Snatched
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
In the opening few minutes of Snatched, we see inside a photo album with various shots of an unforgettable face. It’s a younger Goldie Hawn, and all the snapshots bring a warm reminder of just how long she’s been an effortlessly likable piece of pop culture. Making her a big part of Amy Schumer’s follow-up to the hilarious Trainwreck seems like a fine idea.
Check that, it is a fine idea, and a missed opportunity.
The photos remind Emily (Schumer) how fun and adventurous her mom Linda (Hawn) used to be, so she coaxes Mom into joining her on a trip to Ecuador, where they’ll “put the fun in non-refundable!”
They’re promptly kidnapped, manage to escape, and director Jonathan Levine (The Wackness, 50/50, Warm Bodies) fills the rest of the film with Goldie and Amy running from the bad guys and doing what they can with contrivance, obvious gags and a lackluster screenplay that Schumer unfortunately did not write. The Trainwreck script, plus her TV work, have shown Schumer can bring both laughs and smarts, and Snatched could use more of both.
Instead, the script from Katie Dippold (The Heat, last year’s Ghostbusters – both underrated) finds more solid footing with supporting characters, such as Ike Barinholtz as Emily’s brother, Wanda Sykes as a nosy fellow traveler, and Christopher Meloni as a wannabe hero.
These two leads deserve better than a by-the-numbers romp with only scattershot giggles. Where’s that confident, “take some chances” attitude that Emily wants Linda to re-discover?
Still missing, apparently.
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Right, Guy Ritchie’s medieval-ish sorcery fable King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is bad.
But how bad is it?
Or more to the point, how Guy Ritchie is it?
The filmmaker mixes his trademark hypothetical-scenarios, quick-cut montages and period anachronisms with video game quality CGI, and it’s hard to decide which approach is more ill-suited to the material.
Or is the bigger issue the fact that this story – among the oldest, simplest, most re-told in the history of the English language – is befuddled beyond recognition once Ritchie and his team of co-writers have their way with it?
The film opens appealingly enough: King Uther (Eric Bana) hands his crown to his brother Vortigern (Jude Law) to hold while he single-swordedly defeats the villainous wizard Mordred – who controls super colossal elephant beasts with his mind!
This makes Jude Law’s nose bleed, so we know something’s up. Next thing you know, there are hungry sea-serpent siren things, Uther’s attacked, and little bitty Arthur finds himself floating Moses-like toward Londinium and the waiting arms of some golden-hearted prostitutes.
Flash forward through the first of several watch-him-become-a-man montages and Charlie Hunnam appears. Street savvy, tough, flippant and boasting what can only be the work of the most stylish barber in all of Londinium, he runs afoul of the king and accidentally pulls Excalibur from its stone. He’d just as soon put it back.
He’s reluctant! He doesn’t want all this! He’s just a regular guy – who looks like super-cut Charlie Hunnam and says things like “ya big, silly, posh bastard.”
And if you think he seems out of place in about-to-be-Arthurian England, check out Jude Law and his leather blazer and matching skinny jeans.
But what did you expect – that he wouldn’t Guy Ritchie this thing? It’s Game of Thrones meets Sherlock Holmes (the Ritchie version). And that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
The Arthurian legend can be a stiff slog, and a little shot of style could enliven things. Unfortunately, Ritchie buries every stylistic choice he makes under charmless and pace-deadening CGI.
It would take more than magic to save this thing.
Hounds of Love
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Driven by a fiercely invested and touchingly deranged performance from Emma Booth, Hounds of Love makes a subtle shift from horrific torture tale to psychological character study. In 108 grueling minutes, writer/director Ben Young’s feature debut marks him as a filmmaker with confident vision and exciting potential.
It is the late 1980s in Perth, Australia, and at least one young girl has already gone missing when the grounded Vicki (Ashleigh Cummings) sneaks out her bedroom window to attend a party. This isn’t nearly as dumb a move as is accepting a ride from Evie White (Booth) and her husband John (Stephen Curry).
As the couple dance seductively and drink to celebrate, Young disturbingly conveys the weight of Vicki’s panicked realization that she is now their captive. It is just one in a series of moments where Young flexes impressive chops for visual storytelling, utilizing slo-motion, freeze frame, patient panning shots and carefully chosen soundtrack music to set the mood and advance the dreadful narrative without a spoken word.
And then, just when you might suspect his film to wallow in the grisly nature of the Whites’ plan for Vicki, Young turns to dialog sharp enough to upend your expectations, and three vivid characters are crafted in the suffocating dread of the White’s neighborhood home.
Slowly, Vicki realizes her best hope may be outsmarting the insecure Evie, and, much like Catherine Martin tempting Precious away from Jame Gumb, Vicki sets her sights on driving a wedge between her captors.
The three leads, all impressively committed, find the layers necessary to make the terror resonate more deeply than your standard dose of human cruelty. No slight to either Cummings of Curry, but the film turns on how Booth consistently finds the edges of Vicki’s psychotic worldview to make her the biggest wild card in this horror show.
No doubt, events get brutal, but never without reminders that Young is a craftsman. Subtle additions, such as airplanes flying freely overhead to contrast with Vicki’s captivity, give Hounds of Love a steady dose of smarts, even as it’s shaking your core.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNEurXzvHqE