Maze Runner: The Death Cure review

MAZE RUNNER: THE DEATH CURE:

ABOUT AS GENERIC AS ITS PREDECESSORS!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: ** ½ out of 4

20^TH CENTURY FOX

Thomas, Newt, and Brenda in Maze Runner: The Death Cure

            After waiting three years since the release of Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, we finally have closure on the Maze Runner film trilogy, based on the series of books by James Dashner. Maze Runner: The Death Cure is the third and final installment of the latest young adult dystopian sci-fi franchise in the same vein as The Hunger Games, but never quite gets off the ground.

            Unlike Harry Potter or The Hunger Games where I get wrapped up in the story and characters, thrilled by the action, and leaves me praising the films, or even The Twilight Saga where I can go on and on about how terrible it is, Maze Runner is a franchise I acknowledge that it exists. None of the films in the series I would consider bad and I thought the first movie was pretty good, but they don’t really do much different from other dystopian stories.

            Maze Runner is a perfect example of a franchise I classify as…okay, how’s the first one? It’s okay, how’s the second one? It’s okay, how’s this one? It’s okay. That’s pretty much my thoughts on the entire franchise in a nutshell.

            Like its predecessors, Maze Runner: The Death Cure offers some thrilling action sequences and solid acting from its young cast. But its narrative comes off as generic paint-by-numbers young adult novel adaptation fluff and doesn’t do much new with the genre.

            The film follows Thomas (Dylan O’Brien-Teen Wolf, Deepwater Horizon, American Assassin), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster-Love Actually, Nanny McPhee, Phineas and Ferb), and Frypan (Dexter Darden-Cadillac Records, Joyful Noise, Geography Club), the last of the Gladers immune to the Flare virus that infected the world’s population, off on their final and most dangerous mission yet, break into the WCKD organization and save their captured friend, Minho (Ki Hong Lee-The Nine Lives of Chloe King, Everything Before Us, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). Little do they know, WCKD controls a labyrinth of a utopia known as the legendary Last City which turns out to be the deadliest maze of all.

            Thomas and the Gladers, with the help of their newfound friends, Brenda (Rosa Salazar-American Horror Story: Murder House, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, Alita: Battle Angel) and Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito-Malcolm X, The Jungle Book (2016), Okja) must race to save Minho along with several immune children that were experimented on by WCKD, get answers to all the questions they’ve been asking ever since they’ve entered the maze, and bring WCKD down.

            The film also stars Kaya Scodelario (Skins, Moon, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales) as Teresa, Nathalie Emmanuel (Twenty8k, Game of Thrones, Fast & Furious 7 and 8) as Harriet, Aidan Gillen (The Wire, Game of Thrones, The Dark Knight Rises) as Janson, Walton Goggins (Justified, Lincoln, The Hateful Eight) as Lawrence, Jacob Lofland (Justified, Mud, Free State of Jones) as Aris, Katherine McNamara (Happyland, Natural Selection, Shadowhunters) as Sonya, Barry Pepper (Flags of our Fathers, True Grit (2010), The Kennedys) as Vince, Will Poulter (The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, We’re the Millers, Detroit) as Gally, who was presumed dead in the maze, and Patricia Clarkson (Pieces of April, Six Feet Under, The Elephant Man) as Ava Paige.

            Overall, Maze Runner: The Death Cure does exactly what it’s supposed to do, wrap up the trilogy for its fans. However, if you barely ever re-watch the Maze Runner movies (like me), chances are you’ll be completely lost in terms of the story, I completely forgot about what happened in Scorch Trials (aside from Teresa betraying the group in the end…spoiler alert) and I get the feeling if I didn’t watch both movies again prior to this one, I’d be lost with all the other mainstream movie-goers who don’t follow the franchise.

            But with that said, there are some good elements in this film, the action is pretty exciting, the main characters keep you invested, and the acting is solid. Dylan O’Brien I can see acting in a great film in the future, and he gives it his all in this trilogy, plus the chemistry he has with Newt is very strong.

            Most of the action is fun to watch but at times they seem recycled from other movies, the opening train chase looks like a crossover between Mad Max and Hunger Games, and the climax, while thrilling and offers some variety, does run on a lot of young adult clichés and looks more like the Hunger Games districts fighting in a war against the Capitol, not much to it.

            The film offers some interesting ideas regarding medicine, science, and life but they’re either really vague or not explored that much. I was personally underwhelmed that the movie never goes into the origin of WCKD and the reasoning behind their decisions, what does locking kids into a maze have to do with finding a virus cure? What’s the history of the feud between WCKD and the people on the other side of the wall? Why does Thomas literally have a Deus ex Machina inside his body? These questions are either never fully answered or not answered at all, which would have made a much more interesting movie.

            If you’re a fan of the Maze Runner books and movies and want to see closure of the franchise, you’ll probably like The Death Cure fine. As mentioned before it does exactly what it needed to do, wrap up the Maze Runner series and there’s enough entertaining moments to make it worth a viewing, better than Scorch Trials but not by much, take it for what it’s worth.

Phantom Thread review

PHANTOM THREAD:

PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON AND DANIEL DAY-LEWIS HAVE DONE IT AGAIN!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** ½ out of 4

FOCUS FEATURES

Daniel Day-Lewis as Reynolds Woodcock in Phantom Thread

            Out of all the movies I’ve seen that were released for award season this year, this is quite possibly the movie that surprised me the most. Phantom Thread, the latest film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood, The Master) and starring Academy Award winner, Daniel Day-Lewis (The Last of the Mohicans, There Will Be Blood, Lincoln) in his second collaboration with Anderson after There Will Be Blood.

            Going into this movie I knew very little about the premise outside of seeing the trailer a couple times before other films. The basic knowledge I had about the film was it’s about a dressmaker, it’s directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, and it stars Daniel Day-Lewis in what’s been reported to be his final acting role, that’s it.

            And now that I’ve seen it, I’ll admit I’m very glad I had little knowledge of the film because I had no idea where it was going, and it enhanced my appreciation for the movie as a whole. The film starts off slow but as it progresses it gets better and better, Phantom Thread is beautifully filmed, well-acted, and finds a near-perfect balance between humor, romance, and drama with plenty of twists.

            Set in 1950s post-war London, the film follows renowned dressmaker, Reynolds Woodcock (Day-Lewis) who is at the center of British fashion with his sister, Cyril (Lesley Manville-Topsy-Turvy, All or Nothing, Another Year), dressing for royalty, movie stars, heiresses, and dames to name a few with the distinct style of the House of Woodcock. Though Woodcock is a dressmaker, his mind-set is to that of a pretentious artist and everything must be done perfectly and heavily focuses on his work to the point where even if someone chews their food incorrectly at the breakfast table while he’s working, his entire day is ruined.

            His tailor-made life is put to the ultimate test when he meets a strong-willed woman named Alma (Vicky Krieps-House of Boys, Hanna, Colonia Dignidad) who soon becomes a fixture in his life as his muse and lover. Woodcock realizes that his organized and planned out life is constantly disrupted by love.

            The film also stars Richard Graham (Titanic, Gangs of New York, The World’s End) as George Riley, Camilla Rutherford (Vanity Fair, Rome, The Darjeeling Limited) as Johanna, Harriet Sansom Harris (Addams Family Values, Desperate Housewives, Memento) as Barbara Rose, Brian Gleeson (Love/Hate, Logan Lucky, Mother!) as Dr. Robert Hardy, Julia Davis (Nighty Night, Hunderby, Camping) as Lady Baltimore, baronet, Nicholas Mander as Lord Baltimore, Gina McKee (Notting Hill, Inspector Morse, Vera) as Countess Henrietta Harding, Phillip Franks (Pie in the Sky, Midsomer Murders, Bleak House) as Peter Martin, Phyllis MacMahon (Leo the Last, The Magdalene Sisters, Shaun of the Dead) as Tippy, and Silas Carson (Star Wars: Episodes I-III, Doctor Who, Locke) as Rubio Gurrerro.

            Overall, Phantom Thread is a fascinating movie, it probably won’t please everyone, and the pacing can be a little slow at times but through the acting, production design, and attention to detail in the story it’ll keep your interest. Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is phenomenal (Though that statement is like saying “The sky is blue”) and every time he’s on-screen you forget you’re watching him, he always transforms into his characters and not once do you ever comment “There’s Daniel Day-Lewis again”, I don’t think his role is quite as incredible as Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour but it’s still pretty damn good.

            This could easily be described at first glance as a movie about a dressmaker in London and that’s it, oh man, it is so much more than that. As you’re watching it you never know where the movie is going, and it transitions from classy and elegant to strange and dark, like most of Anderson’s films.

            I wouldn’t say Phantom Thread is on par with The Disaster Artist, Lady Bird, The Shape of Water, or Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. But as an award contender, Paul Thomas Anderson directed film, and supposed finale of Daniel Day-Lewis’ acting career, Phantom Thread is very well-stitched together and adds the right balance between humor, drama, and romance to make for one uniquely dressed film that’s definitely worth talking about.  

12 Strong review

12 STRONG:

A WELL-ACTED WAR-DRAMA THAT HONORS THE PEOPLE INVOLVED IN ITS FACT-BASED STORY, EVEN IF IT ABANDONS DEPTH AND STRONG CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT FOR AN OVERBLOWN WAR SPECTACLE!

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

WARNER BROS. PICTURES

Chris Hemsworth in 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers

            I find it humorous that in January 2016 we had the release of the war film, 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi and in January of this year, history repeated itself with another war drama. Danish photojournalist, Nicolai Fuglsig makes his American directorial debut with 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers, based on Doug Stanton’s non-fiction novel, Horse Soldiers.

            The film focuses on a group of CIA paramilitary officers, U.S. Special Forces, and USAF Combat Controllers as they are sent to Afghanistan following the events of the September 11 attacks to fight back. I have not read Stanton’s book but as a war movie and a directorial debut, it’s a perfectly serviceable film, pretty much the same opinion I had on Michael Bay’s 13 Hours.

            The war sequences in this movie are incredible but at times they’re really overblown, and the emotional depth and development of the characters take a backseat for explosions and gunfire, makes sense because it’s produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (Top Gun, The Rock, Pirates of the Caribbean franchise). 12 Strong doesn’t really do anything new with the war genre and as much as I liked this movie as well as 13 Hours both films suffer from amazing action sequences but weak characters, which makes it harder to be invested in the people stuck in the war.

            In the wake of the September 11 attacks, Task Force Dagger, a team consisting of CIA paramilitary officers and U.S. Army Green Berets are sent to Afghanistan to join forces with General Abdul Rashid Dostum (Navid Negahban-Charlie Wilson’s War, Homeland, American Sniper) of the Northern Alliance to conduct unconventional warfare against Taliban. These twelve soldiers go down in history as the first group of people to fight back after the horrors of 9/11 with nothing but their wits, weaponry, and horses.

            The film stars Chris Hemsworth (Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Cabin in the Woods, Rush) as Captain Mitch Nelson, Michael Shannon (Man of Steel, Midnight Special, The Shape of Water) as Chief Warrant Officer Cal Spencer, Michael Peña (End of Watch, Fury, Ant-Man) as Sergeant First Class Sam Diller, Trevante Rhodes (If Loving You is Wrong, Moonlight, Westworld) as Sergeant First Class Ben Milo, Geoff Stults (Wedding Crashers, October Road, J. Edgar) as Sean Coffers, Thad Luckinbill (Sicario, La La Land, Only the Brave) as Vern Michaels, William Fichtner (Crash, The Dark Knight, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)) as Colonel John Mulholland, Rob Riggle (The Other Guys, 21 Jump Street, Hotel Transylvania) as Colonel Max Bowers, Elsa Pataky (Fast & Furious franchise, Snakes on a Plane, The Wine of Summer) as Jean Nelson, Austin Stowell (Whiplash, Bridge of Spies, Battle of the Sexes) as Staff Sergeant Fred Falls, Jack Kesy (The Strain, Claws, Deadpool 2) as Charles Jones, Fahim Fazli (Argo, NCIS: Los Angeles, American Sniper) as Commander Khaled, and director, Taylor Sheridan (Vile, Wind River, Yellowstone) as Brian.

            Overall, 12 Strong is a decent war film despite focusing more on spectacle over establishing its characters. The movie’s well-acted though nobody really stands out aside from Hemsworth or Shannon, maybe that’s because I’m so familiar with their Thor and General Zod performances.

            As mentioned before, the war sequences are intense and impressive to watch but at times it feels like they’re on repeat. They don’t wreck the movie, but it can be noticeable and a little boring after a while.

            I feel like if they focused more on developing the characters and the horrifying and emotional impacts of war, this could have been up there with Saving Private Ryan or even last year’s Dunkirk as one of the best war movies of all time. But as is, it’s a paint-by-numbers war film that’s thrilling to watch and well-acted but doesn’t really offer much outside of that.

            The story is “Strong” but the execution could have been “Stronger”, take it for what it’s worth.