Multiplex Madness
⭐️
Genre: Action, Superhero
Director: J.C. Chandor
Starring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, Russell Crowe, Fred Hechinger, Alessandro Nivola, Christopher Abbott
Honest-to-god, I love Kraven the Hunter. The character, not the movie. He's one of Spider-Man's greatest villains, and he's one that deserved to go toe-to-toe with Spidey in a movie. There is something tragic about how Sony is subjecting Kraven to their sub-par, heartless solo film treatment. Venom is at least a trashy character who semi-relishes such a spotlight, and nobody cares about Morbius or Madame Web. Kraven deserved to be a proper Spider-Man antagonist in an actual movie. They made this instead, potentially turning him into box office poison. So far, that's the greatest sin that Sony has made against superhero cinema. And they're the ones who made the Ghost Rider movie.
Okay, let's get this out of the way. Kraven the Hunter is the story of Sergei Kravinoff, a Russian huntsman who is so in touch with nature that he is also half-beast, using his hunting skills to become an assassin. When a crime boss kidnaps his little brother, Sergei puts all of his skills into a search and rescue. There is a lot of sterilizing being done to make Kraven more of a protagonist, trying to make him softer. Kraven is in tune with nature, but, in the comics, he is a game hunter who both hunts both beast and man for sport. In this film, he is a man who lives out in the wild and sees himself as one with the animals. It's a misguided side-step to make Kraven more cuddly when it just makes him toothless. But there is still an underlining idea of Kraven here that the movie tries to latch itself onto, but it always slips away from it. There are glimpses of promise within its setpieces, where it shows off the feral action film that it wants to be. They are fleeting as it retreats into a dull narrative of brooding nonsense. It's really funny that Sony has been advertising so enthusiastic about the gory R-rating for this movie when all it amounts to is cartoony CGI blood splatters. The movie wants the pretense of being edgy without actually doing anything hardcore. The animalistic action has no bite.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson at least looks great as the title character, and he sells some of character's more animalistic attribute. But it becomes clear the movie is making sacrifices to his character to make things easier for Taylor-Johnson to play him. There comes a point in the narrative where Kraven, a Russian character who never really left his country, suddenly decides to speak in an American accent as soon as he grows into Taylor-Johnson's age. The same goes for Fred Hechinger as his brother Demetri. The only person who commits to the Russian heritage is Russell Crowe, while everyone else rejects it in order to make the dialogue more palatable for American ears. It's a fucking joke. It's a movie that wants an animal man and is using the Kraven license as an excuse. The best thing I can say for its commitment to the Spider-Man comics it's based on is that the big bad of the movie is Rhino, and it actually accepts the inherent stupidity of the character and goes full camp with it. It's not a great showdown, but I'll give the movie credit for ending with a fight between two characters with completely different skill-sets.
It doesn't stop the movie from being completely atrocious, though. And not even in a way that's fun to make fun of, like Morbius or Madame Web. It took them decades to do it, but Hollywood finally made a Marvel adaptation that's worse than the 90's Captain America movie. I'm not in the mood to celebrate, because they dragged a character I had respect for through the mud in order to do it.
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
It's amazing how much Lord of the Rings is mimicking Star Wars, branching out from a well-loved trilogy into a prequel trilogy nobody liked, and following that up with an animated movie that nobody asked for. As for when the cash-in spin-off movies come around, apparently those are in the works, so don't worry about this franchise not being properly milked. That's not even bringing up overwhelming streaming content that is exhausting to try and keep up with. There is a lot of talk as to whether or not War of the Rohirrim is a blatent attempt to deathgrip onto lapsing film rights to this franchise while live-action spin-offs are developed, and I'm not really interested in judging that. If it is, far more cynical attempts at this have happened, and that's just this weekend (why else would a Kraven the Hunter movie be made if Sony weren't scraping the Spider-Man license free of meat?). At least The War of the Rohirrim seems to be handed off to a group of filmmakers who seem interested in making an honest-to-god Lord of the Rings movie.
Queer
The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim
⭐️⭐️
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure
Director: Kenji Kamiyama
Starring: Brian Cox, Gaia Wise, Luke Pasqualino, Miranda Otto
It's amazing how much Lord of the Rings is mimicking Star Wars, branching out from a well-loved trilogy into a prequel trilogy nobody liked, and following that up with an animated movie that nobody asked for. As for when the cash-in spin-off movies come around, apparently those are in the works, so don't worry about this franchise not being properly milked. That's not even bringing up overwhelming streaming content that is exhausting to try and keep up with. There is a lot of talk as to whether or not War of the Rohirrim is a blatent attempt to deathgrip onto lapsing film rights to this franchise while live-action spin-offs are developed, and I'm not really interested in judging that. If it is, far more cynical attempts at this have happened, and that's just this weekend (why else would a Kraven the Hunter movie be made if Sony weren't scraping the Spider-Man license free of meat?). At least The War of the Rohirrim seems to be handed off to a group of filmmakers who seem interested in making an honest-to-god Lord of the Rings movie.
Two-hundred years before the other Middle-Earth tales, The War of the Rohirrim tells the story of a lovers' spat that accidentally started a war. A warrior princess named Héla refuses an engagement to childhood friend Wulf, which causes their two king father's to quarrel, where Héla's father accidentally kills Wulf's. Wulf vows revenge, gathering an army to tear down Héla's kingdom. I appreciate that this is a very different story than the other Middle-Earth movies, which defaulted on "Let's grab a ring and take a three-movie walk to smoke this bitch." There's a lot going on, though, and it feels like it has more story than the entirety of any previous trilogy crammed into two hours. But even as this movie feels rushed, it also feels meandering, as the events that are portrayed never feel like they steamroll in momentum properly. This might be, in part, due to the animation, which is a little patchy in motion, even if it looks good in stills. There is a sort of Don Bluth quality to it that is hard to deny, but while it's trying hard to be dynamic, it can't help but come off as stiff and lifeless. I think they did what they could to breathe life into these characters who feel like they're asterisks in a Tolkien dictionary, but they never seize an audience's gaze through script or visual.
But overall, one thing that nags at me about this movie is that feels like a generic fantasy sword battle tale that happens to have a Lord of the Rings setting. There are no Hobbits, there are no Elves, there are no Dwarves, and there is a single Wizard in a gratuitous cameo that kinda sucks. While Middle-Earth isn't exclusively home to stories of them, it feels less like Middle-Earth without them. The War of the Rohirrim feels distant from the movies it wants to honor, not in a bad way, but rather in a dull way. But it's not all bad news. I liked it better than the second Hobbit movie, which is still the most bored I have been watching any of these movies, and it's less cringe with its fan service than the third one. I'm going to accept that as a minor win and move on.
Queer
⭐️⭐️1/2
Genre: Drama
Director: Luca Guadanino
Starring: Daniel Craig, Drew Starkey, Jason Schwartzman, Henrique Zaga, Leslie Manville
In case you can't tell from the title, Queer is a story of "the gays." Specifically, Daniel Craig is a gay man living in 1950. It might seem like shock value in casting someone who has played James Bond, one of top brands of heterosexuality, in a gay role, but this isn't the first time a Bond actor has played a gay man. If you insist that it is, that is "Roger Moore in Boat Trip" erasure and I will not stand for it. But anyway, Craig begins a relationship with a cryptic man who Craig longs a stronger connection with. And if you think you know where it's going from there, you're in for a ride, let me tell you. The movie is not really a romance, feeling at times like a study in the struggles of homosexual bonding between partners. That being said, some of the themes are more universal than that, as the film comes off as simple as being an allegory for trying to get closer to someone who seems mentally baracaded. The movie goes a little off its rocker in exploring that, especially its crazy third act, but the movie is interesting when it's not being insane.
Werewolves ⭐️⭐️1/2
Wicked Part I ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Y2K ⭐️⭐️1/2
New To Digital
Heretic ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Coming Soon!
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