Letterboxd — Your life in film

Simu Liu proves to be more charismatic than Brie Larson as a superhero while similarly stoic, and I appreciate the film’s decision to stay loyal to the characters’ native language throughout the film, but the obvious nods to other kung fu fantasies and Jackie Chan’s action stunt work aren’t done any service by a hackneyed plot with cardboard cutouts for characters, and the end result is a lifeless introduction for yet another Avenger in this endless stream of manufactured commercialism that is the MCU.

As dull as the expressions of the Green Knight’s wooden face and as pointless as Sir Gawain’s tedious and elusive journey into the unknown, Lowery proves once again that no amount of spectacle or vision can outweigh the importance of an interesting story.

The Last Temptation of Patel

We can see Wright attempt to pull off a giallo aesthetic with his vivid neon colors, phantasmagoric ghouls, and red-soaked scenery, but his sterile direction doesn’t seem to suit this too well, and he doesn’t manage to follow through on the themes at play or give enough attention to the protagonist either and instead throws us a ridiculous, ham-fisted twist in the final act that makes everything that came before feel like one big tedious setup for a disappointing payoff.

The premise itself may not be the most realistic, but the situation is and would prove scary and confusing for anybody, and Saulnier throws us into a room of flesh and blood characters who fight for their survival in a tense, white-knuckle thriller of uncommon naturalism and brutality.

Showing us another depressing window into America’s underbelly but turning it into something surprisingly compelling, Sean Baker is more ambitious than ever, expanding on his craft in various ways, while Simon Rex makes a welcome return with a magnetic performance as a slimy narcissist who gets into one pickle after the next and takes advantage of others until he has to face the music.

Leave it to James Gunn to go all out in delivering a refreshingly unrestrained movie about a band of supervillains who aren’t so villainous after all, and it has a surprising amount of heart (and gore) as well as plenty of humor and impressively done set pieces to keep us engaged.

With its state of the art effects, stunts, and choreography as well as its abundance of symbolism, profundity, and challenging ideas, The Matrix is a daring, ambitious, imaginative, groundbreaking, and revolutionary piece of science fiction that aims for the stars but doesn’t quite reach them due to its campy and flashy fight scenes, an unconvincing romance, a pathetic character arc (true love’s kiss won’t cut it) for a paper-thin protagonist with a countenance as dull as a pile of bricks, and some dated and cheesy moments and aspects that make the film feel like it’s definitely from 1999 and not 2199.

A striking and visceral Cronenbergian drama that dabbles through themes of parenthood, trauma, and mental illness but loses touch with the audience in an all too strange story that seems to be missing a point.

The acting and direction are confident, and there are moments to be had and unexpected ways in which the plot meanders, but the lack of likable leads and the extremely laidback narrative left me deprived of the emotional intensity Anderson has been able to achieve with some of his other works.