There are at least two kinds of stupid movies. The first kind are those that defy logic or character or screw up a concept, and they leave you pissed off. The best example I can think of from this year is "Longlegs", which has so much going for it and then trips over itself in trying to be unique, and it ends up offending you, or at least it did me. The other kind of stupid movie is one that is outlandishly idiotic from the get go, but is entertaining because of it' stupidity. Lots of old school comedies with Jim Carrey fit this category. "Venom The Last Dance" fits into this second category. It is dumb, nonsensical and full of stupid dialogue, but it is entertaining enough while you are watching it that you don't resent it.
What this movie has going for it is Tom Hardy, monologuing while pretending to be talking to the symbiotic creature inside of him, the alien "Venom". He is basically doing an Abbot and Costello routine all by himself. Now of course it took a ton of other people, actors, production designers, VFX artists and code talkers, to make this movie, but the only thing that is memorable about it are the exchanges between Hardy's Eddie Brock and his Symbiot Venom. There are a few laughs in the midst of CGI mayhem and convoluted plot twists, but that's about it.
I have seen the other two Venom movies and I remember almost nothing about them. I think a couple of characters from those films pop up in this film but I am not sure. In a week I can say I have forgotten all three films completely.
It's been almost a week since I saw this film, and I'm still not sure how much I liked it. To be honest, the faults of the movie are largely a result of a screenplay which is based on a book. Unfortunately, it is a photography book and it has no narrative structure. Writer/Director Jeff Nichols has attempted to create a story to match the looks of the 60s motorcycle club, but it feels like a set of tableaus rather than a fully formed plot. The choice to have it told through a series of backward looking interviews, by a subject who would not be privy to some of the details or events, is also a bit befuddling.
The three stars of the film all have something to offer, but there is also a drawback to what they are doing. Tom Hardy plays Johnny, a motorcycle racing enthusiast who commits to forming a riding club. The people who join this club are largely outsiders who are looked down on by others and frequently spurned by their own families. Hardy has the attitude and look of a tough guy who is really a family man, but his articulation in the film comes with a voice that sounds like a feckless Elmer Fudd, more than the cool Marlon Brando that the character admires. Everything he does feels like he has to be pushed to do. The most powerful action he takes, in retribution for an attack on his protege Benny, is done as a collective action, and it is clearly their numbers which gives him the upper hand. Is that power going to be used for somethin? Can Johnny hold onto the power? Will the authority of his position corrupt him? Some of these get a little attention, but are not deeply developed because there really is no story. Johnny is an incomplete character.
Speaking of incomplete characters, Benny is basically just a cliche dressed up as Austin Butler doing James Dean. As a laconic, nearly mute protagonist, Benny has the look of the character he is supposed to be, but there is even less depth to him than to Johnny. Butler is promising enough early on, where his good looks and quiet demeanor suggest sexy bad boy. As the film plays out, we just know him by his anti social ways, rather than his character. He is a walking stereotype of the dangerous sexy boy that the girl is attracted to. When it comes to physicality, Butler is great, when it comes to emotions, there is only one scene, near the end of the picture, where we get the slightest insight into how he really feels.
Jodie Comer is the real star of the film. Her character, Kathy, is the narrator for the events, and she has a couple of incidents in the movie where she gets to show her chops. Her choices may be the most controversial because of the accent that she uses for the character. I know that it is based on the actual voice of the real Kathy, because of an interview we got after the advanced screening. In the live stream event, she told the story of listening to a tape of the woman who was the source of the material about the club/gang. The approach is disconcerting at first but I thought she sold it pretty well. Others may have difficulty living with it.
The movie looks terrific. It is shot in a way that accentuates the images so that they look like they came from a picture book. This choice may also undermine the drama of the film. There are dozens of needle drops that reflect the times and the subculture of the motorcycle club. Very few of them are the biggest hits of the artists that are being played, they rather are strong lesser known tunes that fit the themes and images of the film. You won't be hearing "Leader of the Pack" by the Shangri_Las, but you will hear that group frequently in the film. Steppenwolf is nowhere to be found but Gary U.S. Bonds is. These were good choices to avoid a paint by the numbers motorcycle movie. It's just too bad that the narrative and the visuals make the movie feel like a slideshow rather than a story.
Back in 1971, I saw the Richard Harris, John Huston film "Man in the Wilderness". I was a Boy Scout at the time and while not an expert woodsman, I always thought that I might have what it takes to get through an experience like the one portrayed in the film. That is the fantasy of youth, that we are as great as we might aspire to be. As I watched what is essentially a remake of that film, forty-five years later, I have no illusions. If this were me, I would die. It would be painful and the cold would drive me mad before actually doing me in. The makers of the current film pile on so many obstacles that I'm not sure anyone could visualize themselves in the role that Leonardo DiCaprio plays. As a result, the movie plays less like an adventure film and more like an endurance test. It is well made and has some fantastic sequences but there is a lot to get through and some of it will test your patience.
A trapper, abandoned by his party after being mortally injured, would naturally feel resentment and seek revenge on those who turned their back on him. This story is more direct in building a revenge theme specific to a particular individual than was the case in the 1971 version of the tale. There is also a theme of forgiveness and redemption that follows the character of Hugh Glass. His struggle in punctuated with spiritual messages from past misdeeds as well as visions of his future. The Indians that are tracking him may be profiting from the raid they conduct on his companions but there is another purpose as well, one that mirrors the story of our abandoned frontiersman. It sometimes feels like an awkward attempt to add some balance to the story, but it can occasionally be confusing as well.
I'm inclined to say that the film is centered around three action segments that will dazzle the audience and build immense tension. The first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie involve a violent attack on a group and there are some harsh images that will sometimes be disconcerting. It is staged in a manner that feels very natural and accurate, which makes it even more ominous as it plays out. There is a rumor going around that at Academy Screenings of the film, many older members of the body have walked out in disgust at the level of violence depicted. I don't think it compares the "Saving Private Ryan" levels but it does take one's breath to imagine the intensity of fear that would accompany this event. A short while later is the visual moment that will be the signature image from the film, an attack by a grizzly on the lead character, which leaves him in his near dead condition. Finally, there is a confrontation at the end of the film that quenches the thirst for revenge but also stops short of accepting the consequences of that action. It is a choice that fits in with some of the spiritual elements that the movie has advanced, but it feels like a cliche.
Post Apocalyptic stories have been a go to film genre for me since the glory days of the 1970s. I guess since "Planet of the Apes" ultimately counts in this category, technically I have been hooked since 1968. I really loved stories about a group of survivors, struggling against the environment and other treacherous obstacles in a world that has changed dramatically. "Damnation Alley" , a not very good film, featured a cool vehicle with a rotating set of triangular wheel axles. "A Boy and His Dog", mined sex and loneliness and survivors in ragged clothes and armed to the teeth for it's entertainment value. None of those movies prepared me for the experience of first seeing "The Road Warrior" in the summer of 1982. In the rest of the world it was "Mad Max 2", but here in the States, it was a stand alone film that introduced a new film maker to a much bigger audience. Action movies have not been the same since.
Just as in 1985, when my most anticipated Summer Film was a sequel to the "The Road Warrior", 2015 brings on a sense of deja' vu. "Fury Road" has taken a long route to get here, but it has arrived with the kind of force that you would expect. This is a take no prisoners action flick that grabs you with a strong stunt sequence in the first two minutes, followed by a foot chase and combat fighting within five minutes, and in about ten minutes the rest of the chase begins. This is a chase film that goes on for two hours and has maybe three segments when the chase pauses, not for long, just enough to get some exposition in and then back on the road. There are some new gruesome twists on the survivor story. Factory farming will be seen in a whole new light next time you open a bottle of milk. The future is a depressing place if you are not in control of the power, and Max our titular hero is close to powerless at the start of this story.
The vultures that preyed on the weak in "The Road Warrior" and created a twisted economic system in "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", have evolved into a extended family cult of malignant children of the deformed patriarch of Immortan Joe. For reasons that become obvious early on, a set of women flee his power and Max becomes part of the exodus by accident. The father figure god is unwilling to give up his possessions and so begins an elaborate pursuit by super charged dune buggies, modified big rigs, and and hundreds of Warrior Boys, convinced that their death will result into admission to Valhalla at the feet of their demi-god father. The two previous films in this series, thirty and thirty-three years old, spent most of their time building up to the climactic chase. This movie is all chase and it sustains the chase through a series of set pieces, plot twists and brilliant design that will keep you hanging on from the moment it begins. Plot is thin but the action is thick and the visualization is visionary. Renegade clans in the outer desert are encased in vehicles that resemble porcupines. The washed out white skin of the Warrior boys make them appear to be an army of spooks, descending on the pursued from all angles. The grimacing regulator that Immortan Joe wears becomes a death mask that follows the heroes from their nightmares to the waking world. There are spectacular crashes and innovative weapons and a disturbing cult of death that brings them all together. Imperator Furiosa, Charlize Theron, seems appropriately named. She is without humor, and determined to save her group of women. Her strategy is to run and keep running and anything that tries to slow her down needs to be mowed down. The war carriage she drives is a moving fortress that is vulnerable to attack only by having overwhelming forces swarm the wagon. Even then, it turns out that she has a secret weapon she herself did not know about, Max.
I have nothing negative to say about Tom Hardy. I think he was well cast and fits the character like a glove. The two criticisms I have of the film do center around Max however, so Hardy may end up a little worse for wear based on my assessment. As great as I think Hardy might be, he does not have the visual charisma that Mel Gibson radiated off the screen in 1982. If you have not seen those earlier Mad Max films with Gibson, I suggest you wait to do so until after you see this and then the comparison that inevitably ensues will not be nagging you through out the film. The character Max is supposed to be cryptic, but as written here, he feels impenetrable and we can't quite commit to him as we might want to. Maybe having to play a second leading role with his face covered by a mask for larger parts of the film is the thing that holds back my full endorsement. Nicholas Hoult on the other hand is surprisingly compelling as a Warrior Boy in the right spot at the right time. His character had more dimension in the nearly characterless plot than anyone else. Hardy is stoic, Theron is fierce but young Mr. Hoult gets to play despair, joy, confusion and be disgustingly winsome at times. The action and explosions and fights are choreographed wit a frenetic pace that stays involving for long periods at a time. Director George Miller invented this kind of Apocalyptic mayhem with the original Mad Max, now he has a budget and enough time to see this vision play out in the grandest scale possible. I am now willing to cancel his debit to me for the irritation that "Happy Feet" brought to me. There is enough credit on his ledger from this film to balance out any more dancing penguins that happen along.
