Showing posts with label David Harbour. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Harbour. Show all posts

Friday, May 9, 2025

Thunderbolts* (2025)



We were scheduled to see this film on Thursday night at the usual preview screenings that now are really just the opening day of the film. However, as members of the Paramount Theater family we were invited to a free screening the night before that, so we felt a little special and we made the Trek down to the State Theater for the film. It was a packed audience and everybody was very enthusiastic, now let me tell you whether or not they should be,

The MCU has been in the doldrums for a few films now. It seems for every "Guardians of the Galaxy" success or "Deadpool" crossover, there is an "Eternals" or "Quantumania", ready to drag the franchise down. The powers that be, have been struggling to get the gravy train back on track, and with this film it looks like they hit the switch for the right set of rails. "Thunderbolts*", soon to be retitled, is a very satisfying team up of secondary characters, some heroic, some villainous, who come together as a group in order to face down the next existential crisis facing the planet. Yet before they deal with that crisis, they have to deal with a different existential crisis, their own sense of self-worth and levels of depression.

Florence Pugh's character, Yelena, is a skilled Black Ops agent, with pretty much the same skill set as her sister, the deceased Black Widow. What satisfying thing can you do with those skills? Unfortunately it seems they've been put to use by the current director of the CIA for some not very pleasant tasks. Yelena is giving in to a malaise that she may not be able to draw herself out of. The fact that she is not the only one who is suffering from an apparent rut in an unsatisfying field is the premise for the film. I enjoy light-hearted super hero movies but I know they can't all be fun times beating the bad guys. To make the stories real, there is usually some human drama involved. This movie creates a parallel structure of the opening half, with its mentally ill protagonists, and in the second half, turns that depression into the literal big bad of the film.

I've said it before, I am not deeply invested in comic books. It's been about 55 years since I spent any time looking at those colorful pages in a magazine format. There have been thousands of stories, and hundreds of heroes and villains have come and gone in that time period. I understand that there will be characters that I'm not familiar with and that's okay. As long as they are explained adequately in the film I'm looking at at the moment, I can enjoy the movie and appreciate the way the character seems to work. There are two characters in this in this film, which comic book fans seem to be quite wound up about, Taskmaster and the Sentry. Both of them appear in this film but with vastly different story arcs. I can't begin to debate the merits of how the characters are used in comparison to the way they originated in the comic books, I have no knowledge in this area. I can say that I felt one of these characters was ill-used in this story and the other is being set up for more important plot lines in the future.

Florence Pugh continues to impress with her talents on the screen. She portrays a convincing badass with a serious demeanor who is conflicted over the direction of her life. In contrast, David Harbor, who plays her father the Red Guardian, is equally living a less than satisfied life, but his attitude toward it is completely different. His avuncular and upbeat personality provides the movie with some humor and light moments as the main characters face their existential nightmares. The film also features John Walker, who for a short period of time was the new Captain America. He is portrayed by Wyatt Russell, and his take on the character is funny while also being a little problematic. Of course the drama of the film stems from the fact that all of the characters are problematic.

The story combines the usual tropes of the MCU hero team-ups. Each misfit gets a brief introduction, they engage in a competition/fight among themselves, and then they learn who the real enemy is and have to decide if they are able to take on that individual. Does that sound like Guardians of the Galaxy or The Avengers? There's a reason for that, it's because these films with a group of Heroes follow very familiar storytelling points.

The combat scenes in this film are pretty solid. There's a fight in an underground vault that is decisively designed to eliminate the heroes. It's choreographed very carefully and the flying knives, speeding bullets, and Flying Kicks all last about the right amount of time. I never felt like anything in this movie was padding, although there are several sequences which seem to suggest the exact opposite.

A pivotal new character, Bob, starts off as a naive confused patient, but ends up a somewhat deranged and honest hero and villain. It's another part of the mental health theme of this movie. It may be pressing good taste a little bit to have a deranged meth addict in a chicken costume attacking people for laughs, but in the long run it is a sad commentary on the lives that some people lead, returning us to that theme of disappointment, despair, and depression.

I can't say that this was the best MCU film, or even a top tier episode. I can say I enjoyed it enough to go back for the Thursday night screening that we had originally planned on and repeat the experience for a second evening in a row. I was entertained by the film and satisfied that the keepers of the franchise are starting to right the boat. As usual there are mid credit and end credit sequences as part of the exit titles. One of them is just a final joke and the other is a tie-in to the future of the franchise. Both of them are worth sitting through the credits for. Oh, and we get an official redubbing of the film title.

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Saturday, August 26, 2023

Gran Turismo

 


Very much like hockey, I am not a fan of car racing in the real world. It seems loud, it deals with machines that are way out of my league or understanding, and I just never got interested in it. Also like hockey however, I seem to have a soft spot for movies about the subject. From "Speed Racer" to "The Fast and Furious" movies, along with "Rush" and "Ford vs. Ferrari", heck even "Cars", I have enjoyed a bucketload of car racing movies. I am happy to add "Gran Turismo" to the list. This is a slick, very well made and very familiar story, but as they say, it hits on all cylinders. 

This movie comes from Play Station Productions, so it seems like a video game film, but as is emphasized by several characters in the movie, it is a simulation not a game (in spite of the fact that the lead goes on line and plays against others). It appears that the designers have been meticulous in creating environments and feedback that replicate much that goes on in formula one racing. I looked up the guy who is the basis for the movie and there is a reason this film got made. His emergence as a driver did derive from his sim play and there was success on a level that seems impressive for someone with that background. Frankly, as I read about all of the racing formulas, levels, classes, championship circuits, my eyes glazed over. There is too much for a non-fan to take in, but I was convinced he was legit.

Obviously, the real events have to be fashioned into a story, and the script will contain no surprises at all. Jann, played by  Archie Madekwe, is a gaming phenomena in his local gaming den, and has a reputation across the internet as a formidable driver. He is also alienated from his father played by Djimon Hounsou, a former professional soccer player who does not understand the obsession with a "video-game". Jann gets recruited through an on line invitation to the "GT Academy" which is designed to hone the skills of sim players into actual race car drivers. Orlando Bloom plays a marketing executive who is trying to sell Nissan Motorsports on the idea of making a sim player a driver for their team. Once he gets that idea approved, he has to find an engineer/mechanic who can teach the gamer kids how to be real drivers. David Harbour is the reluctant former driver who takes up the challenge after being fed up with the snot faced racing team he is currently working for. So antipathy from his family, a mentor with a tragic past, a team of competitors that he has to beat to get his chance, does all of this seem familiar? It feels like a hundred other movies but here is the thing, it is executed precisely. The Academy montages, the setbacks and recoveries, the philosophical talks and lectures have all happened in plenty of movies before. I was expecting Jack Salter, the trainer played by Harbour, to say at one point, " You're gonna eat lightnin' and you're gonna crap thunder!".

Meanwhile, director Neill Blomkamp, who made "District 9" so many years ago, creatively puts Jann in sim cars that turn into real cars and real cars that turn into sim cars, so that we can see the relationship between the two experiences. Jann proves himself to his mentor now the two of them have to prove their concept to the world. There are several races where Jann is trying to qualify for his racing license, I'm a little unclear as to how that works, but in the context of the story it is fine. Those races are staged imaginatively, including one spectacular crash that provides the major moment of doubt before the last act. One thing I did notice in the racing scenes is that the shots frequently have the camera facing the opposite direction and running past the cars, not simply matching speed and showing the forward progress. This has the nice effect of making the speeds seem even faster as we are watching.

The emotional journey of Jack and Jann is fairly standard, but there is a reason for that, it works. The goal of our two protagonists are to prove themselves and gain redemption. The excellent car racing scenes show us why the process is complicated and give us enough context to know that the two leads have to have their ducks lined up in a row to achieve the end result. There are plenty of obstacles that have to be overcome, and there are the bonding moments that will emotionally satisfy. David Harbour is especially effective as the guy who knows where it's at because he could not get there himself. I was surprised to see that Jann's Mom, who has one scene of anguish while watching a race, was played by former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell. She was a nice match with Hounsou.

The film is not groundbreaking, but it is very entertaining and well worth your investment in time and money. I found plenty of suspense in the right spots, and a little bit of humor in others. Maybe the reconciliations and moments where the a-hole competing drivers get shown up are a little conventional, but that sort of reassurance is what you see a movie like this for. 


Friday, December 9, 2022

Violent Night

 


This was so up my alley that I am not even sure a review is necessary. The trailer above is filled with spoilers of some of the best moments in the film, and I still managed to enjoy, laugh and groan at the things that I'd already been tipped off to. This is the kind of counter programming movie at the holiday season that I thrive on. Like "Krampus" and "Anna and the Apocalypse", "Violent Night" goes to some dark places at the most joyous time of the year. Don't get me wrong, I still love a sentimental Christmas movie, in fact I'm  in the middle of a Movie A Day Christmas watch that is filled with Netflix fodder as well as classics, but you have to take a break every now and then. 

The set up of this movie is easy. This is "Die Hard" crossed with "Home Alone" and Santa is John McClane. David Harbour has just the right feel as a sadly dissatisfied Santa, weary of the instant gratification culture that modern Christmases present. He has not gone completely to seed, but he has been tippling a bit on Christmas Eve and his fuse is getting shorter with every stop he makes. Maybe the one weakness of the film is that Santa has magical powers, but they don't protect him from physical harm, and he can be hurt. The problem is that those powers are inconsistent, and sometimes he can use a magic trick and sometimes he can't. The only explanation we get is that Santa doesn't understand how it works either.  

Santa is also given a slightly different backstory here than you will find in most traditional origin tales. His history as a Viking Berserker, being redeemed by love and the opportunity to be kind to the world, means that when he has to get down and dirty in this story, we can believe he has the skills to do so, and boy does he let loose with those skills. As John Wick is to a Gun, Santa is with a Hammer. Yeah! His reluctance to engage at first is understandable, but when his conscience gives him permission, he takes off and it is a lot of bloody, violent fun. 


John Leguizamo plays a part that feels like it could have been done by his character in "The Menu". He is all scenery chewing badguy, and his unfettered resentment at Christmas reflects his narcissism. Beverly D'Angelo gets to play the matron of a family at Christmas time again, but this time she is hard-bitten and bitter rather than Griswold sweet and patient. Alexis Louder was my favorite thing about "Copshop" but it is not until the end of the film that she gets to shine a little. There are several other supporting players who also work primarily because they are well cast and the caricatures that they play are so easy to pick up on. 

If you are not the kind of person who thinks violence can be played for laughs, you may want to skip this one. If however, you wanted to see what would really happen to Marv and Harry if Kevin's traps were real, this is a film you should embrace. The nail on the ladder scene will be enough to justify your ticket price, but there is so much more. Dash away, dash away, dash away now, to your nearest multiplex, before the woke sugar plum fairies realize what a demented bunch of fun this is.