the quieter moments. It probably didn’t help that, unlike the “true life” case in the original film, I was actually familiar with the “true life” story of The Conjuring 2 – which, sorry, has pretty much conclusively been proved false – although I appreciate how the movie played even with the fact that the it had been proven false, by acknowledging it, and then moving on.

 

One of the reasons why two Conjuring films works so well is the performances by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga as Ed and Lorraine Warren, who take their roles very seriously. They build a chemistry together, so they have a believable marriage together – the kind where they simply look at each other, and know what they are thinking and feeling – and have absolute trust in each other. They are also, strangely enough, portray their Catholic faith in one of the most positive ways I can recall in any movie – it’s the bedrock of everything they do, and the film takes it seriously as well. The performances are sincere, so even if I don’t actually believe in any of the stuff they’re spouting, for a couple of hours, in their company, I do. They are aided in The Conjuring 2 by several strong supporting performances – and if nothing quite reaches the level of Lily Taylor’s work in the original. Sally Hawkins, normally so sunny and cheerful, is wonderful as the distraught mother here, trying in vain to protect her children from something she doesn’t understand. Madison Wolfe is good, hitting notes we usually do not see in the clichéd role of “child possessed by a demon”.

 

The Conjuring 2 has some problems with it, sure. At 135 minutes, the film is far too long (the runtime of the original, 112 is about right for this type of movie. However, since it’s the quieter moments, where nothing much is seemingly happening, that are most effective – and well could have been the things cuts, so perhaps it’s just as well it is too long. The Conjuring 2 isn’t as good as the first film – doing that in a horror sequel is nearly impossible, but it comes closer than most horror films do. This is the genre where Wan is a modern master, and even if in The Conjuring 2, he’s repeating some tricks, well, they’re good tricks. And they work.

Movie Review: Furious 7

Furious 7
Directed by: James Wan.
Written by: Chris Morgan based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson.
Starring: Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O'Conner), Jason Statham (Deckard Shaw), Michelle Rodriguez (Letty), Jordana Brewster (Mia), Tyrese Gibson (Roman), Ludacris (Tej), Dwayne Johnson (Hobbs), Lucas Black (Sean Boswell), Kurt Russell (Mr. Nobody), Nathalie Emmanuel (Ramsey), John Brotherton (Sheppard), Tony Jaa (Kiet), Djimon Hounsou (Jakande), Ali Fazal (Safar), Ronda Rousey (Kara).

While I am never going to join the Fast and Furious cult – those film critics who somehow see this series of films as some sort of masterpieces, I do have to admit that over time, this series has worn me down, and won me over with its increasingly absurd brand of action filmmaking. I didn’t think too much of the first three films – which were sort of bland and forgettable, but starting with the fourth installment, it seems like the filmmakers have decided simply to throw everything and the kitchen sink into the films. They have shot down planes, leap off across bridges, dragged enormous safes through the streets, and engaged in all sorts of mayhem – all while looking good, driving insanely expensive, fast cars and surrounded by women, who are all insanely good looking. I don’t think I’ll ever love a Fast and Furious movie – but dammit it all if I don’t find them fun.

The latest installment once again finds Dominic Tortetto (Vin Diesel) and Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) and his team, sorry “family”, having to go up against some insane bad guys. This time, it’s Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), the brother of Owen, who was the bad guy in the last film who the team put in a coma. Deckard isn’t happy about that – and like every bad guy in every action movie, he’s a rogue, ex-elite forces guy, who moves like a shadow, and can kill any and everyone who gets in his way. In the time honored tradition of action villains everywhere, he wants revenge for what our heroes did to his family – and he’s going to get it. But how can Toretto, O’Conner and company track a shadow? That, of course, requires them to get an insane sounding computer program, which means first they need to rescue the hacker who made that program and has been kidnapped by some mean, bad guys in the middle of nowhere. And they’ll need the help of a shadow on their side – Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell) – to do so. Through the course of the movie they will parachute out of planes – in their cars of course – and they also drive an even more insanely priced car inside of a skyscraper in the Middle East, whose brakes fail meaning they have to jump it from one building to the next. There are also gunfights, insane hand-to-hand combat sequences (which is why they brought in Tony Jaa obviously), and even modern day gladiatorial style fighting with giant wrenches. All of it is completely and totally ridiculous – and all of is also totally entertaining.

The director this time in James Wan – best known for horror movies like Saw, Insidious and The Conjuring – taking over for Justin Lin, who directed the last four installments. Wan isn’t quite as good as Lin is at directing the insane action sequences – but he more than gets the job done. Considering however just how good he is at mainstream horror – 2007’s misfire Dead Silence aside – I think I’d rather him keep making those films however. But hey, he seems to be having fun like everyone else involved in the project, so who I am to complain.

The series, when it hasn’t been doing insane stunts, has had a lot of talk about family – something that it underlines a little too much this time out. The untimely death of Walker gives a poignancy to the film that the other films lacked – and while you could accuse the film of being shamefully manipulative in trying to milk tears from the audience, especially in the final scenes, I thought it was a rather fitting, and respectful tribute to Walker. I may not have cried – like some have admitted to – but I came closer than I ever thought a Fast and Furious movie could get me.

To me, Furious 7 marks an obvious end point to the series. How many more times can they really go to this well? The worst installments are the probably the ones that don’t feature both Diesel and Walker – neither are really great actors, both are perfect for this series and their roles in it – so I feel it’s time to call it quits. This segment even started edging towards Expendables territory, bringing a bunch of action stars for “guest appearances” – like Jaa, Russell and Statham – and so it’s probably best before the series really jumps the shark. Then again, the film made $140 million in North America on opening weekend, so I’m sure we’ll see Furious 8 – or Fast 8 or whatever the hell they’re going to call it. And more than likely, so help me God, I’ll be there.

Movie Review: Insidious: Chapter 2

Insidious: Chapter 2
Directed by: James Wan.
Written by: Leigh Whannell & James Wan.
Starring: Patrick Wilson (Josh Lambert), Rose Byrne (Renai Lambert), Ty Simpkins (Dalton Lambert), Lin Shaye (Elise Rainier), Barbara Hershey (Lorraine Lambert), Steve Coulter (Carl), Leigh Whannell (Specs), Angus Sampson (Tucker), Andrew Astor (Foster Lambert), Hank Harris (Young Carl), Jocelin Donahue (Young Lorraine), Lindsay Seim (Young Elise Rainier), Danielle Bisutti (Mother of Parker Crane), Tyler Griffin (Young Parker), Garrett Ryan (Young Josh), Tom Fitzpatrick (Bride in Black / Old Parker), Michael Beach (Detective Sendal).

Perhaps the biggest problem with Insidious: Chapter 2 is heightened expectations. When the original film came out in 2010, I went in not expecting much. James Wan was the director of the first (and best) of the Saw series, the horrible Dead Silence, and the underrated revenge film Death Sentence – but nothing I had seen made me believe he had a truly great horror movie in him. But Insidious was just about as good as mainstream American horror films get – it was well made, built on tension, not gore, had relatable characters and was genuinely scary. Than just two months ago, Wan outdid himself with the surprise summer hit The Conjuring – a film that wanted to be a more realistic horror film – and succeeded. Like many films, it owes a large debt to The Exorcist, and well it didn’t break new ground like that 1973 classic, it is about as good as the films The Exorcist has inspired can possibly be. Coming off of back to back genuinely frightening, well-made horror movie then, Wan faced something with Insidious: Chapter 2 he didn’t before – people actually expecting a horror movie to be good.

To be fair, Insidious: Chapter 2 is in no way a bad way film. Yes, it repeats the first film a little too much – as is to be expected in an sequel – and it is at times a little too clever for its own sake – trying to explain some of what happened in the original film with the events in this film. Horror movies require full immersion by the audience for them to work – which is why, I like to see them with as few people in the theater as possible (an errant cell phone, some whispers, etc. that normally you brush off quickly can spoil the whole atmosphere of even the best horror movies). By trying to be a little too clever – and adding in a few moments of bizarre comic relief that border on slapstick – Wan takes you out of Insidious: Chapter 2 a little too often for it to as sustained an exercise in horror filmmaking as his last two films.

Still though, you have to give Wan credit. He may not exactly come up with new ways to scare the audience – his horror movie style is still more rooted in classical tropes (which meant the torture porn he was saddled with for years after Saw was always unwarranted), but he does find ways to subtly shift those classic tropes. He never quite gives us precisely what we are expecting from him, and finds ways to make his films not just scary, but genuinely unsettling. These aren’t horror movie you see once are momentarily scared by while watching and then forget about them. These are the horror movies you find yourself thinking about in the dead of night when you hear a strange noise.

I don’t want to say much about the plot of Insidious: Chapter 2 for a few reasons – the first being, as with any scary movie, surprise is a necessary element for them to work. And the second is that the secrets of Insidious: Chapter are all fairly obvious – if you don’t figure most of them out well before the movie makes its series of big reveals, than I doubt you’ve seen too many horror movies before. I will say that for the most part, the performances are a step above most horror movies – especially by the veterans – Barbara Hershey, given much more to do this time out, Lin Shaye as the medium who isn’t as creepy as she appears, and Steve Coulter, as a newcomer to the series. Poor Patrick Wilson is stuck with a nearly impossible role, and Rose Bryne, while appropriately terrified at the right moments, is more shunted off to the background that I expected.

Does Insidious: Chapter 2 work? Kind of. There are some wonderful horror movie set pieces in the film (never have dice seemed scarier), but it doesn’t have the same kind of propulsive terror that either the original Insidious or The Conjuring had. The result is a movie that is less than the sum of its parts. Wan, however, is still one of the American horror movies directors to watch – perhaps the only one working in truly mainstream horror (others, like Rob Zombie or Ti West, are doing smaller films). It’s almost too bad Wan is directing the next Fast & Furious movie – partly because Justin Lin has done a very good job of elevating those movies in the last few installments, but also because I want to see Wan continue to hone his horror movie chops. Insidious: Chapter 2 may not be the triumph that Insidious or The Conjuring were – but it’s made by a very talented director.

Movie Review: The Conjuring

The Conjuring
Directed by: James Wan.
Written by: Chad Hayes & Carey Hayes.
Starring: Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren), Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren), Lili Taylor (Carolyn Perron), Ron Livingston (Roger Perron), Shanley Caswell (Andrea), Hayley McFarland (Nancy), Joey King (Christine), Mackenzie Foy (Cindy), Kyla Deaver (April), Shannon Kook (Drew), John Brotherton (Brad), Sterling Jerins (Judy Warren), Marion Guyot (Georgiana), Morganna Bridgers (Debbie), Amy Tipton (Camilla).

James Wan has quietly become one of the best directors of mainstream horror films working in America today. While many horror filmmakers are obsessed with the more violent films from the 1970s and 1980s – and all seem to want to make the next The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – Wan has his sights on an era slightly earlier – the classic possession films of the late 1960s and early 1970s. His last film was the excellent, under rated Insidious, and now comes The Conjuring – an even better film, that feels like a forgotten horror film from the year it is set – 1971. Since Wan directed the original Saw, he has often been lumped in by the unobservant with the “torture porn” crowd, which isn’t accurate at all. While the Saw series certainly devolved into that, the first film – the only one Wan directed (he was an “executive producer” on the rest, which probably means he had very little input into them) was really more about atmosphere than torture. The same goes for the awful Dead Silence (2007) that was his follow-up. Even the violent revenge film Death Sentence (also 2007) – which is inarguably his bloodiest – also has a great sense of atmosphere. And that is what The Conjuring excels at. Here is a horror movie with almost no blood, guts or death – and it is easily the scariest film I have seen in a theater this year.

The film is about the Perron family – father Roger (Ron Livingston and) and mother Carolyn (Lili Taylor) and their five daughters – ranging from teenager verging on adulthood, to cute pre-school age. They are a picture perfect family – as we literally see in the many family portraits they have – who move to an old farmhouse in the middle of the Pennsylvania country. As you can guess, the house is haunted – but by what? As the family reaches the end of the rope, and things start spiraling out of control, they reach out to famed “Paranormal Detectives” Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) – best known for The Amityville Horror (which is referenced at the end of the movie, as this case predates that one) to figure out just exactly what is haunting them.

From the opening credits of The Conjuring on, Wan does his best to recreate the look and feel of the films from the era – I don’t think I’ve seen an opening scrawl quite like the one in The Conjuring in any many movies made in recent decades. This extends to the costumes and art direction as well. While often movies made today but set in the 1970s pretty much mock the clothes and style of the decade, The Conjuring does an excellent job of recreating them, without going overboard and becoming a distraction. Even the cinematography harkens back to the films of that era – a difficult thing to recreate in the digital age. The film is obviously inspired by masterpieces such as Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and William Friedkin’s The Exorcist – and while it would be nearly impossible to equal those two films (and this film doesn’t), The Conjuring easily ranks among the best of those two films many, many imitators.

Like those two films, The Conjuring depends more on atmosphere and slowly increasing tension rather than blood to scare the audience. Normally, I tire of horror movies that rely heavily on so called “BOO!” moments to scare the audience, but they are put to effective use in The Conjuring, because Wan knows not to overdo it, and enjoys toying with the audience. Sometimes, he is seemingly setting up a “BOO!” moment that never actually comes, and other times, they do, and yet other times, they come out of nowhere. An effective horror movie has to keep the audience guessing as to what is coming next – which Wan does amazingly well in The Conjuring.

But what elevates The Conjuring above most other horror movies is simple – the film is full of characters you actually like and get to know, and the film actually takes the Warrens and their beliefs and practices seriously. It is easy to mock Warrens – where Ed is a “demonologist” and Lorraine is “clairvoyant”, and if we’re talking in reality here, then no, I don’t really believe in either of them. But this is a movie after all, and the movie does take what they do seriously – and Wilson and especially Farmiga are excellent in their roles. Add in an excellent performance by Lili Taylor – playing for the most part a normal woman – and you have a horror movie that takes its subject more seriously than most, and contains performances far superior to most of what the genre has to offer.

I have tried not to reveal too much of the plot to the movie – in fact, I think I probably revealed less than the trailers do. As with many horror movies, surprise in a major element to the effectiveness of the film. The film may not break new ground, and may not be the masterpiece that the films that inspired it are, but as an example of the horror genre, it does everything just right.

Movie Review: Insidious

Insidious *** ½

Directed by: James Wan.

Written by: Leigh Whannell.

Starring: Patrick Wilson (Josh Lambert), Rose Byrne (Renai Lambert), Ty Simpkins (Dalton Lambert), Andrew Astor (Foster Lambert), Lin Shaye (Elise Rainier), Leigh Whannell (Specs), Angus Sampson (Tucker), Barbara Hershey (Lorraine Lambert).

It would be easy to laugh or at least poke fun of a movie like Insidious. It is, after all, a horror movie that really does not make any logical sense. But then again, many of the great horror movies don’t make a lot of sense. This is a movie about possession – out of body experiences, demons trying to take control of our bodies when we are outside of them. There is a lot of talk of astral projection in the film. If you wanted to, you could mock the movie. But it really is no less realistic than something like The Exorcist. And while Insidious does not reach the heights of that masterpiece, it is a genuinely frightening and unsettling horror movie. One that creeps up on you and gets under your skin if you let it. Director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell may be the team behind the original Saw, but they were smart enough to get out while the getting was good, and had virtually nothing to do with the creative process that gave us Saw’s six sequels – that devolved further and further into torture porn. In fact, Wan in particular has expressed his distaste with those types of movies. He is more of an old school horror filmmaker – and it’s easy to forget that the first Saw wasn’t all that violent. It was a mind fuck of a movie that played on our fears, more than drowning us in blood.

The movie opens, like so many horror movies do, with a seemingly perfect family moving into a new house. The husband, Josh (Patrick Wilson) is a teacher, and the wife Renai (Rose Bryne) is a songwriter, who stays at home to raise their three kids. It is, like all houses in horror movies, a big, old, gothic house, with creaky floorboards and a strange attic. One of their sons climbs up to the attic one night, thinks he sees something, and falls off a ladder. He appears fine, but the next day, he won’t wake up. They take him to a hospital, and they can find nothing medically wrong with him to explain why he is a coma. Eventually, he’ll come home with them, still in his coma, and that’s when strange things start happening. Renai starts freaking out about what she is seeing, and Josh avoids it all by staying late at work. And, in a novel twist for a haunted house movie, this family does actually move this time – but it doesn’t help. Eventually, they will hire a strange old woman medium (Lin Shaye) and her two bumbling assistants (Whannell and Angus Sampson) to try and figure out what is wrong. Oh, and Barbara Hershey shows up as Patrick Wilson’s mother, which is never a good sign that someone has had a normal childhood.

Insidious is a movie that plays with two different horror genres – the haunted house movie, and the demonic possession movie, and does both with style, wit and flair. If you wanted to, you could play a nice game of spot the references during Insidious – spotting moments that recall films like Kubrick’s The Shining, Wise’s The Haunting, Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Craven’s A Nightmare on Elm Street and a host of others. For me though, I was too caught up in the movie to do much of that. Wilson and Bryne give wonderful, lived in performances as the two parents, struggling with their own aging, and going slightly crazy trying to protect their kids. They sell their performances, no matter how outlandish things seem to get. They are aided a great deal by Lin Shaye as the creepy exorcist and Barbara Hershey, who seemingly does very little here, but her mere presence is unsettling. As the movie goes along, and the ghosts and demons start coming out of the woodwork, they may appear somewhat ridiculous in isolation, but in the context of the movie, they are terrifying. The extra creepy, constantly circling score helps a great deal, as does terrific art direction and sound design. Even something as routine in a movie like this as a séance is ratcheted up and intense.

Insidious is an excellent example of its genre, and exactly the type of horror movie I love. It is a movie with practically no blood, no gore that doesn’t get its kick by torturing people in front of us for our amusement. Instead, it builds its suspense slowly, than ratchets it up to almost unbearable degrees in the end. Yes, you could poke fun at Insidious if you really wanted to. But what would be the point of that? Few horror movies these days are this creepy and effective.