THE LAST LULLABY (2008, Jeffrey Goodman)

 

* * 

A jaded hitman takes on One Last Job and ends up falling in love with his target.

Starring  Tom Sizemore, Sasha Alexander, Sprague Grayden, Randall Batinkoff, Bill Smitrovich  

Written by  Peter Biegen, Max Allan Collins   

Produced by  David Koplan

Duration  93 minutes

   

Tom Sizemore, RIP.

It’s only been two months since his passing, but I'm already getting the (dubious) privilege of honouring the late actor with a review of THE LAST LULLABY, one of the many low-budget flicks to which he was reduced after struggling during his peak years with crystal meth, heroin and Heidi Fleiss.

(Recommended reading: Sizemore’s perfectly titled autobiography, By Some Miracle, I Made It Out Of There.)

Sizemore will be missed; specifically by me for having the sleaziest screen presence in ’90s cinema. From his cameo as a rough-living undercover DEA agent in POINT BREAK, through NATURAL BORN KILLERS’ psychotic wannabe-rapist Jack Scagnetti, to double-crossing Ralph Fiennes while sporting a dirty blonde wig in STRANGE DAYS (possibly the sleaziest movie ever?), he owned that decade.

His career was genuinely legit there for a while. In TRUE ROMANCE, he stood out among all the standout actors in a great cop double act with Chris Penn (another actor gone too soon). He was fourth-billed in HEAT, behind only Pacino, De Niro and Kilmer. And for some reason, it deeply pleases me that between 1998 and 2001 he was in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, BLACK HAWK DOWN and PEARL HARBOR.

But there was always that compelling sleaziness. The only actor comparable is James Woods: see THE GETAWAY, THE SPECIALIST, CASINO, etc., in fact all the way back to VIDEODROME. Sadly, the two of them never shared the screen. Think of the unrealised collaborations! Sizemore taking the Daniel Baldwin role in VAMPIRES; Woods playing Sizemore’s father in STRIKING DISTANCE, replacing Dennis Farina.

Or how about an original team-up? Let’s say they both play alcoholic cops investigating a serial killer who preys on strippers. Eighty percent of the movie takes place in strip clubs, and each of our heroes gets romantically involved with a potential victim – maybe the same one, the lucky lady. Title: STRIP MAUL.

Anyway, THE LAST LULLABY. It may actually be the first time I've seen Sizemore as the lead (I don't count 1997's THE RELIC, that was Penelope Ann Miller's movie.) Why didn’t he get more of those opportunities in his heyday? Oh yeah, right, those recreational habits were probably an obstacle...

When we meet Sizemore, he's fidgety and drawn out; twitchy, like he’s coming off something. Hmm. He's mostly shot in static-camera close-ups to convey his inner turmoil, and also to avoid having to dress the set too much.

At first, we think he's a ‘nice’ assassin, rescuing a kidnapped girl from a bunch of vest-wearing rednecks in an abandoned barn. But he's only gate-crashing the hostage situation, subsequently asking her father for his own ransom. Then he decides he’s had enough of being a gun-for-hire and vows to hang up his Colt 1911 – until he gets another contract offer for more money than he can refuse.

Sizemore conducts himself through all this with the blunt, straightforward dignity of a triple-digit-IMDb-credits veteran. At one point, he goes swimming nude in a lake and you wonder if we’re going to find out whether he’s genuinely ‘sized-more’. But, alas. What we do learn is that with his world-weary minimalism, clipped delivery and prominent facial mole, he’s starting to resemble Bob De Niro, at around the age his HEAT co-star was during the making of Michael Mann's cop masterpiece.

Just as measured as Tom's performance is the film’s pace. I wouldn't quite call it boring, and there is enough story for 93 minutes, but it's definitely slow. The plot takes an early ‘six months later’ leap, which can be a danger sign, and the so-called ‘love’ Sizemore develops for his mark, Sasha Alexander, is more accurately his conscience catching up with him. But we don’t see much of this transition, therefore it feels a little unearned. It's in Sizemore’s eyes, but it’s not in the script, and so it’s only ever half-realised.

Overall, THE LAST LULLABY could have done with some offbeat Coens wit, or Cormac McCarthy philosophising, or Elmore Leonard banter. The movie starts off with some Soderbergh-esque titles, all-lower-case Courier New white on black, but that’s as close as it gets to indie quirkiness.

The real problem could be that I never stopped hoping for a taste of that good ol’ ’90s sleaze, sorely missing from this more mature Sizemore. And yes, I did start to wish that James Woods would turn up – he could easily have played the grizzled old dude who hires Tom to kill once again, although he would have needed some kind of nefarious ulterior motive. Necrophilia, perhaps.

It might be that I end up remembering late-period Sizemore more for his quickie TV roles on the likes of Cobra Kai and Twin Peaks. In lieu of trawling through his direct-to-streaming career in the vague hope of finding something stronger than THE LAST LULLABY, I’m OK with that.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The movie ends pretty abruptly, but I’m confident that the retirement is going to be permanent this time.

What would a movie called THE FIRST LULLABY be about?  ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ surely tops the list for most of us.

Previously:  THE LAST SUMMER

Next time:  THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST SUMMER (2019, William Bindley)

 

* 

A bunch of high school grads go through the highs and lows of their last summer before starting college.

Starring  KJ Apa, Maia Mitchell, Jacob Latimore, Halston Sage, Sosie Bacon

Written by  Scott Bindley, William Bindley

Produced by  Mike Karz, William Bindley, Wayne Rice   

Duration  110 minutes

Wow. This must be what they mean about Netflix relentlessly churning out bland ‘content’.

In a first for me, or at least not for a long time, I had literally never heard of anyone in the cast or crew. It didn’t have to be a bad sign. But it was.

Now, according to Netflix, this film is "charming", "heart-felt", and "feel-good". But do I trust the streamer's three little algorithm-spewed adjectives? Do I bollocks.

I can remember when I lost faith in movie advertising (and, let’s face it, advertising in general). It was when I compared the ads for late-’90s British effort EAST IS EAST to the actual experience of watching the film. It was a decent enough post-FULL MONTY period culture-clash drama, with the odd bit of humour thrown in to alleviate the otherwise gritty goings on. But it certainly wasn't "side-splittingly funny" or "a rip-roaring comedy", as the poster had led me to believe.

(And as an aside, have you ever noticed the way every musical advertised on the side of a bus screams at you about how ‘feel-good’ it is? Let me tell you, they don’t make me feel good. So, there’s a flaw right there.)

Nowadays, with multiple streaming platforms, we get the privilege of being lied to from the comfort of our own homes!

I did go into THE LAST SUMMER with an open mind. I like the idea of the ‘summer it all changed’ movie. Finishing school and moving on to higher education or, if not, the world of work, is an inarguably big step. The best ‘significant summer’ movies are STAND BY ME and DAZED AND CONFUSED, but I didn’t elevate my expectations to an unreasonable level.

They were, nevertheless, not met.

The film goes for an ensemble approach, kind of like a shit Robert Altman. The ostensible lead (he gets some opening voiceover) is preppy KJ Apa, who has a crush on Maia Mitchell, a girl who is spending her summer making a documentary with WHEN HARRY MET SALLY-style couple interviews. I feel that the documentarian teenager has been done an awful lot, like maybe it’s even a trope now? There was definitely HAVOC, which had the advantage of Anne Hathaway breaking bad post-PRINCESS DIARIES, plus added Bijou Phillips.

Elsewhere in the overstuffed cast, there’s a couple wresting with whether to stay together long distance. There’s the professed stud who turns out to be a virgin. There are people getting summer jobs, like interning in the city with soulless office drones, tarmaccing driveways or babysitting the archetypical precocious child who speaks like a member of Mensa.

And there is also a pair of multicultural SUPERBAD-style nerds – but without the wit, personality or cutting delivery – who play VR games in the basement, worry about getting ‘carded’ and overanalyse every little thing. They even get a ‘walking toward the camera in slo-mo wearing suits’ shot – because that’s a fresh reference, RESERVOIR DOGS was only 30 years ago, after all.

One’s mind wanders during these under-nourishing movies. Is there a specific shop that sells those ubiquitous red plastic cups they always use at parties, or are they just generic? Is it really easier to wheel in a bunch of kegs than to simply buy your lager in bottles or cans? Does all this stem from a product-placement issue? And what’s with all the texting with the copy coming up on screen? Was this stylistic decision inspired by a Vodafone advert, or maybe an episode of Hollyoaks?

THE LAST SUMMER is a first draft script of brainstormed story strands still searching for actual characters, emotions and a cohesive whole. For a low-stakes movie to work, the personalities have to be strong. But we never feel invested in any of these kids’ plights or their connections with each other – everyone is too dull and samey to register.

It’s apparently set in Chicago, and a Cubs baseball game is attended at one point, but there’s no feel for place. In fact, every scene is so over-lit, in classic TV-movie style, it looks like it takes place on the surface of the sun.

If there’s any kind of thematic depth at all, it’s something vague about following your creative dreams instead of settling for the stability of studying ‘business’ (yawn), or that maybe the prestigious university you were always told you should go to isn’t right for you after all (yawn again). Know who you are, be true to yourself, yadda-yadda-yadda.

So, a dud, then, but at least it’ll give these young actors a few more clips to add to their showreels. I’m pleased they didn’t waste their own time along with mine.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As far as I remember, my summers back home between years at uni didn’t feel all that much different to the last one before I went. So I think the finality here has been somewhat overstated.

What would a movie called THE FIRST SUMMER be about?  There'd be far fewer games of beer pong, that’s for sure.

Previously:  INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

Next time:  THE LAST LULLABY

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989, Steven Spielberg)

 * * * * * 

Whip-cracking, daredevil archaeologist Indiana Jones teams up with his father (also an archaeologist, but a stuffy old-fashioned one) to track down the actual holy grail.

Starring  Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover

Written by  Jeffrey Boam

Produced by  Robert Watts

Duration  128 minutes

Despite the five stars, I am going to come down on LAST CRUSADE, just a tiny bit.

The film plays it a little too safe. Spielberg reproduces all the beats from RAIDERS, but this time with the comedy cranked all the way up. He wants to exorcise our memories of TEMPLE OF DOOM, copying best pal and Indy collaborator George Lucas’s tactic with STAR WARS: deliver popular first instalment, go dark for the sequel, reign it in and return to the tried and tested for part three. 

(See also Robert Zemeckis’s Spielberg-produced BACK TO THE FUTURE saga, although Zemeckis did at least introduce a Western setting to freshen up his trilogy-capper).

Now, OK, I get it. TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE fucked everybody up; John Landis the most, of course, but the other directors involved in that ill-fated project were not in the mood for any more darkness after such a shocking onset tragedy, the fallout from which was still rumbling through the courts. Steve got all his angst out of his system with TEMPLE and then insisted on nothing but lightness in his next franchise picture. 

Added to this, by the late ’80s his marriage to Amy Irving was on the rocks, so the biggest director in the world just wanted to have some fun and forget about troublesome things. Hence finally doing his Bond film with the main man himself, and making the endeavour much more of a comedy with some adventuring than an adventure sprinkled with jokes.

But TEMPLE is still my personal favourite – yeah yeah, it’s not ‘better’ than RAIDERS, but it's the one I come back to the most. What if Steve (and George, can’t forget him) had decided to travel further down this challenging path for Indy? I'm not sure how much darker they could have gone than kidnapped children working as slave miners, hearts getting ripped out and a possessed Indy intimidating his pre-teen sidekick, but it’s just a shame that we got RAIDERS: HERE WE GO AGAIN instead of another stab at something more daring.

I can't find it anymore, but I once watched a YouTube video where someone played TERMINATOR 2 and TERMINATOR 3 side by side to demonstrate how the later film completely replicates the structure of its predecessor. I’ve never seen this done with RAIDERS and CRUSADE, but I’m betting that it would work. If you’re flicking through the channels and come in during the truck chase towards the end of CRUSADE’s second act, then it might take you a few minutes to realise that you’re not watching the truck chase towards the end of RAIDERS’ second act.

And then there’s that overabundance of humour. Take how the film treats the character of Marcus Brody. In RAIDERS, he’s Indy’s friend and colleague at the university, a sturdy influence who provides our hero with the knowledge and confidence he needs to embark on his quest. In CRUSADE, he’s reimagined as a goofy counterpoint to Henry Sr, someone notorious for getting lost in his own museum and who stumbles around foreign countries mumbling, "Uhhh ... excuse me ... does anyone here speak English?"

But come on, before this becomes the most negative five-star review of all time – of course CRUSADE is a brilliant film. 

One thing I especially appreciate is that the obligatory relationship subplot is actually between Indy and his Dad, rather than a forced love-interest. Screenwriter Jeffrey Boam (THE DEAD ZONE, THE LOST BOYS, LETHAL WEAPON 2) has the good sense to realise that no one gives a shit about Alison Doody’s Dr Elsa Schneider, and so rather than dragging her tryst with Indy out all through the movie before having her betray the Joneses towards the end in a stunning 'twist', Boam tosses the reversal in as soon as possible so we can get her out the way and spend more time with the father/son dynamic.

This decision to sideline her character does make one feel pretty sorry for the soon-to-be-forgotten Doody. When she signed up to be the top-billed woman in the latest Steven Spielberg blockbuster co-starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery, I doubt she considered the possibility that it wouldn't boost her career.

Which leads me to mention in closing that although CRUSADE was clearly made as a family-friendly tonic to the nastiness of TEMPLE, which Spielberg had already disowned, one nicely adult touch still crept in: the revelation that both generations of Jones men have slept with the same double-crossing villainous woman. Good on ya, Sean!

Five stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Well, that cave place they were all fleeing at the end was pretty much collapsing all around the old knight dude, so no one's getting back in there again.

What would a movie called INDIANA JONES AND THE FIRST CRUSADE be about?  Either some kind of prequel with a Jones ancestor set in the 11th Century, or flashing back to an even-younger-than-River Indy, when he's a four-year-old on a quest to exert his authority over Henry Sr and his hitherto unseen mother – possibly by refusing to eat his broccoli. 

Previously:  THE LAST EMPEROR

Next time:  THE LAST SUMMER

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST EMPEROR (1987, Bernardo Bertolucci)

 

* * 

Biopic about the life of Aisin-Gioro Puyi, the 11th and final Emperor of China.

Starring  John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Dennis Dun

Written by  Mark Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci

Produced by  Jeremy Thomas   

Duration  163 minutes   

Could THE LAST EMPEROR be the ultimate Oscar ‘prestige’ film? It certainly ticks all the boxes:

– Bum-numbing runtime.

– Foreign setting (where everyone speaks English with an accent, so there’s no need for subtitles).

– Foreign director (from a different foreign country), who is also a ‘name’.

– True-life story.

– Sweeping cinematography.

– Lots of impressive costumes and sets.

– Bombastic score.

– ‘Important’, in some way.

And, holy shit: the thing won nine Academy Awards in 1987. Everything it was up for! And it did so THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING style, with nothing troubling the acting categories (see also TITANIC, although that did get Actress and Supporting Actress nominations).

What else was in the running for the big prize that year? You had BROADCAST NEWS, FATAL ATTRACTION, MOONSTRUCK, and HOPE AND GLORY. No clear winner among those, with that last one probably having the best chance since it was another historical drama.

So what swung the vote for LAST EMPEROR? Most likely it was the final point on my above tick list.

Being known as an important film rings alarm bells, as far as I’m concerned. That can be worse than style over substance: worthiness over substance. But then, maybe worthiness is substance? If so, only politically, not artistically. And from where did this worthiness actually originate? Was it the filmmakers’ intention, or was it manufactured later on by the marketing team? You know what I mean: "This is the movie we need right now", "A significant film for our times" – that sort of bollocks. Do directors hope to make a film that resonates specifically at the particular time of its release? Does a screenwriter sit down and think, OK, what's the most important thing I could possibly write my story about?

As a film, LAST EMPEROR seems to have been completely forgotten. It’s never mentioned in best-of lists, or cited as a worthy or unworthy Oscar winner. Its only discernible cultural impact was getting The Simpsons’ parody treatment, in the Stonecutters episode. And is there anyone who has ever sat at home and said, "Ooh, you know what, come on, let’s fire up THE LAST EMPEROR!" " … But I thought we were going clubbing?" "I said give me 10 CCs of LAST EMPEROR, stat!"

Also getting those alarm bells ringing for me was the critical consensus on LAST EMPEROR: phrases banded about like ‘visually breathtaking’, ‘astonishing use of locations’ and ‘stunning opulence’. Was I about to spend nearly three hours staring at a travelogue, as nice-looking but uninvolving as slowly leafing through a pile of holiday brochures?

Personally, I don’t care about nice scenery. I don’t care about historical accuracy. I don’t care if Bertolucci was the first director allowed to film in China's Forbidden City. Alright, that's harsh: I care a little bit, in passing, but not enough to sustain me through 163 minutes. I need more. I need story, characters, incident. I need it to be worth the time spent with this emperor – as a human being, not as a symbol or icon, no matter now pretty his clothes and surroundings may be.

So, did THE LAST EMPEROR give me what I need? Not really, I’m afraid. I’d call it the most boring Best Picture winner ever, but then THE ENGLISH PATIENT came along a decade later to tick those boxes all over again.

After opening on our emperor chap towards the end of his life in 1950, in what had by then become the People's Republic of China (and to which point the narrative will switch back intermittently), we start at the beginning, when he is coronated as a mere toddler. He’s petulant and sulky and rude to his servants, including Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (LICENCE TO KILL, RISING SUN, Shang Tsung in 1995's MORTAL KOMBAT).

This earliest period is mercifully brief, and we soon skip ahead to the teenaged emperor; although he’s still pretty bratty, revelling in the fact he can ‘do anything I want’. You could call this the coming of age segment, except that he doesn’t learn anything and is too irritating and arrogant for us to invest in his journey. When he learns that China outside the Forbidden Kingdom now has a president and so he ain’t the emperor of nowt no more, we think, Good, maybe now you'll learn some humility, ya spoilt little twerp.

From then on, we jump through the rest of his life, as he becomes gradually less insufferable, but no more interesting. He’s tutored by Peter O’Toole, who I think was sober during his scenes, but there’s no guarantee that his drinking buddies Ollie Reed and Richard Harris weren’t visiting the set and getting him plastered between takes. There are some tense moments when an optician tells our man he needs glasses, but his entourage insists that ‘the emperor does not wear spectacles!’ He marries Joan Chen and has a second wife as well, kind of. He cuts off his ceremonial ponytail, checks out of the Forbidden City and becomes a self-proclaimed ‘playboy’ in the outside world. Sometimes there’s a voiceover, sometimes there isn’t. Eunuchs are mentioned frequently. People loll around zonked out on opium. I too struggle try to stay awake.

Probably the highlight for me came during the opening credits, when I learned that there were in fact three collaborations in the ’80s between Dennis Dun and Victor Wong, beyond the John Carpenter classics BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA and PRINCE OF DARKNESS. They’re even credited together! But sadly, they don’t share any scenes, let alone face down ancient sorcerers or cylinders hidden under monasteries that contain the liquid embodiment of Satan.

I don’t think I ever got over that disappointment, and LAST EMPEROR never provided anything that adequately compensated. At least I managed to get through this whole review without once using the word ‘epic’ ... shit.

Two stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  As far as China was concerned, absolutely. See other individual countries for current status of emperor-ness.

What would a movie called THE FIRST EMPEROR be about?  Qin Shi Huang was the founder of the Qin dynasty and the first emperor of a unified China. His era of 259 BC was quite a while ago, so details for a biopic are likely to be pretty sketchy.

Previously:  PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

Next time:  INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH (2022, Joel Crawford)

 

* * * * 

Hard-living adventurer Puss in Boots has squandered eight of his nine lives, so sets off on a quest for the mythical Last Wish in the hope of reversing some of the old mileage.

Starring  Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Harvey Guillén, Florence Pugh, Olivia Colman, Ray Winstone

Written by  Paul Fisher, Tommy Swerdlow

Produced by  Mark Swift   

Duration  102 minutes

 

The PUSS IN BOOTS films are all about immortalising Antonio Banderas. Someone in the DreamWorks hierarchy decided that if Banderas isn’t going to make live action appearances as El Mariachi or Zorro anymore, then audiences will have to settle for him in cartoon cat form. And it’s probably the best decision the studio’s notoriously patchy animation division has ever made.

Rarely has there been such a direct animated avatar for an established star. TOY STORY’s Woody may somewhat resemble Tom Hanks, but it’s still clearly an actor playing a part. When it comes to Puss, he is Banderas – or, rather, the particular kind of action hero that Banderas so refreshingly unleashed upon the world in the late ’90s.

This like-for-likeness had not been seen so blatantly since Woody Allen as literally Woody Allen in DreamWorks’ ANTZ, and the trend reached its peak (I mean, nadir) with the same studio's SHARK TALE, which gave us fish Will Smith and shark De Niro and Scorsese. There are more examples, but let’s suffice it to say that a reliance on celebrity voices and lookalikes is a hallmark of DreamWorks’ contribution to the field of animation, for good or for ill (mostly for ill.)

The jewel in DreamWorks' crown – animated or otherwise – is, of course, SHREK. The original movie burst onto the scene with a mission to target Disney in the snarkiest ways possible, from the titular ogre literally wiping his arse with pages from a fairy tale, to the even less subtle move of calling the villain ‘Lord Farquaad’ and making him resemble former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with whom DreamWorks co-supremo Jeffrey Katzenberg fell out back when they were both at the Mouse House. It’s also the most 2001 movie ever, with its MATRIX parody, Shrek fighting knights WWE-style and overuse of Smash Mouth’s ‘All Star’ (the definition of ‘over’ here being ‘any more than never’.)

SHREK made a ton of money and looked like being a genuinely fresh alternative to the Disney/Pixar monopoly. That impression lasted for about five minutes, it becoming apparent that SHREK was actually not all that subversive after all and was, in fact, happy to become a lazy franchise that followed tired tropes and relied on those celebrity voices/character models, stale pop culture references and climatic dance parties. Frequently, the films fall back on the dubious appeal of Eddie Murphy on autopilot (with family filter on) and Mike Myers delivering the Scottish accent he'd been trying to get into every project since SO I MARRIED AN AXE MURDERER.

However, as the SHREK films blundered through instalments like their green hero looking for more toilet paper, there was one shining light that shone through and eventually broke out.

Puss in Boots was introduced in a minor role in SHREK 2, before becoming more prominent in the third and fourth ones (and, by the way, a fifth is coming, in case your day was lacking some good news). The character’s popularity was such that Puss bagged himself a spin-off origin story in 2011 and now we have a sequel to that, THE LAST WISH.

From the start, the Banderas love is strong. The Goddamn thing opens just like DESPERADO, with our hero playing music in a cantina while battling villains. Since I would like to hope that the core child audience’s familiarity with the oeuvre of Robert Rodriguez doesn’t extend beyond the SPY KIDS saga, WE CAN BE HEROES and that fucking one with Lava Girl or something, this is a targeted reference for the tag-along adults – and is much appreciated.

And it doesn’t let up! Puss meets a grim reaper wolf whose ominous whistling to announce his arrival is a dead ringer for Charles Bronson’s chilling harmonica trill in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. The final standoff plays tribute to another Sergio Leone classic, FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. In between, Puss experiences the malaise of a short-lived retirement in a home for over-the-hill kitties by zoning out to ‘The End’ by The Doors, emulating Martin Sheen in APOCALYPSE NOW; right after, he goes through his daily routine by way of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM-style hip hop montages.

And this is all before he teams up with the returning Kitty Softpaws, played by one-time Mrs Mariachi, Salma Hayek.

Picking out the movie references certainly helps sustain one’s interest in a children’s film, but that alone is not enough. Fortunately, THE LAST WISH is one of those rare beasts: a treat for all ages. The plot is propulsive and doesn’t lag too much into moralistic messaging; the supporting characters, like Harvey Guillén’s sincere puppy Perrito, manage to be endearing rather than annoying; it’s visually thrilling, even if it appears to succumb to that awful AVATAR 2 increased frame rate business during the most frantic scenes.

It even survives some woeful Cockney stereotyping. Goldilocks and her trio of bear companions are seeking the same wish-granting star, and push the cor-blimey-guvnor stuff with such commitment and verve that it goes all the way round again and actually becomes hilarious. Well, the naturally posh Olivia Colman and Florence Pugh had to commit, at least – Ray Winstone may very well have recorded his lines in his normal voice down the phone while watching the West Ham result come in on Final Score with his TV muted.

THE LAST WISH’s box office has been strong, so I’m all for the inevitable follow-up, and for keeping Hollywood’s greatest Latino leading man (sorry, Javier and Oscar) swashing buckles for as long as his voice can handle it.

Four stars out of five.

 

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  Part of the message here is that you already have what you wish for, if you pay attention to how lucky you are.

What would a movie called THE FIRST WISH be about? Probably something simple, like a fresh litter tray or one of those catnip mice to play with.

Previously:  THE LAST DUEL

Next time:  THE LAST EMPEROR

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST DUEL (2021, Ridley Scott)

 * * * 

Two knights fight to the death after the wife of one accuses the other of rape; we're shown three different perspectives of what happened.

Starring  Matt Damon, Adam Driver, Jodie Comer, Ben Affleck 

Written by  Nicole Holofcener, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon

Produced by  Ridley Scott, Kevin J Walsh, Jennifer Fox, Nicole Holofcener, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck

Duration  152 minutes

Ridley does RASHOMON ...

Look, I’m just going to come out and say it: Ridley Scott is the most overrated director in the history of motion pictures.

So the three that everyone goes on about are:

– ALIEN: A great film, obviously, but I like it less each time someone erroneously tells me that it’s superior to ALIENS.

– BLADE RUNNER: But, but … it looks so nice! Oh, wow, yes it looks nice. And it has atmosphere! Mmm, atmosphere, right. Beyond that … not much to latch onto really, especially considering the source material is one of Philip K Dick’s very best.

– GLADIATOR: I remember thinking that this Russell Crowe from LA CONFIDENTIAL and THE INSIDER is now a proper movie star. Never for a moment did I imagine that the film itself, a fun but insubstantial swords-and-sandals romp, would be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, let alone win the bloody thing.

The rest of Scott's films fall into one of the following categories:

– Intriguing premises that don't turn into engaging films: ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD, HOUSE OF GUCCI, ROBIN HOOD.

– Dull and pretentious: HANNIBAL, THE DUELLISTS, PROMETHEUS, ALIEN: COVENANT.

– Fun genre exercises, minus the fun: LEGEND, BLACK RAIN, BODY OF LIES, THE COUNSELLOR.

– Boring ‘epics’: EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS, KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE.

– Totally forgettable and now totally forgotten: WHITE SQUALL, GI JANE, A GOOD YEAR, AMERICAN GANGSTER, SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME.

To be fair, you can’t go wrong with THELMA & LOUISE, although that succeeds due to the strength of the screenplay and performances; ditto MATCHSTICK MEN. And even I can't deny that BLACK HAWK DOWN is a top-notch modern warfare flick. And THE MARTIAN is OK.

But overall, the scales are heavily tilted in one direction. The main problem is that Scott clearly doesn’t care much about the screenplays that land on his desk, beyond their aesthetic possibilities and figuring out how he's gonna move the people on screen from one flashy sequence to the next. It’s like he’s been given a script written in a language that he doesn’t speak and just goes through the pages shooting it anyway. Maybe it’s a former ad director thing: David Fincher has said that he’s not interested in what's being said, only the images, and that the words could be anything.

So alright then, what about THE LAST DUEL?

Well … it’s good! I mean, by Ridley’s standards anyway. I wasn’t sure about Adam Driver as an irresistible ladies’ man and Matt Damon lets his beard do most of the acting. But Ben Affleck is fun, dropping C-bombs in a crowd-pleasing performance reminiscent of his enjoyably vainglorious turn in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE. Jodie Comer rounds out the cast with a sensitive and engrossing turn, eclipsing her bigger-name co-stars.

The GOOD WILL HUNTING buddies collaborated on the script with Nicole Holofcener, each tackling one third of its same-event-from-a-different-perspective structure. And since he makes this one of the rare occasions where he prioritises the writing, rather than lingering on big impressive sets or sword-flinging battles while forgetting about tiny elements like ‘drama’ and ‘narrative’, Ridders manages to deliver something that holds the attention for its whole two-and-a-half-hours.

I was particularly impressed at how the movie touches upon contemporary questions about consent, gender equality and male entitlement without being anachronistic or overly political. I guess you could say that it completes Sir Ridley’s feminist trilogy, after THELMA & LOUISE and GI JANE.

Not bad for an 84-year-old codger from South Shields. Still a pity about the batting average, though. 

Three stars out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  The whole thing is based on a true story, and the duel in question was apparently the last officially recognised one in France, so good job on the old historical accuracy, everyone. Maybe more came later in other countries, but I guess there isn’t an IMDb for duels, so who knows. (Also: who cares.)

What would a movie called THE FIRST DUEL be about?  These little tiffs tended to be over ‘matters of honour’, so it would probably just be two blokes squabbling because one copied the other’s chainmail pattern or something. Calling Sir Ridders, we need your tedious touch! 

Previously:  THE LAST AIRBENDER

Next time:  PUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com

THE LAST AIRBENDER (2010, M Night Shyamalan)

 

* 

The latest in a long line of Avatars must master all four elements and stop the Fire Nation from enslaving the other elemental nations.

Starring  Dev Patel, Noah Ringer, Nicola Peltz, Jackson Rathbone, Shaun Toub, Cliff Curtis

Written by  M Night Shyamalan

Produced by  M Night Shyamalan, Sam Mercer, Frank Marshall   

Duration  103 minutes

Oh boy. I was dreading this one. Sure, because I knew its dire reputation, but even if it was supposed to be good, I still would have struggled.

I just can’t take this fantasy stuff seriously. Mostly because it tends to take itself so seriously, with all the tedious world-building and mythology and ‘lore’, not to mention the conversations between characters who sound like robots whose vocabulary comes from assimilating The Complete Works of Chaucer.

But hey, maybe for me with my lowest of low expectations it might end up being alright? Or at least so bad it’s good?

Er ...

Let’s start with the positives, shall we? Well, everyone seems to have learned their lines. It’s in focus. The guys in post clearly patiently waited out the time it took for all the CGI to render. The boom never sneaks into frame (although with this many special effect shots they probably ADR’d the entire thing). Um ... it's nice to see Dev Patel has come so far since Skins? Cliff Curtis is in it?

Meanwhile, the film’s issues are well documented: tin-eared dialogue; rushed and muddled storytelling; wooden acting; controversial casting; a dreary, solemn tone; excessive narration; little adherence to the source material, too many sub-plots scrapping for attention; a bizarre disconnect between what people are saying and doing and what is going on around them; shoddy 3D from a hasty post-conversion.

But for me, the trouble can be summed up with two words: ‘exposition overload’. LAST AIRBENDER is to exposition what ROCKY IV is to montages. Every scene is someone explaining what has, is or will happen. I kept expecting exposition about the scene that just ended – and hey, maybe that did happen, since I lost track of what was going on after about 10 minutes.

More transportive for me than any of the otherworldly vistas or supernatural happenings was the constant use of the word ‘bender’. Here, it refers to someone who can telekinetically manipulate one of the four elements (you know 'em: fire, water, earth and air). But I kept having aural flashbacks to its use as a juvenile insult thrown around in the South London playgrounds of my childhood, alongside the likes of ‘arsewipe’, ‘derr-brain’, ‘window-licker’ and ‘your mum’s had more 1-ups than Mario’.

It seems harsh to judge young actors too stringently, but hey, they’re playing an adult's game, probably getting paid adult wages, too. And there is a scale: at the top, you have Anna Paquin in THE PIANO, Jodie Foster in TAXI DRIVER, that kid from KRAMER VS KRAMER. At the bottom, you have the lead boy in LAST AIRBENDER.

Poor Noah Ringer sounds like he grew up with THE PHANTOM MENACE’s Jake Lloyd as his role model. Marlon Brando could get away with reading from offscreen cue-cards in THE GODFATHER because he was Marlon Brando; here, it sounds like Ringer is having his dialogue read into an earpiece by someone with limited literacy. Some scenes consist of him shot in uncomfortably tight close-ups spouting stilted lines at an older boy and the girl who went on to marry Brooklyn Beckham, with the latter two sporting fixed wide-eyed expressions that suggest sheer disbelief at the drivel infecting their ears.

LAST AIRBENDER is adapted from an apparently popular TV show that had ‘Avatar’ in its title, but they had to drop the word to avoid confusion with Jim Cameron’s mega-hit. Turns out it could have really done with some crumbs from that $1 billion pie, even if they only came by virtue of The Asylum-style accidental viewings (SNAKES ON A TRAIN, TRANSMORPHERS, PARANORMAL ENTITY, etc.)

Look, I’m not an M Night hater; if anything, I’m an M Night apologist ... to a degree. That degree includes THE HAPPENING, OLD and THE VILLAGE, the criticisms about which I accept, but I still enjoy those on their own bonkers terms. But this generosity does not extend as far as LADY IN THE WATER, AFTER EARTH and, now, this hot mess.

Bend yourself in whatever direction is necessary to avoid it, even if you risk snapping something off.

One star out of five.

Valid use of the word ‘last’?  He’s certainly the latest airbender, but if somewhere in all that exposition it was clarified that others will not be following, I must have missed it.

What would a movie called THE FIRST AIRBENDER be about?  There’s an Avatar Wiki (of course there is), which helpfully tells us that it was a flying bison. Seems obvious, now.

Previously:  GOON: LAST OF THE ENFORCERS  

Next time:  THE LAST DUEL

Check out my books:  Jonathanlastauthor.com