Dig, if you will, the pictures in this week’s Screening Room:
The BFG
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
“It was the witching hour, when the boogeyman comes out, when people go missing.”
That’s a proper way to start a story or a film, but who’d have expected less? Roald Dahl knew how to tell a story, and Steven Spielberg knows how to make a film. This summer, Spielberg puts his skills to the test as he takes Dahl’s beloved tale The BFG to the screen.
The story of a London orphan befriended by a Big Friendly Giant, the story itself is fairly slight, but Spielberg imagination is not.
In an era when the third dimension is thrown around the multiplex with needless abandon, The BFG stands out. 3D has rarely been employed so grandly. Spielberg bridges live action and motion-capture animation with a stunningly articulated fantasy world that captures you from the film’s opening moments.
John Williams’s lovely score – part Raiders of the Lost Arc (his own), part Wizard of Oz – matches Spielberg’s overall approach, which employs every modern whistle in service of a film that feels old school.
As the title character, Oscar winner Mark Rylance proves as capable with giant gibberish and motion-capture performance as he is with historical thriller drama. A more endearing giant you’re never likely to find, as Rylance conveys BFG’s tumult of emotions.
Likewise, Ruby Burnhill, as his wee friend Sophie, believably maneuvers between precocious loner and lonesome child with ease.
Flexing vocal muscles to match his animated stature, the always welcome Jemaine Clement fills the frame with blundering menace as BFG’s nemesis and passionate Bean eater, the evil giant Fleshlumpeater.
Spielberg’s problem – or Dahl’s – is lack of momentum. Working from an adaptation by regular contributor Melissa Mathison (E.T.), Spielberg’s take on the story amplifies the relationship and relatedness between Sophie and BFG, but he under-develops the tension and mostly avoids the action. The result is a languid pace that may lose some viewers – especially younger ones.
There are moments when the CGI betrays the action onscreen, but these are few and forgivable considering the magically captivating environment Spielberg and cinematographer – another regular collaborator – Janusz Kaminski have built.
The BFG is a sweet film, finely acted and gorgeously brought to life. If you and yours have the patience to let this tender note on loneliness ring, it offers an immersive experience.
Swiss Army Man
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Makeshift toy boats drift out to sea, carrying cries for help ranging from “I don’t want to die alone” to “I’m so bored.” Swiss Army Man sets its off-kilter tone early, and then things get weird. Fart-powered motor boat weird.
Hank (Paul Dano) is stranded alone on a deserted island, quite literally at the end of his rope. While contemplating his end, he spies a body (Daniel Radcliffe) in the surf and suddenly, Hank has a new friend. His name is Manny, and he’s dead.
Turns out Manny has plenty of uses (like the fart-powered motor boat thing) and before long the stranded pair is singing songs, putting on shows, and ruminating on reasons to live.
In their feature debut, the writer/director team of Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (aka “Daniels”) crafts a wild, imaginative odyssey alive with color and wonderful set pieces. Swiss Army Man has abundant charm, occasional hilarity and a few moments of magic, but the Daniels directing vision is always two steps ahead of their scriptwriting depth.
Excessively revelatory music heralds layers of resonance that never come, and we settle instead for warmed over sentiments about disconnection and vulnerability. The approach is often just too cute for its own good, the Daniels seemingly confident their earnest outlandishness will win you over.
They’re pretty much right.
This is a film that will tweak your curiosity as often as it tests your patience, and the Birdman-style ending may leave you struggling to come up with any reaction other than “that was weird,” but you will be entertained.
Dano and Radcliffe complement each other well, both delivering committed performances that turn Hank and Manny into some sort of bizarro Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
Sure, Swiss Army Man chases too many windmills, but I’m still anxious to see what Daniels might come up with next.
The Purge: Election Year
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
America is having one pretty insane election year. The conservatives’ Presidential candidate is the wacko, egomaniacal figurehead for a party bent on feeding the bloodlust of its citizenry to protect their own wealth while thinning the herd of those Americans it deems unworthy.
Oh, also – The Purge: Election Year is out this weekend.
Writer/director James DeMonaco returns for the third installment in his trilogy of cathartic blood sport – a phrase that describes both the act of watching the series and DeMonaco’s plot.
In 2013, the filmmaker ushered forth a home-invasion movie based on the intriguing premise of a not-so-distant America that embraces a government-sanctioned (encouraged, even!) yearly celebration of lawlessness.
DeMonaco returned last year with a sequel that took the analogy to the streets, digging deeper into the racial and socio-economic message he flirted with in the original. The third installment follows Presidential candidate Senator Charlie Roan (Elizabeth Mitchell), a purge survivor running on a platform of ending the bloody celebration forever.
Never a fan of subtlety, DeMonaco throws every piece of contemporary political filth at the screen while leading this franchise to its reasonably logical conclusion. Murder tourism, entitled teens with a hunger for gore and chocolate, one-percenters literally worshipping at the altar of death, religious zealots preaching the divinity of slaughtering the under-privileged and the women who would defy them – you will find it all.
Though the story moves with the Senator and her chief of security, Leo Barnes (Frank Grillo, returning from The Purge: Anarchy), the film only finds its anchor with a trio of regular folks trying to survive the night.
Mykelti Williamson owns every scene as Joe Dixon, a deli owner guarding his business from the rooftop with his shotgun and his loyal employee Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria). Filling out their group is Laney Rucker (Betty Gabriel), a badass from the neighborhood who prowls the street in a reinforced van offering medical aid.
Considering the overt racial tensions that fuel DeMonaco’s script as well as the yearly purge, it’s appropriate that the strongest characters be those of color; it’s unfortunate that DeMonaco relegates them to support.
A mish-mash of ideas stolen from other, better films as well as Fox News, the effort amplifies the lunacy of the current political climate, reaching a level of hyperbole and mania that should feel more cathartic than it does.
The Legend of Tarzan
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Me Tarzan. You Jane?
No, this apeman has a slightly larger vocabulary.
You’ll hear that famous phrase in The Legend of Tarzan, but only for ironic purposes. This new reboot takes its cue from recent superhero films that have embraced the darker side of their legends,
We drop in on Tarzan (Alexander Skarsgard) in the late 1880s, years after his return to Greystoke Manor and the name John Clayton, as he’s living the aristocratic life with wife Jane (Margot Robbie) in a London mansion full of servants. Flashback segments do fill us in on the couple’s jungle past, but credit screenwriters Craig Brewer and Adam Cozad with a welcome pivot from the usual origin story formula.
Clayton is called back to the wilds of the Congo thanks to a devious plan from Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz), special envoy to Belgian King Leopold. Rom can deliver a fortune in diamonds to his King, but only if he can deliver Tarzan to a Congolese chieftain (Djimon Hounsou) looking to settle an old score.
So John and Jane head back “home,” with U.S. envoy George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) in tow, but when Rom puts his kidnapping plan in motion, Tarzan’s particular set of skills come out to play.
Director David Yates, who guided the Harry Potter film series to an epic conclusion, keeps his camera fluid, his landscapes beautifully panoramic and the action frequently thrilling. Yes, it gets a bit silly and a bit more anachronistic, but Yates brings an ambitious scope to this modern Tarzan, with a respectable side of social conscience even when it panders.
Skarsgard’s chiseled physique certainly looks the part, and his somewhat robotic lack of range serves him well here. Robbie provides plenty of spunk, but her Victorian-era Jane could have just as easily beamed down from last Halloween. As for their chemistry…hey, those CGI jungle animals look fantastic!
Waltz and Jackson are well, Waltz and Jackson.
It probably won’t set the stage for a string of blockbuster sequels – and to its credit, isn’t trying to – but for most of its nearly two hours, this new Tarzan really swings.