Born in China
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Baby Pandas here! Yawning, sleeping, rolling down a hill!
Disney could put that on the marquee and probably score a box office winner, but they chose a more subtle approach for their latest Earth Day release: Born in China.
China? So…Pandas, then?
Oh yes, plus plenty of other baby animal cuteness to sell a very family-oriented lesson in the circle of life. And while this emphasis on the youngest of the litter extends to the film’s approach to its audience, director Chaun Lu and a team of wonderful cinematographers capture truly stunning images that take us inside habitats still unknown to most humans.
But more than perhaps any other release from DisneyNature, Born in China undercuts the brilliance of its pictures with overly simplistic, often manipulative storytelling.
Alongside the pandas, we follow a snow leopard struggling to feed her cubs, a young monkey feeling jealous of his new baby sister, and a giant herd of migrating antelope. The film’s 75-minute running time feels even more hurried through Lu’s impatience with the very world he is unveiling. Cheesy reaction shots are often spliced in for comic effect, while some dramatic sequences seem manufactured through very selective editing, such as when a baby monkey is under attack from a swooping bird of prey.
John Krasinski’s narration too often carries more annoyance than charm, due mainly to writing that is shallow and forced. The animals aren’t just given names for our benefit, they’re given imagined thoughts and motivations, blurring the actual drama of this rarely seen world. There are natural wonders here, but Born in China reduces its stars to glorified cartoon characters waiting to be marketed alongside Dory and Buzz Lightyear.
It is worth staying through the credits, as some behind-the-scenes footage gives glimpses of what it took to grab such unforgettable footage. By the time you get there, though, you’re wondering how much more powerful the pictures could have been without words getting in the way.
Colossal
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Ten years ago, writer/director Nacho Vigalondo made his feature debut with Timecrimes, a wonderfully ironic and wacked-out bit of time travel head gaming.
Nacho is back with Colossal, bringing irony that’s a little sharper, comedy that’s a good bit darker…and a great big scary monster.
Anne Hathaway is fantastic as Gloria, a frequently drunk party girl in New York who loses her job, doesn’t get the wake up call and does gets the boot from her live-in boyfriend. Moving back to her hometown, she reconnects with Oscar (a solid Jason Sudeikis), a childhood friend who happens to own a bar where Gloria is welcome to work part-time.
Wait a minute – what’s this in the headlines? A giant monster has appeared in downtown Seoul, Korea, and after watching all the viral videos of the beast in action, Gloria realizes that she alone is controlling its carnage or, in some cases, its awkward dance moves.
Colossal could also describe the height of Vigalondo’s latest concept, but despite some shaky interludes, it’s one worth the investment. Hathaway and Sudeikis make a compelling pair, and as secrets of the monster’s history are revealed, Vigalondo lands some solid satirical blows about self-absorption and personal demons.
Perhaps best of all is how Colossal works out of the conceptual corner it backs into. Much like the Koreans who keep coming downtown no matter how often the monster appears, Vigalondo is committed to the end, delivering a strange but satisfying in-the-moment fable.
Free Fire
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
The first notes I took, about ten minutes into the screening for Ben Wheatley’s latest Free Fire, read like so: This is a bold first act.
Indeed. Co-written with his wife and frequent collaborator Amy Jump, the Seventies crime thriller wastes little time on backstory, context or exposition. None, really.
You gather that two Irishmen (Cillian Murphy, Michael Smiley) wait in a warehouse parking lot with their liaison (Brie Larson) to a gun runner. They’re always waiting for their own henchmen, as well as the gunrunner’s liaison (Armie Hammer).
I love Ben Wheatley. In 2011, he and Jump brought forth the utterly brilliant horror show Kill List, and I have waited breathlessly for every collaboration since. Free Fire included.
And while each of Wheatley’s films is decidedly different from each other, Free Fire is very different from most films altogether.
Imagine if the entire 93 minutes of Reservoir Dogs took place in that last act shootout among the pack.
The noteworthy fact about Free Fire is not that it has a bold first act, but that the entire film is a third act. With scarcely a word of context, we’re rolled into an empty warehouse just in time for a shootout to begin, and there we will stay until the film concludes.
It’s pretty brilliant, really. Character development happens under fire. Hammer’s “Ord” (yep, that’s his name) brings a lot of laid back comedy. Brie Larson is characteristically spot on, as is the always welcome Cillian Murphy. The two infuse characters and the proceedings with some authentic humanity.
Also working the comedy angle is Sharlto Copley – always reliable for some scenery-chewing, here working those mandibles as a South African imbecile/arms dealer once misdiagnosed as a child genius.
Jump and Wheatley rob the gang meeting of any of the slick romance or brutal gravitas usually bestowed on such events by cinema. There is a barely controlled, very funny, incredibly bloody chaos afoot here, and it is a wild and entertaining sight to behold.